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Episodes like the Children’s Crusade make clear that, despite repeated failures, Christians in Europe still had a strong desire to recapture Jerusalem and rescue the True Cross. Pope Innocent III shared that desire—indeed, nothing was closer to his heart. Almost immediately after the disintegration of the Fourth Crusade at Constantinople in 1204, Innocent began planning for another campaign to the East. The Albigensian Crusade delayed those plans, but by early 1213 the pope was convinced that the primary objectives of the war against the heretics had been met. He removed most of the indulgences associated with that crusade, making it less attractive to pious soldiers.
THE FIFTH CRUSADE
The shape of Innocent’s new crusade to the East was revealed in Quia maior, the encyclical that he sent to the people of Christendom in April and May 1213. This impressive document represents the full maturation of the crusading idea and would become the model for all subsequent crusade bulls. In it, Innocent called all the faithful, irrespective of social or economic status, to heed the call of the church and come to the aid of the crucified Christ. For too long, he proclaimed, the infidel had held the Holy City. Even now, the Muslims were preparing to wipe out the last remnants of the crusader states. Innocent reported that they had built a fortress on Mt. Tabor, the site of the Transfiguration of the Lord, from which they planned to launch their final attack. Now was the time for action. The opportunity to crusade should not be squandered. It was a rare gift of grace, a blessed avenue toward eternal salvation.
Innocent sought nothing less than to harness the full economic, military, and spiritual might of western Europe against the Muslim conquerors of Jerusalem. No Christian was too great or too small to take part in the effort. Those who could not physically travel to the East were enjoined to wage spiritual warfare through fasting and prayer. Monthly processions of holy relics were instituted throughout Europe, and a new prayer was added to the rite of the Mass, beseeching God to take pity on the land of his Son.
The pope was determined that this new enterprise would not follow the example of the Fourth Crusade, tragically spinning out of control. Unlike any before it, the Fifth Crusade was designed to be an enterprise fully administered and managed by the church. Toward that end, the pope commissioned a new corps of crusade preachers, each one trained in the approved texts. With preaching manuals in hand, these clerics were dispatched to strategically selected regions to raise up the faithful for the holy cause.
Among the preachers was Robert of Courçon, papal legate to France. Robert traveled across the countryside distributing crosses to everyone, regardless of station. Most, of course, were unfit for military service and could offer no tangible benefit to the crusade, but the enthusiasm among the old, infirm, and poor was indeed impressive. Another preacher, Oliver of Paderborn, had better luck in northwest Germany, Flanders, and Holland. Oliver, who was master of the cathedral school in Cologne, put his rhetorical skills in the service of the crusade. Wherever he went, crowds gathered to hear his words, see the miracles, and take the cross. In time, he assembled a very large army, which he led on the crusade himself. Years later, after his return to Europe, he wrote the Historia Damiatina, a valuable eyewitness account of the Fifth Crusade.
The new crusade was among the most important items of business for the Fourth Lateran Council, which opened on November 11, 1215. There the blueprints for the campaign were drafted. The crusaders were to assemble in Brindisi and Messina on June 1, 1217, the day on which the truce with the Muslims in the Holy Land expired. There the pope would personally bless the fleets, sending them on to their holy task. To ensure that they had all that was required, the pope promised to pay 30,000 pounds of silver himself and imposed a 5 percent tax on Europe’s clergy for the next three years. All transport vessels were ordered to abandon their trade with the East and prepare themselves to carry the great crusading army.
Quia maior and the subsequent decrees of the council expanded and regularized the rights and privileges of the crusader. In addition to the crusading indulgence, participants were given immunities from all taxation and penalties for usury. Their personal debts were suspended and their lands placed under the protection of the church. Clergy who crusaded could continue to receive their benefices while absent for up to three years. It was also decreed that those who paid to outfit and supply a crusader could share in the crusading indulgence. This not only increased the number of those able to make the journey but also extended to women, the elderly, and the sick spiritual benefits previously available only to fighting men. No one could see it then, but in this provision was planted the seed that in three centuries’ time would grow into the weed of abuses that ultimately led to the Protestant Reformation.
Europe was once again energized by pious crusading zeal. Aside from the multitude of the poor, who served in humble prayer, many thousands of fighting men eagerly donned the cross of Christ. Only in France, the heartland of the crusades, was the response poor. Many French had already acquired their indulgences through forty days of service in the Albigensian Crusade, which continued to sputter along even after the Fourth Lateran Council. Enthusiasm similar to that inspired by Oliver of Paderborn in Germany stirred the knights of Austria, who vowed to follow their crusading lord, Duke Leopold VI. The new crusade was also popular in Hungary. King Bela III (1173–96) had taken the cross many years earlier but died with his vow unfilled. When his two sons, Andrew and Emeric, locked horns in a fierce civil war they both assumed the cross to gain papal favor. Emeric I (1196–1204) won the war, but despite repeated warnings from the pope, he never crusaded. He did make much of his crusader status when the Fourth Crusade took from him the city of Zara, but usually he tried to avoid drawing attention to his vow. Shortly after Emeric’s death in 1204, Andrew II (1205–35) took the throne, but he also stalled and made excuses to avoid a crusade. With Innocent’s patience at an end, Andrew at last prepared to complete his vow two decades after he had taken it.
The most powerful monarch to heed the church’s call was young Frederick II (1212–50). The orphan son of Emperor Henry VI and Constance of Sicily, Frederick was heir to two kingdoms: Norman Sicily and the German empire. His guardian, Innocent III, allowed him to take the crown of Sicily but kept him from power in Germany until the pope fell out with his own candidate, Otto of Brunswick. In July 1215, Frederick was crowned king of the Germans in Aachen. During the ceremony the new monarch surprised everyone by proclaiming that he would use his many blessings for the cause of the Holy Land. With intense emotion, he took the vow of the cross and urged all the nobility of Germany to do the same. But as Frederick was still engaged in a civil war with Otto of Brunswick, there was no way for him to make good on his promise until he acquired his kingdom in fact as well as in theory.
Innocent worked feverishly, overseeing every aspect of crusade preparations. In the midst of this activity, on July 16, 1216, he died. His successor, Honorius III (1216–27), was elderly but still vigorous and thoroughly committed to the crusade. He earnestly believed that Jerusalem would be restored during his pontificate and went about his duties with that calm resolve. Although he was an effective leader, Honorius was handed a complex enterprise that even his predecessor had had difficulty controlling.
Very few crusaders traveled to the southern Italian ports designated by the pope. The Hungarian and Austrian forces converged on Spalato (Split) in August 1217. Leopold and his forces sailed immediately, but the Hungarian armies were so large that King Andrew had to send to Venice for additional vessels. Shortly thereafter, the Hungarian crusaders also departed.
Conditions for a crusade in the Holy Land were not unfavorable. After Saladin’s death, his lands were divided between his brother, al-Adil, and his two sons. By 1200, al-Adil had succeeded in pushing aside his nephews, gaining overlordship of the entire Ayyubid Empire. For administrative purposes, al-Adil put the three main areas of the empire under the control of his three sons. The eldest, al-Kamil, took Egypt; al-Mu’azzam ruled Syria and Palestine; and al-Ashraf governed upper Mesopotamia. None of this occurred without resentment and rebellion, so al-Adil was more than willing to maintain peace with the Christians while he dealt with his own internal problems.
It is remarkable that the Ayyubid Dynasty, which Saladin established, quickly abandoned military jihad. Indeed, as Carole Hillenbrand has noted, the Ayyubid policy toward the Western Christians was decidedly one of détente, not conflict. In part this was a symptom of Muslim disunity, which made a focused attack on the Franks impractical. But it was also an outcome of the crumbling alliance between the Muslim religious classes and military leaders. The historian Ibn al-Athir lamented:
Amongst the rulers of Islam we see not one who desires to wage jihad or aid . . . religion. Each one devotes himself to his pastimes and amusements and to wronging his flock. This is more dreadful to me than the enemy.1
The Austrian and Hungarian crusaders landed at Acre, where they were joined by smaller armies led by Prince Bohemond IV of Antioch and King Hugh of Cyprus. John of Brienne, titular king of Jerusalem, also joined them. Altogether, it was a considerable force. The question was what to do with it. A council of war was called and various plans proposed. Since the Third Crusade, it was generally held that the best way to capture and hold Jerusalem was to conquer Egypt, the source of Muslim power in the region. Richard I had argued unsuccessfully for this plan in 1192, and the planners of the Fourth Crusade had adopted it in 1201. Many, including King John, thought that it was now time to put it into effect, but there were too many leaders with no clear consensus. Frederick II was expected soon, and many thought they should wait for him before launching any major offensive. To occupy themselves in the interim, the crusaders undertook various minor campaigns against the Muslims in late 1217, none with any lasting effect. These included an unsuccessful assault on the new fortress at Mt. Tabor, which Innocent III had described in Quia maior.
Having traveled to the Levant and participated in one minor campaign, Andrew of Hungary proclaimed his long-delayed vow fulfilled. Despite the patriarch of Jerusalem’s threats of excommunication, Andrew began his journey home in January 1218. With him went Hugh of Cyprus and Bohemond of Antioch. The departure of the armies of Hungary was a severe blow to the crusade, which was left with an army too small to undertake any effective operations. All the remaining leaders could do was wait for reinforcements while keeping the soldiers busy rebuilding fortifications and performing other odd jobs.
The crusade’s numbers were replenished in the spring with the arrival of Oliver of Paderborn and his army of Frisians and Germans. A large number of Italian crusaders with sizable fleets also arrived to join the enterprise, but Frederick II was nowhere to be seen. Reassurances of his impending arrival continued to flow from Europe, but the crusaders decided to strike while they still had sufficient numbers to do so. In council, the plan to attack Egypt was approved. The first target was Damietta, an important and prosperous port at a strategic point on the Nile delta. With Damietta as a base, the crusaders could launch an attack on Cairo itself.
THE SIEGE OF DAMIETTA
The crusader fleets arrived at Damietta on May 27, 1218. They made a fortified camp on the west bank of the Nile, just opposite the city. Damietta was heavily fortified with triple land and sea walls. The crusaders quickly realized that the only way of taking the city was to cut it off from supplies and starve out the inhabitants. Nothing could be accomplished, though, until they had command of the Nile, and for that they would have to take the chain tower, an impressive fortification built on an island in the middle of the Nile, from which massive harbor chains stretched across, blocking access. The tower itself was connected to the city by means of a pontoon bridge. Throughout the summer, the crusaders made numerous attempts to capture the tower, yet all failed. At last, it was the bookish master of Cologne, Oliver of Paderborn, who saved the day. He designed a new siege engine constructed from two cogs (large transport vessels) bound together with four stout masts mounted on them. On top of the masts, Oliver directed the building of a wooden fortress with a rotating scaling ladder operated by a complex pulley system. On August 24, a company of brave crusaders entered the monstrosity and approached the tower. Fighting was fierce, but at last the soldiers were able to attach their ladder and capture the tower. The rest of the army looked on with joy as they saw the standard of the sultan removed and a cross put in its place. The clergy, who had been praying fervently along the banks, lifted their voices to heaven, singing the Te Deum.
The crusaders’ arrival on the Nile took al-Kamil completely by surprise. He scrambled to Damietta and set up camp on the south side of the city as well as along the east bank of the Nile. The fall of the tower was a great shock to al-Kamil but an even greater one to his father, al-Adil, who died when he heard the news. Al-Kamil immediately ordered the Nile blocked with sunken vessels, thus preventing the crusaders from surrounding the city along its sea walls. This measure forced the crusaders to spend much of the winter dredging an abandoned canal, through which their vessels could then pass.
Shortly after the fall of the tower, new recruits arrived from Italy, France, England, and Spain, but these additions were offset by the departure of others. Indeed, as James M. Powell has shown, the history of the Fifth Crusade is one of a fluid army defined by the constant arrivals and departures of soldiers. In part, this was the logical outcome of the new formulation of a crusade as a papally sanctioned war against the enemies of the faith, rather than an armed pilgrimage to the land of Christ. As had occurred in the Albigensian Crusade, the completion of one’s vow was now defined as a period of military service, not necessarily the attainment of a stated goal.
As in all crusades, the notion of a chain of command among the Christians at Damietta was troublesome at best. In the continued absence of Frederick II, the barons elected John of Brienne commander in chief. However, the power structure of the crusade began to shift after the September arrival of the Portuguese cardinal-legate, Pelagius of Albano. The cardinal had a strong personality, to say the least. He was self-assured, imperious, and occasionally rash. He shared Innocent’s view that the crusade should proceed under the control of the church, although it is not clear that he initially envisioned commanding the enterprise himself. He found a crusade army in desperate need of a strong commander. Split along factional and national lines, the soldiers were almost as much at war with themselves as with the enemy. In his attempts to mediate these disputes, Pelagius became the focus of his own faction. Some supported him; others supported John of Brienne.
The crusaders had important internal problems, but those of al-Kamil were worse. With the death of his father, dissident factions seething at the increase in taxes and military levies staged a coup against the sultan. In a panic, he fled Egypt and his army broke apart. It was a stroke of good luck for the crusaders. On February 5, 1219, they took al-Kamil’s abandoned camp without a fight. Not only did they find a rich haul of booty, but they also were able to encircle Damietta, cutting it off from all aid or supplies.
Before the coup, al-Kamil had sent repeated messages to his two brothers to come to his aid in Egypt. Al-Ashraf was occupied in Mesopotamia, but al-Mu’azzam responded to the call. With his help, al-Kamil put down the rebellion and established control of Egypt once more. But there remained the problem of the crusade. Al-Kamil knew well that unless the siege of Damietta was broken, the city eventually would fall. Once the Christians owned Damietta, it would be very difficult to dislodge them. Like the crusaders, al-Kamil expected the arrival of Frederick II with his mighty armies, and he did not want the emperor to have Damietta as a secure base for his conquest of Egypt. In the meantime, the continued presence of the Christians in his domain was destabilizing to the sultan’s already shaky hold on power.
Al-Kamil decided that it was time to make a deal. He sent envoys to the crusaders with an attractive offer. In return for their immediate evacuation of Egypt, he would hand over to them the entire kingdom of Jerusalem with the exception of the fortresses of Kerak and Krak de Montreal in the Transjordan. For those, he would render an annual lease payment of 15,000 bezants. In addition, he would grant a thirty-year truce to the Christians of the restored kingdom. In other words, al-Kamil offered to wipe away most of Saladin’s conquests in Palestine in return for the crusaders lifting one siege in Egypt. In council, King John argued strenuously in favor of accepting the offer. This was the crusaders’ chance to restore to Christian control not only Jerusalem but also its kingdom. Was that not the reason they had attacked Egypt in the first place? Was the restoration of Jerusalem not the purpose of the crusade? The Templars and Hospitallers, however, opposed the bargain. They pointed out that truces were easily broken and that Jerusalem would be difficult to defend without the fortresses of the Transjordan. Pelagius agreed. Negotiations continued but did not progress. Al-Kamil could not allow the Christians to control the Transjordan, the only secure line of communication between the two halves of the Ayyubid Empire.
Certain that the crusaders would accept the proposal, al-Mu’azzam ordered the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem in March 1219. Not surprisingly, this was hugely unpopular among the Muslim inhabitants of the Holy City. According to Sibt ibn al-Jawzi:
They began on the walls on the first day of Muharram and there occurred in the city an outcry like [that of] the Day of Resurrection. Secluded women and girls, old men and women, and young men and boys went out to the [Dome of the] Rock and the Aqsa [mosque] and cut their hair and ripped their clothing to such an extent that the Rock and the Aqsa mihrab were filled with hair.2
Al-Mu’azzam, who had earlier spent lavishly on building projects in Jerusalem, responded to his critics, saying, “If they [the Christians] were to take it, they would kill those in it and rule over Damascus and the countries of Islam. Necessity demands its destruction.” With no fortifications or military support, the Muslims of Jerusalem abandoned their homes, leaving the city largely empty.3
Back in Egypt, during the spring and summer of 1219 the crusaders maintained their siege of Damietta while al-Kamil stepped up his attacks on them. They responded with counterattacks, but nothing much was accomplished. In May, the valiant Duke Leopold departed for home, having served a year and a half on the crusade. In August, the famous Francis of Assisi arrived in the crusaders’ camp. This humble man of God had journeyed across the Mediterranean to end the crusade by converting the sultan to Christianity. It is sometimes said that Francis opposed the crusades and sought to bring peace between Christians and Muslims through mutual dialogue and understanding. This is to remake Francis in the image of modernity. In truth, Francis strongly supported the crusades, but he believed that their aim could be achieved quickly if the sultan would simply convert to Christianity. Francis knew this was unlikely, but he was willing to accept martyrdom to attempt it. Cardinal Pelagius initially refused to give Francis permission to visit al-Kamil’s camp, but after repeated requests he relented. As it happened, the Muslim guards mistook Francis for an envoy sent to discuss peace. When he was brought into the tent of the sultan, Francis spoke not of terms or deals, but of the errors of Islam. The attendants were outraged and prepared to kill him where he stood, but al-Kamil forbade it. The sultan was intrigued by Francis, but he was clearly not interested in converting. And there was no sense in disrupting the negotiations by killing the Christians’ holy man. After a polite conversation, he sent Francis back to the crusader camp (photospread illustration 9).
As conditions in Damietta worsened, al-Kamil again contacted the crusaders and sweetened his deal. In addition to the kingdom of Jerusalem, he offered to hand over the True Cross taken by Saladin at the Battle of Hattin thirty years earlier. He also promised to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem at his own expense. Again John of Brienne urged the acceptance of the offer, and again Pelagius and the military orders turned it down. The addition of the True Cross, they argued, did not make up for the subtraction of the Transjordan. They also doubted that al-Kamil had the True Cross. Saladin had not been able to find it when he needed it to ransom captives in 1191.
By October 1219, the blockade of Damietta had devastated the city. On the night of November 4, crusader sentries noticed that one of the city towers was unmanned. Quickly, they climbed the tower and found the fortifications largely abandoned. Without a fight, the city was quickly taken. What they found inside horrified them. Damietta had become a city of the dead. Of the original sixty thousand inhabitants, only about ten thousand remained alive, and most of those were very ill. Dead bodies lay everywhere. Oliver of Paderborn recounted:
As we were entering it [Damietta], there met us an intolerable odor, a wretched sight. The dead killed the living. Man and wife, father and son, master and slave, killed each other by their odor. Not only were the streets full of the dead, but in the houses, in the bedrooms, and on the beds lay the corpses. When a husband had perished, a woman, powerless to rise and lacking the help of one to support her, died, not being able to bear the odor; a son near his father or vice versa, a handmaid beside her mistress or vice versa, wasted away with illness and lay dead. Little ones asked for bread and there was none to break it for them, infants hanging at the breasts of their mothers opened their mouths in the embrace of one dead.4
Most of the surviving citizens were allowed to ransom themselves or go into voluntary exile. The crusaders cared for and baptized the many orphaned children, although most of them soon died of their illnesses.
It took the soldiers some weeks to clean up the city. Although food was scarce in the besieged town, wealth was not, so the crusaders had a rich haul to distribute—a source of inevitable conflict. Internal factionalism among the crusaders rose to a fevered pitch, even erupting in armed conflicts. At last, Pelagius ordered national groups to occupy separate areas of the city to reduce the level of violence. After settling down in Damietta, the crusaders took the nearby town of Tinnis without a fight on November 23.
After the fall of Damietta, al-Kamil retreated upriver to Mansurah, where he constructed a fortified camp to block access to Cairo. He ordered al-Mu’azzam to return to Syria and attack the crusader states there, hoping to put additional pressure on the crusaders to make a deal.
THE CRUSADE STALLS
In Damietta, the life of the crusaders changed from spartan to hedonistic. The clergy complained that the soldiers of Christ were now too occupied in the brothels and gambling houses to concern themselves with crusading. It is true that the crusade stalled, doing nothing throughout the year 1220, but that was caused more by uncertainty in leadership than by moral decay among the rank and file. Early in the year, John of Brienne returned to Acre. He had a claim in Armenia to settle and also was needed for the defense of his kingdom against al-Mu’azzam. Theoretically, this left Pelagius as the sole commander of the crusade; in actuality, many of the soldiers refused to be led by a priest. Inaction at Damietta was also fueled by the continued expectation of the arrival of Frederick II. On November 22, 1220, he was crowned Holy Roman emperor, and in a splendid ceremony he renewed his crusading vow, promising to send part of his forces in the spring and depart himself in August. He sent word to the crusaders that they should await his arrival before pressing onward.
By the spring of 1221, al-Kamil had transformed his makeshift defenses at Mansurah into a formidable stronghold against invasion. He again sent envoys to the crusaders, offering the kingdom of Jerusalem for their withdrawal, and again they refused unless he included the Transjordan.
In May, the first armies of Frederick II began arriving under the command of Duke Louis of Bavaria, a famous and respected German baron. As the emperor’s man, he won the support of those who would not follow Pelagius. The cardinal-legate had for some time favored a plan to capture Cairo and thereby Egypt itself, but he could not gain sufficient support among the crusaders. Louis had received strict orders from Frederick to oppose any such plan, but he was moved by the obviously corrosive effect that a year of comfortable idleness and rancorous factionalism had had on the crusade army. He agreed with Pelagius that the men needed a new campaign and suggested a compromise. Rather than a full-scale invasion of Egypt, he proposed an attack on the sultan’s position at Mansurah with a portion of the crusader army and fleet. The capture of the fortified camp was a limited goal that would not jeopardize the crusaders’ control of Damietta and could provide Frederick with a strong base from which to capture Cairo when he arrived. With the support of Pelagius and Louis, all the various factions in the army agreed to the plan. At the end of June, the advance forces joyously marched out of Damietta. They prepared their weapons and machines at their old campsite across the Nile.
The pope had earlier written to John of Brienne, scolding him for his departure from Damietta and ordering him to return immediately with his forces. John arrived on July 7, a few days after the crusaders had made the decision to march on Mansurah. The king strongly opposed the plan, urging the crusaders to remain in Damietta until Frederick II arrived. When John asked the council to reconsider, Pelagius dismissed him as a malcontent, more interested in his own gains in Palestine than the good of the crusade in Egypt. Henceforth, Pelagius decreed, anyone who opposed the southern march risked excommunication.
At some point in July, al-Kamil again made his offer, which Pelagius opposed and John favored. Because the emperor had forbidden him to accept a peace before he could personally take command of the crusade, Louis of Bavaria had no choice but to agree with Pelagius.
THE LOSS OF DAMIETTA
On July 17, 1221, the crusaders bade farewell to their comrades in Damietta and began their march south. Theirs was a considerable force, led by all the prominent leaders and constituting half or more of the crusade’s total strength. One week later, on July 24, they arrived near Mansurah. Pelagius ordered the crusaders to camp at a wedge of land formed by the Nile and one of its tributaries. It was a foolish choice, one that demonstrated an utter lack of familiarity with the Nile’s hydrography. King John tried to inform Pelagius of the danger, but the legate would no longer listen to him. The other soldiers, sure of their imminent victory, threatened to kill John if he did not stop his incessant doomsaying.
Sometime early in 1221, al-Ashraf, having settled his problems in Mesopotamia, was ready to assist his brother in Egypt. By early August, the three brothers were united and ready for battle. Their combined forces considerably outnumbered the crusaders. Oblivious to the arrival of the new armies, the crusaders at Mansurah allowed themselves to become surrounded, cut off from retreat or supply from Damietta. Their position changed from besiegers to besieged. Very quickly, provisions ran low. Finally, on August 26, Pelagius ordered the crusaders to march north and cut their way out of the noose. But on the road to Damietta they did not encounter the troops they expected. Instead, al-Kamil took advantage of the rising river, opening the sluices and flooding their route. The army was hopelessly bogged down. Too late, Pelagius begged John to take command of the crusade and save them from destruction. There was little to do. Resolved to die fighting rather than in a flood, John formed battle lines against the enemy, but the sultan refused to risk his soldiers while the Nile was winning the war for him. There was no choice but to sue for peace.
Al-Kamil’s brothers favored the extermination of the crusade army. The sultan did not. Damietta was still well garrisoned by crusaders. If he massacred the Christian army, he would have to lay siege to Damietta, and that would take time—time that al-Kamil did not have. It was vital to remove the crusaders from Egypt before Frederick II arrived. The deaths of the crusaders would stir passions in Europe and cause Christian knights to flock to the emperor, allowing him to land at Damietta with an awesome force. It was still much better to make a deal.
When the crusader representatives arrived in the sultan’s tent, they were surprised to be treated with every kindness and courtesy. Immediately, al-Kamil ordered food to be sent to the afflicted army. His terms of surrender were simple: in exchange for their lives, the crusaders were to hand over Damietta and evacuate Egypt. He would grant an eight-year truce between Muslims and Christians with an exemption for a crowned head of Europe on crusade. As a fig leaf for the crusaders, al-Kamil also agreed to return the True Cross. It was their only victory, and Oliver of Paderborn embraced it: “Let all posterity know that in view of the critical point of our necessity, we made an excellent bargain, when the Wood of our redemption was restored to us in exchange for one city which Christianity could not hold for long.”5
Word was sent to Damietta of the crusaders’ defeat and the necessity of returning the hard-won city to the Muslims. Additional German troops had just arrived, and the leaders were appalled that Frederick’s orders to remain at Damietta were not obeyed. They insisted that no deal should be honored until the emperor arrived. The Italians and Normans agreed, swearing that they would not hand over the city. The French and the military orders were on the other side, declaring that they must redeem the lives of their comrades. Fighting between the two factions broke out in the streets of Damietta. Only when John of Brienne sent word that he would forfeit Acre if the crusaders would not relinquish Damietta did the dispute end. The Christians prepared to evacuate the city.
On September 8, 1221, al-Kamil entered Damietta in triumph and the dispirited crusaders went home. The Fifth Crusade had repeatedly been on the brink of fantastic success, yet it ended in humiliating failure. The one apparent minor victory, the return of the True Cross, never occurred. The Templars, it appears, were right: al-Kamil did not have it.
THE CRUSADE OF FREDERICK II
News of the crusaders’ crushing defeat stunned everyone. Muslims had come to accept that, at the very least, the Fifth Crusade would regain Jerusalem and its kingdom, and many expected Egypt to fall as well. The Christians of Europe agreed with this assessment. The sudden and complete collapse of the crusade filled Muslim hearts with joy and Christian mouths with words of disgust. Pelagius received much of the blame, and rightly so, for it was his opposition to the exchange of Jerusalem and his disastrously led campaign against Mansurah that doomed the crusade.
Fingers were also pointed at Frederick II. His vow was now six years old, and, despite repeated promises, he was no closer to Egypt. His empty promises had profoundly shaped the events of the Fifth Crusade. Returning soldiers accused Frederick of reckless disregard for the effort. He had strung them along, insisting that he and his vast armies were just beyond the horizon, thus keeping the enterprise in a limbo that ultimately proved fatal. Pope Honorius III shared these sentiments. On November 19, 1221, he wrote to the emperor, reproaching him for his repeated delays and blaming himself for allowing Frederick to get away with them.
In a personal meeting, Frederick convinced the pope that he was not to blame for the delays and reaffirmed his strong intention to lead a great crusade. With the pope’s blessings, Frederick again renewed his crusading vow and set the departure date for the fleet at June 24, 1225—ten years after his original vow. At once, the crusade preachers were sent out, but recruits gathered only slowly. To stir interest, John of Brienne made a much-celebrated tour of Europe. Everywhere, the king of Jerusalem was received with pomp and joyous greetings, but with few recruits and less money. By the spring of 1224, Frederick had assembled a sizable fleet, but the poor response to the crusade among the German nobility meant that he would not have an army to fill it. At last, he requested from Honorius yet another delay.
By right, and by his own advice, Frederick should have been excommunicated long before. Honorius had been patient with him because he recognized the real difficulties the emperor encountered and because he desperately wanted the glorious crusade that he promised. But his patience and the patience of Christendom were nearly exhausted. To avoid excommunication, Frederick suggested another face-to-face meeting. It was held on July 25, 1225, at San Germano. Once again, Frederick assured the pope of his unswerving commitment to the crusade and outlined even bolder plans for a massive expedition. The pope responded that he was willing to grant one final delay, but only if he had tangible assurances of the size, scope, and departure date of the crusade. Frederick agreed wholeheartedly. In the treaty of San Germano, Frederick committed himself to sailing with a large crusading army on August 15, 1227, and prosecuting a war in the East for no less than two years. As security for his word, he agreed to render 100,000 ounces of gold to the king and patriarch of Jerusalem and the master of the Teutonic Knights. The funds would be returned to him when he arrived in Acre. If he failed to crusade or died, the money would be forfeit. If he failed to keep any of the promises made at San Germano, Frederick agreed that he should be immediately excommunicated. With the document signed, Frederick headed north to prepare for the crusade.
In June 1222, Frederick’s wife, Constance, died. To make clear his crusading intentions, Frederick suggested that he marry Isabella, the daughter of King John of Brienne of Jerusalem. John, however, was reluctant. He had acquired the crown of Jerusalem through his marriage to Maria of Montferrat. After her death in 1211, he ruled as guardian of his daughter. John feared that if Frederick married Isabella, he would claim the throne of Jerusalem for himself as the husband of the heir. Frederick assured John that he would do no such thing. The pope was eager to see the match because it would bind together the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Jerusalem. Such a union, he hoped, would ensure the long-term defense of the Holy Land. Reluctantly, John consented; in November 1225, Frederick and Isabella were married. Despite his promises, Frederick declared himself king of Jerusalem immediately after the nuptials and altered the imperial seal to include his new title. John was outraged, and he denounced the emperor to the pope in the strongest terms. Not only had Frederick doomed the Fifth Crusade, he complained, but now he had usurped the crusader kingdom from one who had fought for it all of his life. Honorius wrote to Frederick, condemning his scandalous action, but there was little more that he could do. Although acquired through deceit, Frederick now had the legal right to claim John’s crown.
As king of Jerusalem, Frederick acquired more tangible reasons to crusade than that of eternal salvation. He was determined to win his new kingdom and properly take the crown in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Now, more than ever, he cursed Louis of Bavaria and Pelagius for the collapse of the crusade in Egypt, for if he still had Damietta, he could have traded it for Jerusalem. As it happened, though, the time for deals was not yet past.
After the defeat of the Christians, the harmony of the three sons of al-Adil crumbled. Al-Kamil and al-Mu’azzam became enemies, and al-Ashraf wavered from one side to the other. If Frederick were to arrive in Egypt with a large crusade army, al-Kamil was certain that his brother would move against him. To forestall that possibility, the sultan sent an envoy to Frederick in 1226. The envoy, the emir Fakhr-ad-Din, arrived in the emperor’s court with rich gifts and pleasant words. Frederick was deeply impressed by the emir. The two men became fast friends, and Frederick even knighted his Muslim guest. The terms of the deal were not yet precise, but it is clear that the sultan at least offered Jerusalem and its kingdom if the crusade would avoid Egypt and turn instead against Damascus. Frederick was more than intrigued. He sent his own envoy to Egypt to discuss the specifics. The envoy even traveled to the court of al-Mu’azzam to see if the ruler of Damascus could make a more appealing counteroffer. “Tell your master,” al-Mu’azzam replied, “that I have for him only a sword.”
Honorius III never did see the crusade he had expected for so long. On March 18, 1227, he died. His successor, Gregory IX (1227–41), was deeply pious, learned, and energetic. Like Honorius, he was committed to the salvation of the Holy Land and eager to see Frederick fulfill his vow. It had been from Gregory’s own hands that Frederick had taken the cross during his imperial coronation in 1220. Also like Honorius, Gregory found that his patience was at an end. He would brook no further delays. In his letter announcing his election, Gregory called on Europe to join the emperor in his holy cause while at the same time warning Frederick that if he failed to crusade again it would mean excommunication. Frederick had every intention of sailing as promised. Recruitment efforts were starting to bear fruit across Europe, with the exception of France, where Louis VIII was leading his crusaders against Raymond of Toulouse.
In the summer of 1227, the crusading hosts converged on the embarkation point at Brindisi. The southern Italian heat was intense that year. Water became a problem, and disease struck down many of the crusaders. A good portion of the army gave up and went home. Those who remained boarded the vessels in August. The long-anticipated crusade departed, right on schedule. But the emperor did not. He and his court were delayed. When they finally did set sail, their vessel was struck by plague. Many died, and the emperor himself became quite ill, so they put into port at Otranto to recuperate. When Frederick subsequently moved to the lavish spas of Pozzuoli near Naples, it was clear that he would not be sailing to the East after all. He sent envoys to Gregory IX to explain the tragic misfiring of the crusade and to affirm his intention to join the rest of the crusaders the following year. Gregory had heard this song before. By his own words and by his own agreements, Frederick stood condemned. On September 29, 1227, Gregory excommunicated the Holy Roman emperor.
Although the pope suspected that Frederick was faking his illness to avoid the crusade, there is no reason to doubt the reports that the emperor was truly at death’s door. Frederick had every reason to sail to the Levant. His negotiations with al-Kamil were going very well. When he arrived with his troops, poised to attack al-Mu’azzam, he expected that al-Kamil would hand over Jerusalem and its kingdom. For Frederick, the time to strike the deal was now. Time, indeed, was his enemy. If either side in the fraternal dispute gained the upper hand, the terms would not be so attractive. Indeed, that is precisely what happened: al-Mu’azzam died suddenly in November 1227 and al-Kamil quickly seized Palestine. Had Frederick sailed as planned, he would have recovered all the crusaders’ lost territories for the promise to fight a dead man. The year’s delay meant that he had much less with which to bargain when he finally did arrive.
Frederick’s crusade arrived at Acre without him in October. When word came that the emperor had again delayed his departure, many abandoned the enterprise and many more made plans to leave when they heard of Frederick’s excommunication. Those who remained had little to do, because the terms of the truce with the Muslims stated that only Frederick could initiate hostilities. They spent the winter repairing fortifications along the coast.
The emperor publicly announced that he would set sail for the Levant in May, excommunication or no. Gregory warned against such an action. It must be remembered that a crusade was not simply a military campaign but an act of devotion and a means of salvation; as such, it could not be undertaken, let alone led, by an excommunicate. To do so would be to defile the army of Christ. If he wished to crusade, the pope insisted, the emperor must first seek absolution for his sins; otherwise, he was no crusader and his mission no crusade. Frederick ignored these technicalities. After more than a decade of troubles with popes, Frederick’s youthful piety had given way to a dry cynicism in matters of religion. The state of his soul was no longer his primary concern, but rather the state of his kingdom in Palestine. He would sail to the East and claim his prize. When he had won Jerusalem, then he would speak of absolution with the pope.
When May arrived, Frederick again delayed his departure. He had been awaiting the birth of his son, Conrad, which occurred on April 25, 1228. Unfortunately, Isabella died in childbirth. John of Brienne, now bereft of both his kingdom and his daughter, became Frederick’s most implacable enemy, putting himself in the service of the pope. Frederick, too, was upset by the death of Isabella, for it made his claim to the throne of Jerusalem tenuous. As husband to the heir, Frederick could legally be crowned in the Holy Land. But the death of his wife and birth of her son meant that the most he could now claim was a regency for Conrad. Only Conrad could wear the crown and don the royal title. Frederick ignored these technicalities as well.
Finally, at the end of June, Frederick departed for the Holy Land. The pope wrote to Patriarch Gerald of Jerusalem and the masters of the military orders informing them that the emperor was not a crusader but an enemy of the faith. Despite papal prohibitions, he was en route to Acre, where he planned to take command of the crusade army. They should by no means swear allegiance to him nor take part in any of his plans. As with any excommunicate, the crusaders were to avoid any dealings with him.
There was plenty of time for the pope’s letter to arrive, since Frederick took his time traveling to Palestine. After spending five weeks on Cyprus he arrived at Acre on September 7, 1228, a decade after crusaders had first expected him. He did not receive the warmest of welcomes. The crusaders were deeply split in their attitudes toward the emperor. He was supported by most of his own vassals—the Normans, Germans, and Italians, as well as the knights of the Teutonic order, who prospered greatly during his reign. The rest of the crusaders, as well as the Hospitallers, Templars, patriarch, and clergy, would not follow him.
Frederick was not overly concerned about the division in the army because he saw the host only as a tool to be used in negotiations with al-Kamil. Shortly after his arrival, Frederick sent envoys to the sultan proclaiming that he was now ready to accept the previously agreed-upon deal. Al-Kamil was gracious and friendly, sending kind wishes and many gifts to Frederick, but he was no longer willing to hand over the kingdom of Jerusalem. Too many things had changed. The death of al-Mu’azzam not only secured al-Kamil’s hold on Egypt but also allowed him to expand his domain to Palestine, including Jerusalem itself. In return for this expansion, the sultan had agreed to help al-Ashraf capture Damascus, which was defended by the heir of al-Mu’azzam. The siege was still in progress when Frederick arrived. Al-Kamil did not want Frederick to attack Palestine, thus forcing him to divert troops from Damascus. He was also concerned about Frederick’s fleet, which could pose a serious threat to Egypt. Al-Kamil, therefore, drew out negotiations in order to keep the Christians at bay until the fall of Damascus.
The crusaders’ distrust of Frederick intensified as they watched Muslim envoys ushered in and out of imperial audiences. Even the emperor’s own vassals began to fear that he had come not to fight the Muslims but to betray the crusade. For his part, Frederick soon realized that the sultan was stalling. Time remained his enemy. When Damascus fell, al-Kamil would have the means to defend himself against the emperor’s meager and divided forces. Frederick needed to convince the sultan of the immediacy of the danger to him. A show of force would do it. In council, he suggested that the crusaders march to Jaffa to repair the city’s fortifications. From there, they could launch an attack on Jerusalem, which still had no walls. The Templars, Hospitallers, crusading barons, and much of the crusading host at first refused to follow him, but they changed their minds when it was agreed that orders would be issued not in the name of the emperor but in the name of God and Christianity.
As Frederick expected, the refortification of Jaffa grabbed al-Kamil’s attention. The sultan was still unwilling to trade away the former kingdom of Jerusalem, but perhaps a compromise could be worked out that would allow Frederick to declare victory and put an end to his crusade. Al-Kamil made an offer, and Frederick instantly accepted it.
The treaty itself does not survive, but its contents can be surmised from numerous contemporary descriptions. In return for a ten-year truce between the kingdom of Jerusalem and the Muslims, al-Kamil would give to Frederick Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, as well as a thin strip of land connecting the holy sites to the coast. The conditions for the transferal of Jerusalem were far reaching and unprecedented. Frederick agreed that henceforth the city would remain defenseless and unfortified. Muslim residents would be free to remain there, retaining their homes and possessions. In addition, they would have their own city officials to administer their own separate justice system and safeguard their religious interests. The al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount would remain in Muslim hands. As ruler of Jerusalem, Frederick also agreed to remain neutral in any war between Muslims and the Christians of Tripoli or Antioch, and he vowed to ally with Muslim forces if any Christian broke the truce.
Unbridled joy broke out among the crusaders when Frederick announced that Jerusalem had been surrendered by al-Kamil. But the joy soon turned to suspicion and then contempt as people learned more about the terms of the deal. Unfazed, Frederick began preparing for his triumphal entry into the Holy City and his coronation in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. When he asked the patriarch to perform the ceremony, as was customary, Gerald responded that he was confused by the extraordinary situation and asked to see the treaty for himself. Frederick delivered only a sanitized abstract of the agreement. When Gerald finally learned the terms of the deal, he was outraged. Refusing to crown Frederick, he condemned him and the treaty in the strongest terms.
For the patriarch and most of the crusaders, the agreement between the emperor and the sultan represented the prostitution of the crusade and the Holy Land. They saw it as a legalistic victory achieved by a clever excommunicate, not the rescue of Jerusalem from the stain of Islam. The Templars and Hospitallers solidly opposed the deal. They considered it a political sham, not a military victory. Unfortified Jerusalem would remain in Christian hands only as long as Muslim leaders wished it to be. Indeed, it could hardly be said to be in Christian hands at all, since the Muslims of the city were themselves a self-governing entity who retained control over the Temple. As al-Kamil told his own people,
We have only conceded to them [the Christians] some churches and ruined houses. The sacred precincts, the venerated Rock and all the other sanctuaries to which we make our pilgrimage remain ours as they were; Muslim rites continue to flourish as they did before, and the Muslims have their own governor of the rural provinces and districts.6
When the truce expired, the sultan promised to “purify Jerusalem of the Franks and chase them out.”
When it became clear to Frederick that the patriarch would not give him his coronation or even journey to Jerusalem with him, the emperor quickly set off for the city with a body of his own armed men. When Gerald learned of the emperor’s departure, he sent a letter to Jerusalem threatening excommunication for anyone who followed Frederick and placing the city under interdict. The letter was too late. On March 17, 1229, Frederick and his men entered the Holy City. The Muslim mayor was on hand to give him the keys. There was an attempt at a ceremony, but it was a joyless event. Both Muslims and Christians felt betrayed by their leaders. According to Sibt bin al-Jawzi, “The news of the handing over of Jerusalem to the Franks arrived and all hell broke loose in all the lands of Islam.”7 The transfer of Jerusalem, which should have been a time of great celebration for Christians, evoked only angry grumbling among crusaders and native Christians alike.
On the following morning, Frederick entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as the city’s ruler. None of the usual attendees was there. Most of the local barons did not recognize Frederick’s right to his son’s crown. The Hospitallers and Templars boycotted the ceremony, although the Teutonic Knights attended. Neither the patriarch nor any of the clergy, save Frederick’s own vassals, were in attendance. They could not even perform the Mass because Frederick remained an excommunicate. Frederick contented himself, then, with a ceremonial wearing of the crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The next day, March 19, the patriarch’s interdict of Jerusalem arrived. Frederick gathered his men and left the city to its own devices.
Acre seethed with anger over Frederick’s entry into Jerusalem. The crusading barons and military orders rallied around the patriarch, who began raising troops to occupy and garrison Jerusalem against Muslim invasion. The Hospitallers and Templars were particularly angry that Jerusalem was to remain defenseless because of a truce with al-Kamil while no such truce was negotiated with al-Ashraf, the ruler of Damascus.
When Frederick arrived in Acre with his forces, he was appalled. In a heated exchange, he demanded that the patriarch cease his efforts to raise an army and immediately acknowledge him as king of Jerusalem. Gerald replied that he did not take orders from excommunicates and traitors. In response, the emperor seized control of Acre. Those who were recruited for the patriarch’s army were expelled. Guards were stationed at all city gates with orders to allow no one entry who did not recognize Frederick as king. The patriarch and Templars were besieged in their own houses, unable to leave lest Frederick’s men capture them. Clergy who preached against Frederick were publicly flogged. Gerald sent numerous letters to the pope reporting Frederick’s conduct at Jerusalem and Acre, but the emperor’s men intercepted all but a few.
Back in Rome, Gregory IX was energetically working to weaken Frederick in Italy. John of Brienne had his revenge by leading a number of successful campaigns against Frederick’s lands in the south. The emperor was kept apprised of the situation. He knew that he could remain in the East no longer. At the end of April, he prepared his vessels for departure. Before leaving, he made certain to destroy all the crusaders’ weapons and siege machinery, leaving them virtually defenseless. He did not want them attacking his own agents or the Muslims after he left.
Very early in the morning of May 1, 1229, Frederick and his retinue moved swiftly and quietly down the streets of Acre toward their waiting fleet. Frederick hoped to slip out of town before anyone awoke, but he was noticed, and people began pouring into the streets, shouting curses and showering the emperor with rotten meat and garbage. In this humiliating procession, Frederick’s much-anticipated journey to the Holy Land came to an end.
In purely secular terms, the crusade of Frederick II was a success. With no bloodshed, the emperor succeeded in winning back the most treasured objectives of the crusades, including Jerusalem itself. A crusade, however, was not a secular event. In its purest form, it was an act of selfless piety for the salvation of one’s soul. It was not that Frederick struck a bargain to acquire Jerusalem that so angered his contemporaries. If Pelagius had accepted the restoration of the crusader states in 1220 the event would have been greeted with joy throughout Christendom. What Christians and Muslims alike considered reprehensible was the state of Jerusalem itself. With the stroke of a pen, the Holy City was transformed from a citadel of faith into a defenseless bauble. Despite the assurances of al-Kamil and Frederick, Jerusalem could not meaningfully be said to be under Christian or Muslim control. Instead, it became a place where religion mattered so little that it no longer formed the basis of government. The holiest of cities had become a secular state. In the modern world this is applauded as religious tolerance; in the medieval world it was treason.
NOTES
1. Hillenbrand, Crusades, 204.
2. Ibid., 215.
3. Ibid., 216.
4. Oliver of Paderborn, The Capture of Damietta, trans. Joseph J. Gavigan, in Christian Society and the Crusades, 1198–1229, ed. Edward Peters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), 94.
5. Ibid., 132.
6. Ibn Wasil, in Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, 271.
7. Hillenbrand, Crusades, 221.
