In Distant Lands
Page 27
81. The Venetians had recently been of great use to the empire by helping them to defeat the Normans. During this war, they had conquered Corfu and dutifully turned it over to Constantinople. They expected to be compensated accordingly.
82. William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 79-82
83. Letter of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (A.D. 1146) preaching the Second Crusade. Trans. James Harvey Robinson, Readings in European History, vol. 1 (Boston, 1904), pp. 330-32.
84. Papal bulls are referred to by their opening words in Latin. Quantum praedecessores literally means 'How much our predecessors (have labored for the eastern church...)'
85. Queen Melisende of Jerusalem sent a bishop – Hugh of Jabala – to bring the news of Edessa's fall to the pope. Hugh leavened the disaster with the story of Prester John, the first recorded mention of one of the most enduring legends of the Middle Ages.
86. Abbot Suger is credited with originating the gothic style of architecture that became so prevalent during the Middle Ages. His major contribution, the Basilica Church of Saint-Dennis, was dedicated in 1144, the same year Edessa fell.
87. Their behavior was so bad that imperial towns took the precaution of locking the gates and dispensing food in baskets lowered over the walls.
88. The extent of the lands of her dowry rivaled that of the King of France.
89. The other rival for earliest Christian nation is Ethiopia which officially adopted the faith in AD 330. According to legend, King Abgar V of Edessa exchanged letters with Christ – copies of which were preserved by the fourth century historian Eusebius. Modern scholarship dates the conversion of Edessa to the reign of Abgar IX in the late second century.
90. Eleanor’s dowry was the province of Aquitaine, a huge swath of territory in southwestern France.
91. The marriage was eventually annulled in 1152. By that time Eleanor was already having an affair with Henry of Anjou, the future king Henry II of England.
92. Along with other distinguished candidates, Constance turned down the son-in-law of the Byzantine emperor for Reynald.
93. When Amalric's ambassador demanded that the Caliph shake his hand – an unheard of request – the spiritual successor of Muhammed had clasped the infidel's hand, defiling himself in front of his entire court.
94. Viewed from nearly a millennium later, the politics of medieval Italy are nearly impossible to untangle. Broadly speaking, the northern Italian cities were constantly trying to break free from German control, while the emperor was endlessly trying to cross the Alps and bring them back into line. The popes – also interested in their freedom of action – frequently stirred the pot, attempting a difficult balancing act between the various powers surrounding them. In the 12th century, emperor and pope were also clashing over the Lay Investiture Controversy – the right of secular leaders to appoint members of the clergy. In 1176, the German emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, was besieging northern Italy – for the fifth time – in an attempt to forcibly resolve the issue and depose Pope Alexander III.
95. Not only were his hands bandaged, but he could no longer use his right arm, so he fought lefty.
96. Ironically it probably wasn't the leprosy that ultimately killed him. A few months before his death he contracted an infection from one of his many open sores and his weakened body wasn't able to fight it off.
97. The conversations are recollected by Bahā' al-Dín, Saladin’s personal biographer in his The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin.
98. Bahā' al-Dín
99. Saladin accused Reynald of breaking his oath to respect peace between Muslims and crusader territory. Reynald bitingly replied – with more bravery than sense – 'that such was the nature of kings'.
100. Bahā' al-Dín
101. By a quirk of fate, the Patriarch who surrendered Jerusalem in 1187 shared a name – Heraclius – with the Byzantine emperor who surrendered it in 637.
102. De Expugatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum, [The Capture of the Holy Land by Saladin], ed. Joseph Stevenson, Rolls Series, (London: Longmans, 1875), translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 159-63
103. The cause of Pope Urban III's death is usually attributed to shock, but at least one contemporary source claims that news of the defeat didn't reach Rome until after the election of Urban's successor.
104. To speed up one siege in northern Italy, he ordered his catapults to launch live prisoners over the rebellious city's walls until they submitted.
105. Confusingly, historians refer to Frederick’s empire by a variety of names. Technically it was the revived ‘Western Roman Empire’ that Pope Leo III had created for Charlemagne, and therefore simply the ‘Roman Empire’. However, since it was centered physically around present-day Germany, it is sometimes called the ‘German Empire’. By the end of the 13th century the official name had become “Sacrum Romanum Imperium Teutonicæ Nationis” – “The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation”. It is therefore most commonly referred to as the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ to distinguish it from the Western Roman Empire that had dissolved in 476 and the ‘Byzantine’ Empire centered around Constantinople.
106. The Turks who had invaded Byzantine territory in the 11th century had founded a state called the Sultunate of Rûm.
107. Like King Arthur in Britain, a legend soon grew up that Barbarossa wasn't dead but merely asleep. He waits enthroned beneath the Kyffhäuser mountain in Bavaria, golden crown on his head and white beard reaching the floor. When ravens cease to fly around the mountain, he will rise to restore Germany to its ancient greatness.
108. The original plan was to lay Frederick Barbarossa to rest in Jerusalem, but the vinegar failed to adequately slow down decomposition. The heart and intestines were buried in St. Paul's native city of Tarsus, the rest of the body was interred in Antioch.
109. The term ‘Levant’ comes from a French word meaning ‘point of sunrise’. It broadly refers to the eastern part of the Mediterranean, and covers the modern countries of Syria, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine.
110. Excerpta Cypria: Materials for a History of Cyprus, edited by Claude D. Cobham (Cambridge, 1908)
111. Richard's attempts to raise money for the crusade were endless. Before he left England he is said to have quipped, "I would have sold London if I could have found a buyer."
112. The Holy Roman Emperor had a claim to the Sicilian throne and was in the process of gathering an army to seize it.
113. The legendary sword of King Arthur.
114. He also attempted to lure Richard’s new fiancée to the island, but fortunately she refused to take the bait.
115. Saladin's failure to pay the ransom and Richard's subsequent slaughtering of his prisoners did nothing to dent this prestige.
116. Even while sick, Richard managed to upstage Philip. Early in the siege of Acre the English king had fallen ill, so he had himself carried on a stretcher to the front lines where he amused himself by picking off guards on the walls with a crossbow.
117. Bahā' al-Dín, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin
118. Three Old French Chronicles of the Crusades, ed. Edward N. Stone (Seattle, 1939)
119. The emperor somewhat insultingly fixed the ransom at one hundred thousand pounds of silver – an amount at least double the annual income of England and exactly what Richard had raised to finance his crusade.
120. John appears in this guise as the villain of Robin Hood, plundering the land while good king Richard is away.
121. One of the men chosen to go – Geoffrey of Villehardouin – wrote a first hand account of the crusade that is one of our best sources.
122. Although he was almost certainly born in 1107 (and therefore ninety-two when the crusaders arrived), his energy convinced several modern historians to argue that he must have been at least twenty years younger.
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br /> 123. Isaac had overseen the horrifically bloody end of one of the more colorful Byzantine emperors, his appropriately named predecessor, Andronicus the Terrible.
124. Donald E. Queller and Thomas F. Madden, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 2nd ed.
125. The Golden Horn is the name of the inlet that forms the northern shore of Constantinople’s peninsula. The name is a reference either to the wealth that it brought or the warm glow that the setting sun casts over its shore.
126. Joinville & Villehardouin, Chronicles of the Crusades.
127. The first of the invaders discouraged by the stoutness of Constantinople's defenses was the 'Scourge of God' himself, Attila the Hun.
128. The sight of the exquisitely preserved corpse of the great Justinian was enough – temporarily – to stop the vandals in their tracks. Ultimately, however, he ended up on the ground with Constantine the Great and the rest of the imperial bodies.
129. One of the legacies of this is the Byzantine Catholic Church, which follows an Orthodox liturgy but recognizes the supremacy of the pope.
130. Chronica Regiae Coloniensis Continuatio prima, as translated by James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 1962), 213
131. This may have been the origin of the legend of the Pied Piper.
132. Although it provided an immediate and long-lasting financial windfall, this plenary indulgence would prove to be far more trouble than it was worth for the Catholic Church. Three centuries later it provided the spark for the Protestant Reformation.
133. On one campaign he pointed to a field of wheat and said 'There grows your God' – a derogatory reference to the communion wafer.
134. The Fifth Crusade was even denied the small consolation of the return of the True Cross. Pelagius had been right all along. Al-Kamil never had it.
135. G. G. Coulton, St. Francis to Dante, (London: David Nutt, 1906), pp. 242-43
136. He was told that 'they had nothing for him but a sword'.
137. The Chronography of Gregory Abu’l Faraj…Bar Hebraeus, trans. Ernest A. Wallis Budge (London, 1932).
138. The emperor was cheekily offering the same remission of sins usually given by a crusade to anyone who would join in his attack on the pope.
139. Selections from the Hengwrt Mss. Preserved in the Peniarth Library. Williams, Robert, ed. & trans. London: Thomas Richards, 1892.
140. The search for Prester John's kingdom was one of the inspirations of Marco Polo's journey.
141. The Caliphs were descended from an uncle of Muhammed named Abbas.
142. The actual numbers were bad enough. A conservative estimate is that the Mongols killed between eleven and fifteen million people during their campaigns, roughly 2.5% of the world's population.
143. An obvious advantage of trading with the immense Mongol empire was that goods from the Far East no longer had to pass through a dozen intermediary hands – with the resulting price markups – before reaching European markets. The southern routes which terminated in Outremer were simply too expensive to compete.
144. Saint Louis' Advice to His Son, in Medieval Civilization, trans. and eds. Dana Munro and George Clarke Sellery (New York: The Century Company, 1910), pp. 366 -75.
145. Edward I's efforts in Acre are sometimes referred to as the Ninth Crusade since he began after the Eighth Crusade had technically ended.
146. He had initially confessed under torture, but recanted his confession – loudly – as he was being led to the stake. He supposedly also leveled a curse at both the king of France and the pope, prophesying that they would have to answer for their crimes within a year and a day. Both men did indeed die before the year was out, occurrences that were widely seen as divine retribution for the suppression of the Templars.
147. Sayyid Ali al-Hariri's Splendid Accounts in the Crusading Wars was published in 1899.
148. This so-called 'Crusade of Varna', named for the Bulgarian city where the crusaders met their fate, has the distinction of being the last major engagement between Christians and Muslims that is designated a 'crusade'.
149. The French general who was assigned control over Syria in the wake of the Ottoman Empire's destruction following World War 1, declared “Behold Saladin, we have returned!”
150. In 1898 the visiting German emperor, Wilhelm II, was appalled to discover the forgotten remains of Saladin interred in a shabby wooden coffin. He paid for an immense new one in white marble, befitting a 'brother-emperor'.
151. The fact that he was simultaneously attempting to exterminate Saladin's ethic group – the Kurds – doesn't seem to have bothered him.
152. There was a reconciliation of sorts exactly eight hundred years later. In 2004 Pope John Paul II apologized, saying that even eight centuries couldn't diminish the 'pain and disgust' that he felt as a Catholic. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, accepted, reminding his listeners that "the spirit of reconciliation is stronger than hatred."
153. The Templars even called themselves the 'New Knighthood.'
154. The Song of Roland (La Chanson de Roland) was written sometime in the late eleventh or early twelfth century. The legend of King Arthur was largely constructed by Geoffrey of Monmouth, who included him in his History of the Kings of Britain, written in the 1130's. The legend was further fleshed out by the English poet Wace, who gives us the first mention of the Round Table, in his Roman de Brut, composed in 1155.
155. Apricots, lemons, some perfumes, and the ancestor of the modern guitar were all popular exports of Outremer.