The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

CHAPTER XII.

The News of the Fate of Palestine reaches Europe—The Archbishop of Tyre comes to seek for Aid—Assistance granted by William the Good, of Sicily—Death of Urban, from Grief at the Loss of Jerusalem—Gregory VIII. promotes a Crusade—Expedition of Frederic, Emperor of Germany—His Successes—His Death—State of Europe—Crusade promoted by the Troubadours—Philip Augustus and Henry II. take the Cross—Laws enacted—Saladin’s tenth—War renewed—Death of Henry II.—Accession of Richard Cœur de Lion—The Crusade—Philip’s March—Richard’s March—Affairs of Sicily—Quarrels between the Monarchs—Philip goes to Acre—Richard subdues Cyprus—Arrives at Acre—Siege and Taking of Acre—Fresh Disputes—Philip Augustus returns to Europe—Richard marches on—Battle of Azotus—Heroism of Richard—Unsteady Councils—The Enterprise abandoned.

We have seen the solicitations of the church, and the eloquence of two extraordinary men, produce the first and second crusades; but many other incitements were added to clerical exhortations before the inveterate enmity of the French and English could be sufficiently calmed to permit of any thing like a united expedition for the recovery of the Holy Land. The Italian merchants,[643] who at that time carried on the commerce of the world, were the first that brought to Europe the terrible news of the battle of Tiberias, the capture of Jerusalem, and the fall of Palestine: but very soon after, William of Tyre,[644] the noble historian of the crusades, set out in person to demand assistance in behalf of his afflicted country from all the princes of Christendom. He first landed in Sicily, where William, king of that country, who had married Joan of England, received him with kindness, and instantly took measures for furnishing such assistance to the Christians of the Holy Land, that the small territory yet unconquered might be successfully defended till further succour could arrive. Three hundred knights and a considerable naval force were despatched at once; and William of Sicily was continuing zealously his preparations, when death cut him off in the midst; and the crown was seized by Tancred, natural son of Roger I.

From Sicily, the Archbishop of Tyre proceeded to Rome; but he only arrived in time to witness the death of Pope Urban III.,[645] whose mind was so deeply affected by the loss of the Holy Land, and the capture of the sepulchre, that his enfeebled constitution gave way under the shock, and he literally died of grief. Gregory VIII., who succeeded, lost not a moment in preaching a new crusade; and during his short pontificate of but two months, he left no means untried to heal the dissensions of Christendom, and to turn the arms of the princes who now employed them against each other to the service of God, as it was then considered, in the deliverance of that land which had been sanctified by his advent.

The first who took the Cross was the famous Frederic Barbarossa,[646] who conducted a magnificent army across Hungary and Greece, saw through and defeated the perfidious schemes of the Greek emperor, Isaac Angelus,[647] passed on into Asia Minor, overthrew in a pitched battle the Saracen forces which had been called against him by the base and cowardly Greek, and took the city of Iconium itself. Such splendid successes, with so little loss, had never before attended any Christian host; but the light that shone upon the German arms was soon changed to darkness by the death of Frederic, who, bathing imprudently in the Orontes,[648] returned to his tent in a dying state, and soon after expired[649] at seventy years of age. After the decease of the emperor, while Henry, his eldest son, who had remained in Germany, assumed the imperial crown, Philip Duke of Suabia led on the host towards Antioch. But the very name of Frederic had been a subject of such fear, even to Saladin himself,[650] that he had ordered the towns of Laodicea, Ghibel, Tortosa, Biblios, Berytes, and Sidon to be dismantled at the approach of the Germans. Now, again, the Saracens resumed the offensive; and, between war and famine, the Teutonic crusaders were reduced to a small body when they reached Antioch. Their force was still sufficient to give them the command of that city, and proved a most serviceable aid to the Christian troops, who were slowly beginning to rally throughout Palestine. A new military institution was soon after attached, by the duke of Suabia, to the German hospital, which had been founded at Jerusalem many years before by some northern merchants, and had since been greatly enlarged by the Hanseatic[651] traders of Bremen and Lubec. On this establishment he grafted the Order of the Knights of the Holy Cross, or the Teutonic knights of the Hospital of St. Mary,[652] which soon greatly increased, and was sanctioned by papal authority.

I must now return to France and England, where private feuds had prevented the distresses of Palestine from producing so immediate an effect as they had wrought with the Germans. Henry II. had, as we have already seen, espoused Eleonor, the repudiated wife of Louis VII., and had obtained with her the whole of Aquitain.[653] This, in addition to Normandy, which he also held as a feudatory of the French crown, rendered the kingly vassal a greater territorial lord than even the sovereign to whom he did homage for his continental lands. Such a state of things, was alone quite sufficient to cause endless dissensions; but soon more immediate matter was found. Louis VII. died. Philip Augustus succeeded, yet in his youth; and Henry II., after having himself, in execution of the feudal duty of the dukes of Normandy, lifted the crown with which Philip’s brow was to be decorated, endeavoured to strengthen his own party in France as much as possible against the young monarch. His second son, Geoffrey, he married to Constance, Dutchess of Brittany: his eldest son, Henry, espoused Marguerite, sister of Philip, and received with her the lordship of Gisors,[654] and the territory of the Vexin. Prince Henry died early, leaving no children; and the land, by his marriage contract, reverted to the crown of France; but his father refused to yield it. War broke out in consequence, and was raging fiercely when the news of the fall of Jerusalem reached Europe. The tidings were so unexpected, each one felt so deep and religious a devotion for the Holy Land, every knight had there so many relations or friends, that the news found a thousand avenues open to the hearts of all who heard it. The world, too, was then mad with song. Nations in that early age had all the zealous passions of youth. That fresh ardour—that wild spirit of pursuit, which almost every one must have felt in his own young days, was then the character of society at large. Europe was as an enthusiastic boy, and whatever it followed, love, religion, song, it followed with the uncontrolled passion, the fiery desire which burns but in the days of boyhood among nations as among men. Poetry had now become both the great delight, and the great mover of the day; and all the eloquence of verse found a fit subject in the sorrows of Palestine. The Troubadours[655] and the Trouveres vied with each other, which should do most to stimulate the monarchs and the Chivalry of Europe to lay aside their private quarrels, and to fly to the deliverance of the Holy Land. The plainte was heard from castle to castle, mourning over the loss of Jerusalem. The sirvente and the fabliau were spread far and wide, lashing with all the virulence of indignant satire those whom feuds or interests withheld from the battles of the Cross. The papal authority enjoined, with its menaces and its inducements, peace to Europe and war to the Saracen: but even superstition and zeal effected little, when compared with the power of the new passion for song. The first crusade had been the effect of a general enthusiasm; the second of individual eloquence; but this was the crusade of poetry. The first two were brought about by the clergy alone; but this was the work of the Troubadours.

A truce between Henry II. and Philip Augustus was agreed upon, and a meeting was fixed between Trie and Gisors,[656] for the purpose of considering the manner of settling all difficulties, and the best means of delivering Jerusalem. The whole of the barons of France and England were present at this parliament, which was held in the month of January, and mutual jealousies and hatred had nearly turned the assembly, which met to promote peace, to the purposes of bloodshed. At length the Cardinal of Albano and William, Archbishop of Tyre, presented themselves to the meeting; and the oriental prelate having related all the horrors he had himself beheld in the Holy Land—the slaughter of Tiberias, the fall of Jerusalem, the pollution of the temple, and the capture of the sepulchre—the symbol of the Cross was unanimously adopted by all; private wars were laid aside, and a mode of proceeding was determined on which promised to furnish vast supplies for the holy enterprise to which the kings and barons bound themselves.

The first of the measures resolved was to enforce a general contribution from all persons who did not take the Cross, whether clergy or laity, towards defraying the expense of the crusade. This consisted of a tenth of all possessions, whether landed or personal, and was called Saladin’s tithe. Each lord, clerical or secular, had the right of raising this tax within his own feoff. The lord of the commune could alone tithe his burghers, the archbishop his see, the abbot the lands of the monastery, the chapter the lands of the church. Any knight having taken the Cross, and being the legitimate heir of a knight or a widow[657] who had not taken the Cross, was entitled to lay the tax upon the lands of the other; while all who refused or neglected to pay their quota were given absolutely to the disposal of him who had the right to require it. At the same time that such inflictions were adjudged to those who rejected the call to the Holy Land, many immunities were accorded to such as followed the crusade. Great facilities were given to all the crusaders for the payment of their anterior debts; but they were by no means, as has been frequently asserted,[658] liberated from all engagements during the time they were occupied in the expedition. Such were the regulations which were first brought forward at Gisors. Each of the monarchs proposed them afterward to a separate court of their barons and clergy, Philip at Paris, and Henry, first at Rouen, to his Norman council, and afterward to his English vassals at Geddington, in Northamptonshire.

All seemed now to tend rapidly towards the great enterprise; nothing was seen in the various countries but the symbol of the Cross, which in England was of ermine or white, of gules or red for France, and of synople or green for Flanders.

But the whole current of feeling was suddenly turned, by an aggression of Richard, Duke of Guienne, afterward King of England, upon the territories of the Count of Toulouse. Philip Augustus flew to arms to avenge his vassal and friend; Richard met him with equal fierceness, and the feuds between France and England were renewed with increased violence.[659] Many of the French and English knights, several of the clergy of the two countries, together with a great multitude of Germans, Italians, and Flemings, waited not for the tardy journey of the crusading monarchs, but passed over into the Holy Land, and joined themselves to Guy of Lusignan, who had now collected the remnants of all the military orders, and with those princes and knights who had escaped the Moslem scimitar, was engaged in besieging Acre. His forces[660] gradually increased till they became immense; and, owing to the skill of those by whom he was accompanied, rather than his own, the camp of Lusignan was fortified in such a manner that no efforts of the Saracens could penetrate its lines. Saladin pitched his tents on the mountains to the south, not long after the Christians had undertaken the siege, and innumerable battles in the open field succeeded, in which neither army gained any material advantage that was not compensated by some following reverse.