The History of the Crusades (vol. 2 of 3)

by J. Fr. Michaud

The Prussians celebrated several other festivals during spring and summer, in honour of the same god; at the spring festival, which took place on the 22nd of March, they addressed Curko in these words: “It is thou who hast chased away winter, and brought fair and fine days back to us; by thee the gardens and the fields rebloom; by thee the forests and the woods resume their verdure.” The inhabitants of Prussia had a crowd of other gods, whom they invoked for their flocks, their bees, the forests, the waters, harvest, commerce, the peace of families, and conjugal happiness; a divinity with a hundred eyes watched over the threshold of houses; one god guarded the yard, another the stable; the hunter heard the spirit of the forest howl amidst the tree-tops; the mariner recommended himself to the god of the sea. Laimelé was invoked by women in labour, and spun the lives of mankind. Tutelary divinities arrested the progress of conflagrations, caused the sap of the birch-trees to flow, guarded roads, and awakened workmen and labourers before the dawn of day. The air, the earth, the waters were peopled by gnomes or little gods, and with ghosts and goblins, which they called arvans. It was believed by all that the oak was a tree dear to the gods, and that its shade offered an asylum against the violence of men or the assaults of destiny. In addition to the oak of Remové, the Prussians had several other trees of the same kind, which they considered the sanctuaries of their divinities. They consecrated also linden-trees, firs, maples, and even whole forests; they held in reverence fountains, lakes, and mountains; they adored serpents, owls, storks, and other animals: in short, in the countries inhabited by the Prussians, all nature was filled with divinities, and, up to the fourteenth century, it might be said of a European nation, as Bossuet said of ancient paganism, “Everything there was god, except God himself.”

A long time before the crusades, St. Adalbert had left his native country, Bohemia, to penetrate into the forests of Prussia, and endeavour to convert the Prussians to Christianity; but his eloquence, his moderation, or his charity, could not disarm the fury of the priests of Perkunas. Adalbert died, pierced with arrows, and received the palm of martyrdom; other missionaries shared the same fate; their blood arose against their murderers, and the report of their death, together with an account of the cruelties of a barbarous people, everywhere cried aloud upon the Christians of the North for vengeance. The neighbouring nations were constantly entertaining the resolution to take arms against the idolaters of Prussia. An abbot of the monastery of Oliva, more able, and still further, more fortunate than his predecessors, undertook the conversion of the pagans of the Oder and the Vistula, and succeeded, with the assistance of the Holy See, in getting up a crusade against the worshippers of false gods; a great number of Christians took the cross, at the summons of the pope, who promised them eternal life if they fell in fight, and lands and treasures if they triumphed over the enemies of Christ. The knights of Christ and the knights of the sword, instituted to subdue the pagans of Livonia, with the Teutonic knights, who in Palestine rivalled in power and glory the two other orders of the Temple and the Hospital, at the first signal flocked to the standards of the army assembled to invade Prussia, and convert its inhabitants: this war lasted more than two centuries. In this sanguinary struggle, if the Christian religion sometimes inspired its combatants with its virtues, the leaders of this long crusade were much more frequently influenced by vengeance, ambition, and avarice. The knights of the Teutonic order, whose bravery almost always amounted to heroism, remained masters of the country conquered by their arms. These victorious monks never edified the people they subdued, either by their moderation or their charity; and were often accused before the tribunal of the head of the Church, of having converted the Prussians, not to make them servants of Christ, but to increase the number of their own subjects and slaves.

We have only spoken of the people of Prussia, and of the wars made against them, to exhibit to our readers a nation and customs almost unknown to modern scholars even; and to show how far ambition and a thirst of conquest was able to abuse the spirit of the crusades: we hasten to return to the expedition that was being prepared against the Saracens.

Germany considered Frederick II. as the leader of the war about to be made in Asia; but the new emperor, seated on a throne for a long time shaken by civil wars, dreading the enterprises of the Italian republics, and perhaps those of the popes their protectors, thought it prudent to defer his departure for Palestine.

The zeal of the Crusaders, however, did not abate, and in their impatience they turned their eyes towards the king of Hungary to take the command in the holy war. Andrew, accompanied by the duke of Bavaria, the duke of Austria, and the German nobles who had taken the cross, set out for the East, at the head of a numerous army, and repaired to Spalatro, where vessels from Venice, Zara, Ancona, and other cities of the Adriatic, awaited the Crusaders, to transport them into Palestine.

In all the countries through which he marched, the king of Hungary was followed by the benedictions of the people. When he approached the city of Spalatro, the inhabitants and the clergy came out in procession to meet him, and conducted him to their principal church, where all the faithful were assembled to call down the mercy of Heaven upon the Christian warriors. A few days after, the fleet of the Crusaders left the port[197] of Spalatro, and set sail for the island of Cyprus, at which place were met the deputies of the king and the patriarch of Jerusalem, of the orders of the Temple and St. John, and of the Teutonic knights.

A crowd of Crusaders, who had embarked at Brindisi, at Genoa, and at Marseilles, preceded the king of Hungary and his army. Lusignan, king of Cyprus, and the greater part of his barons, influenced by the example of so many illustrious princes, took the cross, and promised to follow them into the Holy Land. All the Crusaders embarked together at the port of Lemisso, and landed in triumph at Ptolemaïs.

An Arabian historian says, that since the time of Saladin the Christians had never had so numerous an army in Syria.[198] Thanks to Heaven were offered up in all the churches, for the powerful aid it had sent to the Holy Land; but the joy of the Christians of Palestine was quickly troubled by the serious difficulty in which they found themselves to procure provisions for such a multitude of pilgrims.

This year (1217) had been barren throughout the richest countries of Syria;[199] and the vessels from the West had only been laden with machines of war, arms, and baggage. Deficiency of food was soon felt among the Crusaders, and led the soldiers to license and robbery; the Bavarians committed the greatest disorders; pillaging houses and monasteries, and devastating the neighbouring country; the leaders had no other means of reëstablishing order and peace in the army, but by giving the signal for war against the Saracens; and, to save the lands and dwellings of the Christians, they proposed to their soldiers to ravage the cities and territories of the infidels.