Saladin availed himself of the peace made with the Christians, to dissipate the troubles which had arisen in his states, and to pursue his conquests in Syria. At each truce he got possession of a city or a province; he extended his dominions, and thus placed under his control countries which became so many the more enemies for the Christians. The Franks, on the contrary, when war was suspended, gave themselves madly up to their internal divisions; peace with them gave birth to a thousand new factions, and the kingdom then found in its own bosom enemies much more dangerous than those against whom they had been at war.
The knights and barons, on their return to Jerusalem, accused Guy de Lusignan of having neglected the opportunity for conquering Saladin, and reproached him with having permitted the ravages exercised by the Mussulmans in the richest provinces of Palestine. Baldwin, who had yielded up the royal authority with great regret, listened to the complaints of the barons, and hastened to reascend a tottering throne. He undertook to dissolve the marriage with Sibylla, and cited Guy de Lusignan before the patriarch of Jerusalem and the nobles of the kingdom, in order to deprive him of the counties of Ascalon and Jaffa. As Guy did not appear on the day named, Baldwin, although infirm and blind, repaired to Antioch, and finding the gates shut, struck them several times with his hand without causing them to be opened.[301] This unfortunate prince called upon Heaven to witness this insult, and returned to Jerusalem, swearing to revenge himself upon Guy de Lusignan. On his side, Guy no longer observed any measures, but took up arms to sustain his revolt. In this emergency, Baldwin could find no better means of punishing Guy than to oppose to him a regent and a new king. By his orders, Baldwin V., who was five years of age, and born of the first marriage of Sibylla with the son of the marquis de Montferrat, was crowned in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the presence of the nobles and the clergy. Raymond, count of Tripoli, less odious to Baldwin than Guy, obtained the regency and assumed the reins of government.
The kingdom of Jerusalem, which had proceeded rapidly to decay since the reign of Baldwin III., became now an object worthy of pity. The stormy passions, almost always inseparable from a feudal government, had long since weakened all the springs of authority. The royalty, for whose remains they were quarrelling, was nothing but a vain name; in the midst of the factions by which he was surrounded, a king of Jerusalem could neither revenge his own injuries, nor those of the Church or of Christ. Want of courage was the only crime he could punish without exciting the murmurs of the barons, because with them cowards found no defenders. Amaury had ignominiously hung twelve Templars, accused of having neglected the defence of a fortress; but he had not the power to receive an ambassador sent by the Old Man of the Mountain, in whom the hope of freeing himself from a tribute paid to the grand master of the Templars, had awakened a desire to become a Christian. When the ambassador was assassinated in Jerusalem by a Templar, Amaury had no authority to bring the murderer to judgment; deplorable weakness of a king who possesses not the first prerogative of royalty, that of maintaining justice and causing the rights of nations to be respected!
The kingdom was covered with strong castles, the commanders of which barely recognised the authority of the king. On the summit of every mountain upon which appeared threatening towers, in caverns even, which had been transformed into fortresses, barons commanded as masters, and made peace or war at their pleasure. The military orders, the only support of the state, were divided among themselves, and sometimes shed their blood in quarrels fatal to the cause of the Christians.
Discord reigned between the clergy and the knights of the Temple and St. John; the military orders were not subject to the jurisdiction of ecclesiastics, and the clergy, accustomed to dictate laws to princes, could not endure the haughty independence of a few warriors. Led away by the spirit of discord, the Hospitallers raised edifices in front of the church of the Resurrection, and often drowned the voices of the priests who celebrated the praises of God at the foot of his altars. Some of them even went so far as to pursue priests with arrow-shots into the very church of the Holy Sepulchre. As the only vengeance, the priests gathered together in bundles the arrows that had been shot at them, and placed them on an elevated spot on the Mount of Olives, that every one might be acquainted with the sacrilege.
These quarrels, which were every day renewed, were carried before the tribunal of the Holy See, whose decisions frequently only inflamed the minds of the disputants the more. The Church of Rome, very far from restoring peace to the Christians of the East, often cast amongst them fresh coals of discord. The schisms which troubled the West, more than once kindled war in the holy places, even upon the tomb of Christ.
Concord seldom prevailed long between the inhabitants of Palestine and the European warriors who came into Asia to combat the infidels. The Syrian barons employed the forces of their auxiliaries to carry out their own ambitious views; and the latter, by their pride and disdain, laid a high price upon their services. Almost always on the arrival of fresh pilgrims, a treaty was violated or a truce broken, in order to make incursions upon the territories of the Saracens; and not unfrequently, the Crusaders, without even seeing the enemy, abandoned Palestine to the perils of a war they had themselves provoked.
In the cities, particularly the maritime cities, several nations dwelt together, and disputed precedence and sovereignty, sword in hand. All who came to establish themselves in the Holy Land, brought with them and preserved the remembrances and prejudices of their native country. In the cities of Ascalon, Tyre, or Ptolemaïs, the inhabitants were much more interested in the glory and prosperity of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, than in the safety of the kingdom of Jerusalem.
The greater part of the barons and knights displayed none of the heroic resignation of the early soldiers of the cross, in supporting fatigues or braving difficulties. Since the conquest of Egypt had been contemplated, war was only considered as a means of acquiring wealth; and the thirst for booty destroyed the principle of honour, the love of glory, and even all anxiety for the cause of Christ. The question was no longer what enemy was to be attacked, what ally was to be defended, but what city or province was to be delivered up to pillage. Discipline degenerated in the camp; the Christian warriors still displayed their natural bravery, but they neither knew how to obey nor to command, and anarchy reigned as completely in the army as throughout the kingdom. Many of the leaders abandoned their colours under the most perilous circumstances, and sold their inaction or their neutrality. Some, like the Templar Meslier and his companions, forgetful of their vows, ravaged the Christian provinces; whilst others, urged on by ambition or vengeance, allied themselves with the Saracens, and received in the service of the infidels the reward of their disgraceful apostasy.
Religion, which ought to have been the connecting tie between the Christians established in the Holy Land, and which alone could preserve among them sentiments of patriotism,—religion had lost all empire over their minds. War was still made in its name, but its laws were unpractised and unacknowledged. The conversion of the Maronites of Libanus, who rejoined the Church of Rome in the reign of Baldwin IV., was celebrated at Jerusalem as a victory gained over heresy, but it had not the effect of bringing back the Christians to the spirit of the Scriptures. Pious men who lived in a corrupted age, groaned under the depravity of manners which every day made such frightful progress.[302] The respectable archbishop of Tyre trembles as he traces the history of this unhappy period, and fears lest truth should give to his recitals the colour of satire. “There is,” says he, “scarcely one chaste woman to be found in the city of Jerusalem.” The leaders of the Christian colonies, equally with the heads of the Church, themselves set the example of licentiousness. The Christians beheld a queen of Jerusalem, the widow of Baldwin III., keep up a criminal intercourse with Andronicus, and seek an abode among the Saracens with the companion of her debaucheries.[303] Bohemond, prince of Antioch, repudiated his wife Erina, to espouse a courtesan. The patriarch, disgusted with such a scandal, excommunicated young Bohemond, and placed an interdict upon his states; and thus the guilty amours of a Christian prince produced trouble and desolation throughout a whole nation. The sight even of the tomb of Christ was unable to inspire more holy thoughts. The patriarch Heraclius, who only owed his elevation to mundane and profane qualities, lavished the treasures due to pilgrims and the poor, upon infamous prostitutes, and the Christian people were often astonished to see the notorious Pâque de Rivery display, even in the sanctuary, ornaments purchased with the alms of the faithful.