A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (56 page)

When Raymond Lull wrote it seemed that a
Crusade was really in the offing. King Philip of France had announced his wish
to launch an expedition, and both at the Papal Court and at Paris plans for its
conduct were being drawn up and studied. Philip’s true motive, which was to
extract money from the Church by this admirable excuse, was not yet apparent.
He had recently emerged triumphant from his quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII,
who had found that the technique which had ruined the Hohenstaufen was useless
against the new monarchies of the West. Pope Clement V, who was elected in
1305, was a Frenchman. He established himself at Avignon, on the border of the
French King’s dominions, and he showed constant deference to the King. He
hastened to collect memoranda for his own and the King’s guidance.

Suggestions for the Crusade

The most interesting of these memoranda
was destined only for Philip’s eyes. A French lawyer, Peter Dubois, submitted
to him a pamphlet of which half was to be issued to the princes of Europe,
bidding them join the movement under the King of France, and making certain recommendations
about the route to be followed and the means for financing the expedition. The
Templars should be suppressed and their property annexed, and death-duties
should be instituted for the clergy. He added a few general suggestions about
the desirability of allowing priests to marry and of turning convents into
girls’ schools. The second half was private advice to the King telling him how
to secure control of the Church by packing the Cardinals’ bench, and urging him
to set up an Eastern Empire under one of his sons. Soon afterwards in 13 1 0,
Philip’s chief diplomatic adviser, William Nogaret, sent the Pope a memoir on
the Crusade. Its strategic suggestions were slight. Its main emphasis was on
finance. The Church was to provide all the money; and the suppression of the
Templars was the first item on the programme. At the same time the Pope
collected advice. The Armenian Prince Hethoum or Hayton of Corycus, who had
retired to France and become the prior of a Praemonstratensian abbey near
Poitiers, was asked to send in his views. His book, called
Flos Historiarum
Terre Orientis,
was published in 1307 and at once achieved a wide sale. It
contained a succinct summary of Levantine history, together with a
well-informed discussion of the state of the Mameluk Empire. Hayton recommended
a double expedition, to go by sea and be based on Cyprus and on Armenia. He
recommended co-operation with the Armenians and a close alliance with the
Mongols. Similar views were expressed a little later by the Papal diplomat,
William Adam, who travelled widely in the East and subsequently reached India.
He added the suggestion that the Christians should maintain a fleet in the
Indian Ocean, to cut off Egypt’s Oriental trade. He also considered that
Constantinople should be recaptured by the Latins. William Durant, Bishop of
Mende, sent in a treatise in 1312, recommending the sea-route and laying
emphasis on the composition of the expedition, particularly with respect to its
morals. The old Genoese admiral, Benito Zaccaria, who had once been podesta of
Tripoli, wrote down his views on the naval forces required.

More practical suggestions were laid down
by three potentates who would have to play a leading part in any Crusade. In
1307 the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital were both at Avignon; and
Pope Clement asked them for their views. The former, James of Molay, at once
sent in a report. He recommended a preliminary clearance of the seas by ten
large galleys, to be followed by an army of at least twelve to fifteen thousand
horsemen and forty to fifty thousand infantrymen. The Kings of the West should
have no difficulty in raising these numbers, and the Italian republics must be
induced to provide transport. He disapproved of a landing in Cilicia. The
expedition should assemble in Cyprus and land on the Syrian coast. Four years
later, at the time of the Council of Vienne, Fulk of Villaret, Grand Master of
the Hospital, wrote to King Philip to tell him of the preparations that his
Order had made and could make for the Crusade. At the same time King Henry II
of Cyprus submitted his views to the Council. He desired an economic blockade
of the Mameluk Empire. With good reason he distrusted the Italian republics and
urged that the Crusade should not depend on them for its sea transport. He was
in favour of an attack on Egypt itself, as the most vulnerable part of the
Sultan’s dominions.

After all these memoranda and all this
enthusiasm it was a surprise and a disappointment to everyone but King Philip
that no Crusade was launched. Philip had achieved his object in finding an
excuse for raising money from the Church; and he soon showed his true views by
an attack on a great organization whose help would have been essential for a
Crusade.

1308: The Hospitallers occupy Rhodes

The loss of Outremer left the Military
Orders in a state of uncertainty. The Teutonic Knights solved their problem by
concentrating all their energies in Baltic conquest. But the Temple and the
Hospital found themselves restricted and unappreciated in Cyprus. The Hospital,
wiser than the Temple, began to look for another home. In 1306 a Genoese
pirate, Vignolo dei Vignoli, who had obtained a lease of the islands of Cos and
Leros from the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus, came to Cyprus and suggested to
the Grand Master of the Hospital, Fulk of Villaret, that he and the Hospital
should conquer the whole Dodecanesian archipelago and divide it between them;
he would retain one-third himself. While Fulk sailed to Europe to obtain the
Pope’s confirmation of the scheme, a flotilla of Hospitallers, helped by some
Genoese galleys, landed on Rhodes and slowly began the reduction of the island.
The Greek garrison fought well. It was only by treachery that the great castle
of Philermo fell to the invaders in November 1306, and the city of Rhodes
itself held out for two more years. At last, in the summer of 1308, a galley
sent from Constantinople with reinforcements for the garrison was driven by
storms to Cyprus and was seized at Famagusta by a Cypriot knight, Philip le
Jaune, who took it with its passengers to the besiegers. Its commander, who was
a Rhodian, agreed, to save his life, to negotiate the surrender of the city;
which opened its gates to the Order on 15 August. The Hospital at once set up
its headquarters in the island, and made the city, with its fine harbour, the
strongest fortress in the Levant. The conquest, achieved at the expense of
Christian Greeks, was hailed in the West as a great Crusading triumph; and
indeed it gave to the Hospital new vigour and the means to carry on its
appointed task. But the wretched Rhodians had to wait for more than six
centuries before they recovered their liberty.

The Temple was less enterprising and less
fortunate. It had always roused more enmity than the Hospital. It was
wealthier. It had long been the chief banker and money-lender in the East,
successful at a profession which does not inspire affection. Its policy had
always been notoriously selfish and irresponsible. Gallantly though its knights
had always fought in times of war, their financial activities had brought them
into close contact with the Moslems. Many of them had Moslem friends and took
an interest in Moslem religion and learning. There were rumours that behind its
castle walls the Order studied a strange esoteric philosophy and indulged in
ceremonies that were tainted with heresy. There were said to be initiation
rites that were both blasphemous and indecent; and there were whispers of
orgies for the practice of unnatural vices. It would be unwise to dismiss these
rumours as the unfounded invention of enemies. There was probably just enough
substance in them to suggest the line along which the Order could be most
convincingly attacked.

1308: The Trial of the Templars

When James of Molay went to France in 1306
to discuss with Pope Clement the projected Crusade, he heard that charges were
being made there against his Order, and he demanded a public inquiry. The Pope
hesitated. He realized that King Philip was determined to suppress the Order,
and he did not dare to offend him. In October 1307, Philip suddenly arrested
all the members of the Order that were in France and had them tried for heresy
on charges laid by two disreputable knights who had been expelled from it. The
accused gave their evidence under torture; and though a few firmly denied
everything, the majority were glad to make any admission that was required of
them. Next spring, at Philip’s request, the Pope ordered every ruler in whose
dominions the Templars had possessions to arrest them and start similar trials.
After some hesitation the various Kings of Europe consented, except for the
Portuguese Denys, who would have no truck with the sorry business. Everywhere
else Templar property was sequestered, and the knights were haled before the
Courts. Torture was not always used; but there was a fixed interrogatory. The accused
knew what they were expected to confess, and many of them confessed.

It was particularly important for the Pope
that the Cypriot government should co-operate; for the headquarters of the
Order were in the island. But the ruler there was now Henry II’s brother
Amalric, who had temporarily ousted the King from power with the help of the
Templars. The Prior Hayton arrived from Avignon in May 1308 with a letter from
the Pope ordering the immediate arrest of the knights, as they had been found
to be unbelievers. Amalric delayed in carrying out the order; and the knights,
under their Marshal, Ayme of Oselier, had time to prepare to defend themselves.
But after a brief recourse to arms they surrendered on 1 June. Their treasure,
apart from a large portion that they hid so well that it was never recovered,
was taken from Limassol to Amalric’s house in Nicosia, and the knights
themselves were placed under guard, first at Khirokhitia and Yourmasoyia, and later
at Lefkara. There they remained for three years. In May 1310, after King Henry
II had been restored to power, the Cypriot Templars were at last brought to
trial at the urgent insistence of the Pope. In France many of their brotherhood
had already been burned at the stake, and all over Europe the members of the
Order were imprisoned or destitute. King Henry had no love for the knights, who
had betrayed his cause a few years before. But he gave them a fair trial.
Seventy-six of them were accused. All denied the charges. Distinguished
witnesses swore to their innocence, and one of the few hostile witnesses
declared that he had only come to suspect them after receiving the Pope’s
account of their crimes. They were entirely acquitted. When news of their acquittal
reached Avignon, the Pope angrily wrote to King Henry to order a second trial;
and he sent a personal delegate, Dominic of Palestrina, to see that his justice
was done. The result of the retrial, which took place in 1311, is unrecorded.
Clement had ordered that, if there was danger of another acquittal, Dominic was
to secure the help of the Priors of the Dominicans and the Franciscans in
seeing that torture was applied; and the Papal Legate in the East, Peter,
Bishop of Rodez, was dispatched to Cyprus to supplement Dominic’s efforts. It
seems that the King therefore reserved his verdict and kept the accused in
prison. They were still there in 1313, when Peter of Rodez read out before all
the bishops and higher clergy of the island the Pope’s decree of 12 March 1312,
suppressing the whole Order and handing over all its wealth and possessions to
the Hospitallers, after the civil authorities had recouped themselves for the
cost of the various trials. The Kings throughout Europe found that these costs
had been remarkably high. The Hospital received little apart from real
property. The officers of the Temple in Cyprus were never released. But they
were more fortunate than their Grand Master, who after years of imprisonment
and torture and many confessions and recantations, was burned to death in Paris
in March 1314.

1299-1308: The Mongols again invade Syria

The abolition of the Templars and the
migration of the Hospitallers to Rhodes left the Cypriot kingdom as the only
Christian government acutely interested in the Holy Land. The King was
nominally King of Jerusalem; and for many generations to come the Kings, after
their coronation with the Cypriot crown at Nicosia, received the crown of
Jerusalem at Famagusta, the city that lay nearest to their lost dominion. The
Syrian coast was, moreover, of strategic importance to Cyprus. An aggressive
enemy there would endanger her very existence. Fortunately the Sultan was too
afraid of a new Crusade himself to make use of the Syrian ports. He preferred
that they should lie derelict. Nevertheless Cyprus was in constant danger from
Egypt. Believing that to attack was the best defence, King Henry in 1292 had
sent fifteen galleys, aided by ten from the Pope, to raid Alexandria. It was a
futile effort, and merely determined al-Ashraf to conquer Cyprus. ‘Cyprus,
Cyprus, Cyprus’, he cried, as he ordered a hundred galleys to be built. But he
had other grander schemes. The Mongols must first be routed and Baghdad
occupied. His ambition alarmed his emirs. They murdered him on 13 December 1293.
It was a poor reward for the determined young prince who had completed Saladin’s
work and driven the last remnant of the Franks from Syria.

Al-Ashraf was right to remember the
Mongols. In 1299, during the much interrupted reign of the Mameluk Sultan
an-Nasir Mohammed, the Mongol ruler Ghazzan, who had changed his title from
Ilkhan to Sultan, invaded Syria and routed the Mameluk defence force at
Salamia, near Homs, on 23 December. In January 1300, Damascus surrendered to
him and admitted his suzerainty. He returned to Persia next month, announcing
that he would soon return to conquer Egypt. Moslem though he was, Ghazzan would
have welcomed Christian allies. Raymond Lull hastened to Syria on the news of
the invasion, but was too late to meet Ghazzan there. He returned to Cyprus to
ask the King to help him go on an evangelical mission to the Moslem rulers.
King Henry, who did not agree that the friendship of the infidels was best won
by pointing out their errors to them, ignored his request. A more diplomatic
approach would have been useful, but none was made; and the opportunity ended
when the Mongol army was defeated in 1303 at Marj as-Saffar. Five years later,
in 1308, Ghazzan again entered Syria and now penetrated as far as Jerusalem
itself. It was rumoured that he would have willingly handed over the Holy City
to the Christians had any Christian state offered him its alliance. But, though
at the time the Pope and King Philip of France were loudly advertising their
projected Crusade, no overtures were made to the Mongols from the West, while
Cyprus was reduced to impotence by the struggles between King Henry and his
brother. In any case Ghazzan, as a good Moslem convert, might have found it
difficult to implement such a promise. On his death in 1316, the chances of a
Mongol alliance with the Christians faded out. His nephew and successor, Abu
Said, veered round towards a reconciliation with Egypt. He was the last great
Mongol ruler of Persia. After he died in 1335 the former Ilkhanate began to
disintegrate.