from having to concede that all that enthusiasm and all the blood shed came to nothing, people urge that they at any rate brought Christendom and the Mohammedan civilization together (so they did, across blood-dripping lances), and that they staved off the Turkish invasion of Europe for a time. At any rate, the cause the Crusaders fought for, their little Frank States planted out there between the desert and the deep sea, all came to nothing.
And they certainly did no good to the Eastern Christians. A result of the schism was that the Catholic Crusaders, when they had driven out the Turk from the Holy Land, never thought that the residuary right to this country then fell back on its former sovereign, the Roman Emperor. The Emperor was a schismatical "Greek," not much better than the Moslem they had been lighting. So they set up their Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,[1] with the Duchy of Antioch and the County of Edessa, and (after the third Crusade) a Latin Kingdom of Cyprus, all made exactly on the model of their own States at home, with barons and a court, according to the feudal system. French was the official language, and they gave arms to all these cities, and astonishing titles to their own leaders—"Count of Jaffa," "Baron of Hebron," "Prince of Galilee," and so on. The ruins of the Romanesque churches[2] they built still stand above the sands of the desert as witnesses of this strange little Western world planted in the midst of another civilization.
- ↑ It was an elective monarchy. After Godfrey († 1100) they chose Count Baldwin of Flanders (Baldwin I, 1100–1118). There were thirteen kings of Jerusalem altogether; the last was John of Brienne (1210–1237). There is an interesting little book on this kingdom, C. R. Conder: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. His conclusion is: "The kingdom of Jerusalem was the model of just and moderate rule" (p. 428). The kings of Jerusalem quartered the kingdom with their paternal coat, as German bishops their sees. The Wapenboek of Gelderland (c. 1350), in the Brussels Library (published by V. Bouton, Paris, 1881–1897), contains the arms of Guy of Lusignan (King of Jerusalem, 1186–1192, then King of Cyprus, 1192–1194). They are: 1 and 4 argent, a cross potent between four crosslets or, for Jerusalem; 2 and 3 barry of ten azure and argent, a lion rampant gules, crowned or, for Lusignan. Although these are obviously his arms as King of Jerusalem, they are labelled "Die Conine van Cipers."
- ↑ They practically rebuilt the Anastasis (1103–1130), which accounts for its Western Romanesque appearance.
