Forty years of struggle ended in fifteen years’ possession of Jerusalem. During those fifteen years the kingdom of Jerusalem was agitated by a struggle between the native barons, championing the principle that sovereignty resided in the collective baronage, and taking their stand on the assizes, and Frederick II., claiming sovereignty for himself, and opposing to the assizes the feudal law of Sicily. It is a struggle between the king and thehaute cour: it is a struggle between the aristocratic feudalism of the Franks and the monarchical feudalism of the Normans. Already in Cyprus, in the summer of 1228, Frederick II. had insisted on the right of wardship which he enjoyed as overlord of the island,51and he had appointed a commission of five barons to exercise his rights. In 1229 this commission was overthrown by John of Ibelin, lord of Beirut, against whom it had taken proceedings. John of Beirut, like many of the Cypriot barons, was also a baron of the kingdom of Jerusalem; and resistance in the one kingdom could only produce difficulties in the other. Difficulties quickly arose when Frederick, in 1231, sent Marshal Richard to Syria as his legate. This in itself was a serious matter; according to the assizes, the barons maintained, the king must either personally reside in the kingdom, or, in the event of his absence, be replaced by a regency. The position became more difficult, when the legate took steps against John of Beirut without any authorization from the high court. A gild was formed at Acre—the gild of St Adrian—which, if nominally religious in its origin, soon came to represent the political opposition to Frederick, as was significantly proved by its reception of the rebellious John of Beirut as a member (1232). The opposition was successful: by 1233 Frederick had lost all hold on Cyprus, and only retained Tyre in his own kingdom of Jerusalem. In 1236 he had to promise to recognize fully the laws of the kingdom: and when, in 1239, he was again excommunicated by Gregory IX., and a new quarrel of papacy and empire began, he soon lost the last vestiges of his power. Till 1243 the party of Frederick had been successful in retaining Tyre, and the baronial demand for a regency had remained without effect; but in that year the opposition, headed by the great family of Ibelin, succeeded, under cover of asserting the rights of Alice of Cyprus to the regency, in securing possession of Tyre, and the kingdom of Jerusalem thus fell back into the power of the baronage. The very next year (1244) Jerusalem was finally and for ever lost. Its loss was the natural corollary of these dissensions. Thetreaty of Frederick with Malik-al-Kamil (d. 1238) had now expired, and new succours and new measures were needed for the Holy Land. Theobald of Champagne had taken the cross as early as 1230, and 1239 he sailed to Acre in spite of the express prohibition of the pope, who, having quarrelled with Frederick II., was eager to divert any succour from Jerusalem itself, so long as Jerusalem belonged to his enemy. Theobald was followed (1240-1241) by Richard of Cornwall, the brother of Henry III., who, like his predecessor, had to sail in the teeth of papal prohibitions; but neither of the two achieved any permanent result, except the fortification of Ascalon. It was, however, by their own folly that the Franks lost Jerusalem in 1244. They consented to ally themselves with the ruler of Damascus against the sultan of Egypt; but in the battle of Gaza they were deserted by their allies and heavily defeated by Bibars, the Egyptian general and future Mameluke sultan of Egypt. Jerusalem, which had already been plundered and destroyed earlier in the year by Chorasmians (Khwarizmians), was the prize of victory, and Ascalon also fell in 1247.
8.The Crusades of St Louis.—As the loss of Jerusalem in 1187 produced the Third Crusade, so its loss in 1244 produced the Seventh: as the preaching of the Fifth Crusade had taken place in the Lateran council of 1215, so that of the Seventh Crusade began in the council of Lyons of 1245. But the preaching of the Crusade by Innocent IV. at Lyons was a curious thing. On the one hand he repeated the provisions of the Fourth Lateran council on behalf of the Crusade to the Holy Land; on the other hand he preached a Crusade against Frederick II., and promised to all who would join the full benefits of absolution and remission of sins. While the papacy thus bent its energies to the destruction of the Crusades in their genuine sense, and preferred to use for its own political objects what was meant for Jerusalem, a layman took up the derelict cause with all the religious zeal which any pope had ever displayed. Paradoxically enough, it was now the turn for the papacy to exploit the name of Crusade for political ends, as the laity had done before; and it was left to the laity to champion the spiritual meaning of the Crusade even against the papacy.52It was at the end of the year in which Jerusalem had fallen that St Louis had taken the cross, and by all the means in his power he attempted to ensure the success of his projected Crusade. He sought to mediate, though with no success, between the pope and the emperor; he descended to a whimsical piety, and took his courtiers by guile in distributing to them, at Christmas, clothing on which a cross had been secretly stitched. He started in 1248 with a gallant company, which contained his three brothers and the sieur de Joinville, his biographer; and after wintering in Cyprus he directed his army in the spring of 1249 against Egypt. The objective was unexpected: it may have been chosen by St Louis, because he knew how seriously the power of the sultan was undermined by the Mamelukes, who were in the very next year to depose the Ayyubite dynasty, which had reigned since 1171, and to substitute one of their number as sultan. Damietta was taken without a blow, and the march for Cairo was begun, as it had been begun by the legate Pelagius in 1221. Again the invading army halted before Mansura (December 1249); again it had to retreat. The retreat became a rout. St Louis was captured, and a treaty was made by which he had to consent to evacuate Damietta and pay a ransom of 800,000 pieces of gold. Eventually St Louis was released on surrendering Damietta and paying one-half of his ransom, and by the middle of May 1230 he reached Acre, having abandoned the Egyptian expedition. For the next four years he stayed in the Holy Land, seeking to do what he could for the establishing of the kingdom of Jerusalem. He was able to do but little. The struggle of papacy and empire paralysed Europe, and even in France itself there were few ready to answer the calls for help which St Louis sent home from Acre. The one answer was the Shepherds’ Crusade, or Crusade of the Pastoureaux—“a religious Jacquerie,” as it has been called by Dean Milman. It had some of the features of the Children’s Crusade of 1212. That, too, had begun with a shepherd boy: the leader of the Pastoureaux, like the leader of the children, promised to lead his followers dry-shod through the seas; and tradition even said that this leader, “the master of Hungary,” as he was called, was the Stephen of the Children’s Crusade. But the anti-clerical feeling and action of the Shepherds was new and ominous; and moved by its enormities the government suppressed the new movement ruthlessly. None came to the aid of St Louis; and in 1254, on the death of his mother Blanche, the regent, he had to return to France.
The final collapse of the kingdom of Jerusalem had been really determined by the battle of Gaza in 1244, and by the deposition of the Ayyubite dynasty by the Mamelukes. The Ayyubites had always been, on the whole, chivalrous and tolerant: Saladin and his successors, Malik-al-Adil and Malik-al-Kamil, had none of them shown an implacable enmity to the Christians. The Mamelukes, who are analogous to the janissaries of the Ottoman Turks, were made of sterner and more fanatical stuff; and Bibars, the greatest of these Mamelukes, who had commanded at Gaza in 1244, had been one of the leaders in 1250, and was destined to become sultan in 1260, was the sternest and most fanatical of them all. The Christians were, however, able to maintain a footing in Syria for forty years after St Louis’ departure, not by reason of their own strength, but owing to two powers which checked the advance of the Mamelukes. The first of these was Damascus. The kingdom of Jerusalem, as we have seen, had profited by the alliance of Damascus as early as 1130, when the fear of the atabegs of Mosul had first drawn the two together; and when Damascus had been acquired by the rule of Mosul, the hostility between the house of Nureddin in Damascus and Saladin in Egypt had still for a time preserved the kingdom (from 1171 onwards). Saladin had united Egypt and Damascus; but after his death dissensions broke out among the members of his family,53which more than once led to wars between Damascus and Cairo. It has already been noticed that such a war between the sons of Malik-al-Adil accounts in largemeasure for the success of the Sixth Crusade; and it has been seen that the battle of Gaza was an act in the long drama of strife between Egypt and northern Syria. The revolution in Egypt in 1250 separated Damascus from Cairo more trenchantly than they had ever been separated since 1171: while a Mameluke ruled in Cairo, Malik-al-Nāsir of Aleppo was elected as sultan by the emirs of Damascus. But an entirely new and far more important factor in the affairs of the Levant was the extension of the empire of the Mongols during the 13th century. That empire had been founded by Jenghiz Khan in the first quarter of the century; it stretched from Peking on the east to the Euphrates and the Dnieper on the west. Two things gave the Mongols an influence on the history of the Holy Land and the fate of the Crusades. In the first place, the south-western division of the empire, comprising Persia and Armenia, and governed about 1250 by the Khan Hulaku or Hulagu, was inevitably brought into relations, which were naturally hostile, with the Mahommedan powers of Syria and Egypt. In the second place, the Mongols of the 13th century were not as yet, in any great numbers, Mahommedans; the official religion was “Shamanism,” but in the Mongol army there were many Christians, the results of early Nestorian missions to the far East. This last fact in particular caused western Europe to dream of an alliance with the great khan “Prester John,” who should aid in the reconquest of Jerusalem and the final conversion to Christianity of the whole continent of Asia. The Crusades thus widen out, towards their close, into a general scheme for the christianization of all the known world.54About 1220 James of Vitry was already hoping that 4000 knights would, with the assistance of the Mongols, recover Jerusalem; but it is in 1245 that the first definite sign of an alliance with the Mongols appears. In that year Innocent IV. sent a Franciscan friar, Joannes de Piano Carpini, to the Mongols of southern Russia, and despatched a Dominican mission to Persia. Nothing came of either of these missions; but through them Europe first began to know the interior of Asia, for Carpini was conducted by the Mongols as far as Karakorum, the capital of the great khan, on the borders of China. Again in 1252 St Louis (who had already begun to negotiate with the Mongols in the winter of 1248-1249) sent the friar William of Rubruquis to the court of the great khan; but again nothing came of the mission save an increase of geographical knowledge. It was in the year 1260 when it first seemed likely that any results definitely affecting the course of the Crusades would flow from the action of the Mongols. In that year Hulagu, the khan of Persia, invaded Syria and captured Damascus. His general, a Christian named Kitboga, marched southwards to attack the Mamelukes of Egypt, but he was beaten by Bibars (who in the same year became sultan of Egypt), and Damascus fell into the hands of the Mamelukes. Once more, in spite of Mongol intervention, Damascus and Cairo were united, as they had been united in the hands of Saladin; once more they were united in the hands of a devout Mahommedan, who was resolved to extirpate the Christians from Syria.
While these things were taking place around them, the Christians of the kingdom of Jerusalem only hastened their own fall by internal dissensions which repeated the history of the period preceding 1187. In part the war of Guelph and Ghibelline fought itself out in the East; and while one party demanded a regency, as in 1243, another argued for the recognition of Conrad, the son of Frederick II., as king. In part, again, a commercial war raged between Venice and Genoa, which attracted into its orbit all the various feuds and animosities of the Levant (1257). Beaten in the war, the Genoese avenged themselves for their defeat by an alliance with the Palaeologi, which led to the loss of Constantinople by the Latins (1261), and to the collapse of the Latin empire after sixty years of infirm and precarious existence. On a kingdom thus divided against itself, and deprived of allies, the arm of Bibars soon fell with crushing weight. The sultan, who had risen from a Mongolian slave to become a second Saladin, and who combined the physique and audacity of a Danton with the tenacity and religiosity of a Philip II., dealt blow after blow to the Franks of the East. In 1265 fell Caesarea and Arsuf; in 1268 Antioch was taken, and the principality of Bohemund and Tancred ceased to exist.55In the years which followed on the loss of Antioch several attempts were made in the West to meet the progress of the new conqueror. In 1269 James the Conqueror of Aragon, at the bidding of the pope, turned from the long Spanish Crusade to a Crusade in the East in order to atone for his offences against the law matrimonial. An opportune storm, however, gave the king an excuse for returning home, as Frederick II. had done in 1227; and though his followers reached Acre, they hardly dared venture outside its walls, and returned home promptly in the beginning of 1270. More serious were the plans and the attempts of Charles of Anjou and Louis IX., in which the Crusades may be said to have finally ended, save for sundry disjointed epilogues in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Charles of Anjou had succeeded, as a result of the long “crusade” waged by the papacy against the Hohenstaufen from the council of Lyons to the battle of Tagliacozzo (1245-1268), in establishing himself in the kingdom of Sicily. With the kingdom of Frederick II. and Henry VI. he also took over their policy—the “forward” policy in the East which had also been followed by the old Norman kings. On the one hand he aimed at the conquest of Constantinople as Henry VI. had done before; and by the treaty of Viterbo of 1267 he secured from the last Latin emperor of the East, Baldwin II., a right of eventual succession. On the other hand, like Frederick II., he aimed at uniting the kingdom of Jerusalem with that of Sicily; and here, too, he was able to provide himself with a title. On the death of Conradin, Hugh of Cyprus had been recognized in the East as king of Jerusalem (1269); but his pretensions were opposed by Mary of Antioch, a granddaughter of Amalric II., who was prepared to bequeath her claims to Charles of Anjou, and was therefore naturally supported by him. But the policy of Charles, which thus prepared the way for a Crusade similar to those of 1197 and 1202, was crossed by that of his brother Louis IX. Already in 1267 St Louis had taken the cross a second time, moved by the news of Bibars’ conquests; and though the French baronage, including even Joinville himself, refused to follow the lead of their king, Prince Edward of England imitated his example. Louis had been led to think that the bey of Tunis might be converted, and in that hope he resolved to begin this eighth and last of the Crusades by an expedition to Tunis. Charles, as anxious to attack Constantinople as he was reluctant to attack Tunis, with which Sicily had long had commercial relations, was forced to abandon his own plans and to join in those of his brother.56St Louis had barely landed in Tunis when he sickened and died, murmuring “Jerusalem, Jerusalem” (August 1270); but Charles, who appeared immediately after his brother’s death, was able to conduct the Crusade to a successful conclusion. Negotiating in the spirit of a Frederick II., and acting not as a Crusader but as a king of Sicily, he not only wrested a large indemnity from the bey for himself and the new king of France, but also secured a large annual tribute for his Sicilian exchequer. So ended the Eighth Crusade—much as the Sixth had done—to the profound disgust of many of the crusaders, including Prince Edward of England, who only arrived on the eve of the conclusion of the treaty. Baulked of any opportunity of joining in the main Crusade, Edward, after wintering in Sicily, conducted a Crusade of his own to Acre in the spring of 1271. For over a year he stayed in the Holy Land, making little sallies from Acre, and negotiatingwith the Mongols, but achieving no permanent results. He returned home at the end of 1272, the last of the western crusaders; and thus all the attempts of St Louis and Charles of Anjou, of James of Aragon and Edward of England left Bibars still in possession of all his conquests.
Two projects of Crusades were started before the final expulsion of the Latins from Syria. In 1274, at the council of Lyons, Gregory X., who had been the companion of Edward in the Holy Land, preached the Crusade to an assembly which contained envoys from the Mongol khan and Michael Palaeologus as well as from many western princes. All the princes of western Europe took the cross; not only so, but Gregory was successful in uniting the Eastern and Western churches for the moment, and in securing for the new Crusade the aid of the Palaeologi, now thoroughly alarmed by the plans of Charles of Anjou. Thus was a papal Crusade begun, backed by an alliance with Constantinople, and thus were the plans of Charles of Anjou temporarily thwarted. But in 1276 Gregory X. died, and all his plans died with him; there was to be no union of the monarchs of the West with the emperor of the East in a common Crusade. Charles was able to resume his plans. In 1277 Mary of Antioch ceded to him her claims, and he was able to establish himself in Acre; in 1278 he took possession of the principality of Achaea. With these bases at his disposal he began to prepare a new Crusade, to be directed primarily (like that of Henry VI. in 1197, and like his own projected Crusade of 1270) against Constantinople. Once more his plans were crossed finally and fatally: the Sicilian Vespers, and the coronation of Peter of Aragon as Sicilian king (1282), gave him troubles at home which occupied him for the rest of his days. This was the last serious attempt at a Crusade on behalf of the dying kingdom of Jerusalem which was made in the West; and its collapse was quickly followed by the final extinction of the kingdom. A precarious peace had reigned in the Holy Land since 1272, when Bibars had granted a truce of ten years; but the fall of the great power of Charles of Anjou set free Kalā‘ūn the successor of Bibars’ son (who reigned little more than two years), to complete the work of the great sultan. In 1289 Kalā‘ūn took Tripoli, and the county of Tripoli was extinguished; in 1290 he died while preparing to besiege Acre, which was captured after a brave defence by his son and successor Khālil in 1291. Thus the kingdom of Jerusalem came to an end. The Franks evacuated Syria altogether, leaving behind them only the ruins of their castles to bear witness, to this very day, of the Crusades they had waged and the kingdom they had founded and lost.
9.The Ghost of the Crusades.—The loss of Acre failed to stimulate the powers of Europe to any new effort. France, always the natural home of the Crusades, was too fully occupied, first by war with England and then by a struggle with the papacy, to turn her energies towards the East. But it is often the case that theory develops as practice fails; and as the theory of the Holy Roman Empire was never more vigorous than in the days of its decrepitude, so it was with the Crusades. Particularly in the first quarter of the 14th century, writers were busy in explaining the causes of the failures of past Crusades, and in laying down the lines along which a new Crusade must proceed. Several causes are recognized by these writers as accounting for the failure of the Crusades. Some of them lay the blame on the papacy; and it is true that the papacy had contributed towards the decay of the Crusades when it had allowed its own particular interests to overbear the general welfare of Christianity, and had dignified with the name and the benefits of a Crusade its own political war against the Hohenstaufen. Others again find in the princes of Europe the authors of the ruin of the Crusades; they too had preferred their own national or dynastic interests to the cause of a common Christianity. They had indeed, as has been already noticed, done even more; they had used the name of Crusade, from the days of Henry VI. onwards, as a cover and an excuse for secular ambitions of their own; and in this way they had certainly helped, in very large measure, to discourage the old religious zeal for the Holy War. Other writers, again, blame the commercial cupidity of the Italian towns; of what avail, they asked with no little justice, was the Crusade, when Venice and Genoa destroyed the naval bases necessary for its success by their internecine quarrels in the Levant (as in 1257), or—still worse—entered into commercial treaties with the common enemy against whom the Crusades were directed? On the very eve of the Fifth Crusade, Venice had concluded a commercial treaty with Malik-al-Kamil of Egypt; just before the fall of Acre the Genoese, the king of Aragon and the king of Sicily had all concluded advantageous treaties with the sultan Kalā’ūn. A fourth cause, on which many writers dwelt, particularly at the time when the suppression of the Templars was in question, was the dissensions between the two orders of Templars and Hospitallers, and the selfish policy of merely pursuing their own interest which was followed by both in common. But one might enumeratead infinitumthe causes of the failure of the Crusades. It is simplest, as it is truest, to say that the Crusades did not fail—they simply ceased; and they ceased because they were no longer in joint with the times. The moral character of Europe in 1300 was no longer the moral character of Europe in 1100; and the Crusades, which had been the active and objective embodiment of the other worldly Europe of 1100, were alien to the secular, legal, scholastic Europe of 1300. While Edward I. was seeking to found a united kingdom in Great Britain; while the Habsburgs were entrenching themselves in Austria; above all, while Philippe le Bel and his legists were consolidating the French monarchy on an absolutist basis, there could be little thought of the holy war. These were hard-headed men of affairs—men who would not lightly embark on joyous ventures, or seek for an ideal San Grail; nor were the popes, doomed to the Babylonian captivity for seventy long years at Avignon, able to call down the spark from on high which should consume all earthly ambitions in one great act of sacrifice.
But it is long before the death of any institution is recognized; and it was inevitable that men should busy themselves in trying to rekindle the dead embers into new life. Pierre Dubois, in a pamphlet “De recuperatione Sanctae Terrae,” addressed to Edward I. in 1307, advocates a general council of Europe to maintain peace and prevent the dissensions which—as, for instance, in 1192—had helped to cause the failure of past Crusades. Along with this advocacy of internationalism goes a plea for the disendowment of the Church, in order to provide an adequate financial basis for the future Crusade. Other proposals, made by men well acquainted with the East, are more definitely practical and less political in their intention. A blockade of Egypt by an international fleet, an alliance with the Mongols, the union of the two great orders—these are the three staple heads of these proposals. Something, indeed, was attempted, if little was actually done, under each of these three heads. The plan of an international fleet to coerce the Mahommedan is even to this day ineffective; but the Hospitallers, who acquired a new basis by the conquest of Rhodes in 1310, used their fleet to enforce a partial and, on the whole, ineffective blockade of the coast of the Levant. The union of the two orders, already suggested at the council of Lyons in 1245, was nominally achieved by the council of Vienne in 1311; but the so-called “union” was in reality the suppression of the Templars, and the confiscation of all their resources by the cupidity of Philippe le Bel. The alliance with the Mongols remained, from the first to the last, something of a chimera; and the last visionary hope vanished when the Mongols finally embraced Mahommedanism, as, by the end of the 14th century, they had almost universally done.
Isolated enterprises somewhat of the character of a Crusade, but hardly serious enough to be dignified by that name, recur during the 14th century. The French kings are all crusaders—in name—until the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War; but the only crusader who ever carried war in Palestine and sought to shake the hold of the Mamelukes on the Holy Land was Peter I., king of Cyprus from 1359 to 1369. Peter founded the order of the Sword for the delivery of Jerusalem; and instigated by his chancellor, P. de Mézières (one of the last ofthe theorists who speculated and wrote on the Crusades), he attempted to revive the old crusading spirit throughout the west of Europe. The mission which he undertook with his chancellor for this purpose (1362-1365) only produced a crop of promises or excuses from sovereigns like Edward III. or the Emperor Charles IV.; and Peter was forced to begin the Crusade with such volunteers as he could collect for himself. In the autumn of 1365 he sacked Alexandria; in 1367 he ravaged the coast of Syria, and inflicted serious damages on the sultan of Egypt. But in 1369 he was assassinated, and the last romantic figure of the Crusades died, leaving only the legacy of his memory to his chancellor de Mézières, who for nearly forty years longer continued to be the preacher of the Crusades to Europe, advocating—what always continued to be the “dream of the old pilgrim”—a new order of knights of the Passion of Christ for the recovery and defence of Jerusalem. De Mézières was the last to advocate seriously, as Peter I. was the last to attempt, a Crusade after the old fashion—an offensive war against Egypt for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre.57From 1350 onwards the Crusade assumes a new aspect; it becomes defensive, and it is directed against the Ottoman Turks, a tribe of Turcomans who had established themselves in the sultanate of Iconium at the end of the 13th century, during the confusion and displacement of peoples which attended the Mongol invasions. As early as 1308 the Ottoman Turks had begun to settle in Europe; by 1350 they had organized their terrible army of janissaries. They threatened at once the débris of the old Latin empire in Greece and the archipelago, and the relics of the Byzantine empire round Constantinople; they menaced the Hospitallers in Rhodes and the Lusignans in Cyprus. It was natural that the popes should endeavour to form a coalition between the various Christian powers which were threatened by the Turks; and Venice, anxious to preserve her possessions in the Aegean, zealously seconded their efforts. In 1344 a Crusade, in which Venice, the Cypriots, and the Hospitallers all joined, ended in the conquest of Smyrna; in 1345 another Crusade, led by Humbert, dauphin of Vienne, ended in failure. The Turks continued their progress; in 1363 they captured Philippopolis, and in 1365 they entered Adrianople; the whole Balkan peninsula was threatened, and even Hungary itself seemed doomed. Already in 1365 Urban VI. sought to unite the king of Hungary and the king of Cyprus in a common Crusade against the Turks; but it was not till 1396 that an attempt was at last made to supplement by a land Crusade the naval Crusades of 1344 and 1345. Master of Servia and of Bulgaria, as well as of Asia Minor, the sultan Bayezid was now threatening Constantinople itself. To arrest his progress, a Crusade, preached by Boniface IX., led by John the Fearless of Burgundy, and joined chiefly by French knights, was directed down the valley of the Danube into the Balkans; but the old faults stigmatized by de Mézières,divisioandpropria voluntas, were the ruin of the crusading army, and at the battle of Nicopolis it was signally defeated. Not the Western Crusades but an Eastern rival, Timur (Tamerlane), king of Transoxiana and conqueror of southern Russia and India, was destined to arrest the progress of Bayezid; and from the battle of Angora (1402) till the days of Murad II. (1422) the Ottoman power was paralysed. Under Murad, however, it rose to its old height. To meet the new danger a new union of the churches of the East and the West was attempted. As in 1074 Gregory VII. had dreamed of such a union, to be followed by a joint attack of East and West on the Seljuks, so in 1439, at the council of Florence, a new union of the two churches was again attempted and temporarily secured, in order that a united Christendom might face the new Turkish danger.58The logical result of the union was the Crusade of 1443. An army of cosmopolitan adventurers, led by the Cardinal Caesarini, joined the forces of Wladislaus of Poland and John Hunyadi of Transylvania, and succeeded in forcing on Murad II. a truce of ten years at Szegedin in 1444. But the crusaders broke the truce, to which Caesarini had never consented; and, attempting to better what was already good enough, they were defeated at Varna. Here the last Crusade ended; and nine years afterwards, in 1453, Mahommed II., the successor of Murad, captured Constantinople. It was in vain that the popes sought to gather a new Crusade for its recovery; Pius II., who had vowed to join the crusade in person, only reached Ancona in 1464 to find the crusaders deserting and to die. Yet the ghost of the Crusades still lingered. It became a convention of diplomacy, designed to cover any particularly sharp piece of policy which needed some excuse; and the treaty of Granada, formed between Louis XII. and Ferdinand of Aragon for the partition of Naples in 1500, was excused as a thing necessary in the interests of the Crusades. In a more noble fashion the Crusade survived in the minds of the navigators; “Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus, Albuquerque, and many others dreamed, and not insincerely, that they were labouring for the deliverance of the Holy Land, and they bore the Cross on their breasts.”59“Don Henrique’s scheme,” it has been said, “represents the final effort of the crusading spirit; and the naval campaigns against the Moslem in the Indian seas, in which it culminated, forty years after Don Henrique’s death, may be described as the last Crusade.”60
10.Results of the Crusades.—In one vital respect the result of the Crusades may be written down as failure. They ended, not in the occupation of the East by the Christian West, but in the conquest of the West by the Mahommedan East. The Crusades began with the Seljukian Turk planted at Nicaea; they ended with the Ottoman Turk entrenched by the Danube. Nothing is more striking in history than the recession of Christianity in the East after the 13th century. In the 13th century the whole of Europe was Christian; part of Asia Minor still belonged to Greek Christianity, and there was a Christian kingdom in Palestine. Nor was this all. A wide missionary activity had begun in the 13th century—an activity which was the product of the Crusades and the contact with the Moslem which they brought, but which yet helped to check the Crusades, substituting as it did peaceful and spiritual conquests of souls for the violence and materialism of even a Holy War. The Eastern mission had been begun by St Francis, who had visited and attempted to convert the sultan of Egypt during the Fifth Crusade (1220); within a hundred years the little seed had grown into a great tree. A great field for missionary enterprise opened itself in the Mongol empire, in which, as has already been mentioned, there were many Christians to be found; and by 1350 this field had been so well worked that Christian missions and Christian bishops were established from Persia to Peking, and from the Dnieper to Tibet itself. But a Mahommedan reaction came, thanks in large measure to the zeal of Timur; and central Asia was lost to Christianity. Everywhere in the 15th century, in Europe and in Asia, the crescent was victorious over the cross; and Crusade and mission, whether one regards them as complementary or inimical, perished together.61
But the history of the Crusades must be viewed rather as a chapter in the history of civilization in the West itself, than as an extension of Western dominion or religion to the East. It is a chapter very difficult to write, for while on the one hand an ingenious and speculative historian may refer to the influence of the Crusades almost everything which was thought or done between 1100 and 1300, a cautious writer who seeks to finddocumentary evidence for every assertion may be rather inclined to attribute to that influence little or nothing.62The dissolution of feudalism, the development of towns, the growth of scholasticism, all these and much more have been ascribed to the Crusades, when in truth they were concomitants rather than results, or at any rate, if in part the results of the Crusades, were in far larger part the results of other things. At most, therefore, it may be admitted that the Crusadescontributedto the dissolution of feudalism by putting property on the market and disturbing the validity of titles; that they aided the development of towns by vastly increasing the volume of trade; and that they furthered the growth of scholasticism by bringing the West into contact with the mind of the East. If we seek the peculiar and definite results of the Crusades, we must turn to narrower issues. In the first place, the Crusades represent the attempt of a feudal system, bound under the law of primogeniture to dispose of its younger sons. They are attempts at feudal colonization; and as such they resulted in a number of colonies—the kingdom of Jerusalem, the kingdom of Cyprus, the Latin empire of Constantinople. They resulted too in a number of “chartered companies”—that is to say, the three military orders, which, beginning as charitablesocieties, developed into military clubs, and developed again from military clubs into chartered companies, possessed of banks, navies and considerable territories. In the second place, as has already been noticed, the Crusades represent the attempt of Western commerce to find new and more easy routes to the wealth of the East; and in this respect they led to various results. On the one hand they led to the establishment of emporia in the East—for instance, Acre, and after the fall of Acre Famagusta, both in their day great centres of Levantine trade. On the other hand, the commodities which poured into Venice and Genoa from the East had to find a route for their diffusion through Europe. The great route was that which led from Venice over the Brenner and up the Rhine to Bruges; and this route became the long red line of municipal development, along which—in Lombardy, Germany and Flanders—the great towns of the middle ages sprang to life. Partly as a result of this trade, ever pushing its way farther east, and partly as a result of the Asiatic missions, which were themselves an accompaniment and effect of the Crusades, a third great result of the Crusades came to light in the 13th century—the discovery of the interior of Asia, and an immense accession to the sphere of geography. When one remembers that missionaries like Piano Carpini, and traders like the Venetian Polos, either penetrated by land from Acre to Peking, or circumnavigated southern Asia from Basra to Canton, one realizes that there was, about 1300, a discovery of Asia as new and tremendous as the discovery of America by Columbus two centuries later. At the same time the old knowledge of nearer Asia was immensely deepened. It has already been noticed how military reconnaissances of the routes to Egypt came to be made; but more important were the guide-books, of which a great number were written to guide the pilgrims from one sacred spot of Bible history to another. There were medieval Baedekers in abundance for the use of the annual flow of tourists, who were carried every Easter by the vessels of the Italian towns or of the Orders to visit the Holy Land and to bathe in Jordan, to gather palms, and to see the miracle of fire at the Sepulchre.
Colonization, trade, geography—these then are three things closely connected with the history of the Crusades. The development of the art of war, and the growth of a systematic taxation, are two debts which medieval Europe also owed to the Crusades. Partly by contact with the Byzantines, partly by conflict with the Mahommedans, the Franks learned new methods both of building and of attacking fortifications. The concentric castle, with its rings of walls, began to displace the old keep and bailey with their single wall, as the crusaders brought back news from the East.63The art of the sapper and miner, the use of siege instruments like the mangonel, and the employment of various “fires” as missiles, were all known among the Mahommedans; and in all these respects the Franks learned from their enemies. The common use of armorial bearings, and the practice of the tournament, may be Oriental in their origin; the latter has its affinities with the equestrian exercises of the Jerid, and the former, though of prehistoric antiquity, may have received a new impulse from contact with the Arabs. The military development which sprang from the Crusades is thus largely a matter of borrowing; the financial development is independent and indigenous in the West. As early as 1147 Louis VII. had imposed a tax in the interests of the Crusades; and that tax had been repeated by Louis, and imitated by Henry II. in 1166, while it had been still further extended in the Saladin tithe of 1188. The taxation of 1166 is important as the first to fall on “moveables”; the whole scheme of taxation may be regarded as the beginning of a modern system of taxation. But it was not only to the lay power that the Crusades gave an excuse for taxation; the papacy also profited. Tithes for the Crusades were first imposed on the clergy by Innocent III. at the Lateran council of 1215; and clerical taxation was thus part of the whole statesmanlike project of the Fifth Crusade as it was sketched by the great pope. Henceforth tithes for the Crusades are regular; under Gregory IX. they become a great part of the papal resources in the Crusade against the Hohenstaufen; and in the 16th century they are still a normal part of the government of the Church.
In many other ways the Europe over which the Crusades had passed was different from the Europe of the 11th century. In the first place, many political changes had been wrought, largely under its influence. Always in large part French, the Crusades had on the whole contributed to exalt the prestige of France, until it stood at the end of the 13th century the most considerable power in Europe. It was France which had colonized the Levant; it was the French tongue which was used in the Levant; and the results of the ancient and continuous connexion with the East are still to be traced to-day. Of the other great powers of Europe, England and Germany had been little changed by the Crusades, save that Germany had been extended towards the East by the conquests of the Teutonic Order; but the Eastern empire had been profoundly modified, and the papacy had suffered a great change. The Eastern empire had been for a time annihilated by the movement which in 1095 it had helped to evoke; and if it rose from its ashes in 1261 for two centuries of renewed life, it was never more than the shadow of its old self, with little hold on Asia Minor and less on Greece and the Archipelago, which the Latins still continued to occupy until they were finally conquered by the Ottoman Turks. The papacy, on the other hand, had grown as a result of the Crusades. Popes had preached them; popes had financed them; popes had sent their legates to lead them. Through them the popes had deposed the emperors of the West from their headship of the world, partly because through the Crusades the popes were able to direct the common Christianity of Europe in a foreign policy of their own without consultation with the emperor, partly because in the 13th century they were ultimately able to direct the Crusade itself against the empire. Yet while they had magnified, the Crusades had also corrupted the papacy. They became an instrument in its hands which it used to its own undoing. It cried Crusade when there was no Crusade; and the long Crusade against the Hohenstaufen, if it gave the papacy an apparent victory, only served in the long run to lower itsprestige in the eyes of Europe. When we turn from the sphere of politics to the history of civilization and culture, we find the effects of the Crusades as deeply impressed, if not so definitely marked. The Crusades had sprung from the policy of a theocratic government counting on the motive of otherworldliness; they had helped in their course to overthrow that motive, and with it the government which it had made possible. In part they had provided a field in which the layman could prove that he too was a priest; in part they had brought the West into a living and continuous contact with a new faith and a new civilization. They had torn men loose from the ancestral custom of home to walk in new ways and see new things and hear new thoughts; and some broadening of view, some lessening in the intensity of the old one-sidedness, was the inevitable result. It is not so much that the West came into contact with a particular civilization in the East, or borrowed from that civilization; it is simply that the West came into contact with something unlike itself, yet in many ways as high as, if not higher than, itself. The spirit ofNathan der Weisemay not have been exactly the spirit engendered by the Crusades; and yet it is not without reason that Lessing stages the fable which teaches toleration in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. In any case the accusations made against the Templars at the time of their suppression prove that there was, at any rate in the ranks of those who knew the East, too little of absolute orthodoxy. While a new spirit which compares and tolerates thus sprang from the Crusades, the large sphere of new knowledge and experience which they gave brought new material at once for scientific thought and poetic imagination. Not only was geography more studied; the Crusades gave a great impulse to the writing of history, and produced, besides innumerable other works, the greatest historical work of the middle ages—theHistoria transmarinaof William of Tyre. Mathematics received an impulse, largely, it is true, from the Arabs of Spain, but also from the East; Leonardo Fibonacci, the first Christian algebraist, had travelled in Syria and Egypt. The study of Oriental languages began in connexion with the Christian missions of the East; Raymond Lull, the indefatigable missionary, induced the council of Vienne to decide on the creation of six schools of Oriental languages in Europe (1311). But the new field of poetic literature afforded by the Crusades is still more striking than this development of science. New poems in abundance dealt with the history of the Crusades, either in a faithful narrative, like that of theChansonof Ambroise, which narrates the Third Crusade, or in a free and poetical spirit, such as breathes in theChanson d’Antioche. Nor was this all. The Crusades afforded new details which might be inserted into old matters, and a new spirit which might be infused into old subjects; and a crusading complexion thus came to be put upon old tales like those of Arthur and Charlemagne. By the side of these greater things it may seem little, and yet, just because it is little, it is all the more significant that the Crusades should have familiarized Europe with new plants, new fruits, new manufactures, new colours, and new fashions in dress. Sugar and maize; lemons, apricots and melons; cotton, muslin and damask; lilac and purple (azure and gules are words derived from the Arabic); the use of powder and of glass mirrors, and also of the rosary itself—all these things came to Europe from the East and as a result of the Crusades. To this day there are many Arabic words in the vocabulary of the languages of western Europe which are a standing witness of the Crusades—words relating to trade and seafaring, like tariff and corvette, or words for musical instruments, like lute or the Elizabethan word “naker.”
GENEALOGY OF THE KINGS OF JERUSALEM
When all is said, the Crusades remain a wonderful and perpetually astonishing act in the great drama of human life. They touched the summits of daring and devotion, if they also sank into the deep abysms of shame. Motives of self-interest may have lurked in them—otherworldly motives of buying salvation for a little price, or worldly motives of achieving riches and acquiring lands. Yet it would be treason to the majesty of man’s incessant struggle towards an ideal good, if one were to deny that in and through the Crusades men strove for righteousness’ sake to extend the kingdom of God upon earth. Therefore the tears and the blood that were shed were not unavailing; the heroism and the chivalry were not wasted. Humanity is the richer for the memory of those millions of men, who followed the pillar of cloud and fire in the sure and certain hope of an eternal reward. The ages were not dark in which Christianity could gather itself together in a common cause, and carry the flag of its faith to the grave of its Redeemer; nor can we but give thanks for their memory, even if for us religion is of the spirit, and Jerusalem in the heart of every man who believes in Christ.
Literature.—In dealing with the literature of the Crusades, it is perhaps better, though ideally less scientific, to begin with chronicles and narratives rather than with documents. One of the results of the Crusades, as has just been suggested above, was a great increase in the writing of history. Crusaders themselves kept diaries oritineraria; while home-keeping ecclesiastics in the West—monks like Robert of Reims, abbots like Guibert of Nogent, archbishops like Balderich of Dol—found a fertile subject for their pens in the history of the Crusades. The history of a series of actions like the Crusades must primarily be based on these accounts, and more particularly on the former: narratives must precede documents where one is dealing, not with the continuous life of an organized kingdom, but with a number of enterprises—especially when those enterprises have been, as in this case, excellently narrated by contemporary writers.I.Chronicles and Narratives of the Crusades—(1) Collections. The authorities for the Crusades have been collected in Bongars,Gesta Dei per Francos(Hanover, 1611) (incomplete); Michaud,Bibliothèque des croisades(Paris, 1829) (containing translations of select passages in the authorities); theRecueil des historiens des croisades, published by the Académie des Inscriptions (Paris, 1841 onwards) (the best general collection, containing many of the Latin, Greek, Arabic and Armenian authorities, and also the text of the assizes; but sometimes poorly edited and still incomplete); and the publications of the Société de l’Orient Latin (founded in 1875), especially theArchives, of which two volumes were published in 1881 and 1884, and the volumes of theRevue, published yearly from 1893 to 1902, and containing not only new texts, but articles and reviews of books which are of great service. (2) Particular authorities. The Crusades—a movement which engaged all Europe and brought the East into contact with the West—must necessarily be studied not only in the Latin authorities of Europe and of Palestine, but also in Byzantine, Armenian and Arabic writers. There are thus some four or five different points of view to be considered.TheFirst Crusade, far more than any other, became the theme of a multitude of writings, whose different degrees of value it is all-important to distinguish. Until about 1840 the authority followed for its history was naturally the great work of William of Tyre. For the First Crusade William had followed Albert of Aix; and he had consequently depicted Peter the Hermit as the prime mover in the Crusade. But about 1840 Ranke suggested, and von Sybel in hisGeschichte des ersten Kreuzzügesproved, that Albert of Aix wasnota good authority, and that consequently William of Tyre must be set aside for the history of the First Crusade, and other and more contemporary authorities used. In writing his account of the First Crusade, von Sybel accordingly based himself on the three contemporary Western authorities—theGesta Francorum, Raymond of Agiles, and Fulcher. His view of the value of Albert of Aix, and his account of the First Crusade, have been generally followed (Kugler alone having attempted, to some extent, to rehabilitate Albert of Aix); and thus von Sybel’s work may be said to mark a revolution in the history of the First Crusade, when its legendary features were stripped away, and its real progress was first properly discovered.Taking the Western authorities for the First Crusade separately, one may divide them, in the light of von Sybel’s work, into four kinds—the accounts of eye-witnesses; later compilations based on these accounts; semi-legendary and legendary narratives; and lastly, in a class by itself, the “History” of William of Tyre, who is rather a scientific historian than a chronicler.(a) The three chief eye-witnesses are the anonymous author of theGesta Francorum, Raymund of Agiles, and Fulcher. The anonymous author of theGesta(see Hagenmeyer’s edition, Heidelberg, 1890) was a Norman of South Italy, who followed Bohemund, and accordingly depicts the progress of the First Crusade from a Norman point of view. He was a layman, marching and fighting in the ranks; and thus he is additionally valuable as representing the opinion of the ordinary crusader. Finally he was an eye-witness throughout, and absolutely contemporary, in the sense that he wrote his account of each great event practically at the time of the event. He is the primary authority for the First Crusade. Raymund of Agiles, a Provençal clerk and a follower of Raymund of Toulouse, writes hisHistoria Francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalemfrom the Provençal point of view. He gives an ecclesiastic’s account of the First Crusade, and is specially full on the spiritualistic phenomena which accompanied and followed the finding of the Holy Lance. His book might almost be called the “Visions of Peter Bartholomew and others,” and it is written in the plain matter-of-fact manner of Defoe’s narratives. He too was an eye-witness throughout, and thoroughly honest; and his account ranks second to theGesta. Fulcher of Chartres originally followed Robert of Normandy, but in October 1097 he joined Baldwin of Lorraine in his expedition to Edessa, and afterwards followed his fortunes. HisHistoria Hierosolymitana, which extends to 1127, and embraces not only the history of the First Crusade, but also that of the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem, is written on the whole from a Lotharingian point of view, and is thus a natural complement to the accounts of the Anonymus and Raymund. His account of the First Crusade itself is poor (he was absent at Edessa during its course), but otherwise he is an excellent authority. A kindly old pedant, Fulcher interlards his history with much discourse on geography, zoology and sacred history. Besides these three chief eye-witnesses we may also mention theAnnales Genuensesby the Genoese consul Caffarus,64and theAnnales Pisaniof Bernardus Marago, useful as giving the mercantile and Italian side of the Crusade; theHierosolymitaof Ekkehard, the German abbot of Aura, who first came to Jerusalem about 1101 (partly based on theGesta, but also of independent value: see Hagenmeyer’s edition, Tübingen, 1877); and Raoul of Caen’sGesta Tancredi, composed on the basis of information supplied by Tancred himself. The last two works, if not actually the works of eye-witnesses, are at any rate first-hand, and belong to the category of primary writers rather than to that of later compilations. Finally, to contemporary writers we may add contemporary letters, especially those written by Stephen of Blois and Anselm of Ribemont, and the three letters sent to the West by the crusading princes during the First Crusade (see Hagenmeyer,Epistulae et Chartae, &c., Innsbruck, 1901).65(b) The later compilations are chiefly based on theGesta, whose uncouth style many writers set themselves to mend. In the first place, there is theHistoria de Hierosolymitano itinereof Tudebod, which according to Besly, writing in 1641, is the original from which theGestawas a mere plagiarism—an absolute inversion of the truth, as von Sybel first proved two centuries later. Secondly, besides the plagiarist Tudebod, there are the artisticrédacteursof theGesta, who confess their indebtedness, but plead the bad style of their original—Guibert of Nogent, Balderich of Dol, Robert of Reims (allc.1120-1130), and Fulco, the author of a Virgilian poem on the Crusades, continued by Gilo (ob. c.1142). Of these, the monk Robert was more popular in the middle ages than either the pompous abbot Guibert or the quiet garden-loving archbishop of Dol.(c) The growth of a legend, or perhaps better, a saga of the First Crusade began, according to von Sybel, even during the Crusade itself. The basis of this growth is partly the story-telling instinct innate in all men, which loves to heighten an effect, sharpen a point or increase a contrast—the instinct which breathes in Icelandic sagas like that ofBurnt Njal; partly the instinct of idolization, if it may be so called, which leads to the perversion into impossible greatness of an approved character, and has created, in this instance, the legendary figures of Peter the Hermit and Godfrey of Bouillon (qq.v.); partly the religious impulse, which counted nothing wonderful in a holy war, and imported miraculous elements even into the sober pages of theGesta. These instincts and impulses would be at work already among the soldiers during the Crusade, producing a saga all the more readily, as there were poets in the camp; for we know that a certain Richard, who joined the First Crusade, sang its exploits in verse, while still more famous is the princely troubadour, William of Aquitaine, who joined the Crusade of 1100. If we are to follow von Sybel rather than Kugler, this saga of the First Crusade found one of its earliest expressions (c.1120) in the prose work of Albert of Aix (Historia Hierosolymitana)—genuine saga in itsinconsistencies, its errors of chronology and topography, its poetical colour, and its living descriptions of battles. Kugler, however, regards Albert as a copyist, somewhat in the manner of Tudebod, of an unknown writer of value, who belonged to the Lotharingian ranks during the Crusade, and settled in the kingdom of Jerusalem afterwards (see Kugler,Albert von Aachen, Stuttgart, 1885).66In theChanson des chétifsand theChanson d’Antiochethe legend of the Crusades more certainly finds its expression. The former, composed at Antioch about 1130, contained an idolization of the Hermit: the latter is a poem written about 1180 by Graindor of Douai, who used as his basis the verses of the crusader Richard (see the edition of P. Paris, 1848). It shows the growth of the legend that Graindor regards the vision of the Hermit as responsible for the Crusade, and makes the Crusade led by him precede, and indeed occasion by its failure, the meeting at Clermont (which is dated in May instead of November). Into the legendary overgrowth of the First Crusade we cannot here enter any further67; but it is perhaps worth while to mention that the French legend of the Third Crusade equally perverted the truth, making Richard I. return home in disgrace, while Philip Augustus stays, captures Damascus and mortally wounds Saladin (cf. G. Paris,L’Estoire de la guerre sainte, Paris, 1897; Introduction).(d) William of Tyre is the scientific historian and rationalizer, weaving into a harmonious account, which was followed by historians for centuries, the sober accounts of eye-witnesses and the picturesque details of the saga—with somewhat of a bias towards the latter in regard to the First Crusade. He was a native of Palestine, born about 1130, and educated in the West. On his return he was happy in winning the good opinion of Amalric I.; he was made first canon and then archdeacon of Tyre, and tutor of the future Baldwin IV. (1170); while on Baldwin’s accession he became chancellor of the kingdom and archbishop of Tyre (1174-1175). He was a man often employed on missions and negotiations, and as chancellor he had in his care the archives of the kingdom. His temper was naturally that of a trimmer; and he had thus many qualifications for the writing of well-informed and unbiassed history. He knew Greek and Arabic; and he was well acquainted with the affairs of Constantinople, to which he went at least twice on political business, and with the history of the Mahommedan powers, on which he had written a work (now lost) at the command of Amalric. It was Amalric also who set him to write the history of the Crusades which we still possess (in twenty-two books, with a fragment of a twenty-third)—theHistoria rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. He wrote the book at different times between 1170 and 1183, when it abruptly ends, and its author as abruptly disappears from sight. The book falls into two parts, the first (books i.-xv.) derivative, the second (books xvi.-xxiii.) original. In the second part he had his own knowledge of events and the information of his contemporaries as his source: in the first he used the same authorities which we still possess—theGesta, Fulcher, and Albert of Aix—in somewhat of an eclectic spirit, choosing now here, now there, according as he could best weave a pleasant narrative, but not according to any real critical principle. His book thus begins to be a real authority only from the date of the Second Crusade onwards; but the perfection of his form (for he is one of the greatest stylists of the middle ages) and the prestige of his position conspired to make his book the one authority for the whole history of the first century of the Crusades. Nor was he (apart from his reception of legendary elements into his narrative) unworthy of the honour in which he was held; for he is really a great historian, in the form of his matter and in his conception of his subject—diligent, impartial, well-informed and interesting, if somewhat rhetorical in style and vague in chronology.[During the middle ages his work was current in a French translation, known as theChronique d’outre-mer, or theLivreorRoman d’Éracles(so called from the reference at the beginning to the emperor Heraclius). This translation also contained a continuation by various hands down to 1277; while besides the continuation embedded in theLivre d’Éracles, there are separate continuations, of the nature of independent works, by Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer. These latter cover the period from 1183 to 1228; and of the two Ernoul’s account seems primary, while that of Bernard is in large part a mere copy of Ernoul. But the whole subject of the continuators of William of Tyre is dubious.]To the Western authorities for the First Crusade must be added the Eastern—Byzantine, Arabic and Armenian. Of these the Byzantine authority, theAlexiadof Anna Comnena, is most important, partly from the position of the authoress, partly from the many points of contact between the Byzantine empire and the crusaders. Anna’s narrative both furnishes a useful corrective of the prejudiced Western accounts of Alexius, and serves to bring Bohemund forward into his proper prominence. The Armenian view of the First Crusade and of Baldwin’s principality of Edessa is presented in theArmenian Chronicleof Matthew of Edessa. There is little in Arabic bearing on the First Crusade: the Arabic authorities only begin to be of value with the rise of the atabegs of Mosul (c.1127). But Kemal-ud-din’sHistory of Aleppo(composed in the 13th century) contains some details on the history of the First Crusade; and theVie d’Ousāma(the autobiography of a sheik at Caesarea in northern Syria, edited and paraphrased by Derenbourg in thePublications de l’École des langues orientales vivantes) presents the point of view of an Arab whose life covered the first century of the Crusades (1095-1188).For theSecond Crusadethe primary authority in the West is the work of Odo de Deuil,De profectione Ludovici VII regis Francorum in Orientem. Odo was a monk attached by Suger to Louis VII. during the Second Crusade; and he wrote home to Suger during the Crusade seven short letters, afterwards pieced together in a single work. TheGesta Friderici Primiof Otto of Freising (who joined in the Second Crusade) gives some details from the German point of view (i. c. 44 sqq.). The former is supplemented by the letters of Louis VII. to Suger; the latter by the letters of Conrad III. to Wibald, abbot of Stablo and Corvey. The Byzantine point of view is presented in theἘπιτομήof Cinnamus, the private secretary of Manuel, who continued theAlexiadof Anna Comnena in a work describing the reigns of John and Manuel. It is from the Second Crusade that William of Tyre, representing the attitude of the Franks of Jerusalem, begins to be a primary authority; while on the Mahommedan side a considerable authority emerges in Ibn Athīr. His history of the Atabegs was written about 1200, and it presents in a light favourable to Zengi and Nureddin, but unfavourable to Saladin (who thrust Nureddin’s descendants aside), the history of the great Mahommedan power which finally crushed the kingdom of Jerusalem.68Side by side with Beha-ud-dīn’s life of Saladin, Ibn Athīr’s work is the most considerable historical record written by the Arabs. Generally speaking the Arabic writings are late in point of date, and cold and jejune in style; while it must also be remembered that they are set religious works written to defend Islam. On the other hand they are generally written by men of affairs—governors, secretaries or ambassadors; and a fatalistic temper leads their authors to a certain impartial recording of everything, good or evil, which seems of moment.TheThird Crusadewas narrated in the West from very different points of view by Anglo-Norman, French and German authorities. The primary Anglo-Norman authority is theCarmen Ambrosii, or, as it is called by M. Gaston Paris,L’Estoire de la guerre sainte. This is an octosyllabic poem in French verse, written by Ambroise, a Normantrouvèrewho followed Richard I. to the Holy Land. The poem first came to be known by scholars about 1873, and has been edited by M. Gaston Paris (Paris, 1897). TheItinerarium Peregrinorum, a work in ornate Latin prose, is (except for the first book) a translation of theCarmenmasquerading under the guise of an independent work. There seems no doubt that it is a piece of plagiary, and that its writer, Richard, “canon of the Holy Trinity” in London, stands to theCarmenas Tudebod to theGesta, or Albert of Aix to his supposed original. The Third Crusade is also described from the English point of view by all contemporary writers of history in England,e.g.Ralph of Coggeshall, who used information gained from crusaders, and William of Newburgh, who had access to a work by Richard I.’s chaplain Anselm, which is now lost.69The French side is presented in Rigord’sGesta Philippi Augustiand in theGesta(an abridgment and continuation of Rigord) and thePhilippeisof William the Breton. The two French writers represent Richard as a faithless vassal: in the German writers—Tagino, dean of Passau, who wrote aDescriptioof Barbarossa’s Crusade (1189-1190); and Ansbert, an Austrian clerk, who wroteDe expeditione Friderici Imperatoris(1187-1196)—Richard appears rather as a monster of pride and arrogance. From the Arabic point of view the life of Richard’s rival, Saladin, is described by Beha-ud-din, a high official under Saladin, who writes a panegyric on his master, somewhat confused in chronology and partial in its sympathies, but nevertheless of great value. The various continuations of William of Tyre above mentioned represent the opinion of the native Franks (which is hostile to Richard I.); while in Nicetas, who wrote a history of the Eastern empire from 1118 to 1206, we have a Byzantine authority who, as Professor Bury remarks, “differs from Anna and Cinnamus in his tone towards the crusaders, to whom he is surprisingly fair.”For theFourth Crusadethe primary authority is Villehardouin’sLa Conquête de Constantinople, an official apology for the diversion of the Crusade written by one of its leaders, and concealing the arcana under an appearance of frank naïveté. His work is usefully supplemented by the narrative (La Prise de Constantinople) ofRobert de Clary, a knight from Picardy, who presents the non-official view of the Crusade, as it appeared to an ordinary soldier. Theχρονικὸν τῶν ἐν Ῥωμανίᾳ(composed in Greek verse some time after 1300, apparently by an author of mixed Frankish and Greek parentage, and translated into French at an early date under the title “The Book of the Conquest of Constantinople and the Empire of Rumania”) narrates in a prologue the events of the Fourth (as indeed also of the First) Crusade. TheChronicle of the Morea(as this work is generally called) is written from the Frankish point of view, in spite of its Greek verse; and the Byzantine point of view must be sought in Nicetas.70The history of the later Crusades, from the Fifth to the Eighth, enters into the continuations of William of Tyre above mentioned; while theHistoria orientalisof Jacques de Vitry, who had taken part in the Fifth Crusade, and died in 1240, embraces the history of events till 1218 (the third book being a later addition). TheSecreta fidelium Crucisof Marino Sanudo, a history of the Crusades written by a Venetian noble between 1306 and 1321, is also of value, particularly for the Crusade of Frederick II. The minor authorities for the Fifth Crusade have been collected by Röhricht, in the publications of the Société de l’Orient Latin for 1879 and 1882; the ten valuable letters of Oliver, bishop of Paderborn, and theHistoria Damiettina, based on these letters, have also been edited by Röhricht in theWestdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst(1891). The Sixth Crusade, that of Frederick II., is described in the chronicle of Richard of San Germano, a notary of the emperor, and in other Western authorities,e.g.Roger of Wendover. For the Crusades of St Louis the chief authorities are Joinville’s life of his master (whom he accompanied to Egypt on the Seventh Crusade), and de Nangis’Gesta Ludovici regis. Several works were written on the capture of Acre in 1291, especially theExcidium urbis Acconensis, a treatise which emerges to throw light, after many years of darkness, on the last hours of the kingdom. The Oriental point of view for the 13th century appears in Jelaleddin’s history of the Ayyubite sultans of Egypt, written towards the end of the 13th century; in Maqrizi’s history of Egypt, written in the middle of the 15th century; and in the compendium of the history of the human race by Abulfeda (†1332); while the omniscient Abulfaragius (whom Rey calls the Eastern St Thomas) wrote, in the latter half of the 13th century, a chronicle of universal history in Syriac, which he also issued, in an Arabic recension, as aCompendious History of the Dynasties.II. The documents bearing on the history of the Crusades and the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem are various. Under the head of charters come theRegesta regni Hierosolymitani, published by Röhricht, Innsbruck, 1893 (with an Additamentum in 1904); theCartulaire générale des Hospitaliers, by Delaville Leroulx (Paris, 1894 onwards); and theCartulaire de l’église du St Sépulcre, by de Rozière (Paris, 1849). Under the head of laws come the assizes of the Kingdom, edited by Beugnot in theRecueil des historiens des croisades; and the assizes of Antioch, printed at Venice in 1876. G. Schlumberger has written on the coins and seals of the Latin East in various publications; while Rey has written anÉtude sur les monuments de l’architecture militaire(Paris, 1871). The genealogy of the Levant is given inLe Livre des lignages d’outre-mer(published along with the assizes).Bibliographies.—The best modern account of the original authorities for the Crusades is that of A. Molinier,Les Sources de l’histoire de France, vols. ii. and iii. W. Wattenbach’sDeutschlands Geschichtsquellengives an account of Albert of Aix (vol. ii., ed. 1894, pp. 170-180) and of Ekkehard of Aura (ibid.pp. 189-198). Von Sybel’sGeschichte des ersten Kreuzzügescontains a full study of the authorities for the First Crusade; while the prefaces to Hagenmeyer’s editions of theGestaand of Ekkehard are also valuable. Gaston Dodu, in the work mentioned below, begins by a brief account of the original authorities, which is chiefly of value so far as it deals with William of Tyre and the history of the assizes; and H. Prutz has also a short account of some of the historians of the Crusades (Kulturgeschichte, pp. 453-469). Finally reference may be made to the works of Kugler and Klimke above mentioned, and to J. F. Michaud’sBibliographie des croisades(Paris, 1822).Modern Writers.—The various works of R. Röhricht present the soundest, if not the brightest, account of the Crusades. There is aGeschichte des ersten Kreuzzugs(Innsbruck, 1901), aGeschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem(ibid.1898) and aGeschichte der Kreuzzüge in Umris(ibid.1898). For the First Crusade von Sybel’s work and Chalandon’sAlexis IerComnènemay also be mentioned; for the Fourth A. Luchaire’s volume onInnocent III: La Question d’Orient; while for the whole of the Crusades Norden’sPapstum und Byzanzis of value. B. Kugler’sGeschichte der Kreuzzüge(in Oncken’s series) still remains a suggestive and valuable work; and L. Bréhier’sL’Église et l’orient au moyen âge(Paris, 1907) contains not only an up-to-date account of the Crusades, but also a full and useful bibliography, which should be consulted for fuller information. On points of chronology, and on the relations between the crusaders and their Mahommedan neighbours, W. B. Stevenson’sThe Crusaders in the East(Cambridge, 1907) is very valuable. On the constitutional and social history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem Dodu’sHistoire des institutions du royaume latin de Jérusalemis very useful; E. G. Rey’sLes Colonies franques en Syriecontains many interesting details; and Prutz’sKulturgeschichte der Kreuzzügecontains both an account of the Latin East and an attempt to sketch the effects of the Crusades on the progress of civilization. The works of Gmelin and J. Delaville-Leroulx on the Templars and Hospitallers respectively are worth consulting; while for Eastern affairs the English reader may be referred to G. Lestrange’sPalestine under the Moslem, and to Stanley Lane-Poole’sLife of Saladinand hisMahommedan Dynasties(the latter a valuable work of reference).
Literature.—In dealing with the literature of the Crusades, it is perhaps better, though ideally less scientific, to begin with chronicles and narratives rather than with documents. One of the results of the Crusades, as has just been suggested above, was a great increase in the writing of history. Crusaders themselves kept diaries oritineraria; while home-keeping ecclesiastics in the West—monks like Robert of Reims, abbots like Guibert of Nogent, archbishops like Balderich of Dol—found a fertile subject for their pens in the history of the Crusades. The history of a series of actions like the Crusades must primarily be based on these accounts, and more particularly on the former: narratives must precede documents where one is dealing, not with the continuous life of an organized kingdom, but with a number of enterprises—especially when those enterprises have been, as in this case, excellently narrated by contemporary writers.
I.Chronicles and Narratives of the Crusades—(1) Collections. The authorities for the Crusades have been collected in Bongars,Gesta Dei per Francos(Hanover, 1611) (incomplete); Michaud,Bibliothèque des croisades(Paris, 1829) (containing translations of select passages in the authorities); theRecueil des historiens des croisades, published by the Académie des Inscriptions (Paris, 1841 onwards) (the best general collection, containing many of the Latin, Greek, Arabic and Armenian authorities, and also the text of the assizes; but sometimes poorly edited and still incomplete); and the publications of the Société de l’Orient Latin (founded in 1875), especially theArchives, of which two volumes were published in 1881 and 1884, and the volumes of theRevue, published yearly from 1893 to 1902, and containing not only new texts, but articles and reviews of books which are of great service. (2) Particular authorities. The Crusades—a movement which engaged all Europe and brought the East into contact with the West—must necessarily be studied not only in the Latin authorities of Europe and of Palestine, but also in Byzantine, Armenian and Arabic writers. There are thus some four or five different points of view to be considered.
TheFirst Crusade, far more than any other, became the theme of a multitude of writings, whose different degrees of value it is all-important to distinguish. Until about 1840 the authority followed for its history was naturally the great work of William of Tyre. For the First Crusade William had followed Albert of Aix; and he had consequently depicted Peter the Hermit as the prime mover in the Crusade. But about 1840 Ranke suggested, and von Sybel in hisGeschichte des ersten Kreuzzügesproved, that Albert of Aix wasnota good authority, and that consequently William of Tyre must be set aside for the history of the First Crusade, and other and more contemporary authorities used. In writing his account of the First Crusade, von Sybel accordingly based himself on the three contemporary Western authorities—theGesta Francorum, Raymond of Agiles, and Fulcher. His view of the value of Albert of Aix, and his account of the First Crusade, have been generally followed (Kugler alone having attempted, to some extent, to rehabilitate Albert of Aix); and thus von Sybel’s work may be said to mark a revolution in the history of the First Crusade, when its legendary features were stripped away, and its real progress was first properly discovered.
Taking the Western authorities for the First Crusade separately, one may divide them, in the light of von Sybel’s work, into four kinds—the accounts of eye-witnesses; later compilations based on these accounts; semi-legendary and legendary narratives; and lastly, in a class by itself, the “History” of William of Tyre, who is rather a scientific historian than a chronicler.
(a) The three chief eye-witnesses are the anonymous author of theGesta Francorum, Raymund of Agiles, and Fulcher. The anonymous author of theGesta(see Hagenmeyer’s edition, Heidelberg, 1890) was a Norman of South Italy, who followed Bohemund, and accordingly depicts the progress of the First Crusade from a Norman point of view. He was a layman, marching and fighting in the ranks; and thus he is additionally valuable as representing the opinion of the ordinary crusader. Finally he was an eye-witness throughout, and absolutely contemporary, in the sense that he wrote his account of each great event practically at the time of the event. He is the primary authority for the First Crusade. Raymund of Agiles, a Provençal clerk and a follower of Raymund of Toulouse, writes hisHistoria Francorum qui ceperunt Jerusalemfrom the Provençal point of view. He gives an ecclesiastic’s account of the First Crusade, and is specially full on the spiritualistic phenomena which accompanied and followed the finding of the Holy Lance. His book might almost be called the “Visions of Peter Bartholomew and others,” and it is written in the plain matter-of-fact manner of Defoe’s narratives. He too was an eye-witness throughout, and thoroughly honest; and his account ranks second to theGesta. Fulcher of Chartres originally followed Robert of Normandy, but in October 1097 he joined Baldwin of Lorraine in his expedition to Edessa, and afterwards followed his fortunes. HisHistoria Hierosolymitana, which extends to 1127, and embraces not only the history of the First Crusade, but also that of the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem, is written on the whole from a Lotharingian point of view, and is thus a natural complement to the accounts of the Anonymus and Raymund. His account of the First Crusade itself is poor (he was absent at Edessa during its course), but otherwise he is an excellent authority. A kindly old pedant, Fulcher interlards his history with much discourse on geography, zoology and sacred history. Besides these three chief eye-witnesses we may also mention theAnnales Genuensesby the Genoese consul Caffarus,64and theAnnales Pisaniof Bernardus Marago, useful as giving the mercantile and Italian side of the Crusade; theHierosolymitaof Ekkehard, the German abbot of Aura, who first came to Jerusalem about 1101 (partly based on theGesta, but also of independent value: see Hagenmeyer’s edition, Tübingen, 1877); and Raoul of Caen’sGesta Tancredi, composed on the basis of information supplied by Tancred himself. The last two works, if not actually the works of eye-witnesses, are at any rate first-hand, and belong to the category of primary writers rather than to that of later compilations. Finally, to contemporary writers we may add contemporary letters, especially those written by Stephen of Blois and Anselm of Ribemont, and the three letters sent to the West by the crusading princes during the First Crusade (see Hagenmeyer,Epistulae et Chartae, &c., Innsbruck, 1901).65
(b) The later compilations are chiefly based on theGesta, whose uncouth style many writers set themselves to mend. In the first place, there is theHistoria de Hierosolymitano itinereof Tudebod, which according to Besly, writing in 1641, is the original from which theGestawas a mere plagiarism—an absolute inversion of the truth, as von Sybel first proved two centuries later. Secondly, besides the plagiarist Tudebod, there are the artisticrédacteursof theGesta, who confess their indebtedness, but plead the bad style of their original—Guibert of Nogent, Balderich of Dol, Robert of Reims (allc.1120-1130), and Fulco, the author of a Virgilian poem on the Crusades, continued by Gilo (ob. c.1142). Of these, the monk Robert was more popular in the middle ages than either the pompous abbot Guibert or the quiet garden-loving archbishop of Dol.
(c) The growth of a legend, or perhaps better, a saga of the First Crusade began, according to von Sybel, even during the Crusade itself. The basis of this growth is partly the story-telling instinct innate in all men, which loves to heighten an effect, sharpen a point or increase a contrast—the instinct which breathes in Icelandic sagas like that ofBurnt Njal; partly the instinct of idolization, if it may be so called, which leads to the perversion into impossible greatness of an approved character, and has created, in this instance, the legendary figures of Peter the Hermit and Godfrey of Bouillon (qq.v.); partly the religious impulse, which counted nothing wonderful in a holy war, and imported miraculous elements even into the sober pages of theGesta. These instincts and impulses would be at work already among the soldiers during the Crusade, producing a saga all the more readily, as there were poets in the camp; for we know that a certain Richard, who joined the First Crusade, sang its exploits in verse, while still more famous is the princely troubadour, William of Aquitaine, who joined the Crusade of 1100. If we are to follow von Sybel rather than Kugler, this saga of the First Crusade found one of its earliest expressions (c.1120) in the prose work of Albert of Aix (Historia Hierosolymitana)—genuine saga in itsinconsistencies, its errors of chronology and topography, its poetical colour, and its living descriptions of battles. Kugler, however, regards Albert as a copyist, somewhat in the manner of Tudebod, of an unknown writer of value, who belonged to the Lotharingian ranks during the Crusade, and settled in the kingdom of Jerusalem afterwards (see Kugler,Albert von Aachen, Stuttgart, 1885).66In theChanson des chétifsand theChanson d’Antiochethe legend of the Crusades more certainly finds its expression. The former, composed at Antioch about 1130, contained an idolization of the Hermit: the latter is a poem written about 1180 by Graindor of Douai, who used as his basis the verses of the crusader Richard (see the edition of P. Paris, 1848). It shows the growth of the legend that Graindor regards the vision of the Hermit as responsible for the Crusade, and makes the Crusade led by him precede, and indeed occasion by its failure, the meeting at Clermont (which is dated in May instead of November). Into the legendary overgrowth of the First Crusade we cannot here enter any further67; but it is perhaps worth while to mention that the French legend of the Third Crusade equally perverted the truth, making Richard I. return home in disgrace, while Philip Augustus stays, captures Damascus and mortally wounds Saladin (cf. G. Paris,L’Estoire de la guerre sainte, Paris, 1897; Introduction).
(d) William of Tyre is the scientific historian and rationalizer, weaving into a harmonious account, which was followed by historians for centuries, the sober accounts of eye-witnesses and the picturesque details of the saga—with somewhat of a bias towards the latter in regard to the First Crusade. He was a native of Palestine, born about 1130, and educated in the West. On his return he was happy in winning the good opinion of Amalric I.; he was made first canon and then archdeacon of Tyre, and tutor of the future Baldwin IV. (1170); while on Baldwin’s accession he became chancellor of the kingdom and archbishop of Tyre (1174-1175). He was a man often employed on missions and negotiations, and as chancellor he had in his care the archives of the kingdom. His temper was naturally that of a trimmer; and he had thus many qualifications for the writing of well-informed and unbiassed history. He knew Greek and Arabic; and he was well acquainted with the affairs of Constantinople, to which he went at least twice on political business, and with the history of the Mahommedan powers, on which he had written a work (now lost) at the command of Amalric. It was Amalric also who set him to write the history of the Crusades which we still possess (in twenty-two books, with a fragment of a twenty-third)—theHistoria rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. He wrote the book at different times between 1170 and 1183, when it abruptly ends, and its author as abruptly disappears from sight. The book falls into two parts, the first (books i.-xv.) derivative, the second (books xvi.-xxiii.) original. In the second part he had his own knowledge of events and the information of his contemporaries as his source: in the first he used the same authorities which we still possess—theGesta, Fulcher, and Albert of Aix—in somewhat of an eclectic spirit, choosing now here, now there, according as he could best weave a pleasant narrative, but not according to any real critical principle. His book thus begins to be a real authority only from the date of the Second Crusade onwards; but the perfection of his form (for he is one of the greatest stylists of the middle ages) and the prestige of his position conspired to make his book the one authority for the whole history of the first century of the Crusades. Nor was he (apart from his reception of legendary elements into his narrative) unworthy of the honour in which he was held; for he is really a great historian, in the form of his matter and in his conception of his subject—diligent, impartial, well-informed and interesting, if somewhat rhetorical in style and vague in chronology.
[During the middle ages his work was current in a French translation, known as theChronique d’outre-mer, or theLivreorRoman d’Éracles(so called from the reference at the beginning to the emperor Heraclius). This translation also contained a continuation by various hands down to 1277; while besides the continuation embedded in theLivre d’Éracles, there are separate continuations, of the nature of independent works, by Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer. These latter cover the period from 1183 to 1228; and of the two Ernoul’s account seems primary, while that of Bernard is in large part a mere copy of Ernoul. But the whole subject of the continuators of William of Tyre is dubious.]
To the Western authorities for the First Crusade must be added the Eastern—Byzantine, Arabic and Armenian. Of these the Byzantine authority, theAlexiadof Anna Comnena, is most important, partly from the position of the authoress, partly from the many points of contact between the Byzantine empire and the crusaders. Anna’s narrative both furnishes a useful corrective of the prejudiced Western accounts of Alexius, and serves to bring Bohemund forward into his proper prominence. The Armenian view of the First Crusade and of Baldwin’s principality of Edessa is presented in theArmenian Chronicleof Matthew of Edessa. There is little in Arabic bearing on the First Crusade: the Arabic authorities only begin to be of value with the rise of the atabegs of Mosul (c.1127). But Kemal-ud-din’sHistory of Aleppo(composed in the 13th century) contains some details on the history of the First Crusade; and theVie d’Ousāma(the autobiography of a sheik at Caesarea in northern Syria, edited and paraphrased by Derenbourg in thePublications de l’École des langues orientales vivantes) presents the point of view of an Arab whose life covered the first century of the Crusades (1095-1188).
For theSecond Crusadethe primary authority in the West is the work of Odo de Deuil,De profectione Ludovici VII regis Francorum in Orientem. Odo was a monk attached by Suger to Louis VII. during the Second Crusade; and he wrote home to Suger during the Crusade seven short letters, afterwards pieced together in a single work. TheGesta Friderici Primiof Otto of Freising (who joined in the Second Crusade) gives some details from the German point of view (i. c. 44 sqq.). The former is supplemented by the letters of Louis VII. to Suger; the latter by the letters of Conrad III. to Wibald, abbot of Stablo and Corvey. The Byzantine point of view is presented in theἘπιτομήof Cinnamus, the private secretary of Manuel, who continued theAlexiadof Anna Comnena in a work describing the reigns of John and Manuel. It is from the Second Crusade that William of Tyre, representing the attitude of the Franks of Jerusalem, begins to be a primary authority; while on the Mahommedan side a considerable authority emerges in Ibn Athīr. His history of the Atabegs was written about 1200, and it presents in a light favourable to Zengi and Nureddin, but unfavourable to Saladin (who thrust Nureddin’s descendants aside), the history of the great Mahommedan power which finally crushed the kingdom of Jerusalem.68
Side by side with Beha-ud-dīn’s life of Saladin, Ibn Athīr’s work is the most considerable historical record written by the Arabs. Generally speaking the Arabic writings are late in point of date, and cold and jejune in style; while it must also be remembered that they are set religious works written to defend Islam. On the other hand they are generally written by men of affairs—governors, secretaries or ambassadors; and a fatalistic temper leads their authors to a certain impartial recording of everything, good or evil, which seems of moment.
TheThird Crusadewas narrated in the West from very different points of view by Anglo-Norman, French and German authorities. The primary Anglo-Norman authority is theCarmen Ambrosii, or, as it is called by M. Gaston Paris,L’Estoire de la guerre sainte. This is an octosyllabic poem in French verse, written by Ambroise, a Normantrouvèrewho followed Richard I. to the Holy Land. The poem first came to be known by scholars about 1873, and has been edited by M. Gaston Paris (Paris, 1897). TheItinerarium Peregrinorum, a work in ornate Latin prose, is (except for the first book) a translation of theCarmenmasquerading under the guise of an independent work. There seems no doubt that it is a piece of plagiary, and that its writer, Richard, “canon of the Holy Trinity” in London, stands to theCarmenas Tudebod to theGesta, or Albert of Aix to his supposed original. The Third Crusade is also described from the English point of view by all contemporary writers of history in England,e.g.Ralph of Coggeshall, who used information gained from crusaders, and William of Newburgh, who had access to a work by Richard I.’s chaplain Anselm, which is now lost.69The French side is presented in Rigord’sGesta Philippi Augustiand in theGesta(an abridgment and continuation of Rigord) and thePhilippeisof William the Breton. The two French writers represent Richard as a faithless vassal: in the German writers—Tagino, dean of Passau, who wrote aDescriptioof Barbarossa’s Crusade (1189-1190); and Ansbert, an Austrian clerk, who wroteDe expeditione Friderici Imperatoris(1187-1196)—Richard appears rather as a monster of pride and arrogance. From the Arabic point of view the life of Richard’s rival, Saladin, is described by Beha-ud-din, a high official under Saladin, who writes a panegyric on his master, somewhat confused in chronology and partial in its sympathies, but nevertheless of great value. The various continuations of William of Tyre above mentioned represent the opinion of the native Franks (which is hostile to Richard I.); while in Nicetas, who wrote a history of the Eastern empire from 1118 to 1206, we have a Byzantine authority who, as Professor Bury remarks, “differs from Anna and Cinnamus in his tone towards the crusaders, to whom he is surprisingly fair.”
For theFourth Crusadethe primary authority is Villehardouin’sLa Conquête de Constantinople, an official apology for the diversion of the Crusade written by one of its leaders, and concealing the arcana under an appearance of frank naïveté. His work is usefully supplemented by the narrative (La Prise de Constantinople) ofRobert de Clary, a knight from Picardy, who presents the non-official view of the Crusade, as it appeared to an ordinary soldier. Theχρονικὸν τῶν ἐν Ῥωμανίᾳ(composed in Greek verse some time after 1300, apparently by an author of mixed Frankish and Greek parentage, and translated into French at an early date under the title “The Book of the Conquest of Constantinople and the Empire of Rumania”) narrates in a prologue the events of the Fourth (as indeed also of the First) Crusade. TheChronicle of the Morea(as this work is generally called) is written from the Frankish point of view, in spite of its Greek verse; and the Byzantine point of view must be sought in Nicetas.70
The history of the later Crusades, from the Fifth to the Eighth, enters into the continuations of William of Tyre above mentioned; while theHistoria orientalisof Jacques de Vitry, who had taken part in the Fifth Crusade, and died in 1240, embraces the history of events till 1218 (the third book being a later addition). TheSecreta fidelium Crucisof Marino Sanudo, a history of the Crusades written by a Venetian noble between 1306 and 1321, is also of value, particularly for the Crusade of Frederick II. The minor authorities for the Fifth Crusade have been collected by Röhricht, in the publications of the Société de l’Orient Latin for 1879 and 1882; the ten valuable letters of Oliver, bishop of Paderborn, and theHistoria Damiettina, based on these letters, have also been edited by Röhricht in theWestdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst(1891). The Sixth Crusade, that of Frederick II., is described in the chronicle of Richard of San Germano, a notary of the emperor, and in other Western authorities,e.g.Roger of Wendover. For the Crusades of St Louis the chief authorities are Joinville’s life of his master (whom he accompanied to Egypt on the Seventh Crusade), and de Nangis’Gesta Ludovici regis. Several works were written on the capture of Acre in 1291, especially theExcidium urbis Acconensis, a treatise which emerges to throw light, after many years of darkness, on the last hours of the kingdom. The Oriental point of view for the 13th century appears in Jelaleddin’s history of the Ayyubite sultans of Egypt, written towards the end of the 13th century; in Maqrizi’s history of Egypt, written in the middle of the 15th century; and in the compendium of the history of the human race by Abulfeda (†1332); while the omniscient Abulfaragius (whom Rey calls the Eastern St Thomas) wrote, in the latter half of the 13th century, a chronicle of universal history in Syriac, which he also issued, in an Arabic recension, as aCompendious History of the Dynasties.
II. The documents bearing on the history of the Crusades and the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem are various. Under the head of charters come theRegesta regni Hierosolymitani, published by Röhricht, Innsbruck, 1893 (with an Additamentum in 1904); theCartulaire générale des Hospitaliers, by Delaville Leroulx (Paris, 1894 onwards); and theCartulaire de l’église du St Sépulcre, by de Rozière (Paris, 1849). Under the head of laws come the assizes of the Kingdom, edited by Beugnot in theRecueil des historiens des croisades; and the assizes of Antioch, printed at Venice in 1876. G. Schlumberger has written on the coins and seals of the Latin East in various publications; while Rey has written anÉtude sur les monuments de l’architecture militaire(Paris, 1871). The genealogy of the Levant is given inLe Livre des lignages d’outre-mer(published along with the assizes).
Bibliographies.—The best modern account of the original authorities for the Crusades is that of A. Molinier,Les Sources de l’histoire de France, vols. ii. and iii. W. Wattenbach’sDeutschlands Geschichtsquellengives an account of Albert of Aix (vol. ii., ed. 1894, pp. 170-180) and of Ekkehard of Aura (ibid.pp. 189-198). Von Sybel’sGeschichte des ersten Kreuzzügescontains a full study of the authorities for the First Crusade; while the prefaces to Hagenmeyer’s editions of theGestaand of Ekkehard are also valuable. Gaston Dodu, in the work mentioned below, begins by a brief account of the original authorities, which is chiefly of value so far as it deals with William of Tyre and the history of the assizes; and H. Prutz has also a short account of some of the historians of the Crusades (Kulturgeschichte, pp. 453-469). Finally reference may be made to the works of Kugler and Klimke above mentioned, and to J. F. Michaud’sBibliographie des croisades(Paris, 1822).
Modern Writers.—The various works of R. Röhricht present the soundest, if not the brightest, account of the Crusades. There is aGeschichte des ersten Kreuzzugs(Innsbruck, 1901), aGeschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem(ibid.1898) and aGeschichte der Kreuzzüge in Umris(ibid.1898). For the First Crusade von Sybel’s work and Chalandon’sAlexis IerComnènemay also be mentioned; for the Fourth A. Luchaire’s volume onInnocent III: La Question d’Orient; while for the whole of the Crusades Norden’sPapstum und Byzanzis of value. B. Kugler’sGeschichte der Kreuzzüge(in Oncken’s series) still remains a suggestive and valuable work; and L. Bréhier’sL’Église et l’orient au moyen âge(Paris, 1907) contains not only an up-to-date account of the Crusades, but also a full and useful bibliography, which should be consulted for fuller information. On points of chronology, and on the relations between the crusaders and their Mahommedan neighbours, W. B. Stevenson’sThe Crusaders in the East(Cambridge, 1907) is very valuable. On the constitutional and social history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem Dodu’sHistoire des institutions du royaume latin de Jérusalemis very useful; E. G. Rey’sLes Colonies franques en Syriecontains many interesting details; and Prutz’sKulturgeschichte der Kreuzzügecontains both an account of the Latin East and an attempt to sketch the effects of the Crusades on the progress of civilization. The works of Gmelin and J. Delaville-Leroulx on the Templars and Hospitallers respectively are worth consulting; while for Eastern affairs the English reader may be referred to G. Lestrange’sPalestine under the Moslem, and to Stanley Lane-Poole’sLife of Saladinand hisMahommedan Dynasties(the latter a valuable work of reference).