[43] As a matter of fact, there is some doubt whether Alexius arrived in Germany before the spring of 1202. But there seems to be little doubt of Philip’s complicity in the diversion of the Fourth Crusade to Constantinople (cf. M. Luchaire, La Question d’Orient, pp. 84-86).
[44] It is true that in 1208 Venice received commercial concessions from the court of Cairo. But this ex post facto argument is the sole proof of this view; and it is quite insufficient to prove the accusation. Venice is not the primary agent in the deflection of the Fourth Crusade.
[45] Already under Innocent III. the benefits of the Crusade were promised to those who went to the assistance of the Latin empire of the East.
[46] In 1208 Innocent excommunicated Raymund VI. of Toulouse on account of the murder of a papal legate who was attempting to suppress Manichaeism, and offered all Catholics the right to occupy and guard his territories. Thus was begun the First Crusade against heresy. Raymund at once submitted to the pope, but the Crusade continued none the less, because, as Luchaire says, “the baronage of the north and centre of France had finished their preparations,” and were resolved to annex the rich lands of the south. In this way land-hunger exploited the Albigensian, as political and commercial motives had helped to exploit the Fourth Crusade; and in the former, as in the latter, Innocent had reluctantly to consent to the results of the secular motives which had infected a spiritual enterprise. The Albigensian Crusades, however, belong to French history; and it can only be noted here that their ultimate result was the absorption of the fertile lands, and the extinction of the peculiar civilization, of southern France by the northern monarchy. (See the article [Albigenses].)
[47] A canon of the third Lateran council (1179) forbade traffic with the Saracens in munitions of war; and this canon had been renewed by Innocent in the beginning of his pontificate.
[48] He had promised the pope, at his coronation in 1220, to begin his Crusade in August 1221. But he declared himself exhausted by the expenses of his coronation; and Honorius III. consented to defer his Crusade until March 1222. The letter of the pope informing Pelagius of this delay is dated the 20th of June: it would probably reach his hands after his departure from Damietta; and thus the Cardinal gave the signal for the march, when, as he thought, the emperor’s coming was imminent.
[49] Joinville, ch. x.
[50] John of Brienne had only ruled in right of his wife Mary. On her death (1212) John might be regarded as only ruling “by the courtesy of the kingdom” until her daughter Isabella was married, when the husband would succeed. That, at any rate, was the view Frederick II. took.
[51] Amalric I. of Cyprus had done homage to Henry VI., from whom he had received the title of king (1195).
[52] It may be argued that the Crusade against a revolted Christian like Frederick II. was not misplaced, and that the pope had a true sense of religious values when he attacked Frederick. The answer is partly that men like St Louis did think that the Crusade was misplaced, and partly that Frederick was really attacked not as a revolted Christian, but as the would-be unifier of Italy, the enemy of the states of the church.