Sea of Faith

by Stephen O'Shea

Humiliated, Louis dragged Eleanor away from Antioch: The messy episode is gleefully summed up in Read, Templars, 122—23.

  the Geniza archive: A cache of some 250,000 documents kept at the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo. As it was forbidden to destroy any manuscript that contained the name of God, or even Hebrew letters, leather-bound documents had been chucked into a storage space for centuries. Forgotten, then discovered in 1864 by Jacob Saphir, an intrepid Lithuanian Talmudist, the whole lot was eventually sold off in bits and pieces by the impecunious Jews of Cairo, until in 1913 not one document was left in the city. Much of the great cache was corraled by Cambridge University. For an entertaining evocation of this scholarly gold rush, see Max Rodenbeck, Cairo: The City Victorious (New York: Vintage, 2000), 72-74.

  "they were led past colonnades": Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. 2, The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100—1183 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952), 373. In one sentence Runciman admirably sums up a long passage in the chronicle of William, archbishop of Tyre, one of our main primary sources for this period. The original may be found in William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, trans. Emily Atwa-ter Babcock (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), 2:319-21. The monumental Runciman remains our main secondary source for the crusades.

  This atrocity got Cairo off the fence: Runciman holds that the deed was primarily done by a group of newcomers to the Levant from Nevers, France, whose count had died and were therefore uncontrollable. Whatever the case, a small westerner flotilla arrived shortly thereafter at the Coptic delta town of Tanis and performed the same merciless slaughter of every inhabitant. Runciman, History of the Crusades, 2:381.

  in a conflagration, according to the chroniclers, that lasted two months: An admirable summation of this event occurs in Andre Raymond, Cairo, trans. Willard Wood (Cambridge, mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000): "The Frankish troops arrived before Cairo on 13 November. According to Arab historical tradition, Shawar [the vizier], unable to defend the unwalled city of Fustat, ordered its population to be evacuated. The residents responded with alacrity, having heard the terrible fate of the people of Bilbays. Then Shawar ordered Fustat to be torched so that it could not serve as a base of operations for the Franks in their attack on Qahira [Cairo]. . . . Arab historians . . . have given detailed and highly colored accounts of this patriotic incident, which has overtones of Rostopchin's order to burn Moscow at Napoleon's approach in 1812. Shawar is said to have had 20,000 jars of naphtha and 10,000 torches set in Fustat. The conflagration lasted for fifty-four days, and looters ran riot. From that time on, writes Marqizi, Fustat became the ruin known today as the kiman [little mounds]" (75).

  Raymond's skull, set in a silver case: Runciman, History of the Crusades, 2:326. Based on the William of Tyre, History of Deeds, 2:199. William says that Raymond's right arm had also been cut off and sent to the caliph of Baghdad. After he saw this grisly duo of head and arm, "it was then sent to all the other Turkish satraps throughout the Orient."

  his demise from dysentery: P. H. Newby, Saladin in His Times (London: Phoenix, 1983), 65.

  a younger brother from a small fief in the Loire Valley: Reynaud (anglicized as Reginald in some studies) was a younger son of Geoffrey, count of Gien-sur-Loire, and took his name from Chatillon-sur-Loire. See Read, Templars, 142. The sleepy Sologne village of Gien-sur-Loire would be the scene of campaigning by Joan of Arc in 1429.

  "a woman so eminent, so distinguished and powerful": William of Tyre, History of Deeds, 2:224.

  Reynaud rounded up all the Orthodox priests of Cyprus: Maalouf, Crusades Through Arab Eyes, 157.

  "The Christians impose a tax on the Muslims . . .": Abu 1-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Jubayr, The Travels of Ibn Jubayr: A Mediaeval Spanish Muslim visits Makkah, Madinah, Egypt, Cities of the Middle East and Sicily, trans. Roland Broadhurst (1952; New Delhi: Good-word, 2003), 301.

  They were subsequently beheaded: Ibn Jubayr was in Alexandria when some of the imprisoned raiders were brought into town. He appears to have questioned them himself, before their execution. He states that one of their aims was to steal the body of Muhammad from its grave. If this is true, Reynaud was truly a sociopath. Ibn Jubayr, Travels of Ibn Jubayr, 51-53.

  "the people . . . gave way to iniquity and debauchery": Kemal al-Din, quoted in Lewis, Assassins, III.

  "He [the messenger] said . . .": Lewis, Assassins, 116—17.

  On the death of Nur al-Din's son, al Salih: In 1181. Al-Salih was only eighteen on his death. The pro-Zengid chronicler Ibn al-Athir (1160-1233), in Sum of World History, claims that he refused, as a good Muslim, a medicinal glass of wine and as a result expired. Maalouf, Crusades Through Arab Eyes, 183—84.

  Toward the end of 1186 an enormous caravan: A rousing and imaginative reconstruction of this raid can be found in James Reston, Jr., Warriors of God: Richard the Lionheart and Saladin in the Third Crusade (New York: Doubleday, 2001), 23-25. Reston maintains, against the current historical consensus, that Saladin's sister was among the captives. The chronicle Estoire d'Era-cles, a continuation of William of Tyre, is the source of this tale of Saladin's sister, but Runciman, History of the Crusades, debunks it (2:450, 454).

  Sea of Galilee: This body of water is also known as Lake Tiberias and Lake Kinneret, the latter from the Hebrew word for "harp," which some see as the shape of the lake.

  Cana: This could read, "What is believed by many biblical scholars to be the location of Cana." As with most biblical sites, generations of academics and archaeologists have squabbled over what happened where. It is now called Kafr Cana.

  Sibylla's mother: Agnes of Courtenay, a daughter of the count of Edessa (Joscelin II), who lost that city to Zengi. Agnes married four times, once to King Amalric of Jerusalem, by whom she had Sibylla and Baldwin IV (the leper king).

  the widowed heiress of Botrun: Botrun was a wealthy port south of Tripoli. The payment was ten thousand besants of gold, paid after her husband ungallantly put her on a scale. Runciman, History of the Crusades, punctiliously estimates that Lucia's "weight would have been about 10 stone" or 140 pounds (2:406n).

  "This crown compensates for the Botrun marriage": Estoire d'Eracles, cited in Regine Pernoud, ed., The Crusades, trans. Enid McLeod (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962), 154.

  By midday of May 1: A certain Ernoul, squire to a great poulain lord, Balian of Ibelin, may have been an eyewitness to the events. His chronicle—published as Chronique d'Ernoul et de Bernard le Tresorier (ed. Mas Latrie, Paris, 1871)—provides, along with the continuator of William of Tyre through the Estoire d'Eracles, much of the information on the politics of the kingdom of Jerusalem and the course of events during that fateful summer.

  "You love your blond head . . . !": Estoire d'Eracles, quoted in Runciman, History of the Crusades, 2:453. to depart along with his kin. Saladin not only granted this breaking of a vow but arranged for Balian's family to be taken to safety before the siege began.

  The order was given to bypass Tauran: Geoffrey Regan, Saladin and the Fall of Jerusalem (North Ryde, Australia: Croom Helm, 1987), 121.

  "Ah! Lord God, the battle is over! . . .": Ralph of Coggeshall, Libellus de Expugnatione Ter-rae Sanctaeper Saladinum. Ralph, although not considered an eyewitness, is thought to have been an Englishman who participated in the defense of Jerusalem and thus would have heard the stories from the survivors of Hattin. Quoted in James A. Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary Survey (Milwaukee, Wise: Marquette University Press, 1962), 157.

  Kibbutz Lavi: My stay there, and the conversation with Mr. Aldubi, took place in June 2003.

  Saladin's men ostentatiously poured streams of water: Ralph of Coggeshall, quoted in Brundage, Crusades, 157.

  goatskins filled with water: Jean Richard, The Crusades, c. 1031—1291, trans. Jean Burrell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 205.

  they ran headlong from the columns: Estoire d'Eracles also speaks of five knights conspicuously defecting from the Christian side and tel
ling Saladin of the disarray in the crusader army. See Pernoud, Crusades, 166.

  "We are not coming down . . .": Ralph of Coggeshall, quoted in Brundage, Crusades, 157.

  the disciplined formations of Taliq al-Din parted: Ibn al-Athir, quoted in Gabrieli, Arab Historians, 122.

  "The Frankish king had retreated to the hill . . .": Saladin's son, al-Afad, gave this account to Ibn al-Athir, who was not present at the battle. Still, the chronicler is thought to be the most level-headed of the Arab sources. See Gabrieli, Arab Historians, 122—23.

  "A king does not kill a king": The chronicler Beha ed-Din, quoted in Runciman, History of the Crusades, 2:460.

  in killings often gruesomely botched by the amateur swordsmen: The chronicler Imad ed-Din, an eyewitness and faithful servant of Saladin, quoted in Newby, Saladin, 118.

  Irony would be served: The Christian monument at Hattin gives the relevant passage from the New Testament: "And he goeth up into a mountain and calleth unto him whom he would and they came unto him." Imad ed-Din's description of the place gives a contrast: "The dead were scattered over the mountain and valleys, lying immobile on their sides. Hittin [Hattin] shrugged off their carcasses, and the perfume of victory was thick with the stench of them. I passed by them and saw the limbs of the fallen cast naked in the field of battle, scattered in pieces over the site of the encounter, lacerated and disjointed, with heads cracked open, throats split, spines broken, necks shattered, feet in pieces, noses mutilated, extremities torn off, members dismembered, parts shredded, eyes gouged out, stomachs disembowelled, hair coloured with blood, the praccordium slashed, fingers sliced off, the thorax shattered, the ribs broken, the joints disjointed, bones broken, tunics torn off, faces lifeless, wounds gaping, skin flayed, fragments chopped off, hair lopped, backs skinless, bodies dismembered, teeth knocked out, blood spilt, life's last breath exhaled, necks lolling, joints slackened, pupils liquefied, heads hanging, livers crusted, ribs staved in, heads shattered, breasts flayed, spirits flown, their very ghosts crushed, like stones among stones, a lesson to the wise." Gabrieli, Arab Historians, 135.

  the sultan insisted that the bargain be kept: Runciman, History of the Crusades, 2:466.

  he was long remembered more in the west than he was in Islamic countries: Hillenbrand, Crusades, 589—616.

  CHAPTER 7: LAS NAVAS DE TOLOSA 1212

  "to free most of the soil of Spain from its alien invaders": Paul Fregosi, Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the Seventh to the Twenty-first Centuries (New York: Prometheus, 1998), 195.

  a French adventurer given Alfonso's daughter in marriage: Henry of Burgundy (1066—1112) married Teresa of Leon, Alfonso VI's illegitimate daughter, and became count of Coimbra. Their son, Alfonso Henriques, had himself crowned the first king of Portugal in n39 and is styled, in Portuguese, Afonso I.

  Of the twenty-nine battles he won against them: Derek Lomax, The Reconquest of Spain (New York: Longman, 1978), 82.

  ten thousand Christians of Granada . . . the grandfather of Averroes: Lomax, Reconquest, 85.

  the sophisticated cities of al-Andalus were a mouthwatering prize: Bernard F. Reilly, in The Medieval Spains (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), points out that Alfonso the Battler's conquest of the taifa state resulted in the kingdom of Aragon doubling in size and increasing in population from 125,000 to 500,000 (no). Similar gains could be made by capturing other Muslim cities. There obviously was more to the reconquista than just piety.

  quite possibly impotent Alfonso the Battler: Reilly, Medieval Spains, 109.

  Rubet ensis sanguine Arabum: Desmond Seward, The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders (London: Penguin, 1995), 152.

  In endowering Zaida with this necklace of fortresses: Reilly, Medieval Spains, 72.

  the heresy of ascribing anthropomorphic attributes: Roger Le Tourneau, The Almohad Movement in North Africa in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969), 46.

  mahdi: In sunni Islam, the mahdi is an important figure but not a messiah. For the shia, the mahdi is a far more eschatological personage, announcing the end of time. We have seen in Chapter 6 that the shia Nizari Ismailis of Alamut (and Syria) believed that the laws of Islam were irrevocably abrogated when their leader proclaimed himself a mahdi. The elevation of Ibn Tumart, the sunni Almohad, would have been a heady boost to morale but would not have occasioned wild excesses.

  "not only the universal church but the whole world to govern": Cited in J.N.D. Kelly, "Innocent III," in The Oxford Dictionary of Popes (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 186.

  Enrico Dandolo: It will be remembered from the Introduction that Dandolo's body was eventually interred in the wall of a gallery in the Hagia Sophia under an inscription marked "Henricus Dandolo." When the Greeks regained control of the city in 1261, his remains were unceremoniously chucked out into the street.

  When the Latins burst through the gates on April 12, 1204, mayhem ensued: A superb new account of this incredible episode of Christian history, which this present work can only evoke in passing, can be found in Jonathan Phillips, The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople (New York: Viking, 2004). Finding an arresting metaphor to describe the moment the walls were breached, Phillips writes, "The crusaders spread into the city like a deadly virus running through the veins of a weak old man: they shut down movement and then they ended life" (259).

  A partial inventory: Phillips, Fourth Crusade, 262—63.

  "foxes in the vineyard of the Lord": A fairly common image for heresy in the Middle Ages, it derives from a passage in the Song of Songs (2:15). Benedict XVI, elected pope in 2005, used a variant in his inaugural address when he spoke of toiling "in the vineyards of the Lord."

  Innocent finally had the pretext to goad the northern nobility: It is often stated, erroneously, that the pope first came up with the idea of an attack on Languedoc after the assassination of his legate, that the crime in some way forced his hand. Innocent had, in fact, been lobbying for an assault for several years prior to the murder. See Stephen O'Shea, The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of the Medieval Cathars (London: Profile; New York: Walker; Vancouver: Douglas & Mclntyre, 2000), 57.

  From taking the Latin word used by the chroniclers,puer, to mean, literally, "boy": The distinguished French historians Philippe Aries and Georges Duby pointed out the faulty translation. This and other information about the crusade comes from Peter Raedts, "La Croisade des enfants a-t-elle eu lieu?" in Robert Delort, ed., Les croisades (Paris: Seuil, 1988), 55—71.

  Madrid, Ávila, Segovia, Medina del Campo, Cuenca, Huete, Uclés, Valladolid, and Soria: Maria Dolores Rosado Llamas and Manuel Gabriel Lopez Payer, La Batalla de las Navas de Tolosa: Historiay mito (Jaén: Caja Rural Jaén, 2001), 112. Also mentioned are a dozen lesser municipalities. La Batalla is the most comprehensive study of the campaign and its legacy published to date, and I have relied on its meticulous analysis of the different, sometimes contradictory historical sources and on its reconstruction of the battle. The events on which there is a historical consensus are not signaled in these notes.

  "Kill them all, God will know his own": This utterance, generally thought to be apocryphal, was supposedly uttered at the siege of Beziers in 1209. For a discussion of scholars backing away from the idea that the phrase was simply invented by a later chronicler, see O'Shea, Perfect Heresy, 269n.

  a thirty-year-old whose red beard and penetrating blue eyes: The chronicler Abd al-Walid al-Marrakushi states of the caliph, "He had a clear complexion, a red beard, dark blue eyes, plump cheeks, average height; he often kept his eyes downcast and was very silent, most due to the faulty articulation [stuttering] from which he suffered; he was inscrutable, but at the same time mild, courageous, reluctant to shed blood, and not really disposed to undertake anything unless he had carefully studied it; he was charged with avarice." Quoted in Le Tourneau, Almohad Movement, 80. Reinhart Dozy, a pioneer of the study of Islamic Spain, translated some of the relevant Al
mohad chronicles in the late nineteenth century. Al-Marrakushi's chronicle is thought to be useful in that he was a native of Marrakesh and a contemporary of the events he describes. Perhaps most important, he is thought to have composed his work in Baghdad, far from the long arm of Almohad reprisal. The idea that the caliph inherited his looks not from Berber genes but from his mother's is widespread.

  The Muslims may have numbered as many as thirty thousand: Estimates range up to 600,000. It is known that both sides had large armies, but the 100,000-plus figures usually given do not bear up under scrutiny. Rosado Llamas and Lopez Payer, La Batalla de las Navas de Tolosa, 109-11.

  The governor, according to a chronicler: The fourteenth-century Arab chronicler Ibn Abi Zar. His work is translated into Spanish by Ambrosio Huici Miranda, whose Las grandes batallas de la Reconquista (1956) and Historiapolitica delEmperio Almohade (1957) laid the groundwork for later scholarship.

  Two Arab chroniclers: Ibn Abi Zar (see preceding note) and Ibn Abd Allah al-Himyari, another fourteenth-century chronicler. Spanish translation by Pilar Maestro Gonzalez; French, by Evariste Levi-Provencal.

  Alfonso . . . advocated heading back up north to confront his treacherous neighbor: The source for this dramatic change of heart was Alfonso's daughter, Blanca, who wrote a detailed letter about the campaign to the countess of Champagne. Given the unflattering light it sheds on her father, the anecdote is generally considered trustworthy. Quoted in Rosado Llamas and Lopez Payer, La Batalla de las Navas de Tolosa, 126-27.

  "A thousand men . . . could hold it against all the men there are under heaven": Quoted in Rosado Llamas and Lopez Payer, La Batalla de las Navas de Tolosa, 132; my translation.

  later identified by legend as St. Isidoro: Later secular lore has him called Martin Halaja.

  "the son of a coward": This story is told in Cronica latina de los reyes de Castilla and Cronica de Veinte Reyes. Both date from the thirteenth century. The former has been translated into French by G. Cirot as Chronique latine des rois de Castille, published as an offprint of Bulletin His-panique no. 41.