CHAP. winter, the armies slept; but in the spring, the Franks adLIX. vanced 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. Saladin75 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 Mamelukes, who remembered the fate of their companions at Acre, pressed the sultan with loyal or seditious clamours, to reserve his person and their courage for the future defence of the religion and empire. The Moslems were delivered by the sudden, or, as they deemed, the miraculous, retreat of the Christians; 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

His treaty and departure,

77

76

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 count

ing 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. Am I writing the history of Orlando or Amadis ?

During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation

A. D. 1192, 75 See the distress and pious firmness of Saladin, as they are described by September. 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, 1. v. c. 50, p. 399.)

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

77 Bohadin (p. 237,) and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf, (1. vi. c. 1-8, p. 403409,) 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 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, 1. 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.

79 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, 1. vi. c. 28, p. 423.)

between the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, CHAP. and broken, and again resumed, and again broken. Some acts LIX. 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. The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a declining state; and they respectively suffered 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 labour, 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 seacoast 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,

80 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 second volume of Gale's Scriptores Hist. Anglicane (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.

Death of
Saladin,

March 4.

1

CHAP. which always implies some suspicion of falsehood and disLIX. honour. 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 A. D. 1193, describe his edifying death, which happened at Damascus ; but they seem ignorant of the equal distribution of his alms among the three religions, 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, were again revived, and the Franks or Latins stood, and breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast.

Innocent

III.

--1216.

*3

The noblest monument of a conqueror's fame, and of the A. D. 1198 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. 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. 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 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

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

82 See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 277, &c.) and the tables of M. de Guignes, l'Art de Verifier les Dates, and the Bibliotheque Orientale.

83 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 Levites' tenth to the high-priest (Selden on Tithes; see his Works, vol. iii. P. ii. p. 1083.)

84 See the Gesta Innocentii III. in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. (tom. iii. p. 486-568.)

85

crusade.

establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin of the inqui- CHAP. sition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and the fifth, LIX. 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; The fourth and the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire by the La-AD. 1205. tins will form the proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the fifth, two hundred thousand Franks were The fifth landed at the eastern mouth of the Nile. They reasonably A. D. 1218. 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 Albigeios of France, and the kings of Sicily of the Imperial family.& 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 Late

86

85 See the fifth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus à Vitriaco (1. iii. p. 1125-1149) in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius, an eyewitness, Bernard Thesaurarius (in Script. Muratori, tom. vii. p. 825-846, c. 190-207,) a contemporary, and Sanutus (Secreta Fidel. Crucis. 1. 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 To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the pope (A. D. 1255,) granted plenissimam peccatorum remissionem. Fideles mirabantur quod 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.

CHAP. ran, Innocent the Third, declared an ambiguous resolution of LIX. 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

The emperor Frede

ric II. in

A. D. 1228.

The persons, the families, and the estates of the pilgrims, were under the immediate protection of the popes; and these Palestine spiritual patrons soon claimed the prerogative of directing their operations, and enforcing, by commands and censures, the accomplishment of their vow. Frederic the Second, 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 for ever 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 harbours 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 dis

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

88 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. 10021013,) and Matthew Paris (p. 286. 291. 300. 302. 304.) The most rational moderns are, Fleury (Hist. Eccles. tom. xvi.) Vertot (Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. 1. iii.) Giannone (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. 1. xvi.) and Muratori (Annali d'Italia, tom. x.)