Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/292

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and three months all hostilities should cease. In the following year Saládin died; and, immediately after the conclusion of the treaty, Richard returned to Europe "to seek a long captivity and a premature grave."

Fourth Crusade, A.D. 1202. But the spirit of religious warfare did not rest. Will it ever do so? A fourth Crusade soon followed. In this case, however, the Crusade was directed from Syria to Constantinople; and as there was an armistice between the Crescent and the Cross, the self-constituted avengers of the latter quarrelled among themselves—the restoration of the western empire by Charlemagne having created differences between the Greek and Latin Churches, which had in course of time become serious feuds, to be settled only by bloodshed. The aversion existing between the Greeks and Latins had been manifested in the three first expeditions. Though alike opposed to the creed of the Muhammedans, the pride of the emperor of the East was wounded by the intrusion of foreign armies, who claimed the right of traversing his dominions, and of passing under the walls of the capital. He urged, not without reason, that his subjects were insulted and plundered by the rude strangers of the West; perhaps, too, he secretly envied the bold enterprises of the Franks.

The effect of the Crusades on the commerce of Constantinople, While, however, the passage of vast armies in their pilgrimage to the Holy Land roused feelings of animosity between the two great sections of professing Christians, they very materially increased their commercial intercourse, and enlarged their knowledge without abating their religious prejudices. Constantinople proved, commercially, of great importance to the