FOOTNOTES
[50] Germany was not affected by the First Crusade in an equal degree with Lorraine, Flanders, France, and Italy. Saxo Grammaticus says that when the Germans saw the troops of men, women, and children, on horseback and on foot, passing through their country on their way to Greece, they laughed at them as mad for quitting their homes to run after imaginary good in the midst of certain dangers, renouncing their own property in search of that of other people. Ekkehard mentions the same circumstance, and adds that the cause of the want of enthusiasm in Germany was that the divisions between the emperor and the pope prevented the preaching of the Crusade in that country. Signs, however, in the heavens, and other wonderful things, made many Germans take the cross and join the armies in the course of their march.
[51] The ladies of the twelfth century did not merely thread pearls, and amuse themselves with other employments equally delicate and elegant. The sword, and not merely the tongue, decided their disputes. Of this practice Ordericus Vitalis, p. 687, has given a remarkable instance. The love of “brave gestes” was the passion of the ladies as well as of the knights of chivalry.
[52] [Gibbon says “The emperor of Constantinople either gave or promised a fleet to act with the armies of Syria, and the perfidious Christian [Almeric] unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy aspired to the conquest of Egypt.”]
[53] After the death of Shirkuh, several emirs of the Syrian army came forward to fill his place: but the caliph chose Saladin and conferred on him the dignity of vizir, with the title of malik nassir or general protector. According to the atabeg historian, “what induced the caliph to choose Saladin in preference to the others, was both his youth and his weakness. He imagined that by choosing Saladin, a man without an army and without strength, he could keep him dependent on him and could do with him whatever he wished. He also hoped to win over one part of the Syrian army and to drive away the other, which would restore his power to him and at the same time put him in a position to resist Nur ad-Din and the Franks.”
Ibn al-Atir makes the caliph’s advisers speak in the following manner on this occasion: “Among all the emirs of the Syrian army, there is not one weaker or younger than Joseph. He is the one to choose. As for him, he will do what we please; we will place in the army men devoted to our cause; we will put ourselves in a state of defence, and then we will decide whether to seize Joseph or to banish him to Egypt.”
But according to the remark of the atabeg historian, “God had decided differently,” and the caliph was to meet his ruin where he had founded his hopes. Besides, continues the same author, Saladin at first resisted. Frightened at the high rank to which they wished to raise him, it was necessary to persuade him by all possible means, like those beings of whom it is said that “they must be dragged with chains to be made to enter paradise.” At last he decided to go to the palace, and the caliph clothed him in the dress, cap, and other signs of the dignity of vizir.[e]
[54] [“Such,” says Gibbon, “were the guardians of the Holy City; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor; yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe, by the valour of the military orders, and by the distant or domestic avocations of their great enemy.”]
[55] It was impossible that any respect could be entertained for people like the Latins, who were not only cruel invaders and sanguinary persecutors, but common robbers. At one time Baldwin III gave the Moslems liberty of pasturage round Paneas. As soon as the ground was covered with flocks of sheep, the Christian soldiers broke into the country, carried away the animals, and murdered their keepers. The principle of not keeping faith with infidels seems consequent on a dogma in the Decretals: “Juramentum contra utilitatem ecclesiasticam præstitum non tenet.” Tancred and St. Louis were almost the only two eminent crusaders who distinguished themselves for preferring honesty and truth to utility and convenience.