SEVENTH CRUSADE.
A.D. 1242-1245.
WHEN I began this work, I was far from being aware of the task I was
imposing upon myself; animated by the interest of my subject, full of
a too great confidence in my own powers, like those villagers who,
when they set out for the first crusade, fancied every city they saw
to be Jerusalem, I constantly believed I was approaching the end of my
labours. As I advanced in my career, the horizon expanded before me,
difficulties multiplied at every step, so that to sustain my courage,
I have often been obliged to recall to my mind the kindness with which
the early volumes of this history have been received by the public.
The difficulty did not consist in placing a narrative of the holy wars
before our readers; it became necessary to present exact ideas of the
manners and characters of the nations which, in any way, took part
in them. We have endeavoured to make all the peoples known who have
in turn passed across the scene: the Franks, with their soldier-like
roughness, their love of glory, and their generous passions; the Turks
and Saracens, with their military religion and their barbarous valour;
the Greeks, with their corrupted manners, their character at once
superstitious and frivolous, and their vanity, which with them supplied
the place of patriotism: a new nation is now about to offer itself
to the pencil of history, and mingle with the events of which we are
attempting to give the picture. We are about to say a few words upon
the manners and conquests of the Tartars in the middle ages.
The hordes of this nation, at the period of the sixth crusade, had
invaded several countries of Asia, and the progress of their arms had
a great influence over the policy of the Mussulman powers of Syria
and Egypt, which were then at war with the Christians. At the time of
which we are speaking, the fame of their victories filled the East, and
spread terror even to the most remote countries of Europe.
The Tartars inhabited the vast regions which lie between ancient Emaüs,
Siberia, China, and the Sea of Kamschatka; they were divided into
several nations, which all boasted of having the same origin; each of
these nations, governed by a khan, or supreme leader, was composed of
a great number of tribes, each tribe commanded by a particular chief,
called Myrza. The produce of the chase, the milk of their mares, and
the flesh of their flocks, satisfied the simple wants of the Tartars;
they lived under tents with their families; and moveable dwellings,
drawn by oxen, transported from one place to another their wives, their
children, and all they possessed. In summer, the whole tribe drew
towards the northern countries, and encamped upon the banks of a river
or a lake; in winter, they directed their course southward, and sought
the shelter of mountains that could protect them from the icy winds of
the north.
The Tartar hordes assembled every year, in either autumn or spring.
In these assemblies, which they called _Couraltaï_, they deliberated
on horseback, upon the march of the tribes, the distribution of the
pasturages, and peace and war. It was from the bosom of this tumultuous
assembly that issued the legislation of the people of Tartary; a simple
and laconic legislation, like those of all barbarous nations, whose
only objects are to maintain the power of the leaders, and keep up
discipline and emulation among the warriors.
The nations of Tartary acknowledged one God, the sovereign of heaven,
to whom they offered up neither incense nor prayers. Their worship
was reserved for a crowd of genii, whom they believed to be spread
through the air, upon the earth, and amidst the waters; a great number
of idols, the rough work of their own hands, filled their dwellings,
followed them in their courses, and watched over their flocks, their
slaves, and their families. Their priests, brought up in the practices
of magic, studied the course of the stars, predicted future events,
and employed themselves in abusing the minds of the people by sorcery.
Their religious worship, which inculcated no morality, had neither
softened their rude manners nor ameliorated their character, which was
as boisterous and unkindly as their climate. No monument raised under
the auspices of religion, no book inspired by it, reminded them of
deeds of glory, or laid before them precepts and examples of virtue.
In the course of their wandering life, the dead, whom they sometimes
dragged with them in their waggons, appeared to them an annoying
burden, and they buried them in haste in retired places; where,
covering them with the sands of the desert, they were satisfied with
concealing them from the eyes or the outrages of the living.
Everything that might fix them to one spot rather than another, or lead
them to change their manner of living, excited the animadversion and
disdain of these races. Of all the tribes that inhabited Mogul Tartary,
one alone was acquainted with writing, and cultivated letters; all the
rest despised commerce, arts, and learning; which constitute the true
splendour of polished societies. The Tartars disdained the idea of
building; in the twelfth century their vast country contained but one
city,[263] the extent of which, according to the monk Rubruquis, did
not equal that of the little town of Saint Denis. Confining themselves
to the care of their flocks, they regarded agriculture as a degrading
occupation, only fit to employ the industry of slaves or conquered
people. Their immense plains had never become yellow with harvests sown
by the hand of man; no fruit had there ripened which he had planted.
The spectacle most agreeable to a Tartar was the desert, upon which
grass grew without cultivation or the field of battle covered with ruin
and carnage.
As the limits of their pastures were under no regulation, frequent
quarrels necessarily arose among the Tartars; the spirit of jealousy
constantly agitated the wandering hordes; the ambitious leaders
could endure neither neighbours nor rivals. Thence civil wars; and
from the bosom of civil wars issued a fully-armed despotism, to
support which the people flocked with cheerfulness, because it
promised them conquests. The entire population was military, to whom
fighting appeared to be the only true glory, and the most noble
occupation of man. The encampments of the Tartars, their marches,
their hunting-parties, resembled military exhibitions. Habit imparted
so much ease and firmness to their seat on horseback, that they took
their food, and even indulged in sleep, without dismounting. Their bow,
of an enormous size, announced their strength and skill; their sharp
steel-headed arrows flew to an immense distance, and struck down the
bird amidst its rapid career, or pierced through and through the bear
or tiger of the desert; they surpassed their enemies in the rapidity of
their evolutions; they excelled them in the perfidious art of fighting
whilst flying; and retreat was often, for them, the signal of victory.
All the stratagems of war appeared familiar to them; and as if a fatal
instinct had taught them all that could assist in the destruction of
the human race, the Tartars, who built no cities, knew how to construct
the most formidable machines of war, and were not unacquainted with
any means that could spread terror and desolation among their enemies.
In their expeditions, their march was never impeded by the inclemency
of seasons, the depth of rivers, the steepness of precipices, or the
height of mountains. A little hardened milk, diluted with water,
sufficed for the food of a horseman during several days; the skin of a
sheep or a bear, a few strips of coarse felt, formed his garments. The
warriors showed the most blind obedience to their leaders, and, at the
least signal, were ready to encounter death in any shape. They were
divided into tens, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands; their
armies were composed of all that could handle the bow or lance; and
what must have caused their enemies as much surprise as terror, was the
order and discipline that prevailed in a multitude that chance seemed
to have gathered together. According to their military legislation,
the Tartars were never allowed to make peace but with a conquered
enemy; he who fled from battle, or abandoned his companions in danger,
was punished with death; they shed the blood of men with the same
indifference as that of wild animals, and their ferocity added greatly
to the terror which they inspired in their enterprises.
The Tartars, in their pride, despised all other nations, and believed
that the whole world ought to be subject to them. According to certain
opinions, transmitted from age to age, the Mogul hordes abandoned
the north to the dead they left behind them in the deserts, and kept
their faces constantly directed towards the south, which was promised
to their valour. The territories and the riches of other nations
excited their ambition; and, possessing neither territories nor riches
themselves, they had almost nothing to fear from conquerors. Not only
their warlike education, but their prejudices, their customs, the
inconstancy of their character, everything with them seemed to favour
distant expeditions and warlike invasions. They carried with them
neither regrets nor endearing remembrances from the countries they
abandoned; and if it be true, when we say that country is not within
the walls of a city, or the limits of a province, but in the affections
and ties of family, in the laws, manners, and customs of a nation, the
Tartars, when changing their climate, had always their country with
them. The presence of their wives, of their children; the sight of
their flocks and their idols, everywhere inflamed their patriotism,
or love of their nation, and sustained their courage. Accustomed to
consult their own inclinations, and take them for their sole rule of
conduct, they were never restrained by the laws of morality or by
feelings of humanity; as they had a profound indifference for all the
religions of the earth, this indifference even, which aroused no hatred
in other nations, facilitated their conquests, by leaving them the
liberty of readily receiving or embracing the opinions and creeds of
the people they conquered, and whom they thus completely subjected to
their laws.
In very remote antiquity, the hordes of Tartary had several times
invaded the vast regions of India, China, and Persia, and had
extended their ravages even into the West: the ambition or the
caprice of a skilful leader, excess of population, want of pasturage,
the predictions of a wizard, were quite sufficient to inflame this
tumultuous race, and precipitate them in a mass upon distant regions.
Woe to the people whom the Tartars encountered in their passage! At
their approach, empires fell with a horrible crash; nations were driven
back upon one another, like the waves of the sea; the world was
shaken and covered with ruins. History has preserved the remembrance
of several of their invasions; the most remote posterity will never
pronounce without a species of terror the names of the Avari, the Huns,
the Heruli, of all those wandering nations who, some flowing from the
depths of Tartary, and others dragged in the wake of the conquerors
or driven before them, poured down upon the tottering empire of the
Romans, and divided the spoils of the civilized world amongst them: in
the middle ages, the wars of the Tartars were compared to tempests,
inundations, or the bursting forth of volcanoes; and the resigned
nations believed that the justice of God held these innumerable swarms
of barbarians in reserve in the north, to pour out his anger upon the
rest of the earth, and chastise corrupted nations by their hands.
The Tartars never proved themselves more redoubtable than under the
reign of Gengiskhan. Temugin, which was the first name of the heroic
barbarian, was born of a prince who reigned over some hordes of ancient
Mogulistan.[264] Traditions relate that the seventh of his ancestors
was engendered in the womb of his mother by the miraculous influence
of the rays of the sun. At the birth of Temugin, his family remarked
with joy some coagulated blood in the hands of the infant, a sinister
presage for the human race, in which flattery or superstition saw the
future glory of a conqueror. Some historians inform us that nothing
was neglected in the education of Temugin; others, more worthy of
faith, affirm that he could not read; but all agree in saying that
he was born for war, and to command a warlike people. Endowed with
great penetration of mind, and with a sort of eloquence, knowing
how to dissemble in season, skilful in working upon the passions,
uniting bravery to a boundless ambition, that was never checked by any
scruple, he had all the qualities and all the vices which lead to
empire among barbarians, and sometimes even among polished nations. His
natural propensities developed themselves in adversity, which hardened
his character, and taught him to brave everything in order to carry
out his designs. From the age of fourteen, despoiled of his paternal
heritage, and a fugitive with the khan of the Karaïtes, he sacrificed
without pain the most holy duties of hospitality to his future
grandeur. The khan of the Karaïtes was known by the name of Prester
John among the Christians of the middle ages,[265] who celebrated his
conversion to Christianity, and considered him as one of the most
fervent apostles of the Gospel, which, doubtless, he never had known.
He confided the care of his states to young Temugin, who insinuated
himself into the favour of the army, and dethroned his benefactor. As
he had outraged all the laws of morality to usurp empire, he violated
all the laws of humanity to maintain himself in it. Seventy of his
enemies plunged into seventy caldrons of boiling water, and the skull
of the chief of the Karaïtes enchased in a golden box, announced very
plainly what the master was whom fortune was about to place over the
nations of Asia.
Victory was to achieve what treachery, violence, and ingratitude had
begun; the arms of Temugin and his lieutenants subdued successively all
the hordes whose camps arose between the wall of China and the Volga.
Temugin was the all-powerful leader of many millions of shepherds and
warriors, impatient to quit their own climate and invade the regions
of the south. In order to attach the companions of his victories to
his fortunes, he was desirous of reigning by their suffrages, and
called together a couraltaï or general diet, in which he was proclaimed
sovereign of the Moguls. The ambition of Temugin did not neglect
the influence of superstition; he took the title of Gengis, _king
of kings_, or _master of the world_, and fame gave out that he had
received this pompous title from a prophet who descended from heaven
upon a white horse.
Eastern historians have praised Gengiskhan for having given laws to
nations he had conquered. These laws, the aim of which was to maintain
the peace of families, and to direct the minds of the people towards
war, for a length of time retained the obedience and the respect of the
Moguls. As Gengiskhan, in his legislation, acknowledged one God, the
sovereign of the earth and heaven, and, at the same time, permitted all
kinds of creeds, some modern writers have taken occasion to boast of
his religious tolerance. But what could be the tolerance of a savage
conqueror, who caused himself to be styled the son of the sun, the son
of God; who himself followed no worship, and to whom all religions were
equally indifferent, provided they crossed neither his ambition nor his
pride?
The lieutenants and warriors of Gengiskhan had recognised him with the
greater joy, as universal conqueror and master of the earth, from the
hopes they entertained of enriching themselves with the spoils of all
the nations subdued by his arms. His first enterprises were directed
against China, of which empire he had been the vassal. Neither the
barrier of the great wall, nor the ascendancy of knowledge and arts,
nor the use of gunpowder, said to be then known among the Chinese, was
able to defend a flourishing empire against the attacks of a multitude,
whom the thirst for booty and a warlike instinct, urged forward to face
perils, and rendered invincible.
The wars we have seen in our days, and of which we deplore the
calamities, give nothing but a feeble idea of these gigantic invasions,
in which many millions of men perished by sword and famine. China
experienced twice all the evils inseparable from a war which appeared
to be directed by the genius of destruction; and, in the space of a few
years, the most ancient and the most powerful kingdom of Asia, covered
with blood and ruins, and deprived of half its population, became
one of the provinces of the new empire founded by the shepherds of
Mogulistan.
The conquest of Carismia soon followed that of China; Carismia was
close to the frontiers of the Mogul empire, and, on one side extended
to the Gulf of Persia, and on the other, to the limits of India
and Turkistan. Gengis learnt that a Tartar caravan and three of his
ambassadors had been massacred in one of the cities of the Carismians.
It is easy to imagine the effect that this news would produce upon the
emperor of the Moguls, who himself compared the anger of kings to the
fire of conflagrations, which the lightest wind may light up.[266]
After having fasted and prayed, during three days and three nights,
upon a mountain, where a hermit announced to him, the second time, the
conquest of the whole world, the terrible Gengiskhan commenced his
march, at the head of seven hundred thousand Tartars. This army met
that of the Carismians on the banks of the Jaxartes; Mahomet, sultan
of Carismia, who had several times carried his victorious arms into
Turkistan and Persia, commanded the host of the Carismians. The plain
in which this battle was fought was covered by twelve hundred thousand
combatants; the shock was terrific, the carnage horrible; victory was
adverse to Mahomet, who, from that day, together with his family and
the whole of his nation, sunk into the lowest abyss of misfortune.
The cities of Otrar, Bochara, Samarcand, Candahar, and Carismia,
besieged by an innumerable multitude, fell in turn into the power of
the conqueror, and witnessed the extirpation of their garrisons and
inhabitants. We cannot suppress a feeling of pity when history presents
to us, on one side, an entire population flying from their devastated
homes, to seek an asylum in deserts and mountains; and on the other,
the family of a powerful monarch dragged into slavery or groaning in
exile; and this monarch himself, whose prosperity all Asia had boasted
or envied, abandoned by his subjects, and dying with misery and despair
in an island of the Caspian Sea.
The army of Gengiskhan returned to Tartary, loaded with the spoils of
Carismia: the sovereign of the Moguls[267] appeared to form the desire
of governing his conquests in peace; but the world, agitated by his
victories, and always eager to throw off his yoke, together with the
warlike spirit of his nation, to whom he had afforded a glimpse of the
riches of other people, would not permit him again to enjoy repose; he
was on the point of undertaking a third expedition against China, which
seemed disposed to rebel, when death put an end to his career. Some
historians assert that he was struck dead by thunder, as if Heaven had
determined itself to crush the instrument of its wrath;[268] others,
much more worthy of belief, inform us that the Tartar hero died in his
bed, surrounded by his children, to whom he recommended to preserve
union among themselves, that they might achieve the conquest of the
world. Octaï, the eldest of his sons, succeeded him in the empire, and,
according to the custom of the Moguls, the great men assembled and said
to him, “We wish, we pray, we command you to accept of entire power
over us.” The new emperor answered by this formula, which contains the
whole spirit of the despotic governments of the East: “If you desire
that I should be your khan, are you resolved to obey me in everything;
to come when I shall call you, to go where I shall send you, and to
put to death all those I shall command you to kill?” After they had
answered “Yes,” he said to them, “Henceforth my simple word shall serve
me as a sword.” Such was the government of the Tartars. Octaï was about
to reign over an empire composed of several great empires; his brothers
and nephews commanded the innumerable armies that had conquered China
and Carismia; they governed in his name in the north, in the south,
and the east, kingdoms of which the extent was scarcely known; each
of his lieutenants was more powerful than the greatest kings of the
earth, and all obeyed him as his slaves. For the first time, perhaps,
concord was preserved among conquerors; and this monstrous union
effected the ruin of all the nations of Asia: Turkistan, Persia, India,
the southern provinces of China, which had escaped the ravages of the
first invasion, all that remained of the empire of the Abassides and of
that of the Seljoucides—all fell before the arms of the redoubtable
posterity of Gengiskhan. Many of the sovereigns whom, in these days of
disorder and calamity the chance of war hurled from their thrones, had
invoked the succour of the Moguls, and favoured the enterprises of that
warlike people against neighbouring or rival powers. Fortune enveloped
them all in the same ruin, and oriental history compares them to the
three dervises whose indiscreet wishes and prayers reanimated, in the
desert, the bones of a lion, who sprang up from the bosom of the sand
and devoured them.
The conquest of the richest countries of Asia had inflamed the
enthusiasm of the Tartars to such a degree, that it would have been
impossible for their leaders to confine them within the limits of their
own territories, or bring them back to the peaceful labours of pastoral
life. Octaï, whether desirous of obeying the paternal instructions, or
whether he felt the necessity of employing the restless and turbulent
activity of the Moguls, resolved to turn his arms towards the West.
Fifteen hundred thousand shepherds or warriors inscribed their names
upon the military register; five hundred thousand of the most robust
were selected for the great expedition; the others were to remain
in Asia, to maintain the submission of the vanquished nations, and
complete the conquests commenced by Gengiskhan. Rejoicings, which
lasted forty days, preceded the departure of the Mogul army, and were
as a signal of the desolation they were about to spread among the
countries of Europe.
In their rapid course, the Tartars crossed the Volga, and penetrated,
almost without obstacle, into Muscovy, then a prey to the fury of civil
war. The devastation of their country, the conflagrations of Kiow and
Moscow, and the disgraceful yoke that so long oppressed these northern
regions, were the punishments due to the feeble resistance of the
Muscovites. After the conquest of Russia, the multitude of Moguls,
led by Batou, son of Tuli, directed their victorious course towards
Poland and the frontiers of Germany, and repeated, wherever they went,
the horrors of Attila and his Huns. The cities of Lublin and Warsaw
disappeared on their passage, and they laid waste both shores of the
Baltic. In vain the duke of Silesia, the Polish palatines, and the
grand master of the Teutonic order, united their forces to arrest the
progress of this new scourge of God;[269] the generous defenders of
Europe succumbed upon the plains of Lignitz, and nine sacks, filled
with human ears, were the trophy of the victory of the barbarians. The
Carpathian mountains presented but a feeble barrier to these invincible
hordes; and the Tartars soon burst like a fearful tempest over the
territories of those Hungarians who, two centuries before, had, like
them, quitted the deserts of Scythia, and conquered the fertile banks
of the Danube. Bela, king of Hungary, had recently attracted forty
thousand families of Comans into his dominions, who betrayed him; the
palatines and magnates of the kingdom were divided among themselves,
and not even the aspect of danger could induce them to unite or submit
themselves to the laws of the monarch. Disobedience, treachery, and
discord, delivered the whole kingdom up to the furies of a pitiless
enemy; the flocks, the harvests, the entire wealth of the country,
became the prey of the Moguls; half the population was exterminated.
Of all the cities of Hungary, only three offered an earnest and true
resistance, and thus preserved themselves from scenes of carnage and
destruction. The shepherds of Scythia, who could not read, have left
to the vanquished the task of describing their conquests, and we
have great difficulty in crediting the accounts of the old Hungarian
chronicles, when they describe the unheard-of cruelties by which the
Moguls disgraced their victories;[270] but several provinces entirely
depopulated and changed into deserts, the ruins of two thousand
churches, fifty destroyed cities, the traditions of these great
disasters transmitted from age to age, and the terror that pervaded
Europe, are evidences so worthy of faith, that we cannot reject them.
In the general consternation, it is surprising that the Moguls did not
direct their arms against the Latin empire of Constantinople, then
menaced by the Greeks, and little better than a ruin; but the shepherds
of the desert did not employ themselves in inquiries concerning the
interior revolutions of states or of the signs of their decay; they
preserved, as did all the nations of Asia, a vague and confused idea
of the power of the armies of ancient Byzantium, but took little heed
whether the moment were come to attack it and conquer it. The great
advantages which the imperial city derived from its position between
Europe and Asia, did not at all strike the Tartars, who were ignorant
of both navigation and commerce, and infinitely preferred rich pastures
to the sumptuous edifices of great capitals. Thus we may equally
believe, either that the city of Constantine was protected on this
occasion by the memories of its past greatness, or that it owed its
safety to the contempt and indifference of the barbarians.
The Franks established in Syria enjoyed the same good fortune as the
Greeks of Byzantium. The armies of the Moguls had not yet crossed the
Euphrates.
Whilst the tumult of war and the fall of empires resounded from the
Yellow River to the Danube, the Christians of Palestine, protected by
the discords of the Saracens, resumed possession of Jerusalem: they
were beginning to repair the walls of the holy city, and rebuild the
churches; and thanked Heaven in peace, for having preserved them from
the scourges that were devastating the rest of the world. The Tartars
were scarcely aware of the existence or the name of a country for which
so much blood had been spilt, and were not likely to be attracted to
the revered but barren banks of the Jordan, by either the hopes of
booty or by the remembrances which excited the warlike enthusiasm of
the nations of the West. Happy would it have been for the Christian
colonies, if a people, conquered by the Moguls, driven from their own
territories, and seeking an asylum everywhere, had not come to disturb
their transient security, and plunge the city of Christ into fresh
calamities.
After the death of Mahomet, sultan of Carismia, his son Gelaleddin
gathered together an army. The valour which he displayed in several
battles astonished his enemies, and, for a moment, brought back to
his standard the sad remains of his empire; fortune favoured his
expeditions into Georgia and India; but at last he forgot the lessons
of adversity amidst the intoxication of pleasures; he lost all his
conquests, and perished miserably among the Curds, where he had sought
refuge. The Carismian warriors, incessantly pursued by the Tartars,
abandoned a country they could no longer defend, and, under the command
of one of their leaders named Barbakan, spread themselves through Asia
Minor and Syria.
These hordes, banished from their own country, marched, sword and torch
in hand, and, in their despair, seemed to wish to avenge upon other
nations the evils they had suffered from the Tartars. History describes
these furious bands, wandering along the banks of the Orontes and the
Euphrates, dragging in their train a multitude of men and women that
had fallen into their hands; a great number of waggons conveyed the
spoils of the ravaged provinces they passed through. The most brave of
them ornamented their lances with the hair of those they had immolated
in fight. Clothed in the produce of pillage, their army presented a
spectacle at once terrific and ridiculous. The Carismian warriors had
no resource but in victory, and all the harangues of their leaders
consisted of these words: _You will conquer, or you will die_. They
gave no quarter to their enemies on the field of battle; when conquered
themselves, they submitted to death without a complaint. Their fury
spared neither Christians nor Mussulmans; all they met on their passage
were their enemies; their approach spread terror everywhere, put the
distracted peoples to flight, and changed cities and towns into deserts.
The Mussulman powers of Syria several times united in a league against
the Carismians, and drove them back to the other side of the Euphrates.
But the spirit of rivalry which at all times divided the princes of
the family of Saladin, soon recalled an enemy always redoubtable
notwithstanding defeats. At the period of which we are speaking, the
princes of Damascus, Carac, and Emessa had just formed an alliance
with the Christians of Palestine; they not only restored Jerusalem,
Tiberias, and the principality of Galilee to them, but they promised to
join them in the conquest of Egypt, a conquest for which the whole of
Syria was making preparations. The sultan of Cairo, to avenge himself
upon the Christians who had broken the treaties concluded with him,
to punish their new allies, and protect himself from their invasion,
determined to apply for succour to the hordes of Carismia; and sent
deputies to the leaders of these barbarians, promising to abandon
Palestine to them, if they subdued it.
This proposition was accepted with joy, and twenty thousand horsemen,
animated by a thirst for booty and slaughter, hastened from the further
parts of Mesopotamia, disposed to be subservient to the vengeance
or anger of the Egyptian monarch. On their march they ravaged the
territory of Tripoli and the principality of Galilee, and the flames
which everywhere accompanied their steps, announced their arrival to
the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
Fortifications scarcely commenced, and the small number of warriors
in the holy city, left not the least hope of being able to repel the
unexpected attacks of such a formidable enemy. The whole population
of Jerusalem resolved to fly, under the guidance of the knights of
the Hospital and the Temple. There only remained in the city the sick
and a few inhabitants who could not make their minds up to abandon
their homes and their infirm kindred. The Carismians soon arrived, and
having destroyed a few intrenchments that had been made in their route,
they entered Jerusalem sword in hand, massacred all they met, and as,
amidst a deserted city the conquerors found no victims to glut their
vengeance with, they had recourse to a most odious stratagem to lure
back the inhabitants who had taken flight. They raised the standards of
the cross upon every tower, and set all the bells ringing. The crowd
of Christians who were retiring towards Jaffa, marched on in silence,
and advanced but slowly, constantly hoping that Heaven would be touched
by their misery, and, by some miracle, lead them back to the homes
they had quitted: from time to time, their eyes involuntarily turned
towards the holy city. All at once they saw the banners of the Cross
unfurled, and the sound of the sacred brass, which every day called
them to prayers, resounded in their ears. The news soon spread that
either the barbarians had marched their army in another direction, or
that they had been repulsed by the Christians who were left in the
city. They became soon persuaded that God had taken pity on his people,
and would not permit the city of Christ to be defiled by the presence
of a sacrilegious horde. Seven thousand fugitives, deceived by this
hope, returned to Jerusalem and gave themselves up to the fury of the
Carismians, who put them all to the sword. Torrents of blood flowed
through the streets and along the roads. A troop of nuns, children,
and aged people, who had sought refuge in the church of the Holy
Sepulchre, were massacred at the foot of the altars. The Carismians
finding nothing among the living to satisfy their fury, burst open the
sepulchres, and gave the coffins and remains of the dead up to the
flames; the tomb of Christ, that of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sacred
relics of the martyrs and heroes of the faith, nothing was respected,
and Jerusalem then witnessed within its walls such cruelties and
profanations as had never taken place in the most barbarous wars, or in
days marked by the anger of God.[271]
In the mean time, the grand masters of the Templars and the
Hospitallers, assembled with the patriarch of Jerusalem and the nobles
of the kingdom, in Ptolemaïs, endeavoured to devise means by which the
Carismians might be repulsed and Palestine saved. All the inhabitants
of Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemaïs, and other Christian cities, able to bear
arms, repaired to their standards. The princes of Damascus, Carac, and
Emessa, whose assistance the Christians implored, united their forces,
and assembled an army to stop the progress of the general devastation.
This Mussulman army soon arrived in Palestine. Its appearance before
the walls of Ptolemaïs raised the courage of the Franks, who, in
so pressing a danger, appeared to have no repugnance to fight in
company with the infidels. Almansor, prince of Emessa, who commanded
the Mussulman warriors, had recently signalized his valour against
the hordes of Carismia. The Christians took pleasure in relating his
victories in the plains of Aleppo, and on the banks of the Euphrates.
He was received in Palestine as a liberator, and carpets bordered
with gold and silk were spread upon his passage. “The people,” says
Joinville, “considered him as one of _the best barons of paganism_.”
The preparations of the Christians, the zeal and ardour of the military
orders, the barons, and prelates; the union that subsisted between
the Franks and their new allies, altogether seemed to form a presage
of success in a war undertaken in the names of religion, humanity,
and patriotism. The Christian and Mussulman armies, united under the
same banners, set out from Ptolemaïs, and encamped upon the plains of
Ascalon. The army of the Carismians advanced towards Gaza, where they
were to receive provisions and reinforcements sent by the sultan of
Egypt. The Franks became impatient to meet their enemies, and to avenge
the deaths of their companions and brethren massacred at Jerusalem. A
council was called, to deliberate upon the best mode of proceeding.
The prince of Emessa and the more wise among the barons thought it
not prudent to expose the safety of the Christians and their allies
to the risk of a battle. It appeared to them most advisable to occupy
an advantageous position, and wait, without giving battle, till the
natural inconstancy of the Carismians, want of provisions, or discord,
might assist in dispersing this vagabond multitude, or lead them into
other countries.
Most of the other chiefs, among whom was the patriarch of Jerusalem,
did not agree with this opinion, and could see nothing in the
Carismians but an undisciplined horde that it would be very easy to
conquer and put to flight: any delay in attacking them would only raise
their pride and redouble their audacity. Every day the evils of war
were increasing; humanity and the safety of the Christian colonies
required that they should promptly put an end to so many devastations,
and that they should make haste to chastise the brigands, whose
presence was at once an opprobrium and a calamity for the Christians,
and all the allies of the Christians.
This opinion, too congenial with the impatient valour of the Franks,
prevailed in the council. It was resolved to march, and offer the enemy
battle.
The two armies met in the country of the ancient Philistines. Some
years before, the duke of Burgundy and the king of Navarre, surprised
in the sandy plains of Gaza, had lost the best of their knights and
soldiers. Neither the sight of places where the Crusaders had been
defeated, nor the remembrance of their recent disaster, diminished the
imprudent ardour of the Christian warriors; as soon as they perceived
the enemy, they were eager for the signal for battle. The Christian
army was divided into three bodies; the left wing, in which were the
knights of St. John, was commanded by Gauthier de Brienne, count of
Jaffa, nephew to king John, and son of that Gauthier who died at the
conquest of Naples. The Mussulman troops, under the orders of the
prince of Emessa, formed the right wing. The patriarch of Jerusalem,
surrounded by his clergy, with the wood of the true cross borne before
him, the grand master of the Templars with his knights, and the barons
of Palestine with their vassals, occupied the centre of the army.
The Carismians formed their line of battle slowly, and some degree of
disorder was observable in their ranks. Gauthier de Brienne was anxious
to profit by this circumstance and attack them with advantage; but the
patriarch restrained his valour by a severity not less contrary to the
interests of the Christians than to the spirit of the Gospel.[272]
The count of Jaffa, having been excommunicated for detaining in his
hands a castle to which the prelate laid claim, asked, before he
commenced the encounter in which he might lose his life, to be relieved
from his excommunication. The patriarch twice rejected his prayer, and
refused to absolve him. The army, which had received the benedictions
of the priests and bishops, arising from their knees, awaited in
silence the signal for battle. The Carismians had formed their line
and advanced, uttering loud cries and discharging a cloud of arrows.
Then the bishop of Rama, in complete armour, impatient to signalize his
bravery against the enemies of the Christians, approached the count of
Jaffa, exclaiming, “Let us march,—the patriarch is wrong: I absolve
you, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
After having pronounced these words, the intrepid bishop of Rama and
Gauthier de Brienne, followed by his companions in arms, rushed amidst
the ranks of the enemy, burning to obtain victory or the crown of
martyrdom.
The two armies were soon generally engaged, and mingled on the field
of battle. The ardour to conquer was equal on both sides; neither the
Christians nor their enemies could be ignorant that a single defeat
must cause their ruin, and that their only safety was in victory.
On this account, the annals of war present no example of a more
murderous and obstinate contest; the battle began with the dawn, and
only ended at sunset. On the following morning fighting was renewed
with the same fury; the prince of Emessa, after having lost two
thousand of his horsemen, abandoned the field of battle, and fled
towards Damascus. This retreat of the Mussulmans decided the victory
in favour of the Carismians; the Christians for a long time sustained
the repeated shocks of the enemy; but at length, exhausted by fatigue
and overwhelmed by a multitude, almost all were either killed or
taken prisoners. This sanguinary battle cost life or liberty to more
than thirty thousand Christian and Mussulman warriors; the prince
of Tyre, the patriarch of Jerusalem, and some of the prelates, with
great difficulty escaped the slaughter, and retired to Ptolemaïs.
Among the warriors who regained the Christian cities, there were only
thirty-three knights of the Temple, twenty-six Hospitallers, and three
Teutonic knights.
When the news of this victory reached Egypt, it created a universal
joy; it was announced to the people by sound of drums and trumpets;
the sultan ordered public rejoicings throughout the provinces, and all
the public edifices of the capital were illumined during three nights.
In a short time the prisoners arrived at Cairo, mounted on camels,
and pursued by the insulting clamours of the multitude. Before their
arrival, the heads of their companions and brethren killed at the
battle of Gaza were exhibited on the walls. This horrible monument of
their defeat foreboded all they had to fear for themselves from the
barbarity of the conquerors. They were cast into dungeons, where they
were abandoned to the mercies of cruel gaolers, and where they had
the melancholy satisfaction of embracing the barons and knights made
prisoners in the last crusade.
Whilst all Egypt was celebrating the victory of Gaza, the inhabitants
of Palestine deplored the death and captivity of their bravest
warriors. As long is any hope existed of conquering the Carismians with
the assistance of the Mussulmans of Syria, their alliance had created
neither mistrust nor scruple; but reverses quickly revived prejudices;
the last disaster was attributed to divine justice, irritated by having
seen the banners of Christ mingled with those of Mahomet. On the other
hand, the Mussulmans believed they had betrayed the cause of Islamism
by allying themselves with the Christians; the aspect of the cross on
the field of battle awakened their fanaticism and diminished their zeal
for a cause which appeared to be that of their enemies. At the moment
of beginning the fight, the prince of Emessa was heard to pronounce
these words: “I am armed for battle, and yet God tells me, in the
depths of my heart, that we shall not be victorious, because we have
sought the friendship of the Franks.”
The victory of the Carismians delivered up the greater part of
Palestine to the most redoubtable enemies of the Christian colonies.
The Egyptians took possession of Jerusalem, Tiberias, and the cities
ceded to the Franks by the prince of Damascus. The hordes of Carismia
ravaged all the banks of the Jordan, with the territories of Ascalon
and Ptolemaïs, and laid siege to Jaffa. They dragged the unfortunate
Gauthier de Brienne in their train, hoping that he would cause a city
that belonged to him to open its gates to them: this model of Christian
heroes was fastened to a cross before the walls. Whilst thus exposed
to the eyes of his faithful vassals, the Carismians loaded him with
insults, and threatened him with instant death if the city of Jaffa
offered the least resistance. Gauthier, braving death, exhorted the
inhabitants and the garrison, with a loud voice. to defend themselves
to the last extremity. “Your duty,” cried he, “is to defend a
Christian city; mine is to die for you and Jesus Christ.” The city of
Jaffa did not fall into the hands of the Carismians, and Gauthier soon
received the reward of his generous devotedness. Sent to the sultan of
Cairo, he perished beneath the brutal blows of a furious mob, and thus
obtained the palm of martyrdom for which he had wished.
In the mean time, fortune, or rather the inconstancy of the barbarians,
came to the assistance of the Franks, and delivered Palestine from
the presence of an enemy nothing could resist. The sultan of Cairo
sent robes of honour and magnificent presents to the leaders of the
victorious hordes, proposing to them to crown their exploits by
directing their arms against the city of Damascus. The Carismians
immediately laid siege to the capital of Syria. Damascus, which had
been hastily fortified, was able to oppose but a very slight resistance
to their impetuous attacks. Having no hope of succour, they opened
their gates, and acknowledged the domination of the sultan of Egypt.
It was then that the Carismians, inflated by their victory, demanded,
in a menacing tone, that the lands that had been promised to them
in Palestine should immediately be given up to them. The sultan of
Cairo, who dreaded such neighbours, attempted to defer the fulfilment
of his promise. In the fury which his refusal created, the barbarians
offered their services to the prince whom they had just despoiled of
his states, and laid fresh siege to Damascus, in order to deprive the
Egyptians of it. The garrison and the inhabitants defended themselves
with obstinacy; the fear of falling into the hands of a pitiless enemy
supplying the place of courage. All the evils that war brings in her
train, even famine itself, appeared to them a less terrible scourge
than the hordes assembled under their ramparts.
The sultan of Egypt sent an army to assist the city, which was
augmented by the troops of Aleppo and of several of the principalities
of Syria. The Carismians were conquered in two battles. After this
double defeat, Oriental history scarcely mentions their name, or
furnishes us with means of following their track. The greater part of
those that escaped the sword perished with hunger and misery in the
countries they had devastated; the most brave and the best disciplined
went to seek an asylum in the states of the sultan of Iconium: and if
faith can be given to the conjectures of some historians,[273] they
were the obscure origin of the powerful dynasty of the Ottomans.
The Christians of Palestine must have been grateful to Heaven for the
destruction of the Carismians; but the loss of Jerusalem and the defeat
of Gaza could not permit them to indulge in many joyful sensations.
They had lost their allies, and could reckon upon nothing but enemies
among the Mussulmans. The sultan of Egypt, whose alliance they had
rejected, was extending his dominions in Syria, and his power became
every day more formidable. The cities which the Christians still
retained on the coasts of the sea were almost all without defenders.
The orders of St. John and the Temple had offered the sultan of Cairo
a considerable sum for the ransom of his prisoners; but the sultan
refused to listen to their ambassadors, and threatened them with all
the terrors of his wrath: these two bodies, formerly so much dreaded
by the Mussulmans, were no longer able to serve the cause of the
Christians with any advantage, and were compelled to wait, in a state
of inaction, till the warlike nobility of Europe should come to replace
the knights held in captivity by the infidels, or swept away on the
field of battle. The emperor of Germany made not the least effort to
save the wreck of his feeble kingdom; he had sent several warriors
to protect his rights in Ptolemaïs; but as these rights were not
recognised, the presence of the imperial troops only added to the other
scourges that desolated the Holy Land, that of discord and civil war.
Palestine, threatened every day with a fresh invasion, could not
entertain the smallest hope of being succoured by the other Christian
states of the East. The Comans, a barbarous people from the confines of
Tartary, and who surpassed the hordes of Carismia in ferocity, ravaged
the banks of the Orontes, and submitted everything in the principality
of Antioch to fire and sword; the king of Armenia was in dread, at the
same time, of the ravages of the Tartars, and of the aggressions of
the Turks in Asia Minor; the kingdom of Cyprus, a prey to factions,
had recently been the theatre of a civil war, and had reason to fear
the incursions of the Mussulman nations of Syria and Egypt. In this
deplorable situation, it might be believed that the kingdom of Godfrey
was on the eve of perishing entirely, and that all that remained of
the Christians in the Holy Land would soon share the fate of the
Carismians. But, on turning their eyes towards the West, the Franks of
Palestine again felt their hopes and their courage revive; more than
once the Christian states of Syria had owed their safety, and even a
few days of prosperity and glory, to the excess of their abasement and
misery. Their groans and complaints were seldom heard in vain by the
warlike nations of Europe, and their extreme distress became almost
always the signal for a new crusade, the very report of which was
enough to make the Saracens tremble.
Valeran, bishop of Berytus, had been sent into the West to solicit the
protection of the pope and the assistance of princes and warriors. The
pope received the envoy of the Christians with kindness, and promised
his succour to the Holy Land. But the West was at that period agitated
by troubles: the quarrel that had broken out between the Holy See and
the emperor of Germany was carried on with an animosity that disgraced
both religion and humanity. Frederick II. exercised all sorts of
violences against the court of Rome and the partisans of the sovereign
pontiff; the pope, every day more irritated, invoked the arms of the
Christians against his enemy, and promised the indulgences of the
crusade to all who would minister to his anger.
On another side, the Latins established at Constantinople were
environed by the greatest perils. The emperor Baldwin II., after having
conducted a feeble reinforcement to his capital, had returned into the
West, and was, the second time, soliciting the alms and the succours of
the faithful to sustain the deplorable remains of his empire, exposed,
almost without defence, to the attacks of the Greeks and Bulgarians. At
the same time, the Tartars continued to ravage the banks of the Danube,
and threaten Germany; their barbarous exploits had carried terror to
the very extremities of Europe; everywhere the excited imagination of
nations represented these terrible conquerors as monsters vomited up
by hell, clothed in hideous forms, and endowed with strength against
which no man was able to contend. The deficiency of communication,
which did not allow of exact information as to their march, gave birth
to the most frightful rumours. Fame declared at one time they were
invading Italy, and immediately afterwards, that they were ravaging the
banks of the Rhine; every nation dreaded their prompt arrival, every
city believed they were at its gates.
It was amidst this general disorder and consternation, that Innocent
IV., a refugee at Lyons, resolved to convoke an œcumenic council in
that city, to remedy the evils that desolated Christendom in both the
East and the West.[274] The sovereign pontiff, in his letters addressed
to the faithful, exposed the deplorable situation of the Romish Church,
and conjured the bishops to come around him, and enlighten him with
their counsels. The patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Aquilæa,
a great number of prelates and doctors, with several secular princes,
responded to the invitation of the head of the Church. Among the crowd
of bishops, one alone seemed to attract general attention; this was the
bishop of Berytus; his presence, and the grief impressed upon his brow,
reminded the assembly of all the misfortunes of the Holy Land. Baldwin
II., emperor of Byzantium, created very little less notice; and his
suppliant attitude but too plainly showed what the empire founded by
the sixth crusade had become.
Most of the Western monarchs had sent their ambassadors to this
assembly, in which the safety and the great interests of the Christian
world were about to be discussed. Frederick in particular, who had so
long been the object of the anger of the sovereign pontiff, neglected
nothing to turn aside the thunders suspended over his head, and
ministers invested with his confidence were commissioned to defend him
before the fathers of the council. Among the deputies of the emperor
of Germany, history names Pierre Desvignes, who had written, in the
name of Frederick, eloquent letters to all the sovereigns of Europe,
to complain of the tyranny exercised by the Holy See; and Thadæus of
Suesse, who was not prevented by the profession of arms from employing
the arts of eloquence, or fathoming the depths of the study of laws.
The latter had often served his master with glory amidst the perils of
war, but he had never had an opportunity of showing so much firmness,
courage, and devotion as in this assembly, in which the court of Rome
was about to put forth all its power and realize all its threats.
Before the opening of the council, the pope held a congregation in
the monastery of St. Just, where he had chosen to fix his residence.
The patriarch of Constantinople exposed the deplorable state of his
church: heresy had resumed its empire in a great part of Greece, and
the enemies of the Latin church were advancing to the very gates
of Constantinople; the bishop of Berytus read a letter, in which
the patriarch of Jerusalem and the barons and prelates of Palestine
described the ravages of the Carismians, and showed that the heritage
of Christ was upon the point of becoming the prey of the barbarians, if
the West did not take arms for its defence. The dangers and misfortunes
of the Christians of the East affected the fathers of the council
deeply. Thadæus, taking advantage of their emotion, announced that the
emperor, his master, fully partook of their profound grief, and that
he was ready to employ all his powers for the defence of Christendom.
Frederick promised to arrest the progress of the irruption of the
Tartars, to re-establish the domination of the Latins in Greece, to go
in person to the Holy Land, and to deliver the kingdom of Jerusalem;
he still further promised, in order to put an end to all divisions,
to restore to the Holy See all he had taken from it, and to repair
all wrongs offered to the sovereign pontiff. Such lofty promises,
made by the most powerful monarch of Christendom, created as much joy
as surprise in the greater part of the bishops; the whole assembly
appeared impatient to know what would be the reply of Innocent. The
pope proved inflexible, and rejected with scorn propositions, as he
said, already made several times, and which had no other guarantee but
the too suspicious loyalty of Frederick. He was determined to view the
new protestations of the emperor as nothing but a fresh artifice to
deceive the Church, and turn aside the course of its justice. “_The
axe_,” added he, “_is already lifted, and ready to cut the roots of
the tree_;” words very ill assorted with the charity of the Gospel,
and which plainly show that Innocent had prepared the solemn pomp of
a council with less purpose to oppose the foes of Christendom than to
prepare the fall, and consummate the ruin of his personal enemy.
The pope held this preparatory sitting in order to make a trial of
his strength, and to become acquainted with the dispositions of the
bishops. A few days afterwards, the council was opened with great
solemnity in the metropolitan church of St. John; the sovereign
pontiff, wearing the tiara, and clothed in pontifical robes, was
placed upon an elevated seat, having on his right hand the emperor of
Constantinople, and on his left the count of Provence and the count
of Thoulouse. After having given out the _Veni Creator_, and invoked
enlightenment from the Holy Ghost, he pronounced a discourse, for the
subject of which he took the five griefs with which he was afflicted,
and compared them to the five wounds of the Saviour of the world upon
the cross. The first was the irruption of the Tartars; the second, the
schism of the Greeks; the third, the invasion of the Holy Land by the
Carismians; the fourth, the relaxation of ecclesiastical discipline and
the progress of heresy; and the fifth, the persecution he endured from
Frederick.
Whilst describing the misfortunes of Christendom, the pontiff could
not restrain his tears. His voice, if we may believe a contemporary
historian, was often stifled by sobs; he conveyed to all hearts the
sentiments by which he was affected; but he soon abandoned the language
of compassion and despair, and assumed that of anger and menace. The
Tartars, the Carismians, and the Mussulmans, inspired him with less
hatred than the emperor of Germany, and it was for this prince he
reserved all the thunders of his eloquence. He reproached him, in the
most vehement expressions, with all the crimes that could draw upon his
head the maledictions of his age, the hatred of his contemporaries, and
the contempt of posterity. When the pope had pronounced his discourse,
a profound silence reigned throughout the assembly; it appeared to the
greater part of the terrified bishops that the voice of Heaven had
made itself heard for the purpose of condemning Frederick: all eyes
were turned upon the deputies of the emperor, and no one could believe
that either of them would dare to reply to the interpreter of the
anger of Heaven. All at once Thadæus of Suesse arose, and addressed the
council, calling upon God, who searches all hearts, to witness that
the emperor was faithful to all his promises, and had never ceased to
endeavour to serve the cause of the Christians. He combated all the
accusations of the sovereign pontiff, and in his reply did not hesitate
to allege numerous complaints against the court of Rome.[275] The angry
pope replied from his lofty throne; he again accused the emperor, and
evinced but too great a desire to find him guilty: the first sitting of
the council, entirely occupied with these violent debates, exhibited
the unedifying spectacle of a contest between the head of the faithful,
who accused a Christian prince of perjury, felony, heresy, and
sacrilege; and the minister of an emperor, who reproached the court of
Rome with having exercised an odious despotism, and committed revolting
iniquities.
This contest, the results of which were likely to prove equally
injurious to the head of the Church and the head of the Empire, was
prolonged during several days; it doubtless scandalized all those that
the pope had not associated with him in his resentments, and most of
the bishops must have been afflicted at being thus diverted from the
principal object of the convocation.
At length, however, the calamities of the Eastern Christians, the
captivity of Jerusalem, and the dangers of Byzantium engaged the
attention of the fathers of the council. The pope and the assembly
of prelates decided that a new crusade should be preached for the
deliverance of the Holy Land and the Latin empire of Constantinople.
They renewed all the privileges granted to Crusaders by preceding
popes and councils, as well as all the penalties directed against such
as should favour either pirates or Saracens: during three years all
who should take the cross would be exempted from every kind of tax or
public office; but if after taking the vow they did not perform it,
they incurred excommunication. The council recommended to the barons
and knights to reform the luxury of their tables and the splendour
of their dress; they advised all the faithful, and particularly
ecclesiastics, to practise works of charity, and to arm themselves
with all the austerities of penitence against the enemies of God. In
order to obtain the protection of Heaven by the intercession of the
Holy Virgin, the pope and the fathers of the council ordered that the
octave of the Nativity should be celebrated in the church. In several
councils Christian knights had been forbidden to take part in the
profane solemnities of tournaments; the council of Lyon renewed the
prohibition, persuaded that these military festivals might turn aside
the minds of the warriors from the pious thoughts of the crusades, and
that the expenses they occasioned would render it impossible for the
bravest of the lords and barons to make the necessary preparations for
the pilgrimage beyond the seas. The council ordered that the clergy
should pay the twentieth part of their revenue, and the sovereign
pontiff and cardinals the tenth of theirs, to provide for the expenses
of the holy war. Half of the revenues of all non-resident benefices was
specially reserved for the assistance of the empire of Constantinople.
The decrees of the council ordered all whose mission it was to preach
the word of God, to urge princes, counts, barons, and the corporations
of cities, to contribute to the extent of their power to the success of
the holy war; the same statutes recommended the clergy to show to the
faithful that sacrifices offered to the crusade were the surest means
of redeeming their sins; but above all they recommended the clergy to
excite the faithful, in the tribunal of penitence, to multiply their
offerings, or at least to bequeath in their testaments something for
the assistance of the Christians of the East.
It was thus the council declared war against nations opposed to the
Christians, and prepared means for assuring the triumphs of the
soldiers of Christ. We are nevertheless surprised that the pope said
nothing about preaching a crusade against the Tartars, whose invasion
he had compared to one of the wounds of the Saviour on the cross. In
the state of desolation in which Hungary was then placed, none of the
bishops of that unfortunate kingdom had been able to appear at the
council, and no friendly voice was raised to direct attention to, or
implore favour for the Hungarian nation. The Tartars, it is true,
repulsed by the duke of Neustadt, had fallen back from the banks of the
Danube; but there was great reason to dread their return: to prevent
fresh invasions, the council contented itself with advising the Germans
to dig ditches and build walls on the roads the Tartarian hordes were
likely to take. These measures, which even then must have been known
to be insufficient, assist us at the present day in forming an opinion
of the spirit of improvidence and blindness which then presided over
political councils. Who can fail to be surprised at seeing, in an
assembly so grave as a council, Europe pressed to lavish its treasures
and sacrifice its armies for the deliverance of Constantinople and
Jerusalem, whilst the most redoubtable of the barbarians were at their
doors, and threatening to invade their own territories?
We may, however, remark, that Frederick himself had solicited the
powers of Europe to assist him in repelling the Tartars; and the
pope took much less interest in succouring the empire than he did in
endeavouring to wrest it from Frederick. Innocent seemed very little
disposed to set an example of that spirit of concord and charity which
the council had just recommended to Christian princes; history can but
deplore the zeal and ardour he evinced in carrying out his projects of
vengeance against the emperor of Germany, at the risk of arousing evil
passions, of perpetuating discord, and thus giving up the West to the
invasion of the barbarians. In the second sitting of the council he
was preparing to crush his enemy and completely overwhelm him with the
weight of ecclesiastical power, when Thadæus of Suesse demanded a delay
of a few days, to allow the emperor to come in person to justify his
conduct and demonstrate his loyalty. The defender of Frederick hoped
that the presence of a powerful monarch, by awakening in the minds of
the assembly the respect due to the majesty of kings, would bring about
the triumph of justice. The pope consented, though very unwillingly,
to defer the accomplishment of his menaces; but the emperor could not
condescend to appear as a suppliant before an assembly convoked by the
most implacable of his enemies: he did not come to the council, and
when the required period of delay had expired, the sovereign pontiff
took advantage of his absence to reproach him afresh with his bad
faith, and his resistance to the laws of the Church.
At the moment in which the assembly of the bishops tremblingly awaited
the terrible sentence, the English ambassadors arose to complain of the
agents of the court of Rome, whose ambition and avarice were ruining
the kingdom of England; they at the same time protested against the
feudal supremacy which the pope, in consequence of a cession made
by King John, pretended to exercise over the English monarchy and
nation. These claims could not restrain the ever-boiling anger of the
sovereign pontiff. In vain Thadæus again rose to urge that a great
number of bishops were absent—that several princes had not sent their
ambassadors to the council; in vain he declared that he should appeal
from this to a more numerous and more solemn council; nothing could
turn aside the storm or retard the hour of vengeance. Innocent at first
replied with moderation to the deputies of England, and even to those
of Frederick; but soon assuming the tone of a judge and a master, “I
am,” said he, “the vicar of Jesus Christ; all that which I shall bind
on earth shall be bound in heaven, according to the promises of the
Son of God made to the prince of the apostles; and therefore, after
having deliberated upon it with our brethren the cardinals, and with
the council, I declare Frederick attainted and convicted of sacrilege
and heresy, to be excommunicated and degraded from the empire; I
absolve from their oaths, for ever, all who have sworn fidelity to him;
I forbid any, under pain of excommunication incurred by that single
fault, to henceforth yield him obedience; to conclude, I command the
electors to elect another emperor, and I reserve to myself the right of
disposing of the kingdom of Sicily.”
During the reading of this sentence, the pope and the prelates held
lighted wax tapers in their hands, and bent towards the earth in sign
of malediction and anathema. The envoys of Frederick retired filled
with confusion and despair; Thadæus of Suesse was heard to pronounce
these words of the Scripture: “_O terrible day! O day of anger and
calamity!_” A deep and melancholy silence prevailed throughout this
assembly, into the bosom of which it appeared as if the bolts of heaven
had just fallen amidst awful peals. The pope alone appeared collected,
and his countenance was radiant with joy; he gave out the _Te Deum_,
as if he had obtained a victory over the infidels, and declared that
the council had terminated its labours.
Such was the council of Lyons, too celebrated in the annals of the
middle ages, which has frequently supplied the enemies of religion with
a pretext for attacking the judgments of the Church. The pope in his
opening discourse had deplored the progress of heresy; but always more
eager to combat the enemies of his power than those of religion, he did
not propose a single measure to arrest the progress of the new errors.
In this council, which had no tendency to the enlightenment of the
faithful, the majesty of kings was violently outraged; all the maxims
of the rights of nations, and all the precepts of scriptural charity
were in it trampled under foot. When Innocent announced the intention
of deposing the emperor, not a single bishop raised his voice to divert
the sovereign pontiff from this revolting use of his power. The real
wrongs that Frederick had committed against the Church; the remembrance
of the persecutions he had exercised towards several bishops; the
intention which they believed he entertained of plundering the clergy;
the threatening language and tone of the pope; that invincible
influence under which all feel themselves in a numerous assembly—all
assisted in preventing any of the bishops from pleading the cause of
reason or recalling the maxims of the Gospel to the mind of the enraged
pontiff. Nevertheless the fathers of the council, whatever might be
their prejudices or their resentments, did not take part in all the
fury of Innocent, and did not actively assist in carrying out his acts
of injustice and violence.
The pope did not appeal to their wisdom, and seemed afraid to ask their
opinions. Without repeating here that which has frequently been said in
schools of theology, impartial history must disapprove of the silent
neutrality of the council; but it must at the same time assert that the
odious decree against Frederick was not an act of the Church; that the
bishops and prelates did not give their formal approbation to it; and
that the shame of this great iniquity fails entirely upon the memory of
Innocent.[276]
It was at this deplorable period that the cardinals, by order of the
pope, clothed themselves for the first time in the scarlet robe, a
symbol of persecution, and a sad presage of the blood that was about
to flow. Frederick was at Turin when he heard of his condemnation; at
this news he called for his imperial crown, and placing it upon his
head, exclaimed in a loud and angry voice, “There it is, and before it
shall be wrested from me, my enemies shall well know the terror of my
arms; let this pontiff tremble, who has broken every tie that bound me
to him; he at length permits me henceforth to listen to nothing but
the dictates of my just anger.” These threatening words announced a
formidable contest, and every friend of peace must have been seized
with terror: the fury which animated the emperor and the pope quickly
passed into the minds of the people; in the provinces of Germany and
Italy all flew to arms. Amidst the agitation in which the West was then
plunged, it is probable that Jerusalem and the Holy Land would have
been quite forgotten, if a powerful and highly-revered monarch had not
placed himself at the head of the crusade which had been proclaimed in
the council of Lyons.
The preceding year, at the very moment the nations of the West heard of
the last misfortunes of Palestine, Louis IX. of France fell dangerously
ill. The most earnest prayers were offered up by the people of his
kingdom for the preservation of the virtuous monarch. The malady, the
attacks of which became every day more violent, at length created
serious alarm. Louis sunk into a mortal lethargy, and the intelligence
was soon circulated that he was dead. The court, the capital, the
provinces were struck with the deepest grief; nevertheless, the king of
France, as if Heaven had not been able to resist the prayers and tears
of a whole nation, recovered, even when apparently at the portals of
the tomb. The first use he made of speech, after again beholding the
light, was to ask for the cross and express his determination of going
to the Holy Land.
Those who surrounded him considered his return to life as a miracle
effected by the crown of thorns of Christ, and by the protection
of the apostles of France; they cast themselves on their knees to
return thanks to Heaven, and in the joy they experienced, scarcely
paid attention to the vow Louis had made of quitting his kingdom and
going to fight against the infidels in the East. When the king began
to recover his strength, he repeated his vow, and again asked for
the cross of the Crusaders.[277] The queen Blanche, his mother, the
princes of his family, and Pierre d’Auvergne, bishop of Paris, then
endeavoured to divert him from his purpose, and conjured him, with
tears in their eyes, to wait till he was perfectly restored to health
before he directed his thoughts to so perilous an enterprise; but Louis
thought he was only obeying the will of Heaven. His imagination had
been forcibly affected by the calamities of the Holy Land; Jerusalem
given up to pillage, the tomb of Christ profaned, were constantly
present to his mind. Amidst the height of a burning fever, he had
fancied he heard a voice which came from the East, and addressed these
words to him: “_King of France, thou seest the outrages offered to
the city of Christ; it is thou whom Heaven hath appointed to avenge
them_.” This celestial voice resounded still in his ears, and would
not allow him to listen to the prayers of friendship or the counsels
of human wisdom. Steadfast in his resolution, he received the cross
from the hands of Pierre d’Auvergne, and caused it to be announced to
the Christians of Palestine—sending them at the same time succours of
both men and money—that he would cross the seas as soon as he could
assemble an army, and had reëstablished peace in his dominions.
This information, which conveyed such joy to the Christian colonies,
spread grief and consternation through all the provinces of France. The
sieur de Joinville expresses warmly the regret of the royal family,
particularly the despair of the queen mother,[278] by saying, that
when this princess saw her son wearing the cross, _she was struck as
fearfully as if she had looked upon him dead_. The late disasters of
Jerusalem had drawn tears from most Christians in the West, but without
inspiring them, as in the preceding age, with any earnest desire of
going to fight the infidels. It was impossible to see, in these distant
expeditions, anything but great perils and inevitable reverses; and
the project of recovering the city of God awakened more alarm than
enthusiasm.
The sovereign pontiff, however, sent ecclesiastics into all the
Christian states with a charge to preach the holy war. Cardinal Eudes,
of Chateauroux, arrived in France with the express commission of
publishing and causing to be executed the decrees of the council of
Lyons respecting the crusade. The holy expedition was preached in all
the churches of the kingdom. Contemporary history scarcely mentions the
effect of these preachings, and everything leads us to believe that
those who then took the oath to fight against the Saracens were induced
to do so more by the example of the king than by the eloquence of the
holy orators.
In order to give more solemnity to the publication of the crusade, and
to excite the ardour of the warriors for the deliverance of the holy
places, Louis IX. convoked a parliament in his capital, in which were
assembled the prelates and magnates of the kingdom. The cardinal legate
there repeated the exhortations addressed by the head of the Church
to the faithful. Louis IX. spoke after the cardinal of Chateauroux,
and retraced the picture of the disasters of Palestine. “According
to the expression of David, an impious nation has entered into the
temple of the Lord; blood has flowed like water around Jerusalem;
the servants of God have been massacred in the sanctuary; and their
remains, deprived of sepulture, are abandoned to the birds of heaven.”
After having deplored the miseries of Sion, Louis IX. reminded his
barons and knights of the example of Louis the Young and of Philip
Augustus; he exhorted every generous soldier who heard him to take
arms, to go across the seas, fight against the infidels, and defend the
glory of God and of the French name in the East. Louis, invoking by
turns the charity and the warlike virtues of his auditory, endeavoured
to awaken in all hearts both inspirations of piety and sentiments of
chivalry. There is no necessity for repeating what was the effect
of the exhortations and prayers of a king of France who addressed
himself to the honour, and appealed to the bravery of his subjects. He
had scarcely ceased speaking, when his three brothers, Robert, count
d’Artois, Alphonse, duke of Poictiers, and Charles, duke of Anjou,
took the oath to go and defend the heritage of Christ and the French
colonies in Asia. Queen Marguerite, the countess d’Artois, and the
duchess of Poictiers, likewise took the cross and resolved to accompany
their husbands. Most of the bishops and prelates who were present at
this assembly, influenced by the discourse of the king and the example
of the cardinal-legate, did not hesitate to enrol themselves in a war
for which, it is true, less enthusiasm was shown than had appeared in
a former age, but which was still termed _the war of God_. Among the
great vassals of the crown who swore to quit France for the purpose of
fighting the Saracens in Asia, the friends of the French monarchy must
have numbered, with much joy, Pierre de Dreux, duke of Brittany, Hugh,
count de la Marche, and several other lords whose jealous ambition had
so long disturbed the kingdom. Quickly after them were seen the duke of
Burgundy, Hugh de Chatillon, the count de St. Pol, the counts of Dreux,
Bar, Soissons, Blois, Rhotel, Montfort, and Vendôme; the seigneur de
Beaujeu, constable of France, and John de Beaumont, great admiral, and
great chamberlain; Philip of Courtenay, Guy of Flanders, Archambaud de
Bourbon, young Raoul de Coucy, John of Barres, Gilles de Mailly, Robert
de Bethune, and Oliver de Thermes. There was not an illustrious family
in the kingdom that did not supply one hero for the crusade. In the
crowd of these noble Crusaders, history is gratified in observing the
celebrated Boilève, who was afterwards provost of the traders of Paris,
and the sieur de Joinville, whose name will for ever appear in the
history of France by the side of that of Louis IX.
In the assembly of prelates and barons several measures were adopted
for the maintenance of public peace and the preparations for the holy
war. An immense number of processes at that period disturbed the peace
of families, and those processes, of which many were decided by the
sword, often amounted to actual wars. The tribunals were enjoined to
terminate all affairs brought before them, and in cases in which they
could not oblige the parties to acquiesce in a definite judgment, the
judges were directed to make them swear to a truce of five years.
In agreement with the authority of the pope, and the decrees of the
council of Lyons, it was ordered that ecclesiastics should pay to the
king the tenth of their revenues, which created a dissatisfaction in
the clergy that Louis had great trouble in dispelling. A proscript,
issued by royal authority, in concert with the will of the pope,
decreed that Crusaders should be protected during three years from the
pursuits of their creditors, reckoning from the day of their departure
for the Holy Land; this proscript, which likewise excited much
murmuring, had great effect in determining many barons and knights to
leave the West.
Louis IX. occupied himself constantly in carrying his design into
execution, and neglected no means of winning to his purpose all the
nobility of his kingdom; his piety did not disdain to employ, for what
he considered a sacred cause, all the empire that kings generally
possess over their courtiers; he sometimes even lowered himself to
seduction and trick, persuaded that the sanctity of the crusade would
excuse everything. After an ancient custom, the kings of France, at
great solemnities, gave such of their subjects as were at court certain
capes or furred mantles, with which the latter immediately clothed
themselves before leaving the court. In the ancient _comptes_ (a sort
of audits) these capes were called _livrées_ (whence, no doubt, our
word livery), because the monarch gave them (_les livrait_) himself.
Louis ordered a vast number of these to be prepared against Christmas
Eve, upon which crosses were embroidered in gold and silk. The moment
being come, every one covered himself with the mantle that had been
given to him, and followed the monarch to the chapel. What was their
astonishment when, by the light of the wax tapers, they at once
perceived upon all before them, and then upon themselves, the sign
of an engagement they had never contracted. Such was, however, the
character of the French knights, that they believed themselves obliged
to respond to this appeal to their bravery; all the courtiers, as soon
as divine service was ended, joined in the laugh with _the skilful
fisher of men_,[279] and took the oath to accompany him into Asia.
Notwithstanding all these efforts, the publication of the holy war
created in the nation much more sorrow than warlike ardour, and the
approaching departure of the monarch afflicted all France. Queen
Blanche, and the most prudent of the ministers, who had at first
endeavoured to divert Louis IX. from the crusade, repeated their
attempts several times: resolved to make a last effort, they went to
the king in a body. The bishop of Paris was at their head, and spoke
for all; this virtuous prelate represented to Louis, that a vow made
in the height of a disease ought not to bind him in an irrevocable
manner, particularly if the interests of his kingdom imposed upon him
the obligation of dispensing with it. “Everything demanded the presence
of the monarch in his dominions; the Poitevins were threatening to take
up arms again; the war of the Albigeois was ready to be rekindled;
the animosity of England was always to be dreaded, as it paid little
heed to treaties; the wars occasioned by the pretensions of the pope
and the emperor inflamed all the states adjoining to France, and the
conflagration was not unlikely to extend to that kingdom.” Many of
the nobles to whom Louis had confided the most important functions of
the state, spoke after the bishop of Paris, and represented to the
monarch that all the institutions founded by his wisdom would perish
in his absence; that France would lose by his departure the fruits of
the victories of Saintes and Taillebourg, with all the hopes that the
virtues of a great prince made her entertain. Queen Blanche spoke the
last. “My son,” said she, “if Providence has made use of me to watch
over your infancy and preserve your crown, I have perhaps the right to
remind you of the duties of a monarch, and of the obligations which the
safety of the kingdom over which God has placed you imposes upon you;
but I prefer speaking to you with the tenderness of a mother. You know,
my son, that I can have but few days to live, and your departure leaves
me only the thought of an eternal separation: happy still if I die
before fame may have borne into Europe the intelligence of some great
disasters. Up to this day, you have disdained both my counsels and my
prayers; but if you will not take pity on my sorrows, think at least
of your children, whom you abandon in the cradle; they stand in need
of your lessons and your assistance; what will become of them in your
absence? are they not as dear to you as the Christians of the East? If
you were now in Asia, and were informed that your deserted family was
the sport and prey of factions, you would not fail to hasten to us.
Well! all these evils that my tenderness makes me dread, your departure
is most likely to give birth to. Remain then in Europe, where you will
have so many opportunities of displaying the virtues of a great king,
of a king the father of his subjects, the model and support of the
princes of his house. If Christ requires his heritage to be delivered,
send your treasures and your armies into the East; God will bless a war
undertaken in his name. But this God, who hears me, believe me, never
commands the accomplishment of a vow which is contrary to the great
designs of his providence. No; that God of mercy who would not permit
Abraham to complete his sacrifice, does not permit you to complete
yours, and expose a life upon which so entirely depend both the fate of
your family and the welfare of your kingdom.”
On finishing these words, Queen Blanche could not restrain her tears;
Louis himself was deeply moved, and threw himself into the arms of
his mother; but soon resuming a calm and serene countenance, he said:
“My dear friends, you know that all Christendom is acquainted with my
resolution; during several months the preparations for the crusade have
been carried on under my orders. I have written to all the princes of
Europe that I was about to leave my dominions and to repair to Asia; I
have announced to the Christians of Palestine that I would succour them
in person; I have myself preached the crusade in my kingdoms; a host of
barons and knights have obeyed my voice, followed my example, and sworn
to accompany me into the East. What do you now propose to me? to change
my projects publicly proclaimed, to do nothing that I have promised
to do, or that Europe expects of me, and to deceive at once the hopes
of the Church, of the Christians of Palestine, and of my faithful
nobility.”
“Nevertheless, as you think that I was not in possession of my reason
when I took the cross; well, I give it back to you; there is that cross
which gives you so much alarm, and which I only took, you say, in a
fit of delirium. But now that I am in the full enjoyment of my reason
I ask it of you again, and I solemnly declare that no food shall enter
my mouth until you have returned it to me. Your reproaches and your
complaints affect me with the deepest sorrow; but learn to be better
acquainted with my duties and your own; aid me in seeking for true
glory; second me in the powerful cause in which I am engaged, and do
not alarm yourselves on account of my destiny or that of my family and
people. The God who made me victorious at Taillebourg will watch over
the designs and plots of our enemies; yes, the God who sends me into
Asia to deliver his heritage, will defend that of my children, and pour
his blessings upon France. Have we not still her who was the support
of my childhood and the guide of my youth, her whose wisdom saved the
state in so many perils, and who, in my absence, will want neither
courage nor ability to crush factions? Allow me, then, to keep all the
promises I have made before God and before men; and do not forget that
there are obligations which are sacred for me, and ought to be sacred
for you—I mean the oath of a Christian and the word of a king!”
Thus spoke Louis IX.: Queen Blanche, the bishop of Paris, and the other
counsellors of the king preserved a religious silence, and from that
time only thought of seconding the endeavours the monarch was making to
forward the execution of an undertaking which appeared to emanate from
God.[280]
The crusade was preached at this time in all the countries of Europe;
but as most states were filled with agitation and discord, the voices
of the sacred orators were lost amidst the din of factions and the
tumult of arms. When the bishop of Berytus went into England, to
entreat the English monarch to succour the Christians of the East,
Henry III. was fully employed in repelling the aggressions of the king
of Scotland, and in appeasing the troubles of the country of Wales.
The barons menaced his authority, and did not permit him to engage in
a distant war. This prince not only refused to take the cross, but
forbade the preaching of a crusade in his kingdom.
All Germany was in a blaze in consequence of the quarrel between the
Church and the Empire. After having deposed the emperor at the council
of Lyons, Innocent IV. offered the imperial crown to any one who
would take up arms against the excommunicated prince, and bring about
the triumph of the Holy See. Henry, landgrave of Thuringia, allowed
himself to be seduced by the promises of the sovereign pontiff, and
was crowned emperor by the archbishops of Mayence and Cologne, and a
few other ecclesiastical electors. From that event civil war broke out
in all parts; Germany was filled with missionaries from the pope, with
the power of the evangelical word against Frederick, whom they styled
the most redoubtable of infidels. The treasures collected for the
equipments of the holy war were employed in corrupting fidelity, laying
plots, fomenting treasons, and keeping up troubles and discords; so
that it may well be supposed the cause of Christ and the deliverance of
Jerusalem were entirely forgotten.