Christendom, the ashes of those holy men to the winds, irreverently profaning the revered Mount Sion. The Temple of the Lord, the church of the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where the Virgin lies buried, the church of Bethlehem, and the place of the nativity of our Lord, they have polluted with enormities too horrible to be related, far exceeding the iniquity of all the Saracens, who, though they frequently occupied the land of the Christians, yet always reverenced and preserved the holy places....” The subsequent military operations are then described; the march of the Templars and Hospitallers, on the 4th of October, A. D. 1244, from Acre to Cæsarea; the junction of their forces with those of the Moslem sultans; the retreat of the Carizmians to Gaza, where they received succour from the sultan of Egypt; and the preparation of the Hospitallers and Templars for the attack before that place. “Those holy warriors,” say they, “boldly rushed in upon the enemy, but the Saracens who had joined us, having lost many of their men, fled, and the warriors of the cross were left alone to withstand the united attack of the Egyptians and Carizmians. Like stout champions of the Lord, and true defenders of catholicity, whom the same faith and the same cross and passion make true brothers, they bravely resisted; but as they were few in number in comparison with the enemy, they at last succumbed, so that of the convents of the house of the chivalry of the Temple, and of the house of the hospital of St. John at Jerusalem, only thirty-three Templars and twenty-six Hospitallers escaped; the archbishop of Tyre, the bishop of St. George, the abbot of St. Mary of Jehoshaphat, and the Master of the Temple, with many other clerks and holy men, being slain in that sanguinary fight. We ourselves, having by our sins provoked this dire calamity, fled half dead to Ascalon; from thence we proceeded by sea to Acre, and found that city and the adjoining province filled with sorrow and mourning, misery and death. There was not a house or a family that had not lost an inmate or a relation....