The Arabian rulers had for their own interest protected the Christian pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre. But even under the rule of the Fatimide dynasty, early in the 10th century, the oppression of pilgrims began. Khalif Hakim, in order that he might blot out the disgrace of being born of a Christian mother, committed ruthless cruelties upon resident Christians as well as upon the pilgrims, and prohibited under severe penalties all meetings for Christian worship. Under the barbarous Seljuk dynasty, which held sway in Palestine from about A.D. 1070, the oppression reached its height. The West became all the more concerned about this, since during the 10th century the idea that the end of the world was approaching had given a new impulse to pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Pope Sylvester II. had in A.D. 999 ex persona devastatæ Hierosolymæ summoned Christendom to help in this emergency. Gregory VII. seized anew upon the idea of wresting the Holy Land from the infidels. He had even resolved himself to lead a Christian army, but the outbreak of contentions with Henry IV. hindered the execution of this plan. Meanwhile complaints by returning pilgrims of intolerable ill-usage increased. An urgent appeal from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus gave the spark that lit the combustible material that had been gathered throughout the West. The imperial ambassadors accompanied Pope Urban II. to the Council of Clermont in A.D. 1095, where the pope himself, in a spirited speech, called for a holy war under the standard of the cross. The shout was raised as from one mouth, “It is God’s will.” On that very day thousands enlisted, with Adhemar, bishop of Puy, papal legate, at their head, and had the red cross marked on their right shoulders. The bishops returning home preached the crusade as they went, and in a few weeks a glowing enthusiasm had spread throughout France down to the provinces of the Rhine. Then began a movement which, soon extending over all the West, like a second migration of nations, lasted for two centuries. The crusades cost Europe between five and six millions of men, and yet in the end that which had been striven after was not attained. Its consequences, however, to Europe itself were all the more important. In all departments of life, ecclesiastical and political, moral and intellectual, civil and industrial, new views, needs, developments, and tendencies were introduced. Mediæval culture now reached the highest point of its attainment, and its failure to transcend the past opened the way for the conditions of modern society. And while on the other hand they afforded new and extravagantly abundant nourishment for clerical and popular superstition, in all directions, but specially in giving opportunity to roguish traffic in relics (§ [104, 8]; [115, 9]), on the other hand they had no small share in producing religious indifference and frivolous free-thinking (§ [96, 19]), as well as the terribly dangerous growth of mediæval sects, which threatened the overthrow of church and State, religion and morality (§ [108, 1], [4]; [116, 5]). The former was chiefly the result of the sad conclusion of an undertaking of unexampled magnitude, entered upon with the most glowing enthusiasm for Christianity and the church; the latter was in great measure occasioned by intercourse with sectaries of a like kind in the East (§ [71]).
§ 94.1. The First Crusade, A.D. 1096.—In the spring of A.D. 1096 vast crowds of people gathered together, impatient of the delays of the princes, and put themselves under the leadership of Walter the Penniless. They were soon followed by Peter of Amiens with 40,000 men. A legend, unworthy of belief, credits him with the origin of the whole movement. According to this story, the hermit returning from a pilgrimage described to the holy father in vivid colours the sufferings of their Christian brethren, and related how that Christ Himself had appeared to him in a dream, giving him the command for the pope to summon all Christendom to rescue the Holy Sepulchre. The legend proceeds to say that, by order of the pope, Peter the Hermit then went through all Italy and France, arousing the enthusiasm of the people. The hordes led by him, however, after committing deeds of horrid violence on every side, while no farther than Bulgaria, were reduced to about one half, and the remnant, after Peter had already left them because of their insubordination, was annihilated by the Turks at Nicæa. Successive new crusades, the last of them an undisciplined mob of 200,000 men, were cut down in Hungary or on the Hungarian frontier. In August a regular crusading army, 80,000 strong, under the leadership of Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, passing through Germany and Hungary, reached Constantinople. There several French and Norman princes joined the army, till its strength was increased to 600,000. After considerable squabbling with the Byzantine government, they passed over into Asia. With great labour and heavy loss Nicæa, Edessa, and Antioch were taken. At last, on 15th July, 1099, amid shouts of, It is God’s will, they stormed the walls of Jerusalem; lighted by torches and wading in blood, they entered with singing of psalms into the Church of the Resurrection. Godfrey was elected king. With pious humility he declined to wear a king’s crown where Christ had worn a crown of thorns. He died a year after, and his brother Baldwin was crowned at Bethlehem. By numerous impropriations crowds of greater and lesser vassals were gathered about the throne. In Jerusalem itself a Latin patriarchate was erected, and under it were placed four archbishoprics, with a corresponding number of bishoprics. The story of these proceedings enkindled new enthusiasm in the West. In A.D. 1101 three new crusades of 260,000 men were fitted out in Germany, under Welf, duke of Bavaria, and in Italy and in France. They marched against Bagdad, in order to strike terror into the hearts of Moslems by the terrible onslaught; the undisciplined horde, however, did not reach its destination, but found a grave in Asia Minor.
§ 94.2. The Second Crusade, A.D. 1147.—The fall of Edessa in A.D. 1146, as the frontier fortress of the kingdom, summoned the West to a new effort. Pope Eugenius III. called the nations to arms. Bernard of Clairvaux, the prophet of the age, preached the crusade, and prophesied victory. Louis VII. of France took the sign of the cross, in order to atone for the crime of having burnt a church filled with men; and Conrad III. of Germany, moved by the preaching of Bernard, with some hesitation followed his example. But their stately army fell before the sword of the Saracens, the malice of the Greeks, and internal disorders caused by famine, disease, and hardships. Damascus remained unconquered, and the princes returned humbled with the miserable remnant of their army.
§ 94.3. The Third Crusade, A.D. 1189.—The kingdom of Jerusalem before a century had past was in utter decay. Greeks or Syrians and Latins had a deadly hatred for one another: the vassals intrigued against each other and against the crown.Licentiousness, luxury, and recklessness prevailed among the people; the clergy and the nobles of the kingdom, but especially the so called Pulleni,[268] descendants of the crusaders born in the Holy Land itself, were a miserable, cowardly and treacherous race. The pretenders to the crown also continued their intrigues and cabals. Such being the corrupt condition of affairs, it was an easy thing for the Sultan Saladin, the Moslem knight “without fear and without reproach,” who had overthrown the Fatimide dynasty in Egypt, to bring down upon the Christian rule in Syria, after the bloody battle of Tiberias, the same fate. Jerusalem fell into his hands in October, A.D. 1187. When this terrible piece of news reached the West, the Christian powers were summoned by Gregory VIII. to combine their forces in order to make one more vigorous effort, Philip Augustus of France and Henry II. of England forgot for a moment their mutual jealousies, and took the cross from the hands of Archbishop William of Tyre, the historian of the crusade. Next the Emperor Frederick I. joined them, with all the heroic valour of youth, though in years and experience an old man. He entered on the undertaking with an energy, considerateness, and circumspection which seemed to deserve glorious success. After piloting his way through Byzantine intrigues and the indescribable fatigues of a waterless desert, he led his soldiers against the well-equipped army of the sultan at Iconium, which he utterly routed, and took the city. But in A.D. 1190 the heroic warrior was drowned in an attempt to ford the river Calycadnus. A great part of his army was now scattered, and the remnant was led by his son Frederick of Swabia against Ptolemais. At that point soon after landed Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion of England, who after his father’s death put himself at the head of an English crusading army and had conquered Cyprus on the way. Ptolemais (Acre) was taken in A.D. 1191. But the jealousies of the princes interfered with their success.Frederick had already fallen, and Philip Augustus under pretence of sickness returned to France; Richard gained a brilliant victory over Saladin, took Joppa and Ascalon, and was on the eve of marching against Jerusalem when news reached him that his brother John had assumed the throne of England, and that Philip Augustus also was entertaining schemes of conquest. Once again Richard won a great victory before Joppa, and Saladin, admiring his unexampled bravery, concluded with him now, in A.D. 1192, a three years’ truce, giving most favourable terms to the pilgrims. The strip along the coast from Joppa to Acre continued under the rule of Richard’s nephew, Henry of Champagne. But Richard was seized on his return journey and cast into prison by Leopold of Austria, whose standard he had grossly insulted before Ptolemais, and for two years he remained a prisoner.After his release he was prevented from thinking of a renewal of the crusade by a war with France, in which he met his death in A.D. 1199.[269]
§ 94.4. The Fourth Crusade, A.D. 1217.—Innocent III. summoned Christendom anew to a holy war. The kings, engaged in their own affairs, gave no heed to the call. But the violent penitential preacher, Fulco of Neuilly, prevailed upon the French nobles to collect a considerable crusading army, which, however, instead of proceeding against the Saracens, was used by the Venetian Doge, Dandolo, in payment of transport, for conquering Zaras in Dalmatia, and then by a Byzantine prince for a campaign against Constantinople, where Baldwin of Flanders founded a Latin Empire, A.D. 1204-1261. The pope put the doge and the crusaders under excommunication on account of the taking of Zaras, and the campaign against Constantinople was most decidedly disapproved. Their unexpected success, however, turned away his anger. He boasted that at last Israel, after destroying the golden calves at Dan and Bethel, was again united to Judah, and in Rome bestowed the pallium upon the first Latin patriarch of Constantinople.—The Children’s Crusade, which in A.D. 1212 snatched from their parents in France and Germany 30,000 boys and girls, had a most tragic end. Many died before passing from Europe of famine and fatigue; the rest fell into the hands of unprincipled men, who sold them as slaves in Egypt.—King Andrew II. of Hungary, urged by Honorius III., led a new crusading army to the Holy Land in A.D. 1217, and won some successes; but finding himself betrayed and deserted by the Palestinian barons, he returned home in the following year. But the Germans under Leopold VII. of Austria, who had accompanied him remained, and, supported by a Cologne and Dutch fleet, undertook in A.D. 1218, along with the titular king John of Jerusalem, a crusade against Egypt. Damietta was taken, but the overflow of the Nile reservoirs placed them in such peril that they owed their escape in A.D. 1221 only to the generosity of the Sultan Camel.
§ 94.5. The Fifth Crusade, A.D. 1228.—The Emperor Frederick II. had promised to undertake a crusade, but continued to make so many excuses for delay that Gregory IX. (§ [96, 19]) at last thundered against him the long threatened excommunication. Frederick now brought out a comparatively small crusading force. The Sultan Camel of Egypt, engaged in war with his nephew, and fearing that Frederick might attach himself to the enemy, freely granted him a large tract of the Holy Land. At the Holy Sepulchre Frederick placed the crown of Jerusalem, the inheritance of his new wife Iolanthe, with his own hands on his head, since no bishop would perform the coronation nor even a priest read the mass service for the excommunicated king. He then returned home in A.D. 1229 to arrange his differences with the pope. The crusading armies which Theobald, king of Navarre, in A.D. 1239, and Richard Earl of Cornwall, in A.D. 1240, led against Palestine, owing to disunion among themselves and quarrels among the Syrian Christians, could accomplish nothing.
§ 94.6. The Sixth, A.D. 1248, and Seventh, A.D. 1270, Crusades.—The zeal for crusading had by this time considerably cooled. St. Louis of France, however, the ninth of that name, had during a serious illness in A.D. 1244, taken the cross. At this time Jerusalem had been conquered and subjected to the most dreadful horrors at the hands of the Chowaresmians, driven from their home by the Mongols, and now in the pay of Egyptian sultan Ayoub. Down to A.D. 1247 the rule of the Christians in the Holy Land was again restricted to Acre and some coast towns. Louis could no longer think of delay. He started in A.D. 1248 with a considerable force, wintered in Cyprus, and landed in Egypt in A.D. 1249. He soon conquered Damietta, but, after his army had been in great part destroyed by famine, disease and slaughter, was taken prisoner at Cairo by the sultan. After the murder of the sultan by the Mamelukes, who overthrew Saladin’s dynasty, he fell into their hands. The king was obliged to deliver over Damietta and to purchase his own release by payment of 800,000 byzantines. He sailed with the remnant of his army to Acre in A.D. 1250, whence his mother’s death called him home in A.D. 1254. But as his vow had not yet been fully paid, he sailed in A.D. 1270 with a new crusading force to Tunis in order to carry on operations from that centre. But the half of his army was cut off by a pestilence, and he himself was carried away in that same year. All subsequent endeavours of the popes to reawaken an interest in the crusades were unavailing. Acre or Ptolemais, the last stronghold of the Christians in the Holy Land, fell in A.D. 1291.
§ 95. Islam and the Jews in Europe.
The Saracens (§ [81, 2]) were overthrown in the 11th century by the Normans. The reign of Islam in Spain too (§ [81, 1]) came to an end. The frequent change of dynasties, as well as the splitting up of the empire into small principalities, weakened the power of the Moors; the growth of luxurious habits in the rich and fertile districts robbed them of martial energy and prowess. The Christian power also was indeed considerably split up and disturbed by many internal feuds, but the national and religious enthusiasm with which it was every day being more and more inspired, made it invincible. Rodrigo Diaz, the Castilian hero, called by the Moors the Cid, i.e. Lord, by the Christians Campeador, i.e. champion, who died in A.D. 1099, was the most perfect representative of Spanish Christian knighthood, although he dealt with the infidels in a manner neither Christian nor knightly. Also the Almoravides of Morocco, whose aid was called in in A.D. 1086, and the Almohades, who had driven out these from Barbary in A.D. 1146, were not able to stop the progress of the Christian arms. On the other hand, neither the unceasing persecutions of the civil power, nor innumerable atrocities committed on Jews by infuriated mobs, nor even Christian theologians’ zeal for the instruction and conversion of the Israelites, succeeded in destroying Judaism in Europe.
§ 95.1. Islam in Sicily.—The robber raids upon Italy perpetrated by the Sicilian Saracens were put an end to by the Normans who settled there in A.D. 1017. Robert Guiscard destroyed the remnant of Greek rule in southern Italy, conquered the small Longobard duchies there, and founded a Norman duchy of Apulia and Calabria in A.D. 1059. His brother Roger, who died in A.D. 1101, after a thirty years’ struggle drove the Saracens completely out of Sicily, and ruled over it as a vassal of his brother under the title of Count of Sicily. His son Roger II., who died in A.D. 1154, united the government of Sicily and of Apulia and Calabria, had himself crowned in A.D. 1130 king of Sicily and Italy, and finally in A.D. 1139 conquered also Naples. In consequence of the marriage of his daughter Constance with Henry VI. the whole kingdom passed over in A.D. 1194 to the Hohenstaufens, from whom it passed in A.D. 1266 to Charles of Anjou; and from him finally, in consequence of the Sicilian Vespers in A.D. 1282, the island of Sicily passed to Peter of Arragon, the son-in-law of Manfred, the last king of the Hohenstaufen line. The Normans and the Hohenstaufens granted to the subject Saracens for the most part full religious liberty, the Emperor Frederick recruiting from among them his bodyguard, and they supplied the bravest soldiers for the Italian Ghibelline war. For this purpose he was constantly drafting new detachments from the African coast, as Manfred also had done. The endeavours made by monks of the mendicant orders for the conversion of the Saracens proved quite fruitless. It was only under the Spanish rule that conversions were made by force, or persecution and annihilation followed persistent refusal.