MUXRO— THE POPES AND THE CRUSADES. 353 



While the Popes and the Church gained so much in so many 

 different ways, their disappointments were severe and their losses 

 heavy. There could be no disguising the fact that the crusades, 

 on the whole, had been a failure. When the monarchs returned 

 home ignominiously from the Second Crusade even Bernard of 

 Clairvaux felt sick at heart over the failure of the movement which 

 he had preached. The Crusade of Richard the Lion-Hearted and 

 Philip Augustus had not rescued Jerusalem ; the Fourth Crusade 

 had been shamelessly diverted against a Christian Empire; the Fifth 

 had secured a diplomatic triumph which the Pope did all in his 

 power to thwart and belittle ; the minor expeditions had achieved 

 little or nothing; the heroic St. Louis had been obliged to ransom 

 himself from captivity. These failures did not injure the papal 

 power to any marked degree because the Popes and their legates had 

 been responsible for the conduct of the military operations only to 

 a very limited extent. For the First Crusade Urban II. had ap- 

 pointed a papal legate, Ademar of Puy, who proved of great assist- 

 ance to the expedition ; he died before the capture of Jerusalem and 

 his loss was keenly felt by the crusaders. Although other legates 

 were sent with the various expeditions, no one played a prominent 

 part, except Cardinal Pelagius, whose lack of tact, to put it mildly, 

 was principally responsible for the failure of the Crusade against 

 Damietta. The leaders of the various crusades to the Orient were 

 not designated by the Popes. With the exceptions of Urban II. 

 and Innocent III., the Popes did n,ot take an active part in laying 

 the plans for Crusades against the Moslems ; the expedition for 

 which Urban made the plans was successful ; Innocent's orders were 

 not obeyed. The leaders in the Church, like St. Bernard, were able 

 to throw the blame for failure upon the ignorance and sins of the 

 crusaders. 



Jerusalem was conquered and held for some scores of years but 

 the Holy City did not become the head of a Church state as the 

 Pope probably hoped that it would. When, before its capture in 

 1099, the leaders gathered to discuss the election of a ruler, the 

 Church party in the army protested, saying that no earthly monarch 

 ought to wear a crown of gold where our Saviour had worn a 



