CENT. XII. Unkhan.

'The affairs

The high notions which the Greeks and Latins generally entertained of the grandeur and magnificence of this royal presbyter, were principally produced by the letters he wrote to the Roman emperor Frederic I.. and to Emanuel emperor of the Greeks, in which, puffed up with prosperity, and flushed with success, he vaunted his victories over the neighbouring nations that disputed his passage to the throne; described, in the most pompous and extravagant terms, the splendor of his riches, the grandeur of his state, and the extent of his dominions; and exalted himself far above all other earthly monarchs. All this was easily believed; and the Nestorians were extremely zealous in confirming the boasts of their vain-glorious prince. He was succeeded by his son, or, as others think, his brother, whose name was David, though, in common discourse, he was also called Prester John, as his predecessor had been. The reign of David was far from being happy, nor did he end his days in peace; Genghiz Khan, the great and warlike emperor of the Tartars, invaded his territories toward the conclusion of this century, and deprived him both of his life and his dominions.

VIII. The new kingdom of Jerusalem, which had of the Chris-been erected by the holy warriors of France, near Palestine in the close of the preceding century, seemed to flourish

tians in

a declining state.

tionibus, part ii. p. 367. But a new light was cast upon this matter in the seventeenth century, by the publication of several pieces, which the industry of the curious drew forth from their obscurity, and by which a great number of learned men were engaged to abandon the Portuguese opinion, and were convinced that Prester John reigned in Asia, though they still continued to dispute about the situation of his kingdom, and other particular circumstances. There are, notwithstanding all this, some men of the most eminent learning in our times, who maintain, that John was emperor of the Abyssinians, and thus prefer the Portuguese opinion, though destitute of authentic proofs and testimonies, to the other above-mentioned, though supported by the strongest evidence, and the most unquestionable authorities. See Euseb. Renaudot, Hist. Patriarch. Alexandr. p. 223, 337. Jos. Franc. Lafitau, Hist. des Decouvertes des Portugais, tom. i. p. 58, and tom. iii. p. 57. Henr. le Grand, Dis. de Johanne Presbytero in Lobo's Voyage d'Abyssinie, tome i. p. 295.

considerably at the beginning of this, and to rest CENT. XII. upon firm and solid foundations. This prosperous scene was, however, but transitory, and was soon succeeded by the most terrible calamities and desolations. For, when the Mohammedans saw vast numbers of those who had engaged in this holy war returning into Europe, and the Christian chiefs that remained in Palestine divided into factions, and every one advancing his private interest, without any regard to the public good, they resumed their courage, recovered from the terror and consternation into which they had been thrown by the amazing valour and rapid success of the European legions, and, gathering troops and soliciting succours from all quarters, they harassed and exhausted the Christians by invasions and wars without interruption. The Christians, on the other hand, sustained these efforts with their usual fortitude, and maintained their ground during many years; but when Atabeck Zenghi°, after a long siege, made himself master of the city of Edessa, and threatened Antioch with the same fate, their courage began to fail, and a diffidence in their own strength obliged them to turn their eyes once more toward Europe. They accordingly implored, in the most lamentable strain, the assistance of the European princes; and requested that a new army of cross-bearing champions might be sent to support their tottering empire in the Holy Land. Their entreaties were favourably received by the Roman pontiffs, who left no method of persuasion unemployed, that might engage the emperor and other Christian princes to undertake a new expedition into Palestine.

IX. This new expedition was not, however, re- The crusade

• Atabeck was a title of honour given by the sultans to the viceroys or lieutenants, whom they intrusted with the government of their provinces. The Latin authors, who have written the history of this holy war, and of whom Bongarsius has given us a complete list, call this Atabeck Zenghi, Sanguinus. See Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient, at the word Atabeck, p. 142.

renewed.

CENT. XII.

solved upon
with such unanimity and precipitation
as the former had been; it was the subject of long
deliberation, and its expediency was keenly debated
both in the cabinets of princes, and in the assemblies
of the clergy and the people. Bernard, the famous
abbot of Clairval, a man of the boldest resolution and
of the greatest authority, put an end to those dis-
putes under the pontificate of Eugenius III. who had
been his disciple, and who was wholly governed by
his counsels. This eloquent and zealous ecclesiastic
preached the cross, i. e. the crusade, in France and
Germany, with great ardour and success; and in the
grand parliament assembled at Vezelai, A. D. 1146,
at which Louis VII. king of France, his queen, and
a prodigious concourse of the principal nobility, were
present, Bernard recommended this holy expedition
with such a persuasive power, and declared with such
assurance that he had a divine commission to foretell
its glorious success, that the king, the queen, and all
the nobles, immediately put on the military cross,
and prepared themselves for the journey into Pales-
tine. Conrad III. emperor of Germany, was, for
some time, unmoved by the exhortations of Bernard;
but he was at length gained over by the urgent soli-
citations of the fervent abbot, and followed the ex-
ample of the French monarch. The two princes,
each at the head of a numerous army, set out for
Palestine, to which they were to march by different
roads. But, before their arrival in the Holy Land,
the greatest part of their forces perished miserably,
some by famine, some by the sword of the Moham-
medans, some by shipwreck, and a considerable num-
ber by the perfidious cruelty of the Greeks, who
looked upon the western nations as more to be feared
than the infidels themselves. Louis VII. left his
kingdom A. D. 1147, and, in the month of March of
the following year, he arrived at Antioch, with the
wretched remains of his army, dejected and exhausted
by a series of hardships. Conrad set out also in the
year 1147, in the month of May; and, in November

following, he arrived at Nice, where he joined the CENT. XII. French army, after having lost the greatest part of his own by calamities of various kinds. From Nice, the two princes proceeded to Jerusalem, A.D. 1148; whence they led back into Europe, the year following, the miserable handful of troops, which had survived the disasters of the expedition. Such was the unhappy issue of this second crusade, which was rendered ineffectual by a variety of causes, but more particularly by the jealousies and divisions that reigned among the Christian chiefs in Palestine. Nor was it more ineffectual in Palestine than it was detrimental to Europe, by draining the wealth of its fairest provinces, and destroying a prodigious number of its inhabitants P.

dom of Je

X. The unhappy issue of this second expedition The kingwas not however sufficient, when considered alone, rusalem to render the affairs of the Christians in Palestine overturned. entirely desperate. Had their chiefs and princes relinquished their animosities and contentions, and attacked the common enemy with their united force, they would have soon repaired their losses, and recovered their glory. But this was far from being the case. A fatal corruption of sentiments and manners reigned among all ranks and orders. Both the people and their leaders, and more especially the latter, abandoned themselves without reluctance to all the excesses of ambition, avarice, and injustice; they indulged themselves in the practice of all sorts of vices; and by their intestine quarrels, jealousies, and discords, they weakened their efforts against the enemies that surrounded them, and consumed their strength by thus unhappily dividing it. Saladin,

P Beside the historians enumerated by Bongarsius, see Mabillon, Annal. Benedict. tom. vi. p. 399, 404, 407, 417, 451. Jac. Gervasii Histoire de l'Abbé Suger, tom. iii. p. 104, 128, 173, 190, 239. This was the famous Suger, abbot of St. Denys, who had seconded the exhortations of Bernard in favour of the crusade, and whom Louis appointed regent of France during his absence. Vertot, Histoire des Chevaliers de Malte, tom. i. p. 86: Joh. Jac. Mascovius, de Rebus Imperii sub Conrado III.

CENT. XII.

A third cru

taken.

viceroy or rather sultan of Egypt and Syria 9, and the most valiant chief of whom the Mohammedan annals boast, took advantage of these lamentable divisions. He waged war against the Christians with the utmost valor and success; took prisoner Guy of Lusignan, king of Jerusalem, in a fatal battle fought near Tiberias, A.D. 1187; and, in the course of the same year, reduced Jerusalem itself under his dominion'. The carnage and desolation that accompanied this dreadful campaign, threw the affairs of the Christians in the east into a deplorable condition, and left them no glimpse of hope, but what arose from the expected succours of the European princes. Succours were obtained for them by the Roman pontiffs with much difficulty, in consequence of repeated solicitations and entreaties. But the event, as we shall soon see, was by no means answerable to the deep schemes that were concerted, or to the pains that were employed, for the support of the tottering kingdom of Jerusalem.

XI. The third expedition was undertaken, A. D. sade under- 1189, by Frederic I. surnamed Barbarossa, emperor of Germany, who, with a prodigious army, marched through several Grecian provinces, where he had innumerable difficulties and obstacles to overcome, into Asia Minor, whence, after having defeated the sultan of Iconium, he penetrated into Syria. His valor and conduct promised successful and glorious campaigns to the army he commanded, when, by

Saladin, so called by the western writers, Salaha'ddin by the Orientals, was no longer vizir or viceroy of Egypt, when he undertook the siege of Jerusalem, but had usurped the sovereign power in that country, and had also added to his dominions, by right of conquest, several provinces of Syria.

See the Life of Saladin by Bohao'ddin Ebn Sheddad, an Arabian writer, whose history of that warlike sultan was published at Leyden in the year 1732, by the late celebrated professor Albert Schultens, and accompanied with an excellent Latin translation. See also Herbelot, Biblioth. Orient. at the article Salah-a'ddin, p. 742, and Marigny's Histoire des Arabes, tome iv. p. 289. But, above all, see the learned History of the Arabians in the modern part of the Universal History.