The Crusaders crossed Lower Asia, through a land deserted and wasted by the retreating enemy. In the desert places they suffered from thirst, and gave silver for a draught of water. When they came to a river, low in its banks, multitudes rushed, pressing each other, treading each other to death down the steep slopes, pushing many victims into the water. Then they wearily climbed the steep, slippery sides of Mount Taurus. Godfrey of Bouillon had been torn by a bear, and was carried in a litter. Raymond of Toulouse was borne along, grievously sick. Winter was coining on.
In October 1097 they began the great siege of Antioch. Though all scattered bands were called in, still the Crusaders were not sufficiently numerous to surround the city, which still retained much of its Roman greatness. They knew they could not take the walls by force. They knew they could not starve the town into submission. February arrived, 1098, and no progress had been made. The Crusaders were dying off by the thousand. They were utterly starving.
It was agreed that whichever chief captured the city should possess it. Bohemond was most ambitious, he madly desired the prize, for it was a very great one. He defeated an attacking force of the Moslems. Then he sought all manner of means of success. The native population of Antioch was Christian, had been Christian since Roman days. These native Christians had had the Mohammedan religion forced on them, but were ready to turn Christian again as soon as possible. Bohemond contrived that one of them, a Syrian renegade who commanded three towers, should admit him and his bands into the city. Early one June night scaling-ladders were thrown down from the walls, Bohemond and Duke Robert, with their armies rushed silently up, assembled, and seized the town. In the morning the Crusaders saw Bohemond’s flag flying over the city. The poor perishing Crusaders felt they were saved.
But Antioch was a trap. The citadel still held out, and there was seen arriving a huge army under the Emir Kerboga, multitudes of dark warriors advancing over the plains. The Christians felt that they were lost. Famine or slaughter seemed the only alternative. Many fled from the city in despair. The rest of the Crusaders shut the gates and manned the walls, prepared to stand siege and starve.
Then a miracle happened. Peter Bartholomew, a cunning Proven9al priest, announced that the Holy Lance which pierced the side of Jesus on the Cross had been buried under the altar of St. Peter’s church in Antioch. St. Andrew had thrice appeared to him in a dream, and commanded him to bring forth the relic. In great excitement the digging commenced. The lance was found. Bohemond’s party plainly declared that it had been hidden there for the purpose by the priest and the Pro- ven9als. But this had no effect on the great body of the Crusaders. They believed.
Five-and-twenty days the Christians besieged in the city had spent on the verge of destruction, for the emir camped against them offered only the choice of slavery or death.
They were but a handful now compared with the hosts that had set out. There in the far East they prepared to lay their bones. But on the twenty-fifth day the lance was discovered — a Saracen lance-head. Wrapped in a veil of silk and gold it was held up to the Crusaders. A great shout of inflamed joy and hope went up from the whole city. Prayers were offered. Then the soldiers were sent to their quarters, bidden to eat the last of their food freely, and to give all provender to the horses, and to be ready at dawn.
By the first light of day the men assembled. When all were ready the gates were thrown open, the battle array marched forth and was marshalled on the plain outside. A procession of monks chanted the psalm: ‘ Let the Lord arise, and let His enemies be scattered.’ And then the Christian Crusaders, mad with religious excitement, broke on the startled Turks. A tremendous victory was won. It is said that the enemy’s army had six hundred thousand men. This vast, clumsy host was broken, it fled in panic. Great treasures were captured. It seemed indeed a miracle. No wonder that the Crusaders believed they had seen angels and martyrs of God come down and fight with them, flashing and glistening in their midst, angels with bright swords thrusting and slaying the dusky Turks.
For the Crusaders were now much diminished. Thousands had died of pestilence and famine during this dreadful siege. In October 1097, sixty thousand crusading horse had been reviewed before the city: in June 1098 but two thousand remained, and scarce two hundred could be mustered for battle. Godfrey of Bouillon, Bohemond, and Tancred had alone kept heart. Yet even Godfrey had had to borrow a horse for the day of battle. He owned none, and could buy none.
The victory won, Bohemond demanded the city as his own. Raymond said it belonged to the Greek Emperor from whom it had been captured by the Turks. But Bohemond insisted, and he had his way. He remained in his city, or county — for he would claim the surrounding land — with a small force of soldiers. The rest rode on towards Jerusalem, a much diminished host, following the coast southwards. Hugh of Vermandois and Stephen of Chartres had already turned back home to Europe. They had had enough.
When the Crusaders came to the seaport of Tripoli, however, not very far from Damascus, Raymond halted and settled down with his forces. It was a pleasant land. He wanted to found a state for himself, a rival to Antioch. Baldwin, brother of Godfrey, had established himself in Edessa. So little did these great leaders care any more for the crusade, so greedy were they for land. They felt they were out on a great colonising adventure, that the East should be made a sort of European colony, themselves as rulers.
The remaining Crusaders, weary of all this, now demanded to be led straight to Jerusalem. They had heard of the decline of the Turkish Empire which they were invading. The Arabs had for thirty years been ousted from Asia Minor by the Turks. Therefore the Caliph of Egypt now watched with joy the crumbling of the power of the Turkish sultans. He wanted his own lands back. While the Crusaders were in Syria he sent his Arab armies against the Turks of Jerusalem, and captured the Holy City. The town was now held, not very strongly, by the Fatimite Arabs from Egypt. The Court of Cairo, after the capture of Antioch, sent ambassadors with robes of silk, and precious vases, and purses of gold and silver to Godfrey and Bohemond, explaining that Jerusalem belonged by right to the Arabs, and that a treaty should be arranged such as had held good in Charlemagne’s days, whereby pilgrims might visit the holy places, by paying tribute.
But Godfrey would have none of this. He proudly declared that Christians would ask no permission to visit Jerusalem, and that it was only by a timely surrender of the city that the Caliph could avert an immediate attack. Yet the winter wasted away. Weary to death, the Crusaders scattered to enjoy themselves in the sweet, luxurious cities of Syria. They were well supplied with food, the emirs paid rich tribute to them. For the Turks were disunited and weakened, they gave presents to their enemies so that they need not fight them.
At last, almost a small band now, led by Godfrey, the Crusaders marched from Caesarea, and in June 1099 they saw Jerusalem on her hills. Then the travel-worn heroes cried aloud, and wept hot tears, seeing the Holy City they had suffered so much to win, the city of God.
Godfrey planted his standard on the first swell of Mount Calvary; to the left lay Tancred and Duke Robert; Count Raymond, who had come along, pitched his quarters between the Citadel and Mount Sion. On the fifth day, they made a tremendous assault, but were driven back by the skilful Arabs with much slaughter and shame. So they had to sit down to a siege. They suffered again bitterly from lack of food and water, but chiefly for want of water, for the hills of Jerusalem are dry and stony. And they could find no timber to make the engines of assault.
At last, however, the movable towers were constructed. These high wooden towers were wheeled close to the walls, and from their summits the crusading soldiers fired arrows down upon the defenders of the ramparts, driving them off. Then a wooden drawbridge was lowered from the high wooden turret of the siege-engine, on to the wall, and on a Friday, July 15, 1099, at three o’clock in the afternoon, Godfrey of Bouillon stood victorious on the walls of Jerusalem. And thus, four hundred and sixty years after the great Arab Omar had captured the city, was Jerusal
em set free once more from the Mohammedan yoke.
A terrible massacre took place. Tancred alone showed some pity. For three days the Crusaders savagely slaughtered the Moslems, men, women, and children. It is said the Christians waded up to their ankles in blood. The Jews were burnt in their synagogue. Seventy thousand Mohammedans were put to the sword. After a week or two the infection of masses of dead bodies produced a pestilence.
Bareheaded and barefoot, in a humble posture, when the city was quieted the conquerors ascended the hill of Calvary walking in slow procession, to the loud singing of anthems by the priests. They kissed the stone which had covered the grave of Jesus, weeping burning tears of joy and penitence.
Godfrey of Bouillon became ruler of Jerusalem, with the title of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. In Europe, Pope Urban had died eight days after the capture of the city. He never heard of the event. So ended the First Crusade, wonderful as the first act of united Christendom, the first great movement of waking Europe.
Godfrey’s successor, Baldwin, became King of Jerusalem. Far away there in the East grew up a number of Latin states. Bohemond, followed by Tancred, governed Antioch as if he were king there, Raymond ruled Tripoli in Asia. The Military Orders rose up, and commanded the cities and seaports of Acre, Tyre, Jaffa, Ascalon.
The Military Orders were associations of sacred knights. The first, the Hospitallers, had been begun to maintain a hospital in Jerusalem and to protect pilgrims. The second, the Templars, which afterwards became so very powerful, was begun in 1119, when a band of eight knights united to defend the Temple and the way to Jerusalem. The knights were fighting monks, monk-knights who had sworn to dedicate their lives to conquering the enemies of God. They were to remain chaste and celibate, they had rules of prayer like monks. All over Christendom they had houses, monasteries almost, where men entered and vowed their lives to God, and, after a certain probation, were clothed in the armour with the sacred red cross on the breast, and sent forth in the service of Christ.
Thus from 1100 to 1200 A.D. a steady stream of powerful warriors flowed out to the East, to guard the holy places and defend the Latin states.
It was partly owing to these Latin states of the East that the great eastern trade of Venice and Genoa and Sicily grew so rich and important. From the Syrian sea-coast, through the Middle Ages ship after ship sailed away for the European ports of Venice, Pisa, Genoa, laden with oriental produce; whilst ship after ship spread her sails from Europe carrying goods to Tripoli, Tyre, Acre, Jaffa, Antioch. For in these eastern cities dwelt European knights and nobles and peoples, settled there and ruling the land and enjoying life, like the English now in India. These Franks, as the Moslems called them, lived and jousted and fought and traded in the East for nearly two hundred years, conquerors possessing the land. Fleets of ships sailed straight for their ports from the ports of Italy, and thus Constantinople, which had been the great port, the only port of the East, gradually declined, being left aside.
There were many crusades, but none like the first. Never again did the same passion sweep Europe. In 1101 a vast host set out to rescue Bohemond, who had been captured by the Turks, and deprived of his Frankish principality of Antioch. This crusade intended also to take Bagdad. But it failed in every respect.
About 1127 the Turkish House of Seljuk, which had been crumbling when it was attacked by the first Crusaders, yielded in the East to the succeeding House of Zenghi. In 1144 Zenghi attacked the Christians of the East, and his rising power threatened the Holy Land. A new crusade was preached by St. Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux in France, one of the greatest monks the world has seen. Louis VII. of France and the Emperor Conrad III. set off in 1147. They reached Damascus, which the Turks held, and attacked it, but were driven off. This crusade also utterly failed.
In 1187 Jerusalem fell again. The great Sultan Saladin had added Egypt to his Asiatic possessions. He fell on Syria and defeated the Christians. Just as the first Crusaders, in wild religious enthusiasm, had conquered Palestine owing to the indifference and careless weakness of the Mohammedans, so the fiery, enthusiastic Mohammedans now reconquered it, with all the enthusiasm of a holy war, from the indifferent, careless Franks, who were selfish, stupid, and quarrelsome out there in the East.
A third crusade was organised to save the Holy City. Frederick Barbarossa set out, but was drowned in 1189, and only a remnant of his army reached Antioch. Richard of England, called Coeur de Lion, and Philip Augustus of France, were under vow to go. They set off in 1190. Richard went by sea, wintering in Sicily. In the spring he set out for Acre, conquering Cyprus by the way. The Christians had been besieging Acre for two years, when the French and English fleets sailed up.
Richard was a great leader, a great man: not an Englishman, for he could never speak English: a Frenchman, an Aquitainian, writing and singing his poems in the language of Southern France: a tall, rash man, fair, handsome, brave, a great leader, a terror to the Turks. But he and Philip could never agree. In 1191 Richard took Acre. Philip, declaring his health was broken, returned to France.
Acre had capitulated to Richard, and he held two thousand captives as hostage, till the ransom should be paid according to Saladin’s promises. Saladin failed to pay, Richard massacred the hostages, and marched to Ascalon. But as he moved into the interior, away from his ships and supplies, he became helpless in a barren land, he could do nothing, masterly leader though he was. He pressed on. In the spring of 1192 he was within sight of Jerusalem. His comrades went up the hill to see in the distance the towers of the city. But Richard would not go up, he would not look. For he knew he could get no farther. He returned to the coast in great bitterness.
He gave Cyprus to Guy, King of Jerusalem. Guy reconquered Acre, but Jerusalem was lost to Christendom.
In 1202 another crusade, a Crusade of Barons, set out. It was to go by sea this time, sailing from Venice. In 1203 the fleet reached Constantinople. The Venetians had a quarrel with the Byzantines, and had come on purpose to take the city. The Crusaders besieged Constantinople. This wonderful city, so long inviolate, fell after thirteen days’ siege, and the Venetians and the Crusaders remained in occupation pretending it was too late to proceed east. The Byzantines murdered their emperor, and turning against the Latins, drove them out. In 1204 the city was again taken by the Venetians and the Crusaders, assaulted, stormed, taken, sacked and gutted. Innumerable treasures were destroyed, innumerable lovely statues from old Greece melted down to make bronze money. Then, imitating Godfrey or Bohemond or Guy in the far East, Baldwin of Flanders made himself Emperor of Constantinople, Boniface of Montferrat became King of Thessalonica, other counts and barons became lords of the Morea, of Attica, Boeotia, and parts of Asia Minor. There was a Duke of Athens and a Prince of Achaia — all barons from Italy or the North, most of them Germanic nobles. But Venice was the great gainer. Venice now became mistress of the eastern seas, which Constantinople had been for hundreds of years.
This crusade, called the Fourth, was just a splendid, if rather unholy adventure: a marauding conquest and annexation of the near East, Eastern Europe, by barons from the West and North.
In 1228, as we know, Frederick h. marched to Palestine and made a satisfactory treaty with the Sultan of Cairo, obtaining Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth — the three places of pilgrimage. He crowned himself King of Jerusalem. But this was no conquest. It was not even real possession, but rather an occupation by permission.
In 1244 Jerusalem was again lost, and the Latin kingdom of the East was practically destroyed altogether. Louis ix. of France led an expedition in 1248 against the Sultan of Egypt. He took Damietta, and advanced into the Delta of the Nile. The Saracens attacked his army, Louis was captured, and his host surrendered. With the exception of the king and the chief lords, the army was massacred to a man. A great sum was paid for Louis’ ransom, Damietta given up. Then the king went to the Holy Land, trying to strengthen the few remaining Christian positions there, and performing pious works. He returned to France after three
years, having done nothing and lost an army.
These crusades to the East were as ruinous for France as the excursions of the German emperors to Italy. But men had to fight somewhere, and perhaps it was better to fight the Moslem abroad than the Christian at home. After the Crusades, Europe never acted again in union. Men ceased to be Christians first and foremost. Nationality now began to count.
Chapter XI. Italy after the Hohenstaufens
The great struggle between Pope and Emperor ended with the Hohenstaufens. The two great powers left each other so weak that kings, nations, cities, small republics rose to independence, raising their heads from the ruin of the great ones. The popes no longer hoped to govern Europe from Rome; their large idea collapsed or dwindled. The emperors no longer hoped to rule Italy and the popes, and thus sway Europe. They came to depend on their own hereditary dominions, just as the popes became merely Italian, less and less European.
The greatest emperors of the Hohenstaufen family were the two Fredericks, Frederick Barbarossa, the great fighter, and Frederick the Second, called in his young days the Wonder of the World, and towards the end of his life, when the hatred between him and the Pope’s party became so deadly, called the Beast of Europe.
The Hohenstaufens came from the old castle of Wibelin in Germany. They had a great rival family in Germany, called the House of Welf. When the popes fought so terribly with Barbarossa and Frederick II., they made friends with the rivals of the Hohenstaufens in Germany. While ever the fighting went on, the dukes of the House of Welf sent down to Italy many knights and fierce soldiers to help the popes, so that Italy was full of fierce Germans, who could speak no Italian. These ferocious German soldiers would seize an Italian peasant, and demand: ‘ Which are you, Welf or Wibelin?’ This meant, are you of the Pope’s party, or of the Emperor’s?
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 906