This first of the "religious wars" achieved its purpose. It
exterminated or at least suppressed the heresy by exterminating every
heretic who dared assert himself. Vast numbers of wholly orthodox
Christians perished also, since even they fought against the
"crusaders" in defending their homes. War did not change its hideous
face because man had presumed to place a blessing on it. Next to
Italy, Southern France had been the most cultured land of Europe. The
crusaders left it almost a desert. It had been practically independent
of the kings at Paris, henceforth it offered them no resistance.

A more excusable direction given by Innocent to the crusading
enthusiasm was against the Saracens in Spain. A new and tremendous
army of these had come over from Africa to reënforce their brethren,
who shared the peninsula with the Spaniards. The Pope's preaching sent
sixty thousand crusaders to help the Spaniards against this swarm of
invaders, and the Saracens were completely defeated. The battle 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