506

RICHARD'S TREATY AND DEPARTURE.

[CH. LIX. their companions at Acre, pressed the sultan, with loyal or seditious clamours, to reserve his person and their courage for the future defence of their religion and empire. The Moslems were delivered by the sudden, or as they deemed, the miraculous retreat of the Christians;† and the laurels of Richard were blasted by the prudence, or envy, of his companions. The hero, ascending a hill, and veiling his face, exclaimed with an indignant voice, "Those who are unwilling to rescue, are unworthy to view, the sepulchre of Christ! After his return to Acre, on the news that Jaffa was surprised by the sultan, he sailed with some merchant vessels, and leaped foremost on the beach; the castle was relieved by his presence; and sixty thousand Turks and Saracens fled before his arms. The discovery of his weakness provoked them to return in the morning; and they found him carelessly encamped before the gates, with only seventeen knights and three hundred archers. Without counting their numbers, he sustained their charge; and we learn from the evidence of his enemies, that the king of England, grasping his lance, rode furiously along their front, from the right to the left wing, without meeting an adversary who dared to encounter his career. Am I writing the history of Orlando or Amadis ?

* Yet unless the sultan, or an Ayoubite prince, remained in Jerusalem, nec Curdi Turcis, nec Turci essent obtemperaturi Curdis (Bohadin, p. 236). He draws aside a corner of the political curtain.

+ Bohadin (p. 237), and even Jeffrey de Vinisauf (1. 6, c. 1—8, p. 403-409), ascribe the retreat to Richard himself; and Jacobus à Vitriaco observes, that in his impatience to depart, in alterum virum mutatus est (p. 1123). Yet Joinville, a French knight, accuses the envy of Hugh duke of Burgundy (p. 116), withont supposing, like Matthew Paris, that he was bribed by Saladin. [According to Taaffe (ii. p. 50), the retreat of the Christians was the result of a consultation of "twenty faithful persons, five Templars, five Hospitallers, five French, and five Syrians," who decided against an attack on Jeru salem.-ED.]

The expeditions to Ascalon, Jerusalem, and Jaffa, are related by Bohadin (p. 184-249) and Abulfeda (p. 51, 52). The author of the Itinerary, or the monk of St. Albans, cannot exaggerate the cadhi's account of the prowess of Richard (Vinisauf, 1. 6, c. 14-24, p. 412421. Hist. Major, p. 137-143); and on the whole of this war, there is a marvellous agreement between the Christian and Mahometan writers, who mutually praise the virtues of their enemies. [Ricobaldus, whose Chronicle, written in 1297, is preserved in Muratori's Collection, and agrees with five Arabic MSS. in the Ferrara Municipal

A.D. 1192.]

DEATH OF SALADIN.

507

During these hostilities, a languid and tedious negotiation between the Franks and Moslems was started, and continued, and broken, and again resumed, and again broken. Some acts of royal courtesy, the gift of snow and fruit, the exchange of Norway hawks and Arabian horses, softened the asperity of religious war; from the vicissitude of success, the monarchs might learn to suspect that Heaven was neutral in the quarrel; nor, after the trial of each other, could either hope for a decisive victory. The health both of Richard and Saladin appeared to be in a declining state; and they respectively suffered the evils of distant and domestic warfare; Plantagenet was impatient to punish a perfidious rival who had invaded Normandy in his absence; and the indefatigable sultan was subdued by the cries of the people, who was the victim, and of the soldiers, who were the instruments, of his martial zeal. The first demands of the king of England were the restitution of Jerusalem, Palestine, and the true cross; and he firmly declared, that himself and his brother pilgrims would end their lives in the pious labour, rather than return to Library, relates a romantic incident in a battle on St. George's day, April, 23, 1192. The English having been repulsed, Richard, springing from his horse, Fauvell, placed himself at the head of the archers. Stooping down he wound round his leg, just below the knee, a small tape used by the men of Kent to tie their sheaves of arrows in the quivers, and ordered his chief knights to do the same and fight in honour of St. George. Never before had they performed such heroic actions, as on that day. Saladin, seeing Richard on foot, thought that his horse was slain, and sent him his own beautiful Arabian, begging that the king of England would accept it for the love of him. In commemoration of these occurrences, it is said that Richard instituted the Order of the Garter, to which he afterwards gave its motto during his French wars. Taaffe, ii. 51-53.-ED.]

See the progress of negotiation and hostility in Bohadin (p. 207260), who was himself an actor in the treaty. Richard declared his intention of returning with new armies to the conquest of the Holy Land; and Saladin answered the menace with a civil compliment. (Vinisauf, l. c. 28, p. 423.) + The most copious and original account of this holy war is Galfridi à Vinisauf Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Richardi et aliorum in Terram Hierosolymorum, in six books, published in the second volume of Gale's Scriptores Hist. Anglicana (p. 247-429). Roger Hoveden and Matthew Paris afford likewise many valuable materials; and the former describes, with accuracy, the discipline and navigation of the English fleet. [These three historians, Godfrey de Vinsauf, Roger Hoveden, and Matthew Paris, have been well translated in Bohn's Antiquarian Library.—ED.]

508

INNOCENT III.

[CH. LIX. Europe with ignominy and remorse. But the conscience of Saladin refused, without some weighty compensation, to restore the idols, or promote the idolatry, of the Christians; he asserted, with equal firmness, his religious and civil claim to the sovereignty of Palestine; descanted on the importance and sanctity of Jerusalem; and rejected all terms of the establishment, or partition of the Latins. The marriage which Richard proposed, of his sister with the sultan's brother, was defeated by the difference of faith; the princess abhorred the embraces of a Turk; and Adel, or Saphadin, would not easily renounce a plurality of wives. A personal interview was declined by Saladin, who alleged their mutual ignorance of each other's language, and the negotiation was managed with much art and delay by their interpreters and envoys. The final agreement was equally disapproved by the zealots of both parties, by the Roman pontiff and the caliph of Bagdad. It was stipulated that Jerusalem and the holy sepulchre should be open, without tribute or vexation, to the pilgrimage of the Latin Christians; that, after the demolition of Ascalon, they should inclusively possess the sea-coast from Jaffa to Tyre; that the count of Tripoli and the prince of Antioch should be comprised in the truce; and that, during three years and three months all hostilities should cease. The principal chiefs of the two armies swore to the observance of the treaty; but the monarchs were satisfied with giving their word and their right hand; and the royal majesty was excused from an oath, which always implies some suspicion of falsehood and dishonour. Richard embarked for Europe to seek a long captivity and a premature grave; and the space of a few months concluded the life and glories of Saladin. The orientals describe his edifying death, which happened at Damascus; but they seem ignorant of the equal distribution of his alms among the three religions,* or of the display of a shroud, instead of a standard, to

* Even Vertot (tom. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish notion of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his last breath. [A tolerant spirit towards the professors of other faiths, does not imply indifference to one's own. In Lessing's play of Nathan the Wise, tolerance is made a prominent feature in Saladin's character. For his protection of the Jew Maimonides, see note to ch. 15, vol. ii. p. 4, and for his kindness to Christians, Wilken, iv. 590-593, as also the Arabian Chronicle quoted by Taaffe, ii. p. and 61.-ED.]

A.D. 1203-1218.] fourth and FIFTH CRUSADES.

509

admonish the East of the instability of human greatness. The unity of empire was dissolved by his death; his sons were oppressed by the stronger arm of their uncle Saphadin; the hostile interests of the sultans of Egypt, Damascus, and Aleppo, were again revived; and the Franks or Latins stood, and breathed, and hoped, in their fortresses along the Syrian coast.

The

The noblest monument of a conqueror's fame, and of the terror which he inspired, is the Saladine tenth, a general tax, which was imposed on the laity, and even the clergy, of the Latin church, for the service of the holy war. practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion; and this tribute became the foundation of all the tithes and tenths on ecclesiastical benefices which have been granted by the Roman pontiffs to Catholic sovereigns, or reserved for the immediate use of the apostolic see. This pecuniary emolument must have tended to increase the interest of the popes in the recovery of Palestine; after the death of Saladin they preached the crusade, by their epistles, their legates, and their missionaries; and the accomplishment of the pious work might have been expected from the zeal and talents of Innocent the Third.‡ Under that young and ambitious priest, the successors of St. Peter attained the full meridian of their greatness; and in a reign of eighteen years, he exercised a despotic command over the emperors and kings, whom he raised and deposed; over the nations, whom an interdict of months or years deprived, for the offence of their rulers, of the exercise of Christian worship. In the council of the Lateran he acted as the

* See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 277, &c.), and the tables of M. de Guignes, l'Art de Verifier les Dates, and the Bibliothèque Orientale. + Thomassin

(Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. iii. p. 311-374) has copiously treated of the origin, abuses, and restrictions, of these tenths. A theory was started, but not pursued, that they were rightfully due to the pope, a tenth of the Levites' tenth to the high-priest. (Selden on Tithes, see his works, vol. iii. p. 2, p. 1083.) See the Gesta

Innocentii, 3, in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. (tom. iii. p. 1, p. 486568.) [The character of Innocent III. may be found drawn by Hallam (1. 360) and by Wilken (5. 61). Of all the popes he was the most active promoter of the crusades, and none realized so fully the ambitious designs of their first author. For his bold pretensions and arrogated power, see Hallam, vol. ii. p. 282, and Wilken, vol. v. p. 93. 182. 184, &c.-ED.]

510

POLICY OF THE POPES.

[CH. LIX. ecclesiastical, almost as the temporal, sovereign of the East and West. It was at the feet of his legate that John of England surrendered his crown; and Innocent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation, and the origin of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and the fifth, were undertaken; but except a king of Hungary, the princes of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims; the forces were inadequate to the design; nor did the effects correspond with the hopes and wishes of the pope and the people. The fourth crusade was diverted from Syria to Constantinople; and the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire by the Latins will form the proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the fifth,* two hundred thousand Franks were landed at the eastern mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine must be subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan; and after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss of Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and insolence of the legate Pelagius, who, in the pope's name, assumed the character of general. The sickly Franks were encompassed by the waters of the Nile, and the Oriental forces; and it was by the evacuation of Damietta that they obtained a safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the tardy restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication of the crusades, which were preached at the same time against

See the fifth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus à Vitriaco (1. 3, p. 1125-1149, in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius), an eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius (in Script. Muratori, tom. vii. p. 825-846, c. 190-207), a contemporary, and Sanutus (Secreta Fidel. Crucis, 1. 3, p, 11, c. 4-9), a diligent compiler; and of the Arabians, Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 294), and the extracts at the end of Joinville (p. 533. 537. 540. 547, &c.) [Damietta was taken by breaking through a strong chain that stretched across the entrance of the harbour. This was accomplished by a vessel, which the citizens of Haerlem, in Holland, had fitted out. A model of it, and of the saws which cut through the massive impediment, is preserved in their church. Near it are also suspended some silver bells, that were among the spoils of the captured town. This exploit is the subject of one of Crabeth's fine painted windows in the church at Gouda. When Saphadin received the intelligence, he died of grief. The campaign in Egypt and the arrogance of "the firebrand" Pelagius, are honestly related