BOOK II.

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.

 

It has been seen that however remiss in their own preparations against the impending danger the Syro-Franks had been, they had not neglected the easier resource of seeking aid from Europe. They had so applied as far back as the pontificate of Alexander III, and obtained his promise to endeavour, with a view to the organization of a grand Crusade, to reconcile Henry II of England and Philip II of France (surnamed Augustus, because born in August), who had then just succeeded to his father, Lewis VII. Alexander had accordingly addressed letters to the different sovereigns of Europe, earnestly exhorting them to postpone all conflicting interests to the great cause of Christendom: but he had effected nothing towards this end. When the danger became more urgent, the Patriarch and the Archbishop of Tyre had revisited Europe upon the same errand. Their representation wrung from the Kings of France and England promises to undertake a crusade, as soon as the affairs of their realms and some settlement of their own dissentions should make it feasible. Contented with these assurances, and with having induced divers knights and nobles to make crusading pilgrimages, Heraclius returned to Jerusalem, the Archbishop remaining behind, to urge forward more potent succours. But, ever since the death of Henry the Younger, the two Kings of France and England had been trying to overreach each other about his widow’s portion, le Vexin, and the anxious prelate’s eloquence was of no avail.

The tidings of the utterly destructive battle of Tiberias, followed by those of its yet more grievous, inevitable consequence, that the birth-place of Christianity, the scene of the Passion of the Redeemer of mankind, was again in paynim hands, gave weight to his words. This calamity fell, like a thunderbolt, upon Western Europe, rekindling extinct enthusiasm, and striking down one of the heads of Christendom. Urban III is believed to have actually died of grief and mortification, that his pontificate should be branded with such misfortune, such dishonour. Feelings envenomed, perhaps, by the consciousness that he himself, when his every thought should have been devoted to the preservation of the Holy Land, had instead been excommunicating a Christian sovereign; and, in order to hurl this spiritual thunderbolt, occupied in contriving his own escape from Verona, where the act was prohibited, to Ferrara, where he could anathematize at his pleasure. Urban expired the 17th of November, 1187. His successor, Gregory VIII, though he did but pass over the stage, dying after a pontificate of two months, addressed exhortations to all the Princes of Europe to join in a crusade; and Clement III, who was elected upon his decease, laboured assiduously to reconcile enemies, and compromise disputes; thus to remove all impediments to the hallowed enterprise, whilst he promised every description of spiritual immunity and temporal protection to crusaders. Wives, brides, mothers, stimulated their respective husbands, lovers, and sons, to set forth for the Holy Land; only regretting that their sex precluded them from sharing in such pious toils and dangers,—and in many cases it was not suffered to do so. Templars and Hospitalers, who were enjoying a kind of furlough upon the European domains of their Orders, flew to their proper post in Palestine. The sovereigns of France and England, at the voice of the Archbishop of Tyre, apparently forgot their selfish quarrels, and in January, 1188, met under the frontier elm, beneath whose shade the Kings of France and the Dukes of Normandy habitually treated; and there making peace, received the Cross from the universally revered Syro-Frank prelate. The Earl of Flanders followed their example, as did many of the nobles present. The heir-apparent of England, the lion-hearted Richard, had preceded them in assuming the symbol of a Holy War. The West seemed again about to hurl itself upon the East.

But the word peace had not made all smooth between France and England; Richard was entangled in feuds of his own as well as in his father’s quarrels; and much remained to be arranged ere any of the European monarchs could move. Italy took the lead, and William II of Sicily was the first in the field. Suspending, in what was felt to be the cause of Christendom, not only Sicilian resentment for the spoliation and dishonour of his great-grandmother, but his endeavours to profit by the disorders weakening the Eastern Empire since Manuel’s death, he equipped and despatched a fleet to the assistance of the seaport towns of Palestine. Venice, Pisa, and Genoa, did the same, impelled as much by the importance of the Syro-Frank states to their commerce, as by religious feelings. These first succours were not very considerable, but the circum. stances under which they arrived rendered them invaluable. Of this in due time; our present business being with Europe; of which some parts were unavailable to the common cause. Spain, Portugal, and Scandinavia, occupied, as usual, with internal wars, had no leisure to concern themselves with the fate of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

The Potentate, upon whom all eyes were bent, was the Emperor; and he needed not the eloquence of the Arch­bishop of Tyre to excite his sympathy. All recollection of dissatisfaction with the Syro-Franks faded before the idea of the cradle of his Faith in the hands of misbelievers. He thought but of this desecration; and, at the Easter Diet of 1188, convened to meet at Mainz, laying the condition of the Holy Land before the assembled Estates of the Empire, he announced the professed intentions of the Kings of France and England, and put the question: “Whether he and they should not also march to the defence of Palestine?” An unanimous assent answered him. Again he asked: “Did the condition of the Empire allow of his immediately heading a Crusade, or must the recovery of the Holy Places be deferred to a later, more convenient period?” The zeal of the Princes was fervid, and they exclaimed, that the enterprise must not be delayed one unnecessary moment. The Emperor received the Cross from the hands of Cardinal Albano and the Bishop of Wurzburg; his second son, Frederic Duke of Swabia, did the same, and was followed by the Dukes of Bohemia—the royal title seems not to have been as yet necessarily hereditary—of Meran and of Styria, the Landgrave of Thuringia, the Archbishop of Treves, the Margrave of Baden—a branch of the Zäringen family, that had transferred the title of Margrave from the old margraviate of Verona, to the internal Swabian province of Baden—with many bishops, earls, and lesser nobles, all, as nearly as might be, simultaneously pledging themselves to redeem the birthplace of Christianity from desecration.

But the Emperor had no more intention than the Kings, of proceeding rashly; nor would he leave his dominions exposed to any disorders or dangers, such as might embarrass his youthful substitute and vicegerent, if in his power it were to avert them. He devoted the remainder of the year 1188 to his preparations. He opened various negotiations with the Kings of France and England touching the conduct of the Crusade; with the monarchs whose dominions were to be traversed, as Hungary, Servia, the Greek Empire, and even the Seljuk empire of Iconium, touching the conditions of a free passage; and, whilst these arrangements were in progress, he turned his thoughts to the measures best adapted to secure the tranquillity of Germany.

To this end, he again made a sweeping destruction of the strongholds of robber-knights; of whom two or more, with their families, now occasionally occupied one advantageously situated castle. He adjusted, by influence or by force, important feuds, as between the Earls of Hainault and Namur, between the Earl of Gueldres and his old antagonist the Bishop of Utrecht, together with others between parties of less consequence, but still sufficient to enkindle civil war in the absence of the controlling power. One domestic feud—that between the Margrave of Misnia and his eldest son, caused by an attempt on the part of the father to supersede his eldest in favour of his second son—he could in nowise appease. This quarrel, however, as purely domestic, not being likely to spread beyond the margraviate, he held the less material. Further to guard his son’s administration against the, troubles always, the anarchy often, engendered by private feuds, the Emperor, in a Diet held at Nuremberg in November, procured the enactment of the most stringent laws against any armed assertion of individual rights, or revenge of individual wrongs during the Crusade:—a potent corroboration of, as well as a corollary from, those equally stringent, by which the Pope had prohibited war among Christians for the next seven years! But it was from two princes dissatisfied, though not then insurgent, whose power defied, as their arrogance disdained, legal restraint, that Frederic chiefly apprehended disturbance to his son’s vicegerency. These were the Archbishop of Cologne and the Duke of Brunswick. With the first of these he hoped easily to effect a reconciliation, since a Churchman could not decently proclaim himself the enemy of a Crusader, even setting aside the certainty that by so doing he would incur papal censure. The prelate facilitated matters by throwing the whole blame of the plunder of the Augsburg merchants upon the citizens of Cologne, who were therefore condemned to pay a fine and demolish part of their walls. But, as the reconciliation with the Archbishop, and, on the citizens’ part, the expression of obedience, were his chief objects, they were presently allowed to restore their fortifications, and all was well in that quarter; Archbishop Philip, professing himself the faithfully devoted vassal of the Emperor, ready and eager in every way to assist the young King.

Henry the Lion, reduced as he was, was still formidable, and, as an enemy, dangerous. He had now, since his return from exile, resided three years in Germany as Duke of Brunswick; apparently inactive, but believed to be ambitious as ever, and suspected of secretly fomenting misunderstandings, calculated to embroil the Emperor with the Pope and the King of Denmark ; whilst pretty well known rather to seek than avoid dissentions with the prince he could not but hate, the new Duke of Saxony. Frederic felt that he dared not trust his angry kinsman in Germany during his own absence; and resolved to obtain, if possible, his companionship to Palestine, where his leonine and even his vulpine qualities would be invaluable. He, therefore, with the full concurrence of the Diet, made the following proposals to Henry. He in the first place invited him to share in the Crusade, entirely at the imperial expense; and to receive, at their return, remuneration for his assistance, in fiefs. In case he should reject this invitation, two alternatives were submitted to his choice; the one, to relieve the fears he inspired, by rendering himself less formidable; viz., by resigning some portion of his restored possessions; the other, to pledge himself to avoid the Empire, with his sons, for the space of three years,—the computed duration, either of the Emperor’s absence, or of the young King’s inexperience. The haughty, though sunken, Lion, did not choose to join the Crusade in a subordinate capacity; further to reduce his already so greatly reduced dominions was out of the question; and therefore—knowing himself unable to cope with the Emperor and Empire united—he took the prescribed oath.

The misunderstandings with Denmark, to which allusion has been made, require a word or two: as they must assuredly have produced a war, had not Frederic’s thoughts been devoted to the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, in preference to every other object, except the security of his son. Canute VI had pertinaciously evaded, if he had not positively refused, to do homage. He had—whilst the Emperor was last in Italy, engrossed with his son’s marriage,—intrigued amongst, and attacked, the Slavonians subject to the Empire; he had attacked Bogislaf of Pomerania, in retaliation of his before-mentioned attempts upon Rügen, and made him vassal to the Prince of Rügen, who was himself the vassal of Denmark. He had taken advantage of a civil war between the brother Princes of the Obodrites, to overthrow both; and to divide their dominions between his own vassals, Jaromir of Rügen and Bogislaf of Pomerania; and he thereupon assumed the title of King of the Danes and Slavonians. In addition to these offences, he shocked contemporary feelings, and awoke mistrust of ulterior designs, by refusing to join in the Crusade. That Frederic, through zeal for the recovery of Jerusalem, forbore to recover provinces thus stolen or rent from his empire, was surely the strongest proof of sincere devotion—according to the devotion of the age—that man could give. It was a sacrifice of all the passions, all the sentiments of his soul. But he felt, that any delay of the Crusade would be the final abandonment of the Holy Places to the Moslem, and postponed the chastisement of the refractory vassal, and the enforcement of his own rights, till his return from Palestine. For the moment, he merely demanded the remainder of the portion of his son’s betrothed Danish bride, and, upon Canute’s refusing it, sent her home unwedded. His nephew, Lewis Landgrave of Thuringia, less warrantably, sent home the Danish King’s mother, whom, as Waldemar’s widow, he had married. All further discussion of political questions, and even of these irritating measures of retaliation, was deferred until the completion of the Crusade should again permit Christians to turn their arms against each other.

The Emperor, having, with extraordinary energy, thus, as far as might be, regulated the chaos of his times and country, deemed his work at home done, and was nearly ready to set forward, when an appeal for armed intervention was made to him by a Russian potentate. Wladimir, Prince of Halitsch, one of the chief principalities of southern Russia, having been dethroned by his subjects for tyranny, had fled to Hungary; where Bela III—Geysa’s second son, who had just then succeeded to his elder brother Stephen—received him kindly, promising to conquer Halitsch for him. Conquer Halitsch he did; but, in lieu of restoring it to the expelled Prince, established his own second son, Andreas, there, throwing Wladimir and his family into prison. Thence Wladimir effected his escape, and, early in 1189, presented himself, as a despoiled and suppliant Prince, before the Emperor. The Halitsch rebellion, however provoked, and Bela’s treachery, were alike distasteful to Frederic; who having, moreover, conceived a high opinion of the Grand-Prince Wsewolod III, Wladimir’s maternal uncle, would willingly have served his nephew. Nevertheless, he would neither interrupt his hallowed enterprise nor embarrass it by a dispute with Bela, whose dominions he had to cross. Thus circumstanced, he merely gave the fugitive a letter of recommendation to Kasimir of Poland, an able prince, who, as supreme Duke, was endeavouring to improve the legislation of his country. And he judged that he had thus efficiently assisted Wladimir, since Kasimir, even if he dared slight the recommendation of his absent liege Lord, must needs grudge the King of Hungary possession of Halitsch.

It had been arranged that this most numerous Crusade should, for convenience, begin by dividing its forces; that the different bodies should not, as upon the last occasions, tread in each other’s steps, but, as the first had done, take different routes to their common goal. The French and English were to reach the Holy Land by sea, the Germans, as locally nearest, to follow the accustomed land road. The Emperor had, as has been seen, long since taken all preliminary measures for preventing obstructions to his progress by this route, and consequent delay. From the King of Hungary, to whom he had sent the Archbishop of Mainz to negotiate his passage, and from the Princes of Servia, who were now hardly nominal subjects of Constantinople, he had received assurances that the roads should be freely open to his troops, and the markets upon his line of march well supplied with the produce of the country, at prices prefixed.

The Ambassador, despatched to Constantinople, found the Eastern Empire in a condition very different, from that in which Frederic had last seen it. Andronicus had not long felt himself securely fixed in his position as Regent when he chose—whether his Antiochaean wife were living or dead is not mentioned—to marry the French Princess Agnes, a daughter of Lewis VII, who had been sent to Constantinople as the bride of the juvenile Emperor, Alexius II; and he proposed to his Imperial ward an illegitimate daughter of bis own, as the substitute for the Princess. Alexius refused to make the exchange, and did not long survive the refusal. Andronicus now usurped the throne, and led a life of licentious revelry with his new wife, the young Empress, and his Queen-dowager paramour, Theodora, whose love appears to have been proof against his infidelity to herself and his crimes. It is said, that when once Emperor, Andronicus would fain have been a good ruler. It is difficult to give such a man credit even for the wish; but, if he did entertain it, he found—as have less profligate usurpers—the mistrust inherent in usurpation an insuperable obstacle to the fulfilment, and became a sanguinary tyrant. Amongst other causeless atrocities, he massacred all the Franks resident at Constantinople, and made no exertions to protect his own people from reprisals; when William II sent a fleet under his Grand-Admiral, Margaritone, and his illegitimate cousin, Tancred Conte di Lecce, to revenge such of the victims as had been Sicilians or Apulians, visiting the monarch’s crime—as such can alone be, for the most part, visited—upon his unoffending subjects. Bulgaria, Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, boldly proclaimed their independence : and. Andronicus could reduce none of them to obedience. Even at Constantinople his satellites could not always murder those who fell under his suspicion: one designated victim managing to avoid and revenge the fate designed him. This was Isaac Angelus, he who had led Andronicus, at his earnest prayer, by a chain to Manuel’s feet. He escaped from his intended assassins into a church, excited a rebellion, dethroned Andronicus, put him to death whilst attempting to fly to Russia, and usurped the throne in his turn. It was with Isaac that Frederic had to treat, and he promised everything that could be desired; but the Constantinopolitan court was then sunk to nearly its lowest depth of weakness and degradation. Isaac was at the same time negotiating with Saladin ; in return for whose promise to make over to the Patriarch of Constantinople all the Latin churches in Syria, he permitted the Mohammedans, for the first time, to build a mosque in Constantinople:—a permission in itself sufficient, during the reign of ignorant fanaticism, to fill western Europe with distrust—and he is believed to have justified the apprehensions awakened by promising as much as possible to delay the Crusaders.

With the Sultan of Iconium, Frederic had previously had intercourse of a somewhat peculiar character. The Seljuk monarch had asked a daughter of the Emperor’s in marriage, and the Christian father agreed to give her, provided the Moslem suitor first received baptism. To this no objection appears to have been made by the Sultan, and, if the matrimonial treaty failed, it was only by the death of the bride prior to its conclusion. From his intended, and he might hope, half-converted, son-in-law, Frederic received assurances of a free passage, with abundant supplies, and also of the Sultan’s gratification in the prospect of making his acquaintance.

To Saladin likewise Frederic had sent an embassy; but this one bore a regular declaration of war, unless the Sultan of Egypt made satisfaction for the invasion of Palestine and the consequent slaughter of Christians, besides restoring the True Cross and all conquests from the Syro-Franks. Saladin of course rejected such terms; pointing out to the embassador that in Asia the Turks were far more numerous than the Franks, and not like them severed by long tracts of sea and land from their resources. Nevertheless, to spare bloodshed, he offered, upon the surrender of Antioch, Tripoli and Tyre, not only to restore the True Cross, protect all existing Christian churches and cloisters, release his Christian prisoners, and pledge himself to respect the places still held by the Syro-Franks; but likewise to ensure constant safe access of pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre, where a certain number of priests should be permitted to officiate. These offers were, equally of course, rejected.

Saladin had not expected that they would be accepted. Hence his treaty with Isaac Angelus; and hence he now opened negotiations with the Seljuks of Iconium, whose jealousy of his own power he well knew, and in anticipation of an European Crusade, felt to be fraught with danger.

In the beginning of May, 1189, the main body of German crusaders met the Emperor at Ratisbon. Frederic was now sixty-eight years of age, grey haired, and benignant as venerable in aspect; whilst his sunburnt, ruddy cheek and upright carriage showed he had as yet lost little of manhood’s vigour. His appearance filled the crusaders with reverential confidence in his energy and experience, which all his measures confirmed. To guard against the useless, and worse, the noxious crowd of followers who loved to append themselves to a crusade, the Emperor had ordered that no person of bad character, none who did not understand the use of arms, and none who had not wherewithal to defray his expenses for two years, should be permitted to join his ranks. The Pope feared such precautions, judicious as he allowed them to be, might too much restrict the numbers enrolled for the deliverance of Jerusalem, and took measures for the pre­vention of the apprehended evil. To this end, he required a general contribution of ten per cent, upon their property, from all those who staid at home, without exemption for noble or ecclesiastic—a tax known as Saladin’s tithe—and he sanctioned, it is said, for the first time the sale of indulgences; thus to provide a fund for equipping and supplying the wants of indigent, but otherwise unexceptionable crusaders. The Pope’s object was, in Germany at least, fully attained : for, at Ratisbon, besides 20,000 mounted and well appointed knights, appeared citizens, ecclesiastics, free peasants, villeins, in short equestrians and pedestrians of all descriptions, in countless throngs, of course to be winnowed according to the prohibitory edicts. Nor were these all, for many individuals, of the knights the larger portion, delayed joining till the latest moment, and many chose to take separate roads. Of these last, a large body of Netherlanders and Rhine-landers (Cologne alone despatched 1300) went by sea; and, putting into the Tagus for refreshment, were induced there to remain, performing their crusade in Europe. Some bands attempted to pass through Italy, and embark for a southern port; but these, at the desire of Frederic, who liked not such stragglers, were turned back by William II from his frontiers.

From Ratisbon the Emperor and his army, part by land, and part by water, descended the Danube to Vienna, where they where joined by the laggards. Here again he purified, his army, dismissing from 500 to 1500—as differently estimated by different writers—camp followers, including thieves and courtesans. He published a code of discipline to be strictly observed: and he renewed his interdict against taking hawks or hounds upon the pious expedition, which was not to be made a party of pleasure. From Vienna, the march fairly began. The Emperor, bidding, as he hoped, a temporary adieu to the Duke of Austria, who proposed shortly to rejoin him in Palestine,—going thither by sea—embarked upon the Danube, along the banks of which the troops marched.

Ata small town upon the river a tumult arose, in consequence of the municipal authorities demanding the customary tolls, which the Crusaders, deeming themselves exempt in virtue of the sacred character of their expedition—pilgrims were usually thus exempt—refused to pay. During the riot, the town was, purposely or casually, burnt. The Emperor, as a preventive of such disorders for the future, sharpened his code of military discipline, republished it, and required from every Crusader an oath to obey its laws. And so strict was he in inforcing the obedience he required, that he soon afterwards executed two Alsatian noblemen for transgressing these crusade­laws.

At Gran, the Emperor w as met by the King and Queen of Hungary, who entertained him with hunting parties and banquets, whilst his troops were tediously crossing the Drave in ferry boats. The alliance was strengthened by the betrothal of the Duke of Swabia, now freed from his Danish ties, to a daughter of Bela’s. It is said that Bela’s Queen, the French Princess Marguerite, requested Frederic to solicit of her consort the release of his younger brother, Geysa; who—preferred to him by the Hungarians because educated amongst themselves, whilst Bela, as a hostage, had grown to manhood at Constantinople—had tried to wrest the crown from him, and since lain fifteen years in prison. The Emperor did solicit his release, which Bela not only granted, but gave Geysa the command of the very respectable body of Hungarians who here joined the army. Upon leaving the Danube to join his troops beyond the Drave, Frederic presented the vessels that had brought him down the former river to his courteous host. At the passage of the Drave, the crusading army was counted, and found to amount to 50,000 knights and 100,000 of inferior station.

This mighty host now marched in four divisions, under separate commanders. The first—consisting of Bohemians and Hungarians —was led by their own respective Princes; the second, by the Duke of Swabia; the third, by three Bishops; and the fourth, by the Emperor in person. Upon leaving Hungary the Crusaders were harassed by the active hostility of the population. This Frederic endeavoured to check by reprisals; but, aware of the impotence of the Constantinopolitan Court in any degree to control these remote, half-barbarous, and more than half-independent provinces, he ascribed the annoyance solely to the temper of the people. He was speedily undeceived. At Nizza, Kalopeter and Asan, two powerful brother-chieftains, descended from old Bulgarian Kings, who were then intent upon re-establishing a kingdom of Bulgaria, exempt from Greek authority, the Grand-Shupan or Prince of Servia, and a lesser Prince of Rascia, waited upon the Imperial Crusader. They all assured him that the hostility he had encountered was the result of especial mandates from Constantinople, some of the Servian chieftains still professing allegiance to Isaac. The Grand-Shupan and the Bulgarians, on the contrary, vehemently professed friendship to the Crusaders, and strove to prove it by personally superintending a gratuitous supply of provisions, and proffering their services in various ways. The Grand-Shupan even proposed to hold his lands in vassalage of the Western Emperor, if Frederic would undertake his protection against the perfidious Byzantines. The Emperor courteously thanked them for their actual and for their proffered services, gravely replying to the last offer, that, inasmuch as he was in arms to recover from Paynim profanation the scene of the Redemption of mankind, not to wage war upon Christian sovereigns, however faulty, it was impossible for him to comply with their wishes. But suspicion of Greek faith was now awakened in his mind, and he despatched a new mission, consisting of the Earls of Nassau and Dietz, and his Chamberlain Markwald von Anweiler, to Constantinople, to ascertain what the designs of that Court really were.

Isaac received the Envoys with cordiality, professing the utmost good will; but, despite his professions, the further the Crusaders advanced into provinces really subject to the Greek Empire, the scarcer became provisions in their camp, the worse they found the roads—purposely, as was self evident, destroyed—the more obstructed the mountain passes. Still Frederic professed reliance on the word of a Christian Emperor; still treated all as popular passion, which he still tried to check by reprisals; w hilst he to the full as severely punished any Crusader who, impelled by hunger or revenge, plundered or maltreated the peasantry, thus provoking them to murder stragglers. The Bishop of Wurzburg often, by his desire, preached against robbery. At length Duke Frederic stormed an obstructed pass, now openly defended by Constantinopolitan troops, and was repaid by possession of abundantly supplied magazines. A result so confirming every suspicion, that the Court now dropped the mask. The diplomatist Crusaders were imprisoned; the Greek Envoy in the crusading camp loudly complained of the outrages, and the violations of the existing treaty, committed by the Crusaders; of Frederic’s negotiations with the insurgent chief­tains, and designing, as Isaac, he said, knew from the Kings of France and England, to place the Duke of Swabia upon the throne of the East-Roman Empire. The Emperor Isaac, he added, the treaty being thus broken, would not now grant the Crusaders a free passage, unless they gave hostages, the Duke of Swabia being one, not only for their peaceable demeanour, but also for the fulfilment of the promise he required, to cede half their conquests from the Saracens to him, and do him homage for the remainder. Frederic laughed at the complaints, taxed the Greeks with their convention with Saladin, and in his turn demanded the release of his Envoys, and the execution of the existing treaty. To the demand of homage he observed: “I am the Emperor Isaac’s equal, Roman Emperor and Augustus like him; ay, and with more right to the title, for the metropolis of the world is mine; I reign over Romans, he over Roumeliotes only.” And, pending these discussions, he continued to advance.

The Court of Constantinople, hesitating betwixt arrogance and conscious weakness, took half measures; insulted and harassed the army, repeating the demand of hostages and homage, but made no efficient military move.

Towards the end of October, however, Isaac became seriously frightened; then, by way of discrediting the report of his alliance with Saladin, so repugnant to the Crusaders, he released the German Envoys, and sent them, honourably escorted, back to the Emperor. They were received by the crusading nobles with such brandishing of spears, clashing of arms, and jousting evolutions, that their Greek escort was terrified at the seemingly imminent onslaught; until the Duke of Swabia explained to them that these warlike demonstrations were merely German forms of welcome. The bulk of the humbler Crusaders greeted them differently, with hymns and psalms of exultation; and the Emperor with the ejaculatio : “I thank God ! For these my sons were dead and are alive again, were lost and are found!”

Still Frederic advanced, his son defeating all attempted resistance, taking every town that tried to close its gates against him, and generally finding therein booty so abundant, as to delight his troops, and cause the transmission of the most cheering reports to Germany. Still Isaac hesitated betwixt nominal friendship and open hostility; whilst his subjects, agreeably surprised by the crusading monarch’s impartial justice and protection of the unoffending, daily became more reconciled to their passing visitors. The Western Emperor took up his winter quarters between Philippopolis and Adrianople, to await the spring for crossing over to Asia.

Here Frederic received letters from Queen Sibylla, giving him notice that Isaac, agreeably to his treaty with Saladin, had planned the destruction of the crusading army, by poisoning the wine and flour supplied to them, and the wells in the vicinity of all the expected encampments. Here too he received Envoys, sent by Kilidje Arslan, Sultan of Iconium, with renewed assurances of friendship and admonitions to beware of the covert enmity of the Constantinopolitan Court. Together with these warnings of Greek treachery, he received, from the Bulgarian Prince Kalopeter, the offer of an auxiliary army of41,000Kumans—a Tartar tribe ready, it should seem, to furnish both sides with mercenaries, being constantly named as part of the Byzantine army—if he would dethrone Isaac and assume the crown of the Eastern Empire. This offer he declined as before, and upon the same grounds as before, to wit, that he was pledged to fight the enemies of Christianity, not to chastise a Christian monarch, what­ver his offences. Sibylla’s communication was heeded, and gave rise to some measures of precaution, whilst still the strictest discipline was maintained. The system of passive resistance and active annoyance still continued to counteract his endeavours, and Duke Frederic still overran the country, taking towns far and near. In one of these he found some confirmation of the Queen of Jerusalem’s intelligence; the inhabitants naming places to him where the wells were poisoned, and others where poisoned wine was deposited.

At length, in the month of February, 1190, it seems to have occurred to Isaac that the shortest way of relieving himself from all fear of the Crusaders’ designs upon Constantinople, was to transport them into Asia, and leave them and the Turks to slaughter each other. Thus happily enlightened, he concluded a new treaty with Frederic Barbarossa, to which 500of the principal personages of Constantinople swore upon the high altar in the Church of St. Sophia. By it, Isaac bound himself to forgive all damage done, to provide for the markets being well supplied, and to furnish vessels at Gallipoli for conveying the Crusaders across the Hellespont. Presents were then exchanged, and compensation was made to the German Envoys for their imprisonment. Isaac gave hostages for the fulfilment of the conditions now agreed upon; and, it is said, betrothed his daughter Irene to Frederic’s youngest son Philip.

By the end of March, 1190, all was ready for the passage, which began upon Good Friday, and occupied six days; upon this occasion the army was again counted, and the numbers are variously reported at from 82,000 to 300,000. The previous computation, as well as the subsequent narrative, indicate the first number, though certainly very much too low, to be the least erroneous of the two. The Emperor was the last to cross, that he might assure himself no stragglers remained behind; and, upon landing, he dismissed all his Greek hostages except five, detained probably to ensure supplies and guides. He now altered the organization of the army, making two bodies only; gave the leading of the foremost to his son, who, however young, was by this time deemed a tried warrior, placed the baggage—transferred on account of the mountainous ways from carts to beasts of burthen—between the two divisions, and commanded the second in person. Notwithstanding the professions of the Greek Emperor and the detention of five Greek hostages, bands of Greek robbers harassed the army in Asia as their fellows had in Europe; the markets were most inadequately supplied; and still, therefore, the famishing pilgrims would plunder, would cut the green corn for their horses; and thus, as before, they provoked the enmity of the peasantry. Amidst these annoyances, the army made its way, and upon the 21st of April reached Philadelphia, in Lydia; where, being about to quit the territories of the Eastern Empire, the last five hostages, with an honesty to which the Greeks had no claim, were dismissed.

At Laodicea, the dominions of the Sultan of Iconium were entered: and so kindly were the Crusaders there received, so amply were they supplied with provisions, though the country through which they passed was sterile, that perfect confidence in the friendship of Kilidje Arslan was felt. All difficulties were believed to be over. But suddenly all was changed at Iconium, and soon was that change perceptible in the crusading camp. Kilidje Arslan hated Saladin as the destroyer of many Seljuk princes of his race, and appears therefore to have meant fairly by the Crusaders, whom he considered as allies against the object of his dread and detestation. But Saladin, somewhat alarmed, as before intimated, at the gathering tempest, sent an embassy to Iconium. For this delicate mission be made choice of the Cadi Bohaeddin, who, originally employed by Noureddin to find him allies against his dreaded Sultan­Vizier, had since entering Saladin’s service become his most trusted diplomatist and friend; and who, outliving him, became his biographer. The instructions given him were simply to secure co-operation there, at any cost. The result of Bohaeddin’s negotiation was the change above mentioned. Kilidje Arslan, after he had despatched his envoys to Frederic, was deposed and confined by his son Kotbeddin Malek Shah. From him the old Sultan, however, effected his escape, and sought protection from another son, Kaikhosru, who readily promised it. And so far he kept his promise, that he expelled Malek Shah, and nominally reinstalled his father; but he retained all power in his own hand, and, like his brother, was devoted to the Mussulman hero, Saladin.

How early these changes of ruler and of policy were made known to the Envoys accompanying the Emperor, does not appear; but soon the friendliness and the supplies vanished, whilst the line of march w as harassed by Turcoman robbers, more numerous and more daring than their Greek predecessors. Ere long a whole army of light cavalry, for ever attacking, never a waiting the retaliatory attack, cut the Crusaders off from the towns where provisions were stored, as from all wells and springs. They suffered severely from hunger and thirst, from incessant skirmishing, from more serious assaults whenever opportunity favoured, and from fatigue; the alarm being so repeatedly sounded by day and by night, that for six w eeks no man durst lay aside his armour for an hour. Complaints to the Seljuk envoys were answered by assurances of their Sultan’s friendship, and of his inability to control the wild Turcoman tribes haunting his dominions; marauders, by chastising whom, the Emperor would render him a great service. Frederic was fain to believe them. Amidst these severe trials he maintained the same strict discipline that commanded the admiration of his enemies, and is, together with the generally patient fortitude of the whole army, highly eulogized by Bohaeddin in his reports to Saladin. At length, however, the sufferings became, in the opinion of many, too much for human powers of endurance; numbers deserted to the Turks and apostatized. When a horror-stricken informant reported this disgrace to the Emperor, he calmly observed: “How could we hope to prosper with such comrades? The loss of those Godless men is the purification of the host.” 

The Seljuk Envoys now proposed to the Emperor to let them seek an interview with the Turcoman leaders, that they might endeavour, by threats of the Sultan’s resent­ent, to avert further attacks; and they desired to he accompanied by a German knight; as a witness of their zeal. The offer was eagerly accepted, but neither knight nor envoys returned. The latter sent word they were prisoners, and asked for their baggage; with which request Frederic, still desirous to believe them, or rather their Sultan, honest, complied. But the illusion shortly vanished. After a few more days of ever increasing skirmish and privation, the facts of the dethronement of Kilidje Arslan and the actual subserviency of the new Seljuk ruler to Saladin, were frightened out of a Turcoman prisoner, whom the Emperor compelled to guide the army over the mountains by a road different from that previously designed; thus avoiding a defile where their destruction was prepared.

But if they thus escaped a snare, they did not long elude their enemies; the fighting was incessant; but whatever the sufferings of the Crusaders, their blood was not shed with impunity; every Turk or Turcoman who came within reach of their weapons paid with his life for his rashness, and still they struggled forward. Upon the 13th of May, as they prosecuted their weary march, they caught sight of the whole army of Iconium, drawn up, conjointly with the Turcoman hordes, in order of battle. Their united numbers were computed at 300,000 men; and for a moment the Crusaders stood aghast. But the Bishop of Wurzburg piously exhorted his brethren to place their trust in God, and rest content with the crown of martyrdom if disappointed in their earthly hopes. The Emperor reminded them that in courage lay the only chance of safety, since flight must be certain death. And the army, shaking off its alarm, raised the German war song, “after the Swabian fashion” says Wilken. All then quietly encamped for the night. At daybreak the bishops said mass, and, as was customary before a pitched battle, the sacrament was administered to the troops. The army was then arrayed for action.

At the Seljuk headquarters, meanwhile, opinions were divided. Malek Shah, who is said to have had the command, as if he and Kaikhosru had acted collusively towards their father, was bent upon overwhelming the Christians with his numbers, and thus at once annihilating them. One of the leaders, producing a Turk’s arm, cut off through its stout armour by the single stroke of a Crusader’s sword, advised to shun close conflict with men of such bodily powers, and wear them out by continuing the course hitherto so successful. The Prince was obstinate, a pitched battle was fought; 10,000 Turks and Turcomans remained upon the field, and the routed host fled to Iconium.

But victory brought not relief to the Crusaders. They were still nearly without food or water, and their guides betrayed them into districts yet more destitute of both. The army was well nigh in despair, when a messenger from the new Sultan appeared, offering the Emperor a free passage and provisions at the price of a gold piece for every Crusader. The Imperial veteran, amidst his difficulties and dangers and in old age, answered the Seljuk plenipotentiary much as in the pride of power and vigour of manhood he had answered the representative of Rome. He said: “It is not the custom of German Emperors or of chivalrous Crusaders to open their road with gold. With the sword, under the protection of our Lord Jesus Christ, will we break our way.”

The Seljuk, ere riding off with this answer, angrily announced the hour of the morning at which the destruction of the whole Christian army would teach the Emperor to repent his unseasonable boast. The Crusaders sinking with inanition, gasping with thirst, lamented their monarch’s inflexibility; but he calmly announced: “Tomorrow night we shall encamp in the Sultan’s garden, where plenty awaits us.” The confident words were solace; but yet greater solace was found in the report of an Armenian deserter from the Turkish camp, that in every encounter a troop of knights clad in white and mounting white steeds wrought the most slaughter amongst the Turks. Now as there was no such troop in the army, it was clear to the Crusaders that these white warriors must be Saints, headed by St. George. With such supernatural auxiliaries they felt that a doubt of success would be sacrilege.

At dawn the enemy was seen in threatening array; but he only threatened; it rested with the Crusaders to attack. They did so, and gradually forcing a passage through the formidable hostile array, they actually did, before evening, reach and encamp in the gardens of the Sultan’s palace. Here, as the Emperor had announced, they found provisions and water; and here the Sultan made overtures for negotiation. Frederic, before he would listen to anything, demanded the release of the knight whom the Seljuk Envoys had betrayed into captivity; and he was brought to him. But still an immense army pressed closer and closer upon the Crusaders from without, whilst a numerous garrison manned the walls of Iconium. Frederic became apprehensive that the negotiations were a lure, designed to throw him off his guard, thus exposing his camp to a surprise. To counteract this scheme, he again divided the army, in which only about a thousand still possessed chargers and full equipment, into two bodies; with the one he confronted the external Turcomans, whilst he commissioned his son, and Florence Earl of Holland, Io lead the other to the assault of the town. The sick and wounded, with the baggage, were stationed for protection betwixt the two.

The Turcoman host attacked the Emperor so fiercely that even he began to falter, and was heard to wish he and his troops had reached Antioch, The Crusaders gave way, recoiling from the storm of darts that met them. Then was Barbarossa himself again. Shouting, Ch”rist conquers! Christ reigns! We left home to win Heaven with our blood, and now is the time to shed it!”, he made his horse caracole, and galloped upon the foe. All the knights followed. Again, as usual, neither Turk nor Turcoman could stand the charge; they broke and fled. Almost at the same instant the Christian banner was seen waving over the walls of Iconium. Duke Frederic had, like his father, been repulsed. His troops also had recoiled from the “iron sleet of arrowy shower” greeting them from the walls. In despair, he flung himself amidst the fugitives, crying, “Forward! Forward! Death is behind us!” Hardly could he rally them, but rally them he did, and led them back to renew the assault. One party now scaled the walls, whilst another simultaneously burst open a gate. The Turks fled before them. The Sultan and the son, his master, sought safety in an adjacent castle, and Iconium was the Crusaders’. The town was sacked, the booty immense, including the whole sum paid by Saladin for the betrayal of the Franks; but, sad to say, bigotry painted mercy as impious, and the triumph was stained with the massacre of the unresisting, women and children included: not in vengeance for past sufferings and the treachery that had caused them, but because it was deemed unknightly as unchristian to spare God*s enemies for the sake of ransom.

Abundance now reigned in the Christian camp; the knights whose horses had died of want or been killed for food, were remounted from the stables of Iconium, and the spirits of the Crusaders revived. Kilidje Arslan, who seems, upon these disasters, to have regained his authority, now from his asylum sued for peace, representing that he, an old man, had been physically coerced by the young, who were themselves morally coerced by fear of Saladin. Frederic replied that, inasmuch as clemency became an Emperor, if hostages were given to insure his unmolested passage through the remainder of the territories of Iconium, with a sufficient supply of provisions, he would grant him peace. The Sultan complied with the demand; peace was made, and for some days the Crusaders recruited their exhausted vigour in Iconium and its well-watered district.

When they resumed their march they still suffered some annoyance from wandering hordes of Turcomans; the roads w ere mountainous and difficult as ever, the night­halts occasionally disturbed by storms and even slight shocks of earthquakes. But the Seljuks were faithful, provisions abundant, and the inconveniences comparatively, trifling. At length the Cross once more greeted their eyes in lieu of the Crescent They had reached a Christian state, the Lesser Armenia, which, upon Manuel’s death, had renounced all subjection to Constantinople. Prince Leo, who had just succeeded to his brother Rupin, endeavoured, indeed—although the maintenance of the Syro-Frank states against Turks or Saracens was the true policy of Armenia—to prevent the Emperor from traversing his dominions; but, failing in the attempt, sought to expedite his transit. To this end, he caused the wants of the army to be abundantly supplied, and even engaged to join in the enterprise. The Crusaders now thought their difficulties really over.

So high had Frederic’s reputation risen with friend and foe by his conduct of this Crusade, that Saladin appears to have gradually conceived apprehensions more and more serious. He now despatched Envoys to the camp of the Crusaders, bearing messages of a tenor totally different from his answer to the Emperor’s first communication. By these he offered to submit to the judgment of the Emperor himself and of the sovereigns of Europe the legitimacy of his right to the conquests he had made from the Syro-Franks. But him, to whose honour and power this extraordinary compliment was especially offered, the Envoys found not to receive it: already was the exulting joy of the triumphant Crusaders turned into despair.

Upon the 10th of June the army broke up from Seleucia to cross the Kalykadnus, Duke Frederic, as usual, leading the van. The single bridge was narrow; all .kinds of difficulties, impediments, and accidents obstructed the passage of the troops, and yet more of the baggage. The consequent disaster is told in two different ways. The Emperor, according to one account, impatient to reach and communicate with his son, resolved; to ford or swim the river. In vain he was implored not to trust the unknown stream; Frederic Barbarossa had never known fear, and forced his horse into the water. Whether the current overpowered the animal, whether—which seems the most likely—it stumbled upon the rough bottom and fell, or whether the partial immersion in the deep stream with a sudden chill paralysed the aged frame of the heroic monarch, in the passage, in sight of the whole army, the half-worshipped, Imperial Crusader, perished.

This is the form of the accident, as gathered and adopted by the Italian Giannone and the German Raumer, from some of the old chroniclers. The other account is given by the majority both of those Latin chroniclers and of Oriental writers. They assert that he bathed to refresh himself whilst necessarily detained during the passage of the troops, was seized with a fit from the coldness of the water, and, according to some, was drowned, according to others, was taken out alive, and survived some hours, or even days. Wilken and Funk adopt this statement; the latter ascribing Frederic’s death to apoplexy, without any peculiar coldness of the water; and both, upon the authority of an anonymous contemporary, who certainly writes as if he had been an eye­witness, account for the delay in extricating him by an eddy overpowering the first swimmer who got hold of him. The first of these narratives seems preferable, partly because, as Vinisauf observes, more consonant with the Emperor’s character and position than the indulgence of a wish for the refreshment of a bath; but chiefly as the best explanation of a whole army’s inability to extricate their idolized leader from the water in time to save his life. This, the weight of his armour, supposing his horse to have fallen with him about the middle of the river, renders conceivable, especially if he was crossing unattended. But that a man undressed for a bath, and near the bank, as the bather must be if a fit were caused by the sudden chill of the water, should not have been instantaneously rescued by thousands of spectators, all bold warriors, feeling their lives bound up in his, seems absolutely impossible.

And bound up in his they did indeed feel their lives, and surpassing all power of description was the despair caused by his sudden, irreparable loss. His son Frederic, who upon the long and difficult march had shown dauntless valour and much military talent, was, it is true, at once acknowledged as commander in his father’s stead, and all swore to obey him. Nor did the Duke of Swabia betray any insufficiency for the arduous office assigned him. He entered upon it with the activity, energy, and resolution that had hitherto distinguished him. By his firmness he compelled Leo to observe the treaty, from which, upon the dreaded warrior’s death, he attempted to draw back. But he was less successful with those who had sworn to obey him, than with allies or enemies. He was not the sovereign to whom the great vassals owed allegiance, he, though their Emperor’s son, was but their equal; neither was the gallant youth the renowned imperial veteran, selected as the leader of the Crusade. He found it impossible to maintain the discipline of the army. In these fertile regions the Crusaders plundered, rioted in every excess, as compensation due for their recent privations; so that more died of repletion and consequent disease, than had perished by the sword or by the many sufferings of their pilgrimage. Many, as though the loss of their leader dissolved all vows and duties, dispersed in various directions, selling their arms to provide for their support, and endeavouring to return home, these by sea, those by land. Of such as persevered in their crusading purpose, many chose at once to lighten its toils and evade the obedience which in a moment of strong feeling they had sworn to the Duke of Swabia, by embarking at the nearest seaport, for any part of the Syrian coast still in the hands of the Christians. Of the immense host led by Frederic Barbarossa from the banks of the Danube, only a fraction, variously estimated at from 1000 to 8000 men followed his son to Antioch, whither his revered corpse was conveyed. But these few would, probably, be in every respect its choicest spirits. Upon the 19th of June this little band reached Antioch, where the Duke of Swabia interred his father’s remains before the altar dedicated to St. Peter, in the Cathedral.

The deceased Crusader’s contemporaries of all countries extol his high qualifications. But there is, perhaps, a still stronger testimony to bis real greatness, than the eulogies of Chroniclers of rival nations, and even than the despair of the Crusaders at his loss. It is the confident belief in the prolonged existence of Frederic Barbarossa in the interior of a certain mountain in Germany, where his beard has grown round and round the stone­table at which he sits, and whence, upon some great emergency, he is expected to issue, again to wield the sceptre and the sword, so long cherished by the German peasantry, and hardly yet in these days of enlightenment and revolution renounced.