The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06: (From Barbarossa to Dante)
Philosophy
The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 06: (From Barbarossa to Dante)
World history
We need glance but briefly at these later crusades. The fourth was
undertaken in 1203. Venice contracted to transport its warriors to the
Holy Land, but instead persuaded them to join her in an attack upon
the decrepit Empire of the East.[9] Constantinople fell before their
assault and received a Norman emperor, nor did the religious zeal of
these particular followers of the cross ever carry them farther on
their original errand. They were content to establish themselves as
kings, dukes, and counts in their unexpected empire. Some of the
little Frankish states thus created lasted for over two centuries,
though the central power at Constantinople was regained by the Greek
emperors of the east in 1261.[10]
Meanwhile the patriotic and powerful King Andrew of Hungary led a
fifth crusade. The German Emperor, Frederick II, headed a sixth in
which, by diplomacy rather than arms, he temporarily regained
Jerusalem.[11] For a time this treaty of peace deprived of their
occupation the orders of religious knighthood still warring in the
East. One of these, the Teutonic Knights, made friends with Frederick,
and by his aid its members were transported to the eastern frontier of
Germany, where among the Poles and Po-russians (Prussians) they could
still find heathen fighting to their taste. From this order sprang the
military basis of modern Prussia.[12]
The Seventh and Eighth crusades were the work of the great French King
and saint, Louis IX. The enthusiasm which had roused the mass of
ordinary men to these vast destructive outpourings was faded. Louis
had to coax and persuade his people to follow him, and even his
earnest purpose and real ability could not save his expeditions from
disastrous failure. In the Seventh Crusade he attacked, not Jerusalem,
but Egypt, then the centre of Mahometan power. He was defeated and
made prisoner; his army was practically exterminated. Yet by a
personal heroism, which shone even more brilliantly in adversity than
in success, he has won lasting fame. His captivity disrupted an
empire. The mamelukes, the slave soldiers of Egypt, who had fought
most valiantly against him, were wakened to a realization of their own
power. They overthrew their sultan, and founded an Egyptian government
which lasted until Napoleon's time.[13]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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