• CHAPTER XV. THE THIRD CRUSADE. " Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira En cele terre, u Diex fu mors et vis, Et ki la crois d'outre mer ni prendra A paines mais ira en paradis." Thibault de Champagne. W E are not writing a history of the Crusades, and must hasten over all those episodes in the long struggle of three hundred years which do not immediately concern the Holy City. It is with regret that one turns from the glowing pages of Vinsauf, Villehardouin, and Joinville, with the thought that they have little to do with our subject, and that we must perforce leave them for other pastures, not so fair.* But a few words to show the progress of events, if it is only to make us understand the story of Saladin, are indispensable. The news of the fall of Jerusalem was received in Europe with a thrill of horror and indignation. From every pulpit, preachers thundered in the ears of the stupefied people the intelligence that the city for which so much had been risked and spent was fallen, and that it * Why has no English historian treated of thé Crusades? Besides the scattered notices in Milman there is only the work of Knightley, meritorious in its way, but as dry as sawdust ; spoiled, too, by the accident that it was written for the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, and the author seems always horribly afraid of saying something which might offend the Committee.