BARBAROSSA’S CRUSADE AND DEATH

[1Illustration: A CRUSADER OF THE THIRD CRUSADE]

2The heroic Frederick Barbarossa was among the first of those whose grief rose into indignation after the fall of Jerusalem. In his letters to the sacrilegious Saladin, he demanded restitution of the city, and threatened him in the event of non-compliance to pour into Asia all the military force of the German states. But the triumphant infidel replied that he would oppose his Turkomans, his Bedouins, and Syrians to the German hordes. Tyre, Tripolis, and Antioch, he continued, were the only places which at that time belonged to the Christians, and if those cities were resigned to him, he would restore the true cross, and permit the people of the West to visit Jerusalem as pilgrims.

3Germany was indignant at this haughty reply; all the powers took up arms against the man who had defied them; but in prudent remembrance of the disorders and calamities which popular impatience had occasioned in the First and Second Crusades, an imperial edict was issued, that no one should go who could not furnish his own viaticum for a twelvemonth. The consecrated standards of the German princes were surrounded by innumerable hosts of crusaders, drawn out of every class of life, from honourable knighthood down to the meanest vassalage. Their emperor conducted them from Ratisbon, their rendezvous, through the friendly Hungarian states; but when he reached the territories of the great lord of the East, he had to encounter the hostility of a violent yet timid foe.

4The emperor Isaac Angelus displayed both enmity and cowardice. He did not deny the Germans the liberty to purchase provisions, but in his communications with Frederick he carefully avoided giving him imperial titles; and the Greek governors were perplexed by one day receiving orders to preserve the fortifications of their towns, and at another time by commands for their destruction, lest they should become stations of the Germans. Barbarossa marched with prudence and humanity. In his indignation at the haughtiness and duplicity of Isaac, he generally spared the people, and passed the Hellespont without having deigned to enter the imperial city. He entered the territories of the Mussulmans in triumph, and not only defeated the Turks in a general engagement, but took Iconium.

5The sultan then repented of his perfidy, and with the independent emirs of Asia Minor, deprecated the further vengeance of the Germans. They continued their march with more honour and dignity than had ever accompanied the early crusaders, but they were deprived by death of their venerable hero. It was in the spring of the year that they passed the Isaurian mountains, from which issues the small river of the Calycadnus. In this stream Frederick bathed, but his aged frame could not sustain the shock.[58] His son, the duke of Swabia, was a brave and experienced general, yet the death of the emperor so much revived the courage of the Saracens, that the course of the Christians was continually harassed.

6Saladin had been compelled to withdraw most of his soldiers from Antioch, and the Germans had little difficulty in renewing a Christian government in that city.

7In the autumn of 1190, the duke of Swabia arrived at Acre, and importance was given to the German force by the formation of a Teutonic order of knighthood. The Vatican confirmed the establishment; Pope Celestine III gave it the rule of St. Augustine for its general law, and accorded to it the privileges which distinguished the other military fraternities. The service of the poor and sick, and the defence of the holy places, were the great objects which the pope commanded them to regard; and their domestic economy was to be preserved by chastity and equal participation of property. They were divided into three classes, knights, priests, and serving brothers. All the members were to be Germans, and those of the first class could only be men of noble birth and extraction. The order of the Teutonic knights of the house of St. Mary in Jerusalem was their title, and their dress was a white mantle with a black cross, embroidered with gold.