THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
and there before great throngs the pope first preached the crusade, Nov. 26, 1095, in words which have net come down, but which stirred the mightymultitudes to frenzied enthusiasm. The number of those who assumed the crusader's cross increased daily, and the movement, soon passing beyond papal restraint, seized upon the lower classes. The peasant exchanged his plow for arms and was joined by the dissatisfied, the oppressed, and the outcast; members of the lower clergy, runaway monks, women, children gave to this advanceguard of the crusading army the character of a mob, recognizing no leadership but that of God. This undercurrent of opposition to the pope gave rise to the legend, which is still current, that not Urban, but Peter the Hermit (Peter of Amiens) was the true representative of the crusading idea. Peter was one of the leaders of the fanatical bands, whose contribution to the enterprise was a story of an alleged personal appearance of Jesus, giving him commission to acquaint Christendom with the sad condition of the Holy Land. After the wildest excesses, in which the Jews appear as the principal sufferers at their hands, these tumultuous hosts found a pitiful end in Hungary and beyond the Bosporus.
The real crusading armies set out in 1096. They comprised the men of Lorraine under the brothers Godfrey, Eustace, and Baldwin of Bouillon; northern French under Robert of Normandy; Provencals under Raymond of Toulouse; and Normans of Italy under Bohemund and Tancred. The Christian cause suffered from dissensions among the leaders, not all of whom resembled Godfrey of Bouillon in his freedom from worldly motives, and it had to contend against the machinations of Alexius L, who was roused to a sense of danger to his realm by the presence of the Western armies. Nicffia was taken, the Gultan of Iconium was defeated at Dorylaeum, and. on June 3, 1098, Antioch was captured and on June 28 was successfully defended against the Sultan of Mosul; 'on July 15, 1099, Jerusalem was taken, and Godfrey of Bouillon was made Protector of the Holy Sepulcher. He died in July, 1100, and under his successors, Baldwin I. (d. 1118), Baldwin IL (d. 1131), and Fulk (d. 1143), the boundaries of the kingdom were extended through successful warfare. The kingdom drew strength from the influx of new crusading forces, from the presence of the Italian merchants who established themselves in the Syrian ports, and from the religious and military orders of the Templars and the Knights of St. John. But prosperity led to a weakening of the military spirit, and internal strife crippled the resources of the kingdom. On Christmas day, 1144, the capture of the strong frontier fortress of Edessa by the Emir of Mosul inflicted a serious blow on the Christian power.
The news of the fall of Edessa led to a second crusade (1147-49), headed by Louis VII. of France and Conrad III. of Germany. In spite of the lofty motives which animated the French king, the second crusade shows a waning of the spirit of enthusiasm which had brought about the first. The pohticai danger involved in the triumph of the -Mohammedan arms was a determining factor in the
departure of the crusading armies, and Bernard of Clairvaux, the great preacher of this crusade, found it expedient to dwell upon the
2. The taking of the cross as a potent means Second and in gaining absolution for sin and at- Third Cru- taining grace. Lack of harmony be-
sades, 1 147-tween the royal leaders and the treach- 49, 1189-92. erous policy of the Byzantines led to irremediable disaster. The German army was almost totally destroyed in Asia Minor during the winter of 1147-48, and the other crusading host succumbed to defeat and the climate in the summer of 1148. Baldwin III. by his unwise seizure of Ascalon in 1153 brought Egypt into the sphere of conflict and thus prepared the way for the fall of Jerusalem. Egypt after 1169 was ruled by the powerful Seljuks, whose great champion Saladin made it the object of his life to drive the Christian power from Palestine. The war was carried on in a half-hearted manner by the Christian princes. On July 4, 1187, Saladin won the battle of Hattin, and on Oct. 2 the Holy City surrendered. The Christian power was restricted to Antioch, Tripoli, Tyre, and Margat. In the third crusade (1189-92), to which the fall of Jerusalem gave occasion, Richard I. of England, Philip Augustus of France, and Emperor Frederick I., Barbarossa, participated. The German emperor was drowned at Salef in June, 1190; Acre was taken by Richard and Philip, but the two kings quarreled and Philip retired; and Richard left Palestine in 1192, after securing by treaty with Saladin the right for pilgrims to visit the Holy Sepulcher in small bands and unarmed.
The vital crusading spirit was now dead, and the succeeding crusades are to be explained rather as arising from the efforts of the papacy in its struggle against the secular power, to divert the military energies of the European nations toward Syria.
A systematic agitation was carried on,
3. The and in 1201 a large army was collected Fourth which it was planned to transport on
Crusade, Venetian vessels to Egypt. The Ve- 1202-04. netians under their astute doge, Enrico Dandolo, succeeded in turning the crusading movement to their own purposes. The crusaders threw themselves against the Byzantines, Constantinople was taken and sacked (1204), and the empire was apportioned between Venice and the Christian leaders. The Latin empire at Constantinople was established. An outburst of the old enthusiasm led to the Children's Crusade of 1212, which Innocent III. interpreted as a reproof from heaven to their unworthy elders. By processions, prayers, and preaching, the Church attempted to set another crusade on foot, and the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) formulated a plan for the recovery of the Holy Land. A crusading force from Hungary, Austria, and Bavaria achieved a remarkable feat in the capture of Damietta in Egypt In 1219, but under the urgent insistence of the papal legate, Pelagius, they proceeded to a foolhardy attack on Cairo, and an inundation of the Nile compelled them to 'choose between surrender and destruction.
In 1228 Emperor Frederick II. set sail from