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Title: The age of the crusades
Author: Ludlow, James M. (James Meeker)
Language: English
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The Age of the Crusades
Ten Epochs of Church History
THE AGE OF THE CRUSADES
BY
JAMES M. LUDLOW, D.D., L.H.D.
New York
The Christian Literature Co.
MDCCCXCVI
Copyright, 1896, by
THE CHRISTIAN LITERATURE CO.
Printed by
J. J. Little & Co., New York, U. S. A.
CONTENTS.
BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . xi
CHAP. I.—INTRODUCTORY—OUTLINE OF STUDY.—Problem of the Crusades.—Outline
of Preliminary Study . . . 1
CHAP. II.—STATE OF SOCIETY—IGNORANCE—DULNESS OF LIFE—SUPERSTITION—LOW
SENSE OF JUSTICE—CRUELTY—TASTE FOR WAR.—Sporadic Culture—Great
Men.—Budding Art.—Ignorance—Few Industries—Degradation.—Narrow
Limitation of Life.—Superstition.—Laws—Private Combat—The
Ordeal.—Hardness of Manners—Brutality.—Cruelties.—Love of War.—Cruelty
of Greeks . . . 6
CHAP. III.—CHIVALRY—RULES—EDUCATION OF KNIGHT—CEREMONIES—INFLUENCE ON
CHARACTER.—Rules of Chivalry.—Rites.—Defects . . . 26
CHAP. IV.—THE FEUDAL SYSTEM—GENERAL PRINCIPLES—INFLUENCE ON
PEOPLE.—Minute Subdivision of Europe.—Baronial Independence.—Bondage of
the Masses.—Communes.—Feudalism and the Crusades . . . 32
CHAP. V.—THE IMPOVERISHED CONDITION OF EUROPE.—Pauperism at Home.—Plenty
Abroad . . . 40
CHAP. VI.—THE PAPAL POLICY—DEMORALIZATION OF THE WORLD AND THE
CHURCH—HILDEBRAND’S PURPOSE INHERITED BY HIS SUCCESSORS.—Corruption of
the Papacy.—Hildebrand’s Plan of Reform.—Previous Prestige of the Papacy
. . . 43
CHAP. VII.—THE MOHAMMEDAN MENACE—THE RISE OF ISLAM—SARACENS—TURKS.—The
Doctrine of Islam.—Koran and Caliphate.—Rapid Conquest by the
Saracens.—Saracens among Christians.—The Turks.—Conquest by the Turks
. . . 51
CHAP. VIII.—PILGRIMAGES—ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CUSTOM—EXTENT.—Rise of
the Custom of Pilgrimage.—Pilgrim Superstitions.—Incentives to
Pilgrimage . . . 64
THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES.
CHAP. IX.—THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES.—THE SUMMONS—PETER THE HERMIT—POPE
URBAN—POPULAR EXCITEMENT.—Peter the Hermit.—Universal Enthusiasm.—Europe
Swarms Eastward . . . 71
THE FIRST CRUSADE.
CHAP. X.—THE FIRST CRUSADE.—THE CRUSADE OF THE CROWD.—Walter the
Penniless.—Peter.—Gottschalk.—Volkman.—Emico.—General Disaster . . . 78
CHAP. XI.—THE CRUSADE UNDER THE CHIEFTAINS, GODFREY, RAYMOND,
BOHEMOND, TANCRED, HUGH, ROBERT OF
NORMANDY.—Godfrey.—Raymond.—Bohemond.—Tancred.—Hugh.—Robert of
Normandy.—Various Routes of the Chieftains.—Character of Alexius—Fear
of Latins . . . 82
CHAP. XII.—THE FALL OF NICÆA.—Contrast of Christian and Moslem
Soldier.—Capture of Nicæa—Treachery of Alexius . . . 91
CHAP. XIII.—BATTLE OF DORYLÆUM—TARSUS—DEFECTION OF BALDWIN.—Victory of
Dorylæum.—Capture of Tarsus.—Baldwin Seizes Edessa . . . 96
CHAP. XIV.—BEFORE ANTIOCH.—The Crusaders before Antioch.—Discouragement
of the Christians.—Exploits.—Battles of Children . . . 101
CHAP. XV.—THE FALL OF ANTIOCH.—Treachery of Phirous.—Capture of Antioch
. . . 108
CHAP. XVI.—THE HOLY LANCE.—Kerbogha Invests Antioch.—The Holy
Lance.—Kerbogha Routed.—The Holy Lance Discredited . . . 112
CHAP. XVII.—ON TO JERUSALEM.—The Crusaders Enter Palestine.—On to
Jerusalem . . . 120
CHAP. XVIII.—THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM.—Suffering before
Jerusalem.—Procession around the City.—Final Assault.—Christian
Cruelty.—Jerusalem Despoiled . . . 125
CHAP. XIX.—GODFREY, FIRST BARON OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE—CONQUEST OF THE
LAND—THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.—Godfrey’s Rule.—Victory at
Ascalon.—Return of Crusaders.—Godfrey’s Prowess.—Death of Godfrey . . .
134
CHAP. XX.—BALDWIN I., KING OF JERUSALEM.—Baldwin I., King of
Jerusalem.—Ruse of Bohemond.—Death of Tancred . . . 144
CHAP. XXI.—KING BALDWIN II.—KING FOULQUE—KING BALDWIN III.—EXPLOITS OF
ZENGHI—RISE OF NOURREDIN.—Reign of Baldwin II.—King Foulque.—King
Baldwin III.—Fall of Edessa . . . 150
CHAP. XXII.—MILITARY ORDERS—HOSPITALLERS—TEMPLARS—TEUTONIC KNIGHTS.—The
Hospitallers.—Templars.—Teutonic Knights . . . 156
CHAP. XXIII.—EUROPE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND CRUSADES—KINGSHIP IN
FRANCE—PAPAL AGGRANDIZEMENT—ABÉLARD—ARNOLD OF BRESCIA—BERNARD.-Kingship
in France.—Abélard.—Arnold of Brescia.—Bernard’s Influence . . . 160
THE SECOND CRUSADE.
CHAP. XXIV.—THE SECOND CRUSADE.—BERNARD—CONRAD III.—LOUIS
VII.—SUGER—SIEGE OF DAMASCUS.—Bernard Preaches Crusade.—Start of French
and Germans.—Disastrous Beginning.—The Kings Reach Palestine.—Divisions
among Crusaders.—Abbé Suger . . . 166
CHAP. XXV.—NOURREDIN—RISE OF SALADIN—KING GUY—QUEEN
SIBYLLA.—Nourredin.—Baldwin.—Amaury.—Rise of Saladin.—Baldwin
IV.—Sibylla and King Guy . . . 178
CHAP. XXVI.—BATTLE OF TIBERIAS—FALL OF JERUSALEM.—The Field
of Tiberias.—Crusaders’ Overthrow at Tiberias.—Fall of
Jerusalem.—Magnanimity of Saladin . . . 186
CHAP. XXVII.—EUROPE BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THIRD
CRUSADES—SUPERSTITION—THE WALDENSES—DEGRADATION OF THE PAPACY—FRANCE
UNDER LOUIS—ENGLAND UNDER HENRY II.—RICHARD CŒUR DE
LION.—Superstition.—Waldenses.—France—England.—Richard Cœur de
Lion.—Coronation of Richard I.—Richard’s Cruelty . . . 195
THE THIRD CRUSADE.
CHAP. XXVIII.—THE THIRD CRUSADE.—WILLIAM OF TYRE—BARBAROSSA.—Call to
Crusade.—Frederick Barbarossa.—Bombast of Champions.—Death of Frederick
Barbarossa . . . 206
CHAP. XXIX.—SIEGE OF ACRE.—The Siege of Acre . . . 215
CHAP. XXX.—THE COMING OF PHILIP AUGUSTUS AND RICHARD—FALL OF ACRE.—Sea
Voyage of the English.—Richard Arrives in Palestine.—Crusaders Take
Acre.—Finesse of Richard and Saladin.—Assassins.—Richard Retreats.—Peace
with Saladin.—Captivity of Richard.—Death of Saladin . . . 219
CHAP. XXXI.—PALESTINE AFTER THE THIRD CRUSADE—HENRY VI.—SIEGE OF
THORON.—Various Minor Crusades.—Siege of Thoron.—Discouragement of
Christendom . . . 236
THE FOURTH CRUSADE.
CHAP. XXXII.—THE FOURTH CRUSADE.—HISTORY AND CONDITION OF
CONSTANTINOPLE.—Weakness of Greek Emperors.—Foreign
Aggressions.—Antipathy of Europeans.—Riches of Constantinople.—Suburban
Wealth . . . 242
CHAP. XXXIII.—THE SUMMONS TO THE FOURTH CRUSADE—CONTRACT WITH
VENICE—EGYPT THE DESTINATION—PHILIP OF SWABIA.—Fulque.—Venetian Ships
Hired.—Crusaders to Attack Egypt.—Inducement to Divert Crusade . . . 253
CHAP. XXXIV.—THE PLOT FOR THE DIVERSION OF THE CRUSADE—CAPTURE OF
ZARA.—Dandolo’s Treachery.—Fleet Sails against Zara.—Revolt of
Crusaders.—Young Alexius’s Promises . . . 260
CHAP. XXXV.—ON TO CONSTANTINOPLE—CAPTURE OF GALATA.—Voyage to
Constantinople.—Protest of the Greek Emperor.—Capture of the Golden Horn
. . . 268
CHAP. XXXVI.—CONSTANTINOPLE SECURED TO ISAAC AND YOUNG
ALEXIUS—USURPATION OF MOURTZOUPHLOS.—Assault upon the City.—Flight of
Alexius.—Isaac Restored.—Young Alexius Coemperor.—Great
Fire.—Mourtzouphlos.—Latins Attempt the Sovereignty . . . 274
CHAP. XXXVII.—CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.—Fall of Constantinople.—Plunder
of the City.—Nicetas.—Relics Stolen . . . 284
CHAP. XXXVIII.—FOUNDING THE LATIN KINGDOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE.—Baldwin
Elected Emperor.—Fatal Influence of the Fourth Crusade . . . 291
CHAP. XXXIX.—BETWEEN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CRUSADES—CONDITION OF EAST AND
WEST—THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE.—Eastern Disasters.—John of Brienne.—The
Children’s Crusade . . . 296
THE FIFTH CRUSADE.
CHAP. XL.—THE FIFTH CRUSADE.—DISASTER OF MARIETTA.—Start of the
Crusaders.—Assault of Mount Tabor.—Damietta.—The Affair of
Damietta.—Pelagius.—Francis of Assisi.—Disaster at Damietta . . . 301
THE SIXTH CRUSADE.
CHAP. XLI.—THE SIXTH CRUSADE.—FREDERICK II. AND POPE GREGORY IX.—Pope
Gregory IX.—Papal Anathema of Frederick.—Frederick Acquires
Jerusalem.—Return of Frederick.—Popular Discontent with the Pope . . .
313
CHAP. XLII.—BETWEEN THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CRUSADES.—THE TARTARS.—THE
CARISMIAN INVASION.—Tartars.—Carismians.—Carismians at Jerusalem and
Gaza . . . 324
THE SEVENTH CRUSADE.
CHAP. XLIII.—THE SEVENTH CRUSADE.—ST. LOUIS.—Innocent IV.
and Frederick.—St. Louis.—Personal Qualities.—Piety of Louis.—Takes
the Cross.—Louis’s Zeal for Crusade.—Delay at Cyprus.—Victory
at Damietta.—Vice and Strife among the Victors.—Sultana
Chegger-Eddour.—Foolhardiness of D’Artois.—Disaster at
Mansourah.—Horrors of the Christian Retreat.—Heroism of Marguerite and
Louis.—Massacre of the Sultan.—Escape of Louis to Acre.—Louis Lingers in
Palestine.—Louis Returns to France . . . 328
THE EIGHTH CRUSADE.
CHAP. XLIV.—THE EIGHTH CRUSADE.—DEATH OF ST. LOUIS—FALL OF ACRE.—Bibars
Sultan.—Louis Reënlists.—Death of St. Louis.—The Fall of Acre . . . 361
RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES.
CHAP. XLV.—RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES.—KINGSHIP.—UNITY OF EUROPE.—THE
PAPACY.—LIBERAL THOUGHT.—INCREASED
KNOWLEDGE.—ARTS.—LITERATURE.—COMMERCE—THE TURKISH POWER.—Growth of
European Kingdoms.—Unity of Europe.—Prestige of the Papacy.—Lost
Prestige of the Papacy.—Popular
Liberty.—Arts.—Education.—Commerce.—Wealth.—Rise of Ottomans . . . 368
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
I. PRINTED COLLECTIONS OF THE SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES.
The sources of the history of the crusades will be found collected in
the following works, to which reference is made in the entries which
follow:
JACOBUS BONGARSIUS: Gesta Dei per Francos, sive orientalium
expeditionum, et regni Francorum Hierosolimitani historia (ab a.
1095 ad 1420) a variis, sed illius ævi scriptoribus, litteris
commendata; Hanoviæ [Hanau], 1611, fol.
MARTIN BOUQUET: Rerum Gallicarum et Francicarum scriptores. Recueil
des historiens des Gaules et de la France; Paris, 1738-1876, 23
vols.
FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT: Collection des mémoires relatifs à
l’histoire de France depuis la fondation de la monarchie française
jusqu’au 13. siècle; Paris, 1823-35, 31 vols., 8vo.
JACQUES PAUL MIGNE: I., Patrologiæ Latinæ, tom. i.-ccxxi.
JACQUES PAUL MIGNE: II., Patrologiæ Græcæ, tom. i.-clxi.
JACQUES PAUL MIGNE: III., Patrologiæ Græcæ Latine tantum editæ, tom.
i.-lxxxi.
Recueil des historiens des croisades, publié par les soins de
l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres; Paris, Imprimerie
nationale, 1841 sqq.; vol. xv., 1895.
PAUL E. D. RIANT: Expéditions et pèlerinages des Scandinaves en
Terre-Sainte au temps des croisades; Paris, Imprimerie Lainé et
Havard, 1865-69, 2 vols. ( vol. ii. being tables).
PAUL E. D. RIANT: Inventaire critique des lettres historiques des
croisades, ... 786-1100; Paris, 1880 (in Archives de l’Orient latin,
vol. i.; Paris, 1881).
II. THE PRINCIPAL SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES.
A. _Chronicles of Eye-witnesses._
ALBERT OF AIX (Albertus Aquensis): Historia Hierosolymitana. A.D.
1095-1121 (in Recueil. Hist. occid., iv., pp. 265-713; and in Migne,
Pat. Lat., clxvi., col. 389-716. French translation in Guizot,
Collection, xx., xxi.).
BALDRIC, Archbishop of Dol (Baldricus Andegavensis, later
archiepiscopus Dolensis): Historiæ Hierosolymitanæ libri iv. A.D.
1095-99 (in Recueil. Hist. occid., iv., pp. 1-111; and in Migne,
Pat. Lat., clxvi., col. 1057-1152).
ANNA COMNENA: Alexiadis libri xv. A.D. 1069-1118 (in Recueilt]
Histor. grecs, i., 2, pp. 65-179; and in Migne [Greek tex. and Latin
translation], Pat. Græc. cxxxi., col. 79-1212. Latin translation
also in Migne, Pat. Græc. Lat., lxviii., col. 903-1516).
EKKEHARD OF URACH (Ekkehardus Uraugiensis): Hierosolymita. A.D.
1095-1187 (in Recueil. Hist. occid., v., pp. 1-40; and in Migne,
Pat. Lat., cliv., col. 1059-62).
FOULCHER OF CHARTRES (Fulcherius Carnotensis): Gesta Francorum
Jherusalem peregrinantium. A.D. 1095-1127 (in Recueil. Hist. occid.,
iii., pp. 311-485; and in Migne, Pat. Lat., clv., col. 825-940.
French translation in Guizot, Collection, xxiv., pp. 1-275).
GILO: Historia gestorum viæ nostri temporis Hierosolymitanæ libri
iv. A.D. 1095-99 (in Migne, Pat. Lat., clv., col. 943-994).
GUIBERT OF NOGENT (Guibertus, abbas monast. s. Mariæ Novigenti):
Historia Hierosolymitana quæ dicitur Gesta Dei per Francos, libri
viii. A.D. 1095-1110 (in Recueil. Hist. occid., iv., pp. 115-263;
also in Migne, Pat. Lat., clvi., col. 679-838. French translation in
Guizot, Collection, ix., pp. 1-338).
PRINCE DE JOINVILLE: Histoire de Saint Louys, IX. du nom, roy de
France (in Bouquet, xx., pp. 191-304. Numerous other editions, e.g.,
Wailly, with translation in modern French; Paris, Didot, 1874.
English translation in Bohn’s Antiquarian Library, Chronicles of the
Crusades).
RAYMOND OF AGILES (Raimundus de Agiles): Historia Francorum qui
ceperunt Hierusalem a. 1095 ad 1099 (in Recueil. Hist. occid., iii.,
pp. 235-309; and in Migne, Pat. Lat., clv., col. 591-668. French
translation in Guizot, Collection, xxi., pp. 227-397).
TUDEBOD (Tudebodus): Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere ab a. 1095
ad 1099, libri v. (in Recueil. Hist. occid., iii., pp. 1-117; and in
Migne, Pat. Lat., clv., col. 763-823. French translation, Mémoires
de l’historien Pierre Tudebode sur son pèlerinage à Jérusalem;
Paris, Champion, 1878).
VILLEHARDOUIN: Histoire de l’empire de Constantinople sous les
empereurs françois (in Bouquet, xviii., pp. 432-514. With modern
French translation, Paris, Lemerre, 1891, 2 vols. English
translation, London, 1829).
WILLIAM OF TYRE (Guilelmus Tyrius): Historia rerum in partibus
transmarinis gestarum. A.D. 1095-1184 (in Recueil. Hist. occid., i.;
and in Migne, Pat. Lat., cci., col. 209-892. English translation by
Mary Noyes Colvin; London, Early English Text Society, 1893).
B. _Letters of the Crusaders._
ANSELM OF RIPEMONT (Anselmus de Ribodimonte): Epistolæ ad Manassem
archiepiscopum Remensem duæ. A.D. 1098 (in Recueil. Hist. occid.,
iii., pp. 890-893).
ALEXIUS I., COMNENUS: Epistola ad Robertum I., Flandriæ comitem.
A.D. 1098 (in Recueil. Histor. grecs, iv., p. 132; and in Migne,
Pat. Græc., cxxxi., col. 564-568; Pat. Lat., clv., col. 465-470.
German translation by H. Floto, Kaiser Heinrich IV., vol. ii., p.
354; Stuttgart, 1854).
GODFREY (Godefridus Bullonius): Epistolæ et diplomata (in Migne,
Pat. Lat., clv., col. 389-398).
STEPHEN OF BLOIS (Stephanus Carnotensis et Blesensis) to his wife:
Epistolæ duæ (in Recueil. Hist. occid., iii., pp. 883-893).
URBAN II.: Epistolæ (in Migne, Pat. Lat., cli., col. 283-552).
C. _Contemporary and Very Early Writers._
MATTHEW PARIS: English History from 1253 to 1273 (translation in
Bohn’s Antiquarian Library; London, Bell; New York, Macmillan).
ROGER OF HOVENDEN: Chronica; edited by William Stubbs (in Rerum
Britannicarum medii ævi Scriptores [see under Stubbs, p. viii.], No.
51, vols. i.-iv., 1868-71).
ROGER OF WENDOVER: Flowers of History (in Bohn’s Antiquarian
Library; London, Bell; New York, Macmillan).
WILLIBALD, The Travels of, A.D. 721-727 (in Bohn’s Antiquarian
Library [London, Bell; New York, Macmillan], in the vol. edited by
Thomas Wright, Early Travels in Palestine, pp. 13-22).
III. WORKS ON THE CRUSADES WRITTEN FROM THE SOURCES.
T. A. ARCHER and CHARLES L. KINGSFORD: The Crusades: The Story of
the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem; New York, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1895.
GEORGE WILLIAM COX: The Crusades; London, Longmans; New York,
Scribner, 1874.
HEINRICH HAGENMEYER: Peter der Eremite: ein kritischer Beitrag zur
Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges; Leipzig, Harrassowitz, 1879.
ARNOLD HERMANN LUDWIG HEEREN: Historische Werke; Göttingen,
Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1821-26, 14 parts.
ARNOLD HERMANN LUDWIG HEEREN: Essai sur l’influence des croisades;
French translation, Paris, 1808.
THOMAS KEIGHTLEY: The Crusaders; London, S. P. C. K., 1834, 2 vols.;
new ed., Parker, 1852, 1 vol.
BERNARD KUGLER: Geschichte der Kreuzzüge; Berlin, G. Grote, 1880; 2.
Aufl., 1891.
BERNARD KUGLER: Neue Analekten zur Geschichte des 2. Kreuzzuges;
Tübingen, Fries, 1883.
JEAN PIERRE ARMAND DE LA PORTE DES VAULX: Les croisades, et le
royaume latin de Jérusalem; Limoges, Ardant, 1863.
LOUIS MAIMBOURG: Histoire des croisades; Paris, 1675, 2 vols.; 2d
ed., 1682, 4 vols. English translation, The History of the Holy War;
London, 1686, fol.
JOSEPH FRANÇOIS MICHAUD: Histoire des croisades; Paris, 1812-22, 7
vols.; 9th ed., Paris, Vivès, 1856, 4 vols.; illustrated by Doré,
1875-76, 2 vols., fol.
JOSEPH FRANÇOIS MICHAUD: History of the Crusades; translation,
London, Routledge, 1852. New ed., with supplementary chapter by
Hamilton W. Mabie; New York, Armstrong, 1881, 3 vols.
JOSEPH FRANÇOIS MICHAUD: Bibliothèque des croisades; Paris, 1830, 4
vols.
JULES MICHELET: Les croisades, 1095-1270; Paris, Hetzel et Cie.,
1880.
CHARLES MILLS: The History of the Crusades; London, Longmans, 1828,
2 vols.
EDWIN PEARS: The Fall of Constantinople; being the Story of the
Fourth Crusade; London, Longmans & Co.; New York, Harpers, 1886.
REINHOLD RÖHRICHT: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge; Berlin,
Weidmann, 1874-78, 2 vols.
REINHOLD RÖHRICHT: Quellenbeiträge zur Geschichte der Kreuzzüge. Bd.
i., Zur Geschichte Salâh-ad-dîns; Berlin, Weidmann, 1879.
REINHOLD RÖHRICHT: Studien zur Geschichte des fünften Kreuzzuges;
Innsbruck, Wagner, 1891.
RICHARD SALTER STORRS: Bernard of Clairvaux; New York, Scribner,
1892.
WILLIAM STUBBS: Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of Richard I.
(in Rerum Britannicarum medii ævi Scriptores [No. 38, vol. i.,
1864], published by the authority of her Majesty’s Treasury, under
the direction of the Master of the Rolls [hence called the “Rolls
Series”]; London, 1858 sqq.).
HEINRICH CARL LUDOLF VON SYBEL: Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges;
Leipzig, Fleischer, 1841; 2. Aufl., 1881.
HEINRICH CARL LUDOLF VON SYBEL: History and Literature of the
Crusades; translated by Lady Duff-Gordon [not a translation of the
preceding, but a compilation from his writings]; London, Chapman,
1861.
FRIEDRICH WILKEN: Geschichte der Kreuzzüge nach morgenländischen und
abendländischen Berichten; Leipzig, Vogel, 1807-32, 7 parts.
IV. GENERAL HISTORIES IN WHICH THE PERIOD OF THE CRUSADES IS INCLUDED.
JAMES BRYCE: The Holy Roman Empire; London and New York, Macmillan,
1864; 8th ed., 1888.
GEORGE FINLAY: A History of Greece from its Conquest by the Romans
to the Present Time, B.C. 146 to A.D. 1864; Oxford, Clarendon Press,
1877, 7 vols.
EDWARD GIBBON: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire; London, 1776-81, 6 vols. Best completed ed. by William
Smith; London, Murray, 1854-55, 8 vols.; New York, Harpers. New ed.,
with additional notes by J. B. Bury; London and New York, Macmillan,
1896 sqq. (Chaps. lvii.-lxi., The Crusades, separately issued by A.
Murray; London, 1869.)
FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT: The History of Civilization from
the Fall of the Roman Empire to the French Revolution; translation
(in Bohn’s Standard Library; London, Bell; New York, Macmillan; 3
vols.).
FRANÇOIS PIERRE GUILLAUME GUIZOT: The History of France from the
Earliest Times to the Year 1789; translation, London, Low, 1870-81,
6 vols.
HENRY HALLAM: View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages;
London, Murray, 1818, 2 vols.; 11th ed., 1855, 3 vols.; later eds.;
reprinted, New York, Armstrong, 2 vols.
DAVID HUME: The History of England; modern ed., London, Ward, Lock &
Co., 1880, 3 vols.; Amer. ed., Harpers, 6 vols.
HENRY HART MILMAN: History of Latin Christianity; London, Murray,
1854-55, 6 vols.; 4th ed., 1867, 9 vols.; reprinted, New York,
Armstrong, 8 vols.
WILLIAM ROBERTSON: The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles
V., with a View of the Progress of Society in Europe from the
Subversion of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth
Century; London, 1769; reprinted, Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1857, 3
vols.; later editions.
V. POETICAL TREATMENT OF THE HISTORY OF THE FIRST CRUSADE.
TORQUATO TASSO: Gerusalemme Liberata; Venice, 1580. English
translation, Jerusalem Delivered; New York, Appleton.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY—OUTLINE OF STUDY.
After the lapse of eight hundred years the story of the crusades still
furnishes the most fascinating, if not the most instructive, pages of
Christian history. Romance has entertained the generations from the days
of the Italian Tasso to those of Walter Scott with the rude yet
chivalric characters of those mediæval times. Ponderous knights and
dashing emirs, fair women and saintly apparitions, continue to move over
the mimic stage of the imagination. Poetry, in all the tongues of modern
Europe, draws its imagery from scenes that were enacted while these
languages were being formed from their classic or barbaric originals.
The hymnology of the church is enriched by the songs of those who caught
their rhythm from the march of the crusading host. Bernard of Clugny
watched the salvation armies of the olden time as they sauntered by his
cloister window. Now catching their spirit, and anon oppressed with
their failure to express the truest prowess of the believer’s soul, he
tried to lift men’s faith to the Jerusalem above:
“O happy band of pilgrims,
If onward ye will tread
With Jesus as your fellow
To Jesus as your head!
“Thou hast no shore, fair ocean;
Thou hast no time, bright day;
Dear fountain of refreshment
To pilgrims on the way.
“Upon the Rock of Ages
They raise thy holy tower;
Thine is the victor’s laurel,
And thine the golden dower.”
Our newest songs catch the very gleam of those battle days. For example:
“Onward, Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before!”
is not unlike the chorus of a Latin hymn of Berthier of Orleans, which
was sung under the tent and on the field:
“Lignum crucis
Signum ducis
Sequitur exercitus;
Quod non cessit
Sed præcessit
In vi Sancti Spiritus.”
The student of human nature, also, will find here his most subtle and
perplexing, but at the same time his most suggestive, subjects. Never
before or since was there such exalted faith combined with such
grotesque superstition, such splendid self-sacrifice mingled with cruel
and unrestrained selfishness, such holy purpose with its wings
entangled, torn, and besmeared in vicious environments.
To the historical scholar this period is unsurpassed in importance by
any, if we except the days of the birth of Christianity. The age of the
crusades covers the eleventh and twelfth centuries. For two hundred
years, to use the vigorous language of the Greek princess Anna Comnena,
who witnessed the first crusade, “Europe was loosened from its
foundations and hurled against Asia.” As an Alpine glacier presses down
into the valley, only to melt away at the summer line, yet with renewed
snows repeals the fatal experiment from year to year, so seven times
Western Christendom replenished its mighty armaments, to see them
destroyed at the border-land of Oriental conquest.
To define the causes of these vast movements is a task which both tempts
and tantalizes the historian. It is surely unlearned to ascribe even the
first crusade to the sole influence of any man, though he were an Urban
II. and wielded the temporal and spiritual authority of the Papacy in
its most puissant days. It is puerile to say, as Michaud does, speaking
of Peter the Hermit, “The glory of delivering Jerusalem belongs to a
single pilgrim, possessed of no other power than the influence of his
character and genius.” It is equally uncritical, if not blasphemous, to
attribute these most unfortunate and ill-timed ventures to the Almighty,
as the same writer does in these words: “No power on earth could have
produced such a great revolution. It only belonged to Him whose will
gives birth to and disperses tempests to throw all at once into human
hearts that enthusiasm which silenced all other passions and drew on the
multitude as if by an invisible power.”
To even approximate an understanding of this subject, one must first
become familiar with the great racial movements which culminated in that
age; must be able to estimate the tendencies of society at a time when
it knew not the forces which were struggling within itself; must
penetrate the policies of statesmen and ecclesiastics who veiled their
ambition under the self-delusion that they were serving God or their
fellow-men; and, besides all this, he must gauge the passions and habits
of common people, their ignorance and superstition, if not the true
heavenly ardor which led them to offer themselves as fuel for the most
stupendous human sacrifice the world has known. Were one thus equipped
with information, one’s philosophical judgment might still be baffled
with the inquiry, What was the chief cause of the crusades? An
observation of Dean Milman is especially applicable to this subject:
“When all the motives which stir the human mind and heart, the most
impulsive passion and the profoundest policy, conspire together, it is
impossible to discover which is the dominant influence in guiding to a
certain course of action.” The mighty tide of events we are to consider
was not unlike a vast river which sweeps through many lands and has many
tributary streams, some of whose sources are hidden in the depth of the
unexplored wilderness.
Our preliminary study will therefore be wisely limited to an inquiry
into the conditions of life and thought in the eleventh century which
facilitated or prompted the great movement.
THESE CONDITIONS WERE PROMINENTLY:
1. The intellectual and moral state of society in the eleventh
century, especially its rudeness and warlike spirit.
2. The institution of chivalry, the awakening of better ideals of
heroism.
3. The feudal system, which provided for the easy mobilization of
men in war or adventure.
4. The impoverished condition of Europe, which forced enterprise to
seek its reward in foreign countries.
5. The papal policy to consolidate and universalize the
ecclesiastical empire.
6. The menace of Mohammedanism under the Saracenic and Turkish
powers.
7. The prevailing superstition, which credited to pilgrimage the
virtues of piety, and substituted exploits in the Holy Land for the
plainer duties of holy life.
CHAPTER II.
STATE OF SOCIETY—IGNORANCE—DULNESS OF LIFE—SUPERSTITION—LOW SENSE OF
JUSTICE—CRUELTY—TASTE FOR WAR.
Cardinal Baronius, the historian of the church down to the year 1198,
designated the period which then closed as the Dark Ages. The propriety
of the title has insured its perpetuity. The era of the crusades is
almost evenly divided by the date which all scholars, following
Baronius, regard as marking the end of the worst and the beginning of
better times. The eleventh and twelfth centuries were the battle-ground
on which the grim spectres of the old met the bright advancing spirits
of the new civilization.
It must be remembered that the peoples then dominant were the
descendants of those barbaric hordes whose irruption from northern
Europe and western Asia had swept away the Roman empire. The fierce
spirit of the Frank in Gaul, of the Goth in Spain, and of the Lombard in
Italy was not yet tempered by the arts and philosophy their fathers had
so nearly destroyed, and whose renaissance had not yet begun. It was but
a few generations since the people that had inherited the Roman
civilization had been largely exterminated. So complete had been the
ravage that in the eighth century much of the land in Italy still
remained forest and marsh, a condition to which it had reverted. Parcels
of ground were purchased by strangers as _eremi_, the title secured by
the fact of having cleared and cultivated any given spot. The reader can
readily paint his own picture of the society which settled these lands
by recalling such facts as that from 900 to 930 Italy was under the
Huns; in 911 Normandy was conquered by Rollo the Dane; in 1029 the
Normans possessed themselves of the south of Italy.
Culture, however, was not entirely extinct. The age produced many fine
specimens of what is best in manhood and womanhood, although, in
comparison with the general condition, these were like sporadic bushes
on the breast of a land-slide, whose roots have maintained their hold
through the rushing débris, or which have sprung up afresh in the new
soil.
There were some men whose genius and virtues would have adorned any age.
Among these was Gerbert, Pope Sylvester II. (died 1003), whose
attainments in science led to the legend that he was in communication
with the devil. Lanfranc (1005-89), the monk of Bec and Caen, whom
William the Conqueror appointed to the see of Canterbury, is still
renowned for his great logical ability and biblical scholarship. Anselm
(1033-1109) merited the praise which Dante bestowed upon him as among
the worthiest spirits he saw in paradise. Bérenger (998-1088), though
discredited for heresy, possessed a prowess and independence of mind
which made him the forerunner of the later Reformers. Hildebrand
(1020(?)-85), however we may reprobate the hardness of his ambition and
the tyrannical nature of his projects, must be recognized as among the
greatest of mankind for astuteness of judgment and ability to execute
the most gigantic and hazardous plans. Abélard (1079-1142) was a lad of
sixteen at the time of the first crusade, but had begun to puzzle his
teacher, William of Champeaux, in his dialectical tilts, deriding the
obsolete method of inquiry, and declaring that it was more sport to
debate than to fight in a tournament. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153),
whose pen was to control Christendom for a generation, and whose
sainthood shines through all ages, was in the nursery when the soldiers
of the cross started for the East. There were noble women, too. Bernard
owed much of his talent and virtue to his mother, Aletta, whose memory
is the imperishable ornament of womanhood. The great Countess Matilda
spoke many languages, was chosen counsellor of Pope Gregory VII., and
won her place in Dante’s catalogue of saints as the celestial messenger
heralding the chariot throne of the glorified Beatrice. The praise of
the great crusading captain Godfrey halos his mother, Ida of Bouillon,
to whom he confessed that, next to the grace of God, he owed whatever
goodness made him beloved of men.
The intellectuality of this period exercised itself almost entirely with
theological and religious subjects. Men in seclusion elaborated and
defended existing church doctrines, and gave pious flight to their
imaginations. But of literature as such there was none; even the
Troubadours had not begun to rhyme the Provençal tongue. The hot breath
of the crusades themselves forced the débris of the Latin to send out
its first flowers of poesy.
In this age at least may be discerned the budding of a taste and
sentiment that betokened the refinement of after times. Gothic
architecture, the first efflorescence of the Northern genius after it
had been planted in the soil of Southern art, now appeared in such
buildings as the cathedrals of Pisa, Modena, Parma, Siena, Strasburg,
Treves, Worms, Mayence, Basel, Chartres, Brussels, and the foundation of
St. Mark’s in Venice. The dreaded year 1000 having safely passed without
the anticipated destruction of the world, faith reinspired art to build
temples on earth. New monasteries appeared, palatial in structure, to
accommodate the people who sought in seclusion escape from the hardness
or the dreariness of life in the world.
It must, however, be recognized that whatever brilliancy of
intelligence, beauty of character, or enterprise appeared betokened a
coming rather than illustrated a passing age, like the wild flowers that
shoot from the cold ground in the early spring. To picture these
brighter things, were the genial task pursued to any great extent, would
endanger the accuracy of the impression made upon the reader’s mind.
Hallam truly says of this period: “History which reflects only the more
prominent features of society cannot exhibit the virtues that were
scarcely able to struggle through the general depravation.”
This was an age of gross ignorance. The art of making paper from cotton
had just been discovered, and, while it contributed somewhat to the
diffusion of knowledge by giving cheaper manuscript books than those on
vellum, the world was to wait four centuries longer for the
printing-press to popularize the habit of seeking information. The few
manuscripts which existed were the property of monasteries or of the
nobility, who kept them as articles of furniture rather than for their
practical use. We have a verbal monument to the ignorance of these times
in the expression we still use when we speak of “signing,” or making a
mark to signify, one’s name. In the ninth century Herbaud, the supreme
judge of the empire, could not write his name, and as late as the
fourteenth century Du Guesclin, high constable of France, was equally
innocent of letters. One of their contemporaries gives this tribute to
the ecclesiastics of the time: “They were given rather to the gullet
than to the tongue (_gulæ quam glossæ_). They preferred to be schooled
in salmon rather than in Solomon (_salmone quam Solomone_).” Few priests
could translate the breviary they recited with parrot tongues. Of the
history of the grand civilization just behind them the people knew
nothing; even the laws which had so long preserved the state and
society, those of Justinian, were forgotten except in some cloisters,
where they were studied as classic lore.
The practical methods of modern inquiry into the meaning of the world,
the incessant discovery of new resources in nature for the comfort and
luxury of living, have stimulated and enlarged the human mind; and in
the new interests thus created men have found a healthful diversion
alike from the engrossments of animalism and the morbid fancies of
superstition. But in the time we are studying there was no real
scientific thought that was not instantly suppressed by the authorities
of the church as the suggestion of heretics or of the Saracens. Roger
Bacon, who flourished so late as the close of the crusades, paid with
fourteen years’ imprisonment for his temerity in proposing the more
rational methods of viewing the world, which his great namesake, Francis
Bacon, three hundred and fifty years later, more completely formulated
for general acceptance.
The industrial arts had been lost or had come to be entirely neglected
after the barbaric conquest which swept away the Roman civilization, and
during the centuries since there had been scarcely any attempt to revive
them. The very faculty of invention seems to have become paralyzed by
disuse. It was not until 1148 that Roger of Sicily established a silk
factory at Palermo, which, Hallam says, “gave the earliest impulse to
the industry of Italy.”
Such times were necessarily marked by the narrow limitation and
degradation of common life.
The vast majority of people lived in the country, in complete isolation
from their fellows, seeking sustenance in most primitive ways from the
breast of mother nature; or they were huddled together in rude hamlets
under the walls of the castles, whose lords enslaved while they
protected them; for such was the chaotic condition of society that every
one was compelled to seek safety with service under some possessor of a
stronghold. Cities there were, crowded with dense masses of humanity,
the breeding-places of all sorts of vice and social disorder. Towns owe
their existence to some community of interest, such as similar
industrial pursuits or convenience for trade; these, of course, had
scarcely begun to spring up.
If the immediate environment of the common man furnished no stimulus to
enterprise, neither was it provided by anything beyond his neighborhood.
Without a system of monetary exchange, trade was limited to barter or to
the purchasing power of purse and belt. A brief journey with merchandise
was executed with hazard. Every petty lord exacted toll of those who
passed the border of his estate. Many of the occupants of the castles
lived by open robbery, and kept men-at-arms, as they kept their falcons,
to pounce upon their prey. Not only the goods, the persons also of
travellers were regarded as legitimate booty, the victims being held for
ransom and often sold as slaves. So enterprising were these robber
knights that it is said to have been dangerous for the king to go from
Paris to St.-Denis without an army at his back. The armed merchantman
rode generally with lance in rest. In towns, says Thierry, “nobles,
sword in hand, committed robbery on the burghers, and in turn the
burghers committed violence upon the peasants who came to buy or sell at
the market of the town.”
There was considerable foreign commerce on the Mediterranean. The
merchants of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice were in rivalry with those of
Byzantium, and with the Saracens who held the ports of Spain and North
Africa. But, as what are known as maritime laws were not agreed upon
until the thirteenth century, commerce was little more than piracy. The
trade vessels were burdened with men for their defence, or for rifling
the cargoes of less puissant marauders. The mariner’s compass had been
invented, but was not in common use, so that trade was compelled to
follow the coast-lines, in perpetual hazard of wreck and robbers. There
was no importation of things for common use; the labor and danger of
transportation limited the articles of trade to those of rarest value,
which became the spoil of the powerful or the purchase of the rich. The
ordinary man received no benefit from other neighborhoods than his own,
except that the air of heaven was sweetened by its passage over the
mountains and seas which separated him from his kind.
It is difficult for us to realize what must have been the inane
stupidity of the ordinary lives of men. Homes were almost as dreary in
their outward appointments as the nests of eagles or the caves of
beasts. In the city were narrow apartments of stone or the shanty with
its mud-built walls, often as contracted as the cells of the monastery
and as damp and fetid as the vaults of the prison; so that the monk lost
little of this world’s comfort in entering his religious retreat, and
the prisoner might think himself happy at times in being better housed
than he would have been had he made his home with honest toil. If one
lived in the country the habitation was a hut but little better than the
shelter provided for cattle. Indeed, in many cases the “ox knew his
owner” from having slept on the same straw, and the “ass his master’s
crib” from its proximity to the family table. The floor of the rude
domicile was of earth or stone, the windows unglazed, so that to exclude
the winter weather was to shut out the light also. A hole in the roof
scarcely sufficed to carry off the smoke from the stoveless fires. No
books entertained man’s thoughts, no pictures pleased his eye; his news
was the gossip of oft-told tales, his faith such as a priest, himself
unable to read, might impose upon his less intelligent parishioners.
Even the peasant’s liberty of his own solitude was denied him; he could
not range the woods nor float upon the streams at his pleasure. We are
told of certain instances where the rustics rebelled against these
restrictions imposed upon them. “They took short cuts through the woods,
or used the fords and rivers at will;” but they were punished by the
knights, who “cut off the hands and feet of the trespassers.” If the
rich were better conditioned, their residences were unfurnished with
that which the middle classes in our day regard as necessary to comfort
and decency. The bounty of the table was without variety. Apparel,
however gay, was such as could be wrought by the women of the household.
The tapestries which excite our admiration were the product of untold
toil or purchased at vast expense. Within the castle was spacious
monotony, relieved too generally by the grossness of private debauch;
without was the wilderness, threaded by roads that were unfit for
wheeled vehicles, menaced by wild beasts and more dangerous men.
The common recreation of the lordly classes was hunting and hawking,
bear-baiting and fighting. Men rode with sword and spear, the ubiquitous
falcon on arm, and hounds in leash. So universal were such pastimes
that, in lack of more intellectual and refined resources, the highest
dignitaries of the church displayed the weapons of the chase together
with the insignia of their sacred office. So much of life was wasted in
these amusements that the Council of the Lateran, in 1180, forbade the
bishops indulging in these sports while on their pastoral journeys.
Previously Pope Alexander III. (1159-64), by special edict, relieved the
common clergy from the necessity of keeping the archdeacons in hounds
and falcons during their visits to the churches.
Such a limitation of the more generous and worthy interests of mankind,
which stimulate and enlarge the mind, left the common intelligence in an
almost infantile condition. Sismondi says that even the nobles came to
count it a duty not to think. One can readily believe this on recalling
the titles given at court to the various royal personages who graced it:
Pepin the Short, Charles the Bald, William the Red, Louis the Fat, etc.
Fancy, however, will generally survive the failure of the logical and
æsthetic faculties, and thus men become the easy prey of superstition.
All sorts of stories of things supernatural, the invention of designing
priests or born of the surprise of ignorance at the unusual in nature,
were believed without question. The winds that rustled the leaves of the
forest were supposed to be the voices of saintly ghosts, and when with
wintry weight they moaned through the branches or screeched along the
icy rocks, it was believed that the damned were groaning in their pains
or that demons were threatening men. Every flash or shadow that could
not readily be explained was regarded as a hopeful or vengeful
apparition from the unseen world. This credulity was not confined to the
illiterate and boorish. The chroniclers of that age, upon whose learning
we depend for the facts of our history, relate with equal gravity the
deeds of demons and men, connect the doings of courts and the course of
comets, and intermingle in relation of cause and effect the storms of
nature and the wars of nations. Thus superstition completed the work of
mental inoccupancy, as vermin and bats inhabit an unfurnished cell.
Such a condition of the mental faculties could have only a deleterious
influence on the moral sense. We are not, therefore, surprised to find
the conscience of the age correspondingly crude.
This ethical degradation was reflected in the low state of the laws, if
the changeable wills or whims of a host of petty lords can be dignified
with the title of legislation. Power claimed possession with little
regard for the method of acquisition. Disputes, when relegated to the
pretence of a court, were tried not by weighing evidence, but by
counting the number of compurgators, that is, of those persons who would
swear that they believed the oath of one or the other party. When the
contestants were gentlemen or of the noble order, the cases were
arbitrated on the field of Private Combat. Even the judge or referee of
the combat was himself liable to challenge from either party that felt
itself aggrieved by his decision. Priests, invalids, and women were
accustomed to choose some one from among their relatives or friends to
champion their cause. There was no appeal to candid judgment after a
full hearing of the facts, except in case of dispute between slaves,
villains, and freemen of inferior condition, whose owners or lords might
be disposed to fair dealing. A relic of the mediæval custom of private
combat is the modern duel.
The personal encounter often grew to the dimensions of neighborhood war,
in which kinsmen and retainers were involved until entire districts were
laid waste. Neither the power of Charlemagne nor that of the church
prevailed against this unreasonable custom. The one exception to this
statement was the temporary lull in the carnage during what was known as
the Truce of God, an expedient agreed upon in certain places, according
to which raids and riots were confined to the half of the week
succeeding the Sabbath. But the adoption of this merciful rule forces
our attention to its necessity, since “man’s inhumanity to man” was
destroying entire populations as in a deluge of blood.
When for any reason the combat was inexpedient the question of right was
decided by the Ordeal. The accused party presumed to walk through fire
or on burning ploughshares, to handle hot iron, float upon water, plunge
the bare arm into a boiling caldron, or swallow a bit of consecrated
bread with appeal to Heaven to strike one dead if guilty. If one endured
the Ordeal unscathed he was said to be acquitted by the judgment of God.
It is not necessary to explain the apparent impunity with which some of
the worst criminals passed these trials, nor to cite the multitude of
cases in which persons of otherwise undoubted innocence were adjudged
guilty because they perished in this irrelevant attempt to vindicate
themselves. The fact that questions involving the most sacred rights of
the individual, such as the holding of property, the protection of the
body from mutilation on the rack, the retaining of life, and the
vindication of character, were not so much as brought to the court of
intelligence and conscience argues the degradation of both these
faculties.
If further evidence be needed that the very sense of justice had become
largely extinguished, it is found in the prevalence of judicial perjury,
allowed, and even prompted, by legalized custom. Before the combat both
parties were required to partake of the sacrament, in which act one of
the contestants, being guilty, was forced to commit sacrilege. Witnesses
were sworn upon the relics of the saints; but, notwithstanding these
things were believed to have in them a limitless power to help or hurt
those who touched their sacred incasements, the people seem to have
credited the righteousness of the dead as little as the impartiality of
the living, and the guilty were accustomed to perjure themselves without
dread of consequences. The soul of good Robert of France was so
afflicted by the universal consciencelessness in this respect that he
devised an expedient for averting the wrath of the saints, who might
justly avenge the slight put upon their bones. He ordered that the
relics should be secretly removed from the casket that was supposed to
contain them, so that the would-be perjurer might not actually commit
the crime he intended. If this act illustrated the mercy, it also
displayed the lack of true moral sentiment in him who, in contrast with
his fellows, was known as the “good king.”
Such stifling of the sense of justice was quite naturally attended by
the suppression of the gentler emotions of kindness and humanity. This
was an age of almost incredible cruelty. Natural affection, of course,
survived in the love of parents and children, husbands and wives. There
were delightful friendships which illumined the social gloom like
threads of gold in some dark fabric. Men and women lived and died for
one another, as they will always do while a lineament of the divine
remains in the human. But, beyond the fascination of the individual and
the obligations of kinship, the sentiment of love seemed unknown to the
masses. The founders of the great benevolent orders, men like Dominic
and Francis of Assisi, oppressed by this deadness to the essential
Christian spirit, were in the near future to unbind the hearts of men
that they might come forth to more generous life; but that day had not
yet come. Men apparently had lost the sympathetic imagination by which
the pains and grief of the unfortunate are transferred to the hearts of
others. Dean Stanley remarks of even the thirteenth century that “the
age had no sense of obligation to the poor and middle class.” It was
still needful that rulers should repeat the dying counsel of Charlemagne
to his sons, “not to deprive widows and orphans of their remaining
estates.”
This insensibility to the needs of others was accompanied by a positive
gratification in scenes of cruelty. The popular stories which mothers
taught their children were in praise of heroes whom we would regard as
butchers and bruisers. A favorite legend was of Renoart, the flower of
early Chivalry—he of the ugly visage and gigantic frame, whose mace laid
open the brains of his antagonists, and who broke the skull of the monk
who refused to indulge his whim of exchanging clothes with him. What
child of that age had not heard of Roland, the hero of Roncesvalles,
whose unstinted praises went far to form the manly habits of many
generations? He was an _enfant terrible_, who tore his swaddling-clothes
in pieces, belabored his mother furiously, and gave early promise of his
prowess by beating lifeless the porter of the castle who would not let
him go out to play. And how charming Roland’s love-making to the fair
Aude! He saw her for the first time amid the galaxy of beauties
assembled to witness his combat with Oliver. Unable to restrain his
passion, he rushed from the lists, threw himself upon her, and would
have carried her off bodily had not Oliver given him one of those blows
the echo of which has rung the praises of this mediæval prize-fighter
down the ages.
But the people of the eleventh century did not need to go back to an
earlier era for examples of this sort of manliness. Foulques the Black,
the greatest of the counts of Anjou (987-1040), was pious enough to go
on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but not sufficiently humane to refrain
from burning his young wife at the stake, decked for her doom in her
gayest attire. He was so humble that he paraded the streets of the Holy
City with a halter about his neck, while the blood streamed from the
scourge-wounds on his shoulders, yet he forced his own son to be bridled
and saddled like an ass and to crouch on all fours at his feet. Of the
whole line of Anjou at this period the historian Green remarks that
“their shameless wickedness degraded them below the level of man.” The
house of Normandy contested the palm of greatness with the Angevins, but
were equally rude. When William of Normandy, afterwards the Conqueror of
England, learned that Baldwin of Flanders had refused him his daughter
Matilda in marriage, the chronicle says “he forced his way into the
countess’s chamber, found the daughter, took her by her tresses, dragged
her about the room, and trampled her under his feet.” The young lady
does not seem to have been grieved by the violence of the wooing, but
rather to have acquired a better appreciation of the lordly qualities of
her future husband. We may be permitted to doubt the accuracy of this
story, but the fact that it was so early chronicled and generally
believed attests the popular taste. William Rufus (1056-1100) is thus
described by one who knew him: “The outrager of humanity, of law, and of
nature; beastly in his pleasures, a murderer and blasphemous scoffer.”
Henry I. of England (1068-1135) put out the eyes of his brother Robert
and of his two grandchildren, and forced his daughter to cross a frozen
fosse, stripped half naked.
The penalties under law also revealed the hardness of men’s hearts.
Criminals were hung by their feet, by their necks, or by their thumbs,
with burning matter fastened upon some part of the body; they were put
into dungeons with snakes, and into cages too small to allow the full
motion of the limbs; they were made to wear wooden or iron collars of
enormous weight, so arranged that the culprit could take no position
without feeling the burden.
In battle the soldier was to despise the bow, his delight to face the
enemy at point of sword, his glory the blood that bespattered him from
the gurgling arteries of the foe, or that trickled from his own wounds.
No Fabian policy gave éclat to the warrior; victory was measured by the
heaps of the slain, not by the progress of the cause. No quarter was
ordinarily given or expected on the capture of strongholds; and not
infrequently the entire surviving population of conquered cities paid
with their lives the penalty for having permitted themselves to be
defended by the vanquished. Raymond of Toulouse we shall learn to admire
as our story advances. He was one of the most self-restrained and
chivalric of the early crusaders; yet he put out the eyes and cut off
the noses of his captives, and sent them thus mutilated to their homes,
as a warning to their neighbors not to molest the march of the “soldiers
of the cross.” Of this act of atrocity the chronicler of the day
remarks: “It is not easy to do justice to the bravery and wisdom
conspicuously displayed by the count here.” Too commonly the innocence
of childhood, the venerableness of age, and the sacredness of sex were
indiscriminately outraged by the license of conquest.
The love of war for its own sake was the dominant passion of such
people. When no plausible pretext could be urged for declaration of
hostilities, it burst out between neighborhoods as by spontaneous
combustion. Raids and counter-raids took the place of the commercial
rivalries of later times.
From the days of Charlemagne it had been the custom to signalize
entrance upon manhood by buckling about the loins the sword, the
investment with “virile arms.” The church, in hopeless inability to
check the universal passion for fight, sought only to direct it to the
suppression of ecclesiastical enemies. Pope Paschal (1099) exhorted
Count Robert of Flanders to persecute to the utmost the Emperor Henry,
saying, “By such battles you shall obtain a place in the heavenly
Jerusalem.” Bernard, without dispute the holiest man of the next
century, offered no excuse or palliation for his harangue to the
faithful: “Let them kill the enemy or die. To submit to die for Christ,
or to cause one of His enemies to die, is naught but glory.”
Very characteristic is the story of the death of the youthful Vivien, as
told in the famous “Chansons de Geste,” composed about this time, though
its alleged events belong to an earlier date. Vivien was the nephew of
that William of Orange whose name is associated with the rise of
knighthood, as that of the later William of Orange is with a nobler
patriotism. There had been a fearful fight. Vivien was mortally wounded,
and lay dying ere he had partaken of his first sacrament. The older
warrior bent over him on the corpse-strewn field:
“You must confess to me, because I am your nearest relative and there is
no priest here.”
The failing lips of the lad began the confession of the sins of his
brief lifetime. He could think of but a single offence against God or
his own nature; so heinous was his conception of the greatness of this
one crime that it blotted out the memory of all else. What was this
monstrous iniquity?
“I made a vow that I would never retreat one step before an enemy, and
this day I have failed to keep my oath.”
William raised the head of the dying boy, placed the consecrated wafer,
which he was accustomed to carry for such emergencies, between the eager
lips of Vivien, and watched the young soul as, without fear or
misgiving, it went to the judgment of Him who is preëminently the God of
battles.
In the wars of this period a common sight was that of bishops and
archbishops, clad in coats of mail, riding through the streets of their
episcopal towns on fierce chargers, and returning to their palaces
clotted with dirt and blood. That was a deserved rebuke, as well as a
fine sarcasm, with which Richard Cœur de Lion sent the blood-stained
armor of the Bishop of Beauvais to the Pope, as the garment of Joseph to
Jacob, asking the Holy Father if he recognized his son’s coat.
Even women on occasion put on armor and mingled in the mêlée. Gaita, the
wife of Robert Guiscard, fought in the front rank of the Normans in
their conflict with the Greeks. When the crusades were in progress many
a fair woman adopted the martial costume. The Amazonian Brunhilde is
scarcely overdrawn by Scott in “Count Robert of Paris,” and the Moslem
heroines of Tasso’s “Jerusalem Delivered,” stripped of their
supernatural resources, might have figured in the Christian camp.
Walter Scott put into the mouth of the Greek Nicephorus a pertinent
description of his fellow-Christians of the West: “To whom the strife of
combat is as the breath of their nostrils, who, rather than not be
engaged in war, will do battle with their nearest neighbors and
challenge each other to mortal fight, as much in sport as we would defy
a comrade to a chariot-race.”
It is but just to say that, if the Greeks were amazed at the warlike
propensities of the Catholics, they expressed no wonder at their
cruelty. In this they themselves even excelled their more robust rivals.
The dungeons of Constantinople were filled with political offenders
whose eyes were torn from their sockets; and more than one imperial
candidate resumed his place of honor among a people whose waving banners
he was unable to see. The Greek differed from the Frank and German, the
Norman and Saxon, chiefly in being a coward and choosing to glut his
brutal instincts with the use of the secret torture, the poisoned cup,
or the dagger in the back of his victim, rather than with the sword and
battle-axe in open fight.
To a people such as we have described the appeal for the crusades, in
which the imagined cause of heaven marched in step with their own tastes
and habits, was irresistible.
CHAPTER III.
CHIVALRY—RULES—EDUCATION OF KNIGHT—CEREMONIES—INFLUENCE ON CHARACTER.
The call for the crusades, while appealing powerfully to the warlike
disposition of the people, would not have succeeded in rousing Europe
had there not been in the popular heart at least the germs of nobler
sentiment. The vitality of conscience notwithstanding its degradation,
and an inclination towards the exercise of the finer graces of conduct
in spite of the prevalent grossness, manifested themselves in the rise
of Chivalry.
The picturesqueness of knight-errantry, and the glamour thrown over the
subject by poetry and romance, may mislead us as to the real character
of this institution. We must distinguish between the ideals of
knighthood and the actual lives of those who, from various motives,
thronged the profession. We must not confound the Chivalry of these
earlier and ruder ages with that of its more refined, though somewhat
effeminate, later days. It would be an equal mistake to pose the
half-savage Saxon for a picture of the gallant Provençal, because they
were fellows of the same order. But, making all allowance for
variations, defects, and perversions in Chivalry, the institution went
far towards redeeming the character of the middle ages. Among the
articles of the chivalric code were the following:
To fight for the faith of Christ. In illustration of this part of his
vow, the knight always stood with bared head and unsheathed sword during
the reading of the lesson from the gospels in the church service.
To serve faithfully prince and fatherland.
To defend the weak, especially widow’s, orphans, and damsels.
To do nothing for greed, but everything for glory.
To keep one’s word, even returning to prison or death if, having been
captured in fair fight, one had promised to do so.
Together with these vows of real virtue were others, which signified
more for the carnal pride of the warrior, e.g.:
Never to fight in companies against one opponent.
To wear but one sword, unless the enemy displayed more than one.
Not to put off armor while upon an adventure, except for a night’s rest.
Never to turn out of a straight road in order to avoid danger from man,
beast, or monster.
Never to decline a challenge to equal combat, unless compelled to do so
by wounds, sickness, or other equally reasonable hindrance.
The aspirant for knighthood began his career in early boyhood by
attending some superior as his page. Lads of noblest families sought to
be attached to the persons of those renowned in the order, though not to
their own fathers, lest their discipline should be over-indulgent.
Frequently knights of special note for valor and skill at arms opened
schools for the training of youth. The page was expected to wait upon
his lord as a body-servant in the bedchamber, the dining-hall, and, when
consistent with his tender years, upon the journey and in the camp. It
was a maxim of the code that one “should learn to obey before attempting
to govern.”
With the development of manly strength, at about his fourteenth year the
page became an esquire. He then burnished and repaired the armor of his
chief, broke his steeds, led his charger, and carried his shield to the
field of battle. In the mêlée he fought by his master’s side, nursed him
when wounded, and valued his own life as naught when weighed against his
lord’s safety or honor.
The faithful esquire was adubbed a knight at the will and by the hand of
his superior. This honor was sometimes awarded on the field of conflict
for a specially valiant deed. More commonly the heroic subalterns were
summoned to receive the coveted prize when the fight was done. More than
one instance is mentioned where the esquire bowed his head beneath the
dead hand of his master and there assumed the duty of completing the
enterprise in which his chief had fallen. Ordinarily, however, the
ceremony was held in the castle hall, or in later times in the church,
on the occasion of some festival or upon the candidate’s reaching the
year of his majority.
The rite of admission to knighthood was made as impressive as possible.
The young man, having come from the bath, was clothed in a white tunic,
expressive of the purity of his purpose; then in a red robe, symbolical
of the blood he was ready to shed; and in a black coat, to remind him of
the death that might speedily be his portion. After fasting, the
candidate spent the night in prayer. In the morning the priest
administered to him the holy communion, and blessed the sword which hung
from his neck. Attendant knights and ladies then clothed him in his
armor. Kneeling at the feet of the lord, he received from him the
accolade, three blows with the flat of the sword upon his shoulder, with
the repetition of the formula, “In the name of God, St. Michael, and St.
George, I make thee a knight.”
More impressive, because more unusual, was the ceremony of his
degradation, if he broke his plighted faith or forfeited his honor. He
was exposed on a platform, stripped of his armor, which was broken to
pieces and thrown upon a dunghill. His shield was dragged in the dirt by
a cart-horse, his own charger’s tail was cut off, while he was himself
carried into a church on a litter, and forced to listen to the burial
service, since he was now to move among men as one who was dead to the
honor for which he had vowed to live.
The chief defect of Chivalry was that, while it displayed some of the
finer sentiments of the soul in contrast with the general grossness of
the age, it did not aspire to the highest motives as these were felt in
the early days of Christianity and as they are again apprehended in
modern times. Notwithstanding the vow of devotion, there was little that
was altruistic about it. The thought of the devotee was ultimately upon
himself, his renown and glory. His crested helmet, his gilded spurs, his
horse in housing of gold, and the scarlet silk which marked him as apart
from and above his fellows, were not promotive of that humility and
self-forgetfulness from which all great moral actions spring. Our modern
characterization of the proud man is borrowed from the knight’s leaving
his palfrey and mounting his charger, or, as it was called, getting “on
his high horse.” In battle the personality of the knight was not, as in
the case of the modern soldier, merged in the autonomy of the brigade or
squadron; he appeared singly against a selected antagonist of equal rank
with his own, so that the field presented the appearance of a multitude
of private combats. In the lull of regular warfare he sought solitary
adventures for gaining renown, and often challenged his companions in
arms to contest with him the palm of greater glory. Writers aptly liken
the mediæval knights to the heroic chiefs of Arabia, and even of the
American Indians, to whom personal prowess is more than patriotism.
Hallam would choose as the finest representative of the chivalric spirit
the Greek Achilles, who could fight valiantly, or sulk in his tent
regardless of the cause, when his individual honor or right seemed to be
menaced.
The association of Chivalry with gallantry, though prompted by the
benevolent motive of helping the weak or paying homage to woman as the
embodiment of the pure and beautiful, did not always serve these high
purposes. The “love of God and the ladies,” enjoined as a single duty,
was often to the detriment of the religious part of the obligation. The
fair one who was championed in the tournament was apt to be sought
beyond the lists. The poetry of the Troubadours shows how the purest and
most delicate sentiment next to the religious, the love of man for
woman, became debauched by a custom which flaunted amid the brutal
scenes of the combat the name of her whose glory is her modesty, and
often made her virtue the prize of the ring.
Doubtless the good knight felt that the altar of his consecration was
not high enough. Even his vow to defend the faith had, within the bounds
of Christendom, little field where it could be honored by exploit of
arms. To take his part in the miserable quarrels that were chronic
between rival popes, or in the wars of the imperial against the prelatic
powers, both professedly Christian, could not satisfy any really
religious desires he may have felt. The chivalric spirit thus kindled
the aspiration for an ideal which it could not furnish. If the soldier
of the cross must wear armor, he would find no satisfaction unless he
sheathed his sword in the flesh of the Infidels, whose hordes were
gathering beyond the borders of Christendom. The institution of Chivalry
thus prepared the way for the crusades, which afforded a field for all
its physical heroism, while at the same time these great movements
stimulated and gratified what to this superstitious age was the deepest
religious impulse.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FEUDAL SYSTEM—GENERAL PRINCIPLES—INFLUENCE ON PEOPLE.
In accounting for the crusades we must consider the governmental
condition of Europe at the time. Under no other system than that of
feudalism would it have been possible to unify and mobilize the masses
for the great adventure. Had Europe then been dominated by several great
rulers, each with a nation at his control, as the case has been in
subsequent times, even the popes would have been unable to combine the
various forces in any enterprise that was not purely spiritual. Just to
the extent in which the separate nationalities have developed their
autonomy has the secular influence of the Roman see been lessened. Kings
and emperors, whenever they have felt themselves strong enough to do so,
have resented the leadership of Rome in matters having temporal
bearings.
Nor would the mutual jealousies of the rulers themselves have allowed
them to unite in any movement for the common glory, since the most
urgent calls have never been sufficient to unite them even for the
common defence, as is shown by the supineness of Catholic Europe when,
in the fifteenth century, the Turks crossed the Marmora and assailed
Constantinople.
But in the eleventh century there was no strong national government in
Europe; kingship and imperialism existed rather in name than in such
power as we are accustomed to associate with the words. At the opening
of the tenth century France was parcelled out into twenty-nine petty
states, each controlled by its feudal lord. Hugh Capet (987-996)
succeeded in temporarily combining under his sceptre these fragments of
Charlemagne’s estate; but his successors were unable to perpetuate the
common dominion. In the year 1000 there were fifty-five great Frankish
lords who were independent of the nominal sovereign. Indeed, some of
these nobles exercised authority more weighty than that of the throne.
Louis VI. (1108) first succeeded in making his lordly vassals respect
his kingship, but his domain was small. “Île de France, properly so
called, and a part of Orléannais, pretty nearly the five departments of
the Seine, French Vexin, half the countship of Sens, and the countship
of Bourges—such was the whole of it. But this limited state was as
liable to agitation, and often as troublous and toilsome to govern, as
the very greatest of modern states. It was full of petty lords, almost
sovereign in their own estates, and sufficiently strong to struggle
against their kingly suzerain, who had, besides, all around his domains
several neighbors more powerful than himself in the extent and
population of their states” (Guizot).
In Spain much of the land was still held by the Moors. That which had
been wrested from them was divided among the Christian heroes who
conquered it, and who, though feudal rules were not formally recognized,
held it with an aristocratic pretension commensurate with the leagues
they shadowed with their swords.
In Germany, though imperialism had been established firmly by Otho the
Great, the throne was forced to continual compromise with the ambition
of its chief vassals, like the dukes of Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and
Franconia. A papal appeal to such magnates was sufficient at any time to
paralyze, or at least to neutralize, the imperial authority.
The Norman holdings in the south of Italy, the independence of the
cities of Lombardy in the north, the claims of the German emperor and of
the popes to landed control, were typical of the divisions of that
unhappy peninsula.
Later than the age we are studying, Frederick Barbarossa (1152-90)
enjoined that “in every oath of fealty to an inferior lord the vassal’s
duty to the emperor should be expressly reserved.” But it was not so
elsewhere. When Henry II. (1154-89) and Richard I. (1189-99) claimed
lands in France, their French vassals never hesitated to adhere to these
English lords, nor “do they appear to have incurred any blame on that
account. St. Louis (1226-70) declared in his laws that if ‘justice be
refused by the king to one of his vassals, the vassal may summon his own
tenants, under penalty of forfeiting their fiefs, to assist him in
obtaining redress by arms’” (Hallam).
The extent to which the French barons were independent of the throne
will be evident from a glance at their privileges. They possessed
unchallenged:
(1) The right of coining money. In Hugh Capet’s time there were one
hundred and fifty independent mints in the realm.
(2) The right of waging private war. Every castle was a fortress, always
equipped as in a state of siege.
(3) Immunity from taxation. Except that the king was provided with
entertainment on his journeys, the crown had no revenue beyond that
coming from the personal estates of its occupant.
(4) Freedom from all legislative control. Law-making ceased with the
capitularies of Carloman in 882. The first renewal of the attempt at
general legislation was not until the time of Louis VIII. in 1223. Even
St. Louis declared in his establishments that the king could make no
laws for the territories of the barons without their consent.
(5) Exclusive right of original judicature.
But if such was the independence of the feud-holder in his relations to
the sovereign, those beneath him were in absolute dependence upon their
lord. This is seen in the following obligations of feudal tenants to
their superior:
(1) Reliefs: sums of money due from every one coming of age and taking a
fief by inheritance; fines upon alienation or change of tenant
ownership.
(2) Escheats: reversion to the lord of all property upon a tenant’s
dying without natural heirs, or upon any delinquency of service.
(3) Aids: contributions levied in special emergency, as the lord’s
expedition to the Holy Land, the marriage of his sister, eldest son, or
daughter, his paying a “relief” to his overlord, making his son a
knight, or redeeming his own person from captivity.
(4) Wardship of tenant during minority. This involved on the part of the
lord the right to select a husband for a female dependent, which
alliance could be declined only on payment of a fine equal to that which
any one desiring the woman could be induced to offer for her.
If the feudal system pressed so harshly upon those who were themselves
of high rank, it need not be said that the common people were utterly
crushed by this accumulation of graded despotisms, whose whole weight
rested ultimately on the lowest stratum. The mass of the lowly was
divided into three orders:
(1) Freemen possessing small tracts of allodial land, so called because
held by original occupancy and not yet merged in the larger holdings.
There were many freemen in the fifth and sixth centuries, but in the
tenth century nearly all the land of Europe had become feudal. The
freemen, whose possessions were small, soon found it necessary to
surrender land and liberty for the sake of protection by some
neighboring lord.
(2) Villains or serfs, who were attached to the land and transferable
with it on change of owners.
(3) Slaves. The degradation of the servile class was limitless, the
master having the right of life and death, entire use of the property
and wages of his people, and absolute disposal of them in marriage.
Slavery was abolished in France by Louis the Gross (1108-37) so far as
respected the inhabitants of cities; but it took nearly two centuries
more to accomplish the abolition of servitude throughout the kingdom.
The cities were, indeed, rising to assert their communal, if not
manhood, rights. The communes, as they were called, demanded and
received privilege in certain places of electing any persons to
membership as citizens who were guaranteed absolute ownership of
property. But the communes were far from even suggesting anything like
the modern democratic systems, and were opposed by clergy and nobility.
“So that,” says Guizot, “security could hardly be purchased, save at the
price of liberty. Liberty was then so stormy and so fearful that people
conceived, if not a disgust for it, at any rate a horror of it.” Men had
not evolved the morality which could make a commonwealth. Law was bound
on men only by force. The wall of the castle, grand and impressive as
wealth could build it, or only a rude addition to the natural rock, was
the sole earthly object of reverence. To the strong man came the weak,
saying, “Let me be yours; protect me and I will fight for you.”
It will be evident that under the feudal system patriotism, in the
modern sense of attachment to one’s national domain, can scarcely be
said to have existed. While we may not believe recent French writers who
assert that the love of their country as such was born with the
Revolution a hundred years ago, it is certain that the mediæval
attachment was no wider than to one’s immediate neighborhood. The
crusading Count of Flanders, on viewing the desolate hills about
Jerusalem, exclaimed, “I am astonished that Jesus Christ could have
lived in such a desert. I prefer my big castle in my district of Arras.”
The love of the peasant seems to have been only for his familiar hills
and vineyards, and his loyalty was limited by the protecting hand of his
lord.
Yet generous spirits could not remain forever so narrowly bounded in
their interests. Men were ready to hear the call to a wider range of
sympathies and actions. The summons for the crusades thus furnished the
lacking sentiment of patriotism; but it was a patriotism that could not
be bounded by the Rhine or the Danube, by the Channel or the Pyrenees.
Europe was country; Christendom was fatherland.
At the same time the compactness of each feud, the close interdependence
of lord and vassal, furnished the condition for the organization of
bands of fighting men, ready to move at once, and to continue the
enterprise so long as the means of the superior should hold out. There
was needed to start the crusading armies no council of parliament or
alliance of nations, hazarded and delayed by the variant policies of
different courts. If the baron was inclined to obey the call of his
ghostly superior, the successor of St. Peter, his retainers were ready
to march. And the most brawling of the barons was superstitious enough
to think that the voice of the Pope might be the voice of God. If he did
not, his retainers did, and disobedience to the papal will might cost
him the obedience of those subject to him. Besides, many of the feudal
lords were themselves in clerical orders, with their oath of fealty
lying at the feet of the Holy Father.
Thus Europe, though divided into many factions, and, indeed, because the
factions were so many, was in a condition to be readily united. We shall
see in a subsequent chapter that it was in the interest of the holy see
to apply the spring which should combine and set in motion these various
communities as but parts of that gigantic piece of ecclesiastical and
military mechanism invented by Hildebrand.
CHAPTER V.
THE IMPOVERISHED CONDITION OF EUROPE.
The once luxuriant civilization of Rome had been swept away by the
Northern invaders as completely as a freshet despoils the fields when it
not only destroys standing vegetation, but carries with the débris the
soil itself. The most primitive arts, those associated with agriculture,
were forgotten, and the rudiments of modern industries were not thought
of. Much of the once cultivated land had, as has elsewhere been noted,
reverted to native forest and marsh, and in places was still being
purchased by strangers on titles secured by occupancy and first
improvement, as now in the new territories of America. But even nature’s
pity for man was outraged; the bounty she gave from half-tilled acres
was despoiled by men themselves, as hungry children snatch the morsels
of charity from one another’s hands. What was hoarded for personal
possession became the spoil of petty robbers, and what was left by the
neighborhood marauder was destroyed in the incessant baronial strife. To
these devouring forces must be added the desolating wars between the
papal and imperial powers, the conquest and reconquest of Spain by Moors
and Christians, and the despoiling of Saxon England by the Normans.
Throughout Europe, fields, cottages, castles, oftentimes churches, were
stripped by the vandalism which had seemingly become a racial
disposition. To this ordinary impoverished condition was added the
especial misery, about 1195, of several years’ failure of crops. Famine
stalked through France and middle Europe; villages were depopulated.
Cruel as they were, men grew weary of raiding one another’s possessions
when there was nothing to bring back but wounds. Even hatred palled when
unsupported by envy and cupidity.
The crusades gave promise of opening a new world to greed. The stories
that were told of Eastern riches grew, as repeated from tongue to
tongue, until fable seemed poor in comparison with what was believed to
be fact. All the wealth of antiquity was presumed to be still stored in
treasure-vaults, which the magic key of the cross would unlock. The
impoverished baron might exchange his half-ruined castle for some
splendid estate beyond the Ægean, and the vulgar crowd, if they did not
find Jerusalem paved with gold like the heavenly city, would assuredly
tread the veins of rich mines or rest among the flowers of an earthly
paradise. The Mohammedan’s expectation of a sensual heaven after death
was matched by the Christian’s anticipation of what awaited him while
still in life.
They who were uninfluenced by this prospect may have seized the more
warrantable hope of opening profitable traffic with the Orient. The
maritime cities of Italy had for a long time harvested great gains in
the eastern Mediterranean, in spite of the Moslem interruptions of
commerce. Would not a tide of wealth pour westward if only the swords of
the Christians could hew down its barriers?
The church piously, but none the less shrewdly, stimulated the sense of
economy or greed by securing exemption from taxation to all who should
enlist, and putting a corresponding burden of excise upon those who
remained at home, whose estates were assessed to pay the expenses of the
absent. The householder who found it difficult to save his possessions
while keeping personal guard over them was assured that all his family
and effects would be under the watchful protection of the church, with
anathemas already forged against any who should molest them. If one were
without means he might borrow to the limit of his zeal, with exemption
from interest. It was understood that the Jews were still under
necessity of paying back the thirty pieces of silver with which they had
bought the Christians’ Lord, the interest on which, compounded through
the centuries, was now equal in amount to all there might be in the
vaults of this accursed race.
When we remember the wars of modern times which have originated in the
cupidity of men, we are not surprised that the same disposition,
inflamed by the sense of dire need at home and the vision of untold
treasures _outre mer_, with heavenly rewards beyond the sky, should have
led to the same result in an age that knew almost nothing of the arts of
peace.
CHAPTER VI.
THE PAPAL POLICY—DEMORALIZATION OF THE WORLD AND THE CHURCH—HILDEBRAND’S
PURPOSE INHERITED BY HIS SUCCESSORS.
We shall fail to appreciate the inception of the crusades if we overlook
the influence of the papal policy in the middle ages. These movements of
Europe against Asia, being under the direct patronage of the popes,
facilitated the plans of Rome to consolidate and universalize the
ecclesiastical empire. To understand this policy we must recall the
condition of the church in its relation to popular life and the secular
powers.
We have referred to the fact that the year 1000 had been looked forward
to as that which should mark the end of the world. So common was the
expectation of this termination of human affairs that many charters,
which have been preserved from this period, begin with the words, “As
the world is now drawing to its close.” When, however, the fatal day
passed without any perceptible shock to the universe, the popular
credulity added the thirty-three years of the life of our Lord to the
calculation, and prolonged the gruesome foreboding. But if the
chronological interpretation of the prophecy of the Book of Revelation
was a mistaken one, there was not wanting an apparent fulfilment of the
descriptive prediction, “Satan shall be loosed out of his prison.” The
falsity and viciousness of men certainly took on fiendish proportions.
The worst feature of the general demoralization was that the millennial
fear had driven all sorts of men into church orders. The priesthood and
monasteries were crowded with wretched characters, whose imagined
immunity in their sacred refuges gave license to their carnal vices. The
clergy were no longer the shepherds, but the bell-wethers of the wayward
flock. Priests lived in open concubinage. When Hildebrand, previous to
his elevation to the Papacy, took charge of the monastery of St. Paul in
Rome, his first work was to drive out the cattle that were stabled in
the basilica, and the prostitutes who served the tables of the monks.
Courtesans reigned even in the palaces of the popes with more effrontery
than in the courts of the secular princes. The offspring of such
creatures as the infamous Theodora, and of her daughters Theodora and
Marozia, had, in the tenth century, purchased the tiara with their
vices. In those days the papal staff was wrenched by violence from the
hands that held it with more frequency than the old Roman sceptre had
been stolen in the worst days of the empire. It may well be credited
that men began to pray again to pagan deities in sheer despondency under
the darkness which veiled the Christian truth. The surviving religious
sentiment was voiced in the solemn utterance of the Council of Rheims,
which declared that the church was “ruled by monsters of iniquity,
wanting in all culture, whether sacred or profane.”
If the tenth century closed with a gleam of hope in the elevation of
Gregory V. (996-999) and Sylvester II. (999-1003), it was quickly
remembered that the learning of the latter had been acquired among the
Saracens; and his biographer attributed his attainments to magic and
undue familiarity with the fiends in hell.
In the early part of the eleventh century the papal chair was filled
with the nominees of politicians, and from 1033 to 1045 disgraced by
Benedict IX., who at the age of twelve was selected to pose as the
Vicegerent of God. The lowest vices and caprices of unconscionable youth
were enthroned in the place that was most sacred in the thoughts of men.
One of his successors, Victor III. (1086-87), said of Benedict that he
led a life so shameful, so foul and execrable, that it made one shudder
to describe it. A man of such grovelling appetites naturally wearied
with even the slight usages of decency which had come to be regarded as
necessary in the papal palace; and after twelve years of irksome attempt
to support its lessened dignity, he sold his tiara to Gregory VI. An
unknown writer, about the middle of the eleventh century, attempting a
review of the passing age, exclaimed, “Everything is degenerate and all
is lost. Faith has disappeared. The world has grown old and must soon
cease altogether.”
As the debasement of the church could go no lower, a reaction was
natural and inevitable, if virtue was not altogether decayed at the
roots. The sentiment of human decency reasserted itself, and, since
there was no power at Rome to inaugurate reform, an appeal was made to
the German emperor. Henry III., in response to the call, deposed by
force three rival claimants to the papal throne, and secured the
ascendency of a line of German popes. It was not without the suspicion
of poison that two of them died after brief power: Clement II. within
the year, and Damasus II. in twenty-three days.
With Leo IX. (1049) came a better era. The year 1033, the ultimate date
set by the prophecy-mongers for the end of the world, being clearly
past, and men becoming again possessed of hope in the continuance of
mundane affairs, the best spirits dared to labor for the renovation of
society, that the earth thus saved as by fire might become indeed “a new
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
From this time the commanding genius and pure purpose of Hildebrand
guided, if he did not select, the occupants of the seat of St. Peter,
until, in 1073, the great counsellor himself assumed the sacred sceptre.
History, while it severely condemns the methods by which Hildebrand
sought to attain his ends, credits him with rigid honesty and devotion
to what he believed to be the will of Heaven. While it writes into his
epitaph the charge of most inordinate ambition, it does not erase from
it the record of his utterance as he lay dying, a fugitive at Salerno:
“I have loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore I die in
exile.”
The religious degradation of Christendom afflicted the soul of this
truly great man; but whence could come reform? The age was too far gone
in its demoralization to wait for recuperation through the slow process
of education. Society could not endure another generation of its own
putridity. The secular powers were utterly impotent to cope with the
gigantic evils that were abroad in every land. Even had they possessed
the disposition to champion the virtues, such sovereigns as the King of
France, the Emperor of Germany, the new Norman King of England, were
altogether engrossed in holding their precarious crowns, surrounded as
they were by a multitude of feudal lords, some of whom could collect in
their own names a larger force than that which would rise to defend the
throne.
To Hildebrand but one course seemed open, a desperate one, whose hazard
showed the audacity of the genius that conceived it. It was nothing less
than to declare the Papacy a world monarchy, and to force universal
reform by the combined power of the secular and spiritual sceptre held
in his own hand. In his bull against the Emperor Henry IV. he used these
words: “Come now, I pray thee, O most holy Father, and ye princes [St.
Peter and St. Paul], that all the world may know that if ye are able to
bind and loose in heaven, ye are able on earth to take away, or to give
to each according to his merits, empires, kingdoms, duchies,
marquisates, counties, and the possessions of all men.... If ye judge in
spiritual affairs, how great must be your power in secular! and if ye
are to judge angels, who rule over proud princes, what may ye not do to
these their servants! Let kings, then, and all the princes of the world
learn what ye are and how great is your power, and fear to treat with
disrespect the mandates of the church.”
To practicalize this enormous claim, the Pope made two demands, which
threw Europe into a state of turmoil, (1) He ordered the renunciation of
all investitures of religious office by secular potentates. The clergy
held of the empire cities, duchies, entire provinces, rights of levying
taxes, coinage, etc., amounting to one half of all property. The sees
thus held Hildebrand declared to be vacated until their occupants should
again receive them from his hand under pledge of absolute obedience to
the papal, as opposed to the imperial, authority. By this stroke the
Pope would gather to himself the practical control of all countries. (2)
Hildebrand forbade the marriage of the clergy—a custom wide-spread at
the time—and commanded those who had entered into matrimony, however
innocently and legally, to forsake their wives, as having been but
concubines, and their children, since logically they were but bastards.
By enforcing the celibacy of the clergy, he would have at his call an
army of men without domestic ties, care, or encumbrance, and, so far as
possible to human nature, divested of individuality, and thus the pliant
agents of his single will.
The audacity of Hildebrand’s scheme will be noted by comparing it with
the attitude of the most devoted adherents to the papal authority
previous to his time.
The capitularies of Charlemagne contain many rules for the regulation of
religious duties. The emperor himself (794) presided at the Synod of
Frankfort, though a papal legate was in attendance. While he brought the
church all possible help as an ally, and yielded to it all obedience as
a private Christian, he never allowed his imperial authority to be under
so much as the shadow of control by the papal. He suffered but one
religion in his domains, that which had the Pope for its chief
administrator; but he held with equal strenuousness that the emperor was
the vicar of God in things temporal.
From 964 to 1055 the popes had been the direct nominees of the emperor.
In 1059 the papal election devolved for the first time upon the conclave
of cardinals; but the Lateran Council decreed that the imperial
confirmation must follow. Though in 1061 Alexander II. was chosen
without imperial sanction, yet in 1073 Hildebrand himself, becoming Pope
as Gregory VII., did not venture to discharge the duties of the office
without first asking and obtaining the emperor’s assent.
But this outward deference to the secular power was only that he might
grasp more securely the weapon with which he would beat that power to
pieces. When the Emperor Henry IV. resented the sweeping claim of the
Pope, Hildebrand launched against him all the terrors of the pontifical
throne. His bull reads as follows: “Henry and all of his adherents I
excommunicate and bind in the fetters of anathema; on the part of
almighty God, I interdict him from the government of all Germany and
Italy; I deprive him of all royal power and dignity; I prohibit every
Christian from rendering him obedience as king; I absolve all who have
sworn or shall swear allegiance to his sovereignty from their oaths.”
(For the details of this controversy and the general history of
Hildebrand, the reader is referred to the previous volume in this
series, Vincent’s “Age of Hildebrand.”)
This policy of the Papacy to make itself the world monarchy had a direct
bearing upon the crusades and facilitated the enterprise. The astute
mind of Hildebrand saw that a movement which should combine the
Catholics of all countries in Europe under his command would immensely
augment his prestige as their great overlord. During his pontificate
there opportunely arrived at Rome messengers from the Greek emperor at
Constantinople, beseeching the aid of Western Christendom in expelling
the Turks, who were menacing the capital of the East. Hildebrand,
consistently with his policy, prescribed as the condition of such aid
the recognition on the part of the Greek Church of the headship of the
Roman pontiff. But in this demand he overshot the mark, while at the
same time the apathy of the Latin Christians towards their Greek
brethren, and his own controversy with the German emperor, left him no
opportunity to launch the movement. It was left to Urban II., his second
successor in the pontificate, to undertake the great adventure. As Dean
Milman remarks, “No event could be more favorable or more opportune for
the advancement of the great papal object of ambition, the acknowledged
supremacy over Latin Christendom, or for the elevation of Urban himself
over the rival Pope [Guibert] and the temporal sovereign, his enemies.”
CHAPTER VII.
THE MOHAMMEDAN MENACE—THE RISE OF ISLAM—SARACENS—TURKS.
The rapid rise and wide-spread conquest of Mohammedanism make one of the
most startling phenomena of history. If its story excites our wonder in
these days, while we are watching its decadence, we may imagine the
consternation wrought when its swarming hosts, with the prestige of
having conquered all western Asia, were breaking through the barriers of
Christendom.
We shall greatly mistake this movement if we regard it as a mere
irruption of brute force such as characterized the assaults of the
barbarians upon the Roman empire. The teachings of Mohammed, gross as
they appear in contrast with either primitive or modern Christianity,
contained elements which appealed to far nobler sentiments than those
entertained by the pagans of northern Europe, or those current in the
age of the Prophet among the people of his own race. Compared with
these, Islamism was a reformation, and enthused its adherents with the
belief that they fought for the advancement of civilization as well as
for the rewards of paradise.
The central thought of Islamism is the unity of the Godhead, and its
first victory was the obliteration of polytheism among the tribes of
Arabia.
It is true that, before the time of Mohammed, Allah had been accorded
the first place in the speculative theology of the Arabs; yet gods many
usurped their worship and were supposed to control their daily lives.
Wise men, called hanifs, had protested against the prevailing
superstition, and succeeded in spreading a healthful scepticism
regarding the lesser divinities. Mohammed eagerly imbibed the better
philosophy. Familiarity with the religion of the Jews, and some
acquaintance with the doctrine of Jesus, whom he accepted as a true
prophet, doubtless gave shape and vividness to his better faith. His
meditations on the grand themes of religion were, to his excited
imagination, rewarded by definite revelation. He rose inspired with the
conviction,—which became the call for a new civilization in the
Orient,—“Great is God, and Mohammed is His prophet!” Islam, or
resignation to the sovereign will of Allah, became the title and spirit
of the new religion.
But if a celestial ray had touched and stimulated the mind of Mohammed,
no heavenly influence refined his heart and conscience. Sensuality and
cruelty, racial qualities of the Arab, were not only unrestrained, but
utilized as agencies for the spread of the faith. Ferocity wielded the
sword, and its fury was to be rewarded by the gratification of lust in a
paradise whose description surpassed the sensuous fancies of pagan poets
and romancers. The spirit of the new propaganda is evinced in this
sentence from the Koran: “The sword is the key of heaven and hell; a
drop of blood shed in the cause of Allah, a night spent in arms, is of
more avail than two months of fasting and prayer; whoever falls in
battle, his sins are forgiven, and at the day of judgment his limbs
shall be supplied with the wings of angels and cherubim.”
It might seem that the Christian would be spared the vengeance of
Mohammed, since he also taught the unity of the Godhead; but the Arabian
misunderstood Christianity. To him the Trinity was essential polytheism.
It must be confessed that such Christianity as the Arab saw very
naturally suggested that false interpretation of the Bible doctrine. In
some Eastern Christian sects Mariolatry had exalted the mother of Jesus
to the third place in the Trinity, in horrid usurpation of the office of
the Holy Ghost. The Koran expressly condemns the triform worship of
Jehovah, Jesus, and Mary. The Prophet, while denying the divinity of
Christ, regarded himself as an avenger of Jesus, the holy man, against
the heresy of his professed followers. Mohammed’s last utterance is
reported to have been, “The Lord destroy the Jews and Christians! Let
His anger be kindled against all those that turn the tombs of their
prophets into places of worship! Eternity in paradise!”
Not only was the doctrine of the Koran acceptable to the people to whom
it was delivered; the organization of the Mohammedan system provided an
efficient agency for its development and propagandism.
This organization was exceedingly simple. It had but one code for things
religious and things secular. The Koran was at once the confession of
faith and the national constitution. From the same pages the priest
preached eternal life, caliph, emir, and sheik quoted the rules of
government, the judge drew his decision in controversies, the soldier
read his reward for valor and death on the field, and merchant and
peasant found the regulations for their daily traffic. The one book
destroyed the distinction between sacred and profane, since everything
became thereby religious, while the duties and amenities of common life
were surcharged with the bigotry of devoteeism.
The unity of Moslemism under the book was further intensified by the
sole headship of the Prophet and his successors. The fondest dream of
the popes of Rome, to blend spiritual and secular authority, was
surpassed by the throne which actually arose in the Arabian desert. The
opinion of the caliph was the final decision of all questions of dogma;
ministers of state were his personal commissioners, and over them, as
over the humblest subject, he exercised the power of life and death. One
will was sovereign, responsible to none other, and actuated all things
in church and state. One man’s word rallied tribes and sects, and hurled
them _en masse_ upon his enemies, or in more peaceful ways directed
their seeming diversities to the accomplishment of a single purpose.
It must be acknowledged, however, that, while the Mohammedan system thus
adapted it to the most deadly tyranny over thought and life, it was not
always so wielded. The cause was advanced by the sagacity, if not the
more humane inclinations, of many of the caliphs. Not a few of these
were among the wisest men of their day, and adopted a policy of leniency
in dealing with their submissive enemies, which facilitated the
extension of their rule. The repetition of a single sentence,
acknowledging the unity of God and the supremacy of the Prophet,
transformed foe into friend. In many instances the tribute paid to the
conqueror was far less than that which the former Christian rulers had
been in the habit of exacting. Though, as a rule, Christian churches
were ruthlessly despoiled of their symbolic ornaments and reduced to the
barren simplicity of the mosque, yet they were frequently spared this
sacrilege. When Jerusalem fell into the hands of Omar, the Christians
were forbidden to call to worship by the sound of bell, to parade the
streets in religious procession, to distinguish their sect by badge or
dress, and were compelled to give up the temple site for the mosque of
Omar; yet they were allowed freely to worship in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, the caliph himself refusing to appear within those sacred
precincts, saying, “Had I done so, future Mussulmans would infringe the
treaty under cover of imitating my example.” Haroun-al-Raschid, in
exchanging courtesies with Charlemagne, presented him with the keys of
the Holy Sepulchre.
To this compact unity of Mohammedanism under Koran and caliph, and this
wise blending of the terror of arms with peaceful patronage, was due the
unparalleled progress of the religion of the Prophet. The Moslem
conquests will appear in the story, first of the Saracen, and later that
of the Turk.
_The Saracens._—During Mohammed’s lifetime Arabia and Syria were beneath
his hand. Within eight years following, Persia, parts of Asia Minor,
Palestine, and Egypt submitted to him. Thirteen years more (653) saw the
cimeter of the Saracens enclosing an area as large as the Roman empire
under the Cæsars. In 668 they assaulted Constantinople. In 707 North
Africa surrendered the treasures of its entire coast from the Nile to
the Atlantic, and the home of Augustine, the father of Christian
orthodoxy, was occupied by the Infidels. In 711 the Saracen general
Tarik crossed the straits between the Mediterranean and Atlantic, and
landed on the rock which has ever since borne his name—Jebel-Tarik, the
“hill of Tarik,” or Gibraltar. By 717 Spain, from the Mediterranean to
the Pyrenees, had become the proud conquest of the Moors. But for the
timely victory of Charles Martel at Tours, in 732, they had surely
subdued France and soon completed the circle of conquest by the
desolation of Italy, Germany, and the lands bordering the Balkans. In
847 the Saracens were masters of Sicily, and besieged Rome itself,
plundering the suburban churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Thirty years
later Pope John VIII. wrote to Charles the Bold: “If all the trees in
the forests were turned into tongues, they could not describe the
ravages of these impious pagans; the devout people of God is destroyed
by a continual slaughter; he who escapes the fire and the sword is
carried as a captive into exile. Cities, castles, and villages are
utterly wasted and without an inhabitant. The Hagarenes [sons of
fornication and wrath] have crossed the Tiber.” In 916 these persistent
foes occupied a fortress on the Gangliano, between Naples and Rome,
whence they held the papal domain at their mercy, and seizing the
persons of pilgrims on their way to the shrine of the apostles, held
them for heavy ransom. This stronghold was broken up only by the attack
of a powerful confederacy of Italian dukes, aided by the emperors of the
East and West. The exigency was so great that, in the estimate of papal
apologists, it warranted the action of Pope John X., who arrayed himself
in carnal armor and rode at the head of the attacking forces.
In 1016 a powerful armament of Saracens was landed at Luna in the
territory of Pisa, but defeated by Pope Benedict VIII. This disaster did
not diminish either the hauteur or expectancy of the invader, who sent
to the Pope a huge bag of chestnuts with the message, “I will return
with as many valiant Saracens to the conquest of Italy.” The Pope was
not to be outdone in prowess of speech, and returned a bag of millet
with the boast, “As many brave warriors as there are grains will appear
at my bidding to defend their native land.”
In 1058 there occurred a wild outburst of Moslem bigotry, which sent a
thrill of horror through Christian Europe. The charity of earlier rulers
of Palestine towards Christian worshippers gave place to fiercest
persecution by Mad Hakem, the Sultan of Egypt, who razed to the ground
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and slaughtered its devotees. He
ultimately, however, commuted his rage into cupidity, and affixed a tax
upon the worshippers. At the close of the eleventh century, the time of
the first crusade, the Saracenic power, though steadily receding before
the Christians, still menaced southern Europe. Trained bands of Moslems,
when not in war on their own account with their common enemy, the
Christians, joined themselves with one or another of the contending
parties which rent the empire and the church. Thus in 1085, ten years
before the first crusade, Pope Gregory rescued Rome from the hands of
his imperial opponent, Henry of Germany, only with the assistance of
Saracen soldiers, who thronged the ranks of the Pope’s Norman allies.
Very naturally the joy of the papal victory was mingled with jealousy of
the means by which it had been accomplished.
Not only were Moslem warriors often found in Christian ranks; frequently
the valor of the Christian knight found freest exploit in the cause of
the Moors. The adventures of the Cid, whom Philip II. wished Rome to
canonize as an ideal saint, were for eight years performed in the
service of the Arab king of Saragossa.
The Moslem became also the rival of the Christian in commerce. The ships
which in the lull of hostilities sailed from the ports of France and
Italy met the richly laden vessels of Egypt and Spain in exhausting
competition for the trade of the Mediterranean. The coast of North
Africa was the lurking-place of pirates, who darted over the Great Sea
with the celerity of spiders along their web, and seized every craft
that weakness or misfortune made their prey. With his wealth the Moslem
often won his way to social position, and even invaded the family
relations of his Christian neighbor. Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of
Venice, if not a real character, was at least one typical not only of
the fifteenth, but of earlier centuries. The plot of this play was
borrowed by the English dramatist from the Venetian romances. More than
one Desdemona had braved the curses of her Christian kindred for the
fascinations of the Infidel; many a renegade Iago was found in his
service; and often the Christian dignitary, like Brabantis, was led by
gold and political advantage to assent that his daughter should
“run from her guardage to the sooty bosom”
of the Moor.
Yet these misalliances did not destroy the common sentiment of the
Christians against the Saracens. The foul sensuality allowed by the
Koran as it thus touched the homes of Europe deepened the racial
antipathy of the people who were still monogamic in their faith and
customs.
The Mohammedan menace was further augmented in the superstitious notions
of the age by the intellectual ascendency of the Saracens. Christendom
did not discern that, in the mass of evils brought upon Europe by the
invasions from the East, there were the germs of its own quickening, as
the freshets of the Nile enrich the land of Egypt. If, in the first heat
of his zealotry, the Saracen destroyed the library of Alexandria,
regarding the Koran as compensation for all the books of Christian and
pagan wisdom, yet in the light of the flames he saw his mistake, and
became the most liberal patron of education. To the mosque he added the
school. While the rest of Europe was in the density of the Dark Ages,
the Moorish universities of Spain were the beacons of the revival of
learning. The Christian teacher was still manipulating the bones of the
saints when the Arab physician was making a _materia medica_ and
practising surgery. By the discovery of strong acids the Moor laid the
basis of the science of chemistry; by the adoption of the Hindu numerals
he improved arithmetic. He first practically used, if he did not invent,
algebra; introduced astronomy to the European student; wrote on optics,
the weight and height of the atmosphere, gravity, capillary attraction;
applied the pendulum to the measurement of time, and guessed that the
earth was round. In the superstition of Christian Europe these studies
were regarded, if not as belonging to the magic arts, at least as
threatening the faith by fostering undue independence of thought, and
tempting to scepticism regarding the office of the church as universal
teacher. The subsequent persecution of Galileo and Bruno was anticipated
in the hatred and fear which were awakened by such names as Ben-Musa
(ninth century), Avicenna (tenth century), Alhazan and Algazzali
(eleventh century). The diverse spirits of the age are illustrated by
the Giralda, the tower of Seville, which was built by the Moors for an
observatory, but on the Catholic conquest was used only for a belfry.
_The Turks._—The Saracenic conquests caused only a part of the
Mohammedan menace in the eleventh century. A new power appeared, which
has since dominated the middle Orient. For generations the Turks, or
Tartars, had been steadily pressing southward and westward, from
Turkestan and the borders of China towards the fertile plains and rich
cities of the eastern Roman empire. Of nomadic habits, their entire
property was in their camps and the driven herds that sustained them.
They were skilled horsemen, cradled in the saddle, tireless on the
march, loving the swift foray better than luxurious residence, inured to
danger, and careless of blood. In the course of their migrations they
came in contact with the followers of Mohammed. The Koran, with its
celestial indorsement of sensuality, easily captivated in such a people
that demand of common human nature for some religious faith and pursuit.
They became the most enthusiastic devotees of the new faith, although in
their deeper passion for selfish conquest they often slaughtered their
fellow-religionists of other races.
Early in the eleventh century one division of this people—the Seljukian
Turks, so named from their great chieftain, Seljuk—overran Armenia and
conquered Persia. Togrul-Beg, the grandson of Seljuk, had been elected
to the chieftaincy according to the ancient custom, the chance drawing,
by the hand of a child, of an arrow inscribed with his name. He was
further honored by being chosen a temporal vicar of the caliph of
Bagdad, then the chief of Arabic Mohammedanism. In 1055 Togrul-Beg was
proclaimed “Commander of the Faithful and Protector of Mussulmans.” He
was clothed in the seven robes of honor, was presented with seven slaves
born in the seven climates of Araby the Blest, was crowned with two
crowns and girded with two cimeters, emblematic of dominion over both
the West and the East.
The successor of Togrul-Beg was Alp-Arslan, the “strong lion” (1063). He
merited his title when, like a wild beast, he ravaged Armenia and
Iberia, and then sprang upon Asia Minor. At the time, this peninsula
between the Mediterranean and the Euxine was flourishing with proud
cities and prolific fields, and occupied by an industrious, peace-loving
population. The ruined amphitheatre and aqueduct which to-day oppress
the curiosity of the traveller are the footprints of this Turkish
invader, which the misgovernment of his successors has not permitted to
be effaced. In the battle of Manzikert (1071) Alp-Arslan defeated and
captured Romanus IV., the Greek emperor, and thus broke the only Eastern
power that could dispute his sway. Finlay remarks: “History records few
periods in which so large a portion of the human race was in so short a
time reduced from an industrious and flourishing condition to
degradation and serfage.”
Under Malek-Shah, son of Alp-Arslan (1073), the Turkish power, swollen
by new hordes from the great central plains of Asia, occupied almost the
entire territory now known as Turkey in Asia. They pressed to the walls
of Constantinople. By threatening, and by intrigue with every insurgent
against the throne, they kept the Greek empire in constant alarm.
In their peril the Greeks appealed for help to their Christian brethren
of Europe. In spite of the scorn in which the Latins held the Greek
Church for its antipapal heresies, the common danger led Pope Gregory
VII. (Hildebrand) in 1074 to summon all Christian potentates to repel
the Turks. He himself proposed to lead the avenging hosts, but was
diverted from this generous purpose by the nearer ambition of crushing
the enemies of the papal throne at home.
In 1079 the Emperor Michael saved his crown only by the assistance of
the Turks against his Greek rival, for which aid he paid by surrendering
to Solyman the government of the best part of the empire east of the
Bosporus.
In 1093 Europe was startled by the news of the fall of Jerusalem. After
incredible slaughter, not only of Christians, but of Arabic Moslems as
well, the black flag of Ortuk floated from the tower of David. All
privileges which had been granted to followers of Jesus by the
comparative humanity of the Arab were now withdrawn by the Turk. To bow
in worship at the Holy Sepulchre was to bend the neck beneath the
cimeter.
Europe was thrown into a state of terrorism. Moslem irruption into the
West seemed imminent. Kings trembled on their thrones, and peasant
mothers hushed their crying babes with stories which transformed every
spectre into the shape of the turbaned invader.
In 1093, on the death of Malek-Shah, the Turkish power was weakened by
divisions; this gave Christendom heart. The statesmen at the Vatican saw
the opportunity, and Pope Urban’s appeal for the crusades met the quick
response both of the powers and the people. One of the divisions of
Malek-Shah’s empire was that of Solyman, Sultan of Roum, or Iconium.
From this power sprang the Ottomans, who for eight hundred years have
held an unbroken dynasty, and for four hundred years have occupied the
city of Constantine for their capital.
CHAPTER VIII.
PILGRIMAGES—ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE CUSTOM—EXTENT.
Old Testament religion made much of sacred places. In the early
occupancy of Palestine, Hebron, Bethel, Shiloh, and Shechem were the
resorts of the faithful; in later ages Jerusalem became the shrine
“whither the tribes went up” by divine command. For this localized
devotion there was an evident reason in the purpose of Providence to
localize a “peculiar people” for religious training, such as they could
not obtain if scattered among the nations. The sacredness was not in the
site, but in its living associations, as the rendezvous of wise and holy
men. Christianity had no such necessity, and reversed this narrower
policy with our Lord’s command, “Go ye into all the world, and preach
the gospel to every creature.” Therefore, in the ruling of Providence,
the places most closely associated with the life of the Son of God were
either unknown, as the spot of the temptation in the wilderness and the
mountain where He retired for prayer; or these spots were left unmarked
by the first disciples, as “a high mountain” on which He was
transfigured, the room of the Last Supper, the site of the crucifixion
and of the tomb which witnessed His resurrection. This was a commentary
of Providence on Jesus’ words, “The hour cometh, when ye shall neither
in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father; ... when the
true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
This relic of the Jewish custom, together with the universal pagan
practice of venerating shrines and consulting local oracles, became an
ever-pressing temptation to the early Christian church. It was difficult
for either Jewish or heathen converts not to regard the land trodden by
the feet of Jesus as peculiarly a holy land, and not to imagine that the
celestial interest that once centred upon the scenes of His death and
resurrection made “heaven always to hang lowest” over these spots. There
was nothing in the teaching or practice of the apostles and early
fathers of the church to suggest or approve these notions. They were
willing exiles from the home of the faith; unlike the patriarch Joseph,
they gave no “commandment concerning their bones” being interred in the
dust of Palestine.
The conversion of Constantine to Christianity may have been genuine, but
it did not completely exorcise the paganism to which he had been
habituated. The pilgrimage of his mother, Helena, to Palestine, the
alleged reidentification of sacred sites and relics by miraculous
agencies, and their adornment with lavish magnificence, were the natural
efflorescence of the hybrid religion that sprang up. Multitudes imitated
the example of emperors and princes in the show of devotion. The new
glory which Constantine gave to Jerusalem engaged their reverence, as
his new capital on the Bosporus gratified their pride.
St. Jerome (345-420) wrote to Paulinus: “The court of heaven is as open
in Britain as at Jerusalem.” Nevertheless the saint took up his abode in
the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. Paula, his companion, wrote:
“Here the foremost of the world are gathered together.” St. Augustine
(354-430), oppressed by the fact that the beauty of the heavenly city
was shadowed by men’s reverence for the earthly Jerusalem, wrote: “Take
no thought for long voyages; it is not by ship, but by love, that we go
to Him who is everywhere.”
But the enthusiasm for pilgrimage could be checked neither by the voice
of saint nor by common sense. From the depths of the German forests,
from the banks of the Seine and the bleak shores of Britain, as well as
from the cities of southern Europe, poured the incessant streams of
humanity, to bathe in the waters of the Jordan where their Lord was
baptized, or perchance to die at the tomb which witnessed his
resurrection.
As early as the fourth century itineraries were published to guide the
feet of the pious across the countries of Europe and Asia Minor;
hospitals were also established along the road, the support of which by
those who stayed at home was regarded as specially meritorious in the
sight of Heaven.
In 611 Chosroes the Persian and Zoroastrian captured Jerusalem,
slaughtered ninety thousand Christian residents and pilgrims, and, more
lamentable in the estimate of that age, carried off the wood of the true
cross. But Heraclius, the Greek emperor, after a ten years’ war
triumphed over the Persian power. Neither conquered lands nor the spoils
of princely tents compared in stirring enthusiasm with the recapture of
this relic. With great pomp the emperor left a part of the cross to
glorify his capital, Constantinople. On September 14, 629, Heraclius
entered Jerusalem, bearing, like Simon the Cyrenian, the remainder of
the sacred beams upon his back. With bare feet and in ragged garments he
traversed the city and re-erected the symbol of the world’s faith upon
the assumed site of Calvary. This event is still commemorated throughout
the Roman Catholic world by the annual festival of the “exaltation of
the holy cross.”
Marvellous stories, the innocent exaggerations of weak minds or the
designed invention of less conscionable shrewdness, fed the credulity of
the people. Bishop Arculf told of having seen the three tabernacles
still standing upon the Mount of Transfiguration. Bernard of Brittany as
an eye-witness described the angel who came from heaven each Easter morn
to light the lamp above the Holy Sepulchre.
At the opening of the ninth century the friendship of Haroun-al-Raschid,
King of Persia, for Charlemagne extended the privileges of pilgrims. The
keys of the sepulchre of Jesus were sent by him as a royal gift to the
Emperor of the West. Charlemagne’s capitularies contain references to
“alms sent to Jerusalem to repair the churches of God,” and to provide
lodging, with fire and water, to pilgrims _en route_.
The cruel persecution by Mad Hakem, the caliph of Egypt (see p. 57),
made scarcely an eddy in the current of humanity moving eastward. Counts
and dukes vied with prelates in the multitude of their companions. In
1054 the Bishop of Cambray started with a band of three thousand
fellow-pilgrims. In 1064 the Archbishop of Mayence followed with ten
thousand, nearly half of whom perished by the way.
In the latter part of the eleventh century, as has been related, the
strong hand of the Turk first effectually checked the pilgrims. The
horrors of the atrocities perpetrated by this new Mohammedan power
afflicted Europe less than the cessation of the popular movement. The
evil was twofold, secular and spiritual.
Pilgrimage was often a lucrative business as well as a pious
performance. In the intervals of his visits to the sacred places the
European sojourner plied his calling as a tradesman; the Franks held a
market before the Church of St. Mary; the Venetians, Genoese, and Pisans
had stores in Jerusalem and the coast cities of Phenicia. The courtiers
of Europe dressed in the rich stuffs sent from Asia, and drank the wine
of Gaza. A great traffic was done in relics. The pilgrim returned having
in his wallet the credited bones of martyrs, bits of stone from sacred
sites, splinters from furniture and shreds of garments made holy by
association with the saints. These were sold to the wealthy and to
churches, and their value augmented from year to year by reason of the
fables which grew about them.
In more generous minds the passion for pilgrimage was fed by the desire
for increased knowledge. Travel was the only compensation for the lack
of books. One became measurably learned by visiting, while going to and
returning from Palestine, such cities as Constantinople or Alexandria,
to say nothing of the enlightening intercourse with one’s
fellow-Europeans while passing through their lands.
Mere love of change and adventure also led many to take the staff. If in
our advanced civilization men cannot entirely divest themselves of the
nomadic habit, but tramp and tourist are everywhere, we need not be
surprised at the numbers of those who indulged this passion in days when
home life was exceedingly monotonous and its entertainment as meagre.
But the chief incentive to pilgrimage was doubtless the supposed merit
of treading the very footprints of our Lord. Not only was forgiveness of
sins secured by kneeling on the site of Calvary, but to die _en route_
was to fall in the open gateway of heaven, one’s travel-soiled shirt
becoming a shroud which would honor the hands of angels convoying the
redeemed soul to the blissful abodes. Great criminals thus penanced
their crimes. Frotmonde, the murderer, his brow marked with ashes and
his clothes cut after the fashion of a winding-sheet, tramped the
streets of Jerusalem, the desert of Arabia, and homeward along the North
African coast, only to be commanded by Pope Benedict III. to repeat his
penance on even a larger scale, after which he was received as a saint.
Foulques of Anjou, who had brought his brother to death in a dungeon,
found that three such journeys were necessary to wear away the
guilt-mark from his conscience. Robert of Normandy, the father of
William the Conqueror, as penance for crime walked barefoot the entire
distance, accompanied by many knights and barons. When Cencius assaulted
Pope Hildebrand, the pontiff uttered these words: “Thy injuries against
myself I freely pardon. Thy sins against God, against His mother, His
apostles, and His whole church, must be expiated. Go on a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem.”
We are thus prepared to appreciate the incentive to the crusades which
men of all classes found in the speech of Pope Urban at Clermont, in
inaugurating the movement: “Take ye, then, the road to Jerusalem for the
remission of sins, and depart assured of the imperishable glory which
awaits you in the kingdom of heaven.”
Othman, the founder of the Ottoman dynasty of Turks, once had a dream in
which he saw all the leaves of the world-shading tree shaped like
cimeters and turning their points towards Constantinople. This he
interpreted into a prophecy and command for the capture of that city.
Similarly we may conceive the various conditions and sentiments of
Europe in the eleventh century, which have been described in our
previous chapters, as directing the way to Jerusalem. Subsequent events,
however, prove that, unlike Othman’s leaves, the Christian incentives to
the crusades were not directed by the breath of Heaven.
THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SUMMONS—PETER THE HERMIT—POPE URBAN—POPULAR EXCITEMENT.
It has been customary to attribute the actual initiation of the crusades
to the fiery eloquence of Peter the Hermit. This man was a native of
Picardy, and was possessed of a spirit as restless as the seas that
washed the shores of that northern province of France. He at one time
seems to have followed the life of a soldier, but his ardent mind
demanded higher entertainment than the gossip of camps and exploits of
the field. The pursuit of letters, in an age so barren of literary
resources, soon wearied him. Ecclesiastical duties seemed also a dreary
routine. Like many of the nobler spirits of his day, he deserted the
world and in the seclusion of his own thoughts sought communion with
Heaven. His mind, unfurnished with information of the actual world,
filled itself with visions. From ecstatic solitude he emerged at times
to sway the masses with the eloquence of a second John the Baptist.
According to tradition, he made the pilgrimage to Palestine, the sight
of whose holy places inflamed his spiritual zeal, while the atrocities
perpetrated upon his fellow-Christians by the Turks rent his heart.
Together with Simeon, the venerable Patriarch of Jerusalem, he wept over
the desolation of Zion. He there conceived the sublime purpose of
rousing all Europe to take up arms against the common enemy. One day,
while praying before the Holy Sepulchre, he heard the voice of Christ
saying, “Peter, arise! hasten to proclaim the tribulations of My
people.” Bearing a letter from the patriarch, he went to Rome and
summoned Pope Urban II., as the Vicegerent of Jesus, to listen to this
new evangel from the ascended Lord. Urban perceived in the monk’s fervor
the signs of the will of Heaven, and commissioned him to proclaim it to
the nations of Europe.
It is unfortunate for the romance of this part of Peter’s life that it
is unconfirmed by any contemporary records. Anna Comnena, the Greek
annalist, who lived in Peter’s day, declares that, while he started upon
the pilgrimage, he did not reach Jerusalem.
It is best to regard Peter’s career as having been inspired by the
crusading project already determined upon by others. His eloquence was
like the first rush of steam from a newly opened volcano; it could not
have generated the mighty force that upheaved Europe and “hurled it
against Asia.”
But there can be no doubt of the personality of Peter, and of his
tremendous influence in exciting the populace to engage in the crusades
after they were decreed in the councils of Rome. His labors in the great
cause seem to have been limited to certain districts of France, for it
is scarcely credible that a man of strange language could have thrown
the spell of his rhapsodies over people living beyond the Rhine. Peter
the Hermit was of small stature, with long beard prematurely whitened by
the rigors of his life,—for he was not yet fifty years of age,—with deep
and penetrating eyes, fired by the enthusiasm that filled his soul. He
travelled from place to place with uncovered head and bare feet, mounted
upon a mule. The churches proving too small, the people thronged about
him in the market-places and fields, where they drank from his lips
wrath for the Moslem, pity for the Christian martyrs, whose blood he
painted as flowing in the streets of Jerusalem, and hope of eternal
reward if they should take the cross and sword. In the frenzy of
speaking he wept, wounded his own flesh with the violence of his
gesticulation, and exhausted his physical strength in the rhapsody of
speech, as he called upon the saints in heaven and the inanimate rock of
Calvary to cry out against the apathy of the Christian world. The people
were readily persuaded, and attributed the response of their own
passion, already inflamed by alarming events, to the preacher’s
miraculous gifts. They pressed about him that they might receive some
heavenly grace from touching his person, and preserved as sacred relics
the hairs they pulled from the tail of his mule.
Very opportunely there arrived at Rome in the year 1095 an embassy from
Alexius, the Greek emperor at Constantinople, begging assistance against
the Turks, who were threatening the shores of the Bosporus. In his
fright, or in the disingenuous diplomacy for which the Greeks were
noted, Alexius offered to reward the Western warriors with the treasure
of his capital, and even suggested that the empire they saved from the
Mussulman might one day become the prize of the Latin. Urban summoned a
synod at Piacenza, where the Greek messengers addressed in the open
fields the crowd of ecclesiastics and laymen, which was so vast that
neither the plazas nor churches of the city could contain them.
A second council, more imposing on account of the dignitaries present,
was held at Clermont in November of the same year. In his speech Urban
wrought the assembly to a fury of enthusiasm as he cried, “Exterminate
this vile race [Turks and Arabs] from the land ruled by our brethren....
It is Christ who commands.... If any lose your lives on the journey by
land or sea or in fighting against the heathen, their sins shall be
remitted in that hour. This I grant through the power of God vested in
me.... Let those who have hitherto been robbers now become soldiers. Let
those who have formerly been mercenaries at low wages now gain eternal
rewards. Let those who have been exhausting themselves to the detriment
both of body and soul now strive for a twofold reward, on earth and in
heaven.” This impassioned appeal was answered by the cry of bishop and
lord and knight, and was reëchoed by the assembled populace, “Deus vult!
Deus vult!” (“God wills it!”) “Deus vult! let that be your watch-cry,”
responded the pontiff.
All ranks and conditions of men thronged to receive the cross, if
possible from the hands of the Holy Father himself. This was a strip of
red cloth given with the assuring words, “Wear it upon your shoulders
and your breasts; it will be either the surety of victory or the palm of
martyrdom.” All priests throughout Europe were authorized to give the
sacred symbol, with the full papal benediction, to the people in their
parishes. Many, in their infatuation, burned the cross-mark into their
quivering flesh; others, grown insane through zealotry, imagined the
stigmata—as these signs were called—to have been produced by miraculous
process. An impostor was readily credited with having received the mark
on his forehead by the hand of an angel, and confessed the fraud, but
not until after he had been invested with the archbishopric of Cæsarea
in Palestine.
Preachers of the holy war went everywhere. Over western Europe the
enthusiasm passed like a forest fire. During the winter of 1095 there
seemed to be but one occupation of men in palace, monastery, and cottage
throughout northern France and along the Lower Rhine—that of preparing
arms and enrolling bands for the mighty exodus, which should take place
as soon as the roads became passable in the spring. The rich sold or
mortgaged their estates to raise the means of fitting out themselves and
their retainers. Knights and esquires drilled incessantly for feats of
arms against a foe whom they honored for his rumored prowess in fight as
much as they detested him for impiety. Recluses left their religious
retreats, their minds overwrought with anticipations of miracles to be
performed as in old Bible days, when waters divided and city walls fell
down at the approach of God’s people. Robbers emerged from their
hiding-places or were delivered from jails, that they might expiate the
crimes already committed against their fellow-Christians by atrocities
to be practised upon the unbeliever. Doubtless many were influenced by a
genuine religious emotion, as the proclamation of the crusade was
accompanied by the preaching of the “terrors of the Lord” against the
prevalent sins of the people. To the persuasion of Peter the Hermit many
of the most notorious sinners attributed their reformation. Young men
who were inclined to the monastic habit to escape the temptations of the
world were easily led to substitute the helmet for the cowl, as offering
a life more congenial to youthful enterprise and at the same time more
acceptable to God. Multitudes of the ignorant were animated by the new
and popular enthusiasm without understanding its motive, and were drawn
as by a freshet into the common channel. That no one might be deterred
by domestic anxieties from engaging in the crusades, the church
guaranteed the protection of the families and property of absentees; and
that no one might be tempted, in the subsidence of the first fervor, to
reconsider his purpose, excommunication was threatened on those who did
not fulfil their vows.
Thus western Europe in the spring of 1096 was not unlike a beehive, on
the outside of which the insects are gathered preparatory to swarming.
Guibert, a contemporary, says: “Although the French alone had heard the
preaching of the crusade, what Christian people did not supply soldiers
as well?... You might have seen the Scotch [who represented to the
continental mind the ends of the earth], covered with shaggy cloaks,
hasten from the heart of their marshes.... I take God to witness that
there landed in our ports barbarians from nations I wist not of; no one
understood their tongues, but placing their fingers in the form of a
cross, they made sign that they desired to proceed to the defence of the
Christian faith.”
The flight of these swarms of humanity eastward had three consecutive
features which should be noted. First, it was a crusade of the crowd,
which began in March, 1096; secondly came the more orderly military
movement, under the great feudal chieftains, which began in the
subsequent autumn; and thirdly, the enterprise became consolidated on
national lines, under the kings, who gradually acquired power and took
command of their various peoples. This last feature, however, did not
appear until the second crusade, nearly half a century later.
THE FIRST CRUSADE.
CHAPTER X.
THE CRUSADE OF THE CROWD.
The eloquence of Peter served him in the stead of more orderly methods
of enlisting the people. Untrained masses of men, women, and children
followed him from place to place, and about Easter to the number of
upward of sixty thousand crossed the Rhine. Walter, surnamed the
Penniless, assumed the leadership of the advance portion of this
impatient throng. The people, however, cared little for any authority
save that of the imagined divine presence, which would appear through
pillars of cloud and fire to direct them in emergency. The fears of the
more cautious were silenced by a saying of Solomon, “The grasshoppers
have no king, yet they go forth in companies.” A goose and a goat were
led at the head of the motley procession, under the fanatical delusion
that in these creatures resided some super-human wisdom. It has been
suggested that this superstition was due to the importation of Manichean
notions, since the goose was the Egyptian symbol for the divine sonship,
and the goat represented the devil—the opposing principles of good and
evil as conceived by this Eastern sect.
The first vengeance of the marching crowd was inflicted upon the Jews,
whose historic infidelity excited the wrath, or whose accumulated wealth
tempted the cupidity, of the ill-provided host. In the cities of what is
now western Germany this unfortunate people were pillaged and massacred
to such an extent that, says Gibbon, “they had felt no more bloody
stroke since the persecution of Hadrian.” The crusaders’ appetite for
plunder thus whetted, they passed on to the ruder countries of Hungary
and Bulgaria, where they took a forceful revenge upon a people of
kindred Christian faith for refusing to supply them with provisions.
This provoked a bloody retaliation, under which the advanced crusaders
were scattered, more than two thirds of their number perishing in the
defiles of the Thracian mountains.
Peter, who had delayed at Cologne, with a new German contingent followed
the desolate track of his forerunners. He propitiated Coloman, the
Hungarian king; but at Semlin, enraged at the marks of the discomfiture
of Walter, he looted the town. At Nisch his army abused the hospitality
of the Bulgarian prince, Nichita, who had given them the freedom of the
market. The outraged people took terrible vengeance, and Peter’s host
was driven out. At length, in sorry remnants, they reached
Constantinople August (30, 1096). With the permission of the Emperor
Alexius, they pitched their camp outside the city gates to wait for the
new bands of crusaders.
A third horde pressed upon the footsteps of Walter and Peter, led by
Gottschalk, a German priest. Reaching Hungary in the midst of the late
summer harvest, they forgot their religious vows in the abundance which
surrounded them, and gave themselves up to every form of debauchery.
King Coloman lulled the invaders into a feeling of security until,
taking advantage of a time when they were unarmed, he gave orders for
their extirpation. This was not difficult to accomplish, as the
followers of Gottschalk were of a lower class than even those who had
preceded them, largely vagabonds and brigands, ferocious only in crime,
and without the spirit of noble and sustained adventure.
A still more unconscionable crowd had in the meantime gathered on the
banks of the Rhine and Moselle. A bigoted priest, Volkman, and a
reprobate count, Emico, were chosen leaders. These men hoped to atone
for the crimes of youth by excesses of cruelty wrought under the name of
religion. This band met with terrible chastisement from the Hungarians
at Merseburg. The walls of the town, which they had undermined, gave way
under their assault and buried multitudes of the assailants in the
falling débris. In the words of William of Tyre, the panegyrist of the
later crusades, “God Himself spread terror through their ranks to punish
their crimes and to fulfil the words of the Wise Man, ‘The wicked flee
when no man pursueth.’” Through Bulgaria their advance was of the nature
of flight to gain the sheltering walls of Constantinople.
Here, about the Greek capital, were collected the wrecks of various
expeditions. If the memory of their misfortunes, augmented by their
different stories of the journey, depressed and solemnized the
crusaders, idleness and the sight of the riches of Constantinople
inflamed their natural thirst for spoil. Homes and even churches in the
suburbs were looted. The Emperor Alexius induced his unwelcome guests to
cross the Bosporus into Nicomedia, where for two months he supplied
their wants, as men feed wild beasts that they may not themselves fall
prey to their rapacity.
The impetuosity of the crusaders was soon stirred again by their
proximity to the Turks. They refortified the deserted fortress of
Exerogorgo; but scarcely were they within its walls when Kilidge-Arslan
(“sword of the lion”), the Sultan of Roum, laid siege to and captured
the place. He then surprised the town of Civitat, outside of which the
crusaders had made their chief camp. A terrible massacre ensued. Out of
a numberless multitude, but three thousand remained to contemplate,
instead of proud cities they had hoped to wrest from the Infidel, the
piles of bones which strewed the plains of Nicæa. Walter was slain, and
the town into which the miserable remnant was huddled would have fallen
into the hands of the Turks but for the opportune relief afforded by the
imperial troops from Constantinople. It is estimated by Gibbon that not
less than three hundred thousand lives were lost in these preliminary
excursions before the more orderly hosts started from western Europe.
CHAPTER XI.
THE CRUSADE UNDER THE CHIEFTAINS, GODFREY, RAYMOND, BOHEMOND, TANCRED,
HUGH, ROBERT OF NORMANDY.
The age, though degenerate, had nourished an order of men of far loftier
type than those we have described. Godfrey of Bouillon was the most
prominent figure. The chivalric spirit of the middle ages enrolled him
among the nine greatest heroes of mankind—Joshua, David, Judas
Maccabæus, Hector, Alexander, Cæsar, Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey.
He was of noblest lineage. His father was brother-in-law to Edward the
Confessor of England, and through his mother, the beautiful and saintly
Ida of Lorraine, he inherited the blood of Charlemagne. He was short of
stature, but of such prodigious strength that he is reputed to have
divided an opponent from helmet to saddle with one blow of his sword. He
was equally endowed with courage and sagacity. In his war against the
rival emperor, Rudolph, Henry IV. committed the imperial standard to
Godfrey, who, though but a youth of eighteen, honored this charge by
penetrating to the presence of Rudolph in the thick of the battle,
plunging the spear of the standard through his heart, and bearing it
aloft with the blood of victory. Yet such a deed in that age did not
lessen his repute for gentleness and piety. Two ancestral spirits
alternated their control of him, if we are to credit the praise given
him by an old chronicle of the time: “For zeal in war, behold his
father; for serving God, behold his mother.” When Rome was besieged by
his imperial patron, Godfrey signalized his prowess by being the first
to mount the walls. This exploit, however, troubled his tender
conscience as a devout Catholic, and when the crusade was proclaimed he
sold his lands and devoted himself to the holy war, in attempted
expiation of what he had come to regard as his former impious deeds. At
the head of ten thousand horse and seventy thousand foot, he set out for
the Holy Land. He was accompanied by his two brothers, Baldwin and
Eustace.
Raymond of Toulouse led a second army composed of the men of Languedoc.
He was the most opulent and haughty of the chieftains, as well as the
most experienced in years and war. He had fought by the side of the Cid
in Spain, and was haloed in popular estimate with some of the glory of
that great knight. Alfonso VI. of Castile had not hesitated to bestow
upon him his daughter Elvira, who shared with her husband the hazard of
the expedition. One hundred thousand warriors followed in Raymond’s
train as he took the cross. With him went Bishop Adhemar of Puy, the
papal legate, who, in the name of the Holy Father, was the spiritual
head of the combined expeditions.
Bohemond of Taranto marshalled another host. He was son of the famous
Robert Guiscard, founder of the Norman kingdom of Naples. Anna Comnena
thus describes him: “He was taller than the tallest by a cubit. There
was an agreeability in his appearance, but the agreeability was
destroyed by terror. There was something not human in that stature and
look of his. His smile seemed to me alive with threat.” The fair
annalist recognized Bohemond’s inheritance of his great father’s
prestige and ability, and at the same time of his disposition “to regard
as foes all whose dominions and riches he coveted; and was not
restrained by fear of God, by man’s opinions, or by his own oaths.”
Robert Guiscard had died while preparing for an attempt to capture
Constantinople. With filial pride, his son Bohemond had also “sworn
eternal enmity to the Greek emperors. He smiled at the idea of
traversing their empire at the head of an army, and, full of confidence
in his fortunes, he hoped to make for himself a kingdom before arriving
at Jerusalem.” When the march of the other crusaders was reported to
him, with an ostentation of piety which his subsequent career scarcely
justified, Bohemond tore his own elegant mantle into tiny crosses and
distributed them to his soldiers, who were at the time engaged in the
less glorious attempt of reducing the Christian town of Amalfi.
Tancred de Hauteville by his splendid character amply compensated the
defects of Bohemond, his kinsman. In history and romance he is
celebrated as the type of the perfect soldier:
“Than whom
... is no nobler knight,
More mild in manner, fair in manly bloom,
Or more sublimely daring in the fight.”
Dissatisfied with even the ideals of Chivalry, Tancred hailed the new
lustre that might be given to arms when wielded only in the cause of
justice, mercy, and faith, which, perhaps too sanguinely, he foresaw in
the crusade. Thus nobly seconded by Tancred, Bohemond took the field
with one hundred thousand horse and twenty thousand foot.
Hugh of Vermandois, brother of Philip I. of France, led the host of
Langue d’Oil, as Raymond that of Languedoc.
Robert of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, set out with nearly
all his nobles. To raise money for the expedition, he mortgaged his
duchy to his brother, William Rufus of England, for ten thousand silver
marks, a sum which that impious monarch raised by stripping the churches
of their plate and taxing their clergy. Robert was companioned by
Stephen of Blois, whose castles were “as many as the days of the year,”
and by Robert of Flanders, “the lance and sword of the Christians.”
These leaders, deterred by the difficulty of obtaining sustenance for
such multitudes as followed them, agreed to take separate routes, which
should converge at Constantinople. Count Hugh was the first afield. He
crossed the Adriatic, and after much beating by tempest gathered his men
at Durazzo. Here he experienced what his comrades were continually to
meet, the treachery of the Greek emperor, Alexius. Being the brother of
the French king, Hugh would be a valuable possession of the Greeks, as
hostage for the good behavior of his brethren. By Alexius’s order he was
seized and sent without his army to Constantinople.
Godfrey’s band took the road through Hungary, already marked by the
bones of the crusaders under Peter and Walter. The ghastly warnings
everywhere about him encouraged him to treat with justice and kindness
his coreligionists through whose lands he was journeying. He enforced
strict military discipline against pillage, and appeased the wrath of
the Hungarians by leaving his brother Baldwin in their hands as hostage
for his good faith. But beneath the gentleness of Godfrey smouldered
fiery indignation against all forms of injustice. When, therefore, he
heard of the capture of Count Hugh he demanded of the emperor instant
reparation, failing to receive which, he took summary revenge by laying
waste the country about Adrianople. The emperor reluctantly pledged the
release of Count Hugh. When the crusaders camped before Constantinople,
Alexius refused to sell them provisions except on condition of their
rendering homage to his throne. Several leaders had in their extremity
yielded this point, but Godfrey replied by letting loose his soldiers to
gather as they might; this brought Alexius to better terms.
Bohemond and Tancred crossed the sea to Durazzo and thence took the
route eastward through Macedonia and Thrace. Hearing of the duplicity of
Alexius, Bohemond urged Godfrey to seize upon Constantinople. Though
Godfrey declined to divert his sword from the Infidels, the rumor of
Bohemond’s proposal led the haughty Greek to seek closer alliance with
his unwelcome guests. With stately parade, he adopted Godfrey as a son,
and, in return for the formal bending of the knee at his throne,
intrusted to him the defence of the empire. When Bohemond reached the
Eastern court he was received with flattering protestations of
friendship, which he repaid with equal adulation and as unblushing
deceit. These two men at least understood each other, perhaps by that
subtle instinct which leads serpents of a kind to come together.
Count Raymond had greater difficulties in leading his forces from
northern Italy around the head of the Adriatic and over the mountains of
Dalmatia, whose semi-savage inhabitants menaced his march. From Durazzo,
he says, “right and left did the emperor’s Turks and Comans, his
Pincenati and Bulgarians, lie in wait for us; and this though in his
letters he spoke to us of peace and brotherhood.” The stern warrior
inflicted cruel retaliation upon his assailants by cutting off the noses
and ears of those he captured. On arriving at Constantinople, the irate
veteran proposed to his brother chieftains to immediately sack the city.
But, in spite of his severity, the blunt honesty of Raymond eventually
won from Alexius more praise than did the apparent compliance of his
brethren; for, says Anna Comnena, “My father knew that he [Raymond]
preferred honor and truth above all things.”
The expedition of Robert of Normandy gave no credit to the crusading
zeal. That chief, surnamed “Short-hose” and “the Fat,” chose the route
through Italy, and justified his repute for indolence by spending the
entire winter in that genial climate. Robert of Flanders and a few
resolute kindred spirits shamed the lethargy of their brethren, and
crossed the Adriatic in spite of wintry storms. Many others, disgusted
with the general conduct of affairs, returned to their homes. It was not
until after Easter in 1097 that Duke Robert and Count Stephen embarked
at Brindisi.
All these armies were encumbered by the presence of women and children,
since the crusading scheme proposed not only war against the Mussulman,
but settlement in the lands that should be conquered. In some cases the
entire population of villages and sections of cities tramped eastward,
so that the movement took the character of a migration rather than that
of a campaign.
The dealings of the Greek emperor with the crusaders were characteristic
of the man. Alexius Comnenus had secured the throne in 1081 by
successful rebellion and the capture through treachery of the capital,
which he gave over to license and rapine. His subsequent policy as a
ruler was in keeping with its beginning. The intrigues by which he
acquired power were matched by the despotic cruelty with which he held
it. His career has been depicted for us by the partial pen of his
daughter Anna. Through her fulsome coloring we can detect the
contemptible disposition of Alexius, and in her unblushing admissions,
while purposing only to praise, we can also see much of the prevailing
degeneracy of the Greek mind and conscience. Sir Walter Scott would
temper our contempt for the man by the consideration that “if Alexius
commonly employed cunning and dissimulation instead of wisdom, and
perfidy instead of courage, his expedients were the disgrace of the age
rather than his own.” But his wife, the Empress Irene, without doubt
correctly summarized his personal character when, watching by his
death-bed, she exclaimed, “You die as you have lived, a hypocrite.”
No doubt Alexius had reason to fear the proximity of the crusaders. In
the strong figure of Gibbon, he was like the Hindu shepherd who prayed
for water. Heaven turned the Ganges into his grounds and swept away his
flocks and cottage in the inundation. Alexius was aware of the ambition
of Bohemond to harm the Greek empire, and suspected all his comrades of
similar designs. The rude manners of the invaders were also such as not
to ingratiate them with the sycophancy of the court. Once, while the
Franks were paying homage to the emperor, one of them unceremoniously
placed himself beside his Majesty, remarking, “It is shocking that this
jackanapes should be seated, while so many noble captains are standing
yonder.”
Alexius was doubtless right in exacting from his visitors an oath of
loyalty while within his dominions, and a pledge to turn over to him any
Greek cities and fortresses they might recapture from the Turks. This
was agreed to by all except Count Raymond, who declared that he would
have no oath but to Christ, and invited the emperor to share with the
crusaders the marches and battles against the Turks if he would divide
the spoil. The ambition and cupidity of Bohemond were stayed with
bribes. Thus Alexius one day introduced the Norman leader into a roomful
of treasures. “Ah, here is wherewith to conquer kingdoms!” exclaimed
Bohemond. The next day the treasures were transferred to his tent. The
amazing request of Bohemond to be appointed Grand Domestic, or general
of the Greek empire, was declined by Alexius, who had himself held that
office and found it a convenient step to the throne. He, however,
promised Bohemond the rule of the principality of Antioch in the event
of his conquering it with his sword. Tancred, with a delicate sense of
honor that shamed the truculency of his kinsman, fled the imperial lures
by avoiding the city and keeping himself in disguise on the Asiatic side
of the Bosporus. His example was not lost upon his fellow-chieftains,
who felt the enervating influence of the daily vision of palaces,
villas, gorgeous equipages, and, as the historian has fondly noted, the
beauty of the women of the capital.
Alexius encouraged the virtuous purpose of the Latins to resume the
crusade, from considerations of their menace to his own domain while
encamped within it. With apparent magnanimity, he facilitated their
crossing the Bosporus, and applauded the heroism of their start through
the plains of Bithynia. In every way he fanned their enthusiasm against
the Turk; but at the same time he informed the enemy of the movement of
his allies, that their victories might not diminish his own prestige,
and that, in the event of their discomfiture, he might profit by the
friendship of the Infidel.
CHAPTER XII.
THE FALL OF NICÆA.
The first objective chosen by the crusaders was Nicæa, a city sacred
with the memories of the first great ecumenical council of the Christian
church, in the time of Constantine. On their march the soldiers of the
cross were saddened by the continual sight of the decayed bodies of
those who had fallen in the ill-advised expedition of Peter and Walter.
A few survivors of this calamity, in rags and semi-starvation, came from
their hiding-places to welcome their brethren. Among them was the Hermit
himself. His tale of woe sharpened their zeal and encouraged their
caution against the skill and bravery of the enemy.
The Infidels were under the command of Kilidge-Arslan, Sultan of Roum,
still flushed with his slaughter of the first crusaders. He had
fortified Nicæa, and had gathered within and about its walls sixty
thousand men, drawn from all the provinces of Asia Minor and from
distant Persia. May 15, 1097, the Christians sat down before the place
and began the siege.
The crusading knights were clad in the hauberk, a coat of mail made of
rings of steel; all wore the casque, covered with iron for common
soldiers, with steel for untitled knights, and with silver to denote the
princely rank. Horsemen carried round, square, or kite-shaped shields;
footmen longer ones, made ordinarily of elm, which protected the entire
body. Helmets of steel or chain hoods covered the head. The weapons of
offence were the lance of ash tipped with steel, the sword, often of
enormous length and weight, to be wielded with both hands, the axe, the
mace, the poniard, the club, the sling, and, what at that time was a
novelty to the Turks and Greeks, the crossbow of steel, which Anna
Comnena called a “thoroughly diabolical device.” The knight’s horse was
usually a heavy beast, whose tough muscles were needed to carry the
weighty armament mounted upon his back, together with his own housings,
which consisted of a saddle plated with steel, gathered as a breastplate
in front and projecting backward so as to protect the flanks and loins.
The horse’s head was likewise hooded with metal, ornamented between the
eyes with a short, sharp pike like the horn of the unicorn. But,
notwithstanding the burden he carried, the knight acquired by discipline
a marvellous celerity of movement, often baffling the anticipation of
the most wary antagonist, while in the crash of conflict he bore down
his foe with superior weight. In the train of the crusading knight were
carried the materials for the erection of rams with which to batter down
walls, catapults to hurl huge rocks, and siege-castles, or movable
towers, which overtopped the opposing defences and were provided with
bridges to let down upon the walls.
The Turkish or Saracen soldier was more lightly accoutred. His horse was
of more slender mould, deep-winded, and fleet of limb. In the encounter
the rider depended upon the momentum acquired by celerity rather than
that of weight. The long but light spear, brandished rather than
couched, the crescent-shaped, slender, but well-tempered cimeter, the
shield of leather, made, where attainable, of rhinoceros’s hide rather
than of metal, the light bow, the quiver filled with nicely balanced
arrows, the many folds of the muslin turban which protected the head
from the Eastern sun—these made an almost ideal contrast with the
appearance of his Western antagonist when upon the march. The armor of
Christian and Moslem, so diverse, necessitated manœuvres in the battle
which in their first encounters were almost equally bewildering to both
contestants.
In the assault upon Nicæa the Christians numbered upward of a quarter of
a million men. Against them Kilidge-Arslan had at least one hundred
thousand and the advantage of the city fortifications. The place was
encircled with a double line of walls, surmounted by three hundred and
seventy towers, and guarded from approach by a deep canal or moat. On
the east high mountains obstructed the way; on the west and south the
Lake of Ascanius prevented attack, while it gave the besieged an outlet
to the sea, through which they could replenish their provisions and
ranks in spite of their foes.
The Christians were divided into nineteen different camps, representing
as many different nations. Their habit of fighting, not on extensive
battle lines, but in groups about the standards of their special
leaders, gave plausibility to the declaration of Kilidge-Arslan, as he
viewed the invaders from his mountain outlook, that “disorder reigned in
their army” and that their very numbers insured their defeat. With
tremendous vigor, he hurled his forces in two divisions upon the camps
of Godfrey and Raymond. The Christians were dislodged from their
defences as bowlders from their places by a spring freshet. It seemed
that they must be swept away in the impetuous torrent, but quickly the
tide of battle turned, and the Turks were driven back to their mountain
fortresses. Again they descended, but only to cover the field with their
dead, as the exhausted freshet leaves upon the ground it has inundated
the débris it brought down from the hills, while the rocks it assailed
still lie near the position where they sustained the assault. The
brutality that distempered the age was illustrated by the Christian
victors, who severed many heads from the bodies of the slain and slung
them as trophies from their saddle-bows. With ghoulish pride, they
hurled a thousand of them from their catapults into the city. One of
these “soldiers of the cross,” Anselme of Ribemont, wrote to the
Archbishop of Rheims: “Our men, returning in victory and bearing many
heads fixed upon pikes, furnished a joyful spectacle for the people of
God.”
One line of walls soon fell beneath the rams of the besiegers, but it
only revealed another within. The Christians dragged vessels overland
from Civitat (the modern Guemlik), and by night launched them upon the
Lake of Ascanius, thus cutting off reinforcement for the garrison within
the city. After seven weeks of almost incredible effort, Nicæa was about
to fall to the reward of its Latin conquerors, when suddenly there
appeared upon the ramparts numerous strange standards. To the amazement
of the Christians, these proved to be not those of the Turk, but of the
Greek. Alexius, conniving with the enemy, had surreptitiously introduced
into Nicæa a detachment of his own troops, and thus secured the
surrender to himself of what had been won by others. The rage of the
crusaders knew no bounds. With the price of their blood they had gained
nothing but the honor of their valor. Only the utmost discretion on the
part of the chieftains prevented the army from declaring war upon
Alexius and marching back to the capture of Constantinople. It
afterwards transpired that Alexius’s movement had been encouraged by
some of the leaders of the crusade, that their armies might not be
weakened by leaving garrisons to hold the captured places.
CHAPTER XIII.
BATTLE OF DORYLÆUM—TARSUS—DEFECTION OF BALDWIN.
From Nicæa the Christians advanced (June 29, 1097) through Asia Minor
towards the Holy Land. Their march was over a roadless country,
threading the ravines and climbing the precipices of mountains, across
plains desolated by the retreating foe, under the burning heat of the
midsummer sun, and exposed to the guerilla attacks of a half-beaten
enemy, whose main army was rapidly recruiting and waiting with double
its former numbers to renew the battle.
In order to procure provisions, the crusaders divided their forces—one
band under Bohemond, Tancred, Count Hugh, and Robert of Normandy, the
other under Godfrey, Raymond, Adhemar, and Robert of Flanders. The
former had camped with confident security in a little valley near
Dorylæum in Phrygia. On the morning of July 1st sudden clouds of dust
appeared on the height above, and a storm of arrows and missiles
announced the attack of Kilidge-Arslan. Bohemond had scarcely arranged
his people for battle when the Turks were upon him. With their lighter
armor and swifter steeds, they circled about the Christians, delivering
volleys of arrows, and escaping before the assault could be returned, as
hawks might assail a lion. If a valiant band of Christians pursued them
they dispersed in every direction, only to form again in a circle and
repeat their murderous attack. Many of the most valiant Christian
knights fell without being able to return a stroke. The Turkish numbers
were being constantly augmented by new arrivals. Kilidge-Arslan, at the
head of a body of his braves, made a sudden raid upon the Christian
camp, massacring the men and children and carrying off the women for his
seraglios.
But a bitter vengeance was taken. Robert of Normandy, snatching his
white banner, drove through the densest ranks of the foe with the
watchword of “Deus vult!” followed by Tancred, who was made doubly
valiant by having seen his brother William fall, pierced with arrows.
The captives were rescued, but the crusaders were exhausted, and retired
in despair behind the stockade of their camp. At noon, however, the air
was rent with new trumpet-calls. The hilltop shone with the armor of the
knights under Godfrey. The charge of this redoubtable warrior and fifty
chosen comrades broke upon the Turks like a thunderbolt. The opportune
arrival of Raymond gave the crusaders fifty thousand fresh horsemen, who
pursued the now panic-stricken enemy over the mountain. Three thousand
Turkish officers and a measureless multitude of men were slain. The camp
of Kilidge-Arslan was taken, and the crusaders pursued their way, laden
with provision and treasures. Mounted on the horses of their foes, they
pursued the flying remnant. To complete the enthusiasm of victory, it
was alleged that St. George and St. Demetrius had been seen fighting in
the Christian ranks. For many generations the peasants of that
neighborhood believed that once a year St. George, on horseback, with
lance in hand, could be seen by the worshippers in the little church
which was erected on the spot to commemorate his timely apparition.
The crusaders marched from the field of Dorylæum to new terrors, against
which it was not the province of sword or lance to contend. The
scattered Turks devastated the country along the line of march. Neither
field nor bin was left to be plundered. The roots of wild plants were at
times the only food of the pursuers. The July sun, always terrific in
what the ancients called “burning Phrygia,” beat upon them with unusual
balefulness. Falcons, which the knights had brought along to relieve the
tedium of the journey, fell dead from their masters’ arms. Many women
gave untimely birth to offspring, which perished in their first efforts
to inhale the hot atmosphere. Five hundred of the hapless multitude died
between a sunrise and sunset. One day some dogs, which had wandered off,
returned with moist sand upon their paw’s and coats; they had found
water. Following the trail of the brutes, the soldiers discovered a
mountain stream. The men plunged into it and drank so abundantly that
the multitude became water drunk; thus three hundred perished with the
fever flush of new-found life.
Passing through Cilicia, the advance under Tancred captured Tarsus, the
birthplace of St. Paul. But Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, contested with
Tancred the honor of its possession and a share of its spoil. Tancred
refused to allow either his own men or those of Baldwin to loot the
place, saying that he had not taken arms to pillage Christians. His flag
was torn from the ramparts and flung into the ditch. By a display of
moral courage equal to his physical prowess, Tancred restrained his
resentment, that the Christian host might not be divided. Baldwin, left
in possession of a part of the town, refused admission to a company of
crusaders, who, thus left exposed without the walls, were massacred by
the Turks. Popular indignation ran high against Baldwin, which he
ultimately assuaged by taking a horrible vengeance upon the Turks
remaining in Tarsus, not one of whom he left alive.
The crusaders at Tarsus received reinforcements by the arrival of a
fleet of Flemish and Dutch pirates, who, by the bribe of expected spoil,
were induced to sew the cross upon their garments.
Leaving a garrison in this city, Baldwin followed eastward in the track
of Tancred, whom he overtook at Malmistra. The rage of the soldiers of
Tancred against him could not be checked by the mild counsel of their
leader, whom they taunted with weakness. For once the self-restraint of
Tancred gave way. He led his men against Baldwin. A pitched battle
ensued, followed on the morrow by the embrace of the leaders in the
presence of their troops, and vows to expiate their mutual offences in
fresh blood of the common enemy.
The popularity of Tancred ill suited the ambition of his rival. Baldwin,
seemingly stung by the withdrawal of the confidence of his brethren,
nursed the project of leaving the crusading army and setting up a
kingdom for himself. He offered his aid to Thoros, the Armenian Prince
of Edessa, in Mesopotamia, who was at that time warring on his own
account against the Turks beyond the Euphrates. None of the crusading
chiefs seconded Baldwin’s project. With eighty knights and one thousand
foot-soldiers, he traversed the deserts. Upon his arrival at Edessa, in
the strange custom of the country the aged Thoros and his wife pressed
the count to their naked breasts, thus acknowledging him as son by
adoption. The fable of him who had warmed a serpent in his bosom only to
feel its sting was repeated in this case. With Baldwin’s knowledge, if
not with his connivance, an insurrection was stirred against Thoros,
which resulted in his being flung from the wall of his own castle.
Baldwin, thus installed in chief authority, confirmed his hold upon the
people by marrying an Armenian princess. All Mesopotamia acknowledged
him, and a Frankish knight was seen reigning on the Euphrates over the
richest part of ancient Assyria.
The defection of Baldwin was not ultimately detrimental to the crusades,
since his kingdom made a barrier on the north and east against the
Turkish and Saracenic hordes, and prevented their interfering more
readily with the Christians’ march upon Jerusalem, of which Baldwin
himself was one day to be king.
CHAPTER XIV.
BEFORE ANTIOCH.
The crusading hosts passed, with incredible toil and suffering, through
the remainder of Asia Minor. The perils of the Taurus chain of mountains
nearly brought them to despair. Borne down with their heavy arms,
encumbered with thousands of women and children, they passed along paths
which the practised feet of mountaineers were alone fitted to tread. In
the defiles were left many who could not climb the precipitous rocks,
which thus became the walls of their tomb. At the base of the palisades
were heaps of armor, which their wearers were too spiritless to recover.
But in spite of the despair of many, the leaders evidently did not leave
the spoil of war to rust or decay in the cañons of the Taurus. Stephen
of Blois wrote to his wife a few weeks later than the events we are
describing: “You may know for certain, my beloved, that of gold, silver,
and many other kinds of riches I now have twice as much as your love had
assigned to me when I left you.”
At length the survivors emerged to look down from the mountains upon the
borders of Syria. The sight inspired them as that from Pisgah did the
invader of old. Courage revived, and with joy they hastened southward.
Hard by was the battle-field of Issus, where Alexander the Great, the
man from the West, had broken the power of the East under Xerxes—an omen
of its repetition. Soon Antioch, the city built to commemorate the fame
of Antiochus, one of Alexander’s generals, stood before them. The rumor
of their invincibility had served the crusaders in the stead of battles,
and October 21, 1097, they sat down unmolested for the siege of the
Syrian capital.
This city, where a thousand years before believers were first called
Christians, still wore in the reverence of all the world the honor of
that initial christening. It was called the “Eldest Daughter of Sion,”
and was the seat of one of the original patriarchates into which the
early church was divided. It had been the third city of the Roman world,
and those who were unimpressed with its sacred story could imagine its
splendor when it was called the “Queen of the East.” Paganism once
worshipped obscene divinities in its famous groves of Daphne. About it
still stood the enormous wall built by the Emperor Justinian five
hundred years before, on every tower of which were mementos of sieges
when it had been captured alternately by Saracen and Greek, and now, but
thirteen years before the crusaders’ coming, by Solyman, the Turk.
The natural defences of Antioch, supplemented by those of art, made it
impregnable, except to the enthusiastic faith of such men as now essayed
its capture. On the north it was guarded by the river Orontes, on the
south by natural heights of several hundred feet, on the west by the
great citadel, and on the east by a castle. The wall which bound
together the various fortifications was nine miles in extent,
strengthened by three hundred and sixty towers. A deep cleft in the
southern height poured a mountain torrent through the city to the
Orontes. Accian, grandson of Malek-Shah, had twenty thousand Turks
within the walls, who behind such battlements were presumably the match
for the three hundred thousand crusaders who are said to have been
without.
To the sanguine enthusiasm of the Christians the city seemed like a
ripened fruit ready to fall into the hand at a touch. Guards appeared
upon the walls, but the challenge of their camps provoked no response.
This the Christians interpreted as a sign of the feebleness and dismay
of the garrison. They were disposed to wait for the fruit to fall of
itself. The genial influence of the climate soon wrought its softness
into nerve and spirit. Discipline was relaxed; knights whose shields
showed many a dent of conflict spent the hours among the vineyards,
where the luscious clusters still hung upon their stems. Adventure found
its pastime in discovering the vaults in which the peasants had hidden
their grain. If we could believe the theory that good and evil people
leave in the places they frequent an atmosphere of virtue or vice, to
invigorate or infect the souls of those who come after them, we might
think that the soldiers of the cross had succumbed to the influence of
the votaries of Venus and Adonis, who anciently revelled in the grove of
Daphne; for the Christian host became infatuated with unseemly
pleasures; they were given over to intemperance and debauchery. An
arch-deacon was not ashamed to be seen in dalliance with a Syrian nymph.
If the leaders did not yield to the prevalent vice, they seem to have
been infected with that intellectual dulness and lethargy of purpose
which follows license. They neglected to prepare their siege machinery,
and when a momentary enthusiasm led them to attack the walls they paid
for their temerity with failure. The enemy became correspondingly
emboldened, and retaliated with fearful forays through the Christian
lines. With the approach of winter the crusaders had exhausted their
provisions, and the country about furnished no more. Heavy rainfalls
reduced their camps to swamps, in which the bow lost its stiffness, and
the body its vigor, making the men the prey of diseases which kept them
busy burying their dead.
Stories of disasters to the cause elsewhere floated to them, until the
air seemed laden with evil omens. Sweno, Prince of Denmark, had advanced
through Cappadocia. At his side was Florine, daughter of Count Eudes of
Burgundy, his affianced bride. Together they fought their way through
countless swarms of Turks, until, with all their attendant knights, they
were slain. The body of this heroic woman showed that seven arrows had
penetrated her armor. News also came that fleets of Pisans and Genoese,
their allies, had withdrawn from the coast, lured by better prospects of
gain than in bringing succor to what seemed a ruined cause.
Such was the moral depression that Robert of Normandy deserted for a
while, until shame brought him back. His example was followed even by
Peter the Hermit, “a star fallen from heaven,” says Guibert, the
eye-witness and chronicler. Peter, however, returned at the entreaty of
Tancred, whose heart was as true in trouble as his eye was keen in the
mêlée. The Hermit was made to take oath never again to desert the cause
he had once so eloquently proclaimed. The piety of Adhemar, Bishop of
Puy, instituted fasts and penitential processions around the camp, to
purge it of iniquity and to avert the wrath of Heaven. The practical
judgment of the chieftains enacted terrible punishments to curb the
unreasoning debauchery. The drunkard was cropped of his hair, the
gambler branded with a hot iron, the adulterer stripped naked and beaten
in the presence of the camp. The Syrian spies who were caught were, by
order of Bohemond, spitted and roasted, and this proclamation was posted
over them: “In this manner all spies shall make meat for us with their
bodies.”
About this time there arrived in the camp an embassy from the caliph of
Egypt. The race of Ali hated the Turks as the usurpers of the headship
of their faith, and proposed alliance with the Christians to expel them
from Jerusalem. They stipulated for themselves the sovereignty of
Palestine, and would grant to the disciples of Jesus perpetual privilege
of pilgrimage to the sacred places. If this offer of the caliph was
declined, the ambassadors presented the alternative of war, not only
with the Turks, but with the combined Saracen world from Gibraltar to
Bagdad. The Christian reply was bold. Their orators taunted the
Egyptians with the diabolical cruelty they had once practised when
Jerusalem was under Hakim, and declared that they would brave the wrath
of the Moslem world rather than permit a stone of the sacred city to be
possessed by an enemy of their faith. This reply was saved from seeming
bravado by an opportune victory. Bohemond and Raymond met and cut to
pieces a Moslem force of twenty thousand horsemen, who were advancing
from the north for the relief of Antioch. As the ambassadors of Egypt
were embarking, they were presented with four camel-loads of human
heads, to impress their master with the sincerity of the Christian
boast, while hundreds more of these ghastly tokens were stuck upon pikes
before the walls or flung by the ballistæ into the city to terrorize the
defendants.
The fearfulness of their extremity animated the courage of the Turks as
it had often done that of the Christians; for brave hearts are the same,
under whatever faith and culture. They sallied from the gates, which by
the orders of Accian were closed behind them until they should return as
victors. At nightfall, however, but few lived to seek the entrance.
Their valor was doubtless as fine as that of the Christians, the
exploits of whose leaders have come to us in story and song. Tancred’s
deeds were so great that, either from excessive modesty or the fear that
nobody would believe such wonders, he exacted a promise of his squire
never to tell what his master had wrought. If his great actions were
like most reported of his comrades, we can admire his wisdom as well as
his humility; for the legends of the battle tell, among other wonders,
of a monster Turk who was cloven in twain by the sword of Godfrey, and
one half of whose lifeless body rode his charger back to the gate. A
less glorious exploit is mentioned. The Christians rifled by night the
new-made graves of the Moslems, and paraded the next day in the clothes
of the fallen braves, carrying upon their pikes instead of garlands
fifteen hundred heads they had severed from the corpses. A more romantic
scene makes a pleasant foil to this: the children of either side,
drilled by their seniors, engaged in battle in presence of both armies.
Hands that could not use the sword thrust with the dagger, and the
poisoned tip of the arrow was not less deadly because it was sent from a
tiny bow.
CHAPTER XV.
THE FALL OF ANTIOCH.
After seven months of valorous assault and defence, Antioch at length
was gained. It fell, however, not as the prize of honorable conquest,
but as the price of treachery, disgraceful to both those within and
those without the walls. Phirous, an Armenian Christian, had abjured his
faith in order to secure promotion in the Turkish service. In reward he
was given position, and now commanded three of the principal towers.
Divining a similar, if not equal, unconscionableness in Bohemond,
Phirous made known to him his willingness to recant his new vows as a
Moslem and again betray his trust for larger reward in the Christian
ranks. Bohemond announced to the other chiefs his possession of a secret
by which Antioch might easily be taken, but refused to reveal it except
upon their agreement to assign to him the independent sovereignty of the
Syrian capital. The proposal at first met with the contempt and rage of
his fellow-leaders, which were expressed to his face in the hot words of
Raymond, who declared that Bohemond proposed to “repay with the
conquests of valor some shameful artifice worthy of women.” Bohemond was
as brazen as he was brave, and endured this insult. Reports became rife
that Kerbogha, Sultan of Mosul, was advancing to the relief of his
coreligionists. Bohemond, through his emissaries, magnified the alarm
until the besiegers anticipated the attack of an army of two hundred
thousand, whose cimeters were dripping with the blood of victory over
all the peoples west of the Euphrates. Under this menace the chiefs
chose the valor of discretion, and, not without lamentation at the
shameful necessity, yielded to the ambition of their comrade.
The scheme of Phirous came near miscarriage at the very moment of
execution. Accian, the commandant at Antioch, suspicious of treachery,
ordered all the Christians in the city to be seized and massacred that
very night. Summoning Phirous, he subjected him to severest examination,
but the shrewdness of the wretch completely veiled his duplicity.
Phirous tried to induce his own brother to join him in his treachery.
The man refused, and, lest he should reveal the plot, Phirous plunged
his dagger to his heart.
A comet, which had appeared in the early evening sky, was regarded as an
omen favorable to the scheme. The subsequent dense darkness of the night
and the roar of sudden storm shielded the forms and drowned the
footfalls of the plotters. At a given signal Phirous dropped from the
wall a ladder of leather, which was quickly mounted by one of Bohemond’s
men. As the traitor Phirous stood by the parapet conversing with the
intruders, he was startled by the glare of a lantern in the hand of an
officer making his round of inspection, but his ready tact diverted
suspicion. The agent of Bohemond descended the ladder and reported all
in readiness for the assault; but the Christians were held back by a
strange spell. Men who were accustomed to brave death without a question
at the command of their princes, could not be prevailed upon by either
threatening or promise to venture into this unknown danger. Moral
courage is the strongest stimulus to physical daring, and this
treacherous project failed to supply the heroic incentive. Bohemond
himself was compelled to set the perilous example; but no one followed
until he descended to assure them by his presence that he had not fallen
into some deadly trap. Then one by one the bravest knights, such as
Foulcher of Chartres and the Count of Flanders, emulated Bohemond’s
bravery. The parapet was overweighted by the assailants, who were massed
upon its edge, and gave way, precipitating many upon the lance-points of
those below them. But the thunders of the storm drowned the crash of the
falling masonry. Securing the three towers of Phirous’s command, the
crusaders opened the city gates to the dense ranks that waited without.
With the cry of “Deus vult! Deus vult!” the infuriated multitude poured
into the city. The Moslems, as they came from their homes and barracks
at the rude awakening, were slaughtered without having time for
resistance. Through all houses not marked by some symbol of the
Christian faith the crusaders raged; cruelty and lust knew no restraint.
The dawn revealed over six thousand corpses in the streets. Accian
escaped the Christian soldiers, only to meet a less honorable death at
the hands of a woodman while in flight through the forest. Phirous was
abundantly rewarded for his treachery, but two years later he reëmbraced
Moslemism in expectation of larger gains. In the anathemas of Christian
and paynim he was consigned to the hell in which both believed.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE HOLY LANCE.
The elation of the crusaders over the possession of Antioch was of
briefest duration. Their three days’ license, in the enjoyment of what
they had so ingloriously won, was terminated on the fourth day by
fearful menace. Kerbogha was really coming. To his own veteran
experience he added the wisdom of the most redoubtable sultans and emirs
of Syria, Asia Minor, and Persia, who commanded an army of one hundred
thousand horse and three hundred thousand foot. So stealthily had they
approached that the news was conveyed to the Christians only by their
observing from the walls the advance of the mighty host as it dashed
through the camps but recently consecrated to the cross. Quickly the
Moslems completed their investment of the city. The Christians could
make no foray over the fields, and no provisions were allowed to reach
them from the port. To add to their fears, the citadel of Antioch had
not fallen into their hands with the rest of the city, and was still
occupied by watchful foes. They were thus assailed from without and from
within the walls.
The gay robes, costly gems, and arms which the Christians had taken were
no compensation for the lack of provisions. Godfrey paid fifteen silver
marks for the flesh of a half-starved camel. Knights killed for meat the
proud chargers they loved oftentimes more than they did their companions
in arms, who were now their greedy contestants for what scanty provision
remained. Common soldiers gnawed the leather off shoes and shields, and
some dug from the graves and devoured the putrid flesh of the Turks they
had slain. We might doubt this horrible deed were not similar acts of
cannibalism confessed by Godfrey and Raymond in a letter to the Pope,
written a year later. Every morning revealed the numbers of those who
had deserted during the night, among whom were some of the most famous
warriors, such as the counts of Melun and Blois and Chartres. In the
general despair even faith gave way. Men cursed the God who had deserted
them while they were defending His cause, and the priests hesitated to
perform the rites of religion among a people who had become as infidel
as the foe they sought to destroy.
The Greek emperor, Alexius, started out from Constantinople with an
army, but upon hearing of the desperate straits of the Latins returned,
leaving them to their fate. The Christians, it is said, offered to
capitulate to Kerbogha upon condition of being permitted to return to
Europe in abandonment of the crusades. Godfrey and Adhemar, the one in
the name of all that was valiant among men, the other as the
representative of the Pope, presumably speaking for Heaven, remonstrated
in vain. The refusal of even so much mercy by the Moslems alone
prevented the consummation of this disgrace. The warriors who had won
the applause of Europe then sat sullenly in their houses and could not
be prevailed upon to fight along the walls, believing that additional
wounds would only protract their woe without averting the final
catastrophe.
In this hour of abject despair the besieged were reinspirited by an
occasion which is as much the marvel of the psychologist as of the
historian. In the prostration of bodily nature through hunger and
disease, imagination often tyrannizes the faculties. Man becomes the
prey of unrealities; his dreams create a new world, generally of terror,
but often of hope. Then it is that the demons and angels of theory
materialize into seeming facts. Thus the emaciated men in the
beleaguered camp were ready to believe the story of a priest, who
related that Christ had appeared to him, denouncing destruction upon His
faithless followers, but that at the intercession of the Virgin Mary the
Lord was appeased, and promised immediate victory if the soldiers of His
cross would once more valiantly endeavor to merit it. At the same time
two deserters returned to the camp, relating how the Saviour had met
them and turned them back from flight. But the crowning miracle was
revealed to the priest, Peter Barthelemi. St. Andrew appeared to him and
said, “Go to the church of my brother St. Peter in Antioch. Near the
principal altar you will find, by digging into the earth, the iron head
of the lance which pierced the side of our Redeemer. Within three days
this instrument of salvation shall be manifested to His disciples. This
mystical iron, borne at the head of the army, shall effect the
deliverance of the Christians and shall pierce the hearts of the
Infidels.” For two days the people fasted; on the morning of the third
day twelve trusty knights and ecclesiastics dug at the appointed spot,
while the multitude remained in silence and prayer about the church. All
day long they waited. At midnight there was no response to their
expectation. As the twelve ceased their labors, and were bowed in
renewed petition around the excavation, Peter Barthelemi suddenly leaped
into the hole. In a moment he reappeared bearing a lance-head in his
hands. The news spread through the city as if shouted by angels. The
effect upon the desponding minds of the soldiers was like the revival of
life in the dead bodies of Ezekiel’s valley of vision. Some, it is true,
shook their heads, or, like Foulcher of Chartres, declared that the
lance had been concealed by Barthelemi in the designated place. Whether
really credulous, or shrewd enough to try any new expedient, the leaders
were loudest in heralding the discovery as miraculous.
Peter the Hermit was sent to announce to the Moslems the decree of
Heaven for their immediate overthrow. Sultan Kerbogha, however, proved a
match for the zealot in vituperative bravado and religious devotion. He
haughtily declared but one condition of his raising the siege, namely,
the acknowledgment by the Christians that “Allah is great, and Mohammed
is His prophet.” “Bid thy companions,” said he to Peter, “take advantage
of my clemency; to-morrow they shall leave Antioch only under the sword.
They will then see if their crucified God, who could not save Himself
from the cross, can save them from the fate I have prepared for them.”
With that he drove Peter and his band of deputies back to their walls.
The Christians ate that night what they deliberately called their last
supper in Antioch. With the remnant of bread and wine they celebrated
mass. At dawn the city gates were thrown open, and in twelve divisions
the host marched out, following the standard of the Holy Lance. The
clergy went first, as in the days of Jehoshaphat, singing their faith in
coming victory. The words of the psalm, “Let God arise, and let His
enemies be scattered,” seemed to be answered by invisible hosts on the
mountains, who took up the crusaders’ war-cry of “Deus vult!” Excited
imaginations saw the mountains filled with the chariots of the Lord, as
in the days of Elisha. But to the eye of flesh the Christian host
presented a sorry spectacle. Many limped with wounds or trudged slowly
from weakness; most were in rags, many were stark naked. The prancing
charger had been changed for a camel or ass, and many a knight was
reduced to the condition of a foot-soldier, and shouldered his spear.
Sultan Kerbogha haughtily refused to leave a game of chess he was
playing, to listen to what he supposed would be an entreaty for mercy
from the entire Christian army, that was coming to throw itself at his
feet; but he was soon undeceived. With sudden dash, Count Hugh attacked
and cut to pieces two thousand of the enemy who guarded the bridge
before the city. The main body of Christians formed against the
mountains and, thus shielded from a rear attack, advanced steadily upon
the foe. The surprise of Kerbogha did not prevent that experienced
soldier from seeing the advantage gained by his assailants. Under flag
of truce he proposed to decide the issue by battle between an equal
number of braves selected from either side. The enthusiasm of the
Christian host forbade such a limitation of the honor of attaining what
seemed to all a certain victory. Heaven gave manifest token of favor in
a strong wind, that sped the missiles of the crusaders, while it
retarded those of their foes. In vain did Kerbogha storm them in front,
while Kilidge-Arslan, having climbed the mountain, attacked their rear.
The Turks had fired the bushes to bewilder the Christians, but through a
dense smoke there appeared a squadron descending the mountains, led by
three horsemen in white and lustrous armor. These were recognized as St.
George, St. Demetrius, and St. Theodore, the same materialized spirits
that had been seen upon the plains of Nicæa. With a superhuman fury and
strength, the Christians broke upon the Moslems as a tornado upon a
forest, making through the opposing ranks a path of utter destruction.
When this breath of heaven had passed one hundred thousand Infidels lay
dead upon the field. Fifteen thousand camels, a proportionate number of
horses, immense stores of provisions, and priceless treasures enriched
the victors. The tent of Kerbogha, capable of covering over two thousand
persons, glowing like a vast gem with jewels and tapestries, was taken
and sent to Italy, where the sight of it inflamed the greed of new bands
of crusaders.
Those who are disinclined to believe in the heavenly portents that aided
the Christians may content themselves with the explanation which the
Moslem writers give of their defeat. They relate that the Arabs had
quarrelled with the Turks, and retired from the field before the battle;
that the latter pursued their coreligionists more bitterly than they
fought the common enemy. The credulity of the Christians also abated
when they discovered that the camps of Kerbogha were more adorned than
fortified. Then, too, they recalled the skill and courage of their own
assault, and listened to the thousand stories of the Christians’ exploit
from the lips of the performers. Pride, if not reason, triumphed over
superstition, and the Holy Lance fell into disparagement. A letter from
the leaders to Pope Urban, written from Antioch just after this battle
acknowledged that the divine weapon “restored our strength and courage”;
but the writers are more particular to tell how “we had learned the
tactics of the foe” and, “by the grace and mercy of God, succeeded in
making them unite at one point.” Later the Christian host was divided
into two parties, who contended violently for and against the
credibility of the miracle. Normans and the crusaders from the north of
France were rationalistically inclined, while the men from the south
adhered to the story as told by their geographical representative, Peter
Barthelemi, the priest from Marseilles, who had discovered the sacred
symbol. The veracity of Peter was finally subjected to trial by Ordeal.
A vast pile of olive-branches was erected. A passage several feet in
width was left through the middle of the heap. When the wood had been
fired, Peter appeared, bearing the Holy Lance. As he faced the flames a
herald cried, “If this man has seen Jesus Christ face to face, and if
the Apostle Andrew did reveal to him the divine lance, may he pass safe
and sound through the flames; but if, on the contrary, he be guilty of
falsehood, may he be burned.” The assembled host bowed and answered,
“Amen.” Peter ran with his best speed down the fiery aisle. The furious
heat impeded him. He seemed to have fallen, and disappeared amid the
crackling branches and smoke. At length, however, he emerged at the
other end of the flaming avenue amid the cries of his partisans, “A
miracle! a miracle!” Yet the test was indecisive, for, while Peter
succeeded in running the gantlet, he was terribly burned, and was
carried in mortal agony to the tent of Raymond, where a few days later
he expired. It is to be noted that from that time the Holy Lance wrought
no more miracles, even in the credulity of its most reverent adorers.
CHAPTER XVII.
ON TO JERUSALEM.
The zeal of the mass of crusaders urged them to an immediate advance
upon Jerusalem. This, however, was opposed by the discretion of Godfrey,
who predicted the hardship of the campaign in a Syrian midsummer. The
evident dissensions among the Moslems and their apathy in further
warfare, if they gave opportunity for rapid conquest by the Christians,
at the same time allayed the feeling of necessity for immediate advance.
It was therefore resolved to postpone the enterprise southward until
November.
While waiting for the order to march, an epidemic broke out in the
camps, which was more fatal than would have been any perils of the
journey. Upward of fifty thousand perished in a month, among them
Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, the special representative of the Holy Father,
and the spiritual head of the crusade. Idleness also engendered strife
among brethren. Bohemond and Raymond threatened each other with the
sword. Common soldiers fought in opposing bands for the possession of
the booty captured in their raids. Restless spirits, disgusted with the
general apathy, joined Baldwin, now the master of Edessa. Some made
alliance with such Moslems as were at war with their fellow-Moslems.
Even Godfrey fought for the emir of Hezas against Redowan, Sultan of
Aleppo.
Heaven also seemed to have become impatient at the inaction of the
crusaders. A luminous mass, as if all the stars had combined their
fires, like a suspended thunderbolt, glared down from the sky upon the
quiet ramparts of Antioch. Suddenly it burst and scattered in sparks
through the air. Did it mean that God was about to thus disperse the
Christians, or that He would scatter their enemies? The omen, though not
clearly interpreted, sufficed to rouse the indolent host.
Raymond and Bohemond, with worthy compeers, assaulted Maarah, between
Hamath and Aleppo. A novelty of the defence of this place was the
hurling upon the assailants of hives filled with stinging bees. The
resistance of the inhabitants, however, proved unavailing, and was
punished by their indiscriminate massacre when the city had been gained.
A dispute between Raymond and Bohemond for sole possession of what they
had jointly conquered delayed further operations, until the soldiers who
were left in Maarah with their own hands destroyed the fortifications,
and thus rendered it useless to the ambition of either of the leaders.
It was not until far into the year that the united host took up the
march southward. Everywhere they were lured from their grand objective,
the sacred city, by the sight of goodly lands and strong towers, the
spoil or possession of which might compensate the sacrifices of the
campaign. Raymond laid siege to Arkas, at the foot of the Lebanons;
others captured Tortosa.
While detained before the walls of Arkas they were met by an embassy
from the caliph of Egypt, composed of the same persons that had
previously visited the camp at Antioch. They narrated how they had been
thrown into prison because of the failure of their former mission, when
their master heard of the straits of the Christians; and how they had
been liberated and sent back upon his hearing of the subsequent triumph
of the Latins. They announced that Jerusalem had recently come into the
hands of the Egyptians, and as its new possessors, proposed peace and
privilege of pilgrimage to all who should enter the city without arms.
They offered splendid bribes to the chieftains in person; but these
worthies rejected the proposal.
The fame of the Christians’ victory at Antioch brought new crusaders
from Europe, among them Edgar Atheling, the last Saxon claimant of the
crown of England against its possession by William the Conqueror.
On the way southward the hosts harvested the groves of olives and
oranges, and the waving fields which have always enriched the western
slopes of Lebanon. They discovered a rare plant, juicy and sweet,
refreshing like wine and nourishing as corn. The inhabitants called it
_zucra_. The later crusaders introduced it as the sugar-cane into Italy.
Proceeding along or near to the coast, that they might be able to
receive succor from over the sea, they traversed the plain of Berytus
(Beirut) and the territory of Tyre and Sidon. Many pilgrims, whose
zealotry had led them to settle in the Holy Land notwithstanding its
hostile possession, hailed their brethren with benedictions and
provisions. On the bank of the river Eleuctra their camp was invaded by
hosts of serpents, whose bite was followed by violent and often mortal
pains. At Ptolemaïs (Jean d’Acre) the commanding emir averted assault by
pledging himself to surrender the place as soon as he should learn that
the Christians had taken Jerusalem. His pretence of peaceableness was
singularly exposed. A hawk was seen to fly aloft with a dove in its
talons. By strange chance the lifeless bird fell amid a group of
crusaders. It proved to be a carrier-pigeon, whose peculiar instinct was
then unknown to Europeans. Under its wing was a letter written by the
emir of Ptolemaïs to the emir of Cæsarea, containing the words: “The
cursed race of Christians has just passed through my territories and
will soon cross yours. Let all our chiefs be warned and prepare to crush
them.” This timely revelation of the treachery of their assumed ally,
coming literally down from the sky, was regarded as a special sign of
Heaven’s favor.
Pressing still southward, they captured Lydda and Ramleh, on the road
between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Here the enthusiasm of the Christians
blinded their judgment. It was with difficulty that the more cautious
leaders restrained the multitude from moving against Egypt, in the vain
expectation of conquering not only Jerusalem, but the ancient empire of
the Pharaohs, at a single swoop. The credulity as to Heaven’s favor was
matched by an equal display of very earthly motives. The crusaders
devised a system for dividing the spoil. Whatever leader first planted
his standard upon a city, or his mark upon the door of a house, was to
be regarded as its legitimate owner. This appeal to human greed led many
to leave the direct march upon Jerusalem, which was but sixteen miles
away, and to expend in petty conquests or robberies the ardor which for
weary months had been augmenting as they approached the grand object of
the crusades. A faithful multitude, however, pushed on. They took off
their shoes as they realized that they were on holy ground. Tancred,
with a band of three hundred, making a circuit southward by night, set
the standard of the cross on the walls of Bethlehem, to signal the birth
of the kingdom in the birthplace of its King.
On the morning of June 10, 1099, the sight of the Holy City broke upon
the view. The shout of the host, “Deus vult! Deus vult!” rolled over the
intervening hills like the “noise of many waters.” Had a host of angels
filled the sky, it would have seemed to their enthusiastic souls but a
fitting concomitant of their approach. The joy of the apparent
accomplishment of their purpose was, however, followed by the affliction
of their souls, as the most devout among them reminded the others of the
spiritual significance of the scene before them. Jerusalem had witnessed
the death of their Lord. For a while the soldier remembered only that he
was a pilgrim; knight and pikeman knelt together and laid their faces in
the dust.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM.
The Egyptian commandant of Jerusalem had not idly awaited the slow
approach of its assailants. He had stored it abundantly with provisions,
strengthened the walls with masonry and defensive machines, and by
appeals to Moslems everywhere had completed its garrison. The suburban
country was reduced to a desert, stripped of all vegetation which could
furnish food for man or beast; all standing trees, and the timber in
houses that might be wrought into machinery of assault, were destroyed.
The wells in the valleys were filled with stones, and poison thrown into
the cisterns where water had been stored.
Possibly the knowledge that the district about Jerusalem could furnish
them no help led the leaders to listen to the counsel of a solitary
hermit who dwelt on the Mount of Olives, and who promised in Christ’s
name a successful assault if undertaken at once. It does not seem clear
how an army without siege apparatus could take a place so strongly
fortified. On the east the vast walls, rising from the valley of
Jehoshaphat, were too lofty to tempt the most daring. Those on the
south, overlooking the Kidron, were not less impregnable. The crusading
army took every possibility of approach into consideration, and in
imitation of Vespasian and Titus a thousand years before, stretched
their lines on the north and west of the city. But only a blind faith in
divine assistance could have led to the assault, even on these sides,
without battering-rams or scaling-ladders. Yet at the trumpet’s call the
Christians advanced. They joined their shields into a roof, which was a
poor defence against the stones and boiling oil that descended upon
them. Still the front ranks dug into the walls with pikes and axes,
while the rear ranks of archers and slingers endeavored to drive the foe
from the ramparts above. A few, finding a solitary ladder, mounted the
walls, but were unable to withstand the crowd of Infidels who met them.
In deep discouragement, they abandoned the assault, having learned the
lesson that, even at Jerusalem, Heaven assures no enterprise which is
conceived regardless of human discretion.
Events soon occurred which turned this distrust of miraculous
intervention into a belief that Heaven was actually fighting against the
Christians. It was a summer of fearful heat even for that land. Tasso’s
description of those fiery days is as truthful as it is poetic:
“The fair flowers languish, the green turf turns brown,
The leaves fall yellow from their sapless sprays;
Earth gapes in chinks; th’ exhausted fountain plays
No more its music; shrunk the stream and lakes;
The barren cloud, in air expanded, takes
Semblance of sheeted fire, and parts in scarlet flakes.
Not a bird’s fluttering, not an insect’s hum,
Breaks the still void; or, on its sultry gloom
If winds intrude, ’tis only such as come
From the hot sands, sirocco or simoom,
Which, blown in stifling gusts, the springs of life consume.”
_Jerusalem Delivered_, canto xiii.
To avoid the burning atmosphere which drained their blood, men buried
themselves naked in the ground. At night they sought to gather the dew,
with which to moisten their lips. Those who found some tiny pool fought
among themselves for the possession of its foul water. It seemed that
the very “stars fought in their courses” against the people of God, as
once against Sisera. The occasional raids of Moslems upon defenceless
bands of Christians, as they wandered in search of relief, were
magnified by general fear into the approach of vast armies. It was
rumored that Egypt had massed its power and was approaching from the
south.
But for opportune relief it is probable that the crusaders would have
been compelled to raise the siege. At the most critical moment some
Genoese ships entered Jaffa. Three hundred of the bravest knights fought
their way through the Moslems who obstructed the road to the coast, and
succeeded in bringing to the camp before Jerusalem a quantity of
provisions and material for siege machinery, as well as a number of
skilled engineers and artisans. They were unable to prevent the ships
being destroyed by the enemy. Gathering new courage from this
reinforcement, a band penetrated to the forests of Samaria, full thirty
miles distant, and cut timber, which, with incredible toil, they brought
back for the construction of battering-rams, catapults, and strong roofs
under which to conduct their renewed operations. Among the most
formidable contrivances was the movable tower, three stories high,
within the base of which men worked with levers to move the structure
close to the walls, while on the upper floors soldiers were massed, who
at the lowering of the drawbridge descended upon the ramparts.
Encouraged by this material aid, the crusaders again sought the heavenly
succor. They remembered that Joshua combined faith with valor, and that,
having invested Jericho with prayers and psalms, its walls fell down.
They would now repeat the experiment. For three days they held a solemn
fast. On the fourth, preceded by the priests bearing images of the
saints, with song and cymbals and trumpet, and burnished arms flashing
in the hot air, they set out for the mystic investment of the frowning
walls of Jerusalem. Beginning on the west, the procession moved
northward. The entire army worshipped prostrate at the tombs of St. Mary
and St. Stephen. Bending their course to the southeast, they wept at the
reputed garden of Gethsemane. They then went up the Mount of Olives, and
there, on the spot whence Christ had ascended, held a grand convocation.
At their feet lay the landscape, hallowed by the exploits of Hebrew
patriots and prophets, but chiefly by the footprints of the Son of God.
On the one hand gleamed the Jordan and the Dead Sea; on the other was
Jerusalem, like an altar overturned and desecrated by the presence of
the heathen. Their most eloquent orator, Arnold de Rohes, harangued them
as he pointed to the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the grand
objective of all their toil, heroism, and piety. Chieftains who had long
cherished mutual animosity, like Tancred and Raymond, stood together in
the embrace of forgiveness and the pledge to forget all their
differences, while their hearts were reunited as in a celestial flame.
The Moslems themselves added fuel to the fire of Christian enthusiasm by
parading on the walls of the city with crosses, which they saluted with
blasphemous gestures and cries. Peter the Hermit voiced the fresh fury
which swayed all breasts. He cried, “Ye see, ye hear, the blasphemies of
the enemies of God. Swear to defend the Christ, a second time a
prisoner, crucified afresh. I swear by your faith, I swear by your arms,
that these mosques shall again serve for temples of the true God.”
Descending from the Mount of Olives, the procession moved southward,
paying reverence at the Pool of Siloam and the tomb of David. As the red
sun was setting in the white gleam of the Mediterranean, the host
returned to their camps on the west of the city, chanting the words of
Isaiah: “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His
glory from the rising of the sun.” In strange attestation of the unity
of religious sentiment in antagonistic faiths, the songs of the
Christians were echoed from the city by the voices of the muezzins, who,
from the minarets of mosques, called their faithful to prayer.
During the night Godfrey made a rapid change in his point of attack, so
that in the morning the bewildered Moslems saw the walls threatened
where they had made little preparation for defence. A great ravine which
thwarted the operations of Raymond was quickly filled by the multitude,
who rushed amid the thick rain of arrows, carrying stones, which they
threw into it.
At daybreak, July 14, 1099, as from a single impulse, the rams began
their blows; the catapults and ballistæ filled the air with flying
stones and blazing combustibles, and a storm of arrows swept the walls.
The assault was met with equal skill and courage, and night fell upon an
indecisive engagement. Raymond’s tower had been destroyed, and those of
Godfrey and Tancred were injured so that they could not be moved.
The 15th of July witnessed a repetition of the carnage. The priests kept
up an unceasing procession of prayer around the city, a pious
exhibition, which was matched by the appearance on the walls of two
Moslem sorceresses, who, as the Christians said, invoked the aid of
nature and demons. In vain was the heroism and sacrifices of the
crusaders. Their towers were burned and fell, burying their defenders
beneath the blazing fagots. The host was beginning to withdraw from the
seemingly useless slaughter. Suddenly the cry, “Look! look!” directed
all eyes towards the Mount of Olives. The imagination of some one had
seen—or his shrewdness, recalling the ruse of the Holy Lance at Antioch,
had invented—the apparition of a gigantic knight on the sacred mount,
waving his shield. The cry of “St. George! St. George!” rent the air. A
timely change in the wind blew the flames and smoke of the Christians’
remaining towers towards the walls. The Moslems were blinded and choked
as by the breath of unearthly spirits. Godfrey’s men rushed upon them,
drove them from their defences, and, climbing over the wall, pursued
them down through the streets of the city. Tancred obtained a similar
advantage, and in another torrent poured his contingent over the
northern end of the ramparts. The Christians within the city opened the
gates, and new tides of slaughter and victory rolled among the houses.
Last of all, Raymond carried the battlements which opposed him; thus the
various bands met within the city. One rally of the Moslems checked but
for an instant the inevitable result.
The valor of this last effort of the defendants might have elicited the
magnanimity of the victors for so worthy a foe, but it only enraged
their brutality. They who paused long enough in the carnage to remember
that it was Friday, and the very hour when Christ died in love for all
men, did not remember the simplest precepts of their holy religion, and
visited their now unresisting enemies with slaughter unsurpassed in the
annals of cruelty. Neither age nor sex was spared. Children’s brains
were dashed out against the stones, or their living bodies were whirled
in demoniacal sport from the walls. Women were outraged. Men were
prodded with spears over the battlements upon other spears below, or
were reserved to be roasted by slow fires amid the mockeries of their
captors. In the letter sent by Godfrey and others to the Pope occur
these words: “If you desire to know what was done with the enemy who
were found there, know that in Solomon’s porch and in his temple our men
rode in the blood of the Saracen up to the knees of their horses.”
Both Latin and Oriental historians give seventy thousand as the number
of Mussulmans who were massacred after the capture, besides those who
fell in the fight. It is certain that the entire population that did not
escape from the city were intended for death, for such was the
deliberate decree of the council of chiefs. The blood-crazed soldiers
extended the scope of this outrageous mandate to include the Jews, who
perished in the flames of their synagogue. From their hiding-places in
mosques, homes, and the vast underground vaults, the citizens were
plucked out by the point of the lance and sword. Thus many a Moslem died
in the confirmed belief of the superior humanity of his own religion,
though it was called the religion of the sword.
The only apology for this cruelty that can be given is the brutality of
manhood in these dark ages. The gentler Christianity of earlier days had
been sadly changed by the propensities of the semi-barbaric Northern
conquerors who embraced it. The church had as yet been able to affect
the masses with only its dogmas and ritual, not with its deeper and more
truly religious influence for the restraint of passion and the tuition
of the sentiment of love. The military spirit, too, had allied itself
with the ecclesiastical; as Milman says, “The knight before the battle
was as devout as the bishop; the bishop in the battle no less ferocious
than the knight.” The truth of this is evident from the fact that
contemporary writers do not attempt to excuse it, but glory in sights
the imagination of which appals our modern sensibilities. Raymond
d’Agiles, an eye-witness, speaks with pleasantry of the headless trunks
and bodies dancing on ropes from the turrets. The ghost of the dead
Adhemar was seen in his ecclesiastical robes partaking of the triumph,
but those who describe the vision report no rebuke from his lips for the
carnage. Tancred and Raymond of Toulouse alone seem to have raised any
voice of mercy, and they suffered the imputation of mercenary motives
for their clemency.
Jerusalem was given over to the Christian spoilers. Every man secured
possession of the dwelling upon which he first set his mark or name. To
Tancred’s share fell the entire furniture of the mosque of Omar, six
chariot-loads of gold and silver candelabra and other ornaments. With
characteristic generosity, he divided the booty with Godfrey and many
private soldiers, reserving fifty marks of gold for the redecoration of
the Christian churches. But most precious to their credulity was the
True Cross, alleged to have been miraculously discovered by Helena, the
mother of Constantine, in the fourth century, which, having been stolen
by Chosroes the Persian, had been restored to the sacred city by
Heraclius.
CHAPTER XIX.
GODFREY, FIRST BARON OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE—CONQUEST OF THE LAND—THE
KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.
When wearied with gathering the spoil the crusaders deliberated how best
to secure their possessions. This could be done only by maintaining
peace within the city and adequate defence against the armies of the
Infidels, who would undoubtedly rise to assail them from without.
Their first business was the selection of a king of Jerusalem. The
popularity of Godfrey, merited by his genius, bravery, and devotion,
readily suggested his name to the ten electors who were chosen to voice
the suffrage of the host. To secure his enthusiastic reception by the
people, he did not need additional arguments drawn from imagined
revelations of the will of Heaven. Yet visions were invoked to confirm
the judgment of human discretion. One reported that he had seen Godfrey
enthroned in the sun, while numberless flocks of birds from all lands
came and nestled at his feet. This was interpreted to mean the coming
glory of Jerusalem and the crowds of pilgrims who should be safe beneath
his sway. Godfrey modestly declined the royal title, accepting only that
of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, saying that he would not
wear a crown of gold in the city where Christ had worn only a crown of
thorns (July 22, 1099).
With less unanimity and only after unseemly brawls, which were in
strange contrast with the orderly arrangement of their secular affairs,
Arnold de Rohes, the eloquent but dissolute ecclesiastic, was selected
by the priests as Patriarch of Jerusalem.
With true statesmanlike purpose, Godfrey addressed himself to the
organization of the political and military government of his new
dominion. He had, however, little time to devote to the peaceful
progress of his kingdom. Raymond diverted his chief’s attention more by
plots of ambition and jealousy than he aided him by wisdom of counsel.
Multitudes of Christians resident in the East, excited to become such by
the fame of the conquests of the crusaders, poured into the city and
vicinage, and thus added to the governor’s cares.
At the same time the Mussulmans, quickly recuperating from their
despair, inaugurated new campaigns. The Turks and Persians laid aside
their jealousy of the Egyptians, and poured southward and westward to
join the army of the caliph of Cairo. Afdhal, already famous for having
wrested Jerusalem from the Turks, gathered the warriors of Islam of all
tribes and races, from the Nile to the Tigris. His advancing army was
supported by a vast fleet, which had been laden at Alexandria and
Damietta with provisions and siege apparatus for a second capture of
what to them, as well as to the Christians, was the sacred city.
Learning that the Moslems had reached Gaza, Godfrey set forth to meet
them, with Tancred as his most worthy coadjutant. Raymond, having
quarrelled with Godfrey about the independent possession of the tower of
David, sulked in his house, and Robert of Normandy also refused to march
to the aid of Godfrey. These leaders were, however, at length driven
from the city by the taunts of the priests and the women. Their martial
pride was also stirred by the message of Godfrey that a battle was
imminent. The crusaders made their camp at Ramleh, and August 11th
advanced towards Ascalon. By the banks of the wadi Surak they captured
immense herds of camels, oxen, and sheep, which encouraged them as much,
doubtless, as did the wood of the True Cross that was carried through
the ranks. The herds also seemed to be marshalled by a special
providence as their rearward. We must describe this in the words of
Godfrey: “When we advanced to battle, wonderful to relate, the camels
formed in many squadrons, and the sheep and oxen did the same. Moreover,
these animals accompanied us, halting when we halted, advancing when we
advanced, and charging when we charged.” The enormous dust-clouds raised
by the herds led the Moslems to take them for a contingent of the
Christian force, which imagination magnified to many times its real
numbers. A paralysis of fear fell upon the Infidels. Most of them, being
fresh troops, had never met the crusaders in battle, and had dared the
issue, relying upon their own superiority in numbers. Now that this
dependence seemingly failed them, they anticipated defeat at the hands
of the heroes of Nicæa and Antioch and Jerusalem, and stood nerveless
before the attack. The Christians, coming near, fell every man upon his
knees in prayer, then rose to make the charge. Raymond struck the column
of Turks and Persians; Tancred led his braves through the Moors and
Egyptians; Godfrey crushed the Ethiopians, who resisted him but for an
instant with their long flails armed with balls of iron; Robert of
Normandy wrested the standard from the hands of Afdhal himself. As the
Moslems cast away their bows and javelins to hasten their flight, the
Christians cast away theirs that they might speed the pursuit with the
sword. Back they drove the Infidels against the walls of Ascalon. Two
thousand were trampled or suffocated in the crowd that choked the gate;
multitudes, avoiding the city, were driven into the sea and were
drowned. The panic communicated itself to the Egyptian sailors on the
fleet, who spread their sails and disappeared over the sea, leaving the
Moslem soldiers no opportunity of escape. Godfrey says: “There were not
in our army more than five thousand horsemen and fifteen thousand
foot-soldiers, and there were probably of the enemy one hundred thousand
horsemen and four hundred thousand foot-soldiers.... More than one
hundred thousand perished by the sword; and if many of ours had not been
detained plundering the camp, few of the great multitude would have
escaped.”
Raymond claimed the city of Ascalon for his own possession. Godfrey
declared that all conquests belonged to their common kingdom of
Jerusalem. Raymond, in mean revenge, encouraged the Moslems not to
surrender their stronghold, which still resisted. By similar counsel he
prevailed upon the Saracen garrison of Arsuf to hold out. Godfrey could
not restrain his anger at this treachery, and turned his arms upon his
old comrade. Tancred and Robert of Normandy threw themselves between the
swords of the combatants and effected their reconciliation.
With the victory at Ascalon (August 19, 1099) the first crusade may be
said to have terminated. The events of the subsequent year relate to the
history of the new kingdom of Jerusalem. The closing months of the
eleventh century witnessed the return of the mass of crusaders to their
European homes. In almost every castle and hamlet of France the
thrilling events of three years were narrated by those whose scars
corroborated the story of their valor and sufferings. Nearly every
family remembered a father, a brother, or a son as a martyr, or rejoiced
in his return renowned as a hero or revered as a saint.
Few of the leaders enlarged their repute by any subsequent actions.
Peter the Hermit ended his days at advanced age in the monastery of Huy,
which his renown for sanctity had enabled him to found. Robert of
Normandy seems to have exhausted all the manliness of his nature in his
Eastern adventures. He allowed an amour to detain him in Italy for more
than a year, during which time his brother Henry took the throne of
England on the death of William Rufus, a reward which might easily have
come to Robert, had he shown disposition to defend his right of
inheritance. Henry wrested from him even his duchy of Normandy, and
confined him in the castle of Cardiff, where he died after twenty-eight
years of captivity.
Raymond retired to Laodicea, the government of which he had secured.
From this place he was summoned to command new bands of crusaders.
Multitudes set out under him. Some followed Stephen of Blois, brother to
the French king, whose desertion of the crusaders brought upon him such
dishonor that he was eager to restore his repute by a second enlistment.
William, Count of Poitiers, Lord of France, reputed as the first of the
Troubadours, departed with a retinue of soldiers and girls. A German
horde was led by Conrad, the marshal of the empire. Italians followed
Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, in whose train were lords, knights, and
noble ladies, among them the Princess Ida of Austria.
These various bands, like the earlier crusaders, met at Constantinople,
repeating the annoyance to the Emperor Alexius, who begged Raymond to
relieve him of their presence. This veteran accepted the duty, bearing
with him the Holy Lance that had wrought wonders at Antioch, and which
Raymond regarded as a match for the arm of St. Ambrose that the
Archbishop of Milan had brought from his cathedral.
This march eastward was without discipline, monks and women often
filling the places of soldiers. Kilidge-Arslan, the Sultan of Iconium,
burned with desire to avenge his defeat three years before at Nicæa.
Kerbogha, Sultan of Mosul, was equally inflamed to wipe out his disgrace
at Antioch. These joined their forces and overwhelmed the Christians at
the river Halys. The massacre almost amounted to extermination. Raymond
fled with the other leaders. The Turks repeated their assault upon a
second army, under the Count de Nevers, at Ancyra, with similar results.
And again they administered their terrible vengeance upon a third army,
under the Count of Poitiers, the Duke of Bavaria, and Count Hugh of
Vermandois, of whose reputed one hundred and fifty thousand scarcely one
thousand escaped. The leaders found a sorry refuge in rags and wounds at
Tarsus and Antioch. The women, among them the Princess Ida, disappeared
within the curtains of numberless harems. A forlorn remnant reached
Jerusalem, to add, perhaps, more to the care than to the assistance of
Godfrey.
The rule of Godfrey as Baron of the Holy Sepulchre was brief, but such
as to promise, had his career been extended to even the age of most of
his companions, a record worthy of the greatest of kings. Despising the
mere gilding of a throne, he sought to strengthen his government by the
best laws known to Europe, as well as to guard and extend his power by
the sword.
The latter was, however, the first and pressing necessity. The departure
of the crusading hosts left him but three hundred knights with their
retainers, out of six hundred thousand who during three years had taken
the cross. His strongholds were, besides Jerusalem, a score of towns
scattered over the vicinage of the capital, in many cases antagonized by
the still remaining fortresses of the Infidels. The country between
these towns was open to the passage of his foes. The land was untilled,
and offered scanty provision for his people. To prevent a further exodus
of Christians, it was enacted that land could be acquired in ownership
only after a year’s continuous occupancy, and would be alienated by a
year’s absence.
Tancred was as Godfrey’s right hand. These two men stand out together as
preëminent for their moral qualities among many as brave as they in
merely physical prowess. To Tancred was assigned the principality of
Tiberias, the possession of which he quickly acquired with his sword.
Godfrey at the same time forced the acknowledgment of his government by
exacting tribute from the Arabs west of the Jordan, and from the emirs
along the coast of the Mediterranean. One city, Asur (Arsuf), refused
submission and maintained its independence in spite of siege. The spirit
of Godfrey was strangely tried here by an incident. Gerard of Avernes
had been given up by Godfrey as a hostage for his clemency and justice
in dealing with the people of the town. While the arrows of the
Christians were sweeping the walls, Gerard was placed unshielded at a
point where they were falling thickest, that his danger might divert the
assault. Godfrey, coming near, cried aloud to him, “If my own brother
were in your place I could not cease my attack; die, then, as a brave
knight.” Gerard accepted his martyrdom, and fell beneath the missiles of
his friends.
To Jerusalem came a multitude of pilgrims, among them Dagobert
(Daimbert) as special legate from the Pope. By virtue of his high office
he claimed for himself the patriarchate of Jerusalem, together with the
secular sovereignty of Jaffa and the section of the sacred city in which
was located the Holy Sepulchre. Following further the policy of the
popes to make their dominion a world monarchy, secular as well as
spiritual, Dagobert required Godfrey to acknowledge himself a temporal
vassal of the pontiff, and to pledge to the patriarch the sovereignty of
the kingdom in the event of Godfrey dying without children. Bohemond, as
Prince of Antioch, and Baldwin, Prince of Edessa, brother of Godfrey,
and Raymond, now of Laodicea, were at the time visiting Jerusalem. These
also made their submission, and received their governments anew from the
Holy Father.
With the counsel of these and others, his wisest advisers, Godfrey
inaugurated the system of laws afterwards known as the Assizes of
Jerusalem. They were not completed until a subsequent century, but their
inception belongs to his statesmanship. These regulations are
interesting as reflecting in brief compass the best customs of Europe.
Their study may, therefore, be on that wider field. The Assizes were a
sort of written constitution, and when prepared the original document
was placed with solemn pomp in the archives of the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre.
But the reign begun under such favorable auspices was suddenly
terminated. Returning from an expedition for the succor of Tancred,
Godfrey accepted the hospitality of the emir of Cæsarea, and immediately
falling ill, his sickness was accredited to poisoned fruit. He died soon
after reaching his capital (June 18, 1100), at the early age of
thirty-eight. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is still to be seen
his tomb, near by that of his Lord, which he had given his brief but
brave life to rescue and defend.
Godfrey’s preëminence among the original crusader chieftains was due not
so much to any single virtue in which he was their superior as to a rare
combination of many excellent qualities. It was said of him that he was
the peer of Raymond in counsel and of Tancred in the field. To this we
may add that for piety he outshone Adhemar the priest. In the midst of
the fight he would pause for prayer to the God of battles; and his
meditation on sacred themes was ordinarily prolonged far beyond the
hours prescribed for devotion by the church. His nature was gentler and
more just than that of his companions. If at times his actions were
cruel, they might be attributed rather to the habit of the age than to
his own inclination. Since he surpassed his generation in so many
respects, it would be neither just nor generous to criticise his
defects. In him we see the budding of a better type of humanity amid the
prevailing grossness of animalism and superstition.
CHAPTER XX.
BALDWIN I., KING OF JERUSALEM.
In strange contrast with Godfrey was his brother Baldwin, the Prince of
Edessa, whom the necessities of the infant kingdom, rather than his own
merits, now called to the vacant throne. Baldwin had already shown
himself as unscrupulous as he was alert, and as covetous as he was bold.
With undoubted adroitness and courage, he had acquired and held his
principality of Edessa. Here he reigned with Oriental pomp, wore long
robes and flowing beard, sat cross-legged on rugs, and compelled all
suppliants for his favor to approach with the salaam of profoundest
homage. This ostentation was apparently more from policy among a people
familiar with such customs than from love of display or any despotic
instinct.
Dagobert, the papal legate, opposed the suggestion of Baldwin’s kingship
of Jerusalem, and claimed that honor for himself. He might have obtained
it had not Garnier, the agent of Baldwin, seized upon the tower of David
and the other fortresses in the name of his absent master. The baffled
prelate called upon Bohemond, now Prince of Antioch, to come and avenge
this insult offered to the Holy Father in the person of his legate; but
the Turks, by capturing Bohemond, interfered with this plan. The
activity shown by the common enemy decided the popular voice for Baldwin
as king. The dangers which threatened forbade that the government of
Jerusalem should be left in the hands of a priest untrained in war. The
soldier seemed pointed out by Providence for the kingship, although the
hand of the Pope was stretched out to anoint another.
Baldwin, learning of the death of Godfrey, immediately turned over the
government of Edessa to his cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, and with fourteen
hundred men marched for Jerusalem. On the way he gave new proof of his
puissance by first outwitting and then utterly routing vastly superior
numbers, with which the emirs of Damascus and Emesa endeavored to block
his way. Pausing at the sacred city only long enough to assure himself
of the applause of the entire population, he gave another exhibition of
his merit of the crown before wearing it. With a sudden swoop he
devastated the enemy’s country from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea,
and, laden with booty, demanded and received from the hands of the
unwilling prelate the crown and blessing in the name of the Pope.
Quickly following the coronation services at Bethlehem, he captured
Arsuf and Cæsarea. An Egyptian army had advanced as far as Ramleh, but
Baldwin, with a white kerchief tied to his lance’s point as his
oriflamme, led his braves again and again through this host, until they
were routed, leaving five thousand dead on the field. Amid the shrieks
of the dying the king caught the subdued cry of a woman. She was the
wife of a Moslem, who had accompanied her husband to the war, and had
been taken with the pains of childbirth. By the conqueror’s order she
was tenderly cared for, placed upon the rug from his own tent, covered
with his own mantle, and later conducted with her new-born babe to the
arms of her husband. His compassion soon received its reward. The
rallying Mussulmans surrounded his band not only with swords, but with
fire, having ignited the long, dried grass. With difficulty the king
escaped to Ramleh, which the enemy completely invested. During the
night, while anticipating the fateful assault of the morrow, he was
secretly approached by a Moslem officer. This man proved to be the
husband of the woman whom Baldwin had befriended. Led by his gratitude,
he had put his own life in jeopardy in order to reveal to his benefactor
a secret path to safety. The Moslem assault carried the town; they put
to death all Christians found within it. In Jerusalem the great bell
tolled, while the people crowded the churches or marched in procession,
mourning the supposed death of their king, when suddenly came the news
of Baldwin’s safety. In the rhetoric of the chronicle, it was “like the
morning star out of the night’s blackness.”
The capture of Ramleh by the enemy endangered Jaffa, the real port of
Jerusalem, at which the kingdom was in touch with Europe. Baldwin made
his way in disguise to Arsuf. Embarking with Godric, an English pirate,
he sailed straight through the Egyptian galleys that guarded the harbor
of Jaffa. In June, 1102, with forces augmented from an English fleet
under Harding, he assailed the enemy. The Patriarch of Jerusalem carried
the wood of the True Cross. With the cry, “Christus regnat! Vincet!
Imperat!” which subsequently appeared as the legend on the gold coins of
France, the besieged became the victors. But the joy of the triumph when
the king returned to Jerusalem was marred by the memory of the many
slain; Stephen of Blois and Stephen of Burgundy, with a great number of
the bravest knights, had fallen.
The Greek emperor, Alexius, while sending congratulation to the
Christians, could not repress his jealousy of their victories. He
prepared to assail Antioch; he negotiated with the captors of Bohemond
for his ransom, that he might secure from his gratitude the title to the
city which that chieftain held. Bohemond, however, ransomed himself by
pledges to the emir who held him, and, after having endured a captivity
of four years, defended his city in battles by sea and land from the
treachery of the Greeks. At the same time, with other chieftains, he
carried arms into Mesopotamia. At Charan he barely escaped in company
with Tancred, while their companions, Josselin de Courtenay and Baldwin
du Bourg, were dungeoned at Mosul.
In view of his exhausted resources, Bohemond attempted a vast and
romantic scheme for their recuperation. Having floated a report of his
death, he concealed himself in a coffin and passed through the watchful
fleet of the Greeks, who cursed his imagined corpse. Arriving in Italy,
he secured a new commission from the Pope. In France he so ingratiated
himself with King Philip I. as to secure that monarch’s daughter, the
Princess Constance, to wife. He then raised a new army of crusaders. In
Spain and Italy he augmented this force, and embarking at Bari, he
attempted to take a bitter retaliation on the empire of the Greeks. His
expedition against Durazzo failed of success. Bohemond, at the moment
when his ambition was at the point of its extremest satisfaction,
returned to die in his own Italian dominion of Taranto.
The kingdom of Jerusalem was reduced to all sorts of expedients to raise
the means of its support and extension. King Baldwin recouped his
treasury by marriage with Adela, widow of Count Roger of Sicily. Her
vast wealth was heralded by the vessel in which she sailed, whose mast
was incased in gold and whose hold was laden with gems and coin. A
thousand trained warriors followed, at her expense. Either the drain
upon her purse or the incompatibility of her relations with the king led
her to leave him after three years and return to Italy.
With the assistance of Genoese fleets, Ptolemaïs was captured. The
mutual jealousies between the Turks and the Egyptians enabled the
Christians to secure the southern coast of Palestine. Raymond having
died before the walls of Tripoli, his son Bertrand captured that city,
which from that time became the titular possession of his family. An
immense library of Persian, Arabic, and Egyptian manuscripts was by the
illiterate Christians given to the flames. Biblus and Beirut also fell
before the standard of the cross. With the aid of a fleet and ten
thousand men, under Sigur of Norway, Sidon was quickly acquired.
But in the midst of these triumphs came an irreparable loss. Tancred,
the ideal of knighthood, died (December 12, 1112). His genius and sword
had conquered widely in northern Syria. His memory has been embalmed,
while his real virtues, which needed no untruthful praises, have been
exaggerated in poetry and romance since Chaucer sang of him as “a very
parfite, gentil knight.”
The loss of Tancred was felt especially in the north, where the
Christians soon after met a fearful defeat at Mount Tabor. In extremity
they made alliance with the Saracens of Damascus and Mesopotamia, under
the Sultan of Bagdad.
The jealousy among the Moslems giving him seeming security from attack
on the north, King Baldwin planned the invasion of Egypt. He crossed the
desert and appeared within three days’ journey of Cairo. While returning
from a raid, laden with spoil and flushed with the anticipation of soon
adding the land of the Nile to his possessions, the king fell sick.
Nominating Baldwin du Bourg for his successor, he died at the edge of
the desert (1118). His body was brought, in obedience to his dying
request, and deposited beside that of Godfrey, near to the Holy
Sepulchre.
CHAPTER XXI.
KING BALDWIN II.—KING FOULQUE—KING BALDWIN III.—EXPLOITS OF ZENGHI—RISE
OF NOURREDIN.
Baldwin du Bourg was elected to the vacant throne of Jerusalem, Eustace,
brother of Godfrey, having declined to contest it, magnanimously saying
to his partisans, “Not by me shall a stumbling-block enter into the
Lord’s kingdom.” Baldwin II. was well advanced in years, experienced in
council and in field, having been one of the companions of Godfrey in
the first crusade, and during the reign of Baldwin I. having held the
government of Edessa. In contrast with his predecessor, he was
painstaking in planning, cautious in executing, and withal a man of deep
religious devotion.
In April, 1123, while attempting the relief of Count Josselin, who had
been taken prisoner at Khartpert by Balek the Turkoman, King Baldwin II.
was captured and confined in the same city. A devoted band of Armenians
entered Khartpert in the disguise of merchants, and succeeded in
liberating Josselin, but the king was carried away to Harran for safer
keeping.
The absence of Baldwin II. was measurably compensated by the vigor and
astuteness of Eustace Grenier, who was elected to the regency. The
Egyptians had massed themselves in the plains of Ascalon for an advance
against Jerusalem. After a fast, which was so rigorously enforced that
mothers did not suckle their babes, and cattle were driven to sterile
places beyond their pasturage, the army of Christians marched from the
city at the sound of the great bell. The patriarch carried the wood of
the True Cross, another dignitary bore the Holy Lance, another a vase
containing milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary. The credulity which
devised these expedients of victory might readily see, as reported, a
celestial thunderbolt fall upon the army of the Infidels. It is enough
for history to record that the Christians were triumphant.
The Genoese and Pisans had often brought assistance to the crusaders and
great gain to themselves by the part they took in these holy wars. The
Venetians, however, having profitable commerce with the Saracens, were
not at first tempted to hazard a rupture with them. At length they too
sought the new adventure. In the warlike temper of the age, the Venetian
fleet, in command of the doge, Domenicho Michaeli, did not hesitate to
attack a returning Genoese fleet for the sake of its plunder. Having
robbed and murdered their coreligionists, they repeated the raid upon an
Egyptian fleet which was leaving the mouth of the Nile. With appetites
thus whetted, they proposed to the regency at Jerusalem to sell
themselves to the service of God for one third the territory they might
acquire conjointly with the crusaders. The terms being accepted, an
innocent child drew the lot which should show the will of Heaven as to
whether Ascalon or Tyre were the better prize. Tyre was indicated, and
six months after (July 7, 1124) fell to gratify the greed of Venice and
the pride of the people of Jerusalem.
A month later King Baldwin II. secured his liberation. In 1129 he
strengthened his throne by the marriage of his daughter, Melisende, to
Foulque of Anjou, son of the notorious Bertrade, who had deserted her
legitimate husband for the embrace of King Philip of France. This
monarch had put away his wife Bertha for this new union. Thus was
brought upon Philip the famous excommunication of the Pope. Two years
later (August 13, 1131) Baldwin II. died and was buried with Godfrey and
Baldwin I. in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Foulque ascended the throne. His first work was to settle a dispute for
the lordship of Antioch, which was accomplished only after bloodshed
between brethren. Next he baffled the Greek emperor, John Comnenus, who
attempted to gain for himself the kingdom of Jerusalem. Later he made
alliance with the Mussulman Prince of Damascus and fought against
Zenghi, Prince of Mosul. His queen, Melisende, by her rumored amours
brought him additional perplexity. King Foulque died from an injury
while hunting (November 13, 1143), leaving two children, Baldwin and
Amalric.
Baldwin III. succeeded his father at the age of thirteen, with Melisende
as regent. Effeminacy not only marked the government, but infected the
spirit of the people. The heroism of the founders of the kingdom seemed
to die in the blood of their successors, or, if danger fired the ancient
valor, it was without the light of discretion.
Young Baldwin III. inaugurated his reign by a foolish expedition to take
Bozrah, which had been offered in surrender by its traitorous
commandant. To accomplish this it was necessary to break a fair and
useful alliance which the Christians had made with the Sultan of
Damascus, the rightful lord of Bozrah. On reaching Bozrah, instead of
the keys of the city, there was placed in the hands of the king an
announcement from the wife of the treacherous governor that she herself
would defend the walls. The perplexity of the king and his equally
callow advisers was followed by an ignoble retreat. The enemy pursued
not only with sword, but with fire. The wind, which seemed to the
retreating army to be the breath of God’s wrath, covered them with smoke
and cinders, while the flames of the burning grass chased their fleeing
feet. The Christians would have perished had not, say the chronicles,
the wood of the True Cross, raised with prayer, changed the direction of
the breeze and beaten back the pursuers.
At this time there was felt the need of an astute mind at the head of
the kingdom. Christian progress had been arrested, and events of evil
omen were thickening.
The star of Zenghi, the ruler of Mosul, the father of Nourredin, and the
forerunner of Saladin, had arisen. This redoubtable warrior had
conquered all his Moslem rivals on the Euphrates; he had swept with
resistless fury westward, capturing Aleppo (1128), Hamah (1129), and
Athareb (1130). Though the Moslems had been assisted by Baldwin II., yet
the Oriental writers sang of how the “swords of Allah found their
scabbards in the neck of His foes.” In 1144, one year from young
Baldwin’s coronation, Zenghi appeared before the walls of Edessa, which
since the early days of the crusades had been in the possession of the
Christians. This city was the bulwark of the Christian kingdom in the
East; it is thus described in the florid language of the place and time:
“I was as a queen in the midst of her court; sixty towns standing around
me formed my train; my altars, loaded with treasure, shed their splendor
afar and appeared to be the abode of angels. I surpassed in magnificence
the proudest cities of Asia, and I was as a celestial ornament raised
upon the bosom of the earth.”
Had old Josselin de Courtenay been living, Edessa would have given a
stubborn and possibly a successful defence, for the terror of his name
had long held the Moslems at bay. Once, while lying on what he thought
to be his death-bed, this veteran heard that the enemy had laid siege to
one of his strong towers, and commanded his son to go to its rescue. The
younger Josselin delayed on account of the few troops he could take with
him. Old Josselin ordered the soldiers to carry him to the front on his
litter. The news of his approach was sufficient to cause the quick
withdrawal of the Moslems; but an invincible foe was upon the warrior,
for, with hand raised in gratitude to Heaven, he expired.
Josselin II. of Edessa was unworthy of such a sire. His weakness being
known, he inspired neither terror in his foes nor respect among his own
people. Zenghi surprised Edessa with a host of Kurds and Turkomans. To
Oriental daring he added the careful engineering learned from his
Western antagonists. Quickly the walls were surrounded by movable towers
higher than the ramparts; battering-rams beat against the foundation,
and storms of stones, javelins, and combustibles swept away the
defenders. In vain the city held out for a while in expectancy of aid
from Jerusalem. On the twenty-eighth day (December 14, 1144) it fell.
The news spread a dismay which could have been surpassed only by the
capture of Jerusalem itself.
The report of Zenghi’s death two years later gave to the Christians a
ray of hope for at least fewer disasters. That hope was quickly
extinguished by the exploits of Nourredin, his son, whose deeds stirred
the prophetic spirit of Moslem imams to foretell the speedy fall of the
Holy City. At the same time they excited the superstitious fears of the
Christians, who saw in comets, as well as in the flash of Nourredin’s
cimeters, the signs of Heaven’s displeasure, and interpreted the very
thunders of the sky as the celestial echo of his tramping squadrons.
The tidings of the fall of Edessa was the immediate occasion of the
second crusade.
Before considering this, let us note briefly the influence upon Europe
of the first crusade and of the kingdom of Jerusalem which it had
established.
CHAPTER XXII.
MILITARY ORDERS—HOSPITALLERS—TEMPLARS—TEUTONIC KNIGHTS.
One of the most significant fruits of the first crusade was the creation
and growth of the military orders—the Hospitallers, or Knights of St.
John, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights.
_The Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John._—This famous organization,
which was for centuries a bulwark of Christendom and which still exists,
originated earlier than the crusades, but first attained power and
repute in those exciting days. In the year 1023 the Egyptian caliph, who
held possession of Jerusalem, was induced by the entreaty of the
merchants of Amalfi to allow them to found in the sacred city a hospital
for the care of poor and sick Latin pilgrims. A building near the Holy
Sepulchre was secured for the purpose and dedicated to the Virgin, with
the title of “Santa Maria de Latina.” As the multitude of pilgrims and
their needs increased, a more commodious hospitium was erected. This was
named after the sainted Patriarch of Alexandria, John Eleemon (the
Compassionate). St. John the Baptist seems, however, to have secured the
honor of becoming the ultimate titular patron of this order of nurses
and almoners. When Jerusalem fell into the possession of the crusaders
in 1099, Gerard, the hospital Master, endeared himself and his little
band of helpers to the multitude of wounded. Godfrey de Bouillon endowed
them with the revenues of his estates in Brabant. His example was
followed by others. Many with spirits chastened by their own sufferings
gave themselves personally to the work of the Hospitallers. Gerard, the
Master, organized the brethren into a religious order, exacting from
them the triple vow of poverty, obedience, and chastity. Each member
wore a black robe, and upon his breast an eight-pointed white cross.
Anticipating our history, in 1113 the order was dignified by the special
sanction of Pope Paschal II. Raymond du Puy, a noble knight of Dauphine,
became Master in 1118, and enlarged the function of members by requiring
of them, in addition to the triple vow, an oath of military service. The
order was then divided into (1) knights, whose special work was in the
camp and field; (2) clergy; (3) serving brethren, or hospital
attendants. Later it was necessary to subdivide its numerous adherents
into seven classes, according to the language they spoke. The order was
a republic, whose officers were elected by the suffrage of all, but who,
once installed, wielded an autocratic power. Its fame spread throughout
all countries. Multitudes enlisted under its auspices for service in the
Holy Land; it became possessed of enormous property throughout Europe;
its agents were at all courts, and its Briarean hands were felt at every
centre of power throughout Christendom.
_The Templars._—In the year 1114, four years before the Hospitallers had
enlarged their function to include military duties, a Burgundian knight,
Hugh de Payen, and eight comrades bound themselves by oath to guard the
public roads about Jerusalem, which were continually menaced by Moslems
and freebooters. King Baldwin II. assigned these good men quarters on
the temple site of Mount Moriah, whence their title, “Pauperes
Commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici.” At first the Templars seem
to have gloried in their poverty, as indicated by the original seal of
the order, which represents two knights mounted on a single horse. Their
members augmented until they shared with the Hospitallers the glory of
being the chief defenders of the new kingdom of Jerusalem. Hugh de Payen
was sent by Baldwin II. as one of his ambassadors to secure help from
European powers. The Grand Master, appearing before the Council of
Noyes, January, 1128, obtained for his order the formal approval of the
church. He returned to Palestine with three hundred knights,
representing the noblest families of Europe. Among them was Foulque of
Anjou, afterwards the King of Jerusalem. Brotherhoods of Templars were
founded in Spain by 1129, in France by 1131, and in Rome by 1138. The
mantle of the Knight Templar was white with a plain red cross on the
left breast. The clerical members wore black. Their banner bore the
inscription, “Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name be glory!”
The history of the Hospitallers and the Templars until the fall of the
sacred city is that of the kingdom itself. In all battles these knights
of the white and the red cross were conspicuous for bravery, and by the
unity and discipline of their organizations gave steadiness to the
progress of the cause, or at least retarded other disasters which
finally befell it.
_Teutonic Order._—The Order of Teutonic Knights of St. Mary’s Hospital
at Jerusalem was founded in 1128. During its earlier history its members
limited their endeavors to religious and charitable work. It was not
until 1190, during a later crusade than that we have been narrating,
that it acquired military organization. From that time, as a purely
German order, it shared with the Hospitallers and Templars the charters
bestowed by the Pope and emperors, and contested with them the palm of
heroism and power. Its peculiar badge was a black cross on a white
mantle.
CHAPTER XXIII.
EUROPE BETWEEN THE FIRST AND SECOND CRUSADES—KINGSHIP IN FRANCE—PAPAL
AGGRANDIZEMENT—ABÉLARD—ARNOLD OF BRESCIA—BERNARD.
During the fifty years (1096-1146) which had elapsed since the exodus of
the first crusaders a new generation had grown up in Europe. Vast
changes had taken place everywhere, in every grade of society, in
popular habits, and in conditions of thought. The crisis of the Dark
Ages had passed; new light was breaking upon problems of government, the
relation of classes, and even upon religious doctrine and discipline.
These changes were largely due to the crusade itself and to the
continuous intercourse between the East and the West which it
inaugurated. The full development of these new sentiments and movements
was due to the influence of subsequent crusades. We may, therefore,
reserve their consideration until we shall have completed the story of
these various expeditions, the tramp of which was yet to resound for a
hundred and fifty years. Two results were, however, so intimately
connected with the close of the first and the projection of the second
crusade as to call for notice in passing. These were the strengthening
of the kingship in France and the increased prestige of the Papacy.
The kingship in France during this period became consolidated and
rapidly advanced. So many of the more potent and adventurous barons
being engaged in foreign parts, the crown had little competition, and
feudal privileges were steadily merged in the royal prerogatives. In the
words of Michelet, “Ponderous feudalism had begun to move, and to uproot
itself from the soil. It went and came, and lived upon the beaten
highway of the crusade between France and Jerusalem.” France under Louis
IV. (the Fat) (1108-37) became a nation, and was less jealous of
restless chieftains at home than of the newly risen kingdom of the
Normans in England, the long rivalry with which may be dated from this
reign. When the German emperor, Henry V., in 1124 prepared to invade
France, the counts of Flanders, Brittany, Aquitaine, and Anjou rallied
against him under the lead of the French king, whose authority they had
previously menaced.
The gathering of the forces of the Frankish peoples under a single
sceptre marks a new era in the history of Europe. We shall observe
especially its influence upon the organization of the coming crusades,
whose leaders were no longer feudal chieftains, like Godfrey, Raymond,
Bohemond, and Tancred, but royal personages supported by the compact
power of the new nationality.
The chief advantage from the first crusade fell to the Papacy, which
gathered to itself the prestige of the power it had evoked; and rightly,
if great prevision ever merits the fruit of the policy it dares to
inaugurate. Paschal II., who followed Urban II. in the papal chair
(1099-1118), was too weak to uphold the daring projects of his
predecessor; but Calixtus II. (1119-24) and Innocent II. (1130-43)
showed the genuine Hildebrandian spirit. Although the Concordat of Worms
(1123) modified somewhat the claims of the Papacy as against the German
empire, the church steadily compacted its power about thrones and
people.
The authority of the Papacy was especially augmented in this period by
its temporary success against a movement whose ultimate triumph was
destined to cost the Roman Church its dominance of Christendom, viz.,
the impulse towards liberal thought. The standard-bearer of this
essential Protestantism was Abélard. This astute reasoner placed the
human judgment, when guided by correct scholarship, above all
traditional authority. The popularity of his teaching was a serious
menace to the doctrines of the church, so far as these rested upon the
dictation of the popes. The consternation of ecclesiastics was voiced by
Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, who declared in his appeal to Pope
Innocent II.: “These books of Abélard are flying abroad over all the
world; they no longer shun the light; they find their way into castles
and cities; they pass from land to land, from one people to another. A
new gospel is promulgated, a new faith is preached. Disputations are
held on virtue and vice not according to Christian morality, on the
sacraments of the church not according to the rule of faith, on the
mystery of the Trinity not with simplicity and soberness. This huge
Goliath, with his armor-bearer, Arnold of Brescia, defies the armies of
the Lord to battle.”
The Goliath fell, but by no pebble from the sling of a David. Bernard
was justly reputed the greatest mind of the age. He hesitated to enter
into a learned controversy with Abélard, but smote him with a
thunderbolt of excommunication, which he secured from the hands of the
occupant of the Vatican throne.
Another movement against the papal power was even more threatening and,
during the period we are describing, caused the throne of Peter to
tremble. As Abélard assailed the current thought, so Arnold of Brescia
proposed to revolutionize the secular power of the Papacy. He denied its
right to temporal dominion in Italy, to dominate as it was doing the
councils of other kingdoms, to interfere with judicial functions or to
conduct military operations. He would sweep away all this outward estate
as unbecoming the representative of Jesus of Nazareth. The clergy must
be reduced to apostolic poverty; their glory should be only their good
works; their maintenance the voluntary offerings, or at most the
tithings, of the people. Even the empire of Germany and the French
kingdom should be converted into republics.
Arnold’s views made rapid headway. Brescia declared itself a republic.
The Swiss valleys were full of liberal sympathizers. A commonwealth
sprang up in Rome, which announced to the Pope its recognition of only
his spiritual headship. The people defeated and slew one Pope, who was
clad in armor and marched at the head of his soldiers; another they
expelled.
It was while the papal territory in Italy was thus occupied by the
adherents of Arnold that the second crusade was inaugurated.
Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, was its chief inspirer, both in counsel
with the leaders of Europe and with his voice as its popular herald.
High above generals and scholars, beyond kings, emperors, and popes,
this man stands in the gaze of history. His repute for wisdom and
sanctity was extended by miracles accredited to his converse with
Heaven. Believed to be above earthly ambition, he commanded and rebuked
with a celestial authority. Papal electors came to consult the monk
before they announced their judgment as to who should be Pope, and when
on the throne the Pope consulted the monk before he ventured to set the
seal of his infallibility to his own utterances. Bernard’s humility may
have been great Godward, but it was not of the sort to lead him to
decline the solemn sovereignty of men’s minds and wills. When Henry I.
of England hesitated to acknowledge Innocent II., Bernard’s choice for
Pope, on the ground that he was not the rightful occupant of the holy
see, the monk exclaimed, “Answer thou for thy other sins; let this be on
my head.” When Lothaire of Germany demanded of the Holy Father the
renewal of the right of imperial investitures, the saint threw his spell
about the emperor and left him submissive at the feet of the pontiff.
When Louis VII. of France, in his rage against Thibaut, Count of
Champagne, carried devastation through the count’s domains and burned
the church of Vitry, with thirteen hundred of its citizens who had there
taken refuge against his vengeance, Bernard openly rebuked the king, and
with such effect that the monarch proposed, as a self-inflicted penance,
a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there to wipe out his guilt in the blood of
Moslems.
In this purpose of Louis VII. originated the second crusade.
THE SECOND CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XXIV.
BERNARD—CONRAD III.—LOUIS VII.—SUGER—SIEGE OF DAMASCUS.
Pope Honorius delegated Bernard to preach throughout France and Germany
the renewal of the holy war. Drawn as much by the fame of the monk as by
the mandates of the king and the Pope, a vast assembly of prelates and
nobles gathered at Vezelay in Burgundy. A large platform was erected on
a hill outside the city. King and monk stood together, representing the
combined will of earth and heaven. The enthusiasm of the assembly of
Clermont in 1095, when Peter the Hermit and Urban II. launched the first
crusade, was matched by the holy fervor inspired by Bernard as he cried,
“O ye who listen to me! hasten to appease the anger of heaven, but no
longer implore its goodness by vain complaints. Clothe yourselves in
sackcloth, but also cover yourselves with your impenetrable bucklers.
The din of arms, the danger, the labors, the fatigues of war, are the
penances that God now imposes upon you. Hasten then to expiate your sins
by victories over the Infidels, and let the deliverance of the holy
places be the reward of your repentance.” As in the olden scene, the cry
“Deus vult! Deus vult!” rolled over the fields, and was echoed by the
voice of the orator: “Cursed be he who does not stain his sword with
blood.”
The king set the example by prostrating himself at the feet of the monk
and receiving from his hands the badge of the cross. “The cross! the
cross!” was the response of thousands who crowded about the platform.
Queen Eleanor imitated her husband, and was followed by such a host of
nobles, bishops, and knights that Bernard tore his garments into strips
to supply the enthusiasts with the insignia of their new devotion.
Similar scenes were enacted throughout France wherever the saint
appeared. Eye-witnesses do not hesitate to tell of miracles wrought by
his hands, emblazoning his mission with the seals of heaven.
The enlistments were so many that Bernard wrote to the Pope, “The
villages and castles are deserted, and there are none left but widows
and orphans, whose husbands and parents are still living.”
The orator visited Germany. A diet of the empire was at the time of his
arrival convened at Spires. The new emperor, Conrad III., at first
refused to heed the more private counsel of Bernard to join the crusade,
urging in return the need of the imperial hand upon the helm of state.
One day Bernard was saying mass, when suddenly he stopped and pictured
Jesus Christ, armed with the cross and accompanied by angels,
reproaching the emperor for his indifference. Conrad was as impotent to
resist this eloquence and assumption of divine authority as his
predecessor had been. He burst into tears and exclaimed, “I, too, swear
to go wherever Christ shall call me.” With many of his lords and
knights, he received the cross from Bernard’s hand.
From the Rhine to the Danube the enthusiasm spread like an epidemic. No
class had immunity from it. Even thieves and cutthroats were so far
converted as to swear to rob and murder only Infidels. Bernard’s gift of
persuasion was unsurpassed since the days of Pentecost, for men and
races that could not understand a word he said were as readily persuaded
as those who spoke the Frankish tongue.
Roger of Sicily offered to convey the new armies to Palestine in his
fleets, urging the hereditary treachery of the Greeks; for, though
Alexius had “gone to his own place” below, his grandson Manuel occupied
his place at Constantinople. The leaders, however, preferred the perils
of the land route to the uncertainties of the deep.
The government of France during the absence of Louis VII. was committed
to the hands of Suger, Abbot of St. Denis. A wiser choice could not have
been made. He had been the adviser of Louis the Fat, and to his
astuteness rather than to that of the king were due the consolidation
and development of French autonomy, which made that reign notable. An
evidence of Suger’s foresight, as well as of his independence and
courage, is the fact that he, almost alone of men, opposed the crusading
scheme and predicted its fatality. Only at the command of the Pope did
Suger assume the guardianship of the kingdom.
Not distrustful of the king, but credulous of the heavenly mission of
Bernard, the multitude, including the most noted warriors, called for
the monk to become their military leader. Only the intervention of the
Holy Father, who declared that it was sufficient for the saint to be the
trumpet of Heaven without wielding the sword, allayed the universal
demand. Thus at Whitsuntide, 1167, a hundred thousand Frenchmen set out
for their rendezvous at Metz. Their monarch bore at their head the
sacred banner of St. Denis, an oriflamme under which, at even that early
day, the kings of France believed themselves invincible.
But though royally commanded, the army was somewhat a motley array.
Troubadours joined the host to relieve the tedium of the camp with their
songs of expected triumph. Ladies of the court and soldiers’ wives
graced and encumbered the enterprise. One troop of female combatants was
commanded by an Amazon, whose gilded boots made her known as “the lady
with the legs of gold.” Old men and children were carried along with the
baggage. By the side of the saint trudged the libertine and the
criminal, whose remorse had been kindled by the preaching of Bernard,
and whose search for the remission of sins at Jerusalem was to poorly
compensate the dissolute outbursts of their unchanged natures along the
way.
The enthusiasm of the crusaders was not maintained by those who remained
at home, since upon them fell the unromantic burden of providing money
for the army’s sustenance. The Jews were openly robbed, the Abbot of
Cluny declaring it a righteous thing to despoil them of wealth acquired
by usury and sacrilege. Monasteries were bled of their long-accumulated
treasure. Churches sold their ornaments and mortgaged their lands to
supply the enormous demand. Thus the huzzas of the departing were echoed
by the suppressed groans of those who were left behind.
The Germans under Conrad III. had preceded the French. Before they
reached Constantinople they had more than once to punish with violence
the chronic perfidy of the Greeks. The Germans burned the monastery at
Adrianople to avenge the assassination of one of their comrades. Beyond
the Bosporus Conrad’s soldiers were incessantly picked off and slain by
skulking Greeks. The flour they purchased from the merchants of
Constantinople they found mixed with lime. The Greek guides were in
alliance with the Turks, and led the Christians into ambuscades among
the defiles of the Taurus. Conrad himself was twice wounded by
treacherous arrows, and his host, reduced to one tenth of its original
numbers, was forced to painfully retrace the way to Nicæa.
The French were at first more cordially received by the Greeks than had
been their German allies; but they soon learned that the Emperor Manuel
was in collusion with the Sultan of Iconium. Louis hardly restrained his
people from taking vengeance by assaulting the Greek capital, and forced
them onward to the relief of the Germans. Conrad did not await their
coming, but returned to Constantinople and made temporary fellowship
with his betrayer. The French, thus deserted, continued their route
alone. The Moslems massed against them on the bank of the Meander, only
to be scattered by the fury of the French onset, or, if we may believe
some of the spectators, by the appearance of the familiar celestial
knight clad in white armor, who headed the Christian army.
Flushed with victory, Louis hastened onward two days’ march beyond
Laodicea. Here he divided his force into two bands for the safer passage
of a mountain ridge. The vanguard was ordered to encamp upon the heights
until joined by their comrades, that they might make descent in full
force upon the farther plains. But the impatience of the soldiers in the
advance, encouraged by Queen Eleanor, could not brook the cautionary
command; they descended the other side of the ridge. The wary Turks
quietly took the ground thus unwisely abandoned. The second division of
the French, mistaking them for friends, climbed the ascent without
regard to orderly array, and were welcomed by a murderous assault. The
king barely escaped after witnessing the slaughter of thirty of his
chief nobles at his side. Alone upon a rock which he had climbed, he
kept his assailants at bay until they, mistaking him for a common
soldier, withdrew for some worthier prize. The heavy arms of the Franks
were worse than useless against the storm of rocks and arrows which the
Turks rained upon them, and the morning that dawned after a night of
unparalleled terror revealed a miserable remnant of the French force
fighting or stealing its way to the vanguard.
Placing the command in the hands of the veteran Gilbert, and Evrard des
Barras, Grand Master of the Templars, who had marched from the East to
assist the new crusaders, Louis pressed on. Winter fell with unwonted
severity upon his ragged and starving retainers. The Greeks held Attalia
and refused to allow the Franks to enter that city. At length Louis
accepted their offer to transport a portion of his army by sea to Syria.
Leaving a large proportion of his camp, the king set sail, and arrived
at Antioch in March, 1148. Less than one quarter of his followers met
him on the Syrian soil.
The Franks, thus abandoned by their king, had incessantly to fight with
the swarming Turks, until human nature succumbed. Their leaders,
Archambaud and Thierri, deserted them and followed the king over the
sea. Seven thousand essayed to pursue their journey overland, and were
massacred, or perished amid the dangers of the way. The old chronicle
says, “God alone knows the number of the martyrs whose blood flowed
beneath the blade of the Turks and even under the sword of the Greeks.”
Three thousand are said to have lost their faith in the protection of
Christ and sought the pity of the Moslems by confessing the Prophet.
Raymond of Poitiers was at this time lord and commandant at Antioch, and
welcomed the King of France with the expectation of receiving his help
in the conquest of Aleppo and Cæsarea, but as much, say the chronicles,
for the sake of the ladies who accompanied him as for his military aid.
Queen Eleanor was Raymond’s niece, and with her suite were several of
the most celebrated beauties from the courts of Europe. Their presence
promised to make Antioch again the brilliant and voluptuous city it had
been of old. When the king proposed to move southward to Jerusalem his
queen refused to accompany him. Some secret ambition, or a motive less
creditable to her virtue, led her to such disregard for the king that
she announced her rejection of her marriage vows, alleging as her reason
some newly awakened scruples of conscience on the ground of premarital
kinship with Louis. Her husband was compelled to kidnap his wife and
carry her by force from the palace to the camp. This estrangement was
the beginning of the rupture of relations between the King and Queen of
France, that led to his ultimate repudiation of her and to her
subsequent marriage with Henry II. of England, by whom she became the
mother of Richard Cœur de Lion.
At Jerusalem Louis and Conrad finally met, the latter without soldiers,
having reached the city in the disguise of a pilgrim. After paying the
proper tribute of devotion at the sacred shrines, the two Western
sovereigns, with Baldwin III., King of Jerusalem, and their chief
barons, gathered at St. Jean d’Acre to determine upon the coming
campaign. The assembly was graced by the presence of Queen Melisende of
Jerusalem and many ladies from the courts of Europe; but there came
neither the Queen of France nor her advisers, Raymond of Antioch and the
counts of Edessa and Tripoli.
The conference determined to attempt the capture of Damascus. The
Christians quickly invested that place. It was defended on the east and
south by high walls, but was more exposed on the north and west. Here
the richness of the Syrian oasis burst into a vast garden, watered by
crystal streams from the Antilibanus. The extended plain was divided
into numerous private possessions by walls of baked earth, between which
a dense growth of trees left scarcely more than foot-paths. In spite of
the showers of arrows that greeted them at every dividing wall, the
Christians steadily made their way. In the front ranks was the young
King of Jerusalem, with his redoubtable Knights of St. John and Knights
Templars. The King of France pressed next with his braves, eager to
redeem by splendid victory the disaster of their coming. The German
emperor, with such meagre remnant of his army as he could muster,
protected the rear. At the little river which flows beneath the western
wall of the city the invaders met their first check. Here Conrad
performed the one deed creditable to his career since leaving Germany.
With his little band he passed through the forward ranks and fell upon
the enemy. The Saracens, seeing that the day was lost if the fight
continued general, sent a gigantic warrior to challenge the German hero
to single combat. The two armies watched the fight. Conrad unhorsed and
slew his antagonist. The Saracens then prepared to abandon their city.
Arabic chroniclers describe the humiliation of their brethren as they
prostrated themselves upon heaps of ashes, and in the great mosque of
Damascus sat round Omar’s copy of the Koran, invoking the help of their
Prophet.
The Christians, confident of the issue, fell to disputing the
sovereignty of the as yet unconquered city. It was awarded to Thierri of
Alsace, Count of Flanders. This decision instantly produced jealousy,
and all concert of action was at an end. The warriors of Syria hated the
Germans and Franks, who had come to eat the fruit of victory as well as
to help gather it. At once the assault ceased. The wily Saracen
commander, familiar with the divisions in the Christian camp, took
advantage of them. He declared that in the event of the siege being
pressed he would turn over the city to Nourredin of Mosul, an enemy
whose power and daring would make the occupancy of Damascus fatal to the
existence of the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem. Mussulman writers aver
that King Baldwin was also directly bribed by the people of Damascus;
Latin writers accuse the Templars of perfidy. It is evident that none of
the leaders cared to conquer Damascus if its possession was not to be
his portion.
In the dilemma the Syrians advised a change of base. The rage and
cupidity of the various parties blinded all to the stupidity of this
plan. The army swung round from the gardens they had conquered, and
faced the impregnable walls that rose from the desert side. With neither
water nor natural protection, they camped in the open, arid plain. At
this juncture twenty thousand Turkomans and Kurds arrived and joined the
defenders. Among the Saracens was Ayoub, the founder of the dynasty of
Ayoubites, and with him his son Saladin, afterwards to become the most
famous of Moslem leaders, then a lad of thirteen years, who was here to
receive his first baptism of blood as he saw his eldest brother slain in
a sortie.
The succor received by the enemy led the Christians to raise the siege
as ignominiously as they had bravely begun it. Conrad in disgust
returned to Germany. Louis remained a year longer, vainly seeking some
enterprise in which to brighten his sword. It was not until his barons
and knights had deserted him, and his minister, Suger, in the name of
the French nation, had urged his return, that in July, 1149, he sailed
from St. Jean d’Acre.
Europe felt the shame of the ill-advised second crusade. The discredit
fell sorely upon its chief advocate. Bernard was compelled to lead
Christendom in the Miserere rather than the Te Deum. “We have fallen on
evil days,” he exclaimed, “in which the Lord, provoked by our sins, has
judged the world with justice, indeed, but not with His wonted mercy.”
The saint seems almost to have lost his faith. “Why,” he cried, “has not
God regarded our fasts, and appeared to know nothing of our
humiliations? With what patience is He now listening to the sacrilegious
and blasphemous voices of the nations of Arabia, who accuse Him of
having led His people into the desert that they might perish! All the
world knows that the judgments of the Lord are just, but this is so
profound an abyss that he is happy who has not been disgraced by it.”
The only one who benefited by the movement was Suger, whose repute for
wisdom was exalted not only by the fact that he had uttered his warning
against the undertaking, but more by the skill with which he had
conducted the affairs of the kingdom during the absence of its nominal
head. He died not long after the disasters he predicted, leaving France
more prosperous than before. Of him it is significantly said that “he
served faithfully a young king without losing his friendship.” Foreign
visitors to Paris called him the “Solomon of his age.” Louis VII. paid
him a filial compliment by naming him the “father of his country.” His
friend Bernard soon followed him to the grave, having won the honorable
distinction of the “last father of the church.”
CHAPTER XXV.
NOURREDIN—RISE OF SALADIN—KING GUY—QUEEN SIBYLLA.
The return of the two royal crusaders was not so much of an affliction
to the kingdom of Jerusalem as it was felt to be a disgrace to their own
nations. Relieved of their rivalry, King Baldwin III. took counsel of
his own ambition to avenge the recent disasters. He found himself pitted
against the most astute leader the Moslem cause had yet produced.
Nourredin had swept like a cyclone over Mesopotamia and northern Syria,
had conquered all his competitors, and established his throne at
Damascus. Leaving Ayoub, the father of Saladin, as governor, he was
pouring his invincible warriors southward.
Nourredin was more than a soldier; he had mastered much of the science
of the age, and displayed a statesman’s clemency and justice in
administration. As a thorough religionist he held his power in
stewardship of his cause and refused all personal emolument from his
position. His wife once complained of the trivial value of his gifts to
her; he replied, “I have naught else, for all I have I hold only as
treasure for the faithful.” He treated his soldiers as his children; if
any of them fell in battle he made their families his care, anticipating
thus the modern system of army pensions.
Baldwin III., undeterred by the greatness of his rival, besieged and
captured Ascalon, whose wealth suggested the Arabic title of the “Spouse
of Syria” (August 12, 1153). Four years later he assaulted Cæsarea on
the Orontes, and would have gained the place but for the outburst of the
chronic jealousy among the Christians. In 1159 he obtained for wife
Theodora, niece of the Emperor Manuel of Constantinople, and with her
munificent dowry the alliance of the Greeks. Manuel appeared in Syria
with an enormous army, which, however, accomplished little and withdrew,
having been quickly appeased by the shrewdness of Nourredin, or, as some
say, having been frightened by news of insurrection in Constantinople.
Nourredin then extended his ravages, avoiding direct encounter with
Baldwin, who died February 10, 1163, and is said to have been poisoned
by the court physician at Antioch. The magnanimity of Nourredin and his
appreciation of the character of young Baldwin were illustrated by his
reply to those who urged this as an opportune time for assault upon
Jerusalem: “No; we should pity this people’s sorrow, for they have lost
a prince whose like is not now left in the world.”
Amaury (Amalric) succeeded his brother, Baldwin III., on the throne. Had
his gains equalled his ambition, his power would have dominated far
beyond any boundaries the Christian sword had as yet set to the kingdom
of Jerusalem.
The Moslem world was nominally divided between the Syrian caliph of
Bagdad and the Egyptian caliph of Cairo. Egypt was wretchedly governed.
The caliph of Cairo was but a creature of his viziers. Amaury, seeing
the possibility of extending his domains to the Nile, took arms against
him. In 1163 he sent an army which might have held the country, had it
not been driven out by the enemy’s flooding the valley of the Nile. One
party in Egypt invoked the assistance of Nourredin, who sent as his
general Shirkuh the Kurd, uncle of Saladin. Amaury accomplished against
him the capture of Pelusium in 1164. In 1167 he took Alexandria,
commanded at the time by young Saladin. He later penetrated to Cairo and
laid El Fostat in ashes. In 1168 Shirkuh renewed the war. Amaury,
marching from Egypt to meet his antagonist in the desert, was flanked by
that general, who suddenly occupied the land left undefended. Amaury,
who had married a niece of the Emperor Manuel, made with the Greeks an
unsuccessful attack upon Damietta. Here the Christians felt the hand of
one who was destined ultimately to overthrow all their power in the
East. Saladin was in command. On the death of Shirkuh he had been
appointed vizier by the caliph of Cairo. The caliph, wearied of being
controlled by designing and capable men who absorbed in their own
interests the power they defended, selected Saladin, thinking that the
young man’s inexperience would be less of a menace to the caliphate.
Nourredin, however, divined the genius of the young vizier and assigned
to him the supreme command in Egypt. He then deposed the caliph, and
with his reign brought to an end the dynasty of the Fatimites, which for
two hundred years had held the land of the Nile. Thus Nourredin ruled
supreme from Babylonia to the desert of Libya. Only the kingdom of
Jerusalem marred the map of his dominion. To reconquer this for Islam
was his incessant purpose. With his own hands he made a pulpit, from
which he promised the faithful one day to preach in the mosque of Omar
on the temple site.
But the Moslem world was already attached to one destined to be greater
than Nourredin. The youth of Saladin had been one of apparent indolence
and dissipation, but he veiled beneath his indifference the finest
genius and most unbounded ambition. As soon as he felt the possession of
power he assumed a corresponding dignity, and men recognized him as one
appointed of Heaven. Turbulent emirs, who had ignored him as a chance
holder of position, now sat reverently before him. Even the priests were
struck with the sincere austerity of his devotion. The caliph of Bagdad
bestowed upon him the distinguished dignity of the vest of honor. Poets
began to mingle his name with those of heroes as the rising star. The
pious included it in their prayers as the hope of Islam.
Knowing that experience is often wiser than genius, Saladin judiciously
guarded himself from the errors of youth by associating his father,
Ayoub, with him in the government of Egypt. Nourredin, whose successful
career had allowed him no jealousy of ordinary men, showed that he was
restless at the popularity and ability displayed by his young subaltern,
and was preparing to take Egypt under his own immediate government when
death, his first vanquisher, came upon the veteran (May, 1174). Saladin
immediately proclaimed himself Sultan of Egypt, and hastened to secure
the succession of Nourredin’s power as Sultan of Damascus.
Two months later (July, 1174) Amaury followed his great competitor to
the grave, and the kingdom of Jerusalem fell to his son, Baldwin IV., a
leprous lad of thirteen years. The personal contrast of this sovereign
with Saladin was ominous of the contrast between the coming history of
the two powers they respectively led. The education of Baldwin was
conducted by William of Tyre, the chief historian of this period. The
regency of the kingdom was disputed by Milo de Plausy and Raymond, Count
of Tripoli. Raymond was great-grandson of Raymond of Toulouse, the
renowned leader of the first crusade, and inherited, together with his
ancestor’s bravery, his impatience and passion for personal precedence.
He deemed that he had a right to the highest emoluments of the kingdom
as compensation for having suffered eight years’ imprisonment among the
Infidels. Milo was elected regent by the barons, but was shortly
afterwards assassinated by unknown hands on the street. Raymond
succeeded to the regency. The suspicion of having instigated the murder
of his rival was supplemented by a later suspicion that he secretly
betrayed the Christian cause in the interest of Saladin. It is not
necessary to believe this, as the prowess of the new ruler of Egypt is
sufficient to account for his successes. Raymond was unwise in his
movements; he busied himself with a wretched attempt upon Alexandria,
and then made truce with Saladin in the north just at a moment when
peace enabled the young Saracen to strengthen his power over his
Mohammedan neighbors.
In time Baldwin IV. took the reins into his own hands. Saladin was
pouring his forces over the Holy Land. His newly organized troop of
Mamelukes formed his body-guard. Baldwin shut himself up in Ascalon, but
soon the general devastation of his kingdom maddened the Christians to
desperation. They issued from Ascalon with such fury that the Egyptian
army was swept from the field and but few of Saladin’s soldiers lived to
accompany their young leader back to Cairo.
This defeat, far from depressing the courage of Saladin, only taught him
new lessons of caution. Little by little his sword carved away the
Christian kingdom, until Baldwin was forced to sign a truce. Renaud,
Lord of Carac, broke this compact, and with the aid of an army of
Templars plundered the Moslem caravans, massacring defenceless men and
capturing the women. He made an incursion as far as Arabia, and
announced his purpose of going to Mecca to plunder the tomb of the
Prophet. But the swift riders of Saladin were upon his track. Renaud
barely escaped, many of his troops being captured. Most of these were
put to death in Egypt, a few being reserved as victims in the annual
sacrifice at Mecca. Saladin was infuriated by Renaud’s breach of faith,
and won the title of “Scourge of God,” even among the Christians, by the
swift and fearful retaliation which he took upon the cities of northern
Palestine.
The increasing leprosy of Baldwin rendered him incapable of discharging
his royal duties. A sort of political leprosy or dry-rot seemed to
infect the state. The crown retained its shape, but not its lustre, for
it could not control the internecine strife of the Christian barons, who
waged war upon one another from their mountain fastnesses. The
Hospitallers and Templars, too, combined against the priesthood, and
hooted and shot at them as they went to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre. The priests retaliated by gathering the arrows and placing
them on the Mount of Olives, calling heaven to avenge the insult offered
to its ministers. The various nations represented by the influx of
pilgrims added to the confusion by reviving in Palestine the prejudices
of sections of Europe. Vice everywhere had open license. William of
Tyre, in describing the condition of affairs, drops his pen, lest his
readers should accuse him of defaming human nature by his recital.
Agents were sent to the courts of Europe, appealing for succor to the
kingdom, which was falling to pieces in punishment of its own demerits.
The piety of Christendom made no response except in pity for a
government which they called “Christ’s Second Crown of Thorns.”
Baldwin IV. died in 1185. Baldwin V., a child, had been crowned as his
successor two years before. This prince was the child of Sibylla by her
first husband, the Marquis of Montferrat. Since the death of the marquis
she had married Guy of Lusignan. Little King Baldwin died a year later
(1186). Sibylla was accused of having poisoned her own child to advance
her new husband’s interest. The suspicion was not lessened by her
adoption of a disgraceful ruse to gain for Guy the vacant throne. As the
daughter of one king of Jerusalem and sister of another, she might have
held the sovereignty but for the opposition to Guy, whom she associated
with herself in the government. She proposed to the chiefs that she
should divorce Guy, saying, “If a divorce takes place between me and my
husband, I wish you to make me sure by your oaths that whomsoever I
shall make choice of for my husband you will choose for your head and
lord.” She then swore that she would award him whom she regarded as the
ablest defender of Jerusalem with her hand and crown. This was agreed
to. The patriarch solemnly announced her divorce and placed the crown in
her hands. Sibylla, to the surprise of all, turned to Guy and, placing
the crown upon his head, boldly declared, “I make choice of thee as king
and as my lord; for whom God hath joined together let not man put
asunder.” The audacity of Sibylla apparently cowed the warriors about
her; they acquiesced, and some even applauded the cleverness of her
deceit.
CHAPTER XXVI.
BATTLE OF TIBERIAS—FALL OF JERUSALEM.
In the meantime Saladin had gathered into his hand the reins of Egypt
and western Asia. In 1185 the Christians of Palestine sent an appeal for
aid to all the courts of Europe. The imminence and magnitude of the
danger led them to select the most important dignitaries as their
messengers: Heraclius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, together with the
Grand Masters of the Hospitallers and Templars. The ambassadors offered
the crown of Jerusalem to King Henry II. of England, presenting him with
the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and of the tower of David. The appeal of
the East was seconded by Pope Lucius, whose letter to Henry shows that
Europe dreaded as much as it pretended to despise the new Moslem leader.
The letter read: “For Saladin, the most inhuman persecutor, has arisen
to such a pitch in his fury that, unless the vehement onset of his
wickedness is checked, he may entertain an assured hope that all the
Jordan will flow into his mouth, and the land be polluted by his most
abominable superstitions, and the country once more be subjected to the
accursed dominion of the most nefarious tyrant. By the sorrows thus
imminent, we entreat your Mightiness with a palpitating heart,” etc. But
neither King Henry’s conscience nor his hope of gaining a brighter crown
in heaven was sufficient to lure him from projects nearer home.
Saladin quickly verified the Pope’s estimate of his ability. In May,
1187, he overthrew the Templars in a battle at Nazareth. With eighty
thousand horse he then invested and crushed Tiberias on Galilee. The
citadel of this place alone remained untaken. The Christians massed
fifty thousand men on the plain of Hattîn, above the city, for one
supreme endeavor. The boldest feared the result. The sight of the wood
of the True Cross gave a martyr courage rather than hope of success.
Raymond, whose bravery no man questioned, made an address to the
assembled barons, counselling retreat. He said: “In this army is the
only hope left to the Christians of the East. Here are gathered all the
soldiers of Christ, all the defenders of Jerusalem. The archers of
Saladin are more skilful than ours, his cavalry more numerous and better
trained. Let us abandon Tiberias and save the army.” To lose that battle
in the open plain would be, as Raymond foresaw, to lose everything. To
retreat might force the enemy to fight against strongholds, when the
advantage would be on the Christians’ side.
This discreet counsel of the veteran was derided by the Master of the
Templars, who openly taunted Raymond with some secret alliance with
Saladin. Raymond rejoined, “I will submit to the punishment of death if
these things do not fall out as I have said.” The barons were for
following the advice of the veteran, but King Guy, after various changes
of mind, gave the fatal order for battle.
The day (July 4, 1187) was excessively hot. The Christians, worn out
with the march, advanced to the fight, sustained chiefly by the
desperation of their resolve. The Mussulmans occupied the vantage-ground
on the hills which make the western shore of the Lake of Tiberias, and
welcomed their adversaries’ approach with a furious discharge of arrows.
Then suddenly, as lightning through a pelting storm, the white turbans
and cimeters of the Saracen cavalry, led by Saladin in person, flashed
across the field. In the language of the Arabic chronicler: “Then the
sons of paradise and the children of fire settled their terrible
quarrel. Arrows hurtled in the air like a noisy flight of sparrows, and
the blood of warriors dripped upon the ground like rain.”
The True Cross, which had animated the Christians’ courage, was an
occasion of their weakness; for, despairing of victory through their own
valor, they sought the protection of the emblem of their religion.
Saladin said afterwards that the Franks flew round the cross like moths
round a light. Again and again the sultan drove his squadrons through
the thickest ranks of his opponents, and would that day have sealed the
Christians’ fate had not night given recess to the battle. During the
darkness the Christians closed their ranks in dense array. The Saracens,
having superior numbers, adopted the opposite plan and extended their
lines, so that when morning broke they surrounded their antagonists on
every side. The Christians in vain tried to break the cordon, which was
steadily drawing closer and closer, limiting the space within it as one
by one the doomed knights fell. The Saracens fired the grass of the
plain. Swords flashed through the lurid smoke, and the bravest, whom
arms could not daunt, dropped from suffocation. The Templars and
Hospitallers maintained the battle all day long, rallying about the
cross; but that symbol was ultimately taken. It was being borne by
Rufinus, Bishop of Acre, when he fell, pierced with an arrow. Says a
contemporary writer: “This was done through the righteous judgment of
God; for, contrary to the usage of his predecessors, having greater
faith in worldly arms than in heavenly ones, he went forth to battle
equipped in a coat of mail.”
Guy was a captive, together with the Master of the Templars and many of
the most celebrated knights, who had failed to find death, though they
sought it. Raymond cut his way through the line of Saracens, who praised
his amazing valor as they witnessed his exploit, while the Christians
denounced him for connivance with the foe.
A scene followed which showed the temper of Saladin. The conqueror
received King Guy and his surviving nobles in a manner to lessen, if
possible, their chagrin for the disaster. He presented to the king a
great goblet filled with drink, which had been cooled in the snows from
the Lebanons. Having drunk from it, Guy passed the cup to Renaud, the
man who had violated the truce in former years. Saladin could be
magnanimous to a worthy antagonist. So great was his self-command that
he observed the most punctilious etiquette even in the rage of a
hand-to-hand fight. But to the false and treacherous he could show no
mercy. The sight of the truce-breaker fired him with uncontrollable
frenzy; he exclaimed, “That traitor shall not drink in my presence.” He
gave Renaud the instant choice of death or acceptance of the religion of
Mohammed. Renaud refused to subscribe the Koran. Saladin smote him with
the side of his sabre, a mark of his contempt. At a signal a common
soldier swirled his cimeter, and the head of Renaud fell at King Guy’s
feet.
Towards the Templars and Hospitallers the sultan had conceived similar
hatred from the conviction that they regarded their covenants with their
enemies too lightly. As these knights of the white and the red cross
were led past him Saladin remarked, “I will deliver the earth of these
two unclean races.” He bade his emirs each slay a knight with his own
hand. Neither the defenceless condition of the captives nor the
protestation of his warriors against this cruelty produced any
compunction in the breast of the resolute conqueror.
Four days later St. Jean d’ Acre fell under Saladin’s assault; but the
people were spared and allowed to depart with all their movable
property. The churches were converted into mosques, and resounded with
prayers and thanksgiving to the Prophet. The yellow flag of Saladin soon
floated from the walls of Jericho, Ramleh, Arsuf, Jaffa, and Beirut.
Ascalon resisted for a while, in spite of the threats of the conqueror
and the entreaty of his prisoner, King Guy, that the garrison should not
prolong the useless conflict. The defenders of the city refused
submission unless the victor should pledge the safety of the women and
children and the liberty of the king. Saladin honored their bravery by
acceding to these conditions, and Ascalon became his possession
(September 4th).
Two weeks later (September 18th) his troops invested Jerusalem. Sending
for the principal inhabitants, he said to them: “I, as well as you,
acknowledge Jerusalem to be the house of God; I will not defile its
sanctity with blood if I can gain it by peace and love. Surrender it by
your Whitsuntide, and I will bestow upon you liberty to go where you
will, with provisions in plenty and as much land as you can cultivate.”
The reply of the Christians was valiant: “We cannot yield the city in
which died our God; still less can we sell it to you.” Saladin then
swore to avenge the slaughter perpetrated by the Christians upon the
Moslems when, under Godfrey, the first crusaders had captured Jerusalem
and massacred its inhabitants.
The assault was furious and met with equal valor. Within and without,
the walls were fairly buttressed with the bodies of the fallen. It was
not until the principal gate was undermined, the ramparts tottering, and
the soldiers of Saladin occupying some of the towers, that Balian
d’Iselin, the commandant, proposed to accept the conditions the
Christians had rejected before the fight. “It is too late,” replied
Saladin, pointing to his yellow banners, which proclaimed his occupancy
of many places along the walls. “Very well,” replied Balian; “we will
destroy the city. The mosque of Omar, and the mysterious Stone of Jacob
which you worship, shall be pounded into dust. Five thousand Moslems
whom we retain shall be killed. We will then slay with our own hands our
wives and children, and march out to you with fire and sword. Not one of
us will go to paradise until he has sent ten Mussulmans to hell.”
Saladin again bowed to the bravery which he might have punished, and
accepted the capitulation (October 2, 1187).
The Christian warriors were permitted to retire to Tripoli or Tyre,
cities as yet unconquered by Saladin. The inhabitants were to be
ransomed at a nominal sum of money for each. Many, however, in their
poverty could not produce the required amount. The fact, reported to the
victor, led to a deed on his part which showed his natural kindliness,
together with the exactness of his rule. The ransom money could not be
remitted; it belonged of right to the men whose heroism had been blessed
of Allah in taking the city. Saladin and his brother, Malek-Ahdel, paid
from their own purses the redemption money for several thousand
Christians, who otherwise, according to the usages of war, would have
become the slaves of their conquerors.
On the day for the evacuation of the city Saladin erected his throne at
the Gate of David to review the wretched army of the vanquished as it
passed out. First came the patriarch and priests, carrying the sacred
vessels and treasures of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Next followed
Queen Sibylla with the remnant of her court. Saladin saluted her with
great courtesy, and added words of seemingly genuine consolation as he
noted her grief. Mothers carried their children, and strong men bore the
aged and sick in their arms. Some paused to address the sultan, asking
that members of their families from whom they were separated might be
restored to them. Saladin instantly ordered that in no case should
children be separated from their mothers, nor husbands from their wives.
He permitted the Hospitallers to remain in the city on condition of
their resuming those duties which their order was originally instituted
to perform, and committed to them the care of the sick who could not
endure being removed. Many writers are disposed to analyze the motives
of Saladin and to attribute his clemency to politic foresight in
subduing the hatred as well as the arms of his enemies. But surely the
annals of war are too barren of such acts of humanity to allow us to mar
the beauty of the simple narration; and the virtues of Christians in
such circumstances have not been so resplendent that they may not
emulate the spirit of one who was their noblest foe.
The new lord of Jerusalem purged the sacred city of what to him was the
taint of idolatry, the worship of Jesus. The mosque of Omar on the
temple site was washed within and without with rose-water. The pulpit
which Nourredin had made with his own hands was erected by the side of
the mihrab, towards which the people prayed as indicating the direction
of Mecca. The chief imam preached from it on the glories of Saladin,
“the resplendent star of Allah,” on the redemption of Jerusalem, from
which Mohammed had made his miraculous night journey to Mecca, and on
the holy war, which must be continued until “all the branches of impiety
should be cut” from the tree of life.
The joy of the Moslem world had its refrain in the wails of Europe. It
is said that Pope Urban III., on hearing the news, died of a broken
heart. The minstrels composed lamentations as the captives did by the
rivers of Babylon. Courts and churches were draped in mourning. The
superstitious saw tears fall from the eyes of the wooden and stone
saints that ornamented the churches. The general gloom was described by
one who felt it as “like the darkness over the earth from the sixth to
the ninth hour, when Christ was crucified.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
EUROPE BETWEEN THE SECOND AND THIRD CRUSADES—SUPERSTITION—THE
WALDENSES—DEGRADATION OF THE PAPACY—FRANCE UNDER LOUIS—ENGLAND UNDER
HENRY II.—RICHARD CŒUR DE LION.
Forty years had elapsed since the ill-fated crusade of Louis VII. and
Conrad (1147) to avenge the capture of Edessa by Zenghi, and the
crowning calamity, the fall of Jerusalem into the hands of Saladin
(1187). We may briefly note some of the conditions and changes in Europe
during this period.
Men were thinking, though the dense darkness of mediæval night yet
remained, and the spectres of superstition which inhabited the human
mind were as many and as strange as ever. For example, the year 1186 was
looked for with alarm by the people of northern Europe, because of the
predictions of astrologers that certain conjunctions of the stars then
betokened dire evils to mankind. In the language of a contemporary: “The
planets being in an aërial and windy sign, ... there shall arise in the
East a mighty wind, and with its stormy blasts it shall blacken the air
and corrupt it with poisonous stench.... The wind shall raise aloft the
sands and dust from the face of the earth, and utterly overwhelm such
cities as Mecca, Baldac [Bagdad], and Babylon. The regions of Egypt and
Ethiopia shall become almost uninhabitable. In the West shall arise
dissensions, raised by the wind, and seditions of the people shall take
place; and there shall be one of them who shall levy armies innumerable,
and shall wage war on the shores of the waters, on which a slaughter so
vast will take place that the flow of blood will equal the surging
waves. This conjunction signifies the mutation of kingdoms, the
superiority of the Franks, the destruction of the Saracenic race,
together with longer life to those who shall be born hereafter.”
Other astrologers blew their star-blasts of similar warning. More
startling still were the reported words of a pious monk, which he
chanted while in a trance, confirming the astrologers with rhapsodic
quotations from Scripture and the Greek mythologists. The popular
consternation was somewhat allayed by Pharamella the Moor, whose
humanity was stronger than his religious bigotry, and led him to write
to the Christian Bishop of Toledo, from the tower on which he was
watching the stars, that their prognostications of the “aërial or windy
signs” were wrong; but that there would be sufficient force of evil
abroad in the atmosphere to produce “scanty vintage, crops of only
moderate average, much slaughter by the sword, and many shipwrecks.” The
most serious chroniclers of the time still associated as effect and
cause the rise and fall of kings and the issue of battles with natural
phenomena of comets, eclipses, and storms. Epidemic madness continued to
see celestial warriors through the dust of earthly combat, and the
ubiquitous presence of the mother of God in churches and cells, in the
silence of the roadway, and, in company with Mary Magdalene, trudging
along amid bands of pilgrims. Men visited purgatory and returned to
describe its burning floor and the writhing shapes of its inhabitants.
Indeed, the human mind was not yet sufficiently awake to know that it
had been dreaming.
Yet here and there were those who threw off the age delusion. The logic
of Abélard and the love of liberty voiced by Arnold of Brescia roused
more than one of the sleepers, who kept awake and jostled their fellows.
Thus the sect of the Waldenses foretokened the rise of modern
Protestantism. Peter Waldo, a wealthy merchant of Lyons, was afflicted
with the rigors of ecclesiastical rule, which robbed more than it
protected the people, and with the dogmatic traditions of the church,
which were being manipulated as strangling strings about the mind. He
threw off these restraints; he devoted his large fortune to the relief
of the poor and organized a brotherhood of kindred spirits, who took the
name of the Poor Men of Lyons. There had as yet been no attempt to teach
the masses the simple religion of Jesus as contained in the Scriptures,
Jerome’s Latin Bible of the fourth century being the only translation in
use. Waldo secured a rendering of the four Gospels into French. The
reading of this by the people led them to dissent from the assumptions
of the Roman Church, to question its sacraments, and to deny to the
priesthood the sole prerogative of preaching and administering religion.
Waldo and his followers claimed liberty to expound the Word of God
according to its own rules, and to interpret its precepts in the light
of reason and prayer-illuminated conscience.
The Waldenses were at once proceeded against by the Bishop of Lyons as
heretics and rebels. His judgment was confirmed by the anathemas of the
papal see. Waldo and his friends fled to the mountains of Piedmont and
Dauphine. In 1179 the new doctrines were denounced by the Third Lateran
Council. Waldo died the same year, having lived long enough to
anticipate in his own person the persecutions which were to make his
sect forever famous among martyrs.
The history of the Papacy during this period was humiliating. Popes and
antipopes strove for the seat of St. Peter. The hierarchy invoked the
aid of the Emperor of Germany, Frederick Barbarossa, to overturn the
republic of Rome, which Arnold of Brescia had inspired. That leader
atoned for his audacity by being hanged and burned. Barbarossa was,
however, equally determined that the secular power of the popes should
not be rebuilt upon the ruins of Roman independence. Italy was laid
waste by the armies of the empire, until the centre of Christendom was
disgraced by scenes as cruel as those which marked the contention of
Christian and Turk in the East.
France was scarcely less unfortunate. Louis VII., shortly after his
return from Palestine, divorced his queen, Eleanor, who became the wife
of Henry of Anjou, afterwards Henry II. of England, and added to the
possession of England the territories of Aquitaine and Poitou, leaving
to the French monarchy less than half of what had been, and was again to
be, the land of France. Guizot remarks: “This was the only event under
Louis’s reign of any real importance, in view of its long and bloody
consequences to his country. A petty war or a sullen strife between the
kings of France and England, petty quarrels of Louis with some of the
great lords of his kingdom, some vigorous measures against certain
districts, the first bubblings of that religious fermentation which
resulted before long, in the south of France, in the crusade against the
Albigensians—such were the facts which went to make up with somewhat of
insipidity the annals of this reign.” Kingship, on the death of the Abbé
Suger, Louis’s prime minister, steadily declined, until Philip Augustus
opened for it a new era of strength and progress. Philip had been seven
years on the throne (from 1080) at the time of the capture of Jerusalem.
England at the beginning of this period was distressed with the war
between King Stephen and Matilda. Churches were converted into
fortifications, and castles into prisons. For nineteen years the country
was so ravaged by the contending parties that, in the language of the
contemporary chronicler, “to till the ground was to plough the sea,” and
brave men, “sickened with the unnatural war, put on the white cross and
sailed for a nobler battle-field in the East.” With the son of Matilda,
Henry II., the dynasty of the Angevins, or Plantagenets, was
established. Inheriting Normandy from his mother, and acquiring by his
marriage with Eleanor her estates, at the age of twenty-one Henry II.
ruled from the Arctic Ocean to the Pyrenees. “Though a foreigner, never
speaking the English tongue, he seems to have possessed something of the
spirit which produced the subsequent Anglican civilization. He abolished
feudalism as a system of government, and left it little more than a
system of land tenure. It was he who defined the relations established
between church and state, and declared that in England churchman as well
as baron was to be held under the common law” (Norgate). Though his
quarrel with and murder of Thomas à Becket left in suspension the
Constitutions of Clarendon, which gave the kingship preëminence over the
hierarchy, the principles of that document were soon revived. Henry II.
admitted no papal legate into England without an oath not to interfere
with any royal prerogative. Though he repented the death of Becket, he
forced the monks of Canterbury to elect a successor of his own
nomination.
Perhaps the most important progress of Henry II.’s reign was marked by
the Assizes of Clarendon (1166), which gave to England the beginning of
trial by jury. A grand jury of twelve men was to hear all accusations,
and only on sufficient evidence allow further procedure, although the
final trial of a case was, until 1216, allowed to proceed according to
the laws of Ordeal and Combat. Circuit judges were also appointed,
subject only to the king and his council as a court of appeal.
In 1155 Ireland was given over to the conquest of Henry by Pope Hadrian
for one penny a house, to be paid into the papal treasury; for, said the
Holy Father, “all the islands on which Christ, the Sun of justice, has
shone belong to the see of St. Peter.” Henry’s victory over William of
Scotland also gave him the ascendency in that kingdom. Thus was woven
the substance of the band which now holds together Great Britain.
The reign of Henry II. was brought to a close in personal disaster. At
Le Mans in France he was beaten in battle by his son Richard, who, in
conjunction with King Philip Augustus, had raised an unfilial hand
against his father. Henry died, cursing God and muttering, “Shame! shame
on a conquered king!”
Richard I. (Cœur de Lion) may be said to have been badly born (September
8, 1157). His father, Henry II., though astute in kingcraft, was among
the most disreputable of monarchs in personal character. St. Bernard
said of Henry, “He comes of the devil, and to the devil he shall
return.” His remorse for the murder of Becket, which seems to have been
genuine, did not restrain him from spending his later years as a
notorious libertine, polluting every innocent thing about him with his
lecherous touch. Even childhood was not safe from his lust. It is
typical of the man and the times that Geoffrey, for whom the king
secured the bishopric of Lincoln, was his own natural son by Rosamond,
his concubine.
Richard’s mother, Eleanor, was perhaps of as unwholesome a sort as his
father. She never blushed except at the failure of some intrigue which
in our later age is regarded as shameful to her sex. Her first royal
husband, Louis VII. of France, though fascinated by her beauty, could
not abide her infidelities, and put her away. If the chronicle be true,
she avenged the marital sins of Henry II. by slaying with her own hand
his mistress, Rosamond.
Richard thus inherited much of the disposition which marred his many
nobler traits. Guizot’s portrait of him is fair: “Beyond comparison the
boldest, the most unreflecting, the most passionate, the most ruffianly,
the most heroic adventurer of the middle ages.” The first suggestion of
his title, “Lion-hearted,” is perhaps in the pages of Roger de Wendover
(died 1237), who, describing the ravages Richard committed in France,
says: “He invaded the territory with more than a lion’s fury, carried
off the produce, cut down the vines, burned the villages, and demolished
everything.” His first act upon coming to power was to release his
mother, Eleanor, from the twelve years’ imprisonment she suffered at the
hands of her husband, Henry II. Then was remembered, and applied to her
and to Richard, a prediction of Merlin, the “Wizard of the North,” in
the fifth century: “The eagle of the broken treaty shall rejoice in her
third nestling.” Roger de Wendover thus interpreted the hitherto
enigmatic words: “The queen [Eleanor] is meant by the eagle, because she
stretches out her two wings over two kingdoms, France and England. She
was separated from the king of the French by divorce on account of
consanguinity, and from the king of the English by suspicion and
imprisonment; and so she was on both sides the eagle of a broken treaty.
‘She shall rejoice in her third nestling’ may be understood in this way:
the queen’s first-born son, named William, died when he was a boy;
Henry, her second son, was raised to the rank of king, and paid the debt
of nature after he had engaged in hostilities with his father; and
Richard, her third son, who is denoted by the ‘third nestling,’ was a
source of joy to his mother.”
Richard was crowned September 11, 1189. Wendover, who may have witnessed
it, describes the coronation service. Richard was conducted to
Westminster in solemn procession, headed by ecclesiastics bearing the
cross, holy water, and censers; four barons carried candlesticks with
wax candles, two earls holding aloft two sceptres, one surmounted with a
golden cross, the other with a dove; three earls followed, carrying
three swords with golden sheaths; six earls and barons carried a
checker, over which were placed the royal arms and robes, while a
seventh held aloft a golden crown. Richard swore upon the Gospels his
kingly devotion, pledging to observe peace, honor, and reverence towards
God and the holy church, and to exercise true justice to all his people.
“After this they stripped him of all his clothes except his breeches and
shirt, which had been ripped apart over his shoulders to receive the
unction. He was then shod with sandals interwoven with gold thread, and
Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, anointed him king in three places,
namely, on his head, his shoulders, and his right arm, using prayers
composed for the occasion. Then a consecrated linen cloth was placed on
his head, over which was put a hat, and when they had again clothed him
in his royal robes, with the tunic and gown, the archbishop gave into
his hands a sword wherewith to crush all the enemies of the church....
Then they placed the crown upon his head, with the sceptre in his right
hand and the royal wand in his left.” Preceded by candles and cross, he
went to the celebration of mass; thence “to the dinner-table, and
feasted splendidly, so that the wine flowed along the pavement and walls
of the palace.”
A very different scene, though not less characteristic of the age, took
place beyond the palace. Richard had issued an edict forbidding any Jew
to appear at his coronation. Some of the wealthiest Hebrews, presuming
upon the splendid gifts they brought, approached the dining-hall. The
populace, willingly interpreting the king’s mandate as a license for
persecution, set upon the Jews, not only at the palace gate, but
throughout the city. They murdered them without stint and looted their
houses. The king, essaying an investigation, found that the chief
dignitaries and citizens were leaders of the mob, and stayed further
inquiry. Other cities emulated the cruelty and greed of the Londoners.
At York five hundred Jews, who had fled for safety to the castle, unable
to defend themselves, slaughtered their own wives and children to save
them from worse fate, threw the dead bodies to the Christians without
the walls, and then set fire to their refuge, perishing in the flames.
The people to whom the Jew’s had loaned money, the bonds of which were
kept in the cathedral, seized these evidences of debt and burned them in
pious offering before the altar.
The chief interest of Richard, even surpassing the care of his throne,
was to fulfil the vow he had taken two years before (1187) to join a new
crusade against the Infidels in Palestine.
THE THIRD CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
WILLIAM OF TYRE—BARBAROSSA.
With the news of the fall of Jerusalem came William, Archbishop of Tyre
(the chief chronicler for this time), to stir up Europe to avenge the
great disaster. This man possessed powers of speech equal to those of
his pen. He appeared before an assembly near Gisors, where were gathered
the bravest knights of England and France under their respective kings,
Henry II. and Philip Augustus. These monarchs had laid aside the arms
they were bearing against each other, that they might hear the appeal to
holier warfare. The presence of such royalty did not restrain the fiery
and indignant eloquence of William of Tyre. He cried, “To meet you here
I have traversed fields of carnage. But whose blood have you been
shedding? Why are you armed with these swords? You are fighting here for
the banks of a river, for the limit of a province, for transient renown,
while Infidels trample the banks of Siloam. Does your Europe no longer
produce warriors like Godfrey and Tancred?” Even the blood of Henry II.,
poisoned as it was with many sins, felt the ardor of the appeal. He
embraced his foe, Philip Augustus, with tears, while they together put
on the badge of the cross. Princes and nobles followed the royal
example, foremost among them Richard, then Duke of Guienne. Upon those
who did not enlist was imposed a tax of one tenth of the value of their
property, to be annually continued in a tenth of their incomes. This, in
attestation of the terror inspired by the arms of the Saracen, was
called “Saladin’s tithe.” The appeals of William of Tyre were supported
by the pastoral letters of Pope Gregory VIII., which promised to all who
should “undertake the labor of this expedition ... plenary indulgence
for their offences and eternal life; ... and no person is to make any
claim against the property of which, on assuming the cross, they were in
quiet possession; ... they are not to pay interest to any person if they
have so bound themselves.” The Pope further ordered a Lenten fast on
every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, to appease the wrath of Heaven
for sins, adding that the papal household would also abstain from flesh
on Mondays.
The entire ritual of worship became infected with militarism and fear of
the common enemy beyond the sea. In 1188 the Pope ordained that prayer
against the Saracens should be offered everywhere daily. In the Church
of St. Paul a recognition of the distressful condition was introduced
into the liturgy. On Sundays there was read the psalm beginning, “Why do
the heathen rage?” On Mondays, “Save us, O God, by Thy name.” On
Tuesdays, “O God, why hast Thou forsaken us?” On Wednesdays, “O God, why
hast Thou cast us off forever?” On Thursdays, “O God, the heathen are
come into Thine inheritance.” On Fridays, “God standeth in the
congregation of the mighty.” On Saturdays, “O Lord God, to whom
vengeance belongeth, show Thyself.”
The peace between Henry II. and Philip Augustus made under the crusader
enthusiasm, like other sudden excitements of religious emotion, did not
long continue. A believer in the doctrine of the perseverance of the
saints would hardly expect to find its proof in the house of Anjou, save
by its exceptions. The recklessness of Richard again embroiled his
father and the French king in war. An attempt to restore the truce on
the same “sacred field” of Gisors where it had been solemnly enacted
failed, and Philip Augustus cut down the elm-tree under which they had
sworn it, that nature might not taunt them with their perjury. Saladin’s
tithe was first devoted not against the Infidels, but to the infidelity
of Christians in warring with one another, and was ominous of much of
the subsequent use of that treasure. Rome excommunicated Richard, who
drew his sword upon the papal legate that announced to him the decree.
Philip as quickly repelled the interference of the spiritual power with
what he deemed the more sacred right of conducting his own quarrels. It
required the opportune intervention of a thunder-storm to shake the
worldly purpose of Henry II., who, in genuine terror at the voice of
heaven, at length agreed to peace.
In the meanwhile William of Tyre had electrified Germany with his
appeals. The old emperor, Frederick I., took the cross, together with
many of his chief nobles, including his son, Frederick, Duke of Swabia.
Frederick I., called Barbarossa by his Italian enemies because of his
red beard, was the most astute statesman, the most experienced general,
and the most powerful of the crowned heads of Europe during the twelfth
century. He had been thirty-seven years on the throne of Germany. Though
not altogether successful in his strifes with the popes, he had been
able to consolidate his empire and extend its prestige. Now, at
sixty-seven years of age, the peace of his dominion offered him the most
envied imperial honors and the quiet ending of his days; but his heroic
soul forgot the fatigue of age; he spurned the enjoyments of his palace
when he heard the call for new adventures. He was the first _en route_
for Palestine; indeed, had completed his ill-fated expedition before the
younger princes of the West were afield.
The array of Frederick reflected the dignity of its commander. It was
under careful, even stringent discipline; camp followers were unwelcome;
no women were allowed in the expedition. This was a grievance to many of
the fair sex, whose love would have led them to accompany their
husbands, or whose adventurous instinct prompted them to put on armor;
but the order rid the army of the throng of immoral creatures who were
accustomed to attach themselves to the crusading masses. The usual crowd
of paupers who became soldiers only to better their condition, and bands
of pilgrims who sought safe convoy to the sacred shrines, were ordered
out of the ranks, only those being allowed to start who showed
possession of sufficient money to maintain themselves for two years.
In true chivalric spirit, the veteran warrior of the West sent to
Saladin his royal challenge before proceeding to battle. His letter was
true to the times also in that it showed the customary bravado of the
knight, entering the lists with self-laudation, and hurling scorn at the
visor of his antagonist. “We, Frederick, by the grace of God, Emperor of
the Romans, ever August, the Magnificent Triumpher over the enemies of
the empire, to the Illustrious Saladin, Governor of the Saracens....
Thou hast profaned the Holy Land, over which we, by the authority of the
eternal King, bear rule.... God willing, you shall learn by experience
the might of our victorious eagles.” Then Frederick lists the nations in
his following: “The towering Bavarian, the cunning Swabian, the cautious
Franconian, Saxony that sports with the sword, the active Brabantine,
the Lorrainer, unused to peace, the fiery Burgundian, the nimble
mountaineer of the Alps, the Friesian, with his javelin and thong, the
Bohemian, ever ready to brave death, Polonia, fiercer than her own
fierce beasts,” etc. “And, lastly, also, you shall be taught how our own
right hand, which you suppose to be enfeebled by old age, can still
wield the sword.”
Saladin, in turn, outdid his challenger in courtesy if not in bravado.
“To the Great King, his sincere friend, the Illustrious Frederick, ...
in the name of God the merciful.... You enumerate those who are leagued
with you, but if we wished to enumerate those with us, the list could
not be reduced to writing. With us are the Bedouins, alone sufficient to
cope with you; the Turkomans, unaided able to destroy you; our peasants,
able to despoil and exterminate you; the warlike Soldarii, by whom we
have already beaten you. These and all the kings of Islam are with me;
Babylon, with its dependencies, the land of Damascus, and Jerusalem on
the sea-coast, ... and the land of Sudia, with its provinces. If you
wish for war, we will meet you in the power of the Lord; but if you wish
for peace, we will restore to you the holy cross, and liberate all
Christian captives, and permit pilgrims to come freely and do them good.
And may Allah give us counsel!” A rumor was current, based, doubtless,
upon the clemency of Saladin to the Christians, that he was himself
contemplating conversion to the faith of Europe. His letter to Frederick
was its sufficient refutation, even without its closing invocation, “May
God save our Prophet, Mohammed!” He emulates the conceit of his
antagonist by signing himself, possibly with a touch of sarcasm,
“Saladin, Illustrious Lord, Victorious King, Adorner of the standard of
truth, Corrector of the world,” etc.
This seeming bombast was not peculiar to these potentates. The Greek
emperor, Isaac Angelus, styled himself “The Most Sublime, Most Powerful
Emperor, the Angel of the whole earth.” Isaac, however, possessed no
personal qualities worthy of commendation. He inherited, together with
the conceit, the cowardice and treachery of the whole line of Greek
monarchs. He wrote to Frederick, promising aid, and at the same time
made alliance with Saladin. Nicetas, the Greek historian of this period,
admits against his nation that Isaac broke the treaties, impeded the
roads, and diverted provisions from his German allies. At Adrianople he
laid ambush for their scouts. The veteran Frederick, incensed at this
treatment, made a bloody retaliation upon a detachment of Greeks. This
brought Isaac to terms. His friendship was measured by a flotilla of
fifteen hundred ships and twenty-six galleys, which he prepared for the
speedy transportation of the Germans beyond the Marmora and out of
menacing distance of his capital.
Kilidge-Arslan had sent fifty Moslem knights to meet Frederick on the
way, and to pledge his friendship, but when the army reached Iconium it
was discovered that this had been only a device to delay the emperor.
Frederick taught the Moslems that he was in no mood to be trifled with,
by suddenly assaulting and capturing the city. Pressing onward, the
Germans had daily to meet the guerilla attacks of the Infidels. Their
provisions were destroyed as fast as gathered. Water was scarce, only
the stagnant pools in fever-impregnated marshes affording palliation to
thirst. The soldiers at times killed their horses and drank their blood.
Yet the discipline was strictly maintained. No crime went unpunished. It
was evident that a stronger hand was guiding the crusaders than had
before been felt. The Armenian patriarch wrote to his friend Saladin,
warning him of the extraordinary type of man with whom he had to deal.
Christian and Turk awaited the issue of the campaign with respective
hope and solicitude.
In spite of all obstacles, the Germans made a triumphant march almost to
the borders of Syria. The pure water of the river Selef, which flows by
the walls of Seleucia, tempted the conqueror to bathe. Seized with
cramps, he was carried away by the hurrying current. At length he was
dragged from the water, but was in dying condition. Tradition says that
on a rock near this spot was carved this prediction: “Hic hominum
maximus peribit.” If the omen be fabulous, the description is correct,
for Frederick Barbarossa remains in history as one of the “greatest of
men.” William of Tyre, in his eulogy, translates his spirit to heaven,
while the Arabian historian, Omad, tells us with equal confidence that
the angel of death carried his soul to hell.
The German host, now led by the feebler hand of his son, Frederick of
Swabia, succeeded in reaching Antioch with less than seven hundred horse
and five thousand foot, a retinue scarcely sufficient to do honor to the
remains of the grand old hero, which they there buried in the Church of
St. Peter.
In June, 1190, the English and French made preparation to follow their
unfortunate forerunner. It was not, however, until a year later that
they arrived in Palestine.
The movements of Saladin, in the meanwhile, engrossed the fears of the
Christian world. After capturing Jerusalem he attacked Tyre. The bravery
of the defence was supplemented by the timely arrival of Conrad, whose
father, the Marquis of Montferrat, Saladin held prisoner. Conrad had
already made his name famous for valor. For his assistance of the Greek
emperor against seditions in Constantinople he had won the title of
Cæsar and the hand of the emperor’s sister. Saladin endeavored to divert
him by threatening to kill his father unless he relinquished the defence
of Tyre. Conrad’s reply was noteworthy: “The life of my father is less
dear to me and to him than the cause we both serve.” Saladin was forced
to give up the siege. He turned against Tripoli. Aided by Admiral
Margarit, whom the King of Sicily had sent with a fleet and who had won
the titles of “King of the Sea” and the “New Neptune,” the Tripolitans
successfully resisted. Saladin then assailed Carac, which was forced to
yield to the Moslem chief. He granted its defenders their liberty, and
restored to them their wives and children, whom, in an hour of deathly
fear, they had sold as slaves to Saladin rather than see them the
victims of such ravages as usually followed the capture by the common
soldiery. King Guy of Jerusalem had been released from imprisonment by
Saladin on condition that he would leave Palestine and return to Europe.
Guy paid no respect to his oath, but, gathering the loyal remnant of his
kingdom, laid siege to Ptolemaïs (Acre), there inaugurating a contest
which, for its duration and the fame of the great chieftains engaged in
it, was the most noted in the sad annals of the third crusade.
CHAPTER XXIX.
SIEGE OF ACRE.
The plain of Acre is surrounded by great natural defences. On the north
is Mount Saron, the narrow pathway over which is called the “Ladder of
Tyre”; on the south rises the bulwark of Mount Carmel, touching the sea;
on the east lie the mountains of Galilee; on the west the plain is
washed by the Mediterranean. Within this seemingly impregnable district
lay the strongly fortified city of Acre. Its port rivalled those of
Tyre, Sidon, and Jaffa. High walls, guarded by deep moats, bent in shape
of a horseshoe from the crags on the north to a fortress on the south,
which rose from a rock in the waves. With the water front these enclosed
the place.
Into the plain beyond the wall Guy collected nine thousand men. The
rapid arrivals from Europe augmented this force to eighty thousand, even
before the kings of England and France had started from home. The
Infidels already occupied the city, and when Saladin seized the
mountains about, the besiegers were themselves besieged. By a sudden
dash Saladin penetrated their hosts, entered Acre, and reconnoitred the
Christian armies from the towers. Conrad hastened from Tyre; two fleets
brought new bands of German and Danish crusaders. The Christians gave
battle, and drove the Moslems from the field with such slaughter that
Saladin was left almost alone amid the wreck of his forces. But he
quickly recuperated his strength, and a few days later returned the
assault. No fury of fight could blind the eyes of this commander. Ten
times he cut through the Christian lines, leading in person his swift
riders. By night the crusaders were driven back and huddled impotently
in their camps. The morrow revealed the plain strewn with the débris of
both armies.
Though Saladin had fully avenged his first discomfiture, he had learned
more of the sharpness of the Christians’ swords, and was too wise to
risk another immediate engagement. He therefore withdrew to his
fastnesses in the rear of the Christian encampment. During the entire
winter (1189-90) the Christians were unmolested, and prosecuted the
siege unremittingly. More than once the city barely escaped becoming the
prize of the Christians’ daring or stratagem.
In the spring (1190) Saladin returned. Every attack made upon Acre by
the crusaders was foiled by a counter-attack by the Moslems upon their
rear. Egypt sent ships to succor the city, and Europe sent ships to
succor its soldiers. Masts bearing the cross and those flying the
pennant of its adversaries seemed at times to be mingled in confusion
over the bay. The Moslem and Christian armies often manned their
fortifications and stood as spectators of naval duels, where they were
impotent to help their coreligionists. The enthusiasm of the observers,
not having sufficient expression in shouts and cheers, often found vent
in supplementary fights in the field. In the battles which raged on land
the Christians were ordinarily victors during the morning, the Saracens
in the latter part of the day. This was due, doubtless, to the fact that
the discipline of Saladin’s men was superior, and that the self-command
of their great general patiently waited for the first ardor of the
crusaders to spend itself, or for their cupidity to divert their
attention from the foe to the plunder which they had already taken.
Saladin’s forces had been weakened at the time by the ravages of
Frederick Barbarossa in Asia Minor, which we have described, and which
drew off many of the Moslem leaders to defend their own possessions in
that quarter. The Christians took advantage of this to give the foe what
they hoped to be a decisive engagement. Their impetuosity could not be
resisted; they broke through even to the tent of Saladin. As usual, they
paused for the prey, and received the usual punishment for their greed.
Off guard, they were massacred by thousands, even amid the camps they
were looting. An Arabian writer says: “The Christians fell under the
swords of the conquerors as the wicked will fall into the abode of fire
at the last day. Nine ranks of dead covered the ground, and each rank
was of a thousand warriors.”
The besieged in Acre sallied forth and gave the Christians a double
defeat. Then came the news of Frederick Barbarossa’s death. In the deep
depression wrought by these tidings, a treaty of peace with Saladin
would doubtless have been at once concluded, had not the Christians’
spirit been raised by the timely arrival of European fleets. Frederick
of Swabia’s appearance with the remnant of his father’s army was
signalled by new adventures, only to be met with new failures. The
Christians, having no support from the surrounding country, were reduced
almost to starvation, feeding upon horses and making soup of their
harness. The plain, inundated by the overflowing river, bred epidemic,
which carried away multitudes, three or four hundred being buried daily.
Frederick of Swabia, the heir of the German throne, sickened and passed
away, and many of his men returned to the West.
Queen Sibylla of Jerusalem also died at this juncture, and the
Christians were divided into the hostile camps of those who were seeking
to possess themselves of the shadows of the kingship. Humphrey had
married Sibylla’s sister, and put forth his claim to the throne. Conrad
gained the favor of the bishop, who forcibly dissolved Humphrey’s
marriage and gave his wife to Conrad, though that worthy had already a
spouse, the sister of the Greek emperor. King Guy, however, maintained
his own rights to the empty sceptre. A civil war, which would surely
have brought the Christian cause to ruin, was diverted only by the
expected arrival of the kings of England and France, to whom it was
agreed that the dispute should be referred.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE COMING OF PHILIP AUGUSTUS AND RICHARD—FALL OF ACRE.
Richard I. was crowned King of England in September, 1189. In October
there arrived in England a messenger from Philip of France, reminding
the king of their mutual oaths to make the crusade. The adventurous
spirit of Richard did not need this appeal. He drained the resources of
his realm in gathering means. All the money left him by his father,
Henry II., was first appropriated. He then sold the manors and
prospective income of the crown. Next the chief offices of honor and
responsibility went to the highest bidder who had ready cash. Thus Hugh
de Puzas, Bishop of Durham, became chief justice of England for a
thousand marks. Having abundant soldiery at his command, Richard then
allowed any one to purchase the privilege of staying at home; he even
declared that he would sell the City of London for a reasonable price.
The vassalage of Scotland went for a thousand marks, together with the
fortresses of Roxburgh and Berwick. When he had nothing more to sell he
forced his richer subjects to make him loans, which they knew he never
would repay. A plain-spoken preacher advised him, before he set out on
an expedition in the name of religion, to dispose of some of his
notorious vices, naming especially his pride, avarice, and
voluptuousness. Richard replied, “You counsel well, and I hereby dispose
of the first to the Templars, of the second to the Benedictine monks,
and of the third to my prelates.”
Consigning the administration of England to Hugh, Bishop of Durham, and
an unsavory Frenchman, Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, he left England,
accompanied by a turbulent crowd of adventurers. He made his rendezvous
with the French king at Vezelay (June, 1190). Here the monarchs swore
fraternity and to sacredly respect each other’s domains during the
crusade. They invoked upon themselves the curses of Heaven and the
church if they should prove unfaithful. The joint armies numbered a
hundred thousand men. Warned by the reverses experienced by their
predecessors in crusading overland, they chose the sea route to
Palestine.
Philip sailed from Genoa for Sicily. He entered the port of Messina,
September 16, 1190. Richard sailed from Marseilles, hugging the Italian
coast, according to the sea travel of the day, visiting port towns _en
route_, and paying worship at the shrines of the various local saints.
He reached Messina a few days later than Philip (September 23d).
The main English fleet, leaving England and Normandy, had gone southward
along the coast of France and Spain. The lands they passed in sight of
were strange to the navigators, so little was known of the geography of
even the countries of Europe. At Lisbon they could not resist the
temptation to help the Portuguese Christians in a war with the Saracens,
nor of indulging a less laudable sort of prowess, which Hovenden
describes: “Disembarking from their ships, they made their way into the
city, and as they went through streets and lanes talked to the people,
giving themselves airs and committing violence upon the wives and
daughters of the citizens; they drove away pagans and Jews, plundered
their property, and burned their houses. They then stripped their
vineyards, leaving them not so much as a grape.” This faithful
chronicler also narrates that during a storm at sea St. Thomas à Becket
appeared to them and calmed the waves. “They passed the city of
Silva(?), which was the most remote of all the cities of Christendom.”
At Marseilles they missed King Richard, who already had departed; but
they were compensated for their disappointment in being enabled to
worship the identical “rods with which our Lord was scourged, the
jaw-bone of Lazarus, and one of the ribs of Lawrence.” Approaching
Sicily, they saw the marvellous fish of St. Agatha, the story of which
they believed: how that the heat of the volcano of Mount Gebel
(Stromboli?) once threatened the town of Catana; but the people took the
veil of St. Agatha from her tomb, “carried it before them, facing the
fire, on which the flames returned to the sea and, parching it, dried it
up for nearly a mile, and scorched the fish, many of which were half
burned; and there are to this day many fish there of the same kind.” But
the marvels of that voyage are too many for our pages, if not for the
credulity of the reader.
Richard himself remained six months in Marseilles, a delay that nearly
caused the destruction of his enterprise. A quarrel was started with
Tancred, ruler of Sicily, about certain rights of Richard’s sister
Joanna, who was the widow of Tancred’s predecessor. Says the chronicler:
“Quicker than priest could chant matins did King Richard take the city.”
Philip resented Richard’s audacity and forced him to take down his
standard. Richard had once solicited and gained from Philip the hand of
the French princess Alice; but, his advantage now blowing from another
direction, he preferred Berengaria, a princess of Navarre. Berengaria,
through the connivance of Eleanor, was brought to Messina. Only at the
entreaty of utmost piety and discretion could Philip be persuaded to lay
aside his rage at this new insult. He sailed at once for the East.
Richard followed eleven days later (April, 1191), taking with him
Berengaria and Joanna, ex-Queen of Sicily. Three ships of the English
fleet were wrecked on Cyprus, and their crews imprisoned by the
inhabitants. Isaac, the king of the island, refused to redress the
wrong. Richard administered swift punishment. Within three weeks he
conquered the entire country, and, binding its ruler in a chain of
silver, took him along on an involuntary pilgrimage to Palestine.
Richard had celebrated his prowess at Cyprus by his nuptials with
Berengaria. The new queen took with her as companion the daughter of
Isaac, whose constant presence is said to have disturbed the already
uncertain marital habits of her husband.
The French welcomed the arrival of their English allies with great
bonfires, which were designed to proclaim the joy of the Christians and
to flash dismay to the Moslem camps. The plain of Acre was soon filled
with the tents of a host which represented the strength of combined
Europe. Peoples strange to one another in speech, manners, and arms were
one only in their cause. It is not to be wondered at if, at times, these
races more sharply accentuated their differences than their unity. The
contention between Guy and Conrad for the kingship of Jerusalem, which
was referred to Philip and Richard for settlement, only gave opportunity
for renewed hostility between these monarchs, Philip declaring for
Conrad, and Richard for Guy. The matter was finally settled by agreement
that Guy should reign and that Conrad should be his successor.
The jealousy of French and English prevented mutual help in the battles
daily occurring, wherefore it was agreed that but one army should fight
at a time against the walls of Acre, while the other should guard
against a rear attack by Saladin. Thus the honors were easy, as the
tasks assigned were equally hazardous. The courtesies of the camp were
more readily extended to their enemy than to one another. Saladin,
during the sickness of both sovereigns, sent to them his own physicians,
and such luxuries as the East provided. While they received these from
their foe without suspicion, Philip and Richard each attributed his
sickness to the poisoning of the other, and each accused his Christian
associate with using Saladin’s favors with a view to treasonable
alliance.
Often tournaments were arranged between Moslem and Christian in the
sight of both armies. Knight and emir entered the lists, abusing each
other with their tongues like twin Thersiteses, then fighting with the
valor of Hector and Achilles. Women did not disdain rivalry for the palm
in swordcraft, and bands of children from either side fought to the
death in the presence of their parents. The Infidel played for the dance
of the Christian, and the minstrel of Europe gave the rhythm to the feet
of the Saracen. The table of Saladin was sometimes graced by the
presence of the foremost European knights, and in turn emirs feasted at
the board of those whom they most dreaded to meet on the field. Saladin
so respected the courtesy and devotion of the true Christian knight that
he willingly wore the decoration of Chivalry, while Richard rode into
battle one of the two splendid steeds which were the gift of the
sultan’s brother. The lowest vices of the East and the West became the
open indulgence of the camps of both. But each party maintained the
utmost outward reverence to the symbols of his own religion; Saladin
pausing in the midst of battle to read a chapter of the Koran, and the
King of Jerusalem advancing to fight with the Gospels borne aloft before
him.
The besieged in Acre were reduced to extremities, the Christians
completely investing the city on the land side in spite of the forays of
Saladin from the hills, and their fleets cutting off all succor from the
sea. At length, after two years of incessant fighting, during which nine
great battles were fought, the standard of the cross was seen floating
from the ramparts of the city (July 12, 1191). The besieged had
capitulated upon condition that their lives should be spared, and that
Saladin should pay their ransom in two hundred pieces of gold. In the
original proposal it was agreed to surrender the wood of the True Cross,
the possession of which by the Infidels was imagined to be the cause of
all sorts of disasters to the Christian world; among the least of which,
if we are to believe a chronicler of the time, was that all children
born in Christendom since the capture of the cross at Hattîn had but
twenty-two instead of thirty-two teeth. Richard was not religious enough
to insist upon the restoration of this precious symbol.
Saladin, after the city had fallen, delayed in fulfilling the condition
that the defenders of Acre had put upon him relative to their ransom
money. Richard avenged this assumed breach of faith by massacring five
thousand unarmed Moslems before the city wall. Philip, in disgust at
this action, turned over his army to the Duke of Burgundy and returned
to France.
Richard, thus left in sole command, crossed Mount Carmel and proceeded
southward, keeping close to the shore that he might have timely
assistance from his fleet. At every stream and sand-dune he met the
omnipresent Saladin. The Christians’ march was under an incessant rain
of arrows, which covered the frequent dashes of the Moslem squadrons. At
the banks of the Arsur (Nahr Falik) the Christians encountered the
entire army of their contestants (September 7, 1191). Though Richard led
sixty thousand, the Oriental historian Omad, secretary to Saladin, says
that the Mussulmans surrounded them as the eyelashes surround the eye.
The cry “Allah! Allah!” was echoed by “Deus vult!” as the mighty hosts
sprang upon each other. The Christian infantry, leading the assault,
suddenly opened its ranks; the cavalry poured through and made the first
attack. Richard followed with the main body. Nothing could withstand the
fury of his onset. The Moslems were swept before him; but they as
quickly gathered in his rear, compelling him to return and fight over
again the battle he had already won. The plain was too small for the
multitude to marshal in orderly array. The armies were intertwined as
the many folds of two serpents of hostile breed. It is said that more
than once Richard and Saladin tested each other’s qualities by personal
encounter; the only doubt cast upon this story by Christian writers
being from the fact that Saladin survived, the Arabic chroniclers
rejecting it on the ground that Richard still lived.
At nightfall the Moslems extricated themselves from the mêlée and
disappeared in the forests of Saron, the Christians being wary enough
not to follow them. Had Richard pursued his advantage the Arabian
historians admit that he might have secured Jerusalem; but the impulsive
temper of this leader suffered from sudden reaction. He repaired to
Jaffa with the women of his household, and there established a brilliant
and festive court. One day while hunting he was surrounded by a troop of
Moslems. When he was on the point of being captured a French knight
cried out, “I am the king; spare me.” The Moslems, thus diverted,
allowed Richard to escape, and brought the knight a captive to Saladin.
Richard soon tired of his rest, and even of revelry, at Jaffa, and
projected the siege of Ascalon. Saladin, made aware of that enterprise,
burned the city. Richard set about its rebuilding; his orders were
disobeyed. Many echoed the words of Leopold of Austria, who declared
that he was a warrior, but neither a carpenter nor a mason.
The resentment of this prince had been kindled against the Englishman by
an outrage on the part of Richard in ordering the standard of Austria to
be thrown from the walls of Acre, where Leopold had presumptuously
planted it after the capture of that place. Conrad of Montferrat had
also taken umbrage at Richard’s lordly treatment of him, and was
detected in courting alliance with Saladin for the restitution of Acre.
Richard foiled him with deeper play. He proposed to give his sister, the
ex-Queen of Sicily, as wife to Malek-Ahdel, brother of Saladin, that
there might be erected at Jerusalem a mongrel empire of Christians and
Moslems. Saladin toyed with the proposition sufficiently to delay
Richard’s attack upon Jerusalem until that city had been greatly
strengthened. Thousands of Christian captives were set to work upon the
walls and in the ditches, under threat of being massacred, as were the
Moslems by Richard’s order at Acre. Realizing that his scheme of
alliance with Saladin had failed, Richard endeavored to engage his
antagonist in battle in the open country; but the astute Moslem was too
discreet to risk his cimeters against heavy swords, except when
necessary. He had also some less martial schemes on foot; he seduced
Conrad at least from whole-hearted loyalty to the cross, by promising to
defend him in permanent possession of whatever cities he might take from
his fellow-Christians. Conrad was soon assassinated by two Moslems.
Richard was quickly accused of being accessory to this deed. The
suspicion grew in plausibility when he forced Isabella, widow of Conrad,
to marry his nephew, the Count of Champagne, who thus, through
Isabella’s rights as sister of Sibylla, became titular King of
Jerusalem. King Guy was compensated for the loss of his throne by the
gift of the government of Cyprus, where his descendants reigned for two
hundred years, until the Moslem wave had ingulfed the entire eastern
Mediterranean.
Saladin was also thought to have connived at the murder of Conrad. One
of the murderers, however, confessed to having been the agent of the Old
Man of the Mountain, the chief of the sect of Assassins, who also avowed
himself responsible for the deed.
This sect, whose name has given to European languages their word for the
most atrocious crime, is one of the many divisions of the Moslem
peoples. Their sheik regarded himself as the lineal successor of Hassan,
and thus the inheritor of the Imam or Holy Spirit, whose possession is
the inner sign of the caliphate. Hassan, after various adventures,
retired to Altamont, a strong castle in the mountains of Persia, whence
his title, and that of his successors, of “Old Man of the Mountain.” He
attempted to enforce his spiritual authority by inspiring universal
dread of his vengeance. His successors and agents became adept in the
use of poisons, the dagger, and all methods of secretly disposing of
human life. So wide were the ramifications of this brotherhood that, not
only throughout the Moslem world, but in Christian Europe, sudden death,
otherwise unaccountable, was accredited to the Assassins, whose dusky
forms were imagined to move unseen in the bedchambers of princes and to
stand behind thrones. The name “Assassin” is apparently from “hashish,”
the drug with which the murderer stimulated his courage when accepting
the desperate commission from his chief.
Richard, thus relieved of his rival, Conrad, again showed his superior
powers of command. With marvellous celerity he swept over the country,
even to the southern extreme of Palestine, where he captured Dârôm, at
the entrance to Egypt. Saladin was apparently forced to retire within
the walls of Jerusalem. Richard pressed towards the sacred city (June,
1192). Rumors of Saracen destitution and fright came upon every wind.
The crusaders were eager to pluck again the prize of Jerusalem, which
Providence seemed to hang within their reach; but Richard was
incredulous of the weakness of a foe he had always found as strong as
himself, and whom he knew to be his superior in craft. He pointed out to
his followers that at that very moment the Moslem armies, scattered
everywhere among the Judean foot-hills, actually surrounded their own;
that the roads to the city were in places but narrow defiles guarded by
precipitous heights, from which a few could hurl destruction upon many.
To carry siege apparatus through such a country, facing the menace of a
Saladin, was to invoke certain disaster. If repulse should come, what
relief could they find so far away from the coast? How could they ever
hope to make good a retreat to their ships?
The council of knights to whom the matter was referred agreed with their
chief. Richard, with undoubted affliction of his martial pride, if not
of his pious spirit, gave one longing look towards the distant domes of
Jerusalem. He then covered his face with his shield and turned away,
declaring that he was unwilling to gaze upon that which he was unable to
conquer.
The retreat from Jerusalem destroyed Richard’s prestige as a strategist
and capable leader of great enterprises; but nothing ever lessened his
lustre for personal bravery. The lion may be outwitted by the fox; and
it is no deep disgrace to Cœur de Lion that he could not circumvent a
Saladin. Richard vented his disappointment and rage upon many parts of
the Moslem host. Like a wounded lion, he destroyed whatever came within
his reach. One day he annihilated a squadron of seven thousand Infidels;
another time he captured as many camels laden with provision.
Saladin had outgeneralled him at Jaffa and captured that city, with the
exception of the citadel, which promised surrender if succor did not
come within a day. Richard in turn outplayed his rival; he slipped from
the harbor of Acre with a few galleys and surprised the garrison at
Jaffa. Such was the celerity of his approach that the Moslems fled from
the city without having time to strike another blow in its defence.
Having obtained all the glory that was possible from his Eastern
adventure, Richard proposed peace with Saladin. His emirs, equally
wearied with war, urged the reluctant Saladin to accede to the
crusaders’ terms. These were that the Christians should possess all the
coast, except Ascalon, which should remain unoccupied, and that
Jerusalem should be free for the feet of all pilgrims. The compact was
made in the presence of the Koran and the Bible, the silent witnesses of
the oaths taken respectively in the names of Allah and Jehovah. It was
to be faithfully observed, according to some chroniclers, for the space
of three years, three months, three weeks, three days, and three hours—a
suggestion that came from the crusaders’ reverence for the Trinity. The
peace was celebrated by a friendly tournament between chosen Christian
and Moslem champions, in which lances clave through armor and swords
drew life-blood in mere play. The gates of Jerusalem were thrown open
that the warriors of the cross might kneel at the spot where the symbol
of their faith had stood when their God hung upon it, and so return to
Europe having accomplished a holy pilgrimage, if not a successful
warfare.
Thus ended the third crusade, marked by the loss of perhaps a
half-million Europeans, the foremost of emperors, an inestimable amount
of treasure, and the prestige of Christendom as against the onrolling
power of the Moslem world.
Richard returned to Europe (October 9, 1192). He was led to this purpose
not more by his evident inability to found a kingdom in Palestine than
by the necessity of maintaining his kingdom at home. Philip Augustus was
menacing his domain. When this fellow-crusader left Palestine he renewed
his oath with Richard not to commence any hostilities against him during
his absence. It is said that he applied to the Pope for a dispensation
from this vow. If this was not so, his actions showed that its
restrictions were irksome to him. Longchamp, whom Richard had left in
charge of the English government conjointly with the Bishop of Durham,
endeavored to exercise limitless control. Even the mandates of Richard
were disregarded by him. Compelled to flee the country, Longchamp became
the open promoter of Philip’s designs. Philip made war upon Richard’s
possessions in Normandy, and seduced from his allegiance Prince John,
the king’s younger brother, destined to be his successor on the throne.
Richard, not daring to pass through France lest Philip should lay
violent hands upon his person, sailed up the Adriatic. He was
shipwrecked near Aquileia, and in disguise made his way northward
through Austria. But no need of caution could restrain the impulsiveness
of Richard, either in war or in pleasure. Dressed as a pilgrim, he lived
as a prince; his prodigality easily led to his identification. Duke
Leopold of Austria, whose banner he had thrown into the ditch at Acre,
now took occasion to avenge that insult. He arrested Richard and threw
him into prison (1193). The German emperor, Henry VI., also claimed the
royal captive, and secured his person by paying to Leopold sixty
thousand pieces of silver. The chronicler remarks, in the spirit of that
age: “Forewarnings of this calamity had appeared in unusual seasons,
inundations of rivers, awful storms of thunder and rain, with dreadful
lightning.”
England, through Richard’s mother, Eleanor, appealed in vain to the Pope
to intervene, inasmuch as the holy see had guaranteed the humblest—and
surely the noblest—crusader against any detriment from Christians. But
the priests of Rome were politicians, and made no sign. Philip of
France, now in league with Prince John, and relieved of his dread of
Richard, boldly made war in Normandy, where, however, he was repulsed by
Robert of Leicester, a crusader who, more fortunate than his king, had
reached home. Prince John also made an unsuccessful attempt to seat
himself on his brother’s throne.
In the meanwhile Richard chafed in a dungeon where he was loaded with
irons. His perpetual incarceration, or his assassination, being fraught
with too much danger to his captors, it was determined to bring him to
judicial disgrace. He was therefore summoned before the Diet of the
Empire at Worms, and formally accused of crimes of all sorts, such as
having insulted the Duke of Austria, having assassinated Conrad of
Montferrat, having concluded a disgraceful treaty with Saladin. The
royal captive, with marvellous self-restraint for him, deigned to
explain these matters; then he burst out into indignant denunciation of
his captors. The princes of Germany were made ashamed of the ignominy
that in their name had been thrust upon the foremost hero of the age.
Even prelates at length remembered that Richard had remained alone in
Palestine when others were wearied with the defence of the faith.
Henry VI. was forced to release his royal captive. Yet he managed to fix
as his ransom a hundred and fifty thousand marks. This large amount it
was difficult to raise. The churches of England melted their plate;
prelates paid a fourth of their income, the lower clergy a tenth, and
all ranks a commensurate tax. Queen Eleanor in person bore the sum thus
collected to Mayence (1194). Henry, however, could not yet brook his
victim’s escape. Having received the ransom, he ordered Richard’s
rearrest; but the English ship that bore him slipped from the mouth of
the Schelde before the officers could overtake it. Philip of France sent
this ungraceful but timely warning to Prince John: “Take care of
yourself; the devil is broken loose.” One chronicler notes that at the
very hour in which the king landed in England there appeared “a
brilliant and unusual splendor in the heavens, of a very white and red
color, about the length and breadth of a human body.” He also observes
that Duke Leopold of Austria was horribly punished for his cruelty to
Richard. Infernal fires were kindled in his limbs, whose progress he in
vain tried to stay by amputating his own foot with an axe, and at length
expired in dreadful agony. Romance has invented a pleasing story of
Blondel, Richard’s friend and minstrel, who discovered the place of his
king’s imprisonment by singing in its proximity a familiar song, to
which Richard responded. It is true to the times, but the historian
cannot vouch for its basis in fact.
Before Richard reached his throne his great competitor for renown in
arms, Saladin, had passed away (March, 1193). He had retired to
Damascus. A year after the peace, feeling the approach of the last
enemy, and realizing that a greater than Richard was upon him, he
ordered that his burial shroud, instead of his usual standard, should be
carried through all the streets of Damascus, while his herald cried,
“This—this is all that remains of the glory of Saladin, who conquered
the East.”
CHAPTER XXXI.
PALESTINE AFTER THE THIRD CRUSADE—HENRY VI.—SIEGE OF THORON.
After the death of Saladin his empire fell to pieces. Afdhal, his eldest
son, secured the title of Sultan of Damascus; another son, Aziz, that of
Sultan of Egypt; and a third, Dahir, that of Sultan of Aleppo;
Malek-Ahdel, his brother, the rule over Mesopotamia. Afdhal warred upon
Aziz, and Malek-Ahdel took advantage of the reverses of both.
The Christians also fought among themselves. The jealousies of Templars
and Hospitallers were intense. These two orders had, since their
founding early in the century, grown to be powerful organizations, not
only in Palestine, but throughout Europe. They held valuable property in
all lands. Princes, feudal lords, and high dignitaries of the church
were enrolled in their membership. They were rivals everywhere for the
repute of bravery, as well as in wealth and political influence. The
Roman see exempted their members from secular taxation, and even from
religious oversight, except by the Holy Father himself. Their grand
masters were autocratic sovereigns within their orders. Naturally they
became overbearing, intolerant of interference, amenable to no counsel
but their own. Their power bred audacity, and ecclesiastical privileges
fostered the conceit of saintship, which even their crimes could not
tarnish. As they despised the rest of mankind, so the two orders hated
each other as rivals.
The Pope appealed for a new crusade, but could not evoke any popular
response. Richard of England and Philip of France had such mutual
suspicion that neither would leave his domain to the depredations of the
other; and they hated each other too cordially to again unite their arms
in the common cause. A few listened to the Pope’s appeal, among them
Simon de Montfort, afterwards known for his butchery of the Albigenses.
It was reserved for Henry VI., the contemptible persecutor of Richard,
to represent the royalty of Europe in response to the call of the Holy
Father. He emulated the fame of his father, Frederick Barbarossa, whose
ambition he inherited with neither his character nor ability. Not
content with issuing royal mandates, he himself became a preacher of the
holy war (spring of 1195). An army under the Archbishop of Mayence,
which was joined by Queen Margaret of Hungary, moved eastward by way of
the Danube. Another, under the dukes of Saxony and Brabant, left the
ports of the Baltic. Henry marched with a force for Italy, but had his
eye rather on Sicily than Palestine.
The first army reached Acre, and began ravaging the Moslem lands in
spite of the protests of the Christian inhabitants, who could not bring
themselves to so shameful a breach of treaty. Instantly the divisions of
the Infidels were healed. From Egypt, Damascus, and Mesopotamia, the
Moslems rallied to Jerusalem. Assigning command to Malek-Ahdel, they
took summary vengeance upon the invaders. Jaffa fell at once into their
hands.
The second army of Christians, having made the voyage down the Atlantic
and through the Mediterranean, landed at Beirut and inflicted a crushing
defeat upon Malek-Ahdel, who had advanced from Jaffa to oppose its
progress.
Henry VI. busied himself in Sicily until he had secured that country,
and with it restored the imperial preponderance in the affairs of Italy.
This he accomplished through the perpetration of barbarities from which
the Turks would have recoiled, and in which the Greeks at Constantinople
were his only competitors. He put out the eyes of the son of Tancred,
ruler of Cyprus, and stole his daughters. With the instinct of a ghoul,
he dug up the body of Tancred in order to strip from it the badge of
dead royalty. When he had satisfied his remorseless ambition in this
section, he allowed the remnant of his army to proceed to Palestine for
the succor of their brethren. He engaged to keep a force of fifty
thousand in the Holy Land for one year at his own expense. The third
army was led by Conrad, Bishop of Hildesheim, chancellor of the empire.
Thus augmented, the Christians in the East were enthusiastic for the
recapture of Jerusalem; but the coming of winter, the well-known
strengthening of the fortifications about the Holy City, and, above all,
the dissensions among the rival leaders, who cared more for the maritime
cities, with their treasures, than for a place whose chief glory was its
sacredness, led to the postponement of the enterprise until the spring.
An assault upon Thoron occupied them meanwhile. The fortress of Thoron,
between the Lebanons and the Mediterranean, was the great menace to the
ambition of the invaders. This stronghold was on the top of a mountain,
and guarded from hostile approach by precipitous walls and deep ravines.
Its seeming impregnability did not daunt the spirit of the crusaders;
they bridged chasms and dug into cliffs, until they thoroughly
undermined the masonry of the fortress.
The Moslems, realizing their extremity, proposed to capitulate on simply
being guaranteed their lives. The proposition divided the Christian
leaders, the majority being willing to accept this condition of
surrender; but many, overcome by their passion for blood, voted to give
no quarter. The attitude of this latter party in the conference
convinced the Moslem deputies that the lives of their people would not
be safe even under the sacredness of an agreement, an impression which
was confirmed by the remembrance of past occasions when the Christians
won the name of truce-breakers. Believing that they had nothing to hope
for, the Moslems resolved to fight it out. In vain did the more moderate
among the besiegers assure them of protection. The broken ramparts were
repaired, or the gaps filled with solid ranks of soldiers who with
upraised swords invoked the judgment of Allah. They countermined, and
met their assailants in subterranean passages. The Saxon miners who
entered these shafts often reappeared in the hands of captors upon the
walls, whence they were hurled by the engines through the air, to fall
dead in the camp they had left. The desperate valor of the Moslems
depressed the hosts which but yesterday were waiting to bathe their
victorious swords in the blood of the victims. The chiefs accused one
another of cowardice and treachery. The miserable rivalry led them one
by one to desert and retire to the coast. One day, when the orders for
general assault had been issued, the various divisions found themselves
without leaders and without plans. Disorder was followed by panic,
augmented by the report that Malek-Ahdel had been joined by Aziz, the
son of Saladin and Sultan of Egypt, and that soon this force would be
upon them. A furious tempest swept over the mountain. Their superstition
heard in the thunders the malediction of heaven, and saw in the freshets
which obliterated the paths the vengeance of nature for their having
turned aside from the conquest of Jerusalem. The Germans made a wretched
flight for Jaffa; the Syrian Christians huddled themselves into Acre.
Malek-Ahdel quickly assaulted Jaffa, and, though repulsed, left the
dukes of Saxony and Brabant dead upon the field.
News soon came of the death of the Emperor Henry VI. (September 28,
1197). The German chieftains hastened their return to Europe in order to
secure their individual interests with the successor to the imperial
throne. In vain did the Pope protest against the desertion of the pious
cause. A woman, Queen Margaret of Hungary, alone remained with her
soldiers on the sacred soil. The remnant left at Jaffa were surprised
during a roisterous and drunken celebration of the feast of St. Martin,
and were massacred almost to a man by the Moslems.
Thus terminated what some writers denominate the fourth crusade, but
which surely deserves no such designation. It was a European raid in
which the religious motive scarcely evidenced itself except in the fact
that it was proclaimed by a Pope. The thirty ounces of gold which Henry
VI. promised to each of his soldiers seem to have been more influential
over their minds than even the desire to pray at the Holy Sepulchre. The
movement inspired new confidence in the prowess of the Moslems,
confirming their own belief in the invincibility of their Prophet, and
exciting a query throughout the Christian world, if Christ had not
deserted His people because of their sins.
THE FOURTH CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XXXII.
HISTORY AND CONDITION OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
In the year 395 the Roman world was divided into the empires of the East
and the West, and Constantinople became the rival capital of that on the
Tiber. Eighty-one years later (476) Odoacer, the barbarian, sacked Rome
and brought to an end the Western Empire, from which time Constantinople
claimed the sole heirship to the power of the Cæsars. In 800 Charlemagne
reëstablished the imperial power in western Europe, but within fifty
years it again fell to pieces in the hands of his less puissant sons.
The Greek emperors and people assumed the title of Romans. Their capital
was called New Rome.
There had occurred a similar breach between the Roman and Greek
churches. A doctrinal divergence had assumed irreconcilable proportions
in the sixth century. The controversy centred chiefly in the question of
whether the Holy Spirit proceeded equally from the Father and the Son,
or solely from the Father; the Roman Church maintaining the former
dogma, as expressed by the addition of the word “Filioque” to the Nicene
Creed, the Greek Church repudiating it. Many minor differences of
doctrine and discipline were also generated. Ecclesiastical separation
followed. After generations of wrangling, the Pope’s legates shook the
dust from their feet and departed from Constantinople, leaving on the
altar of St. Sophia a writ of excommunication and anathema. Thus the
last tie between the two peoples was sundered.
From 867 to 1057 the Basilian dynasty steadily compacted the power,
developed the governmental system, augmented the wealth, and extended
the area of the Greek empire. From 1057, however, under the dynasty of
the Comneni, Greek prestige has steadily declined. The strength of its
dominion had been largely due to the preservation of a municipal and
provincial spirit, a virtual independence of its various communities,
each seeking its own welfare, while all maintained their loyalty to the
central authority. Under the later Basilians ambitious emperors adopted
the policy of absorbing all the local rights into their personal
control. The Comneni continued this fatal policy, but their hands were
not strong enough to retain what they had grasped. The occupants of the
Greek throne were weak men. The names of Isaac, Michael, Nicephorus, and
Alexius are those of pygmies compared with the German emperors and the
popes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Indeed, in the East the art
of statesmanship had been lost. The rulers of Constantinople were
intriguers, not diplomats. With them dissimulation took the place of
caution, trickery that of courage, and prosperity was measured only by
the number and value of the royal perquisites. The Oriental practice of
farming the revenue was the easiest method of obtaining income. He was
regarded as the wisest administrator who squeezed the largest amount
from the unwilling people. Officers were commissioned without salary or
even provision for their expenses, it being expected that they would
first of all feather their own nests. Even an emperor is accused of
fitting out vessels for piracy upon his own seas.
The personal character of the later Greek monarchs was equally
despicable with their system of government. Alexius Comnenus spent his
time in play. Andronicus was chiefly renowned for the magnificence of
his horse-shows, attendance at which was varied by drunken debauches and
acts of cowardly cruelty. Isaac was noted for the wasteful extravagance
of his table, the frequent changes of his apparel, and the peacock
magnificence of his public appearances. It is said that madmen were held
in honor as being under the special direction of Heaven, and it would
seem from their conduct that the emperors were ambitious to secure this
sole mark of the divine favor.
Such rulers, having lost the respect, could not hold the loyalty of
their subjects. The people no longer responded to the calls of the
throne for aid in the war-fields. Indeed, the independent peasant class,
having been reduced to virtual slavery, were more ready to admit a
change of rulers than to risk their lives for the support of such as
they had. The emperors were thus compelled to surround themselves with
mercenaries whom they hired in foreign countries. Slavonians, Italians,
Warings (Saxons who were crowded out of England by the recent Norman
conquest), filled the armies and oppressed the citizens. The Greek navy
was composed chiefly of Venetian bottoms, and manned by water-dogs from
every seaport in Europe. To these elements of decrepitude we must add
the ceaseless strife for occupancy of the imperial throne. During the
quarter-century ending with 1200 there were more claimants than there
were years.
This internal weakness of the Byzantine or Greek empire left it largely
the prey of enemies from without. Ever since their first irruption from
their original home in central Asia the Turks had menaced the imperial
provinces. They succeeded in wresting vast lands, and in either driving
out their Christian inhabitants or making them tributary to the cause of
Islam. Asia Minor was lost to the Greek, and the Moslem negotiated with
his foe from the banks of the Bosporus. During the twelfth century
scarcely a year passed which did not witness some battle between the
Byzantines and the Turks. Defeated by the crusaders, these quick-moving
hordes of the East found redress in ravaging some part of the empire.
When victorious in Syria they echoed their joy in new battle-shouts in
the direction of the Greek capital. Their swords dripped blood on the
shores of the Marmora and the Black Sea almost as frequently as on the
fields of Syria. In 1185 the emperor was compelled to purchase immunity
from attack by paying tribute to the Sultan of Iconium, and even to call
in the assistance of Saladin to secure him from the aggressions of other
Moslem hordes.
The Huns also assailed the Byzantine power. In 1184 Maria, dowager
empress at Constantinople, was put to death for having engaged these
ruthless people, under their king, Bela, to invade the empire.
Bulgarians, Patchinaks, Turkomans, Wallachs, and Servians raided in turn
the Balkan peninsula.
The crusaders also, with their enormous armies and the pilgrim hordes
that followed them, made the Greek lines their camping-ground, their
forage-fields, and their battle-sites, until Constantinople dreaded
these fellow-Christians as much as it feared the Infidels. Richard of
England took Cyprus from the Greeks and ultimately gave it to the
Templars. Henry VI. of Germany forced from the emperor five thousand
pounds of gold, as the price of the immunity of his lands from the
ravages of Western armies. The imperial treasury was so depleted that
the churches of Constantinople were rifled to raise what was thus called
the “German tax.”
Beyond the actual aggressions of the Latin Christians upon their Greek
brethren there was developed a deeper menace in the hatred which had
sprung up between the two peoples. Throughout Europe the eagerness to
exterminate the Moslems was almost matched by a purpose to subjugate the
Greek power. For this antipathy there were other and special occasions,
some of which we will narrate.
The Normans, who, under Robert Guiscard, had in 1062 conquered Sicily,
were the inveterate foes of Constantinople. Robert and his son,
Bohemond, invaded Epirus and Thessaly. In 1107 Bohemond repeated the
attempt to capture the western borders of the empire. In 1130 Roger of
Sicily made alliance with the German emperor for the same purpose.
William, son of Roger, in 1156 pillaged Corfu, Corinth, and some of the
Ægean Islands, and sent a fleet to parade his insults in the Bosporus
and Golden Horn, where his sailors shot gilded arrows against the very
palace walls.
About 1180 the Emperor Andronicus cruelly massacred the Latins in
Constantinople, dragging the sick from their beds in the hospital of St.
John, and decapitating the papal envoy, Cardinal John, whose head was
tied to a dog’s tail and dragged about the streets. William II. of
Sicily appointed a certain Tancred, his agent, to avenge these
atrocities. Tancred sacked Salonica and ravaged Macedonia and Thrace. In
1194 Henry, King of Sicily, claimed all these lands and held Irene,
daughter of the Emperor Isaac, as hostage. Thus the Sicilians were
always ready to leap at the throat of the Greek empire in sheer
vengeance, if not with thirst for the blood of spoil.
Another menace to the Eastern Empire was from the Italians, who were
represented by large colonies throughout the imperial territories, and
even in the capital itself, where they enjoyed for a time exceptional
privileges, such as being directly governed by their own ambassadors,
having favored rates of tariff on their commerce, often amounting to
free trade, and at times receiving high appointments in the service of
the empire. Yet these prosperous conditions were frequently interrupted
by quarrels with the Greeks, reaching on occasions to civil war within
the walls of the capital. Pisan and Genoese pirates ravaged the Ægean,
and even blockaded the Dardanelles against the passage of Greek ships.
In 1198 these freebooters defeated the imperial navy.
Venice, however, was the most formidable of these rivals for power
within the empire, as she had been at times the most favored nation. In
1171 the Venetians attacked Dalmatia and pillaged the Ægean, until they
were forced by herculean efforts of the Greek government to sue for
peace. Henry Dandolo conducted the mission for treaty, and during his
stay in Constantinople became blind. It is asserted by the Venetians
that his affliction was due to torture perpetrated upon him by command
of the emperor. It was a common practice of the Greeks to destroy the
sight of those they would render impotent to do them harm. This ancient
punishment was called abacination; the process was that of forcing the
victim to gaze into a basin of highly polished metal, which by its shape
concentrated the rays of sunlight and constituted a burning-mirror.
Whether this is the true explanation of his blindness or not, it is
certain that Dandolo ever after displayed an absorbing passion to wreak
vengeance upon the Greek power, and we shall find him foremost among its
foes in the fatal expedition called the fourth crusade.
But, aside from these inducements, the wealth of the city offered to the
covetous a prize second to none in the world. The situation of
Constantinople on the narrow highway of the Bosporus or Strait of St.
George, which connects the Black Sea with the Mediterranean, made it
mistress of the maritime commerce between Europe and Asia. Neighboring
countries contributed by their very geographical relation to the power
on the Bosporus. The Balkan peninsula, terminating in the classic land
of Greece, and fringed with the islands of the Ægean and the Adriatic;
the eastern provinces of Europe, drained by the Danube, whose mouth was
hard by; Russia from the Siberian snows to the temperate climate of the
Euxine; Asia Minor, the seat of ancient civilization in the middle
Orient, even to the entrance of Persia; the Holy Land, and the fertile
valley of the Nile—each of these, in extent and population enough for an
empire, and all of them lying in easy accessibility, fitted
Constantinople to be the natural capital of the greatest power in the
world.
Its immediate site, too, was inviting. Enthroned upon magnificent hills,
with the harbor of the Golden Horn as a safe refuge for its fleets, and
a salubrious climate assured by the perpetual breeze from either of the
great seas which lay at its feet, it was the especial abode of comfort
and splendor. In its stately palaces, churches, and public squares was
preserved the best art inherited from the ancient world, for which the
temples of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, and the isles of the Mediterranean
had been rifled. Its merchants lived with the splendor of princes,
dwelling in palatial homes, adorning themselves with most costly robes
and rarest gems, and clothing even their horses with gold. To outrank
their subjects in splendor, princes lived in houses whose columns and
walls were sheathed in golden plates. The palaces of Blachern and
Bucolion were furnished with incredible treasures.
The Church of St. Sophia, says Benjamin of Tudela (1161), was richer
than “all other places of worship in the world.” To its magnificence
Ephesus had contributed eight pillars from the temple of Diana;
Aurelian’s Roman temple of the sun, eight columns of porphyry; the
temples of the Nile, twenty-four columns of polished granite. Its
vestries contained “forty-two thousand robes embroidered with pearls and
precious stones.” But St. Sophia was only one of many churches whose
golden domes flashed over the Bosporus. Other structures vied with the
temples. The hippodrome was nine hundred feet long, lined with tiers of
white marble seats, from which the spectators, in the intervals of the
races, admired the four horses in bronze which now surmount the entrance
of St. Mark’s in Venice. Columns, statues, baths innumerable, feasted
the eyes or invited the indulgence of the citizens.
Even more tempting to the covetous piety of the western Europeans were
the stores of sacred relics possessed by the churches and monasteries.
It was believed that more than half the objects of veneration associated
with dead saints throughout the world were in case or crypt within
Constantinople; and the common faith attributed to the army of saints
thus honored, and whose ghosts were presumably guarding their bones, the
preservation of the city during so many generations. Most of these
relics had been purchased at or stolen from their original
resting-places in different parts of the East; but many undoubtedly were
manufactured to gratify the credulity of the foreigners who thronged the
bazaars.
To the treasures of the capital itself must be added the wealth of the
territory subject to it. Western Europe, as we have seen, had been
impoverished by generations of feudal control; district had warred upon
district until the spoil was insufficient to evoke further forays. In
marked contrast, the Greek lands had been measurably protected by having
a central government. The ground was well tilled; many handicrafts were
developed. Instead of feudal towers, shadowing the lower classes with
desolation, were well-filled granaries and storehouses of goods. Fair
roads invited intercourse of adjacent communities; and at a time when
robbers infested the suburbs of every town, and lay in wait in every
forest of Europe, the shores of the Bosporus and the eastern end of the
Marmora were enlivened with cosey cottages and pleasant villas. The
Westerner cast envious glances about him whenever he passed the
beautiful city on the strait, and the early crusaders paused to wonder
if it would not pay them as well to extirpate the Greek heresies as to
slaughter the Moslems. This inquiry was keener from the fact that on
every side, as has been narrated, they saw evidences of weakness. While
amazed at the prosperity, they thought of the opportunities offered to
the sword.
The most envious eyes turned upon the Greek lands were those of the
blind old Dandolo. This remarkable man had become doge of Venice in
1192, at the age of seventy-two (some say eighty-two), and was to close
his octogenarian period with a series of exploits which might have been
the envy of the most daring and ambitious youth. To understand the final
diversion of the fourth crusade from its original religious purpose, we
must not lose sight of Dandolo’s sleepless purpose. This was not
recognized at the time, but is abundantly illustrated by the subsequent
events of the crusade, and confirmed by documents which have but
recently come to light.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SUMMONS TO THE FOURTH CRUSADE—CONTRACT WITH VENICE—EGYPT THE
DESTINATION—PHILIP OF SWABIA.
In the year 1198 there came to the papal throne Innocent III., one of
the most astute, tireless, and ambitious of the pontiffs, and, to those
who accept the righteousness of the hierarchical supremacy over the
world, one of the best. The failure of recent enterprises in Palestine
afflicted Innocent’s soul. He announced to the titular Patriarch of
Jerusalem his purpose of massing Europe in another endeavor. His summons
sounded over Christendom: “Arise, ye faithful; arise, gird on the sword
and buckler; arise and hasten to the help of Jesus Christ. He Himself
will lead your banner to victory.” The Pope sent his prelates everywhere
to bid princes cease their mutual quarrels and unite in the common
cause. To all who obeyed he gave the usual promise, in the name of God,
of remission of sins. He especially entreated sinners to mark with the
badge of the cross their moral reformation, and the saintly disposed to
thus add new adornment to their crown of glory. His own earnestness was
illustrated by his melting the gold and silver dishes in his palace into
marketable metal, and replacing them with vessels of clay or wood.
Foreseeing a lack of money for the holy emprise, he bade Christian
people borrow from the Jews, who should be compelled to lend without
interest. If such help of the Lord did not procure any positive blessing
to this accursed people, it would at least prevent the penalty of the
total destruction of their business, which was threatened in case of
their not complying. Even the hated Greeks were to be allowed some part
in this holy warfare. In his appeals to the Emperor Alexius the Pope
predicts, “The pagans will flee before you;” and promises, “You yourself
will share with the others in the pontifical favors.” Lest the heretical
emperor should not feel the need of such patronage, Innocent reminds him
that God had said to the Roman pontiff what He had said of old to
Jeremiah: “I have placed thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to
root out, and to pull down, to waste, and to destroy, to build, and to
plant.” He further compares himself to the sun, and secular princes to
the moon, which shines in borrowed light. The emperor in reply, with
perhaps a premonition of what was about to transpire, reminded the Pope
of the ravages which Western crusaders were accustomed to inflict upon
his realm, and begged him to first rebuke the crimes which these zealots
for God were disposed to perpetrate against their fellow-men.
At this time a French priest, Fulque, was filling the land with his fame
for eloquence. Crowds thronged to his services in the churches and
fields. He denounced sin with the power of an Elijah, and comforted the
penitent with the sweetness of a St. John. He adapted himself
marvellously to all men, leading the lordly profligate to repent at the
incensed altar, and making the boorish peasants kiss the stick with
which he beat them to be quiet as they crowded about him in the fields.
Pope Innocent enlarged this zealot’s commission to be that of another
Peter the Hermit, or Bernard, in preaching the crusade.
Among Fulque’s first converts was Count Theobald of Champagne, to whom
over two thousand knights did homage as his vassals. He was chosen to
command the French contingent. Louis of Chartres and Blois followed, and
soon a host was enrolled representing the nobility and wealth of France.
Among these was Villehardouin, Marshal of Champagne, to whom we are
largely indebted as the historian of the events we are about to narrate.
Germany also answered the call. But for the death of Richard of England
(April, 1199), this hero would doubtless have been chosen to lead the
combined host with an English army. The Venetians do not seem to have
volunteered any help; perhaps it was not anticipated. The Pope, in his
call for the crusade, had expressly forbidden Venice to furnish the
Saracens with iron, ropes, wood, arms, ships, or munitions of war; for
in the previous holy adventures they had not regarded trade with the
Infidels as infringing upon their Christian duty.
The military leaders already chosen were averse to another overland
march to the East, since every interjacent country was marked with the
disasters of previous armies; they therefore decided to go by sea. The
commissioners having charge of the expedition therefore sent messengers
to Venice, as the chief maritime power in the West, to negotiate with
Dandolo for transportation of men and furnishing of provisions. After a
week’s deliberation the Council of Venice made answer. Dandolo proposed,
the people approving, that the republic should provide the required
vessels and a definite amount of food, and also an independent fleet,
which Dandolo said he would send “for the love of God.” He, however,
required in payment for such equipment and service eighty-five thousand
silver marks, and that half the cities and lands conquered should fall
to the Venetian possession. This was eagerly agreed to by the
commissioners.
A general assembly was convoked in St. Mark’s in Venice (April, 1201).
Mass was celebrated to secure Heaven’s blessing upon the compact.
Villehardouin thus addressed the people: “The lords and barons of
France, the most high and the most powerful, have sent us to you to pray
you in the name of God to take pity on Jerusalem, which the Turks hold
in bondage. They cry to you for mercy and supplicate you to accompany
them to avenge the disgrace of Jesus Christ. They have made choice of
you because they know that no people that be upon the sea have such
powers as your nation. They have commanded us to throw ourselves at your
feet and not to rise until you shall have granted our prayer.” The
commissioners fell upon their knees and raised their hands in
supplication to the people. The crowd caught the enthusiasm and cried,
“We grant your request.” Dandolo himself overflowed with pious, not to
say politic, emotion. This spectacle of fraternal union in the cause of
Christ drew from all eyes “tears of tenderness and joy.” The Pope, to
whom the compact was submitted, ratified it with the strict condition
that under no circumstances should an attack be made upon any Christian
state.
It was deemed best to land the crusading armies at Alexandria in Egypt;
the voyage thither would be unmolested. Besides, a series of events had
taken place in Egypt which led many to see the hand of Providence
pointing to that country. In 1200 the Nile had for some mysterious cause
failed to give its annual inundation; harvests had failed; famine
afflicted the inhabitants, who were reduced to feeding upon grass, the
dung of animals, and even the carcasses of their fellow-victims. At
Cairo women, in the insanity of starvation, had killed and eaten their
own children. To famine succeeded plague; one hundred and eleven
thousand died of it at Cairo. The unburied lay everywhere; a fisherman
counted four hundred corpses that floated by him during a single day.
The wrappings of dead bodies were as numerous on the waters of the Nile
as lotus flowers in their season. In the language of an Arabian, “The
most populous provinces were as a banqueting-hall for the birds of
prey.” The Roman pontiff urged Europe to take the opportunity of these
terrible visitations to break the treaties between Christians and
Moslems and occupy the land of the Delta. To this advice the military
leaders added the less inhuman consideration that Alexandria would
afford a ready entrepôt for supplies from the West, and a convenient
point from which to strike the enemy; at the same time it would enable
the crusaders to sever the Eastern Infidels from their Saracen
coreligionists along the North African coast. Egypt was thus chosen as
the immediate destination of the crusade.
Shortly after the ratification of the Venetian compact with the
crusaders, Theobald of Champagne, the chosen commander, died. Boniface
of Montferrat was chosen in his stead. The first movement of Boniface is
suggestive in view of the sequel. He spent several months at the court
of Philip of Swabia, the rival of Otho for the German throne. Philip had
married the daughter of Isaac Angelus, a deposed emperor of
Constantinople, who had been blinded by his successor and was now a
captive. A son of Isaac, “young Alexius,” as he was called, to
distinguish him from the reigning monarch of the same name, a lad of
twelve years, was led about by the Emperor Alexius to grace his triumph.
Young Alexius eluded the vigilance of his keepers and, disguised as a
common sailor, or, as some say, in a box as freight, made his way to
Italy and eventually to the court of his brother-in-law, Philip of
Swabia. Philip was undoubtedly pledged by his own interests, as well as
by vengeance on behalf of his kinsman, to forward the project of young
Alexius for the restoration of Isaac to the throne of Constantinople.
Boniface, the commander of the crusaders, was a relative of Philip. He
had also family alliances with the throne of Constantinople. One of his
brothers, Conrad, had married Theodora, a sister of Isaac; another,
Reynier, had married Maria, a daughter of the Emperor Manuel. As the
heir of this latter brother, Boniface regarded himself as _de jure_ King
of Salonica. That he was not averse to the project of Philip and young
Alexius is proved by the fact that on leaving Philip he went to Rome and
endeavored to induce the Pope to declare himself in favor of young
Alexius as a contestant for the throne of Constantinople against the
reigning monarch. It is well to keep these facts in mind if one would
understand the depth of the plot which subsequent events exposed.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE PLOT FOR THE DIVERSION OF THE CRUSADE—CAPTURE OF ZARA.
The grand departure of the crusaders from Venice had been fixed for
June, 1202. At that time but a part of the leaders appeared. Some had
taken ship from Bari, Genoa, and even the ports on the Northern Ocean,
as served their convenience or as they were able to make better terms
than with the Venetians. Of four thousand expected knights, but one
thousand had arrived; of one hundred thousand men, less than sixty
thousand; of the eighty-five thousand marks pledged for passage, but
thirty-four thousand were in hand. Dandolo protested against this as
breach of faith with him, and pointed to his fleet, waiting, manned and
provisioned, in the harbor. He demanded the immediate payment of the
entire sum. In vain had the crusaders sent what they could to the ducal
palace—money, vessels of silver and gold, jewels, and securities on
their lands. The doge declared, according to Robert de Clari, who was in
this army, “If you do not pay, understand well that you will not move
from this spot, nor will you find any one who will furnish you with meat
and drink.” The crusading army thus found itself a crowd of starving
prisoners on a fever-fraught island near Venice. In the heat of the
summer many sickened and died; others managed to escape. Those who
remained communicated with friends in France and induced a few more
knights and nobles to join them. But with this assistance, and though
the richest of them had stripped themselves of possessions until nothing
but horses and armor were left, the debt was unpaid.
Having gotten from them all that was possible, Dandolo assumed the rôle
of friendship and proposed to forgive the remainder of their obligation
upon condition of first receiving their help as soldiers in an
expedition against Zara, which he had in contemplation. The city of Zara
was Christian, the capital of Dalmatia, a province of Hungary, and just
across the Adriatic from Venice. It was rapidly rising into the position
of a competitor for the commerce of those waters, and thus excited the
greed of the doge.
But a richer prize than Zara was before the ambition of the Venetian
ruler. From the beginning of his negotiations with the crusaders he
doubtless contemplated the diversion of these forces, though collected
in the name of religion, to the conquest of the Greek empire. Documents
that have recently come to light make it clear that Dandolo had no
purpose of assisting in war against Egypt and Palestine, but, in
collusion with Boniface and Philip of Swabia, planned and executed one
of the most marvellous schemes of perfidy that history portrays.
As the basis of this severe judgment we must be content to give the
dates of certain events.
February 1, 1201, commissioners of the crusaders arrive in Venice,
asking Dandolo’s assistance with the fleet.
Autumn, 1201, Dandolo sends agents to Malek-Ahdel, of Egypt, proposing a
settled peace with him.
May 13, 1202, Dandolo concludes secret treaty with Malek-Ahdel, in
accordance with which the Venetians are to have favored quarters in
Alexandria for trade, and all pilgrims to Jerusalem who come under
Venetian patronage are to be forwarded with safety.
June 24, 1202, crusaders arrive in Venice, and Dandolo refuses to
provide them ships.
July, 1202, treaty between Dandolo and Malek-Ahdel formally ratified.
With these layers of the foundation we may understand the superstructure
of after events. The proposal to attack Zara thus appears as the first
movement in realizing the plot to divert the Christian forces from
Egypt. Vainly did the noblest of the crusaders protest against this
sacrilegious use of arms which had been consecrated only to the service
of the cross. In vain did Pope Innocent denounce it with his divine
authority. Dandolo relentlessly pursued his advantage, and with such
consummate tact that the cardinal legate of the Pope, Peter Capuano,
expressed himself convinced that it would be less of a sin to take part
in the capture of Zara, and then pursue the original object of the
crusade, than to return home having done nothing. Dandolo completed the
delusion he was practising upon the people by allowing himself to be led
up the pulpit of St. Mark’s (August 25th), where he thus addressed the
Venetians: “I am old and infirm; as you see, I have need of rest; yet I
know of no one more capable of taking command of your undertaking than
myself. If you desire it, I will myself take the cross and go with you
and the pilgrims for life and death.” The assembly cried, “Come with us
for God’s sake!” Dandolo was then led to the altar, and, while his
agents were signing the compact with the Infidel, knelt amid the tears
and huzzas of his people to have the cross fastened upon his ducal
bonnet. The papal legate indeed protested against any one posing as the
head of the armies summoned by the Pope who did not acknowledge the
pontiff’s leadership through his representative, but Dandolo read him a
lesson on the duty of ecclesiastics to content themselves with preaching
the gospel and setting a godly example to the flock.
Villehardouin narrates at this point “a great wonder, an unhoped-for
circumstance, the strangest that ever was heard of.” This event was the
arrival in Venice of the ambassadors of young Alexius, asking in the
name of justice and humanity the aid of the Venetians in the liberation
of his father and the restoration of his own princely rights at
Constantinople. It is evident that Villehardouin’s surprise was not
shared by either Dandolo or Boniface of Montferrat.
October 8th the fleet sailed from the lagoons. It consisted of four
hundred and eighty ships. It was a gala-day: palaces and storehouses
were covered with brilliant banners and streamers; the guilds rivalled
one another in the gorgeousness of their flags, floats, and various
insignia. The ships were arrayed in responsive glory as one by one they
glided out to sea. About the bulwarks of each vessel were hung the
polished shields of the knights it carried. The doge’s galley was
vermilion-hued, the color of royalty. The sound of silver trumpets
echoed the lapping of the waves as the fleet moved out upon the
Adriatic, while the ancient hymn, “Veni, Creator Spiritus,” was chanted
by priests and monks from the crosstrees of the ships.
Pausing at Trieste, the fleet on November 11th entered and captured the
harbor of Zara. The citizens at first proposed to surrender if their
lives should be spared; but later, learning of the Pope’s mandate
forbidding the crusaders to attack their fellow-Christians, and assuming
that it would suffice for their protection, they withdrew the offer.
Dandolo ordered an assault. Many of the crusaders refused to obey his
order. At a council in the tent of the doge, the Abbot of Vaux
exclaimed, “I forbid you, in the name of the Pope, to attack this city.
It is a city of Christian men, and you are soldiers of the cross.” This
bold speech nearly cost him his life. Dandolo braved the threat of
excommunication and assailed the walls. In five days (November 24, 1202)
Zara fell. The people were pillaged, many were banished, some beheaded,
and others mercifully allowed to flee, leaving their houses and goods to
the captors. Dandolo proposed to divide the city as common spoil and to
enjoy its comforts for the winter. His purpose was too evident; it was
to take time to effectually establish the Venetian control on the
eastern shore of the Adriatic.
The crusaders were made aware that they had been used as cat’s-paws for
the doge’s chestnuts. To disappointment succeeded remorse. They began to
meditate upon the papal excommunication they had so foolishly provoked.
The Venetians, meanwhile, managed to get the larger part of the spoil,
and the soldiers were often suffering while their allies were feasting.
This led to continual fighting in the streets, where more fell than had
been slain during the siege. The more valiant longed for service against
the Infidel, not against Christians; the commoner souls longed for home.
Desertions took place in bands of hundreds and even thousands. The
French leaders humbly petitioned the Pope’s forgiveness. It was granted
on condition of their setting out for Syria, “without turning to the
right or left.” The Holy Father pledged them his care if they
immediately obeyed, and promised, “In order that you may not want for
provisions, we will write to the Emperor of Constantinople to furnish
them; if that be refused it will not be unjust if, after the example of
many holy persons, you take provisions wherever you may find them.” This
permission to pillage the Pope extenuates by adding, “Provided it be
with the fear of God, without doing harm to any person, and with a
resolution to make restitution.” At the same time he argues for the
righteousness of taking other’s goods without their permission: “For it
will be known that you are devoted to the cause of Christ, to whom all
the world belongs.”
This papal intervention jeopardized the schemes of the Venetians; but,
very opportunely for those opposed to the Pope’s counsel, there arrived
at Zara ambassadors from Philip of Swabia, the brother-in-law of young
Alexius. In their address they said: “We do not come for the purpose of
turning you aside from your holy enterprise, but to offer you an easy
and sure means of accomplishing your noble designs.... We propose to you
to turn your victorious arms towards the capital of Greece, which groans
under the rod of a usurper, and to assure yourselves forever of the
conquest of Jerusalem by that of Constantinople.... We will not tell you
how easy a matter it would be to wrest the empire from the hands of a
tyrant hated by his subjects; nor will we spread before your eyes the
riches of Byzantium and Greece.... If you overturn the power of the
usurper in order that the legitimate sovereign may reign, the son of
Isaac [young Alexius] promises, under the faith of oaths the most
inviolable, to maintain during a year both your fleet and your army, and
to pay you two hundred thousand silver marks towards the expenses of the
holy war. He will accompany you in person in the conquest of Syria or
Egypt, and will furnish ten thousand men, and maintain during his whole
life five hundred knights in the Holy Land.” Then followed a clause
which was supposed to catch the consciences of the most pious: “Alexius
is willing to swear on the holy Gospels that he will put an end to the
heresy which now defiles the Empire of the East, and will subject the
Greek Church to the Church of Rome.”
The proposal did not carry to all conviction of its wisdom and justice.
The Franks had reason to suspect the good faith of the Greeks. Blind
Isaac, whom they were called upon to restore to his throne, had been
himself a usurper, as unjust to his predecessor as his successor had
been to him, and, moreover, had done everything in his power to defeat
the previous crusades. But the Venetian influence prevailed.
CHAPTER XXXV.
ON TO CONSTANTINOPLE—CAPTURE OF GALATA.
The Venetians and crusaders left Zara in ruins, its palaces and walls
razed to the ground. They sailed for Corfu. Dandolo and Boniface waited
five days until they were joined by young Alexius. These chiefs paused
at Durazzo, where the inhabitants were led to recognize Alexius as the
lawful heir to the sovereignty, and on May 4, 1203, they joined the army
before Corfu.
Here there was developed great dissatisfaction among the soldiers as the
full meaning of the diversion of the crusade burst upon them. More than
half the army rose in rebellion; they held their parliament of protest;
the leaders were gathered in a secluded valley preparatory to desertion.
It seemed for the moment that conscience and piety, fanned by
resentment, would triumph over chicanery and deceit; but Dandolo and
Boniface were equal to the situation. They threw themselves at the feet
of the malcontents, shed abundance of tears, and so wrought upon the
sympathies of the multitude that they effected a compromise, by which it
was agreed that the army should hold together until Michaelmas and serve
Alexius’s project, and after that should be carried to Syria.
Dandolo realized that there was no security for his schemes with such a
host, except by their quick accomplishment. May 23d the harbor of Corfu
witnessed a repetition of the gala-scene when the fleet left Venice. Far
as the eye could reach the sea was colored with the sails of the
invaders of a Christian empire in the name of Christ. The inhabitants of
the islands touched by the voyagers, impressed with the martial might
thus displayed, threw off their allegiance to the reigning Alexius and
waved their banners for Alexius the Young. The natural beauties of the
Ægean, the riches of the islands, the acquiescence of the people, and
the abundant gifts from fields and vineyards that loaded the vessels
filled all hearts with enthusiasm. By the shores of ancient Troy, up
through the Dardanelles, where they lingered a week to ravage the
harvest, and then over the wide Marmora they sped onward as if the very
breezes articulated benedictions from Heaven. If conscience intruded,
its mutterings were silenced with the thought, “After this, after
Constantinople, when we shall have been sated with the spoil of the
heretic, then for Jerusalem!” This mingled greed and piety burst into
huzzas as they sailed by the beautiful villas which lined the western
shores of the Marmora or watched the steadily enlarging roofs and
gardens of Chalcedon and Scutari on the Asiatic side, until the domes
and palaces of Constantinople, in multitude and massiveness beyond
anything seen elsewhere in Europe, seemed to rise and welcome them.
But the mighty walls, which appeared to have been erected by Titans and
rivalled the hills upon which the city sat, awakened a corresponding
fear lest the glory they witnessed should prove beyond their possession.
“Be sure,” says Villehardouin, “there was not a man who did not tremble,
because never was so great an enterprise undertaken by so small a number
of men.”
June 23d the fleet came to anchor off the Abbey of San Stefano, twelve
miles below the city. Dandolo determined upon a reconnaissance in force
which should also strike terror into the Greeks by its magnificent
display. All the standards were spread to the breeze. The sides of the
ships were sheathed in glowing shields. The warriors of the West stood
on the deck, each one, says Nicetas, the Greek eye-witness, “as tall as
his spear.” Thus they glided close under the walls of the city, upon
which the inhabitants crowded to witness this picturesque prediction of
their doom.
Having made a sufficiently valiant show, the fleet crossed the Bosporus
and anchored in the harbor of Chalcedon. Here the army captured the
harvests just gathered from the neighboring country, and pillaged
Chalcedon, while the leaders occupied the palaces and gardens, upon
which the emperor had just expended great wealth in making them the
abode of his pleasure. The reigning Alexius deigned to send to his
unwelcome guests a body of troopers, who were driven off with severe
chastisement for their temerity. He then addressed them through Nicholas
Roux, a Lombard retainer: “The emperor knows that you are the most
puissant and noble of all those who do not wear the crown; but he is
astonished at your invasion of a Christian state. It is said that you
have come to deliver the Holy Land from the Infidel. The emperor
applauds your zeal and begs to assist you. If you are needy he will
provision your army if you will be gone. Do not think this generous
offer prompted by any fear; with one word the emperor could gather about
him innumerable hosts, disperse your fleet and armies, and forever close
against you the routes to the East.”
Conan de Bethune made response for the Latins: “Go tell your master that
the earth we tread upon does not belong to him, but is the heritage of
the prince you see seated among us,” pointing to young Alexius. “A
usurper is the enemy of all princes; a tyrant is the foe of mankind.
Your master can escape the justice of God and men only by restoring his
brother and nephew to the throne.”
Dandolo then tried the spirit of the people of Constantinople. A
splendid galley bearing young Alexius moved close along the walls of the
city. Boniface and the doge supported the prince on their arms, while a
herald proclaimed, “Behold the heir of your throne!” This met with no
response save the derisive shout, “Who is this Alexius?” But the
defiance hurled by the Greeks from the safety of their walls was not the
voice of universal courage. Nicetas tells us that “the Greek commanders
were more timid than deer, and did not dare to resist men whom they
called ‘exterminating angels, statues of bronze, which spread around
terror and death.’”
The next day at Scutari the leaders, according to their custom, held
council of war in the saddle in the presence of their waiting troops. An
instant assault was determined upon. After due religious solemnities
they embarked. The war-horses, heavily caparisoned for battle, with
their knights in armor at their sides, were put upon _huissiers_, or
flat-bottomed boats constructed with wide gangways across which a number
could quickly dash from ship to shore. The rank and file were packed
into larger vessels. The fighting galleys were trimmed for action, and
each took in tow a huissier. Much depended upon the celerity of the
crossing and the surprise of the Greeks, since the swift current of the
Bosporus might quickly ingulf them in the terrible Greek fire if the
combustible material should be spread upon the water. At sound of
trumpet the Venetian rowers sprang to the oars; the narrow Bosporus
suddenly foamed with the impact of hundreds of prows. No order was
observed, except that the crossbowmen and archers led the van to drive
the enemy from the landing-places. The ships struck the shore probably
near the modern Tophana, north of the Golden Horn. The Greek soldiers
could not withstand the showers of arrows that swept the open places,
and precipitately fled. The knights leaped their horses into the water
and prevented the enemy’s return to attack. Within an hour the open camp
of the Greeks was in possession of the Latins. The harbor of the Golden
Horn had been closed with a chain, behind which the Greek fleet lay in
apparent immunity from attack by the Venetian galleys. The northern end
of this chain was fastened within the strong tower of Galata. That
fortress was quickly carried and the chain released, but not until the
Venetian ship, the _Eagle_, with its tremendous ram armed with enormous
shears of steel, had already severed it midway. The Latin galleys swept
in, sinking or capturing the entire Greek fleet.
The marine defence of Constantinople, which might with ordinary
foresight have been made resistless, was inconsiderable. The
demoralization of the Greek service was pitiable. Admirals had sold the
very sails for their own private gain. Useless masts had not been
replaced, though the near forests abounded in timber; for the trees, as
Nicetas tells us, were guarded by the eunuchs like groves of worship,
but really as hunting-preserves for the pleasure of the court.
The victory of the Latin fleet left Galata their easy prey, and gave
them a near basis from which to conduct operations against the city
across the Golden Horn.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CONSTANTINOPLE SECURED TO ISAAC AND YOUNG ALEXIUS—USURPATION OF
MOURTZOUPHLOS.
Four days were spent in bringing over from the Asiatic side the
provisions. Dandolo proposed to transport all the soldiers with his
fleet and assault the water wall of the city, where, presuming upon the
defence of their ships, the Greeks had left the fortifications weakest.
But the crusaders, accustomed only to land operations, were averse to
this plan and marched around the end of the Golden Horn. The fleet met
them opposite the palace of Blachern, which occupied the corner of the
northwestern wall and thus faced both land and sea. Though the walls
extended for seven miles, this spot was regarded as the strongest of
all. A wide moat was backed by three enormous lines of masonry, to
capture one of which was only to lodge beneath the terrible menace of
the others. Immense towers were so close together that to pass between
them would be to challenge burial beneath the missiles which could
readily be dropped from almost above their heads. Here twice within the
preceding half-century the Greeks had discomfited the Arab hosts. At
this point the Turks, under Mohammed II., were, two hundred and fifty
years later, to make their victorious assault. The Greeks within the
city were assisted by armies without, which, under Theodore Lascaris,
the hero of the day on the part of the besieged, assailed the camps of
the crusaders.
July 17th witnessed the grand assault. Boniface and Baldwin were in
command. The battering-rams delivered their blows until one tower fell.
Platform-ladders were quickly reared; fifteen Flemings secured a footing
on the outer wall, but were slain or captured by men of their own blood,
the hired Waring guard. The Venetians’ attack was more successful; their
ships were covered with rawhides to protect them from the Greek fire,
which flashed like liquid lightning from the walls above and spread in
sheets of flame over the water. Bridges had been arranged from the
crosstrees, which, as the vessels were anchored close to the shore,
reached to the top of the walls. Every huissier carried a mangonel,
which returned the stones hurled by the besieged.
The battle being contested thus far with equal skill, Dandolo gave
orders to land; he himself set the example. Old and blind, he was
carried in the arms of his attendants, and, with the banner of St. Mark
floating above him, placed upon the shore. His heroism inspired his men.
While the fight raged above their heads, on the bridges that ran from
the rigging to the walls, the host below erected their scaling-ladders
and emerged upon the parapets. Soon the gonfalon of St. Mark floated
from a captured tower. Twenty-five more of these strongholds were
quickly taken. The Venetians poured down through the streets of the
city. Setting fire to the buildings, their progress was led by a
vanguard of flame.
In this terrible emergency the emperor was caught by a momentary impulse
of valor, and, putting himself at the head of sixty battalions, sallied
from the city to strike the crusaders. The multitude of his men, their
splendid accoutrements, and their unanticipated appearance led the
crusaders to leave their assault upon the ramparts and range for defence
behind their palisades. A more serious consequence of this valiant
counter-attack was that it forced Dandolo to leave what he had already
conquered and hasten to the assistance of his allies. But the Greeks had
exhausted their fury in its first outburst, and made no further onset,
contenting themselves with showering arrows from safe distance. Theodore
Lascaris, the son-in-law of the emperor, in vain asked the imperial
permission to assail the crusaders’ intrenchments. Alexius III. was
content with the martial glory of having paraded before his foe; his
troops, carrying the eagles of ancient Rome, as if the more to emphasize
their shame, retreated without having struck a blow with the naked
sword.
The next morning (July 18, 1203) the city was filled with a deeper sense
of disgrace as the people learned that the emperor himself had stolen
away during the night, taking with him a bag of gold and jewels, leaving
his empire to him who could hold it, and his wife amid the spoil.
Alexius III. was a despicable character, as cowardly as he was cruel,
crafty, but without will power to sustain his own designs when they
exacted much energy. His natural weaknesses had been increased by the
habits of a voluptuary and drunkard until he had become but a crowned
imbecile.
Realizing the condition of affairs, the troops, led by Constantine, the
minister of finance, raised the cry for the deposed Isaac. The courtiers
ran to his prison in the vaults of the Blachern, broke off his chains,
and led the old and blinded man out, as he, having become hopeless of
relief, believed, to execution, but, to his grateful surprise, to be
seated again upon his throne. The wife of Isaac was sought out in an
obscure quarter of the city, where she was living, grateful for even
life; while the wife of the fugitive Alexius III. was thrust into a
dungeon.
The recall of their former emperor could scarcely have been prompted by
affection or even respect for him personally. Isaac was without
character. Buffoons despised him for allowing himself to be the chief
court fool. His ambition was divided between his sensuality and his
extravagance; he had twenty thousand eunuchs, and spent four million
pounds sterling on the housekeeping of his palace. His piety seems to
have been limited to a belief in the prediction of a flattering
patriarch, who had once assured him of an indefinite conquest of the
world, for which, however, he made no preparation other than invoking an
alliance with Saladin, whose sword he would buy to hew down his
Christian opponents.
The news of the change of emperors was not assuring to the leaders of
the Latins. Notwithstanding the pretence of having come to right the
wrongs of Isaac, their plans necessitated either their own occupancy of
the empire or the placing of young Alexius as the creature of their will
upon the throne. Alexius, not Isaac, had made the bargain to pay the
Westerners for their expedition two hundred thousand marks of silver, to
furnish the army and fleet with provision for a year, and to bring the
Greek Church into subjection to Rome. Would Isaac assume the same
obligations?
The Latins sent a deputation to the palace; they passed between the
lines of the same hired soldiers that yesterday guarded Alexius III.,
equally loyal to whatever hand fed them. There, upon a throne of
superlative splendor, the Latin deputies saw the resurrected relic of a
former monarch, blind and emaciated. To have rendered the picture
sensationally complete, old and blind Dandolo should have stood before
Isaac.
Villehardouin, who was one of the deputies, demanded of Isaac the
confirmation of the contract made by young Alexius. On learning its
nature, Isaac expressed his amazement and the impossibility of meeting
it. The deputies assured the old man that his son should never be
permitted to enter the city unless his father assumed his pledges. The
emperor replied, “Surely the bargain is a hard one, and I cannot see how
to carry it out; but you have done so much for him and me that you
deserve our whole empire.” With hand trembling with age and fright he
set to the compact the golden seal.
The deputies returned to the camp. Young Alexius entered the city,
riding, with a retinue of knights, between Dandolo and Baldwin of
Flanders, and followed by the Latin clergy; they were met at the gates
by the various ranks of Greek ecclesiastics, arrayed in splendid
vestments. The churches throughout the city resounded with thanksgiving
and the streets with festivity, while within the palace Isaac, having
endured a dungeon for eight years, embraced his son whom he could not
see.
August 1st Alexius was crowned coemperor in St. Sophia; he immediately
cancelled a portion of his indebtedness to his allies, and wrote to the
Pope, avowing his purpose to recognize Rome as the ecclesiastical head
of the Greek empire. The Pope, knowing the vicissitude of affairs and
distrusting the volatile disposition of the youth, replied, urging him
to speedily practicalize his good intention. At the same time the Holy
Father addressed the crusaders, declaring that, “unless the emperor made
haste to do what he had promised, it would appear that neither his
protestations nor their intentions were sincere.”
The payment Alexius was able to make to those who had sold themselves to
his service was not sufficient to satisfy their ambitious greed; it
barely sufficed to pay back to each soldier the money he had been
compelled to cash down to the Venetians for his passage, and which had
left the Latin army bankrupt in a foreign land. But the Greek treasury
was empty and could not meet the expenses of the new government, nor
even provide for the personal protection of the emperors against their
domestic foes.
If the adherents of the fugitive Alexius III. were not to be feared,
there were new aspirants to the throne, which had come to be recognized
as the legitimate spoil of usurpers; besides, the emperor’s pledge to
recognize the Pope’s supremacy had kindled fury in the breasts of the
Greek devotees. The monk was accustomed in those days to finger his
dagger as well as his beads. The Waring guard could alone be trusted,
but their loyalty would lapse at the first passing of a pay-day. Some
men are stimulated by necessity—hardship evokes their genius; but the
Latins knew that Alexius was not of this sort. Scarcely out of boyhood,
he was already displaying the vices and weaknesses for which his race
was notorious. He needed a guardian—a Dandolo or Boniface, or both.
It was therefore evident that if the new régime were not to be an
immediate failure, carrying down with it the honor of the Latins, the
latter must continue at Constantinople in spite of the fact that the
agreement between the Venetians and the army expired at Michaelmas. They
were forced to accept Alexius’s proposition that they should remain with
him for another year. Thus circumstances conspired to favor Dandolo in
his compact with Malek-Ahdel and to check the impatience of the
crusaders for a march upon Syria or Egypt.
The reign of Alexius and Isaac was inaugurated by a terrible calamity.
According to long custom, the Arab and other Moslem traders had been
allowed to occupy a section of the city with their bazaars and mosque.
The crusading zeal, baffled of finding its natural vent in Palestine,
sought a slight compensation in looting this smaller nest of Infidels.
During the fighting that ensued fire was started in several places.
Under a strong north wind it swept in a wide swath across the city;
then, the breeze shifting, the conflagration raged in another direction.
For eight days there was a continual crash of falling houses, palaces,
and churches, thousands of the homeless population fleeing through smoke
and cinders from the pursuing flames. Many perished, and at the
cessation of the ravages multitudes were left in utter destitution. The
blackened ruins covered a section half a league in width and two leagues
in length, extending from the Golden Horn to the Marmora.
The fury of the elements was followed by as destructive a fury of human
passions. The Greek rose to exterminate the Latin resident population.
All were driven out. Fifteen thousand of these sojourners escaped across
the harbor to Galata, that their lives might be saved in the camp of the
crusaders.
This disaster rendered hopeless any further payment of the debt pledged
by Alexius. The crusaders took advantage of the situation to inaugurate
a plan to capture the city for themselves, to depose both emperors, and
seat upon the throne one of their own number. It was first necessary to
provoke a formal breach with Alexius and Isaac. A deputation was
therefore sent them to demand instant payment or war. The Greek populace
resented this insult to their rulers, whose office they worshipped even
if they had contempt for their pusillanimity. They retaliated upon the
Westerners by attempting to burn the Venetian fleet with fire-boats
floated among the ships, and trying to destroy the crusaders’ camp by a
sudden cavalry attack.
A more serious menace was in the popular meetings held daily in St.
Sophia to denounce the emperors and to demand their displacement to make
way for some stronger hand. The leader of this movement was Alexius
Ducas, called Mourtzouphlos because of his meeting eyebrows. The
populace, with whom this man was unsavory, offered the crown to Nicholas
Kanabos. Alexius was kept a virtual prisoner in the Blachern, defended
by his Warings. Mourtzouphlos came to the palace, and, persuading
Alexius that a mob was about to attack him, pretended to conduct him to
a place of safety. Getting him thus to his own tent, Mourtzouphlos put
the young man in irons, shod himself with the vermilion buskins, and
strode out, proclaiming that he was emperor.
With vast energy the usurper set about refortifying the city. He
impressed Dandolo and Boniface with the fact that they had now to deal
with a man not unlike themselves in ability and daring. What they were
to do must be done quickly. They made to Mourtzouphlos the proposition,
“Give us Alexius, and we will depart and allow you to remain emperor.”
With this prince in their hands they could still scheme. The reply came,
“Alexius is dead.” He had been found lifeless in his chamber (February
1, 1204). Isaac soon followed his son with as mysterious a taking off.
Dandolo then proposed a personal interview with the new monarch. The
meeting was held a half-mile beyond the palace. Treacherously a squad of
Latin horsemen raided the place of conference, capturing some of the
imperial body-guard, but Mourtzouphlos escaped.
Nothing now remained for the Latins but to risk all in an assault upon
the city.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
CAPTURE OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
By April 8th all preparations were completed. It was determined to
boldly cross the Golden Horn from Galata and assail the water front of
the city. At a hundred points at once they flung the bridges from the
yard-arms to the top of the wall, while at the same time they battered
the base with rams. The air about them was a firmament of flame from the
heavy discharges of Greek fire, through which hurtled stones, javelins,
and arrows in such storm that flesh could not stand against it. At night
the Latins retired, confessing the failure of the first attempt. The
churches of the city resounded with grateful prayers, and the streets
were riotous with joy.
On the 12th the assault was renewed. The ships now fought in pairs, so
that a heavier force of men might land upon the walls from each
drawbridge. Two transports, the _Pilgrim_ and the _Paradise_, having on
board the bishops of Troyes and Soissons, carried one of the towers and
planted there the banners of these ecclesiastics. Soon four towers more
succumbed; the gates beneath them were forced open, and the knights, who
had waited by their horses on the transports, dashed into the city. The
Venetians say that their blind old hero was among the first to pass the
gates, and that there was fulfilled the prophecy of an ancient sibyl: “A
gathering together of the powerful shall be made amid the waves of the
Adriatic under a blind leader; they shall beset the goat [the symbol of
Greek power in Daniel’s vision], ... they shall profane Byzantium, ...
they shall blacken her buildings; ... her spoils shall be dispersed.”
The Latins charged straight for Mourtzouphlos’s headquarters; his
body-guard fought well, but were no match for the heavy-armored knights,
and soon fled. Such was the consternation of the Greeks that even the
size of the Latins was fabulously exaggerated, Nicetas crediting one
gigantic soldier with eighteen yards to his stature, and a proportionate
strength.
At night the crusaders, having set fire to the houses on every side of
them, occupied the deserted camps of the emperor, which he had set up in
the district burned by the previous conflagration. The next day they
encountered no opposition, as Mourtzouphlos had fled away through the
Golden Gate on the Marmora side of the city. With the exception of the
imperial treasury and arsenal, all was given up to be plundered by
sailors and soldiers. Before the assault the barons had divided among
themselves the palaces. Villehardouin boastfully narrates: “Never since
the world was created was there so much booty gained in one city; each
man took the house which pleased him, and there was enough for all.
Those who were poor found themselves suddenly rich. There was captured
an immense supply of gold and silver, of plate and precious stones, of
satins and silks, of furs, and of every kind of wealth found upon
earth.”
The Greek eye-witnesses give the same picture, but in other colors. They
tell how neither matron nor nun, age nor condition, home nor church, was
safe from brigandage; nor yet the tombs of the dead, since the coffins
of the ancient emperors were opened, that the gems might be taken from
their wrappings and golden rings from their finger-bones. The body of
Justinian was thus rudely exposed after its sleep of centuries. The
sacred chalices of the communion-table were distributed to the crowd for
drinking-cups. The vessels of the altar were thrown into heaps, together
with the table plate of the rich, to be parcelled out among the victors.
Holy vestments were used as saddle-cloths. Mules were driven into St.
Sophia and there on the mosaic floors were loaded with the furniture
which piety had adored and art had cherished for ages. The altars were
broken into pieces, that the bits of precious metal in them might be
extracted, and the veil of the sanctuary was torn into shreds for the
sake of its golden fringe. A slattern courtesan was enthroned in the
chair of the patriarch and entertained the rabble with obscene dances
and songs, while men who had left their homes for the service of Christ
played at dice upon the tables which represented His apostles.
Nicetas, the historian, describes his own escape. A Venetian, whom he
had served a good turn, defended his house as long as he could. When
this was no longer possible he led away the unfortunate family and a few
friends, roughly treating them as if they were his prisoners. The young
ladies of Nicetas’s household blackened their faces to mar their
fairness. The beauty of one shone through this disguise; she was seized
by some passing soldiers and liberated only at the tearful solicitation
of her father. Looking back upon the city, of which he had been a chief
ornament and whose epitaph he was to write, Nicetas exclaimed, “Queen of
cities, who art become the sport of strangers, the companions of the
wild beasts that inhabit the forests, we shall never revisit thy august
domes, and can only fly with terror around thee, like sparrows around
the spot where their nest has been destroyed.” On the road he came up
with the Patriarch of Constantinople, without bag or money, stick or
shoes, and with but “one coat, like a true apostle.”
The plunder of the city was evenly divided between the crusaders and the
Venetians. The hard cash discovered in treasure vaults or concealed in
wells amounted in value to over eight millions of dollars. The value of
movable wealth of various kinds has been estimated at one hundred
millions.
The greed thus fed, but not satiated, seemed to turn the brains of the
conquerors and to transform them into veritable barbarians, as the
Greeks denominated them. Works of art were ruthlessly destroyed, bronze
statues were melted for the sake of their metal, and rarest marbles
broken in the abandon of resuscitated savagery. Thus perished the
colossal figure of Juno from Samos, so large that it required four oxen
to carry away its head; the statue of Paris presenting the apple of
discord to Venus; the famous obelisk surmounted by a female figure that
turned with the wind, and covered with exquisite bas-reliefs; the
equestrian statue of Pegasus; the “Hercules” of Lysippus, whose thumb
was the size of a living man’s waist; the bronze ass which Augustus
Cæsar had ordered to commemorate the victory of Antium; the ancient
group of the wolf suckling Romulus and Remus; and the statue of Helen of
Troy. Out of the ruin of such inestimable treasures of art the four
horses which now adorn the porticos of St. Mark’s in Venice were saved
from the general wreck, to stand as a monument among the Venetians not
of the glory, but of the vandalism of their ancestors.
But more than the spoils of art and treasure, the sacred relics stored
in Constantinople excited the saintly cupidity of the conquerors. In
their greed for these objects men utterly forgot the divine law, and
silenced the last remonstrance of human conscience. Martin Litz, Abbot
of Basel, worming his way through the pillage piles in a church, came
upon an old Greek monk at prayer. “Your relics or your life!” was the
alternative offered him. Martin thus procured the key to an iron safe
and rifled it of bones and jewels, without thought that the eighth
commandment held good as between a Romanist and heretics. Gunther, a
German monk, telling the story of what he witnessed at this time,
rejoices that thus was secured a piece of the True Cross, the skeleton
of John the Baptist, and an arm of St. James. As the transportation of
these articles to the West was accomplished without their having been
again stolen by some shrewder saint or sunk to the bottom of the sea,
Gunther believed that they had been watched over by angels especially
sent from heaven to convoy the treasure. It would seem that some ghostly
intervention must have restrained John the Baptist and St. James from
visiting their wrath upon these unconscionable robbers of their bones.
The abbey of Cluny received thus the head of St. Clement; the cathedral
of Amiens the head of John the Baptist; and the various churches of
Europe such articles as Jacob’s pillow at Bethel, the rod of Moses, the
wood of the True Cross, the drops of blood shed in Gethsemane, the
sponge and reed of Calvary, the first tooth and locks of the infant
Jesus, a piece of the bread of the Last Supper, a tear of our Lord, a
thorn from His crown, the finger which Thomas thrust into His side, the
shirt and girdle of the Virgin Mary. But these did not satisfy the
relic-hunters. Churches in Europe competed with one another for the
objects of adoration, which brought revenue to their coffers; prices
went up, but Byzantine craft was able to make the supply equal the
demand. A few years later (1215) the Lateran Council had, in the name of
common sense, to caution the faithful against becoming the prey of their
own credulity.
Even the enormous aggrandizement of the Latins, and the advantages to be
derived, in the estimate of Western piety, from the union of the Greek
and Roman churches, could not subdue the general sense of shame at the
atrocities which had been perpetrated. Pope Innocent III. wrote: “Since,
in your obedience to the Crucified One, you took upon yourself the vow
to deliver the Holy Land from the power of the pagans, and since you
were forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to attack any Christian
land or to damage it, unless its inhabitants opposed your passage or
refused you what was necessary, and since you had neither right nor
pretence of right over Greece, you have slighted your vow; you have
preferred earthly to heavenly riches; but that which weighs more heavily
upon you than all this is that you have spared nothing that is sacred,
neither age nor sex. You have given yourselves up to debauchery in the
face of all the world, you have glutted your guilty passions, and you
have pillaged in such fashion that the Greek Church, although borne down
by persecution, refuses obedience to the apostolical see, because it
sees in the Latins only treason and the works of darkness, and loathes
them like dogs.”
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
FOUNDING THE LATIN KINGDOM OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Having conquered Constantinople and presumably the empire hitherto ruled
from its palaces, it now devolved upon the Latins to select an emperor
from their own race. Twelve electors were chosen, six from the Venetians
and six from the crusaders, to whom was delegated the responsibility of
making the final choice. These met at the Church of our Lady the
Illuminator, which was located within the walls of the palace of
Bucolion. After celebration of mass the electors took a solemn oath upon
the relics deposited in that church, that they would bestow the crown
upon him whom they regarded as the ablest to defend and exalt their new
possessions. To silence any popular opposition to their choice, the
bravest of the guards were placed about the palace, pledged to maintain
the election.
There were three, possibly four, preëminent candidates for the imperial
honor. Dandolo was recognized as chief in ability, but he was far
advanced in years and could promise at best but a brief tenure of the
sceptre; besides, the Venetians themselves were not agreed in asking for
his elevation. If the doge of Venice should have his capital in the
East, Venice herself, the queen of the Adriatic, would sink beneath the
splendors of the queen of the Bosporus. The men who had exalted their
city to that of chief prominence in the maritime world were naturally
jealous of this transfer of prestige. Dandolo himself was astute enough
to foresee the danger and declined to contest the election.
Boniface, as head of the crusaders, was next in prominence. He had,
moreover, sought to make himself more eligible by marrying Maria, the
widow of the late Emperor Isaac, that thus he might secure the loyalty
of the Greeks. But his election would be fraught with disadvantage to
Venice in that his alliance would be first of all with his relative,
Philip of Swabia, and, in the event of the union of the East with that
German power, Venice would be politically overshadowed.
It is alleged by some writers that Philip himself was proposed. He was
at the time, as we have stated, contesting the sceptre of Germany with
Otho, who had been approved by the Pope. Philip’s acquisition of the
Eastern sceptre might give him predominant weight in the West and
possibly convert the Pope to his interests, especially as thus the union
of the churches would be facilitated. Thus the reasons urged against
Boniface were of equal force against Philip.
Dandolo declared his preference for Baldwin, Earl of Flanders. This
chieftain was but thirty-two years of age, a cousin of the King of
France, and of the blood of Charlemagne. He had proved his bravery on
many a field, and was, moreover, unobjectionable to the more ardent
among the crusaders from the fact that, unlike Boniface, he had taken no
active part in originally diverting the movement from its legitimate
destination against Syria and Egypt. The French, who were the majority
in the host, sided with him. Between the parties of Boniface and Baldwin
it was agreed that, in the event of either attaining to the immediate
government of the empire, the other should acquire as his special
dominion the Peloponnesus and the Asiatic provinces beyond the Bosporus.
While the electors deliberated the crowd without waited with anxiety. At
midnight, May 9th, the doors of the church were opened. The Bishop of
Soissons announced the decision: “This hour of the night, which saw the
birth of God, sees also the birth of a new empire. We proclaim as
emperor Earl Baldwin of Flanders and Hainaut.” The successful candidate
was raised upon a shield and carried into the church, where he was
vested with the vermilion buskins. A week later he was solemnly crowned
in St. Sophia. At the coronation Boniface attended his rival, carrying
in the procession the royal robe of cloth of gold.
But Boniface’s loyalty scarcely endured the strain put upon it. He soon
exchanged the dominion of the Peloponnesus and Asia Minor, which had
been assigned to him by the electors’ agreement, for that of Salonica.
Over this he and Baldwin incessantly quarrelled. This strife between the
leaders was the indication of the dissensions everywhere among the
Latins in their greedy division of the estates of the new realm.
The chief actors in that stirring drama soon passed off the scene.
Baldwin was captured, and probably murdered, by the Bulgarians before
Adrianople in 1205, and was succeeded by his brother Henry. Dandolo,
having acquired the title “Lord of a Quarter and a Half of all the Roman
World,” died June, 1205. A slab recently discovered in St. Sophia is
inscribed, “Henrico Dandolo,” and probably marks his grave. With all his
faults, the modern Venetian might well cry with Byron:
“Oh, for one hour of blind old Dandolo,
The octogenarian chief, Byzantium’s conquering foe!”
Boniface two years later was mortally wounded in a fight with the
Bulgarians in the Rhodope Mountains. Mourtzouphlos was soon taken
prisoner and hurled headlong from the column of Theodosius, thus
fulfilling a local prophecy relative to the column, that it should
witness the destruction of some perfidious ruler.
It is not within our scope to narrate the history of the Latin empire
thus established. For fifty-seven years it maintained a precarious
existence, and finally fell again into the hands of the Greeks, who had
constantly menaced it from their opposing capital of Nicæa (1264).
The most serious consequence of the capture of Constantinople by the
Latins was the new hope and opportunity imparted to the Turks. The
Greeks, with all their weaknesses, had for generations been a buffer
between Islam and Europe. The empire had stood like a wall across the
great highway of the Asiatic incursion. If the Greeks had been generally
the losers in the struggle, they had maintained sufficient power to
occupy the arms of their contestants, leaving the Christians of the West
free to prey upon the Moslems of Syria and adjacent countries. Now all
was changed in this respect. The war of Latins with Greeks engrossed,
and largely used up, the power of both as against their common enemy.
Though the capital had fallen, the Greek everywhere was still the sworn
enemy of the Latin.
In the meantime the Moslems were compacting and extending their military
power. They were growing in multitude by the migration of new swarms
from the original hive in the farther East. They were destined to become
too strong for Christendom to resist, to move steadily on to their own
conquest of Constantinople, and even to knock at the gate of Vienna. The
words of Edward Pears are undoubtedly warranted: “The crime of the
fourth crusade handed over Constantinople and the Balkan peninsula to
six centuries of barbarism.”
CHAPTER XXXIX.
BETWEEN THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CRUSADES—CONDITION OF EAST AND WEST—THE
CHILDREN’S CRUSADE.
The campaign of Europe against Constantinople wrought only evil among
the Christian colonists of Syria and Palestine. In the time of their
deepest need there were diverted from their cause the enormous sums of
money that had been raised for their succor, multitudes of brother
warriors, whose swords were sadly missed amid the daily menaces of their
foes, and the active sympathies, if not even the prayers, of their
coreligionists at home. Dire calamities also fell upon them, which no
human arm could have prevented. The plague had followed the terrible
Egyptian famine of 1200, and spread its pall far to the East.
Earthquakes of the most terrific sort changed the topography of many
places; tidal waves obliterated shore-lines; fortresses, like those of
Baalbec and Hamah, tottered to their fall upon the unsteady earth;
stately temples, which had monumented the art and religion of antiquity,
became heaps of ruins; Nablous, Damascus, Tyre, Tripoli, and Acre were
shaken down. It would seem that only the common prayers of Christians
and Mussulmans averted the calamity from Jerusalem, the city that was
sacred in the creed of both.
Such sums of money as the cries for help brought from Europe were
expended first in repairing the walls of Acre, into which service the
Christians forced their Moslem prisoners. Among the chain-gangs thus set
at work was the famous Sa’di, the greatest of Persian poets, almost
equally noted for his eloquence as a preacher and for his adventures as
a traveller.
Amaury, King of Jerusalem, died, leaving his useless sceptre in the
hands of his wife, Isabella, whose demise passed it on to her daughter,
Mary, by her former husband, Conrad of Tyre. Such were the burdens of
the unsupported throne that none of the warriors in the East ventured to
assume the responsibility of the new queen’s hand. A husband was sought
for her in Europe. John of Brienne was nominated by Philip of France for
the hazardous nuptials. John had been a monk, but his adventurous and
martial spirit soon tired of the cowl. He abandoned the austerities of a
professional saint for the freedom of the camp and the dangers of the
field. The romantic perils of wedding the dowerless queen attracted him.
Rumors of a new crusade of gigantic proportions led Malek-Ahdel to
propose a renewal of the truce with the Christians, which, though
continually broken, was in his estimation safer than an openly declared
war. The Hospitallers approved peace. This was sufficient to make their
rivals, the Templars, eager for the reverse, and the majority of the
knights and barons flew to arms against one another.
John of Brienne reached Acre with a meagre following of three hundred
knights. His nuptials with the young Queen Mary were rudely disturbed by
the Moslems, who besieged Ptolemaïs and swarmed in threatening masses
around Acre. In their straits the Christians again appealed to Europe;
but Christendom was fully occupied with contentions within its own
borders. France was at war with England to repossess the fair provinces
which the Angevine kings had wrested from her along the Atlantic. At the
same time she was pressing her conquests beyond the Rhine against the
Germans. Germany was divided by the rival claimants for the imperial
sceptre, Otho and Philip of Swabia.
A more serious diversion of interest from the affairs of Palestine was
due to the crusade under Simon de Montfort against the Albigenses, whose
record makes one of the blackest pages of human history. (See Dr.
Vincent’s volume in this series.) The Saracens in Spain were also
threatening to overturn the Christian kingdom of Castile, and were
defeated only with tremendous effort, which culminated in the great
battle of Tolosa (1212).
In 1212 or 1213 occurred what is known as the Children’s Crusade, a
movement that doubtless has been greatly exaggerated by after writers,
but the facts of which illustrate the ignorance and credulity, as well
as the adventurous, not to say marauding, spirit of the times. If in our
day the free circulation of stories relating the adventures of
cutthroats and robbers inflames the passions and engenders lawless
conceits in the young, we may imagine that reports of the bloody work
done by persecutors of the Albigenses, dastardly and cruel deeds, which
were applauded by Pope and people, could not but make a similar
impression upon the callow mind of childhood in the middle ages. Boys
practised the sword-thrust at one another’s throats, built their pile of
fagots about the stake of some imaginary heretic, and charged in mimic
brigades upon phantom hosts of Infidels. It needed only the impassioned
appeals of unwise preachers to start the avalanche thus trembling on the
slope. It was proclaimed that supernal powers waited to strengthen the
children’s arms. The lads were all to prove Davids going forth against
Goliaths; the girls would become new Judiths and Deborahs without
waiting for their growth. It was especially revealed that the
Mediterranean from Genoa to Joppa would be dried up so that these
children of God could pass through it dry-shod.
From towns and cities issued bands of boys and girls, who in response to
the question, “Whither are you going?” replied, “To Jerusalem.” “Boy
preachers” were universally encouraged to proclaim the crusade. One lad,
named Stephen, announcing that Christ had visited him, led hundreds
away. A boy named Nicholas, instigated by older persons, deluded a
company into crossing the Alps, where many starved, were killed, or
kidnapped. The real leaders, however, seem to have been men and women of
disorderly habits, who in an age of impoverished homes readily adopted
the lives of tramps, and used the pitiable appearance of the children to
secure the charities of the towns and cities they passed through.
Saracen kidnappers also took advantage of the craze to lure children on
board of ships by promise of free passage to the Holy Land. Thus
entrapped, they were sold as slaves for Eastern fields or harems. Seven
vessels were loaded with Christian children at Marseilles. Five of the
ships reached Egypt, consigned to slave merchants; two were wrecked off
the isle of St. Peter, where Pope Gregory IX. afterwards caused a church
to be built in memory of the victims.
THE FIFTH CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XL.
DISASTER OF MARIETTA.
Pope Innocent III. comforted himself for this “slaughter of the
innocents” by making the incident the basis of a new appeal for the
relief of Palestine. “These children,” said he, “reproach us with being
asleep while they were flying to the assistance of the Holy Land.” In
his exhortation to Europe the Holy Father ventures to interpret the
mysterious prediction of the Book of Revelation regarding the duration
of the Antichrist symbolized by the beast. Some Protestants have
presumptuously applied the figures to the destiny of the Roman Church.
Innocent regarded Mohammedanism as meant, and, counting from the hejira
of Mohammed (622) to his own day, announced to the people, in the name
of God, whose infallible vicegerent he was, “The power of Mohammed draws
towards its end; for that power is nothing but the beast of the
Apocalypse, which is not to extend beyond the number of six hundred and
sixty-six years, and already six hundred have been accomplished.” Europe
was asked to believe that the marshalled nations of the East, then so
threatening, would only furnish the funeral cortège of Antichrist, after
which the world would enter upon its millennium of peace.
Every crowned head, every noble, every knight, every city, every church,
received its especial appeal from Rome to offer men, ships, money, and
incessant prayers for this last holy adventure. With equal assurance
Innocent addressed letters to the sultans of Damascus and Cairo, giving
them an opportunity to voluntarily restore the holy places before the
final vengeance of the Lord. Ardent orators, like Cardinal Courçon and
James of Vitri (an original chronicler of these events), went
everywhere, firing the passions of the people. Philip Augustus
appropriated for the project two and a half per cent. of the territorial
revenue of France. King John of England promised to make amends for his
many sins by taking the cross; he was the more inclined to this from the
fact that his barons had just wrenched from him Magna Charta, and the
Pope had put him under excommunication; his pretence of piety was the
policy of the moment. Frederick II. of Germany, to secure the papal
favor in his contest with Otho for the imperial throne, assumed the rôle
of a crusader.
The movement was, however, halted by the affairs in France. England,
Flanders, Holland, Boulogne, with the aid of the German Otho, invaded
France. At the battle of Bouvines (1214) this combination was
overthrown, and the French monarchy, with restored territory and
prestige, assumed the independence which it maintained until recent
times.
In 1215 the Lateran Council issued the grand order for the crusading
expedition. The Pope and cardinals taxed themselves a tenth of their
income, and all ecclesiastics a twentieth. So great was the excitement
for war that two astounding phenomena were observed: luminous crosses
appeared in the heavens, and the Troubadours sang only of battle, no
longer of love. Innocent III. proposed to head the crusade in person,
but when his example had wrought its full influence discreetly retired
from the leadership. Shortly after he died, and Honorius III. came into
the pontificate.
In 1217 the mighty armament was in motion. Andrew II., King of Hungary,
was designated chief. Germany, under its representative dukes of Bavaria
and Austria, followed in his train. The host was augmented by those from
Italy and France and the islands of the Mediterranean. According to the
Arabian historian, it was the largest force ever at one time pitted
against them in Palestine.
The army landed at Acre. The new soldiers signalled their arrival by an
impressive exhibition of their pilgrim zeal. They formed an immense
procession. At their head was the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who bore aloft
a piece of wood which had been surreptitiously cut from the True Cross
at the time it was captured by Saladin at Hattîn. With utmost pomp they
passed over the land from the sea to the Jordan, bathed in the waters of
the sacred river, and lingered to pray amid the ruins on the shores of
the Sea of Tiberias. They gathered many relics, and did not hesitate to
take as their pious plunder many of the people of the land, whom they
brought with them as prisoners to Acre.
No enemy molested them. Malek-Ahdel had advised that the invaders be
left to their own dissensions, which, judging from previous observation,
were sure to follow as soon as they should attempt to divide the spoil
they might take. The martial spirit of the Christians did not resent
this idleness, and stagnation of energy bred moral malaria. Camp vices
thrived to such an extent that the leaders were forced to drive out the
soldiers in search of manly adventures. Mount Tabor, the Mount of
Transfiguration, lifted high its head, crowned with Moslem forts in
place of the Church of St. Helena and of the two monasteries which had
formerly commemorated the tabernacles of Moses and Elias. The crusaders
were ordered to capture the holy mountain. That all doubt of Heaven’s
favor in the enterprise might be removed, the patriarch read the gospel
for the day, first Sunday in Advent, and interpreted the words, “Go ye
into the village over against you,” to mean the castle on Tabor.
Led by this high dignitary, who carried the ubiquitous piece of the True
Cross, they made the ascent through a shower of Moslem arrows and an
avalanche of stones. The defenders at first retired within their
citadel, but an unaccountable panic seized the assailants: they deserted
their own cause at the moment of victory, and made a disorderly retreat
down to the plain. Their piety was, however, compensated by the capture
of a number of women and children, whom they forced to be baptized. The
anticipated dissensions followed. Each leader reproached the others. On
Christmas eve a terrific storm swept the camp, which, in the general
discouragement, they attributed to the displeasure of Heaven. Lack of
provisions forced them to encamp in different neighborhoods—Tripoli,
Acre, Mount Carmel, and the plains of Cæsarea. The commander-in-chief,
the King of Hungary, returned to Europe, consoling himself for lack of
martial laurels by the possession of the head of St. Peter, the hand of
St. Thomas, and one of the seven water-jars in which Christ had made
water wine at Cana. The sacred relics did not, however, prevent his
subsequent excommunication.
This crusade was saved from utter and ignominious failure only by the
arrival of fresh enthusiasts from the West. Bands from Friesland and the
banks of the Rhine had taken ships on the Baltic and coasted by France
and Portugal. They told of the luminous crosses which appeared in the
heavens and signalled them by moving towards the East, and how squadrons
of angels had fought with them against the Moors on the Tagus.
The courage of their brethren was thus rekindled to venture at the
opening of spring (1218) upon an invasion of Egypt. The chronicler tells
us of a favorable omen here observed by the crusaders: the water of the
Nile, which was sweet to the taste on their arrival, afterwards became
salt.
The city of Damietta was guarded by a strong tower, which rose from the
middle of the Nile, and was connected with the walls by an immense chain
which impeded the passage of ships. The crusaders attacked this
unavailingly. There were in the host certain skilled mechanics, who, “by
the inspiration of the Almighty,” constructed an enormous wooden tower,
which floated upon two vessels and overtopped the walls of the great
citadel. In vain did the Moslems set fire to this with streams of liquid
flame. The prayers of the monks on the shore, together with the “tears
of the faithful,” and, we may add, the abundant oblation of the buckets,
soon subdued the conflagration. The huge drawbridge which dropped from
the top of the floating tower successfully landed upon the walls three
hundred brave knights. Their valor, together with the spiritual prowess
of the patriarch, who lay stretched on the ground wrestling with the
will of Heaven, was resistless, and soon the flag of the Duke of Austria
was flying from the ramparts; not, however, until the usual band of
celestial knights in white armor had dazzled the eyes of the Moslems, so
that they could not see where to strike their foes. This was on August
24th, which, being St. Bartholomew’s day, enabled the crusaders also to
see that saint, clad in red, at the head of their celestial assistants.
Mastering the tower of the Nile and breaking the chain which obstructed
the channel, the Christian fleet lay close to the walls of the city.
Seventeen months were destined to pass in the siege of Damietta. In
September Malek-Ahdel died. He had before formally laid down the
chieftainship, and divided his realm among his many sons; but his
prestige and continually sought counsel made him until his death the
virtual head of the Moslem power. He maintained a sumptuous court and a
splendid palace, the recesses of which were regarded by the faithful as
a sanctuary where Heaven daily blessed its favorite son. The various
courts saluted him as “king of kings,” and the camps hailed him as
saphadin, the “sword of religion.” His death threw a shadow upon the
Moslem world.
Instead of taking advantage of this providence, the Christians seemed to
emulate the divisions of their enemies. Many grew weary of the task they
had vowed to Heaven, and returned to Europe. The priests pronounced a
curse upon the deserters. This malediction was regarded as inspired when
it was learned that six thousand of the crusaders from Brittany had been
wrecked off the coast of Italy, and that the returning Frieslanders
reached their homes only to witness the wrath of the North Sea, which
broke the Holland dikes, submerged their richest provinces and cities,
and drowned one hundred thousand of the inhabitants.
But new warriors were excited to redeem the opportunity. France and
England sent much of their best blood and many of their most famous
names. Among the multitude of celebrities was one who was destined to
bring the entire crusade to a fatal ending. Cardinal Pelagius was
delegated as papal legate. He was a man of arrogance, and asserted his
right to supersede even John of Brienne, the King of Jerusalem, in the
military command. This position was refused him by the soldiery. He at
length accomplished his ambition by threatening all who opposed him with
excommunication.
The coming of these auxiliaries spurred the Christians to take advantage
of contentions among the Moslems and make a forward movement. They
crossed from the west bank of the Nile and invested Damietta. The menace
reunited the Infidels. Battles were of daily occurrence, in which whole
battalions, now of Christians, now of Moslems, were driven into the
Nile, and perished.
One beautiful episode redeemed these hellish scenes. St. Francis of
Assisi visited the camps; he went among his brethren with consolations
for the sick and wounded, his presence redolent with heavenly charity.
No labors could weary this man, who already seemed divested largely of
his physical nature, and to be sustained only by the power of his inward
spirit. His zeal for God led him to visit even the camp of the Moslems.
He preached his doctrines before Malek-Kamel, the Sultan of Cairo; he
alternately threatened the sultan’s infidelity with the pains of hell,
and sought to win his better faith by promises of heaven. Francis
proposed to test the truth of either religion by passing with the
holiest Moslems through an ordeal of fire. This being declined, he
offered himself to the flame, provided that the sultan’s conversion
should follow the refusal of fire to burn the representative of the
faith of Christ. With courteous words the test was declined. Moslems
reverenced insane persons as in some way under a divine influence;
Malek-Kamel treated his uninvited guest as one of this sort. The Moslem
doctors of the law commanded Malek-Kamel to take off the head of the
intruder, but the warrior was either too much amused with the
simplicity, or too much amazed at the sincerity, of his visitor to harm
him, and dismissed him with presents, which, however, Francis’ vow of
poverty would not allow him to accept.
Whether persuaded by the holy eloquence of the saint, or by the rumor
that Frederick of Germany was approaching with fresh armies, the sultan
proposed peace. He offered the flattering condition of giving up
Jerusalem to the Christians. The warriors would have assented thus to
secure as the reward of their valor that which had been the object of
the entire crusade; but Cardinal Pelagius forbade, in the name of the
Holy Father, the cessation of arms at any less price than the entire
subjugation of the Moslem power.
Damietta was therefore more closely invested; its garrison was reduced
to starvation. To prevent possible defection among his miserable
soldiers, the commander of Damietta walled up the gates of the city. The
Christians made an assault in full force; the rams battered the
trembling towers; ladders swarmed with assailants; no one opposed them.
Sweeping over the ramparts with naked swords, they found the streets and
houses filled with the dead. Of seventy thousand scarcely three thousand
of the inhabitants had remained alive. The air was fraught with
poisonous stench from the decaying corpses; as the chronicler says, “the
dead had killed the living.” The crusaders could abide only long enough
to gather the booty, and left the city to be cleansed by carrion-birds
and the air of heaven.
This temporary success of his policy inflamed the conceit of Cardinal
Pelagius. According to his own people, the “King of kings and Lord of
lords” had given him the city; “under the guidance of Christ” the
soldiers had scaled the walls. The victors took as their reward the rich
plunder of the place, and gratefully “baptized all the children who were
found alive in the city, thereby giving to God the first-fruit of
souls.”
The Moslems, afflicted by these reverses, enlarged their conditions of
peace to the yielding up, not only of Jerusalem, but all the Holy Land.
The cardinal refused even these terms, and proposed to march to the
capture of Cairo, the capital of Egypt. In vain did the military leaders
protest against that which they esteemed impracticable in itself, and
which, in the event of its success, would leave on their hands a land
which they could not hope to defend against the myriads who were
swarming from all parts of the Moslem world. The cardinal accused the
warriors of timidity and irreligion. This was too much for John of
Brienne, who would have dared to sheathe his good sword in the bowels of
Lucifer himself. Orders for the ascent of the Nile were given. At the
junction of its two branches, the southern extreme of the Delta, the
Moslems made their fortified camp, and built what has since been known
as the city of Mansourah. The enemy approached; once more the sultan
offered peace, including now the gift of the Delta, together with the
previously offered conditions.
The refusal of this exhausted the patience, not only of the sultan, but
seemingly of Heaven also. With the rising of the Nile the Moslems opened
the sluices, flooded all the canals of Lower Egypt, and inundated the
Christians’ camp. Simultaneously the Moslem ships made their way up
through the canals and destroyed the vessels of their foes. The Infidels
occupied every rising knoll; “while,” says a letter from the camp, “we
were thus caught in the midst of the waters like fish in a net.” In vain
did the Christians endeavor to force a battle. Shrewdly retreating from
the arbitrament of the sword, the Moslems left the invaders to the
destruction which they proclaimed Allah had prepared for His insolent
adversaries.
Cardinal Pelagius now begged for the peace he had despised; nor did he
stop with the old conditions. He would yield all he had taken or
claimed, if only he might be permitted to lead the armies of Europe
safely into the walls of distant Acre. This capitulation was reluctantly
accepted by the Sultan of Cairo. The haughty cardinal, the brave King
John of Brienne, the Duke of Bavaria, and many of the nobles meditated
their disgrace as hostages in the hostile camp, while the Christian
soldiers were still waiting the will of their conqueror in the marshes.
King John of Brienne one day sat down at the feet of the sultan and
burst into tears. The Moslem respected his courage and was grieved at
the distress which seemingly had shaken it. “Why do you weep?” he asked.
“To see my brave people perishing with hunger amid the waters.” The
sultan immediately provisioned the Christian camp, and sent his own son
to conduct the host in safety out of the land they had come to conquer
(autumn, 1221).
THE SIXTH CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XLI.
FREDERICK II. AND POPE GREGORY IX.
Seven years elapsed before another attempt worthy of record was made for
the recapture of Palestine. Frederick II. (Hohenstaufen) of Germany was
its leader; hero it had none.
Frederick was one of the ablest men of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, though not meriting the title given him by an English
chronicler, “the Wonder of the World.” The grandson of Frederick
Barbarossa, son of Henry IV. and Constance of Sicily, he united in his
person the strongest traits of German and Italian stock. Born in 1194,
at two years of age he was elected king of the Romans, and in his fourth
year was crowned King of Sicily. Pope Innocent III. was the guardian of
his childhood, and well discharged his duty, if the rare education of
Frederick may be taken as evidence. The royal youth mastered Latin,
Greek, French, German, and knew something of Arabic and Hebrew; he was
creditably versed in Saracenic science and arts, as well as in Christian
philosophy and scholasticism; he wrote well on the habits of birds, and
shared with the Troubadours the joys of the poet’s art; he endowed
universities, patronized painters, and encouraged architects. In
government he deserves to rank among the empire-builders, for in a
narrow age he extended the scope of law for the toleration of Jews and
Mohammedans, for the emancipation of peasants from undue oppression at
the hands of the upper classes, and for the enlargement of international
commerce almost to the line of the modern theory of free trade. His
liberality towards Moslems brought him the accusation of harboring in
his heart a secret infidelity, which his severity with the Christian
schismatics could not entirely dispel.
At the age of eighteen Frederick entered into contest for the imperial
throne of Germany, and in 1215, at the age of twenty-one, won the crown
of Charlemagne. In order to accomplish this grand object, he had, as a
first step, secured the alliance of the Pope. This he did by pledging,
among other things, to lead a crusade; but the pressing emergencies of
his new crown caused delay from year to year. In 1225 he married
Iolante, the daughter of John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem. He at once
asserted that John held his crown only in virtue of being the husband of
Queen Mary, and this lady having died, her daughter, Iolante, was lawful
sovereign. Thus by marriage he annexed to his German title that of King
of Jerusalem, and was looked to by all for the defence of his new
dominion. But two years later (1227) he was still too busy unravelling
European complications to absent himself in the distant East.
In this year Gregory IX. ascended the papal throne. While this Pope
still retained the faculties and ambition of youth, he had developed
also the obstinacy and petulance of old age. By his unwise dealing with
the German emperor, and the impolitic assertion of his own capricious
will as of divine authority, he may be said to have started the
decadence of the papal throne, which in another generation was destined
to lose the prestige of the Hildebrandian policy and all prospect of
becoming the world monarchy.
On the day of his accession to power Gregory IX. issued a proclamation
for all the sovereigns of Christendom to unite in a new crusade, and
openly threatened Frederick with his ecclesiastical vengeance if he
longer postponed the fulfilment of his vow. He accused the emperor’s
delay with being due to luxury, if not sensuality, in living. The former
charge probably had in it a measure of truth, for Frederick’s court at
Palermo, where he spent more time than in his northern capital, was the
centre of gayety, not only among the Christians, but to a certain extent
for Mohammedans. Many of the fairest women of Asia and North Africa
graced his salons. It might also be imagined of Frederick that his faith
was not of that intense and credulous nature which foresaw a heavenly
crown awaiting his exploits in the Holy Land. Equally detrimental to his
repute for crusading zeal were the courtesies he was exchanging with
Malek-Kamel, Sultan of Egypt. It was even rumored that he had made
alliance with this sultan, pledging help against the rival Sultan of
Damascus, on condition of the restoration of Jerusalem.
But the sincerity of Frederick was proved by the gathering of his fleets
and the massing of his armaments at Otranto. The fame of his leadership
attracted the noblest of Germany. Among them was Ludwig, Landgrave of
Thuringia, noted for having won the hand of Elizabeth, daughter of
Andrew II. of Hungary, who in her girlhood had attained renown for her
asceticism and charities, and died (1231) at the age of twenty-four, to
be canonized as the fairest saint of the middle ages. From distant
England many came at Frederick’s call, and further impelled by visions
of the Saviour on the cross of fire which appeared in that northern sky.
The season was intensely hot, and gendered a fever fatal to the
crusaders who were gathered in southern Italy. Among its victims was
Ludwig, leaving his faithful spouse to keep his memory revered by her
refusal to marry any one of the numerous kings who were attracted to her
feet. Many bishops and thousands of pilgrims succumbed to this plague.
Frederick sailed, but only to return in three days, seeking hospital in
Otranto.
Pope Gregory IX. fulminated against Frederick all the terrors of his
personal scorn and ecclesiastical vengeance. From his pulpit he pictured
him “breaking all his promises, bursting every bond, trampling underfoot
the fear of God, despising all reverence for Jesus Christ, scorning the
censures of the church, deserting the Christian army, abandoning the
Holy Land to unbelievers, to his own disgrace and that of all
Christendom withdrawing to the luxury and wonted delights of his
kingdom, and seeking to palliate his offence by frivolous excuses of
simulated sickness.” Then, while the cathedral bells were clanging a
demoniacal accompaniment to what was transpiring beneath them, the
clergy stood with lighted torches around the altar. Gregory invoked the
eternal curse of God upon his imperial victim. The clergy dashed their
torches and extinguished them upon the floor, in token of the “blackness
of darkness forever” which should settle upon the emperor’s soul.
The news of this anathema excited the minds of the common people to such
a degree that they saw all sorts of signs of Heaven’s disapproval of the
crowned Judas; such as bloody crosses, on which the Saviour was dying
afresh, “as if laying a complaint before each and every Christian.”
Frederick made a quick retort to the papal fulmination, in which he
advised all temporal princes to beware of the unscrupulous domination of
the Roman hierarchy. He closed a letter to the princes of Europe with
these words of an old couplet:
“Give heed when neighboring houses burn,
For next, perhaps, may be your turn.”
The Pope, having generated a fresh supply of gall, discharged it in an
interdict by which all subjects of Frederick should be deprived of the
ministrations of religion.
The emperor, in order to prove the injustice of the Pope’s assault upon
him and the falsity of the accusation that he had feigned sickness,
prepared to resume the crusade, taking, however, his own time and way.
His armaments were repaired. He summoned all the dignitaries of his
kingdom to meet him at Baroli (April, 1228). There, in the presence of a
vast multitude, he declared his will regarding the succession in the
event of his not returning alive, and exhorted his people to live in
peace during his absence. The Pope now became not less violent in
denouncing the crusade than he had been previously in urging it, on the
ground that its leader was excommunicate. He refused to recognize it as
a holy war, and stigmatized it as an expedition of piracy.
With a small army of six hundred knights Frederick sailed for Acre
(September, 1228). Two Franciscan monks in a swift bark outsped him, and
aroused Palestine against the coming of such a champion. The partisans
of John of Brienne refused to recognize the kingship of his son-in-law.
Templars and Hospitallers were jealous of the new hand in affairs, and
refused to serve under him.
Frederick then pursued his old friendship with Malek-Kamel. Speaking
Arabic, he discussed with the emirs philosophy and astrology, and sent
difficult questions to the sultan, reminding the chroniclers of the
converse of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The ladies of the Christian
and Moslem courts mingled, say the papal apologists, to the mutual
disadvantage of the morals of both. The emperor desired to make a pious
pilgrimage to the Jordan. The Templars sent a letter to the sultan,
suggesting his capture. The sultan delivered the missive into the hands
of Frederick.
Such exchange of courtesies was only preliminary to a treaty by which
the astuteness of the emperor won the kingdom of Jerusalem without
drawing his sword. It was stipulated that Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the
Holy City, with the exception of the Temple Mount, which was occupied by
the mosque of Omar, should be given to the Christians for ten years. In
a letter to the King of England Frederick wrote how, “in a few days, by
a miracle rather than by strength, that business hath been brought to a
conclusion which for a length of time past many chiefs and rulers of the
world, among the multitude of nations, have never been able till now to
accomplish by force, however great, nor by fear.”
The fury of the papal party knew no bounds. That the Infidel should
retain a spot for worship was in their eyes a sacrilege; that a man
under papal displeasure should be recognized as king in Jerusalem was an
impiety which Heaven should punish. The city of Jerusalem was put under
the ban. Pilgrims were forbidden by the Holy Father to pray at the
sepulchre of our Lord, for which purpose, with the Pope’s encouragement,
they had left their homes, and in many cases sacrificed their earthly
all.
Frederick repaired in great state to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
for his coronation (March 18, 1229). No priest ventured to celebrate the
mass or pronounce a blessing upon the accursed of the church; the
silence was unbroken except by the clang of armor; the images of the
apostles were veiled that they might not look upon the reprobate.
Frederick took the crown from the altar with his own hands and placed it
upon his head; then was read in his name a formal exculpation of the
Pope for his persecution, on the ground of the Holy Father’s ignorance
of his motives and conduct; he also announced his humiliation before God
and His vicar for his crown. With more catholicity he visited the same
day the mosque of Omar. A muezzin, whose station was near the emperor’s
house, by order of the kadi omitted the usual call to prayer, lest it
should give offence to his Christian Majesty. Frederick gently rebuked
the Moslem official: “You are wrong to neglect, on my account, your
duty, your law, and your religion. If you should visit my realm, you
would find no such respectful deference.” A priest had brought into the
mosque a copy of the Gospels. Frederick rebuked this as an insult to his
allies, saying, “Here we are all the servants of the sultan; it is he
that has restored to us our churches.” The emperor then retired to Acre.
The papal interdict upon all people among whom he should find abode
followed him. The churches of Acre were unopened; the sick were refused
consolation in their homes, and the dead were buried, without funeral
service, in the fields.
At this juncture news from Europe urged the emperor’s return home. John
of Brienne, his father-in-law, was ravaging the kingdom of Naples. The
Pope was filling all Christendom with denunciations, and plotting that
the imperial crown itself might be taken from the head of the man who,
by the treaty with the Moslems, had effected “reconciliation of Christ
and Belial.” The Moslem world simultaneously rang with as bitter
denunciation of the act of Malek-Kamel in surrendering the sacred city.
Thus, amid the universal confusion produced by his aim to establish
peace, Frederick returned to the West. With a popularity which the ban
of Rome could not destroy, after crushing his enemies in the field he
engaged in the work of giving to his people better laws, and stimulating
the new civilization which was everywhere appearing as the Dark Ages
were wearing away.
With the retirement of Frederick from Palestine the Christians were
reduced to utmost extremity. Notwithstanding the treaty, constant
collisions occurred between the Moslem and Christian bigots. The great
bell of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre often rang its alarm. The
pilgrims generally sought safety in the fortress of David, or in more
obscure retreats in the neighborhood of Jerusalem; their cries again
afflicted their brethren in Europe.
The Pope convoked an assembly at Spoleto, at which it was determined to
ignore Frederick’s truce with the Sultan of Cairo, and renew the war.
Special agents of the holy see visited the various courts; monks and
orators went everywhere, preaching the necessity of dyeing the cross
anew in the blood of unbelievers. The followers of St. Francis and St.
Dominic were diverted from their legitimate and honorable work of
charity to act as the collectors of a war fund. Troubadours, headed by
Thibaut V., King of Navarre, sang:
“Heaven is closed to those who will not cross the sea,”
and urged in rhythmic piety the exchange of earthly amours for the
service of the Virgin:
“My Lady lost, Lady, be thou my aid.”
The war upon the helpless Albigenses having come to an end from the
extermination of its victims, many soldiers were impatient of new
service to appease their sharply whetted appetite for blood. Thus a
multitude was enrolled for a new crusade.
But a diverting cry came from a different direction. The Latin empire at
Constantinople was falling. First Lascaris and then Vataces had for
years kept the Greeks well in hand, and they now assailed the walls of
the capital. John of Brienne was called to the tottering throne. As
everywhere during his long career, so now at the age of eighty years
this man showed splendid qualities on the field, but died without
effectually driving away the foe. His son-in-law, Baldwin, succeeded him
to a barren sceptre, and visited Europe in piteous entreaty for help.
This call would have been sufficient in itself to divert much of the
energy of the crusaders; but the Pope, now far gone in senility, further
embarrassed affairs by commanding the warriors to return to their homes.
This order went far towards depreciating the Pope in popular reverence.
Those assembled at Lyons replied to the papal message: “Whence arises
this fickleness in the Roman court? According to the promises of the
preachers we have prepared ourselves in God’s behalf; we have sold or
pledged our lands, taken leave of friends, sent our money to the Holy
Land in advance. Why do our pastors change their tone and rise against
us?” With difficulty were they restrained from doing violence to the
papal agents. The Pope, however, remained inexorable, and threatened all
who proceeded with the crusade that “they should not enjoy the
indulgence for their sins which had been granted them.” Some urged the
sacredness of their crusaders’ vow. This scruple the Pope readily turned
to the account of his treasury by absolving such from their pledge upon
payment of a sum of money equal to that required to provision themselves
for the voyage, whence “great scandal and schism arose among the
people.”
The Emperor Frederick also proposed that the expedition should be
postponed until, with the rallied forces of his empire, he might give it
better assurance of success. Pope and emperor revived their strifes, and
Italy was turned into pandemonium. A few of the more ardent managed to
escape the entanglements at home for more honorable adventures in the
East. The King of Navarre, the dukes of Brittany and Burgundy, reached
Syria (August, 1239) and performed exploits sufficient to more
thoroughly enrage, but not to awe, the Moslems. In 1240 Richard of
Cornwall, with a band of English, sailing in spite of the Pope’s
prohibition, landed at Acre, made several raids through Turkish
territory, and returned, having gained nothing but a continuance of the
truce with the sultan.
CHAPTER XLII.
BETWEEN THE SIXTH AND SEVENTH CRUSADES—THE TARTARS—THE CARISMIAN
INVASION.
By a strange providence the sacred places of Palestine were destined to
fall for a while into other hands than any of the former great
contestants, Christian, Saracen, or Turk.
The most astounding events of the thirteenth century were in connection
with the great Tartar irruption. The Mogul hosts under Genghis Khan, or
“king of kings,” had broken eastward across the Great Wall of China, and
poured a tide of desolation over that ancient empire. As the bloody
waves returned, they moved with undiminished force westward and
southward, flooding all Turkestan, and all lands to the borders of India
and the Persian Gulf. These armies, numbering seven hundred thousand
warriors, courageous, remorseless, and cruel as tigers, were met by five
hundred thousand under Mohammed, Sultan of Carismia. But even this
latter tremendous host could not withstand the impact of the Tartars.
Under Octai, son of Genghis Khan, they crossed the Volga and conquered
vast sections of Russia, laying Moscow and Kiew in ashes. Poland fell
next. Even the Baltic monumented the fury of the Tartars with a circle
of ruined towers and devastated country which marked its shores.
Matthew Paris describes the terror these Tartars inspired even in
England, where they were thought to be “a people of monstrous shape,
drinking blood warm from the veins of their victims, eating raw flesh,
even of human beings, mounted upon enormous horses, which fed upon
leaves and trees.” Their home was presumed to be the Caspian Mountains,
the tops of which God had united and thus shut them in, until now they
were let loose to be the scourge of mankind. The extreme terror spread
by the rumor of their coming was such that the herring fisheries off
Yarmouth were abandoned, lest the sailors should be caught by these
monsters, who could sweep the waves with their ox-hide boats. Their
skill in swimming was of such renown that the lone fisherman of
Friesland was alert lest he should “catch a Tartar.”
At the battle of Liegnitz the prowess of Europe proved impotent against
the Tartar invasion which swept Hungary. Settled communities were
annihilated; nomadic peoples sought safety in migrating.
The Carismians, beaten back by the Tartars, spread themselves through
Asia Minor and Syria; but these fugitives were almost as terrible a
menace as their pursuers had been. They carried with them the spoil of
the lands they traversed. Dreading death less than the disgrace of
retreat, trained to neither give nor take quarter, waving from their
spear-heads the hair of the slaughtered, they assaulted all peoples,
Mussulmans and Christians alike. These nations were forced by the new
menace to lay aside their ancient animosities and unite in a struggle
for existence against the common foe.
The Sultan of Cairo, however, deemed that his policy lay in a different
direction, and made alliance with the invaders, promising to them the
free spoil of Palestine in exchange for the immunity of his Egyptian
possessions. Twenty thousand Carismian horsemen ravaged Tripoli and
Galilee and appeared suddenly before Jerusalem. The inhabitants fled;
the few who remained were indiscriminately massacred. Finding nothing
left to appease the appetite of their swords, the conquerors unfurled
the banner of the cross from the walls and rang the bells of the
churches, thus luring back to the city a multitude of the fugitives,
upon whom they satiated their cruelty. Seven thousand of these helpless
creatures perished at the gates. Not satisfied with the spoil of the
living, the Carismians rifled the abodes of the dead. Sepulchres which
had been respected by the Moslem occupants for a century were ruthlessly
despoiled. The contents of the alleged tomb of Christ, together with
those of the kings of Jerusalem from the days of Godfrey, were given to
the flames.
The Christian and Moslem armies massed against this remorseless foe in
the neighborhood of Gaza. For two days there raged as fearful carnage as
has ever dyed the pages of history; but nothing could stay this host of
fiends. Thirty thousand men, who had entered the battle with prayers in
the name of Jesus or Mohammed, perished or were taken prisoners. But
four Templars, twenty-six Hospitallers, and three Teutonic Knights
remained to tell the story of their useless valor. The heroism of
Gautier of Brienne, Lord of Jaffa, deserves to be chronicled. Captured
by the enemy, he was fastened upon a cross and brought close to the
walls of the town which the Carismians were besieging. He was offered
his life on condition of his counselling the place to surrender. To the
people who thronged the walls he cried with a loud voice, “Your duty is
to fight; mine is to die for you and Jesus Christ.”
But the Carismians, though they were able to conquer, had no ability to
hold their conquests. Like most semicivilized hordes, they reaped what
they found, but had no enterprise to sow again for other harvests. They
quickly quarrelled with their ally, the Sultan of Cairo. New
combinations were made against them, and in a few years they disappeared
from history, merged, doubtless, with other peoples whose home lands
they shared.
THE SEVENTH CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XLIII.
ST. LOUIS.
The news of the Carismian invasion of Palestine reduced Europe to a
condition of panic. It came on the heels of other adversities, which had
shaken the stoutest hearts. The Latin empire at Constantinople, as we
have noted, was again on the verge of falling into the hands of the
Greeks. The Tartars were ravaging the Danube, and threatening the domain
of the Emperor Frederick II. Terror paralyzed trade, travel, and social
intercourse everywhere; even in Italy and along the borders of France
fear fed the imagination that an army of demi-demons was about to
appear. The rustling of the woods, the soughing of the winds, forest
fires, the dust raised by storms, strange cloud shapes on the horizon,
were omens, if not the signs, of the advance of this horde let loose
from hell. Pope Innocent IV. called a council at Lyons. In his opening
address he spoke of the five wounds of the Saviour, which he likened to
five griefs that afflicted him as the Vicegerent of Christ. These were
the Tartar menace, the Greek schism, the Carismian conquest of
Palestine, the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline and progress of
heresy, and, finally, as if it were the climax of the woes of
Christendom, the obduracy of the Emperor Frederick II. in opposing the
papal schemes. The Holy Father could weep over the wickedness of
Tartars, Carismians, and Moslems, but he could only rage against
Frederick. His spirit communicated itself to his prelates. Under his
direction they passed resolutions advising the Germans to dig trenches
and build walls against the Tartars; they also calmly proposed a crusade
against the Infidels; but, with more evidence of deep feeling, they bent
to the floor, dashed out the lights of their candles, and repeated with
sepulchral voices the amen to the papal anathema of the foremost
Christian monarch in the world. The Pope’s fulmination concluded with
these words: “I forbid any, under pain of excommunication, to henceforth
yield him obedience. I command the electors to elect another emperor,
and I reserve to myself the right of disposing of his kingdom of
Sicily.” This was the glory of the so-called Ecumenical Council of
Lyons.
Frederick, on hearing of the outrage perpetrated upon him, called for
his crown, and, placing it upon his head, exclaimed; “There it is; and
before it shall be wrested from me my enemies shall know the terror of
my arms. Let this pontiff tremble, who has broken every tie that bound
me to him.” From that day, as history shows, the popes lost power ever
again to lead united Europe.
But for the pious zeal of one man, it is not probable that another
crusading host would ever have set out against the Moslem.
The hero of the seventh crusade was Louis IX., the “Good St. Louis” of
France. He was the son of Louis VIII., who, Guizot says, “added to the
history of France no glory, save that of having been the son of Philip
Augustus, the husband of Blanche of Castile, and the father of St.
Louis.”
Blanche of Castile was a woman remarkable for her personal beauty and
queenly bearing. She knew how to unite dignity of mien and elegance of
estate with that suavity which wins the hearts of all. According to a
contemporary, Matthew Paris, she was “the most discreet woman of her
time, with a mind singularly quick and penetrating, and with a man’s
heart to leaven her woman’s sex and ideas; personally magnanimous, of
indomitable energy, sovereign mistress in all the affairs of her age,
worthy to be compared with Semiramis, the most eminent of her sex.” The
only weakness remembered of Queen Blanche was one which might be
attributed to the intensity of her maternal affection. She was rudely
jealous of Marguerite when the latter became wife of her son Louis, and
resented the least absorption of her son’s attention and love. She was
possessed of decided ability for government, and at the death of her
husband, Louis VIII. (1226), assumed the direction of affairs as the
guardian of her son, then a lad of eleven years.
Louis IX. is described as very handsome, his features of almost feminine
delicacy, his hair light, long, and flowing. He was extremely courteous,
gentle, and companionable. One might have suspected weakness from the
softness of his manners, until it was observed that he maintained the
same quiet demeanor while shrewdly watching the chicanery of the court
and while planning the most warlike and desperate expeditions against
his foes. When La Marche rebelled and insulted his Majesty, Louis made
no retort, but deliberated regarding him with his counsellors without
apparent resentment, and laid plans so shrewd and far-reaching that they
conquered both the rebel’s arms and hatred. The kings of France had
always been at variance, often at swords’ points, with the great feudal
barons of the realm; but in 1243 Louis made such arrangement with them
as won their complete fidelity.
The moral qualities of Louis IX., as well as his repute for sound
judgment, led to his selection by foreigners to arbitrate their
disputes, as when Henry III. of England and his barons submitted their
differences to the French king’s opinion. He was by impulse and
principle a philanthropist, loving the people of all conditions. The
sick domestics of the palace were often nursed by the royal hand.
Wherever he went his servants were ordered to distribute sufficient
money to provide for the needs of one hundred poor persons, that the
people might not feel the shadow of royalty without its sunshine. The
chroniclers delight in picturing the monarch under the broad tree,
listening to the complaints of a crowd of his humblest subjects. That
justice and mercy might extend beyond his personal supervision, he
appointed “restitution offices,” where the best of men granted rehearing
of any case in which a worsted litigant deemed himself injured by the
letter of the law. This, perhaps, is the first institution in the spirit
of our modern courts of equity. During an illness, in which he thought
he might die, he summoned his son Louis and said, “Fair son, I pray thee
make thyself beloved of the people of thy kingdom, for verily I would
rather a Scot should come and govern our people well and loyally than
have thee govern them ill.”
The piety of Louis shone in his care of religious houses and in the
establishment of hospitals, especially for leprosy, a disease which was
brought into Europe by pilgrims returning from the East. Churches were
multiplied and ornamented, for, said the monarch, “the most sure means
to avoid perishing like the impious is to love and enrich the place in
which dwells the glory of the Lord.”
It is not to the discredit of the personal character of Louis IX. that
he was not entirely free from the bigotry and superstition of his age.
He treated heresy as of the nature of rebellion, and did not stay the
heavy hand of persecution in some instances. He especially revered
relics. When a nail, which was believed to have been one of those that
pierced the hands of Jesus, was temporarily missing from its casket, he
cried, “I would rather that the best city in my kingdom had been
swallowed up in the earth.” With joy he paid a large price to Baldwin
II., the Latin King of Constantinople, for our Saviour’s crown of
thorns. The “Holy Chapel,” which he built to shield the precious relics,
still remains one of the finest monuments of mediæval times. In private
life Louis would have preferred the daily routine of a monk to the
diversions of the court. He prided himself on the hard haircloth worn
next his skin as a token of perpetual humility more than he cared for
his royal robe. At his waist hung, instead of silken tassels, a scourge
of iron chains, which drew blood from his back once a week. He never
laughed on a Friday. Except where the dignity of his throne required
public defence, Louis scarcely maintained his royal self-respect, so
meek did he try to be. A common woman once brazenly said to him, “You
are unfit for a king of France, fit only to be a king of monks and
priests.” Louis humbly replied, “You say the truth,” and with a smile
gave her a handful of money.
As early as 1239, when Louis IX. was twenty-four years of age, he
manifested great zeal for the crusades, and sent Amaury de Montfort to
fight as his personal representative on the field. Five years later
(1244) he was afflicted with such serious illness that at one moment he
was believed to be dead. The watchers were startled by his sepulchral
voice: “He, by God’s grace, hath visited me—He who cometh from on high
hath recalled me from among the dead.” Reviving from his swoon, he bade
the Bishop of Paris place upon his shoulder the cross of the voyage over
the sea. Three years passed, during which he seemingly forgot the vow,
but an incident proved that the holy enthusiasm still burned in his
heart. Allusion being made one day to the cross he wore as having been
assumed at a moment when he was of wavering mind through bodily
weakness, the king instantly undid the emblem from his shoulder and gave
it to the Bishop of Paris; he then added, “Now assuredly I am in my
senses. He that knoweth all things knoweth that until that cross is
replaced upon my shoulder no food shall enter my lips.”
At this time Pope Innocent IV. was attempting to arouse Europe to a new
crusade, but since his greater zeal was for a crusade against Frederick
II., the holy war lacked recruits. Germany was in the midst of the civil
dissension which Innocent had stirred up by acknowledging his
subservient tool, Henry, Landgrave of Hesse, as emperor. Italy was rent
with the contention between Guelph and Ghibelline, fostered by the same
mistaken judgment of Innocent. England was at war with Scotland and
Wales. Frederick II., in order to avert the thickening disasters from
his realm, proposed to personally abdicate the imperial throne in favor
of his son Conrad, and himself to lead an army to Palestine, with an
oath never to return, if even this personal sacrifice would appease the
papal resentment. Louis IX. besought the Holy Father to accede to this
proposal and to assume a different attitude towards a Christian monarch,
but Innocent was obdurate to all entreaties. The church of Christ was
ruled by the hatred and wrath of one who, above all men, should have
remembered the Lord’s prayer, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive
those who trespass against us.” The penalty of breaking the precepts of
human wisdom and divine charity at length fell upon him. The Pope lost
the sympathy of the kingdoms; even the French nobles, though jealous of
Germany, formed a league for their defence against papal encroachments.
This, if not the origin of, greatly favored the movement for Gallican
liberties, which has continued ever since.
Louis IX. took upon himself the duty of leading the crusade; he convoked
a parliament of the dignitaries of his realm, and by his eloquence moved
the princes and nobles to follow his example. His queen, Marguerite,
with many of her proudest ladies, assumed the cross. Among the warriors
was the Prince de Joinville, the endeared companion and adviser of the
king, to whose prolific and graceful pen the world is indebted for the
history of Louis’s time and personal adventures. Those who did not at
once volunteer to join the crusade were variously persuaded by the zeal
of the monarch. It was the custom for the French kings at certain
solemnities to present their courtiers with mantles, which they put on
in his presence and wore afterwards as the sign of royal favor. Louis
observed the custom on Christmas eve. As the guests marched from the
shaded robing-room to the lighted chapel they were amazed to discover
the cross of voyage sewed upon every man’s shoulder. The courtiers
laughed at the joke perpetrated upon them, but, feeling its
significance, yielded to the royal will and honored their investment by
taking the crusaders’ vow.
The example of the king affected the entire population. In every village
was seen the procession of volunteers seeking the blessing of the altar
and enrolling themselves under their lords. Whole territories were thus
stripped of their defenders and even of the tillers of the soil; rising
arts were bereft of their workmen. France was despoiling itself for the
sake of an idea. Modern utilitarianism may deride it, but our sentiment
applauds where our judgment condemns. It was indeed still the “age of
faith.”
In June, 1248, Louis took up the pilgrim staff together with the
oriflamme of France. He left the kingdom to the care of his mother,
Blanche, and with his wife set out upon what proved to be one of the
most romantic and tragic of adventures. At Lyons he made confession to
the Pope, whom he again unavailingly entreated to be at peace with
Frederick. As the cavalcade was nearing Avignon his men were assaulted,
and begged to be permitted to avenge the insult by an attack upon that
city. “No,” replied the king; “I go from France not to avenge my own
injuries, but those of my Lord Jesus Christ.” At Marseilles a similar
outrage occurred. The king refused to retaliate, saying, “God forbid
that Satan should prevail, for he is angered at our expedition and is
seeking to put obstacles in the way.”
In August he set sail from Aigues-Mortes, a place he had purchased and
in whose harbor he had prepared his fleet; he here diminished his host
by discharging with abundant recompense all such as he deemed not of the
right sort either in character or pious purpose. As the French had no
experience in navigation, the movement of the fleet was committed to
Genoese captains. Joinville’s experience will be appreciated by many
landsmen: “A great fool is he who, having any sin on his soul, places
himself in such danger; for if he goes to sleep at night he cannot be
certain he shall not find himself at the bottom of the sea in the
morning.” Landing in Cyprus, the expedition was warmly received by the
king of the island, but found scanty supply of provisions. Louis
appealed to the Venetians, who sent him much corn and wine. Frederick
II., learning of the crusaders’ need, also sent supplies. Louis replied
with thanks to the emperor, and sent another appeal to the Pope to
forego his wrath upon so generous a friend to the cause of the Master;
but it evoked no compassion in the relentless heart of the pontiff.
Louis was prevailed upon to spend the winter in Cyprus, under pledge of
the Cypriotes to accompany him in the spring. Luxury brought relaxation
of discipline and all its accompanying vices. This was followed by a
pest, which caused the death of two hundred and fifty knights. During
the winter there arrived an embassy of Tartars, who announced the
conversion to Christianity of one of their great princes, and solicited
alliance with the French. Louis apparently credited the story, and sent
to the Tartar chief a scarlet tent, in the canvas of which were wrought
in silken letters many texts of Scripture, which it was hoped might
assist the convert’s meditation. The embassage proved to be a
ruse—doubtless an attempt to spy out the destination and power of the
crusaders.
A more significant overture was received from the Masters of the
Templars and Hospitallers, who proposed, rather than war, to open
negotiations with the Sultan of Cairo, who might be disposed to grant
more than the Christians could wrest from him. This Louis regarded as an
insult to his prowess and vow.
It had been determined to strike the enemy in Egypt. Of the wisdom of
this project few were persuaded. The Arabian writers speak of it as
showing an imbecile mind. Egypt was at this time governed by Negmeddin,
son of Malek-Kamel, the conqueror of the Christians in their former
attempt at Damietta. This chieftain had united in his hand all the
Moslems from the Nile to the Euphrates. Aware of the plans of the coming
invaders, he massed a great fleet to descend the Nile and meet the fleet
of the Christians, and an army of commensurate proportions to guard the
banks.
The crusaders sailed from Cyprus with eight hundred vessels; these
carried not only warriors and implements of battle, but many artisans
and vast material for establishing a colony, which project is regarded
even by those who deprecate the military assault as showing the wide
statesmanship of the French king. A storm scattered the fleet, driving
many ships against the coast of Syria, and compelling Louis to return to
Cyprus with the loss of half his armament.
A second attempt was more successful, and the fleet approached the walls
of Damietta. Joinville dilates upon the magnificent spectacle: the sea
covered for miles with the ships, whose topmasts gleamed with the sign
of the cross; the mouth of the Nile guarded by the vessels of the
Moslem; the shores lined with the multitude of warriors in various
accoutrements, drawn from all the lands of the Infidel; the very sky
resounding with their pagan cries and the noise of their trumpets and
drums.
At break of the next day the French began the assault. Queen
Marguerite’s bark was alone left at a distance, whence she might watch
the fight. The knights stood, lance in hand, beside their horses on the
broad barges, some of which were propelled by as many as three hundred
rowers. At word of command the fleet seemed to be lifted by the
innumerable oars and to be fairly hurled upon the shore. Before they
could land the daylight became obscured with showers of arrows,
javelins, and stones, that poured upon them from the banks. For a moment
the fleet was retarded by the deluge of missiles that smote the rowers,
but the king’s quick command redoubled their strokes. As the vessels
grounded on the beach he himself led the assault, leaping into the sea
shoulder-deep with sword in hand. The whole army emulated his heroism,
and with the cry, “Montjoie! St. Denis!” plunged into the water. The
attack was as when the sea itself assails the land with tidal wave. The
Moslems were driven back. The crusaders completed their array on solid
ground, but scarcely were they in battle order before the Moslem cavalry
rode down upon them with the noise and speed of a sirocco from the
neighboring desert. Amid the terrible mêlée Louis bent his knees a
moment on the sands, anew giving himself to the will of Heaven, then
dashed into the thickest of the fight. The shore ran with rills of
blood, which incarnadined the sea. Steadily the oriflamme of France
mounted the beach. The war-galleys made an equally furious assault upon
the Moslem navy. With the impetuous ramming of the tough prows of the
French vessels many a ship filled with Egyptian warriors was sent to the
bottom. The cross gained the mouth of the river, up which its defenders
fled. By nightfall the coast and both banks of the Nile had been gained,
and under the stars of Egypt the Christian camp resounded with the Te
Deum and shouts of victory.
The joy of the Christians was soon mingled with wonder. The horizon to
the south of them suddenly seemed on fire. The scouts, approaching
Damietta in the early dawn, discovered that its walls were like the
crater of some vast volcano pouring up clouds of smoke shot through with
flashes of flame. The gates of the town were wide open. Entering
cautiously, they found the streets filled with newly slaughtered
multitudes. It would seem that the panic of the Moslems had left them
neither heart nor wit for the defence of their stronghold. In the
blindness of their rage they had put to death multitudes of Christians,
and the Christians, in the frenzy of their despair, had slain their
Moslem neighbors. Fakr Eddin, the commandant, had given orders to fire
the houses, mosques, and fortifications, consuming everything, that the
crusaders might not profit by their victory.
The Christians upon entering the city found little spoil to tempt their
rapacity, and were easily persuaded to celebrate their conquest with the
services of religion. King Louis marched at the head of a grand
procession to the great mosque, which they solemnly consecrated to the
worship of the Virgin Mary. The Sultan of Cairo had been prevented by
illness from personally taking part in the battle. He expressed his
displeasure at the defeat of his soldiers by ordering the beheading of
fifty-four men of the garrison of Damietta. But the display of vengeance
upon the helpless could not restore his lost prestige in the presence of
a gigantic enemy.
Queen Marguerite established her court in Damietta. The army encamped
without the walls. All gave themselves up to enjoyment, as if a single
defeat of the foe had been its annihilation. Instead of following up the
advantage gained, it was determined to await the gathering of the ships
scattered by the storm, and for the arrival of a French contingent under
the king’s brother, who desired to also share in the conquest. Inaction
produced the usual consequences in the camp. Vice reigned in the very
proximity of the king’s quarters, which he was as powerless to prevent
as monarchs of that age generally were to cleanse the slums that crept
close to their palaces. The leaders fell to quarrelling over the scanty
spoil of Damietta, and even disputed its possession by the sovereign.
The soldiers robbed the traders who came into the camp, and soon
prevented even the supply of comforts from this source. Foray parties
brought in the Egyptian women they captured, and established harems,
which had not even the screens of Oriental custom. The king’s authority
fell into total disregard.
There was also strife between the English and the French. William
Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, excited jealousy by his impetuous and
successful enterprises, in one of which he captured a stronghold near
Alexandria, together with many women belonging to noble Egyptian
families. In another raid he seized a richly laden caravan. The French
disputed the possession of his booty. The Count d’Artois was especially
envious of the renown of his fellow-warrior, and seized a portion of the
spoil in the name of Louis. When the king hesitated to order its
restoration, fearing to excite division in his immediate family, Earl
William declared to the royal face, “You are not then a king, since you
are not able to administer justice.” He left the camp and retired to
Acre. The Count d’Artois added insult by exclaiming, “Now the army of
the noble French is well purged of these _tailed_ Englishmen”—alluding
to a rumor that, as punishment for the murder of Thomas à Becket, the
people of the British Isles had begun to develop the caudal appendage in
proof that they were of “their father, the devil.”
During these dissensions the lines of the encampment were left without
any systematic defence, and were constantly raided by parties of swift
Bedouin riders, who made their assault as the sudden dust-clouds of
Libya overwhelm the traveller and quickly disappear again in their
kindred sands. Carismian adventurers were also lured by the sultan’s
promise of a golden bezant for every Christian head, and half as much
for a right hand, and a fifth for a foot. They dashed upon the detached
groups, or stole secretly by night into the tents, and bore away their
prize, leaving the mutilated bodies of the knights to tell of their
deed. The sultan, Negmeddin, knowing that disease was hastening his end,
redeemed the time by the incessant activity of his subalterns.
Mansourah, at the junction of the branches of the Nile, soon presented
the aspect of an impregnable circle of fortifications.
The arrival of the king’s brother, the Count of Poitiers, revived the
martial ardor of the French; and it was decided to attack the Egyptian
capital, Cairo, or Babylon (Babloon), as it was then called. The
majority of the crusaders supposed this place to be the Babylon of the
Scriptures, still stored with the immense riches of the ancients, and
waiting for them to fulfil upon it the curses of the prophets. There was
a rumor that certain renegade Moslems had already entered into a compact
to deliver the citadel of Cairo to the advancing Christians. This report
even reached Europe, where it was magnified into a detailed account of
the capture of the Egyptian capital, and awakened universal joy, to be
turned into mourning as the news of the real events arrived.
Negmeddin, Sultan of Cairo, died, but the event was kept secret within
the citadel, while Chegger-Eddour, the favorite sultana, issued orders
as if her husband were living, until the new sultan, Almoadam Turan
Shan, had securely gripped the reins of power.
Meanwhile the French were advancing. On December 19th they reached the
canal Aschmoun, a deep and broad stream, which could be crossed only by
the crusaders building a causeway. As fast as this work extended into
the stream the Moslems dug away the opposite bank, and so each day left
the canal of unlessened width. The Infidels massed across the canal;
their fleet waited in the Nile above. The Christians were forced to make
their camp at Mansourah, on the identical site of the terrible disaster
thirty years before.
But neither the memories of the spot which monumented the fatal end of
the previous crusade, nor the evidences of danger which they saw on
every side, could subdue the gayety for which the French even in that
age were proverbial. When a knight of rank was being buried his
companions interrupted the chanting of the mass for the repose of his
soul by their bantering as to which of them was most apt to win the hand
of his widow. Joinville notes the punishment that followed this
irreverence, in that all of this company perished in the very next
battle, and that not one of their widows respected the memory of her
husband sufficiently to remain long without marrying one of his
better-behaved comrades. On this old battle-ground the crusaders were
incessantly assailed with missiles and with Greek fire, whose huge
balls, exploding with tremendous detonations, scattered danger far and
wide, and destroyed the wooden towers and engines of the French as fast
as they could be constructed.
A ford was opportunely discovered not far distant; the French marched by
night and prepared to wade the stream at daybreak. Robert, Count
d’Artois, the king’s brother, begged the honor of crossing first. He
promised to wait on the farther bank until the whole army was with him,
but the flight of an opposing band of Moslems was too much for the hot
head of this youth. In vain did the experienced Masters of the Templars
and Hospitallers protest against the foolhardiness of pursuing the
retreating band into the very midst of their fortifications and hosts.
The Count d’Artois replied with taunts, impugning the loyalty and
courage of the older warriors: “They fear that if the country be
conquered their domination will cease.” This was too much for the
self-restraint of the most cautious. “Raise, then, the banner!” cried
the Master of the Templars. William Longsword still remonstrated. The
Count d’Artois replied, “What cowardice in these long-tailed English!”
To which the Englishman made equal bravado: “We shall be to-day where
you will not dare to touch my horse’s tail.” With that all dashed ahead
for the desperate assault. The Moslems could not at first withstand this
impetuous charge. Fakr Eddin was surprised half dressed, and while
endeavoring to rally his troops was slain. On swept the victors, driving
the enemy over the plain and following them into Mansourah.
But a keen-eyed leader had taken the place of the fallen Fakr Eddin.
Bibars Bendoctar, captain of the Mamelukes, quickly checked the flight,
and by skilful manœuvring surrounded the city of Mansourah before the
Christians could emerge from its gates. Thus the victors were imprisoned
within the walls they had conquered. The main body of Christians,
delayed in the crossing, at length followed after their comrades, not
knowing of their unhappy fate. Without orderly array they spread over
the field; a thousand battles were fought instead of one, as band after
band met the scattered detachments of the enemy. Before the Christians
could plan their engagement Bibars had collected an orderly force and
was upon them. Riding through their disconnected ranks, he steadily
pressed the slaughter-line back to the canal. The water was reddened
with the blood of the wounded and soon covered with the bodies of the
drowned. Louis, unable to issue commands that could be heard, set a
splendid example of heroism by dashing with his squires into the
thickest ranks of the foe. He so far outstripped his quickest attendants
that he soon found himself alone, surrounded by six stalwart Moslems,
who endeavored to capture him, his royal person being revealed by his
gorgeous uniform. With great strength and skill, which his countrymen
have never ceased to celebrate, he extricated himself from the danger
and, joined by his guards, led the army in a resistless charge. Their
valor saved that day.
But alas for those in Mansourah! For five hours this valiant but deluded
band stood in the streets, fighting in vain for their lives. Almost the
entire vanguard of fifteen hundred perished. England mourned William
Longsword, whose death, according to the chronicle, was announced at the
very moment to his mother by a vision of her son, a triumphant knight,
entering heaven. The bravery of Longsword so impressed his enemies that
they carefully marked his grave and in after years restored his body to
his kinspeople. France lost the royal brother, Count d’Artois, who, the
English say, attempted to escape by casting himself into the Nile. The
Hospitallers left their Grand Master a prisoner. The Templars watched
long that night before they beheld their leader returning to their camp
covered with wounds and rags. Joinville, who narrates the events of that
fatal day, consoled his king by showing him his own five ghastly wounds.
The Christians were victorious if victory is proved solely by possession
of the field.
Three days later Bibars reappeared; his army stretched from the canal to
the river. Another day of terrible havoc followed. At nightfall the
Christians had maintained their ground, but their losses were equal to a
fresh defeat. The records of nearly all the great families of France are
starred by the dead who represented them that night as they lay unburied
on the plain of Mansourah.
Discretion suggested the retreat of the remnant of the crusaders to
Damietta, but desperation took counsel only of its battle-heated blood.
They determined to remain and hold the ground so dearly won. It was an
unwise decision. While the human enemy was unable to resume the attack,
a more fearful one stalked visibly among them. The multitude of dead
bodies which covered the land and water quickly putrefied and bred
pestilence. The picture of a knight walking days and nights along the
canal, exposed to the fetid death-vapors while he searched among the
corpses for his master, Robert d’Artois, might be an allegory of France
itself as she moaned and waited for thousands of her sons who would
never return. Those who survived were attacked by a virulent disease,
which Joinville thus describes: “The flesh of our legs dried away to the
bone, and our skins became of black or earth color, like an old saddle
which has been a long time laid aside.” The fish of the Nile had become
poisonous from feeding upon the dead bodies, and putrefied the mouths of
those who ate them. “It became necessary for the barbers to cut out the
swollen flesh of the gums of all who were afflicted with this disease so
that they could not eat, but went about in the army crying and moaning.”
So decimated were the ranks that grooms took the places of knights, not
waiting for chivalric ceremonies, and put on the noble armor they had
been accustomed to clean. There were not enough priests left alive to
shrive the dying. King Louis gave himself up to nursing the sick and
consoling their last hours until he himself was prostrated by the
epidemic. The crusaders watched in anxiety by his cot what they feared
would be the extinction of their last hope.
The Moslems, keeping at a safe distance from this death-beleaguered
camp, added famine to the other horrors by cutting off supplies. They
lay in wait for vessels laden with provisions from Europe, and seized
them as they were ascending the Nile. At length almost the entire
Christian fleet was captured. Louis was thus reduced to making proposals
to abandon Egypt on condition of the restoration of Jerusalem to
Christian rule. The sultan agreed, provided the king himself should be
surrendered to him as a hostage until the last European had left the
country. Louis consented, but the warriors refused to accede to what
they deemed the disgraceful terms of putting in pawn their king. Nothing
remained but an attempt to return to Damietta.
This retreat of the Christians was fraught with miseries which baffle
description. The women, the children, and the sick were stowed in the
few boats that remained, and in the darkness of night drifted down the
stream. The soldiers took up their perilous march along the banks. Some
of the nobles, together with the papal legate, having secured a vessel,
urged the king to embark. He refused, being determined, as he declared,
to tramp with the last man that survived. The camp they were leaving was
quickly assailed by the Moslems, who went through it slaughtering all
they could find. Louis turned back and fought with the desperation of a
tigress protecting her young. The cry, “Wait for the king!” rang along
the banks, and the vessels stopped; but Louis forbade any to loiter. At
length the rear-guard was in motion. The king was provided with a horse,
and, without helmet or cuirass, arrayed only with his sword and
surrounded by a handful of braves, brought up the rear of a mighty
funeral procession, in which the living were moving to their own graves.
The king afterwards spoke of the heroic fidelity of one of his
attendants, Geoffrey de Sargines, “who protected me against the Saracens
as a good servant protects his lord’s tankard against the flies.” The
cortège—it was such rather than an army—moved along roads lined with the
dead and dying. Horrible cries startled them on every side. Peering
through the darkness, they saw the forms of comrades often deprived of
hands and feet.
As birds of prey follow the traveller in the desert and sometimes do not
wait until he is dead before they attack his languishing form, so the
Moslems pursued the band which they knew to be foredoomed to perish, and
hastened the end by their murderous assault. Those who had embarked on
boats met with a disaster equal to that of those who trudged on land.
The enemy’s fleet stopped them near Mehallah. The Christian boats were
huddled together so that they could not move. The crusaders could
scarcely find foot room on the crowded decks; the Mussulman archers on
the shore poured upon them a storm of arrows, many of which were tipped
with the Greek fire. The Christians on the ships were no longer
soldiers, but victims of slaughter.
On the land it was the same. The king, weak unto death, was defended by
the little band about him. They brought him into a house in the town of
Menieh; within doors a tradeswoman from Paris held the royal head in her
lap, as was supposed, watching him die. Without in the streets brave men
laid down their lives in a last effort to save even their king’s body,
but their heroic devotion served only to emblazon itself on this darkest
page of the history of the crusades. Louis was taken by the foe and
loaded with chains, but he felt more weightily the shame of being the
first king of France ever a prisoner in the hands of a foreign enemy.
Joinville, who tells the story, was dragged to a neighboring house, and
would have been slain but that a little child clung to him and, by this
double appeal of helplessness, excited the interposition of one whom he
calls “the good Saracen.”
The Moslems returned to Mansourah in triumph. They dressed their fleet
in utmost gayety as it bore the person of their royal captive. Their
armies marched on either bank of the Nile, escorting the Christian
survivors, who were driven along with their hands bound behind their
backs.
Queen Marguerite was at Damietta, already entering the pains of
childbed. Ordering all to leave her chamber but an aged knight, she said
to him, “I require you, on the faith you have pledged to me, that if the
enemy shall take this city you will cut off my head rather than allow me
to become a captive.” “Certainly, madam, I will do it,” he replied. The
queen gave birth to a son, whom she called Jean Tristan, because of the
sorrows that begirt his birth. Learning that the remnant of the city
guard proposed abandoning Damietta, she forbade it as involving
additional disgrace. “Be moved by my tears,” she cried, “and have pity
on the poor child whom you see lying on my bosom.” The attitude of this
heroine saved the city, the last spot of Christian possession in the
land they had come to conquer.
Louis languished in prison. He had no clothing but a coarse cassock,
which a fellow-prisoner had taken from his own person. Even the Moslems
who guarded him afterwards expressed their reverence for the piety the
captive monarch displayed, “worthy of a saint of Islam, the religion of
holy resignation.” The sultan at length sent him a wardrobe of fifty
magnificent dresses for himself and his attendants. Louis declined them,
saying that as a French king he could not wear the raiment of a foreign
prince. They prepared him a feast, but Louis declined to partake of it,
because he was a captive. The services of the Moslem physicians he did
not reject, knowing that if it was the purpose of his enemies to keep
him alive to grace their triumph, it was his duty to his throne not to
sacrifice any opportunity of lengthening life by which he might regain
it. The sultan promised him liberty on condition of his issuing an order
for the surrender of Damietta and the Christian strongholds of
Palestine. He replied, “The Christian cities do not belong to me, but to
God.” The sultan then threatened him with the most frightful torture,
such as was reserved for the lowest criminals. Louis replied, “I am the
sultan’s prisoner; he can do with me what he pleases.” A Moslem
rejoined, “You treat us, sire, as if you had us in prison instead of our
holding you.”
About him in an open court Louis daily looked upon the miseries of the
remnant of his army. They were naked, clothed only in scars and blood
from their unhealed wounds. Each day a number were dragged out and
offered the alternative of abjuring their faith and embracing
Mohammedanism or being slain. The dead bodies that were daily cast into
the Nile told the story of their choice. Many were carried to Cairo to
die in its dungeons or were sold as slaves to surrounding tribes.
The conquerors finally wearied of their attempt to subdue the proud
spirits of those whose bodies they held, and proposed to liberate the
king for a million golden bezants and the surrender of Damietta. Louis
accepted the offer on condition that Queen Marguerite should approve,
adding in the spirit of the Chivalry of that age, “The queen is my lady;
I can do nothing without her consent.” It was agreed that Damietta
should be the ransom for the king, while he should pay from his own
purse the ransom money for such of his comrades as survived.
The fulfilment of the treaty was interrupted by a strange turn of
affairs. The Sultan Almoadam, inflated with pride over his victories,
had stirred the jealousy of the Mamelukes. Chegger-Eddour, the
slave-woman who had risen to be the mistress of Egypt, turned also
against the man whom as her husband she had raised to power. The sultan
gave a banquet to his chief officers; at the end of the feast Bibars
Bendoctar, the leader of the Mamelukes, approached him and aimed a blow
with his dagger, which, however, inflicted but a slight wound. Almoadam
fled to a tower; the Mamelukes fired the edifice; their victim threw
himself through the smoke and flames from a window, his bruised body
falling among his foes; Bibars smote him with a sabre. Bleeding and weak
with terror, Almoadam flung himself into the Nile; the soldiers plunged
after him and held him until dead beneath the water.
The infuriated Mamelukes then assailed the galley in which Joinville and
several leaders of the Christians were confined, and bade them prepare
for death. There was but a single priest in the company and no time for
shriving one by one, so they confessed to one another, Joinville, the
layman, giving to Guy d’Ibelin, as he says, “such absolution as God had
given me power to give.” Fortunately the rage of the Mamelukes was
diverted elsewhere, and the “dead men came to life.”
The Moslems, unable to secure a successor to Almoadam from among their
warriors, gave the crown to the Sultana Chegger-Eddour, much to the
disgust of the Mohammedan world. After great dissension and many threats
the leaders of the Moslems proposed to carry out the treaty with the
Franks which the unfortunate Almoadam had agreed to. They took an oath
to observe its conditions and asked of Louis a similar pledge; this he
rejected with scorn, assuming that the word of a French king needed no
confirmation. The knights and lords of his party embarked on vessels and
descended the Nile, the king marching with his Moslem guard along the
shore. At Damietta he was joined by Queen Marguerite and her court.
In spite of its honorable surrender the Moslems hastened to loot
Damietta and put to death every Christian that remained. This breach of
treaty and their new taste of blood infuriated the mob of Moslems for
further deeds of dishonor and cruelty. The galleys of the French were
ordered to reascend the Nile. It was proposed to complete the tragedy in
one act by slaughtering all the invaders. The Moslems were diverted from
this outrage only by the consideration, as expressed in the speech of
one of them, that “the dead pay no ransom,” and that to massacre the
remnant of the French army would be to deprive themselves of the bezants
pledged as the price of their lives. So the miserable exodus of the
crusaders was resumed, not, however, without anticipation that the
fickle temper of their captors might again change. At the mouth of the
Nile a Genoese vessel received the king; as soon as he was on deck an
array of archers sprang to the bulwarks and dispersed the Egyptians, and
the vessel sped rapidly out to sea.
Louis put in at Acre, bringing to the meagre force there but a few more
war-wasted men, wider demands upon its diminished resources, and a
pestilent disease, which slew scores daily. In vain did France call for
her king to return; pride or piety led him to refuse to desert his
unhappy followers. There were still twelve thousand Frenchmen in the
prisons of Egypt or scattered as slaves over the lands bordering the
Nile. These he must endeavor to rescue. The Hospitallers, Templars, and
Teutonic Knights, together with the nobles of Palestine, entreated his
presence with them. For several weeks there were almost daily councils,
some, among them the king’s two surviving brothers, declaring that
France, threatened by England, needed the king, while his presence
almost without following in Palestine could be no help to the Christian
cause, if it did not excite the everywhere victorious Moslems to greater
rapacity. Others among them, like Prince Joinville, advocated remaining.
Louis listened to the latter. The king’s brothers, the dukes of Anjou
and Poitiers, returned to France.
The Moslems of Egypt, grown quickly tired of the Sultana Chegger-Eddour,
made her yield up the sceptre. She shrewdly passed it to a favorite,
Aibek, by marrying him, and thus retained the substance of power.
The new Sultan of Egypt and the Sultan of Damascus and Aleppo each
invoked the aid of Louis against the other. Motives of vengeance would
have inclined him to side with the latter, but dread for the fate of the
French still left in Egypt, and regard for his treaty, hard as its terms
had been, prevented this choice, except in the event of the Egyptians
not speedily fulfilling their part of the contract in liberating the
captives. The threat of such alliance brought from Egypt some
instalments of prisoners. One band of two hundred knights carried with
them to Acre, as their best contribution to the cause, the bones of
several of their comrades for burial in the Holy Land. Louis was deeply
afflicted by the news that many of his soldiers refused to return to
him, having renounced the faith of Christ, who no longer extended to
them His succor. Some of these renegades amassed wealth and rose to
power in Egypt, but never, if we are to believe the Moslem writers,
reached the confidence and respect of the true followers of the Prophet.
This defection is hardly to be wondered at, since that age refused to
believe the words of Christ, “My kingdom is not of this world, else
would My servants fight.” The Christians partook too largely of the
Moslem idea that religion would triumph by the sword; but they had not
the reserve faith of the Mohammedans, which led them to take up the
kismet, “It is decreed,” when they were forced to retreat.
Europe sent an occasional knight to join the forlorn hope with Louis,
but no organized force. The Pope exhausted his passion in pursuing with
malediction the memory of Frederick II., who had just died. “Let the
heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad,” he wrote to the people of
Sicily upon the death of his old enemy. Against the new emperor, Conrad,
he proclaimed a crusade, offering indulgence to the German mothers and
fathers who would induce their sons to become traitors to their
sovereign.
The English King, Henry III., offered to take the cross for Palestine,
but, having raised a large sum of money for the purpose of an
expedition, found other uses for it. He forbade a large band of his
people embarking for the Holy Land, guarding his ports against their
departure. He even, as Matthew Paris says, “like a hurt or offended
child, who runs to his mother with his complaints,” obtained a papal
mandate enforcing obedience to his whim in this regard. Queen Blanche,
the regent of France, did indeed send a ship laden with money to her
son, but the vessel was sunk off the Syrian coast.
The chief occupation of Louis and his knights was in repairing the few
remaining fortifications held by the Christians, and in making pious
pilgrimages to the holy places at Nazareth, Tabor, and Cana. The Sultan
of Damascus invited him to Jerusalem, but, having come to conquer it, he
would not consent to enter it as a guest, having in mind the example of
Richard Cœur de Lion, who sixty years before had refused to look upon
the city he could not rescue. The Egyptians pressed Louis for alliance
against the Sultan of Damascus. They pledged to liberate all captives
remaining in Egypt, and further to send to Palestine the heads of the
Christians which had been exposed on the walls of Cairo; they would also
give up Jerusalem and nearly all the cities of Palestine. Under this
immense lure Louis made treaty with the Egyptians for fifteen years.
The Sultan of Damascus did not let his resentment cool before he
interposed an army between the Christians and their new allies. He was
defeated February 3, 1251. The Egyptians were unable or unwilling to
fulfil the promise to join Louis’s forces. At the expiration of a year
the Moslems had made peace with each other and declared war upon Louis
as their common enemy. The Turkomans also made raid upon Sidon and
slaughtered two thousand of the Christian people. Louis ordered
Joinville to retaliate by assaulting Baneas, or Cæsarea Philippi, where
they took recompense in blood. As they returned to Sidon they saw the
ground covered with putrefying corpses of their martyred kinsmen. Louis
bade them bury the dead, but no one would touch spade for the disgusting
task. “Come, my friends, let us bestow a little earth upon the martyrs
of Jesus Christ,” said the king; and springing from his horse, he took
one of the bodies in his hands and gently laid it beneath the dirt. His
example was followed by his suite.
A few months later news came of the death of Queen Blanche. The pens of
the historians, who are usually concerned only with great affairs of
state and the issue of battles, linger over the page in which they
describe the tender lamentation of the good Louis. For two days he spoke
to no one; then sent for Joinville, to whom he outpoured his passionate
grief.
The call for Louis’s return to France was renewed; the throne had no
protector; England was threatening. There was no possibility of further
service in the East, yet the king was undecided. Religious processions
of prayer were organized and the altars in various holy places besieged
with petitions for the divine guidance of the royal mind. At length
Heaven seemed to concur in what had long been the judgment of men, and
the king consented to abandon the field.
Fourteen vessels were sufficient to convey his forces. Each was fitted
with an altar for hourly service during the voyage. They raised anchor
in the port of Sidon, April 24, 1254. Off Cyprus the king’s ships were
nearly wrecked, but the courage of the sailors was revived by his words,
if the sea did not subside at his prayer, as some say it did. A
frightful tempest seems to have felt the spell of Queen Marguerite’s vow
of a silver ship to St. Nicholas of Lorraine. After two months and a
half (July 8th) the fleet reached Hyères. The king at first refused to
land, as this place was not yet a French possession; but he was
persuaded to yield his patriotic prejudice on account of his disgust for
the water. His piety also triumphed over his worldly chagrin, for,
“See,” said he, “if God has not proved to us how vast is His power, when
by means of a single one of the four winds the King of France, the
queen, their children, and so many other persons have escaped drowning.”
After a journey of two months more, not a long one for the best mounted
in that age, the royal party reached Paris, September 7, 1254. The king
at once repaired to St. Denis to recognize the protection of his patron
saint. Then, with universal welcome, he entered his capital. The popular
enthusiasm was not altogether of joy as the people contrasted the little
band of lords and knights returning to their wasted estates with the
splendid retinue that six years before had gone forth to conquer a new
empire for France and Christ. But one thing comforted them as they
contemplated the disaster—the piety of their monarch. This was the more
marked as the age had lost much of its religious zest. This crusade was
very unlike the first in that it was sustained by the new spirit of
Chivalry rather than of mere sanctity. Cross-wearing was no longer
thought to be necessarily the emblazoning of Heaven. The haughtiness,
the worldliness, not to say the wickedness, of the popes, who should
have been its spiritual leaders, but who were engrossed in the
gratification of their own jealousies, almost lost the church the
respect of the nations. The beauty of Louis’s devotion, its
unselfishness and spirituality, somewhat redeemed the character of the
movement upon which Christ Himself seemed to frown through His adverse
providence.
THE EIGHTH CRUSADE.
CHAPTER XLIV.
DEATH OF ST. LOUIS—FALL OF ACRE.
For sixteen years the crusading impulse seemed dead, under the general
belief in the hopelessness of further efforts. The songs of the
Troubadours even were turned to lamentations, and were burdened with the
refrain that Christ had fallen asleep and no longer regarded His people.
In the meanwhile there was rising in the East the new power of the
Mamelukes, which was destined to accomplish the fears of Christendom.
It will be recalled that Chegger-Eddour, the slave Sultana of Egypt, had
continued her power by marrying Aibek, the Mameluke, and thus installing
him as Sultan of Cairo. Whatever Aibek’s ability to rule men, he utterly
failed to master a woman’s heart. Learning that he whom she had created
her lord was proposing additional matrimonial alliance with a princess
of Mosul, Chegger-Eddour stabbed him to death. While his dead body was
lying at her feet she sent for the emir Saif Eddin, and offered him her
hand and kingdom. Horrified at the bloody throne he was invited to sit
upon, Saif fled away. Chegger-Eddour, with versatile affection, the same
day lured two other emirs to look upon her bloody charms, but, as even a
bird will flee the fascination of a serpent when once it sees its mate
disappear in the devouring jaws, the emirs did not wait for the embrace
of the beautiful enchantress. That night Chegger-Eddour’s body, red with
her own blood, was tossed into the castle ditch, and the son of Aibek, a
lad of fifteen years, came to the throne.
But the news of the progress of the Tartars, who had already overthrown
the caliphate of Bagdad and were marching through Syria upon Egypt, led
the Mamelukes to put the reins into stronger hands. They chose for their
leader Koutouz, renowned for ability and success on many a field.
Koutouz met the advancing Tartars and utterly defeated them in a great
battle on the plain of Tiberas. The Christians, having endeavored to
make alliance with the Tartars as against the Egyptians, roused the
Moslem spirit of retaliation. Koutouz for a while restrained his people
in the name of Moslem fidelity to vows, since the treaty with the
Christians was still in effect. Bibars, the victorious leader against
Louis IX. in the affair of Mansourah, opposed the policy of Koutouz.
Meeting him while hunting, he slew the sultan and claimed the throne on
the ground of having thus made room for himself. Such was the reverence
for brute power that the assassin’s stroke was recognized as the
indication of the will of Allah. The preparations which had been made at
Cairo for the triumphal return of Koutouz, the conqueror of the Tartars,
were utilized for the coronation of Bibars as his successor.
The elevation of Bibars was an omen of woe for the Christian cause. Pope
Alexander IV. confessed that it would now be impossible for any
Christian power to maintain itself in the Holy Land.
Bibars inaugurated his reign over the Moslems by ravaging Palestine,
destroying Nazareth, Cæsarea, Arsuf, and Safed, murdering the
inhabitants, and dividing the land among his emirs. Returning to Egypt,
he recuperated his army and made an incursion into Armenia, taking Jaffa
and Antioch on his way (1268). So many were his captives that the
Arabian chronicler says, “There was not a slave of a slave that did not
possess a slave.”
But one heart in Europe seemed still to throb with either faith or
courage. The pious Louis IX. was worn with cares, harassed with the
memory of his previous disaster, and depressed by a wasting disease. One
day he entered his parliament hall in the Louvre, carrying the “crown of
thorns.” In presence of the princes and nobles he resumed the cross; for
three years he incessantly labored amassing means and men. The despair
of Europe, having exhausted its doleful sentiment, at the call of the
saintly king changed to hope. The king’s sons, the English princes,
Edward and Edmund, the earls of Pembroke and Warwick, John Baliol, with
many nobles of Scotland, the kings of Castile, Aragon, and Portugal,
emulated the piety of Louis. The zeal of most of these, however,
evaporated in the long delay or under the influence of the dangers that
threatened them at home in the distracted condition of their lands.
In March, 1270, Louis repaired to Notre Dame, barefooted, with scrip and
staff, and placed his kingdom under care of the patron saint of France.
He then traversed the land to the former port of departure,
Aigues-Mortes, and on July 4, 1270, embarked upon the Mediterranean.
Tunis, on the North African coast, was the rendezvous of innumerable
Moslem pirates, whose swift ships and desperate crews menaced all the
passable water between France and the Holy Land. The city itself was
regarded as an inestimable prize, stored as it was with the riches of
commerce and plunder. But most priceless, in the thought of Louis, was
its king, of whom it was rumored that he inclined to the Christian
faith. Louis declared that he would willingly die in a dungeon if by any
means he might be the hand of Providence leading so noble a convert to
the foot of the cross.
It was decided to make a descent upon the African coast. A landing was
easily effected. The Tunisians, not daring to make attack, endeavored to
lure the invaders inward. All hopes of the conversion of their king
disappeared when the dusky monarch sent a salutation in which he
promised to come with a hundred thousand warriors and receive his
baptism in the blood of battle, a prelibation of which would be in the
slaughter of every Christian in his dominions.
Meanwhile all North Africa, even to the Nile, was moving westward under
the inspiration of Bibars and the faith of the Prophet. Nature, too,
seemed to be allied with the Moslems. The fiery sirocco loaded the
atmosphere. The enemy increased the torment by tossing the hot sands
into the air near the Christian camps. The winds drove these fiery
particles upon them, burying them as under the cinders from a volcano.
Dysentery and the African plague soon added their horrors. The camp was
reduced to the condition of a battle-field after slaughter. Men died
faster than they could be buried, and fed the plague with their
carcasses. The flower of the French army withered away. Tristan, the
king’s son, he that was born amid the sorrows of Damietta, fell a
victim, in spite of his father’s prayers and loving ministrations.
Louis himself was stricken. They reared the cross in front of his tent,
that from its mystery of love and grace he might gather strength still
to live or to die. Calling before him his eldest surviving son, Philip,
he instructed him how to govern the kingdom that might soon be his. He
bade him maintain the dignity and franchises of the throne, with justice
to every class, to avoid warring upon Christian nations, and, above all,
show himself the friend of the poor, the consoler of the suffering, and
the avenger of the injured of whatever degree. He then turned to his
daughter, the Queen of Navarre, with counsel befitting her station.
Though realizing that his end was near, he did not refuse to listen to
an embassage from the Greek emperor. Many hours he then spent in prayer.
His mind at length began to waver; in his delirium he cried out,
“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! We will go to Jerusalem!” Recovering a little, he
bade his attendants place him upon a bed of ashes, the place of a
penitent sinner; lying here, he cried, “O Lord, I shall enter into Thy
house and shall worship Thee in Thy tabernacle.” Then, while uttering
the words, “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit,” he fell asleep.
The beauty and calm of his features grew deeper until, immobile in
death, they seemed to salute the passing world with a benediction from
the heavenly (August 25, 1270).
With the breath of Louis IX. the crusading enterprise of Europe may be
said to have finally expired. The movements that followed, whatever
valor may have been displayed in them, were as the waves that continue
to dash themselves to pieces on the rocky shore after the tempest that
stirred them has died down.
A few weeks after Louis’s death Prince Edward of England (afterwards
King Edward I.) arrived at Tunis with a brave troop of his young
countrymen. The African coast offering no field for adventures, he went
the following spring (1271) to Acre. After various raids upon the
neighboring country, and narrowly escaping death by the poisoned dagger
of an assassin, he made a ten years’ truce with the Moslems and returned
home.
With the termination of this treaty the Christian strongholds fell one
by one to the Moslems, and the dislodged inhabitants took final and
fatal refuge in Acre. Here were gathered the heterogeneous remnants of
Christian populations, together with as diverse bands from all parts of
the world, who for greed or piety had taken the sword of the waning
cause. The city was rent with dissensions, the various parties
contending as a pack of dogs for the last bone. Even the Templars and
Hospitallers fought in the streets for such shadows of military honor as
might be left in the general disgrace. Thus for twenty years Acre
remained a monument of the mercy or indifference of the Moslems.
In 1291 Pope Nicholas IV. sent a band of seventeen hundred mercenaries
to protect the place. These men, failing to receive the pay promised
them, looted the stores of Saracen merchants. The Sultan Khalil, second
successor of Bibars, demanded redress; it was refused. Khalil marched
his troops beneath the walls.
The capture of the place was inevitable. The certain destruction that
awaited them affected the inhabitants as once the people of Jerusalem,
who cried, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” The revelry of
the self-abandoned multitude ceased only in their ruin. The assault of
the foe was quickly rewarded. Just a century after its recovery from the
Moslems through the valor of Richard Cœur de Lion, Acre fell back again
to their possession. Sixty thousand Christians were borne away to
slavery or put to death.
Thus faded from the land of the Christ the last ray of hope of its
occupation by His people, until it shall be conquered by the weapon
which He appointed—“the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”
RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES.
CHAPTER XLV.
KINGSHIP—UNITY OF EUROPE—THE PAPACY—LIBERAL THOUGHT—INCREASED
KNOWLEDGE—ARTS—LITERATURE—COMMERCE—THE TURKISH POWER.
The picture of Europe at the inauguration of the crusades in the
eleventh century, with which our volume opened, is very different from
that in which we would portray the thirteenth century, when the militant
faith had practically ceased its conflict for the possession of the Holy
Land. In government, in popular morals, in education, in industrial
methods, and in reasonable piety the world had greatly advanced; but as
it was difficult to definitely trace the causes of the crusades in the
earlier era, so it would be unwise to attribute to their influence all
the changes that had taken place during their continuance. When a broad
river debouches into a fertile valley it is natural to point to that
irrigating current as the cause of the abundant vegetation; yet much of
the new life and beauty may be due to other springs on the hillsides and
to better conditions of soil and climate. There were certainly at work
in society other forces than those which either illustrated or resulted
from the military movements. The great law of social evolution wrought
steadily, sometimes using, and often in ways aside from, the crusading
projects. The spirit of humanity—or, we may more wisely say, the Spirit
of God in humanity—is a self-developing power, which must not be
overlooked by the student of history.
We have already observed the influence of the crusades upon the growth
of kingship, especially in France. The French people supplied the
majority of the warriors, and their sovereigns were the foremost in
leading and supporting the great endeavor. Quite naturally leadership in
the field compacted the power of the French throne. The lords who
followed the king abroad were less disposed to dispute his authority at
home. When the crusades began, as we have seen, the sway of the king was
limited to the neighborhood of Paris. During the reign of Louis IX.,
which witnessed their close, there were ceded to the crown by their
feudal lords the section of Toulouse between the Rhone, the sea, and the
Pyrenees, Chartres, Blois, Sancerre, Mâcon, Perche, Arles, Forcalquier,
Foix, and Cahors, while at the same time England relinquished its claim
to Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, Poitou, and northern Saintonge,
thus presenting to the eye almost the present map of France. The various
feudal courts, where they still held separate jurisdiction, yielded the
right of final appeal to the king before the enforcement of their
decisions. Anciently the barons and clergy of France had been accustomed
to meet in general assembly for the support of the monarchy. For over a
century preceding the first crusade such assemblies had not been held,
but when Louis VII. embarked upon the second crusade the great men of
all sections resumed these loyal conventions. It may therefore be said
that modern France was born amid the throes of the mediæval holy wars.
In Germany the case was different. The incessant quarrel of Pope and
emperor, to which the various crusading projects gave fuel, weakened
imperialism in central and southern Europe. The English throne doubtless
profited by the part taken by the people in the foreign adventures,
which diverted the ambition of the most restless, who would otherwise
have more seriously assailed the sovereign authority. Spain was still
occupied largely by the Moors, and was thus prevented from sharing to
any great extent in the Eastern wars upon the Infidels; but the
engagement of so much of the Moslem energy in defending its distant
lands allowed the Spaniards to slowly accrete their strength for the
final expulsion of the Moors and the establishment of an undivided
Spanish government, two centuries later, under Ferdinand and Isabella.
Another effect of the crusades was the birth of a distinctly European
sentiment. Men, however diverse in blood and country, could not live for
a generation among common dangers, and be daily actuated by common
purposes, without realizing brotherhood. The Celt, the Frank, the
Italian, and the Teuton saw that they were more alike than diverse when
facing the Asiatic. The followers of barons from either side the Rhine
or the opposite slopes of the Apennines dropped their peculiar war-cries
and adopted the universal “Deus vult!” In time the Frankish language,
the speech of the greater number of the crusaders, came to be the
universal medium of commercial, military, and diplomatic intercourse. It
no longer belonged exclusively to the subjects of a French king, but was
in a measure continental. The title “Frank” meant anybody from the lands
north of the Mediterranean and west of the Greek provinces. The various
nations of Europe came to feel less jealousy of the dominant race than
fear of the hostile civilization whose armies were massed along the
eastern boundaries of the Continent. Thus the project of Hildebrand to
unite Christendom by means of a crusade was successful in a way he did
not contemplate—the gathering of European peoples into a secular as well
as an ecclesiastical unity.
The papal power, however, was that chiefly affected by the crusades,
both to its advantage and its disadvantage.
Great wealth came to the Papacy from the many estates which departing
crusaders left in either its possession or trusteeship. Thus Godfrey of
Bouillon alienated large parts of his ancestral holdings by direct gift
to the ecclesiastics. Many returning home from Palestine, broken in
health and spirit by their trials, insanely depressed with the “vanity
of life,” ended their days in monasteries, which they endowed with the
remnant of their estates. The Pope, having acquired charge of and
responsibility for the crusading venture, affixed a tax upon the secular
clergy and religious houses. This was at first spent legitimately in
maintaining the enterprises afield, but the immense revenues were
gradually diverted to the general uses of the church. In the year 1115
the great Countess Matilda deeded all her domain to the Pope. This
addition to the landed wealth of the Papacy amounted to perhaps one
quarter of Italy, and constituted the bulk of the modern temporal
possessions of the holy see. To its own local property the Papacy had
also added acquisitions in all countries, until it held throughout
Europe a large part, if not the greater proportion, of the land.
The political influence of the Pope was at the same time greatly
extended by the appointment of papal legates. Heretofore the Holy Father
had on occasion delegated representatives, who in his name should
investigate causes and settle disputes at a distance from Rome. During
the crusades this legatine authority was systematized by the
organization of a definite body of men. The Pope was thus impersonated
at every court and in every emergency. A controversy in London or
Jerusalem was settled by one who on the spot spoke as the Vicegerent of
God. If at times the mistakes of legates imperilled faith in the papal
infallibility, as a rule they kept the world in awe by the terror of the
imagined ubiquity of the divine presence.
Another great advantage accruing to Rome from the crusades was in the
establishment of a closer bond between the church and the individual.
Urban II. had absolved all crusaders from accountability to their
secular lords during their absence at the seat of war. In the enthusiasm
of the moment the lords had acquiesced in this as a temporary
arrangement; but they soon lamented their unwisdom in this concession.
The spirit of ecclesiastical obedience was sedulously cultivated by
priest and legate, who pledged temporal and eternal blessings to those
who, whatever their attitude to their former masters, were now faithful
to the Pope. Loyalty to the secular lord was never restored as of old.
In the common thought the pontiff was the great king and the real
commandant of armies. Providence was not more omnipresent than the care
of the Holy Father, and the judgment-seat of heaven was seemingly
transferred to every camp and every home that was accessible to a Roman
agent.
The crusades against the Eastern Infidels inspired audacity and
presumption in the church, which suggested crusades elsewhere. Whoever
was not Catholic was regarded as the Christians’ prey. Preachers
authorized by Rome stirred up the faithful in Saxony and Denmark to
convert by the sword the pagans living along the shores of the Baltic.
An army of one hundred and fifty thousand, wearing upon their breasts a
red cross on the background of a circle, symbolizing the universality of
Christ’s kingdom, devastated pagan cities and burned idolatrous temples,
and after three years secured from the leaders a promise to make their
people Christian—a task more difficult than it had been before, since
the half-savage people had now learned that Christianity could be as
cruel as their own paganism. Indeed, everything that was not consecrated
to Roman Christianity became the lawful spoil of whoever, wearing the
cross upon his breast, dared to take it. The crusading zeal became thus
a habit of the Christian mind, and led to the horrors of the Inquisition
in later days.
While Rome thus profited in many ways by the crusades, it must also be
noted that the Papacy failed to maintain to the end the prestige it had
acquired in the earlier period of the movement. Pope Innocent III.
(1198-1216) carried the Hildebrandian policy to its highest realization.
The emperor was forced to accept his crown from the hands of the Holy
Father, and also to demit the right he had long contended for of
electing the papal incumbent. The entire episcopacy in Europe was in the
Pope’s control and wrought his will, even in England. But with Gregory
IX. (1227-41) the pile of papal autocracy began to totter. This Pope,
notwithstanding he had twice excommunicated the emperor, was ultimately
obliged to yield to the secular will. His unchristian hauteur, and the
rancor with which his successor, Innocent IV., pursued the emperor, lost
the papal chair much of the respect of the Catholic world. Soon the
various governments came to resent the absolutism of the throne on the
Tiber. In 1253 Robert Grosseteste protested against the papal exactions
in England, notwithstanding the king was utterly subservient to Rome,
and thus he merited the title, which history has given him, of one of
the great fathers of English liberty. Twenty-six years later (1279)
England enacted the Statute of Mortmain, which forbade the alienation of
property to religious bodies without the consent of the secular
authority.
A similar sentiment was working in France. Probably what is known as the
Pragmatic Sanction of Louis IX. (1268) is not genuine, but the revolt of
that royal saint against the assessments of Rome without consent of the
throne is undoubted, and Louis may be said to have revived the ancient
Gallican liberties, which for a century and a half had apparently been
dead. A bull of Boniface VIII. in 1298 caused open rupture between
France and Rome.
With Boniface the Papacy was utterly humiliated. In 1309, within
eighteen years of the fall of Acre into the hands of the Moslems, the
popes were in exile at Avignon, and the government of the church became
the foot-ball of secular ambition. Clement V. (1305-12) ascended the
papal throne as the creature of Philip the Fair of France, and was
forced to lend himself to that monarch’s cruel and unjust persecution of
the Templars, which order was abolished and its Grand Master burned at
the stake in 1312.
With the diminished prestige of the Papacy came the renaissance of freer
thought throughout the world. The failure of the crusades to conquer the
Moslem, and the futile experiments of war upon heretical sects like the
Waldenses and Albigenses, led to a partial suppression of the epidemic
for forceful conversions, and to a healthful recollection of our
Saviour’s command to Peter, “Put up thy sword.” In this better condition
of the human mind germinated the modern evangelical methods, the
first-fruit of which was to appear in the Protestant Reformation.
There was something in the life of the crusaders that was favorable to
the growth of a new political sentiment, a popular, not to say a
democratic, impulse, which directly conduced to our modern civil
liberties. In their long and adventurous marches, in the common camp and
fighting together within or beneath the same fortresses, the lord and
his retainers came close to one another. The common man saw that his
muscles were as strong, his mind as astute, his character as good, as
that of his crested superior. Manhood rediscovered itself on those
Eastern plains. The returned knight could no longer disdain intercourse
with the brave men whose hamlet nestled beneath his castle walls. Their
common courage, the many scenes with which both classes were familiar,
the dangers they had shared, were repeated in story and song about the
castle gate. Aristocratic presumption more than once evoked insurrection
among the brawny fellows, who sang:
“We, too, are men;
As great hearts have we,
And our strength as theirs.”
In their home forays there were to be seen, together with the ensigns of
the feudal lords, the popular banners of the parishes. Indeed, the new
power of the people came to be the reliance of the king in his contest
with rebel lords. Thus everywhere were silently germinated the forces of
the commune and of the Third Estate in France, whose first assembly was
held in 1302. In 1215 England secured for itself Magna Charta, the
central regulation of which was that no freeman should “be taken,
imprisoned, or damaged in person or estate but by the judgment of his
peers” and “by laws of the land,” a grant to liberty which stood in
spite of the fact that the Pope declared it to be null and void. In 1265
there came together the first regular Parliament of England with the
House of Commons a constituent branch.
To the crusades we must attribute much of the increased knowledge of men
and the quickening of inquiry into every department of human welfare.
The crusaders mingled with their enemies in the lull of active warfare,
and especially became familiar with the arts and customs of the Greeks,
their pseudo-allies. The immense treasures of art secured by the capture
of Constantinople, and displayed in every centre of Western population,
inspired æsthetic taste. Such buildings appeared as the Palazzo Vecchio,
Santa Croce, and the Duomo at Florence (about 1290), Westminster Abbey
and Salisbury Cathedral (1220) and Cologne Cathedral (1248). Pisano
(died 1270) revived sculpture; Cimabue (1240-1300) was the first of
modern painters; the new impulse to scientific study produced Roger
Bacon (1214-92). The Troubadours enlarged the romance of the lady’s
chamber to that of the field of exploit, where Europe strove with Asia,
and were followed by the great poets Dante (1265-1321) and Petrarch
(1304-74). Splendid seats of learning sprang up, like the universities
of Oxford (revived in 1200), Paris (1206), Padua (1222), and Cambridge
(1229). The march of the soldier prompted the voyage of the peaceful
traveller, like Marco Polo, who in 1272 explored the world as far as
eastern China. The crusader learned something of the science of
government from the Moslem, especially in matters relating to
municipalities, for he was compelled to note that Cairo and Damascus
were better governed than Paris and London. The wars suggested
improvements in military equipment and manœuvre; indeed, the art of
handling immense multitudes of men as a single body was learned by the
knights, who, fighting in independent groups, were often overwhelmed by
the massed forces of their enemies.
Commerce during this time began to spread its white wings upon all seas.
For two hundred years an almost incessant line of vessels passed to and
fro between the ports of the eastern and western Mediterranean,
conveying supplies to the soldiers. As we have seen, an English fleet
transported the army of Richard I. along the Atlantic coast. Men learned
how to lade ships with utmost economy of space and to take advantage of
all winds in sailing them. Roads were opened which converged to the
point of departure from the surrounding country, where the produce was
gathered for shipment. Agents were scattered throughout Europe to
purchase the needed articles in small quantities, and prepare them in
bulk for the voyage. War thus fostered the commercial habit and skill
which were utilized in times of peace.
Between 1255 and 1262 the Hanseatic League or Trade Guild of the Baltic
maritime cities was formed, and within a century it numbered in its
membership a hundred ports and inland towns. The league organized
merchants for common defence against pirates, the settlement of disputes
by arbitration, and the acquisition of commercial favors in distant
parts of the world. Maritime laws were codified during the thirteenth
century, under the title of “Il Consolato del Mare,” and were generally
enforced along the Mediterranean. According to a tradition, the code
called “The Laws of Oleron” was compiled by Richard I. during his
expedition to Palestine, but with more probability it may be ascribed to
the reign of Louis IX. of France. Bills of exchange were in vogue as
early as 1255.
Commerce brought wealth in place of the sordid poverty which had marked
castle and cottage in the eleventh century. Trade introduced new
articles of food and adornment, at first to gratify the palate and eye
of the rich, but soon to elevate the scale of living everywhere. Such is
the power of habit that luxuries easily acquired quickly become
necessities. People learned no longer to look upon “man’s life as cheap
as beast’s.” Industries sprang up for the home manufacture of what had
originally been brought from abroad. Invention was stimulated, and the
domestic arts took their place in the foremost line of the new
civilization. The Dark Ages had given way, and at least the gray light
of the dawn of a better era illumined the horizon.
We may note in conclusion the influence of the crusades in staying the
progress of that gigantic power which for two centuries had contested
with Christendom the possession of western Asia. So rapid had been the
rise and spread of the new Mohammedan tide of Turkish invasion that, but
for the barrier presented by the crusaders, it would have quickly
submerged the Balkan peninsula, as it had already done the plains of
Asia Minor; and possibly it would have poured its desolation into
central Europe at a time when Europe was not prepared to resist, as it
did four hundred years later when the Turks besieged Vienna. The appeal
of the Greek emperors for the help of their Western Christian brethren
in the eleventh century was warranted by the seriousness of the menace.
The empire was then too demoralized to withstand alone the onset of
these daring hordes, who possessed superior powers of physical
endurance, great mental activity quickened by the enterprises they
planned for their swords, and courage as yet undaunted by defeat. What
they might have speedily accomplished but for their enforced halt of two
hundred years on the eastern shores of the Marmora is suggested by what
they did almost immediately after the crusaders withdrew their wall of
swords. The same decade that witnessed the fall of Acre saw the founding
of the present dynasty of Ottoman Turks in Nicomedia (1299). In 1355
they crossed the sea and planted their first European stronghold at
Gallipoli. In the next century (1452) Mohammed II. was enthroned as
sultan in Constantinople, where his successors have for four hundred
years repelled the arms, and still baffle the diplomacy, of Europe.
INDEX.
Abélard, 8, 162, 163.
Accian, 103, 106, 109; death, 111.
Acre, 123;
capture, 148;
by Saladin, 190;
siege of, 215 sq.;
fall, 297;
divisions in, 366;
final fall, 367.
Adela, 148.
Adhemar of Puy, 83, 105, 113;
death, 120.
Afdhal, 135, 137.
Afdhal, son of Saladin, 236.
Aibek, 356, 361.
Albigenses, 298, 322, 375.
Aleppo, 154.
Aletta, 8.
Alexander II., 49.
Alexander III., 15.
Alexander IV., 363.
Alexandria, captured, 180.
Alexius I., 74, 79, 81;
treachery, 85;
vengeance of Godfrey, 86;
character and policy, 88 sq., 244;
at Nicæa, 95;
refuses help, 113, 139;
jealousy, 147.
Alexius III., reply to Innocent III., 254;
protests against Venetian invasion, 271;
cowardice, 276, 277.
Alexius IV., son of Isaac Angelus, 258, 263;
plea, 266;
joins Dandolo, 268;
at Constantinople, 271, 279;
breach with crusaders, 281;
imprisonment and death, 283.
Alexius Ducas, 282.
Alfonso VI., 83.
Algazzali, 60.
Alhazan, 60.
Alice, French princess, 222.
Almoadam Turan Shan, 343, 353-355, 361, 362.
Alp-Arslan, 62.
Amalric, 152, 179, 180;
death, 182.
Amaury I. See Amalric.
Amaury II., 297.
Amaury de Montfort, 333.
Andrew II., Hungary, 303, 305.
Andronicus, 244, 247.
Angelus, Isaac. See Isaac Angelus.
Anjou, Duke of, 355.
Anna Comnena, quoted, 3, 72, 84;
picture of Alexius, 88;
opinion of crossbow, 92.
Anselm, 7.
Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, 139.
Anselme of Ribemont, 94.
Antioch, siege of, 102 sq.;
fall, 108 sq.;
conquered by Bibars, 363.
Aragon, King of, 363.
Archambaud, 172.
Arculf, Bishop, 67.
Arkas, 122.
Arnold de Brescia, 163, 198.
Arnold de Rohes, 128, 135.
Arsuf, 138, 141, 145;
destroyed by Bibars, 363.
Ascalon, 136;
capture, 179, 190.
Assassins, 228, 229.
Assizes of Jerusalem, 142.
Asur, 138, 141, 145.
Athareb, 154.
Atheling, Edgar, 122.
Aude, 20.
Augustine, 66.
Avicenna, 60.
Avignon, 375.
Ayoub, 176, 181.
Aziz, son of Saladin, 236.
Bacon, Francis, 11.
Bacon, Roger, 11, 377.
Baldwin I., 83;
at Tarsus, 99;
quarrel with Tancred, 99;
defection, 100;
submission to Pope, 142;
character, 144;
King of Jerusalem, 144 sq.;
exploits, 144 sq.;
marriage, 148;
death, 149.
Baldwin II., 145, 147;
succeeds to throne of Jerusalem, 150;
character, 150;
captured, 150;
liberated, 152;
died, 152;
helps Moslems, 154;
Templars, 158.
Baldwin III., 152, 153, 173;
against Nourredin, 178, 179;
death, 179.
Baldwin IV., 182 sq.
Baldwin V., 184.
Baldwin I., Constantinople, 21;
assaults Constantinople, 275;
elected Emperor of Constantinople, 292, 293;
strife with Boniface, 293;
death, 294.
Baldwin II., Constantinople, 322, 332.
Baldwin du Bourg. See Baldwin II.
Balian d’Iselin, 191.
Baliol, John, 363.
Baneas, 358.
Barbarossa, 34, 198;
character, 209;
third crusade, 209 sq., 212;
treatment of Greeks, 212;
death, 213.
Baronius, “Dark Ages,” 6.
Barthelemi, Peter, 114, 118;
Ordeal, 119.
Bavaria, Duke of, 140.
Beauvais, Bishop of, 24.
Becket, Thomas à, 200.
Beirut, fall of, 148.
Benedict III., 69.
Benedict VIII., 57.
Benedict IX., 45.
Ben-Musa, 60.
Berengaria, 222.
Bérenger, 7.
Bernard of Brittany, 67.
Bernard of Clairvaux, 8, 23;
against Abélard, 162;
second crusade, 164, 166 sq.;
failure and death, 177;
opinion of Henry II., 201.
Bernard of Clugny, hymn, 1.
Berthier of Orleans, hymn, 1.
Bertrade, 152.
Bertrand, 148.
Bethlehem, 124.
Bibars Bendoctar, 345-347, 353, 362, 363, 365.
Bibliography, v.-ix.
Biblus, fall of, 148.
Blachern, palace of, 250.
Blanche of Castile, 330, 336, 357, 358.
Blondel, 234.
Bohemond of Taranto, 83 sq.;
relations to Alexius, 87, 89, 90;
at Antioch, 105, 106;
treats for sovereignty of Antioch, 108;
enters Antioch, 110;
quarrel with Raymond, 120, 121;
attacks Maarah, 121;
submission to Pope, 142, 144, 145;
exploits, 147 sq.;
death, 148;
invades Greek dominions, 247.
Boniface VIII., humiliation of Papacy, 375.
Boniface of Montferrat, 258, 259, 261, 268, 271;
assaults Constantinople, 275;
plots, 282;
emperorship, 292;
disloyalty, 293;
death, 294.
Bouvines, battle of, 302.
Bozrah, 153.
Brabant, Duke of, 237, 240.
Brunhilde, 24.
Bruno, 60.
Bucolion, palace of, 250.
Byron, quoted, 294.
Cæsarea, captured by Baldwin, 145;
destroyed by Bibars, 363.
Cæsarea on the Orontes, 179.
Cæsarea Philippi, 358.
Cairo, 343.
Calixtus II., 162.
Cambray, Bishop of, 68.
Cambridge, University of, 378.
Capitularies of Charlemagne, 35, 48.
Capuano, Peter, 262.
Carac, fall of, 214.
Carismians, 324 sq.
Castile, King of, 363.
Celibacy, 48.
Cencius, 70.
Charlemagne, 17, 19, 48, 55, 67, 242;
capitularies of, 35, 48.
Charles Martel, 56.
Charles the Bold, 56.
Chegger-Eddour, 343, 353-355, 361, 362.
Chivalry, rules, etc., 26 sq.
Chosroes, 66, 133.
Cid, the, 58, 83.
Cimabue, 377.
Civitat, massacre, 81.
Clarendon, Assizes of, 200.
Clement II., 46.
Clement V., 375.
Clermont, Council of, 74.
Cologne Cathedral, 377.
Coloman, King of Hungary, 79, 80.
Commune, 377.
Comnena, Anna. See Anna Comnena.
Comnenus, Isaac, 244.
Comnenus, John, 152.
Conrad, brother of Boniface, 258.
Conrad, marshal of German empire, 139.
Conrad III., 167, 170;
at Jerusalem, 173;
Damascus, 145;
return, 176.
Conrad IV., 334, 357.
Conrad of Montferrat, 214;
at Acre, 216;
claims to Jerusalem, 218;
supported by Philip Augustus, 223;
plots, 227;
assassinated, 228.
Constance, daughter of Philip I., 148.
Constantine, 65.
Constantine, minister of finance, 277.
Constantinople, history of, 242 sq.;
great fire, 281;
fall, 284 sq.;
Latin kingdom, 291 sq.;
weakness, 322, 328.
Constantinople, Patriarch of, 287.
Corfu, 268 sq.
Councils, Lateran, 49, 198.
Courçon, Cardinal, 302.
Cross, True, 133.
Crusade, first, 78 sq., 82 sq., 91 sq., 96 sq., 101 sq., 108 sq., 112
sq., 120 sq., 134 sq.;
influence, 156 sq., 160 sq.
Crusade, second, cause, 155, 165, 166 sq.
Crusade, third, 206 sq., 215 sq., 219 sq.
Crusade, fourth, 242 sq., 252, 253 sq., 260 sq., 268 sq., 274 sq., 284
sq., 291 sq.
Crusade, fourth, pseudo, 241.
Crusade, fifth, 301 sq.
Crusade, sixth, 313 sq.
Crusade, seventh, 328 sq.
Crusade, eighth, 361 sq.
Crusade, Children’s, 298 sq.
Crusades, fascination of subject, 1;
causes, 3 sq.;
state of society, 6 sq., 40 sq.;
papal policy, 43 sq.;
results, 368 sq.
See Crusade, First, Second, etc., Chivalry, Feudalism, Mohammedanism,
Peter the Hermit, Pilgrimages, Urban II.
Cyprus, 222, 228.
Dagobert, 142, 144.
Dahir, son of Saladin, 236.
Damascus, Prince of, 152, 153.
Damascus, siege of, 174 sq.;
fall, 296.
Damascus, Sultan of, relations to Louis IX., 356, 358.
Damasus II., 46.
Damietta, siege of, 305, 306, 309;
victory of Louis IX., 338 sq.;
surrender, 353 sq.
Dandolo, Henry, 248, 251, 252, 256, 257;
perfidy, 260 sq.;
attacks Zara, 264;
joined by Alexius, 268;
diplomacy, 268 sq.;
captures Golden Horn, 272;
attack on Constantinople, 275;
further plots, 280, 282;
second attack, 284 sq.;
refuses to contest election to kingdom of Constantinople, 291, 292;
his choice, 292;
death, 294.
“Dark Ages,” according to Baronius, 6.
Dârôm, 229.
Domenicho, Michaeli, 151.
Dominic, 19.
Dorylæum, battle of, 96 sq.
Ducas, Alexius, 282.
Du Guesclin, 10.
Duomo, 377.
Edessa, fall of, 154, 155.
Edgar Atheling, 122.
Edmund, prince of England, 363.
Edward, prince of England, 363, 366.
Egypt, caliph of, 105, 122.
Eleanor, Queen, 167, 171;
rupture with Louis, 173;
divorce, 198;
character, 201;
released by Richard, 202;
appeals to Pope, 233;
ransom of Richard, 234.
Eleemon, John, 157.
Elizabeth of Hungary, 316.
Elvira, daughter of Alfonso VI., 83.
Emico, 80.
England, during crusades, 370;
Magna Charta, 377;
Parliament, 377.
Eremi, 7.
Estate, Third, 377.
Eustace, son of Godfrey, 83.
Eustace Grenier, 151.
Evrard des Barras, 172.
Exerogorgo, siege of, 81.
Fakr Eddin, 340, 345.
Fatimites, 181.
Feudalism, 32 sq.
Finlay, quoted, 62.
Florine, 104.
Foulcher of Chartres, 110;
desertion, 113;
scepticism, 115.
Foulque of Anjou, 152, 158.
Foulques the Black, 20, 69.
France, effect of crusades on, 161;
at close of crusades, 369.
Francis of Assisi, 19, 308, 309.
“Frank,” meaning, 371.
Frankfort, Synod of, 49.
Frederick I. See Barbarossa.
Frederick II., fifth crusade, 302;
sixth crusade, 313 sq.;
life and character, 313 sq.;
acquires Jerusalem, 319;
returns, 321, 323;
relations to Innocent IV., 329, 334;
generosity, 337;
death, 357.
Frederick of Swabia, 209, 213, 218.
Frotmonde, 69.
Fulque, priest, 254.
Gaita, 24.
Galata, 273.
Galileo, 60.
Garnier, 144.
Gautier of Brienne, 327.
Gaza, 326.
Genghis Khan, 324.
Geoffrey, son of Henry II., 201.
Geoffrey de Sargines, 349.
Gerard, Master of Hospitallers, 157.
Gerard of Avernes, 141.
“German tax,” 246.
Germany, during crusades, 370.
Ghibelline, 334.
Gibbon, quoted, 79, 81, 89.
Gilbert, 172.
Godfrey of Bouillon, 8;
career, 82 sq.;
expedition, 86;
relations to Alexius, 86;
at Dorylæum, 97;
Antioch, 107;
straits, 113;
discretion, 120;
services to Moslems, 121;
attacks Jerusalem, 121 sq.;
spoils, 133;
Baron of Holy Sepulchre, 134 sq.;
Ascalon, 136 sq.;
quarrel with Raymond, 138;
rule, 140;
attacks Asur, 141;
submission to Pope, 142;
Assizes of Jerusalem, 142;
death and character, 142, 143;
assists Hospitallers, 157;
gifts to Papacy, 371.
Godric, 146.
Golden Horn, captured, 273.
Gottschalk, 80.
Green, quoted, 21.
Gregory V., 45.
Gregory VI., 45.
Gregory VII. See Hildebrand.
Gregory IX., 300, 315, 316 sq., 322, 323;
weakness, 374.
Grosseteste, Robert, 374.
Guelph, 334.
Guibert, antipope, 50.
Guibert, quoted, 77, 105.
Guiscard, Robert, 24, 83, 84, 247.
Guizot, quoted, 33, 37, 199;
portrait of Richard I., 202;
of Louis VIII., 330.
Gunther, 288, 289.
Guy d’Ibelin, 354.
Guy of Lusignan, 185, 188, 189;
disregards oath, 214;
maintains right to sceptre, 218;
supported by Richard, 223;
Cyprus, 228.
Hadrian IV., 201.
Hallam, quoted, 9, 11, 30, 34.
Hamah, 154.
Hanifs, 52.
Hanseatic League, 378.
Harding, 147.
Haroun-al-Raschid, 55, 67.
Hassan, 228.
Helena, 65, 133.
Henry, brother of Baldwin, 294.
Henry I., England, 21, 138, 164.
Henry II., England, 34;
crown of Jerusalem, 186;
possessions, 199, 201;
death, 201;
relations to Philip Augustus, 206 sq.
Henry III., England, 331, 357.
Henry III., Germany, 46.
Henry IV., Germany, papal opposition, 23, 47, 49;
relations to Godfrey, 82.
Henry V., Germany, 161.
Henry VI., Germany, 232, 234, 237;
in Sicily, 238;
death, 240;
“German tax,” 246.
Henry Dandolo. See Dandolo.
Henry of Hesse, 334.
Henry of Sicily, 247.
Heraclius, Greek emperor, 67, 133.
Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 186.
Herbaud, 10.
Hezas, emir of, 121.
Hildebrand, 8, 39;
reforms, 44, 46, 47;
claims, 47 sq.;
reliance on emperor, 49;
bull against Henry IV., 49;
negotiations with Greeks, 50;
alliance with Saracens, 58;
summons against the Turks, 62;
sends Cencius on pilgrimage, 70.
Holy Lance, 114 sq.
Honorius II., 166.
Honorius III., 303.
Hospitallers, 156 sq.;
Saladin’s revenge, 190;
permitted to remain in Jerusalem, 193;
rivalries, 236, 297, 367;
refuse help to Frederick II., 318;
overtures to Louis IX., 338, 355;
at Mansourah, 345, 347.
Hovenden, quoted, 221.
Hugh Capet, 33.
Hugh de Payen, 158.
Hugh de Puzas, 219, 232.
Hugh of Vermandois, 116, 140.
Humphrey, 218.
Iconium, Sultan of, 170, 246.
Ida of Austria, 139, 140.
Ida of Bouillon, 8, 82.
“Il Consolato del Mare,” 379.
Innocent II., 162.
Innocent III., 253, 262;
hastens crusaders, 265, 279;
rebuke, 290;
preaches fifth crusade, 301-303;
guardianship of Frederick II., 313;
absolute power, 374.
Innocent IV., 328, 329, 334, 357, 374.
Inquisition, 374.
Iolante, 314.
Ireland, time of Henry II., 200.
Irene, daughter of Isaac Comnenus, 247.
Irene, opinion of Alexius, 88.
Isaac, King of Cyprus, 222.
Isaac Angelus, 211, 212, 217, 258, 267, 278, 281, 282.
Isaac Comnenus, 244.
Isabella, widow of Conrad, 228.
Isabella, wife of Amaury II., 297.
Jaffa, in third crusade, 226, 230, 238;
conquered by Bibars, 363.
James of Vitri, 302.
Jean Tristan, 351, 365.
Jerome, St., to Paulinus, 66.
Jerusalem, Assizes of, 142.
Jerusalem, Patriarch of, 72, 303.
Jerusalem, under Omar, 55;
fall of, 63;
captured by Chosroes, 66;
by crusaders, 125 sq.;
under Saladin, 192;
acquisition by Frederick, 319;
carnage under Carismians, 326, 327.
Jews, persecution of, 204.
Joanna, sister to Richard I., 222, 227.
John, Cardinal, 247.
John, King of England, 232, 233;
fifth crusade, 302.
John VIII., 56.
John X., 57.
John Baliol, 363.
John Comnenus, 152.
John Eleemon, 157.
John of Brienne, 297, 298, 307, 310, 311, 318, 320, 322.
Joinville, Prince de, 335, 336, 338, 344, 347, 348, 350, 353-355, 358.
Josselin II., 155.
Josselin de Courtenay, 147, 150, 154.
Kanabos, Nicholas, 282.
Kerbogha, 109, 112, 115, 116;
routed, 117;
revenge, 140.
Khalil, 367.
Kilidge-Arslan, 81, 91, 94, 97;
routed, 117;
revenge, 139;
third crusade, 212.
Koran. See Mohammed.
Koutouz, 362.
La Marche, 331.
Lance, Holy, 114 sq.
Lanfranc, 7.
Lascaris, 275, 322.
Lateran Councils. See Councils.
Leo IX., 46.
Leopold of Austria, 227, 232 sq.
Liegnitz, battle of, 325.
Litz, Martin, 288.
Longchamp, 220, 232.
Longsword, William, 342, 345, 346.
Lothaire, 164.
Louis, St. See Louis IX.
Louis, St., laws of, 34, 35.
Louis IV. (the Fat), 36, 161.
Louis VI., 33.
Louis VII., 164, 166, 167;
rupture with Eleanor, 173;
at Jerusalem, 173;
Damascus, 174;
return, 176;
divorce, 198.
Louis VIII., 330.
Louis IX., 330;
character, 331 sq.;
seventh crusade, 333, 335 sq.;
valor, 339, 346, 349;
illness, 348, 350;
overtures to sultan, 348;
prisoner, 350 sq.;
liberation, 353 sq.;
treaty with sultan, 358;
broken, 358;
grief at death of Blanche, 359;
return, 359, 360;
eighth crusade, 363 sq.;
death, 365, 366;
revolt against Rome, 375.
Louis of Chartres and Blois, 255.
Lucius III., letter to Henry II., 186.
Ludwig, Landgrave of Thuringia, 316.
Lydda, 123.
Lyons, Council of, 329.
Maarah, 121.
Mad Hakem, 57, 68.
Magna Charta, 377.
Malek-Ahdel, 192, 227, 236, 238, 240;
treaty with Dandolo, 262, 280;
renewal of truce, 297;
policy, 304;
death, 306.
Malek-Kamel, 308, 309, 316, 318, 320.
Malek-Shah, 62, 63.
Mamelukes, 361 sq.
Mansourah, 310, 343, 344 sq.
Manuel, 168, 170, 179.
Manzikert, battle of, 62.
Marco Polo, 378.
Margaret of Hungary, 237, 241.
Margarit, Admiral, 214.
Marguerite, wife of Louis IX., 330, 335, 339, 341, 351, 353, 354, 359.
Maria, daughter of Manuel, 259.
Maria, widow of Isaac, 292.
Maria of Constantinople, 246.
Mariolatry, 53.
Marozia, 44.
Martin Litz, 288.
Mary, daughter of Isabella, 297, 298, 314.
Matilda, Countess, 8;
gift to Papacy, 372.
Matilda, wife of William the Conqueror, 21, 199.
Matthew Paris, reference to Tartars, 325;
to Blanche of Castile, 330;
to Henry III., 357.
Melisende, 152, 173.
Melun, Count of, 113.
Merlin, prediction of, 202.
Merseburg, crusading army at, 80.
Michael, Emperor, 63.
Michaud, criticised, 3.
Michelet, quoted, 161.
Milman, quoted, 4, 132.
Milo de Plausy, 182.
Moguls, 324.
Mohammed, 51 sq.
Mohammed, Sultan of Carismia, 324.
Mohammed II., 275, 380.
Mohammedanism, 51 sq.
Montferrat, Marquis of, 184, 214.
Mortmain, Statute of, 375.
Mourtzouphlos, 282, 283, 285, 294.
Nahr Falik, 225.
Nazareth, destroyed by Bibars, 363.
Negmeddin, 338, 343.
Nicæa, fall of, 91 sq.
Nicephorus, 25.
Nicetas, quoted, 212, 270, 271, 273, 285-287.
Nichita, Bulgarian prince, 79.
Nicholas, boy, 299.
Nicholas IV., 367.
Nicholas Kanabos, 282.
Nicholas Roux, 271.
Nisch, Peter’s army at, 79.
Norgate, quoted, 200.
Nourredin, 155, 175;
character, 178;
magnanimity, 179;
supreme, 181;
death, 182.
Octai, 324.
Odoacer, 242.
Oleron, Laws of, 379.
Oliver, 20.
Omar, 55.
Ortuk, 73.
Othello, Shakespeare’s, 59.
Othman, 70.
Otho, contest with Philip of Swabia, 298, 302.
Otho the Great, 34.
Oxford, University of, 378.
Padua, University of, 378.
Palazzo Vecchio, 377.
Papacy, effect of crusades on, 161 sq., 371 sq.
Paris, University of, 378.
Parliament, English, 377.
Paschal II., 23;
sanctions Hospitallers, 157, 162.
Paula, companion of Jerome, 66.
Paulinus, 66.
Pears, Edward, quoted, 295.
Pelagius, Cardinal, 307, 309-311.
Pelusium, captured, 180.
Pembroke, Earl of, 363.
Peter Barthelemi, 114, 118;
Ordeal, 119.
Peter Capuano, 262.
Peter the Hermit, not solely responsible for crusades, 3;
career, 71 sq.;
meets chieftains, 91;
desertion, 105;
messenger to Kerbogha, 115;
before Jerusalem, 129;
end of career, 138.
Petrarch, 377.
Pharamella the Moor, 196.
Philip, son of Louis IX., 365.
Philip I., 148, 152.
Philip Augustus, 199, 201;
third crusade, 207 sq., 219 sq.;
anger at Richard, 222;
declares for Conrad, 223;
jealousies, 223;
returns, 225;
plots, 232, 233, 237;
fifth crusade, 302.
Philip of Swabia, 258, 261;
message to Zara, 266;
contest with Otho, 298;
emperorship, 292.
Philip the Fair, 375.
Phirous, 108, 109, 111.
Piacenza, Synod of, 74.
Pilgrimages, 64 sq.
Pisano, 377.
Poitiers, Count of, 343, 355.
Portugal, King of, 363.
Pragmatic Sanction, 375.
Ptolemaïs. See Acre.
Ptolemaïs, emir of, 123.
Ramleh, 123;
capture of, 146.
Raymond d’Agiles, 133.
Raymond de Puy, 157.
Raymond of Poitiers, 172.
Raymond of Toulouse, 22, 83;
expedition, 87;
at Dorylæum, 97;
Antioch, 106;
defiance of Bohemond, 108;
straits at Antioch, 113;
quarrels with Bohemond, 120, 121;
attacks Maarah, 121;
besieges Arkas, 122;
Jerusalem, 130, 131;
clemency, 133;
plots, 135;
sulks, 136;
at Ascalon, 137;
claims Ascalon, 137;
quarrel with Godfrey, 138;
after first crusade, 139;
flight, 140;
submission to Pope, 142;
death, 148.
Raymond of Tripoli, 182, 183, 187, 189.
Redowan, 121.
Renaud of Carac, 183, 189, 190.
Renoart, 20.
Reynier, brother of Boniface, 259.
Rheims, Archbishop of, 94.
Rheims, Council of, 45.
Richard I., 24, 34, 201;
character, 202;
releases Eleanor, 202;
crowned, 203;
vow, 205;
recklessness, 208;
third crusade, 219 sq.;
quarrels with Tancred and Philip, 222, 223;
subdues Cyprus, 222;
declares for Guy, 223;
massacres Moslems, 225;
at Nahr Falik, 225;
Jaffa, 226;
finesse, 227;
retreat, 229, 230;
recaptures Jaffa, 230;
peace, 231;
returns, 232;
prisoner, 232 sq.;
release, 234;
hatred of Philip Augustus, 237;
gives Cyprus to Templars, 246;
traditional author of “Laws of Oleron,” 379.
Richard of Cornwall, 323.
Robert, brother of Henry I., England, 21.
Robert d’Artois, 342, 344, 347.
Robert de Clari, quoted, 260.
Robert Guiscard. See Guiscard.
Robert of Flanders, 23, 85;
expedition, 87;
at Antioch, 110.
Robert of France, 18.
Robert of Leicester, 233.
Robert of Normandy, 70, 85;
expedition, 87;
at Dorylæum, 96 sq.;
desertion, 105;
refuses help, 136;
at Ascalon, 137, 138;
end of career, 138.
Roger de Wendover, 202.
Roger of Sicily, 11, 168, 247.
Roland, 20.
Rollo, 7.
Romanus IV., 62.
Rosamond, 201, 202.
Rudolph, 82.
Rufinus, Bishop of Acre, 189.
Sa’di, 297.
Safed, destroyed by Bibars, 363.
Saif Eddin, 362.
St. John, Knights of. See Hospitallers.
St. Sophia, Church of, 250.
Saladin, 176, 180;
rise, 181;
defeat at Ascalon, 183;
revenge on Renaud, 183, 190;
victories, 187 sq.;
revenge on Templars, 190;
fall of Jerusalem, 191 sq.;
generosity, 192, 193;
challenge of Barbarossa, 210;
his reply, 211;
attacks Tyre, 214;
Tripoli, 214;
Carac, 214;
releases Guy, 214;
at Acre, 215 sq., 225;
courtesies, 223, 224;
at Nahr Falik, 225;
burns Ascalon, 227;
finesse, 227, 228;
captures Jaffa, 230;
peace, 231;
death, 235.
Saladin’s tithe, 207, 208.
Salisbury Cathedral, 377.
Santa Croce, 377.
Saracens. See Mohammedans.
Saxony, Duke of, 237, 240.
Scott, Walter, quoted, 24;
opinion of Alexius, 88.
Seljuk, 61.
Semlin, looted by Peter, 79.
Shirkuh, 180.
Sibylla, 184, 185, 192;
death, 218.
Sidon, capture, 149.
Sigur of Norway, 149.
Simeon, Patriarch of Jerusalem, 72.
Simon de Montfort, 237, 298.
Sismondi, quoted, 15.
Soissons, Bishop of, 284, 293.
Solyman, 63, 102.
Stanley, quoted, 19.
Stephen, boy, 299.
Stephen, King, 199.
Stephen of Blois, 85, 87, 101;
desertion, 113, 139;
slain, 147.
Stephen of Burgundy, 147.
Suger of St. Denis, 168, 176, 177, 199.
Sweno of Denmark, 104.
Sylvester II., 7, 45.
Tancred, agent of William II., 247.
Tancred de Hauteville, 84, 85, 90, 97;
at Tarsus, 99;
quarrel with Baldwin, 99;
character, 105;
valor, 106;
at Bethlehem, 124;
Jerusalem, 131;
clemency, 133;
Ascalon, 136 sq.;
Godfrey’s right hand, 141;
escape, 147;
death and character, 149.
Tancred of Sicily, 222.
Tarik, 56.
Tarsus, 99.
Tartars, 324 sq.;
overtures to Louis IX., 337;
progress, 362.
Tasso, quoted, 24, 25, 126.
Templars, 158, 159;
Saladin’s revenge, 190;
rivalries, 236, 298, 367;
get Cyprus, 246;
refuse help to Frederick II., 318;
overtures to Louis IX., 338;
at Mansourah, 345, 347;
ask Louis to remain in Syria, 355;
abolished, 375.
Teutonic Knights, 159;
ask Louis to remain in Syria, 355.
Theobald of Champagne, 228, 255, 258.
Theodora, 44.
Theodora, daughter, 44.
Theodora, sister of Isaac Angelus, 259.
Theodora, wife of Baldwin II., 179.
Theodore Lascaris, 275, 322.
Thibaut V., 322, 323.
Thibaut of Champagne, 164.
Thierri, 172, 175.
Thierry, quoted, 12.
Third Estate, 377.
Thoron, 239.
Thoros, 100.
Tiberias, battle of, 187 sq.
Tolosa, battle of, 298.
Tortosa, 122.
Tripoli, captured, 148;
resists Saladin, 214;
fall, 297.
Tristan, Jean, 357, 365.
Troubadours, 377.
Troyes, Bishop of, 284.
Truce of God, 17.
Tunis, 364.
Turkomans, 358.
Turks, 60 sq.;
advance of, 379, 380.
Tyre, fall of, 152, 297.
Urban II., not solely responsible for crusades, 3;
his opportunity, 50, 63;
speech at Clermont, 70, 74;
commissions Peter, 72;
synod at Piacenza, 74;
absolves crusaders, 373.
Urban III., 194.
Vataces, 322.
Vaux, Abbot of, 264.
Vecchio, Palazzo, 377.
Venice, relations with East, 248.
See Dandolo.
Victor III., 45.
Villehardouin, 255, 256, 263, 278, 285.
Vivien, 23.
Volkman, 80.
Waldenses, 197, 198, 375.
Waldo, Peter, 197, 198.
Walter the Penniless, 78.
Warwick, Earl of, 363.
Westminster Abbey, 377.
William, brother of Tancred, 97.
William II., Sicily, 247.
William of Champeaux, 8.
William of Orange, 23.
William of Poitiers, 139, 140.
William of Salisbury, 342, 345, 346.
William of Scotland, 201.
William of Sicily, 247.
William of Tyre, 80, 182, 184;
third crusade, 206 sq., 213.
William Rufus, 21, 85.
William the Conqueror, 21.
Worms, Concordat of, 162.
Zara, 261 sq.
Zenghi, 152 sq.
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
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