The outcome of this difference of opinion seems to have been that the leaders of the Crusade did homage, reluctantly, to the Emperor, but perhaps they had the thought in the back of their minds, as they did it, that it was an oath which they might break. However that may be, when the time came to fulfil their vow—for they won a quick and easy success over the Turks in Asia Minor and Syria—they did not give up Palestine and the Holy Places to the Emperor. A portion of Asia Minor which they regained from the Saracens was handed over to the Emperor, but as for Palestine itself, that was taken, and it was retained, by the Crusaders; and the chief result of that first and most successful of the Crusades was that a Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was set up, and was maintained for nearly a century—from 1097 to 1187. The name of Kingdom of Jerusalem and the title of king endured for many years more, but the kingdom then consisted of no more than a strip of the coast-line of the Levant and did not include the city of Jerusalem at all.
But though the Christians were able to hold this new kingdom in the East for nearly a hundred years, it was within less than fifty that the very important frontier city of the Eastern Empire, Edessa, in Asia Minor, was taken by the Saracens. The Emperor at once sent out another appeal to the West, and this appeal became the occasion of the second Crusade, undertaken in 1146.
It began with even brighter promise than the first; for whereas knights were the leaders of the former, two kings, the King of France and the King of Germany, put themselves, in person, at the head of the second. But in spite of the fair promise the main result was failure. It was the occasion of some successful enterprises by the way; and we may note that whereas the first Crusade had been almost entirely French and Norman, English, as well as Germans, took part in the latter. Also, whereas the route taken by the first had been entirely overland, through Hungary, some of the second Crusaders, from England and Flanders, made their way to the East by sea.
In course of that sea voyage some of the soldiers of the Cross, landing up the Tagus from their ships, took the city of Lisbon from the Moors, and this capture was the beginning of the little kingdom of Portugal. Thence the force went upon its voyage eastward.
The Wends
In the north of Germany some of the forces assembled for the Crusade never went very far from home. They seem to have received the permission of the Pope to fight against a tribe, called Wends, on their eastern frontier, instead of against the Saracens; and seeing that these Wends were heathen, this might perhaps be regarded in the light of a Holy War no less than that in Asia Minor.
It is possible to state very shortly the achievements of the forces that did get to the East—they achieved nothing at all. The two kings seem to have been jealous of each other. They acted separately, with no joint action, and were defeated in turn. They returned home with no glory, and left the Kingdom of Jerusalem in a worse plight than before, just because of their failure, after such preparations and expectations. The Saracen might well think that if this was all that the West, under its two greatest kings, could do, they need not be much afraid.
Therefore they pressed continually closer and closer about the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Christians held their own, with a success that is rather surprising, until the reign of the great Saladin. Until his reign the Saracens in Asia Minor and in the country east of the Jordan had not acted in unison with the Saracens in Egypt. Saladin brought all together; so that now the situation of this Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was even worse than we saw the position of Palestine to be in the very early days of the great story. Then it had lain between the two powerful empires of Egypt and Babylonia. Now it was lying like an island in the midst of a sea of enemies all fighting, not against each other, but united to fight against it.
And then this Jerusalem, taken from the Saracens in 1099, was by them retaken in 1187.
We may be sure that the Christians in the East could not possibly have held their own against the Saracens, as they did during these years, if they had not been constantly receiving reinforcements from the West. History speaks to us of certain definite dates for the first, second, third Crusades, and so on, but we also have to imagine a continual going to and from the East of knights with larger or smaller followings. In this way the strength of the garrisons in the kingdom were maintained, and in this way happened that continual bringing of Eastern ideas to the West, which was really of more importance in the making of this greatest of all stories than any of the victories won or cities taken.