324

THE GLORY OF CHRISTENDOM

THE NEMESIS OF POWER
325
Henry II of Cyprus, warning of an impending new offensive from Egypt against the Christians in Palestine, were
greeted in Western Europe with honor and respect, but no commitments were made to them. In April 1289
Sultan Kalawn of Egypt took and destroyed Tripoli after the Venetian and Genoese ships fled its harbor, leaving
most of the Christian inhabitants behind. In September 1290 Kalavun began his preparations to do the same to
the greatest Christian stronghold left in the Levant: Acre. In November he marched. A week later he died, but
his son and successor al-Ashraf Khalil had promised his dying father to continue the expedition at all costs,
and kept his promise. On April 6, 1291 the ggyp tian Arabs laid siege to Acre."
Il-Khan Arghun had died in March; Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf lay dying in Frankfurt; Philip IV of
France had no interest whatever in a crusade, and Edward I of England was in the process of attempting to
conquer Scotland .75 Acre had strong walls, but its population was only about 40,000 and this included less than
a thousand knights, though there were about 14,000 foot soldiers. On May 4 Henry II of Cyprus arrived to help,
but he had only about two thousand men and was unable to command effectively due to severe epilepsy. In any
case he came too late. Eleven days later the Muslim host breached the walls; on May_ 18 they burst through the
breach in_an_early morning fog, and after overcoming heroic resistance in the streets, took the city.
The Master of the Templars was mortally wounded; the Master of the Hospital was severely wounded; the
Patriarch was drowned after letting too many desperate refugees crowd into his small boat. When the day was
done the Templars held one last fortified building at the southwest corner of the city overlooking the sea. Ten
days later this building collapsed after Muslim mining in the final assault, killing defenders and attackers alike.
The Muslim conquerors destroyed _Acre. During the next three months the last remaining coastal fortresses
held by Christians fell one by one, ending August 14 with the Templars' Castle Pilgrim, just south of Mount
Carmel, on a lofty cliff overlooking the sea on three sides, a position once thought impregnable. 76
The Crusades _were e_over; _; the infidel had won. The fall of Acre marked the end of the first great heroic
age of Christendom, which had begun with the taking of Jerusalem almost exactly two centuries before.
In August Pope Nicholas IV tried to stimulate one more crusading effort,
14 Kenneth M. Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades, Volume II: "The Later Crusades, 1189-1311," ed.
Robert L. Wolff and Harry W. Hazard (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 592-593, 595, 753-754; Runciman, Crusades, III,
401-402, 406-408, 410-413; Mann, Popes in the Middle Ages, XVIII, 50-52.
75 Mann, Popes in the Middle Ages, XVIII, 60; The Cambridge Medieval History, ed. J. R. Tanner, C. W.
Previte-Orton, and Z. N. Brooke, Volume VII, "Decline of Empire and Papacy" (Cambridge, 1932), p. 84. For
Edward I's struggle with Scotland, see below, this chapter.
'6Setton, Crusades, II, 394-395, 595-598, 754; Runciman, Crusades, III, 413-422.
in a series of letters to the kings and princes and bishops of Christendom. He even proposed another general
council, like that held by his predecessor Gregory X at Lyons, to inspire and organize the crusade. The response
was
NC4oLA 51 V tepid and spotty. Before Nicholas IV could do more than become aware of the lack of
enthusiasm-before he could make another effort to arouse it-he fell ill on Palm Sunday -1292, and died on_Good
od_F_rida."
The high-minded Franciscan Pope had done his best; his pontificate had not been a success, but he
himself had been trusted, because men knew that his Franciscan simplicity and humility were proof against the
desire for power. But
power had more and more become the primary object of leading members of the College of Cardinals. The
Papacy had become a prize of power politics, the more dangerously because, given spiritual prestige by the
great Popes from St. Gregory VII` to Bd. Gregory X' 9 and unwisely broad material application by Martin IV and
his successors, its power had become so very great.
On April 14, 1292 a conclave of just twelve cardinals assembled at Rome. Eight votes were required to
elect a Pope. Two of Rome's greatest families, bitterly at odds with each other, each had three votes in the
conclave: the Orsini, represented by Cardinals Matteo Rosso Orsini and Napoleon Orsini and their close ally
Latinus Malabranca, Bishop of Ostia; the Colonna, represented by Cardinals Peter Colonna and James Colonna
and their close ally John Boccamazza, Bishop of Tusculum. Two of the cardinals were French-Hugh of Alvernia
and John Cholet-and would vote as the autocratic Philip IV directed them. The other four cardinals were _Italia_n
and less controlled by factions, but full of ambition for themselves: Gerard-the White, Bishop of Sabina; Matthew
Acquasparta; -Peter Petrogresso; and Benedetto G_aetani, the future Pope Boniface VIII. The required eight votes
could only be obtained by enlisting two of the three firm factions and two or three of the four independent votes
behind the winner. This proved absolutely impossible 8 °
For three and a half months the fruitless meetings and politicking went on among and around the
deadlocked cardinals in Rome, until the fierce heat and deadly fevers of August fell upon the Eternal City, and
riots broke out over the senatorial elections. The French Cardinal Cholet died, leaving eleven cardinals but still
eight votes required to elect a Pope. All the non-Roman cardinals then left the city until late in September.81
By April 1293, a full year after the death of Pope Nicholas IV, the conclave had made no progress
whatever. Rome fell into virtual anarchy due to

f tZ92

Mann, Popes in the Middle Ages, XVIII, 57-58, 213-215, 245. '$See Volume II, Chaper
19 of this history.
'9See Chapter 7, above.
8°
Mann, Popes in the Middle Ages, XVIII, 254-257; T. S. R. Boase, Pope Boniface VIII (London, 1933), pp. 29-
32.
81
Boase, Boniface VIII, pp. 32-33.