volume one

408 nisTOEY or the ceusades.
to decay since the reisri of Bald^vin III., became now an
object worthy of pity. The stormy passions, almost always
inseparable from a feudal government, had long since weakened
all the springs of authority. The royalty, for whose
remains thev were quarrellmg, was nothing but a vain name
in the mJdst of the factions by which he was surrounded, a
king of Jerusalem coidd neither revenge his o^ti injuries,
nor those of the Church or of Christ. Want of courage
was the only crime he could punish without exciting the
murmurs of the barons, because with them cowards found
no defenders. Amaury had ignominiously hung twelve
Templars, accused of having neglected the defence of a fortress
: but he had not the nower to receive an ambassador
sent by the Old Man of the Jlountain, in whom the hope of
freeing Inmself from a tribute paid to the grand master of
the Templars, had awakened a desire to become a Christian.
AVhen the ambassador was assassinated in Jerusalem bv a
*
Tem.plar, Amaury liad no autliority to bring the murderer
to judgment ; deplorable weakness of a king who possesses
not the first prerogative of royalty, that of maintaining justice
and causing the rights of nations to be respected
The kingdom was covered A^-ith strong castles, the commanders
of which barely recognised the authority of the
king. On the summit of every mountain upon which appeared
threatening towers, in caverns even, Avhich had been
transformed into fortresses, barons commanded as masters,
and made peace or war at their pleasure. The military
orders, the only support of the state, were divided among
themselves, and sometimes shed their blood in quarrels fatal
to the cause of the Christians.
Discord reigned between the clergy' and the knights of
the military orders were not sub-
the Temple and St. John ;
ject to the jurisdiction of ecclesiastics, and the clerg}', accustomed
to dictate laws to princes, could not endure the
hauijhtv independence of a few warriors. Led awav bv the
spirit of discord, the Hospitallers raised edifices in front of the
church of the Resurrection, and often drowned the voices
of* the priests who celebrated the praises of G-od at the foot
of his altars. Som.e of them even ^ent so far as to pureue
priests with arrow-shots into the' very church of the Holy
Sepidchre. As the only vengeance, the priests gatliered
together in bundles the arrov>s that had been shot at them.
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