The
conduct of Saladin on this occasion was more generous than might have
been expected. A moderate ransom was fixed for every individual, on
the payment of which he was at liberty to remove with his goods to
whatever place he chose. To the Christian ladies, Saladin's conduct
was courteous in the extreme, so that it became a remark among the
Latins of Palestine that Saladin was a barbarian only in name.
38. Thus, after ninety years, was the Holy City again inhabited by the
infidel, and all the fruits of the first crusade lost, as it seemed to
the world. Saladin now possessed the whole of Palestine, with the
single exception of the city of Tyre, which was gallantly defended by
Conrad, Marquis of Montferrat.
39. The epidemic frenzy which had been gradually cooling was now
extinct, or nearly so, and the nations of Europe looked with cold
indifference upon the armaments of their princes. But chivalry was now
in all its glory, and it continued to supply armies for the Holy Land.
Poetry more than religion inspired the Third Crusade. The knights and
their retainers listened with delight to the martial and amatory
strains of the ministrels, minnesingers, and troubadors. Men fought
not so much for the holy sepulchre as to gain glory for themselves in
the best and only field where glory could be obtained. They fought not
as zealots, but as soldiers, not for religion, but for honor.
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