ALMOST all the machines prepared against the city were burned in a many-sided sortie of the defenders of Damietta. The Pisans, the Genoese, and the Venetians stoutly affirmed that they would attack the city by means of four ships upon which ladders hung; “but they were not of the race of those men by whom salvation was brought to Israel” [1 Mc 5:62]; for they wished to make a name for themselves, going forward with trumpets and reed pipes and many standards.70 The legate of the apostolic see supplied copious funds to them from the common store and the king and others produced ropes and anchors in abundance according as they needed them. And so, attacking the city, they killed and wounded many on the first day; and the more often they made an attack afterward, so much the more were the walls strengthened by wooden towers and palisades; the defenders resisted the oncoming forces even more vigorously and efficaciously, and thus the ladders, injured by fire and several times repaired, were forced to the bank, and the attempt was fruitless. And so it was truly understood that by divine power alone would Damietta be delivered into the hands of the Christians.
BUT WE, insensible and unmindful of the benefits and wonderful deeds of God, which he had done, “provoked the eyes of his divine majesty” [Is 3:8] against us through the idleness of the leaders and the complaints of the followers. The foot soldiers reproached the cowardice of the horsemen, the horsemen made light of the risks of the foot soldiers when they went out against the Saracens. Therefore it happened that on the feast of the beheading of Saint John the Baptist [August 29], with our common faults urging us on, although scarcely any were to be found who would remain in the custody of the camp, we led forth a naval and land army and proceeded to the camp of the Babylonians between the sea and the river, where fresh water could not be found to drink. But taking up their tents, they pretended flight; and when our men had advanced to a point where it was clear that our adversaries did not wish to meet us in open combat, our leaders began a long debate whether they should advance or retreat; the feeling among them was divided. Meanwhile the ranks were scattered except for a group of those whom obedience bound in military discipline. The knights of Cyprus, who were on the right flanks, showed their timidity to the Saracens as they made an attack from the side. The Italian foot soldiers fled first, after them horsemen of various nations, and certain Hospitallers of Saint John, while the legate of the Roman see, and the patriarch, who was carrying the Cross, begged them earnestly to stand their ground, but in vain. The heat of the sun was intense, the foot soldiers were burdened with the weight of their arms. The difficulty of the way increased the heat, and those who had brought wine with them drank it unmixed in the distress of their thirst because of the lack of water.71
With all these things happening at the same time, those who defended themselves as they stood their ground and turned their backs on those who fled first in their breathless course were wiped out, collapsing without wounds. But the king, with the Templars, and the house of the Teutons, and the Hospitallers of Saint John, and the counts of Holland, and of Wied, of Saarbrücken and Chester, with Walter of Berthout, several counts of France and of Pisa, and other knights, sustained the attack of the pursuers. The king was almost burned with Greek fire; these men all served as a protection for those who were fleeing. As often as they showed their faces to the enemy, so often did the enemy flee, but as they gradually returned, these men had to sustain the blows and weapons of the enemy.
Captured in that defense of Christianity were the bishop-elect of Beauvais and his brother; the chamberlain of France and his son; the viscount of Belmont and brother of the bishop of Angers; John of Arcis, a noble and vigorous man; Henry of Ülmen; and many others who were massacred or taken into captivity. Thirty-three Templars were captured or killed with the marshal of the Hospital of Saint John, and certain other brothers of the same house. Nor did the house of the Teutons escape without loss. The army of the Temple, which is usually first to assemble, was last to retreat. Therefore, when it arrived last at our ramparts, it stayed without, so that it might bring those who were before it back within the walls as soon as it was possible. Our persecutors finally returned to lead off the captives and to gather their spoils, presenting, as we afterward learned from a Saracen, five hundred heads of Christians to the sultan.
Gloom took possession of our men, but not despair. For we know that this affliction was the punishment of sin, and that there was less in the punishment than our fault demanded, since he tempered the chastisement who says to the soul of the sinner, “Thou hast prostituted thyself to many lovers; nevertheless return to me, and I will receive thee” [Jer 3:1]. But it is clear to us that the unbelievers sustained grievous losses in their own picked army. That day “was the day of our tribulation, and of divine rebuke” [2 Chr 19:3]. Truly the Lord is merciful who “does not forget to show mercy, and in his anger will not shut up his mercies, who in time of tribulation forgiveth sins; who commanded light to shine out of darkness; who turns our mourning into joy” [Ps 76:9; 1 Cor 4:6; Est 13:17], our sorrow into gladness. For the sultan, sending one of our captives, began to negotiate with us concerning peace or a truce, during which negotiation we promptly repaired our ramparts and other fortifications.72
MEANWHILE the sailors, who were betrayers of Christianity, and with them very many pilgrims whose love of themselves was greater than their compassion for their brethren, before the time of the accustomed passage, left the soldiers of Christ in the greatest danger. Hoisting their sails and leaving port, they afforded dejection to us and courage to the Babylonians.
Interrupting our arrangement of peace on the vigil of Saints Cosmas and Damian and on the following feast day [September 26–28] and even on the next Saturday, with galleys and barbots on the river, and with mangonels, shields, and tree trunks for filling in the ditch on land, they attacked us with their usual barbaric ferocity and violence. But the mighty Warrior, the “Triumpher in Israel” [1 Kgs 15:29], using his customary kindness, defended his camp, sending Savary of Mauléon over the sea with armed galleys and very many warriors in this crisis of distress; and we, crying out to heaven, did not hesitate to rush into battle, but manfully stood our ground, killing, and forcing the enemy, wounded and confused, to withdraw from his three-day attack by the power of him who saves those who trust in him.
MEANWHILE the city, being grievously afflicted by the long siege, by sword, famine, and pestilence, even more than can be written, placed its hope solely in the peace which the sultan had promised the citizens. For famine had grown so strong in it that desirable foods were lacking, although spoiled foods abounded. For the grain of Egypt is not lasting on account of the soft earth in which it grows, except in the higher lands around Babylon where it is skillfully preserved for years; and as we heard, one fig was sold there for eleven bezants. Because of the distress of the famine, various kinds of diseases harassed them; among the other grievances which they suffered, they were said to see nothing at night, as if struck by blindness, though their eyes were open. The sultan, dissuading them from surrender, deceived the wretched men from day to day by empty promises. Finally, however, they blockaded their gates from within so that no one, coming to us from their number, might tell us how the days of affliction beset them. But any who could escape through the postern gate or down the walls by ropes clearly proved the distress of their people by their swollen and famished condition. The supply of bread and fodder began to diminish even for those who were besieging us from without in the army of the Saracens.
For the Nile, which usually overflows from after the feast of Saint John the Baptist [June 24] until the Exaltation of the Holy Cross [September 14] and irrigates the plains of Egypt, did not rise this year according to its custom to the mark which the Egyptians usually place, but, as we learned, left a great part of the land dry, which could not be plowed or sown at the proper season.73 Therefore the sultan fearing dearth and famine, and also because of his desire to keep Damietta, offered the Christians a peace with Coradin, his brother, on these terms: that he would give back the Holy Cross which had formerly been captured in the victory of Saladin, along with the holy city and all the captives who could be found alive throughout the kingdom of Babylon and Damascus, and also funds to repair the walls of Jerusalem. In addition he would restore the kingdom of Jerusalem entirely, except Kerak and [Krak de] Montréal, for the possession of which he would offer tribute for as long as the truce would last.74
Now these are two places located in Arabia, which have seven very strong fortresses through which merchants of the Saracens and of the pilgrims, going to Mecca or returning from it, usually cross; and whoever holds them in his power can very seriously injure Jerusalem with her fields and vineyards when he wishes. The king and the French and the count of Chester with the leaders of the Germans firmly believed that this arrangement was of advantage to Christianity, and ought to be accepted; and it was not to be marveled at, since they would have been satisfied with the much more insignificant peace which was formerly offered, had they not been opposed by wise counsel. But the legate, with the patriarch, the archbishops and bishops, the Templars and Hospitallers, and all the leaders of Italy and many other prudent men, effectively resisted this arrangement, showing reasonably that Damietta ought to be taken before everything.75 Difference of opinion produced discord which was quickly settled because of the common need. Meanwhile the sultan secretly sent a great multitude of foot soldiers through the marshy places to the city on the Sunday night after the feast of All Saints [November 2–3]; two hundred and forty of them attacked the palisades while the Christians were sleeping; but the outcry of the sentries roused us, and about two hundred or more, according to our count, were killed or captured.
ON NOVEMBER 5, in the reign of the Savior of the world, and with Pelagius, bishop of Albano, skillfully and vigilantly executing the office of legate of the apostolic see, Damietta was captured without treachery, without resistance, without violent pillage and tumult, so that the victory may be ascribed to the Son of God alone, who inspired his people to the entrance of Egypt and administered help there. And when the city was captured before the eyes of the king of Babylon, he did not dare, according to his usual custom, to attack through our rampart the soldiers of Christ who were prepared for the attack. At the same time also the river overflowed, filling our ditch with copious water. The sultan himself, in confusion, burned his own camp and fled. But God, who on the third day gathered the waters under the firmament into one place, who himself brought his soldiers through the waters of the sea to the harbor of Damietta on the third day of the month of May, led them over the Nile to besiege the city on the third day of the month of February, and himself captured Damietta located amid the waters, on the third day of the month of November.
We can liken this city, which was overthrown by a third shaking of the earth, to a destroying bull; we call it “bull” because of its wantonness. For because of its fishes, birds, and pastures, grain, gardens, and orchards, it grew rich by trading and by practicing piracy. It has overflowed with delights in its guilt, it has overflowed in hell. “But in one hour has thy judgment come” [Apoc 18:10]. We say “destroying” because its inhabitants perished in the third shaking of the earth, yet it remained unharmed itself. It was first besieged by the Greeks and Latins who finally went away from it; next by the Latins under Amalric, king of Jerusalem, who were not successful; but this third time, the “King of kings and Lord of lords” [Apoc 19:16] delivered it to his servants; Jesus Christ, who conquers and reigns and commands, “who for the Egyptians has dried up everything sown by the water, and hath confounded them that wrought in flax and silk, combing and weaving fine cloth” [Is 19:7–9]. With this Leader, the soldiers of Christ, attacking Damietta, found its streets strewn with the bodies of the dead, wasting away from pestilence and famine; very much gold and silver, silk stuffs of the merchants in abundance, various household goods in superabundance. In addition to the natural location of the place, by which it is fortified, this city is surrounded by a triple wall, stoutly protected by many large brick towers; it is the key to all Egypt, and its protection is well located between Raamses and the field of Tanis in the land of Gessen, as we can surmise because there is the pastureland which the sons of Israel sought from Pharaoh at the time of famine [cf. Gn 47].
DAMIETTA! renowned among kingdoms, very famous in the pride of Babylon, ruler of the sea, plunderer of Christians, seized in the pride of your persecutors by means of a few small ladders, now you are “humbled under the mighty hand of God” [1 Pt 5:6]; and casting out the adulterer whom you kept for a long time, you have returned to your former husband; and you who first brought forth bastards, now shall bear legitimate sons for the faith of the Son of God, being firmly held by the faithful of Christ. The bishop of Acre released from you the first fruits of souls for God by cleansing in the sacramental waters of baptism your little ones, who were found in you, alive by his power, even though they were near death. You have been subjected to manifold punishments because besides those who were taken alive in you, your dead of both sexes from the time of the siege round about you are computed at thirty thousand and more. The Lord struck them down without sword and fire, scorning henceforth to endure the uncleanness committed in you.
THEREFORE let the universal church rejoice by returning worthy acts of thanksgiving for such a triumph, and not only for Damietta, but for the destruction of the dangerous fortress of Mount Tabor and for our free approach into Jerusalem, that its walls may be rebuilt at the time foreseen by the Most High; besides, for the castle of the Son of God, which the army of the Temple, at great expense, is making useful and impregnable, concerning which we have written more fully above. Rejoice, province of Cologne, exult and give praise, because in ships, instruments of war, warriors and weapons, supplies and money, you have given more aid than the rest of the entire German kingdom! Our illustrious emperor and king of Sicily is being eagerly awaited by the people of God for the happy consummation of the enterprise. Thou, O Cologne, city of saints, who dwellest in the gardens of the roses of martyrs, of the lilies of virgins, of the violets of confessors [Sg 6:1–2], now rejoicing in a temporal peace through our venerable archbishop, because of the devotion of thy daughters, bend the knees of thy heart before the Most High, who has power of life and death. “Be not high minded, but in his sight fear, reprove your ways, lest the wrath of God which hath fallen upon thee” be turned into hail, but . . . since peaceful times have long been granted, serve him with a free mind, to whom is honor and excellence, might and power [Rom 11:20; Jb 13:15; 2 Chr 34:21].76
BEFORE the capture of Damietta there came to our attention a book written in Arabic, in which the author says that he was neither Jew nor Christian nor Saracen. But whoever he was, he predicted the evils which Saladin cruelly brought upon the Christian people in the destruction of Tiberias, and in the victory which he had over the Christians when he took captive the king of Jerusalem and its princes, occupied the holy city, and destroyed Ascalon. It also predicted how he tried to seize Tyre but did not succeed, and many other things which the sins of that time deserved. He also foretold the destruction of the gardens of the palm grove of the city of Damietta, which we saw had been accomplished when we examined this book through an interpreter. He also added that Damietta would be captured by the Christians; he does not use the name of Saladin, but points him out by means of his black eyes and saffron banners. Besides, he predicted that a certain king of the Christian Nubians was to destroy the city of Mecca and cast out the scattered bones of Muhammad, the false prophet, and certain other things which have not yet come to pass. If they are brought about, however, they will lead to the exaltation of Christianity and the suppression of the Agarenes. We know that certain heathen gentiles had the Holy Spirit on their lips, but not in their heart, and prophesied plainly about Christ; therefore we are not surprised if purer water flows through stone channels.77
Besides this, a report, spreading through the whole world, that Damietta had been captured by the Christians, caused a letter of the Georgians to be sent to the camp of the catholics. It said that that nation, angered and roused by shame, decreed and swore, as the king convoked the leaders, that she would besiege some famous city of the Saracens, alleging that she would be ashamed because the Franks, coming from regions across the sea, and from the uttermost bounds of the earth, over a vast ocean full of dangers, had captured so well fortified a city by a long siege, unless they themselves, for whom it was easier to attack the enemy, should capture Damascus, or another specified place, by the strength of their arms. Now the Georgians are believers in Christ, and are neighbors to the Persians, separated from the land of promise by a long stretch of country; their kingdom extends as far as the Caspian Mountains, on which ten tribes enclosed (there) await the time of Antichrist, for then they will burst forth and will cause great destruction. The Georgians are warlike men, having the tonsure on their heads, round for the clergy, and square for the laity. Their women of the noble class are trained for battle. When those men are going to attack the enemy in orderly array, each one drinks a small gourd filled with pure wine, and at once they attack their adversaries courageously.
We do not doubt that it is to be counted among the favors of Christ our protector, that he defended our leaders from the murderers of our persecutors in the siege of Damietta. For the Assassins and their chief, the Old Man of the Mountain, had the custom of casting knives against the Christians to cut off the lives of those who care for the business of Christianity.78 For at the time of the truce they wantonly killed the son of the count of Tripoli, a fine young man, who was prostrate before the altar in the church of the Blessed Virgin at Tortosa; wherefore the army of the Temple did not cease to pursue them for such a violation of religious liberty, until they were humiliated to the servitude of paying a tribute of three thousand bezants annually to the Templars.
AT THE time of the siege, Leo, king of Armenia, died at a good old age. Likewise the sultan of Iconium died.79 He is believed to have been baptized, and was so kindly disposed toward the Christians that when making war on the side of the Saracens he ordered the followers of Christ to be released whom he found in chains in the fortification which he attacked.80 He gave them their choice of returning into their own country, if they wished, or of receiving money from him and waging war under him if they preferred. So familiar was he with Christians, that he made them guardians of his own person, although his father had been killed by Lascaris the Greek. He also supported Miralis, the disinherited son of Saladin, against the sons of Saphadin, as far as the caliph of Baghdad, pope of his own race, permitted.81
Melchiseraph, son of Saphadin, inflicted many losses on the Templars when they were in the siege of Damietta; for he burned the town of Safita, and destroyed its fortified towers. But when he returned to his own land, he was conquered by the Saracens. At the same time Bohemond, count of Tripoli, attacking Antioch, forcibly ejected Rupen, a certain kinsman of his, from the rule of that city, choosing rather to have the pleasure of a temporal sin than to be afflicted along with the Christian people. Therefore the legate of the apostolic see officially proclaimed the sentence of excommunication and interdict against him and Tripoli and the lands in which he committed the crime.
“THE LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked. He hath broken the horn of the proud; he who above the sons of men is terrible” [Is 14:5; Ps 74:11, 65:5], has powerfully opened the gate of Damietta. As we were entering it, there met us an intolerable odor, a wretched sight. The dead killed the living. Man and wife, father and son, master and slave, killed each other by their odor. Not only were the streets full of the dead, but in the houses, in the bedrooms, and on the beds lay the corpses. When a husband had perished, a woman, powerless to rise and lacking the help of one to support her, died, not being able to bear the odor; a son near his father or vice versa, a handmaid beside her mistress or vice versa, wasted away with illness and lay dead. “Little ones asked for bread and there was none to break it for them” [Jer 4:4], infants hanging at the breasts of their mothers opened their mouths in the embrace of one dead. Fastidious rich men died of hunger amid piles of wheat, those foods being lacking by which they had been raised; in vain did they desire melons and garlic, onions, fish and fowl, fruits of the tree and herbs. In them was fulfilled the prophecy of the prophet: “Instead of a sweet smell there shall be stench, as rotten carcass shall not have company in burial” [Is 3:24, 14:19–20]. Almost eighty thousand, as we learned from the report of captives, perished in the city from the beginning of the siege to its end; all except those whom we found, healthy or ill, about three thousand in number. Three hundred of these, the more notable ones of both sexes, were kept for the ransom of our captives; some died after the victory, others were sold for a great price, and others were baptized and given to Christ.
THIS city fortified in degrees had its first wall low for the protection of the ditch, the second one higher, the third loftier than the second. The middle wall has twenty-eight main towers containing two or three tortoises each, which all remained unharmed along with the walls, except one which was considerably shattered by the frequent blows of the trebuchet of the duke of Austria. For our army was so given over to dissipation that the knights devoted themselves to leisure, neglecting the work of God, while the common people turned to the taverns and to fraudulent dealings. Two cats had been made at great expense to fill the ditch. One of them in the custody of the king, the other in the custody of the Romans, were burned when the guardians of the city were still powerful in arms. Two subterranean ditches were made to undermine the foundations of the fortifications; but that labor was frustrated after very much expense. The Lord wished to give the city unharmed, without loss of those capturing it, and that by reason of his power. We all swore in common that the spoils carried off from the city should be given up to be divided among the victors; this also was enjoined under terrible anathema by the legate of the apostolic see. Transgressors will remain to be reckoned in disgrace forever with Achan, who at Jericho took something of what had been anathematized [Jo 7]. Truly the concupiscence of the eyes made many men thieves. Nevertheless we received for the benefit of the state a great part of the luxuries of Egypt, in gold and silver, pearls and apples of amber, golden threads and various fringes, precious silken stuffs, as Isaiah enumerates: “In that day he will take away the ornaments of shoes, and little moons, and chains and necklaces, and bracelets and bonnets, and bodkins and ornaments of the legs, and tablets and sweet balls and earrings, and rings and jewels hanging on the forehead, and changes of apparel, and short cloaks and fine linen and crisping pins, and looking glasses, and lawns and headbands, and fine veils” [Is 3:18–23], which no one could list in full. But we are spending much time in considering them. These things were distributed through the army of the Lord with grain which was found in the city.
THE LEGATE of the apostolic see joined Damietta, with all her dependents and belongings, to the kingdom of Jerusalem forever. The mosque of Damietta, through the invocation of the holy and undivided Trinity, was converted into a church of the blessed and glorious Virgin Mary. Being built in square form, we can see almost as much of its width as we can of its length. It is supported by one hundred and forty-one marble columns, having seven porticoes, and in the middle a long wide-open space in which a pyramid ascends on high in the manner of a ciborium; beyond the west side a tower rises after the manner of a campanile. Four main altars are built in it: the first under the title of Blessed Mary; the second of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles; the third of the Holy Cross; the fourth of blessed Bartholomew, on whose feast the tower in the river was captured.
In Damietta were found four trebuchets with petraries and many mangonels; very strong ballistae with a lathe; on account of the multitude we do not know the number of hand ballistae and bows. Every kind of equipment for brave men that was found was kept for Christianity. Gold and silver, with pearls and other things easy to move, were divided proportionally not only among clerics and knights, but also among attendants, women, and children. The towers of the city with its homes were distributed among the kingdoms whose warriors had assembled for its capture; one tower was in the first place reserved, as was right and fitting, and was assigned to the Roman Church, with its gate, which formerly was called the Babylonian but now is called the Roman. Another tower also was reserved for the archbishop of Damietta; and as formerly Jerusalem, the holy city of the living God, was captured by the enemy at night, so the Christians obtained Damietta before dawn. The machine by which the tower of the river had been captured, the Germans and Frisians donated in common, and out of it was made a new bridge between the city and the fort which is constructed as a defense of the bank opposite the city. Two small fortresses were placed together for the protection of the bridge, by the same machine. Besides, from other trees on which the ladders hung, a watch place was set up on the summit of the new fort to point out the harbor to those sailing at a distance. An old bridge, which with an island in the middle touched both banks, had been attacked many times by the Saracens at the time of siege, and had been manfully defended by the Christians. Having done its work, it is kept for other uses.
BY NO less a miracle, but rather by a greater one did the Lord give to the Christians the fort of Tanis, in the month of November, on the feast of blessed Clement [November 23] who has his dwelling on the sea. For scouts were sent, about a thousand in number, in small ships through the little river which is called the Tanis, so that they might take food supplies for themselves from the casalia and carefully explore the location of the aforesaid place. The Saracens, who were in the garrison of the fort, seeing the Christians and thinking that the whole army was arriving, fled after locking the doors. But our men, having Christ alone as their leader there, breaking through the barriers, entered the fort. Returning they declared to us that never had they seen a stronger fort on a plain; it had seven very strong towers, fortified by tortoises, and a breastwork; and besides it was surrounded by a twofold ditch, each part of which is protected by a wall. A lake stretches out in breadth round about to such an extent that approach is impossible to our horsemen in winter, and so difficult in summer that it would never be taken by our army in siege. The lake abounds in fish, and from its fisheries four thousand silver marks were paid annually to the sultan of Babylon, as was told to us by elders; besides, it abounds in birds and saltworks; many casalia round about were subject to it.
The city beyond the fort, greater than Damietta, once famous but now in ruins, bears witness to the size of its buildings. This is Tanis, whose field the prophet mentions: “Wonderful things did he do in the sight of their fathers” [Ps 77:12]; and Isaiah: “Many princes of Tanis, the wise counselors of Pharaoh, have given foolish counsel” [Is 19:11]. This is Tanis, in which Jeremiah is said to have been stoned [Jer 52]. For when Jerusalem had been destroyed by the Babylonians, and Godolias had been killed by Ishmael [Jer 41], the rest of the people against the counsel of Jeremiah set out into Egypt, taking with them Jeremiah, who remained with them in Tanis, “and the word of the Lord was made known to Jeremiah in Tanis: ‘Take great stones and hide them in the vault that is under the brick wall at the gate of Pharaoh’s house,”’ etc. [Jer 43:8–9]. Afterward Jeremiah said to them: “Thus sayeth the Lord: I have sworn by my great name . . . that all the men of Judah that are in the land of Egypt shall perish by sword and by famine until they be wholly consumed” [Jer 44:26–27]. And the people rose against Jeremiah, and they stoned him with the stones which had been hidden under the brick wall. But the Egyptians honored the prophet, burying him next to the tomb of their kings, being mindful of the benefits which he had shown to Egypt. For by his words he had driven away the beasts of the waters, which the Greeks call crocodiles. Now Alexander the Macedonian, coming to the tomb of the prophet and being acquainted with the mystery of the place, transferred him to Alexandria and buried him gloriously. But we found and killed crocodiles at Damietta. Now this beast is cruel, devouring men and animals, and it cares for its eggs simply by watching them with its eyes open. Its young, being hatched, flee the parent as an enemy; for in an instant it gulps down and devours whomever it can snatch.82
Tanis is separated from Damietta by a journey of one day over the sea in the direction of the land of promise, so that it is easy to place a garrison there or to send food from Acre or from Damietta, across the sea or over land or by river. It caused many losses to the Christians in the siege of Damietta, when ships approaching us or going away from us were carried there by the force of the winds. For before Tanis, the coast, which is curved and without harbors, makes a wide, full bay; and ships drifting into it cannot withdraw without a wind that is highly favorable to them.
CORADIN, having returned from Egypt into Palestine, besieged the castle of Caesarea, which was in the custody of the king, and in a short time he captured and destroyed it while its defenders acted negligently; nevertheless they almost all escaped because they had a free entrance and exit over the sea. Next he proceeded to the castle of the Son of God with all his army, and regarding it from every direction, he shrewdly realized that it could not be seized; besides he found the Templars prepared for every danger; for they had reinforced the camp with provisions and with all the equipment of brave men. At the same time the Templars manfully drove back the bandits of the Saracens from Acre by killing some and capturing others. But Coradin demanded help from the Saracens, so that coming from the east they might besiege Acre, a thing which he could not accomplish because of the constant discord of the princes of the land themselves, which was highly favorable to the Christians, and which the caliph, their pope, labored to quiet.
IN THE year of the Incarnate Word 1220, Coradin, prince of Damascus, destroyed Safita. Now this was the strongest fort of the Templars, which Saladin, the scourge of the Christians, reduced by a long siege to such a point that the defenders, wasting away with hunger, and having obtained the permission of the master of the army of the Temple, surrendered it to the tyrant. What voice, what tongue can repeat for us the benefits of our Savior, multiplied without us? They are benefits of him whom an inherent goodness and natural clemency, and also the continued supplication of the church, have induced to look with a kindly eye upon the camp of the faithful because of the sweetness of their devotion! A plea softens him, a tear forces him, and how can the hand of a writer or the tongue of a speaker be sufficient for him for whose praise a conscience remaining quiet in the heart is not sufficient? However, it is pleasing to heap up and admire the marvels wrought in a short space of time which descended from the Father of Lights. The sons of Israel were at hand, going about with the ark of the Lord, sounding their sackbuts and shouting, on the seventh day, when the walls of Jericho fell, so that the people of the Lord might have free entrance [Jo 6:11–20].
But we slept before Damietta, cowardly and sluggish, benumbed and given ever to idleness; nonetheless, the walls of Jerusalem fell, and those of Mount Tabor, Safita, and the other fortifications opposing in a hostile way; besides, the Most High, against the will of certain false Christians, gave us Damietta. To this, from the treasure of his generosity he added the impregnable fort of Tanis with its supply of provisions in a hostile land—he who rained manna from heaven upon his believers in the desert. It is therefore clear to all, through the evidence of miracle, that this holy pilgrimage is pleasing and acceptable to God. May they blush and be confounded who received the rewards of the supreme king from his church, and, fighting indifferently or retreating before time, corrupted his pilgrimage; they will give an account to the Judge who cannot be either corrupted or deceived. Let the sluggish be aroused, who have not yet carried out their vow. For “it is ruin to a man to devour holy ones, and after vows, to retract” [Prv 20:25]. What excuse will they offer on the day of tribulation and distress, who took away the labors of others, killing souls to which preachers of the truth have given life [Ez 23:29]; who had regard for their own avarice and took the sign of the cross from the shoulders of the wretched, whom they made transgressors of their vow? Let them also return to wisdom whom guilt accuses and conscience convicts of this, that by alleging false reasons of poverty and debility, they have cheated the religion of those who have been examined, because only the judgment of God is according to truth.
But the defrauders of the alms which were collected for the aid of the Holy Land, because they have concealed their fault by lying to the Holy Ghost, shall perish and have their lot with Ananias and Saphira [Acts 5:9]; and with Judas, the most wicked thief and betrayer of his Lord, they shall be punished in hell because, though betrayers of Christianity, they kept for themselves the wages of fighting men, and gave their souls for transitory things. Cupidity has caused their theft and they are unmindful of Jerusalem our mother, who, lying prostrate on the ground, desires to be lifted up from her Babylonian captivity by those who are returning. Be consoled, “city of God, because nations from afar shall come to thee, and bearing gifts, shall adore the Lord in thee; they shall be cursed who despised thee, and they shall be condemned that have blasphemed thee. The blessed that built thee up shall rejoice. But thou shalt rejoice in thy children, and blessed are all they that love thee and that rejoice in thy peace” [Tb 13:10–18].83
IT HAPPENED when the year was changing, when kings usually set out to war [2 Kgs 11:1], that John, king of Jerusalem, left the camp of the faithful. He feigned many reasons for excusing himself and promised a speedy return, but forgetful of the past, he turned to the future.84 When the Lord opened his hand and filled the port of Damietta with abundance of grain, wine, and oil, and when a numerous band of pilgrims and horses had been added so that there might be no grounds of excuse for setting out upon an affair so happily begun, there arrived in the sixth passage the archbishops of Milan and Crete, the bishops of Faenza and Reggio, and messengers of Frederick the king, bearing letters with golden seals and announcing his arrival. There was present the bishop of Brescia and a copious army of Italy. But the legate considered that by a great privilege of grace and by divine bounty everything had been sufficiently attended to that the process of negotiation required; and he was struck with sorrow because time was passing away uselessly, and such a great opportunity was lost. Therefore, assembling the leaders, he, first of all, and after him the archbishop of Milan, and other bishops likewise, strove to urge an advance against the sultan who had pitched his camp on the Nile one day’s journey from Damietta. But the knights, after holding a deliberation, spoke against this exhortation, pretending this reason above all—that the king of Jerusalem was away by voluntary choice, and no other prince was present whom the people of different nations were willing to obey to lead out the people of God—and thus they agreed upon inactivity, from which evils were multiplied in the camp.
IN THE month of July came Count Matthew of Apulia with eight galleys, two of which were corsairs that he had captured as they were threatening the Christians on the sea journey.85
LET the temerity of human presumption blush, which trusts erroneously in its own strength or in the strength of others, and clearly is very often confounded. This appeared in the case of the aforesaid count. A previous report announced his arrival by frequent rumors, and, as if the negotiation would proceed only through him, its progress was hindered by delaying circumstances. But the memory of such great hope perished with a crash. It was not due to the count that the hope was not carried through to its desired consequence, because, as the legate witnessed, his will was prompt and the equipment which he had brought and which he afterward added appeared magnificent to all and in complete accord with military knowledge. Besides he made a sojourn in the army that was useful and suitable to the position of a soldier of Christ. But after he arrived at Damietta, the legate took counsel with any nation that was then in the camp who seemed to have the greatest zeal, and with Count Matthew himself, to whom an advance against the king of Babylon seemed advantageous. Next he called the princes and leaders of the multitude, and in a public address roused to labor a people who were sluggish and given over to idleness.
But the leaders, especially the Franks, spoke against this honorable exhortation, effectively inducing the earl of Arundel, a leader among the English, and the more noble among the Germans, to hinder the proposal of the legate. Among other trifling reasons, the absence of King John was frequently alleged who had acted contrary to the agreement which he had made at Acre when the pilgrims were about to sail into Egypt, that he would not desert them while he was alive and free. Contrary to his solemn agreement he returned to Acre; and not attending to the business of Christianity, he prepared himself and made a journey to Armenia. For having as his wife the daughter of Leo, the deceased king of Armenia, he aimed at the dominion of that region, as it is said; but being frustrated in his hope, he was not received by the barons of Armenia. At almost the same time the queen died, along with the king’s little son. Rupen, prince of Antioch, also sought this kingdom; a catholicos, primate of the aforesaid nation, powerfully besieged him in the city of Tarsus; he was taken and imprisoned, and died there. Now the catholicos favored the younger daughter of King Leo, to whom her father before his death made the princes of his kingdom swear fealty; he died a short time afterward.
THE LEGATE, after frequent public and private admonitions, grieved that so numerous an army was stationary, and not progressing, and would be going back in the next passage; finally by his example of action, he began to urge others to join the retinue, causing his tents to be pitched in a flat place. However, the opposition of the leaders prevailed to such a degree that even some Gallic and German mercenaries, who had accepted his money, hindered his plan of advancing. Certain of them were excommunicated, and others who were to be excommunicated afterward were disturbed, and were compelled to return the pay that they accepted according to proportion of time. The Italian soldiers by vain hope cheated the religious zeal of the legate, promising assistance for the advance, “but the sons of Ephraim, bending and shooting the bow, have turned back in the day of battle” [Ps 77:9]. For while they were clearly regarding the persistence of the legate and the boldness of the march against the sultan, they agreed with the dissenters mentioned above, and opposed the advance, although the Christians did not lack an abundance of soldiers or attendants. Galleys were in abundance, barbots were prepared, a numerous multitude of archers was present, there was a plentiful supply of provisions, there was a suitable place between the river on the right and the lake on the left, as if the Lord were saying to us: “What is there I ought to do more to my vineyard and I have not done it? Was it that I looked that it should bring forth grapes and it hath brought forth wild grapes?” [Is 5:4]. For besides the other things which were provided by the Lord for the setting out of the expedition, as we learned from our scouts, the king of Babylon then had little aid, and a great multitude of Bedouins had joined us and would have given their wives and children as hostages if they had known that the Christians had undertaken the attempt manfully, as we learned through their letters and messengers. And this seemed probable because they are subject under tribute to the sultan; indeed they formerly ruled in the land of Egypt until they were powerfully oppressed by Saladin and were scattered through the wilderness of the desert.
THE LEGATE, after much weariness, because he had an unwilling retinue and especially because the river overflowed at that time, withdrew to the previous camp, strongly urging the authors of the delay, in a public sermon, that the work of God, being happily begun, should not be ended and that they should judge themselves, lest they be grievously condemned by the Judge of secret things.
NO ONE can describe the corruption of our army after Damietta was given us by God, and the fortress of Tanis was added. Lazy and effeminate, the people were contaminated with chamberings and drunkenness, fornications and adulteries, thefts and wicked gains. Afterward, certain of our men set out for a day’s march into hostile territory, bringing back captives, oxen, and horses. Then the Templars, with their own special following, advanced in a swift march to a town on the seacoast, which is called Broil, and brought back many spoils—about one hundred camels, the same number of captives, horses, mules, oxen, and asses and goats, clothing and much household furniture, returning unharmed after two days. However, on account of a lack of water, many horses and mules died on the way, although the men themselves returned safe. The Teutonic house, with many others, met them for joy, but when they delayed behind the Templars (it is not fully known for what reason), the swift horsemen of the Turks made an attack on them at the sea. Terrified men from other nations fled from them, but the English, the Flemish, the Teutons, and Robert of Belmont sustained the attack as they came upon them. The preceptor and the marshal of the same house, with many other brothers and about twenty secular knights, were captured. Many horses of those who fled to defend themselves were killed because our men went out, not for battle, but to meet the Templars, and therefore were without crossbowmen and archers.
IN THE month of August there reached Damietta fourteen galleys equipped and sent at the same time by the doge of Venice, which brought some help to the Christians. At the same time the king of Babylon armed thirty-three galleys which caused us inestimable loss. For they captured the merchant ships, along with the men themselves, which were bringing supplies to Damietta; they even took the pilgrims captive, plundering and burning the ships. Besides, they attacked a large ship which was bringing Count Henry of Schwerin, and other Teutonic nobles who were coming to us. They, however, defended themselves manfully; and having killed and wounded many pirates they fortunately escaped, although they lost one vessel from the Teutonic house, with barley which Greek fire destroyed.
HERE we are forced to insert the account of an unfortunate mishap. Count Diether of Katzenellenbogen left us before the time of the passage with a great multitude of pilgrims, although he was strongly urged and admonished by the lord legate not to board that ship if he wished to set out for Thessalonica, but to go in a smaller vessel with a few men without diminishing the army. But he, with the master of the ship and many pilgrims, stubbornly took up the journey, and therefore, the legate of the apostolic see excommunicated that accursed ship and all who were sailing on it. Falling among pirates near Cyprus, it was burned. However, the shipwrecked count escaped, swimming away with a few men.
THE GALLEYS of the Venetians and others being requested to hurry, set out rather belatedly from the port of Damietta, going to Rosetta and Alexandria after we had suffered losses at the hands of the Saracens in the manner mentioned above.
CORADIN, knowing our inactivity, gathered an army from Syria, and more completely destroyed Jerusalem, the city of the living God, though it had been destroyed before. He scattered the cisterns that had previously been filled, had the city’s marble columns carried off to Damascus, and advancing through the mountains and fields of Palestine he laid waste its fruit-bearing trees and vines. The Templars, knowing that he wished to besiege the castle of the Son of God, began to destroy the deserted tower of Destroit in the upper section. But he, coming upon them later, razed it to the ground, cutting down the fruitful garden placed before it; he finally besieged the fort with a multitude of Turks, extending the line of their tents from the river to the saltworks. Now he derived this audacity from the fact that he knew that around the beginning of October the seventh passage had been so small; for we believe that not one hundred soldiers came to our aid then with military weapons and horses. But a great multitude of the people of Acre came to Damietta, being driven from their lands by the pronouncement of the church. From that number those were allowed to return whose poverty could be known to us; others returned without permission to the increase of their destruction; and still others returned to their own lands after extorting permission through fraud. But a few, who had a more rational attitude, remained with us in exile.
CORADIN, having established the siege, and fearing an attack from the camp, ordered a rampart to be made between the fort and his tents. He set up one trebuchet, three petraries, and four mangonels, and harassed the fortification night and day by blows of the machines. However, he could not move one stone from its place in the new towers and the middle wall. But the trebuchet of the camp, with a petrary and a mangonel placed next to it, battered and broke the trebuchet and the petrary of the enemy. In the residence of the Templars, moreover, four thousand warriors were fed daily, except those who at their own expense had come from Acre to defend us or to sell provisions. But the legate in haste requested the queen of Cyprus and the Christians, and the barons of Syria, through messengers and letters, to aid the fortress of Christianity. The master of the Temple, with a tested army of Templars, was permitted by the legate, because of such a great need, to return to the castle, and prepared to fight with Coradin. The men of Cyprus brought a great supply of soldiers and funds. Bohemond, likewise, and the lord of Beirut, Guy of Gibelet, with other pullani,86 quickly prepared themselves to help. Learning this through scouts and betrayers of the Christians, Coradin was struck with fear and basely withdrew from the siege, suffering great losses at the hands of those holding the castle, both in men and in horses. Like a proud and arrogant man, he had threatened that he would take the castle by a long siege; but divine power forced him to retreat after he burned his own camp around the beginning of November.
Now many of the defenders of the castle were wounded and a few died. May the Most High protect this home, built to the honor of the Son of God, hateful to the Saracens, but lovely to the Christians, the breastwork of the city of Acre, as it were. May the custody of angels be upon its walls “even to the consummation of the world” [Mt 28:20]. Truly, “we have faith in the Lord Jesus” [Eph 3:11–12], since he who began to destroy the enemies of the cross is steadfast in his grace, and will accomplish it at the time of His own good pleasure. For already we perceived a certain proof of divine vengeance; for in the siege of the castle, as we learned from our scouts, and clearly saw, since corpses were strewn through the fields, three emirs were killed there, and two hundred Mamluks most skilled in arms;87 but there was no count of their archers, and of those who were dragging them along in their machines, and who were destroyed by our crossbowmen, three hundred in number. In one day also were killed one hundred and twenty horses of great value, among which was one, bought for fourteen thousand drachmas, which Seraphus, sultan of Aleppo, sent to a certain emir for a gift; besides, the Saracens also sustained many losses of other horses and camels.88
IN THE month of November, Lord Frederick, son of the emperor Henry, was crowned emperor in Rome under Pope Honorius, in the great harmony of state and priesthood, and in the peace of the Romans.89 Being signed with the cross, he made ready to go to the assistance of the Holy Land, sending ahead the duke of Bavaria, who came to Damietta in the year 1221 in the eighth passage with the bishop of Passau, the marquis of Baden, Count Guy of Brienne, and other nobles in the month of May. The emperor committed his post to this leader until he should cross the sea in person. Then the legate of the apostolic see, considering the fitness of the time, and the cost of idleness, began to treat with the duke again about the business of war, for the forwarding of which he had remained in Egypt. Besides, the aforesaid duke urged that the multitude of the faithful should attack the camp of the sultan, before the river should take up its usual increase.
Therefore by the common plan of the barons, knights, and the common people we began to arrange tents up the river beyond the camp in the month of June on the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul [June 29]. It was known by the statement of the bishop-elect of Beauvais and of others who are detained in captivity, and by the story of very many, that if the legate had not been hindered by the opposition of those of whom we made mention above but, as he had ordered, had advanced against the sultan before or after the swelling of the river, then Egypt would have fallen to the lot of the Christians. For at that time the leaders of Egypt were disagreeing with the sultan; and like Rahab the harlot, begging the kindness of God for her people, for herself, and for her house [Jo 2], so the Egyptians sent presents and gifts to our captives in Cairo, begging that by means of them, they might find mercy at the hands of the victorious Christians.90 On the third day of the octave of the apostles [July 6], the legate, beginning with a three-day fast, and assembling the clergy with the archbishops and bishops, carried barefoot the saving banner of the Cross in procession beyond Damietta to the camp located where the river rises. On the next day King John returned to Damietta, bringing a numerous following.
“I WILL begin and I will make an end,” saith the Lord. “Behold I shall make a word, and whosoever shall hear it both his ears shall tingle [1 Kgs 3:11–12]. Mine is the dominion in the kingdoms of men, my counsel shall stand, and all my will shall be done; there is no one who can resist my countenance. There is no wisdom, there is no prudence, there is no counsel against the disposition of my will. For the whole world before me is as the least grain of the balance, and as a drop of the morning dew that falleth down upon the earth. Who shall say to me, ‘what hast thou done?’ or who shall withstand my judgment? I have found David my servant, with my holy oil I have anointed him [Is 46:10; Jer 49:19; Prv 21:30; Ws 11:23, 12:12; Ps 88:21], king of the Indies, whom I have commanded to avenge my wrongs [Dn 7], to rise against the many-headed beast, to whom I have given victory over the king of the Persians; I have placed a great part of Asia under his feet.”
The king of the Persians, being lifted up unto excessive pride, wished to be the monarch of Asia; against him King David, who they say is the son of Prester John, won the first fruits of victory. Then he subjugated other kings and kingdoms to himself, and, as we learned by a report that reached far and wide, there is no power on earth that can resist him. He is believed to be the executor of divine vengeance, the hammer of Asia.
INDEED after the capture of Damietta, the legate of the apostolic see had a book which was written in Arabic read aloud briefly and by means of an interpreter, in the hearing of the multitude; and as we considered and contemplated the antiquity of its bindings and maps, we discovered we ought to proceed. This book is entitled “The Book of Clement,” written as they say, from the lips of the Prince of the Apostles by Clement himself concerning the revelations made known to Peter by the Lord between his resurrection and ascension.91
Now this book begins from the creation of the world and ends in the consummation of time; and in it are read the precepts and counsels of salvation. He inserts prophecies, certain of which now clearly appear to have been completed, though some depend upon the future. Among other things, it is said that a watery city would be captured by the Christians along with one city of Egypt. The capture of Alexandria is also added, nor is Damascus omitted, which greatly tortured and is still torturing the servants of God. Besides, mention is made of two kings, one of whom, it is claimed, will come from the East, the other from the West, to Jerusalem in that year when Easter will be on the third of April. This book agrees in many things with the one of which we made mention above. Very many letters written about the victory of King David support this prophecy, along with the story well known among Christians and Saracens. We also see as a proof of this that the Christian captives of this king were freed by messengers of King David in Baghdad; these had been taken in the siege of Damietta, and the king of Babylon had sent them to the caliph as a gift.
ON JULY 17 the Christian army gathered at Fareskur, a casale three miles distant from Damietta, and being suitably drawn up in ranks of horsemen and troops of foot soldiers, they went forward quickly. Indeed estimators of the army enumerated twelve hundred men armed in military fashion, provided with the cavalry equipment necessary to accomplish such an undertaking, not counting the turcopoles92 and numerous other horsemen. We could not find out the exact count of armed foot soldiers because of their great number; the Saracens compared them to locusts because they occupied a great amount of land. We believe that four thousand archers assembled, almost twenty-five hundred of whom were mercenaries. Among the six hundred and thirty larger and smaller ships we clearly counted three hundred casques with eighteen armed galleys, and besides, there were scalanders,93 tartans,94 barbots, corsairs, and barks carrying cargoes with provisions. The number of the enemy was declared by fugitives to have been about seven thousand horsemen. The arrangement of the battle line was as follows:
The river on the right, covered over with ships, afforded protection in the manner of a wall; on the left side, the foot soldiers served as a breastwork, going forward in line and in a procession, as it were, in close formation. The lines of horsemen were stretched out diagonally from the river to the ranks of the foot soldiers, giving them support and receiving it from them. The lancers stayed constantly with the archers, sustaining the attack of the enemy with lances close-packed and leveled, if at any time they presumed to rush into close combat. Thus in the danger of horses and horsemen it was provided by prudent counsel that the pack animals should not be wounded.
The common people, unarmed, proceeded in safety with their bundles at the bank of the river, clerics, foot soldiers, and women carried water to those farther off; those who were more experienced against the snares of the deceitful, cautiously sustained the attacks of the enemy in the fore and rear guard. By public edict severe precaution was taken that no one should presume to go ahead of the foremost ranks or to fall behind the rear line or to break into the line in any wise. The scouts of the enemy regarding our forces from both sides of the river and marveling at the order of our military discipline, tried in vain to inflict losses; but such a great multitude of archers resisted them that we learned that on that day none of our men had been captured and none of our men had been wounded, who had stayed constantly with the four-sided battle line. The legate distributed wages with a generous hand to the knights and their attendants, he armed ships, sparing neither his body nor his possessions to accomplish the work, exhibiting all the diligence he could; in company with him King John of Jerusalem and the duke of Bavaria, the archbishops and bishops, and the masters of the houses toiled and labored at the undertaking.
ON JULY 19 the king of Egypt sent a stronger and greater proof of the might which he then had—four thousand horsemen, it seemed, who encircling the people of God timidly enough from without, at a distance, attacked the outermost lines of foot soldiers with arrows. Our men valiantly resisted them, not breaking their own lines in the least on account of this. On the following day, they besieged us more fiercely and compelled our men to use up quite a few arrows. In these two days the few Christians slightly wounded, and the very few dead, took away from the enemy the hope of winning a victory. Returning to their lord on the third day, they opened a peaceful way for us through Saramsah, burning their casalia before us. Nevertheless we found plenty of grain and barley and vegetables, even straw, and the fruits of gardens; the inhabitants with their women and children fled altogether before the face of the power of God.
ON THE vigil of Saint James [July 24] we pitched camp on a triangular head of an island where the Nile divides in two parts, and separates the former camp of the sultan from ours, and where he had made a delay after the capture of Damietta. In this spot the river of Tanis, withdrawing from the bed which goes to Damietta, forms with it an island. This island, extending twelve miles in length, contains many casalia located above the waters. Among those on the farther shore better known than the others and more wealthy, are Symon and Saramsah, in which there were the magnificent palaces of the king. This island has obtained a name, and is called the land of Damietta; the one which is across the river is called the land of Tanis, but the wider one which is found across the river of Damietta is called Mahalech. Beyond the river of Tanis, less than one day’s journey to the east, begins the solitude of the desert, in which, however, water is found at fixed watering places, sufficient for men and animals if it is increased by digging. Now it ends at Darum and Gaza. Babylon, being located in the south, causes the land of Egypt to be called Babylonia. The plan of this city, divided into three parts, forms a triangle. The city of Babylon itself, built upon the Nile, is extensive in its length and width, having narrow streets and dwellings crowded together because of the great number of people. In it there are very many churches of the Christians, and a numerous multitude of these same people serve the prince of the land under tribute. In it are set down the wares of traders coming from Leemannia, Ethiopia, Libya, Persia, and other regions.95 From the side opposite Damietta at a distance of almost a mile, Cairo spreads out in buildings and spacious streets; it has magnificent mansions, in which the barons of the land and the nobler citizens stay. This city does not descend entirely to the river as does Babylon, but a space planted with rushlike roots is found between. At a distance a rather high watchtower, the royal fort, stands out, plain to see, and well protected by great towers. The great buildings are arranged in a threefold way after the manner of a triangle. Now from both sides of the fort the wall comes down, enclosing Cairo and Babylon, but a sandy stretch lies between these three buildings, in which a numerous army can remain.
BETWEEN Cairo and Babylon they point out the church of Blessed Mary where she is said to have made a pause with the child Jesus, when she fled into Egypt and the idols of Egypt fell. Cairo is a three-day journey distant from Damietta. From Cairo to the garden of balsam, there is a distance of a mile; this garden, which has sandy soil, is enclosed by a wall. There is a fountain in the middle and from it is derived a tale of the ancient people which is spread abroad by a famous story, that the glorious Virgin drew it forth by her prayer, and washed the clothing of the infant Savior in it. Now this garden is cultivated in the manner of vineyards. A trunk of this garden has the thickness of a plant; its branches shoot out from the trunk to the height of one cubit in the manner of a willow, and its bark is knotty and lined, and of a whitish color. Its wood is called sirobalsam, its seed, carpobalsam, its sparse and pointed leaf, like the leaf of the licorice, is called filobalsam, and also opobalsam in whose branches the farmers make cuts in certain parts of the bark where the balsam is drawn forth, so that the liquid, collecting by degrees, may run out through them. In autumn the balsam is collected in this way: A branch is twisted and scratched with a nail; through this small opening a drop is caught and kept in dishes; next it is melted for twenty days in the sun, and afterward is skimmed off at the fire; the fluid is poured off into bottles, for of the original substance, very little unmixed balsam remains after the purification. But the sellers and resellers usually mix in pine resin or turpentine and deceive the buyers, and therefore it is rarely found pure at the hands of venders. The sultan usually distributed it in bottles among the princes of the earth as a great gift. The master of this garden is a Christian, having Christian and Saracen servants under him.
BELOW Cairo an island extends for a stretch of three miles in length and width, where the Nile divides its waters into two parts, touching the bank of Damietta on one side, and of Rosetta on the other. Rosetta was a great city, now in ruins, between Alexandria and Damietta, but much closer to Alexandria, and two days away from Cairo. At Rosetta and above it, the river is wider, the water deeper, the harbor calmer than at Damietta; for it receives heavily laden ships, and it is possible to place a large army on the aforesaid island. When we were at its head in the siege of Damietta, the sultan wished to take the river from us; having tried often but in vain to cause its waters to flow into a channel; after great expense he left its course to nature. From Babylon on the upper side to Leemannia, the culture of the land is hedged in by both sides of the river, having vast solitudes on both sides. Leemannia abounds in a variety of spices which she sends out and which various traders of the kingdom carry away.
BEYOND Leemannia, Ethiopia holds very broad lands, and has an innumerable Christian population partly under Christian kings and partly under the rule of the Saracens. Here are the Nubians who are joined in the sacrament of the altar, and in other Jacobite divine offices, with this exception: The Nubians are the only ones who imprint upon their little ones with heated iron a threefold character of the cross on the forehead near the eyes on both sides. Nevertheless they do baptize. The former and the latter have the Chaldean writing; they use leavened bread for the Holy Eucharist; they make the sign of the cross with one finger; they say that two natures are united in the one nature of Christ, perhaps using equivocally the name of nature, so that in the second place they take “nature” for “person.”96
THE GEORGIANS and the Greeks agree in everything pertaining to divine services, but the Georgians have their own writing. While we were carefully examining their books on the mountain of Saint Simeon on the Pillar, where they have their own church, we learned through an interpreter that they have the same order of Gospels that the Latins have, and the canons of the Gospels on arcuated columns as we do. The order of the Epistles of Saint Paul is exactly the same with them as it is with us; they put the Epistle of Saint Paul to the Romans before all the others.
THE MARONITES have their patriarchate on the side of Mount Lebanon. These received the plan of their ecclesiastical rites from Pope Innocent in the last Lateran Council, and they observe it insofar as their writing allows, which is Chaldean, or near-Chaldean. To these people on the side of the same mountain are joined the Neophorites who keep their law concealed.97 They do not explain it to their sons and grandsons until the thirtieth year of their age. It is an evil law that desires to be kept secret and not to appear in the light. When we wished to know, as we were passing through that section, why they never revealed their law to their wives or daughters or sisters except at this age, one of the older men answered that women were made by the devil. And we responded, “When you embrace women of this kind, do you therefore embrace the devil?” Whereupon he withdrew from us confused. Certainly the Christians are sorry that they have such neighbors.
THE ARMENIANS have their own writing. In the field their priests set aside the grain from which they wish to make unleavened hosts; they thresh it separately from the common crop; they grind it separately and on the day when they wish to consecrate the Body of the Lord, with the singing of psalms before the altar they prepare the flour and sprinkle it with water for the paschal bread, which is in the shape of the Latins. They celebrate with great devotion. However, they are very much to blame in this, that they do not celebrate the Nativity of the Lord with us; they plow and sow on that day while their women spin and card wool. They call the day of the Epiphany “baptisterium”; on this solemnity they assemble with a great crowd of people. They celebrate the Nativity of the Lord with the Epiphany, saying that the Lord was born on the same day as that on which he was baptized after a few years had elapsed. They say that they are subject to Roman laws and they have a catholicos as primate whom they obey in all things.
STOPPING at Antioch, we carefully examine the Nestorians, who have their church there, and who say that they believe that two natures are united in the person of Christ. They confess that the Blessed Virgin is the mother of God and of man, and that she bore both God and man, which Nestorius denied. But whether they believe in their hearts as they confess in their lips, God knows.
THE SYRIANS have the Greek writing, chant, and ritual sacrifice, but the Arabic language in common with the Saracens in the deeds and letters which they draw up.
THE JACOBITES for the most part throughout Egypt are circumcised, but those who remain among the Medes and Persians are content with baptism.98
THE RUSSI have their own language, but in divine services they are found to be like the Greeks in everything. These different kinds of Christians are mingled with the Saracens throughout all Asia, and so that perfidious nation cannot excuse herself on the ground of ignorance.
WE have made this long digression not without reason, so that the location of Egypt and the course of the river as well as the variety of Christian inhabitants who are in Asia may appear more clearly to the faithful.99 Now, as we return to the order of our history, let us sprinkle this book with tears, weeping and grieving for the loss and disgrace of Christianity.
An advance to the great and famous casale of Saramsah, of which we made mention above, was of advantage to the army of Christ. Therefore, after the capture of Damietta, the sultan, prudently looking out for what could happen in the future, destroyed the casale as well as his beautiful palace located on the Nile. Beyond that spot the river curves and turns back and a certain little stream, coming from the island of Mahalech, flows into it; taking on depth from the waters which increase as they spread out, it is able to bear galleys and other vessels of moderate size. When our leaders saw it, they scorned it and passed it by, hastening to the head of the island. The people also, in hopes of plunder, because it was falsely announced to them that the sultan was preparing for flight, hurried eagerly like birds to a snare, and fishes to a net. But when the king of Babylon was informed that Saramsah had been abandoned from the rear, he united foot soldiers and horsemen from his own kingdom, from Cairo and Alexandria particularly, in an attack on those who were arriving. Whereupon, our captives, considering the fact that Cairo had been evacuated by its inhabitants, formed a plan to seize the towers at our arrival, and to open them to those who were approaching. But a divine Providence which mercifully “heard the groans of them that were in fetters” [Ps 101:21], and the labors and sorrows of those who were in bondage, released them through our distress.
WHILE this was taking place in Egypt, Seraphus, king of Edessa, the city of the Medes, with Coradin, lord of Damascus, and the leaders of Hama and Homs with a great multitude of horsemen, gathered from all regions of the east, and assembled at Homs. As a result great fear struck the people of Antioch and Acre, and other cities on the coast whose warriors were absent since they had set out on an expedition. Those in Safita, in the country of Tripoli, were especially concerned about this assemblage.
Long and earnestly did the forenamed princes deliberate whether they should come to the aid of Egypt themselves, or whether they should divide the army of the Christians by besieging some one of their fortresses. The power of King David influenced them, since as victor over the king of the Persians in the lands of the Persians and in those of Baghdad, he was acting powerfully, and on account of him they were afraid to go far from their own lands. They also reflected that the castles of the Hospitallers or the Templars could not easily be captured in a short time. Finally the counsel of those who urged advance into Egypt prevailed, especially because their brother frequently sent messengers on courier camels begging them to come. He added that the Christians had taken up their position in such a place that they could not leave it without danger, or that if they could not prevail against them when they came, they would at least arrange peace with them. The queen of Cyprus wrote to the legate, and the brothers of the Hospital and of the Temple wrote to their masters about these troops and their plan, urging them not to retreat from Damietta; or, if they had gone out, to look out for themselves in safe places. But now just when the sins of us all needed it, sane counsel was far removed from our leaders; like Julius Caesar, repeatedly forewarned, and like Alexander the Macedonian, warned in the silence of the night, they neglected to employ precautions against physical danger.100 The Lord himself spoke through Moses to the sons of Israel: “Go not up nor fight, for I am not with you, lest you fall before your enemies” [Nm 41:42]. They went up, nonetheless, and they fell conquered.
But King John, reflecting more deeply on the matter, wisely showed that the proposal so often proffered by the enemy ought to be accepted, rather than that the people of the faithful, being led forth on a longer march, should be exposed to chance accidents. But the supreme pontiff forbade any agreement without a special decree of the Roman Church; the emperor, through letters sealed with gold, would not permit peace or a treaty to be arranged with the Saracens.101
MEANWHILE we strengthened our fort by a deep ditch; on the other hand our adversaries made a wall of earth and high bulwarks on the opposite banks of both rivers, setting up on them machines, petraries, and ballistae with a lathe, causing serious injury to the men and to the animals which were taken out to drink. The strength of our adversaries increased daily; our gathering, being depleted, proved unfaithful. As the time for passage drew near, timidity increased among those who, going away openly or deceitfully, deserted us in the camp. Many ships also, that went to Damietta to bring food, could not return. For on the eighteenth day of August four of our galleys were captured or sunk in the river; this gave added courage to the enemy. For the sultan had sunk some of his galleys all through the river, of which we made mention above, below our camp through the island of Mahalech at the bank of the river, without our knowledge; this cut off passage for our men, so that they could go neither up nor down. Besides, since a multitude of armed men had wisely been stationed there, a continual guard night and day watched both banks as far as Damietta, so that our people could neither send nor receive messengers.
FROM the day when we lost the river our men frequently assembled to consult together, and to ponder what would be more expedient: to wait in camp for the galleys promised by the emperor, or to go out, no matter what the loss, because of our dwindling supply of food. The greater number counseled going out, which was more dangerous because of the arrival of the enemy and the decided hindrance of the waters. But a certain one102 of the lesser members, who saw and heard these things and described them with a crude but truthful pen, proposed David as an example, who having choice among three things, any one of which was hard, chose not a famine of seven years, nor to be conquered by an enemy for three months, but what was the common wish of the king and the poor people: a pestilence of three days. Wherefore he answered, when he was consulted, as did the weak and infirm whom there were not sufficient ships nor animals to carry, that help should be awaited in a fortified place, since the provisions, if they were carefully distributed, could last even for twenty days. Nevertheless this plan was not accepted, but a departure, and that by night, was more favored. In this, the opinion of the bishop of Passau and that of the Bavarians prevailed.
THEREFORE on August 26, in the first watch of the night, when the tents were taken up, the first men, following the judgment of their own will, and not that of reason, put fire to the tents. Then others also did it eagerly, as if they were announcing their own flight, and inviting the Egyptians, who had already surrendered their bodies to sleep, to follow us. At the same time the Nile had received its full increase, and, as its waters surged even higher than usual, it had flooded the fields. The forenamed kings also came through the desert above the river Tanis at Symon, where a bridge was built, and stopped and encamped. It added greatly to our misfortune that the people were greatly intoxicated that day with wine of which there was such an abundance that it could not be brought along; but being freely exposed, it had overwhelmed the unwary, who remained sound asleep in the camp or prostrate on the road. They were unwilling to be roused, and in great part they left us, being either cut off or captured.
Others came into the overflow of the river in the shadows of night, and struggling wretchedly in the deep mire, stayed behind the others. Others, falling into the ships and pressing them down too much with their weight, were drowned. On the same night we lost camels and mules carrying burdens, including the silver vessels, clothing, and tents of the rich, and what was more disastrous, the arrows of defense. The Templars, bringing up the rear at their own great risk, stayed constantly together as a protection for those who went ahead, as they were prepared with weapons. But those who went ahead, going into different roads, wandered through the darkness of the night like sheep astray. The Egyptians were informed of our flight by the fire and smoke and promptly followed after us. They reached us even more quickly and inflicted on the Christians losses which we cannot describe. No less danger and injury was sustained by those who went down in a ship along the bank. The ship of the legate, carrying a great number of the sick, as well as provisions, was extremely well fortified with armed men and archers, just as if it were a fort, and valiantly protected the galleys which naturally stayed close together. But hurrying too much, perhaps because of the force of the current, and being fatally separated from the land army, it could not supply food to us at the proper time. Furthermore, one of our ships filled with German warriors got too far away from the legate’s ship and was surrounded on all sides by galleys of the enemy; while sinking one of them into the deep after a long defense, it caught fire and destroyed the combatants. A scalander of the legate carrying many temporal goods, and one small galley of the Templars in which were fifty ballistae, besides other equipment of brave men, was seized and went out of our possession.
Why do I linger over the enumeration of the losses which that night caused us? “Let a darksome whirlwind seize upon that night, let it not be counted in the days of the year, nor numbered in the months. Let that night be solitary and not worthy of praise” [Jb 3:6–7]. In the beginning of this night the king of Egypt, quickly sending messengers, had the sluices broken (which those people usually call “calig”) through which there could be a passage for us. Their own night is memorable to the Egyptians, and to us also. When the banks had been burst to a great extent, the superabundance of water, following the declivity of the reservoirs through conduits, softened the earth, made dry by long drought, into sticky mud which held tight the horses’ hooves; it made the open space of the fields quite impassable and greatly hindered horses and riders.
AROUND the first hour of the following Friday [August 27] there appeared the great and fearful cavalry of the Turks harassing us at the right; annoying galleys went up and down at the left; a phalanx of black Ethiopians going on foot and using the marshy places for a camp pressed upon us savagely from the rear; and also a wedge-shaped formation of enemies, coming from the front, denied us rest. In this contingency King John made an attack on the Turks who were opposite him, and returned to his own battle line. The Templars, with the Hospitallers of Saint John who at that time were united with them, did not tolerate the insolence of the Ethiopians. As they massacred them they made them jump onto the bank like frogs, and even drove them back when they wished to approach the bank on our side. Thus about a thousand of the great multitude, swimming away or suffering wounds, perished. On account of this misfortune our opponents retreated a little.
And since we were not permitted to go forward, the king ordered a few tents, which had stayed behind, to be taken up; nevertheless, through that whole day our adversaries stayed close to us, attacking us fiercely with their archers. We put our foot soldiers against them as a rampart and used them also, for they shot back the arrows directed against us. Our horsemen, laboring under the constant weight of their armor, served as a protection to the foot soldiers. On the following night, whether by the command of the sultan or without his knowledge, the Egyptians broke open the floodgates and made the waters pour in upon the heads of those who were sleeping. Before daybreak, when darkness still covered the earth, the Ethiopian foot soldiers who had escaped the grasp of the river came, desiring to avenge their losses; they swarmed like locusts, and although for the greater part they were naked, they attacked our rear lines. You could see that our knights and their attendants were attempting flight in a closely packed throng; and the common people, being unarmed, displayed manifest timidity, but being blocked on all sides by the waters and the enemy, they had nowhere to flee. However, the marshal of the Temple with his battle line which he was leading, raised his banner, turned upon those who were pursuing, and forced them to halt and retreat.
AT THIS juncture, distress which gave understanding persuaded the leaders of the multitude to send messengers for terms of peace. But Imbert, a worker of great evil, took with him those whom he could get away, and went over to the enemy, explaining the whole of our distress to the sultan. This Imbert usually took part in the secret councils of the lord legate, and was by far the worst traitor of that time.103 Nevertheless, the sultan heard the messengers patiently, and, pending a confirmation, ordered his men to cease from disturbing us. And although his brother, and especially the lord of Homs, who was extremely hostile to the name of Christian, tried to dissuade him from an agreement, saying that since the Franks were blocked on all sides by water, they could not escape, he himself, like a wise and mild man, desired an arrangement of peace more than the shedding of blood. Therefore, he held a secret council with his brothers and the great men of his kingdom. He proposed as an example the king of the Persians, who was exceedingly lifted up in mind because of many events, and shook off the yoke of subjection or servitude to the king of Babylon himself and other kings of Asia. King David conquered him on the battlefield, took away Persia, and destroyed its greatest and wealthiest cities. After this, the messengers of peace spoke on both sides, as is usually done in matters of this kind, and protracted the business all through the Saturday and Sunday following, even until evening, settling upon nothing definite.
ON THE very day of the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist [August 29], at about the twelfth hour, our side, urged on by the lack of food and fodder, but especially by the great size of the waters, decided that it was more honorable to live happily or to die bravely in war, than to perish infamously in the flood. So when all the Franks had been roused to combat, battle lines were drawn up here and there looking upon each other fiercely and dreadfully. But the Turks realized that he who provokes an enemy is by his own fault bound by a yoke; they retreated a little upon receiving a command from their king, and the arrival of nightfall prevented a battle. Besides, while the treaty of peace was pending, a display of treachery was feared by wise men, if the common good were to be destroyed by a dangerous attack.
AND SO on the thirtieth day of August, being forced into a lamentable peace by the perversity of circumstances, we surrendered to the Egyptians and Assyrians, that we might be filled with bread; and thus the flood of waters and the lack of food, not the bow or the sword, humbled us in the land of our enemies. An astonishing thing, an astounding thing, a thing to be handed down to the knowledge of the future: At one and the same time the just judgment of divinity appeared and the moderation of mercy shone clearly in opportune assistance. The enormity of our evil deeds and the vast number of our crimes were compelling the vengeance of divine decision, but the natural fount of goodness, whose property it is always to have mercy and to spare, mitigated the sentence of just severity. For this did we fall into danger, that by the mediation of mercy, a miracle might shine forth. “God will not have his creature to perish, and recalling, intends that he that is cast off should not altogether perish” [2 Kgs 14:14]. The angel of great counsel, speaking for man, as one among thousands appealed for us, announcing the justice of man [Jb 33:23]; for although we may be sinners, nevertheless, carrying his cross we have left homes or parents or wives or brothers or sisters or sons or fields for the sake of him who shows anger placidly, Who judges calmly, Who chastises lovingly, having the blows of a father, but the heart of a mother.
AND SO when the conditions had been laid down according to the decisions of the sultan, the documents of the contracts were completed by both sides, oaths were sworn, and hostages were named. The sultan, therefore, placing his right hand on a paper which he had signed, swore in this way: “I, Kamil, king of Babylon, from a pure heart and a good will, and without interruption, do swear by the Lord, by the Lord, by the Lord and my law, that I will in good faith observe all the things that this written paper contains which is placed under my hand. If I shall not do this, may I be separated from future judgment and the society of Muhammad, and may I acknowledge the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” In this manner swore Seraphus and Coradin, and their more eminent emirs. Behold under how many mistakes and contradictions is that blind nation laboring; three times they name God, but not knowing the mystery of the Trinity, they are unwilling to distinguish the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, to the increase of their own damnation. If they swear in bad faith or with any interruption of the form of the ritual, they say that they are not under obligation.
Now this writing contained an agreement of this kind: that they would restore the True Cross, along with all captives taken any time at all in the kingdom of Babylon, or all Christians held in the power of Coradin; and that when they had received Damietta with all its belongings, they would send us all away free, as well as all our movable goods, and would faithfully keep a truce of eight years. Our leaders swore that they would free all Saracen captives, whom they were holding in the two kingdoms of Egypt and Jerusalem; that they would restore Damietta and would observe the treaty, unless our crowned king who was coming should wish to break it. Besides, twenty-four hostages were given, whom the sultan chose: the legate, the king of Jerusalem, the duke of Bavaria, and three masters of houses, along with eighteen others. On the other hand, the son of the sultan, heir of the kingdom, and one of his brothers of whom there are many, and sons of nobles were given to us until our return to Turo and the port of Damietta.
LET all posterity know that in view of the critical point of our necessity, we made an excellent bargain, when the wood of our redemption was restored to us in exchange for one city which Christianity could not hold for long, since grain or wheat is spoiled there in less than a year and the master of Egypt himself can scarcely keep it peopled; and when so many thousands of captives, in whose number we counted ourselves, from the greatest to the least, were restored to their own freedom. When the emperor Heraclius entered Persia, he captured it with difficulty after five successive years; and having defeated Chosroes, he carried the Cross of the Lord in triumph and brought the patriarch Zachary back to Jerusalem with his captive people.104 The sultan had been keeping as captive the patriarch of Alexandria, a man of great piety and perfection of morals; he sent him back to us as we were going up the Nile, released from his chains and free from the squalor of prison. The enemies of the cross declare that they were deceived in this agreement, saying that they had regained their own city of Damietta, that they had destroyed Jerusalem, and other fortresses of this illustrious kingdom, but that the Christians had erected one impregnable fort in Palestine itself, very dangerous to them and without their consent.
Besides, if we had been completely destroyed, or imprisoned after losing all our possessions, and if Damietta had been lost without any recompense, the rest of the land which the worshippers of Christ hold would have wavered on the edge of certain danger. For those who had remained to guard Damietta, when they heard our adverse circumstances, left the city and fled, for the most part. Not only did they flee, but also those who had but recently arrived heard the unfavorable report and returned. The count of Malta reached Damietta around the end of August with forty galleys. Pirates despoiled the Hospitallers of Saint John and the Templars of their goods, killed one noble knight and religious brother of the Temple who was defending what had been entrusted to him, and fatally wounded another brother, a Teutonic knight.
BEFORE the restoration of Damietta the sultan began to carry out what he had promised. For he commanded that the bishop-elect of Beauvais and certain other captives be released from chains and brought to their own camp. The master of the army of the Temple and the master of the Teutonic House were sent by the leaders to surrender the city in accordance with the pledge and assurance of their oath.105 This was done without great difficulty. For among the new pilgrims who were arriving, there was not to be found a man powerful, vigorous, and constant enough to be either willing or able to hold it after the aforementioned happenings.
“THE BEAST has gone into his covert, and abides in his den” [Jb 37:8]. If it is asked why Damietta returned so quickly to the unbelievers, the reason is clear: It was luxury loving, it was ambitious, it was mutinous; besides, it was exceedingly ungrateful to God and to men. For to pass over other things, when that city had been given to us from on high by heaven in the distribution of the riches that were found in her, not an old woman nor a boy of ten years and over was excluded; to Christ alone, the bestower of the goods, was a share denied, not even a tenth being paid to him. Formerly Roman pagans dedicated a golden vessel to Apollo under the form of tithes; the sons of Israel according to custom assigned to the Lord his share of the spoils of the enemy; the sons of Israel said to Moses when they had conquered the Midianites, “We offer as gifts to the Lord what gold we could find in the booty, in garters, rings, tablets, bracelets, and chains” [Nm 31:50].
In the distribution of towers and dwellings most praise was deservedly given to that obedient and energetic nation, who from the beginning attacked Damietta with great courage, and considered no position either humble or lowly;106 by the fleet of ships which it brought, the camp of the faithful was supplied with food and weapons, the tower of the river was captured, the crossing to the opposite bank was organized, the upper and lower bridges were built, the watchtower of Turo was constructed, the walls of the rampart were fortified. It has consolation in the face of such ingratitude since “God will render the inestimable reward” of his slaves “and will conduct them in a wonderful way” [Ws 10:17].
O LOVER of men, King of glory, Savior of the world, who hast holy knowledge and omnipotence above all power, who dost reprove some and dost console others, thou didst humble our pride by taking away Damietta from the ungrateful and by mercifully preserving Armenia and Antioch against the efforts of wicked men. For those who were in the fortress inflicted great disaster upon Christianity, but those who were then in the valley added irreverence to wickedness; as they presumptuously gathered in defiance of thy goodness, from one side thy justice appeared plainly, and from another the mercy of thy customary goodness clearly shone on those who were willing to open their eyes.
RUPEN, formerly lord of Antioch, was of very noble stock, but because of a lack of discretion he was unsuitable for the management of great things; with the help of Guérin, master of the Hospital of Saint John, and of those whom he could persuade, he seized Tarsus, attacking the Armenians because of a desire for kingdom. This did not escape the Turcomans of Iconium. They were encouraged by the discord of the Christians, and attacked Armenia with troops. But as the leaders of that kingdom, in making their complaint, affirm and state on peril of their lives, the army of Christians in that region at that time was reduced to about twenty thousand after they counted those who had been killed or captured by the Saracens, and also after many had fled because of the loss of their goods.
THEREFORE in addition to all thy praise, insofar as I am able and as thou wilt permit, I shall continue by adding the following things.
IN THE year of grace 1222 in the month of May it happened that there was a great earthquake on Cyprus, in Limassol, Nicosia, and other places of that island, especially in Paphos, to such a degree that the city was completely destroyed along with the fort; human beings of both sexes who were there at the time of the earthquake were completely lost; the harbor was dried up, where afterward waters or fountains burst forth.
IN THE month of June in that same year Coradin assembled a numerous army from Arabia, Palestine, Idumea, and Syria—ten thousand horsemen, and fifteen thousand foot soldiers—against Guy of Gibelet who, like a vain and wicked man, did not wish to take part in the general truce, nor to return the captive Saracens whom he held. Although he was well enough fortified by the difficult nature of the region and by the help of Christians, nevertheless he submitted to a truce with Coradin that was injurious to him and shameful to the Christian name.
IN THE month of June in the same year, the boy Philip, son of Bohemond, prince of Antioch, became a knight in Armenia; he married the daughter of Leo, formerly king of Armenia, and was solemnly crowned with her as king of that kingdom. And when the nuptials were being celebrated, and the Armenians were joyfully assembled for the great affair, Turks from Iconium savagely attacked that land with a great multitude, massacring whomever they could find and taking away much plunder with them. At the same time Bohemond, prince of Antioch and count of Tripoli, was present. Although he had only a few Latins with him at the time, since he had not foreseen this mishap, nevertheless, with his son the king he promptly and vigorously pursued the enemy over long, hard roads. Although many of his number were killed, like a vigorous man, and one skilled in arms, he drove them out beyond the boundaries of Armenia. After this, the Armenians recovered a certain well-fortified camp, Siblia by name, located at the boundaries of Armenia and Turkey, which the sultan of Iconium had taken away from them along with other fortresses after the death of Leo.
MEANWHILE Frederick, emperor of the Romans and king of Sicily, sent four galleys to Acre, summoning the king, the patriarch, and the master of the Hospital of Saint John. They crossed in the month of September, hastening to the Council of Verona, which had been proclaimed by the supreme pontiff and the emperor for the feast of Saint Martin [November 11]. At the same time, along with the aforementioned princes, came Lord Pelagius, bishop of Albano, a legate of the apostolic see. The master of the Temple, with the army of the same house, remained in the land of promise for the protection of Christianity, according to the common advice of the barons, after sending discreet and honorable messengers to the council.107
In a single manuscript of this work in Darmstadt, this appendix follows chapter 53. It seems to have been written by a different hand, and it is uncertain whether it is the work of Oliver.
WHEN this had been so accomplished, our pilgrims grew sluggish through idleness and riotous living, and, being eager for earthly gain, they provoked the wrath of the Almighty against themselves. When he saw that we were ungrateful for the blessings we had received he judged us unworthy to receive more. Truly, since neither power nor triumph is long-lived without God on account of our sins, which in their different uncleannesses had offended the author of our salvation, certain sons of Belial, under a false pledge of Christian faith, deceitfully suggested to us that we set out against the sultan with all the force of our army which had been stationed in nearby forts with a multitude of pagans as great as the sands of the sea which cannot be numbered. But, hoping that the affair would be accomplished by the Lord our God, in accordance with the common advice of the pilgrims, we set out against the enemies of the faith, unwisely leaving Damietta without defense.
When the sultan, after three days, saw the flight of the pilgrims, he pretended flight on his own part, and deceitfully left his camp to be plundered by us. With the whole strength of Egypt he hurried swiftly to Damietta by another road, and established his camp in a narrow spot below the city and us, so that we could have neither retreat nor intercourse with it. Behold how sudden a change of the right hand of the Most High! Then, with God favorable to us, we reigned mightily in the land of Egypt; now, with him against us, we drift wretchedly between Scylla and Charybdis, between hunger and thirst. For this is that day of which it is written: “That day is a day of wrath” [Zep 1:15], etc. Sorrow and groaning and the moisture of tears do not permit me to describe our tribulations and distresses, and the particular dangers of death. But since nothing was left for us but a wretched death, we all with one voice cried out to heaven to our lord Jesus Christ humbly begging pardon. But he who says in his kindness, “I desire not the death of the wicked but rather that he be converted and live” [Ez 33:11], frequently, when he is angry, is mindful of his mercy and is also just and merciful.
Since he now saw that we had been sufficiently purified by penance and a fountain of tears, he mitigated the cruelty of our enemies to such an extent that they sent messengers to us, who were wasting away with hunger, to treat of peace and concord with us, on these terms: That the sultan might take back his city to be possessed in peace, and that he would give us safe-conduct to it along with complete integrity of our persons and belongings by supplying adequate ships and provisions. But we knew that the delegation had been procured by God, since there was nothing else left for us but death or the everlasting disgrace of slavery; and we willingly embraced it, humbly returning deserved thanks to God. When these agreements had been firmly settled through hostages and oaths, the sultan was moved by such compassion toward us that for many days he freely revived and refreshed our whole multitude. Finally when our affair had been disposed and settled, he procured ships and provisions for a just price, along with safe-conduct. Who could doubt that such kindness, mildness, and mercy proceeded from God?
Those whose parents, sons, and daughters, brothers and sisters we killed with various tortures, whose property we scattered or whom we cast naked from their dwellings, refreshed us with their own food as we were dying of hunger, although we were in their dominion and power. And so with great sorrow and mourning we left the port of Damietta, and according to our different nations, we separated to our everlasting disgrace.
The defeat of the Fifth Crusade, after all of the lessons its planners had supposedly learned from earlier failures, the detailed preparations for it, and the extensive commitment to it on the part of all orders of Christian society, is explicable from our own removed perspective, but it proved immensely frustrating to those who experienced it. Oliver of Paderborn, who knew more about the crusade from its origins to its defeat, is probably the best example of the papal/clerical perspective on the disaster. Honorius III himself acknowledged and accepted responsibility for much of the loss. Others were much more hostile to the consequences of clerical leadership. And there was always the argument from crusader and general Christian sinfulness, peccatis exigentibus, an argument readily illustrated by several passages in Oliver’s narrative. But as James M. Powell has suggested, the lament of Ricardo of San Germano eloquently illustrates both frustration and incomprehension that characterized the aftermath of the failure:
Damietta, bought by such labors and by so much bloodshed,
You formerly obeyed Christian princes, now you obey their enemies.
From you the sound of fame went out: Damietta is not what it was.
In you the faith of Christ flourished where now the son brings shame on the maidservant.
The Ismaelites have brought you down, overturned your altars, violated your temples;
As often as they heap up punishments for you, our sins sprout up.
Where now is the honor of the church and the flower of Christian knighthood?
Conquered, the legate, the king, and the duke of Bavaria yielded to the poisons of perfidy.
O why did these leaders, guided by bad advice, go forth to battle?
O Damietta, you gave exile to those you favored for almost two years.
What mass of evil caused it? It touches all our miseries; it is the cause of all our tears
The whole world and the princes of the world are sharers in this pain;
We pray you, O Christ, to help us to vindicate your cause.108
News traveled quickly, and from various sources. Letters from James of Vitry, Oliver of Paderborn, Pelagius, and others carried news of the campaign and requests for men and money, as did information from rotated crusaders returning home after completion of their terms of service. Many of these also attempted to rationalize defeat and victory for distant European audiences. Communications networks of the religious and military orders also carried news and appeals for aid.
Roger Wendover includes the texts of three letters from the East, two of them from Peter of Montague, grand master of the Templars, the first in 1221 to the bishop of (probably) Elne and the second in 1222 to the preceptor of the Templars in England. Another letter, from Peter of Albany to Ranulf, earl of Chester, also in 1222, offers yet further detail in the aftermath of defeat.
TO OUR reverend brother in Christ N., by the grace of God, bishop of Elimenum, Peter de Montague, master of the knights of the Temple, greeting. How we have proceeded in the business of our Lord Jesus Christ since the capture of Damietta and the castle of Tanis, we by these present letters set forth to your holiness. Be it known to you then that, in the first passage after the aforesaid captures, such a number of pilgrims arrived at Damietta that, with the rest of the army which remained, they were sufficient to garrison Damietta and to defend the camp. Our lord the legate and the clergy, desirous to advance the cause of the army of Christ, often and earnestly exhorted the people to make an attack on the infidels, but the nobles of the army, as well those of the transmarine provinces as those on our side of the water, thinking that the army was not sufficient for the defense of the aforesaid cities and castles, and at the same time to proceed further for the advantage of Christianity, would not consent to this plan.
For the sultan of Babylon, with an innumerable host of infidels, had pitched his camp near Damietta, and on each arm of the river had built bridges to obstruct the progress of the Christians, and was there waiting with such an immense army that the crusaders, by proceeding further would incur the greatest danger. Nevertheless we fortified the said city and camp and the coast round with trenches in all directions, expecting to be consoled by the Lord with the assistance of those who were coming to help us. The Saracens, however, seeing our deficiency, armed all their galleys and sent them to sea in the month of September, and these caused great loss among the Christians who were coming to the assistance of the Holy Land. In our army there was such a great deficiency of money that we could not maintain our ships for any length of time. Therefore, knowing that great loss would be incurred by the Christian army by means of these said galleys of the Saracens, we immediately armed our galleys, galliots, and other vessels to oppose them.
Be it also known to you that Coradin, the sultan of Damascus, assembled an immense army of Saracens, and, finding that the cities of Acre and Tyre were not sufficiently supplied with knights and soldiers to oppose him, continually did serious injury to those places both secretly and openly; besides this he often came and pitched his camp before our camp which is called the Pilgrims’, doing us all kinds of injury; he also besieged and reduced the castle of Caesarea in Palestine, although numbers of pilgrims were staying in Acre. I have also to inform you that Seraphus, a son of Saphadin, and brother of the sultans of Babylon and Damascus, is with a powerful army fighting against the Saracens in the eastern parts, and has prevailed much against the more powerful of his enemies, although not against all, for, by God’s favor, he will not be able easily to conquer all of them. For if he could bring that war to a conclusion, the county of Antioch or Tripoli, Acre or Egypt, whichever of them he might turn his attention to, would be in the greatest danger, and if he were to lay siege to any one of our castles, we should in no wise be able to drive him away.
This said dissension among the pagans however gives us pleasure and comfort. Moreover we have long expected the arrival of the emperor and other nobles by whom we hope to be relieved, and on their arrival we hope to bring this business, which has commenced by the hands of many, to a happy termination; but if we are deceived in our hope of this assistance in the ensuing summer, which I hope will not happen, both countries, namely Syria and Egypt, and that which we have lately gained possession of as well as that which we have held for a long time, will be placed in a doubtful position. Besides, we and the other people on our side of the water are oppressed by so many and great expenses in carrying on this crusade, that we shall be unable to meet our necessary expenses, unless by the divine mercy we shortly receive assistance from our fellow Christians. Given at Acre, the twentieth of September.
TO HIS worshipful lord and friend R[anulf], earl of Chester and Lincoln, his ever faithful P. de Albeney, health and sincere affection. I have to inform your excellency that on the day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary [August 15] we sailed from the port of Marseilles, and on the Monday before the Nativity of the same virgin we arrived before Damietta, and there we saw many ships leaving the town, and I spoke with a certain vessel, and made presents to the crew, on which they came to speak to us, and brought us very sad reports. These were that our people at Damietta and the nobles in that city, namely, the king of Jerusalem, the legate, the duke of Bavaria, the Templars and Hospitallers, with many others, amounting to about a thousand crusaders and five thousand other knights with forty thousand foot soldiers, had all gone on an expedition toward Babylon, against the wish of the king of Jerusalem, as was said, having set out on the feast of Saint Peter ad vincula;109 that they had been now absent on that expedition three weeks or more, and were about halfway between Damietta and Babylon. The sultan of Babylon and his brother Coradin then came with all the forces they could muster, and often attacked our people, and often lost some of their own men; and when our people wished to return to Damietta, the river became swollen, and for several days overflowed its banks, and our people were between two branches of the river.
The Saracens then made a canal from one branch to the other in the rear of our army, while the river increased so in height, that our people were in water up to their legs and waists, to their great misery and suffering, and thus might have been either slain or taken prisoners if the sultan of Babylon wished it. In this condition our people agreed to a truce for eight years with the sultan, on the condition that they should give up Damietta and all the prisoners whom they held in captivity. For the due observance of this truce, the king of Jerusalem, the legate, the duke of Bavaria, and other influential people, remained as hostages; and the sultan had given twenty hostages for the due observance of the truce on his part.
When we heard these reports we were much grieved, as all Christians must need be; we therefore thought it best, as we did not wish to be present at the surrender of Damietta, to make our way to Acre, where we arrived on the day after the Nativity of the Virgin Mary; on the day following Damietta was given up to the sultan, and he himself set free all the prisoners in it. I have also to inform you that his majesty the king of Jerusalem is about to go to your country; therefore I beg of you that you afford him assistance according to promises made toward the king and other nobles, for it is difficult to describe his great and admirable merits.
BROTHER P. of Montague, humble master of the knights of the Temple, to his well-beloved brother in Christ, A. Martel, holding the office of preceptor in England, greeting.—Although we have from time to time informed you of the prosperity which attended us in the affairs of Jesus Christ, we now by this present letter relate to you in the order they have happened the reverses which we, owing to our sins, have met with in the land of Egypt. The Christian army after the capture of Damietta having remained quietly at that place for a long time, the people of our side of the water, as well as those of the transmarine provinces, cast reproofs and reproaches on us on that account; and the duke of Bavaria having arrived, as lieutenant of the emperor, explained to the people that he had come for the purpose of attacking the enemies of the Christian faith. A council therefore was held by our lord the legate, the duke of Bavaria, the masters of the Templars and Hospitallers, and the Teutonic order, the earls, barons, and all the rest, at which it was unanimously agreed by all to make an advance. The illustrious king of Jerusalem also, having been sent for, came with his barons, and with a fleet of galleys and armed ships to Damietta, and found the army of the Christians lying in their camp outside the lines.
After the feast of the apostles Peter and Paul, then his majesty the king and the legate, with the whole Christian army, proceeded in order both by land and water, and discovered the sultan with an innumerable host of the enemies of the cross, who however fled before them; and so they proceeded without loss till they arrived at the camp of the sultan. This was surrounded by the river which they were unable to cross; the Christian army therefore pitched its camp on the bank, and constructed bridges to cross over against the sultan, from whose camp we were separated by the river Tanis, which is a branch of the great river Nile. While we made some stay there, great numbers left our army without leave, so that it was decreased by ten thousand men or more. In the meantime the sultan, by means of a trench constructed previously, when the Nile rose, sent galleys and galliots into the river to obstruct our ships, that no supplies might come from Damietta to us, we being then destitute of provisions; for they could not reach us by land, as the Saracens prevented them. The road both by sea and land, by which necessary supplies could reach us, being thus blocked up, the army held council as to returning; but the brothers of the sultan, Seraph and Coradin, the sultans of Aleppo and Damascus, and other sultans, namely, of Camela, Haman, and Coilanbar, with many pagan kings, and a countless host of infidels, who had come to assist them, had cut off our retreat. Our army however departed by night by land and water, but lost all the provisions in the river, besides a great many men; for when the Nile overflowed, the sultan turned the water in different directions by means of hidden streams, canals, and rivulets, which had been made some time before to obstruct the retreat of the Christians.
The army of Christ therefore, after losing among the marshes all its beasts of burden, stores, baggage, carriages, and almost all their necessaries, and being destitute of provisions, could neither advance nor retreat, nor had it any place of refuge, neither could it give battle to the sultan on account of his being surrounded by the river, and it was thus caught in the midst of the waters like a fish in a net.
Being therefore in this strait, they, although unwillingly, agreed to give up to the sultan the city of Damietta, with all the prisoners which could be found in Tyre and Acre, in exchange for the true cross and the Christian prisoners in the kingdoms of Babylon and Damascus. We therefore, in company with other messengers deputed by the army in common, went to Damietta, and told the people of the city the terms which were imposed on us; which greatly displeased the bishop of Acre, the chancellor, and Henry, count of Malta, whom we found there: for they wished to defend the city, which we should also have much approved of, if it could have been done with any advantage, for we had rather been consigned to perpetual imprisonment, than that the city should be given up by us to the infidels to the disgrace of Christianity; we therefore made a careful search throughout the city of all persons and effects, but found neither money nor people wherewith it could be defended. We therefore acquiesced in this agreement, and bound ourselves by oath and by giving hostages, and agreed to a confirmed truce for eight years. The sultan, till the arrangement was made, strictly abided by what he had promised, and supplied our famished army with loaves and flour for about fifteen days. Do you therefore, compassionating our sufferings, assist us as far as you are able. Farewell.
By the time of the Third Crusade, Marseilles had become an important port for maritime traders and crusaders departing for the Holy Land. Like its Italian rivals, Genoa, Pisa, and Venice, Marseilles provided fleets to aid the Christian-occupied coastal cities of Palestine and had been rewarded by various trading privileges. The letter translated here, preserved in incomplete form as a model letter, recounts the success of two crusade preachers in using the crusade as a common project to resolve a conflict that had resulted in the city’s excommunication. Peacemaking efforts and jurisdictional wrangles were part and parcel of the crusade preachers’ commission. Like Oliver of Cologne/Paderborn, who had publicized the miracles gracing his crusade preaching in a letter to other crusade preachers in 1214, the authors of the letter forwarded news of the Marseillais’ reconciliation with their bishop, their zealous involvement in the crusade, and miracles involving the cross to demonstrate the Marseillais’ orthodoxy and advertise the port as an ideal place for departing crusaders.
There is a hidden subtext to this letter. Pope Honorius III was organizing recruiting in the province of Arles for the forthcoming expedition of William of Montferrat, which diverted new recruits and crusaders who had failed to fulfill their vows before the fall of Damietta in 1221 from the Holy Land to the aid of the besieged Latin kingdom of Thessalonica. The two preachers appointed to recruit for the new campaign were well aware of the challenges facing them in Marseilles. The citizens’ support for the suspected “fosterer” of heretics, Raymond VI of Toulouse, their violence against the clergy and bishop of the city whose political, judicial, and financial power they resented, and their formation of a communal government in an attempt to erode these rights had resulted in the city’s excommunication from 1216 to 1219 and again in 1223. The crusade preachers appear to have exploited their role as outsiders and their right to celebrate mass, absolve excommunicates, and offer various spiritual rewards via the various crusading indulgences to present the crusade as a common spiritual project capable of enabling the citizens to clear themselves of the suspicion of heterodoxy and make peace with their bishop without losing face. This peace was short-lived. By 1225 Frederick II had placed the city under imperial ban, and its bishop was dispensed from his crusading vow in order to deal with renewed unrest.
The letter is discussed in Cole, Preaching of the Crusades, 148–149.
TO OUR venerable brothers in Christ, the preachers appointed throughout the kingdom of France on behalf of the Holy Land, greetings in Christ Jesus from Raimond Fouque, provost of Arles and Master R., prior of Saint-Pierre de Meyne in the diocese of Orange, preachers for the aforesaid business in the province of Arles.
From on high, the Risen One has visited the province of Arles in the business of Jesus Christ. Realizing that when we directed our steps to the illustrious city of Marseilles, it had remained bound by the chain of excommunication for so long a time that it appeared to be far removed from every hope of eternal salvation and that it could be said, not undeservedly, that the entire populace, full of dread and lamenting, used to sit alone, prostrate upon the dung heap [Jb 2:8], we nonetheless sowed the word of God among the populace, and the grace of the Holy Spirit descending upon them illuminated their hearts and led them from the shadows back to the light, and the Risen One visited them from on high [cf. Is 9:12; Mt 4:16; Lk 1:78–79].
Indeed, in truth, when we entered the renowned city its neighbors used to prophesy to us that we would labor in vain, sowing our seed among thorns and thistles [Lk 8:4–8], because their hearts were hardened to such an extent that it would be a miracle if we were able to lead back even one from among its thousands to the way of truth. We, however, trusting calmly in divine grace, were not abandoned by it, rather, hastening with willing assent to fulfill a reasonable apostolic injunction, we strove to fulfill the apostolic office entrusted to us by His Holiness. To such a degree we labored, ever more diligently and very repeatedly persuading the populace of Marseilles with medicinal admonitions, that by the inspiration of divine grace, we led the sheep wandering from the path back to the safety of salvation [Lk 15:3–7; Mt 18:12–14].
For in the aforementioned city, in which we tarried profitably for five weeks for the aforesaid business, we signed more than thirty thousand persons, and very few households remained in that place where there was not at least one or more [members] signed with the symbol of the cross. And from the time in which we entered the city hardly a day passed where we did not give the cross to at least one hundred or two hundred persons and so daily [the numbers] grew from hundreds to thousands.
Indeed, let it be known that we very much commend their devotion to the Lord because just as a starving person yearns for food, a thirsty person for drink, and just as the sweetness of honey or a taste of a similar thing whets the appetite and soothes the gullet, so without a doubt their souls were revived in hearing the preaching of the Lord. And since we found them so zealous and so generous in the business of Jesus Christ and since the city itself is indispensable before all others for those crossing in aid of the Holy Land, not only because of its suitable port but also because the men of that place are prepared in arms and full of spirit, zealously placing themselves and their possessions in God’s service, we beseech your fraternity in the Lord that you take pains to proclaim the aforesaid Marseillais as men who are catholic and ready for God’s service and that in that place a well-prepared passage would be advantageous for all who have taken the cross.
Know in fact that in that very place God showed forth many wondrous things concerning the cross visibly and in visions to those signed with the cross. In truth, during the day, the heavens opened and God appeared to certain persons upon the cross and the dead used to appear in visions to their friends, who had taken the cross for the sake of their souls, and used to say that they were freed from their punishments110 for the sake of the cross. For fear of her man, a certain woman did not dare to wear the cross which she had taken upon her person and as soon as she placed the cross in a chest, so great a pain weighed upon her shoulder that she could not bear it. Revealing this to her husband, by his permission she took the cross and lifted it up, and at once, through God’s grace, she was fully111 freed. In fact, another woman used to forbid one of her brothers, a nobleman, to take the cross in any manner, and at night it seemed to her that her throat was swollen so much that she wanted to die, and this was through the cross which she had forbidden her brother to receive. And so she lay awake with trembling and [at daybreak] begged her brother to take the cross immediately and he took it. It would take a long time to relate the miracles which in the aforementioned city . . . the entire day concerning the cross and for the sake of the cross. There women rapt in ecstasy used to see many secret things concerning the cross.
Strengthen each other with these words and if such signs should befall you, write to us . . . if it pleases you. And let each one send to the other this letter with its seal, throughout the entire kingdom of France and England and in Germany. And not only were they won over in this manner in the city of Marseilles . . . but in the entire province of Arles, which lies on the sea, and from either part we are commanded that we should go as far as the places where we did not give the cross, knowing that because whenever so great a people . . . ought to be gathered by all means often they used to move more single-mindedly than we could wish for. Know moreover that out of reverence for the Holy Cross these very Marseillais have restored . . . full jurisdiction and all his legal rights to their lord and father,112 which they had despoiled him of and had held for a long time. . . .113 Given in Marseilles in the year of Our Lord 1223 in the month of January in the day of the Epiphany of Our Lord.114 You ought to know also that a certain . . . by the name of William on whose behalf God has wrought and works innumerable miracles; the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear.
Narrative accounts in Arabic are more extensive for this period and later, although a number of them consist largely of compilations from earlier, often lost, accounts. The most detailed account is that of Ibn al-Athir. The present account is that of Ibn Wasil (1207–1298), a servant and administrator of several of the later Ayyubids and early Mamluk sultans. In 1261 he was sent by the great sultan Baibars as an ambassador to Manfred, illegitimate son of Frederick II and king of Sicily. His great work is the Mufarrij al-Kurub fi akhbar Bani Ayyub (The Dissipator of Anxieties Concerning the History of the Ayyubids), which is an extensive account of the rulers of Arab territories from the early twelfth century to 1282. That is, he is an important source for the Fifth Crusade (as here), Frederick II’s crusade, and the crusade of Saint Louis IX of France. Ibn Wasil seems to conflate the Fifth Crusade with the crusade of Louis IX (Part VII, below).
See Ibn al-Athir, ‘Izz al-Din, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athīr for the Crusading Period from al-Kāmil fī’l-Ta’rīkh, part 3, The Years 589–629/1193–1231: The Ayyubids After Saladin and the Mongol Menace, trans. D. S. Richards (Aldershot UK-Burlington VT, 2008). The writer’s dates are 1160–1233. See also Carol Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Chicago, 1999); and R. Stephen Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols: The Ayyubids of Damascus, 1193–1260 (Albany NY, 1977).
THE FRANKS sent ambassadors to al-Malik al-Kamil and his two brothers al-Malik al-Mu‘azzam and al-Malik al-Ashraf asking for their lives to be spared in exchange for Damietta with no indemnity. Al-Malik al-Kamil consulted the princes of his house about this. Some advised him not to grant them an amnesty but to seize them at once, while they were in his control and made up the majority of the Unbelievers (on Muslim soil). When he had done this he could take Damietta and the parts of Palestine that they held. But the sultan al-Malik al-Kamil disagreed, and said: “There are other Franks; even if we destroy [or detain] them too it will take us a long time and a hard fight to win Damietta. The Franks beyond the sea will hear what has befallen them and will arrive in more than double the numbers of these here, and we will have to face a siege.”115
At the time the troops were exhausted and tired of fighting, for the Frankish occupation of Egypt had lasted for three years and three months. So they all accepted his decision to grant the Franks their lives in exchange for Damietta. He accepted the Frankish petition on condition that al-Malik al-Kamil held hostages from them until Damietta was handed over. They in their turn asked for one of al-Kamil’s sons and a group of his nobles as hostages for the return of their king [John of Brienne]. So an understanding was reached and oaths were taken on 7 rajab 618 [1221].116 The Frankish hostages were the king of Acre [John of Brienne], the papal legate [Pelagius] who was the representative of the pope in Rome the Great, King Louis and other lords, numbering twenty altogether. Al-Kamil’s hostages were his son al-Malik as-Salih Najm ad-Din Ayyub and a group of his nobles. Al-Malik as-Salih was then fifteen, for he was born in 603.117 When the nobles presented themselves before al-Malik al-Kamil he held audience in great pomp, in the presence of all the kings and princes of his house. The Franks received a vivid impression of his royal power and majesty.118
. . . (When Damietta surrendered) the Frankish and Muslim hostages were returned to their respective sides, and the sultan entrusted the government of the city to the emir Shuja ad-Din Jurdik al-Muzaffari an-Nuri, an experienced and worthy man. At the time of the peace the Franks found that they had at Damietta some enormous masts for their ships and they wanted to take these away with them to their own land. Shuja ad-Din refused permission for this, so they sent messages to al-Malik al-Kamil complaining about it and saying that these masts were their own property, and that according to the terms of the treaty they should be free to take them. Al-Malik al-Kamil wrote to Shuja ad-Din commanding him to hand over the masts, but he persisted in his refusal: “The Franks took the pulpit from the Great Mosque of Damietta,” he said, “and cut it up and sent a piece to each of their kings: let the sultan command them to return the pulpit, and the masts will be theirs.” The sultan did write to the Franks about this, referring them to what Shuja ad-Din said, and the Franks, unable to return the pulpit, gave up their claim to the masts.
70. The economic interests of these commercial port cities have often been considered by historians to the exclusion of other motives on their part. We have seen this in discussions of the Fourth Crusade as well. Oliver seems to think that the troops of these cities wanted some of the same reputation for bravery and heroism as their knightly and noble companions in arms.
71. Both Oliver and James of Vitry in his sermons to pilgrims and letters on the crusade warned of the dangers of drinking wine unmixed with water.
72. By setting this disaster into a dense, relevant, and tightly woven context of scriptural references, Oliver here and elsewhere provides a framework for understanding events in a salvation-related cognitive theology of history.
73. The fragile ecological balance of Lower Egypt (as well as its complex and sometimes unpredictable hydrology) is evident here. This chapter is a kind of prologue to the horrific conditions that the crusaders discovered in Damietta when the city was finally taken.
74. The offer was diplomatically as well as symbolically substantial. The restoration of Jerusalem to the Christians, the return of all captives, the refortification of the city (reduced by al-Mu‘azzam in 1219), and the restoration of the Latin kingdom except for the two key fortresses Krak and Montréal, which guarded the great caravan route between Syria and the south (but with tribute paid for them until the truce expired) were obviously attractive to John of Brienne, Ranulf of Chester, the French, and the Germans, and the ultimate rejection was not immediate. The symbolic importance of the captured part of the True Cross cannot be doubted. Reading the rejection of this offer back from the later defeat is tempting. However, Oliver was broadly informed and considered Pelagius’s decision to reject the offer reasonable. It had been made, after all, following consultation with the pope and Frederick II. The debate among historians is long running and often acrimonious.
75. It is clear which side in the debates over al-Kamil’s offer Oliver favored, and his support for the legate Pelagius is also clear. See chapter 34 on the crusaders’ expectations of Frederick II and reinforcements and Oliver’s eulogy of the city and people of Cologne.
76. Five manuscripts of Oliver’s work omit the reference to Frederick II’s anticipated arrival and substitute the formal address to the city of Cologne to the end of the chapter in its place.
77. The validity of pagan prophecy when permitted by God had long been part of Christian apocalyptic, in the case of the Sybils and others. The legendary attraction of Prester John, an Eastern Christian ruler who was coming to the aid of the Eastern Christians, had circulated since 1145, and an increased knowledge of the peoples of the Near East provided a cognitive context for such prophecies that strengthened the message of scriptural prophecy, hence Oliver’s discussion of the Georgians and the legendary confinement of the tribes of Gog and Magog by Alexander the Great, linking prophecies relevant to the immediate present to the long-range prophetic future and the end of the world.
78. The order of the Assassins was a close-knit retinue of Ismaili jihadists who killed their enemies and later became political killers. Their leader was known by Christians as the Old Man of the Mountain and the Assassins were feared throughout the Near East. They resemble the modern Druze in their relations with other Muslims.
79. Leo II the Great (1187–1219) had early successes against Seljuk power, but the end of his reign saw the Armenian loss of Iconium and Isauria. Leo’s daughter Stephanie became the second wife of John of Brienne. John’s first wife, Marie of Montferrat, had died in 1212. Their daughter Isabella II (d. 1228) became the ruler of the Latin kingdom and later married Frederick II, who then claimed the kingship by virtue of his marriage. See below, Part IV. The sultan of Iconium was ‘Izz-al-Din Kaikawus I (r. 1210–1219), who destroyed the Armenian army in 1216. To ransom captives Leo II eventually had to concede all of Isauria.
80. The idea that Muslim rulers sometimes favored Christians to the point of considering conversion themselves was more common in the thirteenth century. Oliver himself wrote a letter in 1221 to the “King of Babylon” and another to the “Doctors of Egypt” urging them to convert to Christianity. Francis of Assisi, of course, famously preached directly to the sultan.
81. “Miralis” was the Christian name for Malik al-Afdal, who succeeded his father, Saladin, in Damascus but was overthrown by his uncle Saphadin in 1196.
82. The stories of the Egyptians and later Alexander the Great are fictitious. But Oliver’s interest in crocodiles shows some powers of observation of the ecology of Lower Egypt besides the focus on warfare and diplomacy.
83. Oliver and other crusade leaders’ letters to recruiting centers during the campaign often complained about the lack of men or money, which influenced papal policy on vow redemptions and attempts to get local church leaders to force early departers and renegers to fulfill their vows (with the additional problematic of a campaign to a place other than Jerusalem). Perhaps this is also an attempt to assign blame for and explain the failure of the Fifth Crusade. Compare the problems of Gervase of Prémontré in No. 18.
84. For John’s Armenian interests, see chapters 36 and 45.
85. Matteo Gentile, referred to in a charter of 1229 as “count of Alesina (modern Lesina) and captain of the city and master justiciar of Apulia and the Terra di Lavoro”—that is, a high-ranking representative of Frederick II under whose orders he was participating, thus heightening the crusaders’ hopes of the emperor’s actual arrival.
86. Pullani was a name given to Syrian-born Franks; cf. modern French poulain.
87. Mamluks were Turkish slaves purchased for service in the army. The Egyptian dynasties that succeeded the Ayyubids (descendants of Saladin and al-Adil) are generally termed “Mamluk” because their sultans were taken from the enfranchised slaves who made up the court and supplied officers to the army.
88. See the appendix to Oliver’s text following chapter 89, probably written by someone else as a conclusion to chapter 53.
89. Frederick II—see below, Part IV. Son of Henry VI and Constance of Sicily and grandson of Frederick Barbarossa, Frederick came from a family long associated with crusading. His rule as both emperor and king of Sicily was the cause of great consternation on the part of popes from Innocent III to Innocent IV. Both of his ruling roles made the crusade important to him.
90. With the forces sent by Frederick II at hand and commanded by the duke of Bavaria and count palatine of the Rhine, Ludwig of Wittelsbach, who was also the representative of the emperor himself, as well as the evidence of dissension in Cairo, and the return of John of Brienne, Pelagius’s decision to advance makes considerable strategic sense.
91. On books of prophecy and the role of the crusade in salvation history, see above, chapter 35. James of Vitry gives the correct title of the prophetic book as The Revelations of Holy Peter the Apostle to His Disciple Clement Redacted in One Volume.
92. Natives of mixed origin who fought on horseback, usually as light cavalry or mounted archers. They were found in all the eastern armies from Byzantium to Cairo.
93. A small one-masted ship with a large lateen sail and a foresail.
94. A small single-masted ship with a large lateen sail.
95. Leemania may be Upper Egypt, immediately north of Ethiopia. The name occurs nowhere else. Chapters 59–70 pause for a survey of the Near East, its peoples, and their religions. Oliver explains his digression at the beginning of chapter 70. The rest of his history addresses the defeat, and this pause may well be rhetorical as well. These passages may also be intended as a guide for the anticipated crusade of Frederick II, since they are careful about geography and potential allies.
96. Jacobites were Monophysite Christians of Syria and Mesopotamia. “Monophysite” is the name given to those Christians who believe in only a single, divine, nature of Christ. Although Monophysitism was condemned in the fifth century, it survives to the present day.
97. The Maronites were (and still are) Arabic-speaking Christians named after the Syrian abbot Saint Maron, who died in 433. They seem to have professed the doctrine of a single will in Christ (monothelitism) but reunited with Rome in 1182, hence the reference to Innocent III and the Fourth Lateran Council. The Neophorites are extremely obscure, probably a sect of Ismailian Shiites, hostile to the Maronites.
98. Oliver is here referring to Coptic Christians.
99. What seem to be Oliver’s digressions on Egypt and Eastern Christians and Prester John may be not only justifications for the crusade’s diversion to Egypt but also information for the planning of the emperor’s hoped-for crusade, in which Oliver and James immediately involved themselves.
100. The references seem to be to Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars 1.83, and Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander the Great 10.4. See n. 64 above; these are the only other references to classical Latin texts in Oliver’s narrative.
101. Pelagius had been instructed to report all diplomatic negotiations to the pope. Honorius III admitted the substantial cost in life, labor, and resources in refusing the terms offered by al-Kamil, but he also expected the momentary intervention of Frederick II, who had vowed to sail to the East. Honorius was also aware of reports concerning Prester John and King David. Frederick himself prohibited the crusaders from accepting al-Kamil’s terms.
102. Oliver is here referring to himself, as one of the lesser members in the army. The proposal recorded below is his own.
103. The identity of Imbert is unknown. Oliver is the only source that mentions him.
104. Oliver’s point is that a piece of the True Cross was worth far more than the meager resources of Damietta.
105. The master of the Teutonic Knights was Hermann von Salza, one of the closest advisers of Frederick II. On the division of the Teutonic Knights with most moving to northern Europe and others remaining in the Holy Land, see Klaus Militzer, “From the Holy Land to Prussia: The Teutonic Knights Between Emperors and Popes and Their Policies Until 1309,” in Jürgen Sarnowsky, ed., Mendicants, Military Orders, and Regionalism in Medieval Europe (Aldershot UK-Brookfield VT, 1999), 71–81.
106. The Frisians.
107. Oliver thus ends on the hopeful note that a new council at Verona in 1222 will take up where the Fifth Crusade has failed and learn from its strategic and moral mistakes.
108. Cited in Powell, Anatomy, 195–196.
Source: Giles, Wendover’s Flowers of History, 2:432–439.
109. Saint Peter in Chains, August 1.
Source: E. Baratier, “Une prédication de la croisade à Marseille en 1224,” in Économies et sociétés au Moyen Âge: Mélanges offertes à Edouard Perroy (Paris, 1973), 690–699, text 698–699.
110. The Latin term here is poena, meaning the penalty owed for a sin, paid either through penance in this life or the sufferings of purgatory or hell in the next.
111. As crusade preachers, the authors play here with the term plenarie, often used to describe the complete remission of duly confessed sins accorded by the full, or “plenary,” crusading indulgence.
112. The bishop of Marseilles.
113. The letter becomes increasingly fragmentary at this point, but appears to be asking church prelates to consider the Marseillais as absolved from their previous excommunication.
114. This actually means January of 1224.
Source: Francesco Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, trans. E. J. Costello (Berkeley-Los Angeles, 1969), 264–266.
115. Al-Malik al-Kamil is portrayed here as essentially pragmatic, but he also appears in Latin sources as a moderate, even thoughtful ruler.
116. The Muslim calendar is lunar and slightly shorter than the Christian calendar, thirty-three Muslim years almost equaling thirty-two Christian years, and begins with the year of Muhammad’s departure from Mecca. Rajab was the seventh month of the Muslim year. The term means “forbidden” in Arabic.
117. He later ruled Egypt from 1240 to 1249.
118. A little earlier in the same campaign “in the presence of the mighty sultan,” Saint Francis of Assisi came forward and preached, evidently in a setting much like this.