I faced a greater challenge when it came to William of Tyre’s last years. According to the later continuations of his history, he fell victim to the machinations of his political rival, Patriarch Eraclius. William was supposedly excommunicated by Eraclius and was poisoned at the patriarch’s orders as he traveled to Rome to appeal to the Pope. But no source contemporary with William made any mention of this rather lurid tale, neither the Saracen chroniclers nor any of the English or French chroniclers who had a keen interest in the Holy Land. While most historians have dismissed the entire story out of hand, Peter Edbury and John Gordon Rowe, authors of William’s only biography, think that it is possible he was excommunicated by Eraclius, for it was often used as a political weapon in the Middle Ages. I’ve found no historians who believe the claim that William was murdered. Nor was I convinced that he was excommunicated, finding it unlikely that no one would have reported the disgrace of so prominent a churchman, who was both an archbishop and a highly regarded historian. There is confusion, too, about the exact year of William’s death. We know it occurred on Michaelmas, September 29, but we cannot be sure if it happened in 1184, 1185, or 1186. I thought 1185 was the most likely year under the circumstances.
Now a word about Jakelin de Mailly. He was identified as the marshal of the Templars in contemporary sources and none thought to question it. But a letter eventually surfaced, written by Gerard de Ridefort to the Pope, reporting the death of his Templar brethren and the grand master of the Hospitallers at Cresson Springs; he mentions several men, Jakelin being one of them, but the title of marshal appears behind the name of another Templar. So in recent years, some historians have concluded that the medieval sources must have been in error. I do not agree. Obedience was the cornerstone of the Templar order and its members were pledged to follow their grand master without question; this is why the Templars surrendered their castles at Gaza and Latrun to Saladin after being commanded to do so by Gerard de Ridefort. We have a vivid account of the bitter quarrel before the battle at Cresson Springs, when Jakelin argued against making an attack because they were so outnumbered and Gerard impugned his courage. I cannot imagine an ordinary knight daring to challenge his grand master like that. It makes sense only if Jakelin was indeed their marshal, for he’d then have been in charge of military matters. So if a mistake was made, I think it is more likely that it was made by a papal clerk when he copied de Ridefort’s letter for the papal archives, putting the title of marshal after the wrong man’s name.
Balian and Maria’s marriage is a remarkable one because of the disparity between her rank and his. By medieval standards, he was definitely not a worthy husband for a former queen, the kinswoman of the Emperor Manuel. We know nothing of the circumstances leading up to this unlikely pairing, only that their marriage seems to have been a happy one. There are only two logical explanations for the marriage. Either it was a love match in which Maria was prepared to defy her own kinsman, King Baldwin, and the social mores of the time in order to wed Balian. Or the marriage was meant to be a disparaging one for Maria. I think it was a punitive act that boomeranged badly, a suggestion that Peter Edbury also made in his biography of Maria and Balian’s eldest son, John, Lord of Beirut.
I always clear my conscience in my author’s notes, alerting my readers if I have taken any liberties with known historical facts. Because I am obsessive-compulsive about historical accuracy (one reason my family and friends will no longer go with me to see historical films, tired of hearing me muttering into my popcorn from the first scene to the last), I try to keep these liberties to the bare minimum. In this novel, I twice allowed al-‘Ādil to venture from Egypt to visit his brother Saladin when I needed to bring him to the reader’s attention. Since he certainly did visit Saladin from time to time, I did not have any conscience pangs about this. I took another small liberty in letting Baldwin learn of the results of Reynald’s audacious raid into the Red Sea. We cannot be sure if even Reynald knew what happened to the men who were captured and subsequently executed.
I occasionally have to alter the names of minor characters, given the lamentable medieval tradition of recycling the same family names over and over; I can assure you no author wants to have to keep track of half a dozen Edwards or Eleanors or Henrys in the course of one book. To make it easier for my readers, I was asked to change the name of Agnes’s husband and Baldwin’s stepfather, Renaud de Grenier, because there were two other major characters named Reynald and Raymond. So he became Denys for this book. I often resort to variants of a name in different languages, like Henry and Heinrich. This time I let the young king Baldwin lay claim to that name, and went with the French version for Baudouin. The same was true for Eschiva and Esquiva, Hugh and Hugues, Agnes and Agneta. I called Taqī al-Dīn’s son Khālid because he shared the name Ahmad with al-‘Ādil, and I slightly altered the name of the elderly Patriarch of Jerusalem to Emeric. I also referred to Hugues by his title, calling him Hugues of Galilee rather than Hugues de St. Omer, his family name.
We know Baldwin had a spymaster; all medieval kings did. We do not know his identity, since secrecy was an essential element of his job description. I gave Baldwin’s chief spy the name of one of the Lionheart’s agents who was famed for his ability to spy on the Saracens and avoid detection. While Anselm is my creation, the real Baldwin must have had an Anselm of his own as his health deteriorated.
For readers who guessed that Saladin’s favorite game of mall is today known as polo, you are quite right. And al-‘Ādil’s children really did have a pet giraffe, which they brought with them from Egypt to Syria.
The cover of The Land Beyond the Sea is a depiction of a painting by the nineteenth-century French artist Charles-Philippe Larivière, celebrating Baldwin’s victory over a much larger Saracen army at Montgisard. Sharp-eyed readers may notice that there are two archers in the foreground and that Baldwin has a beard. The artist did not know that the Frankish army used crossbowmen, their only archers being mounted turcopoles, or that noblemen in the kingdom were clean-shaven. We decided, though, that the dramatic impact of the scene far outweighed these minor anachronisms.
Finally, a few comments about the last chapters. It is usually said that Conrad of Montferrat reached Tyre on July 15, 1187, but he actually arrived in mid-August. Some historians say that Prince Bohemond’s eldest son briefly became Count of Tripoli after the death of Count Raymond, but Jochen Burgtorf, author of “The Antiochene War of Succession,” a chapter in The Crusader World, edited by Adrian J. Boas, effectively refutes that. Because it was reported that Stephanie de Milly and Isabella entreated Saladin to free Humphrey, I assumed this occurred right after the surrender of Jerusalem to the sultan. I’d already written the final chapters when I discovered a passage in ‘Imād al-Dīn’s chronicle that said the women came to see the sultan on Humphrey’s behalf in November of that year. So we cannot say with certainty whether Isabella remained in the city during the siege or if she departed with Maria and the younger children.
Sometimes the most credible information comes from hostile sources. For example, I’d have been skeptical if Christian chroniclers had been the ones to report that Richard had ridden in front of the Saracen army after the battle of Jaffa and none had dared to accept his challenge; it sounds too Hollywoodish, doesn’t it? But that story came from several Saracen chroniclers, who were mortified that no one had been willing to take on the Lionheart in single combat. In the same vein, I’d probably have been hesitant about accepting stories of the kind treatment of the Jerusalem refugees by Saladin’s men had they come from Saracen sources. They were reported, though, by Christian chroniclers, who also spoke admiringly of the generosity and magnanimity of al-‘Ādil and the sultan to their defeated foes. And Balian’s desperate ultimatum to Saladin was quoted by all the Saracen chroniclers, so I was able to draw upon his actual words in that dramatic scene.
I’d like to end by saying a few words about Balian d’Ibelin. For more than thirty years, I’ve
been blessed, able to research and then to write about some of the most remarkable men and women of the Middle Ages. Most of them are better known than Balian, who was slandered by the chroniclers of the Third Crusade because he was allied with Conrad and hostile to Guy. History then seems to have forgotten about him. His one brush with fame came in Kingdom of Heaven, where he was magically transformed into an illegitimate French blacksmith who still managed to bedazzle a queen, only she was Sybilla, not Maria. The filmmakers did get one thing right: Balian truly was the savior of Jerusalem, rescuing thousands of civilians who faced death or slavery. I’ve written about men of great courage in past books, but I do not think any of them showed the courage of Balian d’Ibelin, who could not turn away from the terrified citizens of the Holy City, even if it meant sacrificing his own life in an attempt to save them.
SKP
January 2019
www.sharonkaypenman.com
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When I did the acknowledgments for Lionheart, I quoted one of my favorite lines from Casablanca: “Round up the usual suspects.” That quip applies equally well to the acknowledgments for The Land Beyond the Sea, for I’ve enjoyed remarkable stability with my editors and agents. I’ve been blessed to work with an editor extraordinaire, Marian Wood, since the very start of my writing career, and in the course of our long partnership, she has truly been a godsend—teacher, critic, guide, and occasionally guardian angel. I am so grateful to her. Good editors are hard to find, yet I’ve managed to strike gold time and time again. Marian is, of course, the mother lode, but I’ve been so fortunate, too, in being able to work with Jeremy Trevathan, my British editor at Macmillan, and now with Gabriella Mongelli at G. P. Putnam. If we consider editors to be literary midwives, The Land Beyond the Sea could not have gotten off to a better start in life.
I have been equally blessed with my agents, both of whom have been with me since the publication of The Sunne in Splendour. There is not a better agent in the United States than mine, Molly Friedrich of the Friedrich Agency, and my British agent, Mic Cheetham of the Mic Cheetham Agency, shines just as brightly on her side of the pond. They navigate the stormy publishing seas with impressive ease as they steer their writers toward a safe harbor. I also benefit from their insights and instincts, for they both would have made excellent editors had they chosen another career path. So . . . to my wonderful editors and my amazing agents—this is a heartfelt thank-you.
Thanks are due, too, to the friends who made my research trip to Israel possible. In a time of turmoil, Enda Junkins and Paula Mildenhall were willing to accompany me in pursuit of my ghosts—the remarkable men and women who lived and died in the twelfth-century Kingdom of Jerusalem. Not only was I able to visit the sites so crucial to the novel, I collected a treasure trove of memories—wandering the ancient streets of the Old City, discovering that Jerusalem has almost as many outdoor cafés as Paris, marveling as Paula proved to be a magnet for the countless stray cats of Jerusalem; we’d not realized that she is a Cat Whisperer. It was one of the most memorable trips of my life.
I owe a debt of gratitude, too, to our Israeli friends, Koby Itzhak and Valerie ben David, and to our American friend Elke Weiss, who was living in Jerusalem at the time of our visit. Elke gave us an insider’s tour of the city, explained local customs, showed us sites we might otherwise have missed, and was able to get me in to see Christ’s Tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. She was also delightful company, and whenever I think of Jerusalem now, I think, too, of Elke. Koby and I had corresponded for years, never imagining we might meet face-to-face one day, much less that he’d be our guide at Jaffa and Acre or that we’d get to meet his family, too. I will never forget our discussions about the battle of Haṭṭīn as we explored the ruins of Sepphoris (called Saforie in my novel), while our friends teased us that we sounded as if the battle had been fought yesterday. Valerie ben David was a Facebook friend who generously offered to drive us out to the battlefield at the Horns of Haṭṭīn; it was not well marked and I doubt that we could have found it on our own. I feel so lucky to have been able to see Israel through the eyes of my Israeli friends.
I have always attempted to visit all the sites I’ve written about, failing to do so only with Lionheart. It is true that modern life has often swept away the medieval past, and it is possible nowadays to find videos online of many of these historical ruins. I still like to see the stark silhouette of an ancient castle and to walk across a battlefield where armies once clashed. And every now and then, a place will resonate in a way I’d not expected. I had an emotional, visceral reaction to Welsh castles like Dolwyddelan and Criccieth. Standing in the piazza outside the church in Viterbo that had been the scene of one of the most shocking murders of the Middle Ages, I experienced an eerie sense of timelessness, half expecting to see the cobblestones stained with the blood of the de Montforts’ cousin. And I had a similar reaction at Haṭṭīn.
Valerie gave me such a gift by making it possible for us to see the Haṭṭīn battlefield for ourselves. When I began to write about it, I still had vivid mental images of the rough, rock-strewn terrain, the barren hills, the utter desolation. From the summit of one of the Horns, I could glimpse the shimmering blue of the Sea of Galilee, and found it all too easy to imagine how that view must have tormented the thirst-maddened men. The utter insanity of Guy de Lusignan’s decision to march across this waterless wasteland proved yet again that truth is stranger than fiction. If he’d not actually embarked on this mad trek, I’d not have dared to have him take such a risk, fearing readers would not believe it.
I would like to thank my writer friend Priscilla Royal for her unflagging support and willingness to share her impressive knowledge of the Middle Ages. Another writer friend, Stephanie Churchill, has been there for me whenever I was in need of encouragement; she was also kind enough to set up my Facebook author page. And special thanks to my friend Rania Melhem for vetting my use of Arabic phrases in the novel. I would like to thank a family friend, Haralambos Haranis, for answering my questions about the Greek language. I would like to mention my Facebook allies, too, those brave souls who volunteered to manage my Facebook fan clubs: Jo Nelson, May Liang, Fiona Scott-Doran, Lesley West, Celia Jelbart, and Stephen Gilligan.
In my past acknowledgments, I have always given credit to my friend Valerie LaMont and her husband, Lowell LaMont, for their invaluable aid. Valerie shared my passion for the past and I drew often upon her medieval lore and insights while writing these novels. Lowell was my computer guru, able to exorcise the most stubborn computer demon. But we lost Lowell and then Valerie in the years since A King’s Ransom was published, and the world is a sadder, bleaker place without them. There truly are people who are irreplaceable.
I cannot mention all of the books I consulted while researching this novel; my readers know how obsessive-compulsive I am about this! I hope to add a bibliography section to my website, but it is still in the planning stage. So I am listing here the histories that I found most helpful. For those who are interested in the culture and society of the kingdom, I recommend The Crusaders in the Holy Land, by Meron Benvenisti; The World of the Crusaders, by Joshua Prawer; The Crusader World, edited by Adrian J. Boas; and Crusader Archaeology: The Material Culture of the Latin East, by Adrian J. Boas.
Sadly, with one exception, there are few biographies of the major characters in my novel; that exception is, of course, Saladin. For the d’Ibelin family, the closest we come is a biography of Balian and Maria’s eldest son, John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, by Peter W. Edbury. The German historian H. E. Mayer has a fascinating article called “Carving Up Crusaders: The Early Ibelins and Ramlas,” in Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem Presented to Joshua Prawer, edited by B. Z. Kedar, H. E, Mayer, and R. C. Smail. Bernard Hamilton’s The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem offers an overview of the royal family and major lords. Peter W. Edbury and John
Gordon Rowe have written William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East. A few articles have been written about the Queens of Jerusalem, with the focus on Sybilla, including “La Roine Preude Femme et Bonne Dame: Queen Sybil of Jerusalem (1186–1190) in History and Legend, 1186–1300,” in The Haskins Society Journal 15 (2004); “Queen or Consort: Rulership and Politics in the Latin East (1118–1228),” by Sarah Lambert, in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, edited by Anne Duggan; Gendering the Crusades, edited by Susan B. Edgington and Sarah Lambert; and “Women in the Crusader States: The Queens of Jerusalem (1100–1190),” by Bernard Hamilton, in Medieval Women, edited by Derek Baker.
These books cover Baldwin’s reign and life in Outremer. “Propaganda and Faction in the Kingdom of Jerusalem: The Background to Haṭṭīn,” by Peter W. Edbury, in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, edited by Maya Shatzmiller; The Crusader States, by Malcolm Barber; The Crusades and Their Sources: Essays Presented to Bernard Hamilton, edited by John France and William G. Zajac; Franks, Muslims, and Oriental Christians in the Latin Levant, by Benjamin Z. Kedar; The Latin Church in the Crusader States: The Secular Church, by Bernard Hamilton; The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages and Crusader Institutions, both by Joshua Prawer; Crusade and Settlement, edited by Peter W. Edbury; Alliances and Treaties Between Frankish and Muslim Rulers in the Middle East: Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in the Period of the Crusades, by Michael A. Köhler; The Experience of Crusading, volume 2: Defining the Crusader Kingdom, edited by Peter Edbury and Jonathan Phillips; Kings and Lords in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, by Hans Eberhard Mayer; The Road to Armageddon: The Last Years of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, by W. B. Bartlett; A History of the Crusades, volume 2: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100–1187, by Steven Runciman; Montjoie: Studies in Crusade History in Honour of Hans Eberhard Mayer, edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Riley-Smith, and Rudolf Hiestand; Tolerance and Intolerance: Social Conflict in the Age of the Crusades, edited by Michael Gervers and James M. Powell; Autour de la Première Croisade: Actes du Colloque de la Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East: Clermont-Ferrand, 22–25 Juin 1995, edited by Michel Balard (excellent essays in English about the Holy Cross and messenger pigeons in the Levant).
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