The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy]

King Richard shall warrant,

There is no flesh so nourissant

Unto an Englishman,

Partridge, plover, haron, ne swan,

Cow ne ox, sheep ne swine,

As the head of a Sarezyn.

There he is fat and thereto tender;

And my men be lean and slender.

While any Saracen quick be,

Livand now in this Syrie;

For meat will we nothing care,

Abouten fast we shall fare,

And every day we shall eat

All so many as we may get.

To England will we nought gon,

Till they be eaten every one.

—Old Romance of Richard Cœur de Lion.

[1189-1193 A.D.]

Europe rang with invectives against the holy Bernard, when the thousands of men whom his eloquence and miracles had roused to arms perished in the rocks of Cilicia. A general or a statesman would have pointed out errors in the policy or conduct of the crusaders; but the preacher sheltered himself under the usual defence of impostors, and declared that the sins of the people had merited divine punishment, and that the men of his day resembled in morals the Hebrews of old, who perished in the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land. This language was justly felt to be cruel and insulting; it did not exculpate the saint in the opinion of the world, and the nations of the West were not again disposed to make religious wars the common concern of Christendom. In the third council of the Lateran, which met twenty years after the return to Europe of Louis and Conrad, the policy of King Almeric had been applauded; Egypt was more dreaded than Syria, and the possession of Damietta was held out as the object to which all the efforts of the Christians should tend.[56] The clergy called on the world to arm, but the recollection of misery was too fresh, and the decrees of the council were heard of with sullenness and discontent. Louis, however, always cherished the hope of returning to the Holy Land, and of reviving his faded glory; and at length he found his wishes met by a brother sovereign. Since virtue was his policy as well as his duty, Henry II in the height of his disputes with Thomas à Becket had professed great sanctity; and following the example of the French king, he and his barons commanded that for one year a tax of two-pence, and for four subsequent years a tax of a penny in the pound should be levied on the movables of the people of England. Among the deeds of virtue which washed from Henry the guilt of Becket’s murder was the supporting of two hundred knights Templar in Palestine for a year, and an agreement with the pope to go and fight the infidels in Asia, or in Spain, for thrice that time if his holiness should require it. In the year 1177, Henry and Louis agreed to travel together to the Holy Land. But the English monarch was prudent and fond of peace, and the illness and subsequent death of the French king terminated the project.

[1177-1188 A.D.]

The count of Tripolis, while regent of Jerusalem, endeavoured to strengthen his kingdom by new draughts of men from Europe. The importance of the embassy which he sent to the West was apparent from the dignity of the legates, for they were the patriarch of Jerusalem and the grand masters of the Templars and Hospitallers.

While fanaticism was rekindling the torch of religious war, news arrived in the West of the fall of Jerusalem into the hands of the infidels. The event was felt as a calamity from one end of Europe to the other. Nothing could exceed the terror which seized the court of Rome. In the moment of weakness and humiliation, the cardinals acknowledged the dignity and the force of virtue. They resolved to take no bribes in the administration of justice, to abstain from all luxury of living and splendour of dress, to go to Jerusalem with the scrip and staff of simple pilgrims, and never to ride on horseback while the ground of their Saviour was trodden under the feet of the pagans. Pope Urban III died about this period; and his death, like every direful event of the time, was attributed to grief at the intelligence of the Saracenian victories. William, archbishop of Tyre, our great guide in history, was one of the messengers of the news; and his friend, Gregory VIII, successor of Urban, not only endeavoured to deprecate the wrath of heaven by ordaining fasting and prayer throughout Christendom, but issued a bull for a new crusade, with the usual privileges to the crusaders.

The emperor, Frederick Barbarossa, summoned a council at Mainz for the purpose of considering the general propriety of a new crusade. Prelates and barons were unanimous in the wish for it, and William of Tyre, and Henry, bishop of Albano, legates of the papacy, arrived at the assembly in time to confirm and approve its holy resolve. The emperor, and his son the duke of Swabia, the dukes of Austria and Moravia, and sixty-eight temporal and spiritual lords, were fired with the same enthusiasm.