The present article is not intended to be a drum-andtrumpet history of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and its almost constant wars, but an account of the organisation and social life of the Crusading kingdom. First, as to its extent. The kingdom of Jerusalem attained its zenith at the end of the reign of Baldwin II in 1131, when it stretched from the Egyptian frontier at El-Arish, 'the river of Egypt' of the Book of Numbers, on the southwest, and from Aila, the modern 'Akaba (on the gulf of the same name), the Eloth of the First Book of Kings, and the site of Solomon's Red Sea naval station, on the south-east, to the stream now called Nahr Ibrahîm, which flows into the sea between Beirût and Giblet, the modern Jebeil-about 300 miles as the crow flies. To the east the kingdom rarely overstepped the Jordan except at the triangle of Banias, the ancient Cæsarea Philippi; indeed, in the north it was only 13 miles broad, but in the Dead Sea region it attained a breadth of 100 miles. This did not, however, comprise the whole of the Latin territory. To the north of the above-mentioned stream stretched the County of Tripolis, the foundations of which were laid by Count Raymond of Toulouse in 1102, to the rivulet, now called Wâdi-Mehika, between Maraclée and Valénia (the modern Bâniyâs), which flowed at the foot of the castle of Margat-a further distance of about 100 miles. From that rivulet began the Principality of Antioch, whose first Prince was, in 1098, Bohemond of Taranto, and which at one time extended almost to Aleppo in the east and embraced a large slice of the kingdom of Armenia almost as far west as Tarsus, but latterly extended no farther north than a little beyond Alexandretta. On the north-east it was bounded until 1144 by the County of Edessa, the modern Urfa, founded by Baldwin I in 1098, which began at the forest of Marris and extended eastward beyond the Euphrates; but, owing to the permanent state of war, in which the forty-six years of its existence were passed, it never had any fixed boundaries. Thus, a Syrian writer could truly say that, in 1129, 'everything was subject to the Franks, from Mardîn and Schabachtana to El 'Arîsh,' far more than the 'Dan to Beersheba' of the Israelites.*

* William of Tyre, Bk xvi, 29; Jacques de Vitry (ed. Bongars), 1068–9; Röhricht, Geschichte des Königreichs Jerusalem,' 191.

The first diminution of the Crusading States was the loss of the County of Edessa in 1144. In 1170, at the other extremity, they were cut off from the Red Sea by the capture of Aila. Jerusalem and most of the kingdom, except Tyre and a few fortresses, fell before Saladin in 1187, and most of the Principality of Antioch and of the County of Tripolis in the next year. By the treaty of 1192, the Christians obtained the coast from Tyre to Jaffa; and Frederick II, by the so-called 'Bad Peace' of 1229, recovered the Holy City, except two mosques, the two other towns--Bethlehem and Nazareth-most closely associated with the life of our Lord, and all the chief pilgrimage roads. Fifteen years later, however, the Kharezmians, a Turkish tribe, finally captured Jerusalem, murdered the Latin Christians, and desecrated the Holy Sepulchre and the tombs of the Latin kings.

The battle of Gaza completed the disaster of 1244. From that time the recovery of Jerusalem was manifestly impossible. The Crusade of the saintly Louis IX was a failure; that of our Prince Edward was weakly supported, ended in a separate peace, concluded by the people of Acre against his will, and was only remarkable for one of the most beautiful stories of conjugal devotion in English history. Meanwhile Antioch had fallen in 1268 before Beibars, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt; and Jaffa had entered upon the long captivity from which our armies redeemed it on November 17 of last year. The kingdom of Jerusalem was thenceforth a mere phantom of its former self, though kings of Cyprus were crowned kings of Jerusalem at Tyre, with all the pomp and splendour of the Middle Ages. Acre continued to be, as it had been since its recapture by Coeur-de-Lion, the capital of Frankish Palestine, where even on the eve of its fall, as a traveller tells us, dwelt

'the richest merchants under Heaven, gathered from all nations, where resided the King of Jerusalem and many members of his family, the Princes of Galilee and Antioch, the lords of Tyre, Tiberias, and Sidon, the Counts of Tripolis and Jaffa, all walking about the squares with their golden coronets on their heads.'

There, too, were the head-quarters of the Military • Ludolphi De Itinere Terrae Sanctae,? 40-1.

Orders, the Templars, the Knights of St John, the Brothers of the German House, and the Masters and Brothers of St Thomas of Canterbury. But the end of this carnival of kings and princes in exile was at hand. Since the second capture of Jerusalem, the kingdom had been slowly but surely dying, as its inhabitants knew full well. Signs and wonders foretold to the pious the coming catastrophe; shrewd business men hastened to sell their property in the doomed country. Tripolis followed the fate of Antioch in 1289; Acre, Tyre, Sidon, and Beirût were taken by Melik-el-Aschraf, the Sultan of Egypt, in 1291; and, with the fall of the last two strongholds of the Templars, Tortosa and Château Pèlerin, ended the rule of the Franks in Palestine. In Gibbon's sonorous phrase, 'A mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so long resounded with the world's debate.'

Let us now see how Frankish Palestine was organised. At the head of the Latin kingdom stood the king. During the first three reigns the monarchy was elective; and it was not till 1131 that it became hereditary, as Baldwin II was the first sovereign who left progeny. When the Crusaders entered Jerusalem, the election of their first ruler was by means of an examination, from which few of us would emerge unscathed. The electors questioned the servants of the various candidates about their masters' morals and characters. Godfrey's attendants stated that their master's chief defect was, that he would linger on in church, after the service was over, asking questions about the images and pictures, and thereby making his household late for meals, which thus lost all their relish.'* But this interest in ecclesiastical archæology, which seemed such a drawback to the hungry men-at-arms, was counted as a recommendation by the pious electors, and Godfrey was elected. He declined, however, to take the title of king, preferring that of Protector of the Holy Sepulchre,' and refusing to wear a golden crown in the city where our Lord had worn a crown of thorns. † His modesty was also probably

* William of Tyre, Bk ix, 2.

Recueil des Hist., Lois,' i, 22; Jacques de Vitry, 1116.

due to a tactful desire to disarm the opposition of the clergy, who had desired that Jerusalem should not have a lay ruler. He died, however, next year; and Baldwin I, Count of Edessa, his brother, who was elected his successor, then took the title of king, but salved his conscience by being crowned not in Jerusalem, but at Bethlehem. Baldwin II's daughter, Mélisende, and her husband, Fulk, were the first to be crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, where was also the royal mausoleum. During the Moslem occupation of Jerusalem the king was crowned at Tyre; and, when the whole of the Holy Land was lost, the kings of Cyprus, who were titular kings of Jerusalem, assumed the former crown at Nicosia and the latter at Famagosta. From Queen Charlotte of Cyprus, in 1485, the title passed to Duke Charles of Savoy, and thus to the present Italian dynasty.

The Latin sovereigns of Jerusalem were mostly above the average in character and intelligence. Bravery and piety were essential to their position as chiefs of a crusading colony in the midst of a hostile country. Baldwin III was also a lover of literature and a graceful speaker, of whom a Moslem rival said that there was not such another king in the world.' His brother, Amaury I, prompted Archbishop William of Tyre to compose his valuable history. Fulk was generous and experienced in warfare, but signally lacked the usual royal faculty of remembering faces. Queen Mélisende, who was the real ruler in her husband's lifetime, was an excellent woman of business, of whom it was said that 'she had in her bosom the heart of a man'; indeed, so masterful was she, that on one occasion her son had to besiege her in the Tower of David. Unfortunately, Guy de Lusignan, who was king at the moment of Saladin's fatal attack, was notoriously inferior to the task of saving his wife's kingdom.

Society was constructed by the Crusaders on feudal lines. According to the 13th-century edition of the 'Assises de la Haute Cour,' by Jean d'Ibelin, Count of Jaffa, one of Godfrey's first acts was to appoint a commission to enquire from men of various nationalities

William of Tyre, Bk xvii, 1.

then in Jerusalem the usages of their respective countries. From the report of this commission were drawn up the usages and assizes of the kingdom of Jerusalem, including a High Court, presided over by the King, for the nobility; a 'Court de la Borgesie,' presided over by an officer styled the Vicomte,' for the middle class; and a third court, under an official, called 'rays,' for the Syrians. As time went on, these usages were modified; and, at the arrival of each large company of new Crusaders, the King used to assemble the Patriarch and other notables at Acre, and enquire from the newcomers about their laws, while occasionally special missions of investigation were sent abroad. The written original of the 'Assises' was called the Letres dou Sepulcre,' because it was deposited in a large chest in the Holy Sepulchre; and, whenever a moot point arose, this chest was opened in the presence of nine persons, including the King, or his deputy, and the Patriarch, or the Prior of the Holy Sepulchre.* The Assizes of Jerusalem,' of which the 'Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois' have also been preserved, are the most enduring monument of the Franks in Palestine, and not in Palestine alone; for they formed the basis of the Assizes of Cyprus,' and of the feudal organisation of the Principality of Achaia.

William of Tyre expressly tells us† that the Counts of Tripolis were always lieges of the King of Jerusalem. But the Princes of Antioch (which had its own code) and the Counts of Edessa seem to have merely recognised him as primum inter pares by virtue of his possession of the Holy City; and the Princes of Antioch, beginning with Bohemond himself, were at times reluctantly forced to confess themselves vassals of the Greek Emperor. Thus, the existence of four practically independent states, instead of one centralised government, and the consequent lack of what the Italians would call a fronte unico against the Infidels, formed one cause of the collapse of Frankish rule, notably in the case of Edessa, sacrificed to the jealousy of the Prince of Antioch. Moreover, feudal regulations impeded the exercise of the royal power. Not only were the lieges not obliged to perform military service outside the realm; not only had

* Recueil des Hist., Lois,' i, 22-26.

↑ Bk xi, 10.