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.]