By Mark Owen - © 2010
Chapter 9 - Perfidy and persecution
'For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.' - Ephesians 6: 12.
To date I have but touched upon the vast subject of the manifold views tossed hither and yon in the Church of those early centuries. To cover this topic fully would require nothing less than a complete volume on its own. But sufficient has been indicated to set before my readers a picture of the early history of that faith proclaimed in the name of the one who reportedly taught: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . the meek . . . the merciful . . . the pure in heart . . . the peacemakers' (Matthew 5:3-9). It is also asserted that he told his disciples that 'all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.' (Matthew 26:52) And isn't he also reported to have said: 'By their fruits ye shall know them' (Matthew 7:16)? Poor in spirit? Meek? Merciful? Peacemakers? The fruits of that faith built upon that simple life of Jesus of Nazareth, now transformed into the Christ-god did little to commend such a way to thoughtful people. But don't blame the Nazarene! He would never have recognized the complex edifice constructed upon his humble life.
Take the episode when Pope Liberius was exiled for 'heresy' and replaced by Pope Felix, who embraced 'orthodoxy' (defined by whichever side was winning). When these two departed for their 'just reward' two more rivals surfaced, Damasus and Ursinicus. Damasus, described in Church annals as a 'saint,' was a well-known womaniser, actually having been sued in a civil court for adultery. By now supporters of rival factions were taking to sword, axe and stave with ever increasing frequency to enforce their favourite's claims. At one church building a siege took place in which 160 good Christians perished at the hands of a mob of (presumably) equally good Christians.
The year 366 was a propitious one for the struggle among the rival power-mongers. The conflict raged across Rome through many months (with time off, doubtless, for prayers and masses) and it is said that more people died as a result of this internecine strife than had perished during all the persecutions by the pagans! And Rome still persisted in claiming supremacy. So concerned were the Greek bishops that in 381 they met at Constantinople and expressly laid down the view that the Bishop of 'new Rome' (Constantinople) was equal in rank to the Bishop of 'old Rome'. A few years later African bishops, in a letter still preserved to us, rejected the Papal claims. And again in the 5th century the Greek Church clearly restated its previous position. Not content with this, Rome forged a copy of the Greek document to make it appear the Greeks described Pope Leo 1st as 'head of the universal Church'.
Forgery would not, of course, bother those who wrote into the records the amazing history of the Christ-god! It was common throughout the period of early Church history to produce convenient documents to prove this or that doctrine or support this or that view. As Spike Milligan's immortal Bud would remind Min, you must have the documents. Among the most notable documents are The Acts of St Silvester (forged about 430 CE) and The Constitution of St Silvester (dating from around 500 CE), which purported to show that the Bishop of Rome had received his office as head of the universal Church direct from Constantine. This demonstrates how desperate were the Romans to prove their case. No doubt they realized that the one reference in Matthew's Gospel was insufficient to achieve this task. It was now far too late to write into the other Gospels the necessary texts. Pity!
In a much later era forgery was still going on. In the 9th century the notorious Decretals of Isidore were circulating. These documents, some genuine but many spurious, purported to support Papal claims. They were later used, together with other forged documents, at the behest of Gregory 7th (1073-1085) to wrest the investiture of the Pope from the Emperor's hands and to establish the supremacy of the Church over the State.
In 410 CE Rome fell to the barbarians. But rather than make things worse for the Church this event, taken on the whole, aided Papal pretensions. The chaos and destruction in outlying areas of empire led to a weakening of the bishoprics in those parts, whereas the Bishop of Rome enjoyed comparative peace. His hand was strengthened by edicts of Theodosius and Valentian, who both decreed that the bishops of the Church were to be guided by the 'Pope of the Holy City'. In a much later era Papal power grew even stronger as a result of a mutually beneficial relationship forged between the Popes and the French and German kings.
But while from the pulpits of the Church there may have issued (at least on suitable occasions) messages of peace, love and forgiveness, things were not quite so harmonious behind the scenes. Rival popes were elected, two by two, and at times even three. And blood literally flowed as one faction fought another for supremacy. Take the year 418 CE, when two rivals vied for the supposed Throne of Peter. The Church went through its usual solemn ritual of imploring the Ghost for wisdom, as a result of which Eulalius and Boniface 1st were both duly elected to office! There followed an enormous outbreak of fighting as each Pope claimed the right to conduct the Easter celebrations. Not for the first time the blood of the Christians flowed in Rome's streets; at least it was appropriate, being Easter and all. Again, in 498, two rival Popes were elected. For three years a deadly feud ensued between the two, Symmachus and Laurence. And this was not the end of such rivalry. Pope came and went in job lots - of one, two or three, according as the prevailing winds dictated.
It is most puzzling to behold the activities of the Church as it called upon the Ghost each time it sought a new Head. In 1045, for example, three rivals again reigned. While Silvester 2nd occupied St Peter's Church and the Vatican Palace, Benedict 9th took charge of the Lateran Palace, leaving poor Victor 3rd with only an ordinary church building, that of Santa Maria Maggiore, for his seat. Each man claimed to be the Vicar of Christ and to be occupying his seat as the choice of the Ghost! The pious and newly-installed Emperor of Germany, Henry 3rd, acted with surprising celerity; he cleared all three out and installed a single ruler in their place, Pope Number Four, Clement 2nd. Presumably he too was there by direction of the Ghost.
The Circus Maximus of the Papacy continued apace with the passing centuries. Popes were installed at the whim of this or that ruler or as a result of rigged elections. And even when the elections weren't rigged they were quite often disputed. All the while bloodshed, nepotism, bribery and immorality rent the fabric of the Church erected upon the life of the humble Nazarene. Let's look in again - at the year 768 - for a snapshot of the Church going about its sacred business. A secular-clerical group, meeting in Rome, elected 'Pope' Constantine (not to be confused with the emperor of that name) as a rival to the incumbent, Pope Stephen. There was just one small problem. Constantine was a layman at the start of the proceedings. As only an ordained person could become Pope, something had to be done. No worries! In short order, with the help of some obliging bishops, Constantine progressed like greased lightning through the ranks to instant consecration.
But no sooner had the poor man received this great boon (at the direction of the Ghost, of course!) than a reaction set in. Two Papal officials, Sergius and Christopher, sought help from the Lombard army to depose the upstart. Constantine was placed upon a horse, with heavy weights on his feet, and led through Rome to the jeers of the crowd (ever ready for a little sport), to be thrown into a monastery prison to await trial. (One can only wonder why monasteries and even papal buildings contained prisons! Was this envisaged by Jesus of Nazareth?) But Sergius and Christopher couldn't be bothered waiting. They went to the monastery and calmly gouged out the ex-Pope's eyes. In this mutilated, blinded state he was dragged before the Papal court. His ultimate fate is unknown but his brother also had his eyes cut out and one of the offending bishops lost both eyes and tongue for his trouble. Ah, but men like Sergius and Christopher play dangerous games; in time a dispute arose between Pope Stephen and his faithful henchmen and they, too, lost their eyes, on the direct orders of the good Christian Pope.
Eye-gouging seemed to be a favourite activity among the faithful. Another Pope, Leo 3rd, suffered a like fate in 799. His attackers were not content to gouge out just his eyes, though; his tongue went too! It all came about because Leo had promoted his nephews, Paschal (later to become a Pope) and Campalus to high office, although they were notorious miscreants. On 25 April of that year armed men fell upon a religious procession and seized the Pontiff, leaving him near-dead in a pool of blood. He survived, however, and was restored to his place with the help of Charlemagne. He returned the favour by crowning his saviour head of the so-called (not to mention mis-named) Holy Roman Empire.
Such were the upheavals within the Papacy throughout the Dark Ages that over forty Popes reigned for less than two years each! Nobody is sure just how many Popes were murdered; it should scarcely surprise us, then, that a recent Pope, Paul 1st, died within a fortnight of being elected and some folk seriously suggest he too was murdered. And while all this tumult continued, the Islamics were making their presence felt in Spain and other parts of the former Roman empire. The hordes of Muhammad's warriors streaming into Europe from the East struck terror into the Catholic populace. No doubt the pious Christians earnestly prayed for help from heaven. On this occasion, as on so many, it failed to appear; but then all too often we only hear about the prayers that are answered. Islam was, however, proving to be a somewhat more civilizing influence than the Church. The contrast between the sordid activities in Christian Europe, especially Italy, and conditions under the Moors in Spain was in many respects a contrast between darkness and light.
Meanwhile the Christian Church in the West continued along its dark path, headed by men, many of whom happily engaged in immoral, inhuman and outright criminal activity in order to maintain their power. The story is told from the time of Pope Alexander 6th (to whom we shall return), how a French priest and a Jew became intimate friends. The priest, anxious for the welfare of his friend, urged him to be received into the Church, the Jew promising to consider the matter earnestly. The priest, however, gave up all hope when he learnt that his friend had been called on business to Rome, where he would see the unutterably monstrous life of Pope and clergy. To his surprise the Jew on returning announced he wished to be baptized, saying that a religion which could exist in spite of such abominations must be a true religion! The story may be aprochryphal but it contains more than a germ of truth.
The cardinals of the Church lived like worldly princes, with all the trappings of royalty. Their appointments ensured they held benefices providing a steady flow of funds to support their lavish lifestyle, funds, it should be noted, that in the end were drawn from the pockets of the Catholic laity, many of them very poor people, made even poorer by Church dogma (e.g., insistence on the sanctity of marriage and the banning of artificial means of contraception). It is not surprising, therefore, that many an ambitious father worked assiduously to see his son made a cardinal. It was almost the invariable case that a reward was received by the reigning pope in return for such an appointment, directly in cash or in kind, through some quid pro quo.
As to their mode of life, Paolo Cortese said in his book De Cardinalatu that the holder of this office should be rich and of noble birth and have a superb palace. In fact, this is just what most cardinals did have, often with a hundred or more staff to run the establishment. So great were the demands made for cardinals to live in this ostentatious way that often they fell into debt as a result! The lucky ones, those who succeeded in becoming close to the reigning pontiff, would have additional benefices handed out to them. And there was always the distant hope of being elevated to the Headship of the Church.
Immorality was rampant and affected all. The brothers and sisters might vow celibacy but that did not stop them enjoying sexual liaisons. The Catholic Church in our day has been at the forefront of moves to deny women the right to choice in the matter of abortion yet the Church's own history stands as a rebuke to it. Buried in the crypts of many a nunnery were aborted foetuses, the results of the sexual liaisons between the godly sisters and their equally godly brother monks (and sometimes other men). But we should not be surprised when we study what was going on among the Popes. And sometimes it was not just foetuses that were buried but newborn infants. Worse, there is strong evidence to suggest that the little ones were buried alive. The possibility exists that in some perverted manner it was thought that to bury a child alive was not quite the same as actually strangling him or her with one's own hands. Thus, when the Mexican revolutionaries closed down the convents in 1926 they found in one place at Puebla tiny skeletons immured in the walls beneath the buildings.
Let us take a look - if we dare - at more papal activities. Sergius 3rd arranged for his bastard son to become Pope after him. Leo 8th, who followed, died in what was described as the act of adultery. Benedict 9th, elected at the age of 10, grew up as an unrestrained libertine. Balthasar Cossa, elected Pope to end the Great Schism, later admitted to adultery, incest and general debauchery. It was claimed that 200 maids, widows and nuns fell victim to his brutal lust. Pope Leo 6th was elected through the machinations of his mother, Marozia, the most powerful figure in the house of Theophylact. Marozia, with a reputation for sensuality, controlled Roman affairs and the Church through her son for just seven months in the year 926. (Some believe that legends surrounding Marozia later resurfaced in the story of Pope Joan, which is almost universally branded by scholars as unhistorical.)
Pope John 12th was once described by a Catholic scholar, E. R. Chamberlin, as 'the Christian Caligula.' John maintained his grip on temporal power by recruiting armed gangs from among the Roman mob who terrorized any who opposed him. His sexual hunger was insatiable and he depleted Church funds, giving away lands and relics to his favourite mistresses. This Pope effectively turned St John Lateran into a brothel. He was also accused of incest, rape and adultery. Pope John had another vice; he gambled heavily and reportedly invoked the names of demons to bring him luck. He was deposed in 963 CE.
With such men in charge of the Church it is little wonder that the harebrained plan known as the Crusades was floated. The notion was that Christian Europe should recover the so-called 'Holy Land' from the Infidel (i.e. Islam). As the subsequent campaigns dragged on through many years, even centuries, both sides perpetrated all manner of outrages but if anything the Christians outdid their opponents on every hand. (The Crusades are often described as the First, Second, or Sixth, and so on, but in effect some of these sorties were mere continuations of previous campaigns. For convenience, however, the usual designations have been employed in the following account.)
Under the oppressive rule of Caliph Hakim or al-Hakim, known as The Mad Caliph (11th century) Christian pilgrims were still permitted to travel to Jerusalem, doubtless setting forth on their journey accompanied by prayer for a safe journey. Alas, yet again, prayer too often failed and many ended their days kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured and then, perhaps, if they were fortunate, ransomed. In November 1095 at Clermont, in the Auvergne, Pope Urban 2nd issued his famous appeal to Christendom to crusade against the infidels.
The Crusaders, bloodthirsty warriors as much as religious zealots, perhaps more of the former than the latter, soon showed their true colours. In 1096 the First or so-called People's Crusade, under Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans-Avoir, reached Cologne at Easter time. Within weeks Peter and Walter had left that city but, according to the historian Orderic Vitalis, soon after they departed 'bloody scenes occurred which filled their contemporaries with horror. They were the work of local Germans . . . particularly indulging in horrible massacres of the Jews.' To be fair, it should be recorded that the Bishop of Mainz took many of the Jews under his protection, and forthwith ordered that some of the murderers should have their hands cut off, not exactly a full measure of justice.
The massacres continued in other places, at Speyer, at Mainz and in Worms. Jews had their houses destroyed and goods pillaged. A synagogue was demolished, and the scrolls of the sacred Torah were dragged into the streets. Several people, including women, died. It was later claimed that the Crusaders themselves took no part in these outrages but they certainly inspired them and soon, in any event, the knights of Jesus became violent. As they moved through Europe they pillaged and abused the hand of friendship held out to them. The Hungarians soon regretted making the Crusaders welcome in their land, receiving abuse rather than thanks. The Crusaders set fire to granaries and, worse, seized many young girls and subjected them, in the words of a chronicler, Guibert of Nogent, 'to every kind of violence.' They 'dishonoured marriage by tearing wives from their husbands; they plucked out or singed the beards of their hosts; none thought any longer of buying the goods he might need, but each lived by his wits, murdering and plundering.' One should add that this account came from the pen of a 12th century Christian monk, who was being remarkably frank about his compatriots.
When they confronted the Turks they discovered that it was not going to be as easy as they thought to subdue their enemy. In one battle, at Civetot, the Crusaders left behind their women and children, along with some old people, while they escaped. The Turks slaughtered all. It was said that the bones of these Christians were later incorporated into the walls of the city, mixed with the mortar. The First Crusade ended in the year it began, with little achieved. Peter the Hermit, however, was hailed for his doubtful achievements and became in time a hero figure. By the end of the same year four more expeditions set forth on the task of destroying the Infidel's power. In 1097 they joined forces in Constantinople and crossed the Bosphorus, besieging Antioch, which was taken in 1098. As the armies approached the Byzantine capital, the Emperor, Alexius Comnenus, trembled. It was said that he 'knew their impetuosity, their unstable and fickle character.' They would happily violate any treaty if they thought material wealth awaited such action. Thus the Greek Christians expressed their disdain for the Frankish Christians and dreaded the approach of a people they thought of as barbarians. The Byzantines knew what they were about. Soon the Crusaders arrived and began plundering and destroying. Fighting broke out between the troops of the two Christendoms.
Cast in the same mould as the warlike Hebrews of Old Testament times the Crusaders spared nobody. Any notion of Christian mercy was far from their thoughts. When the Crusaders attacked the Turks at Nicea they decapitated some of their captives and used a catapult to hurl the severed bleeding heads into the Turkish ranks, seeking thereby to spread terror among their enemies. The Bishop of Le Puy was in the thick of this action. Writing of the siege of Antioch one Crusader proudly boasted that the 'Soldiers of Christ . . . fought the inhabitants of Antioch and the countless troops who came to its aid. In all seven battles with the help of the Lord we were the victors and killed large numbers of enemies.' Everywhere heads were severed and carried off as tokens of victory.
But worse atrocities followed. Outside the city of Antioch, laid under siege by the Crusaders, the armies feared spies and saboteurs. It was decided to make an example of some captured Turks, to put the fear of the Christ-god into anyone who tried to betray them. Bohemond, Count of Tripoli, proposed that certain of the Turks should be dragged from prison and handed over to the executioner. The captives were forthwith slain and roasted over a fire. Special care was taken to make it appear that the bodies of the Turks were to be eaten by the Crusaders, inquirers being told that the council had decided forthwith that all enemies and prisoners taken in future would be so treated. Such stories spread far beyond the walls of Antioch and were retold in years to come in distant parts.
In 1099 the Crusaders reached the environs of Jerusalem, the prize. But prayer failed to assuage the hunger and thirst they suffered. The plains about the city were waterless and barren. It was now June and burning heat assaulted their worn bodies. Still with them was the bloodthirsty Bishop of Le Puy, who proclaimed that a reward of 12 deniers would be paid for the head of a Turk brought to him. Heads soon arrived at the bishop's tent and these were set upon very long poles and displayed before the city. The attack on Jerusalem was a bloody one. The Temple itself ran with blood. Upon the roof of the Temple a large number of men and women had taken refuge. Again there was to be no Christian mercy; on the following morning the Crusaders climbed the roof of the edifice and cut down all alike, men, women and children, severing heads as they went. Many of the poor citizens threw themselves to their deaths rather than be cut down by the consecrated swords of the Christian.
The bodies of the Saracens were dragged from the city and piled up beyond its walls to be burnt. It was said that the entire city was almost filled with corpses. 'Funeral pyres were set up like milestones' to deal with the decaying bodies. Thus on 15 July 1099 Jerusalem fell to the Christians. William of Tyre, chronicler of these events, added the comment: 'It was impossible to behold without horror that mass of dead, and even the sight of the victors drenched with blood from head to foot was also a ghastly sight.' By about 1140 or so disputes had arisen between the German Christians and the Frankish Christians still coming from Europe and the entire enterprise was beginning to founder. Christians fought and killed one another. The Greeks at Constantinople were nervous, especially when the Germans took to looting and pillaging in their realms. An attack on Damascus in 1148 failed, an event which effectively marked the end of the what was known as the Second Crusade, a sort of extension of the First. The Christians still retained their hold on Jerusalem and even managed to seize Ascalon. Meanwhile Nur ed-Din, Governor of Aleppo, had united Islamic Syria by taking Damascus, while the Christians formed an alliance with Egypt against the Saracens.
In 1167 a young man named Saladin entered history. A nephew of Sultan Nur ed-Din, Saladin was to become the scourge of the Christians and to recover Jerusalem from them. In 1171 Saladin became Caliph and sole ruler of Egypt and three years later, following the death of his uncle, conquered Damascus. The Franks had one notable victory during this period when, in 1177, some 3,000 Christians prevailed over 30,000 of Saladin's men. But from then onwards it was all downhill. In 1184 Saladin conquered Aleppo, and was beginning to threaten the Latin kingdom. In 1885 Raymond of Tripoli established a truce with Saladin but in 1186 the truce was broken by the Christians. Saladin's sister was taken prisoner by the Franks, a foolish action perpetrated by an equally foolish knight, Reynald of Châtillon. His headstrong action was to lead to the loss of Jerusalem and the loss of Reynald's head when he fell into Saladin's grasp.
It was not long before hostilities erupted. In May 1187 the Saracen forces, under Saladin's son, gained a victory at Tiberius. In July Saladin, heading an army of 80,000, invaded Galilee. There was one notable atrocity committed by the Christians. They came across an elderly Saracen lady and took her prisoner. Believing her to be a spy in the pay of Saladin, they made a bed of grass and thorn-bush and made a large fire, into which the old lady was thrown. She jumped out two or three times but was eventually felled with an axe and her body cast again into the flames. Saladin was incensed when he heard of what had happened. When he finally reached Jerusalem the Christians sent him a deputation, seeking mercy. His answer was plain: 'I shall treat the Christians as the Christians treated the Muslims when they took the Holy City, which means that I shall put the men to the sword, and reduce the rest of the people to slavery: in a word, I shall return evil for evil.' In the event Saladin agreed to the Christians paying ransom, those not paying then being reduced to slavery. On a Friday, early in October, 1187, Jerusalem capitulated.
In 1188 Pope Innocent 3rd appealed to the Europeans for a Third Crusade to recover Jerusalem. Philip Augustus of France, Henry 2nd of England and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany all agreed to go. Henry's son, Richard the Lionheart ('Coeur de Lion'), was to follow. Frederick Barbarossa was the first to move and on 11 May 1189 he headed an army of 100,000 men which set forth on the enterprise. Soon the Christians seized Konya, capital of the Seljuk Turks, and struck terror into the Muslim world. But such a great success was not to be repeated. On 10 June 1190 the Emperor drowned while crossing the river Saleph near Seleucia and thereafter the force disintegrated, many of the soldiers returning to their homes.
Meanwhile in the Holy Land, Saladin had abandoned his siege of Tyre, but he held Acre. In April 1191 the King of France arrived, followed by Richard from England. On 12 July 1191 Acre fell to the Franks and English but Jerusalem still remained in Saracen hands, with only Antioch, Tripoli and some coastal regions now remaining Christian. Soon after the Third Crusade was effectively terminated. Saladin died in 1193 and in 1200 Pope Innocent 3rd called for the Fourth Crusade. In 1194 a Crusader army arrived in the Gulf of Akaba in the Red Sea, intent on constructing a large fleet with which to attack the Infidel in al-Makkah (Mecca) on the coast of Arabia. A harbour was constructed and for three years an army of Christian workers toiled at constructing a fleet soon numbering 230 vessels. In 1197 the fleet sallied forth, carrying on board an army of over 8,000 Christian soldiers, another 12,000 local mercenaries and 4,200 slaves. The Crusaders who survived the storm and made it to the shore were taken prisoner by the Muslims, who believed the incident was the result of the vengeance of Allah. Christian prisoners had their eyes gouged out and the eye-sockets filled with hot sand, then were paraded naked through the streets of al-Makkah, to be jeered at by the crowds. Finally they were slaughtered. In 1197 an Arab army attacked the Christian encampment in the Gulf and wiped out the remainder of the Christian army.
Constantinople, seat of the Byzantine (Orthodox) Christians, was to become the next place to suffer from the Crusaders' depredations. A 'great and terrible fire that no man could put out or diminish,' broke out in the city. Churches, palaces, houses and shops were destroyed. For eight days the flames raged across a front of half a league. The Latin Christians were blamed and speedily removed themselves from the city, lest retribution fall upon their heads. However, on 8 April 1204 they returned and laid siege to the city, which fell on 12 April. They then invaded the great Church of Sancta Sophia and tore down the doors, running amok through the beautiful building, destroying as they went. Thus did one army of Christians loot the sacred treasures of another.
The former Emperor, Murzupohlus, was deposed and the great city of Constantinople now came under the rule of the Western Christians. Count Baldwin of Flanders was made first Latin Emperor of Constantinople. The Fourth Crusade drew to a close; Jerusalem remained in the hands of the infidel. However, the Latin Empire was to last but 50 years. In 1212 the Children's Crusade set forth on its ill-fated attempt to conquer the Holy Land; it, too, failed. In 1215 Pope Innocent 3rd proclaimed the Fifth Crusade, to begin in 1217, with Egypt the first objective. Damietta soon fell, with great slaughter. The terror-struck inhabitants fled and Cairo trembled so the Sultan proposed a cessation of hostilities and offered to give the Christians Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land if they left Egypt alone. It was surely all that they could desire but Cardinal-legate Pelagius from Portugal was obstinate; he was a man who was to add greatly to the suffering experienced by both the Muslims and the Christians.
It is interesting to note that among those who were present at the defeat of Damietta was St Francis of Assisi, the poor, unlettered, pious founder of an Order. Francis was, according to Cardinal James of Vitry, an eyewitness and chronicler of these events, and 'armed with his buckler of faith . . . advanced towards the Sultan of Egypt.' He was captured and brought before the Egyptian ruler who, however, miraculously turned from a fierce beast into a gentle man in the presence of the saint. Or so the story goes. According to one account St Francis offered to participate with a Saracen priest in a Trial by Fire ordeal - to prove which of them followed the true god. In the event the offer was not taken up. And the attempts made by the Christians to take Cairo, led by Cardinal Pelagius, in 1221, failed. The stubborn prelate refused the terms offered and as a result Damietta itself was recovered by the Egyptians. It was the end of the Fifth Crusade.
We hardly need bother ourselves with subsequent Crusades. They followed without exception the same dismal path. Innocent people who stood in the way of the zealous do-gooders suffered accordingly, the pious Christians perpetrating, in the words of a chronicler, 'deeds that were horrible.' In 1244 Jerusalem fell to the Saracens again; the Christians were never to recover the city. But they continued to try.
In 1245 Pope Innocent 4th preached the Seventh Crusade. In spite of prayers and masses illness dogged the Christian army. Typhoid struck, the flesh of the soldiers' legs withered and their skin turning ashen, blotched with black. The flesh of the gums rotted and those stricken inevitably, sooner or later, died. It was said that when the nose started bleeding, that was the dread harbinger of the end. Of course, the Christians piously continued chanting their prayers - to no avail. John, Sieur of Jonville, who recorded these events, described an incident during which a priest, saying mass for him, collapsed. Revived for a space, the priest managed to complete his religious office and then collapsed again. 'He managed to sing the whole mass,' added John graphically, 'and never sang it again.' Ah well, he was, presumably, now caught up to be with the Christ-god. Happy man.
In July 1270 Louis 9th of France began the Eighth Crusade, going to Tunis where he sought the conversion of the Emir. On 18 July 1270 he disembarked at Carthage but the plague was raging there and by 25 August the King was dead, struck down by this terrible malady. In 1297 Pope Boniface 8th canonized him. In 1274 Pope Gregory preached yet another crusade, which would perhaps be counted as the 'Ninth', but nobody took up the challenge and it was virtually the end of the road for the era of the fantastic, misguided, foolish Crusades.
The final siege of Acre began in April 1291 under al-Ashraf Khalil, Mameluk master of Egypt and Syria. The Christians confronted an enormous gathering of warriors from many nations, a total estimated by an Arab historian Abu'l Mahasin at about 226,000 men. By 18 May Acre had fallen, the Muslims pursuing the Christians who were fleeing towards the port. Large numbers were overtaken and slaughtered, the town pillaged and those not killed reduced to slavery. The Templars had been installed in the town and many women and children had taken refuge with them. Some double-dealing followed and, in the event, the Marshall was seized and beheaded, along with the other Templars. The women were dragged out and raped, then enslaved with their children. Acre was the last Frankish possession in the region. The Kingdom of Jerusalem came to an end and the Christians left Syria for good.
