Palestine, or, the Holy Land: From the Earliest Period to the Present TimeRussell, Michael
History
Palestine, or, the Holy Land: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time
Russell, Michael
Palestine -- Description and travel; Palestine -- History
Another battle took place in the neighbourhood of Jaffa, which terminated,
as before, to the advantage of the Christians. But the death of the
Emperor Henry, the patron of the expedition, again disconcerted their
measures. Many returned to Europe to assist at the election of his
successor; while the residue of the army, thrown into a fatal confidence
by their late triumphs, were destroyed by a body of Turkish auxiliaries,
who surprised them during the revels in which they commemorated the
virtues and abstinence of St. Martin.
The crown of Palestine meantime, greatly shorn of its lustre, had devolved
upon Isabella, daughter of Baldwin and sister to Sybilla. Her third
husband, Henry, Count of Champagne, was acknowledged as king; and upon his
death she was advised to give her hand to Almeric of Lusignan, the brother
of Guy, who had formerly swayed the sceptre. This union being approved by
the clergy and barons, the marriage was celebrated at Acre, where Almeric
and Isabella were proclaimed the sovereigns of Cyprus and Jerusalem.
The repeated failure of the Christian armaments impressed upon the people
of Europe a belief, either that the real difficulties of the enterprise
had been concealed from them, or that the time fixed in the counsels of
Providence for the deliverance of the Holy Land had not yet arrived. In
such circumstances, it required the authority of the church and the power
of eloquence, seconded by the performance of numerous miracles, to rouse
the slumbering zeal of those who had money to give or arms to use in the
service of the Cross. Fulk, the preacher, who equalled Peter the Hermit in
the ardour of his address, and Bernard in oratorical talents, co-operated
with the pope, Innocent the Third, in convincing the several kingdoms
under his spiritual dominion of the necessity of a fifth combined effort,
in order to expel the infidels from the sacred inheritance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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