The Age of Faith

by Will Durant

  The freed King and nobles took an oath never to bear arms against him again. Safe in Christian Tripolis and Antioch, they were “released by the sentence of the clergy from the enormity of their promise,” and laid plans of vengeance against Saladin.33 The Sultan allowed the Jews to dwell again in Jerusalem, and gave Christians the right to enter, but unarmed; he assisted their pilgrimage, and protected their security.34 The Dome of the Rock, which had been converted into a church, was purified from Christian taint by sprinkling with rose water, and the golden cross that had surmounted the cupola was cast down amid Moslem cheers and Christian groans. Saladin led his wearied troops to the siege of Tyre, found it impregnable, dismissed most of his army, and retired ill and worn to Damascus (1188), in the fiftieth year of his age.

  VI. THE THIRD CRUSADE: 1189–92

  The retention of Tyre, Antioch, and Tripolis left the Christians some strands of hope. Italian fleets still controlled the Mediterranean, and stood ready to carry fresh Crusaders for a price. William, Archbishop of Tyre, returned to Europe, and recounted to assemblies in Italy, France, and Germany the fall of Jerusalem. At Mainz his appeal so moved Frederick Barbarossa that the great Emperor, sixty-seven years old, set out almost at once with his army (1189), and all Christendom applauded him as the second Moses who would open a way to the Promised Land. Crossing the Hellespont at Gallipoli, the new host, on a new route, repeated the errors and tragedies of the First Crusade. Turkish bands harassed its march and cut off its supplies; hundreds starved to death; Frederick was drowned ignominiously in the little river of Salef in Cilicia (1190); and only a fraction of his army survived to join in the siege of Acre.

  Richard I of the Lion Heart, recently crowned King of England at the age of thirty-one, resolved to try his hand on the Moslems. Fearing French encroachment, in his absence, upon English possessions in France, he insisted that Philip Augustus should accompany him; the French king—a lad of twenty-three—agreed; and the two youthful monarchs received the cross from William of Tyre in a moving ceremony at Vézelay. Richard’s army of Normans (for few Englishmen took part in the Crusades) sailed from Marseille, Philip’s army from Genoa, for a rendezvous in Sicily (1190). There the kings quarreled and otherwise amused themselves for half a year. Tancred, King of Sicily, offended Richard, who seized Messina “quicker than a priest could chant matins,” and restored it for 40,000 ounces of gold. So solvent, he embarked his army for Palestine. Some of his ships were wrecked on the coast of Cyprus; the crews were imprisoned by the Greek governor; Richard paused for a moment, conquered Cyprus, and gave it to Guy de Lusignan, the homeless king of Jerusalem. He reached Acre in June of 1191, a year after leaving Vézelay. Philip had preceded him; the siege of Acre by the Christians had already lasted nineteen months, and had cost thousands of lives. A few weeks after Richard’s arrival the Saracens surrendered. The victors asked, and were promised, 200,000 gold pieces ($950,000), 1600 selected prisoners, and the restoration of the True Cross. Saladin confirmed the agreement, and the Moslem population of Acre, excepting the 1600, were allowed to depart with such provisions as they could carry. Philip Augustus, ill with fever, returned to France, leaving behind him a French force of 10,500 men. Richard became sole leader of the Third Crusade.

  Now began a confused and unique campaign in which blows and battles alternated with compliments and courtesies, while the English King and the Kurd Sultan illustrated some of the finest qualities of their civilizations and creeds. Neither was a saint: Saladin could dispense death with vigor when military purposes seemed to him to require it; and the romantic Richard permitted some interruptions in his career as a gentleman. When the leaders of besieged Acre delayed in carrying out the agreed terms of surrender, Richard had 2500 Moslem prisoners beheaded before the walls as a hint to hurry.35 When Saladin learned of this he ordered the execution of all prisoners thereafter taken in battle with the English King. Changing his tune, Richard proposed to end the Crusades by marrying his sister Joan to Saladin’s brother al-Adil. The Church denounced the scheme, and it was dropped.

  Knowing that Saladin would not stay quiet in defeat, Richard reorganized his forces and prepared to march sixty miles southward along the coast to relieve Jaffa, which, again in Christian hands, was under Moslem siege. Many nobles refused to go with him, preferring to stay behind in Acre and intrigue for the kingship of the Jerusalem which they trusted Richard would take. The German troops returned to Germany, and the French army repeatedly disobeyed the orders, and frustrated the strategy, of the British King. Nor were the rank and file ready for renewed effort. After the long siege, says the Christian chronicler of Richard’s crusade, the victorious Christians,

  given up to sloth and luxury, were loath to leave a city so rich in comforts—to wit, the choicest of wines and the fairest of damsels. Many, by a too intimate acquaintance with these pleasures, became dissolute, till the city was polluted by their luxury, and their gluttony and wantonness put wise men to the blush.36

  Richard made matters more difficult by ordering that no women should accompany the army except washerwomen, who could not be an occasion of sin. He atoned for the defects of his troops by the excellence of his generalship, the skill of his engineering, and his inspiring valor on the field; in these respects he excelled Saladin, as well as all other Christian leaders of the Crusades.

  His army met Saladin’s at Arsuf, and won an indecisive victory (1191). Saladin offered to renew battle, but Richard withdrew his men within Jaffa’s walls. Saladin sent him an offer of peace. During the negotiations Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat, who held Tyre, entered into separate correspondence with Saladin, proposing to become his ally, and retake Acre for the Moslems, if Saladin would agree to his appropriating Sidon and Beirut. Despite this offer, Saladin authorized his brother to sign with Richard a peace yielding to the Christians all the coastal cities that they then held, and half of Jerusalem. Richard was so pleased that he ceremoniously conferred knighthood upon the son of the Moslem ambassador (1192). A while later, hearing that Saladin was faced with revolt in the East, he rejected Saladin’s terms, besieged and took Darum, and advanced to within twelve miles of Jerusalem. Saladin, who had dismissed his troops for the winter, called them back to arms. Meanwhile dissension broke out in the Christian camp, scouts reported that the wells on the road to Jerusalem had been poisoned, and the army would have nothing to drink. A council was held to decide strategy; it voted to abandon Jerusalem and march upon Cairo, 250 miles away. Richard, sick, disgusted, and despondent, retired to Acre, and thought of returning to England.

  But when he heard that Saladin had again attacked Jaffa, and had taken it in two days, Richard’s pride revived him. With such troops as he could muster he sailed at once for Jaffa. Arrived in the harbor, he cried, “Perish the hindmost!” and leaped to his waist into the sea. Swinging his famous Danish ax, he beat down all who resisted him, led his men into the city, and cleared it of Moslem soldiery almost before Saladin could learn what had occurred (1192). The sultan summoned his main army to his rescue. It far outnumbered Richard’s 3000, but the reckless courage of the King carried the day. Seeing Richard unmounted, Saladin sent him a charger, calling it a shame that so gallant a warrior should have to fight on foot. Saladin’s soldiers soon had enough; they reproached him for having spared the Jaffa garrison, which was now fighting again. Finally, if we may believe the Christian account, Richard rode along the Saracen front, lance at rest, and none dared attack him.37

  On the next day fortune changed. Reinforcements reached Saladin; and Richard, sick again, and unsupported by the knights at Acre and Tyre, once more sued for peace. In his fever he cried out for fruit and a cooling drink; Saladin sent him pears and peaches and snow, and his own physician. On September 2, 1192, the two heroes signed a peace for three years, and partitioned Palestine: Richard was to keep all the coastal cities he had conquered, from Acre to Jaffa; Moslems and Christians were to pass freely into and from each other’s territory, and pilgrims would be protected in Jerusalem; but
that city was to remain in Moslem hands. (Perhaps the Italian merchants, interested chiefly in controlling the ports, had persuaded Richard to yield the Holy City in return for the coastal area.) The peace was celebrated with feasts and tournaments; “God alone,” says Richard’s chronicler, “knoweth the measureless delight of both peoples”;38 for a moment men ceased to hate. Boarding his ship for England, Richard sent a last defiant note to Saladin, promising to return in three years and take Jerusalem. Saladin replied that if he must lose his land he had liefer lose it to Richard than to any other man alive.39

  Saladin’s moderation, patience, and justice had defeated Richard’s brilliance, courage, and military art; the relative unity and fidelity of the Moslem leaders had triumphed over the divisions and disloyalties of the feudal chiefs; and a short line of supplies behind the Saracens proved of greater advantage than Christian control of the seas. The Christian virtues and faults were better exemplified in the Moslem sultan than in the Christian king. Saladin was religious to the point of persecution, and allowed himself to be unreasonably bitter against the Templars and Hospitalers. Usually, however, he was gentle to the weak, merciful to the vanquished, and so superior to his enemies in faithfulness to his word that Christian chroniclers wondered how so wrong a theology could produce so fine a man. He treated his servants with gentleness, and himself heard all petitions. He “esteemed money as little as dust,” and left only one dinar in his personal treasury.40 Not long before his death he gave his son ez-Zahir instructions that no Christian philosopher could surpass:

  My son, I commend thee to the most high God…. Do His will, for that way lies peace. Abstain from shedding blood … for blood that is spilt never sleeps. Seek to win the hearts of thy people, and watch over their prosperity; for it is to secure their happiness that thou art appointed by God and me. Try to gain the hearts of thy ministers, nobles, and emirs. If I have become great it is because I have won men’s hearts by kindness and gentleness.41

  He died in 1193, aged only fifty-five.

  VII. THE FOURTH CRUSADE: 1202–4

  The Third Crusade had freed Acre, but had left Jerusalem unredeemed; it was a discouragingly small result from the participation of Europe’s greatest kings. The drowning of Barbarossa, the flight of Philip Augustus, the brilliant failure of Richard, the unscrupulous intrigues of Christian knights in the Holy Land, the conflicts between Templars and Hospitalers, and the renewal of war between England and France broke the pride of Europe and further weakened the theological assurance of Christendom. But the early death of Saladin, and the breakup of his empire, released new hopes. Innocent III (1198–1216), at the very outset of his pontificate, demanded another effort; and Fulk de Neuilly, a simple priest, preached the Fourth Crusade to commoners and kings. The results were disheartening. The Emperor Frederick II was a boy of four; Philip Augustus thought one crusade enough for a lifetime; and Richard I, forgetting his last word to Saladin, laughed at Fulk’s exhortations. “You advise me,” he said, “to dismiss my three daughters—pride, avarice, and incontinence. I bequeath them to the most deserving: my pride to the Templars, my avarice to the monks of Cîteaux, my incontinence to the prelates.”42 But Innocent persisted. He suggested that a campaign against Egypt could succeed through Italian control of the Mediterranean, and would offer a means of approaching Jerusalem from rich and fertile Egypt as a base. After much haggling Venice agreed, in return for 85,000 marks of silver ($8,500,000), to furnish shipping for 4500 knights and horses, 9000 squires, 20,000 infantry, and supplies for nine months; it would also provide fifty war galleys; but on condition that half the spoils of conquest should go to the Venetian Republic.43 The Venetians, however, had no intention of attacking Egypt; they made millions annually by exporting timber, iron, and arms to Egypt, and importing slaves; they did not propose to jeopardize this trade with war, or to share it with Pisa and Genoa. While negotiating with the Crusaders’ committee, they made a secret treaty with the sultan of Egypt, guaranteeing that country against invasion (1201).44 Ernoul, a contemporary chronicler, alleges that Venice received a huge bribe to divert the crusade from Palestine.45

  In the summer of 1202 the new hosts gathered in Venice. There were Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, Count Louis of Blois, Count Baldwin of Flanders, Simon de Montfort of Albigensian fame, and, among many other notables, Geoffroi de Villehardouin (1160–1213), Marshal of Champagne, who would not only play a leading part in the diplomacy and campaigns of the crusade, but would enshrine its scandalous history in face-saving memoirs that marked the beginning of French prose literature. France, as usual, supplied most of the Crusaders. Every man had been instructed to bring a sum of money, proportionate to his means, to raise the 85,000 marks payable to Venice for her outlay. The total fell short by 34,000 marks. Thereupon Enrico Dandolo, the almost blind doge “of the great heart,” with all the sanctity of his ninety-four years, proposed that the unpaid balance should be forgiven if the Crusaders would help Venice capture Zara. This was now the most important Adriatic port after Venice itself; it had been conquered by Venice in 998, had often revolted and been subdued; it now belonged to Hungary, and was that country’s only outlet to the sea; its wealth and power were growing, and Venice feared its competition for the Adriatic trade. Innocent III denounced the proposal as villainous, and threatened to excommunicate all participants. But the greatest and most powerful of the popes could not make his voice heard above the clamor of gold. The combined fleets attacked Zara, took it in five days, and divided the spoils. Then the Crusaders sent an embassy to the Pope begging his absolution; he gave it, but demanded the restoration of the booty; they thanked him for the absolution, and kept the booty. The Venetians ignored the excommunications, and proceeded to the second part of their plan—the conquest of Constantinople.

  The Byzantine monarchy had learned nothing from the Crusades. It gave little help, and derived much profit; it regained most of Asia Minor, and looked with equanimity upon the mutual weakening of Islam and the West in the struggle for Palestine. The Emperor Manuel had arrested thousands of Venetians in Constantinople, and had for a time ended Venetian commercial privileges there (1171).46 Isaac II Angelus (1185–95) had not scrupled to ally himself with the Saracens.47 In 1195 Isaac was deposed, imprisoned, and blinded by his brother Alexius III. Isaac’s son, another Alexius, fled to Germany; in 1202 he went to Venice, asked the Venetian Senate and the Crusaders to rescue and restore his father, and promised in return all that Byzantium could supply for their attack upon Islam. Dandolo and the French barons drove a hard bargain with the youth: he was persuaded to pledge the Crusaders 200,000 marks of silver, equip an army of 10,000 men for service in Palestine, and submit the Greek Orthodox Church to the Roman Pope.48 Despite this subtle sop, Innocent III forbade the Crusaders, on pain of excommunication, to attack Byzantium. Some nobles refused to share in the expedition; a part of the army considered itself absolved from the Crusade, and went home. But the prospect of capturing the richest city in Europe proved irresistible. On October 1, 1202, the great fleet of 480 vessels sailed amid much rejoicing, while priests on the war-castles of the ships sang Veni Creator Spiritus.49

  After divers delays the armada arrived before Constantinople on June 24, 1203. “You may be assured,” says Villehardouin,

  that those who had never seen Constantinople opened wide eyes now; for they could not believe that so rich a city could be in the whole world, when they saw her lofty walls and her stately towers wherewith she was encompassed, and these stately palaces and lofty churches, so many in number as no man might believe who had not seen them, and the length and breadth of this town which was sovereign over all others. And know that there was no man among us so bold but that his flesh crept at the sight; and therein was no marvel; for never did any men undertake so great a business as this assault of ours, since the beginning of the world.50

  An ultimatum was delivered to Alexius III: he must restore the Empire to his blinded brother or to the young Alexius, who accompanied the fleet. When
he refused, the Crusaders landed, against weak opposition, before the walls of the city; and the aged Dandolo was the first to touch the shore. Alexius III fled to Thrace; the Greek nobles escorted Isaac Angelus from his dungeon to the throne, and in his name a message was sent to the Latin chieftains that he was waiting to welcome his son. After drawing from Isaac a promise to abide by the commitments that his son had made with them, Dandolo and the barons entered the city, and the young Alexius IV was crowned coemperor. But when the Greeks learned of the price at which he had bought his victory they turned against him in anger and scorn. The people reckoned the taxes that would be needed to raise the subsidies promised to his saviors; the nobility resented the presence of an alien aristocracy and force; the clergy rejected with fury the proposal that they should bow to Rome. Meanwhile some Latin soldiers, horrified to find Moslems worshiping in a mosque in a Christian city, set fire to the mosque, and slew the worshipers. The fire raged for eight days, spread through three miles, and laid a considerable section of Constantinople in ashes. A prince of royal blood led a popular revolt, killed Alexius IV, reimprisoned Isaac Angelus, took the throne as Alexius V Ducas, and began to organize an army to drive the Latins from their camp at Galata. But the Greeks had been too long secure within their walls to have kept the virtues of their Roman name. After a month of siege they surrendered; Alexius V fled, and the victorious Latins passed like consuming locusts through the capital (1204).