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In a style less grave than that of history, I should perhaps
compare the emperor Alexius (1) to the jackal, who is said to
follow the steps, and to devour the leavings, of the lion.
Whatever had been his fears and toils in the passage of the
first crusade, they were amply recompensed by the subsequent
benefits which he derived from the exploits of the Franks.
His dexterity and vigilance secured their first conquest of
Nice; and from this threatening station the Turks were
compelled to evacuate the neighborhood of Constantinople.
While the crusaders, with blind valor, advanced into the
midland countries of Asia, the crafty Greek improved the
favorable occasion when the emirs of the sea-coast were
recalled to the standard of the sultan. The Turks were
driven from the Isles of Rhodes and Chios: the cities of
Ephesu and Smyrna, of Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea,
were restored to the empire, which Alexius enlarged from the
Hellespont to the banks of the Maeander, and the rocky
shores of Pamphylia. The churches resumed their splendor:
the towns were rebuilt and fortified; and the desert country
was peopled with colonies of Christians, who were gently
removed from the more distant and dangerous frontier. In
these paternal cares, we may forgive Alexius, if he forgot
the deliverance of the holy sepulchre; but, by the Latins,
he was stigmatized with the foul reproach of treason and
desertion. They had sworn fidelity and obedience to his
throne; but he had promised to assist their enterprise in
person, or, at least, with his troops and treasures: his
base retreat dissolved their obligations; and the sword,
which had been the instrument of their victory, was the
pledge and title of their just independence. It does not
appear that the emperor attempted to revive his obsolete
claims over the kingdom of Jerusalem; (2) but the borders of
Cilicia and Syria were more recent in his possession, and
more accessible to his arms. The great army of the
crusaders was annihilated or dispersed; the principality of
Antioch was left without a head, by the surprise and
captivity of Bohemond; his ransom had oppressed him with a
heavy debt; and his Norman followers were insufficient to
repel the hostilities of the Greeks and Turks. In this
distress, Bohemond embraced a magnanimous resolution, of
leaving the defence of Antioch to his kinsman, the faithful
Tancred; of arming the West against the Byzantine empire;
and of executing the design which he inherited from the
lessons and example of his father Guiscard. His embarkation
was clandestine: and, if we may credit a tale of the
princess Anne, he passed the hostile sea closely secreted in
a coffin. (3) But his reception in France was dignified by
the public applause, and his marriage with the king's
daughter: his return was glorious, since the bravest spirits
of the age enlisted under his veteran command; and he
repassed the Adriatic at the head of five thousand horse and
forty thousand foot, assembled from the most remote climates
of Europe. (4) The strength of Durazzo, and prudence of
Alexius, the progress of famine and approach of winter,
eluded his ambitious hopes; and the venal confederates were
seduced from his standard. A treaty of peace (5) suspended
the fears of the Greeks; and they were finally delivered by
the death of an adversary, whom neither oaths could bind,
nor dangers could appal, nor prosperity could satiate. His
children succeeded to the principality of Antioch; but the
boundaries were strictly defined, the homage was clearly
stipulated, and the cities of Tarsus and Malmistra were
restored to the Byzantine emperors. Of the coast of
Anatolia, they possessed the entire circuit from Trebizond
to the Syrian gates. The Seljukian dynasty of Roum (6) was
separated on all sides from the sea and their Mussulman
brethren; the power of the sultan was shaken by the
victories and even the defeats of the Franks; and after the
loss of Nice, they removed their throne to Cogni or Iconium,
an obscure and in land town above three hundred miles from
Constantinople. (7) Instead of trembling for their capital,
the Comnenian princes waged an offensive war against the
Turks, and the first crusade prevented the fall of the
declining empire.
In the twelfth century, three great emigrations marched by
land from the West for the relief of Palestine. The
soldiers and pilgrims of Lombardy, France, and Germany were
excited by the example and success of the first crusade. (8)
Forty-eight years after the deliverance of the holy
sepulchre, the emperor, and the French king, Conrad the
Third and Louis the Seventh, undertook the second crusade to
support the falling fortunes of the Latins. (9) A grand
division of the third crusade was led by the emperor
Frederic Barbarossa, (10) who sympathized with his brothers
of France and England in the common loss of Jerusalem. These
three expeditions may be compared in their resemblance of
the greatness of numbers, their passage through the Greek
empire, and the nature and event of their Turkish warfare,
and a brief parallel may save the repetition of a tedious
narrative. However splendid it may seem, a regular story of
the crusades would exhibit the perpetual return of the same
causes and effects; and the frequent attempts for the
defence or recovery of the Holy Land would appear so many
faint and unsuccessful copies of the original.
I. Of the swarms that so closely trod in the footsteps of
the first pilgrims, the chiefs were equal in rank, though
unequal in fame and merit, to Godfrey of Bouillon and his
fellow-adventurers. At their head were displayed the banners
of the dukes of Burgundy, Bavaria, and Aquitain; the first a
descendant of Hugh Capet, the second, a father of the
Brunswick line: the archbishop of Milan, a temporal prince,
transported, for the benefit of the Turks, the treasures and
ornaments of his church and palace; and the veteran
crusaders, Hugh the Great and Stephen of Chartres, returned
to consummate their unfinished vow. The huge and disorderly
bodies of their followers moved forward in two columns; and
if the first consisted of two hundred and sixty thousand
persons, the second might possibly amount to sixty thousand
horse and one hundred thousand foot. (11) (A) The armies of
the second crusade might have claimed the conquest of Asia;
the nobles of France and Germany were animated by the
presence of their sovereigns; and both the rank and personal
character of Conrad and Louis gave a dignity to their cause,
and a discipline to their force, which might be vainly
expected from the feudatory chiefs. The cavalry of the
emperor, and that of the king, was each composed of seventy
thousand knights, and their immediate attendants in the
field; (12) and if the light-armed troops, the peasant
infantry, the women and children, the priests and monks, be
rigorously excluded, the full account will scarcely be
satisfied with four hundred thousand souls. The West, from
Rome to Britain, was called into action; the kings of Poland
and Bohemia obeyed the summons of Conrad; and it is affirmed
by the Greeks and Latins, that, in the passage of a strait
or river, the Byzantine agents, after a tale of nine hundred
thousand, desisted from the endless and formidable
computation. (13) In the third crusade, as the French and
English preferred the navigation of the Mediterranean, the
host of Frederic Barbarossa was less numerous. Fifteen
thousand knights, and as many squires, were the flower of
the German chivalry: sixty thousand horse, and one hundred
thousand foot, were mustered by the emperor in the plains of
Hungary; and after such repetitions, we shall no longer be
startled at the six hundred thousand pilgrims, which
credulity has ascribed to this last emigration. (14) Such
extravagant reckonings prove only the astonishment of
contemporaries; but their astonishment most strongly bears
testimony to the existence of an enormous, though
indefinite, multitude. The Greeks might applaud their
superior knowledge of the arts and stratagems of war, but
they confessed the strength and courage of the French
cavalry, and the infantry of the Germans; (15) and the
strangers are described as an iron race, of gigantic
stature, who darted fire from their eyes, and spilt blood
like water on the ground. Under the banners of Conrad, a
troop of females rode in the attitude and armor of men; and
the chief of these Amazons, from her gilt spurs and buskins,
obtained the epithet of the Goldenfooted Dame.
II. The number and character of the strangers was an object
of terror to the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of
fear is nearly allied to that of hatred. This aversion was
suspended or softened by the apprehension of the Turkish
power; and the invectives of the Latins will not bias our
more candid belief, that the emperor Alexius dissembled
their insolence, eluded their hostilities, counselled their
rashness, and opened to their ardor the road of pilgrimage
and conquest. But when the Turks had been driven from Nice
and the sea-coast, when the Byzantine princes no longer
dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, they felt with purer
indignation the free and frequent passage of the western
Barbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the
safety, of the empire. The second and third crusades were
undertaken under the reign of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac
Angelus. Of the former, the passions were always impetuous,
and often malevolent; and the natural union of a cowardly
and a mischievous temper was exemplified in the latter, who,
without merit or mercy, could punish a tyrant, and occupy
his throne. It was secretly, and perhaps tacitly, resolved
by the prince and people to destroy, or at least to
discourage, the pilgrims, by every species of injury and
oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline
continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The
Western monarchs had stipulated a safe passage and fair
market in the country of their Christian brethren; the
treaty had been ratified by oaths and hostages; and the
poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished with three
marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But
every engagement was violated by treachery and injustice;
and the complaints of the Latins are attested by the honest
confession of a Greek historian, who has dared to prefer
truth to his country. (16) Instead of a hospitable reception,
the gates of the cities, both in Europe and Asia, were
closely barred against the crusaders; and the scanty
pittance of food was let down in baskets from the walls.
Experience or foresight might excuse this timid jealousy;
but the common duties of humanity prohibited the mixture of
chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, in the bread; and
should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, he is
guilty of coining base money for the purpose of trading with
the pilgrims. In every step of their march they were stopped
or misled: the governors had private orders to fortify the
passes and break down the bridges against them: the
stragglers were pillaged and murdered: the soldiers and
horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible
hand; the sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies
were hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries
exasperated the champions of the cross, who were not endowed
with evangelical patience; and the Byzantine princes, who
had provoked the unequal conflict, promoted the embarkation
and march of these formidable guests. On the verge of the
Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared the guilty Philadelphia,
(17) rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and deplored the hard
necessity that had stained his sword with any drops of
Christian blood. In their intercourse with the monarchs of
Germany and France, the pride of the Greeks was exposed to
an anxious trial. They might boast that on the first
interview the seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the
throne of Manuel; (18) but no sooner had the French king
transported his army beyond the Bosphorus, than he refused
the offer of a second conference, unless his brother would
meet him on equal terms, either on the sea or land. With
Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still nicer and more
difficult: like the successors of Constantine, they styled
themselves emperors of the Romans; (19) and firmly maintained
the purity of their title and dignity. The first of these
representatives of Charlemagne would only converse with
Manuel on horseback in the open field; the second, by
passing the Hellespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined
the view of Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor,
who had been crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek
epistles to the humble appellation of Rex, or prince, of the
Alemanni; and the vain and feeble Angelus affected to be
ignorant of the name of one of the greatest men and monarchs
of the age. While they viewed with hatred and suspicion the
Latin pilgrims the Greek emperors maintained a strict,
though secret, alliance with the Turks and Saracens. Isaac
Angelus complained, that by his friendship for the great
Saladin he had incurred the enmity of the Franks; and a
mosque was founded at Constantinople for the public exercise
of the religion of Mahomet. (20)
III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were
destroyed in Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish
arrows; and the princes only escaped with some squadrons of
horse to accomplish their lamentable pilgrimage. A just
opinion may be formed of their knowledge and humanity; of
their knowledge, from the design of subduing Persia and
Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem; (B) of their humanity,
from the massacre of the Christian people, a friendly city,
who came out to meet them with palms and crosses in their
hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis were less cruel and
imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was still
more ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused
by his own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the
sultan, and treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead
of crushing the common foe, by a double attack at the same
time but on different sides, the Germans were urged by
emulation, and the French were retarded by jealousy. Louis
had scarcely passed the Bosphorus when he was met by the
returning emperor, who had lost the greater part of his army
in glorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks of the
Maender. The contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the
retreat of Conrad: (C) the desertion of his independent
vassals reduced him to his hereditary troops; and he
borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the pilgrimage
of Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience,
or the nature of the war, the king of France advanced
through the same country to a similar fate. The vanguard,
which bore the royal banner and the oriflamme of St. Denys,
(21) had doubled their march with rash and inconsiderate
speed; and the rear, which the king commanded in person, no
longer found their companions in the evening camp. In
darkness and disorder, they were encompassed, assaulted, and
overwhelmed, by the innumerable host of Turks, who, in the
art of war, were superior to the Christians of the twelfth
century. (D) Louis, who climbed a tree in the general
discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance
of his adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped
alive, but almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But
instead of pursuing his expedition by land, he was rejoiced
to shelter the relics of his army in the friendly seaport of
Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch; but so
penurious was the supply of Greek vessels, that they could
only afford room for his knights and nobles; and the
plebeian crowd of infantry was left to perish at the foot of
the Pamphylian hills. The emperor and the king embraced and
wept at Jerusalem; their martial trains, the remnant of
mighty armies, were joined to the Christian powers of Syria,
and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effort of
the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe
with the personal fame of piety and courage; but the
Orientals had braved these potent monarchs of the Franks,
with whose names and military forces they had been so often
threatened. (22) Perhaps they had still more to fear from the
veteran genius of Frederic the First, who in his youth had
served in Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in
Germany and Italy had taught Barbarossa to command; and his
soldiers, even the princes of the empire, were accustomed
under his reign to obey. As soon as he lost sight of
Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the Greek
frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a land
(says the historian) of horror and tribulation. (23) During
twenty days, every step of his fainting and sickly march was
besieged by the innumerable hordes of Turkmans, (24) whose
numbers and fury seemed after each defeat to multiply and
inflame. The emperor continued to struggle and to suffer;
and such was the measure of his calamities, that when he
reached the gates of Iconium, no more than one thousand
knights were able to serve on horseback. By a sudden and
resolute assault he defeated the guards, and stormed the
capital of the sultan, (25) who humbly sued for pardon and
peace. The road was now open, and Frederic advanced in a
career of triumph, till he was unfortunately drowned in a
petty torrent of Cilicia. (26) The remainder of his Germans
was consumed by sickness and desertion: and the emperor's
son expired with the greatest part of his Swabian vassals at
the siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes, Godfrey of
Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve the
passage of the Lesser Asia; yet even their success was a
warning; and in the last and most experienced age of the
crusades, every nation preferred the sea to the toils and
perils of an inland expedition. (27)
The enthusiasm of the first crusade is a natural and simple
event, while hope was fresh, danger untried, and enterprise
congenial to the spirit of the times. But the obstinate
perseverance of Europe may indeed excite our pity and
admiration; that no instruction should have been drawn from
constant and adverse experience; that the same confidence
should have repeatedly grown from the same failures; that
six succeeding generations should have rushed headlong down
the precipice that was open before them; and that men of
every condition should have staked their public and private
fortunes on the desperate adventure of possessing or
recovering a tombstone two thousand miles from their
country. In a period of two centuries after the council of
Clermont, each spring and summer produced a new emigration
of pilgrim warriors for the defence of the Holy Land; but
the seven great armaments or crusades were excited by some
impending or recent calamity: the nations were moved by the
authority of their pontiffs, and the example of their kings:
their zeal was kindled, and their reason was silenced, by
the voice of their holy orators; and among these, Bernard,
(28) the monk, or the saint, may claim the most honorable
place. (E) About eight years before the first conquest of
Jerusalem, he was born of a noble family in Burgundy; at the
age of three- and-twenty he buried himself in the monastery
of Citeaux, then in the primitive fervor of the institution;
at the end of two years he led forth her third colony, or
daughter, to the valley of Clairvaux (29) in Champagne; and
was content, till the hour of his death, with the humble
station of abbot of his own community. A philosophic age has
abolished, with too liberal and indiscriminate disdain, the
honors of these spiritual heroes. The meanest among them
are distinguished by some energies of the mind; they were at
least superior to their votaries and disciples; and, in the
race of superstition, they attained the prize for which such
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, (30) 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. (31) 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: (F) 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. (32) 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 favor, he prudently declined a
military command, in which failure and victory would have
been almost equally disgraceful to his character. (33) 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 pilgrims to their own sins; and modestly
insinuates, that his mission had been approved by signs and
wonders. (34) 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. (35) 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 the murmurs of its
discordant votaries; 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. (36) 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 valor, 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. (37) While the sultans
were involved in the silken web of the harem, the pious task
was undertaken by their slaves, the Atabeks, (38) a Turkish
name, which, like the Byzantine patricians, may be
translated by Father of the Prince. Ascansar, a valiant
Turk, had been the favorite 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 government 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 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 twenty-five days, he
stormed the city of Edessa, and recovered from the Franks
their conquests beyond the Euphrates: (39) 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; (G)
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. (40) 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 favorite
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.
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 (41)
have described their own introduction, through a series of
gloomy passages, and glittering porticos: 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 vizier, who conducted the
ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, 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 viziers 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 Frank, 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 Shiracouh 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 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 countermarches 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
(42) exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the Christian
dogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards of the
sultan, and retire to labor with the peasants, or to spin
with the females of the harem?" Yet, after all his efforts
in the field, (43) after the obstinate defence of Alexandria
(44) by his nephew Saladin, an honorable capitulation and
retreat (H) concluded the second enterprise of Shiracouh; 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. (I) 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
vizier, 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 negotiation, 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 honor, which he soon stained
with the blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the
Turkish emirs condescended to hold the office of vizier; but
this foreign conquest precipitated the fall of the Fatimites
themselves; and the bloodless change was accomplished by a
message and a word. The caliphs had been degraded by their
own weakness and the tyranny of the viziers: 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 color 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. (45)
The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the
pastoral tribes of the Curds; (46) a people hardy, strong,
savage impatient of the yoke, addicted to rapine, and
tenacious of the government of their national chiefs. The
resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to
identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; (47) 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; (48) and the son of
Job or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his
pedigree, which flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs.
(49) 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, he solicited and obtained from the
Christian general the profane honors of knighthood. (50) On
the death of Shiracouh, the office of grand vizier 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.
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 sons 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 (51) that could sanctify his
usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin 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 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 revolutions of Asia, (52) 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 behavior 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 color over
their lives and actions. The youth of the latter (53) 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 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. (54) 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
invented 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 distributed twelve thousand horses at the siege of
Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than
forty-seven drams 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, colleges, and mosques; and Cairo was fortified
with a wall and citadel; but his works were consecrated to
public use: (55) 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 Saladin commanded
the esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germany gloried
in his friendship; (56) the Greek emperor solicited his
alliance; (57) and the conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and
perhaps magnified, his fame both in the East and West.
During his short existence, the kingdom of Jerusalem (58) was
supported by the discord of the Turks and Saracens; 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 threatening
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, 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 honor and conscience to
the temptations of the sultan. Such 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 valor 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 garrison, and to arm his people,
for the relief of that important place. (59) 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: (60) 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. (J) 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, "are 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 his cimeter, and Reginald was
despatched by the guards. (61) The trembling Lusignan was
sent to Damascus, to an honorable 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. (62)
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; (63) 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 scaling-ladders, and erected on the breach
twelve banners of the prophet and the sultan. It was in
vain that a barefoot 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 rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He
consented to accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants.
The Greek and Oriental Christians were permitted to live
under his dominion, but it was stipulated, that in forty
days all the Franks and Latins should evacuate Jerusalem,
and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt;
that ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five
for each woman, and one for every child; and that those who
were unable to purchase their freedom should be detained in
perpetual slavery. Of some writers it is a favorite and
invidious theme to compare the humanity of Saladin with the
massacre of the first crusade. The difference would be
merely personal; but we should not forget that the
Christians had offered to capitulate, and that the
Mahometans of Jerusalem sustained the last extremities of an
assault and storm. Justice is indeed due to the fidelity
with which the Turkish conqueror fulfilled the conditions of
the treaty; and he may be deservedly praised for the glance
of pity which he cast on the misery of the vanquished.
Instead of a rigorous exaction of his debt, he accepted a
sum of thirty thousand byzants, for the ransom of seven
thousand poor; two or three thousand more were dismissed by
his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves was
reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this
interview with the queen, his words, and even his tears
suggested the kindest consolations; his liberal alms were
distributed among those who had been made orphans or widows
by the fortune of war; and while the knights of the hospital
were in arms against him, he allowed their more pious
brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care
and service of the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue
of Saladin deserves our admiration and love: he was above
the necessity of dissimulation, and his stern fanaticism
would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than to affect,
this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After
Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the
strangers, the sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners
waving in the wind, and to the harmony of martial music.
The great mosque of Omar, which had been converted into a
church, was again consecrated to one God and his prophet
Mahomet: the walls and pavement were purified with
rose-water; and a pulpit, the labor of Noureddin, was
erected in the sanctuary. But when the golden cross that
glittered on the dome was cast down, and dragged through the
streets, the Christians of every sect uttered a lamentable
groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of the
Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected
the crosses, the images, the vases, and the relics of the
holy place; they were seized by the conqueror, who was
desirous of presenting the caliph with the trophies of
Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however, to intrust
them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the pious
pledge was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of
fifty-two thousand byzants of gold. (64)
The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final
expulsion of the Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed
above a century after the death of Saladin. (65) In the
career of victory, he was first checked by the resistance of
Tyre; the troops and garrisons, which had capitulated, were
imprudently conducted to the same port: their numbers were
adequate to the defence of the place; and the arrival of
Conrad of Montferrat inspired the disorderly crowd with
confidence and union. His father, a venerable pilgrim, had
been made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; but that
disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when the son was
urged by ambition and piety to visit the inheritance of his
royal nephew, the infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish
banners warned him from the hostile coast of Jaffa; and
Conrad was unanimously hailed as the prince and champion of
Tyre, which was already besieged by the conqueror of
Jerusalem. The firmness of his zeal, and perhaps his
knowledge of a generous foe, enabled him to brave the
threats of the sultan, and to declare, that should his aged
parent be exposed before the walls, he himself would
discharge the first arrow, and glory in his descent from a
Christian martyr. (66) The Egyptian fleet was allowed to
enter the harbor of Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn,
and five galleys were either sunk or taken: a thousand Turks
were slain in a sally; and Saladin, after burning his
engines, concluded a glorious campaign by a disgraceful
retreat to Damascus. He was soon assailed by a more
formidable tempest. The pathetic narratives, and even the
pictures, that represented in lively colors the servitude
and profanation of Jerusalem, awakened the torpid
sensibility of Europe: the emperor Frederic Barbarossa, and
the kings of France and England, assumed the cross; and the
tardy magnitude of their armaments was anticipated by the
maritime states of the Mediterranean and the Ocean. The
skilful and provident Italians first embarked in the ships
of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. They were speedily followed by
the most eager pilgrims of France, Normandy, and the Western
Isles. The powerful succor of Flanders, Frise, and Denmark,
filled near a hundred vessels: and the Northern warriors
were distinguished in the field by a lofty stature and a
ponderous battle- axe. (67) Their increasing multitudes could
no longer be confined within the walls of Tyre, or remain
obedient to the voice of Conrad. They pitied the
misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan, who was
released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the
Franks. He proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre,
thirty miles to the south of Tyre; and the place was first
invested by two thousand horse and thirty thousand foot
under his nominal command. I shall not expatiate on the
story of this memorable siege; which lasted near two years,
and consumed, in a narrow space, the forces of Europe and
Asia. Never did the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer
and more destructive rage; nor could the true believers, a
common appellation, who consecrated their own martyrs,
refuse some applause to the mistaken zeal and courage of
their adversaries. At the sound of the holy trumpet, the
Moslems of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces,
assembled under the servant of the prophet: (68) his camp was
pitched and removed within a few miles of Acre; and he
labored, night and day, for the relief of his brethren and
the annoyance of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy of
the name, were fought in the neighborhood of Mount Carmel,
with such vicissitude of fortune, that in one attack, the
sultan forced his way into the city; that in one sally, the
Christians penetrated to the royal tent. By the means of
divers and pigeons, a regular correspondence was maintained
with the besieged; and, as often as the sea was left open,
the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and a fresh supply was
poured into the place. The Latin camp was thinned by
famine, the sword and the climate; but the tents of the dead
were replenished with new pilgrims, who exaggerated the
strength and speed of their approaching countrymen. The
vulgar was astonished by the report, that the pope himself,
with an innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as
Constantinople. The march of the emperor filled the East
with more serious alarms: the obstacles which he encountered
in Asia, and perhaps in Greece, were raised by the policy of
Saladin: his joy on the death of Barbarossa was measured by
his esteem; and the Christians were rather dismayed than
encouraged at the sight of the duke of Swabia and his
way-worn remnant of five thousand Germans. At length, in
the spring of the second year, the royal fleets of France
and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and the siege
was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful emulation of
the two kings, Philip Augustus and Richard Plantagenet.
After every resource had been tried, and every hope was
exhausted, the defenders of Acre submitted to their fate; a
capitulation was granted, but their lives and liberties were
taxed at the hard conditions of a ransom of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred
nobles, and fifteen hundred inferior captives, and the
restoration of the wood of the holy cross. Some doubts in
the agreement, and some delay in the execution, rekindled
the fury of the Franks, and three thousand Moslems, almost
in the sultan's view, were beheaded by the command of the
sanguinary Richard. (69) By the conquest of Acre, the Latin
powers acquired a strong town and a convenient harbor; but
the advantage was most dearly purchased. The minister and
historian of Saladin computes, from the report of the enemy,
that their numbers, at different periods, amounted to five
or six hundred thousand; that more than one hundred thousand
Christians were slain; that a far greater number was lost by
disease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this
mighty host could return in safety to their native
countries. (70)
Philip Augustus, and Richard the First, are the only kings
of France and England who have fought under the same
banners; but the holy service in which they were enlisted
was incessantly disturbed by their national jealousy; and
the two factions, which they protected in Palestine, were
more averse to each other than to the common enemy. In the
eyes of the Orientals; the French monarch was superior in
dignity and power; and, in the emperor's absence, the Latins
revered him as their temporal chief. (71) His exploits were
not adequate to his fame. Philip was brave, but the
statesman predominated in his character; he was soon weary
of sacrificing his health and interest on a barren coast:
the surrender of Acre became the signal of his departure;
nor could he justify this unpopular desertion, by leaving
the duke of Burgundy with five hundred knights and ten
thousand foot, for the service of the Holy Land. The king
of England, though inferior in dignity, surpassed his rival
in wealth and military renown; (72) and if heroism be
confined to brutal and ferocious valor, Richard Plantagenet
will stand high among the heroes of the age. The memory of
Coeur de Lion, of the lion-hearted prince, was long dear and
glorious to his English subjects; and, at the distance of
sixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the
grandsons of the Turks and Saracens, against whom he had
fought: his tremendous name was employed by the Syrian
mothers to silence their infants; and if a horse suddenly
started from the way, his rider was wont to exclaim, "Dost
thou think King Richard is in that bush?" (73) His cruelty to
the Mahometans was the effect of temper and zeal; but I
cannot believe that a soldier, so free and fearless in the
use of his lance, would have descended to whet a dagger
against his valiant brother Conrad of Montferrat, who was
slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. (74) After the
surrender of Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of
England led the crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast;
and the cities of Caesarea and Jaffa were added to the
fragments of the kingdom of Lusignan. A march of one hundred
miles from Acre to Ascalon was a great and perpetual battle
of eleven days. In the disorder of his troops, Saladin
remained on the field with seventeen guards, without
lowering his standard, or suspending the sound of his brazen
kettle-drum: he again rallied and renewed the charge; and
his preachers or heralds called aloud on the unitarians,
manfully to stand up against the Christian idolaters. But
the progress of these idolaters was irresistible; and it was
only by demolishing the walls and buildings of Ascalon, that
the sultan could prevent them from occupying an important
fortress on the confines of Egypt. During a severe winter,
the armies slept; but in the spring, the Franks advanced
within a day's march of Jerusalem, under the leading
standard of the English king; and his active spirit
intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven thousand camels.
Saladin (75) had fixed his station in the holy city; but the
city was struck with consternation and discord: he fasted;
he prayed; he preached; he offered to share the dangers of
the siege; but his Mamalukes, who remembered the fate of
their companions at Acre, pressed the sultan with loyal or
seditious clamors, to reserve his person and their courage
for the future defence of the religion and empire. (76) The
Moslems were delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed,
the miraculous, retreat of the Christians; (77) and the
laurels of Richard were blasted by the prudence, or envy, of
his companions. The hero, ascending a hill, and veiling his
face, exclaimed with an indignant voice, "Those who are
unwilling to rescue, are unworthy to view, the sepulchre of
Christ!" After his return to Acre, on the news that Jaffa
was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with some merchant
vessels, and leaped foremost on the beach: the castle was
relieved by his presence; and sixty thousand Turks and
Saracens fled before his arms. The discovery of his
weakness, provoked them to return in the morning; and they
found him carelessly encamped before the gates with only
seventeen knights and three hundred archers. Without
counting their numbers, he sustained their charge; and we
learn from the evidence of his enemies, that the king of
England, grasping his lance, rode furiously along their
front, from the right to the left wing, without meeting an
adversary who dared to encounter his career. (78) Am I
writing the history of Orlando or Amadis?
During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation
(79) between the Franks and Moslems was started, and
continued, and broken, and again resumed, and again broken.
Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snow and fruit, the
exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened the
asperity of religious war: from the vicissitude of success,
the monarchs might learn to suspect that Heaven was neutral
in the quarrel; nor, after the trial of each other, could
either hope for a decisive victory. (80) The health both of
Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a declining state; and
they respectively suffered the evils of distant and domestic
warfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish a perfidious
rival who had invaded Normandy in his absence; and the
indefatigable sultan was subdued by the cries of the people,
who was the victim, and of the soldiers, who were the
instruments, of his martial zeal. The first demands of the
king of England were the restitution of Jerusalem,
Palestine, and the true cross; and he firmly declared, that
himself and his brother pilgrims would end their lives in
the pious labor, rather than return to Europe with ignominy
and remorse. But the conscience of Saladin refused, without
some weighty compensation, to restore the idols, or promote
the idolatry, of the Christians; he asserted, with equal
firmness, his religious and civil claim to the sovereignty
of Palestine; descanted on the importance and sanctity of
Jerusalem; and rejected all terms of the establishment, or
partition of the Latins. The marriage which Richard
proposed, of his sister with the sultan's brother, was
defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred
the embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not
easily renounce a plurality of wives. A personal interview
was declined by Saladin, who alleged their mutual ignorance
of each other's language; and the negotiation was managed
with much art and delay by their interpreters and envoys.
The final agreement was equally disapproved by the zealots
of both parties, by the Roman pontiff and the caliph of
Bagdad. It was stipulated that Jerusalem and the holy
sepulchre should be open, without tribute or vexation, to
the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that, after the
demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess the
sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and
the 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 dishonor. 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, (81) 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.
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 interdict 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, (85) 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. (86)
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 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. (87)
The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were
under the immediate protection of the popes; and these
spiritual patrons soon claimed the prerogative of directing
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 forever 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 harbors 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 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. (89) 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, (90) from whence the prophet undertook
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.
(91) Flying from the arms of the Moguls, those shepherds (K)
of the Caspian rolled headlong on Syria; and the union of
the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo, Hems, and Damascus,
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.
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 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 honorable testimony, that he united
the virtues of a king, a 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 neighbors, 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 content to applaud the most despicable part of his
character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, (94) who
shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced
with the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues
as well as of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we
may learn to suspect the political views of depressing their
great vassals, which are so often imputed to the royal
authors of the crusades. Above all the princes of the
middle ages, Louis the Ninth successfully labored to restore
the prerogatives of the crown; but it was at home and not in
the East, that he acquired for himself and his posterity:
his vow was the result of enthusiasm and sickness; and if he
were the promoter, he was likewise the victim, of his holy
madness. For the invasion of Egypt, France was exhausted of
her troops and treasures; he covered the sea of Cyprus with
eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration amounts
to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own
confession, as it is reported by Oriental vanity, he
disembarked nine thousand five hundred horse, and one
hundred and thirty thousand foot, who performed their
pilgrimage under the shadow of his power. (95)
In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis
leaped foremost on the beach; and the strong city of
Damietta, which had cost his predecessors a siege of sixteen
months, was abandoned on the first assault by the trembling
Moslems. But Damietta was the first and the last of his
conquests; and in the fifth and sixth crusades, the same
causes, almost on the same ground, were productive of
similar calamities. (96) After a ruinous delay, which
introduced into the camp the seeds of an epidemic disease,
the Franks advanced from the sea-coast towards the capital
of Egypt, and strove to surmount the unseasonable inundation
of the Nile, which opposed their progress. Under the eye of
their intrepid monarch, the barons and knights of France
displayed their invincible contempt of danger and
discipline: his brother, the count of Artois, stormed with
inconsiderate valor the town of Massoura; and the carrier
pigeons announced to the inhabitants of Cairo that all was
lost. But a soldier, who afterwards usurped the sceptre,
rallied the flying troops: the main body of the Christians
was far behind the vanguard; and Artois was overpowered and
slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantly poured on the
invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian galleys,
the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were
intercepted; each day aggravated the sickness and famine;
and about the same time a retreat was found to be necessary
and impracticable. The Oriental writers confess, that Louis
might have escaped, if he would have deserted his subjects;
he was made prisoner, with the greatest part of his nobles;
all who could not redeem their lives by service or ransom
were inhumanly massacred; and the walls of Cairo were
decorated with a circle of Christian heads. (97) The king of
France was loaded with chains; but the generous victor, a
great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent a robe of
honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with that
of his soldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta
(98) and the payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold.
In a soft and luxurious climate, the degenerate children of
the companions of Noureddin and Saladin were incapable of
resisting the flower of European chivalry: they triumphed by
the arms of their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy natives of
Tartary, who at a tender age had been purchased of the
Syrian merchants, and were educated in the camp and palace
of the sultan. But Egypt soon afforded a new example of the
danger of praetorian bands; and the rage of these ferocious
animals, who had been let loose on the strangers, was
provoked to devour their benefactor. In the pride of
conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by
his Mamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered
the chamber of the captive king, with drawn cimeters, and
their hands imbrued in the blood of their sultan. The
firmness of Louis commanded their respect; (99) their avarice
prevailed over cruelty and zeal; the treaty was
accomplished; and the king of France, with the relics of his
army, was permitted to embark for Palestine. He wasted four
years within the walls of Acre, unable to visit Jerusalem,
and unwilling to return without glory to his native country.
The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years
of wisdom and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of
the crusades. His finances were restored, his kingdom was
enlarged; a new generation of warriors had arisen, and he
advanced with fresh confidence at the head of six thousand
horse and thirty thousand foot. The loss of Antioch had
provoked the enterprise; a wild hope of baptizing the king
of Tunis tempted him to steer for the African coast; and the
report of an immense treasure reconciled his troops to the
delay of their voyage to the Holy Land. Instead of a
proselyte, he found a siege: the French panted and died on
the burning sands: St. Louis expired in his tent; and no
sooner had he closed his eyes, than his son and successor
gave the signal of the retreat. (100) "It is thus," says a
lively writer, "that a Christian king died near the ruins of
Carthage, waging war against the sectaries of Mahomet, in a
land to which Dido had introduced the deities of Syria."
(101)
A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than
that which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual
servitude, under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and
slaves. Yet such has been the state of Egypt above five
hundred years. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite
and Borgite dynasties (102) were themselves promoted from the
Tartar and Circassian bands; and the four-and-twenty beys,
or military chiefs, have ever been succeeded, not by their
sons, but by their servants. They produce the great charter
of their liberties, the treaty of Selim the First with the
republic: (103) and the Othman emperor still accepts from
Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection.
With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two
dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed:
(104) but their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two
pillars of discipline and valor: their sway extended over
Egypt, Nubia, Arabia, and Syria: their Mamalukes were
multiplied from eight hundred to twenty-five thousand horse;
and their numbers were increased by a provincial militia of
one hundred and seven thousand foot, and the occasional aid
of sixty-six thousand Arabs. (105) Princes of such power and
spirit could not long endure on their coast a hostile and
independent nation; and if the ruin of the Franks was
postponed about forty years, they were indebted to the cares
of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the Moguls, and to
the occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among these,
the English reader will observe the name of our first
Edward, who assumed the cross in the lifetime of his father
Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the future
conqueror of Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege;
marched as far as Nazareth with an army of nine thousand
men; emulated the fame of his uncle Richard; extorted, by
his valor, a ten years' truce; (L) and escaped, with a
dangerous wound, from the dagger of a fanatic assassin. (106)
(M) Antioch, (107) whose situation had been less exposed to
the calamities of the holy war, was finally occupied and
ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and Syria;
the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first seat
of the Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of
seventeen, and the captivity of one hundred, thousand of her
inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala,
Tripoli, Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the stronger
castles of the Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell;
and the whole existence of the Franks was confined to the
city and colony of St. John of Acre, which is sometimes
described by the more classic title of Ptolemais.
After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, (108) which is distant
about seventy miles, became the metropolis of the Latin
Christians, and was adorned with strong and stately
buildings, with aqueducts, an artificial port, and a double
wall. The population was increased by the incessant streams
of pilgrims and fugitives: in the pauses of hostility the
trade of the East and West was attracted to this convenient
station; and the market could offer the produce of every
clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this
conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and practised:
of all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and
female inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt;
nor could the abuse of religion be corrected by the
discipline of law. The city had many sovereigns, and no
government. The kings of Jerusalem and Cyprus, of the house
of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the counts of Tripoli
and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital, the temple,
and the Teutonic order, the republics of Venice, Genoa, and
Pisa, the pope's legate, the kings of France and England,
assumed an independent command: seventeen tribunals
exercised the power of life and death; every criminal was
protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual
jealousy of the nations often burst forth in acts of
violence and blood. Some adventurers, who disgraced the
ensign of the cross, compensated their want of pay by the
plunder of the Mahometan villages: nineteen Syrian
merchants, who traded under the public faith, were despoiled
and hanged by the Christians; and the denial of satisfaction
justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched against
Acre, at the head of sixty thousand horse and one hundred
and forty thousand foot: his train of artillery (if I may
use the word) was numerous and weighty: the separate timbers
of a single engine were transported in one hundred wagons;
and the royal historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops
of Hamah, was himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever
might be the vices of the Franks, their courage was
rekindled by enthusiasm and despair; but they were torn by
the discord of seventeen chiefs, and overwhelmed on all
sides by the powers of the sultan. After a siege of thirty
three days, the double wall was forced by the Moslems; the
principal tower yielded to their engines; the Mamalukes made
a general assault; the city was stormed; and death or
slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The
convent, or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three
days longer; but the great master was pierced with an arrow;
and, of five hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less
happy than the victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer
on a scaffold, in the unjust and cruel proscription of the
whole order. The king of Jerusalem, the patriarch and the
great master of the hospital, effected their retreat to the
shore; but the sea was rough, the vessels were insufficient;
and great numbers of the fugitives were drowned before they
could reach the Isle of Cyprus, which might comfort Lusignan
for the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan,
the churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were
demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened the
holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and
a mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast
which had so long resounded with the world's debate. (109)