granted them a considerable part of the Holy Land, including Jerusalem. Frederic claimed the kingdom through Iolanthe, whom he had recently married, and placed the crown on his own head in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. But his troubles with the pope compelled him to return home the next year.
The last Crusade of importance was undertaken by Louis ix. of France, a man of deep personal piety, who deservedly earned the name of Saint Louis. Jerusalem had been conquered and the inhabitants most horribly treated by a rude tribe from the steppes of Asia, the Chowaresmians, who, having fled before the Mongols, were lured by the Egyptian Sultan Ayoub to serve as his mercenaries. The Christian dominion was now restricted to Acre. Louis landed in Egypt in a.d. 1249, suffered defeat, and was taken prisoner. Ransomed at a great price, he sailed for Acre the next year; but he could do little, and he was compelled to return home in the year 1254. A later attempt by St. Louis to break the Mohammedan power at Tunis proved also to be a failure. Acre fell in the year 1291, and with its fall the last remnant of the Latin power in the East vanished. Henceforth all Palestine remained under the rule of Islam.
