The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

For some time the Christians of the Holy Land enjoyed an interval of repose. Saladin was a religious observer of his word; and during the short space that intervened between the departure of Richard Cœur de Lion and the death of his great adversary, the Latins received the full benefit of the treaty which had been executed between those monarchs.

A year had scarcely elapsed ere Saladin was seized with a mortal sickness; and, finding his end approaching, he commanded the black standard, which had so often led the way to victory, to be taken down, and replaced by the shroud which was to wrap his body in the grave. This was then borne through the streets, while the criers called all men to behold what Saladin, the mighty conqueror, carried away with him of all his vast dominion.[725] Saladin died, a monarch in whose character, though the good was not unmixed with evil, the great qualities so far preponderated, that they overbalanced the effects of a barbarous epoch and a barbarous religion, and left in him a splendid exception to most of the vices of his age, his country, and his creed.

At that period the principle of hereditary succession was not very clearly ascertained either in Europe or in Asia; and the vast monarchy which Saladin had been enabled to consolidate was broken in pieces at his death. Saif Eddin, his brother, took possession of the greater part of Syria, and strengthened himself by the soldiers of his dead relative, who both loved and esteemed him. Three of the great monarch’s sons seized upon such portions of their father’s dominions as they could reach; and civil dissensions followed, highly detrimental to the power of the Moslem, and favourable to the security of the Christians. This, indeed, was the moment when a crusade was most practicable, and Pope Celestine III. exhorted all Christendom to snatch the opportunity. In most instances his call fell upon cold and unwilling ears. Philip Augustus was too deeply engaged in those vast and magnificent schemes which, however impeded by the prejudices of the day, rendered his reign a great epoch in the history of nations.[726] Richard Cœur de Lion had learned the danger of quitting his own kingdom, and the vanity of hoping for union among ambitious men. Henry of Germany alone, moved by wild schemes for aggrandizing his territories, assented at once to the crusade; but finding that Sicily seemed ready to receive him, he deemed the nearer conquest the more advisable; and on the same principle he had taken the Cross, he abandoned it again. Not so his subjects; an immense number of the vassals followed eagerly the road which he had quitted;[727] and several Teutonic bishops, with the Dukes of Saxony, Brabant, and Bavaria, set out from Germany, and reached Acre in safety.

The Christians of Palestine were at that moment in the enjoyment of peace,[728] and they beheld the coming of new crusaders with horror and despair. Had the troops that arrived been sufficient, indeed, to give any thing like certainty to their enterprise, all the Latins of the Holy Land would willingly have concurred; but the prospect of new and desolating wars, waged by scanty forces, was, notwithstanding the dissensions of their enemies, a hopeless and painful anticipation. Nevertheless, the Germans began their operations at once;[729] and Saif Eddin, with his whole attention suddenly directed to the Christians, showed, by the energetic activity of his movements, that the spirit of Saladin survived in his brother. Jaffa was taken by assault,[730] with a great slaughter of the Christians, and all promised a speedy destruction to the small remains of the Latin kingdom. Fresh succours, however, were received from Europe; the hopes of the Christians revived; and, under the command of the Duke of Saxony, they marched on towards Beritus. Saif Eddin hastened to meet them, and attacked the Latin forces near Sidon; but his army was completely routed by the firm and steady gallantry of the Germans; and the way to Jerusalem was once more open to the followers of the Cross. But the crusaders embarrassed themselves with the siege of the castle of Thoron. The Saracens had time to recover from their panic; civil dissensions were forgotten; and while the garrison of Thoron held out with persevering valour, the sultaun of Egypt advanced to join his uncle, and repel the Christian invasion. Vague rumours of immense preparation on the part of the infidels reached the besieging army. The crusaders were, as usual, disunited among themselves; the Saracens within the castle were fighting with the coinage of despair; and, at last, a sudden panic seized the leaders of the German army.[731] They abandoned the camp in the night, and, flying to Tyre, left their soldiers to follow as they could.[732] A complete separation ensued between the Germans and the Latins, each accusing the other of treachery; while the Syrian Christians remained at Tyre, the Teutonic crusaders proceeded to Jaffa. Thither Saif Eddin pursued them; and another battle was fought, in which the Germans were once more victorious, though victory cost them the lives of many of their princes. Almost at the same time news reached their camp of the death of the emperor Henry. From that moment, none of the German nobles remembered aught but the election of a new emperor; and as soon as vessels could be procured, the principal barons set off for Europe. They left behind them in Jaffa about twenty thousand of the inferior soldiers, and a few knights; but the town was surprised by the Saracens on the night of the following festival of St. Martin; and the Germans, plunged in revelry and drunkenness,[733] were slaughtered to a man.

Such was the end of the German crusade in Palestine; and before proceeding to speak once more of the affairs of Europe, it may be as well to touch upon the brief and uninteresting series of events that followed in that country. Henry, Count of Champagne, who had married Isabella, the heiress of Jerusalem, had proved but an indolent monarch; and in the year 1197, at the precise moment when the Saracens had newly captured Jaffa, he was killed by falling from a window. His loss was attended by no evil consequences;[734] for the Saracens were soon involved once more in civil dissensions by the death of Saladin’s second son, Malek el Aziz, sultaun of Egypt, and the truce with the Christians was willingly renewed. Isabella, the queen, whose grief was not even so stable as that of the dame of Ephesus, was easily prevailed on, by the Grand Master of the order of St. John,[735] to give her thrice-widowed hand to Almeric of Lusignan, now—by the cession of Richard of England—King of Cyprus. This marriage was certainly a politic one, as Cyprus afforded both a storehouse and a granary to Palestine; but the peace with the Saracens remained unbroken till the bigoted Simon de Montfort, detaching himself from another body of knights,[736] which I shall mention hereafter, arrived at Acre, and made some feeble and ineffectual incursions on the Mussulman territory. After his fruitless attempts, the truce was once more established, and lasted till the death of Almeric and Isabella, when the crowns of Jerusalem and Cyprus were again separated. The imaginary sovereignty of the Holy City now became vested in Mary,[737] the daughter of Isabella, by Conrad of Tyre, while the kingdom of Cyprus descended to the heirs of Lusignan. According to feudal custom it was necessary to find a husband for Mary who could defend her right, and on every account it was determined to seek one in Europe. The choice was left to Philip Augustus; and he immediately fixed upon Jean de Brienne, a noble, talented, and chivalrous knight, who willingly accepted the hand of the lady of Palestine, and that thorny crown which was held out to him from afar.

The news of his coming, and the prospect of large European reinforcements to the Christians,[738] depressed the mind of Saif Eddin, who had already to struggle with vast and increasing difficulties. He tendered the most advantageous terms of peace; but at that time the two great military orders may be said to have governed Palestine.[739] They were then, as usual, contending with jealous rivalry;[740] and the Templars, having for the moment the superiority, the offers of the sultaun were refused, because the Hospitallers counselled their acceptance. Jean de Brienne arrived, and wedded Mary, but the succour that he brought was very far inferior to that which the Latins had anticipated, and the war which had begun was confined to predatory excursions on the territory of the enemy.[741]

I must now retrograde in my history for some years, and speak of the affairs of Europe. No crusade, as we have seen, had been desired by the Christians of Palestine[742] since they had enjoyed the comforts of peace, and no crusade had reached that country; but, nevertheless, one of the most powerful expeditions which Europe had ever brought into the field had set out for the purpose of delivering Jerusalem.[743]

This crusade was, in the first place, instigated by the preaching of a man less mighty than St. Bernard in oratory,[744] and less moved by enthusiasm than Peter the Hermit; but it was encouraged by one of the most talented and most ambitious of the prelates of Rome. Foulque of Neuilly would have produced little effect, had he not been supported by Innocent III.; and the influence of neither the one nor the other would possibly have obtained the object desired, had not the young and enterprising Thibalt, Count of Champagne, embraced the badge of the Cross with his court and followers, at a grand tournament[745] to which he had invited all the neighbouring princes. In the midst of their festivities, Foulque appeared, and called the whole assembly to the crusade. Partly, it is probable, from the love of adventure, partly from religious feeling, Thibalt, in his twenty-second year, assumed the Cross. The Count of Blois, who was present, followed his example; and of eighteen hundred knights who held vassalage under the lord of Champagne, scarcely enough were left to maintain the territories of their sovereign. Nothing, except fear, is so contagious as enthusiasm: the spirit of crusading was revived in a wonderfully short time. The Count of Flanders, with various other persons, took the Cross at Bruges, and many more knights joined them from different parts of France, among whom was Simon de Montfort, who afterward proved the detestable persecutor of the Albigeois.

After holding two general conferences at Soissons and at Compiegne, it was determined to send messengers to Italy for the purpose of contracting with one of the great merchant states to convey the armament to the Holy Land.[746] The choice of the city was left to the deputies; and they proceeded first to Venice, furnished with full powers from the crusading princes to conclude a treaty in their name. Venice was at that time governed by the famous Henry Dandolo, who, with the consent of the Senate, agreed not only to carry the crusaders to Palestine for a certain sum, but also promised to take the Cross himself and aid in their enterprise.[747] Well satisfied with this arrangement, the deputed barons returned to France, but found the Count of Champagne sick of a disease which soon produced his death. After having been refused by Eudes, Duke of Burgundy, and Thibalt, Count of Bar, the office of commander of the expedition was offered to Boniface, Marquis of Montferrat, and accepted. The new chief of the crusade repaired to Soissons, to confer with the rest of the knights, and then proceeded to Italy to prepare for his departure. All these delays retarded their departure till the year 1202, when they set out in several bodies for Venice, and arrived safely at that city with very little difficulty.[748]

Innocent III. had made infinite efforts in favour of the crusade: and, with the daring confidence of genius, had even taxed the unwilling clergy, while he merely recommended charitable subscriptions among the laity. Under such circumstances it will be easily conceived that the voluntary donations amounted to an equal sum with the forced contributions; but what became of the whole is very difficult to determine. Certain it is, that when the crusaders arrived at Venice, not half the money could be raised among them which they had agreed to pay for the use of the republic’s transports,[749] although the chiefs melted down their plate to supply those who had not the means to defray their passage.