Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

This feeling was roused to its highest pitch when, in the year 1212, certain priests—Nicolas was the name of one of these mischievous madmen—went about France and Germany calling on the children to perform what the fathers, through their wickedness, had been unable to effect, promising that the sea should be dry to enable them to march across; that the Saracens would be miraculously stricken with a panic at sight of them; that God would, through the hands of children only, whose lives were yet pure, work the recovery of the Cross and the Sepulchre. Thousands—it is said fifty thousand—children of both sexes responded to the call. They listened to the impassioned preaching of the monks, believed their lying miracles, their visions, their portents, their references to the Scriptures, and, in spite of all that their parents could do, rushed to take the Cross, boys and girls together, and streamed along the roads which led to Marseilles and Genoa, singing hymns, waving branches, replying to those who asked whither they were going, “We go to Jerusalem to deliver the Holy Sepulchre,” and shouting their rallying cry, “Lord Jesus, give us back thy Holy Cross.” They admitted whoever came, provided he took the Cross; the infection spread, and the children could not be restrained from joining them in the towns and villages along their route. Their miserable parents put them in prison; they escaped; they forbade them to go; the children went in spite of prohibition. They had no money, no provisions, no leaders; but the charity of the towns they passed through supported them. At their rear streamed the usual tail of camp followers, those people who lived wherever soldiers were found, following in the track of the army like vultures, to prey on the living, and to rob the dead. Of these there came many, ribauds et ribaudes, corrupting the boys, and robbing them of their little means; so that long before the army reached the shores of the Mediterranean the purity of many was gone for ever.

There were two main bodies. One of these directed its way through Germany, across the Alps, to Genoa. On the road they were robbed of all the gifts which had been presented them; they were exposed to heat and want, and very many either died on the march or wandered away from the road, and so became lost to sight; when they reached Italy they dispersed about the country seeking food, were stripped by the villagers, and in some cases reduced to slavery. Only seven thousand out of their number arrived at Genoa. Here they stayed for some days. They looked down upon the Mediterranean, hoping that its bright waters would divide to let them pass. But they did not; there was no miracle wrought in their favour; a few, of noble birth, were received among the Genoese families, and have given rise to distinguished houses of Genoa; among them is the house of Vivaldi. The rest, disappointed and disheartened, made their way back again, and got home at length, the girls with the loss of their virtue, the boys with the loss of their belief, all barefooted and in rags, laughed at by the towns they went through, and wondering why they had ever gone at all.

This was the end of the German army. That of the French was not so fortunate, for none of them ever got back again at all. When they arrived at Marseilles, thinned probably by the same causes as those which had dispersed the Germans, they found, like their brethren, that the sea did not open a path for them, as had been promised. Perhaps some were disheartened and went home again. But fortune appeared to favour them. There were two worthy merchants at Marseilles, named Hugh Ferreus, and William Porcus, Iron Hugh and Pig William, who traded with the East, and had in port seven ships, in which they proposed to convey the children to Palestine. With a noble generosity they offered to take them for nothing; all for love of religion, and out of the pure kindness of their hearts. Of course this offer was accepted with joy, and the seven vessels, laden with the happy little Crusaders, singing their hymns, and flying their banners, sailed out from Marseilles, bound for the East, accompanied by William the Good and Hugh the Pious. It was not known to the children, of course, that the chief trade of these merchants was the lucrative business of kidnapping Christian children for the Alexandrian market. It was so, however, and these respectable tradesmen had never before made so splendid a coup. Unfortunately, off the Island of St. Peter, they encountered bad weather, and two ships went down, with all on board. What must have been the feelings of the philanthropists, Pig William and Iron Hugh, at this misfortune? They got, however, five ships safely to Alexandria, and sold all their cargo, the Sultan of Cairo buying forty of the boys, whom he brought up carefully and apart, intending them, doubtless, for his best soldiers. A dozen, refusing to change their faith, were martyred. None of the rest ever came back. Nobody in Europe seems to have taken much notice of this extraordinary episode, and its memory has so entirely died out that hardly a mention of it is found in any modern history of the period. Thousands of children perished. Probably their mothers wept, but no one else seems to have cared. And the pope built a church on the Island of Saint Peter, to commemorate the drowning of the innocents, with the cold remark that the children were doing what the men refused to do. It is, however, pleasing to add that the two honest merchants were accused some years afterwards of conspiring to assassinate the Emperor Frederick, and so perished on the gallows-tree.

In 1213, after the Children’s Crusade, Innocent essayed once more to wake the enthusiasm of Christendom. He promised, as before, remission of sins to those who took the Cross: he wrote to the Sultans of Damascus and Cairo, informing them that the Crusaders were coming, and urged on them the advisability of giving up Jerusalem peaceably: and he informed the world that Islam was the Beast of the Apocalypse, whose duration was to be six hundred and sixty years, of which six hundred were already passed. Some, no doubt, of his hearers, thought that, such being the case, they might very well be quiet for sixty years more. At the same time he wrote to the Patriarch of Jerusalem with strict injunctions to effect, if possible, a reform in the morals of the Syrian Christians, as if that were a hopeful, or even a possible task; and, as before, preaching was ordered through every diocese, and collecting-boxes for every church. In England the preaching was a total failure. John saw a means of reconciling himself with the Church, and took the Cross. But the barons, in their turn excommunicated, held aloof, and occupied themselves with their home affairs. Philip Augustus of France, after giving the fortieth part of his wealth to the expenses of the Crusade, quarrelled with the Cardinal de Courçon over the powers which he assumed to possess as the legate of the pope. In Germany, Frederick II., recently crowned King of the Romans, took the Cross in the hope of preserving the support of the Church, Otho, his rival, being at war with the pope. Then came the Council of Lateran, at which Innocent presided. He spoke of Jerusalem and the Holy Land. His address was received without any marks of enthusiasm. Nevertheless a Crusade was actually undertaken, partly against the Prussians, partly to Palestine. The latter was led by Andrew, King of Hungary. It was conveyed in Venetian ships from Spalatro and the towns of the Adriatic first to Cyprus, where they were joined by the deputies of the king and patriarch, and the military orders. Thence they sailed to Acre, where they landed in 1217. Like all the crusading armies, this was too big to be manageable, too diverse in its composition to be subject to discipline, too unruly to be led, and under too many leaders. They marched straight across Palestine, avoiding Jerusalem and the south. They bathed in the Jordan, and wandered along the banks of the Sea of Galilee, singing hymns, making prisoners, and plundering the towns, the Saracens not striking a blow. Their only military exploit was an attempt on Mount Tabor, on the top of which stood a fortress. There, too, were the ruins of a church and the monasteries which the Mohammedans had destroyed. The Crusaders climbed the hill in the face of the enemy’s arrows and stones, and would have carried the fortress easily by assault but for one of those panics which were always seizing the Christians at this period. They all turned and fled down the slope of the hill in the wildest confusion. On their return to camp the chiefs accused each other: the soldiers talked of treachery, and the patriarch refused any more to bring out the wood of the Cross—for this imposture had been started again. To revive the spirits of the army, Andrew ordered a march into Phœnicia. The time was winter: cold, hail, and rain killed the troops: on Christmas Eve a furious tempest destroyed their camp and killed their horses. Dejected and discouraged, the Christians returned to Acre. Famine began again, and it was resolved to separate into four camps. John de Brienne, King of Jerusalem, with the Duke of Austria, commanded the first, which lay in the plains of Cæsarea: the kings of Hungary and Cyprus the second, which was stationed at Tripoli: the Master of the Templars the third, at the foot of Mount Carmel: the fourth remained at Acre. The King of Cyprus died, and the King of Hungary went home again. He had got possession of the head of St. Peter, the right hand of St. Thomas, and one of the seven vessels in which the water had been turned into wine. His anxiety to put these treasures in a place of safety was the chief cause that led him to forsake the Crusade.

After his departure the Crusaders changed all their plans, and—it is very curious to observe how persistently they avoided Jerusalem, the pretended object of their aims—embarked at Acre for the siege of Damietta, which they took after nearly two years of fighting. This taken, they advanced on Cairo: on the way, for we have no space to follow all their misfortunes, the Nile overflowed, they were cut off from all hope of succour, assailed on every side by the enemy, and finally compelled to offer terms. During the negotiations they found themselves deprived of everything, encamped on a plain inundated by the waters of the Nile: worn-out by hunger and sickness. The King of Jerusalem went himself to the Sultan. “There he sat down and shed tears. ‘Sire,’ said the Sultan, ‘why do you weep?’ 'Sire,’ replied the King, ‘I do well to weep, for the people with whom God has charged me I see perishing in the midst of the waters and dying of hunger.’ The Sultan had pity on the King, and wept himself, and for four days running sent thirty thousand loaves daily to poor and rich.”

So ended a Crusade which showed neither prudence nor bravery, which began with an artificially-excited enthusiasm, and was carried on by the leaders in hopes of gaining personal distinction. There was no discipline, no strong bond of a common hope; the knights deserted the banners after a defeat and went home, some of them without even striking a blow; and even in this time of relic-worship the wood of the Cross failed to animate the spirits of the soldiers. Of all the Crusades, this was the least worthy of success, the least animated by religious ardour.

We are next to see the conquest of Jerusalem absolutely effected by a Crusader, but by a Crusader under excommunication and interdict, by means of a treaty with the Mohammedans, and actually against the will and wishes of the Church. It is a troubled and tangled web of dissimulation, ambition, and interested motives, into which we dare not venture.[^[78]] On the one hand we have a sovereign, clear-sighted, gifted with a strong will, highly educated, equal at all points of scholarship and attainments to any Churchman, holding tolerant views as to differences of religion, a poet, a musician, and an artist: one, too, who loved to associate with poets and artists: a king who surrounded himself with Mohammedan friends, and made no sign of displeasure when they performed the devotions due to their religion in his very presence: a lawyer far in advance of his age, a gallant lover, and a magnificent prince. In his Sicilian Court he welcomed alike Christian, Jew, and Mohammedan—even Saracen ladies. Here the sturdy and uncompromising faith of Western Europe was shorn of its strength and sapped by the spirit of toleration, or even worse, by the spirit of free thinking. Frederick himself wrote and spoke Arabic: he corresponded with the Sultan of Damascus, receiving from him, and propounding himself, curious questions in geometry. Society, in fact, modern society, born before its time, was about to grow up amid the fostering influences of Frederick, when its growth was checked and destroyed by the interposition of the pope. For, on the other side, stood the Monk: cold, bigoted, cut off from social influences, old in the practice of austerities, fanatic in the cause of the Church, arrogating to himself the blind obedience of the whole world, claiming ever more and more the domination over men’s hearts. The Monk, personified by Pope Gregory IX., formerly the Cardinal Ugolino, confronted the king, and bade him do his bidding; while, to his monastic eyes, the existence of such a court as that of Frederick’s was blasphemous, devilish, and full of sin.

[78]. See Milman’s ‘Hist. of Latin Christianity,’ vol. iv., p. 196 et seq., for as clear a statement of the imbroglio between Frederick and the Pope as can well be looked for.

Frederick had taken the Cross. He had, moreover, pledged himself to embark for the Holy Land in August, 1227. The time approached. Frederick had already opened up negotiations with El Malek el Kamíl, the Sultan of Egypt. Presents had passed between them. Even an elephant had been sent, and the Church shuddered at this big and visible proof of treachery on the part of Frederick. Pilgrims meantime assembled by thousands and from all parts: Frederick failed in having provisions and ships for all the throng: the heats of summer came on with violence, and fever broke out. But the fleet sailed, with Frederick. Three days afterwards his ship came back. He was ill, and could not go.

Old Pope Gregory saw his opportunity. He would use his power. Frederick was not ill, but only pretending illness. He preached from the text, “It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him through whom they come.” He pronounced the sentence of excommunication. Frederick wrote, on hearing of this, in perfect good temper, calmly stating the fact of his illness: he took no notice of the excommunication; but, after holding a Diet of the Barons of Apulia, he issued an appeal to Christendom, calling on all the sovereigns of Europe to shake off the intolerable yoke of the priests, and declaring his own innocence in the matter of the broken covenant. He called to witness the ill-treatment and ingratitude with which the Church had always repaid those who submitted—the malice and bitterness with which the Church had always persecuted those who refused to submit; and he pointed to the power and wealth of Rome as contrasted with the poverty of the early Church. In the long history of the world’s revolt against the pretensions of the priesthood, which has never for a moment ceased since these pretensions first began to make themselves heard, no more remarkable document has ever been issued, save only the famous theses of Luther.