Ethel Wedgwood
E.P. Dutton and Co.
1906
Prepared for the
Notes appear at the bottom of the page on which they are
found in the print text.
Published: 1906
English
For the Crusades of Louis IX, see Simon Lloyd, "The
Crusades of St. Louis," History Today (1997), on the "De Re Militari"
website: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1373/n5_v47/19383879/print.jhtml.
AFTER the events above narrated, it happened, by God's
will, that a great sickness overtook the King at Paris; whereby he was
brought so low, as he used to relate, that one of the ladies who were nursing
him declared him to be dead, and was about to draw the sheet up over his
face; but another lady, who was on the opposite side of the bed, would
not permit it, but said that his soul was still in his body. When he heard
the two ladies disputing, Our Lord worked in him, and presently sent him
health, for he had been voiceless and could not speak. He desired,
that they would give him the cross, and they did so.
When the Queen, his mother,
heard that his speech had returned to him, nothing could surpass her rejoicings;
but when, as himself used to relate,
she learnt, that he had taken the cross, she
made as great mourning as though he lay dead before her eyes. After he
had taken the cross, Robert, Count of Artois
took it, and Alphonso, Count of Poitiers,
and Charles, Count of Anjou, (who afterwards was King of Sicily) all three
the King's brothers; and Hugh, Duke of Burgundy crossed himself, and William,
Count of Flanders, brother to Count Guy of Flanders, who was newly dead;
and Hugh, the good Count of St. Pol, and
his nephew, my Lord Walter, who bore himself right well over seas, and
would have been a man of great worth, if he had but lived. And the Count
of La Marche was one of them, and my Lord
Hugh le Brun, his son, and the Count of Sarrebrück,
and his son, my Lord Gilbert of Apremont,
in whose company I, Lord of Joinville,
crossed the sea in a ship which we hired, for we were cousins; and we crossed
over twenty knights in all, of whom half were his, and half mine.
At Easter, in the year of
Grace which was just striking 1248, I summoned my liegemen and my vassals
to Joinville; and on the same Easter Eve,
when all whom I had summoned were come, was
born my son, John, Lord of Acerville, the
child of my first wife, who was sister to the Count of Grandpré.
All that week we feasted and danced; for my brother, the
Lord of Vaucouleurs, and the other rich
men who were there entertained the company in turn, Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday.
On the Friday I said to them: "
Sirs, I am going away over seas, and I know not whether I shall
return. Now therefore, come forward; and if I have done any of you a wrong,
I will right it, and will as my custom is redress in turn any grievances
you may have against me or my servants." I put everything right with them
as regards the public business of my estates, and in order that I might
have no undue advantage, I left my seat on the council, and abode without
dispute by their decisions.
Being unwilling to take any
ill-gotten money with me, I went to pounds of rent in land, for my Lady Mother
was still alive. And so I set out, with nine other knights, myself the
tenth, three of us being bannerets. And
so you see, that if God had not been ever
at my side, I could assuredly not have held out through those long six
years that I spent in the Whilst I was getting ready to start, John Lord of Apremont
and Count of Sarrebrück by right of
his wife, sent me word, that he had made arrangements for going over seas
at the head of ten knights, and that if I liked, we would hire a ship between
us; and I consented; and his people and mine hired a ship at Marseilles.
The King summoned his barons to Whilst I was on the road,
I came across three men, lying dead on a cart, whom
a clerk had slain; and I was told, that they were being taken to the King.
Thereupon I sent one of my squires after
them to learn what happened. The squire reported
that the King, on leaving his chapel, went onto the steps to see the bodies,
and asked the Provost of Paris: How it had occurred? And the Provost told
him, that the dead men were three of his serjeants
from the Châtelet, and that they
used to go about robbing people on the high-roads; "and," said he to the
King, "they fell in with this clerk, whom you
see here, and stripped him of all his clothes. The clerk went off in his
shirt to his house, and took his cross-bow, and made a child carry his
falchion. Directly he saw the robbers, he shouted to them, and told them
they should die on the spot. The clerk wound his cross-bow, and let fly
a bolt, and pierced one of them through the heart; and the two others took
to their heels. The clerk took the falchion that the child was holding,
and followed them by the light of the moon, which was bright and clear.
One of them thought to escape through a hedge into a garden; but the clerk
struck him with the falchion, and clean cut
off his leg so that it hung only by the boot, as you can see," said the
Provost. "The clerk set off again in pursuit of the third, who thought
to take
refuge in a strange house, where the folks were not yet abed; but the
clerk with his falchion struck him full on the head, so that he clove it
to the teeth, as you may see, Sir" quoth
the Provost to the King, "And, Sir, the clerk showed what he had done to
the provost who lives hard-by the street, and then came and gave himself
up in your gaol; and, Sir, I bring him
to you, and here he is, that you may deal with him according to your pleasure." "
Sir Clerk," said the King, " your prowess has lost you your priesthood;
and for your prowess I retain you in my pay, and you shall accompany me
over seas. I deal thus with you, in order that my followers may see that
I will not uphold them in any of their wickedness." When the people that
were assembled there heard this, they cried on Our Lord, beseeching God
might grant the King a safe life and a long one, and bring him home in
health and happiness.
After this, I returned into
our country, and we arranged, the Count of Sarrebrück
and I, that we should send our baggage by
carts to Auxonne, and thence by the river Saône
as far as the Abbot of Cheminon, who was reputed the
best man in the White Order. I heard one testimony borne him at Clairvaux,
on the feast of Our Lady, when the holy King was there; for a monk pointed
him out to me, and asked, whether I knew him? "Why do you ask?" said I;
and he replied: " Because I believe that
he is the best man of all the White Order. Know too," said he, " that I
heard from a worthy man who used to lie in the same dormitory as the Abbot
of Cheminon, that once the Abbot had bared
his chest, because of the heat, and this good man, Lying in the same room
where the Abbot was asleep, saw the Mother of God come to his bedside,
and draw his gown across his chest lest the draught should hurt him."
So this Abbot of Cheminon
gave me my scrip and staff, and thereupon, I departed from Joinville,
and would not enter my castle any more, until I should come home again;
and I set out on foot, barefooted, and in pilgrim's weeds, and visited Blechicourt
and St. Urbans and other holy relics there;
and all the while that I was on my way to Blechicourt
and St.Urbans, I durst not cast my eyes back
to Joinville, lest my heart should fail
me
for the fair castle and the two children that
I was leaving behind me.
I and my companions dined at Fontaine l'Archeveque,
hard by Donjeux. And there Abbot Adam of
St. Urbans God rest
his soul! gave me and my knights a great
quantity of fine jewels. Thence we came to Auxonne,
and went on with all our baggage, (which we had had placed in boats) down
the Saône, from Auxonne
to HOW THEY SAILED TO IN the month of August, we entered into our ship
at the Rock of Marseilles. On the same day that we went aboard, they opened
the door of the ship, and all the horses that we were to take over seas
with us were put inside, and they closed the door up again, and caulked
it up well, just as in sinking a barrel, because when the ship is at sea
the whole of the door is under water.
When the horses were inside,
our master mariner shouted to his sailors who were in the prow of the ship;
"Is all ready? then, Sir, let the clergy
and the priests come forwards! " and when they were all assembled, "
Strike up a chant, in God's name!" cried he. And they all sang aloud
in unison: Veni CreatorSpiritus..
And he shouted to his sailors: "Spread sail, in God's name!
" and they
did so. And in a little while, the wind had
caught the sail, and carried us beyond sight of land, and we saw nothing
but water and sky; and every day, the wind carried us further away from
the land where we were born. And hereby I would show you how foolhardy is
he who adventures himself in such peril, if he be in debt to any man, or
in deadly sin; for one goes to sleep at night never knowing whether one
will awake at the bottom of the sea.
There befell us at sea a most wondrous thing. We sighted
a mountain, perfectly round, which lies off Then a worthy priest, called
the Dean of Malrut, told us: that they were
never afflicted in his parish, either with want of water or with too much
rain,
or any other affliction, but that, so soon
as he had made three processions, three Saturdays running, God and His
Mother delivered them from it.
This was a Saturday, and we made the first procession round
the two masts of the ship. I myself was carried round by the arms, being
grievous sick.
Thereafter we saw the mountain no more, and came to When we reached of green corn on the top, and found the wheat
and barley grain underneath as fresh as though it were newly threshed.
The King would gladly have pressed on into Egypt without
stopping, so I heard him say, if it had not been for his barons, who urged
him to stay and wait for the rest of his followers who had not yet all
arrived.
…. I, who had not a thousand
pounds' worth of rents, burdened myself, when I went over seas with nine
other knights, of whom two were bannerets.
And it so befell me, that when I landed at Cyprus, after paying for my
ship, I had only twelve score pounds tournois
left; whereupon, some of my knights sent me word, that, if I could not
procure money, they should leave me. And God, who never failed me, supplied
me in this way, that the King, who was at eight hundred pounds into my coffers; and then
I had more money than I needed.
Whilst we were tarrying at When we got there, we found, that a gale had snapped the
ropes of her ship's anchors, and carried the ship to The Empress came to seek the
King's help for her lord, who had stayed behind in a couple of hundred letters or more, some from me, and some from her
other friends there; in which letters we bound ourselves by oath, that,
if the King or Legate would send three hundred knights to Constantinople,
after the King should have left the Holy Land, we swore to go with them.
And I, to acquit me of my oath, desired of the King, when we came away,
in the presence of the Count (of Eu), whose
testimony I have in writing, that if he was minded to send three hundred
knights, that I might go, as I was sworn. The King answered: that he had
not the means to do it; for that he must have touched the bottom of his
wealth, however great it was.
After we had landed in TELLS HOW THEY CAME TO Now that March had set in, by the King's orders,
he and the barons and the other pilgrims ordered their ships to be reloaded
with wines and victuals, that they might
start whenever the King should give the word. So when all was duly in order,
the King and Queen went aboard their ship, ["La Monnaie,"]
on the Friday before Pentecost; and the King bade his barons follow him
in their ships, straight for The King put in at a spit
of land which is called the Point of Limasol,
and all the rest of the fleet
lay round. On the day of Pentecost, the King
went ashore, and after we had heard mass there arose a terrible strong
wind, blowing from off Egypt; and it blew so hard, that of two thousand
and eight hundred knights whom the King led into Egypt there were only
seven hundred left him that were not scattered from the King's company
and carried to Acre and other foreign places; whence they only rejoined
the King long after.
By the next day the wind had dropped; and the King and
we, who by God's will had kept with him, set sail forthwith, and fell in
with the Prince of the Morea and the Duke
of Burgundy, who had been sojourning in the Morea.
On the Thursday after Pentecost the King arrived
off Damietta, and there found all the forces
of the Sultan on the sea shore, very fine men to look at; for the Sultan's
arms are of gold, and they glittered as they caught the sun. The noise
that they made with their kettledrums and their Arabian horns was dreadful
to hear.
The King summoned his barons
to council, to advise what he should do. Many advised him to wait until
his followers should get back, seeing
that he had not one third left; but he would
not listen to them. The reason he gave was, that it would put heart into
his enemies, and also, that there is no harbour,
in the sea at It was agreed, that the King should land on the Friday
before Trinity, and go and attack the Saracens, if he would not remain
on the defensive.
The King ordered my Lord John of When our men saw there was
no getting a galley, they let themselves drop from the big ship into the
dinghy, helter-skelter each man for himself.
The sailors, seeing the dinghy sinking lower and lower in the water, took
refuge in the big ship, leaving my knights in the dinghy. I asked the master:
how many there were more than her load; and then I asked, whether he could
undertake to bring our men ashore, provided I unloaded so many at a time?
He replied "Yes"; and I so arranged the loads, that he took them ashore
in three trips in the ship in which my horses were.
Whilst I was disembarking his men, a knight belonging to
Lord Erard of Brienne,
named Plonquet, attempted to get down from
the big ship into the dinghy, but the dinghy sheering off, he fell into
the sea and was drowned.
On returning to my ship, I
put into my small boat a squire whom I knighted, named Lord Hugh of Vaucouleurs,
together with two very valiant bachelors, one of whom was named Lord Villain
of Versey, and the other Lord William of Danmartin.
These two had a fierce feud together, and no one was able to make peace
between them, for in the Morea they had
seized one another by the hair. But I made them forgo their ill-will, and
kiss each
other, for I swore to them by all that was
holy that we should not land while they were still at enmity.
Then we started to go ashore, and came up with the dinghy
astern of the King's big ship; and his men began to shout to me, since
I was getting ahead of them, to land alongside of the Banner of Saint Denis,
which was going in front of the King in another vessel. But I paid no heed
to them, but caused us to be landed opposite a big battalion of Turks,
where there were about six thousand men on horseback.
So soon as they saw us touch they came spurring
toward us. When we saw them coming, we stuck the points of our shields
in the sand, and the staves of our lances in the sand with the points towards
them; and when they saw that they could come no further without being run
through the belly, they faced about and fled away.
My Lord Baldwin of Rheims,
one of the paladins who had landed, sent his squire to bid me wait for
him; and I returned word that I would gladly do so, for that a man such
as he, was well worth waiting for at a pinch; which he remembered in my favour
all his life. With him there joined us
a thousand knights; and I assure you, that
when I landed I had no squire nor knight nor varlet whom I had brought
with me out of my own country, and yet God did not fail to aid me.
The Count of Jaffa came
ashore upon our left, who was cousin-german to
the Count of Montbeliart, and of the lineage
of Joinville. He it was who made the most
noble show at landing; for his galley came up all painted above and below
water with his escutcheons, the arms of which are "or with a cross gules patee."
He had about three hundred oarsmen in his galley, and each oarsman bore
a target with his arms, and to each target
was attached a streamer with his arms embossed in gold. And their galley
seemed to be flying, as they sped along, urged forwards by the oars of
the sailors; and it was like thunder falling from the skies, to hear the
noise of the streamers, and the din of the kettledrums and drums and Arabian
horns that were in his galley. So soon as the galley was beached as high
up as they could bring her, he and his knights leaped out, finely armed
and accoutred, and came and formed up alongside
us.
On our right, full a good cross-bow's range away, came
up the galley which carried the Banner of Saint Denis; and there was a
Saracen who, so soon as they landed, dashed into the midst of them, either
because he could not hold his horse, or imagining that the rest would follow
him; but he was cut all to pieces.
When the King heard say that the Banner of Saint Denis
was ashore he came hurrying across his vessel at a great pace, and despite
the Legate who was with him, he would not be stayed, but sprang into the
sea, up to his armpits in water, and waded, with his shield round his neck,
and his helmet on his head, and his spear in his hand, to join his followers
on the beach. When he got to land and discerned the Saracens, he asked:
What people those were? and they told him:
They were Saracens; and he
tucked his spear
under his arm, put his shield In front of him,
and would have rushed upon them, if his paladins who were about him would
have allowed it.
The Saracens thrice sent word to the Sultan by carrier-pigeons
that the King had landed, without getting any answer, for the Sultan was
in his sickness; so they concluded that the Sultan must be dead, and abandoned Then the King and we all got on horseback, and went and
camped by The Turks made a blunder in
leaving Let us say then, that Almighty God showed us great favour
in defending us from death and danger at our landing; we landing on foot,
and attacking mounted foes.
"TELLS HOW GREAT favour the Lord
showed us, in delivering Damietta into our
hands; for we could never have taken it without much toil and trouble,
as we can plainly see, from the trouble King John [of Brienne]
had to take it in the time of our fathers. Our Lord may say of us, as He
did of the children of I will deal first with the King, who summoned his barons
both clerics and laymen, and begged, that they would help him to consider,
how the booty should be divided which had been found in the town.
The Patriarch was the first
to speak, and said thus: " Sir, it seems to me, that you will do well to
keep the wheat and barley and rice, and all the
necessaries of life, to stock the town; and
let it be cried throughout the camp, that all the rest of the spoil must
be brought to the Legate's dwelling, on pain of excommunication." All the
other barons were of the same opinion. Now as it turned out, all the spoil
that was brought to the Legate's house only amounted to six thousand pounds.
When this was done, the King
and barons sent for my Lord John of Valery
the paladin, and spoke to him as follows: " My
lord of Valery," said the King, "we have
agreed that the Legate shall deliver these six thousand pounds to you,
to distribute as you shall think best." "Sir," said the paladin, "you do
me great honour, and I thank you; but this honour
and this offer that you make me, please God, I shall not accept; for I
should be breaking the good customs of the Holy Land, which are these:
that when any of the enemies' cities is taken, the King should have one
third, and the pilgrims two thirds of the goods that may be found in it.
Now King John kept this custom when he took Damietta,
and so the ancients say the Kings of Jerusalem before King John kept it;
and if it please you to hand over to me two thirds of the
wheat and barley and rice, I will willingly
undertake to distribute them among the pilgrims."
The King was not minded to do this; and so the matter stayed
as it was; whence many people thought themselves aggrieved, in that the
King had broken the good old customs.
The King's followers, who should have had the good grace
to hold back, hired booths and sold their wares as dear, it was said, as
they could; and this was noised about in foreign countries, so that many
merchants desisted from coming to the camp.
The barons, who should have kept theirs against a time
and place when they might spend it to good purpose, took to giving great
feasts with extravagant dishes.
The common people took up
with lewd women; on which account the King dismissed a whole quantity of
his followers when we got back from prison. I asked him, why he had done
so; and he told me that he had found out for certain that those he had
dismissed were carrying on their orgies within a short stone's throw of
his own pavilion, and that at the time when matters were at their worst
with the army.
Now let us return to our subject, and tell how, shortly
after we had taken I have mentioned the knights-paladins who were with the
King, because there were eight of them, all good men, who had carried off
prizes of arms both at home and abroad, and such knights they used to
call "paladins."
The names of those who were knights of the King's household were: Lord
Geoffrey of Sargines; Lord Matthew of Marly;
Lord Philip of Nanteuil; and Lord Humbert
of Beaujeu, Constable of France, who was
not there
at that time, for he was outside the camp,
between the camp and the captain of the cross-bowmen, with most of the
King's serjeants-at-arms, keeping watch,
lest the Turks should do the camp a mischief.
Now it happened that Lord Walter of Autreche
had himself armed at all points within his pavilion; and when he was mounted
on his horse, with his shield about his neck and his helmet on his head,
he bade lift up the tent-flaps, and pricked out against the Turks; and
as he started off alone from his pavilion his servants all set up a cry
of "Châtillon! "
Now it so chanced, that before ever he reached the Turks, he fell; and
his stallion passed on over his body, and rushed, laden with his arms,
into the ranks of the enemy, (for most of the Saracens were mounted on
mares, which attracted the horse.)
And those who saw it told
us, that four Saracens came by Lord Walter while he was lying on the ground;
and as they passed by him, they struck him heavily with their clubs as
he lay there. Then the Constable of France came to his rescue with some
of the King's serjeants, and carried him
back
by the arms to his pavilion. When he got there
he could not speak. Several of the army surgeons and doctors went to him,
and, judging that there was no danger of death, they bled him in both arms.
Quite late in the evening, Lord Albert of Narcy
proposed to me, that we should go and visit him; for we had not seen him,
and he was a man of great renown and velour. We came into his tent, and
his chamberlain met us, and bade us tread softly and not waken his master.
We found him lying on rugs of minnever,
and went very quietly up to him, and found him dead. When it was told to
the King, he replied, that he should be sorry to have a thousand like him,
since they would disobey orders as he had done.
Every night, the Saracens
used to steal on foot into the camp, and kill people wherever they found
them asleep. Thus it befell, that they slew my Lord of Courtenay's
sentry, and left him Lying on a table, and
cut off his head, and carried it away with them; and this they did because
the Sultan used to give a golden besant
for every Christian's head. This came from the battalions keeping guard
in the camp night and night about on horseback. For
when the Saracens wished to enter the camp,
they used to wait until the jingling of the bridles and armour
had gone by, and then slip into the camp in the rear of the horses, and
get out again before daybreak. Wherefor
the King gave orders that the battalions who used to patrol on horseback
should patrol on foot; so that the whole army rested secure in the guards,
they being spread out in such a way that each was in touch with the next.
When this was done, the King decided not to leave Damietta
until his brother, the Count of Poitiers,
should arrive, who was bringing up the second detachment from France; and
in order that the Saracens might not break into the camp on horseback,
the King caused the whole of it to be surrounded with deep trenches; and
cross-bowmen and serjeants used to keep
guard over the trenches every night and at the entrances to the camp as
well.
When the feast of Saint Remy
had gone by, and there were still no tidings of the Count of Poitiers,
the King and all in the camp were very uneasy, for they feared that some
mishap had befallen him. Then I mentioned to the Legate how the Dean of
Malrut had made three processions for us at
sea, three Saturdays running, and how, before the third Saturday, we had
reached Within the third Saturday the Count of Poitiers
arrived; and it was just as well that he had not come sooner; for between
the first and third Saturday there was such a storm in the sea off Damietta,
that full twelve score vessels big and little were wrecked and cast away,
with all the people on board them drowned and lost. So that, if the Count
of Poitiers had come sooner, he and his
followers would all have perished.
HOW THE KING SET OUT TO MARCH ON GRAND WHEN the Count of Poitiers
had arrived, the King summoned all the barons of the army to know, which
road he should take, whether to At the beginning of Advent, the King and the army bestirred
themselves to march on Grand Cairo, as the Count of Artois
advised. Quite close to The Sultan sent five hundred knights, the best mounted
to be found in his army, to harass the King's army at the passage, and
so delay our march.
On Saint Nicholas' day, the King ordered us to make ready
to ride, and forbade that any man should venture to sally from the ranks
to fight with the Saracens that were gathered there.
Now, it came to pass, that
when the army began their march, and the Saracens saw that we would not
leave our ranks to fight with them, and learnt through their spies that
the King had forbidden it, that they grew bolder, and engaged with the Templars,
who formed the van. And one of the Turks bore down a Knight Templar,
right under the feet of Brother Reynold
of Bichier's horse, (he
being at that time He spurred forwards, and
the whole army after him. Our men's horses were fresh, and the Saracens'
horses were foundered; so that as I was informed, not one escaped, but
all perished, and some of them fled into the river and were drowned.
Before going further, we must speak of that river which
flows out of the Earthly Paradise and through This river differs from all
others; for the farther down other rivers go, the more little streams and
brooks flow into them; but into this river there flows none; but it moves
along in a single channel until it reaches ploughs without wheels, with which they turn into the soil wheat and
barley andcummin and rice and these thrive so
well that they could not be bettered; and nobody knows how such a crop
comes, unless by the will of God. But for this, there would be no crops
in the country at all, by reason of the great heat of the sun which burns
up everything, for in that country it never rains.
The river is always muddy; and so the natives, when they
want it for drinking, draw it in the evening, and squeeze into it four
almonds or four beans; and the next day, it is as good to drink as could
be wished.
Before the river reaches The nature of this river's water is such, that when we
hung it up from our tent-ropes in white earthenware jars, such as are made
there, the water, in the heat of the day, used to become as cold as though
it were drawn from a spring.
The people of the country said that the Sultan had often
attempted to find the source of the river, and sent men to search for it.
They took with them a kind of bread-rolls, which are called "biscuits"
because they are twice baked, and on this bread they lived until they got
back to the Sultan. They reported, that they
had explored the river until they came to a great pile of hewn rocks which
it was impossible for any man to climb. Over this wall of rock the river
fell, and it seemed to them that there was a great quantity of trees growing
up above on the mountain. They said also that they had found marvellous
strange wild beasts of divers kinds, lions
and serpents and elephants, that came and gazed at them from the water
below, as they went climbing upwards along the river bank.
Now we must go back to what
we were first speaking about, and say, that when the river
reaches HOW THE CHRISTIANS TRIED TO BUILD A CAUSEWAY OVER THE STREAM
OF RAXI THE ADVENTURE OF THE TORTOISE-TOWERS.
THE King decided to build a causeway across the stream,
by which to pass over to the Saracens. And in order to protect those who
were working at the causeway, he caused two turrets to be built, called
" tortoise-towers," for there were two towers in front of the tortoises,
and two outworks behind the towers, to shelter those on guard from the
shots from the Turkish engines; for they had sixteen engines, all fixed.
So soon as we arrived, the King had eighteen engines constructed,
of which Jocelyn of Cornaut was the chief
engineer.
Our engines used to fling at theirs, and theirs used to
fling back at ours; but I never heard it said, that ours did much damage.
The King's brothers kept guard
by day, and we
other knights used to watch the tortoises by
night; so we reached the week before Christmas.
Now that the tortoises were made, they set to work to build
the causeway; for the King would not have it begun sooner, lest the Saracens
should injure those who were carrying the earth; for they could pick us
off by sight as we worked in the river. The King and barons were blind
when they attempted to make this causeway, imagining, because they had
dammed one arm of the river, (which was easy to do, because they made the
dam where it separates off from the main bed) that therefor
they would be able to dam the stream of Raxi
a good elf-league below where it leaves the main river.
I Moreover, in order to spoil
the dam that the King was making, the Saracens used to scoop hollows in
the ground, on the side of their camp; and as fast as the stream found
its way into the hollows it spread itself out in them, and made a broad
new channel. So it would come to pass, that what we had taken three weeks
to do, they would undo in a single day; for as fast as we dammed up the
stream on our side, they would enlarge it on theirs, by means of these
hollows that they dug.
The Sultan having died from the sickness that he took before
the city of This man sent orders to a number of his followers to come
and attack us on the After this, the King ordered
the camp to be
surrounded with trenches on the Scecedin, which as I told you before was the
name of the Turkish captain, had distinguished himself above all the rest
of pagandom. He bore on his banners the
arms of the Emperor who had knighted him. His banner was "bendy," and on
one of the bends was the Emperor's arms;
on another were the arms of the Sultan of Harapha,
and on the other, those of the Sultan of Grand Cairo. His name was Scecedin
the son of Seik, which is as much as to
say: "The Ancient Son of the Ancient," which means a great deal in pagandom,
for they are the people of all others who most honour
the ancient, since God has preserved them from shame unto old age.
Scecedin, this vile Turk, boasted that on
Saint Sebastian's day he would eat in the King's pavilions.
The King, knowing all this,
arranged his camp in such wise that the Count of Artois,
his brother, should keep guard over the tortoises and engines; the King
and the Count of Anjou (who afterwards was King of Sicily) were appointed
to guard the
camp on the side towards Grand Cairo; whilst
the Count of Poitiers and we of Now it came to pass, that the aforesaid Prince of the Turks
crossed his men over into the island which lies between the streams of The King of Sicily engaged with this party and routed them.
Numbers were drowned in both rivers, but still there remained a great number,
with whom they dared not engage, because of the Saracen engines, whose
shot ranged over both rivers.
In the engagement between the King of Sicily and the Turks,
Count Guy of Forez cut his way on horseback
through the ranks of the Turks, and he and his knights engaged a troop
of Turkish serjeants, who pulled him down
off his horse, and he got his leg broken, and two of his knights carried
him back by the arms. With great exertions they extricated the King of
Sicily from the danger he was in; and this day's work was much praised.
The Turks came to the Count
of Poitiers and us, and we charged them,
and drove them before
us a good way. A few of their men were slain,
and we returned without loss.
It happened one night, whilst we were keeping night-watch
over the tortoise-towers, that they brought up against us an engine called
a perronel, (which they had not done before)
and filled the sling of the engine with Greek fire. When that good knight,
Lord Walter of Cureil, who was with me,
saw this, he spoke to us as follows: "Sirs, we are in the greatest peril
that we have ever yet been in. For, if they set fire to our turrets and
shelters, we are lost and burnt; and if, again, we desert our defences
which have been entrusted to us, we are disgraced; so none can deliver
us from this peril save God alone. My opinion and advice therefor
is: that every time they hurl the fire at us, we go down on our elbows
and knees, and beseech Our Lord to save us from this danger."
So soon as they
flung the first shot, we went down on our elbows and knees, as he had instructed
us; and their first shot passed between the two turrets, and lodged just
in front of us, where they had been raising the dam. Our firemen were all
ready to put out the fire; and the Saracens, not
being able to aim straight at them, on account of the two pent-house
wings which the King had made, shot straight up into the clouds, so that
the fire-darts fell right on top of them.
This was the fashion of the Greek fire: it came on as broad
in front as a vinegar cask, and the tail of fire that trailed behind it
was as big as a great spear; and it made such a noise as it came, that
it sounded like the thunder of heaven. It looked like a dragon flying through
the air. Such a bright light did it cast, that one could see all over the
camp as though it were day, by reason of the great mass of fire, and the
brilliance of the light that it shed.
Thrice that night they hurled the Greek fire at us, and
four times shot it from the tourniquet cross-bow.
Every time that our holy King
heard that they were throwing Greek fire at us, he draped his sheet round
him, and stretched out his hands to our Lord, and said weeping: "
Oh! fair Lord God, protect my people! "
And truly, I think his prayers did us good service in our need.
At night, every time after the fire had fallen, he used to send one of
his
chamberlains to us, to ask us how we did, and
whether the fire had not done us any harm.
Once when they flung it at us, it fell close beside the
tortoise-tower that my Lord of Courtenay's
men were guarding, and buried itself in the river bank. And presently comes
a knight, named " the Albigensis," and:
"Sir," says he to me, "unless you help us, we are all burnt; for the Saracens
have let fly so many of their fire-darts, that it is just like a great
hedge all ablaze bearing down on our turret." We jumped up, and hurried
to the spot, and found that he had spoken the truth. We put out the fire,
and before we had got it under, we were covered from head to foot with
the fire-darts that the Saracens shot across the river.
The King's brothers used to
keep guard up in the turrets of the tortoises, so that they might shoot
quarrels from the cross-bows right into the Saracen camp. Now the King
had arranged, that when the King of Sicily
watched the tortoise-towers in the day-time, we were to watch them by night.
When the day came that the King had day watch and it was to be our turn
at night, we were very uneasy, for our tortoise-towers had been quite
shattered by the Saracens. On that day they
brought up their perronel in broad daylight,
which so far they had only done at night, and flung the Greek fire into
our tortoise-towers; and their engines had got the range so accurately
onto the finished part of the causeway that no one durst go to the tortoise-towers
because of the huge stones that the engines threw, which were falling all
over the road. So it came to pass that our two turrets were burnt, whereat
the King of Sicily was so beside himself, that
he wanted to rush into the flames to put them out. But if he was furious,
I and my knights praised God, for had we kept watch that night, we should
all have been burnt up.
When the King saw this, he
sent for all the barons, and begged them each to give him some timber from
their ships to make a tortoise to dam the river; and he pointed out, that,
as they could see for themselves, there was no wood to make it with, unless
it were the timber of the ships that had brought our baggage up the stream.
They gave him as much as each chose; and when this tortoise was finished,
the timber was valued at over ten thousand pounds.
The King saw too, that the tortoise should not be pushed
along the causeway, until it came to the King of Sicily's day for being
on guard, so that he might wipe out the disaster of the other turrets,
that were burnt during his watch. And it was done just as had been
planned, for no sooner did the King of Sicily's turn on guard come round,
than he had the tortoise pushed forward to the same spot where the other
tortoise-towers had been burnt. When the Saracens saw this, they directed
the shots from all their sixteen engines onto the causeway along which
the tortoise had come; and when they saw that our men were afraid to go
to the tortoise, because of the falling stones, they brought up the perronel,
and flung Greek fire at the tortoise, and burnt it to the ground.
This great favour did God
show to me and my knights; for our watch that night would have been as
dangerous as it would have been on that other occasion of which I spoke
before.
The King, seeing how things
were, summoned all his barons to ask their advice. And they all agreed
that they would never be able to build a causeway to cross over to the
Saracens, since our
men could not possibly dam up this side as
fast as they dug out the other.
Then the Constable, my Lord Humbert
of Beaujeu, said to the King that there
was a Bedouin come, who told him that he would show a good ford, but that
they must give him five hundred besants.
The King said: he would consent to pay him, provided he
honestly performed what he promised. The Constable spoke with the Bedouin,
and he said that he would never show a ford, unless they gave him the money
beforehand. It was agreed to give him the money, and he received it.
The King arranged that the Duke of Burgundy and the rich
men of the country who were in the camp should stay and guard the camp,
so that no harm might come to it; whilst the King and his three brothers
should ford the river at the spot the Bedouin was to show them.
The first day of Lent was appointed for this undertaking,
and on that day we came to the Bedouin's ford.
THE AT the first peep of day, we accoutred
ourselves at all points; and so soon as we were ready, we went down into
the river, and our horses swam in. When we had got half-way across stream
we touched bottom, and our horses found their feet. On the bank of the
river we found full three hundred Turks, all mounted on horseback. Then
I said to my followers: "Sirs, look out on the left! Every one is making
for that side, the banks are all spongy, and their horses are rolling over
onto them and drowning them." (And true it is that there were men drowned
in the crossing, and among others my Lord
John of With one accord we all turned
our horses' heads up stream and found the foothold washed away, and got
over somehow, thank God! without any of
us falling. And now that we were across, the
Turks fled.
It had been arranged, that the Templars
should form the advance-guard, and that the Count of Artois
should lead the second detachment, next to the Templars.
Now, as it happened, the Count of Artois
had no sooner crossed the river, than he and all his followers made a dash
at the Turks, who were fleeing before them. The Templars
sent him a message, that he was insulting them shamefully by going on ahead,
when he ought to be following behind them; and they begged that he would
allow them to lead, as the King had given them leave.
Now it so happened that the
Count of Artois durst not answer, because
of Lord Foucault of Le Merle, who was holding his rein, and this Foucault
of Le Merle, who was a very good knight, heard never a word that the Templars
said to the Count, because he was deaf; and he kept shouting: " At them!
At them! " Thereupon the Templars thought
that they would be disgraced if they let the Count of Artois
go in front of them; so they spurred on, helter-skelter, each trying to
outdo the
other, and driving the Turks, who fled before them, right through the
town of Mansoora and out into the fields
on the side towards Grand Cairo. But when they tried to return, the Turks
flung logs and timber in their way across the streets, which were narrow.
There died the Count of Artois,
and the Lord of Coucy whom they called Ralph,
and as many as three hundred other knights at a guess, the Templars,
so I was told, lost fourteen score men there, all armed and mounted.
I and my knights agreed that
we would attack some Turks who were loading up their baggage to the left
of their camp, and we charged upon them. Whilst we were hunting them through
the camp, I saw a Saracen who was getting on his horse, while one of his
knights held the bridle for him. Just as he had got his two hands on the
saddle to mount, I drove at him with my spear below the armpits, and flung
him dead. His knight seeing this, left his lord and the horse, and, as
I passed on, he pinned me down with his spear between the shoulder-blades,
and stretched me along my horse's neck, and held me so tightly pressed
down that I
could not draw the sword round my waist; so
I had to draw the sword that was hung to my horse, and when he saw that
I had got my sword out, he drew back his spear, and left me.
When I and my knights had got through the Saracens' camp,
we found some six thousand Turks, (at a guess) who had abandoned their
quarters and drawn off into the fields. When they saw us, they came charging
down on us, and slew Lord Hugh of Trichâtel,
Lord of Conflans, who carried his banner
with me.
I and my knights clapped spurs
to the rescue of Lord Ralph of Wanon, who
was with me, whom they had pulled to earth; and whilst I was on my way
back, the Turks pinned me down with their spears. My horse, feeling the
weight, fell on his knees, and I passed on between his ears, and picked
myself up with my shield round my neck and my sword in my hand. Lord Erard
of Syverey, God rest his soul! who
was of my company, came up to me, and said, that we had best draw off to
a ruined house, and wait there until the King should come. And as we were
going along on foot and horseback, a great horde of Turks broke upon us,
and bore me down, and passed over me, and snatched my shield from my
neck; and when they were gone by, Lord Erard
of Syverey came back to me, and led me
along, till we reached the walls of the ruined house; and there Lord Hugh
of Scots rejoined us, with Lord Frederick of Loupey,
and Lord Reynold of Menoncourt.
There the Turks attacked us on all sides. Part of
them got into the ruins, and thrust at us with their spears from above.
Then my knights desired me to take hold of their horses' bridles, which
I did, to prevent the horses from stampeding; and they warded off the Turks
so vigorously, that they were praised by all the champions of the army,
both by those who saw the deed, and those who only heard it told.
There Lord Hugh of Scots was
wounded with three spear-wounds in his face,
and Lord Ralph too; and Lord Frederick of Loupey
was wounded with a spear between his shoulders, and the gash was so wide,
that the blood spurted out of his body as through the tap of a cask. Lord Erard
of Syverey got such a sword-cut across his
face that his nose hung down onto his lip.
Then I bethought me of Our
Lord Saint James: "Fair Lord Saint James," I prayed,
" Help and save me in this need! " No sooner had I made my prayer,
than Lord Erard said to me: "
Sir, if you thought it would be no reproach to me and my heirs,
I would go and fetch you help from the Count of Anjou, whom I see yonder
in the fields." And I said to him: "Sir Erard,
methinks it would be greatly to your honour,
if you were to fetch us aid to save our lives, for truly your own life
is in danger." (And indeed I spoke the truth, for he died of that wound.)
He asked the opinion of all my knights who were there, and they took the
same view as I did; and thereupon he asked me to let go his horse whom
I was holding by the bridle along with the rest, and I did so. He came
to the Count of Anjou, and begged him to come to the assistance of me and
my knights. A rich man who was with him would have dissuaded him, but the
Count of Anjou said he should do what my knight asked him; and he turned
rein to come and help us, and several of his serjeants
spurred on ahead; and when the Saracens saw them coming they let us be.
In front of these serjeants rode Lord Peter
of Alberive, sword in
hand, and when he saw that the Saracens had
left us, he charged a whole heap of Saracens who had got hold of Lord Ralph
of Wanon, and rescued him, sorely wounded.
Whilst we were so stationed,
Lord John of Valery, the paladin, came to
the King, and said he advised him to draw off to the right, down to the
river, in order to have the support of the Duke of Burgundy and of the
others whom we had left guarding the camp, and also that his serjeants
might get something to drink, for the heat was at its height. The King
bade his serjeants go and fetch those champion
knights of his council who were attached to his person, naming them by
name. The serjeants went to seek them in
the ranks, where the fight was raging between them and the Turks. They
came to the King, who asked their opinion, and they said that Lord John
of Valery's advice was good. Thereupon,
the King commanded the standard of Saint Denis and his own banners to draw
off to the right towards the river; and as his army began to move, there
was again a great noise of trumpets and Arabian horns. He had hardly gone
any distance, when he got several messengers from his brother, the Count
of Poitiers, and from the Count of Flanders,
and other rich men whose detachments were in that place, begging him not
to stir, for they were so hard-pressed by the Turks that they could
not follow him. The King recalled all the paladins
of his council, and they all advised him to wait; but shortly afterwards
Lord John of Valery came back again and
blamed the King and his council for delaying; and his council advised him
after all to draw off to the river, as Lord John of Valery
advised. Now came the Constable, Lord Humbert
of Beaujeu, to him, and told him that his
brother, the Count of Artois, was defending
himself in a house in Mansoora, and that
he must go to his assistance. The King replied: "
Constable, go you on in front, and I will follow you."
I told the Constable, I would be his knight, and he thanked
me much, and we took the road to Mansoora.
Then there came a mace-serjeant,
all scared, to the Constable, and told him, that the King had halted, and
that the Turks had got between him and us. We turned round, and saw that
there were a good thousand and more between him and us, and we were only
six. Then said I to the Constable: "Sir, it is impossible for us to get
to the King through these fellows; let us rather go on up stream, and put
this ditch, that you see before
you, betwixt us and them; and in this way we
shall be able to rejoin the King. The Constable followed my advice; and know,
that if they had observed us, we should all have been dead men; but their
attention was fixed on the King, and on the other big detachments, and
so they took us for some of their own people.
Whilst we were coming back down stream along the river
bank, between the brook and the river, we saw that the King had reached
the river and that the Saracens were driving back the rest of the King's
battalions, striking and hitting with clubs and swords, and crowding the
other detachments with the King's battalions back onto the river.
There the rout was so great, that some of our people took
into their heads to try and swim across the river to the Duke of Burgundy;
which they could not achieve, for the horses were tired, and the day had
grown sultry; and we could see whilst we were coming down that the river
was covered with lances and shields and horses and men, drowning and perishing.
We came to a little bridge
over the brook, and I proposed to the Constable, that we should stay
and guard this bridge: " For, if we leave it,
they will come down on the King from this quarter; and if our people are
attacked on both sides, they are likely to lose heavily." Accordingly we
did so. And people say, that that day's work
would have been the end of us all, if the King had not been there in person.
For the Lord of Courtenay, and my Lord John
of Saillenay told me, that six Turks had
seized the King's bridle and were leading him away prisoner; and he, single-handed,
delivered himself from them with great blows of his sword. And when his
followers saw the King showing fight, they took heart, and left off trying
to cross the river, and gathered round the King to help him.
Count Peter of spitting the blood from his mouth he said:
"Just look! God's head! did you ever see
such a rabble?"
At the tail of his detachment came the Count of Soissons
and my Lord Peter of Noville, whom they
use to call "Cater," who had suffered many hard knocks that day. After
they had passed over and the Turks found that we were guarding the bridge,
they left them alone, directly they saw us face round.
I went up to the Count of Soissons,
whose first cousin I had married, and said to him: " Sir, I think you would
do well to stop behind and guard this bridge; for if we leave the bridge,
these Turks here in front will certainly rush across it, and thus the King
will be attacked both before and behind." He asked, whether, if he stayed,
I would stay? and I answered: " Yes, right
willingly." Thereupon the Constable bade me not stir thence until he should
return, and he would go and fetch help.
So there I stayed, mounted
on my pony; and the Count of Soissons stayed
beside me on my right, and Lord Peter of Noville
on my left. And lo and behold! a Turk, who
was coming from the side
where the King's troops were, and was behind
us; and he struck Lord Peter of Noville
from behind with a club, and with the blow stretched him along his horse's
neck, and then dashed on over the bridge and rushed in among his own people.
When the Turks saw that we had no intention of leaving
the bridge they crossed over the brook and placed themselves between the
brook and the river, just as we had done coming down, and we spread ourselves
out between them, in such a fashion that we were all ready to charge them,
whether they tried to pass us from the King's side, or whether they tried
to cross the bridge.
In front of us were two of
the King's serjeants, one of whom was named
William of Boon, and the other John of Gamaches.
Those Turks who were between the brook and the river brought up peasants
on foot, who pelted these two serjeants
with clods of earth; but they could never get them to attack us ourselves.
Finally, they brought up a peasant, who threw Greek fire at them thrice.
Once William of Boon caught the vessel of Greek fire on his buckler, for
if it had set light to anything on him, he would have been burnt. We were
all
covered with the fire-darts that missed the serjeants.
By good luck, I found a Saracen's oakum tunic; and I turned the split side
towards me, and made a shield of the tunic, which served me in good stead,
for their fire-darts only wounded me in five places and my pony in fifteen.
It chanced too, that one of my burghers from Joinville
brought me a banner with an iron spear-head; and every time that we saw
them crowding on the serjeants, we charged
them, and they fled. By this time the good Count of Soissons
was beginning to joke with me and to say: "Seneschal, let these hounds
yelp; for, by God's head cloth! (which was his favourite
oath) we shall yet talk over this day in the ladies' bowers."
In the evening, just as the sun was setting, the Constable
brought us the King's cross-bowmen on foot, and they ranged themselves
in front of us; and when the Saracens saw our feet in the stirrups of the
cross-bows, they fled.
Then said the Constable to me: "Well done! Seneschal.
Now get you hence to the King, and leave him no more, until he shall have
alighted in his own pavilion."
I had just joined the
King, when Lord John
of Valery came to him and said: "Sir, my Lord of Châtillon begs
you to grant him the rearguard," which the King did very gladly, and then
started on the road. As we were going along, I made him take off his helmet,
and presented him my iron cap that he might get the air.
And then there came to him Brother Henry of Ronnay,
who had crossed the river, and kissed his mailed hand, and asked him, if
he had no tidings of the Count of Artois
his brother? And the King replied: That indeed he had tidings of him, for
he knew for certain that his brother, the Count of Artois,
was in The King replied, that: God be praised for all is mercies!and
then great tears began to fall from his eyes.
When we reached our
lodging we found that
some Saracens on foot had struck a tent, and
were tugging at it on one side whilst our camp-followers were tugging it
on the other. We charged them, the Master of the In this battle, there were many people who made a very
fine show, but ran away most disgracefully from the fight, and fled in
a panic over the little bridge of which I spoke; and not one of them could
we persuade to make a stand beside us. I could very well tell you some
of their names; but I shall refrain, because they are dead.
However, I need not refrain
from mentioning Lord Guy Malvoisin, for
he came away from Mansoora in all honour;
and indeed he came down the very way that the Constable and I went up.
And just as the Turks hung upon Count Peter of with scarcely any exception, were knights of
his lineage, or knights who were his liege-men.
THE SARACENS ATTACK THE CAMP THE PRIEST'S FEAT OF ARMS
THE FIGHTING AT THE BARRIERS. LET US now proceed with our tale. At nightfall we
returned, the King and we, from the perilous battle above narrated, and
lodged in the place whence we had driven our enemies. My people, who had
remained behind in the camp we had quitted, brought me a tent that the Templars
had given me, and pitched it for me in front of the engines that we had
won from the Saracens; and the King had serjeants
appointed to guard the engines. I lay down in my bed, where
I had great need to rest on account of the wounds I had gotten during the
day, but chance served me otherwise; for, before it was quite light, the
cry arose in our camp: " To arms! to arms! "
I roused my chamberlain, who was sleeping at my feet, and bade him
go and see what was the matter. He-came back to me
in great alarm, and said to me: " Up, Sir!
Up! for here are the Saracens, come on foot
and horseback, and they have routed the King's serjeants
that were guarding the engines, and have driven them in among our lines."
I got up, and slipped a tunic over my shoulders, and clapped an iron cap
on my head, and cried to our serjeants: "
By Saint Nicholas! they shall not
stay here!" My knights joined me, all wounded as they were; and we
drove the Saracen serjeants out from among
the engines, and back onto a large squadron of mounted Turks, who were
close to the engines we had captured. I sent to the King asking for help,
for neither I nor my knights were able to put on hauberks, because of the
wounds we had received; and the King sent us my Lord Walter of Châtillon,
who placed himself in front, between us and the Turks. When the Lord of Châtillon
had repulsed the Saracen foot-serjeants, they
fell back on a large squadron of Turks on horseback who were drawn up in
front of our camp, to prevent us surprising the Saracen camp, which lay
behind them. Out of this company of mounted
Turks, eight of their captains had alighted, all remarkably well armed,
and had made a barricade of hewn stones, so that our cross-bowmen might
not wound them; and these eight Saracens kept shooting flights of arrows
into our camp, and wounded several of our men and horses. I and my knights
laid our heads together, and agreed, that
when night came, we would carry away the stones with which they were barricaded. A
priest of mine, whose name was Lord John of Voyssey,
had made up his own mind and was less patient. He set off from the
camp all by himself in the direction of the Saracens, clad in his tunic,
with his iron cap on his head, and his spear trailing under his arm,
point downwards, so that the Saracens might not catch sight of it. When
he got close to the Saracens, who, seeing him all alone, never troubled
their heads about him, he caught his spear up under his arm, and charged
on them. Not one of the eight made any attempt at defence,
but they all turned and fled. When those on horseback saw their leaders
running away, they spurred out to their rescue; whilst on our side about
fifty serjeants sprang
out. The horsemen came spurring on and durst not engage with our footmen,
but swerved aside. When they had repeated this two or three times, one
of our serjeants took his spear by the
middle, and hurled it at one of the mounted Turks, and let him have it
between the ribs. After this, the Turks durst not stir again, and our serjeants
carried away the stones. From that time forth, my priest was a noted man
throughout the army, and they used to point him out one to another, and
say, "there goes my Lord of Joinville's
priest, who routed the eight Saracens." These things took place on
the first day of Lent. On that same day, a valiant Saracen whom the enemy
had made captain instead of Scecedin the
son of Seic, whom they had lost in the
battle of Shrove Tuesday, took the coat belonging to the Count of Artois,
who had died in that battle, and showed it to all the host of the Saracens,
and told them: It was the King's coat-of-arms and that he was dead. "
And this I show you " said he, " because a body without a head is
in no wise to be feared, neither a people without a King. Therefor,
if so please you, we will attack them on
Friday; and you should agree to this methinks, since we cannot
fail to capture them all, now that they have lost their leader." And they
all agreed that they would come and attack us on Friday. The King's spies that were in the Saracen camp, brought
tidings of this to the King; and thereupon the King commanded all the leaders
of battalions to have their followers under arms by midnight and draw off
from the tents to the barriers, which were made with long palings to prevent
the Saracens from breaking into the camp, and were fixed in the ground
in such a manner that a man on foot could pass between them. And it was
done as the King commanded. At sunrise, this Saracen whom
they had made their leader, brought up without delay four thousand mounted
Turks, and spread them out all round, with our camp and himself
in the centre, from the river which comes
from Grand Cairo, to the stream which flowed from our camp to a town called Risil. [Raxi?]
When this was done, they further led up such a vast number of Saracens
on foot as to make a second ring of them all round our camp, as had been
done with the horsemen. Behind these two lines of battle that I am telling you about, they drew up all
the forces of the Sultan of Cairo, as a reserve, if it should be needed. When this was done, the captain rode out on a pony to survey
the disposition of our camp, and according as he saw that our divisions
were more massed in one part than in another, he went back, and fetched
up more men to strengthen the ranks opposed to ours. Next, he sent the Bedouins,
about three thousand of them, across the two rivers, thinking that the
King would send some of his men to the Duke to reinforce him against the
Bedouins, and so weaken his own camp. It took him till knights. Someone came to the King and told
him of the evil plight his brother was in, and thereupon he spurred in
among his brother's ranks, sword in hand, and pushed his way so far in
among the Turks that their Greek fire set light to his horse's crupper.
And by this sally the King saved the King of Sicily and his men, and they
drove the Turks out of their camp. Next to the King of Sicily's battalion came the battalion
of the Oversea Barons, led by Sir Guy of Ibelin
and Sir Baldwin his brother. Next to theirs came the battalion of my Lord
Walter ofChâtillon, full of champion knights
and good fighters. These two battalions defended themselves so fiercely
that the Turks were never able to break through
them nor drive them back. Next to my Lord Walter of Châtillon's
battalion came Brother William of Sonnac,
Master of the built great planks of pitch pine into it; and
know, that the Turks did not even wait for the fire to have burnt out,
but charged at the Templars through the
flames. In this fight, Brother William lost one of his eyes; the other
he had lost on Shrove Tuesday; and he died of it, did that lord, God rest
his soul! And know, that there was a patch
of ground behind the Templars, the size
of a day's work, so covered with the darts that the Saracens had thrown,
that the soil could not be seen for the density of them. Next to the Templars, came
the battalion of Lord Guy Malvoisin, which
battalion the Turks were never able to overcome. However, they succeeded
by chance in covering Lord Guy with Greek fire, which his followers had
great difficulty in putting out. From Lord Guy Malvoisin's
division, the barrier turned in a good stone's throw towards the river,
and thence it bent straight again along Count William's camp, and ran down
to the river on the side towards the sea. Close to the river, on the up-stream
side from Lord Guy Malvoisin, was our detachment;
and because they had Count William of approach us; wherein God showed us great kindness,
for neither I nor my knights had hauberks nor shields, being all wounded
from the battle of Shrove Tuesday. The Count of Flanders they attacked savagely and vigorously
with horse and foot. Seeing which, I ordered our cross-bowmen to shoot
at those on horseback. When the horsemen saw that they were being wounded
from our quarter, they fled, those of them that were mounted; and thereupon
the Count's men left their camp, and scrambled over the barrier, and charged
the Saracen footmen, and routed them. Many of them were slain and many
had their bucklers taken. In this affair, Walter of the Horgne
acquitted himself manfully; he it was who was standard-bearer to the Lord
of Apremont. Next to the Count of Flanders'
battalion, came that of the Count of Poitiers,
the King's brother; which battalion was on foot; only the Count himself
being mounted. This detachment, the Turks utterly routed, and were leading
the Count away prisoner; but when the butchers and the other camp followers,
and the pedlar women got wind of it, they
raised the hue and cry through the camp, and, by God's aid, rescued the Count, and drove
the Turks out of his camp. Next to the Count of Poitier's
detachment, came that of Lord Jocerand of Brançon,
who had accompanied the Count into twelve knights out of the twenty that formed
his company, not counting the other men-at-arms, and he himself was so
roughly handled that he never after stood upon his feet, and died of that
wound in the service of God. I will tell you about the Lord of Brançon.
He had been, when he died, in thirty-six battles and hand-to-hand fights
in which he had carried off the prize of arms. I saw him once in an expedition
of the Count of Châlons, whose cousin
he was. He came to me and my brother, it was a Good Friday, and said to
us: " Nephews, come and help me, you and
your men; for the Germans are destroying the abbey." We went with him,
and charged them with drawn swords, and with great difficulty and a violent
scuffle we drove them out of the abbey. This done, the gallant gentleman
knelt down before the altar, and cried aloud to Our Lord, "Lord, I beseech
Thee, have pity on me, and take from these wars between Christians, wherein
I have lived so long; and vouchsafe me to die in Thy service, and so win
Thy kingdom of Heaven!" These things I have recorded, because I believe that God
granted his request, as you have seen. DIGRESSION ON THE SULTAN'S BODYGUARD THE PESTILENCE IN
THE CAMP THE KING RE-CROSSES THE RIVER, AND TREATS WITH THE SARACENS THE
EPISODE OF THE SIX IMPIOUS KNIGHTS. AFTER the battle, which was on the first Friday of
Lent, the King summoned all his barons before him, and spoke as follows:
" Great thanksgiving," said he, "do we owe Our Lord, in that He hath conferred
on us two such favours in this week, that
on Shrove Tuesday we drove them from these quarters where we are now lodged,
and on this Friday just past, we have repelled them, we on foot and they
on horseback." And many other fine words did he speak to put heart into
them. In order to pursue our story
we must first digress from it a little, to explain the system and footing
on which the Sultans maintained their followers. Truly the greater part
of their chivalry was composed of foreigners, whom the merchants procured in foreign lands for sale, and the Sultans
bought them eagerly and at high prices. These people whom they brought
into were said to be "of the Halka"
[Bodyguard], for the Baharis lay in the
Sultan's tents. Whenever the Sultan was in the camp, the men of the Halkawere
quartered all round his lodging, and appointed to guard his person. At
the door of the Sultan's lodging there was a little tent for the Sultan's
door-keepers, and for his musicians, who had Arabian horns and drums and
kettledrums; and they used to make such a din at daybreak and at nightfall
that people near them could not hear one another speak, and that they could
be heard plainly all through the camp. The musicians never dared sound
their instruments in the daytime unless by the order of the Chief of the Halka.
Thus it was, that whenever the Sultan had a proclamation to make he used
to send for the Chief of the Halka, and
give him the order; and then the Chief would cause all the Sultan's instruments
to be sounded; and thereupon all the host would come to hear the Sultan's
commands. The Chief of the Halka uttered
them, and all the host obeyed them. When the Sultan went to war
he would make the Knights of the Halka Emirs,
according to their achievements in battle, and would give them two or three hundred knights for their company,
and the better they did the more the Sultan gave them. This price indeed they pay for their honours:
that when they attain to such wealth and distinction as to be independent,
and the Sultan begins to be afraid they may kill or depose him, he then
has them taken and thrown into prison to die, and strips their wives of
all they have. This the Sultan did to those who captured the Counts of Montfort
and of Bar. Even so Bondocdar dealt with
those who had overthrown the King of Armenia; for they, thinking to be
well received, alighted, and went on foot to greet him where he was hunting
wild beasts. But he answered them: "I give you no greeting!" because they
had interrupted his chase; and he caused their heads to be struck off. Let us now return to our subject.
The Sultan who was dead had a son, twenty-five years of age, wise and quick
and cunning; and the Sultan, fearing lest he should dethrone him, gave
him a kingdom that he owned in the East. Now that the Sultan was dead,
the Emirs sent for him; and no sooner was he come
to his father's Seneschal, his Constable and his
Mar shall, and deprived them of their golden rods, and gave them to those
who had come with him from the East. At this they were very indignant, as well as all the rest
of his father's council, because of the slight he had put upon them. Moreover
they feared, that he would deal with them as his grandfather had dealt
with those who had captured the Count of Montfort
and the Count of Bar; and they made interest with the men of the Halka,
whose duty it was, as I told you, to guard the Sultan's person, so far
as to make a bargain with them to put the Sultan to death whenever they
requested. After the two battles already
narrated the army's troubles began in earnest. For, at the end of nine
days, the bodies of our men whom they had slain rose to the surface of
the water (they say it was because their galls had rotted) and came floating
down as far as the bridge that joined the two camps, and could not get
by, because the bridge was flush with the water. A great mass of them there
was, so that the stream was choked with corpses from one bank to the other,
and they reached a short stone's throw up the river.
The King had hired a hundred common labourers,
who were busied at it for quite a week. The bodies of the Saracens, which
were circumcised, they flung over to the other side of the bridge, and
let them drift down the river. The Christians were laid all together in
great trenches. I saw the Count of Artois'
chamberlains there, and many others, seeking their friends among the dead;
but I never heard of any one being recognised. We ate no fish in the camp all Lent, save mudeels;
and the eels, being greedy fish, used to feed on the dead bodies. And from
this misfortune, together with the unhealthiness of the country, where
there never falls a drop of rain, we were stricken with the " camp-sickness,"
which was such that the flesh of our limbs all shrivelled
up, and the skin of our legs became all blotched with black, mouldy
patches, like an old jack-boot, and proud flesh came upon the gums of those
of us who had the sickness, and none escaped from this sickness save through
the jaws of death. The signal was this: when the nose began to bleed, then
death was at hand. A fortnight later, the Turks,
intending to starve us out, to the great astonishment of many people,
took several of their galleys that were above the camp, and had them dragged
over land to the river, a good league below our camp, on the way from From this cause there arose such a dearth in the camp,
that by the time Easter had come an ox was worth in the camp eighty pounds,
a sheep thirty pounds, a pig thirty pounds, an egg twelve pence, and a
hogshead of wine ten pounds. Seeing these things, the King
and the barons decided that he should remove his camp on the security, the King had a barbican constructed
in front of the bridge that joined the two camps, and so made, that one
could enter the barbican from either side on horseback. When the barbican
was ready, the King put all the camp under arms, and the Turks made a general
onslaught on the King's camp. Nevertheless, neither camp nor men budged,
until all the baggage had been carried over; and then the King went across
and his battalion after him, and afterwards all the rest of the barons,
except my Lord Walter of Châtillon,
who formed the rearguard. At the entrance to the barbican, my Lord Erard
of Valery rescued Lord John his brother,
whom the Turks were leading away prisoner. When all the army had crossed
through, those who remained in the barbican were in an evil plight; for
the barbican was not high and the Turks could see to aim at them from horseback,
while the Turks on foot threw clods of earth in their faces. They were
all lost men, had it not been for the Count of Anjou (afterwards King of
Sicily), who went to their rescue, and brought them off safe. My Lord Geoffrey
of Mussanburg carried off the prize of that day, the prize
of all those who were in the barbican. On the eve of Shrove Tuesday I witnessed a marvel that
I will relate to you. For on that same day, we laid in the earth Lord Hugh
of Landricourt, who carried his banner
in my company. There as he lay upon the bier in my chapel, there were six
of my knights lolling upon some sacks of barley. And because they were
talking noisily in my chapel and disturbing the priest, I went up to them
and bade them be quiet, telling them that it was a disgraceful thing for
knights and gentlemen to talk whilst mass was being sung. Thereupon they
began to laugh in my face, and told me laughing, that they would have the
remarrying of his wife; and I rated them and told them that such words
were neither right nor seemly, and that they had quickly forgotten their
comrade. And thus did God take vengeance on them: that on the morrow was
the great battle of Shrove Tuesday, wherein they were either slain or wounded
to death, so that their wives had to be remarried, all six of them. Owing to the wounds
that I got on Shrove Tuesday, the camp-sickness seized me in my mouth and legs, together
with a double tertian fever, and such a violent
rheum in my head, that the rheum streamed out of my head through my nostrils;
and by reason of these maladies, I took to my bed in mid-Lent. Now it so chanced, that my priest was singing mass by my
bedside in my pavilion, and he had the same malady that I had. And it came
to pass, that in the midst of performing the Sacrament he fainted. When
I saw him tottering, I leapt from my bed, with my coat on, but all barefoot,
and clasped him in my arms, and bade him finish his Sacrament fairly and
forthwith; telling him, I would not leave go of him until he should have
completed it. He pulled himself together, and performed the Sacrament,
and sang his mass all through, and never sang service again. After these events the King's
council and the Sultan's council fixed a day to make terms; and the terms
of the agreement were these: that of all the sick that were in They asked the King's council what surety they would give,
that they should recover The sickness began to increase at such a rate in the camp,
and so much dead flesh came upon the gums of our people, that the barbers
were obliged to remove it, to enable them to chew their food and to swallow.
A most piteous thing it was to hear through the camp the screams of the
people from whom they were cutting the dead flesh, for they screamed just
like women labouring with child. HOW THE KING AND ALL HIS MEN FELL INTO THE HANDS OF THESARACENSS
THE MASSACRE OF THE SICK, AND THE CAPTURE OF THE FUGITIVES IN THE BOATS. WHEN the King saw that he should die, he and his people,
if they stayed in that place any longer, he gave his orders, and made all
ready for removing thence at nightfall on the evening of Tuesday after
the octave of Easter, and returning to The King ordered Jocelin
of Cornaut with his brothers and the other
engineers to cut the ropes that held the bridge between us and the Saracens;
but they never did it. On the Tuesday we went on
board on rising from dinner, with two knights whom I had left of my household;
and when the time came that it began to grow dark, I told my sailors to
weigh anchor and let us drift down stream. They replied, that they durst
not do so, for that the Sultan's galleys, which were between us and The sailors had made great fires to receive the sick into
their galleys, and the sick men had crawled down to the river bank. While
I was imploring my sailors to loose-off, the Saracens entered the camp;
and I saw by the light of the fire, that they were slaughtering the sick
men on the bank. Whilst my sailors were hauling at their anchor, the
sailors whose duty it was to bring off the sick, cut their anchor-ropes
and the painters of their galleys, and came dashing in among our small
craft, and so jammed us on all sides that we narrowly missed being swamped.
When we had got free from this danger, and were going on down stream, the
King who had the camp-sickness and dysentery very badly could quite well
have found a safe refuge in the galleys, had he been so minded. But he
said, that; "Please God, he would never desert his people." That evening
he fainted several times. They called out to us who were drifting on the
water, to wait for the King; and when we were unwilling to wait for him,
they shot quarrels at us, so that we were obliged to stay until they should
give us leave to go on. Now I will tell you
how the King was taken prisoner just as he told it me himself. He
told me, that he had quitted his own battalion, and placed himself with
my Lord Geoffrey of Sargines in the battalion
of Lord Walter of Châtillon which
was forming the rearguard. And the King told me, that he was mounted on
a little pony with silken trappings, and that behind him of all the knights
and serjeants there only remained my Lord
Geoffrey of Sargines, who escorted the King
as far as the hamlet where the King was taken prisoner. And truly, so the
King told me, Lord Geoffrey protected him from the Saracens just as a good
servant protects his master's cup from flies; for whenever the Saracens
tried to get near him, Lord Geoffrey would take his sword, which he had
placed between himself and the saddle-bow, and put it under his arm, and
turn round and make a dash at them, and drive them away from the King.
And so he brought the King to the hamlet, and they got him off his horse
and into a house, and laid him for dead in the lap of a woman of Thither came my Lord Philip
of Montfort, and told the King, that he
saw the Emir with whom he had negotiated the truce; and that with his
leave, he would go to him, and have the truce patched up on the Saracen's
terms. The King gave him leave and begged him to go. Lord Philip went to
the Saracen, and the Saracen had taken the turban from his head and the
ring from his finger, to certify that he would keep the truce, when in
the middle, a terrible mishap befel1 our people; for a traitor serjeant,
named Marcel, began to shout to our men: " Surrender, Sir Knights! An order
has come from the King. Surrender! Or else the King will be killed! "
Everyone thought that the order came from the King, and they yielded
up their swords to the Saracens. The Emir, seeing the Saracens leading
away our people prisoners, told Lord Philip, that there was no question
of a truce with our people, for it was plain
they were prisoners. And so it chanced that Lord Philip had the luck not
to be made prisoner, when all the rest of our people were taken, because
he was a messenger. There is, by the way, an evil custom in pagan countries,
that when the King sends his messengers to the Sultan, or the Sultan to
the King, and the King or Sultan dies before the messengers return, those messengers become captives and slaves, to whichever
side they belong, whether Christians or Saracens. At the same time that our men on land were captured, we
suffered the same disaster, for we were taken on the water, as you shall
hear presently. For the wind blew against us from Our sailors missed the course
of the stream and got into a backwater, so that we had to turn round again
towards the Saracens. When they had brought us back out of that arm of
the river into which they had run us, we met with the King's cruisers,
the same that he had told off to defend our sick, coming fleeing towards bank such a quantity of arrows with Greek fire,
that it looked as though the stars were falling from heaven. On either
bank of the river there were ever so many of our people's vessels, which
had been unable to proceed down stream, and which the Saracens had captured
and made fast. They were killing the men and tossing them into the water,
and dragging out the chests and baggage from the ships. The mounted Saracens on the
bank shot arrows at us because we would not come to them. My people had
dressed me in a jousting hauberk, which I had put on so that the arrows
which fell into our vessel should not wound me. At this point, those of
my people who were in the prow of the boat facing down stream, cried out
to me: " Sir! Sir! Your sailors are trying
to run you ashore, because the Saracens are threatening them." All feeble
as I was, I made them raise me by the arms, and drew my sword on the sailors,
and
told them I would murder them if they ran me ashore. They answered, that
I might choose which I liked either they would run me ashore, or they would
anchor me in mid-stream until such time as the wind should drop. And I told them I would rather they should
anchor me in the middle of the stream, than take me ashore, where I saw
death awaiting us. So they anchored. It was no long while before we saw four of the Sultan's
galleys approaching, with full a thousand men in them. Thereupon I called
my knights and my men, and asked them what they wished us to do whether
to surrender to the Sultan's galleys, or to surrender to those on land.
We all agreed, that we would rather surrender
to the Sultan's galleys, because they would keep us together, than surrender
to those on land, who would scatter us and sell us to the Bedouins. Then
said a cellarer of mine, a native of Doulevent: "
Sir, I am not of this opinion." I asked him what his opinion was,
and he said to me: " My opinion is, that
we should all let ourselves be killed, and then we shall all go to heaven."
However, we did not listen to him. When I saw that we were bound
to be taken, I took my cash-box and my jewels, and threw them into the river,
and my relics as well. Then said one of my sailors to me: "
Sir, unless you let me say that you are the King's cousin, they
will kill you and us along with you." I told him that
for my part he might say what he liked. The first galley was bearing down
on us to ram us on the beam; but when they heard what he said they cast
anchor alongside our vessel. Then God sent a Saracen from the Emperor's country, and
hecame swimming up to our vessel, and threw his
arms round my waist, and said: "Sir, you are lost, unless you keep your
wits about you. You must jump from your vessel onto the cutwater of the
galley. You may jump without their noticing you, for they are intent on
looting your vessel." They threw me a rope from the galley, and I sprang,
by God's grace, onto the beak of the cutwater. And know,
that I tottered, and should have fallen into the water, had he not leapt
after me to hold me up. They placed me in the galley,
where there were about four score of their people, and he kept his arms
all the time about me. After that they bore me down, and leapt upon my
body to cut my throat, for each would have prided himself on being the
one to kill me. And this Saracen held his arms round me all the time, and
kept calling out: " The King's cousin! " In this way they got
me down twice, and once onto my knees and that time I felt the knife at
my throat. Out of this press God saved me by means of the Saracen, who
brought me through to the round-house where the Saracen knights were. When
I came amongst them, they took my hauberk off me, and for the compassion
they bore me, they cast round me one of my coverlets of scarlet cloth lined
with minnever, which my lady mother had
given me. And another brought me a white leather belt, and I strapped it
over my coverlet, in which I had made a hole and put it on; and another
brought me a cap which I placed on my head. And then by reason of the fear
I was in, and the sickness as well, I began to tremble very violently.
Then I asked for something to drink, and they brought me water in a jar,
but I had no sooner taken it into my mouth to swallow it, than it poured
out again through my nostrils. When I saw this, I sent for my people, and
told them I was as good as dead, for that I had the tumour
in my throat. They asked me, how I knew it; and presently they saw that
the water poured from my throat and nostrils, and they began to weep. When the Saracen knights who were
there, saw my followers weeping, they asked the Saracen who had saved us:
Why they wept? He replied that he understood me to have the tumour
in my throat, so that there was no hope for me. Thereupon one of the Saracen
knights told him who had protected us, to bid us be of good cheer, for
that he would give me something to drink which would cure me within two
days; and so he did. Lord Ralph of Wanon, who
was of my house-hold, had been hamstrung in the great battle of Shrove
Tuesday, and could not stand upright upon his feet; and know, that an old
Saracen knight who was in the galley used to carry him about pick-a-back. The chief Emir of the galleys
sent for me, and asked me, if I were the King's cousin? adding,
that I had acted very prudently. I told him, No; and related how and why
the sailor had said that I was the King's cousin; for otherwise we should
all have been dead men. And he asked me, whether I were
not connected in some way with the Emperor Frederic of first cousin; and he told me that he liked
me all the better for it. Whilst we were at table, he sent for a burgher of On the following Sunday, the Emir made me and all the other
prisoners who had been taken on the water land on the river bank. Whilst they were dragging
my good priest, Lord John, out of the hold of the galley he fainted; and
they killed him, and threw him into the river. As for his clerk, who likewise fainted from the
camp-sickness, they flung a mortar onto his head, and cast him into the
river. All the time they were bringing ashore the rest of the sick from
the galleys where they had been imprisoned, there were men of the Saracens
standing ready with drawn swords, and all those who fell they slew, and
cast into the river. I told them through my Saracen, that methought
it was ill done; inasmuch as it was contrary to the teaching of Saladin,
who said that one ought not to slay any man who has once tasted our bread
and salt. He replied, that they were not
to be accounted men, who were good for nothing, being disabled by disease.
He had my sailors led up before me, and told me, that they had all abjured
their faith; and I bade him put no trust in them, for that just as they
had deserted us, so they would desert them, as soon as they found a good
time and place. The Emir replied to the effect: that he agreed with me;
for that Saladin used to say that one never
met with a good Saracen Christian, nor a
good Christian Saracen. After these things, he made
me mount a palfrey and led me along beside him; and we crossed over a bridge of boats and went to Mansourah,
where the King and his followers were confined. And we came to the entrance
of a great pavilion, where were the Sultan's scribes, and there they had
my name to be written down. Then said my Saracen to me: "
Sir, I shall follow you no further, for I am not able; but, for
this child, Sir, that you have with you, I beg that you will always keep
fast hold of him by the wrist, that the Saracens may not steal him from
you." Now this child was named Bertlemin,
and was a bastard son of the Lord ofMontfaucon. When my name had been put in writing, the Emir led
me into the pavilion in which were the barons and more than ten thousand
persons besides. When I entered the place, the barons all made such
rejoicing, that it was impossible to hear a thing, and praised our Lord
for it, and said that they thought they had lost me. We had scarcely been there
any time, when they made one of the principal men there rise, and led us
into another pavilion. Many knights and other people were kept shut up
by the Saracens in a yard surrounded by a mud wall. From this enclosure where they had put them, they led them out
one by one, and asked them " Will you abjure?" Those who would not abjure
were placed on one side and had their heads cut off, and those who abjured
on another side. Here the Sultan sent his councillorsto
speak with us. They asked to whom they should deliver the Sultan's message,
and we bade them deliver it to the good Count Peter of There were some people there
who knew both Arabic and French, whom they call "dragomans," and they translated
the Arabic into the Romance tongue for Count Peter. And this was the purport
of the words: " Sir, the Sultan sends us
to you to learn whether you would like to be set free? " The Count answered: "
Yes! " "And what you would give to the Sultan for your freedom?
"" Whatever we may do and bear in reason,"
said the Count. "And would not you give for your liberty," said they, "some
one or other of the castles belonging to the Oversea Barons?
" The Count replied: That it was not in his power to do so; for
that they were held of the Emperor of Germany (who was then living). They
asked: Whether we would not surrender, for our freedom, some one or
other of the castles belonging to the When they were gone, there
rushed presently into our pavilion a great swarm of young Saracens, girt
with swords, bringing with them a man of great age, all hoary, who bade
ask us: If it was true that we believed in a God who for our sakes was
wounded and died for us, and the third day rose again? And we answered "
Yes." Thereupon he told us that we ought not to lose heart though
we had suffered these persecutions for His sake: "
For, as yet," said he, " you have not died for Him, as He died for
you; and if He had power to raise Himself from the dead, be assured that
He will deliver you, when it shall please Him." Then he went away, and all the other young men after him,
whereat I was very glad, for I thought for certain that they had come to
cut off our heads. And it was not long before the Sultan's people came,
and told us that the King had procured our deliverance. After the departure of the old man, who had put heart into
us, the Sultan's councillors returned, and
told us that the King had procured our deliverance, and that we were to
send four of our party to him, to learn what he had done. We sent thither
my Lord John of Valery, the Paladin, my
Lord Philip of Montfort, my Lord Baldwin
of Ibelin, the Seneschal of Cyprus, and
my Lord Guy of Ibelin, the Constable of
Cyprus, who had the greatest reputation of any knight I ever met, and was
the most friendly to the people of this country. These four brought us back word how the King had purchased
our liberty, which was as follows. The Sultan's councillors
tested the King in the same way they had tested us, to see whether he would
not promise to surrender some of the castles held by the And, by God's will, the King gave the very same answer that we had given
them. Then they threatened him, and said,
that since he would not do it, they would have him put in the barnacles.
The barnacles are the worst torture that one can undergo. They are two
pliable pieces of wood, notched at the apex with corresponding teeth fitting
into one another, and firmly bound together with thongs of ox-hide. When
they want to put anyone into them, they lay them on their side, and put
their legs in across the ankles then they make a man sit on the wooden
planks; till there is not half a foot of bone left whole that is not all
smashed to pieces. And to do their very worst, at the end of three days,
when the legs are inflamed, they put them into the barnacles once more
and crush them all over again. To these threats the King replied: That
he was their prisoner and they could do what they pleased with him. When they saw that they could
not overcome the good King by threats, they came back again to him, and
asked: How much money he would be willing to give the Sultan, besides surrendering would accept a reasonable sum of money from
him, he would desire the Queen to pay it for their ransom. "
How! " said they, " will you not give us your word to do this? "
And the King replied, that he did not know
whether the Queen would be willing to do it, for that she was his lady. Then the councillors withdrew
again to talk to the Sultan, and brought back answer to the King: That
if the Queen would pay a million gold besants
(which were worth five hundred thousand pounds), that they would set the
King free. The King asked them on their oath; whether the Sultan would
set them free for that sum, provided the Queen would pay it? And they went
away again to speak to the Sultan, and on their return, took an oath to
the King, that they would set him free on these terms. And now that they had sworn, the King said and promised
the Emirs, that he would gladly pay the five hundred thousand pounds as
ransom for his followers and Damietta for
his own ransom; for it was not fitting that he should barter himself for
money. When the Sultan heard
this: " By my faith," said he, " this Frank is an open-handed man,
since I he does not haggle over such a large sum of money. Go, now, and
tell him" quoth he "that I give him one
hundred thousand pounds towards payment of the ransom." NOTE TO CHAPTER XIV During these months of disaster the most extraordinary
lies on most authentic information were being circulated In HOW THE SULTAN WAS MURDERED THE CHRISTIANS SUFFER MANY
ALARMS AT THE HANDS OF THE SARACENS; BUT IN THE END THE TREATY IS SIGNED. THEN the Sultan placed the rich men in four galleys, in
order to conduct them to Those who escorted us in the
galley brought us to, in front of a rest-house which the Sultan had had
erected on the river, in the fashion you shall hear. In the front there
was a tower made of fir-trunks covered round with dyed cloth, and this
was the gateway of the rest-house. Inside this gateway there was pitched
a pavilion, where the Emirs left their swords and armour
when they went to speak with the Sultan. Beyond this pavilion again
there was another gateway like the first, and through this one passed into
a big pavilion which was the Sultan's hall. Beyond the hall there was just
such another tower, through which one entered the Sultan's bed-chamber.
Beyond the Sultan's bed-chamber there was a meadow; and in the midst of
the meadow was a tower higher than all the rest, where the Sultan used
to go to survey all the country and the camp. From the meadow a covered
pathway ran down to the river, where the Sultan had caused a pavilion to
be pitched in the water, for bathing. The whole place was fenced in with
a wooden trellis-work, and the trellis-work was covered on the outside
with blue cloth, so that those who were without might not see in. Moreover,
all four towers were covered with cloth. On the Thursday before Ascension-day
we came to the place where this rest-house was pitched. The four galleys
amongst which we prisoners were distributed, were anchored in front of
the Sultan's rest-house; and they brought the King ashore into a pavilion
near it. The Sultan had arranged, that on the Saturday before Ascension, be delivered up to him, and he should deliver
up the King. Those Emirs whom the Sultan had dismissed from his council,
in order to fill their places with his own followers whom he had brought
from foreign parts, took council together; and a certain wise old Saracen
spoke as follows: " Sirs! you
see the shame and disgrace which the Sultan has put upon us, in removing
us from the dignity to which his father had raised us. Hence we may be
sure that, if once he finds himself inside the stronghold of They went to the men of the Halka,
and desired them that they would slay the Sultan at the end of a feast
to which the Sultan had invited them. Now it befell, that when they
had feasted, and the Sultan was on his way to his bed-chamber, and had
taken leave of his Emirs, one of the knights of the Halka
the same who carried the Sultan's sword, smote the Sultan with that very sword
through the hand between the four fingers and clove the hand right to the
arm. Thereupon the Sultan went back to his Emirs who were the cause of
it all, and said to them: "Sirs, I appeal to you against the men of the Halka,
who have tried to kill me, as you can see." Then the knights of the Halka
with one voice made answer to the Sultan, saying: " Since thou sayest
that we wish to slay thee; it is better for us that we should slay thee
than that thou shouldst slay us." Then they caused the instruments to be sounded, and all
the army came to inquire what the Sultan wanted. And they told them, that The Sultan, who was young
and nimble, took refuge in the tower that he had built, together with three
of his bishops, who had been dining with him. The tower was behind his bed-chamber, as you have already heard. The
men of theHalka five hundred on horseback tore
down the Sultan's pavilions, and besieged him all round about within his
tower, together with those three bishops: and they shouted to him to come
down. To this he replied that he
would do so, but that they must first promise that he should be safe. And
they replied; that they would bring him down by force: and that he was
not inside knights named Faracataye ripped him open
with his sword and tore the heart out of his body; and then went straight
to the King with his hand all bloody, and said to him: "What wilt thou
give me? for I have slain shine enemy, who
would have been the death of thee, had he lived." And the King answered
him never a word. There came full thirty of them to our galley, with their
naked swords in their hands and their Danish axes. I asked Lord Baldwin of Ibelin,
who knew Arabic well, what these fellows were saying, and he answered:
That they were saying, they had come to cut off our heads. There were a
whole lot of people confessing themselves to a Brother of the Trinity who
belonged to Count William of Sir Guy of I belie, the Constable of Cyprus, knelt down
beside me and confessed himself to me, and I said to him: "
I absolve you, in so far as God gives me power." But when I rose
up thence, I recollected not a thing that he had said nor told me. They made us leave the place where we were, and shut us
up in the hold of the galley; and many of our people thought that they
had done so, because they were unwilling to attack us in a body, and preferred
to despatch us one by one. There we lay
all that night in this sorry plight, and so closely packed, that my feet
were touching the good Count Peter of On the morrow, the Emirs had us drawn forth from our prison;
and-their messengers told us, that we were to go and speak with the Emirs,
for the renewing of the treaty that had been made between us and the Sultan.
Moreover they told us: that we might be certain, if the Sultan had lived,
that he would have had the King's head cut off, and all our heads besides. So those who were able to
walk went to them; and the Count of Brittany, and the Constable and I,
who were grievous sick, stayed behind. The Count of They made terms with the Emirs as follows: That as soon
as The Saracens, according to their compact with the King,
were to preserve the sick who were in The oaths were devised that
the Emirs were to make to the King, and were as follows: If they did not keep faith with the King, might they be put to shame even as he
who for his sin goes bareheaded on pilgrimage to Mahomet at Mecca; and
as he who should abandon his wife and afterwards take her back again. And
the third oath was this: If they did not keep faith with the King, might
they be put to shame even as a Turk who eats swine's flesh. The King accepted the aforesaid oaths from the Emirs, because
Master Nicholas of After the Emirs had sworn,
they had the oath written down which they wished the King to take, and
devised it as follows by the advice of those renegade priests who had joined
them. The writing ran thus: If the King did not keep faith with the Emirs,
might he be put to shame even as the Christian who abjures God and His
Mother and the company of His twelve apostles, and all the saints, male
and female. To this the King was quite agreeable. The last clause of the
oath was as follows: If he did not keep faith with the Emirs, might he
be put to shame even as the Christian who should deny God and His law, and in contempt
of God should spit and trample on the Cross. When the King heard this, he said that: Please God, he
would never take that oath. The Emirs sent Master Nicholas, who knew Arabic,
to the King, who spoke to the King thus: " Sir, the Emirs are very indignant,
inasmuch as they took whatever oath you required of them, but that you
will not take the oath they require of you; and you may be sure, that unless
you take it, they will have you beheaded you and all your followers." The King replied, that they might do as they pleased in
the matter, for that he preferred to die as a good Christian, rather than
live under the wrath of God and His Mother. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, an aged man, eighty years old,
had procured a safe-conduct from the Saracens, and had come to the King,
to assist him in obtaining his liberty. Now it is the custom between
the Christians and Saracens, that when the King or the Sultan dies, those
who are on an embassy (whether in pagandom
or Christendom) become prisoners and slaves; and since the Sultan who had
given him the passport was dead, the Patriarch was a prisoner like
the rest of us. When the King had given his answer, one of the Emirs said,
that it was the Patriarch who had given him this advice, and he said to
the pagans: "If you will be guided by me, I will make the King take the
oath, for I will send the Patriarch's head flying into his lap." They would not do as he said; but they seized the Patriarch,
where he was sitting with the King, and brought him away, and tied him
to a tent-pole, with his hands behind his back, so tightly, that his hands
swelled up as big as his head and the blood spurted out from them. The
Patriarch cried to the King: " Sir, swear
with a good conscience, for I take on my own soul the guilt of the oath
you shall swear, since you honestly mean to keep it." I do not know how the oath was settled, but the Emirs were
quite satisfied with the oaths of the King and the other rich men who were
there. Directly the Sultan was dead,
they had his musical instruments brought in front of the King's tent; and
it was told the King that the Emirs had had a great debate about making
him Sultan of AFTER the terms had been agreed and sworn to by the King
and the Emirs, it was agreed that they should set us free on Ascension
day, and that directly Damietta should have
been made over to the Emirs, they should deliver the person of the King
and the rich men with him, as said before. On the Thursday evening, the escorts of our four galleys
brought them to anchor in mid-stream opposite the At sunrise, my lord Geoffrey of Sargines
went into the town, and delivered it over to the Emirs. They hoisted the
Sultan's ensigns on the towers. The Saracen knights
took possession of the town, and began to drink the wines; and soon they
were all drunk: so much so, that one of them came to our galley, and drew
out his sword all bloody, and said that, for his part, he had killed six
of our people. Before Damietta was
yielded up, the Queen had been received on board our ships, together with
all our people who were in the town, except those that ere sick, who were
left behind. The Saracens ere bound by their oaths to take care of them,
and they killed them all. The King's engines, which they were also to eve taken care
of, these they chopped in pieces. and the salted pork, which they were
to have kept, because they eat no pork, instead of taking care of it, they
made one pile of bacon, and another pile of dead bodies, and set fire to
them; and they made such a huge bonfire that it lasted through the Friday,
Saturday, and Sunday. As for the King and us, whom
they ought to have set free at sunrise, they kept us until sunset; and
we had nothing to eat the whole time, nor the Emirs
neither, for they were disputing among themselves the whole day.
One Emir, speaking on behalf of his party, said: "Sirs, if you will listen to me and those
of my party here, we shall kill the King, and these rich men here, and
then, for forty years to come we shall be free from anxiety; for their
children are young, and we have Damietta
on our side, so that we can do it with all the more security." Another
Saracen, named Sebreci' who was a native
of Morocco, opposed this, and said as follows: "
If we kill the King, after having killed the Sultan, it will be
said that the Egyptians are the wickedest and most treacherous race on
earth." And he who was for putting us to death, made answer, "
It is only too true that we have rid ourselves of our Sultan by
murder, in a very evil way; for we have broken the commandment of Mahomet,
who commands us to guard our lord as the apple of our eye. See here, in
this book is the commandment written. Now hearken," said he, "to the other
commandment of Mahomet, which follows after." (He turned over a page of
the book that he was holding, and showed them the next commandment which
was like this) "In the assurance of the faith, slay the enemy of the law."
See, therefore, how we have sinned against the commandments of Mahomet, in that we have killed our
lord; and now we shall do still worse, if we do not kill the King, notwithstanding
any assurance we may have given him; for he is the most powerful enemy
that the pagan religion has." Our death was almost agreed upon; so much so, that an Emir
who was hostile to us, thinking that we were all to be put to death, came
down to the river-bank, and began shouting in Arabic to those In charge
of the galleys, and took off his turban and signalled
to them with it. Thereupon they weighed anchor again, and brought us back
a good league In the direction of However, as it pleased God,
who does not forget His own, it was decided, about the time of sunset,
that we were to be set free; so they brought us back, and ran our four
galleys ashore. We besought them to let us depart. They replied, that they
would not do so until we should have eaten; " For
it would be a disgrace to the Emirs, if you were to leave our prisons fasting."
Then we desired that they would give us the food, and we would eat; and they told us that it was being fetched
from the camp. The food that they gave us, was cheese fritters, cooked
in the sun, to prevent maggots getting into them; and eggs hard-boiled
for four or five days; and, in our honour,
they had been painted outside with various colours. We were put ashore, and went to meet the King, whom
they were bringing down from the pavilion on the bank where they had kept
him; and about twenty thousand Saracens, girt with swords, were following
him on foot. In front of the King,
in the river, there was a galley full of Genoese, though only one man was
visible above board. As soon as he saw the King at the water's edge, he
blew a whistle; and at the sound of the whistle, there leaped up from the
bilge of the galley a good four score crossbowmen ready-equipped, their
cross-bows wound up, and in a twinkling each quarrel was notched; and the
moment the Saracens caught sight of them, they turned tail like a flock
of sheep; and none of them all save two or three were left beside the King. A plank was run ashore to bring aboard the King, with his
brother the Count of Anjou, Lord Geoffrey of Sargines,
Lord Philip of Annemos [Nemours], the Marshall
of France whom they called DuMeis,
and the Master of the Trinity and myself. The Count of Poitiers they
kept in prison, until such time as the King should have paid them the two
hundred thousand pounds, that he was bound to pay them as ransom before
he quitted the river. On the Saturday before Ascension day
(which Saturday is the morrow of the day on which we were set free), the
Count of Flanders, and the Count of Soissons,
came to take leave of the King, together with many of the other rich men
who had been imprisoned in the galleys. The King spoke to them to
this effect: that it seemed to him they would do well to wait until his
brother, the Count of Poitiers, should be
released. And they said: that it was out of their power, for the galleys
were all ready and fitted out. Into their galleys they got, and tried them
away to Brittany, who was so ill that he only lived three
weeks longer, and died at sea. They began to make the payment on Saturday morning, and
took all Saturday over it and all day Sunday until dusk; for they paid
by weight, and weighed out ten thousand pounds at a time. When it came to Vespers on the Sunday, the King's men who
were making the payment, sent word to the King that they were about thirty
thousand pounds short. Now there were with the King only the King of Sicily and
the Marshall of France, the Master of the Trinity and myself; all the rest
were watching the weighing. So I said to the King, that it would be well
to send for the Commander and Marshall of the The King sent for them, and
told me to speak to them. When I had had my say, Brother Stephen of Otricourt,
who was Commander of the Temple, answered me thus: " Sir de Joinville,
this advice of yours is neither good nor reasonable; for you know that
we receive our trusts in such a way, that we cannot by our oaths resign them to anyone except
to those from whom we have received them." Plenty of strong language and
hard names passed between him and me; and then Brother Reynold
of Vichiers, who was Marshall of the Temple,
took up the word and said, " Sir, have done with the squabble between the
Lord of Joinville and our Commander; for,
as our Commander says, we can give you nothing, without perjuring ourselves.
And since the Seneschal is urging you to take it, if we will not lend it
well, there is nothing very monstrous in that; and you can do as you like
about it. If you do take some of our money, we have surely enough of yours
at I told the King, that I would
go, if he wished and he ordered me to do so. I went off in one of the Templars'
galleys to their chief galley; and when I was about to go down into the
hold of the galley, where the treasure was, I requested the Commander of
the Temple to come and see what I took; but he would not condescend to
come. The the treasure was, I desired the Treasurer of
the Then he ordered the Treasurer to let me have them. And
when the I found that this coffer which
I opened, belonged to Nicholas of Choisy
one of the King's sergeants. I threw out what money I found in it; and
then they left me on the prow of the boat that had brought us. I took the
Marshall of France and left him beside the money, and on the deck of the
galley I put the Master of the Trinity. The When we drew near the King's galley I began to shout to
the King, " Sir! Sir! look
what I have got! " and the holy man was right
glad and joyful to see me. We handed over what I had brought to those who were weighing
the ransom. When the weighing was ended, the King's council,
who had been employed on it, came to him, and told him that the Saracens
refused
to set free his brother, until they should have the money actually before
them. There were some among the council who would have dissuaded
the King from paying over the money until he should have his brother back.
But the King replied, that he should pay
it over, for it was in his agreement; and let them in return keep their
part of the bargain, if they were honestly minded. Then Lord Philip of Annemoes
told the King, that they had done the Saracens out of a ten thousand pounds'
weight; whereupon the King became violently angry, and said that he insisted
on the ten thousand pounds being restored to them, since he had agreed
to pay them two hundred thousand pounds before leaving the river. Then
I trod on Lord Philip's foot, and told the King not to pay any heed to
him, for he was not speaking the truth, for that the Saracens would out-cheat
anybody in the world. And Lord Philip said,
that what I said was true, for he had only said it in jest. And the King
said that: That kind of jest came to grief. "And I command you," said the
King to Lord Philip, " by the faith you owe me,
and as my vassal that you are, that if those ten thousand pounds have not
been paid, you will have them paid." Many people had urged the
King to withdraw into his ship that was awaiting him at sea, in order to
put him beyond the Saracens' reach. But the King would listen to never
a one of them, saying on the contrary that, according to his agreement,
he should not leave the river until he had paid them two hundred thousand
pounds. Directly the payment was made, the King, without anyone urging
him, told us that henceforth his oath was fulfilled, and that we were to
quit that place and go on board the ship which lay out at sea. Thereupon,
our galley started, and we journeyed fully a good league, before any of us spoke to another,
so uneasy were we about the Count of Poitiers.
Then came Lord Philip of Montfort in a galleon,
and cried to the King, " Sir, sir, speak
to your brother, the Count of Poitiers,
who is in this other boat." Then the King cried, "
Show a light! Show a light! " and
they did so. Then was there great joy amongst us, such as could not be
surpassed. ANECDOTES OF THE RETREAT -- "CHATILLON, CHEVALIERS!"
-- DEATH OF THE BISHOP OF I MUST not forget certain matters that occurred in First of all I will tell you
about my Lord Walter of Châtillon:
how a knight named Lord John of Monson, told me that he saw my lord of Châtillon
in the walled village where the King was taken. he would pick out the darts that were sticking all over him; and put
on his coat-of-arms again; stand up in his stirrups, and brandishing his
sword at arm's length cry, "Châtillon! knights!where
are my paladins? " Then, turning round, and
seeing that the Turks had come in at the other end of the street, he would
charge them again, sword in hand, and drive them out. And this he did about
three times in the manner I have described. After the Emir of the Galleys had brought me to those who
were captured on land, I made inquiries of such as belonged to Lord Walter's
household, but I never found anyone who could tell me how he was taken.
Only Lord John Frumons, that good knight,
told me that, when they were leading him away prisoner to Mansoora,
he met a Turk who was riding Lord Walter of Châtillon's
horse, and the horse's crupper was all bloody. And he asked the Turk what
he had done with him whose horse it was; and the Turk answered, that he
had cut his throat on horseback, as might be seen from the crupper that
was all covered with the blood. There was a very brave man
in the army, named Lord James of Châtel, the Bishop
of Whilst the King was waiting for his servants to finish
paying the Turks in order that his brother might be set free, a Saracen,
very well dressed, and a very honest fellow by his looks, came to the King,
and offered him milk in jars and flowers of divers kinds, on the part of
the children of the Nasac, the whilom Sultan
of Egypt; and he made the offering in French. The King asked him: where
he had learnt French?and he replied, that he had
once been a Christian. And the King said to him: "Get you hence; for I
have no more to say to you." I drew the man aside and questioned
him about his affairs; and he told me, that he was born in and that he was married in I said to him: " Surely you
know very well, that if you were to die in this state, you would go to
hell? " " Yes," said he (for he was sure
there was no religion so good as the Christian), " but I dread the poverty
in which I should find myself, were I to go over to your side, and the
shame. Not a day would pass, but I should hear them say: 'There goes the
renegade'; and so I prefer to live rich and
comfortable, rather than put myself in such a position as I foresee." And I told him: that on the day
of judgment, when his sin would be seen of all men, the shame would
be much greater than what he was describing. Many good words I said to
him, with very little effect. So he left me, and I never saw him again.
You have already heard the great tribulations which the King and we suffered.
The Queen, too, did not escape them, as you shall hear presently. For,
three days before she was brought to bed, she got the news that the King
was a prisoner. This news terrified her so
much, that every time she fell asleep in her bed, she fancied that her
room was all filled with Saracens, and she would
scream out, "Help! help!" And for fear lest
it should kill the child she was carrying, she made an aged knight eighty
years old sleep beside her bed, who held her hand; and whenever the Queen
cried out, he would say, " Lady, do not be
afraid, for I am here." Before she was brought to bed, she turned every one out
of her room, except this knight; and she knelt down before him, and begged
him to grant her a boon. The knight promised it on his oath; and she said: "
I desire you " said she " by the troth you have pledged me, that
if the Saracens take this town, you will cut off my head before they take
me." The knight answered, " Rest assured
I will readily do so. For I always meant to kill
you, before we should fall into their hands." The Queen was delivered of a son, who was named John, and
whom they called Tristan, because of the
great sorrow in which he was born. On the same day that she was
brought to bed, she was told that the settlers from her bedside, so that the whole room was packed:
"Sirs," said she, " for God's sake do not abandon this town. For, look
you, my lord the King would be lost, and all those who are prisoners, if
this town were lost. And if you must go yet take pity on this poor woman
lying here, and wait at least until I am recovered." And they answered: " Lady,
how can we do so? for we shall die of hunger
in this town." Then she told them, that they should not go for fear of
famine, at least. " For I will have all the
victuals in the town bought up, and retain you all henceforth at the King's
expense." They consulted together, and came back to her, and consented
to remain. And the Queen God rest her soul! caused
all the food in the town to be bought in, which cost her three hundred
and sixty thousand pounds and more. She was obliged to get up before her time, on account of
surrendering the city to the Saracens. To Whilst the King was waiting
for his brother to be set free, he sent Brother Ralph, the preaching friar,
to an Emir named Faracataye, one of the most upright Saracens that I ever met, with this message: That he marvelled
much how he and the other Emirs could permit their treaty with him to be
so disgracefully broken; for they had killed his sick men, whom they were
specially bound to protect; and had used the timber of his engines to burn
their bodies and the salted pork which they had also promised to keep. Faracataye answered Brother Ralph: "
Brother Ralph " said he " tell the King, that, by my faith, I cannot
help it, and it grieves me; and tell him, from me, that he must show no
signs of annoyance so long as he is in our hands, or he is a dead man."
And he advised him to remember it as soon as he should be in When the King reached his
ship, he found that his people had got nothing ready for him neither bedding,
nor clothes; and so, until we came to During our six days' voyage, I, being ill, sat always at
the King's side; and he then told me how he
had been taken prisoner, and how he had obtained his ransom and ours, by
God's assistance; and he-made me relate how I had been taken on the water.
And afterwards he said to me: that I ought to be very grateful to our Lord,
since he had delivered me out of such great dangers. Much did he lament the death of his brother the Count of Artois;
and said that he would hardly have been withheld from visiting him, like
the Count of Poitiers, but that he would
have come to see him in the galleys. Of the Count of Anjou, too,
who was in his ship, he used to complain to me, that he never kept him
company. One day he asked, what the Count
of Anjou was doing, and was told, that he was playing at tables with my
Lord Walter of Annemoes. And he walked
up to them, staggering with weakness from his malady, and took the dice
and the tables and flung them into the sea; and was very wroth with his
brother for so soon taking to dice-playing. But my Lord Walter got the
best of it, for the King flung all the money that was on the cloth (of which there was a great quantity) into his
lap, and he carried it off. Hereafter you shall hear of divers
trials and tribulations that befell me in --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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THE KING TAKES COUNSEL, WHETHER TO RETURN TO FRANCE, OR
TO STAY IN THE HOLY LAND.
WHILST we were staying thus in Acre, the King sent
for his brothers and the Count of Flanders and the other rich men one Sunday,
and spoke to them as follows: " Sirs, my lady mother the Queen has sent
to me and used her utmost entreaties, that I should go back to France;
for my kingdom is in great danger, because I have no peace nor truce with
the King of England. The men of this country, with whom I have talked,
tell me, that, if I go, this country is lost; for all those that are in
Acre will come away after me, for that no one will dare to remain in it
with so few men. Therefore I beg you" said he "to think it over; and since
the matter is a weighty one, I grant you a respite of a week from now,
before you give your answer as to what you think best."
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[The Legate] said to me: that he did not see how the King
could possibly remain; and entreated me very particularly to share his
ship.
I answered him, that: It was out of my power to do so,
for that I possessed nothing, as he knew, having lost everything in the
water when I was captured. And this answer I gave, not because I should
not have very much liked to go with him, but because of something that
my first cousin the Lord of Boulaincourt God rest his soul! said to me
when I went over-seas. "You are going away over-seas" said he " Now, take
care how you come back; for there is no knight, be he poor or rich, but
will be dishonoured, if he return and leave in the Saracens' hands those
poor servants of Our Lord in whose company he set out."
The Legate was angry with me, and told me, I ought not
to have refused.
On the next Sunday we came again before the King; and then
the King asked his brothers and the other barons and the Count of Flanders,
what advice they meant to give him? to go? or to stay? They all replied:
that they had charged my
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Lord Guy Malvoisin with the advice that they wished to give the King.
The King ordered him to speak as they had charged him;
and he said as follows: " Sir, your brothers and the rich men that are
here, have considered the state of your affairs, and perceive, that it
is impossible for you to remain in this country, with credit to yourself
or to your kingdom. For, of all the knights who started in your company,
of whom you led two thousand eight hundred to Cyprus, there are not in
this town one hundred left. Wherefore they urge you, Sir, to get you gone
to France, there to procure men and money, that you may return again speedily
to this country, and avenge you on the enemies of God, who have kept you
in their prison."
The King would not rest content with what Lord Guy Malvoisin
had said, but asked the Count of Anjou, and the Count of Poitiers, and
the Count of Flanders, and several other rich men who sat near them, and
they all agreed with Lord Guy Malvoisin.
The Legate asked Count John of Jaffa, who was sitting among
them, what was his opinion on the
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matter. The Count of Jaffa begged him to refrain from asking: "For this
reason " said he "that my castles are at stake; and if I urge the King
to stay, it will be thought that I do so for my own ends." Then the King
desired him in the most definite manner, to say what he thought; and he
replied: That if the King could manage to hold his ground for the space
of a year, he would gain great honour by remaining. Then the Legate asked
those who sat beyond the Count of Jaffa; and they all agreed with Lord
Guy Malvoisin. I was seated about the fourteenth off from the Legate. He
asked me, what I thought about it, and I answered him, that I quite agreed
with the Count of Jaffa. And the Legate said to me angrily: How was it
possible for the King to hold the field with so few men as he had? I too
replied in anger (for it seemed to me that his words were meant as a home
thrust): "Well, Sir, I will tell you how, since you wish it. It is said,
Sir whether truly or not, I do not know that the King has not yet spent
any of his own money, only the money of the clergy. Now let the King bring
some of his own money into use, and let him send and raise
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knights in the Morea and beyond the seas; and when they hear the news
that the King is giving handsome pay, then knights will flock in to him
from all quarters, so that he will be able to hold the field for a year,
please God. And, through his staying, those poor prisoners will be delivered,
who have been captured in the service of God and himself, who will never
get out again, if the King goes away. "
There was not a man present but had some of his nearest
and dearest in prison, so that no one took up my words; but instead, they
all began to weep.
After me, the Legate put the question to my Lord William
of Beaumont, who, at that time, was Marshall of France, and he said, that
I had spoken very well. " And I will tell you why . . ." he began. But
the good knight, Lord John of Beaumont, who was his uncle, and had a great
desire to go back to France, shouted him down very rudely; and said to
him: " What do you mean? you filthy fellow! Sit down again, and hold your
tongue! " The King said to him: " Sir John, you do ill; let him speak."
"Sir, I shall certainly not!"
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He was obliged to be silent; and after that nobody else agreed with
me, except the Lord of Chatenay.
Then the King said to us: " Sirs, I have heard you attentively;
and I will give you my answer this day week, as to what I think fit to
do."
No sooner had we left the place than I was attacked on
all sides: " Well, Sir de Joinville, the King must be mad, if he listens
to you, contrary to the whole council of the kingdom of France! " As soon
as the tables were laid, I seated myself beside the King at the board,
in the place where he always made me sit, when his brothers were not there.
Not a word did he speak to me all the time that the meal lasted; which
was not his wont, for he always took some notice of me at table. And truly
I thought that he was angry with me, because I had said, that he had not
yet spent any of his own money, whereas he spent it generously. Whilst
the King was hearing his grace, I walked up to an iron-barred window, that
was in a recess by the head of the King's bed, and stood with my arms thrust
through the window-bars, thinking, that if the King went away to France,
I would go and join the Prince of Antioch (who
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considered me a kinsman, and had sent for me) until another expedition
should come out to the country, by which the prisoners might be delivered,
according to the advice that the Lord of Boulaincourt had given me.
As I was standing there, the King came and leant
over my shoulder and placed both his hands upon my head. And I thought
that it was Lord Philip of Annemoes, who had plagued me enough that day,
because of the advice I had given the King; and I said: " Leave me in peace,
Lord Philip! " By mishap, as I jerked my head, the King's hand slipped
down over my face, and I recognised the King by an emerald that he wore
on his finger. And he said to me: " Keep still; for I wish to ask you,
how you could make so bold a young man like you as to venture to advise
me to stay here, in opposition to all the great men and wise men of France,
who advise me to go away."
" Sir," said I, "if I had such wickedness in my own
heart, nothing should induce me to advise you to commit it." " Do you mean,"
said he, "that I should be doing a wrong thing if I went away?"
" So help me God; yes, Sir," quoth I. And he
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said: " If I stay, will you stay? " And I told him: "Yes, by some means;
either at my own charge or that of someone else." " Now you may be quite
easy" said he "for I am very much obliged to you for the advice you have
given me. But do not tell anybody, all this week." I was the easier for
this conversation, and defended myself the more boldly against my assailants.
They call the natives of that country "colts "; 1 so Lord Peter of Avalon
sent me word that I must defend myself against those who called me a '`colt";
and I told them: I would rather be a colt than a turn-tail hack such as
they were.
The next Sunday, we all came again before the King,
and when the King saw that we were all arrived, he crossed his lips, and
spoke to us as follows: (having first invoked the aid of the Holy Spirit
as I suppose; for my lady mother told me that whenever I had anything I
wanted to say, I must invoke the aid of the Holy Ghost, and cross my lips.)
The King's speech was on this wise: "Sirs," quoth
he, " I thank you very much, all those of
* "Poullains"; possibly from the Apulian settlers.
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you who have counselled my going to France; and I likewise
give thanks to those who have counselled my staying; but I have reflected,
that if I stay I see no risk of my kingdom coming to grief, for my lady
the Queen has plenty of people to defend it. Moreover, I have considered
what the barons of this country say: that, if I go away, the kingdom of
Jerusalem is lost, since no one will dare to remain behind in it. And I
have considered that on no account whatever should I permit the kingdom
of Jerusalem to be lost, which I came hither to preserve and to conquer.
And so my decision is, that here I am, and here I stay. Therefore I bid
you you rich men that are here, and all other knights who are willing to
stay with me, come and speak freely to me; and I will give you so much,
that the fault shall be yours, not mine, if you will not remain."
Many who heard this speech were confounded; and there were
many who wept.
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HOW THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN SENT AN INSOLENT MESSAGETO
THE KING -- OF THE VISIT THAT BROTHER IVES PAID HIM -- THE KING NEGOTIATES
WITH THE SULTAN OF DAMASCUS AND THE EMIRS OF EGYPT -- HOW THE LADY OF SAJETTA
BURIED THE BONES OF COUNT WALTER OF BRIENNE -- THE KING FORTIFIES CESAREA.
WHILST the King was dwelling in Acre, there came to him
messengers from the Old Man of the Mountain [leader of the Assassins, an
Isma'ili Shi'ite sect that used murder to advance its political goals].
When the King returned from mass, he made them come before him. The King
made them be seated in the following order. In front was an Emir, well
dressed and well equipped; and behind his Emir was a youth well equipped,
grasping three knives in his hand; so that if the Emir had been rejected,
he might have offered these three knives to the King, in token of defiance.
Behind him who held the three knives, there was another that carried a
sheet wound around his arm, which he too would have presented to the King
for a
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shroud to wrap him in, had he refused the request of the Old Man of
the Mountain.
The King bade the Emir say his pleasure; and the Emir delivered
to him letters of credentials, and spoke as follows: " My lord sends to
ask you, whether you know him? " The King replied: that he did not know
him, for he had never seen him; although he had heard talk of him. " Then
since you have heard of my lord, I marvel greatly, that out of your possessions
you have not sent him such gifts as would have secured him for your friend;
even as the Emperor of Germany, the King of Hungary, the Sultan of Egypt,
and the rest do every year; because they know for certain, that they can
only live as long as it shall please my lord. And if you do not choose
to do this, then let him receive quittance of the tribute that he owes
to the Hospital and the Temple, and he will consider your score cancelled."
At that time he used to pay tribute to the Temple and the
Hospital; for they feared the Assassins not at all, seeing that the Old
Man of the Mountain had nothing to gain by having the Master of the Temple
or Hospital put to death; for he
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knew very well, that if he had one of them killed, he was immediately
replaced by another just as good; and for that reason he did not want to
waste his Assassins in a quarter where he had nothing to gain by it.
The King in reply told the Emir to come to the afternoon
levee.
When the Emir came again, he found the King seated thus:
the Master of the Hospital on one side, and the Master of the Temple on
the other. Then the King bade him repeat what he had said to him in the
morning; and he replied that he had no mind to repeat it, save before those
who had been with the King in the morning.
Then the two Masters said to him: " We command you to speak
it." And he said, that, since they commanded him, he would repeat it to
them.
Then the two Masters caused him to be told in Arabic, that
he was to come and speak with them the next day at the Hospital; which
he did.
Then the two Masters said to him (through the interpreters)
that his lord was a very bold man, to dare to send such harsh language
to the King; and they told him that were it not for love of the
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unbelievers; and similarly all Mahomet's disciples call all the disciples
of Ali unbelievers.
One of the points of the law of Ali, is that when a man
dies in executing his lord's commands, his soul passes into a happier body
than she was in before; and for this reason the Assassins make no difficulty
about losing their lives when their lord commands them, because they believe
that they will be happier by far after death, than they were before.
The other point is this; that they think that no man can
die, save on the appointed day; which is a thing no one ought to believe,
for God has power to prolong our lives and to shorten them. And this the
Bedouins believe, and this is why they will not wear armour when they go
into battle.
Brother Ives found a book at the head of the Old Man's
bed, in which were written several sayings of Our Lord to St. Peter, when
he walked on earth. And Brother Ives said to him, "Ha! for God's sake,
Sir, read this book often; for these are passing good sayings." The Old
Man told him that he often did so: " For I hold my lord St. Peter very
dear; for in the beginning of the world, the soul of Abel, when he was
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slain, passed, into the body of Noah; and when Noah died, it returned
in the body of Abraham; and from the body of Abraham when he died, it passed
into the body of Saint Peter, when God came upon earth."
When Brother Ives heard this, he showed him that his belief
was not a right one, and taught him many good sayings; but the Old Man
would not heed him. All these things Brother Ives told to the King, after
he returned to us.
When the Old Man went riding, a crier went before him,
carrying a Danish axe with a long handle all covered with silver, and stuck
full of knives, who kept crying out: " Make way before him who bears the
death of kings in his hands! "
I had forgotten to tell you the answer that the King made
to the Sultan of Damascus; which was: that he was not minded to join him,
until he should know whether the Emirs of Egypt would carry out the truce
they had broken; that he would send to them; and that, if they would not
make good the broken truce, he would willingly help him to avenge his cousin,
the Sultan of Egypt, whom they had slain.
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Whilst the King was at Acre, he sent my lord John of Valenciennes
into Egypt, who demanded of the Emirs that they should make amends for
the wrongs and injuries that they had done the King. They told him, that
they would readily do so, provided the King would ally himself with them
against the Sultan of Damascus. My lord John of Valenciennes blamed them
much for the great wrongs they had done the King, which have been already
mentioned; and advised them to soften the King's heart towards them, by
sending him all the knights whom they were keeping in prison. They did
so; and sent him into the bargain all the bones of Count Walter of Brienne,
to lay in consecrated ground.
When Lord John of Valenciennes returned to Acre, with two
hundred knights whom he brought back out of prison, (not counting other
folk), my Lady of Sajetta, who was cousin to Count Walter of Brienne and
sister to Lord Walter the Lord of Rinel, whose daughter John lord of Joinville
took to wife later on, after he returned from over-seas, this same Lady
of Sajetta took the bones of Count Walter and had them buried in the Hospital
at
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Acre. And she arranged the service thus: every knight offered a candle
and a silver penny, and the King offered a candle and a besant; all at
the expense of my Lady of Sajetta. People were much surprised at the King's
doing this, for he had never been known to offer anything save at his own
expense, but he did it out of politeness.
Amongst the knights whom Lord John of Valenciennes brought
back, I found full forty of the Court of Champagne.
I had coats and surcoats of miniver made for them, and
led them before the King, and begged him to enable them to remain with
him. The King heard what they were asking, and was silent; and a knight
of his council, said that I did not do well to bring such additions to
the King, when he had already seven thousand liveries too many. And I said
to him: that, more was the pity he could say so, and that, for our part,
we of Champagne had lost no less than thirty-five knights, all bannerets,
of the Court of Champagne; and, said I, "The King will not do well, if
he listens to you, when he is in such need of knights." After this speech
I fell to weeping violently; and the King told me.
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to be silent and he would give them all that I had asked. The King received
them just as I wished, and placed them in my battalion.
The King replied to the messengers from Egypt, that he
would make no truce with them, unless they sent him all the heads of Christians
that hung round the walls of Cairo, since the time when the Count of Bar
and the Count of Montfort were taken; and unless they sent him all the
children who had been taken young and become renegades; and unless they
quitted him of the two hundred thousand pounds that he still owed them.
With the messengers of the Egyptian Emirs, the King sent
my Lord John of Valenciennes, a valiant man and wise.
At the beginning of Lent, the King made ready, with all
the followers he had, to go and fortify Cesarea, which the Saracens had
rased and which was ten leagues distant on the road to Jerusalem.
Lord Ralph of Soissons, who had remained at Acre sick,
went with the King to fortify Cesarea. I know not how it was, save by the
will of God that they did us no mischief all that year.
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THE KING GOES TO JAFFA -- THE PRINCE OF ANTIOCH VISITS
THE CAMP -- THE SULTAN OF DAMASCUS AND SARACENS OF EGYPT LEAGUE TOGETHER
AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS -- SKIRMISHES AND OTHER ANECDOTES,
WHILST the King was fortifying the city of Cesarea,
the messengers from Egypt returned to him, and brought him the truce, drawn
up on the King's terms as aforesaid. And according to the agreement between
the King and them, the King was to proceed on an appointed day to Jaffa;
and on the day that the King was due at Jaffa, the Egyptian Emirs were
bound by oath to be at Gaza, to deliver to him the kingdom of Jerusalem.
The truce, just as the messengers had brought it, was sworn to by the King
and rich men of the army, and by our oaths we were to help them against
the Sultan of Damascus.
When the Sultan of Damascus knew that we had made an alliance
with the Egyptians, he sent about
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three thousand Turks, well equipped, to Gaza, whither the Egyptians
were to come; for he knew very well that if they succeeded in joining us,
he might get the worst of it. All the same, the King did not desist from
setting out for Jaffa. When the Count of Jaffa saw that the King was coming,
he dressed up his castle in such a way that it had all the look of a defensible
town. For on each battlement, of which there must have been quite five
hundred, he put a target with his arms and a pennon; which made a very
fine show, for his arms were " or " with a " cross gules patee."
We camped all about the castle in the fields, and surrounded
the castle, which lies on the coast, from sea to sea. Presently the King
started fortifying a new suburb, all round the castle, from sea to sea;
I saw the King himself, many a time, carry the hod to the trenches, to
gain the pardon.
The Egyptian Emirs failed us with regard to the promised
agreement; for they dared not come to Gaza, because of the Sultan of Damascus'
men that were there. However they kept their word, so far as to send the
King all the heads of Christians that they had hung round the walls of
Cairo Castle,
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since the time when the Counts of Bar and Montfort were taken; which
heads the King caused to be laid in consecrated soil. They also sent him
those children who had been taken when the King was taken; which went much
against the grain, for they had become Mohammedans. And along with these
things they sent the King an elephant, which the King sent into France.
Whilst we were awaiting the day which the King had appointed
for the Egyptian Emirs, the Count of Eu, who had been knighted, came to
the camp, and brought with him the good knight Lord Ernulf of Guimenée
and his two brothers, ten in all. He stayed on in the King's service, and
the King knighted him.
About this time the Prince of Antioch came to the camp
again, with the Princess, his mother. The King treated him with great distinction,
and knighted him with all honours. In years he was not more that sixteen,
but such a sensible child I never saw. He asked the King to hear what he
had to say, in his mother's presence, and the King consented. This was
what he said to the King, his mother being present: "Sir, it is quite true
that
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my mother will have me in her ward for another four years; but that
is no reason why she should let my land go to rack and ruin. I say this,
Sir, because the city of Antioch is going to ruin in her hands. I beseech
you, Sir, ask her to give me some money, so that I may go to the relief
of my people there and assist them. Truly, Sir, she ought to do so; for
if I live in the city of Tripolis with her, it can only be at great expense,
and what I spend there will be all to no purpose."
The King willingly listened to him, and did all in his
power to persuade his mother to give him some money as much as the King
could drag from her.
Directly he left the King, he went to Antioch. With the
Prince there came three musicians from Greater Armenia, brothers; who were
on their way to Jerusalem on pilgrimage; and they had three horns, that
curved round in front of their faces. When they began to play on their
horns, you would have thought it the voice of swans leaving their pool,
and they played the sweetest airs and so exquisite that it was a marvel
to hear them. They did three wonderful tumbling-feats: for one could put
a cloth under their feet, and they would turn
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a somersault standing, so that they came up again with their feet on
the cloth. Two of them used to turn head backwards, and the eldest used
to do so too; but if one made him turn head foremost, he used to cross
himself, for he was afraid that he would break his neck in going over.
Whilst we were staying at Jaffa an Emir belonging to the
Sultan of Damascus' party came to cut corn at a village three good leagues
from the camp. It was agreed that we should attack him. When he heard us
coming, he fled. A young valet of gentle birth set off in pursuit of them
as they were fleeing, and bore down two of their knights to earth, without
breaking his lance, and he wounded the Emir so that the spear snapped off
in his body.
Whilst the King was encamped by Jaffa, the Master of St.
Lazar had got wind at Ramah, three good leagues from the camp, of some
cattle and other things, where he thought he might make a fine haul. He
kept no discipline in the camp, but did just as he liked, so he went off
to the place without telling the King. When he had collected his booty,
the Saracens fell upon him, and routed him so utterly, that of all the
men whom he had in
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his troop with him, only four escaped. Directly he entered the camp,
he began to call to arms. I went to arm myself, and begged the King to
allow me to go to the place, and he gave me leave, and ordered me to take
with me the Temple and the Hospital. When we reached the place, we found
that some other fresh Saracens had come down into the valley where the
Master of St. Lazar had suffered his disaster. While these new Saracens
were examining the dead bodies, the Master of the King's cross-bowmen attacked
them, and before we could come up, our people had routed them, and slain
several.
A serjeant of the King's, and a serjeant of the Saracens
bore one another to earth with their lances. One of the King's serjeants,
seeing this, took the two horses, and led them off, meaning to steal them;
and, to avoid being seen, he went in between the walls of the town of Ramah.
As he was leading them along, an old cistern over which he passed gave
way beneath him, and the three horses and he himself went to the bottom.
I was told of it, and went to see, and found the cistern still crumbling
in beneath them, so that in a very little while they would have been completely
covered over.
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So we came back without any losses, except what the Master
of St. Lazar had lost there.
The Sultan of Damascus took his men that were at Gaza,
and entered Egypt. The Emirs came out to fight him. The Sultan's division
routed the Emirs with whom they engaged, while the other division of the
Egyptian Emirs routed the rearguard of the Sultan. So the Sultan of Damascus
went away back to Gaza, wounded in his head and in his hand; but before
they left Gaza, the Egyptian Emirs sent messengers, and made peace with
him ;and failed us of all our agreements. And from that time on we had
no truce nor peace, neither with the men of Damascus, nor with the men
of Egypt. And know, that when we were at our most, we never mustered at
any time more than fourteen hundred men-at-arms.
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THE TURKS OF DAMASCUS THREATEN JAFFA AND ACRE, AND SLAUGHTER
TWO OR THREE THOUSAND CHRISTIANS AT SIDON AND DESTROY THE TOWN -- ANECDOTE
OF RICHARD COEUR DE LION -- ANECDOTE OF THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY -- THE EXPENSE
OF FORTIFYING JAFFA.
As soon as the Sultan of Damascus had made peace with the
people of Egypt, he sent word to his followers in Gaza to return and join
him. In doing so, they passed in front of our camp, within less than two
leagues' distance; but they never dared attack us, though they were at
least twenty thousand Saracens and ten thousand Bedouins. Before they drew
near our camp, the Master of the King's cross-bowmen and his troop kept
watch on them for three days and three nights, lest they should fall upon
our camp unawares.
On St. John's day, after Easter, the King heard his sermon.
Whilst the sermon was going on, a serjeant belonging to the Master of the
Crossbow
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men came all armed into the King's chapel, and told him that the Saracens
had surrounded the Master of the Cross-bowmen. I requested the King to
let me go thither, and he consented, and told me to take with me four hundred
or five hundred men-at-arms, and named those that he wished me to take.
We had no sooner left the camp than the Saracens, who had got between the
Master of the Cross-bowmen and the camp, joined an Emir who was stationed
on a little hill facing the Master of the Cross-bowmen, with about a thousand
men-at-arms. Then the struggle began between the Saracens and the Master
of the Cross-bowmen's serjeants, of whom there were about fourteen score;
for, each time that the Emir saw his followers worsted, he sent them help
and enough men to drive our serjeants back among the Master's troops, and
when the Master saw his people worsted, he would send them a hundred or
six score men-at-arms, who would drive them back up to the Emir's ranks.
Whilst we were there, the Legate and barons of the country,
who had remained with the King, said to the King that it was great folly
to put me in jeopardy, and by their advice the King sent to
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fetch me back, and the Master of the Cross-bowmen as well. The Turks
departed, and we returned to the camp.
Many people were astonished that they did not come and
fight us; and some said, that they only desisted, because they and their
horses had all been starved at Gaza, where they had been staying for nearly
a year.
When the Saracens had departed from before Jaffa, they
came before Acre, and sent word to the Lord of Ashur, who was Constable
of the kingdom of Jerusalem, that they would destroy the gardens of the
town, unless he sent them fifty besants. He returned answer, that he would
not send them a penny. Then they marshalled their troops, and came all
along the sands of Acre, so close to the town, that they could easily have
shot right into it from a cross-bow tourniquet. The Lord of Ashur sallied
from the town and posted himself on the Holy Mount, there where St Nicholas'
cemetery is, to defend the gardens. Our foot-serjeants sallied out from
Acre and began to harass them with bows and cross-bows. The Lord of Ashur
called a knight, named Lord
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John the Tall, and bade him go and fetch in the common people who had
gone outside the town, lest they should run into danger. Whilst he was
bringing them back, a Saracen began to shout to him in Arabic, that he
would tilt with him if he liked; and he answered that he would do so willingly.
Now, whilst Lord John was on his way to the Saracen to tilt with him, he
cast his eyes to the left, and saw a group of Turks, about eight of them
together, who had stood still to watch the tilting match. He abandoned
his match with the Saracen, and rode up to the group of Turks who were
standing quite quietly watching, ran one of them through the body with
his lance, and flung him dead. When the others saw this, they set upon
him, as he was retreating towards our men, and one struck him a great blow
on his iron cap with a club and, as he passed on, Lord John gave him a
sword-cut across the turban in which his head was wrapped, and sent the
turban flying. (At that time they used to wear their turbans when they
went to fight, because they will stop a heavy sword-cut.) One of the other
Turks spurred up to him, and tried to catch him with his spear between
the shoulders;
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but my Lord John saw it coming and swerved aside; and as the Saracen
passed on, my Lord John gave him a back-handed cut with his sword across
the arm, and sent his spear flying. And so he came back, and brought back
the people on foot; and these three fine strokes he made in the sight of
the Lord of Ashur and the rich men in Acre, and in the sight of all the
women who had come on to the walls to see the Saracens.
All this vast horde, who came right up to Acre without
daring to attack either us or the men of Acre, when they heard a rumour
and a true one that the King was having the city of Sajetta fortified,
and with but few good men, they drew off into those parts. When Lord Simon
of Montceliart (who was Master of the King's cross-bowmen and Captain of
the King's men at Sajetta) heard that these people were approaching, he
retired into the castle of Sajetta, which is very strong and surrounded
by the sea in all directions. And this he did, because he plainly saw that
he was powerless against them. He received into the castle with him as
many people as he could, and that was but few, for the castle was too small.
The Saracens broke
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into the town at a point where they met with no obstacle, for it was
not completely walled in. More than two thousand of our people did they
slay, and with the whole of the booty that they got there they moved on
to Damascus.
When the King heard these tidings, he was all on fire to
redress the disaster; and it just suited the barons of the country; for
the King had been wishing to go and fortify a hill where there had been
formerly an old castle in the time of the Maccabees. This castle lies on
the way from Jaffa to Jerusalem. The Oversea Barons disapproved of fortifying
this castle, because it was five leagues from the sea, so that no meat
could come to us by sea without being waylaid by the Saracens, who were
in greater force than we. When, therefore, the tidings reached the camp,
that the town was destroyed, the barons of the country came to the King,
and said to him, that it would be far more to his honour to fortify the
town of Sajetta, which the Saracens had rased, than to build a new fortress;
and the King agreed with them.
Whilst the King was at Jaffa, he was told that the Sultan
of Damascus would be quite willing to allow
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him a safe-conduct to go to Jerusalem. The King held a general council
about it, and the upshot of the council was, that no one approved of the
King's going, since he must allow the city to remain in the hands of the
Saracens.
The following precedent was quoted to him. When the great
King Philip left the camp before Acre to go to France, he left all his
people behind with Duke Hugh of Burgundy (the grandfather of the Duke who
died lately). Whilst the Duke was sojourning at Acre, with King Richard
of England, news came to them, that they might take Jerusalem the very
next day, if they chose, because all the chivalry of the Sultan of Damascus
had left the city and gone in full force to assist him in a war that he
was waging against another Sultan.
They made ready their men, and the King of England formed
the first division, and the Duke of Burgundy the one next to it, with all
the followers of the King of France. Whilst they were all counting the
town as good as taken, a message came from the Duke's army not to proceed,
for the Duke of Burgundy was going back; and for this reason neither more
nor less, that it might not
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be said that the English had taken Jerusalem. Whilst they were thus
parleying, one of King Richard's knights cried to him: " Sir, Sir, only
come here, and I will show you Jerusalem! " And when he heard this, he
drew his coat of mail over his eyes, weeping, and said to Our Lord, " Fair
Lord God, I beseech thee, suffer me not to behold Thy Holy City, since
I may not deliver her from the hands of Thine enemies!"
This example they instanced, to show the King, that if
he, who was the greatest King among Christians, were to make his pilgrimage
without delivering the city from God's enemies, all the other kings and
pilgrims that might come after him would be content to make their pilgrimage
as the King of France had done, and would make no effort to deliver Jerusalem.
This Duke of Burgundy of whom I have spoken was a very
good knight, but he was not accounted over wise whether as regards God
or the world; as well appeared in the incident above related. And therefore
the great King Philip said, when he was told that Count John of Châlons
had a son, and that he was named Hugh after the Duke of
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Burgundy: said he, " God make him as goodly a man as his namesake Duke
Hugh." Someone asked him, why he had not said "as good a man." " Because"
said he "there is a great difference between a good-ly man and a good man;
for there is many a good-ly knight in Christian land and Saracen land,
who never served God and his mother. And therefore I say to you" quoth
he " that God shows special grace, to any Christian knight, to whom he
gives bodily velour and keeps him withal from mortal sin; such an one may
be truly called 'a good knight,' since his goodliness comes from God."
It were in vain to speak of the vast sums which the King
spent on fortifying Jaffa, for they are beyond reckoning; for he fortified
the town from sea to sea. There were at least four-and-twenty towers; and
the fosses were puddled with clay outside and in. There were three gates,
of which the Legate built one and one bay of wall; and to show you to what
expense the King went, I may tell you, that I asked the Legate, how much
this gateway and the bay of wall had cost him? And he asked me: How much
I thought? And
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I guessed the gateway to have cost him about five hundred pounds, and
the bay of wall three hundred pounds. And he told me, that, so help him
God, the gateway with the wall had cost him a good thirty thousand pounds.
CHAPTER XII
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THE DEATH OF QUEEN BLANCHE -- STORIES OF THE QUEEN AND
THE QUEEN MOTHER -- THE KING PREPARES TO RETURN HOME.
AT Sajetta the King got the news that his mother
was dead. He made such mourning over it, that for two days one could not
get a word with him. At the end of that time, he sent a groom of his chamber
to fetch me. When I came before him in his chamber where he was quite alone,
as soon as he saw me, he stretched out his arms, and said to me: " Oh!
Seneschal! I have lost my mother! " " Sir," said I, " I am not surprised
at that; for she was bound to die; but I am surprised that a wise man like
you, should make such great mourning. For you know, the sage says: that
whatever trouble a man may have at heart, it should not show in his face;
for thereby he rejoices his foes and grieves his friends."
Many fine masses he had performed for her
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over-seas; and afterwards he sent into France a pack-horse laden with
letters to the churches, begging them to pray for her.
Lady Mary of Vertus, a very good lady, and a very holy
woman, came and told me that the Queen was making great mourning, and begged
that I would go to her and comfort her. When I got there, I found her in
tears; and I said to her, that he spoke truly, who said, that one should
never trust a woman. " For she was the woman you hated above all others,
and now you are making this mourning for her." And she said to me, that
it was not for her that she was weeping, but for the King's distress at
losing her, and for her daughter, (afterwards Queen of Navarre) who was
left in the keeping of men.
The harshness that Queen Blanche showed to Queen Margaret
was such, that Queen Blanche would never, if she could help it, suffer
her son to be in his wife's company, unless at night, when he went to bed
with her. The apartments which she liked best to occupy were at Pontoise,
between the King and the Queen, for the King's rooms were above hers, and
the Queen's below. But
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they had so arranged it that they could talk together on a spiral staircase
which led down from one floor to the other; and had so laid their plans,
that when the door-keepers saw the Queen coming to the apartments of her
son, the King, they would rap on the doors with their rods; and the King
would come running into his rooms, so that his mother might not catch him;
and the ushers of Queen Margaret's apartments did the same when Queen Blanche
was on her way thither, so that she might find Queen Margaret in them.
Once the King was beside the Queen his wife, and she was
in passing great danger of death, for she was injured by a child that she
had had. Thither came Queen Blanche, and took her son by the hand, and
said to him: " Come away, you have no business here!" When Margaret saw
his mother leading the King away she cried out: "Alas! neither dead nor
alive will you let me see my lord!" There-upon she fainted, and they thought
that she was dead; and the King, who thought that she was dying, came back;
and with great difficulty they brought her round.
Now that the city of Sajetta was all but completely
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fortified, the King caused several processions to be made in the army;
and at the close of the processions, he made the Legate offer prayers that
God would order the King's affairs according to His will; so that the King
might do whichever was most pleasing to God, either by returning to France,
or by remaining there.
After the processions were over, the King called me, where
I was sitting among the rich men of the country, away into a meadow, and
made me turn my back on them. Then the Legate said to me: "Seneschal, the
King is much pleased with your services; and would gladly advance your
interests and your credit; and to set your heart, he says, at ease, he
bids me tell you that he has made his plans to go to France this coming
Easter." And I replied: " God grant that he may accomplish his purpose!
" Then the Legate bade me escort him to his lodging; and then he shut himself
up in his closet he and I alone together and took both my hands between
his, and began to weep very bitterly; and when he could speak, he said
to me: " Seneschal, I am very glad, and truly give thanks to God, that
the King and all you other pilgrims are escaping
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from the great peril in which you have been in this country. But I am
grieved at heart, that I must leave your holy companionship, and go to
the Court of Rome, among those ungodly people there; but I will tell you
what I think of doing: I mean to stay on for another year after you, and
I intend to spend all my money in fortifying the town of Acre; so that
I may show them plainly that I am bringing away no money, and then they
will not fawn upon me."
I once related to the Legate two sins of which a priest
of mine had told me; and he made me the following reply: ' No one knows,
so well as I, how many heathenish sins are committed in Acre. Whence it
must needs be that God will take vengeance for them, in such wise that
the city of Acre shall be washed with the blood of its inhabitants, and
that another race shall come after that shall inhabit it." The excellent
man's prophecy is in part come true; for the city has truly been washed
with the blood of its inhabitants; but as yet those have not come that
are to inhabit it; and may God send them fitted to His will.
After these events, the King sent me word, that
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I must go and arm myself and my knights. I asked him: What for? and
he replied: In order to escort the Queen and his children to Tyr, a distance
of seven leagues. I never disputed the order, and yet the consign was very
dangerous, inasmuch as we had at that time no truce nor peace, neither
with the men of Egypt nor with those of Damascus. By God's grace, we reached
Tyr in peace, without any obstacle, at nightfall; though we were obliged
to alight twice in the enemy's country, to light a fire and cook food,
in order to feed and suckle the children.
When the King left the city of Sajetta which he had secured
with high walls and great towers, and with great moats puddled inside and
out the Patriarch and the barons of the country came to him and addressed
him as follows: " Sir, you have fortified the cities of Sajetta and of
Cesarea, and the town of Jaffa, very greatly to the benefit of the Holy
Land; moreover you have greatly strengthened the city of Acre by the walls
and the towers that you have built there. Sir, we have considered among
ourselves, and perceive that your longer stay can be of no benefit to the
kingdom of Jerusalem;
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wherefore we approve and advise that you go to Acre, this coming Lent,
and make ready for your voyage, so that you may cross over to France after
this Easter next."
Following the advice of the Patriarch and the barons, the
King left Sajetta, and came to Tyr, where the Queen was; and thence we
came on to Acre, at the beginning of Lent.
INTRODUCTION (by R. Abels, based on E. Hallam, Capetian France,
205-6): Jean de Joinville's The Life of St. Louis, composed between
1305 and 1309, is a personal memoir as well as a saint's life of
King Louis IX of France. Joinville's purpose was to write a "mirror of
Princes" in which King Louis IX (reigned 1226-1270) was presented as the
model Christian king. In doing so, Joinville also wrote one of the most
vivid and important narratives of warfare from the entire middle ages.
Joinville's account of Louis IX's unsuccessful Crusade, 1248-54, provides
one of our few glimpses of the "face of war" in the Middle Ages. Joinville
came from a noble family related to the counts of Joigny, who were hereditary
seneschals of the wealthy and powerful Counts of Champagne (the region
east of Paris). Joinville was born in 1222, went on Crusade with Louis
in 1248 with his own retinue of nine knights and seven hundred men. Although
he was not a royal vassal, Joinville became an intimate of the king and
remained a trusted and beloved royal counsellor for the remainder of the
reign. Louis' son, Philip III, apponted Joinville to administer the
county of Champagne while its countess Joan, later to be Philip IV's wife
and Queen of France, was a minor. It was as a favor to Queen Joan that
Joinville at the amazing age of 83 began to write his Life of St. Louis
as a mirror of princes for the young Prince Louis, later to be King Louis
X. The work, however, is not simply based on memories a half century
old. Joinville had at his disposal his own memoirs, written soon after
the events, as well as a chronicle from the abbey of Saint Denis.
He work was completed in 1309. Joinville died in 1317 or 1319.
Revisions to the electronic version
October 1996 corrector Karen Wagner
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/modeng/modengW.browse.html
1996
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
"A Very Fine Feat of Arms"
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
PART THREE: LOUIS IN THE CRUSADER KINGDOM
CHAPTER II
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX