Sec. 133.--_Of a fierce and violent battle between the duke of Brabant and the count of Luxemburg._ Sec. 134.--_How Don James came from Sicily into Calabria with his armada, and there received some loss, and afterwards laid siege to Gaeta._ Sec. 135.--_How Charles Martel was crowned king of Hungary._ Sec. 136.--_How they of Chiusi were routed, and the Guelf refugees restored._ Sec. 137.--_How the Lucchese, with the forces of Florence, marched upon the city of Pisa._ Sec. 138.--_Of an expedition that the Florentines made wherein they should have had Arezzo yielded up to them._ Sec. 139.--_Of a great fire that broke out in Florence in the house of the Pegolotti._ Sec. 140.--_How the Florentines and their allies made a third expedition against Arezzo._ Sec. 141.--_How Porto Pisano was taken and laid waste by the Florentines and Genoese and Lucchese._ Sec. 142.--_How the marquis of Montferrat was taken prisoner by them of Alexandria._ Sec. 143.--_Of a great miracle that came to pass in Paris concerning the body of Christ._ Sec. 144.--_How they of Ravenna seized the count of Romagna, who was there to represent the Church._ Sec. 145.--_How the soldan of Babylon conquered by force the city of Acre, to the great hurt of the Christians._ [Sidenote: 1291 A.D.] [Sidenote: Cf. Inf. xxvii. 89.] In the year of Christ 1291, in the month of April, the soldan of Babylon [Cairo] of Egypt having first garrisoned and provisioned Syria, traversed the desert and came into the said Syria with his host, and laid siege to the city of Acre, which of old was called in the Scriptures Ptolemais, and now is called Acon in Latin; and the soldan had with him so much people, both foot and horse, that his host stretched over more than twelve miles. But before we tell more of the loss of Acre, we will tell the reason why the soldan came to besiege it, and took it, as it was related to us by trustworthy fellow-citizens of our own, and merchants which were in Acre at that time. It is true that, because the Saracens had in foregoing times taken from the Christians the city of Antioch, and of Tripoli, and of Tyre, and many other towns which the Christians held on the seashore, the city of Acre had greatly increased, both in folk and in power, forasmuch as no other city was held by the Christians in Syria; so that the kings of Jerusalem, and of Cyprus, and the princes of Antioch, and of Tyre, and of Tripoli, and the Orders of the Templars and the Hospitallers, and other Orders, and the Pope's legates, and they which had gone over seas from the kings of France and of England, all gathered at Acre, and there were there seventeen hereditary lordships, which was a great confusion. And at that time there was truce between the Christians and the Saracens, and there were there more than 18,000 pilgrims who had taken the cross; and their pay not being forthcoming, and because they could not get it from the lords and states which had sent them forth, part of them, which were wild