The Historians' History of the World 08

The desire of crusading was influenced by events in Palestine. A truce between the sultan of Aleppo and the Templars expired with the life of the Mussulman prince; and when his successor renewed the war with them, they sustained so severe a defeat, that every commandery in Europe sent them succours; and even the Hospitallers resolved to avenge the death of their rivals. Three hundred knights and a considerable body of stipendiaries went from London.

The spirit of crusading burned in France, particularly in the middle and southern provinces; and many barons assembled at Lyons in order to concert the means of giving effect to their common desire. But a legate of the pope interrupted their councils with announcing the commands of his master for the dissolving of the assembly, and the return of the members to their homes. The barons remonstrated against this versatility of opinion in an infallible guide. The nuncio was contumeliously dismissed. Most of the nobility pressed forwards to Marseilles, and hoisted sail for the Holy Land. Indignant at their contempt of his wishes, the emperor prohibited the governors of Apulia and other countries from affording aid to the crusaders. This measure prevented many parties of cavaliers from pursuing the voyage; but it did not impede those fanatical and romantic warriors, the king of Navarre, the duke of Burgundy, and the counts of Bar and Brittany, from continuing their course to Acre.

News of the warlike preparations of Europe had been communicated to the sultan of Egypt; and the first moment when the faith of treaties opposed not a hostile course, he drove the Latins out of Jerusalem, and overthrew the tower of David, which, until that time, had always been regarded as sacred by all classes of religionists. After this capture Kamil died; various princes of Syria and Egypt asserted their pretensions to the vacant throne; but the military spirit was too active among the Mussulmans, to allow the Christians rationally to hope that they should eventually profit by these dissensions. The war began by a successful irruption of the count of Brittany into the Damascene territories. But in the vicinity of Gaza three hundred Frenchmen, who wished to imitate the glory of the cavaliers of Brittany, were defeated by a smaller number of Turks.

[1240-1244 A.D.]

The pope renewed his endeavours to persuade the English to commute their piety for gold, but his ministers, the Franciscans and Dominicans, were treated only with contempt; and in the spring of the year 1240, Richard, earl of Cornwall, William Longespee or Longsword, Theodore, the prior of the Hospitallers, and many others of the nobility, embarked at Dover. The arrival of Richard and the other barons at Acre, took place shortly after the signature of the discordant treaties between the Templars and the emir of Karak, and the Hospitallers with the sultan of Egypt. The English were astonished to find that the king of Navarre and the count of Brittany had fled from the plains of Syria, when they received intelligence of the departure of reinforcements from Europe. The emir of Karak, too, could not fulfil his treaty, or even restore to the Templars the prisoners which had been made in the battle of Gaza. Richard marched to Joppa, but as the sultan of Egypt (then at war with the sultan of Damascus) sent to offer him terms of peace, he prudently seized the benefits of negotiation. With the consent of the duke of Burgundy, the master of the Hospitallers, and other lords of high degree, he accepted a renunciation of Jerusalem, Berytus, Nazareth, Bethlehem, Mount Tabor, and most of the Holy Land. An exchange of prisoners was to cement the union. The great object of the crusaders seemed now to be accomplished. Palestine belonged to the Christians. Richard returned to Europe, and was received in every town as the deliverer of the Holy Sepulchre. From neglect or inability he had not induced the Templars to consent to his completion of the hopes of the West; and in spleen and revenge the cavaliers renewed those unfraternal altercations with other knights which had hastened the ruin of the kingdom in the time of Saladin (1241).

The Hospitallers opened their treasury for the re-edification of the walls of Jerusalem. The patriarch and clergy entered the sacred city, and reconsecrated the churches. For two years Christianity was the only religion administered in Jerusalem, and the faithful began to exult in the apparent permanent downfall of infidelity, when a new enemy arose more dreadful than even the Mussulmans.

THE TATAR CREVASSE

[1244 A.D.]