Death of A.D. 1193, prince of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that, during three years and three months, all hostilities should cease. The principal chiefs of the two armies swore to the observance of the treaty ; but the monarchs were satisfied with giving their word and their right hand; and the royal majesty was excused from an oath, which always implies some suspicion of falsehood and dishonour. Richard embarked for Europe, to seek a long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few months concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals describe his edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they seem ignorant of the equal distribution of his alms among the three religions, or of the display of a shroud, instead of a standard, to admonish the East of the instability of human greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved by his death; his sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle Saphadin; the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus, and Aleppo 82 were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood, and breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast. 81 Innocent III, A.D. 1198-1216. The noblest monument of a conqueror's fame, and of the terror which he inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax, which was imposed on the laity and even the clergy of the Latin church for the service of the holy war. The practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion; and this tribute became the foundation of all the tithes and tenths on ecclesiastical benefices which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs to Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the apostolic see.83 This pecuniary emolument must have tended to increase the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine: after the death of Saladin they preached the crusade by their epistles, their legates, and their missionaries; and the accomplishment of the pious work might have been expected from the zeal and talents of Innocent the Third.84 Under that young and ambitious priest the successors of St. Peter attained the full meridian of their greatness and in a reign of eighteen years he exercised a despotic command over the emperors and kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an 81 Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish notion of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his last breath. 82 See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 277, &c.), and the tables of M. de Guignes, l'Art de Vérifier les Dates, and the Bibliothèque Orientale. Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 311-374) has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and restrictions of these tenths. A theory was started, but not pursued, that they were rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of the Levite's tenth to the high priest (Selden on Tithes; see his Works, vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083). See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. (tom. iii. p. i. p. 486568). interiet of months or years deprived, for the offence of their rulers, of the exercise of Christian worship. In the council of the Lateran he acted as the ecclesiastical, almost as the temporal, sovereign of the East and West. It was at the feet of his legate that John of England surrendered his crown; and Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation and the origin of the inquisition. At his voice two crusades, the fourth and the fifth, were undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the princes of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims; the forces were inadequate to the design, nor did the effects correspond with the hopes and wishes of the pope and the people. The fourth crusade was diverted from Syria to Constantinople; and the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire by the Latins will form the proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the fifth, two hundred thousand Franks were landed at the eastern mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine must be subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan ; and after a siege of sixteen months the Moslems deplored the loss of Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and insolence of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope's name, assumed the character of general; the sickly Franks were encompassed by the waters of the Nile and the Oriental forces; and it was by the evacuation of Damietta that they obtained a safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the tardy restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication of the crusades, which were preached at the same time against the pagans of Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France, and the kings of Sicily of the Imperial family. In these meritorious services the volunteers might acquire at home the same spiritual indulgence and a larger measure of temporal rewards; and even the popes, in their zeal against a domestic enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress of their Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived the occasional command of an army and revenue, and some deep reasoners have suspected that 85 See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus à Vitriaco (1. iii. p. 1125-1149, in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius), an eye-witness; Bernard Thesaurarius (in Script. Muratori, tom. vii. p. 825-846, c. 194-207), a contemporary; and Sanutus (Secreta Fidel. Crucis, 1. iii. p. xi. c. 4-9), a diligent compiler; and of the Arabians, Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 294), and the Extracts at the end of Joinville (p. 533, 537, 540, 547, &c.). 86 To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem. Fideles mirabantur quòd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine Christianorum effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium aliquando (Matthew Paris, p. 785). A high flight for the reason of the xiiith century. the whole enterprise, from the first synod of Placentia, was contrived and executed by the policy of Rome. The suspicion is not founded either in nature or in fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to have followed, rather than guided, the impulse of manners and prejudice; without much foresight of the seasons or cultivation of the soil, they gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits of the superstition of the times. They gathered these fruits without toil or personal danger in the council of the Lateran, Innocent the Third declared an ambiguous resolution of animating the crusaders by his example; but the pilot of the sacred vessel could not abandon the helm, nor was Palestine ever blessed with the presence of a Roman pontiff.8 87 Frederic II. A.D. 1228. The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims were under the immediate protection of the popes; and these The emperor spiritual patrons soon claimed the prerogative of directing in Palestine, their operations, and enforcing, by commands and censures, the accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the Second,88 the grandson of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the enemy, and the victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and in obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the cross; the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial coronations, and his marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem for ever bound him to defend the kingdom of his son Conrad. But as Frederic advanced in age and authority, he repented of the rash engagements of his youth : his liberal sense and knowledge taught him to despise the phantoms of superstition and the crowns of Asia; he no longer entertained the same reverence for the successors of Innocent; and his ambition was occupied by the restoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But the success of this project would have reduced the popes to their primitive simplicity, and, after the delays and excuses of twelve years, they urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to fix the time and place of his departure for Palestine. In the harbours of Sicily and Apulia he prepared a fleet of one hundred galleys, and of one hundred vessels, that were framed to transport and land two thousand five hundred knights, with their horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples and Germany formed a powerful army, and the number of English crusaders was magnified to sixty 87 This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of Mosheim (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 332) and the fine philosophy of Hume (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330). The original materials for the crusade of Frederic II. may be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 1002-1013) and Matthew Paris (p. 286, 291, 300, 302, 304). The most rational moderns are Fleury (Hist. Eccles. tom. xvi.), Vertot (Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. 1. iii.), Giannone (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. 1. xvi.), and Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. x.). 89 thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims; the multitude was thinned by sickness and desertion, and the sultry summer of Calabria anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with a fleet and army of forty thousand men ; but he kept the sea no more than three days, and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was accused by his enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For suspending his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth; for presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again excommunicated by the same pope. While he served under the banner of the cross a crusade was preached against him in Italy; and after his return he was compelled to ask pardon for the injuries which he had suffered. The clergy and military orders of Palestine were previously instructed to renounce his communion and dispute his commands, and in his own kingdom the emperor was forced to consent that the orders of the camp should be issued in the name of God and of the Christian republic. Frederic entered Jerusalem in triumph, and with his own hands (for no priest would perform the office) he took the crown from the altar of the holy sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on the church which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital and temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised and slain in his unguarded visit to the river Jordan. In such a state of fanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless and defence was difficult; but the conclusion of an advantageous peace may be imputed to the discord of the Mahometans, and their personal esteem for the character of Frederic. The enemy of the church is accused of maintaining with the miscreants an intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of a Christian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of indulging a profane thought that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom of Naples, he never would have selected Palestine for the inheritance of his chosen people. Yet Frederic obtained from the sultan the restitution of Jerusalem, of Bethlem and Nazareth, of Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed to inhabit and fortify the city; an equal code of civil and religious freedom was ratified for the sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet; and, while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter might pray and preach in the mosque of the temple " from whence the prophet undertook 90 89 Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not what to say: "Chinò qui il capo," &c., p. 322. 90 The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church of the temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has deceived both Vertot and Muratori. his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy deplored this scandalous toleration, and the weaker Moslems were gradually expelled; but every rational object of the crusades was accomplished without bloodshed; the churches were restored, the monasteries were replenished, and, in the space of fifteen years, the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded the number of six thousand. This peace and prosperity, for which they were ungrateful to their benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of the strange and savage hordes of Carizmians." Flying from the arms of the Moguls, those shepherds" of the Invasion Caspian rolled headlong on Syria; and the union of the of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus D. 1243. was insufficient to stem the violence of the torrent. Whatever stood against them was cut off by the sword or dragged into captivity; the military orders were almost exterminated in a single battle; and in the pillage of the city, in the profanation of the holy sepulchre, the Latins confess and regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and Saracens. Carizmians, St. Louis crusade, A.D. 1248-1254. Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by Louis the Ninth, king of France, who lost his liberty in Egypt, and his life on the coast of Africa. Twenty-eight years after and the sixth his death he was canonized at Rome, and sixty-five miracles were readily found and solemnly attested to justify the claim of the royal saint.92 The voice of history renders a more honourable testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, an hero, and a man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people, the friend of his neighbours, and the terror of the infidels. Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence, 93 corrupted his understanding and his heart; his devotion stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and Dominic; he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant. A monkish historian would have been The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is related by Matthew Paris (p. 546, 547), and by Joinville, Nangis, and the Arabians (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530). Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St. Louis, by the confessor of Queen Margaret (p. 291-523, Joinville, du Louvre). 66 He believed all that mother church taught (Joinville, p. 10), but he cautioned Joinville against disputing with infidels. L'omme lay (said he in his old language), "quand il ot medire de la loy Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loy Crestienne ne "mais que de l'espée, dequoi il doit donner parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle "y peut entrer" (p. 12). a They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Egypt. Wilken, vol. vi. p. 630.—M. |