e great cause with untiring energy.

In 1185 a number of English barons had put on the cross on
hearing of Saladin's menacing progress; toward the end of
1187 the heir to the throne, Richard, followed their
example; some months later King Henry II had a meeting with
his former enemy, Philip Augustus of France, at Gisors,
where they vowed to abandon their earthly quarrels and
become warriors of the everlasting God. Nearly the whole
nobility and a number of the lower class of people were
carried away by their example. King William of Sicily fitted
out his fleet, and was only prevented by death from joining
it himself. From Denmark, Scandinavian pilgrims thronged to
Syria both by land and water. In Germany, now as formerly,
the zeal was not so great, until in March, 1188, the emperor
Frederick Barbarossa, at the age of near seventy, put on the
cross, and by his ever firm and powerful will collected
together a mass of nearly one hundred thousand pilgrims. All
the western nations rose to arms.

The news of this enormous movement reached the East, and the
ferocious war-cry of Europe was answered by a voice of
defiance. Saladin had organized his dominions almost
according to the western system. Under an oath of allegiance
and service in war he granted to each of his emirs a town of
feudal tenure; its surrounding land they again divided among
their followers; the Sultan thus attached those wandering
hordes of horsemen to the soil and kept those restless
spirits permanently together. He then invoked the religious
zeal of all the Mahometans with such success that volunteers
flocked to his standard from every quarter.

These masses dispersed at the beginning of every winter, but
on the return of fair weather they again collected in
ever-increasing numbers. Saladin well knew the mutual hatred
which divided the Greek Byzantines and the Latin Franks, and
kept so securely alive in the Eastern Emperor, Isaac
Angelus, the fear of the insolence of the western soldiers
that he concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with
Saladin against those who shared his own faith.

The leaders of the Third Crusade--Richard I ("the
Lion-hearted"), King of England; Frederick I, surnamed
"Barbarossa," of Germany, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire;