this Reason therefore passing from one Extreme to another he Disrobed himself of all his Authority and made the little Baldwin the Fifth his Nephew year 1182 be crowned King an Infant of about five Years of Age the Son of his Sister Sybilla by the Marquis of Montferrat her first Husband leaving the Government of the Kingdom to the Earl of Tripolis the Man whom he had before most disgraced and who was the declared Enemy of Earl Guy against whom he was so incensed year 1182 that he had recourse to Arms to be Revenged on him But these Matters were composed by the Prudence of William Archbishop of Tyre great Chancellor of the Realm year 1183 who found out Expedients to patch up a kind of Accord between these two quarrelling Lords Then it was Resolved to send with all speed a great Ambassage into the West to desire a quick and powerful Assistance against Saladin who now began to push his Conquests even into Palestine For this Purpose Choice was made of Heraclius the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the two great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who were then the two most considerable Men of the Holy Land both in regard of the Number and the Valor of the Knights of these two Orders who were now become most Powerful and most Famous throughout all Christendom These Ambassadors Arrived happily at the Port of Brindes but their Negotiation was not answerably happy to that of their Voyage For the different Interests of the Christian Princes at that time were such as would not permit them to ingage in an Enterprise of such Difficulty as was the Leading of an Army of Crusades into Palestine as the Ambassadors desired William King of Sicily was ingaged in a War against the Cruel Andronicus to take Vengeance upon that Tyrant who had horribly Massacred all the Latins that were at Constantinople that so he might with greater Facility usurp the Imperial Throne by putting to Death the young Alexis the Son of Manuel Having therefore been able to procure nothing more from this Prince besides great Promises for the future they crossed through Italy to Verona where Pope Lucius and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa held a great Assembly of Princes and Prelates to determine the Differences between them and to settle the Affairs of Italy The Emperor who was absolutely resolved to re-settle his Authority which the Wars during the Schism which had been made with the Papal See had so much weakned gave them nothing but fair Words and great Hopes and for the Pope as he ever distrusted the Romans who not long before had Revolted from him he was able to do no more than to give the Ambassadors his Letters to the Kings of England and France wherein he exhorted them to this Enterprise as Alexander the Third his Predecessor had before to little Purpose done The Patriarch therefore and the great Masters of the Hospitallers after having performed their last Duty to the Master of the Temple who Died at Verona passed into France There they were most magnificently Received and Treated by the Order of the King Philip Augustus at Paris to whom they presented the Keys of the Holy City of the Tower of David and the Holy Sepulchre with the Royal Standard in token that they put themselves under his Protection and to oblige him to Succor the Holy Land as if it were his own Kingdom now that it was reduced to such extreme Danger by the Infidels Whereupon a general Assembly of all the Prelates and great Men of the Realm was called at Paris to Debate this great Affair and they considering that the King was not above eight and twenty Years of Age and had no Issue were of Opinion That he ought not in Person to undertake such a dangerous Voyage only Philip promised the Ambassadors that he would move his Subjects throughout the whole Realm to inrowl themselves for this War and that he would at his own Cost furnish all those liberally for their Maintenance who would take up Arms for so Just and Holy a War This Answer was not at all to the Satisfaction of the Patriarch however he contented himself as well as he could upon the Hopes which he had that the King of England upon whom they did particularly rely in Syria would make himself the Head of the Enterprise That King was Henry the Second the Son of Geoffry Earl of Anjou who had married Maud the Empress the Widow of the Emperor Henry the Fourth she was Daughter to Henry the First King of England so that this Henry the Second was Grand-child both to Henry the First and to Fowk d' Anjou King of Jerusalem who was the Father to Geoffry Earl of Anjou and to Amauri King of Jerusalem and by reason thereof he was Cousin German to Baldwin the Fourth who was the late King of Palestine so that doubtless he was more particularly Obliged than any other Prince to Defend that Realm which might one Day descend to him by Inheritance He was also more especially Obliged to it for the Expitation of the Crime which he had Committed year 1183 in permitting the Assassins of St Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury to Murder him in his own Church and he had accepted it as a Penance from the Pope within three Years to lead an Army in Person to the Holy Land More than ten Years were already slip'd away since the Term prefixed and he had not done any thing towards the Accomplishment of his Promise of which he was by a Letter from Pope Lucius reminded in Terms sharp enough who told him plainly that it was impessible for him to escape the severe Judgments of God who would not permit himself to be mocked and whose Vengeance he would have cause to Fear if he persisted willfully in the breach of his Promise All these Considerations made the Patriarch hope for more happy Success to his Negotiation in England in regard that in this pressing Necessity it was probable either that the King would go in Person into Palestine for the satisfaction of his Promise or at least that he would send one of his three Sons to command the Army and bigg with these Expectations he crossed the Sea with his Colleague and in the beginning of the Year following came to London year 1185 Henry who was beforehand resolved not to grant what the Ambassadours came to desire would nevertheless save his Reputation and therefore he did them all the Honour imaginable and took the most plausible Courses to justify his Conduct He therefore sent for them to Reading where the Court then was and gave them a most favourable Audience He very graciously and with great marks of Goodness and Compassion heard the Patriarch Heraclius who in a most passionate Discourse after he had presented him with the Keys of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre represented the piteous Condition to which the Affairs of the Christians in the East were reduced who he said stretched out their beseeching Hands
Council and the fourth of Lateran and one of the greatest which the Church had ever had for besides the Pope who presided in Person the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Jerusalem and the Deputies of those of Antioch and Alexandria were present at it together with seventy one Archbishops four hundred and twelve Bishops with the Proxies of divers others above eight hundred Abbots and Priors and the Ambassadors of the Emperor Frederick II. Henry the Emperor of Constantinople of the Kings of England France Hungary Jerusalem Cyprus and Aragon The Pope who was a Man very learned and eloquent opened the Session by a Speech which is verbatim inserted into the Acts of the Council as he spoke it and therein after he had acquainted them that the principal Reason why he had assembled them was to consider how they might relieve the Holy Land he brought in Jerusalem addressing her self to the Christians of the West and to implore their Assistance in the Language of the holy Scripture representing in a manner so pathetick and moving the piteous Estate to which she was reduced under the Tyrannick Dominion of the Sarasins to the shame of the Christian Name that it was impossible but the whole Assembly should be moved with it or refuse taking the generous Resolution of employing all things for the Deliverance of the holy City from that cruel Servitude So that after they had established the Doctrines of the Faith against the Heresies of Berengarius Amauri de Chartres the Albigenses and the Abbot Joachim without meddling with his Person by reason that he submitted himself to the Judgment of the Holy See and after they had regulated such Matters as concerned Discipline and the Reformation of Manners the Fathers with the Consent of the Ambassadors of the Princes made these following Orders for the Crusade That the Bishops should cause it to be preached in their respective Diocesses above all enjoyning the Preachers to press it as a thing necessary for all those who took it upon them to put themselves by true Repentance into a State of Grace thereby to preserve themselves in the Favour of God year 1215 and to procure his Blessings upon them and the Vndertaking That they themselves should exhort the Kings the Princes and Persons of the greatest Quality to take upon them the Cross and to contribute to the Expences of the Holy War That the Bishops the Abbots the Priors and all other Ecclesiasticks should give the twentieth part of their Revenues and the Pope and Cardinals the tenth towards the carrying on the Crusade And to excite others by his Example to this Liberality the Pope promised that besides this Tax he would provide Shipping and great Sums of Money for the particular Maintenance of such of the Romans as should take upon them the Cross That the Crusades should have all the same Privileges Spiritual and Temporal which the former Popes had indulged to the first Crusades That they should all be in readiness to pass into Palestine by the 1st Day of June in the following Year That in the Interim those who resolved to be of the Land-Army should come to the Rendezvouz which should be appointed whither the Pope would send his Legate and that those who chose rather to go by Sea should repair to the Port of Brindes in Pavia or to Messina in Sicily where he himself would be present to take care and give Orders for what should be needful since he was not as he passionately desired permitted to pass beyond the Seas and take the Voyage with the Crusades That there should be either a Peace or a Truce among the Christian Princes for four Years and that during that time all publick Sports and Turnaments should be straitly prohibited That those who aided the Crusades or furnished them with Equipage should enjoy the Benefits of the Indulgences And on the contrary that such as favoured the Pyrates and such Christian Merchants as betrayed their Brethren by selling Arms and Ammunition to the Sarasins should as impious Traytors to God and Religion be exposed to all the Censures of the Church It must be avowed that our Ancestors who acted as exactly and prudently but with far fewer Intrigues of Nicity and Ceremony than we do at this Day were far more expeditious in the concluding of their greatest Affairs than in the succeeding Ages This great Council wherein so many and such important Matters were debated both in relation to Faith and Manners so many things of a differing Nature as the Policy and the Discipline of the Church the Peace among the Christian Princes and the War against the Insidels and almost the general Interests of all Europe was terminated in less than three Weeks continuing only between the Feast of St. Martin and that of St. Andrew a time which now would scarcely be thought sufficient for the regulating of one single Preliminary Article in an Assembly of far less importance than this was And that which is still more admirable the Execution immediately succeeded the Debates and Determinations no manner of Considerations Passions or Interests being capable of stopping or even so much as retarding it every one gladly contributing what was his part towards the Performance and Accomplishment of the whole Design The Bishops preached the Crusade in all places year 1216 with mighty Zeal and great Success and the Pope to give the greater Authority to it after he had published it in Rome went to preach it himself in Tuscany where there was an insinite of Crusades every one desiring to have the Honour to receive the Cross from his own Hands But as he was going to Pisa to accord the Differences between that Republick and the other of Genoa which did something hinder the Effect of the Crusade in his Passage by Perusa he was seized with a violent Fever occasioned by his great Pains and the excessive Heats of the Season which in a few days carried him out of the World He died the 6th Day of July in the 19th Year of his Pontificate and the 49th of his Life after having performed all the Duties of a Soveraign Pope in such perfection that there have been few of his Successors I do not say that have surpassed him but that have been equal to him and if we may give Credit to the unanimous Consent of all the Authors that write of him none greater either in Learning in Prudence in Firmness of Resolution in Authority over all the Powers of the Earth for the maintaining the Discipline of the Church in its Force and Vigour or any more zealous for the Purity of the Faith or more conversant than himself in all manner of vertuous Actions which as they are the Effects so they are upon Earth the most certain Marks of a most eminent Sanctity And from hence doubtless we may conclude year 1216 that there is nothing more Unjust or more Weak than the giving Credit to the Fable of the Apparition of this Pope being pursued by a
follow the design of his Predecessor year 1244 to redress the Evils of the Church by a General Council for the calling whereof he sent his Circular Letters throughout all Europe It was held at Lyons the year following and was opened upon the Eve of the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles It was at this Council that the Cardinals received from Innocent the Red-Hat for a distinction of their Dignity and the Obligation which they had to loose even their Lives for the cause of God and of his Church especially in this Persecution of the Emperor Frederick The Patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch as also those of Aquilea and Venice assisted at this Council together with one hundred and fourty Arch-Bishops and Bishops of France Italy Spain England Scotland and Ireland the Deputies of many other places the Abbots of Cluni the Cistercians and Claraval the General of the order of St. Dominick and the Vicar of that of St. Francis as also a great number of other Abbots and Priors of the same Kingdoms There came scarcely any at all from Germany for fear of offending the Emperor nor from Hungary by reason of the irruption which the Tartars had made at that time into those Countries Baldwin the Emperor of Constantinople who came to desire assistance from the Pope was there also together with Raymond Count of Tholose Raymond Berenger Count de Provence and the Ambassadors of the Emperor the Kings of England France and the other Christian Princes Affairs of the greatest moment certainly passed with wonderful Expedition in those times in Comparison of what they do in our days For this great Council wherein matters of the Greatest Importance were treated of the smallest of which would now take up much a longer time and would be discussed and debated with extraordinary difficulty was finished in three Sessions In the first of them the Pope being seated upon a Throne which was raised in the great Church at Lyons having at his Right hand the Emperor of Constantinople and upon his Left the other Princes he made a most Pathetick Discourse in which comparing his pains and Grief to those of Jesus Christ upon the Cross he said that the Church had received five great Wounds from which it was impossible but he must be extremely sensible of her pain The first was the abuses and disorders which were so frequent among the Ecclesiasticks The Second was by the Insolence and the Tyranny of the Sarasins year 1245 who had prophaned the Sacred places and laid wast the Holy City and were upon the point of taking all that remained in Palestine from the Christians The third Wound was that which was given by the Schism of the Greeks whose power though it had been brought down yet now began to rise again and even to threaten Constantinople which was reduced to the last Extremities The fourth was by the furious irruption of the Tartars into Hungary even to the very consines of Germany where they filled all with Blood Slaughter and Ruin The Fifth was by the terrible Persecution of Frederick who exposed the Church to all those Sufferings for which Pope Gregory had cut him off from the Body of the Church in which he not only persisted but daily augmented his former guilt by new and greater Crimes After which the Patriarch of Constantinople and Valeran Bishop of Berylus who was sent by the Patriarch of Jerusalem to implore the Succour of the Christians of the West gave a Relation of the deplorable condition wherein the Affairs of the Latins were in Greece and Palestine And then Thadeus de Sessa the Judge of the Imperial Palace and the Emperors Ambassador rose up and spoke to the Council in the name of his Master At first that he might gain the Favour of the Assembly he repeated in general and few words what the Pope had said concerning the Sarasins Greeks Tartars and the Emperor and protested that Frederick whose Power by reason of so many Victories as he had gained against his Enemies was greater than ever it had been before offered himself withal his heart to employ all that he had his Fortunes and his Arms to reduce the Greeks to reason and to repulse the Tartars and that he was ready to go himself in person and at his own charges into Palestine to drive out the Corasmins and there to reestablish the Affairs of the Christians which were in such ill terms and that in the mean time he promised to restore to the Church whatsoever should be found that he had taken from it and to make all the satisfaction that could be expected if in any thing he had offended To this the Pope not doubting but all this was said as an Artifice to surprize and amuse the Council only answered that they were not met there to talk of new promises but to see that he performed those which he had already made upon his Oath which he had so often eluded And then added he after having so often deceived us what Caution will he give to Warrant that which he promiseth The Kings of France and England boldly and without delay answered Thadeus ought not they to be accepted By no means replyed the Pope because if he should again fail in his promises as thereis reason enough to believe that he will we shall be obliged to take our remedy against these two Kings So that the Church for one Enemy which she hath now upon her hands shall then have three which are the three most puissant Princes in all Europe Then Thadeus continuing his discourse to come to the point which was in question and upon which he was defired to insist he endeavoured to answer precisely to all the Crimes which the Pope had objected against Frederick And being very dexterous and wonderful Eloquent he spoke with so much Art and gave so soft and plausible a turn to his defence that there were very many in the Assembly who appeared highly satisfied But Innocent who was a very able man and who was perfectly well acquainted with all the Circumstances of this Affair replied instantly to all that the Emperors Ambassadour had said in defence of his Master and answered to every particular with as much exactness and Strength as if he had been a long time before prepared by seeing what Thadeus would say upon this Subject And this was what was done in this first Session In the Second which was held eight days after upon Tuesday the fifth of July diverse Bishops especially the Spaniards who were come in greater numbers to the Council than any other Nation tendered an accusation consisting in many Articles against the Emperor urging the Pope to condemn him especially upon this whereon they insisted principally That it was the intention of that Prince as appeared by his own Letters to dispoil the Ecclesiasticks of all their Estates and to reduce them to the same condition that they were in during the times of the primitive Persecution The Ambassadour on
the other side endeavoured to satisfie the Council in every particular of the Charge year 1245 But perceiving that the greatest part of his Judges were not like to be favourable to him he desired that at least it might be deferred for some days till the third Session to the end that the Emperor who he assured them was upon his way to come to the Council might have time according to his desire to make his appearance To this the Pope willingly consented as believing that if that Prince were present all differences would easily be adjusted And although many who desired that this Affair should be quickly determined opposed it he gave twelve days respit in which they laboured in the private meetings to regulate all the other matters that were under debate At last the term being expired and that the Emperor who would by no means acknowledge the Council to be the Judge of his differences with the Pope did not appear the third Session was held upon the Monday being the seventeenth day of July where the seventeen Decrees which were made for the reformation of manners and discipline were approved as also those for finding out the ways to succour the Empire of Constantinople and to oppose the irruption of the Tartars and for the Publication of a Crusade against the Sarasins who possessed the Holy Land That which was decreed upon this Article was That the Crusade should be preached in all places That those who had already taken upon them the Cross and had not accomplished their Vow should be constrained by the Prelates to take it up upon pain of Excommunication That the Ancient Crusades and those who should take it up anew should at a certain time and place to be appointed repair to the Pope to receive his Benediction That there should be either a Peace or a Truce for four years among all the Christian Princes That during all that time there should be no publick Turnaments or Tiltings held That the Lords of the Crusade should retrench all manner of Superfluity and Vain Magnificence in their train their Equipage their habits and their Tables That the Bishops should take great care to exhort their People and especially such upon whom they imposed any Pennance for their Crimes to contribute some part of their Goods to the Holy War and that they should keep an exact Register of what was thus collected That all the Ecclesiasticks should be obliged to pay for this War the twentieth part of their Revenue for three years those only excepted who took up the Cross themselves and that the Pope and the Cardinals should pay the tenth to give an example to others who might be ashamed not to follow them And in short all the Privileges granted by the Councils and by the Popes in Favour of the Crusades were confirmed and all those Punishments denounced by the Bullas and the Canons against such as enterprised any thing against the Persons or Estates of the Crusades or against such as favoured the Pyrates or carried Arms to the Infidels were also ratified And for the obtaining the aid of God Almighty it was ordered that Prayers should be made in all Churches in the Octaves of the Nativity of our Blessed Lady After this the Cause of the Emperor who had refused to appear was taken into consideration And as his Ambassador Thadeus perceived that the Sentence which was already prepared was going to be pronounced by the Pope he protested aloud against it to stop it from proceding any further crying That he appealed to a general Councel To which the Pope replyed with great Moderation That this was one that all the Prelates and Princes had been called to and that if the Bishops of Germany and some others were not present it was the Fault of his Master who had hindred them from coming On the other part Hugh Bigod William de Chanteloup and Philip Basset the Ambassadours of England who favoured Frederick the Brother-in-Law of their King whose Sister he had married to gain time presented to the Pope Letters in the Name of the whole English Nation which contained two very nice points wherein they demanded to have Justice done them and which doubtless would take up a great deal of time The first was upon what the late King John had done who in despight and contrary to all right as well as against the Inclination of all his People had they said made a Donation of England and Ireland to the Pope to have the Crown for the future held of the Holy See which they protested was wholly null and void the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury having in the name of the whole Body of the Realm opposed it The Second was a complaint to the Pope that his Legates Nuncio's and other Ministers year 1245 whom he sent into England besides the levying of the Peter-Pence made there under a thousand Pretexts such insupportable Exactions upon the People as they were resolved no longer to suffer To this Innocent who easily discovered the Artifice answered coldly That the Council being not assembled for those matters the discussion of them must be deferred till some other time wherein they might be debated more fully and with more leisure And then after having acquainted the Assembly with how much respect Honour and all the Testimonies of a sincere affection he had treated the Emperor Frederick both before and since his Pontificate and acquainted them how many times he had ineffectually endeavoured to reduce him to his Duty by mild and gentle methods he first pronounced the Sentence against him viva voce and afterwards caused it to be read by which He declared him excommunicate deprived him of the Empire and all his Realms and of all manner of Honours preheminences and Dignities for all those Crimes which are therein at large expressed absolving all his Subjects from the Oaths of Allegiance which they had taken to him and expresly prohibiting all manner of persons under pain of Excommunication to acknowledge him either as Emperor or as King or in that quality to give him either Counsel or Aid And at the same time the Bishops who held the Tapers lighted in their hands approved and confirmed the Sentence and in extinguishing them pronounced the Anathema against him After which the Pope rising from his Throne began the Te Deum with which Hymn this famous Council was concluded in which there was neither Decree nor Canon made concerning matters of Faith though there were many Heresies in those times there being nothing made but certain Regulations for the Discipline of the Church and after the Judgment which was given against Frederick the Pope decided nothing but a Politick and tender Affair of State in which all Sovereigns seemed to have a great Interest For upon occasion of this Council the Estates of Portugal being disatisfied with their King Dom Sanches whom in by reason of the weakness of his Mind they believed unfit and unable to govern they sent to Lyons the Archbishop
to him who above all others had so many powerful Reasons both Divine and Humane to oblige him to take them into his Protection The King gave him Hopes that he should in a little time receive Satisfaction in what he had proposed assuring him with all the appearances of a great Sincerity that with God's Help all should go well and that this Affair should succeed to his Contentment And in the Interim he conducted the Amhassadours to London there to attend the more particular Answer which he promised to give them after he had first according to the Custom taken the Advice of the Prelates and Lords of his Parliament upon it which he had ordered to be called against the first Sunday in Lent And accordingly he did not fail to call a Parliament where besides the great Men of England there were also present William King of Scotland and David his Brother and the Lords of that Realm which then was held of the King of England Now the Patriarch as the Pope in his Letter and himself in his Speech had done principally insisted upon the Promise which the King made when he obtained his Absolution to go in Person to the Holy Land the King consulted the Bishops and the Abbots in the Case to know whether considering the present Circumstances of his Affairs he was obliged to aquit himself of his Promise by accomplishing that part of his Penance which was imposed on him by the Pope and to which he had so solemnly obliged himself This certainly was a most nice and curious Case of Conscience and which ought in the first place to be decided in regard that if his Promise was binding there was no longer place for Deliberation and that he had but one Choice to make which was to acquit himself of it by undertaking the Voyage If he was not obliged to that Condition of his Penance then it must fall under Examination whether of these two was most Expedient either that the King should assist the Orientals without going in Person out of the Kingdom or that he should himself conduct the Succours into Palestine As for the King to shew that his Proceedings were clear and with good Faith upon the matter he would by all means that the Patriarch and the great Master should themselves Assist at the Debate while this Question was under Deliberation with full and intire Liberty there to offer what they should judge Convenient And withal he strictly required of all that assisted at that Assembly that they should faithfully give their Opinions without any sort of Complaisance to him and declare their Judgment upon their Consciences which of these two was most expedient and necessary for his Souls Health and Salvation year 1185 protesting that he was firmly resolved to put in Execution what should be determined by the Plurality of Votes in that Assembly The more severe Opinion assuredly was That the King should abide by his Word and Promise that he should accomplish the Penance which he had accepted of and that he should go in Person to the Succour of the Holy Land and this the Patriarch failed not to support with all the Reasons and Arguments which could be alledged For urged he What is there in all Civil Society which ought to be more sacred and inviolable than the Word of a mighty King Can there be any thing that ought more religiously to be observed than a Promise made upon receiving the Holy Sacrament at the Absolution given for an Offence which was granted upon the Condition of accomplishing the Penance which is accepted to satisfie God Almighty And supposing that there could be a Dispensation so as to change it to another Who could give that Dispensation or make that Exchange except the Pope who had imposed the Penance and who was so far from being willing to grant any such Dispensation that he presssed the Performance of it in the most pressing Terms and with the most terrible Menaces of the Judgments of God if the Satisfaction was longer deferred These Arguments without doubt appeared very strong Nevertheless all the Bishops and Abbots among whom there were many extraordinary knowing and very good People among others Baldwin Arch-Bishop of Canterbury a Man of most wonderful Merit concluded with one common Consent for the more mild Opinion and maintained that the King was not only not obliged at present to undertake this Voyage to Palestine but also that it was more conducing to the Health of his Soul that he should stay to govern his Dominions in regard that the Promise which he had made in accepting the Penance was not only in its own Nature dispensable but ought to be dispensed with because nothing could oblige a Prince to the prejudice of another Promise which was made before it and which was indispensable and by which the King by his Coronation Oath had obliged himself to govern his Subjects and defend them against the Attempts of all their Enemies both Foreign and Domestick which it was impossible for him to do in his Absence in a Government where his Presence could not be wanting And for what concerned one of the Sons of the King which was desired in default of the King 's going in Person they all agreed unanimously with the Lords Temporal that the Parliament had no power to determine upon it in regard they were absent and that therefore the Resolution which was to be taken upon that Matter depended absolutely upon their own Will and Pleasure And in short they judged all together that though the King had of himself a mighty desire to go this Voyage yet he ought not to undertake it without first consulting the King of France who in respect of the Estates of Normandy Guienne and other Provinces which he held in the French Monarchy was his Lord and Soveraign But that notwithstanding he might give liberty to his Subjects to take up the Cross and undertake that Voyage upon the first Occasion and that the King should advance a Sum of Money for their Support who should undertake this War who it was promised should follow shortly after This was the Resolution which was taken in the Parliament of London and with which the Patriarch Heraclius who was of a very violent Humour was so exasperated by thinking all his Hopes and Endeavours were lost that he instantly threw off all manner of Respect which was due to so great a Prince and treated him after so rude a fashion that it is impossible to excuse it under the soft name of Zeal as he endeavoured to persuade the World For the King that he might sweeten what seemed so harsh in this matter was resolved himself to remonstrate to the Ambassadours whom he sent for the Reasons which had moved the Parliament to come to that Resolution which they esteemed so prejudicial to the Hopes of their Embassage He informed them that it was the fear they had that the French with whom they never continued long in Peace would draw some
He came into France at the same time that Cardinal Henry the Bishop of Albano Legate from the Holy See arrived there And there are some Authors who assure us that Pope Clement honoured this Archbishop with the same Character and joyned him in Commission with the Cardinal to treat a Peace between the two Kings of England and France to the end they might unite in the Resolation of undertaking the War against Saladin That War which Philip the August had declared against Henry II. King of England for the Restitution of the Earldom of Vexin had been terminated by the Undertaking of Pope Vrban upon condition that the King of England as a Dependant for those Estates upon the Crown of France should in a time prefixed submit himself to the Judgment of the Court of France That Term being expired Henry not only still retained the Earldom which he was obliged to restore but also the Princess Alice the Sister of Philip who was designed to be married to Richard the Son of the King of England Philip resolved to do himself Reason for such a visible Injustice year 1188 was about to enter into Normandy with a potent Army where Henry also was expecting him with considerable Forces when the Archbishop of Tyre arrived very opportunely to suspend at least for a time the Anger of these two Princes And so it was that by the force of his Genius and his Eloquence he procured an Interview between them in a Plain between Trie and Gisors where they were used to meet when they treated one with the other The two Kings met there about the middle of January accompanied with the Princes Prelates and great Lords of both the Kingdoms And there it was that the illustrious Archbishop employed all the Power of his Eloquence and of his Wit to represent in that August Assembly The deplorable Estate into which the fatal Divisions of the Christian Princes of the East had reduced the Kingdom of Jerusalem which the first Crusades had from so many barbarous and Infidel Nations so gloriously conquered with their victorious Arms. He then remonstrated That of four puissant Estates which they had established upon the Ruins of the Mahomitan Empire and which extended the Dominions of the Christians from Cilicia to Egypt and from the Sea to the River Tygris there remained nothing to them now more than three Cities That Antioch dispairing to be able to preserve it self by its own Forces had already promised to surrender if it were not immediately relieved by those of the West That Tyre without necessary Succours was not in a condition to sustain a second Siege having in the first lost the greatest part of its Defendants That Tripolis was too weak to endure one and could no longer remain in Freedom than it pleased Saladin to present himself before it to add it to his other Conquests And that further after so lamentable a Loss as that of Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land there was great danger of losing also the very Hopes which remained to the Christians in those places from whence they might take a Beginning to re-establish the Kingdom of Christ Jesus if those two Kings the most potent of Christendom did not unite their Hearts and their Arms to run to the Relief of Christ and his Cause of whose only Grace and Goodness they held all which they did possess And in short he said upon that Subject so many pathetick things and in a manner so powerful and so touching that the two Princes whether they had in a former Conference which they had agreed this as one of the Articles of the Peace or that God in whose Hands are the Hearts of Kings to change them in a Moment by the extraordinary Working of his Power it is certain that they embraced one the other mutually in the Presence of the whole Assembly and did it with all the Marks of a perfect Reconciliation and a sincere and cordial Friendship as if there had never been any Subject of Discontent or Difference between them And at the same time might be heard on all sides the confused Voices of a Multitude of People who broak out into great Cries of Joy and from every Quarter was to be heard Long live King Philip Long live King Henry Let us go Let us go to this War against the Infidels under the Conduct of these two mighty Kings Let us deliver Jerusalem and extirpate the Enemies of Jesus Christ The Cross the Cross let it be given us the Sign of our Salvation and the Ruin of the Sarasins These Acclamations were also presently followed with that happy Success which attended the Legation of this brave Archbishop of Tyre that the two Kings first presenting themselves to receive the Cross from the hands of the Legates they were followed by Richard the Son of the King of England Duke of Guienne and Earl of Poitou who had voluntarily taken it before the Loss of Jerusalem but would now anew receive it from the hands of the Legates As also did Philip Earl of Flanders the Duke of Burgundy the Earls of Blois Dreux Champagne Perche Clermont Barr Beaumont Nevers James Lord of Avesnes and almost all the great Lords of France England and Flanders who were present at this Assembly And to distinguish the one from the other it was ordained that the French should take a Red Cross being the same they bore in the first Crusade the English a white one and the Flemmings one of Green It is said that at the same time there appeared one in Heaven bright and shining which helped to inflame the Devotion of those who took up the other as if God himself had manifestly called them to this Holy War by a sacred Signal from above And to render the Memory of so great an Action Eternal a Cross was erected and a Church built in the midst of the Field of this Conference which was ever after called The Holy Field year 1188 After this the Kings to support the Charges of this War and to prevent the Disorders which had been so injurious to the former Crusades resolved to publish these following Ordinances That all Persons who had not undertaken the Cross of what Quality soever even the Ecclesiasticks except the Chartreux the Bernardines and the Religious of Fontevraud should pay one Tenth of their Revenues and of their Moveables except their Arms their Habits Books Jewels and consecrated Vtensils and Ornaments which was afterwards called by the name of Saladin's Tenth by reason that it was raised upon the Occasion of making this War with Saladin That the Crusades should have liberty to raise a Tenth of all their Subjects who did not go to this War And that the Husbandmen who undertook to go and take the Cross without the Leave of their Lords first obtained should not be exempted from this Impost That all Interest upon Money lent should cease for all the time that the Debters were upon Service in the Holy Land That
an expert Soldier shewing more Tenderness and Goodness towards his Soldiers when he understood they were slain and in lamenting their Deaths than he used to shew to them whilst they were living He was wonderful kind to the Church-men and above all to the Bishops whom he always loved to have about him but yet not concerning himself much with their Franchises and Privileges to which he had but very little regard He was a passionate Lover of his Children but he was ever raising Differences among them one with another to prevent their falling into Quarrels with himself but this proved an unlucky Project to him and at last was the occasion that they all joyned together against him He was magnanimous and generous in his Enterprises but withal so haughtily ambitious that he was used to say that the whole Earth was not sufficient to satiate the Desires of a King like him He was equally constant in his Love and Hate which he did not easily change a great Patron of Widows Orphans of poor distressed People who were without Support of whom he took great care above all he was kind to such as had the Misfortune to be Shipwrack'd upon the English Coasts year 1189 abolishing that barbarous Custom which had long prevailed of despoiling such miscrable Persons of all that which they had saved from the Sea except their Lives which the Country People were used to call God's Goods He was a great Lover of the publick Peace and Tranquility which he maintained in his Dominion by the rigorous Justice which he caused to be dispensed to such notorious Malefactors as were found Disturbers of them so that he cleared his Estates of Thieves Robbers and Murderers He was pious and fearing God but very shy and reserved to the Church-men after the publick Penance which he did for the Death of Becket But all these Vertues which cannot without Injustice be suppressed were dishonoured by his great Vices and principally by his Impudicity and Avarice which prevailed so upon him that besides the Exactions which were very great which he imposed upon his People he ever protected the Jews dissembling his Knowledge of their Insolencies against the Christians because of the great Gain which these faithless Usurers made whereof he had a Share He would also suffer long Vacancies in the Bishopricks to the end he might enjoy their Revenues giving a very slender Reason in Excuse That it was much better for him to employ that Money for the Service of the Realm than that it should be spent in the Prodigalities of proud and pompous Trains Pleasures and Delicacies as the Bishops wasted it after the manner of the wicked World and in a way far different from the Temperance and Vertue of their Predecessors of the ancient Church But in talking at this rate he condemned himself excusing one fault by committing another far greater than that which he reproached for he usually bestowed the Revenues upon such a sort of People as by the notorious scandalous way of their living even in his own Judgment rendred themselves unworthy of them Whereas he ought rather to have taken care that those great Revenues should have been expended according to the Rules of the Church by the Nomination of good Subjects and worthy Men to those high and great Preferments And indeed he did in a great measure towards the end of his Life and Reign make a Reparation for this Errour which occasioned him much Trouble and raised many uneasie Scruples in his Soul for he nominated to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury Baldwin a Cistertian Monk a most excellent Man and to the See of Lincoln he preferred St. Hugh the Chartreux the Person of all the Prelates of his time who took the holy Liberty to represent their Failings to the Kings his Contemporaries by that marvellous Authority which by the Sanctity of his Life he had so deservedly acquired In short The great Medly of Vertues and of Vices in this King were also accompanied with that of his good and evil Fortune but with this remarkable difference that his happy State lasted thirty Years wherein he flourished in all Earthly Glory and Felicity whereas he was persecuted by his ill Destiny but for the last five Years of his Life and that too was occasioned by his invincible Wilfulness in refusing Peace upon such just and honourable Conditions as were tendred Whereby he brought upon himself that War which for two Years retarded the Effect of the Crusade in France and England so that it was begun by the Germans alone with abundance of Zeal and Courage For presently after the Conference in the Field of Gisors where the two Kings took upon them the Cross Henry Cardinal d' Albano the Pope's Legate and William Archbishop of Tyre passed into Germany to persuade the Emperor to undertake the Holy War The Emperor then reigning was the famous Frederick the first of that Name formerly Duke of Suabia who after having so gloriously assisted his Uncle Conrade in the second Crusade succeeded him in the Imperial Throne which he possessed for six and thirty Years with much Glory and Prosperity leaving throughout all Germany Poland and Italy the illustrious Marks of the greatness of his Courage his Mind his Vertues and his admirable Actions And were it possible to obliterate the deadly Remembrance of the Schism which by an unhappy Engagement he made in the Church and which he so long supported with his Arms year 1189 it might with great Justice be affirmed that his Reign ought to be esteemed as the greatest of any Prince that ever the Empire had since the Death of the celebrated Charlemain He was then about sixty and eight Years of Age of a Port extremely Majestick a Stature somewhat surpassing the middle but of a Proportion in all the Parts of his Body regular and Exact and from which his Age which did him no other Injury but to render him Venerable had not taken much of that natural Force which he had in so great a Measure and which was accompanied with an admirable Agility in all manner of Exercises The turn of his Face was very fine and the Lines delicate considering his Age his Cheeks were plump his Eye-brows large his Eyes very sweet and yet lively and piercing his Speech agreeable his Mouth smiling and his Air so engaging that to whomsoever he did the Honour but once to speak they found it impossible to defend themselves from his Charmes and he always left the Image of Majesty so deeply imprinted and graven in their Memories that it was impossible to efface it from the Mind or to prevent its being continually present to their Remembrance his Hair by reason of the Change which so many Years had brought upon it was perfect white which still seemed to add something more Venerable to his Majesty though the Natural Colour of it had been red from whence he came to acquire the Name of Barbarousse or Red beard a Name which his fair and glorious
Peace which was offered him upon Condition that the Prisoners on both sides should be set at liberty year 1213 But these Letters of the Pope produced not those Effects which he hoped and promised himself for Saphadin who had so frequently combated against the Christians knew by Experience that the Crusades would overthrow themselves if the fury of their first Efforts were but prevented and above all having the Courage the good Fortune and the Success of Saladin he was not much moved by the Remonstrances of Innocent for whom he had no great Consideration And for the other Letters which the Pope writ to all Christian People they came to nothing at last but to raise those great Disorders which had happened in the former Crusades For it happened by a strange Illusion or rather a kind of Frensy which like a Plague spread it self over all France and Germany the Youths of all sorts of Conditions taking a strong Impression in their Minds that God would make use of their Hands to deliver the Holy Sepulchre out of the Hands of the Sarasins and that he commanded them to go to Jerusalem to atchieve that high Enterprise they assembled to the number of thirty thousand in France and twenty thousand in Germany who took upon them the Cross There were many Monks and Priests who undertook to justifie this Folly by another which was greater and as if God had commanded it put themselves at the Head of these Boys and other Vagabonds who maliciously followed them to make some advantage of this Disorder and it being impossible to stop the Torrent of this furious Folly they pleasantly marched along singing and crying all together with all their power Lord Jesus bestow upon us thy Holy Cross The greatest part of those of Germany taking disserent Roads either perished miserably on the Way or were dispoiled by Thieves and Robbers Those of France who could escape to Marseilles were there miserably cheated by two Merchants whose Names were Hugh le Fer and William Porc notorious Villains who having promised to transport them into Palestine for nothing putting them on Board seven of their Ships two of the Vessels were shipwrack'd with the loss of all those poor Boys with which they were charged and for those who were upon the other sive these Traytors carried them into Egypt and there sold them for Slaves to the Sarasins It is true that God who alone can bring Good out of Evil for his Glory drew this Advantage from this great Disorder and horrible Treachery that divers of these Innocents whom the Infidels endeavoured to force to deny and renounce their Faith persisted so constantly to confess Jesus Christ for whose sake they had taken the Cross that they chose rather to be cut in pieces than to renounce their Faith and by this irregular and frantick Action came at last to obtain the Crown of Martyrdom At last the memorable Victory which Philip the August obtained against Otho who having been crowned after the Death of the Emperor Philip troubled all Europe gave the Pope the occasion to accomplish by the General Council the great Design of the Crusade which he had begun by his Letters and which the Preachers by his Orders published every where This Emperor Otho made a most cruel War against the Pope who had always been his Protector so that he was at last constrained by his extream Ingratitude to excommunicate him as also for his openly invading the Churches Patrimony seizing upon what the Holy See had received from the magnificent Liberality of the Kings of France Philip the August who besides that he hated Otho as being the Nephew of his Enemy the King of England thought himself obliged to maintain what his Predecessors had done in favour of the Holy See sailed not to declare himself for the Pope and negotiated so powerfully with divers Princes of the Empire the principal whereof were the King of Bohemia the Dukes of Austria and Bavaria the Archbishops of Treves Mayence and Cologne that they deposed this ingrateful excommunicate Prince and elected Frederick whom his Father the Emperor Henry VI. had caused to be declared King of the Romans at the Age of three Years and who was also King of Naples and Sicily in Right of the Empress Constantia his Mother He came soon after into Germany where he was received by the Princes and crowned Emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle year 1213 by Thierri Bishop of Cologne And that he might support his Right by the Arms of his Protector he came directly to Vaucouleur where after a Conference with Lewis the Son of King Philip he made a new Treaty with the King and renewed the ancient Alliance which had been between his Predecessors and the Crown of France Otho on his side who had a powerful Party in Germany believing that if he could but ruin Philip he should be able easily to manage Frederick and the Pope made a League against France with the English Ferrand de Portugal Earl of Flanders who had revolted against his Master and his Benefactor who had married him to the Heiress of Flanders year 1214 and joyned the Troops of the English and Flemmings which together with his own composed an Army of above two hundred thousand Men So that making no doubt but that he should be able to cut the French Army in pieces who were not a third part so numerous he assailed them when they least expected a Battle as they were passing the Bridge of Bovines But Philip without being dismayed at this Surprise having put himself at the Head of the Rereguard whilst the Vant-guard re-passed the Bridge sustained their first Shock and gave a Check to the Enemies till such time as the other Troops were drawn up in Battalia upon his Right and Left according to the Orders which he had given And then the French animated by the Sight the Words but much more by the Example of their King who this Day behaved himself like one of the ancient Heroes charged with so much fury every where that after having fought victoriously in all places from Noon till Night the Army of the Enemies was totally routed All the principal Captains lay stretched out at length upon the place or else were taken Prisoners Otho only excepted who escaped by the swiftness of his Horse and retreated into the Lower Saxony where about two Years after he died with Grief to see himself forsaken by all the Princes of the Empire and another Emperor generally acknowledged and received by all the Germans This great Victory of Philip and that which Prince Lewis his Son obtained almost at the same time in Poitou against the King of England having made a great Calm in the Church and the Empire the Pope who during the Wars which troubled all Europe could not assemble the Council now caused it to be called year 1215 and accordingly it was held the Year following in the famous Church of the Lateran at Rome This was the twelfth Oecumenical
Reigned in France year 1246 had gained over the Princes of the League over the Duke of Bretany the Counts of Tholouse and March and over the King of England and the Prince Richard his Brother who had indeavoured to support the Earl of March and by a pretty piece of Policy he carried along with him all the Princes and all the Great men of the Realm who might give any Suspicion or the least occasion to fear that they had either the Power the Will or the Temptation during his absence to trouble the Repose of his Dominions For of the two most mutinous Spirits of whom he had most reason to be distrustful he took one of them which was the Earl of March along with him and the other which was Raymond the Young who was Earl of Tholouse who had also taken upon him the Cross died before the Voyage leaving his Dominions to Alphonsus the King's Brother the Count of Poitiers who had married the Princess Joanna his Daughter and Heiress and the King for his greater assurance sent that Prince to establish himself in his new Dominion of Languedoc before he imbarqued himself as he afterwards did to go and joyn him in the East Moreover he deferred his Voyage for almost four Years to take the advantage of two fair occasions which presented themselves the one to reunite the County of Mascon to the Crown which he bought of the Countess who after she had distributed the money for which she sold it to the poor retired to the Nunnery of Maubuisson and there professed herself the other was to bring the County of Provence into the Royal House which had been separated from it for above three hundred Years For Raymond Berenger the Fifth of the Name and the last of the Catalonian Family who had reigned in Provence being dead the year preceeding the King knew with so much Art how to gain Romee de Villeneuve and Albert de Tarascon the Trustees and Guardians of the Princess Beatrix the remaining Daughter of the four which Count Raymond had had who was Sister to the Queen and the Heiress to the Count that he obtained her for Charles d' Anjou his Brother and without losing of time advancing towards Provence with one part of the Army which was ready for the Holy War he broke all the measures of James the King of Aragon Cousin German to the deceased Count and hindered his carrying the Princess away by force as he had designed if he could not procure her by other wayes in order to oblige her to marry his Son and by that means to retain this fair County in his Family which lay so conveniently for him During this time Lewis had all the leisure which could be reasonably desired to make his preparations and provisions year 1247 which were the greatest that ever had been seen and also to settle that Publick Peace and Tranquility which he had so happily given to all his Dominions and to assure himself on the side of England also For he prolonged the Truce which had been made with that King two or three Years before after the Victory of Taillebourg and also engaged the Pope to be the Guarranty that it should be inviolably observed as it was during all the time of his absence although the English hearing of his being taken Prisoner indeavoured to break it In short this Wise Prince neither went as the first Crusades had done by Land and thereby he avoided the dangers into which they had fallen of perishing by Famine and the miseries which attended those vast Desert Countries which were possessed by the Barbarians neither did he go with a confused Multitude of all manner of Persons and People who were to be gotten together who served for no other purpose but to put all into disorder but with a good Army consisting in betwixt thirty and forty thousand men which was such a number as the Great Alexander had when he went to the Conquest of Asia but this Army was composed for the greatest part of Gentlemen and choice Souldiers such as were capable of marching over the bellies of all that Egypt and Syria could oppose against them unless some accident should happen or some extraordinary misfortune befal them against which no humane Prudence can give any Warranty or Assurance And that which was most considerable the whole Army was absolutely at his disposal in regard that it consisted wholly of French for the King of England would not permit the Bishop of Berytus who went thither to preach the Crusade to publish it in his Dominions alledging that he stood in need of all his Subjects to defend himself against his Enemies if they should attack him year 1245 King Lewis having wisely provided all things necessary for his Voyage which he undertook in his very prime strength being about three and thirty Years of Age he had nothing further to do but to take care of the Government of his Realm in his absence and this he left to his Mother Queen Blanch the most able Woman and most capable of Governing of any of her time after which he went according to the Custom of those Ages to St. Dennis to receive the Oristame the Scarf and the Pilgrim's Staff which he did in great Solemnity for he parted from Paris upon the Friday after Whitsunday in the year 1248. accompanied with the two Princes his Brothers the Legate year 1248 and the most part of the Princes of the Crusade being preceded by all the Processions of the whole City which were followed by an infinite number of People who all in tears marched from the Palace to the Nunnery of St. Antonina singing Psalms and Letanies for the prosperity of his Voyage From thence he went by Burgundy to Lyons where he made his Entry with all manner of Magnificence for never any King was better acquainted with the Art of making his Royal Majesty most conspicuous in those Publick Ceremonies where he was minded to shew it and the Historians of that Age inform us that among other remarkable Circumstances of this Magnificent Entry there were an hundred Knights who being compleatly armed and mounted upon their great charging Horses caparisoned with their Coat Armor according to the manner of those times marched before him with their Swords drawn in their hands and this is that which our present King who in Magnificience and Grandeur surpasseth all his Predecessars hath revived in our dayes to render to the Majesty of our Kings that which St. Lewis himself as great a Saint as he was judged necessary upon some occasions for the manifesting his Lustre and his Greatness After this the Holy King having again conferred with the Pope who kept his Court at Lyons descended by the Rhone and went to take Shipping with the Queen upon the twenty fifth of August at Aigues-Mortes where the greatest part of his Fleet waited for him the remainder being at Marseilles there to take in the rest of his Army After which setting sail
moment and desolated to that degree by the Mamalukes that it became a vast solitude as it still continues to this Day So little assurance is there of any thing in this World where there needs no more but one Moment to Ruin and Destroy what hath been growing a many Ages Thus Bendoedar who found no more Enemies in the Field to give the least check to his Conquests still pushed his good Fortune forward into Syria whilest the Christians of the East divided into divers Factions seemed to combine with him for their mutual destruction And in vain were any Succours expected from the West for the Assistance which the Armenians and the Tartars came to desire against the Sarasins were always either hindred or diverted by the Quarrels which continued between the Popes and the House of Suabia and which were not to be determined but by the downfal of that Noble House to raise upon its ruines that of France which consequently took up the design of that Crusade again And it is this which I am now obliged to relate for the finishing of this History of the Crusades After the Death of Frederick the Second Pope Innocent did not fail to Excommunicate Conrade the Eldest Son of that Prince because he stiled himself Emperor against William Earl of Holland whom some German Princes who were of the Pope's Party had chosen to oppose Frederick Conrade who wanting the good qualities of his Father had all the ill ones and all the fierceness the Cruelty the insatiable desire of Revenge and the implacable hatred against the Popes entred with great Forces into Italy where he was with joy received by the Gibelins and favoured by the Venetians upon whose Shipping he passed the Gulph into Pavia and having joyned the Troops of his natural Brother Mainfrey his Lieutenant General in that Realm year 1268 he reduced under his obeysance in a short time what ever had declared for the Pope and having at last taken Naples he there executed his most cruel Vengeance by the Desolation of that fair and flourishing City This so amazed the Pope Innocent who after he had struck him with the Anathema had no other Arms to which he might have recourse to oppose him that he believed he was obliged to cause a Crusade to be published against him which without doubt did not contribute much to the Success of that which proved so unfortunate against the Sarasins And at the same time he caused the two Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily to be offered first to Charles d' Anjou who would not then accept them without the consent of the King his Brother who was then in Syria and afterwards to Richard Brother to Henry the King of England but he also refused them not thinking it was at all agreeable to Justice or a good Conscience to despoil the young Prince Henry his Nephew to whom the Emperor Frederick had left for his share the Kingdom of Sicily Whilest matters stood thus Conrade who had underhand procured the Death of this little Prince his Brother that he might have his Kingdom died himself of Poison which as it was believed was given him by his Brother Mainfrey to whom as not suspecting him Guilty of his Death Conrade left the Tuition of his Son Conradin then an Infant of the Age of three Years Innocent resolving to take advantage of his Death went and presented himself before Naples where in hatred of Conrade he was received with great Applauses Mainfrey himself being surprized also submitted to him and was received with all Civil treatment But presently after throwing himself into Nocere whither the Emperor Frederick had transplanted the Sarasins of Sicily he raised an Army and took the Field and Fortune declaring her self at first in his favour he in a Battle defeated the Army of the Pope which was Commanded by the Cardinal de Fiesque the Nephew of Innocent who being then Sick when he received this News at Naples died in a few Days after Alexander the Fourth his Successor had also the same Fortune for having Excommunicated Mainfrey this Prince who from the Example of his Father had learnt not to fear these Roman Thunderbolts Marched directly against the Pontifical Army which had taken the Field under the Conduct of Cardinal Vbald and he not being so great a Captain as his Enemy also lost a Battle which was fought between them Hereupon Mainfrey fierce with these two Victories and sure of the Favour of the Populace which always follows the strongest side caused himself to be Proclaimed King of Naples and Sicily with as much ease as he had with dexterity caused the report to be spread of the Death of the little Conradin his Nephew After which he lead his Victorious Army into the Ecclesiastick Estates where finding little resistance he seized upon the County of Fondi and his Partisans being animated by the report of his Victories the Gibelin Faction became presently the most powerful but principally in Lombardy Tuscany and even in Rome it self Alexander astonished with this Progress and fearing that he should at last fall under the Power of such a formidable Enemy had recourse to the King of England and following the Example of Innocent he offered him the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily for his Son Edmund to whom he also sent the Investiture of them and to oblige that King to undertake the enterprise he absolved him from the Vow which he had made in taking the Cross to be of the Crusade against the Sarasins in the East by changing it into that which he caused to be Preached every where against Mainfrey Also fearing lest the Partisans of the House of Suabia should place Conradin upon the Imperial Throne in the room of Count William who had been slain in the War against the Frieslanders he sent Prohibitions to all the Electors requiring them under pain of Excommunication not to chuse that young Prince But all this which signified just nothing against Mainfrey did a World of mischief to the Crusade which was designed against the Sarasins The Parliament which the King of England had called at London upon the subject of the Neopolitan War would give the King no Money and afterwards all the great Men of the Realm happening to be Embroiled with the Royal House this Project of the Pope's did not Succeed And for Germany one part of the Princes having chosen for their Emperor Alphonso King of Castile and the other Richard Earl of Cornwall year 1268 Brother to the King of England there arose a Schism in the Empire which occasioned mighty Troubles and Disorders there So that Italy Spain England and Germany having so many troublesome Affairs upon their hands there remained only France in a condition to serve the Holy See to any purpose in this occasion and all Christendom indeed against the Infidels For this reason therefore Vrban the fourth the Successor of Pope Alexander having again vainly tried the way of a Crusade against Mainfrey which for want of
Fable touching the pawning of the Holy Eucharist to the Sarasins by the King Lewis His deliverance and admirable Fidelity to his Promise and the perfidiousness of the Egyptians BOOK III. The General Consternation all over France upon the News of the King's Imprisonment the Tumult the Shepherds their Original their Disorders and Defeat St. Lewis after his deliverance performs his Articles with great Justice The Admirals fail on their part The Original of the Hospital of the Fifteen Score The Councel debates the matter of the King's return The Reasons on the one side and the other It is at last concluded for his stay in Palestine Four Famous embassages to St. Lewis from Pope Innocent from the Sultan of Damascus from the Ancient of the Mountain and from the Emperor Frederick The Death of that Emperor and the different Opinions thereupon An Error of St. Lewis who loseth a fair opportunity of making use of one Party of the Sarasins to ruin the other The Election of a Mamaluke Sultan The gallant Actions of St. Lewis in Palestine The Death of Queen Blanch and the return of the King into France The Rupture and War between the Venetians and Genoese occasions the loss of the Holy Land The Conquests of Haulon Brother to the great Cham stops the Progress of the Sarasins The Relation of the Mamaluke Sultans They vanquish the Tartars which ravage Palestine The Character of Sultan Bendocdar the great Enemy of the Christians His Conquests upon them His Cruelty and the Glorious Martyrdom of the Souldiers of the Garrison of Sephet and of two Cordeliers and a Commander of the Temple The taking and Destruction of Antioch by this Sultan The quarrels between the Popes and the Princes of the House of Suabia obstruct the Succours of the West The Histories of Pope Innocent and the Emperor Conrade of Pope Alexander and Mainfrey against whom he vainly publishes Crusades The History of Charles d' Anjou to whom Pope Urban the Successor of Alexander and Pope Clement the Fourth give the Realms of Naples and Sicily as Fieffs escheated to the Church by Felony His Exploits his Battles and his Victories over Mainfrey and Conradin The deplorable Death of that young Prince The Victories of Charles cause the Pope and St. Lewis to entertain a Design for a new Crusade An Assembly at Paris about that Affair where the King the Princes and Lords take upon them the Cross All other Nations decline the Crusade The Collusion of the Emperor Michael Paleologus The Condition of the King's Army The Resolution taken to Attack Tunis and the Reasons wherefore The Description of Tunis and Carthage The taking of the Port the Tower and the Castle of Carthage The Malady makes great Destruction in the King's Army His Death Elogy and Character The Arrival of Charles King of Sicily The Exploits of the Army The Treaty of Peace with the King of Tunis who becomes Tributary to Charles The return of the two Kings their Fleet is horribly beaten by a Tempest Prince Edward of England saved his Vow to go to the Holy Land His Voyage his Exploits and his return The vain indeavours of Pope Gregory the Tenth for a new Crusade The second Council of Lyons The last causes of the loss of the Holy Land The quarrel among the Christian Princes for the Succession to the Kingdom of Jerusalem The Death of Bendocdar The defeat of his Successor by the Tartars The hopes of the recovery of all Palestine by the Arms of King Charles of Anjon ruined by the sad accident of the Sicilian Vespers The new division among the Princes and the Progress of the Mamaluke Sultans The Relation of the lamentable Siege and the taking of Acre by these Barbarians All the other places are lost and the Christians of the West wholly driven out of Palestine and Syria The vain and fruitless attempts which have since been made to renew the Crusades THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The greatness of the Subject of the ensuing History The newness and advantage of it The Original of the Turks and their Conquest in Asia from the Sarasens The Conference of Peter the Hermite with the Patriarch of Jerusalem The Description of the Hermite His Negotiation with Pope Urban the Second and his Preaching the Crusade The Relation of the Council of Placentia that of the Council of Clermond The horrible Disorders occasioned by the little Wars between private Persons which were tolerated in those times and which were regulated by the Canon of the Peace and the Truce Aymar de Monteil Bishop of Pavia Legate of the Pope for the Crusade The prodigious number of those who took upon them the Cross and the Disorders that insued The Names of the Princes of the Crusade An account of Duke Godfrey and his Character He sends Peter the Hermite before him A Description of the Conduct and manner of living of this Solitary He divides his Army into two Bodies The Disorder and Ruin of the first under Gautier Monyless The greater Disorder and ill Fortune of the second commanded by Peter himself The Defeat of two other Armies of Crusades conducted by a Priest Godescalc and Count Emico their overthrow by the Hungarians The Conference of Peter the Hermite with the Emperor Alexis The Character Conduct and secret designs of that Prince and the reasons of his perfidiousness The passage of the Hermites Army into Asia and the continuance of their disorders The Italians and Germans separate from the French The first overthrown by young Soliman Sultan of Nice The first Battle of Nice where the other part are overthrown also by Soliman The Voyage of Godfrey of Bullen and the Princes that accompanied him The Voyage of Hugh the Great and the Princes that followed him his Character Conduct and Imprisonment by the Greek Emperor The War of Godfrey against Alexis The Extremity to which the Emperor is reduced and the Treaty concluded between him and the Princes The Relation of the Conquests and Settlement of the Normans in Italy The Voyage of Bohemond Prince of Tarentum and the Princes that went along with him The Voyage of Raymond de Tholose of Aymar de Monteil Bishop of Pavia and the other Princes and Lords which accompanied them The Character of that Earl his Conference with the Emperor and the Treachery of that Prince The Voyage of Robert Duke of Normandy his Character and Treaty with the Emperor IF ever any Undertaking were capable of possessing the Historian with a just fear of defeating the mighty Expectation of his Reader most assuredly it may be apprehended in attempting the Design of relating the ensuing History of the Crusade And indeed amidst all the most extraordinary Revolutions which may be found either in the Establishment of New or the Ruine of the Ancient Monarchies one shall difficultly meet with any thing more memorable and whether we
the Knights which are the prime Nobility possess great Estates under the Authority of the Great Master of the Teutonick Order But whilest these Military Orders began thus much about the same time to Establish themselves by little and little in Jerusalem that of the Hospitallers both Ancient and Modern which one may say were the Model of the others made a great Progress in Palestine and became of great Consideration by the great Services which it Performed both in Peace and War and upon this Account both the number of Pilgrims as also of Soldiers and Gentlemen who entred into that Order increasing daily St. Gerard the Provincial of the Isle of Martigues who was Master of the Hospitallers when Jerusalem was taken from the Sarasens built about the Year 1112. a third Hospital giving it the Name of St. John Baptist and there placed his new Knights who a little time after began to form the Design of following a Conduct and Manner of Living more Austere and more Perfect than that of the old Fraternity And indeed when after the Death of Gerard Fryer Bryan Roger was chosen by plurality of Voices to be the Great Master of the Hospitallers these new Knights of the third Erection of St. John Baptist persisting in their first Resolution of Living in greater Perfection would needs Imitate the Knights-Templers and add to their other Vows that of Chastity they separated from the Ancient Hospitallers and chose for their Master Fryer Raymond of Pavia a Gentleman of Dauphiny who drew up for them new Constitutions full of solid Christian Piety which may be seen in the Book of the Statutes of that Order with the Approbation of Pope Calixtus the Second in the Year 1123. as also the Priviledges which have been granted to them by forty eight Soveraign Popes After which time to distinguish themselves from the other they called themselves the Knights of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and wore a white Cross of eight Angles upon a black Habit. This is that famous Order which contrary to what usually happens to other Establishments hath daily Increased for above this five hundred Years Advancing to the supreme Elevation of Splendor and Glory wherein it appears at this very Day That Order I say which in all times hath had the Honor to have its Commanders and Knights of all that is Brave and Generous among the Nobility of all Europe and above all those Princes who have been most Remarkable and more distinguished by the Greatness of their Merit than by their Illustrious Names or Birth that Order in short which under the Celebrated Names of Rhodes and Maltha hath filled the Earth the Sea and all the Corners of our World with the glorious Trophics of an infinite number of Victories which they have Obtained against the Turks As for the ancient Hospitallers who were thus separated from these New ones with whom they formerly made up one Order under one great Master they still retained their ancient Name of St. Lazarus they added to the Habits of their Knights a green Cross to distinguish them from the others and maintained themselves within the Limits of their first Institution which allowing of Marriage consisted of three principal Vows of Charity to withdraw themselves from the World to the Service of the Infirm and Leprous of Chastity either in a single or conjugal State and of Obedience to their great Master and above all to be continually ready to Fight against the Infidels and the Enemies of the Church They also performed after this very signal Services in Palestine year 1119 which obliged the Kings Fulk Amaurus Baldwin the Third and Fourth and the Queens Melisantha and Theodora to take them into their particular Protection and to honor them with many Marks of their Royal Bounty the precious Testimonies whereof they do to this day preserve in their Treasury It was for this Cause that the young King Lewis at his Return from the Holy Land brought with him some of them into France there to Exercise their charitable Functions and to this purpose gave them the Supervising of all the Operations of the Infirmaries within his Realm as also the Castle of Boni near Orleans to be the principal House and chief Residence of their Order on this side the Sea as appears by his Letters Patents of the Year 1154. Signed by the Chancellor Huges in the Presence of the Constable Matthew de Montmorency which was Confirmed to them by Philip Augustus in the Year 1208 who also granted them great Priviledges and Immunities which have since been Augmented and solemnly Confirmed by twelve of our Kings of France In process of time the Order extended it self by Degrees through all Europe but principally in France England Scotland Germany Hungary Savoy Sicily Pavia Calabria Campania in Italy where the Emperor Frederick the Second gave them great Possessions in the Year 1225 which was also confirmed to them afterwards by the Bulla's of many Popes It was in that flourishing Estate wherein this Order was in Europe under this Emperor and under the King St. Lewis that the Pope Honorius the Third Approved it and Confirmed it anew giving it the Rule of St. Augustin with many great Priviledges which were also afterwards Augmented by the Bulla's of Pope Gregory the Ninth Alexander the Fourth Clement the Fourth Nicholas the Third Gregory the Tenth and John the Twenty second and many other Soveraign Popes who granted to them the same Favours which were Enjoyed by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem by which they were impowred to hold Estates given either by particular Persons or Bodies Politick and Corporate and all the Hospitals and Infirmaries with their Goods and Possessions which at any time belonged to this Order In the time that the Affairs of the Christians were almost become Desperate in the East after the Return of St. Lewis from his Voyage to the Holy Land the great Master of St. Lazarus with the greatest part of the Knights came to settle themselves in France where this devout King who took this Order into his Royal Protection and gave them of his Bounty a thousand Marks besides other Favours which he conferred on them became in a manner a new Founder and in effect it is most certain as appears by most authentick Acts that after this time the principal Seat of the Order of St. Lazarus as well on this as the other side of the Sea hath always been kept at their Castle of Boni where the general Chapter of the Order ought to be kept once every three Years and that the Kings of France have always been the Conservators and Patrons of the Order and have nominated and appointed the great Master That these great Masters have Exercised their Jurisdictions upon all the Knights of the Order in all the States of Christendom as the Generals of the Cistertians Premonstratenses and other Orders which at present are in France Exercise theirs over all the Religious of other Realms It
upon which he embarked the two Queens with the greatest part of his Forces who not long after happily arrived in England And about the beginning of October he also departed with the Displeasure of having on one side concluded a Truce most inglorious and disadvantageous to the Christians and on the other with the Honour and Pleasure at his parting to have bestowed two Kingdoms that of Jerusalem which was a very piteous one but yet a Kingdom upon the Count de Champagne his Nephew and that of Cyprus which he had conquered upon Guy de Lusignan in which House it continued two hundred and eighty Years Thus it was that King Richard left the Holy Land with a Promise to these two Princes that upon the Expiration of the Truce he would return with more powerful Forces and to persuade the World that this Resolution of his was in serious Earnest he continued still to wear the Pilgrim's Cross upon his Habit. As for the rest his natural Impatience and Temerity made him commit two mighty Faults which rendred his Return very unfortunate For first Whereas he ought to have embarked himself like a great King upon a gallant Fleet that so he might return with Security and the same Magnificence with which he came he satisfied himself with one great Ship in which he might easily by Sea have fallen either into the hands of Enemies or Pyrates and after that when he was at Corsu perceiving that his Vessel was a Slug and made no Way he threw himself for the more Expedition into a Galliot and was by Tempest driven into the Gulph of Venice where he was shipwrack'd between that place and the City Aquilea and having run a thousand Dangers in crossing through Germany in Disguise year 1193 the greatest part of his Followers being taken Prisoners by the Germans who pursued him and laid all the Passages for him he was at last discovered near Vienna by the Subjects of the Duke of Austria his mortal Enemy who made him Prisoner and treated him with sufficient Inhumanity in Revenge of the old Quarrel before Acre and after some time he delivered him into the hands of the Emperor Henry VI. This Prince to cover his abominable Avarice which made him so unjustly detain this King only to draw a great Ransom from him made his publick Pretence that all this was to do Reason for what Richard had done to his Prejudice in Sicily and for the Assassinate of the Marquis of Montferrat and those other Crimes of which he had been accused in Palestine But Richard who was naturally cloquent in a full Diet before the Princes of the Empire at Spire made his Innocence so evidently appear that the whole Assembly was moved for him even to Tears and intreated the Emperor that for the future he might be treated like a King which the Emperor more out of Shame than Honour consented to Pope Celestin also sollicited by the Letters of Queen Eleonor which were all in the Style of Peter de Blois who writ them and by the Prayers and Intreaties of Gautier Archbishop of Roan and the Bishops of Normandy who upon this occasion manifested great Ardor and Affection for the Service of King Richard did all that he possibly could to obtain his Liberty He proceeded so far as to denounce the Anathema against the Duke of Austria for daring to make a Prisoner of a Pilgrim expresly contrary to an Article of the Crusade which denounces Excommunication against such as should attempt any thing either against the Persons or Estates of such as had taken upon them the Cross He also menaced the Emperor to interdict all his Dominions if he did not presently release this prince who came to employ his Blood and his Fortune against the Infidels and over whom he could pretend no sort of Right But this had very little Effect upon the Germans who for a long time had been accustomed to be in no pain for the Thunders of Rome For notwithstanding all these Menaces year 1194 poor Richard could not be set at Liberty till after above a Years Imprisonment he payed a hundred thousand Marks in Silver before his Releasment and left fifty Hostages among which was the Archbishop of Roan for the Payment of fifty thousand Marks more of which the Duke of Austria was to have twenty thousand and the third part of the hundred thousand already received by the Emperor So that to raise this Sum all England was taxed and even the Chalices and consecrated Vessels were forced to be melted down and coyned So far was this Prince who was falsly accused to have sold Palestine to Saladin from making any Advantage of the Crusade that it is most certain that in this Expedition he spent an immense Treasure to the great Impoverishment of himself and his whole Realm But as he had not made this Treaty but whilst he was under a Force and Violence therefore so soon as he was returned into England he sent his Ambassadors to the Pope to demand Justice from him He desired of him that since by virtue of the Protection of the Holy See it was promised to all the Crusade that their Persons and Estates should be free from Injuries during the whole time of their Pilgrimage that he would by all sorts of Canonical Ways compel the Emperor and the Duke of Austria to set at liberty his Hostages to restore the Money which they had so unjustly exacted from him and to make him Satisfaction for the cruel Injury which they had done him contrary to all the Laws both Humane and Divine Celestin who saw that the Treaty of the Crusade which was universally received and confirmed without Contradiction was manifestly infringed in this great Article could not refuse to do him Justice He therefore according to the Canons caused these two Princes to be three several times admonished to make Satisfaction in these Particulars and seeing that they persisted obstinately to deride his Threatnings he did anew denounce the Anathema of the Church first against Leopold and then against the Emperor with all the usual Solemnities The Duke hereupon became more obstinate and was so far transported as to threaten the Hostages which he had with Death But it was not long before all the World believed that those terrible Scourges with which the Duke was chastised and that deplorable Accident which befel him year 1193 were the evident Effects of the Anger and Justice of God Almighty who would punish his Obstinacy in this World that so he might find Mercy in the next And in truth besides that many of his Cities were destroyed either by Fire from Heaven or by the Waters of the Danubius which drowned the greatest part of his Country in which Plague and Famine made a horrible Ravage one Day when he had made a magnificent Entertainment at Gretz to celebrate his Birth-day his Horse falling upon him broke his Leg after which a Fire in such furious manner seized upon the Part that unable
to endure the violence of the pain of that terrible Inflammation he caused it to be cut off but the Inflammation of whose Nature the Physicians were wholly ignorant mounted from his Leg to his Thigh and from his Thigh expanding its Flame through his whole Body he then acknowledged that it was the Hand of God which was upon him confessed his Fault delivered the Hostages of King Richard became a Penitent received Absolution from the Bishops and died in the Peace of the Church after he had by his last Will and Testament ordered Restitution to be made to Richard King of England of all the Money which he had received from him But it is commonly to be observed that these kind of Restitutions with which dying Persons charge their Executors are rarely discharged by the Living And Pope Innocent III. who succeeded Celestin had not a little trouble with the Successors of Leopold when he endeavoured to oblige them to the Performance of that part of his Will the difficulty of Restitution persuading them against the Justice of it But as to any thing further it is to be observed that neither this Leopold nor his Successors of whom I discourse were at all related to those Princes who at present possess the Title of Austria that Family which about a hundred Years after entred into the House of Hapsbourg being descended from the House of Alsatia from which that August Family which now bears the name of the House of Austria derives its Original In this time the Affairs of the Christians of the East remained in great Tranquility in reference to the Sarasins who willingly maintained a Truce which was so extreamly advantageous to them and which gave them reason to hope that in a small time they should become Masters of all the Remainder of Syria But they happened to be something embroiled by a kind of Civil War which was like to break out by the Treachery of Bohemond the third of that Name Prince of Antioch For being a Man of great Ambition little Prudence and less Power to support it he had recourse to unworthy Artifices and Cheats which he made use of to oppress the Armenian Princes his Neighbours whose Power and Greatness which increased every day gave him a troublesom Jealousie He had by these Cowardly ways made Rupin of the Mountain his Prisoner upon pretext of a Conference and thought to have done the same to Livon who did not only succeed in the Power of his Brother Rupin but was also more successful and augmented that Power by the taking of divers places from Bohemond This Prince after he had made an Accommodation with him thought to have surprized him also in the same manner and having sent to him to desire an Interview in a certain place he resolved there to seize upon him and make him his Prisoner But Livon who followed the Maxim of those who hold That one ought never to trust a Man who hath once violated his Faith came to the place appointed strongly guarded with a great number of brave Men whom he placed in Ambuscade in a place at a convenient distance from the place of Meeting and then advancing only accompanied with two Persons according as it was concluded between them perceiving by the Company which Bohemond had with him the Treachery which was intended he gave the Signal to his People who immediately came pouring in upon Bohemond and surprized him putting him into the hands of Prince Livon who carried him Prisoner into his Dominions Count Henry who saw well that this Quarrel must necessarily divide all the Christians of the East went himself into Armenia where he was by Livon received with all the Respect imaginable but with a strong Resolution nevertheless to draw all the Advantage he could possibly from his good Fortune as indeed he did For the Count so well managed the Spirit of Bohemond year 1195 that to re-gain his Liberty which he made him understand was never to be obtained but upon these Terms he at last consented that Prince Raymond his Son should marry the Princess Alice the Daughter of Rupin and Neice to Livon That Livon should hold all the Places which he had conquered in the Principality of Antioch and that for the future that Principality should do Homage to Armenia After which Livon by the Consent of Count Henry took upon him the Title of King of Armenia which was afterwards confirmed to him by the Pope and the Emperor It is most certain that the Sarasins might have drawn extraordinary Advantages from these Divisions which began to arise among the Christians but the Divine Providence averted that Misfortune by the Revolution which happened in the Empire of the Infidels by the Decease of Saladin who amidst these Actions died at Damascus after he had tamed all the Rebels on this side Euphrates He was certainly a Prince notwithstanding all the Sarasin he had about him who was possessed of Vertues and Qualities which might well be compared with those of the most famous Conquerors of Antiquity and who after having performed a thousand noble Actions in his Life did one at his Death which ought to be received by Posterity as a most admirable Lecture of the Vanity of all Earthly Pomp and Glory For some Moments before his Death calling for him who used to carry his Banner before him in all his Battles he commanded him to tie to the Top of a Lance a Linen Shrowd in which he was to be wrap'd at his Interment and displaying it as being the Standard of Death which triumphed over so great a Prince to make this Proclamation This is all which the great Saladin Vanquisher and Master of the Empire of the East must carry with him out of the World of all the Treasures and the Glory which he hath acquired by so many mighty Conquests A rare Spectacle and most worthy to be eternally regarded by the greatest Kings who from hence may see and know that though their Birth and Fortune have elevated them above the Level of Mankind yet Death which will one day equal them with the meanest of their Subjects will strip them of all the Pomp and Grandure of this World and that nothing but the Riches of the Soul and the Glories of their Vertue will distinguish them from others in the Life to come As to the rest This great Prince who by the Obligations of his Birth and the Policy of State upon which his Interest and his Fortune depended had during his Life made publick Profession of Mahometanism at his Death seemed not so very well satisfied of the Truth of that Sect for after he had disposed of his Dominions in favour of his Children he divided all his Personal Estate into three Parts which he ordered to be equally distributed among the poor Sarasins Jews and Christians which should be found in all his Dominions And this he did with an Imagination that at his Death he having these three Strings to his Bow though two
Division arose between the Orientals and the Germans who now began to perceive that they were betrayed so that separating from the Templers and Hospitallers whom they left at Piolemais resolving to have nothing further to do with such base and infamous Traitors they drew off to Jaffa to preserve that place which they had fortified and to defend it against Saphadin who threatned to besiege it And in truth that Sultan that he might make his Advantage of this Disorder among the Christians after having made them raise the Siege of Thoron took that Resolution and came to Incamp in view of Jaffa almost at the same time that the German Army arrived there Now as it was very much weakned by the Fatigues of a long Siege and by the Retreat of the Orientals who had separated from the Germans they durst not adventure upon a Battle but satisfied themselves with molesting the Sarasins by continual Skirmishes wherein they generally had the Advantage And particularly one time having drawn the Sarasins into a great Ambuscade which they had laid for them they cut in pieces the greatest part of their Army but this cost the Life of the brave Duke of Saxony who was slain upon the Place and of Frederick Duke of Austria who died the night following of a Wound which he received in Combating against the Lieutenant of Saphadin whom he overthrew dead upon the Place with the stroak of his Lance. Such a considerable Victory gave some room to hope that in a little time they might become Conquerors and that they might happily Re-establish the Affairs of the East but the unhappy News which arrived while these Matters were in Agitation from the West caused all these blooming Hopes to wither in a Moment together with the Reinforcements which the Princes of the Crusade expected which obliged them instantly to return into Germany where all was in a Flame of War for the Reason which I am about to relate The Emperor Henry the VI. who had so cruelly treated the Norman Princes in the Realms of Naples and Sicily died a little before at Messina in the Month of September of the preceeding Year either with the Regret which he had to submit to those shameful Conditions imposed upon him by the Empress Constantia his Wife who with the Assistance of the Sicilians had surprized and besieged him in a Castle from whence it was impossible for him to escape or as some suspected but with more malignity than Probability of Poison which that Princess who for his proud and cruel Humor hated him had caused to be given him Now he knowing that he had formerly been Excommunicated by the Pope for his unjust Imprisonment of Richard King of England in his Return from the Crusade when he came to die he manifested great Sorrow for the same He also sent to that King that so he might make him some sort of Satisfaction by the acknowledgment of his Offence and by his last Will he obliged his Heirs to make Restitution of the Money which he had so unjustly exacted from him for his Ransom and in case of failure he desired the Pope to employ all his Power to see it performed Great Weakness of Princes who cannot resolve to make Restitution while they live of what they believe themselves unjustly possessed when they come to die or to think they discharge themselves sufficiently by charging it upon their Successors who commonly are of the same Temper and not troubled with these Sucruples till they come to die where it is not very difficult to make fruitless Orders which rarely oblige the Living who may be supposed after their Example will detain it as long as they live and then only relinquish it when they leave the World and can hold it no longer This unhappy Prince died in the very prime of his Age being about two and thirty Years old and when he was upon the point of putting in Execution those great Designs which he had formed against the Greek Emperor whom he had compelled by the only Terror of his Armes and Name year 1198 to pay him a great Tribute for the Provinces which William King of Sicily had formerly conquered from the Greeks and which they had recovered during the Troubles of Italy He was of a middle Stature having a weak Constitution and a lean Body his Face was handsome enough but something too Meagre his Complexion was delicate and very fair his Head not altogether large enough for the Proportion of the other parts of his Body which were well made and fit for all manner of Exercises in which he was very dextrous either on foot or horsback he was an excessive lover of Hunting Walking and Field Sports and therefore he chose the Country rather than the City for his usual Residence and it was very seldom that he repaired to the City unless it were to shew his Magnificence in the Spectacles and publick Sports or Festivals which he loved to make with great Magnificence and even Vanity This nevertheless did not in the least hinder his applying himself to publick Affairs or acting upon all Occasions with abundance of Vigor Prudence and Resolution for he had a Spirit lively penetrating cultivated by Study and supported by an Eloquence Easy and Natural a Judgment solid a Soul great and enterprizing and a Heart truly generous But all these noble Qualities were dishonoured by his Avarice his Violence and Injustice his extreme Ambition and above all by his insupportable Humor his herce and insatiable desire of Revenge and his barbarous Cruelty which rendered him odious to his own Wife by whom he held the Realms or Naples and Sicily which made her conspire against him thereby to stop the horrible Inundation of his Hatred and Fury He left only one Son about three Years of Age whose Name was Frederick as was his Grandfather and who afterwards was Emperor He had caused him from his Cradle to be recognised for his Successor to the Empire but the Princes and Estates notwithstanding their Oath being on one hand resolved to have an Emperor who was able to manage the publick Affairs and on the other hand not being able to agree among themselves upon whom to fix the Choise there arose a most furious Schism among them in which some of them chose Philip of Suabia Brother of the deceased Emperor others elected Otho the Brother of Henry Duke of Saxony and both the one and the other took Arms to support and defend their Emperor This raised great Troubles and War not only in Germany but all Europe by the different Interests of the several Princes who believed themselves obliged to joyn upon this Occasion with each Party Richard King of England joyned with Otho his Nephew the Son of his Sister to whom he had given the Earldome of Poitiers Philip the August who took the opposite part to the English declared himself for Philip and the Pope on the contrary who believed that the House of Suabia whose Princes
of Braganza and the Bishop of Conimbra to request from the Pope that he would permit them to place upon the Throne his Brother Prince Alphonso who was his presumptive Heir and who possessed all the admirable Qualities which could be desired in a King Innocent who understood that an action of this nature might produce very dangerous Consequences would by no means consent to what they desired yet nevertheless he was willing that Alphonso should govern in the room of the King to whom he ordered that they should give a sufficient allowance for the support of his Royal Dignity in what ever place he should chuse for his retreat But the most of the Governours of places would not at all consent to this Change which they did not believe to appertain to the spiritual Jurisdiction to which the Popes in Virtue of their Authority derived from Jesus Christ either ought to pretend or had any Right to determine And consequently they refused absolutely to receive Alphonso contrary to the Oath which they had taken to the King And the Action which was done upon this occasion by the generous Martin Flecho Governour of the Castle of Conimbra deserves the commendation of all Posterity This brave man having maintained the Siege against Alphonso with so much constancy that having spent all their Provisions he and the Soldiers were reduced to feed upon Hides and the Coverings of Trunks at length a Message was sent to him that now he might surrender the place and yet save his Honour by reason that Dom Sanches the King was dead at Toledo without Issue he desired a Truce for so many days as was necessary for him to go thither and return back again which being granted he took Post and so soon as he came thither he caused the Tomb of the King his Master to be opened in the Presence of a Publick Notary and Witnesses and seeing that he was really dead he put the Keys of the Castle with which that Prince had intrusted him into his hands and had it recorded And then returning within the Term which he had demanded he set open the Gates to receive his new King leaving to all Subjects an Illustrious Example of that Inviolable Fidelity which they owe to their Soveraigns and a fair Copy for all Soldiers to shew them in what manner they ought to defend a place they are instrusted with that so they may answer the expectation of their King who hath done them the Honour to commit it to their keeping year 1245 Mean time the Council being thus ended with the Condemnation of Frederick that Prince who was then at Turin conceived at it an extreme grief mixed with Fury Choler and Contempt which he manifested by a most surprizing Action For causing his Crown to be brought to him he put it upon his Head and then addressing himself to those about him This Crown said he which you now see upon my head is not to be disposed of or lost by the Decrees of the Pope or Council there must be other kind of Arms employed to take it from me and there will be whole Rivers of Blood let out before that be done And thereupon he writ to all the Kings and Princes of Christendom large Letters in which he answered in Order to every particular point of the Sentence shewing the nullity of it by all the reasons which could be drawn either from Law or Fact and above all he endeavoured to interest all Kings in his Cause which he said was the Common Cause of all Soveraigns He protested that he did in this occasion defend not only his particular but all their Rights in maintaining as he did That though those Crimes which were falsely objected against him and those which might be objected against any other Princes were undoubtedly true yet neither Popes nor Councils had any manner of Right to punish them by depriving them of the least part of their Temporal Rights over which Jesus Christ had not given them any manner of Power and consequently did not in any way appertain to them to concern themselves about Adding further that as he was not the first Prince in whom ambitious and medling Popes had endeavoured to depose and dispossess of their Crowns so he should not be the last unless all Kings would joyn with him to oppose an Usurpation so dangerous and prejudicial to the Rights of all Crowned Heads who for their Temporal Dignities depended upon no other except God alone He remonstrated to them that according to his observation the source and Spring of all this disorder was the overgrown Temporal power of the Church and so far was he from retracting what he had been accused for in the Council to have said that it was necessary to reduce the Ecclesiasticks to the condition wherein they were in the Primitive Church that he took God to Witness that this was his Intention and to begin with the greatest and the richest and that this was certainly a work of great Charity to take from them those great Riches which were the Cause of all their disorders and to reduce them to that State of happy Poverty which rendred their Predecessors like to the Apostles by doing of Miracles and not thinking to triumph like Kings but by their Sanctity and the holiness of their Lives and Doctrine imitating and submitting themselves to Jesus Christ And in short he exhorted all Princes to join with him to take from the Ecclesiasticks of what quality soever all that was superfluous to the end that contenting themselves with a little they might have the greater Liberty to serve God the better I must needs say that there are many things to be answered to this design of Frederick and that it is easie to oppose it with many invincible reasons But this shall not hinder me here from making one little remark which so far as I believe hath never been made by any Person and which may be of use to such as apply themselves to reading of History Matthew Pariso an English man and a Monk of St. Albans a rich Abby in England who writ in those times declares himself openly upon all occasions for Frederick whom he praiseth rather with the Affectation of an Orator than the Modesty of an Historian and does so eternally exclaim against the Popes whose conduct he blames in a Manner which is displeasing even to those who are not too favourable to the Holy See but in this place he turns his Stile on the suddain and his own Pittance coming to be touched in the Revenue of his Monastry which according to Frederick's Design was to be retrenched he declames fearfully against this Emperor saying that by his writing at this rate he lost all the Reputation which he had acquired of being a Wise and Prudent Prince and rendred himself extremely suspected of Heresie This makes it evident that an interrested Writer changeth his opinion not only according to the Nature and Quality of the Persons which are changed but
and that he would dispense with this Article of their Rule from which they could every day dispense with themselves in other points that were much more Essential For the Lord Joinville who executed his Orders most punctually going into one of their Gallies with a good Hatchet which he had already lifted up to break open one of their strong Coffers in the name of the King the Marshal of the Temple who found that he would be obeyed caused the Keys to be given him and thereupon he took out what Money he pleased and the King who was very well satisfied with the Action instantly caused to be paid to the Sarasins not only the thirty thousand Livres which was wanting of the Sum which was due but also ten thousand more of which they had cheated themselves without perceiving it in weighing the Money in their Scales So exact was this incomparable Prince religiously to observe his Word and Faith even to those who had none themselves and who had so brutally violated that which they had given him with so many horrible Oaths After which the Count de Poitiers whom the Sarasins set at Liberty being come up to the Road which Philip Count de Montfort where the King who after the Money was paid was now gotten and staid for them they set Sail and in a few Days came happily to an Anchor in the Port of Ptolemais where this great Prince was received with as much Joy for his deliverance as there had been sorrow for his Captivity THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART IV. BOOK III. The CONTENTS of the Third Book The General Consternation all over France upon the News of the King's Imprisonment the Tumult the Shepherds their Original their Disorders and Defeat St. Lewis after his deliverance performs his Articles with great Justice The Admirals fail on their part The Original of the Hospital of the Fifteen Score The Councel debates the matter of the King's return The Reasons on the one side and the other It is at last concluded for his stay in Palestine Four Famous Ambassages to St. Lewis from Pope Innocent from the Sultan of Damascus from the Ancient of the Mountain and from the Emperor Frederick The Death of that Emperor and the different Opinions thereupon An Error of St. Lewis who loseth a fair opportunity of making use of one Party of the Sarasins to ruin the other The Election of a Mamaluke Sultan The gallant Actions of St. Lewis in Palestine The Death of Queen Blanch and the return of the King into France The Rupture and War between the Venetians and Genoese occasions the loss of the Holy Land The Conquests of Haulon Brother to the great Cham stops the Progress of the Sarasins The Relation of the Mamaluke Sultans They vanquish the Tartars which ravage Palestine The Character of Sultan Bendocdar the great Enemy of the Christians His Conquests upon them His Cruelty and the Glorious Martyrdom of the Souldiers of the Garrison of Sephet and of two Cordeliers and a Commander of the Temple The taking and Destruction of Antioch by this Sultan The quarrels between the Popes and the Princes of the House of Suabia obstruct the Succours of the West The Histories of Pope Innocent and the Emperor Conrade of Pope Alexander and Mainfrey against whom he vainly publishes Crusades The History of Charles d' Anjou to whom Pope Urban the Successor of Alexander and Pope Clement the Fourth give the Realms of Naples and Sicily as Fieffs escheated to the Church by Felony His Exploits his Battles and his Victories over Mainfrey and Conradin The deplorable Death of that young Prince The Victories of Charles cause the Pope and St. Lewis to entertain a Design for a new Crusade An Assembly at Paris about that Affair where the King the Princes and Lords take upon them the Cross All other Nations decline the Crusade The Collusion of the Emperor Michael Paleologus The Condition of the King's Army The Resolution taken to Attack Tunis and the Reasâ—ns wherefore The Description of Tunis and Carthage The taking of the Port the Tower and the Castle of Carthage The Malady makes great Destruction in the King's Army His Death Elogy and Character The Arrival of Charles King of Sicily The Exploits of the Army The Treaty of Peace with the King of Tunis who becomes Tributary to Charles The return of the two Kings their Fleet is horribly beaten by a Tempest Prince Edward of England saved his Vow to go to the Holy Land His Voyage his Exploits and his return The vain indeavours of Pope Gregory the Tenth for a new Crusade The second Council of Lyons The last causes of the loss of the Holy Land The quarrel among the Christian Princes for the Succession to the Kingdom of Jerusalem The Death of Bendocdar The defeat of his Successor by the Tartars The hopes of the recovery of all Palestine by the Arms of King Charles of Anjou ruined by the sad accident of the Sicilian Vespers The new division among the Princes and the Progress of the Mamaluke Sultans The Relation of the lamentable Siege and the taking of Acre by these Barbarians All the other places are lost and the Christians of the West wholly driven out of Palestine and Syria The vain and fruitless attempts which have since been made to renew the Crusades year 1250 WHilest matters went thus in the East the news which was received in France of the two Victories which the King had gained near Massora was followed with a false report which was currant of the defeat of the Sultan and the taking of Grand Caire And this coming from the Court of the Pope to whom the Bishop of Marseilles who had seen it in Letters Written to the Commandator of the Hospital of St. John had sent it Men being apt easily to believe that which they passionately desire there was no doubt made but it was true so that all was full of rejoycing even then when upon the suddain they were obliged to change this excessive joy into an extreme afflicton by the certain intelligence which they received of the loss of the whole Christian Army and the Captivity of the King and all the Princes And this Affliction was followed by most furious disorders year 1250 which were occasioned by the illusion and folly of some and the extreme Wickedness of others who made use of the simplicity of the former to commit with impunity the most detestable Crimes under the false pretences of Zeal and Piety for the deliverance of the King In Germany a Troop of Vagabonds mingled with young People and the Scum and Refuse of the Peasantry ran all over crying that they must make a Crusade for the deliverance of the Ring of France And a certain Hungarian Apostate of the Cistercian Order one of the most prosligate Villains in the World but very able and Learned in many Languages put himself at the
Abagas King of the Tartars that he would go in Person into Palestine against the Sultan Bendocdar He also caused a fair Fleet of Men of War to be fitted out at Barcelona and a great many Gallies and imbarked himself in the beginning of September one thousand two hundred sixty nine a year before St. Lewis But being near the Isles of Majorca and Minorca met with a furious Tempest which threw him upon the Coasts of Languedoc he went no farther than Aigues-Mort from whence he returned by Land into his own Kingdom alledging for the hiding of a certain shameful and criminal Passion which governed his Soul and which possibly was the true cause of his altering his resolution That he was well satisfied that God dispensed with him for his Voyage which he made known by this accident was not at all pleasing to him so that there were only some few Ships of this Fleet which arrived at Ptolemais with Dom Ferdinand Sancho the Son of this King who presently after returned again without doing any thing As for what concerned the Greek Emperor he acted in this occasion only like a Politician for his own private Interest without ever intending to have any share in this War This Emperor was Michael Paleologus who about eight years before had taken Constantinople by Treachery from the Latins who lost that Empire under Baldwin the Second which Baldwin the First had so gloriously conquered with the French and Venetians about fifty eight years before This Greek Prince who feared to be attack'd on the side of Asia by Bendocdar after that Sultan should have conquered Syria and Palestine and who was already on the Coast of Greece by the New King of Sicily did all that possibly he could with the Pope and the Princes of the West to ingage them in a War against the Sarasins And in regard that the Pope had written to him That the way to secure himself from the Arms of the Latin Princes was to unite the Greek Church with the Latin and to go in Person as did St. Lewis to this Holy War he promised Shipping Provisions and Souldiers and all that could be desired for the War He also sent his Ambassadors into France offering to make the King the Arbiter of the difference which was about the Re-union of the two Churches but St. Lewis who would not undertake to be Judge in a matter of this nature which was purely spiritual remitted him to the Judgment of the Sacred College the Holy See being then vacant by the Death of Pope Clement who deceased about the end of the preceding year But after all this Emperor who was extreme politick had no desire or design either to make a true Re-union or to joyn with the Latin Princes in the Holy War All his Design was only to engage them in a Crusade and thereby to deliver himself from the fear which he had of the Sarasins and the King of Sicily So remote are the Intentions of Princes who act purely according to the Maxims of human Policy from what they seem to appear to those with whom they negotiate with a design to delude them And for the King of England to whom the Pope had at first sent the Cardinal Othobon his Legate he was too far advanced in years and too much oppressed with his own Affairs by reason of the troubles of his Realm to be in a condition to perform the Vow which he had made in taking upon him the Cross and to acquit himself of the Promise by which he was ingaged to the King to accompany him in this War with five hundred Knights for whom the King gave him a years pay in hand and believed that without restoring the Money he satisfied fully for all in giving his Blessing to his Son Prince Edward who not being in a condition to enter upon Action till after the Death of St. Lewis was able to do almost nothing in Palestine Thus of above two hundred and fifty thousand men which were levied in Europe there were none but the Troops of St. Lewis which were about sixty thousand men and the few Spaniards which went with the King of Navarr his Son-in-Law which were in a condition to pursue this Voyage Nevertheless he undertook it with so much resolution as if he had had the Forces of the whole Earth year 1269 The difficulty was only to resolve whither he should go and after having a long time conferred upon this Affair with the Ambassadors of the King of Sicily he resolved at last to go first against Tunis before he undertook to attack the Sultan of Egypt It was for this purpose represented to the King that he ought to begin with the Realm of Tunis if he would go immediately as in reason one ought to do to the Spring and the Root of the Mischief in regard that it was from Tunis that the Sultans of Egypt drew their principal Forces their Horses and the best of their men And besides that in leaving this Kingdom in their Reer as they must do if they marched directly against Egypt or into Palestine they must expose themselves to the hazard of losing their Convoys and the Supplies which were to come from Europe which would run the Fortune of being defeated and taken by the Shipping of these African Pirates who were continually crusing upon the Seas There were also many other Politick Considerations added which are easie to be found out when People are resolved to maintain an Opinion But in Truth that which was most prevalent was that the Inclinations of the two Kings were both conformable to this Enterprise for two very different Reasons For Lewis who like a great Saint regulated all his Actions by the Principles of Piety and Christianity believed that in shewing himself before Tunis that Moorish King who had given him hopes of his Conversion would turn Christian and be baptized which the King most passionately desired as appeared by what he said to the Ambassadors of that Prince whom he commanded to acquaint their Master That he would be contented with all his heart to be a Slave to the Sarasins again and to pass the rest of his Life in the most dreadful of their Dungeons and never more to see the Sun provided that the King of Tunis would with his whole Realm embrace the Faith of Jesus Christ But Charles who was more Politick than Devout resolved to make use of such a fair opportunity to assure himself of that Realm which without doubt was very convenient for the security of the Coasts of Naples and Sicily Thus the two Brothers resolved each upon the same thing though both of them for private Reasons which they did not impart to any Persons but only concluded upon the Enterprise against Tunis the King who fore-saw that it would not meet with a general approbation reserved the Declaration of his Resolution till he came to Cagliari in the Isle of Sardinia at which place he had appointed the Rendezvous of
They were received at Naples at Rome and at Viterbum where the Cardinals were assembled upon the Election of a Pope and at all other Cities in their passage with honours of a different Nature from those which are accustomed to be given to Kings and which sufficiently shewed that they were esteemed to be in a Rank much Superior to them the Voice of the People which is said to be the Voice of God being a forerunner of that of the Church which six and twenty years after solemnly canonized him for a Saint year 1271 Mean time Edward Prince of England who had renewed his Vow during the Tempest and which he weathered so well that he lost not one of his ships sailed towards Ptolemais where he arrived in the Month of May having only three hundred Knights English and French with John Duke of Bretany It was with these few Troops strengthened with five hundred Frisons and another small Reinforcement which Prince Edmond his Brother brought to him from England that he hindred Bendocdar who had taken diverse Castles about Ptolemais from besieging that City He also prevailed with the Tartars the Enemies of this Sultan to enter into Palestine to oppose the Progress of that Conqueror But as on one part these Barbarians after having according to their manner ravaged the Country marched home again and on the other that Hugh King of Cyprus and Jerusalem not being strong enough to do any great matters obtained a Truce of Bendocdar who concluded it with him only to amuse him he was able to do nothing of Moment And therefore as soon as he was recovered of a dangerous Wound which he had received from an Assassin whom he trusted and whom he himself killed with the same poisoned Dagger with which the Traitor had struck him he returned opportunely to take possession of the Kingdom of England which Henry his Father dying left unto him year 1272 Thus this Crusade from which there was reason to expect such great things produced no manner of Effects for the deliverance of the Holy Land And since that time there could never any more be raised although the Pope's had frequently made great attempts to excite the Zeal of Christians therein to imitate that of their Ancestors For first of all Gregory the tenth who from being only Archdeacon of Leige was chosen Pope after the See had been vacant for three Months then when he was at Ptolemais with the Prince of England did more than any of his Predecessors to unite all the Christian Princes and even the Greeks and Tartars in a Holy League to chase the Sarasins out of Palestins and Syria year 1274 And it was he who particularly for this design about two years after held the second Council of Lyons which was one of the greatest and most numerous Assemblies which the Church had ever seen for there were present at it above a thousand Prelates with the Ambassadours of two Emperors of the East and West of the Kings of France Cyprus and all the Christian Princes beyond the Sea together with those of all Europe besides that James King of Arragon and the great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital were there in Person There a Decree was made for the prosecuting the Holy War and an Alliance was made for this purpose with Abagas the King of the Tartars who had sent his Ambassadors thither There Michael Paleologus was recognised for Emperor of Constantinople upon condition That he should join with the Latins in the War against the Sultan of Egypt and there the Election of the Emperor Rodolph was confirmed upon Condition That he should march at the head of the Crusades into Palestine which he also promised to the Pope with an Oath receiving from his hands the Cross at Lausanna whither he followed the Pope after the Council in his return to Italy year 1275 But in conclusion all this produced just nothing either because People were disgusted with this War and such a dangerous Voyage or that having been so long accustomed to hear of this War they were not at all moved with what was no Novelty Insomuch that the Cordeliers and the Jacobins whom the Pope sent all over Europe to preach up the Cross could not meet with so much as one man who would take it Michael Paleologus who had made a Re-union of short continuance between the Greek and the Latin Churches had never any other intention but thereby to hinder the Latins from uniting again to recover Constantinople and to restore Baldwin who did what lay in his Power to that purpose year 1275 especially with Charles King of Naples and Sicily Rodolph who from a bare Count of Habsbourg near Bale issued from a younger Brother of the House of Alsatia was come to be raised to the Empire thought of nothing but how most powerfully to establish his own House in Germany and herein he succeeded so well that it is since become so great and August under the Illustrious name of Austria which this Emperor bestowed upon it in giving that Dutchy to his Son Albert who afterwards also came to be Emperor as well as his Father So that this Emperor Rodolph never accomplished the Vow which he had made between the hands of the Pope who himself gave the Cross to him and to his whole Court and yet nevertheless he was not excommunicated for it as Frederick the Second had been Abagas singly was not strong enough to stop the Course of Bendocdar's Conquests who insolently laughed at all the vain attempts of the Princes of the West and openly threatned to make all the whole East the Trophee of his Arms and oblige it to submit to his Empire And as for the poor Christians of Palestine who most pressingly implored the succours of Europe they every day themselves advanced their own ruin by the fatal Effects of their division which became still greater by the Quarrel which arose among them at this time concerning the succession of a Kingdom which thereby they made all the haste they could to lose The Subject of this Quarrel is one of the points of History which Writers have made the least clear and which in fews words I will endeavour to explain Isabella the Daughter of Amauri King of Jerusalem and Heiress of that Realm had four Husbands The first was Aufrey de Thoron by whom she had no Children The Second was Marquis Conrade de Momferrat Prince of Tyre by whom she had the Marchioness Mary who married John de Brienne and made him King of Jerusalem Of this Marriage issued Jolanta the Wife to the Emperor Frederick the Second Mother to the Emperor Conrade who was Heir to this Realm and consequently without contradiction left it as of right to the Unfortunate Young Conradin The third Husband of Queen Isabella was Henry Count de Champagne whose Daughter Alice married Hugh de Lusignan the first of that name King of Cyprus by whom she had the Princess Isabella who was married to
wicked is no more at present but a miserable remnant of ruins the greatness whereof make apparent both that of the City when it was in its flourishing estate and that of the terrible punishment which it drew upon it self by its Enormous Crimes This sad news of so great and unexpected a loss did wonderfully surprize Pope Nicholas the fourth who for above a year last past had used all imaginable industry to form a general Crusade of all the Christians of the West against the Mamalukes who continually threatned Palestine He had with powerful Sollicitations invited all the Kings of Europe into it and had prevailed so well that Edward King of England had declared himself chief thereof and had made great preparations throughout his whole Kingdom to put himself into a Condition to march at the time which this good Pope had named which was at the Feast of St. John Baptist in the year one thousand two hundred and ninety three When in the mean time he understood that the Christians had lost all in Syria in the Month of May one thousand two hundred ninety one This was like a mighty clap of thunder which did mightily amaze him but which nevertheless did not hinder him from redoubling his endeavours by his Letters by his Legates and by his Preachers whom he dispatched to all places to excite the Christians to take upon them the Cross and to unite the Princes of the East and West and even the Kings of the Tartars the Iberians Georgians and Armenians with their forces in the design to recover together from their Common Enemy what had been lost for want of this Union But the Evil being now believed to be desperate and without Remedy all that this Pope did and all that his Successors endeavoured to do afterwards upon this Subject was never able to produce one Crusade to procure the recovery of the Holy Land year 1296 Boniface the eighth upon the desire of Cassan King of the Tartars in Persia that the Princes of Europe would join with him in a War against the Sultan of Egypt writ indeed to them but in terms so high and lofty that there were not any who would take notice of them year 1311 Clement the fifth following the Example of his Predecessors acted in the Council of Vienna by the way of powerful exhortation and caused it to be ordained by a particular Decree that the Cross should be preached in all places for the recovery of the Holy Land and there were many of all Nations who took it upon them But as it was only a confused Multitude without any head of Reputation the Princes of those times having other interests than that of the Holy Land he gave them all absolution from their Vow and sent them back into their own Countries year 1328 That which was done upon the same Subject under Pope John the two and twentieth made a far greater Noise but produced no more effect This Pope who with a mighty passion desired the reestablishment of the Empire of the Christians in Palestine acted by Agreement for this noble end with King Philip de Valois who was then the most potent and renowned King of France especially after that glorious Victory which he obtained against the Flemmings at Cassel For this purpose he created Patriarch of Jerusalem the famous Doctor of Paris year 1330 Peter de la Palu a noble Burgundian or Brescian of the Illustrious House of the Lords of Varembon a Religious of the Order of St. Dominick and the King who had procured this Dignity for him in honour of his extraordinary Merit sent him presently after into Egypt with order to treat with the Sultan about the restitution of Jerusalem upon reasonable terms before he went to compel him to it by making War upon him with all the Forces of Europe And in the mean time Philip taking the opportunity of a Pilgrimage which he made to Marseilles to do honour to the sacred Relicks of St. Lewis Bishop of Tolouse his Kinsman went also to Avignion to conferr with the Pope concerning this great Affair where the Pope gave him the tenths of all the Ecclesiastical estates in France to be employed in the Holy War year 1334 But as this great Enterprise could not be so quickly put in Execution by reason of the troubles year 1334 which the fatal Schism of Lewis of Bavaria had raised in the Church Philip to whom the Patriarch of Jerusalem who was returned from his Ambassy had given an account of the Obstinacy of the Sultan of Egypt sent some time after to Avignion Peter de Roger Arch-Bishop of Roan a Prelate of consummate Wisdom and learning where at length a Pope was chosen to the throne of St. Peter by the name of Clement the sixth This great man very strongly harangued the Council upon the necessity of a general Crusade and upon the means which the King his Master had taken to make it successful to the glory of the Church provided that she would contribute her Authority to it He promised also with an Oath that this generous Prince should march within less than two years at the head of the Crusades so that the Pope declared him General of the Holy League and confirmed to him the Grant of the Tenths for six years and sent to him the Arch-Bishop with a most ample Commission to bestow the Cross and all the privileges and perogatives which the former Popes had granted to the other Crusades Thereupon the King in Ceremony received the Cross from the hands of the Prelate in his Chappel at Paris with John King of Bohemia and Philip King of Navarr who were then at his Court and so did the greatest part of the Barons of the Realm He also made his preparations with extreme application and excessive cost surpassing all that any of the Kings his Predecessors had done upon the like occasions causing to be rigged in several Ports the fairest Fleet that ever France had seen which was able to transport forty thousand men at Arms with their Horses and which was furnished with all sorts of Provisions in prodigious abundance He had also taken great care to publish this Crusade throughout Europe and had engaged the Kings of Arragon Majorca Sicily Cyprus and Hungary the Republicks of Venice and Genoa to joyn their Arms with his that they might all march together under his Conduct against the Sultan So that it was thought this mighty Army of Crusades would consist in three hundred thousand Combatants which already made the whole East to tremble and filled the whole Earth with the Glory of the name of France and the noise of such formidable preparations But as there is nothing more required to the fixing a mighty Engine and rendring it immoveable but to stop the secret Springs which give it that violent Impression which draws upon it the Eyes and admiration of the Spectators by its prodigious movement so the War which in the midst of these transactions Edward King
a well known passion tied him and in which he expresseth himself in thoughts infinitely tender though at the same time full of that profound respect which he had lying so near his heart year 1236 So soon as he saw himself peaceably settled in his Dominions and that he believed himself safe on the side of Arragon the King of which Realm pretended some manner of ill grounded Title to that of Navarr he was resolved to accomplish the Vow which his Father Count Theobald had made when he took the Cross with the Earls of Flanders and of Blois He therefore took it himself and by his Example ingaged in the same Enterprise Hugh Duke of Burgundy Peter de Dreux surnamed Illclerk Duke of Bretagne John his Brother Count de Brain and Mascon Henry Count de Bar Guy Count de Nevers the Constable Amauri Count de Montfort the Counts de Joigni and Sancerre and many other Barons of France Navarr and Bretagne as the Counts Guiomar de Leon Henry de Goâ—tlo Andrew de Vitrey Raoul de Fougeres Geoffry de Avesnes and Fouques Paynel who all acknowledged him for their Head and General together with an infinite number of Crusades of France and Germany who waited only for a General of that high Reputation to conduct them year 1236 And certainly there was great probability of the Success of this third Effort which was about to be made happily to determine this Crusude if there had not happened Accidents which could not be foreseen which contributed extremely to the rendring it unfortunate and unsuccessful First by an unhappy Incounter it fell out that the Pope was obliged to publish in the same time another Crusade for the Relief of the Empire of Constantinople which was reduced to the last Extremity For the French as it is observed of them who know much better to make great Conquests in a little time than afterwards to preserve them very long were not so fortunate in keeping this Empire as they had been in gaining it the Emperor Baldwin the First lost it being taken prisoner in a Battle against the King of the Bulgarians who barbarously put him to death His Brother Henry who succeedeed him did truly for above ten Years hold it with great Success and Glory but his Successors found nothing of the same good Fortune For Peter de Courtenay Count d' Auxerre the Husband of Yolanda of Flanders Sister to the last Emperor having succeeded him was taken by treachery as he passed through Macedon to Constantinople and afterwards murdered by Theodore Comnenius Prince of Epirus and in a short time after the Empress who had taken her passage by Sea died of Grief at Constantinople after her delivery of the last Child she had by Peter her Husband Robert de Courtenay his second Son upon the refusal of his Eldest Brother Philip Count de Namur succeeded Peter in the Empire and had the Misfortune in his time to see it miserably dismembred For after he had lost a great Battle in Asia against John Ducas furnamed Vatacus the Successor and Son-in-Law of Theodore Lascaris the Conqueror took from him all that the French were Masters of on the other side the Bosphorus and the Hellespont And on the other side the Prince of Epirus won from him all Thessaly and a great part of Thracia insomuch that after his Death the French Barons seeing that his Brother Baldwin who was not above eight or nine years of Age was not in a condition to sustain the burthen of an Empire which was in so great disorder and attacked on all hands they sent to desire of the Pope to have King John de Brienne who was then the General of his Army for their Emperor assuring him that after his Death the Succession of the Empire should return to Baldwin who was to marry the Princess Mary his Daughter whom he had by his second Wife Berengera the Daughter of Alphonsus King of Castile It is true that this Emperor who was one of the greatest Captains of his time did in some measure re-establish the Affairs of this miserable Empire and with a poor handful of men he defeated a great Army which besieged Constantinople both by Sea and Land But at last two potent Armies Vatacus Emperor of the Greeks and Azen King of Bulgaria who had confederated against him attacked him on both sides with very great Forces whereas he had precisely no more men than were necessary to defend himself in Constantinople in which he was forced to shut himself up he was obliged to send Prince Baldwin his Son-in-Law to implore in Europe the Succours which he had so often desired and so long in vain expected and in the midst of these Transactions he died leaving to all Gentlemen in the History of his Life year 1237 an admirable Example by which they may learn by what ways they must expect in despight of all the disgraces of a malicious Fortune to raise themselves to the height of all earthly Greatness and Glories For he had nothing from his Father who would have constrained him contrary to his Martial Inclinations to devote himself to the Church notwithstanding which he made it his indeavour to find his good Fortune in himself and establish an Inheritance upon the Foundations of his Vertue and by that it was that he so well distinguished himself in the Court of Philip the August that that great Prince who knew how to esteem men for their Vertue judged him worthy not only of his Esteem but his particular Favour and after he had acquired a high Reputation for those Gallant Actions which together with his Brother he performed in Italy he raised him to the Throne of Jerusalem from whence it seemed that Fortune had not made him descend but to mount him with more Glory by his Vertue to the Empire of the East from whence it is easie to observe that true Merit is the best supporter of such Noble Persons who indeavour to obtain the favour of Kings year 1237 who without this are apt to tumble those down for their Vices whom they had for their pleasure raised rather than for their Vertue In this time Baldwin his Son-in-Law and Successor to the Empire found the Pope so well inclined to assist him that as if he had now had no other concern but for the Establishment of the Empire of Constantinople he writ to the Kings of France England and Hungary and to all the Bishops of those Realms to exhort them to contribute the utmost of their power to the Aid of the Emperor Baldwin the Second even so far as to permit those who had undertaken the Crusade for the Holy Land to change their Vow to that of succouring Constantinople He caused also a new Crusade to be preached every where for that purpose and that the greatest part of the money which was designed for the Holy Land should be employed that way Hereupon the Emperor Baldwin went into France and from thence into England with
the Bulla of this Crusade and the Pope's Letters which exhorted the Crusades to follow him so that he sound a great many who either to please the Pope or that they thought this Enterprise less difficult and dangerous than that of the Holy Land presently joyned with him and among others Peter de Dreux Duke of Bretagne who promised to assist him with twelve thousand men This gave so great a displeasure to the King of Navarr the Duke of Burgundy the Counts of Bar Vendosme and Montfort who had before devoted themselves for the Holy Land and who thought very hard that one Crusade should be ruined or at least extremely weakned by another that they complained thereof to the Pope himself and in a manner reproached him with Levity and this Change which they said was most prejudicial to the principal Enterprise the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre of Jesus Christ But Gregory made them answer that being at least as zealously interested as they in the Affairs of the Holy Land he also understood himself better than they could inform him and was in the Opinion that it was impossible ever to chase the Infidels out of Palestine unless the Conquest of Constantinople was first well assured and that now it was in danger to fall under the Power of the Schismatical Greeks and therefore he conjured them to joyn with Baldwin remonstrating to them that this was to labour most efficaciously for the End by applying themselves to the means which was so absolutely necessary for the attainment of it year 1238 The Princes nevertheless would not suffer themselves to be perswaded but remained firm in their first Resolution Even the Breton himself Peter de Dreux who had promised the Pope to serve for Constantinople wheeled off again and chose rather to joyn himself to the King of Navarr so that by this Accident there being a great Division among the Minds of men some following Baldwin others the King of Navarr it fell out that in the place of one great Crusade which might have proved successful either in Greece or Palestine there were two very indifferent ones which had in neither place the good Fortune which was to be hoped and desired This was the first Division which hurt the Army of the Crusades but that which happened presently after between the Pope and the Emperor was much more fatal to them and had like to have ruined all The Island of Sardinia as well as several other Estates had been now for a long time held as Fiefs from the Holy See and Gregory had sent thither one Roland one of his Chaplains to receive the Homages and Reserved Rents and to take possession of some Lands about Cagliari Frederick who notwithstanding all the Intreaties and Remonstrances of the Pope who had sufficient cause to be afraid of his Power was now come from Germany into Lombardy with an Army of one hundred thousand men and having gained a great Victory over the Milaneses and reduced the greatest part of the Confederate Cities under his Obedience he believed himself to be in a condition to make himself Master of what ever he pretended appertained to him as being dismembred from the Body of the Empire And thereupon those of the Principality of the Tour which now is called Sassari having given it to him after the Death of their Lord Vbald he sent thither his natural Son Henry who was usually called Entius who presently seised upon the whole Isle which his Father erected for him into the title of a Feudatory Kingdom to be held of the Empire year 1239 The Pope who was in Possession of the Sovereignty of this Isle strangely surprized at this procedure complained bitterly of it and demanded reparation But Frederick was so far from giving him Satisfaction that he seized upon other Lands of a Bishop of Sardinia which the Magistrates had adjudged as Demesnes to the new King and withal he made it be answered to the Pope for good and all that Sardinia had been usurped from the Emperors and before those Usurpations had always belonged to the Empire and that for his own particular it was well enough known that as he was Emperor he had sworn that he would do all that lay in his Power to reunite to the Body of the Empire whatsoever had been dismembred from it and that he was fully resolved most exactly to acquit himself of his Duty in this particular Hereupon the Pope seeing that he remained immoveable in that Resolution solemnly excommunicated him upon Palm Sunday and Holy Thursday for invading the Patrimony of the Church and such other Causes as are comprized in the Decretal which he pronounced himself and which he sent to all Christian Kings Princes and Prelates with orders for them to publish it by the Sound of Bells prohibiting all the Emperor's Subjects to obey him and all the Ecclesiasticks from celebrating the Divine Offices in the Cities or Castles wherever he should be It is said also that having declared that he was fallen from the Imperial Title and Dignity he offered the Crown to St. Lewis for his Brother Robert Count d' Artois but that for very good reasons that pious King rejected the Offer and this is most certain that by a most discreet Policy he would never concern himself in this difference nor be persuaded to change the Conduct and Maximes of his Government by taking Arms against the Emperor although he was extremely sollicited to do so by the Pope as in the following year the King gave the Emperor an account by his Letters The War between the Pope and the Emperor began by the Writings the Letters and the Manifests which both the one and the other dipersed abroad in which were contained the Accusations and the Answers which they made which may be seen at their full length in Matthew Paris after which the Emperor Frederick having a potent Army whilest the Pope sent to all places to demand the Assistance of the Princes and Republicks caused his Son Entius to enter into the Marquisate of Ancona whilest he himself taking the Right Hand marched over Tuscany where the greatest part of the Cities and even Viterbum receiving him and declaring against the Pope he advanced directly towards Rome not doubting but that he had such a Party there as would upon his Appearance open the Gates of that City to him But Gregory who in the extreme danger wherein he found himself destitute of all humane Succours had recourse to God by a great Procession from the Church of the Lateran to that of St. Peter in which he did so movingly harangue the Romans holding between his Arms the Venerable heads of the Apostles protesting with Sighs and Tears that he was not in any sort able to protect them without the Assistance of the People of Rome who were their Protectors that they cried out with an incredible Ardour that they would all perish in the defence of them Hereupon the Pope who was resolved to make his advantage