by Robert Payne
Yves le Breton’s mission marks something new in the minds of the Crusaders: a general interest in Muslim beliefs, an effort to understand the aspirations of a people long considered simply as mortal enemies. Instead of blind hatred there was a tentative reaching out, a searching of hearts. One of the things the Crusaders were beginning to know was that Islam, far from being a monolithic religion, with orderly hierarchies, absolute doctrines, and unchanging forms, was riddled with sects. The Old Man of the Mountain, for example, belonged to an offshoot of the Shi’a sect, which had its origins in Persia. They venerated Ali, the son-in-law of Muhammad, more than they venerated Muhammad. Those who obeyed the law of Ali regarded those who obeyed the law of Muhammad as miscreants or heretics worthy of death. There was an unbridgeable gap between them.
Yves le Breton went up to Masyaf and stayed there for some time. He attempted to convert the Old Man of the Mountain to the Christian faith, an attempt that was doomed to failure. Yet the Old Man remained cordial. Yves le Breton was invited into his bedroom, where there were many books, including an old Gnostic Acts of Peter which had been translated into Arabic. The Old Man said he had often read the book and delighted in it. He said, “I have a great liking for my lord St. Peter; for at the beginning of the world the soul of Abel, when he was killed, went into the body of Noah, and when Noah died it went into the body of Abraham; and from the body of Abraham, when he died, it went into the body of St. Peter at the time when God came down to earth.”
Yves le Breton, as a true member of the Order of Preaching Brothers, had no patience with the works of the Gnostics, and said so. The Old Man of the Mountain was not offended. He remained a Shi’a Muslim who venerated Ali and delighted in St. Peter.
One of their discussions concerned the beliefs of the Shi’a sect as understood by the Assassins. The Old Man of the Mountain said:
Know that one of the rules of the law of Ali is that when a man is killed in the service of his lord, his soul enters a more pleasant body than it had before; and therefore the Assassins do not hesitate to get themselves killed when their lord commands because they believe they will be in more pleasant circumstances after they are dead.
And there is another rule: they believe that no one dies except on the day appointed for him; and no one should hold this belief, for God can prolong or shorten our lives. But the Bedouins support this rule of the law of Ali, and thus they refuse to put on armor when they go into battle, for otherwise they believe they would be acting against the commandment of their law. And when they curse their children, they tell them: “May you be cursed like the Franks, who put on armor for fear of death.”
When Yves le Breton came down from the mountain, he had acquired more knowledge about the Assassins than any foreigner before him. Almost from the beginning, the Crusaders had encountered the Assassins, but never so intimately.
Louis knew the Old Man of the Mountain was friendly to him only because the Old Man was on bad terms with the sultan of Damascus. On his side, the king’s embassy to the Old Man was part of a larger plan. Once again the Crusaders were forced to attempt to bring about a balance of power between Damascus and Cairo. The task of the Christians was continually to keep the two Muslim powers on the edge of war, in order to be certain that they would not waste their energies attacking the Christian strongholds. Fast footwork was necessary, and the king had always to give the impression that he commanded a larger army than he possessed.
About the end of November 1252, Blanche of Castile, regent of France during the king’s absence, died in Paris. In the last year of her life she had to deal with the strange Crusade of the Shepherds, led by the half-mad Master of Hungary, a pale, bearded ascetic who acquired a following of poor shepherds and farmworkers. The Master of Hungary spoke of leading his flock to the Holy Land, but as he moved across France he seemed to be more interested in killing priests and looting than in bringing about a real Crusade. He performed sacraments in his own way, healed the sick, inveighed against the rich, argued vehemently with university students, and established himself as a dangerous popular leader with the power to lead a peasant army wherever he wished.
Queen Blanche at first found him appealing and loaded him with presents, believing or half-believing that he carried a letter written by the Virgin Mary. Soon it became clear that the Master of Hungary wanted to be master of France. Sometimes he wore royal robes, sometimes he wore the flowing gown and miter of a bishop. He wanted to be king, and he wanted to be pope; and his sermons were filled with invective against the royal family and the papacy. The movement became too powerful and had to be stopped. At the orders of Queen Blanche the army was sent out to destroy him, and at the battle of Villeneuve-sur-Cher the Master of Hungary was killed. His body was found in the mud of the battlefield, easily recognizable by his magnificent long beard.
Louis IX did not hurry back to France when he heard of his mother’s death. He would later ask about the death in its most minute particulars, but it happened while he was immersed in important diplomatic maneuvers in the Holy Land.
Like Frederick II, Louis knew how to flatter the Saracens into accepting his terms. The heads of the Crusaders killed at La Forbie had become trophies on the walls of Cairo. He arranged that they should be taken down, placed in boxes, and brought to the Holy Land, where they were given a decent burial. He arranged for the cancellation of the second half of the ransom and the release of all the remaining prisoners, even those who had been converted to Islam, even those who had been captured as children. He signed a treaty with Cairo which would have brought Jerusalem into Christian hands, together with most of the land up to the Jordan River, but the treaty was conditional on aid given in the war against Damascus and Aleppo, and these conditions were never completely met. He signed another treaty with Damascus to the same effect. He made clever use of his kingly authority, and although there were many skirmishes, no serious war with the Muslims took place during his four-year reign over the Holy Land.
He was a man who had changed much since he set sail from Cyprus to Damietta. His shoulders were bent, he wore a full beard, he ate little and was weighed down with cares. He had become even more religious, more determined to obey the inscrutable will of God. Finally, after long self-questioning, having put all his affairs in order, he concluded that God’s will demanded that he should return to France, which he had not seen for nearly six years.
On April 24, 1254, he set sail from Acre with his queen, who had borne him three children in Egypt and the Holy Land. Nine galleons and nine galleys were all that was left of the great fleet which had left Aigues-Mortes. The king’s ship was caught on a sand shoal off Cyprus. The king, a bad sailor, who trusted the sea no more than he trusted the Saracens, flung himself down on the ship’s deck, barefoot and wearing only a tunic, to implore God’s aid. The ship floated off the sandbank, but a few hours later they were in the middle of the storm. This gave rise to long discussions about God’s intentions when he let loose storms at sea. Was it punishment for their sins? Was it a warning or a threatening? Was it God’s anger or God’s love? Neither the king nor John of Joinville, an equally bad sailor, could quite bring themselves to believe that a storm was a manifestation of God’s love.
Although Louis questioned himself and was given to penance, he would at times be unsparing with others. Once three galleys from the fleet put in at Pentellaria to find fruit for the royal children. They spent such a long time in the island, while the main fleet was anchored off shore, that the king thought the galleys had been captured by the Saracens, who claimed the island. When at last the galleys sailed out of the harbor, the king learned that six gentlemen had been so well entertained at lunch that they had forgotten they were committing lèse majesté by keeping the king waiting. In his fury the king ordered them to be cast into one of the trailing rowboats, where for the rest of the journey they would be half-drowned. The six gentlemen begged for pardon, but the king remained adamant.
At last, after some ten weeks at sea, the king
’s fleet landed at Hyères in Provence, and all made their way by slow stages to Paris. He had hoped to return as a conqueror. Instead he returned as a king who had lost more troops and weapons than any Frenchman before him, a fact redeemed only by four years of arduous work as the uncrowned king of Jerusalem.
People saw in him a strangeness which was not of this world. His rages, even his indecisiveness, worked for him in the eyes of the people. His physical beauty attracted people to him, his pallor and frailty were to his advantage. He was a priestly man, and a priest-ridden king. He was the last Western king to lead a Crusade.
The Death
of St. Louis
BY 1270, when Louis IX set out on another and his last Crusade, there existed in France a growing realization that the adventure was senseless and futile. The chronicler John of Joinville concluded that a Crusade, far from being pleasing to God, was a mortal sin. Having no illusions about the nature of the Crusade, he refused to embark on it, and his account of it was written at second hand with the help of witnesses, letters, and official documents.
There were many in France who believed Louis’s last Crusade was doomed to failure. The English historian Matthew Paris wrote that, after the disaster at Mansourah, when almost his entire army was lost, “the name of the French king began to be held in very small esteem in that kingdom, and to become hateful and disreputable amongst both the nobles and the common people.” The Franciscan historian Salimbene wrote in even stronger terms, saying that people cursed the preachers who begged alms for the Crusade. If an itinerant preacher came along, they would give money to a poor man instead of to the preacher, and say, “Take this in Mahomet’s name, for he is stronger than Christ.”
Above all, there was the growing realization among the people that the Crusades accomplished nothing except to fill the coffers of the king and the Church. There was also increasing sympathy for the Muslims, whose lands were being attacked for no good reason and with very little profit. Crusaders who set out with high hopes for Jerusalem had found the expedition deflected by unscrupulous leaders who had their own reasons for going elsewhere.
Thus it happened that Charles of Anjou—a younger brother of King Louis IX, a violently ambitious man, who was also capable of feigning deep religious emotion—managed to enter the good graces of Pope Urban IV. The pope offered him the kingdom of Naples and Sicily after the downfall of Conrad and Manfred, the sons of the Emperor Frederick II. Charles of Anjou succeeded in maneuvering King Louis into leading a Crusade not against the Holy Land but against Tunis. Charles had great financial interests there, and if the Crusade was successful, he had hopes of becoming the ruler of a kingdom which stretched over southern France, southern Italy, Sicily, and Tunisia.
Charles of Anjou was well aware that his brother had been planning to lead a Crusade to the Holy Land since 1267. Ships were being acquired, Catalan mercenaries and Provençals were being enrolled, provisions were being stockpiled, and money was being collected for another attack on Egypt. Charles of Anjou would have preferred an attack on Constantinople, where there were prospects of booty.
Pope Urban IV died in 1264, but his successor, Clement IV, was equally gracious to Charles of Anjou, King of Sicily, until, toward the last months of his life, he began to realize that he had reaped the whirlwind. Clement IV died very conveniently in 1268. For three years after that Charles of Anjou, by bribery and by intrigues with the cardinals, succeeded in blocking the election of a new pope.
He dreamed of being ruler of all Italy, but what Charles of Anjou would have liked most was to be the leader of a purely mercantile Crusade, whose single purpose was to extend the bounds of his Mediterranean empire. Mustansir, Emir of Tunis, was ripe for conversion; he needed only a little prompting to be brought to the true faith. The prompting could be supplied providentially by the crusading army, and soon all of North Africa would belong to Christianity, as in the days of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.
The argument was specious, but Charles of Anjou was a vehement and determined prosecutor of his own interests. King Louis was impressed by the argument, but kept the destination of the Crusade secret. It was learned later that some of the Crusaders had sent banker’s drafts to Acre, intending to cash them when they arrived.
Early in the spring of 1270, everything was ready for the Crusade. The king had been in failing health for some time, but he seemed to have recovered. He drew up his will, leaving the greater part of his fortune to hospitals, leper houses and orphanages. His executors were clerics, and he appointed Matthew of Vendôme, the Abbot of Saint-Denis, to be regent in his absence. He trusted clerics, rewarded them handsomely, and felt uncomfortable if there was no priestly person in sight. He set out for the Crusade in a deeply religious mood.
But habit of procrastination was deep in him. And so he went to the Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, took down the brilliant gold oriflamme from above the altar, and prayed earnestly for victory. Then he took ten days to reach Sens, which is only seventy miles from Paris. He visited the great abbey of the Cistercian monks at Cîteaux; he was at Mâcon at Easter, and it took him seventeen more days to reach Lyons. He paused for ten days at Nîmes, and set out for Saint-Gilles, the small town beloved by Count Raymond of Toulouse. Saint-Gilles was only twenty-five miles from Aigues-Mortes. The Crusaders marched in slow motion, as though they knew they were going to their deaths.
A large part of the fleet, many of the knights and foot soldiers, and most of the provisions had already arrived at Aigues-Mortes. With nothing very much to do, weary of waiting for the king, the Provençals and the Catalans picked a quarrel with the French, and were soon at each other’s throats. In no time, all the troops bivouacked near Aigues-Mortes and within the city were in arms. There was so much havoc that the Crusade was in danger of being destroyed before it had begun. The king was finally moved to hurry from Saint-Gilles to Aigues-Mortes, and by his orders all the leaders of the riot were hanged.
There were more evil omens when the fleet finally set out from Aigues-Mortes on July 1, 1270. Just as, many years earlier, when his fleet left Cyprus, it was buffeted by a storm, so now once again, not long after they left the seaport, a storm struck the fleet and scattered it. But the storm abated, and seven days later most of the fleet limped into the harbor of Cagliari, the capital of Sardinia, and within the next few days all the remaining ships reached port. Here the king held a council of war with his three sons, King Thibault of Navarre, who was his son-in-law, and his nephew, the young Robert of Artois. The count of Flanders and the count of Brittany also took part. At the conclusion of the council, it was announced that the Crusade would not venture to the Holy Land but would go to Tunis.
The secret had been well kept but came as a shock to the lesser ranks. The king who always acted cautiously had taken certain precautionary measures. Although he had previously proclaimed that he was going to the Holy Land, he had drawn up contracts with the Genoese shipowners in such a way that he could order the ships to go to one port, and then reembark and go to another port without further charge. If he had been going to the Holy Land, he would have arranged to stockpile provisions in Cyprus, as he did in his first Crusade. He had made no formal arrangements with the king of Cyprus, but he was expected in Acre, which desperately needed help, for Baibars had already conquered Jaffa and Antioch, and it was evident that Acre would fall unless a powerful army arrived from the West.
The saintly king was perfectly capable of duplicity, if it served his purposes.
The fleet set sail from Cagliari on July 15 and arrived near Carthage three days later after an easy passage with a following wind. It was the worst time of the year for campaigning. The heat was so terrible that it was impossible for a man to wear armor for more than an hour, and the nights were nearly as bad as the days. The Crusaders captured the harbor of Carthage, moved along the coast a few miles, and set up their tents under the walled city. Charles of Anjou had promised to send another fleet; it failed to come, and the French, Provençals and Catalans wa
ited outside the walls of Carthage, just as they had waited outside the walls of Mansourah. There were a few skirmishes but no pitched battles. The French were safe behind their trenches and the Muslims were safe behind their walls. The French had little fresh water; the Muslims had as much as they wanted. The Muslims did not bother to attack. Their strategy was simply to wait until the French had been destroyed by the heat or the pestilence. There were about ten thousand men in the army, and by the middle of August, when the pestilence began to spread wildly through the camp, half the troops were incapacitated.
The King’s last-born son, John Tristan, who had been born at Damietta, died of the pestilence. Another son, Philip, the heir to the throne, seemed to be dying. The papal legate died. The king realized that he too was dying and prepared himself. He dictated the famous document, known as the Enseignements, for the spiritual education of the heir to the throne. Prince Philip was encouraged to love good and to eschew evil, to love priests, to be tender toward the poor and miserable, and never to stray from the path of righteousness. At last, shortly before his death, the king asked to be carried to a bed sprinkled with ashes, received the last sacraments, was anointed with oil, and was able to recite in a clear voice the seven penitential Psalms.
At about the same time that King Louis was dying outside the walls of Carthage, the fleet of Charles of Anjou was sighted at sea. He had come just in time to reap the fruits of a dubious victory, for with his coming the situation changed. The emir, looking down from the high towers of ancient Carthage, saw fresh troops running along the beach, well fed, free of the pestilence, well armed with catapults and ballistas and all the machinery of war, and realized that, while it had always been the practice of King Louis to play a waiting game, Charles of Anjou was of a different temperament.