Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/283

EUROPE IN DREAD OF A TARTAR INVASION. 271 thema upon those who should be cowardly enough to yield — and the reply of the knights was to the effect, that they had not quitted the world and devoted them- selves to God for the sake of living in ease and delight, but to die for Jesus Christ ; the Tartars might, there- fore, come when they would, they would always find the servants of Christ ready to defend the Christian law unto the death. The Tartars, upon whom so many hopes had been founded, were now become objects of universal terror ; and all Sj'ria seemed affected by the same panic fear. Letters were written, and deputies sent to Europe to implore help from the kings of the West ; and the report was soon current that Antioch and Tripoli were already in the hands of the Mongols. One envoy came even as far as England, where a council was assembled, and the people were enjoined to seek by prayer and fasting, and penitential tears, to move the mercy of Heaven to remove the dreadful scourge that was once more menacing Christendom. On the intelligence being transmitted by the Pope to Paris, St. Louis convoked an assembly of lords and bishops, to discuss the means of averting a misfortune that seemed so imminent. " A procession," says William of Nangis, "was ordered with litanies and orisons, and every one was to take care not to swear or take in vain the names of our Lord or his saints, and to keep himself from sin, and from a superfluity of garments and of meats." It was also ordained that for two years no tournament should be held, and that it should be forbidden to practise any game, except archery and shooting with the crossbow. In the following year, 1261, the Pope convoked a