CENT. XIII. Hence it came to pass, that the arrival of Richard, PART 1 which had been industriously retarded by Gregory IX. The expedi IX. and which had revived, in some degree, the hopes of the vanquished, was ineffectual to repair their loss; and all that this prince could do, was to enter, with the consent of the allies, into a truce upon as good conditions as the declining state of their affairs would admit of. This truce was accordingly concluded with the sultan of Egypt in the year 1241, after which Richard immediately set sail for Europe. VII. The affairs of the christians in the east, detion of Lewis clined from day to day. Intestine discords and ill conducted expeditions had reduced them almost to the last extremity, when Lewis IX. king of France, who was canonized after his death, and is still worshipped with the utmost devotion, attempted their restoration. It was in consequence of a vow which this prince had made in the year 1248, when he was seized with a painful and dangerous illness, that he undertook this arduous task, and in the execution of it, he set sail for Egypt with a formidable army and a numerous fleet, from a notion that the conquest of this province would enable him to carry on the war in Syria and Palestine with more facility and success. The first attempts of the zealous monarch were crowned with victory; for Damietta, that famous Egyptian city, yielded to his arms; but the smiling prospect was soon changed, and the progress of the war presented one uniform scene of calamity and desolation. The united horrors of famine and pestilence overwhelmed the royal army, whose provisions were cut off by the mahometans, • All these circumstances are accurately related and illustrated by the learned George Christ. Gebaverus, in his Historia Richardi Imperatoris, lib. i. p. 34. It appears however by the Epistolae Petri de Vineis, that Richard was created by Frederic II. his lord lieutenant of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and this furnishes a probable reason why Gregory IX. used all possible means to retard Richard's voyage. PART 1. in the year 1250; Robert, earl of Artois, the king's CENT. XIIIown brother, having surprised the Saracen army, and through an excess of valour, pursued them too far, was slain in the engagement; and a few days after, the king himself, with two more of his brothers, and the greatest part of his army were taken prisoners in a bloody action, after a bold and obstinate resistance. This valiant monarch, who was endowed with true greatness of mind, and who was extremely pious, though after the manner that prevailed in this age of superstition and darkness, was ransomed at an immense price, and after having spent about four years in Palestine, returned into France, in the year 1254, with a handful of men,' the miserable remains of his formidable army. sade underta same mon VIII. No calamities could deject the courage nor A second eru damp the invincible spirit of Lewis; nor did he look ken by the upon his vow as fulfilled by what he had already arch. done in Palestine. He therefore resolved upon a new expedition, fitted out a formidable fleet with which he set sail for Africa, accompanied by a splendid train of princes and nobles, and proposed to begin in that part of the world his operations against the infidels, that he might either convert them to the christian faith, or draw from their treasures the means of carrying on more effectually the war in Asia. Immediately after his arrival upon P Alphonsus, earl of Poitiers, and Charles, earl of Arjou. The ransom, which, together with the restoration of Damietta, the king was obliged to pay for his liberty, was eight hundred thousand gold bezants, and not eighty thousand as Collier erroneously reckons.* This sum, which was equal then to 500,000 livres of French money, 4 would, in our days, amount to the value of four millions of livres, that is, to about 190,000 pounds sterling. Of two thousand eight hundred illustrious knights, who set out with Lewis from France, there remained about one hundred when he sailed from Palestine. See Joinville's Hist, de S. Louis IX. p. 81. *See Collier's Eccles. Histor. cent. xiii. vol. i. p. 456. PART I CENT. XIII. the African coast, he made himself master of the fort of Carthage; but this first success was soon followed by a fatal change in his affairs. A pestilential disease broke out in the fleet, in the harbour of Tunis, carried off the greatest part of the army, and seized at length the monarch himself, who fell a victim to its rage, on the 25th. of August, in the year 1270. Lewis was the last of the European princes that embarked in the holy war; the dangers and difficulties, the calamities and disorders, and the enormous expenses that accompanied each crusade, disgusted the most zealous, and discouraged the most intrepid promoters of these fanatical expeditions. In consequence of this, the Latin empire in the east declined apace, notwithstanding the efforts of the Roman pontiffs to maintain and support it; and in the year 1291, after the taking of Ptolemais, or Acra, by the mahometans, it was entirely overthrown. It is natural to inquire into the true causes that contributed to this unhappy revolution in Palestine; and these causes are evident. We must not seek for them either in the councils or in the valour of the infidels, but in the dissensions that reigned in the christian armies, in the profligate lives of those, who called themselves • Among the various histories that deserve to be consulted for an ampler account of this last crusade, the principal place is due to the Histoire de S. Louis IX. du nom, Roy de France, ecrite par Jean Sr. de Joinville, enrichie de nouvelles Dissertations et des Observations Historiques, par Charles du Fresne, Paris, 1688, fol. See also Filleau de la Chaize, Histoire de S. Louis, Paris, 1C88, two vol in 8vo. Menconis Chronicon, in Ant. Matthæi Analectis veteris avi, tom. iii. p. 172, 179. Luc. Waddingi Annules Minorum, tom. iv. p. 294, 307, et passim. Boulay, Hist. Acad. Paris. tom, iii. p. 212, 392, &c. Pierre Claude Fontenay, Histoire de l'Eglise Gallicane, tom. xi. p. 337, 405, 575. Ant. Matthæi Analecta veteris ævi, tom. v. p. 748. Jac. Echarli Scriptores Dominicani, tom. i. p. 422. Imola in Dantem, in Muratorii Antiq. Italicæ medii avi, tom. i. p. 1111, 1112. PART 1. the champions of the cross, and in the ignorance CENT. XIII. and obstinacy, the avarice and insolence of the pope's legates. the Prussians. Christianity as yet had not tamed the ferocity, conversion of nor conquered the pagan superstitions and prejudices, that still prevailed in some of the western provinces. Among others, the Prussians, a fierce and savage nation, retained still the idolatrous worship of their ancestors with the most obstinate perseverance; nor did the arguments and exhortations employed by the missionaries that were sent among them, from time to time, produce the least effect upon their stubborn and intractable spirits. The brutish firmness of these pagans induced Conrad, duke of Massovia, to have recourse to more forcible methods than reason and argument, in order to bring about their conversion. For this purpose, he addressed himself, in the year 1230, to the knights of the Teutonic order of St. Mary, who, after their expulsion from Palestine, had settled at Venice, and engaged them, by pompous promises, to undertake the conquest and conversion of the Prussians. The knights accordingly arrived in Prussia, under the command of Herman de Saltza, and after a most cruel and obstinate war, of fifty years standing, with that resolute people, obliged them, with difficulty, to acknowledge the Teutonic order for their sovereigns, and to embrace the christian faith." After having established Christianity, and fixed their own dominion in Prussia, these booted apostles See Matthæi Analecta vet, ævi, tom. iii. p. 18, tom. v. p. 684-639. Petri de Duisburgh, Chronicon. Prussiæ, published by Hartknochius, at Jena, in the year 1679. Christoph. Hartknochius, his History of the Prussian Church, written in the German language, book i. ch. i. p. 33, and Antiquitates Prussiæ, Diss. xiv. p. 201 Balusii Miscellanea, tom. vii. p. 427, 478. Waddingi Annales Minor. tom. iv. p. 40, 63. Solignac, Histoire de Pologne, tom. ii. p. 238. PART I. CENT. XIIL made several excursions into the neighbouring countries, and particularly into Lithuania, where they pillaged, burned, massacred, and ruined all before them, until they forced the inhabitants of that miserable province to profess a feigned submission to the gospel, or rather to the furious and unrelenting missionaries, by whom it was propagated in a manner so contrary to its divine maxims, and to the benevolent spirit of its celestial author. Of the Arabians in Spain. x. In Spain the cause of the gospel gained ground from day to day. The kings of Castile, Leon, Navarre, and Arragon, waged perpetual war with the Saracen princes, who held still under their dominion the kingdoms of Valentia, Granada, and Murcia, together with the province of Andalusia; and this war was carried on with such success, that the Saracen dominion declined apace, and was daily reduced within narrower bounds, while the limits of the church were extended on every side. The princes that contributed principally to this happy revolution were Ferdinand, king of Leon and Castile, who, after his death, obtained a place in the Calendar, his father Alphonsus IX. king of Leon, and James I. king of Arragon. The latter, more especially, distinguished himself eminently by his fervent zeal for the advancement of Christianity; for no sooner had he made himself master of Valentia, in the year 1236, than he employed, with the greatest pains and assiduity, every possible method of converting to the faith his Arabian subjects, whose expulsion would have been an irreparable loss to his kingdom. For this purpose he ordered the dominicans, whose ministry he made use of principally in this salutary work, to learn the Arabic tongue; and he founded public schools at Majorca w Beside the authors mentioned in the preceding note, see Ludwegii Reliquiæ Manuscriptorum omnis ævi, tom. i. p. 336. * See Joh. Ferreras, History of Spain, vol. iv. |