The superstition of a French king, and the successes of the savage Khwarizmians, gave birth to the Eighth Crusade. Pope Innocent IV convoked a general council at Lyons; the Bishop of Berytus described the effects of the Tatarian storm, and left his ecclesiastical brethren to conclude, whether one effort should not be made for a restoration of things to the state in which Richard, earl of Cornwall, had left them. It was accordingly resolved that a crusade should be preached throughout Christendom, and that for four years peace and seriousness should reign over Europe. Such of the faithful as did not expose their persons in the holy cause were to give the subsidiary aid of treasure; and the contribution to be made by the cardinals was fixed at a tenth, and that of the other ecclesiastics at a twentieth part of their yearly revenues.
The pope wrote to Henry III, king of England, urging him to press on his subjects the necessity of punishing the Khwarizmians. But the spirit of crusading raged more strongly in France than in any other country of the West; and it revived in all its fierceness of piety and chivalry in Louis IX. Agreeably to the temper of the times, he had vowed, whilst afflicted by a severe illness, that in case of recovery he would travel to the Holy Land. In the delirium of his fever, he had beheld an engagement between the Christians and the Saracens; the infidels were victorious, and the brave king of a valiant nation fancied it his duty to avenge the defeat. The victories of the Khwarizmians were a realisation of part of his dream, and his preparations had anticipated the decrees of the Lyonese council. This vow was made about the year 1244, according to Nangis and Chronicle of St. Denis, cited in Du Cange’s notes. From the moment of his resolving to go to the Holy Land, St. Louis quitted all pomp of dress; he exchanged his purple for black, a royal for a religious habit. During the crusade he abstained from wearing scarlet, vair, or ermine. The example of the monarch gave efficacy to the laws regarding simplicity of dress, and the lord of Joinville assures us, that, during the whole time he was attending the king on his crusade, he never once saw an embroidered coat of arms. The French barons, however, when resident in Damietta, were less rigid in morality than in dress. The cross was likewise taken by the three royal brothers, the counts of Artois, Poitiers, and Anjou, by the duke of Burgundy, the countess of Flanders, and her two sons, the count of St. Paul, and many other knights.
Sentiments of respect for the king of France were not felt in his country alone; the people of England revered his name, and avowedly in imitation of his example, the bishop of Salisbury, William Longespee, Walter de Lucy, and many other English nobles and gentlemen were crossed. William Longespee was, or feigned himself, poor, and went to Rome to solicit the aid of the pope. He returned to England, and extorted more than a thousand marks from the religious, while the less scrupulous or more powerful earl of Cornwall was insatiable in his avarice, and gained from one archdeacon alone, six hundred pounds. Political circumstances detained St. Louis in France for three years; but the money and troops which he sent to the Holy Land invigorated the hopes of the Latin Christians. The ranks of the military orders were recruited by hired troops and regular knights from the different stations in Europe.
On the 12th of June, 1248, Louis, attended by his three brothers, went to the abbey of St. Denis, and received from the pope’s legate the oriflamme, the alms’ purse, and pilgrim’s staff. He sailed from France at the end of August, and arrived in September at Cyprus, the appointed rendezvous for his barons and their vassals. The king remained eight months in Cyprus, employed in organising his troops, in works of piety, and particularly in healing the breaches in charity between the military orders. The Venetians and other people assisted the French with provisions; on one occasion the supplies of the emperor Frederick preserved the army, and the grateful king implored the pope to absolve a man who had been benevolent to the soldiers of the church. The ambassadors of a Tatarian prince appeared before Louis, offering their master’s aid to root the Saracens and pagans out of the Holy Land. The king sent a magnificent present to his ally, in order to bribe him to become a Christian. Two black monks, who understood the Arabic language, were charged with the missionary office, and their eloquence and embroidered representation of some of the mysteries of Christianity were to effect the conversion of the Scythian savage and his court. In the spring of the year 1249, the soldiers of Louis were mustered, and his ships prepared for sea; fifty thousand men formed his military force, and eighteen hundred was the number of his transports, palendars, and store ships. They set sail for Egypt; a storm separated the fleet, and the royal division, in which were nearly three thousand knights and their men-at-arms, arrived off Damietta.
[1249 A.D.]
The shores were lined by the sultan’s troops, who astonished the French by the clangour of trumpets and brazen drums. The heralds of the king of France instantly went to the sultan, Nejm ad-Din (a son of Kamil), near Ashmun, and spared no language of exaggeration in describing the power of their master. The only way to avoid the tempest was to receive priests who would teach the Christian religion to the people of Egypt:[73] otherwise he would pursue them everywhere, and God should decide to whom the country should be given. The sultan replied that he also knew the use of arms, and like the French, inherited valour. The cause of the Mussulmans was that of justice; and the Koran declared, that they who made war unjustly should perish.
Some of the knights wished to dissuade the king from landing, till the appearance of their brethren in arms; but on the second day after their arrival, Louis commanded the disembarkation; he himself leaped into the water; his shield was suspended from his neck, his helmet was on his head, and his lance on his wrist. His soldiers followed him to the shore; and the Saracens, panic-struck at their boldness and determination, made but a slight show of defence, and fled into the interior of the country. Although Damietta was better prepared for a siege than in those days when it had sustained an attack of eighteen months’ duration, yet the garrison sought safety in the fleetness of their horses. They were received at Cairo with the indignation which their cowardice merited; and the sultan (who had repaired thither from Ashmun) strangled fifty of the chiefs. The people of Damietta loaded themselves with their most valuable effects, set fire to the part of the city in which their merchandise and plunder were collected, and then took flight for Cairo. Louis fixed his residence in the city; a Christian government was established; and the clergy, agreeably to old custom, purified the mosques. According to ancient usage, one-third part of the spoil should have been allotted to the general-in-chief, and the remaining portions had been usually divided among the pilgrims; but, at the suggestion of the patriarch of Jerusalem, Louis ordered that the corn and provisions should form a magazine for the common benefit of the army; and he retained to himself the rest of the movable booty.
Neither the religious character of the war, nor the importance of preserving military discipline, had any effect on the conduct of the holy warriors. So general was the immorality, that the king could not stop the foul and noxious torrent. The hope of the reward of a piece of gold for an enemy’s head, inspirited the Mussulmans to many enterprises of difficulty and danger; but Louis prevented at length their incursions into his camp, for he surrounded it with deep ditches, and his cross-bowmen galled the approaching parties of Mussulman cavalry. The French looked with impatience for the count of Poitiers and the arrière-ban of France, the remainder of the force which had sailed from Cyprus, and had been driven to Acre in the tempest. In October 1249 the count of Poitiers reached Egypt. The French also were joined by two hundred English knights.
THE BATTLE OF MANSURA
[1250 A.D.]