The World of the Crusades

by Christopher Tyerman

  9. The siege of Acre.

  The German Expedition, 1189–90

  Frederick Barbarossa’s accommodation with the papacy and the acceptance of his son Henry VI as his heir and regent in Germany made an early muster in May 1189 possible. Frederick’s army made good progress through Hungary thanks to a negotiated agreement over access to markets. Once in Byzantine territory, the Germans encountered opposition, in part due to the impotence and vacillation of Emperor Isaac II Angelus (1185–95). Frederick solved the diplomatic and supply problems by occupying the rich province of Thrace to the west of Constantinople from November 1189. A new treaty with the Greeks (February 1190) provided transport across the Hellespont and access to markets at moderate exchange rates, although the latter proved nugatory once the Germans crossed into Asia Minor in late March. The need to resupply the army and secure adequate provisions drove it forwards despite heavy Turkish assaults. Victory at Iconium in May restocked the army with money, supplies, food and morale. By June, Frederick had brought his battered but still impressive force to the borders of Christian Cilician Armenia, one of the more remarkable feats of western arms in crusading history. The achievement was immediately undone by Frederick’s sudden death on 10 June during the crossing of the River Saleph. His army rapidly disintegrated, only a remnant reaching Acre the following November led by the emperor’s son, Frederick of Swabia. The loss of the German army changed the course of the crusade, prolonging the siege of Acre, reducing the chances of recovering Jerusalem, and exposing the delay of the kings of France and England.

  The Anglo-French Crusade

  In the Anglo-French realms, the peace brokered when Henry II and Philip II took the cross in January 1188 soon collapsed. While Henry’s death in July 1189 and the accession of Richard I allowed crusade plans to reach fruition, carefully sculpted agreements over sharing profits and the choreographed progress of the Anglo-Angevin and French royal armies highlighted tensions, exacerbated by an obvious disparity in wealth and organisation. Richard was able to hire his own fleet and subsidise many of his followers, who came to include Philip and other prominent French commanders whom he then outbid for siege engines and hired service once he had arrived at Acre. After leaving together from Vézelay on 4 July 1190, exactly three years after Hattin, and agreeing to muster at Messina in Sicily, each king made his separate way, Philip via Genoa and Richard to Marseilles where he hoped to meet his fleet. Gathered from England, Anjou and Poitou, the fleet comprised about one hundred ships carrying, according to a well-informed witness, over 10,000 sailors, knights and infantry, rations for a year (presumably chiefly flour and dried biscuits) and military equipment.23 A year’s pay was calculated in advance with the royal treasure evenly distributed across the fleet to reduce losses from shipwreck. From its full muster at Lisbon in July 1190, the fleet was scheduled to meet the king at Marseilles the following month. They missed each other by three weeks, the king hiring a flotilla of galleys to take his military household, perhaps numbering 3,000, from Marseilles to Messina where army and navy were finally united in late September.

  The Sicilian interlude in the winter of 1190–1 was marked by worsening relations between Richard and Philip and open hostility between Richard and the island’s inhabitants, especially King Tancred (1189–94). However, the stay provided supplies, ships, refits and funds, including 40,000 gold ounces extracted from Tancred by Richard in lieu of a legacy of Tancred’s predecessor William II (1166–89) to Henry II for the crusade and the dower of William’s widow, Richard’s sister, Joan. A third of the gold went to Philip, along with 10,000 marks to release Richard from a promise to marry Philip’s sister, and some ships, a windfall that allowed Philip to re-equip and continue by sea. Philip sailed for Acre on 20 March, arriving on 20 April. His forces and large siege machines, given suitably belligerent nicknames (for example, Bad Neighbour and God’s Stonethrower) made an immediate impact on morale and tactics.24 However, the French fleet paled beside the armada assembled by Richard I, possibly containing over 200 vessels, 17,000 soldiers and crew, as well as trebuchets and Richard’s prefabricated wooden castle. Richard sailed from Sicily on 10 April. Dispersed by bad weather, the fleet reassembled at Cyprus which, after a lightning campaign during May against its independent Greek ruler, Isaac Comnenus, fell to Richard. Whether planned or opportunist, the conquest of Cyprus proved the most durable achievement of the Third Crusade, made at the expense of fellow Christians. The island may already have been a major supplier for the Christian army at Acre. Immediately, it became a milch-cow for Richard. He initially sold the island to the Templars for 100,000 bezants (of which 40,000 were forthcoming) and later in 1192 to Guy of Lusignan, no longer king of Jerusalem, for a further 60,000 bezants. Guy originally came from Poitou, his family Richard’s vassals in France. The Lusignans were to rule Cyprus (from 1196 as kings) until the late fifteenth century, with the island remaining in western hands until conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1571.

  FOOD AND DRINK

  While enthusiasm and ideology may have initiated crusades, their viability, conduct and course depended on the availability of adequate food and drink.25 Harvests determined the departure time for land armies on the first three major eastern crusades, all of which subsequently experienced problems in accessing markets and securing fair prices or sufficient supplies. The need to refit and restock directed crusades to winter in Constantinople (1096–7; 1147–8; 1203–4); Thrace (1189–90); Sicily (1190–1); Cyprus (1248–9); and ports in Iberia (1147; 1217–18) and the western Mediterranean (the Flemish fleet in 1203–4; the Frisians in 1217–18). The search for supplies drove crusade itineraries, diplomacy and military action. The great long sieges conducted by the First, Third and Fifth Crusades required provisioning from across the Greek- and Turkish-held Levant. Louis IX of France’s agents spent two years stockpiling grain and wine in Cyprus before his 1248 crusade. Failure to find adequate supplies compromised the Germans and French in 1147–8 and the crusaders at Venice in 1202 when they ate the food intended for the forthcoming campaign. Calculations of required amounts of food and drink were integral to crusaders’ treaties with Genoa (1190); Venice (1201 and 1268); and Henry VI of Germany’s contracts with his knights and sergeants in 1195. Almost all detailed descriptions of crusade campaigns emphasise the importance and difficulties of obtaining sufficient food supplies. The depredations in Hungary by the forces of Peter the Hermit in 1096 were caused by the loss of their baggage train of over 2,000 wagons carrying corn, barley and meat. Land armies were slowed by packhorses and food carts, as well as the need to forage for items such as grain, honey and vegetables, and to allow animals for slaughter and horses to graze. All crusade armies, whether transported by land or sea, faced the problem of the sheer bulk of provender needed to sustain men, pack animals and horses.

  Modern estimates, based on contemporary calculations in treaties and advisory tracts, suggest that a crusader might have consumed 1.3 kilos of food a day, mainly grain or flour (which weighed less) to make bread or the ubiquitous unappetising hard ship’s biscuit, supplemented by small amounts of cheese, salted meat (predominantly pork), and dried legumes, with between 3 and 8 litres of liquid, depending on activity, more if actually fighting. Horses, even on land if stall fed, required daily 5 kilos of grain, 5 of hay and 32 litres of water. The 1201 Venetian treaty specified provision of c. 400 kilos of bread, flour, grain and legumes per man and c. 340 litres of wine, enough for about ten months, with c. 800 kilos of grain for each horse. In his compendious early fourteenth-century guide to crusading, the Venetian Marino Sanudo produced precise estimates for consumption of biscuits, wine, meat, cheese and beans. Richard I’s preparations for his fleet in 1190 showed that commanders were well aware of what was needed. Exchequer records itemised the collection of food for the fleet: 140 large cheeses and 300 bacon carcasses from Essex and Hertfordshire; 100 cheeses, 800 bacon carcasses and 20 measures of beans from Hampshire; 100 measures of beans from Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire and 276 meas
ures of beans from Gloucestershire. These staple ingredients aside, crusaders might expect to supplement their diet where possible with local perishable produce – eggs, meat, fruit and vegetables (rarely enough if the apparent ubiquity of scurvy-related conditions is a guide), and local wine (although Norwegians in 1110 fatally underestimated the strength of Greek retsina).

  69. Eating and drinking on campaign: Normans in England 1066, with the meal blessed by a future 1096 crusader, Bishop Odo of Bayeux.

  On campaign, one of the most frequently noted civilian groups were cooks, some of whom were evidently master chefs, while others ran the equivalent of mess tents or soup kitchens. Apart from occasional mass shortages, access to food became a divisive mark of status as well as stimulating cooperation in messing together. At Antioch in 1098 and Acre in 1190, the rich were criticised for pushing up prices for the poor. Hoarding appeared a perennial problem. Stories of famine, of eating horses, pack-animals, vermin or roots, and even of cannibalism highlighted the contrasting degrees of access to supplies, an inequality that could strain army cohesion. The usually loyal John of Joinville may have voiced a general feeling when in retrospect he condemned the French barons after the fall of Damietta in 1249. They ‘should have preserved their resources in order to make good use of them’; instead they ‘took to serving splendid meals and lavish dishes’.26 Some of these may not have been good for the diners. Although some Franks in Outremer adopted local Levantine cuisine, the evidence of excavated middens suggests that westerners stuck to familiar diets, notably in their enthusiasm for pork. The latrines at Acre also show they were infested with parasitic intestinal worms.27

  Richard reached Acre on 8 June 1191 to find the siege already in its final stages. The garrison surrendered on 12 July. Despite vicious squabbling over the distribution of booty, Acre gave the crusade a secure harbour and military base, crucial for prospects both for the crusade and the restoration of a viable Frankish Outremer for which the city came to act as both capital and major economic centre, one of the chief commercial entrepôts of western Asia. After Acre’s capitulation, a pattern to the Palestine war quickly emerged. Even before the city fell, Richard opened diplomatic contact with Saladin, his purpose to seek an agreed restoration of the kingdom of Jerusalem, including the Holy City, by presenting the sultan with an implacable military threat. The departure of Philip II at the end of July to secure his interests back in France, leaving the bulk of French troops behind under the duke of Burgundy, gave Richard dominant command. Although Conrad of Montferrat and elements of the Outremer baronage pursued their own negotiations with Saladin, Richard’s tactics and strategy determined the remaining fourteen months of the Holy Land conflict.

  The confrontation between Saladin and Richard I caught the imaginations of the sultan’s entourage and later observers. Diplomacy shadowed force. Richard signalled his determination by his massacre of 2,500–3,000 prisoners from Acre when Saladin delayed implementing the agreement over the city’s surrender. Saladin responded by killing captured Franks and crusaders. The two-handed chess of diplomacy and war continued. Moving south from Acre in late August 1191, Richard, flanked by the crusader fleet providing protection and supplies, led a fighting march along the coast towards Jaffa, shadowed and harried by Saladin’s troops. On 7 September, near Arsuf, the skirmishing developed into a set-piece encounter. Although the crusaders had the better of the exchange, Saladin’s army remained intact. The practical problems for both sides became apparent. With neither able to achieve a decisive victory, the military and diplomatic goals of each remained out of reach.

  Between September and December 1191, Richard methodically occupied the coastal plain of southern Palestine, positioning himself for either of his two strategic options, an assault on Jerusalem or an attack on Egypt. The latter was made more difficult when Saladin demolished the fortifications of Ascalon, although Richard toyed with a Genoese-backed assault on the Nile. Diplomacy ran on, apparently including an offer of Richard’s sister Joan in marriage to al-Adil as a means to a Palestinian condominium, a suggestion that incited her incandescent fury. After painfully slow progress towards Jerusalem, the crusaders reached Bayt Nuba, twelve miles from the Holy City at the turn of the year. Bad weather and the fears expressed by the local baronage and Military Orders over the risks of an assault on Jerusalem, and the difficulty of defending it once captured, encouraged Richard to order a withdrawal on 13 January 1192, turning the crusaders’ attention to rebuilding the fortifications at Ascalon. In June, following six months consolidating his hold over southern Palestine and the northern Negev, a reluctant Richard was forced by his allies and followers again to march towards Jerusalem. This time he took a week not two months to arrive at Bayt Nuba, only to withdraw once more on 4 July.

  In January and June 1192 tactical and strategic obstacles prevented hazarding a repeat of 1099. Saladin’s field army remained intact. The likely departure of most crusaders once Jerusalem had been captured and the absence of control over Transjordan allegedly made the Holy City untenable. However, these problems had not changed since the first march to Bayt Nuba. Richard’s withdrawal in January 1192 had already shown Saladin the weakness of his policy of trying to strong-arm diplomatic concessions. As Saladin could not afford to surrender Jerusalem he had no option but to call what turned out to be Richard’s bluff. The January withdrawal undermined the crusade’s unity, the prospect of Jerusalem being the only glue holding the Angevin-French coalition together. Richard’s alternative strategy of reinforcing Frankish control over the coastal plain and threatening Saladin’s supply routes to Egypt made military sense but denied the higher purpose of the whole enterprise. Why were the crusaders fighting in southern Palestine if not for Jerusalem, only a few miles away? By withdrawing without a fight for the Holy City, Richard undermined the providential assumptions behind the expedition, damaging morale while showing his hand to the enemy. Whether from over-subtle, conservative tactics or loss of nerve, by twice conceding Jerusalem was out of reach, Richard reduced pressure on Saladin, leaving a negotiated settlement for a condominium or two-state solution his best option. Details of such an agreement occupied discussions between Richard and al-Adil throughout 1192 alongside continued jockeying for military advantage.

  Political events further north cast a shadow. An unsatisfactory compromise over the Jerusalem succession had left Guy of Lusignan as king but forced to divide the lands and revenues with Conrad of Montferrat who was recognised with his wife Isabel, King Amalric’s younger daughter and since the death of Queen Sybil in 1190 heir to the kingdom, as Guy’s heirs. This agreement collapsed as Conrad threatened a separate treaty with Saladin. In April 1192, Richard was forced to accept Conrad as king of Jerusalem, with Guy’s purchase of Cyprus as compensation. The new settlement immediately unravelled when Conrad was assassinated in Tyre on 28 April, some said at Richard’s instigation, although other culprits, including Saladin, were equally plausible. Further dispute was prevented by the marriage of Conrad’s pregnant widow, Isabel, to Henry of Champagne, a crusade veteran of two years and conveniently a nephew of both Richard and Philip II. With Richard distracted in Acre, in late July Saladin attempted to break the deadlock in southern Palestine with a surprise attack on Jaffa only to be thwarted by the sudden appearance of Richard himself at the head of a small scratch naval relief force. Saladin’s failure at Jaffa gave Richard his most memorable and dramatic victory. It also proved to be the last shot at a military solution.

  Both sides now sought a settlement. Saladin’s political and financial capital was fast running out. Richard’s health, poor since contracting a form of scurvy or trench-mouth at Acre, took a turn for the worse. He also learnt of serious threats to his power in England and France. The sticking point was Saladin’s insistence on the demolition of the refortified walls at Ascalon, which Richard finally conceded in order to achieve an immediate deal. Under the Treaty of Jaffa (2 September 1192) a three-year truce was imposed across all remaining parts of Frankish Outremer.
Palestine was to be partitioned, the Franks retaining Acre, Jaffa and the coast between. The walls of Ascalon were to be demolished; the plain around Ramla and Lydda was declared a condominium with open access to Christians and Muslims alike; Christian pilgrims were allowed to visit the Holy Sepulchre. To facilitate future pilgrim trade, Saladin separately conceded the presence of small numbers of Latin priests at the Holy Sepulchre, the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth. The crusaders’ demand for the return of the relic of the True Cross lost at Hattin was dropped despite the relic being in Saladin’s treasury. Richard left the Holy Land on 9 October. If he had delayed until the spring passage in 1193, as he had promised in June 1192, he would have been available when Saladin died in Damascus on 4 March 1193 and the Ayyubid Empire descended into intra-dynastic feuding.