of West and East, Christian Europe and Mussulman Asia, remained the same outwardly and according to the general aspect of affairs; but in Syria and in Palestine there was a continuance of the struggle between Christendom and Islamry, with various fortunes on either side. The Christian kingdom of Jerusalem still stood; and after Godfrey de Bouillon, from 1100 to 1180, there had been a succession of eight kings; some energetic and bold, aspiring to extend their young dominion, others indolent and weak upon a tottering throne. The rivalries and often the defections and treasons of the petty Christian princes and lords who were set up at different points in Palestine and Syria endangered their common cause. Fortunately similar rivalries, dissensions, and treasons prevailed amongst the Mussulman emirs, some of them Turks and others Persians or Arabs, and at one time foes, at another dependants, of the Khalifs of Bagdad or of Egypt. Anarchy and civil war harassed both races and both religions with almost equal impartiality. But, beneath this surface of simultaneous agitation and monotony, great changes were being accomplished or preparing for accomplishment in the West. The principal sovereigns of the preceding generation, Louis VII., King of France, Conrad III., Emperor of Germany, and Henry II., King of England, were dying; and princes more juvenile and more enterprising, or simply less wearied out—Philip Augustus, Frederick Barbarossa, and Richard Coeur de Lion—were taking their places. In the East the theatre of policy and events was being enlarged; Egypt was becoming the goal of ambition with the chiefs, Christian or Mussulman, of Eastern Asia; and Damietta, the key of Egypt, was the object of their enterprises, those of Amaury I., the boldest of the kings of Jerusalem, as well as those of the Sultans of Damascus and Aleppo. Noureddin and Saladin (Nour-Eddyn and Sala-Eddyn), Turks by origin, had commenced their fortunes in Syria; but it was in Egypt that they culminated, and, when Saladin became the most illustrious as well as the most powerful of Mussulman sovereigns, it was with the title of Sultan of Egypt and of Syria that he took his place in history.
In the course of the year 1187, Europe suddenly heard tale upon tale about the repeated disasters of the Christians in Asia. On the 1st of May, the two religious and warlike orders which had been founded in the East for the defence of Christendom—the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem and the Templars—lost, at a brush in Galilee, five hundred of their bravest knights. On the 3d and 4th of July, near Tiberias, a Christian army was surrounded by the Saracens, and also, ere long, by the fire which Saladin had ordered to be set to the dry grass which covered the plain. The flames made their way and spread beneath the feet of men and horses. “There,” say the Oriental chroniclers, “the sons of Paradise and the children of fire settled their terrible quarrel. Arrows hurtled in the air like a noisy flight of sparrows, and the blood of warriors dripped upon the ground like rain-water.” “I saw,” adds one of them who was present at the battle, “hill, plain, and valley covered with their dead; I saw their banners stained with dust and blood; I saw their heads laid low, their limbs scattered, their carcasses piled on a heap like stones.” Four days after the battle of Tiberias, on the 8th of July, 1187, Saladin took possession of St. Jean d’Acre, and, on the 4th of September following, of Ascalon. Finally, on the 18th of September, he laid siege to Jerusalem, wherein refuge had been sought by a multitude of Christian families driven from their homes by the ravages of the infidels throughout Palestine; and the Holy City contained at this time, it is said, nearly one hundred thousand Christians. On approaching its walls, Saladin sent for the principal inhabitants, and said to them, “I know as well as you that Jerusalem is the house of God; and I will not have it assaulted if I can get it by peace and love. I will give you thirty thousand byzants of gold if you promise me Jerusalem, and you shall have liberty to go whither you will and do your tillage, to a distance of five miles from the city. And I will have you sup-plied with such plenty of provisions that in no place on earth shall they be so cheap. You shall have a truce from now to Whitsuntide, and when this time comes, if you see that you may have aid, then hold on. But if not, you shall give up the city, and I will have you conveyed in safety to Christian territory, yourselves and your substance.” “We may not yield up to you a city where died our God,” answered the envoys: “and still less may we sell you.” The siege lasted fourteen days. After having repulsed several assaults, the inhabitants saw that effectual resistance was impossible; and the commandant of the place, a knight named Dalian d’Ibelin, an old warrior, who had been at the battle of Tiberias, returned to Saladin, and asked for the conditions back again which had at first been rejected. Saladin, pointing to his own banner already planted upon several parts of the battlements, answered, “It is too late; you surely see that the city is mine.” “Very well, my lord,” replied the knight: “we will ourselves destroy our city, and the mosque of Omar, and the stone of Jacob: and when it is nothing but a heap of ruins, we will sally forth with sword and fire in hand, and not one of us will go to Paradise without having sent ten Mussulmans to hell.” Saladin understood enthusiasm, and respected it; and to have had the destruction of Jerusalem connected with his name would’ have caused him deep displeasure. He therefore consented to the terms of capitulation demanded of him. The fighting men were permitted to retreat to Tyre or Tripolis, the last cities of any importance, besides Antioch, in the power of the Christians; and the simple inhabitants of Jerusalem had their lives preserved, and permission given them to purchase their freedom on certain conditions; but, as many amongst them could not find the means, Malek-Adhel, the sultan’s brother, and Saladin himself paid the ransom of several thousands of captives. All Christians, however, with the exception of Greeks and Syrians, had orders to leave Jerusalem within four days. When the day came, all the gates were closed, except that of David by which the people were to go forth; and Saladin, seated upon a throne, saw the Christians defile before him. First came the patriarch, followed by the clergy, carrying the sacred vessels, and the ornaments of the church of the Holy Sepulchre. After him came Sibylla, Queen of Jerusalem, who had remained in the city, whilst her husband, Guy de Lusignan, had been a prisoner at Nablous since the battle of Tiberias. Saladin saluted her respectfully, and spoke to her kindly. He had too great a soul to take pleasure in the humiliation of greatness.
The news, spreading through Europe, caused amongst all classes there, high and low, a deep feeling of sorrow, anger, disquietude, and shame. Jerusalem was a very different thing from Edessa. The fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem meant the sepulchre of Jesus Christ fallen once more into the hands of the infidels, and, at the same time, the destruction of what had been wrought by Christian Europe in the East, the loss of the only striking and permanent gage of her victories. Christian pride was as much wounded as Christian piety. A new fact, moreover, was conspicuous in this series of reverses and in the accounts received of them; after all its defeats and in the midst of its discord, Islamry had found a chieftain and a hero. Saladin was one of those strange and superior beings who, by their qualities and by their very defects, make a strong impression upon the imaginations of men, whether friends or foes. His Mussulman fanaticism was quite as impassioned as the Christian fanaticism of the most ardent crusaders. When he heard that Reginald of Chatillon, Lord of Karat, on the confines of Palestine and Arabia, had all but succeeded in an attempt to go and pillage the Caaba and the tomb of Mahomet, he wrote to his brother Malek-Adhel, at that time governor of Egypt, “The infidels have violated the home and the cradle of Islamism; they have profaned our sanctuary. Did we not prevent a like insult (which God forbid!) we should render ourselves guilty in the eyes of God and the eyes of men. Purge we, therefore, our land from these men who dishonor it; purge we the very air from the air they breathe.” He commanded that all the Christians who could possibly be captured on this occasion should be put to death; and many were taken to Mecca, where the Mussulman pilgrims immolated them instead of the sheep and lambs they were accustomed to sacrifice. The expulsion of the Christians from Palestine was Saladin’s great idea and unwavering passion; and he severely chid the Mussulmans for their soft-heartedness in the struggle. “Behold these Christians,” he wrote to the Khalif of Bagdad, “how they come crowding in! How emulously they press on! They are continually receiving fresh re-enforcements more numerous than the waves of the sea, and to us more bitter than its brackish waters. Where one dies by land, a thousand come by sea. … The crop is more abundant than the harvest; the tree puts forth more branches than the axe can lop off. It is true that great numbers have already perished, insomuch that the edge of our swords is blunted; but our comrades are beginning
