Eleanor Of Aquitaine (11 page)

However, in spite of the discretions of the high council, the, "resentment," of which the abbé wrote could not be, "concealed," from the profane ranks of the crusading pilgrims. The custody of Eleanor made it very apparent that something dreadful had occurred in Antioch to warrant such proceedings. Only some shocking misbehavior on her part seemed adequate to account for the breach between the Franks and the Poitevins that threatened once more to dissipate the forces for crusade. In consequence, a variety of stories arose among the Franks to explain the anomaly and to preserve Louis and the high command from blame for the situation. William of Tyre charges the queen with indiscretions and with conduct both in Antioch and later unworthy of her royal dignity and disregardful of her marriage bond;
¹⁷
but his sources were certainly the French high command. John of Salisbury accuses her of too great familiarity with the Prince of Antioch.
¹⁸
The Minstrel of Reims, most of whose other yarns are preposterous, details the queen's effort to escape with her jewels from Tyre in a galley supplied by Saladin (a potentate at the time about ten or twelve years of age), and he relates that Louis himself frustrated her flight by setting his foot on the landing stage, just as the craft was ready to slip its moorings, and convoying her back under the shelter of midnight to the palace where she had been lodged. The stories are all suspect in view of their Frankish source and of the Frankish interest in giving a proper color to the grievous incident. Gervase of Canterbury recommends silence for rumors current in regard to Eleanor's conduct in the Orient.
¹⁹
But whether or not there was in any of them an element of fact, they became, in spite of efforts to stifle them, a stock in trade, revived from time to time, of scandalmongers and balladeers, and so pursued the Duchess of Aquitaine to the end of her days and farther down the corridors of history.

Urbs Sion inclyta, turns et edita littore tuto,
     To peto, te cola, te flagro, te volo, canto, saluto.

Bernard of Cluny

HOW SHALL AN AGE CONCERNED WITH MATERIAL THINGS comprehend the fervor that engaged whole generations of men in the Middle Ages with the theme of immortality? The vast perspective of that theme alters all the values of existence. In its immensity, life has but a feeble transiency; not here, but in the timeless sweep of eternity lies its meaning and man's true destiny. Thus mortality gets no enhancement from its brevity; wealth is perplexity; status but a vassal's tenure; joy a bubble; beauty a withering flower. So kings leave their governing in their brief mortal hour, make their crowns a votive offering, and go upon crusade. Merchants and hinds leave kindred, shop, and plow, eager for that labor whose wages are incorruptible. He who sees life as but
        a little strip of light
        'Twixt night and night'

can by no means sense the ardor that burned in the breasts of those pilgrims who, having put all their substance in pawn, traversed strange lands, and lost many of their fellows by the way, came at last, shoeless and destitute, in view of Jerusalem. "When the crusaders came near the city of Jesus Christ," says one of them, "they wept tears of joy. They could not sleep that night, they burned with such desire to see that city that marked the goal of their labors and the accomplishment of their vows. The night seemed longer than other nights; they felt the day would never dawn."

*

Led by the standard of the Holy Sepulcher, the
gonfanon baucent
of the Templars, and the oriflamme, the remnant of the grand crusade made its way over the stony highways of Palestine to the immemorial city. Winding among the brilliant arid hills, they came in sight of the Roman walls buttressed by the Tower of David, once fallen to Saracens, and now briefly recovered for a Christian dynasty. There it stood, the high place of Israel, not cloudy in a vision, but compact, succinct, its gathered domes and towers burning in the radiant air under the intense blue dome of sky, symbol in transient colors of the eternal city, the term of pilgrimage, and the end of man's desire.

Foulques, the Patnach of Jerusalem, and a company of Templars had gone out to meet the Franks and bring them in triumph to the holy city. This escort had traveled almost to the gates of Antioch for fear Louis might be persuaded to make up his quarrel with Raymond, or that he might be diverted en route by the Count of Tripoli for the defense of that principality. This going forth of the patriarch had been wise, because all along the way Louis had received envoys with letters and gifts and suggestions as to which of the cities of pagandom it would be profitable for the crusaders to take.

The chroniclers agree that Louis's arrival in Jerusalem, "animated all hearts."

"He was received," says William of Tyre, "as an angel of the Lord." For nearly three years since the fall of Edessa the Christians of the Holy Land had watched from their housetops for the dust of this host rising from the road. It was almost so long ago that the widowed Queen Melisende had written to Abbé Bernard about the hapless state of Jerusalem and had sent the abbé a fragment of the true cross; it was many months since Bernard had replied, raising hope in her heart.

The whole population came out to the Jaffa Gate to welcome the deliverer of the Holy Land with music and processions: the court, the religious orders, and a multitude of palmers from all the corners of Christendom, fanning the air with olive branches and the fronds of palms — such an indiscriminate company as only Pentecostal gifts and the wide chanty of heaven itself could embrace in one Christian family. Queen Melisende was there, that valiant half-Oriental woman with the sap of the first crusaders in her veins, and her son, the boy king Baldwin, scion of the late Angevin King Foulques. There, too, was Conrad of Hohenstaufen, who, all refreshed and refurbished during his winter with Manuel in Byzantium, had achieved his original plan of anticipating the King of the Franks in Jerusalem.

Louis, like King Baldwin I before him, repudiated all royal acclaim in that city where Christ had worn the crown of thorns, and refused to break his fast or to take any rest until he should have been brought to the Holy Sepulcher. The Franks went processionally, the patriarch at their head, to the tomb; and there, in a transport of joy, Louis cast down the burden of his sins, reposed the oriflamme which the Pope had taken from Saint Dems, and laid his offering upon the holiest altar in the world. He then made a tour of other precious shrines and, thanks to the Templars, was able to scatter alms along the pilgrims' thoroughfare. It was only after this circuit of the city that the king and his
mesme
were lodged at last in the ancient Tower of David, where the patriarch had provided richly for their entertainment.

We are at a loss to account for the captive queen in the midst of this demonstration. The silence of the chroniclers at this point is universal. We do not know whether Eleanor was borne sullenly into Jerusalem in her painted wain with the curtains drawn, or whether she rode proud as Penthesilea under the Jaffa Gate on her own hackney, or came on foot in palmer's weeds bearing the cross which Abbé Bernard had given her at Vézelay. In any case, she was of less consequence in Jerusalem than she had been in Antioch and Byzantium. She may have been under a certain surveillance after the incident in Antioch, but not under an actual restraint since that would have outraged her vassals. Even the king's council seem to have agreed after they had rescued her from her uncle's citadel that their best course was to improve her spirits. It is interesting in this connection that not much is heard in the chronicles about Odo of Duilio after the exodus from Antioch; but Thierry Galeran seems to have passed the year overseas, since he is found as one of the advance guard announcing Louis's return to France.

In Jerusalem the king and his barons found themselves in a new milieu, with new counsels for the holy war. Here they were free from the factious colonies of the south of Europe that flourished in Antioch and Tripoli and in company with reasonable men of their own provinces, akin in speech and race, men with profounder ideas about the significance of crusade.

There was already a special bond between the Capets and the reigning Latin dynasty. The late King Foulques of Jerusalem, in his original incarnation as Count of Anjou, had been a vassal of Louis the Fat. Foulques had been translated, as it were, in the midst of high emprise in Europe to a new existence overseas. At the age of about forty, after a successful career in his own provinces, he had folded his tents in Anjou, distributed his estates among his heirs, and gone out upon invitation from King Baldwin II to marry his daughter, the half-Armenian Princess Melisende, and bolster up the declining Kingdom of Jerusalem. He had hewed out a new destiny as king of the Christian colonies. For years he had steadied the fortunes of the little state, fought its wars, strengthened its frontiers with fortress castles, rebuilt much of the holy city, repaired its shrines, and begotten sons for the dwindling Latin dynasty. It was his untimely death in 1144 that had emboldened the Saracens to assault Edessa. The Countess of Flanders, who had accompanied her husband and her sons, Henry and Theodoric, upon Louis's crusade, was Foulques's daughter in his European incarnation, and so a half sister of the reigning King of Jerusalem. With this reliable world, shepherded by the patriarch, Louis found himself more thoroughly
en rapport
. He soon saw how providential it had been that he had not yielded to the pressures of Raymond of Antioch. Though the fall of Edessa had provoked the crusade, the rescue of Edessa seemed, according to advices in Jerusalem, by no means the proper objective of campaigns in Palestine. In fact, anything profiting Raymond seemed, in the clearer light of Jerusalem, a kind of sacrilege.

On the very day after their arrival, Louis and his barons went into conclave with the
haute cour
and with the German bishops and barons whom Conrad had recruited in imposing numbers. All agreed that they ought to assemble a plenary council in Acre to survey in a large way the destinies of the Latin Kingdom and the measures to be taken for the recovery and defense of the holy places. According to William of Tyre's account of the session in Acre, there was a strong ecclesiastical preponderance, with the Patriarch of Jerusalem as the guiding genius of the counsels. The kings and their barons, even the Holy Roman Emperor, appear to have waited to learn from the patriarch how they and their hosts were to be employed for the succor of Jerusalem. The Count of Tripoli and the Prince of Antioch were not there; nor was there any representation from Edessa. Queen Mehsende and other noble ladies shared the counsel, but the Queen of France is not mentioned. In her case, it is impossible to say whether she was not summoned or whether she refused to go.

A great many projects were discussed. It proved very hard to find an objective upon which all could agree. At length it was decided that an offensive against Damascus offered the best likelihood of safeguarding the Latin Kingdom, without overadvancing the interests of any single Christian prince. To take Damascus would stop up that route which united the Moslems of the two caliphates of Egypt and Baghdad, and destroy that center from which they might cooperate to attack the Christian fiefs. The high command therefore, "let cry," the summons for a muster on the Sea of Galilee on the 25th of May In the town of Tiberias the King of the Franks, the King of Jerusalem, and the Holy Roman Emperor marshaled their hosts They spread their tents, newly revamped by the Templars in Jerusalem, and planted their banners above the lake At dawn they could look down upon the little boats where fishermen, as in the day of the apostles, were drawing their nets and dropping their sails, and, as the mist lifted from the water, upon that Gadarene desert country that brooded beyond the narrow green rim of the lake. Resuming their march, they passed through Caesarea Philippi and there received from its shrine the true cross, which most venerable relic they bore with them as sovereign token of their enterprise. Thence they set out briskly over the Anti-Lebanon in the first glowing days of the Syrian summer. Arriving in sight of Damascus without obstacle, they encamped among the vine yards, orchards, and cucumber gardens of the Damascene oasis.

The late King Foulques, lacking the soldiers to take the city, had pursued a policy of reciprocal toleration with the Emir of Damascus. The Moslems were therefore somewhat unprepared and thoroughly terrified by the advent of the, "Christian dogs." However, they diverted all the water they could from their irrigation streams, plundered their own gardens, drew in their provisions, and prayed in all their mosques to Allah to smite the enemy with the desert sun.

The Christian army, led by the more experienced knights of Jerusalem, dashed valiantly against the walls. Louis led his barons in person and flung himself with ardor into the thick of the onslaught. They were making hopeful progress when some unofficial opinion got abroad among the various contingents that an attack from another quarter would be more certain of success. William of Tyre describes this mysterious counsel that insinuated itself at the very moment of triumph as, "malice of the devil." However this may be, it went into the ear of the high command and the siege was diverted to another angle of the wall. Here the Christians found themselves cut off from water, and the heat, dust, and thirst brought them, horse and man, to extremity. A confusion arose among the council. The blame for the evil advice could not be fixed upon a guilty man who could be hanged for it; but a suspicion spread abroad that there was treachery afoot. Some said Raymond of Antioch, out of enmity to the French king, had betrayed the Christians to the infidels; some that Thierry of Flanders had bargained for the fief, when it should fall, as a settlement for Henry and Theodoric, who had never profited by the status of their grandfather, King Foulques of Jerusalem; some talked of venality among the barons of Jerusalem. Conrad of Hohenstaufen, who was unaccustomed to such loose organization and ineffectual work in warfare, declared himself quit of his vows and eager to go home. With all his courage and fervor, the King of the Franks, who was certainly disinterested, could not persuade these veterans of other wars to persevere. The Damascenes gave thanks in all their mosques when the King of Jerusalem and his allies folded their tents and struck off from the trampled gardens and vineyards across the desert for the valley of the Jordan.

Since it subsequently seemed impossible to rally for any special project the various forces that Abbé Bernard had recruited in Europe, the second crusade, as a military operation, crumbled to its final ruin. The long journey and the many delays had depleted the coffers as well as the man power for the expedition, and the sedition of Antioch and Tripoli hopelessly divided the forces overseas. The King of Jerusalem, even the Templars, lacked the means to carry on the war. Louis turned over the remnant of his homesick barons and prelates to his brother, the Count of Dreux, and they returned by sea to their own lands. As for the king himself, he could not make up his mind to depart from Palestine.

Abbé Suger besought him to return to his own estates, where the seeds of sedition were being sown by his recent brothers-in-arms. "Why, my dear Lord and King," wrote the abbé, "are you still in flight from us? Have we not hated those who hate you, have we not burned against your enemies? Why do you persist in enduring so many desperate ills overseas after your barons and nobles have returned? By reason of what harshness of ours, or what theory of your own, do you delay your return?" But in spite of these importunities, Louis resolved to stay over the winter for the season of Easter in 1149. The long delays in Antioch had obliged him to forego the Easter celebrations of 1148.