§53. THE THIRD CRUSADE. 263
payment of the ransom money. The massacre, a few days before, of Christian captives, if it really occurred, in part explains but cannot condone the crime.1
Jaffa and Ascalon became the next points of the Cru saders' attack, the operations being drawn out to a weari some length. Richard's feats of physical strength and martial skill are vouched for by eye-witnesses, who speak of him as cutting swathes through the enemy with his sword and mowing them down "as the reapers mow down the corn with their sickles." So mighty was his strength that, when a Turkish admiral rode at him in full charge, Richard severed his neck and one shoulder by a single blow. But the king's dauntless though coarse courage was not joined to the gifts of a leader tit for such a campaign.2 His savage war shout, " God and the Holy Sepulchre aid us," failed to unite the troops cloven by jealousies and to
1 This pretext is upon the sole authority of de Hoveden, an. 1191. He says, however, that Saladin did not execute the Christian captives until Richard had declined to withdraw his threat and to give more time for the payment of the ransom money and the delivery of the true cross. Archer, Hist, of the Crusades, p. 331, thinks that Baha-ed-din's account implies Saladin's massacre ; but Lane-Poole, Life of Saladin, p. 307, is of the con trary opinion. The Itinerary, IV. 4, states that Richard's followers "leapt forward to fulfil his commands, thankful to the divine grace for the permis sion to take such vengeance for the Christians whom the captives had slain with bolts and arrows." It has nothing to say of a massacre by Saladin. Lane-Poole, carried away by admiration for Saladin, takes occasion at this point to say that " in the struggle of the Crusades the virtues of civilization, magnanimity, toleration, real chivalry, and gentle culture were all on the side of the Saracens." The duke of Burgundy was party to the massacre of the Turkish captives.
2 Itinerary, VI. 23. Here is a description of one of Richard's frequent frays as given in the Itinerary, \\. 4 : " Richard was conspicuous above all the rest by his royal bearing. He was mounted on a tall charger and charged the enemy singly. His ashen lance was shivered by his repeated blows ; but instantly drawing his sword, he pressed upon the fugitive Turks and mowed them down, sweeping away the hindmost and subduing the foremost. Thus he thundered on, cutting and hewing. No kind of armor could resist his blows, for the edge of his sword cut open the heads from the top to the teeth. Thus waving his sword to and fro, he scared away the routed Turks as a wolf when he pursues the flying sheep."
264 THE MIDDLE ACJES. A.D. 1049-1294.
establish military discipline. The camps were a scene of confusion. Women left behind by Richard's order at Acre came up to corrupt the arm}7, while day after day " its mani fold sins, drunkenness, and luxury increased." Once and perhaps twice Richard came so near the Holy City that he might have looked down into it had he so chosen.1 But, like Philip Augustus, he never passed through its gates, and after a signal victory at Joppa he closed his military achievements in Palestine. A treaty, concluded with Saladin, assured to the Christians for three years the coast from Tyre to Joppa, and protection to pilgrims in Jerusalem and on their way to the city. In October, 1192, the king, called back by the perfidy of his brother John, set sail from Acre amid the laments of those who remained behind, but not until he had sent word to Saladin that he intended to return to renew the contest.
The exploits of the English king won even the admiration of the Arabs, whose historian reports how he rode up and down in front of the Saracen army defying them, and not a man dared to touch him. Presents passed between him and Saladin.2 One who accompanied the Third Crusade
1 De Joinville, Life of St. Louis, an. 1253, says no doubt with truth that Richard would have taken Jerusalem but for the envy and treachery of the duke of Burgundy. He repeats the saying of Richard, which is almost too good not to be true. When an officer said, " Sire, come here and I will show you Jerusalem," the king throwing down his arms and looking up to heaven exclaimed, " I pray thee, 0 Lord God, that I may never look on the Holy City until I can deliver it from thy enemies." The Itinerary has nothing to say on the subject. Richard of Devizes, XC., states that Hubert, bishop of Salis bury, after his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, urged the king to go in as a pilgrim, but that "the worthy indignation of his noble mind would not consent to receive from the courtesy of the Gentiles what he could not obtain by the gift of God."
2 Baha-ed-din, as quoted by Lane-Poole, p. 354. De Hoveden speaks of fruits, the Itinerary of horses. Later story ascribes to Saladin a yearly grant of one thousand bezants of gold to the Knights of St. John at Acre. In order to test the charity of the knights, the sultan had gone to the hospital in dis guise and found the reports of their merciful treatment well founded. Of this and of the story of his knighthood at the hands of Humphrey of Toron, and vouched for by the contemporary Itinerary of King Richard, the Arab authorities know nothing. See Lane-Poole, Life of Saladin, 387 sqq.