Both the people and their leaders, and more c ENT. especially the latter, abandoned themselves with- PARTI

out reluctance to all the excesses of ambition, avarice, and injustice; they indulged themselves in the practice of all sorts of vices; and by their intestine quarrels, jealousies and discords, they weakened their efforts against the enemies that surrounded them on all sides, and consumed their strength by thus unhappily dividing it. SALADIN, viceroy, or rather sultan of Egypt and Syria [q], and the most valiant chief of whom the Mahometan annals boast, took advantage of these lamentable divisions. He waged war against the Christians with the utmost valour and success; took prisoner GUY of LUSIGNAN, king of Jerusalem, in a fatal battle fought near Tiberias, A. D. 1187; and in the course of the same year reduced ferusalem itself under his dominion [r]. The carnage and desolations that accompanied this dreadful campaign, threw the affairs of the Christians in the east into the most desperate condition, and left them no glimpse of hope, but what arose from the expected succours of the European princes. The succours were obtained for them by the Roman pontifs with much difficulty, and in consequence of repeated solicitations

and

[9] SALADIN, so called by the western writers, SALAH ADDIN by the Orientals, was no longer vizir or viceroy of Egypt, when he undertook the siege of Jerusalem, but had usurped the sovereign power in that country, and had also added to his dominions, by right of conquest, several provinces of Syria.

[r] See the Life of Soladan by BOHAO'LDIN EBN SHEDDAD, an Arabian writer, whose history of that warlike sultan was published at Leyden in the year 1732, by the late celebrated professor ALBERT SCHULTENS, and accompanied with an excellent Latin translation. See also HERBELOT, Biblioth. Orient. at the article SALAH’ADDIN, P. 742. and MARIGNY's Histoire des Arabes, tom. iv. p. 289. But above all, see the learned History of the Arabians in the Modern Part of the Univer sal History.

XII.

XII.

CENT.and entreaties. But the event, as we shall now PARTI. See, was by no means answerable to the deep schemes that were concerted, and the pains that were employed, for the support of the tottering kingdom of Jerusalem.

A third

dertaken.

XI. The third expedition was undertaken, crusade un-A. D. 1189, by FREDERIC I. surnamed BARBAROSSA, emperor of Germany, who, with a prodigious army, marched through several Grecian provinces, where he had innumerable difficulties and obstacles to overcome, into the Lesser Asia, from whence, after having defeated the sultan of Iconium, he penetrated into Syria. His valour and conduct promised successful and glorious campaigns to the army he commanded, when by an unhappy accident, he lost his life in the river Saleph [s], which runs through Seleucia. The manner of his death is not known with any de. gree of certainty; the loss however of such an able chief dejected the spirits of his troops, so that considerable numbers of them returned into Europe. Those that remained continued the war under the command of FREDERIC, son of the deceased emperor; but the greatest part of them perished miserably by a pestilential disorder, which raged with prodigious violence in the camp, and swept off vast numbers every day. The new general died of this terrible disease, A. D. 1191; those that escaped its fury were dispersed, and few returned to their own country [t].

XII.

[] MAIMBOURG, in his Histoire des crusades, and MARIGNI, in his Hist. du XII Siecle, say, that FREDERIC perished in the Cydnus, a river in Cilicia. But they are easily to be reconciled with our author, since, according to the descriptions given of the river Saleph by several learned geographers, and among others by ROGER the Annalist, it appears that the Saleph and the Cydaus were the same river under different

names.

[t] See an ample and satisfactory account of this unhappy campaign in the Life of Frederic I. written in German by HENRY Count BUNAU, p. 278. 293. 309.

XII.

XII. The example of FREDERIC BARBAROSSA was CENT. followed, in the year 1190, by PHILIP AUGUSTUS PARTII. king of France, and lion-hearted, RICHARD, king of England. These two monarchs set out from Its issue. their respective dominions with a considerable number of ships of war, and transports [u], arrived in Palestine in the year 1191, each at the head of a separate army, and were pretty successful in their first encounters with the infidels. After the reduction of the strong city of Acar, or Ptolemais, which had been defended by the Moslems with the most obstinate valour, the French monarch returned into Europe, in the month of July, 1191, leaving, however, behind him a considerable part of the army which he had conducted into Palestine, After his departure the king of England pushed the war with the greatest vigour, gave daily marks of his heroic intrepidity and military skill, and not only defeated SALADIN in several engagements, but also made himself master of Yaffa, [w] and Cæsarea. Deserted, however, by the French and Italians, and influenced by other motives and considerations of the greatest weight, he concluded, A. D. 1192, with SALADIN, a truce of three years three months, and as many days, and soon evacuated Palestine with his whole army [x]. Such was the issue of the third expedition against the infidels, which exhausted England, France, and Germany, both of men and money, without bringing any solid advantage, or giving VOL. III.

C

even

[u] The learned authors of the Modern Universal History tell us, that PHILIP arrived in Palestine, with a supply of men, money, &c. on board six ships, whereas RENAUDOT mentions 100 sail as employed in this expedition. The fleet of RICHARD consisted of 150 large ships, besides galleys, Te. [w] More commonly known by the name of Joppa. [x] DANIEL, Histoire de France, tom. iii. p. 426.-RAPIN THOYRAS, Histoire d' Angleterre, tom. ii. See there the reign of RICHARD, Cœur de Lion-MARIGNY, Histoire des tom. iv. p. 235.

C

rabes;

CENT.even a favourable turn, to the affairs of the Christians in the Holy land.

XII. PARTI.

Institution

of the mili

XIII. These bloody wars between the Christians and the Mahometans gave rise to three famous tary order military orders, whose office it was to destroy the of knight- robbers that infested the public roads, to harass

hood.

the Moslems by perpetual inroads and warlike atchievements, to assist the poor and sick pilgrims, whom the devotion of the times conducted to the holy sepulchre, and to perform several other services that tended to the general good [y]. The first of these orders was that of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who derived their name, and particularly that of Hospitallers, from an hospital dedicated, in that city, to St JOHN the Baptist, in which certain pious and charitable brethren were constantly employed in relieving and refreshing with necessary supplies the indigent and diseased pilgrims, who were daily arriving at Ferusalem. When this city became the metropolis of a new kingdom, the revenues of the hospital were so prodigiously increased by the liberality of several princes, and the pious donations of such opulent persons as frequented the holy places, that they far surpassed the wants of those whom they were designed to cherish and relieve. Hence it was that RAYMOND DU PUY, who was the ruler of this charitable house, offered to the king of Jerusalem to make war upon the Mahometans at his own expence, seconded by his brethren, who ser ved under him in this famous hospital. BALDUIN II. to whom this proposal was made, accepted it readily, and the enterprise was solemnly approved of and confirmed by the authority of the Roman pontif. Thus, all of a sudden the world was surprised with the strange transformation of a devout fraternity,

[y] The writers, who have given the history of these three orders, are enumerated by Jo. ALB. FABRICIUS, Bibliograph. Antiquar. p. 465. but his enumeration is not complete.

PARTL

ternity, who had lived remote from the noise and CENT. tumult of arms in the performance of works of XII. charity and mercy, into a valiant and hardy band of warriors. The whole order was upon this occasion divided into three classes; the first contained the knights, or soldiers of illustrious birth, who were to unsheath their swords in the Christian cause; in the second were comprehended the priests, who were to officiate in the churches that belonged to the order; and in the third, the serving brethren, or the soldiers of low condition. This celebrated order gave, upon many occasions, eminent proofs of their resolution and valour, and acquired immense opulence, by their heroic atchievements. When Palestine was irrecoverably lost, the knights passed into the isle of Cyprus; they afterwards made themselves masters of the isle of Rhodes, where they maintained themselves for a long time; but being, at length, driven thence by the Turks, they received from the emperor CHARLES V. a grant of the island of Malta, where their chief, or grand commander, still resides [z].

templars.

XIV. Another order, which was entirely of a The military nature, was that of the knights templars, knights so called from a palace, adjoining to the temple of Jerusalem, which was appropriated to their use for a certain time by BALDUIN II. The foundations of this order were laid at Jerusalem, in the year 1118, by HUGUES DES PAYENS, GEOFFRY of St ALDEMAR, or St OMER, as some will have it, and seven other persons whose names are unknown; but it was not before the year 1228, that it acquired a proper degree of stability, by being,

C 2

[2] The best and the most recent history of this order is that which was composed by VERTOT at the request of the knights of Malta; it was first published at Paris, and afterwards at Amsterdam, in five volumes Svo. in the year 1732. See also HELYOT's Hist. des Ordres, tom. iii. p. 72.