Chapter IX: Book XVI: Attempted Crusades (1)

CRUSADES AGAINST THE TURKS.

A.D. 1291-1396.

WE are now arrived at the end of the brilliant epoch of the crusades, but our task is not yet completed; for, as the curiosity of readers attaches a high value to the knowledge of the causes of events, in the same degree must it be desirous of knowing the influence that these events have had upon the laws, manners, and destinies of nations. After having witnessed the kindling of so many passions, which inflamed Europe and Asia during two centuries, who but must be curious to see in what manner these passions were progressively extinguished; what were the political combinations that weakened this universal enthusiasm; and what were the interests, the opinions, and the institutions which took place of the spirit of the holy wars. Here the philosophy of history comes at our wish to enlighten us with its lamp, and make clear to us the eternal course of human things. The end of a great revolution may be compared, in some sort, to the decline of the life of man, it is then that the fruits of long experience may be gathered, it is then that the past, with its remembrances and its lessons, is reflected as in a faithful mirror.

We will pursue, then, with confidence the work we have begun; if, in the career we have still to go through, we may have little to say that will awaken the curiosity of common minds, enlightened spirits will, doubtless, find some interest, in following with us all these long reverberations of a revolution which deeply agitated the world, and whose consequences will be felt by remotest posterity.

When the news of the taking of Ptolemaïs arrived in the West, Pope Nicholas IV. gave his whole attention to the preaching of a crusade. A bull addressed to all the faithful, deplored in pathetic terms the late disasters of the Christians; and the greater that these misfortunes were, the more fully did the pope offer the treasures of divine mercy and pontifical indulgences to new Crusaders. An indulgence of a hundred days was granted to those who would attend the sermons of the preachers of the crusade, or would come to the churches to listen to the groans of the city of God. The holy orators had permission to preach the war of the East in forbidden places; and, that great sinners might be induced to become soldiers of the cross, the preachers received the faculty of granting certain absolutions that had till that time been reserved for the supreme authority of the Holy See.

In many provinces, the clergy assembled in consequence of the directions of the pope, to deliberate upon the means of recovering Palestine. The prelates employed themselves in this pious mission with much zeal, and in order to secure the success of the enterprise, all united in conjuring the sovereign pontiff to labour without intermission in bringing about the reëstablishment of peace among Christian princes.

Several monarchs had already taken the cross; and Nicholas sent legates to press them to accomplish the vow they appeared to have forgotten. Edward, king of England, although he had levied the tenths upon the clergy for the expenses of the crusade, showed very little inclination to quit his states for the purpose of returning into Asia. The emperor Rodolph, who, in the conference of Lausanne, had promised the pope to make the voyage beyond the seas, died at this period, much more deeply engaged in the affairs of Germany, than in those of the Christians of the East. Nicholas IV. gave Philip to understand that the whole West had its eyes fixed upon him, and that his example might influence all Christendom; the sovereign pontiff at the same time exhorted the prelates of the Church of France to join with him in persuading the king, the nobles, and the people, to take arms against the infidels.

The father of the Christian world did not confine his endeavours to awakening the zeal of the princes and nations of the West; he sent apostolic messages to the Greek emperor, Andronicus Palæologus, the emperor of Trebizond, and the kings of Armenia, Georgia, and Cyprus, in which he announced to them the approaching deliverance of the holy places. As the Christians in their distress had sometimes turned their looks towards the Tartars, two missionaries were sent to the coast of Argun, with directions to offer the Mogul emperor the benedictions of the sovereign pontiff, and to solicit his powerful aid against the Mussulmans.

The exertions and exhortations of the pope did not succeed in arming Europe against the Saracens; contemporary chronicles say that Nicholas was not able to endure this indifference of the Christians, and that he died in despair. After his death, the conclave could not agree in the nomination of a head of the Church, and the Holy See remained vacant during twenty-seven months. In this long interval, the pulpits which had resounded with the complaints of the faithful of the East, remained mute, and Europe forgot the last calamities of the Holy Land.

In the East, the affairs of the Christians took a not more favourable turn. The discord that had arisen between the princes of the family of Hayton desolated Armenia, and gave it up to the invasion of the barbarians. The kingdom of Cyprus, the last asylum of the Franks established in Asia, only owed a transitory security to the sanguinary divisions of the Mamelukes of Egypt, and appeared to be fully engaged by its own dangers.

But whilst Christendom gave up all thoughts of the deliverance of Jerusalem, the Tartars of Persia, to whom the pope had sent missionaries, all at once revived the hopes of the Christians, by forming a project for wresting Syria and Palestine from the hands of the Mussulmans; an enterprize which only wanted to be a crusade, to have been proclaimed by the head of the Church.

The Tartars, for a long time, threatened the Mussulman powers, whom the Christians regarded as their most cruel enemies. Argun, when he died, was busied in preparations for a formidable war. These preparations had spread such serious alarm among his enemies, that the disciples of Mahomet considered his death as one of the number of miracles operated in favour of Islamism.

Among the successors of Argun, who were by turns the enemies and the friends of the Mussulmans, there was one able leader, who was warlike, and more animated by the thirst for conquests than the others. The Greek historian Pachymerus, and the Armenian Hayton, lavish the highest praises upon the bravery, the virtue, and even the piety of Cazan. This Mogul prince considered the Christians as his most faithful allies; and in his armies, in which the Georgians served, the standard of the cross floated by the side of the imperial standard. The conquest of the banks of the Nile and the Jordan engaged all his thoughts. When new cities were built in his states, he took a delight in bestowing upon them the names of Aleppo, Damascus, Alexandria, and of several other places in Egypt and Syria.

Cazan quitted Persia at the head of an army; and the king of Cyprus with the orders of St. John and the Temple, being made aware of his projects, joined his standards. A great battle was fought near Emessa, which was decided against the sultan of Egypt, who lost the greater part of his army, and was pursued by the Armenian cavalry to the verge of the desert. Aleppo and Damascus opened their gates to the conquerors; and if we may believe the historian Hayton, Christians once more entered Jerusalem, and the emperor of the Tartars visited in their company the tomb of Christ.

It was from that place Cazan sent ambassadors to the pope and the sovereigns of Europe, to solicit their alliance, and to offer them possession of the Holy Land. Among the singularities of this period, our readers will no doubt be astonished to find a Mogul emperor endeavouring to revive the spirit of the crusades among the princes of Christendom; and to see barbarians from the banks of the Irtis and the Jaxartes waiting upon Calvary and Mount Sion for the warriors of France, Germany, and Italy, in order to combat the enemies of Christ. The sovereign pontiff received the ambassadors of Cazan with distinction; but could only answer their demands and propositions by promises doomed to remain unexecuted. The haughtiness with which Boniface VIII., the successor of Nicholas, spoke to the Christian princes, together with his exhortations, which resembled commands more than entreaties, disgusted the sovereigns, particularly the king of France. Genoa, which then lay under an interdict, was the only city of Europe in which a crusade was seriously spoken of; and by a whimsical circumstance, it was the ladies who gave the signal and set the example.

We are still in possession of a brief of the pope’s, in which the holy father felicitates the ladies who had taken the cross, upon their following the steps of Cazan, the emperor of the Tartars, _who, although a pagan, had conceived the generous resolution of delivering the Holy Land_. History has preserved two other letters of the pope, one addressed to Porchetto, archbishop of Genoa, and the other to four Genoese nobles, who had undertaken to direct the expedition. “Oh, prodigy! oh, miracle!” says he to Porchetto; “a weak and timid sex takes the advance of warriors in this great enterprise, in this war against the enemies of Christ, in this fight against the workers of iniquity. The kings and princes of the earth, regardless of all the solicitations that have been made to them, refuse to send succours to the Christians banished from the Holy Land, and here are women who come forward without being called! Whence can this magnanimous resolution come, if not from God, the source of all strength and all virtue!!!” The pope terminated his letter by directing the archbishop to call together the clergy and the people, and proclaim the devotion of the noble Genoese ladies, in order that their example may cast seeds of good works into the hearts of the people.

This crusade, notwithstanding, never took place; it was doubtless only preached to rouse the emulation of the knights, and the pope only directed his attention to it to give a lesson to the princes of Christendom, by which they did not at all profit. The letters written upon this occasion by Boniface VIII. were preserved in the archives of the republic of Genoa for a long time. Even in the last century, the helmets and cuirasses which were to have been worn by the Genoese ladies in this expedition were exhibited in the arsenal of that city.

The Tartars, in spite of their victories, were not able to triumph over the constancy and discipline of the Mamelukes, who, like themselves, had issued from the deserts of Scythia. That which had so often happened to the Franks in the height of the crusades, now happened to the Moguls; they at first obtained great advantages, but events foreign to the Holy War recalled them into their own country, and forced them to abandon their conquests. Cazan was obliged to quit Syria and return into Persia; he attempted a second expedition, which he again abandoned; and he died in the third, amidst his triumphs, bearing with him to the tomb the last hopes of the Christians.

The Armenian and Cyprian warriors left the holy city, the ramparts of which they had begun to re-erect, and which was doomed never again to see the standard of the cross unfurled within its walls. This last reverse of the Christians of the East was scarcely known in Europe, where the name of Jerusalem was still pronounced in the congregations of the faithful, but had no longer the power to awaken the enthusiasm of knights and warriors. At the Council of Vienna, Pope Clement V. proclaimed a crusade; but in this assembly, in which the abolition of the Templars was determined upon, Christians were exhorted very feebly to take up arms against the infidels.

The sovereign pontiff was then much more busy in levying tenths than in preparations for a holy war. One thing worthy of remark is, that Clement found himself obliged on this occasion to recommend moderation to the collectors of the tenths, and forbade them _to seize the chalices, the books, or the ornaments of the churches_. This prohibition of the pope’s proves to us that violence had often been committed in collecting the tributes destined to the expenses of the holy wars; this violence must have assisted in relaxing the zeal and ardour of nations for distant enterprises, as the results of which, Christian cities were ruined, and the altars of Christ plundered.

Europe at that time awaited with great impatience the issue of an expedition undertaken by the knights of St. John of Jerusalem. A great number of warriors, excited by the relation of the adventures of chivalry, and by a passion for military glory, followed the Hospitallers in their enterprise; women even were desirous of taking a part in this expedition, and sold their diamonds and jewels to provide for the expenses of the war.

This army of new crusaders embarked at the port of Brendisi, and it soon became known in the West that the knights of the Hospital had taken possession of the isle of Rhodes.

Renown published everywhere the exploits of the Hospitallers and their companions in arms; and these exploits, and the admiration they inspired throughout Christendom, naturally turned the attention and remembrances of the faithful to the Templars, who were reproached with the disgraceful repose in which they forgot both the Holy Land and the tomb of Christ.

The knights of the Temple, after having been received in the Isle of Cyprus, had returned to Sicily, where they were employed by the king in an expedition against Greece. United with the Catalans and some warriors from Italy, this warlike body took possession of Thessalonica, made themselves masters of Athens, advanced towards the Hellespont, and ravaged a part of Thrace. After this expedition the Templars disdained the possession of the cities which had fallen into their power, and leaving the conquered provinces to their companions in arms, they kept for themselves the riches of the people they had subdued. It was then that, loaded with the spoils of Greece, they came to establish themselves in the West, particularly in France, where their opulence, their luxury, and their idleness, scandalized the piety of the faithful, awakened envy, and provoked the hatred of both the people and the great.

It does not enter into the plan of this work to dilate upon the process instituted against the Templars; but if we have followed these noble knights in all their wars against the Mussulmans,—if we have been so long witnesses of their exploits, and, as it were, companions of their labours, we shall perhaps have acquired the right of expressing our opinion upon the accusations directed against them. We must at once declare that we have found nothing up to the period of the process, either in the chronicles of the East, or those of the West, which can give birth to or establish an idea, or even a suspicion, of the crimes imputed to them. How can it, in fact, be believed, that a warlike and religious order, which twenty years before had seen three hundred of its knights sacrifice themselves upon the ruins of Saphet, rather than embrace the Mussulman faith, that this order which had almost entirely buried itself under the ruins of Ptolemaïs could possibly have contracted an alliance with infidels, outraged the Christian religion with horrible blasphemies, and given up to the Saracens that Holy Land filled with its military glory.

And at what period were all these odious reproaches addressed to the Templars? at a time when Christendom seemed to have forgotten Jerusalem, and in which the name of Christ was not sufficient to awaken the bravery of a Christian warrior. No doubt the order of the Templars had degenerated from the austerity of early times, and that it was no longer animated by that spirit of humility and religion of which St. Bernard so much boasted; no doubt some of the knights had brought with them that corruption which was then the reproach of all the Christians of the East, and of which Europe itself could offer them numerous examples; no doubt, in short, some among them might have wounded morality by their conduct, and offended the religion of Christ by their irregularities; but we do not hesitate to say that it was not the province of men to judge them, and that upon this occasion the merciful God of the Christians had not deputed his vengeance to human laws.

The real error of the Templars was having quitted the East, and renounced the spirit of their institution, which was to receive and protect pilgrims, and to combat with the enemies of the Christian faith. This order, richer than the most powerful monarchs, and whose knights were as a regular army, always ready for fight, became, naturally, dreaded by the princes who granted them an asylum. The Templars had not been free from all reproach during their abode in Cyprus; accustomed to rule in Palestine, they must have contracted a habit of obedience with difficulty. The example of the Teutonic knights, who, after quitting the East, founded a power in the north of Europe which was dreaded by the neighbouring states, was not likely to reassure princes who mistrusted the warlike spirit, and the active and enterprising genius, of the knights of the Temple.

Such, probably, were the motives which armed the policy rather than the justice of sovereigns against them; nothing so clearly proves the fear they inspired as the rancour with which they were pursued, and the care that was taken to render them odious. As soon as their persecution began, they were only considered as enemies whom it was necessary to treat as criminals. As rigours without example preceded their abolition, it was necessary to justify that measure by fresh rigours. Vengeance and hatred finished that which the policy of princes had begun; a policy which had, perhaps, reasons for being suspicious, but which had none for proving itself barbarous. It is thus we must explain the tragical issue of this process, in which all the forms of justice were so violated, that even if the accusations be considered proved, we must still regard the Templars as victims and their judges as executioners.[61]

Philip-le-Bel had promised the council of Vienna to go into the East to combat the infidels, without doubt to procure pardon for having pursued the knights of the Temple with so much inveteracy. Amidst the festivals that welcomed the arrival of Edward in Paris, the French monarch and the princes of his family took the cross. Most of the nobles of his court followed his example, and the ladies promised to accompany the knights to the holy war; but no one took any measures for setting out. Promises were then made to cross the seas by persons who had not any serious intention of leaving their homes. The vow to combat the Saracens appeared to be a vain ceremony, which engaged the swearer to nothing. It was taken with perfect indifference, and violated in the same manner; _considered as not more sacred than the vows the knights made to the ladies_.

Philip-le-Bel died without ever having thought of accomplishing his vow. Philip-le-Long, who succeeded him, entertained for a moment the project of going into the East. Edward, who had already several times sworn to fight the Saracens, at the same time renewed his promise. But the sovereign pontiff, whether that he doubted their sincerity, or whether that he stood in need of the concurrence of these two monarchs to reëstablish tranquillity in Europe, and to resist the emperor of Germany, against whom he had armed himself with the thunders of the Church, or whether, in short, he thought the moment an unfavourable one, did not approve of their expedition into Syria. “Before thinking of the voyage beyond the seas,” wrote he to the king of England, “we would wish you to establish peace, first in your own conscience, then in your kingdom.” The father of the faithful represented to the king of France that the peace, so necessary to be firm before a crusade should be undertaken, was almost banished from Christendom. England and Scotland were at war; the states of Germany were divided against each other; the king of Sicily and the king of Naples were only bound by a truce of short duration; reciprocal mistrust prevented the kings of Cyprus and Armenia from uniting their forces against the common enemy; the kings of Spain were quite sufficiently employed in defending their states against the Moors; the republics of Lombardy were all in arms against each other; all the cities of Italy were torn by factions, the provinces a prey to tyrants, the sea impracticable, the route by land thickly strewed with dangers. After having given this picture of the deplorable state of Christendom, the pope pressed Philip to inquire seriously how he could provide for the expenses of the war without ruining his people, _or without attempting_, he added, _to do that which is impossible, as has been done before_.

The paternal advice of the sovereign pontiff, and some troubles which arose in the bosom of his kingdom, determined Philip to postpone the execution of his project. A multitude of herdsmen and shepherds, of adventurers and vagabonds, setting up, as in the time of the captivity of St. Louis, the pilgrims’ cross, assembled in many places, persecuted the Jews, and committed most culpable excesses. Force of arms and the full severity of the laws were obliged to be resorted to, in order to quell these disorders, of which the crusade was only a pretext. At the same time several provinces of France suffered greatly from an epidemic disease; the Jews were accused of having poisoned the wells, with the design of suspending the preparations for the holy war. They were accused of all sorts of plots against the Christians; and the general fermentation was the greater from the suspicions being vague, and from the impossibility of proving or contradicting the crimes alleged. Policy could discover no other means of dissipating the troubles than that of entering into the passions of the multitude, and driving all the Jews out of the kingdom. Amidst these unhappy circumstances, Philip fell ill, and died regretting his not having accomplished the vow he had made of warring against the Saracens.

In the state of abandonment to which the crusades had fallen, we are surprised at seeing the minds of the French still occasionally directed towards the delivery of the holy places. This last flickering of enthusiasm, which our ancestors kept alight amidst the general indifference, was not confined to religious sentiments, but extended to a feeling of patriotism and national glory. It was France which had given the first impulsion to the holy wars, as we have several times observed. The name of Palestine, the names of St. Jean d’Acre or Ptolemaïs, and that of Jerusalem appealed no less to patriotism than to piety. Although the two expeditions of Louis IX. had been unsuccessful, the example of the holy monarch was a great authority for the princes of his family, and often carried their thoughts to the places where he had suffered the glory of martyrdom. The memory of his exploits and even of his misfortunes, the memory of the heroes who had died on the banks of the Nile and the Jordan, interested all the families of the kingdom; and the city in which reposed the ashes of Godfrey and Baldwin of Bouillon, those distant regions in which so many glorious battles had been fought, could not be forgotten by French warriors.

After the death of Philip-le-Long, ambassadors arrived in Europe from the king of Armenia; this prince, abandoned by the Tartars, and threatened by the Mamelukes of Egypt, requested the assistance of the West. The pope wrote to Charles-le-Bel, the successor of Philip-le-Long, and conjured him to take up arms against the infidels. Charles received with respect the counsels and the exhortations of the sovereign pontiff, and was engaged in preparations for a crusade when the succession of the county of Flanders caused a war to break out in the Low Countries. From that time France became attentive only to the events that were passing before her eyes, and in which her own independence and safety were deeply interested. At the approach of death, and at a time when the kingdom had no longer anything to fear, Charles-le-Bel remembered his oath, and his last thoughts were directed towards the deliverance of Jerusalem. “I bequeath,” says he in his will, “to the Holy Land fifty thousand livres, to be paid and delivered when the general passage shall be made; and it is my intention, if the passage be made in my lifetime, to go thither in person.”[62] It was thus that at this period the spirit of the crusades still occasionally showed itself; most of the testaments[63] then made by princes and _rich men_ (these words designated the nobility) contained some dispositions in favour of the Holy Land; but we must add, also, that the facility of purchasing the merit of pilgrimage for money must necessarily have greatly diminished the number of pilgrims and Crusaders.

Whilst dying people were thus prodigal of their treasure for the holy war, nobody took up arms. There still, however, remained some men endowed with a vivid imagination and an ardent temperament, who made incredible efforts to rekindle an enthusiasm on the point of being extinguished. The greater the indifference of nations, the greater were the ardour and zeal displayed by these men in their preachings. Among these latter apostles of the crusades, history cites the name of Raymond Lulli, one of the luminaries of the schools of the middle ages.[64]

Lulli was possessed during his life but by one thought, and that was, to combat and convert the infidels.[65] It was upon the proposition of this zealous missionary that the council of Vienna decided that chairs should be established in the universities of Rome, Bologna, Paris, and Salamanca, for instruction in the languages of the East. He presented to the pope several memorials upon the means of annihilating the worship of Mahomet and the domination of his disciples. Lulli, constantly occupied with his project, made a pilgrimage into Palestine, travelled through Syria, Armenia, and Egypt, and came back to Europe to describe the misfortunes, the captivity, and the disgraces of the Christians beyond the seas. On his return, he visited all the courts of the West, seeking to communicate to sovereigns the sentiments by which he was animated. Finding his efforts were vain, his zeal carried him to the coast of Africa, where he endeavoured to convert by his eloquence those same Saracens against whom he had invoked the arms of Christian warriors. He returned to Europe, passed through Italy, France, and Spain, preaching everywhere the necessity for another crusade. He embarked again for Jerusalem, and brought back, as the fruit of his pilgrimage, some useful notions upon the best manner of attacking the countries of the infidels. All his labours, all his researches, all his prayers, produced no effect upon the indifference of kings and nations. Lulli, at length despairing of seeing his projects realised, and deploring the blindness of his contemporaries, retired to the island of Majorca, which was his native country. From the depth of his retreat he still issued memorials upon an expedition to the East; but solitude soon wearied his ardent and restless spirit, and he quitted Majorca, no more to waste his words upon the princes of Europe, who would not listen to him, but to return to the Mussulmans, whom he still hoped to lead to the Gospel by his eloquence. He repaired a second time to Africa, and at length suffered, as the reward of his preachings, the torments and the death of martyrs.

Whilst Lulli was striving to direct the efforts of the faithful to the deliverance of the holy places, a noble Venetian likewise consecrated his life and his talents to the revival of the spirit of the crusades. Sanuti thus describes the first audience he obtained of the sovereign pontiff: “I am not sent hither,” said he, “by any king, any prince, or any republic; it is from the impulse of my own mind that I come to throw myself at the feet of your holiness, and to propose to you an easy means of crushing the enemies of the true faith, of extirpating the sect of Mahomet, and of recovering the Holy Land.[66] My voyages in Cyprus, Armenia, and Egypt, together with a long sojourn in Romania, have furnished me with knowledge and information that may be turned to the profit of Christianity.” On finishing these words, Sanuti presented two books to the pope, one covered with red and the other with yellow, and four geographical charts, the first of the Mediterranean Sea, the second of the earth and of the sea, the third of the Holy Land, the fourth, of Egypt. The two books of the noble Venetian contained the history of the Christian establishments in the East, and wise counsels respecting the undertaking of another crusade. His zeal, enlightened by experience, did not allow him to neglect the least detail upon the route that was to be followed, upon the point that it would be best to attack, upon the number of troops, and upon the fitting out and provisioning of the vessels. He advised that operations should commence by landing in Egypt, and weakening the power of the sultans of Cairo. The most certain means of effecting this latter purpose was to obtain directly from Bagdad the Indian merchandises which European commerce was accustomed to get by the cities of Alexandria and Damietta. Sanuti, at the same time, advised the sovereign pontiff to redouble the severity of his censures against those who carried into Egypt arms, metals, timber for building, or anything that could assist in equipping fleets or arming the Mameluke soldiery.

The pope bestowed great praises upon Sanuti, and furnished him with introductions to several sovereigns of Europe. The Christian princes, particularly the king of France, received him with kindness, lauded his piety, and admired his talents—but took care not to follow his advice. Sanuti addressed himself likewise to the emperor of Constantinople, to engage him in an expedition against the infidels; he sought everywhere, and by every means, to raise up enemies against the Mussulmans, and passed his life in preaching a crusade, without obtaining any more success than Raymond Lulli had done.

The zeal of the two men of whom we have just spoken can only be compared to that of Peter the Hermit; they were both much more enlightened than the cenobite Peter, but they could get no one to listen to them, and the fruitlessness of their efforts proves how much the times were changed. Peter preached in cities and in public places, and the multitude, inflamed by his discourses, led away and awakened the feelings of the great. In the times of Lulli and Sanuti, sovereigns alone could be addressed, and sovereigns, occupied by their own affairs, showed very little interest for projects which only concerned Christendom in general. In the early times of the crusades, the deliverance of the holy places was a matter of importance; simply to pronounce the name of Jerusalem was sufficient to appease differences among princes; later, the least interest of jealousy, ambition, or self-love had the power to arrest the progress of, or completely put an end to, a holy enterprise. Frequently, in the twelfth century, popes and simple preachers, arming themselves with the authority of Christ, commanded princes to take up the cross and set out for the East; in the thirteenth, but more particularly in the fourteenth century, it was necessary to pray and solicit; and, generally, the most humble prayers produced no effect.[67]

Thus, the groans of Sion no longer melted hearts, and Christian eloquence was powerless against infidels. In order to awaken attention, it was necessary to mingle something of profane grandeur with the pathetic exhortations of religion; thus, Europe, which scarcely listened to the missionaries of the cross, appeared, all at once, to be aroused by the arrival of the king of Cyprus, soliciting, in person, the assistance of Christian princes. The pope, who was then at Avignon, eagerly announced to the faithful that an Eastern king was come to his court, and conjured the warriors of the West to take up arms against the Saracens. The king of Cyprus and Jerusalem described the invasions of the Mamelukes, the progress of the Turks, the dangers which surrounded his kingdom, that of Armenia, and the isle of Rhodes, and omitted no instance of the numerous persecutions endured by the Christians who remained in Syria and Egypt. These sad recitals, coming from a royal mouth, awakened some generous sentiments in men’s minds; a league was formed between the sovereign pontiff, the king of France, and the republic of Venice; and the pope published a bull by which he ordered the bishops to cause a crusade to be preached.

Philip of Valois convoked an assembly at Paris, in the Holy Chapel, at which were present John, king of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, the dukes of Burgundy, Brittany, Lorraine, Brabant, and Bourbon, with most of the prelates and barons of the kingdom. Peter de la Palue, named patriarch of Jerusalem, and who had recently passed through Egypt and Palestine, harangued the auditory upon the necessity for attacking the infidels, and stopping the progress of their domination in the East. Philip, who had already taken the cross, renewed the vow he had made, and as he was preparing to quit his kingdom, the barons took the oath of obedience to his son Prince John, by raising their hands towards the crown of thorns of Christ. John of Bohemia, the king of Navarre, and a great number of princes and nobles, received the cross from the hands of the archbishop of Rouen. The crusade was preached throughout the kingdom, “and gave to all noble lords,” says Froissart, “great delight, particularly to those who wished to pass their time in arms, and knew no means then of employing it otherwise more reasonably.”[68]

The king of France sent to the pope the archbishop of Rouen, who afterwards ascended the chair of St. Peter under the name of Clement VI. The archbishop, in full consistory, pronounced a discourse upon the crusade, and declared, in the presence of divine majesty, to the holy father, to the church of Rome and all Christendom, that Philip of Valois would set out for the East in the month of August, in the year 1336. The pope felicitated the French monarch upon his resolution, and granted him the tenths during six years. These circumstances are related by Philip Villani, who was at Avignon at the time, and who, after having spoken in his history of the promise made in the Dame of the king of France, exclaims:—“And I, the historian, I heard the oath pronounced which I have just related.”

Philip gave orders that a fleet, assembled in the port of Marseilles, should be made ready to receive forty thousand Crusaders. Edward III., to whom the crusade offered an easy means of imposing taxes, promised to accompany the king of France with an army in the pilgrimage beyond the seas. Most of the republics of Italy, with the kings of Arragon, Majorca, and Hungary, engaged to supply money, troops, and vessels for the expedition. In the midst of their preparations, the Crusaders lost him who directed and was the soul of the enterprise. Everything was interrupted by the death of Pope John XXI., and in this place it becomes necessary to point out one of the causes which rendered abortive, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so many attempts to carry the war into the East. As the successors of St. Peter scarcely ever succeeded to the pontifical chair before they were of an advanced age, they were wanting in the energy and activity necessary for exciting the Christian world, directing distant wars, and kindling an enthusiasm, formerly so difficult to be restrained, now so difficult to be revived. Each crusade requiring long preparations, the life of one sovereign pontiff scarcely sufficed for the completion of such great enterprises. It most frequently happened, that he who had preached a holy war could not behold the departure of the Crusaders; and that he who saw the Christian armies set out, never lived long enough to follow them through their expeditions, conduct them in their triumphs, or succour them in their reverses. Thus we never find in the projects which circumstances had formed, that spirit of sequence and wholeness necessary to secure execution and success. Add to this, that since the popes had been established at Avignon, and their apostolic seat was no longer in the centre of Christendom, they did not exercise the same ascendancy over the distant provinces, and their authority every day lost something of that influence attached to the name only of Rome, considered, during so many centuries, the capital of the world.

The news of a fresh crusade having reached the East, the Christians who dwelt in Syria or Egypt, with pilgrims and European merchants, were exposed to all sorts of persecutions. The sultan of Cairo and several Mussulman princes assembled armies for the purpose of resisting the Crusaders, or to go and attack the Christians in the West. A descendant of the Abassides, who resided in Egypt, and assumed the title of caliph, sent letters and messages in every direction to engage all true believers to take up arms; promising the martyrs of the Mussulman faith that they should be present at delicious banquets, and that each of them should have seven virgins for wives.

The aim of this crusade, preached in the name of the prophet of Mecca, was to penetrate into Europe by the way of Gibraltar; the Mussulman warriors swore to annihilate Christianity, and to convert all the Christian temples into stables. In proportion as the Saracens were thus becoming inflamed for an expedition, which they also called a holy war, Europe beheld the zeal of the princes and warriors who had sworn to combat the enemies of Christ, grow fainter and fainter, and at length die away. When Benedict XI. succeeded John XXI., he found the minds of all changed; hatreds, mistrusts and jealousies had taken place of a transitory and insincere enthusiasm; it was in vain that Christians from the East described the persecutions they had undergone and the preparations of the infidels against the nations of the West; it was in vain that the pope continued his exhortations and his prayers; the greater that the reason was for undertaking a crusade, the more indifferent people became, and the more all ranks seemed to shun the idea of contending with the Saracens. It was at this period that Brother Andrew of Antioch came to Avignon with the design of imploring the aid of the pope and the princes of Christendom. Philip of Valois had come to the court of the sovereign pontiff, to inform him that he should defer his voyage into the East, and had mounted his horse to return to Paris, when Brother Andrew presented himself before him, and said: “Art thou Philip king of France, who promised God and his Church to deliver the Holy Land?” The king answered, “Yes.” Then the monk resumed: “If thy intention is to perform that which thou hast promised, I implore Jesus Christ to direct thy steps, and grant thee the victory; but if the enterprise thou hast commenced is only to turn to the shame and misfortunes of Christians, if thou art not, with the help of God, determined to finish it, if thou hast deceived the holy Catholic Church, divine justice will fall heavily on thy family and on thy kingdom, and the blood which the news of thy expedition has caused to flow will rise up against thee.” The king surprised at this strange appeal, answered: “Brother Andrew, come with us:” and Brother Andrew replied without being moved, and in an inspired tone: “If thou wast going into the East, I would go before thee, but as thou art going to the West, go on; I will return to perform penance for my sins in the land thou hast abandoned.”

Such was even then the authority of the orators who spoke in the name of Jerusalem, that the last words of Brother Andrew left trouble and uneasiness in the mind of a powerful monarch; but fresh political storms had recently broken out. Edward III. had laid claim to the throne of the Capets, and his ambition was the signal for a war which lasted more than a century, and brought the greatest calamities upon France. Philip, attacked by a formidable enemy, was obliged to renounce his expedition beyond the seas, and employ, for the defence of his own kingdom, the troops and fleets that he had collected for the deliverance of the heritage of Christ.

The pope did not, however, abandon the project of the holy war. The poet Petrarch, who was then at Avignon, proved one of the most ardent apostles of the crusade. This illustrious poet, whom we are now accustomed to consider only as the ingenious singer of the praises of the fair Laura, and who was then deemed the most worthy interpreter of the wisdom of the ancients, and one of the great spirits of his age, addressed an eloquent letter to the Doge of Venice, to induce him to enter into a war against the Mussulmans. Some of the states of Italy united their forces to make an expedition into the East. A chronicle of the counts of Ason relates that a great number of Crusaders, clothed in white, with a red cross, marched out of Milan; and that a fleet, equipped by the sovereign pontiff, passed through the Archipelago, and surprised the city of Smyrna, in which the Crusaders were themselves quickly besieged by the Turks. The pope’s legate and several knights perished in a sortie, which circumstance determined the sovereign pontiff to employ new efforts to revive a zeal for the crusade. It was at this period that the dauphin of Viennois, Humbert II., resolved to take the cross, and came to Avignon, to supplicate the pope to allow him to be the captain of the holy voyage against the Turks, and against the faithless vassals of the church of Rome. Humbert easily obtained all he asked, and returned to his states to make preparations for his expedition. He alienated his domains, he sold privileges to the nobility, and immunities to his cities; he levied considerable sums upon the Jews, and upon the Italian merchants established in the Viennois; he exacted a tribute from all his subjects who would not accompany him to the crusade, and having embarked, with a hundred men-at-arms, he went to seek in Asia either the fortune of a conqueror or the glory of a martyr. He found neither the one nor the other, and returned to Europe without renown and burdened with debts. History represents Humbert as a weak, inconstant and irresolute prince. He ruined himself, in the first place, by his dissipation, then by the expenses of the crusade; weary of the world and its affairs, he finished by abandoning to the crown of France his principality, which he had pledged to Philip of Valois, and retired to a monastery of Dominican Friars. In order to console him for not having conquered Egypt or any other country, the pope bestowed upon him the title of patriarch of Alexandria; and the king of France, to make him forget Dauphiny, named him archbishop of Rheims.

Such were the events and the consequences of the crusade occasioned in Europe by the arrival of Hugh of Lusignan, king of Cyprus. Some years having glided away, this prince came again to solicit the aid of the sovereign pontiff; at this period most of the sovereigns were in a state of war, and the pope not being able to do anything for the king of Cyprus, conceived the singular idea of naming him tribune of Rome. Hugh of Lusignan accepted this function, and died in Italy, without having been able to send any succour to the East.

War was not then the only scourge that ravaged the world; the horrors of the plague were added to the destruction of arms; this contagion which was called the black plague, and which took its rise upon the great level plain of Tartary, extended its devastations over all the countries of the East and West, and in a few years carried off more than thirteen millions of men. Historians have remarked that this scourge in its funeral march followed the footsteps of the merchants who brought into Europe the productions of India, and of the pilgrims who returned from Palestine.

As soon as pestilence had ceased its ravages, war resumed all its fury. The deplorable state in which discord had plunged Europe at that time, and particularly France, must have made people regret the periods when the preaching of a crusade imposed silence upon all passions and suspended all hostilities. The pope had several times undertaken to reëstablish peace: he at first addressed supplications to the English monarch; he afterwards threatened him with the thunders of the Church, but the voice of the father of the faithful was lost in the din of arms.

Philip of Valois died amidst the terrible struggle he had to maintain against England. The loss of the battle of Poictiers and the captivity of King John became the signal for the greatest troubles that afflicted the kingdom of France in the middle ages. The plots of the king of Navarre, the intrigues of the great, the disorders of the people, the fury of factions, the sanguinary scenes of the Jacquerie, spread terror and desolation in the capital and through the provinces. When France had completed the exhaustion of her treasures by paying the ransom of King John, the presence of her monarch was not able to restore to her the repose she required to repair her misfortunes. The soldiers of both nations, who were disbanded without pay, and who found themselves without an asylum, formed themselves into armed bands, and under the name of white companies, pervaded the kingdom, braving the orders of the king and the excommunications of the pope, and carrying wherever they went license, murder and devastation. All that had escaped the sword of the English, and the avidity of the collectors of the imposts, became the prey of these brigands, whose numbers increased in proportion with their impunity and their excesses. The fields remained uncultivated; all commercial pursuits were interrupted; and terror and misery reigned in the cities. Thus the suspension of hostilities had brought no relief to the evils of nations, and the disorders which broke out during the peace were more insupportable than those which had been endured during the war.

It was in these unfortunate circumstances that Peter, the son of Hugh of Lusignan, came, after the example of his father, to solicit the assistance of the Christian princes against the infidels, and caused Urban V. to adopt the project of a new crusade. Perhaps he hoped that the state of confusion in which France was plunged offered him a means of raising troops, and that he might turn against his enemies of the East, all the furies of war which desolated the kingdom.

Peter of Lusignan proposed to attack the power of the sultans of Cairo, whose dominions extended to Jerusalem. Christendom had at that time more redoubtable enemies among the Mussulman nations than the Mamelukes of Egypt. The Turks, who had become masters of Asia Minor, had recently passed the Hellespont, pushed their conquests as far as Mount Hemus, and placed the seat of their empire at Adrianople. That was the enemy that doubtless ought to have been attacked, but the Turks did not as yet inspire serious alarm, except in the countries they had invaded or menaced. At the court of Avignon, at which were assembled the king of Cyprus, the king of France, and the king of Denmark, there was no mention made of the invasion of Romania, or of the dangers of Constantinople, but of the loss of the Christian colonies in Syria, and of the captivity in which the city of Christ was still held.

Peter of Lusignan spoke with enthusiasm of the war against the infidels, and of the deliverance of the holy places; King John did not listen to him without emotion, and finished by forgetting his own misfortunes, to interest himself about those of the Christians beyond the seas. Waldemar III., king of Denmark, was equally affected by the discourse and the accounts of the king of Cyprus. The pope preached the crusade before the three monarchs: it was holy week; the remembrance of the sufferings of Christ appeared to add authority to the words of the pontiff, and when he deplored the misfortunes of Jerusalem, the princes who listened to him could not refrain from shedding tears, and swore to go and fight the Saracens.

We may, doubtless, believe that the king of France was led to take the cross by a sentiment of piety, and by the eloquence of the pope; but we must likewise suppose that the counsels of policy were not entirely foreign to this determination. The spirit of the holy war, if once really awakened, would necessarily go far to appease, if not extinguish, the discords and passions kindled by revolution and civil war. King John might entertain the hope of uniting under the standard of the crusade, and seducing to follow him beyond the seas, the _white companies_, over whom he could exercise no authority; and the sovereign pontiff was no less anxious to get rid of these bands of brigands, who braved his spiritual power, and threatened to make him a prisoner in Avignon.

Several great nobles, John of Artois, the count of Eu, the count Dammartin, the count de Tancarville, and Marshal Boucicault, followed the example of King John. The Cardinal Talleyrand de Périgord was named legate of the pope in the crusade. The king of Denmark promised to unite his forces with those of the French. To encourage his zeal, the sovereign pontiff gave him a fragment of the true cross, and several other relics, the sight of which would constantly remind him of the holy cause he had sworn to defend. Waldemar III. had come to the court of Avignon to place his kingdom under the protection of the Holy See; he took all the oaths required of him; but the bulls he obtained from Urban, as the price of his submission, had no efficacy in restoring peace to his dominions, and the troubles which followed his return soon made him forget his promises regarding the holy war.

The king of Cyprus, with most pressing recommendations from the pope, visited all the courts of Europe; the zeal and the chivalric eloquence of the hero of the cross were universally admired; but he derived nothing but vague promises from his enterprise, and received nothing but vain felicitations for a devotion which found no imitators.

The king of France was the only one of all the Christian princes who appeared to engage himself earnestly in the crusade. Urban V., however, showed but little confidence in the firmness of his resolution, as he felt it necessary to threaten with excommunication all who should seek to divert him from the holy enterprise. But all these precautions of the pope, with the example of the king and the indulgences of the crusade, were powerless in inducing the nation to take arms, or in persuading the _white companies_ to _leave the chamber_, as they called the kingdom they desolated with their brigandages. The time fixed for the expedition was very near at hand, and nothing was ready; there was neither an army nor a fleet. It was at this period King John died in London, whither he had returned to offer himself as an hostage for the duke of Anjou, who had escaped from prison; and perhaps also to get rid of the cares of an enterprise which he had no means of executing or directing with success.