BOOK VI.
FROM THE DEPOSITION OF POPE GREGORY VI. TO THE DEATH
OF POPE CELESTINE III, A.D. 1046-1198.
CHAPTER X.
FROM THE ELECTION OF POPE LUCIUS III TO THE DEATH OF
CELESTINE III.
A.D. 1181-1198.
THE successor of Alexander, Humbald, bishop of Ostia,
was chosen by the cardinals alone, in compliance with the decree of the late
council, and styled himself Lucius III. The Romans, indignant at being deprived
of their share in the election, rose against the new pope, and compelled him to
take refuge at Velletri. For a time he obtained aid against his rebellious
subjects from the imperial commander, archbishop Christian of Mainz; but this
warlike prelate died in August 1183—it is said, of drinking from a poisoned
well, which proved fatal to more than a thousand of his soldiers; and Lucius
was never able to regain a footing in his city. The enmity of the Romans
against him was of the bitterest kind. In 1184 they took twenty-six of his
partisans at Tusculum, and blinded them all, except one, to whom they left one
eye that he might serve as guide to the rest; they crowned them with paper
mitres, each bearing the name of a cardinal, while the one-eyed chief's mock
tiara was inscribed “Lucius, the wicked simoniac”, and, having mounted
them on asses, they made them swear to exhibit themselves in this miserable
condition to the pope.
In the meanwhile Frederick made a skillfull use of the
time of rest allowed him by the treaty of Venice. His behaviour towards the
Lombards became mild and gracious. By prudent acts of conciliation, and
especially by concessions as to the choice of magistrates, he won the favour of
many cities—even that of Alexandria itself which in 1183 agreed that its
population should leave the walls and should be led back by an imperial
commissioner, and that its name should be changed to Caesarea. In June of that
year, when the truce of Venice was almost expired, a permanent settlement of
the relations between the empire and the cities was concluded at Constance. The
cities were to retain all those royalties which they had before held, including
the rights of levying war, and of maintaining their league for mutual support.
They were to choose their own magistrates, subject only to the condition that
these should be invested by an imperial commissioner. Certain dues were
reserved to the emperor; and an oath of fidelity to him was to be taken by all
between the ages of fifteen and seventy. By these equitable terms the emperor's
influence in Italy was greatly strengthened, while that of the pope was
proportionally diminished.
At Whitsuntide 1184 a great assemblage, drawn together
not only from all Frederick’s territories but from foreign countries, met at Mainz,
on the occasion of conferring knighthood on the emperor's two sons, Henry, who
had reached the age of twenty, and Frederick, who was two years younger. A city
of tents and wooden huts was raised on the right bank of the Rhine, and
preparations were made for the festival with all possible splendour. But omens
of evil were drawn from the circumstance that many of the slight erections were
blown down by a violent wind, and a quarrel for precedence, which arose between
the archbishop of Cologne and St. Boniface’s successor, the abbot of Fulda,
excited a fear that the scenes of Henry the Fourth’s minority were about to be
renewed. The difference was, however, allayed for the time by the prudence of
Frederick and the young Henry, who, as the archbishop was withdrawing, hung on
his neck and entreated him to return; and notwithstanding this untoward
interruption, the festivities ended peacefully.
In the following August Frederick proceeded for the
sixth time into Italy. The charm of his appearance and manner was universally
felt. The cities were all eager in their welcome; even Milan, forgetting its
old animosities and sufferings, received him with splendid festivities, and was
rewarded with privileges which excited the jealousy of its neighbours. At
Verona he had a meeting with the pope, who requested him to assist in reducing
the Romans to obedience. But Frederick, who now had little reason to dread the
influence of the pope in Lombardy, and was not attended by any considerable
force, felt no zeal for the cause; and more than one subject of difference
arose. On being asked to acknowledge the clergy who had been ordained by the
late antipopes, Lucius at first appeared favourable, but said on the following
day that such recognition had been limited by the treaty of Venice to certain
dioceses, and that more could not be granted without a council. The old
question of Matilda’s inheritance was again discussed, and documents were
produced on both sides, without any satisfactory conclusion. Equally fruitless
was a dispute as to the pretensions of two rival candidates for the
archbishopric of Treves—Volkmar, who had secured the pope’s favour, and Rudolf,
who had been invested by Frederick, agreeably to the concordat of Worms. The
emperor's son Henry had exercised great severities towards Volkmar’s partisans,
and it would seem that reports of these acts, with a suspicion of the designs
which Frederick afterwards manifested as to Sicily, combined in determining
Lucius to refuse to crown Henry as his father's colleague; but he professed to
ground his refusal on the inconvenience of having two emperors, and added a
suggestion which has the air of sarcasm—that, if Henry were to be crowned, his
father must make way for him by resignation. The breach between the pope and
the emperor appeared to have become hopeless, when Lucius died at Verona, on
the 25th of November, 1185.
On the same day, Humbert Crivelli, archbishop of
Milan, gathered together twenty-seven cardinals, under the protection of a
guard, and was elected pope, with the title of Urban III. The new pope, whose
name was slightly varied by his enemies so as to express the turbulence which
they imputed to him, was of a Milanese family which had suffered greatly in the
late contests; and private resentment on this account combined with his
feelings as a citizen, and with the hierarchical opinions which had recommended
him as a companion to Thomas of Canterbury in his exile in producing a
bitter hostility against the emperor. The disputes between the secular and the
spiritual powers became more and more exasperated. Urban, in contempt of an
oath which he had sworn to the contrary, consecrated the anti-imperialist
Volkmar as archbishop of Treves. As archbishop of Milan—for, out of fear that
an imperialist might be appointed as his successor, he still retained that
see—he refused to crown Henry as king of the Lombards ; he repeated his
predecessor's refusal to crown him as a colleague in the empire; and he showed
himself strongly opposed to those designs on Sicily which Lucius had suspected,
and which were now openly declared.
AFFAIRS OF SICILY.
Roger II, king of Sicily, had been succeeded in 1154
by his son William the Bad, and this prince had been succeeded in 1166 by
his son William the Good, then a boy of fourteen. The kingdom had been for many
years a prey to barbarous and cruel factions. William the Good had married in
1177 a daughter of Henry of England, but the marriage proved childless, and the
Norman dominions in the south were likely to fall to Constance, a posthumous
daughter of king Roger. With this princess Frederick formed the scheme of
marrying his son Henry, although nine years her junior—a match which promised
greatly to increase tile imperial territory and power, and to deprive the pope
of his chief supporter. The marriage was zealously promoted by Walter, an
Englishman of obscure birth who had attained to the dignity of archbishop of
Palermo; Urban’s opposition was vain, and his threats against all who should
take part in the celebration were unheeded. At the request of the Milanese, who
were eager to signalize their newborn loyalty, the nuptials were celebrated at
Milan with great magnificence in January 1186, when Frederick was crowned as
king of Burgundy by the archbishop of Vienne, Henry as king of Italy by the
patriarch of Aquileia, and Constance as queen of Germany by a German bishop.
Other causes of difference concurred to inflame the
pope. He complained of the emperor for detaining Matilda’s inheritance; for
seizing the property of bishops at their death, keeping benefices vacant, and
appropriating the income; for taxing the clergy and bringing them before
secular courts; for having confiscated the revenues of some convents, under
pretence that the nuns were of vicious life, instead of introducing a reform;
and he denounced, apparently with justice, the cruelties and other outrages which
the young Henry had committed towards some bishops.
Frederick was now in great power, while the pope was
still an exile from his city. It was in vain that archbishop Philip of Cologne,
who had been appointed legate for Germany, endeavoured to assert Urban’s
pretensions, and to intrigue against the emperor; for the German bishops in
general were on the side of their temporal sovereign. At an interview with
Philip, Frederick declared that it was enough for the clergy to have got into
their own hands the choice of bishops—a choice, he added, which they had not exercised
so uprightly or with such good effect as the sovereigns who in former times had
held the patronage; and that, although the imperial prerogative had been
greatly curtailed as to the affairs of the church, he was determined to
maintain the small remnant of it which he had inherited. The legate was
forbidden to appear at a diet which was to be held at Gelnhausen in April 1186.
There Frederick, in a forcible speech, declared that, in his differences with
the pope, the pope had been the aggressor, and he inveighed against the Roman
claims. It was, he said, ridiculous to pretend that no layman ought to hold
tithes, inasmuch as the custom of thus providing for the necessary services of
advocates of churches was so old as to have established a right. He asked his
bishops whether they would render what was due both to Caesar and to God; to
which the archbishop of Mainz (Conrad, who, on the death of Christian, had
recovered the primacy) replied, in the name of the rest, that they owed a
twofold duty; that it was not for them to decide the matters in dispute, but
that they would write to the pope, advising him to proceed with moderation.
They wrote accordingly, stating the emperor’s case and their own view of the
question; and the pope, on receiving the letter, was astonished to find himself
opposed by those whose rights he had supposed himself to be asserting.
Frederick refused to admit Volkmar as archbishop of Treves, and shut up all the
ways by which appeals could be carried to the pope; Henry continued his savage
outrages, and endangered the pope’s person—keeping him almost a prisoner within
the walls of Verona; and Urban, exasperated to the utmost, resolved to inflict
the heaviest censures of the church on him. The citizens of Verona, where he
had intended to pronounce his sentence, entreated that, “out of regard for
their present service”, he would choose some other scene; and at their request
he removed to Ferrara. But while he was there preparing for the final act,
tidings arrived from the East, which once more set all Europe in commotion; and
Urban died at Ferrara on the 20th of October 1187.
KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.
The course of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem had been
alike discreditable and unprosperous. The sympathies of western Christians for
their brethren of the Holy Land had been greatly cooled by the experiences of
the second crusade; the pilgrims were now few, and these were content to
perform their pilgrimage without attempting or wishing to strengthen the Latin
dominion, or to take part in the incessant contests with the infidels. In 1167
king Amaury brought disgrace on the Christian name by attempting, in conjunction
with a Greek force, to seize on Egypt in violation of a treaty; and in this
treachery he was abetted by the knights of the Hospital, although the
Templars—whether from a feeling of honour and duty, or from jealousy of the
rival order— held aloof. Baldwin IV, who in 1174 succeeded his father Amaury at
the age of thirteen, had been carefully educated by the historian William, then
archdeacon and afterwards archbishop of Tyre; but this young king's promise was
soon clouded over by hopeless disease, and his sister Sibylla became
presumptive heiress of the kingdom. Sibylla, then a widow, was sought in
marriage by many princes; but she bestowed her hand on Guy of Lusignan, an
adventurer from Poitou, whose personal beauty was unaccompanied by such qualities
as would have fitted him to maintain the position which it had won for him. On
the death of Baldwin IV, in 1185, the son of Sibylla’s first marriage was
crowned as Baldwin V; but this boy died within a year, whereupon his mother and
her husband, who before had met with much opposition, obtained possession of
the kingdoms The princes of the Latins were distracted by jealousies and
intrigues; the patriarchs and bishops were in continual strife with each other,
with the chiefs, and especially with the two great knightly orders, which,
relying on papal privileges and exemptions, defied all authority,
ecclesiastical or secular. The Templars were especially detested for their
pride, while they were charged with treachery to the Christian cause. The
general state of morals was excessively depraved. In Acre alone it is said that
there were 16,000 professed prostitutes. The clergy and the monks are described
as infamous for their manner of life. Their chief, Heraclius of Jerusalem, who
had been recommended to Sibylla by his fine person, and through her favour had
been forced into the patriarchal throne, lived in open and luxurious profligacy
with a tradesman’s wife of Nablous, who was generally styled the patriarchess.
The power of the Mussulmans was advancing. Noureddin,
who died in 1173, was succeeded as their most conspicuous leader by Saladin,
son of a Kurdish mercenary, and nephew of Siracouh, a distinguished
general, who under Noureddin had been vizier of Egypt. Saladin, born in 1137,
is celebrated, not only by Moslem but by Christian writers, for his skill in
arms, his personal bravery, his accomplishments, his justice, his magnanimity,
generosity, courtesy, and truth. In him, indeed, rather than in any Christian warrior
of the age, may be found the union of some of the highest qualities which adorn
the ideal character of chivalry. His piety and orthodoxy, although agreeable to
the strictest Mahometan standard, were wholly free from intolerance. Yet,
superior as he appears in many respects to the Christians of his time in
general, Saladin will not endure to be measured by a standard which should make
no allowance for the disadvantages of his training in the creed and the habits
of Islam. The manner in which he superseded Noureddin’s minor son would have
been unjustifiable, except on Oriental principles, nor did the humaneness of
his general character prevent him from having occasional recourse to
unscrupulous bloodshed for the accomplishment of his purposes.
“If Noureddin was a rod of the Lord’s fury against the
Christians”, says a chronicler, “Saladin was not a rod but a hammer”. In his
earlier career, while extending his conquests in every direction, he had
treated them with remarkable forbearance; but at length he was roused to direct
hostilities by the continual attacks of some, who plundered the borders of his
territory, and seized on caravans of peaceful travellers. In 1187 he invaded
the Holy Land at the head of 80,000 men, and the Christians sustained a
terrible defeat at the battle of Hittim or Tiberias (July 5,1187)—fought within
sight of the very scenes which had been hallowed by many of the gospel
miracles. The cross on which the Saviour was believed to have died, having been
brought from Jerusalem as a means of strength and victory, was lost. The king
and many of the Frankish chiefs were taken, together with many templars and
hospitallers, who, with the exception of the grand master of the Temple, were
all beheaded on refusing to apostatize from the faith. Some of the captives,
however, became renegades, and betrayed the secrets of the Latins to the enemy.
Animated with fresh vigour by this victory, Saladin rapidly overran the land.
Jerusalem itself was besieged, and, after a faint defence had been made for a
fortnight by its scanty and disheartened garrison, it was surrendered on the
3rd of October. The cross was thrown down from the mosque of Omar amid the
groans of the Christians who witnessed its fall, and the building, after having
been purged with incense and rose water, was restored to Mahometan worship.
Bells were broken into pieces, relics were dispersed, and the sacred places
were profaned. Yet Saladin spared the holy Sepulchre, and allowed Christians to
visit it for a fixed payment; he permitted ten brethren of the Hospital to
remain for the tendance of the sick, and even endowed them with a certain
income; and to the captives, of whom there were many thousands, he behaved with
a generosity which has found its celebration rather among Christian than among
Mussulman writers. The terms of ransom offered to all were very liberal;
fourteen thousand were set free without payment; and at the expense of the
conqueror and of the Alexandrian Saracens, many Christians received a passage
to Europe, when their own brethren refused to admit them on shipboard except on
condition of paying the full cost. The Syrian and other oriental Christians
were allowed to remain in their homes, on submitting to tribute. All Palestine
was soon in the hands of the infidels, except the great port of Tyre, where
Conrad, son of the marquis of Montferrat, arrived after it had been invested by
the enemy, and, by his courage and warlike skill, aided by money which Henry of
England had remitted for the defence of the Holy Land, animated the remnant of
the Christians to hold out. It was noted that the holy cross, which had been
recovered from the Persians by the emperor Heraclius, was again lost under a
patriarch of the same name; and that as Jerusalem had been wrested from the Saracens
under Urban II, it was regained by them under Urban III.
From time to time attempts had been made by the
princes and prelates of the Holy Land to enlist the western nations in a new
enterprise for their assistance; but they had met with little success. The
emperor, the king of France, and the king of England, were all engrossed by
their own affairs; and, although frequent conferences took place between Henry
and Lewis with a view to an alliance for a holy war, these did not produce any
actual result beyond contributions of money, in which Henry’s liberality far exceeded
that of the French king. In 1184 the patriarch Heraclius, accompanied by the
grand master of the templars and the prior of the Hospital, bearing with them
the keys of Jerusalem and of the holy Sepulchre, with the banner of the Latin
kingdom, set out on a mission to enlist Europe to their aid. The templar died
at Verona, but the patriarch and the hospitaller, fortified with a letter from
pope Lucius, went on to Germany, France, and England. The general feeling,
however, was lukewarm. King Henry was told by his prelates and nobles that his
duties lay rather at home than in the East, and he could only offer money;
whereupon Heraclius indignantly exclaimed : “We want a man without money,
rather than money without a man!”. But the events which had now taken place
aroused all Europe. The tidings of the calamity which had befallen the
Christians of the East at once made peace between the emperor and the pope,
between England and France, between Genoa and Pisa, between Venice and Hungary.
Urban III is said to have been killed by the report of the capture of
Jerusalem. His successor, Gregory VIII, issued letters urgently summoning the
faithful to aid their brethren in the East; and on Gregory’s death, after a
pontificate of less than two months, the cause was vigorously taken up by
Clement III. The cardinals bound themselves to give up all pomp and luxury, to
accept no bribes from suitors, never to mount on horseback “so long as the
land whereon the feet of the Lord had stood should be under the enemy’s feet”, and
to preach the crusade as mendicants. The king of Sicily vowed to assist the
holy enterprise to the utmost of his power. Henry of England, Philip of France,
and Philip count of Flanders, met at the “oak conference” between Gisors and
Trie, on St. Agnes’ day, and, with many of their followers, received the cross
from the hands of the archbishop of Tyre. A heavy impost was laid on their
subjects, under the name of “Saladin’s tithe”, and especial prayers for the
Holy Land were inserted into the church-service. William of Scotland offered to
contribute money, but his nobles strongly withstood the proposal that they
should be taxed in the same proportion as the English.
In Germany also the crusade was preached with great
success. A chronicler tells us that, at an assembly which was held at
Strasburg, in December 1187, the cause of the Holy Land was at first set forth
by two Italian ecclesiastics, but that their words fell dead on the hearers.
The bishop of the city then took it up, and produced a general emotion; but
still men hesitated to commit themselves to the enterprise. When, however, one
had at length set the example of taking the cross, the bishop began the hymn “Veni
Sancte Spiritus”; and forthwith such was the crowd of people who pressed
forward to enlist, with an enthusiasm which found a vent in tears, that he and
his clergy were hardly able to supply them with the badges of the holy war. In
the following Lent a great diet, known as the “Court of Christ”, was held at Mainz,
where cardinal Henry of Albano appeared as the preacher of the crusade; and,
although he was unable to speak the language of the country, his words, even
through the medium of an interpreter, powerfully excited the assembly. The
emperor and his younger son, Frederick of Swabia, were the first to assume the
cross, and were followed by an enthusiastic multitude of every class. Thus the
three greatest princes of Europe were all embarked in the enterprise. Frederick
Barbarossa was now sixty-seven years of age, but retained his full vigour of
body; his long contests had been brought to a peaceable end; and he might hope,
by engaging in the holy war, to clear himself of all imputations which had fallen
on his character as a churchman, and even to adorn his name with a glory like
that which rested on Godfrey of Bouillon and his comrades in the first crusade.
Having accompanied his uncle Conrad on the second crusade, he was resolved to
guard against a repetition of the errors by which that expedition had been
frustrated. He ordered that no one should be allowed to join his force except
such as were able-bodied, accustomed to bear arms, and sufficiently furnished
with money to bear their own expenses for two years; carriages were provided
for the sick and wounded, that they might not delay the progress of the army;
and Frederick endeavoured by embassies to the king of Hungary, to the Byzantine
emperor, and to the Sultan of Iconium (whose adhesion to the Mussulman cause
was supposed to be very slight) to assure himself of an unmolested passage and
of markets for provisions along the route. From all he received favourable
answers; and, having taken measures to secure the peace of his dominions during
his absence, the emperor was ready to set out at the appointed time, in the
spring of 1189.
From Ratisbon, where the forces were mustered, some
proceeded down the Danube in boats into Hungary, where they waited for the
emperor and the rest. Through Hungary their passage was prosperous. King Bela
welcomed the emperor with all honour, and bestowed large gifts of provisions on
the army; it is, however, complained that the natives took unfair advantages in
the exchange of money. In Bulgaria provisions were refused at the instigation
of the Greeks, and some of the crusaders were wounded by arrows; but Frederick
by vigorous measures brought the Bulgarians to submission, while he restrained
his own followers by strict discipline from plunder and other offensive acts.
But on entering the Greek territories, more serious difficulties arose.
The old unkindly feeling between the Greeks and the
Latins had not been lessened by late events. The interest which Manuel had
laboured to create with the pope and the Italians had been destroyed by their
reconciliation with Frederick. Under Andronicus, who in 1183 attained the
Byzantine throne by the murder of the young Alexius, son of Manuel, a great
massacre of the Latin residents had taken place at Constantinople. In this
atrocity the mob was aided by the usurper’s forces; the clergy were active in urging
on the murderers, and burst out into a song of thanksgiving when the head of
the cardinal-legate was cut off and treated with indignity. Isaac Angelus, by
whom Andronicus was dethroned in 1185, had carried on friendly negotiations
with Saladin, to whom, in consideration of the cession of some churches in the
Holy Land, he granted leave to erect a mosque in Constantinople itself. The
Greeks, who from time to time had continued to attack the western sojourners at
Constantinople, were naturally uneasy at the approach of a formidable host,
under a commander so renowned as Frederick. Isaac himself was especially
alarmed in consequence of predictions uttered by one Dositheus, who had
acquired a strong influence over him by foretelling his elevation to the empire;
and, with a view of impeding the Germans, recourse was had to the arts which
had already been tried in the former crusades. The patriarch had excited the
populace beforehand by denouncing the strangers as heretics and dogs. The
bishop of Munster and other ambassadors whom Frederick sent to Constantinople
were treated with slights, and committed to prison, where they were subjected
to hunger and other sufferings; notwithstanding the assurances which had been
given as to supplies and other assistance, cities were deserted or shut up as
the crusaders approached them; and they were harassed by frequent and insidious
attacks of Greek soldiery. It appears on Mussulman authority that the Greek
emperor afterwards claimed credit with Saladin for having troubled the Germans
on their expedition. Frederick, from a resolution not to waste his strength in
Europe, was desirous to avoid all quarrels; but finding himself reduced to
choose between perishing by hunger and the employment of force to gain the
needful supplies, he took Philippopolis, Adrianople, and other towns, in which
he got possession of great wealth, with abundant stores of food. The Greek
emperor, on hearing of these successes, changed his policy, restored the bishop
of Munster and his companions, and sent envoys of his own who were charged to
offer all manner of redress and assistance if Frederick would consent to hold
the west on condition of homage. The Byzantines renewed the old war of
ceremony, treating Frederick as a petty prince of whose name they affected to
be ignorant—as “king of the Germans”, while Isaac was styled “emperor of the
Romans”. “Does your master know who I am?”, said Frederick indignantly to the
Greek ambassadors at Philippopolis : “My name is Frederick; I am emperor of the
Romans, crowned in the city which is mother and mistress of the world by the
successor of the prince of the apostles, and have held without question for
more than thirty years a sceptre which my predecessors have lawfully possessed
for four hundred years, since it was transferred from Constantinople for the
inertness of your rulers. Let your master style himself sovereign of the
Romanians, and cease to use a title which in him is empty and ridiculous; for
there is but one emperor of the Romans”. This firmness had its effect, and
Isaac submitted to address Frederick as “emperor of the Germans” and at length
as “most noble emperor of old Rome”.
After a stay of fourteen weeks at Adrianople, where
vigorous measures were employed with imperfect success to counteract the
enervating influence of the plenty which had succeeded to the former
privations, the army again advanced, and at Easter it was conveyed from
Gallipoli to the Asiatic coast in vessels furnished by the Greek emperor, who
had agreed to make compensation for all injuries, and to bestow his daughter in
marriage on Frederick's son Philip. The crossing of the Hellespont lasted seven
days, and the whole number of those who crossed is reckoned at 83,000.
The first few days of the march through Asia Minor
were prosperous; but it soon appeared that the Greek emperor and the sultan of
Iconium (who had renewed his friendly assurances by ambassadors who waited on
Frederick at Adrianople) were treacherous. No markets were to be found; the
interpreters who had been furnished by the Greeks, and the sultan's ambassadors
who accompanied the army, disappeared, after having lured the crusaders into a
desert. The horses broke down from want of food, and their flesh was greedily
eaten; while Turkish soldiers began to hover around in ever-increasing numbers,
“barking around us like dogs”, says one who was in the expedition—threatening
and harassing the army, but always declining an engagement. Yet Frederick was
still able to maintain discipline. The festival of Pentecost was kept amidst
danger and distress. The bishop of Wurzburg delivered an exhortation to the
crusaders; all received the holy Eucharist, and on the following day they
attacked and defeated a force commanded by the sultan’s son. On approaching
Iconium, the emperor found that his advance was barred by a vast force of
Turks, who refused him a passage except on the payment of a bezant for every
soldier in his army, while the city was closed against him. But although his
cavalry were now reduced below a thousand, and were worn out with severe
sufferings from hunger and thirst, he boldly attacked the Turks, and defeated
them with vast slaughter, while the younger Frederick assaulted the city, and
compelled the perfidious sultan to surrender it. As in earlier days, it is said
that the crusaders were aided by a troop of shining warriors, bearing the red
cross on their white shields, and headed by the martial St. George, whose
protection, with that of God, they had invoked before the fight. By these
successes Frederick’s fame was raised to the highest pitch throughout the east.
The army, refreshed with provisions and enriched by the spoil of Iconium
(although even there he compelled the observance of order and moderation), made
its way boldly through the rocky defiles of Cilicia, and was pressing onwards
with hope of speedily achieving the object of the expedition; when the hopes of
Christendom sank, and the confidence of the Moslems revived, as tidings were
spread that the great leader had perished in attempting to cross the river
Salef or Calycadnus, near Tarsus. The loss to his army was immense and
irreparable. Discipline was no longer preserved. On reaching Antioch,
multitudes fell victims to the heat of the climate, or to the intemperance with
which they indulged in food and drink after their late privations. Many of the
survivors abandoned the crusade and returned to Europe; and the younger
Frederick died soon after his arrival at Acre, where his appearance at the head
of a force reduced below 5,000 had rather brought discouragement than hope to
the beleaguered garrison.
In the meantime some of the Germans, who had completed
their preparations early, had taken ship for the Holy Land in anticipation of
Frederick’s march. As in the second crusade, many adventurers from Scandinavia
and the north of Germany had assembled in the English port of Dartmouth, from
which they sailed again with increased numbers; and, although these for the
most part contented themselves with some adventures against the Moors of the
Spanish peninsula, some of them found their way to Palestine. William of Sicily
dispatched a fleet to share the expedition. Henry of England, after having
taken measures to secure himself a safe passage through Germany, Hungary, and
Greece, had been prevented by a fresh rebellion of his son Richard, and by
other political troubles, from carrying out his promise, and much of the money
which had been collected for the holy war was spent in these unhappy contests
at home. But Richard, who had been the first of all the western princes to take
the cross, on succeeding to the crown in July 1189, embarked in the enterprise
with all the eagerness of his impetuous character. He submitted to penance for
having borne arms against his father after having bound himself to the crusade.
To the money which was found in Henry’s coffers he added by all imaginable
expedients, in order to raise means for the expedition. Bishoprics, abbacies,
earldoms, and all manner of other offices and dignities, were sold. The late
king's ministers were imprisoned, and large sums were extorted for their ransom.
Some who repented of having taken the cross were made to pay heavily for
license to stay at home. The plate and ornaments of churches were seized and
were turned into money. Some fortresses and territories which had been taken
from the Scots were restored to them for a certain payment and the Jews were
not only drained by exactions, but, as usual, were plundered and slain in the
general fury against misbelievers. The demesnes of the crown were reduced by
sales, and Richard declared himself ready to sell London itself if he could
find a purchaser. Both in England and in France the “Saladin’s tithe” was
rigorously exacted, and there were loud complaints of the unfairness with which
the collection was managed. The archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, was zealous
in preaching the crusade, and was himself among those who joined it.
The kings of France and England had a meeting near
Nonancourt on the 30th of December 1189, when they bound themselves by oath for
mutual help and defence—Philip swearing to defend Richard’s territories as if
they were his own city of Paris, and Richard swearing to defend those of Philip
as he would defend the Norman capital, Rouen. The expedition was again delayed
for a time by the death of Philip’s queen; but at midsummer 1190 the two kings,
with the count of Flanders and the duke of Burgundy, assembled their forces at
Vezelay, where the second crusade had been inaugurated by St. Bernard, and
where Thomas of Canterbury had since made the great abbey-church resound with
his denunciation of king Henry’s counsellors. The side of the hill which is
crowned by the town, and the broad plain below, were covered by the tents of
the crusaders. The nations were distinguished by the colour of the crosses
which they wore; the French displayed the sacred symbol in red, the English in
white, and the Flemings in green. At Lyons the host separated, and Richard
proceeded to embark at Marseilles, while Philip, who had no Mediterranean
seaport in his own dominions, went on by land to Genoa. On landing at Ostia
Richard was invited by the cardinal-bishop of that place, in the pope’s name,
to visit Rome; but, smarting from having been lately compelled to pay 1,500
marks for a legatine commission in favour of his chancellor, William de
Longchamp, bishop of Ely, he scornfully declared that he would not visit the
source of so much corruption, and proceeded by land along the coast to
Terracina. The kings, as had been agreed between them, met again at Messina,
where, during a stay of some months, Richard’s impetuous and overbearing temper
continually embroiled him both with the French and with the Sicilians—who,
indeed, were not backward in offering him provocation. At one time he even made
himself master of the city, as a means of compelling Tancred, who had shortly
before seized the government on the death of William the Good, to carry out the
late king's direction as to a provision for his widow, the sister of Richard,
and as to a legacy bequeathed to Henry II.
In the end of March 1191 Richard again embarked, and
after having established Guy of Lusignan as king of Cyprus, instead of a petty
tyrant of the Comnenian family, who styled himself emperor of the island, and
had behaved with inhospitality and treachery to the crusaders, he entered the
harbour of Acre on the 8th of June. Archbishop Baldwin, with a part of the
English force, which had proceeded direct from Marseilles, and others who had
made their way by the straits of Gibraltar, had reached Acre long before and
the king of France had arrived there on Easter-eve (April 13).
Acre had been besieged by the Christians from the end
of August 1189, but, placed as they were between the garrison on the one hand
and Saladin's army on the other, the besiegers had suffered great distress
through want of food and shelter. Horseflesh, grass, and unclean things were
eaten; ships were broken up for fuel; many, unable to endure the miseries of
the siege, had deserted to the enemy and apostatized; and scandalous vice and
disorder prevailed throughout the camp. And now it was found that the general
interest of Christendom was insufficient to overpower the jealousies of those
who had allied themselves for the holy war. Richard and Philip, Leopold, duke
of Austria (with whose troops the scanty remains of the emperor Frederick’s
army had been united), and others, all refused to act in concert, or to submit
to a common head; the Genoese and the Pisans had carried their mutual hatred
with them to the crusade; and to these elements of discord were added the
pretensions of the templars and hospitallers, and the rival claims which Guy of
Lusignan and Conrad of Montferrat set up to the kingdom of Jerusalem on the
strength of their having married daughters of the royal house, whose male heirs
had become extinct. The siege of Acre lasted two years, during which it is
reckoned that 120,000 Christians and 180,000 Mussulmans perished. At length, on
the 12th of July 1191, the city was surrendered, on condition that the lives of
the inhabitants should be forfeit, unless within forty days Saladin should
restore the true cross, give up 1500 Christian captives, and pay a large sum as
ransom. The fullfillment of these terms, however, was found impossible within
the time, and, notwithstanding Saladin’s earnest entreaties for a delay, it was
decided in a council of the princes that the forfeiture should be enforced. On
the 20th of August, therefore, the prisoners—8000 in all, of whom Richard's
share amounted to 2600—were led forth and remorselessly butchered in the sight
of Saladin and his army, who could only look on in impotent distress. A few
only of the more important Saracens were spared, in the hope that they might be
the means of recovering the cross or the captives.
The English king’s assumption, and his continual
displays of contempt for his associates, produced general irritation and
disgusts. To Leopold of Austria he had offered unpardonable insults, by
throwing down his banner and trampling on it, as unworthy to stand beside those
of kings, and even, it is said, by kicking him. By this behaviour to their
leader, all the Germans were offended; and both they and the Italians
complained that the kings of France and England divided between themselves the
spoils which had been taken, without allowing any share to the other crusading
nations. The Germans and Italians, therefore, left the army in disgust, shortly
after the taking of Acre. With Philip Augustus there were continual
differences. The French king claimed half of Cyprus, on the ground that Richard
had agreed to share with him whatever they might win in the crusade, while
Richard denied that the conquest of the island, by his separate adventure, fell
within the scope of the contract. Philip, jealous of his great vassal, not only
for his superiority in prowess and in personal renown, but on account of the
greater splendour which his hard-raised treasures enabled him to maintain,
found an excuse in the state of his dominions at home for deserting the
enterprise; and on the 31st of July—in the interval between the capture of the
city and the slaughtering of the prisoners—he sailed for Europe. On his way
homewards he visited the pope, from whom he solicited absolution from the oath
which he had taken, and had lately renewed, to protect the English king’s
dominions; but Celestine refused to release him. Yet Philip, on his return to
France, invaded Richard’s continental territories, encouraged his brother John
to intrigue against him, and charged him with having caused an illness by which
the French king had suffered at Acre, and with having instigated the murder of
Conrad of Montferrat, who, immediately after having been elected to the throne
of Jerusalem, had been stabbed by two of the fanatical body known by the name
of assassins.
Richard remained in the Holy Land more than a year
after Philip’s departure. During this time the “lion-hearted” king displayed
the valour of a knight-errant in a degree which excited the fear and the
admiration both of Mussulmans and of Christians. A large part of the coast was
recovered from the infidels; but the Christians were thinned by disease and by
desertion as well as by war; their internal jealousies continued, and were so
little concealed that the king of England and the duke of Burgundy hired ballad-singers
to ridicule each other and the object of the crusade became more and more
hopeless. Richard was entreated by urgent and repeated messages to return to
his disturbed kingdom, while frequent and severe illnesses warned him to quit
for a time the dangerous climate of Syrian The necessity of abandoning the
enterprise became manifest; and, after having advanced within one day’s march
of Jerusalem, the king found himself obliged to yield, with a swelling heart
which vented itself in loud expressions of indignation, to the force of
circumstances, and to the spiritlessness of his remaining allies. A truce for
three years, three months, three days, and three hours, was concluded with
Saladin in September 1192, on condition that pilgrims should be allowed to
visit the holy places, and that the coast from Tyre to Joppa should remain in
possession of the Christians. It is reckoned that in the crusade which was
ended by this compromise more than half a million of Christians had perished.
On the 9th of October 1192 Richard sailed for Europe.
From unwillingness to run the risk of passing through Philip’s dominions,
he intended to take his route through Germany; but having been recognized in
the neighbourhood of Vienna, he was arrested and imprisoned by his enemy duke
Leopold, who, in consideration of a large sum of money, made him over to the
emperor Henry VI—a prince who with much of his father’s ability united a
selfishness, a cunning, and a cruelty which were altogether foreign to Frederick’s
lofty character.
After months of severe imprisonment, the king of
England was brought by Henry before a diet at Worms, on charges of having
thwarted the emperor in his claims on Sicily, of having instigated the murder
of Conrad, of having wrongfully seized Cyprus, and of having insulted Leopold
and the Germans. To these charges he answered in a strain of manly and
indignant eloquence, which extorted the respect and pity even of those who were
most hostile to him; but he was not yet set at liberty. Philip of France used all
his influence with Henry to prolong his rivals captivity while the pope was
urged by the importunities of the queen-mother Eleanor to interfere in behalf
of her son. The emperor demanded a large sum by way of ransom, and in order to
raise this Richard’s subjects—especially the clergy and monks—were again
severely taxed. Chalices were melted down, shrines were stripped of their
precious coverings and jewels, the golden ornaments were torn from the books
employed in the service of the church. The impost was universal; even the
Cistercians, who had, until then been exempt from all taxes, were obliged to
contribute the wool of their flocks. After a confinement of nearly fourteen
months, the king was able to return to his kingdom, which during his absence
had been miserably distracted by feuds and intrigues; and in consequence of his
complaints the pope excommunicated Leopold, and threatened the emperor and the
French king with a like sentence. The miserable death of Leopold, which took
place soon after in consequence of a fall from his horse at a tournament, was
interpreted as a judgment of heaven on his outrage against a soldier of the
cross. While Richard was in captivity the Christians of the east were delivered
from their chief terror by the death of Saladin in March 1193.
Clement III had compromised the question as to the see
of Treves by agreeing that both Volkmar and his opponent should be set aside,
and that the canons should proceed to a new election, and in 1188 he had been
able to establish himself in Rome, by means of an agreement with the citizens,
who were inclined to peace by finding that without the pope their city could
not be the capital of Christendom. But one condition of this compact, which
must have been felt as especially hard—that Tusculum, the city so faithful to
the popes and so odious to their unruly subjects, should be given up to the
Romans—remained unfulfilled when Clement died, in March 1191. In his room was
chosen Hyacinth, a man eighty-five years old, who had been a member of the
college of cardinals for nearly half a century. At the time when the election
took place, Henry VI was advancing towards Rome to claim the imperial crown,
and it was resolved to take advantage of the occasion in order to gain some
object at his hands. The pope deferred his own consecration, in order that he
might be the better able to negotiate; a deputation of the Romans went forth to
treat with Henry as he approached the city; and it was agreed that Tusculum
should be given up. On Good Friday, Henry, without any warning to the
Tusculans, withdrew the garrison with which, at their request, he had furnished
them; whereupon the Romans rushed in through the open gates, razed the castle,
destroyed the town so completely that no vestige of buildings later than the
old imperial times is now to be seen, and glutted their hatred by deeds of
savage cruelty. On Easter-day the pope was consecrated under the name of
Celestine III, and on the two following days Henry and Constance were severally
crowned by him in St. Peter's.
The emperor advanced towards the south, where, on the
death of William the Good, in 1189, the inheritance of Constance had been
seized by an illegitimate grandson of the first Norman king, Tancred, count of
Lecce, who had received investiture from Pope Clement. Henry took Naples after
a siege of three months, and reduced the continental part of the Norman
territories; but his army was ravaged by a pestilence, and his own health was
so seriously affected that he was compelled to retire to Germany, while
his empress, who had fallen into the hands of the enemy, remained in captivity
until she was at length delivered through the intercession of the pope. After
the death of Tancred, who kept possession of his crown until 1193, Henry
appeared in Sicily at the head of a large army, hired with the king of
England's ransom, and chiefly composed of soldiers who had been enlisted for a
new crusade. A Genoese fleet cooperated with his land force; the discords
between the Saracen and the Norman inhabitants favoured his enterprise; and
after a short resistance he made himself master of the island. His triumphal
entry into Palermo was welcomed with a signal display of the wealth and luxury
of the Sicilian Normans. But almost immediately after this a fearful series of
severities began. Letters were produced which professed to implicate the
leading men of the island in a conspiracy against the Germans; and Henry, in
consequence, let loose without restraint the cruelty which was one of his most
prominent characteristics. Clergy and nobles in great numbers were put to death
by hanging, burning, and drowning, or were blinded or barbarously mutilated.
William, the young son of Tancred, after having been deprived of his eyesight,
was shut up in a castle of the Vorarlberg, where he died obscurely. His mother
and sisters were committed to German prisons. The bodies of Tancred and his son
Roger were plucked from their graves, and treated with revolting indignity. It
was in vain that the pope, the queen-mother of England, and other important
persons, remonstrated with Henry, and even (it is said) that Celestine
denounced him excommunicate. The wealth of the Norman kings and of all who were
accused as parties in the conspiracy was seized; and it is said that, after
large gifts to Henry's numerous soldiery, the splendid robes, the precious
metals, and the gems which remained were a load for 160 horses and mules. By
means of this treasure, and of concessions to the princes of Germany, Henry
formed a design of securing the crown as hereditary in his family. But although
he succeeded in obtaining the consent of the electors to the succession of his
son Frederick, who had been born at Jesi in December 1194, and was not yet
baptized, the opposition to his further project was so strong that Henry found
it expedient to withdraw the proposal.
The death of Saladin and the inferior capacity of his
successor, Malek al Adel, held out inducements to a new crusade. With a view of
stirring up the faithful, Celestine wrote letters and sent legates in all
directions; and the emperor actively forwarded the enterprise, in the hope,
probably, that he might thus clear his ecclesiastical reputation. He advocated
the crusade eloquently in diets at Gelnhausen and Worms, where his
exhortations were followed up by speeches from cardinals and bishops; princes
and prelates responded by taking the cross, and their example was followed by
knights, burghers, and men of humbler condition. In France, Philip Augustus
made use of the crusade as a pretext for heavy exactions, but with the
intention of converting the produce to his own purposes. But the truest
crusader among the sovereigns of the age, Richard of England, although he had
never laid aside the cross, and burned with desire to complete the work which
he had before so reluctantly abandoned by a fresh campaign against the
infidels, found himself so much hampered by the exhaustion of his people, and
by the continual petty warfare in which he was engaged with Philip, that he
could take no share in the enterprise. It was in vain that Celestine, in a
letter to the English bishops, forbade the tournaments which had been
instituted by the king with a view to military training; that he desired those
who wished for martial exercise to seek it, not in festive contests unsuited to
the sadness of the time, but in warring against the enemies of Christ.
In his ecclesiastical policy Henry showed himself
resolved to yield nothing to the papacy. He forbade appeals to Rome, and
prevented his subjects from any access to the papal court. He attempted to
revive the imperial privilege of deciding in cases of disputed election to
bishoprics. In the case of a contest for Liege, he is supposed to have
instigated the murder of a candidate who was favoured by the pope and had been
consecrated by the archbishop of Reims. He refused to pay the homage which the
Norman princes had performed to the pope for their Italian and Sicilian
territories, and, returning into Italy, he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter,
up to the very gates of the city. The pope had ceased for a time to hold
correspondence with him, but now addressed him in a strain of apology mixed
with complaint, and urged him to forward the crusade. At Bari the emperor, at
Easter 1195, entered into an engagement to maintain 1500 cavalry and a like
number of foot in the Holy Land for a year; but the zeal with which he urged on
his preparations had probably other objects—that of diverting the crusaders, as
before, to his own purposes, and even of using them against the Byzantine
empire. But these designs were unexpectedly cut short. Henry, after having
crossed into Sicily, discovered a new conspiracy against him, and in vengeance
for it resumed the cruelties which had made him so deeply detested in that
island; but on the 28th of September 1197 he suddenly died, most probably in
consequence of a chill produced by having drunk some water while heated by
hunting. But as it is certain that Constance had been greatly shocked and
offended by his severities towards her countrymen, and even towards some of her
own near relations, it was generally believed that the emperor fell a victim to
poison administered by his own wife. The crusade which Henry had contributed to
set on foot was carried on without any religious enthusiasm. The Germans did
not cooperate with the Latins of the East, but, “thinking only of the fertile
coasts, and not heeding that Jerusalem should be trodden down of the Gentiles”,
were wholly intent on gaining advantages for themselves. They achieved
considerable successes, although not without loss, and recovered the sea-coast.
But their conquests were fruitless, and they engaged in fierce quarrels with
the Templars, each party charging the other with having sold the interests of
Christendom. On receiving the tidings of Henry's death the crusaders resolved
to return home; and, notwithstanding the pope's entreaties that they would not
abandon the holy enterprise, they carried out their resolution, after having
concluded a truce of six years with the infidels. In endeavouring to make their
way homewards by way of Sicily and Apulia, many of them were slain by the inhabitants
on account of their connection with the detested emperor.
Celestine III survived Henry only a few months, and
died on the 8th of January 1198.