ATTEMPTED CRUSADES.
CRUSADES AGAINST THE TURKS.
A.D. 1291-1396.
WE are now arrived at the end of the brilliant epoch of the crusades,
but our task is not yet completed; for, as the curiosity of readers
attaches a high value to the knowledge of the causes of events, in the
same degree must it be desirous of knowing the influence that these
events have had upon the laws, manners, and destinies of nations. After
having witnessed the kindling of so many passions, which inflamed
Europe and Asia during two centuries, who but must be curious to see in
what manner these passions were progressively extinguished; what were
the political combinations that weakened this universal enthusiasm; and
what were the interests, the opinions, and the institutions which took
place of the spirit of the holy wars. Here the philosophy of history
comes at our wish to enlighten us with its lamp, and make clear to us
the eternal course of human things. The end of a great revolution may
be compared, in some sort, to the decline of the life of man, it is
then that the fruits of long experience may be gathered, it is then
that the past, with its remembrances and its lessons, is reflected as
in a faithful mirror.
We will pursue, then, with confidence the work we have begun; if, in
the career we have still to go through, we may have little to say that
will awaken the curiosity of common minds, enlightened spirits will,
doubtless, find some interest, in following with us all these long
reverberations of a revolution which deeply agitated the world, and
whose consequences will be felt by remotest posterity.
When the news of the taking of Ptolemaïs arrived in the West, Pope
Nicholas IV. gave his whole attention to the preaching of a crusade. A
bull addressed to all the faithful, deplored in pathetic terms the late
disasters of the Christians; and the greater that these misfortunes
were, the more fully did the pope offer the treasures of divine mercy
and pontifical indulgences to new Crusaders. An indulgence of a hundred
days was granted to those who would attend the sermons of the preachers
of the crusade, or would come to the churches to listen to the groans
of the city of God. The holy orators had permission to preach the war
of the East in forbidden places; and, that great sinners might be
induced to become soldiers of the cross, the preachers received the
faculty of granting certain absolutions that had till that time been
reserved for the supreme authority of the Holy See.
In many provinces, the clergy assembled in consequence of the
directions of the pope, to deliberate upon the means of recovering
Palestine. The prelates employed themselves in this pious mission
with much zeal, and in order to secure the success of the enterprise,
all united in conjuring the sovereign pontiff to labour without
intermission in bringing about the reëstablishment of peace among
Christian princes.
Several monarchs had already taken the cross; and Nicholas sent legates
to press them to accomplish the vow they appeared to have forgotten.
Edward, king of England, although he had levied the tenths upon the
clergy for the expenses of the crusade, showed very little inclination
to quit his states for the purpose of returning into Asia. The emperor
Rodolph, who, in the conference of Lausanne, had promised the pope to
make the voyage beyond the seas, died at this period, much more deeply
engaged in the affairs of Germany, than in those of the Christians of
the East. Nicholas IV. gave Philip to understand that the whole West
had its eyes fixed upon him, and that his example might influence
all Christendom; the sovereign pontiff at the same time exhorted the
prelates of the Church of France to join with him in persuading the
king, the nobles, and the people, to take arms against the infidels.
The father of the Christian world did not confine his endeavours to
awakening the zeal of the princes and nations of the West; he sent
apostolic messages to the Greek emperor, Andronicus Palæologus, the
emperor of Trebizond, and the kings of Armenia, Georgia, and Cyprus,
in which he announced to them the approaching deliverance of the holy
places. As the Christians in their distress had sometimes turned their
looks towards the Tartars, two missionaries were sent to the coast of
Argun, with directions to offer the Mogul emperor the benedictions of
the sovereign pontiff, and to solicit his powerful aid against the
Mussulmans.
The exertions and exhortations of the pope did not succeed in arming
Europe against the Saracens; contemporary chronicles say that Nicholas
was not able to endure this indifference of the Christians, and that he
died in despair. After his death, the conclave could not agree in the
nomination of a head of the Church, and the Holy See remained vacant
during twenty-seven months. In this long interval, the pulpits which
had resounded with the complaints of the faithful of the East, remained
mute, and Europe forgot the last calamities of the Holy Land.
In the East, the affairs of the Christians took a not more favourable
turn. The discord that had arisen between the princes of the family
of Hayton desolated Armenia, and gave it up to the invasion of the
barbarians. The kingdom of Cyprus, the last asylum of the Franks
established in Asia, only owed a transitory security to the sanguinary
divisions of the Mamelukes of Egypt, and appeared to be fully engaged
by its own dangers.
But whilst Christendom gave up all thoughts of the deliverance
of Jerusalem, the Tartars of Persia, to whom the pope had sent
missionaries, all at once revived the hopes of the Christians, by
forming a project for wresting Syria and Palestine from the hands of
the Mussulmans; an enterprize which only wanted to be a crusade, to
have been proclaimed by the head of the Church.
The Tartars, for a long time, threatened the Mussulman powers, whom the
Christians regarded as their most cruel enemies. Argun, when he died,
was busied in preparations for a formidable war. These preparations
had spread such serious alarm among his enemies, that the disciples of
Mahomet considered his death as one of the number of miracles operated
in favour of Islamism.
Among the successors of Argun, who were by turns the enemies and the
friends of the Mussulmans, there was one able leader, who was warlike,
and more animated by the thirst for conquests than the others. The
Greek historian Pachymerus, and the Armenian Hayton, lavish the highest
praises upon the bravery, the virtue, and even the piety of Cazan. This
Mogul prince considered the Christians as his most faithful allies; and
in his armies, in which the Georgians served, the standard of the cross
floated by the side of the imperial standard. The conquest of the banks
of the Nile and the Jordan engaged all his thoughts. When new cities
were built in his states, he took a delight in bestowing upon them the
names of Aleppo, Damascus, Alexandria, and of several other places in
Egypt and Syria.
Cazan quitted Persia at the head of an army; and the king of Cyprus
with the orders of St. John and the Temple, being made aware of his
projects, joined his standards. A great battle was fought near Emessa,
which was decided against the sultan of Egypt, who lost the greater
part of his army, and was pursued by the Armenian cavalry to the
verge of the desert. Aleppo and Damascus opened their gates to the
conquerors; and if we may believe the historian Hayton, Christians once
more entered Jerusalem, and the emperor of the Tartars visited in their
company the tomb of Christ.
It was from that place Cazan sent ambassadors to the pope and the
sovereigns of Europe, to solicit their alliance, and to offer them
possession of the Holy Land. Among the singularities of this period,
our readers will no doubt be astonished to find a Mogul emperor
endeavouring to revive the spirit of the crusades among the princes
of Christendom; and to see barbarians from the banks of the Irtis and
the Jaxartes waiting upon Calvary and Mount Sion for the warriors
of France, Germany, and Italy, in order to combat the enemies of
Christ. The sovereign pontiff received the ambassadors of Cazan with
distinction; but could only answer their demands and propositions
by promises doomed to remain unexecuted. The haughtiness with which
Boniface VIII., the successor of Nicholas, spoke to the Christian
princes, together with his exhortations, which resembled commands more
than entreaties, disgusted the sovereigns, particularly the king of
France. Genoa, which then lay under an interdict, was the only city of
Europe in which a crusade was seriously spoken of; and by a whimsical
circumstance, it was the ladies who gave the signal and set the example.
We are still in possession of a brief of the pope’s, in which the
holy father felicitates the ladies who had taken the cross, upon
their following the steps of Cazan, the emperor of the Tartars, _who,
although a pagan, had conceived the generous resolution of delivering
the Holy Land_. History has preserved two other letters of the pope,
one addressed to Porchetto, archbishop of Genoa, and the other to four
Genoese nobles, who had undertaken to direct the expedition. “Oh,
prodigy! oh, miracle!” says he to Porchetto; “a weak and timid sex
takes the advance of warriors in this great enterprise, in this war
against the enemies of Christ, in this fight against the workers of
iniquity. The kings and princes of the earth, regardless of all the
solicitations that have been made to them, refuse to send succours to
the Christians banished from the Holy Land, and here are women who come
forward without being called! Whence can this magnanimous resolution
come, if not from God, the source of all strength and all virtue!!!”
The pope terminated his letter by directing the archbishop to call
together the clergy and the people, and proclaim the devotion of the
noble Genoese ladies, in order that their example may cast seeds of
good works into the hearts of the people.
This crusade, notwithstanding, never took place; it was doubtless
only preached to rouse the emulation of the knights, and the pope
only directed his attention to it to give a lesson to the princes of
Christendom, by which they did not at all profit. The letters written
upon this occasion by Boniface VIII. were preserved in the archives
of the republic of Genoa for a long time. Even in the last century,
the helmets and cuirasses which were to have been worn by the Genoese
ladies in this expedition were exhibited in the arsenal of that city.
The Tartars, in spite of their victories, were not able to triumph
over the constancy and discipline of the Mamelukes, who, like
themselves, had issued from the deserts of Scythia. That which had
so often happened to the Franks in the height of the crusades, now
happened to the Moguls; they at first obtained great advantages, but
events foreign to the Holy War recalled them into their own country,
and forced them to abandon their conquests. Cazan was obliged to quit
Syria and return into Persia; he attempted a second expedition, which
he again abandoned; and he died in the third, amidst his triumphs,
bearing with him to the tomb the last hopes of the Christians.
The Armenian and Cyprian warriors left the holy city, the ramparts of
which they had begun to re-erect, and which was doomed never again to
see the standard of the cross unfurled within its walls. This last
reverse of the Christians of the East was scarcely known in Europe,
where the name of Jerusalem was still pronounced in the congregations
of the faithful, but had no longer the power to awaken the enthusiasm
of knights and warriors. At the Council of Vienna, Pope Clement V.
proclaimed a crusade; but in this assembly, in which the abolition of
the Templars was determined upon, Christians were exhorted very feebly
to take up arms against the infidels.
The sovereign pontiff was then much more busy in levying tenths
than in preparations for a holy war. One thing worthy of remark is,
that Clement found himself obliged on this occasion to recommend
moderation to the collectors of the tenths, and forbade them _to seize
the chalices, the books, or the ornaments of the churches_. This
prohibition of the pope’s proves to us that violence had often been
committed in collecting the tributes destined to the expenses of the
holy wars; this violence must have assisted in relaxing the zeal and
ardour of nations for distant enterprises, as the results of which,
Christian cities were ruined, and the altars of Christ plundered.
Europe at that time awaited with great impatience the issue of an
expedition undertaken by the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. A
great number of warriors, excited by the relation of the adventures
of chivalry, and by a passion for military glory, followed the
Hospitallers in their enterprise; women even were desirous of taking a
part in this expedition, and sold their diamonds and jewels to provide
for the expenses of the war.
This army of new crusaders embarked at the port of Brendisi, and it
soon became known in the West that the knights of the Hospital had
taken possession of the isle of Rhodes.
Renown published everywhere the exploits of the Hospitallers and
their companions in arms; and these exploits, and the admiration they
inspired throughout Christendom, naturally turned the attention and
remembrances of the faithful to the Templars, who were reproached with
the disgraceful repose in which they forgot both the Holy Land and the
tomb of Christ.
The knights of the Temple, after having been received in the Isle of
Cyprus, had returned to Sicily, where they were employed by the king
in an expedition against Greece. United with the Catalans and some
warriors from Italy, this warlike body took possession of Thessalonica,
made themselves masters of Athens, advanced towards the Hellespont, and
ravaged a part of Thrace. After this expedition the Templars disdained
the possession of the cities which had fallen into their power, and
leaving the conquered provinces to their companions in arms, they
kept for themselves the riches of the people they had subdued. It was
then that, loaded with the spoils of Greece, they came to establish
themselves in the West, particularly in France, where their opulence,
their luxury, and their idleness, scandalized the piety of the
faithful, awakened envy, and provoked the hatred of both the people and
the great.
It does not enter into the plan of this work to dilate upon the process
instituted against the Templars; but if we have followed these noble
knights in all their wars against the Mussulmans,—if we have been so
long witnesses of their exploits, and, as it were, companions of their
labours, we shall perhaps have acquired the right of expressing our
opinion upon the accusations directed against them. We must at once
declare that we have found nothing up to the period of the process,
either in the chronicles of the East, or those of the West, which can
give birth to or establish an idea, or even a suspicion, of the crimes
imputed to them. How can it, in fact, be believed, that a warlike
and religious order, which twenty years before had seen three hundred
of its knights sacrifice themselves upon the ruins of Saphet, rather
than embrace the Mussulman faith, that this order which had almost
entirely buried itself under the ruins of Ptolemaïs could possibly have
contracted an alliance with infidels, outraged the Christian religion
with horrible blasphemies, and given up to the Saracens that Holy Land
filled with its military glory.
And at what period were all these odious reproaches addressed to
the Templars? at a time when Christendom seemed to have forgotten
Jerusalem, and in which the name of Christ was not sufficient to awaken
the bravery of a Christian warrior. No doubt the order of the Templars
had degenerated from the austerity of early times, and that it was no
longer animated by that spirit of humility and religion of which St.
Bernard so much boasted; no doubt some of the knights had brought with
them that corruption which was then the reproach of all the Christians
of the East, and of which Europe itself could offer them numerous
examples; no doubt, in short, some among them might have wounded
morality by their conduct, and offended the religion of Christ by their
irregularities; but we do not hesitate to say that it was not the
province of men to judge them, and that upon this occasion the merciful
God of the Christians had not deputed his vengeance to human laws.
The real error of the Templars was having quitted the East, and
renounced the spirit of their institution, which was to receive and
protect pilgrims, and to combat with the enemies of the Christian
faith. This order, richer than the most powerful monarchs, and whose
knights were as a regular army, always ready for fight, became,
naturally, dreaded by the princes who granted them an asylum. The
Templars had not been free from all reproach during their abode in
Cyprus; accustomed to rule in Palestine, they must have contracted
a habit of obedience with difficulty. The example of the Teutonic
knights, who, after quitting the East, founded a power in the north of
Europe which was dreaded by the neighbouring states, was not likely to
reassure princes who mistrusted the warlike spirit, and the active and
enterprising genius, of the knights of the Temple.
Such, probably, were the motives which armed the policy rather than
the justice of sovereigns against them; nothing so clearly proves
the fear they inspired as the rancour with which they were pursued,
and the care that was taken to render them odious. As soon as their
persecution began, they were only considered as enemies whom it was
necessary to treat as criminals. As rigours without example preceded
their abolition, it was necessary to justify that measure by fresh
rigours. Vengeance and hatred finished that which the policy of princes
had begun; a policy which had, perhaps, reasons for being suspicious,
but which had none for proving itself barbarous. It is thus we must
explain the tragical issue of this process, in which all the forms of
justice were so violated, that even if the accusations be considered
proved, we must still regard the Templars as victims and their judges
as executioners.[61]
Philip-le-Bel had promised the council of Vienna to go into the East to
combat the infidels, without doubt to procure pardon for having pursued
the knights of the Temple with so much inveteracy. Amidst the festivals
that welcomed the arrival of Edward in Paris, the French monarch and
the princes of his family took the cross. Most of the nobles of his
court followed his example, and the ladies promised to accompany the
knights to the holy war; but no one took any measures for setting
out. Promises were then made to cross the seas by persons who had not
any serious intention of leaving their homes. The vow to combat the
Saracens appeared to be a vain ceremony, which engaged the swearer to
nothing. It was taken with perfect indifference, and violated in the
same manner; _considered as not more sacred than the vows the knights
made to the ladies_.
Philip-le-Bel died without ever having thought of accomplishing his
vow. Philip-le-Long, who succeeded him, entertained for a moment the
project of going into the East. Edward, who had already several times
sworn to fight the Saracens, at the same time renewed his promise. But
the sovereign pontiff, whether that he doubted their sincerity, or
whether that he stood in need of the concurrence of these two monarchs
to reëstablish tranquillity in Europe, and to resist the emperor of
Germany, against whom he had armed himself with the thunders of the
Church, or whether, in short, he thought the moment an unfavourable
one, did not approve of their expedition into Syria. “Before thinking
of the voyage beyond the seas,” wrote he to the king of England, “we
would wish you to establish peace, first in your own conscience, then
in your kingdom.” The father of the faithful represented to the king
of France that the peace, so necessary to be firm before a crusade
should be undertaken, was almost banished from Christendom. England and
Scotland were at war; the states of Germany were divided against each
other; the king of Sicily and the king of Naples were only bound by a
truce of short duration; reciprocal mistrust prevented the kings of
Cyprus and Armenia from uniting their forces against the common enemy;
the kings of Spain were quite sufficiently employed in defending their
states against the Moors; the republics of Lombardy were all in arms
against each other; all the cities of Italy were torn by factions, the
provinces a prey to tyrants, the sea impracticable, the route by land
thickly strewed with dangers. After having given this picture of the
deplorable state of Christendom, the pope pressed Philip to inquire
seriously how he could provide for the expenses of the war without
ruining his people, _or without attempting_, he added, _to do that
which is impossible, as has been done before_.
The paternal advice of the sovereign pontiff, and some troubles which
arose in the bosom of his kingdom, determined Philip to postpone the
execution of his project. A multitude of herdsmen and shepherds, of
adventurers and vagabonds, setting up, as in the time of the captivity
of St. Louis, the pilgrims’ cross, assembled in many places, persecuted
the Jews, and committed most culpable excesses. Force of arms and the
full severity of the laws were obliged to be resorted to, in order to
quell these disorders, of which the crusade was only a pretext. At the
same time several provinces of France suffered greatly from an epidemic
disease; the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells, with the
design of suspending the preparations for the holy war. They were
accused of all sorts of plots against the Christians; and the general
fermentation was the greater from the suspicions being vague, and
from the impossibility of proving or contradicting the crimes alleged.
Policy could discover no other means of dissipating the troubles than
that of entering into the passions of the multitude, and driving all
the Jews out of the kingdom. Amidst these unhappy circumstances, Philip
fell ill, and died regretting his not having accomplished the vow he
had made of warring against the Saracens.
In the state of abandonment to which the crusades had fallen, we
are surprised at seeing the minds of the French still occasionally
directed towards the delivery of the holy places. This last flickering
of enthusiasm, which our ancestors kept alight amidst the general
indifference, was not confined to religious sentiments, but extended
to a feeling of patriotism and national glory. It was France which
had given the first impulsion to the holy wars, as we have several
times observed. The name of Palestine, the names of St. Jean d’Acre or
Ptolemaïs, and that of Jerusalem appealed no less to patriotism than to
piety. Although the two expeditions of Louis IX. had been unsuccessful,
the example of the holy monarch was a great authority for the princes
of his family, and often carried their thoughts to the places where he
had suffered the glory of martyrdom. The memory of his exploits and
even of his misfortunes, the memory of the heroes who had died on the
banks of the Nile and the Jordan, interested all the families of the
kingdom; and the city in which reposed the ashes of Godfrey and Baldwin
of Bouillon, those distant regions in which so many glorious battles
had been fought, could not be forgotten by French warriors.
After the death of Philip-le-Long, ambassadors arrived in Europe
from the king of Armenia; this prince, abandoned by the Tartars,
and threatened by the Mamelukes of Egypt, requested the assistance
of the West. The pope wrote to Charles-le-Bel, the successor of
Philip-le-Long, and conjured him to take up arms against the infidels.
Charles received with respect the counsels and the exhortations of
the sovereign pontiff, and was engaged in preparations for a crusade
when the succession of the county of Flanders caused a war to break
out in the Low Countries. From that time France became attentive only
to the events that were passing before her eyes, and in which her own
independence and safety were deeply interested. At the approach of
death, and at a time when the kingdom had no longer anything to fear,
Charles-le-Bel remembered his oath, and his last thoughts were directed
towards the deliverance of Jerusalem. “I bequeath,” says he in his
will, “to the Holy Land fifty thousand livres, to be paid and delivered
when the general passage shall be made; and it is my intention, if
the passage be made in my lifetime, to go thither in person.”[62]
It was thus that at this period the spirit of the crusades still
occasionally showed itself; most of the testaments[63] then made by
princes and _rich men_ (these words designated the nobility) contained
some dispositions in favour of the Holy Land; but we must add, also,
that the facility of purchasing the merit of pilgrimage for money
must necessarily have greatly diminished the number of pilgrims and
Crusaders.
Whilst dying people were thus prodigal of their treasure for the holy
war, nobody took up arms. There still, however, remained some men
endowed with a vivid imagination and an ardent temperament, who made
incredible efforts to rekindle an enthusiasm on the point of being
extinguished. The greater the indifference of nations, the greater
were the ardour and zeal displayed by these men in their preachings.
Among these latter apostles of the crusades, history cites the name
of Raymond Lulli, one of the luminaries of the schools of the middle
ages.[64]
Lulli was possessed during his life but by one thought, and that was,
to combat and convert the infidels.[65] It was upon the proposition
of this zealous missionary that the council of Vienna decided that
chairs should be established in the universities of Rome, Bologna,
Paris, and Salamanca, for instruction in the languages of the East. He
presented to the pope several memorials upon the means of annihilating
the worship of Mahomet and the domination of his disciples. Lulli,
constantly occupied with his project, made a pilgrimage into Palestine,
travelled through Syria, Armenia, and Egypt, and came back to Europe
to describe the misfortunes, the captivity, and the disgraces of the
Christians beyond the seas. On his return, he visited all the courts of
the West, seeking to communicate to sovereigns the sentiments by which
he was animated. Finding his efforts were vain, his zeal carried him to
the coast of Africa, where he endeavoured to convert by his eloquence
those same Saracens against whom he had invoked the arms of Christian
warriors. He returned to Europe, passed through Italy, France, and
Spain, preaching everywhere the necessity for another crusade. He
embarked again for Jerusalem, and brought back, as the fruit of his
pilgrimage, some useful notions upon the best manner of attacking the
countries of the infidels. All his labours, all his researches, all his
prayers, produced no effect upon the indifference of kings and nations.
Lulli, at length despairing of seeing his projects realised, and
deploring the blindness of his contemporaries, retired to the island of
Majorca, which was his native country. From the depth of his retreat
he still issued memorials upon an expedition to the East; but solitude
soon wearied his ardent and restless spirit, and he quitted Majorca,
no more to waste his words upon the princes of Europe, who would not
listen to him, but to return to the Mussulmans, whom he still hoped
to lead to the Gospel by his eloquence. He repaired a second time to
Africa, and at length suffered, as the reward of his preachings, the
torments and the death of martyrs.
Whilst Lulli was striving to direct the efforts of the faithful to the
deliverance of the holy places, a noble Venetian likewise consecrated
his life and his talents to the revival of the spirit of the crusades.
Sanuti thus describes the first audience he obtained of the sovereign
pontiff: “I am not sent hither,” said he, “by any king, any prince,
or any republic; it is from the impulse of my own mind that I come to
throw myself at the feet of your holiness, and to propose to you an
easy means of crushing the enemies of the true faith, of extirpating
the sect of Mahomet, and of recovering the Holy Land.[66] My voyages in
Cyprus, Armenia, and Egypt, together with a long sojourn in Romania,
have furnished me with knowledge and information that may be turned to
the profit of Christianity.” On finishing these words, Sanuti presented
two books to the pope, one covered with red and the other with yellow,
and four geographical charts, the first of the Mediterranean Sea, the
second of the earth and of the sea, the third of the Holy Land, the
fourth, of Egypt. The two books of the noble Venetian contained the
history of the Christian establishments in the East, and wise counsels
respecting the undertaking of another crusade. His zeal, enlightened
by experience, did not allow him to neglect the least detail upon the
route that was to be followed, upon the point that it would be best
to attack, upon the number of troops, and upon the fitting out and
provisioning of the vessels. He advised that operations should commence
by landing in Egypt, and weakening the power of the sultans of Cairo.
The most certain means of effecting this latter purpose was to obtain
directly from Bagdad the Indian merchandises which European commerce
was accustomed to get by the cities of Alexandria and Damietta. Sanuti,
at the same time, advised the sovereign pontiff to redouble the
severity of his censures against those who carried into Egypt arms,
metals, timber for building, or anything that could assist in equipping
fleets or arming the Mameluke soldiery.
The pope bestowed great praises upon Sanuti, and furnished him with
introductions to several sovereigns of Europe. The Christian princes,
particularly the king of France, received him with kindness, lauded
his piety, and admired his talents—but took care not to follow
his advice. Sanuti addressed himself likewise to the emperor of
Constantinople, to engage him in an expedition against the infidels;
he sought everywhere, and by every means, to raise up enemies against
the Mussulmans, and passed his life in preaching a crusade, without
obtaining any more success than Raymond Lulli had done.
The zeal of the two men of whom we have just spoken can only be
compared to that of Peter the Hermit; they were both much more
enlightened than the cenobite Peter, but they could get no one to
listen to them, and the fruitlessness of their efforts proves how much
the times were changed. Peter preached in cities and in public places,
and the multitude, inflamed by his discourses, led away and awakened
the feelings of the great. In the times of Lulli and Sanuti, sovereigns
alone could be addressed, and sovereigns, occupied by their own
affairs, showed very little interest for projects which only concerned
Christendom in general. In the early times of the crusades, the
deliverance of the holy places was a matter of importance; simply to
pronounce the name of Jerusalem was sufficient to appease differences
among princes; later, the least interest of jealousy, ambition, or
self-love had the power to arrest the progress of, or completely put an
end to, a holy enterprise. Frequently, in the twelfth century, popes
and simple preachers, arming themselves with the authority of Christ,
commanded princes to take up the cross and set out for the East; in the
thirteenth, but more particularly in the fourteenth century, it was
necessary to pray and solicit; and, generally, the most humble prayers
produced no effect.[67]
Thus, the groans of Sion no longer melted hearts, and Christian
eloquence was powerless against infidels. In order to awaken attention,
it was necessary to mingle something of profane grandeur with the
pathetic exhortations of religion; thus, Europe, which scarcely
listened to the missionaries of the cross, appeared, all at once,
to be aroused by the arrival of the king of Cyprus, soliciting, in
person, the assistance of Christian princes. The pope, who was then at
Avignon, eagerly announced to the faithful that an Eastern king was
come to his court, and conjured the warriors of the West to take up
arms against the Saracens. The king of Cyprus and Jerusalem described
the invasions of the Mamelukes, the progress of the Turks, the dangers
which surrounded his kingdom, that of Armenia, and the isle of Rhodes,
and omitted no instance of the numerous persecutions endured by the
Christians who remained in Syria and Egypt. These sad recitals, coming
from a royal mouth, awakened some generous sentiments in men’s minds;
a league was formed between the sovereign pontiff, the king of France,
and the republic of Venice; and the pope published a bull by which he
ordered the bishops to cause a crusade to be preached.
Philip of Valois convoked an assembly at Paris, in the Holy Chapel,
at which were present John, king of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, the
dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, Lorraine, Brabant, and Bourbon, with most
of the prelates and barons of the kingdom. Peter de la Palue, named
patriarch of Jerusalem, and who had recently passed through Egypt and
Palestine, harangued the auditory upon the necessity for attacking the
infidels, and stopping the progress of their domination in the East.
Philip, who had already taken the cross, renewed the vow he had made,
and as he was preparing to quit his kingdom, the barons took the oath
of obedience to his son Prince John, by raising their hands towards the
crown of thorns of Christ. John of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, and a
great number of princes and nobles, received the cross from the hands
of the archbishop of Rouen. The crusade was preached throughout the
kingdom, “and gave to all noble lords,” says Froissart, “great delight,
particularly to those who wished to pass their time in arms, and knew
no means then of employing it otherwise more reasonably.”[68]
The king of France sent to the pope the archbishop of Rouen, who
afterwards ascended the chair of St. Peter under the name of Clement
VI. The archbishop, in full consistory, pronounced a discourse upon
the crusade, and declared, in the presence of divine majesty, to the
holy father, to the church of Rome and all Christendom, that Philip of
Valois would set out for the East in the month of August, in the year
1336. The pope felicitated the French monarch upon his resolution,
and granted him the tenths during six years. These circumstances are
related by Philip Villani, who was at Avignon at the time, and who,
after having spoken in his history of the promise made in the Dame of
the king of France, exclaims:—“And I, the historian, I heard the oath
pronounced which I have just related.”
Philip gave orders that a fleet, assembled in the port of Marseilles,
should be made ready to receive forty thousand Crusaders. Edward III.,
to whom the crusade offered an easy means of imposing taxes, promised
to accompany the king of France with an army in the pilgrimage beyond
the seas. Most of the republics of Italy, with the kings of Arragon,
Majorca, and Hungary, engaged to supply money, troops, and vessels
for the expedition. In the midst of their preparations, the Crusaders
lost him who directed and was the soul of the enterprise. Everything
was interrupted by the death of Pope John XXI., and in this place
it becomes necessary to point out one of the causes which rendered
abortive, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so many attempts
to carry the war into the East. As the successors of St. Peter scarcely
ever succeeded to the pontifical chair before they were of an advanced
age, they were wanting in the energy and activity necessary for
exciting the Christian world, directing distant wars, and kindling an
enthusiasm, formerly so difficult to be restrained, now so difficult to
be revived. Each crusade requiring long preparations, the life of one
sovereign pontiff scarcely sufficed for the completion of such great
enterprises. It most frequently happened, that he who had preached a
holy war could not behold the departure of the Crusaders; and that
he who saw the Christian armies set out, never lived long enough to
follow them through their expeditions, conduct them in their triumphs,
or succour them in their reverses. Thus we never find in the projects
which circumstances had formed, that spirit of sequence and wholeness
necessary to secure execution and success. Add to this, that since the
popes had been established at Avignon, and their apostolic seat was no
longer in the centre of Christendom, they did not exercise the same
ascendancy over the distant provinces, and their authority every day
lost something of that influence attached to the name only of Rome,
considered, during so many centuries, the capital of the world.
The news of a fresh crusade having reached the East, the Christians who
dwelt in Syria or Egypt, with pilgrims and European merchants, were
exposed to all sorts of persecutions. The sultan of Cairo and several
Mussulman princes assembled armies for the purpose of resisting the
Crusaders, or to go and attack the Christians in the West. A descendant
of the Abassides, who resided in Egypt, and assumed the title of
caliph, sent letters and messages in every direction to engage all true
believers to take up arms; promising the martyrs of the Mussulman faith
that they should be present at delicious banquets, and that each of
them should have seven virgins for wives.
The aim of this crusade, preached in the name of the prophet of Mecca,
was to penetrate into Europe by the way of Gibraltar; the Mussulman
warriors swore to annihilate Christianity, and to convert all the
Christian temples into stables. In proportion as the Saracens were
thus becoming inflamed for an expedition, which they also called a
holy war, Europe beheld the zeal of the princes and warriors who had
sworn to combat the enemies of Christ, grow fainter and fainter, and
at length die away. When Benedict XI. succeeded John XXI., he found
the minds of all changed; hatreds, mistrusts and jealousies had taken
place of a transitory and insincere enthusiasm; it was in vain that
Christians from the East described the persecutions they had undergone
and the preparations of the infidels against the nations of the West;
it was in vain that the pope continued his exhortations and his
prayers; the greater that the reason was for undertaking a crusade,
the more indifferent people became, and the more all ranks seemed to
shun the idea of contending with the Saracens. It was at this period
that Brother Andrew of Antioch came to Avignon with the design of
imploring the aid of the pope and the princes of Christendom. Philip
of Valois had come to the court of the sovereign pontiff, to inform
him that he should defer his voyage into the East, and had mounted his
horse to return to Paris, when Brother Andrew presented himself before
him, and said: “Art thou Philip king of France, who promised God and
his Church to deliver the Holy Land?” The king answered, “Yes.” Then
the monk resumed: “If thy intention is to perform that which thou hast
promised, I implore Jesus Christ to direct thy steps, and grant thee
the victory; but if the enterprise thou hast commenced is only to turn
to the shame and misfortunes of Christians, if thou art not, with the
help of God, determined to finish it, if thou hast deceived the holy
Catholic Church, divine justice will fall heavily on thy family and on
thy kingdom, and the blood which the news of thy expedition has caused
to flow will rise up against thee.” The king surprised at this strange
appeal, answered: “Brother Andrew, come with us:” and Brother Andrew
replied without being moved, and in an inspired tone: “If thou wast
going into the East, I would go before thee, but as thou art going to
the West, go on; I will return to perform penance for my sins in the
land thou hast abandoned.”
Such was even then the authority of the orators who spoke in the name
of Jerusalem, that the last words of Brother Andrew left trouble and
uneasiness in the mind of a powerful monarch; but fresh political
storms had recently broken out. Edward III. had laid claim to the
throne of the Capets, and his ambition was the signal for a war which
lasted more than a century, and brought the greatest calamities upon
France. Philip, attacked by a formidable enemy, was obliged to renounce
his expedition beyond the seas, and employ, for the defence of his
own kingdom, the troops and fleets that he had collected for the
deliverance of the heritage of Christ.
The pope did not, however, abandon the project of the holy war. The
poet Petrarch, who was then at Avignon, proved one of the most ardent
apostles of the crusade. This illustrious poet, whom we are now
accustomed to consider only as the ingenious singer of the praises of
the fair Laura, and who was then deemed the most worthy interpreter
of the wisdom of the ancients, and one of the great spirits of his
age, addressed an eloquent letter to the Doge of Venice, to induce
him to enter into a war against the Mussulmans. Some of the states
of Italy united their forces to make an expedition into the East.
A chronicle of the counts of Ason relates that a great number of
Crusaders, clothed in white, with a red cross, marched out of Milan;
and that a fleet, equipped by the sovereign pontiff, passed through the
Archipelago, and surprised the city of Smyrna, in which the Crusaders
were themselves quickly besieged by the Turks. The pope’s legate and
several knights perished in a sortie, which circumstance determined
the sovereign pontiff to employ new efforts to revive a zeal for the
crusade. It was at this period that the dauphin of Viennois, Humbert
II., resolved to take the cross, and came to Avignon, to supplicate
the pope to allow him to be the captain of the holy voyage against
the Turks, and against the faithless vassals of the church of Rome.
Humbert easily obtained all he asked, and returned to his states to
make preparations for his expedition. He alienated his domains, he
sold privileges to the nobility, and immunities to his cities; he
levied considerable sums upon the Jews, and upon the Italian merchants
established in the Viennois; he exacted a tribute from all his subjects
who would not accompany him to the crusade, and having embarked, with
a hundred men-at-arms, he went to seek in Asia either the fortune of
a conqueror or the glory of a martyr. He found neither the one nor
the other, and returned to Europe without renown and burdened with
debts. History represents Humbert as a weak, inconstant and irresolute
prince. He ruined himself, in the first place, by his dissipation, then
by the expenses of the crusade; weary of the world and its affairs,
he finished by abandoning to the crown of France his principality,
which he had pledged to Philip of Valois, and retired to a monastery
of Dominican Friars. In order to console him for not having conquered
Egypt or any other country, the pope bestowed upon him the title of
patriarch of Alexandria; and the king of France, to make him forget
Dauphiny, named him archbishop of Rheims.
Such were the events and the consequences of the crusade occasioned
in Europe by the arrival of Hugh of Lusignan, king of Cyprus. Some
years having glided away, this prince came again to solicit the aid of
the sovereign pontiff; at this period most of the sovereigns were in a
state of war, and the pope not being able to do anything for the king
of Cyprus, conceived the singular idea of naming him tribune of Rome.
Hugh of Lusignan accepted this function, and died in Italy, without
having been able to send any succour to the East.
War was not then the only scourge that ravaged the world; the horrors
of the plague were added to the destruction of arms; this contagion
which was called the black plague, and which took its rise upon the
great level plain of Tartary, extended its devastations over all the
countries of the East and West, and in a few years carried off more
than thirteen millions of men. Historians have remarked that this
scourge in its funeral march followed the footsteps of the merchants
who brought into Europe the productions of India, and of the pilgrims
who returned from Palestine.
As soon as pestilence had ceased its ravages, war resumed all its fury.
The deplorable state in which discord had plunged Europe at that time,
and particularly France, must have made people regret the periods
when the preaching of a crusade imposed silence upon all passions and
suspended all hostilities. The pope had several times undertaken to
reëstablish peace: he at first addressed supplications to the English
monarch; he afterwards threatened him with the thunders of the Church,
but the voice of the father of the faithful was lost in the din of arms.
Philip of Valois died amidst the terrible struggle he had to maintain
against England. The loss of the battle of Poictiers and the captivity
of King John became the signal for the greatest troubles that afflicted
the kingdom of France in the middle ages. The plots of the king of
Navarre, the intrigues of the great, the disorders of the people, the
fury of factions, the sanguinary scenes of the Jacquerie, spread terror
and desolation in the capital and through the provinces. When France
had completed the exhaustion of her treasures by paying the ransom of
King John, the presence of her monarch was not able to restore to her
the repose she required to repair her misfortunes. The soldiers of
both nations, who were disbanded without pay, and who found themselves
without an asylum, formed themselves into armed bands, and under the
name of white companies, pervaded the kingdom, braving the orders of
the king and the excommunications of the pope, and carrying wherever
they went license, murder and devastation. All that had escaped
the sword of the English, and the avidity of the collectors of the
imposts, became the prey of these brigands, whose numbers increased in
proportion with their impunity and their excesses. The fields remained
uncultivated; all commercial pursuits were interrupted; and terror and
misery reigned in the cities. Thus the suspension of hostilities had
brought no relief to the evils of nations, and the disorders which
broke out during the peace were more insupportable than those which had
been endured during the war.
It was in these unfortunate circumstances that Peter, the son of Hugh
of Lusignan, came, after the example of his father, to solicit the
assistance of the Christian princes against the infidels, and caused
Urban V. to adopt the project of a new crusade. Perhaps he hoped that
the state of confusion in which France was plunged offered him a means
of raising troops, and that he might turn against his enemies of the
East, all the furies of war which desolated the kingdom.
Peter of Lusignan proposed to attack the power of the sultans of
Cairo, whose dominions extended to Jerusalem. Christendom had at that
time more redoubtable enemies among the Mussulman nations than the
Mamelukes of Egypt. The Turks, who had become masters of Asia Minor,
had recently passed the Hellespont, pushed their conquests as far as
Mount Hemus, and placed the seat of their empire at Adrianople. That
was the enemy that doubtless ought to have been attacked, but the Turks
did not as yet inspire serious alarm, except in the countries they had
invaded or menaced. At the court of Avignon, at which were assembled
the king of Cyprus, the king of France, and the king of Denmark, there
was no mention made of the invasion of Romania, or of the dangers of
Constantinople, but of the loss of the Christian colonies in Syria, and
of the captivity in which the city of Christ was still held.
Peter of Lusignan spoke with enthusiasm of the war against the
infidels, and of the deliverance of the holy places; King John did not
listen to him without emotion, and finished by forgetting his own
misfortunes, to interest himself about those of the Christians beyond
the seas. Waldemar III., king of Denmark, was equally affected by the
discourse and the accounts of the king of Cyprus. The pope preached the
crusade before the three monarchs: it was holy week; the remembrance of
the sufferings of Christ appeared to add authority to the words of the
pontiff, and when he deplored the misfortunes of Jerusalem, the princes
who listened to him could not refrain from shedding tears, and swore to
go and fight the Saracens.
We may, doubtless, believe that the king of France was led to take
the cross by a sentiment of piety, and by the eloquence of the pope;
but we must likewise suppose that the counsels of policy were not
entirely foreign to this determination. The spirit of the holy war,
if once really awakened, would necessarily go far to appease, if not
extinguish, the discords and passions kindled by revolution and civil
war. King John might entertain the hope of uniting under the standard
of the crusade, and seducing to follow him beyond the seas, the _white
companies_, over whom he could exercise no authority; and the sovereign
pontiff was no less anxious to get rid of these bands of brigands, who
braved his spiritual power, and threatened to make him a prisoner in
Avignon.
Several great nobles, John of Artois, the count of Eu, the count
Dammartin, the count de Tancarville, and Marshal Boucicault, followed
the example of King John. The Cardinal Talleyrand de Périgord was named
legate of the pope in the crusade. The king of Denmark promised to
unite his forces with those of the French. To encourage his zeal, the
sovereign pontiff gave him a fragment of the true cross, and several
other relics, the sight of which would constantly remind him of the
holy cause he had sworn to defend. Waldemar III. had come to the court
of Avignon to place his kingdom under the protection of the Holy See;
he took all the oaths required of him; but the bulls he obtained from
Urban, as the price of his submission, had no efficacy in restoring
peace to his dominions, and the troubles which followed his return soon
made him forget his promises regarding the holy war.
The king of Cyprus, with most pressing recommendations from the pope,
visited all the courts of Europe; the zeal and the chivalric eloquence
of the hero of the cross were universally admired; but he derived
nothing but vague promises from his enterprise, and received nothing
but vain felicitations for a devotion which found no imitators.
The king of France was the only one of all the Christian princes who
appeared to engage himself earnestly in the crusade. Urban V., however,
showed but little confidence in the firmness of his resolution, as
he felt it necessary to threaten with excommunication all who should
seek to divert him from the holy enterprise. But all these precautions
of the pope, with the example of the king and the indulgences of the
crusade, were powerless in inducing the nation to take arms, or in
persuading the _white companies_ to _leave the chamber_, as they called
the kingdom they desolated with their brigandages. The time fixed for
the expedition was very near at hand, and nothing was ready; there was
neither an army nor a fleet. It was at this period King John died in
London, whither he had returned to offer himself as an hostage for the
duke of Anjou, who had escaped from prison; and perhaps also to get rid
of the cares of an enterprise which he had no means of executing or
directing with success.
The pope trembled in Avignon, and was compelled to use his utmost
efforts to free himself from these formidable bands, whose leaders
styled themselves _the friends of God and the enemies of all the
world_. History says that he employed in his contests with them the
small quantity of money which had been raised for the crusade, and that
this excited violent murmurs. In this state of things, Charles IV.,
emperor of Germany, in concert with the king of Hungary, proposed to
take the companies into their pay, and send them against the Turks.
If this project had been executed, we should have been able to join
the name of Bertrand Duguesclin to the glorious names that adorn the
pages of this history; the Breton hero was to have been the leader of
the troops destined to contend with the Mussulmans on the banks of the
Danube. The sovereign pontiff himself wrote several letters to him to
induce him to take part in this crusade; but the project of Charles IV.
was in the end abandoned, and Duguesclin led the white companies into
Spain.
The king of Cyprus, however, had succeeded in enrolling under his
banners a great number of adventurers of all sorts and conditions,
men who were accustomed to live amidst perils, and who were attracted
by the hope of pillaging the richest countries of the east. The
republic of Venice did not disdain to take part in an expedition from
which her commerce was likely to derive great advantages. Peter of
Lusignan likewise received succours from the brave knights of Rhodes,
and, on his return to the isle of Cyprus, he embarked at the head
of ten thousand men to realize his projects of conquests over the
infidels. The Crusaders, to whom the pope sent a legate, went to attack
Alexandria, which they found almost without defence. When the place had
fallen into their power, the king of Cyprus wished that they should
fortify themselves in it, and there await the armies of Cairo; but
his soldiers and allies could not resist their inclination to plunder
a flourishing city, and fearing to be surprised by the Mamelukes,
they set fire to Alexandria, and abandoned it on the fourth day after
the conquest. Without subduing the Mussulmans, they irritated them.
After the precipitate departure of the Crusaders, the Egyptian people,
listening to nothing but hatred and vengeance, indulged in all sorts of
violence against the unfortunate Christians who dwelt in Egypt. By the
orders of the sultan of Cairo, everything was seized that belonged to
the Venetians; and the Mamelukes, having prepared a fleet, threatened,
in their turn, to make descents upon the isles of Rhodes and Cyprus.
Again the nations of the West were applied to; the pope intreated all
Christian princes to take arms against the infidels; but not one of
them would assume the cross, and the king of Cyprus was left alone, to
fight out the war he had provoked.
To the ardour for crusades, in the minds of European warriors, had
succeeded a passion for distinguishing and enriching themselves by
chivalric enterprizes and adventurous expeditions, in which, however,
some remembrances of the holy wars were always mingled. The Genoese
having formed the project of making war upon the coasts of Barbary,
whose piratical inhabitants infested the Mediterranean, demanded a
leader and troops of the king of France. On the report alone of such
an enterprize, a crowd of warriors, eager to signalize their bravery,
issued from all the provinces; the count d’Auvergne, the sieur de
Coucy, Guy de la Trimouille, and Messire Jean de Vienne, admiral of
France, solicited the honour of combating the infidels in Africa;
fourteen hundred knights and nobles, under the orders of the duke of
Bourbon, repaired to Genoa, and embarked on board the fleet of that
republic; the French and the Genoese, the first led by a desire for
booty and the love of glory, the latter by the more positive interests
of their commerce, went to this war beyond the sea as to a banquet.
“Beautiful and pleasant,” says Froissart, “was it to behold the order
of their departure, and how those banners, pennons, and streamers,
fairly and richly wrought with the arms of the noble knights, floated
to the wind and glistened in the sun; and to hear those trumpets and
clarions sound and resound, and other musicians performing their parts,
with pipes, flutes, and macaires, as well as the sound and the voice
which issued from them, reverberate over all the sea.” After a few
days’ sailing, the Christian army arrived on the coast of Barbary,
and laid siege to the city of _Africa_. The inhabitants offered some
resistance, and not being able to conceive why they were thus attacked
by an enemy they did not know, and of whom they had never heard, they
sent deputies to the camp of the Christians to demand of them what
motive had brought them beneath their walls. The Genoese, doubtless,
reminded the deputies of the piracies carried on in the Mediterranean
and upon the coasts of Italy; but the knights could not allege any
grievance, and must have felt considerably embarrassed how to answer
the questions of the besieged. Froissart, who gives an account of this
expedition, informs us that the duke of Bourbon called a council of the
principal leaders, and after they had deliberated upon the question
proposed by the Saracens, he addressed this reply to them, which we
shall report in the old language as near that of the times as we are
able: “They who demand why war is made against them, must know that
their lineage and race put to death and crucified the son of God named
Jesus Christ, and that we wish to avenge upon them this fact and evil
deed. Further, they do not believe in the holy baptism, nor in the
Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ; and all these things being
considered is why we hold the Saracens and all their sect as enemies.”
The besieged were not likely to be convinced by this explanation, “so,”
adds the good Froissart, “they only laughed at it, and said it was
neither reasonable nor proved, for it was the Jews who put Christ to
death, and not they.”
The French knights had more bravery than knowledge, and were much more
expert in fighting than in reasoning. They prosecuted the siege and
made several assaults, but in all their attacks met with a determined
resistance. They were, however, persuaded that Heaven declared in their
favour, and performed miracles to assure them the victory. It was said
in the camp, that a battalion of ladies in white had appeared amidst
the combatants, and created great terror among the Saracens. They
likewise told of a miraculous dog which God had sent to the Christian
soldiers as a vigilant sentinel, and which had several times prevented
their being surprised by the Mussulmans. We repeat these marvellous
stories, in order to exhibit the spirit of the knights, who saw nothing
but ladies under circumstances in which the early Crusaders would have
seen saints and angels. The story of the miraculous dog serves to prove
that the French warriors kept but a bad watch around their camp, and
that they carried on the siege with more bravery than prudence. Several
battles were fought, in which the most rash lost their lives. The
heat of the climate and the season gave birth to contagious diseases.
In proportion as obstacles multiplied around them, the ardour of the
besiegers inclined daily towards depression. Discord, likewise, broke
out in the Christian army, in which the French and the Genoese mutually
reproached each other with their miseries: winter was drawing near, and
they despaired of reducing the place; the duke of Bourbon resolved to
raise the siege, and to return to Europe with his knights and soldiers.
During several months no news of this expedition had arrived in
France; processions were made and public prayers were put up in all
the provinces to ask of Heaven the safe return of the Crusaders. Old
chronicles inform us,—“that the lady of Coucy, the lady of Sully, the
dauphiness of Auvergne, and all the ladies of France whose lords and
husbands were engaged in this voyage, were in great dismay for them
whilst the voyage lasted; and when the news came to them that they had
already passed the sea, they were all much rejoiced.”
This expedition, which the Genoese had promoted with the intention
of defending their commerce against the brigandages of pirates,
only served to increase the evil they wished to remedy; vengeance,
indignation, and fear armed the infidels against the Christians in
every direction. Vessels issued from all the coasts of Africa, covered
the Mediterranean, and intercepted the communications with Europe; the
merchandizes which had been accustomed to flow from Damascus, Cairo,
and Alexandria, no longer appeared; and the historians of the times
deplore, as a calamity, the impossibility of procuring spices in either
France or Germany.
The war which had begun between Egypt and the kingdom of Cyprus was
prosecuted with equal animosity on both sides. Whilst the sultan of
Cairo threatened the poor remains of the Christian colonies of the
East, the king of Cyprus and the knights of Rhodes spread terror along
all the coasts of Syria; in one incursion they took possession of
Tripoli, and gave the city up to the flames. Tortosa, Laodicea, and
Belinas met with the same fate: this manner of making war in a country
that they professed to wish to conquer for the sake of delivering it,
excited everywhere the fury of the Mussulmans, without raising the
hopes or the courage of the Christians who dwelt there. Pilgrimage
to the Holy Land became impracticable, and, during several years, no
European Christians were able to visit Jerusalem.
The sultan of Egypt, however, after many fruitless efforts to avenge
the expedition against Alexandria, made peace with the king of Cyprus
and the knights of Rhodes. It was agreed that the prisoners should be
liberated on both sides, and that the king of Cyprus should receive
half of the dues levied upon the merchandize which entered at Tyre,
Berouth, Sidon, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Damascus. The treaty
regulated the tribute which pilgrims should pay in those places of
the Holy Land to which their devotion called them. The sultan of
Egypt restored to the knights of St. John the house they had formerly
possessed in Jerusalem, and the knights had permission to cause the
churches of the holy sepulchres of Bethlehem, of Nazareth, &c. to be
repaired.
Europe at this period turned its eyes from countries which had so long
excited its veneration and enthusiasm to direct them towards regions
invaded or threatened by the Turks. We have seen, towards the end of
the eleventh century, hordes from this nation spread themselves as
conquerors over the whole of Asia. It may be remembered that it was
their invasion of Palestine, and their violent domination over the holy
city, which roused Christendom, and provoked the first crusade. Their
power, which then extended as far as Nice, and which, even at that
time, alarmed the Greeks, was checked by the victorious armies of the
West. The Turks of whom we are now speaking, and of whom Christendom,
towards the end of the fourteenth century, began to be very much in
dread, like those who had preceded them, drew their origin from the
Tartars. Their warlike tribes, formerly established in Carismia, had
been driven thence by the successors of Gengiskhan; and the remains of
this conquering nation, after ravaging Syria and Mesopotamia, came, a
few years before the first crusade of St. Louis, to seek an asylum in
Asia Minor.
The weakness of the Greeks and the division of the Mussulman princes
enabled them to conquer several provinces, and to found a new state
among the ruins of several empires. The terror inspired by their fierce
and brutal valour facilitated their progress, and opened for them the
road to Greece. Countries which had been the cradle of civilization, of
the arts, and of knowledge, soon succumbed beneath the laws of Ottoman
despotism.
There can be no doubt that despotism, such as it was known then in
Asia, and as it is seen in our days, is the most fragile of human
institutions. The violent measures which it took to preserve itself,
showed plainly that it itself felt a consciousness of its own
fragility. When we see it immolate all the laws of nature to its own
laws, hold the sword constantly suspended over all that approach it,
and itself experience more fear than it inspires, we are tempted to
believe that it has no veritable support. Whilst reading the oriental
history of the middle ages, we are astonished to see all those empires
which the genius of despotism raised in Asia, fall almost without
resistance, and disappear from the scene of the world. But we must
admit, when this monstrous government supports itself upon religious
ideas, and upon the prejudices and passions of a great nation, it has
also its popular ascendancy; it is also, to employ a mode of speaking
very common at present, the expression of all its wills, and nothing
can resist its action, or arrest the development of its power.
Thus arose the Ottoman empire, which had for its springs of action
a hatred of the Christians, and the conquest of the Greek empire,
and which sustained itself by the double fanaticism of religion and
victory. The Turks had but two ideas, or rather two ever-acting
passions, which with them supplied the place of patriotism,—to extend
their dominions and propagate the Mussulman faith. The ambition which
led the sovereign to conquer Christian provinces, was found to be
that of the whole nation, accustomed to enrich themselves by all the
violences of war, and who believed they obeyed the most sacred precept
of the Koran, by exterminating the race of infidels. If the prince was
unceasingly obliged to animate the religious enthusiasm and the warlike
ardour of his subjects, the subjects, in their turn, kept the prince
as constantly in exercise. The absolute leader of the Ottomans might
commit all sorts of crimes with impunity; but he could not live long
in a state of peace with his neighbours, without risking his authority
and his life. The Turks could not endure either a pacific prince, or a
prince unfortunate in war; so thoroughly were they persuaded that they
ought to be always fighting, and that they ought always to conquer. The
Ottoman people, to whom nothing was good or right but conquest, would
obey none but a conqueror; and if they consented to be slaves, and
tremble beneath the frown of a master, it was upon the sole condition
that this all-powerful master should carry abroad the terror of his
arms, and should give chains to other nations.
The Ottoman dynasty which began with the Turkish nation and gave
its name to it, that dynasty, always the object of veneration, and
respected by revolt itself, has presented by its stability a new
spectacle in the East. It has exhibited to the world a succession of
great princes, who have in history almost all the same physiognomy, and
resemble each other in their pride, their ambition and their military
genius: which proves that all these barbarian heroes were formed by
their national manners, and that among the Turks, there is but one
single road to greatness. We may judge what advantages this harmony
between subjects and sovereign must have given to the Ottoman nation,
in its wars against the Christians, or even against other Mussulman
people.
Whilst the only defence of Europe consisted in feudal troops which
were assembled at certain periods, and could not be held beneath their
banners for any length of time together, the Ottomans were the only
people who had a regular army always under arms. Their warriors, always
animated by one same spirit, had moreover the advantage of discipline
over the insubordinate chivalry of the Franks, who were constantly
agitated by discord, and were put in action by a thousand different
passions.
As the population of the Turks was not always sufficient for their
armies, they forced each family of the countries they conquered to give
up a fifth part of its male children for the military service. They
thus levied a tribute upon the population of the Christians, and the
sons of the effeminate Greeks became those invincible janissaries who
were one day to besiege Byzantium, and destroy even the ruins of the
empire of the Cæsars. Such were the new people who were about to place
themselves between the East and the West, and engross all the attention
of Christian Europe, until that time occupied with the deliverance of
the holy places.
When we are acquainted with the power and the character of the
Ottomans, we are astonished at seeing what remained of the Greek empire
subsist a long time in their vicinity. We must here resume from a past
period, the history of the feeble successors of Constantine, sometimes
forming alliances with the Turks ready to plunder them, at others,
imploring the assistance of the Latins, whom they hated, and seeking to
awaken the spirit of the crusades whose consequences they dreaded.
At the period of the first invasions of Greece by the Turks, the
emperor Andronicus sent an embassy to the Pope, to promise him to obey
the Romish Church, and to request of him apostolic legates, with an
army capable of driving away the infidels and opening the route to the
Holy Sepulchre. Cantacuzenes, who followed the example of Andronicus,
said to the envoys from the sovereign pontiff: “I shall consider it my
glory to serve Christendom; my states shall afford the Crusaders a free
and safe passage; my troops, my vessels, my treasures shall be devoted
to the common defence, and my fate will be worthy of envy if I obtain
the crown of martyrdom.” Clement VI., to whom Cantacuzenes addressed
himself, died without having been able to interest the Christian
warriors in the fate of Constantinople. A short time afterwards,
the emperor buried himself in a cloister; and the brother _Josaphat
Christodulus_, confounded among the monks of Mount Athos, troubled
himself no longer with a crusade among the Latins.
Under the reign of John Palæologus, the progress of the Turks became
more alarming. The emperor himself went to solicit the aid of the
sovereign pontiff. After having, in a public ceremony, kissed the hands
and feet of the pope, he acknowledged the double _procession_[69]
of the Holy Ghost, and the supremacy of the Church of Rome. Touched
by this humble submission, the pope protested he would come to the
succour of the Greeks; but when he applied to the sovereigns of Europe,
he could obtain nothing from them but vain promises. At the moment
at which Palæologus was about to embark on his return to the East,
he was arrested by his creditors, and remained thus during several
months, without the pope or the princes he had come to solicit, and who
had promised to assist him in the deliverance of his empire, making
the least attempt to deliver him himself. Palæologus returned to
Constantinople, to his divided family; and his subjects, who despised
him, waited in vain for the performance of the promises of the pope
and the European monarchs. In his despair, he at length formed the
resolution of imploring the clemency of the sultan Amurath, and of
purchasing by a tribute, permission to continue to reign over the wreck
of his empire. He complained of this hard necessity to the pontiff
of Rome, who caused a new crusade to be preached; but the Christian
monarch beheld with indifference, a prince who had returned to the
bosom of the Catholic Church, condemned to declare himself the vassal
of infidels. The emperor of Byzantium and the head of the Church,
by promising, the one, to arm the West in the cause of Greece, and
the other, to subject the Greeks to the Roman Church, had formed
engagements that they every day found it more difficult to fulfil.
Whilst they were reciprocally upbraiding each other with not having
kept their word, Amurath, who accomplished his threats better than the
pope and the Christian princes did their promises, added new rigours
to the fate of Palæologus, and interdicted even the repairing of the
ramparts of his capital. Again the supplications to the sovereign were
renewed, and again these supplications were passed on to the monarchs
of Christendom; but they made no reply, or at most contented themselves
with expressing pity for the emperor and people of Byzantium.
There is no doubt that the Greek emperors stood in great need of
succour from the Latins, but this pusillanimous policy, which
unceasingly invoked the assistance of other nations, only proclaimed
the weakness of the empire, and necessarily deprived the Greeks, in
the hour of peril, of all confidence in their own strength. On the
other side, these cries of alarm, which constantly resounded throughout
Europe, met with nothing but incredulous minds and indifferent hearts.
It was in vain that the warriors of the West heard it for ever repeated
that Constantinople was the barrier of Christendom; they could not
consider a city which was unable to provide for its own defence, and
was always in want of succour, as a barrier capable of arresting the
course of a powerful enemy. When Gregory XI. solicited the emperor of
Germany to assist Constantinople, that prince replied sharply that the
Greeks had opened the gates of Europe to the Turks, and _let the wolf
into the sheep-fold_.
At this time the miserable remains of the empire of the Cæsars was
comprised within the extent of less than twenty leagues, and in this
narrow space there was an empire of Byzantium, and an empire of Rodesto
or Selivrea; the princes, whom ties of blood ought to have united,
quarrelled with inveterate fury for the rags of the imperial purple.
Brother was armed against brother, and father and son declared open
war; all the crimes that had formerly been inspired by the ambition of
obtaining the sceptre of the Roman world, were still committed for the
advantage of reigning over a few miserable cities. Such was the empire
of the East, upon which the Ottoman dominions continued on all sides to
encroach.
At the period of which we are speaking, all the princes of the family
of Palæologus having been commanded to repair to the court of Bajazet,
obeyed his supreme order tremblingly; and if they came out safe and
sound from the palace of the sultan, which was for them the den of the
lion, it was because pity disarmed the executioner, and because the
contempt they inspired among the Mussulmans was their safeguard. The
Ottoman emperor contented himself with commanding Manuel, the son and
successor of John Palæologus, not to deliver Constantinople up to him,
but to remain shut up in it as in a prison, under the penalty of losing
both his crown and his life.
Whilst the Greeks were thus trembling in the presence of the Turks,
the janissaries passed through the straits of Thermopylæ without
obstruction, and advanced into the Peloponnesus. On the other side,
Bajazet, for whom the rapidity of his conquests procured the surname
of _Iberim_, or _Lightning_, invaded the country of the Servians,
afterwards that of the Bulgarians, and was preparing to carry the war
into Hungary.