The age of the crusades

by James M. Ludlow

Consigning the administration of England to Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and an unsavory Frenchman, Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, he left England, accompanied by a turbulent crowd of adventurers. He made his rendezvous with the French king at Vezelay (June, 1190). Here the monarchs swore fraternity and to sacredly respect each other’s domains during the crusade. They invoked upon themselves the curses of Heaven and the church if they should prove unfaithful. The joint armies numbered a hundred thousand men. Warned by the reverses experienced by their predecessors in crusading overland, they chose the sea route to Palestine.

Philip sailed from Genoa for Sicily. He entered the port of Messina, September 16, 1190. Richard sailed from Marseilles, hugging the Italian coast, according to the sea travel of the day, visiting port towns en route, and paying worship at the shrines of the various local saints. He reached Messina a few days later than Philip (September 23d).

The main English fleet, leaving England and Normandy, had gone southward along the coast of France and Spain. The lands they passed in sight of were strange to the navigators, so little was known of the geography of even the countries of Europe. At Lisbon they could not resist the temptation to help the Portuguese Christians in a war with the Saracens, nor of indulging a less laudable sort of prowess, which Hovenden describes: “Disembarking from their ships, they made their way into the city, and as they went through streets and lanes talked to the people, giving themselves airs and committing violence upon the wives and daughters of the citizens; they drove away pagans and Jews, plundered their property, and burned their houses. They then stripped their vineyards, leaving them not so much as a grape.” This faithful chronicler also narrates that during a storm at sea St. Thomas à Becket appeared to them and calmed the waves. “They passed the city of Silva(?), which was the most remote of all the cities of Christendom.” At Marseilles they missed King Richard, who already had departed; but they were compensated for their disappointment in being enabled to worship the identical “rods with which our Lord was scourged, the jaw-bone of Lazarus, and one of the ribs of Lawrence.” Approaching Sicily, they saw the marvellous fish of St. Agatha, the story of which they believed: how that the heat of the volcano of Mount Gebel (Stromboli?) once threatened the town of Catana; but the people took the veil of St. Agatha from her tomb, “carried it before them, facing the fire, on which the flames returned to the sea and, parching it, dried it up for nearly a mile, and scorched the fish, many of which were half burned; and there are to this day many fish there of the same kind.” But the marvels of that voyage are too many for our pages, if not for the credulity of the reader.

Richard himself remained six months in Marseilles, a delay that nearly caused the destruction of his enterprise. A quarrel was started with Tancred, ruler of Sicily, about certain rights of Richard’s sister Joanna, who was the widow of Tancred’s predecessor. Says the chronicler: “Quicker than priest could chant matins did King Richard take the city.” Philip resented Richard’s audacity and forced him to take down his standard. Richard had once solicited and gained from Philip the hand of the French princess Alice; but, his advantage now blowing from another direction, he preferred Berengaria, a princess of Navarre. Berengaria, through the connivance of Eleanor, was brought to Messina. Only at the entreaty of utmost piety and discretion could Philip be persuaded to lay aside his rage at this new insult. He sailed at once for the East.

Richard followed eleven days later (April, 1191), taking with him Berengaria and Joanna, ex-Queen of Sicily. Three ships of the English fleet were wrecked on Cyprus, and their crews imprisoned by the inhabitants. Isaac, the king of the island, refused to redress the wrong. Richard administered swift punishment. Within three weeks he conquered the entire country, and, binding its ruler in a chain of silver, took him along on an involuntary pilgrimage to Palestine. Richard had celebrated his prowess at Cyprus by his nuptials with Berengaria. The new queen took with her as companion the daughter of Isaac, whose constant presence is said to have disturbed the already uncertain marital habits of her husband.

The French welcomed the arrival of their English allies with great bonfires, which were designed to proclaim the joy of the Christians and to flash dismay to the Moslem camps. The plain of Acre was soon filled with the tents of a host which represented the strength of combined Europe. Peoples strange to one another in speech, manners, and arms were one only in their cause. It is not to be wondered at if, at times, these races more sharply accentuated their differences than their unity. The contention between Guy and Conrad for the kingship of Jerusalem, which was referred to Philip and Richard for settlement, only gave opportunity for renewed hostility between these monarchs, Philip declaring for Conrad, and Richard for Guy. The matter was finally settled by agreement that Guy should reign and that Conrad should be his successor.

The jealousy of French and English prevented mutual help in the battles daily occurring, wherefore it was agreed that but one army should fight at a time against the walls of Acre, while the other should guard against a rear attack by Saladin. Thus the honors were easy, as the tasks assigned were equally hazardous. The courtesies of the camp were more readily extended to their enemy than to one another. Saladin, during the sickness of both sovereigns, sent to them his own physicians, and such luxuries as the East provided. While they received these from their foe without suspicion, Philip and Richard each attributed his sickness to the poisoning of the other, and each accused his Christian associate with using Saladin’s favors with a view to treasonable alliance.

Often tournaments were arranged between Moslem and Christian in the sight of both armies. Knight and emir entered the lists, abusing each other with their tongues like twin Thersiteses, then fighting with the valor of Hector and Achilles. Women did not disdain rivalry for the palm in swordcraft, and bands of children from either side fought to the death in the presence of their parents. The Infidel played for the dance of the Christian, and the minstrel of Europe gave the rhythm to the feet of the Saracen. The table of Saladin was sometimes graced by the presence of the foremost European knights, and in turn emirs feasted at the board of those whom they most dreaded to meet on the field. Saladin so respected the courtesy and devotion of the true Christian knight that he willingly wore the decoration of Chivalry, while Richard rode into battle one of the two splendid steeds which were the gift of the sultan’s brother. The lowest vices of the East and the West became the open indulgence of the camps of both. But each party maintained the utmost outward reverence to the symbols of his own religion; Saladin pausing in the midst of battle to read a chapter of the Koran, and the King of Jerusalem advancing to fight with the Gospels borne aloft before him.

The besieged in Acre were reduced to extremities, the Christians completely investing the city on the land side in spite of the forays of Saladin from the hills, and their fleets cutting off all succor from the sea. At length, after two years of incessant fighting, during which nine great battles were fought, the standard of the cross was seen floating from the ramparts of the city (July 12, 1191). The besieged had capitulated upon condition that their lives should be spared, and that Saladin should pay their ransom in two hundred pieces of gold. In the original proposal it was agreed to surrender the wood of the True Cross, the possession of which by the Infidels was imagined to be the cause of all sorts of disasters to the Christian world; among the least of which, if we are to believe a chronicler of the time, was that all children born in Christendom since the capture of the cross at Hattîn had but twenty-two instead of thirty-two teeth. Richard was not religious enough to insist upon the restoration of this precious symbol.

Saladin, after the city had fallen, delayed in fulfilling the condition that the defenders of Acre had put upon him relative to their ransom money. Richard avenged this assumed breach of faith by massacring five thousand unarmed Moslems before the city wall. Philip, in disgust at this action, turned over his army to the Duke of Burgundy and returned to France.