le of
Navas de Tolosa, in 1212, settled that Spain was to be Christian
instead of Mahometan.[8]

THE LATER CRUSADES

Against the Saracens of the East, however, crusades grew less and less
effective. "Geography explains much of history." In Spain the Saracens
were weak because far from the centre of their power. In the East the
Europeans were at the same disadvantage. For one man who fell in
battle in the Holy Land, twenty perished of starvation or disease upon
the journey thither. Europe began to realize this. The East no longer
lured men with the golden glamour that it held for an earlier
generation. Kings had the contrasted examples of Philip Augustus and
the heroic Richard to teach them the value of staying at home.

We need glance but briefly at these later crusades. The fourth was
undertaken in 1203. Venice contracted to transport its warriors to the
Holy Land, but instead persuaded them to join her in an attack upon
the decrepit Empire of the East.[9] Constantinople fell before their
assault and received a Norman emperor, nor did the religious zeal of
these particular followers of the cross ever carry them farther on
their original errand. They were content to establish themselves as
kings, dukes, and counts in their unexpected empire. Some of the
little Frankish states thus created lasted for over two centuries,
though the central power at Constantinople was regained by the Greek
emperors of the east in 1261.[10]

Meanwhile the patriotic and powerful King Andrew of Hungary led a
fifth crusade. The German Emperor, Frederick II, headed a sixth in
which, by diplomacy rather than arms, he temporarily regained
Jerusalem.[11] For a time this treaty of peace deprived of their
occupation the orders of religious knighthood still warring in the
East. One of these, the Teutonic Knights, made friends with Frederick,
and by his aid its members were transported to the eastern frontier of
Germany, where among the Poles and Po-russians (Prussians) they could
still find heathen fighting to their taste. From this order sprang the
military basis of modern Prussia.[12]

The Seventh and Eighth crusades were the work of the great French King
and saint, Louis IX. The enthusiasm which had roused the mass of
ordinary men to these vast destructive outpourings was faded. Louis
had to coax and persuade his people to follow him, and even his
earnest purpose and real ability could not save his expeditions from
disastrous failure. In