The start from Genoa for the new Tunisian expedition was splendid to see; so the starts usually were: “Great pleasure it was,” says Froissart, “to beholde their departynge, and to se their standardes, getornes (banners) and penons, wavynge in the wynde, shynynge against the sonne, and to here the trompettes and claryons sowning in the ayre with other mynstrelsy,” so that the whole sea rang with the music.[567]
The Saracens were dumbfounded at this visit: what had they done, and what could be the object? That the Genoese had grudges against them was natural enough; but what ailed the others? Ready for the stoutest defence of their walled Mahdia, they were, however, curious to ascertain the reason, and they sent one of their number, who spoke Italian, to explain “howe we have in nothynge trespassed them; of a trouthe, afore this tyme, there hath been warre bytwene us and the Genovoys,” but that does not concern Christians from “farre countreys.” The Genoese “are our neighbours, they take of us and we of them; we have been auncyente enemyes and shall be, excepte whan treuce is betwene us.” But why are the others interfering?
The leaders of the army agreed that a reply should be sent; they held council, twelve of them, “in the duke of Burbons tent,” and gave an answer to the effect that the reason why they made this war “was bycause the Sonne of God, called Jesu Chryst . . . by their lyne and generacyon, was put to deth and crucyfyed,” and also because the Saracens did not believe in baptism, nor “in the Virgyn Mary, Mother to Jhesu Cryst. . . .”
“At this aunswere the Sarazyns dyd nothinge but laugh and sayd howe that aunswere was nothynge {400} reasonable, for it was the Jewes that put Chryst to dethe and not they. Thus the siege still endured.”[568]
The usual ally of the infidel did not fail him: sickness, fevers, and epidemics worked havoc among the besiegers, who had, of all months, selected July for their attempt. They tried to storm the city, but were repulsed with great loss, and after some eight weeks of fruitless labour, brilliant combats, and many deaths, accepted a patched-up treaty granting the Genoese some slight advantage; raised the siege, and returned home, with probably less “trompettes and claryons sowning in the ayre” than when they had started.
The acceptance of a discussion with the infidel during this abortive crusade was characteristic of the time. More prone than before to examine inherited beliefs, a good many men were found in the fourteenth century to question the very principle of the crusade. We crush the infidel, why not convert him? Is it not wiser, more reasonable, and even more conformable to the religion of Christ? Were the apostles whom He sent to us Gentiles covered with armour and provided with swords? Reflections like these occur in the works, not only of reforming minds like Wyclif or Langland,[569] but of pious well-meaning conservative thinkers like Gower, who says in his “Confessio Amantis”:
“To sleen and fighten they us bidde
Hem whom they shuld, as the boke saith,
Converten unto Cristes feith.
But herof have I great merveile