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THE FLAME OF ISLAM
OTHER BOOKS BY
HAROLD LAMB
THE CRUSADES;
Iron Mm and Saintf
GENGHIS KHAN
TAMERLANE
HOUSE OF THE FALCON
MARCHING SANDS
WHITE FALCON
BLESSING THE SWORDS OF THE CRUSADERS
FROM THE PAINTING BY GEORGES CLAIKIN
THE CRUSADE
Jflame of Mam
SALADIN, THE VICTORY BRINGER;
BAIBARS, THE PANTHER; RICHARD THE LION HEART;
SAINT LOUIS; BARBAROSSA
BY HAROLD LAMB
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS
DOUBLEDAY, DORAN & COMPANY, INC.
GARDEN CITY iHC^WXX3C3 NEW YORK
Country Life Prfss, GARDEN CITY, N. Y., u. s, A.
COPYRIGHT, 1930, 1931
BY HAROLD LAMB
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
FIRST EDITION
AUTHOR S NOTE
THIS BOOK is complete in itself. It tells the story of the first
Christian kingdom in the Moslem world, until its overthrow.
We are apt, all of us, to think of the crusades as a series of
armies marching to war in the East. The reality is otherwise.
Two separate movements made up the crusades. First the
conquest, the invasion of the East by our forefathers who
founded a kingdom there. With this movement the first
volume, Iron Men and Saints, deals.
The second movement began with the rousing of the
Moslem powers which brought about the hundred-year
struggle for supremacy that spread from East to West. With
this phase the present volume, The Flame of Islam, is con
cerned.
These two phases of the crusades are different in nature.
The first was a mass movement, a march of inspired multi
tudes. The second was a world conflict in which individual
leaders arose to take command on both sides.
And these leaders, from Saladin to De Molay, the last
master of the Templars, are fully revealed to us by the chron
icles and the letters of their day. They shaped, by their
efforts and sacrifices, the beginnings of the modern world.
H.L.
CONTENTS
PAGB
Author s Note v
PART I
CHAPTX*
I The Frontier 3
II The Land of the Arabs 6
III Islam ii
IV The Knights of the Prophet 16
V The Assassins M
VI The Kalifs Curtain 26
VII Saladin 31
VIII The Path of War 39
IX Exiles 46
X Saladin Pays a Visit 53
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XI A King Is Crowned 63
XII Hattin 68
XIII Jerusalem 74
PART II
XIV The Army of Islam 85
XV The Gathering Storm 93
XVI Guy Marches to Acre 98
XVII The Siege Begins 104
XVIII Karakush Burns the Towers 1 1 1
XIX The Full Tide m
XX Richard at the Wall 131
XXI The Massacre 140
XXII Richard Takes the Field 149
XXIII The Barrier of the Hills 158
XXIV The Caravan 167
XXV Baha ad Din s Tale 173
XXVI Saladin Strikes 178
XXVII Richard s Farewell 188
XXVIII Ambrose Visits the Sepulcher 199
XXIX The Dream of the Hohenstaufen. An
Interlude 207
CONTENTS ix
PART III
CHAPTER PAGE
XXX Innocent Speaks 217
XXXI The Conspirators 226
XXXII The Doge Sails 231
XXXIII What Ville-Hardouin Saw 239
XXXIV At the Sea Wall 246
XXXV Byzantium Falls 257
XXXVI The Master of the World 269
XXXVII Innocent s Call to Arms 276
XXXVIII The Road to Cairo 283
XXXIX Mansura 290
PART IV
XL The Child of Sicily 299
XLI Frederick s Voyage 307
XLII Vae, Caesar! 315
XLIII At the Table of the Hospital 324
XLIV Beauseant Goes Forward 331
XLV The Black Years 33^
XLVI The King s Ship 34*
XLVII The Miracle 347
XLVIII Shrove Tuesday s Battle 353
x CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
XLIX St. Louis at Bay 363
L Joinville s Tale 370
LI Farewell to Palestine 382
PART v
LII The Tide Ebbs 391
LIII Hulagu and the Kalif 398
LIV The Panther Leaps 404
LV A Letter to Bohemund 412
LVI Asia Sends Forth Its Horde 421
LVII The Last Stand 426
Afterword 437
Selected Bibliography 471
Index 479
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Blessing the Swords of the Crusaders FRONTISPIECE
FACING PAGE
Trooping the Kalif s Colors 10
Mars in Sign of the Ram 1 1
Entrance Tower of Marghab 58
The Krak des Chevaliers 59
Richard L Coeur de Lion 146
Saladin Gains a Victory over Crusaders 147
Tomb of Saladin 202
Aleppo 203
Innocent III. 234
Moslem Chieftain Attacking Mongol Officer 235
St Louis 346
St, Louis Captive 347
Alamut, Citadel of the Assassins 402
Sultan Kalawun s Tomb 403
Letter of Ghazan Khan 438
LIST OF MAPS
PAGE
The Flame of Islam 26
Frontier of the Holy Land in 1186, when Saladin
Prepared for His Invasion 75
Acre, and Probable Position of the Crusaders Siege
Lines and Saladin s Army at Beginning of the
First Battle of Acre, October 4-11, 1189 107
Constantinople at the Time of the Crusades 247
PART I
WHEN the Sun shall be FOLDED UP, and when the
stars shall fall
And when the wild beasts shall be gathered together.
When souls shall be faired with their bodies , . .
And when the leaves of the Book shall be unrolled.
And when Hell shall be made to blaze y and when
Paradise shall be brought near
Every soul shall know what it hath produced.
And by the Night when it cometh darkening on.
And by the Dawn when it brighteneth . . .
Whither then are ye going?
Verily this is no other than a warning to all creatures :
To him among you who willeth to walk in a straight
path.
THE KORAN.
I
THE FRONTIER
rE year 1169 dawned upon a quiet East. Along this
frontier of Christianity nothing unusual was taking
place. Nothing ominous, that is. And in that part of
the East known as the Holy Land the crusaders went about
their affairs without misgivings.
There was, of course, no actual peace in the Holy Land
or in the rest of the world, at this time. And the harvest
had been bad. During the last summer the rains had failed,
and the wheat and barley crops in consequence had been
poor. The cattle had suffered, and the fruit yielded little. At
such times men often gave way to the temptation to harvest
a neighbor s crops across the border, sword in hand. Both
Christians and Moslems were accustomed to such raids.
For seventy years the Holy Land, around the city of
Jerusalem, had remained in the hands of the victorious cru
saders. They had settled here, and here they meant to stay.
They had built their little cathedrals on the sacred places
where Israel had prayed before them; they had crowned the
rocky summits of isolated hills with their castles, and they
were the lords of the land. Their sons knew no other land
4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
than this, which they called Outremer Beyond the Sea.
And their grandsons were growing up here.
The Moslems accepted the presence of the conquerors as
one of the inevitable things ordained by fate. They mourned
the loss of Jerusalem, and they awaited the hour when the
wheel of fortune would turn again and the holy city would be
restored to Islam. Meanwhile, they were occupied with their
own concerns beyond the border.
No boundary post marked the invisible line where Chris
tianity ceased and Islam began. Only a watcher standing in
the bell tower of the church of the Sepulcher could look
toward the east, over the flat gray roofs of Jerusalem, over the
parapet of the massive wall, past the haze of the Jordan
gorge to the hard blue height of Moab s hills.
Beyond that line, he would be told, lay the lands of the
paynims, the men of Islam. If he rode down with the pilgrims
through the waste lands of clay and rock, to gather reeds at
the edge of the muddy Jordan, he would see a squat tower
with a stone corral around it, for the horses, and perhaps
some men-at-arms in the shade of the olive trees.
If he dared cross the ford by the tower and ride on toward
the east, he might come upon the stained black shelters of
a Bedawin tribe, with its sheep and dogs. Instead of a tavern
or hospice, he would find only the rough stone wall and cactus
hedge of a caravan serai, in which to spend the night.
Nowhere would he find any visible sign of the borderline.
It was invisible. But it lay, enduring and forbidding, be
tween the men themselves. It separated Nazarene from Mos
lem knight of the cross from the warrior of Islam. To cross
it in reality a Christian must become a renegade. He must
renounce his own faith to enter the world of Muhammad,
the prophet. And few were the renegades on either side.
At this time, late in the Twelfth Century, men lived by the
faith within them. To the wearers of the cross, the cross was
the visible sign of an everlasting truth. They were the chil
dren of God, striving to follow the Seigneur Christ. Upon
no other path would they set their feet.
To the Moslems, they were merely the People of the Book.
True, Muhammad had said that the Messiah Jesus was one
THE FRONTIER 5
of the prophets. But Allah was God indeed, and Muhammad
had been his prophet. Upon the day when all souls would be
weighed by the chains of judgment, they who believed would
taste of Paradise, and they who believed not would know
oblivion. No middle path existed the Moslems were fiercely
certain of that.
This gulf between Moslem and Christian could not be
bridged by any bridge. They might live together in friendship,
as many did live, but between them the breach stood as wide
as ever. Muhammad had admonished his people never to
make lasting peace with the unbelievers.
And th| crusaders had taken Jerusalem. They meant to
remain tlmre, to tend the Garden of Gethsemane and ^ to
guard witl their swords the Rock of Calvary over which
they had t|iilt their churches. Jerusalem was the spot to be
cherished afeove a ll others in the world.
But to the Moslems also Jerusalem was sacred. They called
it Al Kuds y The Holy, and they held only Mecca and Medina
in greater veneration. Muhammad s home had been in Mecca,
and once he had fled to Medina they dated the years of
Islam from that flight. From the rock in Jerusalem, they
believed, he had ascended from the earth, upon the back of
his steed Burak. Now the crusaders had built a marble altar
over the rock, and had placed a cross upon the dome that
sheltered it The Moslems waited for the turning of the
leaves of the book of fate.
They were not aware, nor were the crusaders aware, that
in this year 1169 events were shaping that would break the
long deadlock between them. The change came impercepti
bly, and it began out of sight of the frontier, within the depths
of Islam.
II
THE LAND OF THE ARABS
IE world of Islam was restless as wind-swept sand.
It stretched, in fact, over all the deserts and barren
ranges between Jebal at Tarik Gibraltar and the
great heights of central Asia. Its people for the most part
were nomads moving with their animals wherever grass
grew. Such were the Bedawins, who clad themselves in the
earners hair and wool woven by their women. The children
watched their flocks and black goats, while the women did
all the work, even kneading rings of camel dung to dry for
fuel. The men did the ploughing, with a wooden spike hitched
by long ropes to a camel, followed by a harrow drawn by
mules. These were the farming implements of Solomon s
day, and the Bedawin cared for no better, so long as Allah
sent rains from the sky. They knew every well of the waste
lands, and they plundered every stranger who came to the
wells.
To the common men of Islam, water was the veritable
giver of life. Grass failed when the rains did not come. At
such a time pools and cisterns became dry, or poisonous, and
the herds were thinned. Pestilence followed a dry season.
6
THE LAND OF THE ARABS 7
On the other hand abundant flowing water created a kind
of earthly paradise from the mass of date palms around an
oasis, to a hill garden fed by an underground channel. The
stone tanks of the great mosques served for washing and
drinking alike, and it was a poor palace that did not have
a fountain of some kind.
About the rivers such as the Nile and Tigris whole peoples
clustered, thriving in the flood periods, and sickening when
the waters sank low. To these folk of the desert, coming in
from the glare and the driven dust of the dry lands, the shel
tered shadow, the soft greenery and cool air of an oasis or
river gave relaxation and new life. Muhammad had assured
them that Paradise would be one immense garden, where
water miraculously never failed.
During the five centuries of Islam, the Arabs had become
the aristocracy of the Moslems the chosen people, dominant
over Bedawin and Berber, black Sudani and patient Tajik.
Victorious from Spain to China, they had held the lands and
trade of half Asia in their hands. And, like the Romans, they
had the pride of conquerors. Being both curious and adaptive,
they had learned much from the culture of elder Greece and
Persia. And as Latin had become the language of scholars
and kings in Europe, Arabic had become the speech of edu
cated men in western Asia. The Koran the Book To Be
Read could be copied into no other language.
But in five centuries the Arabs had changed from the
fanatical tribesmen who rode from Mecca under Khalid and
Muavia with no other possessions than their swords and the
memory of the exhortation of a dead prophet. As the Romans
had done before them, they settled down in the conquered
lands, to dispute fiercely among themselves. Unlike Rome,
Mecca changed little. It remained the sanctuary of Islam,
sheltering the great black stone, the Kaaba, and the sacred
well of Zem-zem the goal of the devout, where prayer
availed a hundredfold and even the barren stones were
blessed. In worldly splendor, however, the great cities of
Cordoba and Alexandria, Damascus and Baghdad outgrew
the desert city of the Prophet s birth. The Arabs had a taste
for splendor.
8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
In Damascus the descendants of Omar built a mosqae that
was a veritable wonder. An Arab traveler has described it as
it was at this time.
Nowhere else is such magnificence. Its outer walls are of squared
stones, and crowning the walls are splendid battlements. The col
umns supporting the roof of the mosque consist of black polished
pillars in a triple row. In the center of the building is a great dome.
Round the court are lofty colonnades above which stand arched
windows, and the whole area is paved with white marble. For twice
the height of a man the inner walls of the mosque are faced with
variegated marbles, and above this, even to the ceiling, are mosaics
of various colors and gold, showing figures of trees and towns and
beautiful inscriptions, all most exquisitely worked. The capitals
of the columns are covered with gold, and the columns around the
court are all of white marble, while the walls that enclose it are
adorned in mosaics.
Both within the mihrab and around it are set cut-agates and
turquoises of the size of the finest stones that are used in rings.
On the summit of the dome of the mosque is an orange and above it
a pomegranate, both in gold. Before each of the four gates is a place
for ablution, of marble, wherein is running water and fountains
which flow into great marble basins. . . . The Kalif al Walid spent
thereon the revenues of Syria for seven years, as well as eighteen
shiploads of gold and silver.
But within the mosque over a sealed entrance that had
been the door of the great Roman basilica upon the founda
tions of which the mosque had been built, remained an in
scription worn by time "Thy Kingdom, Christ^ is an
everlasting kingdom^ and thy dominion endureth throughout all
generations"
Indeed wealth flowed through the hands of the Arabs.
They had become heritors, by virtue of their swords, of the
vast palaces of Yazdigird and Samarkand; the sweep of their
conquest had brought to their feet all the riches stored in the
jeweled basilicas of Byzantium and the immense treasuries
of Egypt, Their kalifs the successors to Muhammad
lived in a golden haze of luxury. Haroun ar Raschid was
dead, but the new Commanders of the Faithful rode through
THE LAND OF THE ARABS 9
courtyards as wide as open fields, attended by regiments of
guards whose black-and-gold cloaks gleamed against the
blue of the sky, and the plumed heads of the horses were like
tawny wheat, tossing under the wind. And when the wind
blew, the bronze lions roared by the gates.
Lovely Zenobia lay in her tomb, but the Bedawin spread
their black tents within the white marble columns of her
theater, in the shadow of the temple of Balkis where the
palms nodded over the steaming sulphur springs.
Meanwhile wealth had changed the Arabs from single-
minded warriors to shrewd merchants. Many a Sindbad
sought his fortune in new lands. Caravans came down the
slow, long road from Cathay, the laden camels bearing sacks
of rhubarb, silk, or camphor and the musk of Tibet. Over the
barrier ranges of India came spices, cinnamon, and precious
stones. From the deserts of Arabia the caravans brought
incense and dates. Where the trade routes crossed, as at
Baghdad or Damascus, enormous markets exchanged the
furs of the North for the precious stuffs of the East, and
skilled workmen wrought fine fabrics damask, brocades,
or camelet.
In a single voyage a merchant made his fortune by bringing
porcelain from China to Byzantium; there he took ship with
a cargo of Greek brocade, for India. He sold this and bought
Indian steel, conveying it overland by caravan to Aleppo,
whence he took glassware to Yamen, going back to Persia
with embroidered stuffs.
Their long open boats with towering lateen sails drifted
down the wide rivers, and ventured overseas. The Arab
masters knew the trade routes, and had, besides, serviceable
maps and compasses at this time when European seamen
felt their way along the northern coasts from headland to
headland.
But in the last century a new power had entered Islam,
displacing the Arabs to a great extent. From that immense
reservoir of men beyond the heights of central Asia the pagan
Turks appeared with their women and children and cattle.
They had wolf heads on their standards, and a lust for war
io THE FLAME OF ISLAM
in their hearts. They were the brood of the steppes and the
lofty snow-filled valleys, and their strength was the untiring
strength of barbarians. Some of them, Hungarians and
Kazars, turned toward Europe; others wandered down the
rivers, dwelling for a time at Bokhara and Samarkand, then
pressing on to warmer lands. These, the Seljuks and Turko
mans of the White and Black Sheep, made themselves lords
of the eastern frontier of Islam. Under Mahmoud of Ghazni
they penetrated India, while other Seljuks drifted into the
service of the kalif of Baghdad.
Whereupon the race of Haroun ruled no more, and the
Seljuks rode on to the west, until they could look across the
waters at the walls of Constantinople. They became devout
Moslems, and this new wave of conquest touched Christian
ity so near that it helped launch the crusades to free Jerusa
lem from the yoke of Islam. Fortunately for the crusaders,
the last great sultan of the Seljuks, Malik Shah, had perished
before their coming, and Islam remained divided among a
dozen princes. In such a chaos the authority of the kalifs
went unheeded.
But the Turks had brought new blood into the thinning
veins of Islam; they made up the bulk of its armies. While the
Turkish sultans ruled, the Arabs remained the intellectual
class, with the threads of affairs under their capable fingers.
And for generations they had followed a new policy, of con
version instead of conquest. Their imams , leaders, and kadis >
judges, penetrated the Far East to make converts.
For the present this had no perceptible effect in the nearer
East, yet they had tapped the reservoir of the barbaric clans,
and had set new forces in motion. They had extended the
dominion of Islam over vast territories, and as far as the
guard posts of China the muezzins called the multitudes to
prayer.
f L^^e^Ul^
f*S * ** ^ x * **
j^fc*t^^
TROOPING THE KALIFS COLORS
A crude illumination of an early Thirteenth Century
Arabic manuscript
COURTESY OF BLOCHET LES ENLUMINURES DES MANUSCRITS ORIENTAUX
MARS IN SIGN OF THE RAM
Illumination from Arabic astrology, mid-Thirteenth Century.
Notice that Mars is the figure of a Mongol warrior.
Below, the figures of the planets Saturn, Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter.
Ill
ISLAM
the muezzin called from his balcony, hundreds
of thousands hastened to cleanse themselves and
kneel toward Mecca. "Allah is Almighty Allah is
Almighty ... I witness that there is no other god but Allah
I witness that Muhammad is his prophet . . Come to
prayer come to prayer . . . Come to the house of praise.
Allah is Almighty Allah is Almighty . , . There is no god
but Allah!"
Islam submission bound together the unruly multitudes
which had become Muslimin Moslems, as the Christians
called them those who had submitted. Islam fed their
cravings, and ordered the hours of their day. It put the sword
in their hands, and bade them use it against the unbelievers.
It made of them a gigantic brotherhood, apart from the
other men of the world.
They were all wanderers at heart why not, when God s
earth was wide, with so much for their eyes to see within it?
Islam enjoined upon them the duty of the pilgrimage, and
of hospitality to other Moslems. The visitor within the bonds
of Islam did not make a gift to his host; instead the master
n
12 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
of the house rewarded the guest. All property belonged to
Allah, and they were but the keepers of it.
Islam assured them that all happenings were written down
in the book of fate, even the hours of their deaths. But fatal
ism brought its anodyne. If the props of a weak dwelling
collapsed and the roof fell in, and perhaps someone was killed^
who could avert his fate? The house was rebuilt no stronger
than before. When pestilence visited them, and hundreds of
bodies were carried out of a single city gate in a day, the
survivors bore the dead upon their shoulders and sat down to
await what fate would bring them. It was all written, and
what was written would come to pass.
These men of the desert had a code as rigid as any Chris
tian law. The Bedawin who would club a stranger to death
on the road to take his horse would not lift hand against the
man who had eaten of his salt. Tribesmen who would rather
kill than loot and would much rather loot than eat would
pass without a glance the goods of another clan left for safe
keeping by the grave of a holy man.
Lying was an ancient art with them, but they would hold
with few exceptions to a spoken promise. "What is profit
without honor?" they said.
The brotherhood of Islam had a strange and restless free
dom within it. Its rulers were all autocrats, as the patriarchs
of the clans had been before them. The sultan or prince was
answerable only to Allah for his deeds, but his servants would
sit by his bed and worry him out of sleep if they disapproved
of his conduct. His deeds must be weighed in the scales of .
the Koran, and if the balance were against him, a venerable
kadi would appear to exhort him to better things.
A prince might seize the property of his followers, but if he
did they could haunt his doorstep and beg for charity. All
the goods and gear of the dead, indeed, went into his hands
by right; yet woe to the lord who did not provide for widows
and orphans. Like the baron of feudal Europe, he bestowed
grants of land and dwellings on his vassals who must come
at his summons after their fields were planted to serve
in his wars. In their turn, they must make annual gifts of
money, horses, weapons, or slaves to the prince. The spoil
ISLAM ij
taken in war was divided between the prince and his vassals.
Besides this levy of the vassals, the greater princes of Islam
had what may be called standing armies. Masterless warriors
enlisted in his pay, and ate of his salt. Sometimes he bought
n outright slaves trained to arms who were known as mamluks
L^ "the possessed." These mamluks were of Turkish origin,
^and since they were both loyal and formidable in arms, they
^became the flower of the armies. Usually they composed the
# bodyguards of the princes, and their sons succeeded to their
j-position and pay. Like the Cossacks of a later day, they could
^turn their hands to other work, training horses, building
bridges, or caring for falcons or messenger pigeons. They
followed the hunt as eagerly as their masters.
Already most of the reigning princes of this portion of Asia
j between the sands of the Sahara and the hill barriers of Persia
atabegs, Father Commanders Turkish captains of
who had first served and then displaced the powerful
L Arab families. Mahmoud of Ghazni had been born a slave.
^J Moslem slaves had little to regret. They could, of course,
be sold in the open market, and their lives rested upon the
pleasure of their masters. But the position of slaves was an
honorable one in this brotherhood of Islam, since the master
had the obligation to protect and care for his servitors, and
\ many a lord was ruled in reality by his domineering slaves,
especially if they were mamluks. Women and infidel slaves
were entitled to no more care than the beasts.
^ All this motley world of Islam came together in fellowship
upon the Hadj, the Pilgrim Road. Gaunt Turkomans in
sheepskins from the north sheathed their yataghans and
trotted quietly beside their feudal foemen the Kurds of the
hills. Black slaves from Egypt clad in flaming crimson
guarded the tall, swaying dromedaries that bore within
screened hampers the women of some amir or prince.
Learned kadis, sitting sidewise on donkeys under the para
sols held by their disciples, discoursed of the merits of the
road of salvation, and barefoot pilgrims thronged around to
listen. Somber warriors, shields swinging upon their shoulders,
stared through the dust at a passing cavalcade of merchants
in striped khalats with heavy purses swaying at their girdles
i 4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
and forbore to plunder. Fly-infested beggars thrust out
their bowls unreproved.
Veiled women, as sturdy as the warriors, with all the pride
of poverty and suffering, tugged at the halter ropes of mules
upon which old grandsires clung, on their last journey to the
city of salvation. They all gathered together in the serais
at night to share fire and food and to watch the antics of the
dervishes who circled slowly and chanted to the thrumming
of the drums. Holy men with shaven skulls sat patiently in
the dirt and dung by the beasts, waiting to accept the leav
ings of the food. They were all sons of the road, and it was
good to be upon the road of salvation.
They could not go to Jerusalem, where the crusaders
barred the way, but they knew every tradition of that holy
city how lost souls wailed of nights in the Valley of the
Damned under the Golden Gate. How the white marble
height of the Noble Sanctuary 1 awaited the final day of
judgment, when the souls of the faithful would gather in the
Cavern of Souls under the rock of Muhammad s ascension,
and Solomon himself would sit in judgment before the chains,
with David and the Messiah Jesus at his side. They even
knew just where the chains hung, from the great arches.
They had built, before the coming of the infidels, a dome
over the sitting place of Solomon, in readiness for this ulti
mate event.
They cherished old customs, but their restless minds led
them off after new soothsayers and would-be prophets, for
they were as changeable as children. Credulous and impul
sive, they could be fired by an idea. A strong man could lead
them easily, but only a saint of Islam could restrain them or
hold them together for any time.
^he Haram, the quarter sacred to the Moslems in Jerusalem, lies above the
site of Solomon s temple. The rock from which they believed Muhammad ascended
is thought to have been the altar of burnt offerings of the Israelites. In the vaulted
chambers under the El Aksa mosque at the end of the Haram, remnants of Herod s
temple are still to be seen. Even to-day under British control, Christian visitors are
admitted to the Haram only upon sufferance. During the Arab- Jewish troubles in
August and September 1929, the Golden Gate and the underground chambers as
well as the Cavern of Souls were closed to visitors. The present writer was allowed
to inspect them by permission of the mufti of Jerusalem.
ISLAM 15
Ceaselessly they disputed among themselves about the
details of their faith, yet they were more than ready to tear
the limbs from a mocker of their faith. The only thing capable
of welding them together was war the holy war against
unbelievers. Muhammad had exhorted them never to fail
in the holy war, the jihad. At such a time all Islam would
unite, burning with the fever of martyrdom, and who could
stand against Islam ?
But, until now, they had found no one to lead a jihad
against the crusaders. For a time they had rallied to Zangi,
the atabeg of Mosul who captured Edessa from the Chris
tians and so brought down upon them the second of the
crusades. In their anger they had mobbed the pulpit of
Baghdad where the kalif behind his black veil remained im
potent against the crusaders. Yet the leader had not come
forth.
Now, in the year 1169, Nur ad Din, the great sultan of
Damascus, preached the jihad. Nur ad Din, however, was
old a man of sanctity incapable of forcing the issue against
the Christian knights. Another leader must be found.
IV
THE KNIGHTS OF THE PROPHET
r s IN Christendom, the youth of Islam went to a hard
school. Boys grew up under rigid authority, taught
by khojas and hadjis^ sitting in the wide courtyards
of the mosques. For the aristocracy of Islam was one of
learning as well as the sword, and the Arab and Turkish
youngsters swayed in unison as they memorized the sonorous
verses of the Koran, even if they did not master reading.
Old mamluks taught them the use of the bow, handled
from the saddle, not from the ground. They practised in the
riding fields with slender bamboo lances, and became adept
at sword play the swift strokes of the pliant curved blades.
They raced their ponies and longed for the battle-wise thor
oughbreds of the stern lords their fathers. The richest of them
found diversion in the favorite game of mall^ in which the
riders drove a ball about the field with mallets the game
that is polo to-day.
Wine was forbidden them, and dalliance with women de
nied them until full manhood. Their teachers frowned upon
gaming, and even chess was a sport reserved for the elder
men. True, they could watch the exciting magic lantern that
x6
THE KNIGHTS OF THE PROPHET 17
cast its shadow figures upon the wall, or a rare puppet show
in which the ageless Punch cracked obscene jokes and beat
his wife. Yet laughter touched them seldom and most of
them grew up somber, intent on the affairs of men.
They shared, of course, in the hunting that was half the
life of the Moslem nobles hunting with falcon, panther,
bow, or spear. One of them, Ousama, a son of the lord of
Shaizar, has left us a tale of his hunting in the beginning of
the Twelfth Century.
In the house of my father, by Allah, we had about twenty captive
gazelles, with brown coats and white coats. Also young gazelles,
born in his house, and stallions and goats. He would send his men to
far-off lands to buy falcons, even to Constantinople.
I have taken part in the hunting of great lords, but I have never
seen hunts like those of my father may Allah have mercy upon
him. He spent all his time during the day in reciting the Koran, in
fasting and in hunting; during the night he copied down the Book of
Allah the Most High. He made two copies written from one end
to the other in gold.
Now we had at Shaizar two places good for the chase one on the
mountain where partridges and hares were plentiful, the other by
the banks of the river where waterfowl, grouse, and antelope were to
be met.
Falcons became as common as chickens with us, and the servants
of my father may Allah have mercy on him were mostly fal
coners and saker keepers and men who looked after the dogs. He
taught his company of mamluks the art of caring for falcons.
As for him, he went out to hunt accompanied by his four sons,
and we ourselves brought along our esquires, our led horses and
weapons because we were not safe from encounters with the
Franks, 1 our neighbors. We brought more than a dozen falcons
with us each time, and pairs of men to look after the sakers, the
hunting leopards and the dogs. One man went with the greyhounds,
the other with the brach-hounds.
On the way to the mountain, my father would say to us, "Scatter.
Whoever has not yet finished his reading of the Koran, let him
fulfil his duty." Then we, his sons, who knew the Koran by heart,
^he crusaders. Ousama lived in the foothills near Hamah, and to the west of his
castle stretched the mountains. Two of the crusaders 1 citadels, the great Krak des
Chevaliers and Marghab, lay across this borderline, within raiding distance of
Hamah.
i8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
would separate one from another and would recite until we reached
the meeting place.
Then my father gave his orders to the squires who went off to
look for partridges. Still there remained with my father, between
his companions and the mamluks, forty horsemen, experienced
hunters. As soon as a bird took flight, or a hare or antelope stirred
up the dust, we were off after them, ready to loose the falcons at
them. So we arrived at the top of the mountain. The ride lasted
until the afternoon. Then we went back, after feeding the falcons
and let them down at the mountain springs where they drank and
bathed themselves.
Whenever we mounted our horses toward^ the place of waterfowl
and grouse, it was an amusing day. We left the hunting leopards
and sakers outside the reed beds, and only took the falcons with
us into the marshy ground. If a grouse flew, a falcon was after it.
If a hare jumped up we cast a falcon at it, which took it or drove it
toward the leopards. Then the keeper loosed a leopard at it. If a
gazelle jumped out toward the leopards, they were sent after it.
Often they captured it.
In these swampy reed beds, there were numbers of wild boars.
We rode at a gallop to fight and kill them, and then our joy was
intense.
One of the falcons, although still quite young, was large as an
eagle. The head falconer Gana im used to say, "This one called al
Yashur has not its equal among the falcons. It will not leave any
game without taking it." At first we doubted him.
Gana im trained al Yashur. It became like one. of our household.
In the hawking, it served its master, unlike other birds of prey that
pursue the quarry for themselves. Al Yashur livfed beside my father,
and was well able to look after itself. If it wished tfc> bathe, it moved
its beak in the water to show what it desired. Then my father or
dered a tub of water to be placed near it. When it came out, my
father put it on a wooden gauntlet made especially for it, and set
the gauntlet by a lighted brazier. Then the falcon was combed and
rubbed with oil, and they rolled up a fur cloak for it, on which it
settled down and slept. If my father wanted to go off to the women s
chambers, he would say, "Bring the falcon," and it would be
brought asleep as it was, and the cloak placed beside the bed of my
father may Allah have mercy on him.
In the winter, the waters flooded the ground near Shaizar, and
waterfowl gathered in the pools. My father himself would take al
Yashur on his, wrist and go up to the citadel to show it the birds.
The citadel lay to the east, while the birds were to the west of the
THE KNIGHTS OF THE PROPHET 19
town. As soon as the falcon had seen the birds, nay father let it go,
and it flew over the town until it reached the quarry and seized
its booty.
When the pursuit was lucky, the falcon came down again near us.
If not, it took shelter in one of the caves along the river we did not
know where. The next morning the falconer would go to look for it,
and would bring it back.
Mahmoud, lord of Hamah at that time, would send over every
year to ask for the falcon, which was sent to him with a keeper, and
was used in his hunting for twenty days.
But al Yashur died at Shaizar.
One morning I went to visit Mahmoud at Hamah. While I was
there, the readers of the Koran came into view, with mourners
crying, "Great is the Lord!" I asked who was dead, and they re
plied, "One of Mahmoud s daughters." I wanted to go with them
to the foneral, but Mahmoud forbade me.
They all went out and buried the body, and when they came back
Mahmoud asked me, "Knowest thou who the dead person was?"
I made answer, "It was told me one of thy children." He an
swered, "Nay, by Allah, it was the falcon al Yashur. When I heard
that it was dead, I sent for it and ordered a shroud and a funeral,
and buried it. Indeed, it was worth all of that."
One hunting leopard also lived in our house, in a shed built for
it with hay in it. A hole was made in the wall by which the leopard
could go in and out. This unusual animal had a servant to care for it.
Among the guests of our house at that time was the old and wise
Abou Abdallah of Toledo. He had been director of the House of
Science in Tripoli. When the Franks captured this town, my father
took the shaikh Abou Abdallah for himself. I studied grammar
under him for ten years.
One day I found him with the following texts in front of him
the Book of Sibawaihi, the Particulars of ibn Jinni, the Elucidation
of al Farisi, and also the Examples and the Flowers of Speech. I
said to him, "O shaikh hast thou read all of these books?" He an
swered, "Indeed I have read them, or rather, by Allah, I have
copied them out. Dost thou wish to be convinced? Choose any text,
open it and read to me the first line of the leaf."
I took up one of them; I opened it and read a line. He resumed
reading from memory until he had finished the part. That was a re
markable phenomenon. At another time I saw Abou Abdallah.
He had been hunting with this hunting leopard. He was mounted
on a horse, with his feet wrapped in bloodstained bandages. While
20 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
he had been following the leopard, thorns on the ground had torn
his feet. Yet he did not feel the hurt at the time because he had been
absorbed in watching the leopard seize the gazelles! 1
Men of letters like Abou Abdallah were welcome guests in
the houses of the nobles. "The ink of the learned" so a
proverb ran "is as precious as the blood of the martyrs."
And beside them sat the scientists, astronomers, physicians,
and engineers. Because the astronomers interpreted omens
and calculated fortunate days, they were important person
ages and usually received large salaries from the princes.
On the flat roofs of the palaces they had their spheres of
bronze, their zodiacs and horizons, carefully made. Already
they had set down in tables the orbits of the planets, and had
calculated the vagaries of the moon s motion six centuries
before Europeans did so. They had even worked out an
exact calendar, but the expounders of the Law would have
nothing that altered Muhammad s choice of the months of
the moon. They had translated the books of the Greeks, and
compared them with the Ptolemaic and Hindu theories, and
had learned much.
The Arabs had been wise enough to study the Roman
ruins that they found scattered through their conquests.
Dikes and aqueducts and hydraulic works seemed good to
these avid intellects of the dry lands, and they copied them
while Europeans made quarries out of them.
Someone translated Aristotle, and he became for better or
worse the ideal of Moslem philosophers. Natural law and the
dicta of logic he made clear to them.
Their mathematicians who were at home with algebra
and the decimal system worked out latitude and longitude.
And, having noted down the tidings brought by travelers
and seamen, made excellent maps. A certain Idrisi completed
a silver chart of the Mediterranean etched on a silver shield.
Cairo, as well as Baghdad, had its House of Science, with
an observatory and a library. A cool and quiet place the
the memoirs of Ousama, translated from the Arabic by M. Hartwig
Derenbourg "Souvenirs historiques et r Setts de chassepar un tmir syrien du douzilme
stick."
THE KNIGHTS OF THE PROPHET 21
library, with its manuscripts arranged in cubicles up the
walls, and its cushioned rugs where men of letters could sit,
reading the volumes on the stands in front of their knees and
sipping sherbet. In the cubicles lay Greek texts of Archimedes
and Galen.
Paper had been known to the Arabs for some time
paper made of cotton, at first in Samarkand, then in Damas
cus. The secret of making it had come from China over the
caravan road with many other things.
The Arab physicians had secrets of their own. They knew
of more than simple remedies, having studied a bit of chemis
try and the course of the blood. Most ills they treated by diet
and hygiene, while the Christians of Europe still searched for
malignant demons.
And a few years before, Nur ad Din, the enlightened sultan
of Damascus, had built a public hospital where physicians
made examinations and gave out drugs. Only in surgery
were the men of medicine deficient because the expounders
of the Law forbade them to cut or alter human bodies.
The keen minds of the Arab scientists probed into the
causes of things. They followed Aristotle into the mysteries
of Nature, and pondered. And out of their pondering grew
disbelief in religion. About the philosophers gathered groups
of doubters, invoking the mantle of Pythagoras. Mysticism
went hand in hand with scepticism.
A century before, the wine-loving court mathematician of
the last great Seljuk sultan had written:
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint., and heard great argument
About it and about; but evermore
Came out by the same door where in I went.
THE ASSASSINS
ECHO of Omar s plaint was heard within Cairo,
where the free-thinkers gathered together. Cairo
itself lay beyond the authority of the orthodox kalif
of Baghdad and the idlers in its courtyards dared mock at
Islam while they nourished secrets of their own. They were
known as Ismailites, and they built a lodge of their own,
sending out into the East their missionaries of unbelief*
And thereby hangs a tale so strange that, although the truth
of it was established long ago, it has the seeming of a myth.
The tale is of the Old Man of the Mountain, as the crusaders
called him.
During the lifetime of Omar lived one Hassan ibn Sabah,
a free-thinker, an Ismailite, and a man of consummate ambi
tion. This extraordinary soul was not content to be a mission
ary of scepticism; he dreamed of a new power. He said that
with a half-dozen faithful servants he could make himself
master of the world.
It is related that after he said this, one of his friends fed
him meals of saffron and a certain wine supposed to be
remedies for madness. Later, Hassan sent a message to this
friend: "Which of us is mad now?"
22
THE ASSASSINS 23
Because, in a way, he made good his prophecy. At least he
became the Old Man of the Mountain.
In the beginning, undoubtedly, Hassan possessed great
personal magnetism. The half-dozen allies that he desired
he acquired readily enough by his boldness. He preached a
very simple creed, "Nothing is true, and all is permitted."
And he gained attention by ridiculing some of the rather
absurd traditions of orthodox Islam.
He formed his followers into a secret order, divided into
preachers, companions, and fedawi devoted ones. These
became the real key of his success. They were the Assassins.
Garbed in white, with blood-red girdle and slippers, each of
them carried a pair of long curved knives. They were young,
and Hassan initiated them into the secrets of hemp eating
and the virtue of opium mixed with wine until they became
in reality the blind instruments of his will. He convinced
them that death was verily the door to an everlasting delight,
of which the drug dreams gave them only a foretaste.
To these youths Hassan appeared to be a prophet more
potent than any figure of Islam; to discontented souls he
presented himself as a liberator; only to the few subtle minds
of his order did the master reveal his real purpose to win
power by instilling fear, and wealth by upsetting the existing
order of things.
"Bury everything sacred," he explained, "under the ruins
of thrones and altars."
And he began a schedule of assassination, to create fear.
Usually three fedawis would be sent to kill the appointed
victim, often at the hour of public prayer in a mosque.
The first Assassin would leap at the condemned man and
stab him; if he failed, the second and third would make their
attempt in the ensuing confusion. Since they themselves
rather sought than avoided death, they rarely failed in their
mission. At other times they would disguise themselves as
servants, or camel men water carriers, anything. In the
crowded streets of Muhammadan cities such folk throng past
their betters.
His first victim was the wisest soul in Islam, Omar s patron
and his own benefactor, Nizam al Mulk, the minister of the
24 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
great Seljuks. Nizam s death hastened the break-up of the
Seljuk empire and Hassan profited from the chaos. He
dared assassinate Maudud, the ghazi of the North.
Shrewdly, he profited more from the fear caused by his
daggers than from the killings. Who cared to refuse him an
annual tribute to escape the daggers? Hassan was punctilious
about his word. If he promised a victim immunity, the man
went unharmed.
Naturally, many amirs and sultans made open war on him.
In whole districts the mulahid^ heretics as his followers were
called were searched out and slain. But Hassan himself
proved elusive. And other lords, who were afraid of the dag
gers, protected him. One influential teacher preached against
him, cursing him publicly, and before long an Assassin knelt
upon the chest of the too-daring preacher, in the seclusion
of his study. A long knife pricked the soft skin of his stomach.
After the fedawi had vanished, the preacher no longer cursed
the heretics, and his disciples asked him why.
"They have arguments," said the great man, who was not
without humor, " that cannot be refuted."
And then, again, an enemy of the order would awake to
find two daggers thrust into the carpet beside his head. The
resulting dread of overhanging peril would sap the courage
of a man who did not fear the open shock of battle. No one
was immune. A kalif of Cairo fell under the daggers.
But Hassan s greatest conception was his castles. Usually a
Moslem lord had his citadel on some height within a town.
The grand master of the new order of death sought out sites
upon the mountains overlooking a city. Existing castles he
bought or intrigued for, and in the wild mountain districts
he built strongholds of his own. These were of stone, and
almost impregnable so that a few men could hold them.
So Hassan came to be called the Shaikh al jebal the Old
Man of the Mountain. And no old man of the sea was ever
such a burden as he. To his strongholds flocked all unruly
spirits, and he made a place for all. Few cities in the hill
regions of Persia and Syria did not have a castle of the
Assassins to reckon with.
At the end of his life Hassan had managed to lay the foun-
THE ASSASSINS 25
dation for his strange new imperium. He ruled an empire of
his own, from Samarkand to Cairo wherever stood the
mountains. His plan after all was simple: he had laid the
governing powers under contribution, and enlisted the revolu
tionary powers of the people. Having established a perpetual
reign of terror and profited much from it, he died and
another grand master headed the order.
And at this time, paradise was built. Tales of it filled all
nearer Asia, and generations passed before the outer world
knew the secret of it.
Alamut the Eagle s Nest was the headquarters of the
order. Here, on the summit of an unclimbable mountain, a
walled garden had been built a garden filled with exotic
trees, with marble fountains that tossed wine spray into the
sunlight, with silk-carpeted pavilions and tiled kiosks. The
melody of invisible musicians hung upon the air, and all
men who entered were wrapped in the dreams of opium, or
yielded the bodies of beautiful girls.
And only the young Assassins could enter this paradise.
First, they were given a drug and carried in a coma to the
garden, where they awakened to every delight of the senses.
Then, after two or three days they were drugged again and
carried out into the castle of Alamut, where they were told
that, in reality, they had been allowed to visit the unearthly
paradise the place that awaited them at death. No island
of lotus eaters quite compared to the garden of the Eagle s
Nest. Above the entrance gate was written:
AIDED BY GOD
THE MASTER OF THE WORLD
BREAKS THE CHAINS OF THE LAW.
SALUTE TO HIS NAME !
Just how the Assassins managed to appear to be all things
to all men is one of the mysteries of elder Asia, wherein the
straight path often went roundabout, and prophets spoke in
parables, and sanctuaries were veiled, and men were led by
ideas instead of rules.
VI
THE KALIF S CURTAIN
E Assassins were In fact very much like vultures,
perched in their rocky eyries, watching the move-
ments of human beings in the crowded valleys below.
No one knew in what place the shadow of the vultures wings
would fall although they were most often seen in the
mountain region of Persia far to the east, and in the hills
north of Lebanon that divided the crusaders and the Mos
lems. During the chaotic conditions of the last hundred
years they had risen to the height of their power. They were,
however, by no means supreme*
For one thing the kalifs still reigned in Baghdad no more
than specters of the early kalifs, but still with the black veil
and the mantle of the prophet upon them* North of Baghdad,
up the ancient Tigris and Euphrates, extended a network of
little dominions ruled by the atabegs the war lords whose
chief citadels lay in the gray rock of Aleppo above the red
wheat fields, and in mighty Edessa with its ruined churches
standing desolate. Still farther north the warlike Armenians
clung to their mountain villages in the barrier range of the
Taurus.
Beyond them lay Asia Minor, its lofty plateau a grazing
26
CONSTANTINOPLE
^CRUSADERS I ( MOSLEM
6 TOWNS TOWNS
CASTLES . A CASTLtS
dASCUS
SYR JAN
DESERT
FLAME
ISLAM
(ABIAN
)ESERT
THE KALIFS CURTAIN 27
ground for the sultan of Roum, Kilidj Arslan by name. He
was almost the only surviving prince of the Seljuk line, and
he was gradually pushing the Byzantines back, within the
shelter of the walls of Constantinople.
And one man was patiently tracing a pattern of order
through this kaleidoscope of the Near East. Nur ad Din, the
son of Zangi, had made himself supreme over the minor
chieftains and he ruled over the beginning of an empire,
from Edessa in the north to the Arabian desert in the south.
Light of the Faith, they called him a just man, rigorous
and devout, but too old to follow the path of war in the sad
dle. He had lieutenants more than willing to do this for him,
Shirkuh the Mountain Lion, and Ayoub his brother Kurds
who made a hobby of statesmanship and a pastime of war.
Nur ad Din reigned in Damascus, the Bride of the Earth,
and he was loath to leave its fruit gardens where lines of
willows and poplars kept out the desert dust, and swift
waters murmured under old bridges. He prayed in the great
mosque, with white turbaned hadjis sitting by the opened
windows of colored glass, ceaselessly intoning the verses of
the Book To Be Read. Beside the mosque clustered the tombs
of Islam s elder champions, in the rose gardens under the
dark mulberry trees. Through the four gates pattered the bare
feet of children hastening to a teacher s desk, and the limp
ing feet of the sick, and the firm feet of the lords.
He had brought peace to Damascus. Under the latticed
arcades of the alleys gray heads bent over chessboards of
inlaid ebony and ivory while bearded lips muttered the gossip
of the roads; at night upon the terraces stately figures scented
with civet knelt about the banquet cloth, sipping sherbet
while the pungent smoke of burning ambergris drifted up,
and Jutes wailed. Against the marble fretwork of balconies
overhead, fair faces pressed and dark eyes searched the shad
ows of the narrow streets, watching the torches of an amir s
cavalcade go by, or the plodding lantern of a drowsy donkey.
It was due to Nur ad Din, the son of the atabeg, that com
parative quiet prevailed in the Near East in this year 1169,
because, while he held the unruly north in rein, he had made a
truce with the crusaders.
28 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
These indomitable fighters lay within Islam but not of it
separated by the long natural barrier of Lebanon, beside
which the Jordan descended into the Dead Sea.
There was, however, a third power to be reckoned with,
in Cairo.
El Kahira, men called her, the Guarded. Others knew her
as the City of the Tents. She was mistress of the Nile, luxuri
ant and fecund and ageless. Toward her gates rode the mer
chants of all Asia, and from her port of Alexandria went forth
the ships of all the seas. Within her coffers lay wealth incal
culable.
But she was harassed and bereft. Too much blood had been
shed in the halls of her palaces by the great Gray Mosque;
the tombs of her mighty ones had fallen into neglect, and
down by the river the tents of the Bedawin stood among
smoke-darkened ruins. "The mark of the Beast," devout
Moslems said, "is upon her." For the kalif of Cairo was apart
from orthodox Islam, a schismatic, his adherents devotees of
Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad. He wore white instead
of traditional black and his unruly congregation believed
passionately in the coming of El Mahdi, the Guided One, who
would be a second Muhammad.
This Fatimid kalif lived in guarded seclusion. Sudani
swordsmen filled the corridors of the Great Palace, and paced
the mosaic floors of the antechambers, by the marble foun
tains where peacocks strutted and parrots screamed. The
audience hall glistened like a gigantic treasure vault with its
ceiling of carved wood inlaid with gold, and its inanimate
birds fashioned of silver and enamel feathers and ruby eyes.
But the kalif was hidden from the eyes of the curious by
a double curtain of gilt leather. Men said that he ate from
gold dishes and drank from amber cups he and the bevy
of his women. When he went from the city a pavilion
wrought of gold and silver thread accompanied him; when
he wished to enjoy the cooler air upon the river, a silver barge
awaited him.
Rumor said more than this. Within the foundation of the
palace, fair girls had been walled in, alive, as a sacrifice. A gilt
THE KALIFS CURTAIN 29
cage was kept in readiness to receive the kalif of Baghdad as a
captive, if the arms of Cairo should ever prevail over the
host of orthodox Islam. And up the river so rumor insisted
there was a hidden pleasure kiosk built in the semblance of
the sacred Kaaba of Mecca, and a marble pool filled with
wine, to mock the holy well of Zem-zem. Darker whispers
could be heard in the seclusion of the harim of a kalif who
had poisoned his son, and a wazir who had been cut to pieces
by the palace women.
The kalif ruled Egypt only in name, the real power in the
hand of his wazir, or minister. The kalif had become a figure
head, the wazir a dictator. Between them they had bought
off the enemies of Egypt for years, while the kalif amassed
new treasures. They had managed to play the invincible
Christian knights against the victorious armies of Nur ad
Din. Once they had paid the crusaders to beat off an attack
by Shirkuh, and then they had summoned Shirkuh to defend
the city against a foray of the king of Jerusalem.
A dangerous game, this of buying protection. The knights of
Jerusalem and the mamluks of Damascus had both tasted
the honey pots of the Great Palace, and had seen with their
own eyes the weakness of the men of Cairo. This taste only
whetted their appetite for more.
Amalric, king of Jerusalem, was a fighter and an aggressive
fighter. Clearly he saw that the capture of Cairo and the line
of the Nile would bring final triumph to the crusaders, and
would break the deadlock between Jerusalem and Damascus.
The possession of the kalif s treasures alone might do that,
but if the crusaders could hold Cairo and the narrow isthmus
of Suez (where the canal now lies) they would separate
the Moslem of the Near East from those on the African
coast.
And Shirkuh saw the situation just as clearly. He pointed
out to Nur ad Din that the crusader castles below the Dead
Sea made a salient that almost cut off Damascus from Cairo.
Moslem caravans had to feel their way through the desert,
to steal past the watchful eyes of the Christians. With Cairo
in his hands, Nur ad Din could pinch out this salient, and
then attack Jerusalem from two sides.
30 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Amalric started the race for Cairo as the year 1168 ended.
Having the shorter distance to go, he was first upon the
scene. But the fiery general of Nur ad Din was close on his
heels with a greater host, and Amalric, having failed to sur
prise Cairo, was forced to withdraw as quickly as he had
come, to his own lands. Thence he journeyed to Constan
tinople to beseech aid from the Byzantine emperor.
Not so did Shirkuh, He saw his chance and took it. Riding
triumphantly into the gates of Cairo, he boldly claimed the
reward of a rescuer and the kalif received him with outward
rejoicing and inward misgiving. At once the Mountain Lion
pounced upon the hapless wazir who had played the double
game of intrigue for so long, and the kalif agreed that it was
full time the wazir died. Whereupon Shirkuh was invested
in a robe of honor and duly declared wazir of Egypt.
It became apparent that Shirkuh meant to be dictator in
fact as well as in name. The swaggering Kurd overrode the
Fatimid officials and collected his own taxes, to the mingled
fear and admiration of the watching Cairenes. The kalif
stayed behind his curtain. Whether he was served by conve
nient poison or not, Shirkuh died almost in the moment
of his triumph.
His death left Nur ad Din s army without a head, and the
kalif without anything to protect him from the army. The
situation was precarious and the amirs of the army agreed
with the kalif that a new wazir should be chosen at once.
They debated among themselves and named Shirkuh s
nephew to win the loyalty of Shirkuh s mamluks a young
officer who was a general favorite. And the kalif agreed at
once, seeing in the officer a man too young to be experienced
an easier soul to deal with than Shirkuh.
So the kalif sent a new robe of honor out to the camp, with
an escort of kadis to salute the hitherto obscure officer and
to bestow upon him his name title El Malik en Nasr, the
Conquering King.
The officer was Saladin,
VII
SALADIN
HIRKUH S nephew thus became administrator of Egypt
at a time when the kaleidoscope of the Near East was
shifting in even more than its wonted fashion. He
discovered himself to be at once the wazir of a schismatic
kalif and the general of the orthodox army of Damascus; he
must be pacifier of an unruly country, and defender ex
traordinary against that veteran warrior, Amalric of Jerusa
lem. Some of the older amirs, jealous because a little-known
youth had been placed over them, left the army and went
back to Damascus with their men. Others remained expecting
that Nur ad Din would appoint someone else in his place.
It would be hard to conceive of a more trying situation.
Yet Saladin 1 emerged from it undisturbed. And in the
end he made a name for himself greater than that of the two
giants of, his day, Frederick Barbarossa and Richard the
Lion Heart.
Even in the beginning he had the gifts of patience and firm
x Salah ad Din. Moslems in general addressed him by his official title, Malik en
Nasr. The crusaders wrote down his name as Saladin and by this name he has been
known to Christendom for more than seven centuries.
32 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
determination. By birth he was a Kurd, of the northern hills
where the patriarchs still led the clans. Like the Scottish
Highlanders, the Kurds of that day knew the law of the sword
and of loyalty. They were like the Arabs but apart from
them. Lean and dark and passionate, they had all the pride
of the elder Greeks. The spoken word was their bond, and
he who had shared their salt was safe from harm at the hand
of the giver of the salt. All Kurds were soldiers by inclina
tion, and devout Muhammadans by tradition. But Saladin
strangely, in a Kurd had no love of fighting for its own sake.
Slight in body, subject to intermittent fever, he lacked
the energy that makes a sport of war. Courteous and shy
and self-contained, he avoided quarrels. He had a taste for
fine horses and rare wine, and books. He played polo well,
and he sought leisure rather than public honors.
He had not wanted to come to Egypt this time. "By
Allah," he had said, "if you offered me the kingdom of Egypt,
I would not go. I have suffered at Alexandria ordeals which
I will never forget/*
But go he did, at the request of Nur ad Din he who once
had held Alexandria for Shirkuh against the siege of the
crusaders for seventy-five days. Rumor has it that the
Christian knights esteemed him and welcomed him into their
company.
"No man may escape his fate," the jesters of the bazaar
pointed out. "Lo, here is this same Saladin now master of
Egypt."
Only this much is known of Saladin. The shadowy outline
is that of a recluse and a scholar more than a warrior. Yet
Saladin was sought after by the lords of Islam, and the men
of the army accepted his leadership. That he was able to
command he proved at once, when the throngs of Cairo
rioted, and he hung the worst of them. He defended Damietta
against the Byzantine fleet that came down later in the year.
He even struck a counter-blow at the Christians, raiding
with his mamluks across the sands, and plundering Amalric s
outposts. Still, he was not reconciled to Cairo and its endless
responsibility. When his father Ayoub a shrewd and im
petuous statesman, then governor of Damascus joined him
SALADIN 33
in the city, he offered to yield the wazirship to him. The old
Kurd refused.
"Am I," he said, "to alter what hath been done by fate?
Nay, thou art the wazir!"
Whereupon Saladin plunged into the task of creating an
orderly government in Egypt out of the prevailing chaos.
He had been chosen dictator and dictator he would be.
Cairo, blackened by fires, scarred by plague, rotted by bad
water, had not known a firm hand for generations. Only
the newer part of the city with its palaces and mosques lay
within the massive brick wall; the rest of it, between the
bare brown hills and the distant peaks of Ghizeh s pyramids,
was a half-ruined waste where Bedawins prowled and looted
dismantled tombs, when the mist hung over the river.
But the life of the bazaars went on apace, and wealth
gleamed amid the debris. Under the arches of the souk,
carpets were piled high and hemp bales pressed against
jars of olive oil colored lamps burned through the night
above chests of spices and pearls from the Indies watched
by swordsmen from Marghrab or Rayi. In this labyrinth
crowded a multitude of buyers and sellers; Jews in blue
robes bargained shrilly with Armenians and Venetians who
wore bells about their necks to show that they were despised
Nazarenes. If they rode donkeys they had to sit face to tail.
For this was the true city of the Thousand and One Nights,
sleepless, indolent, and very wise. Arab shaikhs in dark robes
strode among crimson-clad negroes; Circassian slaves, veiled
from forehead to toe, rode past in a cluster of black eunuchs
with their long staves. Fair and indifferent Greek girls stood
in the slave market under the insolent eyes of Turkish
officers. Mamluks in jeweled khalats built themselves palaces
of half-dried bricks in a month, and feasted on the carpets of
slain enemies.
From this tumult Saladin held aloof. While he displaced
the Fatimid officials with his own men and gave the vacated
palaces to them to plunder he lived in a small house near
the mosques. He discovered a great library within the city
120,000 volumes and while he had some of the manuscripts
sent to his own house, he entrusted the mass of them to a
34 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
distinguished man of letters, the kadi El Fadil, thereby
making one firm friend for life.
He gave up wine and sports, and settled down to a routine
of labor. At sunrise he rose from his mattress and washed his
face and hands before making the dawn prayer. After his
servants came in to salute him, the new wazir ate a little
fruit washed in clear water. His sleeping mattress was rolled
out of the way, and he held a morning /evee, listening to the
reports of his officers and the complaints of the mullahs and
merchants of the city. When they had taken their leave, the
young Kurd went out to make his daily inspection before
the heat grew too great.
At such a time he became a stately figure a slender man,
erect in bearing, with quiet, meditative eyes. He wore a
black tarbousky or long fez, wrapped round with a white
turban cloth, and a black cloak, its wide sleeves trimmed with
gold thread. Into his girdle was thrust a long Arab scimitar
with a gold or jade hilt. His horses were the best of the Arab
thoroughbreds, their reins and headstalls heavy with silver or
gilt coins. About him clustered his guards in yellow cloaks.
Before him went riders beating upon silver kettledrums, and
black Sudanis running barefoot, who cried,
" Way for the Conquering Lord, the favored of Allah!"
For the East demands splendor in its masters. And the
throngs that salaamed to Saladin or ran beside him to beg
would have drawn their knives to loot him if for one moment
he had relaxed the rein of authority.
But that moment did not come. Ayoub gave him wise
counsel, and Shirkuh s mamluks transferred their allegiance
to him. One of them, Karakush by name, knew all the arts
of fortification, and planned with him, after a devastating
earthquake, a new citadel on the spur of the overhanging
hills. They meant to run a wall from the city to the citadel,
and all the way down to the Nile.
All Saladin s kinsmen rallied to him Taki ad Din, his
nephew, a youthful and warlike soul, leader of the wild horse
men of the north, and Turan Shah, his brother, an expe
rienced man but uncertain and overrash.
And Nur ad Din, the sultan, sent him congratulations with
SALADIN 35
fresh troops and suggestions. The conquest of Egypt de
lighted Nur ad Din, who wished to have the kalif of Cairo
deposed, after which Saladin was to march to aid Nur ad
Din to overthrow the crusaders.
Saladin, however, did not obey at once. He knew that Nur
ad Din had one foot on the edge of the grave. If he left Egypt
to its own devices and joined the sultan, he would become
an officer of the army again, with others more than ready to
take his place. So Ayoub and Saladin played their parts in a
real comedy. When Nur ad Din was far in the north with his
army, the young Kurd would march against the salient of
the crusaders, raiding the castles of the knights down in
the desert. The sultan, hearing of this, would hasten back
joyfully to aid him, and Saladin upon one pretext or another
would decamp and recross the sands to Egypt.
The comedy did not long deceive the astute sultan, and
rumor said that he meant to come in person and dispossess
the young master of Egypt.
Saladin assembled his small council to discuss the situation
sitting down by Ayoub on a carpet with the leading amirs,
the officers of the mamluks, and his own kinsmen. He asked
them what they would do if the sultan, Nur ad Din, marched
on Egypt.
"When he comes/ cried Taki ad Din, "we will give him
battle andj drive him from the land."
The others assented, saying that they had eaten the salt of
Saladin. v But Ayoub lifted his gray head angrily. "I am thy
father," he said, "and here is Al Harimi thine uncle, and for
the rest, I am certain of their loyalty to thee. Who would
wish thee better than we?"
"I am sure of that," Saladin assented.
"Well," Ayoub went on, "by God, if I and thine uncle
should see the sultan Nur ad Din, we would lower our heads
and kiss earth before him. If he orders us to cut off thy head
with a saber stroke, be sure we will do it. That is how we are.
And these others if one of them saw the sultan Nur ad Din,
he would not dare to remain sitting in the saddle. He would
get down to kiss the earth. All this country is the sultan s
36 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
and if he wishes to name another in thy place > he will do it,
and we shall obey his commands!"
All the officers of the council cried assent, saying that they
were the slaves and mamluks of the sultan. Saladin dismissed
them, and Ayoub, when he sat alone with his son, said bit
terly:
"Thou art a fool, an idiot! To bring together all these men,
and tell them what thou hast at heart! When Nur ad Din
learns of thy plan, he will march to attack this land, and
thou wilt not have one of these men to defend it. Nay, more
some of them will write to him concerning thee. Write
thou also, saying, Why march against me, to bring me to
obedience? For that, it will be sufficient to take a towel and
pass it around my neck. When he reads thy letter, he will
put aside thinking of thee, and will occupy himself with the
more important matter of his kingdom so thou wilt gain
time. God is great and all-wise!"
Ayoub had spoken the truth. The Egyptian army was
loyal enough to the young Kurd, but the appearance of the
great sultan in the field would cause a general desertion.
Saladin realized this. He gave an order that took a good
deal of courage.
When the multitude gathered in the great mosque on the
following Friday for prayer, the mosque was as usual, the
unlit lamps hanging from the lofty ceiling, the carpets clean
and brushed, and the very shadows inviting meditation.
But when the preacher advanced from the alcove to the
carved wooden steps of the minbar, there was a turning of
heads and the sound of heavy breathing. Attentive eyes saw
that he was clad not in the customary white but in the black
of the orthodox preachers even his turban was black, and
about his hips a sword had been girdled, as in the days of
Muhammad and the Companions. Thrice he paused in his
ascent of the steps to strike the sword sheath upon the wood
for silence, but there was no need of that.
^ He lifted his long arms, and his voice echoed against the
high arches. "Blessed be the Companions, the Followers, and
the Mothers of the Faithful ... and the kalif Al Mustadi!"
The prayers went on, after an instant of amazement. For
SALADIN 37
the preacher had invoked the name of the kalif of Baghdad,
in the great mosque of Cairo, within an arrow s flight of the
palace where that other kalif, the Fatimid, lay behind his
curtains. Saladin had virtually dethroned the kalif of Cairo,
thereby making a host of new enemies for himself. But he
had made his own position clear. He was a follower of the
lawful kalif of Baghdad, and acknowledged no other lord.
By the same stroke Saladin gained possession of the kalif s
treasure gold and silver ingots ranged along the walls as
high as the ceiling, with caskets of matched pearls and
great, uncut precious stones almost beyond the counting.
As well as the famous enamel peacocks and a leopard made
of ebony spotted with pearls. With this trove in his hands,
he could set Karakush to work in earnest, taking massive
stones from the pyramids to build the new walls, and an
aqueduct to bring good water from the hills, and a dam to
keep out the stagnant river water. As Nur ad Din had done
in Damascus he planned an academy for the men of letters,
and a hospital.
He appointed over it [said an Arab from Spain, who saw it years
later] a man of knowledge with a provision of drugs. In the cham
bers of this palace couches have been set, with bed clothes and serv
ants who inquire into the condition of the sick morning and eve
ning. Opposite this hospital is another for the women. Adjacent is a
spacious court where the chambers have iron gratings for the con
finement of those who are mad. He himself investigates everything,
verifying what is told him with the uttermost care.
Meanwhile his court was growing. Moslems went rar to
seek out a man who had been fortunate. Fatalists, they be
lieved that achievement came only from the will of God,
and a man who had achieved much was beyond doubt fa
vored of God.
The kadi, El Fadil, was now administrator in general. New
figures appeared at Saladin s side a certain Hakhberi, an
old Arab jurist, and Aluh, the Eagle, who was poet, astrolo
ger, and debater in one. Saladin liked to listen to their talk.
But he was careful to send Turan Shah afield to search for a
38 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
place of safety into which they could retreat if the sultan
marched against them. Turan Shah rode up the Nile, only
to return disgusted with tales of half-naked blacks who
laughed when he spoke to them. He fared better when he
explored the Arabian desert.
But Saladin had no need of this pied a terre. Sturdy Ayoub
could counsel him no more the old Kurd, riding recklessly
through a gate of Cairo., was thrown from his horse and
killed. Amalric of Jerusalem followed him to the grave. And
in the act of preparing to invade Egypt, the sultan Nur ad
Din died.
This was in 1 174. The embryo empire of Damascus cracked
into fragments under the hands of the leading amirs of the
army. And Saladin, after a survey of the situation, took upon
himself the task of keeping the dominion intact, himself to
be the sultan. Undoubtedly he was the man most fit to suc
ceed Nur ad Din. And to this task he brought all his quiet
patience, as unbending as tempered steel.
VIII
THE PATH OF WAR
3r is clear that Saladin planned the jihad from the first
He knew that only in the jihad, the holy war, could he
unite the factions of the Near East. Turkoman, Kurd,
and Arab would follow the standards to war against the un
believers; the atabegs, of the north, the shaikhs of the
desert clans, and the amirs of Egypt .would ride to such a
summons given the sultan to lead them.
He wrote to the kalif of Baghdad, recalling the many times
in which he had opposed the crusaders, and pledging himself
to the holy war that would free Islam from the invaders.
He had already united Cairo to Baghdad; eventually he
would regain Jerusalem.
But twelve years passed before the victorious Kurd was
able to declare the jihad.
Twelve years of almost ceaseless campaigning and siege
and pacification. "Only a hand that can wield a sword may
hold the scepter," said the proverb of Islam. And Saladin
had need of all his tact and clear judgment to weld together
the fragments of Nur ad Din s dominion.
In this time he never rode willingly to war against Mos
lems, but he never failed to take up the sword when other
39
40 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
means failed. "Shed no useless blood/ he told his sons in a
later day, "for blood never sleeps. Win the affection of your
subjects."
Damascus opened its gates to him, but the atabegs of the
north deified him in his homeland, and the sultan of Mosul
in the east supported them. They were sturdy and fearless
the best of the Turkish horsemen. We find him surprised by
them in the prairies by the Horns of Hamah, and again
trouncing them in the red wheat fields within sight of Aleppo.
We see him throwing off the cloak of intrigue and openly
declaring himself sultan of Syria, The kalif acknowledged
him as sultan, and sent him the black war banners of Bagh
dad.
Meanwhile he roused against him a dangerous enemy,
In clearing out the underworld of Cairo, he annihilated the
lodge of the Ismailites, the free-thinkers who acknowledged
the authority of no sultan. When the Ismailites stirred up
the Sudanis to revolt, Saladin scattered the rebels and cruci
fied the leaders, nailing them to the city gates. This brought
down upon him the anger of the Assassins, and the order
went forth to slay him.
The first attempt failed, owing to the vigilance of his
guards. Saladin went his way undisturbed.
It was his custom to bar no one from his tent, and one day
he was visited by the veiled figure of a little girl, who revealed
herself as the daughter of Nur ad Din. Saladin greeted her
with his customary grave courtesy and asked what gift she
would have from him.
"The city of Ezaz!" she cried.
And the sultan bestowed upon her without hesitation a city
that had cost him a trying siege. Generosity was instinctive
with him, and a chronicler relates sadly that he would make
gifts of all the horses in his stables, until even the one he rode
was promised to someone else.
Here also Saladin, sitting alone in his tent, was visited by
other guests. Three Assassins gained the tent and flung them
selves at him. The rearmost of the three was swept from his
feet by the sword of an outer guard. The sultan warded off
the dagger of the first, and moved aside. A knife blade struck
THE PATH OF WAR 41
against the steel of his headpiece, wounding him slightly.
Before the drug-crazed youths could get in a deadlier blow,
the sultan s swordsmen were upon them. Thrown down and
disarmed, they were carried off to be tortured into confession
and then hewn apart.
"They were sent/ his soldiers told Saladin, "by the
Shaikh aljebai:^
This second attack was too much for the patience of the
sultan, or the endurance of his officers. The whole army was
mustered in ranks and every man who could not be vouched
for was dismissed. Then the army got into the saddle and
marched into the mountains of the Assassins, to the west of
Ousama s old home, between the long valley of Hamah and
the sea.
Here in the pine-darkened uplands the half-wild cattle
grazed among the sandstone ledges, and isolated on the
summits the castles of the shaikh loomed against the clouds.
Saladin s horsemen ravaged the valleys thoroughly, driving
off the cattle, and making their way down to the edge of the
foothills where stood a yellow castle with sixty-foot walls,
rising from an outcropping of solid rocks above the clay huts
of a village. This was Massiaf, the stronghold of the Assas
sins in Syria.
And the grand prior of the order in Syria was Ruckn ad
Din. It was said of him that he never left the walls of Massiaf
by day, and that he had the power of going and coming
through any obstacle. His followers believed that he was
more god than man, since he had never been known to eat,
drink, sleep, or spit.
The great stones of the castle, fitted together without
cement on the elevation of the rock, defied the sultan s siege
engines for a week. Accounts differ as to what happened then.
One version has it that Saladin awakened to find a dagger
thrust into the earth by him, and a scroll bearing this mes
sage:
" What thou possesses! shall escape thee In the end, and return
to Us.
nrhe master of the Assassins, called by the crusaders the Old Man of the Moun
tain.
42 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
" Know that We hold thee> and will keep thee until the account
be dosed"
Saladin s guards then surrounded his pavilion at night with
a solid ring of men, and scattered flour outside the tent cloth.
On the following morning the sultan was unharmed, and no
human visitor had been seen. But in the white flour lay the
mark of feet entering and leaving the tent feet that pointed
outward, coming and going.
By this time the sultan s officers were in a mood that
verged upon homicide and panic at once. They were not
reassured by a message sent down from Massiaf in quite an
earthly way, by a paper tied to an arrow,
" Knowest thou not that We go forth and return as before^ and
by no means mayest thou hinder C7>."
After that few slept the night in peace within the lines of
the sultan s army. Men whispered that Saladin would die if
he did not withdraw from Massiaf by the end of the week.
And, true to his promise, they beheld the master of Massiaf
depart from the castle in the night, through all of them.
A blue light glowed upon the dark battlements and de
scended to the rock, fading and springing up anew in another
place. Arrows were shot at it, and torches swung in vain.
Like a changing will-o -the-wisp, the blue light darted among
them and vanished at last toward the hills.
So runs the tale. All that is certain is that the grand prior
pledged Saladin immunity from the weapons of the Assassins,
and the sultan on his part withdrew from Massiaf at the
end of the week. Thereafter the men of the mountain did
not molest the sultan, nor did he invade their country
again.
Damascus saw in the son of Ayoub a protector and a
patron. The sultan had left El Fadil and Karakush in charge
of Egypt and spent much of his time in the gardens of the
river city, where the scholars flocked in a body to his sitting
place, and men rode in with petitions to offer. For the word
got about that Saladin would send no one away without a
gift. His officers defended him as best they could from the
beggars, but Saladin smiled.
THE PATH OF WAR 43
Once he noticed that his treasury was full, and ordered
Mukaddam the treasurer to give out money to the lords,
soldiers, and servants.
"I remember, O my Lord," Mukaddam observed, "when
Nur ad Din sat where you now sit, he also bade me empty
the coffers in gifts by fistfuls. Fill your hand/ he said. But
when I grasped the first fistful, he restrained me. So, if you
give do not give to all."
"Avarice," Saladin smiled, "is suitable in a merchant, not
a king. Give out the money with both fists."
When he was afield, Damascus listened to the tidings that
came in by camel rider and pigeon post. The city rejoiced
when Aleppo and the north yielded to him at last, and it
lamented loud when the sultan, crossing the lands of the
crusaders with his army, was assailed suddenly by the Chris
tian king while the men were getting over a stream. The brief
fight was deadly, and the Moslems, although much more
numerous, were broken by the charge of the mailed cavalry
only the devotion of his bodyguard saving the sultan, who
had to flee for hours at the full speed of his horse and make
his way back to Cairo in the rain and chill of winter.
It was a costly lesson, and Saladin did not venture again
impi-udently across the border. Damascus rejoiced when
word came in that he had avenged his defeat in battle with
the crusaders, taking seventy captives, among them some of
the great lords.
After this, in the year 1180, the sultan agreed to a truce
with the crusaders, while he arranged the affairs of his new
empire. He dreamed of a widespread peace between the
rulers of Islam himself and the sultan of Mosul and the
Seljuk sultan far to the north in Asia Minor. War, to him,
was a task that every ruler must undertake; but he had no
pleasure in war, and he looked ahead to a lasting peace.
To gain this, he meant to rally all his strength and move
against the Christian crusaders when the two years* truce
expired. He would drive them from the coast of Syria into
the sea and regain Jerusalem. This would be the jihad, the
holy war, and in it the men of Islam would find themselves
united.
44 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
During the Interval of quiet he assembled his forces. And
at this time, among the petitions that were pressed upon him
he found a salutation that was like a voice from the past
because it had been written by the aged hand of Ousama,
who had lost all his lands and lived now upon charity.
May Allah grant long life to our master Al Malik an Nasir Salah
ad Din, Sultan of Islam!
For his mercy made a way for me from the country where I lived
separated from him, no longer having fortune or children. He had
me brought to his noble court. In the greatness of his soul he raised
up the old man who, without him, would have been raised up by no
one.
Out of his generosity, he rewarded me for services to other princes
and so carefully did he take account of those services, he might
have been a witness of them. His gifts were sent to me, to my
house, while I slept, so that I need not rise to receive them. Now
have I honor again, that time had taken from me.
He, the sultan, has on his part restored the tradition of the great
sultans, and has built up the column of the dynasty. By his sword
the empire has become an impregnable fortress.
Glory be to Allah, Lord of the Two Worlds!
It was summer in Cairo, and the dust haze hung over the
gray river, when the sultan mounted his horse, and gave
the signal to lift the black banners. Ragged fakirs thronged
about his steel-clad mamluks, crying joyfully. And the mer
chants locked the bazaar gates to go and stare at the armed
men who were setting forth upon the jihad the Path of
God. They saw that a handsome Kurd, a nobleman, held
the stirrup of the sultan Al Adil the Just, the brother of
Saladin. Turan Shah lay in his grave, and Taki ad Din was
off in the north, gathering the contingents of war. Karakush,
disconsolate, came forward to kiss the stirrup and take his
leave for he would stay in Cairo, to raise the foundations
of the citadel now taking shape on the brown hill above
them.
The cool north wind breathed through the alleys and
stirred the black folds of the banner. The mamluks trotted
between the palaces, and drums echoed the murmur of the
THE PATH OF WAR 45
multitude. Saladin settled his yellow cloak upon his shoulders
and looked about him.
"O King/ voices cried, "O Bringer of Victory ... In your
shadow we live!"
A slender poet pushed his way to the sultan s stirrup, bent
his head and chanted a verse of salutation and leave-taking.
" Taste well the joy of the flower oj the Nejd" he sang. "For
after this night, no more will it flower for thee"
And the multitude was silent, hearing in these words an
omen, like the chill breath of the sea that crept into the
warmth of the sun.
IX
EXILES
UN burned upon the gray stone roofs. The wind beat at
the stone walls, and the wind came from the desert.
In its dry touch lay fever and restlessness. It passed
over the city, over the hills of the Promised Land.
Men turned away from it, as if the desert wind had been
an enemy. The blood throbbed slow in their bodies and they
sought the shadows, away from the sun and the hot breath
of the sky. Only in the narrow Via Dolorosa some heedless
pilgrims knelt.
A horseman paced through the shadow of the covered
market street. He wore a long loose robe of white samite, and
a skull cap on his shaven crown; his rough beard fell to his
girdle, from which hung a long sword. On the breast of his
robe was embroidered the great red cross of the Temple.
A group of long-haired men-at-arms pushed past him, talking
loudly in Norman French and staring at the gold trinkets
in the booths. At a stand of perfumes a lady s page sniffed
and argued with an impassive Armenian over a copper coin.
Beside them a black-robed monk felt judiciously of a leg of
lamb and shook his head, while the bare-legged native boy
holding the basket behind him yawned.
4 6
EXILES
47
From a money changer s stall came a babble of voices,
Greek and Arabian, and the clink of gold coins being tested
by clever fingers. A cavalcade of black goats, on the way to
the Butchery, stopped to sample tempting sugar cane, and
galloped off under the legs of the Templar s charger, which
paid no heed to them.
Not until the shadows filled the streets of Jerusalem did
people venture out. Horsemen moved toward St. Anne s,
where by the sunken pool, under the sycamores, a wedding
party was assembling, and the bright satins of nobles mingled
with the softly gleaming silks of their ladies. They waited
by the dark green water that once an angel had troubled,
until bells chimed and a young girl passed between them,
her rigid head upholding a gold coronet, and her long train
of cloth-of-gold reflecting the last glow of the sun, raised
from the dust by the hands of solemn children. A turbaned
Moslem, a wayfarer from some unknown place, gazed at her
curiously, until she disappeared within the pointed arch of
the entrance. Bells chimed above the sycamores and the high
voices of children answered them. Alone by the water, the
wayfarer leaned on his staff, wondering perhaps at the strange
Nazarenes who never veiled the faces of their women.
Vesper bells rang out over the roofs from the tower by
the Sepulcher to the Basilica of Sion. Sheep crowded through
a narrow gate where spearmen idled. A boy passed among the
sheep, tugging at the hand of a bearded man, upon whose
shoulder lay the hand of another who led in turn a third and
fourth, their faces raised to the evening sky blind men
who had come to pray for a cure at the Rock of Calvary.
Not until the dusk deepened did the king come out upon
the open gallery of his manor, beside the Tower of David*
He was alone. And even so, he wore a veil over his head. He
moved like a man in pain, sitting upon a bench, his hands
hidden in his sleeves. Men waited within sound of his voice,
but he did not call them. For he was the son of Amalric,
Baldwin, by grace of God sixth king in the holy state of
Jerusalem. Young he was, and since childhood he had been
a leper.
4 8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Baldwin the Leper, they called him the last of the male
line of Godfrey and the first Baldwin. Valiant the spirit that
endured the growing pain, without respite or hope cherish
ing, like a dream, the memory of that day when he had been
still sightly, and had led out the Templars from Ascalon,
to fall upon the array of Saladin and drive the Moslems
before him. He had been sixteen, then. And^now, six years
later, he could not go to the wedding of his sister.
He would have no children. What then of Jerusalem? The
care of the future lay upon him, and his days were numbered.
For sixty and five years no foeman had dared march against
Jerusalem. The precious wood of the true cross rested within
its gold casing, safe in the sanctuary of the patriarch; the
crosses of pilgrims covered the rock of Calvary, where candles
burned by day and night, and the reading ^of the service of
the Lord went on without ceasing. Would it ever cease?
Baldwin had the pitilessly clear mind of the maimed. And
he loved Jerusalem. He knew every one of the gnarled olives
of Gethsemane, and the stones in the dry bed of Kedron;
he had watched the sunsets darken against the western height
while the bells tolled.
Jerusalem was still as it had been; the pilgrims thronged
with candles to the altars. But Baldwin dreaded the future,
and what might come to pass after his death. Why had the
great churches been so avid of land? They held fields and
villages, and every sacred place, and they drew tithes from
the men of the land, but they paid nothing in return. The
king himself had less than the abbot of Sion.
The pilgrims came, and prayed and went away. But the
lords of the Holy Land must protect Jerusalem, and last year
there had been a near-famine.
In Europe, so travelers said, they were building high cathe
drals, carrying stones on their backs by torchlight, while the
good people sang. The kings of Europe were growing in
power but where were they, and their men of arms ? They
did not come beyond the sea to aid the king of Jerusalem.
Why had the churches at home sent out guilty men, to do
penance by the voyage to Jerusalem? Criminals and felons,
adventurers and landless men came now beyond the sea.
EXILES 49
Italian merchants owned half the coast ports. All wore the
crusader s cross. But they did not come on crusade. Instead
they sought spiritual salvation, or profit for their purses.
And Baldwin, in his pain, was filled with a doubt and a
foreboding. He had ordered his sister Sibyl to marry, so
that there would be one to take his place upon the throne.
Alone he waited, listening to the distant bells. Alone, he
brooded, while the veils of darkness closed in upon the gallery
and its garden and his face that must never more be seen.
Spring came early to Galilee in that year of our Lord 1183.
Blue grass flowers covered the hollows, and the fishing boats
went out with their nets. Black cattle wandered down to
stand in the water and drink; white hibiscus bloomed in the
shelter of the walls. Light clouds drifted far up, above the
gleam of the lake sunk between the green heights.
To Raymond, third count of Tripoli and prince of Galilee,
it brought new care; for in that spring the truce with Saladin
expired, and Raymond was commander of the mailed host of
Jerusalem. He had come with his lady and his minstrels and
his knights to the great castle of Tiberias, above the shore of
the lake, the castle of black basalt seamed with cement.
An iron citadel, stretching forth its courtyards and towers,
down to the edge of the water where the fishing nets dried.
Raymond lingered at Tiberias, because here he could watch
the blue hills in the east, and the roads. Islam ruled the
East, and the road from Damascus wound south of the lake.
Over this road, guarded by Tiberias and the lofty castle, the
Star of the Winds, Moslem horsemen would ride before
long, he fancied.
His people had full joy of the green spring. Girls and es
quires rode afield, galloping over soft cotton fields, laughing
in the shade of the pomegranates, while troubadours sang the
new fable of Aucassin and Nicolette:
Nicolete o le gent cors,
Por vos sui venuz en bos . . .
They carried their falcons on embroidered gauntlets, over
the breasts of the hills, while men-at-arms clattered behind
5 o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
them. They rode under Tabor s round summit, seeking for
traces of fallow deer, while their dogs gave tongue. The
gray monks of Tabor looked down at them, and ragged
fellahis leaned on wooden hoes to watch. They were gay in
their long bright mantles, and they rode the Arab pacers with
a loose rein. For they were the youth of the land, the young
blood of Outremer. They had been weaned in Beyond the
Sea, where a dozen peoples served them. Merchants from
Baghdad brought them linen sewn with pearls, and jeweled
saddle cloths.
The hot sun had darkened their skin, but they cared not
for that. Among the girls were to be seen the brown eyes of
unknown Armenian mothers, and the broad, full cheeks of
other Greeks. But this was Beyond the Sea, not Normandy.
They had never seen the smoke-stained halls of Christen
dom, or the dark, damp woodlands where the sun was cold.
Embroidery stands, and dull Latin texts and heavy black
dresses would have amused them for they had scores of
Syrian girls to embroider for them, and courteous Arab
gentlemen to doctor them, and the wide fields to pleasure
them.
. . . Bel compaignet,
Dieus ait Aucassinet.
So the troubadours sang when the hunt was ended, and they
sat at meat on the terrace, outside the square castle keep.
Bright and fair was the starlight over Galilee. Raymond the
count sat in the high place, fondling the greyhound beside
him. The slim esquire leaned over his shoulder to fill the wine
goblet as soon as it was empty. He liked the strong red wine
of the country, or the full flavor of the Cyprus grapes. Greek
wines were better than mead or muddy ale. Impassive natives
held spluttering torches high, and the feasters could not see
the stars.
The elder ladies had been to the wedding at Jerusalem,
and had many a tale to tell. Who had ever heard of a wedding
in Paques, with barely a week s time to summon the nobility?
And in a small church instead of Sion ! The bride had entered
alone. Sibyl carried herself well no one could say nay to
EXILES 51
that. She had a man s daring, and Jaffa and Ascalon for a
dower. She knew her own mind although she had obeyed
the king, her brother.
fte Why had she made such a choice? With all the lords of
Outremer looking at her like amorous shepherds they did
hope to be the chosen one she took a newcomer for her
husband. A handsome fellow with an empty mind, a landless
knight of Poitou Guy, brother to Amalric of Lusignan who
is constable of Jerusalem, Amalric of Lusignan at least
had a sword; but Guy had only fine eyes and a manner. Was
it true that he had been banned from home for the slaying
of a duke?
Of course Guy had been devoted to the young countess, a
widow and comely. The women of Ascalon said that Sibyl
gave herself to him before now. She is young and most secre
tive.
And Amalric looked black as thunder. The poor king, of
course, is troubled, and would give much to undo what is
now done. . . .
So the talk ran on, for in Beyond the Sea it was a notable
event.
Raymond and his court sat long over their wine, in the
hot night when the torches had been sent away, and the
women had retired with their talk and their hidden fears.
So his ancestor, Raymond of Toulouse, had reveled in joyous
Provence a century ago, before the Provencals had taken the
cross and fared forth to Beyond the Sea. And the Provencal
men never loved brooding, or nagging cares. A song was bet
ter, wine was better.
For five years Raymond had been a captive of the Moslems,
and wine could not efface the memory of that. Raymond
hated inaction. He knew himself to be the most capable
leader of the mailed host of the Christians. He had the cour
age to strike, and the wisdom to avoid a trap and he knew
the Moslem method of fighting. But the Templars who held
the frontier castles disliked him, and now the sister of the
king had married a man who would be pushed forward by
his enemies.
He had feuds on his hands, with the reckless Reginald,
52 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
lord of Kerak, and the Templars. Here in the hot lands,
where the sun drained strength from them, the crusaders
turned to hazard and revelry to pass the long hours. Hard
riding and hard living shortened their years and tempers.
But they would rally, Raymond knew, to the king s summons
to war. If Baldwin had only been a whole man, or if Guy of
Lusignan had been a brave man!
What would Saladin do? Where would the wind blow next
or the wolves of Lebanon hunt? Raymond could do nothing
but wait, chained to his castle, pacing the rampart along the
lake, while his lady slept and the young girls and the esquires
dreamed of hunt and fable and shadow plays.
So there was no peace in the mind of Raymond, prince of
Galilee, who could not sleep in these fair nights of spring.
Tranquil were the waters of Galilee, and clear the star gleam
upon them. But over his head rose the mount with the ruins
of Herod s palace, above the caves where the hot sulphur
water trickled out of the ground. Beyond the broken palace
with the mosaic floors wound the road to Armageddon.
Raymond had emptied too many goblets in these hot
nights, and had looked too long into shadows. He, too, had his
dreams.
In the heights above the sunken lake a strange company
was gathering, to a ghostly trumpet call. Were there not
ghosts upon the ground of Armageddon? Surely the pavilions
of Holofernes swayed, when the desert wind breathed upon
the heights. The ghosts knew the death song of Saul, and
the rumbling chariot wheels of Pharaoh. They had heard the
thunder tread of the elephants of Antiocifius, and the steady
tramp of the mailed legions of Rome.
The road had known them all. And the beat of the hoofs
of the fierce horsemen out of Arabia. They were coming
again, these ghosts they were there now, waiting upon the
heights.
X
SALADIN PAYS A VISIT
rAT summer the worthy William, archbishop of Tyre,
wrote patiently in his chambers by the new cathedral
where the sea lapped ceaselessly against the walls.
Several pages he added to his Historia Rerum in Partibus
Transmarinus Gesfarum. He told how the Christian host
assembled slowly at the rendezvous near the village of
Saffuriya to meet the expected onset of Saladin, and how
Baldwin the king had himself carried thither.
It happened while our people waited at the wells of Saffuriya.
The king had a fever at Nazareth which grieved him much. Besides,
his leprosy so enfeebled him that his body could no longer aid him.
Sight left his eyes, and his hands and feet began to shred away. So
he could no longer govern the kingdom and attend to its needs.
Yet no one wished to bid him withdraw himself for, although
weak in body, he was great in courage and vigorous in enforcing
his will.
None the less when the fever gripped him so hard he made the
barons come before him, and named Guy of Lusignan, count of
Jaffa and of Ascalon, of whom I have spoken before who married
his sister he named him bailly 1 of the kingdom. But he insisted
^Governor.
53
54 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
that while he live, no one else should be crowned king, and he kept
for himself the city of Jerusalem.
Many were angered at this thing the king did, some because the
count was placed at the head of the lords of the land, others be
cause they despaired of the kingdom under his management.
Still others said that he would do well, and defend the kingdom.
Among the common people there was murmuring and complaint,
and a saying "Many men, many minds!"
This Guy began to act without wisdom and was very proud and
vainglorious of this bailly that he had; but he did not have long
joy of it, as you shall hear.
While this went on and the Christian host waited at the wells of
Saffiiriya, suddenly Saladin entered our lands with great companies
of his men, well mounted and armed. He passed below the sea of
Tiberias 1 into the plains of the Jordan and sent his foragers out on
all sides.
They came to Bethsan and found no one there. So they took all
the food and furnishings, then tore down the fort and went away.
Our barons heard where they were. Saddling their horses and
covering well their bodies with armor, the barons arranged them
selves for battle as had been agreed, and advanced with the true
Cross going before. If our Lord had not been angered at His people
for their sins our Christians would have made a great overthrow of
the enemy, for they had thirteen hundred knights and sergeants
well mounted. Of footmen there were fifteen thousand.
They passed the mountains where lies Nazareth, the city of our
Lord, and descended into a plain that was called in old time
Esdrelon, whence they hastened by rapid paces toward the well of
Tubania where Saladin was quartered with so many men that they
covered the whole country. They hoped to have a great contest with
the enemy, but Saladin broke camp and went away, and left them
the fountain. He waited, a thousand paces away.
One part of his horsemen arrived at Petit Gerin and took it by
force. Another sally of the Turks brought them to a castle called
Fprbelet, which they gained by force and took all that they found
within men, animals, and other things. The third company of
Saracens advanced directly toward the host of our men. They kept
so near to us that no one could go out upon the road for any need
without being slain. 2
iThe Lake of Galilee.
*Xhe army of Jerusalem had intrenched itself around the wells, lacking a leader
who could plan any course of action. It must be remembered that the Moslems
had perhaps six horsemen to one mounted crusader.
SALADIN PAYS A VISIT 55
Some of them climbed upon Mount Tabor and did that which
had not been done before; they demolished an abbey of the Greeks
who were of St. Helena, and took all that they found within. An
other company of Turks went off to the mountain where lies Naza
reth, and climbed to the heights from which they could look down
into the city below them. When the women and the children and
the weak people saw them so near a great many were frightened
and began to flee into the cathedral. The press was so great at the
entrance that some died there.
The host of our barons was so hemmed in on all sides by the
enemy that no one dared leave it, and no one could go to it with
provisions. From this it happened that a great famine began, and
many endured misery, especially the foot soldiers and the peasants
and the Genoese and Venetians and others from over the sea who
had left their ships in port and had come up to aid us, with the
pilgrims who were awaiting the October passage home.
When our barons saw the great suffering of the people, they took
counsel, and ordered the baillies in the neighboring castles to send
them in all the food that could be had. They did this willingly.
A large part of our knights went to escort the food. One party of
them foolishly wandered, and fell into the hands of the enemy.
These also had dire need of food, so that which they seized com
forted them the more.
It seemed to those of us who knew war that the Turks were well
on the way to suffer a great damage. But a hatred and a covert
envy came between the barons, who neglected the war. They had
such dislike of the count Guy of Jaffa, who was a stranger and
neither a wise man nor an able knight.
For eight whole days the Turks laid waste the land without hin
drance, while our men did nothing. On the eighth day Saladin led
his men back into their own land.
So William of Tyre wrote, and he did not add that for the
first time an army of crusaders had remained passive in the
presence of a weaker host of Moslems who had withdrawn
unmolested.
The discord in, the army convinced Baldwin, who had
wished to abdicate in favor of Guy, that he must find some
one else to take the reins of command. Pain-racked and soli
tary, he was still the king. He named Raymond of Galilee
regent of the kingdom, and called upon the patriarch of
Jerusalem to divorce Guy from his sister Sibyl.
56 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
This the patriarch would not do. Baldwin then cried that
he would summon Guy to trial for divorce, and when the
new count of Jaffa and Ascalon fled with his wife to his city
of Ascalon, the king had himself carried thither in a litter. .
But the gates of the city were closed against him by Guy s
order, and Baldwin, climbing from his litter in his gray robe
and veil, limped to the gate and beat upon it with his fists.
A voice called to him to go away, and the leper crawled back
to his litter. He could do no more.
William of Tyre censored the barons of the land with
harsh words. The men, he wrote, had become no better than
the infidels. "There is not a chaste woman in Palestine."
But the fault lay with the leaders, not with the men.
True, they had changed in the ninety years of their domin
ion. They had talked with the learned men of the Arabs; they
had lived within the throng of the priesthoods of elder Asia
the Nestorian hermits, and the silent Armenians, the Coptic
monks in their white cowls. Maronites and Jacobites had
come to pray at the Sepulcher once the way was clear.
The crusaders had learned that Antioch, not Rome, had
been Peter s city. They had wondered why the priests showed
them Calvary and the rock within the wall of Jerusalem, and
not upon a hill outside the walls. They had tilled the land of
Israel, to sow their barley and maize and lentils, and had
labored with the natives to ward off famine, while the
churches of the Holy Land lived upon the tithes they paid,
and the alms from Christendom. The churches, waxing
wealthy, had not the same influence as before.
William of Tyre knew that Heraclius, who was now patri
arch of Jerusalem, had a great treasure in his coffers, and a
hand greedy for gain. Heraclius was no scholar, and he was
given to lust, and men had made a song about his "Madam
Patriarch" who had been a tavern singer.
But these matters the good archbishop did not see fit to
write. He was well aware that the lands which did not belong
to the churches were passing little by little into the hands of
the great military orders, the Temple and the Hospital of
St. John. These servants of the Holy Land had become in a
way its masters. They held all the frontier castles except
SALADIN PAYS A VISIT 57
Tiberias and Kerak, and they were answerable only to the
pope, in Rome. Culprits against ecclesiastical law could take
refuge with them, and be safe.
With no able leader to meet the danger of a general Mos
lem war, the defense of Jerusalem rested upon the castles.
These, except for B any as, by the springs of the Jordan, and
Castle Jacob at a ford below Galilee, were intact. Some of
them had just been finished for the task of shaping the
great stones and hauling them to the heights took years.
And Saladin had stormed castle Jacob in a week.
The archbishop believed the castles would hold out. They
gripped the heights of the Holy Land, from Dan which was
Banyas below Beersheba. Their walls circled the towns.
Tyre itself was a citadel of the sea. These citadels lay within
a day s ride of each other some of them no more than walled
villages with a massive square tower, and others like the
great Krak of the Knights called the Flame of the Franks
by the Moslems circling, with huge double walls rising from
a great talus, the summit of a hill. Krak of the Knights was
the headquarters of the Hospitalers, up beyond Tripoli.
A thousand horses could be stabled in the corridors of the
inner work, and five thousand men could take shelter there.
Its round towers were citadels in themselves, with gates,
engines, covered passages, and lookouts a hundred feet in
the air. No siege machines could break through the sloping
talus built upon solid rock, and no siege towers could be ad
vanced to the walls because of the talus. The Hospitalers
had learned their art of fortification from the Byzantines,
and their Krak was twice the size of Coucy or Pierrefonds,
the largest castles of France.
Many of these citadels, standing like white monuments
upon the high crest of the ridges, could signal to the others
at night. All of them had water stored in cisterns, or a covered
way going down to a great reservoir. Unless surprised, they
would inevitably withstand a Moslem attack until the main
army of Jerusalem could come up to relieve them. For each
one had its scores or hundreds of men of arms, skilled in
raid br siege. And if the Moslems passed by the castles,
they must leave a greater force to watch the garrison.
58 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
No Moslem army would dare penetrate to Jerusalem leav
ing the network of castles intact behind it. Even Saladin, who
had struck glancing blows along the line from south to north,
could not hope to surprise the castles, which all had outpost
towers on the lower slopes, and guard posts along the roads.
William of Tyre wrote the last words in his history
troubled words. For Baldwin, the dying king, had asked him
for proof that life endured after death, and the shocked prelate
had replied with long and logical arguments* But Baldwin
had doubted, and so the leprosy had defied all the prayers of
the churchmen. And the archbishop William saw in the im
agined heresy of the knights the cause of the trouble that be
set Jerusalem the lack of sons in the royal line, and the
growing power of the Moslems. So the doctrine of his faith
had taught him to reason.
He put aside the parchment pages of his book, and said
farewell to Tyre. With other envoys he took ship for Christen
dom, to visit the courts of the kings of France and England,
to plead for aid for Jerusalem.
Beyond the blue haze of the gorge of the Dead Sea, beyond
the bare line of Moab s height, and far beyond sight of the
watchers in Jerusalem, lay the farthest castles. Kerak of the
Desert Stone of the Desert and the white walls of Mont
Real rising over the green of olive trees, and Ahamant stand
ing above the Valley of Moses.
Fertile was the earth here, with its groves of fig and pome
granate trees, and its shadowed springs. And the castles stood
guard at a kind of desert crossroads, where the Pilgrim Road
ran south toward Mecca, and the caravans from the east
turned off to go to Egypt. So these outpost castles had been
verily a stone in the throat of Islam. Nur ad Din gnawed at
them fretfully, and Saladin struck at them his swift, unseen
blows. But still they stood, and just now they housed a
wolf. The Arabs called him Arnat.
"Arnat was an old man most skilled in waging war, with
great fortitude of spirit/ they said.
In his youth, he had been Reginald of Chatillon-sur-Marne.
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SALADIN PAYS A VISIT 59
From there, he had followed the path of war with a heedless
daring of his own. Many a time had he awakened under a
burning roof, or set a torch to the roof beams of an enemy.
Faithless in most things, callous and indifferent to death, he
went his way in a grim fashion sword slayer, and brigand
when it suited him, with the single virtue of courage and
the gift of winning the loyalty of men. We first hear of him
stealing a bride and making himself lord of Antioch. But
Antioch, still splendid, had fallen under the influence of the
Byzantines, and when Reginald of Chatillon now of An
tioch attempted to seize the imperial island of Cyprus,
he was smitten down and forced to hold the bridle rein of a
Byzantine emperor. Then, in the Moslem war with Nur ad
Din, he was taken captive and held for fifteen years. When
the wolf became free at last, he was given the fief of the Stone
of the Desert, the barbican of the Holy Land and the point
of greatest danger.
Perhaps only Reginald, of all the souls of Christendom,
would have dared the unthinkable. No sooner had Saladin
announced the jihad than Reginald went off to attack
Mecca, to destroy the sanctuary of Islam.
He built ships on his mountain summit, in pieces, and
carried them on camel back, escorted by friendly and mysti
fied Arabs, across the sands to the northernmost point of the
Red Sea. He painted the galleys black and put them together
while he besieged the port of Aila; and his two galleys cruised
south, utterly unlooked for, down from one white-walled
sea village to another, taking rich spoil along the sea that
had been a Moslem lake for five hundred years and still is.
No chronicler has recorded the year-long jaunt of these
crusaders who appeared in their mantles and mail in the
track of Islam s pilgrims.
"It was like the coming of the last Judgment," an Arab
historian says. And for a space utter amazement paved the
way for the doomed men. They camped in mud villages
under palm groves, coming and going from their galleys while
the season s pilgrims scattered to the inland hills. Then
retribution overtook them. Saladin was in the far north,
60 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
but Al Adil, his brother, launched a fleet from the Egyptian
side, and pursued. How the battles were fought for long
weeks, we do not know.
Once the crusaders were within a day s march of the holy
city of Medina. And near there, they were cornered.
We pursued them, until not one of them was to be seen or heard
of. All that crowd of infidels was sent to hell. We made a hundred
and seventy prisoners.
At least two of the captives were sent to Mecca, to be slain
before a multitude on the day of sacrifice in the near-by hills.
Others were brought back in triumph to Cairo, bound upon
camels and donkeys, sitting face to tail.
The stories they told us of their hardships and exploits almost
burst our hearts with astonishment. . . . The sultan ordered all
of them to be beheaded. Not one man was left to relate again his
adventure or to point out to others the route of the Red Sea, that
impregnable barrier between the infidels and the sacred city.
But the Moslem chroniclers were mistaken. One man had
escaped, and Reginald of Kerak came back to his castle,
where he abode in quiet for a while, as a crippled wolf licks
his wounds.
His spirit had not altered, and he lost no time in raiding the
caravans that stole past his stronghold.
That year a wedding was held in the wolfs lair. The young
knight Humphrey of Toron son of the old Humphrey of
Toron, who gave the accolade of knighthood to Saladin, the
legends say, twenty years before at Alexandria took for his
bride Isabel, the younger sister of Baldwin the Leper. He
was a man of honor, born of the highest lineage of Jerusalem.
And she also was young and of a proud family. Only that
much is certain. Why they were married in that distant Stone
of the Desert, among the dour swordsmen of the lord of
Kerak, we do not know except that Humphrey was a
kinsman of the wolf of Kerak. Reginald summoned all the
minstrels from Beyond-Jordan, and killed a dozen sheep for
SALADIN PAYS A VISIT 61
the wedding feast. The Arabs of his village climbed to the
mountain, to watch the fires and to listen to the singing.
Before midnight the bride and the groom had been escorted
to the small tower in the center of the five-hundred-yard
enceinte when the darkness became alive with other sounds
the roaring of drums and the clashing of cymbals, the ringing
of steel against steel, and the battle shout " Yahla V Islam^
YaUa lIsIam!"
Saladin had come up, unseen during the feasting, to exact
retribution for the Mecca raid. His soldiers stormed the outer
wall, and drove the Christian swordsmen headlong through
the wide enclosure, past the magazine and reservoir to the
moat of the castle keep.
But the crippled wolf was not to be taken. Reginald and
the bulk of his men got across the drawbridge over the chasm
that divides the citadel from the outer work. Saladin stormed
the remainder of the enceinte and set up his siege engines
across the moat from the keep. But when he learned that he
had interrupted a wedding, and that the two lovers were
quartered in one of the towers of the keep, he ordered that
no stones be cast against their tower.
And Reginald sent out to him meat and wine from the
banquet board, and a message of regret that he had lacked
time to prepare more fitly for his distinguished, unbidden
guest.
Saladin s engineers settled down to work the engines and
pound at the isolated citadel. For a month or more Reginald
held good his keep until Raymond, his feudal enemy,
crossed the Jordan with the army of Jerusalem to his relief.
Then Saladin, who was not in strength, withdrew to the
north. But not before Raymond had come into his camp to
talk with him, and had agreed as the sultan also agreed
to a five-year truce.
The young prince of Galilee saw in the truce the best safe
guard of Jerusalem. Saladin wished it for a reason of his own.
He had subdued the restless north, but Mosul in the east
troubled him, and he had to keep Taki ad Din with an army
to safeguard Aleppo. This prevented him from using his full
strength against the crusaders, and he planned to extend his
62 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
rule over Mosul and the great mountain region of Irak before
making his real effort against the Christians. So he departed
from the frontier, early in the year 1184.
In the next year died Baldwin, king of Jerusalem, with
no one to succeed him.
XI
A KING IS CROWNED
a year no one walked in the gallery, under the
Tower of David in Jerusalem. The crown of the king-
dom lay in the sanctuary of the patriarch, while
noblemen, priors, and grand masters came and went. And
the talk in hall and monastery grew hot and fierce. Many of
the peers claimed the regency for the young Raymond, while
others argued that he had made an unworthy truce with the
sultan.
The patriarch listened to them all, and especially to
De Riddeford, the master of the Temple. Sibyl had all
the pride of her birth, and a will that could overleap the
obstacle of a weak husband. She was the sister of the dead
king, and she claimed the throne by right by the old feudal
right.
Others opposed her, saying that Guy was not worthy
to wear the crown of Baldwin. Raymond of Galilee became
the leader of this party, who wished Isabel and Humphrey
of Toron to succeed to the throne. Many of the barons gave
allegiance to the young Isabel, but her husband respected the
63
64 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
old feudal right, and would make no move on his own behalf.
No one kept watch for Saladin, for the tale came down
from the north that he was sick unto death, and living or
not the pledge of his five-year truce would stand. Then
Reginald of Kerak rode in to Jerusalem, and armed Templars
sallied out from their quarters in the white palace that once
had been a mosque. A cavalcade of spears from Ascalon
entered the gates at night, and in the morning the gates of
the city were in the hands of Sibyl s supporters.
Heraclius, the patriarch, saw this, and agreed readily that
feudal right,, should be maintained. A procession formed
between curious throngs and climbed the narrow street to
the churche of the Sepulcher. The white surcoats of the
Temple and the gray coats-of-arms of Kerak surrounded the
pale Sibyl and the silent Guy, and the procession filed into
the door of the Sepulcher, into the deep shadows where can
dles flickered between marble columns, and black-clad priests
stood at the door of a closed tomb. By the altar Heraclius
in full robes lifted a vial of ointment and a crown, and his
voice echoed under the dome.
". . , Prelates, seigneurs, bourgeois, and you, the people
who are assembled in this place we make known to you
that we are here to crown queen the lady Sibyl, countess of
Jaffa and Ascalon, and we wish you to tell us if she is to be
truly the^queen of the kingdom."
Thrice the patriarch asked the question, and thrice the
murmured answer was "Yes." But when the ceremony
was at an end, and the time came for Sibyl to rise from her
knees, she lifted the crown from her head, and placed it upon
her husband s, saying, "Thus now do I, Sibyl, bestow upon
thee, my husband, the crown of the kingdom." And, taking
his hand, she led him to the high seat of the cathedral.
^ And Amalric, the constable, hearing of his brother s corona
tion, said, amazed, "Faith, if they have made him a king,
they should make me a god."
Isabel, the sister of Sibyl, cried out against it, but Hum
phrey of Toron, a good knight and a man of easy mind, would
take no stand in the matter, and men fell away from Ray
mond, who alone defied the authority of the new lord of
A KING IS CROWNED 65
Jerusalem. It was said that Raymond went then to Saladin
and did homage to the sultan.
Months passed, and Reginald of Kerak found the truce
irksome. Raymond had made the truce, not he, and the prince
of Galilee -was in disfavor. When the great Moslem caravan
from Cairo camped under his castle with its multitude of
slaves and tempting bales of goods, the master of Kerak
could not hold back his hand.
He led down his followers, and seized the caravan and held
it, in spite of Saladin J s instant message of protest, in which
the sultan claimed the caravan as his own, under the safe
guard of the truce. Reginald s answer was to sally out against
the long caravan of pilgrims coming back from Mecca, and
Saladin s patience snapped.
"If the Lord wills/ he cried, "I shall slay that man with
my own hand."
By now Saladin had recovered from his illness, and his
work beyond Mosul was done. For the first time he mustered
the levies of the far lands the distant Turkoman clans and
the Kurds of Irak.
"To fight for the cause of the Lord was with him a true
passion," his chronicler said. "He spoke of nothing else; he
thought of nothing but war and engines, and occupied him
self with nothing but his soldiers. He was content with the
shade of a single tent."
Something of his enthusiasm animated the new levies, who
marched with him down to the Jordan, while Taki ad Din,
with a corps of veteran cavalry, maneuvered about Antioch
to hold the Christian forces of that city aloof from the
gathering host of Jerusalem. Then, in June of the year 1187,
Taki ad Din hastened down to join his uncle, and the black
banners of the sultan crossed the Jordan at the ford just be
low the lake of Galilee. This time there would be no drawing
back, for Saladin was determined to break the strength of the
crusaders and drive them from the Holy Land.
It was the ban and the arriere ban the king s summons
for lord and vassal and peasantry, for the castle guards and
crews of the ships. They plodded along the roads toward
66 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Saffuriya. Gallants of Tripoli, adventurers from the sea, the
spears of Tyre, and the close-drawn ranks of the mailed
Templars young esquires from the halls, with flowers
in their mantles, and the memory of farewell smiles tugging
at their thoughts grim knights from the Watchers, and
brown, pagan Turcoples who wasted no thought on the
causes of war. Toward the meeting place they moved, through
the white dust of the dry season.
In the shade of the road shrines they sat by the wells; they
emerged from dry wadies, and filed out of cattle paths. They
slept in the churches or marched under the cool stars. Knights
of Jerusalem, escorting the gold standard of the cross, rode
by the black-garbed Hospitalers, climbing the slow road
around Carmel s height where the monks prayed, up to the
highlands, to Saffuriya where the wells were the last wells.
Beyond Saffuriya the bare plain rose to the hills of Galilee,
without river or well.
At the camp of Saffuriya the great lords waited in their
pavilions. Raymond found no sleep in the hot nights for
his wife and his castle of Tiberias lay down behind the hills
at the lake, where Moslem horsemen rode. Reginald of Kerak
chafed at the waiting. They had made up their quarrel at
the meeting place, for this was the rallying of the mailed
host in time of need, and personal quarrels must be put aside.
Humphrey of Toron was here, and the brave Balian d Ibelin,
with Amalric the Constable, and the quiet, stubborn officers
of the Temple.
The days passed and they waited, while scouts brought
in word of the Moslems. Saladin had led his last contingents
across the Jordan, and was camped along the heights by
Galilee, facing them, but fifteen miles away. Saladin had a
great host with him, twenty-five thousand horsemen, and
they were waiting also. Their pickets were within sight.
Saladin could not move upon Jerusalem while the Chris
tians watched at Saffuriya. He could not get past them, to
the coast. So the two armies rested, full in their strength,
alert and wary, while the days of June ended.
Then Saladin sent a division back, into the depths of the
lake shore, to attack Tiberias. The outer town was stormed
A KING IS CROWNED 67
in a day, and Raymond s wife with her scanty garrison
penned in the castle.
That night the lords of the Christian host gathered in the
pavilion of the king, to decide what they must do. Gravely
spoke De Riddeford, master of the Templars: "We can not,
in honor, hold back while the castle is taken, within our
reach."
Reginald of Kerak added his voice to the master s. They
looked then to the king. "I have no will to press the war,"
he said, with hesitation.
Raymond spoke then. "Can you not see what lies before
you? O my comrades, not little is the peril in which we stand
from this man Saladin."
And he explained that they would find no water in the
advance against the Moslems. It would be better to let Ti
berias fall, let his wife be taken, than to risk an advance.
If they held their ground, the Moslems must withdraw or
lose the advantage of position. Many agreed with him, while
the younger knights and the reckless lord of Kerak urged an
attack, reminding the council that Raymond had once made
a private treaty for peace with Saladin. In the end the council
decided not to march forward.
But that evening De Riddeford and Reginald of Kerak
went to the king s tent, and persuaded the irresolute Guy
to order an advance at dawn.
So the banners of the host moved out over the plain, and
the chivalry of Beyond the Sea went into battle for a point
of honor. 1
iThe Moslem chronicles relate that Saladin s amirs advised him at this time not to
risk a battle but to withdraw and lay waste the lands of the Christian lords until they
scattered. Saladin answered: "And when will such a gathering be gathered together
again in one place before us? Nay, be ready to lead your men. God will do what He
wills."
XII
HATTIN
rE Christian leaders marched at dawn, the second day
of July, hoping to reach the Moslem line at noon, and
break through before darkness. They knew the Mos
lems held the brow of the great descent toward Galilee, six
hundred feet below the level of the sea. If the Moslems could
be broken and thrown back, they would be hurled down the
descent upon the walls of Tiberias. As for the numbers of
the Moslems, the old wolf of Kerak laughed "The more
the wood the greater will be the fire."
The sun, however, held a fire of its own, and the marching
columns lagged. They were twenty thousand men of all
arms, and for the greater part experienced in war. They were
ready for battle. But most of them marched afoot, in mail
and carrying water. Under their feet the gray rock ledges
burned with the intolerable heat of the sky overhead, and
red dust choked their throats. Their feet climbed long slopes,
and stumbled down into brush-filled gullies. Although the
knights rode back to urge them on, they lagged.
When the sun went down they were still far from the
Moslem lines. The leaders called a halt and the men camped
68
HATTIN 69
and drank thirstily, and slept while mounted patrols watched.
But Raymond could not sleep, knowing that they had ven
tured too far, and yet not far enough. They could not turn
back, in the face of the Moslem horsemen; they had left the
springs of Saffuriya, and on the morrow they must reach
the water of Galilee.
"Lord, Lord!" he cried. "Already is the battle lost, and
we are dead men/
Before the first light the olifants sounded, the horses were
saddled, while the spearmen and archers looked to their
weapons and sought their ranks. As they pushed forward the
sun blazed red in their eyes, and when the heat struck into
their limbs they drank the last of their water, throwing away
the empty skins.
Ahead of them drums throbbed and cymbals clashed. They
saw dark masses of horsemen moving out to the flanks, under
the black banners and the green banners of Islam. The dry
earth burned their feet, and the chaff of trampled wheat
rose about them in the air that quivered with heat. Sweat
dried on their skin, and the iron weighed upon their shoulders.
The wild Arab clans surged through the veil of dust, and
the first arrows flashed while a roar of voices answered the
drums:
"Yahla IlslamYahla 7 Islam!"
The light of the sun glowed on the gold casing of the
cross, raised above their heads.
The sun set at last and dusk crept across the glare of the
sky. No wind breathed upon the dry breast of the earth, with
its trodden wheat and dusty, brittle tamarisks.
On knolls and rock ridges the crusaders sat or lay, without
light or water or food. A murmur went from mass to mass of
them, where hoarse voices whispered and cracked lips
prayed, and the wounded moaned in vain for water. The
saddles were not taken from the sweat-stained horses. Broken
spears lay upon the ground, and knights sat silent among
peasants.
They had fought through the day, knights and archers
and spearmen. They had moved forward a little. But they
70 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
had not broken the line of the Moslem horsemen. So they
waited in the hours of darkness by their dead, racked by
thirst and weariness and ebbing hope. The last of their
water was gone, and their leaders could do nothing more for
them.
"In that place," the Moslem chronicler says, "the Angels
of Death kept watch that night/*
Lights flickered and tossed around the mass of crusaders,
where the cavalry patrols hemmed them in. For Saladin had
extended his line to close them in. They heard the chanting
voices of the Koran readers, and the eager shouts of men who
had water to drink and hope for the morrow.
"Allaku akbarallah 7 allahu!"
With the dawn the Christians took up their weapons and
came on again. "They advanced/ the Moslem chronicler
adds, "as if driven toward certain death."
They did not move with raised lances and firm ranks, the
men on foot supporting the horsemen. Instead, they tram
pled through the dust clouds, pushing silently toward the
cool gorge of Galilee, clearly to be seen but beyond their
reach. For the fever of thirst raged in them, and on that
fourth day of July they fought like the specters of men,
toward the hope of water and life. The struggle raged in the
village of Loubiya under the rocky hillocks known as the
Horns of Hattin.
In this struggle, the foot became separated from the horse.
The knights, deprived of support, made vain charges into
the solid array of the Moslems, already tasting victory.
Horses fell under the deadly arrows, or sank exhausted, and
the chivalry of Jerusalem was forced to stand to defend itself,
drawing more and more into a dense circle, cut off from the
men-at-arms who scattered in groups on rising ground.
Only Raymond of Galilee was able to lead some scores of
riders in a desperate charge that broke through the Moslem
lines. He rode on a spent horse back to the coast.
By noon of this last day of the battle, the remaining lords
had gathered about the king and Reginald of Kerak on the
knolls of Hattin, where the gold cross gleamed. Surrounded
and ceaselessly beset by Saladin s cavalry, they held their
HATTIN 71
ground, wielding sword and battle ax, until the brush around
them was set on fire by the Moslems.
When the smoke thinned and drifted away, they threw
down their weapons, and sat down where they had stood,
without strength to do more. Their bleared eyes saw the
cross lowered by a Moslem hand.
"Of all who had come hither, only the captives were left
alive."
So the chivalry of Jerusalem came to its end, and the battle
of Hattin ceased.
Nothing remained of the army of the crusaders. 1 It had
been the ban and the arrfere ban. All the able-bodied strength
of their kingdom had marched out of Saffuriya, and had
ceased to be, there in the red fields above Galilee. Nothing
was left, except the dark bodies lying in clumps like fallen
stacks of wheat, while the Moslems stripped them of stained
and dusty weapons. Except the captives, in torn shirts and
bloodied leather jerkins, staring voicelessly at the Moslem
horsemen.
Perhaps a few scores of mounted Turcoples had found a
way from the battlefield, or some wearied stragglers still hid
in the gullies. Raymond reached his castle in Tripoli and
died there two weeks later of exhaustion and a broken heart.
That evening the last cavalry of Taki ad Din came in from
the pursuit, and dismounted in a tumult of rejoicing, where
the Turkish swordsmen were cutting the heads from the
Templars who had survived the battle some two hundred
of them. It was the rule of the Temple that no member of
the order might ransom himself. And the Moslems treated
them without mercy, except for the master, De Riddeford,
The grim warrior-monks knelt under the sword strokes
without protest or prayer for mercy. The law of Islam re
quired that before an unbeliever was put to death, he should
TOstorians, reading the pages of William of Tyre, have explained the disaster by
saying that these men of the army of Jerusalem were degenerates or weaklings com
pared to the earlier crusaders, and so were defeated where the others gained vic
tories. That is not so. These men did not lack courage, or experience. They were
badly led, and they were opposed by a united army of Islam superior in numbers,
and ably commanded by Saladin.
72 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
be offered the chance of acknowledging the faith of Mu
hammad, and if he accepted he should be spared. But the
Templars made no reply to the contemptuous question, and
the swords fell.
When the last wearer of the red cross lay on the ground,
Saladin rode to his camp where his servants were setting
up the great pavilions joyfully. He stopped where the kadis
were gathered about the gold casing of the cross, shining in
the torchlight. This was the emblem of the crusaders. It
had gone before them in battle from Ascalon to Hattin.
For nearly ninety years they had prevailed. Nur ad Din
had dreamed of their overthrow, but in two days Saladin
had put an end to them. What conqueror of Asia had tasted
such a victory? Not Xerxes and not Mahmoud. The Kurd
in Saladin exulted in the triumph of his clans; the scholar
in him pondered the meaning of the triumph; and the devout
spirit of the conqueror felt in this sudden, bewildering
achievement an omen of greater things. Unless God had
willed it, the fate of Hattin would not have befallen his ene
mies.
Before his tent Saladin listened to the exultation of his
officers. Courteous Adil, his brother, came forward to con
gratulate him; impetuous Taki ad Din chanted a song about
the battle, and the Arab chieftains beat their hands in re
sponse. Indeed and indeed, Saladin was the king, the Victory
Bringer.
What followed is related by the chronicler:
Saladin held an audience in the vestibule of his tent for it was
not yet put up. The warriors came to claim his favor, presenting
to him the prisoners they had made, and the chieftains they had
identified.
The tent was finally in order, and the sultan seated himself there
happily. He bade them bring in the king and his brother 1 and the
prince Arnat. Then he offered a sherbet of chilled rose water to the
king, who was overcome by thirst. He only drank a part, and offered
the goblet to the prince Arnat, The sultan said at once to the
*Guy and Amalric of Lusignan, who were the king and the constable of Jerusalem,
Arnat was Reginald of Kerak.
HATTIN 73
interpreter/ Remind the king that it is not I but he who gives drink
to this man/
For the sultan had adopted the praiseworthy and generous cus
tom of the nomads who granted life to a prisoner if he ate or drank
of that which belonged to them.
Then he gave order to lead the three to a place prepared for their
reception, and when they had eaten, he asked for them to be
brought in again. Only some servants were then with him. The king
he made to sit in the vestibule; he required the prince of Kerak to
come in, and after reminding him again of the words he had spoken,
he said, "I am he who will serve Muhammad against thee!"
He then inquired if the prince would embrace Islam, and on the
man s refusal, he drew his sword and struck him a blow which
severed the arm from the shoulder. At this the servitors sprang
upon the captive, and God sent his soul to hell.
They drew his body out, and cast it into the tent entrance. The
king, seeing in what fashion his comrade had been treated, believed
that he would be the second victim, and he shook in all his limbs.
But the sultan had him brought in and calmed his fears. "Kings,"
he said, "have not the habit of slaying kings, but that man yonder
had passed all limits."
XIII
JERUSALEM
HE citadel of Tiberias was surrendered by Raymond s
wife the next day, and Saladin placed his prisoners
under guard in that town. And he made ready to take
full advantage of the extraordinary situation.
His army was almost intact, the men eager to be led on.
Elsewhere the Christian strongholds were just beginning to
hear the terrible tidings of Hattin. More than that, the great
citadels were now held only by skeleton garrisons. Their
feudal lords almost without exception had been slain or
taken at Hattin. Saladin wasted not a day in deliberation.
He brought his army down to the coast, thus cutting the
lands of the crusaders in twain separating north from south.
He struck first at the strongest of the coast ports, Acre.
With what siege engines he had been able to carry on camel
and mule back, he prepared to attack the walls; but Acre,
with only a handful of soldiers, opened its gates and the sultan
was well pleased to grant it generous terms.
Then he divided his host since no army could possibly
be mustered to threaten the Moslems and sent the divisions
headlong over the country, under Al Adil, Taki ad Din, and
the other amirs. He himself cleared the mid-region between
74
FRONTI6R OF TH HOLY LAND
IN 118*, WHN SALAWN PR-
FOR. WS INVASION*
Christian fortified cities 13
towns
cartles - A
Sancfu<*>ry
Woy/en -farHfitd tititt* (3
towns * H
oufposi IbajefS
Assassin cxtsfle * *
of the f rentier ~*
75
7 6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Acre and Galilee, taking possession of Haifa, Saffuriya,
Nazareth, and Caesarea to the south. Then he moved north,
and took the surrender of lofty Tibnin, while his advance
was preparing the siege of Beirut, at the foot of the red hills of
Lebanon. Sidon yielded to a passing summons, and Beirut
a walled city without a fortress surrendered after an eight
days siege.
Swiftly Saladin detached garrisons to hold the captured
places. The people of the towns he let go where they willed.
Without their fortresses the bulk of the Christians were
helpless, under the swords of his horsemen. His soldiers
snatched up all provisions and weapons and precious goods,
but the sultan would not delay for any seeking of spoil. He
wanted to add Tyre, lying behind its walls out in the sea
itself, to his conquests, but Jerusalem was his goal, and
thither he went on the heels of Malik Adil, who had stormed
Jaffa. Tyre could be attended to later.
By the last of July Saladin was camped in the sands before
the great wall of Ascalon, which had refused to surrender.
Ascalon, sheltered behind its twelve-foot curtains and square
towers, was the main port of the south, as Acre had been of
the center of the Holy Land. From it ran the caravan route to
Egypt. The Moslems called it the Bride of Syria, and
Saladin would not leave it unconquered. While he prepared
to besiege it, he sent for Guy of Lusignan, who had been its
lord.
When the captive king appeared, the sultan offered to
release him if he secured the surrender of the city. Guy was
led under the wall to talk to the garrison, but could not pre
vail upon the defenders to open their gates. So the Moslems
drew the siege lines tighter, and sent detachments to subdue
the country between there and Jerusalem.
Here the Christians still lingered in the little hill towns,
by their shrines and churches all of them who had not taken
refuge in Jerusalem. Down by the sea Gaza and Darum
yielded to the sultan s summons. Defense was hopeless, and
Ramlah gave up its keys, while the Moslem banners were
carried into the church over the tomb of St. George.
Within the foothills, the strong castle of Ibelin surrendered
JERUSALEM 77
after bargaining for the release of its beloved lord, young
Balian. Almost within sight of Jerusalem, the towns of the
monks yielded Bait-Jebrail, and Bait-Laim, that the cru
saders called Bethlehem* And, isolated, without hope of aid,
Ascalon asked for terms on the fourth of September.
In two months Saladin had swept through the whole of the
Holy Land that had taken the crusaders so many generations
of effort and bloodshed to subdue. True, in the east several
of the giants of the frontier still remained intact on their
heights. But the Moslems held all the country behind them,
and, cut off from the sea, their fate was only a matter of time.
They were summits that had escaped the sweep of the flood
and the men isolated within them could not venture out.
And Saladin s thoughts were bent on Jerusalem, where lay
the Al Aksa, the third sacred place of Islam, and the gray
rock from which Muhammad had ascended. Jerusalem
would be the fruit of his conquest the true reward of the
almost unbelievable good fortune that had befallen him.
On the twentieth of September his army camped on the
western height opposite the Gate of David.
A few days before, Balian d Ibelin had reined his horse
through the same gate. The young baron found himself the
only noble within the city of all those who had gone forth to
Hattin. The queen, Sibyl, waited there in the palace, with
her sister Isabel their quarrel forgotten in the calamity of
the kingdom. There too waited Heraclius and the abbots of
lost churches, with the refugees from a dozen towns. But no
knight skilled in arms until Balian came.
Anxious women thronged the narrow streets. Cattle
crowded the fields by the Butchery. Mules and led horses
filled the chambers under the Templars quarters, where the
chargers had been. Boys, gray priests, and Syrian Christians
long-robed merchants, haggard pilgrims, and voiceless
widows waited in the courtyard of the Sepulcher, while
prayers were uttered ceaselessly. Only a scattering of armed
men gathered on the tower summits, or walked moodily
through the alleys.
And they all besought Balian to take command of the de-
78 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
fense. They had not seen the red fields of Hattin. Their
thoughts could not grasp the reality that the armed host
did not exist any more. In some way a miracle would aid
them, and Jerusalem would not be taken from them, Balian
d Ibelin must show them how to defend the city!
He told them that he was no more than a prisoner released
on his oath never to bear arms against the sultan. He showed
them that he wore no sword. They pressed around him, and
would not leave him, and in the end he yielded to them. A
knight, raised to arms, could not stand apart while common
people fought.
All this he wrote in a despairing letter to Saladin, asking in
the same moment that the sultan would seek out and safe
guard his wife and children. In time the answer came, that
Saladin understood and would protect his family.
Meanwhile Balian did what he could. He assembled the
few score men trained in arms. He knighted, without cere
mony, some fifty youthful esquires and sergeants. With the
money of the churches he bought pikes and crossbows and
shields for the hundreds of peasants and pilgrims who were
able to handle them. He knew well enough that no miracle
would save the city by aid of such men, but he had cast in
his lot with them, and he did what he could. At least Jerusa
lem would not fall without a blow struck.
Meanwhile Saladin and his amirs had studied the western
wall, and found it too strong to be assailed. As the first cru
saders had done, eighty and eight years before, he moved his
camp to the high ground opposite the northeast angle of the
city. Here the siege engines were set up, and a barricade
raised along the ditch to protect the miners who set to work
to dig under the foundations of the wall.
The unskilled garrison had no proper engines to break
down the barricade, and their counter-mines fell in. They
manned the summit of the wall and plied their bows, but
the veteran mamluks and Turks made no attempt at first
to storm the gray stone rampart. Instead, the miners en
larged their tunnels, propping up the foundation of the city
wall as they dug beneath it until the props were burned and
a broad section of the wall cracked and fell in.
JERUSALEM 79
For this moment the Moslem swordsmen had waited, and
while the drums roared they swarmed up into the breach,
to be met by arrows and slingstones and javelins.
"I will take Jerusalem as the Christians took it," Saladin
had said, "sword in hand."
The Moslems gained the breach and held it, fortifying it
for their next effort. And that night a kind of miracle hap
pened. While the priests and women marched in procession
through the streets chanting the Miserere, the armed men,
led by the knights, surged out, with the battle cry of the
cross.
"God wills it."
They drove the besiegers from the breach, and when the
next day had passed with its din of weapons and outcry of
the wounded and the maddened men, they still held fast in
the breach, against the stones and shafts from the Moslem
engines.
And they sent out envoys to Saladin, saying in the exulta
tion of the hour that the men of Jerusalem had pledged them
selves not to survive the loss of the city. They would slaugh
ter the horses and cattle, and pile the furniture in the
churches. They would set torches to the wood and burn the
churches, with their altars and vestments and relics. Women
and children would be put to the sword, and then the men,
priests and warriors, would sally out to find death in their
turn.
While Saladin pondered their words, the patriarch Hera-
clius sought Balian d Ibelin within the city. "It is not well
to destroy ourselves thus," he said. "For every man of us
fifty women and children would be lost. Nay, it is better to
yield the city and betake ourselves to Christian soil."
Balian listened and talked with the leaders of the men.
The next day he went out under truce to confer with Saladin*
What the knight and the sultan said is not known. Both
were men of decision and they knew the plight of Jerusalem.
The enlightened Moslem had no wish to lay the city in ruins,
and he agreed to allow all the inhabitants to depart with
arms and all possessions except money that they could take
with them. But they must ransom themselves, paying ten
80 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
pieces of gold for every man, five for a woman, and one for a
child. He agreed to conduct them to the coast ports.
And Balian, who could not have hoped for such leniency,
accepted the terms.
The next days saw a strange sight. All the gates remained
closed except the Gate of David. From this a ceaseless caval
cade passed out. Women, in traveling cloaks, laden with
bundles, rode forth with their children, while servants
dragged cattle and herded sheep beside them. Sallow Ar
menians rode out on donkeys, followed by their women.
Barefoot monks came out, with lowered heads, marching
after their superiors. Behind them the bells of the Sepulcher
were tolling.
The men of Jerusalem came forth seneschal and hermit,
lord and beggar and peasant. Among her ladies, veiled before
the insolent eyes of the Moslem warriors, Sibyl the queen
appeared, with her sister and the widows of Hattin. Some
went down the road silent in their pride, but others sought
the sultan in a throng and fell on their knees to beseech that
their husbands, the captives of Hattin, be released. A strange
sight the noblewomen of Outremer kneeling before a sultan
of Islam. They did not beg in vain, for Saladin granted their
plea.
All of them paid their ransom coins to the watchful of
ficers, and Saladin, when the money was brought to him,
gave it out to the Moslem soldiers.
The black robes of the sad monks filed past him, and the
gray habits of the Augustinians. The patriarch Heraclius
went out, with his private treasure hidden in the sacks upon
his beasts. He carried out gold, although thousands of the
poor remained weeping in the city. It was Saladin who re
leased them and who forbade his men to lay hand on the
property of the patriarch by announcing that those who had
no money might pass out by the postern of St. Lazarus.
So the last of the exodus began, and the people of the
alleys, with their rags and their sick and clinging children,
passed across the stones of the Sepulcher courtyard, looking
up at the silent bell tower and the arched gateways with their
familiar stone figures. They looked back at the dome of the
JERUSALEM 81
Temple of the Lord, and as they left the gate, their hands
touched helplessly the gray stones.
Upon the road they stood without knowing what else to do,
until detachments of Moslem cavalry formed them into par
ties and set out with them toward the coast. No miracle had
saved the city, but a strange thing had happened. For the
Moslems had taken possession of it without blood being
shed. And this had been brought about by Saladin s mercy.
On the hill beyond the gate the people of Jerusalem saw
dark figures climb to the dome of the Sepulcher and wrench
from it the great gilt cross, casting it down to the ground.
A shout rose and swelled as surf beats against the rocks
of a shore.
" Allahu-akbar allah 7 allahu!"
It seemed to the world of Islam a portent and a sign from
the Lord. Hattin had ceased upon a Friday, and Jerusalem
had fallen upon a Friday while the true believers prayed.
Couriers rode to the distant lands, crying out their message:
"The praise to God, who hath overturned the pride of the
Nazarenes by the sword of the king, the Victory Bringer!"
Already the learned men of Damascus and Cairo were
assembling, with the kadis and the readers of the Law, to
make the first pilgrimage to Al Kuds The Holy. For that
was their name for Jerusalem.
The men of letters wrote a paean of victory, and people
made a song of the downfall of the Christians:
Their city!
Fallen is their city, into the hands of the true friends of the Lord.
Fearful is their spirit, beholding before them only the Sword and the
fire of Purgatory!
On the Temple enclosure thousands of hands were laboring
at the Al Aksa mosque that had been for so long the palace
of the Templars. The walled-up prayer niches were opened
again, and the altar torn from the chapel. Mosaics upon the
walls were whitewashed, and the heads smashed from marble
images since Muhammad had forbidden the worship of
images. The stones were washed, and sprinkled with rose-
82 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
water. And in the corner toward Mecca a slender pulpit of
carved wood was placed.
This had been fashioned by order of Nur ad Din, to be
kept until it could be placed in the Holy City. And Saladin,
remembering it, had sent for it from Aleppo. Around it clean
prayer carpets were spread, and men hastened to wash their
feet and kneel in this sanctuary redeemed from the infidels,
while the caller-to-prayer ascended the bell tower from which
the bells had been thrown.
Swarthy faces were lifted reverently, when the chant of
the muezzin sounded over the roofs. Mailed figures gathered,
shoulder to shoulder, and brother smiled at brother.
Dawn that has cast its shadows upon the unbelievers,
Shrouding them in eternal night!
Dawn that has brought new life to Is/am,
Shedding the radiance of everlasting day!
PART II
A SHIP sailed into the west. A black sail hung upon
the mast. Swift winds drove it over the deep water.
In the drowsy ports, it left a message behind it.
"Woe to Christendom! Jerusalem hath fallen.
The Cross is lost and the host of the Cross is slain"
Upon the roads of the west the message went forth;
swift horses clattered over bridges and over the sleepy
autumn fields. Past hostel and hall the hoof-beat
thundered.
Mien gathered at crossroads, and before cathedral
doors. In the twilight, over barren fields they came,
to the lights of tavern and castle. In the darkness
voices murmured, while the bells of the abbeys
tolled and clanged. Woe to Christendom, to the way
ward, the sinning. Woe to them who had lost Jerusa
lem, the glory of the world.
Beyond the sea the host of Anti-Christ had risen
up; the banners of Satan had come out of the east,
and the horsemen of Mahound had trampled the
Holy City.
The voices murmured where the men gathered,
and out of the voices grew other sounds, with the hush
of prayers half said, of restless horses saddled, and
unsheathing of sword blades and lifting of silent
trumpets sounds like the breaking of thunder far
off, or the surging of surf against rocks. It was the
voice of a multitude^ rising over the lands, and it did
not cease.
XIV
THE ARMY OF ISLAM
UHA AD DINT was in search of a new patron. He had
several gifts to offer. The whole of the Koran he knew
by heart; moreover he could quote it on all occasions*
Having been minister of Mosul, he could write messages of
state perfectly, in a beautifully ornate style.
He was in the prime of life and his manners were beyond
reproach. He wore a fur-trimmed khalat, with numerous
undervests, suitable to the dignity of a kadi. A constant
cough troubled him, and his legs failed him at times, but
he had a good saddle donkey and a nimble mind. He wished
for Saladin, for a patron having negotiated in the past
with the sultan on behalf of the princes of Mosul, and since
Mosul was now at peace with the lord of Damascus, Baha ad
Din sought his patron-to-be, with a propitiatory offering of a
lengthy treatise on all the traditions of holy wars in the past.
Looking for Saladin in Damascus, in this spring of the
year 1188, he did not find him. Saladin was afield again, up
in the hills, with his household army. Thither went Baha ad
Din on his donkey, and at the camp he sent in his treatise,
and waited.
85
86 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
A mamluk bade him come to the sultan s pavilion, and
the worthy kadi dismounted from his donkey where guards
in yellow cloaks stood by their horses. Behind them baggage
in hemp sacks and leather valises was piled, and bearded
Arab servants ran about like laden ants. A dozen pavilions
of heavy orange cloth, stained by sun and wind, sheltered a
large official family giant mamluk couriers, and tall secre
taries who walked with a swordsman s swagger, elderly
men in lawyers turbans, and men with the brooding eyes
of ascetics. Between the pavilion ropes sat, in voluminous
robes, harsh-featured shaikhs from the desert clans, watching
all that went on with shrewd eyes. White turban cloths of
pilgrims nodded beside the green turbans of sayyids who
boasted in full voices of the blood of Muhammad s descend
ants in their veins. Amirs in velvet kaftans and cloth-of-
silver girdles stood impatiently awaiting an audience, while
slaves bearing trays of fruit and sherbet hastened among
them.
Baha ad Din knew many of the faces young Aluh the
Eagle, who made poems out of victories, and Imad ad Din,
the great chancellor. He saw all kinds of men coming and
going with petitions, heard them argue with harassed officers
of the treasury. A noisy concourse, speaking all the tongues
of Islam, restless and expectant, and thronging about the
sitting place of the Victory Bringer. A mighty family, quar
reling about trifles, as children quarrel, and waiting for fresh
surprises and undertakings.
When his turn came, Baha ad Din was escorted into the
vestibule. Here sat Turkish mamluks, beside hooded falcons
on their perches. An old mamluk, sword bearer of the sultan,
stood guard over Saladin s mail and the pointed helmet
inlaid with gold arabesques. Another swordsman held back
the entrance curtain for the visiting kadi, who put off his
slippers and went forward over rich carpets. Reaching the
massive tent pole, he dropped to his knees to touch his fore
head to the ground, saying, "May God grant thee health,
O King and Victory Bringer!"
"And upon thee, O Kadi, be the peace,"
Saladin sat in the shadow of a small awning, with only a
THE ARMY OF ISLAM 87
physician and a cup bearer attending him. His thin face was
darker than the short beard, already turning gray. Years of
campaigning and sickness had taken toll from his body.
His full brown eyes looked directly at Baha ad Din.
On his knees he had the bound pages of the kadi s book
of the holy war, and of this he spoke asking simple ques
tions and listening with courteous pleasure to the answers
of the learned man. They talked of the campaigns of Muawia
and Khalid in the lifetime of the prophet, and of the meaning
of the Path of God. Saladin sent his cup bearer for fruit and
sherbet he drank no wine and so made Baha ad Din a
guest of his tent. And while he talked he paid no heed to the
din of voices outside the tent,
In this way began a friendship that lasted until the grave
separated them. Baha ad Din had found his patron indeed,
In his sultan he beheld a man patient and painstaking, slow
to make decisions, but inflexible in will. A man whose quie
tude was a mask for a fiery passion.
Baha ad Din understood the spirit that could rally ten
thousand men to a bloody charge, and in the next hour pore
over the accounts of a common soldier to make certain that
every dinar of the account was paid. Saladin obeyed literally
the law of Islam; he gave his possessions to those who served
him; he fought for the faith. His spoken word was inviolate,
in all circumstances.
Ailing in body, he forced himself to endure the hardships
of campaigning that tried the strength of healthy men. Un
able to bear arms in battle, he haunted the front line of
battle. The fear that he might, somewhere, fail in leadership
troubled him. He was fifty-one years of age, and the fire
that burned within him wasted him at the same time. Only
in the talk of men like Baha ad Din and in listening to the
reading of the Koran did he find respite. There was one
small boy whose reading pleased him especially and he kept
this boy near him at all times.
To the warriors of Islam he seemed to be an alchemist, at
whose touch victory came to them. But the observant Baha
ad Din saw how Saladin s steel-like will held together the
restless masses of men and gained the victories.
88 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
In the last autumn, after the fall of Jerusalem, Saladin
had led the army back to Tyre, saying, "Only this place,
Tyre, remains to the Franks on the shore. Here they can
rest. If we take this, they will despair and we shall be safe/
During the siege of Jerusalem, however, two things had
happened. A new leader had appeared among the crusaders,
sailing down from Constantinople, and putting in at Tyre
when he found Acre held by the Moslems the silent bells
and the disordered shipping at Acre arousing his suspicions.
"For," said Baha ad Din, "he was cunning as a wolf, and
redoubtable in war."
He was Conrad, son of the marquis of Montserrat. And
he had taken command at Tyre, strengthening the fortifica
tions and digging a wide ditch across the great mole that
joined the city to the shore.
Also, men had come to Tyre from the other places that sur
rendered to Saladin, who allowed the garrisons to depart
unharmed if they made terms. This policy of mercy had re
sulted in quick surrenders of the castles which might other
wise have been held to the last but it had enabled Conrad
to muster a strong force in Tyre.
And the great ramparts had withstood the battering of
the Moslem engines, until the rains had come in December
and Conrad s galleys had sunk five of the Egyptian ships
blockading the port. By then Saladin s amirs had become
discouraged. They had longed to go home with their spoil for
the winter months, and the spring planting customary with
the Moslem troops. They had fought without respite for
more than a year and Saladin had given them leave to go,
against his better judgment.
He had dismantled his engines, and retired to Damascus,
only to take the field again in the spring to menace the
castle called the Star of the Winds, and to press north toward
Tripoli with his household troops. These were the veteran
mamluks of Cairo, and the clans in his own pay. The regular
army, as it might be called, included also the warriors in the
pay of the treasury, Turks for the most part.
The greater part of his host was made up of the contingents
led in by the princes of outlying places the African coast,
THE ARMY OF ISLAM 89
Irak and the Aleppo, Mosul, and Hamah regions. These,
as well as the roving Arab and Turkoman clans who served
for the pleasure of fighting and the chance of plunder, could
only be called forth after the crops were planted. So, in June
of the year 88, Saladin had less than half his. host assem
bled, and contented himself with, raiding the districts of
Tripoli, without assaulting the mighty Krak des Chevaliers
that crowned the hills of the Tripoli road and was the key to
that city. From the double ramparts of the Krak, the black-
robed Hospitalers looked down on his tents die fortress
was their headquarters. They had not suffered as much as
the Templars at Hattin, but they did not dream of taking the
field against the sultan, even when the first fleet bearing
crusaders from over the sea arrived off Tripoli, under com
mand of William of Sicily.
And Saladin made one of the sudden moves that left his
enemies bewildered. Turning his back on Tripoli and the mid-
section of the crusaders lands, he hastened out to the coast
toward the city of Tortosa, held by the Templars.
Coming within sight of Tortosa, his men put on their armor
before the tents were up. "God willing/ the sultan said, "we
shall dine in the citadel this evening." They stormed the low
ramparts, sweeping over them in the first fierce rush. And
the servants who had been putting the camp in order left
their work to join in the pillaging. The little cathedral of
Our Lady of Tortosa was devastated, and the camp set up
anew within the walls.
North of the sands of Tortosa lay the rich hill country of
Antioch that had suffered not at all from the disaster in the
south. Saladin hastened through it as a reaper strides through
a field of ripe wheat Baha ad Din and the learned men had
to keep pace with the horses for the sultan took all his great
family along. They rode with the baggage, in the dust by the
endless strings of camels laden with tents and grain and the
parts of the siege engines. Before sunset they halted by
streams or wells, in the cool breeze from the sea, while the
animals were turned out to graze, and cavalry pickets went
to the heights around them.
Such marches were an old story to them. Rice or barley
9 o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
boiled with mutton sufficed them for a cooked meal, with the
fruit of the country, and they slept on quilts or robes spreac
in the sand. After the last prayer, while fires still blazed and
torches came and went, they sat together in talk or listened
to the wailing song of dervishes, and still they were up and
saddling their beasts before the first warmth of sunrise.
It was a fertile country, with figs and grapes to be plucked
and sheep to be driven in. They took the citadels almost in
their stride for now they were beyond the nests of the stub
born Templars and Hospitalers, and the men who faced
them fought without hope. They carried Jebala in a day, and
mocked the garrison that trooped away without its arms.
The fair city of Laodicea with its two castles by the sea
yielded in seven days, and the army took from it a new stock
of grain and animals and gold and silver.
Late in July, Saladin turned inland, climbing to the lofty
Sahyoun, and carrying the village in the first rush. His
soldiers ate the midday meal the Christians had abandoned
in the cooking pots. A few days later the citadel on the preci
pice yielded to his engines.
Bika followed Sahyoun, and Saladin s advance halted
before Borzia, overlooking the great inland river Orontes.
Saladin ordered his men to attack without respite, in three
reliefs, and the Moslems climbed the almost unclimbable
walls, sending the castellan and his kin to tell the news to
Antioch.
Down from the hills they swept, across the Iron Bridge,
and early in September Turbessel and Bagras fell to them
after a sturdy resistance, "I saw," said Baha ad Din, "how
when one Christian fell dead in the ranks another took his
place. They held together, immovable as a wall/
But they did not attempt to take Antioch, where the re
maining Christians had gathered. Saladin looked from a dis
tance at the immense gray ramparts of the northern strong
hold, and agreed to withdraw if all Moslem captives were
yielded up to him. He had taken possession of the surround
ing country, and drawn the teeth of Antioch. His garrisons
were posted now from Aleppo to the ranges of the Taurus,
and he did not wish to waste men in a long siege. Back to
THE ARMY OF ISLAM 91
Damascus he marched, down the broad inland valley, and
the lords of Moslem Hamah and Horns vied in entertaining
him.
Saladin was urged to disband his army and rest, in the holy
month of Ramadan. "Life is short, and fate is uncertain/
he said, and took the field again. This time he struck at the
obstinate south, at Safed in the hills above Tiberias. Arriving
under its walls in the evening, he rode off to inspect it, and
ordered siege engines to be set up at one place.
"I shall not sleep until these five mangonels are in place."
Safed fell. And Saladin moved on, to the Star of the Winds,
overhanging the dark gorge of the Jordan. Rains made the
slippery hill summit a mass of mud, and winds chilled the
laboring men. The sultan fasted with them since this was
Ramadan and moved his tent so close to the wall that
arrows and bolts fell into it. He would not withdraw and his
mamluks worked in a frenzy to take the castle and so to put
an end to the missiles. Covering the ramparts with a steady
barrage of arrows and shafts from the steel arbalests, they
drove the Christian bowmen back, and mined the wall.
"Rain fell without ceasing," Baha ad Din says with feeling,
" and it was as hard to walk in the mud afoot as on a horse.
We suffered from the wind."
On the fifth of January, 1189, the Star of the Winds sur
rendered. And the Moslems rejoiced to a man. Before then
they had heard that the great Kerak had fallen to another
army the black banners stood over the stronghold of the
old wolf of Kerak, and the caravans could go along the pil
grim road in peace.
Then Saladin consented to allow his men to rest. Except
for the Tripoli region, only Tyre and its supporting castle of
Belfort remained to menace him. And the task of rebuilding
the damaged strongholds and inspecting the garrisons con
fronted him. After a visit to Jerusalem and a few days prayer
in the Al Aksa mosque, he took to the road again with his
household troops.
Baha ad Din, now kadi of the army, went with him, but
the donkey of other years had been exchanged for a horse.
And the worthy counselor labored as he had never done be-
92 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
fore. Once he rode out alone with the sultan by the sea, and
Saladin, after a silence of meditation, faced the waters.
"InshaUah? he said. "If God wills, the infidels shall be
driven into the sea. Then I shall follow them, and in other
lands carry on the conquest that is ordained."
Baha ad Din, who had in common with men of the hills
a dread of setting foot on a ship, began to be afraid.
"That assuredly might be done," he responded. "Let thine
amirs lead the army over the sea, to what is ordained. But
thou, O my lord, art the staff and the prop of Islam. Do not
venture thy life upon the waters."
Saladin reflected. "Tell me this," he responded. "What
manner of death is most to be desired?"
"Verily, the death of a martyr in the holy war is beyond
all things to be sought."
The sultan nodded assent. "And so do I seek it."
Over the sea, many sails moved toward the east.
Gray sails clustered like gulls upon the blue waters.
Long oars flashed in the sun, over the sea border
into the east.
Upon the highways heavy horses paced. Shield
and spear and gray mail carried the riders. For the
iron men were riding again they were marching to
the east.
With uplifted crucifix the Hack priests rode.
Through the long valleys tossed the standards of
the kings. Between the hills resounded the olifants
of the princes and barons. From the snows of the
North the weapon men were marching, toward the
sun above Jerusalem. The host of Christendom was
taking up its arms, to aid the Holy City. "Aid for
Jerusalem" the black priests cried. "Strike down
the horns of Mahound, and the claws of Dracon!
Seek salvation in the city of the Lord."
They were passing down the Danube and through
the ports of Sicily; they were thronging toward the
border, to set Jerusalem free.
XV
THE GATHERING STORM
3 MAD AD DIN and Baha ad Din found interesting letters
passing under their hands. Their master Saladin had
become the most powerful prince in near-Asia. Of
course Kilidj Arslan, off in Asia Minor, still defied him, but
after an overthrow in the field could no longer challenge him.
And the king of the Armenians, clinging like an eagle to his
mountain nests, yielded to Taki ad Din s cavalry. Envoys
came frequently from Baghdad, where the kalif had adopted
Saladin as his providential protector. And finally the rich
and anxious emperor in Constantinople sent ambassadors to
the moving court of the sultan, to present a missive of con
gratulation stamped with an image of pure and heavy gold.
And the emperor, Isaac the Angel, asked for an alliance.
To this missive the intelligent Arabs paid little heed, but
the emperor Isaac offered to build new mosques for them in
Constantinople, requesting them to send up the proper
readers and holy men to serve the mosques. It pleased Saladin
that his muezzins should call to prayers in the foremost city
of Christendom.
A letter came in from a greater man, Friedrich Barbarossa
Frederick the Red Beard by divine mercy emperor of
93
94 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the Romans, and Augustus, and lord of all the German
states and principalities. The Arab counselors puzzled over
the strange names in the letter Bavaria, Swabia, Saxony,
Franconia, Thuringia, Westphalia. And the names of other
men who served the emperor Lorrainers, Burgundians,
Swiss, Frisians, Italians, Austrians, and Illyrians.
The emperor threatened that if Jerusalem were not sur
rendered, he would come against the Moslems with all this
host. "Take warning by Pharaoh, and yield Jerusalem."
The Arabs knew very well who Barbarossa was the chief
sultan of the Franks, and the defender of Christendom. They
knew it because Isaac the Angel, who feared Barbarossa,
sent them these tidings, with appeals for aid. Saladin him
self answered Barbarossa.
"All that remains/ he said, "for us to do is to take Tyre,
Tripoli, and Antioch."
If, however, these cities were evacuated in peace by the
Christians, he offered to return the cross, release all captives,
and allow one priest to serve the altar of the Sepulcher. He
promised as well to permit the monks to return to the monas
teries they had held before the first Moslem conquest. Pil
grims to the Sepulcher might come and go in peace. In his
letter Saladin signed himself Guardian of the Two Noble
Sanctuaries.
The terms, from Saladin s point of view, were fair. Barbar-
rossa would not have them, and the Moslems heard that he
had set out upon the crusade in the spring of that year, 1 1 89.
More than that, Isaac the Angel wrote that the old emperor
led a host of a hundred thousand men-at-arms, and that the
duke of Austria was preparing to follow him. The French,
also, were mustering for the road, and their young king
Philip II, Augustus, had taken the cross with the king of
England from the hand of William, archbishop of Tyre.
Meanwhile the Venetian merchants who were trying to
preserve their trading posts in the captured areas brought
other tidings to the court at Cairo. The fleet of Norman
Sicily was anchored off the port of Tripoli, while the ships of
Pisa were already under way. And the sails of the northmen
had been seen off the coast of Granada.
THE GATHERING STORM 95
Saladin listened to the tidings, and sent couriers to Bagh
dad to relate to the kalif what was preparing. By pigeon
post and camel back he sent orders to all his Moslem vassals
to join him in the Holy Land. He commanded Karakush
to muster the forces of Egypt and hold them in readiness.
Watching the gathering storm, he knew that this would be
the real war. The Christian forces he had defeated in the
last two years had been no more than a fragment of these
new armies. The kings and princes of Frankland would merge
their men in a mighty host, greater than his own. Perhaps
he might face a quarter million of fresh foemen, under new
leaders. And he had never had fifty thousand warriors under
his banners at the same time.
On the sea, also, his Egyptian fleet would be confronted by
a greater armament, and he must be prepared to see the
Christians victorious on the water. They could, accordingly,
land at whatever point they wished while Barbarossa
marched down through Asia Minor and the mountain passes.
This would be, he understood, a new kind of war. The
armed hosts of Europe would converge on his coasts. It
would be a duel between the resources and the weapons of
the West, against the horsemen of the East, under his
command.
And he had little time to prepare. He could not await the
coming of all the Moslem clans, scattered from the upper
Nile to the mountains of Persia. Yet, before the Christian
armies set foot on the coast, he ought to clear the coast of
their last strongholds.
In May he heard that Mont Real,, the sister fortress to
Kerak, had fallen, thus giving the Moslems control of all
the Dead Sea region. There remained, along the coast, only
the mighty Krak des Chevaliers, guarding Tripoli, and Bel-
fort, standing in the hills above Tyre. While the sultan waited
for his eastern allies and prepared a joint attack against
Antioch and Tripoli, he settled his household troops to
besiege Belfort.
This was one of the massive citadels newly built by the
crusaders and planned with all the skill of their engineers.
It overlooked the summits of the lower Lebanon, and its
96 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
garrison could see on one hand the glitter of the sea, and on
the other the snow peak of giant Hermon.
The top of the Belfort height formed a long and narrow
plateau, with the reservoir at one end, and the castle at the
other. On the far sides, the walls of the fortress crowned the
very brow of a cliff too steep to assault. On the plateau side
it was protected by a gully over which rose a sloping talus,
surmounted by a thirty-five-foot wall, the corners strength
ened by great towers. The gully, being closed at the ends, was
filled with water. So Belfort was like an armored giant, with
his feet too firmly planted to be overthrown, his back guarded
by the precipice, and his breast shielded by his arms. And the
plateau was too cramped for a besieger to place his men
there without danger of being driven down the slope by a
sally of the garrison. The Moslems had left it unmolested for
two years.
When Saladin appeared under Belfort, the lord of the
castle went out to him in truce. Reginald of Sidon was scion
of an old family of crusaders, and he knew the Moslem mind
as well as speech. He lingered in the sultan s tent, discussing
the situation, and he agreed to yield Belfort in three months,
after he could safeguard his family on the coast. Saladin
assented, because an assault upon the castle would be both
long and costly, and he had all the captured citadels to
repair.
The time expiring, the sultan reappeared, and Reginald
went forth again, to ask for a new delay. He even remained
as the guest of the Moslems, until their suspicions grew to
certainty, and they understood that he was bargaining for
time. They seized him then, carried him to the ditch before
Belfort s wall, and bound him upon a crucifix. Saladin re
proached him with breaking faith, and told him that he
would be tortured until he called to his men to yield the
castle.
Reginald did call out at once, to the watchers on the wall.
He bade them under no condition give up Belfort. When the
Moslem soldiers, gathering the meaning of his words, would
have set upon him, Saladin restrained them, and ordered the
crusader to be taken down from the cross and sent to cap-
THE GATHERING STORM 97
tivity in Damascus. So Belfort, deprived of its lord, still
held out.
Nor were the cities of Tripoli and Antioch attacked. In
stead Saladin was obliged to hasten to a point unheeded
until then.
XVI
GUY MARCHES TO ACRE
E man who took the initiative at this critical moment
before the forces of the West came into full contact
with the Moslems was Guy of Lusignan, who had been
king by virtue of his wife of Jerusalem for a year. "A
simple man/ the chroniclers say, "and not wise."
Perhaps Guy did not lack personal courage, but he did
lack initiative. Banned from England, he drifted into the
service of Jerusalem where his younger and much more able
brother Amalric was constable. Chosen by the ambitious
Sibyl for her mate, he sat quietly enough on his throne
until it was wrenched from under him. When Saladin
keeping to the letter the promise he had made at Ascalon
released Lusignan from captivity, after the surrender of that
city, the former king sought out his wife in Tripoli.
With him other lords were freed. Humphrey of Toron
was ransomed by the surrender of Kerak. Amalric rode out
with his brother, and even De Riddeford was released. At
Tripoli they found the debris of the court, and newcomers
from the ships two fleets of crusaders having come in,
from Sicily and Pisa and the throng of them sailed down to
GUY MARCHES TO ACRE 99
join the other refugees at Tyre. And at Tyre the gates were
closed against them.
Conrad, lord of Tyre, ordered it. He was now marquis of
Montserrat his father,, a captive of Hattin, having died.
Conrad had the quick wit of the Italians^ and the easy con
science of an adventurer. Although rumor said that he had a
wife at home, he had married a Byzantine princess, sister to
Isaac the Angel. He spoke all languages and proved himself
equal to most situations.
He had, like the wolf of Kerak, the one virtue of skill in
war. His instant action on landing at Tyre had preserved
the city from Saladin. Nor had Conrad consented to yield it
to save the life of his father when the aged marquis was
brought before the walls he said his father had lived long
enough, in any case. Baha ad Din says he was a great person
age, wise and energetic, and other Moslems, while admitting
his bravery, call him worse than a wolf and meaner than a
dog. He had firm friends and bitter enemies. And his charac
ter shaped events in the Holy Land for two years.
When the refugees of Tripoli landed on the beach beside
Tyre, Conrad barred them out. No doubt his small city was
overcrowded, but he had no wish to admit the man who had
been overlord of Jerusalem to his walls. The strong adven
turer would not yield his place to the weak king. And so
Guy, uncertain what to do next, pitched his tents on the
shore.
It was a strange situation, and for a time there was hot
debate in the city and the camp. Guy was, after all, still king
in name and many in Tyre had pledged their faith to him.
The best of the surviving lords were with him the brothers
of Tiberias, the knight of Toron, and Amalric. There, too,
was the queen, Sibyl, and the stern master of the Temple.
Numbers of Pisans and Germans left Conrad to join Guy,
so that by late summer he had four hundred knights and
seven thousand others with him. Just what impelled him to
act will never be known.
Perhaps Sibyl demanded it, perhaps the Templars and the
knights persuaded him to it, or perhaps the hesitant Guy had
in this moment a flash of determination that never came to
ioo THE FLAME OF ISLAM
him thereafter. With the Moslems swarming around him,
and the Christian fleets drawing nearer, he set out from his
camp and marched on the great city of Acre.
"Never/ cries a chronicler, "did another show such audac
ity, and it is truly wonderful that he had the enterprise to
go to fight men who were a hundred to his four."
When released, Lusignan had given his word that he would
not bear arms against the Moslems. Now he broke his faith.
Of course the patriarch had insisted that he was king, and
so must go out again to the war. And the priests declared
that it would be a sin to keep a pledge that would harm the
Church. Guy appeased his conscience by a petty makeshift.
He did not wear his sword now; it was hung upon his saddle
peak instead of his girdle, so that he might say that he did
not bear arms. But the truth remains, that he broke his faith.
Saladin, when he heard of it later, made no protest. He
much preferred to have the harmless Guy in command of the
Christians, and he had released the king with that end in
view. Meanwhile the Moslem scouts reported to the sultan
who was then at Belfort that the king s small army was
marching down the coast, leaving Tyre behind it. Saladin
wished to march at once, and descend upon it from the hills.
But all his amirs advised him to wait, until the presumptuous
little army should reach Acre. Then the sultan could cut it
off and destroy it between his host and the garrison of Acre.
This was sound advice from a military point of view, and
Saladin yielded to it. And in yielding he made his greatest
mistake.
He was thinking of the north, listening for the approach
of Barbarossa and watching for the sails of the crusaders
fleets the fleets that might land anywhere from Constan
tinople to Cairo. By all the laws of warfare, Guy s seventy-
four hundred were doomed since Saladin s cavalry could
descend from the heights of Lebanon and surround them
before they could possibly return to Tyre.
So, for the time being, Guy s army was no more than a
pawn, moving out of its own accord to a vacant square with
out any protection. And it would be poor strategy for the
Moslem players to attack this pawn with their stronger
GUY MARCHES TO ACRE 101
pieces, while the enemy was preparing to attack elsewhere.
The game itself was at hazard, because the crowned heads of
Christendom were grouped about the chessboard.
The pawn moved. Down past the rocky shoulder of the
Ladder of Tyre, where it might easily have been cut off, since
here the hills jutted into the sea. And now it is necessary to
glance at the square of the chessboard lying before it.
The plain of Acre, they called it. A flat shore, stretching
south for twenty-odd miles, from the Ladder of Tyre to the
mass of Mount Carmel. A fertile shore, hot and green in this
month of August, extending roughly seven miles inland to
the foothills. Beyond the foothills in the northern part rose
the gray slopes of the higher ranges, with Hermon s bald
summit above them.
Midway along the shore a small, low promontory stuck out.
All this promontory was surrounded by a wall, and within
the wall lay the city of Acre.
South of Acre, a long shallow half-moon bay extended to
the point of Carmel. The shore here was sandy. Palm groves
clustered above the sedge grass. A small river, laboring across
the plain, debouched into a half-dozen streams that ended in
the sedge, forming a marsh. Such was the plain of Acre, and
upon it waited a destiny more terrible than the fate of Water
loo.
The army of crusaders should never have descended into it
from the rocks of the Ladder of Tyre. Having done so, they
should have been destroyed by the Moslems. So say the rules
of warfare. But the men and women who marched across the
plain of Acre were driven by an impulse more potent than all
the reasoning of warfare the perversity of human beings.
They were weary of waiting at Tyre; they wanted to open
the road to Jerusalem, and Acre was the first city upon their
way. In spite of everything, they decided to besiege Acre.
There were, however, wise heads among them, and instead
of camping under the walls they marched direct to a mound, or
rather a series of mounds above the orchards a half mile from
the sea. While the tents were pitghed on the high ground, the
men-at-arms labored at digging a ditch around the mounds.
All through the night they worked, and in the morning they
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
diverted the water from the nearest stream into the ditch
so that they had a fairly good moat around the camp. Then
they began to throw up an earth wall behind the ditch.
Naturally the Moslems in Acre took an interest in their
visitors, and sallied out to skirmish in the plain. Nothing
serious happened for a while because the Moslems were
waiting for Saladin to come down from his hills and erase this
audacious encampment, while the Christian knights knew
better than to venture far from their lines. They raided the
plain for supplies, and they did not lack for water.
They christened the new position the Toron, or the Hill.
And, realizing that they were cut off here, and would soon
be besieged, they began to turn anxious faces toward the hills.
Only a day s ride past Saffuriya to the east lay the great
plateau of Hattin, where even the ravens had long since for
saken the gaunt bones of the dead.
So they waited on the bare brown knolls, with the banner
of the cross planted by the queen s pavilion, and their horses
picketed down in the grass by the ditch.
What happened then is related by a minstrel of the court
named Ambrose who was there and saw it all.
They dared not linger in the groves below them; they stayed on
the heights. It was three days after our men arrived and settled
themselves on the Toron, where they kept under arms all night
against the attacks of the Saracens, that the troops of Salahadin 1
came Turks, Persians, and Beduins and occupied all the country.
The third day of the week Salahadin came himself, thinking that
he would soon have the heads of the Christians.
Do not be surprised if they, who defended their heads, were un
easy and anxious during the watches and labors on this Toron
where they had settled themselves. The Turks assailed them night
and day, and wearied them so much they could scarcely eat. There
Geoffrey of Lusignan spared himself nothing in defending the host.
Long had he been hardy and wise, but now he gained great renown.
From Monday to Friday they were all in this peril. But you will see
how God defended them.
While the king and all his men were in such fear that they
*So Ambrose has written Saladin, correctly. Geoffrey was the third of the Lu
signan brothers.
GUY MARCHES TO ACRE 103
watched the far-off sea and begged God to send them some aid,
behold there arrived a great fleet of barks with people in them.
It was James of Avesnes, from Flanders. I do not believe that Alex
ander or Hector was ever a better knight than he. It was James,
who had sold his lands and possessions to put his body in the service
of Him who died and arose again. He had with him fourteen thou
sand renowned men-at-arms. Then it was the fleet of Danemark
that came with many fine castellans, who had good brown horses,
strong and swift.
What had happened was that the Pisan, the Danish,
and Frisian fleets bearing the crusaders to the coast had
sailed down from Tripoli to Tyre. There they heard of the
king s sally to Acre, and came on to join him. Galleys and
ships were run up on the beach near the city, and the new
comers fought their way across the plain to the camp.
Conrad of Montserrat arrived from Tyre in his ships, to
join the gathering host. The Christians now numbered more
than thirty thousand and their ships blockaded the port of
Acre. They dared extend their lines on either hand, so that
the Toron camp became a semi-circle, isolating Acre from
the hills.
XVII
THE SIEGE BEGINS
ALADIN, seeing that the real force of the crusaders was
centering here, called in his divisions from the north
ern hills, leaving only a few companies to carry on the
siege of Belfort. His first effort in that month of September
was to provision and strengthen Acre, which had not been
prepared for a siege. Without much trouble, Taki ad Din s
cavalry broke through the camp of the Pisans which ad
joined the sea at the northern end of the semi-circle, and for
two days kept open this avenue of approach, while strings
of camels laden with grain and supplies were passed in, with
a whole corps of the army commanded by Karakush who
had been summoned from Cairo. The sultan and Baha ad Din
went in and walked along the walls, studying the lines of the
crusaders.
With the city thus strengthened, Saladin withdrew from it,
and took command of his army which had been increased
daily by new contingents. Moving down from the hills into
the plain, he surrounded the crusaders in his turn, and struck
at them with his horsemen.
Ambrose tells how, in this crisis, new masses of crusaders
arrived from the sea*
104
THE SIEGE BEGINS 105
A fortnight had not gone by, when the count of Brienne arrived
to join us, and with him his brother Andrew, son of a good father
and a goo dmother. There came also the seneschal of Flanders with
more than twenty barons, and a German landgrave bringing with
him good Spanish horses. And the bishop of Beauvais who was
neither aged nor infirm, with Count Robert his brother, a skillful
and nimble knight. And the count of Bar, as courteous a man as
you could find. Many others, valiant and wise, joined the host at
the same time.
But the more they came, the less the Saracens feared them. Night
and day they delivered attacks, and approached even to the tents.
Those in the city made sorties. Know well that they had not been
taken from plough and cart, those people in Acre. They were the
best of the infidels, to guard and defend a city.
The others outside grew in number every day, and filled the
whole country so that our people looked upon themselves as prison
ers.
At the end of September Saladin made his effort to break
the line the Christians were extending around the city. As
usual, he chose for the attack a Friday when the Moslems
all over the world would be at prayer. He was in the saddle
himself before daybreak, and without eating anything. "Like
a mother/ says Baha ad Din, "who has lost her child."
He launched his cavalry at different points of the line, to
break the close ranks of the stolid men-at-arms, and to
separate the divisions of the crusaders. But the issue was not
decided that day, nor for several days thereafter.
On a Friday of the month of September [Ambrose relates] I re
member that a dire and sad misfortune befell our people. The
Saracens attacked them without a day s respite. The Christians
armed themselves and arranged themselves in good order, in the
different commands that had been agreed upon. On one flank the
Hospital and the Temple held the river where numerous enemies
were it was they who always began a battle. In the center of the
army the count of Brienne and his men, the landgrave and the
Germans who formed a great company, remained by a deserted
mosque and cemetery. King Guy and the Pisans and other valiant
men were on the right, at the Toron, to watch the Turks.
The Saracens came on with spirit. You would have seen fine
regiments among them.
io6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
The Templars and the Hospitalers charged, assailed the first
ranks, pierced them, threw them into disorder, drove them in flight
and pursued them. Then the other Christians charged also, and
the Saracens gave ground. But there was such a mass of them that
the Christians did not know where to turn. The Turks could not
rally themselves. They were drawing near the hills, when the Devil
mixed himself in it and caused the death of many of our men.
A horse belonging to a German ran away; its owner pursued it,
and his companions also ran after the horse without being able to
catch it. The horse ran toward the city. The Saracens believed our
men were fleeing, so they faced about and charged in their turn.
And they carried themselves so well that those who should have
directed our army were only able to defend themselves.
While the worthy Ambrose attributed the defeat to
Satan s power, the Moslems knew better, and Baha ad Din
wrote a clearer account of the battle.
It seems that the best of the Moslem generals, Taki ad
Din, commanded the strong right ving of Saladin s army.
The sultan himself led the center, which was made up of
their household troops. One of the older amirs, Meshtub,
had the left wing, with mixed divisions of Kurds, Arabs, and
mamluks, near the river.
When the Templars charged, Taki ad Din decided to draw
back his line to higher ground, and Saladin mistook this
maneuver for flight. The sultan sent his reserve cavalry
from the center to the retreating right wing. The commanders
of the Christian center noticed this weakening of the Moslem
center and charged point-blank at the sultan s standard.
Some Moslem regiments were broken and driven back, but
Saladin s mamluks retired a little without breaking ranks.
So by midday the Moslem right wing was swinging away
from the rest of the army, and the center was pivoting back
on the unbroken left. It was as if the crusaders had pushed
.apart double folding doors.
They poured through the gap, pursuing the scattered Mos
lem regiments some of which fled headlong until they
reached the bridge over the Jordan! until they sighted
Saladin s camp ahead of them. The guards of the camp rode
off, and the light-fingered Arab clansmen began to plunder
107
io8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the tents even when the crusaders were riding in. Some of
the knights penetrated as far as Saladin s pavilion before they
realized that they had advanced miles beyond their main
forces, and that the Moslems on either hand were making
ready to resume the battle. Then the too-venturesome cru
saders started back on tired horses, only to be struck and badly
mauled by Taki ad Din s and Saladin s horsemen on either
hand. They were thrown into disorder and lost heavily.
There was killed Andrew of Brienne [Ambrose resumes] may
his soul be saved and never died a knight so valiant and helpful.
The marquis of Montserrat was so hemmed in by his enemies that
he would have been left there if the king Guy had not aided him.
And here also was slain the master of the Temple he who spoke
that good word, learned in a good school, when all, brave and
fearful alike, called to him after the attack, "Come away, sir,
come away!"
He could have come, if he had wished it. "Please God/ he
answered them, "no one will see me again elsewhere, and no one
may reproach the Temple because I had been seen flying." And he
did not do it; he died there, for too many Turks cast themselves
upon him. And of the common men, five thousand died there
stripped and bare their bodies lay on the field.
When those others in the city heard of the defeat of our men,
they mounted their Arab horses, went out the gates and attacked
our men. with such fury that they would have done them great
harm if it had not been for their fine defense. But our men faced
them. The knights struck good blows; the king Guy did wonders,
and Geoffrey of Lusignan, who endured much that day, did likewise,
with that valiant James of Avesnes. So the enemy were beaten back
and driven within the city again.
So passed this day in which fortune went against us. The Sara
cens were so encouraged may God curse them as I curse them
that they began to vex and harass the Christians more than they
had done before. When the valiant men and the barons saw this,
they said, "Seigneurs, we gain no advantage at all We must resolve
upon something to protect ourselves against these offspring of
Satan who torment us every day and steal our horses in the night."
Here is the resolution they made. They dug a ditch, wide and
deep, and lined it with shields, mantlets, and beams from the ships.
Thus they divided the ground by the ditch. However, the Saracens
attacked them without ceasing, and left them no peace.
THE SIEGE BEGINS 109
Listen to a sad thing! At the end of the slaughter of which I
have spoken, and which was so grievous for the Franks the day
after the elite of the host had been discomforted and so many poor
people who had come there for God had found death Salahadin
had all the dead bodies taken up and sent back to us by casting them
into the river of Acre. This was an ugly shambles, for the bodies
drifted down the current until they arrived in the midst of the
army, and as the heaps of the dead grew, such an odor arose that
all the army had to go off far enough to be beyond it. And long
after they had been buried, we still kept away from the odor.
Meanwhile the Christians worked at the ditch which served them
as a rampart. They kept themselves behind it when the Saracens
came to attack it, as they did every day, hot or cold. This ditch
became the battle field of the people of God, and of these dogs,
Our men wished to dig it deeper and the others wished to destroy it.
You would have seen then . , . arrows. 1 They who dug the ditch
passed them up to those who defended it. You would have seen, on
both sides, men hardy and courageous. You would have seen the
fighters fall, rolling over, and cutting open bellies, and giving heavy
blows. Only the night separated them.
Even those of us who were most at ease endured fears and
watches and fatigues; they dared not take rest before finishing the
ditch.
On the eve of All Saints Day happened a great misadventure.
Those who were on the Toron watched the side toward Haifa, and
they saw a great fleet of galleys approach from Egypt. The fleet
drew near in good array, and the news spread swiftly throughout
the host. Some believed, although no one knew it for certain, that
these were vessels of Genoa, of Venice, of Marseille or of Sicily
that came to aid in the siege. While they gave themselves up to
wondering, the galleys came in, and they came in so well that they
entered the port of Acre and in doing so they carried off one of our
ships which had men and provisions on it. This ship was towed into
the city, the men were killed and the provisions taken.
Listen to what the Turks did. On All Saints Day, they hung on
the walls of Acre in defiance the bodies of the Christians they had
killed in the ship. So the souls of these dead shared, our preachers
said, in the great joy of the heavens that day.
This fleet of which I have told you guarded so well the port and
the coast that aid no longer arrived for the defenders of God. The
*A line of Ambrose s manuscript here is obscure, His narrative is in short, crudely
rhymed verses.
no THE FLAME OF ISLAM
winter came on, without bringing fresh provisions to them. They
had finished the ditch, but later on it was ruined in spite of them*
So Ambrose wrote, in blunt, awkward words. It is clear
that Saladin made every effort to break the line of the
Christian camp, and failed. While the crusaders had been
worsted and cut to pieces on the first day of the battle, they
held their ground thereafter. Saladin felt that the issue must
be decided now, and the attacks pushed home. Ill as he was
with malaria, he summoned his amirs to his tent, saying,
"Now we have before us the chance of victory. Our enemies
are few, but they will remain and more will come over the
sea. And the only aid we can look for is from Al Adil, in
Egypt. It seems best to me to attack/
But for the second time the amirs persuaded him to change
his mind. The autumn rains were beginning, with the holy
month of Ramadan, and they were eager to return to their
homes for the winter s planting. The sultan himself was ill,
and later, in the spring, Malik Adil would join them. So they
argued and Saladin, as at Tyre, consented to send the volun
teer levies home and to cease the battle, withdrawing himself
to his main camp in the hills. Arabs and detachments of
regulars were left in the foothills to watch the crusaders.
During the stormy season no new fleets could approach
the coast of the Holy Land, nor were the ships of the cru
saders long, unseaworthy galleys, or round tubs of cargo
vessels or open barks able to blockade the port of Acre.
Winds from the west drove a heavy, ceaseless swell upon the
shelterless shore, and the larger boats that could not be
drawn up on the beaches had to return to the northern har
bors or to Cyprus.
In mist and wind and beating rain the year 1189 ended.
The siege of Acre had begun. But the crusaders outside the
walls were hemmed in and besieged in their turn. Open war
fare in the outer country ceased for the time being, and in
the Acre plain a new kind of strife was born trench warfare.
XVIII
KARAKUSH BURNS THE TOWERS
EEN from a distance. Acre looked very much like a
clenched fist projecting out from the shore. A gray
and motionless fist that never changed. Its outer wall
made a right angle, stretching from the joint of the little
finger inland to the wrist bone. At this angle rose a square
bastion and a mighty tower that the crusaders christened
the Accursed Tower.
South from the Accursed Tower, along the other side of
the angle, the wall extended as far as the joint of the thumb,
where it reached the water. Then, like a massive thumb
crooked away from the clenched fist, the wall went out some
two hundred yards into the water, forming a harbor between
it and the city proper. It ended in a tower. Between this
tower and the city between the curved thumb and the first
finger of the fist an isolated tower rose from the water.
This, for good reason, was known as the Tower of Flies.
From it, a great chain ran to the end of the wall, just under
the surface of the water. The chain prevented enemy ships
from coming into the small harbor, and it could be lowered
to let a Moslem vessel pass*
in
ii2 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Within the large right angle of the outer wall stood a
smaller angle, the inner wall on higher ground. The broad
space between the two was occupied by the troops, the horse
lines, and markets. Rising over the inner wall could be seen
the watch towers of the Templars house, and the terraces
of the Hospital, and the poplars around the little cathedral.
(For Acre had been built almost entirely by the crusaders, and
the Moslems had only held it for two years.) The bell tower
of the cathedral was now surmounted by a muezzin s balcony,
and the call to prayer echoed among the kneeling throngs in
the courtyard below.
Many of the crusaders knew every stone of the great city
wall upon the summit of which four horsemen could pass,
riding in different directions with its square towers and
fortified gates. They knew that no scaling ladders planted in
the wide ditch would prevail against that wall. Nor would
the Moslems allow a convenient wooden horse to be trundled
through the gate.
To enter Acre the crusaders must build engines powerful
enough to open a breach in the wall. And nothing could be
done during the deluge of rains.
In the mud of the plain a strange city was growing up
within the camp of the besiegers. A city of tents and clay
walls, lying in a half circle beyond arrow shot of the battle
ments of Acre. Its walls were yellow clay and sand, its streets
were mud, and its gutters canals.
Under bending date palms clustered the drenched pavilions
of noblewomen, ladies of Beyond the Sea and the courts of
the West. When the sun struck through the clouds, they
rode out on their palfreys, long skirts hiding their feet, and
samite and velvet sleeves hanging from their shoulders. The
newest arrivals wore brave, embroidered crosses upon their
breasts. Around them thronged youthful esquires in heavy
mantles, and proud knights in girdled chapes and surcoats
lined with ermine or sable. Hunting dogs trotted after them.
They might ride along the white sand of the beach, at
either end of the intrenched city where naked fishermen
swam out against the surf, towing nets behind them. Or they
KARAKUSH BURNS THE TOWERS 113
might venture into the perilous plain, where Arab horsemen
watched for a chance to snatch loot or slay a Christian and
carry off his head. Mounted bowmen went out to hunt the
Arabs, and knights relieved the dull hours by coursing hares
and riding after gazelles toward the foothills.
Through the streets of the tent city surged a motley
throng burghers debating the price of corn and barley
stored in warehouses, valerets and masterless men seeking
the sheds where sheep were slaughtered and broiled over
glowing charcoal, gaunt men-at-arms in leather jackets.
Soft Provengal voices mingled with harsh German tongues;
blacksmiths hammers clattered with the swordsmiths forges;
carpenters axes tapped at the great ships timbers that were
being shaped into arms for the mangonels and sheds for the
rams.
Even the rain could not wash away their good humor. Soon
these mangonels would be casting darts at the infidels of Acre,
and the heads of the iron sows would be butting the great
wall yonder. Pilgrims labored to aid the carpenters in the
good work, and they sang together:
"Hear us, Christ our King,
Hear us, Thou Who art Lord of Kings,
And show us the way."
And the voices of barefoot monks made answer:
"Have pity upon us,
And show us the way. 9
At nightfall processions wound through the streets, carry
ing tapers, and throngs gathered in the chapels, between
walls of damp clay bricks, where the good bishops with their
golden crooks sat in their robes by the new altars, and the
swinging censers sweetened the stench of the mud underfoot.
At all hours men came to the churches for their needs
the sick to be sprinkled with holy water, babies to be chris
tened, troubled spirits to be confessed and relieved.
For the church was the life center of this multitude
ii 4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
council chamber, and dispensary, and hospital. It was pleas
ant for tired eyes to watch the soft lights moving over the
altar and the gleaming vestments of the servants of God
it was good to hear the rise and fall of the old chants that
even the fishermen knew, the Ave Maria, and the Te Deum.
Here the shaggy jackmen were as much at home as the
valiant father bishop of Beauvais, who liked nothing better
than to don armor, and who dreamed of becoming a second
Turpin "If," as one man put it, "he could find a Charle
magne."
"Verily," said another, "here is the Frisian who hath left
his fish scales, and the Scotsman who hath left his fellowship
with lice."
True, they had no acknowledged leader, but they managed
well enough. And by early summer the valiant old emperor,
Red Beard himself, would come down out of the north with
the German host. While, men said, at home the young king,
Richard of England, had made up his long quarrel with Philip
king of the French, and the twain had taken the cross
from the hand of William, archbishop of Tyre. Soon they
would be upon the sea, with their armies.
Meanwhile the artisans of the tent city were finishing three
mighty towers built upon rollers and strengthened by heavy
timbers and covered with fresh hides nailed to the wood
to protect them against fire. These three towers tapered to
summits higher than the wall of Acre, and when they could
be rolled against the wall then the good work would begin.
The rains diminished, the muddy water dried in the ditches,
and fresh winds cleared the sky, so that the sun beat down
again on the damp walls of Acre and on the dark tent city
of the plain. Soft green covered the sand and clay, and spread
to the distant summits of the hills. The sound of running
water ceased, and the ground all at once became hard under
foot. Along the beaches, the heavy pulse of the swell dwindled.
Sails moved over the motionless sea.
Horses and sheep were taken out to the plain to graze,
under guard, and men wandered about restlessly. Spring
had come to the shore of the Holy Land, and the war began
again. Rusted mail was washed and cleaned with oil bows
KARAKUSH BURNS THE TOWERS 115
spliced anew, and arrows sorted over. Men swarmed like
flies around the clumsy wooden engines, twisting ropes into
place drawing the engines out over bridges across the
ditch, into the no-man s land between the camp and the
walls. Sturdy arms carried mantlets giant wicker shields
covered with leather and set them up in a line within arrow
shot of the walls. Knights in armor led out their chargers and
stood by, to guard the new line of assault.
Meanwhile the galleys from Tyre came down, with the
Genoese fleet, and the crusaders thronged to the shore to
watch the daily skirmishing between their ships and the
Moslem galleys from the port. Men waited eagerly for their
turn to go out on the ships. The daring seamen even forced
their way into the harbor past the Tower of Flies and towed
out a Moslem vessel, landing their prisoners on the shore.
The joy was great [Ambrose explains] and you would have seen
our women approach, with knives in their hands, to seize the Turks
by the hair and tug at them with all their strength. Then they cut
off their heads and carried them away. At sea, by God s grace, we
had the victory for detachments of knights from the host, valiant
men and well armed who fought hardily, took turns upon the boats.
Our fleet drove the enemy galleys within the chain. From that day
the Turks shut up within the city could not receive any aid by sea
or land.
Slowly the three great towers creaked and swayed, drawing
nearer to the outer wall, while mangonels upon their sum
mits spewed iron darts upon the battlements. Large as moun
tains were the three towers, each with half a thousand men
within it. On one the banner of the landgrave stood, on an
other that of the king Guy, and on the third that of the mar
quis Conrad who had come back from Tyre for the assault.
From the embrasures of these moving pyramids crossbrows
snapped and their iron quarrels whirred over the parapet of
the wall. When the quarrels struck a man they tore^through
shield and mail and flesh and bone. From the barricade on
the tops of the towers skilled archers plied their shafts. Slid
ing over stone rollers, the towers drew nearer the moat of
Acre.
ii6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Already columns of men waited, behind the shelter of the
mantlets, to run forward into the towers, when the draw
bridges should be lowered upon the wall and swordsmen
would rush forward.
Swiftly the Moslems labored, to destroy the towers before
they could approach too near. Engines on the walls, working
under the direction of Karakush, the mamluk who knew all
the arts of siege and defense, cast stones against them. But
they were built of solid beams joined together. The beams
cracked and yielded, without breaking. Other engines shot
out flaming timbers that struck down the crusaders on the
tops. But hides soaked in vinegar covered the wood, and
prevented the fire from catching.
While the throngs of men labored, a youth of Baghdad,
Ibn an-Nadjar by name, sought out Karakush, standing
among his amirs on the wall.
"I wish," said an-Nadjar, "to aid my master Saladin, and
burn these towers."
The veteran mamluk listened with half an ear. "And how
wilt thou do that?"
"I will prepare naphtha by a formula I know, and I will
cast it upon the towers. If they were steel, they would burn."
"Ah, well," Karakush looked at him. "Do the best thou
canst."
And he gave the young copper worker two hundred dinars
to prepare his materials.
Later in the day, an-Nadjar was ready. He returned to the
wall with soldiers who lugged three large copper cylinders
from which short tubes projected. These pots, as the Moslems
called them, were placed opposite the wooden pyramids,
and one of them was lifted into the arm of a stone caster.
The arm was drawn back, and released whirling the copper
bomb against the broken face of the tower opposite.
Flames roared from the bomb streams of fire shot into the
framework of beams. Within the tower the crusaders could
not go near the copper bomb, and the fire caught, soaring
up when the wind sucked at it. By sunset on that day the
three mighty towers lay in smoking embers.
The loss of the towers put an end to the attack, and the
KARAKUSH BURNS THE TOWERS 117
crusaders withdrew into their camp to plan new engines.
They had known of the terrible weapon of the Arabs that
they called Greek and wild fire, and they had heard that
it was compounded of sulphur or naphtha, but this was
the first time they had felt the effects of it.
They were too full of hope to be discouraged. Did not the
men from the ships say that the great kings of England and
France had put to sea with new hosts ? And rumors trickled
down through the mountains of the Armenians strange
stories of Barbarossa at odds with the treacherous Byzantines
prevailing over the Byzantines, and marching on and on,
over the barren lands, drawing nearer every day.
Spring was in the air, and they had food and plenty of
ships. Soon they would be ready again to face the minions
of Mahound, the very legions of Anti-Christ who had mocked
them from the wall.
Jackmen and axmen, valerets and peasants, seafarers and
bowmen they put their heads together, and decided to do
something on their own account. While the great lords lin
gered, they chafed at the waiting. They could not climb the
wall of Acre, that was certain. But off yonder they could see
the tents of the infidels, in the foothills, and they wanted to
strike a blow or two. Besides, there would be plunder in the
tents.
So they banded together, burly Flemings and shaggy
Danes, eager Provencals, and Pisans. Sergeants, ribalds, and
men-at-arms ten thousand of them marched off toward
the foothills without leaders, on the fete of St. James. "They
were," Ambrose says, "poor fellows, having great need and
driven by their suffering, for we were not at ease in the
host."
In orderly ranks they marched off, and later in the day
word came back that they had entered the tents. But they
did not appear with their spoil and presently some knights
went to look for them. That evening a few of the infantry
did come back, escorted by the horsemen, and without plun
der of any kind. The rest of them, seven thousand, lay dead
within the Moslem lines.
n 8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
But the daily conflicts in no-man s land, around the en
gines, went on without ceasing. Ambrose made note of them.
As the days passed, many things happened. Before and behind
the stone casters, which were numerous in the host, many men
came and went. I can not remember or relate all the adventures,
but here is one.
A Turk came out with his bow for a shot at our men, and would
not go away. A Frenchman, aroused by this obstinacy, went out
on his side. The Frenchman called himself Marcaduc he was no
son of a duke or a king and the Turk, hardy and powerful, called
himself Grayir. The one made ready to aim on the other the
Frenchman on the Turk, the Turk on the Frenchman.
Grayir demanded what country Marcaduc was from. "I am of
France/ he replied, "and thou art mad to come down here."
"Thou art no bad shot," the Turk said to him. "Wilt thou make
an agreement? I will shoot, and thou wilt stand the blow without
flinching, and if I miss, I will await thy shaft in the same way."
He talked so much, and begged so that the Frenchman agreed.
Then he shot, but his hand slipped and the arrow did not fly.
Marcaduc said to him, "My turn to shoot wait for me!"
"No," he said, "let me shoot again, and thou canst then try
twice at me."
"Willingly," said the Frenchman. But while the Turk was feeling
in his quiver for a good shaft, Marcaduc, who was all ready and
who did not relish the new arrangement, let go his own arrow and
shot him in the heart. "By Saint Denis, I will wait no more for
thee."
Another time, it happened that a knight was down in the fosse,
outside, on an affair of his own that no one can do without. As he
placed himself so, a Turk in one of the outposts to which he was
paying no attention separated from his companions and raced his
horse forward. It was villainous and discourteous to seek to sur
prise the knight while he was so occupied.
The Turk was already far from his own people, and was ap
proaching the knight with lance in rest to slay him, when our men
shouted,
"Run, sir run, run!"
He had barely time to get up. The Turk came up at a full gallop,
believing that he would be able to turn his horse and wheel back, if
he needed to do so, but by God s grace, he did not succeed. The
knight cast himself to one side, and took up two stones in his hands
KARAKUSH BURNS THE TOWERS 119
listen to how God takes vengeance! As the Turk checked his
horse to turn back upon him, the knight saw him clearly, and as
he drew near, struck him with one of the stones upon the temple.
The Turk fell dead, and the knight took his horse and led it off by
the rein.
He who told me this saw the knight mount the horse and ride him
off to his tent, where he kept him with much joy. . . .
Many of our people who were attacking the walls of Acre tried
to fill up the ditches. 1 Some gave it up, but others went on piling in
the stones they carried there. Barons brought them as well, on their
chargers or pack horses, and many women also found satisfaction in
carrying them. Among the others, there was one woman who took
great pleasure in it.
A Saracen archer, on guard upon the wall, saw this woman about
to cast down her burden from her neck. As she came forward, he
aimed at her, and struck her. The woman fell to earth mortally
wounded, and every one gathered round her. She was twisting her
limbs in agony, when her husband came to seek her. But she de
manded of all who were there valiant men and ladies that, on
behalf of God and their own souls, they should make use of her body
to fill in the ditch whither she had carried so many stones.
This was done, when God had taken her soul. Now there is a
woman who should be remembered!
Days went by, and the grass turned brown under the
scorching of the sun. The axes of the carpenters tap-tapped
along the beams; the forges of the smithies muttered and
purred. Riderless horses were seen galloping over the plain.
A dry wind stirred the brittle palms, and brought to the
camp the distant sound of weapons clashing and the hoarse
voices of laboring men.
Dust swirled around the tents, where women lay, waiting
or nursing the sick. By candlelight the barons of the host sat
in talk, anxious for news uncertain what to do next. The
water was growing bad, and they had seen the banners of
Saladin again on the hills.
One day there was a new sound. Drums thrumming in
the foothills and cymbals clashing. Horsemen in mail rode
HDutside the wall of the city. The great moat, or fosse, had to be filled in before an
attack could be made, and the common people of the crusaders* camp risked their
lives by carrying stones or dirt to the ditch, and dumping in their loads.
tao THE FLAME OF ISLAM
down, to wheel before the watching crusaders, and swing
their long sleeves over their heads. A few hours later the
city always seemed to know the tidings from the hills, al
though no man could pass through the crusaders lines, or
any ship through the blockade the excitement spread to
the wall. Turbaned heads appeared between the crenels, and
voices mocked the besiegers.
"Slain is your emperor! He hath come to his end and now
... it is as if he had never been."
Troubled were the barons of the host. The good Barba-
rossa dead! But what of his army, and the German princes?
Other crusaders came in ships to the shore Henry, count
of Champagne, a quiet man, kin to all the kings. And Thi-
bault of Blois, with the proud count of Clermont, and the
tall count of Chalons. The chivalry of France was assembling
anew in the camp, but they brought evil tidings.
Barbarossa was indeed dead. The old emperor had been at
the head of his army, within sight of the Armenian moun
tains, after many a desert march and struggle. At a ford,
where the freshet ran deep, his horse had stumbled, throwing
him, clad in his mail, into the water. He had been lifted out,
but the shock had weakened the old man and within a few
days he ceased to live. His son Frederick had taken command,
but many of his nobles had turned back. Others were at
Antioch.
The crusaders listened grimly, and after a council chose
Henry of Champagne to command them, and to assault
Acre without delay.
XIX
THE FULL TIDE
his base in the foothills, seven miles away, Saladin
watched and weighed events. He saw the steady
increase of the crusaders* host, and unseen messages
reached him hourly from Acre.
In the north the little garrison of Belfort had yielded at
last, and the mountain strongholds were all in his hands.
But the new leader of the crusaders, Count Henry, sallied
out to attack the camp of the Moslems, and Saladin was the
first in the saddle. He had with him then the armies of Da
mascus, of Egypt and Mosul, and his veteran horsemen beat
back the Christian onset, taking a heavy toll with their
swords.
It was like thrusting back the incoming tide. The water
could be dammed or turned aside, but the pressure of the
water never ceased more and more of it came in from the
sea. And the Moslems waited anxiously for word from the
far North, whither Taki ad Din had gone with the army of
Aleppo to check the advance of Barbarossa.
Saladin knew now that the great emperor was dead. A
letter came in from the Catholicos, the Christian bishop of
Ani who sent information to Saladin. The Catholicos said
121
122 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
that the son of the emperor still had forty-two thousand men,
somber and weary men wearing nothing but armor, marching
with rigid discipline and intent only on reaching the Sepul-
cher. The Armenians had withdrawn from them, and Kilidj
Arslan s Seljuks were attacking them.
Then the Catholicos sent down a spy, who told this story:
I took my stand on a bridge that they had to pass, to watch
them, and I saw many men pass by, almost all without mail
shirts and without lances. When I asked them the cause of this,
they replied, "Our provisions were gone and all our firewood, so
we were forced to burn a great part of our gear and furniture.
We had many dead. We were obliged to kill our horses and eat
their meat, and to feed the fire with our lances."
They were still very numerous, but growing more feeble, hav
ing almost no horses or supplies. The greater part of their bag
gage they carried on donkey back.
The third message came in from Taki ad Din. His cavalry
had met the marching columns of the Germans, and scattered
them along the plain of Antioch. Only five thousand survivors
escorting their sick prince reached the shelter of the city
where the Armenians and the lord of Antioch were scheming
to seize their treasure chests.
Saladin no longer needed to guard against the German
crusaders. He ordered the northern armies back to Acre
and the victorious Taki ad Din rode in with his son and the
lords of Baalbek and Shaizar, while his wild Kurds sang of
their deeds, and the drums of the Moslem camp thundered
a greeting to them. The sultan received his nephew in his
own tent, and feasted him with a full heart.
In these months Saladin had to force his fever-racked body
to keep to the saddle, and he leaned more and more upon the
strength of Taki ad Din who had once been a hare-brained
raider but who was now the most able general on either side.
Before long the Germans also reached Acre. But they
drifted down in ships, some two thousand of them with sixty
horses worn to skin and bones. Frederick of Swabia com
manded this remnant of the great host that had set out with
Barbarossa.
THE FULL TIDE 123
Saladin heard of them, and their condition, almost as
quickly as the crusaders who welcomed them. Twice a day,
the mamluks in Acre reported to their master in the hills, by
pigeon post. Messenger pigeons, released from the roofs of
the city, flew over the crusaders lines to the pavilions of the
sultan. On the minute scrolls of paper within the silver cylin
ders attached to their claws were written the details of the
siege the losses in fighting, the progress of the enemy s en
gines, and the amount of provisions on hand.
Just now at the end of the summer the crusaders were
closing in on the wall with grim determination. The battle of
the engines began again. The mightiest of the perriers on
either side were matched against each other, fighting gigantic
duels with boulders and tree trunks as missiles, until one or
the other was broken down. The pigeon reports told of a
Christian mangonel destroyed by a great iron arrow, its tip
heated red hot, shot from the wall.
The struggle went on at sea as well. The Pisans built a roof
over one of the galleys, and constructed platforms upon the
masts, with flying bridges that could be lowered from these
fighting tops. While other galleys bombarded the Tower of
Flies with missiles, this strange craft was laid alongside the
tower, and the seamen attempted to board the tower from
the bridges. The attack was beaten off, and the galley burned
by Greek fire.
What bothered the defenders most were two belters the
Moslems knew what the Christians called them built by
the bishop of Besanfon and the duke of Swabia: two moving
castles with framework of iron, and a kind of protective mat
of plaited ropes on the side facing the wall. Their tops were
fortified, and in the opening beneath one of them an iron
beast s head hung waiting to be swung against the lower
stones of the wall.
The belters went forward on wheels, while attacks were
made simultaneously at other points where the moat had
been filled in. Karakush and his men tried everything, to
find a vulnerable spot in the moving castles. When whole
marble columns shot from the largest stone casters failed to
break the iron framework, the Moslems cast out dry wood
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
in front of the betters setting fire to the heaped-up wood.
But the castles did not burn.
The Moslem engineers tried all their stock of flame weap
ons glass bombs filled with naphtha, and pots of burning
tar and sulphur, and cylinders of Greek fire. Still the strange
castles did not burn, and the iron beast came nearer.
But the constant pounding broke in the top of one of the
belters and the engineers on the wall hastened to drop their
bombs of Greek fire into the shattered part. This castle
went up in flames.
The other succumbed to different measures. It stood op
posite a gate, and the Moslems sallied out unexpectedly,
drove off the crusaders, and held their ground long enough to
set fire to the interior of the giant machine. Curiosity im
pelled them to attach chains and iron hooks to the b(lier> and
when they retreated, they drew it after them through the
gate, to inspect it at leisure. It took days to cool off, and they
estimated that the iron plates and frame weighed 10,000
pounds. Later, they managed to send the beast s head on the
ram around to Saladin.
This success encouraged them to try another sally. They
armed themselves with some kind of flame projectors, and
when the crusaders rushed at them, streams of fire were
turned on the armored knights burning through cloth and
skin, and shriveling the flesh beneath. While the Christians
rolled and twisted on the ground in agony, the Moslems
turned the flames against the line of mangonels, and burned
up many of the engines.
All this was reported to Saladin by the pigeon post.
For some reason no pigeons were available to sdnd messages
into Acre, but the resourceful Arabs found another way.
Volunteer swimmers went down to the shore at night, stealing
as near as possible to the crusaders lines. Stripping oflf their
mantles, they slipped into the water; floating past the an
chored boats of the blockade, they made their way into the
harbor with gold coins and letters sealed within their belts.
Some of them were killed, and others dropped out of the
, perilous service, but one man survived and made the trip
THE FULL TIDE 125
every other night swimming back in the alternate nights.
Always his safe arrival was announced by the first pigeon
of the morning. Until the day when the pigeon brought no
word of the swimmer. Several days later his body was washed
up on the beach within the harbor. He had been drowned,
but the belt and the sealed packages within it were intact.
"Never before/ says Baha ad Din, "did a man deliver
after his death a charge entrusted to him."
No longer did Saladin s armies range the countryside.
Instead, they settled down in the base camp up the river,
building themselves barracks and shops. A steady stream of
camel strings moved into the camp with grain sacks and oil
jars, cloth and weapons. Beside the caravans walked laborers,
slaves, kadis, and vagrant nomad clans.
Around the pavilions of the sultan grew up a third city,
with makeshift mosques and covered markets. Saddle work
ers sat in their booths beside coppersmiths and barber-
surgeons who proudly displayed the teeth they had pulled
but and the corns they had cut off. Barefoot cobblers squatted
in the shade of woven mats, stitching riding boots and
slippers, while their urchins fought in the street in front
of them.
The market was enormous [a visitor from Baghdad relates]. It
had 400 shops of farriers and veterinaries. I counted 28 kettles in
a single kitchen, large enough, each one, to hold an entire sheep.
There were 7,000 booths so long had the army remained in the
same place.
The Africans had charge of the baths. They dug down an arm s
length in the ground and found water; they made a tank and a wall
to enclose it out of clay; and they covered it all with a roof of wood
and matting. In the thickets around them they cut firewood, with
which they heated the water in kettles. It cost a silver coin, or a
little more, to bathe oneself.
This was a new kind of war for the Moslem troopers a
test of endurance. Spies were sent into the Christian camp,
unarmed peasants carrying fruit or meat to sell, and they
brought back surprisingly accurate information. Baha ad
126 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Din, writing his journal in the sultan s tents, knew as well
as Ambrose in the crusaders huts what happened each day
knew how food was failing and how the last ships of the au
tumn brought in the first English contingents led by a certain
archbishop of Canterbury, a warlike prelate.
Gangs of Arabs made nightly raids upon the crusaders
horse lines and seldom returned without trophies of some
kind. They even crept through the guards. Clad in black,
and moving as silently as animals, they stole into the huts
where men lay sleeping and awakened the sleepers with
knives at their throats. Holding fast their prisoners, they
explained by signs that an outcry would result in a slit throat.
Then they stole back with their captives through the lines.
As the autumn passed, the Christian leaders the arch
bishop and Count Henry and Conrad the marquis made
a sortie in force to get possession of a supply of provisions
the Moslems had left by the palm grove of Haifa, in the
shadow of CarmeL They crossed the river and marched in a
compact column between the swarms of Moslem horsemen,
the Templars and the English keeping the rear.
They were out in the open country for three days, and
Saladin, lying helpless in the grip of fever, fretted himself
with worrying because he could not take the saddle against
them. And after three days of fighting they cut their way
back again to the Christian camp without the provisions,
that the Moslems had had time to remove.
So the balance held even between the two hosts. If food
was scanty in the crusaders camp, it was still more so in the
city of Acre; if an epidemic swept through Saladin s open
camp, it raged more disastrously among the Christians.
The two sides were so accustomed to the sight of each other
[Baha ad Din relates] that the Moslem soldiers and the Prankish
soldiers sometimes ceased fighting to talk. The two throngs mingled,
singing and dancing together, after which they returned to fighting.
Once they said, "We have been fighting for a long time let us
stop a while and allow the boys of the camps to show what they
can do." So they matched two parties of boys, who struggled to
gether with great eagerness. One of the young Moslems, seizing a
THE FULL TIDE 127
young infidel, lifted him off the ground and threw him down,
making him a prisoner.
A Frank who was watching came forward and redeemed the
captive for two gold pieces. "He was your prisoner/ the Frank
said, to the victorious youth.
The rains began again, but brought no respite this time.
The chronicles yield glimpses of the good and ill fortune of
both sides the death of the duke of Swabia grain ships
coming from Egypt at sunset in a rising storm the ships
driven upon the shore by Acre, while Moslems and Christians
fought to carry off the precious cargoes. . . . Part of the weak
ened city wall falling, and the garrison building it up anew
under the swords of the advancing knights ... a surprise
attack upon the wall by a single ladder, that almost pre
vailed . . . Saladin, debating for long hours with his amirs,
and in the end deciding to relieve the garrison . . . The war
worn garrison taken off by the ships that brought fresh men
in under command of Meshtub, the Kurd, during the storms
. . . Karakush still in command. . . .
Even Ambrose, watching this struggle of unyielding mul
titudes, felt that something rather epic was taking place
before his eyes. He knew, it seems, the legends of antiquity
and the songs of the elder minstrels. He tried in his own
crude verses to make clear what he felt:
Seigneurs! Not of the death of Alexander
Whose passing made such direful clamor,
Not of Paris, nor of Helen,
Who had from their amour such pain,
Nor of Arthur s deeds, of Brittany,
Nor of his hardy company.
Nor of the stalwart Charlemagne
Whom jongleurs sing so merrily
Do I know the verity.
I can not say, *tis truth or lie.
But of what befell this host of Acre
The cold, the ills, the pain they suffer
All that I can relate indeed,
And good it is for you to heed.
128 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
In winter that brings the wind and the rain, it is then that the
little folk of the host of Acre had so much misery. Famine had come,
and day by day it grew greater. All went well enough, it is true,
until Christmas, but when the time of Christmas passed, the lack
of things was felt. A man could carry a cask of grain easily enough
within his elbow yet it weighed upon him greatly because it cost a
hundred besants. A single egg sold for six deniers.
Seigneurs, I say in all truth that they skinned good war horses,
and ate their meat voraciously. A crowd gathered around whenever
a horse was killed, and a dead horse sold for more than it had ever
been worth alive. Even the entrails were eaten. When the men who
had money wished to share provisions with others they could not,
because so many people came to demand food. Without the herbs
they had planted from seed and out of which they now made soup,
they could not have held out. You would have seen good sergeants,
and even nobles accustomed to wealth, watching the herbage
growing, and going out to crop it and eat it.
A sickness followed, and I will tell you about that. It was caused
by the rains that fell without ceasing, until all the host was
drenched with water. Every one began to cough, and their voices
became hoarse, while their heads and limbs swelled. 1 A thousand
died in a single day in the army. Because of the swelling, their teeth
fell out of their mouths. Many could not cure themselves because
they had no food.
Listen to a great evil and a pity! Some men, made by God in
His image, were forced by suffering to deny Him. The lack of food
was so great in the host that many of our people went over to the
Turks. They renounced their faith, saying that God could never
have been born of a woman the cross, and baptism, they re
nounced all that.
There were in the host two comrades, poor sergeants, who had
between them no more than one denier of Anjou, and nothing else
unless it was their armor and clothing. They debated how they
would use the denier what food they would buy with it, to suffice
for a day. They cast lots, by counting the hairs on bits of fur, and
finally they decided that they would buy beans. They got thirteen,
and in this number they found one that was hollow. To change it,
one of them had to go back more than seven acres, and then the
merchant would only change it after much discussion. The sergeant
*Baha ad Din says the epidemic came from intestinal fever. When Ambrose speaks
of sergeants he means the men-at-arms on foot.
THE FULL TIDE
129
returned, and they ate the beans, nearly mad with hunger. When
the beans were gone, their distress was twice as great.
Many men got along with a kind of locust bean and little nuts.
Those who were sick drank heavily of strong wine of which they
had a good supply but not having food to go with the wine, they
died by threes and fours at a time.
All the winter the famine lasted, and the men suffered, who had
come to aid God from Christmas to mid-Lent. I know this for
certain, and not by hearsay. There were provisions enough in the
host, but the merchants sold them dear.
Some men made a search for those who were most miserable the
count Henry did much good, and Sir Josselin of Montoire, who
ought not to be forgotten, the bishop of Salisbury, who did not
keep his hands closed, and likewise many others who feared God.
Supplies arrived at Tyre, but the marquis of Montserrat kept them
there and did not let them come to the host. Then they cursed the
marquis. No one knew what would happen, and people went about
without wishing to look at each other.
In spite of the famine and the general discouragement,
the siege was pressed. Before the end of Lent the first grain
ships appeared off the coast, to the delight of the common
folk who rejoiced in the fate of the Italian merchants who
had hoarded grain in the camp for still higher prices. Between
Saturday noon, when the ships arrived, and Monday, the
price of grain fell from a hundred besants to four.
In April of this year 1191 the second year of the siege
the army had new cause to rejoice. Six great ships came in,
one of them bearing the standard of France and the king,
Philip II, Augustus. With him landed a splendid group of
nobles the count of Flanders among them. The young king
had been long on the way, but he was here, and the whole
chivalry of western Europe gathered at last on the sands of
Acre.
Some of them saw a bad omen in the landing. A large white
falcon, a favorite of the king, escaped from its keeper and
soared up over the camp. The falcon came down on the wall
of Acre, to the satisfaction of the watching Moslems who
caught it at once. Later, Philip sent an envoy to Saladin to
i 3 o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
buy back the bird, but the sultan answered that it could
not be bought.
After this the French pushed the attack with new spirit,
pounding the crumbling wall with their engines. And at each
attempt, Saladin s horsemen, warned by the beating of
drums in Acre, swarmed to attack the outer line of the cru
saders camp.
Then early in June twenty-five galleys and ships sailed in
to the shore. At sight of them all work in the camp ceased,
and barons and men-at-arms thronged down to the sea.
The clamor of horns and uproar of voices greeted the leading
galley a red vessel bearing the banner of England.
That evening the tapers in the churches were lighted, and
bonfires blazed on the shore, while the crusaders sat over
their cups, or danced in the streets. And the Moslem spies
hastened to Saladin with word that Richard, king of England,
had landed.
A man [Baha ad Din explains] mighty in strength, vast in cour
age, and firm in will. Great battles had he fought, and dating was he
in war.
XX
RICHARD AT THE WALL
E Lion Heart had reached the camp, but not the battle
line. On a pallet covered with leopard skins, under the
sun-scorched linen pavilion, he tossed and twisted in
the grip of fever, his lips and throat covered with sores. His
long, powerful arms quivered with weakness.
Yet Richard of England was in the prime of life, being
thirty-four years of age and the very figure of a king. Red
hair, with a tinge of gold, fell to his massive shoulders. His
forehead was smooth and broad, the dark eyes beneath set
wide apart. A short beard, close trimmed in the French
fashion, covered his chin.
A man he was, confident in his own strength, and intolerant
of weakness. He had a boy s generosity and love of display
a restless humor that found satisfaction in the bravery of a
tournament and the richness of a banquet board. He was
never so pleased as when he wielded lance and sword, or
tuned his own harp at a table. In every game he must have
a hand, and in war he must be the leader.
On the voyage hither he had lingered the best part of a
year to champion the quarrel of his sister with Tancred,
131
i 3 2 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
usurper of Sicily; he had exacted a treasure from Tancred,
and had made lavish gifts in return. His ships, scattered by a
storm, had been ill treated by the Byzantines of Cyprus,
and Richard had waded ashore to range the island, until he
held the Byzantine prince a captive in silver chains, and his
daughter a hostage. In the very cathedral of Cyprus he had
married Berengaria of Navarre, his betrothed. Straightway
he had embarked again with his bride, attended by his sister
and the girl princess of Byzantium, and with new treasure in
his coffers. His counselors knew not whether to rejoice in the
conquest of a rich island, or whether to bemourn the weeks
and the lives wasted in the gaining of it.
Richard himself cared not a jot for statecraft. His great
hands were shaped for sword hilt and lance shaft rather than
pen or parchment. Recklessly he had sold the royal preroga
tives in England to raise money for the crusade. He said he
would have sold the city of London, if he could have found a
chapman. In his veins ran the blood of Poitiers and Gascony
the hot blood of troubadours and errant princes and he
had lived a voluntary exile from his father s wrath at the
French court until the death of his father had brought him
the crown of England on the very eve of the crusade. Fastid
ious, overbearing, and utterly brave, he had lived until now
as a prince-adventurer. He had set out upon the crusade as
if it were a new and most joyous adventure.
And on the voyage he had mortally offended his careful
cousin, Philip, king of France a youth no more than twenty-
six years of age who had already reigned eleven years. A
patient and disillusioned soul, cowardly in the face of per
sonal danger, but unyielding where the welfare of his kingdom
was at stake. Peering into the future, pondering frontier
castles and new laws, even on the crusade, Philip was the
exact opposite of his errant cousin of England. Philip had
pledged a truce with Richard, but Richard knew that he
would break any pledge to gain an advantage. Philip be
grudged the crusade that put the careful scheming of years
to the hazard. While Richard exulted in the hazard, and
baited his timid comrade-enemy with no gentle words.
In these days Philip lingered moodily in his tent, out of
RICHARD AT THE WALL 133
joint with his surroundings, hearing uneasily that in this
Holy Land William the Good of Sicily had died, and Freder
ick duke of Swabia, and the reverend archbishop of Canter
bury. His cousin, the count of Flanders, lay dying, and even
Richard was touched by the plague. Out of twelve thousand
Scandinavians who had come in their ships, not two hundred
survived. He heard that here more men fell in a single battle
than in a year s campaigning in France. Outside the ditch
of the camp, crosses covered the clay knolls crosses as thick
as the stones in the field.
In spite of that the siege engines whirred and crashed
through the day and the night, and dust hung about the gray
wall of Acre. Great stones soared from the crusaders perriers,
falling upon the roofs within the city. From the Moslem
engines on the wall, projectiles buried themselves a foot in
the earth.
The crusaders had pushed a covered ram over the filled-in
fosse, against the base of the wall. And the Moslem engineers
cast out dry wood, covering the leather-bound roof of the
ram. They shot down Greek fire that caught in the dry wood
and burned the ram.
Then the crusaders rolled forward a new tower, higher than
the wall, and sheathed with copper. Upon this the Moslems
shot clay pots for hours. The pots broke and drenched the
structure with a fluid that did not burn. While the men
within the tower gibed at them, the defenders went on shoot
ing forth the pots until a flaming tree trunk was sent spin
ning through the air against the tower. In an instant, the
whole tower burst into flames, roasting alive the men within
it. The liquid in the pots had been naphtha,
" These Saracens shut up in the city," the veterans of
Acre said to the newcomers, " are people of great and marvel
ous haughtiness. If they were not miscreants, we would say
that we had never seen better men."
And the veterans spoke impatiently to the knights of
France and England. "Lord God, when will the assault be
given ? Here have come the most valiant kings of all Chris
tianity, and the most able in attacking. Let God s will be
done!"
134 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
While Richard threshed in a fever of eagerness on his
pallet waiting for the arrival of the bulk of his army with
the siege engines Philip-Augustus at length gave the order
to make a general assault.
In the morning [says Ambrose] every one armed himself, longing
to make the attack. You would not have been able to count all the
armed men, all the goodly hauberks, all the shining helms, all the
noble horses, all the white caparisonings, all the chosen knights.
We had never seen so many distinguished knights, so many pen
nons, so many ornamented banners. They took their posts and
advanced toward the wall and began to launch missiles, and attack.
Before them rumbled the standard of France a cart
drawn by mules, in the cart a staff as high as a minaret, bear
ing a white banner besprinkled with red, a gilt cross above it.
Around the standard pressed a chosen guard of swordsmen.
And that evening the standard rolled back again. The
wounded were carried back, and the dead. A great stretch
of the wall had been broken down, but smoke signals from
Acre had warned the army of Saladin of the attack, and fierce
counter-charges by the Moslem horsemen upon the camp
had forced the besiegers to turn to defend themselves.
"Good Lord God," the knights cried sorrowfully, "what a
poor blow we struck!"
And the harassed Philip-Augustus cried out to his men to
avenge him upon the Moslems. For he felt the heat of fever
in his veins, and his cousin the count of Flanders lay cold
and lifeless in his tent where candles burned and priests
watched.
Another fleet put in to the shore, with the last of the
French and those two captains of war, Robert earl of Leices
ter and Andrew of Chavigny, with the best of the English
men-at-arms and King Richard s engines. They went into
the battle without a day s respite.
For the besiegers, maddened by their losses^ fought now
without giving or expecting mercy. They numbered nearly
one hundred thousand and the broken wall was held against
them by no more than six thousand Moslems. Gone were the
RICHARD AT THE WALL 135
days of duels and truces. Newcomers in the camp burned
a Moslem prisoner alive within sight of the wall, and the
garrison retaliated by burning a crusader at the stake. Day
and night ^ the pounding of the engines went on, while the
English mined under the Accursed Tower, and the Moslems
drove a tunnel out to meet them. In the night Arab swimmers
carrying sacks of sulphur and Greek fire on their heads tried
to pass the blockading vessels to enter the city; they were
caught in fishing nets.
No more pigeons remained to carry news to Saladin, but a
swimmer brought out a letter from the weary Meshtub and
Karakush, commanders of the city.
"We are reduced/ the letter said, "to such weakness
that the city will be lost if you can not do something to aid
us by the morrow."
On that day, the second of July, the Christians advanced
again to attack. And Saladin came down from the hills with
all his strength his halka, the veteran guard in yellow cloaks,
the cavalry columns of ever-victorious Taki ad Din, the
mailed mamluks of Egypt led by Al Adil, his brother. On
the flanks rode the wild clans of the northern hills, Turko
mans armed with long curved blades and javelins, dark Kurds
of the east with their lances and painted shields. Beyond
them the Arab tribes hovered like birds of prey, ready to
swoop in and snatch up plunder.
Baha ad Din watched Saladin s setting out, at the first
dawn.
"This day," the worthy kadi said, "he would eat nothing,
and he only drank some cups of liquid when he was urged
by his physician. I did not assist at the battle, being kept in
my tent at Al Ayadiya by sickness; but from that place I saw
it all. Twice did Al Adil charge the enemy in person this day/
He saw Saladin leading the ranks down, as far as the dark
line of the Christian trench. He heard a new battle shout:
"Ho! Aid for Islam!"
The waves of cavalry swept against the line of the ditch
and the mud wall, and broke up into streamlets of men that
plied tiny arrows and dismounted to scramble up the glacis,
sword in hand. Dust rose over the struggling figures, and
136 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
other waves of horsemen trotted into the dust, to become
little black dots that swarmed forward where the green ban
ners flickered and the drums throbbed ceaselessly.
Al Adil charged and Taki ad Din, and the dervishes ran
between the horses, screaming, knives in lean hands, while
the imams watching in the hills intoned an endless prayer.
" This day men shall be like scattered moths > and the mountains
shall become like flocks of carded wool . . , when the Earth with
her quakings shall quake, and men shall say. What aileth her?
On this day shall she tell out her tidings. . . ."
Moslems were breaking through the trench line; they were
wielding their swords among the tents, under that veil of
dust. They were leaving their horses and breaking through.
Wounded warriors drifted back, dark with sweat and dry
ing blood, rocking in their saddles and shouting the tale of
their deeds while the fever of fighting was in them.
They told of Christian bodies filling the trench, so that the
horses could gallop upon them like a bridge. "A Frank of
enormous size mounted the rampart. His comrades passed
stones up to him from behind. He cast the stones down upon
us. We struck that man with more than fifty blows of arrows
of stones, but could not drive him from his work. He stood
against us, struggling, until one of our engineers threw a
glass pot of naphtha on him and burned him alive."
Baha ad Din listened to the tales. A veteran of the regular
army, an old man and intelligent, came up. He had pene
trated through the ditches of the unbelievers.
"Behind their wall/ he said, "there was a woman, covered
with a green mantle, who kept shooting arrows with a wooden
bow. She wounded several of us. She was finally overcome
by several men. We killed her and brought her bow to the
sultan. He was amazed at this happening."
Hours passed, and the trench line of the Christians held
fast. At twilight the Moslem cavalry withdrew from the
battle.
Not until night [Baha ad Din relates] did the sultan return to
his camp, after the last evening prayer. Broken by fatigue, and a
prey to grieving, he slept. But it was not a tranquil sleep. At
RICHARD AT THE WALL 137
daybreak he ordered the drum beaten again. On all sides the
soldiers began to form their squadrons and to take up their old
tasks.
Richard of England could endure idleness no more. He
ordered his attendants to pick up his pallet and to carry him
upon it, out to the battle. They carried it to a knoll in the
front line, where a hurdle stood, roofed over with wicker-
work. Through an opening in the wicker roof Richard could
watch the wall of Acre, and the battered summit of the
Accursed Tower at the angle where the English were attack
ing.
Raising himself on his elbow, the sick king listened to the
whir and thud of the great engines and the clang of iron darts
the rending of wood and the clatter of steel weapons. But
he could not lie there inactive while the assault went on.
Calling for his crossbow a weapon that he handled with rare
skill he began to speed his quarrels through the opening
of the bombproof.
That day the English fired the beams of the tunnel they
had thrust down, under the foundations of the square tower.
Smoke oozed up through the holes in the earth. Slowly the
tower inclined outward: it settled into the earth and leaned
toward the besiegers, but it did not fall.
Richard summoned a herald to him. "Two gold byzants
to the man who brings me a stone from yonder tower!" he
said, and the trumpeter proclaimed it from the knoll beside
him.
The men within hearing looked at the leaning tower, still
manned by Moslem archers, and hung back. The king offered
three and then four gold pieces for a stone, and groups of the
English dropped their arms to run forward with iron bars
and hammers, under the speeding arrows.
Some of them were shot down, and others fled; but several
pried stones from the tower s base and staggered back with
them to the king.
At twilight the Accursed Tower still stood. Through the
hours of darkness men labored around it like ghouls in a
great cemetery of stones. From the Christian lines they
138 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
crept forward to throw the bodies of their dead comrades
into the maw of the half-filled fosse. Thither they dragged
carcases of horses, beams, and rocks. With sword and ax
other shadows of men stood guard over them.
Peering into the haze of moonlight, helmeted archers on
the broken wall above them shot at the moving shadows.
From the yawning breaches of the wall barefoot Moslems,
wraiths tortured by hunger and lack of sleep, stole out and
felt their way along the darkness of the fosse. They carried
axes and long knives and when they came to the body of
a man or the stiffened cadaver of a horse they hacked at the
limbs until they could wrench them off and pass them back
to other laborers, who carried their burden back into the
alleys of Acre, and cast them into the sea.
So, under the impassive moon, shadows worked to fill up
the great ditch, while others toiled to clear it.
The Accursed Tower was down at last, in clouds of smoke
and drifting dust. A wide hole gaped in the angle of the gray
city wall. And, as ants swarm forth to mend a break in the
clay barrier of an ant hill, weary men thronged from the city
to tug stones into place, one upon the other to build a bar
ricade out of dismembered bodies and the broken beams of
engines; while other figures ran into the settling dust, to tear
apart the barricade. With them went the banners of Leicester
and Chavigny and the good bishop of Salisbury. Sword in
hand, they climbed over the stones, smiting and hacking and
pressing on. From straining throats came a hoarse cry:
" Christ and the Sepulcher ! "
Through the barricade they broke, stumbling and falling
under the arrows that sped down from the heights around
them. Back to back they stood in the welter of human bodies,
their long arms lashing around them. The banners rose in
the breach, and the distant watchers shouted:
"St. George for England !
One figure pushed ahead of the others. A knight, Aubery
Clement, had sworn that he would enter Acre or die that day.
And he went down under a counter-charge of desperate
RICHARD AT THE WALL 139
Turks, who fought with knives and broken swords to hold
the breach until others came up with flame throwers.
Sheets of flame licked out at the attackers, and burning
naphtha drenched them. Scorched and tortured, men who
would have stood their ground against steel fell back into
the debris of the fosse, or stumbled clear of the wall. So
were the English beaten back from the breach while the tired
Turks shouted in mockery.
But it was the last of the fire and almost the last of the
garrison s strength.
On Friday, the twelfth of July, a swimmer from the city
reached the outer shore and was brought to Saladin, with a
letter from the commanders in Acre.
The letter [Baha ad Din explains] showed that the garrison was
reduced to its last extremity too weak to defend the breach which
was very great. Only death awaited them, and they did not doubt
that all of them would be massacred if the city were carried by
assault. So they had made a treaty to surrender the place.
After reading it, Saladin summoned his officers at once to council
in the field. When they had talked together, the sultan called the
swimmer again and gave him a message disapproving the terms of
the treaty.
Saladin left the council without speaking to any one. That night
he remained sitting in troubled abstraction, when all at once we saw
fires lighted on the wall of the city and the banners and crosses
of the enemy. Their fires of joy lighted all the rampart.
Acre had fallen.
XXI
THE MAS SACRE
the surrender of the city a change came over the
survivors of the Christian host. Under the burning
midsummer sun the siege engines were left standing
unattended, like captive giants bound with ropes and chains,
and now at last permitted to repose in peace. And the men
who had labored for months without respite put aside their
armor and drank of idleness as a thirst-ridden traveler quaffs
deep of wine in the cool of the evening.
They took possession of their old quarters in the city,
and watched the throng of Moslem prisoners working with
brushes and pails of water, scrubbing the whitewash from
the walls of the cathedral that had been a mosque. Under
the white coating appeared the familiar mosaic figures of the
saints, as if they had been waiting there these four years to
welcome the Christians.
The great army of Christians felt the relaxation from the
strain; it slept fitfully at first and then heavily, dulling the
memory of pain and agonizing losses. It tried not to think
of the graves that covered the plain graves that held the
bodies of three reigning princes, six archbishops and patri-
140
THE MASSACRE 141
archs, forty counts, and five hundred men of noble rank.
And perhaps eighty thousand common men. 1 The price
paid for Acre had been too great, but the survivors of the
host felt that victory now lay with them, and that surely
now the way was open to Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, relaxing, the men who put aside their armor
became individuals again with ambitions and grievances of
their own. The men-at-arms settled old debts and went out to
look for taverns. Courtly dress appeared again in the streets,
where esquires rode in attendance upon their ladies. Other
women came down from Tyre, and of nights the tinkling
of gitterns, the clinking of cups, and the melody of the trou
badours could be heard.
And the leaders assembled in a great council to settle the
question of the kingship of Jerusalem that had divided them
into two factions. No idle question this for in the hand of
the king lay the authority of God.
In this council sat Philip-Augustus in his somber dress,
his young face prematurely lined. Beside him the long-
limbed Richard, in a rose-hued vest and hunting cap, his
great sword in its plain sheath linked to his girdle with silver.
He played with the staff in his hand, alert and amused
eager to have his say in the controversy. Behind him, the
quiet earl of Leicester, and Henry, count of Champagne
nephew of the two kings but a poor man. "Living from morn
ing to morning," the chroniclers say.
With the English sat the Templars in their white surcoats,
and the three brothers Lusignan Guy, the king in name;
Geoffrey, the warrior; and Amalric, the constable.
With the French were the dark-faced Pisans, and the
nobleman who had caused the quarrel, Conrad of Montserrat,
inscrutable, unyielding, and swift to seize upon any gain.
He had already scored a decisive advantage over the help-
accounts of the numbers involved and the losses vary widely. Moslem chronic
lers say that 120,000 Christians died at Acre. It is possible judging from the totals
given for the various contingents as they arrived that 150,000 landed at Acre.
From the heavy casualties among the leaders and well-known knights, it seems that
the losses amounted to one half the army. Such losses would be the equivalent of a
million men to-day. And they do not include the casualties of the German host in
Asia Minor.
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
less Guy. A year ago Queen Sibyl, the bride of Lusignan,
had died in the camp. By the ruling of the high court of the
barons in such a case, the younger sister of the dead woman
succeeded to the throne. But Isabel was married during
that stormy evening at Kerak to the mild and unkingly
Humphrey of Toron. Isabel, only twenty years of age,
insisted that she loved Humphrey, and she refused to be
separated from him. But her mother and Conrad s agents
beset her, troubling the girl s conscience by insinuating that
her marriage to Humphrey was no marriage because it had
taken place before her age of puberty. She yielded at last,
and the Church declared the marriage null. Whereupon
Conrad claimed her and wedded her and at once demanded
recognition of his right to the throne of Jerusalem, since
Isabel was now the queen.
There were ugly whispers that the marquis already had a
wife in Constantinople, with another at home in Italy. "In
reserve," explains Ambrose, who hated him. "And now he
married a third! That is why the good archbishop did not
fear to say that God was not present at such a wedding."
All these remonstrances the ambitious Italian brushed
aside. The daring Geoffrey, brother of Guy, cast down his
gauntlet before the marquis and Conrad ignored it. The
Templars insisted that Guy was the rightful king, but Conrad
gained the ear of Philip-Augustus even persuaded that
thoughtful monarch to claim half of Richard s conquest of
the rich island of Cyprus. (The careless Richard had accepted
Guy s side of the quarrel, and, while he gave up the half of
Cyprus, he opposed Philip-Augustus in the matter of the
kingship. The crusade had fanned the latent enmity between
the twain, and Richard openly sought the leadership of the
army.)
Now in the great council the cause was debated gravely
for the kingship of Jerusalem was perhaps the highest of
earthly honors and a compromise was reached.
Guy would have the kingdom during his lifetime, after
which it would fall to the marquis or his son. If Conrad died
first, King Richard would dispose of the kingdom as he
pleased, if he were still in the East*
THE MASSACRE 143
So they agreed. Two things are clear. The barons of Jeru
salem no longer had in their hands the choosing of the king,
as in the time of the first Baldwin; and the politics of the
West had crept into the East. Of all the high lords who sat
in that council, only Balian of Ibelin and Humphrey of
Toron belonged to the lineage of the first crusaders. The
Templars had great influence, but the leadership of the cru
sade now lay between the kings of France and England, sup
ported as they were by the powerful princes of Europe.
After the council Philip-Augustus announced his decision.
Richard s knight errantry had exhausted his patience, per
haps, but he longed to take advantage of the death of the
count of Flanders and to have the first hand in affairs at
home. Under the excuse of illness, he meant to sail back to
France at once.
Naturally, the French contingents protested, and the other
barons urged him to abide until the end of the war. The poli
tic king did consent to leave at Acre the bulk of his soldiers
under command of the duke of Burgundy. He would not
stay. So great was his desire to make haste that he begged
two swift galleys from Richard,
No protest came from Richard, although even that single-
minded warrior scented danger in the wind. Before the high
lords he made Philip- Augustus swear that he would keep
the faith he had pledged to him and would do no injury
to the vassals or the lands of England, while Richard was
absent.
The king of France took the oath readily, and broke it as
readily before the year was out.
"Instead of blessings/ says Ambrose, "maledictions fol
lowed him upon his departure/
Be that as it may, Richard Plantagenet was happy well
and hale once more, with no one to hinder him and all Pales
tine open to him. Alone Conrad dared question his acts, and
Conrad, following a policy of his own, saw fit to retire into
his citadel of Tyre, taking with him the Moslem hostages
who had fallen to the share of the French king; nor would he
emerge at the Lion Heart s summons.
For better or worse Richard became leader of the crusade.
144 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
His unbounded energy brought new spirit into the war, and
the first result of it was the massacre.
Acre had surrendered upon hard terms. To save their lives
Saladin s generals in the city had agreed to the surrender of
the place with all it held, to the payment of a ransom of
200,000 pieces of gold, to the release by Saladin of 1,600
Christian captives 100 knights selected by name among
them and to the return of the holy cross.
Saladin had been troubled when he learned the conditions.
The fulfilment of course rested with him, since some three
thousand of the garrison with the two commanders were held
as hostages by the crusaders. He had asked what time would
be allowed him to make the payment, and had been informed
that he would have three months one third of the conditions
to be met at the end of each month.
Now the first month had elapsed, and the crusaders were
eagerly awaiting the sight of the true cross, taken at the
battle of Hattin. Whenever Moslem parties appeared near
Acre, men ran out crying:
"The cross is coming!"
But it did not come. Instead Saladin sent a message, ex
plaining that he was ready to meet the first payment if the
Christians would give hostages on their part to guarantee
that they would release the prisoners at the end.
Richard, in refusing this, demanded that Saladin make
the payment without any conditions. 1 Days passed, and no
response came from the hills. We do not know what Saladin
thought, or what he was preparing to do. Doubtless he dis
trusted the crusaders, and probably he was waiting for the
arrival of some of the captives.
x Baha ad Din, who was in a position to know, but who was naturally prejudiced
against the crusaders, gives the following version of Saladin s response:
**Of two things, do one. Send back to us our comrades (the captives of the gar
rison) and receive the amount of the payment agreed upon for this term; then we
will give you hostages for all that is agreed upon for the following terms. Or accept
what we will make over to you to-day and give us hostages whom we will keep until
our comrades, held by you, have been sent out to us."
He says the Frank envoys answered:
"We will do none of that. Pay what is due now, and accept our solemn oath that
your people will be returned to you."
THE MASSACRE 145
But there is no doubt as to what Richard did. Calling a
council of the princes in Acre, he discussed the situation and
came to a decision. Twenty-six hundred Moslems of the
garrison were led out into the plain to a kind of enclosure of
blankets hung upon cords. Their hands were bound and they
were put to death by the sword or hung within sight
of the Moslem patrols watching from the hills. Of all the
hostages only the higher officers were spared.
In a frenzy of anger all the Moslem cavalry within sum
mons rode down at the crusaders, and before the execution
ended swords were clashing all over the plain. Eventually
the Moslems withdrew, to carry the tidings to Saladin.
Beyond doubt, he had not expected this. The massacre
depressed him deeply, and not for many a long day did he
show mercy to any crusaders taken captive. He did not,
however, retaliate by a slaughter of the Christians already
in his hands.
Richard s callous act roused intense feeling among the
Moslems. By the letter of the agreement he had the right to
act as he did. It must be remembered also that the crusaders
were still afflicted by their losses at Acre that the majority
of them, arriving on the coast during the tension of the siege,
still looked upon their enemies as infidels to be slaughtered
wherever met. Granting this, the fact remains that Richard
stained his name and honor by this needless cruelty, and
that Saladin did not retaliate except in the open war that
followed.
The slaughter had its afternote of comedy. The two Mos
lem commanders of Acre were held for individual ransom
Meshtub, chieftain of the Kurds, being kept for 8,000 pieces
of gold, while Karakush was thought by the crusaders to be
worth 30,000. It occurred to Meshtub to ask the figure
set for the ransom of his brother-in-arms, and his captors
told him.
"I am worth as much as he," Mesh tub protested. "By God,
Karakush will not bring 30,000 pieces if I bring only eight."
The knights laughed, and raised the old Kurd s ransom to
30,000 pieces.
Meanwhile Richard was preparing to march on Jerusalem.
146 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
By common consent the crusaders placed themselves under
his orders, although he had been on the coast for only two
months. As king of England he was of higher birth than the
remaining lords, and the command lay with him by right;
but Richard Plantagenet would have taken the lead of any
army in which he served.
It is no easy matter to perceive the real Richard, to sepa
rate him from the minstrelsy of the centuries. We would like
to know the exact nature of the man who was called the Lion
Heart, but the lines of portraiture are indistinct scarred
and dimmed by time. This much we know. Richard was born
late in life to Eleanor of Guinne, who had been the queen of
Louis, one of the leaders of the crusade of 1149 Eleanor
whose wilfulness preyed upon this monarch of the French
until Louis abandoned the crusade and divorced her. No un
toward fortune could dishearten the beautiful Eleanor, who
chose for her second husband Henry of Anjou, cunning,
passionate, and cruel. She could don man s garments and
go out against adversity; she dared rebel against her husband
after he had been anointed king of England. Henry, able
enough in all conscience, defied the Church of Rome, and
went to his death with his sons in arms against him and the
stigma of Herod upon him, after the murder of good Thomas
a Becket. The children grew up amid turmoil and the quarrels
of the courts, tasting of vice at an early age. John, weak and
covetous, inherited his father s nature, while Richard had his
mother s comeliness and dominant will. He was her favorite.
We have only glimpses of him, matching songs with the
troubadours of Poitiers, standing silent beside his father s
body, without a word of blame or promise of good-will to
the English barons who had fought against him. He plunges
into the crusade, as if longing to bury all this futile past in a
selfless venture; he desires Berengaria of Navarre for wife,
and yet sails from Messina on the very eve of her expected
arrival in the charge of Eleanor. And after their marriage he
avoids her places her with Joanna his sister, rescued from
Sicily, and the fair Byzantine girl, daughter of the Comnene,
held by him as hostage.
Seemingly he takes delight in the young Byzantine prin-
RICHARD I. COEUR DE LION
From the monument in Font-evraud.
SALADIN GAINS A VICTORY OVER CRUSADERS
The armor worn by the figures is of the Fifteenth Century, and
the artist has distinguished Saladin by a device
of the devil on his shield.
COURTESY OF DIE CHRONIK WES KR K UZFAHRK K KONICK RICHER
THE MASSACRE 147
cess perhaps makes her his mistress. Berengaria follows
him without protest, silent in her pride. The three women
shadows behind the resplendent figure of the crusader king
are housed with all splendor in the palace at Acre. They ap
pear at banquets, and Richard takes pleasure in gifting
them with luminous silks and rare Eastern jewels.
He is no whit dismayed by the losses at Acre or the deser
tion of Philip. The thing in hand engrosses him, and he exults
in the preparations for the march, buying new soldiery from
the French, inspecting the ships. He can order the slaying of
the Moslem hostages, and still send requests to Saladin for
food for his falcons. He is childishly disappointed that the
sultan will not meet him face to face in courteous talk before
the coming battle. Passing from hunting field to the banquet
table, jesting with men of all ranks, spurring on the laggards,
beating down all opposition such is the outward bearing
of the man, on the eve of the struggle.
At times he is moody, and over-tensed nerves give way
before little things. He has a Norman s canniness, and never
did crusader cast such stakes upon the board as Richard.
To come thus far, he has drained England and left his king
dom at hazard. He means no doubt to win such fortune and
glory in the Holy Land that he may return and mend matters
in the West. But he finds great powers opposing him at every
step, and he is impatient.
So for a moment the two adversaries gather their strength
for the coming struggle the champion of the West preparing
to go forth to meet the lord of the nearer East. In every
quality they are opposed: Saladin has the clear vision of age,
Richard the heedlessness of youth; Saladin is patient, Rich
ard impetuous; Saladin, unable to take part in person in the
fighting, relies upon generalship; Richard depends upon his
own prowess in battle. The sultan, a fatalist, will take long
chances he has men fit only for striking, not for defense;
the king must feel the ground before each new step, but he
has men equally effective in attack or defense.
Either of them would give his life to hold, or to take,
Jerusalem.
Richard made the first move, a wise one. Instead of seek-
i 4 8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
ing Saladin or marching inland, he started down the coast
with the fleet following after him, toward Jaffa, the port of
Jerusalem. A distance of some sixty-five miles as the crow
flies, rather more than a hundred along the trails. He set out
on August twenty-fifth of that year 1191 during the worst of
the heat when the streams were dry.
Saladin kept in touch with his movements by spies and by
mounted patrols. He ordered the walls of the three towns
between Acre and Jaffa dismantled, and the fortifications
of that seaport destroyed. And he marched south beside the
crusaders, out of sight within the hills.
XXII
RICHARD TAKES THE FIELD
FIRST the Christian army did not move smoothly.
In fact, it did not move at all. Acre sheltered a great
multitude, speaking different languages and following
different leaders. For weeks this multitude had rested in the
shade of the poplars and the palm groves.
"In the town/ Ambrose explains, "were good wines and
girls, many of whom were very fair. They gave themselves
up to the wine and the women until the valiant men were
ashamed of the others."
Richard had to pitch his tents by the sand dunes of the
river and send back his marshals to rout out the malingerers.
They emerged peevishly, overburdened with baggage. And
onsets of Moslem cavalry added to the confusion. For two
days the crusaders camped in the shadow of Mount Carmel
from the summit of which Saladin had been inspecting them
while the useless gear was discarded and the men formed
into companies. All women except hardy workers were sent
back, and each man was given ten days supplies of biscuit,
cereal, wine, and meat to carry in a pack. This done, the
great standard, an effigy of a dragon mounted upon an iron-
149
150 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
bound pole in a heavy cart, trundled forward within its
guard of Norman swordsmen. With the Templars leading,
the army crawled around the point of Carmel in close array.
Ambrose marched with them, delighted at the sight.
You would see there great chivalry,
The fairest younglings,
The chosen men, most proud.
That ever were beheld.
So many men, all confident,
So many fine armorings,
And old sergeants, hardy and proud,
So many swords fair seeming,
So many banners gleaming
You would see there a host afoot,
Greatly to be feared.
Burdened by the heavy packs, the army trudged through
the dry brush and thickets of the shore, surprised to see so
many animals scurrying away before it. Scorpions and snakes
worried the newcomers, and every day before setting out the
sun emerged from the ridge on the left hand, making a glaring
furnace of the sky, reflecting on the sand and even touching
the tranquil green sea with fire. The army clambered past the
limestone ledges of the Narrow Way, fearing that the Mos
lems would beset it.
But the sand and the brush lay empty before it, as far as
the ruins of Capernaum. The army advanced only a few
miles each day, halting at an early hour to camp. When the
men had eaten supper, and the sun had sunk beneath red
clouds into a purple sea, the air became cool and they could
sit at ease. Then one would arise, and call out the familiar
words:
"Holy Sepulcher, aid us!"
Others would take up the cry after him, repeating it as far
as the outer lines where the silent Templars kept watch in
mounted patrols. Ambrose said it refreshed them all as did
the sight of the stalwart Richard by day, mounted on
Fauvel, his bay Cyprian horse.
RICHARD TAKES THE FIELD 151
The army trudged on, down the silent coast where no sheep
grazed, and no wind stirred the dust, and even the thickets
were gray and salt and bitter. At the empty town of Caesarea
the fleet appeared, moving slowly under listless airs over the
tideless water. It brought supplies and the last laggards
from Acre.
The army [a chronicle relates] pitched its tents by a river called
the River of Crocodiles, because the crocodiles devoured two sol
diers who bathed in it. Caesarea is great in size, and the buildings
wonderful in workmanship. Our Savior with His disciples often
visited it and worked miracles there. But the Turks had broken
down part of the towers and walls.
Here the army turned a little inland for the line of the
menacing hills had receded, and the leaders decided to follow
the wells and cultivated land a few miles from the shore.
(And here, Baha ad Din relates, Saladin made a survey of
the country ahead of the crusaders and talked for a long time
apart with his brother Al Adil.)
On leaving Caesarea the Moslem cavalry appeared, skirm
ishing with the rear guard and harassing the crusaders with
arrows. But Richard or his advisers had hit upon a formation
that fairly baffled the eager foemen.
The crusaders marched in three columns. The one nearest
the hills and the Moslems was formed entirely of infantry,
in close order. Those in the outer files exposed to the Moslem
arrows carried bows and crossbows and wore shirts of felt
and mail. They worked their bows without halting, and their
armor shielded them from the hostile arrows. Within these
files, their comrades carried spears and swords in readiness
to stand and beat off a charge.
The second column, within the infantry screen, was made
up of the knights and horsemen, the real strength of the
army protected in this fashion from the arrows that would
otherwise have taken toll of the valuable horses.
Nearest the sea and remote from the Moslems marched
the third column with the carts and baggage and sick. These
men could take their ease a and a division of them changed
152 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
places every few hours with the infantry of the first column,
who could then rest in their turn.
The fighting of the first day ended at noon when both sides
wilted under the trying heat. The crusaders kept on, across a
barren stretch of sand dunes, and came to a narrow ravine,
a portion of which the Moslems had thoughtfully camou
flaged with a screen of branches to trap the horsemen of the
advance. But the Templars were not deceived, and after
testing the water and finding it good, they camped there.
The river they christened the Dead River.
On the next day [the chronicle continues] the army went on
slowly through a desolate country. The Templars had charge of the
rear that day and they lost so many horses through the attacks of
the Turks, they were almost reduced to despair. The king also was
wounded in the side by a javelin while he was driving the Turks.
Alas, how many horses fell pierced with javelins! This terrible
tempest kept up all day, until at twilight the Turks returned to
their tents.
Our people stopped near what was called the Salt River. A great
throng gathered on account of the horses which had died from
their wounds, for the people were so eager to purchase the horseflesh
that they even came to blows. The king, hearing this, proclaimed
by herald that he would give a live horse to whoever had lost his
horse and who distributed the flesh of it to the best men in his
command, who had most need of it.
On the third day our army marched in battle array from the Salt
River; for there was a rumor that the Turks were lying in ambush in
a forest, and that they meant to set the brush on fire. But our men,
advancing in order, passed the place unmolested where the ambus
cade was said to be. On quitting the wood they came to a large
plain and there they pitched their tents. Spies, however, brought
back word that the Turks lay ahead of them in countless numbers.
Saladin had inspected this plain with Al Adil, and had
chosen it for the hazard of battle. In the last two days his
horsemen had tried to coax the crusaders cavalry out of the
protecting mass of infantry, and had failed.
We had to admire [Baha ad Din says] the patience shown by
these people, who endured the worst fatigues without having mili
tary skill or any advantage on their side.
RICHARD TAKES THE FIELD 153
The Moslems, being all mounted, outnumbered the cru
saders horsemen at least five to one. Their purpose was to
induce the men of the cross to break their array to abandon
the hedgehog-like formation and to scatter over the country
side, in which case the charges of the Turkish cavalry might
overwhelm them. Richard, understanding this peril, had
ordered his men not to move out of ranks under any provoca
tion unless the signal was given to charge the simultaneous
blast of trumpets down the line.
So on that day of battle the Christians moved forward in
their dense column, like an armored giant drawing himself
painfully over the ground, heedless of the sting of missiles.
The Templars took the advance again, followed by the
Bretons and the knights of Anjou; King Guy led the men of
Poitou at their heels, and the Normans and English pressed
after with the standard. Bearing the burden of the attack,
the black-robed Hospitalers held the rear. At nine o clock,
when the crusaders were already drenched with sweat, the
two sides were engaged swarms of Bedawins and the negro
horsemen of Egypt assailing the rear.
King Richard and the duke of Burgundy with their ret
inues rode up and down the line, to steady the men.
The enemy [relates the chronicler De Vinsouf] thundered at their
backs as if with mallets, so that, having no room to use their bows,
they fought hand to hand, and the blows of the Turks, echoing
from their metal armor, resounded as if they had struck upon an
anvil. They were now tormented with the heat, and no rest was
allowed them. The battle fell heavily on the extreme line of the
Hospitalers the more so as they were unable to resist.
They moved forward with patience under their wounds, and the
Turks cried out that they were iron, and would yield to no blow.
Then about twenty thousand Turks rushed upon our men. Almost
overcome by their savage fury Gamier de Napes, one of the Hos
pitalers, suddenly exclaimed with a loud voice,
"O St. George, wilt thou leave us to be driven thus?"
Upon this the master of the Hospitalers went to the king and
said to him, "My lord the king, we are pressed by the enemy, and
in danger of eternal infamy; we are losing our horses, one after the
other, and why should we bear with them? *
154 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
"Good Master/ the king replied, "it is you who must sustain
their attack. No one can be everywhere at once."
On the master returning, there was not a count or prince who
did not blush for shame, and they said one to the other, "Why do
we not charge them at full gallop?"
Thereupon two knights who were impatient of delay put every
thing in confusion. They rushed at full gallop upon the Turks and
each of them overthrew his man, by piercing him with his lance.
One of them was the marshal of the Hospitalers, the other was
Baldwin de Carreo, a good and brave man and the companion of
King Richard. 1
When the other Christians observed these two rushing forward,
and heard them calling with a clear voice on St. George for aid,
they charged the Turks in a body with all their strength; then the
Hospitalers who had been distressed all day by their close array,
following the two soldiers, charged the enemy in troops so that
the van of the army became the rear and the Hospitalers who had
been the last became the first.
The count of Champagne also burst forward with his chosen
company, and James d Avesnes with his kinsmen, and the bishop
of Beauvais, as well as the earl of Leicester, who made a fierce
charge on the left, toward the sea. The Turks, who had dismounted
from their horses in order to take better aim at our men with their
javelins and arrows, were slain on all sides in that charge, for, being
overthrown by the horsemen, they were killed by the footmen who
followed.
King Richard, on seeing his army in motion, flew on his horse
through the Hospitalers, and broke into the Turkish infantry, who
were astonished at his blows and those of his men, and gave way
to the right and the left. Then might be seen numbers prostrate
on the ground, horses in swarms without their riders, and many
trodden under foot by friend and foe. Oh, how different is battle
from the speculations of those who meditate amid the columns
of the cloisters!
There the fierce king, the extraordinary king, cut down the
Turks; wherever he turned, he cut a wide path for himself, like a
J Baha ad Din saw this charge. "The enemy found himself more and more en
tangled, and the Moslems became expectant of victory. Then their cavalry formed in
a mass, and knowing that nothing could save them but a mighty effort, they charged.
... I saw, myself, these horsemen gathered in the circle formed by the infantry; all at
once they seized their lances and gave a great war shout; the line of infantry opened
to let them pass, and they cast themselves forward."
RICHARD TAKES THE FIELD 155
reaper with his sickle. The rest, warned by the sight, gave him wide
room.
For a long time the battle was doubtful. Oh, how many banners
might be seen, torn and fallen to the earth; how many swords of
proved steel covering the ground ! Some of the Turks hid themselves
in copses, others climbed the trees, and, being shot with arrows,
fell with a groan to the earth; others, abandoning their horses,
betook themselves to slippery foot paths. For a space of two miles
nothing could be seen but fugitives.
Our men paused, but the fugitives, to the number of twenty
thousand, when they saw this, recovered their courage and charged
the hindmost of our men who were retiring. Oh, how dreadfully
were our men then pressed! They bent, stunned, to their saddle
bows. Then you might have seen horses without saddles, and the
Turks returning upon our people. The commander of the Turks
was an admiral, 1 Tekedmus, a kinsman of the sultan; he had
seven hundred Turks of great valor from the household troops of
Saladin, each of whose companies bore a yellow banner. These men,
coming at full charge with haughty bearing, attacked our men so
that even the firmness of our leaders wavered under the weight of
the pressure. The battle raged fiercer than before the one side
labored to crush, the other to repel.
For all that, the king, mounted on a bay Cyprian steed, scattered
those he met, while helmets tottered beneath his sword. The enemy
gave way before his sword, and thus our men, having suffered some
what, returned to the standard.
They proceeded on their march as far as Arsuf, and there they
pitched their tents outside its walls. While they were thus engaged,
a large body of the Turks made an attack upon the extreme rear of
our army. King Richard with only fifteen companions rushed
against these Turks, crying out in a loud voice, " Aid us, Sepul-
cher!" When our men heard it, they made haste to follow him, and
attacked the Turks, putting them to flight.
Overcome with the fatigues of the day, our men rested quietly
that night. Whoever wished to plunder returned to the field of
battle, and those who returned thence reported that they had
counted thirty-two Turkish chieftains slain. The Turks also made
search for them.
But we had to mourn greatly the loss of James d Avesnes. On
Sunday the Hospitalers and knights of the Temple armed them-
1 An amir probably Taki ad Din.
156 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
selves and made anxious search, and at last found the body, its
face so covered with clotted blood that it was difficult of recogni
tion. Thus, having decently wrapped up the body, they bore it
back to Arsuf whence a great multitude of the soldiers came forth
to meet it.
So ended Saladin s attempt to break the array of the cru
saders in open battle. The sallying forth of two knights,
against Richard s orders, took the Moslems by surprise, and
the charge of the Christian chivalry swept all the Moslem
divisions back against the hills with heavy losses. In this
charge the men of Islam experienced for the first time the
astonishing might of the Lion Heart, and Malik Ric gained
for himself a place in Moslem legendry that endures even
to-day.
But counter-charges led by Taki ad Din and others made
the crusaders retire into their close order, and move on with
out delay to the sheltering gardens of the little seaport of
Arsuf. On the following day Saladin appeared, ready to
renew the action, while the crusaders did not take the
field.
This affair of Arsuf was hardly a battle, and certainly not a
decisive battle, as some historians have made it out, in the
past. It did prove, however, that the crusaders under Rich
ard s leadership could hold their own in ranged battle against
Saladin s forces, and it lowered the morale of the Moslem
soldiery. And it caused Saladin and his generals to change
their plan of campaign. Instead of hanging on the flank of the
Christians to draw them into action, Saladin retired to the
line of the hills and divided his forces, determined to play for
time.
To do this he destroyed instead of defending Ascalon, the
Bride of Syria. Ascalon, the southern key to Jerusalem and to
the caravan route into Egypt, was a great and fair seaport,
but the Moslem amirs were in no mood to shut themselves
up in another Acre, to defend it.
"I take God to witness," Saladin said, "I would rather lose
all my children than cast down a stone from its walls, but
it is necessary."
RICHARD TAKES THE FIELD 157
He drove his men to the grim work, recruiting an army of
workmen.
When these laborers entered the city [Baha ad Din relates] there
went up a great sound of grieving; for the city was pleasant to look
upon; its walls were strong, its houses beautiful. Its people began
at once to sell everything they could not bear away with them into
Egypt, even selling ten hens for one dirhem. They came out to the
camp with their wives and children, to sell their household things.
Some had to go off on foot, lacking money to hire beasts to carry
them. The troops, worn out with fatigue, spent that night in their
tents. This was a horrible time.
From early morning the sultan busied himself in the work of
tearing down. He gave all the corn stored in the city to the work
men. They set fire to the houses of the city. All the towers were
filled with wood and burned.
For two days the sultan was so ill that he could not ride or take
any food. He shifted the camp close to the walls, which enabled the
camel and ass drivers to share in the work. For he feared that the
Franks would hear of it and come down to forestall him.
XXIII
THE BARRIER OF THE HILLS
ICHARD S impetuous spirit was fired by the withdrawal
of the Moslems. "Seigneurs," he cried in the first
conference at Jaffa, " the Turks are destroying Ascalon
they dare not give battle to us. Let us go, to save this city."
But they did not go. The banners were planted in the olive
groves, swept by the dry north wind. The horses grazed hun
grily in the fertile fields by the canals, and the men ate eagerly
of the ripe grapes and fresh figs and almonds. They rested,
in Jaffa some of them even went back by boat to the flesh-
pots of Acre and debated what ought to be done. It seemed
to them that the wall of Jaffa must be repaired first.
And Richard, so skilled in battle, so certain of himself in
the face of the enemy, could not sway the minds of the coun
cil. Impatiently his thoughts turned to the great leaders of
the Moslems, off yonder behind the haze of dust that half
veiled the brown rampart of the hills. He sent an envoy for Al
Adil, the counselor and brother of the sultan. Al Adil came,
courteous and watchful, at the head of a brilliant cortege of
horsemen. Richard rode out to meet him, attended by Nor
man knights, with youthful Humphrey of Toron to interpret
for him.
158
THE BARRIER OF THE HILLS 159
"The war/ he said, "has lasted a long time between us.
On both sides a multitude of brave warriors have fallen. As
for us, we are come only to aid the Franks of this coast.
Make peace with them, and the two armies will retire, each
into its own country."
Al Adil was apt at this fencing with words. Quietly he
demanded upon what terms the Christians would make
peace, and Richard, perforce, answered saying that Jeru
salem must be yielded up, and the Moslems must retire be
yond the Jordan. With pride, Al Adil refused.
This meeting was reported at once to Saladin, and he wrote
to his brother, "Try to drag out matters longer with the
Franks and keep them where they are, until the Turkoman
reinforcements which are on the way have joined us/*
So Al Adil, summoned again by the English king, brought
a great pavilion with him, and gifts of camels and saddled
horses, and his cooks with a store of dainties. Not to be out
done in courtesy, Richard ordered forward his own tent, and
the two feasted therein the Moslem cooks fetching their
dishes into the crusader s quarters. Richard prepared the
feast with splendor and returned gift for gift.
Quite frankly he admired Al Adil, finding that this lord of
the pagans who could tell a merry tale or eat a whole sheep
at a sitting knew all the lore of hunt and falconry that his
pride was not less than Norman pride. Such a man could en
tertain the Lion Heart more than the wayward French
barons, or the monkish Templars who labored at the stones
of Jaffa. Thereafter Richard often sent to the Moslem chief
tain for sherbet or when fever settled upon him snow from
the distant peak of Hermon. Always Al Adil responded cour
teously, while he studied Richard.
Months later Richard was to make a friendly gesture in
recognition of Al Adil s courtesy. 1 He sent for the elder son
of the Moslem prince and knighted him with all solemnity
before the Christian lords. For the present, however, his
^The incident in Scott s novel, of Saladm*s visit in the disguise of a physician to
Richard s tent, is, of course, fiction, as it was meant to be. The king and the sultan
never met, in truce or on the field of battle. There is no evidence that Saladin sent
his physician to minister to the English king, but he did send gifts of fruit and snow
during Richard s illness.
i6o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
restless mind played with a new project that fairly took Al
AdiPs breath away.
It seemed to the English king that a marriage might mend
all the questions at issue the marriage of his sister Joanna
to the cultured and affable Al Adil. This done, he on behalf
of the crusaders and Saladin on behalf of the Moslems
would surrender their mutual holdings in the Holy Land to
the new couple and Jerusalem would be held in peace by both
sides, with pilgrims at liberty to come and go. The true cross
would be returned to the crusaders. So Richard suggested,
apparently with all sincerity. Al Adil was a little dazzled
when he reported the offer to his brother.
"Wilt thou accept?" Baha ad Din asked the sultan curi
ously.
"Yes, verily," Saladin said, thrice and smiled. He knew
the thing to be impossible, and eventually Richard had to
announce that his sister refused to marry a Moslem.
Not that Richard was idle. The skirmishing going on be
tween the horsemen of both sides gave full opportunity for
the individual combats that delighted him. He went out with
a small following to look for hostile patrols and ride them
down.
The king of England [Ambrose explains] went out to meet the
Saracens, hoping to surprise them, but once the thing turned out
badly. The king had too few with him, and it happened that he
went to sleep,
The Saracens were on their" guard, and approached so near that
he was barely awakened in time. Seigneurs, do not be surprised if
he got up in great haste for a single man beset by so many is not at
ease. But the grace of God enabled him to mount his horse: his
people mounted also, but they were too few. When the Turks saw
them in the saddle they turned and fled to their ambuscade, pur
sued by the king. Those who were hidden in the ambush rushed
out and tried to seize the king upon his horse Fauvel, but he drew
his sword.
All around him the Turks pressed each one wishing to put hand
on him but no one wishing to feel the blow of his sword. If they had
known who he was, they would have taken him. But one of his
knights, William of Priux a loyal man and proud, cried out, "I am
THE BARRIER OF THE HILLS 161
the malik" That is to say, the king. The Turks seized him at once
and carried him off to their army.
There were killed Renier de Maron, who had a valiant heart,
and his nephew. Alan and Lucas of the Stable were killed also
that is the truth. No one pursued the Turks, for they went away in
a great body, leading William a captive.
When God had thus spared the king, several, knowing his cour
age and being fearful for him, begged of him:
"Sire, for God, do not thus! It is not your affair to go on such
expeditions. You lack not brave men do not go forth alone on
such occasions, for all our lives depend upon you."
More than one valiant man took pain to beseech him. But he,
when he heard of a combat and very little could be hidden from
him he cast himself always against the Turks.
Once the Templars were guarding the foragers, when four squad
rons of Turks fell upon them with loose bridles. The combat was at
its height when King Richard arrived. He saw our people sur
rounded by the pagans. He had only a few with him, but valiant
men and chosen, several of whom said to him:
"In truth, Sire, you risk a great misfortune. Never can you bring
our people out of there, and it is better that they die than that you
perish with them."
The king changed color, and said, " I have sent them thither I
asked them to go. If they die there without me, may I never again
be called king 1 /
He gave his horse the spurs and loosened the rein; swifter than a
hawk he cast himself at the Saracens, and broke through them to the
center. He drove them back, returning on his track to strike them
again, severing their heads and arms. They fled like beasts. Many
who could not flee were taken or killed. Our men pursued them so
long that it was the hour to return to camp.
Some men, however, blamed him because of the presents he had
accepted from the pagans. But he would have delivered the Holy
Land if he had not been prevented.
October had passed, and November, while Jaffa was re
built and fresh contingents summoned up from Acre. The
orange groves around Jaffa were heavy with fruit, and the
feather grass blew brittle over the plain, under cloudy skies.
Along the line of the hills the dust veil whirled when the
north wind blew.
Little by little the crusaders had penetrated the plain,
162 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
quartering themselves in dismantled towers and riding into
the empty towns. They had gained the edge of the foothills,
and before them the road to Jerusalem ascended among
barren gullies twisting and turning around the shoulders of
the hills toward the Holy City, hidden from sight twelve
miles distant.
But they had delayed too long. Rain came on the heels of
the wind, and chilled the air. The bulk of the crusaders ex
pected to march forward to Jerusalem, while the leaders,
realizing the difficulties, had no plan at all, and Richard
could not think of one.
The days became cold [Ambrose relates]. The rain and the hail
beat against us, overturning our tents. We lost there, before and
after Christmas, many of our horses, while the storms rotted our
salt pork and melted the biscuits. The shirts of mail were covered
with rust, and many of us fell ill from lack of food.
But their hearts were joyous because of the hope they had, of
going to the Holy Sepulcher. Those who were sick at Jaffa and other
places had themselves placed in litters and brought out to the
camp. And in the camp gladness reigned they lifted their helmets
and tossed their heads, crying, "Our Lady, holy Virgin Mary, aid
us! O Lord, allow us to worship and thank Thee, and to see Thy
Sepulcher!"
Yet the high men and the captains decided that every one must
go back to Ascalon, and rebuild its walls. 1
When the news was known in the host, no one ever saw a host so
troubled and so sad. Their joy when they had thought to go to
the Sepulcher was not so great as this new grief. Some of them
could not hold their peace, and cursed the long halt and the camp.
All the host was discouraged. They did not know how to carry back
the supplies they had brought thither, because the pack animals
were enfeebled by the cold and storms. When they were loaded,
they fell on their knees, and men cursed them, consigning them to
the devil. Finally every one departed and that day we arrived at
Ramlah.
x The army was in no condition to undertake the siege of Jerusalem in the face of
Saladin s forces, during the rains. No such siege had been contemplated by the
leaders, although the French urged it. The camp had been pushed forward into the
foothills to gratify the mass of the crusaders who were impatient to see Jerusalem,
but this halfway measure only resulted in general discouragement.
THE BARRIER OF THE HILLS 163
At Ramlah was the host, and because of the discouragement, it
separated. Many of the French went away, with the duke of Bur
gundy. The king with his nephew the count Henry of Champagne
went on to Ibelin. The next day was worse than the one before.
A little after midday they reached Ascalon, which they found
broken down and destroyed they had to climb over d6bris to
enter it.
Saladin knew by his spies that our people had returned to the
shore of the sea; then he said to his Saracens that they could go
away to their country and rest until May, They went willingly,
having remained four whole years in Syria.
Although Richard labored at rebuilding Jaffa, the first
weeks of the new year 1192 saw the crusaders thoroughly
disorganized. The French, their supplies and money ex
hausted, besought the English king for a loan; the duke of
Burgundy went from Richard s side to talk with Conrad,
who was secretly negotiating with Saladin offering to make
open war on Richard if the sultan would pledge him more
of the coast cities. The Normans and English mocked the
French, saying that they held wine goblets instead of swords
in their hands, and that they filled the houses of the prosti
tutes in Acre so that their comrades had to break down the
doors to get in.
The Genoese and Pisans who had given sturdy aid from
the first now had time to covet the coast ports and to brood
upon their ancient feud, and they started a war of their own
in the streets of Acre, pulling the duke from his horse when he
tried to intervene. Richard rode in haste up to the rioting,
and managed to bring some order out of chaos.
He assembled all the captains in conference, and listened
to their grievances. And he had to taste the dregs of his own
failure to lead them. Because they explained that they were
weary of delay and of the figurehead of Guy, who could never
be a king in deed they thought the only man who could
make head against the Moslems was Conrad of Montserrat.
They wanted Conrad to bring the factions together and to
lead them as king of Jerusalem so they pleaded, on their
knees.
In silence Richard heard them. Like a bird of ill omen,
164 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
word had come over the sea from England. The prior of
Hereford had brought him a letter from William, bishop of
Ely, and he knew that his affairs in England went badly. His
brother, the earl John, had driven out his chancellor and
seized upon the exchequer.
He listened to the crusaders, and dismissed from his mind
his own quarrel with Conrad, giving his assent to the election
of Conrad and the retirement of Guy. To compensate the
unhappy Lusignan, Richard made over to him the island of
Cyprus.
Messengers were sent to Tyre to announce the decision of
the council, while the crusaders rejoiced, making ready their
scant robes of ceremony and furbishing their arms for the
coming coronation. But their rejoicing was silenced within a
few days, when a strange power from beyond the mountains
intervened in their affairs,
Conrad, riding home from a banquet at the house of the
bishop of Beauvais, was attacked by two young men without
cloaks and stabbed. The Assassins who once had menaced
Saladin struck down the marquis before his coronation. In
the general consternation, many tales were repeated of his
death, but the account of the Syrian scholar Abulfarag,
written years later, is the clearest.
Two men of the Ismailites clad in the habit of monks rushed
upon the marquis who was mounted on his horse. One of them
struck him with a knife; the other fled into a church, near by. In
truth, the wounded marquis was carried into this same church by
his companions. When the monk who was the companion of the
assassin beheld the marquis alive and speaking, he rushed out at
him in the middle of the church and struck him again, and straight
way he died.
These two Ismailites, seized and crucified and tortured by the
Franks, said that the king of England had sent them. And because
of the enmity which had been between thern, the Franks believed
the words of these cutthroats. However, it was manifest afterward
that the sidna y chief of the Ismailites, sent them. 1
Assassins were also called Ismailites. "Sidna" means simply "our lord"
and was one of the general tides of the master of the Assassins. Histories have de
voted many pages to the charge that Richard instigated the murder of Conrad.
THE BARRIER OF THE HILLS 165
The death of Conrad the one man Saladin feared healed
the long feud that had divided the crusaders. At Tyre the
French assembled to discuss the situation, and Henry of
Champagne, riding into the city by chance, was seized upon
by them as the man to take the crown awarded the dead mar
quis. Henry, young and amiable, had no enemies, and he was
nephew to both Richard and Philip-Augustus. They urged
him to marry the widowed Isabel at once,
Far in the south, Richard heard the news of Conrad s
assassination while he was boar hunting, and for a space he
was silent in astonishment.
"Sir Sergeants, this is my word let Count Henry take
the city of Acre and Tyre," he said at length, "and the
whole of the land, if it please God, for ever. As to his mar
riage with the widow, I have no advice to give, for the
marquis had her unlawfully. But tell the count in my name
to take the field as speedily as possible and bring the French
with him."
So, after Easter-tide, Henry married the youthful Isabel,
and the crusaders assembled around his standard. Conrad
had been removed from Saladin s path, but the Lion Heart
remained.
And the English king, determined but irresolute as always
when the responsibility of a campaign was laid upon him,
bethought him of sending envoys to Saladin.
"Greet the sultan," he instructed his messengers, "and
He was accused of it when he was taken prisoner later in Austria. Even so distin
guished a scholar as Von Hammer argues that Richard was guilty.
Baha ad Din and other Moslems after him say that Richard caused the murder.
But Baha ad Din clearly is repeating the gossip of the camps at the time. The state
ment of the two fedawis, the murderers, under torture is no evidence, and the curi
ous forged letter that appeared later supposed to have been written by the master
of the Assassins to absolve Richard is meaningless.
On the other hand, such a murder would have been utterly out of keeping with
Richard s character. There is no indication that he was ever near the country of
the Assassins, or that he had any dealings with them. The charge laid against him
is without evidence to support it.
Conrad is supposed to have come into conflict with the master of the Assassins,
who was a distant neighbor. The marquis was scheming at the time to get possession
of Beirut and Tripoli, two ports near the Assassins strongholds, and his election to
the kingship would have made him a formidable enemy of the order. There is no
reason to doubt the truth of the summing-up by Abulfarag, quoted above.
166 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
say that the Moslems and the Franks are reduced to the
last extremity, and the resources of the two sides in men
and material are exhausted.
"As for Jerusalem,, we are determined never to give it up,
so long as a single man remains to us. You must return the
land to us as far as the Jordan. As for the sacred cross, to
you it is a bit of wood without value; but in our eyes it has a
very great value. Will the sultan have the graciousness to
send it back to us?"
After consulting with his amirs, Saladin answered:
"Jerusalem is as much to us as it is to you, and has more
value in our eyes for it was the place of the Prophet s night
journey to heaven and will provide the place of assembly for
our people at the Judgment Day. Do not think that we will
give it up to you. The land was ours in the first place, and it
is you who have come to attack it.
"If you were able to take it once, that was only by surprise
and owing to the weakness of the Moslems who held it then.
So long as the war will last, God will not permit you to raise
stone upon stone there. As for the cross, its possession is a
great advantage to us, and we can not give it up except for
some gain to Islam."
And to his officers the old sultan spoke emphatically:
"If we make peace with these people down there, nothing
will guarantee us against their bad faith. If I were to die, it
would be difficult to get together such an army as this again.
The best thing to do is to carry on the holy war until we have
driven them out of the shore or until we are struck down by
death."
XXIV
THE CARAVAN
UMMER came again to the Holy Land the fifth summer
since the yellow banners of the sultan had been car-
ried across the Jordan. Green were the foothills, where
the sentinel poplars stood; clear the streams that wound be
tween dark cedars and shining rims of marl and red sandstone
down to the lush grass where the sheep grazed, and cloaked
figures watched. The herds fattened upon the good grazing
and there was a sound of bees in the warm air. Only the fig
ures of the men, alert in their watching, unwieldy in their
iron sheathing, were somber and intent upon the task of war
that had been begun long since by forgotten grandsires, but
had not yet been finished in this quiet land.
Upon them lay the burden of the war and they went on
with it, turning aside from the fields that awaited the plough
and the empty villages. It had become a part of them, as it
had been a part of the vanished men of Antioch, and the
ghosts of Hattin. It gathered them in the shadow of the high
walls and sent them forth at night where no roads led.
Down in the plain the crusaders said, one man to the other,
that a miracle had taken place in the Sepulcher that Easter
tide. Saladin had come to the Sepulcher, to sit before the
167
168 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
darkened tomb where the dark lamps hung and a hand in
visible had lighted the lamps before the eyes of the Moslems.
Surely the lighting of the lamps had been a sign and a portent.
Along the plain rode King Richard and his men. They
stormed the fort of Darum, and slew every Moslem within
the walls. They rode on, to the gardens of Gaza, among the
sand dunes. But there were whispers of messengers that
summoned him home across the sea. His followers talked of
a wrong-doing in England, of a composition between the
earl John and King Philip by which he would lose England.
Some said that he would go away, and others said that he
would remain in the Holy Land to the end of the war.
The crusaders talked among themselves and agreed that,
if he went, they would still go on to Jerusalem. They re
joiced at that. Only the king was troubled by his thoughts.
He meditated apart from his men, and flung himself alone
upon his cot when his tent was pitched. At such a time one
William of Poitou, a chaplain, beheld him. The chaplain
walked back and forth before the tent entrance, not daring
to speak to him, but weeping.
The king called him in and spoke. "By thy faith, what
grief makes thee weep?"
"Sire," said the priest, "will you pledge me that you will
not be angered if I speak?"
Richard pledged his word, and the chaplain mustered his
courage.
" Sire, they blame you. Through the host runs the rumor
of your return. May the day never come, in which you will
leave us. O King, remember what God hath done for you
for no king of this time hath suffered less harm. Remember
when you were count of Poitou, there was no neighbor so
powerful your arm did not overthrow him. Remember the
Braba^ons you discomforted so often, and that good adven
ture at Hautefort when the count of St. Gilles besieged it.
Remember how your kingdom came to you without need of
shield or helmet, and how you stormed the city of Messina,
and that fine exploit at Cyprus when you put an emperor
in chains and the capture of Acre. How often hath God
aided you? Think well, O King, and protect this land of God.
THE CARAVAN 169
All of those who love you say that if you leave it without aid,
it will be lost and betrayed."
Silence fell upon the tent, for those in attendance upon
Richard dared not open their lips, and the king uttered no
word. Chin on hand, the red-haired king meditated, and the
chaplain stole away. The next day the Lion Heart summoned
his herald and bade him go through the host, before the gates
of Ascalon, and proclaim that for no earthly quarrel or any
urging would King Richard leave the Holy Land until the
coming Easter. And that all should make ready to march
on Jerusalem.
And the host exulted, tumultuous as birds at the dawning
of day.
"Now, we shall see the Sepulcher!" men said.
The great lords hastened to put their equipment in order,
and the small folk made up packs holding a month s provi
sions. A long column set out upon the road, and through the
dust helmets gleamed above the shields emblazoned with
devices of lions or flying dragons. The marching men made
haste, to Blanche Garde and the ruined Toron of the Knights,
to the foothills and the hamlets of Beth Nable where they
were joined by the French, at the mouth of the ravine through
which winds the road to Jerusalem.
Perforce they halted there, for the Moslem cavalry beset
their patrols and attacked the baggage trains coming up from
the coast. While the earl of Leicester and the French engaged
the enemy horsemen, the host set to work shaping timbers
for siege engines. But Richard found something else to do.
Into the camp at Beth Nable rode three men in Turkish
dress three men born in Syria and speaking the language
like Moslems. They were the king s spies and they had come
from Egypt with news. The first great caravan of the summer
was on its way from Cairo into the East. They had watched
it winding, an endless stream of camels bound nose to tail,
of mounted warriors and laden donkeys, whole families with
slaves and goods, moving slowly across the dunes of the Jifar,
circling far from Ascalon. Thousands of laden beasts, hun
dreds of armed men, forging along the desert road down to
170 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the Dead Sea. By now they would be passing through the
bare spurs of the hills south of Hebron.
Richard lost not an hour in setting out. Choosing a thou
sand riders and another thousand men-at-arms to sit the
cruppers behind them, he mounted Fauvel that evening and
headed south. A full moon climbed over the bulwark of the
hills, and for a while they rode in the shadow of the heights
with a haze of light of the plain beside them. Solitary watch
towers gleamed white above them.
But they had been seen. Moslem couriers galloped to
Saladin, and the sultan ordered an escort to hasten down to
warn the men of the caravan and to lead it away from the
trail out into the blind breast of the desert. His officers out
stripped the crusaders, without sighting them since they
lay hidden in the ruined walls of a town during the next
day and reached the caravan. But, with no danger in view,
the Moslems of the caravan were reluctant to leave the road
and its wells. At the end of the afternoon they camped by the
well of El Khuweilfa, where the beasts were watered the
escort of warriors going out to pitch their tents a little in
advance of the multitude of the caravan that surrounded the
well.
At Khuweilfa there was a cistern beside the well, but even
with that, it took long hours to water several thousand ani
mals, and the caravan lay passive, after its commander gave
orders that no one was to start until the following morning.
All this was related to Richard by some friendly Bedawins
who had come to the ruined town with their tidings, that
evening. The English king thought they were lying, but he
decided to go to see for himself. Taking some Turcoples for
his only guard, and putting on an Arab head cloth, rings, and
khufieh, he bade the Bedawins lead the way to the well. 1
Ambrose does not say that Richard went with the Turcoples, but Baha ad Din,
who heard the stories of the survivors of the caravan, is quite clear that he did.
"When this was reported by some Arabs to the king of England he did not be
lieve it, but he mounted and set out with the Arabs and a small escort. When he
came up to the caravan, he disguised himself as an Arab and went all around it.
When he saw that quiet reigned in their camp and that every one was fast asleep,
he returned and ordered his men into the saddle."
Ambrose and De Vinsouf give the incident of the challenge by Moslem sentries.
THE CARAVAN 171
Cutting across the hills and riding swiftly avoiding the
watch towers on the trails they drew near El Khuweilfa
after dark but before the rising of the moon. They reined in
their horses and went forward slowly, and almost at once
they were challenged by Arabs on a hillock.
The Bedawins motioned Richard to be silent, and one of
them answered the outpost.
"We went toward Ascalon to see if it was God s will that
we should find plunder. Now, we go back to our place/
"Nay/ cried the voice from the darkness, "y e have come
out to look at us and your place is with the king of Eng
land."
"Yallah!" the Bedawins swore. "That is a lie."
They did not check their horses, moving on toward the
black shape of the caravan. Several men mounted and rode
after them, but lost them in the darkness wherein scores of
figures moved around the animals. Richard and his com
panions walked their horses around the bivouac, until they
made certain of the size and situation of the encampment.
Then they hastened back to the crusaders.
The raiders fed their horses and ate a little themselves; in
the clear moonlight they made their way out of the hills,
approaching El Khuweilfa in the murk before dawn. This
was an hour that warmed Richard s heart he divided his
men into companies, bade the French follow on his heels,
and the foot soldiers follow the knights. His herald went
among them, warning the dark groups not to pause for any
plundering.
Headlong they charged into the first tents, which happened
to be those of the armed escort, not the caravan. Egyptians
and soldiers alike tumbled out of their sleeping robes and
ran for their horses, to be cut down by the long swords of the
knights. Some of them were able to saddle their beasts, and
drew off toward a height where they held their ground.
Meanwhile it grew light and the crusaders sighted the
main caravan, turning their attention to it at once. The
plain became a chaos of swerving horses and running men,
frightened camels staggering up roaring, and women scream
ing. Richard s Bedawins snatched loot by the armful and
172 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the drivers joined forces with them. Through the confusion
moved the armored forms of the great English lords, the
earl of Leicester and the knights of Anjou for the fighting
went on stubbornly until the sun rose and the mounted
Moslems withdrew. They managed to take away under the
eyes of the crusaders two portions of the great caravan that
had camped elsewhere.
But the raiders found wealth under their hands. Mule
loads of spice and chests of gold and silver, with rolls of
brocade stands of weapons and any amount of pavilions
and fine cloths. They counted more than four thousand cam
els, and as many horses, and investigation yielded rare
things indeed suits of silvered mail, and chessboards,
medicines, and silver dishes. Most welcome of all was the
great stock of provisions barley, grain, and sugar.
They took five hundred prisoners, and made them lead
away the laden animals.
When they returned to the army at Beth Nable they were
greeted joyfully, but they heard ominous tidings. Spies re
ported that the Moslems had destroyed the wells and filled
up the springs around Jerusalem.
All the exultation of the raid left Richard, hemmed in
again by these multitudes of men praying to be led toward
Jerusalem, while the grim Templars shook their heads.
He fell moody again, watching through the hours of the nights
when the sluggish face of the moon reared above the black
ravine, and the cool night air stirred. Up yonder hidden eyes
watched in the shadows and death lay in wait. Up yonder
there was no water by the walls of Jerusalem white in the
moonlight. The very ledges of rock took shape in the night,
rising like battlements before him, inanimate and forbidding.
XXV
BAHA AD DIN-S TALE
VERY move of the crusaders was reported daily to
Saladin by his spies and scouts. He knew that they
were assembling at Beth Nable to besiege Jerusalem,
and he felt suspense growing among his own men, wearied
as they were by the ordeal of Acre and the rout at Arsuf.
Without respite he directed the work of preparation for the
decisive conflict. In the saddle before sun-up, he watched his
masons raising the walls; he divided the circuit of the walls
among his amirs, while gangs of laborers hauled up stones for
the engines. At times he even dismounted to go among them
and carry stones himself.
Every one knows [Baha ad Din relates] that in the land around
Jerusalem it is useless to dig wells to find drinking water, the ground
being nothing but a mountain of very hard rock. The sultan was
careful to cut off all the waters found around the Holy City, to
stop up the springs, to ruin the cisterns, and to break down the
wells. There remained not a drop of water fit to drink outside the
walls. He also sent the order into all the provinces to hasten troops
toward him.
173
174 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
On the Wednesday after the loss of the caravan the old
Kurd called his amirs into council to announce to them his
plan for the defense of Jerusalem. They thronged into his
pavilion and seated themselves about the carpet, whispering
together. Many faces were missing from the circle. Al Adil,
the shrewd and resourceful, had been sent to quell a revolt
beyond the Euphrates, and Taki ad Din, who had been the
sword-arm of the sultan, had been laid in his grave on the
eastern frontier when Saladin had held in his hand the let
ter announcing his death, he had sent away all the attendants
from the tent, and had wept, fingering the broken seals of
the missive. But El Meshtub, commander of the Kurds, was
back again, ransomed. At his coming who had cost Saladin
dear by the harsh terms of his surrender the sultan instead
of reproaching him had risen from his seat to take him in his
arms, saying that he had endured more than any of them at
Acre.
Meshtub was seated again with the newcomers Aboul
Heidja the Fat, who could barely move once he was down on
his heels, and the lean Turkomans from the east. Asad ad
Din, the veteran, was there, and Baha ad Din, who from his
master s side scanned the ring of faces intently.
Saladin, leaning toward the kadi, bade him speak for a
little on the war. And while the learned man was talking,
Saladin mustered his thoughts, knowing well that these
chieftains were balancing between zeal for his cause and
dread. For they feared that a siege of Jerusalem would be a
second Acre, and they longed to keep to the open country.
What followed is told by Baha ad Din.
The sultan remained silent some time in the attitude of a man
who reflects and we respected his silence. The amirs seemed to be
in the best of moods, but their inner feelings were very different.
They said to a man that the presence of the sultan in Jerusalem
would be no advantage, and might be a peril for Islam that they
would hold Jerusalem themselves while he kept the outer country
as at Acre, to surround the Franks. Then he spoke.
"The praise to God. To-day you are the only army of Islam.
Only you are capable of confronting adversaries such as we have
now before us. If you withdraw may it not please God the
BAHA AD DIN S TALE 175
enemy will roll up the country as you would roll up a leaf of parch
ment. On you alone depends the safety of the Moslems, every
where. I have spoken."
El Meshtub then took the word.
"By God, I swear that while I live, I will not cease to aid thee!"
Others answered likewise, and this cheered the spirit of the sul
tan. He had the customary supper served and after that every one
retired.
Thursday ended in great preparation and bustle. In the evening
we attended again upon our prince, and watched with him a part
of the night, but he was not at all communicative. We made the
last prayer, which was also the signal for all of us to retire. I was
going out with the others when he recalled me. So I sat down again
at his side, and he asked me if I had heard the latest news. I an
swered, no.
"To-day I have had a communication," he said, "from Aboul
Heidja. The amirs and mamluks held a gathering in his quarters,
and blamed us for wishing to shut ourselves up in the city. They
said that every one would undergo the fate of Acre, while all the
outer country would fall to our enemies. They think it would be
better to risk a ranged battle; then, if God gave us victory, we
would be the masters; if defeated, we would lose Jerusalem, but
the army would be saved."
The letter also contained this clause: "If you wish us to remain
in the city, stay with us or else leave a member of your family
for the Kurds would never obey the Turks, and otherwise the Turks
would no longer obey the Kurds."
Knowing by this that they did not intend to remain in the city,
the sultan had a grieving at his heart. He had for Jerusalem an
attachment that can hardly be conceived, and this message caused
him pain, I spent that night with him. It was the eve of Friday
in the dry season, and no person other than God made a third
with us.
We decided to place in the city his great-nephew, son of Ferrukh
Shah and lord of Baalbek. At first he thought of shutting himself
up in the Holy City. We watched and prayed together.
At daybreak he was still awake, and I begged him to take an
hour s rest. I went out to my quarters but had no sooner arrived
than I heard the muezzin call to prayer, and for a while I made
the necessary rinsings in water, since the day was beginning to
break. As I sometimes made the morning prayer with the sultan,
I went back to him and found him finishing his ablutions.
176 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
"I have not slept a single moment," he said to me.
"I know that."
"How could you know it?"
"Because I have not slept myself there was not time.
After making the prayer together, I said to him: "An idea has
come to me. May I submit it to you?"
He replied, "Speak!"
"O my lord, thou art overwhelmed with cares. To-day is Friday,
in which all prayer is three-fold effective, and here we are, in a most
suitable spot. Let the sultan make the ablutions, with bowings and
prostrations, and confide the keys of his problem to the hand of the
For the sultan believed sincerely in all the tenets of the Faith,
and submitted himself without misgiving to the divine wisdom. I
left him then, but afterward, when the hour arrived, I made the
prayer beside him in the mosque of Al Aksa^and I saw him make
two bowings and prostrate himself, murmuring in a low voice. I
saw the tears drip upon his grizzled beard and fall to the prayer
rug.
In the evening of the same day I resumed my usual attendance
upon him, and at that time a dispatch arrived from Djordic who
commanded the advance guard [confronting the Franks]. We read
these words:
"All the army of the enemy has just drawn up, mounted, on the
crest of the hill and then retired to its camp. We have just sent
spies to find out what is happening."
Saturday morning another dispatch came in, reading as follows:
"Our spy has just come back and tells us that a dispute divides
the enemy, some wishing to push on to the Holy City and others
intending to return to their own territory. The French insist on
marching upon Jerusalem. We have left our own knd, they said,
* to regain the Holy City, and we will not return without taking it.
"To that the king of England replied, From this point on, all the
springs have been destroyed, so there is no water left near the city.
Where, then, can we water our horses?
"Some one pointed out that they could have water at Tekou a,
a stream which runs about a parasang from Jerusalem.
" How, said the king, could we water our beasts there?
" We will divide the army, they replied, into two bodies, one of
which will mount and ride off to the watering place while the other
remains near the city to carry on .the siege, and every one will go
once a day to Tekou a/
BAHA AD DIN S TALE 177
<c< When one part of the army goes to drink with its animals, the
garrison of the city will sally out and attack the others who remain,
the king answered, and that will end it. 1
"They decided finally to choose among the best-known men three
hundred persons who would in turn pass on their powers to a dozen
individuals who would then choose three to decide the question.
And they spent the night waiting for the decision of the three."
On the next morning we received another message. The Franks
had broken camp and were on their way back to Ramlah.
Saladin had triumphed and Richard had failed, without
giving battle. And the reason for this was that the Lion Heart,
the mightiest man of them all in single combat, became
helpless when he took command of the army.
1 Ambrose gives this account of Richard s decision to turn back;
"The French urged him many times to lay siege to the Holy City. The king said,
* We are far from the sea, and the Saracens would come down to cut off our supplies.
Then the circuit of the city is so great that so many men would be needed . . . that
we could not keep the host from being attacked by the Turks. And if I should lead
the host, and if I should besiege Jerusalem under these conditions, and if misfortune
befell the host, I should be for ever blamed and dishonored. It is not to be done."
Richard then left the decision to the men selected by the council, who seem to
have been Templars and Hospitalers for the most part. Another chronicler, De
Vinsouf, says that if they decided to go on, Richard offered to go with them not as
leader but as a soldier in the ranks.
As to the final verdict, Ambrose says:
"Those who had sworn and determined not to go on explained their reason
that no water could be found for beasts or men, without great labor and danger.
It would be the season of great heat, and no water could be found without going two
leagues into a district filled with enemies."
XXVI
SALADIN STRIKES
E pliant steel of Saladin s patience had broken the
iron courage of the crusaders. As iron snaps asunder,
the army broke up into fragments once it had turned
its back upon the hills of Jerusalem* Angered past reconcilia
tion, the French went off to the north; the pilgrims and mas-
terless men trailed down to Jaffa, while the Italian soldiery
hastened to their citadels of trade along the coast, and only
the Templars and Hospitalers remained to guard the new
wall of Ascalon.
Richard went at once to Acre, as a man hurries from a
long ordeal. His thoughts he kept to himself. Beyond doubt,
4 he was impatient to embark for England where he was sorely
needed, and had only lingered this long because the crusaders
had insisted on marching to Jerusalem. So long as they turned
their faces toward the Holy City, the pride of the Lion Heart
would not let him forsake them.
Now, with failure accepted, his hands were free. As a boy
casts aside a once-cherished toy for a new plaything, he
started toward the sea. Not before he had done two mad
178
SALADIN STRIKES 179
things. In solemn conference he approved a plan to march
against Cairo, after his departure, promising the aid of some
three thousand English and Normans although even the
minstrel Ambrose saw the hopelessness of such a move.
And, impatiently, he sent envoys to find Al Adil and bid the
sultan s brother make terms for the crusaders.
Still, he clung to the hope of fair terms, saying that he
would not relinquish half-ruined Ascalon. And on his way to
embark after joining the queens at Acre he ordered his
own followers to make ready to take ship for Beirut to win
this fertile northern port for the crusaders. He paid no heed
to the gibes of the French, or to the song they sang in the
taverns. For they made up a song about a coward and a king
that stung the pride of the red-haired warrior.
So matters were, when Saladin seized his opportunity. He
roused his amirs, shook from them the inertia of the year s
defensive caution, and launched his horsemen straight down
from Jerusalem to Jaffa.
They came like a sword thrust out of the night, twenty
thousand mounted men with siege engines on camel and mule
back, and an exulting mass of Arabs clinging to their flanks.
They drove the surprised crusaders from the fields and sub
urbs and started to pound with rocks and iron javelins at the
gate of the wall toward Jerusalem.
Some five thousand Christian men-at-arms were penned
within the wall and in the tumult they manned their defenses
sturdily, while a ship sped to Richard at Acre with tidings
of the attack. The first rush of the Moslems was beaten back,
and the sharp check cooled the spirits of the Turkomans
who had no sympathy with sieges. It needed all Saladin s
urging to drive them to the assault, and for three days the
Sultan s mangonels gnawed at the gate until it was brot
down and a breach of two lance lengths opened in the?
beside it.
Then the Moslems scented victory, and flung themselves
at the gap under a storm of arrows, their long scimitars swing
ing and crashing into the close ranks of the crusaders. Climb
ing over bodies and broken stones, the exultant mamluks
forced the breach and drove the Christians through the
i8o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
streets, up the slope to the little citadel on a rocky height
above the sand of the shore.
After them swarmed the Turkoman clans and the Arabs
nearly maddened by the rich plunder around them in dwell
ings and shops. Beating in the door of a monastery, the Mos
lems fell to hacking the bodies of the monks, killing them
slowly to enjoy their torture. A church was ransacked and
burned, and smoke poured up from the alleys where the
looters snatched and screamed.
They were beyond all control of their officers. Finding wine
casks in the houses, they beat in the heads of the casks and
let the wine run underfoot; they forced captive women and
children to drive the herds of swine together in one place and
then left the bodies of the Christians strewn among the car
cases of the abominated swine.
Some of the fugitives climbed into boats drawn up on the
gray sand of the shore, while others struggled to launch the
boats. Alberic of Rheims, the commander of Jaffa, tried
to escape in one of these vessels, but his knights pulled him
back and led him up to a tower of the citadel. Few survived
here some two thousand it seems and their situation was
the more hazardous because the wall of the citadel had not
been entirely rebuilt before the Moslem attack. Alberic of
Rheims saw no hope for them. "We can do nothing here
except give up our lives," he said. The patriarch, a gigantic
man who had escaped the contagion of fear, had sterner stuff
in him. He rallied the people, reminding them that a ship
had been sent to Acre for aid three days ago. If the assistance
did not come, they could beg Saladin for terms.
Saladin tried to restore order among his looters, and to
launch a fresh attack on the gray stone wall of the citadel.
The soldiers would not obey him [Baha ad Din explains] al
though he did not cease urging them until a late hour of the night.
Then, perceiving that they were harassed by heat and fighting
and smoke to the point of stupor, he mounted his horse and re
turned to his tent which was pitched near the baggage trains. There
the officers who were on duty rejoined him, and I went to get some
sleep in my tent. But it was impossible to sleep I was so troubled
by misgiving.
SALADIN STRIKES 181
At daybreak we heard trumpets sound among the Franks, and
we thought that aid had come for them. The sultan sent for me,
and said:
"Reinforcements must have come for them by sea. But enough
Moslem troops are on the shore to keep any one from debarking.
Here is what must be done. Go and find the Malik el Dahir, 1
and tell him to place himself outside the southern gate. You will
enter the citadel with some men of your choice, and induce the
Franks to pass out. You will take possession of all valuables and
arms you find there."
I went off at once, taking Shams ad Din with me, and I found
the Malik el Dahir on the hill near the sea with the advanced guard.
He slept, in his coat of loose mail and mail hood, ready for combat.
When I woke him, he got up at once half asleep and mounted his
horse, while I accompanied him to the place where he was to await
the sultan s orders. There he made me explain what I planned to do.
With my men I then entered the town of Jaffa, and on reaching
the citadel we called to the Franks to come out. They replied that
they would do so and began making preparations.
Just as they started out Aziz ad Din remarked that they must not
be allowed out until we had removed the Moslem soldiers from the
town, or they would be pillaged. Djordic then tried to drive back
our men by great blows of his baton; but as they were no longer
under the control of their officers or in ranks he found it impossible
to make them go out. He kept on struggling with the mob against
my remonstrance until it was full daylight.
Seeing how the time had passed, I said to him, "Reinforcements
are drawing nearer to the Franks, and the only thing for us to do is
to hasten the evacuation of the citadel. That is what the sultan
insisted upon."
Then he consented to do what I asked. We went to the gate of the
citadel nearest the spot where the Malik el Dahir waited. Here we
managed to pass out forty-nine Franks with their horses and
women, and sent them away. 2 But then those who remained in the
citadel took it into their heads to resist us.
By now the relieving fleet had drawn near and every one could
of Saladin s sons. On hearing that ships were approaching, the sultan
granted terms to the garrison in the citadel.
2 As Baha ad Din had feared, the first crusaders to go out were seized and plun
dered and put to death. Saladin had agreed to grant them their lives and as much
property as they could carry off, on the payment of the usual small ransom for each
individual.
182 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
count the ships, and the garrison prepared to resume fighting we
saw them putting on mail and seizing their shields.
Seeing matters take this turn, I descended from my knoll near
the gate and went to warn Aziz ad Din who was posted below with
some troops. A moment later I was out of the town and with the
malik, who sent me to the sultan to inform him of what was hap
pening. He ordered a trumpeter to blow the call to arms. The
drums rolled the recall, and our soldiers hastened in from all parts
of the country to join in the conflict. They closed in on the town
and the citadel. The Franks of the garrison finding that no aid was
coming from the ships believed death inevitable.
King Richard was in command of the galleys that drifted
beyond the swell of the Jaffa beach. The galley bearing word
of the Moslem attack had reached the harbor of Acre in the
evening, while he was in his tent making the last preparations
for embarking with his followers for Beirut and then for
Europe. The messengers had come before him without cere
mony, crying that Jaffa was taken and a remnant of the
Christians besieged in the citadel, and that all would be lost
unless aid reached them at once,
"As God lives," Richard had answered, "I will go there!"
And go he did, in spite of obstacles for some of the army
was already at Beirut, and the French refused point-blank
to march again under his standard. The Templars and Hos
pitalers agreed to go to Jaffa by land, only to be held up on
the way by a Moslem ambush. Richard boarded his galleys
with the earl of Leicester, and those stalwarts, his constant
companions, Andrew of Chavigny and the Priux knights.
With some hundreds of men-at-arms and volunteers from
among the Genoese and Pisan bowmen, he put to sea, only
to be held back for two days by contrary winds off the Car-
mel headland. They reached the Jaffa beach in the night and
waited to see what story the dawn would tell.
When the mists cleared and the sun blazed above, the dis
tant hills they saw nothing to cheer them. The beach was
filled with Arabs and Turks, who were obviously settled
there. Above the line of the sand, smoke eddied from the low
gray wall of the city, half a mile from them. In the palm
SALADIN STRIKES 183
groves near the wall stood Moslem pavilions. Only Moslem
banners could be made out. No sign of any kind was visible
on the fortress, on its low bluff over the sand.
The galleys moved in closer. Richard, standing with his
knights under the red awning of the stem, scanned the line
of the shore, and turned to his companions.
"Sir knights," he said briefly, "what shall we do go
away, or land?"
To try to force their way ashore in the face of Saladin s
army seemed to them out of the question, and they said
so. They believed that all the people of the castle had been
killed. ^
At this moment the survivors of the citadel were actually
calling to them, but the sound of the voices was drowned by
the pulse of the swell and the taunting cries of the Arabs
"Allah akbar Allah r*Uahu." So Baha ad Din says.
Then a black figure dropped from the wall of the citadel
to the sand of the beach below. It fell but got up again and
ran through the Moslems to the edge of the swell. Plunging
into the water, it swam toward the nearest galley, which
moved in and picked it up. The swimmer proved to be a
priest of the garrison and he was taken at once to the long
red galley over which the king s banner floated.
Panting and dripping, the messenger flung himself on his
knees before the king. "Beau Sire, the people who await you
here are lost if you do not aid them."
"What!" Richard demanded. "Are any living yonder?
Where are they?"
"Some of them live, shut in the towers."
Richard looked at his companions. "Messires damned
be he who hangs back!"
He ordered his vessel to row in, while the half-naked sea
men on the benches looked each at the other askance. The
long oars rose and dipped, the red galley with the dragon-
head prow slipped into the line of the swell and the others
followed after. On the sideboards the English men-at-arms
buckled tight their belts, thrusting their arms through the
slips of the shields, and freed the swords in their sheaths.
1 84 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
The red galley was the first to grate upon the sand. It
lurched and rolled in the swell, while the Moslems yelled
their hatred and the swarthy Italian shipmen crossed them
selves and snatched up bows and axes. Richard gave no more
orders, and tarried not to bring any reason into the madness
of this landfall. He jumped over the side, waist deep in the
water. He still wore his ship slippers with no other armor
than a mail shirt and a steel cap. On his shoulder he gripped
a crossbow and his long sword hung at his side.
Wading through the swell, he began to shoot bolts at the
Moslems, with Peter of Priux and another knight beside him.
When they came out of the water they drew their swords,
lashing about them under the arrows that the shipmen plied
from the prow. Recognizing the king, the Moslems in front
of him gave back hastily, while the English hastened forward
to form a shield ring about him. Other galleys were running
up on the beach, the crews casting beams and benches ashore.
Men caught these up and carried them forward, lugging the
small skiffs and riff-raff of the beach into a barricade of
sorts.
But Richard was not within the barricade. Taking a shield
from a man, he ran across the beach to a postern gate in the
wall and a stair that he remembered led to the Templars
house.
With his knights clattering after him he leaped up the
stair and the Arab looters of the alleys yelled in amazement
at sight of the dripping figure that strode among them.
Richard cleared the alleys and pounded at a gate of the cita
del until the garrison became aware of him.
By then his galleys held the beach, and his men were
streaming up the Templars stair. His banner went up, on
the tower of the citadel. The knights of the garrison took new
heart at his coming; they sallied forth and began to drive
the disorganized Moslems toward the gates of the outer town.
Then [Baha ad Din relates] charging in a mass on our men, they
drove them out of the town. The gate was so clogged by the fleeing
that many lost their lives. A throng of pillagers who followed the
army had lingered in some churches, occupied with deeds that
SALADIN STRIKES 185
should not be mentioned. The Franks forced their way in and killed
them and made them prisoners.
This all happened under my eyes in less than an hour. As I was
mounted, I set off at a gallop to advise the sultan whom I found
with the two envoys 1 before him, and holding in his hand the pen
with which he was about to write the letter of grace.
I, whispered to him what had happened, and, without commenc-
ing~to write, he began to talk to them to distract their attention.
Some seconds later Moslems came up, fleeing before the enemy.
Seeing them, he cried out to his men to seize the envoys, and to
mount their horses.
Richard s quick action had wrought something like a mir
acle. On his heels the men from the galleys had been able to
break into the waterfront of Jaffa before the disciplined por
tions of Saladin s troops could come up to oppose them; the
rout of the Moslems in the streets had thoroughly disor
ganized the army outside, forcing Saladin to draw back in
haste to the nearest hills to take stock of the situation.
Richard and his crossbowmen pursued as best they could
with the three horses they managed to pick up in the town.
The bolts of the crossbows followed the Moslems for two
miles, and that night Richard pitched his tent where Saladin s
pavilion had been.
Word of the arrival of Malik Ric spread over the country
side, and when quiet had fallen around Jaffa in the evening,
some of the old mamluks and chieftains like Dolderim went
back to the Christian lines out of curiosity to see this king
who had dared land in the face of an army. They came in
peace, and were taken to the royal tent, where Richard cried
them a welcome.
They found him still in his mail shirt, seated on his pallet
amid a mass of arms and gear. Around the great tallow can
dles stood the tall figures of his knights. Wine goblets had
been emptied and filled again many times, while the ruddy
warrior king laughed at the happenings of the day.
Nothing could have pleased him more than the appearance
^he patriarch and the commander of the garrison who had come through thfe
fighting to beg for terms before the landing of the galleys.
i86 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
of the dark Moslem lords in armor and ceremonious khalats.
He greeted them, called them by name.
"Why did the sultan leave at my coming?" he demanded.
" By God, I did not come armed for serious fighting. Look, I
still have on no shoes but ship sandals."
Again he exclaimed, "By the great God, I did not think
he could take Jaffa in two months, and here he carried it in
two days ! "
After thinking a moment, he gave them a message for
Saladin.
"Tell him I have no wish to be a Pharaoh over this land.
Will he sacrifice all the Moslems to keep me out? I renounce
the claims I made to Al Adil. Let the sultan grant me but one
church, and I will return him the like."
To this upon the next day Saladin made grave response.
"The king has made himself master of all these cities, yet
he knows well that if he goes away they will fall into our
power. If it seems a simple matter for him to stay the winter
here, far from his own country, is it not more easy for me?
"I have around me my family and my children. Moreover,
I am now an old man, no longer having a taste for the pleas
ures of the world. I have renounced all such. As for my troops,
the men I have round me in the winter are replaced by others
in the summer. In the end, I believe that my actions will be
accounted as true devotion. And I shall not cease to hold to
this line of conduct until God grants the victory to him to
whom He is pleased to grant it."
Behind thesewords might be perceived a hope that Richard
would leave the coast, and a dread that he would stay.
Saladin s will to hold out was steadfast as ever, but he was
laboring with the disorganization among his men. Under no
other circumstances, perhaps, would he have agreed to the
plan to seize Richard that his men were now forming.
In the interval arrived Henry of Champagne with a single
galley and a few knights. He brought word that the rest
were checked by the Moslems holding the shore.
Richard had now at Jaffa some fifty-five knights with
several hundred men-at-arms and two thousand-odd bow
men, Genoese and Pisans among them. But he had no more
SALADIN STRIKES 187
than fifteen horses. With this semblance of an army he lay
outside Jaffa facing the Moslems.
He had landed on Saturday. It was Tuesday night that a
detachment of Turks from Aleppo and one of the Kurdish
clans started forth to penetrate his camp and carry him off.
XXVII
RICHARD S FAREWELL
k ARKNESS covered the earth, blurring the outlines of the
squat fig trees and the shaggy palms against the sky
where the stars were fading. Dogs barked from time
to time in the distance. Along the beach behind the camp the
swell sighed gently. Beside the tents a church tower loomed.
Among the tents men sprawled on cloaks, breathing heav
ily. There were no camp fires, and the young moon had
slipped out of sight long since. Sentries who had paced the
hard ground idly in the earlier hours of the night now leaned
on their spears or sat beneath the screen of the trees
where the water bags dripped, and tried not to snore. A
young Genoese got up from the ground, yawned and spat.
Stepping over the huddled bodies around him, he walked
between the tents, lifting his feet drowsily over the cords
that had been tightened by the dampness of the night.
He walked out into a trampled field in which tufted arti
chokes had been growing not long since. He squatted down,
blinking indifferently at the sky, now turning gray* Some
where horses moved with a shuffling sound, and he heard the
mutter of men s voices. But there were no horses afoot in the
1 88
RICHARD S FAREWELL 189
camp. Down in the murk toward the hills dull gleams ap
peared and vanished, and he watched them. Then he heard a
faint clinking of metal, and a cold chill passed over his skin.
The dim flashing yonder under the lightening sky came
from polished helmets, and men and horses were moving
toward the camp. The Genoese ran back toward the tents,
shouting: "Arms! Arms!"
Sentries called out questions, and the nearest sleepers
roused. The Genoese ran on, stumbling over the ropes, and
tall figures came from the tents to question him. An order was
given and a horn blared. Knights ran up, pulling mail coifs
over their heads and knotting sword girdles about their hips.
Some of them had not stopped to don breeches or hose, and
their legs shone white in the murk.
King Richard appeared among them in full mail, his
Danish ax swinging in his hand. A horse was led up and he
mounted hastily. The quiet earl of Leicester and his compan
ions followed his example without ado there were only
ten horses, and in the darkness a man took what he found.
Even these makeshift chargers, sorry nags some of them
which did not know a lance from a cart pole were better
than no horses.
The sky lightened in the east, with the first yellow of sun
rise. Men said that Moslems were advancing in squadrons,
slowly. Either they had heard the Christians rouse out, or
they did not like to charge until they could see something.
Beyond the church, on the other side of the town, the horns
of the Genoese and Pisans sounded.
Richard had Normans and English with him. Under his
sharp commands they ranged themselves in a half circle
spreading from the church to the shore. The men of the
outer rank went down on their right knees, holding their
shields slanting from the ground in their left hands. Their
right hands held their lances, the butts wedged into the
ground, the iron heads pointing outward. Between every pair
of lances a crossbowman took his place, with another standing
behind him to load an extra piece and pass it forward to him.
Along their rank rode King Richard, outlined against the
red dawn, and they heard his deep voice.
igo THE FLAME OF ISLAM
"Stand fast, valiant men. ... Do not give ground, for the
enemy are round us, and to flee is to die."
His voice went away, and the Moslems charged with a
sudden burst of sound and a trampling of hoofs on the hard
ground. They came direct for the red banner of the lion, and
the crossbows whirred in their faces. The horses crashed into
the spears, and the clatter of swords was heard.
The charge did not break the sturdy spearmen, and the
Moslems wheeled off. Other waves charged, but under the
sting of the iron bolts, they turned and galloped along
the front, plying their bows. Richard had not the patience to
endure this for long. He led out his ten horsemen against
the clans, with spears down. The heavier knights beat a way
through the Kurds, and Richard found himself beyond
them.
Looking around, he saw the earl of Leicester on foot, fight
ing with his sword. Richard galloped over to him, and covered
him until he could mount a riderless horse. The melee grew
thick about them, and some Turks overthrew and disarmed
the knight of Mauleon. They were carrying him off a prisoner,
when the king saw them and charged them, lashing about
him with his great ax until De Mauleon was free and among
his own men.
The Moslems drew off, and the sun flooded the plain with
light. For a while there was a pause while the two sides ranged
themselves anew. And in this quiet, an unarmed Turk rode
up, holding high his right arm and gripping in his left the
reins of two fine horses ready saddled. He was allowed into
the lines and led to the knights, to whom he explained that
the horses were a gift from Al Adil to the English king. The
sultan s brother had seen that Richard was poorly mounted.
"Sire," his knights cried, "do not ride either of them.
There is evil in this and they will bear you off to the Mos
lems."
For answer Richard swung himself into the saddle of one
of the chargers.
"If Satan sent me a good horse this day," he said, "I
would ride him."
And he ordered a purse to be given to the messenger*
RICHARD S FAREWELL 191
By mid-morning the battle was going badly for the Chris
tians. Saladin s mounted bowmen drove at them, first at one
place, then at another. The men-at-arms stood their ground,
but the galley men drifted back to the ships, away from the
missiles. Some of the Genoese ran into the town, and behind
them the Moslem horse penetrated the gaps in the city wall.
When Richard heard of this he rode back, into Jaffa, taking
with him two knights and a couple of archers. He dared not
withdraw more men from the thin line of the Normans and
English. Trotting through the narrow streets among the
fugitives, he came full upon three Turks who had bright
caparisoning on their horses. He dug his spurs into the Arab
charger, and struck down one of the Moslems with his
sword, knocking a second man from the saddle. The third
fled and the archers caught the two horses.
Seeing the king, some seamen trailed after him, and Rich
ard fairly cleared the streets with a growing queue of retain
ers behind him. This done, he seized the moment of quiet to
circle down to the beach, sending his new followers into the
galleys to rout out the malingerers. When the ships were
cleared he upbraided the throng, telling off five men to guard
each vessel. With the rest he went back into the city, muster
ing wounded and unarmed men to pile stones within the
breaches of the crumbling wall. Then he led the fugitives
out to the fighting line.
Here he dared not rest. The Moslems were still attacking.
With his dozen horsemen, Richard sallied out and broke up
a charge. Still, he pressed on, his great sword swinging over
his head. He left his companions and went forward, disap
pearing among the Moslems.
Some Turks closed around him and he beat them off. A
single officer charged him at a gallop, bending low in the
saddle, his round shield raised and his scimitar swinging.
As he came, he mocked those who hung back before the king.
"Make way," he shouted, "O dogs make way for a man."
Richard saw him and wheeled his charger, rising in his stir
rups to strike once with his sword. The long blade split the
light shield, and bit through the man s throat, turning
against the bones of his chest. With the head, the Moslem s
i 9 2 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
shoulder and arm flew off and his body dropped lifeless to the
ground.
Shouting their dismay, the others drew back before the iron
rider who could not be overthrown. They shot arrows at him,
and launched javelins as he passed among them, but one
man among so many is no easy mark.
From the whirling horses and the dust clouds Richard
emerged again into the view of his men, with javelins sticking
in his mail and the leather caparisoning of his horse pierced
with arrows.
No longer did the Moslems attack with spirit. Richard
seemed to them invulnerable, and to go against his sword was
surely death. They could not break the line of the Christians
again, and when Saladin gave the order for another onset, his
riders sat their horses motionless and sullen. Snatching up
his rein, the sultan rode among them, but their eyes were
elsewhere.
From the line of spearmen Richard had appeared anew.
Into the cleared ground between Christian and Moslem he
trotted, lance uplifted, and from left to right he rode slowly
down the Moslem front, and no man dared go out against him.
When Saladin cried to them again to charge, only the malik
his son responded. When the old sultan motioned him back,
some of the amirs laughed, and the brother of Meshtub
shouted, "Make your young officers charge! Call them forth,
who struck us the day of the taking of Jaffa, and stole the
loot from our men!"
Saladin looked about him and gave the order to retire,
riding off with his mamluks to his own tent.
Richard had saved Jaffa. But in the next days, over
wearied, he fell ill with many of his people. In the heat and
stench of the town that was little better than a shambles,
men died swiftly, and the king did not get back his strength.
They carried him up to Acre, where he ordered Count Henry
and the masters of the Temple and Hospital to his couch.
They came with grave faces. At Jerusalem, Saladin had
found new reinforcements, trained mamluks from Egypt.
The malcontents had been sent away, the army whipped
RICHARD S FAREWELL 193
into shape for a new blow against the weakening crusaders.
The French had moved south, but were camped at Caesarea,
determined not to fight under Richard s banner. The whole
line of the coast was open to attack, with no more than a
hundred knights to be relied upon to obey Richard. The king,
wasted by the fever, knew that he could not take the saddle
again for weeks.
"Bid Al Adil from me/ he said, "to make what terms he
can for us. Anything, but the surrender of Ascalon."
He had struck his last blow in the Holy Land. Humphrey
of Toron and the veteran lords of the land went to Saladin s
camp, and there agreed upon the terms of peace with Al
Adil for Saladin, still desiring final victory, knew that his
troops were weary of the war and that no gain could come by
fighting on.
"I fear to make peace," he said to Baha ad Din, "for I
know not what will happen if I die."
The terms were simple each side keeping, in effect, what
it held at the time. The Christians became acknowledged
masters of the coast, from Tyre to Jaffa, including of course
Acre. This meant that they kept also the neighboring villages
in the plain midway to the foothills. Ramlah on the pilgrim
road from Jaffa to Jerusalem was to be held mutually, and
no taxes were to be placed on merchandise going and coming
across the new frontier in this clause, and in the long dis
pute over Ascalon, the hand of the Italian merchants is to
be seen. Christian pilgrims were to be free to journey up to
Jerusalem without paying tribute, under the protection of
the sultan.
Richard had to yield Ascalon at least the fortifications
of the city were to be torn down and the place left open,
without being held by either side for three years.
And a truce was agreed upon for three years from the
coming Easter, which meant more nearly four years.
Al Adil rode down with the chieftains of the crusaders,
to hear the Christians take the oath at Acre. It was Wednes
day, the second of September, in this year 1192, that Count
Henry, Humphrey of Toron, Balian of Ibelin, and the mas
ters of the military orders gathered in the small stone-flagged
I 9 4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
room beside the sick chamber of the king. Under Al Adil s
eyes a written parchment lay upon the table where candles
stood to give a better light than the dim embrasure. In their
court surcoats the Christian lords who were now to be mas
ters of this strip of coast came forward and signed the parch
ment or made their mark, and swore upon their faith to
keep the new peace.
Then the parchment was carried in to Richard, and a priest
began to read over the written words. The sick king, who
knew of the conditions, lifted his hand impatiently, bidding
the reader cease.
"I give my word and my faith," he said, and turned his
head away from them. He had sworn to them that when the
truce ended he would return to the Holy Land with new
forces, to renew the war.
The next day Saladin swore to the peace before his amirs,
asking only that Bohemund, prince of Antioch, and the count
of Tripoli agree also to the terms which they hastened to do
thereafter.
On that day Moslem officers rode into the streets and mar
ket places of Jerusalem and announced that peace was made
that Jerusalem was safe in the hands of Islam and that
Moslems could go where they willed among the Christians.
Drums beat by the gates and throngs sat in joyful talk.
Venturesome souls wandered down into the Christian camps;
warriors from the East left their outposts and rode among
the weary men-at-arms who had left Europe long months
before.
The men-at-arms were drinking wine, well content to hear
that the war had ceased. New faces appeared on the high
ways, and already the Christian priests and barons were
making ready to journey up to Jerusalem to visit the Sepul-
cher.
Richard would not go. He would not go as a pilgrim to the
Sepulcher that he had sworn to redeem with his sword.
What were his thoughts as he lay on his pallet, harkening
to the stir and bustle of his nobles making ready for the ride
to Jerusalem? Did he remember that his unbridled spirit had
RICHARD S FAREWELL 195
estranged the other leaders of the crusade, until, one after
the other, they left him ? He should have healed the quarrels,
not embittered them. And Jerusalem could he have taken
the Holy City if he had pressed on that last summer?
Under his leadership the crusade had failed. No man could
wield sword or lance so well as he, and surely he had not
spared himself hurt or hazard in this venture. But when he
took command of the armed host he became helpless even
the success at Arsuf had not been his doing. He had tried to
treat with Saladin when he should have advanced with the
army; and when, at long last, he stood at Beth Nable within
a ride of the Holy City, he might have treated to advantage,
instead of withdrawing,
He had failed. And yet long would the Moslems remember
Malik Ric, and never would minstrel or soldier forget how
Richard had waded ashore at Jaffa in the face of an army
or how thereafter almost single-handed he had held thousands
at bay, from the rising to the setting of the sun. Almost he
had won there with his sword the victory that he had for
feited by his feckless leadership. Almost . . .
Heedless and arrogant, lovable and utterly brave, the
Lion Heart lay on his pallet in Acre town, and thought of
this not at all. He played with his hawks, or listened to a
new lai of the minstrel Blondel impatient of Berengaria s
ministrations, eager only for the hour when he could put to
sea and set his face toward a new venture.
Such is the Richard revealed to us by the chronicles of his
crusade. Not the legendary Richard, ever victorious, and
not the Richard drawn by Scott, high-strung, dominant,
yet always hampered by the jealousy and treachery of the
princes his allies.
And still the portrait is not complete, and the riddle of his
actions remains to be explained. When Richard landed upon
the coast of Acre, it is clear that he was assured and confident
even to carelessness. He had so borne himself at Messina
and Cyprus; at Acre he chafed under delay, and he thrust
aside the other commanders deliberately, estranging them
or overruling them until he himself held sole command. He
196 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
sent jesting messages to Saladin, and ordered the massacre
of the Moslem captives who were actually hostages.
Between that massacre, on August twentieth, and his
first conference with Al Adil, on September fifth, his whole
bearing changed. The careless and confident warrior became
the cautious and moody king.
Consider his actions during those two weeks. He is in
unquestioned command at last, yet his march toward Jaffa
becomes slower and slower, owing to the testudo-like forma
tion in which he has placed his men; at Arsuf he forbids
irritably the Hospitalers to make a counter-charge yet when
that charge begins involuntarily, he throws aside all restraint
and gets to the head of it himself. But the next day he declines
to resume the battle. Although he had hoped to march on at
once to Ascalon, he delays at Jaffa, and delays again. He
fortifies Jaffa and indulges in magnificent but useless knight-
errantry while the months pass and he importunes the sultan
almost petulantly for terms. When the army itself twice
begins the march to Jerusalem, he is the first to insist upon a
retreat. He fortifies Ascalon, and garrisons every little hill
tower he can reach,
No general was ever more eager to intrench himself and
more reluctant to attack. His only hope of defeating Saladin
and gaining Jerusalem lay in taking the offensive. And this
he did not attempt. When the French nobles reminded him
that the sole purpose of the crusade was an advance upon
Jerusalem, Richard answered by pointing out the difficulties
in the way. He even insisted on them, in the last, bitter argu
ment. Why? What had changed the debonair Coeur de Lion
into the timid general ?
Not the disheartening tidings from England. Richard had
already twice hazarded the fortunes of his new kingdom, to
aid in the crusade once when he exhausted the resources of
England to outfit his expedition, and again when he remained
in Palestine after Philip sailed back to France and the
urgent appeal to return to England did not reach him until
April, 1192.
Modern historians, both French and English, have ob
served that Richard was unfit to hold high command. In-
RICHARD S FAREWELL 197
capacity alone, however, does not explain his actions. A fool
ish or ignorant commander may sacrifice his men, or throw
away his army, but he does not intrench and safeguard his
men and communications. Richard sacrificed the chance of
victory for minor successes until the last.
There is an explanation of the riddle of Richard s conduct.
In justice to the memory of a gallant man, it should be
brought forward.
Until he landed at Acre, the English king had been ac
customed only to the feudal warfare of France, with its raid
and siege carried on by the ill-disciplined and scanty feudal
levies of the princes. The moment he set out from Acre to
march to Jaffa at the head of a great army, Richard was con
fronted by the problems of the grande guerre the war of
armies maneuvering over open and strange country, with the
fate of the crusade hanging upon each battle. It seems to the
present writer that the English king realized then his unfitness
to command in such a war. He could not relinquish the com
mand. He had sought it deliberately at Acre; his reputation
and his exalted rank prevented him from yielding it to an
inferior; and there remained no man of princely rank to whom
he could have surrendered it even Conrad, the ablest com
mander of the allies, having withdrawn in anger to Tyre.
He was helpless to accomplish anything, but he could not
resign his leadership. Nor could he alter the intent of the
mass of the crusaders, who had their hearts set on Jerusalem,
blindly, at all hazards.
So Richard became afraid, not of personal peril, but of
disgrace and disaster. Unable to turn back, he must go on,
knowing that his unfitness to command made every move
ment hazardous. The antipathy of Conrad, the growing in
subordination of the French who realized his failing, and the
bad news from England, all made his position more intoler
able. And the blind devotion of the common soldiers who
looked upon him as a matchless leader only added to his
mental torment.
The proof of this may lie in his own words, in answer to
the French when the army was nearest Jerusalem, as given
by the chronicler De Vinsouf : "You will not see me as leader,
198 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
when it would be folly to press on, and disgrace to me.
If it please you to proceed to Jerusalem, I will accompany
you as comrade, but not as commander. I will follow, but I
will not lead you/
We will never know Richard s thoughts in this crisis. His
brief letters home only mentioned events such as Arsuf, and
he confided, apparently, in no one. Perhaps he never under
stood that he had ruined the chances of the crusade by his
refusal to content himself with the leadership of the English
contingent, and to cooperate with Philip and Conrad. But it
is significant that, at the end, he would not visit Saladin and
set foot within Jerusalem the two things that he had most
longed for after his failure.
What he decided to do, in his dilemma, is pitifully clear.
He determined to avoid battle with Saladin and to safeguard
the army at all costs, while he risked his own life in reckless
efforts to gain some advantage with a handful of men. Al
ways on such forays, he was in high spirits, while in the camp
he became moody and uncertain. He shunned his headquarters
deliberately, and kept himself as much as possible beyond
the protection of his own lines. It may have been that, realiz
ing his failure, he sought death under arms.
Only once did the need of the army fit in with his own
knight-errantry. That was when Saladin came down on
Jaffa. Richard s response was instant, and his almost childish
enthusiasm afterward was unmistakable.
The riddle of Richard puzzled Al Adil and Baha ad Din
at times, but Saladin understood the warrior-king. It was
with a two- fold meaning that the sultan said, "If I should be
fated to lose the Holy Land, I would rather lose it to Malik
Ric than to any other." He admired Richard s courage, while
he perceived his inability to command.
But Saladin was not to relinquish the Holy Land. All the
armed power of Christendom, with a sacrifice of nearly two
hundred thousand men, had won back only a fragment of
his conquests and not one of the holy places. Although he
did not realize it, the truce that Saladin had dreaded was to
be a safeguard for Islam, since his own days were numbered.
XXVIII
AMBROSE VISITS THE SEPULCHER
r LMOST before the treaty had been signed the first of
the pilgrims were on their way into the hills, under
the leadership of the hero Andrew of Chavigny.
They put aside their weapons and armor, and went in a body
hundreds strong an extraordinary risk, for the Moslems
who had fought against them a few days before were still
camped in the hills, and they had not yet received a safe-
conduct from Saladin,
Ambrose relates what befell them:
As they passed the plain of Ramlah in their journey, the barons
talked together and decided that they would send to tell Saladin
that they were coming to Jerusalem, with letters from the king of
England, to visit the Sepulcher.
Those who carried this message were wise and valiant men, but
all their prowess was rendered futile by their negligence. They rode
on horses across the plain of Ramlah, as far as the Tower of the
Knights, where they halted to search for El Adil. The truth is, they
went to asleep for so long that, long after they went on again they
saw in front of them Sir Andrew and the pilgrims marching in good
199
200 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
order into the hills. When these beheld the messengers coming
after them, they stopped bewildered. "Ah, Seigneur God," cried
the high men, "we are lost if the Saracens see us. Here are the
ones who should have carried the message of our coming. If we go
among them without warning them, they will attack us."
The messengers hastened on again, toward Jerusalem. They
found more than two thousand Turks camped outside the city.
After a long search they found El Adil and explained that our peo
ple were coming. El Adil reproached them bitterly, saying that it
was an insane undertaking, and that they valued their lives little
to march without a safe-conduct. Night fell as they spoke together,
and the main body of Christians came up, without arms or plans.
When the Saracens saw them, they confronted them with such
menace that even the boldest would have liked well to be back
at Acre then. They passed that night behind a wall.
The next day the Saracens went before Saladin, and begged that
he would let them avenge themselves on the pilgrims. But Saladin
at once summoned his officers and told them that the Christians
had his safe-conduct to go to the Sepulcher and make their pil
grimage.
Ambrose himself went with the second throng, that met
the first pilgrims coming out of the Holy City at dawn. By
then Saladin s guards were posted along the road> and the
crusaders felt safe.
We passed through the hills, and came to the joyous height, from
which Jerusalem can be seen. Then our hearts were glad. We knelt
as all those do and ought to do who come hither. We saw what
we could above all the tomb in which was placed the body of the
Lord after death. Some of us put offerings there, but the Saracens
snatched them away. After that we only gave silver to the captives,
men of Europe and the Syrian coast, who were in bondage there.
We gave them our offerings and they said, "God requite you!"
We went to the right, upon the mount of Calvary, there where
the Cross was planted, there where the rock had cracked asunder.
We came to this place, and we kissed it. From there we went to
the church of Mount Sion, all ruined. Then we hastened to see the
holy table where the Lord once seated Himself and ate, and we
kissed it also, but we barely stayed there for the Saracens were
seizing the pilgrims from our train and hiding them in caverns,
three or four at a time. . . .
AMBROSE VISITS THE SEPULCHER aoi
Then we went, much disturbed, to the grotto wherein was the
Lord when he was taken. Filled with pity and yearning, we kissed
this place and we shed hot tears for there were the stables and
the horses of these servants of the devil who defiled the holy
places and threatened the pilgrims. We left Jerusalem then, and
returned to Acre.
Saladin remained as generous in his hour of victory as he
had been before the stress of the war. When Richard wrote
to him requesting that the French who had not shared in
the drawing up of the treaty be forbidden to visit Jerusalem,
the sultan replied that he could not withhold his permission
from some of the crusaders after giving it to all. He bade the
worthy bishop of Salisbury who led the third contingent of
pilgrims ask a boon of him, and the bishop, after a night of
thought, requested that two Latin priests be allowed to
remain at the Sepulcher to perform Mass, morning and eve
ning.
When Richard announced that at the end of the truce he
would return and wrest the land from the Moslems, the sul
tan responded gravely that if he must lose the Holy Land
he would rather lose it to Richard than to any other man.
The English king had been convalescing at Haifa while
the survivors of the crusade took ship for the long voyage
through the autumn storms. Here he was joined by his queen
Berengaria who nursed him in his pavilion within the shadow
ot Carmel by the gardens of Elijah s tomb. She was to have
only this one month of quiet with the Lion Heart.
She had left her home to follow him upon the crusade, and
for a moment at the wedding in Cyprus she had come before
the eyes of the world. Thereafter, she is no more than a
name heard of from place to place in the footsteps of her
stormy warrior. Richard would not take her with him, and
she sailed from Acre to the shelter of the papal court in
Rome, where she lingered on learning that Richard had been
made captive.
For a while then she rested at the Plantagenet court, with
Queen Eleanor at Poitiers, but Richard did not seek her
there. A story is told that he sent for her on his death bed,
202 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
but it is only a story, and the name of Berengaria was heard
no more after his end.
She did not go back to her father s court of Navarre, nor
would the Plantagenets give her aid or countenance. It is
known now that she lived in obscurity for years in a town
within the hills of Anjou, her only visitor a passing cardinal.
Richard took ship early in October on a single galley with
a small escort. His homefaring was no simple matter, for by
now his brother John was settled in England, his own partisans
scattered, and nearly every reigning prince of Europe his
enemy. When he boarded the galley, he went to his cabin at
once, and the sail was hoisted. Not until the next dawn, when
the Syrian coast lay beyond sight, did he appear on deck.
How, untroubled by the dangers ahead of him, he turned
into the Adriatic, to try to pass through the German lands
in disguise, and how he was recognized by his royal bearing,
sought by the man he had offended at the siege of Acre
Leopold of Austria and held for ransom by the emperor, is
a tale that has been told often.
Saladin waited on the coast until it was known beyond
doubt that the English king had sailed. Then, in the Haram
of Jerusalem, he dismissed his officers and turned his thoughts
to the needs of peace. For three weeks he inspected the new
frontier with the conquered fortresses. He would have liked
to go back to Cairo, that he had not seen for ten years, but
he was troubled by lassitude and by the fasting which he
now undertook to make up for the Ramadan fasts that he
had been obliged to omit during the campaigning. When the
rains began, he went to the court at Damascus, hunting a
little and listening to the talk of learned men. Thither he
summoned his faithful kadi toward the end of February.
Baha ad Din found that the sultan had secluded himself
and would see no visitors, although many waited in the ante
rooms of the palace. When the kadi, however, was announced,
Saladin ordered him admitted and greeted him with genuine
pleasure, sitting in the garden beneath the bare poplars. A
tray of fruit and sweetmeats was brought out to them, and
Saladin only tasted the food, while he spoke of his greatest
TOMB OF SALADIN
In the garden beside the great mosque of Damascus.
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AMBROSE VISITS THE SEPULCHER 203
wish to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in the coming spring.
The autumn pilgrims from the south, he said, were already
returning upon the Hadj road, drawing near to Damascus,
The next day [Baha ad Din relates] he sent for me, and I found
him seated on a bench in the garden, having around him the young
est of his children. He demanded if any people were waiting to see
him, and, hearing that envoys of the Franks were there as well as
the amirs and higher officers of the state, he gave orders to admit
the ambassadors to him.
One of his young children, the amir Abou Bakr of whom he was
very fond and with whom he was accustomed to make sport
began to weep at seeing these men who had shaven cheeks and
strange garments. Then the sultan excused himself to them, and
dismissed them without hearing what they had to say. In these
last days he had given up his receptions, explaining that it troubled
him to move about. Indeed he suffered from weariness and another
thing.
Many fasts had remained for him to undergo, since he had not
observed them during his frequent illnesses and the vicissitudes of
war. At Jerusalem he had commenced to make up the omitted
fasts, and this injured his health. His physician blamed him much
for doing as he did. The sultan would not listen, saying, "No one
may know what will come to pass." So he had continued to fast
until he had made up all that was lacking.
He asked if I had news of the [pilgrim] caravan.
"I met some of the travelers on the way hither," I answered. "If
it had not been for the mud, they would have arrived to-day. But
to-morrow they will enter the city."
He then said that he would go to meet them, and gave order to
mend the road and drain away the water for the season was still
rainy. After that I withdrew, noticing that he lacked his usual
vivacity.
Friday morning he went out, mounted. Leaving the servants, I
hastened to join him, and just at that moment he met the caravan.
In it were Sabah ad Din and Karadja 1 Yarouki whom he greeted
warmly, as was his habit with the older men.
It was a magnificent sight this day, the inhabitants of the city
coming out in a mass to meet the caravan and see the sultan. I
noticed for the first time that the sultan had not his quilted khalaf,
without which he never went forth on a horse. When I asked about
it, he had the aspect of waking from a dream, and demanded the
204 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
garment, but no one could find the master of the wardrobe. It
seemed strange that the sultan should be asking in vain for the
khalat that he was never without.
I asked if there was no way of returning to the city without pass
ing through the multitudes. He said yes, and took a by-path that
led through the gardens. We followed after him, but I felt oppressed
fearing for his health.
Coming to the citadel, he entered, crossing the drawbridge as
usual. It was the last time that he went out mounted. That evening
the sultan was troubled by extreme lassitude, and a little before
midnight he had an excess of fever.
Twelve days later, on the third of March, 1193, died the
Malik en Nasr Salah ad Din*
Although Baha ad Din and the sultan s companions had
expected it, they left the palace that day in profound grief.
Damascus mourned, the shutters drawn over the shops, and
the bazaars deserted. Beside the body of the man who had
led them for twenty years with unfaltering patience, the old
imams read from the leaves of the Koran.
When Saladin s son took the sultan s place at the head of
the carpet for the noon meal, the companions of the dead
sultan felt the stab of grief anew. When they called upon
the treasury for money to pay the expenses of the simple
funeral, they found almost nothing in the palace.
He who had possessed so much [Baha ad Din explains] and such
great riches, he did not leave in dying more than forty-seven dir-
hems and a single piece of Syrian gold. He left neither goods, nor
house, nor furnishing, nor village cultivated land, or any other
kind of property.
Saladin had sacrificed years of his life to keep the field
against the crusaders, and his spirit had been as simple and
fervent as that of any Christian crusader. He had kept in
violate his ideal of personal honor more exacting than the
Christian code of chivalry. He was a Kurd, ruling over Turks
and Arabs for the most part; the glorious first days of victory
were followed by the hard years of conflict with the crusaders
from overseas, and the Moslems had grown weary of the
AMBROSE VISITS THE SEPULCHER 205
long war. 1 Saladin s last months even when embassies
came from Constantinople and the Caucasus to felicitate him
were disturbed by revolt in the east. It was the irony of his
life that, at heart a scholar and a lover of peace, he had to
be at war without respite.
They buried his body in the garden tomb, beside the north
wall of the great mosque in Damascus, where the school
children patter by on their way to the teachers, and the
call to prayer echoes in the giant courtyard.
Above that courtyard, on the lintel of the sealed door, still
stood the inscription of forgotten years: "Thy kingdom,
Christ, is everlasting"
Neither Saladin s ability nor his zeal for the holy war de
scended to his three sons. They inherited variously Cairo,
Damascus, and Aleppo and soon became engaged in differ
ences with each other. As Saladin foresaw , his army was
never assembled again and when the thre eyears truce drew
near its end the prince of Damascus was well content to re
new it, while the crusaders on the edge of the Syrian coast
were too weak to make any new effort toward Jerusalem.
The Ayoubites as Saladin s successors came to be called
allowed trade to take its natural course with the coast ports,
and occupied themselves with fortifying their three citadels-
Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo. They were tolerant and cul
tured men, little inclined toward war, and it became profita
ble to them to allow the Italian ships to put in to the ports
without let or hindrance.
Another man, however, had ambitions. Al Adil, a powerful
influence in Saladin s day, physically strong and energetic
he could finish off a whole lamb at a sitting, and was at fifty-
three still a great lover of women began to gather into his
capable hands the reins that death had taken from his
brother.
a The ideal of Moslems then and for long afterward was that of a conquering
despot. Such a man Saladin was not by nature. To-day, as a rule, the Moslems of
Syria remember his name only, his buildings, and his uprightness of character.
The mufti effendi of Jerusalem in a conversation with the author, said, "Tamerlane
fut la Urreur du monde y Salah ad Lin un gentilhomme." And an Arab cavalry
officer, on hearing his name mentioned, repeated, "Salah ad Din was a gentleman."
206 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
With large possessions of his own in the east, he waited
until actual conflict broke out between the new prince of
Cairo and the new sultan of Damascus. Whereupon he threw
his influence upon the side of Al Aziz, the stronger, in Cairo,
and became himself governor of Damascus. It was only
natural, then, that he should be appointed atabeg or war lord
of the two kingdoms when Al Aziz died, leaving an incapable
son on the throne of Egypt. Arabs, Turks, and Kurds alike
remembered the old patriarchal rule of the clans, by which
the eldest able-bodied kinsman became chief of the clan.
Thousands of Saladin s mamluks had kept together even
while serving in the various armies. They had eaten of the
salt of the dead sultan, and they favored Al Adil more than
any grandson.
"Is it not disgraceful," said the Malik Al Adil, "for me, an
old man, to be the atabeg of a child ? I should have succeeded
my brother the Malik an Nasr Salah ad Din. I gave up this
hope out of respect for my brother s memory/*
The words of the shrewd Kurd struck a responsive chord
in the veterans of the army, and Al Adil was acclaimed sultan
of Egypt* He had, of course, his old provinces to the east of
the Jordan, and the Damascus country. Swiftly he extended
his authority over much of Arabia and Jerusalem and south
ern Syria so that he held together the nucleus of Saladin s
small empire in the year 1198. The northern regions had
broken up among minor chieftains.
When the crusaders advanced again, they found a shrewd
and extremely capable sultan in command of the Moslem
forces. Two years before there had been discord among the
Moslems, but now Al Adil was master in his dominion.
XXIX
THE DREAM OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN.
AN INTERLUDE
3r is necessary now to look behind the scenes. The men
who have played their parts upon the battlefield are
engaged elsewhere, even Al Adil. They have returned,
it might be said, to their homes; they have put aside the
crusader s cross and have donned mufti, but they have not
laid aside their swords. Again, they play the natural roles
of life, and what they are doing is most important.
In these years from 1195 to 1199 the curtain is drawn upon
the theater of the war while there is truce in the Holy Land.
Yet in these years vital changes took place in the aspect of
the crusades. Old roles were cast aside some of them torn
up and new parts studied. Fresh ideas replaced old, and
the stage itself was enlarged. We must look at Europe as a
whole where the actors are at home.
The heavy losses of the years 1189 to 1192 did not dis
hearten the men of the cross. After all, the survivors had
gained some victories, and many had visited the Sepulcher.
They had stern stuff in them, and it seemed to them that
another effort would redeem the holy places. Besides, a new
generation was growing up, ready to take arms.
207
208 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Jerusalem, in their eyes, was the road of salvation. Defeat,
the priests told them, had been caused by their own sins. A
greater sacrifice, a more fervent attempt, rightly led, and the
Seigneur God would bless them by the restoration of His
city. The visible, actual Jerusalem was still the invisible
Eternal City through which they entered upon salvation.
No doubt about that. It was as certain as the water of bap
tism, or the wine of the sacrament.
Those who failed to redeem Jerusalem lay under the anger
of the Lord. The capture of Jerusalem would be a sign of the
forgiveness of the Lord, The masses of Christendom yearned
for this sign of victory. Preachers exhorted them, as once
Peter the Hermit had done, and they took the cross anew by
hundreds. Barons and valiant men, peasants and women
prayed in the new cathedrals for the restoration of Jerusalem.
The ribald and masterless serfs no longer appeared in the
groups of crusaders; there was no place for them.
In the hundred years since the first crusade, things had
changed. Undisciplined masses no longer hastened upon the
via Dei. The resistless torrent of the first days had become a
strongly flowing river guided into fresh channels. The first
crusaders had spoken of their comrades as the soldiers of
Christ. The popes, however, who had led the preparation for
the crusades, called them soldiers of the Church^
But by now unmistakably during the campaign of 1189-
1192 the kings and princes of Christendom had taken the
command. The popes still urged the war, but the monarchs
led it. The obligation of the crusade now lay^ upon the
crowned heads of the princes, and sons inherited it from the
fathers.
For one thing, the feudal isolation of a century before was
breaking up. The nests of the barons had been shaken down,
and nations were taking shape. England was still a patch
work of lands on both sides the Channel, under the restless
Normans King Richard, redeemed at last from captivity
by the last of the gold and silver, melted some of it ^ from
the vessels on the altars, was piecing together his dominion
warring with Philip-Augustus, who was making firm the
foundations of France.
THE DREAM OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN *o$
The pope urged both of them to embark again upon the
crusade, and both refused point-blank. And without the
leadership of powerful kings, no crusade could be undertaken.
The last hundred years had convinced the wiser heads
among the Christians that Jerusalem could not be plucked
out of the grasp of the Moslems by zeal alone. The Moslems
themselves must first be defeated. The stronghold of the
Moslems was Cairo the only stronghold accessible from the
sea. The sultan, Al Adil, reigned there. Even while Richard
was on the Syrian coast, the leaders had debated an advance
on Cairo. To capture Cairo, or a similar point, would be a
stepping stone upon the way to Jerusalem.
Also, after the loss of some three hundred thousand lives
in attempting it the Christians understood that the overland
road through Asia Minor was closed. The mightiest of them,
Frederick Barbarossa, had left his bones there in final proof.
Meanwhile the road over the sea had become more easy.
Ships had grown larger; the great pilgrim traffic had accus
tomed navigators to take whole fleets to and from the Holy
Land. And the stripling cities of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice
had developed into young and sturdy sea powers.
On the whole, these thriving republics had borne their
share of the labor of the crusades, but they had drawn profit
from it as well being Italian. Genoa and Pisa, barred in the
beginning from the East by the Byzantines and Moslem
pirates, had beaten a path for their ships in the track of the
first crusaders. Their fondacas sprinkled the Syrian coast,
and tapped the rich Asia trade.
They supplied the settlements of crusaders with the wool
and furs and wines of the homelands, while they carried back
the spiced fruits and silk and grain of the Syrian coast. But
the Asia trade was the mine from which they drew un
dreamed-of riches.
The growth of this trade was felt in all the eastern Medi
terranean. The Norman ports in Sicily and southern Italy
Palermo and Brindisi became important. The fine harbor
of Candia in Crete became a halfway point. But the real gate
of gold was Alexandria, the port of Egypt, in Moslem hands.
By enduring certain humiliations and paying well for the
aio THE FLAME OF ISLAM
privilege, the Italian seamen gained entrance to Alexandria.
And Alexandria was a port of Cairo.
Every one of these factors played a part in the events that
followed. It is well to see them clear the leadership of the
kings, instead of the Church; the closed road over the land,
the open road over the sea; the plan to break the military
power of the Moslems before advancing on Jerusalem; the
growing fleets of the Italian cities, and the necessity of using
them to transport the crusaders who had no fleets of their
own.
In this period of suspense, most of the princes of Europe
became crusaders, upon oath to aid in the holy war. The cry
"Aid for the Sepulcher" was heard from the fields of England
to the forests of Hungary. The only question was, who would
lead the new army, and where would it strike?
The aged pope of the day could do little but exhort. A
mightier figure came forward to take command, the son of
Barbarossa, Henry, by the grace of God king of the Romans,
and Augustus. The man who hoped, not without reason, to
draw upon his shoulders the mantle of the Caesars,
Henry VI, the emperor, was a true son of Barbarossa, and
a Hohenstaufen. Already head of the Holy Roman Empire,
he ruled from the Baltic to the Tiber. The heart of his empire
was the German Reich, the power in his hand, a multitude
of valiant German swords. He had married Constance,
heiress of all the Norman lands in southern Italy.
Out of that marriage came generations of strife. Yet, for
the present, it raised the emperor high indeed. It brought
him to the shores of the Mediterranean. At Palermo, in 1 194,
he was crowned king of Sicily. At the church of Bari the next
year he took the cross from the hand of the bishop of Sutri,
On this sun-warmed shore, the red Hohenstaufen dreamed,
with his eyes to the east.
Perhaps, in other years, Barbarossa had inspired this
dream. Certain it is that Henry turned his back upon the
north. Had not the wayward Richard of England done hom
age to him, while in captivity? Could not he crush the stub
born Philip-Augustus, if it became necessary to do so ? They
THE DREAM OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN an
were fighting with each other, for the nonce, and no one
dared disturb the mighty Reich that stretched from the
castles of Lorraine to the pagan hamlets of Prussia.
In the mountain citadels of Sicily he dreamed, looking
toward the east. To him journeyed Amalric of Lusignan,
now, by the death of his brother Guy, king of Cyprus. He
did homage to the emperor for the island; and a letter came
from Leon, king of Armenia, announcing himself the vassal
of the Hohenstaufen. So these two Christian states upon the
edge of the Holy Land were under Henry s rule henceforth.
There was nothing petty in the emperor s dream. He meant
to be, in fact, the Caesar of a new Rome.
He would extend his rule north from the hills of Sorrento
to the great Lombard plain, joining Sicily to the German
Reich. With all of Italy in his grasp, he could put to sea with
his Germans and Normans. With great fleets at his service,
he could retrace the frontiers of the Caesars. North Africa
would fall, if he captured Cairo. That could be done.
It could be done in the crusade. As to the Holy Land,
Henry had debated with his jurisconsults and they had
agreed startled, we may suppose with their lord. Until
then the conquests of the crusaders, held by various little
princes, had been looked upon as the redeemed property
of the Church. The Hohenstaufen conceived it otherwise.
As Caesar and Augustus in the West, by divine will, was he
not also the rightful lord of the East?
Whatever came into his hands in the East would be part
of his empire, himself the sole lord. The authority of Caesar
was not to be delegated to others.
There was, of course, an obstacle. In the East the ghost of
the dead Caesars confronted him Isaac the Angel lord of
Constantinople, wearer of the purple buskins, who held the
title of emperor of the Romans.
But Isaac was no more than a shadow, a Byzantine prince
who had seen his fleets dwindle and his frontiers recede to
the sea. For the present the Hohenstaufen contented himself
with marrying his brother, Philip of Swabia, to^the daughter
of Isaac the Angel, thereby establishing a claim for future
use. Not that he lacked sufficient excuse to attack Byzantium
212 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the Normans of Sicily, now his vassals, had determined to
do so, and his father Barbarossa had suffered injuries while
passing on crusade through the lands of the Byzantines.
So Henry dreamed of extending his power over the remnant
of the former Eastern Empire, himself a very Caesar, master
of Rome and the world. He would tread the road toward the
rising sun
"Thy dawn, O Master of the World, thy dawn !"
It was, indeed, an imperial ambition. And every particle
of it was fated to breed strife thereafter.
The first step the crusade. Henry dispatched a disci
plined contingent under Conrad, his chancellor, to Acre by
ship, while his archbishop anointed Amalric in the cathedral
of Cyprus, and Leon in Tarsus. Fired by enthusiasm and by
the memory of the dead Barbarossa believing that the old
hero would return to life to lead them to the Holy Land
multitudes of men took the cross to follow the Hohenstaufen
and Henry prepared his fleets at Bari and Sicily.
Conrad s forces with the knights of Syria occupied Sidon
and captured Beirut although Al Adil roused to meet them,
and took Jaffa on his own account. It was evidence of the
new plan of invasion that the crusaders were content to lose
the gateway of Jerusalem to gain the best harbor on the
Syrian coast.
The Germans advanced into the hills and sat down to
besiege the small castle of Tibnin. Here they delayed for two
months until Al Adil brought up a relieving army.
And then they heard that, months before, Henry had died
in Italy.
The death of the emperor broke up the crusade, and the
Germans sailed back. They left, however, a new military
order behind them, a German branch of the Hospital of St.
John: "Brothers of the German House." To distinguish
them from the Hospitalers, whose mantles were black with a
white cross, these wore white mantles with a black cross,
and they started to build a castle in the hills near Acre.
In these years, from 1197 to 1199, occurred events that
altered the whole scene of the crusades. It was as if an in-
THE DREAM OF THE HOHENSTAUFEN 213
visible hand passed over the stage, removing the old actors
and their cues, and bringing forward the new, to set the stage
for the coming century.
Richard of England, after making peace with Philip, be
sieged the castle of a vassal in a fit of anger over some gold,
and was struck down by a crossbow bolt granting life and
freedom to the man who shot the bolt before he died.
Henry VI, the mightiest of the emperors, died just before
Innocent III, the mightiest of the popes, entered upon his
pontificate.
Henry, once count of Champagne and now king of Jerusa
lem, fell from a window, dying of his injuries. Amalric of
Lusignan, now king of Cyprus, married his widow, Queen
Isabel thrice a widow at the age of twenty-six thus be
coming king of Jerusalem.
The civil war among the Moslems ceased when Al Adil
became sultan and transferred his capital to Cairo*
And in Constantinople Isaac the Angel was overthrown
by a kinsman, and cast in prison after being blinded.
So ended the Twelfth Century. And Baha ad Din, finish
ing his long history of his beloved master, wrote these words
that hold a prophecy in them: "So ended these years and
these men who lived therein; they have passed away like
dreams."
PART III
SNOW lay upon the hamlets y mantling the thatched
roofsy sliding from the whispering forest* Snow
covered the arms of the cross by the highroad- The
bells rang clear in the cold air.
Men were marching through the hamlets^ over the
frozen rivers. They were looking toward the east and
singing an old song. Loud and clear the song: Ave
Maria Stella maris!
They were marching away on the old road. Under
the arms of the forest they passed., treading over the
snow> with staff and pack and sword. They were
following the stars to the east.
But the bells had ceased and the stars grew dim y
and new voices summoned them. Through mist and
mere the voices called y and they followed with staff
and pack and sword.
The p&ad was lost in unknown lands > and the song
of the road grew faint.
Ave Maria . . .
XXX
INNOCENT SPEAKS
WINTER mist covered the gray Tiber and drifted through
the thick ilex trees by the brown basilica of St. Peter.
But the sun beat down upon the mist, and the throngs
of men and women could see clearly all that took place in
front of the bronze doors. They had stood there for a long
time, very patiently.
All their eyes were fastened on a slight figure seated under
the portico, sheltered from both the mist and the sun. It
was a small man, the face sharp and handsome, the gray eyes
set close together. Ordinarily this man moved quickly and
spoke, as they knew well, most eloquently. A few moments
ago he had been Cardinal Lothaire, of the familiar Roman
house of Conti. No more than thirty-seven years of age, and
a distinguished Christian gentleman, thoroughly versed in
matters of law and mysteries of the councils.
Now the episcopal miter had been taken from his head,
and the princely tiara put on him.
"Take the tiara," a voice from the red circle of cardinals
announced, " and know that thou art the father of princes
and kings, the ruler of the world, the vicar on earth of our
217
ai8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Savior Jesus Christ, whose honor and glory shall endure
through all eternity."
Other voices murmured a response. The crowd jostled and
peered, while the men-at-arms thrust them back, and horses
were led up. One of them was covered with scarlet trappings.
And when the figure rose from the chair and mounted this
horse, the crowd all saw that, without doubt, Cardinal
Lothaire had become the pope, Innocent III.
A priest bearing a cross took his place before the horse. The
white-and-gold standard of good St. Peter was lifted, while
twelve guards ranged themselves on either side the new pope.
Images of cherubim hung from their uplifted lances. Their
horses sidled and snuffled, pawing the earth under the folds
of the heavy embroidered caparisoning.
Behind the pope the nobles of Rome bearing their shields
of arms jostled and whispered as they took their places,
pushing ahead of rivals who were their feudal enemies on
ordinary days. Knights in armor brought up the rear of the
glittering cortege, and the watching crowd murmured its
delight at all this splendor. Suddenly the bells of St. Peter s
clanged and echoed.
The horses moved forward at a foot pace, while the high
voices of young boys soared against the clanging of the bells.
The choir marched in the procession. But the eyes of the
crowd fastened greedily upon a horseman in black velvet, a
gold chain about his neck. He was the chamberlain of the
new pope, and from time to time he would put his hand into
a stout wallet that hung from his saddle horn. Then he
would raise his hand and scatter coins among the straining
figures of the multitude. Ragged men struggled over the
silver coins, and the men-at-arms thrust them back.
When the procession passed the face of a low building of
dull wood the crowd roared with excitement and rage. An
old man in a purple robe came out of the strange building,
escorted by soldiers. His trembling hands held above his
square cap a roll of parchment covered with a veil.
The crowd knew that this was the rabbi of the synagogue,
bearing on his head the veiled roll of the Pentateuch. Before
the scarlet horse the old Jew bent his head. He was asking, as
INNOCENT SPEAKS 219
the rabbis had always asked, the mercy and protection of the
new pope; but in the shouting of the throng his voice was lost.
The young Father of the Church looked into the faded eyes
of the Hebrew, and uttered a few words of forgiveness. When
he opened his lips the crowd fell silent, and when he had done
voices shouted approval. The chamberlain tossed out coins
again, and men jostled the rabbi in the purple robe to get at
them. Leaning on their spears, the soldiers paid no more heed
to him.
Burning through the mist, the sun gleamed upon the
princely cavalcade as it reached the muddy bank of the river
and paced slowly across the marble bridge leading to the
island and the other shore.
An hour later Innocent III sat in state in his Lateran
palace. He wore now a red girdle. From the girdle hung two
heavy purple purses, smelling of musk. In the purses were
gold pieces and the twelve ancient seals of precious stones.
One after the other, the members of his new court and
council approached the pope sitting apart in his porphyry
chair. They knelt before him to kiss the ring upon his white
hand. And the face of Innocent was wan and tired before the
last had withdrawn at the hour of candle lighting, and he
could pray alone in the chapel of the popes, kneeling on the
mosaic floor.
Gone were the years of controversy and the feuds of Rome.
Gone were the ten years of struggling with the questions of
the papal council. Innocent was now solitary and apart.
Beyond the darkening embrasures of the Lateran, the
fortified towers of the nobles stood against the evening sky.
Brown and bare walls, on every height, above the hovels of the
commoners. Even the impassive Colosseum was a fortress.
Under the chapel and the walls of the gray Lateran soldiers
paced, and spear tips shone in the dusk. Alone, Innocent
meditated, in his hand the invisible key that could unlock all
gates. Now at last, at his command, was the dread authority
of the Church itself.
In the mind of the pope a new map was taking shape.
When he sat with his councilors of state the only maps they
220 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
looked at were queer round drawings upon parchment, with
a cross marked where Jerusalem lay, in the center of the
circle. The rest of the world was no more than scattered
names arranged around the Great Sea, with mountains
drawn between the names, and towers leaning this way and
that to represent cities. Round the circle angels and demons
clustered, intertwined with Leviathans out of the sea, and
pagan Turks.
But in his mind Innocent held a map of the world much
more accurate than this.
He knew the different peoples, and the roads that the mer
chants followed, and the lines of far-off frontiers. He knew
what fleets were built, and where and why and the numbers
of the pilgrims who sailed in them. All the structure of the
Church was clear to him, from the lands of the greatest bish
opric to the gardens of a solitary monastery. Everywhere
he had eyes that served him his legates at the courts of
refractory kings, and his messengers in the palaces of the
pagans.
Letters brought daily to the Lateran all conceivable tid
ings. Innocent knew as swiftly as horses could bring the re
port the fact that Philip of France had divorced his wife
Ingeborg, or that a new chapel had been built in Iceland.
He knew what the king of the savage Hungarians said at
table, off there in the east, and what merchandise the Vene
tians sold in Alexandria.
And in turn, letters went from his hand to all the corners
of the earth. Letters that told a bishop when to wear his
pallium, or advised the barons of unruly England to pay
scutage to his dear son John, their illustrious king. He con
demned the practice of usury in France in the same day that
he censored the extortion from the Jews of Spires,
In this map that lay within his mind, Innocent was shaping
an invisible empire. He meant to bring the lands of the earth
under papal authority. In other days St. Augustine had
written of the kingdom of God, and Hildebrand had dreamed
of the spiritual dominion that would rule even emperors and
kings*
INNOCENT SPEAKS 221
To a certain Acerbius, a prior in Tuscany, Innocent wrote:
"As God, the creator of the universe, set two great lights in
the firmament of heaven ... so He set two great dignitaries
in the firmament of the universal Church. . . . These digni
taries are the papal authority and the royal power. And just
as the moon gets her light from the sun, and is inferior to the
sun ... so the royal power gets the splendor of its dignity
from the papal authority."
He said that power lay with the two swords, the spiritual
and the temporal. One rested in the hand of the pope, the
other in the hands of the kings. And Innocent never doubted
that the spiritual sword must be raised above the temporal
mercifully but inexorably. Both swords belonged to the
Church, and the temporal weapon was bestowed by it, to
be used on its behalf. All power lay in the hand of the Church.
Innocent was sustained by an unswerving will, by inex
haustible energy. He had, moreover, the wide vision and the
swiftness of thought of a most able statesman.
Realizing that the Church itself must be mobilized to take
command, he was, if possible, more inexorable in reforming
the clergy than in punishing laymen. He was rigid in punish
ment. Forgiveness followed. The sword of authority was
never laid down.
"And so we order . . . the spiritual sword against all here
tics. , . . The indulgence of sins to all those who faithfully
and devoutly aid the Church."
Never did he fail to exact the last bit of retribution. When
a whisper reached his ears of a superstition and a questioning
that was rife among the hamlets of Gascony, he wrote to the
archbishop of Auch: "You shall exercise the rigor of the ec
clesiastical power against them. They may not appeal from
your judgments, and if necessary, you may cause the people
and the princes to suppress them with the sword."
An omen, here, of the terrible thing that was to come later.
Innocent forced every issue to its end, however bitter the
end might be. He said once, "Any evil may be endured to
gain a worthy result." When Philip of France refused to take
back Ingeborg having married again in the interval In-
222 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
nocent laid France under interdict until Philip was compelled
to remarry Ingeborg, although he kept her in prison there
after.
The sword of Rome glittered with a new splendor.
Of all the issues confronting Innocent, the crusade was the
most insistent. Jerusalem lost, the long-treasured cross held
by the far-off infidels, the crusaders clinging to the coast of the
Holy Land, with their backs to the sea. Throughout Christen
dom the cry for the relief of Jerusalem was ceaseless and clear.
Innocent could not close his ears to this cry. He could not
turn aside from the march to the tomb of Christ. The preach
ers of the Church had urged the war, and daily the alms boxes
in the churches were filled by the hands of people who gave
to the aid of the war.
And in the last century, Immense advantages had come to
the Church of Rome through the crusades. For one thing,
men who took the cross placed themselves under the protec
tion of the Church, which watched over their property dur
ing their absence; at such times, the crusaders were answer
able only to ecclesiastical courts, and for the time being they
became virtually subjects of the pope. They were expected to
make gifts to the Church, although they were freed from the
payment of other interest, and debts.
Innocent proclaimed this clearly at his first council:
"We decree that all who have taken the cross shall be
free from all collections, taxes and other burdens. As soon
as they take the cross we receive them and their possessions
under the protection of St. Peter and of ourselves. . . . And
until they return or their death shall be certainly known,
their possessions shall not be molested/
So, in addition to collecting the great tithes for the cru
sades which were cared for by the ecclesiastics until they
were paid out to needy crusaders by themselves or the Tem
plars and Hospitalers the papal officers had a voice in the
administration of bulks of lands, goods, and revenues. In this
way the papal courts could intervene constantly in the af
fairs of the feudal lords.
They also gained the right of requisitioning property, and
INNOCENT SPEAKS 223
of acting as mediators. In a crisis of the great conflict, the
papacy served as counselor and treasurer to fresh multitudes.
As the war flamed up, or died down, the prestige of the pap
acy with the common people rose and fell.
Innocent was not only obligated to champion the war, he
was led to do so by his own interests.
"I hold nearest my heart," he said in a great council, "the
delivery of the Holy Land."
There is no mistaking his earnestness. Victory in the war,
the recapture of Jerusalem, the restoration of the lost churches
these were the keystones of the arch of empire at which he
labored. And from the first this inexorable man threw himself
into the preparation for the new crusade. He spared no one.
A tax was levied, one twentieth of all the income of the cler
ics, and when the silver was slow in coming in, Innocent
contributed one tenth of his own wealth, and of his cardinals .
"Prodigal with others," he stormed at the clerics, "misers
with yourselves!"
He could be eloquent no doubt of that. "What! You will
not open your hands to aid the poverty of Christ! You would
leave Him to be struck, scourged, and crucified anew. You,
who preach to the laymen that they must sacrifice themselves
what do you give, besides words ? Words ! Where are your
acts? Already the laymen reproach you with squandering
the patrimony of Christ upon your dogs and falcons."
The barons who were occupied with their own troubles
and quarrels also drew down the lightning of his indignation.
"They no longer pay attention when the pagans insult us
and say to us, Where is your God? Look, we have profaned
your sanctuaries. In spite of you, we hold fast the cradle of
your fathers superstition. We have broken the lances of
the French. We have overthrown the efforts of the English,
the strength of the Germans, the heroism of the Spaniards.
We have massacred your people in such fashion as to put
their children in mourning for ever. Your kings and nobles
that we have driven long since from the Holy Land have
gone back to hide their fears in the dens they call their
kingdoms. They would rather fight each other than measure
themselves against us. Nothing more remains for us to do
224 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
but to invade in our turn your Christian land and destroy it,
even to the memory of your name/"
Upon the launching of the new crusade hinged most of
Innocent s plans. He spared no pains to learn the exact situa
tion in the East. His cardinals journeyed to the Syrian coast,
his grain ships sailed to the ports of the Holy Land; he cor
responded with Roupen, king of the Armenians, and Amalric,
king of Jerusalem ; he called for reports from the Templars
and Hospitalers, and even wrote personal letters to the
Moslem princes. Clear indeed was the outline of the East,
within the map of his vision.
And never had the prospects for a crusade been brighter.
Great strength of disciplined men waited in the castles of the
military orders; fleets lay in the harbors of the Italian repub
lics. Only an army of European crusaders was needed
twenty thousand more men, perhaps, would be enough.
For Saladin was dead Al Adil removed to Cairo and the
divided Moslems could not withstand such an army.
Innocent heard that great throngs listened to his preach
ers, who went from church to church. One Fulk, cure of
Neuilly, swayed the hearts of multitudes, as Peter the Hermit
had done more than a century before. The common people
followed Fulk about, and it was said that he wrought miracles
by the laying on of hands under his touch the blind saw
again.
Just before Christmas of the year 1x99 word came to the
Lateran that Fulk had preached at a gathering during a tour
nament in Ecry-sur-Aisne. Men opened their purses to him
although some doubting souls dared ask of him an accounting
of the silver. But the chivalry of northern France took the
cross, in the midst of the tournament.
The great count, Thibault of Champagne, took the cross,
and Louis, count of Blois, with the redoubtable Simon of
Montfort. Even the young damsels had gone among the
knights, offering crosses to them.
After the new year, Innocent heard that Baldwin, count
of Flanders, had pledged himself to the crusade, with Marie
his wife and Henry his brother. And before long the knights
of southern Germany took the cross at Bale* On the coast of
INNOCENT SPEAKS 225
Flanders a fleet was making ready. True, a worthy abbot had
said an awkward thing in Bale: "The promise of salvation
is certain, and the hope of gain in wealth is more certain."
But the crusade was launched, sufficient in numbers and
valiant in spirit. The flower of French knighthood chevaliers
who held honor high and scorned personal danger formed its
nucleus. Months later these same chevaliers made an open-
handed treaty with Venice for a fleet to carry them to the
Holy Land.
For the transport of 4,500 knights and their horses, 9,000
esquires, and 20,000 foot sergeants, they agreed to pay the
Venetians 85,000 silver marks, and to yield to the Republic
one half of all the land they conquered. It was a one-sided
bargain, but the Venetians would supply a number of war
galleys.
Innocent noticed that the treaty only stipulated that the
crusaders were to be transported beyond the sea, and that no
mention was made of the coast of the Holy Land. He ap
proved the treaty.
Then, in the winter of 1201, after the months of prepara
tion and the sudden death of the count of Champagne, a
visitor came to the Lateran. Boniface of Montserrat, brother
of the Conrad who had been master of Tyre, had been
elected leader of the crusade, to take the place of Thibault
of Champagne. Now he requested an audience of the pope,
and for hours he was closeted with Innocent.
What they said is not known. But the men of the Lateran
whispered afterward that Boniface had urged leading the
crusaders against Constantinople instead of to Jerusalem,
and Innocent had refused to consent.
XXXI
THE CONSPIRATORS
OOK for a moment into the East, with the watchful eyes
of the Lateran palace. The first thing visible is the long
barrier of the Adriatic, now fast becoming a Venetian
lake. The Lateran is on most friendly terms with the Vene
tians.
Above Venice lies the farther portions of the great German
marks the German marks that have been the worst foes
of the papacy* Just now, after the death of the Hohenstaufen
emperor, his brother Philip of Swabia has been acclaimed
emperor by some of the Germans, but is reluctant to take
the crown away from the infant son of the Hohenstaufen,
Frederick. So there is an interregnum in these German lands,
and Innocent will not mend matters for Philip because he
looks for no good from the hand of a Hohenstaufen espe
cially a Hohenstaufen whose mother was Constance of
Sicily, so that the son holds lands to the south of Rome as
well as to the north.
Instead, he is most amiable to the king of the half-pagan
Hungarians those horsemen who have come out of the East
to dwell above the winding Danube. For the Hungarian will
226
THE CONSPIRATORS 227
act as a check upon the Swabian, at need. But Innocent
looks more to the East, and he is sending his envoys among
the wild Vlachs and the Bulgars below the Danube. He is
extending toward these savage men the mantle of the papacy.
Meanwhile beyond the Adriatic and all the mountains of
Greece lies the dwindling empire of Byzantium, harassed
and tumultuous, its fleet vanished. The emperor of Byzan
tium is also basilei^s of the Orthodox Church that separated
from Rome long since, and now looks upon the popes as
usurpers. Years have been widening the breach between this
Eastern church and the West. One is Greek, the other is
Latin one upholds the sanctuaries of Constantinople, the
other the basilica of Rome.
Deftly and cautiously, Innocent is trying to cross the
breach, to bring Constantinople back into the communion
of Rome. The scholastic of the West is debating with the
theologist of the East, and honors are about even. For Inno
cent can not change the memories of the Byzantines who
still dress the stiff figures of their saints in cloth-of-gold.
Innocent is patient with the ghost of the Caesars. He is
eager to bring the churches of Byzantium under the rule of
Rome. But he threatens a little: the Venetians, having sucked
gold out of Constantinople, hate the Byzantines, and the
duke of Swabia has not forgotten the dream of the Hohen-
staufen; the Normans of Sicily are like wolves, ready to hunt
toward Byzantium.
"Think," Innocent bids this emperor in the East, "if the
duke of Swabia be victorious, crowned emperor, master of
Sicily what peril for Constantinople!"
The emperor does think, but he hides his thoughts behind
suave letters signed with red ink and adorned with an effigy
in raised gold. In reality, Innocent desires nothing less than
the conquest of Constantinople by the Hohenstaufen. That
would place his worst enemy squarely athwart the gateway
of the East. But he draws a sword halfway from its sheath,
allowing the glitter of steel to be seen by the Byzantines,
hoping that they will ally themselves to Rome.
This done, the void in his map of the East would be filled.
All the pagans and near-pagans of the borderlands Prus-
228 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
sians, Lithuanians, and Bulgars can be converted to Rome;
Byzantium can be induced to submit to Rome, and the
Moslems of Asia Minor and the Holy Land can then be
driven out by the crusaders, sent forth by Rome. The
united East would be under the yoke of the papacy.
"Thy Dawn, O master of the world, thy Dawn!"
Innocent dreamed as the Hohenstaufen had dreamed.
Meanwhile lesser human beings wrangled and suffered
and snatched at the power held by others, as they are apt to
do. In Constantinople the old emperor Isaac the Angel, who
built a mosque in his city because he was afraid of Saladin,
had been overthrown by a palace revolution, and blinded and
cast into prison. The new emperor called himself Alexis III,
and carried on the negotiations with Innocent. But the
son of Isaac, who was also named Alexis, managed to escape
from prison and fled across the seas to claim aid for his
father. He went, as it happened, to the court of Philip of
Swabia, the Hohenstaufen who had married the Byzantine
princess, Isaac s daughter.
The young Alexis appealed to Philip of Swabia for aid, in
the first months of the year 1201. But Philip s hands were
tied by the chaos in the German states. Alexis journeyed to
Rome with his shabby elegance and his small entourage of
Greek nobles; he gained an audience with Innocent, and
found that the great pope would not intercede for him. After
this Alexis returned to Philip s court.
He found there, awaiting him, a most able diplomat in a
friendly mood Boniface of Montserrat, who also had mar
ried one of the much-desired princesses of Byzantium. The
three of them discussed the situation, planning ways and
means to lead an army against Constantinople.
Philip would support such an undertaking, and would
profit by it, but could not share in it; Alexis would be the
figurehead of the invasion the son of the dethroned emperor
and Boniface was willing enough to have a finger in the
pie. They all knew the wealth of Constantinople, and the
weakness of its defenders. Here was a world prize ready for
the plucking! But how to go about it? How to raise an army?
THE CONSPIRATORS 229
How they pondered the question and what they said, we
do not know. We are certain only that they were there to
gether the luxury-loving Alexis, the swarthy, eager Boni
face, and the dour, silent Hohenstaufen. The Byzantine
prince would make any promise to be installed as ruler of
Constantinople his blind father could not rule again. All of
them had the same thought that an army was already
mobilizing near at hand. They were thinking, of course, of
the crusaders. Boniface had just been chosen leader of the
crusade.
If they could turn the crusaders aside to invade Byzan
tium, then Constantinople could be seized.
But two obstacles stood in their way. The crusaders them
selves would refuse to go anywhere but toward Jerusalem.
And Innocent could not consent to the invasion of a Christian
empire by the crusade.
It was at Christmas of 1201 that the three princes talked
together. Early in the spring Boniface traveled to Rome and
tried to gain Innocent s support in the venture, as has been
told above.
But, learning that the spirit of the pope [a chronicler relates]
was against this enterprise, he settled the business pertaining to
the crusade, and returned to his own country.
Just who thought of the Venetians first is unknown. It
might have been Alexis, or Boniface, or Philip, Or the Vene
tians themselves may have suggested the plan. But after
failing with Innocent, the conspirators turned to Venice.
The city of the lagoons had old quarrels with Byzantium.
Only a generation ago Venetian merchants had been massa
cred in Pera. The present doge of Venice, the old Dandolo,
had been almost blinded by the Byzantines. Above all, the
republic was gathering to itself little by little the islands that
once had formed the chains of the sea empire of Byzantium
while the Byzantines raged against them, calling them "sea
serpents."
Now the Venetians were to escort the army of crusaders
across the sea. What if they could lead the crusade toward
a 3 o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Constantinople, instead of to Jerusalem? What if they sent
the whole strength of their fleet to support the army ?
Envoys are dispatched from the court of Swabia to the
court of the doge, and men talk together behind guarded
doors. No chronicler relates their words, but Boniface and
Alexis are coming to an understanding with the doge.
The shrewd Venetian considers the problems. He weighs
the dangers ponders the anger of Innocent. He is all for the
Constantinople venture, that will yield new seaports, and
gold, and vengeance. After all, his treaty with the crusaders
only obligates him to transport them over the sea. A way
must be found to lead them into the Dardanelles.
Time is short. Already the first contingents of cross bearers
are entering the roads of Venice. They are crowding the
camps, and their leaders
A stroke of fortune favors the conspirators. It is soon ap
parent that the crusaders can not pay the full sum agreed
upon to Venice.
XXXII
THE DOGE SAILS
WAS then the end of summer the summer of 1202. An
unwonted bustle filled the canals, where the watermen
pushed at the long oars of barges and the slim gondolas
of the nobles slipped beneath the screened balconies of ram
shackle wooden houses. A damp breath came from the
mosquito-infested swamps, in the long evening hours when
the merchants of the Rialto closed their shops and gathered
upon the stone bridges where lanthorns hung and the air was
heavy with the scent of aromatics and cinnamon*
From the balconies women watched, veiled and painted
and guarded by eunuchs behind barred doors. For the lords
of Venice were half-Asiatic in their tastes, and they had
found women to their liking in the portsjrf Greece and the
mountains of Circassia.
The merchants on the bridges wore doublets and cloaks
of velvet and brocades of Damascus. They talked under
their breath of prices over the seas, in the slave market of
Tana, and in the silk souk of Alexandria. Some of them knew
the worth of furs in the land of darkness where the Hyper
boreans dwelt, but all of them held nearest their hearts
232 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the secret privileges of trade, and written treaties that no
court had ever seen.
For they were tasting a new and delightful power that had
been born of the sea.
By the stone edge of the Riva degli Schiavoni clustered the
shadows of ships, the high masts and the slanting yards
tipping drowsily from side to side under the pulse of the
swell. Bound thwart to thwart, the slender war galleys lay
moored to great painted piles. Grotesque dragon heads and
strange impassive women heads peered from the lofty prows
in the glimmer of the mooring lanthorns.
In the harbor of the arsenal lay new galleys, waiting like
inanimate sea serpents to be launched forth upon destruction.
Over them towered the dromonds, fitted with two banks of
oars and heavy square sails, with room in their depths for
five hundred men or more. These were the transports of the
soldiery. Giant busses attended them pot-bellied sailing
craft as high as the dromonds, some of them weighing all of
five hundred tons. They had two or three masts, and no oars.
Along their decks were ranged the timbers of siege engines
and the barrels and hemp sacks that held the stores.
Lesser craft lay moored around these giants of the sea
broad shallow craft to carry horses and fodder: flat-bottomed
barbotes^ or lighters, to land men and horses upon the shore.
Men had labored for months at the quays to outfit this
armada, which was great and strong indeed* For the first
time the Venetians were going to carry an army oversea in
their vessels, and it was whispered along the waterfront that
the fighting craft of the Republic would sail with the cru
saders.
Even at night the alleys and the canals were astir. Cru
saders in mantle and tunic strolled over the bridges, pausing
to enter a chapel to pray, or sitting down on the benches of a
wine shop to eye the veiled shapes of the passing women.
Wine cooled the blood, and made it possible to sleep in this
lifeless air. And presently there would be no more taverns,
and no more women,
By the doors of the palaces fiddles whined and beggars
pressed fprward to cry for alms whenever they caught sight
THE DOGE SAILS 233
of the broad shoulders and clipped beard and long ringlets of
a French lord.
In the open square in front of the domes of St. Mark s,
the crusaders lingered to make the most of the nights that
remained to them on shore. They strolled along the piazza,
staring into open doorways, hailing comrades from the valley
of the Aisne or the fields of Flanders. They wore light linen
mantles and long hose, for they had left their armor in the
barracks of St. Nicholas Island.
They talked impatiently of the long delays. Most of the
chevaliers had emptied their purses during the months on the
road, and had borrowed from those who still had silver in
their wallets. Only a few bought the rare embroidered silks
and the cleverly worked gold images of the Venetian shops,
to send back by courier or Jew to the girls at home.
They were all eager to be aboard ship and on the way to
the Holy Land. The Flemings who had departed long since
must be there by now, and many crusaders had failed to
appear at the rendezvous. The chevaliers did not wish to
wait any longer, because they felt assured that they the
chivalry of the Loire and the Rhine would be able to fight
their way to the Holy City.
So they idled through the warm nights of Venice, while
the ships rocked gently against the stone embankment, and
the bells of St. Mark s summoned them to the hours of
prayer.
One of them, the young castellan of Coucy, passed the
time in his quarters composing a song. Humming under his
breath, he traced words carefully upon a stiff parchment
for this was an important love song, to his wife:
Beau sire Dieu, how may I endure
To leave the comfort and the courtesy
Of my lady, whose sweet allure,
Made her my delight and belle amie.
He had all of a minstrel s skill, this Sieur de Coucy, and
he was very earnest in making this song.
234 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Beau sire Dieu, now must I complain
That she no more may comfort me,
Where I must go. No love will be
Like fierS) that may not be mine again,
At the same time an older man, one Geoffrey of Ville-
Hardouin, was writing down the happenings of the crusade.
He was a soldier, a simple mind, and a very honest gentleman.
He was, besides, marshal of Champagne, so that he sat in
the council of the leaders, and came to know of the bargain
that was made at this time in Venice.
So the count Louis [Ville-Hardouin wrote] and the other barons
went off to Venice, and they were received with a great fte and
great joy, and were lodged with the others in the Island of Saint
Nicholas. Fine indeed was the army and the valiant men; never
did any one ever see so many people, nor finer. And the Venetians
furnished them with a trading place good and sufficient where
everything could be bought for the horses and soldiery, and the
fleet that they had made ready was so rich and fine that no Christian
ever beheld better, with galleys and barges enough for three times
as many men as we had.
Ah, what a pity that the others who went to different ports did
not come there! Christianity would have been lifted up again, and
the Turks cast down. The Venetians had kept their agreement very
well, and now they bade the counts and the barons keep their part
of the agreement and pay the money, for they were ready to set sail,
So the passage money was sought in the army. There were many
who said that they could not pay their passage, and the barons took
from them what they were able to pay. When everything was
collected, they had only half the sum needed. Then the barons
talked together, and said:
"Seigneurs, the Venetians have kept their promise, and more;
but we are too few to make up the sum of money agreed on for our
passage. For God, then, let each of us give what he can, to make
good our promise. Because, if this army does not sail, the conquest
of Outremer must fail."
Then there was a great disagreement, for the larger party of the
barons said, "We have paid for our passages, and if they are willing
to take us, very well; if they are not willing, we will call quits and
INNOCENT III.
He sought world-dominion.
MOSLEM CHIEFTAIN ATTACKING MONGOL OFFICER
Notice in this imaginary duel, the horse armor of
the Moslem and the lariat.
COURTESY OF BLOCHET LES ENLUMINURES DBS MANUSCRITS ORIENTAUX
THE DOGE SAILS 235
go to some other port." And the other party said, "We would rather
put in all our wealth, and go ahead poor than to see the army
separate and break up."
Then the count of Flanders began to pay in all that he had and
all that he could borrow, and the count Louis did the same, and
the marquis and the count of St. Paul and those who held to their
view. You would have seen many fine vessels of gold and silver
carried to the house of the doge, to make up the payment. And
when all had paid thus, 34,000 marks of silver were still lacking of
the sum agreed on.
Then the doge spoke with his people, saying to them, "Sei
gneurs, these men can not pay more, and all that they have paid
belongs to us by the agreement. But our right to it would not be
recognized everywhere and we would be blamed we and our state.
So we ought to compromise with them.
"The king of Hungary has taken from us the great city of Zara,
in Slavonia 1 which is a most strong city, and never with all our
efforts will we be able to recover it from him, unless by the aid of
these men. We should demand that they aid us to conquer Zara,
and we will give them a respite for the 34,000 marks that they owe
us, until God permits us to gain it together we and they, together."
So the agreement was made. It was strongly opposed by those
who wished to divide the army, but soon the accord was made and
approved.
Then everyone assembled round the church of Saint Mark, It was
a very great fte. The people of the country were there, and the
larger part of the barons and pilgrims. Before the Mass began, the
doge of Venice, who was named Henry Dandolo, mounted the
lectern and spoke to his people, saying:
"Seigneurs, you are joined together with the best men in the
world in the highest undertaking that ever has been planned. I am
an old man, and feeble, and I have great need of repose, and I am
crippled in my body, but I see that not one of you knows how to
command so well as I, who am your lord. If you wish to have me
take the cross to safeguard and direct you, while my son remains in
my place and cares for the country, I will go forth to live or die with
you and with the pilgrims."
*Zara lay within Hungary, and it does not appear that the king took it from the
Venetians. Rather, the Venetians wished to take it themselves. Honest Ville-
Hardouin had no suspicion of the treachery of the Venetians at first, and after
wards he was involved himself.
236 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
When they heard that, they cried with one voice:
"We pray you, for God, to grant this and do it, and come with
us!"
Great was then the sympathy of the people of that country and
of the pilgrims, for this valiant man had the best of reasons to
remain behind. For he was old, and could scarcely see since he
had lost his sight from a wound on the head. He was of great heart.
He descended after that from the lectern, and knelt before the
altar. They clothed him with the cross, on the back of a great cotton
cloak for he wanted the people to see it. And the Venetians began
to take the cross in great numbers. Our pilgrims had joy and sym
pathy by reason of this cross that he took because of the wisdom
and prowess that he had in him.
Thus was the doge signed with the cross. Then they began to
make over the galleys and the barges to the barons. So much time
had passed that it was near to September.
Now listen to one of the strangest happenings and greatest
adventures of which you have ever heard.
In these times there was an emperor in Constantinople, named
Isaac; he had a brother named Alexis whom he had ransomed from
a Turkish prison. This Alexis seized his brother the emperor and
plucked the eyes out of his head, and made himself emperor instead
by this treason that you have just heard. He kept his brother
prisoner for long, with a son of his named Alexis.
This son escaped from the prison, and fled in a ship as far as a
city of the sea named Ancona. Thence he departed to go to the king
Philip of Germany who had married his sister; and he came to
Verona in Lombardy, and lodged in the city, and found there a
number of pilgrims and men who were going to join the army. And
they who were with him, who had aided him to escape, said:
"Lord, here is an army in Venice near us the best men and the
best knights in the world, who are going oversea. So do you cry
them mercy, that they may have pity on you and on your father,
so wrongfully disinherited. And if they wish to aid you, then you
will do all that they tell you. Perhaps they will have pity on you."
And he said that this counsel was good, and he would do it will-
ingly. He summoned messengers and sent them to the marquis,
Boniface of Montserrat who was chief of the army, and to the other
barons. And when the barons met them, they marveled much and
said to the messengers:
" We understand well all that you have said. We shall send a mes
sage to the king Philip and to your lord who is there, with him. If he
THE DOGE SAILS 237
is willing to aid us to recover the Holy Land beyond the sea, 1 we will
help to conquer his land for him, since we know it was wrongly
taken away from him and his father."
So the messengers were sent to Germany, to the heir of Constan
tinople and to King Philip.
Before this, that we have told you about, tidings came to the
army that made the barons and other men very sad. Messire Fulk,
the good, the holy man who first preached the crusade, came to his
end and died.
After this happening, a company of good brave men from the
German empire arrived, to the joy of the pilgrims. The bishop of
Halberstadt, the count of Catzenelnbogen, Thierry of Loos came
with many other good men.
Then the galleys and the transports were divided among the
barons. Ah, God, what good war horses were put in them. And when
the ships were loaded with arms and supplies, and knights and
sergeants, the shields were ranged along the rails and the sterns,
and banners hung out, many of them very fine. And know that the
ships carried perriers and mangonels as many as three hundred
and more, and all the engines that are used to capture a city. Never
did a fairer fleet sail from any port. They sailed from the port of
Venice as you have heard.
It was indeed a scene to satisfy the eyes of the veteran
Ville-Hardouin. The drifting vessels, bright with shields and
banners, covered the lagoons. On the stone embankment
throngs of Venetians waved and cried farewell. The heavy
anchors were tugged up, at the blast of a trumpet, and the
square sails hoisted.
Wind filled the sails, and spread the great red crosses out.
Again the trumpets sounded, and men began singing. Some
of them were weeping.
The red galley of the doge turned slowly, its prow pointing
out to sea. On the gilded stern-castle, under the flapping
banners, the doge sat beneath his pavilion of red satin, his
aged face intent.
l La Terrs d y outre-mer. The barons were interested in Alexis story, but only
replied that they would give Alexis aid after their Jerusalem campaign, if he would
join them in that campaign. It must be remembered that the barons were not under
the orders of Boniface. Several of them were equal in rank to the marquis; they had
elected him merely head of the council and treasurer-in-general.
This first offer of the conspirators was not made known to the common soldiers.
238 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
He was leading out a great power of men and ships, and
from that moment rested upon him the responsibility of the
fleet and the fortunes of Venice. He was sailing to the east,
yet his blind eyes were turned not to Jerusalem but toward
the Dalmatian coast and the city of Constantinople.
XXXIII
WHAT VILLE-HARDOUIN SAW
DANDOLO, doge of Venice, was an old man, and
he had reaped the harvest of his years. He had the
pride of a princely family, and the wariness of a
merchant-trader. He was past master of the finesse of in
trigue, and he was perfectly willing to break his word in a
good cause.
For the French crusaders on his ship, no doubt he had
tolerant contempt they knew almost nothing of this part
of the world, and took no pains to hide their ignorance.
Moreover, he held them in his debt. And he meant to use
them in every possible way before granting them quittance
of his debt.
The zeal of the crusaders stirred no enthusiasm in this
aged man, ripe with worldly wisdom. Dandolo served only
Venice. He was prepared to gamble hugely to gain his end,
which was not the destruction of the weakening empire of
Byzantium but the creation of new Venetian colonies from
the dbris of the empire.
And the doge was, as Ville-Hardouin observed, an unusu
ally brave man. Even Dandolo, however, would not have
239
2 4 o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
ventured to sail with his fleet direct to Constantinople instead
of to Jerusalem. Ignorant as the crusaders were, they would
know east from south; besides, he must bring them to Con
stantinople in a friendly mood, or nothing could be done.
Innocent, also, must be induced to give his approval to the
venture no easy matter.
So the council of Venice had hit upon the expedient of
Zara. If the crusaders could be led to capture Zara, they
would be smirched. They had vowed not to lift weapon
against Christians, and Innocent had warned them against
making war on Christians. They would then be obliged to
send to the pope for his pardon. If Innocent cast the weight
of his anger upon the crusaders, and excommunicated them,
the crusade would be broken up.
The Venetians did not believe Innocent would do this. And
if he pardoned the crusaders for Zara, they could expect that
he would be equally merciful in the case of Constantinople,
Meanwhile, time would be lost at Zara, and the autumn
storms would make the Jerusalem voyage difficult. The
Venetians themselves cared little for the papal interdict.
The council of Venice felt itself a match for the Curia of the
Lateran.
In one way or another, Dandolo managed to take a month
to sail down the Dalmatian coast to the break in the line of
hills where stood the walled port of Zara. There, matters
went well enough. True, a religieux, the stern abbot of Vaux,
presented himself before the barons, and exhorted them:
"Seigneurs, I forbid you, on behalf of the pope of Rome, to
attack this city, for it is a Christian city, and you are pil
grims."
And certain of the pilgrims, being out of sympathy with
the bargain, talked to the people upon the wall of Zara,
saying that they need fear no attack from the crusaders.
Dandolo put a stop to that at once.
"My lords," he reminded the leaders, "you have promised
that you will aid me to take this city, and now I ask that you
redeem your promise."
.. It was soon done. The fleet forced a way into the harbor,
breaking, the chain across the channel; the crusaders set tip,
WHAT VILLE-HARDOUIN SAW 041
their engines, began their bombardment, and mined the wall.
In five days the people of Zara made terms went out with
their lives, leaving the city abandoned to the invaders.
Dandolo asked that the crusaders occupy one half, and the
Venetians the other.
"My lords/ he explained, "winter is come, and the season
of storms. We shall not be able to move out of here until
Easter, because we can not obtain supplies along the way.
This city and country, however, is well able to supply what
we need."
To this the crusaders agreed without discussion, and as
Dandolo expected, they sent envoys to the papal court to
explain why they had turned aside to Zara. In time the re
sponse came. Innocent, when he heard the tale of the messen
gers, had been angered. "Instead of winning the Holy Land,"
he had exclaimed, "you have shed the blood of your broth
ers!" But he took no action against them, merely warning
them to keep together, and to hold to the crusade.
The next incident was the arrival of Boniface of Montserrat
who had lingered behind to watch events in Rome, and to
keep in touch with Philip of Swabia. 1 He was soon followed
by couriers from Germany, bearing a new offer from Philip.
The Hohenstaufen s missive began by reminding the cru
saders that they were at war on behalf of God against injustice,
and that the young Alexis had been the victim of injustice.
Now, Alexis could aid them to conquer the Holy Land.
If they aided Alexis to recover his empire the Byzantine
heir agreed to place Constantinople under obedience to
Rome. Since they had spent all their money, he agreed to
While Boniface was in Rome, the emperor Alexis sent envoys to the papal court
to protest urgently against the invasion of Constantinople by the crusaders rumors
of the undertaking having reached his ears.
Innocent hesitated, and discussed the matter with the council of cardinals.
Then, privately, he warned Boniface not to let the crusade go toward Constantinople
but publicly he responded to the Byzantine envoys that only by submission to the
Church of Rome could they gain his intercession in their favor. He tried to profit
from Alexis* fears to bring about the forced union of the churches.
Actually, either willingly or unwillingly, he paved the way for the conspirators.
Boniface, delighted, hastened to join the crusaders. From that time he and Dandolo,
knowing that Innocent had threatened Constantinople with the crusaders, played
their hands freely.
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
give them aoo,ooo marks of silver. And he would go with
them in person to the Holy Land, or send instead 10,000
men at his expense, for a year. More than that, he agreed to
keep 500 armed men in service at the Holy Land as long as he
lived.
Philip s envoys explained that they had full powers to
conclude the treaty. They added that so fine an offer had
never been made to any men before, and that the crusaders
would be lacking in spirit to refuse it.
This appeal was most cleverly worded. It challenged their
pride, and promised aid for the Jerusalem venture at the
same time; it offered an enormous amount of money and
most of the crusaders had had time to appreciate the humilia
tion of an empty purse. Moreover, it held out the bait of
winning Constantinople for the pope.
In their minds Constantinople was the queen city of the
earth, fabulously rich, filled with precious relics of the saints
and other wonderful things. What a feat of arms to conquer
this abode of emperors! And what spoil to be had! And how
well they were equipped for just such an enterprise. The
marquis favored it, the doge approved it, and all the Vene
tians were eager to set out.
Gravely the leaders of the army talked it over in council.
They talked it over, Ville-Hardouin remarks, in more than
one sense, because they could not agree. The dour abbot of
Vaux spoke for his party, pointing out that many of them
would not agree to go anywhere but toward Syria.
"Beaux Seigneurs" others answered, "in Syria you can
do nothing. The parties who have left us and gone on by
other ports have been able to do nothing. Only through Egypt
or the land of the Greeks can the Holy Land be recovered, if
it is ever recovered. If we refuse this agreement we shall be
shamed."
And the abbot of Loos preached to them, saying, "By
this agreement we can best regain the Holy Land."
At the end of the debate, the great lords cast their decision
for Constantinople, saying that they would be disgraced if
they did not go. Boniface of Montserrat, Baldwin of Flanders,
Count Louis, and Count Hugh went to the residence of the
WHAT VILLE-HARDOUIN SAW 243
doge and pledged themselves to go, by oaths and sealed
treaty* Only a dozen signed the treaty,
A large party of the crusaders could not be weaned away
from Syria. Renaud of Montmirail begged Count Louis for a
ship, and sailed to the south with his knights. Daily, men
went off, angered, in the vessels of the merchants who put
in with supplies. Five hundred managed to get a ship for
:Uemselves, and were caught in a storm off the coast, every
man being drowned. Another party dared journey by land,
t\d the remnants of it drifted back to Zara after fighting
with the Hungarians.
Hard-headed Simon of Montfort went off, with the abbot
of Vaux, after securing a safe-conduct from the king of the
Hungarians. A whole division of the army planned to with
draw, and was only restrained by a pledge that within two
weeks after the capture of Constantinople they would be
^iven ships to go to Syria.
Meanwhile Alexis appeared with a small following, to be
greeted ceremoniously by the doge, and paraded among
tiie curious crusaders. Dandolo had no wish to delay. Swiftly
the walls of Zara were dismantled and the ships loaded again
iind headed down the coast.
The Venetians had won the contest in the council chamber,
hut the open sea and the walls of Constantinople lay in their
path.
It was a strange fellowship that set forth in the spring of
the year 1203 toward the east. No one man held the com
mand, as in the good ship Argo; a band of men went together
into a common enterprise no heroes, certainly, but very
human beings. Boniface, the Jason of this voyage, might
indeed have been dazzled by the fleece of gold; yet his hard
and practical mind beheld only political advantage to be
gained. The blind Dandolo, intriguing for his city, dreaming
perhaps of personal vengeance, caught at every bit of land
that might build an empire in the seas. The weak Byzantine
prince, having promised what he never could pay, hoped to
wrest a crown for himself out of the delusion of others. And
the crusading barons, drifting from one entangling pledge
244 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
to another, understanding little, dreamed of a great victory
and glory to be gained.
They were entering the east, of which the minstrels had
sung whence the Magi had come with their gifts, and
whither Roland once had sought Cathay. And they beheld
new marvels with eager interest.
The galleys, the long oars swinging, drifted into the great
harbor of Corfu, overhung by gardens and forested hills.
For three weeks men and horses rested in fields where white
lilies grew and orange trees blossomed. Then all the ships
went forth again. "And the day/ Ville-Hardouin explains,
"was fine and clear, the wind fair and mild; they raised the
sails to the wind."
Along the rocky shore of Greece they coasted, over the
water that became clear and blue and tranquil as the days
passed. On the hills they saw the tiny domes of churches
and the terraces of vineyards. At the island called Andros
some of them landed with horses and arms, to climb the hot
hills and bring in the astonished Greeks to submit to the
young Alexis. Dandolo had seen to this.
Passing from one island to another, they crossed the
drowsy Aegean, putting in at evening to moonlit shores,
where they landed to search for water while the galleys lay
like sleeping ships upon the tideless inlets. And in these days
died Guy, the castellan of Coucy, who had made in Venice
the song to his wife. His body, covered with his shield, was
slipped into the sea. The minstrels, however, did not forget
his song.
Beau sire Dieu, now must I complain
That she no more may comfort me
Where I must go. . . .
In mid-June, when the evenings were long and tranquil,
they passed the brown peak of Lemnos and sailed in toward
the mainland. A narrow gut of water opened up before them.
On the left hand, a long gray spit of land appeared, and on
the right dark hills above a low shore. Sea gulls clamored
over the masts, swooping down to drift upon the troubled
water behind the ships.
WHAT VILLE-HARDOUIN SAW 245
Some of the crusaders knew that this strait was the Helles
pont, or Dardanelles, and that Troy had stood on the breast
of the right-hand shore. Most of them called it the Arm of
St. George, because the priests who were wisest in such shat
ters assured them that the tomb of the warrior saint was near
the water. At all events, it seemed to be a good omen.
They put in at a small town clustered around a cathedral,
beneath a clay bluff, and the people of the town came out to
submit to them. They christened the place Avie and waited
there eight days for lagging ships to come up.
Then they emerged from the strait with a strong wind, the
scattered vessels filling the stretch of water as far as a man
could see. They crossed the open stretch of the Marmora
under a cloudy sky, while fishing craft fled before them like
gulls. In the haze toward the east they made out a low shore,
and upon a point of the shore the gleam of white marble.
And then [Ville-Hardouin relates] the ships and the galleys came
into full sight of Constantinople. Yet you should know that they
looked long upon Constantinople, as those who had never seen it.
For they never thought that there could be in the world so rich a
city, when they beheld these high walls and strong towers by which
it was encircled, and these rich palaces and lofty churches, of
which there were so many that no one who had not beheld them
could believe it and the length and the size of this city that was
sovereign of all others in the world. And know that no man was so
hardy that his flesh did not crawl at the sight; and this was no
marvel, for never was so great an affair undertaken by men since
the beginning of the world.
XXXIV
AT THE SEA WALL
3T WAS, indeed, a great undertaking. No doubt about that.
As they rowed up and down before the city, the cru
saders felt awed by it. And they remembered that the
Arabs, Huns, and Bulgars had gone against it in vain. No
foeman had penetrated its walls in eight hundred years.
To their eyes, it loomed huge and forbidding, and they
gazed at it in a kind of fascination. Constantinople had been
built where the Marmora Sea narrowed to the Bosphorus
Strait. It was like a triangle, blunt at the point where the
great dome of the Sancta Sophia rose above the gardens of
the palaces. On the right-hand side of the triangle the city
wall faced the sea, so that the water washed against the dark
stones. On the left-hand side the wall curved around the
crook of the Golden Horn, which was the long, narrow harbor
of the city.
Along the base of the triangle, the wall faced the land.
Here a deep moat made approach difficult, and the great
towers of the inner wall covered the smaller, outer barrier.
These towers, square and solid, rose more than forty feet
from the ground; and they had arrow ports opening on every
246
AT THE SEA WALL
247
side. The crusaders had heard tales of the machines upon the
wall machines that cast forth the deadly Greek fire.
They saw that the narrow mouth of the Golden Horn was
barred by a great chain hanging between two towers. Behind
this chain clustered the Byzantine galleys and merchant
EUROPE
CONSTANTINOPLE AT THE TIME OF THE
CRUSADES
The palaces, except for the Blachernae, were at the point of
the city, marked III. In Ville-Hardouin s narrative Chrysopolis
is called Skutari.
ships. On the opposite side of the Golden Horn stood the
suburb of Galata on a steep height, with a round gray tower
brooding over it.
Dandolo and his Venetians knew the lie of the land very
well, and the doge did a wise thing. He advised the barons to
land for a while on the side of the Bosphorus opposite Con
stantinople, to rest and to forage for supplies in the open
country. Naturally, the emperor had gathered all his soldiery
in the city, and they would not be molested on this side of
the strait.
His advice proved to be excellent, for the crusaders took
possession of the suburbs of Chalcedony and Skutari, quarter-
248 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
ing themselves in the deserted palaces of the Byzantines
marveling much at the splendor of them and occupying
themselves with gathering in the nearly ripe harvest from
the fields, while they lingered on the heights and stared
at the domes and gigantic statuary of the city a league away.
To them the emperor sent an envoy, offering them a
treasure of gold if they would depart and leave his land.
Conon de Bethune rose and answered the envoy:
"Beau sire, you have said to us that your lord is amazed
because we, lords and barons, have entered his lands. Into
his lands we have not entered, for he gained them wrongly
and sinfully, and against God and right. They belong to his
nephew who is here with us the son of the emperor Isaac.
"But if your lord wishes to submit to the mercy of his
nephew, and surrender to him the crown and the empire,
we will pray him to pardon him.
"And if you do not return to us with this submission, do
not return again."
The envoy did not appear again, and the barons made
ready for their adventure. In Baldwin and his youthful
brother Henry they had experienced soldiers well able to
weigh the hazards they faced. The first thing they did was
to divide their small army into "battles," or corps, with
Baldwin and Henry in command of the advance corps. The
Burgundians, Lombards, and Germans formed the rear
corps, under Boniface.
Dandolo aided them but could no longer dictate to them,
for this was a matter of fighting, and the barons knew what
they were about. The Venetians wanted the attack to be
made upon the sea wall, pointing out that the crusaders were
not numerous enough to hold the open country against the
Greeks which would be necessary if they attacked from
the land side.
The barons answered that that was all very well, but they
had no skill at fighting upon the decks of ships; they were
accustomed to their horses and the feel of firm earth beneath
them, and they would fight in their own fashion, upon land.
So it was agreed that the Venetians would attack the sea
wall while the crusaders stormed the land wall.
AT THE SEA WALL 249
After sunrise of the day chosen for the crossing, the leaders
mounted and went to their commands, while the bishops and
clergy passed among the soldiers hearing their confessions
and taking their last testaments. The men did this readily, in
good spirits.
It was a fair morning, with little wind. The groups of
knights and esquires led their horses down to the waiting
barks. Everyone was in mail, the helmets laced; the horses
were saddled, and draped in heavy leather and iron mesh.
Men-at-arms filed into the transports, their shields slung on
their backs. Then the oared galleys were brought up, and
made fast to the heavier transports in order to cross the strait
more quickly. The young Alexis appeared with his grandees,
greeted the barons, and entered his ship. A trumpet sounded
and others answered down the shore. The fleet moved out into
the strait.
It did not make for Constantinople; instead it bore down
on the Galata shore, where a division of the Byzantine army
was encamped. The galleys made straight for the stone quays
and the gravel beach. With Greek arrows hissing around
them, knights leaped from the first transports, waist deep
into the water.
No one hung back. The sergeants followed with the arch
ers. Arrows sped back at the Greeks, and the crusaders
pressed forward with leveled spears. The Greek soldiery
gave way, retreated down to the Golden Horn. The crusaders
took possession of the abandoned camp, while others went to
look at the Galata tower.
They did not hurry. All the army was brought across and
quartered along the Galata shore, in the abandoned ware
houses of the Jews. The next morning the garrison in Galata
castle made a sally but did not manage to take the crusaders
unaware. Knights and men-at-arms fought hand to hand
with the Greek mercenaries, driving them back toward the
harbor, and following them so close that some of the knights
entered the tower itself. The hill and fortress of Galata were
now in their hands.
Meanwhile the Venetians forced the harbor. Some of the
war galleys were driven at the chain, and one of them,
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
equipped with a steel beak upon its prow, succeeded in
breaking the taut chain. The galleys rowed in, spreading
havoc among the Byzantine vessels along the Golden Horn,
until they held the whole stretch of water.
For four days the knights consolidated their new position,
repairing bridges that the Greeks had broken down and
gathering in fresh supplies. On the fifth day they moved
again, around the long crook of the Golden Horn, to the
land wall of Constantinople. They kept close to the water,
to have the support of the ships on their left flank.
Baldwin and his barons climbed to the top of a hill crowned
by an old abbey, and surveyed the wall in front of them, at
the corner where the land wall meets the wall of the harbor.
Here, behind round towers, rose the terraces and flat roofs
of one of the great palaces, the Blachernae in which the em
peror himself had his residence.
While the siege engines were brought up by the industrious
sailors, the crusaders built a palisade and ditch around their
new camp, and beat off sallies by the Byzantines who came
and went elsewhere at will out of the various gates of the
land wall.
The crusaders* camp only faced a single corner of the
mighty triangle of the city, and they were too wise to scatter
their men. Within the city there were perhaps a dozen men
of all sorts to one soldier outside. But the ranks of the Byzan
tines were filled by mercenaries, Norsemen of the famous
Varangian guard, Slavs and Saxons and Turks stalwart
warriors who fought for hire and kept faith with their masters
so long as they were well led. Greek noblemen and horsemen
from the provinces made up the cavalry, and the armed
rabble of the city helped man the wall. But the real strength
of the emperor lay in the mercenaries who alone were capable
of standing against the mailed swordsmen of the West.
Meanwhile the skillful Venetians had put their ships in
order for the attack on the sea wall. They set up engines on
the lofty fore and after decks of the galleys, and they erected
flying bridges at the crossyards upon the masts, attaching
ropes to the bridges so that they could be lowered at any
given moment by the crew below. By bringing their galleys
AT THE SEA WALL 251
alongside the towers, Dandolo s men hoped to be able to
lower the flying bridges against the summits of the towers,
and cross to the wall, covered by the missiles from the engines
and crossbows, of which they had a great number.
All this occupied ten days and not until the seventeenth
of July were the trumpets sounded for the assault. What
followed is related by Ville-Hardouin:
Four battle corps went to the assault, with the count Baldwin of
Flanders. Against the outer wall near the sea and this wall was
well manned by English and Danes they placed two ladders. The
attack was strong and good and hard. By sheer force some knights
and two sergeants climbed up the ladders and gained the wall.
Fifteen men in all got upon the wall and fought body to body,
with sword and ax. Then the garrison made a new effort, and cast
them back savagely, so that two were made captive.
Thus the attack was checked on the side of the French, with
many men wounded, and the barons very angry.
While this was happening, the doge of Venice had not neglected
the battle. Nay, he had arranged his galleys and ships into a line,
and this line was three crossbow shots in length. The ships drew in
to the shore 1 that lay under the wall and the towers. Then you
would have seen missiles fly from the mangonels of the ships, and
the bolts of the crossbows shoot up, and volleys of arrows. ^
Those within the wall defended themselves strongly, while the
ladders of the ships drew so near that in several places they were
hacked by swords and lances. The tumult waxed so great that it
seemed to engulf all the land and the sea. And the galleys did not
dare to lay themselves against the shore.
Now you will hear of a rare deed of bravery. For the doge of
Venice, who was an old man and almost blind, was all armed upon
the fore-deck of his galley, and he had the gonfanon of Saint Mark
held before him. He cried to his men to bring the galley against the
shore, or he would wreak punishment upon their bodies.
So they do this for the galley touches the shore, and they leap
out. They carry the gonfanon of Saint Mark ashore before the doge.
And when the Venetians see the gonfanon of Saint Mark ashore,
and the galley of their lord against the land, then each ; one deems
himself shamed and all make toward the shore. Those in the open
boats leap upon the embankment, and those from the great ships
^his was on the harbor side where the wall s^ood back a little from the water,
to give room for landing places and steps.
252 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
climb down into barges and gain the shore most swift and eager
in their rivalry.
Then you would have seen a marvelous and great assault. For the
banner of Saint Mark was seen rising over one of the towers, though
no one knows who carried it thither.
It was a rare miracle. Those within flee and abandon the wall,
and those outside enter in, swift and eager in their rivalry. They
take twenty-five towers 1 and garrison them with their men. And
the doge gets into an open boat, and he sends a message to the
barons, to let them know that twenty-five towers have been taken.
The barons are so joyous that they can hardly believe that this is
true.
When the emperor Alexis saw that they had entered the city in
this fashion, he began to send his men against them in great num
bers, so that it seemed as if they could not hold out. Then they cast
fire down between themselves and the Greeks, because the wind
was behind our men. The fire caught in the houses and spread so
that the Greeks Could no longer see our men, and had to retire.
Then the emperor Alexis of Constantinople went out with all the
forces of the city, by other gates which were all of a league distant
from our camp. He drew up his men in battle array in the plain, and
they rode toward our camp, and when our French saw them, they
ran to arms everywhere. But the count, Baldwin of Flanders, was
guarding our engines under the wall of the Blachernae.
Six of our corps of battle ranged themselves outside the palisade
of the camp, while the sergeants and esquires formed on foot behind
them, and the archers and crossbowmen behind them. And they
waited thus before the palisade, which was wise because if they
had sallied into the plain they would have been overwhelmed by
the numbers of the enemy who had forty battle corps to our six.
^ The emperor Alexis rode near enough for the archers on both
sides to begin to shoot. When the doge of Venice heard of this, he
made his men leave the towers they had taken; he hastened toward
the camp, and was himself the first to set foot to shore, to lead his
men to us.
Then the Greeks dared not cast themselves against our line,
while our men would not leave the palisade.
^ When the emperor Alexis understood this, he began to withdraw
his troops; and when the army of pilgrims saw that, they rode for
ward at a foot pace. The Greeks retreated within the wall.
^he towers of the Byzantine city were built within bowshot of one another.
The Venetians held nearly a mile of the wall.
AT THE SEA WALL 253
So the battle rested on this day, for it pleased God that nothing
more should happen. The emperor Alexis went off to his palace, and
the men of the army returned to their tents and disarmed, for they
were weary enough. They ate and drank only a little, for they had
little to eat or to drink.
The siege was not resumed the next day. For that same
night Alexis, the usurper emperor, took his daughter and a
thousand pounds of gold and slipped from the palace. Un
known to the city, he entered a boat with a few followers
and sailed into the Marmora, leaving his wife, the rest of his
family, and his people to face the situation.
Whereupon the Greek nobles naturally released the blind
Isaac from prison and carried him in state to the Blachernae
so that there would be at least the figure of an emperor
on the throne, and the cause of the war could be removed.
Messengers were sent out to the young Alexis, bidding him
enter the city to take his place in peace beside his blind father.
The crusaders were rather amazed at this sudden change
of front; but they did not trust the Greeks overmuch, and
sent envoys in to remind Isaac of their treaty that Con
stantinople was to be placed under the Church of Rome, that
200,000 marks of silver were to be paid them, and 10,000
Byzantines sent with them to the Holy Land.
The old Isaac had not been told of this, and it troubled
him. He replied that it was a great deal to do, but he would
agree to carry out the conditions.
The army of crusaders rejoiced. Now at last the way
was clear to Jerusalem. The matter of Constantinople had
been settled, the season was good for the voyage, and in a
month they might be off the coast of Acre. Some of them
escorted Alexis in to his father, and they made no objection
when they were requested to move back to the Galata camp
to avoid rioting between their men and the Byzantines.
A date was set for the coronation of Alexis, and the first
100,000 marks of silver half the sum agreed on were paid
them by Alexis. Of this, half went to the Venetians by the
agreement that the Italians were to divide evenly with the
westerners all that was gained on the crusade, and the
254 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
French lords paid up in addition the 34,000 marks that they
owed the seamen of the lagoons for their passage. 1
This done, they expected to sail. But Alexis appeared in
their camp, to ask for more time explaining that the empire
was in chaos, with the usurper in Adrianople, and he had no
means of raising the rest of the money. If they left, he in
sisted, he would have a civil war on his hands.
Behind the pleading of the weak Byzantine was the strong
will of Dandolo. The doge had no desire to take his fleet to
Jerusalem. He wanted to penetrate Byzantium, and at this
moment of mutual suspicion he was in his element. He
caused the crusaders to remember that the term of their
original treaty with him expired at the end of September.
It was now the end of July, and two months would not serve
to gain anything in the Holy Land. But if they would agree
to remain at Constantinople until spring, they could seat
Alexis firmly on his throne, collect the money due them,
and sail for Syria with all the summer before them. He would
agree to put the fleet at their disposal for another year.
The barons were fairly bewildered by this artful shifting
of the issue. It was perfectly true that they had only hired
the Venetians until St. Michael s day, about two months
distant. They had also sworn to aid Alexis to regain his
throne, and now it seemed that they would have to reconquer
all his empire for him. A deep anger stirred in them, but it
did not find a voice. Boniface, the marquis, understood very
well the intrigue that was sapping their will, but he kept his
own counsel, having his own game to play.
The barons withdrew to talk matters over. It seemed to
them that they were chasing a pot of gold beneath an elusive
rainbow yet the gleam of gold dazzled some of them who
: It needs a moment s reflection to appreciate the really brilliant profiteering of the
Venetians. They had now been paid the full amount of the 85,000 marks to transport
the crusaders to Syria, and besides had 50,000 tribute from the Byzantines. They
had Zara and several islands to boot. Yet the crusaders were not halfway to Syria,
and the Venetians had no intention of taking them.
Nor could Dandolo be taken to task by the letter of his agreements. He had obli
gated himself in the first place only to transport the crusaders "over the sea,"
which he had done. He had agreed to accept Zara as a "respite" for the balance
due him, and he had granted the respite.
AT THE SEA WALL 255
had seen the splendor of Constantinople. Others demanded
ships to sail at once to Jerusalem.
In the end [Ville-Hardouin explains] the affair was settled in
this manner: the Venetians made oath to keep the fleet here for a
year counting from Saint Michael s day; the emperor Alexis swore
to give them all that he could; the pilgrims swore to support him
and remain here for a year.
Dandolo now could afford to wait for the inevitable to
happen, and happen it did. While the barons were off on an
expedition to bring the northern country into submission to
the new emperor, rioting broke out between the crusaders
and Byzantines in Constantinople. During the rioting some
men set fire to the ramshackle wooden houses along the
harbor. It is not certain who they were, but they may well
have been the Venetians. The conflagration, fanned by a
high wind, spread to the heights and destroyed some of the
fine palaces and churches, even damaging the Sancta Sophia.
The barons, returning, were sincerely grieved by the havoc,
but the Byzantines were angered beyond remedy. Some of
them tried to destroy the Venetian fleet with fireships in
retaliation, and the sailors barely managed to save their
vessels.
By now the nobles of Constantinople were ready to be rid
of the young Alexis and his blind father. They chose a certain
Murtzuple for leader, and brought about one of the palace
revolutions that Constantinople had witnessed so often.
Alexis and his father were seized in their sleep, hurried out
of the Blachernae and into cells underground, where the
blind man soon died from poison. Alexis, surviving poison,
was strangled by assassins and ended his miserable life on
the first day of the new year 1204.
The gates of Constantinople were closed against the cru
saders, who, with two years of frustration gnawing at them,
were now enraged in their turn. Without hesitation they pre
pared to storm the city.
But Dandolo, with his opportunity at hand, was careful
to call them into conference and to have them agree that if
256 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
they took the city, a new emperor should be chosen by six
Venetians and six crusaders, and a quarter of the city allotted
to him. The other three quarters were to be divided equally
between Venetians and crusaders, and the outlying country
also.
The blind man was looking into the future with a vision
more clear than that of the barons, who had all their eyes to
see and yet saw not.
XXXV
BYZANTIUM FALLS
PRING had come to the Bosphorus, and the Judas trees
were in bloom again. The poplars of the palace gardens
thrust their green tracery against the white marble
walls, and sheep grazed in the meadows by the reservoirs.
It was Palm Sunday, but no procession of children carried
branches through the streets of the city. In the churches the
priests prayed in their robes of cloth-of-gold, lifting weak
hands toward the altars. Behind the priests veiled women
wept, and slaves stood ill at ease listening to the echoes of a
distant tumult. A north wind was blowing through the streets
of Constantinople, ruffling the dark water outside the wall.
And from the wall itself, borne by the wind, came the
roar of human conflict that had begun the day before and
had not ceased. Above the pulse of the swell that beat against
the embankment could be heard the splintering of the oars
of galleys, the crashing of the engines hurling rocks and
blocks of marble that soared briefly into the air and dropped
upon the decks of the barbarians without. The cries and
shouting of men rose and fell with the wind.
The barbarians, clad in iron, were attacking the wall,
climbing over the bodies of their dead, mad with the lust of
257
258 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
fighting. They had been cast back and broken, but they were
pressing on again.
So the veiled women prayed, stifling the fear that clutched
at them ladies of the court, wrapped in dark cloaks, prin
cesses born in the purple chamber, Greek slaves, pallid be
neath enameled head bands they vowed candles to the
shrines and offered jewels to the saints, if only the wall would
hold against that human tide.
They had been told that the engineers had built wooden
hoardings upon the parapet, to ward off the flying bridges
of the galleys, and that engines had been placed upon the
towers to keep the ships away. They had seen smoke rising
from the wall, and drifting over the city, like some huge ill-
omened bird with wide dark wings.
By the gates of the churches black slaves clustered around
the empty litters of the women. With a pounding of hoofs,
Greek youths galloped past, brave in gilded breastplates and
plumed helmets. Through the swirling dust came companies
of swordsmen, long-haired Norsemen marching with a steady
tread beside swarthy Armenians. Against the sky, their blue
shubas whipping in the wind, Jews stood on the housetops
watching the wall with anxious faces.
Only the wide forums were deserted except by bands of
restless dogs, and men who ran at times past the lines of
impassive statues. Long-dead emperors turned stony faces
to the tumult, poising scepters in uplifted arms. No one
heeded them. They belonged to the day when Constantinople
had been mistress of all the seas a city guarded by the
angels, indifferent to wars.
In the taverns by the harbor, slightly wounded soldiers
flung themselves down on benches, and shook their heads
over goblets of red Cyprian wine. They were silent, or they
talked hurriedly in varied tongues. Some said that the leader
of the Ducas family, the one called Murtzuple, who wore the
purple buskins of an emperor, had sallied out to meet the
Franks in the field, taking with him the stone figure of
the Virgin. And now the figure was bound upon one of the
masts of the crusaders galleys, for all to see. An evil omen,
that.
BYZANTIUM FALLS 259
And some had seen a galley driven by the wind against a
tower. From the bridge of the galley a Venetian sailor and an
armed knight crawled through one of the embrasures. The
Venetian was killed, but the knight still held out in the
tower.
But the Franks had been beaten once, and they would be
again, for twenty thousand men could never break through
the wall. Soon it would be dark, the fighting at an end.
So they talked, gulping their wine, while the smoke grew
thicker overhead. Voices clamored in the street, and a cry
went up:
"Four towers are taken by the Franks."
The roar of conflict upon the wall spread down into the
nearest alleys. A band of Varangians, their scarlet cloaks dim
in the twilight, marching toward the wall, was met by a
rabble of Greeks running without arms. The guardsmen
drew their swords and slashed a path through the fugitives,
stepping over the bodies. With a steady stride they went on,
until smoke swirled down and hid them and they came to a
line of burning houses whence women fled carrying bundles
in their arms.
The women clutched at the giant Norsemen, who had kept
order in the city since forgotten times. But the flames were
an enemy that no sword could deal with, and the officer in
command of the guards gave an order. The Varangians forced
their way out of the multitude toward the nearest palace.
Across the city by the reservoirs, a horseman emerged from
the cover of a garden. He wore gray iron mesh from his foot
to his chin, and the reins of his horse were iron chains. A round
steel cap was close-drawn upon his eyes. In his right hand the
crusader held a bare sword. Curiously, he glanced about him,
and urged his charger down into the wide avenue that led
toward the heart of the city. Other horsemen followed the
knight. They had cJome through the splinters of a postern
gate, and the only enemies they met were the deserted tents
of a Byzantine regiment and the grazing sheep.
Over the drifting smoke the red glow of sunset deepened
in the sky. Against the striped walls of the Blachernae dark
bodies of French archers assembled. Robed priests fled from
a6o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the little domes of the Pantokrator, and in the shadows some
women wailed. A crusader dismounted from his horse, and
went into the church. Before his torn and dusty surcoat, he
held his shield advanced.
But the basilica was empty lighted only by tapers that
fluttered at the wind s touch, beneath a holy picture. The
crusader looked at the altar on which silver boxes rested,
and at the stiff forms of mosaic saints. Turning on his heel,
he went out. When darkness had quite settled down a group
of spearmen with a lighted torch stamped into the church,
and snatched up the silver boxes.
Baldwin rode among his men, ordering them back into
ranks. Esquires carrying spluttering torches trotted behind
him, so that all could see the wedge-shaped helmet and the
shield bearing a rearing lion that marked the count of Flan
ders from the other lords. When he met groups of knights
he bade them dismount and go back to their men. He said
that three battle corps of the crusaders were within the wall,
but if they pressed on into the main city, they would be lost
in the labyrinth of streets. He ordered his standard planted
in an open square, and men-at-arms hastened up with
benches and planks to feed the great fires that lighted the
square. Around the fires crouched captives, gypsies and
Jewish hags, and wandering children for in these open fields
the gypsies and riff-raff had camped. Black goats galloped
aimlessly among the horses. The knights began to count the
palfreys and the mules their men had gathered in.
Beyond the light of the fires the darkness was filled with a
rustling and a pattering of feet. Shadowy forms slipped over
the roofs. Beyond this fringe of sound and movement lay
Constantinople, hidden and vast, with the domes of great
churches and the shafts of lofty columns standing upon the
heights against the stars. Here and there a cresset blazed,
fanned by the north wind, or a torch flickered and vanished.
The crusaders looked into the darkness drowsily, wonder
ing what new magic the artful Byzantines were concocting
against them, and what was happening to the treasure troves
that were secreted in this citadel of strange peoples and un
known tongues. They heard Venetian trumpets sound at
BYZANTIUM FALLS 261
intervals on the harbor wall, to their left. And messengers
came in from the marquis Boniface whose troops were quar
tered a little ahead of them, between them and the Venetians
-r-so that the invaders held this northern corner of the city.
All but the great Blachernae palace at the point of the corner,
where Varangians and slaves still guarded the gates. It
seemed to Ville-Hardouin that it would take months to cap
ture the citadels of this place.
Either the suspense proved too much for Boniface s Lom
bards, or they began to loot the houses around them. For
they set fire to the wooden tenements. The flames leaped the
narrow alleys, and licked their way under the roofs, soaring
beneath the blast of the wind, eating a path to the south,
with no one to check them. Soon the glow of the conflagration
could be seen from all the walls.
In the courtyard of the Bucoleon the Greek cavalry was
summoned by Murtzuple, and orders issued to form for an
attack upon the crusaders. Attended by his officers, the leader
of the Byzantines ascended the street that wound past the
deserted Hippodrome, and led through the small forum
where the giant statue of Constantine towered. Here they
waited a while, talking together in low voices, until Murt
zuple gave a word of command and the cavalry advanced at
a trot along the wide avenue that ran due east. Soon the
crusaders were far distant, on their right, but the officers
increased their pace, galloping into the enclosure of the
Golden Gate, where the bronze portals swung back at Murt-
zuple s command.
While the Varangians on duty at the gate watched grimly,
the cavalry, with Murtzuple in its midst, swept by them and
out into the country, abandoning the city to its fate.
When the nobles at the Bucoleon heard that Murtzuple
had fled, they gathered behind closed doors, and elected one
Theodore Lascaris emperor. But the fire was approaching
the center of the city, and the Byzantine grandees had no
heart for further fighting. They hastened to their house
holds, and, collecting their families, fled to the southern
harbors on the side away from the Venetian galleys. There
262 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
they entered ships and put out into the Marmora, the north
wind driving them toward the Asiatic shore.
At dawn, when a pall of smoke hung over the city, the
crusaders advanced again but found no one to bar their
way. A procession of bearded priests came out, bearing a
cross, to beg for mercy for the city.
As if by a miracle, Constantinople lay in the crusaders
power. At first the leaders were wary. Keeping the men in
ranks, they occupied the forums and sent mounted patrols
through the streets. Seizing the gates, they let in the Venetian
bands and the crusaders who had been guarding the camp.
It was soon clear that the armed forces of the Byzantines
had disbanded, except in the palaces. And while the leading
barons turned their attention to the palaces, the soldiers and
knights began to loot.
The fire was spreading over a portion of the city as large as
Rome, Venice, and Paris all put together, and the frightened
Byzantines were trying to drag their possessions from its
path. Sword in hand, the crusaders ran into the courtyards
of the nobles palaces, while frightened slaves fled before
them.
They snatched up silk carpets from the floor, and tore
down candelabra. Then they came to the sleeping chambers,
where unimagined luxury met their eyes. Red-faced Norman
peasants and stalwart Burgundians stared open mouthed at
walls covered with damask, at toilet tables of onyx and ebony
inlaid with ivory. While the Byzantine ladies hid their faces,
and eunuchs cowered in the corners, the soldiers tore open
cabinets emptying their bundles of poorer loot, to load
themselves anew with amber bracelets and jeweled combs.
Laughing, they poured the finest perfumes from crystal and
enamel jars. Pricking the robed eunuchs with their daggers,
they bade the stout creatures lead them on to greater treas
ures.
In the long corridors they met other men-at-arms carrying
gold-plated statues on their shoulders. They investigated
organs hidden in the ceilings, and shouted into whispering
galleries that had served the lords of Byzantium who wished
BYZANTIUM FALLS 263
to overhear the talk of guests or servants. And they poured
themselves goblets of heady Greek wines.
Some of them went back when the looting was done, to
seek out the handsomest of the women slaves. They had
never seen girls so fair and sweet smelling as these creatures
from the East dark-haired Persians, with fire in their blood,
and yellow-maned Circassians with tall strong bodies.
Fearfully, the women submitted to these uncouth men.
Elsewhere, Venetian merchant-warriors with more discern
ing taste hurried with their servitors into the galleries of the
Hippodrome where priceless statues of pagan gods stood
the handwork of Greek masters. Prying gold plates from the
wall, and guarding their trove with spear and ax, they
climbed to the courts of the Sacred Palace, to snatch down
tapestries woven with gold thread, and to pick up here an
ivory image, there a tissue of silk heavy with pearls.
Meanwhile a stranger ravaging was going on. Warrior-
priests of the army zealous bishops with their retinues
sought out the oldest of the churches and forced their way
into treasuries where, in gilt reliquaries, were kept the most
famous relics of the world. Long had Christendom heard of
the virtues of the heads of the Apostles, entombed beneath
the basilica by the Bucoleon; throughout the city were gath
ered the most precious tokens of the East the bones and
the wood and the hair that had been conveyed from the
sancta sanctorum of the elder East. And the eager prelates
and chaplains struggled to get into their hands these treasures
beyond price, to carry home in triumph to their own
churches.
The stout bishop of Halberstadt, taking advantage of the
absence of the marquis who was at the Bucoleon, made his
way into the imperial chapel and marched off with all the
relics.
We saw [relates Nicetas, a Byzantine court secretary who wit
nessed the downfall of the city] what shocks the ears to hear. Those
wicked and unfortunate men used on their tables the holy vases
and ornaments of the churches. It is not possible to hear with
patience what they did at the great church they seized the altar
264 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
table, a marvel of rare beauty, and divided it into several pieces
among the soldiers. Into the most secret parts of the churches they
led pack mules and saddled horses, so that dung and blood pro
faned the splendid floors.
Then a woman, weighed down with sin, an ambassadress of all
the furies, servant of evil spirits and priestess of black magic, sat
herself down in the patriarch s seat. Mocking CHRIST, she sang in a
broken voice, whirling around and leaping up and down!
They tried to force an entrance to the mighty Sancta
Sophia, where they had heard the very chains of St. Peter
were kept in a golden casket, and the gifts of the Magi in
alabaster vases, and the ancient crown of Constantine set
with jewels bestowed upon it by the angels when the great
barons checked them, and rode through the smoke-filled
streets to begin the struggle with the fire. Ville-Hardouin
relates what happened then:
The marquis Boniface of Montserrat rode along the shore,
straight toward the Bucoleon; and when he appeared there, the
palace was surrendered, those within being spared their lives.
There were found the greater part of the high-born ladies, who had
fled to the castle and the sister of a king of France, who had been
empress, and the sister of the king of Hungary, who also had been
empress.
^The Blachernae surrendered to Henry, brother of Count Bald
win. There also was found a treasure past reckoning, as in the
Bucoleon. Each of these lords garrisoned his palace with his own
men, and placed a guard over the treasure.
And the other men, scattered through the city, also won a great
deal^The booty was so vast that no one could count it the gold,
the silver, the vessels of precious stones, the satins, the silks, the
garments of vair and ermine.
Each one took up quarters where he pleased, and there was no
lack of places. Great was their joy in the victory that God had given
them, for those who had been poor were now full of riches and
delight. And they did well to praise our Lord, for with no more than
twenty thousand men they had taken captive four hundred thou
sand or more.
Then it was cried through all the army by the marquis Boniface,
who was chief of the army, and by the barons and by the doge of
BYZANTIUM FALLS 265
Venice that all this wealth must be brought and collected together,
as had been promised and pledged, under pain of excommunication.
And three churches were chosen as the places, and put under guard
of the most trustworthy French and Venetians. And then each one
began to bring in his trove and put it with the rest.
Some did it willingly, and some with an ill grace; for greed held
them back, and the greedy began henceforth to keep things back,
and so our Lord began to love them less. Ah, God, how loyally they
had borne themselves until this moment. And now the good suffered
on account of the evil.
The wealth and the booty was collected. The part belonging to
the churches was gathered together and divided between the
French and the Venetians, half and half, as they had agreed. And
do you know how the rest was divided? Two men-at-arms on foot
had the share of one mounted man-at-arms: two mounted men
shared with one knight. And know that not a single man, whatever
his rank or prowess, had more than that unless he stole it.
As to these thieves, the ones who were convicted, great justice
was done upon them, and plenty of them were hung. The count of
St. Paul hung one of his knights, shield upon his neck, who had
kept out something. You can know how great was the treasure,
not counting what was stolen or went to the share of the Venetians,
when it was reckoned at four hundred thousand marks of silver,
and ten thousand horses.
For the moment, the glitter of Constantinople dazzled
the eyes of the adventurers. Each man found himself with
more wealth than he could manage to take care of, and at
their feet lay the Queen City, violated and defenseless. Even
the clergy, exulting at their possession of the rival Greek
sanctuaries, applauded them:
"We say to you that the war is good and just. And if you
mean faithfully to conquer this land and bring it to obedience
to Rome, you will have the indulgence that the pope prom
ised you all those who die here confessed."
And that, Ville-Hardouin says, was a great comfort to the
barons and the pilgrims.
But Dandolo had no illusions. When they met to select
one among them as emperor of the new conquest, he would
not have his name put forward, and he instructed the Vene-
266 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
tians serving in the electoral college to oppose the name of
the marquis of Montserrat who was too politic and too
powerful a man to be acceptable to the Republic. So, when
the electors came to a decision the bishop of Soissons went
out to the waiting crusaders at midnight, and cried:
"Seigneurs, we are agreed, and we name for emperor, in
this hour of Easter-tide, Count Baldwin of Flanders and of
Hainault!"
A straightforward and simple soul. In the ensuing division
of lands among the leaders of the crusade, the Venetians and
Montserrat profited most. Baldwin himself was awarded
little more than half the city of Constantinople; the Vene
tians had the remainder, with the rich Sancta Sophia. Some
how or other Dandolo convinced the barons that two fifths
of the city must be put in possession of the Venetians before
dividing the outlying territory.
Montserrat got northern Greece, and the other lords re
ceived various cities, with the accompanying titles of duke
or seigneur. But these outlying cities were not yet conquered,
and most of them never beheld their new feudal lords. The
Byzantines, preparing to defend Asia Minor, and the Bui-
gars, pressing in from the north, waged war on the victors.
But the astute Venetians gleaned the following harvest
for themselves the district of Epirus in Greece, Acarnania,
and Etolia; on the Adriatic they gained the great city of
Durazzo, and smaller Arta, with the rich Ionian islands to
the south, Corfu, and the three keys to the gulf of Corinth,
Cephalonia, Zante, and Santa Maura. This gave them control
of the Ionian Sea, as well as the Adriatic. They received also,
in southern Greece, the port of Patras and other places. Out
in the Aegean, Naxos, Andros, and Euboea. They took the
peninsula of Gallipoli which controlled the Dardanelles, and
they claimed the trading centers of Rhodosto and Heraclea.
They took Adrianople, north of Constantinople, and Dandolo
squeezed in the island of Crete, by secret treaty with Boni
face.
Many of these points were never . captured, in the long
struggle with the Byzantines. But the Venetians gained more
than even Dandolo could have hoped for, and they laid
BYZANTIUM FALLS 267
thereby the foundations for their great sea empire. 1 For a
while the council of Venice pondered moving the Serene
Republic from the lagoons to Constantinople.
This done, they were more than ready to assist at the
coronation of Baldwin, who was to be, in their scheme of
things, the police power of their new conquests. The soldier
was to fulfill the duties of a soldier. For three weeks the
adventurers prepared robes and regalia for the ceremony,
and one Robert of Clari has left an account of Baldwin s
crowning in the vast Sancta Sophia, under the dome where
mosaic saints looked down through drifting incense with
incurious eyes.
When the day was come, they mounted their horses, and the
bishops and the abbots and all the high barons went to the palace
of Bucoleon. Then they conducted the emperor to the church of
Sancta Sophia, and when they arrived at the church they led the
emperor around it, into a chamber. There they took off his gar
ments and boots, and they shod him anew in footgear of vermilion
satin. Then they clad him, over the other garments, in a rich mantle
all charged with precious stones, and the eagles which were outside
were made of precious stones, and they shone so bright it seemed as
if the mantle were alight.
When he was thus nobly clad, they led him before the altar, the
count Louis carrying his imperial gonfalon, and the count of St.
Paul carrying his sword, and two bishops holding up the arms of
the marquis who carried the crown.
And the barons were all richly clad, for there was neither French
man nor Venetian who had not a robe of satin or silk. And when
the emperor went before the altar, he kneeled, and they lifted the
mantle from him.
When he was anointed, they put back the mantle on his shoul
ders. Two bishops held the crown upon the altar, then all the bish
ops went and took the crown and blessed it and made the sign of
the cross upon it and put it on his head. When they had crowned
him, they seated him upon a high chair, and he was there all the
Visitors to Venice will recall the trophies of this conquest, displayed by the
city the bronze horses atop St. Mark s, the group of porphyry kings at the corner
of the church, and the great paintings in the Ducal Palace, showing the storming
of Constantinople and the crowning of Baldwin by the hand of the doge, instead of
by the bishops who actually performed the ceremony.
268 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
time Mass was sung, holding in his hand the scepter and in the
other hand an apple of gold with a little cross atop it.
And then they led him out, to a white horse, and brought him
back to his palace of the Bucoleon, seating him in the chair of
Constantine. The tables were placed, and the emperor ate, and all
the barons with him, in the palace. When he had eaten, the barons
went away to their dwellings and the emperor remained alone in his
palace.
Apart from the people of the West, the young Baldwin
with his wife Marie sat on the throne of the East. But he was
never emperor in more than name. Like his namesake, the
first Baldwin who ruled Jerusalem, he spent his days in the
saddle, riding from one menaced point of his frontier to
another, with the Byzantines clutching at his back, and
his lords spending their lives in vain attempts to conquer the
fiefs he had bestowed upon them. The Roman clergy came
in and tried to reconcile the Byzantine priesthood to the
new order, but they could not. The patriarchs of Constan
tinople abandoned their churches rather than submit. And
the spoil taken from the half-desolate city was soon spent.
Hundreds of the adventurers went off to Syria, to redeem
their vows, and Baldwin himself died in battle against the
tsar of the Bulgars.
For two generations the barons of the West dwelt in the
half-deserted palaces along the Bosphorus, but their venture
had ceased to be a crusade. It became a feudal state, a colony
of the West, and in the end Constantinople drove them forth
again.
So, for the first time, by the treachery of the Venetians, a crusade
had been turned aside from Jerusalem. The great crusade-power had
been bridled and driven to other work.
XXXVI
THE MASTER OF THE WORLD
(EANWHILE a greater than Dandolo had passed judg
ment on the crusaders who turned adventurers. The
pope, Innocent III, had forbidden the enterprise
and then had heard that the fleet had gone against Con
stantinople; months later he was informed of the capture of
the city and the flight of the Byzantines.
Not until then did he display his anger and excommunicate
the Venetians. Papal authority had been slighted, and Inno
cent would never allow that to go unpunished. Yet, having
drawn the sword of retribution, he sheathed it. Verily, he
exclaimed, this conquest had been God s will, because no
man had intended it. He lifted the sentence of excommunica
tion, and gave amiable assent to Baldwin and his paladins
to remain in Constantinople. He even sent his legates thither,
with reinforcements of knights.
The crusaders had won the Byzantine empire for Rome.
A void in his map had been filled.
And no Caesar of Rome ever welcomed a new conquest
more eagerly. Innocent was establishing the papal authority
over far frontiers. He had gathered the bishops of Iceland
269
270 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
into his fold, and now his legate, the cardinal Pelagius, was
sent to Constantinople to force the submission of the Greek
clergy. As in the days of the Caesars, the East was united
again to the West.
By sheer will power and astute diplomacy, Innocent held
imperial power almost within his grasp. "We are estab
lished," he said, "by God above peoples and realms."
His Curia, his privy council, wrestled under his guidance
with the problems of consolidating the new realms. Kings
visited Rome as vassals. One such visitor, the monarch of
Aragon, swore allegiance in the basilica of St. Peter, placing
his scepter and diadem on the marble altar over the tomb:
"I confess with my heart and with my mouth that the
pontiff of Rome, successor to St. Peter, acts in the place of
Him who governs the realms of the earth, and who can con
fer the realms upon whomsoever seemeth good to Him.
"I, Peter, by the grace of God, king of Aragon, count of
Barcelona, and lord of Montpellier . . . offer my kingdom to
thee, admirable father and lord, sovereign pontiff Innocent
and . . . through thee to the most sacred Church of Rome.
And I make my kingdom tributary to Rome at two hundred
and fifty pieces of gold, to be paid by my treasurer every year
to the Apostolic See of Rome/
And the more powerful princes felt Innocent s hand. When
Philip-Augustus of France seized Normandy and the French
lands of the English king, Innocent cast the weight of his
influence with the weak John. But when John interfered with
Church property, the papal sword gleamed at once England
was laid under interdict in 1208, and the king himself ex
communicated the following year. In the end John became
the vassal of the pope at a tribute of one thousand pounds
a year. This roused the barons of England against their
vacillating monarch, and they forced the Magna Carta upon
John.
In the German realm, where Philip of Swabia and Otto of
Brunswick waged their long feud, Innocent followed a differ
ent policy, supporting the weaker of the twain until the
murder of Philip left Otto alone in the field and the powerful
German marched down to the Tiber to be crowned where-
THE MASTER OF THE WORLD 271
upon Innocent excommunicated him. With the exception
of the astute Philip-Augustus and the dour Otto, the kings
of Christendom were now tributary to the See of Rome.
And now, four years after the capture of Constantinople,
there came a change in Innocent s conception of the crusades*
At first he had thrown himself into the undertaking with
out hesitation Jerusalem must be redeemed. The popular
cry was still insistent for the liberation of the Holy Land.
But in the last few years the great pope had found that the
crusaders served his own more immediate needs. He had
allowed Walter of Brienne with a following of French knights
to aid him with their swords in Italy; he had kept the princes
of Hungary back from the crusade, to act as a check on
Philip of Swabia, and, without his planning it, Baldwin and
the Venetians had won Constantinople for him.
At the same time enormous prestige had surrounded the
papacy, from its leadership in the crusading movement.
Money flowed in continuously, and no accounting was asked
of it; the military orders of the Hospital and Temple thrived
upon the impetus of the war and they were vassals of the
pope. Moreover, the masses of crusaders taking their vows
to serve the Church had put themselves beyond the authority
of their feudal lords, the princes of Europe. So the interest
of the papacy was served by increasing the numbers and
the privileges accorded to the crusaders, and the authority
of the kings was weakened accordingly.
In these years the papal officials blossomed forth in true
worldly splendor, and Innocent s court became almost im
perial in its ceremonial and dignity.
Innocent may have dreaded disaster if a great movement
toward Jerusalem should fail; but almost beyond doubt, he
saw where his utmost advantage lay and seized upon it.
He kept the crusaders at home and used them for the needs
of the papacy. He granted them the same privileges that had
been accorded the crusaders faring to Jerusalem. And his
first blow was against the heretics.
In the south of France men lived pleasantly. They had
their orchards and fertile fields, and a warm sun above them.
272 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Outside the path of the worst feudal wars, and sheltered by
the bulwark of the Pyrenees, they kept to their homes con
tentedly enough. In their halls the troubadours sang, and
assembled courts of love around the fairest of the ladies.
They were Provencals and Gascons, with a deal of Moorish
blood in them, and they had learned much from the Moslems.
From their ancestors they had inherited a vague belief in
good and evil as the only two vital forces existing upon the
earth and affecting them.
Not all of them believed this, but the groups who did were
slowly forming a religion of their own. In their thoughts
they went back to the beginning of things, when Evangelists
had walked the earth, and the great edifice of the Church
had not been built. Undoubtedly they had listened to the
Arabic philosophers.
They were known as Cathars the pure. Like the first
hermits of Asia, they sought cleanliness from the lusts of the
body, living like ascetics, some of them refusing to eat meat,
or to touch women. Their real belief remains shadowy and
unknowable, because the Cathars and their teachings were
all destroyed, and the traces they left were obscured by their
oppressors.
A kindred sect, around Montpellier, was aroused against
the luxury-loving and worldly clergy of the Roman Church.
They denied the very foundations upon which the medieval
Church had been built the sacraments and the cult of
saints. Moreover, they preached their faith.
Some of their seigneurs became converts to the new belief
the count of Foix, the viscount of Beam, and finally
Raymond VI, count of Toulouse, descendant of the Raymond
who had been one of the leaders of the first crusade. Through
the drowsy squares of the villages and the halls of the nobility
the new faith spread.
In the eyes of the prelates of the Church, unbelief was
criminal, and open heresy denial of the doctrines of the
Church was the uttermost sin. A heretic became a rebel.
Better that he should be punished, even by torments, than
that he should exist like a mad, unreasoning dog, dangerous
to himself and society as a whole so the prelates argued.
THE MASTER OF THE WORLD 273
But the first measures taken against the Cathars were
lenient. A bishop and a monk, sent to investigate the con
tamination in the southland, saw too clearly the failings of
the orthodox clergy there and concluded that this was a case
for an antidote rather than a purge. Stripping themselves
of worldly goods, they went barefoot among the people to
show by their example that the servants of the Church were
capable of the sacrifices of the Cathars. The monk, zealous
and untiring, became known throughout Christendom there
after as St. Dominic.
What effect their labors had upon the Cathars is not clear;
but they antagonized the regular clergy who saw in their
sacrifices an attempt to discredit themselves. As a remedy
the higher prelates asked for more than a purge; they cried
for an operation that should sever the cancer of heresy. It
was better, they said, to burn away the cancer than to allow
the whole body to become affected. One of them, in the year
1206, demanded of the papal legate that he excommunicate
Raymond of Toulouse, and the following year this was done.
Thereupon a hot-headed esquire of the count assassinated
the legate of Rome. Word of the murder was carried to
Innocent.
When the pope learned that his legate had been killed, he put his
hand to his throat and in his mind he called upon the good Saint
Peter. And when he had finished his prayer, he put out the flame
of the candle beside him. At that moment the abbot of the Citeaux
was near him, with master Milon and a dozen cardinals. They sat
in a circle, and in that circle was taken the resolution by which so
many men lost their lives and so many women were stripped of
their garments.
Innocent called for a crusade against the heretics. They had
rebelled against the authority of the Church, they should be
suppressed by the soldiery of the Church. Indulgence from
sin was offered those who volunteered, and even the mer
chants and money lenders of the North hastened to donate
funds for which they were richly repaid with cloth and
wine and grain gathered from the plundered fields of the
South, The crusaders were the French neighbors of the
274 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Languedoc, the affected region. They wore bands of cloth-
of-silver about their chests, embroidered with gold crosses,
and they embarked upon the enterprise as if it were a huge
border raid, with unlimited liberty to plunder, and ecclesias
tical sanction for their efforts.
In vain Raymond of Toulouse protested that he had had
no hand in the murder. The army of invasion was formed
under such redoubtable and merciless spirits as Simon of
Montfort, and it moved south with bands of clerics who sang
Veni Creator. It made no distinction between Cathars and
others.
At Bezieres, it stormed the town, and in the Church of the
Madeleine, where women and children had taken refuge,
seven thousand were slain. It divided, quartering over the
countryside, at times fighting actual battles against the
desperate knights of the South, and at times devastating
everything with sword and fire. Captured knights were cruci
fied on the olive trees, or dragged at horses tails. The path
of the army became marked by pyres of human bodies, smok
ing and blackened heaps, and wells were choked by corpses.
Under the clashing of swords and the pounding of hoofs
the gay songs of the troubadours and the chanting of the
poets were stifled into silence.
Peter, king of Aragon, took the field against De Montfort s
crusaders, with the lords of Languedoc, but he was defeated
and routed and slain. This was in 1213 the war had lasted
for four years, and the ravaging continued long afterward.
Meanwhile Innocent had sanctioned two other enterprises
as crusades. In the far northeast the Teutonic Knights were
sent among the pagan Prussians to convert them sword in
hand. 1 And in Spain itself knights were summoned to a
crusade against the remaining Moslems from which they
emerged victorious after driving the men of Islam south to
the Granada region by the sea.
And to do away with the troublesome John Lackland in
England, the pope prepared for a crusade against the English
enterprise caused the Teutonic order to withdraw its headquarters from
Palestine to eastern Europe, and the order took little part in events in the Holy
JLand thereafter except to support its emperor Frederick II.
THE MASTER OF THE WORLD 275
a move that Philip-Augustus embraced with eagerness.
He had taken no part in the ravaging of Languedoc, but he
welcomed an excuse for the invasion of England.
From the years 1206 to 1213 Innocent availed himself of
the crusade-power to further his own policy from Con
stantinople to Granada. For the first time, in the south of
France, he had drawn the papal sword to exterminate here
tics. But it was not to be the last time. For more than five
bloodstained centuries other popes and monarchs would
follow his example.
So, for the first time, crusades were turned, by Innocent 9 s will,
against Europeans at home. The crusade-power had been harnessed to
papal ambition.
XXXVII
INNOCENT S CALL TO ARMS
5N THESE years Innocent had surrounded the Church of
Rome with terror. In such a short space of time he had
wrought miracles within the churches as well. 1 No man
of his century revealed such unbounded ambition or appalling
will power. But he had not been able to put his own house in
order. At his doorstep the unruly mobs of Rome still carried
on their feuds, the Orsini pausing now and then to gather
together against the pope who had in him the blood of the
antagonistic Conti. They fortified themselves anew in their
castles, making the streets a battleground when it pleased
them to do so, and when the pope built a tower of his own,
they forced him to flee the city.
And north of the city the Lombard communes the sturd
ily independent town-republics formed a bulwark against
With the internal changes created by Innocent, we are not concerned. He under
took administrative work that was fairly miraculous for that age, and the transac
tions of his councils affected history for generations. In his time transubstantiation
was first pronounced, and trial by ordeal forbidden. The genius of this great pope
was many-sided, and the wisest of the historians do not find it easy to strike the
total of his achievements, or his motives. We are concerned here only with his acts
affecting the crusades.
276
INNOCENT S CALL TO ARMS 277
the growing imperium of the papacy. Like the later Caesars
of elder Rome, Innocent advanced his frontiers but could
not be master in his imperial city.
He had to face as well a silent rebellion in the Church itself.
The growing worldliness of his prelates had estranged more
ardent and youthful spirits. Monks began to appear in the
countryside without the sanction of their superiors. Barefoot,
and clad in ragged habits, they begged their way and gave
their strength to the harsh, hard work of relieving common
suffering. They were high spirited, ready to chant a psalm
or wield a manure fork, or walk with the vagabonds of the
roads. They slept in ditches or haystacks and cared not a jot
for an idle thing like dignity. One of their leaders was the
man of Assisi, who laughed with the children and tended
lepers and lived in reality with the birds and the beasts. He
had not been dead two years before they called him St*
Francis.
His fellow wanderers were known as Franciscans, or some
times as gray friars. The people who were served by them
liked them better than the clerics and spoke of them as
"jongleurs of Christ." The begging friars grew in numbers,
and by their poverty they protested against the growing
wealth of the clerics who served the churches, not the people.
At this time, in the Easter season of the year 1212, the people
of Christendom were amazed by a strange happening. Down
from the mountains above Italy came throngs of children
marching with little wooden crosses, and singing hymns in
their high voices. When the good people asked them whither
they were going, they answered, "To God."
They had started out among the shepherd families of the
Vendome country, and others had joined them as they
marched. They were going down to the sea, to find a way to
the Holy Land to aid the Seigneur Christ. They were going
to recover the Holy City, and after that there would be
peace.
The children did not know just how they would do that,
but thousands of them were marching together of their own
will. And the people who saw them believed that this was
surely a miracle and a portent.
278 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
It seemed evident to the onlookers that the Lord was about
to do some great and new thing through these innocent souls
gathered together of their own accord. No one tried to stay
their path, and they emerged from the mountains, seeking
the roads to the Italian cities where, somehow, they hoped
to cross the sea.
With their crosses and staves and scrips they wandered
around the harbors. No path opened for them through the
waters, so that they could walk dry shod to the Holy Land,
They had no money and no protectors. And among them
came human wolves, making profit out of their misery, fol
lowing the fairer girls about.
At one city indeed ships were offered them without pay
ment, and the masters of the ships, when the children had
embarked joyfully, sailed to Moslem ports, selling the youths
and girls as slaves in the markets of Kairuwan and Alexan
dria. Another ship went down with the children near an island
of the sea.
When Innocent heard of the matter, he did not interfere,
but said, "The very children shame us, because they hasten
to gain the Holy Land, while we hang back/*
But the children who still were left alive had lost hope.
Wearily, without their crosses and songs, they drifted back
from the coast. In small groups, they tried to make their
way home again over the mountains, while the good people
who had aided them onward toward a miracle mocked them,
pointing scornful fingers at the girls who had been ravished,
saying that they had been about the devil s work, instead
of the Lord s.
And thus the march of the children came to its end. They
had gone forth spontaneously, driven out by hardships and
suffering at home, seeking not the distant city in Palestine
but that other Jerusalem that lies beyond all the seas of the
earth.
Innocent built a monument on the island where their ship
had gone down.
Whatever he thought about the lost crusade of the chil
dren, he was ready now for the crowning achievement of
his papacy. He ceased planning the European crusades, and
INNOCENT S CALL TO ARMS 279
prepared for a great crusade to liberate Jerusalem, And this
time there was no mistaking his purpose the conquest of
Jerusalem must be the vindication of his rule.
He no longer had an enemy to deal with at home Otto
having been overthrown by Philip-Augustus. He had just
seen a stripling crowned sovereign of the Holy Roman
Empire Frederick of Hohenstaufen, son of Henry VI, whose
mother Constance had yielded both the regency of Sicily
and the youthful Frederick to the guardianship of the pope.
And, of his own accord although Innocent may have in
clined him to it Frederick took the cross in the grotto
of Charlemagne at Aix-la-Chapelle, after his coronation. So
Innocent believed the long strife between empire and papacy
at an end, and the boy-emperor ready for the crusade.
In November, 1215, the great council assembled at the
Lateran, with bishops, abbots, and priors journeying thither
from the corners of Christendom. The patriarchs of Jerusa
lem and Constantinople were there, and all the splendor of
the majestic court surrounded Innocent as he sat enthroned
above the multitude. And he preached to them with all
his eloquence, saying that now was the time to make the
final passage and that he himself would go with them in spirit.
The new crusade was decreed for the first of June, 1217. To
aid it, the clergy would contribute one twentieth of their
incomes each year for three years, and the pope and cardinals
one tenth. For four years the Truce of God would be pro
claimed in Europe, and the Italian republics were to cease
trade with the Moslems.
Innocent felt assured of victory now. But before the prep
arations were more than begun, he died.
Innocent had been the greatest of the medieval popes.
When he assumed the tiara, the way to Jerusalem lay open,
with the forces of Christendom well prepared to venture upon
the road to the Sepulcher. Yet during the seventeen years of
his pontificate it would be more just to say his reign not a
single soldier from Europe landed on the Syrian coast to go to
Jerusalem.
In that time the Templars on the coast and King Amalric
28o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
from Cyprus made a raid or two on their own account, noth
ing more. Amalric s weakness in men made him welcome a
long truce with the ageing Al Adil, now sultan of Cairo.
The fragments of crusaders who detached themselves from
the Constantinople venture found Amalric unable to lead
them to war because of this truce. Left to their own devices,
they scattered some of them actually taking opposite sides
in a feudal conflict going on between the Armenian king and
the prince of Antioch.
The Flemish fleet arrived in due course, and found nothing
to do, although its leader managed to quarrel with Amalric
in a curious way. The lord of the Flemings was a certain John
de Nesle, and at the port of Marseille he had encountered
one of the waifs of the Acre crusade the fair and almost for
gotten Byzantine princess who had been carried off from
Cyprus by Richard of England and who had returned to
France with Berengaria. De Nesle married her, and on land
ing at Cyprus he claimed the sovereignty of the island by
virtue of this marriage with the exiled princess. The veteran
lord of Outremer gazed in astonishment at the uncouth
seaman from Flanders, and exclaimed, "Who is this wander
ing dog? Bid him begone swiftly, or he will be cast out!"
So these unhappy crusaders in search of a crusade had to
find their way home again as best they could even as the
waifs of the children s march had to retrace their steps with
out their songs and wooden crosses.
But the Constantinople venture had another effect, quite
natural and yet unexpected. When it was known along the
Syrian frontier that the great Byzantine city had fallen to the
French, the knights and adventurers began to turn their
eyes longingly to the north. They heard that castles and
whole provinces were being given away around Constan
tinople, and in Greece. Uncounted riches lay there, waiting
to be grasped, and the pope had promised the same indul
gence for crusaders to Constantinople as to the Holy Land.
Hundreds of the crusaders left the Syrian coast to seek the
golden rainbow hanging over the Queen City.
Meanwhile the Venetians had thrown off the mask of the
crusade. Spurred on by the rivalry of Genoa and Pisa, they
INNOCENT S CALL TO ARMS 281
were sweeping up the coasts of Greece, colonizing and fortify
ing Crete. Innocent might have fared better in his attempt to
reconcile the Greek clergy to Latin rule, if the Venetians
had not been so greedy in despoiling the Greek churches.
Not content with that, the Republic of the Lagoons was
making treaties with the Seljuk sultans in Asia Minor and
with Al Adil in Cairo. 1
So vastly profitable was the Asia trade becoming that the
interest of the Venetians now lay in preventing crusades,
which disturbed their trade. In this, they were directly op
posed to the papacy, which needed the crusades. In the tug-
of-war that followed, the Venetians held their own. Innocent
forbade all trade with the Moslems, but when the Venetians
sent an embassy to protest, he limited his ban to materials
of war iron, oakum, pitch, rope, weapons, and ships.
Innocent had changed the whole character of the crusades,
by launching them against the enemies of the papacy at
home. At the same time, he had so extended the temporal
rule of the papacy that it leaned more and more upon the
support of the crusading movement. During all his pontifi
cate he had sounded the clarions of the holy war, in spite
of the resulting slaughter. A hundred and twenty years ago,
Urban II had welcomed the first crusade, for the spiritual
leadership it brought him. Innocent made use of it as a means
to temporal dominion. He bequeathed it to the papacy as
a fixed policy. And the results of this policy, slow in mak
ing themselves felt, were as inevitable as the darkness that
follows sunset.
When he died, the papacy, deprived of his brilliant leader
ship, had greater need than ever of the prestige of the con
flict. Already Innocent s far-flung imperium was cracking
and crumbling in places the Armenians were throwing off
*A Christian ^chronicler relates: "The brother of Saladin sent to the doge of
Venice great gifts, and asked security and friendship, and that the Venetians do all
they could to turn the Christians aside from coming into Egypt. He gave them a
franchise at the port of Alexandria, and great treasure." ^
Al Adil s privileges granting rights of trade at Alexandria to the Venetians have
recently been found in the archives of Venice.
Innocent s attempt to limit the trade of the Venetians with the Moslems was
the first historical instance of contraband of war.
282 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
allegiance to Rome, the Byzantines were making head against
the Latin invasion of Constantinople, and the French were
still intent upon the graveyard of the Languedoc.
So Innocent s successors, whatever their own convictions
might be, were committed to preaching the crusade. They
dared not refrain.
In July, 1216, the cardinal Cencio Savelli, an old and peace-
loving man, assumed the tiara as Innocent s successor. That
same day he announced that he would carry on Innocent s
plans, and sent out letters summoning the young German
emperor Frederick II to the war, with the king of Jerusalem
and the French emperor of Constantinople, Frederick asked
for delay, saying that his own lands were too unsettled to
leave, but Andrew II, king of Hungary, whose army had
been held back until then by Innocent, was the first to take
the cross.
Aroused by the preachers of the crusade, men thronged
from all the corners of Europe Flemings, Scandinavians,
and Austrians to join the new army of the cross. This time
they felt assured they would take Jerusalem. But the road
led them to a different place.
XXXVIII
THE ROAD TO CAIRO
E path of the new crusade 1 led to Cairo, and to the
great test of strength of the years 1218-1221, when the
armed power of the West was locked in a clinch with
the armies of the East. And for the first time in nearly forty
years the crusaders held victory within their grasp.
It is best to look at this battle for it was an almost con
tinuous battle as a whole, rather than at the men who
fought in it or the machinations that went on behind the
scenes. In this way we can see the battlefield more clearly,
and the movements of each side for strategy played its part
here. The Crusade of Cairo, as it might be called, was the
climax of the conflict begun by Saladin thirty-six years be
fore. It was the ending of an old phase, and the forerunner
of a new. As Innocent s rule had foreshadowed a change in
the character of the crusades, this battle of Cairo marked a
change in the military conflict between Moslem and Chris
tian.
ijhe first Egyptian crusade, often called the fifth. The great Acre crusade of
1189-1192 is commonly called the third crusade, and the Constantinople venture of
1200-1204 the fourth.
283
284 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Fittingly enough, Al Adil, who had been Saladin s chief aid
years before, was now the leader of the Moslem side. Al Adil
more than seventy years of age, had lost none of his cunning.
He could still mount a horse and ride with his mamluks. It
was the irony of fate that this man who had always craved
peace should end his days in the stress of battle, with tidings
of calamity ringing in his ears.
The scene. Cairo lay a little more than a hundred miles
from the sea. Just below Cairo the wide Nile branched out
into a dozen channels which extended like the sticks of a fan
to the sea. One of the largest channels lay on the extreme
west and ended in the port of Alexandria, while the largest
eastern channel led to the port of Damietta. In this great
triangle between the arms of the Nile, known as the delta of
the Nile, the land lay flat and low and immensely fertile.
Irrigation cross-ditches cut it up into a checkerboard of fields
covered with crops. Every corner of this rich delta was filled
with peasants at work, with gray buffaloes and horses. Boats
of all kinds passed along the channels, their high lateen yards
towering over the flat roofs of the mud-walled villages. When
the Nile rose, the mud dikes on either side the canals were
strengthened to prevent the flooding of the land. Along the
tops of these dikes ran paths and roads over which moved
the two-wheeled carts of the natives. These dikes and these
roads were to prove important to the crusaders.
Damietta was thought by the Moslems to be impregnable,
because it was surrounded by a double wall of brick rising
from a deep moat, and because the back of the city, toward
the east, was guarded by a wide, shallow lake, while the front
rested upon the bank of the Nile. Opposite the city a huge
stone tower stood in the middle of the river, with chains
running from it to either bank. This Tower of the Chain
barred enemy ships from ascending the river.
The Moslem strength. A garrison of some twenty thousand
held Damietta, while the sultan at Cairo could assemble an
equal number of men in a few weeks. Al Adil had his standing
army of mamluks, veteran cavalry always under arms. Given
a month or two, he could count upon the Damascus army,
and at times upon the Turks of northern Syria. There were
THE ROAD TO CAIRO 285
also the usual Arab clans and Sudanis, useful in victory but
worthless in defeat, and only lightly armed. So, in a month s
time, he might assemble fifty thousand cavalry and a cloud
of irregulars.
The prelude of 1217. Instead of striking direct at Cairo,
the first crusaders to reach Acre made forays into the Holy
Land, gleaning harvests and moving toward Sidon on the
coast and the Galilee region. They were not strong enough to
risk battle with Al Adil s army when it came up, and they re
tired to spend the winter at Acre and on the island of Cyprus
that now served as the granary for the crusades.
The Christian strength. By May, 1218, the first wave of the
crusaders had reached the scene, some thirty thousand in all.
In quality they were excellent Hungarians, and giant
Scandinavians, Austrian ax wielders, and steady Hollanders.
These were nearly all infantry, but by now the infantry was
well protected by armor and accustomed to discipline. It
had more crossbows than in the Acre crusade and was cap
able of standing against the charges of the Moslems. More
over, it had new and more powerful siege engines. To these
newcomers were joined the veteran contingents of Templars
and Hospitalers, and the knights of Syria and Cyprus under
the king of Jerusalem. These, although few in number, were
mounted and well armed and accustomed to facing Moslem
tactics. The fleets serving as transports were Genoese with
some Pisan galleys the crews adept at sea warfare.
The plan. The leaders of the crusaders intended to land on
the delta of the Nile and storm Damietta, which was within
two or three days sail of either Cyprus or Acre. With the
port of Damietta in their hands they meant to wait for fur
ther contingents from Europe and then advance up that
branch of the Nile the fleet and the army moving together
to Cairo. If they could take this city, they felt that they
could hold it because the fleet would control the river. Even
if they did not manage to sek$ all the delta, they could
destroy Cairo, the citadel of Moslem power in the Near East,
and retire to Damietta.
The leaders. The duke of Austria, the Hungarian counts,
and the masters of the military orders placed themselves
286 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
under the command of John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem,
He was the son of the Brienne who died at Acre, and the
brother of Walter who had been held back in Italy to serve
Innocent. Upon his accession to the throne of Godfrey and
Baldwin there hangs a tale.
At the death of Amalric of Jerusalem and Cyprus there
had been no male heir to the crown of Jerusalem, and the
high court of the barons had decided that Marie of Mont-
serrat should be the heiress of the kingdom. But who was to
be her husband? The barons appealed to Philip-Augustus of
France to name one of his nobles to become king of Jerusalem.
They expected Philip to choose such a man as the count of
Champagne. Instead, Philip named an obscure knight, John
of Brienne, who lacked both wealth and rank, and who was
not even young.
Brienne considered the matter, and borrowed 40,000
crowns from the pope, on security of his lands, and a similar
amount from Philip on nothing at all; he assembled a hundred
knights and set sail for his future court, where the disconso
late barons attended in all ceremony his wedding to Marie.
"He was already old," a chronicler relates, "and poorly
endowed, but a true man of war, and wise."
A curious figure, this obscure and plain gentleman-
soldier. In him there appeared a certain obstinate determina
tion and a clear sense of honor that men of higher birth often
lacked. Whatever his failings as king, he proved himself one
of the ablest soldiers who ever wore the cross.
In May, 1218, Brienne and his army debarked on the coast
across the river from Damietta. They formed their camp
opposite the city and sent the Genoese galleys against the
Tower of the Chain that barred the channel. With Greek
fire and stones from the engines, the garrison of the tower
beat off the ships, disabling them.
Meanwhile Al Adil s army of cavalry moved down from
Cairo and camped on the Damietta side of the river. The
engineers of the crusaders went to work methodically. The
great tower being too far from the shore to reach by stone
casters, they built a floating fortress upon two dismantled
THE ROAD TO CAIRO 287
galleys, bound together by joists. It was really a floating
castle, sheathed with copper, and with engines on the sum
mit. A drawbridge could be lowered from an upper floor, and
three hundred men could take shelter in it.
The floating castle, towed forward by small galleys, took
the Moslems by surprise. They managed to prevent the
lowering of the drawbridge by covering the face of the cru
saders machine with blasts of flame. But two soldiers, driving
back the Moslems with thrusts of long lances, leaped from
the top upon the rampart of the Tower of the Chain. One of
them, a Fleming armed with an iron flail, beat a path through
the Arabs to the yellow banner of the sultan and cast it down
while the knights swarmed after him. The defenders dropped
into the lower level of the tower, but soon had to surrender.
The tidings of the capture of the Tower of the Chain were
carried to Al Adil at Cairo. The old sultan, already ill and
worn out with the campaigning of the last year, was stricken
by the misfortune and did not regain his strength. When he
died, no one but his personal attendants and his son were
informed, and Al Adil s body was embalmed and put into a
closed litter while his guards were summoned and his physi
cian announced that the sultan would journey to Damascus
to recover his health. By the time his death was known, his
son Al Kamil already in active command of the cavalry
at Damietta was in possession of the palace. Even after
his death, Al Adil had served the cause of Islam.
Al Kamil took the reins of authority at once. He was a
skillful leader, already a man of mature years, as astute as
his father had been. But some of the Ayoubite amirs con
spired against him, and for a space he had to leave the camp.
During this disorder the crusaders crossed the river and be
sieged Damietta on all sides.
Returning, Al Kamil threw a dike across the channel,
above the city. The Genoese galleys broke through this bar
rier, but the resourceful sultan sank some of his own galleys,
weighted down with stone, in the channel above the ruined
dike, and this time the crusaders were fairly blocked.
In the brief winter rains Al Kamil, deprived of part of his
army, could not risk battle against the invaders. And the
288 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
crusaders managed to clear another channel, around the
sunken galleys, so that their ships were able to pass up
the river at will and to pen the Moslems to the right bank.
They also built a bridge of boats across the river at Damietta.
So the spring of 1219 found the crusaders in trenches
around the beleagured city, cutting off all food and reinforce
ment from the Moslems within the walls. At the same time
fresh forces of French and English crusaders joined the siege,
bringing with them Cardinal Pelagius, the papal legate, and
numbers of priests and friars, with regiments of Lombard
soldiery.
Matters so far had been pretty much of a draw while the
crusaders had taken the Tower of the Chain, the city itself
had held out much longer than they expected. Some of the
contingents became war-weary and were on the point of
withdrawing, when the sultan s fleet, that had been held up
the river near Cairo, came down to try to clear the Christian
galleys from the river. The Genoese had all the best of this
encounter, and the Moslems retired up the river again.
Meanwhile the spirit of the crusader had been heartened by
the presence of the gray friar, Francis of Assisi, and his com
panions, and by the exhortations of Pelagius. The cardinal-
legate had wielded the lash of authority before now at Con
stantinople, and he grasped at the reins of command here.
Under his urgency attacks were made through the summer,
in vain. While Pelagius dominated the council, the gentle
friar of Assisi went about among the tents, sharing the tasks
of the soldiers, and tending the sick.
But by autumn the Moslem garrison was in the last throes
of starvation. In a storm, during the night of November
fourth, the crusaders made a surprise attack. They swarmed
up the ladders in silence and seized a tower. Some Templars
fought their way down to a postern gate, broke it down with
their axes and let in their comrades who were waiting outside
the wall.
Al Kamil, who was camped not far away, could do nothing
to aid the city because the flooded canals the Nile being
then at its height prevented him from moving forward.
The next day Damietta fell to the crusaders, with all the
THE ROAD TO CAIRO 289
wealth of its bazaars. Its cathedral mosque was converted
into a church by the zealous Pelagius, and enthusiasm ran
high among the Christians.
The Moslems, who had thought Damietta impregnable,
were thoroughly disheartened. Some of them fled back to
Cairo, crying that the crusaders were on the way to the city,
and for a while Al Kamil and his officers could do nothing
with the panic-stricken multitudes.
Pelagius urged an immediate advance on Cairo, on the
heels of the retiring Moslems an obvious move, tempting
enough to a layman. It would have been a decisive move,
without doubt, if the army could have been transported
intact to the gates of Cairo at once. But the crusaders had
suffered during the siege, and more than a hundred miles of
bottom land crisscrossed by flooded ditches and canals lay
between them and the city.
John of Brienne and the experienced soldiers advised first
putting Damietta in condition to defend, fortifying the outer
camp, resting the men, and waiting until the flood subsided,
when Frederick, the German emperor, had promised to
appear in Egypt. Only after a battle of wills did he gain the
cardinal s consent to this, and Pelagius did not forgive
him the struggle.
XXXIX
MANSURA
they waited, the crusaders stormed the fortress of
Tanis in the center of the near-by lake. But Freder
ick did not appear, although his departure for Egypt
was announced from time to time. And the crusaders did not
know that he had no intention of coming. After the summer
of 1220 John and the Syrian barons withdrew for a time to
Acre to attend to affairs there, leaving Pelagius in charge at
Damietta.
Meanwhile two very different things had happened else
where. Al Kamil s brother, the sultan of Damascus, fearing
that the crusaders would turn against Jerusalem after taking
Damietta, demolished the walls of the Holy City, except
for the Haram sanctuary and the Tower of David so making
Jerusalem an open city that could not be defended until it
was walled in again.
And far in the east began an upheaval that struck terror
into the heart of Islam, and turned all the eyes of the Mos
lems thither. For the present the crusaders knew nothing
about this.
So the remainder of 1220 passed, with the crusaders extend-
290
MANSURA 291
ing the Damietta lines and Al Kamil rebuilding his army at
Cairo* What the king of Jerusalem and the sultan might
have done next is uncertain. But Pelagius took the reins into
his hand.
Early in the summer of 1221 Louis, duke of Bavaria, landed
on the delta with a strong force, and Herman of Salza,
grand master of the Teutonic Knights, appeared with 500
swords and tidings that his lord, the emperor Frederick,
would sail for Egypt immediately. Whereupon Pelagius
ordered an advance upon Cairo on his own account.
Brienne and the Syrian lords heard of the decision and
hastened back to the Egyptian front. They opposed the ad
vance, until Frederick should arrive, knowing that Al Kamil
now had with him the armies of Damascus, Hamah, and
Baalbek the Moslems outnumbered the Christians three to
two. But the cardinal was supported by the Italian contin
gents and the newly arrived Germans. The march up the
Damietta branch of the Nile was begun, and King John
and his lords joined it, with their men. In all, the army
numbered about 1,000 knights, 5,000 cavalry, and 40,000
foot.
Whereupon Al Kamil did something quite unexpected;
he offered terms of peace. He had the upheaval in the east to
ward against, and the last thing he wanted now was a long
siege of Cairo. Moreover, the crusaders were so fortified in
Damietta that it would be a tremendous task to get them
out of there. So, if they would retire from Egypt and give up
Damietta, he offered them their ultimate objective, Jeru
salem.
With Jerusalem, he agreed to yield to them the surround
ing country, with Bethlehem and Nazareth and the inter
vening shore as far south as Ascalon, and the Galilee region
all the conquests of Saladin from the Jordan to the sea.
The offer came after the crusaders had gained a minor
success and were approaching the camp of the sultan s
army at Mansura, where the Nile branched again. It took
them by surprise, and the leaders debated it anxiously.
They soon divided into two parties, with King John, the
French seigneurs, the barons of the Syrian coast, and the
29 2 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
masters of the Temple and the Hospital urging acceptance
of the sultan s terms.
By those terms they could restore the old kingdom of
Outremer as it had been before the battle of Hattin, and the
line of the Jordan and the northern mountains could easily
be held. Above all, they would be masters of Jerusalem again.
Strangely, while these soldiers were eager to exchange
Damietta for Jerusalem, it was a churchman who opposed
them. Pelagius would not hear of it. He demanded that the
terms be refused, and the march to Cairo resumed.
Why he took this stand there is no telling. 1 The Genoese
faction was urgent to press the war in Egypt and to keep the
port of Damietta for to these merchants of the sea the
recovery of Jerusalem meant little, while the trade of Da
mietta and Cairo meant much. The other Italians and the
newly arrived Germans also supported Pelagius. But the
cardinal seems to have been obsessed with the thought of
victory in battle. He had wielded authority in Constantinople,
he had driven the soldiers to the assault of Damietta, and
now he had set his mind upon Cairo.
His word was final, because he was legate of the Holy See,
and he spoke with the authority of the pope himself. The
sultan s terms were rejected and the army moved forward
again*
Unknown to the crusaders and days before its time, the
Nile was also moving in flood down toward them.
Against his will, Al Kamil made ready to give battle at
Mansura The Victorious. For months he had been building
galleys at Cairo and sending them down the other branch
of the Nile to Alexandria, so that by now the Moslem fleet
*The march on Cairo would only have been justified if the crusaders had been in
far greater strength than the Moslems. On the contrary, Al Kamil had the larger
army, owing to the reinforcements that had just come in from the east. The Moslem
chroniclers say that he had 40,000 men without the Bedawin and Sudani levies.
They add that the Christians demanded more than the sultan offered at first
the citadels of Kerak and Mont R6al to be added to the Jerusalem concession
and that when the sultan granted this, they still demanded 500,000 dinars to be
paid for repairing the walls of Jerusalem. But the Moslem historians naturally
desire to make it appear that Al Kamil denied the Christian s request, and their
testimony does not alter the fact that the crusaders did not accept the sultan s
first terms.
MANSURA 293
was the stronger and, going around by sea from Alexandria
to Damietta, had driven the Christian ships away from
Damietta.
On the twenty-fourth of July, the crusaders advance
came to a stop. In front of them the river joined the Ashmoun
branch of the Nile, so that they were moving into a triangle
of land with rivers on both sides, while across the water on
slightly higher ground stood the Moslem fortified camp of
Mansura. All their efforts at forcing a crossing failed under
the missiles from the Moslem engines, and they were beset in
turn by clouds of Bedawin horse. Before long they were
obliged to entrench their own camp. Meanwhile the Nile
rose steadily, and the ships bringing their supplies ceased to
come up the river.
This was due to Al Kamil s galleys, which had taken pos
session of the Damietta branch in the rear of the Christians,
coming between them and Damietta. Apparently the galleys
accompanying the army could do nothing with the new
Moslem fleet. And with his ships in control of the waterways,
Al Kamil could move his forces about at will.
The first the Christians realized of the flood was when the
water appeared in their camp, ankle deep. Al Kamil then
took the desperate measure of breaking down some of the
river dikes, flooding the triangle in which the crusaders
were camped.
Only one narrow mule path remained open in the rear of
the Christians, and the sultan by throwing a bridge of
boats across the Ashmoun branch was able to place his
cavalry across this single road to Damietta. His archers
raked the crusaders tents with arrows, and King John,
faced with disaster, cast his knights through the flooded
region in an attack upon the Moslems. The heavy chargers
bogged down in the mud, and the Moslem archers swept the
men from the saddles with their arrows from the dikes.
Without food and almost without hope, the king burned
his tents and, with all the army, tried to cut his way back to
Damietta; but on the first day the retreat floundered in the
flooded ditches, and with his men helpless in the water, he
sent to the sultan to ask for terms of peace.
294 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
While his men, separated from their remaining ships, beat
off the Moslem attacks, King John was escorted under truce
to Al Kamil s tent, where he flung himself down, his head in
his hands.
"Why grievest thou?" the sultan asked.
"I grieve," John said, "for the men out yonder."
The crusaders, although unable to move, were still holding
off the triumphant Moslems, and Al Kamil had no inclination
to press the attack upon desperate men or to besiege
Damietta, which was held by a strong garrison, thereafter.
So he granted liberal terms, the prisoners on both sides to be
returned, Damietta to be given up and evacuated, and the
surviving crusaders to be allowed to depart in peace. A truce
was agreed upon for eight years, o,r until a new monarch
should come on crusade from Europe King John, still
expecting the arrival of the Emperor Frederick, did not feel
that he could bind the German monarch by his surrender.
So, in the gray mud of the Nile, ended the first Egyptian
crusade, in September, 1221.
The disaster had a double effect. Ever since Saladin s
capture of Jerusalem, the men of Europe had gone forth to
continuous war. Until now they looked forward hopefully
to the recovery of the Holy City, feeling that the burden
of their sins had caused defeat in the past, but that victory
lay ahead of them a conviction impressed upon them by the
preachers of the Church. After Mansura, the soldiers began
to lose this confidence.
On the other hand the Moslems, who had lost ground
steadily, though not decisively, since Saladin s first sweep
across the Holy Land, now regained confidence. Mansura
taught them that they could overthrow an army of the
dreaded knights. Saladin had fought against odds, but Al
Kamil found himself on even terms with the crusaders.
Thenceforth the Moslem power was to increase, although in a
way they little suspected.
The surrender at Mansura had its interlude. A slender
figure in a friar s habit, barefoot and hatless, appeared in the
Moslem camp, heedless of the mocking and menaces of the
MANSURA 295
warriors. St. Francis, the apostle of poverty and gentleness,
made an appeal to the sultan in his seat of war and luxury.
To Al Kamil, little understanding, it seemed to be an act of
madness, but he saw that this first missionary of peace suf
fered no harm.
Al Kamil had broken and driven back a general crusade,
but he still had to deal with Frederick of Hohenstaufen.
PART IV
WHEN KAISER REDBEARD took the cross and rode
to the east, he came not home again. He passed from
the sight of the men of the marks, and no one could
say where his grave was dug. But the dwarfs of the
forests knew, the trolls of the forests knew, and the
old men and minnesingers said, "In the abyss of
Kyfhauser he slumbers. Ay, the Redbeard sleeps
with his paladins, until the trumpets of Armageddon
shall sound, when he will ride again with his host-
he will ride again."
And the years passed, and the generations of men,
and Armageddon came. But the Redbeard slept with
his paladins, and one knows where his grave is dug.
XL
THE CHILD OF SICILY
E court of Palermo had tasted of the lotus. It lay
apart from the roads of the world and the rumbling
of wars. Between the hills and the tranquil blue sea, it
thrived and invented pleasures of its own.
To these sun-warmed hills of Sicily had come Norman ad
venturers and German knights. They were glad to be free of
the thralldom of snow and ice, and they built their castles on
the heights overlooking vineyards and orchards and the
beaches filled with fishing craft and drying nets. They need
no longer prison themselves in during the winter 3 while
cattle grew lean in dark byres, and woodcutters shambled
through the dark forests under a leaden sky.
Instead they could ride out to the hawking at will, or
hold tournaments of arms in the palace grounds, sheltered by
rows of dark ilex and hibiscus bushes with dull red blossoms.
They had discarded the leather jerkins and wool tunics of
the North, and they clothed their limbs in silk and linen
surcoats embroidered with new colors. Instead of being
pent in the weaving rooms, the women went about with the
men, and sat by them in the banquets of the castle halls.
The nobles themselves no longer kept tally of cattle, and
299
300 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
hides and mead stored up, or the farming of the summer
fields. Here they had native peasants to labor with the
harvests, and Arab treasurers to keep faithful account of
monies.
Palermo had grown fine and sightly since the Normans
came. Stone cloisters had been built around flowering gardens
where the monks took their ease during the hot afternoons.
But fairest of all was the new cathedral of bright brown stone,
with twin belfries towers that soared against the drifting
white clouds, above the dust and the clamor of the streets.
Each year they added some chapel or arched portal to the
edifice, or a new bit of mosaic that shone like glass upon a
ground of gold. They had learned to love colors, these monks
who had seen the finer work of the Byzantine and Arab
artisans. With brush and gold-leaf they gilded carefully the
hair and the haloes of the figures of the saints.
They had done away with the gray, cold walls for the
walls of the cathedral were pierced with lofty pointed win
dows of real glass, in small pieces, leaded together. And upon
these pieces of glass were painted actual scenes from the days
of the Seigneur Jesus, with lilies growing in the fields. When
the sun struck fair upon these windows, the blessed figures
glowed with a lifelike color, and this was truly a marvel.
True, in the chapel of the palace, there were greater won
ders birds and beasts carved out of white marble, support
ing the pulpit and the heads of the columns. And skilled
Arabs had carved in the wood of the ceiling such crystalline
designs that it no longer seemed to be wood at all. But the
folk of the city visited the cathedral daily for their needs
carrying sick children or holy pictures to be .blessed. Or,
perhaps, being weary, they went in to hear the long chanting
of the choir.
And from the cathedral went out at Easter-tide the old
processional of the Crucifix, carried upon the shoulders of
the willing peasants, with lilies and poppies piled around the
feet of the well-known figures. They even had, borne upon a
platter for all to see, the knife with which the good Peter
sliced an ear from one of the persecutors of the Lord. And by
the knife lay the actual ear.
THE CHILD OF SICILY 301
The men of the cloisters did more than march in the pro
cessions. Some of them had studied Arab texts and others
had read the profane writings of the pagans, Virgil and
Horace. To be sure, they did not copy such writings in their
book of hours, but they talked about them.
The noble lords were not apace with the new learning of
the scholastics, for Latin and Greek are woundy matters for
the mind. Yet they had learned the art of the minstrels, and
they could match one good lai with another. They still
dreaded the spell magic might cast upon them, and in all evil
they saw the hand of Satan.
In doctoring their children, however, they favored the
Arab leeches who knew all the humors of the blood, rather
than the black priests who relied upon holy water, or the
beldames who croaked of the virtues of herbs boiled with
vital parts of snakes, toads, and lice. For one thing, the Arabs
drafts were pleasanter drinking.
The gray friars and the preaching friars had not yet come
to Palermo. The Sicilian lords, living apart from the bishop
rics of the North, had talked much with far-faring merchants
and Arab savants, and in their tournaments they made much
ado about the pageantry, the decking of the lists, and the
caparisoning of the horses, and the rules of courtesy that they
had gleaned from Moslem chivalry. So the tournaments were
delightful to the ladies, who had had little share in the bone-
breaking melees of the North in the old days.
And it was pleasant for the knights to join their love of
women with their allegiance to the Lord, Much pleasanter,
now, to have women their companions in field and hall, able
to cap their jests and yield a spice to the drinking. Already
they had forgotten the days of the old feudal manors, when
women bore children that often died, and went about, bur
dened with keys, from embroidery looms to the prayer closets
with their images of stiff and colorless saints.
As plants thrive in a sunny sheltered garden, these men of
Sicily gained warm-blooded vitality and sharpened, eager
minds that sought for new thoughts. It was whispered in
Rome that they were in a fair way to become a second court
of Toulouse, filled with the heretics of Languedoc. . . .
302 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
And the court found its very embodiment in the youth
who was its sovereign, Frederick Hohenstaufen, the son of
Henry VI and Constance of Sicily, but an orphan from the
age of three years. In appearance he was all Norman, stocky
and strong, with a keen, ugly face and intolerant eyes set too
close together, and a pride that was as instinctive as his
mordant humor. Was he not the heir of the Hohenstaufen,
descendant of Frederick Redbeard, who had been a Teutonic
Hannibal, and who had said, " By God s grace,, I am emperor
of Rome"?
Not that Frederick troubled his head about matters of
empire. He left all that to the Church, for Innocent had been
his tutor and the present pope his preceptor, and between
them they were administering Sicily for him. He was quite
willing to sign concessions to his friends in Rome while he
had other things to occupy him.
He loved the chase, and the training of falcons, and the
excitement of the tournaments. And the young prince had
the ability to do everything well. His quick mind seized upon
a new problem and mastered it whether it was the handling
of a lance, or the wheedling of a fair woman. In this last
Frederick found no difficulty, only a delight that changed
in a few years to amusement. He learned to play with his
passions, seeking some fresh sensation that he had missed.
His was a philosophic mind. A brilliant conversationalist,
and a stubborn arguer, he found food for interest in the de
bates of his prelates with the Arabs and Greeks of the court.
Straightway, his thoughts overleaped such dogmatic prob
lems, and played with stranger concepts. Something in him
was akin to the Justinian of other ages who had never been
content, even with pagan dreams.
Frederick once said that he would only believe what
could be demonstrated before him. But, in reality, he be
lieved whatever appealed to his fancy. His philosophy never
overcame his curiosity. And, for better or worse, Frederick
was launched upon a world that, in spite of the new learning
of the scholastics, was bound in all things by the rigid dogma
of the Church,
THE CHILD OF SICILY 303
While Innocent lived, Frederick remained on most affable
terms with Rome. If he was not devout, he was indifferent,
while he had his falcons and the fair Greek girls.
And then, with a sudden flash of decision, he rode north
almost unattended, to claim the German throne that his
father had held. On the way he presented himself before
Innocent and a bargain was confirmed between them. The
Lateran would support his candidacy, upon two conditions
that Frederick take the crusader s cross, and that never
under any conditions should the crowns of Sicily and Ger
many be united in one person. No matter how friendly the
emperor, Rome would not allow him to hold, as Henry
had tried to hold, the empire on the north and the kingdom
on the south. Rome itself held the regency of Sicily and
southern Italy now known as the Two Sicilies.
Frederick pledged himself to this in all sincerity. He had
grown up, amid neglect and conspiracy, as the ward of the
Church, and all that was chivalrous in him drew him toward
the crusade. It is significant of Innocent s knowledge of men
that he had misgivings after his meeting with Frederick.
And the bargain proved disastrous to the papacy.
This happened in 1215.
For a while the disorders in the German lands occupied all
Frederick s attention, and he dealt deftly with the problems
here although at first he could hardly speak German. The
lion cub was gaining both strength and cunning. And he
became aware of many things, among them that the papal
Curia was setting aside German rights in Italy. This drew
his eyes to the South for the greatest of the Hohenstaufen
was not the man to let others tread upon his privileges.
Moreover, he was never at ease in the somber burgs of the
North, and his love of Sicily never waned.
The papal court began to think that it had lost a good
friend to make a bad neighbor. And the robed men of Rome
decided that Frederick must carry out his vow to go on
crusade. But Frederick would not be drawn out of his new
stronghold, and on one pretense or another, he put off his
3 o 4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM .
departure finally requesting that before he went he should
be crowned in public at Rome, and this was done with all
ceremony.
Then the news of the failure of the Egyptian crusade and
the loss of Damietta reached Rome. It was decided to call a
conference of the various leaders to discuss the next crusade,
and to this assemblage at Ferentino in the year 1223 the
pope himself came, and Frederick, with Herman of Salza,
grand master of the Teutonic Order recently escaped from
Egypt. Thither also journeyed the grand masters of the
Temple and Hospital, with John, King of Jerusalem, and
other princes.
It was the stalwart Herman of Salza and no one knows
who inspired him to do so who rose and suggested that
Frederick marry Yolande, the young daughter of John, and
sole heiress to the kingdom of Jerusalem.
This naturally pleased John, the elderly gentleman-
adventurer, who had hardly dreamed of having a Hohen-
staufen for son-in-law. The pope, Honorius, assented, seeing
in this marriage a means of interesting Frederick in the
Holy Land. And Frederick himself agreed readily, seeing a
new gateway of conquest open to the East the very dream
of his father.
The matter was discussed by everyone save Yolande, who
was only eleven years of age. At least a year must pass before
she would be able to marry. And Herman of Salza agreed
that, of course, John would continue to hold the kingship of
Jerusalem so long as he lived. On his part, Frederick, in
trigued by the new project, swore that he would sail upon
his crusade in 1225.
But when the time of the wedding drew near, Frederick
did not sail to claim his bride in the Holy Land. Yolande
must needs come to the cathedral of Brindisi instead, with
her small entourage, and her bridal chests, and her girlish
pride in this great dignity, and her unspoken fears. For she
was only thirteen and the scion of the Hohenstaufen had
become the most exalted monarch of Christendom.
No chronicler relates her story. She knelt beside the Ger
man lord, her master, in all the splendor of the imperial
THE CHILD OF SICILY 305
court. She went forth into oblivion. Not a week had passed
before John found his daughter unattended and weeping in
the Brindisi castle. What she endured at Frederick s hand
was never known. The dry pen of history relates that she
died in giving birth to her first child,, Conrad.
Nor was her father happy in the marriage, because the
following day Frederick made sudden demand upon him to
yield the scepter of his kingdom, saying that Yolande by
her lineage was rightful queen of Jerusalem. Almost by force
the scepter was taken from the old adventurer and in the
eyes of the men of that time, authority passed beyond remedy
from the monarch who surrendered his regalia.
John protested, reminding Frederick of his pledge at
Ferentino that the kingship should remain with him until
his death. Frederick retorted that there had been no written
treaty. In the emperor s mind there was no question of broken
faith. John of Brienne was a man of obscure birth, to be
thrust aside from the path of majesty.
He could not thus lightly rid himself of the pledge to go on
crusade. Instead he swore anew, placing his hands between
the hands of the cardinal Pelagius, that he would sail, under
pain of excommunication, in two years with a fleet and a
strong army. But in those two years new projects took shape
in his mind and he determined to keep Sicily. The old life
at Palermo brought back all his love for the Southland. True,
he had promised Innocent to give up Sicily when he took
the German throne. It would be a delicate matter to reclaim
the South and a pretty bit of intrigue always fascinated
him.
The Lateran was well aware of the danger in this the
two grindstones of the North and South closing upon Rome
under a single powerful hand. The aged and gentle Honorius
died, and was succeeded by an equally aged but far more
dominant soul, Gregory IX. The first act of the new pope was
to send letters to Frederick demanding that he make good
his vow and sail.
So at last, in September, 1228, Frederick s malingering
came to an end and he embarked with his men for the East.
In the hot summer on the Brindisi coast, sickness had taken
3 o6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
toll of the army and increased to such an extent aboard the
ships that Frederick put back to Otranto. There, at the end
of September, he was astonished to hear that Gregory had
pronounced him excommunicate because he had turned back,
and had launched upon him the great curse of the Church,
condemning him to solitude and freeing his subjects from
allegiance to him.
Undoubtedly Frederick was not prepared for this. Nor
was he minded to yield to the pope. And, when everyone
looked for him to hasten back to Germany to rally his forces,
he sailed instead to Jerusalem.
It must have stirred the dark humor in him, to set out at
last as a crusader, under excommunication.
XLI
FREDERICK S VOYAGE
E men who sailed with Frederick to the East he had
left the bulk of his army in Sicily were more troubled
by the excommunication than their master. Some of
the priests, fearful of what might befall, whispered that the
i emperor had held intercourse with strange powers, and that
at heart he was no better than a pagan. Others denied this,
saying that he had become emperor by God s will, and that
the Church of Rome had no right to lay such a ban upon the
anointed of God.
Old soldiers recalled the past, telling how one of Frederick s
ancestors had knelt in the snow in his shirt for days before
the closed door of the pope, to do penance for his sins, and
how Barbarossa had prostrated himself, to let the pope put
foot upon his neck. It was ill, they muttered, to go against
the Church; but what was done, was done.
It would be mended, the more ardent spirits pointed out,
if their master redeemed the tomb of the Lord from the in
fidels. That would be a penance!
But how could one accursed by the holy Father hope to
gain a victory where even the great cardinal Pelagius had
failed? And what fate would befall the army that he led?
307
3 o8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
To go against the infidel was right enough the clear duty of
Christian folk. But to draw sword against the powers of evil,
when the holy Father had cursed their leader, that was a
fearful thing. Besides, they had only half an army.
So the German liegemen talked among themselves, while
the ships crossed the blue Aegean and drew near the low
shore of Cyprus. The few foreign crusaders had dropped away
from Frederick, but the Teutonic Knights held to his side
and the bulk of the small army followed its lords obediently,
albeit with misgivings. When they landed on the sands of
Limassol, the Templars held aloof in the neighboring castle
of Colossi, and the nobles of Cyprus greeted the emperor with
constraint, although the duty of hospitality lay upon them,
to welcome him.
Frederick, however, was in high spirits. He bade his hosts
prepare a banquet, and at table he talked with them affably,
even while his liegemen came and ranged themselves about
the hall. To the veteran lord John of Ibelin, who was acting
as governor of the island, he turned suddenly.
"Messire John," he said, "I have two requests to lay be
fore you. If you will accord me them graciously you will do
well for yourself and will prove that you are, as men say, a
wise man."
Ibelin, who was also lord of Beirut, responded gravely:
"Sire, all that lies in the duty of a man of honor, I will do,
certainly."
Frederick glanced about the table and smiled. "The first
thing that I ask is the castle of Beirut, which is within the
kingdom of my son Conrad. The second is that you render
me account of the revenues of the Crown of Cyprus for the
ten years since the death of King Hugh; for to me belong the
fruits of the domain, after the laws and right of the German
Empire."
Hearing these words, some at the table fell amazed, and
others looked about them uneasily. For Frederick had de
manded no less than that the rich island and the fair port of
Beirut be yielded into his hand. He meant, it was clear, to
claim all the possessions of the Crown in the region of the
Holy Land, by virtue of Yolande s title and the homage that
FREDERICK S VOYAGE 309
had been done to his father* Yet at the very outset he found
before him a man who would not submit to blandishment,
or to a show of force.
"Sire/ said John d Ibelin, when he had considered his
response, "as to the city of Beirut, it is mine by right as I
took it from the Saracens." He stood up before his distin
guished guest. "As for the revenues of Cyprus, I will submit
them to the high court of the barons ; and now do I ask for trial
and judgment upon this matter that you have brought up
between us."
And, storm and laugh and threaten as he would, Frederick
could not shake the decision of the soldier. He had hoped to
sweep away opposition, and he was not minded to submit his
claim to court. But he left his bailiffs in Cyprus when he
crossed to the Holy Land, and he had not relinquished his
plan of drawing all the Near East into his empire.
He had need just then of all his nimble wit. Many Syrian
barons had taken warning from the case of Ibelin, and would
not join him. The Hospitalers kept to their castles. Frederick
had no more than thirty-five hundred horse and ten thou
sand foot with him, and the voyage had emptied his treasury.
Even while he landed with all his court at Acre, he borrowed
40,000 pieces from Syrian nobles.
With such a force he could not hope to fight his way to
Jerusalem, and he turned instead to diplomacy, knowing that
the Moslems dreaded his coming. He had taken pains to
notify Al Kamil at Cairo of his approach, and to salute the
sultan in most friendly manner. Now he wrote again:
"At the time of the siege of Damietta, you offered to grant
us all Palestine. Now, surely, you can not offer me less than
you promised the other Franks. If I had thought you would
not make this concession, I would not have come. It is not
to your interest to disappoint me."
This was really brilliant effrontery, and Al Kamil did not
know what to make of it. He had agreed to treat with Freder
ick, but had not mentioned Jerusalem. The great German
emperors had always been held in awe by the Moslem princes,
who looked on them as the true lords of Christendom. Al
Kamil did not wish to give up Palestine, yet he wished even
3 io THE FLAME OF ISLAM
less for war with Frederick. So he sent an envoy to flatter
the exalted invader.
And Frederick flattered the envoy, talking to him as only
the emperor could. He hinted at his liking for the Moslem
customs and religion mentioned his Arab subjects in Sicily
debated the philosophy of Averroes and promised to
prevent any other crusade being launched against Al Kamil.
He moved down to Jaffa, and fortified it, to be nearer the
negotiations, and gave the Moslems no time to ponder the
matter. Banquet followed banquet and his German barons
hunted over the foothills toward Jerusalem.
"I am thy friend," he wrote again to Al Kamil, "and soon
wilt thou know how high I am above all the other princes of
the West." Al Kamil yielded, and after his envoy brought
his consent Frederick had the treaty drawn up in Arabic
and French. With only a few witnesses present, he signed it,
and put away his own copy. Then he bade it be announced
in the camp that the Holy Land had been yielded to him.
It was years before the full terms of this unlooked-for
treaty were known. In reality, Frederick had conceded a
good deal, but he had traded promises for territory.
The treaty granted him all the city of Jerusalem, except
the Haram region with the Dome of the Rock and the Al
Aksa mosque, sacred to the Moslems. The Templars and
Hospitalers could return to the Holy City but not to their
castles outside it, although the neighboring villages went with
the city, and Bethlehem and Nazareth also. A kind of corridor
down to Acre, with the castles of Toron and Montfort, was
ceded, so that the Christians could come and go to the sea.
On his part, Frederick pledged the safety of Moslem pil
grims to the Haram, and agreed to a truce for ten years. In
this time he would give no aid to the Christian lords of north
Syria, and he would not allow a crusade to be formed in
Europe against Egypt. He also agreed not to rebuild the
walls of Jerusalem. 1
*The terms of this peace are not clearly known. For instance, one of the first things
Frederick did at Jerusalem was to prepare openly to rebuild the walls although
the other points of his agreement with the Moslems he tried to keep.
It is said also that Laodicea and Mount Tabor were yielded up by Kamil.
After the peace the crusaders held all the shore from Antioch to Ascalon, and
FREDERICK S VOYAGE 311
For a man harassed by the papal power, and with only the
nucleus of an army, this was a brilliant piece of diplomacy,
and Frederick made more effort to keep his pledges to the
Moslems than he had done with the Christians. But it was a
halfway measure, leaving Jerusalem divided between Mos
lem and Christian, and defenseless. It roused instant protest
from the Templars and Hospitalers, who had not been con
sulted, although they were bound by the terms of the truce.
And the Moslems railed against Al Kamil who had given
away Al Kuds, The Holy, for some promises from the Franks.
In vain the sultan said to them, " I have yielded nothing to
the Franks but churches and houses in ruins, while the
mosque remains as it is, and all the ritual of Islam will be
observed there, as before/
But kadis and readers who were forced to leave the aban
doned places journeyed to Cairo with their Korans and
prayer rugs and posted themselves outside the sultan s
gate, to wail and to scold him when he appeared.
The common folk among the Christians who had hoped
for the recapture of the Holy Land felt that the treaty was
ominous of evil to come, and they spoke of it among them
selves as " the bad peace/
Meanwhile, in the beginning of Lent of this year 1229,
the emperor made ready to enter Jerusalem.
It was to be his triumph in the Holy Land, and no doubt
he bethought him of the triumphs of the Caesars of elder
Rome. He rode gayly through the twisting valleys where
Coeur de Lion had struggled, and at his heels came a glitter
ing cortege of nobles. Although the sun was mild, and the hill
sides green after the rains, a shadow lay over the German
monarch and his men.
From Rome, the pope s legates had followed his journey,
warning the people against this antagonist of the Church.
The sacraments could not be administered to Frederick, nor
would any bishop bless his undertaking. Wherever he halted
many places in the foothills the Hospitalers had been fortifying their lands in
middle Syria but the Moslems kept the castles in the hills, and the line of the
Jordan, so the crusaders in Jerusalem were always open to attack.
3 i2 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
for the night, the papal envoy came and laid the interdict
of the Church upon the spot. No holy offices could be held
where Frederick had set his foot.
Without heeding, the emperor passed through the dis
mantled gate of Jerusalem, and took up his quarters in a
palace abandoned by the Moslems. A strange throng stood
in the alleys to stare at him bearded Greek priests and
swarthy Maronites, Jews in their shubas and palmers leaning
upon their staffs. Beside them crowded Moslem kadis, and
silent men wearing the white turbans of the hadj. Except for
these, Jerusalem lay deserted. No bells tolled joyfully and no
choir sang as Frederick dismounted at the courtyard of the
Sepulcher, looking up at the leaning belfry and the arched
portals marred by weather and neglect.
No one advanced to greet him, so that when his courtiers
had assembled, the emperor had to lead the way into the dark
church and to the white marble tomb under the cracked
dome, where the Greek priests followed, anxious and uncer
tain, like mothers who watch some stranger approach their
child.
The Germans all held tapers in their hands, and when they
had knelt before the closed tomb, Frederick rose and went to
the altar opposite. On the altar a gold crown had been placed,
and since there was no bishop to do the office for him, Freder
ick crowned himself. Lifting the gold circlet with his own
hand, he placed it on his head.
"In the name of the holy Trinity ... I, Frederick the
Second, by divine mercy emperor of the Romans, for ever
Augustus, and king of Sicily, announce that I am henceforth
king of Jerusalem. . . ."
He took his seat upon the raised chair, and a stalwart figure
in armor uprose, bearing his helmet upon his arm. It was
Herman of Salza, and he spoke to the listening knights and
priests first in German, then in French:
"Seigneurs, my lord the emperor hath made sacrifice to
journey hither, and now he hath redeemed for us this holy
city and this blessed Sepulcher. My lord the emperor is
ready to devote his strength and his revenues to maintain
and guard what he hath won for us ... and on your part,
FREDERICK S VOYAGE 313
you must e en give what you can from your revenues. . . ."
Leaving the church, Frederick made his way to the palace,
and held open court there. A banquet was prepared, and he
urged the Moslem amirs to attend, taking great satisfaction
in talking with them. This day, he told them, was the begin
ning of peace between Moslem and Christian, and he trusted
in the Holy Land their friendship would be as lasting as
in Sicily.
When the feasting was at an end, Frederick led the way
to the dismantled city wall, and with the Moslems at his side,
began with his own hand the trench that was to hold the
foundation of a new wall. This done, he confessed to a desire
to visit the sanctuaries of the Moslems. Whereupon the kadi,
sent by Al Kamil to attend upon the distinguished guest,
conducted him past the Via Dolorosa to the great wall of the
temple enclosure over which towered the gilt dome of the
Rock.
Frederick admired this much, and exclaimed over the
beauty of the wide Al Aksa portico where the delicate
columns erected by the first crusaders still stood in place.
He even climbed upon a marble minbar beside the fountain,
and as he did so his quick eye caught sight of a Christian
priest who had followed his knights and was now hastening
toward the entrance of the mosque that had once held the
chapel of the Templars. In his hand the priest carried the
Scriptures.
Frederick stormed at him angrily. " Knowest not that here
even we are only the vassals of the sultan Al Kamil? Not
one of you is to pass the limits fixed about your churches."
At sunset that evening he went to the roof of his palace to
listen to the muezzin s call to prayer. When he heard nothing,
he summoned the kadi to him the next day.
"Why," he asked, "did not the muezzins call the faithful
to prayer from the minarets?"
The kadi had been careful to forbid the call, for fear of
angering his illustrious and temperamental visitor. "Your
slave forbade them," he explained, "out of respect for the
emperor."
"You were wrong to do that," Frederick responded, "for
3 i 4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
my chief purpose in coming to Jerusalem was to hear the
Moslem summons to prayer and their praise to Allah during
the night."
While the emperor remained in Jerusalem, the Christian
patriarch would not enter; and when he left, the black form
of the papal legate appeared in the Via Dolorosa, treading
where Frederick had trod, with the robed priests following
after. Upon the very stones, he proclaimed the interdict
of the Church, and so proclaiming, he passed into the court
yard of the Sepulcher. Even hardened men-at-arms, whose
souls were past all shriving, stared aghast and crossed them
selves as they listened to the measured chant of the papal
messenger. The words were whispered from hospice to hall,
and men grew pale at the whispers.
" Sancta Maria what has come upon us? He has laid the
ban upon the Tomb ! "
Then they feared that indeed evil would come of this
although many, traveling unhindered to Jerusalem, praised
Frederick as a victor and as a very Michael in armor pre
vailing over the forces of Satan.
Frederick put to sea at once, because tidings had reached
him that the papal forces had taken up arms against his
bailiffs in Italy. He called together the high court of the
barons before sailing and informed them that he appointed
Balian of Ibelin as his bailiff in Palestine, to administer the
lands until he could send out other officers. He embarked
with his army, taking on one of the galleasses the white ele
phant that Al Kamil had sent him as a gift. And some people
said he took fair Saracen girls upon his own galley. When he
pushed off from the quay at Acre, men standing in front of
the butchers quarter threw entrails and refuse upon his
courtiers.
Thus the emperor Frederick made use of a crusade to build an
empire. With him the politics of the West invaded the East.
XLII
VAE, CAESAR !
REDERICK S advent into the East had wrought only a
semblance of peace. True, he had made good his vow
to go on crusade. Yet he had used Jerusalem as a
prop to his empire.
To this giant of Sicily, at heart a pagan, such a dominion
appeared as the fulfilment of his destiny. Nations were only
beginning to exist then, and he looked upon humanity as one
body, a universal mass of men to be ruled by himself. Out
of such rule would come universal peace, as in the days of
the Caesars. By divine will, he was monarch of all peoples.
He did not scruple about laws because he was the law.
But he could not sail to the East again, and no second
miracle could be wrought there by his genius. Instead, for a
decade, he tried to establish his rule through his governors
bailiffs and in the end he failed*
While Balian of Ibelin held his affairs in charge, the barons
of the Holy Land accepted the new conditions. When an
astute Italian, Filangieri, marshal of the Empire, came out to
take command with Frederick s golden writ of authority,
matters did not go so well. Filangieri, affable at first, at-
315
3 i6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
tempted to confiscate Beirut, and so estranged the high
court of the barons. When Frederick s marshal took up arms
to enforce his orders, the Ibelins and the barons rallied to
resist him, and open conflict followed, first in Cyprus, then
on the Syrian coast. The barons prevailed over the German
officers, and Frederick s liegemen had to withdraw into
Armenia or return to Italy.
Meanwhile Frederick took to himself the title of king of
Thessalonica, and espoused the cause of the Byzantine
nobles who were in conflict with the French adventurers in
Constantinople he even married one of his daughters to
the Byzantine emperor, and refused to allow reinforcements
to pass through his lands to the hard-pressed knights of
Constantinople.
He had no hesitation in saying that he looked for the
Byzantines to regain their city, or that they would become
his vassals. And he wrote frequently to Al Kamil, to maintain
the friendship between them.
Upon his return to Italy, the emperor was met by news
that must have amused him vastly. Willingly or unwillingly,
he had given the papacy, by his absence, rope to entangle
itself. And Gregory IX, aged and indomitable, had tried to
draw the sword against Frederick. While Frederick was away
on crusade, Gregory proclaimed a crusade against him, and
collected benevolences even in England to use against the
sacrilegious emperor.
The papal forces assembled in Italy, and made some head
way against Frederick s lieutenants. The outraged John of
Brienne was in command under the papal banner bearing the
crossed keys.
"Behold the ways of the Romans," said Frederick, on
landing.
His veteran soldiery, wearing the crusader s cross, was
more than a match for the small forces gathered by Brienne,
and all Gregory s wrath could not prevail against the general
ship of the Hohenstaufen. The crusader s cross went into
battle against the papal keys, and Frederick was victo
rious.
VAE, CAESAR! 317
Gregory was forced to lift the ban of excommunication and
grant a truce, favorable to his adversary, the emperor. And
so, in 1230, ended the first phase of their conflict, during
which a little good and much harm had been done to the
cause of the crusades. Frederick had made the Holy Land no
better than a pawn upon his gaming board of empire, and
Gregory had invoked a crusade against the greatest monarch
of Christendom. The mills of Fate were grinding slow, but
they were grinding small and sure.
The truce of the year 1230 during which the pope and
the emperor met in amicable and jovial talk, while they
measured and appreciated each other was only a makeshift,
and it ended as makeshifts do. And when it ended, something
titanic happened.
The struggle that had been going on between the Church
and the Empire for two hundred years became actual war
again, but this time without mercy or respite. Not a war of
ordered armies and marches and sieges. It changed into a
worse thing a war of extermination. And into it were drawn
men and resources from all the byways of Christendom.
It brought on again the murk of the Dark Ages, plunging
the lands into a twilight of the earthly gods. The emperor
who had the affairs of men and property in his hands was at
death grips with the Church that ministered to the souls of
men.
Not yet had nations emerged out of the welter, and not
yet had individuals found voices or convictions. Men still
thought of themselves as members of one universal family;
hemmed in by the masses of their fellows, they looked for
guidance to their two resplendent overlords, the emperor
anointed of God, and the pope, the Father of the Church.
Now these overlords were striking each other down.
The struggle centered around Rome.
St. Augustine had dreamed of a universal city that should
bring ultimate peace, and now others dreamed of emperors-
to-be who would restore the lost peace of the elder Roman
Empire.
In their thoughts the actual city of Rome played its part.
3i8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Here the Caesars had ruled and had been entbmbed; here,
without doubt, was the seat of universal empire. Pilgrims
visited the half-ruined city of the Tiber not only to pray at
St. Peter s but to behold with their eyes the Forum that had
seen the triumphs of Augustus and Trajan. To be sure, they
found thieves quartered in the cellars of the Forum, and the
mausoleums made into fortresses by the nobles of Rome.
But they still looked to see Rome restored to its former
grandeur.
Nearly a hundred years later, the exiled Dante would still
call upon the emperor of his day to enter upon the imperial
heritage. And still later Cola di Rienzi would cry to his master
Charles to rebuild the Empire from the wreckage of Rome.
To the men of Frederick s day Rome was the eternal city,
the fitting abode of the two masters of the world, and the
faubourg of the Eternal City that lay beyond life itself.
Frederick, passionately eager for personal glory and almost
sensuously delighted by conflict, did not begin the final
struggle wholly of his own accord. In his memory lingered
the trumpet blasts of Barbarossa and the challenge of his
father, Henry VI. Even less did Gregory seek the final de
cision. He no more than followed doggedly the path prepared
by the great Hildebrand, and paved by the ambition of In
nocent III. At some time the decision had to be reached
whether the pope or the emperor would become temporal
ruler of Christendom. Innocent had almost won this ulti
mate dominion for the papacy, but Honorius had lost ground
to Frederick.
The decision was now at hand, bringing with it the end of
the old dream of universal empire.
^The actual cause of breaking the truce was slight a
dispute over lands in Lombardy. It brought proclamations
from the two antagonists, confiscations by both sides, arming
of the liegemen, and finally open war. Frederick advanced
into north Italy to scatter the adherents of the papacy and
to put an end to the temporal dominion of Rome.
Even at war, his fertile mind played with new projects
a university in Naples, or imperial judges to be seated where
feudal lords and bishops had been the only law in the past.
VAE, CAESAR! 319
He could juggle with the Lombard League, while he did
away with the old feudal order building up state monop
olies on the Moslem plan. Sicilian Arab bowmen formed
his bodyguard. In a diet at Mainz he laid down a plan that
would bring about national law to replace ecclesiastical
courts, and do away with trial by ordeal; into Cremona he
marched in triumph with his white elephant Al Kamil s
gift drawing the car that held his standard, with the son of
a doge of Venice chained to the standard pole. To those who
beheld him he appeared an imperial messiah, or a viceroy of
Satan.
" By the authority of the Father, and by our own author
ity, we excommunicate and anathematize Frederick, the so-
called emperor, because he has incited rebellion in Rome
against the Roman Church for the purpose of driving the
pope and his cardinals from the apostolic seat. . . . We
absolve all his subjects from their oaths of fidelity to him,
forbidding them to show him fidelity so long as he is under
excommunication. In regard to the accusation of heresy
which is made against Frederick, we shall act upon it in the
proper time."
Thus Gregory, fully aroused to his peril. And he deposed
Frederick by papal edict.
"Was there ever such presumption?" cried the emperor,
when the news was brought to him. " Where are the chests
that hold my treasures?"
And when the caskets of his regalia were brought hastily
before him, he had them opened. "See now whether my
crowns are lost! The pope and all his synod shall not take
them from me. Has he dared depose me a prince who has no
equal? So much the better. Before this I was bound to obey
him, but now I am absolved from any obligation to keep
peace with him."
Against the popes themselves he railed with an eloquent
tongue: "These shepherds of Israel who are not the pontiffs
of the Church of Christ."
And Gregory, no mincer of words, announced that Freder
ick was like to the blasphemous beast of the Apocalypse,
the beast that arose from the sea.
320 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
It was about this time [the chronicler Matthew of Paris relates]
that evil reports became current which blackened the reputation
of the emperor Frederick. It was said that he was weak in the faith,
and was a heretic. What right have we even to repeat such things!
His enemies said that he believed more in Muhammad than in
Jesus Christ, and that he had Saracen women as concubines.
Among the people, there was a complaint that he had been allied
to the Saracens for a long time, and that he was more friendly with
them than with Christians. . . .
As to the truth of this, only He knows who knows all things.
Through the murk of conspiracy, and the tumult of com
bat, Frederick moved steadily toward Rome, as Barbarossa
had done. Through impalpable but destructive forces he cut
his way with the sword.
A priest of Paris [so the chronicler Matthew declares] was ordered
to pronounce the ban of excommunication against the emperor,
although he was unwilling. He said: "Listen all of ye! I have been
ordered to pronounce against the emperor Frederick, in the light of
candles and with the sounding of bells, a solemn sentence. I do
not know the cause of it, but I do know the gravity of it, and the
inexorable hate which divides the two adversaries. I know also
that one has wronged the other, but I do not know which it is.
As much as lies in my power, I excommunicate that one that one,
I say, who did wrong to the other. And I absolve the one who en
dured this injury, so harmful to Christianity,"
All Italy was under arms, while Frederick marched on
Rome with his trainbands.
Gregory prepared to defend his citadel. In solemn proces
sion he bore the rdics of the cross, brought hither from
Jerusalem, and the heads of the apostles that had been
carried hither from Constantinople. The procession wound
from the Lateran hill to the basilica of St. Peter. Within the
church, Gregory laid the relics upon the papal altar and
placed his tiara beside them. When he had prayed, he turned
to the assembled people and gave out with his own hand
crusaders crosses, for them to wear in the combat against
the emperor.
Even tidings of fresh calamity in the East could not turn
VAE, CAESAR! 321
his thoughts from the struggle with his antagonist. He
preached a crusade against Frederick, while the din of fight
ing echoed in the streets beneath him, where adherents of
the emperor had fortified themselves in the great baths of
Constantine and the mausoleum of Augustus.
Frederick advanced to the hills of Tivoli, where, through
the malarial mists of the plain, he could see the brown ram
parts of Rome. He was preparing for his final triumph when
victory was snatched from his hand.
The aged Gregory, worn out by the conflict, had died. So
the papal throne, in August, 1241, was vacant. No enemy
in human form confronted Frederick, and he marched away
from Rome.
For months the cardinals dared not elect another pope.
Frederick could not make war upon a papacy that lacked a
pope. He could not overthrow a deserted throne. Frustrated
and angered, he retired into his own lands. And even he, the
arch-jester, could not smile at the irony of the fate that had
rendered him helpless in the hour of success. 1
But he was occupied just then with a fresh peril that had
come out of the Far East. The storm that had brushed past
twenty years ago and had struck fear into the sultan of
Cairo now broke with all its force upon eastern Europe.
It swept over the steppes of Russia, ravaged the fields of
Poland, crossed the heights of the Carpathians, and pene
trated Silesia to the edge of Frederick s lands.
It came in silence, with smoke rising above it. It was made
up of dark masses of horsemen, and it was the Mongol horde.
A generation ago it had followed Genghis Khan out of the
Gobi Desert out of the limbo of things to sniff at the bor
ders of Christendom and draw back into its barren lands. 2
It moved with the swiftness of a storm-wrack driven
Baldwin of Constantinople patched up a peace between the two sides that was no
peace, because Frederick only awaited the advent of a new pope to resume the con
flict. He conceded the inviolability of the papal state, in exchange for exoneration
for himself and his followers. But public opinion, which had been in his favor after
the return from Jerusalem in 1229, was now turning against him.
2The author has described the life of Genghis Khan and the campaigns of the
Mongols in a previous volume. Space does not permit a dissertation here. Europeans
in the Thirteenth Century called the Mongols Tartars.
322 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
before the wind, and it crumpled armies in its path as wind
blows chaff from the threshing field.
Beholding the clouds of horsemen clad in leather and gold
and black lacquer, good people cried out that here were the
legions of Anti-Christ come to reap the last harvests. The
duke of Silesia went down before the horde with his Bava
rians and Teutonic Knights; and Ponce d Aubon, master of
the Templars who had volunteered to go against the pagans,
wrote to his young lord, St. Louis, in France: "Know, Sire,
that the barons of Germany and those in Hungary have taken
the cross to go against the Tartars. And, if they be van
quished, these Tartars will not find any one to stand against
them as far as your land."
But before this letter reached the hand of St. Louis, the
Hungarian host had been vanquished, and Ponce d Aubon
lay lifeless on the field of battle with all of his Templars.
In Frederick s lands the tocsins rang, and the people
prayed to be delivered from the fury of the Mongols. The
horde had been seen at Nieustadt. Frederick, who was then
-in 1241 marching toward Rome, offered a truce to the
pope Gregory, so that their armies could unite against the
Mongols, but Gregory would not hear of it. Frederick then
wrote to Henry III of England urging an alliance against the
horde, without result.
He was soon summoned by the horde to yield himself and
his people and to journey to the Gobi to become a subject of
the great khan, and fill whatever post might be offered him
at the court of Karakorum. To this Frederick answered good-
naturedly that he knew enough about birds of prey to qualify
as the khan s falconer.
While he awaited the approach of the storm, he observed
philosophically to Henry, "These same Tartars must be no
less than the punishment of God visited upon Christendom
for its sins."
Friar Roger Bacon wrote that they were verily soldiers
of Anti-Christ, marching toward Armageddon. Matthew of
Paris related in his chronicle that they were eaters of human
flesh who put women to death with strange ravishments.
But western Europe was spared such a fate. Tidings from
VAE, CAESAR! 323
the Gobi recalled the horde to its homeland the great khan
was dead. And the Mongol armies vanished for the second
time into the steppes.
A new power, unapproachable and irresistible, had ap
peared in the Western world, dwarfing even the sultan of
Cairo and the emperor Frederick and the popes of Rome.
Over the Holy Land this power cast its shadow.
XLIII
AT THE TABLE OF THE HOSPITAL
AIR was the coast of the Holy Land. Never had it been
more fair than in the years that followed 1 240. Pilgrims,
coming in the spring and autumn fleets, found here the
peace that was not known at home.
They did not find, it is true, the Kingdom of Jerusalem,
about which their grandsires had talked. Saladin had shat
tered that, and the great emperors had taken the crown to
add to their regalia.
The parts of the kingdom now had lords of their own
the beautiful island of Cyprus had its king and court, and in
the northern coast Antioch had become a city of the Greek
and Armenian lords. The coast of the Holy Land was held by
the strong hands of the Hospital and the Temple, although
the old crusader families clung to their fiefs.
Pilgrim galleasses now sailed often into the stone-walled
harbor of Chateau Pelerin. This was the stronghold of the
Templars that the Arabs called Athlit. Patiently it had been
built upon the black hard rock at the sea s edge. Half out
upon the sea, and half upon the land, its tawny limestone
walls towered skyward. Within its port, galleys were drawn
324
AT THE TABLE OF THE HOSPITAL 325
up on the sand, and within its outer barrier wall orange
groves and fig trees cast a welcome shade.
Here the pilgrims found unwonted comforts. In the castle
hospice they could store their belongings and sleep upon
clean pallets. They ate in the long refectory, cooled by the
sea air and the thick stone walls. The narrow embrasures of
the refectory looked out upon a terrace covered by a silk
awning, and here the officers of the Temple could be seen in
talk, wearing the somber mantles of the order. They had
the administration of the castle casals y or village lands, the
care and transport of the crops, the lading and discharging
of the cargo vessels now owned by the Temple. Moreover,
they had now to act as bankers, to discount bills of exchange
brought by Italian merchants, and to pay silver to the
pilgrims against the money orders brought from the com-
manderies of the Temple in France.
At matins and at vespers the pilgrims mingled with the
tonsured warriors, bearded and sun darkened, wearing the
red cross upon their weather-stained surcoats kneeling
against the carved benches of the white marble church that
had been built in the very shape of the Templum Domini at
Jerusalem.
The pilgrims found that Chateau Pelerin was hostel and
almshouse, port and monastery, bank and fortress. They
had never seen anything of the kind before. And they mar
veled much at the great stables built underground, from
which hundreds of horses were led out for the knights to
ride on patrol, or the voyagers to journey down the coast.
Some of them, perhaps, went north instead, to visit rever
ently the smoke-darkened cavern where Elijah had taught
his followers under the height of Carmel. If they journeyed
on, along the coast road, they came to embattled Acre with
its great warehouses and terraced palaces where of nights
the elder men and minstrels related the saga of King Richard
and the sultan Saladin.
Upon the dusty road they met Moslems in from the desert,
sitting sidewise on the leading camels while behind them
long strings of camels swayed slowly from side to side under
heavy bales that smelled of spice and wool and sesame. Even
326 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
when the pilgrims lay at night within roadside hostels,
listening to the gentle pulse of the sea, they heard the distant
clanking of the camel bells. When they asked how the Arabs
came to be free of Christian roads, they were told that the
Templars followed a policy of peace with the Moslems, and
that they were friends with the men of the sultan of Damas
cus.
If the wayfarers ventured farther north past the sandy
peninsula of Tyre where even the cathedral was dwarfed by
the clustering monasteries they found themselves in the
shade of the pine forests of Beirut. Other travelers walked
beside them, gray friars barefoot in the dust, wandering
cheerily from village to village and sleeping with the dogs
and all the fleas or thin, stately Syrians who knew more of
the Scriptures by memory than the priests stout Turks
riding small horses and followed by women that seemed to be
animated bundles of black veils. The women walked and
carried the burdens, for a true Turk would not burden his
horse.
Italian merchants, arrogant in black velvets, rode under
parasols upheld by slaves, while behind them guarded by
armed men appeared the mules and carts bearing their
goods. Parties of Jews came by as well, their earlocks shaking
under their wide hats clamoring in loud talk when no one
was near, but walking in discreet silence past the cavalcade
of a Christian knight.
And many cavalcades of crusaders came and went in the
Holy Land during these years. Thibault of Champagne and
king of Navarre landed with his vassals, going out to the
frontier with the valiant count of Bar. The English duke,
Richard of Cornwall, followed him, and went south to rebuild
the double walls of Ascalon, after driving off the Egyptian
"A If \
Moslems.
Some of the crusaders abode at the northern headquarters
of the Hospital, MarghabTht Watcher, as the Arabs called
it. This had just been completed, and to the crusaders it
appeared a very marvel of strength,
Marghab could be seen for leagues, since it crowned the
AT THE TABLE OF THE HOSPITAL 327
summit of a solitary hill, twelve hundred feet above the sea.
Built of black basalt, upon foundations that extended far
into the ground, its towers overhung the steep slopes of the
hill. Men pointed with pride to its Great Tower, outthrust
from the end of the citadel, mightier in girth than any
other tower built by human hands. Yet below the Great
Tower were outer walls and a separate donjon. One crusader
has left this description of the master work of the Hospitalers:
We climbed to Margat, 1 a vast castle and well fortified, having a
double circuit of walls strengthened by many towers that seemed
rather to have been shaped to hold up the sky than to add to the
defense of this place for the mountain on which the castle stands
is most high, and appears like Atlas to sustain the firmament. The
slopes of the mountain are well cultivated, and the crops of its lands
amount to five hundred loads each year. Often the enemy at
tempted to plunder these rich harvests, but always in vain.
This castle held in check the Old Man of the Mountain, and the
sultan of Aleppo, so much so that in spite of the many castles they
owned, they were forced to pay to it an annual tribute of two thou
sand marks, to keep the peace. Every night, to prepare for any
eventuality and to guard against treachery, four knights and
twenty-eight soldiers mounted guard. In time of peace besides the
ordinary habitues of the place, the Hospitalers keep there a gar
rison of a thousand men, and the citadel is provisioned with all
needful things for five years.
The Arabs said that Marghab was impregnable except
to the angels. And even to the end it was never taken by
assault.
There the Hospitalers kept open house. In the evenings
after vespers a varied company gathered about the supper
tables, where the knights sat in the black habit of the order,
and the youths served them with meat and wine and fruit.
x The crusaders called it Margat, and apparently the Arabs christened it with a
name similar in sound. In this part of Syria the hillsides are terraced for cultivation.
These terraces, in the Thirteenth Century, must have been down near the base of
the mountain, because the summit is very rocky. Marghab could not have lacked
for water, because even to-day there is a well at the summit, and the ruin of a
reservoir a little way down the slope. The present writer made an examination of
the place and believes that an underground passage led from the castle to the
reservoir.
3 a8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
They were all men of gentle blood, the sons of nobles, and
they had come from so many lands that they were divided
into different "tongues * German, Italian, French, and
Provengal, English and Catalan and Spanish.
The crusaders, their guests, seated by the officers, won
dered at the talk of Eastern princes and arts for the Hos
pitalers had read, some of them, the Arab poets and the
geographer Idrisi, and the philosopher Averroes, whose
works had been banned by the Curia of Rome. They knew
of the ambition of the emperor Frederick and rather sym
pathized with him, perhaps because the Templars opposed
him.
These same Templars, the knights of the Hospital said,
had become their hereditary rivals. For one thing, the
Templars were mostly French and mostly monks, while at
the tables of the Hospital sat the younger sons of all Europe s
nobility. For another thing, circumstances had made the two
orders rival landlords in the troubles of the last generation
the old families of Outremer had disposed of the castles
and villages they could no longer maintain or guard to the
rich military orders. So the Hospitalers collected a road toll
from the bands of Templars who rode past Marghab s hills
and in their turn the Templars charged the white-cross men
a high price for the salt that was mined near Chateau Pelerin.
Then, too, the Templars were strict and stubborn, and
obedient to the bulls of Rome.
The nobility of the Hospital and the barons of Syria
had grown weary of the exactions of Rome. They were toler
ant and curious, and friendly to the new knowledge. They
discussed openly the new silver map of the world that Idrisi
was etching at the court of Palermo; they had libraries of
Arabic works forbidden by Rome. They mentioned Mu
hammad lightly, without crossing themselves, and they ar
gued deftly with the priests who came out as pilgrims
the priests who still said that the Arabs were servants of
Mahound, to be hunted down and slain.
The nobles of the Hospital had found the Arabs cultured
gentlemen, very wise in matters of politics and medicine
the Hospital, which had its first-aid work to do, took a pro-
AT THE TABLE OF THE HOSPITAL 329
fessional interest in that and much better company than
the priests who talked of war. Of necessity, the Arab amirs
and the Hospitalers fought at times, but they did not carry
the war around with them.
Gay was the talk, and strong the red wine of Cyprus.
At any hour the men at the table might be called upon to
lead a foray across the border, and they made the most of
the hours that were left to them. Their master was captive to
the sultan of Cairo, and many of their brethren who had been
sent south with the count of Champagne had come back
lying under their shields, to be buried in consecrated ground.
And the drinkers knew that their time also would come, when
the stonecutters would carve their name upon stone.
They knew the secrets of the frontier how the friendly
sultan of Damascus had returned the castles of Safed and
Belfort to the Templars to gain the pledge of their aid.
Truly, the sultan should have bethought him of the Hospital!
And they mocked the luxurious life of the nobles in Cyprus
who had the sea between them and the enemy. The men of
Cyprus had made the island safe for trade, indeed. They
stained their hair red with henna like the women aye, and
their fingernails. They had so much money that after they
had built French cathedrals in the pine forests, they could
afford to marry Venetian wives. The Venetians were licking
their chops over the island, and some day they would gulp it
down.
Meanwhile the Hospitalers had to go hunting for the As
sassins in their hills, and follow venturesome pilgrims to see
that they did not come to harm.
Always the pilgrims were glad in the great church of Beth
lehem. At home they had visited the places of many relics,
undoubtedly wonder working, and splendidly encased in
$ilver and gold. But here they were treading the ground that
the Magi had trod, and they threw themselves down to kiss
the threshold. They went forward between marble columns
golden in hue, worn at the base by the pressure of countless
bodies.
Quiet and most seemly was this place to their eyes. Above
330
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the twined leaves of the column heads glinted the mosaic
figures of the blessed saints that seemed to be floating up
ward. The sunlight, striking through windows of painted
glass, cast a mellow glow into every corner. Tears came into
the eyes of the wanderers, beholding such beauty in the place
that was, of all places, the most joyous.
"Ave Maria, gratia plena" their lips murmured.
They looked up at the soaring arches, hearing an echo of
their prayer in the space above them. They had cast off their
shoes; they had fasted, but heavy upon them they felt the
burden of the sins of life that they had brought with them to
this church of the blessed Mary. Some of them knelt by the
white marble barrier of the choir, not daring to go on.
They who ventured behind the choir passed between two
groups of slender twisted columns; they descended a stair
worn hollow by other feet before them until they came out
within a crypt where candles burned. They saw a gold star
set in the marble paving of the crypt. Beside the star stood a
man in armor, but wearing no sword. He did not move or
speak to them as they went to kneel at the side of the crypt
that opened downward into darkness.
In this spot the Magi had knelt, when the marble flooring
had been the earth floor of a stable, and, instead of a knight
in armor, an angel had stood guard over the birth of Mary s
Son.
The pilgrims went back into the golden light of the church.
"Lattart Regina Coeli" they sang. And they rejoiced as
they sang, because no man could visit this place, of all the
places on the earth, and not feel glad. They lingered in the
long nave, touching the walls with their hands, loath to go
out across the threshold again. When the light grew dim and
the echoes quickened in the arches above them, they went
forth.
They were the last to behold the church of Bethlehem as
the hands of the crusaders had built it.
XLIV
BEAUSEANT GOES FORWARD
3T HAPPENED with the swiftness of a storm in summer.
And it was over almost before the tidings of it had gone
across the sea.
The crusaders had had some warning. For the last three
years the Moslems of Damascus Arabs of Saladin s clans
had told the Hospitalers of the new scourge that had come
out of the East. From time to time the hoof beats of the Mon
gol horses passed near Aleppo, leaving destruction in their
tracks. In the summer of 1244 there was fighting where the
Turkomans tried to turn the riders of the horde from their
hills. But the Mongols themselves did not appear then in the
Holy Land.
Instead a smaller horde, fleeing before them, swam the
Euphrates and galloped headlong down to the southern des
ert where Gaza lay. The newcomers were Kharesmians
barbaric warriors of Turkish race, only less formidable than
the Mongols. They numbered more than ten thousand and
they had all the cunning and endurance of the nomads who
once hunted around Lake Aral. They had been driven far to
the west, to the sea itself, and now they looked around for
331
332 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
new lands and spoil as a wolf pack driven forth by a forest
fire looks for fresh hunting grounds.
In their path lay Jerusalem, dismantled of its walls. To
the Kharesmians the city was no different from others, and
it offered loot for the taking.
Over the ruined ramparts surged the horsemen of the
steppe, riding down the weak defense of the Christians who
took up arms against them. So suddenly had they come up
that the army of the Temple and Hospital had not time to
reach the city although, without walls to protect them, they
could have aided it little.
No chronicler has written the story of this destruction of
the city. It is said that seven thousand Christians, women
and children with the men, died there. The church doors were
beaten in, and the altars pillaged of their sacred vessels.
Torch in hand, the Kharesmians invaded the Sepulcher,
filling their saddle bags with the silver candlesticks and gold
ornaments. They broke open the tombs of Godfrey and
Baldwin, to search for jewels and gold. They smashed the
shrines, and when they left, the Sepulcher that had been
spared during generations of warfare was wrapped in flame
and smoke.
As swiftly as they had come, the horde departed. But on
their heels the Moslems of Cairo swarmed in, and the dese
crated Jerusalem was lost to the Christians.
The mamluks of Cairo saw in the advent of the pagan clan
a dangerous but a timely weapon. An army was sent from
Egypt to join forces with the Kharesmian khan, to advance
against Damascus and the lands of the crusaders. The com
bined strength of the invaders amounted to fifteen thou
sand horsemen, under command of a one-eyed mamluk
Baibars, the Panther. But the wild Kharesmian clansmen,
fresh from the central Asia wars, were more formidable even
than the mamluks.
Warned of the approaching peril, Sultan Ismail of Damas
cus assembled his forces and appealed urgently to the Tem
plars to make common cause with him pointing out that if
the Kharesmian horde took Damascus, the Holy Land would
suffer the same fate.
BEAUSANT GOES FORWARD 333
So the small armies of the Temple and the Hospital
always in readiness to take the field rode south, with the
patriarch of Jerusalem and the barons of the Holy Land.
They went as volunteers, for no king was there to summon
them to arms, and they went with full knowledge of the odds
against them they numbered some five hundred knights of
the Temple and two hundred Hospitalers, with perhaps ten
times as many men-at-arms of the two orders, and the liege
men of the barons. They found awaiting them, under com
mand of Al Mansur of Hamah, the Moslem cavalry of
Damascus, the army of the amir of Kerak. For the first
time the black and white banner Eeauseant of the Temple
and the cross of the patriarch were ranged beside the black
banners of Damascus. The crusaders had joined forces with
the great-grandsons of Saladin.
By mutual consent they rode south to give battle before
the Kharesmians and mamluks could invade their lands.
They descended from the hills into the dry brown plain that
led to the sandy waste and the salt marshes of Gaza. And
soon their scouts were in touch with the outposts of the mam
luks. A last camp, a grooming and saddling of the chargers,
and a moment of prayer in the half light before dawn, and
they got to horse, seeking their ranks.
The crusaders formed on the right of the allied army. In
their array, the Templars held the center, with the Hospital
ers and the barons under Walter of Brienne on either side.
In this order they advanced at a foot pace without sound,
while the drums and cymbals of Al Mansur resounded on
their left.
But it was the one-eyed Panther who struck the first blow
swift as a wolf to leap at an opening. He launched the dark
mass of Kharesmian horsemen against Al Mansur, in the
center of the allies. So devastating was the onset of the war
riors of the steppes, who plied their bows with deadly effect
as they came on before using their heavy, curved swords,
that the Damascus cavalry broke and gave way before them.
And the amir of Kerak, cut off on the far flank, could hold
his ground little longer.
In their first rush the Kharesmians had swept away two
334 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
thirds of the allied army, and now they advanced with the
mamluks, with a thunder of hoofs and a thrumming of ket
tledrums, against the men of the cross. Outnumbered and
nearly cut off, the crusaders stood fast. The mailed horsemen
of the Temple heard their master s horn resound. Beauseant
was carried forward, and the knights charged, with the deep-
throated chant:
"Lord, grant us victory not to us, but to the glory of
Thy holy Name."
Closing their ranks and casting away their spears, to use
their swords the others followed the familiar b^ack and white
banner into the mass of surging horses and exulting warriors
that pressed about them.
For hours they fought at bay, a hopeless fight. Beauseant
went down, not to be lifted again. Slain was the master of the
Temple. Around the lifted cross a desperate ring of men,
ahorse and afoot, with broken mail and bloodied weapons
fought, until silence fell over the battlefield and the riders
of the steppes flung themselves from the saddles to snatch
spoil from the dead.
Walter of Brienne was captive, with the master of the
Hospital. From the plain of Gaza only thirty-three Templars
and twenty-six Hospitalers and three Teutonic Knights es
caped that night, and of the nobles only the patriarch and
the seigneur of Tyre got away.
So was fought the Battle of Gaza, that lost Jerusalem and
the south of the Holy Land beyond remedy to the pagans
from mid-Asia.
The captives were driven in triumph to Cairo, with the
heads of their dead companions hanging from their necks.
But the Panther and his horde swept on. They ravaged
Hebron, ^and passed through Bethlehem, darkening the
streets with blood and stripping the great church of Mary
of its gold and ornaments. Damascus fell before their on
slaught, and the Egyptian sultan appeared, to take posses
sion of his new conquest.
With the war at an end, the Kharesmians no longer held
together. Scattering among the Moslem lords, they became
mamluks in their turn soldier-slaves, serving new masters.
BEAUSEANT GOES FORWARD 335
Most of them found their way into Egypt, to serve the mam-
luk general Baibars, who had come from the Tatars of the
Golden Horde, bringing with him the secret of victory.
But Jerusalem lay desolate, beyond reach of the crusaders
who had lost southern Palestine. Worse, the men of the cross
were no longer able to put an army in the field. The halls of
the Temple and the Hospital were stripped of half their men,
and the women of the crusaders castles mourned their dead.
As Hattin had destroyed the chivalry of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem, the Battle of Gaza crippled the defenders of the
Holy Land. While the knights of Chateau Pelerin and Acre
made ready to defend their strongholds they had tidings
from the North.
There the Mongols had appeared, after conquering the
Aleppo region, and Bohemund V, prince of Antioch and count
of Tripoli, knowing that resistance was useless, yielded to
them, agreeing to hold his lands as the vassal of the great
khan, and to pay a yearly ransom. This done, the Mongols
withdrew without wreaking destruction.
And the crusaders, clinging to the remaining strip of coast
between Marghab and Chateau Pelerin, sent appeal to
Europe for aid, while they prepared to defend their castles.
In these years from 1244 to I!2 47> the situation in the Holy
Land had changed as completely as when Saladin had swept
over it sixty years before. The military power of the crusaders
had been shattered, but more than that, the power of the
mamluks had grown, and the Mongol conquerors had ap
peared, to remain this time close at hand in the east.
The crusaders waited in suspense while two mighty
foemen marched and counter-marched across the hills of the
Holy Land. Without the support of a great crusade from
Europe, the Christians could not move from their castles.
XLV
THE B LACK YEARS
CNXIOUSLY the crusaders waited on the coast of Syria
for word from Europe. When a new ship came in, to
Acre or Chateau P&erin, they thronged down to the
shore to hear what tidings it might bring.
At first the news was encouraging. At last a new pope
had been elected the cardinal Sinibaldo Fieschi, who took
the name of Innocent IV, Now, surely there would be peace
and understanding between these long-antagonistic sover
eigns, the pope and the emperor! With Europe trembling
after the Mongol invasion, and with Jerusalem laid waste by
the other pagans, the two heads of Christendom would put
aside their quarrel and give aid! The Teutonic Knights at
Montfort said that the German emperor Frederick had of
fered to prepare and put himself at the head of a new crusade,
to confront these barbarians. But the robed priests shook
their heads, saying that this sacrilegious blasphemer was only
scheming for his own ends.
Then came startling tidings. Innocent IV had had to flee
from Rome, in the garb of a knight, to pass through Freder
ick s lines. He had taken refuge in France, summoning a
336
THE BLACK YEARS 337
council at Lyons. The crusaders waited eagerly to hear what
the council would do.
Gloomy tidings followed. The pope had declared a new
crusade, ordering tithes to be gathered in and indulgences
offered; but he had also deposed Frederick and had called
upon the German lords to elect another emperor. And Freder
ick had cried out against the papal court, "All the waters
of the Jordan will not wash away their thirst for power!"
Months passed, and the advance guard of the crusade did
not appear. Yet the tithes were gathered in, and taxes in
creased, and armed men were seen on all the roads of Europe.
Strange things were coming to pass, the travelers said.
Again the holy Father and the great emperor were at war, stir
ring up the men of the hamlets to take sides, seizing cities, and
thundering one against the other. Men who would have come
out to Syria found no ships to carry them for the Italian
merchants were on the side of the Church or the empire.
And throngs were taking refuge in convents and monaster
ies to escape the misery of the struggle that demanded taxes
of money from them, and took their goods, and menaced
them with purgatory or torture if they did not enlist in this
war of the pope and the emperor that stretched its arms into
every corner of the world. Heretics had been burned before
the Cathedral of Milan, and a priest had been seen standing
in the streets of Rome selling indulgences to crusaders who
passed through the city, relieving them of their vows to go
on crusade.
And weary souls by thousands were following after the
begging friars and the preaching friars who wandered through
the country, because it was better to live like the animals
under forest and sky and to leave their huts and fields than
to be burdened with the war. One man said he had seen thirty
heretics, women and men, burned before St. Mary s in Rome.
Others related that the churches were sending out judges
to investigate rumors of unbelief and heresy. These were
called inquisitors, and they were putting common people
and lords alike to the inquisition. It was whispered that Fred
erick had sought for peace, but Innocent would have none
of it because he was determined to crush Frederick, so that
338 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
he could raise the papacy over the ruins of the empire. . . .
Years passed, and the struggle grew more intense. No aid
came to Jerusalem, because all Christendom was divided
in the war, and no heed was paid to the few crusaders who
clung to the coast beyond the sea.
Innocent IV cast against Frederick all the manifold powers
of the Church. The benevolences of Scandinavian villages
and the taxes upon the nobles of Rome alike went to
strengthen the papal forces. From pulpit and monastery
doors, from legate and from canon, issued denunciation
of the emperor. Crusaders crosses were given to those who
served the papal side; those who opposed it were branded as
heretics.
Innocent wrote in secret to bishops in Germany, to check
the preaching of a general crusade while continuing to exhort
men to take up arms against the emperor. He ordered Frisian
crusaders held in Germany, when they were on their way to
the East. In May, 1249, he ordered William van Eyck to send
revenues collected for the Holy Land to the treasurers of
Rome. He spoke of Frederick as the great dragon who must
be overthrown before peace could be restored to Christen
dom, even while he refused the emperor s proffers of peace.
His agents turned Frederick s son against him.
The great emperor found himself striving against the re
sources of all Europe, collected through the demands of the
Church. Even in German towns tithes were gathered, to be
used against him. And Germany, weary of the Italian con
flict, was splitting up into factions and deserting him.
But more terrible than this was the ceaseless propaganda
that turned against him all the prejudices of Christians.
The masses of them began to look upon him with horror as
he went about among his soldiers; the bells of the churches
ceased ringing when he entered the towns. All his wit could
not do away with the black anger that was growing against
him in the hearts of men. He was outcast, accursed.
The faces of his officers became somber. Even in Palermo,
in the gardens of the palace, there was no respite. He was old,
now, and given to brooding.
THE BLACK YEARS 339
But he did not yield. In the beginning of Yule-tide, of the
year 1250, he died in the arms of his bastard son while the
Moslem archers of his guard stood about the chamber.
"The heavens are glad, and the earth rejoices!" cried
Innocent when the tidings reached him that the greatest of
the Hohenstaufen no longer opposed his will. In the next
years Frederick s son Conrad and his son were hunted from
their lands by the papal allies, until with fire and sword and
anathema every vestige of the Hohenstaufen was obliterated.
So did the Father of the Church abandon the crusaders, while he took
in his hand a sword to destroy his enemy.
But the fruits of victory turned bitter in the tasting. By
resorting to arms and refusing peace to his adversary,
Innocent had lost much of the allegiance of the common
people. The heavy taxes burdened them, and the general
disorder broke down old ties. Unrest grew, and took head.
The Italian cities, weary of the war, formed independent
communes and would no longer hear of Roman rule. Florence
shut its gates against the papal legates.
The French and English kings drew more apart from Rome
and the demands of the Curia. It was openly said that the
priests of Rome had pocketed the monies collected for the
last crusades, and men began to point in wonder and scorn
at the luxury of the papal court paid for by benevolences.
"By divers wiles the Roman Curia" said Matthew of
Paris, "strove to take their property from the simple people
of God, seeking nothing but their gold and silver/
And the German minstrel Walter von der Vogelweide made
a song out of it:
Little i methinksj of all this silver in God s cause is spent:
To part with a great treasure, priests are ill-content.
When Innocent at length would have gone about the
preaching of a Jerusalem crusade, there were murmurs of
anger and shrugs of indifference. In England men banded
together to protest against the levying of tithes for the
crusade. Even when Innocent offered indulgence of forty
340 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
days to be granted to all who would listen to a sermon on the
holy war, men turned aside. At Ratisbon the German burgh
ers, exhausted by the great war of the empire and the papacy,
announced that they would put to death anyone found wear
ing a cross upon his garments.
In the beginning, they said the golden pope Urban had
preached the first crusade to set Jerusalem free, and now
Innocent had declared a crusade against his own enemies.
Long ago the blessed Hildebrand had denounced the emperor
who had wished to make his own nobles churchmen; and
now Innocent wished to make his churchmen nobles.
The popes had called for the crusades, men exclaimed, and
they had gathered in money from the crusades money and
great power. But who had given an accounting of the money?
And who had answered for the defeats ?
In the hopeless years that followed, common people ceased
to trust in the old ideals. Instead of looking to Rome as the
seat of imperial power, they beheld the miasma of it, the fetid
courtyards of the feudal nobles, the assassinations, the
soul-sickness, the ceaseless wrangling over money that made
the once-proud city a spot of contamination for the Church
within it. After the last Hohenstaufen, they ceased to hope
for a superhuman emperor. No longer did they trust in the
imperium of the popes.
As plague and starvation had wrought upon the multitudes
just before the first crusade, the evils of the black years
stirred men anew. The slaughter of heretics, the fanaticism
of the wandering friars seeking the nepenthe of poverty, the
secret questioning of the inquisitors of the papal churches,
the terror that followed the advent of the Mongols, and the
exhaustion that came after the struggle between the emperor
and the papacy all these excited the common men, driving
them forth from their homes, as the children had been driven
forth by suffering and a craving for peace fifty years before.
In the winter-bound forests, groups of haggard people
wandered, crying like wolves, while the wolf packs preyed
upon deserted villages. Bands of men ran along the roads in a
kind of hopeless exultation. They abandoned churches to
seek the most fervent of the friars.
THE BLACK YEARS 341
A strange frenzy came upon the sufferers that winter.
The dance of death was beheld again in the world. Multitudes
rose up in the cities, to beat at the closed doors of the
churches.
"Peace peace!" they cried, "O Lord, give us Thy peace."
Some of them took refuge in the monasteries, eager for the
scourging and fasting that would torment their bodies in
the hope of calming the agony in their minds. Men called
them Flagellants.
Aged hermits were seen issuing from their cells and stum
bling upon weak legs toward the gatherings of the self-
tormentors. Over the frozen roads throngs marched at night,
barefoot, while priests among them raised high the crucifix.
From the forests emerged charcoal burners and woodcutters
and cowherds, stripping the upper garments from their gaunt
bodies men called them Pastorals.
Naked to the waist, with sacks thrown over their heads,
these men and women marched carrying lighted tapers in
their hands. Some of them flogged themselves as they went,
screaming with pain. Others flung up their arms toward the
dark sky, or cast themselves on the ground.
At times these marching bands closed around the churches
and sang the Black Mass. They broke into the prisons and
loosed thieves and condemned men. Again, they ran toward
the churches as if drawn by an irresistible power, and knelt
weeping before the altars.
They were marching on Rome. No one knew what drove
them on, or what they would do. They made their way
toward the great city, and when they swarmed through the
gates even the mobs of Rome were appalled. Terror reigned
in the city, and hardened men who had mocked all holy
things were struck by fear and hastened forth to scourge
themselves and bear their candles in the procession.
Thereafter, the popes had to flee from Rome to Avignon
for their long exile.
And out of the suffering and the wrongs of these genera
tions the seeds of the Reformation were sown.
The mills of fate had ground exceeding small and sure.
XLVI
THE KING S SHIP
^NE man had cometo the rescueof the Holy Land during
these dark years. He was Louis, king of France
that stubborn and debonair prince better known to
history as St. Louis.
The first day of June, 1249, when Frederick was making his
last stand against the papal power and the Flagellants and
Pastorals and the friars of Christendom were forming their
processions carrying black crosses, a great ship bearing the
crimson oriflamme ploughed through a tranquil sea, heading
south from Cyprus toward the flat shore of Egypt.
The ship, a galleass, bore within it a large and varied
company. Louis and his queen, Marguerite of Provence,
occupied the cabin of the after castle a space filled with
wooden chests and a sleeping pallet. Louis, who towered a
head above his courtiers, had to stoop and bend his knees to
enter it. Below this state cabin were cubicles filled with the
chests of the king s treasure and gear with guardsmen and
Marguerite s ladies.
On deck, rugs and canopies afforded the voyagers shade
and freedom of movement. By the mainmast an altar had
been erected, and the seamen had seen to it that a carved
34*
THE KING S SHIP 343
figure of St. Nicholas, patron of wayfarers, hung upon the
mast. From the after hatch smoke drifted up from the kit
chens, and the people on deck heard the clatter of pot lids
mingled with the clamor of the chickens and the pigs waiting
their turn for the pot.
Around the butt of the foremast clustered the passengers
who had marketing to do. Here the inevitable Armenians
had stacked their baskets of fruit with jars of olive oil and
piles of hard biscuit, rhubarb and vinegar and salt. They
had choicer things as well bits of oriental glass, rolls of
silk, and peacock feathers to catch the eyes of the women
pilgrims.
Beneath their feet on the main deck were the stables of the
war horses, and the cattle that provided both milk and meat
for the voyagers. Below the livestock in semi-darkness the
naked bodies of slaves moved back and forth monotonously
upon the long benches, swinging the heavy oars of the gal
leass, their hides smarting with salt cuts and maggots. But
each man guarded, under his bench, some small stock-in-
trade to be bartered at Damietta when he should be allowed
on shore. In the stench of sweat and bilge they breathed and
labored, their feet braced against timbers above the sand that
served as ballast and being cooled by the bilge water
cellar for the wine kegs of the great ship.
The weather held fair, and this was well. A storm, or even
a heavy swell, meant suffering for tlife men and beasts alike;
at such times the market place was deserted, the kitchens
became an inferno, and the passengers knelt in prayer to
St. Nicholas. But now the square sails painted with a crimson
cross flapped against the mast, or snapped out in a puff
of wind; gulls screamed round the mastheads, and flying
fish glittered fleetingly above the surface of the sea.
The galleass forged ahead with its king and its shrine and
its throngs of expectant souls peering into the haze of the
horizon for a sight of Egypt s shore. On either hand, as far
as the eye could see, other sails bore it company.
"A pleasant sight/ observed the young lord of Joinville,
"for it seemed as if the whole sea were covered with cloth,
from the great quantity of sails."
344 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
John, lord of Joinville and high seneschal of Champagne,
had an eager interest in everything that went on in the fleet
He shared one of the great ships with a knight of the Brienne
family. He admired very much a long galley painted with
shields of arms belonging to John of Ibelin, count of Jaffa.
Joinville himself was young and light of purse, and had not
been able to pay the travel expenses of his nine knights until
Louis took him into the royal pay and favor.
Like the other nobles and all the chivalry of France was
here upon the fleet with the king Joinville had entered upon
the crusade at the express wish of his sovereign. Like Louis,
he had donned a pilgrim s mantle, had paid all his debts at
home and borrowed what he could for the venture. Unlike
the king, the young knight had grieved frankly when he lost
sight of his lands and his wife. Joinville had in him a boyish
humor, and a blunt honesty of tongue that pleased Louis.
"I must say/ Joinville remarked once, "that he is a great
fool who shall put himself in danger of the sea having any
mortal sin on his conscience for when he goes to sleep in
the evening he knows not if in the morning he may find
himself under the sea."
"Better would it be/ the king observed, "to become a
leper than to have the guilt of a mortal sin."
"Thirty deadly sins would I rather commit/ the knight
said frankly, "than be a leper."
Louis shook his head in disapproval. The levity of his
nobles always troubled him, and a profane word angered
him. He had the face of a blond angel and the large un
troubled eyes of a child. He liked to clothe his tall, stooped
figure in somber camelet and woolen surcoat a friar s
habit would have liked him better. In fact he did carry a
pilgrim s staff and scrip at times, to the discomfort of his
officers. At table he ate patiently whatever was set before
him and turned the talk upon the teachings of the Fathers
when Joinville and the other courtiers would fain have jested
oHighter matters. Since the age of twelve he was now
thirty-fourhe had been king of France, and his marriage
to Marguerite had been a wedding of boyhood and girlhood.
The gentle tyranny of her husband s ideals weighed upon
THE KING S SHIP 345
the dark and willful girl of Provence. Louis argued gravely
that bright garments ill became his wife. Marguerite cher
ished her embroidered satins, but she did not wear them upon
the ship. When Louis once proposed that he should enter a
monastery and she should go to a nunnery, Marguerite
convinced him that they could do more good in the world
outside the cloister.
She had to contend as well with the jealousy of the queen
mother, the Queen Blanche, who was so watchful of Louis.
For the queen dowager [Joinville wrote] would not suffer her son
to accompany his lady, and prevented it as much as lay in her
power. When the king traveled through his lands with the twain,
Queen Blanche had him separated from his queen, and they were
never lodged in the same house. It happened one day while the
court lingered at Pontoise, that the king was lodged in the storey
above the apartments of his queen. He had given orders to the
ushers of his chamber that whenever he should go to lie with his
queen, and his mother was seen coming to his chambers or the
queen s, to beat the dogs until they cried out and thus gave warn
ing. Now one day Queen Blanche went to the queen s chamber,
whither her son had gone to comfort his lady for she was in danger
of death from a bad delivery. His mother, perceiving him, took
him by the hand and said,
"Come along you will do no good here."
Queen Margaret, seeing that she was to be separated from her
husband, cried aloud:
"Alas will you not allow me to be with my lord, neither when I
am alive, nor if I am dying ?"
Not until they fared forth on this ship did Marguerite
feel that she had her husband to herself although both she
and Blanche had dreaded the crusade. Louis had called for
the cross once when the strange illness, the fits of weakness
that came and went, was upon him. He had taken oath to do
battle for Jerusalem, and all the pleading of the women could
not turn him from his purpose.
To his devout and straightforward mind, the duty to
journey to the East and redeem Jerusalem was clear. 1
x He sailed to Egypt because his military advisers assured him that it was neces-,
sary to capture Cairo in order to move on Jerusalem.
346 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
He had tried vainly to make peace between pope and em
peror at the council of Lyons, and he had embarked finally in
spite of the opposition of both of them Frederick s open
ridicule, and Innocent s secret intrigue. While the pope re
strained crusaders in Italy from joining Louis, the emperor
wrote to the Egyptian sultan of his coming, and urged the
podesta of Genoa to delay outfitting the fleet, while he
prophesied the failure of the crusade.
But Louis of France had all the persistence of a friar and
all the ardor of the chivalry that was bred in the bones and
blood of him. And the proof of it was this fleet of eighteen
hundred sails moving over the quiet sea. He had the utter
faith of a Godfrey of Bouillon the faith that sometimes
works miracles.
And for once a great crusade was under a single command;
because even the legate of the papal court could not swerve
Louis from his course.
ST. LOUIS
King of France and leader of two crusades.
COURTESY OF MUS^E I,A VIGRRIE
ST. LOUIS CAPTIVE
St. Louis, captive of the Mamluks, offered the
Sultanate of Egypt.
FROM THE FRESCO BY CAB AN EL
XLVII
THE MIRACLE
the king s ship anchored off the beach of Da-
mietta, it seemed to the experienced Templars and
Syrian barons that a kindly providence watched over
the tall person of the first seigneur of France. Louis scanned
the shore his first sight of the lands of Islam and asked
who were the horsemen drawn up beyond the beach,
"Sire/ he was told, "they are Moslems/
Hearing this, Louis would have none of the advice of his
counselors who urged him to wait until the rest of the ships
came up. He ordered the oriflamme to be landed, and the
knights climbed down into the smaller galleys, running them
up on the beach and leaping out waist deep in the water.
The tall king stood with them when they beat off the charges
of the Moslem cavalry, forming in ranks with the points of
their shields in the sand and their lances braced against the
ground, Joinville heard the barons restrain Louis from riding
a course against the infidels alone.
The horses were landed, the chivalry mounted, the scarlet
banner of the oriflamme lifted, and Louis advanced to find
the shore deserted and the gates of Damietta standing open.
Even the French knights, who were wont to go forward first
347
34 8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
and investigate afterward, scented a trap in this. Scouts rode
into the gates and returned presently to report the houses
of Damietta empty, the streets littered, and only fugitives
to be seen, while the storehouses of the bazaars were burning.
The Moslem army and the garrison of Damietta had disap
peared. 1 The bridges of boats leading inland over the canals
were intact.
Louis commanded the prelates to sing a Te Deum, and
carried the oriflamme into the city that had withstood a
previous crusade for a year. It seemed to him that this was no
less than a manifestation of divine favor, but he was troubled
when the nobles plunged into looting and seized palaces for
their quarters.
"You could not throw a stone," he assured Joinville, "from
my house without striking a brothel kept by my attendants."
With Damietta thus miraculously placed in his hands,
Louis curbed the revelry of his vassals and waited until the
season of floods had passed. Then he called a council to dis
cuss what should next be done. Louis placed his trust alto
gether in providence; but he had passed many years in the
camp of war, and he relied upon the advice of his captains.
They were all at the council his three mighty brothers,
Alphonse of Poitiers and the reckless Robert, count of Artois,
and the silent Charles of Anjou, who had a giant s strength in
his limbs, who brooded over ambitions of his own, and slept
hardly at all. Daring soldiers sat beside them De Beaujeu,
constable of France, De Sonnac, master of the Temple, and
William Longsword, earl of Salisbury, leader of the English
swords. They were men of proved courage, victors in tourna
ment and battlefield, the very paladins of French chivalry.
The count of Artois would hear of nothing but an advance
on Cairo, where the Moslem army waited. "If you would
slay the snake," he cried, "strike first at the head."
The Moslems lost Damietta needlessly, by a sudden panic. The amir Fakhr
ad Din in command of the supporting army decided to withdraw from the shore
toward Cairo. Disturbed by this retreat, the officers of the Kanana clan, the gar
rison of ^the city, hastened to follow him after burning the arsenal, and a general
panic seized Damietta. The common soldiery and inhabitants fled from the walls,
leaving the gates open and all the bridges standing. The sultan at Cairo blamed
Fakhr ad Din severely and had fifty-one officers of the garrison strangled
THE MIRACLE 349
Other warier spirits argued for possession of the coast and
the capture of Alexandria. De Sonnac and the Longsword,
who were experienced in the warfare of the East, held their
peace. The opportunity was fair indeed they had 2,0,000
horse and 40,000 foot, fit and well armed. And the French
fought best in attack. Moreover, rumors had reached them
of the death of the sultan in Cairo and the disorder of the
Moslem army.
In fact it seemed to them as if fate had placed them in the
exact position of the first Egyptian crusade, when Brienne
and Pelagius had moved upon the city thirty years before.
But this time they had been careful to wait until Father Nile
had subsided.
Louis meditated and agreed with the opinion of his brother,
Robert, count of Artois.
So, leaving a strong garrison in Damietta, and placing
Queen Marguerite and the French noblewomen upon the
ships in the river, so that they should be secure from harm,
the army of France followed the oriflamme up the Nile.
They took the road of the other crusade, and the Moslems
again awaited the invaders at the fortified camp of Mansura
above the branch of the Nile.
Again the crusaders tents were pitched at the barrier of
gray water the slender barrier that must be bridged before
Mansura within sight of the barracks of the mamluks across
the river. The conditions, however, were not the same as
before. Louis had the greater strength in men; his armored
knights had been victorious in the skirmishing upon the road.
If he could throw his army across the river in good array,
the disordered mamluks could not stand against him.
He had only three obstacles to contend with the superior
battle craft of the professional Moslem soldiery, and their
war engines, and the river itself.
For weeks these three obstacles held back the oriflamme.
The French set to work to build a mole out into the river,
to effect a crossing. By wooden sheds and mighty stone
casters that they called chat-castels they protected the men at
work upon the mole.
But the, Moslems, while they dug away the bank on their
350 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
side opposite the mole, wrought havoc among the French
engines with their fire casters. It was Joinville s first sight of
the Greek fire, and he dreaded it mightily.
This Greek fire [he said] was like a great keg with a tail as
long as a spear. The noise it made was like thunder, and it re
sembled a dragon of fire flying through the air. At night it gave
so great a light that we could see objects in our camp as clearly
as in the day.
Joinville had reason to dread the flying fire that could not
be put out, even when it ran like an angry serpent along the
ground. He was on guard over the French engines in the night
and if the knights of the guard withdrew from the engines
they would be disgraced, while if they remained at their
posts within the great wooden machines they might well be
burned alive. Every time the Moslems shot a projectile over
the river he trembled. The French piled earth around the
engines and placed crossbowmen on the end of the mole be
hind a barricade to harass the Moslems; but in spite of their
efforts the mamluk engineers destroyed the king s machines
by a volley of projectiles launched at the same instant. It
happened during the day, when Joinville was off duty.
The count of Anjou was almost mad at seeing this [he said]
for the engines were under his guard. He wanted to throw him
self into the fire, while I and my knights gave thanks to God,
for if this attack had come in the night we must all have been
burned.
Louis had timbers brought up from the ships dismantling
a great part of his fleet to do so and the engines rebuilt.
To show that no blame attached to the count of Anjou, he
placed them again under his brother s command during the
day, and again the Moslems destroyed them first clearing
away the French soldiers by a barrage of missiles and arrows.
The feelings of the outraged lord of Anjou are not related,
but Joinville and his knights rejoiced frankly in their second
escape.
Then Louis called a council, and the engines were heard of
THE MIRACLE 351
no more. The Moslems had proved more than a match for the
French engineers, but De Beaujeu and the Templars had
hit upon another way of getting across the river. They had
found an Arab who swore that he would lead them to a ford
below the town of Mansura where mounted men could safely
gain the other bank. It was decided to make the attempt.
Meanwhile in Cairo there was whispering and fear. Sultan
Ayub, the grim and solitary, was no longer to be seen. He
had been the friend of the Prankish emperor Frederick; he
had tamed the Kharesmians; he had held the White Slaves
of the River reined in; for long he had been ailing, and now
his hour had come and he no longer appeared in divan or
garden court. The whispers said that he had died, but what
proof was to be had?
The mamluk lords still dismounted in his courtyards to go
into the Presence and receive their orders. Petitions were still
sent in, and official papers came forth signed. The Great
Palace held fast to its secret in this time of stress.
The lords of the mamluks knew, and the black eunuchs of
the sultan s chambers knew, and the Master of the House
hold knew but the mobs of Cairo did not: that the sultan
lay in his tomb, and a young slave girl sat in his sitting place.
She was Shadjar ad Darr Pearl Spray and she gave the
orders to the veteran mamluks, to Ai Beg the Kurd and to
one-eyed Baibars the Panther. She signed the official acts,
which were sealed with Ayub s seal. She smiled at the whis
pering, and cajoled the officers and filled the slaves of the
palace with dread of her anger.
She played at being a king, barkening to all the currents
of intrigue that filled the bazaars of Cairo. And by her wit
and daring she kept the palace quiet while the war went on
against the Franks. Ai Beg wooed her, and she promised to
wed him; Baibars watched her intently with his one good eye,
but she would not reveal to the Panther what she had said
to the Kurd. She gathered taxes and sold jewels secretly
to buy grain for the mamluks she matched treachery with
deeper guile, and before long the whispers greeted her, queen
of the Moslems.
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
In spite of the Prophet who had cried that a land ruled by
a woman was accursed, Pearl Spray ruled Cairo. No woman
since the Prophet s wife had ever held dominion over Mos
lems, but Pearl Spray ruled.
She could not go forth into the public gaze, of course, and
the French knights at Mansura dreamed of nothing less than
that they were making war upon a girl. Behind the screen of
the harim Pearl Spray sat with smooth brow, her henna-
stained fingers playing with documents of state and her
brown eyes meditative. Should the mamluks gain a victory
over the Nazarene knights, she might become indeed queen
of Egypt should her mamluks be overthrown, she would be
cast aside, like a girl slave who has lost her beauty.
So she waited until the day in February when a messenger
pigeon was caught at the Nasr gate and the message cried
at the palace doors, "Woe to Islam! The Franks are across
the river. They have slain Fakhr ad Din and have raised
their standards in the Moslem camp."
XLVIII
SHROVE TUESDAY S BATTLE
> EFORE dawn that day St. Louis and the peers of France
were in the saddle, full armed. They left the dark
camp under command of the duke of Burgundy and
the Syrian knights, and with De Beaujeu and the Arab
guide leading the Templars of the van, they trotted off
into the mist to seek the ford. With them went the bulk of
the cavalry the count of Artois with his knights treading
close on the heels of the Templars, along the slippery clay
bank of the river, and a regiment of horse archers following.
The king himself took command of the main body of the
attacking column.
They had agreed that the Templars and the count of
Artois were to advance across the ford, and scatter whatever
Moslems might be encountered on the other bank. Then they
were to hold their ground until the main force of the cavalry
with the king could cross .the ford and form in ranks. After
that they were to press on toward Mansura, while the in
fantry, left in the camp, worked to finish the mole and gain
contact with the cavalry at the town.
Such was the plan. And as at Damietta, fortune favored
353
354
THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Louis. The Arab had not lied. Mist still covered the river
when the leading horses splashed into the current, wading
through the muddy water that had concealed the ford from
them until now.
Not until the Templars had emerged on the far bank were
they seen by the Moslem outpost at that end of the ford.
Before the onset of the knights the Moslems only several
hundred strong broke and fled. So the Templars held the
bank, and the men of Artois hastened across with the English
under the Longsword. Some fourteen hundred horsemen
were now on the Moslem bank.
Then Robert of Artois acted on his own account. Seeing
the Moslem outposts fleeing toward the gardens of Mansura,
he gave order to his followers to go past the Templars and
pursue.
"Forward!" he cried. "Forward!"
His knights echoed the cry, when De Sonnac, master of
the Temple, rode up and grasped at his rein. "My lord," he
remonstrated, "bethink thee of the king s command! We
must hold to our ranks."
"Then abide where thou wilt," the French count exclaimed,
"but I shall not hold back from the enemy."
"My lord," said Longsword, the English earl, "the host
of the enemy lies yonder, and if we ride on, I warrant we
shall not ride back again."
The count s hot temper flamed. "Your crop-tailed English
are valiant laggards," he gibed.
The insult proved too much for the better sense of the earl
of Salisbury.
"No man may say," he retorted grimly, "that I dare not
set my foot where he will go!"
He called to his men, and De Sonnac at the same instant
ordered the Templars to advance. With the rash count of
Artois and the French knights leading, they all galloped
upon the Moslem tents and the streets of Mansura. And as
the other contingents of crusaders scrambled up the bank,
they hastened after the first comers, who by now were spread
across the plain in a headlong charge without formation
French, Templars, and English all striving to lead the way
SHROVE TUESDAY S BATTLE 355
into the Moslem tents. It was a very gallant and disastrous
charge.
For an hour it swept everything before it. In the town the
mamluks, swarming from their barracks, had no time to
draw up in ranks. Some of them mounted and fled, others
took refuge in the buildings. The amir, Fakhr ad Din, ran
from a bath house where a barber had been dyeing his beard,
and got to horse scantily clad. A group of crusaders bore down
upon him and killed him.
The charge slowed up in the avenues of tents from which
the Moslem archers were sending their shafts. Detachments
of the crusaders forced their way through the alleys of Man-
sura at the heels of the retreating mamluks and galloped on,
along the road toward Cairo. But the bulk of the cavalry
found its path blocked in the town, where the heavily armed
knights urged their powerful chargers through narrow alleys
that ended in blind walls or courtyards filled with aroused
Moslems. Above their heads and beyond reach of their spears
the swarthy mamluks appeared on the flat roofs of the houses,
launching crossbow bolts and javelins at them. Rocks and
massive jars dropped from above split the shields of the
knights and crushed in their helmets, while arrows took toll
of their horses. They had no infantry with them, and they
dared not dismount. They gathered into stubborn groups,
separated in the streets, and fought hand to hand against the
mamluks who knew every corner and gateway of the ^ town.
True to his word, William Longsword, earl of Salisbury,
pressed on as long as he could carve a way for himself, and
was slain with his men. The Templars held their ground
valiantly against odds, and without thought of retreat. Three
hundred of them perished in the alleys of Mansura with
almost all of the mounted archers.
Meanwhile the horsemen of the count of Poitiers had joined
in the fighting that extended over the plain beyond the town
and the camp. The battle became a kaleidoscope of individual
conflicts, one group hurling itself against another, with men
separated from their standards. Into this mlee the one-
eyed Panther hurled himself, coming up with his mamluks
who were known as the White Slaves of the River.
356 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
His counter-attack was in time to cut off the French
knights who were riding back from their pursuit up the
Cairo road. Some of them managed to reach Mansura again,
but could not pass through the town. Surrounded by Mos
lems, the count of Artois was slain, with the lord of Coucy.
Joinville, it seems, had followed the first wave of the at
tack. What befell him and the king of France he relates in
his own words 1 :
It chanced that my knights and I had passed quite through the
army of the Saracens, and saw here and there parties of them
about six thousand in all who had abandoned their quarters and
had advanced into the plain. On seeing that we were separated
from the main body, they attacked us boldly and slew Sir Hugues
de Trichatel, who bore the banner of my company. They also
made prisoner Sir Raoul de Wanon, whom they struck to the
ground. As they were carrying him off, we recognized him and
spurred our horses to hasten to his assistance. The Turks gave me
such heavy blows that my horse could not stand up under them
and fell to his knees, throwing me over his head.
I quickly pulled my shield over my breast and picked up my
sword, while the lord Errart d Esmeray whose soul may God
receive in mercy came toward me. He also had been struck from
his horse by the enemy. We went off together toward an old ruined
house to await the coming of the king, and as we did so I managed
to recover my horse.
As we were going toward the house, a large band of Turks came
upon us at the gallop; but they turned aside to a party of our men
close by. In passing, they struck me to the ground and snatched
my shield over my neck, and galloped over me, thinking that I
was dead and indeed I was very nearly so.
When they had gone my companion, Sir Errart, raised me up,
and we reached the walls of the ruined house. There we found Sir
Hugues d Escosse, Sir Ferreys de Loppey, Sir Regnault de Menon-
court, and several others, and there also the Turks came from all
sides to attack us. Some of them forced their way into the walls,
and thrust at us with their spears while my knights gave me my
horse which I took by the rein, lest he run away again.
When this book was written in Rome, the author could not obtain any text of
Joinville except the early translation in Bohn s Chronicles of the Crusades. He
edited and condensed this translation, and has since corrected the narrative from
De Wailly s edition of the medieval French of Joinville s chronicle.
SHROVE TUESDAY S BATTLE 357
Sir Hugues d Escosse was desperately hurt, having three lance
wounds in the face and body. Sir Raoul and Sir Ferreys were also
badly wounded in their shoulders, so that the blood spouted from
them like wine from a tun that is tapped. Sir Errart had been struck
in the face by a sword which had cut off his nose, so that it hung
down over his mouth.
"Sir," he said to me, "if I did not think you might believe that I
did it to save myself, I would go to my lord of Anjou, whom I see in
the plain, and beg him to hasten to your aid."
"You will honor and pleasure me, Sir Errart," I replied, "if you
go and seek aid for our lives for your own is also in great peril."
And I said sooth, since he died a little later of the wound he had.
All agreed that he should seek assistance, and he galloped toward
the count of Anjou. There was a great lord with the count, who
wished to hold him back from us, but the good Charles would not
listen. With his men following he galloped toward us, and the
Saracens drew off when they saw him.
A little after this I saw the king. He came up with all his attend
ants, in a clamor of trumpets. He halted on a rise of ground to say
something to his men-at-arms, and I assure you I never beheld so
handsome a man under arms. He towered shoulder high above his
company, and his gilded helm was crested with two fleur-de-lys,
and in his hand he bore a long German sword. At the sight of him
my knights and I, all wounded as we were, became impatient to
join the battle again with him. An esquire brought up one of my
Flemish war horses, and I was soon mounted and at the side of the
king whom I found attended by that experienced man, Sir John de
Valeri. Sir John advised him seeing that the king desired to enter
the midst of the fightingto make for the river on the right, where
he might be supported by the duke of Burgundy and the army that
had been left at the camp and where his men might have water
to drink, for the heat was very great. 1
As we were doing this, Sir Humbert de Beaujeu, constable of
France, came up and told the king that his brother, the count
d Artois, was hard pressed in a house at Mansura, and entreated
the king to go to his aid.
"Spur forward, Constable," cried the king, "and I will follow
you close."
x The French cavalry, which was all across the ford by now, had made a half
circle to reach Mansura, so it was now opposite its own camp and the mole that the
infantry was trying to throw across the last gap of the river, to advance to the aid
of the cavalry.
358 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
All of us now galloped straight to Mansura into the midst of the
Turkish army, where we were separated from each other at once
by the greater numbers of the enemy. I kept with the constable, and
soon a sergeant came to him, saying that the king was surrounded
by Turks and in great danger. Amazed and fearful for the king, we
looked around and beheld hundreds of the Turks between us and
him and we were only six in all. I said to the constable that we
could never make our way through them we must circle round
them. This we did, taking to a deep ditch by the road, so the Sara
cens who were occupied with the king s followers did not see us.
Perhaps they took us for some of their men.
We came out of the ditch at the river and saw that the king had
retired hither, the Saracens pressing after him. Here the Saracens
were striking with mace and sword, until our plight became miser
able indeed since some of our men tried to swim their horses over
the river toward the duke of Burgundy, but the horses were worn
out, and we saw shields, horses and men go down into the water.
You must believe me when I say that the good king performed
that day the most gallant deeds that I ever saw in any battle.
Wherever he saw his men distressed he forced himself in and gave
such blows with battle ax and sword, it was wonderful to behold.
A small bridge was close at hand, and I said to the constable that
we would guard it, so that the king might not be attacked from
this side. And we did so.
After some little time the count Peter of Brittany came to us as
we were guarding this bridge. The count was mounted on a short
but strong horse, and the reins had been cut through and destroyed,
so that he was forced to hold himself by his two hands round the
pommel of his saddle, so that he should not fall off in the path of
the Turks who were close behind him. He had been wounded
in the face and the blood came out of his mouth like water. He did
not, however, seem much afraid, for he turned his head frequently
and mocked the Turks.
"Ho!" he cried to us. "By God, have you seen these attendants
of mine?"
The constable told me to defend this bridge and not on any
account to quit it, while he went to seek for succor. I was sitting
quietly there on my horse, having my cousin Sir Jean de Soissons
on my right and Sir Pierre de Nouilly on my left hand, when a Turk
galloped up from where the king was, and struck Sir Pierre so
heavy a blow upon the back with his battle ax that it flung him
across the neck of his horse. Then the Turk crossed the bridge to his
SHROVE TUESDAY S BATTLE 359
own people, hoping that we would abandon our post and follow
him, so his companions might gain the bridge.
But we would not quit our post. In front of us were two of the
king s heralds, Guillaume de Bron and Jean de Gaymaches.
Against them the Turks led a rabble on foot, who pelted the
twain with large stones. At last they brought up a villainous 1
Turk who thrice flung Greek fire at them, setting the tabard of
Guillaume de Bron on fire. Once Guillaume de Bron caught the
pot of Greek fire on his shield, and good need had he for if the
flames had caught his clothing he must have been burned.
The stones and arrows of the Turks which missed the sergeants
hit us. Luckily I found on the ground near me a quilted coat of
coarse cloth that had belonged to a Saracen, and by turning the
opening inward I made of it a kind of shield which was of great
service to me. For I was only wounded in five places, while my
horse was hurt in fifteen. Soon after, one of my vassals of Joinville
brought me a banner with my arms on it and a lance head of which
I was in need. Then, when the Turkish villains pressed upon the
two heralds, we charged them, bearing the banner, and put them to
flight.
When we were returning to our post at the bridge, the good count
De Soissons rallied me about chasing such peasants. "Seneschal,
let the rabble brawl and bray," he said, "but by the Cresse Dieu,
you and I shall yet talk over this day s adventures in the chambers
of our ladies."
Toward sunset the constable returned, bringing with him some
of the king s crossbowmen on foot. They drew up in front of us,
while we horsemen dismounted behind them, and the Saracens
went away when they saw the crossbows. The constable then said
to me, "Seneschal, it is well enough here. Go off to the king and do
not leave him until he dismounts in his pavilion."
So I went to the king at the same moment Sir Jean de Valeri
came up. The king then took the road to return to his pavilion, 2
x The Christian knights had always held the use of Greek fire and projectiles to
be infamous. In this generation of St. Louis, the French chevaliers disdained to make
use of the crossbow or long-bow. The lance and sword seemed to them to be the
only honorable weapons. Joinville s narrative makes clear how the Moslems, unable
to stand against the onset of the heavily armed French riders, tried to trick them,
or disable them with missiles, or beat them from the saddle. The Moslems made full
use of the battle ax and iron mace, to break the heavy mail mesh of the knights.
It was a contest of gallant gentlemen against professional soldiers.
*St. Louis pitched his tents that night on the Moslem side of $e river, thus
separating his army into two parts.
360 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
and raised the helm from his head, so I gave him my round iron cap
which was much lighter than his helm, and cooler. We were riding
together across the river when the provost Henri came to him
and kissed his mailed hand. Then the king asked if he had tidings
of his brother, the count of Artois.
"Yes, certainly/ answered the provost, "I have heard that he
is now in paradise."
The provost thought to comfort him for the death of his brother,
and said, "Sire, no king of France has gained such honor as you
have gained this day."
" We should praise God for what hath come to us."
So said the king, and heavy tears began to run down his cheeks,
which many persons noticed. When we arrived at our quarters,
we found our pavilions half up; numbers of Saracens on foot had
seized some of the cords and were pulling with all their might, while
our servants pulled the other way. De Sonnac, master of the Tem
ple, and I charged this rabble and drove them off from the tent.
So ended this battle in which many men of grand manners had
fled over the river, leaving us few to fight alone. I could mention
their names but I will not, because they are dead now.
These Saracens, a powerful people called OBeda wins, were running
about the abandoned camp of the Turks* seizing and carrying off
whatever they could find. The Bedawins were subjects of the Turks,
but they always pillaged the side that was worsted in battle. These
Bedawins reside not in any town but live in the deserts and moun
tains; they lie in the fields, making themselves habitations by stick
ing in the ground poles joined to hoops like to what women use in
drying clothes and over the hoops they throw tanned sheepskins.
They wear cloaks of hair, and when it is cold or they wish to
sleep, they wrap themselves up in the cloaks. In the morning they
spread their cloaks in the sun to dry. Those of them who follow
the wars always keep their horses near them at night; otherwise
they do not arm themselves differently, for they say that no one
will die except in the hour appointed. In battle they wield a sword
curved after the Turkish manner, and clothe themselves in white
linen-like surplices. They are hideous to look at, for their beards
and hair are long and black. They live on the milk from their herds,
and their numbers are not to be counted for they dwell throughout
all the lands of the Saracens. . . .
That evening my people brought me from the main army a tent
which the master of the Templars had given me. I had it f^phed
in front of the engines we had won from the enemy, anjfafter
SHROVE TUESDAY S BATTLE 361
the king had posted a guard of sergeants by the engines we sought
repose, of which, indeed, we had great need, by reason of the
wounds and fatigue we had endured in the battle.
Before daybreak, however, we were aroused by cries of "To
arms to arms!" And I made my chamberlain who lay by my side
rise and go out to see what was the matter. He returned at once,
much frightened, and cried out, "My lord, up instantly! The
Saracens have defeated the guard and have entered the camp."
"By Saint Nicholas," I cried, "they will not stay here long!"
I rose at once, threw a quilted jacket on my back, and thrust my
iron cap on my head, and rousing my people wounded as they
were we drove the Saracens from the engines they were seeking
to recover. The king, seeing that scarcely any of us had proper
armor on, sent Walter of Chastillon, who posted himself between
us and the Turks.
Eight of the Turks, armed from head to foot, dismounted and
built themselves a rampart of large stones to shelter them from our
crossbows, and from this rampart they shot arrows that often
wounded our men. I took counsel with my men-at-arms as to how
we might destroy this rampart.
Now I had a priest called Jean de Waysy, who overheard our
talk, and did not wait for us to act. Alone, in quilted jacket and
iron cap, with his sword under his arm, the point dragging so
the Saracens would not notice it, he set out toward the Saracens.
He came near to them because they took no thought of one man
walking out alone. Then he rushed at them furiously, and gave
such blows to these eight captains that they could not defend them
selves, and took to flight. This astonished all the other Saracens.
My priest was well known thereafter to all our army, and men said
when they saw him, "That is the priest who, alone, defeated the
Saracens."
This happened during the first day of Lent, and that same day
the Saracens elected another chief in the place of him who had died
on Shrove Tuesday. The new chief found the body of the count of
Artois among the dead, and took the count s coat of armor, hoisting
it before the Turks and Saracens, saying that the king their enemy
had been slain.
Spies informed the king of this, and said that the enemy, be
lieving him dead, meant to attack us.
Stoutly had the chevaliers of France borne themselves in
this battle; long had they held their ground against odds;
362 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
fearlessly had St. Louis risked his body in the conflict.
They had gained a footing across the river, hard by the sham
bles of Mansura they had pushed the earth mole across the
river, and the king s pavilion was pitched on the far side.
They were ready now to advance again.
But they had been defeated. The rash onset of the count
of Artois had worked more woe than weal; the flower of the
chivalry had perished with the mounted archers in the streets
of Mansura. 1 Half of the French cavalry was dead, missing,
or wounded, and with the shattering of the cavalry, the army
lost its power to attack.
Like bees whose hive has been broken in, the mamluks
swarmed about Mansura. And the messenger pigeons flew
north to the palace of Cairo where Pearl Spray waited, with
tidings of victory. The feeling in the city changed overnight
from despondency to rejoicing. The streets were illuminated
musicians came forth to chant in triumph, and mamluks
riding through the streets were showered with the blessings
of the populace that had been ready to flee the day before.
*The Moslem annals give a clear account of the crisis of the battle:
"The whole cavalry of the French advanced to Mansura, and after forcing
one of the gates, entered the town while the Moslems fled to right and left. The king
of France had penetrated as far as the sultan s palace and victory seemed to be his,
when the Baharite slaves led by Baibars came forward and snatched it from his
hands. Their charge was so furious that the French were forced to retreat.
" During this time the French infantry had advanced as far as the bridge. Had
they been able to join the cavalry, the defeat of the Egyptian army and the loss of
Mansura would have been inevitable.
"At nightfall the French retreated in disorder, leaving fifteen hundred of their
horsemen on the field. They surrounded their camp with a wall; but their army was
divided into two bodies, the lesser camped on the branch of the Ashmun, the greater
on the large branch of the Nile that runs to Damietta."
XLIX
ST. LOUIS AT BAY
N THE evening before the battle of Shrove Tuesday,
Turan Shah, the son of the late sultan, had arrived at
the Mansura camp after riding from the far side of
Syria to take command against the crusaders. Turan Shah,
more cruel than the mamluks and even at the age of
twenty-five a prey to his vices, still had the instinct of leader
ship in war, and although he was practically a stranger to
the mamluks, his orders were obeyed in the crisis.
During the battle the crusaders, unknowing, had almost
taken him captive in one of the Mansura palaces; but as
soon as order was restored the sultan s son who was the
new chieftain mentioned by Joinville prepared to move
against the Christians. While he mustered his cavalry, he
dismantled a fleet of galleys at Cairo and had the timbers
transported on camel back down the river to a point below
the two camps of the crusaders, between them and Damietta.
But he did not wait for the galleys to be rebuilt before he
struck at the French king to drive him from the Mansura
side of the river. For this blow he found the veteran soldiers
under the Panther more than ready.
363
364 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Joinville, who had ample opportunity to make their ac
quaintance thereafter, explains the character of these soldier-
slaves recruited from every people and trained to lifelong
service in arms a kind of Foreign Legion that was, with the
Mongol army, perhaps the only professional soldiery of the
time.
It is needful to tell you how the sultan gained his men-at-arms
and how his army was made up. It is true that the greater part of
his chivalry was formed by foreigners 1 whom the merchants of the
sea had bought when young and whom the Egyptians purchased.
They came mostly from the east. The children born from these
captives the sultan supported and educated, and taught the use of
weapons and bows often watching them display their skill before
him.
As they gained strength, their small weapons were exchanged for
full-sized arms, and when their beards grew they became knights.
These youths bore the arms of the sultan and were called Bahairiz;
their emblazonments were like his of pure gold, save that, to distin
guish one from another, they added red bars with roses, birds,
griffins, or other devices. They were called the halka or king s
guard.
When the sultan wanted anything, he summoned the commander
of the halka, who mustered the guard by sounding clarions, trum
pets, and drums, and told to them the pleasure of the sultan
which they instantly obeyed. When the sultan went to war, he
appointed captains called amirs from the ranks of the halka to
command his other men-at-arms. And, as they displayed merit,
the sultan rewarded them more, so that every one tried to surpass
the other.
On Friday of that week Baibars and his White Slaves of
the River, the halka> the regiments of Cairo, and the Arab
clans assailed the lines of the Christians across the river.
*At this time the mamluks were recruited mostly from the Bulgars, the Khares-
mian Turks, Tatars of the Golden Horde and Turkomans. Many Georgian and
Circassian boys were also brought to Cairo. So the bulk of the mamluks were
white the Turks were a white race. They were brought up in the faith of Islam,
and many were volunteers from far Asia. For more than five centuries, unruly as
they were, they ruled Egypt only at times under the overlordship of Constanti
nople until the coming of Napoleon.
ST. LOUIS AT BAY 365
The roar of Allahu akbar and the mamluk drums drowned
the battle shout of Montjoie, St. Denis.
Through the stress of the battle moved the tall figure of the
French king, the fleur-de-lys gleaming on his helmet. Tran
quil and confident, he went among his knights, looking eag
erly for signs of the victory that would open the road to
Cairo. He watched the mamluks advance in separate squares
with infantry thrown before them to cast liquid fire at the
line of the crusaders. He saved the battalion of the count of
Anjou from rout, although the hide and tail of his own horse
were scorched by the flames.
He saw the Moslems burn the wooden barrier before the
line of the master of the Temple, and go through the fire
to rout the Templars, after De Sonnac, who had lost the
sight of one eye on Tuesday, was slain. He watched De
Malvoisin escape the fire projectiles and drive back the
Moslems. He heard that the count of Flanders held good his
ground, and that his brother, the count of Poitiers, had been
taken captive, and freed by a strange and unlooked-for rush
of the women and butchers and hangers-on of the Christian
camp, who assailed the Moslem horsemen with axes and
staves and knives. . . .
And at sunset the French still held their lines, when St.
Louis went among them, being weary himself but mindful
of their hurts for many a chevalier had died that day
and spoke with them. "My lords and friends, our Lord hath
shown us grace this day, for we have defended ourselves,
very many of us being without arms, while they were full
armed and on their own ground."
"This battle of Friday/ Joinville said ruefully, "was mar
velous sharp and severe."
It became clear to the king that he could not advance
toward Cairo; but he would not retire from his new position.
The Moslems were willing to grant him a respite while they
extended their lines to surround the Christian army, and
waited for their fleet to come into action down the river.
Three weeks passed, and ships ceased to come up the river
from Damietta to the Christian camp. Food became scarce,
and wounds festered in the airless, moist heat of the delta.
366 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
The crusaders could not go beyond their lines, nor could
they discover why the ships did not come to them with
supplies.
Meanwhile, something had happened to try the spirits
of the knights who had paid no heed to the mocking of the
mamluks who rode over to taunt them. Joinville witnessed it,
and told what befell thereafter:
After eight or ten days the bodies of the slain which had been
thrown into the Nile rose to the top of the water. It was said that
this always happens when the gall is burst. These bodies floated
down the river until they came to the small bridge that joined the
two portions of our army together. The arch of the bridge was so
low, it almost touched the water and kept the bodies from floating
underneath, so that the river became covered with them and the
water could not be seen a good stone s throw from the bridge
upward.
The king hired men who labored for eight days separating the
bodies of the Christians from the Saracens; the Saracen bodies they
thrust under the bridge by sheer force, floating them down to the
sea; but the Christians were buried in deep graves, one over the
other. God knows how great was the stench, and what misery it was
to see the bodies of such noble and worthy men lying so exposed.
I watched many hunting the bodies of their friends. They did
not find the bodies, but they themselves suffered from infection.
It was the time of Lent, and you should know that we had no fish
to eat but eels, which are a gluttonous fish and feed on decaying
bodies. From this, and the bad air of the country, the whole army
was affected by a disease that dried up our flesh and tanned our
skins as black as the ground. Eating such fish also rotted the gums.
This disease increased so much that the barbers were called
upon to cut the rotten flesh from the gums, so that their patients
could eat. It was pitiful to hear the cries of those on whom the
operation was being performed; they seemed like to the cries of
women in labor. Some of the afflicted men began bleeding at the
nose, and when that happened they died.
^ The Turks, who knew our plight, made shift to cure us by starva
tion, and I shall tell you how they did it.
They had drawn their galleys overland and launched them
again a good league below our army, so that those of us who had
gone down to Damietta for provisions never returned to our great
ST. LOUIS AT BAY 367
astonishment. We knew nothing of this until a small galley of the
earl of Flanders, having forced a passage through to us, related how
the Turks had their galleys below us, and had already captured
four-score of ours and killed the crews.
Because of this all provision was exceeding dear in the army,
and when Easter arrived a beef was sold for eighty livres, a sheep or
hog for thirty livres, a muid of wine for ten livres, and an egg for
a dozen pennies.
At this time I was confined to my bed, having been grievously
wounded in the battle of Shrove Tuesday. I had, besides, the camp
plague in my legs and mouth and such a rheum in my head it
ran through my mouth and nostrils. Moreover, I had a double
fever called a quartan, from which God defend us !
Even my priest had the plague, and one day when he was chant
ing the Mass he became so weak that I leaped out of bed without
breeches on, to support him. He finished his chanting but that was
his last Mass,
When the king and his barons saw that there was no remedy for
these ills, they withdrew the army from the Cairo side of the river
to the camp of the duke of Burgundy. It is true that they held some
parleys with the council of the sultan. But the Turks refused to
accept of any hostage other than the person of the king, and it were
better that we should all be slain than that we should give our king
in pawn.
Then the good king, Saint Louis, seeing the miserable condition
of his army, understood that he could no longer remain where he
was, and gave order to march on the Tuesday evening after the
octave of Easter, and return to Damietta.
He gave commands to the masters of the galleys to have them
ready to convey the sick and wounded to Damietta. He likewise
ordered Josselin de Corvant and the other engineers to cut the
cords that held the bridges between us and the Saracens; but they
neglected to do so, which was the cause of much evil befalling us.
Seeing that every one was making ready to go to Damietta, I
went on board my vessel in the afternoon with two of my knights
all that remained to me and the survivors of my household. When
it began to grow dark I ordered my seamen to raise the anchor, that
we might float down the current; but they replied that they dared
not, for the galleys of the sultan were between us and Damietta.
The king s seamen had made great fires on board their vessels
to care for the unfortunate sick. Many of the disabled were waiting
368 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
on the bank to be taken on the vessels. As I was urging my sailors
to make some little way I saw, by the light of these fires, the Sara
cens enter our camp and murder the sick. The sailors of the king s
ships were drawing in to the bank when they saw the Saracens kill
ing the sick who were waiting to be taken off, and they rowed back
to the larger galleys, cut the cables, and drifted down upon my
small bark. My men drew up the anchor and we began to move
downward. I expected that the galleys would sink me, but we
escaped and began to make way down the river.
Then the king appeared at the shore. He had the same illness as
the rest of us, with dysentery as well, which he might have pre
vented if he had been willing to live on his large galleys. That
evening he fainted more than once because of this dysentery he
had, and so often did he go off to perform his needs that they had to
cut away the bottom of his drawers. But he said if it pleased God
he would never leave his people. Now observing us make off, his
men began to shout to us to remain, and likewise shot bolts at us to
stop our course.
I will now tell you in what manner the king was made prisoner,
as he told me himself hereafter. He said that he had quitted his own
battalion, and with Sir Geoffrey de Sergines, had joined the bat
talion of De Chastillon who commanded the rear. 1 The king was
mounted on a small courser with only a housing of silk. De Sergines
alone attended him as far as a village, where the Turks beset them.
Thrice did Chastillon, sword in hand, charge the Turks, driving
them from the street of the village to the fields at the end. He was
bare of armor, having only the sword in his hand. As they rode
away from him they shot arrows back at him, and when they had
gone off, he drew the arrows from his body and his horse. Then
he came to the king, sitting on his horse, who extended his sword-
arm, crying:
"Chastillon sir knights where are my valiant men?"
But Chastillon, turning about, saw the Turks again and ran at
them.
I heard that Sir Geoffrey guarded his lord by taking his pike
under his arm and charging the Saracens every time they drew
near.
had planned to destroy the bridges behind him, to burn his tents and
baggage and place the disabled men in the boats, under guard of detachments of
knights. Then the able-bodied men were to make their way down the river beside
the galleys. But the bridges were not destroyed, the Moslems entered the camp in
the disorder of the retreat, and the fire enabled them to see exactly what was hap
pening. Only a handful of the army reached Damietta.
ST. LOUIS AT BAY 369
At the village, having dismounted, he entered a house and
laid the king in the lap of a woman from Paris, for he had no hope
that the king could pass that day without dying. Shortly after
arrived Sir Philip of Montfort, who told the king he had just seen
the amir of the sultan with whom he had formerly treated for
peace, and if it were the king s pleasure he would go back to him
and renew the parley.
The king entreated him to do so, and said that he would abide
by whatever terms they agreed upon.
Sir Philip went back to the Saracens, but just at that moment a
villainous sergeant named Marcel set up a shout to our people.
"Lords, knights, yield yourselves, for the king commands it!"
At these words all were thunderstruck, and thinking that the
king had indeed given the order they yielded their swords and
staves to the Saracens. Then the amir who had already lifted his
turban from his head and had taken the seal ring from his finger, to
show that he would grant the truce seeing the Saracens leading
in the king s knights as their prisoners, said to Sir Philip that he
would not agree to any truce, for the army had been made prisoner.
L
JOINVILLE S TALE
WHO had embarked on our vessels, thinking to escape to
Damietta, were not more fortunate than those who had
kept to the land, for we were also taken as you shall hear.
It is true that a wind rose up behind us, driving us down upon the
Saracens, and the knights fled who had been left by the king in
light boats to guard the sick. Toward daybreak we reached the
place in the river where the sultan s galleys lay. When they per
ceived us they set up a great noise and shot at us large bolts covered
with Greek fire, so that it seemed as if the stars were falling from the
heavens. The wind blew more than ever, and drove us toward the
bank of the river where we found the light boats of the knights who
had been ordered to guard the sick. On the opposite shore were
great numbers of our vessels that the Saracens had taken we could
see them plainly murdering the crews, and throwing the dead
bodies into the water, and carrying away the chests and arms. And
mounted Saracens shot arrows at us from the bank of the river.
I put on my armor, to keep the bolts from hurting me. Some of
my people called to me from the stern:
"My lord, my lord your sailors mean to run us on shore, be
cause the Saracens threaten them."
I was then very ill, but I rose at once, and, drawing my sword,
370
JOINVILLE S TALE 371
I swore that I would kill the first person who tried to run us on the
Saracen shore. The sailors responded that we could not go on, and
I must choose between landing on the shore or anchoring in mid
stream. I said to them that I would anchor in the river rather than
be carried to the shore where our men were being murdered. The
sailors then cast out the anchor.
It was not long before we saw four of the sultan s galleys making
toward us. I called to my knights to advise me whether to surrender
to the galleys of the sultan or those along the shore, and we agreed
that it would be better to surrender to the galleys that were coming,
for then we might be able to keep together. Then a cellarer of mine
who was born at Doulevant said:
"My lord, I do not agree to that."
I asked him why he did not agree, and he said, "I believe we
ought all to let ourselves be killed, because then we will all go to
paradise."
But we did not agree to that.
Seeing that we must surrender, I took the small casket contain
ing my jewels and relics, and cast it into the river. One of my sailors
said to me, "My lord, if you do not let me say that you are the
king s cousin, they will kill you and us with you." I bade him say
what he pleased.
When the first galley came athwart us and dropped anchor close
to our bow the people on it heard these words. Then God sent to
my aid a Saracen who was a subject of the emperor. 1 Wearing only
breeches of coarse cloth, and swimming straight over to my vessel,
he clasped my knees, and said:
" My lord, if you do not do as I bid you, there is no hope for you.
Leap into the river here, where you will not be seen by the men of
the galley who are thinking only of the spoiling of your bark."
He called to the galley then, and had a rope thrown across to us.
Holding the cord, I leaped into the water, followed by the Saracen.
I was so weak that I should have sunk, if he had not helped me to
the galley. They pulled me up to the deck of the galley, where I
saw some fourteen score Saracens. All the time the poor man held
me fast in his arms, and presently landed with me. Immediately
others rushed at me to cut my throat for he who slew a Christian
imagined that he gained honor thereby.
Twice they threw me to the ground, and once to my knees,
and then I felt the knife at my throat.
Yet this Saracen who had saved me from drowning would not
Evidently Frederick II, who had many Moslem subjects in Sicily and elsewhere.
372 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
quit hold of me, but cried out to them, "The king s cousin the
king s cousin!" And he was able to lead me to the castle where the
Saracen knights were gathered.
When I was brought before them they took off my coat of mail;
and from pity, seeing me so very ill, they flung over me one of my
own scarlet surcoats lined with miniver which my lady-mother
had given me. Another brought me a white leather girdle, with
which I girthed the surcoat around me. One of the Saracen knights
gave me a small cap which I put on my head; but I soon began to
tremble, as much from the fright I had had as from my disorder.
When I complained of thirst they brought me some water in a pot,
but when I drank a little it ran back through my nostrils. When
my own attendants saw this they began to weep. God knows what
a pitiful state I was in, with the disease that nearly closed my
throat.
The good Saracen asked my people why they wept, and when he
understood my sickness, he spoke of it to one of the Saracen knights
who bade him tell me to take comfort as they would give me some
what to drink that would cure me in two days. This he did, and I
was soon well, through God s mercy and the draft the Saracens
gave me.
Soon after my recovery the admiral 1 of the sultan s galleys sent
for me and asked if I were cousin to the king, as it was said. I told
him I was not, and explained why my sailors had said it through
fear of the Saracens. The admiral replied that they had advised
me well, because otherwise we would have been slain and thrown
into the river. He then asked if I had any blood-tie with the
emperor Ferrey [Frederick] of Germany. I answered truly that I
thought that Madame my mother was his second cousin. The ad
miral replied that he would love me the better for that.
On the Sunday after my capture, he ordered us all to be fetched
from the castle, down to the bank of the river. While waiting there
I saw Monseigneur Jean my chaplain dragged out of a hold of a
galley. On coming into the open air he fainted and the Saracens
killed him, flinging him into the stream before my eyes. His clerk
also, who was suffering from the common disorder of the army and
unable to stand, they killed by casting a heavy mortar on his head,
and flung him after his master.
In like manner the Saracens dealt with the other prisoners, post
ing themselves about the hold through which our men were drawn.
^oinville writes admiral for amir, or rather al amir. The word admiral originated
in this way with the crusaders.
JOINVILLE S TALE 373
When they saw any one weak or ill, they killed him and threw him
into the water.
I told them, through the interpretation of my Saracen who never
left me, that they were doing wrong. For it was against the custom
of Saladin, who said that no man should be killed who had eaten of
his bread and salt. The admiral made answer that they were
destroying men who were ill and of no use. And he had my own men
brought before us, saying that my men had all denied their faith.
I replied that I did not put much trust in them, for they would
forsake his faith as quickly as they had forsaken mine if the op
portunity offered.
The admiral assented to this, adding that Saladin had said that
a Christian never made a good infidel, nor a good Saracen a Chris
tian. Soon after this he made me mount a palfrey and we rode side
by side over a bridge to Mansura where Saint Louis and his men
were prisoners.
At the entrance of a large pavilion we found a secretary writing
down the names of the prisoners, and there I was made to declare
my name, which I no way wished to conceal, and it was written
down with the others. As we entered the pavilion the Saracen who
had never left me said:
"Sir, I will not go with you, for I can not follow you further. I
beg that you will never quit the hand of this young boy you have
with you, otherwise the Saracens will carry him off."
The boy s name was Bartholomew and he was a bastard of the
lord Montfaucon de Bar. The admiral led me and the little boy into
the enclosure where were the barons of France and more than ten
thousand other persons with them. They greeted me with pleasure
and joyful noise, for they had thought me slain.
Numbers of knights and other men were confined here in a large
court surrounded with mud walls. The guards of this prison led
them out one at a time and asked each if he would become a rene
gade. If they said they would, they were taken elsewhere, if they
refused they had their heads cut off. Shortly after I came, the
council of the sultan sent for the barons, and demanded of us to
whom they should deliver a message they had from the sultan.
We answered, all of us, by the interpreter, that the message should
be given to the count Peter of Brittany. This was the message:
"Lord, the sultan sends us to find out if you wish to be freed/*
"Yes," the count answered, "we do."
"And what price will you pay for your freedom?"
"Whatever we can, in reason."
374 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
"Will you give any of the castles of the Holy Land?"
"We cannot do that, because the castles belong to the emperor of
Germany."
The council then asked if we would not surrender some of the
castles belonging to the Knights Templars or the Hospital. The
count replied for us that this, also, was impossible, for the garrisons
of those castles had sworn on holy relics that they would yield
them to no man.
The Saracens then spoke together, and said to us that it did not
seem as if we much desired to regain our freedom, and that they
would send to us those who knew well how to use their swords
and who would deal with us. But they sent to us a messenger in
stead who assured us that we were to be freed, because our king
would ransom us.
In order to try the king, the sultan s council had made the same
demands of him as of us. But the good king, Saint Louis, answered
as we had done, although the council threatened to torture him.
The good king held all their menaces cheap, saying that since he
was their prisoner they could do with him as they wished. Finding
that they could not overcome him by threats, the council asked
him how much money he would give for his release in addition
to Damietta which was also to be surrendered. So the king engaged
cheerfully to pay 500,000 livres for the ransom of his army, and for
his own ransom to yield the city of Damietta since he was of a
rank in which bodily ransom could not be estimated in money.
When the sultan heard the good disposition of the king, he said:
"By my faith, the Frenchman is generous not to bargain about
so great a sum of money. He has agreed to the first demand. Go and
tell him that I make him a present of 100,000 livres, so that he
will only have to pay 400,000."
Unknown to the captive barons of France, revolt simmered
in the Moslem camp and the palaces of Cairo. The man who
was sultan in name, Turan Shah, who had granted terms to
the Nazarenes, had also deprived of their rank several power
ful mamluks 3 confiscating their wealth for his own officers
and turning against him the triumvirate that had carried
on the war against the crusaders that strange triumvirate
of Pearl Spray and the Turkoman and the Panther. 1 It was
^ The sultan had confidence only in a few favorites," the Egyptian historian
Makrisi relates, "to whom he gave the chief offices of the state, displacing the old
ministers of the late sultan his father. Above all, he showed dislike of the mamluks,
JOINVILLE S TALE 375
a perilous matter to brave the victorious mamluks in this
fashion; the war had virtually ended, and the mamluks saw
clearly that power could not be shared between them and
Turan Shah. One must yield to the other, and secretly the
mamluks conspired to slay the sultan, who was the last
descendant of Saladin s lineage to rule in Egypt. What
followed Joinville beheld in part, or heard related.
The conspirators held council with the admiral of the late
sultan who had been dismissed from his office, and they won over
to their plan the halka who have the guard of the sultan s person,
and prevailed upon them to slay the sultan, which they promised
to do.
They went to work with caution, for they ordered the trumpets
and drums to sound for the assembling of the army to know the
sultan s will. The admirals and their accomplices told the officers
of the army that Damietta had been taken, and the sultan was
marching thither and that he ordered them to arm and follow him.
At once the officers set off at a gallop toward Damietta. We were
frightened when we saw them go off like this, for we really believed
Damietta had been stormed.
We were then lodged in a galley anchored before the quarters
of the sultan a great enclosure of fir- wood poles covered with
painted cloth. A high pavilion had been pitched at the entrance
of this place, and within it a handsome gateway with a tower.
Within this was a fine garden wherein stood the sultan s lodgings,
with a great tower from which he could look out over the country.
From the garden an alley led to the river, and at the end of the
alley the sultan had built himself a summer house on the beach
where he bathed. This summer house was of trellis work covered
with Indian linen.
That day the sultan invited the knights of the halka to dine with
him in his quarters. After the dinner he had taken leave of his
admirals and was about to retire to his own chamber, when one of
these knights, his swordbearer, struck him with a sword. The blow
fell upon his hand, splitting it between the four fingers.
The sultan cried to his admirals, who had really been the instiga-
although they had gained the last victory for him. His debaucheries wasted the
revenues, and he forced the sultana Shadjar ad Darr to render him an account of
the riches of his father. The sultana implored the protection of the mamluks. These
slaves, already angered at Turan Shah, did not hesitate to take her part, and re
solved to assassinate the prince."
37 6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
tors of the attack: "Witness ye that my men of the halka have at
tacked me look at my hand."
"We see," they responded, "and now surely you will slay us
so it is better that you should die."
Then the sultan, in spite of his wound, understood that they had
conspired against him. He fled to the high watch tower that I have
mentioned, near his chambers. Already the men of the halka were
destroying his other pavilions and surrounding his quarters. Within
the tower where he had hidden himself were three of his priests who
had just dined with him. They bade him descend, and he replied
that he would do so willingly, if they would answer for his safety.
But the men outside cried to him that they would fetch him out
by force. They cast some Greek fire into the tower, which being
made only of fir and cotton cloth, as I have said, began to blaze all
over. Never have I beheld a bonfire so fine, nor so sudden.
When the sultan saw the fire gaining ground on all sides, he
went down into the garden of which I have spoken and ran down
the alley toward the river. But as he fled one of the halka struck him
a fierce blow in the ribs with a sword. Then he flung himself, with
the sword hanging from him, into the Nile.
Nine other men pursued him in a boat and killed him beside our
galley,
One of these knights whose name was Faracatai, seeing the sul
tan dead, cut him in twain and tore the heart from his vitals. Then
he entered our galley and came before the king with his hands all
bloodied, saying, "What wilt thou give me, who have slain thine
enemy, who if he had lived would have put thee to death?"
But the good king Saint Louis made no answer whatever.
After this about thirty of them climbed into our galley with their
swords drawn and their battle axes on their necks. I asked Sir
Baldwin d Ibelin, who understood Saracenic, what they were say
ing. He replied that they said they were come to cut off our heads.
Soon after I saw a large group of our people confessing themselves
to a monk of La Trinite who was of the company of the count of
Flanders. But I could not think of any sin or evil I had done
only that I was about to receive my death.
So I fell on my knees, making the sign of the cross. Sir Guy
d Ibelin, constable of Cyprus, knelt beside me and confessed him
self to me, and I gave him such absolution as God may have
granted me the power of bestowing. But of all the things he said to
me, when I rose up I could not remember one of them.
We were led down into the hold of the galley and laid heads and
JOINVILLE S TALE 377
heels together. We thought this was so that they could make away
with us one at a time. For the whole night we lay bound in this
manner. I had my feet right in the face of the count Peter of
Brittany, whose feet in turn were beside my face.
On the morrow we were taken out of the hold, and the admirals
sent to us, to say that we might renew with them the treaty we had
made with the sultan. The king was to swear to give over to them
200,000 livres before he quitted the river, and the other 200,000
he should pay in Acre. 1
The oath to be taken by the king and the admirals was drawn up
in writing. On their part they swore that if they failed in their word
they would hold themselves as dishonored as if they had gone bare
headed on pilgrimage to Mecca, or had divorced their wives and
taken them back again, or had eaten pork. For according to the
law of Mahomet, no one could divorce his wife and take her back
again without first looking on while another man enjoyed her
after which he could take her back. The king accepted this oath of
theirs because Master Nicolle of Acre, who knew their customs
well, assured him they could not have sworn a greater oath.
After the admirals had sworn, they sent to the king a written
oath drawn up by advice of some Christian renegades they had
with them. The king swore first that if he failed to keep his word,
he would hold himself outcast from the presence of God. Then
they bade him swear that if he broke his word, he should be per
jured as a Christian who had denied God, and that in despite
of God he would spit on the cross and trample it underfoot. But
when the king heard this oath read, he said that he would never
take it.
Hearing the king had refused, the admirals were greatly dis
contented for that they had sworn, and he had refused to do so.
Master Nicolle told the king that he was certain that unless he
took the full oath, the Saracens would behead him and his people.
The king replied that they might do as they pleased. At that time
the patriarch of Jerusalem was with the king; he was eighty
x Two women played a great part in saving the French chivalry. The mamluk
rebels were half inclined to slaughter all the invaders, but Pearl Spray in Cairo,
through the high amirs, prevailed on them to hold to Turan Shah s treaty. And
Queen Marguerite, holding Damietta with its^garrison, made it clear that the city
would not be yielded except by order of the king. .
The death of Turan Shah marked the end of Saladin s descendants, and the rise
of the formidable mamluk slave-warriors. The disaster to the French king was the
beginning of Moslem supremacy.
378 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
years old or thereabout, and had persuaded the Saracens to give
him a safe-conduct, to join the king. Now the admirals said that it
was the patriarch who had influenced the king.
They seized the good patriarch and tied him to a post before the
king, and bound his hands behind his back so tight that they
swelled as big as his head, and the blood spouted out.
"Ah, Sire!" he cried out, from the sufferings he endured. "Swear
boldly for I will take the whole sin of it on my conscience!"
I know not how the oath was taken at last, but the admirals held
themselves satisfied at last with the oaths of the king and his
barons. They ordered their trumpets and drums to sound merrily
before the king s tent, and it was said that some of them wished to
choose him sultan, for the king was the proudest Christian they
ever knew. They said too that if Muhammed had allowed them to
suffer what God had caused the king to endure, they would have
lost faith in him.
The king asked me if I thought he should take the kingship of
Egypt if they offered it to him. And I said he would be a fool to do
so, since they had just killed their king. But he said truly he would
not refuse it.
You must know also that the good queen was not without her
share of persecution, and very bitter it was to her heart, as you
shall hear.
Three days before she was brought to bed with child, she was told
that the good king her husband had been made prisoner. This so
troubled her mind that she seemed at all times to see her chamber in
Damietta filled with Saracens ready to slay her, and she kept crying
out incessantly, "Help, help! "when there was no tan enemy near her.
For fear that the child in her womb should perish, she made a
knight watch at the foot of her bed all through the night without
sleeping. This knight was very old not less than eighty years or
perhaps more and every time she screamed, he held her hands,
and said:
"Madame, do not take fright like this. I am with you: rid your
self of these fears."
Before the good lady was brought to bed, she once ordered every
person to leave her room except this very old knight; then she cast
herself out of bed on her knees before him, and requested that he
would grant her a boon. The knight promised, with an oath, that
he would do so.
"Sir Knight," the queen then said, "I request on the oath you
JOINVILLE S TALE 379
have sworn, that if the Saracens storm this city and take it, you
will cut my head from my body before they seize it."
The knight replied that he would cheerfully do so, and that he
had thought of it himself, before then.
The day she was brought to bed it was told her that the Pisans,
the Genoese, and the common men in the town were about to fly,
and forsake the king. The queen sent for some of them, and spoke
to them:
" Gentlemen, I beg of you for the love of God, that you will not
quit this city. For well you know that if you do my lord the king
and his whole army will be lost without remedy. Have pity, at
least, upon this person who beseeches you, lying in pain."
They answered that they could not remain longer in a city where
they were dying of hunger. 1 She said then that they would not die of
hunger, because she would buy up all the provision in the name of
the king. This she was obliged to do, and all the provision that
could be found was bought up, at a cost of 360,000 livres, to feed
these people.
Shortly after, the queen was delivered of a son in the city of
Damietta, whose name was John and his surname Tristan because
he had been born in misery. The good lady was forced to rise before
she was fully recovered, and embark on the ships, for Damietta
was to be surrendered to the Saracens.
On the morrow of the feast of the Ascension of our Lord, at sun
rise, Sir Geoffrey de Sergines went to the city and delivered it to
the admirals, and instantly the banners of the sultan were displayed
on the walls. The Saracens entered the city and drank of the wines
they found there until the greater part of them were drunk. One
of the admirals who was against us in all things came to the bank
of the river and shouted out to those in our galley that they were to
take us back to Cairo.
We should have been delivered with the king at sunrise; but
they had kept us until sunset, and we had had nothing to eat. The
admirals also did not eat, for they were gathered together to dis
pute about us.
^There were provisions enough in the fleet. The Genoese and Pisans who had
ferried the French over were disgruntled by the offer St. Louis had made, in his
first attempt to negotiate a peace, to exchange Damietta for Jerusalem. This was
refused by Turan Shah. Now that the French crusaders had been decisively de
feated, the Italian merchant-mariners were quite willing to sail off, leaving the sur
vivors stranded in Egypt. It is doubtful if Queen Marguerite s plea would have
influenced them to remain, but the supplies she purchased at prohibitive cost from
them did induce them to wait.
3 8o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
"We shall kill the king and these lords/ one said, "and so for
forty years no more of them will come against us for their sons
are small, and we have Damietta."
"If we slay the king/ another Saracen said against this, "as well
as the sultan, it will be said that there is no faith in the Egyptians."
"In doing as we did to the sultan/ the first Saracen replied,
"we went against the command of Mahomet. Now listen to an
other command For the surety of the Faith, slay the enemies of the
Law! How dare we break two commands, and spare the greatest of
the infidels?"
However, as God willed it, the admirals consulted together at
sunset and agreed that we were to be released. So we were brought
to Damietta and our galleys moored close to the shore. We asked
permission to land, but they would not allow it until we had re
freshed ourselves for the Saracens said it would be a shame to the
admirals to send us fasting from our prison.
Soon after, they sent us provisions, that is to say loaves of
cheese that had been baked in the sun, with hard eggs, the shells of
which they had painted with colors to honor us. When we had eaten
some little, they put us on shore and we went toward the king,
whom the Saracens were leading from the pavilion where they had
detained him, toward the water s edge. They surrounded the king
on foot, with drawn swords.
It happened that a Genoese galley was on the river opposite the
king. Only one man could be seen on the galley, but when he saw the
king he whistled. Instantly fourscore crossbowmen with their bows
bent and shafts placed, leaped on the deck from below. The Sara
cens no sooner saw them than they ran away like sheep not more
than three or four staying by the king. The Genoese thrust a plank
on shore and took on board the king, his brother the count of
Anjou, Sir Geoffrey of Sergines, and the marshal of France and
myself. The count of Poitiers remained prisoner with the Saracens
until the king should pay the ransom, which he was bound to pay
before he quitted the river.
Then the count of Flanders and many other great lords came to
take leave of the king and to embark in their galleys for France.
With them was the count of Brittany, grievously sick, so that he
lived no more than three weeks.
The whole of Saturday and Sunday was taken up in paying the
money of the ransom by weight. Before it was all paid, some lords
advised the king to withhold a part until the Saracens should have
given up his brother; but he replied that since he had promised it he
JOINVILLE S TALE 381
would pay the whole before he had quitted the river. As he
said this, Sir Philip of Montfort told the king that the Saracens
had miscounted one scale weight which was worth 10,000 livres.
The king was angered at this and commanded Sir Philip on the
faith he owed him as liegeman to make up to the Saracens these
10,000 livres.
At this others entreated the king to go out to a galley that was
awaiting him at sea, to be out of the hands of the Saracens, and at
length prevailed on him to do so.
So at last we began to make some way at sea, putting a league
between us and the shore, without a word said for we were all
concerned for the count of Poitiers. In a little while Sir Philip,
who had remained to make good the payment of the 10,000 livres,
came out to us, calling to the king:
"Sire, Sire your brother the count is following in the other
galley."
The king then turned to those near him and said, " Light up,
light up!" And there was great joy among us all on the coming of
his brother. A poor fisherman having hastened to the countess of
Poitiers with the tidings, was given twenty livres of Paris. And then
each of us sought his own galley and we left Egypt
The king had no other robes than two garments the sultan had
caused to be made for him of black silken stuff lined with squirrel
skins. During this voyage to Acre I also was ill, and was always
seated near the king, and it was then he told me how he had been
taken and how he had ransomed us. At times he mourned for the
death of his brother the count of Artois.
One day it pleased him to ask what the count of Anjou was
doing for although he was in the same galley, the count had not
sought his company. The king was told that his brother was playing
at tables with Sir Walter of Nemours. Although he could barely
stand by reason of his long illness, he arose hastily and went stag
gering to where they were at play. Then, seizing the dice and tables,
he flung them into the sea, and was in a passion with his brother
for amusing himself by gaming, forgetful of the death of the count
of Artois and of the great perils from which the Lord had delivered
them. But Sir Walter was best paid, because the king tossed into
his lap all the coins of which there were a great pile on the
tables, and Sir Walter carried them all off.
LI
FAREWELL TO PALESTINE
French chivalry had failed utterly in Egypt. Never
had crusaders suffered a defeat so disastrous as the
second battle of Mansura. With the collapse of the
expedition, St. Louis gave permission to his surviving broth
ers to return with the great lords to France. But he would
not accompany them.
He felt that the honor of the French arms and of Christen
dom had suffered at his hands on the Nile, and for four years
he lingered upon the coast of the Holy Land, hoping to strike
a blow for Jerusalem. He had made a ten years truce with
the mamluks, and he sought to gain by negotiation what he
had been unable to win by arms. But without an army he
could gain little. Only a hundred knights remained with him
of the twenty-eight hundred who had assembled at Cyprus,
and the survivors had brought the taint of the plague with
them from the Nile.
I was lodged [Joinville wrote] with the rector of Acre and was
most grievously ill. Of all my servants there WJLS but one who was
not confined to his bed with sickness like myself. The more to en-
382
FAREWELL TO PALESTINE 383
liven me I saw some twenty corpses pass my window daily for
burial, with the chant " Libera me Domine . . "
We seemed a subject for mockery on all parts, for we enjoyed
neither peace nor truce from the admirals. You must know that
we could never muster in our army more than about fourteen
hundred men-at-arms fit for service.
At that time John the Armenian, who was artilleryman to the
king, saw in the bazaar of Damascus an old man, very aged,
who called to him, asking if he were a Christian.
"Yes," he said.
"Great is the hatred among you," said the aged man, "and
far have you been brought down by your sins. For I myself
once saw your king, Baldwin of Jerusalem, who was a leper,
overthrow Saladin with no more than three hundred men-at-
arms. Now, we take you in the field as if you were wild beasts."
Yet they regained their health, and the determination of
the king accomplished much. He rebuilt the walls of the coast
towns, especially Jaffa, and made sallies inland as far as
Banyas; he received ambassadors from the Assassins of
Massiaf, and gave them presents. Joinville marveled much
at these strange envoys who, he said, carried in their hands
the death of kings. They complained of having to pay
tribute to the Templars and Hospitalers, because they could
not intimidate the soldier-monks with their daggers if one
master of the order was slain, another took his place at once.
Joinville heard the gossip of the great trade routes, and all
the legends of the nearer east. He thought that Prester John
ruled a Christian kingdom in the sandy wastes beyond Gog
and Magog, and that the "grand cham of Tartary " had made
war against Prester John. Good King Louis even sent richly
illuminated Bibles and a scarlet chapel tent fittingly em
broidered to the Mongol khans.
In return a gift from the Old Man of the Mountain was
presented to the king an elephant of crystal, and crystal
figures of men, set in pieces of amber bordered with gold.
When the casket containing this gift was opened, a strong
and sweet odor spread through the chamber.
Zealously the king gathered relics from the coast shrines
of the Holy Land, to bear back to France, where he had
384 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
built the Sainte Chapelle to honor the thorns and the frag
ment of the cross. This pleased him much and he said to
Joinville:
"Seneschal, I am grieved in my heart that I shall be forced
to quit such good and religious companions, to return among
such a set of wretches as make up the court of Rome."
The Moslems offered to allow him to visit Jerusalem in
safety, but he would not. He remembered Coeur de Lion s
words, and repeated them:
"Since I can not deliver Jerusalem, I pray that I may
never see the holy city."
To Queen Marguerite also the visit to the tranquil coast
brought respite, and Joinville, who escorted her from place
to place, found her in gay spirits. She had been delivered of
another child, a daughter this time, at Jaffa.
One day in the presence of the king, I asked his leave to make a
pilgrimage to Our Lady of Tortosa, which many others had done,
for it was said to have been the first altar erected in honor of the
Mother of God. Our Lady performed there many wonderful mir
acles, The king very readily gave me leave to make this pilgrimage,
and at the same time charged me to buy for him a hundred-weight
of different colored camlets 1 which he wished to bestow upon the
Cordeliers on his return to France. From this I guessed that it
would not be long before he set out on his return thither.
When I arrived at the end of my pilgrimage, I made my offering
to Our Lady of Tortosa, and afterwards bought the camlets as the
king had ordered. My knights, seeing me do this, asked what I
wished with so many camlets. I persuaded them that I meant to
gain a profit from selling them again.
The prince of that country, knowing that I had come from the
king s army, gave us a most honorable reception and offered us
some relics which I took to the king with his camlets.
You must know that the queen had heard that I had been on a
pilgrimage and had brought back some relics. I sent her by one of
my knights four pieces of the camlets which I had purchased. But
when the knight entered her apartment, she cast herself on her
knees before the camlets which were wrapped up in a towel.
The knight, seeing the queen do this, flung himself on his knees
also.
cloth woven of camel s hair.
FAREWELL TO PALESTINE 385
"Rise, Sir Knight," the queen, observing him, said, "it does not
become you to kneel, who are the bearer of such holy relics/
My knight replied that it was not relics but camlets that he had
brought as a present from me. When the queen and her ladies
heard this, they burst into laughter.
"Sir Knight," the queen cried, "the devil take your lord for
having made me kneel to a parcel of camlets/
Loath to leave the coast, the king lingered until tidings
reached him of the death of his mother, Blanche, who had
been regent of France during his six years absence. Even
then he hesitated, until a deputation of Syrian patriarchs and
barons waited upon him, and suggested that he depart-
The presence of a visitor of such distinction, at a loose end,
availed them nothing, and perhaps they had become weary of
the king s fervent disciplining.
"Sire, it is clear that your stay can no longer profit the
Kingdom of Jerusalem. We advise you to prepare to leave in
the coming Lent, so that you may have a safe passage to
France."
But the passage proved to be far from safe, as Joinville
observed.
On the vigil of Saint Mark, after Easter, the king and queen em
barked on their ship and put to sea with a favorable wind. On the
Saturday following we arrived off Cyprus. Near this island was a
mountain in the sea called the Mountain of the Cross. On that day
about vespers there came on such a thick fog from the land that
our sailors thought themselves farther from the land than they were
for they had lost sight of this mountain.
So they sailed on, and our ship struck a sand bank below the
water. A great cry rose in the ship "Alas!"
When I heard it, I rose from my bed, and went to the ship s
castle with the seamen. Brother Raymond, who was a Templar and
master of the sailors, said to one, "Cast the lead!" And he did so,
and cried out, "Alas, we are aground!" When Brother Raymond
heard that, he tore open his clothes to the girdle, groaning, "O me !"
Then the churl who had the lead threw it out again, and came to
Brother Raymond, saying that the ship was clear of the ground.
When daylight came we saw the rocks on which we should have
struck if it had not been for the sand bank. In the morning the king
386 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
sent for the chief seamen of the ship, who mustered four divers
fellows who dive naked to the bottom of the sea, like fish. The
captains ordered these divers to plunge into the sea, and they did
so, passing under the ship.
When they came up, on the opposite side, we asked each one in
turn what he had found. They all said that where our vessel had
struck the sand, three fathoms of its keel had been broken off
which very much surprised the king and all who heard it. The
king asked the mariners for their advice, and they replied:
"Sire, believe us, you must change from this ship to another. We
know well that if the keel has suffered such damage, all the ribs of
the ship must have started, and we very much fear she will be un
able to bear the sea, should any wind arise."
The king, having listened to what the mariners said, summoned
his council to decide what should be done, and they all agreed with
the mariners. But the king called the sailors to him again, and
asked them, on the faith they owed him, whether if the ship were
their own and full of merchandise they would quit it.
"Sire," they replied, "it would be needful to risk our lives, to
safeguard such a cargo and vessel."
"Why, then," asked the king, "do you advise me to quit her?"
"Sire," they made response, "you and we are nowise the same.
* For there is no sum that would compensate for the loss of yourself
and the queen and her three children."
"Now," said the king, "I will tell you what I think. If I quit the
ship, there are five or six hundred persons who will do likewise out
of fear, and they will remain on the island of Cyprus, losing hope
of returning to their own land. I will rather put myself and the
queen and the children under the good providence of God."
Yet after we were saved from this peril another befell us; for
there arose so great a storm that in spite of all our efforts we were
driven back toward the island long after we had left it. The seamen
cast out four anchors in vain, and the vessel could not be stopped
until they had thrown out the fifth, which held. All the partitions
of the king s cabin had to be taken down, and so high was the wind
that no one dared stay therein for fear of being blown overboard.
The queen came into the king s chamber, thinking to meet him
there, but found only Sir Gilles le Brun, constable of France, and
myself, who were lying down. On seeing her I asked what she
wished. She said she wanted the king, to beg that he might make
some vows to God, that we would be delivered from this storm
for the sailors had told her we were in great danger of drowning.
FAREWELL TO PALESTINE 387
"Madam," I replied, "do you vow to make a pilgrimage to my
lord Saint Nicholas at Varengeville, that we may reach France in
safety."
"Ah, seneschal/ answered she, "I am afraid the king would not
let me make such a pilgrimage."
"At least then, madam, promise the saint that if God brings
you safely to France, you will give him a silver ship of the value of
five marks. And for myself, I vow that I will make a pilgrimage to
his shrine barefoot."
Upon this she vowed the silver ship, and demanded that I would
be her pledge for the due performance of the vow, to which I as
sented. In a little while she came to us again to say that God, at the
intercession of my lord Saint Nicholas, had delivered us from this
peril. . . .
At the end of ten weeks we arrived at the port of Hieres, to the
great joy of the queen. She caused the ship to be made, as she had
vowed, and put within it the effigies of the king, herself, and the
three children, with the sailors all in silver, with ropes of silver
thread. This ship she sent me with orders to carry it to the shrine
of my lord Saint Nicholas, which I did.
In this way ended the second Egyptian crusade. The
beaux sabretcrs sought their homes in France, after casting
the gage of their courage against the finer weapons and su
perior generalship of the mamluks in vain.
And so in 1254 St. Louis came back to his native land. He
was so weakened by illness that more than once Joinville
had to carry him from horse to chamber in his arms. But the
saintly king bore himself in defeat with the same tranquillity
with which he had set out in command of his armada six
years before. He sought for no explanation of his overthrow.
It had been God s will.
He found France much in need of his governing hand, and
for the next years he was occupied in bringing about long-
cherished reforms the famous etablissements that, among
other measures, helped replace judicial combats by trials,
and granted to his people the right of appeal to their sover
eign over the will of their own seigneurs. He also drove the
first wedge that would in time separate the French Church
from Rome.
388 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Not so did his brother, the ambitious Charles of Anjou,
occupy himself. He cast his eyes to the east, and Rome be
stowed upon him the crown of the Two Sicilies, when he
became the right hand of the popes and the destroyer of the
last scions of the Hohenstaufen. This done, he plotted a
greater dominion, to embrace the holdings of the crusaders
in Greece and dominion of the sea. A taciturn and most
gifted adventurer, he chafed under the leadership of a
church-minded brother.
At Cairo the triumvirate ruled again, with Shadjar ad
Darr the guiding spirit. Now that truce had been agreed with
the French king, the mamluks released all Christian captives
of war 12,100 men, and 10 women. A certain poet, As-Sahib
Jamal ad Din ibn Matroub, composed in honor of the French
defeat the following verses:
Bear to the lord of the French, these words which are traced by the hand
of truth
" You thought to be master of Egypt you who are a drum filled with
wind.
" And you have left your warriors on the ground of Egypt, where the
tomb gaped open for them.
"Where are the seventy thousand, your men? Dead, wounded, and
captive!
"Ij you wish again to come to Egypt, know that the house of Lokman
still stands, with its chains and its eunuch awake!" 1
x The house in which St. Louis was imprisoned at Mansura, under guard of the
eunuch Sahil. The Moslem annals say that the king and his brother were put in
chains when first taken.
PART V
WHEN the stars set, and the old moon wanes;
When waters flow back to the lowlands
The men of the West will be faring
Homeward again.
Far have they gone for th, and their eyes have seen:
Magicians 7 towers y and beacons upon the hills>
where the black banners hang.
And the fire that flies , and wind that devastates
Earth that quivers and walls that crumble
Old stones shaped by forgotten men> and a city
That was not built by hands.
The men of the West will be riding home, with a
broken sword in its sheath.
LII
THE TIDE EBBS
St. Louis sailed from Acre in that year of 1254,
the remnant of the last great crusade left the shore of
the Holy Land. A change was taking place. The
crusaders who had settled on the coast would see no more
armies come out to them. They would be abandoned by
Europe, to defend themselves as best they could. This change
came about unheralded, because it took place in the minds
of men.
It happened in this way. A century and a half before, the
great tidal wave of enthusiasm had swept the first crusade
down to the conquest of Jerusalem; then for a generation
following waves had penetrated further into Asia, making
larger the conquest.
For half a century thereafter the tide, at its full, had not
moved forward or back, except a little here and there along
the new frontier, until the sudden surge under Saladin s
leadership had swept the crusaders back to the coast again.
Then, once more, the strong tides of men flowed out of
Christendom, down to the redemption of the Holy Land,
under Barbarossa and Coeur de Lion and others. But they
had broken, with only a little gain, along the coast,
391
392 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
And, while the spirit of the crusades still held firm in
Europe, other waves had been turned aside by popes and
princes, to Constantinople, to the Languedoc, and Spain.
One wave had lapped at Jerusalem, to serve the purpose of
the great emperor Frederick II, and another had spent itself
on the road of the Nile. And now St. Louis had failed again
at the Nile.
The barrier of the Moslem mamluks was growing and
extending, even without the leadership of a sultan such as
Saladin although the mamluks were soon to have such a
leader in Baibars. But more than that, the spirit of Christen
dom had changed.
A century and a half ago, every man had had a share of
some sort in the crusades, and the possession of Jerusalem
had brought to the hamlets of Europe a new horizon, an
assurance of salvation, and an outlet for pent-up spirits
harassed by the suffering of the Dark Ages and eager to
venture upon the new world conflict to aid the Seigneur
Christ.
Now, after the mid-mark of the Thirteenth Century, things
were different in Europe. Other matters engaged the atten
tion of progressive spirits at home. For one thing, the most
treasured relics had been brought out of the East, especially
out of Constantinople, and at least a dozen churches could
boast of guarding portions of the true Cross to which a
zealous man might make pilgrimage. And the preaching
friars held the interest of the communities. The great monas
teries of the previous century were beginning to disgorge their
inmates, to wander forth upon the roads.
Little heeded, Friar Roger Bacon was writing his Opus
Majus which set forth the marvels and facts of the world
in clear words, and mentioned a concoction of saltpeter and
sulphur and charcoal gunpowder. Already in the universi
ties that were growing up in the shadow of the cathedrals,
youths in threadbare robes sat huddled together for warmth,
or nibbled at their bread and cheese while they listened to
the long expositions of the masters, who debated the new
science of geography with the dicta of Albertus Magnus, and
the reasoning of Thomas Aquinas.
THE TIDE EBBS 393
Embryo scientists were testing the powers of the magnify
ing glass, and wondering how it might serve in the search for
the philosopher s stone. Others used Arabic numerals openly
in their calculations, and almost believed that the mariner s
compass of the infidel Arabs might not be, in reality, a work
of Satan to lead human souls astray.
The courts of the great princes were becoming gathering
centers for mathematicians as well as minstrels. The minstrels
on their part were singing romantic tales the legends of
King Arthur, and the fables of Alexander. They could tell,
as well, of Prester John who ruled beyond the sea of sand in
Asia.
Venice, enriched by the spoils of Constantinople and
thriving from its sea-borne commerce, was becoming a center
of the arts, wherein women appeared everywhere with men
and dyed their hair red. They were avid of luxury, and what
the Venetians lost in morality they gained in culture. At
least they had vases of colored glass, and leaded glass for
windows henna stain for their finger tips, and the perfumes
of Arabia and Cathay. They set a new fashion in Greek and
colored slaves, and their husbands profited from the slave
trade.
Merchant vessels well armed, of course plied the sea
lanes that the Norse dragon ships had terrorized two cen
turies before. In fact Venice required that its shipyards build
all vessels to standard measurements, so that they could be
converted into ships of war at short notice. These ships could
not be sold outside the Serene Republic, and at the end of a
voyage must be returned in good condition to the arsenal.
It was inevitable that Venice and Genoa should begin a long
conflict for supremacy, and this was now under way.
The great princes of Europe also had their personal quar
rels, in which men-at-arms were well paid, in addition to
loot. It was less profitable and much more hazardous to enlist
in a crusade.
In fact the crusader was growing out of joint with his time.
Evidence of that was not lacking. Even the late crusade
of St. Louis had been carried on in the face of some opposition
at home. The emperor Frederick had tried to head it off, and
394 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
on receiving tidings of the French king s capture at Mansura
had written to the sultan of Cairo, ostensibly offering to ran
som the prisoners, but actually to discover how long the
king and his vassals might be held in the hands of the Mos
lems. In England guards had been stationed at the ports to
keep would-be crusaders from embarking.
At Damietta St. Louis had almost been deserted by the
Italian fleet, and at Acre the Venetians and Genoese had
ignored him altogether to carry on their new war fortifying
themselves within their warehouses, and raiding each other s
shipping in the port. St. Louis had appealed in vain for rein
forcements from Europe.
And after his return men did not hesitate to protest against
the fruitless crusade.
I have heard many say [so Joinville wrote] that those who had
advised him to go upon this crusade had been guilty of a great
crime and a deadly sin. So long as he remained in his kingdom
of France, everything went well enough, and the people lived in
peace and security; but when he left the kingdom, matters went
badly.
Nor would Joinville, in spite of the love he bore St. Louis,
volunteer for another crusade, in 1270.
The king of France and the king of Navarre pressed me urgently
to take the cross and go upon a pilgrimage with them. But I replied
that when I went beyond the sea before on the service of God, the
officers of France had so grievously oppressed my people that I
found them in a state of poverty from which we only recovered
with difficulty. I saw clearly that if I were to undertake another
crusade, my people would be ruined.
In these generations the power of the feudal barons was
waning, and yielding place to the authority of the kings.
Two centuries before the kings had been only nominal over
lords of the barons overshadowed in turn by the supreme
authority of the emperor and the pope. Now that the con
cept of a single emperor had been shattered, and the prestige
THE TIDE EBBS 395
of the popes had suffered, leadership lay with the kings.
Nations had emerged from the welter of dukedoms and
counties; frontiers had solidified, more or less.
Especially in France, in Hungary, England, and Aragon,
with its twin Castile, the national mold had hardened.
Italian city-republics likewise were becoming self-contained
and independent. Where the crusades had passed continually
through southern Germany, commercial towns were taking
root. Charters were no longer a scrap of paper, and embryo
parliaments made themselves heard. The power of gold also
was felt, although not acknowledged. Bankers of Florence
sat in the council chamber of princes.
It was no longer possible to unite the princes, the prelates,
and bankers of Europe in a general crusade. And if a single
monarch took the cross and voyaged over the sea, his affairs
suffered and his neighbors took advantage of his absence.
A new crusade meant a decisive sacrifice, and monarchs
who had taken the vow to go managed to postpone the event,
or have their vows commuted.
Only the Church of Rome persisted tirelessly in agitating
for new crusades. Heedless of the loss of life, and the growing
list of lost battles, the papal court kept at its task. Since the
reign of Innocent III it had lost prestige, which it hoped to
regain by recruiting new armies of the Church. To do this, it
called upon the preaching friars, and organized bands of
preachers to visit all the towns.
Specimen sermons were copied out, as ammunition for
these sponsors of the war. Arguments, ready prepared, were
furnished them, to combat the inertia of their listeners.
These arguments, copied in numerous tracts, make curious
reading.
They mention Constantine, the emperor who championed
Christianity, and St. Helena, who was believed to have dis
covered the true cross, and Justinian and his wife, who found,
so it was said, a treasure hidden under a marble table bearing
the cross, and Archbishop Turpin, who fought so stoutly
against the Moors, and the leaders of the great first crusade
Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond and Tancred who
396 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
by now appeared in saintly guise. The speech of Urban at
Clermont was combed over for stirring phrases.
As to personal arguments, the tracts set forth that men s
bodies were in reality the fief of God, to be risked for Him.
That it was necessary to avenge the injury done the Holy
Land by the infidels. That even the Saracens made pilgrim
ages to their holy places. That the crusades aided chivalry
and earned salvation for the cross bearers. As for the defeats
had not God since the beginning of the world suffered poison
ous weeds to grow among healthy plants ?
The Church of Rome never accepted responsibility for the
defeats, explaining that the military command in the crusades
had been held by princes and officers outside the Church.
Now the preachers laid greater stress than ever upon ma
terial and selfish gains to be had from the crusades special
indulgences of long duration remission of sins protection
of goods at home freedom from payment of interest and
tithes. And the preachers were told how to combat objections.
If a man was held back by love of his wife did not Eve
cause the first fall of man? If he would not leave his home,
was it not the vice of avarice or gluttony that restrained him ?
If he feared the peril of the sea, or sickness, was he not like a
palfrey that ambles about the countryside while the charger
goes forth to war? If he still refused to go, he might be roused
by taunts of "farm fowl" or "Flanders cow" supposed
to stay all the day attached to the house by a rope or " fresh
water fish" that turns tail and flees from the smell of salt
water.
These teams of preachers held services at altar and chapel.
The master preacher would deliver his sermon, to stir the
crowd. " Come, let not one of you refuse the cross, the cross
that is the investiture of the esteemed kingdom desired by
all men "
After that, hymns . . . Vexilla regls , . . "Now then, who
wishes the blessing of God? Who loves the society of the
angels? Who sighs for the crown incorruptible? Draw near,
that you may receive the cross and obtain everything!"
Then, the collection, to be forwarded to the officers of the
church. A time and place announced for the embarkation,
THE TIDE EBBS 397
under so-and-so as leader. The friar, now present, would be
there at the ship, to go with the cross-bearers over the sea.
So the black-robed preachers harangued the throngs, and
the people of the hamlets listened, troubled in mind but ob
durate. Old crusaders stood in the throngs and took no part
in the service. Sometimes youths volunteered to go, or men
with a burden of sin to be cleansed. But for the most part the
throngs would not yield to the persuasion of the preachers.
They looked stolidly on, while the women across the aisle
prayed that they would not go. They thought of other proces
sions, of black crosses carried in mourning, and the thin
groups of crusaders returning from Palestine poverty ridden,
the flesh wasted on their bones perhaps bearing the scars
of the plague.
Jerusalem yes, they would like to see Jerusalem. But
Saladin had swept away all the Holy Land in a single march,
in the day of their great-grandfathers. Even the mighty
Barbarossa and valiant Coeur de Lion and the saintly king
Louis had not won it back again. Where they had failed,
who could succeed?
Where had all the treasure gone, that had been poured
into the alms boxes of the churches these many years? What
had become of the crusaders who had never gained sight of
Palestine? What had been done with the children who went
off in the Italian ships?
And these Moslems, they were not servants of Evil as the
monks had related in other days; they were assuredly not
demons. Why attack them rather than Jews or Prussians?
They no longer crossed the sea to enter Christendom. What
good could come of going oversea to their lands? Let well
enough alone.
So the throngs listened to the preachers of Rome, and
turned away without response.
The next move came from the east, not from the west. It
was no orderly crusade, but a mad and strange march from
the limbo of Cathay. The Mongols rode to Jerusalem,
LIII
HULAGXJ AND THE KALIF
ATHER, the Mongols rode past Jerusalem. And at their
coming the whole scheme of things shifted. They had
appeared before, only to turn back to their deserts.
Now they came to stay, and where are the words to tell of
their coming?
A vast and elemental force, like the winds and the earth
shakings of the world a human power that could make its
way over the barrier ranges of high Asia, and cross the barren
plains an animal-like intelligence, heedless of human
suffering, avid of all that was new and precious impulsive
as a child, and still wise with the old wisdom of Cathay.
Behind the warriors who overturned city walls and changed
rivers in their courses, rode the mandarins who brought order
out of chaos.
Behind them other hordes, in the snows of Russia and in the
tiled courts of Cathay. Remote and redoubted, the Kha Khan,
master of the hordes, in his nomads court at Karakorum,
ruler of the known world from Venice to Korea. Thirty cara
vans a day bringing him tribute that he did not trouble to
count, and captive princes who prostrated themselves before
398
HULAGU AND THE KALIF 399
him. Couriers bearing his letters across the plains, two hun
dred miles in a day and as much in a night. Conjurers, jesters,
harlots, ministers, and hermits thronging round his guards
men to gain sight of him. A million soldiers obedient to his
commands.
The great khan had ordered his brother Hulagu to march
to the south and the east, to take possession of the lands of
Islam.
So, a little after St. Louis left Acre, the horde of Hulagu
Khan crossed the ranges and moved leisurely toward Bagh
dad, with its trains of ox carts creaking behind it, and strings
of camels threading across the plains. The Mongol horsemen
sat in their sheepskins upon saddles covered with cloth-of-
gold the nobles who commanded them wore sable robes
covered by silver-gray wolfskins, while their reins were
weighted with silver and the hilts of their weapons flamed
with precious stones. In the regiments, behind the horse-tail
standards or long blue banners, trotted stalwart Turks and
swarthy Kirghiz, and slender Uigurs nomad Christians
who had joined the hordes. Bearded Afghans and hawk-
nosed Turkomans followed the horde as jackals follow the
lion when he hunts. There was even a regiment of Chinese
engineers, to handle the pao yu, the artillery. 1
The horde moved slowly as a juggernaut car, but as surely.
It quartered itself in Khorassan and the mountain region of
Persia. And there its scouts discovered the citadels of the
Assassins, who had made the mistake of slaying a Mongol
general. Without haste Hulagu s officers studied the moun
tain strongholds and negotiated with the master of the As
sassins, who erred a second time when he tired to out-do
them in trickery. The end of it was that the master was sent
to the great khan, and was never beheld again, while Alamut
and his other eyries were besieged methodically and torn to
pieces.
The Mongols learned the use of gunpowder from the Chinese, who manufactured
it long before the Europeans. It is often said that the Chinese were aware of the
fusive effect of gunpowder, but not of its detonating properties. This is not the case.
They exploded powder in cumbersome bombs, and in a kind of mortar, to terrify
hostile cavalry. They also used it in mines. But they did not make serviceable cannon
until taught by Europeans three or four centuries later.
400 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
That was the last of the Old Man of the Mountain and his
order, in the mountains of Persia.
The horde settled down before Baghdad, and the last of
the kalifs penned himself behind his walls, closing his gates
against the pagan invaders. Baghdad was stormed and sacked
so remorselessly that all the peoples of Islam heard the tid
ings with terror.
The kalif was smothered to death under carpets, and
with him vanished the splendor of the court of Baghdad.
This done, the horde separated and overcame resistance
elsewhere. The amir of Mosul rendered submission to them;
the Seljuks were driven before them into the north of Asia
Minor and ceased to play a part in affairs thereafter. Damas
cus yielded, and Aleppo was stormed and its citadel dis
mantled.
Before this the Armenian king Haython had journeyed to
Mangu, the great khan, and not only made his peace but an
alliance with the pagans. Bohemund VI, prince of Antioch,
shared in this alliance, paying a small tribute to the Mongols.
Mangu, the great khan, heard Haython s appeal, and an
nounced that the Mongols would support the Christians in
Syria and Armenia. The khan added that he was sending his
brother Hulagu to cast down the kalif and to restore Jeru
salem.
Hulagu s secretaries sent a letter to St. Louis, saying:
"We have many Christians among our people. We are
come with authority and power to announce that all Chris
tians are to be freed from servitude and taxes in Moslem
lands, and are to be treated with honor and reverence. No
one is to molest their goods, and whatever churches have
been destroyed are to be rebuilt, and are to be allowed to
sound their plates."
When they entered Damascus, the Mongols turned over
to the Christians 1 several mosques that had once been
churches.
*It must not be forgotten that in nearly all the Moslem lands there were native
Christians Kopts, Syrians, Armenians, and Georgians. These were more or less
oppressed, and the Mongol inroad did more to free them than all the efforts of the
HULAGU AND THE KALIF 401
When they entered northern Syria in 1259, the year after
the fall of Baghdad, there was rejoicing among the native
Christians. An angered Muhammadan wrote:
"Every religious sect proclaims its faith openly, and no
Moslem dares disapprove. Every Chris tian, whether of the
common people or the highest, has put on his finest garments
and gone forth to sing."
A spasm of unlooked-for hope seized Europe. The terrible
horde had retired from the Danube a generation before, and
now the benevolent horde was approaching the Jordan.
This might be a new miracle.
Already Innocent IV and St. Louis had sent preaching
friars to the desert city of Karakorum in the Gobi, and the
Mongols had sent them back with scrupulous care. The
friars had not managed to convert the great khan, but they
had found him human and amiable. And they had found
besides throngs of Nestorian Christians converts of the
disciplies of the early days of Christianity who had held to
their faith although isolated for a thousand years in the
Far East. The great khan tolerated all religions, but he was
angered by the Muhammadans with whom he was then at
war, and friendly to the Christians. Moreover, he sent letters
to the pope, and asked for ambassadors and a group of
philosophers to visit him and teach him.
And now his brother, Hulagu, who had overrun the heart
of Islam, sought contact with the crusaders in the Holy Land.
The Armenians exulted in the alliance their king Haython
had made with the master of the horde; wild tales passed
from hamlet to hall that the kingdom of Prester John had
been discovered at last in the East that the magicians of
Cathay had appeared in fire and smoke.
The Venetians insinuated themselves into the good graces
of the conquerors, and the two elder Polos, Messrs Nicolo
crusaders. By this time there were also thousands of captive crusaders and their
offspring.
These lost crusaders seldom appear In the pages of history. Some were ransomed
by the military orders; some trickled back to Europe overland there is a highway
in the Caucasus known to this day as the Road of the Crusaders. But most of them
were submerged in the flux of the Near East and survive only in legends and tales
told to travelers. Several times the present writer ran across such legends in Syria.
4 o2 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
and MafFeo, prepared to set out to Cathay. Voyagers thronged
into the long road that led past Samarkand to the East. It
was a day of miracles in which anything could happen.
The Templars, watching events with appraising eyes,
begged the European courts urgently to make peace with
Egypt. In the crisis the three military orders buried jhzir
quarrels of the past and made common cause to defend them
selves on their strip of coast. They besought Rome to bring
about a binding military alliance with the Mongols.
But the papal Curia, involved in civil war and passing
from one interregnum to another, did nothing except to
send out two other preaching friars. The golden opportunity
was lost, and to make matters worse, Rome still sounded the
trumpet blast of war against the mamluks, thus neglecting
the Mongols, antagonizing Egypt, and sacrificing the cru
saders on the coast of the Holy Land.
Only the Mongols could have restored Jerusalem to the
Christians. And when Hulagu Khan was at the threshold of
Palestine in 1259 he had tidings of the death of the great
khan Mangu. By the old custom of the horde, he was forced
to return at once to Karakorum, taking his army with him.
Haython prevailed upon him before his departure to
leave a single division of 10,000 horsemen under Ketbogha,
to hold Syria. Either because the Armenians persuaded him,
or because Ketbogha wished to carry on the campaign him
self, this division of the horde rode down through Palestine,
past Jerusalem, driving the Moslems from Hebron and Bait-
Jebrail.
So, at the southern end of Palestine, the Mongols came
face to face with the outposts of the mamluks.
Before then the horde had sent an ominous message to
Cairo. "These are the words of Him who rules the earth
tear down your walls and submit. If you do so, peace will be
granted you. If you do otherwise, that will happen which
will happen, and what it is to be we know not. God alone
knows."
Cairo was divided between anger and fear of the Mongols.
Most of the mamluks favored submission, but Baibars called
for war himself a Tatar escaped from the Golden Horde.
ALAMUT, CITADEL OF THE ASSASSINS
Besieged by the Mongol horde. From a Fifteenth Century
Persian illumination.
COURTESY OF BLOCHET LES ENLUMINURES DES MANUSCRITS ORIENTAUX
SULTAN K ALA W UN S TOMB
Interior of Sultan Kalawun s tomb in Cairo. Erected with
plundered columns and splendid alabaster work,
mosaics, and wood carving.
HULAGU AND THE KALIF 403
When Hulagu departed for the Gobi, Baibars prevailed upon
the sultan to advance against Ketbogha. To make certain of
war, he had the Mongol envoys put to death.
There followed, in 1260, the Battle of Ain Jalut near Gaza.
The host of the mamluks met Ketbogha s division, and the
Mongols, without support of any kind, weakened by the
great heat and outnumbered, were broken and driven north,
out of Palestine, and through Syria.
Baibars, exulting in his victory, pressed forward without
respite. Ketbogha was slain, and the scattered horsemen of
the horde in their strange bronze breastplates and dark
enameled helmets, their horses weighted down by leather
housing, passed with their yak-tail banner beneath the walls
of Hebron, by the gray, deserted cathedral of Bethlehem,
through the gorge of the Jordan as the wrack of thorn-bush
and dust flies before the wind storm of the plains. Like the
whirling wind of the desert, they sped over the dry lands of
beyond- Jordan they swam the Euphrates, and vanished
before the black banners of the mamluks.
Baibars, in his pursuit, captured Damascus for his sultan,
and overrode the country as far as Aleppo.
For the first time since the triumph of Genghis Khan, the
Mongol horsemen had met their match. The real test of
strength between the riders of the Gobi and the slave-
warriors of Cairo was still to come; but in this lightning
rush of events in the year 1260, Hulagu had passed from the
scene, taking with him the hope of a Mongol conquest of
Jerusalem, and Baibars had appeared in his place. Jerusalem
now belonged to the mamluks.
And Baibars wrote finis to the year in his own fashion.
Expecting the province of Aleppo as reward for his victory,
he was disappointed by his sultan. Straightway he killed his
overlord, and was himself proclaimed sultan of Cairo,
Father of Victory and Pillar of the Faith.
It is time, and more than time, to look at Baibars, the
Panther, who had in this typically spectacular manner ar
rived at the summit of his ambition.
LIV
THE PANTHER LEAPS
T is strange that the character who comes out before the
curtain of this final act of the crusades should have been
a clown, A gorgeous and sinister Pagliacci, who sang his
own prologo and shook with inextinguishable laughter even
when he crept across the stage with dagger drawn.
No doubt he appears mad, but he is not. He plays the
tricks of a clown to amuse himself, but he is not a clown.
He is delighted because he has driven the horsemen of the
horde like wild mares across the stage at his entrance, yet it
pleases him better to disappear altogether from our sight.
He is quite capable of coming on again as a beggar or a
wandering crossbowman, or a solitary feaster at a banquet
and woe to the fellow player who gives his identity away.
He is, in brief, a true actor of the East that we have never un
derstood, and he is a great actor. One of his audience, the
friar William of Tripoli, said that, as a soldier, he was not
inferior to Julius Caesar, nor did he yield in malignity to
Nero.
Look at him in his natural person, and you will behold a
giant in stature, his hair red, his broad face sun darkened;
one eye blue, the other whitened by the scar that blinded it;
404
THE PANTHER LEAPS 405
all of his six feet clad in the colored silks, the velvet vest and
wide girdle cloth, the gold-inlaid armor pieces, the black-
and-gold khalat, the turban-wound helmet of a mamluk who
was also sultan. His left hand is his sword hand.
Consider his past a Tatar of the Golden Horde, a desert-
bred fighter, sold at Damascus for a slave at a price of about
ninety dollars and returned on account of the blemish in his
eye. He called himself the Crossbowman when he joined the
roistering White Slaves of the River and became a leader of
men who were intolerant of leaders.
Probably Baibars himself could not have named over the
full list of his battles. We know that he helped wipe out the
crusaders at Gaza in 1 244, that he was one of Pearl Spray s
triumvirate, and that his counter-attack at Mansura broke
the heart of St. Louis and overthrew the chivalry of France.
Alone, he set himself across the path of the great khan and
defeated a Mongol army. With his own hand he wounded one
sultan of Egypt and slew another. His soldiers spoke of him
as Malik Dahir, the Triumphant King.
But he is really the Commander of the Faithful, the good
kalif of the Thousand and One Nights. True, the name in the
tales is that of Haroun the Blessed; the deeds, however, are
Baibars . He, not the cold and cautious Haroun of two cen
turies before, feasted gigantically and passed his days in
disguise among his people; he appointed porters to be princes,
and made princes into porters to gratify a whim; he assem
bled the fairest girls of that part of the world, to add variety
to his harem. Eventually a Christian woman of Antioch be
came his favorite wife.
The real scene of the Thousand and One Nights is not
Baghdad but Cairo. 1 The river with its pleasure barges rowed
by slaves is the Nile, not the Tigris. The unruly slaves are
the mamluks.
*The origin of the tales known as the Arabian Nights is, of course, Indian and
Persian to a great extent. The name and some incidents of the life of Haroun ar
Raschid, kalif of Baghdad, have been added by the story tellers. But scholars have
made certain that the collection of the tales centered in Cairo, and that the deeds
attributed to Haroun are really Baibars for the most part. For one thing, the coarse
humor and the comedy are Egyptian, not Arabian. And the references to Christian
knights and crusaders belong to Baibars day.
4 o6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Among the many roles played by Baibars that of the
sultan-in-disguise appealed most to the fancy of his people.
Incognito, with his cup companions, he would raid the public
baths to carry off the choicest women. Unattended, he would
mount his horse and go off, to appear the next day in Pales
tine on the fourth day in the Arabian desert. He had all a
Tatar s ability to ride far and fast. He played court tennis
at Damascus, and eight hundred miles away at Cairo
in the same week. He would ride in at the triple gate of
Aleppo s gray citadel when the garrison believed him feasting
on the Nile.
His counselors were not enlightened as to his plans or else
their noses were led to the wrong scent. For all his Moslems
knew, their sultan might be listening at their elbow, or at
sea a thousand miles away the building of a new fleet was
one of his pet projects. He might be a tall mamluk sitting his
horse under a gate, or a tall antelope hunter out with leopards
beyond the sheep pastures, or a tall stranger from Persia
rocking in prayer at the elbow of the kadi reading from the
Koran in the chief mosque. His people took pains not to
identify him, because Baibars, incognito, would cut off the
head of a man who salaamed to him or cried his name in a
moment of forgetfulness. They dreaded his coming, even while
they listened exultingly to the growing tale of his exploits
and shivered with terror.
Baibars was a sultan after their own hearts. The story
teller of the bazaar corner and the blind man sitting in the
sun of the mosque courtyard were his minstrels. Who could
relate the full tale of his daring? Or his zeal for Islam?
Or his championship of the holy war? The Thousand and
One tales grew up around him, but they did not relate the
whole.
He had Saladin s secret of victory, and he became as strict
a Moslem as the son of Ayub although in his private excur
sions he allowed himself license enough. He closed the wine
shops and burned the stores of hashish, but secretly he drank
the fermented mare s milk of the Tatars. What Saladin had
accomplished by will power, and Richard of England had
THE PANTHER LEAPS 407
achieved by nervous energy, the Panther surpassed by sheer
abounding vitality.
He joined in the archery tests of his mamluks, and outdid
them; he wielded his cane spear in the jousting field, and
overthrew them; he hastened to the polo field; he hunted
with leopards during a march, and his horses won the races.
He surrounded his gigantic person with all the splendor of a
conqueror with Viceroy, Master of the Horse, Lord of the
Drums, Grand Huntsman, Polo-bearer, Slipper-holder, Lord
of the Chair, and all the fellowship of the black eunuchs.
Horns and drums heralded his approach, when he played his
public role of sultan. To soldiers who caught his fancy, he
gave emeralds or Christian girls or estates in Damascus, as
the fancy struck him. At a suspicion of revolt he beheaded
1 80 lords of Cairo.
And yet he had a canny sense of finance. In the first days
of his sultanate he reduced all taxes, while he met his enor
mous expenditures by levies on conquered territory. He built
hospitals out of tribute paid by brothels, then he closed the
brothels although he kept boys around him for his own
amusement. He gleaned money for his fleet by raiding the
Italian merchantmen, and then forced Venice and Genoa he
delighted in playing one off against the other to pay high
for the privileges of the Egyptian ports.
He could be a most able administrator when he chose.
Letters brought to his headquarters were answered within
the day, and the answers dictated to his secretaries went out
swiftly by pigeon post, galloper, and fast galley. Language
was no barrier to this much-traveled tyrant; and when his
secretaries were brought to despair by one of his long ab
sences, he would be apt to dismount at his headquarters
and come in upon them unannounced, to work through the
night hours over communications in Greek, Arabic, Margra-
bian, Turkish. He exchanged letters and ambassadors with
Charles of Anjou and the Venetians, with the Spanish kings
and Conradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen.
By spies and merchants and friends among the Europeans,
he kept his finger on events, knowing that Germany was
4 o8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
divided in civil war, Italy prostrate after the long strife
between the emperor and pope, and the French crusaders
driven from Constantinople at last. He worked steadily
and effectively to isolate the crusaders in Syria from their
people in Europe.
The Panther had two ambitions to defeat the Mongol
khans, and to drive the crusaders out of the East. And, as
Saladin had done, he called for the jihad, the holy war against
the infidels.
Meanwhile for Baibars had too much common sense to
make war in haste he carried out certain preparations of
his own. To discourage another crusade by sea, he blocked
up the Damietta channel with rocks and moved the city
itself back up the river; he built signal towers along the coast,
organized a relay pigeon post between Cairo and Damascus.
To strengthen his frontiers, and to add to his treasury, he
seized Damascus treacherously, accusing its lord of allying
himself with the Mongols. Including the Armenians in this
accusation, he marched north and ravaged the hill castles
that had been secure even in Saladin s wars. With throngs
of captives, and an Armenian prince, and camel trains of
spoil, he left the mountain ranges and the ruins of the castles
smoking behind him. To impress Christian and Assassin
envoys who visited him during this march, he mutilated and
then put to death 500 Armenian captives.
To his men, on the eve of the jihad, he issued a proclama
tion that Napoleon might have given out before a new cam
paign:
"The king of the French, the king of England, the emperor
of Germany, and the Roman emperor have marched against
us aforetime. They have vanished like a storm chased by the
wind. May they come again! May he come, the king Charles,
and the Greek with him and even the Mongol. We will
enrich ourselves with their treasures, and will be glorified
as victors in the holy war."
In spite of this challenge, Baibars did not wish to call
down upon his head a general crusade. He kept his fingers
on the pulse of Europe through the Venetians, who now
frankly made alliances with the Moslems; and he kept an
THE PANTHER LEAPS 409
eye on the doings of the Mongols in Persia through his spies.
He had set his heart on clearing the crusaders from the coast
of the Holy Land which Saladin had not been able to
accomplish and he planned deftly to do this without rousing
Europe to a new crusade.
To march against the formidable knights who had been
strengthening their network of castles from Jaffa to Antioch
was a task calling for the utmost care and skill. Glory was to
be had, of course, in driving out the infidels, but hard knocks
and little spoil as well. Baibars did not underestimate his
foes in the slightest.
He wanted, of course, to round out his new empire by
clearing the coast. But, more than that, he looked upon this
task as a duty. Pagliacci had a soul, under all the paint and
pantomime.
During his peregrinations Baibars had examined most of
the crusader citadels, and he knew the ground thoroughly.
Some thirty fortified points confronted him, ranging from
huge Antioch, with its hundred thousand motley inhabitants,
to the Krak des Chevaliers, with its enormous walls and pop
ulation of soldiers, to small citadels of the sea like Tyre, and
isolated towers garrisoned by a few Templars or Hospitalers.
He understood that the crusaders were no longer able to
put an army in the field against him unless a new crusade
should be launched. So he made his plans to strike at the
citadels, one at a time, by swift thrusts that depended upon
surprise and weight of numbers and power of siege engines
for rapid success. Like Hannibal, he had a varied but devoted
host behind him, made up of trained mamluks, Berber and
Arab levies, with the negroes of the Sudan. Such a force,
even more than Saladin s, was formidable in victory but un~
dependable when checked for any time. And Baibars had all
a Tatar s instinct for secrecy and swiftness of action.
The crusaders knew when he led his army from Cairo for
the first blow in 1265. Baibars marched rapidly north from
Jerusalem, and they were watching for him around Acre
when his black standards suddenly appeared before the small
walled town of Caesarea in the south. His mamluks stormed
4 io THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the outer wall, and set up their siege engines brought
up in pieces on camel and mule back before the citadel
which held out for a week. The Panther turned over the
castle to his men to plunder, while he worked with his own
hands at razing the fortifications.
He had determined to destroy all the cities on the coast
which had been rallying points for the crusaders. While two
divisions of his cavalry overran Haifa and menaced Chateau
Pelerin just north of the lost Caesarea, Baibars turned south
with his infantry and siege engines and invested Arsuf.
The knights, watching from the parapet while the Moslems
set up their camp, noticed a solitary mamluk, a tall figure
in a long coat of mail that hung to his ankles and carrying
a shield, walking without haste between the lines. The Mos
lems did not point at the wanderer, or display any interest
in him while he inspected the foundation stones of the wall
and the gate towers. Nor did the knights observe that he had
one blue eye and one white eye.
They did see him presently, working the siege engines; and
when after a month Arsuf surrendered, they discovered him
to be the sultan. Baibars made the captives pull down the
walls stone by stone, and in spite of his promise to free
them paraded them in triumph into Cairo with their ban
ners reversed and broken crosses hanging from their necks.
It was his way of bringing the fruit of the jihad to Cairo.
And in the next year he had bloodier tokens to show for the
hill castle of Safed was beset, and when its weary Templars
surrendered they were put to death, all but one who turned
Moslem and one who was spared to carry the tidings of the
massacre to the remaining strongholds of the crusaders.
To the exulting mamluks, who had seen three citadels fall
to them, this was a sign of victory. The end of the unbelievers
was written in the Book of Fate, and what was written
would come to pass. They felt assured that they were the
instruments of fate, destined to reap with their swords the
final harvest of Christian lives that would atone for all the
past.
They did not realize that Baibars had blooded them care
fully upon three of the weakest strongholds, and by so doing
THE PANTHER LEAPS 411
had intimidated the other citadels. While the crusaders
appealed for armed aid from Haython, the Mongols, and
Europe, Baibars consented to take 15,000 pieces of gold
from Bohemund VI of Antioch, for a truce, while he went
north to punish Haython for daring to support the Mongols.
A tale is told that he wandered incognito into the far-dis
tant country of Asia Minor, where at a roadside pastry shop
he dismounted to eat fruit and cake. When he went out of
the shop, he left his ring on a table. After he rejoined his army
he sent a courier to the Mongol Il-khan, explaining that he
had lost his signet ring in a certain pastry shop belonging to
the khan and asking that it be returned to him.
Even on the path of war, Baibars would have his jest. He
was vastly amused, no doubt, the next year, when he heard
that the Venetians and Genoese their feud being then at its
height had fought a naval battle off the coast of the Holy
Land. But he heard also that St. Louis, informed of the
situation in Palestine, had taken the cross again and was
assembling his second great crusade.
LV
A LETTER TO BOHEMUND
E news spurred Baibars to make his real effort in the
following spring 1268. In March he appeared without
warning before the gates of Jaffa, the only town re
maining to the crusaders in the south. He stormed it, tore it
down, and sent its marble columns back to Cairo to enrich a
new mosque, the Dahira. These massive marbles had been
shaped by skilled Greek hands in forgotten times; now, seized
by the eager hands of ragged fellahis, they were reared into
place within the courtyard of baked clay while the human
swarms of the alleys and the ragged watermen of the Nile
chanted in admiration of the work of the Triumphant King.
Baibars, with his armored horsemen, his creaking carts and
camel trains, with his silk-clad negroes herding captive cru
saders in chains, with frantic dervishes screaming an endless
song of victory, climbed to the cold Lebanon and set up his
engines before Belfort. The castle that had defied Saladin
held out for only ten days, and the sultan s eunuchs had new
captives to scourge along the road.
Then the army went down to graze its horses and to reap
412
A LETTER TO BOHEMUND 413
the harvest of the fields of Banyas where the waters of the
Jordan come to the surface of the earth beneath a red cliff.
And Baibars disappeared. 1
A day or so later a party of envoys from the sultan entered
the double gate of Tripoli s castle, and demanded speech with
Bohemund VI, whom they called the count. They were led
to the upper courtyard, where knights and men-at-arms
gathered round them, and Bohemund made his appearance
on a tower stairway. He had come down from his city of
Antioch that his ancestor, the first Bohemund, had wrested
from the Turks nearly two centuries before. And two cen
turies of luxury, surrounded by Greeks and served by Syrians,
had left their mark on the prince of Antioch who was Norman
only in lineage. He had bought a peace from Baibars, but
still, being fearful, he had journeyed south to Tripoli, his
other city, to watch events.
The leader of the Egyptian envoys spoke to him boldly,
addressing him as Count Bohemund, and accusing him of
breaking the terms of the truce.
But Bohemund still had something of Norman pride, and
he whispered to his chamberlain, who upbraided the envoys.
"Shape better your tongues or be silent. It is well known to
all men that my lord is prince of Antioch, and by that title
must you address him."
The mamluk who was leader of the envoys glanced about
him covertly and hesitated. Then he shook his head.
x The amazing speed of the Panther s movements, as well as his genius for decep
tion, rendered him invisible to the eyes of the harassed crusaders.
In this spring he was before Jaffa, 7 March then superintended the rebuilding
of Hebron with its great mosque at Belfort, 5 April Banyas, 25 April arranged
for a new patrol and courier system (a kind of mounted police and pony express
combined) to be carried out by the nomad Turkomans in Tripoli in disguise,
i May captured Antioch, 1 5 May.
Antioch is some 500 miles from Jaffa by road. Baibars took Jaffa in 12 hours and
Antioch in 30. Such maneuvering fairly outdid Saladin s greatest efforts. It took
Saladin months to reduce Belfort, and three days to capture the outer wall of Jaffa,
and he never ventured to besiege Antioch.
Baibars* rapidity of movement equaled some of the marches of Genghis Khan
and Tamerlane. It must be remembered that he had Tatars and central Asia Turks
under him he was one of the spectacular leaders of the new influx from mid-Asia
that overwhelmed the hard-fighting crusaders, and in the next century swept
over their lines into Europe itself.
4 i 4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
"Thus was the message given me, to Al Komas y the Count.
And not otherwise may I say what was said to me/
The brow of the prince darkened, and he signed to his
men-at-arms to surround the Moslems and seize them.
As he did so one of them, a tall groom who had been holding
the horses, wandered over to the leading mamluk. In so
doing the groom touched the officer s foot, and the mamluk
spoke at once to Bohemund.
"Yah Brens Prince, content ye!"
The point was yielded by the Moslems, and their message
delivered. While the talk went on, the tall groom continued
his wanderings round the courtyard, staring up with his one
good eye at the walls, at the weapons of the garrison, and at
Bohemund himself. When the prince of Antioch dismissed
his visitors, the groom neglected to hold the stirrups of the
mamluks. He mounted a charger himself and rode off among
them. And outside the gate of the town, he rocked in the
saddle, roaring with laughter.
"To the devil with all countships and princedoms!" he
cried.
Baibars had added the part of a groom to his other roles,
and the experience amused him vastly. Perhaps it suggested
to him what followed, or perhaps he had already planned it
out. He disappeared again from the valley below B any as,
but this time he took the pick of his army with him.
Two weeks later, at the end of May, a letter arrived at the
castle of Tripoli for Bohemund. It was brought by an un
armed Moslem not the sultan in disguise this time who
disappeared after it was taken from him.
Bohemund, opening the missive, beheld at the foot of it
Baibar s heavy signature. And when he had read it through
he sat without moving or speaking, as if stunned by an un
seen blow. When his companions knew the contents of the
letter, amazement and sorrow kept them silent. The letter
was the masterpiece of the versatile sultan.
"Greeting to the Count," it began. "And commiseration
upon his misfortune, inflicted by Allah, who hath deprived
him of his princedom and left to him for consolation only his
countship. Know, O Count, thou who believest thyself to
A LETTER TO BOHEMUND 415
be prince of Antioch art not for WE are lord of Antioch,
thy rich and fruitful city.
"Sword in hand, we swept through thy city on the fourth
hour of Saturday, the fourth day of Ramadan. If thou hadst
seen thy knights rolled under the hoofs of our horses ! Thy
palaces trampled by the plunderers who filled their bags
with booty! Thy treasures weighed out by the heaviest
weights ! Thy fair women hawked in the streets at four for a
dinar and bought with thine own gold!
"If thou hadst seen thy churches broken in, their crosses
shattered, their lying gospels tossed from hand to hand in the
open under the sun, the tombs of thy noble forefathers
overturned, while thy foe the Moslems trod upon thy Holy
of Holies, slaughtering monks and priests and deacons like
sheep, leading out the rich to misery, and nobles of thy
blood to slavery!
"Couldst thou have seen the flames licking up thy halls
thy dead cast into the flames temporal while the flames eter
nal awaited them the churches of the Apostles rocking and
going down . . . Then wouldst thou have said, God, that I
were dust! y
"Since no man of thine hath escaped to tell thee the tale,
i TELL IT THEE!"
In this way the Panther ended the dispute as to whether
Bohemund was prince or count.
He had written only the truth. His horsemen surprised
the great city, and stormed the hastily guarded wall that
had been thought impregnable, and the gardens of the cru
saders were drenched in the blood of a fearful massacre. Eight
thousand souls crowded into the citadel on the height above
Antioch, and these were granted their lives. ^
The Moslems snatched from the burning city spoil almost
beyond counting gold was tallied by the vase-full, and
young girl slaves were handed about among the camelmen
for five dirhems a head. The blow had fallen like lightning
from a fair sky, and within a week Antioch was populated
only by swarms of merchants and thieves, grubbing in the
ruins and bargaining for spoil in the markets.
In the south, the crusaders heard the tidings with incredu-
4 i 6 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
lity. But except for the unfortunate Bohemund it affected
them little, since Antioch had grown apart from the Holy
Land generations before. They waited anxiously to learn
where Baibars would strike next he had lopped off the
extreme south and the north of their line of citadels that
year.
But in the next spring 1269 Baibars contented himself
with some grim maneuvers. He vanished for a while, allowing
the report to be sent forth that he was dead. Apparently he
had been criticized for his treachery in breaking his treaties
with the Christians, and wished in this way to trick them
into giving him cause for a fresh invasion.
Twice he failed to surprise the black stronghold of Mar-
ghab, held by the Hospitalers. Once he materialized without
armor and with forty horsemen on the summit of the hill
of the Krak, under the castle walls. He challenged the knights
to come out to individual combat, and rode off again. He
harvested the fields of the knights and staged a small triumph
ornamented with Christian heads in Damascus. But in reality
he was holding his army in readiness to meet the crusade of
St. Louis.
The energetic sultan, however, did more than await the
coming of the French king. On learning the numbers and
strength of the crusade which included the forces of Charles
of Anjou, the chivalry of Navarre, and a small contingent
of English led by their prince Edward he attempted to turn
it aside and succeeded.
At Baibars urging, the Moslem lord of Tunis wrote to
St. Louis that he was prepared to aid the crusaders against
the sultan, and inviting them to land upon the African coast
in his territory. He sent also a large sum of money to prove
his good faith. Just how the intrigue was carried out, and
how the king was induced to sail to Tunis, is not known. 1
*It is said that his brother, Charles of Anjou, then king of the Two Sicilies, per
suaded him to land at Tunis to conquer that coast for the French arms and to rid
the neighboring sea of the troublesome Moslem pirates. But it seems evident that
Charles joined the crusade reluctantly since it forced him to abandon his own plans
in the East. Many others embarked without enthusiasm, being constrained to join
the crusade by the devout king. It was purely a personal undertaking on the part of
St. Louis and was abandoned at once after his death.
A LETTER TO BOHEMUND 417
Suffice it that he went thither, as Baibars had desired, in
July, 127-.
Landing in that time of heat and dust, after the country
had been desolated by a famine, St. Louis found that the
amir of Tunis had betrayed him, and that the Moslems were
in arms against him. The crusaders pressed the siege of the
white-walled city, above the stagnant salt marshes, in spite
of the dust storms that swept through their camps, and the
bad water, and the harrying of the Berber clans who rode
down from the southern hills.
Beholding them so situated, a poet of Tunis recalled the
poem of victory sung at Cairo twenty years before, and he
wrote:
King of France, thou wilt find this land a sister of Egypt: prepare
theefor what fate hath in store for thee here.
Thou wilt find here the tomb, in place of the house of Lokman; and
thy eunuch here will be the Angel of Death!
Fate added the gift of prophecy to the wit of the Moslem
singer. Within a month the plague made its appearance in
the Christian host, and the king was afflicted with his son
who had been born in the stress of the terrible days at
Damietta and who was now entering manhood.
They carried the weakening St. Louis out to the shore,
near the hills where once Carthage had reared its walls. Here,
under the scattered eucalyptus and cedars, a breath of cool
air came in from the sea. The king and his son lay on blan
kets, stretched on the brown wisps of dead grass and poppies
under open pavilions.
The servants of the Church ministered to them, but could
not check the plague in the bodies weakened by dysentery.
The son died before the father. And the day came when the
thin form of the king turned on its side, and his voice was
heard:
"God have mercy on these, Thy people . . . lead them to
safety in their own land . . . O Jerusalem! Jerusalem !"
Within a week the height over the red bluff was deserted.
4 i 8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
The crusaders had left, taking with them the body of their
dead king.
The Arab shepherds and the brown sheep returned to the
shore, the muezzins called from the small towers in the white-
walled villages. The warriors of the tribes rode in, to look at
the remnants of the crusaders camps, and lean dervishes
pointed out the spot where St. Louis had died.
So the crusade came to its end in vain the last of the
great crusades.
Such were the tidings that reached Cairo, and filled Baibars
with infinite satisfaction. He himself had seen St. Louis in
chains at Mansura, and now thanks to the trap he had set
for him at Tunis the great king of the crusaders was being
carried to his tomb. The fire of the jihad seized upon the
men of Cairo anew, and Baibars decided to break down the
strongest outpost of the knights in the Holy Land.
In the spring, 1271, he led his terrible siege circus against
the Krak des Chevaliers, the headquarters of the Hospitalers.
For more than a century this square citadel of white stone
had crowned the bare hills at the edge of the Assassin coun
try. Unchallenged, even by Saladin, it had guarded approach
to the Templar s little town of Tortosa and Tripoli on the
coast.
Two weeks after Baibars set up his engines on the plateau
where the stone aqueduct runs into the southern bastions
of the Krak, the mighty citadel drew down its banners and
surrendered, the surviving knights being allowed to go forth
with their lives. 1
1 Baibars invariable success in these sieges was due to the Mongol siege tactics
he adopted. He had, of course, the best of engines, and from the moment of his arrival
on the scene the attack was pressed, the fanatical Moslems making assaults at all
hours while the engines opened a gap in the walls. The defenders were obliged to
remain under arms constantly, harassed by smoke bombs and flame throwers. No aid
could be expected from outside, and by now a sally was impossible in the face of
Baibars* numbers.
By 1270, the sultan s army had been modeled on the Mongol units, with adapta
tions of his own. His household mamluks, Bahriyah mamluks and halka (Guard)
of 10,000 each formed the regulars, and they were divided in turn into (a) expe
rienced cavalry (b) swordsmen on foot (c) reserve (d) recruits still under test.
His war levies consisted of the Nouwair Arabs, Bedawins, Arabs from Irak and
A LETTER TO BOHEMUND 419
Baibars repaired the damage done to the walls, and placed
an inscription with his name and the date of the capture upon
one of the towers. He intended to use the great fortress as a
base for future operations against the coast. And he wrote
to Hugh of Revel, commander of the Hospitalers, announcing
his achievement:
"To Brother Hugh. We will make clear to thee what God
hath just now done for us. Thou didst fortify this place, and
didst trust the guard of it to the choicest of thy brethren.
Well! Thou hast done nothing but hasten their deaths, and
their deaths will be thy loss/
The Panther was now the neighbor of his victim, Bohe-
mund, formerly prince of Antioch and now merely count of
Tripoli. With his mamluks, the sultan raided the fields of
Tripoli, gathering in crops and fruits and sugar cane.
Bohemund, shut up within his castle at Tripoli, made the
natural mistake of protesting that Baibars had broken the
truce for which the count had paid anew. Baibars was not at
loss for a reply.
"Nay, I have come only to gather in thy harvests, and the
vintages of thy vines. By God, I hope to pay thee a like visit
each year!"
Bohemund could do nothing but keep to the shelter of his
castle, and later in the summer he received a second message
from the Panther. The bearer of it brought also some heads
of game which he said were a gift from the sultan to the count.
The second message was brief as the first:
"The rumor runs that thou hast renounced the chase, and
Yamen about 40,000. And the Hawwarah of high Egypt 20,000 a division of
Turkomans from the Aleppo region, and Kurds 10,000.
Only a portion of the levies and the regular army were in the field as a rule.
The sultan s circus numbered perhaps two full divisions, but outnumbered the cru
sader garrisons ten to one. The wonder is not that the citadels fell so quickly, but
that they were defended at all. The Templars and Hospitalers, with a few Teu
tonic Knights, were the only military units now in the Holy Land; they were all in
garrison, and they could not have mustered between them 10,000 men.
Baibars could at need put nearly 100,000 men in the field. His successor, Kalawun,
in 1280, met a Mongol and Christian army of 80,000 with superior numbers.
After Baibars day, if not before, the military supremacy passed from the West
to the East, where the Mongols were now at home. It did not return to the West for
three centuries, and then largely by virtue of superior fire weapons.
4 2o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
darest not stir out of thy town. So we send thee these heads
of game to console thee/
Baibars, however, had not lingered near Tripoli. Swiftly
he marched south with his circus and captured Montfort,
the stronghold of the Teutonic Knights on the breast of the
hills within sight of Acre. After taking it, he decided to raze
it to the ground, and the stout walls were pulled down, the
stones scattered in the gorge.
Baibars captures, apparently haphazard, had been method
ical. First he had cleared the Palestine coast, as far as the
strong point of Chateau Pelerin; then he had swept over
north Syria, seizing Antioch and the rich cultivated lands
and the caravan roads to the coa k st. Then he had cleared the
crusaders from their last citadels in the line of the hills,
so that only narrow strips of coast at Acre and Tripoli re
mained to them, and they had, actually, their backs to the
sea. They could not ride inland for a half hour without com
ing among the Moslems. 1
still held Marghab, overlooking the sea, and Tortosa, Sidon, and Tyre,
with Chateau Pelerin the last three being actually built out into the sea. But
these were isolated, and Baibars left them to be dealt with later, when he had built
up his fleet. It happened that his ships of war were caught off Cyprus in a storm just
then, and destroyed.
Evidence of Baibars treatment of the captured strongholds remains to-day,
after seven centuries and a half. His plan was to destroy the coast ports, accessible
to the crusaders, and keep intact the hill citadels, to serve the Moslems. Of the
places he razed Ascalon, Caesarea, Arsuf, and Montfort hardly a trace of the
crusaders buildings remains. While the Krak, that he repaired, is almost intact and
his memorial tablet distinct to-day. Belfort also is half preserved.
The present writer, in his visit to Antioch, Aleppo, and Damascus, examined
the ruins of the majority of the crusaders* citadels. Their present condition is
explained in a note at the end of the book.
LVI
ASIA SENDS FORTH ITS HORDE
E man alone answered their appeals for aid. Edward,
prince of England, had taken the cross and, with a
few hundred adventurous knights and men-at-arms,
joined the crusade of St. Louis arriving at Tunis after the
death of the king, when the other lords were preparing to
sail home. This Edward would not do. Having taken the
cross, he meant to carry out his vow.
"By the blood of God," he swore, "I shall go to Acre if all
others leave me but Fowr my valet"
With his princess, Eleanor, and his small following, he
landed in the port of Acre in time to hear of the loss of the
Krak. Unable to take the field against the sultan, he had to
content himself with short raids inland, which troubled
Baibars enough to turn his attention to the young English
crusader.
In Edward s case, Baibars chose to draw the dagger, not
the sword and that treacherously. Either he enlisted the
aid of the Assassins, or he hired murderers from Jaffa who
passed themselves off as Assassins. They penetrated the
421
422 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
English camp with the usual throngs of hangers-on and
assailed the prince in his tent. Taken by surprise, Edward
defended himself valiantly, seizing and wrestling with the
Moslems, until aid came to him. He was wounded in the
arm and side, and the weapons of the murderers seem to have
been poisoned.
His wounds became infected, and he lay prostrate in his
tent, cared for by his youthful wife and apparently doomed
to a slow death by blood poisoning. No surgeon of that time
could operate in such a case, but Eleanor never ceased her
ministrations. The chronicle relates that when her husband
slept she lay by his side and licked the rankling wounds with
her tongue, until they closed. They who beheld her doing so
expected her to be stricken, but she received no hurt.
At the end of a year, in which all his efforts could accom
plish nothing, the English prince sailed home reluctantly.
He had tried to establish contact with the Mongols beyond
the Euphrates, and in 1274, when he was again in England
and occupied with affairs there, a Mongol embassy visited
Europe and reached the papal court. A letter carried by the
embassy was forwarded to Edward. It was written by the
Mongol khan Abaka, from Persia, and offered alliance to
the English prince, for the conquest of the Holy Land.
Edward, still cherishing hope of giving aid to Jerusalem,
felt unable to leave his own kingdom. "The resolution you
have taken," he wrote Abaka in response, "to relieve the
Holy Land from the enemies of Christianity is most grateful
to us, and we thank you. But we cannot at present send you
any certain news about the time of our arrival in the Holy
Land"
It is a curious turn in the tide of events the princes of
Christendom no longer in sympathy with the crusades, in
volved in their own quarrels and achievements at home, while
a Mongol lord prepares to enter the Holy Land in the face
of the Moslem power.
Baibars heard the rumble of the Mongol juggernaut from
afar, and exerted himself to ward off catastrophe. He had
been occupied in combing the Assassins out of their citadels
ASIA SENDS FORTH ITS HORDE 423
north of the Krak, and one by one he mastered the summits
of the dark hills in which they had lived isolated for so long.
Massiaf, the stronghold of the order which was now becom
ing a domesticated people without political ambition Kad-
mous and Kahf, the great cavern atop a precipice yielded
to him. He swept north and brought the Armenian mountain
eers to heel again. He pressed on into Asia Minor, but had to
turn back to watch the Mongols in 1275.
For weeks, with his scouts quartering over the Eastern
plains, and his divisions under arms in strategic points, the
Panther crouched alert. He never went to his tent to sleep
without fast horses waiting, ready saddled, at the entrance.
He slept in his clothes, even to his spurs.
The test of strength, however, did not come in his lifetime.
He did trounce a division of Mongols, 12,000 strong, and he
held Armenia safe. But the Mongols, discovering that the
crusaders could do nothing to support them, confined them
selves to ravaging and breaking up the dominion of the
Seljuks in Asia Minor.
Baibars was well content not to interfere with them. And
after the loss of his fleet with which he had planned to invade
Cyprus, he left the survivors of the crusaders unmolested
while he withdrew to Cairo to watch the building of his new
mosques and a great university. In the gateways of these
new structures he placed the columns of devastated Christian
churches. For once he deserted the saddle and the path of
war, because he had been wounded in the last conflict with
the Mongols, and from this wound he did not recover.
In his last years he saw the Sudan added to the new Egyp
tian empire, with the sheriffs of Mecca and Medinah. He
had rebuilt Saladin s empire to its borders and beyond, by
the time of his death in 1277.
He had been a fabulous and stormy figure the nemesis of
the crusades treacherous and murderous. He had filled
the slave markets of the Khan el Khalil in Cairo with Chris
tians, and had instilled into his people the certainty that the
crusaders were doomed. Probably this would have happened
in any case, because the Mongol upheaval in mid-Asia had
driven into the Near East hordes of the barbaric clansmen
4 2 4 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
from the steppes and the great ranges. Kharesmians, Cir
cassians, Eastern Turks, and Tatars, they had come to stay,
and they formed the bulk of the new and invincible armies.
A small tribe, unnoticed as yet, had aided the broken Seljuks
against the Mongol conquerors. They were the Othmans, or
Ottomans, destined to gain supremacy in the plateaus of
Asia Minor within a generation, and to sweep thereafter
over eastern Europe. And, in time, to become lords of Con
stantinople.
It has been said so often and too often that the loss
of the crusaders kingdom was caused altogether by the
weakening of the crusading spirit in Europe that it is well to
reflect upon this inroad of the clansmen of mid-Asia.
Beginning after the first invasion of Genghis Khan in 1220,
and ending with the growth of the three empires, the mamluk
dominion in Egypt, the Mongol khanate in Persia, and the
Ottoman empire in Asia Minor at the end of the Thirteenth
Century, this inroad defeated all the efforts of the crusaders.
Remember that the Kharesmians, out of the Caspian steppes,
wrested Jerusalem away the last time the Kharesmians
and the mamluks annihilated the Christian knights and
descendants of Saladin at Gaza after this loss of Jerusalem.
And the citadels of the crusaders were lost to the mamluks,
who were bred out of the debris swept before the Mongols
the Hungarians, Slavs, Georgians and Tatars and Turks.
These clansmen out of mid-Asia and north of the Black
Sea fragments of people cast up by the maelstrom of the
Mongol invasion became in time devout Moslems, and they
were tempered by the old Arab culture of Saladin s time.
By numbers, by their very vitality and zeal for the new
faith, they overwhelmed the crusaders. St. Louis and Edward
both landed at Acre with forces that might have prevailed
against the Moslem armies of the early days of the crusades;
but they were helpless in the face of the armies led by Baibars
and the Mongol Il-khans of Persia.
The ascendancy of the Moslems in zeal, in numbers,
and in military efficiency turned the scales against the cru
saders in the East, who no longer had support from Europe.
Christendom was not aware as yet of the change, but it was
ASIA SENDS FORTH ITS HORDE
now on the defensive. No longer could it invade the lands of
Islam with any hope of success.
The only chance left the crusaders, at bay with their backs
to the sea, was an alliance with the Mongols, who had gained
prodigiously in culture during the last half century. The
court of the Mongol Il-khan of Persia equaled that of Cairo
and surpassed the papal court at Rome in its knowledge and
enterprise. Painters, architects, astrologers, and historians
gathered around the seat of the Mongols.
But this chance was passing beyond reach. Already the
kadis and imams of Islam were assembled around the Il-khan,
and the Mongol nobles were being converted to the faith of
Islam. Soon, in 1305, this conversion would be complete,
and the Mongol conquerors would be merged in the great
melting pot of the peoples of Islam.
Baibars himself had managed to keep the remnant of the
crusaders apart from the Mongols. He alone had withstood
the armies of the horde and he had punished any prince who
allied himself with the conquerors Bohemund, for instance,
and Edward of England, and Hay thon of Armenia.
While he kept the invading horde from his new empire,
he so organized his state and army that it was able to endure.
His successor, Kalawun, took over a strong military state.
Upon Kalawun, as the Barca had bequeathed the obliga
tion of the Roman war to Hannibal, Baibars had imposed
the duty of driving the crusaders from their last strongholds.
The jihad must be fought to the end.
LVII
THE LA ST STA ND
TEP by step Kalawun prepared for his triumph. He
even renewed truces with the crusaders while he made
ready. The ambitious Charles of Sicily, who now
called himself king of Jerusalem, was glad to make an al
liance with the mamluk sultan, and the Genoese aided Kala
wun in secret, while the Venetians held aloof from the Holy
Land.
So the sultan could be certain that no relief would be sent
out from Europe to the crusaders. Christendom would not
interfere with his jihad. But someone else interfered.
As Hulagu had done a generation before, the Mongol II-
khan Abaka sent his army in motion toward Jerusalem, and
the Christian Georgians joined the standard of the horde,
while the Armenians flocked down again, and the knights
rode from Marghab to swell the army of the khan. Thirty
thousand Christians marched with the Mongols, down the
valley of Hamah, in the autumn of 1281.
And on the wide plain by the small lake of Horns the
Egyptian host gave battle to the invaders. For the first
time the mamluks were face to face with the full army of the
Il-khan and his allies,
426
THE LAST STAND 427
No one knows exactly what followed except that the
battle was sudden and devastating, and that the mounted
divisions of the Mongols and the mamluks scattered over
the plain in charges that carried them leagues from the camps.
The right wing of the Mongols crushed everything before it,
while Kalawun with his halka held firm in the center.
At the end of the day, Kalawun and his guard still held the
field, while the Mongol cavalry had split into two parts,
groping for each other, and the Christians the Armenians
and Georgians being infantry in the main were left stranded
by themselves. A Templar who observed the battle wrote to
Edward, now king of England, that the Mongols rode off on
the Moslem horses, which they preferred to their own.
Beyond doubt they withdrew from the field the next day, and
the Armenian and Georgian division was nearly annihilated
in the long retreat on foot toward the mountains in the north.
As Baibars had done, Kalawun had beaten off the Mongol
attack, and in the following years he avenged himself on the
knights of Marghab and Tripoli for their alliance with the
invaders from the East.
With irresistible numbers he isolated and laid siege to
Marghab, forcing his way up the steep mountain until he
could pound with his engines at the massive black walls.
For thirty-eight days the engines beat at the basalt walls,
until the knights assembled in the great satte of their eyrie
one morning, to decide between surrender and resistance
until the citadel should lie in ruins and their lives be lost.
From the crumbling parapet of the great tower, the sentries
could look down upon the blue line of the sea, where floated
the triangular sails of Moslem dhows, and over white chalk
hills where tiny caravans moved through the dust. Marghab
was cut off, without hope of aid, and that morning the master
of the Hospitalers surrendered the castle, while more than
one man brushed the tears from his eyes.
The mamluks, entering the gate tower, looked about them
and cried that the angels of Allah must have fought for them
and bestowed upon them such a citadel.
Four years later Tripoli fell to their attack, and with the
428 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
death of Bohemund VII, the line of the Norman princes of
Antioch ceased, after a reign of close to two hundred years.
Except for the small seaports, only Acre remained.
Kalawun had ordered the timbers cut for the siege engines,
and the sledges of rocks started on the road down from the
hills toward this city of the Christians, when he fell ill. Al
ready his armed host had marched forth, and the desert folk
were riding up from the plain the White Slaves of the
River rode stirrup to stirrup under the black banners, when
the sultan s litter was laid on the ground and he died.
But he gave command that he should not be placed in his
tomb until the unbelievers had been driven from Acre. The
kadis said he had been a martyr, in the war for the faith,
and his son, El Malik el Khalil, took the reins of command,
ordering the march resumed.
As they crossed the Gaza sands, the desert folk came in to
the host, and the mullahs watching from Hebron could see
the glow of the fires. By day the dust of their marching over
spread the plain like a veil, when the dervishes ran beside
the chargers, and the Arab women sang their exultation in
the spoil to be taken. They sang as they marched, and the
camel trains coming down from the hills cried a greeting to
them.
For this was the day appointed, the day for the casting-
out of the unbelievers, and the final reckoning, wherein the
faithful would taste of martyrdom or of honor and riches.
So the readers chanted to them, while the camels snarled
by the thorn bush, and the chargers stamped restlessly in the
lines beyond the fires.
"Lo! The day of Severance is fixed: the day when there shall
be a blast on the trumpet, and ye shall come in crowds . . . when
heaven shall open its portals . . . for the faithful, a blissful
abode gardens and vineyards . . . and damsels with swelling
breasts, and a full cup!
"On this day the Spirit and the Angels shall range themselves
in order, speaking no word.
" The sure day I The day on which a man shall see the deeds
THE LAST STAND 429
which his hands have sent before him, and the unbelievers shall
say,
"*Q would that I were dustl "
As the debris of a storm, washed down from the hills,
gathers in a pile on the plain, the remnants of the crusaders
filled the walls of Acre, and thronged the gardens of the sub
urbs, in that month of March, 1291.
Most of them had journeyed thither from the hill castles,
bringing what goods they could carry with them; the richest
of them owned palaces in the suburbs, surrounded by iron
grille work and ornamented with windows of colored glass.
Here dwelt the members of the great family of the Ibelin,
and the Lusignans, emigres from Palestine, with the prince of
Galilee, and the lords of Outremer.
In the streets of Acre, between the massive walls of the
buildings, all of one height and of the same yellowish stone,
rode the Templars and Hospitalers who had been driven from
their castles. Under silk awnings Syrian merchants had their
stalls, driving a brisk trade in fine carpets and precious stones.
For the emigres had brought wealth with them, and the
Genoese and Venetian merchants, guarded by their men-at-
arms, haggled over bargains avidly. Galleons crowded the
port, coming and going from Cyprus.
Some of the barons were sending their families out to
Cyprus, but most of them kept to their houses in Acre, un
willing to believe that the city was in danger. Curiously, the
streets were gay, the taverns thronged. Feasting kept up
far into the night. Gorgeous prostitutes were seen entering
the portals of the palaces, attended by black slaves. Syrian
and Greek girls filled the upper rooms of the wine shops, and
laughed from the windows at the brown-habited monks.
Acre was wakeful, alive with a feverish excitement bred of
uncertainty. Pavilions stood under the poplar trees of the
square between the cathedral and the Hospital. Here could
be seen the coat-of-arms of a constable of France, there the
shield of Otto of Granson, who had just arrived from Europe.
Rumors could be heard in every corner and courtyard, and
43 o THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the galleys coming in from the home ports brought new
tidings.
Men said that the pope, Nicholas, had sent out a fleet,
while others insisted that no more than a handful of Italian
soldiery had been sent, who had already become breeders of
trouble ____ The good friar Ricoldo of Monte Croce had gone
out among the Moslems, and perhaps since he was a holy
man by his aid a miracle might be wrought. ... It was true
that the sultan Kalawun had died, and this might be the
miracle. . . . There were not ships enough to transport a
quarter of all these people to Cyprus, if the Moslem host
appeared and laid siege to the city.
In the salle of the Hospital, under the carved stone arches,
the commanders of the city discussed other tidings. The
patriarch, the masters of the orders were in charge while
they awaited the coming of Henry, king of Cyprus, with his
small following of ships. They knew the peril in which they
stood, and saw only one chance of succor.
A certain Genoese, Buscarel by name, had brought letters
from the Mongol Il-khan, Arghun, to the pope. The Il-khan
said that he was about to invade the Holy Land, and that one
of his sons was a Christian. But he demanded an army from
Europe to cooperate with him and no such army was pre
paring. A converted Mongol, Chagan, had brought a second
missive, still more pressing, from the Il-khan. The only
response Nicholas had made was to urge Arghun to be bap
tized. Meanwhile, no one knew what the Mongols were
doing. 1 And the Moslem host was on the march.
King Henry arrived from Cyprus, and the muster roll of
the crusader families was complete. For these few days they
were united, in all the splendor of their small courts, in all
the careless indolence that had fastened upon them, genera
tion by generation.
With their wives and courtesans they gambled and feasted
anything to drown suspense and gnawing fear in the
moon-lit roof terraces where the breath of the sea tempered
the lifeless air. The whine of fiddles, the cries of jesters, the
waiting two years, Arghun began his preparations for the move against
Egypt, but he died in March, 1291, at the same time Acre was besieged.
THE LAST STAND 43 i
modulated voices of minstrels kept them from thinking of the
future. They fingered the dice cup and the wine goblet, and
let the hours pass uncounted.
Restless and quarrelsome they were degenerate, if you
will yet they kept to their trysting place. Lords and knights,
fair ladies and somber monks, mild nuns and insolent cour
tesans, bearded patriarchs and heedless minstrels, they
gathered for the last time in feverish gayety, to await death.
And it came.
It came in mid-May, after weeks of siege, with the thud
ding of fourscore engines, the cracking of bowlders against
crumbling walls, the flash and roar of exploding naphtha,
and the ceaseless summons of the drums. The drums on camel
back, scores of them, that dinned and thundered through the
hours.
Through the gardens of the suburbs, over the smoking
ruins of the outlying palaces, surged the host of Islam. Mara
bout and hadji y mamluk and negro roared in exultation.
The pavilions stretched to the hills. Oil, poured in the black
ened ground and fired by eager hands, sent a smoke screen
rolling toward the broken battlements, where the moat had
been filled in by columns of beasts of burden, driven forward
laden with faggots and slaughtered at the ditch. Beyond the
ruined moat a breach of sixty yards opened in the wall, and
weary swordsmen, blinded by the smoke, waited for the as
sault to come, while flights of arrows swept over them.
The Templars who stood there had regained the breach
after one onset, but there was no one to relieve them, and
they waited, listening to the diapason of the drums and the
songs of the dervishes behind the smoke.
Through the night the men of Islam made ready, muster
ing in four waves, the first carrying heavy wooden shields,
the second caldrons of oil and torches, the third bows, the
fourth short, curved swords. And behind them, the regiments
of horsemen. Among them, in the half light before dawn,
passed the white-robed dervishes carrying long knives,
who would lead the way. Verily, sang the dervishes, Allah
had paved the way and had shrouded them with a mantle
43 2 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
for a heavy mist lay along the shore and upon the line of the
wall, and the very sea had risen against the unbelievers, so
that it barred the unbelievers from flight, tossing their ships
in its grip, and delivered them to the swords of the faithful.
The drums pounded their summons, and the cymbals
clanged the dervishes began to scream and run through the
mist. After them advanced the first wave of the attack.
A roar of triumph sounded from the wall, and the oil flared
up through the mist, showing the leaping figures of men, and
the dark masses that surged toward the flames. The clatter
of steel sounded faint against the monotone of the drums
and fainter still as the swordsmen were driven from the
breach.
When the sun broke through the mist, the Moslems were
within the breach. And then the tumult, that had died down,
sprang up anew. The master of the Hospitalers with his
knights had charged the Moslem waves and thrown back the
attack.
Then, with a measured tread, the armored regiments of
mamluks advanced, over the ruined moat, over the piles of
bodies and the broken engines, pressing back the wounded
knights, forcing their way into the streets, surging around the
bands of Christians who tried to beat them off. And behind
the mamluks, the sultan s cavalry rode into Acre.
The drums ceased.
Acre had fallen, but for hours and days the crusaders
fought. . . . The master of the Hospital, begging his men to
set him down as he was carried off, wounded . . . The patri
arch, led on board one of the galleys that soon filled with
fugitives, until the heavy swell swamped the over-weighted
boat, and all within it went down . . . The Dominicans gath
ered together, singing Salve Regina as they were cut down . . .
The Templars, holding out in their house upon the sea, until
the last boats had got to sea or had been captured, and then
surrendering . . . The knights, disarmed, staring at the exul
tant mamluks and negroes who swarmed into the great for
tress, tearing the garments from young girls and laughing as
they befouled the altars until the knights, with their bare
hands, turned on the despoilers and slew them, throwing
THE LAST STAND 433
their bodies out of the embrasures, and closing the doors
against the Moslems without. And with their hands they
defended their house, until fire and steel overcame them, and
the last man ceased to breathe. . . .
It was the end.
By courier and pigeon post the tidings spread through the
land of Islam. Thirty thousand infidels had fallen to the sword
in a single day at Acre. The bodies of the Templars had
burned in the black towers. Elsewhere, in the little seaports,
the unbelievers were fleeing the mighty Acre had fallen,
and they were helpless and afraid.
Deserted were the halls of Chateau Pelerin the swords
men of Islam walked unhindered through its gates. The last
ships were leaving Tortosa where the cathedral stood empty
as a house that has lost its master, and the hymns of the
Nazarenes were heard no more.
The last ships had gone out to sea, and their sails had
vanished under the sky. So said the messengers of Islam, and
the camelmen upon the Baghdad road. And the kadis cried
to the multitudes that the jihad had triumphed.
Along the coast of the Holy Land, the bodies of the cru
saders lay drying in the sun-heated ditches, or in heaps of
charred bones. The only living crusaders were the captives,
sitting in rags on the rowing benches of the galleys, or limping
under burdens in the alleys of Cairo. Down in the lifeless air
of the Dead Sea, their bare feet stumble over the stones and
burning sand. If they raised their eyes, they beheld far above
them, remote under the blazing sky, the ramparts of Jeru
salem where once they had ruled as lords.
AFTERWORD
AFTERWORD
37 WAS the end of the crusades. The refugees gathered in
Cyprus were too weak to think of approaching the coast
again, and no further crusade came out of Europe to
seek Jerusalem.
Ironically, it was then that the Mongol host rode to the
Holy Land for the third time, under the Il-khan Ghazan.
An army of ninety thousand crossed the Euphrates in 1299,
and this time it was victorious.
Ghazan drove the mamluks in flight to the south, and was
in Damascus in the first days of the year 1300. The Mongols
waited out the winter in their camps from Gaza to Aleppo,
but saw no sign of the Christian knights. Aware of their ap
proach, the king of Cyprus raided the Egyptian coast with
his fleet, and a few ships of the Templars tried to make a
landing near Tortosa, without success.
Weary at last of holding his ground with heavy losses
against the warlike Moslems, and without aid from the
Christians, Ghazan who had received no response to his let
ters addressed to the pope withdrew from Syria in February,
1301, and with him vanished the last hope of the crusaders.
Ghazan died in 1304. He had been the ablest, if not the
437
43 8 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
most enlightened, prince of his generation, and, while he
inclined to the faith of Islam, he had followed the old Mongol
policy of religious tolerance in all his lands. He had sought to
establish the crusaders again in the Holy Land as a barrier
against the mamluks.
His successor became a true Moslem, and, curiously, with
this conversion the great power of the ^ Mongol empire in
Persia began to decline, as the dominion of the mighty
Kubilai tended to break up after the latter s conversion to
Buddhism in the Far East.
Before then, Marco Polo had wandered back from Cathay
and found no one to believe his tale of the court of the great
khan. He was taken captive in a sea battle between the
Venetians and Genoese, and had to content himself with
dictating the book of his travels to a scribe to while away the
hours in his prison.
With the breakdown of the vast machinery of the Mongol
empire, and the conversion to Islam of the Western Mongols
and Tatars, while the mamluk empire in Egypt grew in
power, the gateways of the East were closed to Europeans,
as they had been before the crusades. Only the neutral Vene
tian and Genoese merchants and isolated missionaries could
penetrate beyond Constantinople and Cyprus.
Meanwhile, in Europe itself, a very fever of activity began
with the pen instead of the sword. Geographers pieced out
the world that lay to the east, while schools were formed
to teach the oriental languages. Historians gathered together
all the chronicles of the crusades, and waged heated discus
sions as to why the great enterprise had failed.
Some of them at the courts of the kings blamed the
Church of Rome for its exploitation of the crusades, and
accused it of keeping in its treasure chests the wealth that
had been poured into its alms boxes during the last century.
Others historians of the Church blamed the ambitions
and rivalries of the European princes.
Most of them shook their heads over the avarice and
treachery of the Italian maritime republics, and added that
the quarrels of the crusaders themselves had resulted in the
loss of the Christian colonies.
LETTER OF GHAZAN KHAN
Conclusion of the Il-khan s letter in Mongolian--the Uighur
script to the court of Rome in 1302. The last known com
munication from the Mongols, seeking alliance with Europe,
before their conversion to Islam. Such an alliance would have
restored Outremer to the crusaders. But no heed was paid
by the papal court or monarchs of Europe to the Mongols
advances The original was identified recently by Monszg-
nor Tisserant among the Oriental manuscripts of the Vatican.
COURTESY OF THE APOSTOLIC LIBRARY, VATICAN CITY
439
440 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Much was written and little done in this generation be
tween the loss of Acre in 1291 and the affair of the Templars
in 1310. Both Edward II of England and Philip the Fair of
France took the pledge of the crusade, and raised money for
a new enterprise; but they found more pressing matters at
home to be paid for with the money.
And the theoreticians and amateur strategists poured out
plans for redeeming the great defeat. The old project of
Constantinople was revived in print. A landing on the
African coast and a march to Cairo was urged, again. Above
all, a complete reorganization of the leadership at home was
advocated control of the preparations to be taken out of
the hands of the prelates of the Church, and given to a kind
of league that would be above tampering with. The Temple
and the Hospital should be united in one order, and rivalry
between them eliminated. A fleet should be built to serve
the crusade, and the coasts of Islam blockaded.
So said the theoreticians, who did not know that the spirit
of the crusade had passed from the men at home. In this new
age of realism and commercial beginnings, the crusader had
no place.
Nor could any crusade now win Jerusalem from the rising
powers of Islam.
From the Golden Horde on the Volga, down through the
Ottomans in Asia Minor, through the Il-khans on the Euphra
tes, and the mamluks in Cairo, a ring of weapons had been
drawn about the Holy Land. And Europe s task thenceforth
would be to defend itself, and to fight for its very life against
the throngs of Islam. 1 Some of its expeditions would be
x ln the next two centuries we find the crusades changed in aspect. Adventurous
soldiers like Peter of Cyprus and Boucicaut lead forays against the oncoming Mos
lems. The "crusades" of Nicopolis and of Varna were attempts to turn back the
Moslem tide led by the Ottomans, who captured Constantinople in 1453. The
Europeans, placed on the defensive, are locked in the long conflict by land and sea
with the Turks, allied to the Tatars, Mamluks, and Corsairs the conflict that only
ends at the gates of Vienne, and the Gulf of Lepanto.
The expeditions of this great war are still termed crusades at times, but they are
actually purely military movements, to gain possession of seaports, fortresses, and
territory in Europe. The Hospitalers still serve -in them, but only as the political
organization of the Knights of Malta.
AFTERWORD 441
called crusades, but they would be only military movement
against the new forces of Islam.
The true crusades ended at Acre in 1291, when Jerusalem
was lost beyond doubt. Perhaps foreknowledge of this in
spired the doctrinaires in their plaint that something should
be done to redeem the disaster.
In this time of wordy argument and useless conjecture,
men turned their attention to the twin surviving units of
the crusades the Temple and the Hospital.
Both had been driven out of the Holy Land, and had lost
their strongholds beyond Cyprus. The Hospital the Red
Cross of the crusades kept on caring for the sick and aiding
travelers, while it prepared a new frontier post in the Island
of Rhodes. (Thereafter, its knights were known as the
Knights of Rhodes, until they retreated to Malta, when they
became the well-known Knights of Malta.)
Not so did the Templars. They had been the Transport
Corps of the crusades, with the duty of caring for pilgrims,
forwarding military units, arranging financing and shipping.
They had acted as guides, liaison officers, and shock troops
their banner Beauseant had always had its place in the van
of the Christian armies. They had gone into action knowing
that they could not retreat and that if they were taken cap
tive the Moslems would show them no mercy. More than
twenty thousand knights of the order had been killed in
action.
Now the Holy Land, their raison d fare, was lost. The
great organization was thrown back into Europe. It had its
frontier post in Cyprus, of course, and in Spain its command-
cries found occupation against the Moors. And it kept its
fleet in readiness.
Meanwhile it had grown vast indeed. European nobles,
often with sons in its ranks, had made a practice of willing
their property to the Temple. Matthew of Paris says that it
now held nine thousand houses in Christendom. Having
served not only as landowners but as bankers for the later
crusades, the Templars now administered huge amounts of
442 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
money, in trust. In Paris, they housed the royal treasury
of France, and kept its accounts. They guarded the treasury
of the harassed papal court, now in exile in Avignon.
Because the Temple owed allegiance to no lord, and be
cause its members were pledged to take no profit for them
selves, the order was entrusted with such treasures. Its forti
fied commanderies, guarded by the soldier-monks, were
proof against thieves or robber barons. Even the pope could
no longer influence its councils. In France it had a veritable
chain of strongholds, with lands and mortgages upon lands
uncounted. It was a state within a state. And once the king,
Philip the Fair, had run from an unruly mob in Paris to
sanctuary within its doors.
Good people shook their heads at sight of this growing
wealth, especially in hard times when the burly soldiers of
the Temple went about well fed and clad in linens and furs.
As defenders of the Holy Land, the Templars had been brave
and notable figures, but they were not favorites now, when
they rode afield to gather interest from a mortgaged hamlet,
or to claim farms bequeathed to them.
"They devoted their efforts/ said Matthew of Paris,
"instead of aiding the Sepulcher, to administering their
properties and even ruled whole districts, like kings."
Others blamed the Templars for the defeats in the East,
and whispered that they had been in league with the Sara
cens. Because the Templars held their meetings secretly in
the hours before dawn, men said idly that they must have
something to conceal no doubt some evil and unholy
ritual. But no one was prepared for what came to pass.
Europe crucified the Templars. Or rather, it made them
the scapegoats of the crusades, and burned alive the best of
them.
THE TRIAL OF THE TEMPLARS
, ON THE thirteenth of October, 1307, the royal officers in the
governments of France opened sealed orders from the hand
of the king, Philip the Fair, and found that they were to ar-
AFTERWORD 443
rest all Templars wherever found, and hold them to be ques
tioned. In the Paris house was seized Jacques de Molay,
grand master of the order, who had come up from Cyprus at
the bidding of the pope the year before.
Philip and his advisers had prepared this step with some
care. The wealth of the Temple, the imperium in imperio it
enjoyed within his own kingdom of France, and its growing
political influence placed a rein upon his ambition. As to
Philip, men said that he had the face of an angel, the eyes of
a falcon, the body of a giant, and the heart of a devil. Add
that he had the agile brain of a scholar, well versed in the
law of his day, and you have a man who is to be dreaded.
He had talked it over with the pope, Clement V, a weak
soul, an invalid, and now a refugee from Rome, at Avignon.
The Temple had outgrown its bounds it must be brought to
hand, separated from its possessions, placed under authority.
Had not its master, De Molay, refused to join the order to the
Hospital, and accept as its new master a son of the king
of France? Indeed, De Molay had refused. Clement, meditat
ing upon the great possessions of the Temple, agreed to an
investigation of the order. The king suggested that it would
be better if he should make the first move, and the pope
agreed.
Philip, working with Nogaret, the royal chancellor, and
with William of Paris, the inquisitor of France, had planned
more than he chose to confide to Clement. The royal officers
had brought to him informers members of the order who
had been punished and cast out for various offenses. From
them, the king had gleaned the testimony he needed. He
would charge the order with the sin of heresy.
Clement, who was making his own plans, did not know of
the sealed orders that required the royal officers to interrogate
the Templars immediately after their arrest at need^under
torture. And Philip s instructions to his officers contained a
full statement of the crimes with which the Templars were
to be charged:
". . . For long, upon the statement of persons worthy of
trust, made to us, it has been revealed that the brothers of
the order of the soldiers of the Temple, hiding the wolf under
444 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the semblance of a lamb, and casting despite upon the religion
of our faith, are crucifying anew in these days our Lord
Jesus-Christ, and are heaping upon Him injuries worse than
those He endured upon the cross. When, at their initiation
into the order, they are presented with His image what
must I say? They deny Him, thrice, and thrice spit upon His
face. Following this, stripped of their garments, and bare,
they are kissed by him who initiates them, first in the back
below the spine, then upon the navel, then upon the lips
to the shame of human dignity. . . . And afterwards they are
obliged by the vow they have taken and without dread of
offending human law, to yield themselves, one to the other
whenever required, in frightful lust. . . .
"These are, with other things, the deeds of that false fel
lowship a brotherhood that is mad and given to idol wor
ship . . ."
The arrest of all the Templars in France upon the same
day caused a clamor of amazement. The tidings traveled by
horseback from village to village, but before public opinion
could take definite shape, the royal officers were putting the
captives to the question even before the officers of the in
quisition appeared upon the scene. And the questions were
those indicated by the king s instructions.
"Did you, at your initiation, deny Christ? Have you
knowledge that others did so? All of them? Or the greater
part? Or a few? . . * Did you spit upon the cross? Did you see
others do so ? All of them ? Or the greater part ? Or a few. . . ? "
Monotonously, the long list of questions was read over to
each prisoner, separated from his companions. And then
again, when the prisoner was bound upon a wooden frame,
with ropes stretching, a little at a time, his wrists and ankles
away from his limbs. When the bones were pulled slowly
from their sockets, the questions were read again and again.
Or perhaps the man under question was seated in a
chair, bound fast to the back and arms, while an iron circlet
was drawn tight upon his temples and twisted into the skin,
against the bone, and the questions were read to him again.
Thirty-six Templars died under this torture.
If a man confessed to the charges, he was not put to the
AFTERWORD 445
torture. Some, who had listened to the screams from the
torture chamber, swore to the full confession without further
prompting. It was not necessary to take every man in hand,
because the confessions already sworn to before the examiners
involved all the commanderies in France. Three unnamed
Templars denied all the charges, and continued to deny them
under torture. Faced with the alternative of torture, few
were able to go through the ordeal without swearing that part
if not all the charges were true.
So, by the swift action of the royal examiners, the king was
supplied with the blackest testimony against the order, by
the Templars themselves. De Molay s confession was damag
ing, and it was said that he wrote to the other officers of the
order, advising them to swear to the charges.
Public opinion, at first astounded, and then curious, now
had the darkest scandal of Christendom to dwell upon.
The soldier-monks had indeed practised evil rites in their
secret meetings the very guardians of the Sepulcher were
servants of Mahound! Little wonder that they had waxed
rich and proud when the arts of the Evil One had aided them !
Still, opinion in general could not make certain of the
matter. The Templars had many friends, who were angered
as well as dismayed. And the Templars in other countries
denied the charges to a man. Could it be that these black
rites had been confined to France?
Philip wrote to the sovereigns of neighboring countries,
demanding that they arrest and question the Templars.
Clement, at first, had protested now he issued, in Novem
ber, a bull ordering other princes to arrest the Templars and
hold their goods in his name. He sent his cardinals to Paris,
to oppose the seizure of the property of the Templars in France
by the king. De Molay and Hugh of Pairaud, visitor of the
order, revoked their confessions. Informed of this, the pope
exerted his authority for the first time. It was more than
time, because the French king was swiftly overturning one
of the very foundation stones of papal authority.
The Temple was a religious order, and the king s officers
had exceeded their authority in putting its members to the
question. Philip, meanwhile, had appealed to the University
446 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
of Paris on this point, and the masters of theology ruled
against him. No secular authority had power to try the
Templars, a religious order, on a charge of heresy. Only
the pope had authority to judge the affair.
Reluctantly, the king and his advisers had to admit the
papal representatives to the accounting of the property of
the Templars. For a few months the whole thing hung in the
balance. In that time the persecutors of the Templars showed
their ingenuity.
A campaign of propaganda was begun, cleverly enough.
The text of the confessions somehow came to be circulated
among nobles and common people. "Disinterested" publi
cists appeared at the papal court, to speak indignantly against
the order. And it was whispered among the people that if
the Templars were found to be heretics, no one in their debt
need repay any money owed them. The Dominicans, leaders
of the inquisition, had long been jealous of the soldier-
monks, and now used their influence against the captives.
Men remembered that they had heard others say that drunk
ards "drank like Templars." And the houses of prostitutes
in Germany were they not called "Temple-houses"?
Details of the inventories of property found in the com-
manderies were given out to the curious public so many
silver candlesticks and an amber casket found in the chamber
of such an officer a saddle ornamented with silver so many
loads of grain owing to the chapel at Sainte Michele, and
not yet paid. . . .
One William of Plaisians, the mouthpiece of Nogaret,
addressed a series of arguments to the papal court, claiming
that the case against the order was already clear, and that
it was the duty of the papal consistory to punish the guilty
members. Plaisians arguments found their way into the
hands of the public. It is interesting to look at portions of
his summing-up.
"This victory is clearly established and indubitable:
"Because they have avowed in so many confessions the
notorious truth
"Because of the public outcry they have raised against
themselves
AFTERWORD 447
"And the incontestable testimony of a great and catholic
prince 1
"And the verdict of so many catholic pontiffs
"And the outcry of so many barons, and common people.
"Because, since time immemorial, people have reported
that in their secret initiation they were guilty of hidden evil,
and for that reason they were, truthfully, suspected by all
openly and notoriously.
"Because they have always held their chapters and meet
ings at night, which is the custom of heretics since those
who do evil hate the light.
"Because by the fruit of their deeds we can know them
it is said that the Holy Land was lost by their lapse.
" Because in many parts of the world they have fortified
their castles against the Church.
"From all this we must of necessity conclude that the
aforesaid deeds are notorious, clear and indubitable. . . .
And so the cause of our faith ought to be safeguarded by the
pontiff of Rome, who safeguards all laws, and is himself not
bound by any bond."
To bring pressure upon the pope, the persecutors of the
order held what might be called a public demonstration
against the Templars at Tours. Philip sent to the pope
seventy-two of the most damaging confessions. In these
years of 1308-1309, the confessions had been secured, but
the Templars had not been tried because the king and his
advisers unable to try the case themselves had so fright
ened the papal council which should have tried the Tem-
Wilip the Fair. Plaisians to the contrary, there was no general public feeling
against the Templars before Philip s action in arresting them. Plaisians argument
is that their confessions bear out the previous suspicion of the order, and that
these confessions render it obligatory for the pope to condemn them.
Yet his discours reveals that the confessions were gleaned by torture: "... After
the general and uniform confessions of all, others have spontaneously confessed to
enormities."
And again: ". , . It is not needful to disquiet oneself to know how, or before whom,
the truth was discovered, provided it be discovered, and less than any other should
the pontiff of Rome disquiet himselfhe who is bound by no bond."
The situation becomes clear enough when Plaisians, to force the pope to further
action, hints that otherwise the sins of the papal court at Avignon might be made
public, in the same manner as the crimes of the order of the Temple.
448 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
plars on the charge of heresy that the pope shrank from
taking the responsibility on himself.
Philip meanwhile carried on secret negotiations with
Avignon, and hit upon a compromise. Clement was to name
ecclesiastical commissions to hold inquests upon the testi
mony. The findings of the commissions were to be presented
to a papal council, to be held in Vienne, and at this council
the fate of the Templars would be decided. In the interval
the property of the order would be administered by royal and
papal officers, equally. And the Templars were kept in their
cells. Only a dozen members of the order had managed to
escape arrest.
So, the captives saw a ray of hope. At last they were to
have a public hearing! Nine members of the order drew up
a defense, which was read before a commission:
"In your presence, reverend Fathers, and commissioners
appointed by the sovereign lord pontiff, the undersigned
brothers of the order say in response . . .
"They protest that whatever the brothers of the Temple
have said to the discredit of the order while they were in
prison, constrained by requests and fear, is not to the prej
udice of the order and this they will prove when they are
at liberty. . . .
"Under terror and fear, lies will be uttered and the truth
withheld. The greater part of the brethren are so afflicted
by terror, that it should not astonish you that they lie, but
rather it should amaze you that any are found to uphold the
truth, when one knows the sufferings and the agonies that
they endure, and the menaces they undergo daily while the
liars enjoy comfort and liberty, and great promises are made
to them daily. It is amazing that more belief is given to the
liars who give testimony in the interest of their own bodies
than to those who have died under torture to uphold the
truth, and to the great majority who undergo the daily
ordeals in prison to uphold the truth. . . .
"They say that no one has found any brother of the Temple
outside of France who assents to these calumnies. That is be
cause only in France have the calumnies been rewarded. . . .
"Whoever enters into the order pledges four things to
AFTERWORD 449
obey, to remain chaste, to remain poor, and to devote all his
force to the conquest of the Holy Land of Jerusalem. He is
given the honest kiss of peace, and stripped of his old gar
ments and clad in the habit and given the cross which he
carries hanging on his breast thereafter . . And whoever says
otherwise, lies.
"That is why the detractors and corrupters . . . have sought
out apostates or brothers driven out of the order as sick
beasts are driven out of the herd, to concert with them these
calumnies and lies which are now falsely fastened upon the
brothers and the order.
"The brothers were forced to confess to these crimes be
cause the lord king, deceived by these detractors, informed
the lord pope of all that had passed, and thus the lord king
and the lord pope were tricked by false advice, . . .
"The brothers who have confessed such things would
willingly revoke their confessions if they dared. So they
beg that they be given a hearing, and enough security to
permit them to speak the truth without fear,"
The response to such defenses of the order was definite
and unmistakable. In the province of Sens, the archbishop
Philip of Marigny, a man attached to the royal interests,
condemned fifty-four Templars who had revoked their con
fessions as relapsed heretics. They were carted out at once
and burned alive.
With the pope subservient to them, the royal persecutors had
only one obstacle to face before the decision at Vienne and
that was the results of the arrest of the Templars elsewhere
than in France. These results had not been to their liking.
In Italy the affair had gone well enough. Under instruc
tions from the papal court, the mass of lay brothers had been
put to the question and adjudged guilty. Many had been
burned, and all property confiscated.
In England at first little attention had been paid to the
requests of Philip and Clement for a trial of the order. Then
a papal bull Pastoralis Solis obliged Edward to arrest the
members of the order, and later Clement advised that their
testimony be taken under torture. A case was made out
450 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
against them, and their castles seized in part, but there was
no general condemnation.
In Spain, the princes were friendly to the order, and saw
no advantage in allowing its property to be yielded up to the
papal officers beyond their borders. Besides, the Templars
there had taken up arms and made ready to defend their
castles rather than undergo trial The Spanish princes de
clared the Templars innocent.
Portugal was hostile to the persecutors of the Templars.
After interrogation without torture, the order was found
guiltless.
In Cyprus a curious thing happened. The Templars were
tried twice. The first time, under the king Amalric of Tyre,
their friend, they were found guiltless. Then Amalric died
and was succeeded by Henry of Lusignan, an enemy of the
order. Henry was instigated by the pope to try the Templars
again, and this time they were convicted of heresy and
treason their property forfeited and many of them burned.
In Germany, no trial was held. The lay princes rallied to
the support of the Templars, forcing the papal legates to
withdraw and freeing the captives. When a council assembled
to judge them, armed Templars forced their way into the
council hall bearing an indignant statement of their inno
cence. Thereupon the council rendered them public homage.
All this proved to be awkward for the papal Curia. The
order, held to be guilty in France, and found guilty in Italy,
and censorable in England, was at the same time innocent
in^Spain, and blameless in Portugal, not guilty and then
guilty in Cyprus, and publicly praised in Germany.
^Even to the agile minds of the papal jurisconsults, the
trial of the Templars was becoming a complex problem.
By now the pope, under pressure from Philip, had shown him
self urgent for the condemnation of the Temple. And this
circumstance might prove awkward in the extreme, since
the pope was the only individual in all Christendom entitled
to judge the order. So it became needful, in the interest of
the papacy itself, to condemn the order at the approaching
Council of Vienne. Better for Clement if he had never called
the Council of Vienne.
AFTERWORD 45 1
But there was another side to the problem: both the pope
and the king had laid their hands on the immense properties
of the Temple, wherever possible. And the main object in
the thoughts of the Curia and the royal court was the pos
session of the wealth of the Temple. They would not relin
quish that.
Such was the situation, when in the autumn of 1311 every
body took the road to Vienne.
Clement traveled thither, with the papal counselors.
Philip moved up to Lyons, and sent to the scene his group of
emissaries, among them Nogaret, Marigny, Plaisians. These
agents held daily conferences with the popes and the cardi
nals at Vienne. And, in spite of the burnings, some two thou
sand Templars appeared to defend the order.
Public opinion divided into two camps one party urging
the condemnation of the Templars and the cancellation of
all debts owing to the order the other championing the
order and demanding a hearing before the pope himself.
This was refused. Clement would not hear representatives of
the Temple. Seven of them, who persisted in seeking a hear
ing, were imprisoned.
But the party friendly to the Templars now held the ascend
ancy in numbers, and demanded whether the prisoners were
to be granted defenders in their hearing before the council.
Clement referred this important question to the council for
decision. And the answer was that the order must be granted
advocates in its trial.
This decision made matters worse for the persecutors^ If
defenders appeared in public with the privilege of offering
evidence in favor of the prisoners, the prosecution would be
deprived of its one prop the confessions.
For weeks the king s agents traveled back and forth be
tween Philip at Lyons and Clement at Vienne. Nothing but
the suppression of the order and the confiscation of its goods
would satisfy Philip. If Clement refused, Philip threatened
to charge the papacy with heresy. A solution must be found
by the papacy, and a solution was found.
Philip went himself to Vienne and talked with the pope.
452 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Two days later Clement announced his decision before the
grand commission of the council and the cardinals. He de
clared that the order of the Temple was suppressed. It was
abolished, Clement announced, "not by a definite sentence,
since it cannot be condemned under the law, but by means
of an apostolic act/
So the trial of the Temple was never held. The pope dis
solved it by his own act.
The reasons for this act, given out to the public, were: that
the order had been criticized, that it had become impotent
to aid the Holy Land, and that there was urgent need of a
decision in the case so that the property of the Temple might
not suffer more by neglect.
This property itself was awarded after payment of ex
penses to the king of France and to others to the Hospital.
But after twenty years of litigation and fighting the Hospital
ers managed to possess themselves of only a portion of this
great bequest. Most of it remained in the hands of those who
had seized it in the first place.
Public opinion showed itself hostile to the pope s act, and
Clement tried to justify himself in the bull Vox in Excels is
of the following spring. By this bull he returned the individual
Templars to the jurisdiction of their local tribunals.
By so doing Clement, after refusing the Templars trial
before his council, handed them back to the mercy of the
judges who had first extorted confessions from them. They
were punished in different ways, and so the impression left
upon the world at large was that the Templars, at least in
France, had been guilty as charged, and this impression
endured until modern times. Only the high officers of the
order imprisoned at Paris, Clement reserved for sentence by
three cardinals. The cardinals sentenced them to lifelong
imprisonment.
On the parvis of Notre Dame, before an assembled multi
tude, the sentence was read to the four officers. Two of them
heard it in silence, but Charnay and De Molay stepped
forward and protested, retracting their confessions in full,
and saying that they knew their only guilt had been in help
ing thus to injure an order that had been blameless.
AFTERWORD 453
The twain were taken under guard and hustled off to the
provost of Paris. Before anyone could intervene, Philip sent
an order to the provost. De Molay and Charnay were led
out at night to the island of the river. There, between the
garden of the king and the monastery of the Augustinians,
they were burned alive at the stake.
The Templars as an order had been innocent of the
charges made against them. 1 They had been disgraced, beg
gared, and imprisoned by unmistakable conspiracy. Hun
dreds of them had been tortured and scores of them burned to
death to satisfy the avarice of a prince of Christendom and
the policy of a Father of the Church and the jealousy of the
priests and the greed of the people at large. Unheeded at the
time, a wanderer upon the highroads, an exile from the city
of Florence, heard of their trial and wrote down a few lines
in a curious kind of book that placed the great figures of
history in an inferno, or a purgatory, or a paradise at the
author s whim:
I saw the new Pilate , so cruel,
That) unsatiatedy and unrighteous,
He carries into the Tern fie his miser s bags . . .
*For centuries the question of the guilt or innocence of the Templars has been
debated bitterly in Europe. Great interests hinged upon the question, which touched
the doctrine of papal infallibility, of the royal rights, of transmontanism, of the
Inquisition. Until modern times defenders of the order have had to tread gingerly.
For long the general opinion was that the order was guilty even in Scott s Ivanhoe
this belief is reflected. Now the consensus of opinion among scholars is that the
Templars were made the scapegoats of others sins, and were punished far beyond
their deserts.
The present writer, who held no brief for or against the order when he first studied
the evidence in the trial, believes without equivocation that the order of the Temple
was innocent, and its persecutors guilty. He was led to this belief by such circum
stances as the following:
I. The only evidence offered against the order was given by informers expelled
from the order for misconduct, a. These informers did not volunteer their evidence,
but were sought out by the king and the prosecutors as early as 1305. 3. The worst
batch of confessions in France are so similar that they must have been prepared in
advance apparently copied from the king s orders of arrest for the men under
torture to swear to. 4. No secret and blasphemous Rule of the Temple has been un
earthed, although interested scholars have searched for it diligently. 5. In the docu
ments of the prosecution there is internal evidence of a case made out in advance,
of haste, of pressure against the pope, and of downright conspiracy at every step.
454 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
So Dante, who was, in his way, a judge of character, sum
marized the action of the French king and the whole pro
ceeding against the Templars.
And it bore fruit, this trial of the order. With the passing
of the Templars, the ideal of the soldier-crusader vanished,
and the eastern frontier was left open to the Turks. While at
home the trial bestowed new power upon the inquisition and
sanctioned the wringing of evidence from men by torture.
While it left the common people seeking in all corners for
traces of witchcraft and dealings with Satan a search that
continued, horribly, for centuries.
It is curious that Europe should have burned at the stake
the last commanders of the crusaders.
THE RESULTS OF THE CRUSADES
So VAST was the crusading movement and so long did it
endure, that no man to-day may enumerate with certainty
its effects. We have no scales in which to weigh the gain or
loss of it. Nor have we words to describe the effect upon
civilization, when whole peoples were torn loose from their
isolation and set in motion, to behold new lands, to hear
strange languages, and to return with new ideas.
But we do know some of the results. For one thing, the
crusades brought back certain gleanings out of Asia; and they
caused certain changes in society in Europe, and in the end
they resulted in certain contributions to that society.
What the Crusades Brought Sack
There were other points of contact between Europe and
Asia than the conquests of the cross-bearers. Spain, chiefly,
and Sicily and Byzantium. So many of the gleanings from
the East entered through other channels; but during the two
centuries from 1095 to 1291 the crusades established the
great boulevard of communication between East and West.
In that time the years of conflict were few, the years of truce
AFTERWORD 455
many, and trade and intercourse practically never ceased.
During the crusades Europeans became familiar with the
finer cloths of the East cotton and muslin as well as damask.
They began to use cotton paper, and a few rare porcelains
from China. They learned something of the manufacture of
colored glass and mirrors.
Rhubarb and spices, rice, sugar, artichokes, and lemons
came out of the East, during the crusades, with other fruits
and foods.
Arabic words still surviving in our language give proof of
the new objects and ideas brought out of Asia. These words
meet us everywhere from admiral, alcohol, alfalfa, alkali,
algebra, and azimuth, through the alphabet to tariff and
zenith.
The first crusaders brought back the windmill with them,
and later they adopted much of oriental heraldry.
Christian scholars in Spain and Sicily as well as in the
colonies of the crusaders learned much from the Arab scien
tists. Especially in mathematics where Arabic numerals
and algebra simplified all calculation in medicine where
the orientals taught the study of disease as a natural phe
nomenon, to be treated by diet and hygiene and in astrol
ogy. Ptolemy s Almagest was eagerly read. Gradually the
Christians became acquainted with the Arab point of view
that knowledge comes from experiment and observation,
and not from a study of religion alone. In time the Christians
would have come to that conclusion of their own accord;
but the example of the orientals quickened their understand
ing. They discovered that a physician or a mathematician
need not be a priest.
The Arabs had long been disciples of Aristotle, and Euro
pean philosophers re-learned from them much of Aristotle
that had been lost in the Dark Ages.
Navigation became simplified by acquaintance with the
mariner s compass used by the Arabs a magnetized needle
bound to a straw or splinter of wood, floating in water.
This invention was crude enough at that time, and little
used for generations. But by the astrolabe of the Arabs,
456 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Christian mariners learned to calculate latitude after a
fashion. 1
The explorations of the crusaders and the study of Arabian
geography helped Europeans make useful maps for the first
time. The works of Ptolemy and Idrisi became known to
them. Returning pilgrims brought back more or less accurate
descriptions of all the nearer East, with fantastic tales of
what lay beyond. Sindbad was not the only merchant
seaman to write down his itinerary. Christians who had
thought Rome to be the center of the habitable world now
placed Jerusalem in the center of their maps and became
aware of distant seas, still unexplored.
In architecture, also, the crusaders had a hand. Their small
cathedrals and chapels were designed after those at home
in the style of northern France. But they learned by their
own experience, and by studying the Byzantine citadels,
how to build large and habitable castles. From them Euro^
peans learned the advantages of the double system of walls,
one commanding the other of barbicans or outworks, and
flanking towers, and master towers.
So skilled were the artisans of Outremer that Frederick II
brought back with him masons, painters, and mosaic workers
to ornament his buildings at Palermo- At that time Palermo
and Toledo and Constantinople all three on the frontiers
of the crusaders were the centers of culture in Christendom.
For two centuries the crusades were the talk of Europe,
and men who could write vied with each other in completing
chronicles of the great undertakings. At first priests, then
soldiers, and then intelligent observers wrote their narratives
of events known to them narratives besprinkled with mir
acles, with knightly heroism, and with fables. Minstrels added
their songs, and from this great outpouring historians like
William, archbishop of Tyre, began to put together con
nected records of events, sifting true from false. A few ardent
spirits studied the Arabic and Byzantine chronicles. The
x Such inventions lay dormant for a long time in Europe. The Church frowned
upon the new knowledge, and branded the mechanical contrivances .of the Arabs
as creations of the Evil Onealong with naphtha and Greek fire.
Not until the great period of the Renaissance did Europeans as a rule make really
practical improvements upon the simple inventions of the orientals.
AFTERWORD 457
threads of history, lost during the Dark Ages, were taken up
again during the crusades.
The Changes
Three portions of Christian society were altered during the
crusades. They would have changed in any event, but they
were quickened and remolded by the stress of the great
undertakings.
First, the feudal nobility. The barons pulled more than
their weight in the wars; the loss of life and the drain of
money fell most heavily upon them. For generations such
lineages as the counts of Flanders, of Blois, of Champagne
voyaged regularly into the East. Seldom were the lords of
Avesnes or Coucy or Brienne absent from the frontier. Some
families died out entirely, most of them lost their younger
sons, and the whole class yielded place especially in France
to the kings and the commercial class.
Second, the commoners. Many nobles, enlisting for the holy
wars, freed their serfs. The bourgeois,, who had little social
standing at first in Europe, found themselves members of
a new and respectable middle class in Outremer, because,
although inferior to the nobles, they were above the native
population. They owned dwellings and farms in the East,
and could seek justice in a court of their own. Seamen and
merchants thrived during the revival of trade overseas, and
artisans took advantage of the demand for labor. Many
peasants, bound to the soil, went off to work as craftsmen in
the cities.
Third, the Church. At first the universal Church of Rome
profited vastly from the crusades. After the capture of Jeru
salem in the Twelfth Century the popes assumed leadership
in Europe, until the policy of Innocent III, striving for ac
tual empire, diverted the crusades to serve his own ends.
By abandoning Jerusalem, by keeping for itself much of
the treasure raised for the crusades, and by calling upon the
crusaders to wage war against the heretics at home, the
Church of Rome sacrificed the Kingdom of Jerusalem. And
it lost the popular support that had come to it with the first
458 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
crusades. Men who enlisted under the papal banner as cru
saders against the Hohenstaufen or in the Languedoc lacked
the enthusiasm of the cross-bearers who had sought Jerusa
lem.
At the same time 3 the constant demands of the papacy for
money to carry on the holy wars, while nothing was gained
for Jerusalem and the Roman court grew more and more
luxurious, at last outwearied the people s patience. The sale
of dispensations at first only the money claimed from men
who had taken the cross and would not or could not go on
crusade changed gradually to the sale of indulgences
freedom from penance enjoyed by crusaders and sold to
others who were not crusaders and eventually to the out
right sale of pardons.
All this helped bring about the exile in Avignon, and in
time the Reformation. 1
The Contributions
The crusades themselves shaped the future of our civiliza
tion in several ways.
The great military orders endured, and played their part in
events, and left their traces in the fraternal orders of to-day.
Out of the needs of the crusades grew the first national
taxation. To pay the cost of the undertakings, a tithe was
levied on the wealth of those who remained at home.
A new economic scheme of things had to be devised after
the first crusade, which had been carried on by sacrifice and
*The crusades had a distinct effect upon the political fortunes of the different
nations. They enhanced the power and the territories of France; they fed the
fortunes of Venice; they extended the frontiers of Germany (to the east), Portugal,
and the Spanish kingdoms. Byzantium at first profited from the exploitation of the
movement, and then was crushed by the crusaders in 1204.
The effect upon the papacy has been well summarized by Dr. Ernest Barker.
"The papacy had grown as a result of the crusades. Through them the popes had
deposed the emperors of the West from their headship of the world, partly because
through the crusades the popes were able to direct the common Christianity of
Europe . . . without consultation with the emperors, partly because in the Thirteenth
Century they were able to direct the crusade itself against the empire. Yet while
they had magnified, the crusades had also corrupted the papacy. They became an
instrument in its hands which it used to its own undoing."
AFTERWORD 459
indomitable purpose alone. Little actual money existed then,
and almost no ^ gold coins. The crusaders needed gold coins
to carry on their journeys silver and the baser metals being
too weighty and these were minted for them.
As the throngs of pilgrims increased, and the armies of the
cross swelled in numbers, more property cattle, land, or
feudal rights was sold at home to be turned into money,
and spent all the way from the Loire or the Rhine to the
Jordan. Trading cities thrived along the roads of the way
farers, and trade grew brisker at home. Not only men, but
money and property, were put into motion by the great en
terprises.
The Templars took a step forward in international banking
when they arranged for voyagers to deposit money in Paris
and receive in exchange a letter on which they could draw
money again in Acre or Constantinople. The newly founded
Italian banking houses in Venice and Florence imitated
them, and embarked besides upon the new business of carry
ing pilgrims east and bringing back merchandise from Asia.
On the heels of the cross-bearers, trade routes extended
into the East, and merchants went freely to Aleppo, Baghdad,
and eventually to India and China.
With the quickening of commerce, the setting forth of all
the peoples of Christendom toward the East, the long isola
tion of the Dark Ages was broken. Fleets voyaged from
Scandinavia and England into the Mediterranean, whither
only venturesome dragon ships of the Vikings had gone be
fore them. Portugal became a port of call, and Sicily turned
into a veritable metropolis of the wayfarers.
Out of the Northern seas the Danes took ship, to en
counter Hungarians and Lombards in the streets of Jerusalem.
Far-wandering Scots argued with worldly wise Greeks in
the squares of Constantinople. Shrewd Venetian adventurers
steered their galleons into the Black Sea, and made the ac
quaintance of the ice-bound Slavs.
Ships were built larger to accommodate such throngs, and
made the voyage in fleets for greater safety. The Mediter
ranean shores became familiar ground. And voyagers returned
home with tales of new lands and wonders of the earth.
460 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Travel increased between the cities of Europe, and the long
stagnation became a thing of the past.
With the end of the crusades, and the closing of the Eastern
trade routes except such as the Venetians managed to keep
open the voyages did not end. As the gates of Islam were
closed against the Christians, seamen began to seek a way
around to the Indies and to Cathay as they called China.
In 1270 the Genoese sailed out to look for the Canary Islands,
and after the fall of Acre they tried to circle Africa to get
to India.
The voyages of the Portuguese navigators in the next
century were in reality an attempt to recover the African
coast by a crusading venture. And, two centuries later,
Columbus set out to find Cathay bearing the crusaders
cross upon his sails, trusting that his voyage would pave the
way for the recovery of Jerusalem. Instead, he happened
upon America.
THE CASTLES 1 1ST SYRIA
FEW of us realize that the castles of the crusaders in the
Near East are standing to-day, for the most part. Travelers
in familiar western Europe will find few vestiges of Twelfth
Century building and art, because more modern work has
replaced the medieval. But the voyager who is willing to
explore the Near East will find whole districts unchanged
since the medieval age.
The islands of the Knights Malta and Rhodes are well
enough known and often visited. Since the Italian govern
ment has repaired the citadel in Rhodes, a moonlight walk
around the ramparts yields the illusion of a return to the
Fourteenth Century when the "tongues" of all Europe
manned the walls. And over the half moon of Smyrna s bay,
the gray citadel of the Knights towers just now a wire
less station for the Turkish military.
But it is in Syria, at present under the French mandate,
that we find almost intact some of the scenes of the crusades.
AFTERWORD 461
Above the Syrian frontier there are still some vestiges of
the crusaders, whose cathedrals in Tarsus and Edessa have
been turned into mosques. Antioch, just within the border,
has been demolished by earthquakes and war, and rebuilt
where the old city stood by the river. Only a prostrate granite
column shows where the Normans built their Cathedral of
the Apostles; but on the heights above the city the medieval
wall still stands, half ruined, and the citadel with its founda
tions atop the gorge of the Iron Gate.
In the rugged mountains south of Antioch the small cru
sader castle of Sahyoun is crouched on its pinnacle of rock,
half preserved and overgrown with thorns.
On the coast below Sahyoun, the great black Marghab
stands, its upper walls partly broken down and its lower
corridors cluttered with rubble; but with two storeys of its
round tower intact, and its chapel undamaged. The tower
wall is badly cracked and will soon fall, while the chapel
roof has been repaired. A few Arab families, some twenty-
five people with the usual children, black goats, dogs, live
within the castle s outer circuit 1 and a small forest has grown
up in the reservoir.
Still farther south and on the eastern side of the mountains,
Massiaf stands guard over its village, but with Syrian in
fantry, not Assassins, quartered around it. The tawny outer
walls have not fallen in and the entrance tower the strong
point of an Arab-built castle is fairly clear. The interior
has collapsed in part since, as in most Arab castles of the
time, mortar was not used to hold the stones in place.
x The crusaders castles in Outremer were much larger than contemporary build
ings in Europe. Some of them are twice the size of Pierrefonds and Coucy, the largest
in France. Marghab s outer wall encloses an area of more than 320,000 square feet.
The Krak is 600 yards in circuit, and its sister, the Kerak of trans-Jordan-~which
is half preserved, since Baibars and the Moslems utilized it for so long is 3,000
yards in its outer circuit.
They were solidly built, as well. Two methods of construction were used small
stone, usually basalt blocks about a foot square cemented together, as in Marghab
and Tiberias large limestone blocks fitted together without mortar, as in Tortosa
and Banyas. Some of the stones in Banyas are seven feet square. Syria and Palestine
are rich in rock, and the crusaders learned to make good use of it. Saladin brought
it to Cairo and used it in his building there the construction under the Fatimids,
including the city wall, had been of brick.
462 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
Here begins the heart of the castle country, where one is
often within sight of the other. Tortosa, one of the strong
holds of the Templars, is overbuilt by a small Arab coast
village, but the lower courses of the great walls are standing,
and the Cathedral of Our Lady is deserted its twin towers
vanished near the Moslem cemetery.
Safita s massive and lofty tower is sound enough, but the
outer circuit has half disappeared under the Moslem village.
The mighty Krak des Chevaliers, standing aloof on the
summit of a round hill, has endured for eight centuries. The
Arab families have appropriated it, and its courtyards swarm
with sheep and camels and varied filth. The chapel, however,
has been kept clean and around the entrance to the salle
now dark and desolate enough the crusaders ornaments
in stone are still intact.
Out on the coast Raymond s castle of Tripoli they call it
that looks down on the modern alleys of the seaport. 1
It has been used for nearly everything, including a stable
and a Turkish prison, and has more than half fallen to pieces
from neglect. In France or Germany, the Krak would have
been a mecca for sightseers.
Below the modern resort of Beirut, the twins Sidon and
Tyre (now known as Saida and Sur) show more than remains
of the crusaders work, although the Turks overbuilt them.
Ruins of St. Louis castle, with a single enduring tower,
crown the land side of Sidon.
Inland, two other twins, Belfort and Banyas, are much
better preserved. In fact Belfort is a wonder, with its long
x The crusaders followed two plans in their fortifications. First, usually along
the coast and usually built by Templars, a lofty outer wall with massive square
towers behind a deep moat, depending for security on its height and on a donjon
within it. That was also the Arab plan, in general followed in Massiaf and Tripoli
and Tortosa.
Second, a citadel built on a hill summit apart from any town, and shaped to the
contour of the ground, with the strongest feature of the castle placed where the
hillside gave access to a besieger. This type is found along the inland roads, and was
often built by the Hospital as in the case of Marghab and the Krak. It was usu
ally triangular to fit the hill and reduce the number of corners with numerous
small round towers, and a low wall surmounting a sloping talus or base.
The great age of the crusaders fortification was from 1130 to 1200. Chateau
Plerin, the last great citadel to go up, was built in 1217.
AFTERWORD 463
corridors built into the rock, its embrasures peering out on a
seemingly bottomless gorge.
Across the border in Palestine stands the Acre region,
with its arc of protecting castles that sheltered Nazareth.
Turon, Montfort, and Safed lie in ruins, while the black
citadel of Tiberias traces its circuit through the drowsy
streets of the little town by Galilee. In the heart of Acre
itself the buildings of the crusaders are clearly visible
especially the quarters of the Hospitalers. South of Acre
the almost impregnable Khaukab al Hawwa (Star of the
Winds) and Chateau Pelerin are half ruined but impressive
still.
Of the churches and chapels of the crusaders, less remains.
Many were converted into mosques and overbuilt, while
Baibars and the Kharesmians destroyed the holy places of
the Nazarenes ruthlessly. Nazareth itself and Mount Tabor
that had been a fortified monastery with an abbey, and
had been besieged and captured and retaken many times
he destroyed stone by stone. In the Jerusalem region also
the mamluks wrought havoc. But Baibars, and all the Mos
lem conquerors, spared the church at Bethlehem. Saladin
preserved St. Anne s at Jerusalem. The work of the crusaders
is visible all through Jerusalem from the tiny marble altars
in the Cavern of the Souls, to the beautiful pointed arches
of the Sepulcher courtyard.
And throughout the region round the city their handwork
is to be seen from the small cathedral of Ramlah to the
great mosque of Hebron.
In Jaffa and Ascalon their handwork has almost been
obliterated.
Out in the island of Cyprus, however, their castles stand,
and their cathedral at Nicosia.
The crusaders castles in the East have passed from hand
to hand, and have been neglected for some seven centuries
they have been used as quarries when convenient, and as
robbers haunts, and tenements for wandering Arab villagers.
Few people know of them or visit them except in the cita-
464 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
dels of Rhodes and Malta, built after the crusades and,
although the French High Commission in Syria is discussing
measures to preserve the Krak, it is doubtful if any attempt
will be made to save the castles from final destruction.
They remain deserted in a half-deserted country, and the
very Arabs who live in their shadow know no more of them
than that they are there. The sheep graze on their mountain
slopes, the cactus climbs over the rubble beneath them, and
lizards scurry across their great stones when the sun is warm.
They look down on the same countryside as before, where
the camel strings pass and solitary horsemen go by in silence.
The cisterns are heavy with green scum, and wind blows
through the cracks in the towers. The land has not changed
but the men have gone from it.
They are old, these castles, and the hills are steep. Hot is
the sun at the desert s edge and heavy the rain. In time they
will crumble into the hills forgotten monuments of van
ished men.
WHAT WE MODERNS THINK
FOR two centuries of the thousand-year strife between
Islam and Christianity, the cross-bearers carried the war
into Asia. They fortified themselves beyond the sea,
making the valley of the Jordan the front line of Christen
dom. At the end of the two centuries they were driven out
of this front line, because they were left without support in
the face of the new Moslem forces drawn from central Asia.
Counter-attacks launched from Europe failed to recover
this ground, and in the next centuries the Moslem attack
swept on over the Mediterranean and into eastern Europe.
The crusaders sacrificed themselves in taking and holding
that front line. While they were on the Jordan, the rest of
Europe except in Spain, where the crusaders also appeared
before long was safe from Moslem aggression. And after
the crusaders were wiped out, the experience gained in their
wars, the new weapons and lessons learned in strategy and
in fortification, and especially the new fleets built up during
AFTERWORD 465
the crusades, aided in the preservation of Europe when Chris
tendom was placed on the defensive.
So, as a military venture in that long war, the crusades
gained much. The loss was in the sacrifice of lives and wealth
the gain in experience.
So says the soldier.
With all this the scoffer will not agree. And just at present
he is very much in fashion. He sees in the crusades a waste of
hundreds of thousands of lives, and uncounted wealth. He
reminds us that the first cross-bearers ate human flesh at
need and stained their swords by savage massacres. And that
later, adventurers and plunderers filled their ranks. It seems
to him that these men set out to be saints and ended by
being devils. He decries the whole thing as a failure.
The scoffer, however, is weighing men of the Twelfth
Century in scales of the Twentieth. If he had lived when the
crusaders lived, he would have known:
That other men as well had eaten human flesh at need.
That the crusaders ceased the massacres after the first
onrush, when they had settled in Outremer and thereafter
the mamluks, for example, equaled the worst of their deeds.
That the feudal and political wars of the peoples in Europe
went on continuously, while there was peace in Jerusalem
after the crusaders conquest for eighty years, and even truce
at home during the great crusades.
That the venturesome crusaders instead of looking for
fortunes in the East sold or mortgaged their property at
home in order to journey into the East, and gained little
thereby.
That instead of regarding themselves as saints, they were
usually men who set out on crusade to expiate their sins.
And so great was the peril of the venture that the Church
accounted it the most arduous penance of all.
That, so far from being a failure, the people of that time
looked upon the conquest of Jerusalem as a triumph, and
the relics brought back as more than compensating for the
losses. . . .
To-day the cynic is quite the vogue, and his voice outcries
466 THE FLAME OF ISLAM
the idealist. But there is, after all, something ignoble in be
littling a mighty and unselfish undertaking, and in defacing
the memory of men who sacrificed themselves. Nor does it
become us of to-day, who have seen our world plunged into
war for no apparent cause, to cast stones at those who fought
during two centuries for what they believed to be the greatest
of earthly causes.
We of to-day have rebuilt the forum of the Caesars and
many temples. But we cannot restore the Kingdom of Jerusa
lem, where our ancestors sought, beyond the sea, to dwell
beside the tomb of Christ in peace.
It is vanished, with the dream of Godfrey of Bouillon, and
the exhortation of Saint Bernard, the ambition of Coeur de
Lion, the pitiful seeking of the children, the devotion of
St. Louis. The city is lost, the kingdom a memory, the
chivalry of Outremer scattered, and the gardens and cathe
drals built so patiently beyond the sea stand deserted, or
house the new hordes of Asia.
And it will never return again. That day, when the cru
saders built their little crude paradise around the Sepulcher,
is past. When, after centuries, Christian pilgrims made their
way back slowly to Jerusalem, they found ruins ill tended by
the Moslems. They found the chapels of the crusaders, and
the Garden of Gethsemane. They watched the sunsets darken
over the Tower of David, and they stood by the pool where
once an angel had troubled the waters. But they saw these
things with changed eyes. They rebuilt the ruins, but not
the city of which Godfrey had dreamed.
No one can rebuild the lost city, wherein for eighty years
the faith of the crusaders lifted them out of the current of a
merciless age. . . .
So says the idealist.
?
Say what we will, the crusades will endure as a cherished
memory. We wonder at them perhaps we do not understand
them.
For to their own dark age the crusaders brought the fire
of unselfish purpose. Around this fire they drew men from
AFTERWORD 467
all lands centuries before the first alliance of peoples
in our modern world. And by this light they went out into
the unknown regions centuries before Europe could send
forth its colonists.
And this spirit of the crusades was not in the world before
they came, and it has not appeared again, after their passing.
No words of ours can alter what these men did the best
or the worst of them who followed a star. They drained
the cup of devotion, and if they tasted the dregs of shame,
they knew also the exaltation of victory. They reached the
summit of daring.
And the memory of that will endure long after our own
workaday lives are ended.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
THIS book is based chiefly upon the original narratives or the annals
of the amir Ousama, the Christian archbishop William of Tyre, the
man of letters from Mosul, Baha ad Din, the Norman minstrel
Ambrose, the soldier Ville-Hardouin with the knight De Clari
and the Byzantine secretary Nicetas the Egyptian Makrisi, the
monk Ernoul, the lord of Joinville, and the Syrian Abulfarag.
With these, the following sources and modern works have been
found most useful:
PARTS I-II
SOURCES
Abou 1-feda, Annaks. Recueil des historiens des croisades His-
toriens orient aux L
Aly el Herewy. Voyage.
Ambrose. L Estoire de la guerre sainte. Ed., G. Paris Documents
inedits sur fhistoire de Prance. Paris, 1897.
Baha ad Din. La Vie du Sultan Youssouf (Salah ad Din). Recueil
Hist, orient. III.
Chronicon. Otto of Saint Blaise. Monumenta Germaniae Historica
Scriptores. XX, XXIII.
47i
472 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chronique de Michel le Syrien. Re cueil Documents armeniens. I.
Devizes, Richard. Chronicle. Bohn s Antiquarian Library, London
1871.
Epistulae. (Letters of Christians in Outremer to Europe.) Patrologia
Latina. CCL
Epistulae de Morte Imperatoris. Mon. Germ. Scrip. XX.
Haymar. De Expugnata Accone, Liber Tetrasticus. Ed., Riant.
Lyons, 1866.
Hoveden, Roger. Chronica. Ed., W. Stubbs, Rolls Series, 1871.
Ibn Athir. Histoire des atabegs de Mosul. Recueil Hist, orient. II.
Ibn Jubair. Extrait du voyage d Ibn Djobeir. Recueil Hist, orient
III.
Le Livre des deux Jardins (Histoire des deux regnes, celui de Nour ad
Din, et celui de Salah ad Din.} Recueil.
Nasiri Khusrau. (Diary of a Journey through Syria and Palestine.}
Trans., Guy le Strange.
Ousama. Souvenirs historiques et recits de chasse par un emir syrien
du douzieme siecle. Paris, 1895. Trans., H. Derenbourg.
Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani (MXCVII-MCCXCI) Ed., Roh-
richt. 1893.
William of Tyre. Guillaume de Tyre et ses continuateurs textepar
M. Paulin Paris. Paris, 1879.
MODERN WORKS
Du Cange. Les Families d* Outremer. Documents intdits sur Fhistoire
de France. 1869.
Enlart, C. Les Monuments des croises dans le royaume de Jerusalem
architecture religieuse et civile. Paris, 1928.
Hammer. Histoire de Fordre des Assassins. Paris, 1833.
Kohler, C. H. Melanges de f Orient latin et des croisades. Paris, 1900.
Lane Poole, S. Saladin.
History of Mediaeval Egypt.
Le Strange, G. Palestine under the Moslems. London, 1890.
Paris, G. La Legende de Saladin. (Journal des Savants. 1893.)
Rey, E. G. Etude sur les monuments de f architecture militaire des
croises en Syrie et dans file de Chypre. Doc. intd. sur I" hist, de
France. 1871.
Les Colonies franques de Syrie aux XII* et XI IP siecles.
Paris, 1883.
Schlumberger, G. Renaud de Chatillon, prince d dntioche. Paris,
1898.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 473
Stevenson. The Crusaders in the East A Brief History of the Wars
of Islam with the Latins in Syria during the Twelfth and
Thirteenth Centuries. Cambridge, 1907.
Vincent et Abel. Jerusalem Recherches de topographie, d archeo-
logie et d histoire. Paris, 1914.
PARTS III-IV
SOURCES
Chronic on Venetum. Muratori Scrip tores. XII.
De Clari, Robert. La conquete de Constantinople. Paris, 1924.
Exuviae Sacrae Constantinopolitanae. Ed., Riant. Geneve, 1877.
Gesta Innocentii Papae. Patrologia Latina. CCXIV.
Gestes des Chiprois. Eds. De Mas-Latrie et G. Paris. Recueil
Docum. Armen. II.
Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi. Huillard-Breholles. Paris,
1861.
Joinville. Chronicle. Bohn s Antiquarian Library. 1871.
Vie de Saint Louis. Ed., De Wailly, 1867.
Lettres inedites d* Innocent III. Biblio. Ecole des Chartes. XXXIV.
Muratori Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. VII.
Nicetas. Historia degli Imperatori Greet dal MCXVII fino al
MCCIIL Venetia, 1562.
Testimonia Minora de Ofytinto Bello Sacro e Chronicis Occidentalibus.
Ed., Rohricht. Societt de I orient latin. Geneve, 1892.
Ville-Hardouin. La conquete de Constantinople. Ed., De Wailly.
1872.
MODE RN WORKS
Blochet. Les relations diplomatiques des Hohenstaufen avec les
sultans d Egypte. Rev. Hist. LXXXI.
Brehier, L. LEglise et f Orient au moyen age les croisades. Paris,
1928.
Burger. Saint Louis et Innocent IV> etude sur les rapports de la
France et du Saint Stige. Paris, 1893.
De Mas-Latrie. Histoire de I He de Chypre, sous le regne des princes
de la maison de Lusignan. Paris, 1861.
Helfelc, C. Histoire des conciles. Tome V, 1152-1250. Paris, 1913,
Heyd, W. Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen age. Trad. par.
Raynaud. Leipzig, 1923.
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Lavisse. De Hermano Sahensi Ordinis Teutonici Magistro. Paris,
1878.
Luchaire. Innocent III: la question f Orient. Paris, 1907.
Riant. Innocent III, Philippe de Souabe et Boniface de Montferrat.
Paris, 1867.
Le changement de direction de la quatrieme croisade. Rev.
des Quest. Hist. 1878.
Segue. Histoire de Louis XL
PART V
SOURCES
Chronicon Syriacum y Gregorii Abulpharagii^ she Bar-Hebraei.
Lipsiae, 1789.
Chronique du Templier de Tyre. Ed., Raynaud. Soc. Or. lat. Geneve,
1887.
Deux Projets de croisades (XIH -XIV siMe). Ch. Kohler. Rev.
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Directorium ad Faciendum Passagium Transmarinum. Amer. Hist.
Rev. XII.
Hayton. Le Flor des estoires de la terre d Qrient. Recueil Doc.
Armen. II.
Historia orientalis* Jacques de Vitry.
Lettres de Ricoldo de Monte Croce. Rohricht. Trad, far M. Furey
Raynaud. Arch. Or. lat. II.
Makrisi. Histoire fEgypte. Trad, par Blochet. Rev. Or. lat. 1898-
1906.
Mar Yaballaha. History. Trans., James Montgomery. New York,
1927.
Marco Polo. Le Livre de Marco Po/o, citoyen de Venise. Charignon,
1928.
Marinus Sanutus. Secrets for True Crusaders To Help Them To Re
cover the Holy Land. Pal. Pilgr. Text Soc, 1921.
Matthew Paris. Chronica majora. Ed., Luard. 1872-83.
Peregrinatores Medii A em jjuatuor Bur char dus de Monte Sion:
Ricoldo de Monte Cruets: Ordoricus de Foro Julii: Wilbrandus
de Oldenburg. Ed., Laurent. Lipsiae, 1864.
Raschid ed Din. Histoire des Mongols de la Perse. Ed. et trad.)
Quatremer, Paris, 1836.
Rubruquis. Relation des voyages en Tartarie de Fr. Cuillaume de
Rubruquis> Fr. Jean du Plan Carpin. Paris, 1634,
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MODERN WORKS
Abul Ghazi Bahadur. Histoire des Mogols et des Tartares. Trad, far
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Backer, L. UExtreme Orient au moyen age apres les mss. d un
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Chambure, M. de. Rdgle et statuts secrets des Templiers. Paris, 1840.
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INDEX
INDEX
(In long lists of references., the more important
are set in italic
Abaka, of Persia, 422, 426.
Abou Abdallah of Toledo, 19.
Abou Bakr, 203.
Aboul Heidja the Fat, 174, 175.
Abulfareg, 164.
Acarnania, 266,
Accursed Tower, Acre, in, 135, 137.
fall of, 138.
Acerbius, 221.
Acre, 149, 158, 161, 193, 409, 428, 429,
463.
fall to Moslems, 431-432.
fall to Saladin, 74.
fall to Richard, 139.
loss of Christians, 141, note 141.
massacre, 145.
siege by Guy, 100 et seq.
terms to Richard, 144.
admiral, note, 374.
Adrianople, 254, 266.
Adriatic Sea, 266.
Aegean Sea, 266.
Afghans, 399.
Ahamant, 58.
Ai Beg the Kurd, 351.
Ain Jalut, battle of, 403.
Al Adhil the Just, 44, 74, 76, no, 135,
151, 152, 159-160, 174, 179, 186,
190, 193, 198, 199, 200, 205-206,
212, 2/j, 280, note, 281, 284, 286,
287,
Al Aksa, note 14, 77, 81, 176, 310.
Al Ayidiya, 135.
Al Aziz, 206.
Al Kamil, 287, 309, 314.
Mansura, 291-295, note 292.
treaty with Frederick, 310, note 310.
Al Kama*, 414.
Al Kuds (see Jerusalem), 5.
Al Mansur of Hamah, 333.
Al Yashur, 18, 19.
Alamut, 25, 399.
castle of, 25.
Alan of the Stable, 161.
Alberic of Rheims, 180.
Albertus Magnus, 392.
Aleppo, 9, 26, 43, 61, 89, 121, 205, 331,
400, 403.
Alexandria, 7, 28, 209, 278, 284, 292.
Alexis III, Emperor of Constantinople,
228, 236, note 241, 252, 255.
Alexis, son of Isaac, 228, 220, 236, 241,
244, 249, 253, 255.
Almagest, 455-
Alphonse of Poitiers, 348, 355, 380, 381.
Aluh the Eagle, 37, 86.
Amalric, King of Jerusalem, 29, 30, 38.
Amalric of Cyprus, 280, 450.
Amalric of Lusignan, 51, 64, note 72,
o8> 141, 2ii, 212.
death, 286.
King of Jerusalem, 213, 224,
479
480
INDEX
Ambrose, ros, 104-6, 108-110, 115, 117,
118, 127, note 128, 134, 142, 143,
149, 150, 1 60, note 170, note 177,
199, 200.
Ancona, 236.
Andrew, 105.
Andrew II, King of Hungary, 282.
Andrew of Chavigny, 134, 182, 199.
Andros, 244, 266.
Ani, bishop of, 121.
Anjou, Knights of, 153, 172.
an-Nadjar (see Ibn an-Nadjar).
Antioch, 56, 65, <?p, 122, 324, 409, note
413, 461.
attack by Baibars, 414-415.
princes of, 280, 335, 413.
Arabia, products of, 9.
Arabian Nights (see Thousand and
One Nights) note 405.
Arabs, 4, 246, note 418.
Bai bars , 409.
inheritance from, 455, note 456.
intellectuals, 10, 20, 21.
position of, 7.
tradesmen, 9.
Aragon, 270, 274, 395.
Aral, lake, 331.
Archimedes, 21.
Arghum, 430, note 430.
Aristotle, 455.
Arm of St. George, Constantinople, 245.
Armageddon, 52.
Armenians, 26, 56, 93, 280, 281, note
400, 408.
Arnat (see Reginald of Chltillon), 55.
Arsuf, 155, 195, 410, note 420.
Arta, 266.
Asad ad Din, 174.
Ascalon, 4 8, 51, 76, 157, 169, 179, 193,
2 9*> 3 2 5 not e 420, 463.
destruction of, 156.
fall to Saladin, 77.
Asia, Central, 6.
Asia Minor, 26.
As-Sahib Jamal ad Din ibn Matroub,
388.
Assassins, the (see Ismailites, Old Man
of the Mountain), 23, 26, 164 note,
383, 4^1.
^ .
Athlit (see Chateau P&erin), 324-325.
Auberg, C16ment, 138.
Austria, duke of, 285.
Austrians, 94, 282.
Averroes, 310, 328.
A vie, 245.
Avignon, 448.
Ayoub, father of Saladin, 27, 32, 34, 35^
3 s ;
Ayoubites, 205.
Ayub, sultan of Cairo, 349, 351.
Aziz ad Din, 181-182.
Baalbek, 175, 291.
lord of, 122.
Bacon, Friar Roger, 322, 392.
Baghdad, 7, 20, 93, 399, 400.
markets of, 9.
Bagras, 90.
Baha ad Din, 85, 89, 91, 93, 99j IO4 -
105, 125, 126, note 128, 135, 136,
139, note 144, 151, 152, note 154,
157, note 165, note 170, 173-177,
180-182, 183, 198, 202, 203-204,
213.
Bahairiz, 364.
Bahriyas, note 418.
Baibars the Panther, 332, 335, 351, 355,
note 362, 364, 374, 392, 402, 404,
405, note 405, 406 et seq., 463.
army of, 418-419, note 418.
Bohemund VI, 414.
Damascus, 408.
death, 423, 425.
Jaffa, 412, 413, note 413.
Montfort, 420, 421-423.
sultan of Cairo, 405.
Bait-Jebrail, 77, 402.
Bait-Laim (see Bethlehem), 77.
Baldwin, count of Fknders, 224, 235,
242, 248, 250, 251, 252, 260, 271,
note 321.
coronation, 267, note 267, 268.
death, 268.
emperor of Constantinople, 266.
Baldwin de Carreo, 154,
Baldwin the Leper, 48, 53, 56, 62, 383.
Bale, 224.
Balian d lbelin, 77, 143, 193, 314, 315.
Balkis, temple of, 9.
Banyas, 57, 383, note 461, 462.
Bar, count of, 105.
Barbarossa (see Frederick Barbarossa)
Bari, 210, 212.
INDEX
481
Barker, Dr. Ernest, note 458,
Bartholomew, 373.
Basilica of Sion, 47.
Bavaria, 94.
Beam, count of, 272.
Beauvais, bishop of, 105, 114, 154.
Bedawin tribe, 4, 6, 7, 9, 28, 33, 153,
note 418.
customs of, 360.
Beirut, 76, 165, 179, 182, 212, 308, 462.
Belfort, 91, 95-96, 104, 121, 329, 412.
b Slier s, 123-124.
Berber, 7, 409.
Berengaria of Navarre, 132, 146, 195,
201.
Beersheba, 57.
Besancon, bishop of, 123.
Bethlehem, 291, 310, 334.
Beth Nable, 169, 172, 195.
Bethsan, 54.
Bezi&res, 274.
Bika, 90.
Blachernae, 250, 261.
Blanche, Queen, 345, 385.
Blanche Garde, 169.
Blondel, 195.
Bohemund, 114.
Bohemund V of Antioch, 335.
Bohemund VI of Antioch, 400, 411, 413,
414, 419, 425.
Bohemund VII, 430.
Bohn, note 356.
Bokhara, 10.
Boniface of Montserrat, 225, 228, 229,
236, 241, note 241, 242, 248, 254,
261, 264, 266.
Book of Sibiwaihi) 19.
Borzia, 90.
Bosphorus Strait, 246.
Boucicaut, note 440,
Brabazons, 168.
Bretons, 153.
Breienne, count of, 105, 108.
Brindisi, 209, 304.
"Brothers of the German House", 212.
Bucoleon, 261.
Bulgars, 227, 228, 246, 266, note 364.
Burak, 5.
Burgundians, 94, 248.
Burgundy, duke of, 153, 163, 353, 357,
35&&gt; 367-
Buscarel, 430.
Byzantines, 27, 117, 266, 268, 282.
ranks of, 282.
Byzantium (see Constantinople), 8, 9,
227.
Caesarea, 76, 151, 193, 409, note 420.
Cairo, 20, 22, 25, 104, 169, 205, 284, 292,
note 292, 332, note 345, 365, 402^
412.
crusade to, 283 et seq.
retreat from, 293-294.
Calvary, 200.
camlets, 384, note 384.
Candia, 209.
Canterbury, archbishop of, 133.
Capernum, 150.
Cardinal Lothaire (see Innocent III),
217.
casals, 325.
Castile, 395.
Castle Jacob, 57.
Cathars, 272.
Cathay (see China), 9, 397, 402, 460.
Cathedral of Our Lady, 462.
Catholicos, 121.
Catzene Inbogen, count of, 237.
Cavern of Souls, Jerusalem, 14, note 14.
Cencio Savelli, 282.
Cephalonia, 266.
Chagan, 430.
Chalcedony, 247.
Chalons, count of, 120.
Charles of Anjou, 34.8, 350, 357, 365,
380, 388, 407, 416, note 416.
Children s Crusade, 277-278.
China (see Cathay), 9.
Chinese, 399 note.
Chronicles of the Crusades. By Bohn,
note 356.
Church, change of, 457-458.
effect of crusades, note 458.
lack of influence, 56.
of Rome, 395.
power of, 221 et seq,
war with empire, 317.
Circassians, 424.
citadels, construction of, 57.
City of Tents (see El Kahira), 28.
Clement V, 443, 445, 448, 450, 451,
452.
Clermont, count of, 120.
Cola di Rienzi, 318.
482
INDEX
Colossi, 308.
Columbus, 460.
Commanders of the Faithful, 8.
Conrad, 212.
Conrad of Montserrat, 88, pp, 103, 115,
126, 129, 141, 143, 1^3, 164, note
164, 197.
Conrad, son of Frederick, 305, 339, 407.
Constance, 210, 226, 279.
Constantine, 39$.
Constantinople (see Byzantium), 10,
93, 225, 240.
attack on, 245, 257.
division of treasure, 265.
emperor of, 266, 456.
fall of, 262.
riot of crusaders, 255, note 364.
terms to crusaders, 248.
treaty with crusaders, 253.
Connon de Be"thune, 248.
Conti, 276.
Coptic Monks, 56.
Cordoba, 7*
Corinth, gulf of, 266.
Coucy, lord of, 356.
Council of Vienna, 450 et seq.
Cremona, 319.
Crete, 266, 281.
Crusades, Acre, 100, 139, note 283.
Cairo, 285.
changes caused by, 457~458.
Constantinople, 245, note 283.
contributions of, 458-460.
effect on Church, 458 note.
first Egyptian, 283.
modern attitude, 464*466.
money, 459,
results of, 454 et scg.
second crusade of Louis, 41 1.
Crusaders, 207 et seg., 275, 280, 334, 335.
attack on Constantinople, 248 et $cq.
castles of, note 462*
churches, 463.
end, 441.
last of, 433.
remainder of, 400, note 401, 409.
spirit gone, 440, note 440.
strongholds, 420 note.
Curia, 270, 303, 328, 339, 409-
Cyprus, no, 164, 168, 285, 308, 324,
329, 429, 463.
king of, 437.
Dahira, 412.
Damascus, 7, 8, 204-205, 284, 400, 403,
408, 416.
attitude towards Saladin, 40, 42.
fall of, 334.
markets of, 9.
sultan of, 290.
Damietta, 32, 284, 363, 375.
capture by Louis, 348, note 348.
fall, 288.
Dandolo, Henry, 229, 235, 237, 239, 240,
note 241, 243, 244, 247-248, 251,
254, note 254, 255, 265-266.
terms to crusaders, 256.
Dante, 318, 454.
Dardanelles (Hellespont), 245.
Darum, 76.
fort of, 1 68,
De Beaujeu, 348, 350, 353, 357.
De Bron, Guillaume, 359.
De Chastillon, 368.
De Corvant, Sir Josselin, 367.
De Coucy, Sieur, 233, 244.
De Gaymaches, Jean de, 359.
De Loppey, Sir Ferreys, 356, 357.
De Mauleon, 190.
De Menoncourt, Sir Reginault, 356.
De Molay, Jacques, 443, 445> 45 2 ~453*
De Nouilly, Sir Pierre, 358.
De Riddeford, 63, 67, 71, 98.
De Sergines, Sir Geoffrey, 368-369, 379,
380.
De Soissons, Sir Jean, 358, 359.
De Sonnac, 348, 349, 354, 360, 365.
De Trichatel, Sir Hugues, 356.
De Valeri, Sir Jecun, 359,
De Valeri, Sir John, 357.
De Vinsouf, 153, note 170, note 177,
197.
De Wailly, note 356.
De Wanon, Sir Raoul, 356, 357.
De Waysy, Jean, 361.
Dead River, 152.
Dead Sea, 28.
D Escosse, Sir Hugues, 356, 357.
Derenbourg, M, Hartwig, note 20,
D lbelin, Sir Baldwin, 375.
D lbelin, Sir Guy, 376.
Djordic, 176, 181.
Dolderim, 185.
Dominicans, 432, 446,
Durazzo, 266.
INDEX
483
Ecry-sur-aisne, 224.
Edessa, 15, 26.
Edward II, 440.
Edward, prince of England, 416, 421,
422, 424, 425.
Egypt, 8.
El Aksa Mosque (see Al Aksa),
El Fadil, 34, 37-
El Kahira, the Guarded (see Cairo),
28.
El Khuweilfa, 170.
El Mahdi, the Guided One, 28.
El Malik en Nasr (see Saladin), 30.
Eleanor, 421, 422.
Eleanor of Guinne, 146, 201.
Elucidation of AlFarisi^ 19.
England, 395.
Epirus, 266.
Err at d Esmeray, 356, 357.
Esdrelon, 54.
Etolia, 266.
Euboea, 266.
Euphrates, 26.
Examples and the Flowers of Speech, 19.
Ezaz, city of, 40.
Fakhr ad Din, note 348, 352, 355.
Fatima, 28.
Faracatai, 376.
Fauvel, horse, 150.
fedawi, 23.
Ferentino, 304.
Ferrukh Shah, 175.
Filangieri, 315.
Flagellants, 341.
Flame of the Franks (see Krak of the
Knights).
Flanders, count of, 133-134-
Flanders, count of (see Baldwin).
Flanders, count of, 376, 380.
Flanders, earl of, 367.
Flemings, 282.
Florence, 395.
Foix, count of, 272.
Forbelet, 54.
France, 395.
Franconia, 94.
Franks, 17, note 17.
Frederick Barbarossa (Frederick the
Red Beard), 93.
death, 120.
warning to Saladbj 120.
Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, emperor,
226, 279, 282, 289, 290, 295, 302,
306, 371 note, 393, 456.
back to Italy, 314.
Cyprus, 308-309.
death, 339.
deposed by pope, 319.
excommunication of, 306.
king of Jerusalem, 312.
king of Thessalonica, 316.
march to Rome, 320.
Mongols, 321, 336, 337.
treaty with Al Kamil, 310.
war with Gregory IX, 316, 318.
voyage to Jerusalem, 307 et seq*
Frederick of Swabia, 120, 122, 133.
French, customs of army, note 139.
disease and famine, 366.
Frisians, 94.
Fulk, cur6 of Neuilly, 224, 237.
Galatea, 247.
Galen, 21.
Galilee, 49, 291,
Gallipoli, 266.
Gana im, 18.
Garden of Gethsemane, 5.
Garmer de Napes, 153.
Gate of David, Jerusalem, 77, 80.
Gaza, 76, 168, 331.
battle of, 334.
Genoa, 209, 280, 293.
Genoese, 163, 292, 379, note 379, 426.
Geoffrey of Lusignan, 102, note 102,
108, 141, 142.
Geoffrey of Ville-Hardouin, 234, 235,
239, 242, 244, 245, 251-253, 255,
261, 264.
Georgians, note 400; 426.
Germans, 248.
Germany, 395, 407.
Ghazan, 436.
Ghengis Khan, 321, 424.
Gibraltar, 6.
Godfrey of Bouillon, 395.
Gog, 383.
Golden Gate, Jerusalem, 14, note 14.
Golden Horde, 440.
Gray Moeque> 2#.
Grayir, 118.
Great Palace, 29.
Greek Fire, 116, 123, 135, 3^6.
4 8 4
INDEX
Greeks, 244, 249.
Gregory IX, 305.
death, 321.
deposition of Frederick, 319.
excommunication of Frederick, 306,
3*9-
war with Frederick, 316-317.
gunpowder, 392, note 399.
Guy of Lusignan, 57, 53~S5> note 72,
9$, 99> 105, 108, 115, 141, 153, 163,
164.
Acre, 100.
flight to Ascaion, 56.
Had], 13.
hadjis, 16,
Haifa, 76, 126, 2QI, 410.
Hakhberi, 37.
Halberstadt, bishop of, 237,
Mka, 135, 364, 375.
Hamah, note 17, 89, 91, 291.
Haram, note 14.
Harotm ar Raschid, 8, 10.
Hassan ibn Sabah (see Old Man of
the Mountain), 22-25^ note 41.
Hattin, 70-73.
Hautefort, 168,
Hawwarah, note 418-419.
Haython, king of Armenia, 400, 401,
402, 41 1, 4*5-
Hebron, 334, 402.
Hellespont (see Dardanelles).
Henri, 360,
Henry, brother of Baldwin, 248, 264.
Henry III, 322,
Henry VI of Hohenstaufen, 210, 212,
Henry, count of Champagne, 720, 121,
126, 129, /^r, 154, 165, 186, 192,
194, 213.
Henry of Anjou, 146.
Henry of Cyprus, 430, 450.
Heraclea, 266.
Heraclius, 56, 63-64, 77, 79, 8o f
Herman of Salza, 291, 304, 312,
Hermon, 96, 101.
Herod s Temple, note 14.
Hieres, 387.
Hildebrand, 220, 31 8.
Historia Rerum in Paftttus Trans-
mar in us Gestarum, 53.
Holy Land, 3.
Holy War (see jihad), 15, 44.
Horns, 91.
Honorius, 304, 305.
Horns of Hamah, 40.
Horns of Hattin, battle of the, 70.
Hospital of St. John, 56, 212,
Hospitalers, 57, 66, 105-106, 153, 182,
271, 3", note 3* i ,3*7, 333, 383,
409, 419, note 418-419, note 44 o,
441.
Hugh, Count, 242.
Hugh of Piraud, 445.
Hugh of Revel, 419.
Hulagu, 399, 4 oi, 402, 403.
Humphrey of Toron, 60, 64, 98, 142,
TT * 43, * 58, 193-
Hungarians, 10.
Hungary, 395,
Huns, 246.
Ibelin, castle of, 76.
Ibn an-Nadjar, n6.
Idrisi, 20, 328, 456.
Illyrians, 94.
Imad ad Din, 86, 93.
imams, 10.
India, products of, 9, 10.
Ingeborg, 220, 221, 222.
Innocent III, j>/j, 2/8 ft sq. t 281, 303.
attacks, 274,
attitude towards crusades, 222, 271.
Constantinople, 269-270,
death, 279,
heresy, 273.
Jerusalem, 279.
politics, 226-227, 240, 241, note 241.
preparations, 224.
Innocent IV, 336 ft scq^ 401.
Ionian Islands, 266,
Ionian Sea, 266,
Irak, 62, 89, note 41 8.
Isaac the Angel, 93-94, 211, 213, 228,
236.
death, 2 5 5.
treaty with crusaders, 253,
Isabel, 60, 64, 77, 142, 165, 213,
Islam, 4, 5, io.
boundaries, 6.
customs, n, 15,
eastern frontier, io.
Islamites (see Turks, Saracens, Mos
lems).
Island of St. Nicholas, 234.
INDEX
485
Ismail, sultan of Damascus, 332.
Ismailites (see Assassins), 22, 40.
Italy, 408.
Jacobites, 56.
Jaffa, 51, 148, 158, 161, 193, 212, 383,
412, 463.
battle of, 179 et seq.
James of Avesnes, 103, 108, 154, 155.
Jean, 372.
Jebal, 5.
Jebala, 90.
Jerusalem, 4, 5, 338, 456.
attacked by Turks, 53, 77.
attacked by Kharesmians, 332.
conceded to Frederick, 310.
description, 46, 47, 49.
discord in army, 55.
fall of, 80.
famine, 55.
kingship of, 142.
march by Richard, 149 et seq.
peace, 194.
visit to Sepulcher, 200.
jihad> i $,44.
Jifar, 169.
Joanna, 146, 160.
John, brother of Richard, 146, 164, 168,
270.
John de Nesle, 280.
John, lord of Joinville, 343, 344, 345>
350, 356 et seq., 364 et seq.> 370 et
seq., 382 et seq. y 394.
capture of, 371.
John of Brienne, king of Jerusalem, 286,
289, 290, 291, 293, 294, 304, 305,
316-
John of Ibelin, 308, 344.
John, son of Louis, 379.
John the Armenian, 383.
Jordan, 4, 28.
Josselin of Montoire, Sir, 129.
Justinian, 395.
Kaaba, 7, 29.
kadis y 10.
Kadmons, 423.
Kahf, 423.
Kairuwan, 278.
Kalawun, note 418-419, 4 2 5> 4^6, 4^7>
428.
Kalif Al Mustadi of Baghdad, 36-37.
Kalif of Cairo, 28, 29.
Kalif of Walid, 8.
Kanana Clan, note 348.
Karadja l Yarouki, 203.
Karakorum, 322, 398, 401, 402.
Karakush, 34, 44, 95, 104, 116, 123, 127,
135, 145-
Kazars, 10.
Kedron, 48.
Kerak, 57, 58, 91, note 292.
amir of, 333.
Kerak of Trans-Jordan, note 461.
Ketabogha, 402, 403.
Kha Khan (see Mangu).
khalats, 13.
Khalid, 7.
Khan el Khalil, 423.
Khankab al Hawwa (see Star of the
Winds).
Kharesmians, 331 et seq^ note 364, 424.
khojas, 1 6.
Khorassan,399.
Kilidj Arslan, sultan of Roum, 27, 93,
122.
Kirghiz, 399.
Knights of Jerusalem, 66.
Knights of Malta, note 440.
Kopts, note 400.
Koran, the, 7.
Korea, 398.
Krak des Chevaliers, note 17, 89, 95,
409, 416, 418, note 420, note 461,
462.
Krak of the Knights (Flame of the
Franks), 57.
Kubilai, 438.
Kurds, 13, note 418-419.
Lackland, John, 274.
Ladder of Tyre, 101.
Languedoc, 274, 282.
Laodicea, 90.
Le Brun, Sir Gilles, 386.
Lebanon, 28, 76.
Leon, king of Armenia, 211, 212.
Leopold of Austria, 202.
Light of the Faith (see Nur ad Din), 27.
Limassol, 308.
Lithuanians, 228.
Lokman, house of, 388, note 388.
Lombards, 248, 261.
Lombardy, 318.
4 86
INDEX
Longsword, William, 348, 349, 354, 355.
Lorrainers, 94.
Loubiya, 70.
Louis, count of Blois, 224, 234, 242, 267.
Louis, duke of Bavaria, 291.
Louis, king of France (St. Louis), 342^
314-3& 353> 357. 394> 4o, 401,
424,
arrival at Damietta, 347-348.
battle with Moslems, 349 ft stq*
birth of son, 379-381 .
castle of, 462.
death, 417.
defeat, 362, 369, 373.
Holy Land, 382.
ransomed, 374, 37^~37 8 -
rebuilds towns, 383-385,
return home, 385, 387, 388,
retreat, note 362, 367, note 368.
second crusade, 411, 416, note 416.
Lucas of the Stable, 161.
Magna Carta, 270.
Magog, 383.
Mahmoud of Ghazni, 10, 13.
Mahmoud, lord of Hamah, 19.
Mahomet, law of, 377.
Mahound, 117.
Mainz, 319.
Makrisi, note 374.
Malik Dahir (see Baibars), 405.
Malik el Dahir, son of Saladin, 181.
Malik Ric (see Richard Lion Heart).
Malik Shah, 10.
matt) 1 6.
Malta, 460.
mamfaks, 13, 29, note 364.
Mangu, 400, 402.
Mansura, battles of, 292 et seq.> 349 et
seq., note 362.
Marcaduc, 118,
Marcel, 369.
Marco Polo, 438.
Margat (see Marghab), note 327.
Marghab, Marghrab, note 17, 33*326-
327 , 416, note 420, 427, 461, note
4 6i. t
Marguerite of Provence, 342, 349, note
377> 3?8> 379> 384-387*
Marie, 224, 268.
Marie of Montserrat, 286.
Marmora Sea, 246.
Maronites, 56.
Massaif, 41, 461.
Matthew of Paris, 320, 322, 339, 441,
442.
Maudud, 24.
Mecca, 5, 7, 423.
Medina, 5, 423.
Meshtub, 106, 127, 135, 145, 174, 175.
Messina, 168.
Moab s Hills, 4 .
money, power of, 395, 459,
Mongols, 321, 322, 331, 402, 4 n, 422,
4^3> 43 6 -
battle with Moslems, 426 et seq.
dress of, 322, 399, 4 oo.
Islam, 438.
Jerusalem, 397.
Mont R6al, 58, 95, note 292.
Montfancon de Bar, 373.
Montfort, castle of, 310, 420, note 420,
463.
Moslems (Saracens etc.}, 4, 7, 153, 172,
284, 3* 1,402,^,430.
Mosul, 6 1, 89.
amir of, 400.
sultan of, 40.
Mount Carmel, 101, 149.
Mount Sion, 200.
Mount Tabor, 55, 463.
Mountain of the Cross, 385.
Muavia, 7.
Muhammed, 4, 5, note 14, 15.
Muhammedans (see Saracens, Moslems,
etc.).
Mukaddam, 43,
mulahid, 24.
Murtzuple, 255, 258, 261.
Muslimin (see Moslems), u.
nations, birth of, 394-395.
Navarre, king of, 394, 416.
Naxos, 266.
Nazarene, 4.
Nazareth, 54, 76, 291, 310, 463.
Nestorian hermits, 56,
Nicetas, 263.
Nicholas, 430.
Nicolle of Acre, 377.
Nicopolis, note 440.
Nicosia, 463.
Nienstadt, 322,
Nile, river, 7; flood, 293-294.
INDEX
487
Nizam al Mulk, 23-24, 29.
Noble Sanctuary, 14, note 14.
Nogaret, 443,451.
Normans of Sicily, 227.
Norsemen, 256.
Nur ad Din, sultan of Damascus, 75, 27,
34-35-
daughter of, 40.
death, 38.
Old Man of the Mountain (Hassan ibn
Sabah), 22, 327, 383, 399.
Omar, 8, 21.
Orontes, river in Borzia, 90.
Orsini, 276.
Otranto, 306.
Otto of Brunswick, 270, 279.
Otto of Granson, 429.
Ottomans (Othmans), 424, 440.
Ousana, 17, note 20, 41, 44.
Outremer (Beyond the Sea), 4, 50, 234,
292.
Palermo, 209, 299, 301, 456.
Palestine, 402, note 461.
Panto Krator, 260.
paper, making of, 21.
Particulars of ibn Jinni, 19.
Pastorals, 341.
Patras, 266.
Pearl Spray (see Shadjar ad Darr), 374.
Pelagius, 270, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292,
35-
People of the Book (see Christians,
crusaders, etc.), 4*
Pera, 229.
perricrS) 123.
Persia, 9, 13, 399.
Peter of Brittany, 358, 373, 377, 380.
Peter of Cyprus, note 440,
Peter of Priux, 184.
Peter the Hermit, 208.
Petit Gerin, 54.
Philip II, Augustus, 94, 114, 129, 132,
134, 141, 142, 143, l68 > 2o8 > 220 >
221, 271, 275, 286.
Philip of Marigny, 449, 451.
Philip of Montfort, 369, 381.
Philip of Swabia, 2//, 226, 228, 236,
241, 242, 270.
Philip the Fair, of France, 440, 442-443^
note 447, 44$, 4S 1 -
actions against Templars, 443 et seq,
Pilgrim Road, 58.
Pisa, 94, 209, 280.
Pisans, 163, 379, note 379.
Poitiers, 201.
Polo, Maffeo, 402.
Polo, Nicolo, 401.
Ponce d Aubon, 322.
Portugal, 459.
Prester, John, 383, 401.
Priux, Knights of, 182.
Provencals, 51.
Prussians, 228.
Ptolemy, 455-456.
Punch, 17.
quarrels, 115.
Ramlah, 76, 162, 193, 199.
Ratisbon, 340.
Rayi, 33-
Raymond, 385.
Raymond VI, count of Toulouse, 272,
^73, 274-
Raymond of Toulouse, 51, 395.
Raymond, third count of Tripoli, prince
of Galilee, 49, 57, 52, 61, 63, 64, 67.
attack on Moslems, 68-70.
death, 71,
Reformation, the, 341, 458.
Reginald of Chtillon-sur-Marne, lord
of Kerak, Arnat, 52, 58, 5p, 60,
6iy 70, note 72.
attack on Mecca, 59.
breaks truce with Saladin, 65, 67.
death, 73.
Jerusalem, 64.
war with Nur ad Din, 59.
Reginald of Sidon, 96.
Reich, 210.
Renaud of Montmirail, 243.
Renier de Maron, 161.
Rhodes, 460.
Rhodosto, 266.
Ricaldo of Monte Croce, 430.
Richard Plant agenet, Lion Heart, king
of England, 94, 114, 130, 137, 141,
142, 143, 144, I53> 154, I5 8 > l68 >
170, note 170, 176, note 177, 178,
179, 182, 183.
INDEX
Acre, 133 et seq., 182 el seg.
army, note 162.
attack on caravan, 171-172,
background, 146.
battle of Jaffa, 1 84 et seq.
characteristics, 131-132, 146-147,
195 et seq.
conference with Al Adhil, 159-160.
death, 213.
guilt of, note 164, 164.
homefaring, 201-202.
massacre, 145.
message to Saladin, 165-166,
Saladin, 144, note 159.
truce, 193-194.
war with Philip, 208.
Richard of Cornwall, 326.
River of Crocodiles, 151,
Robert, Count, 105.
Robert, count of Artois, 348-349, 353-
354, 356-357> 36o 3^.
Robert, earl of Leicester, 134, 141, 154,
169, 172, 182, 189, 190.
Robert of Clari, 267.
Rock of Calvary, 5, 47.
Rome, j>oj, 304, 317, 318, 341, 388, 402,
Church of, 395^396.
Roum, 27.
Roupen, king of Armenians, 224.
Rukn ad Din, 41.
Russia, 398.
Sabah ad Din, 203.
Safed, 91, 329, 410, 463.
Safita, 462.
Saffuriya, 53, 66, 76.
Sahara, 13.
Sahil, note 388.
Sahyoum, 90, 461.
Saida (see Sidon).
Saint Chapelle, 384.
Saint Nicholas, 387.
Sainte Michelle, 446,
Saladin (Salah ad Din), 30, note 31,
36-38, 85, 89, 92, 95, 96, TOO, 121,
122, 148, 151, 156, 157, 166, 170,
173, 177, 180, 181, 1 86, 198, 200,
201, 373, 463.
attack on Jaffa, 179 et seq.
attack on Jerusalem, 54 et seq., 77-81.
attack on Reginald, 61.
attack on Tiberias, 66.
attacked by Christians, 43.
Baha ad Din, 86-87.
battle of Hattin, 70-73.
characteristics, 31, 34, 87, i 47j 2O4 ,
note 205.
death, 204.
enmity of Ismailites, 40-41.
generosity, 40, 43, 44 .
illness, 126.
old age, 202 et seq.
plans for Holy War, 39, 43.
preparation against Christians, 95.
siege of Acre, 102 et seq., 135 et seq.
siege of Massaif, 41-42.
start of Holy War, 44.
sultan of Syria, 40.
tactics in Egypt, 35.
terms to Barbarossa, 94.
truce with crusaders, 43.
truce with Raymond, 61.
terms with Richard, 144-145.
truce with Richard, 193-194.
Turkomans and Kurds of Irak, 65.
Salisbury, bishop of, 129.
Salt River, 152.
Samarkand, 402.
palace of, 8-10.
Sancta Maura, Constantinople, 266*
Sancta Sophia, Constantinople, 243,
267.
Saracens (see Turks, Moslems, Beda-
wins, Islamites, etc.), 105.
Saxons, 250.
Saxony, 94.
Scandinavians, 133, 282.
Seljuks, 10, 400.
Sepulcher, church of, 4.
.
Shadjar ad Darr (Pearl Spray), ^57, 352,
note 374, 374, note 377, 388.
Shaikh al Jebal (see Old Man of the
Mountain), 24.
Shaizar, 17.
lord of, 122.
Shirkuh the Mountain Lion, 27, 29, 30.
Sibyl, 49, 63, 77, 98, 142.
Sicily, 212, 279, 299, 459.
fleet of, 94.
Sidna, note 164*
Sidon, 76, 212, 285, note 420, 462.
Silesia, duke of, 322.
Simon of Montfort, 224, 243, 274.
INDEX
489
Sinbad, 456.
Sinibaldo Fieschi (see Innocent IV),
33 6 -
Skutari, 247.
Slavonia, 235.
Slavs, 250.
Souvenirs histofiques et rtcits de chasse
paf un Imir syrien du douzieme
stick. M. Hartwig Derenbourg.
Note 120.
St. Annes, 463.
St. Augustine, 220.
St. Dominic, 273.
St. Francis of Assisi, 277, 288, 295.
St. Gilles, count of, 168.
St. Helena, 395.
St. Louis (see Louis of France), 322.
St. Paul, count of, 235, 265, 267.
Star of the Winds, 88, 91, 463.
Sudan, 423.
Sudani, 7, 40.
Sur (see Tyre).
Sutri, bishop of, 210.
Swabia, 94.
duke of, 123, 127.
Swiss, 94.
Syria, 8, 460.
castles of, 461, note 461, 462.
Syrians, note 400.
Tabor, 50.
Tajik, 7.
Taki ad Din, 34, 44, 61, 65, 71, 74, 93,
104, 106, 121, 122, 135, note 155,
156, 174,
Tamerlane, note 203.
Tancred, 131, 395.
Tanis, 29.
Tank, 6.
Tatars, note 364, 424.
Taurus, 26.
Tekedemus, note 155.
Tekon a, 176.
Templars, 51, 66, 71, 105-106, 150,
152, 153, 182, 271, 311, 328, 333,
35*> 3 8 3> 402, 409, 4io, 418, note
418-419, 432, 441, note 447, note
453, 459-
trial of, 442 et seq.
Temple, 56.
Teutons, 274.
Theodore Lascaris, 261.
Thibault of Blois, 1 20.
Thibault of Champagne, 224, 326.
Thierry of Loos, 237, 242.
Thomas a Becket, 146.
Thomas Aquinas, 392.
Thousand and One Nights, 405, note
405.
Thuringia, 94.
Tiberias, 57, 74.
castle of, 49, note 461, 463.
^sea of, 54.
Tibet, musk from, 9.
Tibnin, 76, 212.
Tigris, 7, 26.
Toledo, 456.
Toron (the Hill), 102, 169, 310, 463.
Tortosa, 89, note 461, 462, 463.
Tours, 447.
Tower of David, Jerusalem, 47, 290.
Tower of Flies, Acre, in, 123.
Tower of the Chain, Damietta, 286.
Tower of the Knights, Jerusalem,
199.
transubstantiation, note 276.
Tripoli, 88, 98, 165.
castle of, 462.
count of, 194.
fall of, 427.
Truce of God, 279.
Tubania, well of, 54.
Tunis, lord of, 416.
Turan Shah, 34, 37, 38, 44, j6j 9 374,
note 374, 375, 376.
Turbessel, 90.
Turkomans, 10, 13, 331, note 364, 399,
note 4! 8-41 9.
Turks (see Saracens, Islamites, Mos
lems, Arabs etc.), 9, 10, 109, 284,
note 364.
Turpin, archbishop, 395.
Tyre, 57, 76, 88, 99, 165, 193, 409, note
420, 462.
Uigurs, 399.
Urban II, 281, 396.
Valley of the Damned, Jerusalem, 14.
van Eyck, William, 338.
Varangians, 259, 261.
Varna, note 440.
Vaux, abbot of, 240, 242, 243.
490
INDEX
Venetians, 227, 234, note 235, 248, 253,
254, note 254, 255, 266, 280, 281,
329, 401, 408, 4 2 6.
Venice, 209, 229, 234, 393, 398,
excommunication of, 269.
gain of, 266.
treaty with French, 225.
Verona, 236.
Vienne, note 440.
Council of, 450 et seq.
Vilie-Hardouin (see Geoffrey of)*
Von tier Vogelweide, Walter, 339.
Von Hammer, note 165.
Walter of Brienne, 271, 333, 334,
Walter of Chastillon, 361.
Walter of Nemours, 381.
Watchers, 66.
Wazir, position of, 29.
Westphalia, 94,
White Slaves of the River, 355.
William, archbishop of Tyre, 53, 56,
5 8 > 59> 94, 45 6 -
William, bishop of Ely, 164.
William of Paris, 443.
William of Plaisans, 446, note 447, 453;.
William of Poiton, 168.
William of Priux, 160,
William of Sicily, 89, 133.
William of Tripoli, 404.
Wiachs, 227.
Yamen, 9, note 418-419.
yataghans , 13.
Yazdigird, palace of, 8,
Yolande, 304.
Zangi, atabeg of Mosul, 1 5.
Zante, 266.
Zara, 235, 240, note 254.
Zem-zem, sacred well, 7.
Zenobia, 9,
102 149
