Philip-le-Bel had promised the council of Vienna to go into the East to combat the infidels, without doubt to procure pardon for having pursued the knights of the Temple with so much inveteracy. Amidst the festivals that welcomed the arrival of Edward in Paris, the French monarch and the princes of his family took the cross. Most of the nobles of his court followed his example, and the ladies promised to accompany the knights to the holy war; but no one took any measures for setting out. Promises were then made to cross the seas by persons who had not any serious intention of leaving their homes. The vow to combat the Saracens appeared to be a vain ceremony, which engaged the swearer to nothing. It was taken with perfect indifference, and violated in the same manner; considered as not more sacred than the vows the knights made to the ladies.
Philip-le-Bel died without ever having thought of accomplishing his vow. Philip-le-Long, who succeeded him, entertained for a moment the project of going into the East. Edward, who had already several times sworn to fight the Saracens, at the same time renewed his promise. But the sovereign pontiff, whether that he doubted their sincerity, or whether that he stood in need of the concurrence of these two monarchs to reëstablish tranquillity in Europe, and to resist the emperor of Germany, against whom he had armed himself with the thunders of the Church, or whether, in short, he thought the moment an unfavourable one, did not approve of their expedition into Syria. “Before thinking of the voyage beyond the seas,” wrote he to the king of England, “we would wish you to establish peace, first in your own conscience, then in your kingdom.” The father of the faithful represented to the king of France that the peace, so necessary to be firm before a crusade should be undertaken, was almost banished from Christendom. England and Scotland were at war; the states of Germany were divided against each other; the king of Sicily and the king of Naples were only bound by a truce of short duration; reciprocal mistrust prevented the kings of Cyprus and Armenia from uniting their forces against the common enemy; the kings of Spain were quite sufficiently employed in defending their states against the Moors; the republics of Lombardy were all in arms against each other; all the cities of Italy were torn by factions, the provinces a prey to tyrants, the sea impracticable, the route by land thickly strewed with dangers. After having given this picture of the deplorable state of Christendom, the pope pressed Philip to inquire seriously how he could provide for the expenses of the war without ruining his people, or without attempting, he added, to do that which is impossible, as has been done before.
The paternal advice of the sovereign pontiff, and some troubles which arose in the bosom of his kingdom, determined Philip to postpone the execution of his project. A multitude of herdsmen and shepherds, of adventurers and vagabonds, setting up, as in the time of the captivity of St. Louis, the pilgrims’ cross, assembled in many places, persecuted the Jews, and committed most culpable excesses. Force of arms and the full severity of the laws were obliged to be resorted to, in order to quell these disorders, of which the crusade was only a pretext. At the same time several provinces of France suffered greatly from an epidemic disease; the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells, with the design of suspending the preparations for the holy war. They were accused of all sorts of plots against the Christians; and the general fermentation was the greater from the suspicions being vague, and from the impossibility of proving or contradicting the crimes alleged. Policy could discover no other means of dissipating the troubles than that of entering into the passions of the multitude, and driving all the Jews out of the kingdom. Amidst these unhappy circumstances, Philip fell ill, and died regretting his not having accomplished the vow he had made of warring against the Saracens.
In the state of abandonment to which the crusades had fallen, we are surprised at seeing the minds of the French still occasionally directed towards the delivery of the holy places. This last flickering of enthusiasm, which our ancestors kept alight amidst the general indifference, was not confined to religious sentiments, but extended to a feeling of patriotism and national glory. It was France which had given the first impulsion to the holy wars, as we have several times observed. The name of Palestine, the names of St. Jean d’Acre or Ptolemaïs, and that of Jerusalem appealed no less to patriotism than to piety. Although the two expeditions of Louis IX. had been unsuccessful, the example of the holy monarch was a great authority for the princes of his family, and often carried their thoughts to the places where he had suffered the glory of martyrdom. The memory of his exploits and even of his misfortunes, the memory of the heroes who had died on the banks of the Nile and the Jordan, interested all the families of the kingdom; and the city in which reposed the ashes of Godfrey and Baldwin of Bouillon, those distant regions in which so many glorious battles had been fought, could not be forgotten by French warriors.
After the death of Philip-le-Long, ambassadors arrived in Europe from the king of Armenia; this prince, abandoned by the Tartars, and threatened by the Mamelukes of Egypt, requested the assistance of the West. The pope wrote to Charles-le-Bel, the successor of Philip-le-Long, and conjured him to take up arms against the infidels. Charles received with respect the counsels and the exhortations of the sovereign pontiff, and was engaged in preparations for a crusade when the succession of the county of Flanders caused a war to break out in the Low Countries. From that time France became attentive only to the events that were passing before her eyes, and in which her own independence and safety were deeply interested. At the approach of death, and at a time when the kingdom had no longer anything to fear, Charles-le-Bel remembered his oath, and his last thoughts were directed towards the deliverance of Jerusalem. “I bequeath,” says he in his will, “to the Holy Land fifty thousand livres, to be paid and delivered when the general passage shall be made; and it is my intention, if the passage be made in my lifetime, to go thither in person.”[62] It was thus that at this period the spirit of the crusades still occasionally showed itself; most of the testaments[63] then made by princes and rich men (these words designated the nobility) contained some dispositions in favour of the Holy Land; but we must add, also, that the facility of purchasing the merit of pilgrimage for money must necessarily have greatly diminished the number of pilgrims and Crusaders.
Whilst dying people were thus prodigal of their treasure for the holy war, nobody took up arms. There still, however, remained some men endowed with a vivid imagination and an ardent temperament, who made incredible efforts to rekindle an enthusiasm on the point of being extinguished. The greater the indifference of nations, the greater were the ardour and zeal displayed by these men in their preachings. Among these latter apostles of the crusades, history cites the name of Raymond Lulli, one of the luminaries of the schools of the middle ages.[64]
Lulli was possessed during his life but by one thought, and that was, to combat and convert the infidels.[65] It was upon the proposition of this zealous missionary that the council of Vienna decided that chairs should be established in the universities of Rome, Bologna, Paris, and Salamanca, for instruction in the languages of the East. He presented to the pope several memorials upon the means of annihilating the worship of Mahomet and the domination of his disciples. Lulli, constantly occupied with his project, made a pilgrimage into Palestine, travelled through Syria, Armenia, and Egypt, and came back to Europe to describe the misfortunes, the captivity, and the disgraces of the Christians beyond the seas. On his return, he visited all the courts of the West, seeking to communicate to sovereigns the sentiments by which he was animated. Finding his efforts were vain, his zeal carried him to the coast of Africa, where he endeavoured to convert by his eloquence those same Saracens against whom he had invoked the arms of Christian warriors. He returned to Europe, passed through Italy, France, and Spain, preaching everywhere the necessity for another crusade. He embarked again for Jerusalem, and brought back, as the fruit of his pilgrimage, some useful notions upon the best manner of attacking the countries of the infidels. All his labours, all his researches, all his prayers, produced no effect upon the indifference of kings and nations. Lulli, at length despairing of seeing his projects realised, and deploring the blindness of his contemporaries, retired to the island of Majorca, which was his native country. From the depth of his retreat he still issued memorials upon an expedition to the East; but solitude soon wearied his ardent and restless spirit, and he quitted Majorca, no more to waste his words upon the princes of Europe, who would not listen to him, but to return to the Mussulmans, whom he still hoped to lead to the Gospel by his eloquence. He repaired a second time to Africa, and at length suffered, as the reward of his preachings, the torments and the death of martyrs.
Whilst Lulli was striving to direct the efforts of the faithful to the deliverance of the holy places, a noble Venetian likewise consecrated his life and his talents to the revival of the spirit of the crusades. Sanuti thus describes the first audience he obtained of the sovereign pontiff: “I am not sent hither,” said he, “by any king, any prince, or any republic; it is from the impulse of my own mind that I come to throw myself at the feet of your holiness, and to propose to you an easy means of crushing the enemies of the true faith, of extirpating the sect of Mahomet, and of recovering the Holy Land.[66] My voyages in Cyprus, Armenia, and Egypt, together with a long sojourn in Romania, have furnished me with knowledge and information that may be turned to the profit of Christianity.” On finishing these words, Sanuti presented two books to the pope, one covered with red and the other with yellow, and four geographical charts, the first of the Mediterranean Sea, the second of the earth and of the sea, the third of the Holy Land, the fourth, of Egypt. The two books of the noble Venetian contained the history of the Christian establishments in the East, and wise counsels respecting the undertaking of another crusade. His zeal, enlightened by experience, did not allow him to neglect the least detail upon the route that was to be followed, upon the point that it would be best to attack, upon the number of troops, and upon the fitting out and provisioning of the vessels. He advised that operations should commence by landing in Egypt, and weakening the power of the sultans of Cairo. The most certain means of effecting this latter purpose was to obtain directly from Bagdad the Indian merchandises which European commerce was accustomed to get by the cities of Alexandria and Damietta. Sanuti, at the same time, advised the sovereign pontiff to redouble the severity of his censures against those who carried into Egypt arms, metals, timber for building, or anything that could assist in equipping fleets or arming the Mameluke soldiery.
The pope bestowed great praises upon Sanuti, and furnished him with introductions to several sovereigns of Europe. The Christian princes, particularly the king of France, received him with kindness, lauded his piety, and admired his talents—but took care not to follow his advice. Sanuti addressed himself likewise to the emperor of Constantinople, to engage him in an expedition against the infidels; he sought everywhere, and by every means, to raise up enemies against the Mussulmans, and passed his life in preaching a crusade, without obtaining any more success than Raymond Lulli had done.
The zeal of the two men of whom we have just spoken can only be compared to that of Peter the Hermit; they were both much more enlightened than the cenobite Peter, but they could get no one to listen to them, and the fruitlessness of their efforts proves how much the times were changed. Peter preached in cities and in public places, and the multitude, inflamed by his discourses, led away and awakened the feelings of the great. In the times of Lulli and Sanuti, sovereigns alone could be addressed, and sovereigns, occupied by their own affairs, showed very little interest for projects which only concerned Christendom in general. In the early times of the crusades, the deliverance of the holy places was a matter of importance; simply to pronounce the name of Jerusalem was sufficient to appease differences among princes; later, the least interest of jealousy, ambition, or self-love had the power to arrest the progress of, or completely put an end to, a holy enterprise. Frequently, in the twelfth century, popes and simple preachers, arming themselves with the authority of Christ, commanded princes to take up the cross and set out for the East; in the thirteenth, but more particularly in the fourteenth century, it was necessary to pray and solicit; and, generally, the most humble prayers produced no effect.[67]