90. Richard and Saladin Good Friends. While in the Holy Land Richard fell ill of a fever. His enemy, the noble Saladin, sent him fruits fresh from Damascus to tempt his appetite, and snow from the mountains to cool his parched lips. They exchanged messages and became good friends. Richard made a treaty with Saladin by which the Christians were allowed to visit the holy places in peace and comfort. Thus by his wisdom and by the generosity of Saladin more was accomplished for the pilgrims than by all the Crusades both before and after.

But though the Lion-Hearted and Saladin became friends, Richard’s name was a terror to the common people among the Mohammedans. After he was long dead, the fathers still told their children many stories of his deeds and of his great battle ax, which contained twenty pounds of iron in its mighty head; If a Mohammedan’s horse shied at something at the roadside he would say, “How, now! Dost thou see Richard the king?” The mothers, too, frightened their crying children by saying, “Be quiet! The King of England will get you!”

On his way home the great soldier was shipwrecked near Venice and found himself in the hands of the Duke of Austria, one of his enemies in the Holy Land. The duke put him in prison in a lonely castle, where his own people could not find him.

91. The Story of the King’s Friend. Long afterward men told a beautiful story of how King Richard was rescued. In England he had a favorite minstrel, called Blondel. They had played the harp and sung together, particularly one song Richard himself had composed. Blondel set out to find his good master. He wandered from castle to castle, singing and playing under the windows the songs they used to sing. One evening, as the sun went down in the west, he sat himself down by a great castle among the hills, too tired and hungry to sing. From a window above came the strains of sweet music. He listened. It was Richard’s voice, singing the song he knew so well. At the end of the first verse Blonde! took up the second. The king heard it, and recognized the voice. Blondel had come, and now he would be free!

But it was not an easy task to open the castle doors, for the duke demanded a great ransom. The people of England paid a vast sum in gold for the king’s release, and when he reached his own country there was indeed great rejoicing. Richard the Lion-Hearted found so much to do in England he was never able to carry on another Crusade as he had hoped to do.

92. Later Crusades. The Crusades went on for nearly one hundred years after Richard’s time. Among the saddest of them all was the Children’s Crusade, in which thousands of boys and girls marched away never to come back.

The later Crusades began to take on a different character. Instead of fighting the Mohammedans the Crusaders sought to gain trading places in the East by attacking the Christian city of Constantinople. The cities of Venice and Genoa, in what is now Italy, came into possession of this foreign trade. As it grew, it drew to itself the rich spices and silks of the most distant parts of Asia. The merchants of Venice and Genoa then carried this trade to their own cities, to distribute it to the west and north.

93. What the Crusades Did. The pilgrims and Crusaders told wonderful tales of what they had seen and of the adventures they had had. As a result of the Crusades travel became safer than ever before. Consequently more people sought the East, some still to make pilgrimages, but an increasing number to see and to learn. Travel makes men wiser, broader, and more just and generous in judging strangers. The more the people knew, the more they wanted to know. Before the Crusades people had to do most of their counting by using Roman figures, such as I, II, III, IV, and so on, but after the Crusades were over people had learned a much simpler way of counting by using the present system, which they called the Arabic, because obtained from the Arabs. But we now know that it probably came from faraway India.

Again, the people learned from coming in contact with the Moors, the Mohammedan invaders of Spain, how to ornament their houses more tastefully. The Alhambra, once one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, was built in Spain by the Mohammedans. We have seen the Crusaders under Philip and Richard, in the Third Crusade, take ship and sail directly for the Holy Land. The merchants who agreed to furnish the ships needed larger and stronger vessels, not only to carry the soldiers but to care for their horses and to carry the food supplies demanded by the army, as well as the great machines for fighting. The Crusades, therefore, led to improvements in shipbuilding.

These merchants were quick to seize an advantage, and did not propose to have their ships go back empty. They loaded them with those products of soil, mine, and loom which Europeans were beginning to demand. Then, too, the merchants pressed for admission to the cities won by the Christians, and had places set apart for their agents, in which to buy and sell. From these places they traded and trafficked for the rich carpets, rugs, and shawls that came by caravan from Egypt, Persia, or even from India. Damasks, satins, silks, and velvets were added to their store. They even bought drugs and spices, sugars and perfumes. All these articles were loaded on ships for Genoa or for Venice, to be sent from these cities to various towns of Europe. This trade gave these two towns great advantages.

Venice became the richest and most beautiful of all the cities. In fact, it became a nation, ruled by a great man called the Doge. He was visited by the pope, the Emperor of Germany, and other rulers, so important a man was he. There were many wonderful things to see in Venice, and even in our day it is visited by thousands of people. It is a city built on a number of islands at the head of the Adriatic Sea. Many of its “streets” are long, winding canals and, instead of having horses or street cars or automobiles, the people get from place to place by means of little boats called “gondolas.” These boats are long, narrow, and usually moved by ne man standing at the stern with a long oar. The rulers of Venice strove to make their city a place of beauty. They employed the best artists to carve in marble the faces or figures of the most famous of their men, other artists to paint on canvas the wonderful events that had taken place, and others, still, to make their houses, halls, and churches stately, grand, and beautiful.

Perhaps the place most widely known in our day is St. Mark’s Piazza, a wide sort of square with St. Mark’s Church at one side and on the other, shops or stores containing beautiful and costly ornaments.

Genoa was the greatest rival Venice had for the trade with the East. She, too, had ships and soldiers, and for a time got possession of the trade with Constantinople and the Black Sea. Finally, in a great sea fight, the vessels of Genoa were completely overcome by those of her rival, Venice, and from that time until the water route to India was discovered by the Portuguese, Venice had most of the riôh trade of the Orient. But after the Turks won Constantinople and broke up the old trade routes to the East, and the all-water route around Africa to India became established, there arose on the shores of the Atlantic those splendid trading ports of Cadiz, Lisbon, Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London. This ocean commerce was established first by the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and later still the English sent men to East Africa, India, and China to buy the products of these lands.

SUGGESTIONS INTENDED TO HELP THE PUPIL

The Leading Facts. 1. Early pilgrimages to the Holy Land and other sacred places. 2. How the pilgrim was looked upon when he returned home. 3. What the people of Europe learned from the Arabs. 4. The Turks robbed and killed the pilgrims in the Holy Land. 5. The Council of Clermont, and what came of it. 6. Two ways of conducting a Crusade. 7. How the eastern emperor received the Crusaders. 8. The siege of Antioch. 9. How Jerusalem was finally captured. 10. The Second Crusade. 11. The three great leaders of the Third Crusade, and what each did. 12. Richard the Lion-Hearted and Saladin. 13. The story of Richard and Blondel. 14. The later Crusades. 15. Increase of knowledge, travel, shipbuilding, and trade. 16. Rise of Venice and Genoa.

Study Questions. 1. How do the purposes of pilgrimages differ now from those made long ago? 2. What obstacles did the early pilgrims encounter? 3. Why did the eastern emperor ask the pope for aid? 4. Make a mental picture of the Council of Clermont. 5. What was the trouble with the Crusaders followed Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless? 6. Draw a map of the great routes of the Crusaders. 7. Do you believe the story of the wonderful spear in the capture of Antioch? 8. Describe the miracle performed in the siege of Jerusalem. p. In what way did the victors show that they were not true followers of the Cross? 10. What was the cause of the Second Crusade? 11. What was the cause of the Third Crusade? 12. Who was the romantic hero of this crusade? 13. What did the Lion-Hearted do, besides fight, to promote the welfare of the Christians? 14. How did the later Crusades differ from the others? 15. Enumerate the good things accomplished by the Crusades.

Suggested Readings. KNIGHTS AND PILGRIMS: The Story of the Nations, 282-299; Colby, Selections from the Sources of English History, 41-44; RICHARD THE LION-HEARTED: Cheyney, Readings in English History drawn from the Original Sources, 68-70, 171-176; Robinson, Readings in European History, 321-329; Ogg, A Source Book of Mediceval History, 291-296.



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© 2001 by Lynn Waterman