A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (2 page)

Pope Gregory did not see the result of his
efforts. He died at Pisa on 17 December, after a pontificate of two months,
leaving the work to the Bishop of Praeneste, who was elected two days later as
Clement III. While Clement hastened to make contact with the greatest potentate
of the West, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the Archbishop of Tyre moved on
over the Alps to see the Kings of France and England.

The news of his mission had gone before
him. The aged Patriarch of Antioch, Aimery, wrote a letter in September to King
Henry II to tell him of the tribulations of the East, and sent it by the hand
of the Bishop of Banyas; and, before Josias of Tyre arrived in France, Henry’s
eldest surviving son, Richard, Count of Poitou, had taken the Cross. Henry
himself had for many years been carrying on a desultory war with Philip
Augustus of France. In January 1188, Josias found the two kings at Gisors, on
the frontier between Normandy and the French domain, where they had met to
discuss a truce. His eloquence persuaded them to make peace and promise to go
as soon as possible on the Crusade. Philip, Count of Flanders, ashamed,
perhaps, of his abortive Crusade ten years before, hastened to follow their
example; and many of the high nobility of both kingdoms swore to accompany the
Kings. It was decided that the armies should march together, the French troops
wearing red crosses, the English white and the Flemish green. To pay for the
expedition both Kings raised special taxes. At the end of January King Henry’s
Council assembled at Le Mans to order the payment of the Saladin Tithe, a ten
per cent tax on revenue and movables to be collected from every lay subject of
the King, in England and in France. Henry then crossed to England to make
further arrangements for the Crusade, which was preached with fervour by
Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Tyre started back on his
homeward journey full of hope.

1189: King Richard’s Accession

Soon after the conference at Gisors Henry
wrote an answer to the Patriarch of Antioch to say that help was coming quickly.
His optimism was not justified. The Saladin Tithe was collected satisfactorily
in spite of the attempt of a Templar knight, Gilbert of Hoxton, to help himself
to the money that he had collected; while William the Lion, King of the Scots,
who was Henry’s vassal, was quite unable to persuade his thrifty barons to
contribute a single penny. Plans were made for the government of the country
while Henry and his heir should be in the East. But, long before the army could
be assembled, war broke out again in France. Some of Richard’s vassals rebelled
against him in Poitou, and in June 1188, he was involved in a quarrel with the
Count of Toulouse. The French King, angry at this attack on his vassal,
answered by invading Berry. Henry in his turn invaded Philip’s territory; and
war dragged on through the summer and autumn. In January 1189, Richard, whose
filial loyalty was inconstant, joined with Philip in an offensive against
Henry. The endless fighting horrified most good Christians. Among Philip’s
vassals, the Counts of Flanders and Blois refused to bear arms till the Crusade
should be launched. In the autumn of 1188 the Pope had sent the Bishop of Albano
and, after the bishop’s death next spring, Cardinal John of Anagni to order the
Kings to make peace, in vain. Nor was Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, more
successful. Throughout the early summer Philip and Richard penetrated
successfully into Henry’s French possessions. On 3 July Philip took the great
fortress of Tours; and next day Henry, who was now desperately ill, agreed to
humiliating peace terms. Two days later, before they could be ratified, on 6
July he died at Chinon.

The old King’s disappearance eased the
situation. It is doubtful whether he ever seriously saw himself leaving for the
Crusade. But his heir, Richard, had every intention of fulfilling his vow; and,
though he inevitably inherited his father’s quarrel with King Philip, he was
ready to make any settlement that would leave him free to go East, particularly
if Philip would join in the Crusade. Philip for his part had less awe of
Richard than of Henry, and saw that it was bad policy to postpone the Crusade
much longer. A treaty was hastily made; and Richard passed on into England to
be crowned and to take over the government.

The coronation took place on 3 September
at Westminster, and was followed by a lively persecution of the Jews in London
and in York. The citizens were jealous of the favour shown them by the late
King; and Crusading fervour always provided an excuse for killing God’s
enemies. Richard punished the rioters and permitted a Jew, who had turned
Christian to avoid death, to return to his faith. The chroniclers were shocked
to learn of Archbishop Baldwin’s comment that if he would not be God’s man he
had better be the devil’s. The King stayed on in England over the autumn,
reorganizing his administration. Empty episcopal sees were filled. After some
preliminary rearrangement, William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, was made
chancellor and justiciar for the south of England, while Hugh, Bishop of
Durham, was justiciar for the north but also constable of Windsor. The
Queen-mother Eleanor was given vice-regal powers; but she did not intend to
remain in England. The King’s brother John was enfeoffed with huge estates in
the south-west and a prudent ban on his entry into England for three years was
rashly withdrawn. Royal estates were sold to raise money. The proceeds,
together with gifts and the Saladin Tithe, provided the King with a vast
treasure; and William of Scotland sent ten thousand pounds in return for his
release from allegiance to the English crown and the restoration of his towns
of Berwick and Roxburgh, which he had lost in Henry’s reign.

1189: The English Fleet sets sail

In November Rothrud, Count of Perche,
arrived from France to say that King Philip had almost completed his
preparations for the Crusade and wished to meet Richard at Vezelay on 1 April,
when they would discuss their joint departure. A letter had reached the French
court at the end of 1188 from its agents at Constantinople telling of a
prophecy by the holy hermit Daniel that in the year when the Feast of the
Annunciation fell on Easter Sunday the Franks would recover the Holy Land. This
conjunction would happen in 1190. The report added that Saladin was troubled by
quarrels among his family and his allies, even though the Emperor Isaac was
impiously aiding him, and it mentioned a rumour that Saladin himself had been
severely defeated near Antioch. News reaching France next year was not quite so
optimistic, but it was learnt that, thanks to Sicilian help, the Franks there
were taking the offensive. Moreover, the Western Emperor, Frederick Barbarossa,
was already on his way to the East. It was time for the Kings of France and
England to set out.

After taking the advice of his Council,
King Richard agreed to the meeting at Vezelay. He was back in Normandy by
Christmas and prepared himself to set out for Palestine in the late spring. At
the last moment everything had to be postponed, owing to the sudden death of
the Queen of France, Isabella of Hainault, early in March. It was not till 4
July that the Kings met again at Vezelay, with their knights and their
infantry, ready to set out on their holy enterprise.

It was three years now since the kingdom
of Jerusalem had met with disaster at Hattin; and it was well for the Franks in
the East that other Crusaders had not been so dilatory. The promptness of King
William of Sicily’s help saved Tyre and Tripoli for Christendom. William died
on 18 November 1189; and his successor Tancred had troubles to face at home.
But already in September an armada of Danish and Flemish ships, estimated by
the hopeful chroniclers to number five hundred, arrived off the Syrian coast;
and about the same time came James, lord of Avesnes, the bravest knight of
Flanders. Even the English had not all waited for their King to move. A
flotilla manned by Londoners left the Thames in August and reached Portugal
next month. There, like their compatriots some forty years before, they agreed
to take temporary service under the Portuguese King; and thanks to their help,
King Sancho was able to capture from Islam the fortress of Silves, east of Cape
Saint Vincent. On Michaelmas Day the Londoners sailed on through the Straits of
Gibraltar. But the most portentous force that had already started out for the
Holy Land was the army of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa.

Frederick had been deeply moved to hear of
the disasters in Palestine. Ever since he had returned with his uncle Conrad
from the ill-starred Second Crusade, he had longed to do battle again with the
infidel. He was an old man now, nearly in his seventieth year, and he had been
ruler of Germany for thirty-five years. Age had not diminished his gallantry
nor his charm, but many bitter experiences had taught him prudence. He had not
had many personal connections with Palestine. Very few of the settlers there
were of German origin; and his long controversy with the Papacy had made the
Frankish government shy of asking for his help. But the house of Montferrat had
always been amongst his supporters. News of Conrad’s gallant defence of Tyre
may have stirred him. The recent marriage of his heir Henry with the Sicilian
Princess Constance had brought him into close touch with the Normans of the
South. The death of Pope Urban III in the autumn of 1187 enabled him to make
his peace with Rome. Gregory VIII eagerly welcomed so valuable an ally for the
rescue of Christendom, and Clement III was equally friendly.

1189: The Emperor Frederick leaves Germany

Frederick took the Cross at Mainz on 27
March 1188, from the hands of the Cardinal of Albano. It was the fourth Sunday
in Lent, known from the introit as
Laetare Hierusalem.
But more than a
year passed before he was ready to leave for the East. The regency over his
domains was given to his son, the future Henry VI. His great rival in Germany,
Henry the Lion of Saxony, was ordered either to cede his rights over part of
his lands, or to accompany the Crusade at his own expense, or to go into exile
for three years, and chose the last alternative, retiring to the court of his
father-in-law, Henry II of England. Thanks to Papal sympathy the German Church
was pacified after a long series of quarrels. The western frontier of Germany
was strengthened by the creation of a new Margravate. While he collected
together his army, Frederick wrote to the potentates through whose lands he
would pass, the King of Hungary, the Emperor Isaac Angelus and the Seldjuk
Sultan Kilij Arslan; and he sent an ambassador, Henry of Dietz, with a boastful
letter to Saladin demanding the restoration of all Palestine to the Christians
and challenging him to battle on the field of Zoan in November 1189. The King
of Hungary and the Seldjuk Sultan replied with messages promising assistance. A
Byzantine embassy arrived at Nuremberg in the course of 1188 to arrange details
for the Crusaders’ passage through Isaac’s territory. But Saladin’s reply,
though courteous, was haughty. He offered to release his Frankish prisoners and
to restore the Latin abbeys in Palestine to their owners, but no more.
Otherwise there must be war.

Early in May 1189, Frederick set out from
Ratisbon. He was accompanied by his second son, Frederick of Swabia, and many
of his greatest vassals; and his army, the largest single force ever yet to
leave on a Crusade, was well armed and well disciplined. King Bela gave him a
friendly welcome and every facility in his passage through Hungary. On 23 June
he crossed the Danube at Belgrade and entered Byzantine territory. There
misunderstandings began. The Emperor Isaac Angelus was not the man to deal with
a situation that needed tact, patience and courage. He was a clever but
weak-willed courtier who had reached the throne by accident and who was always
conscious that he had many potential rivals in his dominions. He was suspicious
of all his officials but did not dare to control them strictly. Neither the
armed forces of his empire nor its finances had recovered from the strain
imposed by the vainglorious reign of Manuel Comnenus. The attempt of the
Emperor Andronicus to reform the administration had not survived his fall. It
was now more corrupt than ever before. High and unfair taxation was causing
trouble in the Balkans. Cyprus was in revolt under Isaac Comnenus. Cilicia was
lost to the Armenians. The Turks were encroaching on the Imperial provinces in
central and south-western Anatolia; and the Normans had launched a great attack
on Epirus and Macedonia. The defeat of the Normans was the only military
triumph of Isaac Angelus’s reign. For the rest he depended upon diplomacy. He
made a close alliance with Saladin, to the horror of the Franks in the East.
His motive was not to damage their interests but to curb the power of the
Seldjuks; but his incidental achievement in having the Holy Places at Jerusalem
returned to the care of the Orthodox was particularly shocking to the West. To
improve his hold over the Balkans he made friends with King Bela of Hungary,
whose young daughter Margaret he married in 1185. But the extraordinary
taxation raised on the occasion of the marriage was the spark that set off the
smouldering Serbs and Bulgarians into open rebellion. In spite of a few
successes at first, his generals were unable to crush the rebels. When
Frederick appeared at Belgrade there was an independent Serbian state already
formed in the hills in the northwest of the peninsula; and though Byzantine
forces still held the fortresses along the main road to Constantinople,
Bulgarian marauders were masters of the country-side.

1189: Frederick in the Balkans

Hardly had the German army crossed the
Danube before there was trouble. Brigands, Serbian and Bulgarian, attacked
stragglers; and the country-folk were frightened and unfriendly. The Germans at
once accused the Byzantines of instigating this hostility, refusing to realize
that Isaac was powerless to stop it. Frederick wisely sought the friendship of
the rebel chieftains. Stephen Nemanya, Prince of Serbia, came with his brother
Sracimir to Nish to greet the German monarch as he passed through the town in
July; and the Vlach brothers, Ivan Asen and Peter, leaders of the Bulgarian
revolt, sent him messages promising him assistance. News of these negotiations
caused not unnatural concern at the Court of Constantinople. Isaac was already
suspicious of Frederick’s intentions. His former ambassadors to the German
Court, John Ducas and Constantine Cantacuzenus, had been sent to greet
Frederick on his entry into Byzantine territory, and, to the horror of their
old friend, the historian Nicetas Choniates, they took advantage of their
mission to incite Frederick against Isaac; who soon learnt of their intrigues.
While Frederick’s mistrust of Byzantium, which dated from his experiences
during the Second Crusade, was being fanned by the schemes of his Byzantine
escort, Isaac’s good sense deserted him. Hitherto the discipline of the German
army and the adequate arrangements of the Byzantine authorities for its
victualling had prevented unpleasant incidents. But when Frederick occupied
Philippopolis and from there sent envoys to Constantinople to arrange for the
passage of his troops into Asia, Isaac threw them into prison, meaning to hold
them as hostages for Frederick’s pacific behaviour. He entirely misjudged
Frederick; who at once sent his son, Frederick of Swabia, to take the town of Didymotichum
in Thrace as a counter-hostage, and wrote home to his son Henry to collect a
fleet to use against Byzantium and to secure the Pope’s blessing for a Crusade
against the Greeks. Unless the Straits were held by the Franks, he said, the
Crusading movement would never succeed. Faced with the prospect of the German
army, to be joined by a western fleet, attacking Constantinople, Isaac
prevaricated for some months and at last climbed down and released the German
ambassadors. Peace was patched up at Adrianople. Isaac gave Frederick hostages
and promised to provide ships if he would cross the Dardanelles and not the
Bosphorus, and to victual him on his passage through Anatolia. Frederick’s wish
was to proceed to Palestine. He controlled his anger and accepted the terms.