354 MUNRO— THE POPES AND THE CRUSADES. 



crown of thorns. For the moment the nobles yielded ; afte*- the 

 capture of the city they elected Godfrey, Defender of the Holv 

 Sepulcher. This title probably marked a concession to the point 

 of view held by the clerical party. When Dagobert was elected 

 Patriarch of Jerusalem and demanded that Godfrey should give up 

 the Holy City, the latter temporized, promising that he would hand 

 over Jerusalem to the Patriarch when he had secured other con- 

 quests. But after his death his brother Baldwin was crowned king, 

 and Jerusalem gradually became an hereditary monarchy, in which 

 the Patriarch was clearly subordinate to the King, and the latter 

 was wholly independent of the Pope. The Christian conquests in 

 Syria, instead of being the home of garrisons ever ready to propa- 

 gate the faith by the sword, soon became commercial centers whose 

 inhabitants were intent mainly on living in peace and carrying on 

 trade with the infidels. They viewed askance the bands of crusaders 

 from the West who might interfere wnth their commerce by pro- 

 voking hostilities. Even members of the military Orders, whose 

 main purpose was supposed to be the defence of the Holy Land, 

 formed friendships with the Moslems, whom they entertained in 

 their castles and allowed to pray to Allah in their chapels. The 

 direction of the great Crusades escaped from the Popes, and in spite 

 of Innocent's commands and repeated excommunications the French 

 and Venetians persisted in going to Zara and Constantinople and in 

 sacking those Christian cities. Frederic H., excommunicated for 

 not going on a crusade, went and was excommunicated again for 

 going while excommunicate. Despite the efforts of the Pope and 

 of the leading churchmen in the Holy Land he made peace with the 

 Mohammedans and secured Jerusalem by diplomacy. The crusaders 

 who settled in the Holy Land soon ceased to be as devout and narrow 

 as their brethren in the West. They intermarried with the natives, 

 both heretics and Moslems, adopted the customs of their wives, and 

 some of their superstitions. Even the Templars w'cre generally 

 believed to be contaminated by the Mohammedan beliefs. The 

 monastic chroniclers, especially those from the West, are very out- 

 spoken about the evil lives led by the Christians of all ranks, even 

 the patriarchs, in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. From the East these 



