Thus, the groans of Sion no longer melted hearts, and Christian eloquence was powerless against infidels. In order to awaken attention, it was necessary to mingle something of profane grandeur with the pathetic exhortations of religion; thus, Europe, which scarcely listened to the missionaries of the cross, appeared, all at once, to be aroused by the arrival of the king of Cyprus, soliciting, in person, the assistance of Christian princes. The pope, who was then at Avignon, eagerly announced to the faithful that an Eastern king was come to his court, and conjured the warriors of the West to take up arms against the Saracens. The king of Cyprus and Jerusalem described the invasions of the Mamelukes, the progress of the Turks, the dangers which surrounded his kingdom, that of Armenia, and the isle of Rhodes, and omitted no instance of the numerous persecutions endured by the Christians who remained in Syria and Egypt. These sad recitals, coming from a royal mouth, awakened some generous sentiments in men’s minds; a league was formed between the sovereign pontiff, the king of France, and the republic of Venice; and the pope published a bull by which he ordered the bishops to cause a crusade to be preached.
Philip of Valois convoked an assembly at Paris, in the Holy Chapel, at which were present John, king of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, the dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, Lorraine, Brabant, and Bourbon, with most of the prelates and barons of the kingdom. Peter de la Palue, named patriarch of Jerusalem, and who had recently passed through Egypt and Palestine, harangued the auditory upon the necessity for attacking the infidels, and stopping the progress of their domination in the East. Philip, who had already taken the cross, renewed the vow he had made, and as he was preparing to quit his kingdom, the barons took the oath of obedience to his son Prince John, by raising their hands towards the crown of thorns of Christ. John of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, and a great number of princes and nobles, received the cross from the hands of the archbishop of Rouen. The crusade was preached throughout the kingdom, “and gave to all noble lords,” says Froissart, “great delight, particularly to those who wished to pass their time in arms, and knew no means then of employing it otherwise more reasonably.”[68]
The king of France sent to the pope the archbishop of Rouen, who afterwards ascended the chair of St. Peter under the name of Clement VI. The archbishop, in full consistory, pronounced a discourse upon the crusade, and declared, in the presence of divine majesty, to the holy father, to the church of Rome and all Christendom, that Philip of Valois would set out for the East in the month of August, in the year 1336. The pope felicitated the French monarch upon his resolution, and granted him the tenths during six years. These circumstances are related by Philip Villani, who was at Avignon at the time, and who, after having spoken in his history of the promise made in the Dame of the king of France, exclaims:—“And I, the historian, I heard the oath pronounced which I have just related.”
Philip gave orders that a fleet, assembled in the port of Marseilles, should be made ready to receive forty thousand Crusaders. Edward III., to whom the crusade offered an easy means of imposing taxes, promised to accompany the king of France with an army in the pilgrimage beyond the seas. Most of the republics of Italy, with the kings of Arragon, Majorca, and Hungary, engaged to supply money, troops, and vessels for the expedition. In the midst of their preparations, the Crusaders lost him who directed and was the soul of the enterprise. Everything was interrupted by the death of Pope John XXI., and in this place it becomes necessary to point out one of the causes which rendered abortive, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so many attempts to carry the war into the East. As the successors of St. Peter scarcely ever succeeded to the pontifical chair before they were of an advanced age, they were wanting in the energy and activity necessary for exciting the Christian world, directing distant wars, and kindling an enthusiasm, formerly so difficult to be restrained, now so difficult to be revived. Each crusade requiring long preparations, the life of one sovereign pontiff scarcely sufficed for the completion of such great enterprises. It most frequently happened, that he who had preached a holy war could not behold the departure of the Crusaders; and that he who saw the Christian armies set out, never lived long enough to follow them through their expeditions, conduct them in their triumphs, or succour them in their reverses. Thus we never find in the projects which circumstances had formed, that spirit of sequence and wholeness necessary to secure execution and success. Add to this, that since the popes had been established at Avignon, and their apostolic seat was no longer in the centre of Christendom, they did not exercise the same ascendancy over the distant provinces, and their authority every day lost something of that influence attached to the name only of Rome, considered, during so many centuries, the capital of the world.
The news of a fresh crusade having reached the East, the Christians who dwelt in Syria or Egypt, with pilgrims and European merchants, were exposed to all sorts of persecutions. The sultan of Cairo and several Mussulman princes assembled armies for the purpose of resisting the Crusaders, or to go and attack the Christians in the West. A descendant of the Abassides, who resided in Egypt, and assumed the title of caliph, sent letters and messages in every direction to engage all true believers to take up arms; promising the martyrs of the Mussulman faith that they should be present at delicious banquets, and that each of them should have seven virgins for wives.
The aim of this crusade, preached in the name of the prophet of Mecca, was to penetrate into Europe by the way of Gibraltar; the Mussulman warriors swore to annihilate Christianity, and to convert all the Christian temples into stables. In proportion as the Saracens were thus becoming inflamed for an expedition, which they also called a holy war, Europe beheld the zeal of the princes and warriors who had sworn to combat the enemies of Christ, grow fainter and fainter, and at length die away. When Benedict XI. succeeded John XXI., he found the minds of all changed; hatreds, mistrusts and jealousies had taken place of a transitory and insincere enthusiasm; it was in vain that Christians from the East described the persecutions they had undergone and the preparations of the infidels against the nations of the West; it was in vain that the pope continued his exhortations and his prayers; the greater that the reason was for undertaking a crusade, the more indifferent people became, and the more all ranks seemed to shun the idea of contending with the Saracens. It was at this period that Brother Andrew of Antioch came to Avignon with the design of imploring the aid of the pope and the princes of Christendom. Philip of Valois had come to the court of the sovereign pontiff, to inform him that he should defer his voyage into the East, and had mounted his horse to return to Paris, when Brother Andrew presented himself before him, and said: “Art thou Philip king of France, who promised God and his Church to deliver the Holy Land?” The king answered, “Yes.” Then the monk resumed: “If thy intention is to perform that which thou hast promised, I implore Jesus Christ to direct thy steps, and grant thee the victory; but if the enterprise thou hast commenced is only to turn to the shame and misfortunes of Christians, if thou art not, with the help of God, determined to finish it, if thou hast deceived the holy Catholic Church, divine justice will fall heavily on thy family and on thy kingdom, and the blood which the news of thy expedition has caused to flow will rise up against thee.” The king surprised at this strange appeal, answered: “Brother Andrew, come with us:” and Brother Andrew replied without being moved, and in an inspired tone: “If thou wast going into the East, I would go before thee, but as thou art going to the West, go on; I will return to perform penance for my sins in the land thou hast abandoned.”
Such was even then the authority of the orators who spoke in the name of Jerusalem, that the last words of Brother Andrew left trouble and uneasiness in the mind of a powerful monarch; but fresh political storms had recently broken out. Edward III. had laid claim to the throne of the Capets, and his ambition was the signal for a war which lasted more than a century, and brought the greatest calamities upon France. Philip, attacked by a formidable enemy, was obliged to renounce his expedition beyond the seas, and employ, for the defence of his own kingdom, the troops and fleets that he had collected for the deliverance of the heritage of Christ.
The pope did not, however, abandon the project of the holy war. The poet Petrarch, who was then at Avignon, proved one of the most ardent apostles of the crusade. This illustrious poet, whom we are now accustomed to consider only as the ingenious singer of the praises of the fair Laura, and who was then deemed the most worthy interpreter of the wisdom of the ancients, and one of the great spirits of his age, addressed an eloquent letter to the Doge of Venice, to induce him to enter into a war against the Mussulmans. Some of the states of Italy united their forces to make an expedition into the East. A chronicle of the counts of Ason relates that a great number of Crusaders, clothed in white, with a red cross, marched out of Milan; and that a fleet, equipped by the sovereign pontiff, passed through the Archipelago, and surprised the city of Smyrna, in which the Crusaders were themselves quickly besieged by the Turks. The pope’s legate and several knights perished in a sortie, which circumstance determined the sovereign pontiff to employ new efforts to revive a zeal for the crusade. It was at this period that the dauphin of Viennois, Humbert II., resolved to take the cross, and came to Avignon, to supplicate the pope to allow him to be the captain of the holy voyage against the Turks, and against the faithless vassals of the church of Rome. Humbert easily obtained all he asked, and returned to his states to make preparations for his expedition. He alienated his domains, he sold privileges to the nobility, and immunities to his cities; he levied considerable sums upon the Jews, and upon the Italian merchants established in the Viennois; he exacted a tribute from all his subjects who would not accompany him to the crusade, and having embarked, with a hundred men-at-arms, he went to seek in Asia either the fortune of a conqueror or the glory of a martyr. He found neither the one nor the other, and returned to Europe without renown and burdened with debts. History represents Humbert as a weak, inconstant and irresolute prince. He ruined himself, in the first place, by his dissipation, then by the expenses of the crusade; weary of the world and its affairs, he finished by abandoning to the crown of France his principality, which he had pledged to Philip of Valois, and retired to a monastery of Dominican Friars. In order to console him for not having conquered Egypt or any other country, the pope bestowed upon him the title of patriarch of Alexandria; and the king of France, to make him forget Dauphiny, named him archbishop of Rheims.
Such were the events and the consequences of the crusade occasioned in Europe by the arrival of Hugh of Lusignan, king of Cyprus. Some years having glided away, this prince came again to solicit the aid of the sovereign pontiff; at this period most of the sovereigns were in a state of war, and the pope not being able to do anything for the king of Cyprus, conceived the singular idea of naming him tribune of Rome. Hugh of Lusignan accepted this function, and died in Italy, without having been able to send any succour to the East.
War was not then the only scourge that ravaged the world; the horrors of the plague were added to the destruction of arms; this contagion which was called the black plague, and which took its rise upon the great level plain of Tartary, extended its devastations over all the countries of the East and West, and in a few years carried off more than thirteen millions of men. Historians have remarked that this scourge in its funeral march followed the footsteps of the merchants who brought into Europe the productions of India, and of the pilgrims who returned from Palestine.