THE LAST CRUSADES AND THE EAST IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.[40]
Characteristics of the Thirteenth-Century Crusades—Innocent III. and
the Crusades—The Children’s Crusade—The State of the Latin
Kingdom—The Fifth Crusade—Andrew of Hungary—John of Brienne and the
Siege of Damietta—Crusade of Frederick II. and the Recovery of
Jerusalem—Crusades of Theobald of Navarre and Richard of
Cornwall—The Charismians conquer Jerusalem—The Tartar Crisis—The
Sixth Crusade—St. Louis in Egypt—Divisions of the Latin Kingdom—The
Mamelukes and Bibars—Fall of Antioch—The Seventh Crusade—Death of
St. Louis at Tunis—Crusade of Edward I.—The Fall of Acre and the end
of the Crusades.
The terrible disappointment of the Fourth Crusade showed that the great
age of the Holy Wars was over. Yet the century that began with that
colossal failure has a place of its own in the history of the Crusades.
In no age was the need of new expeditions to the Holy Land more
constantly discussed or more commonly recognised. [Sidenote: The place
of the Thirteenth Century in the History of the Crusades.] Numerous
great Crusades were planned; many leading kings and princes took the
Cross; and never was Europe more systematically or regularly taxed to
defray the expenses of the projected movements. But very little positive
results flowed from all the talk and preparation. The very Crusaders
were not in earnest with their work, and few of those magnates who
signed themselves with the Cross put their whole energy into the
redemption of their vows. There were no longer the prospects of rich
estates or principalities to attract Crusaders of the baser sort. To
most the Crusade was a pious aspiration, or at best an incidental
pilgrimage. The great expeditions never came off. St. Louis alone
represented the ancient ardour, but the most successful Crusader was the
sceptical and self-willed Frederick II. There was no thirteenth-century
St. Bernard to direct the enthusiasm of Christendom. It was
characteristic that St. Francis went to Egypt not to fight the Sultan
but to reason with him, and that his disciple Roger Bacon questioned
altogether the utility of the movement. The holy war against the Moors
of Spain brought results that no longer flowed from the struggle in
Palestine. Hermann of Salza showed a true instinct when he transferred
the operations of his order from Syria to Prussia. Even the Popes began
to divert the crusading zeal of Europe to the so-called crusades against
heretics, and finally also against the political enemies of the Holy
See. Yet to all earnest minds of the century, to fight, pay, or pray for
the maintenance of the Latin East remained a Christian duty, while a
constant stream of pilgrims and frequent small crusading expeditions
kept alive for nearly the whole of the century the poor remnants of the
Catholic kingdom of Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: Innocent III. and the Crusades.]
Despite the failure of the Fourth Crusade, Innocent III. never lost
sight of the need of a more devoted and better-directed expedition that
would save the declining fortunes of Latin Syria. Yet he did but a
doubtful service for the crusading cause when he forced princes so
careless as John of England and Frederick of Sicily to pledge themselves
to the holy work. The enthusiasm for the Crusades was dying among the
mighty, but it still lived on in the hearts of the poor, and the strange
episodes known as the Crusade of the Children showed that the ignorant
and disordered zeal that had preceded the march of Godfrey of Boulogne
had still its representatives in the early thirteenth century.
[Sidenote: The Children’s Crusade, 1212.] A shepherd lad from the
neighbourhood of Vendôme, named Stephen, assembled a crowd of boys,
peasants, workmen and women, who made their way to Marseilles, and
prevailed upon two merchants to provide them with a passage to Syria;
but once embarked on the sea, the merchants sold them as slaves in
Egypt. Another swarm of German youths from the Lower Rhine made their
way to Brindisi, where the bishop wisely prevented them taking ship,
though very few ever managed to make their way back to their distant
homes.[41] The useless devotion of these swarms of children is said to
have provoked from Innocent III. the remark, ‘These children shame us.
While we are asleep, they march forth joyously to conquer the Holy
Land.’ He had good reason for his bitterness. Despite all his efforts,
no Crusade had been actually started at the moment of his death. Three
kings, however, had taken the Cross, and the Lateran Council fixed June
1217 as the moment of their departure for the East.
[Sidenote: Fifth Crusade, 1217.]
The death of John and the calculated delays of Frederick II. left Andrew
of Hungary the only reigning king who started in 1217 for what is
generally called the Fifth Crusade. Andrew was a hot-headed and
chivalrous prince, who, abandoning the administration of his kingdom to
the great lords who were breaking down the central power, sought in
foreign adventures the career that was denied him at home. [Sidenote:
Andrew of Hungary.] Embarking with a small army, mainly German and
Hungarian, at Spalato, he took ship for Acre, where he found the Latin
East in an exceptional state of confusion. The northern principality of
Antioch had been wasting its resources in a long and devastating war
with the Christian kings of Armenia, while famine, pestilence, and
earthquake complicated the difficulties in which a rapid succession of
weak rulers had plunged the kingdom of Jerusalem. [Sidenote: State of
the Latin Kingdom, 1197–1210.] Luckily the division of the dominions of
Saladin among his sons and other kinsmen broke up the unity of Islam and
saved the Latins from any real disaster, while the constant flow of
small expeditions, the scanty outcome of the great efforts of Henry VI.
and Innocent III., still enabled the Latins to carry on the struggle.
Henry of Champagne, whom Richard of England had left King of Jerusalem,
was accidentally slain in 1197. His widow Isabella, through whom he held
his right to rule, chose a new husband in Amalric of Lusignan, the
representative of the rival house that Richard had established in
Cyprus, who was now crowned as King Amalric II., and reigned vigorously
and successfully until his death in 1205. His infant son, who thus
became Amalric III., died, as did his mother Isabella, before the year
was out. Hugh, Amalric II.’s son by a former wife, now became King of
Cyprus, while Isabella’s eldest daughter by Conrad of Montferrat
succeeded as Queen Mary of Jerusalem. Both princes were children, but a
regent and husband was soon found for Mary by Philip Augustus. This was
John of Brienne, a warrior of great experience and energy, though of
slender resources. He reached Acre in 1210, and was then crowned
together with Mary. Too weak to embark on an adventurous policy, John
made a truce with the Saracens, and patiently waited until the expected
Crusaders came. But the arrival of Andrew did not afford the hoped-for
relief. Though a considerable army was collected, and the King of
Armenia joined the Western Crusaders at Acre, the Christians were not
able to force the Saracens to engage in battle, and the kings of Hungary
and Armenia soon went home disgusted.
[Sidenote: John of Brienne and the Siege of Damietta, 1218–1219.]
The autumn passage brought many new Crusaders to Acre, and in 1218 John
of Brienne prevailed upon his Western allies to take ship for Damietta,
hoping thus to attack the Sultan of Egypt near the very centre of his
power. At first fortune smiled upon their arms. Damietta was closely
besieged, and a strong tower commanding the passage of the Nile was
occupied, though the city still held out. The siege was carried on
vigorously all through the winter, and many additional Crusaders joined
the besieging army, conspicuous among them being the papal legate,
Pelagius, who took the supreme command, and a band of English warriors,
including Robert Fitzwalter and the Earls of Winchester, Arundel, and
Chester. The Christians suffered severely from flood, pestilence, and
famine, but at last, on 5th November 1219, Damietta was taken by a
sudden assault. The fall of Damietta spread joy throughout Christendom
and consternation all over the Mohammedan world. But the Christians
quarrelled fiercely over the partition of the spoils, and John de
Brienne, indignant at the assumption of Pelagius, withdrew to Syria.
Saladin’s nephew, El-Kamil, who now became Sultan of Egypt, profited by
their slowness to build a new fortress, Mansourah, to block their
invasion of the interior of Egypt. Nevertheless, the fear of the
Christians was so great that the Sultan offered to yield up Jerusalem
itself, if the Crusaders would but restore Damietta. But the Latins
expected great things from the projected Crusade of Frederick II., and
rejected his proposals. At last, in the summer of 1221, Pelagius
advanced against Cairo, having persuaded John de Brienne to come back to
his assistance. The expedition was a disastrous failure. The Egyptians
flooded the country, and the invaders were soon prevented either from
advancing or retreating, and were, moreover, threatened with starvation.
John de Brienne prevailed upon the Sultan to allow the army to retire
unmolested, on condition of Damietta being restored and a long truce
granted. Thus the enterprise, from which so much had been hoped, ended
in disastrous failure, and the Latin East remained in a worse plight
than ever.
[Sidenote: Crusade of Frederick II., 1227–1229.]
John de Brienne wandered through Europe imploring help for his kingdom.
By his marriage of his daughter Iolande to Frederick II., he gave the
hesitating Emperor a new motive for fulfilling his vow; but a rupture
soon broke out between them, and, though Frederick claimed the kingdom
on his wife’s account, his father-in-law disappeared from the history of
Syria, finding fresh fields for adventure in commanding the papal troops
in Apulia, and dying in 1237 as regent of the Latin Emperor of
Constantinople (see pages 353 and 369). At last Frederick II. went, as
we have seen, on his long-deferred Crusade (see page 368). Despite the
ban of the Church he obtained a large measure of success, and the treaty
of 1229 restored Jerusalem to the Christians, after it had been for more
than forty years in the hands of the Infidel. It was the last real
triumph of the Crusades.
Frederick had done a great service to Christendom in recovering
Jerusalem, but his attempt to govern the Latin kingdom of Syria as a
non-resident sovereign involved the land in fresh disasters. The Syrian
lords revolted against the governors of the Emperor, and the continued
disfavour of the Church extended with disastrous results the strife of
Papacy and Empire into a region where the absolute union of all the
Westerns was the essential condition of the maintenance of the Christian
cause. [Sidenote: Decline of the Ayoubite Power.] Fortunately, the
divisions of Islam saved the Syrian monarchy from any immediate danger,
especially after El-Kamil’s death in 1238, when there was again a
general scramble for power among the numerous Ayoubite chieftains.
Moreover, a constant stream of Crusaders still flowed to the East, and
occasionally regular expeditions were successfully organised.
Conspicuous among these latter was the Crusade of 1239, which Gregory
IX. had proclaimed, and then sought to divert, because of his renewed
quarrel with the Emperor. [Sidenote: Crusades of Theobald of Navarre
(1239) and Richard of Cornwall (1240).] Regardless of the Pope’s advice,
a numerous band of French nobles, headed by Theobald the Great, Count of
Champagne and King of Navarre, and including Amalric of Montfort, the
former Count of Toulouse, set sail for Acre. In 1240 an English Crusade
appeared in Palestine, commanded by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, the
future King of the Romans, who was joined by his brother-in-law,
Amalric’s famous brother, Simon, Earl of Leicester. But the King of
Navarre had been beaten and had gone home disgusted before the
Englishmen had arrived, and Richard, whose name and the fame of his
uncle King Richard had excited the liveliest expectations, was able to
do little more than make a treaty which secured the freedom of the
captives. The fierce feuds of Templars and Hospitallers, and the renewed
quarrel of Pope and Emperor, further increased the difficulties of the
English prince. The rival attractions of an alliance either with
Damascus or Egypt caused violent partisanships among those pledged to
general war against the Infidel, while Richard was looked upon with much
suspicion by the hierarchical party because he persisted in regarding
Frederick II. or his son Conrad as lawful King of Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: The Charismians and the Tartars.]
The great Mongol power was already disturbing all Asia. About 1220 the
Charismians, a Turkish race that had established itself to the south of
the sea of Aral, and had finally reduced all Persia to subjection, were
overwhelmed by the hosts of Genghiz Khan. The survivors of the disaster
were driven into exile, and forced to earn their bread as the
mercenaries of any Eastern prince who could pay for them. Es-Saleh
Ayoub, El-Kamil’s eldest son, the lord of Damascus, had been so hard
pressed by his Christian and Mohammedan enemies that he took some of
these fierce hordes into his service. In 1244 they suddenly swooped down
on Jerusalem, and captured it, brutally murdering all its inhabitants.
[Sidenote: The Charismian Conquest of Jerusalem, 1244.] Christians and
Mohammedans united against the savage Charismians, and provoked them to
battle at Gaza. But the Saracens fled early in the fight, leaving the
Christians to struggle alone against a superior enemy. The result was
the annihilation of the crusading host and the practical end of the
Latin Kingdom. Henceforth the Christians were reduced, as after 1187, to
a few sea-coast cities. But the fall of Jerusalem now stirred up no such
general ferment throughout Christendom as did its first reconquest by
the Saracens. The news arrived when Innocent IV. was fulminating his
final deposition against Frederick. The Crusade against the Emperor
seemed to all followers of the papal teaching a more pressing necessity
than the Crusade against Islam. Under such circumstances, the
proclamation of a new Crusade at the Council of Lyons could lead to no
real result. It was not by talk only that Jerusalem could be restored to
the Cross.
The spirit of a former age was not quite extinct, but the only great
prince who was still under its influence was the King of France. St.
Louis had long desired to go upon Crusade, and would gladly have
accompanied the King of Navarre in 1239. The state of his dominions was
now so satisfactory that he at last felt able to embark upon the
undertaking. [Sidenote: Sixth Crusade, 1248–1254.] After striving in
vain to make the Crusade general by uniting Pope and Emperor, he saw
that the effort would have to be made by himself alone. In the summer of
1248 he embarked from Aigues Mortes and took ship to Cyprus, where
during the winter a large but almost exclusively French army of pilgrims
gathered together. Among the adventurers was the lord of Joinville, who
has in his _Life of St. Louis_ left an imperishable account of the
expedition.
Egypt was still the chief seat of Ayoub’s power, and, as in 1218, it was
thought more profitable to attack Egypt than Palestine. Thus the Sixth
Crusade became almost a repetition of the Fifth. [Sidenote: St Louis in
Egypt, 1249–1251.] In the spring of 1249, the Christian host sailed from
Cyprus and landed near Damietta. They were luckier than John de Brienne
and Pelagius, for their arrival threw the Mussulman garrison into such
alarm that it withdrew in the night, and Damietta was occupied without
any difficulty. Precious time was now wasted waiting for Alfonse of
Poitiers, who at last arrived with reinforcements. The army was also
joined by William Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, and a band of
Englishmen. Hot disputes arose as to the method of carrying on the
campaign. The prudent were in favour of a gradual conquest of the
sea-coast, and advised a march on Alexandria. But Robert of Artois urged
a direct march on Cairo, and his opinion prevailed. In November 1249 the
Crusaders made their way inwards through the Delta, untaught by the
disasters of thirty years before. The result was a further repetition of
the blunders and ill-luck of Pelagius. The vast host marched from
Damietta and invested Mansourah, but their progress was made excessively
slow by the difficult nature of the country, cut up by broad canals and
arms of the Nile. The fatal rashness of Robert of Artois led a part of
the army to a premature attack, in which Robert was slain. Before long
the besiegers were themselves almost besieged. Wasted by heat and lack
of food, the Crusaders lost all heart, and finally a terrible epidemic
devastated the camp and completed their demoralisation. Louis at last
ordered a retirement on Damietta, but the Saracens threw themselves on
the retreating host. Louis fought valiantly at the post of danger in the
rear. He was before long taken prisoner, whereupon the whole army laid
down its arms. The mass of the captives was put to the sword, but Louis
and the great lords were ransomed, in consideration of an enormous
payment and the surrender of Damietta. The King on his release went on
pilgrimage to Palestine. He sent his brothers Alfonse and Charles back
to France, but himself abode for more than three years in the Holy Land,
labouring strenuously at restoring the Christian fortresses, and atoning
for his failure in Egypt by works of piety and self-sacrifice.
[Sidenote: St. Louis in Palestine, 1251–1254.] The Sultan of Damascus
offered him a safe-conduct to Jerusalem, but he refused to see the Holy
City since he could not rescue it from the hands of the enemies of the
faith. At last the death of his mother necessitated his return to France
(June 1254). He was the last Western king who led a great army to the
East.
In the years after the return of Louis the Crusading State managed to
hold its own. The Tartars still pressed on Islam on the east, and it was
no time for the Saracens to make fresh conquests when their very
existence was in danger. Moreover, constant changes in the Mohammedan
world further limited its power of aggression. [Sidenote: The Rise of
the Mamelukes.] Es-Saleh died while St. Louis was in Egypt, whereupon in
1254 the Mameluke mercenaries finally destroyed the Ayoubite power, and,
inspired by their leader Bibars, the soul of the resistance to St.
Louis, set up sultans at their discretion and murdered them when they
were weary of them.
[Sidenote: Vicissitudes of the Latin Kingdom.]
It was small praise to the Franks themselves that the Crusading State
still continued. The fierce factions of the Latins grew worse than ever.
A line of bailiffs of the house of Ibelin ruled in the name of the
absentee Hohenstaufen, Henry, Conrad and Conradin. With the execution of
the latter, the house of Hohenstaufen became extinct, and the King of
Cyprus, Hugh III. of Lusignan, was crowned in 1269 as King of Jerusalem,
though his title was contested by his aunt, Mary of Antioch. His rule
was not strong enough to keep order, so that Templars and Hospitallers,
Pullani and emigrants, Venetians and Genoese, carried out their feuds
with little hindrance. Acre, the crusading capital, remained, despite
the disorder, a considerable commercial centre, and the trading
rivalries of the Italian cities were the most fruitful of all sources of
disorder. In 1258 a pitched battle between great fleets of Venetians and
Genoese was fought off the coast of Acre, in which the Genoese were so
severely beaten that they were obliged to abandon their quarter in the
capital and establish their factory at Tyre.
[Sidenote: The Tartar Crisis, 1258–1260.]
While this was going on, the contest of Saracen and Tartar reached its
height. In 1258 the Tartars took Bagdad and ended the nominal Caliphate.
Next year they appeared in Syria and captured Damascus. The Western
Christians hoped that the Tartars would root out Islam and then turn
Christian, but the Syrian Franks knew better. Though the Prince of
Antioch appeared as a suppliant in the Tartar camp, the barbarians soon
turned their arms against Acre. All that the Christians could hope for
was from the dissensions of their enemies. Even this did not avail them
long. In 1260 the Sultan Kutuz of Egypt defeated the Tartars at Ain
Talut. It was the Eastern counterpart of the victories of Conrad, and
equally decisive. The barbarians withdrew to the East, leaving Islam
again triumphant.
[Sidenote: The Sultan Bibars, 1260.]
Kutuz went back to Egypt, and was murdered by his Mameluke soldiers. The
time was now ripe for Bibars to mount his throne, and the former Turkman
slave and Mameluke captain soon proved himself the most dangerous enemy
that the Eastern Christians had seen since the death of Saladin. A stern
but just ruler of his own subjects, and a pious and ascetic Mussulman,
he was willingly obeyed by the Mohammedans of the Levant. A strenuous
warrior against the Christians, he was also statesman enough to seek
allies among the Christian states of Europe, whose friendship soon
proved as useful to him as the valour of his soldiers. In 1262 Bibars
began his attacks on the Latin Kingdom. Though town after town fell into
his hands, the Franks could not end their quarrels even in the face of
the enemy. In 1267 the Genoese waged war against Acre, now wholly given
over to the commerce of Venice. At that very time Bibars, having already
conquered the Templars’ stronghold of Safed, was devastating the country
about Acre. In the spring of 1268 he conquered Jaffa, and then, turning
his arms northwards, overran the principality of Antioch. [Sidenote:
Fall of Jaffa and Antioch, 1268.] Before the end of the year Antioch had
surrendered, after a disgracefully short resistance. The northern
crusading state was thus brought to an end, and once more Europe was
confronted with the imminent danger of the few remaining towns, like
Acre and Tripoli, that still resisted Bibars.
[Sidenote: Seventh Crusade, 1270.]
St. Louis again took the Cross, but even in France the crusading fever
was dying out, and Joinville himself refused to accompany the king on
his second adventure against Islam. Other sovereigns promised to follow
Louis’s example. James of Aragon actually embarked, but a tempest
shattered his ships, and he piously withdrew from an enterprise of
which, he argued, God had shown His disapproval. Edward of England did
not hesitate to leave his aged father to follow his uncle, the French
king, but his following was small, and his departure was delayed.
[Sidenote: St. Louis again takes the Cross.] But the worst was that the
host of St. Louis was no longer an army of pilgrims or enthusiasts, but
of highly paid mercenaries or of reluctant barons, whom duty to the king
alone withdrew from their homes. Even more fatal was the presence of
Charles of Anjou, established in Sicily since 1266, with whom Bibars had
established friendly relations, and who had striven hard to divert his
brother’s army from Egypt or Syria to a place where it would more
directly play the game of the house of Anjou. [Sidenote: The Crusade
diverted to Tunis.] His craft proved only too successful. He persuaded
Louis to direct his forces against Tunis, an ancient dependency of the
Norman kings of Sicily, whose sultans had always continued to pay
tribute to the Hohenstaufen, though they had refused it to their Angevin
supplanter. Accordingly St. Louis disembarked at Tunis, and took up his
quarters amidst the ruins of Carthage. He had hoped that the presence of
his army would frighten the enemy into yielding and accepting
Christianity, but he soon found himself blockaded in his camp.
[Sidenote: Its Failure. Death of St. Louis.] Plague followed the heats
of summer, and on 25th August St. Louis died. The new king, Philip the
Bold, who was in the camp, was almost forced by his barons to conclude a
truce by which the ancient tribute to the King of Sicily was promised
henceforth in double measure. The remnants of the host then went sadly
home, reverently conveying with them the remains of their dead monarch.
[Sidenote: Crusade of Edward of England, 1270–1272.]
Edward of England appeared off Tunis after the truce had been signed. He
indignantly refused to be bound by the disgraceful accommodation, and
sailed with his little fleet of thirteen ships to Acre, where his energy
infused a little life into the resistance of the Latins. Even there the
subtle influence of Charles of Anjou made itself felt. He offered his
mediation with Bibars, and the dispirited Syrian Franks could not refuse
the chance of enjoying a short period of rest. As at Carthage, Edward
contemptuously held aloof, but the truce was signed, and the Sultan
sought to assassinate the last champion of resistance. The attempt
failed, and as soon as his wounds were cured, Edward went home to claim
his kingdom. A companion of his pilgrimage to Acre, Theobald of Liége,
now became Pope Gregory X., and strove once more to preach a great
Crusade. [Sidenote: The Second Council of Lyons and the failure to
revive the Crusades, 1274.] At the Council of Lyons of 1274, which saw
the temporary union of the Greek and Latin Churches, the whole Western
Church was called upon to contribute a tenth of its revenues for six
years to equip the new Crusade. The Holy War was preached all over
Christendom, but the appeal fell on deaf ears. Gregory soon died, and
his successors allowed the kings of Europe to lay hands on the sacred
treasure, a power which Edward I. himself did not scruple to exercise.
The hopes of a new rising of Christendom became fainter and fainter as
years rolled on and nothing was done. The hollow union of Orthodox and
Catholic soon came to an end. The death of Bibars rather than the arms
of the Westerns still kept alive the remnants of the Latin East.
[Sidenote: End of the Latin Kingdom, 1291.] At last Islam descended upon
its prey. In 1289 Tripoli fell, and in 1291 Acre itself surrendered.
Henceforth the Latin East was only represented by the power of the
Lusignans in Cyprus, and by the Hospitallers’ stronghold of Rhodes. The
crusading impulse still survived among a few enthusiasts: but with its
decay as a real force over the minds of men the noblest period of the
Middle Ages was at an end. Yet the Crusaders had not died in vain. With
all their violence and fanaticism, they had afforded Europe the most
striking embodiment of the universal monarchy of the Church. They had
made a long and valiant effort to stem the tide of Eastern fury, and
their long resistance lessened and lightened the shock of its impact.
Had they succeeded permanently the Eastern Mediterranean would have been
saved from the horrors of Turkish rule, and the Cross might never have
yielded to the Crescent on the shores of the Bosporus.