to Sea in Easter-Week and after it had been soundly beaten with a Tempest which they say was miraculously calmed by Thomas of Canterbury who had raised many worse in his Life according to the credulous Humour of those Ages it being affirmed by some that he appeared upon the Deck of the great Ship called the London that Vessel came up with Cape St. Vincent over against the City of Silves nine other Ships entring the River of Lesbon where they came to an Anchor The Miramolin or King of the Sarasins of the Western Africa at that time made War with a potent Army against Sancho King of Portugal whom he had surprized and who with an inconsiderable number of Troops had put himself into Santaren This Prince believing that Heaven had sent him the Succour of these Strangers year 1190 as it had before done to the late King Alphonso his Father requested them to help him in this his pressing Necessity Whereupon five hundred of the bravest of them immediately went into his Service whilst that fourscore of the most valiant young Gentlemen who were aboard the London put themselves into Sylves for the Defence of that City But Fortune without giving them the liberty of drawing their Swords put an end to this War by the suddain Death of Mirmalion after which his Army immediately disbanded it self The English then returning to their Vessels sound there sixty three more of their Ships who had put in there to refresh themselves and all that great City in Arms against their People who had committed great Insolencies and Disorders against the Inhabitants insomuch that Blood had been drawn on both sides divers Houses plundred and burnt and some of the English committed to Prison But all these Matters being calmed by the Prudence of King Sancho who knew very well how to pacifie both Parties the English took their leave the 25th Day of July and the same Day joyning three and thirty great Ships with which Admiral William Fortz attended them at the Mouth of the Tagus they prosperously pursued their Voyage till they came to an Anchor before Salernum There it was that King Richard met his Fleet and the 30th of September arrived at the Port of Messina where he was received by the French and Sicilians with all possible Honour and with all the Marks of a sincere and perfect Friendship But this was not of any long Continuance and the good Understanding which at first appeared among these three Nations was presently interrupted and broken by two great Quarrels which Richard had and which were the Cause that the two Kings instead of presently pursuing their intended Voyage were obliged to defer it till the following Year and to pass all the Winter at Messina The manner was thus William king of Sicily being dead without Issue the Sicilians who were resolved to have a King of the Race of their Norman Princes placed his Cousin Tancred the Natural Son of Roger Duke of Pavia upon the Throne notwithstanding that before his Death William had caused Queen Constance his Aunt the Wife of the Emperor Henry VI. to be acknowledged their Queen and had declared her to be the Inheretrix of the Crown Now Richard without pretending to have any part in this great Difference between the Emperor and Tancred only desired of this new King that he would send to him Jane his Sister the Daughter of Henry II. King of England the Widow of the deceased King William that he would restore to him her Dowry with several other things to which he pretended and above all an hundred Ships which the late King had promised to his Father-in Law King Henry for his Voyage to the Levant Tancred immediately sent the Queen to him but deferring to give him Satisfaction in his other Pretensions Richard who was resolved that he should do him Reason seized upon two strong Places which lay upon the Straits This gave such a Jealousie to the Messineses who naturally are not too much given to forbearing that they took Arms against the English and beat them out of the City and the English no less naturally impatient of Beating but more hot and brave than the Sicilians ran immediately to their Arms and issuing in Battalia out of their Camp repulsed these forward Burghers into the City and put themselves into a Posture to attack it by Force There was however a few Moments Truce agreed to by the Interposition of Philip the August who endeavoured to accommodate this Difference between them But Richard having discovered or at least believing that the Messineses had an Intention to surprize him during the Preliminary Treaty of the Peace began the Assault upon the Town with so much Fury that he carried the Place but he left it again presently after he had received the Excuses of the Magistrates and the Satisfaction which he demanded of them out of Respect as he said to King Philip who had his Quarter in the City and who was not at all satisfied with these violent Proceedings of King Richard For this Reason Richard to strengthen himself against him by the Alliance of Tancred concluded a Peace with that King who offered him besides the Ships twenty thousand Ounces of Gold to quit all his other Pretensions and twenty thousand more for the Portion of his Daughter year 1190 who was to be married to Arthur Duke of Bretany Nephew to King Richard So that the Conclusion of this Quarrel was the Foundation of another incomparably more dangerous which hereby grew between the kings of France and England For Tancred perceiving that the French King had no reason to be satisfied with this Marriage which was surreptitious concluded without his Knowledge and which directly shocked all his Interests endeavoured to link himself more closely with the English as he did and to exasperate them against King Philip. And truly finding that these two Princes were already imbroiled upon the Subject of the Taking Messina where Richard having caused his Standards to be planted Philip sent to have them taken down He went to the King of England and shewed him the Letters which he assured him came from the King of France wherein he offered him the Assistance of all his Forces if he would make War with Richard who he said had no other Thoughts but to amuse him with the Shew of Peace thereby with more Ease to seize upon his Realm Richard although he was extreamly provoked with this Procedure yet was very well pleased to have so specious a Pretence to break with Philip. Philip complaining with Justice enough reciprocally against him that having so long since affianced his Sister Alice he had now altered his Thoughts and was designed to marry Berengera the Daughter of Garcias King of Navarre following therein the Counsel of Queen Eleonor who her self had conducted that Princess thither There seemed great Foundation for the Complaints on either side and their Spirits were wound up to that degree as indangered the Breaking of the holy
Dragon after his Death which demanded Justice of God against him till at last covered all over in slames he was condemned to Purgatory till the day of Judgment for having commited three great Crimes in his Life for which he had certainly been condemned to Hell for ever if our Lady to whose Honor he had built a Church had not obtained the Grace for him that he repented of them before his latest Breath Now this which calls it self an Apparition so plainly resembles the travelling Stories of Apparitions of this Nature that I am astonished there should be any who should doubt of its Falshood so much as for a Moment but it is the sordid Humor of low Spirits to dishonor the Memories of the greatest Lives in the World whom they durst scarcely speak of or look upon whilest they were in it and nothing is more frequent than for Calumny to blast the Reputation of the Dead by reason of that Impunity which Men hope for by being undiscovered nor is there any thing so silly but what will either by the Weakness of some or the Malice of others be believed so that the most sottish and groundless Illusions come many times to gain the Reputation as well as the Name of supernatural Visions and Revelations The Cardinal Cencius a Roman of the illustrious House of Savelli a Person of a great Estate and as great Learning succeeded Innocent within two days by the Name of Honorius the III and imitating his Predecessor in his Zeal for the Deliverance of the Holy Land he at the same time writ Letters to the Princes and Prelates throughout all Europe exhorting them powerfully not to cool in their Zeal which they had till then manifested for the Execution of what had been Decreed in the Holy Council in reserence to the Crusade And the Consequence of these Letters and the Negotiations of his Legats which he sent to all places to press the Accomplishment of this great Affair which lay so near his Heart and which he followed so closely with his utmost Application and Diligence was so successful that an infinite number of Crusades particularly among the Northern Nations were ready to pass both by Sea and Land into the Holy Land at the time appointed He who ought to have Headed them was the Emperor Frederick the II. who had with the first taken upon him the Cross then when he stood in need of the Assistance of the late Pope Innocent for his Establishment against Otho in the imperial Dignity He took it upon him with more Solemnity the year after the Battle of Bovine when all things being at Peace in Germany he was by the Authority of Pope Innocent the second time crowned at Aix by the Hands of Siffride Archbishop of Mayence There he renewed his Vow and with a great deal of Reverence and Submission received the Decree of the Council for the Crusade But as he had a specious Pretext to deser his Voyage in regard he had not been at Rome to receive the imperial Crown nor to regulate the Affairs of Italy the Pope thought it was not convenient at that time to press him further with the Accomplishment of his Vow year 1217 So that Andrew King of Hungary was taken in to supply his Place upon this great Occasion being the only King of Europe who was in a Condition to march at the Head of the Crusades For Peter de Courtenay the Emperor of Constantinople had by Treachery been taken Prisoner in Macedon by Theodore Comnenius who had seized upon Thessaly Philip the August who had already fulfilled his Vow did not believe that he was obliged to ingage himself in another Crusade at a time when France stood in need of him to oppose the Albigenses England Scotland and Ireland were extremely agitated by the Troubles which the Fury of Civil War had raised in them The Kings of Castile Portugal and Navarre were in Arms against the Moors who always prevented the People of Spain from entring into the Crusades with other Nations for the Deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre by obliging them in continual Action against those Infidels who were possessed of many of their Provinces And the King of Arragon was so far from joyning with the Crusades that he had taken Arms in favour of the Hereticks the Albigenses against whom there was another Crusade at the same time And the King of Norway who had caused a great many Men of War to be fitted out for the Holy War would not abandon his Realm by taking the Cross altho he obliged many of his Subjects to undertake it year 1217 that so he might have a share in the Honor of the Enterprise The King of Hungary was therefore the only Prince of Europe who in Person made that Holy Voyage and the principal Princes and Prelates who accompanied him in the Undertaking were the Dukes of Austria Bavaria Moravia Brabant Limbourg the Counts Palatin of the Rhine of Los of Juliers of Holland and Wida the Marquis of Baden the Archbishop of Mayence and the Bishops of Bamberge Passau Strasbourg Munster and Vtrecht as also the greatest part of the Prelates of Hungary who would accompany their King in this War The Cousades whose Number increased daily without expecting those who not being yet ready might well enough follow after to Re-inforce the Army in Palestine divided themselves into several Bodies for the greater Convenience of Passage Andrew King of Hungary with Leopold Duke of Austria Lewis Duke of Bavaria and the greatest part of the other Princes took their Way by Land to Venice where they imbarked upon the Shipping of the Republick which expected them to transport them to the Island of Cyprus which was appointed by the Pope for the Place of Rendezvouz It is said that upon this Occasion to pay the Charges of their Passage the King quitted Dalmatia to the Venetians Another Party of the Crusades were embarked at Genoa Messina and Brindes where they received Orders from the Pope by which he commanded them with all possible Expedition to joyn the King of Hungary in Cyprus and to follow him whithersoever he should judge it necessary to lead them expressly prohibiting them upon pain of Excommunication to separate from the Gross of the Army under pretence of going as Pilgrims to visit the Holy Sepulchre in regard that he feared that this irregular Devotion at such an unseasonable time might weaken the Army and inrich the Infidels by the great Tributes which they exacted of the Pilgrims and the continual Excursions which they made at last to rob them of all they had Those of Cologne and the Frisons animated by the sight of three wonderful Crosses which miraculously appeared in Heaven whilest the Crusade was preaching upon the Friday before Whitsunday put to Sea with a gallant Fleet of three hundred Ships and about the end of May joyning in the Mouth of the Maze with that of William Earl of Holland and George Count of Wida they all together set
of the Emperor and the King The Murmurs against St. Bernard and his Apology The Conquest of Noradin after the raising of the Siege The Death of King Baldwin and his Elogy His Brother Amauri Succeeds him The History of that Princes Life who by his Avarice loseth the Opportunity of conquering all Egypt The History of Syracon who seizes upon the Kingdom of Egypt and leaves it to his Nephew Saladin The Elogy and first Conquest of that Prince The Death of Amauri and the Troubles and Divisions which it caused in the Realm The Conquests of Saladin thereupon The Raign of Baldwin the Leprous The Ambassage to the Princes of the West to desire their Help against Saladin The Negotiation of the Ambassadours with the Pope and Emperor in France and England with Henry the Second The Artifices of that King to elude this Ambassage A famous Care of Conscience proposed in the Parliament at London upon this great Affair The reasons on one side and the other The best opinion rejected by the Bishops as False The Displeasure of the Patriarch Heraclius against the King The Conference between Philip Augustus and King Henry which recommences the War The Apostacy and Treason of a Templer The Death of King Baldwin the Fourth and of the young King his Nephew The Artifice of Sybil Mother to the deceased Infant King to obtain the Crown for Guy de Lusignan her Second Husband The Despight of Raymond Earl of Tripolis thereupon His Character His horrible Treason and secret Treaty with Saladin who enters Galilee and besieges Tyberias Division in the Councel of War held by the King The unfortunate Battle of Tyberias which was lost by the Treachery of Count Raymond The Advantage which Saladin made of his Victory The Relation of the Siege and taking of Jerusalem by that Victorious Prince The sorrowful Departure of the Christians from Jerusalem and the Generosity of Saladin The Cruelty and miserable Death of the Earl of Tripolis The Triumph of Saladin An Account of the Preserving of Tyre by Marquis Conrade The Causes of the Loss of the Holy Land p. 113. BOOK II. The Death of Pope Urban III. upon the News of the Loss of Jerusalem The Decrees of Pope Gregory VIII and the Rules of the Cardinals to move God Almighty to Mercy and Compassion upon the Christians Gregory makes Peace between the Pisans and the Genoese Clement III. his Successor sends his Legates to the King of France and to the King of England The Conference at Gisors Where the Arch-Bishop of Tyre proposes the Crusade which is received by the two Kings The Ordinances which they made for the Regulation of it The War recommences between the two Kings which hinders the Effect of the Crusade Richard Duke of Guienne joins with King Philip against his own Father The Death of Henry II. King of England His Elegy and Character The Legates propose the Crusade at the Diet at Mayence The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa there takes upon him the Cross as do many other Princes and Prelates of the Empire The Description of that Emperor His March to Thracia where he is necessitated to Combat the Greeks The Character of the Greek Emperor Isaac Angelus The Reason why this Emperor betrayed the Ltains The History of the False Dositheus who seduced him and of Theodore Balsamon The Victories of Frederick in Thracia The stupid Folly of Isaac And his dishonourable Treaty with the Emperor The Passage and March of Frederick into Asia The Treachery of the Sultan of Iconium and the Defeat of his Troops by a pretty Stratagem of the Emperor ' s. An Heroick Action of a certain Cavalier The first Battle of Iconium The Description Assaulting and Taking of that City The Second Battle of Iconium The Triumph of the Emperor The March of the Army towards Syria The Description and the Passage of Mount Taurus The Death of the Emperor and his Elogy Frederick his Son leads the Army to Antioch after that to Tyre and from thence to the Camp at Ptolemais or Acon The Description of that City and the adjacent Country The Relation of the famous Siege against it begun by King Guy de Lusignan The Succours of two fair Naval Armies The Description of the famous Battle of Ptolemais The manner of the Christians Encampment The Reason of the length of the Siege The Death of Queen Sybilla and the Division between Guy de Lusignan and the Marquis Conrade who marries the Princess Isabella the Wife of Humphrey de Thoron A general Assault given to Ptolemais upon the Arrival of Frederick Duke of Suabia A brave Action of Leopold Duke of Austria The Death of Frederick and his admirable Vertue p. 149 BOOK III. The Beginning of the Reign of Richard Coeur de Lyon King of England and his Preparations for the Holy War The Preparations of Philip the August The Conferences of Nonancour and Vezelay between the two Kings The Portraict of Philip the August The Character of Richard King of England The Voyage of the two Kings to Messina An adventure of the English Fleet. A Quarrel between the English and the Messineses The taking of that City The Quarrel between the two Kings and their new Accomodation The Relation of the Abbot Joachim and his Character His Conference with King Richard The Departure of King Philip and his Arrival before Acre The Departure of Richard The Relation of the Conquest of the Kingdom of Cyprus by that Prince His Arrival before Acre A new Difference between the two Kings and the true Causes of it Their Accord The Reduction of the City of Acre The extreme Violence of King Richard The Return of Philip the August The March of Richard The Battle of Antipatris The single Combat between King Richard and Sultan Saladin A noble Action of William de Pourcelets who saved the Life of that King Richard presents himself before Jerusalem at an unseasonable Time and therefore retires and disperses his Army into Quarters The Marquis Conrade slain by two Assassins of the old Mountain The Description of that Government and those People A wicked Action of the Templers which hindred their Conversion The Cause of the Marquis his Death Richard accused of that Crime His Innocence is proved Isabella Marries Count Henry and is declared Queen of Jerusalem Guy de Lusignan made King of Cyprus Richard pretends a Second time to besiege Jerusalem defeats the Enemies takes the Caravan of Egypt but retires by a cunning Agreement A calumny against Richard which he clears by a most memorable Action The Battle of Jaffa and the taking of that Place from the Sarasins by Richard His Treaty with Saladin and his unfortunate Return He is taken and Imprisoned His Deliverance The Justice which he demanded and which he obtains A new division among the Princes of the East appeased by the Count de Champagne The Death of Saladin and his Elogy Division happens among the Infidels which gives occasion to a fourth Crusade p. 186. PART III.
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
had before-hand complotted their Destruction there perished a hundred thousand men besides an infinite Number of Women who were led into miserable Captivity The Earl of Poitiers having lost all was reduced to the deplorable Necessity to make his Voyage on Foot Hugh the Great could not finish his but died by the way at Tarsus in Cilicia The Earl of Tholose making Use of the small Remainder of the Pilgrims to regain Tortosa from the Saracens who had seized it abandoned his Benefactors and fortified himself in his Conquest following the Design which he had always cherished to acquire some little Principality in the East The rest after having visited the Holy Places conducted by their ill Destiny compleated their Misfortunes by joyning with the King in this unhappy Battle only the Earl of Poitiers escaped having taken Shipping at Jaffa in order to his return into France the rest who stayed were either slain upon the Place as were the Earls of Blois and Burgogne or taken Prisoners as were the Earl of Bourges and many other brave though unfortunate Persons The King nevertheless escaped to Rama and in a few days having drawn together the Troops of Antipatris Tiberias Jerusalem and Jaffa into which Place he had put himself he made a Sally to so good purpose upon his Enemies who prepared to besiege him that in the End he constrained them to take their Flight leaving to him all the Marks of an absolute Victory the Field of Battle the Bodies of the Slain all their Engines and their Baggage After which he took Ptoelmais by the Help of the Genoese who besieged it by Sea with seventy Ships he a second time defeated the Saracens of Egypt in the Plain of Rama he took the City of Tripolis year 1105 which under the Denomination of an Earldom and the Condition of Homage he conferred upon Bertrand the Son of the Earl of Tholose year 1109 who was dead about four years before he made himself Master of Sidon Beritus and all the Sea-Coast Towns excepting Tyre which he kept blocked up by the Fortress of Scandalion which he caused to be built upon the Coast some five Miles from that City in the same place where Alexander the Great had formerly formed his Camp when he besieged that City In the End after having also built upon the further side of Jordan the Castle of Mont-Real to bridle the Incursions of the Arabians and having carried his Victorious Arms even into Egypt year 1118 he died of the Flux and was interred near his Brother Godfrey at the Foot of Mount Calvary in a Chappel adjoyning to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre He left the Christians in Possession of four large Soveraignties which they had conquered in the East the first was the Earldom of Edessa which extended it self from the further side of Euphrates to the River Tygris the second was the Principality of Antioch in which was comprized all the Country which is between Tarsus of Cilicia towards the West and the City of Maraclea on the East upon the Coast of the Phenician Sea as far as Tortosa It was afterwards governed by Roger the Cousin of Tancred after the Death of that brave Prince who had governed it till after the Deliverance of his Uncle and then returning into France he married Constance the Daughter of King Philip the first and after having made War in Epirus and in Dalmatia with the Greek Emperor he died in Italy leaving behind him a Son of his own Name The third was the Earldom of Tripolis which extends it self along the Sea-Coast of Phenicia beyond Maraclea as far as the River Adonis which runs between Biblis and Baruth The fourth was the Kingdom of Jerusalem which beginning at the same River stretches it self almost to the Castle of Daron upon the Frontier of Idumea near unto Egypt In this flourishing Estate stood the Affairs of the Christians in the East at the death of Baldwin the second His Brother Eustace Earl of Bullen who ought to have succeeded him was at that time in France and in Regard there was a Necessity that they should have a King who should be actually within the Kingdom year 1118 to maintain things in that Condition wherein they stood against so many Potent Enemies which they had upon all hands therefore the Earl of Edessa his Cousin Baldwin de Bourg who was at that time at Jerusalem was called to the Succession of the Kingdom which he took upon him leaving the Earldom of Edessa to Josselin Earl of Courtenay who was his Kinsman Now in Regard that it was in the Beginning of his Reign that the Order of the Knights Templers were first founded in his Palace and that it is requisite something should be said of these Knights as also of the other Order which was called Hospitallers I think it will not be amiss in a few Words to inform the Reader of the Original the Intention the manner of Living and the Employ of these Military Orders which were established in Palestine under the first Kings of Jerusalem It is certain that before the Christian Princes had conquered the Holy Land there were Hospitallers at Jerusalem whereof some received and Entertained the Pilgrims which came from all Parts of Christendom to visit the Holy Places and others of them had the Charge of the Poor Sick and Diseased People and particularly of the Lepers of which there were great Numbers in those times Those who were called the Hospitallers of St. Lazarus are far more Ancient than the first of these as appears by the great Number of Hospitals and Insirmaries of the Name of St. Lazarus which were wholly intended and principally in the East for such as were afflicted with the Leprosie St. Gregory Nazianzen assures us that St. Basil built one at Cesarea dedicated to the same Saint the supposed Protector of the Lepers and that he gave Rules to these Charitable Hospitallers who devoted themselves to the Service of those diseased People As for the others who made Profession to serve the Pilgrims of the Holy Land they were not in being till a long time after that the Merchants of Amalphi in Italy who trafficked into Syria obtained Permission of one of the Caliphs to build a Monastery near the Holy Sepulchre to which they added a Hospital and an Oratory dedicated to St. John the Eleemosynary there to receive the poor Pilgrims as well as the sick and diseased For after they were embodied into a Community as formerly they took Care only of the Infirm and Leprous so now there were others who were particularly appointed to attend the Pilgrims and both the one and the other were indifferently called Hospitallers they lived a long time in this peaceable Exercise of Charity under one Superior who was called the Master of the Hospital until that after tho Conquest of Palestine by the Princes of the Crusade they took up Arms not only for the Desence of the poor Pilgrims but also to serve the Kings of
Promise of Repayment after the War he went according to the Custom of his Ancestors to St. Dennis to take the Oriflame or Standard of that Saint From thence he departed a little before Whitsunday towards the middle of June taking his way for Mets where was to be the general Rendezvous of all his Troops whilest in the mean time the Emperor as before was agreed marched with his towards Constantinople where they were to rejoyn their Forces The Emperor accordingly having assembled almost all the Forces of the Empire parted from Noremberg about the End of May upon Ascention Day with a most flourishing Army consisting in seventy Thousand Men at Arms all Curiassiers without computing the light Horsemen and with an Infantry the most numerous and in the best Condition that ever any Emperor had seen before After having passed the Danube at Batisbonne crossed through Austria Hungaria Bulgaria and Thracia without any of those mischievous Rencounters which happened to the first Crusades upon the seventh of September they entred into a fair large and delicious Valley in the middle whereof ran the River Melas in his Passage into the Gulph of that Name or the Black Sea and sometimes borrowing the Name of Cardia an Ancient City of the Thracian Chersonesus The Beauty of so agreeable a place obliged the Emperor to stay there to refresh his Army and to Celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin which was the next day But there happened a sad Accident which seemed to portend the unlucky Success of this fatal War For the Army encamping while it was yet Early day and it happening to be a Serene and Glorious Evening and the Medows on each side of the River extending themselves a great length to the very Foot of the Mountains there was nothing during the whole Voyage to be seen so fair and magnificent as this Encampment For the Camp represented some fair and lofty City being composed of an Infinite Number of very rich Tents which were disposed in diverse Streets the whole length of the Plain as far as one could well discern till they came to a little rising Hill where stood the Pavilions of Duke Frederick and appeared like the Cittadel of this Enchanted City They passed the Evening with great Jollity solacing themselves after the Fatigues of so long a March which they had endured a little before they were to go to their Repose after that the Bishops had begun the Solemnity of the following Festival by the Publick Prayers for the Eve of Ascention the Heavens began to be darkned with a few small Clouds which produced some light Drops rather of Dew than Rain but within a Moment after there arose one of those furious Whirlwinds which they call Hurricanes which made such a disorder as is not imaginable for immediately the Impetuosity of these contrary Winds which rushed one against the other with a most dreadful roaring was so great that having broken all the Cordages which held up the Tents all this City without Foundation was partly tumbled down to the Ground year 1147 and partly hoisted up into the Air where the Winds which wrapt themselves up in the Pavilions made them sly about and afterwards tore them in a thousand pieces this Storm was succeeded by such fearful Deluge of Rain as made a thousand litle Torrents come rolling down from the Neighbouring Mountains into the Plain which by their Rapidity carried before them Men Beasts Moveables and what ever they incountred in their Passage and at the same time the South-Wind the most violent of the rest drove up the Water of the River and swelled it with the Huge Waves of the Sea to that prodigious height that it overflowed all the Banks in that furious manner that all the Plain was drowned to the very Foot of the Mountains It is impossible to express the Tumult the Consternation and the Desperation of the Army upon this Terrible Accident all that the great Lords and Cavaliers could do was to run half naked to their Horses to get to the Mountains over this new Sea which had now taken Possession of those Beautiful Medows with which they were before so much delighted As for the poor Foot some of them got hold of the Tails of the Horses whilest others quaking with Wet and Cold as well as Fear followed the Track of the Horsemen a great many got upon the Waggons as upon a Rampart and others stood immoveable in the Places where they were up to the middle in Water waiting for the End of this Dreadful Tempest some by mistake falling into the River by reason the Banks could not be discerned miserably perished in the Waters and almost all lost the greatest part of their Baggage The loss of men however was not extraordinary in regard that the Tempest was too violent to last long The Inundation ceased in a few hours and the Waters falling immediately after the dispersed Souldiers rendevouzed upon the Mountain before the Emperor who learnt in this Rencontre how easie it is in a Moment for God to abase the Pride of men and when he pleaseth to humble the most formidable Powers of the Earth which are weak and miserable in Comparison of him This Prince who entertained himself with these Pious and Christian Meditations received this Blow of the Hand of Almighty God with great Humility and Submission to the Orders of his Providence and evidenced an extraordinary Greatness of Soul and Constancy of Mind under this Affliction thereby to encourage his Army at the Head of which he continued to march very chearfully leading them to lodge in the Suburbs of Constantinople there in some measure to recover this Loss In this time a fair Fleet composed of above a hundred Sail of Germans English Flemings and French which several private Persons had rigged out to make their Voyage more easily and quickly by Sea was diverted by an Adventure which was worth more than one Crusade and in which they happily found in Europe all that Glory which they went to search after in Asia This Fleet set Sail from England the twelfth of April having on board three or four Thousand men commanded by their particular Captains After they had for a long time met with foul Weather and Cross Winds at last they came to an Anchor before Lisbon thinking there to refresh themselves when they were surprised by finding that great City besieged by an Army of Christians to whom God sent this unexpected Succour to take Lisbon from the Sarasins and to make it the Capital City of that Realm which a Prince descended from the House of France had newly founded This Prince was Henry the Grand-Son of Robert of France Duke of Burgundy and Second Son of King Robert He being young and a passionate Lover of Glory went to seek for it in Spain at the Wars against the Moors towards the latter end of the Reign of Ferdinand the first King of Castile and made his first Campagne under that famous Captain
promising to furnish the King with three or four Greek Noblemen who had Skill to conduct his Army by good Ways and that he would furnish Magazines of Provisions for them during their March The French Lords who were ready to dye with the desire they had to make haste to have their share in the good Fortune and the Glory which they believed the German Army were now reaping made no sort of difficulty to make that Oath to the Emperor saying That they did the same every day in France to the Lords of Fieffs without any prejudice to the Sovereignty of the King But the Count de Dreux the King's Brother believing that he should dishonour the Blood of France if he should acknowledge for his Lord any one except the King his Brother took occasion to give them the slip taking along with him some of the most Generous as also the Princess his Cousin whom Manuel desired for a Wife for one of his Nephews And while they were hotly disputing about these two Articles which the Bishop of Langress ever most vigorously opposed he had Leisure enough to get as far as Nicomedia At the same time the King of Sicily who made War with Manuel with Success enough did whatever he was able by his Ambassadors to oblige the King to joyn with him in a League against that Emperor and to attack him both by Sea and Land in Europe and in Asia But the Scruple which the King had still in his Mind which made him fearful of violating his Vow if he should make never so little a Sally from this Holy War made him refuse all these fair Offers contrary to the Advice of the wise Bishop of Langress who clearly fore-saw and to no purpose fore-told the Misfortunes which would befall him and the Army by the Perfidiousness of the Grecian Emperor Thus the Treaty being concluded and the Emperor after an Interview with the King upon the Banks of the Propontis having sent over all the French that yet remained at Constantinople the whole Army marched in the beginning of November towards Nicomedia a City which at that time was in a manner wholly ruinous And now the Baseness and Treachery of the perfidious Manuel began plainly to appear for the Guides and Officers which he promised to send to conduct the Army through a good Country and to give Orders for Provisions were not to be found and in the Road wherein they now were there was very little Subsistence for the Army so that it was resolved to change it and quitting the lest Hand where the Provinces were very barren and desolate year 1147 to take the Right Hand way towards the South and to incamp upon the Lake of Ascanius near unto Nice There it was that in the Heat of those Desires which possessed the Army to advance and joyn as soon as possible with the Germans who were supposed to be so victorious they were extremely surprized with hearing of their Defeat At first the news came but by some whispering Rumors but it was in a little time confirmed by Frederick Duke of Suabia the Emperors Nephew whom that unfortunate Prince who with great difficulty had recovered Nice with the pittiful Remainder of his ruined Army who in their Extremity were very ill treated also by the Greeks had sent to the King to advertise him of his overthrow and to request of him that he might see him to the End that from his disaster he might give him Notice of some things of great Importance in this unhappy Conjuncture The King who certainly was a Prince the most Civil and Obliging in the World and had a Soul of the best Temper of any man of his time resolved instantly to prevent the Emperor in his Design of seeing him and to endeavour to sweeten his ill Fortune by all manner of Honors and good Offices which he was capable to do him he therefore immediately mounted to Horse accompanied with all the great Lords and Officers of his Army and went to find the Emperor in the Place where he was encamped expecting the Return of his Nephew Frederick Never was there any thing seen more Tender and Moving than this Enterview for no sooner did these two great Princes see each other but they ran into mutual Embraces wherein they held one the other for a long time without being able to speak any other Language but those Tears which the Joy the Grief and Compassion which moved so diversly in their Hearts drew at last into their Eyes The King was the first who broke the Silence and endeavouring to force a Joy into his Lips in Despite of the Sorrow which surrounded his Heart he said all that it was possible in the most Christian and obliging manner to comfort the Afflicted Emperor for his Loss he offered him all that he had his Forces and his Fortune and protested that he always would esteem it as great an Honor to be his Faithful Companion in this War as he should have done were he still at the Head of an Army as numerous and flourishing as that which he commanded before this Disaster The Emperor also on his part said all that was most capable to touch the Heart of a Christian Prince he acknowledged with great Humility the Heavy hand of God to be justly laid upon him for the Sins of his Army and for his own too great Presumption in relying so much upon the Strength of his own Arms to the Prejudice of that Confidence which he ought to have reposed in God alone in whose Almighty Hands is the Disposal of the Fortunes of Kings Nevertheless he said since God had been pleased still to give him the same Ardent Desire to accomplish his Vow and that he had in his Extremity found out for him such a Generous Protector he hoped that his Divine Majesty would be pleased yet to make use of him to combat the Infidels among the Arms of France which he hoped would be happier than his and that he was resolved never to part from them After which the two Princes having held a great Councel with the Principal Lords of the one and the other Nation it was resolved that the two Armies should march together following the Road which the King had already taken in drawing toward the lesser Asia between the Sea and Phrygia But this Resolution of the Emperor did not continue long for the German Lords some or other of them every day demanding of him leave to depart under Pretext that they had lost their Equipage when they were arrived at the City of Ephesus after having suffered much by the mischievous Greeks this poor Prince found himself so slenderly accompanied that he was ashamed of himself and believing that it was putting an Affront upon his own Character and the Empire which he governed to have it said that an Emperor of Germany without an Army should seem to serve under a King of France he therefore Excused himself in the best manner that he could to
advantage from his Absence as also that they were not without Jealousies and Suspicious that his own Sons of whom they were not too well assured might occasion some disturbance in the Realm but that for his own particular he would with all his heart give fifty thousand Marks in Silver for the maintaining of the War year 1185 and that he would further oblige himself to maintain all such of his Subjects as would undertake that Enterprise This certainly was very obligingly and advantageously offered by the King but the Cholerick Patriarch fiercely rejecting the Proposition told him very insolently That they had no occasion for his Money but for his Person that they had more Gold and Silver than they desired and that they were not come so far but to search for a Man who wanted Money as he did and who therefore might to his advantage make a profitable War against the Infidels and that they did not seek for Money which stood in need of a Man who was skilled in Military Affairs and knew how to employ it in that War And for you Sir added he speaking to him with an Air as offensive and disobliging as was imaginable You have hitherto reigned with abundance of Glory But know that God whose Cause you have now abandoned is about also to abandon you and he will let you see what will be the Consequence of repaying him with Ingratitude for all those Riches and Kingdoms which you have not obtained but by your Enormous Crimes You have violated your Faith to the King of France who is your Soveraign and you make that your Excuse to refuse this War that you are afraid he should make War upon you You have barbarously caused the holy Arch-bishop of Canterbury to be murdered and yet in Expiation of your Guilt you refuse to undertake this Holy War for the Defence of the Holy Land to which you had engaged your self most solemnly upon the blessed Sacrament And then seeing the King change Colour and blush with Madness and Anger Never believe pursued he thrusting out his Neck Never believe that I have the least Apprehension of the Effects of that Fury which glows about your Cheeks and Eyes and which the truth of what I have spoken which you cannot endure hath kindled in your Soul there taking Head Treat me as you have done St. Thomas I had rather die by your Hand in England than by that of the Sarasins in Syria since I esteem you little less than a barbarous Sarasin In truth this extravagant raving Language in a Patriarch and a Patriarch-Ambassadour was both inexcusable and insupportable but the King whose Age and Experience and the dangerous Consequences which had followed upon the death of Becket the Arch-bishop of Canterbury had rendred more moderate made a great Attempt upon himself and generously surmounted his Passion though the Patriarch went on still vomiting out of indecent Reproaches worse than before which I am ashamed to relate And when the Transport into which the old Prelate had put himself was over and that he began again to be in a tolerable Humour the King did not for all this fail to treat him with abundance of Sweetness and Civility till such time as he carried him over in his own Ship to Roan where after the Celebration of Easter he went with him to the Frontier that so he might be a Witness of the Conference which was held for three days with King Philip upon the Subject of this Holy War But for all that the Patriarch was no more satisfied than he had been before for the two Kings remained fixed in their Resolution and both together informed him that their Affairs would not permit to be so far and long absent from their Dominions but that they were both willing to assist him with such Stores of Men and Money as might defend them against all the Power of Saladin And thus it happened at the last that Heraclius who had made no scruple while he was in Palestine but he should bring along with him either the King of England or one of his Sons was forced to return not only without them but without the Succours also which were offered him which out of madness he foolishly despised contrary to all the Rules of Prudence and Reason and to the mighty prejudice of the declining Affairs of his Master So much doth it import Princes not to abandon their Affairs and Interests to the Discretion of those who have so little themselves as to suffer their unruly Passions to govern them so absolutely as to lose even that little which they have It is true indeed that after all this the Arch-bishops of Canterbury and Roan and the greatest part of the Lords of England Normandy and Guienne and the other Provinces which the English possessed in France took up the Cross as soon as the Soldiers which Philip Augustus had levied in order to the sending them to the Succour of the Holy Land But this beginning of a Crusade turned to no great account not only because the two Kings did not at all engage in it year 1185 but also because the Peace which was made between them was shortly after broken the occasion of which and the renewing of the War happened to be by the Refusal of Richard the Son of the King of England to do the Homage which he ought to have rendred to King Philip for the Earldom of Poitou which he held of the Crown of France by that ancient Tenure as also by reason that King Henry refused to restore the Earldom of Gisors after the death of the young Henry his eldest Son to whom it was given in Dowry with Margaret of France his Lady the Sister of Philip Augustus upon Condition that it should revert to that Crown if Henry should dye without Issue as he did three Years after his Marriage Thus the Holy Land which was so furiously attacked by an Enemy so formidable as Saladin remained destitute of all Assistance and that which was still more deplorable was that this sad Relation being reported throughout Palestine by the Indiscretion of the Patriarch struck the whole Country with such an universal Consternation as produced a most dangerous Effect for an Enggish Knight of the Temple one Robert de St. Alban a good Captain but an ill Man who had neither Religion Honour nor Conscience believing upon this Report that all was lost as to the Christians and that he could no longer hope to establish his Fortune amongst a ruined People he began to think of making it among the Sarasins and to make himself considerable in meriting well of Saladin though by the blackest of all Crimes This infamous Man therefore rendred himself to that Prince offering him his Service against the Christians and promised him that in a little time he would destroy them and also take the City of Jerusalem with the Weakness whereof he was perfectly acquainted And that he might give him such Assurance of his Truth as was
their Empire and delivering them into the Hands of the Philistins Chaldeans and other Infidel People who were the Executioners of his Justice so did he punish the horrible Crimes of the Christians whom he had brought into Palestine by the victorious Arms of the first Crusades by depriving them of that Kingdom and abandoning them to be Slaves to those People whom their Ancestors had with so much Glory so often vanquished But farther to give some natural Reason for this Change the first Conquerors of Palestine were warlike and most valiant Men accustomed to Fatigues and such as frankly exposed themselves to all manner of Dangers and were never known to recoil let the number of their Enemies which they were to incounter be never so Prodigious they esteemed it a Happiness to dye Martyrs in combating gloriously for the Faith and for the Name of Jesus Christ And the Orientals against whom they fought were at that time little skilled in Wars cowardly undisciplin'd and half-armed People who were not able to abide above one Shock as having nothing to trust to but their Bows and Arrows which they shot at Rovers and commonly rather slying than fighting Whereas on the contrary the Christians having exchanged with the Infidels for all their Vices had also gotten their Cowardice their esseminate and idle way of Living loving Repose and Pleasure and hating the trouble of War and the Severity of that Discipline which is so necessary to a Soldier and which they wholly neglected The Turks and Sarasins on the other hand were become mighty Warlike under their victorious Sultans Sanguin Noradin Syracon and Saladin who having learnt at their Cost to arm themselves like the Europeans with good Curiasses and strong Lances had also taught them to follow their Colours year 1188 to fight hand to hand and had inspired them with Courage and Considence both by their Examples and the fortunate Success of their Arms. And in short The Conquerors of the Holy Land under the first Kings were under one sole Head who uniformly governed the whole Body of his Estate and Army which acted according to the Measures which he prescribed with a perfect Unity without Division without diversity of Interests Inclinations and Opinions as if the whole Army had been as one Man according to the Expression so frequent in the Scripture Whereas the Turks and Sarasins were then divided almost into as many particular Estates as there were Cities in Palestine and Syria and therefore could raise no great Armies but what must be commanded by many Chiefs who for the most part never accorded very well by reason of the diversity of their Opinions and Interests which made them almost continually be overthrown though they were incomparably the stronger in number of Soldiers than their Conquerors But upon the falling of the Realm the Christian Army was composed of the Troops of diverse Chiefs those of the King of Jerusalem the Prince of Antioch the Earl of Tripolis and the great Masters of the Temple and the Hospital who all of them had different Prospects and Designs which did not at all agree one with the other On the contrary all the Estates of the Infidels bordering upon the Christians Egypt Arabia Mesopotamia the Realms of Damascus and Cilicia were at that time united into one single Monarchy under the great Saladin and so their Army had but one Captain and Head who being most Wise and Valiant gave one Impression and a constant regular Movement to this great Body which did not act but according to his positive Orders And certainly it is most particularly this Unity which hath always made great Armies Victorious as may be seen in all Ages and Histories but was never more manifested than in this last Campaign which was so glorious and so advantageous to the King of France For on the one part the Emperour and the Spaniards and great part of the Princes of the Circles of the Empire and the Hollanders being leagued and confederated against him had raised very strong and numerous Armies to invade France both by Sea and Land On the other side that King alone without imploying any other Power but his own and giving out himself those Orders which were with Fidelity Executed always prevented them I do not say from entring but so much as approaching France Beat them thoroughly to the very Islands and in Person by main Force conquered one fair and large Province and his Army alone in Flanders under his auspicious Fortune commanded by the famous Prince of Conde having to oppose them three great Armies of the Emperour the King of Spain and the Hollanders joyned in one Body under three Chieftains yet cut in pieces their Rere took their Baggage ravished from them more than one hundred Colours and shamefully chased them from before Oudenard and pursued them beyond the Scheld And there it was that their Commanders having at last the Leisure to take Breath and to complain one to another were constrained to avow by their Flight which they disguised under the name of a Retreat that as there is but one Soul in one Body to give it Life Movement and the Power to perform those admirable Operations of a Man so there ought to be but one absolute Monarch in a Kingdom and one General in an Army to procure the Felicity of the People and to inable them to triumph gloriously over all the Enemies which go about to trouble their Repose or rob them of their Happiness But after these Reflections which I have made according to my little Art in Politicks which possibly will not appear altogether Useless or at least Indivertive it is time to return to my Subject and pursue this History of the Crusade THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART II. BOOK II. The CONTENTS of the Second Book The Death of Pope Urban III. upon the News of the Loss of Jerusalem The Decrees of Pope Gregory VIII and the Rules of the Cardinals to move God Almighty to Mercy and Compassion upon the Christians Gregory makes Peace between the Pisans and the Genoese Clement III. his Successor sends his Legats to the King of France and to the King of England The Conference at Gisors where the Archbishop of Tyre proposes the Crusade which is received by the two Kings The Ordinances which they made for the Regulation of it The War re-commences between the two Kings which hinders the Effect of the Crusade Richard Duke of Guinne joins with King Philip against his own Father The Death of Henry II. King of England His Elegy and Character The Legates propose the Crusade at the Diet at Mayence The Emperor Frederick Barbarossa there takes upon him the Cross as do many other Princes and Prelates of the Empire The Description of that Emperor His March to Thracia where he is necessitated to combat the Greeks The Character of the Greek Emperor Isaac Angelus The Reason why this
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
should fail he should be sure of the third and that though he lost two Thirds of his Alms upon two false Religions yet the other falling upon the true he should undoubtedly find Advantage by it for the good of his Soul Poor well meaning Prince He did not know that there is a vast difference between Temporal and Eternal Goods And that though those are submitted to the Empire of Fortune which gives or takes them according as she pleases to turn her sporting Wheel yet in these it is far otherwise and that Eternal Goods are never exposed to Hazard and Adventure but they are certainly lost The Death of Saladin presently made a Change in the Face of Affairs throughout all Asia For having divided his Dominions among his twelve Sons without leaving any thing to his Brother Saphadin who had most faithfully served him in all his Wars This Prince valiant and ambitious resolved to revenge himself upon the first Opportunity nor was it long before it was offered and by him laid hold of For his Nephew to whose Share in the Distribution Egypt fell being slain by a Fall from his Horse as he was hunting Saphadin with Ease made himself Master of that fair Dominion and presently raising a powerful Army all the Soldiers of Saladin who had served under him and esteemed him infinitely running in to him he attempted the Ruin of his other Nephews and in a short time either by Force of Arms or by Treachery of their Subjects he overthrew them all year 1195 except the Sultan of Alepo to whom his Subjects always preserved a most inviolable Fidelity Thus whilst the Infidels armed one against another and thought of nothing but how to destroy themselves it was believed in Europe that a fair Occasion was offered for the Recovery of the Realm of Jerusalem now almost entirely lost which gave occasion to a new Crusade which was also followed by three others as in the ensuing History may be seen The End of the Second Part. THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADE OR The Expeditions of the Christian Princes for the Conquest of the Holy Land PART III. BOOK I. The CONTENTS of the First Book The little Disposition which was found in Europe to this fourth Crusade The Pope resolves at last to address himself to the Emperor Henry VI. The Diet of Wormes where the Princes of Germany take up the Cross An Heroick Action of Margarite the Sister of Philip the August Queen of Hungary who takes upon her the Cross The Artifice of the Emperor who raiseth three Armies and makes use of one of them to assure himself of the Kingdom of Naples where he extinguishes the whole Race of the Norman Princes The Arrival of the Armies by Sea and Land at Ptolemaïs The Truce broken by the Christians The deplorable Death of Henry Count de Champagne and King of Jerusalem Jassa taken by Saphadin The Battle of Sidon gained against Saphadin by the Princes of the Crusade The greatest part of the Cities of Palestine taken by the Christians Emri Brother of Guy de Lusignan King of Cyprus made King of Jerusalem The Seige of Thoron unhappily raised by the horrible Treason of the Bishop of Wertzbourg and his Punishment Division among the Christians The Combat of Jaffa The Death of the Emperor Henry VI. The Description of that Prince A Schism in the Empire occasions the suddain Return of the Princes of the Crusade who abandon the Holy Land to the Insidels The Death of Pope Celestin III. Innocent III. succeeds him The Elegy and Portraict of that Pope He endeavours to set up a new and general Crusade Fouques de Nevilli preacheth it in France The Elegy and Character of that holy Man The Crusade is preached in England King Richard engages many of his Subjects in it The Death of that Prince and his Penitence The Counts of Champagne Blois and Flanders take upon them the Cross Their Treaty with the Venetians by the Vndertaking of Henry Dandolo Doge of Venice The Description and Elegy of that Prince The Death of the Count of Champagne Boniface Marquis of Montferrat made Chief of the Crusade in his place The Death of Fouques de Nevilli A new Treaty between the Princes of the Crusade and the Venetians for the Seige of Zara A great Division upon that Subject Henry Dandolo takes upon him the Cross The Siege and Taking of Zara. The History of Isaac and the two Alexises Emperors of Constantinople The young Alexis desires the Assistance of the Princes of the Crusade against his Vnkle Alexis Commenius who had usurped the Imperial Throne The Speech of his Ambassadors The Treaty of the French and Venetians with this Prince for his Re-establishment A new Division upon this Subject A new Accord among the Confederate in the Isle of Corfu The Description of their Fleet and their Arrival before Constantinople year 1194 THere was very little probability for the Christian Princes of the East to hope for any Assistance from the Princes of Europe where there was now not the least favourable Inclination towards the Holy War The Kings of England and France upon whose Protection they had always chiefly depended were so far from uniting as they did before year 1195 in such a glorious Design they were engaged in a most cruel War which was only discontinued for some time by little Truces which served to no other purpose but to give them leisure to take Breath a little and thereby to put themselves into a Condition to attack each other with greater Fury than before The Emperor was wholly taken up with putting himself into the Possession of the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in Right of his Wife Constantia the Empress In pursuit of which after the death of Tancred he extinguished the whole Race of those brave Normans who had so generously conquered and so gloriously possessed those Realms for above one Age. Pope Celestin III. wasted with Age and Fatigues being now advanced to ninety Years was in no Condition to undertake so difficult a Task as the Forming of a new Crusade And besides he was extreamly embroiled with the Emperor whom he had excommunicated for the Violence which he had used to the King of England so that he had little hope to engage him in the Enterprise Nevertheless after he was assured of the death of Saladin and the great Revolutions which that had made in his Empire which he understood by Letters from Henry Dandolo Doge of Venice he applied himself with the same Zeal which his Predecessors had done to form a Holy League among the Christian Princes to make advantage of this fair Opportunity for the re-gaining of Jerusalem For this purpose he sent his Legates throughout all Europe He did all that lay in his power to procure Peace between the two Kings of France and England and conjured them at least to send some Assistance to Palestine if the posture of their Affairs was such as would not permit them to go thither in Person to
Church should give the fortieth penny of their Revenue and the Cardinals the tenth for the carrying on of this Holy War Obliging himself in particular to send considerable Summs of Money and store of Provisions for that purpose and to raise Money for those Expences he caused all his Plate both Gold and Silver to be melted down and would be served in nothing but earthen Wooden or Vessels made of Glass At the same time he sent Cardinals to Venice Genoa and Pisa to exhort those potent Republicks to rigg out their Shipping as well to transport the Crusades into Palestine as to attack the Sarasins by Sea He also took great care to pacifie the Troubles of Hungary which hindred the Effect of the Crusade there and which Duke Andrew the Youngest Son of the deceased King Bela had raised in that Realm against Henry his Brother who succeeded to the Crown But in regard the happy Success of this Crusade depended more especially upon the Kings of England and France the two most potent Monarchies of Christendom who were now engaged in a cruel War he sent the Cardinal Peter of Capua his Legate who negotiated so skilfully and with such Success between them that at length at a Conference which they had at Andeli they consented to a Truce of five Years in which time it was supposed the Enterprise of the Holy War might be happily concluded And in the mean time the Crusade was published in all Places but especially in France where that Devout man Fouques de Nevilli preached it by order from the Pope This so famous man who without Dispute was one of the greatest and most admirable Preachers that ever was was Curate of Nevilli upon the Marne not far from Paris a man of a great temporal Estate but most Zealous for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls which he endeavoured after by exercising with an incredible Fervency that extraordinary Talent which he had received from God to preach his Holy word This he did with all the Force imaginable not only in his own Parish Church but in all the adjacent Places and especially in Paris where he declared himself the Implacable Enemy of all Vices but above all of Usury and Impudicity which occasioned such horrible disorders in that time which he reproved boldly without fearing any person and with all the Heat and Zeal which his Temperament ardent and billious could furnish him with God who at the Beginning of his Ministry to elevate him by the Way of Humiliation permitted him for two Years to toil and labour without any Fruit whilest preaching with all his Power against those two Vices some mocking him others wholly abandoning him whilest a third sort took occasion outrageously to abuse his Sermons not any one seeming to reform or be converted by all his preaching insomuch that he was just upon the point of quitting and giving over his preaching despairing ever to do any good by it But God who was resolved to make use of him did so suddenly Change their Hearts and gave such Power to his words that piercing like flaming Darts into the most obdurate Hearts they made such a Prodigious Change upon the Manners of Men that to astonishment all France seemed to be reformed by him For he did not only abolish that Extravagant Extortion and unjust Usury which had so prevailed that neither the Ordinances of the King nor the Censures of the Church had been able to repress but he touched the Hearts of the Usurers so to the quick that publickly detesting their Crime they made restitution of what they had gotten by this kind of Robbery unto those whom they had oppressed by those horrid Extortions and where they could not sind those to whom they ought to make Reparation they came drowned in Tears throwing themselves at his Feet year 1198 and intreating him to take that unlawful Gain and destribute it among the Poor That which added still more Force and Efficacy to his Discourses was that it pleased God to bestow upon him the Gift of Miracles which he wrought in the Presence of the whole World either before or after his Preaching curing all sorts of Maladies and Infirmities by the sole Imposition of his Hands The Writers of those times tell us of great Wonders which he did and one among the rest assures us that he durst not recount all that he knew in regard of the great Incredulity of Mankind as for my own particular I believe that the greatest Miracle which he did was the clearing of Paris of those Infamous Places and the converting of so many lewd and debauched Women some of which making the Vow of Chastity silled the new Nunnery of St. Antonina whic'h he sounded for so pious a Design others of them publickly promised for the Future to lead a most austere and penitent Life and among the Young Women many who distrusted their Courage and their Power accepted the Favour which he offered which was a handsome Portion by the help whereof they easily passed from that danderous Condition wherein they were into that of an honest and lawful Marriage For this Purpose he procured mighty Contributions even the Schollars of the University raising for him five hundred Livres in Silver and the Burgers of Paris in a Body not reckoning the Particular Benefactions adding above a thousand more which was a very extraordinary Summ for those times So many Wonders which his Renown published of this admirable Preacher caused the Bishops to invite him into their Diocesses where he was received with extraordinary respect the People and Clergy flocking to him as if he had been an Angel sent from Heaven The good man did not hereupon grow proud and vain or distinguished himself by any foolish Affectation for he always went according to his Custom on Horseback decently habited like a man of his Profession he kept his Beard shavenaccording to the Custom of that Age his Diet which he always received with Benediction and giving of Thanks was indifferently what was offered him neither did there appear any thing singular either in his Person or in his manner of Living so that his preaching and his Miracles always produced good Effects wherever he came excepting in two Places in Normandy where he was very ill treated For coming to Lizieux and taking upon him with his usual Liberty and Vehemence to reprove the Disorders of the Ecclesiasticks who were very irregular they made him Prisoner but without being able to abridge him even in his Fetters of the Fredom which he took to reprehend them so that being ashamed to detain him after they were a little recovered from the Brutal Transport they set him again at Liberty After which as he preached at Caen doing his usual Wonders before the People The Governor of the Castle thinking he should do the King of England a great pleasure the good man having been very liberal in reproving his Debauches committed him to Prison from whence being in a marvellous way
the whole Realm the Germans not daring to appear in the Field But after so many Victories as he besieged their General Diepold in a certain Castle to which he had driven him the Contempt which he had of his Enemies was the occasion of his falling into their Hands for in the Night the General surprized him in his Tent and carried him Prisoner to the Castle all covered in Blood where he shortly after died more of Grief than of his Wounds so much nearer than their Swords had done did the Trouble and Affliction go to his heart to see himself in the power of those whom he had so despised complaining that he had so ill guarded himself against the Cowardly Germans who he said by Day-light though in compleat Armour durst not venture to attack the French stark naked and unarmed Thus by his Presumption he lost that in a Moment which by his Valour and great Abilities he had acquired by abundance of gallant Actions which he had performed in four Years before As for his Brother John de Brienne who among all the great Lords of France was chosen by King Philip the August to marry the young Queen of Jerusalem he received that Honour with all the marks of a profound Acknowledgment and promised the Ambassadors before their Parting that he would with all the Forces he could raise come for Palestine before the Expiration of the Truce Now Saphadin who apprehended there would be a new Crusade to accompany this King who was sent for from France offered the Christians to prolong the Truce but the Templers rejecting his Proposition the War was broke out afresh when John de Brienne arrived there which was the 3d of September in the Year 1210. year 1210 And whereas Saphadin believed that this new King would bring a great Army with him he found that he had only brought a few Troops together with about three hundred Knights who had imbarked with him at Marseilles to serve at their own Charges against the Infidels For the Troubles of Germany and Italy by occasion of the new Schism in the Empire and the War which was breaking out between Philip the August year 1210 and the Emperor Otho who was excommunicated by the Pope together with the famous Crusade which then began to be set on foot in France against the Albigenses hindred the raising of one to accompany King John de Brienne into the Holy Land So that he was able to raise no greater Fond of Mony than forty thousand Livres which he had from the French King and as many more which the Pope procured him from the Romans upon his Estate the Earldom of Brienne which he was forced to mortgage for it He did not however fail with his small Power to do all that could be expected from a Prince equally wise and valiant for presently after his Coronation which was celebrated at Tyre he took the Field and entring upon the Territories of the Infidels he took divers places from them and returned without Loss bringing a considerable Booty from them to Ptolemais But so soon as the Sarasins understood what a small number of Men he had brought with him out of Europe they joyned all their Forces and came to encamp about that City with a mighty Army commanded by Coradin so that the Christians durst not stir out but were in a manner besieged especially after the Sultan had seized upon all the neighbouring Places principally the Mountain of Thabor upon which he built a Fortress from whence they made continual Incursions year 1211 even to the very Gates of Ptolemais Hereupon the Knights and Persons of Quality who came along with the King seeing they were too weak to sally and sight their Enemies in the plain Field and being unable to suffer themselves to be lock'd in the City without doing any thing they returned before the Winter into France so that this poor Prince remained almost all alone in danger to have taken Possession of a Kingdom only to have the Displeasure and the Shame to see himself driven out of it unless he received some seasonable Assistance year 1212 This News gave a mighty trouble to the Pope who now began to apprehend that his principal Design which was the Relief of the Holy Land would be wholly ruined by being so long delayed he resolved therefore after the Example of Pope Vrban II. the first Author of the Crusades to employ his utmost power to procure one by calling a General Council that thereby he might engage all the Christian States and Kingdoms in it But in regard that considering the present posture of Affairs in Europe year 1213 this great Assembly could not be so soon held and that besides the pressing Evil required a more speedy Remedy he writ his Circular Letters to all faithful People to excite them to march with all possible haste to the Relief of their oppressed Brethren in Palestine And after having renewed the Prohibitions which he had so often made before That upon pain of Excommunication none should presume to sell any Merchandise more especially any Arms to the Sarasins he commanded certain Prayers with Fasting and Alms to be used in the Church for the imploring the Mercy and Pity of God and his Blessing upon the Council which was to be held for the taking care of the Necessities of the Church and above all other things the Relief of the Holy Land He also resolved to try other Ways since he saw those which had before been made use of did not prosper and addressed himself to Saphadin Sultan of Babylon and Damascus who was now become almost as potent as his Brother the great Saladin had been who took Jerusalem He writ to him to exhort him to restore that holy City to the Christians which besides that of it self it brought no considerable Advantage to him put him to vast Expences to be always in a Condition to resist the whole Powers of Christendom who would eternally arm themselves to take it from him He remonstrated to him That it was much better for him as a wise Politician freely and by Reason to do that which he must one day be constrained to do whether he would or not with the loss of his Honour and possibly all that he might upon the Surrender of that City quietly and peaceably be permitted to possess in the East That it was impossible but he must at last fall under those Arms whose invincible Force he was sufficiently sensible of already and whose Courage and Valour were above all fear of Danger That they esteemed it not only a point of Honour but of Religion to re-conquer that holy City which their Ancestors had taken by Force with not above twenty thousand Men from forty thousand Defendants and in the very sight of an Army incomparably greater than theirs That in restoring to the Christians that City which he could not long defend against them he would thereby assure himself of the rest of his Dominions by the
proceeding of the Emperor so little obliging nevertheless as he desired nothing so much as to quiet all those discords and Wars which might be prejudicial to that which he so much desired should be made against the Enemies of Jesus Christ and his Church he did not forbear doing what was most advantageous for the Emperors Interest insomuch that he perswaded the greatest part of the Cities of Lombardy who were confederated against him to lay down their Arms and obliged himself to obtain their Peace and pardon with the Conservation of their Privileges and Immunities upon condition that they should at their own charge maintain a certain number of Soldiers to serve under the Emperor for two years in the Holy War It was for the same reason that he hindred Henry the third King of England from Enterprizing any thing against France whilest Lewis the eighth made War against the Albigenses That King prosecuted the War against them with so much heat and Zeal that he did not spare continually to expose his Royal Person to all hazards and dangers and after having taken Avignion and the greatest part of the considerable places in Languedoc he was seized with that dangerous Malady which was got into his Army year 1226 of which he died at Montpensier the eight of November in the fourtieth Year of his Age and the third of his Reign leaving for his Successor his eldest Son Lewis the ninth of the Age of twelve years under the Regence of the Queen his Mother Blanch of Castile This was he who by the August Sirname of Lewis the Saint which was given him by God by the Authority which he hath given to his Church hath made himself be more gloriously distinguished by that title since his death than all other Kings have done during their lives by all the most Illustrious Sirnames and most magnificent appellations which men have bestowed upon them At last the term drawing near wherein the Emperor had obliged himself to begin this Voyage and that all things appeared better disposed than ever they had been before to the undertaking the Pope believed that the deciding Blow which he had so long desired was now certainly to be given And therefore redoubling his Efforts as one shall see a Flambeau blaze out twice or thrice with mighty Force before it is extinguished so he pressed the Crusades with so much Ardour that an infinite number of them came from all Europe into Italy it is reported that out of England alone there came above sixty thousand men to whom the appearance of a marvellous Crucifix from Heaven all glorious and shining in which were plainly to be seen the five Wounds had given so much Courage that they desired nothing so much as to combat and to die for Jesus Christ But as this devout Pope believed that he should enjoy upon Earth the Fruit of so much care and pains as he had taken to assemble so many Crusades he was taken more happily for himself to receive them in Heaven from whence he might see though without trouble in a small time after that which would have sufficiently afflicted him in this life that the Success of this Crusade proved quite otherways than he had vainly flattered himself withal in the time of his Pontificate But that a man may therefore never be disappointed there is nothing better than for any Person constantly to do what he ought to do and what he can do without promising himself any certainty of future contingencies and Events for which God alone is able to answer year 1227 He died at Rome the sixth of March in the Year 1227 and two days after the Sacred College by common consent gave him for his Successor the famous Hugoline Cardinal of Ostia who took the name of Gregory the ninth He was Nephew to Innocent the third who had imployed him in the most important Affairs of the Church a man of a mighty Spirit well made and of a Port extremely Majestick very knowing a great Canonist and of an irreproachable Life to whom St. Francis whose order he took into his Protection had predicted that he should be Pope He was in short of great Courage and incapable of yielding even in the greatest dangers but withal too quick in Execution of what he proposed without fearing the Consequences how mischeivous soever they might happen to be The first thing that he did after his Exaltation was to pursue the Enterprise of his Predecessor and to press the Emperor Frederick to put himself as soon as it was possible into a Condition to perform what he had so solemnly promised This Prince who after so many delays durst no longer desire the time to be prolonged appointed the Rendevouz to be at Brindes where the Shipping lay all ready for the Transportation of that Infinite number of Crusades who descended from all parts of Italy But as they came into Pavia during the great heats of the Summer which in that Country are excessive an Epidemical Distemper began to disperse it self among them which took off a great number and made others withdraw themselves though few of them ever returned into their own Country but perished miserably by the Way That which further contributed to the diminution of the Army was that a certain Imposture set up by some of the Principal Persons in Rome who had no kindness for the Pope as it appeared presently after counterfeited an Authority and Power from Gregory who had appointed him his Vicar for that purpose to take of the Cross from such as desired to be dispensed with as to the Performance of the Voyage and to commute their Vow into some considerable Alms of which this Cheat made his own advantage It is true that he was taken by the order of the Pope year 1227 and paid the price of his imposture but it was not till after many who were very glad to be dispensed with from a Voyage which they found already to be troublesome and dangerous had quitted the Cross by this Way which they believed was a very lawful and authentick way of being disbanded In short those who remained into Pavia came to Brindes with the Emperor and Lewis Lantgrave of Thuringia and Hesse who had conducted a gallant Troop of Germans who were imbarked about the middle of August and sailed towards Syria not doubting but they should be followed by the Emperor who seemed continually disposed and ready to part thither also And accordingly so soon as he saw the Lantgrave a little recovered of some Fits of a Fever which he had gotten in a little Island near Brindes whether he had gone to divert himself he put to Sea the eight of September with this Prince and the Patriarch of Jerusalem and those few Troops which remained But he sailed not far for the third day of the Navigation he commanded them of a sudden to tack about and stand for the Port of Otranto alledging that he found himself much indisposed and that in the Condition
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
Money to pay the Crusades came to nothing and seeing himself straitned by that Prince who joyning with the Rebells of the Church had constrained him to withdraw to Orvieta he had at last recourse to France He therefore made new Offers and Solicitations to Count Charles of Anjou and Provence to accept the Realms of Sicily and Naples as Fiefs escheated to the Church by the Felony of the Princes of Suabia who had injoyed them after the Normans And that he might do this more effectually he sent the Arch-Bishop of Cosenca into England to redemand from the King and Prince Edmond his Son the Right which he had invested him within these Kingdoms to which they could now no longer pretend since they had not accomplished the conditions upon which it was granted After which Simon de Brie Cardinal of St. Cecily passed as Legate into France to bestow the Investiture upon Charles who accepted of it by the King's consent and upon the pressing Solicitations of the Countess Beatrix his Lady who was ready to die with longing to be a Queen as well as her three other Sisters who had been so for a long time He therefore promised the Cardinal that he would presently March with a Powerful Army against Mainfrey And accordingly after that Clement the Fourth the Successor of Vrban had confirmed his Election he Sailed from Marseilles with thirty Stout Men of War and arrived safe at Rome where he expected his Land Army which this new Queen like a Female Hero led over the Alps quite through Italy receiving all the way as she passed the Auxiliary Troops of the Guelphs and being come thither she was Crowned Queen as the Count was King of Naples and Sicily in the Church of St. John of Latran by five Cardinals delegated by the Pope for the performance of that Ceremony he himself being then at Perusa After which the new King at the Head of his Army took the Field and forcing the passage of Goriglian and the Fortress of St. German he Marched directly towards the Enemy and in short gave Mainfrey Battle near Beneventum The Battle was bravely fought by Mainfrey who shewed himself a great Captain and Valiant Souldier but in Conclusion he lost it abundance of his gallant Men and he himself remaining among the Dead After which the young Conradin who was now about fifteen years of Age coming with a flourishing Army of Germans strengthened with the Gibelins of Tuscany and Lombardy attempted to recover the Inheritance of his Father but not being able to pursue the advantage which he had intirely at the beginning of the Battle which he fought against Charles he lost all For Charles who knew how to improve his error to his own advantage in conclusion won the Day from him near the Lake of Celano in a second Victory more Glorious and Compleat than the first But his Policy without doubt too severe not to say inhumane in this Rencontre made him dishonour it by cutting off the head of this unfortunate young Prince and that of Frederick of Austria by a Conduct which had nothing in it of the Genius and nature of St. Lewis or of the French Lords who all condemned this Action as Posterity will certainly do and which as it fails not to do justice to the good or evil Actions of Princes will certainly never pardon to his Memory In the mean time the great progress which the Sarasins daily made in the East against the Christians of Syria during the troubles of the West arriving at Rome the Popes Vrban and Clement failed not to write to St. Lewis and to the other Kings to pursue the Crusade which had been begun against these Barbarians But those which the Popes were obliged at the same time to publish against the Princes of Suabia and the Wars of Italy obstructed the doing of any thing effectually towards the General Crusade till such time as Charles after his two great Victories was peaceably established in the possession of his two Kingdoms For then the troubles of Italy being appeased year 1268 and Peace settled throughout all Europe the Pope and the King by agreement took up the design of that Crusade which it was impossible to execute whilest the private ones were published against Mainfrey King Lewis as much St. as he was could not hinder himself from retaining a boiling displeasure for the unhappy Success of his attempt upon Egypt and moreover inflamed as he was with a Zeal for the House of God he was wonderfully afflicted with sorrow to hear every Day that Bendocdar was ready to swallow up all and to chase the Christians wholly out of the Holy Land of Palestine It was therefore his passionate desire to take up the Cross again and to imploy the remainder of his Days in combating against the Enemies of Jesus Christ for the reconquering of his Inheritance which was almost intirely lost But in regard he was unwilling it should be said that in a matter of this importance he acted by the sole movement of his own Inclinations he sent privately to Pope Clement one of his Confidents to Communicate to him his design and to desire him to send a Legate into France with Command to exhort him and all his Subjects to undertake the Holy War The Pope who was very Wise considering that this Great Prince had already done beyond what could be expected from a most Christian King in the War against the Infidels deliberated a long time about this Affair But at last having well examined the matter he kindly assented to the King's desire and highly approved of his Pious Design and consequently resolved not to lose so fair an opportunity to form a Holy League against Bendocdar to which in the beginning of his Pontificate he had exhorted not only all the Kings of Europe but also the King of Armenia and Abagas the King of the Tartars in Persia For this purpose therefore he sent Simon de Brie Cardinal of St. Cecily his Legate into France and the Cardinal Othobon into England with order to pass from thence as he also did into Spain and Portugal then he ordained as he had done formerly that the Religious of the orders of St. Dominick and St. Francis should Preach the Crusade through all Germany as far as Denmark and Poland But nothing of all this had any Success except only in France by the diligence the Care the Example and admirable Zeal of St. Lewis For so soon as the Legate was arrived this devout King called a general Assembly of the Princes Prelates and Barons of his Realm to his Royal Palace in Paris where with all his Power and Eloquence animated with his Ardent Zeal he himself exhorted the whole Assembly To take upon them again the Cross to avenge the Injuries which the Sarasins had for so long time done to Jesus Christ in the fairest part of his Empire and to maintain the Christians in their proper Inheritance out of which the Sultan of Egypt and
of War in Africa and that they wanted refreshments and above all fresh Water which is very scarce in that Country Diseases and especially the Flux and Fevers fell into the Army and in a short time made a most fearful destruction The greatest part of the bravest and youngest men of the Army were unable to resist the violence of this terrible Enemy which daily carried off abundance of them And among the rest John Tristan Count de Nevers a Young Prince of about twenty years of Age died upon the third of August and the King his Father who loved him most tenderly although it was a most sensible Affiction to him yet sacrificed it to the Will of Heaven with the resignation and constancy of a Christian Hero The Cardinal Legate did not survive the Young Prince above four or five days and Philip the eldest Son of St. Lewis was also seized with a quartan Ague of which by the Strength of his Age and the heat of the season he was quickly delivered But the King his Father who had already fallen into the Flux being shortly after seized with a continual Fever left the whole Army languishing with extreme Grief for his death which happened the five and twentieth day of August after he had received the Sacrament with an admirable Presence of Mind an incomparable Piety and Sedateness of Spirit having nothing in his heart or upon his lips but the Glory of God for which only he had undertaken this Voyage He was constantly saying with a dying but Intelligible Voice to those who applyed their Ear to his Mouth to receive his last words For the Love of God let us indeavour some way to have our Holy Faith preached and received at Tunis Ah! My God whom shall we find to send thither to declare thy Gospel It must be such a one would be say naming a certain Religious of the Order of St. Dominick who was known to the King of Tunis and with these Zealous Ejaculations and this Apostolick fervency which he had for the conversion and salvation of Tunis he rendred his pious Soul into the hands of Almighty God precisely at the same hour that Jesus Christ gave up his to his Father making the same wishes for the Salvation of the whole world I have believed that in the quality of an Historian of the Crusades I was obliged in giving an account of the death of St. Lewis to recount this admirable circumstance which is so essential to my Subject since it shews so well what was the end which he proposed to himself in forming this Enterprise of Tunis and for the other particularities which in such a wonderful manner appeared in his death and all that which is so precious before God in the death of the greatest Saints as they do not properly began to my Crusades I leave them as well as the other admirable and Holy Actions of his miraculous life to those able Writers who so many years ago have promised us and who as I hope will write it exactly after so many Originals and so many Copies as the Writers of his own and the following times have left us I shall only add to give some Idea of his Body and of his Mind that he was then about the Age of five and fifty years of a middle Stature and a delicate Complexion but which he had greatly weakned by his great Austerities His Visage was something long but full his Forehead large and Majestick his head a little inclining to one side his Eyes extreme sweet his Mouth little and pleasing his Speech easie and very agreable and in his whole Person an Air of Goodness so winning and so charming especially in a King that it was impossible to look upon him without loving him or to love him without paying him that respect which was due to the Majesty of so great a Prince And for the Qualities of his Soul whether Natural or acquired one may say That there are few Princes who have possessed them in those high Degrees of Perfection as he did for he had an admirable composure of Spirit quick and clear and which he had cultivated by the Study of polite Learning and a solid Judgement so that he was always the most able Person of his Council always penetrating further than any of them when any difficult matter was under consideration having very easie conceptions of things and expressing himself extempore with much Gracefulness and Ingenuity year 1270 whatever he had to deliver governing much by himself especially after his return from the Holy Land but yet never acting but with the advice of his Council except in the Treaty which he made with the English to whom to oblige them to quit the rest he surrendred Guienne and Gascony not out of any scruple as Nangis writes since he himself acknowldged in Council that the Kings of England could not pretend any Right to them but for Peace sake although herein his Policy was much mistaken by reason that this Treaty having brought a Stranger into France brought a War upon it which lasted above two hundred years before he could again be expelled out of it This indeed is the only blemish with which St. Lewis can be reproached for having in this occasion contrary to the advice of his Council suffered himself to be too far misled by the Goodness of his Nature For as for any thing else there was nothing to be found in his Life but an admirable composure of all Royal and Christian Vertues in a most exact Temperament For he was the most valiant courageous fearless firm and immoveable in the midst of the greatest dangers and withal the most sweet pacifick kind and most easie of Mankind Austere humble modest devout respectful to the Holy See zealous for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls retired patient and mortified above all that is admired in the most Apostolick Men and the most Renowned among Recluses for their penitent Life and yet nowithstanding at the same time he was obliging affable complaisant and of an agreable humour in his Conversation familiar with his Confidents easie in his Domestick Affairs an admirable Husband an indulgent Father a sure Friend a good Master and a most excellent King loving his Subjects and reciprocally beloved by them firm and inexorable in causing Justice to be done his Ordinances and Laws to be observed Jealous of the Rights of his Crown and those of the Gallican Church conformable to the Common Law against all the abuses all the Novelties and the indeavours of such as would shock them he was liberal and magnificent in the ordinary expences of his Houshold in Ceremonies and publick entertainments which upon certain occasions he made very much to the Honour of France with a Splendor and Majestick Pomp far surpassing all his Predecessors which made him be equally admired both by the French and strangers In short there was never seen a more perfect accord than what appeared in this admirable Monarch
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
appointed him to preach the Crusade in France and Germany and to exhort the People and Princes to take up the Cross principally by the Motive of Penitence for the Remission of their Sins which they should obtain by delivering their Brethren from the Tyranny of the Insidels or in laying down their Lives in so pious an Enterprise So that it is from hence easie to discover what was the only Argument which engaged St. Bernard in this Affair for before that though he was most earnestly sollicited even by Soveraign Authority yet would he never either discourse or give his Opinion upon a Voyage of that Importance as Geoffry his Secretary afterwards the Fourth Abbot of Claraval has assured us in the History which he hath left us of the Life of that great Saint The King now highly satisfied to see his Design succeed so well being so solemnly supported by the Pontifical Authority year 1147 failed not at Easter in the Year following to convoke a General Assembly at Verelay a little Village in Burgundy between Auxerre and Nevers There met so great a Number of Princes Prelates Lords and Gentlemen and People of all Sorts of Quality that they were constrained to hold the Assembly out of the Town upon the Brow of a Hill which abutted upon a great Plain which was filled with an Infinite Number of People who ran together from all Parts of France upon the Report of the Enterprise of a Holy War wherein every one was desirous to have a share there was about the Middle of the Hill a Tribunal Erected upon which after the Letter of the Pope had been read St. Bernard made a Speech to the People with marvellous Force of Spirit Eloquence and Zeal representing to them in most Tender and moving Terms the Miserable Condition of the Christians in the East particularly since the second taking of Edessa by Noradin For the sad News was already come to France by the late Envoys from Antioch and Jerusalem who were come to implore the Succours of the French He forgot nothing that might most effectually move their Hearts he pressed them with the Considerations of the Glory of their Ancestors whose Conquests they were in Honor bound to defend and preserve he urged their own Eternal Advantage which they might assure to themselves by this kind of Martyrdom which they Voluntarily underwent by the Spirit of Penitence for the Abolition of all the Disorders and all the Crimes of their former Lives and above all he insisted upon the Honor of Jesus Christ whom he made appear as marching himself at the Head of the Crusades to Jerusalem to be there as it were once again Crucified if it were necessary for the Salvation of those that followed him So soon as he had finished his Discourse the King who had heard him with all the Marks of a most tender and sensible Devotion rising from his Throne threw himself at his Feet humbly demanding of him the Cross which the Pope had sent to this pious Abbot to bestow upon him he received it from his Hands with an extreme Respect and having himself fastened it to his Right Shoulder he did not believe he prostituted the Royal Dignity in any sort by mounting in that Condition up to the Tribunal with St. Bernard and from thence to exhort the People as he did with incredible Zeal to follow the Example of their King This Action far stronger and more perswasive than all the Eloquence of the Saint was immediately followed with a General Acclamation of all those who stood round about who with one Voice as it were by Consent cried out The Cross The Cross And at the same time Queen Eleonor the Daughter of St. William Duke of Guienne and Earl of Poitiers presented herself to receive the Cross and was followed by all the Great Men of the Realm the Principal whereof were Robert Earl of Dreux Brother to the King Alphonsus Earl of St. Giles Tierry Earl of Flanders Guy Earl of Nevers Renald his Brother Earl of Tonnerre Yues Earl of Soissons William Earl of Ponthieu Henry the Son of Theobald Earl of Blois William Earl of Varrennes Archibald de Bourbon Enguerrand de Couci Geoffry Rancon de Taillebourg Hugh de Lusignan William de Courtenay Renauld de Montargis Ithier de Thoci Guicher de Montgeay Everard de Breteil Dreux de Mouchi Manasses de Bulli Ancel de Trenel Guerin his Brother William Bouteiller William Agilons de Trie and among the Prelats Simon Bishop of Noyon Godfrey Bishop of Langress Alwin Bishop of Arras Arnoeld Bishop of Lizieux Herbert Abbot of St. Peter of Sens and Theobald Abbot of St. Colomb of the same City In short there was not one of the whole Assembly who did not protest that they would have the Cross and St. Bernard after having thrown down from this Tribunal a great Quantity which he had caused to be made up in great Bundles was obliged to satisfie their Importunity to cut his Robe into small pieces and upon the Spot to make it into new Crosses which he dispersed among them being forced at last to give the rest the Liberty to cross themselves since it was impossible to make so many Crosses as would suffice so vast a Number This was what was done in the Assembly of Verelay as for the rest the King adjourned the Deliberation of what was further to be done to another far greater which was to be held the third Sunday after Easter at Chatres where almost all the Arch Bishops and Bishops of France were present as if it had been a General Councel year 1146 The Resolution of the King who was present at the Synod with all the other Princes of the Crusade was there generally approved and which one cannot without some difficulty believe if St. Bernard himself had not writ it that which made the greatest Impression upon Mens Spirits was that the happy Success of the Voyage and of the War depended upon him and that it was there resolved by a Common Consent not only that he should go along with them but also that he should have the General Command of the Army which could not fail of being always Victorious under a Cheistain who was believed to be the Disposer of God Almighties Power by the Gift of Miracles which all the World attributed to him So easily do the Spirits of men prepossessed with the Opinion of the Sanctity of a Person suffer themselves to be seduced to take an irregular Conduct abandoning good Sense and that Reason which God hath bestowed upon them to regulate and govern the Deliberation of those Affairs which they are about to undertake But St. Bernard who was a man of a different Complexion from Peter the Hermit and who knew admirably how to make Wisdom and Reason consort with Grace and Devotion opposed himself stoutly against this Resolution which he believed was wholy dissonant to Prudence and Reason He writ to the Pope concerning it and made it so evident to him who understood
another Fleet more numerous then the first which came from the Coast of Tyre to reinforce the Camp of the Christians The first was a Fleet of Danes and Frisons to which were joyned such of the English who were resolved not to stay till the two Kings were accorded to make their Voyage to the Holy Land These were all chosen men resolute to employ the last drop of their Blood for the deliverance of the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ and they did so well accomplish that resolution that of twelve thousand Gentlemen who arrived upon this Fleet there remained not above one hundred alive at the End of the Siege Their Passage also was no less glorious than advantageous to Christendom for in their Way they took from the Sarasins the City of Silves in Portugal which they put into the Hands of the King Dom Sancho the Son of the great Alphonso and it hapned that they were at the same time joyned by several other Ships who had on board a great Number of Volunteers both Nobility and Soldiers under diverse French Lords and Princes the Principal of which were Robert Second Count de Dreux with his Brother Philip the Bishop of Beavais the Cousins of the King Thiband Earl of Chartres and Stephen his Brother Earl of Sancerre Rayoul Count de Clermont in Beavoise Thiband Count de Bar Erard Count de Brienne and Andrew his Brother who was esteemed one of the most Gallant men of his time William Count de Châlon upon the Saone Geoffry de Joinville Senescal de Champagne Guy de Dampiere Anseric de Montreal Manasses de Gerland Guy de Chatillon Upon the Marne and his Brother Gaucher the Third who was afterwards Earl of St. Paul and who signalized himself under that illustious name by a thousand noble Actions which he performed in the War against the Albigenses and in serving Philip the August against the Enemies of the Crown and above all in the Famous Battle of Bovines where he commanded the Rereguard of the Royal Army Gaucher the Second Grandfather of these two brave Lords and his Brother Renaud de Chastillon had formerly been in the Second Crusade under the Conduct of King Lewis the Young year 1190 Gaucher miserable perished in the unfortunate Combat of the Mountain of Laodicea and the Valiant Renaud who had been Prince of Antioch was slain by the Hand of Saladin himself after the deplorable and fatal Battle of Tiberias Guy de Chattillon who was imbarked upon this Fleet with the French Princes lost his Life at the Siege of Accon So that there are to be found few Families in France which have contributed so many great Men for the Holy War as have been derived from this Illustrious House of Chastillon from whence some tell us was descended that great Eudes de Chastillon Archdeacon of Reims Prior of Clugny Cardinal de Ostia and at last Sovereign Pope under the Name of Vrban the Second who was the Author of the first of the Crusades But we are otherwise informed by Alberick the Monk of the three Fountains of the Diocess of Chalons upon the Marne in his Chronicle which is only a collection of old Contemporary Authors and of which I have had a fair Manuscript communicated to me by M. Mabre Craymoisy Director of the Royal Printing-House of the Louvre who also printed this History This Alberick in his Chronicle under the Year 1087. which is that of the Exaltation of Vrban produceth not only Guy de Basosches as the Writer of the History of the Popes but another Author called Hugh who affirms that this Pope was born at Chastillon upon the Marne and that he was Son to the Lord de Lageri whose descendants from Rodolph the Brother of Vrban to the fifth Generation he there gives an Account of so that Eudes the Monk of Clugny took his Sirname from the Place of his Birth according to the Custom of those times and of our own also in some Monasteries his Fathers Name according to Panvinius being Miles another of our most Famous Genealogists will by all means have him to be the Son of a Lord of Chastillon whom he calls Miles but who never was in rerum Natura except in his own prolifick Brain since it is most evident that he was deceived as his own Son a most knowing Person ingeniously confesseth and is made apparent by comparing what he saith with Guibert the Abbot of Nogent an Author of that time who affirms that he was born in the Territory of Reims where the Seigniory of Lageri lies I have been willing contrary to my Custom to make this Genealogick Remark to shew how easie it is for Writers to be deceived in these kind of Matters by mistaking sometimes the place of their Birth for that of the Seigniory and that when by such an Equivocal Slip one comes to be perswaded that a man is descended from such a House into which Genealogical Stemm having grafted him they presently find out for him such imaginary Fathers Mothers and Grandfathers as never were in being as they have done for this Pope Vrban the Second And for this reason it is that I have not given my self or the Reader much Trouble in discussing the Genealogies of those persons of whom I have Occasion to speak in this Work in regard that is not only very troublesome but uncertain unprofitable Invidious and Vain and in no sort proper for an Historian who ought to leave such Researches to those who make it their peculiar Design to record the History of some Illustrious House To return therefore to my Subject James Lord of Avesnes and Guise one of the most renowned Captains of his Age being desirous to imitate the Zeal of Gerard d' Avesnes one of his Ancestors who was in the first Crusade joyned these Princes with a good Troop of his Subjects So that these generous French all together made more then ten thousand brave men who burning with an earnest Desire as soon as possible to combat the Infidels had not the Power to wait till the two Kings should be in a Condition to accomplish their Vow but caused a Fleet at their own Charges to be rigged out at Marseilles from whence in thirty five days time they arrived prosperously in the Road of Ptolemais at the same time that the Dains Frisons and English came to an Anchor in the same place so that together they formed a very fair Army The other Fleet was that of the Germans who had gone to Sea to reinforce the Army of the Emperor under the Conduct of the Lantgrave of Thuringia and the Duke of Guelderland who coming to ride before the Port of Tyre had at length perswaded the Marquis of Montferrat who was before frequently sollicited by such as came from the besieged Army upon the Hill Turon to joyn his Fleet with theirs so that weighing Anchor with about twenty two thousand Soldiers aboard they stood directly for Ptolemais year 1190 where by a very fortunate adventure they
Soldiers Gentlemen and great Lords Germans English Italians Flemings and Levantines who perished during the Siege either by the Malady or by the frequent Combats which happened The French lost there a-among the Persons of the greatest Quality the Counts Thibaud de Chartres and de Blois Stephen de Sancerre John de Vendome Rotrou de Perche Erard de Brienne Raoul de Clermont Gilbert de Tilieres the Count de Ponthieu the Viscounts de Turenne and de Castillane Alberic Clement Mareschal of France Adam the Great Chamberlain the Lords jocelin de Montmorency Guy de Chastillon Florem de Augest Bernard de St. Valery Enguerand de Fiennes Gautier de Moy Geoffry de la Briere Anselm de Montreal Guy de Dane Hugh de Hoiry Raoul de Fougeres Eudes de Goness Raoul de Hauterive and Renaud de Magni all whose Names I have found among the Writers of those times and which I thought my self obliged by no means to suppress but that in this History the Reader may receive the Pleasure of finding among his Ancestors by consulting the Pedigree some of these Illustrious men whose glorious Memory ought to be an Eternal Honor to those Houses who have descended from them The City being taken the Kings according to their Treaty divided all the Booty equally between them as also the Prisoners and the Houses The Cardinal Bishop of Verona Legat of the Holy See the Archbishop of Tyre and Pisa the Bishops of Beavais Chartres d' Eureux Bayonne Salisbury and Tripolis solemnly re-dedicated the Churches which the Sarasins had turned into Mosches There were also assigned to the Venetians Genoeses Pisans to the Knights of the Temple and those of the Hospital the Quarters and Rights which they were to possess in the City of Acre and in truth every thing passed peaceably and in good Order except that King Richard who too easily suffered himself to be transported by his Natural Violence and Choler committed two Actions of surious Madness one of which proved afterwards very dangerous to himself and the other presently to the poor Christians which happened thus at the same time that the French had overthrown the Walls adjoyning to the Wicked Tower year 1191 and were ready to force the Place and that the Besieged found themselves necessitated to capitulate before the surrender Leopold Duke of Austria who attacked a quarter on the opposite part had seized upon another Tower and had there planted his Standard which stood there after the Reduction of the City Richard who for other Matters was exasperated against Leopold in regard that as well as the rest of the Germans he had been of Philip's Party took this occasion to be revenged of him as if he had usurped upon the Authority of the two Kings and therefore caused the Standard to be taken down by plain Force and being torn in pieces and trampled under Foot he caused it to be thrown into the Kennel by the most insupportable of all Affronts that could be given to a Prince who loved Glory The Germans who were naturally jealous of the Honor of their Nation and incapable of bearing I do not say such a horrible Injury as this was but even the Shadow of being contemned had not failed instantly to do themselves reason by their Arms which they presently took against the English but Leopold who was altogether as brave but something a better Dissembler than King Richard chose rather for a time to respite his Vengeance which he hoped to find a more fit occasion for where he should not be blamed by induring the pain of this Affront for doing greater Mischiefs to the Christian Affairs which must needs suffer much by a Civil War and which in a few days following did suffer extremely by another cruel Effect of the Violent Nature of this Prince For seeing that Saladin persisted in refusing to satisfie the Articles of the Capitulation which the Besieged had on his Behalf ratified he conceived such a Despight that he Inhumanly caused the Heads of above five thousand Prisoners which fell to his Share to be cut off Nor could he be diswaded from it by the Consideration of so many Christian Captives to whom Saladin as he had menaced caused the same measure to be given by a kind of cruel Reprisal the blame of which is always laid upon him who begins And certainly it hath always been seen that these dangerous Examples which are given to an Enemy in the time of War which he always believes he hath a Right to render the like measure for the Security of his own People have always been condemned by others who have had the Occasion to suffer by it and that those who give it are at last constrained to abstain the first from it though something with the latest and after it hath caused the Lives of so many unfortunates as have perished either by the transports of the one or the Vengeance of the other As for King Philip who was more moderate he used his with more humanity and contented himself to leave the Prisoners in the Hands of Marquis Conrade as he Passed by Tyre in his return from the Holy Land into France This Prince who was extreme Wise perceived on the one hand that Richard become now more Fierce and Violent than ever after the taking of Acre kept no sort of Measures and that it was impossible for them long time to keep in any Terms of Accord and on the other perceiving that he was daily infeebled by the Distemper into which he was again relapsed he might run the Hazard of dying in Palestine without being able to do any Service to Christendom and that in the mean time Advantage might be taken of his Absence by invading the Earldom of Flanders which ought to return to the Crown of France by the Death of Count Philip. He made this to be most civilly represented to the King of England that finding by the increase of his Distemper he was like to be rendred incapable to serve the Affairs of the Christians in the Holy Land he judged it more to their Advantage that one single Commander should finish the War and for this purpose that he would resign all wholly to his Conduct together with a good party of his Army under the Command of the Duke of Burgundy He added also that to take from him all manner of Pretext which he might have to complain of his Departure or the Fear that he might entertain that he did not return into France but to fall upon his Dominions there during his Absence he assured him that if he had occasion to make War upon him it should not be till the Expiration of fourty days after his Return After which having left five hundred Men at Armes and ten thousand Foot with the Duke of Burgundy and some Troops which he lent for a Year to the Prince of Antioch he imbarcked the first day of August upon thirty Gallies year 1191 with the remainder of his Army and after
all parties according to the agreement the King surrendred Damiata upon the Friday after Ascension-Day and was at the same time set at Liberty himself with all the Prisoners so far as that the four Gallies fell down the River to the Bridge of Damiata into which place Geoffrey de Sergines entred early in the Morning year 1250 to deliver it into the hands of the Sarasins after he had drawn out all the French together with the Queen who after the Imprisonment of the King had been reduced to great extremities For so soon as she received the sad news she fell into such an excessive grief that believing she was upon the point of falling into the hands of the Sarasins she threw her self upon her knees before a Knight of fourscore years of Age who never forsook her and obliged him to promise her with an Oath to grant her one request which she desired him to do for her and this was that if the Sarasins took the City he would cut off her head the Old Knight promised her he would adding with great frankness that before she had done him the Honor to desire it of him he had already resolved to do it thereby to put her into a place of security and out of the Power of those Barbarians The Extremity and Violence of her grief brought her also into her Travail three Days before her time and she was delivered of a Son to whom they gave a Surname drawn from her Affliction calling him Tristan as being in truth the true Son of her Sorrow And upon the same Day understanding that the Pisans the Genoese and all the rest of the People were resolved to abandon the place fearing the Siege and Famine she prevailed so far upon them with her Prayers and Tears that they were contented to stay she promising to furnish them with Provisions at her own Charges which she did at the Expence of above three hundred thousand Livres At length the Queen the Legate the Bishops and the Duke of Burgundy who retired thither in a good hour together with all the Garrison which was Commanded by Oliver de Termes imbarqued upon the Ships which expected them below the Bridge and steered away directly for Acre according to the Order of the King and the Sarasins entred into Damiata where presently making themselves Drunk with the Wines they found there they most brutishly slew all the Sick and fired the Machins which according to the Treaty they were to surrender But the Admirals did far worse for instead of delivering the King and the Prisoners so soon as Damiata was put into their Possession they put it under deliberation Whether they should not rather cut all their throats and one among them maintained that having committed so great a Crime against the Law of Mahomet as they had done in killing their Sultan they should yet commit a greater as he shewed them out of one of their Books if they should suffer the greatest Enemy of their Law to escape with his Life out of their hands And the matter went so far that the four Gallies rowed up the River till they came within a League of Caire insomuch that all the Prisoners except the King whom they Guarded in his Pavilion upon the Bank of the River had now lost all manner of hopes of Life or Liberty But at last the better Opinion prevailed and there were some among them who urged vigorously that if after having slain their Sultan they should again imbrue their hands in the Blood of one of the greatest Kings in the World after having given their Faith to him by such a Solemn Treaty they should pass through the whole Earth for the most infamous and the most abominable of all Mankind but to speak truth I am rather of an Opinion that the eight hundred thousand Bysances which they would have lost by committing such a horrible Crime without any manner of advantage was the weight which turned the Scale and was the strongest reason to perswade them for this time at least to be honest and to keep their Word and their Oath And this informs us that interest is the best Guarranty of any Treaty being the thing which hath more Power over most People to oblige them to stand to their agreements than all the Oaths and all the Hands and Seals which they can give Thus then after two and thirty Days Captivity the King all the Princes and the Lords of France and Cyprus and of the Realm of Jerusalem with the poor remainder of Soldiers which there was left after such a terrible defeat wherein there were lost near thirty thousand Men were set at Liberty the Count de Poitiers only excepted who was kept at Damiata for the security of the first Payment and the same Evening the King was Conducted by twenty thousand Sarasins who to do him Honor Marched on Foot to a large Genoese Gally which attended him below the Bridge and upon which he imbarqued with his Brother Charles year 1250 Count d' Anjou Alberic Marshal of France the Lord de Joinville Philip de Nemours who sold the Town of that name to the King the brave Geoffrey de Sergines and Nicholas General of the Order of the Trinity or the Mathurins The others went aboard the Vessels which were prepared for them and the next Day the Counts of Flanders Bretany and Soissons accompanied with divers Great Lords took their leave of the King and set Sail for France where they all happily arrived except Peter de Dreux Duke of Bretany who being very much indisposed when he took Ship died upon the Sea three Weeks after His Body was carried by his Knights into Bretany where he reposeth in the Nunnery of Villeneuve near Nantes and although the War which he made with St. Lewis in the beginning of his Reign and which thrive so ill that he only got by it the shameful name of Illclerk will be a blemish to him in History yet his Zeal and Courage which he made so highly conspicuous in his two Voyages to the Holy War have so effaced that blot by the Blood which he therein shed for the interest of Jesus Christ and by the happy Death which he found in that service that one may lawfully give him a place among the Hero's of the Crusade The King stayed yet two Days the Saturday and the Sunday after Ascension upon the River in his Gally in expectation of the finishing of the first payment that so the Count de Poitiers might be set at Liberty and understanding in the Evening of the Sunday that there wanted thirty thousand Livres to make up the two hundred thousand and that the Templers who had store of Money aboard their Gallies refused to lend him so much under pretext that by their Rule they were under an Oath to part with nothing of their Revenue but to their Great Master the devout King made them know upon this occasion that he was their first and their greatest Master
of Royal Majesty mingled with true Sanctity of Christianity without Illusion without Weakness and without Defaults And I cannot tell whether one can find another of whom may be said with so much Justice what I have said of this Christian Hero to finish in one word his Character and his Elogy That he Was the greatest King of a Saint and the greatest Saint of a King that ever any age hath known The Army of France was under an extreme consternation for the death of the Holy King and for the Indisposition of Philip his Successor and their was great probability that they should in that very moment abandon this unlucky Enterprise if the King of Sicily who was in a great measure by his long delay the Cause of this ill Success had not by a strange adventure arrived with a fair Fleet at the very same time that his Brother the King breathed out his last As he was a great Captain and that his Army which was composed of Neapolitans Sicilians and Provencals was very fresh and he having still in his head his first design to assure himself of the Kingdom of Tunis in at least making the Sarasin King become his Tributary he easily persuaded the French that it was for their Honour to finish the War which they had begun with so much Courage and which they might bring to a happy period being strengthened by the Conjunction of such a Potent Army as desired nothing so much as to be led to the Combat against the Sarasins Hereupon the Army advanced towards Tunis to block it up more closely and for three Months there were every day some little Encounters with the Moors who always went off with disadvantage And it is also reported that they were once overthrown in a set Battle that their Camp was taken and plundered and that such of them as fled thinking to save themselves in the City blindly precipitated themselves into those trenches which they had digged in the Fields with a design to have the Christians fall into them but in regard those of our Historians who writ in those times say nothing of any such matters I dare not be confident of the truth of them year 1268 That which is very certain is That the King of Tunis seeing that the Christians daily gained upon him and that he was always beaten fearing that in conclusion he should lose his Kingdom he sent to desire a Peace or at least a Truce offering to submit to such conditions as the two Kings themselves should judge to be fair and reasonable This matter was long debated in the Council of War in which many were of opinion that the Siege ought to be vigorously pressed on without hearkning at all to the Proposition of the Sarasin King who they said after the losses which he had sustained was in no Condition for any long time to defend the City But the King of Sicily remonstrated to them That if they should take the Town of which they were not to be too confident yet it was impossible for them to keep it in regard That though the whole Army might be commodiously quartered there it being now very near Winter they could not receive either from Italy or Sicily so much provision as was necessary for the subsistence of the Troops and that if they left there only a Garrison it would not be able to defend it against all the Forces of Africa which would most certainly attack it And therefore he concluded that the way for them to come off with Honor and safety in this Affair was rather to treat with the King of Tunis in an honourable and advantageous manner and like Conquerors rather to give him Law than to put themselves into the manifest danger of losing all Thus in regard that King Philip was also very willing to go as soon as he could to take possession of his Kingdom a Truce of ten years was concluded with this Insidel Prince upon these following Conditions That he should presently pay a round sum of Money upon which they were agreed to defray the Charges of the War That he should deliver all the Christian Slaves which were in his whole Realm That he should permit the Religious of the Orders of St. Dominick and St. Francis to preach the Gospel and to build Monasteries there and to all his Subjects Liberty to receive Baptism And that he should yearly pay to King Charles a Tribute of forty thousand Crowns which was the sum that the King paid to the Pope for the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily See what were the aims of Charles for his private Interest and what it was which made many honest People murmur against him as beleiving that he had no mind to take Tunis because he could not hope to dispose of it as he pleased and that he had not advised this War but for his own Ends to make this Sarasin King his Tributary Prince Edward of England also who arrived before Tunis with his Fleet at the same time that this Treaty was concluded could not hinder himself from making the extreme displeasure which he had at it appear publickly especially when he saw that the Fleets of France and Sicily without thinking any further of their principal design which was the Holy War were upon the point of returning home And indeed so soon as the King of Tunis who was very desirous to quit himself of these People who had put him into the fear of losing his Capital City and his Kingdom had delivered the Captives and paid the Money which was agreed upon by the Treaty the two Kings imbarked Philip with the Bones of his Father which according to the Custom of those times were separated from the Flesh and Charles with the Flesh and Entrals of that Holy King which he caused afterwards to be magnificently interred in the Church of the Abby of Montreal near Palermo And certainly it was very advantageous to these two Kings that they carried with them in their Ships the Sacred Remains of that Saint which preserved them from that Lamentable Wreck which the greatest part of the others suffered in View of the Port of Trepano in Sicily eighteen of the biggest men of War and a great number of smaller Vessels with all the Money which was received of the King of Tunis and above four thousand men were cast away in this Tempest and it was not without great difficulty that the Kings were able to make the Port of Trepano where Thibald King of Navarr who was sick before when he came from Tunis in a few days after his landing died Queen Isabella his Wife the Daughter of St. Lewis did not survive him long for about four Months after she died at Yeres in Provence And for King Philip having taken his way by Land as far as Messina he passed over into Italy and so crossing quite through it and France he came to St. Dennis year 1270 whither he brought the Relicks of the King St. Lewis his Father
of England declared against Philip having stopped this Prince by obliging him to turn his Arms another way and to defend himself all this great Crusade about which he had taken such care and pains became vain and fruitless And all the forces of the Princes of Europe being divided between these two great Enemies England and France there remained none to go into Egypt and Syria to combat against the Enemies of Jesus Christ And thus the War which the English made with France and which at length drive them out of it hindred the War of the Holy Land which the French had undertaken to make against the Infidels from having a conclusion answerable to its beginning and the general expectation that thereby the Infidels should be chased out of the Inheritance of the Son of God year 1336 And this seems to me to be all that was any ways considerable which was ever done afterwards in regard of Palestine For the great endeavours which were afterwards made by the Pope's Nicholas the fifth Calixtus the third and Pius the Second for the Reunion of all Christians in a Holy War were not for the Recovery of the Kingdom of Jerusalem Matters then were far different and all the care was how to oppose the furious Torrent of the Conquests of the Ottoman Family Mahomet the Second after having taken Constantinople year 1453 already beginning to threaten Hungary Greece and Italy As for Syria it was ever abandoned from the time that the Christians had been chased out of it by the Sultan of Egypt after the taking of Ptolemais and much more after that Selim year 1494 the Emperor of the Turks conquered Palestine and Egypt from the Mamalukes The fear which there was that his Grand-Son Selim the Second after the Conquest of Cyprus should fall into Italy obliged Pope Pius the fifth Philip the Second King of Spain year 1571 and the Venetians to unite their Forces against such a dreadful Enemy against whom the famous Victory of Lepanto of which so little advantage was made signified nothing as to the regaining of Cyprus or any other of his Conquests from him It hath been frequently seen since that and even in our days that the French the Italians the Poles the Germans and Hungarians have united themselves against these fierce Ottomans who think of nothing so much as raising their Empire still higher upon the ruins of the Christians but these Unions have proceeded no further but to prevent them from pushing on their Conquests further rather than for the recovery of what they have gained and I know not by what inchantment it happens that the Turks have ever gained upon the Christians and that the Christians who are much Superior to them in Courage and Soul think they do enough if they resist them when they are attacked at their own doors without ever daring to undertake to go directly against them to snatch out of their hands what they have despoiled them of or to overturn their Empire I know there are Writers who have endeavoured to make such a Design appear not impossible to be executed according as they have imagined and chalked out the ways which ought to be taken to make it succeed without much difficulty which certainly were the most certain way to recover the Kingdom of Jerusalem As for my part who must acknowledge the deficiency of my Understanding in matters of War and Policy I shall not undertake to reason upon that Subject which is neither any part of my Profession nor design It sufficeth me that God hath done me the favour to permit me to finish an enterprise so difficult as this of writing at least with great fidelity and with all the exactness I have been able as I think I have done this present Work of the History of the Crusades for the deliverance of the Holy Land FINIS
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
is true that this Order began to Relax and Decay extremely by the iniquity of the Times during the Wars between the English and French either by the Malice or Negligence of the Knights who either themselves did or permitted others to encroach upon the Estates of the Order appropriating them to their own private Families For this Cause it was that Pope Innocent the Eight at the Request of the Knights of Malta suppressed this Order to Re-unite it with all its Estates to that of St. John of Jerusalem which was obtained by Emery D' Amboise Great Master of the Rhodes by another Bulla from Pope Julius the Second But in regard that the Parliament of France Declared these Bulla's to be Injurious and contrary to the Rights of the Kings of France the Patrons of the Order the Popes Pius Fourth and Pius Fifth caused them to be Revoked upon Remonstrance thereof made to them by Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second who thought themselves too nearly Interessed in the Commanderies or Places of Trust which were within their Dominions so that the Order was again Established with many new Priviledges by Pope Pius the Fourth year 1119 who Created Jannot de Chastillon his Nephew Great Master of the Order after his Death Gregory the Thirteenth Transferred the Great Mastership to Emanuel Philibert the Duke of Savoy and to his Successors granting him also the Union of this Order with all their Estate to that of the Knights of St. Maurice the Erecting of which the Duke had obtained about a Month before It ought nevertheless to be taken for Indubitable that these new Creations to the Dignity of Great Master of St. Lazarus were not made but with Respect to certain Countries and it is no less certain that it was extremely in the Prejudice of the Kings of France who could by no means lose that Right which they had so lawfully acquired and for more than five hundred Years injoyed to have the sole Nomination of the Great Master who ought to be Elected at Boni the principal Conventical General House of the whole Order and who ought to have Jurisdiction over all the Knights of what Nation soever they be Insomuch that all those who are called Great Masters in other Countries are no more to speak properly but Deputies and Substitutes to him who is Established and Acknowledged in France as the King of Spain alledges in his Right Affirming that the Duke of Savoy is only his Vicegerent in Italy which also a very learned Civilian hath remarked according to the Bulla of Gregory the Thirteenth However after all these Bulla's reckoning from that of Innocent the Eight our Kings whose Rights are Sacred and Inviolable have not failed always to name as they did formerly without Interruption the Great Masters of all the Order of St. Lazarus both on this and the other side of the Sea And those of the Fraternity following that is Aignan Claude de Marveil John de Conty John de Leui Michael de Seurre Francis Salviati Aymar de Chartres Hugh Castelan de Castelmore and Charles de Gayan who were provided and nominated by the Kings Lewis Twelfth Francis First Henry Second Francis Second Charles Ninth Henry Third and Henry the Great never failed to take this Quality upon them altho the deplorable Condition to which the Order was Reduced in France the small Number of Knights and the Loss and Alienation of their Estates took from them the Opportunity of maintaining the Dignity of their Place and Order It was for this Reason that Henry the Forth after he had Gloriously Setled the three Estates of his Realm and that after the cruel Disorders of the Civil Wars he had put the Kingdom into a flourishing Condition was resolved also to restore to its primitive Splendor this Military Order of the Hospitallers from which he perswaded himself he should be able to draw very considerable Services He therefore Chose for Great Master one of the Fraternity whose Name was Philibert de Newstang a Gentleman whose Birth and Merit were equally Illustrious He went upon the King's Account to Rome there to treat about this Affair with Pope Paul the Fifth and did so well Negotiate what he had in Commission that the Quality of Restorer Protector and Patron of the Order was reserved to the King and the Dignity of Chief and General of the whole Order of St. Lazarus was Absolutely and without Restrinction to be in him whom the King should name to be Great Master Moreover the Pope having Created a New Order of Knights under the Title of our Lady of Mount Carmel at the Instance of the King he United them to that of St. Lazarus after which time the Knights have with this double Title born for their Armes a Cross or which is doubled consisting of eight Points Pometty between four Flowers-de-Lys with the Image of our Lady in the middle But as the Death of Henry the Great made the greatest of all his Noble Designs to Vanish the Order of St. Lazarus which began to Recover after having received these new Marks of Honor did for the main stand at a Stay continuing in the Condition wherein he lest it till now of late it begins to Flourish in such a manner which would make one believe that we shall one day see it produce those Fruits which it was accustomed to do in the times of its early Force and Vigor For the King who undertakes nothing which he doth not most happily Accomplish having taken up the same generous Design of his August Grandfather whose Sir Name the Acclamation of all Europe hath bestowed upon him will not fail to take all the most Just and Essicacious Ways to restore this ancient Order to that Condition which may render it Serviceable to those necessary Ends for the Good of the Church and State year 1119 which he hath proposed to himself But it is time methinks after this Digression which I hope will neither be Disagreeable nor Unprofitable to the Reader that I should now again follow the Thred of my History year 1123 The new King Baldwin de Bourg who had abundance of Courage and of Virtue obtained many great Victories against the Turks who after having Defeated and Slain in Battle the Prince of Antioch began to menace that great City But as he went to Succour the Earl of Edessa against Balac the most Potent of the Turkish Princes who had taken Earl Josselin with his Cousin Galeran in an Ambuscade he himself happened to be Surprized in the Night by that Emir who sent him Loaden with Irons to the same Castle where the two Earls his Kinsmen were detained Captives His Imprisonment however had not those dismal Consequences as were expected for Eustace Garnier Lord of Sidon or Saietta and Cesarea who was made Regent of the Realm Defeated the Army of the Egyptian Sarasens who Besieged Jaffa After which their Navy which consisted in eighty Sail of Ships was intirely Ruined by the Venetians who