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that his mission had been approved by signs and wonders. Had the fact been certain, the argument would be decisive; and his faithful disciples, who enumerate twenty or thirty miracles in a day, appeal to the public assemblies of France and Germany, in which they were performed." At the present hour, such prodigies will not obtain credit beyond the precincts of Clairvaux; but in the preternatural cures of the blind, the lame, and the sick, who were presented to the man of God, it is impossible for us to ascertain the separate shares of accident, of fancy, of imposture, and of fiction.

Omnipotence itself cannot escape Progress of the the murmurs of its discordant votaries; Mahometans. since the same dispensation which was applauded as a deliverance in Europe, was deplored, and perhaps arraigned, as a calamity in Asia. After the loss of Jerusalem, the Syrian fugitives diffused their consternation and sorrow: Bagdad mourned in the dust; the cadhi Zeineddin of Damascus tore his beard in the caliph's presence; and the whole divan shed tears at his melancholy tale." But the commanders of the faithful could only weep; they were themselves captives in the hands of the Turks: some temporal power was restored to the last age of the Abbassides; but their humble ambition was confined to Bagdad and the adjacent province. Their tyrants, the Seljukian sultans, had followed the common law of the Asiatic dynasties, the unceasing round of valour, greatness, discord, degeneracy, and decay: their spirit and power were unequal to the defence of religion; and, in his distant realm of Persia, the christians were strangers to the name and the arms of Sangiar, the last hero of his race. While the sultans were The Atabeks of

superstition, they attained the prize for which such | pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly insinuates, numbers contended. In speech, in writing, in action, Bernard stood high above his rivals and contemporaries; his compositions are not devoid of wit and eloquence; and he seems to have preserved as much reason and humanity as may be reconciled with the character of a saint. In a secular life, he would have shared the seventh part of a private inheritance; by a vow of poverty and penance, by closing his eyes against the visible world,s by the refusal of all ecclesiastical dignities, the abbot of Clairvaux became the oracle of Europe, and the founder of one hundred and sixty convents. Princes and pontiffs trembled at the freedom of his apostolical censures: France, England, and Milan, consulted and obeyed his judgment in a schism of the church the debt was repaid by the gratitude of Innocent the second; and his successor, Eugenius the third, was the friend and disciple of the holy Bernard. It was in the proclamation of the second crusade that he shone as the missionary and prophet of God, who called the nations to the defence of his holy sepulchre. At the parliament of Vezelay he spoke before the king; and Louis the seventh, with his nobles, received their crosses from his hand. The abbot of Clairvaux then marched to the less easy conquest of the emperor Conrad: a phlegmatic people, ignorant of his language, was transported by the pathetic vehemence of his tone and gestures; and his progress, from Constance to Cologne, was the triumph of eloquence and zeal. Bernard applauds his own success in the depopulation of Europe; affirms that cities and castles were emptied of their inhabitants; and computes, that only one man was left behind for the consolation of seven widows. The blind fanatics were desirous of electing him for their general; but the example of the hermit Peter was before his eyes; and while he assured the crusaders of the divine favour, he prudently declined a military command, in which failure and victory would have been almost equally disgraceful to his character. Yet, after the calamitous event, the abbot of Clairvaux was loudly accused as a false prophet, the author of the public and private mourning; his enemies exulted, his friends blushed, and his apology was slow and unsatisfactory. He justifies his obedience to the commands of the pope; expatiates on the mysterious ways of Providence; imputes the misfortunes of the

The disciples of the saint (Vit. Ima, 1. iii. c. 2. p. 1232. Vit. 2da, c. 16. No. 45. p. 1383.) record a marvellous example of his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem totius diei itinere pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre non vidit. Cum enim vespere facto de eodem lacu socii colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus ille isset; et mirati sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought, the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his library the beauties of that incomparable landscape.

h Otho Frising. I. i. c. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363. ad Francos Orien. tales. Opp. tom. i. p. 328. Vit. Ima, I. iii. c. 4. tom. vi. p. 1235. i Mandastis et obedivi multiplicati sunt super numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et pene jam non inveniunt quem appre hendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduæ vivis remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must be careful not to construe pene as a substantive.

k Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante facies armato. rum, aut quid tam remotum a professione meà, si vires, si peritia, &c. Epist. 256. tom. i. p. 259. He speaks with contempt of the hermit Peter, vir quidam. Epist. 363.

1 Sic dicunt forsitan iste, unde scimus quod a Domino sermo egressus sit? Quæ signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad ista ipse

involved in the silken web of the ha- Syria.
ram, the pious task was undertaken by their slaves,
the Atabeks," a Turkish name, which, like the By-
zantine patricians, may be translated by Father of
the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant Turk, had been
the favourite of Malek Shaw, from whom he received
the privilege of standing on the right hand of the
throne; but, in the civil wars that ensued on the
monarch's death, he lost his head and the govern-
ment of Aleppo. His domestic emirs
persevered in their attachment to his
son Zenghi, who proved his first arms
against the Franks in the defeat of Antioch: thirty
respondeam: parcendum verecundiæ meæ, responde tu pro me, et pro
te ipso, secundum quæ vidisti et audisti, et secundum quod te inspira.
verit Deus, Consolat. I. ii. c. 1. Opp. tom. ii. p. 421-423.

Zenghi, A. D. 1127-1145.

m See the testimonies in Vita Ima. 1. iv. c. 5, 6. Opp. tom. vi. p. 1258—1261, I. vi. c. 1—17. p. 1286-1314.

99.

n Abulmahasen apud De Guignes. Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p. ii. p.

o See his article in the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230-261. Such was his valour, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the extravagant love of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan a year after his decease. Yet Sangiar might have been made prisoner by the Franks, as well as by the Uzes. He reigned near fifty years, (A. D. 1103–1152.) and was a munificent patron of Persian poetry.

P See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and Syria, in Di Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi and Noureddin in the same writer, (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147-221.) who uses the Arabic text of Benelathir, Ben Schouna, and Abulfeda; the Bibliotheque Orientale, under the articles Atabeks and Noureddin, and the Dynasties of Abulpharagius, p. 250-267. vers. Pocock.

Noureddin, A. D. 1145-1174.

campaigns in the service of the caliph and sultan established his military fame; and he was invested with the command of Mosul, as the only champion that could avenge the cause of the prophet. The public hope was not disappointed: after a siege of twentyfive days, he stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks their conquests beyond the Euphrates: the martial tribes of Curdistan were subdued by the independent sovereign of Mosul and Aleppo: his soldiers were taught to behold the camp as their only country; they trusted to his liberality for their rewards; and their absent families were protected by the vigilance of Zenghi. At the head of these veterans, his son Noureddin gradually united the Mahometan powers; added the kingdom of Damascus to that of Aleppo, and waged a long and successful war against the christians of Syria; he spread his ample reign from the Tigris to the Nile, and the Abbassides rewarded their faithful servant with all the titles and prerogatives of royalty. The Latins themselves were compelled to own the wisdom and courage, and even the justice and piety, of this implacable adversary. In his life and government the holy warrior revived the zeal and simplicity of the first caliphs. Gold and silk were banished from his palace; the use of wine from his dominions; the public revenue was scrupulously applied to the public service; and the frugal household of Noureddin was maintained from his legitimate share of the spoil which he vested in the purchase of a private estate. His favourite sultana sighed for some female object of expense. Alas," replied the king, "I fear God, and am no more than the treasurer of the Moslems. Their property I cannot alienate; but I still possess three shops in the city of Hems: these you may take; and these alone can I bestow." His chamber of justice was the terror of the great and the refuge of the poor. Some years after the sultan's death, an oppressed subject called aloud in the streets of Damascus, "O Noureddin, Noureddin, where art thou now? Arise, arise, to pity and protect us!" A tumult was apprehended, and a living tyrant blushed or trembled at the name of a departed monarch.

Conquest of Egypt by the Turks,

A. D. 11631169.

66

By the arms of the Turks and Franks the Fatimites had been deprived of Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and influence was still more essential. Yet they were still revered as the descendants and successors of the prophet; they maintained their invisible state in the palace of Cairo; and their person was seldom violated by the profane eyes of subjects or strangers. The Latin ambassadors have described their own introduction through a series of gloomy passages, and glittering porticos:

William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5. 7.) describes the loss of Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his name into Sanguin, afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion to his sanguinary character and end, sit sanguine sanguinolentus.

r Noradinus (says William of Tyre, 1. xx. 33.) maximus nominis et fidei christianæ persecutor; princeps tamen justus, vafer, providus, et secundum gentis suæ traditiones religiosus. To this catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites, (Abulpharag. p. 267.) quo

the scene was enlivened by the warbling of birds and the murmur of fountains: it was enriched by a display of rich furniture and rare animals; of the imperial treasures, something was shown, and much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors was guarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary of the presence-chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizir, who conducted the ambassadors, laid aside his scymitar, and prostrated himself three times on the ground; the veil was then removed; and they beheld the commander of the faithful, who signified his pleasure to the first slave of the throne. But this slave was his master; the vizirs or sultans had usurped the supreme administration of Egypt; the claims of the rival candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most worthy, of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command. The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each other from the capital and country; and the weaker side implored the dangerous protection of the sultan of Damascus or the king of Jerusalem, the perpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of the Fatimites. By his arms and religion the Turk was most formidable; but the Franks, in an easy direct march, could advance from Gaza to the Nile; while the intermediate situation of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddin to wheel round the skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, which exposed them to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert. The secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reign in Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of the suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first expedition; and the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh, a valiant and veteran commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain; but the ingratitude, the jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his more fortunate rival, soon provoked him to invite the king of Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from his insolent benefactors. To this union the forces of Shiracoub were unequal; he relinquished the premature conquest; and the evacuation of Belbeis or Pelusium was the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks defiled before the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a vigilant eye, and a battle-axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him if he were not afraid of an attack? It is doubtless in your power to begin the attack," replied the intrepid emir; "but rest assured, that not one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he has sent an infidel to hell." His report of the riches of the land, the effeminacy of the natives, and the disorders of the government, revived the hopes of Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious design; and Shiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand

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non alter erat inter reges vitæ ratione magis laudabili, aut quæ plori. bus justitiæ experimentis abundaret. The true praise of kings is after their death, and from the mouth of their enemies.

From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c. 17, 18.) describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph's treasure were found a pearl as large as a pigeon's egg, a ruby weighing seventeen Egyptian drams, an emerald a palm and a half in length, and many vases of crystal aud porcelain of China. (Renaudot, p. 536.)

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Turks, and eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior to the confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an unusual degree of military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat into Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and counter-marches in the flats and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conduct was seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a Mamaluke' exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the christian dogs, why do we not renounce the honours and rewards of the sultan, and retire to labour with the peasants, or to spin with the females of the haram?" Yet, after all his efforts in the field," after the obstinate defence of Alexandria by his nephew Saladin, an honourable capitulation and retreat concluded the second enterprise of Shiracoub; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and more propitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice of Amalric or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious maxim, that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. A religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged him to proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, a fleet to act with the armies of Syria; and the perfidious christian, unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired to the conquest of Egypt. In this emergency, the Moslems turned their eyes towards the sultan of Damascus; the vizir, whom danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to their unanimous wishes, and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the fair offer of one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were already at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnt on their approach; they were deceived by an insidious negociation, and their vessels were unable to surmount the barriers of the Nile. They prudently declined a contest with the Turks in the midst of a hostile country; and Amaury retired into Palestine with the shame and reproach that always adhere to unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance, Shiracouh was invested with a robe of honour, which he soon stained with the blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish emirs condescended to hold the office of vizir; but this foreign conquest precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and the bloodless change was accomplished

t Mamluc, plur. Mamalic, is defined by Pocock, (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7.) and D'Herbelot, (p. 545.) servum emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit. They frequently occur in the wars of Saladin; (Bohadin, p. 236, &c.) and it was only the Bahar. tie Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt by his descendants. u Jacobus à Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalem no more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report the superior numbers of the enemy; a difference which may be solved by counting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians.

x It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans, and that of the Turks. (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 25, 26.)

y For this great revolution of Egypt, see William Tyre, (l. xix. 5, 6, 7. 12—31. xx. 5-12.) Bohadin, (in Vit. Saladin. p. 30-39.) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1-12.) D'Herbelot, (Bibliot. Orient. Adhed. Fathemah, but very incorrect.) Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522-525. 532-537.) Vertot, (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. p. 141-163. in 4to,) and M. de Guignes, (tôm. ii. p. 185–215.)

z For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. i. p. 416, 417. the Index Geo. graphicus of Schultens, and Tavernier, Voyages, p. i. p. 308, 309. The

End of the Fatimite caliphs,

A. D. 1171.

by a message and a word. The caliphs had been degraded by their own weakness and the tyranny of the vizirs: their subjects blushed, when the descendant and successor of the prophet presented his naked hand to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador ; they wept when he sent the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief and terror, to excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command of Noureddin, and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of Abubeker, Omar, and Othman, were solemnly restored: the caliph Mosthadi, of Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as the true commander of the faithful; and the green livery of the sons of Ali was exchanged for the black colour of the Abbassides. The last of his race, the caliph Adhed, who survived only ten days, expired in happy ignorance of his fate: his treasures secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silenced the murmurs of the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions Egypt has never departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems.

racter of Saladin,

The hilly country beyond the Tigris Reign and chais occupied by the pastoral tribes of A. D. 1191-1193. the Curds; a people hardy, strong, savage, impatient of yoke, addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seem to identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks ;a and they still defend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; and the son of Job or Ayub, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. So unconscious was Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house, that he constrained the reluctant youth to follow his uncle Shiracouh into Egypt; his military character was established by the defence of Alexandria; and if we may believe the Latins, be solicited and obtained from the christian general the profane honours of knighthood. On the death of Shiracoub, the office of grand vizir was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals, and attached the army to his person and interest.

Ayoubites descended from the tribe of Rawadiæi, one of the noblest; but as they were infected with the heresy of the metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated that their descent was only on the mother's side, and that their ancestor was a stranger who settled among the Curds.

a See the fourth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The ten thou sand suffered more from the arrows of the free Carduchians, than from the splendid weakness of the great king.

b We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat. 1755. in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a life of Saladin by his friend and minister the cadhi Bohadin, and copious extracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah. To these we may add, the article of Salaheddin in the Bibliotheque Orientale, and all that may be gleaned from the Dynasties of Abulpharagius.

e Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share the praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the founder.

d Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. A similar example may be found in Joinville; (p. 42. edition du Louvre;) but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels with the order of christian knighthood. (Ducange, Observations, p. 70.)

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sultan devoutly prayed with his brethren: the involuntary omission of fasting was scrupulously repaid; and his perusal of the Koran on horseback, between the approaching armies, may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious, of piety and courage.h The superstitious doctrine of the sect of Shafei was the only study that he deigned to encourage: the poets were safe in his contempt; but all profane science was the object of his aversion; and a philosopher, who had vented some speculative novelties, was seized and strangled by the command of the royal saint. The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest suppliant against himself and his ministers; and it was only for a kingdom that Saladin would deviate from the rule of equity. While the descendants of Seljuk and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his garments, he was affable and patient with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his liberality, that he

While Noureddin lived, these ambitious Curds were the most humble of his slaves; and the indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead his son in chains to the foot of the throne. "Such language," he added in private, was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but we are now above fear and obedience; and the threats of Noureddin shall not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane." His seasonable death relieved them from the odious and doubtful conflict: his son, a minor of eleven years of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus; and the new lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title that could sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Sa- | ladin long content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the christians of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir: Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal | distributed twelve thousand horses at the siege of protector: his brother subdued the distant regions | of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the hour of his death, his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the Tigris, and from the Indian ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In the judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude strike forcibly on our minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure be excused by the revolution of Asia, which had erased every notion of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the Atabeks themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor, his humane and generous behaviour to the collateral branches; by their incapacity and his merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the sole source of all legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the people, whose happiness is the first object of government. In his virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired the singular union of the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin are ranked among the Mahometan saints; and the constant meditation of the holy war appears to have shed a serious and sober colour over their lives and actions. The youth of the latter was addicted to wine and women; but his aspiring spirit soon renounced the temptations of pleasure, for the graver follies of fame and dominion: the garment of Saladin was of coarse woollen; water was his only drink; and, while he emulated the temperance, he surpassed the chastity, of his Arabian prophet. Both in faith and practice he was a rigid mussulman; he ever deplored that the defence of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the pilgrimage of Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each day, the

e In these Arabic titles, religionis must always be understood; Noureddin, lumen r.; Ezzodin, decns; Amadoddin, columen: our hero's proper name was Joseph, and he was styled Salahoddin, salus; Al Malichus, Al Nasirus, rex defensor; Abu Modeffir, pater victoriæ, Schultens, Præfat.

f Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin, observes from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took the guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent collaterals. (Ex. cerpt. p. 10.)

g See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537-548.

Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than
forty-seven drachms of silver and one piece of gold
coin were found in the treasury; yet, in a martial
reign, the tributes were diminished, and the wealthy
citizens enjoyed without fear or danger the fruits of
their industry. Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were
adorned by the royal foundations of hospitals, col-
leges, and mosques; and Cairo was fortified with a
wall and citadel; but his works were consecrated
to public use,1 nor did the sultan indulge himself in
a garden or palace of private luxury. In a fanatic
age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of Sala-
din commanded the esteem of the christians: the
emperor of Germany gloried in his friendship; the
Greek emperor solicited his alliance; and the
conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps mag-
nified, his fame both in the East and West Indies.
During its short existence, the king- His conquest of
dom of Jerusalemm was supported by
the kingdom,
A. D. 1187.
the discord of the Turks and Saracens ; July 3.
and both the Fatimite caliphs and the sultans of
Damascus were tempted to sacrifice the cause of
their religion to the meaner considerations of private
and present advantage. But the powers of Egypt,
Syria, and Arabia, were now united by a hero,
whom nature and fortune had armed against the
christians. All without now bore the most threat-
ening aspect; and all was feeble and hollow in the
internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first
Baldwins, the brother and cousin of Godfrey of
Bouillon, the sceptre devolved by female succession
to Melisenda, daughter of the second Baldwin, and
her husband Fulk, count of Anjou, the father, by a
former marriage, of our English Plantagenets.
Their two sons, Baldwin the third, and Amaury,

h His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in the first chapter of Bobadin, (p. 4-30.) himself an eye-witness, and an honest bigot.

In many works, particularly Joseph's well in the castle of Cairo, the sultan and the patriarch have been confounded by the ignorance of natives and travellers.

k Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.

1 Bobadin, p. 129, 130.

m For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of Tyre, from the ninth to the twenty-second book. Jacob à Vitriaco, Hist. Hiero solem. 1. i. and Sanutus, Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii. p. vi. vii. viii. ix.

waged a strenuous, and not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but the son of Amaury, Baldwin the fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, a gift of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His sister Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the fifth, was his natural heiress: after the suspicious death of her child, she crowned her second husband, Guy of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person, but of such base renown, that his own brother Jeffrey was heard to exclaim, "Since they have made him a king, surely they would have made me a god!” The choice was generally blamed; and the most powerful vassal, Raymond count of Tripoli, who had been excluded from the succession and regency, entertained an implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honour and conSuch science to the temptations of the sultan. were the guardians of the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor: yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe, by the valour of the military orders, and by the distant or domestic avocations of their great enemy. At length, on every side, the sinking state was encircled and pressed by a hostile line; and the truce was violated by the Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier of fortune, Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge of the desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet, and threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin condescended to complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice; and at the head of fourscore thousand horse and foot, invaded the Holy Land. The choice of Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by the count of Tripoli, to whom it belonged; and the king of Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his garrisons, and to arm his people for the relief of that important place." By the advice of the perfidious Raymond, the christians were betrayed into a camp destitute of water: he fled on the first onset, with the curses of both nations: Lusignan was overthrown, with the loss of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross, a dire misfortune! was left in the power of the infidels. The royal captive was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted with thirst and terror, the generous victor presented him with a cup of sherbet, cooled in snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald of Chatillon, to partake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. "The person and dignity of a king," said the sultan, “ sacred; but this impious robber must instantly acknowledge the prophet whom he has blasphemed, or meet the death which he has so often deserved." On the proud or conscientious refusal of the christian warrior, Saladin struck him on the head with

are

n Templarii ut apes bombabant et hospitalarii ut venti stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the christian light troops) semetipsi in ignem injiciebant; (Ispahani de Expugnatione Kudsiticâ, p. 18. apud Schultens;) a specimen of Arabian eloquence, somewhat different from the style of Xenophon. o The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the treason of Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he would have been a saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.

P Renaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebrated by the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the latter are

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his scymitar, and Reginald was despatched by the guards. The trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honourable prison and speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution of two hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions and martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left without a head; and of the two grand masters of the military orders, the one was slain and the other was a prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and the inland country, the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field: Tyre and Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and three months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before the gates of Jerusalem.

and city of Jerusalem, A. D. 1187. October 2.

He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on earth and in heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle the last sparks of enthusiasm; and that of sixty thousand christians, every man would be a soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. But queen Sybilla trembled for herself and her captive husband; and the barons and knights, who had escaped from the sword and chains of the Turks, displayed the same factious and selfish spirit in the public ruin. The most numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of the Greek and oriental christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the Mahometan before the Latin yoke; and the holy sepulchre attracted a base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who subsisted only on the charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for the defence of Jerusalem; but in the space of fourteen days, a victorious army drove back the sallies of the besieged, planted their engines, opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their scalingladders, and erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophet and the sultan. It was in vain that a bare-foot procession of the queen, the women, and the monks, implored the Son of God to save his tomb and his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope was in the mercy of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant deputation that mercy was sternly denied. He had sworn to avenge the patience and long-suffering of the Moslems; the hour of forgiveness was elapsed, and the moment was now arrived to expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which had been spilt by Godfrey and the first crusaders." But a desperate and successful struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumph was not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjuration in the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of human sympathy mollified the rigour of fanaticism and

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more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville (Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70.) alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never putting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of the companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur. (Abulfeda, p. 32.)

q Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p. 226–278.) inserts two original. epistles of a knight templar.

T Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.

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