THE CRUSADES.

Fig. 96.—Seal of La Rochelle (1437).

THE CRUSADES.

Arab Conquest of the Holy Land.—Swarm of Pilgrims in the Year 1000.—Turkish Invasion of Judea.—Persecution of the Christians.—Pope Silvester II.—Expedition of the Pisans and the Genoese.—Peter the Hermit.—Letter from Simeon the Patriarch to Pope Urban II.—First Crusade.—Expedition of “Gautier sans Avoir.”—Godefroy de Bouillon.—The Kingdom of Jerusalem.—Second Crusade.—St. Bernard.—Third Crusade: Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion.—Fourth Crusade.—Fifth and Sixth Crusades.—Louis IX. turns Crusader.—Seventh Crusade.—St. Louis taken Prisoner.—Eighth and last Crusade.—Death of St. Louis.—Results of the Crusades.

“Jerusalem,” says Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Ptolemais in the thirteenth century, and one of the most eloquent historians of the Crusades, “Jerusalem is the city of cities, the saint of saints, the queen of nations, and the princess of provinces. She is situated in the centre of the world, in the middle of the earth, so that all men may turn their steps towards her; she is the patrimony of the patriarchs, the muse of the prophets, the mistress of the apostles, the cradle of our salvation, the home of our Lord, and the mother of the faith, as Rome is the mother of the faithful. She is chosen and hallowed by the Almighty, who placed his feet upon her, honoured by the angels, and visited by all the nations of the earth.” A poet of the same period declares, in a burst of fervent inspiration: “She attracts the faithful as the magnet attracts the steel, as the sheep attracts the lamb with the milk of its teats, as the sea attracts the river to which it has given birth.”

Under the influence of this belief it is easy to understand the powerful interest which, in the eyes of the whole Christian world, was attached to acorner of the globe so marked with the impress of the Almighty, and the object of so much veneration.

Since the conversion of Constantine I., which so gloriously signalized the triumph of the cross, and while the ostentatious but feeble successors of that great emperor were preparing the decline of the empire of Byzantium, Jerusalem had frequently been forced to submit to infidel profanations, and the Western Christians, in their visits to the holy places, had, in consequence, many times encountered painful and almost insurmountable obstacles.

In the seventh century, the conquest of Palestine by the Arabs or Saracens, attracted by fanaticism to the banner of Mahomet’s immediate successors, had occasioned the most painful, if not the first of these terrible trials to Christendom. Already pilgrims, on their return from the Holy Land, had related to the dismayed West the sacrileges of which they had been the witnesses, and the annoyances of which they themselves had been the victims. Their dismal recitals represented the Christian population of Judea as reduced to a species of slavery, groaning under heavy tribute, clad in a degrading livery, forbidden to use the language of their conquerors, banished from their temples, now transformed into mosques, and obliged to conceal every external emblem of their religion, which they were no longer allowed publicly to practise.

But a gentler rule succeeded these hardships, thanks to the internal dissensions of the Mussulmans, who, in the midst of their fratricidal struggles, forgot to persecute the Christians; thanks also to the policy of the famous Haroun-al-Raschid and his children, who, being constantly at war with the emperors of Constantinople, dreaded lest the Eastern Christians should summon the Western to their assistance, and, consequently, were always showering on the latter every possible mark of deference, of kindness, and of consideration.

Later, when the empire of Haroun-al-Raschid had fallen into decay, one of Constantine’s successors, John I., surnamed Zimisces (970), attempted to accomplish the freedom of the Holy Land, and had nearly succeeded, when death struck down the leader of the Christian army in a battle with the Arabs, and with him was destroyed the last hope of the faithful, who soon found themselves delivered over to the horrors of a terrible persecution. “It is impossible to put on record all the evils they suffered,” says William of Tyre, in his great history of the holy war.

Fig. 97.—Façade of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, founded in 326 by the Emperor Constantine, and restored by the Crusaders in 1099 (present condition, from a Photograph).

Towards the close of the tenth century, a false interpretation of a passage in the Gospels, according to which the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus Christ in Judea had been fixed for the year one thousand,had struck all Christendom with stupor and affright. “The end of the world being at hand,” were the opening words of all deeds and contracts; and the vanities of the world being forgotten in the near approach of the “supreme and inevitable catastrophe,” every one was anxious to start for the Holy Land, in the hope of being present at the coming of the Saviour, and of finding there pardon for their sins, a peaceful death, and the salvation of his soul. The immense crowd of pilgrims, according to another historian of the Crusades, Glaber the monk, was far greater than religious devotion alone could possibly account for. The first to come were the poor and the working classes, and then counts, barons, and princes, who no longer attached any value to the possessions of this world. And further, as if the miraculous influence of this grand religious manifestation had inspired the infidels themselves with admiration and awe, the cruelties and the persecutions inflicted upon the Christians in Palestine suddenly ceased. When the dreaded epoch had passed away, and no perceptible disturbance had occurred in the laws of the universe, when each successive day had lessened the fears and increased the courage of the Western Church, the Holy Land remained open to pilgrims, who came in swarms to thank the Lord Jesus Christ for having a second time saved the world.

But all this was merely a kind of tacit truce granted to the children of Christ by the unbelievers, who had sworn to destroy the religion of the cross, and to establish in its place the creed of Mohamet. The East, moreover, was about to change masters. The Turks, an Asiatic nomadic people, sprung from the countries beyond the Oxus, had conquered Persia, and had thence borne their triumphant arms towards Syria and the banks of the Nile. This rapid conquest included Judea, and was signalized by horrible excesses. No quarter was given either to the followers of Moses, to those of Jesus, or to the disciples of the Prophet. The same blow fell upon the Jewish synagogues, the Mussulman mosques, and the Catholic churches. Jerusalem was steeped in blood. Deprived of their property, groaning under a bitter and humiliating yoke, says a contemporary historian, the Christians suffered as they had never suffered before.

Asia Minor, the land generally crossed by the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, was also in the power of the Turks. In the principal towns, Nicea, Tarsus, Antioch, Edessa, &c., whose names are inseparable from the glorious memories of the first centuries of the Church, neither the Greeknor the Roman Catholic ritual could be publicly celebrated. The precepts of the Koran were the only ones that were rigorously observed; and Christians everywhere experienced from the Mohammedans the same injustice, the same annoyances, and the same hardships.

The accounts of these persecutions, which seemed intended to utterly annihilate the faith of the cross, filled the hearts of the faithful with gloom and anger. The day was already fast approaching when the groans and complaints that reached them from the Holy Land were to rouse and arm the nations of the West for the deliverance of Christ’s tomb, and the formidable struggle, soon to take place between the Christian and the Moslem—a struggle fated to last for two hundred years with alternate successes and reverses on either side—was destined to decide the future of European civilisation.

So far back as the commencement of the eleventh century, Gerbert, a French monk, one of the most remarkable men of his time, who had succeeded to the papacy as Silvester II., attempted, under the influence of the impressions he had brought back from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to make a fresh appeal to Christendom against the persecutions he had witnessed in the East. Roused by his summons, an expedition of Pisans, of Genoese, and of the subjects of the King of Arles, had put to sea and disembarked on the coasts of Syria, where it inflicted a certain amount of injury on the cruel votaries of Islamism; without, however, being able to penetrate very far inland, but not without influencing to some extent the fate of the inhabitants of Palestine.

In fact, persecution for the time ceased, or at any rate was sensibly diminished, and it was not until half a century later that a fresh crusading appeal rang through Christendom. This time the cry of sorrow and indignation was uttered by Pope Gregory VII., that illustrious pontiff whose ardent and resolute nature, in the midst of the universal disorder and disorganization of government and society, seemed to have a divine mission to fulfil in settling upon an indestructible basis the supreme authority of the Church. “The miseries suffered by the Eastern Christians,” he wrote, “have so stirred up my heart that I almost long for death, and I would rather expose my life in delivering the holy places than reign over the universe. Come, sons of Christ, and you will find me at your head!”

Such words as these at such an epoch necessarily rekindled faith andhope in every heart that received them. Fifty thousand Christians bound themselves by an oath to follow the successor of St. Peter to Constantinople, when the Emperor Michael Ducas promised to put an end to the dissensions that had so long separated the Greek from the Latin Church, and to Jerusalem, where the standard of Christ, supported by heroic hands and hearts, could not fail soon to replace the standard of the Prophet. Rumours were rife in Europe that a part of Asia was already christianised, and that Prester-John, a powerful sovereign of Tartary (Figs. 98 and 99), had forced his subjects to adopt the precepts of the Gospel.

Fig 98.—Prester-John, Chief of a Christian Tribe in Tartary.

Fig. 99.—Prester-John’s Page.From Cesare Vecelli’s “Degli Habiti Antichi e Moderni:” 8vo, Venice, 1560.

Fig. 99.—Prester-John’s Page.

From Cesare Vecelli’s “Degli Habiti Antichi e Moderni:” 8vo, Venice, 1560.

But the political struggles which Gregory VII. had to sustain against the princes of the West, and the refusal of the King of Germany, Henry IV., to grant him the assistance he had demanded, prevented him from undertaking the sacred expedition which was to have crowned his apostolic work. Victor III., his successor, inspired by his example, continued to preach the Holy War against the infidels. The latter not only manifested throughout the entire East their implacable hatred to the Christian race, but, having founded large settlements on the shores of Africa, they infested the seas, endangered the security of all maritime trading, ceaselessly pillaged the coasts of Italy, ravaged the greater part of Spain, and seemed to be within very little of making Europe a tributary of Islam. But if Victor III. was unable to give birth to a real crusade, he at least succeeded in persuading the Italians to take up arms. An army of Pisans and Genoese landed in Africa (1087), gave battle to the Saracens, killed more than a hundred thousand of them, took and sacked two of their towns, and returned victorious with an immense booty, which they devoted to the embellishment of the churches of Genoa and of Pisa. But this daring enterprise, in spite of its important results, is not mentioned by any of the historians of the Crusades, although in every respect it had the characteristics of a holy war. This appears to prove that its guiding principle was by no means entirely a religious one, but was one bound up with many more material interests, particularly with that of Italian commerce, which had suffered so much from African piracy that it naturally wished at any price to punish the accursed race from which it sprung.

The successor of Victor III. was Urban II., a pontiff of French extraction, who, following up the policy of his predecessors, endeavoured with all his influence to stir up the Christians against the infidels. But the Almighty often confides the execution of his most important designs to the hands of the humblest, and the honour of initiating the Crusades was not reserved for the occupant of the chair of St. Peter. It was destined to fall to the lot of a humble pilgrim, who, as the learned historian of these events tells us, was inspired only by his zeal, and whose only influence was the force of his character and his genius. This humble pilgrim was Peter of Acheris, better known as Peter the Hermit. Descended from a noble family of Picardy, but ungainly in body and short of stature, he had vainly sought happiness and peace in the most opposite conditions of society. At first he embraced theprofession of arms, then he gave himself up to literature, then he married, and being soon left a widower, he entered into holy orders. Everywhere, however, he met with nothing but bitterness and deception. Having become at last, to use the expression of William of Tyre, “hermit both in deed and in name,” he sought in solitude, in fasting, and in prayer to forget the empty vanities of the world, and it was no doubt with a last hope of giving some practical effect to his fervent but barren devotion that he undertook his pious pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

His habits of meditation and prayer had infused a burning ardour and an enlightenment into his soul. When he found himself on the very soil that had been pressed by the Saviour’s feet, when he witnessed the hardships and the humiliations inflicted on the worshippers of Christ by the infidels, when, above all, he heard the lamentations of the venerable Simeon, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and had wept with him over the terrible trials of the Eastern Church, indignation, grief, piety, and faith awoke in his heart the feeling that he must at all hazards devote his life to a special vocation. He resolved to devote himself to the protection of his brethren in Christ, and to the deliverance of the holy places.

One day, as he was secretly praying in front of the Holy Sepulchre, he heard a voice saying, “Peter, arise! go forth and announce the tribulation of my people; it is time that my servants be succoured and my holy places delivered.” Under the influence of this heavenly command, the poor pilgrim, convinced that he was henceforward chosen by the divine will, determined to allow himself no rest till the holy mission, with which Christ himself had entrusted him, had been fully and faithfully accomplished. He left Palestine with letters from the patriarch Simeon to the Pope; he crossed the sea, hurried to Rome, and threw himself at the feet of Urban II., who, listening to the pathetic and eloquent language of the poor pilgrim, fancied that he was addressed by some inspired prophet, and entrusted him with the mission of summoning the nations to the holy war (Fig. 100).

Peter the Hermit, says the historian whose account we are following, left Italy, crossed the Alps, and wandered over France and a great part of Europe, infusing into all the burning zeal with which he was filled. He journeyed on a mule, a crucifix in his hand, his feet bare, his head uncovered, his body girdled with a thick cord, and clad in a long frock and mantle of the commonest, coarsest stuff. His peculiar garments excited the curiosity of thepeople, while the austerity of his life, his charity, and the morality he inculcated, made them reverence him as a saint. He wandered in this guise from town to town, from province to province, stirring up the courage of some and the piety of others; sometimes he addressed them from church pulpits, sometimes in the highways and public places. His eloquence was keen and vigorous, full of vehement appeals that carried away the multitudes who listened to him. He recalled to their memories the profanation of the holy places, and the Christian blood that had poured in rivers down the streets of Jerusalem; he called on Heaven, the saints, and the angels, whose testimony he invoked as to the truth of his statements; he appealed to them by the holy hill of Sion, by the heights of Calvary, and by the mount of Olives, whose slopes he declared were ringing with groans and lamentations. When words failed him to further depict the miseries of the faithful in the far East, he showed them the crucifix which he always carried about him, and, beating his breast, burst into passionate tears.

Fig. 100.—Peter the Hermit delivering the Message of Simeon, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to Pope Urban II.—From a Coloured Drawing by Germain Picavet in the “Histoire des Croisades,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Burgundian Library, Brussels).

The populace everywhere crowded around him. The preacher of the holy war was received as the special envoy of the Almighty. To be allowedto touch his clothes was considered an inestimable privilege, the hair even of the mule he bestrode was prized and preserved as a relic. The tones of his voice hushed domestic strife, forced the rich to succour the needy, and the profligate to slink ashamed away. His austerities and his miracles, his discourses and his exhortations, were repeated to those who had not been fortunate enough to witness the former or to hear the latter. As his hearers realised the fact that Jerusalem, Holy Jerusalem, was in the power of the infidel, the emotions of pity and the desire for vengeance were kindled within them. Every voice was lifted up to beseech God to restore to his keeping his once-beloved city. Some proffered their wealth, others their prayers, and all their life, to deliver the holy places.

Everything in Europe was ready for the great expedition; every heart beat high and every voice re-echoed the solemn hope so ardently and so persistently instilled by Peter the Hermit. Nothing now was wanted but to crown the work so far accomplished, and some watchword that would strike home to every heart, and raise, amidst the pious and countless hosts of the Crusaders, some one central banner around which they could all unite and rally. To this end Urban convoked a council on the very spot in that land of the Franks in which he had been born, a land which had always been foremost to set a noble example to surrounding nations.

The council assembled in Clermont, a town in Auvergne, scarcely large enough to contain the crowd of illustrious personages that soon flocked thither, “in such numbers,” says the French chronicler, William Aubert, “that, towards the middle of November, in the year 1096, the neighbouring towns and villages were so full of strangers that many were obliged to pitch their tents in the midst of the fields and meadows, although the season was extremely cold.”

The first sittings of this council, about to proclaim war against the enemies of the cross, were employed in decreeing the truce of God between all Christians. Then came the question of the hour. The apostle of the Crusade, Peter the Hermit, spoke first; with that tearful voice, with that burning emotion which had won him so many adherents, he depicted the miseries of the Eastern Church. After him the Pope addressed the assembly, and with such a distinguished and aristocratic audience, it may easily be understood that his skilful and learned eloquence had at least as much influence as thesimple and rough speech of the poor hermit who had such sway over the minds of the masses.

The council rose as one man, and one cry burst simultaneously from every breast—“Dieu le veut! Dieu le veut! (Diex li volt).”[7]The pontiff repeated in a stentorian voice these words,Diex li volt, words which for two centuries were destined to be the war-cry of the Crusaders, and showed to the excited crowd the emblem of the Redemption. “Let the cross,” he said, “glitter on your arms and on your standards! Bear it on your shoulders and on your breasts, it will become for you the emblem of victory or the palm of martyrdom; it will ever remind you that Jesus Christ died for you, and that it is your part to die for Him.” At these words, all the princes, barons, knights, prelates and clergy, artisans and labourers, swore to dedicate their lives to avenge the outrages inflicted on Christ and on His followers. The oath was cemented by a declaration of oblivion of all private animosities and quarrels, and every one of the immense audience fastened a red cross to his dress. From this the appellation ofCrusaderswas derived, a title which was bestowed on the faithful who then enrolled themselves under Christ’s banner, and also that ofCrusade, the name given to the holy war. The council, before separating, confirmed and allotted the temporal and spiritual privileges which were to be bestowed upon the Crusaders.

It is impossible to paint in sufficiently vivid colours the universal and spontaneous movement which took place in Western Christendom, when the faithful who had taken part in the council of Clermont went forth everywhere, as formerly did Christ’s apostles, repeating what had taken place, and proclaiming the decrees which had been promulgated there. Thenceforward all, in spite of age, sex, or social position, were carried away by the same enthusiasm. Family ties were broken, riches were no longer held of any account. The question was not who had taken up the cross, but who had hesitated to do so. A poet of the time says, “I hold no man a true knight who refuses to go willingly, with his whole heart and with all the means in his power, to the assistance of God, who so greatly needs it.” Women of every rank sewed the cross to their clothing, children of every age marked it on their innocent bodies. Monks left the retreat where they had hoped to peacefully end their existence, hermits came out of their caves and forests, and even the veryrobbers of the highway came forward, confessed their crimes, and swore to expiate them in the ranks of the holy army. The train was laid, the match was lighted, and for two centuries the Crusades were waged continually, with a few intervals of rest, caused by the enormous sacrifice of men and money entailed by this gigantic undertaking, which, inspired and controlled by an ardent faith, was persisted in, in spite of every reverse and every disaster.

Fig. 101.—Reception of Gautier-sans-Avoir by the King of Hungary, who permits him to pass through his territory with the Crusaders.—From a Miniature in the “Histoire des Empereurs,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Library of the Arsenal, Paris).

The spring of the year 1096 witnessed the first departure of theCrusaders, in two numerous bodies, under the orders of Peter the Hermit himself, and of a poor but valiant warrior, Gautier-sans-Avoir (Fig. 101). But these undisciplined masses, forced to support themselves on their road by pillage, were dispersed and nearly destroyed by the nations through whose countries they had to pass, and who were ruined by their advent as they might have been by an army of locusts. Only a few thousand ever reached Constantinople, when the Emperor Alexis I., who had summoned the Western Christians to his aid against the Turks, succoured them, and enabled them to await the arrival of the more regular expeditions, which had started three months later under Godefroy de Bouillon.

Fig. 102.—Taking of Nicæa by the Crusaders, in 1097; from a Window ordered by the Abbé Suger for the Church of the Abbey of St. Denis, and now destroyed.—From the “Monuments de la Monarchic Française,” by Montfaucon (Twelfth Century).

It was then only that the real Crusade, that is to say, the actual war against the unbelievers, commenced. In March, 1097, the Christian army crossed the Bosphorus from Thrace, seized Nicæa (Fig. 102), penetrated intoSyria, and laid siege to the important town of Antioch, which by an act of treachery was forced to surrender in June, 1098. In the spring of the following year the soldiers of Christ entered Palestine, but it was not till the 15th of July, 1099, that the holy city fell into their hands, and that Godefroy de Bouillon (Figs. 103 and 104), elected king by the principal leaders of the victorious army, under the modest title of Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, founded the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem.

Fig. 103.—Godefroy de Bouillon, crowned with the Instruments of our Lord’s Passion.—From a Woodcut of the end of the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.

Fig. 104.—Tomb of Godefroy de Bouillon, as it existed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, with the inscription:—“Hic jacet inclitus Godfridus de Bulion, qui totam istam terram acquisivit cultui Christiano, cujus anima cum Christo requiescat. Amen.” (“Here lies the illustrious Godefroy de Bouillon, who won all this Holy Land to the worship of Christ. May his soul rest with Jesus.”)—Monument of the early part of the Twelfth Century, now destroyed, from a Drawing taken on the spot in 1828, now in the possession of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.

Half a century passed away, during which Christendom sent forth expedition after expedition to defend the Holy Land and to consolidate its conquest; but with little success, for the Saracens never desisted from their attacks onthe Crusaders, and persistently disputed with them the possession of Palestine. Moreover, the ardour of the pilgrims gradually diminished, the zeal for the Crusades commenced to slacken in Europe, and indifference and apathy began to take its place. When the throne of Godefroy de Bouillon began to totter upon its insecure foundations, the road to Jerusalem became deserted, and the civilised world, absorbed and distracted by the nearer and keener struggles continually waging between its popes and its sovereigns,soon, preserved but a vague remembrance of the glorious enterprises of its fathers.

Suddenly, however, it was rumoured in the West that the city of Edessa, the capital of the first Christian principality founded by the Crusaders in the East, and considered as the bulwark of the kingdom of Jerusalem, had been retaken by the Saracens, who had deluged the streets in blood. The painful tidings were received with deep indignation; but a man of genius was at hand to strike the keynote of distress and vengeance, and the voice of St. Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, rekindled the waning torch of crusading enthusiasm.

It was at Vézelai (Fig. 105), where Louis VII. held his court, that the illustrious abbot, “fortified with the apostolical authority and his own sanctity,” first addressed the nobles and the populace (1146). “As there was no room in the castle,” says an eye-witness, Eudes de Deuil, in his Latin chronicles, “a pulpit had been constructed in the open air upon the plains which lay at the foot of the hill of Vézelai, into which Bernard ascended, accompanied by the king, wearing the cross sent him by the pope.” When the heaven-born orator had aroused his hearers with the divine fire of his eloquence, there arose a universal shout of “Crosses! crosses!” The crosses which the abbot had prepared beforehand were soon exhausted, and, tearing his clothes into strips, he distributed them amongst the assembly, who fastened them crosswise on their garments. He continued his exhortations during the whole of his stay at Vézelai, giving proof of the sanctity of his mission by the numerous miracles which he performed.

The pious and touching appeals of St. Bernard attained the success he desired. King Louis, his wife Eleanor, his principal nobility and clergy, many thousand knights, and a vast number of the lower classes, enrolled themselves under the banner of the cross. “As soon as it was agreed that they should set out at the expiration of a year,” says another chronicler, “all joyfully returned home. But the Abbot of Clairvaux went about preaching from place to place, and it soon became impossible to reckon the number of the Crusaders.” From France, Bernard crossed over to Germany, where the influence of his inspired words fully revealed itself, for whole populations, unable even to understand the language he addressed them in, carried away by the marvellous charm of his manner, smote their breasts, and cried out, “God be merciful to us! The saints be with us!”

Fig. 105.—Façade of the Abbey Church of the Magdalen, as it now stands at Vézelai, where, in 1146, St. Bernard preached the Second Crusade (Twelfth Century).

The Emperor Conrad, whom the Abbot endeavoured to persuade to join the King of France in the new crusade, at first gave the enterprise considerable opposition; but at last, at a meeting held at Spires, the 28th of December, 1146, Bernard’s extraordinary eloquence produced such an effectupon him that he vowed on the spot to assume the cross. His example was immediately followed by several German princes, amongst whom was his own nephew, the youthful Frederick of Suabia, who afterwards became so celebrated under the name of Frederick Barbarossa.

A few months later, the French and German armies, each of which contained more than a hundred thousand fighting men, without reckoning the swarm of pilgrims who accompanied them, set out, well armed, well equipped, and full of confidence, for the East. The two armies contained theéliteof the chivalry of both countries. “Europe,” said St. Bernard in one of his letters, “contained nothing but desert towns and castles, nothing but widows and orphans, whose husbands and fathers were still alive.”

But, alas! this enthusiasm, this zeal, this heroism, displayed by all classes of European society, were destined to end in miserable disaster. The insubordination of the troops, the want of foresight and co-operation of their leaders, and the treachery of the Greek emperor Manuel, prepared a fatal ending for this ill-omened undertaking, which saw its host melt away long before their arrival in the Holy Land. After more than a year of tremendous efforts and sanguinary reverses, its remnants struggled painfully back to the West, leaving the kingdom of Jerusalem in a far more precarious position than before the arrival of the combined forces. “And on all sides,” relates a chronicler, “were heard complaints and reproaches against the Abbot of Clairvaux, whose promises of victory had been so little realised, who, it was said, had sent so many brave men to a useless death, and who had plunged so many noble families into mourning. The holy man was mortified to the very depths of his soul, but rather than doubt the beneficent wisdom of the Almighty, he exclaimed, ‘If they must murmur, it is better that they should murmur against me than against God. I am rejoiced that the Lord has condescended to use me as a shield. I am willing to be humiliated, provided always that His glory be unassailed.’”

Forty years later, after the terrible battle of Tiberias (1187), where so much generous blood was spilt around Guy de Lusignan, the last King of Jerusalem, the Sultan Saladin, one of the most remarkable characters in Mussulman history, seized the holy city, which henceforth was only destined once, and then but for a short time, to fall again into the hands of the Christians.

In 1181 the Third Crusade was undertaken, and Philip Augustus, the King of France, and Richard, the King of England, whose great deeds in this holy war obtained for him the surname of Cœur de Lion, forgetting their own personal quarrels, put themselves at its head. Subsequently, Frederick Barbarossa, the Emperor of Germany, who had previously taken part in the Second Crusade, joined the undertaking, in which he was destined to meet his death.

After having shed more blood and displayed more bravery than would have sufficed to conquer the whole of Asia, after the long and memorable siege of the city of Ptolemais, after many signal successes, the Christian armies, discouraged and diminished by more than one half, returned to Europe, bringing with them “moult de gloire,”[8]says a chronicler, but without having in reality obtained any material or lasting advantage over the unbelievers, who it was true had lost St. Jean d’Acre, but who still retained possession of Jerusalem.

The Fourth Crusade (1198–1204), which some historians call the fifth, was authorised by Pope Innocent III., and preached in France by the celebrated Foulques de Neuilly. This crusade was remarkable in one respect. Its efforts at first were directed against the persecutors of Christianity, but events, as they developed themselves, modified its aim, and the question of the holy places having become abandoned, it ended, after the taking of Constantinople (Fig. 106), in the overthrow of the dynasty of the successors of Constantine, and its being replaced by a French dynasty, the founders of the Latin Empire of Byzantium. Following the example of Baudouin, Count of Flanders, the principal nobles of the crusading army divided among themselves the spoils of the Greek Empire, and ceased to think of the holy war.

In 1217, Andrew, King of Hungary, in company with several nobles of Germany and France, assumed the cross. This expedition sailed for Egypt, and laid siege to Damietta, which only capitulated after losing eighty thousand of its inhabitants. From thence it moved on to Cairo, but, being decimated by the plague, it was forced to retreat and return to Europe. This was really the fifth crusade.

Fig. 106.—Second taking of Constantinople, in 1204.—From a Fresco by Tintoretto, in the Palace of the Doges, Venice (Sixteenth Century).

In 1228, Frederick II., King of Naples and Sicily, having been electedEmperor of Germany, conceived the idea, more from political than religious motives, of reconquering, in the name of Christendom, the Holy City. He embarked, accompanied only by a few hundred soldiers, and, landing in Egypt, had an interview with the Sultan, who was persuaded, under some unknown influence, to sign a treaty, by virtue of which Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem were to be restored to the Christians, under the express condition that the Mussulmans should be allowed to retain the Temple and to erect a mosque in the city of Jesus Christ. This was at best a sacrilegiouscompact. It was neither approved nor kept by the Christians or by the Saracens, and was soon considered by Frederick himself a worthless compromise, although he had entered Jerusalem in person, and had there crowned himself with his own hands. This singular expedition was termed the Sixth Crusade.

But the hour was now fast approaching when the vigorous and sincere faith which had inspired the apostles of the First Crusade was once more to revive and to shine forth in all its pristine brilliancy; and it was again in France that the flame of Christian devotion was to be rekindled at the cry which still found its echo in every heart, the cry of “Dieu le veut!” The French nation, the eldest daughter of the Church, had then at its head one of those pure and simple-minded men whom Providence too rarely raises up for the honour and welfare of mankind. Louis IX., the son of Blanche of Castile, and the grandson of King Philip Augustus, united in his pure and magnanimous soul all the gentle virtues of his mother to the generous and chivalrous sentiments of his grandfather.

Whilst bestowing an assiduous and intelligent care on the government, and, it may be said, on the regeneration of his kingdom, whilst devoting the influence of his moral authority to appease the political discord which was agitating and devastating Europe, the sainted king could not forget that his Eastern brethren were groaning under slavery and persecution. The object of his dreams, at some future day when his kingly task should be nearing its accomplishment, when peace should reign in his dominions and in those of his neighbours, was to deliver Jerusalem and to drive the Saracen from the Holy Land. He was forced to postpone this noble undertaking, but it was only to await a more propitious opportunity of carrying it out in a thoroughly efficacious manner.

“Or advint,” says the Sire de Joinville in his Memoirs, “que le roi cheut en une grande maladie, et tellement fut au bas, qu’une des dames qui le gardoient, cuidant qu’il fût oultre, lui voulut couvrir le visage d’un linceul, et de l’autre part du lit y eut une autre dame qui ne le voulut souffrir. Or Notre-Seigneur ouvra en lui et lui redonna la parole; et demanda le bon roi qu’on lui apportât la croix; ce qui fut fait. Et quand la bonne dame, sa mère, sut qu’il eut recouvré la parole, elle en eut une si grande joie qui plusne se pouvoit, mais quand elle le vit croisé, elle fut aussi transie que si elle l’eût vu mort (1244).”[9]

Notwithstanding, however, the grief of the queen-mother, who, in spite of her devotion to the holy cause, feared lest the absence of the king might prove disadvantageous to France, Louis IX., having once taken the vow, was determined faithfully to perform it. Moreover, he was encouraged by seeing that his example alone had more influence than the warmest exhortations of his preachers, for, as soon as it was known that their revered sovereign had assumed the cross, zeal revived among all classes, faith regained its sway, and an impatience to set forth on the crusade manifested itself on all sides.

But the king, sagacious and prudent in spite of his ardour, and forewarned by the errors of his predecessors, was unwilling to give the signal until he had taken all proper precautions and made all necessary arrangements. Three years elapsed, during which Louis IX. continued his preparations, and collected provisions of every kind, which were conveyed to Cyprus, the spot chosen for the general rendezvous of the Crusaders; in the meantime, he busied himself in preparing, in the interests of his kingdom, for the events that might take place in his absence. At length, having appointed his mother regent, he embarked from the port of Aigues-Mortes on the 15th of August, 1248, with his wife, his brother, and his principal adherents. At Cyprus he was joined in turn by all the nobles of France, with their men-at-arms and their vassals. He passed the winter in organizing the expedition, which was first destined for Egypt; for, of all the Mahometan chiefs who were at that time contending for the possession of Palestine, the Sultan of Cairo, who had already made himself master of Syria, was considered the most powerful, and it was the opinion of the most competent soldiers that the conquest of the Holy Land must commence on the shores of the Nile.

Everything seemed to promise a happy result. A considerable fleet, anumerous and well-disciplined army, an abundant supply of provisions, arms, and military stores, the supreme command concentrated in one hand, and, above all, a real feeling of devotion to the sacred cause—a feeling inspired by the exhortations and the example of the king—such were the elements from which the Seventh Crusade might have hoped to attain success.

In the spring, eighteen hundred vessels sailed from Cyprus, where they had been fitted out, and conveyed the crusading army to Damietta. The king, armed from head to foot, was one of the first to spring ashore. Several of his knights and men-at-arms followed him, and, in the midst of a shower of darts, dispersed the Saracens, with whom the shore was covered, and drove them back in disorder into the town (Fig. 107). The attack was so bold and so unforeseen, that the infidels, struck with terror, no longer believed themselves secure behind the walls which thirty years before had sustained a siege of eighteen months, and abandoned Damietta without striking a blow in its defence.

The possession of this stronghold, situated on the sea-coast at the mouth of the Nile, would have been of but little importance to the Crusaders, but its conquest had been so rapid and easy that they were led by the intoxication of success to neglect the first elements of prudence and discipline. Their entry into the town was the signal for its pillage, in spite of the orders and entreaties of the king, whose humane and generous character was repugnant to this act of barbarism.

The Christian host should have profited by the enemy’s discomfiture, and immediately have penetrated into the interior of the country, instead of remaining, as it did, stationary for five months, either on account of the periodic inundations of the river, or in expectation of the reinforcements which were due from Europe. This long delay, which fostered idleness, dissipation, and insubordination, was fatal to the expedition. When the king at last gave the order to advance, he had under his orders none but effeminate, enervated troops, without obedience and without discipline; and the Saracens, who had had plenty of time to forget their panic and overcome their discouragement, found, in the demoralization of their enemies, a still further ground for comfort, and a fresh motive for confidence.

Fig. 107.—Disembarkation of the Crusaders at Damietta.—Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Grand Voyage de Hiérusalem,” printed in Paris in 1522 by François Regnault, in the Library of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.

Thenceforward the Christian cause proceeded from bad to worse. After several engagements in which they were worsted, after several battles, theeffect of which was merely to sacrifice life—particularly after the battle of Mansourah, in which Robert of Artois, the king’s brother, was killed, with the flower of the nobility—the Crusaders found themselves surrounded in their camp, a prey to a pestilential epidemic produced by want, which daily made considerable ravages in their ranks. French valour, however, was not to be daunted, and over and over again the soldiers, though exhausted by fatigue and disease and dying of hunger, put forth fresh efforts, and defeated the Saracens; at a cost to themselves, however, that each victory made them less able to endure. At last they were forced to retreat on Damietta, where the Queen with some reserve troops was awaiting them, and where they hoped to reorganize themselves.

After they had been three or four days on the march, during which this weary host of sick and wounded had been ceaselessly harassed by the enemy, the king—who was seriously ill himself, but who always rode and fought in the rear to protect the remnant of hisost, whose safety, he said, he valued far more than his own life—was forced to halt in a village, which the Saracens surrounded and attacked on all sides, while the bravest and most devoted of Louis’s knights allowed themselves to be cut to pieces to prevent theirgood sirefrom falling into the hands of the infidels.

Louis was lying on the field in a dying condition, quite incapable of giving any command, when some traitor cried out in the midst of the fight, “Yield, sir knights, yield all of you, the king orders it; do not cause him to be slain.” The fight immediately ceased, the knights threw down their arms and asked for quarter. The Saracens pitilessly massacred not only the sick, from whom they feared the effects of contagion, but every Christian beneath the rank of knight. The king was taken prisoner, together with his two brothers (Fig. 108), his principal barons, and the officers of his household. This occurred on the 6th of April, 1250.

History records the most touching incidents of the captivity of the pious monarch. Never was Louis IX. so noble, so heroic, as during these thirty days of trial, of suffering, and of danger. Though a captive in the hands of the unbelievers, subjected to the grossest outrages, loaded with chains, and threatened with death, he still displayed in the gentleness of his disposition and the serenity of his soul the high virtues of the Christian faith and the nobility pertaining to his kingly dignity. The Saracens greatly admired this magnanimity in misfortune, and their principal leader, the terrible Sultan ofDamascus, entered into negotiations with his august prisoner, who was prepared to die rather than submit to some of the demands of his conquerors. A million of goldenbesants(about half a million of French livres) for the ransom of the Franks, the restitution of Damietta for that of their king, and ten years’ truce between the Christians and the Mussulmans of Egypt and of Syria, were the conditions that Louis was obliged to accept. Joinville tells us that the emirs of the sultan were content to accept, as their only guarantee, the bare word of this Frankish prince, the noblest Christian, they said, they had ever seen in the East. Some of the Saracens, indeed, according to the same chronicler, had conceived the intention of offering the throne of Egypt to King Louis (Fig. 109), so much respect and esteem had he inspired them with.

Back to Index Next