One opinion and one feeling influenced every breast; and, by universal consent, a tax similar everywhere in name and in nature was imposed on those who would not be crossed. This imposition was called the Saladin tithe; it was to last for one year; and it extended both to movable and unmovable property. Persons who actually assumed the cross were not only exempted, but were even allowed to take the fiscal part of their tenants’ property. If the collectors of the tithe were dissatisfied with what a man offered to pay, they were authorised to appoint four or six men of his parish to make an assessment. The crusaders, too, might mortgage their land for three years, and the mortgagee should receive the rents even to the prejudice of former creditors. The English council forbade the pilgrims from sensual pleasures,[57] from all manner of gaming, and from the luxury of dressing in ermine and sables. Henry wrote to the king of Hungary and the emperor of Constantinople requesting a safe passage for his troops. The request was granted.
Though ships continually sailed from England and France, bearing martial pilgrims to the Holy Land, the ambition and restlessness of Philip Augustus, and of Prince Richard, diverted the government and the great body of the people from the salvation of Palestine. The ignominious peace which England was compelled to make with France, and his mental agony at the rebellion and ingratitude of his sons, brought on the death of the English monarch (July, 1189). The love of military honour inflamed the French king, and the bold, ardent, and valiant Richard Cœur de Lion had more of the warlike spirit than of the religious feelings of the age. None of the principles which originally caused the Crusades influenced the actions of either.
So eager was Richard to equip a large military force, that he sold the crown lands, and offices of trust and dignity were no longer to be acquired by desert or favour. The king of Scotland obtained for ten thousand marks Richard’s renunciation of the fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick, and of the claims of England on the allegiance of Scotland. Richard crossed the channel in December, and soon after Christmas met his brother sovereign. The monarchs renewed their protestations of perpetual friendship, and swore that in case of necessity they would defend each others’ territories with all the warmth of self-interest. If either of the princes should die during the Crusade, the survivor was to use his men and money for the accomplishment of the great design. The period of departure was deferred from Easter to the ensuing midsummer. During his stay in Normandy, Richard made some singular laws for regulating the conduct of the pilgrims in their passage by sea. Murder was to be punished by casting into the water the deceased person, with the murderer tied to him. He that drew his sword in anger should lose his hand. If a man gave another a blow, he was to be thrice immersed; an ounce of silver was the penalty for using opprobrious language. A thief was to have boiling pitch and feathers put upon his head, and was to be set on shore at the first opportunity.
Philip Augustus received the staff and scrip at St. Denis, and Richard at Tours (June, 1190). They joined their forces at Vézelay; the number was computed at one hundred thousand soldiers, and the march to Lyons was conducted in union and with harmony. At that city the monarchs parted; the lord of France pursued the Genoese road; his noble compeer that of Marseilles, and Sicily was named as the rendezvous.
BARBAROSSA’S CRUSADE AND DEATH
A Crusader of the Third Crusade
The heroic Frederick Barbarossa was among the first of those whose grief rose into indignation after the fall of Jerusalem. In his letters to the sacrilegious Saladin, he demanded restitution of the city, and threatened him in the event of non-compliance to pour into Asia all the military force of the German states. But the triumphant infidel replied that he would oppose his Turkomans, his Bedouins, and Syrians to the German hordes. Tyre, Tripolis, and Antioch, he continued, were the only places which at that time belonged to the Christians, and if those cities were resigned to him, he would restore the true cross, and permit the people of the West to visit Jerusalem as pilgrims. Germany was indignant at this haughty reply; all the powers took up arms against the man who had defied them; but in prudent remembrance of the disorders and calamities which popular impatience had occasioned in the First and Second Crusades, an imperial edict was issued, that no one should go who could not furnish his own viaticum for a twelvemonth. The consecrated standards of the German princes were surrounded by innumerable hosts of crusaders, drawn out of every class of life, from honourable knighthood down to the meanest vassalage. Their emperor conducted them from Ratisbon, their rendezvous, through the friendly Hungarian states; but when he reached the territories of the great lord of the East, he had to encounter the hostility of a violent yet timid foe.
The emperor Isaac Angelus displayed both enmity and cowardice. He did not deny the Germans the liberty to purchase provisions, but in his communications with Frederick he carefully avoided giving him imperial titles; and the Greek governors were perplexed by one day receiving orders to preserve the fortifications of their towns, and at another time by commands for their destruction, lest they should become stations of the Germans. Barbarossa marched with prudence and humanity. In his indignation at the haughtiness and duplicity of Isaac, he generally spared the people, and passed the Hellespont without having deigned to enter the imperial city. He entered the territories of the Mussulmans in triumph, and not only defeated the Turks in a general engagement, but took Iconium. The sultan then repented of his perfidy, and with the independent emirs of Asia Minor, deprecated the further vengeance of the Germans. They continued their march with more honour and dignity than had ever accompanied the early crusaders, but they were deprived by death of their venerable hero. It was in the spring of the year that they passed the Isaurian mountains, from which issues the small river of the Calycadnus. In this stream Frederick bathed, but his aged frame could not sustain the shock.[58] His son, the duke of Swabia, was a brave and experienced general, yet the death of the emperor so much revived the courage of the Saracens, that the course of the Christians was continually harassed. Saladin had been compelled to withdraw most of his soldiers from Antioch, and the Germans had little difficulty in renewing a Christian government in that city.
In the autumn of 1190, the duke of Swabia arrived at Acre, and importance was given to the German force by the formation of a Teutonic order of knighthood. The Vatican confirmed the establishment; Pope Celestine III gave it the rule of St. Augustine for its general law, and accorded to it the privileges which distinguished the other military fraternities. The service of the poor and sick, and the defence of the holy places, were the great objects which the pope commanded them to regard; and their domestic economy was to be preserved by chastity and equal participation of property. They were divided into three classes, knights, priests, and serving brothers. All the members were to be Germans, and those of the first class could only be men of noble birth and extraction. The order of the Teutonic knights of the house of St. Mary in Jerusalem was their title, and their dress was a white mantle with a black cross, embroidered with gold.