It recognized no title to property except in those who professed the faith of Christ, and the power to commit injustice with practical impunity tended still further to demoralize the people.
It gave full play to the passions of men in random wars and petty forays, while it did nothing to keep up or to promote either military science or the discipline without which that science becomes useless.
It was marked by an almost total lack of statesmanship. In a country so circumstanced a wise ruler would strain every nerve to conciliate the conquered people, to strengthen himself by alliances which should be firmly maintained and by treaties which should be scrupulously kept, to weaken such states as he might fail to win over to his friendship by anticipating combinations which might bring with them fatal dangers for his power. That the history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem presents a mournful and even ludicrous contrast to this picture it must surely be unnecessary to say. In the case of Egypt alone did the Latin kings show some sense of the course which prudence called upon them to take; and even here this course was followed with miserable indecision, and at last disgracefully abandoned through mere lust of gold.
It had to deal with an immorality not of its own creating, but which in mere regard to its own safety it should have striven to keep well in check. No such efforts were made, and the words of William of Tyre—even if taken with a qualification—when he speaks of the Latin women, point to a state of things which must involve grave and imminent peril.
It was the misfortune of this kingdom that it was called into being by troops of adventurers banded together—it cannot be said confederated—for a religious rather than a political purpose; in other words, for personal rather than for public ends. It started therefore without any principle of cohesion. The warriors who engaged in the enterprise might abandon it when they thought that they had fulfilled the conditions of their vow, and although the continuance of their efforts was indispensably needed for the military and political success of the undertaking.
The private and personal character of these enterprises led to the perpetuation and multiplication of private and personal interests, and thus to the endless divisions and feuds between the barons of the kingdom, which were a constant scandal and menace and which led frequently to deliberate treachery. It encouraged, or permitted, or was compelled to tolerate the growth of societies which arrogated to themselves an independent jurisdiction, and thus rendered impossible a central authority of sufficient coercive power. The origin of the military orders may have been in the highest degree edifying. The Knights Templars might begin as the humble guardians of the holy places: the Knights Hospitalers may have been the poor brothers of St. John bound to the service of the sick and helpless among the pilgrims of the cross. But in the land where they might at any time encounter a merciless or at the least a detested enemy, they were justified in bearing arms; the necessity of bearing arms involved the need of discipline; and the discipline of an enthusiastic fraternity cut off from the world and centred upon itself cannot fail to become formidable.
The natural strength of these orders was increased by immunities and privileges granted partly by the Latin kings of Jerusalem, but in greater part by the popes. The Hospitalers, as bestowing their goods to feed the poor and to entertain pilgrims, were freed from the obligation of paying tithe, or of giving heed to interdicts even if these were laid upon the whole country, while it was expressly asserted that no patriarch or prelate should dare to pass any sentence of excommunication against them. In other words, a society was called into existence directly antagonistic to the clergy, and an irreconcilable conflict of claims was the inevitable consequence. Nor can we be surprised to find the clergy complaining that the knights, not content with the immunities secured to themselves, gave shelter to persons who, not belonging to their order but lying under sentence of excommunication, sought to place themselves under their protection.
But if the Knights of the Hospital had thus their feuds with the clergy, they had feuds still more bitter with the rival order of the Templars. With different interests and different aims, the one sought to promote enterprises against which the other protested, or stickled about points of precedence when common decency called for harmonious action, or withheld its aid when that aid was indispensable for the very safety of the State. Thus we have the triple discord of the King and his barons struggling against the claims of the clergy, and the military orders in conflict with the barons and the clergy alike. Of a state so circumstanced the words are emphatically true that a house divided against itself shall not stand.