In strange contrast with Godfrey was his brother Baldwin, the Prince of Edessa, whom the necessities of the infant kingdom, rather than his own merits, now called to the vacant throne. Baldwin had already shown himself as unscrupulous as he was alert, and as covetous as he was bold. With undoubted adroitness and courage, he had acquired and held his principality of Edessa. Here he reigned with Oriental pomp, wore long robes and flowing beard, sat cross-legged on rugs, and compelled all suppliants for his favor to approach with the salaam of profoundest homage. This ostentation was apparently more from policy among a people familiar with such customs than from love of display or any despotic instinct.

Dagobert, the papal legate, opposed the suggestion of Baldwin’s kingship of Jerusalem, and claimed that honor for himself. He might have obtained it had not Garnier, the agent of Baldwin, seized upon the tower of David and the other fortresses in the name of his absent master. The baffled prelate called upon Bohemond, now Prince of Antioch, to come and avenge this insult offered to the Holy Father in the person of his legate; but the Turks, by capturing Bohemond, interfered with this plan. The activity shown by the common enemy decided the popular voice for Baldwin as king. The dangers which threatened forbade that the government of Jerusalem should be left in the hands of a priest untrained in war. The soldier seemed pointed out by Providence for the kingship, although the hand of the Pope was stretched out to anoint another.

Baldwin, learning of the death of Godfrey, immediately turned over the government of Edessa to his cousin, Baldwin du Bourg, and with fourteen hundred men marched for Jerusalem. On the way he gave new proof of his puissance by first outwitting and then utterly routing vastly superior numbers, with which the emirs of Damascus and Emesa endeavored to block his way. Pausing at the sacred city only long enough to assure himself of the applause of the entire population, he gave another exhibition of his merit of the crown before wearing it. With a sudden swoop he devastated the enemy’s country from the Mediterranean to the Dead Sea, and, laden with booty, demanded and received from the hands of the unwilling prelate the crown and blessing in the name of the Pope. Quickly following the coronation services at Bethlehem, he captured Arsuf and Cæsarea. An Egyptian army had advanced as far as Ramleh, but Baldwin, with a white kerchief tied to his lance’s point as his oriflamme, led his braves again and again through this host, until they were routed, leaving five thousand dead on the field. Amid the shrieks of the dying the king caught the subdued cry of a woman. She was the wife of a Moslem, who had accompanied her husband to the war, and had been taken with the pains of childbirth. By the conqueror’s order she was tenderly cared for, placed upon the rug from his own tent, covered with his own mantle, and later conducted with her new-born babe to the arms of her husband. His compassion soon received its reward. The rallying Mussulmans surrounded his band not only with swords, but with fire, having ignited the long, dried grass. With difficulty the king escaped to Ramleh, which the enemy completely invested. During the night, while anticipating the fateful assault of the morrow, he was secretly approached by a Moslem officer. This man proved to be the husband of the woman whom Baldwin had befriended. Led by his gratitude, he had put his own life in jeopardy in order to reveal to his benefactor a secret path to safety. The Moslem assault carried the town; they put to death all Christians found within it. In Jerusalem the great bell tolled, while the people crowded the churches or marched in procession, mourning the supposed death of their king, when suddenly came the news of Baldwin’s safety. In the rhetoric of the chronicle, it was “like the morning star out of the night’s blackness.”

The capture of Ramleh by the enemy endangered Jaffa, the real port of Jerusalem, at which the kingdom was in touch with Europe. Baldwin made his way in disguise to Arsuf. Embarking with Godric, an English pirate, he sailed straight through the Egyptian galleys that guarded the harbor of Jaffa. In June, 1102, with forces augmented from an English fleet under Harding, he assailed the enemy. The Patriarch of Jerusalem carried the wood of the True Cross. With the cry, “Christus regnat! Vincet! Imperat!” which subsequently appeared as the legend on the gold coins of France, the besieged became the victors. But the joy of the triumph when the king returned to Jerusalem was marred by the memory of the many slain; Stephen of Blois and Stephen of Burgundy, with a great number of the bravest knights, had fallen.

The Greek emperor, Alexius, while sending congratulation to the Christians, could not repress his jealousy of their victories. He prepared to assail Antioch; he negotiated with the captors of Bohemond for his ransom, that he might secure from his gratitude the title to the city which that chieftain held. Bohemond, however, ransomed himself by pledges to the emir who held him, and, after having endured a captivity of four years, defended his city in battles by sea and land from the treachery of the Greeks. At the same time, with other chieftains, he carried arms into Mesopotamia. At Charan he barely escaped in company with Tancred, while their companions, Josselin de Courtenay and Baldwin du Bourg, were dungeoned at Mosul.

In view of his exhausted resources, Bohemond attempted a vast and romantic scheme for their recuperation. Having floated a report of his death, he concealed himself in a coffin and passed through the watchful fleet of the Greeks, who cursed his imagined corpse. Arriving in Italy, he secured a new commission from the Pope. In France he so ingratiated himself with King Philip I. as to secure that monarch’s daughter, the Princess Constance, to wife. He then raised a new army of crusaders. In Spain and Italy he augmented this force, and embarking at Bari, he attempted to take a bitter retaliation on the empire of the Greeks. His expedition against Durazzo failed of success. Bohemond, at the moment when his ambition was at the point of its extremest satisfaction, returned to die in his own Italian dominion of Taranto.

The kingdom of Jerusalem was reduced to all sorts of expedients to raise the means of its support and extension. King Baldwin recouped his treasury by marriage with Adela, widow of Count Roger of Sicily. Her vast wealth was heralded by the vessel in which she sailed, whose mast was incased in gold and whose hold was laden with gems and coin. A thousand trained warriors followed, at her expense. Either the drain upon her purse or the incompatibility of her relations with the king led her to leave him after three years and return to Italy.

With the assistance of Genoese fleets, Ptolemaïs was captured. The mutual jealousies between the Turks and the Egyptians enabled the Christians to secure the southern coast of Palestine. Raymond having died before the walls of Tripoli, his son Bertrand captured that city, which from that time became the titular possession of his family. An immense library of Persian, Arabic, and Egyptian manuscripts was by the illiterate Christians given to the flames. Biblus and Beirut also fell before the standard of the cross. With the aid of a fleet and ten thousand men, under Sigur of Norway, Sidon was quickly acquired.

But in the midst of these triumphs came an irreparable loss. Tancred, the ideal of knighthood, died (December 12, 1112). His genius and sword had conquered widely in northern Syria. His memory has been embalmed, while his real virtues, which needed no untruthful praises, have been exaggerated in poetry and romance since Chaucer sang of him as “a very parfite, gentil knight.”

The loss of Tancred was felt especially in the north, where the Christians soon after met a fearful defeat at Mount Tabor. In extremity they made alliance with the Saracens of Damascus and Mesopotamia, under the Sultan of Bagdad.

The jealousy among the Moslems giving him seeming security from attack on the north, King Baldwin planned the invasion of Egypt. He crossed the desert and appeared within three days’ journey of Cairo. While returning from a raid, laden with spoil and flushed with the anticipation of soon adding the land of the Nile to his possessions, the king fell sick. Nominating Baldwin du Bourg for his successor, he died at the edge of the desert (1118). His body was brought, in obedience to his dying request, and deposited beside that of Godfrey, near to the Holy Sepulchre.

Baldwin du Bourg was elected to the vacant throne of Jerusalem, Eustace, brother of Godfrey, having declined to contest it, magnanimously saying to his partisans, “Not by me shall a stumbling-block enter into the Lord’s kingdom.” Baldwin II. was well advanced in years, experienced in council and in field, having been one of the companions of Godfrey in the first crusade, and during the reign of Baldwin I. having held the government of Edessa. In contrast with his predecessor, he was painstaking in planning, cautious in executing, and withal a man of deep religious devotion.

In April, 1123, while attempting the relief of Count Josselin, who had been taken prisoner at Khartpert by Balek the Turkoman, King Baldwin II. was captured and confined in the same city. A devoted band of Armenians entered Khartpert in the disguise of merchants, and succeeded in liberating Josselin, but the king was carried away to Harran for safer keeping.

The absence of Baldwin II. was measurably compensated by the vigor and astuteness of Eustace Grenier, who was elected to the regency. The Egyptians had massed themselves in the plains of Ascalon for an advance against Jerusalem. After a fast, which was so rigorously enforced that mothers did not suckle their babes, and cattle were driven to sterile places beyond their pasturage, the army of Christians marched from the city at the sound of the great bell. The patriarch carried the wood of the True Cross, another dignitary bore the Holy Lance, another a vase containing milk from the breast of the Virgin Mary. The credulity which devised these expedients of victory might readily see, as reported, a celestial thunderbolt fall upon the army of the Infidels. It is enough for history to record that the Christians were triumphant.

The Genoese and Pisans had often brought assistance to the crusaders and great gain to themselves by the part they took in these holy wars. The Venetians, however, having profitable commerce with the Saracens, were not at first tempted to hazard a rupture with them. At length they too sought the new adventure. In the warlike temper of the age, the Venetian fleet, in command of the doge, Domenicho Michaeli, did not hesitate to attack a returning Genoese fleet for the sake of its plunder. Having robbed and murdered their coreligionists, they repeated the raid upon an Egyptian fleet which was leaving the mouth of the Nile. With appetites thus whetted, they proposed to the regency at Jerusalem to sell themselves to the service of God for one third the territory they might acquire conjointly with the crusaders. The terms being accepted, an innocent child drew the lot which should show the will of Heaven as to whether Ascalon or Tyre were the better prize. Tyre was indicated, and six months after (July 7, 1124) fell to gratify the greed of Venice and the pride of the people of Jerusalem.

A month later King Baldwin II. secured his liberation. In 1129 he strengthened his throne by the marriage of his daughter, Melisende, to Foulque of Anjou, son of the notorious Bertrade, who had deserted her legitimate husband for the embrace of King Philip of France. This monarch had put away his wife Bertha for this new union. Thus was brought upon Philip the famous excommunication of the Pope. Two years later (August 13, 1131) Baldwin II. died and was buried with Godfrey and Baldwin I. in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Foulque ascended the throne. His first work was to settle a dispute for the lordship of Antioch, which was accomplished only after bloodshed between brethren. Next he baffled the Greek emperor, John Comnenus, who attempted to gain for himself the kingdom of Jerusalem. Later he made alliance with the Mussulman Prince of Damascus and fought against Zenghi, Prince of Mosul. His queen, Melisende, by her rumored amours brought him additional perplexity. King Foulque died from an injury while hunting (November 13, 1143), leaving two children, Baldwin and Amalric.

Baldwin III. succeeded his father at the age of thirteen, with Melisende as regent. Effeminacy not only marked the government, but infected the spirit of the people. The heroism of the founders of the kingdom seemed to die in the blood of their successors, or, if danger fired the ancient valor, it was without the light of discretion.

Young Baldwin III. inaugurated his reign by a foolish expedition to take Bozrah, which had been offered in surrender by its traitorous commandant. To accomplish this it was necessary to break a fair and useful alliance which the Christians had made with the Sultan of Damascus, the rightful lord of Bozrah. On reaching Bozrah, instead of the keys of the city, there was placed in the hands of the king an announcement from the wife of the treacherous governor that she herself would defend the walls. The perplexity of the king and his equally callow advisers was followed by an ignoble retreat. The enemy pursued not only with sword, but with fire. The wind, which seemed to the retreating army to be the breath of God’s wrath, covered them with smoke and cinders, while the flames of the burning grass chased their fleeing feet. The Christians would have perished had not, say the chronicles, the wood of the True Cross, raised with prayer, changed the direction of the breeze and beaten back the pursuers.

At this time there was felt the need of an astute mind at the head of the kingdom. Christian progress had been arrested, and events of evil omen were thickening.

The star of Zenghi, the ruler of Mosul, the father of Nourredin, and the forerunner of Saladin, had arisen. This redoubtable warrior had conquered all his Moslem rivals on the Euphrates; he had swept with resistless fury westward, capturing Aleppo (1128), Hamah (1129), and Athareb (1130). Though the Moslems had been assisted by Baldwin II., yet the Oriental writers sang of how the “swords of Allah found their scabbards in the neck of His foes.” In 1144, one year from young Baldwin’s coronation, Zenghi appeared before the walls of Edessa, which since the early days of the crusades had been in the possession of the Christians. This city was the bulwark of the Christian kingdom in the East; it is thus described in the florid language of the place and time: “I was as a queen in the midst of her court; sixty towns standing around me formed my train; my altars, loaded with treasure, shed their splendor afar and appeared to be the abode of angels. I surpassed in magnificence the proudest cities of Asia, and I was as a celestial ornament raised upon the bosom of the earth.”

Had old Josselin de Courtenay been living, Edessa would have given a stubborn and possibly a successful defence, for the terror of his name had long held the Moslems at bay. Once, while lying on what he thought to be his death-bed, this veteran heard that the enemy had laid siege to one of his strong towers, and commanded his son to go to its rescue. The younger Josselin delayed on account of the few troops he could take with him. Old Josselin ordered the soldiers to carry him to the front on his litter. The news of his approach was sufficient to cause the quick withdrawal of the Moslems; but an invincible foe was upon the warrior, for, with hand raised in gratitude to Heaven, he expired.

Josselin II. of Edessa was unworthy of such a sire. His weakness being known, he inspired neither terror in his foes nor respect among his own people. Zenghi surprised Edessa with a host of Kurds and Turkomans. To Oriental daring he added the careful engineering learned from his Western antagonists. Quickly the walls were surrounded by movable towers higher than the ramparts; battering-rams beat against the foundation, and storms of stones, javelins, and combustibles swept away the defenders. In vain the city held out for a while in expectancy of aid from Jerusalem. On the twenty-eighth day (December 14, 1144) it fell. The news spread a dismay which could have been surpassed only by the capture of Jerusalem itself.

The report of Zenghi’s death two years later gave to the Christians a ray of hope for at least fewer disasters. That hope was quickly extinguished by the exploits of Nourredin, his son, whose deeds stirred the prophetic spirit of Moslem imams to foretell the speedy fall of the Holy City. At the same time they excited the superstitious fears of the Christians, who saw in comets, as well as in the flash of Nourredin’s cimeters, the signs of Heaven’s displeasure, and interpreted the very thunders of the sky as the celestial echo of his tramping squadrons.

The tidings of the fall of Edessa was the immediate occasion of the second crusade.

Before considering this, let us note briefly the influence upon Europe of the first crusade and of the kingdom of Jerusalem which it had established.

One of the most significant fruits of the first crusade was the creation and growth of the military orders—the Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John, the Templars, and the Teutonic Knights.

The Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John.—This famous organization, which was for centuries a bulwark of Christendom and which still exists, originated earlier than the crusades, but first attained power and repute in those exciting days. In the year 1023 the Egyptian caliph, who held possession of Jerusalem, was induced by the entreaty of the merchants of Amalfi to allow them to found in the sacred city a hospital for the care of poor and sick Latin pilgrims. A building near the Holy Sepulchre was secured for the purpose and dedicated to the Virgin, with the title of “Santa Maria de Latina.” As the multitude of pilgrims and their needs increased, a more commodious hospitium was erected. This was named after the sainted Patriarch of Alexandria, John Eleemon (the Compassionate). St. John the Baptist seems, however, to have secured the honor of becoming the ultimate titular patron of this order of nurses and almoners. When Jerusalem fell into the possession of the crusaders in 1099, Gerard, the hospital Master, endeared himself and his little band of helpers to the multitude of wounded. Godfrey de Bouillon endowed them with the revenues of his estates in Brabant. His example was followed by others. Many with spirits chastened by their own sufferings gave themselves personally to the work of the Hospitallers. Gerard, the Master, organized the brethren into a religious order, exacting from them the triple vow of poverty, obedience, and chastity. Each member wore a black robe, and upon his breast an eight-pointed white cross. Anticipating our history, in 1113 the order was dignified by the special sanction of Pope Paschal II. Raymond du Puy, a noble knight of Dauphine, became Master in 1118, and enlarged the function of members by requiring of them, in addition to the triple vow, an oath of military service. The order was then divided into (1) knights, whose special work was in the camp and field; (2) clergy; (3) serving brethren, or hospital attendants. Later it was necessary to subdivide its numerous adherents into seven classes, according to the language they spoke. The order was a republic, whose officers were elected by the suffrage of all, but who, once installed, wielded an autocratic power. Its fame spread throughout all countries. Multitudes enlisted under its auspices for service in the Holy Land; it became possessed of enormous property throughout Europe; its agents were at all courts, and its Briarean hands were felt at every centre of power throughout Christendom.

The Templars.—In the year 1114, four years before the Hospitallers had enlarged their function to include military duties, a Burgundian knight, Hugh de Payen, and eight comrades bound themselves by oath to guard the public roads about Jerusalem, which were continually menaced by Moslems and freebooters. King Baldwin II. assigned these good men quarters on the temple site of Mount Moriah, whence their title, “Pauperes Commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici.” At first the Templars seem to have gloried in their poverty, as indicated by the original seal of the order, which represents two knights mounted on a single horse. Their members augmented until they shared with the Hospitallers the glory of being the chief defenders of the new kingdom of Jerusalem. Hugh de Payen was sent by Baldwin II. as one of his ambassadors to secure help from European powers. The Grand Master, appearing before the Council of Noyes, January, 1128, obtained for his order the formal approval of the church. He returned to Palestine with three hundred knights, representing the noblest families of Europe. Among them was Foulque of Anjou, afterwards the King of Jerusalem. Brotherhoods of Templars were founded in Spain by 1129, in France by 1131, and in Rome by 1138. The mantle of the Knight Templar was white with a plain red cross on the left breast. The clerical members wore black. Their banner bore the inscription, “Not unto us, O Lord, but unto Thy name be glory!”

The history of the Hospitallers and the Templars until the fall of the sacred city is that of the kingdom itself. In all battles these knights of the white and the red cross were conspicuous for bravery, and by the unity and discipline of their organizations gave steadiness to the progress of the cause, or at least retarded other disasters which finally befell it.

Teutonic Order.—The Order of Teutonic Knights of St. Mary’s Hospital at Jerusalem was founded in 1128. During its earlier history its members limited their endeavors to religious and charitable work. It was not until 1190, during a later crusade than that we have been narrating, that it acquired military organization. From that time, as a purely German order, it shared with the Hospitallers and Templars the charters bestowed by the Pope and emperors, and contested with them the palm of heroism and power. Its peculiar badge was a black cross on a white mantle.

During the fifty years (1096-1146) which had elapsed since the exodus of the first crusaders a new generation had grown up in Europe. Vast changes had taken place everywhere, in every grade of society, in popular habits, and in conditions of thought. The crisis of the Dark Ages had passed; new light was breaking upon problems of government, the relation of classes, and even upon religious doctrine and discipline. These changes were largely due to the crusade itself and to the continuous intercourse between the East and the West which it inaugurated. The full development of these new sentiments and movements was due to the influence of subsequent crusades. We may, therefore, reserve their consideration until we shall have completed the story of these various expeditions, the tramp of which was yet to resound for a hundred and fifty years. Two results were, however, so intimately connected with the close of the first and the projection of the second crusade as to call for notice in passing. These were the strengthening of the kingship in France and the increased prestige of the Papacy.

The kingship in France during this period became consolidated and rapidly advanced. So many of the more potent and adventurous barons being engaged in foreign parts, the crown had little competition, and feudal privileges were steadily merged in the royal prerogatives. In the words of Michelet, “Ponderous feudalism had begun to move, and to uproot itself from the soil. It went and came, and lived upon the beaten highway of the crusade between France and Jerusalem.” France under Louis IV. (the Fat) (1108-37) became a nation, and was less jealous of restless chieftains at home than of the newly risen kingdom of the Normans in England, the long rivalry with which may be dated from this reign. When the German emperor, Henry V., in 1124 prepared to invade France, the counts of Flanders, Brittany, Aquitaine, and Anjou rallied against him under the lead of the French king, whose authority they had previously menaced.

The gathering of the forces of the Frankish peoples under a single sceptre marks a new era in the history of Europe. We shall observe especially its influence upon the organization of the coming crusades, whose leaders were no longer feudal chieftains, like Godfrey, Raymond, Bohemond, and Tancred, but royal personages supported by the compact power of the new nationality.

The chief advantage from the first crusade fell to the Papacy, which gathered to itself the prestige of the power it had evoked; and rightly, if great prevision ever merits the fruit of the policy it dares to inaugurate. Paschal II., who followed Urban II. in the papal chair (1099-1118), was too weak to uphold the daring projects of his predecessor; but Calixtus II. (1119-24) and Innocent II. (1130-43) showed the genuine Hildebrandian spirit. Although the Concordat of Worms (1123) modified somewhat the claims of the Papacy as against the German empire, the church steadily compacted its power about thrones and people.

The authority of the Papacy was especially augmented in this period by its temporary success against a movement whose ultimate triumph was destined to cost the Roman Church its dominance of Christendom, viz., the impulse towards liberal thought. The standard-bearer of this essential Protestantism was Abélard. This astute reasoner placed the human judgment, when guided by correct scholarship, above all traditional authority. The popularity of his teaching was a serious menace to the doctrines of the church, so far as these rested upon the dictation of the popes. The consternation of ecclesiastics was voiced by Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, who declared in his appeal to Pope Innocent II.: “These books of Abélard are flying abroad over all the world; they no longer shun the light; they find their way into castles and cities; they pass from land to land, from one people to another. A new gospel is promulgated, a new faith is preached. Disputations are held on virtue and vice not according to Christian morality, on the sacraments of the church not according to the rule of faith, on the mystery of the Trinity not with simplicity and soberness. This huge Goliath, with his armor-bearer, Arnold of Brescia, defies the armies of the Lord to battle.”

The Goliath fell, but by no pebble from the sling of a David. Bernard was justly reputed the greatest mind of the age. He hesitated to enter into a learned controversy with Abélard, but smote him with a thunderbolt of excommunication, which he secured from the hands of the occupant of the Vatican throne.

Another movement against the papal power was even more threatening and, during the period we are describing, caused the throne of Peter to tremble. As Abélard assailed the current thought, so Arnold of Brescia proposed to revolutionize the secular power of the Papacy. He denied its right to temporal dominion in Italy, to dominate as it was doing the councils of other kingdoms, to interfere with judicial functions or to conduct military operations. He would sweep away all this outward estate as unbecoming the representative of Jesus of Nazareth. The clergy must be reduced to apostolic poverty; their glory should be only their good works; their maintenance the voluntary offerings, or at most the tithings, of the people. Even the empire of Germany and the French kingdom should be converted into republics.

Arnold’s views made rapid headway. Brescia declared itself a republic. The Swiss valleys were full of liberal sympathizers. A commonwealth sprang up in Rome, which announced to the Pope its recognition of only his spiritual headship. The people defeated and slew one Pope, who was clad in armor and marched at the head of his soldiers; another they expelled.

It was while the papal territory in Italy was thus occupied by the adherents of Arnold that the second crusade was inaugurated.

Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, was its chief inspirer, both in counsel with the leaders of Europe and with his voice as its popular herald. High above generals and scholars, beyond kings, emperors, and popes, this man stands in the gaze of history. His repute for wisdom and sanctity was extended by miracles accredited to his converse with Heaven. Believed to be above earthly ambition, he commanded and rebuked with a celestial authority. Papal electors came to consult the monk before they announced their judgment as to who should be Pope, and when on the throne the Pope consulted the monk before he ventured to set the seal of his infallibility to his own utterances. Bernard’s humility may have been great Godward, but it was not of the sort to lead him to decline the solemn sovereignty of men’s minds and wills. When Henry I. of England hesitated to acknowledge Innocent II., Bernard’s choice for Pope, on the ground that he was not the rightful occupant of the holy see, the monk exclaimed, “Answer thou for thy other sins; let this be on my head.” When Lothaire of Germany demanded of the Holy Father the renewal of the right of imperial investitures, the saint threw his spell about the emperor and left him submissive at the feet of the pontiff. When Louis VII. of France, in his rage against Thibaut, Count of Champagne, carried devastation through the count’s domains and burned the church of Vitry, with thirteen hundred of its citizens who had there taken refuge against his vengeance, Bernard openly rebuked the king, and with such effect that the monarch proposed, as a self-inflicted penance, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, there to wipe out his guilt in the blood of Moslems.

In this purpose of Louis VII. originated the second crusade.