THE LOSS OF JERUSALEM.
[Sidenote: Misuse of victory by the crusaders.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1151. Death of Joceline of Courtenay.]
The second crusade not only failed in its purpose: it did nothing towards
the maintenance of the waning ascendency of the Latins. Even victories
brought with them no solid result, and in not a few instances victory was
misused with a folly closely allied to madness. The success of Joceline
of Courtenay in a battle with Noureddin, son of Zenghis and sultan of
Aleppo, might have recovered for him his lost city of Edessa: he chose
rather to indulge in the dangerous luxury of insult, and the renewed
efforts of the enemy were rewarded by the capture of Joceline, his
imprisonment and death. His widow, by the advice of Baldwin III., king
of Jerusalem, surrendered to the Greek emperor for a stipulated sum such
places as still remained in her possession; and the dangers gathering
round the Latin kingdom were seen in an inroad of Turcomans who reached
the Mount of Olives.
[Sidenote: Siege and fall of Ascalon.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1153. July.]
This inroad was, it is true, severely punished. The king was absent with
his army: but the knights of the military orders who were in Jerusalem
led out such of the people as could be got under arms and set fire to the
camp of the enemy. These on their retreat were intercepted by Baldwin,
and in the conflict 5,000 of their number, it is said, were slain. The
tide seemed to have turned again in favour of the Christians, when, after
an obstinate siege which at one moment was all but abandoned, the city of
Ascalon fell into their hands.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1162. Almeric, king of Jerusalem.]
But the change was one of appearance only. The interminable series
of wars, or rather of forays and reprisals, went on; and amidst such
contests the life of Baldwin closed in early manhood. He was thirty-three
years of age: but in that short time he had won such love as his subjects
had to bestow, together with the admiration of his enemies. He died
childless, and although some opposition was made to the choice, his
brother Almeric was elected to fill his place.
[Sidenote: Relations of Almeric with the sultans of Egypt and Aleppo.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 741-771.]
Almost at the beginning of his reign the affairs of the Latin kingdom
became complicated with those of Egypt; and the Christians are seen
fighting by the side of one Mahomedan race, tribe, or faction against
another. The divisions of Islam may have turned less on points of
theology, but they were scarcely less bitter than those of Christendom;
and Noureddin, the sultan of Aleppo, eagerly embraced the opportunity
which gave him a hold on the Fatimite caliph of Egypt, when Shawer the
grand vizier of that caliph came into his presence as a fugitive. A
soldier named Dargham had risen up and deposed him, and the deposition of
the vizier was the deposition of the real ruler, for the Fatimite caliphs
themselves were now merely the puppets which the Merovingian kings had
been in the days of Charles Martel and Pepin.
[Sidenote: Mission of Shiracouh and Saladin into Egypt.]
[Sidenote: Siege and surrender of Shiracouh in Pelusium.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1163. Defeat of the Latins by Noureddin, sultan of
Aleppo.]
Among the generals of Noureddin were Shiracouh and his nephew Saladin
(Salah-ud-deen) of the shepherd tribe of the Koords. These Noureddin
despatched into Egypt to effect the restoration of Shawer. His enemy
Dargham had sought by lavish offers to buy the aid of the Latins: but the
terms were still unsettled when he was worsted in a battle by Shiracouh
and slain. Shawer again sat in his old seat; but with success came the
fear that his supporters might prove not less dangerous than his enemies.
He refused to fulfil his compact with Noureddin and ordered his generals
to quit the country. Shiracouh replied by the capture of Pelusium, and
Shawer, more successful than Dargham in obtaining aid from Jerusalem,
besieged Shiracouh in his newly conquered city with the help of the army
of Almeric. The Latin king after a fruitless blockade of some months
found himself called away to meet dangers nearer home; and the besieged
general, not knowing the cause, accepted an offer of capitulation binding
him to leave Egypt after the surrender of his prisoners. But the Latin
armies were transferred from Egypt only to undergo a desperate defeat at
the hands of Noureddin in the territory of Antioch, and thus to leave
Antioch itself at the mercy of the enemy.
[Sidenote: Alliance of Almeric with the Egyptian sultan.]
[Sidenote: Operations of Almeric against Shiracouh.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1167.]
Noureddin may have hesitated to attack Antioch from the fear that such
an enterprise might bring upon him the arms of the Greek emperor. He was
more anxious to extinguish the Fatimite power in Egypt,—in other words,
to become lord of countries hemming in the Latin kingdom to the south
as well as to the north; and it was precisely this danger which king
Almeric knew that he had most reason to fear. To put the best colour on
his design, Noureddin obtained from Mostadhi, the caliph of Bagdad, the
sanction which converted his enterprise into a war as holy as that which
the Norman conqueror waged against Harold of England. The story of the
war attests the valour of both sides, under the alternations of disaster
and success. The Latin king had already entered Cairo, when a large
part of the force of Shiracouh was overwhelmed by a terrific sandstorm.
But the retreat of Shiracouh across the Nile failed to reassure the
Egyptians. Almeric received 200,000 gold pieces for the continuance of
his help, with the promise that 200,000 more should be paid to him on the
complete destruction of their enemies; and the treaty was ratified in the
presence of the powerless sovereign whose consent was never asked for the
alliances or treaties of the minister who was his master. The remaining
events of the campaign were a battle in which a part of the army of
Almeric was defeated by Shiracouh and his nephew Saladin; the surrender
of Alexandria on the summons of Shiracouh; and the blockade of that city
by Almeric, who at length obtained from the Turk the pledge that after an
exchange of prisoners he would lead his forces away from Egypt, on the
condition that the road to Syria should be left open to him.
[Sidenote: Real designs of Almeric.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1168.]
[Sidenote: Expedition of Almeric to Pelusium.]
[Sidenote: His ignominious retreat.]
The banners of Almeric and the Fatimite caliph waved together on the
walls of Alexandria; but on either side the peace or truce was a mere
makeshift for the purpose of gaining time. Neither the Latin king nor the
sultan of Aleppo had given up the thought of the conquest of Egypt; and
Almeric found a ready cause of quarrel in the plea that since his own
return to Palestine the Egyptians had entered into communication with
their enemy and his. The king of Jerusalem had lately married the niece
of the Greek emperor, and the latter promised to aid the expedition with
his fleet. The help of the Knights Hospitallers was easily obtained,
while (some said, on this account) that of the Knights Templars was
refused. At length with a large and powerful army Almeric left Jerusalem,
pretending that his destination was the Syrian town of Hems: but after
a while his march was suddenly turned. In ten days he reached Pelusium;
and the storm and capture of that city were followed by a wanton carnage
which served to increase, if anything could increase, the reputation of
the Christians for merciless cruelty. The prayers of the vizir Shawer
for help were now directed as earnestly to the Turkish sultan as they
had once been to the Latin king of Jerusalem; but his envoys were also
sent to Almeric offering him a million pieces of gold, of which a tenth
part was produced on the spot. Almeric took the bribe; and when his army
looked for nothing less than the immediate sack of Cairo, they were
told that they must remain idle while the rest of the money was being
collected. The vizir took care that the gathering should not be ended
before the soldiers of Noureddin had reached the frontier; and Almeric
found too late that he was caught in the trap which his own greed had
laid for him. He could himself do nothing but retreat, and his retreat
was as disastrous as it was ignominious. The Greek fleet had shown itself
off the mouths of the Nile, and had sailed away again. The Greek emperor
could not be punished; but a scapegoat for the failure of the enterprise
was found in the grand-master of the Hospitallers, who was deprived of
his dignity by his knights.
[Sidenote: Rise of Saladin to power in Egypt.]
The triumph of Shiracouh brought with it the fall of the vizir Shawer,
who was seized and put to death, while the man whose aid he had invoked,
was chosen to fill his place. But Shiracouh himself lived only two
months; and then, by way of choosing one whose love of pleasure and
lack of influence seemed to promise a career of useful insignificance,
the Fatimite caliph made the young Saladin his minister. The caliph was
mistaken. Saladin brought back his Koords, and so used the treasures
which his office placed at his command, that the new yoke became stronger
than the old one.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1169. Attempts to stir up a crusade.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1171.]
[Sidenote: Suppression of the Fatimite caliphat by Saladin.]
To the Latins the exaltation of Saladin signified the formation of a
really formidable power on their southern frontier. Their alarm prompted
embassies to the court of the Eastern emperor and the princes of Western
Christendom. But the time was not yet come for a third crusade; and
only from Manuel was any help obtained. His fleet aided the Latins in a
fruitless siege of Damietta; and a terrible earthquake which laid Aleppo
in ruins and shattered the walls of Antioch saved them from attack by the
army of Noureddin which was approaching from the north. Still, in spite
of conspiracies or revolutions of the old nobility, the power of Saladin
was growing, and at length he dealt with the mock sovereignty of the
Fatimites as Pepin dealt with that of the Merovingians. The last Fatimite
sultan, then prostrate in his last illness, never knew that the public
prayer had been offered in the name of the caliph of Bagdad; but Saladin
had the glory of ending a schism which had lasted two hundred years, and
from Mostadhi, the vicar of the Prophet, he received the gift of a linen
robe and two swords.
[Sidenote: Quarrel between Saladin and the sultan of Aleppo.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1178. Death of Noureddin, sultan of Aleppo.]
But the healing of one schism led only to the opening of another. Saladin
was the servant of the sultan of Aleppo, and he had been recognized
and confirmed in office by Mostadhi strictly on the score of this
lieutenancy. But the new vizir of Egypt had no mind to obey any longer
the summons of his old master; and to his threat of chastisement Saladin
in his council of emirs retorted by a threat of war. His vehemence was
cooled when his own father declared before the assembly that, were he so
commissioned by Noureddin, he would strike his son’s head off from his
shoulders. In private, he let Saladin know that his mistake lay not in
thinking of resistance, but in speaking of it; and a letter sent by his
advice sufficed for the present to smooth matters over. But the time of
quietness could not last long. The designs of Saladin became continually
more manifest, and Noureddin was on his way to Egypt when he was struck
down by illness and died at Damascus.
[Sidenote: Character of Noureddin.]
In the sultan of Aleppo, as in the general who had risen to greatness
through his favour, we have a man to whom the chronicles of the time
and of later ages delighted to ascribe the magnanimity and simplicity
of Omar. It must at the least be admitted that the ideal of Moslem
courtesy and chivalry is more refined and generous than that of Western
Christendom, and that the truth of the picture drawn of Noureddin
receives some support from the enthusiastic eulogies of William,
archbishop of Tyre. ‘I fear God,’ he replied to his queen who complained
that she had not enough even for her wants; ‘I am but the treasurer
of the people. But I have three shops in Hems; these you may take,
and this is all that I have to give.’ He made it his business to
provide everywhere mosques, hospitals, schools, and resting-places for
travellers; and justice, it is said, was as impartially administered in
his time as in the days of the English Alfred.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1173. Baldwin IV., king of Jerusalem.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1183.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1186. Baldwin V. king of Jerusalem.]
[Sidenote: A. D. 1186. Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem.]
The widow of Noureddin held the fortress of Paneas; and her husband’s
death encouraged Almeric to undertake the siege. A bribe to abandon it
was at first refused. A fortnight later it was accepted: but Almeric
returned to Jerusalem only to die. His life had lasted only five years
longer than that of his predecessor Baldwin; but it had been long enough
to win for him a reputation for consummate avarice and meanness. His son
and successor, Baldwin IV., was a leper; and his disease made such rapid
strides as to make it necessary to delegate his authority to another. His
first choice fell on Guy of Lusignan, the husband of his sister Sibylla;
but either the weakness of Guy or the quarrels of the barons brought
everything into confusion, and Baldwin, foiled in his wish to annul his
marriage, devised his crown to Baldwin, the infant son of Sibylla by her
first marriage, Raymond II., count of Tripoli, being nominated regent and
Joceline of Courtenay the guardian of the child. But within three years
the leper king died, followed soon after by the infant Baldwin V.; and
in the renewed strife consequent on these events Guy of Lusignan managed
to establish himself by right of his wife king of Jerusalem. He was
still quite a young man, but he had earned for himself an evil name. The
murderer of Patric, earl of Salisbury, he had been banished by Henry II.,
from his dominions in France: and the opinion of those who knew him found
expression in the words of his brother Geoffrey, ‘Had they known me, the
men who made my brother king would have made me a god.’
[Sidenote: Preparations of Saladin for the reconquest of Jerusalem.]
Guy was king: but Raymond of Tripoli refused him his allegiance. Guy
besieged him in Tiberias, and Raymond made a treaty with Saladin. But
Saladin was now minded to seize a higher prey. He was master of Syria
and Egypt: he was resolved that the Crescent should once more displace
the Cross on the mosque of Omar. Pretexts for the war were almost
superfluous; but he had an abundance of them in the ravages committed by
barons of the Latin kingdom on the lands and the property of Moslems.
Fifty thousand horsemen and a vast army on foot gathered under his
standard, when he declared his intention of attacking Jerusalem: but
their first assault was on the castle of Tiberias. On hearing these
ominous tidings Raymond of Tripoli at once laid aside all thought of
private quarrels. Hastening to Jerusalem he said that the safety of his
own city was a very secondary matter, and earnestly besought Guy to
confine himself to a strictly defensive war, which would soon reduce the
invader to the extremity of distress. The advice was wise and good; but
the grand-master of the Templars fastened on the very nobleness of his
self-sacrifice and the disinterestedness of his counsel as proof of some
sinister design which they were intended to hide.
[Sidenote: A. D. 1187. July. Battle of Tiberias.]
[Sidenote: Capture of Guy of Lusignan.]
[Sidenote: Loss of the true cross.]
Had it been Baldwin III. to whom he was speaking, the insinuation would
have been thrust aside with scorn and disgust. To the mean mind of Guy
it carried with it its own evidence; and it was resolved to meet the
Saracen on ground of his own choosing. The troops of Saladin were already
distressed by heat and thirst when they encountered the Latin army from
Jerusalem. The issue of the first day’s fighting was undecided; but
the heat of a Syrian summer night was for the Christians rendered more
terrible by the stifling smoke of woods set on fire by the orders of
Saladin. Parched with thirst, and well knowing that on the event of that
day depended the preservation of the Holy Sepulchre, the crusaders at
sunrise rushed with their fierce war-cries on the enemy. Before them the
golden glory of morning lit up the radiant shores of the tranquil sea
where the Galilæan fisherman had heard from the lips of Jesus of Nazareth
the word of life. But nearer still was a memorial yet more holy, a pledge
of divine favour yet more assuring. On a hillock hard by was raised the
relic of the true cross, and this hillock was many times a rallying
point during this bloody day. There was little of generalship perhaps on
either side; and where men are left to mere hard fighting, numbers must
determine the issue. The hosts of Saladin far outnumbered those of the
Latin chiefs; and for these retreat ended in massacre. The king and the
grand-master of the Templars were taken prisoners; the holy relic which
had spurred them on to desperate exertion fell into the hands of the
infidels.
[Sidenote: Fruits of the victory of Saladin.]
The victory of Saladin was rich in its fruits. Tiberias was taken.
Berytos, Acre, Cæsarea, Jaffa opened their gates; Tyre alone was saved
by the heroism of Conrad of Montferrat, brother of the first husband of
queen Sibylla. Not caring to undertake a regular siege, Saladin marched
to Ascalon, and offered its defenders an honourable peace, which after
some hesitation was accepted.
[Sidenote: Siege and fall of Jerusalem.]
The rejection of Raymond’s advice had left Jerusalem practically at the
mercy of Saladin. It was crowded with people: but the garrison was
scanty, and the armies which should have defended it were gone. Their
presence would not, probably, have availed to give a different issue to
the siege; but it must have added fearfully to its horrors. Saladin had
made up his mind that the Latin kingdom must fall, and he would have
fought on until either he or his enemies could fight no longer. Numbers,
wealth, resources, military skill, instruments of war, all combined to
give him advantages before which mere bravery must sooner or later go
down; and protracted resistance meant nothing more than the infliction
of useless misery. Saladin may have been neither a saint nor a hero; but
it cannot be denied that his temper was less fierce and his language
more generous than that of the Christians who under Godfrey had deluged
the city with blood. He had no wish, he said, so to defile a place
hallowed by its associations for Moslems as well as Christians, and if
the city were surrendered, he pledged himself not merely to furnish the
inhabitants with the money which they might need, but even to provide
them with new homes in Syria. But superstition and obstinacy are to all
intents and purposes words of the same meaning. The offer, honourable
to him who made and carrying no ignominy to those who might accept it,
was rejected, and Saladin made a vow that entering the city as an armed
conqueror he would offer up within it a sacrifice as awful as that
by which the crusaders had celebrated their loathsome triumph. Most
happily for others, most nobly for himself, he failed to keep this vow
to the letter. Fourteen days sufficed to bring the siege to an end. The
Christians had done what they could to destroy the military engines of
their enemies; the golden ornaments of the churches had been melted down
and turned into money; but no solid advantage was gained by all their
efforts. The conviction of the Christian that death brought salvation to
the champions of the cross, the assurance of the Moslem that to those
who fell fighting for the creed of Islam the gates of paradise were at
once opened, only added to the desperation of the combatants and to the
fearfulness of the carnage. At length the besieged discovered that the
walls near the gate of St. Stephen had been undermined, and at once
they abandoned all hope of safety except from miraculous intervention.
Clergy and laity crowded into the churches, their fears quickened by the
knowledge that the Greeks within the city were treating with the enemy.
The remembrance of Saladin’s offer now came back with more persuasive
power; but to the envoys whom they sent the stern answer was returned
that he was under a vow to deal with the Christians as Godfrey and his
fellows had dealt with the Saracens. Yet, conscious or unconscious of
the inconsistency of his words with the oath which he professed to have
sworn, he promised them his mercy if they would at once surrender the
city. The besieged resolved to trust the word of the conqueror, as they
could not resist his power. The agreement was made that the nobles and
fighting men should be taken to Tyre which still held out under Conrad;
that the Latin inhabitants should be redeemed at the rate of ten crowns
of gold for each man, five for each woman, one for each child; and that,
failing this ransom, they should remain slaves. On the sick and the
helpless he waged no war; and although the Knights of the Hospital were
among the most determined of his enemies, he would allow their brethren
to remain for a year in their attendance on the sufferers who could not
be moved away.
[Sidenote: Terms of the capitulation.]
In the exasperation of a religious warfare now extended over nearly a
century these terms were very merciful. It may be said that this mercy
was the right of a people who submitted to the invader, and that in the
days of Godfrey and Peter the Hermit the defenders had resisted to the
last. It is enough to answer that the capitulation of the Latins was a
superfluous ceremony and that Saladin knew it to be so, while, if the
same submission had been offered to the first crusaders, it would have
been sternly and fiercely refused.
[Sidenote: Departure of the Latins from the Holy City.]
Four days were allowed to the people to prepare for their departure. On
the fifth they passed through the camp of the enemy, the women carrying
or leading their children, the men bearing such of their household
goods as they were able to move. On the approach of the queen and her
ladies in the garb and with the gestures of suppliants Saladin himself
came forward, and with genuine courtesy addressed to them words of
encouragement and consolation. Cheered by his generous language, they
told him that for their lands, their houses, and their goods they cared
nothing. Their prayer was that he would restore to them their fathers,
their husbands, and their brothers. Saladin granted their request, added
his alms for those who had been left orphans or destitute by the war, and
remitted a portion of the ransom appointed for the poor. In this way the
number of those who remained unredeemed was reduced to eleven or twelve
thousand; and Saracenic slavery, although degrading, was seldom as cruel
as the slavery which has but as yesterday been extinguished by the most
fearful of recent wars.
[Sidenote: Entry of Saladin into Jerusalem.]
The entry of Saladin into Jerusalem was accompanied by the usual signs of
triumph. Amidst the waving of banners and the clash of martial music he
advanced to the mosque of Omar on the summit of which the Christian cross
still flashed in the clear air. A wail of agony burst from the Christians
who were present as this emblem was hurled down to the earth and dragged
through the mire. For two days it underwent this indignity, while the
mosque was purified from its defilements by streams of rosewater, and
dedicated afresh to the worship of the One God adored by Islam. The
crosses, the relics, the sacred vessels of the Christian sanctuaries,
which had been carefully stowed away in four chests, had fallen into the
hands of the conquerors, and it was the wish of Saladin to send them to
the caliph of the Prophet as the proudest trophies of his victory. Even
this wish he generously consented to forego. The chests were left in the
keeping of the patriarch, and the price put upon them, 52,000 golden
byzants, was paid by Richard of England.
[Sidenote: Escape of Tyre under Conrad.]
[Sidenote: Further conquests of Saladin.]
Conrad still held out in Tyre, nor was he induced to surrender even when
Saladin himself assailed its walls. The siege was raised: and the next
personage to appear before its gates was Guy of Lusignan, who, having
regained his freedom, insisted on being admitted as lord of the city. The
grand-master of the Templars seconded his demand. The reply was short and
decisive. The people would own no other master than the gallant knight
who had so nobly defended them. But the escape of Tyre had no effect
on the general issue of the war. Town after town submitted to Saladin;
and the long series of his triumphs closed when he entered the gates of
Antioch.
[Sidenote: Causes of weakness in the kingdom of Jerusalem.]
[Sidenote: (1) Bad faith in dealing with the Moslem.]
[Sidenote: (2) Disregard of rights of property.]
[Sidenote: (3) Lax military discipline.]
[Sidenote: (4) Lack of statesmanship.]
[Sidenote: (5) General immorality.]
[Sidenote: (6) Desultory character of the crusades.]
[Sidenote: (7) Quarrels and feuds of the Latin chiefs.]
[Sidenote: (8) Antagonistic jurisdictions of the civil power, the Church,
and the military orders.]
Eighty-eight years had passed away since the crusaders of Godfrey and
Tancred had stood triumphant on the walls of the Holy City; and during
all those years the Latin kingdom had seldom rested from wars and forays,
from feuds and dissensions of every kind. From the first it displayed
no characteristics which could give it any stability; from the first it
exhibited signs which foreboded its certain downfall. (1) It sanctified
treachery, for it rested on the principle that no faith was to be kept
with the unbeliever; and the sowing of wind by the constant breach of
solemn compact made them reap the whirlwind. A right of pasturage round
Paneas had been granted to the Mahomedans by Baldwin III. When the ground
was covered with their sheep, the Christian troops burst in, murdered the
shepherds, and drove away their flocks,—not with the sanction, we may
hope, of the most high-minded of the Latin kings of Jerusalem. (2) It
recognized no title to property except in those who professed the faith
of Christ, and the power to commit injustice with practical impunity
tended still further to demoralize the people. (3) It gave full play to
the passions of men in random wars and petty forays, while it did nothing
to keep up or to promote either military science or the discipline
without which that science becomes useless. (4) It was marked by an
almost total lack of statesmanship. In a country so circumstanced a wise
ruler would strain every nerve to conciliate the conquered people, to
strengthen himself by alliances which should be firmly maintained and by
treaties which should be scrupulously kept, to weaken such states as he
might fail to win over to his friendship by anticipating combinations
which might bring with them fatal dangers for his power. That the history
of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem presents a mournful and even ludicrous
contrast to this picture, it must surely be unnecessary to say. In the
case of Egypt alone did the Latin kings show some sense of the course
which prudence called upon them to take; and even here this course was
followed with miserable indecision, and at last disgracefully abandoned
through mere lust of gold. (5) It had to deal with an immorality not of
its own creating, but which in mere regard to its own safety it should
have striven to keep well in check. No such efforts were made, and the
words of William of Tyre (even if taken with a qualification), when he
speaks of the Latin women, point to a state of things which must involve
grave and imminent peril. (6) It was the misfortune of this kingdom that
it was called into being by troops of adventurers banded together (it
cannot be said, confederated) for a religious rather than a political
purpose; in other words, for personal rather than for public ends. It
started therefore without any principle of cohesion. The warriors who
engaged in the enterprise might abandon it when they thought that they
had fulfilled the conditions of their vow, and although the continuance
of their efforts was indispensably needed for the military and political
success of the undertaking. (7) The private and personal character
of these enterprises led to the perpetuation and multiplication of
private and personal interests, and thus to the endless divisions and
feuds between the barons of the kingdom, which were a constant scandal
and menace and which led frequently to deliberate treachery. (8) It
encouraged, or permitted, or was compelled to tolerate the growth of
societies which arrogated to themselves an independent jurisdiction,
and thus rendered impossible a central authority of sufficient coercive
power. The origin of the military orders may have been in the highest
degree edifying. The Knights Templars might begin as the humble guardians
of the Holy Places: the Knights Hospitallers may have been the poor
brothers of St. John bound to the service of the sick and helpless
among the pilgrims of the cross. But in a land where they might at any
time encounter a merciless or at the least a detested enemy, they were
justified in bearing arms; the necessity of bearing arms involved the
need of discipline; and the discipline of an enthusiastic fraternity
cut off from the world and centred upon itself cannot fail to become
formidable. The natural strength of these orders was increased by
immunities and privileges granted partly by the Latin kings of Jerusalem,
but in greater part by the popes. The Hospitallers, as bestowing their
goods to feed the poor and to entertain pilgrims, were freed from the
obligation of paying tithe, or of giving heed to interdicts even if these
were laid upon the whole country while it was expressly asserted that no
patriarch or prelate should dare to pass any sentence of excommunication
against them. In other words, a society was called into existence
directly antagonistic to the clergy, and an irreconcilable conflict of
claims was the inevitable consequence. Nor can we be surprised to find
the clergy complaining that the knights, not content with the immunities
secured to themselves, gave shelter to persons who, not belonging to
their order but lying under sentence of excommunication, sought to place
themselves under their protection. But if the Knights of the Hospital
had thus their feuds with the clergy, they had feuds still more bitter
with the rival order of the Templars. With different interests and
different aims, the one sought to promote enterprises against which the
other protested, or stickled about points of precedence when common
decency called for harmonious action, or withheld its aid when that aid
was indispensable for the very safety of the state. Thus we have the
triple discord of the king and his barons struggling against the claims
of the clergy, and the military orders in conflict with the barons and
the clergy alike. Of a state so circumstanced the words are emphatically
true that a house divided against itself shall not stand.