chapter 3.

"So ended in utter shame and ignominy the Second Crusade. The event seemed to give the lie to the glowing promises and prophecies of St. Bernard. So vast had been the drain of population to feed this holy war that, in the phrase of an eye-witness, the cities and castles were empty, and scarcely one man was left to seven women; and now it was known that the fathers, the husbands, the sons, or the brothers of these miserable women would see their earthly homes no more. The cry of anguish charged Bernard with the crime of sending them forth on an errand in which they had done absolutely nothing and had reaped only wretchedness and disgrace. For a time Bernard himself was struck dumb: but he soon remembered that he had spoken with the authority of God and his vicegerent, and that the guilt or failure must lie at the door of the pilgrims."

_G. W. Cox, The Crusades, chapter 5._

CRUSADES: A. D. 1187. The loss of Jerusalem.

See JERUSALEM: A. D. 1149-1187.

CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192. The Third Great Movement.

When the news reached Europe that Saladin, the redoubtable new champion of Islam had expelled the Christians and the Cross from Jerusalem, polluting once more the precincts of the Holy Sepulchre, the effect produced was something not easily understood at the present day. If we may believe historians of the time, the pope (Urban III.) died of grief; "Christians forgot all the ills of their own country to weep over Jerusalem. ... Luxury was banished from cities; injuries were forgotten and alms were given abundantly, Christians slept upon ashes, clothed themselves in haircloth, and expiated their disorderly lives by fasting and mortification. The clergy set the example; the morals of the cloister were reformed, and cardinals, condemning themselves to poverty, promised to repair to the Holy Land, supported on charity by the way. These pious reformations did not last long; but men's minds were not the less prepared for a new crusade by them, and all Europe was soon roused by the voice of Gregory VIII., who exhorted the faithful to assume the cross and take up arms."

_J. F. Michaud, History of the Crusades, book 7._

"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 succour 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. Their increasing multitudes could no longer be confined within the walls of Tyre [which the Latins still held], or remain obedient to the voice of Conrad [Marquis of Montferrat, who had taken command of the place and repelled the attacks of Saladin]. They pitied the misfortunes and revered the dignity of Lusignan [the nominal king of Jerusalem, lately captive in Saladin's hands], 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 [July, 1189] by 2,000 horse and 30,000 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. ... At the sound of the holy trumpet the Moslems of Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces assembled under the servant of the prophet: his camp was pitched and removed within a few miles of Acre; and he laboured, night and day, for the relief of his brethren and the annoyance of the Franks. ... 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. {631} After every resource had been tried, and every hope was exhausted, the defenders of Acre submitted to their fate. ... By the conquest of Acre the Latin powers acquired a strong town and a convenient harbour; 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 500,000 or 600,000; that more than 100, 000 Christians were slain; that a far greater number was lost by disease or shipwreck." On the reduction of Acre, king Philip Augustus returned to France, leaving only 500 knights and 10,000 men behind him. Meantime, the old emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, coming by the landward route, through the country of the Greeks and Asia Minor, with a well-trained army of 20,000 knights and 50,000 men on foot, had perished by the way, drowned in a little Cilician torrent, and only 5,000 of his troops had reached the camp at Acre. Old as he was, (he was seventy when he took the cross) Barbarossa might have changed the event of the Crusade if he had reached the scene of conflict; for he had brains with his valor and character with his ferocity, which Richard Cœur de Lion had not. The latter remained another year in the Holy Land; recovered Cæsarea and Jaffa; threatened Saladin in Jerusalem seriously, but to no avail; and stirred up more and fiercer quarrels among the Christians than had been customary, even on the soil which was sacred to them. In the end, a treaty was arranged which displeased the more devout on both sides. "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. ... 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."

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 59. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

"A halo of false glory surrounds the Third Crusade from the associations which connect it with the lion-hearted king of England. The exploits of Richard I. have stirred to enthusiasm the dullest of chroniclers, have furnished themes for jubilant eulogies, and have shed over his life that glamour which cheats even sober-minded men when they read the story of his prototype Achilleus in the tale of Troy. ... When we turn from the picture to the reality, we shall see in this Third Crusade an enterprise in which the fiery zeal which does something towards redeeming the savage brutalities of Godfrey and the first crusaders is displaced by base and sordid greed, by intrigues utterly of the earthy, by wanton crimes from which we might well suppose that the sun would hide away its face; and in the leaders of this enterprise we shall see men in whom morally there is scarcely a single quality to relieve the monotonous blackness of their infamy; in whom, strategically, a very little generalship comes to the aid of a blind brute force."

_G. W. Cox, The Crusades, chapter 7._

ALSO IN: _Mrs. W. Busk, Mediaeval Popes, Emperors, Kings and Crusaders, book 2, chapter 12, and book 3, chapter 1-2._

CRUSADES: A. D. 1196-1197. The Fourth Expedition.

A crusading expedition of German barons and their followers, which went to the Holy Land, by way of Italy, in 1196, is generally counted as the Fourth Crusade, though some writers look upon it as a movement supplementary to the Third Crusade. The Germans, who numbered some 40,000, do not seem to have been welcomed by the Christians of Palestine. The latter preferred to maintain the state of peace then prevailing; but the new crusaders forced hostilities at once. Saladin was dead; his brother Saphadin accepted the challenge to war with prompt vigor and struck the first hard blow, taking Jaffa, with great slaughter, and demolishing its fortifications. But Saphadin was presently defeated in a battle fought between Tyre and Sidon, and Jaffa was recovered, together with other towns and most of the coast. But, a little later, the Germans suffered, in their turn, a most demoralizing reverse at the castle of Thoron, which they besieged, and were further disturbed, in the midst of their depression, by news of the death of their emperor, Henry VI. A great part of them, thereupon, returned home. Those who remained, or many of them, occupied Jaffa, where they were attacked, a few months later, and cut to pieces.

_G. W. Cox, The Crusades, chapter 8._

CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1203. The Fifth Movement.- Treachery of the Venetians. Conquest of Constantinople.

"Every traveller returning from Syria brought a prayer for immediate help from the survivors of the Third Crusade. It was necessary to act at once if any portion even of the wreck of the kingdom of Jerusalem were to be saved. Innocent the Third, and some, at least, of the statesmen of the West were fully alive to the progress which Islam had made since the departure of the Western kings. In 1197, however, after five years of weary waiting, the time seemed opportune for striking a new blow for Christendom. Saladin, the great Sultan, had died in 1193, and his two sons were already quarreling about the partition of his empire. The contending divisions of the Arab Moslems were at this moment each bidding for the support of the Christians of Syria. The other great race of Mahometans which had threatened Europe, the Seljukian Turks, had made a halt in their progress through Asia Minor. ... Other special circumstances which rendered the moment favourable for a new crusade, combined with the profound conviction of the statesmen of the West of the danger to Christendom from the progress of Islam, urged Western Europe to take part in the new enterprise. The reigning Pope, Innocent III., was the great moving spirit of the Fourth Crusade." The popular preacher of the Crusade was found in an ignorant priest named Fulk, of Neuilly, whose success in kindling public enthusiasm was almost equal to that of Peter the Hermit. Vast numbers took the cross, with Theobald, count of Champagne, Louis, count of Blois and Chartres, Simon de Montfort, Walter of Brienne, Baldwin, count of Flanders, Hugh of St. Pol, Geoffrey de Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne and future historian of the Crusade, and many other prominent knights and princes among the leaders. The young count of Champagne was the chosen chief; but he sickened and died and his place was taken by Boniface, marquis of Montferrat. {632} It was the decision of the leaders that the expedition should be directed in the first instance against the Moslem power in Egypt, and that it should be conveyed to the attack of Egypt by sea. Venice, alone, seemed to be able to furnish ships, sailors and supplies for so great a movement, and a contract with Venice for the service was concluded in the spring of 120l. But Venice was mercenary, unscrupulous and treacherous, caring for nothing but commercial gains. Before the crusaders could gather at her port for embarkation, she had betrayed them to the Moslems. By a secret treaty with the sultan of Egypt, the fact of which is coming more and more conclusively to light, she had undertaken to frustrate the Crusade, and to receive important commercial privileges at Alexandria as compensation for her treachery. When, therefore, in the early summer of 1202, the army of the Crusade was collected at Venice to take ship, it encountered difficulties, discouragements and ill-treatments which thickened daily. The number assembled was not equal to expectation. Some had gone by sea from Flanders; some by other routes. But Venice had provided transport for the whole, and inflexibly demanded pay for the whole. The money in hand was not equal to this claim. The summer was lost in disputes and attempted compromises. Many of the crusaders withdrew in disgust and went home. At length, in defiance of the censures of the pope and of the bitter opposition of many leaders and followers of the expedition, there was a bargain struck, by the terms of which the crusaders were to assist the Venetians in taking and plundering the Christian city of Zara, a dreaded commercial rival on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic, belonging to the king of Hungary, himself one of the promoters of the very crusade which was now to be turned against him. The infamous compact was carried out. Zara was taken, and in the end it was totally destroyed by the Venetians. In the meantime, the doomed city was occupied by the crusading army through the winter, while a still more perfidious plot was being formed. Old Dandolo, the blind doge of Venice, was the master spirit of it. He was helped by the influence of Philip, one of the two rivals then fighting for the imperial crown in Germany and Italy. Philip had married a daughter of Isaac II. (Angelos), made emperor at Constantinople on the fall of the dynasty of Comnenus, and that feeble prince had lately been dethroned by his brother. The son and heir of Isaac, named Alexius, had escaped from Constantinople and had made his way to Philip imploring help. Either Philip conceived the idea, or it was suggested to him, that the armament of the Crusade might be employed to place the young Alexius on the throne of his father. To the Venetians the scheme was more than acceptable. It would frustrate the Crusade, which they had pledged themselves to the sultan of Egypt to accomplish; it would satisfy their ill-will towards the Byzantines, and, more important than all else, it would give them an opportunity to secure immeasurable advantages over their rivals in the great trade which Constantinople held at command. The marquis of Montferrat, commander of the Crusade, had some grievances of his own and some ambitions of his own, which made him favorable to the new project, and he was easily won to it. The three influences thus combined--those of Philip, of Dandolo, and of Montferrat--overcame all opposition. Some who opposed were bribed, some were intimidated, some were deluded by promises, some deserted the ranks. Pope Innocent remonstrated, appealed and threatened in vain. The pilgrim host, "changed from a crusading army into a filibustering expedition," set sail from Zara in the spring of the year 1203, and was landed, the following June, not on the shores of Egypt or Syria, but under the walls of Constantinople. Its conquest, pillage and brutally destructive treatment of the great city are described in another place.

_E. Pears, The Fall of Constantinople, chapter 8-13._

ALSO IN: _G. Finlay, History of the Byzantine and Greek Empires, 716-1453, book 3, chapter 3._

_E. Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapter 59. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25717_

See, also, BYZANTINE EMPIRE: A. D. 1203-1204

CRUSADES: A. D. 1201-1283. Against the heathen Sclavonians on the Baltic.

See LIVONIA: 12TH-13TH CENTURIES; and PRUSSIA: 13TH CENTURY.

CRUSADES: A. D. 1209-1242. Against the Albigenses.

See ALBIGENSES.

CRUSADES: A. D, 1212. The Children's Crusade.

"The religious wars fostered and promoted vice; and the failure of army after army was looked on as a clear manifestation of God's wrath against the sins of the camp. This feeling was roused to its highest pitch when, in the year 1212, certain priests--Nicolas was the name of one of these mischievous madmen--went about France and Germany calling on the children to perform what the fathers, through their wickedness, had been unable to effect, promising that the sea should be dry to enable them to march across; that the Saracens would be miraculously stricken with a panic at the sight of them; that God would, through the hands of children only, whose lives were yet pure, work the recovery of the Cross and the Sepulchre. Thousands--it is said fifty thousand--children of both sexes responded to the call. They listened to the impassioned preaching of the monks, believed their lying miracles, their visions, their portents, their references to the Scriptures, and, in spite of all that their parents could do, rushed to take the Cross, boys and girls together, and streamed along the roads which led to Marseilles and Genoa, singing hymns, waving branches, replying to those who asked whither they were going, 'We go to Jerusalem to deliver the Holy Sepulchre,' and shouting their rallying cry, 'Lord Jesus, give us back thy Holy Cross.' They admitted whoever came, provided he took the Cross; the infection spread, and the children could not be restrained from joining them in the towns and villages along their route. Their miserable parents put them in prison; they escaped; they forbade them to go; the children went in spite of prohibition. They had no money, no provisions, no leaders; but the charity of the towns they passed through supported them. At their rear streamed the usual tail of camp followers. ... There were two main bodies. One of these directed its way through Germany, across the Alps, to Genoa. On the road they were robbed of all the gifts which had been presented them; they were exposed to heat and want, and very many either died on the march or wandered away from the road and so became lost to sight; when they reached Italy they dispersed about the country, seeking food, were stripped by the villagers, and in some cases were reduced to slavery. {633} Only seven thousand out of their number arrived at Genoa. Here they stayed for some days. They looked down upon the Mediterranean, hoping that its bright waves would divide to let them pass. But they did not; there was no miracle wrought in their favour; a few of noble birth were received among the Genoese families, and have given rise to distinguished houses of Genoa; among them is the house of Vivaldi. The rest, disappointed and disheartened, made their way back again, and got home at length, the girls with the loss of their virtue, the boys with the loss of their belief, all barefooted and in rags, laughed at by the towns they went through, and wondering why they had ever gone at all. This was the end of the German army. That of the French was not so fortunate, for none of them ever got back again at all. When they arrived at Marseilles, thinned probably by the same causes as those which had dispersed the Germans, they found, like their brethren, that the sea did not open a path for them, as had been promised. Perhaps some were disheartened and went home again. But fortune appeared to favour them. There were two worthy merchants at Marseilles, named Hugh Ferrens, and William Porcus, Iron Hugh and Pig William, who traded with the East, and had in port seven ships, in which they proposed to convey the children to Palestine. With a noble generosity they offered to take them for nothing, all for love of religion, and out of the pure kindness of their hearts. Of course this offer was accepted with joy, and the seven vessels laden with the happy little Crusaders, singing their hymns and flying their banners, sailed out from Marseilles, bound for the East, accompanied by William the Good and Hugh the Pious. It was not known to the children, of course, that the chief trade of these merchants was the lucrative business of kidnapping Christian children for the Alexandrian market. It was so, however, and these respectable tradesmen had never before made so splendid a coup. Unfortunately, off the Island of St. Peter, they encountered bad weather, and two ships went down with all on board. What must have been the feelings of the philanthropists, Pig William and Iron Hugh, at this misfortune? They got, however, five ships safely to Alexandria, and sold all their cargo, the Sultan of Cairo buying forty of the boys, whom he brought up carefully and apart, intending them, doubtless, for his best soldiers. A dozen refusing to change their faith were martyred. None of the rest ever came back. Nobody in Europe seems to have taken much notice of this extraordinary episode."

_W. Besant and E. H. Palmer, Jerusalem, chapter 18._

ALSO IN: _J. H. Michaud, History of the Crusades, appendix number 28._

_G. Z. Gray, The Children's Crusade._

CRUSADE: A. D. 1212. Against the Moors in Spain.

See SPAIN: A. D. 1146-1232.

CRUSADE: A. D. 1216-1229. The Sixth Movement. Frederic II. in Jerusalem.

For six years after the betrayal of the vows of the crusaders of 1202-1204--who sacked Constantinople instead of rescuing Jerusalem--the Christians of Palestine were protected by a truce with Saphadin, the brother of Saladin, who had succeeded the latter in power. Hostilities were then rashly provoked by the always foolish Latins, and they soon found themselves reduced to sore straits, calling upon Europe for fresh help. Pope Innocent III. did not scruple to second their appeal. A new crusade was preached with great earnestness, and a general Council of the Church--the Fourth of Lateran--was convened for the stimulation of it. "The Fifth Crusade [or the Sixth, as more commonly numbered], the result of this resolution, was divided in the sequel into three maritime expeditions: the first [A. D. 1216] consisting principally of Hungarians under their king, Andrew; the second [A. D. 1218] composed of Germans, Italians, French and English nobles and their followers; and the third [A. D. 1228] led by the Emperor Frederic II. in person. ... Though the King of Hungary was attended by the flower of a nation which, before its conversion to Christianity, had been the scourge and terror of Western Europe, the arms of that monarch, even aided by the junction of numerous German crusaders under the dukes of Austria and Bavaria, performed nothing worthy of notice: and after a single campaign in Palestine, in which the Mussulman territories were ineffectually ravaged, the fickle Andrew deserted the cause and returned with his forces to Europe. His defection did not prevent the duke of Austria, with the German crusaders, from remaining, in concert with the King of Jerusalem, his barons, and the knights of the three religious orders, for the defence of Palestine; and, in the following year, the constancy of these faithful champions of the Cross was rewarded by the arrival of numerous reinforcements from Germany. ... It was resolved to change the scene of warfare from the narrow limits of the Syrian shore to the coast of Egypt, ... and the situation of Damietta, at the mouth of the Nile, pointed out that city as the first object of attack." After a siege of seventeen months, during which both the besieged and the besiegers suffered horribly, from famine and from pestilence, Damietta was taken (A. D. 1219), Nine-tenths of its population of 80,000 had perished. "Both during the siege and after the capture of Damietta, the invasion of Egypt had filled the infidels with consternation; and the alarm which was betrayed in their counsels proved that the crusaders, in choosing that country for the theatre of operations, had assailed the Mussulman power in its most vital and vulnerable point. Of the two sons of Saphadin, Coradinus and Camel, who were now uneasily seated on the thrones of Damascus and Cairo, the former, in despair of preserving Jerusalem, had already demolished its fortifications; and the brothers agreed in repeatedly offering the cession of the holy city and of all Palestine to the Christians, upon the single condition of their evacuating Egypt. Every object which had been ineffectually proposed in repeated Crusades, since the fatal battle of Tiberias, might now have been gloriously obtained by the acceptance of these terms, and the King of Jerusalem, the French and English leaders, and the Teutonic knights, all eagerly desired to embrace the offer of the Sultans. But the obstinate ambition and cupidity of the surviving papal legate, Cardinal Pelagius, of the Italian chieftains, and of the knights of the other two religious orders, by holding out the rich prospect of the conquest and plunder of Egypt, overruled every wise and temperate argument in the Christian councils, and produced a rejection of all compromise with the infidels. {634} After a winter of luxurious inaction, the legate led the crusading host from Damietta toward Cairo (A. D. 1220)." The expedition was as disastrous in its result as it was imbecile in its leadership. The whole army, caught by the rising of the Nile, was placed in so helpless a situation that it was glad to purchase escape by the surrender of Damietta and the evacuation of Egypt. The retreat of the greater part of these crusaders did not end until they had reached home. Pope Honorius III. (who had succeeded Innocent III. in 1216) strove to shift responsibility for the failure from his wretched legate to the Emperor Frederic II., who had thus far evaded the fulfilment of his crusading promises and vows, being occupied in struggles with the papacy. At length, in 1228, Frederic embarked for Palestine with a small force, pursued by the maledictions of the pope, who denounced him for daring to assume the Cross while under the ban of the church, as much as he had denounced him before for neglecting it. But the free-thinking Hohenstauffen cared little, apparently, and went his way, shunned scrupulously by all pious souls, including the knights of Palestine, except those of the Teutonic order. With the help of the latter he occupied and refortified Jaffa and succeeded in concluding a treaty with the Sultan which restored Jerusalem to the Christians, reserving certain rights to the Mahometans; giving up likewise Bethlehem, Nazareth and some other places to the Christians, and securing peace for ten years. Frederic had married, a few years before, for his second empress, Iolante, daughter and heiress of the titular king of Jerusalem, John de Brienne. With the hand of this princess, he received from her father a solemn transfer of all his rights to that shadowy throne. He now claimed those rights, and, entering Jerusalem, with the Teutonic knights (A. D. 1229), he crowned himself its king. The patriarch, the Templars and the Hospitallers refused to take part in the ceremony; the pope denounced Frederic's advantageous treaty as soon as he had news of it, and all that it gained for the Christians of Palestine was thrown away by them as speedily as possible.

_Major Procter, History of the Crusades,