Occasionally, when the form of competition has abruptly changed, nature works rapidly. Within a single generation after Hattin, the attitude, not only of the laity but of the clergy, had been reversed, and money was recognized, even by the monks, as the end of human effort. The relics at Jerusalem had first drawn the crusaders to the East, and, incidentally, the capture of the Syrian seaports led to the reopening of trade and the recentralization of the Western world. As long as imagination remained the dominant force, and the miracle retained its power, the ambition of the Franks was limited to holding the country which contained their talismans; but as wealth accumulated, and the economic type began to supplant the ecstatic, a different policy came to prevail. Beside the cities of the Holy Land, two other portions of the Levant had a high money value--the Bosphorus and the valley of the Nile. In spite of Rome, the Venetians, in 1204, had seized Constantinople; at the Lateran council of 1215, Innocent himself proposed an attack on Cairo. Though conceived by Innocent, the details of the campaign were arranged by Honorius III., who was consecrated in July, 1216; these details are, however, unimportant: the interest of the crusade lies in its close. John of Brienne, King of Jerusalem, nominally commanded, but the force he led little resembled Dandolo’s. Far from being that compact mass which can only be given cohesion by money, it rather had the character of such an hysterical mob as Louis the Pious led to destruction. After some semblance of a movement on Jerusalem, the army was conveyed to the Delta of the Nile, and Damietta was invested in 1218. Here the besiegers amounted to little more than a fluctuating rabble of pilgrims, who came and went at their pleasure, usually serving about six months. Among such material, military discipline could not exist; but, on the contrary, the inflammable multitude were peculiarly adapted to be handled by a priest, and soon the papal legate assumed control. Cardinal Pelagius was a Spaniard who had been promoted by Innocent in 1206. His temperament was highly emotional, and, armed with plenary power by Honorius, he exerted himself to inflame the pilgrims to the utmost. After a blockade of eighteen months Damietta was reduced to extremity, and to save the city the sultan offered the whole Holy Land, except the fortress of Karak, together with the funds needed to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. King John, and all the soldiers, who understood the difficulty of invading Egypt, favoured a peace; but Pelagius, whose heart was fixed on the plunder of Cairo, prevented the council from reaching a decision. Therefore the siege went on, and presently the ramparts were carried without loss, as the whole population had perished from hunger and pestilence.