Chapter LIX: The Crusades.—Part III

Philip Augustus, and Richard the First, are the only kings of
France and England who have fought under the same banners; but
the holy service in which they were enlisted was incessantly
disturbed by their national jealousy; and the two factions, which
they protected in Palestine, were more averse to each other than
to the common enemy. In the eyes of the Orientals; the French
monarch was superior in dignity and power; and, in the emperor’s
absence, the Latins revered him as their temporal chief. 71 His
exploits were not adequate to his fame. Philip was brave, but the
statesman predominated in his character; he was soon weary of
sacrificing his health and interest on a barren coast: the
surrender of Acre became the signal of his departure; nor could
he justify this unpopular desertion, by leaving the duke of
Burgundy with five hundred knights and ten thousand foot, for the
service of the Holy Land. The king of England, though inferior in
dignity, surpassed his rival in wealth and military renown; 72
and if heroism be confined to brutal and ferocious valor, Richard
Plantagenet will stand high among the heroes of the age. The
memory of _Cur de Lion_, of the lion-hearted prince, was long
dear and glorious to his English subjects; and, at the distance
of sixty years, it was celebrated in proverbial sayings by the
grandsons of the Turks and Saracens, against whom he had fought:
his tremendous name was employed by the Syrian mothers to silence
their infants; and if a horse suddenly started from the way, his
rider was wont to exclaim, “Dost thou think King Richard is in
that bush?” 73 His cruelty to the Mahometans was the effect of
temper and zeal; but I cannot believe that a soldier, so free and
fearless in the use of his lance, would have descended to whet a
dagger against his valiant brother Conrad of Montferrat, who was
slain at Tyre by some secret assassins. 74 After the surrender of
Acre, and the departure of Philip, the king of England led the
crusaders to the recovery of the sea-coast; and the cities of
Cæsarea and Jaffa were added to the fragments of the kingdom of
Lusignan. A march of one hundred miles from Acre to Ascalon was a
great and perpetual battle of eleven days. In the disorder of his
troops, Saladin remained on the field with seventeen guards,
without lowering his standard, or suspending the sound of his
brazen kettle-drum: he again rallied and renewed the charge; and
his preachers or heralds called aloud on the _unitarians_,
manfully to stand up against the Christian idolaters. But the
progress of these idolaters was irresistible; and it was only by
demolishing the walls and buildings of Ascalon, that the sultan
could prevent them from occupying an important fortress on the
confines of Egypt. During a severe winter, the armies slept; but
in the spring, the Franks advanced within a day’s march of
Jerusalem, under the leading standard of the English king; and
his active spirit intercepted a convoy, or caravan, of seven
thousand camels. Saladin 75 had fixed his station in the holy
city; but the city was struck with consternation and discord: he
fasted; he prayed; he preached; he offered to share the dangers
of the siege; but his Mamalukes, who remembered the fate of their
companions at Acre, pressed the sultan with loyal or seditious
clamors, to reserve _his_ person and _their_ courage for the
future defence of the religion and empire. 76 The Moslems were
delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the miraculous,
retreat of the Christians; 77 and the laurels of Richard were
blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero,
ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an
indignant voice, “Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy
to view, the sepulchre of Christ!” After his return to Acre, on
the news that Jaffa was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with
some merchant vessels, and leaped foremost on the beach: the
castle was relieved by his presence; and sixty thousand Turks and
Saracens fled before his arms. The discovery of his weakness,
provoked them to return in the morning; and they found him
carelessly encamped before the gates with only seventeen knights
and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he
sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his
enemies, that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode
furiously along their front, from the right to the left wing,
without meeting an adversary who dared to encounter his career.
78 Am I writing the history of Orlando or Amadis?

71 (return) [ Magnus hic apud eos, interque reges eorum tum
virtute tum majestate eminens.... summus rerum arbiter, (Bohadin,
p. 159.) He does not seem to have known the names either of
Philip or Richard.]

72 (return) [ Rex Angliæ, præstrenuus.... rege Gallorum minor
apud eos censebatur ratione regni atque dignitatis; sed tum
divitiis florentior, tum bellicâ virtute multo erat celebrior,
(Bohadin, p. 161.) A stranger might admire those riches; the
national historians will tell with what lawless and wasteful
oppression they were collected.]

73 (return) [ Joinville, p. 17. Cuides-tu que ce soit le roi
Richart?]

74 (return) [ Yet he was guilty in the opinion of the Moslems,
who attest the confession of the assassins, that they were sent
by the king of England, (Bohadin, p. 225;) and his only defence
is an absurd and palpable forgery, (Hist. de l’Académie des
Inscriptions, tom. xv. p. 155—163,) a pretended letter from the
prince of the assassins, the Sheich, or old man of the mountain,
who justified Richard, by assuming to himself the guilt or merit
of the murder. *

Note: * Von Hammer (Geschichte der Assassinen, p. 202) sums up
against Richard, Wilken (vol. iv. p. 485) as strongly for
acquittal. Michaud (vol. ii. p. 420) delivers no decided opinion.
This crime was also attributed to Saladin, who is said, by an
Oriental authority, (the continuator of Tabari,) to have employed
the assassins to murder both Conrad and Richard. It is a
melancholy admission, but it must be acknowledged, that such an
act would be less inconsistent with the character of the
Christian than of the Mahometan king.—M.]

75 (return) [ See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as
they are described by Bohadin, (p. 7—9, 235—237,) who himself
harangued the defenders of Jerusalem; their fears were not
unknown to the enemy, (Jacob. à Vitriaco, l. i. c. 100, p. 1123.
Vinisauf, l. v. c. 50, p. 399.)]

76 (return) [ Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince,
remained in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent
obtemperaturi Curdis, (Bohadin, p. 236.) He draws aside a corner
of the political curtain.]

77 (return) [ Bohadin, (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf,
(l. vi. c. 1—8, p. 403—409,) ascribe the retreat to Richard
himself; and Jacobus à Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience
to depart, in alterum virum mutatus est, (p. 1123.) Yet
Joinville, a French knight, accuses the envy of Hugh duke of
Burgundy, (p. 116,) without supposing, like Matthew Paris, that
he was bribed by Saladin.]

78 (return) [ The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa,
are related by Bohadin (p. 184—249) and Abulfeda, (p. 51, 52.)
The author of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Alban’s, cannot
exaggerate the cadhi’s account of the prowess of Richard,
(Vinisauf, l. vi. c. 14—24, p. 412—421. Hist. Major, p. 137—143;)
and on the whole of this war there is a marvellous agreement
between the Christian and Mahometan writers, who mutually praise
the virtues of their enemies.]

During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation 79
between the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and
broken, and again resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal
courtesy, the gift of snow and fruit, the exchange of Norway
hawks and Arabian horses, softened the asperity of religious war:
from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs might learn to
suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor, after the
trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory. 80
The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a
declining state; and they respectively suffered the evils of
distant and domestic warfare: Plantagenet was impatient to punish
a perfidious rival who had invaded Normandy in his absence; and
the indefatigable sultan was subdued by the cries of the people,
who was the victim, and of the soldiers, who were the
instruments, of his martial zeal. The first demands of the king
of England were the restitution of Jerusalem, Palestine, and the
true cross; and he firmly declared, that himself and his brother
pilgrims would end their lives in the pious labor, rather than
return to Europe with ignominy and remorse. But the conscience of
Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to restore
the idols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he
asserted, with equal firmness, his religious and civil claim to
the sovereignty of Palestine; descanted on the importance and
sanctity of Jerusalem; and rejected all terms of the
establishment, or partition of the Latins. The marriage which
Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan’s brother, was
defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred the
embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily
renounce a plurality of wives. A personal interview was declined
by Saladin, who alleged their mutual ignorance of each other’s
language; and the negotiation was managed with much art and delay
by their interpreters and envoys. The final agreement was equally
disapproved by the zealots of both parties, by the Roman pontiff
and the caliph of Bagdad. It was stipulated that Jerusalem and
the holy sepulchre should be open, without tribute or vexation,
to the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that, after the
demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess the
sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the
prince of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that,
during three years and three months, all hostilities should
cease. The principal chiefs of the two armies swore to the
observance of the treaty; but the monarchs were satisfied with
giving their word and their right hand; and the royal majesty was
excused from an oath, which always implies some suspicion of
falsehood and dishonor. Richard embarked for Europe, to seek a
long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few
months concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The Orientals
describe his edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they
seem ignorant of the equal distribution of his alms among the
three religions, 81 or of the display of a shroud, instead of a
standard, to admonish the East of the instability of human
greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved by his death; his
sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle Saphadin;
the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus, and
Aleppo, 82 were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood and
breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast.

79 (return) [ See the progress of negotiation and hostility in
Bohadin, (p. 207—260,) who was himself an actor in the treaty.
Richard declared his intention of returning with new armies to
the conquest of the Holy Land; and Saladin answered the menace
with a civil compliment, (Vinisauf l. vi. c. 28, p. 423.)]

80 (return) [ The most copious and original account of this holy
war is Galfridi à Vinisauf, Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi
et aliorum in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in
the iid volume of Gale’s Scriptores Hist. Anglicanæ, (p.
247—429.) Roger Hoveden and Matthew Paris afford likewise many
valuable materials; and the former describes, with accuracy, the
discipline and navigation of the English fleet.]

81 (return) [ Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish
notion of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran
with his last breath.]

82 (return) [ See the succession of the Ayoubites, in
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 277, &c.,) and the tables of M. De
Guignes, l’Art de Vérifier les Dates, and the Bibliothèque
Orientale.]

The noblest monument of a conqueror’s fame, and of the terror
which he inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax which was
imposed on the laity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church,
for the service of the holy war. The practice was too lucrative
to expire with the occasion: and this tribute became the
foundation of all the tithes and tenths on ecclesiastical
benefices, which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs to
Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the
apostolic see. 83 This pecuniary emolument must have tended to
increase the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine:
after the death of Saladin, they preached the crusade, by their
epistles, their legates, and their missionaries; and the
accomplishment of the pious work might have been expected from
the zeal and talents of Innocent the Third. 84 Under that young
and ambitious priest, the successors of St. Peter attained the
full meridian of their greatness: and in a reign of eighteen
years, he exercised a despotic command over the emperors and
kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an
interdict of months or years deprived, for the offence of their
rulers, of the exercise of Christian worship. In the council of
the Lateran he acted as the ecclesiastical, almost as the
temporal, sovereign of the East and West. It was at the feet of
his legate that John of England surrendered his crown; and
Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and
humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin
of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and
the fifth, were undertaken; but, except a king of Hungary, the
princes of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims: the
forces were inadequate to the design; nor did the effects
correspond with the hopes and wishes of the pope and the people.
The fourth crusade was diverted from Syria to Constantinople; and
the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire by the Latins will form
the proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the
fifth, 85 two hundred thousand Franks were landed at the eastern
mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine must be
subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan; and,
after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss of
Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and
insolence of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope’s name,
assumed the character of general: the sickly Franks were
encompassed by the waters of the Nile and the Oriental forces;
and it was by the evacuation of Damietta that they obtained a
safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the tardy
restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure
may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication
of the crusades, which were preached at the same time against the
Pagans of Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France,
and the kings of Sicily of the Imperial family. 86 In these
meritorious services, the volunteers might acquire at home the
same spiritual indulgence, and a larger measure of temporal
rewards; and even the popes, in their zeal against a domestic
enemy, were sometimes tempted to forget the distress of their
Syrian brethren. From the last age of the crusades they derived
the occasional command of an army and revenue; and some deep
reasoners have suspected that the whole enterprise, from the
first synod of Placentia, was contrived and executed by the
policy of Rome. The suspicion is not founded, either in nature or
in fact. The successors of St. Peter appear to have followed,
rather than guided, the impulse of manners and prejudice; without
much foresight of the seasons, or cultivation of the soil, they
gathered the ripe and spontaneous fruits of the superstition of
the times. They gathered these fruits without toil or personal
danger: in the council of the Lateran, Innocent the Third
declared an ambiguous resolution of animating the crusaders by
his example; but the pilot of the sacred vessel could not abandon
the helm; nor was Palestine ever blessed with the presence of a
Roman pontiff. 87

83 (return) [ Thomassin (Discipline de l’Eglise, tom. iii. p.
311—374) has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and
restrictions of these _tenths_. A theory was started, but not
pursued, that they were rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of
the Levite’s tenth to the high priest, (Selden on Tithes; see his
Works, vol. iii. p. ii. p. 1083.)]

84 (return) [ See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Murat. Script.
Rer. Ital., (tom. iii. p. 486—568.)]

85 (return) [ See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in
Jacobus à Vitriaco, (l. iii. p. 1125—1149, in the Gesta Dei of
Bongarsius,) an eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius, (in Script.
Muratori, tom. vii. p. 825—846, c. 190—207,) a contemporary, and
Sanutus, (Secreta Fidel Crucis, l. iii. p. xi. c. 4—9,) a
diligent compiler; and of the Arabians Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p.
294,) and the Extracts at the end of Joinville, (p. 533, 537,
540, 547, &c.)]

86 (return) [ To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the
pope (A.D. 1255) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem.
Fideles mirabantur quòd tantum eis promitteret pro sanguine
Christianorum effundendo quantum pro cruore infidelium aliquando,
(Matthew Paris p. 785.) A high flight for the reason of the
xiiith century.]

87 (return) [ This simple idea is agreeable to the good sense of
Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Ecclés. p. 332,) and the fine
philosophy of Hume, (Hist. of England, vol. i. p. 330.)]

The persons, the families, and estates of the pilgrims, were
under the immediate protection of the popes; and these spiritual
patrons soon claimed the prerogative of directing their
operations, and enforcing, by commands and censures, the
accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the Second, 88 the grandson
of Barbarossa, was successively the pupil, the enemy, and the
victim of the church. At the age of twenty-one years, and in
obedience to his guardian Innocent the Third, he assumed the
cross; the same promise was repeated at his royal and imperial
coronations; and his marriage with the heiress of Jerusalem
forever bound him to defend the kingdom of his son Conrad. But as
Frederic advanced in age and authority, he repented of the rash
engagements of his youth: his liberal sense and knowledge taught
him to despise the phantoms of superstition and the crowns of
Asia: he no longer entertained the same reverence for the
successors of Innocent: and his ambition was occupied by the
restoration of the Italian monarchy from Sicily to the Alps. But
the success of this project would have reduced the popes to their
primitive simplicity; and, after the delays and excuses of twelve
years, they urged the emperor, with entreaties and threats, to
fix the time and place of his departure for Palestine. In the
harbors of Sicily and Apulia, he prepared a fleet of one hundred
galleys, and of one hundred vessels, that were framed to
transport and land two thousand five hundred knights, with their
horses and attendants; his vassals of Naples and Germany formed a
powerful army; and the number of English crusaders was magnified
to sixty thousand by the report of fame. But the inevitable or
affected slowness of these mighty preparations consumed the
strength and provisions of the more indigent pilgrims: the
multitude was thinned by sickness and desertion; and the sultry
summer of Calabria anticipated the mischiefs of a Syrian
campaign. At length the emperor hoisted sail at Brundusium, with
a fleet and army of forty thousand men: but he kept the sea no
more than three days; and his hasty retreat, which was ascribed
by his friends to a grievous indisposition, was accused by his
enemies as a voluntary and obstinate disobedience. For suspending
his vow was Frederic excommunicated by Gregory the Ninth; for
presuming, the next year, to accomplish his vow, he was again
excommunicated by the same pope. 89 While he served under the
banner of the cross, a crusade was preached against him in Italy;
and after his return he was compelled to ask pardon for the
injuries which he had suffered. The clergy and military orders of
Palestine were previously instructed to renounce his communion
and dispute his commands; and in his own kingdom, the emperor was
forced to consent that the orders of the camp should be issued in
the name of God and of the Christian republic. Frederic entered
Jerusalem in triumph; and with his own hands (for no priest would
perform the office) he took the crown from the altar of the holy
sepulchre. But the patriarch cast an interdict on the church
which his presence had profaned; and the knights of the hospital
and temple informed the sultan how easily he might be surprised
and slain in his unguarded visit to the River Jordan. In such a
state of fanaticism and faction, victory was hopeless, and
defence was difficult; but the conclusion of an advantageous
peace may be imputed to the discord of the Mahometans, and their
personal esteem for the character of Frederic. The enemy of the
church is accused of maintaining with the miscreants an
intercourse of hospitality and friendship unworthy of a
Christian; of despising the barrenness of the land; and of
indulging a profane thought, that if Jehovah had seen the kingdom
of Naples he never would have selected Palestine for the
inheritance of his chosen people. Yet Frederic obtained from the
sultan the restitution of Jerusalem, of Bethlem and Nazareth, of
Tyre and Sidon; the Latins were allowed to inhabit and fortify
the city; an equal code of civil and religious freedom was
ratified for the sectaries of Jesus and those of Mahomet; and,
while the former worshipped at the holy sepulchre, the latter
might pray and preach in the mosque of the temple, 90 from whence
the prophet undertook his nocturnal journey to heaven. The clergy
deplored this scandalous toleration; and the weaker Moslems were
gradually expelled; but every rational object of the crusades was
accomplished without bloodshed; the churches were restored, the
monasteries were replenished; and, in the space of fifteen years,
the Latins of Jerusalem exceeded the number of six thousand. This
peace and prosperity, for which they were ungrateful to their
benefactor, was terminated by the irruption of the strange and
savage hordes of Carizmians. 91 Flying from the arms of the
Moguls, those shepherds 911 of the Caspian rolled headlong on
Syria; and the union of the Franks with the sultans of Aleppo,
Hems, and Damascus, was insufficient to stem the violence of the
torrent. Whatever stood against them was cut off by the sword, or
dragged into captivity: the military orders were almost
exterminated in a single battle; and in the pillage of the city,
in the profanation of the holy sepulchre, the Latins confess and
regret the modesty and discipline of the Turks and Saracens.

88 (return) [ The original materials for the crusade of Frederic
II. may be drawn from Richard de St. Germano (in Muratori,
Script. Rerum Ital. tom. vii. p. 1002—1013) and Matthew Paris,
(p. 286, 291, 300, 302, 304.) The most rational moderns are
Fleury, (Hist. Ecclés. tom. xvi.,) Vertot, (Chevaliers de Malthe,
tom. i. l. iii.,) Giannone, (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii.
l. xvi.,) and Muratori, (Annali d’ Italia, tom. x.)]

89 (return) [ Poor Muratori knows what to think, but knows not
what to say: “Chino qui il capo,” &c. p. 322.]

90 (return) [ The clergy artfully confounded the mosque or church
of the temple with the holy sepulchre, and their wilful error has
deceived both Vertot and Muratori.]

91 (return) [ The irruption of the Carizmians, or Corasmins, is
related by Matthew Paris, (p. 546, 547,) and by Joinville,
Nangis, and the Arabians, (p. 111, 112, 191, 192, 528, 530.)]

911 (return) [ They were in alliance with Eyub, sultan of Syria.
Wilken vol. vi. p. 630.—M.]

Of the seven crusades, the two last were undertaken by Louis the
Ninth, king of France; who lost his liberty in Egypt, and his
life on the coast of Africa. Twenty-eight years after his death,
he was canonized at Rome; and sixty-five miracles were readily
found, and solemnly attested, to justify the claim of the royal
saint. 92 The voice of history renders a more honorable
testimony, that he united the virtues of a king, a hero, and a
man; that his martial spirit was tempered by the love of private
and public justice; and that Louis was the father of his people,
the friend of his neighbors, and the terror of the infidels.
Superstition alone, in all the extent of her baleful influence,
93 corrupted his understanding and his heart: his devotion
stooped to admire and imitate the begging friars of Francis and
Dominic: he pursued with blind and cruel zeal the enemies of the
faith; and the best of kings twice descended from his throne to
seek the adventures of a spiritual knight-errant. A monkish
historian would have been content to applaud the most despicable
part of his character; but the noble and gallant Joinville, 94
who shared the friendship and captivity of Louis, has traced with
the pencil of nature the free portrait of his virtues as well as
of his failings. From this intimate knowledge we may learn to
suspect the political views of depressing their great vassals,
which are so often imputed to the royal authors of the crusades.
Above all the princes of the middle ages, Louis the Ninth
successfully labored to restore the prerogatives of the crown;
but it was at home and not in the East, that he acquired for
himself and his posterity: his vow was the result of enthusiasm
and sickness; and if he were the promoter, he was likewise the
victim, of his holy madness. For the invasion of Egypt, France
was exhausted of her troops and treasures; he covered the sea of
Cyprus with eighteen hundred sails; the most modest enumeration
amounts to fifty thousand men; and, if we might trust his own
confession, as it is reported by Oriental vanity, he disembarked
nine thousand five hundred horse, and one hundred and thirty
thousand foot, who performed their pilgrimage under the shadow of
his power. 95

92 (return) [ Read, if you can, the Life and Miracles of St.
Louis, by the confessor of Queen Margaret, (p. 291—523.
Joinville, du Louvre.)]

93 (return) [ He believed all that mother church taught,
(Joinville, p. 10,) but he cautioned Joinville against disputing
with infidels. “L’omme lay (said he in his old language) quand il
ot medire de la loi Crestienne, ne doit pas deffendre la loi
Crestienne ne mais que de l’espée, dequoi il doit donner parmi le
ventre dedens, tant comme elle y peut entrer” (p. 12.)]

94 (return) [ I have two editions of Joinville, the one (Paris,
1668) most valuable for the observations of Ducange; the other
(Paris, au Louvre, 1761) most precious for the pure and authentic
text, a MS. of which has been recently discovered. The last
edition proves that the history of St. Louis was finished A.D.
1309, without explaining, or even admiring, the age of the
author, which must have exceeded ninety years, (Preface, p. x.
Observations de Ducange, p. 17.)]

95 (return) [ Joinville, p. 32. Arabic Extracts, p. 549. *

Note: * Compare Wilken, vol. vii. p. 94.—M.]

In complete armor, the oriflamme waving before him, Louis leaped
foremost on the beach; and the strong city of Damietta, which had
cost his predecessors a siege of sixteen months, was abandoned on
the first assault by the trembling Moslems. But Damietta was the
first and the last of his conquests; and in the fifth and sixth
crusades, the same causes, almost on the same ground, were
productive of similar calamities. 96 After a ruinous delay, which
introduced into the camp the seeds of an epidemic disease, the
Franks advanced from the sea-coast towards the capital of Egypt,
and strove to surmount the unseasonable inundation of the Nile,
which opposed their progress. Under the eye of their intrepid
monarch, the barons and knights of France displayed their
invincible contempt of danger and discipline: his brother, the
count of Artois, stormed with inconsiderate valor the town of
Massoura; and the carrier pigeons announced to the inhabitants of
Cairo that all was lost. But a soldier, who afterwards usurped
the sceptre, rallied the flying troops: the main body of the
Christians was far behind the vanguard; and Artois was
overpowered and slain. A shower of Greek fire was incessantly
poured on the invaders; the Nile was commanded by the Egyptian
galleys, the open country by the Arabs; all provisions were
intercepted; each day aggravated the sickness and famine; and
about the same time a retreat was found to be necessary and
impracticable. The Oriental writers confess, that Louis might
have escaped, if he would have deserted his subjects; he was made
prisoner, with the greatest part of his nobles; all who could not
redeem their lives by service or ransom were inhumanly massacred;
and the walls of Cairo were decorated with a circle of Christian
heads. 97 The king of France was loaded with chains; but the
generous victor, a great-grandson of the brother of Saladin, sent
a robe of honor to his royal captive, and his deliverance, with
that of his soldiers, was obtained by the restitution of Damietta
98 and the payment of four hundred thousand pieces of gold. In a
soft and luxurious climate, the degenerate children of the
companions of Noureddin and Saladin were incapable of resisting
the flower of European chivalry: they triumphed by the arms of
their slaves or Mamalukes, the hardy natives of Tartary, who at a
tender age had been purchased of the Syrian merchants, and were
educated in the camp and palace of the sultan. But Egypt soon
afforded a new example of the danger of prætorian bands; and the
rage of these ferocious animals, who had been let loose on the
strangers, was provoked to devour their benefactor. In the pride
of conquest, Touran Shaw, the last of his race, was murdered by
his Mamalukes; and the most daring of the assassins entered the
chamber of the captive king, with drawn cimeters, and their hands
imbrued in the blood of their sultan. The firmness of Louis
commanded their respect; 99 their avarice prevailed over cruelty
and zeal; the treaty was accomplished; and the king of France,
with the relics of his army, was permitted to embark for
Palestine. He wasted four years within the walls of Acre, unable
to visit Jerusalem, and unwilling to return without glory to his
native country.

96 (return) [ The last editors have enriched their Joinville with
large and curious extracts from the Arabic historians, Macrizi,
Abulfeda, &c. See likewise Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 322—325,)
who calls him by the corrupt name of _Redefrans_. Matthew Paris
(p. 683, 684) has described the rival folly of the French and
English who fought and fell at Massoura.]

97 (return) [ Savary, in his agreeable Letters sur L’Egypte, has
given a description of Damietta, (tom. i. lettre xxiii. p.
274—290,) and a narrative of the exposition of St. Louis, (xxv.
p. 306—350.)]

98 (return) [ For the ransom of St. Louis, a million of byzants
was asked and granted; but the sultan’s generosity reduced that
sum to 800,000 byzants, which are valued by Joinville at 400,000
French livres of his own time, and expressed by Matthew Paris by
100,000 marks of silver, (Ducange, Dissertation xx. sur
Joinville.)]

99 (return) [ The idea of the emirs to choose Louis for their
sultan is seriously attested by Joinville, (p. 77, 78,) and does
not appear to me so absurd as to M. de Voltaire, (Hist. Générale,
tom. ii. p. 386, 387.) The Mamalukes themselves were strangers,
rebels, and equals: they had felt his valor, they hoped his
conversion; and such a motion, which was not seconded, might be
made, perhaps by a secret Christian in their tumultuous assembly.
*

Note: * Wilken, vol. vii. p. 257, thinks the proposition could
not have been made in earnest.—M.]

The memory of his defeat excited Louis, after sixteen years of
wisdom and repose, to undertake the seventh and last of the
crusades. His finances were restored, his kingdom was enlarged; a
new generation of warriors had arisen, and he advanced with fresh
confidence at the head of six thousand horse and thirty thousand
foot. The loss of Antioch had provoked the enterprise; a wild
hope of baptizing the king of Tunis tempted him to steer for the
African coast; and the report of an immense treasure reconciled
his troops to the delay of their voyage to the Holy Land. Instead
of a proselyte, he found a siege: the French panted and died on
the burning sands: St. Louis expired in his tent; and no sooner
had he closed his eyes, than his son and successor gave the
signal of the retreat. 100 “It is thus,” says a lively writer,
“that a Christian king died near the ruins of Carthage, waging
war against the sectaries of Mahomet, in a land to which Dido had
introduced the deities of Syria.” 101

100 (return) [ See the expedition in the annals of St. Louis, by
William de Nangis, p. 270—287; and the Arabic extracts, p. 545,
555, of the Louvre edition of Joinville.]

101 (return) [ Voltaire, Hist. Générale, tom. ii. p. 391.]

A more unjust and absurd constitution cannot be devised than that
which condemns the natives of a country to perpetual servitude,
under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and slaves. Yet such
has been the state of Egypt above five hundred years. The most
illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Borgite dynasties 102
were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian bands;
and the four-and-twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever been
succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants. They produce
the great charter of their liberties, the treaty of Selim the
First with the republic: 103 and the Othman emperor still accepts
from Egypt a slight acknowledgment of tribute and subjection.
With some breathing intervals of peace and order, the two
dynasties are marked as a period of rapine and bloodshed: 104 but
their throne, however shaken, reposed on the two pillars of
discipline and valor: their sway extended over Egypt, Nubia,
Arabia, and Syria: their Mamalukes were multiplied from eight
hundred to twenty-five thousand horse; and their numbers were
increased by a provincial militia of one hundred and seven
thousand foot, and the occasional aid of sixty-six thousand
Arabs. 105 Princes of such power and spirit could not long endure
on their coast a hostile and independent nation; and if the ruin
of the Franks was postponed about forty years, they were indebted
to the cares of an unsettled reign, to the invasion of the
Moguls, and to the occasional aid of some warlike pilgrims. Among
these, the English reader will observe the name of our first
Edward, who assumed the cross in the lifetime of his father
Henry. At the head of a thousand soldiers the future conqueror of
Wales and Scotland delivered Acre from a siege; marched as far as
Nazareth with an army of nine thousand men; emulated the fame of
his uncle Richard; extorted, by his valor, a ten years’ truce;
1051 and escaped, with a dangerous wound, from the dagger of a
fanatic _assassin_. 106 1061 Antioch, 107 whose situation had
been less exposed to the calamities of the holy war, was finally
occupied and ruined by Bondocdar, or Bibars, sultan of Egypt and
Syria; the Latin principality was extinguished; and the first
seat of the Christian name was dispeopled by the slaughter of
seventeen, and the captivity of one hundred, thousand of her
inhabitants. The maritime towns of Laodicea, Gabala, Tripoli,
Berytus, Sidon, Tyre and Jaffa, and the stronger castles of the
Hospitallers and Templars, successively fell; and the whole
existence of the Franks was confined to the city and colony of
St. John of Acre, which is sometimes described by the more
classic title of Ptolemais.

102 (return) [ The chronology of the two dynasties of Mamalukes,
the Baharites, Turks or Tartars of Kipzak, and the Borgites,
Circassians, is given by Pocock (Prolegom. ad Abulpharag. p.
6—31) and De Guignes (tom. i. p. 264—270;) their history from
Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., to the beginning of the xvth century, by
the same M. De Guignes, (tom. iv. p. 110—328.)]

103 (return) [ Savary, Lettres sur l’Egypte, tom. ii. lettre xv.
p. 189—208. I much question the authenticity of this copy; yet it
is true, that Sultan Selim concluded a treaty with the
Circassians or Mamalukes of Egypt, and left them in possession of
arms, riches, and power. See a new Abrégé de l’Histoire Ottomane,
composed in Egypt, and translated by M. Digeon, (tom. i. p.
55—58, Paris, 1781,) a curious, authentic, and national history.]

104 (return) [ Si totum quo regnum occupârunt tempus respicias,
præsertim quod fini propius, reperies illud bellis, pugnis,
injuriis, ac rapinis refertum, (Al Jannabi, apud Pocock, p. 31.)
The reign of Mohammed (A.D. 1311—1341) affords a happy exception,
(De Guignes, tom. iv. p. 208—210.)]

105 (return) [ They are now reduced to 8500: but the expense of
each Mamaluke may be rated at a hundred louis: and Egypt groans
under the avarice and insolence of these strangers, (Voyages de
Volney, tom. i. p. 89—187.)]

1051 (return) [ Gibbon colors rather highly the success of
Edward. Wilken is more accurate vol. vii. p. 593, &c.—M.]

106 (return) [ See Carte’s History of England, vol. ii. p.
165—175, and his original authors, Thomas Wikes and Walter
Hemingford, (l. iii. c. 34, 35,) in Gale’s Collection, (tom. ii.
p. 97, 589—592.) They are both ignorant of the princess Eleanor’s
piety in sucking the poisoned wound, and saving her husband at
the risk of her own life.]

1061 (return) [ The sultan Bibars was concerned in this attempt
at assassination Wilken, vol. vii. p. 602. Ptolemæus Lucensis is
the earliest authority for the devotion of Eleanora. Ibid.
605.—M.]

107 (return) [ Sanutus, Secret. Fidelium Crucis, 1. iii. p. xii.
c. 9, and De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. iv. p. 143, from the
Arabic historians.]

After the loss of Jerusalem, Acre, 108 which is distant about
seventy miles, became the metropolis of the Latin Christians, and
was adorned with strong and stately buildings, with aqueducts, an
artificial port, and a double wall. The population was increased
by the incessant streams of pilgrims and fugitives: in the pauses
of hostility the trade of the East and West was attracted to this
convenient station; and the market could offer the produce of
every clime and the interpreters of every tongue. But in this
conflux of nations, every vice was propagated and practised: of
all the disciples of Jesus and Mahomet, the male and female
inhabitants of Acre were esteemed the most corrupt; nor could the
abuse of religion be corrected by the discipline of law. The city
had many sovereigns, and no government. The kings of Jerusalem
and Cyprus, of the house of Lusignan, the princes of Antioch, the
counts of Tripoli and Sidon, the great masters of the hospital,
the temple, and the Teutonic order, the republics of Venice,
Genoa, and Pisa, the pope’s legate, the kings of France and
England, assumed an independent command: seventeen tribunals
exercised the power of life and death; every criminal was
protected in the adjacent quarter; and the perpetual jealousy of
the nations often burst forth in acts of violence and blood. Some
adventurers, who disgraced the ensign of the cross, compensated
their want of pay by the plunder of the Mahometan villages:
nineteen Syrian merchants, who traded under the public faith,
were despoiled and hanged by the Christians; and the denial of
satisfaction justified the arms of the sultan Khalil. He marched
against Acre, at the head of sixty thousand horse and one hundred
and forty thousand foot: his train of artillery (if I may use the
word) was numerous and weighty: the separate timbers of a single
engine were transported in one hundred wagons; and the royal
historian Abulfeda, who served with the troops of Hamah, was
himself a spectator of the holy war. Whatever might be the vices
of the Franks, their courage was rekindled by enthusiasm and
despair; but they were torn by the discord of seventeen chiefs,
and overwhelmed on all sides by the powers of the sultan. After a
siege of thirty three days, the double wall was forced by the
Moslems; the principal tower yielded to their engines; the
Mamalukes made a general assault; the city was stormed; and death
or slavery was the lot of sixty thousand Christians. The convent,
or rather fortress, of the Templars resisted three days longer;
but the great master was pierced with an arrow; and, of five
hundred knights, only ten were left alive, less happy than the
victims of the sword, if they lived to suffer on a scaffold, in
the unjust and cruel proscription of the whole order. The king of
Jerusalem, the patriarch and the great master of the hospital,
effected their retreat to the shore; but the sea was rough, the
vessels were insufficient; and great numbers of the fugitives
were drowned before they could reach the Isle of Cyprus, which
might comfort Lusignan for the loss of Palestine. By the command
of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin
cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened
the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a
mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had
so long resounded with the world’s debate. 109

108 (return) [ The state of Acre is represented in all the
chronicles of te times, and most accurately in John Villani, l.
vii. c. 144, in Muratori, Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom. xiii.
337, 338.]

109 (return) [ See the final expulsion of the Franks, in Sanutus,
l. iii. p. xii. c. 11—22; Abulfeda, Macrizi, &c., in De Guignes,
tom. iv. p. 162, 164; and Vertot, tom. i. l. iii. p. 307—428. *

Note: * After these chapters of Gibbon, the masterly prize
composition, “Essai sur ‘Influence des Croisades sur l’Europe,”
par A H. L. Heeren: traduit de l’Allemand par Charles Villars,
Paris, 1808,’ or the original German, in Heeren’s “Vermischte
Schriften,” may be read with great advantage.—M.]