the enemies of the cross, were employed in decreeing the truce of
God between all Christians. Then came the question of the hour. The
apostle of the Crusade, Peter the Hermit, spoke first; with that
tearful voice, with that burning emotion which had won him so many
adherents, he depicted the miseries of the Eastern Church. After him
the Pope addressed the assembly, and with such a distinguished and
aristocratic audience, it may easily be understood that his skilful and
learned eloquence had at least as much influence as the simple and
rough speech of the poor hermit who had such sway over the minds of the
masses.
The council rose as one man, and one cry burst simultaneously from
every breast--“_Dieu le veut! Dieu le veut! (Diex li volt)_.”[7]
The pontiff repeated in a stentorian voice these words, _Diex li
volt_, words which for two centuries were destined to be the war-cry
of the Crusaders, and showed to the excited crowd the emblem of the
Redemption. “Let the cross,” he said, “glitter on your arms and on
your standards! Bear it on your shoulders and on your breasts, it
will become for you the emblem of victory or the palm of martyrdom;
it will ever remind you that Jesus Christ died for you, and that
it is your part to die for Him.” At these words, all the princes,
barons, knights, prelates and clergy, artisans and labourers, swore to
dedicate their lives to avenge the outrages inflicted on Christ and
on His followers. The oath was cemented by a declaration of oblivion
of all private animosities and quarrels, and every one of the immense
audience fastened a red cross to his dress. From this the appellation
of _Crusaders_ was derived, a title which was bestowed on the
faithful who then enrolled themselves under Christ’s banner, and also
that of _Crusade_, the name given to the holy war. The council,
before separating, confirmed and allotted the temporal and spiritual
privileges which were to be bestowed upon the Crusaders.
It is impossible to paint in sufficiently vivid colours the universal
and spontaneous movement which took place in Western Christendom, when
the faithful who had taken part in the council of Clermont went forth
everywhere, as formerly did Christ’s apostles, repeating what had
taken place, and proclaiming the decrees which had been promulgated
there. Thenceforward all, in spite of age, sex, or social position,
were carried away by the same enthusiasm. Family ties were broken,
riches were no longer held of any account. The question was not who had
taken up the cross, but who had hesitated to do so. A poet of the time
says, “I hold no man a true knight who refuses to go willingly, with
his whole heart and with all the means in his power, to the assistance
of God, who so greatly needs it.” Women of every rank sewed the cross
to their clothing, children of every age marked it on their innocent
bodies. Monks left the retreat where they had hoped to peacefully end
their existence, hermits came out of their caves and forests, and even
the very robbers of the highway came forward, confessed their crimes,
and swore to expiate them in the ranks of the holy army. The train was
laid, the match was lighted, and for two centuries the Crusades were
waged continually, with a few intervals of rest, caused by the enormous
sacrifice of men and money entailed by this gigantic undertaking,
which, inspired and controlled by an ardent faith, was persisted in, in
spite of every reverse and every disaster.
[Illustration: Fig. 101.--Reception of Gautier-sans-Avoir by the
King of Hungary, who permits him to pass through his territory
with the Crusaders.--From a Miniature in the “Histoire des
Empereurs,” a Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century (Library of the
Arsenal, Paris).]
The spring of the year 1096 witnessed the first departure of the
Crusaders, in two numerous bodies, under the orders of Peter the Hermit
himself, and of a poor but valiant warrior, Gautier-sans-Avoir (Fig.
101). But these undisciplined masses, forced to support themselves
on their road by pillage, were dispersed and nearly destroyed by the
nations through whose countries they had to pass, and who were ruined
by their advent as they might have been by an army of locusts. Only
a few thousand ever reached Constantinople, when the Emperor Alexis
I., who had summoned the Western Christians to his aid against the
Turks, succoured them, and enabled them to await the arrival of the
more regular expeditions, which had started three months later under
Godefroy de Bouillon.
[Illustration: Fig. 102.--Taking of Nicæa by the Crusaders, in
1097; from a Window ordered by the Abbé Suger for the Church of
the Abbey of St. Denis, and now destroyed.--From the “Monuments
de la Monarchic Française,” by Montfaucon (Twelfth Century).]
It was then only that the real Crusade, that is to say, the actual war
against the unbelievers, commenced. In March, 1097, the Christian army
crossed the Bosphorus from Thrace, seized Nicæa (Fig. 102), penetrated
into Syria, and laid siege to the important town of Antioch, which
by an act of treachery was forced to surrender in June, 1098. In the
spring of the following year the soldiers of Christ entered Palestine,
but it was not till the 15th of July, 1099, that the holy city fell
into their hands, and that Godefroy de Bouillon (Figs. 103 and 104),
elected king by the principal leaders of the victorious army, under
the modest title of Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, founded the Christian
kingdom of Jerusalem.
[Illustration: Fig. 103.--Godefroy de Bouillon, crowned with the
Instruments of our Lord’s Passion.--From a Woodcut of the end of
the Fifteenth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.]
[Illustration: Fig. 104.--Tomb of Godefroy de Bouillon, as it
existed in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, with
the inscription:--“Hic jacet inclitus Godfridus de Bulion, qui
totam istam terram acquisivit cultui Christiano, cujus anima cum
Christo requiescat. Amen.” (“Here lies the illustrious Godefroy
de Bouillon, who won all this Holy Land to the worship of Christ.
May his soul rest with Jesus.”)--Monument of the early part of
the Twelfth Century, now destroyed, from a Drawing taken on the
spot in 1828, now in the possession of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.]
Half a century passed away, during which Christendom sent forth
expedition after expedition to defend the Holy Land and to consolidate
its conquest; but with little success, for the Saracens never desisted
from their attacks on the Crusaders, and persistently disputed with
them the possession of Palestine. Moreover, the ardour of the pilgrims
gradually diminished, the zeal for the Crusades commenced to slacken
in Europe, and indifference and apathy began to take its place. When
the throne of Godefroy de Bouillon began to totter upon its insecure
foundations, the road to Jerusalem became deserted, and the civilised
world, absorbed and distracted by the nearer and keener struggles
continually waging between its popes and its sovereigns, soon,
preserved but a vague remembrance of the glorious enterprises of its
fathers.
Suddenly, however, it was rumoured in the West that the city of
Edessa, the capital of the first Christian principality founded by the
Crusaders in the East, and considered as the bulwark of the kingdom
of Jerusalem, had been retaken by the Saracens, who had deluged
the streets in blood. The painful tidings were received with deep
indignation; but a man of genius was at hand to strike the keynote of
distress and vengeance, and the voice of St. Bernard, the Abbot of
Clairvaux, rekindled the waning torch of crusading enthusiasm.
It was at Vézelai (Fig. 105), where Louis VII. held his court, that
the illustrious abbot, “fortified with the apostolical authority and
his own sanctity,” first addressed the nobles and the populace (1146).
“As there was no room in the castle,” says an eye-witness, Eudes de
Deuil, in his Latin chronicles, “a pulpit had been constructed in the
open air upon the plains which lay at the foot of the hill of Vézelai,
into which Bernard ascended, accompanied by the king, wearing the cross
sent him by the pope.” When the heaven-born orator had aroused his
hearers with the divine fire of his eloquence, there arose a universal
shout of “Crosses! crosses!” The crosses which the abbot had prepared
beforehand were soon exhausted, and, tearing his clothes into strips,
he distributed them amongst the assembly, who fastened them crosswise
on their garments. He continued his exhortations during the whole of
his stay at Vézelai, giving proof of the sanctity of his mission by the
numerous miracles which he performed.
The pious and touching appeals of St. Bernard attained the success
he desired. King Louis, his wife Eleanor, his principal nobility and
clergy, many thousand knights, and a vast number of the lower classes,
enrolled themselves under the banner of the cross. “As soon as it was
agreed that they should set out at the expiration of a year,” says
another chronicler, “all joyfully returned home. But the Abbot of
Clairvaux went about preaching from place to place, and it soon became
impossible to reckon the number of the Crusaders.” From France, Bernard
crossed over to Germany, where the influence of his inspired words
fully revealed itself, for whole populations, unable even to understand
the language he addressed them in, carried away by the marvellous charm
of his manner, smote their breasts, and cried out, “God be merciful to
us! The saints be with us!”
[Illustration: Fig. 105.--Façade of the Abbey Church of the
Magdalen, as it now stands at Vézelai, where, in 1146, St.
Bernard preached the Second Crusade (Twelfth Century).]
The Emperor Conrad, whom the Abbot endeavoured to persuade to join
the King of France in the new crusade, at first gave the enterprise
considerable opposition; but at last, at a meeting held at Spires, the
28th of December, 1146, Bernard’s extraordinary eloquence produced
such an effect upon him that he vowed on the spot to assume the
cross. His example was immediately followed by several German princes,
amongst whom was his own nephew, the youthful Frederick of Suabia, who
afterwards became so celebrated under the name of Frederick Barbarossa.
A few months later, the French and German armies, each of which
contained more than a hundred thousand fighting men, without reckoning
the swarm of pilgrims who accompanied them, set out, well armed,
well equipped, and full of confidence, for the East. The two armies
contained the _élite_ of the chivalry of both countries. “Europe,”
said St. Bernard in one of his letters, “contained nothing but desert
towns and castles, nothing but widows and orphans, whose husbands and
fathers were still alive.”
But, alas! this enthusiasm, this zeal, this heroism, displayed by
all classes of European society, were destined to end in miserable
disaster. The insubordination of the troops, the want of foresight and
co-operation of their leaders, and the treachery of the Greek emperor
Manuel, prepared a fatal ending for this ill-omened undertaking, which
saw its host melt away long before their arrival in the Holy Land.
After more than a year of tremendous efforts and sanguinary reverses,
its remnants struggled painfully back to the West, leaving the kingdom
of Jerusalem in a far more precarious position than before the arrival
of the combined forces. “And on all sides,” relates a chronicler, “were
heard complaints and reproaches against the Abbot of Clairvaux, whose
promises of victory had been so little realised, who, it was said, had
sent so many brave men to a useless death, and who had plunged so many
noble families into mourning. The holy man was mortified to the very
depths of his soul, but rather than doubt the beneficent wisdom of the
Almighty, he exclaimed, ‘If they must murmur, it is better that they
should murmur against me than against God. I am rejoiced that the Lord
has condescended to use me as a shield. I am willing to be humiliated,
provided always that His glory be unassailed.’”
Forty years later, after the terrible battle of Tiberias (1187), where
so much generous blood was spilt around Guy de Lusignan, the last King
of Jerusalem, the Sultan Saladin, one of the most remarkable characters
in Mussulman history, seized the holy city, which henceforth was only
destined once, and then but for a short time, to fall again into the
hands of the Christians.
In 1181 the Third Crusade was undertaken, and Philip Augustus, the
King of France, and Richard, the King of England, whose great deeds in
this holy war obtained for him the surname of Cœur de Lion, forgetting
their own personal quarrels, put themselves at its head. Subsequently,
Frederick Barbarossa, the Emperor of Germany, who had previously taken
part in the Second Crusade, joined the undertaking, in which he was
destined to meet his death.
After having shed more blood and displayed more bravery than would have
sufficed to conquer the whole of Asia, after the long and memorable
siege of the city of Ptolemais, after many signal successes, the
Christian armies, discouraged and diminished by more than one half,
returned to Europe, bringing with them “moult de gloire,”[8] says a
chronicler, but without having in reality obtained any material or
lasting advantage over the unbelievers, who it was true had lost St.
Jean d’Acre, but who still retained possession of Jerusalem.
The Fourth Crusade (1198–1204), which some historians call the fifth,
was authorised by Pope Innocent III., and preached in France by the
celebrated Foulques de Neuilly. This crusade was remarkable in one
respect. Its efforts at first were directed against the persecutors of
Christianity, but events, as they developed themselves, modified its
aim, and the question of the holy places having become abandoned, it
ended, after the taking of Constantinople (Fig. 106), in the overthrow
of the dynasty of the successors of Constantine, and its being replaced
by a French dynasty, the founders of the Latin Empire of Byzantium.
Following the example of Baudouin, Count of Flanders, the principal
nobles of the crusading army divided among themselves the spoils of the
Greek Empire, and ceased to think of the holy war.
In 1217, Andrew, King of Hungary, in company with several nobles of
Germany and France, assumed the cross. This expedition sailed for
Egypt, and laid siege to Damietta, which only capitulated after losing
eighty thousand of its inhabitants. From thence it moved on to Cairo,
but, being decimated by the plague, it was forced to retreat and return
to Europe. This was really the fifth crusade.
[Illustration: Fig. 106.--Second taking of Constantinople, in
1204.--From a Fresco by Tintoretto, in the Palace of the Doges,
Venice (Sixteenth Century).]
In 1228, Frederick II., King of Naples and Sicily, having been elected
Emperor of Germany, conceived the idea, more from political than
religious motives, of reconquering, in the name of Christendom, the
Holy City. He embarked, accompanied only by a few hundred soldiers,
and, landing in Egypt, had an interview with the Sultan, who was
persuaded, under some unknown influence, to sign a treaty, by virtue
of which Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Jerusalem were to be restored to the
Christians, under the express condition that the Mussulmans should
be allowed to retain the Temple and to erect a mosque in the city of
Jesus Christ. This was at best a sacrilegious compact. It was neither
approved nor kept by the Christians or by the Saracens, and was soon
considered by Frederick himself a worthless compromise, although he had
entered Jerusalem in person, and had there crowned himself with his own
hands. This singular expedition was termed the Sixth Crusade.
But the hour was now fast approaching when the vigorous and sincere
faith which had inspired the apostles of the First Crusade was once
more to revive and to shine forth in all its pristine brilliancy; and
it was again in France that the flame of Christian devotion was to be
rekindled at the cry which still found its echo in every heart, the cry
of “_Dieu le veut!_” The French nation, the eldest daughter of
the Church, had then at its head one of those pure and simple-minded
men whom Providence too rarely raises up for the honour and welfare of
mankind. Louis IX., the son of Blanche of Castile, and the grandson of
King Philip Augustus, united in his pure and magnanimous soul all the
gentle virtues of his mother to the generous and chivalrous sentiments
of his grandfather.
Whilst bestowing an assiduous and intelligent care on the government,
and, it may be said, on the regeneration of his kingdom, whilst
devoting the influence of his moral authority to appease the political
discord which was agitating and devastating Europe, the sainted king
could not forget that his Eastern brethren were groaning under slavery
and persecution. The object of his dreams, at some future day when his
kingly task should be nearing its accomplishment, when peace should
reign in his dominions and in those of his neighbours, was to deliver
Jerusalem and to drive the Saracen from the Holy Land. He was forced
to postpone this noble undertaking, but it was only to await a more
propitious opportunity of carrying it out in a thoroughly efficacious
manner.
“Or advint,” says the Sire de Joinville in his Memoirs, “que le roi
cheut en une grande maladie, et tellement fut au bas, qu’une des dames
qui le gardoient, cuidant qu’il fût oultre, lui voulut couvrir le
visage d’un linceul, et de l’autre part du lit y eut une autre dame qui
ne le voulut souffrir. Or Notre-Seigneur ouvra en lui et lui redonna
la parole; et demanda le bon roi qu’on lui apportât la croix; ce qui
fut fait. Et quand la bonne dame, sa mère, sut qu’il eut recouvré la
parole, elle en eut une si grande joie qui plus ne se pouvoit, mais
quand elle le vit croisé, elle fut aussi transie que si elle l’eût vu
mort (1244).”[9]
Notwithstanding, however, the grief of the queen-mother, who, in spite
of her devotion to the holy cause, feared lest the absence of the king
might prove disadvantageous to France, Louis IX., having once taken
the vow, was determined faithfully to perform it. Moreover, he was
encouraged by seeing that his example alone had more influence than the
warmest exhortations of his preachers, for, as soon as it was known
that their revered sovereign had assumed the cross, zeal revived among
all classes, faith regained its sway, and an impatience to set forth on
the crusade manifested itself on all sides.
But the king, sagacious and prudent in spite of his ardour, and
forewarned by the errors of his predecessors, was unwilling to give the
signal until he had taken all proper precautions and made all necessary
arrangements. Three years elapsed, during which Louis IX. continued
his preparations, and collected provisions of every kind, which were
conveyed to Cyprus, the spot chosen for the general rendezvous of the
Crusaders; in the meantime, he busied himself in preparing, in the
interests of his kingdom, for the events that might take place in his
absence. At length, having appointed his mother regent, he embarked
from the port of Aigues-Mortes on the 15th of August, 1248, with his
wife, his brother, and his principal adherents. At Cyprus he was joined
in turn by all the nobles of France, with their men-at-arms and their
vassals. He passed the winter in organizing the expedition, which was
first destined for Egypt; for, of all the Mahometan chiefs who were at
that time contending for the possession of Palestine, the Sultan of
Cairo, who had already made himself master of Syria, was considered the
most powerful, and it was the opinion of the most competent soldiers
that the conquest of the Holy Land must commence on the shores of the
Nile.
Everything seemed to promise a happy result. A considerable fleet, a
numerous and well-disciplined army, an abundant supply of provisions,
arms, and military stores, the supreme command concentrated in one
hand, and, above all, a real feeling of devotion to the sacred cause--a
feeling inspired by the exhortations and the example of the king--such
were the elements from which the Seventh Crusade might have hoped to
attain success.
In the spring, eighteen hundred vessels sailed from Cyprus, where they
had been fitted out, and conveyed the crusading army to Damietta. The
king, armed from head to foot, was one of the first to spring ashore.
Several of his knights and men-at-arms followed him, and, in the midst
of a shower of darts, dispersed the Saracens, with whom the shore was
covered, and drove them back in disorder into the town (Fig. 107). The
attack was so bold and so unforeseen, that the infidels, struck with
terror, no longer believed themselves secure behind the walls which
thirty years before had sustained a siege of eighteen months, and
abandoned Damietta without striking a blow in its defence.
The possession of this stronghold, situated on the sea-coast at the
mouth of the Nile, would have been of but little importance to the
Crusaders, but its conquest had been so rapid and easy that they were
led by the intoxication of success to neglect the first elements of
prudence and discipline. Their entry into the town was the signal for
its pillage, in spite of the orders and entreaties of the king, whose
humane and generous character was repugnant to this act of barbarism.
The Christian host should have profited by the enemy’s discomfiture,
and immediately have penetrated into the interior of the country,
instead of remaining, as it did, stationary for five months, either on
account of the periodic inundations of the river, or in expectation
of the reinforcements which were due from Europe. This long delay,
which fostered idleness, dissipation, and insubordination, was fatal
to the expedition. When the king at last gave the order to advance, he
had under his orders none but effeminate, enervated troops, without
obedience and without discipline; and the Saracens, who had had plenty
of time to forget their panic and overcome their discouragement, found,
in the demoralization of their enemies, a still further ground for
comfort, and a fresh motive for confidence.
[Illustration: Fig. 107.--Disembarkation of the Crusaders at
Damietta.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the “Grand Voyage de
Hiérusalem,” printed in Paris in 1522 by François Regnault, in
the Library of M. Ambr. Firmin-Didot.]
Thenceforward the Christian cause proceeded from bad to worse. After
several engagements in which they were worsted, after several battles,
the effect of which was merely to sacrifice life--particularly after
the battle of Mansourah, in which Robert of Artois, the king’s brother,
was killed, with the flower of the nobility--the Crusaders found
themselves surrounded in their camp, a prey to a pestilential epidemic
produced by want, which daily made considerable ravages in their
ranks. French valour, however, was not to be daunted, and over and
over again the soldiers, though exhausted by fatigue and disease and
dying of hunger, put forth fresh efforts, and defeated the Saracens; at
a cost to themselves, however, that each victory made them less able
to endure. At last they were forced to retreat on Damietta, where the
Queen with some reserve troops was awaiting them, and where they hoped
to reorganize themselves.
After they had been three or four days on the march, during which this
weary host of sick and wounded had been ceaselessly harassed by the
enemy, the king--who was seriously ill himself, but who always rode
and fought in the rear to protect the remnant of his _ost_, whose
safety, he said, he valued far more than his own life--was forced to
halt in a village, which the Saracens surrounded and attacked on all
sides, while the bravest and most devoted of Louis’s knights allowed
themselves to be cut to pieces to prevent their _good sire_ from
falling into the hands of the infidels.