Great was the mourning of the people. Other kings had been more powerful in war; none had been braver. Other kings had been more successful; none had so well deserved success. And while his predecessors, one and all, were strangers in the land, Baldwin III. was born and brought up among them all; he knew them all by name, and was courteous and affable to all. In those degenerate days he was almost the only man in the kingdom whose word could be trusted; moreover, he was young, handsome, bright, and generous. The only faults he had were faults common to youth, while from those which most degrade a man in other men’s eyes, gluttony and intemperance, he was entirely free. Even the Saracens loved this free-handed chivalrous prince, and mourned for him. When some one proposed to Nûr-ed-dín to take advantage of the confusion in the country and invade it, he refused, with that stately courtesy which distinguished even the least of the Saracen princes. “Let us,” said he, “have compassion and indulgence for a grief so just, since the Christians have lost a prince such that the world possesses not his equal.”
The wiseacres remembered how, when he stood godfather to his brother’s infant son, he gave him his own name, and on being asked what else he would give him, “I will give him,” said the king, with his ready laugh—it was his laugh which the people loved—“I will give him the kingdom of Jerusalem.” The gossips had shaken their heads over words so ominous, and now, with that melancholy pleasure, almost a consolation, which comes of finding your own prognostications of evil correct, they recalled the words of fate and strengthened themselves in their superstition.
Ill-omened or not, the words had come true. Baldwin was dead, his brother was to succeed him, and his nephew was to come after. And henceforth the days of the kingdom of Jerusalem are few, and full of trouble.
The kingdom of Jerusalem, like a Roman colony, was founded by men alone. Those women who came with the Crusaders either died on the way, unable to endure the fatigue, heat, and misery of the march, or fell into the hands of the Turks, whose mistresses they became. The Crusaders therefore had to find wives for themselves in the country. They took them from the Syrian Christians or the Armenians, occasionally, too, from Saracen women who were willing to be baptized. Their children, subjected to the enervating influences of the climate, and imbibing the Oriental ideas of their mothers, generally preserved the courage of their fathers for one or two generations, when they lost it and became wholly cowardly and sensual and treacherous. But the kingdom was always being reinforced by the arrival of new knights and men at arms, so that for all practical purposes it was a kingdom of the West transplanted to the East. All the manners and customs were purely European. Falconry and hunting were the most favourite sports. They amused the Saracens, when they came to have friendly relations with them, by tournaments and riding at the quintain. Indoors they beguiled the time which was not taken up by eating, drinking, or religious services, in chess, dicing, and games of chance. They were all great gamblers, and forgot in the chances of the dice all their misfortunes and anxieties. Those who were rich enough entertained minstrels, and had readers to read them the lives of illustrious warriors and kings. Later on, but this was always done with the greatest secrecy, even by Frederick II., who cared little enough what was said of him, they learned to admire the performances of dancing girls. Richard of Cornwall was so delighted with their voluptuous dances that he carried a number of them to England. As for their manner of living it was coarse and gross. They brought their Western appetites to the East, and, ignorant of the necessity of light food and temperance in a hot climate, they made huge meals of meat and drank vast quantities of wine. This was probably the main cause of their ungovernable temper, and the sudden outbursts of rage which sometimes made them commit acts of such extraordinary folly. And this was most certainly the cause why they all died young. And though they imbibed every other Oriental habit readily—Oriental voluptuousness, Oriental magnificence, Oriental dress—they never learned the truth that Mohammed enforced so rigidly, that to preserve life we must be temperate. Fever destroyed them, and leprosy, that most miserable of all diseases, crept into their blood, possibly through the eating of pork, of which they were inordinately fond.