In April 1259, the Pope sent a legate to
the East, Thomas Agni of Lentino, titular Bishop of Bethlehem, with orders to
resolve the quarrel. About the same time the
bailli,
John of Arsuf,
died; and Queen Plaisance came again to Acre and on 1 May appointed Geoffrey of
Sargines as
bailli.
He was a respected and a more uncontroversial
figure, and he worked with the legate to secure an armistice. In January 1261,
a meeting of the High Court, attended by delegates from the Italian colonies,
came to an agreement. The Genoese were to have their establishment at Tyre and
the Venetians and Pisans theirs at Acre; and the warring nobles and Military
Orders were officially reconciled. But the Italians never regarded the
arrangement as final. Their war soon began again and dragged on, to the
detriment of all the commerce and the shipping along the Syrian coast.
1261: The Byzantines Recapture Constantinople
It was to the detriment, too, of the
Franks on the east, far beyond the border of Syria. The tottering Latin Empire
of Constantinople had survived chiefly through the help of the Italians, who
feared to lose their trading concessions. Venice, with her property in
Constantinople itself and in the Aegean islands, had a particular interest in
its preservation. Genoa therefore gave active support to the vigorous Greek
Emperor of Nicaea, Michael Palaeologus. Michael had already laid the
foundations for the Byzantine recovery of the Peloponnese in 1259 by his great
victory at Pelagonia, in Macedonia, where William of Villehardouin, Prince of
Achaea, was captured with all his barons and obliged to cede the fortresses,
Maina, Mistra and Monemvasia, that dominated the eastern half of the peninsula.
In March 1261, Michael signed a treaty with the Genoese, giving them preferential
treatment throughout his dominions, present and future. On 25 July, with the
help of the Genoese, his troops entered Constantinople. The Empire of Romania,
the child of the Fourth Crusade, was ended. It had done nothing but harm to the
Christian East.
The Byzantine recovery of Constantinople
and the collapse of the Latin Empire were thus the outcome of a war started
round an ancient monastery in Acre. It was a tremendous blow to Latin and to
Papal prestige, and a triumph for the Greeks. But Byzantium, even with its
capital restored, was no longer the oecumenical Empire that it had been in the
twelfth century. It was now only one state amongst many. Besides the remaining
Latin principalities, there were now powerful Bulgarian and Serbian kingdoms in
the Balkans; and in Anatolia, though the Seldjuk Sultanate had been crippled by
the Mongols, there could never be any hope of dislodging the Turks. Indeed, the
possession of their ancient home added to the problems rather than to the
strength of the Emperors. The chief beneficiaries were the Genoese. They had
been beaten in Syria; but their alliance with Byzantium gave them control of
the Black Sea trade, a trade which was growing in volume and importance as the
Mongol conquests developed the caravan-routes across central Asia.
In Outremer Geoffrey of Sargines, with the
prestige of Saint Louis’s memory behind him, restored some semblance of order
between the barons of the kingdom. Though Italian sailors might continue to
fight, active hostilities died down on shore; but there was no return to the
old friendship between the Montforts and the Ibelins. The Temple and the
Hospital would not mitigate their traditional enmity; while the Teutonic Order,
despairing of the future of Syria, began to devote its main attention to the
distant shores of the Baltic, where, from 1226 onwards, it had been given lands
and castles in return for its help in taming and converting the heathen
Prussians and Livonians.
Geoffrey’s authority did not extend into
the county of Tripoli. There the dislike of Bohemond for his vassal, Henry of
Jebail, had blazed up into war. Not only did Henry repudiate Bohemond’s
suzerainty and maintain himself, with the help of the Genoese, in perfect
independence, but his cousin Bertrand, head of the younger branch of the
Embriaco family, attacked Bohemond in Tripoli itself. The Dowager Princess
Lucienne, when she was removed from the regency, had managed to keep many of
her Roman favourites in important posts in the county, to the fury of the
native barons. They found their leaders in Bertrand Embriaco, who owned large
estates in and around Jebail, and his son-in-law, John of Antioch, lord of
Botrun, Bohemond’s second cousin. In 1258 the barons marched on Tripoli, where
Bohemond was in residence, and laid siege to the city. Bohemond made a sortie
but was defeated and wounded on the shoulder by Bertrand himself. He was forced
to stay beleaguered in his second capital till the Templars sent men to rescue
him. He burned for revenge. One day as Bertrand was riding through one of his
villages some armed peasants suddenly attacked him and slew him. His head was
cut off and sent as a gift to Bohemond. No one doubted that Bohemond had
inspired the murder. For the moment it served his purpose. The rebels were
cowed and retired to Jebail. But there was now a blood-feud between the Houses
of Antioch and Embriaco.
1264: Hugh of Cyprus Regent of Jerusalem
Geoffrey of Sargines’s government came to
an end in 1263. Queen Plaisance of Cyprus died in September 1261, deeply mourned;
for she was a lady of high integrity. Her son, Hugh II, was eight years old;
and a new regent was required for Cyprus and Jerusalem. Hugh II’s father, Henry
I, had had two sisters. The elder, Maria, had married Walter of Brienne and had
died young, leaving a son, Hugh. The younger, Isabella, was married to Henry of
Antioch, brother of Bohemond V, and was still living. Her son, also called
Hugh, was older than his cousin of Brienne, whom Isabella had brought up along
with her own son. Hugh of Brienne, though next heir to the throne, was
unwilling to compete against his aunt and her son for the regency. After
deliberation the High Court of Cyprus, considering that a man made a better
regent than a woman, passed over Isabella’s claim in favour of her son, who was
appointed as being the eldest prince of the blood royal. The High Court of
Jerusalem was given more time for reflection. It was not till the spring of
1263 that Isabella came with her husband, Henry of Antioch, to Acre. The nobles
there accepted her as Regent
de facto,
but, showing scruples that had
hitherto been ignored, they refused to give her an oath of allegiance. That
could only be done if King Conradin were present. Geoffrey of Sargines resigned
the office of
bailli,
which the Regent then gave to her husband. She
herself returned happily without him to Cyprus.
She died in Cyprus next year; and the
regency of Jerusalem again was vacant. Hugh of Antioch, Regent of Cyprus,
claimed it as her son and heir; but a counter-claim was now put in by Hugh of Brienne.
He declared that, by the custom of France which was followed in Outremer, the
son of an elder sister preceded the son of a younger, no matter which cousin
was the senior in age. But the jurists of Outremer considered that the decisive
factor was kinship to the last holder of the office. As Isabella had been
accepted as the last Regent, her son Hugh took precedence over her nephew. The
nobles and high officers of state unanimously accepted him and gave him the
homage that they had denied to his mother. The communes and foreign colonies
offered him fealty and Grand Masters both of the Temple and Hospital gave him
recognition. Though the Italians still fought each other on the seas, there was
a general if superficial atmosphere of reconciliation in the kingdom, due in
the main to Hugh’s energy. He did not appoint a
bailli
to act for him on
the mainland, but travelled to and fro between Cyprus and Acre. While he was in
Cyprus, the mainland government was entrusted to Geoffrey of Sargines, who was
Seneschal once more. It was as well that the administration was in respected
hands; for there were great and increasing dangers ahead.
King Louis of France never forgot the Holy
Land. Every year he sent a sum of money to maintain the small company of troops
that he had left behind at Acre under Geoffrey of Sargines; and the practice
was continued even after Geoffrey’s death and his own. He always hoped one day
to set out again on a Crusade, but the needs of his own country gave him no
respite. It was only in 1267, when he was weary and ill, that he felt able to
prepare for his second Crusade and began slowly making the necessary
arrangements and collecting the necessary money. In 1270 he was ready to embark
for Palestine.
1270: Louis’s Last Crusade
The pious project was twisted out of shape
and ruined by the King’s brother Charles. In 1258 the child Conradin, titular
King of Sicily and of Jerusalem, had been displaced by his uncle, Frederick II’s
bastard son Manfred. Manfred had much of his father’s arrogant brilliance; and
he received the same measure of hatred from the Papacy. The Popes began to
search for a prince to put in his stead upon the Sicilian throne which
traditionally was under their suzerainty. After considering Edmund of
Lancaster, Henry of England’s son, they found their candidate in Charles of
Anjou. Charles bore little resemblance to his saintly brother. He was cold and
cruel and inordinately ambitious; and his wife, the Countess Beatrice, heiress
of Provence and sister of three queens, yearned to wear a crown herself. In
1261 James Pantaleon, Patriarch of Jerusalem, became Pope as Urban IV. He soon
persuaded Louis that the elimination of the Hohenstaufen from Sicily was a
needful preliminary for the success of any future Crusade.
Louis gave his approval to his brother’s
candidature and even raised taxes in France on his behalf. Urban died in 1264,
but his successor, Clement IV, another Frenchman, completed the arrangements
with Charles; who in 1265 marched into Italy and defeated and slew Manfred at the
battle of Benevento. The victory put southern Italy and Sicily into his power,
and his wife received the crown that she desired. Three years later Conradin
made a valiant effort to recover his Italian heritage. It met with disaster
near Tagliacozzo; and the sixteen-year-old boy, the last of the Hohenstaufen,
was taken prisoner and beheaded. Charles’s ambitions now rose higher. He would
dominate Italy; Constantinople should be recovered from the schismatic Greeks;
he would found a Mediterranean Empire, such as his Norman predecessors had
dreamed of in vain. Pope Clement began to fear the monster that he had raised;
but he died in 1268. For three years Charles, by intrigues with the Cardinals,
blocked the election of a new Pope. There was no one to curb him. But the
thought of his brother’s intended Crusade disquieted him. Frenchmen and French
money should be used to his advantage, not to prop up a distant kingdom in
which he was not yet ready to be interested. He had hoped for help for an
attack on Byzantium. If that was not forthcoming, at least the Crusade must be
diverted into some channel that would bring him profit.
Mustansir, Emir of Tunis, who dominated
the African coast opposite to Sicily, was known to be well disposed towards the
Christians, but he had offended Charles by giving refuge to rebels from Sicily.
Charles persuaded Louis, whose optimism for the Faith had not been dimmed by
experience, that the Emir was ready for conversion. A slight show of force
would bring him to the fold, and a new province would be added to Christianity
in a spot of vast strategic importance for any new Crusade. It may be that
Louis’s judgement was warped by illness. Wise friends, such as Joinville, made
no secret of their dislike of the project. But Louis believed in his brother.
On 1 July he set sail from Aigues-Mortes at the head of a formidable
expedition. With him were his three surviving sons, his son-in-law, King Tibald
of Navarre, his nephew, Robert of Artois, the Counts of Brittany and La Marche
and the heir to Flanders, all sons of comrades of his earlier Crusade, and the
Count of Saint Pol, a survivor of that Crusade, and the Count of Soissons. The armada
arrived off Carthage on 18 July, in the full heat of the African summer. The
Emir of Tunis showed no desire to become a Christian convert. Instead, he
refortified and re-garrisoned his capital. But he did not need to fight. The
climate did his work for him. Disease spread quickly through the French camp.
Princes, knights and soldiers fell ill in thousands. The King was among the
first to be struck down. When Charles of Anjou arrived on 25 August with his
army, he learned that his brother had died a few hours before. The heir of
France, Philip, was dangerously ill; John Tristan, the prince born at Damietta,
was dying. Charles’s vigour preserved the expedition from disaster till the
autumn, when the Emir paid him a large indemnity to go back to Italy; but the
Crusade as a whole had been wasted.
When the news of the tragedy at Tunis
reached the East, the Moslems were deeply relieved, and the Christians were
plunged into mourning. Their grief was well justified. Never again would a
royal army set out from their motherland to rescue the Franks of Outremer. King
Louis had been a great and good King of France, but to Palestine, which he had
loved even more dearly, he had brought little but disappointment and sorrow. As
he lay dying he thought of the Holy City which he had never seen and for whose
deliverance his labours had been fruitless. His last words were ‘Jerusalem,
Jerusalem’.
CHAPTER
III
THE
MONGOLS IN SYRIA
Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou
leave thy labour to him?’ JOB
XXXIX, II