BOOK VI.

FROM THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI. TO THE DEATH
OF POPE CELESTINE III, A.D. 1046-1198.

CHAPTER X.

FROM THE ELECTION OF POPE LUCIUS III TO THE DEATH OF CELESTINE III. A.D. 1181-1198.

 

 

THE successor of Alexander, Humbald, bishop of Ostia, was chosen by the cardinals alone, in compliance with the decree of the late council, and styled himself Lucius III. The Romans, indignant at being deprived of their share in the election, rose against the new pope, and compelled him to take refuge at Velletri. For a time he obtained aid against his rebellious subjects from the imperial commander, archbishop Christian of Mainz; but this warlike prelate died in August 1183—it is said, of drinking from a poisoned well, which proved fatal to more than a thousand of his soldiers; and Lucius was never able to regain a footing in his city. The enmity of the Romans against him was of the bitterest kind. In 1184 they took twenty-six of his partisans at Tusculum, and blinded them all, except one, to whom they left one eye that he might serve as guide to the rest; they crowned them with paper mitres, each bearing the name of a cardinal, while the one-eyed chief's mock tiara was inscribed “Lucius, the wicked simoniac”, and, having mounted them on asses, they made them swear to exhibit themselves in this miserable condition to the pope.

In the meanwhile Frederick made a skillfull use of the time of rest allowed him by the treaty of Venice. His behaviour towards the Lombards became mild and gracious. By prudent acts of conciliation, and especially by concessions as to the choice of magistrates, he won the favour of many cities—even that of Alexandria itself which in 1183 agreed that its population should leave the walls and should be led back by an imperial commissioner, and that its name should be changed to Caesarea. In June of that year, when the truce of Venice was almost expired, a permanent settlement of the relations between the empire and the cities was concluded at Constance. The cities were to retain all those royalties which they had before held, including the rights of levying war, and of maintaining their league for mutual support. They were to choose their own magistrates, subject only to the condition that these should be invested by an imperial commissioner. Certain dues were reserved to the emperor; and an oath of fidelity to him was to be taken by all between the ages of fifteen and seventy. By these equitable terms the emperor's influence in Italy was greatly strengthened, while that of the pope was proportionally diminished.

At Whitsuntide 1184 a great assemblage, drawn together not only from all Frederick’s territories but from foreign countries, met at Mainz, on the occasion of conferring knighthood on the emperor's two sons, Henry, who had reached the age of twenty, and Frederick, who was two years younger. A city of tents and wooden huts was raised on the right bank of the Rhine, and preparations were made for the festival with all possible splendour. But omens of evil were drawn from the circumstance that many of the slight erections were blown down by a violent wind, and a quarrel for precedence, which arose between the archbishop of Cologne and St. Boniface’s successor, the abbot of Fulda, excited a fear that the scenes of Henry the Fourth’s minority were about to be renewed. The difference was, however, allayed for the time by the prudence of Frederick and the young Henry, who, as the archbishop was withdrawing, hung on his neck and entreated him to return; and notwithstanding this untoward interruption, the festivities ended peacefully.

In the following August Frederick proceeded for the sixth time into Italy. The charm of his appearance and manner was universally felt. The cities were all eager in their welcome; even Milan, forgetting its old animosities and sufferings, received him with splendid festivities, and was rewarded with privileges which excited the jealousy of its neighbours. At Verona he had a meeting with the pope, who requested him to assist in reducing the Romans to obedience. But Frederick, who now had little reason to dread the influence of the pope in Lombardy, and was not attended by any considerable force, felt no zeal for the cause; and more than one subject of difference arose. On being asked to acknowledge the clergy who had been ordained by the late antipopes, Lucius at first appeared favourable, but said on the following day that such recognition had been limited by the treaty of Venice to certain dioceses, and that more could not be granted without a council. The old question of Matilda’s inheritance was again discussed, and documents were produced on both sides, without any satisfactory conclusion. Equally fruitless was a dispute as to the pretensions of two rival candidates for the archbishopric of Treves—Volkmar, who had secured the pope’s favour, and Rudolf, who had been invested by Frederick, agreeably to the concordat of Worms. The emperor's son Henry had exercised great severities towards Volkmar’s partisans, and it would seem that reports of these acts, with a suspicion of the designs which Frederick afterwards manifested as to Sicily, combined in determining Lucius to refuse to crown Henry as his father's colleague; but he professed to ground his refusal on the inconvenience of having two emperors, and added a suggestion which has the air of sarcasm—that, if Henry were to be crowned, his father must make way for him by resignation. The breach between the pope and the emperor appeared to have become hopeless, when Lucius died at Verona, on the 25th of November, 1185.

On the same day, Humbert Crivelli, archbishop of Milan, gathered together twenty-seven cardinals, under the protection of a guard, and was elected pope, with the title of Urban III. The new pope, whose name was slightly varied by his enemies so as to express the turbulence which they imputed to him, was of a Milanese family which had suffered greatly in the late contests; and private resentment on this account combined with his feelings as a citizen, and with the hierarchical opinions which had recommended him as a companion to Thomas of Canterbury in his exile in producing a bitter hostility against the emperor. The disputes between the secular and the spiritual powers became more and more exasperated. Urban, in contempt of an oath which he had sworn to the contrary, consecrated the anti-imperialist Volkmar as archbishop of Treves. As archbishop of Milan—for, out of fear that an imperialist might be appointed as his successor, he still retained that see—he refused to crown Henry as king of the Lombards ; he repeated his predecessor's refusal to crown him as a colleague in the empire; and he showed himself strongly opposed to those designs on Sicily which Lucius had suspected, and which were now openly declared.

 

AFFAIRS OF SICILY.

 

Roger II, king of Sicily, had been succeeded in 1154 by his son William the Bad, and this prince had been succeeded in 1166 by his son William the Good, then a boy of fourteen. The kingdom had been for many years a prey to barbarous and cruel factions. William the Good had married in 1177 a daughter of Henry of England, but the marriage proved childless, and the Norman dominions in the south were likely to fall to Constance, a posthumous daughter of king Roger. With this princess Frederick formed the scheme of marrying his son Henry, although nine years her junior—a match which promised greatly to increase tile imperial territory and power, and to deprive the pope of his chief supporter. The marriage was zealously promoted by Walter, an Englishman of obscure birth who had attained to the dignity of archbishop of Palermo; Urban’s opposition was vain, and his threats against all who should take part in the celebration were unheeded. At the request of the Milanese, who were eager to signalize their new­born loyalty, the nuptials were celebrated at Milan with great magnificence in January 1186, when Frederick was crowned as king of Burgundy by the archbishop of Vienne, Henry as king of Italy by the patriarch of Aquileia, and Constance as queen of Germany by a German bishop.

Other causes of difference concurred to inflame the pope. He complained of the emperor for detaining Matilda’s inheritance; for seizing the property of bishops at their death, keeping benefices vacant, and appropriating the income; for taxing the clergy and bringing them before secular courts; for having confiscated the revenues of some convents, under pretence that the nuns were of vicious life, instead of introducing a reform; and he denounced, apparently with justice, the cruelties and other outrages which the young Henry had committed towards some bishops.

Frederick was now in great power, while the pope was still an exile from his city. It was in vain that archbishop Philip of Cologne, who had been appointed legate for Germany, endeavoured to assert Urban’s pretensions, and to intrigue against the emperor; for the German bishops in general were on the side of their temporal sovereign. At an interview with Philip, Frederick declared that it was enough for the clergy to have got into their own hands the choice of bishops—a choice, he added, which they had not exercised so uprightly or with such good effect as the sovereigns who in former times had held the patronage; and that, although the imperial prerogative had been greatly curtailed as to the affairs of the church, he was determined to maintain the small remnant of it which he had inherited. The legate was forbidden to appear at a diet which was to be held at Gelnhausen in April 1186. There Frederick, in a forcible speech, declared that, in his differences with the pope, the pope had been the aggressor, and he inveighed against the Roman claims. It was, he said, ridiculous to pretend that no layman ought to hold tithes, inasmuch as the custom of thus providing for the necessary services of advocates of churches was so old as to have established a right. He asked his bishops whether they would render what was due both to Caesar and to God; to which the archbishop of Mainz (Conrad, who, on the death of Christian, had recovered the primacy) replied, in the name of the rest, that they owed a twofold duty; that it was not for them to decide the matters in dispute, but that they would write to the pope, advising him to proceed with moderation. They wrote accordingly, stating the emperor’s case and their own view of the question; and the pope, on receiving the letter, was astonished to find himself opposed by those whose rights he had supposed himself to be asserting. Frederick refused to admit Volkmar as archbishop of Treves, and shut up all the ways by which appeals could be carried to the pope; Henry continued his savage outrages, and endangered the pope’s person—keeping him almost a prisoner within the walls of Verona; and Urban, exasperated to the utmost, resolved to inflict the heaviest censures of the church on him. The citizens of Verona, where he had intended to pronounce his sentence, entreated that, “out of regard for their present service”, he would choose some other scene; and at their request he removed to Ferrara. But while he was there preparing for the final act, tidings arrived from the East, which once more set all Europe in commotion; and Urban died at Ferrara on the 20th of October 1187.

 

KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.

 

The course of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had been alike discreditable and unprosperous. The sympathies of western Christians for their brethren of the Holy Land had been greatly cooled by the experiences of the second crusade; the pilgrims were now few, and these were content to perform their pilgrimage without attempting or wishing to strengthen the Latin dominion, or to take part in the incessant contests with the infidels. In 1167 king Amaury brought disgrace on the Christian name by attempting, in conjunction with a Greek force, to seize on Egypt in violation of a treaty; and in this treachery he was abetted by the knights of the Hospital, although the Templars—whether from a feeling of honour and duty, or from jealousy of the rival order— held aloof. Baldwin IV, who in 1174 succeeded his father Amaury at the age of thirteen, had been carefully educated by the historian William, then archdeacon and afterwards archbishop of Tyre; but this young king's promise was soon clouded over by hopeless disease, and his sister Sibylla became presumptive heiress of the kingdom. Sibylla, then a widow, was sought in marriage by many princes; but she bestowed her hand on Guy of Lusignan, an adventurer from Poitou, whose personal beauty was unaccompanied by such qualities as would have fitted him to maintain the position which it had won for him. On the death of Baldwin IV, in 1185, the son of Sibylla’s first marriage was crowned as Baldwin V; but this boy died within a year, whereupon his mother and her husband, who before had met with much opposition, obtained possession of the kingdoms The princes of the Latins were distracted by jealousies and intrigues; the patriarchs and bishops were in continual strife with each other, with the chiefs, and especially with the two great knightly orders, which, relying on papal privileges and exemptions, defied all authority, ecclesiastical or secular. The Templars were especially detested for their pride, while they were charged with treachery to the Christian cause. The general state of morals was excessively depraved. In Acre alone it is said that there were 16,000 professed prostitutes. The clergy and the monks are described as infamous for their manner of life. Their chief, Heraclius of Jerusalem, who had been recommended to Sibylla by his fine person, and through her favour had been forced into the patriarchal throne, lived in open and luxurious profligacy with a tradesman’s wife of Nablous, who was generally styled the patriarchess.

The power of the Mussulmans was advancing. Noureddin, who died in 1173, was succeeded as their most conspicuous leader by Saladin, son of a Kurdish mercenary, and nephew of Siracouh, a distinguished general, who under Noureddin had been vizier of Egypt. Saladin, born in 1137, is celebrated, not only by Moslem but by Christian writers, for his skill in arms, his personal bravery, his accomplishments, his justice, his magnanimity, generosity, courtesy, and truth. In him, indeed, rather than in any Christian warrior of the age, may be found the union of some of the highest qualities which adorn the ideal character of chivalry. His piety and orthodoxy, although agreeable to the strictest Mahometan standard, were wholly free from intolerance. Yet, superior as he appears in many respects to the Christians of his time in general, Saladin will not endure to be measured by a standard which should make no allowance for the disadvantages of his training in the creed and the habits of Islam. The manner in which he superseded Noureddin’s minor son would have been unjustifiable, except on Oriental principles, nor did the humaneness of his general character prevent him from having occasional recourse to unscrupulous bloodshed for the accomplishment of his purposes.

“If Noureddin was a rod of the Lord’s fury against the Christians”, says a chronicler, “Saladin was not a rod but a hammer”. In his earlier career, while extending his conquests in every direction, he had treated them with remarkable forbearance; but at length he was roused to direct hostilities by the continual attacks of some, who plundered the borders of his territory, and seized on caravans of peaceful travellers. In 1187 he invaded the Holy Land at the head of 80,000 men, and the Christians sustained a terrible defeat at the battle of Hittim or Tiberias (July 5,1187)—fought within sight of the very scenes which had been hallowed by many of the gospel miracles. The cross on which the Saviour was believed to have died, having been brought from Jerusalem as a means of strength and victory, was lost. The king and many of the Frankish chiefs were taken, together with many templars and hospitallers, who, with the exception of the grand master of the Temple, were all beheaded on refusing to apostatize from the faith. Some of the captives, however, became renegades, and betrayed the secrets of the Latins to the enemy. Animated with fresh vigour by this victory, Saladin rapidly overran the land. Jerusalem itself was besieged, and, after a faint defence had been made for a fortnight by its scanty and disheartened garrison, it was surrendered on the 3rd of October. The cross was thrown down from the mosque of Omar amid the groans of the Christians who witnessed its fall, and the building, after having been purged with incense and rose water, was restored to Mahometan worship. Bells were broken into pieces, relics were dispersed, and the sacred places were profaned. Yet Saladin spared the holy Sepulchre, and allowed Christians to visit it for a fixed payment; he permitted ten brethren of the Hospital to remain for the tendance of the sick, and even endowed them with a certain income; and to the captives, of whom there were many thousands, he behaved with a generosity which has found its celebration rather among Christian than among Mussulman writers. The terms of ransom offered to all were very liberal; fourteen thousand were set free without payment; and at the expense of the conqueror and of the Alexandrian Saracens, many Christians received a passage to Europe, when their own brethren refused to admit them on shipboard except on condition of paying the full cost. The Syrian and other oriental Christians were allowed to remain in their homes, on submitting to tribute. All Palestine was soon in the hands of the infidels, except the great port of Tyre, where Conrad, son of the marquis of Montferrat, arrived after it had been invested by the enemy, and, by his courage and warlike skill, aided by money which Henry of England had remitted for the defence of the Holy Land, animated the remnant of the Christians to hold out. It was noted that the holy cross, which had been recovered from the Persians by the emperor Heraclius, was again lost under a patriarch of the same name; and that as Jerusalem had been wrested from the Saracens under Urban II, it was regained by them under Urban III.

From time to time attempts had been made by the princes and prelates of the Holy Land to enlist the western nations in a new enterprise for their assistance; but they had met with little success. The emperor, the king of France, and the king of England, were all engrossed by their own affairs; and, although frequent conferences took place between Henry and Lewis with a view to an alliance for a holy war, these did not produce any actual result beyond contributions of money, in which Henry’s liberality far exceeded that of the French king. In 1184 the patriarch Heraclius, accompanied by the grand master of the templars and the prior of the Hospital, bearing with them the keys of Jerusalem and of the holy Sepulchre, with the banner of the Latin kingdom, set out on a mission to enlist Europe to their aid. The templar died at Verona, but the patriarch and the hospitaller, fortified with a letter from pope Lucius, went on to Germany, France, and England. The general feeling, however, was lukewarm. King Henry was told by his prelates and nobles that his duties lay rather at home than in the East, and he could only offer money; whereupon Heraclius indignantly exclaimed : “We want a man without money, rather than money without a man!”. But the events which had now taken place aroused all Europe. The tidings of the calamity which had befallen the Christians of the East at once made peace between the emperor and the pope, between England and France, between Genoa and Pisa, between Venice and Hungary. Urban III is said to have been killed by the report of the capture of Jerusalem. His successor, Gregory VIII, issued letters urgently summoning the faithful to aid their brethren in the East; and on Gregory’s death, after a pontificate of less than two months, the cause was vigorously taken up by Clement III. The cardinals bound themselves to give up all pomp and luxury, to accept no bribes from suitors, never to mount on horse­back “so long as the land whereon the feet of the Lord had stood should be under the enemy’s feet”, and to preach the crusade as mendicants. The king of Sicily vowed to assist the holy enterprise to the utmost of his power. Henry of England, Philip of France, and Philip count of Flanders, met at the “oak conference” between Gisors and Trie, on St. Agnes’ day, and, with many of their followers, received the cross from the hands of the archbishop of Tyre. A heavy impost was laid on their subjects, under the name of “Saladin’s tithe”, and especial prayers for the Holy Land were inserted into the church-service. William of Scotland offered to contribute money, but his nobles strongly withstood the proposal that they should be taxed in the same proportion as the English.

In Germany also the crusade was preached with great success. A chronicler tells us that, at an assembly which was held at Strasburg, in December 1187, the cause of the Holy Land was at first set forth by two Italian ecclesiastics, but that their words fell dead on the hearers. The bishop of the city then took it up, and produced a general emotion; but still men hesitated to commit themselves to the enterprise. When, however, one had at length set the example of taking the cross, the bishop began the hymn “Veni Sancte Spiritus”; and forthwith such was the crowd of people who pressed forward to enlist, with an enthusiasm which found a vent in tears, that he and his clergy were hardly able to supply them with the badges of the holy war. In the following Lent a great diet, known as the “Court of Christ”, was held at Mainz, where cardinal Henry of Albano appeared as the preacher of the crusade; and, although he was unable to speak the language of the country, his words, even through the medium of an interpreter, powerfully excited the assembly. The emperor and his younger son, Frederick of Swabia, were the first to assume the cross, and were followed by an enthusiastic multitude of every class. Thus the three greatest princes of Europe were all embarked in the enterprise. Frederick Barbarossa was now sixty-seven years of age, but retained his full vigour of body; his long contests had been brought to a peaceable end; and he might hope, by engaging in the holy war, to clear himself of all imputations which had fallen on his character as a churchman, and even to adorn his name with a glory like that which rested on Godfrey of Bouillon and his comrades in the first crusade. Having accompanied his uncle Conrad on the second crusade, he was resolved to guard against a repetition of the errors by which that expedition had been frustrated. He ordered that no one should be allowed to join his force except such as were able-bodied, accustomed to bear arms, and sufficiently furnished with money to bear their own expenses for two years; carriages were provided for the sick and wounded, that they might not delay the progress of the army; and Frederick endeavoured by embassies to the king of Hungary, to the Byzantine emperor, and to the Sultan of Iconium (whose adhesion to the Mussulman cause was supposed to be very slight) to assure himself of an unmolested passage and of markets for provisions along the route. From all he received favourable answers; and, having taken measures to secure the peace of his dominions during his absence, the emperor was ready to set out at the appointed time, in the spring of 1189.

From Ratisbon, where the forces were mustered, some proceeded down the Danube in boats into Hungary, where they waited for the emperor and the rest. Through Hungary their passage was prosperous. King Bela welcomed the emperor with all honour, and bestowed large gifts of provisions on the army; it is, however, complained that the natives took unfair advantages in the exchange of money. In Bulgaria provisions were refused at the instigation of the Greeks, and some of the crusaders were wounded by arrows; but Frederick by vigorous measures brought the Bulgarians to submission, while he restrained his own followers by strict discipline from plunder and other offensive acts. But on entering the Greek territories, more serious difficulties arose.

The old unkindly feeling between the Greeks and the Latins had not been lessened by late events. The interest which Manuel had laboured to create with the pope and the Italians had been destroyed by their reconciliation with Frederick. Under Andronicus, who in 1183 attained the Byzantine throne by the murder of the young Alexius, son of Manuel, a great massacre of the Latin residents had taken place at Constantinople. In this atrocity the mob was aided by the usurper’s forces; the clergy were active in urging on the murderers, and burst out into a song of thanksgiving when the head of the cardinal-legate was cut off and treated with indignity. Isaac Angelus, by whom Andronicus was dethroned in 1185, had carried on friendly negotiations with Saladin, to whom, in consideration of the cession of some churches in the Holy Land, he granted leave to erect a mosque in Constantinople itself. The Greeks, who from time to time had continued to attack the western sojourners at Constantinople, were naturally uneasy at the approach of a formidable host, under a commander so renowned as Frederick. Isaac himself was especially alarmed in consequence of predictions uttered by one Dositheus, who had acquired a strong influence over him by foretelling his elevation to the empire; and, with a view of impeding the Germans, recourse was had to the arts which had already been tried in the former crusades. The patriarch had excited the populace beforehand by denouncing the strangers as heretics and dogs. The bishop of Munster and other ambassadors whom Frederick sent to Constantinople were treated with slights, and committed to prison, where they were subjected to hunger and other sufferings; notwithstanding the assurances which had been given as to supplies and other assistance, cities were deserted or shut up as the crusaders approached them; and they were harassed by frequent and insidious attacks of Greek soldiery. It appears on Mussulman authority that the Greek emperor afterwards claimed credit with Saladin for having troubled the Germans on their expedition. Frederick, from a resolution not to waste his strength in Europe, was desirous to avoid all quarrels; but finding himself reduced to choose between perishing by hunger and the employment of force to gain the needful supplies, he took Philippopolis, Adrianople, and other towns, in which he got possession of great wealth, with abundant stores of food. The Greek emperor, on hearing of these successes, changed his policy, restored the bishop of Munster and his companions, and sent envoys of his own who were charged to offer all manner of redress and assistance if Frederick would consent to hold the west on condition of homage. The Byzantines renewed the old war of ceremony, treating Frederick as a petty prince of whose name they affected to be ignorant—as “king of the Germans”, while Isaac was styled “emperor of the Romans”. “Does your master know who I am?”, said Frederick indignantly to the Greek ambassadors at Philippopolis : “My name is Frederick; I am emperor of the Romans, crowned in the city which is mother and mistress of the world by the successor of the prince of the apostles, and have held without question for more than thirty years a sceptre which my predecessors have lawfully possessed for four hundred years, since it was transferred from Constantinople for the inertness of your rulers. Let your master style himself sovereign of the Romanians, and cease to use a title which in him is empty and ridiculous; for there is but one emperor of the Romans”. This firmness had its effect, and Isaac submitted to address Frederick as “emperor of the Germans” and at length as “most noble emperor of old Rome”.

After a stay of fourteen weeks at Adrianople, where vigorous measures were employed with imperfect success to counteract the enervating influence of the plenty which had succeeded to the former privations, the army again advanced, and at Easter it was conveyed from Gallipoli to the Asiatic coast in vessels furnished by the Greek emperor, who had agreed to make compensation for all injuries, and to bestow his daughter in marriage on Frederick's son Philip. The crossing of the Hellespont lasted seven days, and the whole number of those who crossed is reckoned at 83,000.

The first few days of the march through Asia Minor were prosperous; but it soon appeared that the Greek emperor and the sultan of Iconium (who had renewed his friendly assurances by ambassadors who waited on Frederick at Adrianople) were treacherous. No markets were to be found; the interpreters who had been furnished by the Greeks, and the sultan's ambassadors who accompanied the army, disappeared, after having lured the crusaders into a desert. The horses broke down from want of food, and their flesh was greedily eaten; while Turkish soldiers began to hover around in ever-increasing numbers, “barking around us like dogs”, says one who was in the expedition—threatening and harassing the army, but always declining an engagement. Yet Frederick was still able to maintain discipline. The festival of Pentecost was kept amidst danger and distress. The bishop of Wurzburg delivered an exhortation to the crusaders; all received the holy Eucharist, and on the following day they attacked and defeated a force commanded by the sultan’s son. On approaching Iconium, the emperor found that his advance was barred by a vast force of Turks, who refused him a passage except on the payment of a bezant for every soldier in his army, while the city was closed against him. But although his cavalry were now reduced below a thousand, and were worn out with severe sufferings from hunger and thirst, he boldly attacked the Turks, and defeated them with vast slaughter, while the younger Frederick assaulted the city, and compelled the perfidious sultan to surrender it. As in earlier days, it is said that the crusaders were aided by a troop of shining warriors, bearing the red cross on their white shields, and headed by the martial St. George, whose protection, with that of God, they had invoked before the fight. By these successes Frederick’s fame was raised to the highest pitch throughout the east. The army, refreshed with provisions and enriched by the spoil of Iconium (although even there he compelled the observance of order and moderation), made its way boldly through the rocky defiles of Cilicia, and was pressing onwards with hope of speedily achieving the object of the expedition; when the hopes of Christendom sank, and the confidence of the Moslems revived, as tidings were spread that the great leader had perished in attempting to cross the river Salef or Calycadnus, near Tarsus. The loss to his army was immense and irreparable. Discipline was no longer preserved. On reaching Antioch, multitudes fell victims to the heat of the climate, or to the intemperance with which they indulged in food and drink after their late privations. Many of the survivors abandoned the crusade and returned to Europe; and the younger Frederick died soon after his arrival at Acre, where his appearance at the head of a force reduced below 5,000 had rather brought discouragement than hope to the beleaguered garrison.

In the meantime some of the Germans, who had completed their preparations early, had taken ship for the Holy Land in anticipation of Frederick’s march. As in the second crusade, many adventurers from Scandinavia and the north of Germany had assembled in the English port of Dartmouth, from which they sailed again with increased numbers; and, although these for the most part contented themselves with some adventures against the Moors of the Spanish peninsula, some of them found their way to Palestine. William of Sicily dispatched a fleet to share the expedition. Henry of England, after having taken measures to secure himself a safe passage through Germany, Hungary, and Greece, had been prevented by a fresh rebellion of his son Richard, and by other political troubles, from carrying out his promise, and much of the money which had been collected for the holy war was spent in these unhappy contests at home. But Richard, who had been the first of all the western princes to take the cross, on succeeding to the crown in July 1189, embarked in the enterprise with all the eagerness of his impetuous character. He submitted to penance for having borne arms against his father after having bound himself to the crusade. To the money which was found in Henry’s coffers he added by all imaginable expedients, in order to raise means for the expedition. Bishoprics, abbacies, earldoms, and all manner of other offices and dignities, were sold. The late king's ministers were imprisoned, and large sums were extorted for their ransom. Some who repented of having taken the cross were made to pay heavily for license to stay at home. The plate and ornaments of churches were seized and were turned into money. Some fortresses and territories which had been taken from the Scots were restored to them for a certain payment and the Jews were not only drained by exactions, but, as usual, were plundered and slain in the general fury against misbelievers. The demesnes of the crown were reduced by sales, and Richard declared himself ready to sell London itself if he could find a purchaser. Both in England and in France the “Saladin’s tithe” was rigorously exacted, and there were loud complaints of the unfairness with which the collection was managed. The archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, was zealous in preaching the crusade, and was himself among those who joined it.

The kings of France and England had a meeting near Nonancourt on the 30th of December 1189, when they bound themselves by oath for mutual help and defence—Philip swearing to defend Richard’s territories as if they were his own city of Paris, and Richard swearing to defend those of Philip as he would defend the Norman capital, Rouen. The expedition was again delayed for a time by the death of Philip’s queen; but at midsummer 1190 the two kings, with the count of Flanders and the duke of Burgundy, assembled their forces at Vezelay, where the second crusade had been inaugurated by St. Bernard, and where Thomas of Canterbury had since made the great abbey-church resound with his denunciation of king Henry’s counsellors. The side of the hill which is crowned by the town, and the broad plain below, were covered by the tents of the crusaders. The nations were distinguished by the colour of the crosses which they wore; the French displayed the sacred symbol in red, the English in white, and the Flemings in green. At Lyons the host separated, and Richard proceeded to embark at Marseilles, while Philip, who had no Mediterranean seaport in his own dominions, went on by land to Genoa. On landing at Ostia Richard was invited by the cardinal-bishop of that place, in the pope’s name, to visit Rome; but, smarting from having been lately compelled to pay 1,500 marks for a legatine commission in favour of his chancellor, William de Longchamp, bishop of Ely, he scornfully declared that he would not visit the source of so much corruption, and proceeded by land along the coast to Terracina. The kings, as had been agreed between them, met again at Messina, where, during a stay of some months, Richard’s impetuous and overbearing temper continually embroiled him both with the French and with the Sicilians—who, indeed, were not backward in offering him provocation. At one time he even made himself master of the city, as a means of compelling Tancred, who had shortly before seized the government on the death of William the Good, to carry out the late king's direction as to a provision for his widow, the sister of Richard, and as to a legacy bequeathed to Henry II.

In the end of March 1191 Richard again embarked, and after having established Guy of Lusignan as king of Cyprus, instead of a petty tyrant of the Comnenian family, who styled himself emperor of the island, and had behaved with inhospitality and treachery to the crusaders, he entered the harbour of Acre on the 8th of June. Archbishop Baldwin, with a part of the English force, which had proceeded direct from Marseilles, and others who had made their way by the straits of Gibraltar, had reached Acre long before and the king of France had arrived there on Easter-eve (April 13).

Acre had been besieged by the Christians from the end of August 1189, but, placed as they were between the garrison on the one hand and Saladin's army on the other, the besiegers had suffered great distress through want of food and shelter. Horseflesh, grass, and unclean things were eaten; ships were broken up for fuel; many, unable to endure the miseries of the siege, had deserted to the enemy and apostatized; and scandalous vice and disorder prevailed throughout the camp. And now it was found that the general interest of Christendom was insufficient to overpower the jealousies of those who had allied themselves for the holy war. Richard and Philip, Leopold, duke of Austria (with whose troops the scanty remains of the emperor Frederick’s army had been united), and others, all refused to act in concert, or to submit to a common head; the Genoese and the Pisans had carried their mutual hatred with them to the crusade; and to these elements of discord were added the pretensions of the templars and hospitallers, and the rival claims which Guy of Lusignan and Conrad of Montferrat set up to the kingdom of Jerusalem on the strength of their having married daughters of the royal house, whose male heirs had become extinct. The siege of Acre lasted two years, during which it is reckoned that 120,000 Christians and 180,000 Mussulmans perished. At length, on the 12th of July 1191, the city was surrendered, on condition that the lives of the inhabitants should be forfeit, unless within forty days Saladin should restore the true cross, give up 1500 Christian captives, and pay a large sum as ransom. The fullfillment of these terms, however, was found impossible within the time, and, notwithstanding Saladin’s earnest entreaties for a delay, it was decided in a council of the princes that the forfeiture should be enforced. On the 20th of August, therefore, the prisoners—8000 in all, of whom Richard's share amounted to 2600—were led forth and remorselessly butchered in the sight of Saladin and his army, who could only look on in impotent distress. A few only of the more important Saracens were spared, in the hope that they might be the means of recovering the cross or the captives.

The English king’s assumption, and his continual displays of contempt for his associates, produced general irritation and disgusts. To Leopold of Austria he had offered unpardonable insults, by throwing down his banner and trampling on it, as unworthy to stand beside those of kings, and even, it is said, by kicking him. By this behaviour to their leader, all the Germans were offended; and both they and the Italians complained that the kings of France and England divided between themselves the spoils which had been taken, without allowing any share to the other crusading nations. The Germans and Italians, therefore, left the army in disgust, shortly after the taking of Acre. With Philip Augustus there were continual differences. The French king claimed half of Cyprus, on the ground that Richard had agreed to share with him whatever they might win in the crusade, while Richard denied that the conquest of the island, by his separate adventure, fell within the scope of the contract. Philip, jealous of his great vassal, not only for his superiority in prowess and in personal renown, but on account of the greater splendour which his hard-raised treasures enabled him to maintain, found an excuse in the state of his dominions at home for deserting the enterprise; and on the 31st of July—in the interval between the capture of the city and the slaughtering of the prisoners—he sailed for Europe. On his way homewards he visited the pope, from whom he solicited absolution from the oath which he had taken, and had lately renewed, to protect the English king’s dominions; but Celestine refused to release him. Yet Philip, on his return to France, invaded Richard’s continental territories, encouraged his brother John to intrigue against him, and charged him with having caused an illness by which the French king had suffered at Acre, and with having instigated the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, who, immediately after having been elected to the throne of Jerusalem, had been stabbed by two of the fanatical body known by the name of assassins.

Richard remained in the Holy Land more than a year after Philip’s departure. During this time the “lion-hearted” king displayed the valour of a knight-errant in a degree which excited the fear and the admiration both of Mussulmans and of Christians. A large part of the coast was recovered from the infidels; but the Christians were thinned by disease and by desertion as well as by war; their internal jealousies continued, and were so little concealed that the king of England and the duke of Burgundy hired ballad-singers to ridicule each other and the object of the crusade became more and more hopeless. Richard was entreated by urgent and repeated messages to return to his disturbed kingdom, while frequent and severe illnesses warned him to quit for a time the dangerous climate of Syrian The necessity of abandoning the enterprise became manifest; and, after having advanced within one day’s march of Jerusalem, the king found himself obliged to yield, with a swelling heart which vented itself in loud expressions of indignation, to the force of circumstances, and to the spiritlessness of his remaining allies. A truce for three years, three months, three days, and three hours, was concluded with Saladin in September 1192, on condition that pilgrims should be allowed to visit the holy places, and that the coast from Tyre to Joppa should remain in possession of the Christians. It is reckoned that in the crusade which was ended by this compromise more than half a million of Christians had perished.

On the 9th of October 1192 Richard sailed for Europe. From unwillingness to run the risk of passing through Philip’s dominions, he intended to take his route through Germany; but having been recognized in the neighbourhood of Vienna, he was arrested and imprisoned by his enemy duke Leopold, who, in consideration of a large sum of money, made him over to the emperor Henry VI—a prince who with much of his father’s ability united a selfishness, a cunning, and a cruelty which were altogether foreign to Frederick’s lofty character.

After months of severe imprisonment, the king of England was brought by Henry before a diet at Worms, on charges of having thwarted the emperor in his claims on Sicily, of having instigated the murder of Conrad, of having wrongfully seized Cyprus, and of having insulted Leopold and the Germans. To these charges he answered in a strain of manly and indignant eloquence, which extorted the respect and pity even of those who were most hostile to him; but he was not yet set at liberty. Philip of France used all his influence with Henry to prolong his rivals captivity while the pope was urged by the importunities of the queen-mother Eleanor to interfere in behalf of her son. The emperor demanded a large sum by way of ransom, and in order to raise this Richard’s subjects—especially the clergy and monks—were again severely taxed. Chalices were melted down, shrines were stripped of their precious coverings and jewels, the golden ornaments were torn from the books employed in the service of the church. The impost was universal; even the Cistercians, who had, until then been exempt from all taxes, were obliged to contribute the wool of their flocks. After a confinement of nearly fourteen months, the king was able to return to his kingdom, which during his absence had been miserably distracted by feuds and intrigues; and in consequence of his complaints the pope excommunicated Leopold, and threatened the emperor and the French king with a like sentence. The miserable death of Leopold, which took place soon after in consequence of a fall from his horse at a tournament, was interpreted as a judgment of heaven on his outrage against a soldier of the cross. While Richard was in captivity the Christians of the east were delivered from their chief terror by the death of Saladin in March 1193.

Clement III had compromised the question as to the see of Treves by agreeing that both Volkmar and his opponent should be set aside, and that the canons should proceed to a new election, and in 1188 he had been able to establish himself in Rome, by means of an agreement with the citizens, who were inclined to peace by finding that without the pope their city could not be the capital of Christendom. But one condition of this compact, which must have been felt as especially hard—that Tusculum, the city so faithful to the popes and so odious to their unruly subjects, should be given up to the Romans—remained unfulfilled when Clement died, in March 1191. In his room was chosen Hyacinth, a man eighty-five years old, who had been a member of the college of cardinals for nearly half a century. At the time when the election took place, Henry VI was advancing towards Rome to claim the imperial crown, and it was resolved to take advantage of the occasion in order to gain some object at his hands. The pope deferred his own consecration, in order that he might be the better able to negotiate; a deputation of the Romans went forth to treat with Henry as he approached the city; and it was agreed that Tusculum should be given up. On Good Friday, Henry, without any warning to the Tusculans, withdrew the garrison with which, at their request, he had furnished them; whereupon the Romans rushed in through the open gates, razed the castle, destroyed the town so completely that no vestige of buildings later than the old imperial times is now to be seen, and glutted their hatred by deeds of savage cruelty. On Easter-day the pope was consecrated under the name of Celestine III, and on the two following days Henry and Constance were severally crowned by him in St. Peter's.

The emperor advanced towards the south, where, on the death of William the Good, in 1189, the inheritance of Constance had been seized by an illegitimate grandson of the first Norman king, Tancred, count of Lecce, who had received investiture from Pope Clement. Henry took Naples after a siege of three months, and reduced the continental part of the Norman territories; but his army was ravaged by a pestilence, and his own health was so seriously affected that he was compelled to retire to Germany, while his empress, who had fallen into the hands of the enemy, remained in captivity until she was at length delivered through the intercession of the pope. After the death of Tancred, who kept possession of his crown until 1193, Henry appeared in Sicily at the head of a large army, hired with the king of England's ransom, and chiefly composed of soldiers who had been enlisted for a new crusade. A Genoese fleet cooperated with his land force; the discords between the Saracen and the Norman inhabitants favoured his enterprise; and after a short resistance he made himself master of the island. His triumphal entry into Palermo was welcomed with a signal display of the wealth and luxury of the Sicilian Normans. But almost immediately after this a fearful series of severities began. Letters were produced which professed to implicate the leading men of the island in a conspiracy against the Germans; and Henry, in consequence, let loose without restraint the cruelty which was one of his most prominent characteristics. Clergy and nobles in great numbers were put to death by hanging, burning, and drowning, or were blinded or barbarously mutilated. William, the young son of Tancred, after having been deprived of his eyesight, was shut up in a castle of the Vorarlberg, where he died obscurely. His mother and sisters were committed to German prisons. The bodies of Tancred and his son Roger were plucked from their graves, and treated with revolting indignity. It was in vain that the pope, the queen-mother of England, and other important persons, remonstrated with Henry, and even (it is said) that Celestine denounced him excommunicate. The wealth of the Norman kings and of all who were accused as parties in the conspiracy was seized; and it is said that, after large gifts to Henry's numerous soldiery, the splendid robes, the precious metals, and the gems which remained were a load for 160 horses and mules. By means of this treasure, and of concessions to the princes of Germany, Henry formed a design of securing the crown as hereditary in his family. But although he succeeded in obtaining the con­sent of the electors to the succession of his son Frederick, who had been born at Jesi in December 1194, and was not yet baptized, the opposition to his further project was so strong that Henry found it expedient to withdraw the proposal.

The death of Saladin and the inferior capacity of his successor, Malek al Adel, held out inducements to a new crusade. With a view of stirring up the faithful, Celestine wrote letters and sent legates in all directions; and the emperor actively forwarded the enterprise, in the hope, probably, that he might thus clear his ecclesiastical reputation. He advocated the crusade eloquently in diets at Gelnhausen and Worms, where his exhortations were followed up by speeches from cardinals and bishops; princes and prelates responded by taking the cross, and their example was followed by knights, burghers, and men of humbler condition. In France, Philip Augustus made use of the crusade as a pretext for heavy exactions, but with the intention of converting the produce to his own purposes. But the truest crusader among the sovereigns of the age, Richard of England, although he had never laid aside the cross, and burned with desire to complete the work which he had before so reluctantly abandoned by a fresh campaign against the infidels, found himself so much hampered by the exhaustion of his people, and by the continual petty warfare in which he was engaged with Philip, that he could take no share in the enterprise. It was in vain that Celestine, in a letter to the English bishops, forbade the tournaments which had been instituted by the king with a view to military training; that he desired those who wished for martial exercise to seek it, not in festive contests unsuited to the sadness of the time, but in warring against the enemies of Christ.

In his ecclesiastical policy Henry showed himself resolved to yield nothing to the papacy. He forbade appeals to Rome, and prevented his subjects from any access to the papal court. He attempted to revive the imperial privilege of deciding in cases of disputed election to bishoprics. In the case of a contest for Liege, he is supposed to have instigated the murder of a candidate who was favoured by the pope and had been consecrated by the archbishop of Reims. He refused to pay the homage which the Norman princes had performed to the pope for their Italian and Sicilian territories, and, returning into Italy, he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, up to the very gates of the city. The pope had ceased for a time to hold correspondence with him, but now addressed him in a strain of apology mixed with complaint, and urged him to forward the crusade. At Bari the emperor, at Easter 1195, entered into an engagement to maintain 1500 cavalry and a like number of foot in the Holy Land for a year; but the zeal with which he urged on his preparations had probably other objects—that of diverting the crusaders, as before, to his own purposes, and even of using them against the Byzantine empire. But these designs were unexpectedly cut short. Henry, after having crossed into Sicily, discovered a new conspiracy against him, and in vengeance for it resumed the cruelties which had made him so deeply detested in that island; but on the 28th of September 1197 he suddenly died, most probably in consequence of a chill produced by having drunk some water while heated by hunting. But as it is certain that Constance had been greatly shocked and offended by his severities towards her countrymen, and even towards some of her own near relations, it was generally believed that the emperor fell a victim to poison administered by his own wife. The crusade which Henry had contributed to set on foot was carried on without any religious enthusiasm. The Germans did not cooperate with the Latins of the East, but, “thinking only of the fertile coasts, and not heeding that Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles”, were wholly intent on gaining advantages for themselves. They achieved considerable successes, although not without loss, and recovered the sea-coast. But their conquests were fruitless, and they engaged in fierce quarrels with the Templars, each party charging the other with having sold the interests of Christendom. On receiving the tidings of Henry's death the crusaders resolved to return home; and, notwithstanding the pope's entreaties that they would not abandon the holy enterprise, they carried out their resolution, after having concluded a truce of six years with the infidels. In endeavouring to make their way homewards by way of Sicily and Apulia, many of them were slain by the inhabitants on account of their connection with the detested emperor.

Celestine III survived Henry only a few months, and died on the 8th of January 1198.

 

CHAPTER XI.

THE GREEK CHURCH—SPAIN—BRITISH CHURCHES—THE NORTH—

MISSIONS.