Page 108 - Encyclopedia Of World History

458 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The pope—and we know this well—is without doubt the most serious
obstacle on the ecumenical road. • Pope Paul VI (1897–1978)

Crusade (1270–1272), the West’s last major Crusade a combined Polish and German army and then a Hun-
before the fall of the crusader states, ended anticlimacti- garian army.
cally after the death in Tunis of its principal leader, King Tales of atrocities convinced western Europeans that
Louis IX of France, the thirteenth century’s most cele- the Mongols were the forces of the Antichrist as foretold
brated crusader, whom the Roman Catholic Church can- in the Book of the Apocalypse. In response, Pope Gre-
onized as a saint in 1297. gory IX called a Crusade against them in 1241, and his
successor Innocent IV renewed it in 1243, but both were
Strange New Types futile gestures. Western Europe was too engaged with
of Crusades internal struggles, namely papal Crusades against Fred-
The only thirteenth-century crusades to the East to suc- erick II, to rouse itself against a foe, even a demonic foe,
ceed in rewinning Jerusalem were the Sixth Crusade that had mysteriously retreated.
(1227–1229), in which Emperor Frederick II successfully Fearing the Mongols would return, the pope and King
negotiated the transfer of Jerusalem into Frankish hands Louis IX of France dispatched several missions to them.
(1229–1239), and the so-called Barons’ Crusade (1239– Beginning in 1245 and lasting to 1255, the embassies
1241), in which crusader leaders again negotiated the were charged with discovering Mongol intentions and
return of Jerusalem, which Islamic forces had taken back converting these so-called devil’s horsemen to Catholic
in 1239.This time Christians held the city for only three Christianity.The envoys, who were mainly Franciscan fri-
years. In 1244 Muslim mercenaries out of central Asia, ars, encountered only Mongol indifference.To the Mon-
the Khorezmian Turks whom the Mongols had driven gol mind, the West had only one option: submission.
west, recaptured Jerusalem in a bloodbath, and the city Following the Mongol capture of Baghdad in 1258,
remained in Muslim hands until 1917. these horsemen from the steppes of inner Asia drove as
far west as northern Galilee (in modern Israel), where an
Crusades at Home Egyptian army defeated and turned them back at the Bat-
In the early thirteenth century the Roman papacy began tle of Ayn Jalut in 1260. Given this setback, the Mongol
to employ full-fledged crusades to fight enemies at home il-khans (subordinate rulers) of Persia were now willing
—heretics, such as the Cathars of southern France (the to discuss an alliance with the Christian West against
Albigensian Crusade of 1209–1229), and political ene- Islamic Egypt. Because the Mamluk sultans of Egypt
mies who threatened papal secular authority in Italy, such were placing increasing pressure on the rapidly deterio-
as Emperor Frederick II and his descendants (1240– rating crusader states, the West was willing to ally with
1269). Crusades such as these continued well into early the Mongols against Islam, provided they converted to
modern times, in such incarnations as the five Anti- Christianity. With this dream in mind, King Louis IX of
Hussite Crusades (1420–1431) and various Holy France set off on his ill-fated Eighth Crusade, confident
Leagues formed by the papacy in the sixteenth century. that he would link up with the Mongol il-khan of Persia,
and together they would liberate Jerusalem.
The Mongols In 1287 the il-khan of Persia dispatched an ambassa-
On another front, the thirteenth-century papacy sought dor to the West to offer yet another alliance proposal.
first to launch crusades against and then to ally with a Known as Rabban (Master) Sauma, the envoy was a
new force from the East—the Mongols, who overran Turkish monk and native of northern China who
large portions of Christian eastern Europe in a campaign belonged to a branch of Christianity known as Nestori-
that lasted from 1236 to 1242. Fortunately for the West, anism. Sauma met with the kings of France and England,
the Mongols withdrew back to the Volga in 1242. This as well with Pope Nicholas IV, and received warm expres-
withdrawal took place, however, only after they destroyed sions of encouragement from all three. Sauma left Rome