The War of the Keys

The War of the Keys was called that because of the image of crossed keys (keys to the Kingdom of Heaven) on the papal flag. The war was between Pope Gregory IX and Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. Frederick vowed to go on Crusade, which Gregory supported wholeheartedly. The vow was on pain of excommunication. Gregory's predecessor, Honorius III, had granted Frederick several delays, but Gregory was not going to be patient anymore, and threatened Frederick with excommunication.

Along with that issue, Frederick laid claim to some lands in central Italy that the popes believed belonged to the Papal States. Also, Gregory felt that Frederick was abusing the church in Sicily.

Part of Frederick's agreement to go on Crusade was that he wanted to be King of Jerusalem. Currently, the King-by-marriage was John of Brienne, who was regent for his 12-year-old daughter, Queen Isabella II of Jerusalem. The marriage, in November 1225, removed John's regency and made technically Frederick King of Jerusalem. Yet still he delayed.

Gregory excommunicated Frederick in October 1227. Isabella died in May 1228. In June 1228, Frederick finally began the Sixth Crusade. While he was traveling, some of his followers invaded the disputed Italian territories. Gregory responded with an army intending to take Sicily from Frederick. For the leader of his army he chose John of Brienne. Gregory levied tithes from several Christian countries to raise money for his army. According to contemporary English chronicler Roger of Wendover, England resisted the tax. King Henry III of England called an assembly of nobles and prelates to hear from the papal legate about the tithe, but the nobles simply refused to pay. Henry did not do anything to interfere with the papal request, but he did not force his nobles to comply.

Meanwhile, Frederick was in the east and signing a treaty with al-Kamil, who was perfectly happy to giving Jerusalem to the Crusaders if they left him alone. When Gregory heard about this, he denounced the treaty and Frederick as being un-Christian.

Now, however, Frederick was free to return and face the pope's forces. We will see how that went tomorrow.

Francis the Crusader

When Francis of Assisi  looked for inspiration about how he should be organizing his new-found life of devotion to God—and because he was drawing others to him who wanted guidance—he decided to look into the Bible. The sections he randomly opened to were about a rich young man being told to give all he had to the poor, Jesus telling the Apostles to take nothing on their journey, and the idea to take up the cross every day. He told those following him that these were their guiding rules. Francis wanted them to live by the Gospel.

Becoming the leader of an organized group was not a goal he sought. That involved a formality and an authoritative role that he did not think was appropriate for him. He simply wanted to foster the idea of brotherhood among people from all walks of life who came to listen to him. He urged his followers to go forth in pairs to preach God's love, and they did. People soon realized that these poorly clothed and barefoot itinerant preachers seemed very happy with their simple life. The idea that one could be happy without owning anything became attractive to more and more people. Rather than fight poverty, they made poverty acceptable, and even more: desirable.

Although he did not want to be seen as special, he at least once did something that looked self-aggrandizing. During the Fifth Crusade in 1219 he went to Egypt to speak directly to the Muslim leader and convert him. al-Kamil was the Sultan of Egypt, and he received this beggar-looking man and listened to him. Supposedly, al-Kamil told Francis that he liked what he heard and would have converted to what Francis was talking about, "but we would both be killed." Francis' "soft approach" to Crusading was more successful than the papal legate's. al-Kamil supposedly gave Francis permission to visit sites in the Holy Land. We do know that Francis went to Acre and then took a ship to Italy. (A sermon by St. Bonaventure in 1267 claimed that al-Kamil had a death-bed conversion due to the meeting with Francis.)

The presence of "Franciscans" was growing more noticeable, and if so many people were going to be wandering and preaching, it was felt there should be some organization to control their message. Let's look at the birth of the Franciscan Order next time.

Pelagio Galvani

 Cardinal Pelagio Galvani (c.1165 - 30 January 1230) was the papal legate leading the Fifth Crusade. He hailed from the Kingdom of León, and became a canon lawyer. Pelagio was not a tolerant man: on a two-year mission to Constantinople, he tried to close Greek Orthodox churches and imprison their priests, and action that created so much chaos that the Martin Emperor of Constantinople, Henry of Flanders, reversed Pelagio's acts.

Crusades needed religious leaders as well as military ones, and Pelagio was sent to lead the Fifth Crusade by Pope Honorius III (Pope Innocent II, who had called for the Crusade, had died July 1216, before the Crusade had started out).

During the Siege of Damietta, while the Crusading army made some inroads in to Egypt, intending to use it as a staging area from which to conquer Jerusalem (see yesterday's post), the sultan al-Kamil made a peace offering: he would ensure the handover of the Kingdom of Jerusalem to the Crusaders, if they would depart completely from Egypt.

Given the main goal of the Crusades—to control Jerusalem—this would seem to be a win-win, and the secular leaders wanted to accept it. Pelagio, however, along with the Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Venetians, wanted to keep what they had taken. The Templars and Hospitallers would have shared Pelagio's religious reasons for converting the whole world to Christianity. In the case of the Venetians, I suspect they were more interested in the value of Damietta and the Nile as trade routes for their merchant fleets.

The Siege continued to attack Damietta under Pelagio's orders, and a further deal was offered by al-Kamil: this time he included to release any prisoners they had taken and to return the piece of the True Cross that had come into Muslim hands. Pelagio turned this and subsequent offers. Despite arrivals of more Crusader forces, the western army never gained a permanent foothold in Egypt. Finally, on 28 August, even Pelagio realized the Egyptian route was a lost cause. A nighttime attempt to use a canal to make further progress into Egypt on 26 August 1221 resulted in disaster for the Crusaders when the Egyptians detected them and attacked. The defeat was so demoralizing that even Pelagio decided to admit defeat. Two days later, he sent an envoy to al-Kamil. On 8 September 1221, the Crusading army left Egypt, abandoning the Fifth Crusade, having never come close to Jerusalem.

But how is it that sultan al-Kamil had a piece of the True Cross to offer? He got it at the Battle of Hattin, which I'll tell you about tomorrow.

The Fifth Crusade

Were the Crusades successful? If the objective as stated was to put Jerusalem under Christian rule and maintain that rule, then the Crusades were a failure. Some of them never even made it to Jerusalem.

The Fifth Crusade was called by Pope Innocent III during the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, intending it to start in 1217. It lasted until 1221, but although it was carefully organized and well-staffed, its strategy was flawed.

To be fair, the strategy seemed like a good idea at the time: sail to Egypt and attack, conquering what they believed to be an easier Muslim-controlled target. The Crusaders could then use Egypt as a staging area to attack the Holy Land. To make a long story short, the first of the Crusading fleet reached the Nile harbor town of Damietta on 27 May, 1218, and waited a few days for others to catch up. (It was not unusual that storms separated the ships, and so they did not all arrive simultaneously.) The most dynamic defender of that part of the world, Saladin, had died in 1193; his brother al-Adil took up the role of defender. al-Adil preferred to manage non-Muslims with treaties rather than jihad, and was disappointed in the Crusaders' next action.

The Siege of Damietta began on 23 June, but the town of Damietta had strong stone walls and a large stone tower that secured a chain across the mouth of the harbor to defend against ships. The first assault failed when scaling ladders collapsed and the town defended itself with a barrage of stones. The next day, however, the main tower was breached, the chain was cut, and ships could enter the Nile. al-Adil's son, al-Kamil, scuttled several ships upriver from the mouth of the Nile, preventing the Crusader ships from sailing further.

The Crusaders then built a floating fortress to use on the river, but a storm on 9 November blew it toward the Egyptian camp, whereupon the Egyptians overtook it and slaughtered all but two Crusaders. The two survivors were executed by the Crusade leaders for cowardice, having managed to escape the assault.

At this point, al-Adil's sons, al-Kamil and al-Mu'azzam, made an offer: we will give up Jerusalem to you (with two small exceptions) if you evacuate Egypt. You would think this was a direct route to their goal, but something—or rather someone—stood in the way. I will address that next.