OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 355 the Lateran he acted as the ecclesiastical, almost as the tem- poral, sovereign of the East and West. It was at the feet of his legate that John of England surrendered his crown ; and Inno- cent may boast of the two most signal triumphs over sense and humanity, the establishment of transubstantiation and the origin of the inquisition. At his voice, two crusades, the fourth and the fifth, were undertaken ; but, except a king of Hungary, the princes of the second order were at the head of the pilgrims : the forces were inadequate to the design ; nor did the effects correspond with the hopes and wishes of the pope and the people. The fourth crusade was diverted from Syria to Con- The fourth stantinople ; and the conquest of the Greek or Roman empire 5ld. im by the Latins will form the proper and important subject of the next chapter. In the fifth,'-^^ two hundred thousand Franks were The fifth. AD 19.1 R landed at the eastern mouth of the Nile. They reasonably hoped that Palestine must be subdued in Egypt, the seat and storehouse of the sultan ; and, after a siege of sixteen months, the Moslems deplored the loss of Damietta. But the Christian army was ruined by the pride and insolence of the legate Pela- gius, who, in the pope's name, assumed the character of general ; the sickly Franks were encompassed by the waters of the Nile and the Oriental forces ; and it was by the evacuation of Dami- etta that they obtained a safe retreat, some concessions for the pilgrims, and the tardy restitution of the doubtful relic of the true cross. The failure may in some measure be ascribed to the abuse and multiplication of the crusades, which were preached at the same time against the pagans of Livonia, the Moors of Spain, the Albigeois of France, and the kings of Sicily of the Imperial family.'-'^ In these meritorious services the volunteers might acquire at home the same spiritual indulgence and a larger measure of temporal rewards ; and even the popes, in
- See the vth crusade, and the siege of Damietta, in Jacobus a Vitriaco (1. iii. p.
U25-1149, in the Gesta Dei of Bongarsius), an eye-witness, Bernard Thesaurarius (in Script. Muratori, torn. vii. p. 825-846, c. 190-207), a contemporary, and .Sanutus (Secreta Fidel. Crucis, 1. iii. p. xi. c. 4-9), a diligent compiler ; and of the Arabians, Abulpharagius (Dynast, p. 294), and the Extracts at the end of Joinville (p. 533, 537) 540. 547. &c.). [Also the Gesta obsidionis Damiatae in Muratori, S. R. I. 8, p. 1084 sqf. : and Rohricht, Quinti belli sacri Script, min. p. 73 sqq. 1879. Holder- Egger has vindicated the authorship for John Cadagnellus (Neues Archiv, 16, 287 sqq. 1891).]
- To those who took the cross against Mainfroy, the pope (..D. 1255) granted
plenissimam peccatorum remissionem. Fideles mirabantur quod tantum eis pro- mitteret pro sanguine Christianorum effundendo quantum pro caiore infidelium aliquando (Matthew Paris, p. 785). A high flight for the reason of the xiiith century !
