In the year 1187 the far-famed Saladin, Sultan of Egypt, invaded the Holy Land at the head of a large army. His avowed object was to retake Jerusalem from the Christians. Having gained a great victory at Tiberias, he pushed forward his army to the walls of the Holy City, besieged it, and took its monarch prisoner. It was surrendered to Saladin on the 3rd of October. The cross was thrown down, relics were dispersed, the sacred places profaned, and the Mahometan worship restored. Yet the conduct of Saladin, though a conqueror and a Mahometan, was wholly free from that revengeful spirit which stained the character of the Franks under Godfrey. He spared the holy sepulcher, and allowed Christians to visit it for a certain payment. His generosity to the captives is celebrated by all writers. Thousands were set free without a ransom, and numbers received a passage to Europe at his own expense. Christians were allowed to remain in their homes on condition of paying tribute.
The news of these fresh calamities, and especially of the conquest of Jerusalem, excited the greatest indignation and alarm throughout all Christendom. Again the cry for help was heard from the Christians in the East to their brethren in the West. But at first they were dull of hearing. Only forty years had elapsed since the last expedition, and Europe had scarcely forgotten her misfortunes, or recovered from her exhaustion. But the cause was vigorously taken up by the pope, Clement III. The cardinals bound themselves never to mount on horseback "so long as the land whereon the foot of the Lord had stood should be under the feet of the enemy," and to preach the crusade as mendicants. The interest increased, though men at first hesitated to commit themselves to the enterprise. But the priest persevered, and the three greatest princes in Europe were influenced to receive the cross from the hands of the bishop; their subjects were taxed, under the name of "Saladin's Tithe," to defray the expenses of the war.
In the spring of 1189 the third crusade was commenced by Frederick I. of Germany, surnamed Barbarossa; Philip Augustus of France; and Richard I. of England, surnamed Coeur de Lion, or the lion-hearted prince. Barbarossa, now sixty-seven years of age, with his large army, traversed the provinces of Hungary, Bulgaria, and Greece, as the former pilgrims had done, and were again molested by the first two, and betrayed by the last. Eighty-three thousand Germans crossed the Hellespont, and for a few days their march through Asia Minor was prosperous; but the guides and interpreters who were furnished by the Greeks had been bribed to deceive them, and after luring them into the desert, they disappeared. No markets could be found, horses died for want of food, and their flesh was greedily devoured by the soldiers. Still he was able to maintain discipline; and, though with greatly reduced numbers, he boldly attacked and defeated the Turks with great slaughter, while his son assaulted the city of Iconium and compelled the Sultan to surrender it. The army, refreshed with the provisions of Iconium, pressed onwards in the hope of speedily reaching the object of their expedition; but their great leader died the following year near Tarsus, and, Frederick the younger dying soon after, many of the survivors abandoned the crusade and returned to Europe. Sixty-eight thousand of the German army had perished in less than two years.
The English and the French armies reached Palestine by sea in the year 1190, and fought under the same banner. But after the reduction of Acre, Philip returned to Europe, leaving Richard to carry on the war. The valor of the "lionhearted" king has been so fully celebrated, both in English and Mahometan history, that, we need only add, he defeated Saladin at Askelon and, having concluded a peace securing certain privileges to the pilgrims in Jerusalem and along the sea-coast, he returned to England in 1194, though not without great difficulty and expense. Saladin died in 1195, while Richard was on his way home. It is reckoned that, in the expedition thus ended, more than half a million of professedly christian warriors perished. In the siege of Acre alone, one hundred and twenty thousand Christians, and one hundred and eighty thousand Mahometans, perished. Such were the alleged holy wars of the hell-inspired councils of Rome.