A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (23 page)

The Fifth Crusade had ended. It had come
very close to success. Had there been one wise and respected leader in the
Christian army Cairo might have been occupied and the Ayubite rule in Egypt
destroyed. With a friendlier government set up there — for the Franks could
never have hoped to govern all Egypt themselves — it would not have been
impossible to recover all Palestine. But the Emperor who alone could have
filled the role, never came, despite all his promises. Pelagius was a haughty,
tactless and unpopular man whose faults as a general were revealed by the last
disastrous offensive, while King John, for all his gallantry, had neither the
personality nor the prestige to command an international army. Almost every
stage of the campaign had been wrecked by personal or national jealousies. It
would have been wiser to accept the terms twice offered by the Sultan and have
taken back Jerusalem. But the strategists were probably right when they said
that without the castles of Oultrejourdain Jerusalem itself could never be
held, at least so long as the Moslems in Egypt and Syria worked in alliance. As
it was, nothing had been gained and much lost, men, resources and reputations.
And the unhappiest victims were the most guiltless. Fear of the Christians from
the West raised a new wave of fanaticism in Islam. In Egypt, despite al-Kamil’s
personal tolerance, fresh disabilities were put upon the local Christians, both
Melkites and Copts. Exorbitant taxes were levied, churches were closed, and
many of them pillaged by the angry Moslem soldiery. Nor could the Italian
merchants quite recover their former position in Alexandria. Their compatriots
had encouraged the Crusade. Though they returned to their counters they could
not be trusted so well. It was with a shame that was bitter and well-earned
that the soldiers of the Cross sailed back to their own countries. They did not
even bring back with them the True Cross itself. When the time came for its
surrender it could not be found.

CHAPTER
III

THE
EMPEROR FREDERICK

‘
And
now, I have sent a cunning man, endued with understanding
.’ II CHRONICLES II,
13

When the Crusade sailed away despondent
from Damietta, King John returned straight to Acre, but the Cardinal Pelagius
went further north, to carry out the Pope’s instructions at Antioch and in the
Armenian kingdom of Cilicia. On King Leo’s death Honorius had recognized John
of Brienne’s claim that his wife or her son should succeed. On their death he
transferred the support of the Church to Raymond-Roupen of Antioch who had come
in person to Damietta in the summer of 1220 to consult with Pelagius. A few
months previously Bohemond of Tripoli had recaptured Antioch, though the Hospitallers
held the citadel. Raymond-Roupen had then invaded Cilicia, together with his
Armenian mother, Alice, and established himself at Tarsus, awaiting help from
the Hospitallers, with whom he was on good terms; for he had given the citadel
of Antioch into their care. But the Armenian nobles carried out the late King’s
wishes and accepted his young daughter Isabella as the Queen, under the regency
of Adam of Baghras. Adam was murdered after a few months’ power by the
Assassins, doubtless at the instigation of the Hospital. His successor as
regent was Constantine, head of the Hethoumian family. The Hethoumians had in
the past represented the pro-Byzantine party in Armenia. Now they came forward
as the champions of nationalism against the latinizing tendencies of the ruling
dynasty. Early in 1221 Constantine marched on Tarsus and captured it, together
with the Prince and his mother. Raymond-Roupen died in prison soon afterwards. His
elimination left Isabella secure on the Armenian throne and Bohemond of Tripoli
at Antioch.

Pelagius was warned by the Pope to act
carefully. It was useless to put forward the claims of Raymond-Roupen’s infant
daughters, who retired with their Lusignan mother to Cyprus. But Bohemond was a
bad son of the Church. He managed to wrest the citadel of Antioch from the
Hospitallers, and he also deprived them of the promise of Jabala, which
Raymond-Roupen had offered to them if they would conquer it, and handed the
right to it over to the Templars. There was danger now of open war between the
Orders. Pelagius managed to persuade each to accept half of the town; but
Bohemond not only refused to readmit the Hospital to Antioch, but annexed its
possessions there, even though Pelagius threatened him with excommunication and
carried out the sentence. The Templars remained in communion with him, and the
Regent of Armenia sought his alliance. The Seldjuk Sultan Kaikobad was now the
greatest potentate in Asia Minor. He had occupied the western Taurus mountains
and made his winter capital at the coast of Alaya, and he was menacing the
whole Armenian frontier. The Armenians needed the good-will of Antioch; so the
Regent suggested that Bohemond should send his fourth son, Philip, to marry the
young Armenian Queen, insisting only that the bridegroom should join the
separated Armenian Church. Bohemond, rankling under his excommunication by the
Legate, readily allowed his son to lapse into heresy. The alliance between
Armenia and Antioch served its immediate purpose. Kaikobad turned his attention
away from them to his Moslem neighbours on the East.

1226: The Armenian Succession

The Armenians had hoped that Philip, who
had no expectations of ever inheriting Antioch, would himself become a good
Armenian. But his tastes were incorrigibly Latin, and he spent as much time as
possible at Antioch. The Hethoumians and their friends were exasperated. At
last, at the end of 1224, they arrested him one night as he was journeying to
Antioch and imprisoned him at Sis, where he was poisoned a few months later.
Bohemond was furious but could do little. The Pope had confirmed his
excommunication and had warned the Templars to have nothing to do with him. The
Hospitallers openly sided with the heretic Armenians. When the young Queen,
Philip’s widow, fled broken-heartedly to their protection at Seleucia, they
handed the whole town over to the regent Constantine, to avoid the shame of
surrendering her in person. Bohemond summoned Kaikobad to his aid, and the
Seldjuks invaded Cilicia. Constantine then urged Bohemond to call them off by
telling him to come to Cilicia and receive his son back, then arranged for the
regent of Aleppo, Toghril, to advance on Antioch. When Bohemond was already in
Cilicia he was told that his son was dead, and he had to hurry back to defend
his capital from Toghril. Meanwhile the unhappy young Queen Isabella was forced
to marry Constantine’s son Hethoum. For many years she refused to live with
him, but in the end she relented. She and Hethoum were crowned together in
1226. Constantine, for all his nationalism, now thought it wise to reconcile
Armenia with the Papacy. Loyal messages were sent in the name of the young
couple to the Pope and to the Emperor Frederick.

It was well for the Christians of the
north that their two chief Moslem neighbours, the Seldjuks and the Ayubites of
Aleppo and Mosul, were continuously fighting together; for the eight years’
truce guaranteed by al-Kamil did not apply to them. Further south John of
Brienne made eager use of it to rest his weary kingdom and in particular to
restore the trade with the Moslem interior that provided its main source of
revenue. In the autumn of 1222 he decided to visit the West. He wished to
consult the Pope about future aid for his kingdom; and he must find a husband
for his daughter, the young Queen. She was only aged eleven, but he was now in
his seventies. The succession must be secured. After appointing Odo of
Montbeliard as viceroy he embarked from Acre with Pelagius, who had just
finished a legatine tour in Cyprus, with the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Ralph of
Merencourt and with the Grand Master of the Hospital. The Grand Master of the
Teutonic Knights, Hermann of Salza, was already at Rome. The party landed at
Brindisi at the end of October.

John went straight to Rome, where he
claimed that in future any territory conquered by a Crusade must be given to
the kingdom of Jerusalem. Pelagius may have demurred, but the Pope agreed with
John, and the Emperor sent to say that he also approved. John then went on to
France to visit once more his old friend King Philip Augustus. Meanwhile
Hermann of Salza put forward the suggestion that Queen Yolanda should marry the
Emperor Frederick himself, whose Empress had died four months before. It would
be a splendid match. John was flattered by the idea, but hesitated till Hermann
promised him that he should retain the regency till his death. The Pope was
enthusiastic. If Frederick were Consort of Jerusalem he would surely no longer
prevaricate and postpone his Crusade. When John arrived at Paris the negotiations
were almost complete. King Philip was not pleased with the news and reproached
John. It had been hitherto the King of France who was asked to find a husband
for the heiress of Outremer. John himself had been nominated by Philip. But,
for old time’s sake, Philip welcomed John kindly, and John was present when
Philip died at Mantes, on 14 July 1223. In his will Philip left to John the sum
of 50,000 marks for the benefit of the kingdom of Jerusalem, with similar
legacies to the Hospital and the Temple. John attended the King’s funeral and
the coronation of his son, Louis VIII, then went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de
Compostella in Spain. He stayed some months in Castile, where he married King
Ferdinand III’s sister, Berengaria, and returned to Italy some time in 1224.

1225: Marriage of Frederick and Yolanda

In August next year Count Henry of Malta
arrived at Acre with fourteen imperial galleys, to fetch the young Queen, now
aged fourteen, to Italy for her wedding. On board was James, Archbishop-elect of
Capua, who as soon as he landed, married Yolanda as Frederick’s proxy in the
Church of the Holy Cross. She was then taken to Tyre and there, being now held
to be of age, she was crowned Queen of Jerusalem by the Patriarch Ralph, in the
presence of all the nobility of Outremer. There was rejoicing for a fortnight;
then the Queen embarked, accompanied by the Archbishop of Tyre, Simon of
Maugastel, and by her cousin, Balian of Sidon. She paused for a few days in
Cyprus, to see her aunt, Queen Alice. When the time came to part, both Queens
and all their ladies were in tears; and they heard Yolanda murmur a sad
farewell to the sweet land of Syria, which she would never see again.

The Emperor, with King John, awaited his
bride at Brindisi. She was welcomed with imperial pomp, and a second marriage
ceremony took place on 9 November 1225, in the Cathedral at Brindisi.

Frederick was in his thirty-first year. He
was a handsome man, not tall but well-built, though already inclined to
fatness. His hair, the red hair of the Hohenstaufen, was receding slightly. His
features were regular, with a full, rather sensual mouth and an expression that
seemed kindly till you noticed his cold green eyes, whose piercing glance
disguised their short-sightedness. His intellectual brilliance was obvious. He
was fluent in six languages, French, German, Italian, Latin, Greek and Arabic.
He was well versed in philosophy, in the sciences, in medicine and natural
history, and well informed about other countries. His conversation, when he chose,
was fascinating. But, for all his brilliance, he was not likeable. He was
cruel, selfish, and sly, unreliable as a friend and unforgiving as an enemy.
His indulgence in erotic pleasures of every sort shocked even the easy
standards of Outremer. He loved to outrage contemporaries by scandalous
comments on religion and morals. In fact he was not irreligious; but his
Christianity was rather that of some Byzantine Emperor. He considered himself
to be God’s anointed viceroy on earth. He knew himself to be a competent
student of theology; he was not going to submit to the dictation of any bishop
were it even the Bishop of Rome. He saw no harm in taking an interest in other
religions, especially Islam, with which he had been in touch all his life. He
would not consider the Greeks to be schismatic because they rejected the
authority of the Pope. Yet no ruler persecuted more savagely such Christian
heretics as the Cathars and their kin. To the average Westerner he was almost
incomprehensible. Though he was by blood half-German, half-Norman, he was
essentially a Sicilian by upbringing, the child of an island that was
half-Greek and half-Arab. As a ruler in Constantinople or in Cairo he would
have been eminent but not eccentric. As King of Germany and Western Emperor he
was a terrifying marvel. And yet, for all his understanding of the East in
general, he never understood Outremer.

1225: The Fate of John of Brienne

He showed his calibre on the morrow of his
wedding. He left Brindisi with the Empress without warning his father-in-law,
and when the old King hurried after him, he received him coldly. An open
quarrel followed when John learned from his weeping daughter that her husband
had seduced one of her cousins. Frederick then coldly announced that he had
never promised that John should continue as regent. There was no written
agreement, and the King had no legal claim once his daughter was married. John
found himself shorn of his position, and Frederick’s soldiers even took from
him the sum of money that King Philip had bequeathed to him for Jerusalem. He
fled in despair to the Papal Court. Pope Honorius, who was obstinately loth to
think ill of his former pupil, was once again disillusioned and shocked; but he
could do nothing for John except give him the government of the Tuscan
patrimony. But the old warrior’s career was not ended. He had already been
suggested for the throne of England. In 1228 the Latin Empire of Constantinople
was in need of a regent for the child-Emperor Baldwin II. John, though nearly
eighty, gladly took on the job. Baldwin was married to his four-year-old
daughter Maria; and John saw to it carefully that he himself was given the
title of Emperor to bear till his death in 1237.