Crusades

CRUSADES. - The movement for the expansion of the Faith and of the new Romano-Germanic civilization culminates, while the feudal regime is disintegrating and the communal autonomies are already arising, toward the end of the 11th century, in the great enterprise, variously prolonged until the 14th century, of the C.

It was a movement of return to the origins that which channeled the fresh energies of the West toward the places from which the word of the Gospel had spread, ten centuries earlier. And it was a movement due to the awareness of the significance that the Muslim occupation of the holy places and the spread of Islam throughout the Mediterranean assumed for Christendom. But also reasons of faith, the flourishing of spiritual and material life, coincided ever more clearly with the will to decide, by means of a struggle of peoples, the dominion of the Mediterranean and to keep its shores open to trade, to which the degree of prosperity reached by the States and, in particular, by the maritime cities, gave possibility and right.

The economic relations of the maritime cities with the Muslim potentates of the coasts of Africa and Asia constituted the strongest obstacle to a lasting understanding and to a sincere agreement with the only power that no interest could avail to divert from its position of struggle against the infidels. It was necessary that an impulse of faith should overcome the narrow economic perspective and show in a vast politico-religious initiative a higher end of human activity; it was necessary that the papacy itself, in the hour of its greatest earthly power, should resolutely place itself at the head of the movement, should set forth its reasons and aims, should clarify its goals. It was necessary finally that a favoring of circumstances should intervene to resolve, with the possibility of success, the hesitations of the leaders.

Already, especially in Spain, the struggle against the infidels had been colored with mystical fervor, through the intervention of Burgundian and Norman knights, in defense of the faith; and from the beginning of the century the pilgrimages to the holy places of French, German, and Scandinavian prelates and lords, who flocked there by sea, and also Magyars arriving by land, had become more frequent and notable. At times the throngs had grown so numerous as to become armies, and to open their way recourse had been had to arms: thus in 1064 twelve thousand German pilgrims, led by Archbishop Sigfrid of Mainz, reached Palestine.

But, to weaken the already subdivided structure of the Islamic Empire, there came the Turkish invasion and the formation in the Middle East of a vast Seljuq State, which soon absorbed the caliphate of Baghdad and came, in Syria and Armenia, to clash against the Byzantine Empire: in 1071 the Seljuq Turks conquered Jerusalem, and prostrated the forces of the Empire at Manzikert; five years later Damascus fell into their hands.

Only one authority and one force, assuming an initiative that would have belonged to the Empire, could leverage the energies of the West to impel it to action: the papacy.

At Rome, dangling the possibility of a reunion between the Greek and Roman Churches, the Eastern emperor Michael VII addressed himself in 1073, asking for aid in the imminence of new assaults. Gregory VII, having just ascended to the chair, formed the grand plan of the liberation of southern Italy from the Normans and of the Holy Land from the infidels. He designated Godfrey of Lorraine and William of Burgundy as leaders of the enterprise, which was to be accomplished by the concordant forces of the empires of East and West, under the patronage of the Holy See. Various difficulties hindered the success of the attempt, and shortly afterward the Investiture Controversy absorbed the entire activity of the pontiff.

In March 1095, at the Council convened by Urban II at Piacenza, Byzantine envoys arrived to plead the cause of their empire and of the Holy Places. Pope Urban addressed a warm invitation to those present to hasten to the aid of the threatened Empire of the East. The idea of the C. took shape and gained consistency in the papal initiative. Urban having passed into France and a solemn council having been convened for the end of the year at Clermont, he proclaimed there, in the solemn assembly of 27 November held in the presence of a great crowd in the public square, the Christian intervention in the East; he proclaimed, to give greater guarantee to the princes, the Truce of God, to last until their return, and granted to those departing the greatest indulgences. The purpose freely and publicly expressed of participating in the enterprise assumed the character of a solemn vow, of which a red cross sewn on one's garment was the symbol, while to those departing the protection of the Church was assured for their families and their goods. Tireless preachers, such as the hermit Peter of Amiens, to whom legend would give a far greater part than that actually played, ensured that the effect aroused by Urban's words was lasting and fruitful among the princes and the people.

I. THE FIRST CRUSADES

In the winter between 1095 and 1096, in the countries to which the word of the Pope most directly turned, as he journeyed and preached there (France and Provence), considerable masses of the common people gathered for the C. Urban had chosen as his representative the bishop of Puy, Adhemar of Monteil; the meeting place was Constantinople; the departure was set for 15 August 1096. But the excited and undisciplined crowds did not wish to wait until the princes, who were to lead the expedition, were ready with their vassals and their armament, nor until the movement, born in France, should spread.

Led by Peter the Hermit and by Walter Sans Avoir, thousands of men, generally of low condition, many of whom had taken the cross to obtain pardon for old crimes or because the poor harvest did not assure them a living, set out toward the Bosphorus, crossing Germany and Hungary. But here the robberies and sackings by which they procured the necessities of life, which made them appear more plunderers than pilgrims or warriors, stirred the Hungarians and Bulgarians against them, who decimated them, confronting their individual groups. Only a very modest part managed to escape with Peter and to cross the Bosphorus, only to leave in Asia Minor a fresh bloody tribute under the blows of the Seljuq Turks.

Meanwhile, the princes set out with their feudal armies. Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, with his brothers Baldwin and Eustace, followed the route of Peter the Hermit, reaching Constantinople on the eve of Christmas Eve of 1096. Hugh of Vermandois, Stephen of Blois, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders crossed Italy and, by way of Brindisi and Durazzo, reached by mid-months later. Count Raymond of Toulouse and the papal legate Adhemar, having traversed northern Italy, preferred to follow the Dalmatian coast as far as Durazzo. Last of all, the Norman princes of southern Italy, Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, and his nephew Tancred of Hauteville, having crossed from Brindisi to Valona, joined the others in April 1097.

There were many thousands of well-armed men, on horse and on foot: each group was gathered tightly around its own lord, and the varied nationalities (French from the north and Lorrainers, Provençals and Normans) were reflected in the crusading host. But the position of the Crusaders with respect to the Byzantine Empire was to have a greater influence on the course of events. If in the lofty papal design the C. had been seen as the supreme defense of the East against the Infidels and as the best instrument of a possible return to religious unity, neither the Pope nor the princes had concerned themselves with the intentions and the internal situation of the Byzantine State, governed by a traditionalist bureaucracy and by institutions very different from the feudal orders proper to the Westerners. But the greatest difficulty consisted in the question of the territories, formerly imperial, that would be reconquered and that the crusading princes intended to keep for themselves. The consummate Byzantine skill succeeded for the time being in finding a compromise: the emperor Alexius had the crusading princes swear a feudal oath for all future conquests. Some of them kicked against the homage: and only the rivalry between Provençals and Normans, Raymond and Bohemond, skillfully exploited, opened the way to agreement, the Emperor on the other hand undertaking to provision the Crusaders and to transport them to the Asian coast.

Thus, in the spring of 1097, the enterprise began, with the Crusaders' crossing into Asia Minor and the siege of Nicaea; but before the city fell, secret agreements concluded with Byzantine officials, who were anxious to secure the nearby Islamic bulwark, prevented the Crusaders' access to it, and only the insinuating Greek diplomacy and the firmness of Bohemond succeeded in averting a mutiny among the disappointed troops.

The great victory of Qilîg-Arslân, on July 1, opened the road south. Having bypassed the Taurus, the Crusaders penetrated into Armenia; two columns detached themselves from the main body of forces: one, commanded by Tancred of Hauteville, pushed into Cilicia, proceeding to the occupation of Tarsus; the other, under the leadership of Baldwin of Lorraine, reached Edessa, whose lord, Thoros, adopted Baldwin as son and heir. In October the Crusaders reached Antioch; they took it by treachery, after several months of siege, on June 2, 1098, with the support of a Genoese squadron, which intervened to flank the allies' action at sea, on the direct initiative of Pope Urban. To Bohemond, who, while a powerful Seljuk army was already in sight, had succeeded in penetrating it by surprise, the city, against the agreements with Alexius, was given in lordship and the supreme command was entrusted to him. Besieged in their turn, the Latins succeeded, animated by faith, in defeating the Turkish army on June 28.

A grave crisis, caused by the rivalry for the possession of Antioch between Bohemond and Raymond of Toulouse, threatened to make the C. fail at its very beginnings. But then Raymond, having resumed the march toward Jerusalem and having laid along the way the foundations of a third crusader lordship, the county of Tripoli, succeeded in inducing Godfrey and the other princes to follow him toward the holy city, in which the Turks were shut up, divided and weakened by the conflict between the sultans of Aleppo and of Damascus.

In the first days of June 1099 the crusader army came in sight of Jerusalem. But the final assault was delivered on July 14, and once again with the assistance of the Genoese of Guglielmo Embriaco, who had landed the siege machines at Jaffa. On the 15th the city was taken and rapidly organized for defense. Thus when a Fatimid army arrived from Egypt, the Crusaders were able to rout it at Ascalon on August 12. The liberation of Jerusalem had an immense echo in Europe; all the more enthusiastic in that the three years of hardships had several times made the abandonment of the enterprise feared. Pope Urban, who already at the Councils of Bari (1098) and of Rome (1099) had exhorted men to hasten to the East, renewed his pressures on monarchs and princes to organize expeditions of reinforcement. The Crusaders immediately set about giving stable organization to the conquest, which embraced the three principalities of Antioch, Edessa, Tripoli and Palestine proper. A kingdom was constituted, which they entrusted to Godfrey of Bouillon and which had a feudal order analogous to that of the Western states; the country was divided into fiefs, and a high court of feudatories flanked the king, limiting his powers; a standing army was constituted; but the need for a continuous influx of men and means from the West and the failure to merge with the native element made the conditions of the kingdom difficult. An ecclesiastical organization of a Latin character was also created, with a patriarch, archbishops and bishops and with powerful Latin monasteries. Gradually the knightly orders of the Hospitallers and the Templars acquired military and religious power, independent of the king and the patriarch and subject only to the Pope. Mighty castles were built at the most dangerous points and for the defense of the ports, so necessary for maritime communications.

A cause of weakness was also the difficult relations with the Byzantine Empire, made particularly acute by the ambitions of the Normans, who had made themselves masters of Antioch, so coveted by the Byzantines; there was war between them precisely while Palestine was being conquered.

Attempts to carry the war into the heart of the East, marching on Sivas and on Baghdad itself, failed. The expeditions prepared, from the moment of the conquest of Jerusalem onward, by the Italian maritime republics—Genoa, Pisa, Venice, Amalfi—did, however, achieve their aim. But in return for their services they sought economic concessions, commercial quarters (which they obtained in all the Syrian cities, in Constantinople itself and in the provinces) and markets.

II. THE SECOND CRUSADE

The Crusader States were able to maintain themselves as long as division and discord lasted in the opposing Turkish and Muslim camp. But they had to turn to the help of the West when the initiative was taken by their adversaries.

In 1144 the atabeg (governor) of Mosul took Edessa after a siege of one month: thus the first of the Christian States came to an end. From Jerusalem help was invoked from the West: the bishop of Langres, Godfrey, and the king of France, Louis VII, became its patrons, and Pope Eugene III the herald of a new Crusade, which had as its enthusiastic preacher and apostle Bernard of Clairvaux. At the assembly of Vézelay the great French lords took the Cross, in obedience to the order and following the example of the king; as, at Christmas 1146, at the Diet of Speyer, the German feudatories did following the example of King Conrad III.

Negotiations took place between the French and German kings and the Emperor of the East, Manuel Comnenus, who, like his father, found himself at war with the Norman enemy, Roger II. Following the Danube, Conrad set out, in late spring, through the Balkans, amid suspicions and clashes; having crossed the Bosphorus and penetrated into enemy territory, he found himself, for lack of provisions, in difficulties and, hard pressed by the Turks, had to turn back, to Nicaea. Meanwhile Louis VII had arrived there, by the same route: upon him, in the passage from Constantinople, pressures had been brought to bear so that, having made an alliance with Roger II, he might overthrow the Greek Emperor to his own advantage. Reached by Savoyard and Lombard Crusaders, led by Amadeus III of Savoy and by William V of Montferrat, the French king set out toward Attalia and then Acre. Conrad having turned back, and the plan to reconquer Edessa having been abandoned, Louis VII turned toward Jerusalem, where Conrad joined him and the king, Baldwin III, received him. By agreement, the attack on Damascus was decided upon, from which the pressure against the Christian State came most strongly. But faced with the necessity of a long siege their spirit of initiative failed, and indeed the mutual attribution of responsibility dug a deep quarrel between the sovereigns. Preceded by Conrad, Louis returned from Jerusalem to France after Easter of 1149. He hoped to return and to make Constantinople a more concrete base of operations against the infidels, but then the plan fell through.

III. THE THIRD CRUSADE

In 1176, Ṣalāḥad-dīn (Saladin), already master of Egypt, also took possession of Syria. The Crusader States were now surrounded by the compact force of a single Islamic state, young and expanding. In a great battle lasting 3 days, at Ḥaṭṭīn, near the Sea of Galilee, in 1187 Saladin defeated the Latin army led by Guy of Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, who was taken prisoner. The road to Jerusalem lay open. Saladin took possession of it, after a brief siege, on 2 October 1187. Only Tyre and the cities of the northern coast remained to resist.

The commotion of Christendom was enormous. Pope Gregory VIII had his legates preach a Crusade, even in the distant Scandinavian regions, proclaiming a seven-year truce. Reconciled by the occasion, the Kings of England and France, Henry II and Philip II Augustus, took the Cross, and so did the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

The latter, at the head of the largest army that a Western monarch had until then gathered for a Crusade, set out in May 1189 by the now customary route through the Balkans. The enterprise, the best prepared and conducted, encountered its first difficulties at the hands of Isaac II Angelos, Emperor of Constantinople, who had made agreements with Saladin; and Barbarossa had to impose himself by force in order to cross the strait of Gallipoli (March 1190). Having then continued the march and occupied Iconium, during the crossing of the Selef, in the vicinity of Seleucia, on 9 June 1190, Barbarossa met his death. The event dissolved the army: with a few faithful followers, the emperor's son and companion, Frederick, reached, bearing his father's body, in the following year, the Christian camp that the French and English Crusaders, having set out in the spring of that year, had established beneath the walls of St. John of Acre, and there he too met his death. The expedition of the two Western kings, Philip II and Richard the Lionheart, who had succeeded Henry II, had dragged on. Having crossed France, having separated and then found one another again at Messina, in September 1190, they had spent the winter there, amid grave disputes with the local element. Once the departure for St. John of Acre was decided, which had been besieged for many months by the King of Jerusalem Guy of Lusignan with the ships of Pisa, Richard the Lionheart wished first to carry out a diversion against Cyprus, which he took from the Byzantine Empire. Finally, before the united forces of the Crusaders, St. John of Acre surrendered on 12 July 1191. But then, to prevent an active and effective continuation of the war against Saladin, discord arose between Philip and Richard. The former having returned home, Richard remained alone to conduct the Crusade. But he dispersed its surviving forces and, having failed in the siege of Ascalon owing to Saladin's prompt intervention, he conducted negotiations with him, yet dragging them out, while he hinted at enterprises against Jerusalem, against Damascus, even (and it was the first time that the gaze was fixed there) against Cairo. Finally, having rebuilt the destroyed Ascalon and concluded peace with Saladin in exchange for a promise of free access for Christians to Jerusalem, he returned to Europe in October 1192.

The Crusade had failed in its purpose. A new enterprise, prepared by Henry VI in his new Sicilian kingdom but in agreement with the German forces of the Empire (and which had been preceded in 1195 by the sending of a fleet to Palestine and in 1197 announced by the first Crusader contingents embarked under the leadership of the Dukes of Lorraine and of Champagne) likewise came to nothing through the sudden death of Henry.

IV. THE FOURTH CRUSADE

Innocent III took up again the design of a Western intervention in the East, urging the European princes and the Byzantine Emperor himself to that end and seeking, by means of special tributes, to finance the enterprise.

But the internal discords of Germany and the dissension between the French and English kings made impossible a renewal of the enterprise on a grand scale; preaching could only appeal to the mystical sense of some prince, especially a French one.

It was in fact due to the zeal of one of the preachers of the C., Fulk of Neuilly, that, on 28 Nov. 1199, certain feudatories of Champagne, gathered for a tournament, made a solemn vow in his hands. To the first, Theobald of Champagne and Louis of Blois, were added Baldwin, Eustace and Henry of Flanders. It was decided to act this time, in concert with the maritime Republics, against the Ayyubids of Egypt. After the death of Theobald, who had been designated head of the expedition, and his replacement by the Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, brother of Conrad, an agreement with Venice, which undertook to prepare the fleet and to provide military cooperation with the Crusaders, seemed to open the way to the execution of the plan. But when the Crusaders assembled in the lagoon between July and Aug. 1202, their number proved far smaller than had been hoped and the payment agreed upon to the Republic could not be made. It was then that the Crusaders massed on the shore themselves became an object of bargaining, between the emperors of the East and Venice, and the enterprise deviated from its appointed direction.

The year before, Alexius Angelus, son of the emperor Isaac II, whom his brother Alexius III had in 1195 hurled from the Byzantine throne and caused to be blinded, had fortunately arrived in Rome: the young prince came to ask, for his father and for himself, the help of the Pontiff, promising in exchange the union of the Church; but Innocent III, who was accordingly pursuing that union, had not given credence to the fugitive. Then Alexius had turned to Philip of Swabia, husband of his sister Irene, and through him sought to conclude agreements with the Crusaders, who remained in humiliating waiting at Venice, and, playing on the ambition of Boniface of Montferrat, whose ancient family power had declined, he proposed to divert the enterprise toward Constantinople. The design having been rejected by the Pontiff, hostile to any diversion that threatened to give rise to a war between Christians rather than against the infidels, the Venetians, already favorable to the plan, succeeded in exploiting to their immediate advantage the inaction of the Crusaders, by proposing an enterprise against Zara, occupied by the king of Hungary.

In fact, the Venetian fleet carrying the Crusaders arrived on 10 Nov. 1202 before Zara; it was commanded by the doge Enrico Dandolo himself. On 15 Nov. Zara was taken and sacked. Then, while awaiting Boniface of Montferrat, detained in Rome by Innocent's prohibitions, they wintered in Dalmatia. But when the marquis rejoined the Crusaders and the Pope's hesitations had become evident, the conviction spread through the camp that Innocent would bow before the accomplished fact. Meanwhile messengers arrived from Philip of Swabia, bearers of the proposals of Alexius Comnenus, who, in compensation for the restoration of his father, offered 200,000 silver marks, the reunion of the Churches under the Pontiff, a numerous auxiliary corps, and a permanent Byzantine garrison in the Holy Land.

Many, before and after the capture of Zara, and among them one of the most valiant, Simon of Montfort, preferred to reach the East on their own account. The bulk of the crusading forces re-embarked at Zara on 20 Apr. 1203 for a new stage at Corfu. Here the agreements were perfected with Alexius and the enterprise against Constantinople was announced. Having put to sea again, on 24 June the fleet arrived before the city. The Crusaders disembarked on the opposite Asian shore, beginning with extreme prudence the attack, which was conducted from various directions, succeeding on 6 June in penetrating into the Golden Horn. But only when, in the night of the 17th to the 18th, after the enemy resistance had repelled the attacks from the walls, a revolt drove out the usurper Alexios III and restored Isaac Angelos to the throne. The entry of the crusader ranks could then take place peacefully, and on 1 August they attended the coronation of Alexios Angelos, associated on the throne by his father. The letter of Innocent III of 20 June, which invited the Crusaders to desist from all interference in the Byzantine question, to break off relations with the Venetians and to keep faith with the commitments undertaken, arrived at this hour of triumph, so that it was easy to reply by showing the Pope the advisability of not letting events slip from his grasp.

But the agreement between the Crusaders and the Empire was founded on a commitment that the grave Byzantine economic crisis at that hour was bound to show to be unrealizable: the payment of the huge sum promised at Zara.

They could not manage to collect more than half of the agreed sum, and meanwhile a popular upheaval replaced, in the Empire, the Angeloi with a relative of theirs: Alexios V Doukas. The Latins, for their part, in their quarter of Pera, irritated by the change, went beyond into acts of war and resolved upon the conquest of Constantinople, and special pacts were concluded between Boniface of Montferrat, the other leaders and the doge of Venice: the Venetians were to receive three quarters of the booty, and only one quarter to the Crusaders; the emperor was to be chosen from among the princes and was to receive the fourth part of the Empire, the rest being divided between the Crusaders and the Venetians, who would retain all their ancient privileges without swearing any oath of fealty. By now the C. had changed its physiognomy: the religious purpose, in all those who had remained, had been swept away by the mirage of a war of conquest. From 12 to 13 April 1204 the general assault on the city was launched: in the furious struggle, entire quarters burned, horrendous massacres were committed, the sack was systematic. Only one voice was raised to recommend moderation and mercy: that of the Marquis of Montferrat. In the conquered and humiliated metropolis there then unfolded a more secret struggle of parties for the imperial election: the Venetian and French electors formed a league against Boniface; having placated him with Crete and with the kingdom of Thessalonica, formed for the occasion, and having recognized for the Venetians the appointment of the patriarch of Constantinople, Baldwin of Flanders was elected and crowned emperor in Hagia Sophia.

But the Latin Empire of the East was not viable: the Greek element, overwhelmed in the capital, resisted in the provinces and remained in a position of antagonism that was bound to be the harbinger of a recovery and to deepen, by perpetuating it, the religious dissension; among the crusader leaders who had everywhere replaced the Byzantine governors with autonomies of the Western type, enmity soon reigned; far from constituting a bond between them, the Venetians, true masters both through their ships and through their wealth, constituted a state within a state. If, then, to the reasons for rapid internal disintegration one adds the pressing of the Bulgarian danger, against which already in 1205 the forces of the emperor Baldwin were annihilated, and the coalescing with the external enemies of the Greek deposed rulers who had risen against the Latins at Nicaea, at Trebizond, in the Peloponnese and in Epirus, boasting themselves heirs of the last dethroned emperors, one has a picture of what was the concrete effect of the diversion of the fourth C. from its purpose. The failure of the only bulwark against the Turks in the East caused the final collapse of the Christian positions in the Holy Land. Only Venice attained its goal, through the political genius of Enrico Dandolo, and from its commercial hegemony in the Levant it drew, together with its splendor, that link between East and West which has been, between the Middle Ages and the modern age, its historic function.

V. THE FIFTH CRUSADE

Innocent III reaffirmed at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) the necessity of a new C. Popular preachers had already earlier appealed to the religious sentiment of the rural masses, in France and in Germany. An evident symptom were the movements of the "pastoureaux" and the so-called "C. of the children" accomplished in 1212. In fact in 1215, Innocent proclaimed the C., the holy truce and the interdiction of every commercial relationship with the Muslims. His protégé, Frederick II, solemnly took the Cross at Aachen (25 July). But with the Pontiff's death (1216), he postponed the enterprise to another time, fixed for June 1217.

At the urgings of Honorius III in that year hosts of Scandinavian, Baltic, Hungarian Crusaders moved by different routes: some going first to lend support in Portugal to the struggle against the Moors, some embarking at Venice. From Spalato set out the king of Hungary, Andrew. At St. John of Acre, in Sept., the forces gathered and the Hungarian king found himself with the king of Cyprus and Jerusalem, John of Brienne, and with Duke Leopold of Austria. The plan was lacking: energies were dispersed in fruitless attempts to open the way to Jerusalem and many, with Andrew of Hungary himself, tired and discouraged, departed. The king of Cyprus and the duke of Austria then diverted the objective of the C. toward Egypt, whose conquest would have brought about the collapse of the Muslim positions in Syria and crushed every their initiative against the West. In May 1218 the Crusaders landed before Damietta: the siege lasted over a year, until in Nov. 1219 the city fell. The march was to be resumed toward Cairo: but Brienne's idea prevailed of awaiting the promised arrival of Frederick II and the winter was passed at Damietta. German reinforcements with Louis of Bavaria gave confidence to resume the struggle. Toward the end of July 1221, the Crusaders having arrived before al-Mansurah, a formidable bulwark on the road to Cairo, the sultan advanced proposals of peace, promising the restitution of Jerusalem; but the legate, card. Pelagius, refused every negotiation. There followed then, violently, the battle: defeated, the Crusaders had to retreat, and Brienne, having reached Damietta (30 Aug.) obtained peace from Egypt.

Even after the disaster Frederick II did not move, nor did he move in 1225. According to a new plan set before the Pope, only in 1227 at the urgings of Gregory IX did he prepare to depart, but an epidemic obliged him to desist: the Pope excommunicated him. The following year, after negotiations with the sultan of Egypt, he sailed for the Holy Land, subduing on the way the island of Cyprus. He landed shortly after at St. John of Acre and succeeded in obtaining from Malik-al-Kamil sultan of Egypt with the treaty of Jaffa (1229) the possession of Jerusalem and the Holy Places with access from the sea for pilgrims and obliging both parties to respect a ten-year truce; the mosque of 'Omar remained in the power of the Muslims. Following this agreement, Frederick II entered Jerusalem on 17 March 1229 and on the 18th was crowned in the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre, then departing from St. John of Acre for Italy. The having reopened to Christians the way to Jerusalem did not however avail the Emperor to return to the grace of the Church which condemned and declared null the treaty. But the peace of San Germano served to provoke even here a sense of détente and to make the Pontiff recognize the accomplished fact (1230).

At the expiration of the truce established by Frederick, the attempt of the Christian princes to take up arms failed for lack of forces. Victorious, indeed, at Gaza the Muslims of Damascus entered Jerusalem.

To remove every discussion, and also the plan of understanding between the Latins and the sultan of Damascus, there intervened a dense host of knights from Turkestan in the pay of Egypt, which in 1244 took and horribly sacked Jerusalem.

VI. THE SIXTH CRUSADE

The Christian conscience in the West did not know how to renounce the idea of the liberation of the East. Moreover, Innocent III himself at a certain point had set as the goal of the Crusade the repression of heresy in Provence, and his example had been imitated also by Gregory IX.

The renewed proclamation of the Crusade at the Council of Lyon in 1245, through the work of Innocent IV, found only Louis IX, king of France, ready to take the cross. In June 1248 he departed from Marseille for Cyprus, whence, a year later, taking up again the plan of attacking Egypt, he landed and occupied Damietta (1249). But the march on Cairo was once again broken at al-Manṣūrah, where the king himself on 6 April 1250 was taken prisoner. Ransomed and having moved with the survivors of his army to St. John of Acre, his requests for help and those of the Pope for a resumption of the struggle clashed this time not only with general indifference but with the resolute hostility of monarchs, such as the king of England. And Louis IX, upon the news of the death of his mother and regent of the throne reaching him, could do nothing but return to his homeland (1254).

VII. THE SEVENTH CRUSADE

With the waning of the Christian threat posed by Louis IX during his six-year stay in the East, the Ayyubids of Egypt were left with a free hand in Syria, and the Latin centers of the Holy Land, deprived of forces and divided, could offer no effective resistance.

A Mongol invasion delayed the Egyptian offensive: but from 1265 onward, the sultan Baybars proceeded to occupy Caesarea, Arsuf, Safed, Jaffa and Antioch. Clement IV once again addressed an appeal to the Catholic princes. And once again only Louis IX, despite the coldness he encountered in France itself, answered the appeal and set out in 1270 from Provence, this time turning against Tunis. But, having barely landed at Carthage, the plague cut down the crusading ranks, and the king too lost his life. His brother, Charles of Anjou, brought the troops back to Europe, after having made the Tunisian sultan a tributary. In vain, in 1274, Gregory X preached at Lyon the resumption of the Crusade. Though many kings and princes took the cross, none moved. And last, in 1291, after Tripoli and Sidon, St. John of Acre too fell.

VIII. LAST ATTEMPTS

There was no little commotion in the West at the fall of the last strongholds tions in Syria. But although from that time on new expeditions and new enterprises never ceased to be planned, in reality humanistic intellectualism, by proposing the problem for its realization, prevented a bad return to the ancient ideals of the Crusade. However much it was linked to the new needs of European expansion, the Crusade remained a typical, albeit among the vastest and most solemn, form of medieval thought; its characteristics could not be separated from that world to which mysticism gave its guiding principle and chivalry its forms. Its continuation, through the work of the Italian maritime republics and of individual princes, in reality diverted it from its original goals, in pursuit of colonial conquest or of the political act of force in which the imprint of the now-born national State was revealed. And when the European political game began to interweave, with Dandolo and then with Frederick II, with the Eastern game and with the diversity of faith, which was bound of itself alone to lead to struggle, no longer marking a sufficient boundary, then the historical cycle of the Crusades was forever concluded, and over religious enthusiasm and interest other, more contingent interests gained the upper hand.

It is therefore rather a voluntary illusion, motivated from time to time by different reasons, that in the 14th and 15th centuries causes intentions and initiatives of Crusade, in the ancient sense, to resurface, while, preceded by the discussions of publicists (Ramon Llull, Marin Sanudo, Pierre Dubois, Guillaume de Nogaret, Broccard), one enters a new phase of the so-called Eastern and Holy Land question; interest shifts toward the Ottoman Empire, which tends to unite under strong control the Balkan and Asian regions of the ancient Byzantine Empire.

It is, as was logical, the pontiffs who mark the suture between the two phases, attempting by every means to channel forces to the East against the infidels. Clement V renews, but in vain, the prohibition of commerce with the Muslims and becomes protector of the Knights of Jerusalem in their tenacious guerrilla warfare against Arab and Turkish ships. Against Muslim pirates John XXII and then Clement VI become promoters of a league to which Venice and Genoa adhere and which leads, in 1344, to the temporary occupation of Smyrna. Then comes the turn of some prince: Peter of Lusignan, king of Cyprus, seeks in vain help from the West for his enterprise of Satalia and the subsequent audacious series of coups against Alexandria, Tripoli, Tortosa and Laodicea. Amadeus VI of Savoy recovers in 1366 Gallipoli for the Byzantine Empire, once again threatened by the Bulgarians.

But it is on the Turkish advance in the Balkans that European apprehensions focus from the end of the 14th century. To the aid of Sigismund of Hungary there hastens in 1396, with a small Franco-Burgundian army, John the Fearless. In 1399 and 1405, at the head of a Genoese fleet, Marshal Boucicaut penetrates into the Dardanelles and attempts a diversion on the Tunisian coast. But always without success and without in any way containing the irresistible march of the Turks. Great hopes are raised in 1443 by the Crusade of Cardinal Cesarini against Sultan Murad, forced to evacuate Sofia: only hopes, for at Varna the Crusaders suffered a bloody defeat. The following years see Hungarian heroism assert itself in the defense of Belgrade: the names of John Hunyadi and John of Capistrano are linked to the struggle. But then Constantinople falls under the onslaught of Mehmed II and the metropolis turns back against an empire that the Latins had not known how to maintain nor the Bulgarians to conquer. To no avail had been the exhortations and efforts of the old pope Nicholas V; and even the grandiose design of a Crusade of States, warmly supported by his successor, Pius II, is shipwrecked against the rocks of political reality, of cold egoism, of the times, and at the congress of Ancona for the expedition that the Pope would personally have led, no one presents himself. In vain do Paul II,

Alexander VII, Leo X attempt to revive the design. In 1518, when Muslim power had reached its height, through the conquest by Selim I of Egypt and Syria, everything seemed ready for the expedition, solemnly preached; but then the competitions for the imperial throne absorbed and diverted attentions. One would have arrived, some decades later, at a great collective enterprise of relief against Muslim pressure, at Lepanto, but that would have been the naval prelude of the Western effort, pursued until the middle of the 18th century, to break the threat to the heart of Europe. But to the recovery of the Holy Places and to the armed expansion of the faith no one would have given thought any longer: there was already, at the beginning of the 16th century, someone who thought that it would have been more opportune for the Church to shut itself within itself to purify itself of the dross of worldliness and to renew itself; precisely while a new world was opening up to the activity also of the clergy and soon, inspired by the Council of Trent, the missions would arise, to renew in more modern form the expansion of the faith. In Europe, by now, the struggles for predominance were opening; somewhat apart from the Western States, closed in their internal problems, the strong structure of the new Turkish Empire would have represented a purely political problem, emptied of all religious content.

CONCLUSION

The great historical fact of the Crusades thus came to an end, with the closing of the Middle Ages and the strengthening of the national States. If it had been an expression of the medieval unity of thought and work, of religion and action, it was no less true that through it, in contact with the East and by the very force of contrasts, the West had become conscious of itself, had seen the relationship between its various parts and had developed its unity in a supranational sense. From that relationship, at first unfavorable, its superiority had slowly sprung, even economic superiority, and the development of a broader and more humane civilization. And while the Mongol invasion wipes out together the last lights of Byzantine and Islamic civilization, Western culture has reached its highest degree. - See plate LXVI.

BIBL. On the Saracen incursions in the West: J. Reinaud, Invasions des Sarrazins en France, Paris 1836; M. Amari, Storia dei musulmani di Sicilia, Florence 1844 (new ed., Catania 1930 with additions); P. Martini, Storia delle invasioni degli Arabi e delle piraterie dei Barbareschi in Sardegna, Cagliari 1861; J. Wellhausen, Die Kämpfe der Araber mit den Römern in der Zeit der Umajaden, Gottling 1901; J. Gay, L'Italie méridionale et l'empire byzantin depuis l'avènement de Basile Ier jusqu'à la prise de Bari par les Normands (867-1071), Paris 1904; G. Lokys, Die Kämpfe der Araber mit den Karolingern bis zum Tode Ludwigs II., Heidelberg 1906.

On the expansion of Islam, see the classic work of A. Müller, Der Islam in Morgen-und Abendland, 2 vols., 2nd ed., Berlin 1885-87.

On the Byzantine Empire: A. Rambaud, L'empire grec au Xe siècle, Paris 1870; G. Schlumberger, Un empereur byzantin au Xe siècle (Nicéphore Phocos), ibid. 1870; id., L'épopée byzantine à la fin du Xe siècle, 3 vols., ibid. 1896-1905; K. Neumann, Die Weltstellung des byzantischen Reichs vor den Kreuzzügen, Leipzig 1894; A. Gruhn, Die byzantinische Politik z. Zeit d. Kreuzzüge, Berlin 1904; F. Chalandon, Les Comnènes, I. Essai sur le vigne d'Olexis I Comnène (1081-1118), Paris 1905; H. Jean II Comnène (1118-43) et Manuel Comnène (1143-80), ibid. 1912; G. Schlumberger, Byzance et les Croisades, Pages médiévales, ibid. 1927; A. A. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantin empire, 2 vols., Wisconsin 1928-29.

On the Crusades in general: after the old works of J. Michaud, Histoire des Croisades, Paris 1812-17 and of F. Wilken, Geschichte der Kreuzzüge, Leipzig 1807-32, the historiography on the Crusades assumes a scientific economy, inaugurated by H. v. Sybel. Subsequent to whose work are: A. Röhrich, Beiträge zur Gesch. d. Kreuzzüge, 2 vols., Leipzig 1878 and Geschichte d. Kreuzzüge, Innsbruck 1898; B. Kugler, Gesch. der Kreuzzüge, Berlin 1880, 2nd ed., ibid. 1891 (Italian trans. by T. Sanesi, Milan 1878, in the Storia universale dell'Onchese); L. Bréhier, L'Eglise et l'Orient au moyen âge. Les Croisades, Paris 1907 (2nd ed., ibid. 1928); W. B. Stevenson, The Crusades in the East, Cambridge 1907; A. v. Ruville, Die Kreuzzüge, Bonn 1920; E. Barker, The Crusades, London 1923; N. Jorga, Breve hist. des Croisades et leurs fondations en Terre Sainte, Bucharest 1924. And again, but of particular reference: E. Heyck, Die Kreuzzüge u. das Heilige Land, Leipzig 1900; E. Bridney, La condition juridique des croisés et le privilège de la croix, Paris 1901. The fundamental work of synthesis is by now that of R. Grousset, Histoire de Croisades et du royaume franc de Jérusalem, 3 vols., Paris 1932-38. And see, by the same author, L'épopée des Croisades, ibid. 1939. On the rise of the idea of the Crusade, the fundamental vol. of C. Erdmann, Die Entstehung des Kreuzzugsgedanken, Stuttgart 1932, which goes back to the most distant origins; moreover O. Volk, Die abendländisch-hierarchische Kreuzzugside, Halle 1911; E. Delavalle, Essai sur la formation de l'idée de Croisade, in Bull. de littérature ecclési., 42 (1941), pp. 24-45, 86-103; 45 (1944), pp. 13-46, 73-90; F. Cognasso, La genesi delle C., Turin 1934; M. Villey, La Croisade. Essai sur la formation d'une théorie juridique, Paris 1942.

On the first Crusade: H. Hagenmeyer, Chronologie de la première croisade, in Rev. de l'Orient latin, 6 (1868), pp. 314-93; 490-549; 7 (1890), pp. 277-339; 430-503; 8 (1900-1901), pp. 318-382; H. v. Sybel, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, 2nd ed., Leipzig 1881; R. Röhrich, Gesch. d. ersten Kreuzzuges, Innsbruck 1901; F. Chalandon, Histoire de la première Croisade jusqu'à l'élection de Godefroy de Bouillon, Paris 1925; P. Rousset, Les origines et les caractères de la première Croisade, Neuchâtel 1945; A. C. Krey, Urban's crusade. Success or failure, in American history, Rev., 23 (1948), pp. 235-50.

On the Crusader States and the Latin institutions in the East, besides the work of Grousset: L. Rey, Les colonies franques de Syrie au XIIe et XIIIe siècle, Paris 1887; P. Röhrich, Regesta Regni hierosolymitani (1097-1291), Innsbruck 1903 and 1904 (Additamentum); E. Parodi, Storia dei Cavalieri di S. Giovanni di Gerusalemme, Bari 1907; R. Bailey-Yewdale, Boemond I prince of Antioch, Wisconsin 1924; C. Enlart, Les monuments des Croisés dans le royaume de Jérusalem, Architecture rel. et civile, Paris 1925-28; G. Dodu, Hist. des Institutions monastiques dans le royaume latin de Jérusalem, Luxembourg 1928; R. Manselli, Normanni d'Italia alla prima C.: Boemondo d'Altavilla, in Iapigia, 11 (1940-41), pp. 45-79, 145-84; I. L. La Monte, The lords of Sidon in the XIIIth and XIIIth cent., in Byzantion, 17 (1944-45), pp. 183-211.

On the German participation in the Crusade: R. Röhrich, Die Deutschen im Heil. Lande, Innsbruck 1894; D. Pilgerreisen nach d. Heil. Lande, edited by R. Röhrich and M. Meisner, Innsbruck 1880; on the crusading intervention in Portugal: C. Erdmann, D. Kreuzzugsgedanke in Portugal, in Hist. Zeitschrift, 141 (1930). On the Italian participation, also subsequent: G. Errera, I Crociati veneziani in Terra Santa, in Arch. ven., 38 (1890), pp. 338-77; A. Main, I Pisani alle prime C., Livorno 1894; C. Manfroni, Le relazioni fra Genova, l'Impero bizantino e i Turchi, in Arch. stor. lig., 28 (1898); A. Chiocchini, I Pisani all'assedio di Gerusalemme, Pisa 1901; L. Usseglio, I marchesi di Monferrato in Italia e in Oriente durante i sec. XII e XIII, Turin 1926.

On the Second Crusade: B. Kugler, Studien z. Gesch. d. zweiten Kreuzzuges, Stuttgart 1866; id., Annal. z. Gesch. d. zweiten Kreuzzuges, Tübingen 1878; C. Neumann, Bernhard v. Clairvaux u. die Anfänge d. zw. Kreuzz., Heidelberg 1882; E. Vacandard, St Bernard et la seconde Croisade, in Rev. d. quest. hist., 38 (1885), pp. 398-457.

On the Third Crusade: A. Cartellieri, Philipp II. August, König v. Frankreich, II; Der Kreuzzug (1187-91), Leipzig 1906, and Richard Löwenherz im hlg. Lande, in Hist. Zeitschrift, 1908;

R. Röhrich, Die Rüstungen d. Abendlandes z. dritten Kreuzz., in Hist. Zeitschrift, 1903; E. Traub, Der Kreuzzugspan Kaiser Heinrichs VI., Jena 1910.

On the Fourth Crusade: H. Klimke, Die Quellen z. Gesch. d. vierten Kreuzzuges, Breslau 1875, and E. Gerland, Der vierte Kreuzzug u. seine Probleme, in N. Jahrbücher f. d. Klass. Altertum, 13 (1904); I. Tessier, La quatrième Croisade, Paris 1884; E. Pears, The fall of Constantinople: the story of the Fourth Crusade, London 1885; W. Norden, Der vierte Kreuzzug in Rahmen der Beziehungen des Abendlandes zu Byzanz, Berlin 1898, and Das Papsttum u. Byzanz. Die Trennung d. beiden Mächte u. der Problem ihrer Wiederreinigung bis 1453, ibid. 1903; A. Luchaire, Innocent III, La question d'Orient, Paris 1907; H. Gregoire, The question of the diversion of the fourth crusade, in Byzantion, 15 (1940-41), pp. 158-66.

On particular points: L. Streit, Venedig u. die Wendung d. vierten Kreuzz. gegen Konstantinopel, Zagreb 1877; P. Riant, Innocent III, Philippe de Soube et Boniface de Montferrant, in Rev. des quest. hist., 17 (1875), pp. 321-74; id., Le changement de direction de la IVe Croisade, ibid., 18 (1875), pp. 5-75; F. Cerone, Il Papa e i Veneziani nello quarto Crociato, in Arch. ven., 36 (1888), pp. 57-70; 287-97. On the Latin Empire of Constantinople and the other Latin states formed as a result of the Fourth Crusade: D. Du Cange, Hist. de l'empire de Constantinople sous les empereurs françois, Paris 1657 (new ed. edited by J. A. Buchon, ibid. 1826); L. de Mas Lattie, Hist. de l'île de Chypre, Paris 1852-61; K. Hopf, Gesch. Griechenlands im Mittelalter, Leipzig 1867-68; E. Gerland, Gesch. des lateinischen Kaiserthums v. Konstantinopel, I. Hamburg 1905; W. Miller, The Latins in the levant: a hist. of Frankish Greece (1264-1366), London 1906.

On the Crusades of the 13th century: R. Röhrich, Der Kreuzzug Louis IX. gegen Damiette, Berlin 1870; id., Der Kinder-Kreuzzug, in Hist. Zeitschrift (1876); R. Röhrich, Studien z. Gesch. d. Fünften Kreuzzuges, Innsbruck 1891; R. Honig, Rapporti fra Federico II e Gregorio IX rispetto alla spedizione in Palestina, Bologna 1896; I. Greven, Frankreich u. der fünfte Kreuzzug, in Hist. Jahrbuch, 1923; V. Laurent, La Croisade et la question d'Orient sous le pontificat de Grégoire X, in Rev. hist. du sud-est européen, 22 (1943), pp. 193-37; R. Grousset, St Louis et les Alliances orientales, in Etudes historiques, 1948, fasc. 3, 3-16.

On the crusading attempts of the 14th and 15th centuries: I. Delaville Le Rouix, La France en Orient au XIVe siècle, Paris 1886; A. Magnocavallo, Marino Sanudo il Vecchio e il suo progetto di crociato, Bergamo 1901; E. Marengo, Genova a Tunisi (1358-1373), in Arch. stor. lig., 33 (1903); N. Jorga, Philippe de Mézières et la Croisade au XIVe siècle, Paris 1902; id., Notices et extraits pour servir à l'hist. des Croisades au XIVe siècle, ibid. 1902; J. Gay, Le pape Clément VI et les affaires d'Orient, in Rev. d'hist. rel., 1923.

On the Crusades in the history of medieval culture: H. v. Sybel, Sagen u. Geschichte über die Kreuzzüge (Kleine Schriften, 3), Munich 1881; H. Pruzz, Kulturgeschichte d. Kreuzzüge, Leipzig 1883; O. Henne am Rhyn, D. Kreuzzüge u. d. Kultur ihrer Zeit, Leipzig 1883-85; id., Kulturgesch. d. Kreuzzüge, ibid. 1894; J. Ebersolt, Orient et Occident. Recherches sur les influences byzantines et orientales en France pendant les Croisades, 2 vols., Paris-Brussels 1928-29.

Pier Fausto Palumbo