MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY

BOOK II.

CHAPTER XI.

KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.

AMALRIC — BALDWIN IV — BALDWIN V — SIBYLLA AND GUY.

Death of Noureddin—Of Amalric—Dissensions of Mohammedans—Saladin’s concentration of power—Syro-Frank Dissensions—Death of Manuel— Invasion of Palestine—Battle of Tiberias—Loss of Jerusalem. [1169 —1187.

Whether Saladin did or did not contemplate throwing off his double allegiance to the Atabeg and to the Sheah Caliph, making himself Sultan of Egypt, with no superior but the Soonee Caliph of Bagdad, is another of the moot points of history. Christians, despite their eulogies, lay to his charge both this scheme, and crimes perpe­trated to advance it; and Noureddin certainly suspected him of aiming at independent sovereignty. Arab writers appear to narrate facts without investigating motives or causes, and do not even allude to a suspicion of the crimes denounced by Christians. The truth seems to be that Saladin’s views were much akin to those of contemporary, European, great vassals; that he thought not, as yet at least, of disowning the Atabeg’s sovereignty, but aimed at securing to himself a real irremoveable, uncontrolled, and hereditary viceroyalty. From Adhed he feared no attempt at laying any restraint upon the authority of the acknow­ledged Sultan-Vizier; but, with respect to him, there might be a conflict in his mind between gratitude and orthodoxy. He was certainly very much gratified by receiving a dress of honour, with the confirmation of his vizierate, from the orthodox Caliph; who, upon the virtual conquest of Egypt, had sent Noureddin two swords, one for Syria, one for Egypt. But to the injunction accompanying the Commander of the Faithful’s gifts, though inforced by the Atabeg, he demurred. The injunction was to substitute the name of the Soonee for that of the Sheah Caliph in public prayers. Not even his somewhat fanatic zeal could prevent Saladin’s shrinking from an act of such traitorous ingratitude towards the prince to whom he owed his exaltation, as would be this, bis actual deposal. He paved the way, indeed, for obedience, by causing Soonee doctrines to be taught; but still hesitated to act, and remonstrated, until, in the year 1171, Adhed’s death ended his difficulties with his scruples. He immediately ordered the Bagdad Caliph to be prayed for in all the Mosques, and was implicitly obeyed; the whole country thus at once abandoning all heretical opinions to become orthodox. Adhed left no children : and without troubling himself about collaterals, Saladin took possession of his harem, thus, in Oriental fashion, stamping himself his successor; and he remained, nominally at least, Sultan­Vizier to the Atabeg Noureddin. Frank authorities so far alter this relation, that they state the change to have been made during a dangerous illness of Adhed’s: and that, upon symptoms of recovery appearing, Saladin prevented Egypt’s relapsing into the Sheah heresy, by murdering the Caliph and his children. It may be observed in behalf of Saladin’s guiltlessness, that these degenerate Princes, hereditarily enervated by voluptuousness, and individually exhausted by excess, had for generations died young, and not unfrequently childless; a fate, which to the Franks seemed too unnatural not to be due to crime. At all events, Adhed was the last Fatemite Caliph, and Egypt ceased to be Sheah.

The extinction of the schismatic Caliphate was likely, but for the unaccountable perverseness of the Templars, to produce another result, alike beneficial and unexpected. In the eyes of the Sheik of the Assassins it seemingly extinguished the Sheah heresy, and with it the fanatic zeal of the branch of the Ismaelites domiciliated in the Lebanon. Immediately upon learning the changes in Egypt, the reigning Old Man of the Mountain, who had been reported to have latterly taken to studying the Bible, sent an embassy to Amalric, to say that he was willing to receive baptism with all his people, in consideration of the remission of an annual payment of 2000 gold pieces, which the Templars levied as a sort of tribute from those of his subjects who dwelt near their castles. Amalric’s delight at the prospect of thus transforming a dreaded foe into a friend, and also of the glory with which such a conversion would irradiate his reign, overcame his avarice; and he promised the remission required, even should he be obliged to take the payment to the Templars upon himself. But this arrogant confraternity appears to have treated the offer as an offence to themselves. One of their number, Gaultier de Maisnil, who is described as a violent, one-eyed man, headed a party—whether of knights or merely of Turcopoles seems doubtful—and pursuing the envoys on their return, accompanied as they were by a messenger of Amalric’s, surprised and actually murdered them. The King, enraged at a breach of the law of nations, annihilating such bright hopes, ordered the Grand-Master, Eudes de St. Amand, to punish de Maisnil. But Eudes, who is suspected of having authorized, if not ordered the expedition haughtily answered, that the King had neither jurisdiction over Templars, nor orders to give a Grand-Master; that he had done what he judged proper, had imposed a penance upon the self-willed knight, who had presumed to form, and to act upon an unsanctioned opinion, and had commanded him to make a pilgrimage to Rome, there to abide the Pope’s sentence. Amalric, bent upon exculpating himself in the Sheik’s eyes, caused de Maisnil to be arrested at Sidon, and thrown into prison; but other affairs diverted his attention, the Templar remained unpunished, and the Old Man of the Mountain with his Assassins, instead of becoming Christians themselves, were more inveterate than before against all who were so. It is to be hoped that the Grand-Master, though grievously suspected, had no complicity in the crime, shielding the criminal merely in maintenance of his Order’s privileges; for in other respects he acted up to its old spirit. Being subsequently taken prisoner and an exchange proposed between him and a nephew of Saladin’s, then in the hands of the Christians, he refused; because a Templar, who ought to conquer or die, must give only his knife and belt for his ransom, whilst a large sum was demanded for the noble Kurd’s.

The tenor of Saladin’s policy in his peculiar position, appears now to have been, to avoid all disrespect and positive disobedience to Noureddin, but likewise to guard against such an accession to the Atabeg’s power, and such easy communication between his dominions and Egypt, as might enable him to displace his Sultan-Vizier. Keeping these objects in view, it became essential to prevent his conquering Palestine, or even taking either of the two strong southern fortresses,—Karak, Kerek or Krac, as it is variously written, a fief of the Constable de Thoron’s and Montroyal, called by the Arabs, Shaubek,—both of which commanded the direct road from Damascus to Cairo. He was also very anxious to have his father and his whole family out of Noureddin’s reach, and in Egypt. The last wish had but to be named, Noureddin not having apparently contemplated their detention as hostages. With respect to the preventing such an increase of the Atabeg’s power, as might, he was apprehensive, prove threatening to his own actual position, Saladin managed, by representing the difficulties which beset his task of changing the religion of the country, to keep such entire command of the mode of his co-operation in Noureddin’s campaigns, that, although he never disobeyed his sovereign’s call, Palestine remained unconquered, Kerek and Shaubek untaken, and his own expeditions were productive of nothing but booty. Noureddin during this time is said to have first established a post, if it may be so called, by carrier pigeons, to facilitate his intercourse with his formidable Lieutenant.

Gradually, however, the Atabeg began to see through the Sultan-Vizier’s manoeuvres; and by the year 1173, having grown thoroughly dissatisfied with his imperfect obedience, he prepared to chastise it. He collected an army for the purpose; and in order, by conciliating the Christians, to prevent hostilities on their part during his absence in Egypt, he permitted the Earl of Tripoli and some captives of inferior note to ransom themselves.—Bohemund of Antioch he had previously released as a compliment to that Prince’s brother-in-law, Manuel, when he sought to avert the Emperor’s enmity. The necessary preparations were completed in the month of May, and Noureddin was about to march for Cairo, when, upon the 22d of the month, at the age of fifty­seven, after a short illness, most opportunely for Saladin, and yet—strange to say!—without a suspicion of poison, he died.

Amalric, less generous than Noureddin on a corres­pondent occasion had shown himself, thought to take advantage of the consternation and dejection consequent upon the untimely loss of so able, so upright, and so revered a sovereign, to recover Paneas. But his hopes were disappointed; a sum of money from the Moslem Governor of the place, and the release of a few Christian prisoners kept there, were the whole fruit of his enterprise. Upon his return to Jerusalem he was taken ill, and, surviving Noureddin less than two months, he died July 11, in the thirty-eighth year of his age.

Amalric left three children, two by his first wife, Agnes de Courtenay; the eldest, a daughter, Sibylla, and a son, Baldwin IV, then only 13 years old; and by his second marriage with the Greek Princess Maria, a daughter named Isabel. Baldwin IV was a fine boy, endowed with excellent abilities, trained in all knightly exercises, and instructed, under the superintendence of the Chancellor, afterwards Archbishop of Tyre, already mentioned as the celebrated historian of Jerusalem, in all the learning of the age. But he was early threatened with a disease that rendered his good qualities of no avail, even whilst it perhaps promoted their early development; to wit, leprosy. As yet, however, Baldwin IV was a minor, and a regency was by law necessary. For this office, the Earl of Tripoli, and the Seneschal, Milo de Plancy, contended; as did the boy-King for the full authority, the exercise of which he was willing to leave to his father’s favourite, de Plancy. The murder of the Seneschal decided the contest in the Earl’s favour; but so universally had the victim been hated that no one dreamt of imputing his assassination to political motives, or to aught save private enmity.

Noureddin, like Amalric, had left a minor heir, a son named Malek-as-Saleh-Ismael, who was at once acknowledged throughout his father’s dominions, Egypt included, as his successor. The Emir Mokaddem assumed the government in the name of the ten-year old Atabeg; but his administration quickly excited general dissatisfaction. Rivals arose amongst the Emirs. Saifeddin, a nephew of Noureddin’s, and under him Emir of Mousul, made him­self master of the whole of Mesopotamia, which Mokaddem was unable to recover. The want of a stronger hand was felt; and the Emirs invited Saladin to undertake the regency; whilst an ambitious Chamberlain, named Gemushteghin, carried off the little Atabeg to Aleppo, where he hoped to engross his favour and confidence.

Saladin had been occupied, during these disorders, in quelling an insurrection in Upper Egypt, and in repulsing a maritime attack upon Lower Egypt by the Sicilian forces. He had succeeded in both; and, being now at liberty, promptly accepted the invitation of the Emirs. Damascus joyfully welcomed him; Noureddin’s widow gave him her hand, and he declared himself the vice­gerent of Malek-as-Saleh-Ismael, the guardian of the rights of his benefactor’s son. Gemushteghin, neverthe­less, persevered in his course; affecting apprehensions for the safety of his ward, he closed the gates of Aleppo in Saladin’s face, and applied to the Regent of Palestine for assistance against the dreaded usurper. The Earl sent him a corps of auxiliaries; but they were few in number, and the Kingdom was evidently so unable to afford the self­elected Guardian-Chamberlain efficient support, that he transferred his application to the Sheik of the Assassins, who gladly despatched three of his disciples against the destroyer of the Sheah Caliphate. The devoted emissaries made their way into Saladin’s tent and wounded him. But he defended himself stoutly, his guards rushed in, and his assailants were seized and executed.

A course more contrary to the interests of the young heir than Gemushteghin’s could hardly have been devised. Saladin, who, for aught that appears, had, when he assumed the regency, meant fairly by him, at least in all save Egypt, and whose marriage with the princely boy’s mother must have strengthened his loyalty, was deeply offended. A repetition of conduct so contrary to Noureddin’s policy, so absurdly hostile as well as, including the attempt at assassination, unprincipled, further exasperated him; and he now abjured his subjection. He dropped the addition of Vizier to the title of Sultan, substituted, in the public prayers, throughout his own dominions, his own name for that of Malek-as-Saleh-Ismael, and demanded of the young Atabeg the cession of Damascus, which, in point of fact, was already his. The demand was refused, and the contest continued a while longer. Saladin now signed a convention with the Earl of Tripoli, who pledged himself, on condition of the Sultan’s releasing the hostages given for the payment of what was still due to Noureddin of Raymond’s own and his friend’s ransom, not to interfere in his wars with Noureddin’s family. Saladin next defeated Saifeddin; then, leaving the hostile kindred of the great Atabeg to destroy each other in striving for his heritage, he led an army into the territories of the Assassins. There he presently forced the Sheik to sue for peace; which, fear­ing it is said to rouse the enmity of the whole confederation of Ismaelites, he granted him on fair terms, and was thenceforward unassailed by his daggers. He then placed his brother, Shamseddin Turanshah, as his Lieutenant at Damascus, and taking with him a daughter of Noureddin’s— as naturally accompanying her mother or step-mother, it may be presumed—returned to Egypt. In commemoration of this triumphant expedition, he founded a hospital at Cairo, which, with all its requirements of physicians, drugs, attendants, &c., is said to be the first ever known there.

Whilst the Mohammedans were thus divided, the kingdom of Jerusalem had been in no condition to profit by their divisions. The constantly increasing leprosy of the young King, yet more than his minority, unfitted him for action. Earl Raymond, irritated by the opposition he at every move encountered from the partisans of his dead rival, displayed little energy in his government, and the Barons looked to Europe for help. Of a crusade they had learned there was for the moment no hope; but Baldwin’s very malady, which almost precluded the idea of his marrying, gave them, they conceived, in the person of his eldest sister and presumptive heiress, Sibylla, a bait, with which to allure some prince capable both of ruling and defending the Holy Land, and of interesting others in its behalf.

The first, upon whom with such views, they turned their eyes, was William, eldest son of the Marquess of Montferrat, for his knightly prowess, surnamed Longsword, whose near relationship to the Emperor and the King of France, rendered him peculiarly eligible. To him they proposed the hand of the Princess, with Joppa and Ascalon for her portion. Eagerly accepting, Marquess William hastened to the Holy Land, was approved by the Regent, and in 1176 was married to Sibylla. The bridegroom, whose character seems to have been more German than Italian, if he commanded the esteem of his brother-in-law’s subjects by his valour and frank honesty, disgusted them by his intemperance and violence; and what the results of the connexion might prove, seemed questionable. But speculation was cut short; his virtues and his vices alike being rendered immaterial to the kingdom, by his death within the year. He left the widowed Princess in a condition that promised an heir.

But an unborn babe was not the heir Palestine wanted, for her protection against a formidable neighbour; and the Barons looked around for a second husband for Sibylla. Philip Earl of Flanders, son and successor to the indefatigable old Crusader, Earl Theodore, had just then, in expiation of divers sins, led a band of gallant warriors to the Holy Land, as crusading pilgrims. Upon him all eyes were bent, and at first he won the confidence of his cousin Baldwin; who was now about seventeen, and had latterly begun to interfere much with public business; thus gradually to assume the government and terminate Earl Raymond’s regency. But Philip soon forfeited the good opinion of all, proving as artful and impenetrable as William Longsword had been the reverse. He refused to take part, or even advise, in anything, yet was offended when his counsels were dispensed with; refused every command offered him, yet resented the appointment of another to the post he had rejected. At length it appeared that for himself the powerful Earl disdained Baldwin IV’s precarious crown, but desired to obtain the hands of both the King’s sisters, for the two sons of a great Flemish noble, who had engaged in return to surrender his Flemish fiefs to him. In this scheme he failed; but his manoeuvres perplexing and baffling all measures, prevented another combined attack upon Egypt projected by Manuel; nor was this the only mischievous result of his presence in the Holy Land. By joining Bohemund of Antioch and Ray­mond of Tripoli in an unsuccessful attempt upon Aleppo he assisted them to provoke a retaliatory invasion of Palestine from Damascus and Egypt. Baldwin rose from his sick bed to oppose the invaders, and defeated even Saladin’s body guard of Mamelukes, who like other Oriental troops, could not stand the charge of heavily armed knights, to which was habitually due the victory of Europeans over Asiatics. He expelled the Mohammedans, and brought back some booty from the pursuit. The Earl of Flanders participated not in this defence of the Kingdom. He had returned from the foiled attempt upon Aleppo, to perform his Easter devotions at Jerusalem, and then embarked for Europe, leaving behind him a name the reverse of his father’s.

Baldwin, disappointed in him, and rendered suspicious of his vassals by his frequent physical inability to execute his own plans, now gave his confidence to another Frank This was Renaud de Chatillon, who knew as well how to worm himself into the favour of an infirm boy-King, as into the love of woman, and his proficiency in this last art he had now for the second time proved. The death of the Princess of Antioch having left him a widower, he had obtained the hand of Stephanie, heiress of Neapolis or Naplouse, and yet wealthier as the widow of two powerful husbands, namely, the younger de Thoron, the Constable’s son, and the murdered favourite, the Seneschal de Plancy. Upon the death of Princess Constance, her son having attained his majority, he had lost his power in the state, and the title of Prince of Antioch, but retaining that of Prince, is thenceforward usually called Prince Renaud. He was certainly a brave warrior and had gallantly assisted Baldwin to defeat the late invasion, but, from intense selfishness, seldom appears to have used either royal favour or the power obtained through his wives, otherwise than injuriously, to the common weal. Him, Baldwin now appointed Protector of the kingdom whenever he himself should be incapacitated by illness for the discharge of his royal duties. An unfortunate choice. Next to Chatillon in Baldwin’s confidence ranked his mother and uncle, Agnes and Joscelin de Courtenay; the latter he made Seneschal; the former had materially lowered her­self in public opinion by marrying Hugues de Ibelin, immediately upon her divorce, and having lost him, she had just accepted, as her third husband, Reginald Prince of Sidon.

The urgent need to the kingdom of Jerusalem of a powerful government, of a warlike ruler, keenly alive to every opportunity of weakening its Moslem neighbours, was not immediately so apparent as it afterwards became. Noureddin’s death, like Zenghi’s, necessarily delayed the execution of the grand Moslem project, by again dispers­ing previously concentrated dominions and power: and Saladin, whilst fully adopting his predecessors’ plans, felt that he was in no condition as yet to attempt their grand object, the expulsion of the Franks.

For some years Saladin devoted himself to the task of preparation for this achievement; and whilst he was so engaged, a truce with Baldwin suspended hostilities, save when broken by the marauding disposition Prince Renaud had already betrayed at Cyprus. This occurred but too often—that the truce, thus wantonly broken, was most beneficial to the Syro-Franks hardly need be observed— the possession of Kerek, acquired through his second mar­riage, affording this truly robber-knight unluckily frequent opportunities of surprising and plundering caravans, that in reliance upon the truce, took the direct line of communication between Cairo and Damascus. He seems to have neglected few or none; and, success increasing his audacity, he at last, in 1182, had vessels carried across the desert by camels and launched in the Red Sea; where he embarked with his rapacious followers, besieged a small town on the coast, and threatened the very cradles of Islam, Mecca and Medina. Saladin was then absent, subjugating Mohammedans in Asia; but his brother and vicegerent in Egypt, Malek el Adel, equipped a fleet in time to engage Chatillon, and by defeating him, rescue the Holy places of his faith from pollution. Many of the invaders fell in the action, many were taken: but Chatillon flying with a few others, as fortunate as himself, got back to Kerek. The prisoners Saladin commanded his brother to sacrifice, some writers say, instead of sheep, before the Kaaba. A strange story, but which cannot be rejected, since resting upon Oriental authority, both Christian and Moslem. Even Saladin’s letter containing the order, and explaining the necessity of such unwonted severity to prevent the repetition of such an insult, is given by Reinaud. That Saladin, when he gave such an order, was deeply exasperated against Chatillon is indubitable; but he did not suffer himself to be diverted from his progressive agglomeration of lands and dominions, or hurried in his operations by anger. In the process of thus augmenting his power, he continued, however it might hamper him, scrupulously to respect the possessions of Noureddin’s son, until the death of the young Atabeg, at the early age of nineteen, leaving neither son nor brother, freed him from such restraint. The deceased Atabeg’s kins­men, Azzeddin and Emadeddin, contending for his heritage, severally applied to the Christians for help; and Saladin, representing such conduct to the Caliph as showing them unfit to reign, tore from them even their own dominions(118) and made them his tributaries. In the course of the year 1183, he was master of all that had ever been Noureddin’s.

During these years the Syro-Frank states, occupied with internal broils, thought not of counter-preparations. Raymond of Tripoli and the Seneschal de Courtenay were battling with each other and with Prince Renaud for the exercise of the Royal authority, during the periods of Baldwin’s complete incapacity; and Bohemund of Antioch was at open war with the Church. Upon the death of the Emperor Manuel, this thoroughly worthless Prince had causelessly repudiated his consort, another niece of that sovereign’s, to marry a woman whose low birth was rendered more objectionable by her at best doubtful character; and he obstinately resisted the Patriarch’s admonitions to take back his lawful wife. The prelate excommunicated him; and he in retaliation attacked the clergy, plundered churches and cloisters, and besieged his reverend monitor, in a castle belonging to the patriarchate. The principality was then laid under an interdict. Baldwin, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, the two Grand-Masters, and Bohemund’s step-father Renaud, endeavoured to mediate peace. In vain: Bohemund never performed the condition they had agreed to in his name. The interdict remained in force, and some of his best knights deserted his service for that of the Prince of Armenia; whilst he, absorbed in sensual pleasures, unheeding the dangers of Palestine and consequently of Antioch, never roused himself to action unless tempted by the hope of some petty addition to his own dominions.

At Jerusalem the marriage of the widowed Sibylla continued for a while to be the principal concern. The Barons, whether with or without the Kings' consent seems doubtful, had commissioned the Archbishops of Tyre and Caesarea, when attending the Lateran Council, in 1179, to seek her a consort, such as Palestine wanted. The Princess had now given birth to a son and heir; which was felt an insuperable objection by princes who aspired to the crown—the case with those whom they would have preferred. At the suggestion of the Earl of Champagne, however, they opened a negotiation with his nephew, the Duke of Burgundy; but they had nothing to offer for which he would leave or hazard his duchy. Baldwin was offended, as much perhaps at his Barons’ presumption in intermeddling with a royal marriage, and offering the hand of his sister and presumptive heiress, whom he deemed well worth the wooing, as at the offer’s rejection; and he permitted Sibylla’s inclination to select the future ruler of Palestine. Her choice fell upon Guy de Lusignan, a nobleman of Poitou, related, as was said, to the Earls of Poitou, paternal ancestors of Elinor of Aquitaine. Having been deeply implicated in an insurrection, in the course of which the Earl of Salisbury, Lord Lieutenant—if the modern title may be permitted—of Poitou, was slain, he made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as much to shun King Henry’s resentment as to expiate his offence; and there, by his personal attraction, had captivated the Princess., To him, a mere nobleman, and therefore, in public opinion, an unsuitable consort for the future Queen of Jerusalem, Baldwin gave his sister, with the same portion as before; and, as though to increase the general dissatisfaction, celebrated the marriage in Lent; a precipitation so indecorously repugnant to the feelings and customs of the age, as to have given rise to surmises unfavourable to the reputation of the widowed princess. He soon afterwards gave his half-sister, the eight-year old Isabel, in marriage to Humphrey de Thoron, grandson to the late Constable —who had fallen in one of the frequent marauding expeditions—and step-son to Prince Renaud. These nuptials were celebrated at Kerek, and the whole festive assembly, the little royal bride included, were nearly carried off by a band of Saracens, or more probably Turcomans, through Chatillon’s neglect of the most ordinary precautions. The noble company was saved at a heavy cost; by ordering the bridge of communication with the castle to be destroyed during the attack, he sacrificed the town and half his warriors, but rescued the Castle and its occupants.

The weakness, necessarily resulting from internal dissensions, was scarcely counterbalanced by the conversion of the schismatic Maronites of Lebanon to the Latin Church; although something was certainly gained, both in strength and reputation, by their consequent intimate connexion with the kingdom of Jerusalem. But, on the other hand, the death of the Emperor Manuel was a heavy misfortune to the Syro-Frank states: for which he entertained a statesman’s value, but which could hope for no support from Constantinople, even had his successors adopted his views, amidst the distractions produced by the contest for the regency that ensued. From their inconceivable supineness, or blindness to imminent danger, the Syro-Franks were first startled by Saladin’s return from the subjugation of all Noureddin’s eastern territories to possess himself of Aleppo. They now saw that the storm, hitherto unfeared because its symptoms were unobserved, was at hand. The Patriarch and the two Grand-Masters hastened to Europe again, to urge a Crusade; and Baldwin assembled the nobles and prelates to deliberate upon the measures of defence to be adopted. To all such, money was felt to be indispensable, and in order to advise as to the means of obtaining it, town deputies were admitted into this feudal assembly.

The result of these consultations was the imposition of a property tax, without exemption for nobility or clergy; the details of which, in that age of undeveloped financial science, are sufficiently curious to be worth recording. A property of 100 bezaunts or byzantines, was to pay one per cent.; an income of the same amount, two per cent.; smaller properties and incomes, less in due proportion; artizans one half per cent, upon their earnings. Lords of towns and villages were to pay further a bezaunt for every hearth upon their domains, towards which they were allowed to make their vassals, &c., contribute. Four upright and intelligent men were in every town to be appointed to assess the tax; and whoever thought himself overcharged, was to tell these assessors upon oath what would be his fair assessment. The assessors were sworn to secresy. This was not proposed, as it would now be, as an annual tax, but as a single imposition, its produce exclusively appropriated to the defence of the country. To insure this exclusive appropriation, the sums received were to be deposited in chests secured by three locks, the three keys being severally kept by two prelates and the treasurer of the district, and the chests opened only in presence of all three.

Tidings now came that Aleppo was Saladin’s, and no longer might time be idly frittered away. Baldwin was proceeding to assemble an army, when, at this critical moment, his leprosy utterly incapacitated him for action. He therefore committed the royal authority to his brother­in-law, Guy, first requiring from him an oath, neither to aspire to the crown till it should be lawfully Sibylla’s, nor to alienate any portion of the realm. He reserved to himself 10 bezaunts a-year, with the regal title.

The Palestine army was increased by the arrival of the Duke of Brabant and a few other nobles, whom the Patriarch and the Grand-Masters, though disappointed of an European Crusade, headed by a monarch, had induced to lead companies of crusaders to the defence of the Holy Land. With the further reinforcement of mariners from the Venetian, Pisan, and Genoese fleets that had brought these crusaders—for the commercial republics of Italy in some measure compensated the annoyance of their quarrels and their extravagant pretensions, by occa­sionally affording efficacious assistance—it amounted to 1300 helmets and 15,000 foot At their head Guy marched in search of Saladin, who was already ravaging the kingdom. But now broke out the hatred, justly or unjustly, borne to Guy, to whom none denied the quality then most valued, courage. Vinisauf, who knew him, says: “He deserved the crown by his royal character and habits, but because simple-minded, and unversed in political intrigue, he was held cheap.” Guy’s real fault seems to have been want of firmness in adhering to an opinion or plan; whilst his exaltation above former equals and superiors was the real cause of the ill-will borne him, and now so unpatriotically displayed. When the armies met, the Barons refused to give battle, alleging that Saladin was too superior in numbers, and too strongly posted. The hostile forces consequently remained encamped, confronting each other, till, provisions failing, both withdrew, and Saladin evacuated the kingdom without striking a blow. This, to effect which would now be thought judicious strategy, was then deemed such a cowardly suffering the enemy to escape, that, although not disapproved, seemingly, by the Grand-Master of the Templars, it damaged the reputation of Guy (upon whom it was compulsory) at home and abroad. The very Barons, who had prevented a battle, made Saladin’s escape, with his superior numbers, a ground for demanding not only Guy’s removal from his high office, but the dissolution of his marriage with the presumptive heiress of the crown.

Bald win, whether willingly, through a mistrustful temper, or from the weakness of an invalid, assented to their desires. He resumed the royal authority, declared his nephew, Baldwin, Sibylla’s son by her first husband, his heir, caused the five-year-old child to be crowned as his colleague, and directed the Patriarch to dissolve the mother’s marriage with Guy. The ease with which such proposals of divorce were entertained by Roman Catholics, notwithstanding the indissolubility, in their Church, of marriage, as being a sacrament, may be taken as a measure of the immorality of the Poulains, or Syro-Franks, amongst whom the archiepiscopal historian says, that hardly one chaste woman could be found. Nor was the Patriarch Heraclius a man likely to work a reformation. He was an adventurer from Auvergne, who had insinuated himself first into the favour of the King’s mother, through whom he got the bishopric of Caesarea, and then so completely into the young King’s, that when he and the royal preceptor, William, Archbishop of Tyre, were candidates for the patriarchate, to the general amazement, Heraclius carried the day. As Patriarch, he was now living in such open adultery with the pretty wife of a grocer, that she went by the name of the Patriarchess (Patriarchissa), and, as such, was her having given birth to a son once publicly announced to him in the midst of his sacerdotal functions.

Such a Patriarch had no scruples touching the sanctity of wedlock, and a day was fixed for legal proceedings. But Sibylla was faithful to the husband of her choice, and fled with him to Ascalon, one of her dowry-towns, to avoid the compulsory violation of her nuptial vow. Guy not appearing on the appointed day, his fiefs were pronounced forfeited. Joppa was seized, and he was besieged in Ascalon. But, whilst the siege was in progress, the Barons further required the nomination of a Protector of the realm, the coronation of a child affording no relief from the evils caused by the paralysing paroxysms of the King’s malady. And now Baldwin, either conquering his long-nourished distrust of the Earl of Tripoli, or dreading his enmity to a preferred rival, selected him for the office. The Earl, who knew himself an object of dislike to the Patriarch, to both Grand-Masters, to Prince Renaud, and many others, refused to accept the post unless invested with unusual powers, and fortified with unusual securities. These were conceded, and he took the protectorate upon himself, the care of the crowned heir’s person and education being simultaneously committed to the child’s great uncle, the Seneschal. Scarcely were these arrangements completed, when, in March 1185, Baldwin IV died; but the event being thus provided for, the only consequent change was Earl Raymond’s being Regent for Baldwin V, instead of Pro­tector under Baldwin IV. His unwonted powers and securities remained as originally given.

The first and almost the only business of Raymond’s unquestioned regency was the relief of a famine, under which Palestine, from an extraordinarily continuous drought, and, as some allege, from recent neglect of agriculture was then suffering. To remedy this he purchased of Saladin, for 60,000 bezaunts, a short truce, with free commercial intercourse. Egypt was untouched by either noxious cause, and the Egyptians gladly sold the contents of their overflowing granaries, together with their flocks and herds, for the high prices yet more gladly paid by the starving Jerusalemites. By the time this relief was effected, the little monarch, Baldwin V, died.

One of the conditions, without which Earl Raymond had refused to undertake the protectorate was, that in case of such death the question of the right of succession—to modern apprehension no question at all—should be referred to the Pope, the German Emperor, and the Kings of France and England, he retaining the protectorate until their decision should be known. But Sibylla, the natural heir of her brother in preference to her deceased baby son, was no party to that compact; and neither she and her husband, nor Raymond’s adversaries, designed to abide by it. Those adversaries were powerful and fiercely hostile, the Grand-Master of the Templars, Gerard de Belfort, being personally so, upon a quarrel of his youth. The Earl had prevented his marriage with a beautiful heiress, a vassal of Tripoli. Belfort, upon his disappointment, became a Templar, but never forgave the injury, and seems to have watched for an opportunity to revenge himself. Few characters have been more contradictorily delineated than Earl Raymond’s. He has been accused of ambition, of rapacity, of treason, of having, in furtherance of some not very intelligible scheme of usurpation, poisoned his royal ward, whose person was in the Seneschal’s custody, not his, and whose life assured the supreme authority to him, as Regent, for many years. But in those days a premature death could scarcely ever be believed natural, and a similar accusation has been laid against the infant King’s step-father, nay, even against his mother. By his friends, Raymond is, on the contrary, represented as wise, disinterestedly patriotic, unambitious, and nearly a pattern of perfection. An impartial inquirer of the present day will perhaps pronounce him able, ambitious, and tolerably honest, though not scrupulously so; but arrogant, captious, and of ungovernable temper, offending all who had to deal with him—Heraclius to such a degree that he also has been accused of poisoning the royal child, merely to get rid of the Earl’s regency.

Such being the state of parties, the Seneschal laid his plans for securing the throne to his niece. He duped the Regent into remaining at Tiberias, the property of his Countess, till after the royal funeral; whilst he invited Sibylla, Guy, and their friends, to Jerusalem, to attend it. The obsequies were performed; and then Sibylla, as lawful heiress, called upon the Patriarch to crown her. He was willing, but the regalia were kept, like the produce of the property-tax, under three different locks, the three keys of which were severally intrusted to the Patriarch and the two Grand-Masters; of whom Desmoulins, then Grand-Master of St. John, refused to concur in any breach of the compact with the Earl of Tripoli. Negotiations upon the matter followed, and during the delay thus occasioned the Regent summoned the Baronage and Hierarchy of the kingdom to meet forthwith at Neapolis; whence those who attended sent to Jerusalem a solemn protest against crowning Sibylla. It acted as a spur to the proceedings there. The key was coaxed or wrested from the conscientious Desmoulins. The city gates were closed to prevent the possibility of interruption from the Neapolis assembly, and all parties concerned repaired to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. There the receptacle was ceremoniously opened, and two crowns drawn forth, which were deposited upon the altar. With one of them the Patriarch crowned Sibylla; and then, saying: “Your Grace is a woman, and the kingdom has need of a King;” presented to her the other, which she instantly placed on the head of her kneeling husband.

Hoveden gives a more dramatic account of the coronation, amusingly illustrative of Sibylla’s conjugal fidelity, that must not be omitted, though it accords not with the value believed to have been set by the Patriarch and the Templar upon Guy’s persuadableness, calculated, they hoped, to leave all power substantially in their hands. His story is that the Patriarch, and the two Grand-Masters, had wrung from Sibylla her consent to a divorce, by pledging themselves to accept as King whomsoever she should afterwards choose as her husband; and that she outwitted them by thus choosing the divorced Guy, to whom she now gave her hand for the second time, and with it the crown.

When tidings of this decided step reached Neapolis, great was the indignation, and great the confusion. Ray­mond asserted that it would be easy to dethrone the usurpers, as he termed Sibylla and Guy; alleging that Sibylla, the child of a marriage dissolved as illegal, was illegitimate, though her brother, the son of the same marriage, and even her own child, had been acknowledged as legitimate heirs. Upon this ground, he proposed to proclaim, in their stead, young Isabel and Humphrey de Thoron. The idea was unanimously approved, and the next day appointed for the proclamation. But Humphrey was not born for a ringleader of rebellion; he took fright at the prospect, and, when the hour appointed for the proclamation struck, the intended King was missing. He had made his escape in the night, and hurried to Jerusalem, where he did homage to Guy. His absence foil­ing the plan, Isabel was not proclaimed.

And now the Barons, hopeless of success, gave way. In vain Raymond urged a reference to the selected arbitrators, and even proposed to seek aid of Saladin. From this last suggestion all revolted; and now leaving him, hastened to do homage to Guy; all, except Baldwin of Ramla, and he permitted his son to accompany the rest. But Guy refused to receive the son’s oath of allegiance without the father’s; and Baldwin, lest his fiefs should be considered as forfeited by the omission, then attended, and took the oath; but took it in a form marking the temper in which he did so. He said: “King Guy, I swear allegiance to you, as one who desires no land of you;” and neither kissing the King’s hand nor doing homage, bade his son do homage and receive investiture. He then withdrew to Antioch, where Bohemund, glad to acquire so distinguished a vassal, granted him lands more considerable than those he had resigned to his son.

The Earl of Tripoli, though deserted, would not submit to his rival. But unable single-handed to resist the whole kingdom, he, when threatened, as a rebel, with a siege, applied, as he had previously proposed to his partisans, for aid to Saladin, with whom the truce, prolonged by Guy, still subsisted; and received a Saracen garrison into Tiberias. The act naturally shocked his best friends, and lowered his reputation.

The remainder of this year, 1186, and the whole of 1187, were crowded with disasters to the Syro-Franks; a few only need be particularised. The series began from another breach of truce by Prince Renaud, to which he was, as usual, incited by his rapacious temper, and which, ultimately, proved fatal to himself. The mother of Saladin, travelling from one of her son’s capitals to the other, and confiding in the armistice, passed near Kerek; when Renaud fell by surprise upon her escort, slaughtered nearly the whole, the aged princess escaping almost alone, and seized her baggage. Before the outrage was publicly known, a caravan of Damascene merchants, following the same route, was in like manner surprised, plundered, and slaughtered or made prisoners. Saladin demanded restitution which Chatillon refused. He offered to exchange for the captives, thus lawlessly seized, a band of pilgrims thrown by shipwreck upon the Egyptian coast; and this exchange, the Robber-Prince, who expected to wring a large ransom from his prisoners, refused. The Sultan then appealed to the King to punish, according to Christian law, these violations of public faith; but Renaud, having again wormed himself into royal favour, his influence over Guy prevented the compliance due to this just requisition. And now Saladin solemnly swore, that should the perfidious truce-breaker ever again fall into his power, he should expiate these outrages with his life, taken by his, the Sultan’s own hand. The armistice being ended by these lawless acts, Saladin once more invaded Palestine.

The first calamity consequent upon his idly provoked enmity is said to have been the massacre of the ship­wrecked pilgrims. The second befell the two Orders, and is an adventure not easily intelligible to modern ideas. Saladin’s son Afdal, desiring to effect a diversion in favour of his father’s warlike operations, resolved to make a separate inroad into Palestine, and demanded of the ally who had sought and obtained Moslem support, the Earl of Tripoli, a free passage through his and through his wife’s territories. It was an awkward request; Raymond could not well refuse a free passage, or anything else, to an ally whose troops garrisoned one of his chief towns; but he was unwilling to betray his countrymen. To escape from the horns of the dilemma, he made it the condition of his consent that the inroad should last only a day, and that, content with ravaging and plundering the open country, the Mohammedans should not attack walled town or castle. The condition was agreed to, whence it has been inferred that the sole object of the Turkish Emirs was to indulge the young prince in a frolic, which he took seriously. The Earl instantly made this eccentric verbal agreement public; and the peasantry, with what property they could remove, sought shelter behind walls. He likewise despatched a special messenger to a party whom he knew to be upon their way, as mediators between the King and himself, with a request that, suspending their journey, they would halt wherever they happened to be, until this Moslem inroad should be over. The party in question Consisted of the Grand-Master of the Templars, the Archbishop of Tyre, the Prince of Sidon, Sibylla’s step-father, and Balian de Ibelin, second husband of her step-mother, Queen Maria, Amalric’s Greek widow The last three complied; but the Templar—strange to select as a mediator Raymond’s personal enemy!—would not recognise any such anomalous private convention as restrictive of the two Orders’ vowed hostility to the Mohammedans. He called upon the neighbouring Hospitalers for a reinforcement, and, at the head of 150 knights, and 500 foot, set forward to surprise, as he hoped, the Saracens, returning in careless confidence with their booty. But Chatillon had taught the lesson of distrust, and indeed Afdal or his Lieutenants appear to have heard of the Grand-Master’s disclaimer of the Earl’s arrangement, inasmuch as they had provided against its violation. The Templar and his party, as they had pro­posed, attacked the booty-laden Saracens on their home­ward way, who, as surprised, retreated before them. But they thus drew the pursuers into an ambuscade prepared for them, where they were so completely cut to pieces that only Belfort himself and three knights, saved by the extraordinary fleetness of their horses, survived.

The next calamity was far more serious in character and disastrous in result. Saladin had advanced, ravaging the country, as far as Tiberias; whence the Saracen garrison had been dismissed, upon the reconciliation which the above-mentioned mission, when Afdal’s singular incursion was over, had happily effected between the Earl and the King. To this city, the capital of the Countess of Tripoli's domains, the Sultan laid siege, and Guy led as much of the army which he was assembling for the defence of the kingdom, as was then ready, reinforced by a band of crusaders under the Marquess of Montferrat, to its relief. He encamped for the night about a day’s march from Tiberias, and a Council of War was held to discuss the operations of the morrow. The circumstances were so far changed, that the town, insufficiently garrisoned, had surrendered, and the Countess with her four sons, the offspring of a first marriage, had taken refuge in the castle, which resolutely held out. Earl Raymond strongly dissuaded any further advance, on account of the great deficiency of water in the intervening district, and, to the heavy-armed Frank cavalry, the extreme difficulty of the road, mountainous, precipitous, and abounding in defiles and gorges, amidst which the light Saracen and Turkish cavalry would, as in the Second Crusade, destroy the exhausted Christians without coming within reach of their weapons. He urged that, under the circumstances, whichever, of Guy or Saladin, were the assailant, must needs be defeated; wherefore it was desirable to remain where they were, abundantly supplied with water and forage, and so invite the attack; whilst their mere proximity would prevent the enemy’s attempting to storm the castle of Tiberias; which, should it be compelled to capitulate, would be easily recovered when the main force of the enemy should be gone, and the prisoners, his wife and her children included, yet more easily ransomed. This opinion was violently opposed, but gained weight from its evident disinterestedness, and finally prevailed. Orders were issued accordingly, and the Council broke up. But in the night, the Grand-Master of the Templars, either burning to revenge his late defeat, or merely wishing to thwart the man he hated, returned singly to the charge, and persuaded Guy, always too amenable to persuasion, that the Earl, in the rankling of old enmity, envying him the glory of a victory over Saladin, had misled him ; and further, that should the castle of Tiberias fall whilst he looked idly on, he would be for ever dishonoured. He triumphed; and at dawn the army marched in search of the enemy, Raymond leading the van, because upon his own territories.

The EarPs predictions were fully and speedily verified. About half way, the Christians, worn out with many hours of severe toil amidst the delaying difficulties above mentioned, in the heat of July in Syria, and faint from burning thirst, encountered the Moslem army, that, upon their light, active horses, had performed their part of the distance too quickly and too easily for such sufferings. The Sultan did not attack Guy, but he prevented his advance, otherwise than by fighting his way through the hostile ranks, to which the Syro-Franks were at the moment unequal. The King therefore encamped for the night in a locality where water was unattainable.

In the morning of the 5th of July, Guy offered battle; but Saladin, aware that every additional hour of heat and thirst must yet more disable the Christians, fell back before him, drawing him onward and harassing his march. At length the Christians reached the hill of Hittin, whence they beheld beyond the enemy, the fair lake for whose waters they were languishing; and Saladin increased their sufferings, by setting the bushes and dry grass to windward of them on fire. Here, before a blow had been struck, a division of infantry unable to endure this additional evil, unable it should seem, from fatigue and exhaustion, to use their arms in combat or their legs in flight, flung their weapons away and surrendered at discretion.

The Templars and Hospitalers fought gallantly, as usual, whenever opportunity offered, during this disastrous advance. But their horses were jaded, even their own powers were beginning to fail; and they appear to have been in a manner surrounded, at some distance from the rest of the troops, when Saladin judged it time to press upon the main body of the Christians. Guy, now driven to extremity, ordered the van to charge, and the Earl of Tripoli galloped forward at its head. The hostile ranks opened before him; his enemies say by preconcert, but it is more likely from Saladin’s foreseeing the result of such a measure. This result was, that the Earl passed right through the Moslem host, which, closing behind him, cut him off from the Christian army, unless by as boldly and hazardously charging back again. To such self sacrificing, patriotic heroism, Raymond did not, apparently, feel any impulse. He did not assail the enemy in the rear, or make any effort to rejoin his comrades; but, as though he had done all that was incumbent upon him, fled precipitately, with his whole division, and was not pursued.

His desertion and seeming treachery appear to have paralysed the King, the bravest leaders, and the whole army. Resistance was presently at an end; Guy, and all who were not cut down upon the field, were made prison­ers, and the True Cross—which the Patriarch had not, as was his duty, brought in person, but sent by two bishops, to exalt the courage of the troops—was lost. Whether it formed part of Saladin’s booty, or, as some old writers say, was buried for security, and the spot forgotten, is another moot question, but lost it was. This fatal defeat is called by Christian writers the battle of Tiberias; by Moslem, the battle of Hittin.

Saladin’s treatment of the captives is characteristic. He received the leaders in his tent with chivalrous courtesy, Prince Renaud alone excepted, upon whom he frowned most ominously. Observing Guy to look faint and overpowered, he ordered him a cup of cool sherbet. The King drank and handed the cup to his favourite Renaud; when Saladin hurriedly called to the interpreter: “ Say to the King, Thou givest it, not I—for by Arab law the life of a prisoner, who had received meat or drink from his captor’s hand, was sacred; and he had sworn to take Chatillon’s. But, in Saladin’s eyes, a conversion to Islam outweighed even the obligation of keeping an oath, and he offered his destined victim his life, if he would adopt the Moslem faith. In those days real piety was not incompatible, it seems, with profligacy and the meanness of intrigue; hence, as Prince Renaud was a brave man, “nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it”

He refused to apostatise, and was taken out of the tent; at the entrance of which, Saladin, in fulfilment of his oath, with his own sabre, either struck off his head, or at least dealt him the first blow, as the signal for putting him to death. Upon returning into the tent the Sultan found his prisoners in some dismay, which he relieved by explaining the oath he had sworn in regard to Chatillon. They were then led away and kept in honourable captivity. From this courteous treatment the Knights of the two Orders were however excepted. To them the same choice as to Chatillon was offered, and it hardly need be added, they all chose martyrdom: which Moslem devotees were permitted, as a religious act, to bestow upon them with their own hands. Yet all cannot have been slaughtered, since the Grand-Master of the Templars, as will be seen, survived to recover his liberty, either by ran­som, or with the King. Contemporary chroniclers relate that laymen, ambitious of sharing this glorious fate, falsely declared themselves Templars and Hospitalers; and also, that for three nights, lights as from Heaven, shone over the unburied martyrs. The Grand-Master of St. John of Jerusalem had been carried wounded from the field by some of his knights, and died free.

This defeat was decisive, and Palestine rapidly overrun. The castle of Tiberias surrendered, when Saladin dismissed the Countess of Tripoli and her family with a safe conduct to join her Lord, who had taken refuge at Tyre. This was probably esteemed proof of the Earl’s previous understanding with the conqueror; and Raymond’s death, which soon afterwards occurred, was, by his contemporaries, decidedly ascribed to remorse for his treacherous desertion of countrymen and co-religionists. He left no children, and was succeeded by his count Bohemund, a son of the Prince of Antioch, and one of the companions of his flight from the fatal field of Hittin. A strangely anomalous succession, for, although Bohemund and Raymond were cousins, it was through their descent from Melisenda’s two sisters; and the Normans of Antioch, therefore, who were not of the blood of the Toulousan Earls of Tripoli, could have no shadow of right to inherit their country.

Saladin’s conquest was at once all but complete. Forty towns are said to have opened their gates as soon as summoned, and were well treated; whilst the inhabitants of those taken after resistance were massacred. Tyre, into which the Prince of Sidon—who was stopped on his way to join the army with his vassals by the tidings of its destruction—had thrown himself, made a show of resistance; and Saladin, who would not just then spare time to besiege it, turned away, took possession of Sidon and Berytus as he marched southward, and in August laid siege to Ascalon, which, by its situation, was to him more important. This strong city defended itself well; and Saladin, impatient of delay, sent for Guy, to whom he offered his liberty, as the price of Ascalon. Guy desired a conference with the commanders, when he forbade them to surrender for his sake, if they could hold out long enough to allow a chance of relief from Europe; but if they judged this hopeless, he bade them capitulate whilst they could make their own terms. Ascalon capitulated accordingly; the conditions being, the release of the King, of the Grand-Master of the Templars, and of twelve or fifteen other persons to be named by the King; for such of the inhabitants as chose to remove, time to sell their property; for such as chose to remain, security of life, limb, and purse. But the liberation of the captives was postponed till March 1188; Saladin fearing, it is supposed, that the presence of Guy and the Grand-Master in Jerusalem, might thwart his desire of obtaining the Holy City without damaging it by a siege.

The fulfilment of this hope was now the Sultan’s chief concern. From his camp before Ascalon he had sent most liberal offers to Jerusalem, in case the Holy City would agree to surrender, if not relieved from Europe by Whitsuntide, 1188;—the Moslem would hardly so designate the time; but the old Chroniclers unhesitatingly put their own words and thoughts into the mouths of those to whom they were most alien. The citizens proudly rejected the proposal, announcing their resolution to defend the Holy City to the last drop of their blood. When this bold answer was returned, Jerusalem contained only two knights. Soon afterwards, Balian of Ibelin, who had purchased his release by the surrender of his castle of Ibelin and an oath never more to bear arms against the Moslem, came thither, by Saladin’s permission, to fetch away his wife, the Queen-dowager Maria, and their family. He was instantly seized by the citizens to conduct their defence, and the Patriarch gave him a dispensation from his oath. He despatched messengers to the Sultan to explain the coercion under which he was about to break his plighted word; and Saladin, generously admitting the excuse, caused the Queen-dowager and her children to be safely escorted, as he desired, to Tripoli.

Balian knighted the sons of the principal citizens, and in high spirits all prepared for their defence. This warlike temper lasted even after Saladin had, upon the 20th of September, encamped before the walls; for he respected a city, almost as sacred in Moslem as in Christian eyes, and still endeavoured to obtain possession by negotiation. His efforts to avert violence and bloodshed from Jerusalem, whilst securing it to himself, and the heroic determination of the citizens, continued through a week; at the end of which the Sultan, his offers being still perseveringly rejected, began hostile operations. A very short trial of the evils of a siege—it has been said, a single day—sufficed to damp, even to extinguish the heroism of the tyro garrison; and Balian was now compelled to visit Saladin’s camp in order to obtain a capitulation. The only real difficulty that appears to have delayed the negotiation, related to the rate at which men, women, and children might, respectively, be ransomed. This, after much discussion, being finally settled at 10 gold bezaunts for each man, 5 for each woman, and 1 for each child, the keys of Jerusalem were, upon the 2d of October, 1187, delivered to Saladin.

The affluent speedily ransomed themselves, and the Patriarch then called upon them to assist in rescuing the destitute from slavery. They did so, but scantily; and Jerusalem being crowded with indigent peasants who had flocked thither for protection, these contributions, and those of the Hospitalers, said to have been munificent, proved wofully inadequate. He next called upon the Templars to dedicate to this purpose the remainder of Henry II of England’s fine for the death of Thomas a Becket, which, allotted by the Pope to the defence of the Holy Land, had been placed in their custody, and in great part expended upon the equipment of the army, defeated at Tiberias. All was insufficient; and tens of thousands still groaned over their impending slavery, when Malek el Adel begged a thousand of his brother, received the gift, and instantly enfranchised his lot of slaves. His example was followed by a few Emirs. Then Saladin made the Patriarch and Balian a present of 700 a-piece; and, saying he must emulate the generosity of all around him, ordered that through one specified gate, for one whole day, all persons who had not the amount of their ransom upon them, should pass gratuitously. Eleven, if not fifteen thousand still remained, and for these Saladin refused every petition; they were all, without exception, sold into slavery.

But, for the wives and children of those who had lost life or liberty at Hittin, he expressed much commiseration, made handsome presents to the widows and orphans, and restored many surviving husbands and fathers to their families. He had an interview with Sibylla, who appears to have been present during the previous negotiation, siege, and capitulation, but no more to have interfered with anything, than might a Georgian slave. He was very gracious to her, and allowed her to visit, or to join, Guy in his captivity.

So strict was Saladin’s discipline, that during the whole transaction not a complaint of violence or ill usage was heard. Upon taking possession, he sent to Damascus for several camel-loads of rose-water, wherewith to purify the churches, prior to their reconversion into mosques; and a pulpit, carved by Noureddin’s own hands, he placed in the celebrated Mosque of Omar, when reconsecrated to Islam.

CHAPTER XII. FREDERIC I. [1187—1190] 

Third Crusade—Movements in Europe—Frederics preparations in Germany—In the Countries to be traversed—State of the Eastern Empire—Saladin’s preparations —The Emperors march—Difficulties in the Eastern Empire—Frederic's progress—His success—His death. [1187—1190.