Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/665

Rh CRUSADES 631 way from Acre to Jerusalem were alleged as a sufficient reason for sending out the expedition headed by Richard, earl of Cornwall (brother of the English Henry III., and afterwards king of the Romans). This expedition may be regarded as the seventh in the list of the crusades, and deserves notice as having been brought to an end, like that of Frederick, by a treaty, 1240. The terms of the later covenant were even more favourable to the Christians ; but two years later the Latin power, such as it was, was swept away by the inroad of Korasmians, pushed onwards by the hordes of Jenghiz Khan. The awful havoc thus caused was alleged by Pope Innocent IV. as a reason for Mb. again summoning Christendom to the rescue of the Holy Land. But nearly seven years passed away before the French king, Louis IX., was able to set sail for Egypt on the eighth crusade. This royal saint, who lives for us iu the quaint and graphic chronicle of his seneschal Joinville, may with truth be said to have been animated by a spirit of devotion and self-sacrifice which no other crusading lender manifested in anything like the same measure. Intolerant in theory, if he could bs said to have any theory, and bigoted in language, Louis had that true charity which would make him succour his enemies not less readily than his friends. Nor was his bravery less signal than his gentleness. It was displayed not only on the battle-field, but during the prolonged miseries of a captivity in which he underwent keener pain for the sufferings of others than for his own. He had, indeed, the highest virtues of the monk, the most ardent love of justice and truth, the most vehement hatred of wrong ; but as he laid no claim to the qualities of a general, so most assuredly it cannot Lc said that ha possessed them. His dauntless courage saved his army from complete destruction at Mausourah, 1249 ; but his offer to exchange Damietta for Jerusalem was rejected, and in the retreat, during which they were com-i ty pelled to fight at desperate disadvantage, Louis was taken juis. prisoner. With serene patience, with unwavering firmness, and with an unclouded trust in God, he underwent .sufferings for which the Saracens, so Joinville tells i:r,, frankly confessed that they would have renounced Mahomet ; and when the payment of his ransom set him free, he made a pilgrimage in sackcloth to Nazareth, 1250. With a firmness which nothing could shake he denied himself the solace of looking on the holy city. His sense of duty would not allow him to reap the, fruits of an enterprize in which he had failed, and so to set an evil example to others. As a general he had achieved nothing, but his humiliation involved no dishonour; and the genuineness of his faith, his devotion, and his love had been fully tested in the furnace of affliction. ith The crusading fire was now rapidly burning itself out. In the West there was nothing to awaken again the enthusiasm which had been stirred by Peter the Hermit and by Bernard ; while in Palestine itself almost the only signs of genuine activity were furnished by the antagonism of the religious military orders. There was, in truth, disunion and schism everywhere. The relations between the Venetians and the men of Genoa and Pisa were at best those of a hollow truce ; and the quarrels of the Templars and Hospitallers led in 1259 to a pitched battle, in which almost all the Templars were slain. Some eight years later the tidings that Antioch had been taken by the Infidels revived in St Louis the old yearning for the rescue of the holy places ; but he modestly expressed his fear that his sins might again bring on the Christian arms the disasters of his Egyptian expedition. Cheered by the sympathy of the Pope Clement IV., he embarked with an army of 60,000 men, 1270; but a storm drove his ships to Sardinia, and thence they sailed for Tunis. They had encamped, it is said, on the site of Carthage, when a plague broke out. The saintly king was among the victims ; and this truest of all crusaders died uttering the words, &quot; I will enter Thy house, Lord ; I will worship in Thy sanctuary.&quot; The arrival of the English Edward, who was soon to succeed to the throne on the death of Henry III., brought about no immediate change in the circumstances of the crusaders. In the following year Edward reached Acre, took Nazareth the inhabitants of which he massacred fell sick, and during his sickness narrowly escaped being murdered by an assassin sent by the emir of Joppa. Having made a peace for ten years, he returned to Europe ; and the ninth and last crusade was at an end. An earnest attempt to renew the struggle was made in the Council of Lyons, 1274, by Gregory X., Edward s friend; and Rodolf of Hapsburg pledged himself to join the expedition then decreed ; but in less than two years Gregory died, and the scheme fell to the ground. Of the attempts made in succeeding years to rekindle the old enthusiasm it is enough to say that all proved abortive. The Holy Land could no longer, as it seemed, furnish a home even for the military orders. The Teutonic Knights made their way to Lithuania and Poland, the Hospitallers to Cyprus and to Rhodes. The Templars fell victims to a plot as iniquitous and treacherous as any that has disgraced the annals of mankind. When their services had ceased to be useful in Palestine the French king found that much benefit might be derived from a confiscation of their vast possessions. The proceedings against the order in England are scarcely to be compared with the surpassing horrors of the proscrip tion in France which ended in the burning of the grand master Du Molay ; but in both countries the power of falsehood in compassing the destruction of men innocent of the particular crimes laid against them was seen as perhaps it had never been seen before. The fury with which they were persecuted was indeed a legitimate result of the crusades, for which the unbelief of the enemy supplied the primary motive. The theory of putting down error by force had received a sanction which was applied in the dealings of the popes with Albigensian and other heretics. The narrative of the crusades brings out with sufficient clearness both their causes and their consequences. We have seen that, while the popular impulse which led to them could not issue in vigorous action without the sanction of religion, the mere authority even of the popes was wholly powerless to set Latin Christendom in motion until popular indignation had reached the fever heat. We have been able to watch the effect of these enterprizes iu changing the face not only of the East but of the West, securing to the popes the exaction and administration of vast revenues and of a dispensing power still more moment ous in its issues, strengthening and extending royal authority by the absorption of fiefs, but for the moment increasing in incomparably larger measure the wealth and influence of the clergy. We have seen the iutroduction of feudal principles into Jerusalem and Constantinople, and have marked the effects which followed the substitution of the Assize of Jerusalem for the Code of Justinian. The story has shown us that the contact of Western with Eastern Christendom brought about .in some respects results precisely opposite to those which were anticipated from it, and that the establishment of the Latin empire of Constantinople rendered hopeless that union of the churches which Innocent III. had regarded as its certain fruit. But if the crusades thus disappointed the expectations of their promoters, they achieved some results the benefits of which have been felt from that day to the present. They failed, indeed, to establish the permanent dominion of Latin Christendom, whether in New Rome or in Jerusalem ; but they prolonged for nearly four centuries the life of the Eastern empire, and by so doing they arrested Decay of the crusad- n g spirit. Suppres- -ion of tL Knights iVmplars, General re view of the causes and conse quences of the cru sades.