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History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6

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Title: History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 6

Author: Edward Gibbon

Commentator: Henry Hart Milman


        
Release date: June 7, 2008 [eBook #895]
                Most recently updated: June 22, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/895

Credits: Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE — VOLUME 6 ***




Produced by David Reed, Dale R. Fredrickson and David Widger





HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 6 (complete)

1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)


     Transcriber's Note

     This is the sixth volume of the six volumes of Edward Gibbon's History
     Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire. If you find any errors
     please feel free to notify me of them. I want to make this the best
     etext edition possible for both scholars and the general public. I
     would like to thank those who have helped in making this text better.
     Especially Dale R. Fredrickson who has hand entered the Greek characters
     in the footnotes and who has suggested retaining the conjoined ae
     character in the text. Haradda@aol.com and davidr@inconnect.com are my
     email addresses for now. Please feel free to send me your comments and I
     hope you enjoy this.

     David Reed




Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part I.

     Preservation Of The Greek Empire.--Numbers, Passage, And
     Event, Of The Second And Third Crusades.--St. Bernard.--
     Reign Of Saladin In Egypt And Syria.--His Conquest Of
     Jerusalem.--Naval Crusades.--Richard The First Of England.--
     Pope Innocent The Third; And The Fourth And Fifth Crusades.--
     The Emperor Frederic The Second.--Louis The Ninth Of
     France; And The Two Last Crusades.--Expulsion Of The Latins
     Or Franks By The Mamelukes.

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 Ephesus and Smyrna, of
Sardes, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, were restored to the empire, which
Alexius enlarged from the Hellespont to the banks of the MÊander, 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.

[Footnote 1: Anna Comnena relates her father's conquests in Asia Minor
Alexiad, l. xi. p. 321--325, l. xiv. p. 419; his Cilician war against
Tancred and Bohemond, p. 328--324; the war of Epirus, with tedious
prolixity, l. xii. xiii. p. 345--406; the death of Bohemond, l. xiv. p.
419.]

[Footnote 2: The kings of Jerusalem submitted, however, to a nominal
dependence, and in the dates of their inscriptions, (one is still
legible in the church of Bethlem,) they respectfully placed before
their own the name of the reigning emperor, (Ducange, Dissertations sur
Joinville xxvii. p. 319.)]

[Footnote 3: Anna Comnena adds, that, to complete the imitation, he was
shut up with a dead cock; and condescends to wonder how the Barbarian
could endure the confinement and putrefaction. This absurd tale is
unknown to the Latins. * Note: The Greek writers, in general, Zonaras,
p. 2, 303, and Glycas, p. 334 agree in this story with the princess
Anne, except in the absurd addition of the dead cock. Ducange has
already quoted some instances where a similar stratagem had been adopted
by _Norman_ princes. On this authority Wilken inclines to believe the
fact. Appendix to vol. ii. p. 14.--M.]

[Footnote 4: 'Apo QulhV in the Byzantine geography, must mean England;
yet we are more credibly informed, that our Henry I. would not suffer
him to levy any troops in his kingdom, (Ducange, Not. ad Alexiad. p.
41.)]

[Footnote 5: The copy of the treaty (Alexiad. l. xiii. p. 406--416) is
an original and curious piece, which would require, and might afford, a
good map of the principality of Antioch.]

[Footnote 6: See, in the learned work of M. De Guignes, (tom. ii. part
ii.,) the history of the Seljukians of Iconium, Aleppo, and Damascus,
as far as it may be collected from the Greeks, Latins, and Arabians. The
last are ignorant or regardless of the affairs of _Roum_.]

[Footnote 7: Iconium is mentioned as a station by Xenophon, and by
Strabo, with an ambiguous title of KwmopoliV, (Cellarius, tom. ii. p.
121.) Yet St. Paul found in that place a multitude (plhqoV) of Jews
and Gentiles. under the corrupt name of _Kunijah_, it is described as a
great city, with a river and garden, three leagues from the mountains,
and decorated (I know not why) with Plato's tomb, (Abulfeda, tabul.
xvii. p. 303 vers. Reiske; and the Index Geographicus of Schultens from
Ibn Said.)]

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.

[Footnote 8: For this supplement to the first crusade, see Anna Comnena,
(Alexias, l. xi. p. 331, &c., and the viiith book of Albert Aquensis.)]

[Footnote 9: For the second crusade, of Conrad III. and Louis VII.,
see William of Tyre, (l. xvi. c. 18--19,) Otho of Frisingen, (l. i. c.
34--45 59, 60,) Matthew Paris, (Hist. Major. p. 68,) Struvius, (Corpus
Hist GermanicÊ, p. 372, 373,) Scriptores Rerum Francicarum ‡ Duchesne
tom. iv.: Nicetas, in Vit. Manuel, l. i. c. 4, 5, 6, p. 41--48, Cinnamus
l. ii. p. 41--49.]

[Footnote 10: For the third crusade, of Frederic Barbarossa, see Nicetas
in Isaac Angel. l. ii. c. 3--8, p. 257--266. Struv. (Corpus. Hist. Germ.
p. 414,) and two historians, who probably were spectators, Tagino, (in
Scriptor. Freher. tom. i. p. 406--416, edit Struv.,) and the Anonymus de
Expeditione Asiatic‚ Fred. I. (in Canisii Antiq. Lection. tom. iii. p.
ii. p. 498--526, edit. Basnage.)]

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] [111] 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
Golden-footed Dame.

[Footnote 11: Anne, who states these later swarms at 40,000 horse and
100,000 foot, calls them Normans, and places at their head two brothers
of Flanders. The Greeks were strangely ignorant of the names, families,
and possessions of the Latin princes.]

[Footnote 111: It was this army of pilgrims, the first body of which was
headed by the archbishop of Milan and Count Albert of Blandras, which
set forth on the wild, yet, with a more disciplined army, not impolitic,
enterprise of striking at the heart of the Mahometan power, by attacking
the sultan in Bagdad. For their adventures and fate, see Wilken, vol.
ii. p. 120, &c., Michaud, book iv.--M.]

[Footnote 12: William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000 loricati
in each of the armies.]

[Footnote 13: The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus,
(ennenhkonta muriadeV,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud Ducange ad
Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why must therefore the
version and comment suppose the modest and insufficient reckoning of
90,000? Does not Godfrey of Viterbo (Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori, tom.
vii. p. 462) exclaim?
----Numerum si poscere quÊras,
Millia millena militis agmen erat.]

[Footnote 14: This extravagant account is given by Albert of Stade,
(apud Struvium, p. 414;) my calculation is borrowed from Godfrey of
Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard Thesaur. (c. 169, p.
804.) The original writers are silent. The Mahometans gave him 200,000,
or 260,000, men, (Bohadin, in Vit. Saladin, p. 110.)]

[Footnote 15: I must observe, that, in the second and third crusades,
the subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the Greeks and
Orientals _Alamanni_. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus are the Poles
and Bohemians; and it is for the French that he reserves the ancient
appellation of Germans. He likewise names the Brittioi, or Britannoi. *
Note: * He names both--Brittioi te kai Britanoi.--M.]

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]

[Footnote 16: Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in
the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of
Philippopolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice and pride.]

[Footnote 17: The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by Nicetas,
while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his countrymen,
(culp‚ nostr‚.) History would be pleasant, if we were embarrassed only
by _such_ contradictions. It is likewise from Nicetas, that we learn the
pious and humane sorrow of Frederic.]

[Footnote 18: Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by the
word Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and country from
such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p. 317--320.) Louis
afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex Êquo, not ex equo, according
to the laughable readings of some MSS.]

[Footnote 19: Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum, (Anonym
Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of the Greeks was
Rhx... _princeps_. Yet Cinnamus owns, that 'Imperatwr is synonymous to
BasileuV.]

[Footnote 20: In the Epistles of Innocent III., (xiii. p. 184,) and the
History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130,) see the views of a pope and a cadhi
on this _singular_toleration.]

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; [201] 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 MÊander. The
contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: [202]
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. [211] 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]

[Footnote 201: This was the design of the pilgrims under the archbishop of
Milan. See note, p. 102.--M.]

[Footnote 202: Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a central
road, between that on the coast and that which led to Iconium. He
had been betrayed by the Greeks, his army destroyed without a battle.
Wilken, vol. iii. p. 165. Michaud, vol. ii. p. 156. Conrad advanced
again with Louis as far as Ephesus, and from thence, at the invitation
of Manuel, returned to Constantinople. It was Louis who, at the passage
of the MÊander, was engaged in a "glorious action." Wilken, vol. iii. p.
179. Michaud vol. ii. p. 160. Gibbon followed Nicetas.--M.]

[Footnote 21: As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the vassals
and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint's peculiar
banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a square form, and
a red or _flaming_ color. The _oriflamme_ appeared at the head of
the French armies from the xiith to the xvth century, (Ducange sur
Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p. 244--253.)]

[Footnote 211: They descended the heights to a beautiful valley which
by beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which separated the two
divisions of the army. The modern historians represent differently the
act to which Louis owed his safety, which Gibbon has described by the
undignified phrase, "he climbed a tree." According to Michaud, vol.
ii. p. 164, the king got upon a rock, with his back against a tree;
according to Wilken, vol. iii., he dragged himself up to the top of
the rock by the roots of a tree, and continued to defend himself till
nightfall.--M.]

[Footnote 22: The original French histories of the second crusade are
the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of Duchesne's
collection. The same volume contains many original letters of the king,
of Suger his minister, &c., the best documents of authentic history.]

[Footnote 23: Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam sterilem,
inamnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language of a sufferer.]

[Footnote 24: Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, prÊdones sine
ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their defeat.
Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]

[Footnote 25: See, in the anonymous writer in the Collection of
Canisius, Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120,) the ambiguous
conduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated and feared both
Saladin and Frederic.]

[Footnote 26: The desire of comparing two great men has tempted many
writers to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which Alexander so
imprudently bathed, (Q. Curt. l. iii c. 4, 5.) But, from the march of
the emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is the Calycadnus, a stream
of less fame, but of a longer course. * Note: It is now called the
Girama: its course is described in M'Donald Kinneir's Travels.--M.]

[Footnote 27: Marinus Sanutus, A.D. 1321, lays it down as a precept,
Quod stolus ecclesiÊ per terram nullatenus est ducenda. He resolves,
by the divine aid, the objection, or rather exception, of the first
crusade, (Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. ii. pars ii. c. i. p. 37.)]

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. [281] 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: [311] 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.

[Footnote 28: The most authentic information of St. Bernard must be
drawn from his own writings, published in a correct edition by PËre
Mabillon, and reprinted at Venice, 1750, in six volumes in folio.
Whatever friendship could recollect, or superstition could add, is
contained in the two lives, by his disciples, in the vith volume:
whatever learning and criticism could ascertain, may be found in the
prefaces of the Benedictine editor.]

[Footnote 281: Gibbon, whose account of the crusades is perhaps the least
accurate and satisfactory chapter in his History, has here failed in
that lucid arrangement, which in general gives perspicuity to his most
condensed and crowded narratives. He has unaccountably, and to the great
perplexity of the reader, placed the preaching of St Bernard after the
second crusade to which i led.--M.]

[Footnote 29: Clairvaux, surnamed the valley of Absynth, is situate
among the woods near Bar sur Aube in Champagne. St. Bernard would blush
at the pomp of the church and monastery; he would ask for the library,
and I know not whether he would be much edified by a tun of 800 muids,
(914 1-7 hogsheads,) which almost rivals that of Heidelberg, (MÈlanges
tirÈs d'une Grande BibliothËque, tom. xlvi. p. 15--20.)]

[Footnote 30: The disciples of the saint (Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 2, p.
1232. Vit. iida, c. 16, No. 45, p. 1383) record a marvellous example
of his pious apathy. Juxta lacum etiam Lausannensem totius diei itinere
pergens, penitus non attendit aut se videre non vidit. Cum enim vespere
facto de eodem lac˚ socii colloquerentur, interrogabat eos ubi lacus
ille esset, et mirati sunt universi. To admire or despise St. Bernard as
he ought, the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his
library the beauties of that incomparable landscape.]

[Footnote 31: Otho Frising. l. i. c. 4. Bernard. Epist. 363, ad Francos
Orientales Opp. tom. i. p. 328. Vit. ima, l. iii. c. 4, tom. vi. p.
1235.]

[Footnote 311: Bernard had a nobler object in his expedition into
Germany--to arrest the fierce and merciless persecution of the Jews,
which was preparing, under the monk Radulph, to renew the frightful
scenes which had preceded the first crusade, in the flourishing
cities on the banks of the Rhine. The Jews acknowledge the Christian
intervention of St. Bernard. See the curious extract from the History of
Joseph ben Meir. Wilken, vol. iii. p. 1. and p. 63.--M.]

[Footnote 32: Mandastis et obedivi.... multiplicati sunt super
numerum; vacuantur urbes et castella; et _pene_ jam non inveniunt
quem apprehendant septem mulieres unum virum; adeo ubique viduÊ vivis
remanent viris. Bernard. Epist. p. 247. We must be careful not to
construe _pene_ as a substantive.]

[Footnote 33: Quis ego sum ut disponam acies, ut egrediar ante facies
armatorum, aut quid tam remotum a professione me‚, si vires, si peritia,
&c. Epist. 256, tom. i. p. 259. He speaks with contempt of the hermit
Peter, vir quidam, Epist. 363.]

[Footnote 34: Sic dicunt forsitan isti, unde scimus quÚd a Domino sermo
egressus sit? QuÊ signa tu facis ut credamus tibi? Non est quod ad ista
ipse respondeam; parcendum verecundiÊ meÊ, responde tu pro me, et pro te
ipso, secundum quÊ vidisti et audisti, et secundum quod te inspiraverit
Deus. Consolat. l. ii. c. 1. Opp. tom. ii. p. 421--423.]

[Footnote 35: See the testimonies in Vita ima, l. iv. c. 5, 6. Opp. tom.
vi. p. 1258--1261, l. vi. c. 1--17, p. 1286--1314.]

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; [391] 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.

[Footnote 36: Abulmahasen apud de Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii. p.
ii. p. 99.]

[Footnote 37: See his _article_ in the BibliothËque Orientale of
D'Herbelot, and De Guignes, tom. ii. p. i. p. 230--261. Such was his
valor, that he was styled the second Alexander; and such the extravagant
love of his subjects, that they prayed for the sultan a year after his
decease. Yet Sangiar might have been made prisoner by the Franks, as
well as by the Uzes. He reigned near fifty years, (A.D. 1103--1152,) and
was a munificent patron of Persian poetry.]

[Footnote 38: See the Chronology of the Atabeks of Irak and Syria, in De
Guignes, tom. i. p. 254; and the reigns of Zenghi and Noureddin in the
same writer, (tom. ii. p. ii. p. 147--221,) who uses the Arabic text of
Benelathir, Ben Schouna and Abulfeda; the BibliothËque Orientale,
under the articles _Atabeks_ and _Noureddin_, and the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius, p. 250--267, vers. Pocock.]

[Footnote 39: William of Tyre (l. xvi. c. 4, 5, 7) describes the loss
of Edessa, and the death of Zenghi. The corruption of his name
into _Sanguin_, afforded the Latins a comfortable allusion to his
_sanguinary_ character and end, fit sanguine sanguinolentus.]

[Footnote 391: On Noureddin's conquest of Damascus, see extracts from
Arabian writers prefixed to the second part of the third volume of
Wilken.--M.]

[Footnote 40: Noradinus (says William of Tyre, l. xx. 33) maximus
nominis et fidei ChristianÊ persecutor; princeps tamen justus, vafer,
providus' et secundum gentis suÊ traditiones religiosus. To this
Catholic witness we may add the primate of the Jacobites, (Abulpharag.
p. 267,) quo non alter erat inter reges vitÊ ratione magis laudabili,
aut quÊ pluribus justitiÊ experimentis abundaret. The true praise of
kings is after their death, and from the mouth of their enemies.]




Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part II.

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 [441] 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. [442] 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]

[Footnote 41: From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c. 17, 18,)
describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph's treasure were found a
pearl as large as a pigeon's egg, a ruby weighing seventeen Egyptian
drams, an emerald a palm and a half in length, and many vases of crystal
and porcelain of China, (Renaudot, p. 536.)]

[Footnote 42: _Mamluc_, plur. _Mamalic_, is defined by Pocock,
(Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 7,) and D'Herbelot, (p. 545,) servum
emptitium, seu qui pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit. They
frequently occur in the wars of Saladin, (Bohadin, p. 236, &c.;) and it
was only the _Bahartie_ Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt
by his descendants.]

[Footnote 43: Jacobus ‡ Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalem
no more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report the
superior numbers of the enemy; a difference which may be solved by
counting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians.]

[Footnote 44: It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in
extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans, and that
of the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 25, 26.)]

[Footnote 441: The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and
the Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p.
113.--M.]

[Footnote 442: The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious breach of
treaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the Hospitallers, refused to
join in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c. xx. p. 5. Wilken, vol. iii. part
ii. p. 117.--M.]

[Footnote 45: For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of Tyre,
(l. xix. 5, 6, 7, 12--31, xx. 5--12,) Bohadin, (in Vit. Saladin, p.
30--39,) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1--12,) D'Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. _Adhed_, _Fathemah_, but very incorrect,) Renaudot,
(Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 522--525, 532--537,) Vertot, (Hist. des
Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. p. 141--163, in 4to.,) and M. de Guignes,
(tom. ii. p. 185--215.)]

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.

[Footnote 46: For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 416, 417, the
Index Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages, p. i. p. 308,
309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the RawadiÊi, one of
the noblest; but as _they_ were infected with the heresy of the
Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated that their descent was
only on the mother's side, and that their ancestor was a stranger who
settled among the Curds.]

[Footnote 47: See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The ten
thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free Carduchians, than
from the splendid weakness of the great king.]

[Footnote 48: We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat,
1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a life
of Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin, and copious
extracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah.
To these we may add, the article of _Salaheddin_ in the BibliothËque
Orientale, and all that may be gleaned from the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius.]

[Footnote 49: Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share the
praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the founder.]

[Footnote 50: Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. A
similar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42, edition du Louvre;)
but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels with the order of
Christian knighthood, (Ducange, Observations, p 70.)]

[Footnote 51: In these Arabic titles, _religionis_ must always be
understood; _Noureddin_, lumen r.; _Ezzodin_, decus; _Amadoddin_,
columen: our hero's proper name was Joseph, and he was styled
_Salahoddin_, salus; _Al Malichus_, _Al Nasirus_, rex defensor; _Abu
Modaffer_, pater victoriÊ, Schultens, PrÊfat.]

[Footnote 52: Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin,
observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took the
guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent collaterals,
(Excerpt p. 10.)]

[Footnote 53: See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537--548.]

[Footnote 54: His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in the
first chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4--30,) himself an eye-witness, and an
honest bigot.]

[Footnote 55: In many works, particularly Joseph's well in the castle
of Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been confounded by the
ignorance of natives and travellers.]

[Footnote 56: Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]

[Footnote 57: Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]

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. [601] 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]

[Footnote 58: For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of Tyre,
from the ixth to the xxiid book. Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosolem l
i., and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii. p. vi. vii. viii. ix.]

[Footnote 59: Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut venti
stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the Christian
light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant, (Ispahani de Expugnatione
Kudsitic‚, p. 18, apud Schultens;) a specimen of Arabian eloquence,
somewhat different from the style of Xenophon!]

[Footnote 60: The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the treason of
Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he would have been a
saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.]

[Footnote 601: Raymond's advice would have prevented the abandonment of a
secure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris. The rash and insolent
valor of the master of the order of Knights Templars, which had before
exposed the Christians to a fatal defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the
feeble king to annul the determination of a council of war, and advance
to a camp in an enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin,
without water. Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievably
lost, and then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allow
him free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias appears
ungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he was a man of
strong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of the contest with
Saladin, endeavored by every means to maintain the treaty, and, though
he joined both his arms and his still more valuable counsels to the
Christian army, yet kept up a kind of amicable correspondence with the
Mahometans. See Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 276, et seq. Michaud, vol.
ii. p. 278, et seq. M. Michaud is still more friendly than Wilken to the
memory of Count Raymond, who died suddenly, shortly after the battle of
Hittin. He quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the caliph
Alfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the Mahometans their
most dangerous and detested enemy. "No person of distinction among the
Christians escaped, except the count, (of Tripoli) whom God curse. God
made him die shortly afterwards, and sent him from the kingdom of death
to hell."--M.]

[Footnote 61: Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebrated
by the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the latter
are more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville
(Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70) alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never
putting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of
the companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in
a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p. 32.)]

[Footnote 62: Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and
city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p. 226--278,)
inserts two original epistles of a Knight Templar.]

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]

[Footnote 63: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]

[Footnote 64: For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67--75) and
Abulfeda (p. 40--43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the Christian, Bernard
Thesaurarius (c. 151--167) is the most copious and authentic; see
likewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120--124.)]

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]

[Footnote 65: The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously described
by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione TerrÊ SanctÊ, c. 167--179,)
the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p. 1150--1172, in
Bongarsius,) Abulfeda, (p. 43--50,) and Bohadin, (p. 75--179.)]

[Footnote 66: I have followed a moderate and probable representation of
the fact; by Vertot, who adopts without reluctance a romantic tale the
old marquis is actually exposed to the darts of the besieged.]

[Footnote 67: Northmanni et Gothi, et cÊteri populi insularum quÊ
inter occidentem et septentrionem sitÊ sunt, gentes bellicosÊ, corporis
proceri mortis intrepidÊ, bipennibus armatÊ, navibus rotundis, quÊ
YsnachiÊ dicuntur, advectÊ.]

[Footnote 68: The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the nations of
the East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy tribes of Moors and
Getulians, so that Asia and Africa fought against Europe.]

[Footnote 69: Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither denied nor
blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa complentes, (the
English soldiers,) says Galfridus ‡ Vinesauf, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 346,) who
fixes at 2700 the number of victims; who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger
Hoveden, (p. 697, 698.) The humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus was
persuaded to ransom his prisoners, (Jacob ‡ Vitriaco, l. i. c. 98, p.
1122.)]

[Footnote 70: Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus, and
the prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum paucissimi
redierunt. Among the Christians who died before St. John d'Acre, I find
the English names of De Ferrers earl of Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, part
i. p. 260,) Mowbray, (idem, p. 124,) De Mandevil, De Fiennes, St. John,
Scrope, Bigot, Talbot, &c.]




Chapter LIX: The Crusades.--Part III.

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 _Cur 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 CÊsarea 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?

[Footnote 71: Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum virtute tum
majestate eminens.... summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin, p. 159.) He does
not seem to have known the names either of Philip or Richard.]

[Footnote 72: Rex AngliÊ, prÊstrenuus.... rege Gallorum minor apud eos
censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum divitiis florentior,
tum bellic‚ virtute multo erat celebrior, (Bohadin, p. 161.) A stranger
might admire those riches; the national historians will tell with what
lawless and wasteful oppression they were collected.]

[Footnote 73: Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi Richart?]

[Footnote 74: Yet he was guilty in the opinion of the Moslems, who
attest the confession of the assassins, that they were sent by the king
of England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence is an absurd and
palpable forgery, (Hist. de l'AcadÈmie des Inscriptions, tom. xv. p.
155--163,) a pretended letter from the prince of the assassins, the
Sheich, or old man of the mountain, who justified Richard, by assuming
to himself the guilt or merit of the murder. * Note: Von Hammer
(Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 202) sums up against Richard, Wilken
(vol. iv. p. 485) as strongly for acquittal. Michaud (vol. ii. p. 420)
delivers no decided opinion. This crime was also attributed to Saladin,
who is said, by an Oriental authority, (the continuator of Tabari,) to
have employed the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is a
melancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an act
would be less inconsistent with the character of the Christian than of
the Mahometan king.--M.]

[Footnote 75: See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as they
are described by Bohadin, (p. 7--9, 235--237,) who himself harangued
the defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not unknown to the enemy,
(Jacob. ‡ Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p. 1123. Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p.
399.)]

[Footnote 76: Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince, remained
in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent obtemperaturi Curdis,
(Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner of the political curtain.]

[Footnote 77: Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf, (l.
vi. c. 1--8, p. 403--409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard himself;
and Jacobus ‡ Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience to depart, in
alterum virum mutatus est, (p. 1123.) Yet Joinville, a French knight,
accuses the envy of Hugh duke of Burgundy, (p. 116,) without supposing,
like Matthew Paris, that he was bribed by Saladin.]

[Footnote 78: The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa, are
related by Bohadin (p. 184--249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52.) The author
of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban's, cannot exaggerate the
cadhi's account of the prowess of Richard, (Vinisauf, l. vi. c. 14--24,
p. 412--421. Hist. Major, p. 137--143;) and on the whole of this war
there is a marvellous agreement between the Christian and Mahometan
writers, who mutually praise the virtues of their enemies.]

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.

[Footnote 79: See the progress of negotiation and hostility in Bohadin,
(p. 207--260,) who was himself an actor in the treaty. Richard declared
his intention of returning with new armies to the conquest of the Holy
Land; and Saladin answered the menace with a civil compliment, (Vinisauf
l. vi. c. 28, p. 423.)]

[Footnote 80: The most copious and original account of this holy war is
Galfridi ‡ Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi et aliorum
in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in the iid volume
of Gale's Scriptores Hist. AnglicanÊ, (p. 247--429.) Roger Hoveden and
Matthew Paris afford likewise many valuable materials; and the former
describes, with accuracy, the discipline and navigation of the English
fleet.]

[Footnote 81: Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish notion
of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his last
breath.]

[Footnote 82: See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De Guignes, l'Art de
VÈrifier les Dates, and the BibliothËque Orientale.]

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]

[Footnote 83: Thomassin (Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 311--374)
has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and restrictions of
these _tenths_. A theory was started, but not pursued, that they were
rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of the Levite's tenth to the high
priest, (Selden on Tithes; see his Works, vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083.)]

[Footnote 84: See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script. Rer.
Ital., (tom. iii. p. 486--568.)]

[Footnote 85: See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus
‡ Vitriaco, (l. iii. p. 1125--1149, in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius,) an
eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in Script. Muratori, tom. vii. p.
825--846, c. 190--207,) a contemporary, and Sanutus, (Secreta Fidel
Crucis, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4--9,) a diligent compiler; and of the
Arabians Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 294,) and the Extracts at the end of
Joinville, (p. 533, 537, 540, 547, &c.)]

[Footnote 86: To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the
pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem. Fideles
mirabantur quÚd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine Christianorum
effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium aliquando, (Matthew Paris p.
785.) A high flight for the reason of the xiiith century.]

[Footnote 87: This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. EcclÈs. p. 332,) and the fine philosophy of
Hume, (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330.)]

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 [911] 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.

[Footnote 88: The original materials for the crusade of Frederic II. may
be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori, Script. Rerum Ital.
tom. vii. p. 1002--1013) and Matthew Paris, (p. 286, 291, 300, 302,
304.) The most rational moderns are Fleury, (Hist. EcclÈs. tom. xvi.,)
Vertot, (Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. iii.,) Giannone, (Istoria
Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. l. xvi.,) and Muratori, (Annali d' Italia,
tom. x.)]

[Footnote 89: Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not what to
say: "Chino qui il capo," &c. p. 322.]

[Footnote 90: The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church of the
temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has deceived both
Vertot and Muratori.]

[Footnote 91: The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is related
by Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547,) and by Joinville, Nangis, and the
Arabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530.)]

[Footnote 911: They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria. Wilken
vol. vi. p. 630.--M.]

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]

[Footnote 92: Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St. Louis, by
the confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291--523. Joinville, du Louvre.)]

[Footnote 93: He believed all that mother church taught, (Joinville, p.
10,) but he cautioned Joinville against disputing with infidels.
"L'omme lay (said he in his old language) quand il ot medire de la
loi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi Crestienne ne mais que de
l'espÈe, dequoi il doit donner parmi le ventre dedens, tant comme elle y
peut entrer" (p. 12.)]

[Footnote 94: I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris, 1668)
most valuable for the observations of Ducange; the other (Paris, au
Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic text, a MS. of
which has been recently discovered. The last edition proves that the
history of St. Louis was finished A.D. 1309, without explaining, or even
admiring, the age of the author, which must have exceeded ninety years,
(Preface, p. x. Observations de Ducange, p. 17.)]

[Footnote 95: Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549. * Note: Compare
Wilken, vol. vii. p. 94.--M.]

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 prÊtorian 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.

[Footnote 96: The last editors have enriched their Joinville with large
and curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi, Abulfeda, &c.
See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 322--325,) who calls him by the
corrupt name of _Redefrans_. Matthew Paris (p. 683, 684) has described
the rival folly of the French and English who fought and fell at
Massoura.]

[Footnote 97: Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L'Egypte, has given
a description of Damietta, (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p. 274--290,) and a
narrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv. p. 306--350.)]

[Footnote 98: For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants was
asked and granted; but the sultan's generosity reduced that sum to
800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000 French livres
of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by 100,000 marks of
silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur Joinville.)]

[Footnote 99: The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their sultan is
seriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78,) and does not appear to me
so absurd as to M. de Voltaire, (Hist. GÈnÈrale, tom. ii. p. 386, 387.)
The Mamalukes themselves were strangers, rebels, and equals: they had
felt his valor, they hoped his conversion; and such a motion, which
was not seconded, might be made, perhaps by a secret Christian in their
tumultuous assembly. * Note: Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the
proposition could not have been made in earnest.--M.]

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]

[Footnote 100: See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by William
de Nangis, p. 270--287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545, 555, of the
Louvre edition of Joinville.]

[Footnote 101: Voltaire, Hist. GÈnÈrale, tom. ii. p. 391.]

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; [1051] and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a
fanatic _assassin_. [106] [1061] 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.

[Footnote 102: The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes, the
Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites, Circassians, is
given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p. 6--31) and De Guignes
(tom. i. p. 264--270;) their history from Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the
beginning of the xvth century, by the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p.
110--328.)]

[Footnote 103: Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv. p.
189--208. I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it is true,
that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the Circassians or Mamalukes
of Egypt, and left them in possession of arms, riches, and power. See a
new AbrÈgÈ de l'Histoire Ottomane, composed in Egypt, and translated by
M. Digeon, (tom. i. p. 55--58, Paris, 1781,) a curious, authentic, and
national history.]

[Footnote 104: Si totum quo regnum occup‚runt tempus respicias,
prÊsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis, injuriis,
ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31.) The reign of
Mohammed (A.D. 1311--1341) affords a happy exception, (De Guignes, tom.
iv. p. 208--210.)]

[Footnote 105: They are now reduced to 8500: but the expense of each
Mamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt groans under the
avarice and insolence of these strangers, (Voyages de Volney, tom. i. p.
89--187.)]

[Footnote 1051: Gibbon colors rather highly the success of Edward. Wilken
is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c.--M.]

[Footnote 106: See Carte's History of England, vol. ii. p. 165--175, and
his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter Hemingford, (l. iii. c.
34, 35,) in Gale's Collection, (tom. ii. p. 97, 589--592.) They are both
ignorant of the princess Eleanor's piety in sucking the poisoned wound,
and saving her husband at the risk of her own life.]

[Footnote 1061: The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt at
assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. PtolemÊus Lucensis is the
earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid. 605.--M.]

[Footnote 107: Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii. c.
9, and De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the Arabic
historians.]

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]

[Footnote 108: The state of Acre is represented in all the chronicles
of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l. vii. c. 144, in
Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii. 337, 338.]

[Footnote 109: See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus, l.
iii. p. xii. c. 11--22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes, tom. iv.
p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307--428. * Note: after
these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize composition, "Essai sur
'Influence des Croisades sur l'Europe," par A H. L. Heeren: traduit de
l'Allemand par Charles Villars, Paris, 1808,' or the original German, in
Heeren's "Vermischte Schriften," may be read with great advantage.--M.]




Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part I.

     Schism Of The Greeks And Latins.--State Of Constantinople.--
     Revolt Of The Bulgarians.--Isaac Angelus Dethroned By His
     Brother Alexius.--Origin Of The Fourth Crusade.--Alliance Of
     The French And Venetians With The Son Of Isaac.--Their Naval
     Expedition To Constantinople.--The Two Sieges And Final
     Conquest Of The City By The Latins.

The restoration of the Western empire by Charlemagne was speedily
followed by the separation of the Greek and Latin churches. [1]
A religious and national animosity still divides the two largest
communions of the Christian world; and the schism of Constantinople,
by alienating her most useful allies, and provoking her most dangerous
enemies, has precipitated the decline and fall of the Roman empire in
the East.

[Footnote 1: In the successive centuries, from the ixth to the xviiith,
Mosheim traces the schism of the Greeks with learning, clearness, and
impartiality; the _filioque_ (Institut. Hist. EcclÈs. p. 277,) Leo III.
p. 303 Photius, p. 307, 308. Michael Cerularius, p. 370, 371, &c.]

In the course of the present History, the aversion of the Greeks for the
Latins has been often visible and conspicuous. It was originally derived
from the disdain of servitude, inflamed, after the time of Constantine,
by the pride of equality or dominion; and finally exasperated by the
preference which their rebellious subjects had given to the alliance of
the Franks. In every age the Greeks were proud of their superiority in
profane and religious knowledge: they had first received the light
of Christianity; they had pronounced the decrees of the seven general
councils; they alone possessed the language of Scripture and philosophy;
nor should the Barbarians, immersed in the darkness of the West, [2]
presume to argue on the high and mysterious questions of theological
science. Those Barbarians despised in then turn the restless and subtile
levity of the Orientals, the authors of every heresy; and blessed their
own simplicity, which was content to hold the tradition of the apostolic
church. Yet in the seventh century, the synods of Spain, and afterwards
of France, improved or corrupted the Nicene creed, on the mysterious
subject of the third person of the Trinity. [3] In the long controversies
of the East, the nature and generation of the Christ had been
scrupulously defined; and the well-known relation of father and son
seemed to convey a faint image to the human mind. The idea of birth
was less analogous to the Holy Spirit, who, instead of a divine gift or
attribute, was considered by the Catholics as a substance, a person, a
god; he was not begotten, but in the orthodox style he _proceeded_.
Did he proceed from the Father alone, perhaps _by_ the Son? or from the
Father _and_ the Son? The first of these opinions was asserted by the
Greeks, the second by the Latins; and the addition to the Nicene
creed of the word _filioque_, kindled the flame of discord between the
Oriental and the Gallic churches. In the origin of the disputes the
Roman pontiffs affected a character of neutrality and moderation: [4]
they condemned the innovation, but they acquiesced in the sentiment, of
their Transalpine brethren: they seemed desirous of casting a veil
of silence and charity over the superfluous research; and in the
correspondence of Charlemagne and Leo the Third, the pope assumes the
liberality of a statesman, and the prince descends to the passions
and prejudices of a priest. [5] But the orthodoxy of Rome spontaneously
obeyed the impulse of the temporal policy; and the _filioque_, which
Leo wished to erase, was transcribed in the symbol and chanted in the
liturgy of the Vatican. The Nicene and Athanasian creeds are held as the
Catholic faith, without which none can be saved; and both Papists and
Protestants must now sustain and return the anathemas of the Greeks, who
deny the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son, as well as from the
Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but the
rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent churches;
and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the difference is
inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition of Rome has imposed
on her priests and deacons the rigid obligation of celibacy; among the
Greeks it is confined to the bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity
or annihilated by age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy
the conjugal society of the wives whom they have married before their
entrance into holy orders. A question concerning the _Azyms_ was
fiercely debated in the eleventh century, and the essence of the
Eucharist was supposed in the East and West to depend on the use of
leavened or unleavened bread. Shall I mention in a serious history the
furious reproaches that were urged against the Latins, who for a long
while remained on the defensive? They neglected to abstain, according
to the apostolical decree, from things strangled, and from blood: they
fasted (a Jewish observance!) on the Saturday of each week: during the
first week of Lent they permitted the use of milk and cheese; [6] their
infirm monks were indulged in the taste of flesh; and animal grease was
substituted for the want of vegetable oil: the holy chrism or unction
in baptism was reserved to the episcopal order: the bishops, as the
bridegrooms of their churches, were decorated with rings; their priests
shaved their faces, and baptized by a single immersion. Such were the
crimes which provoked the zeal of the patriarchs of Constantinople; and
which were justified with equal zeal by the doctors of the Latin church.
[7]

[Footnote 2: ''AndreV dussebeiV kai apotropaioi, andreV ek sktouV
anadunteV, thV gar 'Esperiou moiraV uphrcon gennhmata, (Phot. Epist.
p. 47, edit. Montacut.) The Oriental patriarch continues to apply
the images of thunder, earthquake, hail, wild boar, precursors of
Antichrist, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 3: The mysterious subject of the procession of the Holy Ghost
is discussed in the historical, theological, and controversial sense, or
nonsense, by the Jesuit Petavius. (Dogmata Theologica, tom. ii. l. vii.
p. 362--440.)]

[Footnote 4: Before the shrine of St. Peter he placed two shields of the
weight of 94 1/2 pounds of pure silver; on which he inscribed the text
of both creeds, (utroque symbolo,) pro amore et _cautel‚_ orthodoxÊ
fidei, (Anastas. in Leon. III. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars. i. p. 208.)
His language most clearly proves, that neither the _filioque_, nor the
Athanasian creed were received at Rome about the year 830.]

[Footnote 5: The Missi of Charlemagne pressed him to declare, that all
who rejected the _filioque_, or at least the doctrine, must be damned.
All, replies the pope, are not capable of reaching the altiora mysteria
qui potuerit, et non voluerit, salvus esse non potest, (Collect. Concil.
tom. ix. p. 277--286.) The _potuerit_ would leave a large loophole of
salvation!]

[Footnote 6: In France, after some harsher laws, the ecclesiastical
discipline is now relaxed: milk, cheese, and butter, are become a
perpetual, and eggs an annual, indulgence in Lent, (Vie privÈe des
FranÁois, tom. ii. p. 27--38.)]

[Footnote 7: The original monuments of the schism, of the charges of
the Greeks against the Latins, are deposited in the epistles of Photius,
(Epist Encyclica, ii. p. 47--61,) and of Michael Cerularius, (Canisii
Antiq. Lectiones, tom. iii. p. i. p. 281--324, edit. Basnage, with the
prolix answer of Cardinal Humbert.)]

Bigotry and national aversion are powerful magnifiers of every object
of dispute; but the immediate cause of the schism of the Greeks may
be traced in the emulation of the leading prelates, who maintained the
supremacy of the old metropolis superior to all, and of the reigning
capital, inferior to none, in the Christian world. About the middle of
the ninth century, Photius, [8] an ambitious layman, the captain of the
guards and principal secretary, was promoted by merit and favor to the
more desirable office of patriarch of Constantinople. In science, even
ecclesiastical science, he surpassed the clergy of the age; and the
purity of his morals has never been impeached: but his ordination was
hasty, his rise was irregular; and Ignatius, his abdicated predecessor,
was yet supported by the public compassion and the obstinacy of his
adherents. They appealed to the tribunal of Nicholas the First, one of
the proudest and most aspiring of the Roman pontiffs, who embraced the
welcome opportunity of judging and condemning his rival of the East.
Their quarrel was embittered by a conflict of jurisdiction over the
king and nation of the Bulgarians; nor was their recent conversion to
Christianity of much avail to either prelate, unless he could number the
proselytes among the subjects of his power. With the aid of his court
the Greek patriarch was victorious; but in the furious contest he
deposed in his turn the successor of St. Peter, and involved the Latin
church in the reproach of heresy and schism. Photius sacrificed the
peace of the world to a short and precarious reign: he fell with his
patron, the CÊsar Bardas; and Basil the Macedonian performed an act of
justice in the restoration of Ignatius, whose age and dignity had not
been sufficiently respected. From his monastery, or prison, Photius
solicited the favor of the emperor by pathetic complaints and artful
flattery; and the eyes of his rival were scarcely closed, when he was
again restored to the throne of Constantinople. After the death of Basil
he experienced the vicissitudes of courts and the ingratitude of a royal
pupil: the patriarch was again deposed, and in his last solitary hours
he might regret the freedom of a secular and studious life. In each
revolution, the breath, the nod, of the sovereign had been accepted by
a submissive clergy; and a synod of three hundred bishops was always
prepared to hail the triumph, or to stigmatize the fall, of the holy,
or the execrable, Photius. [9] By a delusive promise of succor or reward,
the popes were tempted to countenance these various proceedings; and the
synods of Constantinople were ratified by their epistles or legates. But
the court and the people, Ignatius and Photius, were equally adverse
to their claims; their ministers were insulted or imprisoned; the
procession of the Holy Ghost was forgotten; Bulgaria was forever annexed
to the Byzantine throne; and the schism was prolonged by their rigid
censure of all the multiplied ordinations of an irregular patriarch. The
darkness and corruption of the tenth century suspended the intercourse,
without reconciling the minds, of the two nations. But when the Norman
sword restored the churches of Apulia to the jurisdiction of Rome,
the departing flock was warned, by a petulant epistle of the Greek
patriarch, to avoid and abhor the errors of the Latins. The rising
majesty of Rome could no longer brook the insolence of a rebel; and
Michael Cerularius was excommunicated in the heart of Constantinople by
the pope's legates. Shaking the dust from their feet, they deposited
on the altar of St. Sophia a direful anathema, [10] which enumerates the
seven mortal heresies of the Greeks, and devotes the guilty teachers,
and their unhappy sectaries, to the eternal society of the devil and his
angels. According to the emergencies of the church and state, a friendly
correspondence was some times resumed; the language of charity and
concord was sometimes affected; but the Greeks have never recanted their
errors; the popes have never repealed their sentence; and from this
thunderbolt we may date the consummation of the schism. It was enlarged
by each ambitious step of the Roman pontiffs: the emperors blushed and
trembled at the ignominious fate of their royal brethren of Germany; and
the people were scandalized by the temporal power and military life of
the Latin clergy. [11]

[Footnote 8: The xth volume of the Venice edition of the Councils
contains all the acts of the synods, and history of Photius: they are
abridged, with a faint tinge of prejudice or prudence, by Dupin and
Fleury.]

[Footnote 9: The synod of Constantinople, held in the year 869, is the
viiith of the general councils, the last assembly of the East which is
recognized by the Roman church. She rejects the synods of Constantinople
of the years 867 and 879, which were, however, equally numerous and
noisy; but they were favorable to Photius.]

[Footnote 10: See this anathema in the Councils, tom. xi. p.
1457--1460.]

[Footnote 11: Anna Comnena (Alexiad, l. i. p. 31--33) represents the
abhorrence, not only of the church, but of the palace, for Gregory VII.,
the popes and the Latin communion. The style of Cinnamus and Nicetas is
still more vehement. Yet how calm is the voice of history compared with
that of polemics!]

The aversion of the Greeks and Latins was nourished and manifested in
the three first expeditions to the Holy Land. Alexius Comnenus contrived
the absence at least of the formidable pilgrims: his successors, Manuel
and Isaac Angelus, conspired with the Moslems for the ruin of the
greatest princes of the Franks; and their crooked and malignant policy
was seconded by the active and voluntary obedience of every order of
their subjects. Of this hostile temper, a large portion may doubtless be
ascribed to the difference of language, dress, and manners, which
severs and alienates the nations of the globe. The pride, as well as
the prudence, of the sovereign was deeply wounded by the intrusion of
foreign armies, that claimed a right of traversing his dominions, and
passing under the walls of his capital: his subjects were insulted
and plundered by the rude strangers of the West: and the hatred of the
pusillanimous Greeks was sharpened by secret envy of the bold and pious
enterprises of the Franks. But these profane causes of national enmity
were fortified and inflamed by the venom of religious zeal. Instead of
a kind embrace, a hospitable reception from their Christian brethren of
the East, every tongue was taught to repeat the names of schismatic and
heretic, more odious to an orthodox ear than those of pagan and infidel:
instead of being loved for the general conformity of faith and worship,
they were abhorred for some rules of discipline, some questions of
theology, in which themselves or their teachers might differ from the
Oriental church. In the crusade of Louis the Seventh, the Greek clergy
washed and purified the altars which had been defiled by the sacrifice
of a French priest. The companions of Frederic Barbarossa deplore the
injuries which they endured, both in word and deed, from the peculiar
rancor of the bishops and monks. Their prayers and sermons excited the
people against the impious Barbarians; and the patriarch is accused of
declaring, that the faithful might obtain the redemption of all their
sins by the extirpation of the schismatics. [12] An enthusiast, named
Dorotheus, alarmed the fears, and restored the confidence, of the
emperor, by a prophetic assurance, that the German heretic, after
assaulting the gate of Blachernes, would be made a signal example of
the divine vengeance. The passage of these mighty armies were rare and
perilous events; but the crusades introduced a frequent and familiar
intercourse between the two nations, which enlarged their knowledge
without abating their prejudices. The wealth and luxury of
Constantinople demanded the productions of every climate these imports
were balanced by the art and labor of her numerous inhabitants; her
situation invites the commerce of the world; and, in every period of her
existence, that commerce has been in the hands of foreigners. After the
decline of Amalphi, the Venetians, Pisans, and Genoese, introduced their
factories and settlements into the capital of the empire: their services
were rewarded with honors and immunities; they acquired the possession
of lands and houses; their families were multiplied by marriages with
the natives; and, after the toleration of a Mahometan mosque, it was
impossible to interdict the churches of the Roman rite. [13] The two
wives of Manuel Comnenus [14] were of the race of the Franks: the first,
a sister-in-law of the emperor Conrad; the second, a daughter of the
prince of Antioch: he obtained for his son Alexius a daughter of Philip
Augustus, king of France; and he bestowed his own daughter on a
marquis of Montferrat, who was educated and dignified in the palace
of Constantinople. The Greek encountered the arms, and aspired to the
empire, of the West: he esteemed the valor, and trusted the fidelity, of
the Franks; [15] their military talents were unfitly recompensed by the
lucrative offices of judges and treasures; the policy of Manuel had
solicited the alliance of the pope; and the popular voice accused him of
a partial bias to the nation and religion of the Latins. [16] During
his reign, and that of his successor Alexius, they were exposed at
Constantinople to the reproach of foreigners, heretics, and favorites;
and this triple guilt was severely expiated in the tumult, which
announced the return and elevation of Andronicus. [17] The people rose
in arms: from the Asiatic shore the tyrant despatched his troops and
galleys to assist the national revenge; and the hopeless resistance of
the strangers served only to justify the rage, and sharpen the daggers,
of the assassins. Neither age, nor sex, nor the ties of friendship or
kindred, could save the victims of national hatred, and avarice, and
religious zeal; the Latins were slaughtered in their houses and in the
streets; their quarter was reduced to ashes; the clergy were burnt in
their churches, and the sick in their hospitals; and some estimate may
be formed of the slain from the clemency which sold above four thousand
Christians in perpetual slavery to the Turks. The priests and monks were
the loudest and most active in the destruction of the schismatics;
and they chanted a thanksgiving to the Lord, when the head of a Roman
cardinal, the pope's legate, was severed from his body, fastened to the
tail of a dog, and dragged, with savage mockery, through the city. The
more diligent of the strangers had retreated, on the first alarm, to
their vessels, and escaped through the Hellespont from the scene of
blood. In their flight, they burnt and ravaged two hundred miles of the
sea-coast; inflicted a severe revenge on the guiltless subjects of the
empire; marked the priests and monks as their peculiar enemies; and
compensated, by the accumulation of plunder, the loss of their property
and friends. On their return, they exposed to Italy and Europe the
wealth and weakness, the perfidy and malice, of the Greeks, whose
vices were painted as the genuine characters of heresy and schism. The
scruples of the first crusaders had neglected the fairest opportunities
of securing, by the possession of Constantinople, the way to the Holy
Land: domestic revolution invited, and almost compelled, the French and
Venetians to achieve the conquest of the Roman empire of the East.

[Footnote 12: His anonymous historian (de Expedit. Asiat. Fred. I.
in Canisii Lection. Antiq. tom. iii. pars ii. p. 511, edit. Basnage)
mentions the sermons of the Greek patriarch, quomodo GrÊcis injunxerat
in remissionem peccatorum peregrinos occidere et delere de terra. Tagino
observes, (in Scriptores Freher. tom. i. p. 409, edit. Struv.,)
GrÊci hÊreticos nos appellant: clerici et monachi dictis et factis
persequuntur. We may add the declaration of the emperor Baldwin fifteen
years afterwards: HÊc est (_gens_) quÊ Latinos omnes non hominum nomine,
sed canum dignabatur; quorum sanguinem effundere penË inter merita
reputabant, (Gesta Innocent. III., c. 92, in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i. p. 536.) There may be some exaggeration,
but it was as effectual for the action and reaction of hatred.]

[Footnote 13: See Anna Comnena, (Alexiad, l. vi. p. 161, 162,) and a
remarkable passage of Nicetas, (in Manuel, l. v. c. 9,) who observes
of the Venetians, kata smhnh kai jratriaV thn Kwnstantinou polin thV
oikeiaV hllaxanto, &c.]

[Footnote 14: Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 186, 187.]

[Footnote 15: Nicetas in Manuel. l. vii. c. 2. Regnante enim
(Manuele).... apud eum tantam Latinus populus repererat gratiam ut
neglectis GrÊculis suis tanquam viris mollibus et effminatis,.... solis
Latinis grandia committeret negotia.... erga eos profus‚ liberalitate
abundabat.... ex omni orbe ad eum tanquam ad benefactorem nobiles et
ignobiles concurrebant. Willelm. Tyr. xxii. c. 10.]

[Footnote 16: The suspicions of the Greeks would have been confirmed, if
they had seen the political epistles of Manuel to Pope Alexander III.,
the enemy of his enemy Frederic I., in which the emperor declares his
wish of uniting the Greeks and Latins as one flock under one shepherd,
&c (See Fleury, Hist. EcclÈs. tom. xv. p. 187, 213, 243.)]

[Footnote 17: See the Greek and Latin narratives in Nicetas (in Alexio
Comneno, c. 10) and William of Tyre, (l. xxii. c. 10, 11, 12, 13;) the
first soft and concise, the second loud, copious, and tragical.]

In the series of the Byzantine princes, I have exhibited the hypocrisy
and ambition, the tyranny and fall, of Andronicus, the last male of the
Comnenian family who reigned at Constantinople. The revolution, which
cast him headlong from the throne, saved and exalted Isaac Angelus,
[18] who descended by the females from the same Imperial dynasty. The
successor of a second Nero might have found it an easy task to deserve
the esteem and affection of his subjects; they sometimes had reason to
regret the administration of Andronicus. The sound and vigorous mind of
the tyrant was capable of discerning the connection between his own and
the public interest; and while he was feared by all who could inspire
him with fear, the unsuspected people, and the remote provinces, might
bless the inexorable justice of their master. But his successor was vain
and jealous of the supreme power, which he wanted courage and abilities
to exercise: his vices were pernicious, his virtues (if he possessed
any virtues) were useless, to mankind; and the Greeks, who imputed their
calamities to his negligence, denied him the merit of any transient or
accidental benefits of the times. Isaac slept on the throne, and was
awakened only by the sound of pleasure: his vacant hours were amused by
comedians and buffoons, and even to these buffoons the emperor was an
object of contempt: his feasts and buildings exceeded the examples of
royal luxury: the number of his eunuchs and domestics amounted to twenty
thousand; and a daily sum of four thousand pounds of silver would swell
to four millions sterling the annual expense of his household and table.
His poverty was relieved by oppression; and the public discontent was
inflamed by equal abuses in the collection, and the application, of
the revenue. While the Greeks numbered the days of their servitude,
a flattering prophet, whom he rewarded with the dignity of patriarch,
assured him of a long and victorious reign of thirty-two years; during
which he should extend his sway to Mount Libanus, and his conquests
beyond the Euphrates. But his only step towards the accomplishment of
the prediction was a splendid and scandalous embassy to Saladin, [19]
to demand the restitution of the holy sepulchre, and to propose an
offensive and defensive league with the enemy of the Christian name. In
these unworthy hands, of Isaac and his brother, the remains of the Greek
empire crumbled into dust. The Island of Cyprus, whose name excites the
ideas of elegance and pleasure, was usurped by his namesake, a Comnenian
prince; and by a strange concatenation of events, the sword of our
English Richard bestowed that kingdom on the house of Lusignan, a rich
compensation for the loss of Jerusalem.

[Footnote 18: The history of the reign of Isaac Angelus is composed, in
three books, by the senator Nicetas, (p. 228--290;) and his offices
of logothete, or principal secretary, and judge of the veil or palace,
could not bribe the impartiality of the historian. He wrote, it is true,
after the fall and death of his benefactor.]

[Footnote 19: See Bohadin, Vit. Saladin. p. 129--131, 226, vers.
Schultens. The ambassador of Isaac was equally versed in the Greek,
French, and Arabic languages; a rare instance in those times. His
embassies were received with honor, dismissed without effect, and
reported with scandal in the West.]

The honor of the monarchy and the safety of the capital were deeply
wounded by the revolt of the Bulgarians and Walachians. Since the
victory of the second Basil, they had supported, above a hundred and
seventy years, the loose dominion of the Byzantine princes; but no
effectual measures had been adopted to impose the yoke of laws and
manners on these savage tribes. By the command of Isaac, their sole
means of subsistence, their flocks and herds, were driven away, to
contribute towards the pomp of the royal nuptials; and their fierce
warriors were exasperated by the denial of equal rank and pay in the
military service. Peter and Asan, two powerful chiefs, of the race
of the ancient kings, [20] asserted their own rights and the national
freedom; their dÊmoniac impostors proclaimed to the crowd, that their
glorious patron St. Demetrius had forever deserted the cause of the
Greeks; and the conflagration spread from the banks of the Danube to the
hills of Macedonia and Thrace. After some faint efforts, Isaac Angelus
and his brother acquiesced in their independence; and the Imperial
troops were soon discouraged by the bones of their fellow-soldiers, that
were scattered along the passes of Mount HÊmus. By the arms and
policy of John or Joannices, the second kingdom of Bulgaria was firmly
established. The subtle Barbarian sent an embassy to Innocent the Third,
to acknowledge himself a genuine son of Rome in descent and religion,
[21] and humbly received from the pope the license of coining money, the
royal title, and a Latin archbishop or patriarch. The Vatican exulted in
the spiritual conquest of Bulgaria, the first object of the schism; and
if the Greeks could have preserved the prerogatives of the church, they
would gladly have resigned the rights of the monarchy.

[Footnote 20: Ducange, FamiliÊ, DalmaticÊ, p. 318, 319, 320. The
original correspondence of the Bulgarian king and the Roman pontiff is
inscribed in the Gesta Innocent. III. c. 66--82, p. 513--525.]

[Footnote 21: The pope acknowledges his pedigree, a nobili urbis RomÊ
prosapi‚ genitores tui originem traxerunt. This tradition, and the
strong resemblance of the Latin and Walachian idioms, is explained by M.
D'Anville, (Etats de l'Europe, p. 258--262.) The Italian colonies of
the Dacia of Trajan were swept away by the tide of emigration from the
Danube to the Volga, and brought back by another wave from the Volga to
the Danube. Possible, but strange!]

The Bulgarians were malicious enough to pray for the long life of Isaac
Angelus, the surest pledge of their freedom and prosperity. Yet their
chiefs could involve in the same indiscriminate contempt the family and
nation of the emperor. "In all the Greeks," said Asan to his troops,
"the same climate, and character, and education, will be productive of
the same fruits. Behold my lance," continued the warrior, "and the long
streamers that float in the wind. They differ only in color; they are
formed of the same silk, and fashioned by the same workman; nor has the
stripe that is stained in purple any superior price or value above its
fellows." [22] Several of these candidates for the purple successively
rose and fell under the empire of Isaac; a general, who had repelled the
fleets of Sicily, was driven to revolt and ruin by the ingratitude
of the prince; and his luxurious repose was disturbed by secret
conspiracies and popular insurrections. The emperor was saved by
accident, or the merit of his servants: he was at length oppressed by an
ambitious brother, who, for the hope of a precarious diadem, forgot the
obligations of nature, of loyalty, and of friendship. [23] While Isaac
in the Thracian valleys pursued the idle and solitary pleasures of the
chase, his brother, Alexius Angelus, was invested with the purple,
by the unanimous suffrage of the camp; the capital and the clergy
subscribed to their choice; and the vanity of the new sovereign rejected
the name of his fathers for the lofty and royal appellation of the
Comnenian race. On the despicable character of Isaac I have exhausted
the language of contempt, and can only add, that, in a reign of eight
years, the baser Alexius [24] was supported by the masculine vices of his
wife Euphrosyne. The first intelligence of his fall was conveyed to the
late emperor by the hostile aspect and pursuit of the guards, no longer
his own: he fled before them above fifty miles, as far as Stagyra,
in Macedonia; but the fugitive, without an object or a follower, was
arrested, brought back to Constantinople, deprived of his eyes, and
confined in a lonesome tower, on a scanty allowance of bread and water.
At the moment of the revolution, his son Alexius, whom he educated
in the hope of empire, was twelve years of age. He was spared by the
usurper, and reduced to attend his triumph both in peace and war; but
as the army was encamped on the sea-shore, an Italian vessel facilitated
the escape of the royal youth; and, in the disguise of a common sailor,
he eluded the search of his enemies, passed the Hellespont, and found a
secure refuge in the Isle of Sicily. After saluting the threshold of
the apostles, and imploring the protection of Pope Innocent the Third,
Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of
Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy,
he heard that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for
the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his
bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in his father's
restoration.

[Footnote 22: This parable is in the best savage style; but I wish the
Walach had not introduced the classic name of Mysians, the experiment of
the magnet or loadstone, and the passage of an old comic poet, (Nicetas
in Alex. Comneno, l. i. p. 299, 300.)]

[Footnote 23: The Latins aggravate the ingratitude of Alexius, by
supposing that he had been released by his brother Isaac from Turkish
captivity This pathetic tale had doubtless been repeated at Venice and
Zara but I do not readily discover its grounds in the Greek historians.]

[Footnote 24: See the reign of Alexius Angelus, or Comnenus, in the
three books of Nicetas, p. 291--352.]

About ten or twelve years after the loss of Jerusalem, the nobles of
France were again summoned to the holy war by the voice of a third
prophet, less extravagant, perhaps, than Peter the hermit, but far below
St. Bernard in the merit of an orator and a statesman. An illiterate
priest of the neighborhood of Paris, Fulk of Neuilly, [25] forsook his
parochial duty, to assume the more flattering character of a popular and
itinerant missionary. The fame of his sanctity and miracles was spread
over the land; he declaimed, with severity and vehemence, against the
vices of the age; and his sermons, which he preached in the streets of
Paris, converted the robbers, the usurers, the prostitutes, and even the
doctors and scholars of the university. No sooner did Innocent the Third
ascend the chair of St. Peter, than he proclaimed in Italy, Germany,
and France, the obligation of a new crusade. [26] The eloquent pontiff
described the ruin of Jerusalem, the triumph of the Pagans, and the
shame of Christendom; his liberality proposed the redemption of sins, a
plenary indulgence to all who should serve in Palestine, either a year
in person, or two years by a substitute; [27] and among his legates and
orators who blew the sacred trumpet, Fulk of Neuilly was the loudest and
most successful. The situation of the principal monarchs was averse to
the pious summons. The emperor Frederic the Second was a child; and his
kingdom of Germany was disputed by the rival houses of Brunswick and
Swabia, the memorable factions of the Guelphs and Ghibelines. Philip
Augustus of France had performed, and could not be persuaded to renew,
the perilous vow; but as he was not less ambitious of praise than of
power, he cheerfully instituted a perpetual fund for the defence of the
Holy Land Richard of England was satiated with the glory and misfortunes
of his first adventure; and he presumed to deride the exhortations of
Fulk of Neuilly, who was not abashed in the presence of kings. "You
advise me," said Plantagenet, "to dismiss my three daughters, pride,
avarice, and incontinence: I bequeath them to the most deserving; my
pride to the knights templars, my avarice to the monks of Cisteaux, and
my incontinence to the prelates." But the preacher was heard and obeyed
by the great vassals, the princes of the second order; and Theobald,
or Thibaut, count of Champagne, was the foremost in the holy race. The
valiant youth, at the age of twenty-two years, was encouraged by the
domestic examples of his father, who marched in the second crusade, and
of his elder brother, who had ended his days in Palestine with the title
of King of Jerusalem; two thousand two hundred knights owed service and
homage to his peerage; [28] the nobles of Champagne excelled in all the
exercises of war; [29] and, by his marriage with the heiress of Navarre,
Thibaut could draw a band of hardy Gascons from either side of the
PyrenÊan mountains. His companion in arms was Louis, count of Blois
and Chartres; like himself of regal lineage, for both the princes were
nephews, at the same time, of the kings of France and England. In a
crowd of prelates and barons, who imitated their zeal, I distinguish the
birth and merit of Matthew of Montmorency; the famous Simon of
Montfort, the scourge of the Albigeois; and a valiant noble, Jeffrey of
Villehardouin, [30] marshal of Champagne, [31] who has condescended, in
the rude idiom of his age and country, [32] to write or dictate [33]
an original narrative of the councils and actions in which he bore a
memorable part. At the same time, Baldwin, count of Flanders, who had
married the sister of Thibaut, assumed the cross at Bruges, with his
brother Henry, and the principal knights and citizens of that rich and
industrious province. [34] The vow which the chiefs had pronounced in
churches, they ratified in tournaments; the operations of the war were
debated in full and frequent assemblies; and it was resolved to seek
the deliverance of Palestine in Egypt, a country, since Saladin's death,
which was almost ruined by famine and civil war. But the fate of so many
royal armies displayed the toils and perils of a land expedition; and if
the Flemings dwelt along the ocean, the French barons were destitute of
ships and ignorant of navigation. They embraced the wise resolution of
choosing six deputies or representatives, of whom Villehardouin was
one, with a discretionary trust to direct the motions, and to pledge the
faith, of the whole confederacy. The maritime states of Italy were alone
possessed of the means of transporting the holy warriors with their arms
and horses; and the six deputies proceeded to Venice, to solicit, on
motives of piety or interest, the aid of that powerful republic.

[Footnote 25: See Fleury, Hist. EcclÈs. tom. xvi. p. 26, &c., and
Villehardouin, No. 1, with the observations of Ducange, which I always
mean to quote with the original text.]

[Footnote 26: The contemporary life of Pope Innocent III., published by
Baluze and Muratori, (Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. iii. pars i.
p. 486--568), is most valuable for the important and original documents
which are inserted in the text. The bull of the crusade may be read, c.
84, 85.]

[Footnote 27: Por-ce que cil pardon, fut issi gran, si s'en esmeurent
mult li cuers des genz, et mult s'en croisierent, porce que li pardons
ere si gran. Villehardouin, No. 1. Our philosophers may refine on the
causes of the crusades, but such were the genuine feelings of a French
knight.]

[Footnote 28: This number of fiefs (of which 1800 owed liege homage) was
enrolled in the church of St. Stephen at Troyes, and attested A.D. 1213,
by the marshal and butler of Champagne, (Ducange, Observ. p. 254.)]

[Footnote 29: Campania.... militiÊ privilegio singularius excellit....
in tyrociniis.... prolusione armorum, &c., Duncage, p. 249, from the old
Chronicle of Jerusalem, A.D. 1177--1199.]

[Footnote 30: The name of Villehardouin was taken from a village and
castle in the diocese of Troyes, near the River Aube, between Bar
and Arcis. The family was ancient and noble; the elder branch of our
historian existed after the year 1400, the younger, which acquired
the principality of Achaia, merged in the house of Savoy, (Ducange, p.
235--245.)]

[Footnote 31: This office was held by his father and his descendants;
but Ducange has not hunted it with his usual sagacity. I find that, in
the year 1356, it was in the family of Conflans; but these provincial
have been long since eclipsed by the national marshals of France.]

[Footnote 32: This language, of which I shall produce some specimens,
is explained by Vigenere and Ducange, in a version and glossary. The
president Des Brosses (MÈchanisme des Langues, tom. ii. p. 83) gives
it as the example of a language which has ceased to be French, and is
understood only by grammarians.]

[Footnote 33: His age, and his own expression, moi qui ceste uvre
_dicta_, (No. 62, &c.,) may justify the suspicion (more probable than
Mr. Wood's on Homer) that he could neither read nor write. Yet Champagne
may boast of the two first historians, the noble authors of French
prose, Villehardouin and Joinville.]

[Footnote 34: The crusade and reigns of the counts of Flanders, Baldwin
and his brother Henry, are the subject of a particular history by the
Jesuit Doutremens, (Constantinopolis Belgica; Turnaci, 1638, in 4to.,)
which I have only seen with the eyes of Ducange.]

In the invasion of Italy by Attila, I have mentioned [35] the flight of
the Venetians from the fallen cities of the continent, and their obscure
shelter in the chain of islands that line the extremity of the Adriatic
Gulf. In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and
inaccessible, they gradually coalesced into a republic: the first
foundations of Venice were laid in the Island of Rialto; and the annual
election of the twelve tribunes was superseded by the permanent office
of a duke or doge. On the verge of the two empires, the Venetians exult
in the belief of primitive and perpetual independence. [36] Against the
Latins, their antique freedom has been asserted by the sword, and may
be justified by the pen. Charlemagne himself resigned all claims of
sovereignty to the islands of the Adriatic Gulf: his son Pepin was
repulsed in the attacks of the _lagunas_ or canals, too deep for the
cavalry, and too shallow for the vessels; and in every age, under the
German CÊsars, the lands of the republic have been clearly distinguished
from the kingdom of Italy. But the inhabitants of Venice were considered
by themselves, by strangers, and by their sovereigns, as an inalienable
portion of the Greek empire: [37] in the ninth and tenth centuries, the
proofs of their subjection are numerous and unquestionable; and the
vain titles, the servile honors, of the Byzantine court, so ambitiously
solicited by their dukes, would have degraded the magistrates of a free
people. But the bands of this dependence, which was never absolute or
rigid, were imperceptibly relaxed by the ambition of Venice and the
weakness of Constantinople. Obedience was softened into respect,
privilege ripened into prerogative, and the freedom of domestic
government was fortified by the independence of foreign dominion. The
maritime cities of Istria and Dalmatia bowed to the sovereigns of
the Adriatic; and when they armed against the Normans in the cause of
Alexius, the emperor applied, not to the duty of his subjects, but to
the gratitude and generosity of his faithful allies. The sea was their
patrimony: [38] the western parts of the Mediterranean, from Tuscany to
Gibraltar, were indeed abandoned to their rivals of Pisa and Genoa; but
the Venetians acquired an early and lucrative share of the commerce of
Greece and Egypt. Their riches increased with the increasing demand of
Europe; their manufactures of silk and glass, perhaps the institution of
their bank, are of high antiquity; and they enjoyed the fruits of their
industry in the magnificence of public and private life. To assert her
flag, to avenge her injuries, to protect the freedom of navigation,
the republic could launch and man a fleet of a hundred galleys; and the
Greeks, the Saracens, and the Normans, were encountered by her naval
arms. The Franks of Syria were assisted by the Venetians in the
reduction of the sea coast; but their zeal was neither blind nor
disinterested; and in the conquest of Tyre, they shared the sovereignty
of a city, the first seat of the commerce of the world. The policy of
Venice was marked by the avarice of a trading, and the insolence of a
maritime, power; yet her ambition was prudent: nor did she often forget
that if armed galleys were the effect and safeguard, merchant vessels
were the cause and supply, of her greatness. In her religion, she
avoided the schisms of the Greeks, without yielding a servile obedience
to the Roman pontiff; and a free intercourse with the infidels of every
clime appears to have allayed betimes the fever of superstition. Her
primitive government was a loose mixture of democracy and monarchy; the
doge was elected by the votes of the general assembly; as long as he
was popular and successful, he reigned with the pomp and authority of a
prince; but in the frequent revolutions of the state, he was deposed,
or banished, or slain, by the justice or injustice of the multitude.
The twelfth century produced the first rudiments of the wise and jealous
aristocracy, which has reduced the doge to a pageant, and the people to
a cipher. [39]

[Footnote 35: History, &c., vol. iii. p. 446, 447.]

[Footnote 36: The foundation and independence of Venice, and Pepin's
invasion, are discussed by Pagi (Critica, tom. iii. A.D. 81, No. 4,
&c.) and Beretti, (Dissert. Chorograph. ItaliÊ Medii ∆vi, in Muratori,
Script. tom. x. p. 153.) The two critics have a slight bias, the
Frenchman adverse, the Italian favorable, to the republic.]

[Footnote 37: When the son of Charlemagne asserted his right of
sovereignty, he was answered by the loyal Venetians, oti hmeiV douloi
Jelomen einai tou 'Rwmaiwn basilewV, (Constantin. Porphyrogenit. de
Administrat. Imperii, pars ii. c. 28, p. 85;) and the report of the
ixth establishes the fact of the xth century, which is confirmed by the
embassy of Liutprand of Cremona. The annual tribute, which the emperor
allows them to pay to the king of Italy, alleviates, by doubling, their
servitude; but the hateful word douloi must be translated, as in the
charter of 827, (Laugier, Hist. de Venice, tom. i. p. 67, &c.,) by the
softer appellation of _subditi_, or _fideles_.]

[Footnote 38: See the xxvth and xxxth dissertations of the Antiquitates
Medii ∆vi of Muratori. From Anderson's History of Commerce, I understand
that the Venetians did not trade to England before the year 1323. The
most flourishing state of their wealth and commerce, in the beginning of
the xvth century, is agreeably described by the AbbÈ Dubos, (Hist. de la
Ligue de Cambray, tom. ii. p. 443--480.)]

[Footnote 39: The Venetians have been slow in writing and publishing
their history. Their most ancient monuments are, 1. The rude Chronicle
(perhaps) of John Sagorninus, (Venezia, 1765, in octavo,) which
represents the state and manners of Venice in the year 1008. 2. The
larger history of the doge, (1342--1354,) Andrew Dandolo, published for
the first time in the xiith tom. of Muratori, A.D. 1728. The History
of Venice by the AbbÈ Laugier, (Paris, 1728,) is a work of some merit,
which I have chiefly used for the constitutional part. * Note: It is
scarcely necessary to mention the valuable work of Count Daru, "History
de Venise," of which I hear that an Italian translation has been
published, with notes defensive of the ancient republic. I have not yet
seen this work.--M.]




Chapter LX: The Fourth Crusade.--Part II.

When the six ambassadors of the French pilgrims arrived at Venice, they
were hospitably entertained in the palace of St. Mark, by the reigning
duke; his name was Henry Dandolo; [40] and he shone in the last period of
human life as one of the most illustrious characters of the times.
Under the weight of years, and after the loss of his eyes, [41] Dandolo
retained a sound understanding and a manly courage: the spirit of a
hero, ambitious to signalize his reign by some memorable exploits; and
the wisdom of a patriot, anxious to build his fame on the glory and
advantage of his country. He praised the bold enthusiasm and liberal
confidence of the barons and their deputies: in such a cause, and with
such associates, he should aspire, were he a private man, to terminate
his life; but he was the servant of the republic, and some delay was
requisite to consult, on this arduous business, the judgment of his
colleagues. The proposal of the French was first debated by the six
_sages_ who had been recently appointed to control the administration of
the doge: it was next disclosed to the forty members of the council
of state; and finally communicated to the legislative assembly of four
hundred and fifty representatives, who were annually chosen in the six
quarters of the city. In peace and war, the doge was still the chief
of the republic; his legal authority was supported by the personal
reputation of Dandolo: his arguments of public interest were balanced
and approved; and he was authorized to inform the ambassadors of
the following conditions of the treaty. [42] It was proposed that the
crusaders should assemble at Venice, on the feast of St. John of the
ensuing year; that flat-bottomed vessels should be prepared for four
thousand five hundred horses, and nine thousand squires, with a number
of ships sufficient for the embarkation of four thousand five hundred
knights, and twenty thousand foot; that during a term of nine months
they should be supplied with provisions, and transported to whatsoever
coast the service of God and Christendom should require; and that the
republic should join the armament with a squadron of fifty galleys. It
was required, that the pilgrims should pay, before their departure, a
sum of eighty-five thousand marks of silver; and that all conquests, by
sea and land, should be equally divided between the confederates. The
terms were hard; but the emergency was pressing, and the French barons
were not less profuse of money than of blood. A general assembly was
convened to ratify the treaty: the stately chapel and place of St. Mark
were filled with ten thousand citizens; and the noble deputies were
taught a new lesson of humbling themselves before the majesty of the
people. "Illustrious Venetians," said the marshal of Champagne, "we are
sent by the greatest and most powerful barons of France to implore the
aid of the masters of the sea for the deliverance of Jerusalem. They
have enjoined us to fall prostrate at your feet; nor will we rise from
the ground till you have promised to avenge with us the injuries of
Christ." The eloquence of their words and tears, [43] their martial
aspect, and suppliant attitude, were applauded by a universal shout; as
it were, says Jeffrey, by the sound of an earthquake. The venerable doge
ascended the pulpit to urge their request by those motives of honor and
virtue, which alone can be offered to a popular assembly: the treaty
was transcribed on parchment, attested with oaths and seals, mutually
accepted by the weeping and joyful representatives of France and Venice;
and despatched to Rome for the approbation of Pope Innocent the Third.
Two thousand marks were borrowed of the merchants for the first expenses
of the armament. Of the six deputies, two repassed the Alps to announce
their success, while their four companions made a fruitless trial of the
zeal and emulation of the republics of Genoa and Pisa.

[Footnote 40: Henry Dandolo was eighty-four at his election, (A.D.
1192,) and ninety-seven at his death, (A.D. 1205.) See the Observations
of Ducange sur Villehardouin, No. 204. But this _extraordinary_
longevity is not observed by the original writers, nor does there exist
another example of a hero near a hundred years of age. Theophrastus
might afford an instance of a writer of ninety-nine; but instead
of ennenhkonta, (Prom. ad Character.,)I am much inclined to read
ebdomhkonta, with his last editor Fischer, and the first thoughts of
Casaubon. It is scarcely possible that the powers of the mind and body
should support themselves till such a period of life.]

[Footnote 41: The modern Venetians (Laugier, tom. ii. p. 119) accuse
the emperor Manuel; but the calumny is refuted by Villehardouin and the
older writers, who suppose that Dandolo lost his eyes by a wound, (No.
31, and Ducange.) * Note: The accounts differ, both as to the extent and
the cause of his blindness According to Villehardouin and others, the
sight was totally lost; according to the Chronicle of Andrew Dandolo.
(Murat. tom. xii. p. 322,) he was vise debilis. See Wilken, vol. v. p.
143.--M.]

[Footnote 42: See the original treaty in the Chronicle of Andrew
Dandolo, p. 323--326.]

[Footnote 43: A reader of Villehardouin must observe the frequent tears
of the marshal and his brother knights. Sachiez que la ot mainte lerme
plorÈe de pitiÈ, (No. 17;) mult plorant, (ibid.;) mainte lerme plorÈe,
(No. 34;) si orent mult pitiÈ et plorerent mult durement, (No. 60;) i ot
mainte lerme plorÈe de pitiÈ, (No. 202.) They weep on every occasion of
grief, joy, or devotion.]

The execution of the treaty was still opposed by unforeseen difficulties
and delays. The marshal, on his return to Troyes, was embraced and
approved by Thibaut count of Champagne, who had been unanimously chosen
general of the confederates. But the health of that valiant youth
already declined, and soon became hopeless; and he deplored the untimely
fate, which condemned him to expire, not in a field of battle, but on
a bed of sickness. To his brave and numerous vassals, the dying prince
distributed his treasures: they swore in his presence to accomplish his
vow and their own; but some there were, says the marshal, who accepted
his gifts and forfeited their words. The more resolute champions of the
cross held a parliament at Soissons for the election of a new general;
but such was the incapacity, or jealousy, or reluctance, of the princes
of France, that none could be found both able and willing to assume the
conduct of the enterprise. They acquiesced in the choice of a stranger,
of Boniface marquis of Montferrat, descended of a race of heroes, and
himself of conspicuous fame in the wars and negotiations of the times;
[44] nor could the piety or ambition of the Italian chief decline this
honorable invitation. After visiting the French court, where he
was received as a friend and kinsman, the marquis, in the church of
Soissons, was invested with the cross of a pilgrim and the staff of a
general; and immediately repassed the Alps, to prepare for the distant
expedition of the East. About the festival of the Pentecost he displayed
his banner, and marched towards Venice at the head of the Italians: he
was preceded or followed by the counts of Flanders and Blois, and the
most respectable barons of France; and their numbers were swelled by the
pilgrims of Germany, [45] whose object and motives were similar to their
own. The Venetians had fulfilled, and even surpassed, their engagements:
stables were constructed for the horses, and barracks for the troops:
the magazines were abundantly replenished with forage and provisions;
and the fleet of transports, ships, and galleys, was ready to hoist
sail as soon as the republic had received the price of the freight and
armament. But that price far exceeded the wealth of the crusaders who
were assembled at Venice. The Flemings, whose obedience to their count
was voluntary and precarious, had embarked in their vessels for the long
navigation of the ocean and Mediterranean; and many of the French
and Italians had preferred a cheaper and more convenient passage from
Marseilles and Apulia to the Holy Land. Each pilgrim might complain,
that after he had furnished his own contribution, he was made
responsible for the deficiency of his absent brethren: the gold and
silver plate of the chiefs, which they freely delivered to the treasury
of St. Marks, was a generous but inadequate sacrifice; and after all
their efforts, thirty-four thousand marks were still wanting to
complete the stipulated sum. The obstacle was removed by the policy and
patriotism of the doge, who proposed to the barons, that if they would
join their arms in reducing some revolted cities of Dalmatia, he would
expose his person in the holy war, and obtain from the republic a
long indulgence, till some wealthy conquest should afford the means
of satisfying the debt. After much scruple and hesitation, they chose
rather to accept the offer than to relinquish the enterprise; and the
first hostilities of the fleet and army were directed against Zara,
[46] a strong city of the Sclavonian coast, which had renounced its
allegiance to Venice, and implored the protection of the king of
Hungary. [47] The crusaders burst the chain or boom of the harbor;
landed their horses, troops, and military engines; and compelled the
inhabitants, after a defence of five days, to surrender at discretion:
their lives were spared, but the revolt was punished by the pillage
of their houses and the demolition of their walls. The season was far
advanced; the French and Venetians resolved to pass the winter in a
secure harbor and plentiful country; but their repose was disturbed
by national and tumultuous quarrels of the soldiers and mariners. The
conquest of Zara had scattered the seeds of discord and scandal: the
arms of the allies had been stained in their outset with the blood, not
of infidels, but of Christians: the king of Hungary and his new subjects
were themselves enlisted under the banner of the cross; and the scruples
of the devout were magnified by the fear of lassitude of the reluctant
pilgrims. The pope had excommunicated the false crusaders who had
pillaged and massacred their brethren, [48] and only the marquis Boniface
and Simon of Montfort [481] escaped these spiritual thunders; the one by
his absence from the siege, the other by his final departure from the
camp. Innocent might absolve the simple and submissive penitents of
France; but he was provoked by the stubborn reason of the Venetians, who
refused to confess their guilt, to accept their pardon, or to allow, in
their temporal concerns, the interposition of a priest.

[Footnote 44: By a victory (A.D. 1191) over the citizens of Asti, by
a crusade to Palestine, and by an embassy from the pope to the German
princes, (Muratori, Annali d'Italia, tom. x. p. 163, 202.)]

[Footnote 45: See the crusade of the Germans in the Historia C. P. of
Gunther, (Canisii Antiq. Lect. tom. iv. p. v.--viii.,) who celebrates
the pilgrimage of his abbot Martin, one of the preaching rivals of Fulk
of Neuilly. His monastery, of the Cistercian order, was situate in the
diocese of Basil.]

[Footnote 46: Jadera, now Zara, was a Roman colony, which acknowledged
Augustus for its parent. It is now only two miles round, and contains
five or six thousand inhabitants; but the fortifications are strong, and
it is joined to the main land by a bridge. See the travels of the two
companions, Spon and Wheeler, (Voyage de Dalmatie, de GrËce, &c., tom.
i. p. 64--70. Journey into Greece, p. 8--14;) the last of whom, by
mistaking _Sestertia_ for _Sestertii_, values an arch with statues and
columns at twelve pounds. If, in his time, there were no trees
near Zara, the cherry-trees were not yet planted which produce our
incomparable _marasquin_.]

[Footnote 47: Katona (Hist. Critica Reg. HungariÊ, Stirpis Arpad. tom.
iv. p. 536--558) collects all the facts and testimonies most adverse to
the conquerors of Zara.]

[Footnote 48: See the whole transaction, and the sentiments of the pope,
in the Epistles of Innocent III. Gesta, c. 86, 87, 88.]

[Footnote 481: Montfort protested against the siege. Guido, the abbot of
Vaux de Sernay, in the name of the pope, interdicted the attack on a
Christian city; and the immediate surrender of the town was thus delayed
for five days of fruitless resistance. Wilken, vol. v. p. 167. See
likewise, at length, the history of the interdict issued by the pope.
Ibid.--M.]

The assembly of such formidable powers by sea and land had revived the
hopes of young [49] Alexius; and both at Venice and Zara, he solicited
the arms of the crusaders, for his own restoration and his father's [50]
deliverance. The royal youth was recommended by Philip king of Germany:
his prayers and presence excited the compassion of the camp; and his
cause was embraced and pleaded by the marquis of Montferrat and the doge
of Venice. A double alliance, and the dignity of CÊsar, had connected
with the Imperial family the two elder brothers of Boniface: [51] he
expected to derive a kingdom from the important service; and the
more generous ambition of Dandolo was eager to secure the inestimable
benefits of trade and dominion that might accrue to his country. [52]
Their influence procured a favorable audience for the ambassadors of
Alexius; and if the magnitude of his offers excited some suspicion,
the motives and rewards which he displayed might justify the delay and
diversion of those forces which had been consecrated to the deliverance
of Jerusalem. He promised in his own and his father's name, that as soon
as they should be seated on the throne of Constantinople, they would
terminate the long schism of the Greeks, and submit themselves and
their people to the lawful supremacy of the Roman church. He engaged
to recompense the labors and merits of the crusaders, by the immediate
payment of two hundred thousand marks of silver; to accompany them
in person to Egypt; or, if it should be judged more advantageous, to
maintain, during a year, ten thousand men, and, during his life, five
hundred knights, for the service of the Holy Land. These tempting
conditions were accepted by the republic of Venice; and the eloquence
of the doge and marquis persuaded the counts of Flanders, Blois, and St.
Pol, with eight barons of France, to join in the glorious enterprise. A
treaty of offensive and defensive alliance was confirmed by their
oaths and seals; and each individual, according to his situation and
character, was swayed by the hope of public or private advantage; by
the honor of restoring an exiled monarch; or by the sincere and
probable opinion, that their efforts in Palestine would be fruitless and
unavailing, and that the acquisition of Constantinople must precede and
prepare the recovery of Jerusalem. But they were the chiefs or equals
of a valiant band of freemen and volunteers, who thought and acted
for themselves: the soldiers and clergy were divided; and, if a large
majority subscribed to the alliance, the numbers and arguments of the
dissidents were strong and respectable. [53] The boldest hearts were
appalled by the report of the naval power and impregnable strength of
Constantinople; and their apprehensions were disguised to the world,
and perhaps to themselves, by the more decent objections of religion
and duty. They alleged the sanctity of a vow, which had drawn them from
their families and homes to the rescue of the holy sepulchre; nor
should the dark and crooked counsels of human policy divert them from
a pursuit, the event of which was in the hands of the Almighty. Their
first offence, the attack of Zara, had been severely punished by the
reproach of their conscience and the censures of the pope; nor would
they again imbrue their hands in the blood of their fellow-Christians.
The apostle of Rome had pronounced; nor would they usurp the right
of avenging with the sword the schism of the Greeks and the doubtful
usurpation of the Byzantine monarch. On these principles or pretences,
many pilgrims, the most distinguished for their valor and piety,
withdrew from the camp; and their retreat was less pernicious than the
open or secret opposition of a discontented party, that labored, on
every occasion, to separate the army and disappoint the enterprise.

[Footnote 49: A modern reader is surprised to hear of the valet de
Constantinople, as applied to young Alexius, on account of his youth,
like the _infants_ of Spain, and the _nobilissimus puer_ of the Romans.
The pages and _valets_ of the knights were as noble as themselves,
(Villehardouin and Ducange, No. 36.)]

[Footnote 50: The emperor Isaac is styled by Villehardouin, _Sursac_,
(No. 35, &c.,) which may be derived from the French _Sire_, or the Greek
Kur (kurioV?) melted into his proper name; the further corruptions of
Tursac and Conserac will instruct us what license may have been used in
the old dynasties of Assyria and Egypt.]

[Footnote 51: Reinier and Conrad: the former married Maria, daughter
of the emperor Manuel Comnenus; the latter was the husband of Theodora
Angela, sister of the emperors Isaac and Alexius. Conrad abandoned
the Greek court and princess for the glory of defending Tyre against
Saladin, (Ducange, Fam. Byzant. p. 187, 203.)]

[Footnote 52: Nicetas (in Alexio Comneno, l. iii. c. 9) accuses the doge
and Venetians as the first authors of the war against Constantinople,
and considers only as a kuma epi kumati, the arrival and shameful offers
of the royal exile. * Note: He admits, however, that the Angeli had
committed depredations on the Venetian trade, and the emperor himself
had refused the payment of part of the stipulated compensation for the
seizure of the Venetian merchandise by the emperor Manuel. Nicetas, in
loc.--M.]

[Footnote 53: Villehardouin and Gunther represent the sentiments of
the two parties. The abbot Martin left the army at Zara, proceeded to
Palestine, was sent ambassador to Constantinople, and became a reluctant
witness of the second siege.]

Notwithstanding this defection, the departure of the fleet and army was
vigorously pressed by the Venetians, whose zeal for the service of the
royal youth concealed a just resentment to his nation and family. They
were mortified by the recent preference which had been given to Pisa,
the rival of their trade; they had a long arrear of debt and injury to
liquidate with the Byzantine court; and Dandolo might not discourage
the popular tale, that he had been deprived of his eyes by the emperor
Manuel, who perfidiously violated the sanctity of an ambassador. A
similar armament, for ages, had not rode the Adriatic: it was composed
of one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed vessels or _palanders_ for
the horses; two hundred and forty transports filled with men and arms;
seventy store-ships laden with provisions; and fifty stout galleys,
well prepared for the encounter of an enemy. [54] While the wind was
favorable, the sky serene, and the water smooth, every eye was fixed
with wonder and delight on the scene of military and naval pomp which
overspread the sea. [541] The shields of the knights and squires, at once
an ornament and a defence, were arranged on either side of the ships;
the banners of the nations and families were displayed from the stern;
our modern artillery was supplied by three hundred engines for casting
stones and darts: the fatigues of the way were cheered with the sound
of music; and the spirits of the adventurers were raised by the mutual
assurance, that forty thousand Christian heroes were equal to the
conquest of the world. [55] In the navigation [56] from Venice and Zara,
the fleet was successfully steered by the skill and experience of
the Venetian pilots: at Durazzo, the confederates first landed on the
territories of the Greek empire: the Isle of Corfu afforded a station
and repose; they doubled, without accident, the perilous cape of Malea,
the southern point of Peloponnesus or the Morea; made a descent in
the islands of Negropont and Andros; and cast anchor at Abydus on the
Asiatic side of the Hellespont. These preludes of conquest were easy and
bloodless: the Greeks of the provinces, without patriotism or courage,
were crushed by an irresistible force: the presence of the lawful heir
might justify their obedience; and it was rewarded by the modesty and
discipline of the Latins. As they penetrated through the Hellespont, the
magnitude of their navy was compressed in a narrow channel, and the face
of the waters was darkened with innumerable sails. They again expanded
in the basin of the Propontis, and traversed that placid sea, till
they approached the European shore, at the abbey of St. Stephen, three
leagues to the west of Constantinople. The prudent doge dissuaded them
from dispersing themselves in a populous and hostile land; and, as
their stock of provisions was reduced, it was resolved, in the season
of harvest, to replenish their store-ships in the fertile islands of
the Propontis. With this resolution, they directed their course: but a
strong gale, and their own impatience, drove them to the eastward; and
so near did they run to the shore and the city, that some volleys of
stones and darts were exchanged between the ships and the rampart. As
they passed along, they gazed with admiration on the capital of the
East, or, as it should seem, of the earth; rising from her seven hills,
and towering over the continents of Europe and Asia. The swelling domes
and lofty spires of five hundred palaces and churches were gilded by the
sun and reflected in the waters: the walls were crowded with soldiers
and spectators, whose numbers they beheld, of whose temper they were
ignorant; and each heart was chilled by the reflection, that, since the
beginning of the world, such an enterprise had never been undertaken by
such a handful of warriors. But the momentary apprehension was dispelled
by hope and valor; and every man, says the marshal of Champagne, glanced
his eye on the sword or lance which he must speedily use in the glorious
conflict. [57] The Latins cast anchor before Chalcedon; the mariners only
were left in the vessels: the soldiers, horses, and arms, were safely
landed; and, in the luxury of an Imperial palace, the barons tasted
the first fruits of their success. On the third day, the fleet and
army moved towards Scutari, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople: a
detachment of five hundred Greek horse was surprised and defeated by
fourscore French knights; and in a halt of nine days, the camp was
plentifully supplied with forage and provisions.

[Footnote 54: The birth and dignity of Andrew Dandolo gave him the
motive and the means of searching in the archives of Venice the
memorable story of his ancestor. His brevity seems to accuse the copious
and more recent narratives of Sanudo, (in Muratori, Script. Rerum
Italicarum, tom. xxii.,) Blondus, Sabellicus, and Rhamnusius.]

[Footnote 541: This description rather belongs to the first setting sail
of the expedition from Venice, before the siege of Zara. The armament
did not return to Venice.--M.]

[Footnote 55: Villehardouin, No. 62. His feelings and expressions are
original: he often weeps, but he rejoices in the glories and perils of
war with a spirit unknown to a sedentary writer.]

[Footnote 56: In this voyage, almost all the geographical names are
corrupted by the Latins. The modern appellation of Chalcis, and all
Euba, is derived from its _Euripus_, _Evripo_, _Negri-po_, _Negropont_,
which dishonors our maps, (D'Anville, GÈographie Ancienne, tom. i. p.
263.)]

[Footnote 57: Et sachiez que il ni ot si hardi cui le cuer ne fremist,
(c. 66.).. Chascuns regardoit ses armes.... que par tems en arons
mestier, (c. 67.) Such is the honesty of courage.]

In relating the invasion of a great empire, it may seem strange that I
have not described the obstacles which should have checked the progress
of the strangers. The Greeks, in truth, were an unwarlike people; but
they were rich, industrious, and subject to the will of a single man:
had that man been capable of fear, when his enemies were at a distance,
or of courage, when they approached his person. The first rumor of his
nephew's alliance with the French and Venetians was despised by the
usurper Alexius: his flatterers persuaded him, that in this contempt he
was bold and sincere; and each evening, in the close of the banquet, he
thrice discomfited the Barbarians of the West. These Barbarians had
been justly terrified by the report of his naval power; and the sixteen
hundred fishing boats of Constantinople [58] could have manned a fleet,
to sink them in the Adriatic, or stop their entrance in the mouth of the
Hellespont. But all force may be annihilated by the negligence of the
prince and the venality of his ministers. The great duke, or admiral,
made a scandalous, almost a public, auction of the sails, the masts,
and the rigging: the royal forests were reserved for the more important
purpose of the chase; and the trees, says Nicetas, were guarded by the
eunuchs, like the groves of religious worship. [59] From his dream of
pride, Alexius was awakened by the siege of Zara, and the rapid advances
of the Latins; as soon as he saw the danger was real, he thought it
inevitable, and his vain presumption was lost in abject despondency and
despair. He suffered these contemptible Barbarians to pitch their camp
in the sight of the palace; and his apprehensions were thinly disguised
by the pomp and menace of a suppliant embassy. The sovereign of the
Romans was astonished (his ambassadors were instructed to say) at the
hostile appearance of the strangers. If these pilgrims were sincere in
their vow for the deliverance of Jerusalem, his voice must applaud, and
his treasures should assist, their pious design but should they dare to
invade the sanctuary of empire, their numbers, were they ten times more
considerable, should not protect them from his just resentment. The
answer of the doge and barons was simple and magnanimous. "In the cause
of honor and justice," they said, "we despise the usurper of Greece, his
threats, and his offers. _Our_ friendship and _his_ allegiance are due
to the lawful heir, to the young prince, who is seated among us, and to
his father, the emperor Isaac, who has been deprived of his sceptre, his
freedom, and his eyes, by the crime of an ungrateful brother. Let that
brother confess his guilt, and implore forgiveness, and we ourselves
will intercede, that he may be permitted to live in affluence and
security. But let him not insult us by a second message; our reply will
be made in arms, in the palace of Constantinople."

[Footnote 58: Eandem urbem plus in solis navibus piscatorum abundare,
quam illos in toto navigio. Habebat enim mille et sexcentas piscatorias
naves..... Bellicas autem sive mercatorias habebant infinitÊ
multitudinis et portum tutissimum. Gunther, Hist. C. P. c. 8, p. 10.]

[Footnote 59: Kaqaper iervn alsewn, eipein de kai Jeojuteutwn paradeiswn
ejeid?onto toutwni. Nicetas in Alex. Comneno, l. iii. c. 9, p. 348.]

On the tenth day of their encampment at Scutari, the crusaders prepared
themselves, as soldiers and as Catholics, for the passage of the
Bosphorus. Perilous indeed was the adventure; the stream was broad and
rapid: in a calm the current of the Euxine might drive down the liquid
and unextinguishable fires of the Greeks; and the opposite shores of
Europe were defended by seventy thousand horse and foot in formidable
array. On this memorable day, which happened to be bright and pleasant,
the Latins were distributed in six battles or divisions; the first, or
vanguard, was led by the count of Flanders, one of the most powerful of
the Christian princes in the skill and number of his crossbows. The four
successive battles of the French were commanded by his brother Henry,
the counts of St. Pol and Blois, and Matthew of Montmorency; the last of
whom was honored by the voluntary service of the marshal and nobles of
Champagne. The sixth division, the rear-guard and reserve of the army,
was conducted by the marquis of Montferrat, at the head of the Germans
and Lombards. The chargers, saddled, with their long comparisons
dragging on the ground, were embarked in the flat _palanders_; [60] and
the knights stood by the side of their horses, in complete armor, their
helmets laced, and their lances in their hands. The numerous train of
sergeants [61] and archers occupied the transports; and each transport
was towed by the strength and swiftness of a galley. The six divisions
traversed the Bosphorus, without encountering an enemy or an obstacle:
to land the foremost was the wish, to conquer or die was the resolution,
of every division and of every soldier. Jealous of the preeminence of
danger, the knights in their heavy armor leaped into the sea, when it
rose as high as their girdle; the sergeants and archers were animated
by their valor; and the squires, letting down the draw-bridges of the
palanders, led the horses to the shore. Before their squadrons could
mount, and form, and couch their Lances, the seventy thousand Greeks
had vanished from their sight: the timid Alexius gave the example to his
troops; and it was only by the plunder of his rich pavilions that the
Latins were informed that they had fought against an emperor. In the
first consternation of the flying enemy, they resolved, by a double
attack, to open the entrance of the harbor. The tower of Galata, [62] in
the suburb of Pera, was attacked and stormed by the French, while the
Venetians assumed the more difficult task of forcing the boom or chain
that was stretched from that tower to the Byzantine shore. After some
fruitless attempts, their intrepid perseverance prevailed: twenty ships
of war, the relics of the Grecian navy, were either sunk or taken: the
enormous and massy links of iron were cut asunder by the shears, or
broken by the weight, of the galleys; [63] and the Venetian fleet, safe
and triumphant, rode at anchor in the port of Constantinople. By these
daring achievements, a remnant of twenty thousand Latins solicited
the license of besieging a capital which contained above four hundred
thousand inhabitants, [64] able, though not willing, to bear arms
in defence of their country. Such an account would indeed suppose a
population of near two millions; but whatever abatement may be required
in the numbers of the Greeks, the _belief_ of those numbers will equally
exalt the fearless spirit of their assailants.

[Footnote 60: From the version of Vignere I adopt the well-sounding word
_palander_, which is still used, I believe, in the Mediterranean.
But had I written in French, I should have preserved the original and
expressive denomination of _vessiers_ or _huissiers_, from the _huis_ or
door which was let down as a draw-bridge; but which, at sea, was closed
into the side of the ship, (see Ducange au Villehardouin, No. 14, and
Joinville. p. 27, 28, edit. du Louvre.)]

[Footnote 61: To avoid the vague expressions of followers, &c., I use,
after Villehardouin, the word _sergeants_ for all horsemen who were not
knights. There were sergeants at arms, and sergeants at law; and if we
visit the parade and Westminster Hall, we may observe the strange result
of the distinction, (Ducange, Glossar. Latin, _Servientes_, &c., tom.
vi. p. 226--231.)]

[Footnote 62: It is needl

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