Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 6 (1897).djvu/335

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIEE 313 side of the Fatimites ; but, except three thousand Ethiopians or Blacks, who were armed with flails or scourges of iron, the bar- barians of the South fled on the first onset, and afforded a pleasing comparison between the active valour of the Turks and the sloth and effeminacy of the natives of EgA'pt. After sus- pending before the holv sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new king (he deserves the title) embraced his departing companions, and could retain only Mith the gallant Tanci-ed three hundred knights and two thousand foot-soldiers for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a coward. Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, Avho excelled both in council and action, had been swept away in the last plague of Antioch ; the remaining ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character ; and their seditious clamours had required that the choice of a bishop should precede that of a king. The revenue and jurisdiction of the lawful patriarch Avere usurped by the Latin clergy ; the exclusion of the Greeks and Sp-ians was justified by the reproach of heresy or schism ; ^--^ and, under the iron yoke of their deliverers, the Oriental Christians re- gretted the tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert, Archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of Rome : he brought a fleet of his countrvmen to the succour of the Holy Land, and was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual and temporal head of the church. The new patriarch ^-^ immediately grasped the sceptre which had been acquired by the toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims ; and both Godfrey and Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the investiture of their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient ; Daimbert claimed the immediate property of Jei'u- salem and Jaffa : instead of a firm and generous refusal, the hero negotiated with the priest ; a quarter of either city was ceded to the church ; and the modest bishop was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on the death of Godfrey without children, or on the future acquisition of a new seat at Cairo or Damascus. 123 Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 479. !-•* See the claims of the patriarch Daimbert, in William of Tyre (1. ix. c. 15-18, X. 4, 7, 9), who asserts with marvellous candour the independence of the conquerors and kings of Jerusalem. [Arnulf was first elected Patriarch, but was deposed and replaced by Daimbert. (p. Guibertus, vii. c. 15. Albert of Aix says that Daim- bert owed his election chiefly to money, collectione potens pecuniae cjuam electione jiovae ecclesiae (vii. c. 7).]