Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
Home | Prev
| Next
| Contents
Chapter LIX: The Crusades. -- Part II.
By the arms of the Turks and Franks, the Fatimites had been deprived of
Syria. In Egypt the decay of their character and influence was still
more essential. Yet they were still revered as the descendants and
successors of the prophet; they maintained their invisible state in the
palace of Cairo; and their person was seldom violated by the profane
eyes of subjects or strangers. The Latin ambassadors ^41 have described
their own introduction, through a series of gloomy passages, and
glittering porticos: the scene was enlivened by the warbling of birds
and the murmur of fountains: it was enriched by a display of rich
furniture and rare animals; of the Imperial treasures, something was
shown, and much was supposed; and the long order of unfolding doors was
guarded by black soldiers and domestic eunuchs. The sanctuary of the
presence chamber was veiled with a curtain; and the vizier, who
conducted the ambassadors, laid aside the cimeter, and prostrated
himself three times on the ground; the veil was then removed; and they
beheld the commander of the faithful, who signified his pleasure to the
first slave of the throne. But this slave was his master: the viziers or
sultans had usurped the supreme administration of Egypt; the claims of
the rival candidates were decided by arms; and the name of the most
worthy, of the strongest, was inserted in the royal patent of command.
The factions of Dargham and Shawer alternately expelled each other from
the capital and country; and the weaker side implored the dangerous
protection of the sultan of Damascus, or the king of Jerusalem, the
perpetual enemies of the sect and monarchy of the Fatimites. By his arms
and religion the Turk was most formidable; but the Frank, in an easy,
direct march, could advance from Gaza to the Nile; while the
intermediate situation of his realm compelled the troops of Noureddin to
wheel round the skirts of Arabia, a long and painful circuit, which
exposed them to thirst, fatigue, and the burning winds of the desert.
The secret zeal and ambition of the Turkish prince aspired to reign in
Egypt under the name of the Abbassides; but the restoration of the
suppliant Shawer was the ostensible motive of the first expedition; and
the success was intrusted to the emir Shiracouh, a valiant and veteran
commander. Dargham was oppressed and slain; but the ingratitude, the
jealousy, the just apprehensions, of his more fortunate rival, soon
provoked him to invite the king of Jerusalem to deliver Egypt from his
insolent benefactors. To this union the forces of Shiracouh were
unequal: he relinquished the premature conquest; and the evacuation of
Belbeis or Pelusium was the condition of his safe retreat. As the Turks
defiled before the enemy, and their general closed the rear, with a
vigilant eye, and a battle axe in his hand, a Frank presumed to ask him
if he were not afraid of an attack. "It is doubtless in your power to
begin the attack," replied the intrepid emir; "but rest assured, that
not one of my soldiers will go to paradise till he has sent an infidel
to hell." His report of the riches of the land, the effeminacy of the
natives, and the disorders of the government, revived the hopes of
Noureddin; the caliph of Bagdad applauded the pious design; and
Shiracouh descended into Egypt a second time with twelve thousand Turks
and eleven thousand Arabs. Yet his forces were still inferior to the
confederate armies of the Franks and Saracens; and I can discern an
unusual degree of military art, in his passage of the Nile, his retreat
into Thebais, his masterly evolutions in the battle of Babain, the
surprise of Alexandria, and his marches and countermarches in the flats
and valley of Egypt, from the tropic to the sea. His conduct was
seconded by the courage of his troops, and on the eve of action a
Mamaluke ^42 exclaimed, "If we cannot wrest Egypt from the Christian
dogs, why do we not renounce the honors and rewards of the sultan, and
retire to labor with the peasants, or to spin with the females of the
harem?" Yet, after all his efforts in the field, ^43 after the obstinate
defence of Alexandria ^44 by his nephew Saladin, an honorable
capitulation and retreat ^* concluded the second enterprise of
Shiracouh; and Noureddin reserved his abilities for a third and more
propitious occasion. It was soon offered by the ambition and avarice of
Amalric or Amaury, king of Jerusalem, who had imbibed the pernicious
maxim, that no faith should be kept with the enemies of God. ^! A
religious warrior, the great master of the hospital, encouraged him to
proceed; the emperor of Constantinople either gave, or promised, a fleet
to act with the armies of Syria; and the perfidious Christian,
unsatisfied with spoil and subsidy, aspired to the conquest of Egypt. In
this emergency, the Moslems turned their eyes towards the sultan of
Damascus; the vizier, whom danger encompassed on all sides, yielded to
their unanimous wishes, and Noureddin seemed to be tempted by the fair
offer of one third of the revenue of the kingdom. The Franks were
already at the gates of Cairo; but the suburbs, the old city, were burnt
on their approach; they were deceived by an insidious negotiation, and
their vessels were unable to surmount the barriers of the Nile. They
prudently declined a contest with the Turks in the midst of a hostile
country; and Amaury retired into Palestine with the shame and reproach
that always adhere to unsuccessful injustice. After this deliverance,
Shiracouh was invested with a robe of honor, which he soon stained with
the blood of the unfortunate Shawer. For a while, the Turkish emirs
condescended to hold the office of vizier; but this foreign conquest
precipitated the fall of the Fatimites themselves; and the bloodless
change was accomplished by a message and a word. The caliphs had been
degraded by their own weakness and the tyranny of the viziers: their
subjects blushed, when the descendant and successor of the prophet
presented his naked hand to the rude gripe of a Latin ambassador; they
wept when he sent the hair of his women, a sad emblem of their grief and
terror, to excite the pity of the sultan of Damascus. By the command of
Noureddin, and the sentence of the doctors, the holy names of Abubeker,
Omar, and Othman, were solemnly restored: the caliph Mosthadi, of
Bagdad, was acknowledged in the public prayers as the true commander of
the faithful; and the green livery of the sons of Ali was exchanged for
the black color of the Abbassides. The last of his race, the caliph
Adhed, who survived only ten days, expired in happy ignorance of his
fate; his treasures secured the loyalty of the soldiers, and silenced
the murmurs of the sectaries; and in all subsequent revolutions, Egypt
has never departed from the orthodox tradition of the Moslems. ^45
[Footnote 41: From the ambassador, William of Tyre (l. xix. c. 17, 18,)
describes the palace of Cairo. In the caliph's treasure were found a
pearl as large as a pigeon's egg, a ruby weighing seventeen Egyptian
drams, an emerald a palm and a half in length, and many vases of crystal
and porcelain of China, (Renaudot, p. 536.)]
[Footnote 42: Mamluc, plur. Mamalic, is defined by Pocock, (Prolegom. ad
Abulpharag. p. 7,) and D'Herbelot, (p. 545,) servum emptitium, seu qui
pretio numerato in domini possessionem cedit. They frequently occur in
the wars of Saladin, (Bohadin, p. 236, &c.;) and it was only the
Bahartie Mamalukes that were first introduced into Egypt by his
descendants.]
[Footnote 43: Jacobus à Vitriaco (p. 1116) gives the king of Jerusalem
no more than 374 knights. Both the Franks and the Moslems report the
superior numbers of the enemy; a difference which may be solved by
counting or omitting the unwarlike Egyptians.]
[Footnote 44: It was the Alexandria of the Arabs, a middle term in
extent and riches between the period of the Greeks and Romans, and that
of the Turks, (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, tom. i. p. 25, 26.)]
[Footnote *: The treaty stipulated that both the Christians and the
Arabs should withdraw from Egypt. Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 113. --
[Footnote !: The Knights Templars, abhorring the perfidious breach of
treaty partly, perhaps, out of jealousy of the Hospitallers, refused to
join in this enterprise. Will. Tyre c. xx. p. 5. Wilken, vol. iii. part
-
p. 117. -- M.]
[Footnote 45: For this great revolution of Egypt, see William of Tyre,
-
xix. 5, 6, 7, 12--31, xx. 5--12,) Bohadin, (in Vit. Saladin, p.
30--39,) Abulfeda, (in Excerpt. Schultens, p. 1--12,) D'Herbelot,
(Bibliot. Orient. Adhed, Fathemah, but very incorrect,) Renaudot, (Hist.
Patriarch. Alex. p. 522--525, 532--537,) Vertot, (Hist. des Chevaliers
de Malthe, tom. i. p. 141--163, in 4to.,) and M. de Guignes, (tom. ii.
-
185--215.)]
The hilly country beyond the Tigris is occupied by the pastoral tribes
of the Curds; ^46 a people hardy, strong, savage impatient of the yoke,
addicted to rapine, and tenacious of the government of their national
chiefs. The resemblance of name, situation, and manners, seems to
identify them with the Carduchians of the Greeks; ^47 and they still
defend against the Ottoman Porte the antique freedom which they asserted
against the successors of Cyrus. Poverty and ambition prompted them to
embrace the profession of mercenary soldiers: the service of his father
and uncle prepared the reign of the great Saladin; ^48 and the son of
Job or Ayud, a simple Curd, magnanimously smiled at his pedigree, which
flattery deduced from the Arabian caliphs. ^49 So unconscious was
Noureddin of the impending ruin of his house, that he constrained the
reluctant youth to follow his uncle Shiracouh into Egypt: his military
character was established by the defence of Alexandria; and, if we may
believe the Latins, he solicited and obtained from the Christian general
the profanehonors of knighthood. ^50 On the death of Shiracouh, the
office of grand vizier was bestowed on Saladin, as the youngest and
least powerful of the emirs; but with the advice of his father, whom he
invited to Cairo, his genius obtained the ascendant over his equals, and
attached the army to his person and interest. While Noureddin lived,
these ambitious Curds were the most humble of his slaves; and the
indiscreet murmurs of the divan were silenced by the prudent Ayub, who
loudly protested that at the command of the sultan he himself would lead
his sons in chains to the foot of the throne. "Such language," he added
in private, "was prudent and proper in an assembly of your rivals; but
we are now above fear and obedience; and the threats of Noureddin shall
not extort the tribute of a sugar-cane." His seasonable death relieved
them from the odious and doubtful conflict: his son, a minor of eleven
years of age, was left for a while to the emirs of Damascus; and the new
lord of Egypt was decorated by the caliph with every title ^51 that
could sanctify his usurpation in the eyes of the people. Nor was Saladin
long content with the possession of Egypt; he despoiled the Christians
of Jerusalem, and the Atabeks of Damascus, Aleppo, and Diarbekir: Mecca
and Medina acknowledged him for their temporal protector: his brother
subdued the distant regions of Yemen, or the happy Arabia; and at the
hour of his death, his empire was spread from the African Tripoli to the
Tigris, and from the Indian Ocean to the mountains of Armenia. In the
judgment of his character, the reproaches of treason and ingratitude
strike forcibly on our minds, impressed, as they are, with the principle
and experience of law and loyalty. But his ambition may in some measure
be excused by the revolutions of Asia, ^52 which had erased every notion
of legitimate succession; by the recent example of the Atabeks
themselves; by his reverence to the son of his benefactor; his humane
and generous behavior to the collateral branches; by their incapacity
and his merit; by the approbation of the caliph, the sole source of all
legitimate power; and, above all, by the wishes and interest of the
people, whose happiness is the first object of government. In his
virtues, and in those of his patron, they admired the singular union of
the hero and the saint; for both Noureddin and Saladin are ranked among
the Mahometan saints; and the constant meditation of the holy war
appears to have shed a serious and sober color over their lives and
actions. The youth of the latter ^53 was addicted to wine and women: but
his aspiring spirit soon renounced the temptations of pleasure for the
graver follies of fame and dominion: the garment of Saladin was of
coarse woollen; water was his only drink; and, while he emulated the
temperance, he surpassed the chastity, of his Arabian prophet. Both in
faith and practice he was a rigid Mussulman: he ever deplored that the
defence of religion had not allowed him to accomplish the pilgrimage of
Mecca; but at the stated hours, five times each day, the sultan devoutly
prayed with his brethren: the involuntary omission of fasting was
scrupulously repaid; and his perusal of the Koran, on horseback between
the approaching armies, may be quoted as a proof, however ostentatious,
of piety and courage. ^54 The superstitious doctrine of the sect of
Shafei was the only study that he deigned to encourage: the poets were
safe in his contempt; but all profane science was the object of his
aversion; and a philosopher, who had invented some speculative
novelties, was seized and strangled by the command of the royal saint.
The justice of his divan was accessible to the meanest suppliant against
himself and his ministers; and it was only for a kingdom that Saladin
would deviate from the rule of equity. While the descendants of Seljuk
and Zenghi held his stirrup and smoothed his garments, he was affable
and patient with the meanest of his servants. So boundless was his
liberality, that he distributed twelve thousand horses at the siege of
Acre; and, at the time of his death, no more than forty-seven drams of
silver and one piece of gold coin were found in the treasury; yet, in a
martial reign, the tributes were diminished, and the wealthy citizens
enjoyed, without fear or danger, the fruits of their industry. Egypt,
Syria, and Arabia, were adorned by the royal foundations of hospitals,
colleges, and mosques; and Cairo was fortified with a wall and citadel;
but his works were consecrated to public use: ^55 nor did the sultan
indulge himself in a garden or palace of private luxury. In a fanatic
age, himself a fanatic, the genuine virtues of Saladin commanded the
esteem of the Christians; the emperor of Germany gloried in his
friendship; ^56 the Greek emperor solicited his alliance; ^57 and the
conquest of Jerusalem diffused, and perhaps magnified, his fame both in
the East and West.
[Footnote 46: For the Curds, see De Guignes, tom. ii. p. 416, 417, the
Index Geographicus of Schultens and Tavernier, Voyages, p. i. p. 308,
309. The Ayoubites descended from the tribe of the Rawadiæi, one of the
noblest; but as they were infected with the heresy of the
Metempsychosis, the orthodox sultans insinuated that their descent was
only on the mother's side, and that their ancestor was a stranger who
settled among the Curds.]
[Footnote 47: See the ivth book of the Anabasis of Xenophon. The ten
thousand suffered more from the arrows of the free Carduchians, than
from the splendid weakness of the great king.]
[Footnote 48: We are indebted to the professor Schultens (Lugd. Bat,
1755, in folio) for the richest and most authentic materials, a life of
Saladin by his friend and minister the Cadhi Bohadin, and copious
extracts from the history of his kinsman the prince Abulfeda of Hamah.
To these we may add, the article of Salaheddin in the Bibliothèque
Orientale, and all that may be gleaned from the Dynasties of
Abulpharagius.]
[Footnote 49: Since Abulfeda was himself an Ayoubite, he may share the
praise, for imitating, at least tacitly, the modesty of the founder.]
[Footnote 50: Hist. Hierosol. in the Gesta Dei per Francos, p. 1152. A
similar example may be found in Joinville, (p. 42, edition du Louvre;)
but the pious St. Louis refused to dignify infidels with the order of
Christian knighthood, (Ducange, Observations, p 70.)]
[Footnote 51: In these Arabic titles, religionis must always be
understood; Noureddin, lumen r.; Ezzodin, decus; Amadoddin, columen: our
hero's proper name was Joseph, and he was styled Salahoddin, salus; Al
Malichus, Al Nasirus, rex defensor; Abu Modaffer, pater victoriæ,
Schultens, Præfat.]
[Footnote 52: Abulfeda, who descended from a brother of Saladin,
observes, from many examples, that the founders of dynasties took the
guilt for themselves, and left the reward to their innocent collaterals,
(Excerpt p. 10.)]
[Footnote 53: See his life and character in Renaudot, p. 537--548.]
[Footnote 54: His civil and religious virtues are celebrated in the
first chapter of Bohadin, (p. 4--30,) himself an eye-witness, and an
honest bigot.]
[Footnote 55: In many works, particularly Joseph's well in the castle of
Cairo, the Sultan and the Patriarch have been confounded by the
ignorance of natives and travellers.]
[Footnote 56: Anonym. Canisii, tom. iii. p. ii. p. 504.]
[Footnote 57: Bohadin, p. 129, 130.]
During his short existence, the kingdom of Jerusalem ^58 was supported
by the discord of the Turks and Saracens; and both the Fatimite caliphs
and the sultans of Damascus were tempted to sacrifice the cause of their
religion to the meaner considerations of private and present advantage.
But the powers of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, were now united by a hero,
whom nature and fortune had armed against the Christians. All without
now bore the most threatening aspect; and all was feeble and hollow in
the internal state of Jerusalem. After the two first Baldwins, the
brother and cousin of Godfrey of Bouillon, the sceptre devolved by
female succession to Melisenda, daughter of the second Baldwin, and her
husband Fulk, count of Anjou, the father, by a former marriage, of our
English Plantagenets. Their two sons, Baldwin the Third, and Amaury,
waged a strenuous, and not unsuccessful, war against the infidels; but
the son of Amaury, Baldwin the Fourth, was deprived, by the leprosy, a
gift of the crusades, of the faculties both of mind and body. His sister
Sybilla, the mother of Baldwin the Fifth, was his natural heiress: after
the suspicious death of her child, she crowned her second husband, Guy
of Lusignan, a prince of a handsome person, but of such base renown,
that his own brother Jeffrey was heard to exclaim, "Since they have made
him a king, surely they would have made me a god!" The choice was
generally blamed; and the most powerful vassal, Raymond count of
Tripoli, who had been excluded from the succession and regency,
entertained an implacable hatred against the king, and exposed his honor
and conscience to the temptations of the sultan. Such were the guardians
of the holy city; a leper, a child, a woman, a coward, and a traitor:
yet its fate was delayed twelve years by some supplies from Europe, by
the valor of the military orders, and by the distant or domestic
avocations of their great enemy. At length, on every side, the sinking
state was encircled and pressed by a hostile line: and the truce was
violated by the Franks, whose existence it protected. A soldier of
fortune, Reginald of Chatillon, had seized a fortress on the edge of the
desert, from whence he pillaged the caravans, insulted Mahomet, and
threatened the cities of Mecca and Medina. Saladin condescended to
complain; rejoiced in the denial of justice, and at the head of
fourscore thousand horse and foot invaded the Holy Land. The choice of
Tiberias for his first siege was suggested by the count of Tripoli, to
whom it belonged; and the king of Jerusalem was persuaded to drain his
garrison, and to arm his people, for the relief of that important place.
^59 By the advice of the perfidious Raymond, the Christians were
betrayed into a camp destitute of water: he fled on the first onset,
with the curses of both nations: ^60 Lusignan was overthrown, with the
loss of thirty thousand men; and the wood of the true cross (a dire
misfortune!) was left in the power of the infidels. ^* The royal captive
was conducted to the tent of Saladin; and as he fainted with thirst and
terror, the generous victor presented him with a cup of sherbet, cooled
in snow, without suffering his companion, Reginald of Chatillon, to
partake of this pledge of hospitality and pardon. "The person and
dignity of a king," said the sultan, "are sacred, but this impious
robber must instantly acknowledge the prophet, whom he has blasphemed,
or meet the death which he has so often deserved." On the proud or
conscientious refusal of the Christian warrior, Saladin struck him on
the head with his cimeter, and Reginald was despatched by the guards.
^61 The trembling Lusignan was sent to Damascus, to an honorable prison
and speedy ransom; but the victory was stained by the execution of two
hundred and thirty knights of the hospital, the intrepid champions and
martyrs of their faith. The kingdom was left without a head; and of the
two grand masters of the military orders, the one was slain and the
other was a prisoner. From all the cities, both of the sea-coast and the
inland country, the garrisons had been drawn away for this fatal field:
Tyre and Tripoli alone could escape the rapid inroad of Saladin; and
three months after the battle of Tiberias, he appeared in arms before
the gates of Jerusalem. ^62
[Footnote 58: For the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, see William of Tyre,
from the ixth to the xxiid book. Jacob a Vitriaco, Hist. Hierosolem l
i., and Sanutus Secreta Fidelium Crucis, l. iii. p. vi. vii. viii. ix.]
[Footnote 59: Templarii ut apes bombabant et Hospitalarii ut venti
stridebant, et barones se exitio offerebant, et Turcopuli (the Christian
light troops) semet ipsi in ignem injiciebant, (Ispahani de Expugnatione
Kudsiticâ, p. 18, apud Schultens;) a specimen of Arabian eloquence,
somewhat different from the style of Xenophon!]
[Footnote 60: The Latins affirm, the Arabians insinuate, the treason of
Raymond; but had he really embraced their religion, he would have been a
saint and a hero in the eyes of the latter.]
[Footnote *: Raymond's advice would have prevented the abandonment of a
secure camp abounding with water near Sepphoris. The rash and insolent
valor of the master of the order of Knights Templars, which had before
exposed the Christians to a fatal defeat at the brook Kishon, forced the
feeble king to annul the determination of a council of war, and advance
to a camp in an enclosed valley among the mountains, near Hittin,
without water. Raymond did not fly till the battle was irretrievably
lost, and then the Saracens seem to have opened their ranks to allow him
free passage. The charge of suggesting the siege of Tiberias appears
ungrounded Raymond, no doubt, played a double part: he was a man of
strong sagacity, who foresaw the desperate nature of the contest with
Saladin, endeavored by every means to maintain the treaty, and, though
he joined both his arms and his still more valuable counsels to the
Christian army, yet kept up a kind of amicable correspondence with the
Mahometans. See Wilken, vol. iii. part ii. p. 276, et seq. Michaud, vol.
-
p. 278, et seq. M. Michaud is still more friendly than Wilken to the
memory of Count Raymond, who died suddenly, shortly after the battle of
Hittin. He quotes a letter written in the name of Saladin by the caliph
Alfdel, to show that Raymond was considered by the Mahometans their most
dangerous and detested enemy. "No person of distinction among the
Christians escaped, except the count, (of Tripoli) whom God curse. God
made him die shortly afterwards, and sent him from the kingdom of death
to hell." -- M.]
[Footnote 61: Benaud, Reginald, or Arnold de Chatillon, is celebrated by
the Latins in his life and death; but the circumstances of the latter
are more distinctly related by Bohadin and Abulfeda; and Joinville
(Hist. de St. Louis, p. 70) alludes to the practice of Saladin, of never
putting to death a prisoner who had tasted his bread and salt. Some of
the companions of Arnold had been slaughtered, and almost sacrificed, in
a valley of Mecca, ubi sacrificia mactantur, (Abulfeda, p. 32.)]
[Footnote 62: Vertot, who well describes the loss of the kingdom and
city (Hist. des Chevaliers de Malthe, tom. i. l. ii. p. 226--278,)
inserts two original epistles of a Knight Templar.]
He might expect that the siege of a city so venerable on earth and in
heaven, so interesting to Europe and Asia, would rekindle the last
sparks of enthusiasm; and that, of sixty thousand Christians, every man
would be a soldier, and every soldier a candidate for martyrdom. But
Queen Sybilla trembled for herself and her captive husband; and the
barons and knights, who had escaped from the sword and chains of the
Turks, displayed the same factious and selfish spirit in the public
ruin. The most numerous portion of the inhabitants was composed of the
Greek and Oriental Christians, whom experience had taught to prefer the
Mahometan before the Latin yoke; ^63 and the holy sepulchre attracted a
base and needy crowd, without arms or courage, who subsisted only on the
charity of the pilgrims. Some feeble and hasty efforts were made for the
defence of Jerusalem: but in the space of fourteen days, a victorious
army drove back the sallies of the besieged, planted their engines,
opened the wall to the breadth of fifteen cubits, applied their
scaling-ladders, and erected on the breach twelve banners of the prophet
and the sultan. It was in vain that a barefoot procession of the queen,
the women, and the monks, implored the Son of God to save his tomb and
his inheritance from impious violation. Their sole hope was in the mercy
of the conqueror, and to their first suppliant deputation that mercy was
sternly denied. "He had sworn to avenge the patience and long-suffering
of the Moslems; the hour of forgiveness was elapsed, and the moment was
now arrived to expiate, in blood, the innocent blood which had been
spilt by Godfrey and the first crusaders." But a desperate and
successful struggle of the Franks admonished the sultan that his triumph
was not yet secure; he listened with reverence to a solemn adjuration in
the name of the common Father of mankind; and a sentiment of human
sympathy mollified the rigor of fanaticism and conquest. He consented to
accept the city, and to spare the inhabitants. The Greek and Oriental
Christians were permitted to live under his dominion, but it was
stipulated, that in forty days all the Franks and Latins should evacuate
Jerusalem, and be safely conducted to the seaports of Syria and Egypt;
that ten pieces of gold should be paid for each man, five for each
woman, and one for every child; and that those who were unable to
purchase their freedom should be detained in perpetual slavery. Of some
writers it is a favorite and invidious theme to compare the humanity of
Saladin with the massacre of the first crusade. The difference would be
merely personal; but we should not forget that the Christians had
offered to capitulate, and that the Mahometans of Jerusalem sustained
the last extremities of an assault and storm. Justice is indeed due to
the fidelity with which the Turkish conqueror fulfilled the conditions
of the treaty; and he may be deservedly praised for the glance of pity
which he cast on the misery of the vanquished. Instead of a rigorous
exaction of his debt, he accepted a sum of thirty thousand byzants, for
the ransom of seven thousand poor; two or three thousand more were
dismissed by his gratuitous clemency; and the number of slaves was
reduced to eleven or fourteen thousand persons. In this interview with
the queen, his words, and even his tears suggested the kindest
consolations; his liberal alms were distributed among those who had been
made orphans or widows by the fortune of war; and while the knights of
the hospital were in arms against him, he allowed their more pious
brethren to continue, during the term of a year, the care and service of
the sick. In these acts of mercy the virtue of Saladin deserves our
admiration and love: he was above the necessity of dissimulation, and
his stern fanaticism would have prompted him to dissemble, rather than
to affect, this profane compassion for the enemies of the Koran. After
Jerusalem had been delivered from the presence of the strangers, the
sultan made his triumphal entry, his banners waving in the wind, and to
the harmony of martial music. The great mosque of Omar, which had been
converted into a church, was again consecrated to one God and his
prophet Mahomet: the walls and pavement were purified with rose-water;
and a pulpit, the labor of Noureddin, was erected in the sanctuary. But
when the golden cross that glittered on the dome was cast down, and
dragged through the streets, the Christians of every sect uttered a
lamentable groan, which was answered by the joyful shouts of the
Moslems. In four ivory chests the patriarch had collected the crosses,
the images, the vases, and the relics of the holy place; they were
seized by the conqueror, who was desirous of presenting the caliph with
the trophies of Christian idolatry. He was persuaded, however, to
intrust them to the patriarch and prince of Antioch; and the pious
pledge was redeemed by Richard of England, at the expense of fifty-two
thousand byzants of gold. ^64
[Footnote 63: Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 545.]
[Footnote 64: For the conquest of Jerusalem, Bohadin (p. 67--75) and
Abulfeda (p. 40--43) are our Moslem witnesses. Of the Christian, Bernard
Thesaurarius (c. 151--167) is the most copious and authentic; see
likewise Matthew Paris, (p. 120--124.)]
The nations might fear and hope the immediate and final expulsion of the
Latins from Syria; which was yet delayed above a century after the death
of Saladin. ^65 In the career of victory, he was first checked by the
resistance of Tyre; the troops and garrisons, which had capitulated,
were imprudently conducted to the same port: their numbers were adequate
to the defence of the place; and the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat
inspired the disorderly crowd with confidence and union. His father, a
venerable pilgrim, had been made prisoner in the battle of Tiberias; but
that disaster was unknown in Italy and Greece, when the son was urged by
ambition and piety to visit the inheritance of his royal nephew, the
infant Baldwin. The view of the Turkish banners warned him from the
hostile coast of Jaffa; and Conrad was unanimously hailed as the prince
and champion of Tyre, which was already besieged by the conqueror of
Jerusalem. The firmness of his zeal, and perhaps his knowledge of a
generous foe, enabled him to brave the threats of the sultan, and to
declare, that should his aged parent be exposed before the walls, he
himself would discharge the first arrow, and glory in his descent from a
Christian martyr. ^66 The Egyptian fleet was allowed to enter the harbor
of Tyre; but the chain was suddenly drawn, and five galleys were either
sunk or taken: a thousand Turks were slain in a sally; and Saladin,
after burning his engines, concluded a glorious campaign by a
disgraceful retreat to Damascus. He was soon assailed by a more
formidable tempest. The pathetic narratives, and even the pictures, that
represented in lively colors the servitude and profanation of Jerusalem,
awakened the torpid sensibility of Europe: the emperor Frederic
Barbarossa, and the kings of France and England, assumed the cross; and
the tardy magnitude of their armaments was anticipated by the maritime
states of the Mediterranean and the Ocean. The skilful and provident
Italians first embarked in the ships of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. They
were speedily followed by the most eager pilgrims of France, Normandy,
and the Western Isles. The powerful succor of Flanders, Frise, and
Denmark, filled near a hundred vessels: and the Northern warriors were
distinguished in the field by a lofty stature and a ponderous
battle-axe. ^67 Their increasing multitudes could no longer be confined
within the walls of Tyre, or remain obedient to the voice of Conrad.
They pitied the misfortunes, and revered the dignity, of Lusignan, who
was released from prison, perhaps, to divide the army of the Franks. He
proposed the recovery of Ptolemais, or Acre, thirty miles to the south
of Tyre; and the place was first invested by two thousand horse and
thirty thousand foot under his nominal command. I shall not expatiate on
the story of this memorable siege; which lasted near two years, and
consumed, in a narrow space, the forces of Europe and Asia. Never did
the flame of enthusiasm burn with fiercer and more destructive rage; nor
could the true believers, a common appellation, who consecrated their
own martyrs, refuse some applause to the mistaken zeal and courage of
their adversaries. At the sound of the holy trumpet, the Moslems of
Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and the Oriental provinces, assembled under the
servant of the prophet: ^68 his camp was pitched and removed within a
few miles of Acre; and he labored, night and day, for the relief of his
brethren and the annoyance of the Franks. Nine battles, not unworthy of
the name, were fought in the neighborhood of Mount Carmel, with such
vicissitude of fortune, that in one attack, the sultan forced his way
into the city; that in one sally, the Christians penetrated to the royal
tent. By the means of divers and pigeons, a regular correspondence was
maintained with the besieged; and, as often as the sea was left open,
the exhausted garrison was withdrawn, and a fresh supply was poured into
the place. The Latin camp was thinned by famine, the sword and the
climate; but the tents of the dead were replenished with new pilgrims,
who exaggerated the strength and speed of their approaching countrymen.
The vulgar was astonished by the report, that the pope himself, with an
innumerable crusade, was advanced as far as Constantinople. The march of
the emperor filled the East with more serious alarms: the obstacles
which he encountered in Asia, and perhaps in Greece, were raised by the
policy of Saladin: his joy on the death of Barbarossa was measured by
his esteem; and the Christians were rather dismayed than encouraged at
the sight of the duke of Swabia and his way-worn remnant of five
thousand Germans. At length, in the spring of the second year, the royal
fleets of France and England cast anchor in the Bay of Acre, and the
siege was more vigorously prosecuted by the youthful emulation of the
two kings, Philip Augustus and Richard Plantagenet. After every resource
had been tried, and every hope was exhausted, the defenders of Acre
submitted to their fate; a capitulation was granted, but their lives and
liberties were taxed at the hard conditions of a ransom of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold, the deliverance of one hundred nobles, and
fifteen hundred inferior captives, and the restoration of the wood of
the holy cross. Some doubts in the agreement, and some delay in the
execution, rekindled the fury of the Franks, and three thousand Moslems,
almost in the sultan's view, were beheaded by the command of the
sanguinary Richard. ^69 By the conquest of Acre, the Latin powers
acquired a strong town and a convenient harbor; but the advantage was
most dearly purchased. The minister and historian of Saladin computes,
from the report of the enemy, that their numbers, at different periods,
amounted to five or six hundred thousand; that more than one hundred
thousand Christians were slain; that a far greater number was lost by
disease or shipwreck; and that a small portion of this mighty host could
return in safety to their native countries. ^70
[Footnote 65: The sieges of Tyre and Acre are most copiously described
by Bernard Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terræ Sanctæ, c. 167--179,)
the author of the Historia Hierosolymitana, (p. 1150--1172, in
Bongarsius,) Abulfeda, (p. 43--50,) and Bohadin, (p. 75--179.)]
[Footnote 66: I have followed a moderate and probable representation of
the fact; by Vertot, who adopts without reluctance a romantic tale the
old marquis is actually exposed to the darts of the besieged.]
[Footnote 67: Northmanni et Gothi, et cæteri populi insularum quæ inter
occidentem et septentrionem sitæ sunt, gentes bellicosæ, corporis
proceri mortis intrepidæ, bipennibus armatæ, navibus rotundis, quæ
Ysnachiæ dicuntur, advectæ.]
[Footnote 68: The historian of Jerusalem (p. 1108) adds the nations of
the East from the Tigris to India, and the swarthy tribes of Moors and
Getulians, so that Asia and Africa fought against Europe.]
[Footnote 69: Bohadin, p. 180; and this massacre is neither denied nor
blamed by the Christian historians. Alacriter jussa complentes, (the
English soldiers,) says Galfridus à Vinesauf, (l. iv. c. 4, p. 346,) who
fixes at 2700 the number of victims; who are multiplied to 5000 by Roger
Hoveden, (p. 697, 698.) The humanity or avarice of Philip Augustus was
persuaded to ransom his prisoners, (Jacob à Vitriaco, l. i. c. 98, p.
1122.)]
[Footnote 70: Bohadin, p. 14. He quotes the judgment of Balianus, and
the prince of Sidon, and adds, ex illo mundo quasi hominum paucissimi
redierunt. Among the Christians who died before St. John d'Acre, I find
the English names of De Ferrers earl of Derby, (Dugdale, Baronage, part
-
p. 260,) Mowbray, (idem, p. 124,) De Mandevil, De Fiennes, St. John,
Scrope, Bigot, Talbot, &c.]
Prev
| Next
| Contents
|