§ 53. THE THIRD CRUSADE. 259
numbered one hundred thousand, of whom fifty thousand sat in the saddle. Frederick of Swabia accompanied his father, the emperor.
Setting forth from Ratisbon in May, 1189, the German army had proceeded by way of Hungary to Constantinople. The Greek emperor, Isaac Angelus, far from regarding the Crusaders' approach with favor, threw Barbarossa's commis sioners into prison and made a treaty with Saladin.1 He coolly addressed the western emperor as "the first prince of Germany." The opportunity was afforded Frederick of uniting the East and West once more under a single sceptre. Wallachians and Servians promised him their support if he would dethrone Isaac and take the crown. But though there was provocation enough, Frederick refused to turn aside from his purpose, the reconquest of Jerusalem,2 and in March, 1190, his troops were transferred across the Bosphorus. He took Iconium, and reached Cilicia. There his career was brought to a sudden termination on June 10 in the waters of the Kalycadnus river into which he had plunged to cool himself. 3 His flesh was buried at Antioch, and his bones, intended for the crypts of the church of the Holy Sepulchre, were deposited in the church of St. Peter, Tyre. A lonely place, indeed, for the ashes of the mighty monarch, and far removed from those of his great predecessor, Charle magne at Aachen ! Scarcely ever has a life so eminent had such a tragic and deplored ending. In right imperial fashion, Frederick had sent messengers ahead, calling upon
1 Frederick announced his expedition in a letter to Saladin, in which he enumerated the tribes that were to take part in it, from the " tall Bavarian " to the sailors of Venice and Pisa. See Itin. reg. Bicardi de Hoveden, etc.
2 Ranke, VIII. 246 sqq., spicily speculates upon the possible consequences of Isaac's dethronement, and, as a German, regrets that Frederick did not take the prize, Es war ein Moment das nicht so leicht wieder kommen konnte.
3 Another account by one who accompanied the expedition was that in his impatience to proceed, Barbarossa strove to swim the river and was drowned. Ranke, VIII. 249, regards the view taken in the text as the better one.
260 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
Saladin to abandon Jerusalem and deliver up the true cross. With a demoralized contingent, Frederick of Swabia reached the walls of Acre, where he soon after became a victim of the plague, October, 1190.
Philip and Richard reached the Holy Land by the Medi terranean. They sailed for Sicily, 1190, Philip from Genoa, Richard from Marseilles. Richard found employment on the island in asserting the rights of his sister Joan, widow of William II. of Sicily, who had been robbed of her dower by William's illegitimate son, Tancred. " Quicker than priest can chant matins did King Richard take Messina."1 In spite of armed disputes between Richard and Philip, the two kings came to an agreement to defend each other on the Crusades. Among the curious stipulations of this agree ment was one that only knights and the clergy were to be allowed to play games for money, and the amount staked on any one day was not to exceed twenty shillings.
Leaving Sicily,2 whence Philip had sailed eleven days be fore, Richard proceeded to Cyprus, and as a punishment for the ill treatment of pilgrims and the stranding of his vessels, he wrested the kingdom in a three weeks' campaign from Isaac Comnenus. The English at their occupation of Cyprus, 1878, might well have recalled Richard's conquest. On the island, Richard's nuptials were consummated with Berengaria of Navarre, whom he preferred to Philip's sister Alice, to whom he had been betrothed. In June he reached Acre. " For joy at his coming," says Baha-ed-din, the Arab his torian, " the Franks broke forth in rejoicing, and lit fires in their camps all night through. The hosts of the Mussulmans were filled with fear and dread."3
1 Itinerary, III. 16.
2 Richard's fleet, when he sailed from Messina, consisted of one hundred and fifty large ships and fifty-three galleys.
3 The Itinerary, III. 2, says Richard's arrival was welcomed with trans ports of joy, shoutings, and blowing of trumpets. He was taken ashore as if the desired of all nations had come, and the night was made so bright with