594 



CRUSADES 



salem were founded the two famous orders of the 

 Knights Hospitallers of St John and the Knights 

 Templars. 



Second Crusade. In 1144 the principality of 

 Edessa was conquered by the Emir of Mosul, and 

 the Christians slaughtered. His son, Noureddin, 

 advanced to destroy the Latin kingdoms of Syria 

 and Palestine. Europe once more trembled with 

 excitement. A second crusade was preached by 

 the famous St Bernard, abbot of Clairvaux, in 

 Champagne; and early in 1147 two enormous 

 armies, under the command of Louis VII., king 

 of France, and Conrad III., emperor of Germany, 

 marched for the Holy Land. Their united 

 numbers were estimated at 1,200,000 fighting- 

 men. The expedition, nevertheless, proved a 

 total failure. The Greek emperor, Manuel Com- 

 nenus, was hostile ; and through the treachery 

 of his emissaries, the army of Conrad was all but 

 destroyed by the Turks near Iconium, while that 

 of Louis was wrecked in the defiles of the Pisidian 

 Mountains. After a vain attempt to reduce 

 Damascus, the relics of this mighty host returned 

 to Europe. 



Third Crusade. The death-blow, however, to 

 the kingdom of Jerusalem, and the power of the 

 crusaders, was given, not by Noureddin, but by 

 Salah-Eddin, commonly called Saladin, a young 

 Kurdish chief, who had made himself sultan of 

 Egypt, and who aspired to the suzerainty of the 

 Mohammedan world. He invaded Palestine, took 

 town after town, and finally, in October 1187, 

 compelled Jerusalem itself to capitulate, after a 

 siege of fourteen days. The news of this led to 

 a third crusade, the chiefs of which were Frederick 

 I. ( Barbarossa), emperor of Germany; Philippe 

 Auguste, king of France, and Richard Coeur-de- 

 Lion, king of England. Barbarossa took the 

 field first in the spring of 1189, but lost his life by 

 fever caught from bathing in the Orontes. His 

 army, much reduced, joined the forces of the other 

 two monarchs before Acre, which important city 

 was immediately besieged. In vain did Saladin 

 attempt to relieve the defenders ; and after a be- 

 leaguerment of twenty-three months, the place 

 surrendered. But the crusaders were not united 

 among themselves. Philippe soon after returned to 

 France ; and Richard, after accomplishing prodigies 

 of valour, which excited the admiration of the 

 Saracens, concluded a treaty with Saladin, by which 

 ' the people of the West were to be at liberty to 

 make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, exempt from the 

 taxes which the Saracen princes had in former 

 times imposed.' This, as has been previously 

 noticed, was all that had been claimed by the first 

 crusaders. On the 25th of October 1192, Richard 

 set sail for Europe. 



Fourth Crusade. Crusading unfortunately now 

 became a constituent of the papal policy ; and in 

 1203 a fourth expedition was determined upon by 

 Pope Innocent III., although the condition of the 

 Christians was by no means such as to call for it. 

 It assembled at Venice ; but how entirely secular 

 crusading had become, will be seen from the fact 

 that the army never went to Palestine at all, but 

 preferred to take possession of the Byzantine 

 empire. The leader of this host of pseudo-crusaders, 

 Baldwin, Count of Flanders, was seated on the 

 throne of the East in 1204, and thus founded the 

 Latin empire of Constantinople, which lasted for 

 fifty-six vears. Nothing was achieved in this 

 crusade for the recovery of Jerusalem, but Inno- 

 cent had his reward in the temporary supremacy 

 of the papal see over the Eastern Church. 



Fifth Crusade.^This was commanded by Frede- 

 rick II., emperor of Germany. It began in 1228, 

 and terminated in a treaty between that monarch 

 and the sultan of Egypt, by which Jerusalem (with 



the exception of the Mosque of Omar), Jaffa, Beth- 

 lehem, and Nazareth were ceded to Frederick, who, 

 after being crowned king of Jerusalem, returned 

 to Europe, leaving his new possessions in a state of 

 tranquillity. Frederick, however, who had been 

 excommunicated by Gregory IX. for his tardiness 

 in embarking in this crusade, was denounced in the 

 most violent language by the same pope for having 

 thus made terms with the infidel. 



Sixth Crusade. In 1244 the Khoras,mians, driven 

 from Tartary by Genghis Kkan, burst into Syria, 

 and made themselves masterX of Jerusalem. This 

 was made, by Pope Innocent IV. , the occasion for 

 another crusade ; and in 1249 Louis IX. (St Louis) 

 of France headed an expedition againgt Egypt, 

 which was now regarded as the key of the Holy 

 Land. The expedition was an utter failure. Louis 

 was defeated and taken prisoner by the sultan, and 

 obtained his liberty only on the payment of a heavy 

 ransom. 



Seventh Crusade. This also was primarily under- 

 taken by St Louis, but he having died at Tunis 

 (where he had gone in the hope of baptising its 

 king) in 1270, on his way to Palestine, Prince 

 Edward of England, afterwards Edward I., who 

 had originally intended to place himself under the 

 command of St Louis, marched direct for Palestine, 

 where his rank and reputation in arms gathered 

 round him all who were willing to fight for the 

 cross. Nothing of consequence, however, was 

 accomplished ; and Edward soon returned to Eng- 

 land, the last of the crusaders. Acre, Antioch, 

 and Tripoli still continued in the possession of the 

 Christians, and were defended for some time by the 

 Templars and other military knights ; but in 1291 

 Acre capitulated, the other towns soon followed its 

 example, and the knights were glad to quit the 

 country, and disperse themselves over Europe in 

 quest of new employment, leaving Palestine in the 

 undisturbed possession of the Saracens. 



Besides the great expeditions above enumerated, 

 there were many others on a lesser scale. These, 

 however, from the unimportance of their results, 

 and the limited numbers engaged in them, do not 

 call for special mention. Of the pseudo-crusades, 

 three deserve notice for the important results that 

 followed from them. Firstly, in 1209, there was 

 that against the Albigenses (q.v.). Secondly, on 

 the principle that it was binding on the servants 

 of the church to do battle with all outside its pale, 

 in 1230 the Teutonic knights were called on by 

 Gregory IX. to undertake a crusade against the 

 heathen Prussians on the shores of the Baltic. 

 The result was the complete subjugation of the 

 Prussians, and the establishment in their country 

 of the Teutonic military order till its extinction at 

 the battle of Tannenberg in 1410. Thirdly, in 1262 

 Urban IV., jealous of the growing power of Man- 

 fred, king of Sicily, son of the Emperor Frederick 

 II., offered Manfred's crown to Charles of Anjou, 

 brother of St Louis of France, and gave to this dis- 

 possession the name of a crusade. A protracted 

 war ensued, which resulted in the House of Anjou 

 gaining the kingdom of Naples, and the House of 

 Aragon the kingdom of Sicily. The terrible wars 

 of the 16th century between France and Spain for 

 supremacy in Italy Avere the direct consequence of 

 this pseudo-crusade. 



Effects of the Crusades. While we cannot help 

 deploring the enormous expenditure of human life 

 which the crusades occasioned, it is impossible to 

 overlook the fact that they indirectly exercised a 

 most beneficial influence on modern society. They 

 secured for humanity certain advantages which it 

 is difficult to see could have been otherwise 

 obtained. Guizot, in his Lectures on European 

 Civilisation, endeavoured to show their design and 

 function in the destinies of Christendom. ' To tha 



