Volume 6 Part 1 (2/2)
ii. p. 120, &c., Michaud, book iv.--M.]
[Footnote 12: William of Tyre, and Matthew Paris, reckon 70,000 loricati in each of the armies.]
[Footnote 13: The imperfect enumeration is mentioned by Cinnamus, (ennenhkonta muriadeV,) and confirmed by Odo de Diogilo apud Ducange ad Cinnamum, with the more precise sum of 900,556. Why must therefore the version and comment suppose the modest and insufficient reckoning of 90,000? Does not G.o.dfrey of Viterbo (Pantheon, p. xix. in Muratori, tom.
vii. p. 462) exclaim?
----Numerum si poscere quaeras, Millia millena militis agmen erat.]
[Footnote 14: This extravagant account is given by Albert of Stade, (apud Struvium, p. 414;) my calculation is borrowed from G.o.dfrey of Viterbo, Arnold of Lubeck, apud eundem, and Bernard Thesaur. (c. 169, p.
804.) The original writers are silent. The Mahometans gave him 200,000, or 260,000, men, (Bohadin, in Vit. Saladin, p. 110.)]
[Footnote 15: I must observe, that, in the second and third crusades, the subjects of Conrad and Frederic are styled by the Greeks and Orientals _Alamanni_. The Lechi and Tzechi of Cinnamus are the Poles and Bohemians; and it is for the French that he reserves the ancient appellation of Germans. He likewise names the Brittioi, or Britannoi. *
Note: * He names both--Brittioi te kai Britanoi.--M.]
II. The number and character of the strangers was an object of terror to the effeminate Greeks, and the sentiment of fear is nearly allied to that of hatred. This aversion was suspended or softened by the apprehension of the Turkish power; and the invectives of the Latins will not bias our more candid belief, that the emperor Alexius dissembled their insolence, eluded their hostilities, counselled their rashness, and opened to their ardor the road of pilgrimage and conquest. But when the Turks had been driven from Nice and the sea-coast, when the Byzantine princes no longer dreaded the distant sultans of Cogni, they felt with purer indignation the free and frequent pa.s.sage of the western Barbarians, who violated the majesty, and endangered the safety, of the empire. The second and third crusades were undertaken under the reign of Manuel Comnenus and Isaac Angelus. Of the former, the pa.s.sions were always impetuous, and often malevolent; and the natural union of a cowardly and a mischievous temper was exemplified in the latter, who, without merit or mercy, could punish a tyrant, and occupy his throne. It was secretly, and perhaps tacitly, resolved by the prince and people to destroy, or at least to discourage, the pilgrims, by every species of injury and oppression; and their want of prudence and discipline continually afforded the pretence or the opportunity. The Western monarchs had stipulated a safe pa.s.sage and fair market in the country of their Christian brethren; the treaty had been ratified by oaths and hostages; and the poorest soldier of Frederic's army was furnished with three marks of silver to defray his expenses on the road. But every engagement was violated by treachery and injustice; and the complaints of the Latins are attested by the honest confession of a Greek historian, who has dared to prefer truth to his country. [16] Instead of a hospitable reception, the gates of the cities, both in Europe and Asia, were closely barred against the crusaders; and the scanty pittance of food was let down in baskets from the walls. Experience or foresight might excuse this timid jealousy; but the common duties of humanity prohibited the mixture of chalk, or other poisonous ingredients, in the bread; and should Manuel be acquitted of any foul connivance, he is guilty of coining base money for the purpose of trading with the pilgrims. In every step of their march they were stopped or misled: the governors had private orders to fortify the pa.s.ses and break down the bridges against them: the stragglers were pillaged and murdered: the soldiers and horses were pierced in the woods by arrows from an invisible hand; the sick were burnt in their beds; and the dead bodies were hung on gibbets along the highways. These injuries exasperated the champions of the cross, who were not endowed with evangelical patience; and the Byzantine princes, who had provoked the unequal conflict, promoted the embarkation and march of these formidable guests. On the verge of the Turkish frontier Barbarossa spared the guilty Philadelphia, [17] rewarded the hospitable Laodicea, and deplored the hard necessity that had stained his sword with any drops of Christian blood. In their intercourse with the monarchs of Germany and France, the pride of the Greeks was exposed to an anxious trial. They might boast that on the first interview the seat of Louis was a low stool, beside the throne of Manuel; [18] but no sooner had the French king transported his army beyond the Bosphorus, than he refused the offer of a second conference, unless his brother would meet him on equal terms, either on the sea or land. With Conrad and Frederic, the ceremonial was still nicer and more difficult: like the successors of Constantine, they styled themselves emperors of the Romans; [19] and firmly maintained the purity of their t.i.tle and dignity. The first of these representatives of Charlemagne would only converse with Manuel on horseback in the open field; the second, by pa.s.sing the h.e.l.lespont rather than the Bosphorus, declined the view of Constantinople and its sovereign. An emperor, who had been crowned at Rome, was reduced in the Greek epistles to the humble appellation of _Rex_, or prince, of the Alemanni; and the vain and feeble Angelus affected to be ignorant of the name of one of the greatest men and monarchs of the age. While they viewed with hatred and suspicion the Latin pilgrims the Greek emperors maintained a strict, though secret, alliance with the Turks and Saracens. Isaac Angelus complained, that by his friends.h.i.+p for the great Saladin he had incurred the enmity of the Franks; and a mosque was founded at Constantinople for the public exercise of the religion of Mahomet. [20]
[Footnote 16: Nicetas was a child at the second crusade, but in the third he commanded against the Franks the important post of Philippopolis. Cinnamus is infected with national prejudice and pride.]
[Footnote 17: The conduct of the Philadelphians is blamed by Nicetas, while the anonymous German accuses the rudeness of his countrymen, (culpa nostra.) History would be pleasant, if we were embarra.s.sed only by _such_ contradictions. It is likewise from Nicetas, that we learn the pious and humane sorrow of Frederic.]
[Footnote 18: Cqamalh edra, which Cinnamus translates into Latin by the word Sellion. Ducange works very hard to save his king and country from such ignominy, (sur Joinville, dissertat. xxvii. p. 317--320.) Louis afterwards insisted on a meeting in mari ex aequo, not ex equo, according to the laughable readings of some MSS.]
[Footnote 19: Ego Romanorum imperator sum, ille Romaniorum, (Anonym Canis. p. 512.) The public and historical style of the Greeks was Rhx... _princeps_. Yet Cinnamus owns, that 'Imperatwr is synonymous to BasileuV.]
[Footnote 20: In the Epistles of Innocent III., (xiii. p. 184,) and the History of Bohadin, (p. 129, 130,) see the views of a pope and a cadhi on this _singular_toleration.]
III. The swarms that followed the first crusade were destroyed in Anatolia by famine, pestilence, and the Turkish arrows; and the princes only escaped with some squadrons of horse to accomplish their lamentable pilgrimage. A just opinion may be formed of their knowledge and humanity; of their knowledge, from the design of subduing Persia and Chorasan in their way to Jerusalem; [201] of their humanity, from the ma.s.sacre of the Christian people, a friendly city, who came out to meet them with palms and crosses in their hands. The arms of Conrad and Louis were less cruel and imprudent; but the event of the second crusade was still more ruinous to Christendom; and the Greek Manuel is accused by his own subjects of giving seasonable intelligence to the sultan, and treacherous guides to the Latin princes. Instead of crus.h.i.+ng the common foe, by a double attack at the same time but on different sides, the Germans were urged by emulation, and the French were r.e.t.a.r.ded by jealousy. Louis had scarcely pa.s.sed the Bosphorus when he was met by the returning emperor, who had lost the greater part of his army in glorious, but unsuccessful, actions on the banks of the Maeander. The contrast of the pomp of his rival hastened the retreat of Conrad: [202]
the desertion of his independent va.s.sals reduced him to his hereditary troops; and he borrowed some Greek vessels to execute by sea the pilgrimage of Palestine. Without studying the lessons of experience, or the nature of the war, the king of France advanced through the same country to a similar fate. The vanguard, which bore the royal banner and the oriflamme of St. Denys, [21] had doubled their march with rash and inconsiderate speed; and the rear, which the king commanded in person, no longer found their companions in the evening camp. In darkness and disorder, they were encompa.s.sed, a.s.saulted, and overwhelmed, by the innumerable host of Turks, who, in the art of war, were superior to the Christians of the twelfth century. [211] Louis, who climbed a tree in the general discomfiture, was saved by his own valor and the ignorance of his adversaries; and with the dawn of day he escaped alive, but almost alone, to the camp of the vanguard. But instead of pursuing his expedition by land, he was rejoiced to shelter the relics of his army in the friendly seaport of Satalia. From thence he embarked for Antioch; but so penurious was the supply of Greek vessels, that they could only afford room for his knights and n.o.bles; and the plebeian crowd of infantry was left to perish at the foot of the Pamphylian hills. The emperor and the king embraced and wept at Jerusalem; their martial trains, the remnant of mighty armies, were joined to the Christian powers of Syria, and a fruitless siege of Damascus was the final effort of the second crusade. Conrad and Louis embarked for Europe with the personal fame of piety and courage; but the Orientals had braved these potent monarchs of the Franks, with whose names and military forces they had been so often threatened. [22] Perhaps they had still more to fear from the veteran genius of Frederic the First, who in his youth had served in Asia under his uncle Conrad. Forty campaigns in Germany and Italy had taught Barbarossa to command; and his soldiers, even the princes of the empire, were accustomed under his reign to obey. As soon as he lost sight of Philadelphia and Laodicea, the last cities of the Greek frontier, he plunged into the salt and barren desert, a land (says the historian) of horror and tribulation. [23] During twenty days, every step of his fainting and sickly march was besieged by the innumerable hordes of Turkmans, [24] whose numbers and fury seemed after each defeat to multiply and inflame. The emperor continued to struggle and to suffer; and such was the measure of his calamities, that when he reached the gates of Iconium, no more than one thousand knights were able to serve on horseback. By a sudden and resolute a.s.sault he defeated the guards, and stormed the capital of the sultan, [25] who humbly sued for pardon and peace. The road was now open, and Frederic advanced in a career of triumph, till he was unfortunately drowned in a petty torrent of Cilicia. [26] The remainder of his Germans was consumed by sickness and desertion: and the emperor's son expired with the greatest part of his Swabian va.s.sals at the siege of Acre. Among the Latin heroes, G.o.dfrey of Bouillon and Frederic Barbarossa could alone achieve the pa.s.sage of the Lesser Asia; yet even their success was a warning; and in the last and most experienced age of the crusades, every nation preferred the sea to the toils and perils of an inland expedition. [27]
[Footnote 201: This was the design of the pilgrims under the archbishop of Milan. See note, p. 102.--M.]
[Footnote 202: Conrad had advanced with part of his army along a central road, between that on the coast and that which led to Iconium. He had been betrayed by the Greeks, his army destroyed without a battle.
Wilken, vol. iii. p. 165. Michaud, vol. ii. p. 156. Conrad advanced again with Louis as far as Ephesus, and from thence, at the invitation of Manuel, returned to Constantinople. It was Louis who, at the pa.s.sage of the Maeander, was engaged in a ”glorious action.” Wilken, vol. iii. p.
179. Michaud vol. ii. p. 160. Gibbon followed Nicetas.--M.]
[Footnote 21: As counts of Vexin, the kings of France were the va.s.sals and advocates of the monastery of St. Denys. The saint's peculiar banner, which they received from the abbot, was of a square form, and a red or _flaming_ color. The _oriflamme_ appeared at the head of the French armies from the xiith to the xvth century, (Ducange sur Joinville, Dissert. xviii. p. 244--253.)]
[Footnote 211: They descended the heights to a beautiful valley which by beneath them. The Turks seized the heights which separated the two divisions of the army. The modern historians represent differently the act to which Louis owed his safety, which Gibbon has described by the undignified phrase, ”he climbed a tree.” According to Michaud, vol.
ii. p. 164, the king got upon a rock, with his back against a tree; according to Wilken, vol. iii., he dragged himself up to the top of the rock by the roots of a tree, and continued to defend himself till nightfall.--M.]
[Footnote 22: The original French histories of the second crusade are the Gesta Ludovici VII. published in the ivth volume of d.u.c.h.esne's collection. The same volume contains many original letters of the king, of Suger his minister, &c., the best doc.u.ments of authentic history.]
[Footnote 23: Terram horroris et salsuginis, terram siccam sterilem, inamnam. Anonym. Canis. p. 517. The emphatic language of a sufferer.]
[Footnote 24: Gens innumera, sylvestris, indomita, praedones sine ductore. The sultan of Cogni might sincerely rejoice in their defeat.
Anonym. Canis. p. 517, 518.]
[Footnote 25: See, in the anonymous writer in the Collection of Canisius, Tagino and Bohadin, (Vit. Saladin. p. 119, 120,) the ambiguous conduct of Kilidge Arslan, sultan of Cogni, who hated and feared both Saladin and Frederic.]
[Footnote 26: The desire of comparing two great men has tempted many writers to drown Frederic in the River Cydnus, in which Alexander so imprudently bathed, (Q. Curt. l. iii c. 4, 5.) But, from the march of the emperor, I rather judge, that his Saleph is the Calycadnus, a stream of less fame, but of a longer course. * Note: It is now called the Girama: its course is described in M'Donald Kinneir's Travels.--M.]
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