John of Brienne strengthened his opinion by other motives, with which his knowledge of the art of war supplied him, and terminated his speech by saying, “That Damietta and Tannis were powerful enough to restrain the people of Egypt; that it was necessary to recapture the cities they had lost, before they thought of conquering countries that had never been in their possession; and that, in short, they had not assembled under the banners of the cross to besiege Thebes, Babylon, or Memphis, but to deliver Jerusalem, which opened its gates to the Christians, and which they could fortify against all the attacks of the infidels.”

This moderate and pacific language would well have become the mouth of an envoy of the pope; but Pelagius listened to the king of Jerusalem with the most evident impatience: he answered, that weakness and timidity screened themselves behind the veil of moderation and prudence; that Christ did not summon to his defence such wise and far-sighted soldiers, but warriors who sought for battle rather than for reasons, and who could see the glory of an enterprise, and be blind to its dangers. The legate added several more reasons to those he had already advanced, and expressed them with great bitterness; at length, led away by the heat of the discussion, he threatened all those who did not partake of his opinions with excommunication. Most of the leaders, and the king of Jerusalem himself, fearing to be excommunicated, but dreading much more to see the least suspicion cast upon their bravery, at length yielded to the obstinate will of Pelagius: the council of the barons and the bishops decided that the Christian army should leave Damietta, and march against the capital of Egypt.

This army, composed of more than seventy thousand men, advanced up the banks of the Nile. A numerous fleet, laden with provisions, arms, and machines of war, ascended the river at the same time. The Christian army passed through Farescour and several other villages, that had been abandoned by their inhabitants; all fled away at the approach of the Crusaders, who began to believe they should meet with no obstacle to their victories, and celebrated, beforehand, the conquest of Memphis and Cairo. The legate of the pope exulted in the resolution he had dictated to the Christian army; and, full of confidence in a prediction that had been made concerning him in his youth, the presumptuous cardinal flattered himself that he was about to overthrow the worship of Mahomet; and indulged in the most insulting railleries against those who had been opposed to the war. Without fighting a single battle, the Christians gained the extremity of the Delta, at the angle formed by the arm of the river which descends towards Damietta and the canal of Almon, whose waters flow into the sea on the eastern side. The Saracens were encamped in the plain of Mansourah, on the opposite bank of the river: the Crusaders halted on the hither shore, and their fleet cast anchor as near to them as possible.

The sultan of Damascus, and the princes of Aleppo, Balbec, Hamah, and Bosra, had united their troops with those of the sultan of Cairo. The Nile, whose bank was covered with intrenchments, presented a barrier very difficult to be overcome. But Melic-Kamel did not dare to match himself with the Crusaders; dreading their rash bravery, so accustomed to sport with perils and triumph over all obstacles. Reports of the arrival of Frederick, and of the approach of the Tartars, kept the Mussulmans in a continual state of alarm, and made them anxious to terminate a war which exhausted their resources, consumed their strength, and did not promise them, even in victory, a compensation for so many efforts and so many sacrifices.

Ambassadors were sent to propose peace to the leaders of the Christian army: the Mussulmans offered their enemies, if they would consent to an entire cessation of hostilities, to give up to them Damietta and its territories, and to restore Jerusalem, with all the places of Palestine that had been conquered by Saladin.

These conditions assured to the Christians all the advantages of both war and peace. The king of Jerusalem, and most of the barons, who saw the difficulties and perils of the expedition they had entered upon, listened with as much surprise as joy to the proposals of the infidels, and did not hesitate to accept them; but they had absolutely no power in the army. The legate, who exercised an arbitrary authority, and who was constantly dreaming of conquests, persisted in thinking that these pacific proposals were only the effects of fear, and that the enemy who sued for peace was the one with whom war should be prosecuted with most spirit.

The ambassadors returned to the camp of the Mussulmans, to announce that the Christians refused the peace: their account excited indignation, and indignation roused courage. When the Ayoubite princes proposed peace, they were in possession of ample means to carry on the war with advantage; they every day received reinforcements, and their camp rapidly assumed a more formidable aspect; but soon a terrible auxiliary, against whose attacks Pelagius had no defence, came to the assistance of the Mussulmans, and procured them a complete triumph without either battles or danger.

The Christian warriors, who flattered themselves they had now only to deal with a conquered enemy, were satisfied with surrounding their camp with a ditch and a wall; the army remained for several days in this position, without making an effort either to attack the Saracens or pass the Nile. Pelagius, who was constantly promising victory to his soldiers, remained, nevertheless, in a state of inactivity in his tent. During this period, many of the Crusaders grew weary of a war in which no battles were fought; some fancied that the cause no longer stood in need of their assistance; whilst others, with more foresight, feared coming reverses: more than ten thousand Crusaders abandoned the camp and returned to Damietta.

The Christian army had been for more than a month in face of the enemy, always in expectation of the victories that had been promised to them. At length, the overflowing of the Nile, in a most alarming manner, disturbed their imagined security. The Saracens opened the sluices, and filled all the canals of Lower Egypt. The Mussulman fleet, which had not been able to ascend the Nile by Damietta, took advantage of the canals, and came up with the Christian ships. In a single engagement, the vessels of the Crusaders were almost all dispersed and consumed by the Greek fire: from that moment terror seized upon the Christians, for they were in want of provisions, and had neither means nor hopes of obtaining any. The Saracens, after having crossed the Nile on bridges, occupied all the circumjacent hills. The Christian soldiers wandered about the fields at hazard, pursued by the waves of the rising river, and by the Mussulmans, whose bravery they had so lately held in contempt. The whole army was on the point of being submerged or perishing with hunger, and had no hope but in the clemency of an enemy with whom they had recently refused to make peace.

In this extremity, the king of Jerusalem and the principal leaders of the Christians sent several of their knights to offer the Saracens battle; but the latter were neither sufficiently imprudent, nor sufficiently generous to accept a proposal dictated by despair. The Crusaders were exhausted with hunger and fatigue; the cavalry sunk into, and encumbered by mud and slime, could neither advance nor retreat; the foot-soldiers cast away their arms; the baggage of the army floated away upon the waters, and nothing was heard but groans and lamentations. “When the Christian warriors,” says an Arabian historian, “saw nothing before them but death, their minds sank into a state of despondency, and their backs bent beneath the rod of God, to whom be all praise!”

Pelagius must then have been sensible of the full extent of his error: his project of marching to Cairo had, doubtless, something great in it, if it could have been executed; but the presumptuous legate disdained all counsels, all lessons of experience, and foresaw none of the obstacles he was certain to meet with on his route; he conducted an army filled with discontent; the soldiers had neither that confidence nor that enthusiasm that leads men to brave dangers or cheerfully encounter fatigue. The king of Jerusalem, the duke of Bavaria, and a great number of the barons were his personal enemies, and took very little interest in the success of an enterprise of which they had disapproved.

Amidst the cries and lamentations of an army to which he had promised victory, Pelagius was obliged to negotiate for peace, and his pride humbled itself so far as to implore the clemency of the Saracens. Christian ambassadors, among whom was the bishop of Ptolemaïs, went to propose a capitulation to the conquerors; they offered to give up the city of Damietta, and only asked for the Christian army liberty to return to Ptolemaïs.

The Mussulman princes assembled in council to deliberate upon the proposals of the Crusaders. Some were of opinion they should be accepted; others declared that all the Christians ought to be made prisoners of war. Among those who proposed the harshest measures, the sultan of Damascus, an implacable enemy of the Franks, was conspicuous. “No treaty can be made,” said he, “with warriors without humanity and without faith. We should remember their barbarities in war and their treachery in peace. They armed themselves to ravage provinces, to destroy cities, and overthrow the worship of Mahomet. Since fortune has placed these most cruel enemies of Islamism, these devastators of the East, in the hands of the true believers, we ought to immolate them to the safety of the Mussulman nations, and take an advantage of our victory that will create a terror among the people of the West for ever.”

Most of the princes and emirs, animated by fanaticism and vengeance, applauded this violent speech. The sultan of Cairo, more moderate, and, doubtless, more prescient than the other leaders, dreading likewise the arrival of Frederick and the invasion of the Tartars, combated the opinion of the sultan of Damascus, and advised that the capitulation of the Franks should be accepted. “All the Franks were not comprised in this army now in their power; other Crusaders guarded Damietta, and might be able to defend it; the Mussulmans had sustained a siege of eight months, the Christians might hold out as long. It was more advantageous for the princes of the family of Saladin to return to their cities than to retain a few of their enemies in chains. If they destroyed one Christian army, the West, to avenge the defeat of its warriors, was able to send numberless legions into the East. They ought not to forget that the Mussulman armies had lost a portion of that spirit of obedience and discipline that was the sole guarantee of victory; that they were worn out with fatigue, and sighed for repose. Other enemies than the now disarmed Christians, other perils than those they had just escaped, might soon hang over both Syria and Egypt.[228] It was wise to make peace at this moment, in order to prepare for fresh contests, for new wars, perhaps much more cruel than that which they had now an opportunity of terminating with so much glory to the Mussulman arms.”

The speech of Melik-Kamel brought back the princes of his family to sentiments of moderation.[229] The capitulation was accepted; the sultan of Cairo sent his own son to the camp of the Christians as a pledge for his word. The king of Jerusalem, the duke of Bavaria, the legate of the pope, and the principal leaders repaired to the camp of the Saracens, and remained as hostages till the accomplishment of the treaty.

When the deputies of the imprisoned army came to Damietta and announced the disasters and captivity of the Christians, their account drew tears from the crowd of Crusaders who at that time arrived from the West. When these same deputies informed them that the city must be given up to the infidels, the most intrepid of the Franks could not restrain their indignation, and refused to recognise a treaty so disgraceful to the soldiers of the cross. The greatest tumult prevailed throughout the city. Some, filled with despair, determined to return to Europe, and prepared to desert the banners of the cross; others ran towards the ramparts, and getting possession of the towers, swore to defend them.

A few days after, fresh deputies arrived to declare that the king of Jerusalem and the other leaders of the army would be obliged to give up Ptolemaïs to the Mussulmans if they refused to surrender Damietta. In order to overcome the obstinate resistance of those who wished to defend the city, and who reproached the imprisoned army with disgracing the Christians, they added, that this army, though defeated, had obtained a prize worthy of their former exploits, for the Saracens had engaged to restore to them the true cross of the Saviour, which had fallen into the hands of Saladin at the battle of Tiberias. The fear of losing Ptolemaïs, the hope of regaining the cross of Christ, together with the speeches of the deputies, brought back the spirit of peace and resignation to the minds of the most ardent of the Crusaders, and disposed them to the performance of the conditions of the treaty.

In the mean time, the Christian army having lost their tents and their baggage, passed many days and many nights in a plain covered with the waters of the Nile. Hunger, disease, and inundation threatened their entire destruction. The king of Jerusalem, then in the camp of the Saracens, upon being informed of the horrible distress of the Christians, went to conjure Melik-Kamel to have pity on his disarmed enemies. The continuator of William of Tyre, who is our guide in this part of our history, reports, in his old, quaint language, the touching interview between John of Brienne and the sultan of Egypt. “The king sat down before the sultan, and began to weep; the sultan, on seeing the king weep, said, ‘Sire, why do you weep?’ ‘Sire, I have good cause,’ replied the king, ‘for I behold the people whom God has confided to me perishing amidst the waters, and dying with hunger.’ The sultan felt great pity at seeing the king weep, and he wept also; then he sent thirty thousand loaves to the poor as well as the rich; and sent the same quantity daily during four days.”[230]

Melik-Kamel caused the sluices to be closed, and the waters rapidly retired from the plain; as soon as Damietta was surrendered to the Mussulmans, the Christian army began its retreat. The Crusaders, who owed their liberty and lives to the mercy of the Saracens, passed through the city which had cost them so many conflicts and so much labour; and, weeping, quitted the banks of the Nile, where so short a time before they had sworn to make the cause of Christ triumphant. They bore away in sadness the wood of the true cross, the identity of which they had reason to suspect, since it no longer performed miracles, and was not for them now the signal of victory. The sultan of Egypt caused them to be accompanied by his son, who had orders to provide for all their wants on their route. The Saracen leaders were impatient to get rid of an army that had threatened their empire; they could scarcely give credit to their own triumph, and some little apprehension was, no doubt, mingled with the pity with which their conquered enemies inspired them.

Great rejoicings had been made at Ptolemaïs for the victories obtained by the Christians on the banks of the Nile; they believed that they already saw the holy places delivered, and the empire of the Saracens destroyed. Consternation took place of their joy on seeing the army return. As in all the other reverses which their arms had met with, the Christians mutually reproached each other with their defeat; they accused the leaders of ambition, and the king of Jerusalem of weakness; the Templars and Hospitallers, who had on all occasions set an example of courage and the most generous devotedness, were obliged to make a public apology for their conduct. When it became known in the West that Damietta had fallen again into the hands of the Saracens, all the faithful were affected by the deepest grief,[231] and sought, by their prayers, to mitigate the anger of Heaven. Violent murmurs arose against the legate Pelagius, and represented him to the sovereign pontiff as the author of all the disasters of the crusade; but Honorius was not willing to condemn his minister, and reproached Frederick, who had three times renewed his vow to fight against the infidels, with having remained an idle spectator of an unfortunate war, and with having neglected to succour his brethren of the East.

Frederick, who had sent vessels, provisions, and soldiers to the holy war, thought that he had fully performed his part in the crusade, and was at first much astonished at the reproaches of the Holy See. When the pope threatened him with the anger of Heaven and the thunders of Rome, he could not restrain his indignation; in his letters the emperor complains bitterly of the tyranny of both Innocent and Honorius, and talks of opposing war to war, and vengeance to injustice. After this, Honorius, who acted less from the dictates of his own mind than after the policy of his predecessors, changed his tone, attempted to justify both Innocent and himself, and, employing prayers instead of menaces, conjured Frederick to have pity on the Church of the East.

This paternal language appeased Frederick; in an interview which he had with the pope at Veroli, the emperor of Germany repeated his vow to repair to Palestine at the head of an army. In another assembly, which was held some time afterwards at Verona, the pope endeavoured to engage Frederick, on account of his own interests; he proposed to him to espouse Yolande, daughter of John of Brienne, and heir to the kingdom of Jerusalem. The grand masters of the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Teutonic order, with the patriarch and the king of Jerusalem, all summoned to Italy to deliberate on the affairs of the crusade, approved of a union which would secure them the assistance of a powerful monarch. Frederick accepted a kingdom which he promised to defend, and consented to undergo excommunication if he failed in his promises.

After the conference of Verona, King John of Brienne visited the principal states of Europe, for the purpose of soliciting aid for the Holy Land. At the time of John’s arrival in France, the French were mourning the death of Philip Augustus. The king of Jerusalem assisted at the funeral ceremonies of his master and benefactor, who, at his death, had bequeathed three thousand silver marks to the defenders of Palestine. After having paid the last duties to Philip, John went first to England, and afterwards to Germany, in both of which countries his presence and his discourses strongly moved Christians with the misfortunes of the Holy Land.

The emperor Frederick, on his part, made all the requisite preparations for an expedition which he was to lead in person; he ordered vessels to be constructed in all the ports of Sicily for transporting the Crusaders. “Heaven and earth,” wrote he to the pope, “are witnesses that I desire the success of the Christian arms with my whole soul, and that I will neglect nothing that can assist in securing the success of the holy enterprise.” In all his letters Frederick exhorted the sovereign pontiff to employ every means to augment the numbers of the soldiers of Christ. Become, all at once, more zealous for the crusade than the pope himself, he reproached the court of Rome with being sparing in indulgences, and with confiding the preaching of the crusade to vulgar orators; he advised the pope to redouble his efforts to appease the quarrels of Christian princes, and to compel the kings of France and England to sign a peace, in order that the nobles and people of these two kingdoms might take part in the crusade. Frederick not being able to go into Germany, sent thither the grand master of the Teutonic order, with directions to exhort the landgrave of Thuringia, the duke of Austria, the king of Hungary, and the other princes of the empire, to take the oath to fight against the infidels. He undertook to furnish the Crusaders with vessels, provisions, arms, and everything necessary for the expedition beyond the sea; in short, he displayed so much activity, and showed so much ardour and zeal, that all the attention of the Christians was directed towards him, and he was considered as the soul, the moving principle, and the head of the holy enterprise.

The Christians of Palestine placed all their hopes in him; the patriarch of Alexandria, in a letter to the pope, said that they looked for the emperor of Germany on the banks of the Nile and the Jordan, as formerly the saints had looked for the coming of the Messiah or Saviour of the world. The patriarch spoke with grief of the oppression and servitude that had been inflicted upon the Christians established in Egypt since the last invasion of the Crusaders. The unfortunate disciples of Christ were not allowed to keep in their dwellings either arms or horses, nor even to bear a crucifix at the funeral processions of their relations; a hundred and fifteen of their churches had been destroyed since the conquest of Damietta. Oppressed by tributes,[232] condemned to disgraceful labours, banished from their homes, wandering around their temples and their altars, they invoked the mercy of Heaven and the valour of the warriors of the West for their deliverance.

The report of Frederick’s preparations was spread even to the remote nations of Georgia; and the queen of that country wrote to the head of the Church of Rome, that the constable of her kingdom and a great number of warriors only waited for the arrival of the emperor of Germany, to fly to the assistance of Palestine. The Georgians had the reputation of being a warlike people, and were dreaded by the Mussulmans; their pilgrims enjoyed the privilege of entering Jerusalem without paying the tribute imposed upon other Christians. When the sultan of Damascus caused the ramparts of the holy city to be destroyed, the warriors of Georgia swore to avenge the outrage committed on the city of God; but an invasion of the Tartars prevented them from leaving their own territories.[233] Since that period, the hordes of Tartary having directed their ravages towards other countries, the Crusaders of Caucasus and the shores of the Caspian Sea promised to unite themselves in the plains of Syria and Egypt, with the Crusaders from the banks of the Rhine and the Danube.

Frederick, however, was not yet in a position to perform his so often repeated promises; the kingdom of Sicily and Naples contained germs of discord and rebellion; the republics of Lombardy were openly opposed to the emperor of Germany; and the Holy See, which observed with anxiety the ambitious projects of Frederick upon Italy, encouraged all the enemies of a power of which it dreaded the too close neighbourhood. Thus, the policy of the court of Rome, the revolts of Sicily, and the enterprises of the Italian republics, would not allow the emperor to lead his armies into Asia. Frederick demanded of the pope the indulgence of a delay of two years for the performance of his vow; founding his request upon the length of time required for assembling his armies, and declared that he was not willing to begin the war before the expiration of the truce made with the Mussulmans; thus showing much more respect for treaties with infidels, than had till that time been common among Christians, indeed, more respect than he had himself shown. The pope, although much dissatisfied, could not refuse the delay the emperor demanded; he, however, dissembled his anger, and contented himself with requiring fresh promises, which were made, as all the rest had been, with the greatest solemnity.

The new vows of Frederick were strengthened by his marriage with the heir of the king of Jerusalem. The marriage was celebrated at Rome, amidst the benedictions of the clergy and the acclamations of the people; all the Christians of the West heard of it with joy, and this union appeared to them to be the most certain pledge of the victories the Crusaders would gain over the infidels. John of Brienne, who assisted at the ceremony, congratulated himself upon having obtained an emperor for a son-in-law and a supporter; but his joy was not of long duration. Frederick, after his marriage, only saw in him the brother of that Gauthier de Brienne, who had borne the title of king of Naples and Sicily; he considered him as an enemy to his power, a dangerous rival, and he disputed the possession of the kingdom of Jerusalem with him. The pope was secretly pleased at this claim or pretension, as he hoped it would promote the interests of the crusade. Honorius was delighted to see the ambition of the emperor mix itself up with the great designs for the execution of which he was so anxious. Frederick was therefore acknowledged king of Jerusalem. Thus John of Brienne, who had always proved himself the most ardent apostle of the holy war, deprived of his crown, and from that time a stranger to the affairs of Palestine, was obliged to wait in retirement and silence for a favourable opportunity to avenge himself on his son-in-law, and recover his kingdom.

Frederick carried on his preparations for the holy war, and appeared more than ever disposed to set out for the East. The crusade was preached, in the name of the head of the Church, in all the kingdoms of Europe; the sovereign pontiff wrote to the princes to exhort them to suspend their divisions and occupy themselves solely with the war beyond the sea.

As hostilities had just been renewed between England and France, Honorius ordered Louis VIII. to lay down his arms, and threatened him with excommunication, if he did not immediately make peace. The king of France, before he obeyed the orders of the pope, was desirous of completing the conquest of Poitou; and whilst the thunders of Rome were growling over his head, the people and clergy were returning Heaven thanks for his victories, in every church of his kingdom.

The war against the English was not the only obstacle to the departure of the French Crusaders for the Holy Land; the exterminating crusade against the Albigeois was still going on, and Louis VIII. took a more active interest in it than his father Philip had done. When Louis VIII. had concluded a truce with England, he at length resolved to take the cross, and made a vow, not to go and fight against the Saracens in Asia, but against the heretics in Languedoc. In this crusade the king of France had the double advantage of scarcely going out of his own territories, and of making conquests that might some day enlarge his kingdom. The lords and barons followed Louis into the southern provinces, and thought no more about the deliverance of Jerusalem.

At the same time the envoys of the pope and the emperor were busy in exhorting the nations of Germany to succour the Christians of Palestine. Their orations, which at first had great success, ended by diminishing both confidence and enthusiasm. As the pope had recommended the preachers to be prodigal of the indulgences of the Church, the people beheld with astonishment the greatest criminals take the cross, and swear to expiate their sins by the holy pilgrimage. They remembered that St. Bernard had called thieves and murderers to the defence of Christ; but opinions and morals began to change, and that which had succeeded in the preceding century was now only a source of reproach. The monk of Upsberg, a contemporary author, informs us that the facility granted to the most vicious of mankind to redeem their crimes by taking up arms and the cross, only served to increase great offences, and cool the zeal of the true defenders of Christ.[234]

The orators who preached the crusade in England gathered more fruit from their labours, but owed great part of their success to celestial phenomena, which came very opportunely to second their eloquence. A luminous crucifix, with the marks of the five wounds of the Saviour, appeared suddenly in the heavens. This miraculous spectacle greatly inflamed the enthusiasm of the people; and, if we may believe Matthew Paris, more than sixty thousand English took the oath to arm themselves for the deliverance of the tomb of Christ.

Spain was constantly the seat of a sanguinary war between the Moors and the Christians; the one party supported by warriors from Africa, the other by knights and soldiers from the provinces of France, fought battles every day without destroying their means of either attack or defence: amidst such wars, in which, by turns, Mahomet and Christ were invoked, Spain was not likely to hear or attend to the complaints and appeals of Jerusalem.

Another enthusiasm than that of the crusades,—an ardent desire for liberty,—then agitated the finest countries of Italy. The greater part of the cities, acted upon by jealousy and the other passions of republics, were all at war among themselves; fighting sometimes for territory, and sometimes for independence. In all these small states, parties attacked and pursued each other with fury, and disputed the exercise of power, sword in hand. Some of the cities, principalities, and baronies invoked the authority of the pope, others that of the emperor of Germany; the factions of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines troubled every city, and created divisions in most families. These discords and civil wars naturally turned the attention of Christian nations from the crusades.

The cities of Lombardy had formed a powerful confederacy, which gave Frederick continual cause of inquietude, and detained him in the West; Honorius employed every means in his power to re-establish peace, and direct men’s minds towards his darling object; and at last succeeded in getting the Lombard republics to join the emperor of Germany for the deliverance of the holy places.

Although the people had lost some portion of their enthusiasm for the holy war, it was still possible to form a redoubtable army, by gathering together all the warriors that had taken the cross in the various countries of Europe; and the new Crusaders were ordered to meet at the port of Brindisi, where vessels were being prepared to transport them to the East. On their arrival in the kingdom of Naples, the emperor of Germany supplied them with provisions and arms; everything was ready, and the pope was about, at length, to see his wishes accomplished, and receive the reward of all his labours and preachings, when inexorable death deprived Christendom of its head.

Gregory IX., who succeeded him, had all the abilities, the virtues, and the ambition of Innocent III. In the execution of his designs, he feared neither difficulties nor perils; the most violent measures had no terrors for his obstinacy or audacity, when the triumph of his will was in question. Gregory had scarcely ascended the pontifical throne, when the preparations for the holy war engrossed all his thoughts, and became the principal object of his active solicitude.

The Crusaders assembled in Apulia had much to suffer from the influences of the climate and the season; the sovereign pontiff neglected nothing to alleviate their distresses and hasten their departure. He exhorted the emperor to embark, by saying to him, “The Lord has placed you in this world as a cherubim with a flaming sword, to direct those who stray from the way of the tree of life.” Frederick at length yielded to the prayers of the pope, and sailed from the port of Brindisi with his fleet and army. Prayers were being put up for the prosperity of his voyage and the success of his expedition, in all the provinces of his empire, when, at the end of three days, being attacked by the malady that had made such ravages in the Christian army, he retraced his course, and landed in the port of Otranto.

Gregory had celebrated the departure of Frederick as a triumph of the Church; he considered his return as an absolute revolt against the Holy See. The little city of Agnani, to which the pope had retired, witnessed the rage of the pontiff, and beheld the birth of that formidable storm which so long disturbed the Christian world. Accompanied by the cardinals and several bishops, Gregory repaired to the principal church, and having mounted the pulpit, before the assembled people, he pronounced a sermon which had for its text, “It is necessary that scandals should arise.” After having called upon the prophets, and spoken of the triumph of St. Michael over the dragon, he launched against Frederick all the anathemas of the Church.

The emperor at first sent messengers to the pope to explain and justify his conduct; but the inexorable Gregory refused to listen to them, and complained to all the sovereigns of Europe, representing Frederick as a faithless and perjured prince. He accused him of having consigned his wife Yolande to close imprisonment, in which she died of grief; of having left the Crusaders to perish with hunger, thirst, and heat in the plains of Apulia; and of having, at last, under the frivolous pretext of sickness, violated his oath and deserted the banners of Christ, in order to return to the customary enjoyments of his kingdom. He made him many other reproaches; and in his anger called down upon him the maledictions of all Christians.

Frederick, exceedingly irritated, replied to the accusations of Gregory with much bitterness. In his apology, which he sent to all the princes of Christendom, he complained strongly of the usurpations of the Holy See, and exposed, in the most odious colours, the policy and ambitious designs of the court of Rome. “The Church of Rome,” said he, “sends legates everywhere, with power to punish, to suspend, and excommunicate, not with the designs of spreading the word of God, but to heap up money, and reap that which they have not sown.” The emperor reminded the princes, in his letters, of the violences which the pope had exercised against the count of Thoulouse and the king of England; he said that the domains of the clergy did not now satisfy the ambition of the Holy See, and that the sovereign pontiffs wished to lay their hands upon every kingdom. From that moment open war was declared between the pope and the emperor; neither of them possessed a pacific character or a love of quiet; both were animated by boundless ambition, jealous to excess of their power, implacable in their revenge, and always ready to employ the arms which the Church or fortune placed in their hands. Gregory displayed an indefatigable activity, leaving his enemies no repose, but pursuing them at the same time with the thunders of religion and war. In addition to the arms of eloquence, the pontiff did not disdain to employ satire; the manifestoes which he published against his adversaries constantly recalled the spirit of the denunciations made by the prophets. These denunciations, mixed with obscure allegories, gave to his words a dark and mysterious tone, which caused him to be considered as the interpreter of angry Heaven. Frederick was neither a less able prince nor a less redoubtable enemy: the art of war contained no stratagems or secrets with which he was unacquainted; policy dictated no means that he scrupled to employ. Endowed with all the gifts of mind, and with a keen spirit of raillery, he was as competent to confound his enemies in a discussion, as to conquer them in the field of battle. Descended, on the female side, from those famous Normans who had conquered Sicily and the kingdom of Naples, he united, as they had done, courage with subtlety, and audacity with dissimulation: to please the court of Rome, he had made barbarous laws against heretics; and, now become the enemy of the popes, he did not fear to arm heretics or Saracens against the court of Rome. When the kingdom of Jerusalem was offered to him, he set no great value upon the acquisition; but he accepted it with joy, in order to increase his popularity in the Christian world, and to arm himself, one day, against the sovereign pontiff with a title, which was then held in universal veneration.

A war between such enemies must necessarily prove terrible, and spread desolation and confusion throughout Christendom. Gregory, on his return to Rome, repeated his excommunications in the church of St. Peter; Frederick, in order to revenge himself, seduced into his party most of the Roman nobles, who took up arms, insulted the sovereign pontiff at the very foot of the altar, and compelled him to abandon the capital of the Christian world. The pope, driven from his states, pursued his enemy with more fury than ever; and, availing himself of the formidable authority of the Church, he released the subjects of Frederick from their oath of fidelity, by reminding them that they could owe no obedience to those who opposed themselves to God and his saints. On his side, Frederick drove the Templars and Hospitallers from the kingdom of Naples, plundered the churches, and ill-treated all ecclesiastics whom he suspected of being attached to the party of the Holy See. He sent troops to ravage the patrimony of St. Peter, and enlisted the Saracens established in Sicily, under the banners of a Christian prince, to combat the head of the Christian church. The Roman states were ravaged, and given up to the horrors of war. The eyes of all Europe were fixed upon these deplorable scenes, and every one seemed to have forgotten the holy war.

The Christians of Palestine, however, never ceased to implore aid from the West. A letter to the pope from the patriarch of Jerusalem, the bishops of Cæsarea and Bethlehem, and the grand masters of the three military orders, painted in strong colours the despair into which the Christians of the East had fallen, when they learnt that Frederick had deferred his departure. The pope received their complaints with expressions of sorrow and kindness, and communicated them to the faithful with greater zeal, from their furnishing him with a fresh opportunity of accusing the emperor of Germany. But the nations of the West, occupied with their own dangers, and terrified at the sight of the violent storms that had recently burst forth, were not in the least moved by either the lamentations from Palestine or the pressing exhortations of Gregory. In this unfortunate position of European affairs, the Christian colonies, abandoned to themselves and their own feeble resources, and a prey to the greatest disorders, must have been invaded and entirely destroyed, if Providence had not stirred up fresh discords among their enemies.

During the siege of Damietta, the common danger had united the children of Malek-Adel; after victory, ambition resumed the place of fear; and the Ayoubite princes quarrelled for the provinces which their union had wrested from the power, or saved from the invasion of the Christians. Conraddin, sultan of Damascus, dreading the views of Melik-Kamel, called Gelaleddin, prince of the vast empire of Carismia, to his aid. The sultan of Cairo, in great apprehension of the consequences of this alliance, turned his eyes towards the princes of the West. During several years, the report alone of the preparations of Frederick had been a source of terror to the Mussulman powers. The emperor of Germany was considered, in the East, as the head of all the nations of Europe. The sultan of Egypt attached the greatest importance to the disarming of a formidable enemy; and as the complaints of the pope, and the report of the discords that had broken out among the Christians, had reached his ears, he conceived a hope of finding in Frederick a sincere ally and a powerful auxiliary.[235]

Melik-Kamel sent presents and ambassadors to the emperor of Germany; he invited Frederick to come into the East, and promised to deliver Jerusalem up to him. This proposition gave the emperor as much surprise as joy; and he, in reply, sent an ambassador into Egypt, to ascertain the exact intentions of the sultan of Cairo, and offer him his friendship. The envoy of Frederick was received at the court of the sultan with the greatest honours, and returned to announce to his master that Melik-Kamel was ready to favour his expedition to Palestine.

This negotiation, with which the pope and the Christians of the West were perfectly unacquainted, made Frederick determine to follow up the project of the crusade: he had, besides, several other motives for not renouncing the Eastern enterprise. He knew that John of Brienne was on the point of returning to Palestine, and resuming possession of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The pope continued to represent him as the enemy of Christ, and the scourge of Christians. To secure the failure of the plan of John of Brienne, and, at the same time, reply to the sovereign pontiff in a victorious manner, Frederick resolved to embark for the Holy Land. He was desirous of proclaiming his intention with the greatest pomp; and caused a magnificent throne to be erected in the plain of Barletta, which he ascended in the presence of an immense crowd of spectators. In all the splendour of imperial magnificence, he presented himself invested with the pilgrim’s cross, and announced to the assembled people that he was about to set out for Syria. In order to give more solemnity to this pompous ceremony, and affect the hearts of the multitude, the emperor caused his will to be read with a loud voice; and the barons and nobles swore at the foot of the throne, to see that his last commands should be executed, if he should chance to lose his life, either in the perils of the sea or the wars of the East.

When the pope learnt this determination of Frederick’s, he sent ecclesiastics to forbid him to embark. The sovereign pontiff reproached the emperor with presenting to the Christian world the scandal of a crusade directed by a prince reproved of God: as the fleet of Frederick consisted of only twenty galleys, and as he took with him only six hundred knights, Gregory reproached him with not having fulfilled his promises, and compared his imprudent attempts to the expedition of a captain of pirates. The emperor did not condescend to make any reply to the messengers of the pope; the more opposition the head of the Church gave to his departure, the more impatient Frederick appeared to set out and accomplish his design: in his indignation, he congratulated himself at having to brave the anger of the Church and the arms of the Saracens at the same time. He left the greater part of his army in Sicily; charging his lieutenant, the duke of Spoleto, to negotiate for peace with the pope, but at the same time to carry on the war commenced against the Roman states with unabated vigour.

When he heard of the departure of the emperor, Gregory was in the little city of Assisi, occupied in the canonization of St. Francis. During several days, he had sung nothing but hymns of hope and joy: “Francis,” said he, “had appeared like the star of morning, like the orb of day, like the moon in its splendour.” This language of peace, this festive pomp, were all at once interrupted by the maledictions that the pope pronounced against Frederick: the sovereign pontiff repaired to the foot of the altar, and there implored Heaven to confound the pride of impious monarchs, and frustrate all their sacrilegious enterprises.

The emperor, notwithstanding, arrived safely on the coast of Syria, and was received at Ptolemaïs by the patriarch, the clergy, and the grand masters of the military orders. For some days, the Christians of the East viewed him as the liberator and the king of Jerusalem; but a change speedily took place. Two disciples of St. Francis, sent by the pope, came to announce to the faithful that they had received a prince rebellious to the will of the Church. From that moment, contempt, hatred, and mistrust took place of respect and submission. They began by perceiving that Frederick was followed by only a small number of warriors, and that he had not troops enough to render him formidable to either the Saracens or the Christians. Nothing was talked of in Ptolemaïs but the excommunication of the pope, and the means of withdrawing themselves from obedience to a heretic prince: never had the deliverance of Jerusalem been less thought of.

At the moment in which Frederick arrived in Syria, Conraddin, sultan of Damascus, died; and the death of this prince gave birth to more discords among the Mussulman powers. The principality of Damascus was governed by a young inexperienced prince; and the spirit of license and insubordination, which had, in the last wars, been already observed among the troops of Syria and Egypt, made, every day, greater progress, and put all the Mussulman thrones in peril.

The sultan of Cairo, when informed of the arrival of Frederick, came into Palestine, at the head of an army. Some asserted that he came to defend Jerusalem, and to fight with the Christians; but his true design was to take advantage of the chances of war, and of the discords which everywhere prevailed, to get possession of Damascus, and defeat the plans of the enemies that jealousy and ambition had raised up against him among the Mussulmans and princes of his family.

The emperor of Germany marched out of Ptolemaïs, at the head of his small army, and directed his course towards the mountains of Naplouse. He had sent Count Thomas de Celano to Melik-Kamel, to remind him of his promises, and to tell him, that, being master of the most vast provinces of the West, he was not come into Asia for the purpose of making conquests; that he had no other design but that of visiting the holy places, and taking possession of the kingdom of Jerusalem, which belonged to him.[236] The sultan received the ambassador of Frederick with due respect; but whether he was ashamed to make peace before he had begun the war, or whether he feared to draw upon himself the hatred of the Mussulmans, by showing too much deference for a Christian prince, he at first made no reply to the propositions that were made to him.

Nevertheless the two princes sent fresh ambassadors, charged on both sides to express a desire for peace; both were placed in embarrassing circumstances, being surrounded by enemies who blamed their proceedings, and did not allow them to publish all their sentiments freely. The Mussulman army from Damascus, encamped in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, watched all the movements of the sultan of Egypt, and seemed much more disposed to fight with him than to repulse the Christians. The emperor of Germany found himself in the presence of two hostile armies, and that which he himself commanded inspired him with no more confidence than he inspired in it. The Hospitallers and Templars had left him, and followed him at a distance; in the camp of the Christians no one durst pronounce the name of the prince who commanded the army. Frederick had been obliged to withdraw the standard of the empire, and his orders were only issued to the soldiers of the cross in the name of God and of the Christian republic.

In this difficult situation, Frederick and Melik-Kamel were equally sensible of the necessity for peace, and of the danger of commencing war; they therefore gave more employment to their ambassadors than to their soldiers; this crusade was nothing but a long negotiation, disapproved of by both Christians and infidels. As the two sovereigns covered their policy with a veil of profound mystery, it was easy for hatred to spread and procure countenance for sinister reports. Criminal intentions were discovered in the simplest actions. In the Christian army it was conceived that Frederick had committed a crime by sending his sword and cuirass to the sultan of Cairo, as a pledge of his wish for peace. Among the Mussulmans, Melik-Kamel was reproached with seeking an alliance with the enemies of Islamism, by sending to the leader of the Franks an elephant, some camels, and the rarest productions of Arabia, India, and Egypt. The scandal reached its height when the emperor received as a present from the sultan of Cairo, a troop of girls, brought up, according to the custom of the Orientals, to sing and dance in the banqueting-hall.

At length prejudices were carried so far on both sides, that Frederick was judged more favourably of by his enemies than by his own army; and Melik-Kamel would sooner have found grace among the Christians than among his own troops. The infidels regarded the emperor of Germany as a prince full of wisdom and moderation; Abulfeda, and all the Arabian authors, have celebrated the qualities and virtues of the monarch of the Franks, whilst the continuator of William of Tyre only speaks of this prince with bitterness, and reports in his history, that all the apostles and other Christians had great doubt and great suspicion that he was far gone in infidelity, and warm in his belief in the law of Mahomet.

Hatred soon broke out in acts of treachery and the most odious plots. As the emperor had expressed an intention of going to bathe in the waters of the Jordan, the Templars addressed a letter to Melik-Kamel, pointing out the means of surprising the head of the Christian array in his pilgrimage: the sultan of Cairo despised such treachery, and sent the letter he had received to Frederick. At the same time Melik-Kamel learnt that the sultan of Damascus had declared war against him, and would be joined by several other Mussulman princes. The sultan of Cairo and the emperor of Germany had carried on their negotiations for peace during several months, but now, pressed on all sides by enemies, and surrounded by dangers, even in their own camp, they at length resolved to end the matter, and conclude a treaty, which would permit them to dispose of their forces for their security or for their personal ambition. They agreed between themselves, that they would make a truce of ten years, and that Jerusalem, Nazareth, Bethlehem, and Thoron should be given up to Frederick or his lieutenants.[237] According to the conditions of the treaty, the Mussulmans were to retain in the holy city, the mosque of Omar and the free exercise of their worship: the principality of Antioch and the county of Tripoli were not comprised in the treaty. The emperor of Germany undertook to divert the Franks from every kind of hostility against the subjects or lands of the sultan of Egypt.

When the articles of the treaty became known in the two camps, the peace was considered by both as impious and sacrilegious.[238] The imauns and cadis, invoking the name of the caliph of Bagdad, loudly condemned a truce which conveyed away from the Mussulmans the holy city, which they called the house of God, the city of the prophet. The prelates and bishops, speaking in the name of the pontiff of Rome, declaimed vehemently against a treaty which left mosques standing by the side of the Holy Sepulchre, and in some sort confounded the worship of Mahomet with that of Christ. When the envoy of the emperor of Germany went to Damascus, to procure the ratification of the treaty which had been concluded, the sultan and his vizier refused to hear him. The peace made with the Christians was a subject of affliction and scandal for all true believers. One of the most celebrated orators of Islamism pronounced the panegyric of Jerusalem in the great mosque; and, when recalling in pathetic terms the loss the Mussulmans had experienced, he drew tears from all the assembled people.

The patriarch of Jerusalem placed an interdict upon the recovered holy places, and refused pilgrims permission to visit the sepulchre of Christ. Jerusalem was no longer, in the eyes of Christians, the holy city and the heritage of the Son of God; when the emperor made his public entrance, the faithful preserved a sullen and melancholy silence as he passed along. Accompanied by the German barons and the Teutonic knights, he repaired to the church of the Holy Sepulchre, which was hung with mourning, and appeared as if guarded by the angel of reprobation; all the ecclesiastics had deserted the sanctuary, and everything wore the air of abomination and desolation. Frederick himself took the crown, and placing it upon his head, he was proclaimed king of Jerusalem without any religious ceremony; the images of the apostles were veiled; nothing was seen around the altars but swords and lances; and the sacred vaults gave back no sounds but the noisy acclamations of warriors.

After his coronation, Frederick wrote to the pope and to all the princes of the West, that he had reconquered Jerusalem without the effusion of blood; in his account he endeavoured to enhance the splendour and merit of this victory, which must fulfil all the hopes of the Christian world. At the same time, the patriarch wrote to Gregory, and all the faithful of Christendom, to show them the impiety and the disgrace of the treaty Frederick had just concluded. When he heard of the success of the emperor, the sovereign pontiff deplored the conquest of Jerusalem as he would have deplored its loss, and compared the new king of Judæa to those impious monarchs whom the anger of God placed upon the throne of David.

Frederick was not able to remain long in the holy city, which resounded with imprecations against him. He returned to Ptolemaïs, where he found only revolted subjects and Christians scandalized at his successes. The patriarch and the clergy placed an interdict upon the city during the time the emperor should remain in it; all religious worship was suspended; the altars were deprived of their ornaments, and the crosses, relics, and images of the saints were cast upon the ground; no more bells, no more religious hymns were to be heard; a melancholy silence prevailed in the sanctuary, where mass was celebrated in a low voice, and with closed doors. The dead were buried in the fields, without funeral ceremonies or monumental stones; everything, in short, denoted a season of great calamities, and a dread of the vengeance of Heaven: it was thus that the liberator of Jerusalem was welcomed at Ptolemaïs.

It was Passion-week, and this religious period gave additional influence to the clergy and more solemnity to the maledictions of the Church. Frederick found himself obliged to negotiate for peace with the Christians, as he had done with the infidels, and being unable to regain their good-will he still further exasperated them by his violence. He caused the gates of the city to be closed, and prohibited the bringing in of provisions; he planted archers and arbalatiers in every place where they could insult the Templars and pilgrims; and by his orders, mendicant preaching monks were dragged from the foot of the altar, and beaten with rods in the public places of the city.

Hatred and vengeance were carried, on both sides, to the greatest excess. It was impossible for the emperor, surrounded as he was by enemies, to remain long at Ptolemaïs, in addition to which motive, he daily received letters from Europe urging his return. Two formidable armies, under the banners of the Holy See, had entered the kingdom of Naples, pillaged the cities, ravaged the country, mutilated prisoners, and committed all kinds of enormities. These armies were under the command of John of Brienne, impatient to revenge his own injuries, and two Sicilian counts, whom the emperor of Germany had driven from the kingdom of Naples.

Frederick at length quitted Palestine and returned to his own dominions. As he left Ptolemaïs, the inhabitants chanted hymns of deliverance and joy. He accused the Templars of having endeavoured to deliver him up to the Saracens; the Templars, on their part, accused him of having wished to surrender all the Christian cities to the sultan of Cairo: these accusations, and a thousand others, dictated by hatred, ought to inspire the historian with great and just suspicions. The Christians might have urged against Frederick a much more reasonable reproach; he had taken no means to secure his conquest, and they were warranted in believing that he had only made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the view of annoying the Holy See, and dating a reply to the inculpations of Gregory from the holy places: having attained his object, he had deceived the faithful, by inviting them to a city that he was disposed neither to defend nor fortify. In addition to this, Frederick himself felt very little pride in the advantages of which he made such a pompous display throughout Europe; and the crusade in which he had taken a part was frequently the object of his pleasantries and sarcasms.

On his return to Italy, he found a much more serious war than that he had carried on in Asia. The pope had not only levied troops to ravage his states, he had induced the Lombard republics to take up arms against him. John of Brienne, deprived of his title of king of Jerusalem, determined to endeavour to be acknowledged emperor, and his pretensions were supported by all that was then held most sacred, the authority of the Church and the right of victory. The presence of Frederick restored courage to his subjects, whose fidelity was still unshaken; he met his enemies in several engagements, in which he always gained the advantage. The army of John of Brienne was dispersed, and the pontifical troops quitted all the cities and provinces they had conquered, in the greatest disorder.

The pope, learning that fortune had deserted his banners, again had recourse to the thunders of religion, and employed the most terrible of its denunciations against Frederick. He declared that all were excommunicated who should hold any kind of commerce with the emperor, all who should sit at his table, be present at his councils, celebrate divine service before him, or offer him any mark of attachment or respect. Frederick was terrified at this sentence, which was published with great solemnity in all parts of Europe, particularly in his own dominions; and sent ambassadors to the pope, who, in spite of the thunders with which he was armed, dreaded the consequences of war, and showed himself disposed to receive the submission of an enemy he dreaded.

After a negotiation of several days, a treaty was made, in which the conquered pope dictated laws to his conqueror, and appeared, whilst receiving peace, to accord a pardon. But in spite of this treaty of peace, the effects of discord still subsisted, and were felt even in the East, where debates, raised in the name of the Church, had divided men’s minds, and depressed the general courage; and where the Christian states, for which Europe had taken up arms, remained without support and without defence. As Frederick had abandoned Jerusalem without fortifying it,[239] the Christians were in constant dread of the invasion of the Mussulman peasants, whom the hopes of pillage attracted from the mountains of Naplouse. The great bell of the church of the Holy Sepulchre often gave warning of the approach of an enemy eager for carnage; and most of the inhabitants retired with their terrified families, some to the fortress of St. David, which was still standing among the ruins, and others into desert places.

The patriarch of Jerusalem, the prelates, barons, and people of Palestine, who had no longer either a leader or a king, in vain implored the assistance of the warriors and princes of the West: prayers and complaints so frequently repeated, had no power to awaken in the hearts of the faithful either the sentiments of pity or the enthusiasm which had so often caused them to take up arms and the cross. They could have no faith in perils that followed so closely upon victory; and they despaired of ever being able to assure the deliverance of a country which required to be delivered so often.

The pope, however, had not abandoned the project of the crusade, and still entertained the hope of reviving the ardour and zeal of the Christian warriors by his exhortations. He convoked an assembly at Spoleto, at which Frederick, with the patriarchs of Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem assisted. It was resolved in this assembly, to renew the war in Palestine, notwithstanding the truce concluded with the sultan of Cairo.

Gregory was impatient to accomplish his designs, and proclaim the laws of the Church in the rich countries of the East; and, to employ the time till warriors could be gathered together, he sent several missionaries across the sea, armed with the sword and the word, to endeavour to convert the infidels of Syria and Egypt. The sovereign pontiff was so persuaded of the success of this pacific crusade, that he wrote to the caliph of Bagdad, the sultan of Damascus, and the principal Mussulman chiefs, to exhort them to embrace Christianity.[240] History does not say what the fate was of these mendicant preachers in the East; but the caliph of Bagdad and the Mussulman princes did not cease to be inveterate enemies to the Christians. Gregory IX. was better inspired and more fortunate when he sent sacred orators into several of the provinces of the West, to appease the troubles and civil wars that were so injurious to the cause of religion, and diverted the minds of the people from the great enterprise of the holy wars.

The disciples of St. Dominick and St. Francis of Assisi, charged with a mission worthy of the Gospel, pervaded cities and countries, preaching peace and concord. Among the preachers thus sent to pacify states, Brother John of Vicentia made himself conspicuous by the miracles effected by his eloquence.[241] In all the countries he visited, the nobles, the peasants, the citizens, and the warriors flocked to listen to him, and swore to pardon all injuries and terminate all quarrels. After having re-established peace in several cities troubled by the spirit of jealousy, and animated by the stormy passions of undefined, ill-understood liberty, he announced that he should preach in the plain of Peschiera, on the banks of the Adige. All the inhabitants of the neighbouring cities, headed by their clergy and their magistrates, repaired to the place appointed, to listen to the Angel of Concord[242] and the orator of public peace. In the presence of more than four hundred thousand auditors, Brother John mounted a pulpit elevated in the centre of the plain of Peschiera; a profound silence prevailed throughout the assembly; every eye was fixed upon the holy preacher; his words seemed to descend from heaven. He took for his text these words of the Scripture: “I give you my peace, I leave you my peace.” After having drawn a frightful picture of the evils of war and the effects of discord, he ordered the Lombard cities to renounce their enmities, and dictated to them, in the name of the Church, a treaty of universal pacification. At no period had the middle ages presented a more sublime and touching spectacle; the historian of that time, who has nothing but troubles and wars to describe, ought to be delighted at an opportunity to tell of such an imposing and solemn scene, wherein religion recalled assembled nations to a sense of all that her maxims contain that is most consoling and salutary. The discourse of Brother John filled his auditory with a holy love of peace, and the cities then at war swore, before him, to forget for ever the subjects of their long divisions and eternal rivalries.

These evangelical discourses restored to Italy a few days of peace, and gave the Holy See an opportunity of preaching a new crusade with success. Gregory addressed pastoral instructions to all the bishops and prelates of Christendom. In his letters to the French bishops, he applied these words of Christ to the holy war: “If any one would come with me, let him renounce himself, let him take up my cross and follow me.” The sovereign pontiff declared all who would not employ their utmost efforts to conquer the heritage of Christ, guilty of treason. The circulars of the pope ordered all the faithful, of both sexes, to pay a denier per week towards the expenses of the crusade. The head of the Church compared these alms to those which St. Paul solicited for the poor of Jerusalem, and did not fear to assert, beforehand, that they would suffice for the maintenance of the army of Crusaders for ten years.

The preaching of this crusade was confided to the fraternities of St. Dominick and St. Francis, which had, in Asia, missionaries for the conversion of infidels, and in the West, preachers to re-establish peace among Christians; the new apostles of the holy war received from the pope the power, not only to give the cross, but to commute the vow of pilgrimage to a pecuniary alms, a practice that had never been seen since the beginning of the crusades; they had likewise the faculty of granting indulgences for several days to all who came to listen to their sermons. According to the spirit of their institutions, the disciples of St. Francis and St. Dominick lived amidst austerities and penance; they devoted themselves to poverty, and were bound to furnish a constant example of Christian humility; but, in this instance, the pope desired they should be received into monasteries and cities with pomp and ceremony; and that the clergy should come out to meet them, with the banners and most splendid ornaments of their churches. Whether this magnificence changed the simplicity of their manners, or that the people did not like to behold men whom they had lately seen devoted to evangelical poverty, treated with ceremonial pomp, the preachers of the crusade inspired their auditors with neither esteem nor respect, and the crowd diminished every day. As they received abundant alms, of which no one could see the employment, neither the solemnity of their mission nor the sanctity of their characters could screen them from the suspicions and accusations of the multitude: the murmurs and complaints which arose on all sides, at length weakened the authority of their words, and assisted in cooling the zeal and devotion of the Christians for the holy war.

The enthusiasm of the people, which Christian eloquence could not revive, stood in need of the example of the most illustrious princes and warriors. France was then at peace; the war against the Albigeois was drawing towards its end: most of the knights and barons, reared amidst battles, could not endure rest, and sighed for an opportunity of signalizing their warlike temperament. They took the oath to go into Asia and fight against the Saracens.

Thibault V., count of Champagne, and king of Navarre, son of Thibault, who died before the fifth crusade, undertook to discharge the vow his father had made to the Church and to Christ. The king of Navarre was celebrated among knights and among troubadours; his muse, which had sung profane loves, now gave voice to the complaints of Jerusalem, and awakened, by Christian songs, the ardour of the soldiers of the cross. “Learn,” said he, “that heaven is closed to all those who will not cross the seas to visit and defend the tomb of God. Yes, all the brave, all who love God and glory, will not hesitate to take up the cross and arms. Those who prefer repose to honour, those who dread perils, will remain alone in their homes. Jesus Christ, in the day of judgment, will say to the one party: ‘You, who helped me to bear my cross, go to the place in which dwell the angels and my mother Mary;’ he will say to the others: ‘You, who have not succoured me, descend to the abode of the wicked.’”[243] The example and the exhortations of Thibault attracted princes, barons, and knights from all the provinces of France.

Pierre de Dreux, duke of Brittany, whom the clergy surnamed Mauclerc, because, in his youth, he had abandoned the ecclesiastical state, wished to expiate his numerous felonies, his unjust wars, his tyranny towards his subjects, his perfidies towards his allies, by the holy pilgrimage. Hugh IV., duke of Burgundy, the counts of Bar, Ferez, Mâcon, Joigny, Sancoure, and Nevers; Simon de Montfort, Andrew de Vitri, Amaury fils, Geoffrey d’Ancenes, and a crowd of barons and knights took the cross, and engaged to follow the duke of Brittany and the king of Navarre into Palestine.

As the preaching of the crusade had been accompanied by several abuses that might prove injurious to the success of the holy expedition, a council assembled at Tours, employed itself in remedying and stopping the evil at its source. We have seen, on preceding occasions, that preachers of the crusades, by receiving criminals under the banners of the cross, had scandalized Christian knights; and crusades, as was seen in the twelfth century, were not considered as a means of salvation for the faithful, and as the way of the Lord, in which all the world might enter. Great criminals no longer found a place in the ranks of the pious defenders of Christ. The council of Tours decided that Crusaders, arrested by justice, should be transferred to the hands of an ecclesiastical judge, who would pay no respect to their privileges, and should even take the cross from them, if he found them guilty of homicide or any other great crime committed against divine and human laws.

As in other crusades, the people were led into violent excesses against the Jews, whom they accused of having immolated the God for whom they were going to fight, and who retained immense treasures in their hands, whilst the Crusaders were obliged to pledge their property to perform the voyage to Palestine. In order to stop the course of these popular violences, the council forbade any ill-treatment of the Jews, either by plundering them of their wealth or by doing them personal injury, under pain of heavy ecclesiastical censures.

Another abuse, not less prejudicial to the Crusaders than all the others, had been likewise observed. The preachers of the holy wars and many other theologians had permitted Crusaders to buy off their vow by paying a sum of money equal to that which they would have expended in their pilgrimage:[244] this abuse caused great scandal among the faithful, but the Holy See, which derived considerable sums from it, paid no attention to the complaints made on account of it in England and many other states of Europe.

The Crusaders were preparing for their departure, when, all at once, a fresh cry of alarm resounded through the West. The empire of the Latins, at Constantinople, was reduced to the lowest extremity. After the reigns of Baldwin of Flanders and his son Henry, the family of Courtenay, called to the throne, derived nothing from their exaltation but the griefs and reverses inseparable from the government of an empire which is hastening to decay. Peter of Courtenay, count of Auxerre, when on his way to take possession of the throne of Baldwin, was surprised and massacred in Macedonia, by the orders of Theodore Comnenus, prince of Epirus. A short time afterwards, the empress, who had arrived at Constantinople by sea, died of grief, on learning the tragical end of her husband. Robert of Courtenay, second son of Peter, only ascended the throne to experience the rapid decline of the empire; conquered in a great battle by Vataces, the successor of Lascaris, he lost all the provinces situated beyond the Bosphorus and the Hellespont; whilst, on the other side, the prince of Epirus took possession of Thessaly and a great part of Thrace. Constantinople, threatened by formidable enemies, beheld from its towers the standards of the Greeks of Nice and of the barbarians of Mount Hemus, floating near its walls and insulting its majesty. Amidst these various disasters, Robert died, leaving, as his only successor, his brother Baldwin, still in his childhood. John of Brienne, whom fortune had made, for a short period, king of Jerusalem, was called to the tottering throne of Constantinople, at the moment that the Greeks and Bulgarians, animated by the ardour of pillage, were at the gates of the capital. Their fleets penetrated to the port, their numerous battalions were preparing to scale the ramparts; but the new emperor fought several battles with them, obtained possession of their ships, and dispersed their armies. The miraculous victories of John of Brienne added greatly to his renown, but only served to diminish his forces: after having defeated his enemies, he found himself without an army; and whilst the poets were comparing him to Hector, Roland, and Judas Machabæus,[245] he was obliged to wait in his capital for succours that had been promised him, and which never arrived. More than eighty years of age, he terminated his active career in contesting with the barbarians the remains of a power which had been founded by arms, and the miserable wreck of which could only be preserved by prodigies of valour.