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 354 THE DECLINE AND FALL 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 saia*^°' o^ Saladin. The Orientals describe his edifying death, which March4^' happened at Damascus ; but they seem ignorant of the equal distribution of his alms among the three religions,^o or of the display of a shroud, instead of a standard, to 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 Fi-anks or Latins stood, and breathed, and hoped, in their for- tresses along the Syrian coast. Ai)"^u98-m6 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. The practice was too lucrative to expire with the occasion ; and this tribute be- came 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.^2 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 accom- plishment 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 90 Even Vertot (torn. i. p. 251) adopts the foolish notion of the indifference of Saladin, who professed the Koran with his last breath. 91 See the succession of the Ayoubites, in Abulpharagius (Dynast, p. 227, &c.), and the tables of M. de Guignes, I'Art de Verifier les Dates, and the Biblioth^que Orieniale. 9-Thomassin (Discipline de I'Eglise, torn. 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. ii. p. 1083). 9^ See the Gesta Innocentii III. [by a contemporary] in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital. (torn. iii. p. 486-568) [Migne, P. L. 214, p. xvii sqq.