Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

The siege of Tyre was concluded on the 29th of June, 1124, on the conditions which had now become customary. The Tyrians could go away if they pleased. Those who chose to stay could do so without fear. And the historian tells how, when the treaty of surrender was concluded, Tyrians and Christians visited each other’s camp, and admired the siege artillery on the one hand, and the walls and strength of the town on the other. We are therefore approaching the period of what may be called friendly warfare. Godfrey thought an infidel was one with whom no dealings were to be held, to whom no mercy was to be shown. Baldwin, taught by his Armenian wife, and by his experience in Edessa, went so far as to shock the Christians by an alliance with the Damascenes. His successor could not prevent his men, even if he tried, from friendly intercourse with the enemy.

The changes which had been wrought by time are graphically put forth by our friend Foulcher de Chartres: “Consider,” he says, “how the West has been turned into the East; how he who was of the West has become of the East; he who was Roman or Frank has become here a Galilæan or an inhabitant of Palestine; he who was a citizen of Rheims or of Chartres is become a citizen of Tyre or of Antioch. We have already forgotten the places of our birth; they are even by this time either unknown to most of us, or at least never spoken of. Some of us hold lands and houses by hereditary right; one has married a woman who is not of his own country—a Syrian, an Armenian, or even a Saracen who has abjured her faith; another has with him his son-in-law, or his father-in-law; this one is surrounded by his nephews and his grandchildren; one cultivates vines, another the fields; they all talk different languages, and yet succeed in understanding one another.... The stranger has become the native, the pilgrim the resident; day by day our relations come from the West and stay with us. Those who were poor at home God has made rich here; those who at home had nothing but a farm here have a city. Why should he who finds the East so fortunate return again to the West?” The plenty and sunshine of Palestine, where every Frank was a sort of aristocrat by right of colour, no doubt gave charms to a life which otherwise was one of constant fighting and struggle. Palestine was to France in this century what America was to Europe in the sixteenth, the land of prosperity, plenty, and danger. How the country got peopled is told by another writer, Jacques de Vitry, in too glowing colours.

“The Holy Land flourished like a garden of delight. The deserts were changed into fat and fertile meadows, harvests raised their heads where once had been the dwelling-places of serpents and dragons. Hither the Lord, who had once abandoned this land, gathered together His children. Men of every tribe and every nation came there by the inspiration of heaven, and doubled the population. They came in crowds from beyond the sea, especially from Genoa, Venice, and Pisa. But the greatest force of the realm was from France and Germany. The Italians are more courageous at sea, the French and Germans on land, ... those of Italy are sober in their meals, polished in their discourse, circumspect in their resolutions, prompt to execute them; full of forethought, submitting with difficulty to others; defending their liberty above all; making their own laws, and trusting for their execution to chiefs whom themselves have elected. They are very necessary for the Holy Land, not only for fighting, but for the transport of pilgrims and provisions. As they are sober, they live longer in the East than other nations of the West. The Germans, the Franks, the Bretons, the English, and others beyond the Alps are less deceitful, less circumspect, but more impetuous; less sober, more prodigal; less discreet, less prudent, more devout, more charitable, more courageous; therefore they are considered more useful for the defence of the Holy Land, especially the Bretons, and more formidable against the Saracens.”

But evil came of prosperity. As for the bishops and clergy, they took all, and gave nothing. To them, we are told, it was as if Christ’s command had not been “Feed my sheep,” but “Shear my sheep.” The regular orders, infected with wealth, lost their piety with their poverty, their discipline with their adversity; they fought, quarrelled, and gave occasion for every kind of scandal. As for the laity, they were as bad. A generation dissolute, corrupt, and careless had sprung from the first Crusaders.[^[60]] Their mothers had been Armenians, Greeks, or Syrians. They succeeded to the possessions, but not to the manners of their fathers; all the world knows, says the historian, how they were lapped in delights, soft, effeminate, more accustomed to baths than to fighting, given over to debauchery and impurity, going dressed as softly as women, cowardly, lazy, and pusillanimous before the enemies of Christ, despised by the Saracens, and preferring rather to have peace at any price than to defend their own possessions. No doubt the climate of Syria rapidly produced a degeneracy in the courage and strength of the Latin race, but the writer’s style is too full of adjectives. He screams like an angry woman when he declaims against the age, which was probably no worse than its predecessors, and the heat of his invective deprives it of most of its force.

[60]. They were called Pullani, see p. [200].

It was in Baldwin’s reign that the Knights Templars were founded, and the Hospitallers became a military order.

From very early times an order, known as that of St. Lazarus, had existed, dedicated to the service of lepers and of pilgrims. They had a hospital, at first, in Acre; they were protected by the late emperors, their brethren accompanied the army of Heraclius as a sort of ambulance corps; they obtained permission to establish themselves in Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Nazareth, and they had a settlement at Cyprus. After the first Crusade they divided into three classes, the knights, or fighting brothers; the physicians, or medical brothers; and the priests, who administered the last rites of the church to dying men. These establishments spread over France, Italy, and Germany; they became rich. The knights appear to have disappeared gradually; they spent their money in sending pilgrims out in ships, and in paying the ransoms of those who were taken prisoner.

The origin of the Knights Hospitallers, originally only the Brothers of St. John, took place just before the first Crusade. The order was founded by a certain citizen of Amalfi, Gerard by name. There are many stories about his life. By some he is confounded with that Gerard d’Avesnes, who, a hostage in the hand of the Emir of Arsûf, was bound by him to a piece of timber in the place against which the machines were chiefly directed, in hopes that the sight might induce Godfrey to desist. But Godfrey persisted, and Gerard, though pierced with arrows, eventually recovered. Probably, however, this was another Gerard. The order began with a monastery near the Church of the Sepulchre, and in 1113 received a charter from the Pope. Their immediate object, like that of the Brothers of St. Lazarus, was to help the wounded; their bread and meat were of the coarsest, they did not disdain the most menial offices; and, in spite of their voluntary hardships, and the repulsive duties of their office, they rapidly grew, and became wealthy. Raymond Dupuy, grand master in 1118, modified the existing statutes of this order, and made every brother take the oath to fight, in addition to his other duties. Henceforth it was a military order, divided into languages, having commandories for every language, and lands in every country. Its habit consisted of a black robe, with a mantle to which was sewn a hood; on the left shoulder was an eight-pointed cross; and later, for the knights, a coat of arms was added. And this habit was so honourable that he who fled was judged unworthy to wear it. Those who entered the order out of Palestine might wear the cross without the mantle. Riches presently corrupted the early discipline, and pope after pope addressed them on the subject of the laxity of their morals. Their history, however, does not belong to us. How they fought at Rhodes, and how they held Malta, belong to another history. It is the only one of the military orders not yet extinct.

It was in the year 1118 that the proud and aristocratic order of Knights Templars was first instituted. Nine knights, nobly born, consecrated themselves, by a solemn vow, to protect pilgrims on the roads, and to labour for the safety and welfare of the Church. Their leaders were Hugh de Payens and Geoffrey de St. Aldemar. They had no church or place of residence, and the king assigned to them the building south of the Dome of the Rock, now called the Jámi‘ el Aksa. It was then called the Palace of Solomon, or the Royal Palace, and William of Tyre is careful to distinguish between it and the Dome of the Rock, which he calls the Temple of the Lord. The canons of the Temple also allowed the knights to make use of their own ground, that is, of the Haram Area. For nine years they wore no distinctive habit, and had no worldly possessions. But at the Council of Troyes, where they were represented by deputies, their cause was taken up by the Church, and they obtained permission to wear a white mantle with a red cross. Then, for some reason or other, they became the most popular of all the orders, and the richest. Their wealth quickly introduced pride and luxury, and William of Tyre complains that even in his time, writing only some fifty years after their foundation, there were 300 knights, without serving brothers, “whose number was infinite,” that, though they had kept the rules of their first profession, they had forgotten the duty of humility, had withdrawn themselves from the authority of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and were already rendering themselves extremely obnoxious to the Church by depriving it of its tithes and first-fruits. Here we see the first appearance of that hostility to the Church which afterwards caused the fall of the Templars. The reception of a new knight was a kind of initiation. The chapter assembled by night with closed doors, the candidate waiting without. Two brothers were sent out, three times in succession, to ask him if he wished to enter the brotherhood. The candidate replied to each interrogatory, and then, to signify the poverty of his condition, and the modest nature of his wants, he was to ask three times for bread and water. After this he was introduced in due form, and after the customary ceremonies and questions, was made to take the oath of poverty, chastity, obedience, and devotion to the defence of Palestine. The following is given as the formula, or part of it:—“I swear to consecrate my speech, my strength, and my life, to defend the belief in the unity of God and the mysteries of the faith; I promise to be submissive and obedient to the grand master of the order; when the Saracens invade the lands of the Christians, I will pass over the seas to deliver my brethren; I will give the succour of my arm to the Church and the kings against the infidel princes; so long as my enemies shall be only three to one against me I will fight them and will never take flight; alone I will combat them if they are unbelievers.”

Everything was done by threes, because three signifies the mystery of the Trinity. Three times a year the knights were enumerated; three times a week they heard mass and could eat meat; three times a week they gave alms; while those who failed in their duty were scourged three times in open chapter.