§ 60. The Military Orders.
§ 60. The Military Orders.
Literature.—The sources are the Rules of the orders and the scattered notices of contemporary chroniclers. No attempt is made to give an exhaustive list of the literature.—P. H. Helyot: Histoire des ordres monastiques, religieux et militaires, 8 vols. Paris, 1719.—Perrot. Coll. Hist. des ordres de chivalrie, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1819. Supplementary vol. by Fayolle, 1846.—Bielenfeld: Gesch. und Verfassung aller geistlichen und weltlichen Ritterorden, 2 vols. Weimar, 1841.—F. C. Woodhouse: The Military Religious Orders of the Middle Ages, London, 1879.—G. Uhlhorn: Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit im Mittelalter, Stuttgart, 1884.—Hurter: Life of Innocent III., vol. IV. 313 sqq.—The general Histories of the Crusades.—Stubbs: Const. Hist. of England.
For the Knights of St. John: Abbe Vertot: Hist. des chevaliers hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jérusalem, etc., 4 vols. Paris, 1726, and since.—Taafe: History of the Knights of Malta, 4 vols. London, 1852.—L. B. Larking: The Knights Hospitallers in England, London, 1857.—A. Winterfeld: Gesch. des Ordens St. Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem, Berlin, 1859.—H. Von Ortenburg: Der Ritterorden des hl. Johannis zu Jerusalem, 2 vols. Regensb. 1866.—Genl. Porter: Hist. of the Knights of Malta of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, London, 1883.—Von Finck: Uebersicht über die Gesch. des ritterlichen Ordens St. Johannis, Berlin, 1890.—G. Hönnicke: Studien zur Gesch. des Hospitalordens, 1099–1162, 1897.—*J. D. Le Roulx: De prima origine Hospitaliorum Hierosol., Paris, 1885; Cartulaire général de l’Ordre des Hospitaliers St. Jean de Jérusalem, 3 vols., Paris, 1894; Les Hospitaliers en Terre Sainte et à Chypre, 1100–1310, Paris, 1904, pp. 440.—J. Von Pflugk-Harttung: Die Anfänge des Johanniterordens in Deutschland, Berlin, 1899, and Der Johanniter und der Deutsche Orden im Kampfe Ludwigs des Baiern mit der Kirche, Leipzig, 1900. Knöpfler: Johanniter in Weltzer-Welte, VI. 1719–1803. For other Lit. see Le Roulx: Les Hospitaliers, pp. v-xiii.
For the Knights Templars: The literature is very abundant. Bernard Of Clairvaux: De laude novae militiae, ad milites templi, Migne, 182, pp. 921–940.—Dupuy: Hist. des Templiers, Paris, 1650.—F. Wilcke: Gesch. des Tempelherren Ordens, 2 vols. Leipzig, 1827, 2d ed. Halle, 1860.—*C. H. Maillard De Chambure: Règle et Statuts secrets des Templiers, Paris, 1840 (from three old French MSS.).—W. Havemann: Gesch. des Ausgangs des Tempelherren Ordens, Stuttgart, 1846. Michelet: Procès des Templiers, 2 vols. Paris, 1841–1851.—Boutaric: Clement V. Philippe le Bel et les Templiers, Paris, 1874, and Documents inédites de Philippe le Bel, Paris, 1861.—*Henri de Curzon: La Règle du Temple, Paris, 1886.—*H. Prutz: Geheimlehre und Geheimstatuten des Tempelherren Ordens, Berlin, 1879, Entwicklung und Untergang des Tempelherrenordens, Berlin, 1888.—K. Schottmüller: D. Untergang des Templer-Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1887.—W. Cunningham: Growth of English Industry, London, 1890.—J. Gmelin: Schuld oder Unschuld des Templerordens, Stuttgart, 1893.—*Döllinger: Der Untergang des Tempelordens in his "Akadem. Vorträge," Munich, 1891, III. 245–274, the last public address the author delivered before the Academy of Sciences of Munich.—A. Grange: Fall of the Knights Templars, "Dublin Review," 1895, pp. 329 sqq.—G. Schnürer: D. ursprüngliche Templerregel, Freib. 1903.—Mansi, XXI. 359–372, also gives the Rule of the Templars as set forth at the Synod of Troyes, 1128.—J. A. Froude: The Knights Templars in Short Essays.—Hefele-Knöpfler, VI.—*Funk: Templer in Wetzer-Welte, XI. pp. 1311–1345.—H. C. Lea: Hist. of the Inquisition, III. and Absolution Formula of the Templars, Amer. Soc. of Ch. Hist. Papers, V. 37–58.
For the Teutonic Knights: Strehlke: Tabulae ordinis teutonicae.—Hennes: Codex diplomaticus ordinis S. Mariae Theutonicorum, 2 vols. Mainz, 1845–1861.—E. Hennig: Die Statuten des deutschen Ordens, Würzburg, 1866.—M. Perlbach: Die Statuten des Deutschordens, Halle, 1890.—Joh. Voigt: Geschichte des Deutschen Ritter-Ordens, 2 vols. Berlin, 1857–1859.—H. Prutz: Die Besitzungen des deutschen Ordens im heiligen Lande, Leipzig, 1877.—C. Herrlich: Die Balley Brandenburg, etc., Berlin, 1886.—C. Lempens: Geschichte d. Deutschen Ordens u. sr. Ordensländer Preussen u. Livland, 1904.—Ranke: Univ. Hist., VIII. 455–480.—Uhlhorn: Deutschorden, in Herzog, IV.
"And by the Holy Sepulchre
I’ve pledged my knightly sword
To Christ, His blessed church, and her,
The mother of our Lord."
Whittier, Knights of St. John.
A product of the Crusades and their most important adjunct were the three great Military Orders, the Knights of St. John, the Knight Templars, and the Teutonic Knights. They combined monastic vows with the profession of arms. Their members were fighting monks and armed almoners. They constituted a standing army of Crusaders and were the vigilant guardians of Latin institutions in Palestine for nearly two centuries. The Templars and the Knights of St. John did valiant service on many a battle-field in Palestine and Asia Minor.494 In 1187 they shared in the disastrous defeat of the Christian forces at Tiberias. From that time their strength was concentrated at Acre.495 After the fall of Acre, 1291, the three orders retired to Europe, holding the Turks in check for two centuries longer in the South and extending civilization to the provinces on the Baltic in the North. They combined the element of romance, corresponding to the chivalric spirit of the age, with the element of philanthropy corresponding to its religious spirit.
These orders speedily attained to great popularity, wealth, and power. Kings did them honor. Pope after pope extended their authority and privileges. Their grand masters were recognized as among the chief personages of Christendom. But with wealth and popularity came pride and decay. The strength of the Knights of St. John and the Templars was also reduced by their rivalry which became the scandal of Europe, and broke out into open feuds and pitched battles as before Acre, 1241 to 1243 and in 1259.496 After the fall of Acre, which was ascribed in large part to their jealousy, Nicholas IV. sought to combine them.497 The Knights of St. John were predominantly a French order, the Teutonic Knights exclusively a German order. The Templars were oecumenical in their constituency.
I. The order of the Knights of St. John, or the Hospitallers,498 derived its name from the church of St. John the Baptist in Jerusalem.499 It seems to have grown out of a hospital in the city erected for the care of sick and destitute pilgrims. As early as the time of Charlemagne a hospital existed there. Before the year 1000 a cloister seems to have been founded by the Normans close by the church of the Holy Sepulchre known as St. Maria de Latina, with accommodations for the sick.500 About 1065 or 1070 a hospital was built by a merchant from Amalfi, Maurus.501 At the time of the capture of Jerusalem, Gerard stood at the head of one of these institutions. Gerard seems to have come from Southern France.502 He prescribed for his brotherhood a mantle of black with a white cross. Godfrey of Bouillon liberally endowed it and Baldwin further enriched it with one-tenth of the booty taken at the siege of Joppa. Gerard died in 1120 and was succeeded by Raymund du Puy, who gave the order great fame and presided over it for forty years.503
The order increased with astonishing rapidity in numbers, influence, and wealth. Gifts were received from all parts of Europe, the givers being remembered in prayers offered up in Jerusalem. Raymund systematized the rules of the brotherhood and gave it a compact organization and in 1113 it gained papal sanction through Pascal II. At that time there were affiliated houses at St. Giles, Asti, Pisa, Otranto, and Tarentum.504 In 1122 Calixtus II. made the important announcement that those giving protection to pilgrims were entitled to the same reward as the pilgrims themselves and all who gave to the Hospital in the earthly Jerusalem, should receive the joys of the heavenly. Bull followed bull, granting the order privileges. Innocent III. exempted the members from excommunication at the hand of bishops and made the order amenable solely to the pope. Anastasius IV., 1154, gave them the right to build churches, chapels, and graveyards in any locality.505
The military feature of the organization was developed after the philanthropic feature of nursing and caring for unfortunate pilgrims and it quickly became the dominant feature. Raymund du Puy makes a clear distinction in the order between cleric and lay brethren. Innocent II., 1130, speaks of its members as priests, knights, and lay brethren, the last taking no vows. In its perfected organization the order was divided into three classes, knights, chaplains, and serving brethren. The knights and chaplains were bound by the threefold pledge of charity, poverty, and obedience.506 The military brothers or knights formed the majority of the order and from them the officials were elected.507 The hospital work was not abandoned. In 1160 John of Wizburg states from personal observation that more than two thousand sick were cared for in the hospital of Jerusalem, and that in a single day forty deaths occurred. After the transfer of the order to Rhodes, the knights continued to carry on hospital work.
After Clement IV., 1267, the title of the chief official was "Grand master of the Hospital of Jerusalem and Guardian of the Poor of Jesus Christ." The distinctive dress of the order was, after 1259, a red mantle with a white Maltese cross worn on the left breast that "God through this emblem might give faith and obedience and protect us and all our Christian benefactors from the power of the devil." Its motto was pro fide, "for the faith."508 The whole body was divided about 1320 into seven langues or provinces, Provence, France, Auvergne, Italy, Germany, Aragon, England. Castile was added in 1464. Affiliated houses in Europe and the East sent two-thirds of their income to Jerusalem.509 One of the interesting rules of the order was that the knights always went two and two and carried their own light with them.
After the fall of Acre, the Hospitallers established themselves on the island of Cyprus and in 1310 removed to the island of Rhodes, where massive walls and foundations continue to attest the labor expended upon their fortifications and other buildings. From Rhodes, as a base, they did honorable service.
Under the grand master La Valette, the Knights bravely defended Malta against the fleet of Suleymon the Magnificent until Europe felt the thrill of relief caused by the memorable defeat of the Turkish fleet by Don John at Lepanto, 1571. From that time the order continued to decay.510
II. The Knight Templars511 before the fall of Acre had, if possible, a more splendid fame than the Knights of St. John; but the order had a singularly tragic ending in 1312, and was dissolved under moral charges of the most serious nature. From the beginning they were a military body. The order owes its origin to Hugo de Payens (or Payns) and Godfrey St. Omer, who entered Jerusalem riding on one horse, 1119. They were joined by six others who united with them in making a vow to the patriarch of Jerusalem to defend by force of arms pilgrims on their way from the coast to Jerusalem.
Baldwin II. gave the brotherhood quarters in his palace on Mount Moriah, near the site of Solomon’s temple, whence the name Templars is derived. Hugo appeared at the council of Troyes in 1128,512 and made such persuasive appeals at the courts of France, England, and Germany, that three hundred knights joined the order. St. Bernard wrote a famous tract in praise of the "new soldiery."513 He says: "Never is an idle word, or useless deed, or immoderate laughter or murmur, if it be but in a whisper, among the Templars allowed to go unpunished. They take no pleasure in the absurd pastime of hawking. Draughts and dice they abhor. Ribald songs and stage plays they eschew as insane follies. They cut their hair close; they are begrimed with dirt and swarthy from the weight of their armor and the heat of the sun. They never dress gayly, and wash seldom. They strive to secure swift and strong horses, but not garnished with ornaments or decked with trappings, thinking of battle and victory, not of pomp and show. Such has God chosen to vigilantly guard the Holy Sepulchre."514
The order spread with great rapidity.515 Matthew Paris, no doubt, greatly exaggerates when he gives the number of their houses in the middle of the thirteenth century as nine thousand.516 Their annual revenues have been estimated as high as 54,000,000 francs.517 The order was divided into provinces, five of them in the east—Jerusalem, Tripolis, Antioch, Cyprus, and the Morea; and eleven in the west—France, Aquitaine, Provence, Aragon, Portugal, Lombardy, Hungary, England, Upper and Lower Germany, Sicily, and perhaps a twelfth, Bohemia. Popes, beginning with Honorius II., heaped favors upon them. They were relieved from paying taxes of all sorts. They might hold services twice a year in churches where the interdict was in force. Their goods were placed under the special protection of the Holy See. In 1163 Alexander III. granted them permission to have their own priests.518
Like the Hospitallers, the Templars took the triple vow and, in addition, the vow of military service and were divided into three classes: the knights who were of noble birth, the men at arms or serving brethren (fratres servientes, armigeri), and chaplains who were directly amenable to the pope. The dress of the knights was a white mantle with a red cross, of the serving brethren a dark habit with a red cross. The knights cropped their hair short and allowed their beards to grow. They were limited to three horses, except the grand master who was allowed four, and were forbidden to hunt except the lion, the symbol of the devil, who goes about seeking whom he may devour.519 The order had for its motto "not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name, O Lord, give the glory."520 The members in cloister observed the regular conventual hours for prayer, and ate at a common table. If money was found in the effects of a deceased brother, his body was denied all prayer and funeral services and placed in unconsecrated ground like a slave.521 They were bidden to flee from the kisses of women and never to kiss a widow, virgin, mother, sister, or any other female.522 On account of their poverty, two ate from the same dish, but each had his own portion of wine to himself.523
The head of the order was called Grand Master, was granted the rank of a prince, and included in the invitations to the oecumenical councils, as, for example, the Fourth Lateran and the second council of Lyons. The Master of the Temple in England was a baron with seat in Parliament.
The Templars took part in all the Crusades except the first and the crusade of Frederick II., from which they held aloof on account of the papal prohibition. Their discipline was conspicuous on the disastrous march of the French from Laodicea to Attalia and their valor at the battle of Hattim, before Gaza524 and on many other fields.525 The order degenerated with riches and success.526 To drink like a Templar, bibere templariter, became proverbial for fast living. Their seal, representing the two founders entering Jerusalem in poverty on one horse, early came to misrepresent their real possessions.
A famous passage in the history of Richard of England set forth the reputation the Templars had for pride. When Fulke of Neuilly was preaching the Third Crusade, he told Richard he had three daughters and called upon him to provide for them in marriage. The king exclaimed, "Liar, I have no daughters." "Nay, thou hast three evil daughters, Pride, Lust, and Luxury," was the priest’s reply. Turning to his courtiers, Richard retorted, "He bids me marry my three daughters. Well, so be it. To the Templars, I give my first-born, Pride, to the Cistercians my second-born, Lust, and to the prelates the third, Luxury."527
The order survived the fall of Acre less than twenty years. After finding a brief refuge in Cyprus the knights concentrated their strength in France, where the once famous organization was suppressed by the violent measures of Philip the Fair and Clement V. The story of the suppression belongs to the next period.
III. The order of the Teutonic Knights528 never gained the prominence in Palestine of the two older orders. During the first century of its existence, its members devoted themselves to the maintenance and care of hospitals on the field of battle. They seldom appeared until the historic mission of the order opened in the provinces of what is now northeastern Germany which were reduced to subjection and to a degree of civilization by its arms and humanizing efforts.
The order dates from 1190, when a hospital was erected in a tent under the walls of Acre by pilgrims from Bremen and Lübeck. Frederick of Swabia commended it, and Clement III. sanctioned it, 1191.529 It was made a military order in 1198 by a bull of Innocent III.530 and in 1221 Honorious III. conferred upon it the privileges enjoyed by the Hospitallers and Templars. The order was made up almost exclusively of German elements.531 The members took the triple vow. Their dress was a white mantle with a black cross. Women were affiliated with some of the hospitals, as at Bremen. The first possession of the order in Europe was a convent at Palermo, the gift of Henry VI., 1197. Its first hospital in Germany was St. Kunigunde, at Halle. Subsequently its hospitals extended from Bremen and Lübeck to Nürnberg and further south. Its territory was divided into bailiwicks, balleyen, of which there were twelve in Germany. The chief officer, called Grand Master, had the dignity of a prince of the empire.
Under Hermann von Salza (1210–1239), the fourth grand master, the order grew with great rapidity. Von Salza was a trusted adviser of Frederick II., and received the privilege of using the black eagle in the order’s banner. Following the invitation of the monk Christian and of Konrad of Morovia, 1226, to come to their relief against the Prussians, he diverted the attention and activity of the order from the Orient to this new sphere. The order had the promise of Culmland and half of its conquests for its assistance.
After the fall of Acre, the headquarters were transferred to Venice and in 1309 to Marienburg on the Vistula, where a splendid castle was erected. Henceforth the knights were occupied with the wild territories along the Baltic and southwards, whose populations were still in a semi-barbaric state. In the hour when the Templars were being suppressed, this order was enjoying its greatest prosperity. In 1237 it absorbed the Brothers of the Sword.532
At one time the possessions of the Teutonic knights included fifty cities such as Culm, Marienburg, Thorn, and Königsberg, and lands with a population of two million. Its missionary labors are recorded in another chapter. With the rise of Poland began the shrinkage of the order, and in the battle of Tannenberg, 1410, its power was greatly shaken. In 1466 it gave up large blocks of territory to Poland, including Marienburg, and the grand master swore fealty to the Polish king. The order continued to hold Prussia and Sameland as fiefs. But the discipline had become loose, as was indicated by the popular saying, "Dressing and undressing, eating and drinking, and going to bed are the work the German knights do."533 In 1511 the margrave, Albrecht of Brandenburg, was made grand master and refused to be a vassal of Poland. Following the counsel of Luther, he laid down the mantle and cross of the order, married 1523, and laid the foundation of the greatness of the duchy of Prussia, which he made hereditary in his family, the Hohenzollern.534 The black eagle passed to the Prussian coat of arms.535
Gibbon, who treats with scorn the Crusades as a useless exhibition of religious fanaticism, calls them the "world’s debate," Ch. LIX.
John Fiske, Discovery of America, I. 318, 419, 505.
The Itinerary of Richard I., giving an account of the Third Crusade, lays stress upon the good fighting qualities of the prelates and clergy. It speaks of one priest who was incessantly active against the enemy, hurling darts from a sling with indefatigable toil, I. 42. The archbishop of Besançon superintended the construction of a great machine for battering down the walls of Acre and met its expense, I. 60. Two hundred knights and three hundred followers served under archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury, old man as he was, and "abbots and bishops led their own troops, fighting manfully for the faith," I. 62.
De militibus templi, V., Migne, 182, 928.
Roger of Wendover, Luard’s ed., M. Paris, III: 35.
Milites Christi, Robert the Monk, VII., Rec., III. 867; Christi Militia, Guibert, VII., II., Rec., IV. 229. The army was also called crucifer exercitus, Ekkehard, Rec. V. 16.
The French terms were se croiser, prendre la croix, prendre le signe de la croix. See, for example, Villehardouin, 2, 8, 18, Wailly’s ed. pp. 3, 7, 13. This historian of the Fourth Crusade also calls the Crusaders les croisés, 38, Wailly’s ed. p. 24.
Quoniam illi, qui cum pietate catholicae religionis in belli certamine cadunt, requies eos aeternae vitae suscipiet contra paganos atque infideles strenue dimicantes, etc., Gottlob, Kreuzablass, 25.
Quicumque pro sola devotione ...ad liberandam ecclesiam Dei Jerusalem profectus fuerit, iter illud pro omni paenitentia reputetur, Gottlob, 72 sqq.; Mirbt. Quellen, 114.
Gesta, I. 1; Rec., IV. 124.
Lea, Hist. of Inquis., I. 44, says. "Crusaders were released from earthly as well as heavenly justice by being classed with clerks and subjected only to spiritual justice."
See Origin of the Temporal Privileges of Crusaders, by Edith C. Bramball, "Am Jour. of Theol." 1901, pp. 279-292, and Gottlob, Kreuzablass, pp. 140 sqq.
De militibus templi, II., III., Migne, 182, 923 sq.
This is what Fulcher meant, Rec., III. 323, when he put into Urban’s mouth the words nunc jure contra barbaros pugnent qui olim fratres dimicabant. Two hundred years later Alvarus Pelagius made the same argument: quamvis Saraceni Palestinam possident, juste tamen exinde depelluntur, etc. See Schwab, Joh. Gerson, 26.
Summa, II. (2), 188, 3; Migne, III., 1366 sq.: militare propter aliquid mundanum est omni religioni contrarium, non autem militare propter obsequium Dei, etc: He adds that clerics going to war must act under the command of princes or of the Church, and not at their own suggestion.
Luard’s ed., V. 196.
Baldric of Dol, Hist. Jerus., I. 8; Rec., IV. 17: gaudebant uxores abeuntibus maritis dilectissimis, etc.
Caesar of Heisterbach, Dial., X. 22, speaks of a woman suffering with severe pains in childbirth who was delivered with ease, so soon as she consented to her husband’s going on a crusade.
The name Franks became the current designation for Europeans in the East, and remains so to this day. The crusading enthusiasm did not fully take hold of Germany till the twelfth century. Hauck, Kirchengesch. Deutschlands, IV. 80.
The expression was a translation of the Latin ultra mare, used for the East, and, so far as I know, for the first time by Gregory VII., Reg. II. 37; Migne, 148, 390.
Gregorovius, IV. 288, says no traces of enthusiasm can be found in Rome. "Senate and people would probably have laughed in derision had Urban summoned them to rise in religious enthusiasm to forsake the ruins of Rome and advance to the rescue of Jerusalem." The Crusades were a financial detriment to Rome by diverting pilgrimages from the tombs of the Apostles to the tomb of the Saviour.
Here is one such miracle. At the battle of Ramleh, 1177, there was a miraculous extension of the cross borne by the bishop of Bethlehem. It reached to heaven and extended its arms across the whole horizon. The pagans saw it, were confused, and fled. Hoveden, II. 133 sq.
Hegel, Philosophie der Gesch., 3d ed. 1848, p. 476, brings out this idea most impressively.
Röhricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 6, says that in these struggles "the crusading enthusiasm was born."
See the beautiful testimony of Gregory, who advised a Cappadocian abbot against going with his monks to Jerusalem, Schaff, Ch. Hist. III. 906.
Fulke the Black, count of Anjou (987-1040), made three journeys to Jerusalem in penance for sacrilege and other crimes. He had burned his young wife at the stake dressed in her gayest attire, and caused his son to crouch at his feet harnessed as an ass. At Jerusalem he showed his devotion by going about with a halter about his neck. He bit off a piece of the Lord’s tombstone with his teeth and carried back to Europe objects most sacred and priceless, such as the fingers of Apostles and the lamp in which the holy fire was lit. Odolric, bishop of Orleans, gave a pound of gold for the lamp and hung it up in the church at Orleans, where its virtue cured multitudes of sick people.
Hauck, IV. 79.
Ekkehard, 5, Rec., V. 14, may exaggerate when he speaks of very frequent letters and embassies from the Greek emperors to the West, per legationes frequentissimas et epistolas etiam a nobis visas ... lugubriter inclamanter, etc. The letter of Alexius to Robert of Flanders, 1088, has been the subject of much inquiry. Hagenmeyer pronounces it genuine, after a most careful investigation, Epistulae, etc., 10-44.
Diehl, in Essays on the Crusades, 92, seems even to deny that an appeal was ever made by the Byzantine emperor Alexius for aid to the West, and speaks of it as an invention of a later time. Certainly no criticism could be more unwarranted unless all the testimonies of the contemporary writers are to be ruthlessly set aside.
Reg., I. 49; II. 37, Migne, 148, 329, 390.
multa millia Christianorum quasi pecudes occidisse, Reg., I. 49
See Jules Lair, Études crit. sur divers textes des Xeet XIesiècles. Bulle du pape Sergius IV., etc., Paris, 1899. Lair, in opposition to Riant, Pflugk-Harttung, etc., gives reasons for accepting as genuine Sergius’s letter, found 1857. For Sylvester’s letter see Havet, Lettres de Gerbert, Paris, 1889. Röhricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, 8, pronounces Sylvester’s letter a forgery, dating from 1095. Lair tries to prove it was written by Sergius IV.
The date of the pilgrimage is not given, but may be accepted as having fallen between 1092-1094. Peter is called "the Hermit" by all the accounts, begining with the earliest, the Gesta Francorum. There is no good ground for doubting that he was from Amiens, as Albert of Aachen distinctly states. William of Tyre says from the "bishopric of Amiens." Hagenmeyer, p. 39, accepts the latter as within the truth.
William of Tyre, Bk. I. 12, Rec., I. 35, gives only a few lines to the visions and the words spoken by the Lord. His account of the meeting with Urban is equally simple and scarcely less brief. Peter found, so he writes, "the Lord Pope Urban in the vicinity of Rome and presented the letters from the patriarch and Christians of Jerusalem and showed their misery and the abominations which the unclean races wrought in the holy places. Thus prudently and faithfully he performed the commission intrusted to him."
At the Council of Clermont Urban made reference to the "very many reports" which had come of the desolation of Jerusalem, Fulcher, Rec., III. 324. Robert the Monk, I. 1, Rec., III. 727, says relatio gravis saepissime jam ad aures nostras pervenit. According to Baldric he appealed to the many among his hearers who could vouch for the desolate condition of the holy places from their own experience, Rec., IV. 14. See Hagenmeyer, 74-77.
So William of Tyre, Bk. I. 13. Later writers extend the journey of Peter inordinately.
William of Tyre does not mention this embassy. It may be because of the low opinion he had of Alexius, whom (II. 5) he pronounces scheming and perfidious.
There is no statement that the council formally decreed the Crusade. For the acts we are dependent upon scattered statements of chroniclers and several other unofficial documents.
Ranke, Weltgeschichte. According to William of Tyre, Peter the Hermit was present at Clermont. The contemporary writers do not mention his presence.
Gregorovius, IV. 287, is right when he says, "the Importance of Urban’s speech in universal history outweighs the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero."
Robert the Monk, I. 1, Rec., III. 727. The contemporary writers, giving an account of Urban’s speech, are Baldric, Guibert, Fulcher, and Robert the Monk. All of them were present at Clermont. William of Tyre greatly elaborates the address, and Röhricht calls William’s account an invention which is a masterpiece of its kind,—eine Erdichtung die ein Meisterstück seiner Art, etc., Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 20. Röhricht, pp. 235-239, and Munro, "Am. Hist. Rev.," 1906, pp. 231-243, make interesting attempts to reconstruct Urban’s address. The different accounts are not to be regarded as contradictory, but as supplementary one of the other. Röhricht, p. 20, expresses the opinion that none of the accounts of the address is "accurate." No doubt the spirit and essential contents are preserved. Urban made prominent the appeals for aid from the East, the desolations of Jerusalem, and the sufferings of Christians in the East. See Munro.
Fulcher, Rec., III. 324. I follow chiefly the accounts of Fulcher and Robert. Robert represents the appeals for aid as coming from Jerusalem and Constantinople.
Robert the Monk, I. 2 Rec., III. 729. The expression "navel of the earth,"umbilicus terrarum, used by Robert, was a common one for Jerusalem.
Baldric, Rec., IV. 15, via brevis est, labor permodicus est qui tamen immarcescibilem vobis rependet coronam. Gregory VII., Reg., II. 37, Migne, 148, 390, had made the same promise, quoting 2 Cor. iv. 17, that for the toils of a moment the Crusaders would secure an eternal reward.
Deus vult, Deos lo volt, Diex el volt. These are the different forms in which the response is reported. For this response in its Latin form, Robert the Monk is our earliest authority, I. 2, Rec., III. 729. He says una vociferatio "Deus vult, Deus vult."
In the First Crusade all the crosses were red. Afterwards green and white colors came into use. Urban himself distributed crosses. Guibert, II. 5, Rec., IV. 140, and Fulcher, I. 4, state that Urban had the Crusaders wear the cross as a badge.
Urban’s letters, following up his speech at Clermont, are given by Hagenmeyer, Epistulae, p. 136 sqq.
Petrum more heremi vilissima cappa tegebat, Radulf of Caen. The above description is taken from strictly contemporary accounts.
The statura brevis of Radulf becomes in William of Tyre’s account pusillus, persona contemptibilis.
I have thus translated Radulf’s spiritus acer.
Albert of Aachen: neminem invenerunt qui tam ferocissimo et superbo loqui auderet quousque Petrus.
So Guibert speaks of the crowds listening to him as tanta populorum multitudo. Hagenmeyer, p. 114, accepting Guibert’s statement, refers to immense throngs, ungeheure Zahl.
Guibert: quidquid agebat namque seu loquebatur quasi quiddam subdivinum videbatur.
So Ekkehard, XII., Rec., V. 20 sq. who has something derogatory to say of all of these preachers and also of Peter’s subsequent career. Quem postea multi hypocritam esse dicebant.
Robert the Monk, I. 5, Rec., III. 731. Super ipsos praesules et abbates apice religionis efferebatur.
Guibert: neminem meminerim similem honore haberi. Baldric speaks of him as Petrus quidam magnus heremita, or as we would say, "that great hermit, Peter."
Hegel, Philosophie der Gesch., p. 444, calls the Crusades "the culminating point of the Middle Ages." Contemporaries like Guibert of Nogent, 123, could think of no movement equal in glory with the Crusades. Ordericus Vitalis, III. 458, praised the union of peoples of different tongues in a project so praiseworthy.
For the account of these early expeditions, we are chiefly dependent upon Albert of Aachen. Guibert makes no distinction of sections, and has only a cursory notice of the expeditions before the arrival of Peter in Constantinople.
Sine Pecunia, Sansavoir, Habenichts. These preliminary expeditions, Röhricht and other historians call Die Züge der Bauern, the campaigns of the peasants.
See Hagenmeyer, 204 sq. Peter apologized to the emperor for the defeat on the ground of his inability to control his followers, who, he declared, were unworthy to see Jerusalem. Anna Comnena calls Peter the "inflated Latin."
I. 26.
Anna Comnena says the Crusaders flowed together from all directions like rivers. She gives the number of Peter’s army as eighty thousand foot and one hundred thousand horse. Fulcher speaks of the numbers setting out from the West as "an immense assemblage. The islands of the sea and the whole earth were moved by God to make contribution to the host. The sadness was for those who remained behind, the joy for those who departed."
This is upon the testimony of Albert of Aachen and Guibert. See Röhricht, Erster Kreuzzug, 240 sq., and references there given.
Mannheimer, Die Judenverfolgungen in Speier, Worms und Mainz im Jahre 1096, während des ersten Kreuzzuges, Darmstadt, 1877. Hagenmeyer, p. 139, clears Peter of Amiens of the shameful glory of initiating this racial massacre, and properly claims it for count Emich and his mob. See also Röhricht, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, 41-46.
Albert of Aachen, II. 18.
Gibbon calls him "a respectable prelate alike qualified for this world and the next."
Bouillon, not to be confounded with Boulogne-sur-mer, on the English Channel, is a town in Belgian Luxemburg, and was formerly the capital of the lordship of Bouillon, which Godfrey mortgaged to the bishop of Liège in 1095. It has belonged to Belgium since 1831.
Gibbon: "In the accomplished character of Tancred we discover all the virtues of a perfect knight, the true spirit of chivalry, which inspired the generous sentiments and social offices of man far better than the base philosophy, or the baser religion, of the time."
Fulcher, I. 13, Rec., III. 336.
Raymund of Agiles says Alexius treated the crusading army in such wise that so "long as ever he lives, the people will curse him and call him a traitor."
The contemporary authorities represent the reprimand as given to Carpentarius. As Hagenmeyer suggests, Peter was included and Carpentarius’name alone mentioned because he was of royal blood.
Among those who helped to dig for the weapon was Raymund of Agiles. Its authenticity was a matter of dispute, Adhemar being one of those who doubted. Barthelemy went through the ordeal of fire to prove the truth of his statements, but died in consequence of the injuries he suffered.
According to Robert the Monk, IV., Rec., III. 824, a heavenly sign was granted on the eve of the final attack, a flame burning in the western sky, ignis de coelo veniens ab occidente. One of the interesting remains of the crusadal period are two letters written by Stephen, count of Chartres, to his wife Adele, the one before Nicaea and the other during the siege of Antioch. They are given in Hagenmeyer, Epistulae, pp. 138, 149.
The figures are differently given. See Sybel, 412, and Röhricht, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, 183. William of Tyre gives the number as twenty-one thousand, and the army defending Jerusalem as forty thousand.
Raymund of Agiles reports that the Crusaders forgot the exhortation of Peter Barthelemy to make the last part of the journey barefoot. "They remembered their weariness no more, and hastening their steps reached the walls amidst tears and praises."
On this occasion Peter the Hermit and Arnulf, afterwards archbishop of Jerusalem, made addresses on the Mount of Olives to restore unity among the crusading leaders, especially Tancred and Raymund. Albert of Aachen, VI. 8, Rec., IV. 471, says, ad populos sermones ... plurimam discordiam quae inter Peregrinos de diversis causis excreverat exstinxerunt. Tancred had stirred up much jealousy by raising his banner over Bethlehem. Hagenmeyer, p. 259, accepts Albert’s account as genuine against Sybel.
Miles splendidus et refulgens.
Guibert, VII. 7, Rec., IV. 226; Robert the Monk, VII., Rec., III. 867.
So Raymund of Agiles, an eyewitness, usque ad genua et usque ad frenos equorum, XX., Rec, III. 300. This he calls "the righteous judgment of God."
So the Gesta: tales occisiones de paganorum gente nullus unquam audivit nec vidit ... nemo scit numerum eorum nisi solus deus. The slain are variously estimated from forty thousand to one hundred thousand. Guibert, Gesta, VII. 7, Rec., IV. 227, further says that in the temple area there was such a sea of blood, sanguinis unda, as almost to submerge the pedestrian.
IX., Rec., III. 869. Robert gives an awful picture of the streets filled with dismembered bodies and running with gore.
William of Tyre is the earliest witness to this scene. Leaving out embellishments, it does not seem to be at all unnatural. Hagenmeyer, pp. 265-269, calls it the "sheer invention of William’s fancy."
Sybel, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzugs, p. ii.
Hagenmeyer, Peter der Eremite, p. 102, says, Dem Papste allein ist der Ruhm zu erhalten den ihm der Einsiedler von Amiens bis auf unsere Tage zur grösseren Hälfte streitig gemacht hat. Also Sybel, p. 243.
Report of the Am. Hist. Association, 1900, p. 504 sq. See also the very emphatic statements of G. L.. Burr in art. The year 1000 and the Antecedents of the Crusades in the "Am. Hist. Rev.," April, 1901, pp. 429-439, and Trans. and Reprints of the Univ. of Pa., 1894, pp. 19 sqq.
The Speech of Urban II. etc., in "Am. Hist. Rev.," 1906, p. 232.
He says he reports what he heard, ex auditu et relatione.
Nach einer solchen Katastrophe war ofenbar auch bei diesen alles Ansehen für ihn dabei, Hagenmeyer, p. 204.
Ut stellae quoque juxta Apocalypsim de coelo cadere viderentur, Petrus ille, etc.
Ekkehard XIII., Rec., V. 21, says that Peter’s cohorts became the object of derision to the Turks as soon as they reached Asia Minor, cohortes ...paganis fuerant jam ludibrio factae.
Hagenmeyer, pp. 220 sqq., 243, suggests that at the time of William’s writing such things were no longer told.
The official title of the kings was rex Latinorum in Hierusalem. In rejecting the crown, says William of Tyre, "Godfrey did so as a believing prince. He was the best of kings, the light and mirror of all others,"lumen et speculum, IX. 9, Rec., I. 377. The clergy had dreamed of the complete subjection of the civil government of Jerusalem to the spiritual government under the patriarch. The first patriarch not only secured for his jurisdiction one-fourth of Jerusalem and Jaffa, but the promise from Godfrey of the whole of both cities, provided Godfrey was successful in taking Cairo or some other large hostile city, or should die without male heirs. See Röhricht, Gesch. des ersten Kreuzzuges, p. 218.
See Dagobert’s appeal in Hagenmeyer, Epistulae, 176 sq., 412 sqq. He speaks of "Jerusalem as the most excellent of all places for sanctity," and says that "for this reason it was oppressed by the pagans and infidels." Fulcher, writing of the year 1100, declares that there were only three hundred knights and as many footmen left for the defence of Jerusalem, Jaffa, and Ramleh. See quotation in Hagenmeyer, 415.
Hic jacet inclitus dux Godefridus de Bouillon qui totam sitam terram acquisivit cultui christiano, cujus anima regnet cum Christo.
According to Raymund of Agiles, Arnulf was a man of loose life and his amours subjects of camp songs.
From the fall of Acre, 1291 to 1848, the patriarchs, with two exceptions, lived in Rome. In 1848 Valerga, appointed patriarch by Pius IX., took up his residence in Jerusalem.
Wilken devotes a long treatment to the subject, I. pp. 307-424.
Fulani, "anybodies." The designation fulan ibn fulan, "so and so, the son of so and so," is a most opprobrious mode of address among the Arabs.
The following mode of reducing a tribe of robbers is characteristic. The robbers took refuge in a cave. Baldwin resorted to smoking them out. Two emerged; Baldwin spoke kindly to them, dressed one up and sent him back with fair promises, while he put the other to death. Ten others emerged. One was sent back and the other nine put to death. The same method was employed till two hundred and thirty had been induced to come forth and were put to death. The fires were then started again till all came forth and met the same fate.
From this point William of Tyre writes as an eye-witness, XVI. sqq.
According to the letter of Terricius, Master of the Temple, two hundred and ninety Templars perished, and the Saracens covered the whole land from Tyre to Gaza like swarms of ants. Richard of Hoveden, an. 1187, says the Templars fought like lions.
Saladin offered a glass of water to Guy. When Guy handed It to Reginald, Saladin exclaimed, "I did not order that. You gave it," and at once despatched Reginald by his own hand, or through a servant. Reginald had plundered a caravan in which Saladin’s sister was travelling. Lane-Poole, Saladin, p. 215.
The bezant was worth three dollars.
See Otto of Freising, VII. 30.
Gottlob, Kreuzablass, 106 sqq. Eugenius quoted Urban II’s decree of indulgence at Clermont.
De consideratione, II. 1, Reinkens’translation, pp. 31-37. In this chapter of his famous tract, Bernard explains and justifies his course in the Crusade.
Odo, I. 1, caeperunt undique conclamando cruces expetere ... coactus est vestes suas in cruces scindere et seminare.
As a proof of Konrad’s strength, William of Tyre, XVII. 4, relates that at the siege of Damascus he hewed a man clad in armor through head, neck, and shoulder to the armpit with one stroke of his blade.
Bk. XVI. 20. William suggests that Manuel’s jealousy was aroused because Konrad asserted the title, king of the Romans. Diehl, Essays on the Crusades, p. 107, doubts the statement that Manuel’s guides intentionally misled and betrayed the Germans. He, however, acknowledges that Greek inhabitants of Asia Minor "fleeced or starved the Latins."
William of Tyre, XVII., gives a list of the distinguished personages present, Bishop Otto of Freising, the emperor’s brother, being among them.
De consideratione, II. 1.
The story of Richard’s seizing a lion and tearing out its throbbing heart was a subject of English romance in the fourteenth century and probably of French romance in the thirteenth century.
It required at least fifteen days for a ship to go from Acre to Marseilles, and about the same time for news to reach Rome from Jerusalem. The indulgences offered to Crusaders by Alexander III., on the news of Saladin’s conquests in Egypt and his defeat of the Christians at Banias, 1181, are quoted by Gottlob, 119 sq. Alexander appealed to the examples of Urban II, and Eugenius III.
He sold the archbishopric of York for 3,000 pounds. Henry is reported to have left 900,000 pounds in gold and silver. Rog. of Wendover, an. 1180.
Richard of Devizes, X.
Giraldus Cambrensis accompanied the archbishop and gathered the materials for his itinerary on the way.
Frederick announced his expedition in a letter to Saladin, in which he enumerated the tribes that were to take part in it, from the "tall Bavarian" to the sailors of Venice and Pisa. See Itin. reg. Ricardi de Hoveden, etc.
Ranke, VIII. 246 sqq., spicily speculates upon the possible consequences of Isaac’s dethronement, and, as a German, regrets that Frederick did not take the prize, Es war ein Moment das nicht so leicht wieder kommen konnte.
Another account by one who accompanied the expedition was that in his impatience to proceed, Barbarossa strove to swim the river and was drowned. Ranke, VIII. 249, regards the view taken in the text as the better one.
Itinerary, III. 16.
Richard’s fleet, when he sailed from Messina, consisted of one hundred and fifty large ships and fifty-three galleys.
The Itinerary, III. 2, says Richard’s arrival was welcomed with transports of joy, shoutings, and blowing of trumpets. He was taken ashore as if the desired of all nations had come, and the night was made so bright with wax torches and flaming lights "that it seemed to be usurped by the brightness of the day, and the Turks thought the whole valley was on fire." Richard of Devizes, LXIII., says, "The besiegers received Richard with as much joy as if it had been Christ who had come again."
The Itinerary, I., 66, says Baldwin was made sick unto death when he saw "the army altogether dissolute and given up to drinking, women, and dice."
The loss before Acre was very heavy. The Itinerary gives a list of 6 archbishops, 12 bishops, 40 counts, and 500 knights who lost their lives. IV. 6. De Hoveden also gives a formidable list, in which are included the names of the dukes of Swabia, Flanders, and Burgundy, the archbishops of Besançon, Arles, Montreal, etc. Baldwin died Nov. 19, 1190. The Itinerary compares the siege of Acre to the siege of Troy, and says. (I. 32) "it would certainly obtain eternal fame as a city for which the whole world contended."
The Itinerary and other documents make frequent reference to its deadly use. Among the machines used on both sides were the petrariae, which hurled stones, and mangonels used for hurling stones and other missiles. Itinerary, III. 7, etc. One of the grappling machines was called a "cat." The battering ram was also used, and the sow, a covering under which the assailants made their approach to the walls. King Richard was an expert in the use of the arbalest, or cross-bow.
The price of a loaf of bread rose from a penny to 40 shillings, and a horseload of corn was sold for 60 marks. De Hoveden, etc. Horse flesh was greedily eaten, even to the intestines, which were sold for 10 sols. Even grass was sought after to appease hunger. A vivid description of the pitiful sufferings from famine is given in the Itinerary, I. 67-83.
Itinerary, I. 44.
This pretext is upon the sole authority of de Hoveden, an. 1191. He says, however, that Saladin did not execute the Christian captives until Richard had declined to withdraw his threat and to give more time for the payment of the ransom money and the delivery of the true cross. Archer, Hist. of the Crusades, p. 331, thinks that Baba-ed-din’s account implies Saladin’s massacre; but Lane-Poole, Life of Saladin, p. 307, is of the contrary opinion. The Itinerary, IV. 4, states that Richard’s followers, leapt forward to fulfil his commands, thankful to the divine grace for the permission to take such vengeance for the Christians whom the captives had slain with bolts and arrows."It has nothing to say of a massacre by Saladin. Lane-Poole, carried away by admiration for Saladin, takes occasion at this point to say that " in the struggle of the Crusades the virtues of civilization, magnanimity, toleration, real chivalry, and gentle culture were an on the side of the Saracens."The duke of Burgundy was party to the massacre of the Turkish captives.
Itinerary, VI. 23. Here is a description of one of Richard’s frequent frays as given in the Itinerary, VI. 4: "Richard was conspicuous above all the rest by his royal bearing. He was mounted on a tall charger and charged the enemy singly. His ashen lance was shivered by his repeated blows; but instantly drawing his sword, he pressed upon the fugitive Turks and mowed them down, sweeping away the hindmost and subduing the foremost. Thus he thundered on, cutting and hewing. No kind of armor could resist his blows, for the edge of his sword cut open the heads from the top to the teeth. Thus waving his sword to and fro, he scared away the routed Turks as a wolf when he pursues the flying sheep."
De Joinville, Life of St. Louis , an. 1253, says no doubt with the truth that Richard would have taken Jerusalem but for the envy and treachery of the Duke of Burgundy. He repeats the saying of Richard, which is almost too good not to be true. When an officer said, "Sire, come here and I will show you Jerusalem," the king throwing down his arms and looking up to heaven exclaimed, "I pray thee, O Lord God, that I may never look on the Holy City until I can deliver it from thy enemies." The Itinerary has nothing to say on the subject. Richard of Devizes, XC., states that Hubert, bishop of Salisbury, after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, urged the king to go in as a pilgrim, but that "the worthy indignation of his noble mind would not consent to receive from the courtesy of the Gentiles what he could not obtain by the gift of God."
Baha-ed-din, as quoted by Lane-Poole, p. 354. De Hoveden speaks of fruits, the Itinerary of horses. Later story ascribes to Saladin a yearly grant of one thousand bezants of gold to the Knights of St. John at Acre. In order to test the charity of the knights, the sultan had gone to the hospital in disguise and found the reports of their merciful treatment well founded. Of this and of the story of his knighthood at the hands of Humphrey of Toron, and vouched for by the contemporary Itinerary of King Richard, the Arab authorities know nothing. See Lane-Poole,Life of Saladin, 387 sqq.
A western legend given by Vincent de Beauvais relates that as Saladin was dying he called to him his standard-bearer and bade him carry through the streets of Damascus the banner of his death as he had carried the banner of his wars; namely, a rag attached to a lance, and cry out. "Lo, at his death, the king of the East can take nothing with him but this cloth only."
TheItinerary gives a story of Saladin and the notorious miracle of the holy fire until recently shown in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It may well be true. When Saladin, on one occasion, saw the holy flame descend and light a lamp, he ordered the lamp blown out to show it was a fraud. But it was immediately rekindled as if by a miracle. Extinguished a second and a third time, it was again and again rekindled. "Oh, what use is it to resist the invisible Power!" exclaims the author of the Itinerary, V. 16.
Hurter regards the numbers handed down as greatly exaggerated.
An epigram, dwelling upon the folly of the movement, ran:—
"Ad mare stultorum
Tendebat iter puerorum ."
"To the sea of the fools
Led the path of the children."
Wilken for this assertion quotes theHistory of the Genoese Senate and People, by Peter Bizari, Antwerp, 1679. One of the families was the house of the Vivaldi.
See Wilken, VI. 83.
So Wilken, Sie ist durch die Zeugnisse glaubwürdiger Geschichtschreiber so fest begründet, dass ihre Wahrheit nicht bezweifelt werden kann, p. 72. Röhricht, Hist. Zeitschrift, XXXVI. 5, also insists upon the historical genuineness of the reports.
See the ample description of Hurter, I. pp. 221-230, etc.
Epp. of Innocent, I. 353, 354, etc., Migne, 214, 329 sqq.
Ep. I. 353, Migne, 214, 325 sqq.
Guntherus, Migne, 212, 225.
A French translation of Innocent’s letter commissioning Fulke to preach the Crusade is given by Charasson, p. 99.
Thibaut, then twenty-two, and Louis, then twenty-seven, were nephews of the king of France, Villehardouin, 3; Wailly’s ed., p. 5. Thibaut died before the Crusaders started from France.
Villehardouin, who was one of the six members of the commission (Wailly’s ed., p. 11), says, "The Turks could be more easily destroyed there than in any other country." Egypt was often called by the Crusaders, "the land of Babylon."
Wailly’s edition of Villehardouin, p. 452, makes the sum 4,420,000 francs. It reckons a mark as the equivalent of 52 francs. The Grand Council added fifty armed galleys "for the love of God," on condition that during the continuance of the alliance Venice should have one-half the spoils of conquest.
Villehardouin describes him as a man de bien grand coeur. He died at ninety-seven, in 1205, and was buried in the Church of St. Sophia. In his reply to the deputation, the doge recognized the high birth of the Crusaders in the words, "we perceive that the lords are in the highest rank of those who do not wear a crown" (Villehardouin, 16; Wailly’s ed., 13).
Villehardouin, 56 sqq.; Wailly’s ed., 33 sq.
Villehardouin mentions only the proposition to go against Zara. Robert of Clary and other writers state that Dandolo made a previous proposition that the fleet should proceed to Mohammedan territory and that the first booty should be used to pay the Crusaders’debt. He then substituted the proposition to go against Zara, and the Crusaders were forced by their circumstances to accept. There is some ground for the charge that in May, 1202, Dandolo made a secret treaty with the sultan of Egypt. See Pears, 271 sqq.
Villehardouin and Robert de Clary. Clary’s account is very vivacious and much the more detailed of the two.
A deputation afterwards visited Innocent and secured his absolution, Villehardouin, 107; Wailly’s ed., 61. The news of the death of Fulke of Neuilly reached the Crusaders on the eve of their breaking away from Venice. Villehardouin, 73; Wailly’s ed., 43, calls him le bon, le saint homme.
Villehardouin, 109. Pears, p. 268, speaks pathetically of the Crusaders as "about to commit the great crime of the Middle Ages, by the destruction of the citadel against which the hitherto irresistible wave of Moslem invasion had beaten and been broken." Not praiseworthy, it is true, was the motive of the Crusaders, yet there is no occasion for bemoaning the fate of Constantinople and the Greeks. The conquest of the Latins prolonged the successful resistance to the Turks.
Arabs were allowed to live in the city and granted the privileges of their religious rites. Gibbon with characteristic irony says. "The Flemish pilgrims were scandalized by the aspect of a mosque or a synagogue in which one God was worshipped without a partner or a son."
Villehardouin, 233, Wailly’s ed. p. 137, pronounces the capture of Constantinople one of the most difficult feats ever undertaken, une des plus redoutables choses à faire qui jamais fut. A city of such strong fortifications the Franks had not seen before.
Hurter (I. p. 685), comparing the conquest of Constantinople with the capture of Jerusalem, exalts the piety of Godfrey and the first Crusaders over against the Venetians and their greed for booty. He forgot the awful massacre in Jerusalem.
Reg., VIII. Ep., 133.
Nicetas gives a list of these losses. See Gibbon, LX., and Hurter.
Villehardouin, 191; Wailly’s ed., 111, says des reliques it n’en faut point parler, car en ce jour il y en avait autant dans la ville que dans le reste du monde. The account of Guntherus, Migne, 212, 253 sqq., is the most elaborate. His informant the Abbot Martin, was an insatiable relic hunter.
See Riant; Hurter, I. 694-702; Pears, 365-370. A volume would scarce contain the history, real and legendary, of these objects of veneration.
A curious account is given by Dalmatius of Sergy, of his discovery of the head of St. Clement in answer to prayer, and the deception he practised in making away with it. The relic went to Cluny and was greatly prized. See Hurter. The successful stealth of Abbot Martin is told at length by the German Guntherus, Migne, 212, 251 sq.
Matthew Paris, in his account, says, "It was precious beyond gold or topaz, and to the credit of the French kingdom, and indeed, of all the Latins, it was solemnly and devoutly received in grand procession amidst the ringing of bells and the devout prayers of the faithful followers of Christ, and was placed in the king’s chapel in Paris." Luard’s ed., IV. 75; Giles’s trans., I. 311.
The mode of election was fixed before the capture of the city, Villehardouin, 234, 256-261; Wailly’s ed., 137,152 sqq. The election took place in a chamber of the palace. The leader of the French forces, Boniface of Montferrat, married the widow of the emperor Isaac and was made king of Salonica. Innocent III. (VIII. 134, Migne, 215, 714) congratulated Isaac’s widow upon her conversion to the Latin Church.
He wrote to Baldwin that, while it was desirable the Eastern Church should be subdued, he was more concerned that the Holy Land should be rescued. He urged him and the Venetians to eat the bread of repentance that they might fight the battle of the Lord with a pure heart.
The Greek patriarch had left the city reduced to a state of apostolic poverty, of which Gibbon, LXI, says that "had it been voluntary it might perhaps have been meritorious."
Pears concludes his work, The Fall of Constantinople, by the false judgment that the effects of the Fourth Crusade were altogether disastrous for civilization. He surmises that, but for it, the city would never have fallen into the hands of the Turks, and the Sea of Marmora and the Black Sea would now be surrounded by "prosperous and civilized nations," pp. 412 sqq. There was no movement of progress in the Byzantine empire for the Crusaders to check.
Plenam suorum peccaminum veniam indulgemus. See Mansi, XXII. 1067; Mirbt, Quellen, 126, Gottlob, 137 sq.
For the text of Frederick’s summons to his crusade of 1221, see Mathews, Select Med. Documents, 120 sq.
Funk, in Wetzer-Welte, VII. 1166, says that in view of contemporary testimony, Frederick’s sickness cannot be doubted. Roger Wendover, an. 1227, however, doubted it. Funk is wrong in saying that it was not till 1239 that Gregory, aggravated by the emperor’s conduct, impeached Frederick’s plea of sickness. In his sentence of excommunication of 1228, Gregory asserted that Frederick II "was enticed away to the usual pleasures of his kingdom and made a frivolous pretext of bodily infirmity." In 1235, at a time when emperor and pope were reconciled, Gregory spoke of Jerusalem, "as being restored to our well-beloved son in Christ, Frederick."
See Röhricht, Regesta regni Hier., 262, and Bréholles, III. 86-90.
Geroldus was patriarch of Jerusalem and notified Gregory IX. of Frederick’s "fraudulent pact with the Egyptian sultan." Röhricht, 263.
In 1240 a petition signed by German bishops and princes and addressed to Gregory urged him to cease from strife with Frederick as it interfered with a crusade. Bréholles, V. 985.
Hist. Essays, I. 283-313.
Bréholles, V. 327-340.
"Piety was his ruling passion." Guizot, p. 117. De Joinville frequently calls him "the good king" and Matthew Paris "that most Christian king."
See the account in a letter from the prelates of the Holy Land in Matthew Paris, an. 1244. The invaders were called Tartars by Robert, patriarch of Jerusalem, in his letter to Innocent IV. Röhriclit, Reg. regni Hier., p. 299.
Joinville, accompanied by twenty knights, joined the king at Cyprus. He was a man of religious fervor, made pilgrimages to all the shrines in the vicinity of his castle before his departure, and never failed in his long absence to confine himself to bread and water on Fridays (History, an. 1250). One of his paragraphs gives a graphic insight into the grief which must have been felt by thousands of Crusaders as they left their homes for the long and uncertain journey to the East. It runs: "In passing near the castle of Joinville, I dared never turn my eyes that way for fear of feeling too great regret and lest my courage should fail on leaving my children and my fair castle of Joinville, which I loved in my heart."
Joinville speaks of Louis having "as much trouble in keeping his own people together in time of peace as in the time of his ill fortunes."an. 1249.
Within a stone’s throw of the king’s tent were several brothels. A curious punishment was prescribed by the king for a knight caught with a harlot at Acre. Joinville, pt. II. an. 1250, Bohn’s trans. 484.
See the appalling description of Joinville, an. 1249.
Joinville, an. 1250.
Joinville, an. 1253.
Joinville declined the king’s appeal to accompany him, and advised against the expedition on the ground of the peaceable state of France with the king at home, and of the king’s physical weakness which prevented him from wearing armor or sitting on horseback long at a time.
Since 1881 a dependency of France.
The sultan had agreed to pay yearly tribute to Roger II. In the treaty made at the close of the expedition, he agreed to make up the arrearages of tribute to Charles.
M. Paris, an. 1271
The question whether the king’s heart was deposited in the Sainte Chapelle at Paris or not, led to a spirited discussion in 1843. See Letronne, Examen critique de la découverte du pretendu coeur de St. Louis faite a la Sainte Chapelle le 15 Mai 1843, Paris, 1844; Lenormant, Preuves de la découverte du coeur de St. Louis, Paris, 1846.
For a contemporary description of Acre, see Itin. regis Ricardi, I. 32.
Com. in Jerem., see Neander, Ch. Hist., IV. 189 sqq., Engl. trans.
Mansi, XXIV. 111-120.
Contemplations of God. See Zwemer, Life of Raymund Lull, 52, 149.
Enchiridion militis christiani, Methuen’s ed. 1905, p. 8 sq.
No appellation was too degrading to give to the enemies of the cross. The most common one was dogs. The biographers of Richard I. have no compunction in relating in one line gifts made by Saracens and in the next calling them dogs. See Itin. Ricardi, etc. So Walter Map says sepulchrum et crux Domini praeda sunt canum quorum fames in tantum lassata fuit et sanguine martyrorum, etc., Wright’s ed., I. 15, p. 229.
So Humbert de Romanis, 1274; Mansi, XXIV. 116. A sixth objection against the Crusades as stated and answered by him ran as follows: quod ex ista pugna non sequitur fructus spiritualis quia Saraceni magis convertuntur ad blasphemiam quam ad fidem; occisi autem ad infernum mittuntur, etc.
II. 338, etc.
Archer, p. 447, well says: "They raised mankind above the ignoble sphere of petty ambitions to seek after an ideal that was neither sordid nor selfish. They called forth all that was heroic in human nature, and filled the world with the inspiration of noble thoughts and deeds."
Decline and Fall, LVIII.
This is clearly apparent from the English and other mediaeval chronicles, such as the Chronicles of M. Paris, Hoveden, etc.
The ships of the two great Military Orders alone carried great numbers of pilgrims. In 1182 one of their ships was wrecked on the Egyptian coast with 1500 pilgrims. In 1180 several vessels met the same fate, 2500 pilgrims were drowned and 1500 sold into slavery. In 1246 their ships carried from the port of Marseilles alone 6000 pilgrims. See Prutz in Essays, p. 54. This author, in laying weight upon the economic influences of the Crusades, says properly, that they "had only in part to do with religion, and particularly with the church," p. 77. Arabic words, such as damask, tarif, and bazar, were introduced into the vocabularies of European nations, and products, such as saffron, maize, melons, and little onions, were carried back by the Crusaders. The transfer of money made necessary the development of the system of letters of credit.
The Crusades, said the eloquent Dr. Richard S. Storrs, Bernard of Clairvaux, p. 558, furnished "as truly an ideal enthusiasm as that of any one who has sought to perform his missionary work in distant lands or has wrought into permanent laws and Institutions the principles of equity and the temper of love. And they must forever remain an example resplendent and shining of what an enthusiasm that is careless of obstacles and fearless of danger can accomplish."
494 At the battle of Gaza with the Chorasmians, 1244, of two hundred and sixteen Knights of St. John who entered the battle, two hundred remained dead on the field.
495 After the battle of Tiberias, the Knights of St. John, for a few years, made their strong fortress, Margat, the base of their operations.
496 See M. Paris, an. 1259. The famous antithesis of Gibbon (chap. LVIII.) pleases the ear and contains some truth, but makes a wrong impression. "The Knights of the Temple and St. John neglected to live, but they prepared to die in the service of Christ."
497 The synod of Salzburg, 1292, decided in favor of the union.
498 Fratres hospitalis S. Johannis, Hospitalarii, Johannitae, milites hospitalis S. Johannis. From the fourteenth century they were also known as the Knights of Rhodes and from the sixteenth as the Knights of Malta. For a list of the houses of the female members of this order, Le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers, 300 sq.
499 The bull of Pascal, II. 1113, speaks of the hospital in Jerusalem adjoining the church of the Baptist, xenodochium ... juxta Beati Johannis Baptistae ecclesiam.
500 William of Tyre, XVIII. 5; de Vitry, Hist. Jerus., 64. The Mary, whose name the convent bore, was Mary Magdalene.
501 Le Roulx, Les Hospitaliers, 33, connects the order with the hospital founded by Maurus,nous croyons pouvoir persister à penser que les Amalfitans furent les précurseurs des Hospitaliers
502 William of Tyre, VII. 23, states that he was held in chains during the siege of Jerusalem.
503 See Le Roulx, pp. 44 sqq. Gerard is called in an old chronicle "Guardian of the hospital of the poor in Jerusalem," guardianus hospitalis pauperum, etc., Hurter, IV. 315, note
504 Woodhouse, p. 20, gives a list of no less than fifty-four houses belonging to the Hospital in England.
505 The bull in Mansi, XXI. 780.
506 They were monks. The order had no priests until the time of Alexander III., who gave it the right to receive priests and clerics. Priests became necessary in order that the new custom might be followed which gave to priests alone the right of absolution. During the first century of their existence, the members of military orders made confession of their sins in the open chapters and were punished at the order of the Master by public scourging or otherwise. The strict church law of confession and of absolution by the priest was not defined till later by the Fourth Lateran Council, and Thomas Aquinas. See Lea, The Absolution Formula of the Templars.
507 Le Roulx, 290 sq.
508 For the formula of admission, see Le Roulx, 288 sq.
509 See Uhlhorn for the amount of linen and other goods expected from the various houses in Europe. There was a female branch of the order of which, however, very little is known. In 1188 Sancha, queen of Aragon, founded a rich convent for it at Sixena near Saragossa.
510 On October 31, 1898, the emperor William II. of Germany, while on a visit to Jerusalem, dedicated the Protestant church of the Redeemer, built on the ancient site of the hospital of the Knights of St. John, opposite the church of the Holy Sepulchre.
511 Templarii, fratres militiae templi, equites templarii, pauperes commilitiones Christi templique Salamonis, are some of the titles by which they were known. There was not nearly as much resemblance between the Hospitallers and Templars as between the Templars and Teutonic knights. Curzon, p. xi.
512 William of Tyre. See Hefele, V. 401 sq.
513 De laude novae militiae.
514 On St. Bernard’s services to the order, see the biographies by Morison, 141 sqq., and Storrs, 567-574.
515 In England they settled at the old Temple outside of Holborn, whence they removed to the new Temple on the Thames, 1185. The Temple church was completed in 1240. M. Paris gives an account of the dedication and the banquet which was provided by the Hospitallers. Stephen and his queen gave the Templars several places about 1150. Woodhouse, p. 260, gives a list of twenty-seven English houses.
516 An. 1244.
517 At the end of the thirteenth century. This is the estimate of de Chambure. Schottmüller estimates them at 40,000,000 francs. William of Tyre, XII. 7, speaks of their possessions as "immense." Their wealth and greed were proverbial.
518 Funk calls Alexander’s bull the Magna Charta of the order. Wetzer-Welte, XI. 1315.
519 With reference to 1 Pet. 5:8, Curzon, 58.
520 Non nobis, Domine, non nobis sed tuo nomini da gloriam.
521 Curzon, XXVII.
522 Fugiat feminae oscula Christi militia, Mansi, XXI. 72; also Schnürer, 153.
523 Schnürer, Rule XI. p. 138.
524 M. Paris, Luard’s ed., IV. 337 sqq., gives the letters from the patriarch of Jerusalem and the vice-master of the Temple, 1244. This chronicler is very severe upon the Templars for their arrogant pride and their jealous rivalry of the Hospitallers. An example of this jealousy was their refusal to accompany King Amalric to Egypt because to the Hospitallers had been assigned first place.
525 Among their fortresses was the castle Pilgrim near Acre, built 1218, whose great size and splendor are described by James de Vitry.
526 The houses of the order became important money centres in France and England in the thirteenth century, and furnished to kings, bishops, and nobles a safety-deposit for funds and treasures of plate, jewels, and important records. Henry III. and other English kingss borrowed from them, as did also French kings. The Templars also acted as disbursers for monies loaned by Italian bankers or as trustees for other monies, as, for example, the annual grant of one thousand marks promised by John to his sister-in-law, Berengaria. John frequently stopped at the house of the Templars in London. See Cunningham, Growth of English Industries and Commerce, 3d ed. Leopold Delisle, Les operationsfinancières des Templiers, Paris, 1889. Eleanor Ferris, Financial Relations of the Knights Templars to the English Crown, in "Am. Hist. Rev.," October, 1902.
527 Charasson, quoting Richard de Hoveden, Vie de Foulques de Neuilly, 89 sq.
528 Deutscher Orden, Ordo S. Mariae Theutonicorum.
529 Under the name domus hospitalis S. Mariae Theutonicorum in Jerusalem. A German hospital was dedicated in Jerusalem to St. Mary, 1128.
530 At the council of Constance, 1416, the king of Poland protested against their right to convert by the sword.
531 In the conflict of Lewis the Bavarian with the papacy, the Teutonic order espoused the emperor’s cause and received from him important gifts and privileges.
532 Fratres militiae Christi, gladiferi, a military order founded in 1202.
533 Kleider aus, Kleider an, Essen, Trinken, Schlafengehen, ist die Arbeit so die Deutsche Herren han.
534 Luther in 1523 wrote a tract calling upon the Teutonic knights to abandon their false rule of celibacy and to practise the true chastity of marriage. Ermahnung an die Herren Deutschen Ordens falsche Keuschheit zu meiden und zur rechten ehelichen Keuschheit zu greifen. Albrecht introduced the Lutheran reformation into Brandenburg. He married the Danish princess Dorothea.
535 Several orders combining military and religious vows existed in Spain and Portugal and did service against the Moors. The order of Iago of Campostella received the papal sanction in 1175 and protected pilgrims to the shrine of Campostella. The order of Calatrava received papal approval 1164, and took an active part in the struggle against the Moors. The order of Alcantara was recognized by Lucius III., 1183. The headship of the last two bodies was transferred to the crown under Ferdinand the Catholic.