KING BALDWIN III. AND THE SECOND GREAT CRUSADE.
A.D. 1144-1162.
“Seigneurs, je m’en voiz outre mer, et je ne scais se je revendré.
Or venez avant: se je vous ai de riens mes fait, je le vous
desferai l’un par l’autre, si comme je ai accoutumé à tous ceulz
qui vinront riens demander ni à moy ni à ma gent.”—_Joinville._
“Hitherto,” says William of Tyre, whom we have been principally
following, “hitherto the events I have described were related to me
by others. All that follows I have either seen with my own eyes or
have heard from those who actually were present. I hope, therefore,
with the assistance of God, to be able to relate the facts that I
have yet to put down with greater accuracy and facility.”
He was a young man when Fulke died, and preserves in his history
that enthusiasm for his successor which one of his own age would
probably entertain, and which Baldwin’s early death, if not his
admirable qualities, prevented from dying out. He writes of him as
one might have written of Charles I., had he died five years after
he came to the throne, or of Louis XIV., had he finished his reign
thirty years earlier.
Baldwin was only thirteen when with his mother, Milicent, as Queen
and Regent, he was crowned king. Like his great ancestors, the young
king grew up taller and stronger than the generality of mankind; his
features were firm and undaunted, and a light beard covered his lips
and chin; he was not “too fat like his brother, nor too thin like
his mother.” In short, Baldwin, when he grew up, was a tall and
handsome man. As for his mental qualities, his biographer exhausts
himself in praises. He was prompt to understand; eloquent and fluent
of speech; affable in manners; full of compassion and tenderness;
endowed with an excellent memory (in which he must have presented a
pleasing contrast to his father); tolerably well educated—“better,
that is, than his brother”—the biographer’s standard of education is
difficult to catch, because he afterwards tells us of Amaury that he
was educated, “but not so well as his brother:” he was fond of
having read to him the lives of great kings and the deeds of valiant
knights; he knew thoroughly the common law of the realm; his powers
of conversation were great and charming; he attached to himself the
affections of everybody high and low. “And,” says the worthy bishop,
“what is more rare in persons of his age, is that he showed all
sorts of respect for ecclesiastical institutions, and especially for
_the Prelates of the Churches_.” Where could a finer king be found?
If he had a fault it was that he was fond of gaming and dice. As the
greater part of his life was spent on horseback, it was only
occasionally that he could indulge in this vice. Another fault he
had as a youth which he entirely renounced in later years. To the
credit of King Baldwin it is recorded that he was, after his
marriage, entirely blameless in respect of women. Now by this time
the morals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem were in an extremely bad way,
and the example of the young king could not fail of producing a
great and most beneficial effect.
Queen Milicent was an ambitious woman, like her sister Alice, and
had no intention at all of being a puppet. She accordingly insisted
on being crowned together with her son. The kings of Jerusalem had
ceased to affect that proud humility which made Godfrey refuse to
wear a crown when his Lord had only worn thorns, and sent Baldwin I.
to Bethlehem to be crowned, as it were, out of sight of the city of
Christ’s sufferings. Now the ceremony was held in the very church of
the Holy Sepulchre, which was the cathedral of the Christian city.
In the king’s hands was placed the sword, with which to defend
justice and Holy Church: on his finger they put the ring of faith;
on his head the crown of honour; in his right hand the sceptre of
authority and the golden apple of sovereignty.
Mother and son were crowned together, and the unhappy state, which
wanted the firm hand of a Godfrey, found itself ruled by a boy and a
woman. The barons began to take sides and form parties. There was no
leader in the councils, none to whom they could look to as the
common head, and if one advanced above the rest they regarded him
with suspicion and envy. Worst of all, they began to fight with each
other. In the north, Raymond of Antioch and young Jocelyn of Edessa
looked upon each other as enemies, and spent most of their time in
trying to devise means of mutual annoyance. Jocelyn, who ought to
have been occupied in organising means for the defence of his
dominions against the formidable Zanghi, when he was not harrying
Raymond, lay inactive at Tellbasher, where he indulged in his
favourite pleasures, hoping to spend the rest of his life in ignoble
ease, looking out upon the world with those goggle eyes of his, the
only feature, and that not a lovely one, recorded of this prince.
But he was to be rudely shaken from his slumber. It was in the early
winter of 1144, the year of Baldwin’s accession, when news came to
him that Zanghi was before the walls of Edessa with an immense army.
Jocelyn, roused too late, sent everywhere for assistance. Raymond
would not help him; his own knights reproached him with his
indolence and apathy, and declared that they would not march to
certain death. Queen Milicent issued orders for the army to move
northwards, which were not obeyed; and Edessa was doomed.
Zanghi, finding success almost certain, redoubled his efforts, and
sent for reinforcements in all directions. He even offered
favourable terms of surrender; but these were refused. Zanghi’s plan
of siege was the ordinary one, quietly to undermine the towers,
propping up the earth as it was removed with timber. When the proper
time arrived, the timber would be set fire to, and of course the
tower would fall. The Latin archbishop, who appears to have been in
command, would hear of no surrender, and exhorted the people daily,
holding forth the promise of the crown of martyrdom. But on the
twenty-second day of the siege the towers which had been undermined
fell with a crash, and the enemy poured in. The first thought of the
people was to fly for shelter to the citadel. Many were crushed or
trampled to death in the attempt, among whom was Archbishop Hugh,
who had been storing up gold, and now tried to carry it into the
citadel. The weight of his treasure helped to bear him down. The
enemy were before them at the gates of the citadel, and the
slaughter of the helpless people commenced, with all the horrors
usual after a siege. Islam was triumphant; Christendom in despair.
But Zanghi died next year, being assassinated by his own slaves, and
a lively joy was diffused throughout Palestine. “A certain
Christian,” says William of Tyre, with admirable modesty, for, of
course, he was himself the accomplished poet, directly he heard of
this event, delivered himself of the following melodious
impromptu:[64]
“Quam bonus eventus! fit sanguine sanguinolentus
Vir homicida, reus, nomine sanguineus.”
Footnote 64:
The chroniclers wrote his name Sanguin.
King Baldwin won his spurs while yet a boy, first by a short and
successful expedition beyond the Jordan, and next by his Quixotic
attempt on the town of Bozrah, in the Hauran. It was an attempt
undertaken in haste and without reflection, and doomed from the
outset to failure. A certain Armenian, governor of the town,
influenced probably by some private motives of revenge, came to
Jerusalem and offered to put the town in the hands of the
Christians, if they wished to have it. There was still lingering, in
spite of the fall of Edessa, some remains of the old spirit of
conquest, and, regardless of the dangers which hovered round the
kingdom, and of the pressing necessity for consolidating all their
strength for purposes of defence, the Christians tumultuously
demanded to be led to the attack, and an army was called together.
Baldwin went with them. The troops assembled in the north and
started full of vainglorious confidence. On the second day they
found themselves surrounded with clouds of enemies, who assailed
them with showers of darts. The country was a desert; as the only
means of getting water the people had formed artificial cisterns, in
which the winter rains were stored. But they were filled with dead
bodies of locusts, and the water was too bad even for men parched
with thirst. The Christians struggled on. They arrived at Edrei.
Here, at least, they would get water. But at Edrei as well the water
was all stored in large cisterns. They let down buckets by ropes:
men hidden below cut the ropes. For four days they pressed on,
however, while the enemy was reinforced hourly, and by day and night
a continuous hail-storm of arrows and projectiles was showered into
the camp, so that neither man nor beast among the Christians escaped
without some wound. On the fourth day, they were cheered by the
sight of the town of Bozrah, and by the discovery of certain small
rills of water, which they fought for, and won at the cost of many
lives. But in the dead of night a messenger of very evil tidings
came into the camp. The wife of the Armenian had refused to be a
partner in her husband’s treachery: the enemy occupied the city in
force, and all hope was to be given over of taking it by storm. Then
the Christians despaired. Some of them advised the king to mount the
fleetest horse—that of John Gomain—in the camp, and make his way
back alone, so that at least _his_ life might have a chance of being
saved. But Baldwin, brave boy that he was, refused. He had not had
the stories of valiant knights read to him for nothing. He would
remain with his army and share their fate. At break of day the camp
was broken up and the retreat commenced. Orders were given to lay
the dead and the wounded, as they fell, on the beasts of burden, so
that the enemy might not know the havoc they were making, and then,
for Nûr-ed-dín was already on the alert, they started on their
disastrous and melancholy retreat. The heat was oppressive; there
was no water; clouds of dust hung over the little army; clouds of
Saracens rode round them firing arrows into their midst. And yet the
Christians moved on in good order. More wonderful still, there was
not a single dead body behind them. Were they, then, protected by
some unknown power? The Saracens hesitated. Thinking that their
arrows had no effect, and ignorant of the ghastly load under which
the camels were groaning, they tried another method. The whole
country was covered with dry bushes and grass. They set fire to it,
and the wind blew the flames and smoke directly upon the Christians.
And then the people turned to Archbishop Robert of Nazareth, who
bore the Holy Cross, “Pray for us, father, pray for us in the name
of the wood of the Cross that you hear in your hands, for we can no
longer bear our sufferings.” It was high time that Robert should
pray: the faces and hands of the army were blackened with smoke and
dust; “they were like blacksmiths working at the forge:” their
throats were dry with heat and thirst.
The archbishop prayed, and at his prayer the wind shifted, and the
flames were blown towards the enemy. The Christians resolved to send
a messenger to the Saracens. They chose a knight who had been
suspected of treachery, but they had no other choice, because he
alone spoke the language of the enemy. They asked him if he would
faithfully perform his mission. “I am suspected,” he said,
“unjustly. I will go where you wish me. If I am guilty of the crime
you impute to me, may I never return—may I perish by the enemy’s
weapons!” He went, but before he had gone far the poor wretch fell
dead, pierced by a hundred arrows.
Then the Christians pressed on. Arrived near Damascus, the Emir of
that city sent a messenger to them. If they would halt, he would
feed and entertain them all. Worn, thirsty, and wearied as they
were, they suspected his loyalty, and hurried on. In after times it
was related that a knight, whom none had seen before, appeared every
morning at the head of the army, guided them during the day by roads
unknown to the enemy, and disappeared at night. Doubtless, St.
George. We have said before that the time for saints’ help ended
with Godfrey. A saint appears again, it is true, but with how great
a change! the last time Saint George fought for the Christians, he
led them on to victory after victory. Now he shows them a way by
which, broken down and utterly beaten, they can escape with their
lives.
There was great rejoicing in Jerusalem when the remnant of the army,
with the young king, came back. Those who had been wont to sing
psalms for the defeat of the enemy, sang them now for the safe
return of the defeated king. “This our son,” they chanted, “was
dead, and is alive again: he was lost, and is found.”
After the death of Zanghi, who had repeopled the city of Edessa, the
ill-advised Jocelyn instigated the people to revolt against their
new masters. All the Turks in the place were put to death, and
Jocelyn, once more reinstated in the city of his father, sent
messengers in all directions, asking for help. No help came, for it
was impossible that any one should send help. Nûr-ed-dín came to the
town with ten thousand men before Jocelyn had held it for a week. He
vowed to exterminate the Christians, and these were too few in
number to make any resistance. They threw open the gates, and all
sallied forth together, with the resolution to fight their way
through the beleaguering army. Jocelyn got through, and, with a few
knights, reached Samosata in safety. The rest of the people were all
massacred.
Some years after this, Jocelyn himself was taken prisoner, and spent
the rest of his life, nine years, in captivity, far enough removed
from any chance of indulging in those vices which had ruined him,
and perilled the realm. It was a fitting end to a career which might
have been glorious, if glory is a thing to desire; which might have
assured the safety of the Christian kingdom, if, which is a thing to
be questioned, the Christian kingdom was worth saving.
And now hostilities on both sides seem to have been for a time
suspended, for the news reached the East how another Crusade had
been preached in the West, and gigantic armies were already moving
eastwards to protect the realm, and reconquer the places which had
been lost. Signs, too, were not wanting which, though they might be
interpreted to signify disaster, could yet be read the other way. A
comet, for instance; this might portend evil for the Saracens—Heaven
grant it was intended to strike terror into their hearts. But what
could be said of the lightning which struck, of all places in the
world, the very church of the Holy Sepulchre itself? Nothing but the
anger of God could be inferred from a manifestation so clear, and
the hearts of all were filled with terror and forebodings.
The details of the second Crusade, as it is called, unhappily
resemble those of the first. It is not necessary that we should do
more than follow the leading incidents which preceded the arrival of
the soldiers—all who were left—in Palestine.
It was exactly fifty years since Peter the Hermit went through
France, telling of the indignities offered to the pilgrims, and the
sufferings of the faithful. But in fifty years a vast change had
come over the West. Knowledge had taken the place of ignorance. No
fear, now, that the rude soldiery would ask as every fresh town rose
before their eyes, if that was Jerusalem. There was not a village
where some old Crusader had not returned to tell of the long march,
the frightful sufferings on the way, the obstinacy of the enemy, the
death of his friends. From sea to sea, in France at least, the East
seemed as well known as the West, for from every province some one
had gone forth to become a great man in Palestine. Fulke from Anjou,
Godfrey from Lorraine, Raymond from Toulouse, another Raymond from
Poitou, Robert from Normandy, another Robert from Flanders, Hugh le
Grand from Paris, Stephen from Blois, and fifty others, whose fame
was spread far and wide in their native places, so that men knew now
what lay before them. They went, if they went at all, to fight, and
defend, not to conquer. The city was Christian; but there was
plunder and glory to be got by fighting beyond the city.
Bernard proclaimed the Crusade. He preached the necessity of going
to the assistance of a kingdom dear to all Christian eyes, tottering
to its fall. He called attention to the corruption of morals, which
he declared to be worse than any state of things ever known before;
he forbore from promising easy conquests and victories where all the
blood would be that of the infidel; on the contrary, he told the
people that the penances inflicted by God Himself for their sins
were the clash of arms, the fatigues and dangers of war, the hard
fighting and physical suffering of a campaign under the sun of
Syria; and, which is very significant, he appears to have invoked a
curse upon all who refused to obey the summons, and follow to the
Holy War.
The first Crusaders set off with light and buoyant hearts; they were
marching, they thought, to certain conquest; the walls would fall
down before them: it was a privilege and a sacred pleasure to have
taken the sign of the Cross. The second army started with gloomy
forebodings of misery and suffering; they were going on a
penitential journey; they were about to encounter perils which they
knew to be terrible, an enemy whom they knew to be countless as the
sands of their own deserts, not because they wanted to fight, but
because Bernard, who could not err, told them that God Himself laid
this penance on their shoulders. Every step that brought Peter’s
rough and rude army nearer to Constantinople was a step of pleasure:
every step that the second army took was an addition to the
weariness and boredom of the whole thing. The most penitential of
all was the young king, Louis VII. of France, upon whose conscience
there lay the terrible crime of having burned the church at Vitry.
For in the church, which he had fired himself, were thirteen hundred
men, women, and children, who were all burned with it. The king
would fain have saved them, but could not, and when he saw their
blackened and half-burned bodies, his soul was sick within him for
remorse and sorrow. It was a calamity—for which, however, the king
was not, perhaps, wholly responsible—worse than that modern burning
of the women of Santiago. In Germany they began to expiate their
sins by murdering the Jews, a cheap and even profitable way of
purifying the troubled conscience, because they plundered as well as
murdered them. Bernard, to his infinite credit, stayed the hand of
persecution, and showed the people that this was not, hateful as a
Jew must always be to a Christian, the way pointed out by Heaven.
The preaching of Bernard was seconded by the exhortations of the
poets, who united in singing the praises of those who take the
Cross, and in denouncing those who refused. “Rise,” says one bard,
“Rise, ye who love with loyal heart;
Awake, nor sleep the hours away:
Now doth the darksome night depart,
And now the lark leads in the day:
Hear how he sings with joyous strain
The morn of peace which God doth give
To those who heed nor scathe nor pain;
Who dare in peril still to live;
Who, night or day, no rest may take,
And bear the Cross for Christ’s own sake.”
The Crusade consisted wholly of Germans and French. The former went
first, headed by Conrad, King of the Romans, who left his son Henry
in charge of his dominions. They got through the Greek emperor’s
dominions with some difficulty, being unruly and little amenable to
discipline, but were at last safely conveyed across the straits to
Asia Minor, where they waited the arrival of King Louis.
In France an enormous army had been collected, by help of the old
cry of “Dieu le veut,” the magic of which had not yet died out;
there must have been men, not very old, who remembered the preaching
of Peter, and the frantic cries with which the Cross was demanded
after one of his fiery harangues. Bernard wrote to the pope, with
monkish exaggeration, that “the villages and the castles are
deserted, and one sees none but widows and orphans whose husbands
and fathers are yet living.” Most of them, alas! were to remain
widows and orphans indeed, for the husbands and fathers were never
destined to return. And, as in the First Crusade, many of those who
joined ruined themselves in procuring the arms and money necessary
for their outfit. The Church, as before, kindly came to their
assistance by buying the lands of them at a nominal value.
The gravest mistake was that made at the very outset when the barons
were permitted to take with them their wives. Queen Eleanor, who
afterwards married our Henry II., went with her husband, accompanied
by a great number of ladies, and the presence of large numbers of
women in the camp caused grave disorder, and subsequently great
peril, both to the French and German armies.
It was in the early winter of 1147 that the Crusaders crossed the
Hellespont. Without waiting for the French, the Germans, divided
into two bodies, had pushed on. They reckoned on the friendship of
the Greeks, but they were grievously disappointed. Extravagant
prices were demanded for the most inferior food; lime was put into
the bread, which killed many; the Turcopoles hovered about and cut
off the supplies; but, in spite of these obstacles, a portion of the
army, under the Bishop of Freisingen, managed to reach Syria. As for
the larger part, under Conrad, they were guided as far as Dorylæum,
where the first Crusaders had so hard a battle. Here the guides ran
away, and the Turks fell upon them. The army consisted of seventy
thousand horse, and a vast multitude of foot soldiers, of women, and
of children. About seven thousand horse escaped with King Conrad.
All the rest were slaughtered. No greater calamity had ever happened
to the Christian arms. Conrad got back to Nicæa, where Louis, who
had just arrived, was encamped. The French resolved to take the way
by the sea-shore. We need not follow through all the perils of their
march. They fought their way to Ephesus; thence, crossing the
Mæander, they came to a place called Satalia, at the western
extremity of Cilicia; and here Louis left them, and went by sea to
Antioch. The plague broke out among the troops: the Greeks refused
them any help, which they got from the very Turks whom they came to
fight, and finally, out of the hundreds of thousands who had left
the West a year before, a few thousands only struggled into Syria.
Of the women who went with them, their wives and mistresses, not one
got to Palestine, save only Queen Eleanor and her suite.
Raymond of Antioch was the cousin of Eleanor. He welcomed Louis and
his queen to his little court, and immediately began to cast about
for some way of making their visit to Palestine serviceable to
himself. It was the way of all these Syrian knights and barons.
Every man looked to himself and to his own interests; no man cared
about the general interest. Jocelyn of Edessa, who was not yet put
into prison, Pons of Tripoli, Raymond of Antioch, all hoped to catch
the great kings of the West on their way to Jerusalem, and to turn
the Crusade into such channels as might advance their own interests.
Suspecting nothing, Louis made a lengthened stay at Antioch, waiting
for the remains of his great army. Raymond, thinking the best means
of getting at the king was through his consort, employed every means
in his power to amuse Eleanor. She, who had no kind of sympathy with
the piety or remorse of her royal husband, preferred the feastings
and amusements of Antioch to anything else, and would gladly have
protracted them. But her own conduct and the levity of her manners
caused grievous scandal, and effectually prevented her from having
any influence over the king, who, when pressed to help Raymond,
coldly replied that, before anything else, he must visit the holy
places. Raymond, who had succeeded in pleasing the queen, if he had
not won her heart, by way of revenge, persuaded Eleanor to announce
her intention of getting divorced from the king on the ground of
consanguinity, while Raymond declared that he would keep her, by
force, if necessary, at his court. Louis took council of his
followers, and by their advice, carried off his queen by night, and
made the best of his way to Tripoli, where he was met by an emissary
of Queen Milicent, who was afraid he would be drawn into some
enterprise by the count, urging him to come straight on to
Jerusalem.
In June, 1148, a great council of the assembled kings and chiefs was
held at Acre. At this meeting were present King Baldwin, Queen
Milicent, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the barons of the kingdom, and
the Grand Masters of the two great orders of the Temple and St.
John, on behalf of the Christian kingdom; while the Crusaders were
represented by Kings Conrad and Louis, Otto Bishop of Freisingen,
brother of Conrad, Frederick (afterwards Barbarossa), his nephew,
the Marquis of Montferrat, Cardinal Guy of Florence, Count Thierry
of Flanders, and many other noble lords. Only it was remarked, by
those who were anxious for the future, that the Counts of Tripoli,
Edessa, and Antioch were not present, while it was ominous that
Eleanor of France did not take her seat with the other ladies who
were present at the council.
There were several courses open to the Crusaders. They might retake
Edessa, and so establish again that formidable outpost as a bulwark
to the kingdom. They might strengthen the hands of Raymond, and so
make up for the loss of Edessa. They might take Ascalon, always a
thorn in the side of the realm; or they might strike out a new line
altogether, and win glory for themselves by an entirely new
conquest, an exploit of danger and honour. Most unfortunately, they
resolved upon the last, and determined on taking the city of
Damascus. Such a feat of arms commended itself naturally to the
rough fighting men. They despised Jocelyn; they resented the
treatment of Raymond; and therefore they could not be got to see
that to strengthen the hands of either of these was to strengthen
the power of the Christians, while to conquer new lands was to
increase their weakness and multiply the hatred and thirst of
revenge of their enemies. And with that want of foresight which
always distinguished the Crusaders, they followed up their
resolution by immediate action, and started on their new enterprise
with the eagerness of children, in spite of a burning July sun. The
King of Jerusalem marched first, because his men knew the roads.
Next came King Louis, with his French, and lastly, the Germans,
under Conrad. On the west side of Damascus lay its famous gardens,
and it was determined first to attack the city from this side. The
paths were narrow, and behind the bushes were men armed with spears,
which they poked through at the invaders as they passed. The brick
walls which hedged in the gardens were perforated, with a similar
object. There was thus a considerable amount of fighting to be done
in dislodging these hidden enemies before the Christians managed to
make themselves masters of the position. It was done at last, all
the leaders having performed the usual prodigies of strength and
valour—Conrad himself cut a gigantic Saracen right through the body,
so that his head, neck, shoulder, and left arm fell off together, a
clean sweep indeed—and the Damascenes gave themselves up for lost.
And then happened a very singular and inexplicable circumstance. The
Christians deliberately abandoned a position which had cost them so
much to win, and resolved to cross over the river to the other side,
where they were persuaded that the attack would be much easier. They
went across. They found themselves without water, without
provisions, and in a far worse position for the siege than before.
The Damascenes received reinforcements, closed up the approaches to
the gardens, and quietly waited the course of events. There was
nothing left but to retreat; and the Christians, breaking up their
camp in the middle of the night, retreated, or rather fled, in
disgrace and confusion. This was the end of the second Crusade.
Why did they leave the gardens? Many answers, all pointing to
treachery, were given to the question. Some said that Thierry of
Flanders wanted the city, and because the chiefs would not promise
it to him, preferred seeing it remain in the hands of the enemy, and
so became a traitor. Others told how the Templars arranged the whole
matter for three great casks full of gold byzants, which, when they
were examined, turned out to be all copper. Raymond of Antioch,
according to a third story, managed the false counsels out of
revenge to the king. And so on. Talk everywhere, treachery
somewhere, that was clear, because treachery was in the Syrian air,
and because knights, and barons, and priests were all alike selfish
and interested, rogues and cheats—all but King Baldwin. “Whoever
were the traitors,” says the historian, “let them learn that sooner
or later they shall be rewarded according to their merits, unless
the Lord deign to extend them his mercy.” He evidently inclines to
the hope that mercy will not be extended to them.
Disgusted with a people who would not be served, and wearied of
broken promises and faithless oaths, the chiefs of the Crusade made
haste to shake off the dust of their feet, and to leave the doomed
kingdom to its fate. Some of their men remained behind, a
reinforcement which enabled Baldwin to keep up his courage and show
a bold front to the enemy so long as his life lasted.
Nûr-ed-dín, directly they were gone, invaded Antioch, and Raymond
was killed in one of the small skirmishes which took place. At this
time, too, Jocelyn of Edessa fell into the hands of the Turks, and
was put into prison. It was almost impossible for Baldwin to defend
Antioch alone. Nevertheless, he held it manfully, and it was not
till after his time that it was ceded to the Greeks, who in their
turn surrendered it to the Turks. Tripoli, the count of which town
was himself assassinated, remained the only bulwark of the kingdom.
The eyes of Palestine were turned again upon Europe. But from Europe
little help could now be expected. Louis, returning defeated and
inglorious, had been hailed as a conqueror. Medals were struck in
his honour, with the lying legend—
Regi invicto ab Oriente reduci
Frementes lætitiâ cives.
And, though he promised to lead another Crusade, his conscience was
appeased by his pilgrimage, and his love of praise was satisfied by
the honours he received. Therefore he went no more. Moreover, two
new methods of crusading were discovered, nearer home, and far more
profitable. In the north of Germany lay a large and fertile country,
inhabited wholly by pagans. Why not conquer that, and reduce so fair
a land to Christianity? And in Spain, so close at hand for pious
Frenchmen, were vast provinces, rich beyond measure, all in the
hands of those very Saracens whom they were asked to go all the way
to Palestine in order to fight. And then there died both Bernard and
Suger, the sagacious Suger, who saw the disgrace which had fallen on
the Christian arms, and wished to repair it by sending out another
army in place of that which Louis had madly thrown away.
The boundaries of poor young Baldwin’s kingdom were greatly
contracted. Nothing now remained but what we may call Palestine
proper, with a dubious and tottering hold on a few outlying towns.
Fifty years had been sufficient to turn the sons of the rough and
straight-forward soldiers of Godfrey, whose chief fault seems to
have been their ungovernable fits of rage, into crafty and
double-faced Syrians, slothful and sensual, careless of aught but
their own interests, and brave only when glory, to which they still
clung, could be got out of it. Nor was the kingdom itself free from
discord and variance. Queen Milicent retained her authority, nor
could she be persuaded to give it up. It was the most monstrous
thing—it shows, however, how the feudal ideas had become
corrupted—that she should insist on holding part of the realm in her
own name. She did so, however, giving Baldwin Tyre as his principal
place, and retaining Jerusalem as her own. She had a following of
barons, who preferred, for many reasons, to be under the rule of a
woman. The reins of government were confided to her own cousin, one
Manasseh, and Baldwin had the mortification of finding himself in
times of peace, few enough, it is true, only the second man in a
country of which he was the nominal king. He claimed his rights;
these were refused. He besieged Manasseh in his castle; he even
besieged his mother in hers. The patriarch acted as mediator, and,
after long negotiations, a compromise was effected, by which
Milicent, more fortunate than her equally ambitious sister, Alice of
Antioch, received the city of Nablous to hold as her own for the
rest of her life.
It was during these negotiations, or at their close, that the king
held a great council at Tripoli on the state of the kingdom. And it
was while the council was sitting that Count Raymond was
assassinated—no one knew at whose instigation, because the murderers
were instantly cut to pieces.
The Turks made an attempt upon the kingdom of Jerusalem itself, and
while the knights were gone to defend Nablous, they encamped on the
Mount of Olives. Then the people of Jerusalem went out, as full of
courage as Gideon’s three hundred, and drove them off with great
slaughter. Their success—success was now so rare—raised the spirits
of all the Christians, and the king resolved to follow it up by
laying siege to that old enemy of Christendom, Ascalon, which was to
Jerusalem even as the mound which Diabolus raised up against the
city of Mansoul in Bunyan’s allegory. It was in 1153 that this
strong place, which ought to have been in the hands of the
Christians fifty years before, had it not been for the jealousy of
Count Raymond, fell at last. Baldwin marched against it with all the
forces he could command. A fleet watched the port from the sea,
while the siege was hurried on by land. Every ship that brought
pilgrims was ordered to proceed southwards, and the pilgrims were
pressed into the service. Nevertheless, the work went on slowly, and
after more than four months, reinforcements were received from
Egypt, and the besieged were as confident as ever. Accident gave the
Christians the town. They had a moveable tower, higher than the
walls, with which they were able to annoy the enemy almost with
impunity. One day, when it was laid alongside the wall, the besieged
threw a vast quantity of wood, on which they poured oil and sulphur,
between the ramparts and the town. This they set fire to; but,
unfortunately for themselves, without first considering which way
the wind was blowing. It was a strong east wind, and the flames were
blown towards the walls. They blazed all day and all night, and when
they ceased, at length, the stones were calcined, and that portion
of the wall about the fire fell down with a crash. The Christians
wanted nothing more. At daybreak the soldiers were awakened by
hearing the noise, and rushed towards the spot. They were too late.
The Templars were already crowding in at the breach, and, _in order
to get all the plunder for themselves_, these chivalrous knights had
stationed men to prevent the army from following them.
Non habet eventus sordida præda bonos,
remarks the historian. Their cupidity proved the death of a great
many of their body, for they were too few to carry everything before
them, as they had hoped. Forty Templars perished in this attack, and
the rest were not able to get in at all, for the people drove them
back, and in an incredibly short time, fortified the broken wall
with great beams of timber; and then, safe for a time behind their
rampart, they tied ropes to the corpses of the knights, and dangled
them up and down outside the wall, to the indignation of the
Christians. After deliberation, confession, and a grand mass, a
general assault was ordered, and for a whole day hand-to-hand
fighting was carried on. And then the city yielded, and obtained
fair terms. Provided they evacuated the town within three days,
their lives were to be spared. And at last, in delusive imitation of
the glories which were never to return again to the Christian arms,
the standard of the Cross floated from the towers of Ascalon, the
“Bride of Syria.” The unfortunate people, with their wives and
children, made what haste they could to get ready, and in two days
had all left their city, carrying with them all their portable
goods. The king honourably kept his word with them, and gave them
guides to conduct them to Egypt across the desert. All went well so
long as their guides were with them. But these left them after a
time, and gave them over to a certain Turk, who had been with them
in Ascalon—“valiant in war, but a perverse man, and without
loyalty”—on his promise to conduct them safely to Egypt. But on the
way he and his men fell on them, robbed them of all their treasures,
and went away—whither, history sayeth not—leaving them to wander
helplessly up and down the desert. And so the poor creatures all
perished. It is a pity that we cannot ascertain what became of the
admirable Turk who knew so well how to seize an opportunity.
During the siege of Ascalon, the Lady Constance of Antioch, whom the
king had been anxious to see married for a long time, chose, to
everybody’s astonishment, a simple knight, one Renaud de Chatillon,
as her husband. The king, anxious above all that a man should be at
the head of Antioch, consented at once, and Renaud, of whom we shall
have more to say, wedded the fair widow. Although the king approved
of the marriage, it appeared that the Patriarch of Antioch did not,
and trusting to the sacredness of his person went about the city
spreading all sorts of stories about the fortunate young bridegroom.
Renaud dissembled his resentment, and invited him to the citadel,
and then, by way of giving the reverend bishop a lesson as to the
punishment due to calumniators, set him in the sun all day, with his
bald head covered with honey to attract the wasps. After this
diabolical audacity, as William of Tyre calls it, there was nothing
left for the patriarch but to pack up and get away to Jerusalem as
fast as he could. The king reprimanded Renaud, but too late, for the
mischief was done, and the head of the prelate already painfully
stung.
Internal troubles occupied the king for the next year or two. These
were caused by the quarrels between the two military orders and the
Church of Jerusalem. We hear only one side of the story, which
throws the whole blame upon the knights. No doubt the clergy were
also in some way to blame. By special permission of the pope, no
interdict or excommunication could touch the Knights of St. John or
the Knights Templars. They were free from all episcopal
jurisdiction, and subject only to the pope. It pleased Raymond,
Grand Master of the Hospitallers, for no reason given by the
chronicler, to raise up all sorts of troubles against the Patriarch
of Jerusalem and the prelates of the Church, on the subject of
parochial jurisdiction and the tithes. The way they showed their
enmity is very suggestive of many things. “All those whom the
bishops had excommunicated, or interdicted, were freely welcomed by
the Hospitallers, and admitted to the celebration of the divine
offices. If they were ill, the brothers gave them the viaticum and
extreme unction, and those who died received sepulture. If it
happened that for some enormous crime”—probably the withholding of
tithes—“the churches of the city were put under interdict, the
brothers, ringing all their bells, and making a great clamouring,
called the people to their own chapels, and _received the oblations
themselves_; and as for their priests, they took them without any
reference whatever to the bishops.” Obviously, therefore, the
quarrel was entirely an ecclesiastical squabble, due to the desire
of the Church to aggrandize and preserve its power. The knights,
_ecclesia in ecclesiâ_, a church within a church, would not
recognise in any way the authority of the patriarch. For this they
had a special charter from the pope. But they would not pay tithes,
and they were constantly acquiring new territories. We may have very
little doubt that it was the question of tithes on the knights’
lands which caused all the quarrel. But it is very remarkable to
note the way in which the historian speaks of interdicts and
excommunications. In the West an interdict was a great and solemn
thing. In England only one interdict, at the memory of which the
people shuddered for many years to come, was ever laid upon the
country, while, though English kings have been excommunicated, it
has happened rarely. In Palestine the custom of debarring offenders,
whether towns or individuals, from the privileges of the Church, is
spoken of as quite a common practice. The thing, evidently, was
often happening. The patriarch was handy with his interdicts, and it
must have galled him to the very soul to find that the people cared
nothing for them, because they could get their consolations of the
Church just as well from the knights.
One cannot, however, defend the manner in which the knights vexed
the heart of the patriarch in other ways. For whenever he went to
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the knights, who had a great
building opposite (in what is now called the Muristàn), began to
ring all their bells at once, and made so great a noise that he
could not be heard. And once, though one can hardly believe this,
they went to the doors of the church and shot arrows at the people
who were praying. Probably they pretended to shoot them in order to
frighten the priests. Such a practical joke, and its effect in the
skurrying away of people and priests, would be quite in accordance
with the spirit of the times.
The patriarch, though now nearly a hundred years of age, went
himself to Rome, but got no satisfaction. He had with him six
bishops and a band of lawyers to plead his cause; but he was badly
received by the pope and badly treated by the cardinals. And after
being put off from day to day, finding that he could get no redress,
he retired in shame and confusion, and probably patched up some sort
of peace with his enemies the knights.
And now followed a sort of lull before the storm, three or four
years of actual peace and internal prosperity. Renaud de
Chatillon disgraced the cause of Christianity by an unprovoked
attack upon the Isle of Cyprus, which he overran from end to
end, murdering, pillaging, and committing every kind of outrage.
Nûr-ed-dín made himself master of Damascus, an event which more
than counter-balanced the loss of Ascalon. And Baldwin committed
the only crime which history can allege against him. For he had
given permission to certain Turcomans and Arabs to feed their
cattle on the slopes of Libanus. Here, for a time, they lived
peaceably, harming none and being harmed by none. But the king
was loaded with debts which he could not pay. Some one in an
evil hour suggested to him an attack upon this pastoral people.
Taking with him a few knights, the king went himself and overran
the country sword in hand. Some of them escaped by flight,
leaving their flocks and herds behind; some buried themselves in
the forests; some were made slaves; and some were mercilessly
slaughtered. The booty in cattle and horses was immense, and
Baldwin found, by this act of iniquity, a means of paying off,
at least, the most pressing of his creditors. But his subsequent
misfortunes were attributed to this perfidy, the worst which a
Christian king of Jerusalem had as yet displayed.
Nûr-ed-dín laid siege to the castle of Banias, into which Count
Humphrey had introduced the knights of St. John on conditions of
their sharing in the defence. Baldwin went to its assistance.
Nûr-ed-dín raised the siege and retired. The king, seeing no use in
staying any longer, began his southward march. They encamped the
first night near the lake Huleh, where they lay without proper
guards, believing the enemy to be far enough away. The king’s own
body-guard had left him, and some of the barons had left the army
altogether, followed by their own men. In the morning the enemy fell
upon them all straggling about the country. Baldwin retreated to a
hilltop with half a dozen men, and gained in safety the fortress of
Safed. And then the historian adds a sentence which shows how
utterly rotten and corrupt was this kingdom, founded by the brave
arms of Godfrey and his knights. “There was very little slaughter,
because everybody, not only those who were renowned for their wisdom
and their experience in war, but also the simple soldiers, eager to
save their miserable lives, gave themselves up without resistance to
the enemy like vile slaves, feeling no horror for a shameful
servitude, and not dreading the ignominy which attaches to this
conduct.”
Is it possible to imagine a knight of the First Crusade, or even a
simple soldier, preferring to surrender at once than to risk the
chance of life in the battle? And when the news came south, which
happened soon enough, instead of flying to arms, the men flew to the
altars, chanting the psalm “Domine, salvum fac regem.”
Fortunately one of those little crusades, consisting of a fleet and
a few thousand men, arrived at this juncture, headed by Stephen,
Count of Perche. Baldwin welcomed them with delight, and made the
best use of them, defeating by their help the Saracens at every
point in the county of Tripoli and the principality of Antioch, and
lastly gave the Damascenes the most complete defeat they had ever
experienced. It must always be remembered that it was by such
windfalls and adventitious aids as these that the kingdom of
Jerusalem was maintained. The pilgrims who came to pray fought in
the intervals of prayer; a small percentage of them always remained
in the country and attached themselves to the fortunes of king or
baron. When the influx of pilgrims was great the new blood kept up
the stamina, physical as well as moral, of the Syrian Christians;
when the influx was small the king had to depend upon the _pullani_,
the Syrian born, the creoles of the country, who were weedy, false,
and cowardly, like those knights and soldiers who surrendered,
rather than strike a blow for their lives, to Nûr-ed-dín.
In 1160 died Queen Milicent. Against her moral character, since the
scandal about Hugh of Jaffa, no word had been breathed. But she was
ambitious, crafty, and intriguing, like her sisters, not one of whom
lived happily with her husband. She founded a convent on the Mount
of Olives, in return for which the ecclesiastical biographers, as is
their wont, are loud in their praises of her. Her youngest sister
was made its first abbess. She died of some mysterious malady, for
which no cure could be found. Her memory failed, and her limbs were
already long dead when she breathed her last. No one was allowed to
go into the room where she lay save a very few, including her two
sisters, the Countess of Tripoli, widow of Raymond, and the Abbess
of Saint Lazarus of Bethany. Probably the disease she suffered from
was that which broke out in her grandson, Baldwin IV., leprosy. The
year before her death the king had contracted a splendid marriage,
advantageous from every point of view. He married Theodora, niece to
the Emperor of Constantinople. The new queen was only thirteen: she
was singularly beautiful, and brought, which was of more importance,
a large dowry in ready money. Baldwin was passionately fond of his
young bride, and from the moment of his marriage gave up all those
follies of which he had been guilty before. But he had a very short
period of this new and better life. Renaud de Chatillon, who had
made his peace with the emperor, by means of the most abject and
humiliating submissions, got into trouble again, and was taken
prisoner by the Mohammedans. Baldwin, affairs in the north falling
into confusion in consequence of this accident, went to aid in
driving back the enemy. Here he was seized with dysentery and fever,
diseases common enough in the Syrian climate. His physician, one
Barak, an Arab, gave him pills, of which he was to take some
immediately, the rest by degrees. But the pills did not help him,
and he grew worse and worse. They said he was poisoned. Some of the
pills were given to a dog, which died after taking them—the story
is, however, only told from hearsay, and is probably false. He was
brought to Beyrout, where he languished for a few days and then
died, in his thirty-third year, leaving no children.
Great was the mourning of the people. Other kings had been more
powerful in war; none had been braver. Other kings had been more
successful; none had so well deserved success. And while his
predecessors, one and all, were strangers in the land, Baldwin III.
was born and brought up among them all; he knew them all by name,
and was courteous and affable to all. In those degenerate days he
was almost the only man in the kingdom whose word could be trusted;
moreover, he was young, handsome, bright, and generous. The only
faults he had were faults common to youth, while from those which
most degrade a man in other men’s eyes, gluttony and intemperance,
he was entirely free. Even the Saracens loved this free-handed
chivalrous prince, and mourned for him. When some one proposed to
Nûr-ed-dín to take advantage of the confusion in the country and
invade it, he refused, with that stately courtesy which
distinguished even the least of the Saracen princes. “Let us,” said
he, “have compassion and indulgence for a grief so just, since the
Christians have lost a prince such that the world possesses not his
equal.”
The wiseacres remembered how, when he stood godfather to his
brother’s infant son, he gave him his own name, and on being asked
what else he would give him, “I will give him,” said the king,
with his ready laugh—it was his laugh which the people loved—“I
will give him the kingdom of Jerusalem.” The gossips had shaken
their heads over words so ominous, and now, with that melancholy
pleasure, almost a consolation, which comes of finding your own
prognostications of evil correct, they recalled the words of fate
and strengthened themselves in their superstition.
Ill-omened or not, the words had come true. Baldwin was dead, his
brother was to succeed him, and his nephew was to come after. And
henceforth the days of the kingdom of Jerusalem are few, and full of
trouble.
The kingdom of Jerusalem, like a Roman colony, was founded by men
alone. Those women who came with the Crusaders either died on the
way, unable to endure the fatigue, heat, and misery of the march, or
fell into the hands of the Turks, whose mistresses they became. The
Crusaders therefore had to find wives for themselves in the country.
They took them from the Syrian Christians or the Armenians,
occasionally, too, from Saracen women who were willing to be
baptized. Their children, subjected to the enervating influences of
the climate, and imbibing the Oriental ideas of their mothers,
generally preserved the courage of their fathers for one or two
generations, when they lost it and became wholly cowardly and
sensual and treacherous. But the kingdom was always being reinforced
by the arrival of new knights and men at arms, so that for all
practical purposes it was a kingdom of the West transplanted to the
East. All the manners and customs were purely European. Falconry and
hunting were the most favourite sports. They amused the Saracens,
when they came to have friendly relations with them, by tournaments
and riding at the quintain. Indoors they beguiled the time which was
not taken up by eating, drinking, or religious services, in chess,
dicing, and games of chance. They were all great gamblers, and
forgot in the chances of the dice all their misfortunes and
anxieties. Those who were rich enough entertained minstrels, and had
readers to read them the lives of illustrious warriors and kings.
Later on, but this was always done with the greatest secrecy, even
by Frederick II., who cared little enough what was said of him, they
learned to admire the performances of dancing girls. Richard of
Cornwall was so delighted with their voluptuous dances that he
carried a number of them to England. As for their manner of living
it was coarse and gross. They brought their Western appetites to the
East, and, ignorant of the necessity of light food and temperance in
a hot climate, they made huge meals of meat and drank vast
quantities of wine. This was probably the main cause of their
ungovernable temper, and the sudden outbursts of rage which
sometimes made them commit acts of such extraordinary folly. And
this was most certainly the cause why they all died young. And
though they imbibed every other Oriental habit readily—Oriental
voluptuousness, Oriental magnificence, Oriental dress—they never
learned the truth that Mohammed enforced so rigidly, that to
preserve life we must be temperate. Fever destroyed them, and
leprosy, that most miserable of all diseases, crept into their
blood, possibly through the eating of pork, of which they were
inordinately fond.
For the rest, they swore enormous oaths, vying with each other in
finding strange and startling expressions; they were always
rebelling against the authority of the Church, and always ready to
be terrified by the threats of the priests and to repent with tears.
In religion they exercised a sort of fetish worship. For it was no
matter what odds were against them so long as the wood of the True
Cross was with them; it mattered little what manner of lives they
led so long as a priest would absolve them; there was no sin which
could not be expiated by the slaughter of the Mohammedans. Every
Crusader had a right to heaven; this, whatever else it was, was an
escape from the fires of hell. The devil, who was always roaming up
and down the world, appearing now in one form and now in another,
had no power over a soldier of the Cross. Everybody, for instance,
knows the story of the Picard knight. He had made a bargain with the
devil, to get revenge—this obtained, he could not get rid of his
infernal ally. He took the Cross and the devil ceased to torment
him. But when Jerusalem was taken, and he returned home, he found
the devil there already, awaiting him in his own castle. Therefore
he took the Cross again, went _outre mer_, stayed there, and was no
more troubled. And every Crusader was ready to swear that he had
never himself met any other devil than the black Ethiopians of the
Egyptian army. The saints, on the other hand, frequently appeared,
as we have seen.
Such, in a few words, were the manners of the Christians over whom
ruled Baldwin III.; an unruly, ungodly set, superstitious to their
fingers’ ends, and only redeemed from utter savagery by their
unbounded loyalty to their chiefs, by their dauntless courage in
battle, and by whatever little gleams of light may have shone upon
them through the chinks and joints of the iron armour with which
they had covered, so to speak, and hidden the fair and shining limbs
of Christianity.