The conquest of Jerusalem by the Carizmians--Rise and progress of
the Comans--They are defeated and destroyed by the Templars--The
exploits of the Templars in Egypt--King Louis of France visits
the Templars in Palestine--He assists them in putting the country
into a defensible state--Henry III., king of England, visits the
Temple at Paris--The magnificent hospitality of the Templars
in England and France--Bendocdar, sultan of Egypt, invades
Palestine--He defeats the Templars, takes their strong fortresses,
and decapitates six hundred of their brethren--The Grand Master
comes to England for succour--The renewal of the war--The fall of
Acre--The Templars establish their head-quarters in the island of
Cyprus--Their alliance with the king of Persia--The reconquest of
Jerusalem--The desolation of the Holy Land--The final extinction of
the Templars in Palestine.
“The Knights of the TEMPLE ever maintained their fearless and
fanatic character; if they neglected to _live_, they were prepared
to _die_ in the service of Christ.”--_Gibbon._
Shortly after the recovery of the holy city, (A. D. 1242,)
Djemal’eddeen, the Mussulman, paid a visit to Jerusalem. “I saw,” says
he, “the monks and the priests masters of the Temple of the Lord. I saw
the vials of wine prepared for the sacrifice. I entered into the Mosque
Al Acsa, (the Temple of the Knights Templars, ante, p. 12,) and I saw a
bell suspended from the dome. The rites and ceremonies of the Mussulmen
were abolished; the call to prayer was no longer heard. The infidels
publicly exercised their idolatrous practices in the sanctuaries of
the Mussulmen.”[116] By the advice of Benedict, bishop of Marseilles,
who came to the holy city on a pilgrimage, the Templars rebuilt their
ancient and once formidable castle of Saphet, the dilapidated ruins
of which had been ceded to them by their recent treaty with Saleh
Ismael. During a pilgrimage to the lake of Tiberias and the banks of
the Jordan, the bishop of Marseilles had halted at Saphet, and spent a
night amid the ruins of the ancient castle, where he found a solitary
Knight Templar keeping watch in a miserable hovel. Struck with the
position of the place, and its importance in a military point of view,
he sought on his return to Acre an interview with the Grand Master
of the Temple, and urged him to restore the castle of Saphet to its
pristine condition. The bishop was invited to attend a general chapter
of the order of the Temple, when the matter was discussed, and it was
unanimously determined that the mountain of Saphet should immediately
be refortified. The bishop himself laid the first stone, and animated
the workmen by a spirited oration. Eight hundred and fifty masons
and artificers, and four hundred slaves, were employed in the task.
During the first thirty months after the commencement of operations,
the Templars expended eleven thousand golden bezants upon the works,
and in succeeding years they spent upwards of forty thousand. The
walls, when finished, were sixty French feet in width, one hundred
and seventy in height, and the circuit of them was two thousand two
hundred and fifty feet. They were flanked by seven large round towers,
sixty feet in diameter, and seventy-two feet higher than the walls.
The fosse surrounding the fortress was thirty-six feet wide, and was
pierced in the solid rock to a depth of forty-three feet. The garrison
in time of peace amounted to one thousand seven hundred men, and to
two thousand two hundred in time of war. Twelve thousand mule loads
of corn and barley were consumed annually within the walls of the
fortress; and in addition to all the ordinary expenses and requirements
of the establishment, the Templars maintained a well-furnished table
and excellent accommodation for all way-worn pilgrims and travellers.
“The generous expenditure of the Templars at this place,” says a
cotemporary historian, “renders them truly worthy of the liberality
and largesses of the faithful.”[117]
The ruins of this famous castle, crowning the summit of a lofty
mountain, torn and shattered by earthquakes, still present a stupendous
appearance. In Pocock’s time “two particularly fine large round towers”
were entire: and Van Egmont and Heyman give the following account of
the condition of the fortress at the period of their visit. “The next
place that engaged our attention was the citadel, which is the greatest
object of curiosity in Saphet, and is generally considered one of the
most ancient structures remaining in the country. In order to form
some idea of this fortification in its present state, imagine a lofty
mountain, and on its summit a round castle, with walls of incredible
thickness, and with a _corridor_ or covered passage extending round
the walls, and ascended by a winding staircase. The thickness of the
walls and corridor together was twenty paces. The whole was of hewn
stone, and some of the stones are eight or nine spans in length....
This castle was anciently surrounded with stupendous works, as appears
from the remains of two moats lined with free-stone, several fragments
of walls, bulwarks, towers, &c., all very solid and strongly built;
and below these moats other massive works, having corridors round them
in the same manner as the castle; so that any person, on surveying
these fortifications, may wonder how so strong a fortress could ever be
taken.” Amongst the various interesting remains of this castle, these
intelligent travellers describe “a large structure of free-stone in
the form of a cupola or dome. The stones, which are almost white, are
of astonishing magnitude, some being twelve spans in length and five
in thickness. The inside is full of niches for placing statues, and
near each niche is a small cell. An open colonnade extends quite round
the building, and, like the rest of the structure, is very massive and
compact.”[118]
When the sultan of Egypt had been informed of the march of the Templars
to Jerusalem, and the re-possession by the military friars of the holy
places and sanctuaries of the Mussulmen, he sent an army of several
thousand men across the desert, to drive them out of the Holy City
before they had time to repair the fortifications and re-construct the
walls. The Templars assembled all their forces and advanced to meet the
Egyptians. They occupied the passes and defiles of the hill country
leading to Jerusalem, and gained a glorious victory over the Moslems,
driving the greater part of them into the desert. Ayoub, sultan of
Egypt, finding himself unable to resist the formidable alliance of the
Templars with Saleh Ismael, called in to his assistance the fierce
pastoral tribes of the Carizmians. These were a warlike race of
people, who had been driven from their abodes, in the neighbourhood
of the Caspian, by the successful arms of the Moguls, and had rushed
headlong upon the weak and effeminate nations of the south. They had
devastated and laid waste Armenia and the north-western parts of
Persia, cutting off by the sword, or dragging away into captivity, all
who had ventured to oppose their progress. For years past they had
been leading a migratory, wandering life, exhausting the resources of
one district, and then passing onwards into another, without making
any fixed settlement, or having any regular places of abode, and their
destructive progress has been compared by the Arabian writers to the
wasting tempest or the terrible inundation. The rude hardships of their
roving life had endowed them with a passive endurance which enabled
them to surmount all obstacles, and to overcome every difficulty. Their
clothing consisted of a solitary sheep’s skin, or a wolf’s skin, tied
around their loins; boiled herbs and some water, or a little milk,
sufficed them for food and beverage; their arms were the bow and the
lance; and they shed the blood of their fellow-creatures with the same
indifference as they would that of the beasts of the field. Their
wives and their children accompanied their march, braving all dangers
and fatigues; their tents were their homes, and the site of their
encampment their only country. Nothing could exceed the terror inspired
in Armenia and Persia by the military expeditions of these rude and
ferocious shepherds of the Caspian, who were the foes of all races
and of all people, and manifested a profound indifference for every
religion.
The Carizmians were encamped on the left bank of the Euphrates,
pasturing their cavalry in the neighbouring plains, when their chief,
Barbeh Khan, received a deputation from the sultan of Egypt, inviting
their co-operation and assistance in the reduction of Palestine. Their
cupidity was awakened by an exaggerated account of the fertility and
the wealth of the land, and they were offered a settlement in the
country as soon as it was rescued from the hands of the Franks. The
messengers displayed the written letters of the sultan of Egypt; they
presented to the Carizmian chief some rich shawls and magnificent
presents, and returned to their master at Grand Cairo with promises
of speedy support. The Carizmians assembled together in a body; they
crossed the Euphrates (A. D. 1244) in small leathern boats, ravaged the
territories of the sultan of Aleppo, and marched up the plain of the
Orontes to Hems, wasting all the country around them with fire and the
sword. The intelligence of these events reached the Grand Master of the
Temple when he was busily engaged in rebuilding the vast and extensive
fortifications of the Holy City. A council of war was called together,
and it was determined that Jerusalem was untenable, and that the Holy
City must once again be abandoned to the infidels. The Hospitallers
in their black mantles, and the Templars in their white habits, were
drawn up in martial array in the streets of Jerusalem, and the weeping
Christians were exhorted once again to leave their homes and avail
themselves of the escort and protection of the military friars to
Jaffa. Many gathered together their little property and quitted the
devoted city, and many lingered behind amid the scenes they loved and
cherished. Soon, however, frightful reports reached Jerusalem of the
horrors of the Carizmian invasion, and the fugitives, who had fled
with terror and astonishment from their destructive progress, spread
alarm and consternation throughout the whole land. Several thousand
Christians, who had remained behind, then attempted to make their
escape, with their wives and children, through the mountains to the
plain of Ramleh and the sea-coast, relying on the truce and treaty of
alliance which had been established with Nasser Daoud, lord of Carac,
and the mountaineers. But the inhabitants of the mountain region,
being a set of lawless robbers and plunderers, attacked and pillaged
them. Some were slain, and others were dragged away into captivity. A
few fled back to Jerusalem, and the residue, after having been hunted
through the mountains, descended into the plain of Ramleh, where they
were attacked by the Carizmians, and only three hundred out of the
whole number succeeded in reaching Jaffa in safety. All the women and
children had been taken captive in the mountains, and amongst them
were several holy nuns, who were sent to Egypt and sold in the common
slave-markets.
The Carizmians had advanced into the plain of Ramleh by way of Baalbec,
Tiberias, and Naplous, and they now directed their footsteps towards
Jerusalem. They entered the Holy City sword in hand, massacred the few
remaining Christians in the church of the Holy Sepulchre, pillaged the
town, and rifled the tombs of the kings for treasure. They then marched
upon Gaza, stormed the city, and put the garrison to the sword, after
which they sent messengers across the desert to the sultan of Egypt to
announce their arrival. Ayoub immediately sent a robe of honour and
sumptuous gifts to their chief, and despatched his army from Cairo in
all haste, under the command of Rokmeddin Bibars, one of his principal
Mamlooks, to join them before Gaza. The Grand Masters of the Temple and
the Hospital, on the other hand, collected their forces together, and
made a junction with the troops of the sultan of Damascus and the lord
of Carac. They marched upon Gaza, attacked the united armies of the
Egyptians and Carizmians, and were exterminated in a bloody battle of
two days’ continuance. The Grand Master of the Temple and the flower of
his chivalry perished in that bloody encounter, and the Grand Master of
the Hospital was taken prisoner, and led away into captivity.[119]
The government of the order of the Temple, in consequence of the death
of the Grand Master, temporarily devolved upon the Knight Templar,
Brother William de Rochefort, who immediately despatched a melancholy
letter addressed to the pope and the archbishop of Canterbury,
detailing the horrors and atrocities of the Carizmian invasion. “These
perfidious savages,” says he, “having penetrated within the gates
of the holy city of Israel, the small remnant of the faithful left
therein, consisting of children, women, and old men, took refuge in
the church of the sepulchre of our Lord. The Carizmians rushed to that
holy sanctuary; they butchered them all before the very sepulchre
itself, and cutting off the heads of the priests who were kneeling
with uplifted hands before the altars, they said one to another, ‘Let
us here shed the blood of the Christians _on the very place where they
offer up wine to their GOD, who they say was hanged here_.’ Moreover,
in sorrow be it spoken, and with sighs we inform you, that laying
their sacrilegious hands on the very sepulchre itself, they sadly
knocked it about, utterly battering to pieces the marble shrine which
was built around that holy sanctuary. They have defiled, with every
abomination of which they were capable, Mount Calvary, where Christ was
crucified, and the whole church of the resurrection. They have taken
away, indeed, the sculptured columns which were placed as a decoration
before the sepulchre of the Lord; and, as a mark of victory, and as a
taunt to the Christians, they have sent them to the sepulchre of the
wicked Mahomet. They have violated the tombs of the happy kings of
Jerusalem in the same church, and they have scattered, to the hurt of
Christendom, the ashes of those holy men to the winds, irreverently
profaning the revered Mount Sion. The Temple of the Lord, the church
of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where the Virgin lies buried, the church
of Bethlehem, and the place of the nativity of our Lord, they have
polluted with enormities too horrible to be related, far exceeding the
iniquity of all the Saracens, who, though they frequently occupied the
land of the Christians, yet always reverenced and preserved the holy
places....” The subsequent military operations are then described; the
march of the Templars and Hospitallers, on the 4th of October, A. D.
1244, from Acre to Cæsarea; the junction of their forces with those of
the Moslem sultans; the retreat of the Carizmians to Gaza, where they
received succour from the sultan of Egypt; and the preparation of the
Hospitallers and Templars for the attack before that place. “Those holy
warriors,” say they, “boldly rushed in upon the enemy, but the Saracens
who had joined us, having lost many of their men, fled, and the
warriors of the cross were left alone to withstand the united attack
of the Egyptians and Carizmians. Like stout champions of the Lord, and
true defenders of catholicity, whom the same faith and the same cross
and passion make true brothers, they bravely resisted; but as they were
few in number in comparison with the enemy, they at last succumbed, so
that of the convents of the house of the chivalry of the Temple, and of
the house of the hospital of St. John at Jerusalem, only thirty-three
Templars and twenty-six Hospitallers escaped; the archbishop of Tyre,
the bishop of St. George, the abbot of St. Mary of Jehoshaphat, and the
Master of the Temple, with many other clerks and holy men, being slain
in that sanguinary fight. We ourselves, having by our sins provoked
this dire calamity, fled half dead to Ascalon; from thence we proceeded
by sea to Acre, and found that city and the adjoining province filled
with sorrow and mourning, misery and death. There was not a house or a
family that had not lost an inmate or a relation....
“The Carizmians have now pitched their tents in the plain of Acre,
about two miles from the city. They have spread themselves over the
whole face of the country as far as Nazareth and Saphet. They have
slaughtered or driven away the house-holders, occupied their houses,
and divided their property amongst them. They have appointed bailiffs
and tax-gatherers in the towns and villages, and they compel the
countrymen and the villeins of the soil to pay to themselves the
rents and tribute which they have heretofore been wont to pay to the
Christians, so that the church of Jerusalem and the christian kingdom
have now no territory, except a few fortifications, which are defended
with great difficulty and labour by the Templars and Hospitallers....
To you, dear Father, upon whom the burthen of the defence of the
cause of Christ justly resteth, we have caused these sad tidings to
be communicated, earnestly beseeching you to address your prayers
to the throne of grace, imploring mercy from the Most High; that
he who consecrated the Holy Land with his own blood in redemption
of all mankind, may compassionately turn towards it and defend it,
and send it succour. But know, assuredly, that unless, through the
interposition of the Most High, or by the aid of the faithful, the Holy
Land is succoured in the next spring passage from Europe, its doom
is sealed, and utter ruin is inevitable. Given at Acre, this fifth
day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and
forty-four.”[120]
The above letter was read before a general council of the church, which
had been assembled at Lyons by pope Innocent IV., and it was resolved
that a new crusade should be preached. It was provided that those who
assumed the cross should assemble at particular places to receive the
pope’s blessing; that there should be a truce for four years between
all christian princes; that during all that time there should be no
tournaments, feasts, nor public rejoicings; that all the faithful
in Christ should be exhorted to contribute, out of their fortunes
and estates, to the defence of the Holy Land; and that ecclesiastics
should pay towards it the tenth, and cardinals the twentieth, of all
their revenues, for the term of three years successively. The ancient
enthusiasm, however, in favour of distant expeditions to the East had
died away; the addresses and exhortations of the clergy now fell on
unwilling ears, and the Templars and Hospitallers, for several years,
received only some small assistance in men and money. The emperor
Frederick, who still bore the empty title of king of Jerusalem, made
no attempt to save the wreck of his feeble kingdom. His bride, the
fair and youthful Violante, queen of the Latin kingdom, had been dead
several years, killed by his coldness and neglect; and the emperor
bestowed no thought upon his eastern subjects and the Holy Land, except
to abuse those by whom that land had been so gallantly defended. In a
letter to Richard earl of Cornwall, the brother of Henry the Third,
king of England, Frederick accuses the Templars of making war upon
the sultan of Egypt, in defiance of a treaty entered into with that
monarch, of compelling him to call in the Carizmians to his assistance;
and he compares the union of the Templars with the infidel sultan, for
purposes of defence, to an attempt to extinguish a fire by pouring upon
it a quantity of oil. “The proud religion of the Temple,” says he, in
continuation, “nurtured amid the luxuries of the barons of the land,
waxeth wanton. It hath been made manifest to us, by certain religious
persons lately arrived from parts beyond sea, that the aforesaid
sultans and their trains were received with pompous alacrity within
the gates of the houses of the Temple, and that the Templars suffered
them to perform within them their superstitious rites and ceremonies,
with invocation of Mahomet, and to indulge in secular delights.”[121]
In the midst of all these terrible disasters, a general chapter of
Knights Templars was assembled in the Pilgrim’s Castle, and the
veteran warrior, Brother WILLIAM DE SONNAC, was chosen (A. D. 1247)
Grand Master of the Order.[121] Circular mandates were, at the same
time, sent to the western preceptories, summoning all the brethren to
Palestine, and directing the immediate transmission of all the money
in the different treasuries to the head-quarters of the Order at Acre.
These calls were promptly attended to, and the pope praises both the
Templars and Hospitallers for the zeal and energy displayed by them in
sending out the newly admitted knights and novices with armed bands and
a large amount of treasure to the succour of the holy territory.
Whilst the proposed crusade was slowly progressing, the holy pontiff
wrote to the sultan of Egypt, the ally of the Carizmians, proposing
a peace or a truce, and received the following grand and magnificent
reply to his communication:--“To the pope, the noble, the great, the
spiritual, the affectionate, the holy, the thirteenth of the apostles,
the leader of the sons of baptism, the high priest of the Christians,
(may God strengthen him and establish him, and give him happiness!)
from the most powerful sultan ruling over the necks of nations;
wielding the two great weapons, the sword and the pen; possessing
two pre-eminent excellencies--that is to say, learning and judgment;
king of two seas; ruler of the South and North; king of the region of
Egypt and Syria, Mesopotamia, Media, Idumea, and Ophir; king Saloph
Beelpheth, Jacob, son of Sultan Kamel, Hemevafar Mehameth, son of
Sultan Hadel, Robethre, son of Jacob, whose kingdom may the Lord God
make happy.
“IN THE NAME OF GOD THE MOST MERCIFUL AND COMPASSIONATE. The letters
of the pope, the noble, the great, &c., &c., have been presented to
us. May God favour him who earnestly seeketh after righteousness and
doeth good, and wisheth peace, and walketh in the ways of the Lord. May
God assist him who worshippeth him in truth. We have considered the
aforesaid letters, and have understood the matters treated of therein,
which have pleased and delighted us; and the messenger sent by the holy
pope came to us, and we caused him to be brought before us with honour,
and love, and reverence; and we brought him to see us face to face,
and inclining our ears towards him, we listened to his speech, and we
have put faith in the words he hath spoken unto us concerning Christ,
upon whom be salvation and praise. But we know more concerning that
same Christ than ye know, and we magnify him more than ye magnify him.
And as to what you say concerning your desire for peace, tranquillity,
and quiet, and that you wish to put down war, so also do we; we desire
and wish nothing to the contrary. But let the pope know, that between
ourselves and the emperor (Frederick) there hath been mutual love, and
alliance, and perfect concord, from the time of the sultan, my father,
(whom may God preserve and place in the glory of his brightness!) and
between you and the emperor there is, as ye know, strife and warfare;
whence it is not fit that we should enter into any treaty with the
Christians until we have previously had his advice and assent. We
have therefore written to our envoy at the imperial court upon the
propositions made to us by the pope’s messenger, &c.... This letter was
written on the seventh of the month _Maharan_. Praise be to the one
only God, and may his blessing rest upon our master, _Mahomet_.”[122]
In the course of a few years the Carizmians were annihilated. The
sultan of Egypt having no further need of their services, left them to
perish in the lands they had wasted. They were attacked by the sultans
of Aleppo and Hems, and were pursued with equal fury by Moslems and
by Christians. Several large bodies of them were cut up in detail by
the Templars and Hospitallers, and they were at last slain to a man.
Their very name perished from the face of the earth, but the traces of
their existence were long preserved in the ruin and desolation they
had spread around them.[123] The Holy Land, although happily freed
from the destructive presence of these barbarians, had yet everything
to fear from the powerful sultan of Egypt, with whom hostilities
still continued; and Brother William de Sonnac, the Grand Master of
the Temple, for the purpose of stimulating the languid energies of
the English nation, and reviving their holy zeal and enthusiasm in
the cause of the cross, despatched a distinguished Knight Templar to
England, charged with the duty of presenting to king Henry the Third a
magnificent crystal vase, containing, as it was alleged, a portion of
the blood of Jesus Christ!
A solemn attestation of the genuineness of this precious relic, signed
by the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the bishops, abbots, and barons of
the Holy Land, was forwarded to London, and was deposited, together
with the vase and its contents, in the cathedral church of St. Paul.
The king ordered the bishops and clergy devoutly and reverently to
assemble at St. Paul’s, on the anniversary of the translation of St.
Edward the Confessor, in full canonicals, with banners, crosses, and
lighted wax-candles. On the eve of that day, according to the monk of
St. Albans, who personally assisted at the ceremony, “our lord the
king, with a devout and contrite spirit, as became that most christian
prince, fasting on bread and water, and watching all night with a
great light, and performing many pious exercises, prudently prepared
himself for the morrow’s solemnity.” On the morrow a procession of
bishops, monks, and priests, having been duly marshalled and arranged,
king Henry made his appearance upon the steps at the south door
of St. Paul’s cathedral, and receiving with “the greatest honour,
and reverence, and fear, the little vase containing the memorable
treasure, he bore it publicly through the streets of London, holding it
aloft just above his face. Bareheaded, and clothed in a humble habit,
he walked afoot without halting, to Westminster Abbey; and although he
passed over rough and uneven pavements, yet he invariably kept his eyes
stedfastly fixed, either on heaven or on that vase.” He made a solemn
procession round the Abbey, then round the palace at Westminster, and
then round his own bed-chamber, all the while unweariedly bearing
aloft the precious relic, after which he presented it to God, and the
church of St. Peter, to his dear Edward, and the sacred convent at
Westminster.[124]
In the mean time the Comans, another fierce pastoral tribe of wandering
Tartars, made their way through the christian province of Armenia into
the principality of Antioch, and ravaged both banks of the Orontes,
carrying away the inhabitants into captivity. The king of Armenia
and the prince of Antioch despatched messengers to the Templars and
Hospitallers for succour; and the Grand Masters, collecting all their
disposable forces, hurried to the relief of the distressed provinces.
In a long and bloody battle, fought in the neighbourhood of the iron
bridge over the Orontes, the Comans were overthrown and slaughtered,
and the vast and wealthy city of Antioch was saved from pillage. The
Hospitallers suffered severe loss in this engagement, and Brother
Bertrand de Comps, their Grand Master, died of his wounds four days
after the battle.
In the month of June, A. D. 1249, the galleys of the Templars left Acre
with all their disposable forces on board, under the command of the
Grand Master William de Sonnac, and joined the great French expedition
of Louis king of France which had been directed against the infidels
in Egypt. After the capture of Damietta, the following letter was
forwarded by Brother William de Sonnac to the Master of the Temple at
London:--“Brother William de Sonnac, by the grace of God Master of
the poor chivalry of the Temple, to his beloved brother in Christ,
Robert de Sanford, Preceptor of England, salvation through the Lord.
We hasten to unfold to you by these presents, agreeable and happy
intelligence.... (He details the landing of the French, the defeat of
the infidels with the loss of one christian soldier, and the subsequent
capture of the city.) Damietta, therefore, has been taken, not by our
deserts, nor by the might of our armed bands, but through the divine
power and assistance. Moreover, be it known to you that king Louis,
with God’s favour, proposes to march upon Alexandria or Cairo for the
purpose of delivering our brethren there detained in captivity, and of
reducing, with God’s help, the whole land to the christian worship.
Farewell.”[125]
The Lord de Joinville, the friend of king Louis, and one of the bravest
of the French captains, gives a lively and most interesting account
of the campaign, and of the exploits of the Templars. During the
march towards Cairo, they led the van of the christian army, and on
one occasion, when the king of France had given strict orders that no
attack should be made upon the infidels, and that an engagement should
be avoided, a body of Turkish cavalry advanced against them. “One of
these Turks,” says Joinville, “gave a Knight Templar in the first rank
so heavy a blow with his battle-axe, that it felled him under the feet
of the Lord Reginald de Vichier’s horse, who was Marshal of the Temple;
the Marshal, seeing his man fall, cried out to his brethren, ‘At them
in the name of God, for I cannot longer stand this.’ He instantly stuck
spurs into his horse, followed by all his brethren, and as their horses
were fresh, not a Saracen escaped.” After marching for some days, the
Templars arrived on the banks of the Tanitic branch of the Nile, (the
ancient Pelusiac mouth of the river,) and found the sultan encamped
with his entire force on the opposite side, to prevent and oppose
their passage. King Louis attempted to construct a bridge to enable him
to cross the stream, and long and earnestly did the Templars labour at
the task, “but,” says Joinville, “as fast as we advanced our bridge
the Saracens destroyed it; they dug, on their side of the river, wide
and deep holes in the earth, and as the water recoiled from our bridge
it filled these holes with water, and tore away the bank, so that what
we had been employed on for three weeks or a month they ruined in one
or two days.” To protect the soldiers employed upon the construction
of the bridge large wooden towers were erected, and _chas chateils_
or covered galleries, and the infidels exerted all their energies to
destroy them with the terrible Greek fire. “At night,” says Joinville,
“they brought forward an engine called by them La Perriere, a dreadful
engine to do mischief, and they flung from it such quantities of Greek
fire that it was the most horrible sight ever witnessed.... This Greek
fire was like a large tun, and its tail was of the length of a long
spear; the noise which it made was like to thunder, and it seemed a
great dragon of fire flying through the air, giving so great a light
with its flame, that we saw in our camp as clearly as in broad day.”
The military engines and machines were all burnt, and the Christians
were about to yield themselves up to despair, when a Bedouin Arab
offered, for a bribe of five hundred golden bezants, to show a safe
ford. At dawn of day, on Shrove Tuesday, the French knights mounted
on horseback to make trial of the ford of the Bedouin. “Before we set
out,” says Joinville, “the king had ordered that the Templars should
form the van, and the Count d’Artois, his brother, should command the
second division after the Templars; but the moment the Count d’Artois
had passed the ford, he and all his people fell on the Saracens, and
putting them to flight, galloped after them. The Templars sent to call
the Count d’Artois back, and to tell him that it was his duty to march
behind and not before them; but it happened that the Count d’Artois
could not make any answer by reason of my Lord Foucquault du Melle, who
held the bridle of his horse, and my Lord Foucquault, who was a right
good knight, being deaf, heard nothing the Templars were saying to the
Count d’Artois, but kept bawling out, ‘_Forward! forward!_’ (‘Or a
eulz! or a eulz!’) When the Templars perceived this, they thought they
should be dishonoured if they allowed the Count d’Artois thus to take
the lead; so they spurred their horses more and more, and faster and
faster, and chased the Turks, who fled before them, through the town of
Mansourah, as far as the plains towards Babylon.”[126]
The Arabian writers, in their account of the entry of the Templars into
Mansourah, tell us that 2,000 horsemen galloped into the place sword
in hand and surprised Fakho’ddin Othman, commonly called Ibn Saif,
the Moslem general, and one of the principal Mamlook emirs, in the
bath, and barbarously cut him to pieces as he was painting his beard
before a glass.[127] But the impetuous courage of the Count d’Artois
and the Templars had led them far away from the support of the main
body of the army, and their horsemen became embarrassed in the narrow
streets of Mansourah, where there was no room to charge or manœuvre
with effect. The infidels rallied; they returned to the attack with
vast reinforcements; the inhabitants of the town mounted to their
house-tops, and discharged stones and brickbats upon the heads of the
christian knights, and the Templars were defeated and driven out of
the city with dreadful carnage. “The Count d’Artois and the Earl of
Leicester were there slain, and as many as three hundred other knights.
The Templars lost, as their chief informed me, full fourteen score
men-at-arms, and all their horsemen.” The Grand Master of the Temple
also lost an eye, and cut his way through the infidels to the main body
of the christian army, accompanied only by two Knights Templars. There
he again mixed in the affray, took the command of a vanguard, and is
to be found fighting by the side of the lord de Joinville at sunset.
At the close of the long and bloody day, the Christians regained
their camp in safety. King Louis, Joinville, and the Grand Master of
the Temple had been fighting side by side during a great part of the
afternoon; Joinville had his horse killed under him, and performed
prodigies of valour. He was severely wounded, and on retiring to his
quarters he found that a magnificent tent had been sent to him by the
Grand Master of the Temple, as a testimony of regard and esteem. On
the first Friday in Lent, Bendocdar, the great Mamlook general and
lieutenant of the sultan of Egypt, advanced at the head of a vast army
of horse and foot to attack the Crusaders in their intrenchments. King
Louis drew out his army in battle array, and posted them in eight
divisions in front of the camp. The Templars, under their venerable
Grand Master, formed the fourth division, and the fate of their gallant
chieftain is thus described by the lord de Joinville. “The next
battalion was under the command of Brother William de Sonnac, Master
of the Temple, who had with him the small remnant of the brethren of
his order who survived the battle of Shrove Tuesday. The Master of
the Temple made of the engines which he had taken from the Saracens
a sort of rampart in his front, but when the Saracens marched up to
the assault, they threw Greek fire upon it, and as the Templars had
piled up many planks of fir-wood amongst these engines, they caught
fire immediately; and the Saracens, perceiving that the brethren of
the Temple were few in number, dashed through the burning timbers, and
vigorously attacked them. In the preceding battle of Shrove Tuesday,
Brother William, the Master of the Temple, lost one of his eyes, and in
this battle the said lord lost his other eye, and was slain. God have
mercy on his soul! And know that immediately behind the place where the
battalion of the Templars stood, there was a good acre of ground, so
covered with darts, arrows, and missiles, that you could not see the
earth beneath them, such showers of these had been discharged against
the Templars by the Saracens.”[128]
The command over the surviving brethren of the order now devolved upon
the Marshal, Brother Reginald de Vichier, who, collecting together
the small surviving remnant of the Templars, retreated to the camp to
participate in the subsequent horrors and misfortunes of the campaign.
“At the end of eight or ten days,” says Joinville, “the bodies of those
who had been slain and thrown into the Nile rose to the top of the
water. These bodies floated down the river until they came to the small
bridge that communicated with each part of our army; the arch was so
low that it prevented the bodies from passing underneath, and the river
was consequently covered with them from bank to bank, so that the water
could not be seen.... God knows how great was the stench. I never heard
that any who were exposed to this infectious smell ever recovered their
health. The whole army was seized with a shocking disorder, which dried
up the flesh on our legs to the bone; and our skins became tanned as
the ground, or like an old boot that has long lain behind a coffer....
The barbers were forced to cut away very large pieces of flesh from the
gums to enable their patients to eat; it was pitiful to hear the cries
and groans, they were like the cries of women in labour.”
The army attempted to retreat when retreat was almost impossible;
the soldiers became dispersed and scattered; thousands died by the
way-side, and thousands fell alive into the hands of the enemy, among
which last were the king and Joinville. They were both attacked by
the disease, and king Louis laid himself down to die in an Arab hut,
where he was found and kindly treated by the Saracens. Reginald de
Vichier, the Marshal of the Templars, and a few of his brethren,
reached Damietta in safety, and took measures for the defence of the
place. All those of the prisoners who were unable to redeem their lives
by services as slaves to the conquerors, or by ransom, were inhumanly
massacred, and a grim circle of christian heads decorated the walls
and battlements of Cairo. The Egyptians required as the price of the
liberty of the French monarch the surrender of all the fortresses of
the order of the Temple in Palestine; but the king told them that the
Templars were not subject to his command, nor had he any means of
compelling them to give effect to such an agreement. Louis and his
friend Joinville at last obtained their deliverance from captivity by
the surrender of Damietta, and by the payment of two hundred thousand
pieces of gold; and the liberation of the king’s brother, and of the
other captive nobles and knights was to be purchased by the payment
of a similar sum. The king immediately went on board the French fleet
which was at anchor before Damietta, and exerted himself to raise the
residue of the ransom; and all Saturday and Sunday were employed in
collecting it together.
“On Sunday evening,” says Joinville, “the king’s servants, who were
occupied in counting out the money, sent to say that there was a
deficiency of thirty thousand livres. I observed to the king that we
had better ask the commander and Marshal of the Temple, since the
Master was dead, to give us the thirty thousand livres. Brother Stephen
d’Otricourt, knight commander of the Temple, hearing the advice I gave
to the king, said to me, ‘Lord de Joinville, the counsel you give the
king is not right nor reasonable, for you know that we receive every
farthing of our money on our oaths;’ and Brother Reginald de Vichier,
who was Marshal of the Temple, said to the king, ‘Sire, it is as our
commander has said, we cannot dispose of any of the money intrusted
to us but for the means intended, in accordance with the rules of our
institution, without being perjured. Know that the seneschal hath ill
advised you to take our money by force, but in this you will act as you
please; should you, however, do so, _we will make ourselves amends out
of the money you have in Acre_.’ I then told the king that if he wished
I would go and get the money, and he commanded me so to do. I instantly
went on board one of the galleys of the Templars, and demanded of the
treasurer the keys of a coffer which I saw before me. They refused, and
I was about to break it open with a wedge in the king’s name, when the
Marshal, observing I was in earnest, ordered the keys to be given to
me. I opened the coffer, took out the sum wanting, and carried it to
the king, who was much rejoiced at my return.” King Louis returned with
the Templars to Palestine; and was received with great distinction by
the order at Acre, where he remained four years!
In the year 1251 a general chapter of Knights Templars being assembled
in the Pilgrim’s Castle, the Marshal, Brother REGINALD DE VICHIER, who
had commanded with great skill and prudence in Egypt after the death
of Brother William de Sonnac, was chosen to fill the vacant dignity
of Grand Master. Henry III., king of England, had assumed the cross
shortly after intelligence had been conveyed to England of the horrors
and atrocities committed by the Carizmians in the Holy City. Year after
year, he had promised to fulfil his vow, and the pope issued numerous
bulls, kindly providing for the tranquillity and security of his
dominions during his absence, and ordered prayers to be offered up to
God for the success of his arms, in all the churches of Christendom.
King Henry assembled a parliament to obtain the necessary supplies, and
fixed the 24th day of June, A. D. 1255, as the period of his departure.
His knights and barons, however, refused him the necessary funds, and
the needy monarch addressed the military orders of the Temple and
the Hospital in the following very curious letter. “As you are said
to possess a well-equipped fleet, we beseech you to set apart for
our own use some of your strongest vessels, and have them furnished
and equipped with provisions, sailors, and all things requisite for
a twelvemonth’s voyage, so that we may be able, ere the period for
our own departure arrives, to freight them with the soldiers, arms,
horses, and munitions of war that we intend to send to the succour of
the Holy Land. You will also be pleased to provide secure habitations
and suitable accommodation for the said soldiers and their equipage,
until the period of our own arrival. You will then be good enough to
send back the same vessels to England to conduct ourselves and suite to
Palestine; and by your prompt obedience to these our commands, we shall
judge of your devotion to the interests of the Holy Land, and of your
attachment to our person.”[129]
King Louis, in the mean time, assisted the Templars in repairing the
fortifications of Jaffa and Cæsarea. The lord de Joinville who was with
him tells us that the scheik of the assassins, who still continued to
pay tribute to the Templars, sent ambassadors to the king to obtain a
remission of the tribute. He gave them an audience, and declared that
he would consider of their proposal. “When they came again before the
king,” says Joinville, “it was about vespers, and they found the Master
of the Temple on one side of him, and the Master of the Hospital on
the other. The ambassadors refused to repeat what they had said in the
morning, but the Masters of the Temple and the Hospital commanded them
so to do. Then the Masters of the Temple and Hospital told them that
their lord had very foolishly and impudently sent such a message to the
king of France, and had they not been invested with the character of
ambassadors, they would have thrown them into the filthy sea of Acre,
and have drowned them in despite of their master. ‘And we command you,’
continued the Masters, ‘to return to your lord, and to come back within
fifteen days with such letters from your prince, that the king shall
be contented with him and with you.’” The ambassadors accordingly
did as they were bid, and brought back from their scheik a shirt, the
symbol of friendship, and a great variety of rich presents, “crystal
elephants, pieces of amber, with borders of pure gold,” &c., &c. “You
must know that when the ambassadors opened the case containing all
these fine things, the whole apartment was instantly embalmed with the
odour of their sweet perfumes.”
The treaty entered into between king Louis and the infidels having been
violated by the murder of the sick at Damietta, and by the detention,
in a state of slavery, of many knights and soldiers, as well as of a
large body of christian children, the Templars recommenced hostilities,
and marched with Joinville and the French knights against the strong
castle of Panias, and after an obstinate resistance, carried the place
sword in hand. The sultan of Damascus immediately took the field; he
stormed the Temple fort Dok, slaughtered the garrison, and razed the
fortifications to the ground; the castle of Ricordane shared the same
fate, and the city of Sidon was taken by assault, (A. D. 1254,) whilst
the workmen and artificers were diligently employed in rebuilding the
walls; eight hundred men were put to the sword, and four hundred masons
and artificers were taken prisoners and carried off to Damascus. After
residing nearly two years at Acre, and spending vast sums of money upon
the defences of the maritime towns of Palestine, king Louis returned
to France. He set sail from Acre on the 24th of April, with a fleet of
fourteen sail, his ship being steered by Brother Rèmond, the pilot of
the Grand Master of the Temple, who was charged to conduct the king
across the wide waters in safety to his own dominions. On his arrival
in France, Louis manifested his esteem for the Templars by granting
them the château and lordship of Bazèes, near Bauvez, in Aquitaine. The
deed of gift is expressed to be made in consideration of the charitable
works which the king had seen performed amongst the Templars, and in
acknowledgment of the services they had rendered to him, and to the
intent that he might be made a participator in the good works done
by the fraternity, and be remembered in the prayers of the brethren.
This deed was delivered on the day of Pentecost to Brother Hugh, Grand
Preceptor of Aquitaine, in the cathedral church of Angouleme, in the
presence of numerous archbishops, bishops, counts, and barons.[130]
At the period of the return of the king of France to Europe, Henry the
Third, king of England, was in Gascony with Brother Robert de Sanford,
Master of the Temple at London, who had been previously sent by the
English monarch into that province to appease the troubles which had
there broken out. King Henry proceeded to the French capital, and was
magnificently entertained by the Knights Templars at the Temple in
Paris, which Matthew Paris tells us was of such immense extent that
it could contain within its precincts a numerous army. The day after
his arrival, king Henry ordered an innumerable quantity of poor people
to be regaled at the Temple with meat, fish, bread, and wine; and at
a later hour the king of France and all his nobles came to dine with
the English monarch. “Never,” says Matthew Paris, “was there at any
period in bygone times so noble and so celebrated an entertainment.
They feasted in the great hall of the Temple, where hang the shields on
every side, as many as they can place along the four walls, according
to the custom of the order beyond sea....” The Knights Templars in this
country likewise exercised a magnificent hospitality, and constantly
entertained kings, princes, nobles, prelates, and foreign ambassadors
at the Temple. Immediately after the return of king Henry to England,
some illustrious ambassadors from Castile came on a visit to the Temple
at London; and as the king “greatly delighted to honour them,” he
commanded three pipes of wine to be placed in the cellars of the Temple
for their use, and ten fat bucks to be brought them at the same place
from the royal forest in Essex. He, moreover, commanded the mayor and
sheriffs of London, and the commonalty of the same city, to take with
them a respectable assemblage of the citizens, and to go forth and meet
the said ambassadors without the city, and courteously receive them,
and honour them, and conduct them to the Temple.[131]
During the first and second years of the pontificate of pope Alexander
IV. ten bulls were published in favour of the Templars, addressed to
the bishops of the church universal, commanding them to respect and
maintain the privileges conceded to them by the holy see; to judge and
punish all persons who should dare to exact tythe from the fraternity;
to institute to the ecclesiastical benefices of the order, all clerks
presented to them by the preceptors, without previously requiring them
to make a fixed maintenance for such clerks, and severely to punish,
all who appropriated to their own use the alms gifts and eleemosynary
donations made to the brotherhood. By these bulls the Templars are
declared to be exempt from the duty of contributing to the travelling
expenses of all nuncios and legates of the holy see, under the dignity
of a cardinal, when passing through their territories, unless express
orders to the contrary are given by apostolic letters, and all the
bishops are required earnestly and vigorously to protect and defend the
right of sanctuary accorded the houses of the Temple.[132]
In the year 1257, Brother Reginald de Vichier, the Grand Master of the
Temple, fell sick and died, at an advanced age. He was succeeded by
the English Knight Templar Brother THOMAS BERARD. Shortly after his
election the terrible Moguls and Tartars, those fierce vagrant tribes
of shepherds and hunters, whose victorious arms had spread terror and
desolation over the greater part of Europe and Asia, invaded Palestine,
under the command of the famous Holagou, and spread themselves like a
cloud of devouring locusts over the whole country. The Templars, under
the command of Brother Etienne de Sisi, Grand Preceptor of Apulia,
hastened to meet them, and were cut to pieces in a sanguinary fight.
The Tartars besieged and took the rich and populous cities of Aleppo,
Hamah, Hems, Damascus, Tiberias, and Naplous, and at last entered in
triumph the holy city of Jerusalem.[133] The Grand Master Brother
Thomas Berard wrote a melancholy letter to king Henry the Third for
succour. “With continual letters and many prayers,” says he, “has our
poor Christianity on this side the sea besought the assistance of the
kings and princes of this world, and above all, the aid and succour of
your majesty, imploring your royal compassion with sighs and tears, and
a loud sounding voice, and crying out with a bitter cry in the hope
that it would penetrate the royal ear, and reach the ends of the earth,
and arouse the faithful from their slumbers, and draw them to the
protection of the Holy Land.”[134] The king of England, however, was in
pecuniary embarrassments, and unable to afford the necessary succour.
He was reduced, indeed, to the cruel necessity of borrowing money in
France upon the security of his regalia and crown jewels, which were
deposited in the Temple at Paris, as appears from the letter of the
queen of France “to her very dear brother Henry, the illustrious king
of England,” giving a long list of golden wands, golden combs, diamond
buckles, chaplets, and circlets, golden crowns, imperial beavers,
rich girdles, golden peacocks, and rings innumerable, adorned with
sapphires, rubies, emeralds, topazes, and carbuncles, which she says
she had inspected in the presence of the treasurer of the Temple at
Paris, and that the same were safely deposited in the coffers of the
Templars.[135]
In the mean time the Mamlooks, “who had breathed in their infancy the
keenness of a Scythian air,” advanced from the banks of the Nile to
contend with the Tartars for the dominion of Palestine. Under the
command of Bendocdar, the Mamlook general, they gained a complete
victory over them in the neighbourhood of Tiberias, and drove back
the stream of hostility to the eastward of the Euphrates. Bendocdar
returned to Egypt the idol of his soldiers, and clothed with a
popularity which rendered him too powerful for a subject. He aspired
to the possession of the throne which he had so successfully defended,
and slew with his own hand his sovereign and master Kothuz, the third
Mamlook sultan of Egypt. The Mamlooks hailed him with acclamations
as their sovereign, and on the 24th day of October, A. D. 1260, he
was solemnly proclaimed sultan of Egypt, in the town of Salahieh in
the Delta. Bendocdar was one of the greatest men of the age, and soon
proved the most formidable enemy that the Templars had encountered
in the field since the days of Saladin. The first two years of his
accession to power were employed in the extension and consolidation of
his sway over the adjoining Mussulman countries. The holy cities of
Mecca and Medina acknowledged him for their sovereign, as did Damascus,
Aleppo, Hems, and Jerusalem. His sway extended over Egypt, Nubia,
Arabia, and Syria; and his throne was defended by twenty-five thousand
Mamlook cavalry. His power was further strengthened by an army of one
hundred and seven thousand foot, and by the occasional aid of sixty-six
thousand Arabians.
After receiving the homage and submission of the rulers and people
of Aleppo, Bendocdar made a hostile demonstration against the vast
and wealthy city of Antioch; but finding the place well defended, he
retired with his army, by way of Hems, Damascus, and Tiberias, to
Egypt. The next year (A. D. 1264) he crossed the desert at the head
of thirty thousand cavalry, and overran all Palestine up to the very
gates of Acre. He burned the great churches of Nazareth and Mount
Tabor; and sought to awaken the zeal and enthusiasm of his soldiers in
behalf of Islam by performing the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and visiting
with great devotion the Mosque of Omar. He then retired to Cairo with
his troops, and the Templars and Hospitallers became the assailants.
They surprised and stormed the castle of Lilion, razed the walls and
fortifications to the ground, and brought off three hundred prisoners
of both sexes, together with a rich prize of sheep and oxen. On the
15th of June, they marched as far as Ascalon, surprised and slew two
Mamlook emirs, and put twenty-eight of their followers to the sword.
They then turned their footsteps towards the Jordan, and on the 5th of
November, they destroyed Bisan or Scythopolis, and laid waste with fire
and sword all the valley of the Jordan, as far as the lake of Tiberias.
In the depth of winter, (A. D. 1265,) Bendocdar collected his forces
together, and advanced, by rapid marches, from Egypt. He concealed his
real intentions, made a long march during the night, and at morning’s
dawn presented himself before the city of Cæsarea. His troops descended
into the ditch by means of ropes and ladders, and climbed the walls
with the aid of iron hooks and spikes; they burst open the gates,
massacred the sentinels, and planted the standard of the prophet on
the ramparts, ere the inhabitants had time to rouse themselves from
their morning slumbers. The citadel, however, still remained to be
taken, and the garrison being forewarned, made an obstinate defence.
The Arabian writers tell us, that the citadel was a strong and handsome
fortification, erected by king Louis, and adorned with pillars and
columns. It stood on a small neck of land which jutted out into the
sea, and the ditches around the fortress were filled with the blue
waters of the Mediterranean. Bendocdar planted huge catapults and
cross-bows upon the tower of the cathedral, and shot arrows, darts, and
stones, from them upon the battlements of the citadel. He encouraged
the exertions of his soldiers by promises of reward, and gave robes of
honour to his principal emirs. Weapons of war were distributed in the
most lavish manner, every captain of a hundred horse receiving for the
use of himself and his men _four thousand arrows_!
During a dark winter’s night the garrison succeeded in making their
escape, and the next morning the Moslems poured into the citadel by
thousands, and abandoned themselves to pillage. The fortifications
were levelled with the dust, and Bendocdar assisted with his own hands
in the work of demolition. He then detached some Mamlook emirs with
a body of cavalry against Caiphas, and proceeded himself to watch
the movements of the Templars, and examine into the defences of the
Pilgrim’s Castle. Finding the place almost impregnable, and defended by
a numerous garrison, he suddenly retraced his steps to the south, and
stormed, after a brave and obstinate defence, the strongly fortified
city of Arsoof, which belonged to the Knights Hospitallers of St.
John. The greater part of the garrison was massacred, but one thousand
captives were reserved to grace the triumph of the conqueror. They were
compelled to march at the head of his triumphal procession, with their
banners reversed, and with their crosses, broken into pieces, hung
round their necks. Bendocdar had already despatched his bravest Mamlook
generals, at the head of a considerable body of forces, to blockade
Beaufort and Saphet, two strong fortresses of the order of the Temple,
and he now advanced at the head of a vast army to conduct the siege
of the latter place in person. On 21 Ramadan, the separate timbers
of his military machines arrived from Damascus at Jacob’s bridge on
the Jordan; the sultan sent down his emirs and part of his army, with
hundreds of oxen, to drag them up the mountains to Saphet, and went
with his principal officers to assist in the transport of them. “I
worked by the sultan’s side, and aided him with all my might,” says the
cadi Mohieddin; “being fatigued, I sat down. I began again, and was
once more tired, and compelled to take rest, but the sultan continued
to work without intermission, aiding in the transport of beams, bolts,
and huge frames of timber.” The Grand Master of the Temple ordered out
twelve hundred cavalry from Acre to create a diversion in favour of the
besieged; but a treacherous spy conveyed intelligence to Bendocdar,
which enabled him to surprise and massacre the whole force, and return
to Saphet with their heads stuck on the lances of his soldiers. At
last, after an obstinate defence, during which many Moslems, say the
Arabian writers, obtained the crown of martyrdom, the huge walls were
thrown down, and a breach was presented to the infidels; but that
breach was so stoutly guarded that none could be found to mount to the
assault. Bendocdar offered a reward of three hundred pieces of gold to
the first man who entered the city; he distributed robes of honour and
riches to all who were foremost in the fight, and the outer inclosure,
or first line of the fortifications was, at last, taken.
The Templars retired into the citadel, but their efforts at defence
were embarrassed by the presence of a crowd of two thousand fugitives,
who had fled to Saphet for shelter, and they agreed to capitulate on
condition that the lives and liberties of the Christians should be
respected, and that they should be transported in safety to Acre.
Bendocdar acceded to these terms, and solemnly promised to fulfil them;
but as soon as he had got the citadel into his power, he offered to all
the Templars the severe alternative of the Koran or death, and gave
them until the following morning to make their election. The preceptor
of Saphet, a holy monk and veteran warrior, assisted by two Franciscan
friars, passed the night in pious exhortations to his brethren,
conjuring them to prefer the crown of martyrdom to a few short years
of miserable existence in this sinful world, and not to disgrace
themselves and their order by a shameful apostasy. At sunrise, on the
following morning, the Templars were led on to the brow of the hill, in
front of the castle of Saphet, and when the first rays of the rising
sun gilded the wooded summits of Mount Hermon, and the voice of the
muezzin was heard calling the faithful to morning prayer, they were
required to join in the Moslem chaunt, _La-i-la i-la Allah, Mahommed
re sul Allah_, “There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his apostle;”
the executioners drew near with their naked scimitars, but not a man
of the noble company of knightly warriors, say the Christian writers,
would renounce his faith, and one thousand five hundred heads speedily
rolled at the feet of Bendocdar. “The blood,” says Sanutus, “flowed
down the declivities like a rivulet of water.” The preceptor of Saphet,
the priests of the order, and brother Jeremiah, were beaten with clubs,
flayed alive, and then beheaded! The Arabian writers state that the
lives of two of the garrison were spared, one being an Hospitaller
whom the besieged had sent to Bendocdar to negotiate the treaty of
surrender, and the other a Templar, named _Effreez Lyoub_, who embraced
the Mahomedan faith, and was circumcised and entered into the service
of the sultan.[136] Immediately after the fall of Saphet, the infidels
stormed the castles of Hounin and Tebnin, and took possession of the
city of Ramleh.
The Grand Master of the Hospital now sued for peace, and entered into
a separate treaty with the infidels. He agreed to renounce the ancient
tribute of one hundred pieces of gold paid to the order by the district
of Bouktyr; also the annual tribute of four thousand pieces of gold
paid to them by the sultans of Hems and Hamah; a tribute of twelve
hundred pieces of gold, fifty thousand bushels of wheat, and fifty
thousand bushels of barley annually rendered to them by the Assassins
or Ismaelians of the mountains of Tripoli: and the several tributes
paid by the cities or districts of Schayzar, Apamea, and Aintab, which
consisted of five hundred crowns of Tyrian silver, two measures of
wheat, and two pieces of silver for every two head of oxen pastured in
the district. These terms being arranged, the emir Fakir-eddin, and the
cadi Schams-eddin were sent to receive the oath of the Grand Master of
the Hospital to fulfil them, and a truce was then accorded him for ten
years, ten days, and ten months.
Bendocdar then concentrated his forces together at Aleppo, and marched
against the christian province of Armenia. The prince of Hamah
blockaded Darbesak, which was garrisoned by the Knights Templars,
and forced the mountain passes leading into the ancient Cilicia. The
Moslems then marched with incredible rapidity to Sis, the capital of
the country, which fell into their hands after a short siege. Leon,
king of Armenia, was led away into captivity, together with his
uncle, his son, and his nephew; many others of the royal family were
killed, and some made their escape. All the castles of the Templars
in Armenia were assaulted and taken, and the garrisons massacred. The
most famous of these was the castle of Amoud, which was stormed after
an obstinate defence, and every soul found in it was put to the sword.
The city of Sis was pillaged, and then delivered up to the flames;
the inhabitants of all the towns were either massacred or reduced to
slavery; their goods and possessions were divided amongst the soldiers,
and the Moslems returned to Aleppo laden with booty and surrounded by
captives fastened together with ropes. Great was the joy of Bendocdar.
The musicians were ordered to play, and the dancing girls to beat the
tambour and dance before him. He made a triumphant entry into Damascus,
preceded by his royal captives and many thousand prisoners bound with
chains. “Thus did the sultan,” says the Arabian historian, “cut the
sugar-canes of the Franks!”
On the 1st of May, A. D. 1267, Bendocdar collected together a strong
body of cavalry, divided them into two bodies, and caused them to
mount the banners and emblems of the Hospital and Temple. By this ruse
he attempted to penetrate the east gate of Acre, but the cheat was
fortunately discovered, and the gates were closed ere the Arab cavalry
reached them. The infidels then slaughtered five hundred people outside
the walls, cut off their heads and put them into sacks. Amongst them
were some poor old women who gained a livelihood by gathering herbs!
The ferocious Mamlooks then pulled down all the houses and windmills,
plucked up the vines, cut down all the fruit trees and burnt them,
and filled up the wells. Some deputies, sent to sue for peace, were
introduced to Bendocdar through a grim and ghastly avenue of christian
heads planted on the points of lances, and their petition was rejected
with scorn and contempt. “The neighing of our horses,” said the
ferocious sultan, “shall soon strike you with deafness, and the dust
raised by their feet shall penetrate to the inmost chambers of your
dwellings.”
On the 7th of March, A. D. 1268, the sultan stormed Jaffa, put the
garrison to the sword, set fire to the churches, and burnt the
crucifixes and crosses and holy relics of the saints. “He took away
the head of St. George and burnt the body of St. Christina,” and then
marched against the strongly fortified city of Beaufort, which belonged
to the order of the Temple. Twenty-six enormous military engines were
planted around the walls, and the doctors of the law and the _Fakirs_,
or teachers of religion, were invited to repair to the Moslem camp,
and wield the sword in behalf of Islam. The town was defended by two
citadels, the ancient and the new one. The former was garrisoned by
the Templars, and the latter by the native militia. These last, after
sustaining a short siege, set fire to their post and fled during the
night. “As for the other citadel,” says the cadi Mohieddin, “it made
a long and vigorous defence,” and Bendocdar, after losing the flower
of his army before the place, was reluctantly compelled to permit the
garrison to march out, sword in hand, with all the honours of war. The
fortress was then razed to the ground so effectually that not a trace
of it was left.
The sultan now separated his army into several divisions, which
were all sent in different directions through the principality of
Tripoli to waste and destroy. All the churches and houses were set
on fire; the trees were cut down, and the inhabitants were led away
into captivity. A tower of the Templars, in the environs of Tripoli,
was taken by assault, and every soul found in it was put to death.
The different divisions of the army were then concentrated at Hems,
to collect together and to divide their spoil. They were then again
separated into three corps, which were sent by different routes against
the vast and wealthy city of Antioch, the ancient “Queen of Syria.”
The first division was directed to take a circuitous route by way of
Darbesak, and approach Antioch from the north; the second was to march
upon Suadia, and to secure the mouth of the Orontes, to prevent all
succour from reaching the city by sea; and the third and last division,
which was led by Bendocdar in person, proceeded to Apamea, and from
thence marched down the left bank of the river Orontes along the base
of the ancient Mons Casius, so as to approach and hem in Antioch from
the south. On the 1st Ramadan, all these different divisions were
concentrated together, and the city was immediately surrounded by a
vast army of horse and foot, which cut off all communication between
the town and the surrounding country, and exposed a population of
160,000 souls to all the horrors of famine. The famous stone bridge
of nine arches, which spanned the Orontes, and communicated between
the city and the right bank of the river, was immediately attacked;
the iron doors which guarded the passage were burst open with the
battering-rams, and the standard of the prophet was planted beneath the
great western gate. The Templars of the principality, under the command
of their Grand Preceptor, made a vain effort to drive back the infidels
and relieve the city. They sallied out of the town, with the constable
of Antioch, but were defeated by the Mamlook cavalry, after a sharp
encounter in the plain, and were compelled to take refuge behind the
walls.
For three days successively did the sultan vainly summon the city to
surrender, and for three days did he continue his furious assaults. On
the fourth day the Moslems scaled the walls where they touch the side
of the mountain; they rushed across the ramparts, sword in hand, into
the city, and a hundred thousand Christians are computed to have been
slain! About eight thousand soldiers, accompanied by a dense throng
of women and children, fled from the scene of carnage to the citadel,
and there defended themselves with the energy of despair. Bendocdar
granted them their lives, and they surrendered. They were bound with
cords, and the long string of mournful captives passed in review before
the sultan, who caused the scribes and notaries to take down the names
of each of them. After several days of pillage, all the booty was
brought together in the plain of Antioch, and equally divided amongst
the Moslems; the gold and silver were distributed by measure, and
merchandize and property of all kinds, piled up in heaps, were drawn
for by lot. The captive women and girls were distributed amongst the
soldiery, and they were so numerous that each of the slaves of the
conquerors was permitted to have a captive at his disposal. The sultan
halted for several weeks in the plain, and permitted his soldiers to
hold a large market, or fair, for the sale of their booty. This market
was attended by Jews and pedlars from all parts of the East, who
greedily bought up the rich property and costly valuables of the poor
citizens of Antioch.
These last might have borne with fortitude the loss of their worldly
possessions, and the luxuries of this life, but when they were
themselves put up to auction--when the mother saw her infant child
handed over to the avaricious Jew for the paltry sum of five pieces
of silver, and sold into irredeemable bondage, the bitter cries that
resounded through the plain, touched even the hearts of the Moslems.
“It was,” says the cadi Mohieddin, “a fearful and a heart-rending
sight. Even the hard stones were softened with grief.” He tells us,
that the captives were so numerous, that a fine hearty boy might be
purchased for _twelve_ pieces of silver, and a little girl for _five_!
When the work of pillage had been completed, when all the ornaments
and decorations had been carried away from the churches, and the lead
torn from the roofs, Antioch was fired in different places, amid the
loud thrilling shouts of ALLAH ACBAR, “GOD _is_ VICTORIOUS!” The great
churches of St. Paul and St. Peter burnt with terrific fury for many
days, and the vast and venerable city was left without a habitation,
and without an inhabitant!
Thus fell Antioch, one hundred and seventy years after its recovery
from the dominion of the infidels by the crusaders, under the command
of the valiant Godfrey, Boemond, and Tancred. Near six centuries of
Moslem domination have now again rolled over the ancient Queen of the
East, but the genius of destruction which accompanied the footsteps
of the armies of the ferocious Bendocdar has ever since presided
over the spot. The once fair and flourishing capital of Syria, the
ancient “throne of the successors of Alexander, the seat of Roman
government in the east, which had been decorated by Cæsar with the
titles of free, and holy, and inviolate,” is, at this day, nothing
more than a miserable mud village; and the ancient and illustrious
church of Antioch, which, in the fourth century of the christian era,
numbered one hundred thousand persons, now consists only of a few Greek
families, who still cling to the christian faith amid the insults and
persecutions of the infidels. Immediately after the destruction of the
city, Bendocdar caused the following letter to be written to the prince
of Antioch, who was at Tripoli: “Since not a soul has escaped to tell
you what has happened, we will undertake the pleasing task of informing
you.... We have slain all whom you appointed to defend Antioch. We have
crushed your knights beneath the feet of our horses, and have given
up your provinces to pillage: your gold and silver have been divided
amongst us by the quintal, and four of your women have been bought and
sold for a crown. There is not a single christian in the province that
does not now march bound before us, nor a single young girl that is not
in our possession. Your churches have been made level with the dust,
and our chariot wheels have passed over the sites of your dwellings. If
you had seen the temples of your God destroyed, the crosses broken, and
the leaves of the gospel torn and scattered to the winds of heaven; if
you had seen your Mussulman enemy marching into your tabernacles, and
immolating upon your shrines and your altars, the priest, the deacon,
and the bishop; if you had seen your palaces delivered to the flames,
and the bodies of the dead consumed by the fire of this world, whilst
their souls were burning in the everlasting _fire of_ HELL; doubtless,
you would have exclaimed, _Lord, I am become but as dust_; your soul
would have been ready to start from its earthly tenement, and your eyes
would have rained down tears sufficient to have extinguished the fires
that we have kindled around you.”[137]
On the fall of Antioch the Templars abandoned Bagras, a rich and
flourishing town, on the road to Armenia and Cilicia, which had
belonged to the order for more than a century. This town of the
Templars, Mohieddin tells us, had long been a source of intense anxiety
and annoyance to the Moslems. “Over and over again,” says he, “it
had been attacked, but the Templars foiled the utmost efforts of the
faithful, until, at last, Providence gave it into our hands.” The
Templars also abandoned the castles of Gaston and Noche de Rusol, and
the territory of Port Bounel, at the entrance of Armenia. The towns of
Darbesak, Sabah, Al Hadid, and the sea-port of Gabala, successively
fell into the hands of Bendocdar, and the whole country from Tripoli to
Mount Taurus was made desolate, the houses were set on fire, the fruit
trees were cut down, and the churches were levelled with the dust. The
wealthy and populous maritime towns of Laodicea, Tripoli, Tortosa,
Beirout, Tyre, and Sidon, however, still remained to the Christians,
and as these cities were strongly fortified, and the christian fleets
kept the command of the sea, Bendocdar postponed their destruction for
a brief period, and granted separate truces to them in consideration of
the payment of large sums of money.
In the year 1269, a terrible famine, consequent upon the ravages of
the infidels, afflicted Syria and Palestine, and many of those whom
the sword had spared, now died of hunger. Louis IX., king of France,
being deeply affected by the intelligence of the misfortunes of the
Latin Christians, attended an assembly of Preceptors of the Temple
in France, to devise means of forwarding succour to the Holy Land,
and caused a quantity of corn to be sent from Languedoc to Palestine.
He moreover determined to embark in another crusade, and he induced
prince Edward of England to assume the cross, and prepare to join
his standard. Bendocdar, on the other hand, returned from Egypt to
Palestine; he surprised and cut to pieces several bands of Christians,
and made his public entry into Damascus, preceded by many hundred
ghastly heads stuck on the points of lances, and by a vast number of
weeping captives of both sexes, and of every age. He then proceeded to
Hamah and Kafarthab, and attempted to undertake the siege of the strong
fortress of Merkab, but the winter rains and the snow on the mountain
compelled him to abandon the enterprise. He then made an attack upon
the castle of the Kurds, which belonged to the Hospitallers, but
receiving intelligence of the sailing of the expedition of king Louis,
who had left the ports of France with an army of sixty thousand men,
and a fleet of eighteen hundred vessels; he hurried with all his
forces to Egypt to protect that country against the French. Instead
of proceeding direct to the Holy Land, king Louis was unfortunately
induced to steer to Tunis. He fell a victim to the insalubrity of the
climate, and his army, decimated by sickness, sailed back to France.
Bendocdar immediately returned to Palestine. He halted at Ascalon,
and completed the destruction of the fortifications of that place;
he stormed Castel Blanc, a fortress of the Templars, and appeared
with his Mamlook cavalry before the gates of Tripoli. He ravaged the
surrounding country, and then retired into winter quarters, leading
away many christian prisoners of both sexes into captivity. The next
year he stormed the fortified town of Safitza, and laid siege to Hassan
el Akrad, or the castle of the Kurds. His victorious career was checked
by the arrival (A. D. 1271) of prince Edward of England, who joined the
Grand Master of the Temple at the head of a welcome reinforcement of
knights and foot soldiers. Various successes were then obtained over
the infidels, and on the 21st Ramadan, (April 23rd, A. D. 1272,) a
truce was agreed upon for the space of ten years and ten months, as far
as regarded the town and plain of Acre, and the road to Nazareth.
On the 18th of June, prince Edward was stabbed with a poisoned dagger
by an assassin. Though dangerously wounded, he struck the assailant to
the ground, and caused him to be immediately despatched by the guards.
The same day the prince made his will; it is dated at Acre, June 18,
A. D. 1272, and Brother Thomas Berard, Grand Master of the Temple,
appears as an attesting witness. The life of the prince, however, was
happily preserved, the effects of the poison being obviated by an
antidote administered by the Grand Master of the Temple. On the 14th of
September, the prince returned to Europe, and thus terminated the last
expedition undertaken for the relief of Palestine. Whilst prince Edward
was pursuing his voyage to England, his father, king Henry III., died,
and the council of the realm, composed of the archbishops of Canterbury
and York, and the English bishops and barons, assembled in the Temple
at London, and swore allegiance to the prince. They there caused
him to be proclaimed king of England, and, with the consent of the
queen-mother, they appointed Walter Giffard, archbishop of York, and
the earls of Cornwall and Gloucester, guardians of the realm. Letters
were written from the Temple to acquaint the young sovereign with
the death of his father, and many of the acts of the new government
emanated from the same place.[138]
The Grand Master of the Temple, Brother Thomas Berard, died at Acre
on the 8th of April, and on the 13th of May, A. D. 1273, the general
chapter of the Templars being assembled in the Pilgrim’s Castle, chose
for his successor Brother WILLIAM DE BEAUJEU, Grand Preceptor of
Apulia. The late Vice-Master, Brother William de Poucon, was sent to
Europe with Brother Bertrand de Fox, to announce to him the tidings of
his elevation to the chief dignity of the order. The following year
William de Beaujeu, accompanied by the Grand Master of the Hospital,
proceeded to Lyons, to attend a general council which had been summoned
by the pope to provide succour for the Holy Land. The two Grand Masters
took precedence of all the ambassadors and peers present at that famous
assembly. It was determined that a new crusade should be preached, that
all ecclesiastical dignities and benefices should be taxed to support
an armament, and that the sovereigns of Europe should be compelled by
ecclesiastical censures to suspend their private quarrels, and afford
succour to the desolate land of promise. More than a thousand bishops,
archbishops, and ambassadors from the different princes and potentates
of Europe, graced the assembly with their presence. From Lyons, the
Grand Master William de Beaujeu proceeded to England, and called
together a general chapter of the order at London. Whilst resident at
the Temple in that city, he received payment of a large sum of money,
which the young king Edward had borrowed of the Templars during his
stay at Acre.[139]
Pope Gregory X. died in the midst of his exertions for the creation
of another crusade. The enthusiasm which had been partially awakened
subsided; those who had assumed the cross forgot their engagements,
and the Grand Master of the Temple at last returned, in sorrow and
disappointment, to the far East. He reached Acre on St. Michael’s day,
A. D. 1275, attended by a band of Templars, drawn from the preceptories
of England and France. Shortly after his arrival Bendocdar was
poisoned, and was succeeded by his son, Malek Said. Malek Said only
mounted the throne to descend from it. He was deposed by the rebellious
Mamlooks, and the sceptre was grasped by Malek-Mansour-Kelaoun, the
bravest and most distinguished of the emirs. As there was now no hope
of recovering the towns, castles, and territories taken by Bendocdar,
the Grand Master directed all his energies to the preservation of the
few remaining possessions of the Christians in the Holy Land. At the
expiration of the ten years’ truce, he entered into various treaties
with the infidels. One of these, called “the peace of Tortosa,” is
expressed to be made between sultan Malek-Mansour-Kelaoun, and his
son Malek-Saleh-Ali, “honour of the world and of religion,” of the
one part, and Afryz Dybadjouk, (William de Beaujeu,) Grand Master
of the order of the Templars, of the other part. It relates to the
territories and possessions of the order of the Temple at Tortosa,
and provides for their security and freedom from molestation by the
infidels. The truce is prolonged for ten years and ten months from the
date of the execution of the treaty, (A. D. 1282,) and the contracting
parties strictly bind themselves to make no irruptions into each
other’s territories during the period. To prevent mistakes, the lands
and villages, towers, corn-mills, gardens, brooks, and plantations,
belonging to the Templars are specified and defined, together with the
contiguous possessions of the Moslems. By this treaty, the Templars
engage not to rebuild any of their citadels, towers, or fortresses, nor
to cut any new ditch or fosse in their province of Tortosa.
Another treaty entered into between William de Beaujeu and the
infidels, is called the peace of Acre. It accords to the Christians
Caiphas and seven villages, the province of Mount Carmel the town and
citadel of Alelyet, the farms of the Hospitallers in the province of
Cæsarea, the half of Alexandretta, the village of Maron, &c., and
confirms the Templars in the possessions of Sidon and its citadel, and
its fifteen cantons. By this treaty, sultan Malek Mansour conceded to
the inhabitants of Acre a truce of ten years, ten months, and ten days;
and he swore to observe its provisions and stipulations in the presence
of the Grand Master of the Temple and the vizir Fadhad. But all these
treaties were mere delusions. Bendocdar had commenced the ruin of the
Christians, and sultan Kelaoun now proceeded to complete it.
The separate truces and treaties of peace which Bendocdar had accorded
to the maritime towns of Palestine, in return for payments of money,
were encumbered with so many minute provisions and stipulations, that
it was almost impossible for the Christians to avoid breaking them in
some trifling and unimportant particular; and sultan Kelaoun soon found
a colourable pretence for recommencing hostilities. He first broke with
the Hospitallers and stormed their strong fortress of Merkab, which
commanded the coast road from Laodicea to Tripoli. He then sought out
a pretext for putting an end to the truce which the count of Tripoli
had purchased of Bendocdar by the payment of eleven thousand pieces
of gold. He maintained that a watch-tower had been erected on the
coast between Merkab and Tortosa, in contravention of the stipulation
which forbad the erection of new fortifications; and he accordingly
marched with his army to lay siege to the rich and flourishing city
of Laodicea. The Arabian writers tell us that Laodicea was one of the
most commercial cities of the Levant, and was considered to be the
rival of Alexandria. A terrible earthquake, which had thrown down the
fortifications, and overturned the castle at the entrance of the port,
unfortunately facilitated the conquest of the place, and Laodicea
fell almost without a struggle. The town was pillaged and set on
fire, and those of the inhabitants who were unable to escape by sea,
were either slaughtered or reduced to slavery, or driven out homeless
wanderers from their dwellings, to perish with hunger and grief in the
surrounding wilderness. Shortly after the fall of Laodicea, the castle
of Krak, which belonged to the Hospitallers, was besieged and stormed;
the garrison was put to the sword, and some other small places on the
sea-coast met with a similar fate.
On the 13th Moharran (9th of February,) A. D. 1287, the sultan marched
against Tripoli at the head of ten thousand horse, and thirty-three
thousand foot. The separate timbers of nineteen enormous military
engines were transported in many hundred wagons drawn by oxen; and
fifteen hundred engineers and firework manufacturers were employed to
throw the terrible Greek fire and combustible materials, contained in
brass pots, into the city. After thirty-four days of incessant labour,
the walls were undermined and thrown into the ditch, and the engineers
poured an incessant stream of Greek fire upon the breach, whilst the
Moslems below prepared a path for the cavalry. Brother John de Breband,
Preceptor of the Temple at Tripoli, fought upon the ramparts with a
few knights and serving brethren of the order; but they were speedily
overthrown, and the Arab cavalry dashed through the breach into the
town. Upwards of one thousand Christians fell by the sword, and the
number of captives was incalculable. Twelve hundred trembling women
and children were crowded together for safety in a single magazine of
arms, and the conquerors were embarrassed with the quantity of spoil
and booty. More than four thousand bales of the richest silks were
distributed amongst the soldiers, together with ornaments and articles
of luxury and refinement, which astonished the rude simplicity of the
Arabs. When the city had been thoroughly ransacked, orders were issued
for its destruction. Then the Moslem soldiers were to be seen rushing
with torches and pots of burning naphtha to set fire to the churches,
and the shops, and the warehouses of the merchants; and Tripoli was
speedily enveloped in one vast, fearful, wide-spreading conflagration.
The command for the destruction of the fortifications was likewise
issued, and thousands of soldiers, stonemasons, and labourers, were
employed in throwing down the walls and towers. The Arabian writers
tell us that the ramparts were so wide that three horsemen could ride
abreast upon them round the town. Many of the inhabitants had escaped
by sea during the siege, and crowds of fugitives fled before the swords
of the Moslems, to take refuge on the little island of Saint Nicholas
at the entrance of the port. They were there starved to death; and when
Abulfeda visited the island a few days after the fall of Tripoli, he
found it covered with the dead bodies of the unburied Christians. Thus
fell Tripoli, with its commerce, its silk manufactories, churches,
and public and private buildings. Everything that could contribute to
prosperity in peace, or defence in war, perished beneath the sword, the
hammer, and the pick-axe of the Moslems. In the time of the crusaders,
the port was crowded with the fleets of the Italian republics, and
carried on a lucrative trade with Marseilles, Amalfi, Genoa, Pisa,
Venice, and the cities of the Grecian islands; but the rich stream of
commerce hath never since revisited the inhospitable shore.
Shortly after the fall of Tripoli, Gabala, Beirout, and all the
maritime towns and villages between Sidon and Laodicea, fell into the
hands of the infidels; and sultan Kelaoun was preparing to attack the
vast and populous city of Acre, when death terminated his victorious
career. He was succeeded, A. D. 1291, by his eldest son, Aschraf
Khalil, who hastened to execute the warlike projects of his father. He
assembled the ulemas and cadis around his father’s tomb, and occupied
himself in reading the Koran, in prayer, and invocation of Mahomet.
He then made abundant alms-giving, collected his troops together,
and marched across the desert to Damascus, where he was joined by
Hosam-eddin Ladjin, viceroy of Syria, Modaffer, prince of Hems, and
Saifeddin, lord of Baalbec, with the respective forces under their
command. Ninety-two enormous military engines had been constructed at
Damascus, which were transported across the country by means of oxen;
and in the spring of the year, after the winter rains had subsided,
sultan Khalil marched against Acre at the head of sixty thousand horse,
and a hundred and forty thousand foot.
After the loss of Jerusalem, the city of Acre became the metropolis
of the Latin Christians, and was adorned with a vast cathedral, with
numerous stately churches, and elegant buildings, and with acqueducts,
and an artificial port. The houses of the rich merchants were decorated
with pictures and choice pieces of sculpture, and boasted of the
rare advantage of glass windows. An astonishing, and probably an
exaggerated, account has been given of the wealth and luxury of the
inhabitants. We read of silken canopies and curtains stretched on cords
to protect the lounger from the scorching sunbeams, of variegated
marble fountains, and of rich gardens and shady groves, scented with
the delicious orange blossom, and adorned with the delicate almond
flower; and we are told that the markets of the city could offer the
produce of every clime, and the interpreters of every tongue. The vast
and stupendous fortifications consisted of a double wall, strengthened
at proper intervals with lofty towers, and defended by the castle
called the King’s Tower, and by the convent or fortress of the Temple.
Between the ramparts extended a large space of ground, covered with the
chateaus, villas, and gardens of the nobility of Galilee, the counts
of Tripoli and Jaffa, the lords of Tyre and Sidon, the papal legate,
the duke of Athens, and the princes of Antioch. The most magnificent
edifices within the town were, the cathedral church of St. Andrew,
the churches of St. Saba, St. Thomas, St. Nicholas, and St. John, the
tutelar saint of the city; the abbey of St. Clare, the convents of the
Knights Hospitallers and the Knights Templars, and various monasteries
and religious houses.
William de Beaujeu, the Grand Master of the Temple, a veteran warrior
of a hundred fights, took the command of the garrison, which amounted
to about twelve thousand men, exclusive of the forces of the Temple and
the Hospital, and a body of five hundred foot and two hundred horse,
under the command of the king of Cyprus. These forces were distributed
along the walls in four divisions, the first of which was commanded
by Hugh de Grandison, an English knight. The siege lasted six weeks,
during the whole of which period the sallies and the attacks were
incessant. Neither by night nor by day did the shouts of the assailants
and the noise of the military engines cease; huge stones and beams of
timber and pots of burning tar and naphtha were continually hurled into
the city; the walls were battered from without, and the foundations
were sapped by miners, who were incessantly labouring to advance their
works. More than six hundred catapults, balistæ, and other instruments
of destruction, were directed against the fortifications; and the
battering machines were of such immense size and weight, that a hundred
wagons were required to transport the separate timbers of one of them.
Moveable towers were erected by the Moslems, so as to overtop the
walls; their workmen and advanced parties were protected by hurdles
covered with raw hides, and all the military contrivances which the art
and the skill of the age could produce, were used to facilitate the
assault. For a long time their utmost efforts were foiled by the valour
of the besieged, who made constant sallies upon their works, burnt
their towers and machines, and destroyed their miners. Day by day,
however, the numbers of the garrison were thinned by the sword, whilst
in the enemy’s camp the places of the dead were constantly supplied by
fresh warriors from the deserts of Arabia, animated with the same wild
fanaticism in the cause of _their_ religion as that which so eminently
distinguished the military monks of the Temple.
On the 4th of May, after thirty-three days of constant fighting, the
great tower considered the key of the fortifications, and called
by the Moslems “the cursed tower,” was thrown down by the military
engines. To increase the terror and distraction of the besieged, sultan
Khalil mounted three hundred drummers, with their drums, upon as many
dromedaries, and commanded them to make as much noise as possible
whenever a general assault was ordered. From the 4th to the 14th of May
the attacks were incessant. On the 15th, the double wall was forced,
and the king of Cyprus, panic-stricken, fled in the night to his
ships, and made sail for the island of Cyprus, with all his followers,
and with near three thousand of the best men of the garrison. On the
morrow the Saracens attacked the post he had deserted; they filled
up the ditch with the bodies of dead men and horses, piles of wood,
stones, and earth, and their trumpets then sounded to the assault.
Ranged under the yellow banner of Mahomet, the Mamlooks forced the
breach, and penetrated sword in hand to the very centre of the city;
but their victorious career and insulting shouts were there stopped
by the mail-clad Knights of the Temple and the Hospital, who charged
on horseback through the narrow streets, drove them back with immense
carnage, and precipitated them headlong from the walls.
At sunrise on the following morning the air resounded with the
deafening noise of drums and trumpets, and the breach was carried
and recovered several times, the military friars at last closing up
the passage with their bodies, and presenting a wall of steel to the
advance of the enemy. Loud appeals to God, and to Mahomet, to Jesus
Christ, to the Virgin Mary, to heaven and the saints, were to be heard
on all sides; and after an obstinate engagement from sunrise to sunset,
darkness put an end to the slaughter. The miners continued incessantly
to advance their operations; another wide breach was opened in the
walls, and on the third day (the 18th) the infidels made the final
assault on the side next the gate of St. Anthony. The army of the
Mamlooks was accompanied by a troop of sectaries called _Chagis_,
a set of religious fanatics, whose devotion consisted in suffering
all sorts of privations, and in sacrificing themselves in behalf of
Islam. The advance of the Mamlook cavalry to the assault was impeded
by the deep ditch, which had been imperfectly filled by the fallen
ruins and by the efforts of the soldiers, and these religious madmen
precipitated themselves headlong into the abyss and formed a bridge
with their bodies, over which the Mamlooks passed to reach the foot of
the wall. Nothing could withstand the fierce onslaught of the Moslems.
In vain were the first ranks of their cavalry laid prostrate with
the dust, and both horses and riders hurled headlong over the ruined
walls and battlements into the moat below; their fall only facilitated
the progress of those behind them, who pressed on sword in hand over
the lifeless bodies of men and horses, to attack the faint and weary
warriors guarding the breach.
The Grand Masters of the Temple and Hospital fought side by side at
the head of their knights, and for a time successfully resisted all
the efforts of the enemy. But as each knight fell beneath the keen
scimitars of the Moslems, there were none in reserve to supply his
place, whilst the vast hordes of the infidels pressed on with untiring
energy and perseverance. Brother Matthew de Clermont, Marshal of the
Hospital, after performing prodigies of valour, fell covered with
wounds, and William de Beaujeu, as a last resort, requested the Grand
Master of that order to sally out of an adjoining gateway at the
head of five hundred horse, and attack the enemy’s rear. Immediately
after the Grand Master of the Temple had given these orders, he was
himself struck down by the darts and the arrows of the enemy; the
panic-stricken garrison fled to the port, and the infidels rushed
on with tremendous shouts of _Allah acbar! Allah acbar!_ “GOD is
victorious!” Thousands of panic-stricken Christians now rushed to
the sea-side, and sought with frantic violence to gain possession of
the ships and boats that rode at anchor in the port, but a frightful
storm of wind, and rain, and lightning, hung over the dark and
agitated waters of the sea; the elements themselves warred against
the poor Christians, and the loud-pealing thunder became mingled with
the din and uproar of the assault and the clash of arms. The boats
and vessels were swamped by the surging waves; and the bitter cries
of the perishing fugitives ascended alike from the sea and shore.
Thousands fled to the churches for refuge, but found none; they
prostrated themselves before the altars, and embraced the images of the
saints, but these evidences of idolatry only stimulated the merciless
fanaticism of the Moslems, and the Christians and their temples, their
images and their saints, were all consumed in the raging flames kindled
by the inexorable sons of Islam. The churches were set on fire, and the
timid virgin and the hardened voluptuary, the nun and the monk, the
priest and the bishop, all perished miserably before the altars and the
shrines which they had approached in the hour of need, but which many
of them had neglected in days of prosperity and peace. The holy nuns
of St. Clare, following the example and exhortations of their abbess,
mangled and disfigured their faces and persons in a most dreadful
manner, to preserve their chastity from violation by the barbarous
conquerors, and were gloriously rewarded with the crown of martyrdom,
by the astonished and disgusted infidels, who slaughtered without mercy
the whole sisterhood!
Three hundred Templars, the sole survivors of their order in Acre, had
kept together and successfully withstood the victorious Mamlooks. In a
close and compact column they fought their way, accompanied by several
hundred christian fugitives, to the convent of the Temple at Acre, and
shut the gates. They then assembled together in solemn chapter, and
appointed the Knight Templar, Brother GAUDINI, Grand Master. The Temple
at Acre was surrounded by walls and towers, and was a place of great
strength, and of immense extent. It was divided into three quarters,
the first and principal of which contained the palace of the Grand
Master, the church, and the habitation of the knights; the second,
called the Bourg of the Temple, contained the cells of the serving
brethren; and the third, called the Cattle Market, was devoted to the
officers charged with the duty of procuring the necessary supplies for
the order and its forces. The following morning very favourable terms
were offered to the Templars by the victorious sultan, and they agreed
to evacuate the Temple on condition that a galley should be placed at
their disposal, and that they should be allowed to retire in safety
with the christian fugitives under their protection, and to carry
away as much of their effects as each person could load himself with.
The Mussulman conqueror pledged himself to the fulfilment of these
conditions, and sent a standard to the Templars, which was mounted
on one of the towers of the Temple. A guard of three hundred Moslem
soldiers, charged to see the articles of capitulation properly carried
into effect, was afterwards admitted within the walls of the convent.
Some Christian ladies and women of Acre were amongst the fugitives,
and the Moslem soldiers, attracted by their beauty, broke through
all restraint, and violated the terms of the surrender. The enraged
Templars closed and barricaded the gates of the Temple; they set upon
the treacherous infidels, and put every one of them, “from the greatest
to the smallest,” to death. Immediately after this massacre, the Moslem
trumpets sounded to the assault, but the Templars successfully defended
themselves until the next day (the 20th). The Marshal of the order and
several of the brethren were then deputed by Gaudini with a flag of
truce to the sultan, to explain the cause of the massacre of his guard.
The enraged monarch, however, had no sooner got them into his power,
than he ordered every one of them to be decapitated, and pressed the
siege with renewed vigour.
In the night, Gaudini, with a chosen band of his companions, collected
together the treasure of the order, and the ornaments of the church,
and sallying out of a secret postern of the Temple which communicated
with the harbour, they got on board a small vessel, and escaped in
safety to the island of Cyprus. The residue of the Templars retired
into the large tower of the Temple, called “The Tower of the Master,”
which they defended with desperate energy. The bravest of the Mamlooks
were driven back in repeated assaults, and the little fortress was
everywhere surrounded with heaps of the slain. The sultan, at last,
despairing of taking the place by assault, ordered it to be undermined.
As the workmen advanced, they propped the foundations with beams of
wood, and when the excavation was completed, these wooden supports were
consumed by fire; the huge tower then fell with a tremendous crash,
and buried the brave Templars in its ruins. The sultan set fire to
the town in four places; the walls, the towers, and the ramparts were
demolished, and the last stronghold of the christian power in Palestine
was speedily reduced to a smoking solitude.[140]
A few years back, the ruins of the christian city of Acre were well
worthy of the attention of the curious. You might still trace the
remains of thirty churches; and the quarter occupied by the Knights
Templars continued to present many interesting memorials of that proud
and powerful order. “The carcass,” says Sandys, “shows that the body
hath been strong, doubly immured; fortified with bulwarks and towers,
to each wall a ditch lined with stone, and under those, divers secret
posterns. You would think, by the ruins, that the city consisted of
divers conjoining castles, which witness a notable defence, and an
unequal assault; and that the rage of the conquerors extended beyond
conquest; the huge walls and arches turned topsy-turvy, and lying
like rocks upon the foundation.” At the period of Dr. Clarke’s visit
to Acre, the ruins, with the exception of the cathedral, the arsenal,
the convent of the knights, and the palace of the Grand Master,
were so intermingled with modern buildings, and in such a state of
utter subversion, that it was difficult to afford any satisfactory
description of them. “Many superb remains were observed by us,” says
he, “in the pasha’s palace, in the khan, the mosque, the public bath,
the fountains, and other parts of the town, consisting of fragments of
antique marble, the shafts and capitals of granite and marble pillars,
masses of the verd antique breccia, of the ancient serpentine, and
of the syenite and trap of Egypt. In the garden of Djezzar’s palace,
leading to his summer apartment, we saw some pillars of variegated
marble of extraordinary beauty.”
After the fall of Acre, the head-quarters of the Templars were
established at Limisso in the island of Cyprus, and urgent letters
were sent to Europe for succour. The armies of sultan Kelaoun in the
mean time assaulted and carried Tyre, Sidon, Tortosa, Caiphas, and
the Pilgrim’s Castle. The last three places belonged to the Templars,
and were stoutly defended, but they were attacked by the Egyptian
fleet by sea, and by countless armies of infidels by land, and were at
last involved in the common destruction. The Grand Master, Gaudini,
overwhelmed with sorrow and vexation at the loss of the Holy Land, and
the miserable situation of his order, stripped of all its possessions
on the Asiatic continent, died at Limisso, after a short illness, and
was succeeded (A. D. 1295) by Brother JAMES DE MOLAY, of the family of
the lords of Longvic and Raon in Burgundy. This illustrious nobleman
was at the head of the English province of the order at the period of
his election to the dignity of Grand Master. He was first appointed
Visitor-General, then Grand Preceptor of England, and was afterwards
placed at the head of the entire fraternity. During his residence in
Britain he held several chapters or assemblies of the brethren at the
Temple at London, and at the different preceptories, where he framed
and enforced various rules and regulations for the government of the
fraternity in England.[141] Shortly after his appointment to the office
of Grand Master, he crossed the sea to France, and had the honour of
holding the infant son of Philip le Bel at the baptismal font. He then
proceeded to Cyprus, carrying out with him a numerous body of English
and French Knights Templars, and a considerable amount of treasure.
Soon after his arrival he entered into an alliance with the famous
Casan Cham, emperor of the Mogul Tartars, king of Persia, and the
descendant or successor of Genghis Khan, and landed in Syria with his
knights and a body of forces, to join the standard of that powerful
monarch. Casan had married the daughter of Leon, king of Armenia, a
christian princess of extraordinary beauty, to whom he was greatly
attached, and who was permitted the enjoyment and public exercise of
the christian worship. The Tartar emperor naturally became favourably
disposed towards the Christians, and he invited the Grand Master of the
Temple to join him in an expedition against the sultan of Egypt.
In the spring of the year 1299, the Templars landed at Suadia, and made
a junction with the Tartar forces which were encamped amid the ruins
of Antioch. An army of thirty thousand men was placed by the Mogul
emperor under the command of the Grand Master, and the combined forces
moved up the valley of the Orontes towards Damascus. In a great battle
fought at Hems, the troops of the sultans of Damascus and Egypt were
entirely defeated, and pursued with great slaughter until nightfall.
Aleppo, Hems, Damascus, and all the principal cities, surrendered to
the victorious arms of the Moguls, and the Templars once again entered
Jerusalem in triumph, visited the Holy Sepulchre, and celebrated
Easter on Mount Zion. Casan sent ambassadors to the pope, and to the
sovereigns of Europe, announcing the victorious progress of his arms,
soliciting their alliance, and offering them in return the possession
of Palestine. But the Christian nations heeded not the call, and none
thought seriously of an expedition to the east excepting the ladies
of Genoa, who, frightened by an interdict which had been laid upon
their town, assumed the cross as the best means of averting the divine
indignation. The Grand Master of the Temple advanced as far as Gaza,
and drove the Saracens into the sandy deserts of Egypt; but a Saracen
chief, who had been appointed by the Tartars governor of Damascus,
instigated the Mussulman population of Syria to revolt, and the Grand
Master was obliged to retreat to Jerusalem. He was there joined by
the Tartar general, Cotulosse, who had been sent across the Euphrates
by Casan to support him. The combined armies were once more preparing
to march upon Damascus, when the sudden illness of Casan, who was
given over by his physicians, disconcerted all their arrangements, and
deprived the Grand Master of his Tartar forces. The Templars were then
compelled to retreat to the sea-coast and embark their forces on board
their galleys. The Grand Master sailed to Limisso, stationing a strong
detachment of his soldiers on the island of Aradus, near Tortosa, which
they fortified; but they were speedily attacked in that position by a
fleet of twenty vessels, and an army of ten thousand men, and after a
gallant defence they were compelled to abandon their fortifications,
and were all killed or taken prisoners.[142]
Thus ended the dominion of the Templars in Palestine, and thus
closed the long and furious struggle between the CRESCENT and the
CROSS! The few remaining Christians in the Holy Land were chased from
ruin to ruin, and exterminated. The churches, the houses, and the
fortifications along the sea-coast, were demolished, and everything
that could afford shelter and security, or invite the approach of the
crusaders from the west, was carefully destroyed. The houses were all
set on fire, the trees were cut down and burnt, the land was everywhere
laid waste, and all the maritime country, from Laodicea to Ascalon, was
made desert. “Every trace of the Franks,” says the Arabian chronicler,
Ibn Ferat, “was removed, and thus it shall remain, please God, till the
day of judgment!”[143]
Near six centuries have swept over Palestine since the termination
of the wars of the cross, and the land still continues _desolate_.
The proud memorials of past magnificence are painfully contrasted
with present ruin and decay, and the remains of the rich and populous
cities of antiquity are surrounded by uncultivated deserts. God hath
said, “I will smite the land with a _curse_. I will bring the worst
of the heathen and they shall possess it.” “Thorns shall come up in
her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof, and the
defenced city shall be left desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and
left like a wilderness.”
“The fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the vine;
the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat;
the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd
in the stall.” But brighter and happier times are yet to come, for the
Lord God hath also said, “To the mountains of Israel, to the hills, and
to the rivers, to the valleys, and the desolate wastes, and the cities
that are forsaken, which became a prey and a derision to the heathen.
Behold I am for you, I will turn unto you, and ye shall be tilled and
sown, and I will multiply men upon you, and they shall build up the
old waste cities, the desolation of many generations!”
“In the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the
cities of Judah, _shall the flocks pass again under the hand of him
that telleth them, saith_ THE LORD!”