However, news of a threatened attack by Duqaq of Damascus provoked a number of desertions and excuses, so he left with a considerably diminished force. This was the critical part of the journey, for, although he received supplies from the emir of Tripoli, on 25 October he was obliged to force a passage along the coast north of Beirut in a serious battle at the Dog River. Fulcher admits, during the sleepless night before, he had been so frightened he would rather have been anywhere other than where he was.80 Five days later they passed Haifa, whose citizens sold them bread and wine, but they did not attempt to enter the city because, although Tancred was not there, he was ill-disposed towards Baldwin.81 In fact, in late October, Baldwin's supporters had prevented Tancred from entering both Jerusalem and Jaffa, which shows that they had retained the upper hand in the interval since Godfrey's death.82 Baldwin himself stopped two days at Jaffa and then, on 9 November, he came within sight of Jerusalem where, Fulcher says, he was greeted with joy by the citizens who, already receiving him as their king, conducted him to the Holy Sepulchre. Daibert was not present, because ‘he was under accusation by certain men around Baldwin’ and he had therefore retired to Mount Sion.83
Baldwin, as William of Tyre describes him, ‘was a man who loved work and disdained idleness’,84 and, indeed, within six days of his arrival he gave a graphic demonstration of how he intended to rule. Having received oaths of fidelity from his new vassals, he at once set out towards Ascalon, engaging its defenders in a brief but evidently fierce encounter. Then he smoked out and killed some local robbers who had been hiding in caves, apparently near Bait Jibrin, before turning east towards Hebron and the Dead Sea. From there he travelled south into what Fulcher of Chartres calls the mountains of Arabia, as far as Wadi Musa, about 50 miles south of the Dead Sea, before returning to Jerusalem on 21 December.85 According to Albert of Aix, he took only 150 knights and fifty foot with him,86 which suggests a mobile reconnaissance force intended both to demonstrate his presence and to allow him to familiarise himself with the region south of Jerusalem, which he had never before visited. It is a measure of his confidence that, despite the presence of Daibert and Tancred in the immediate vicinity, he was able to leave Jerusalem for over a month, between 15 November and 21 December.
On 25 December, Baldwin was crowned king in the church of the Nativity in Bethlehem by Daibert. This was an entirely appropriate setting, for it had not been damaged in the conflict and was only 8 miles to the south of Jerusalem.87 Built over the place of the nativity of Christ which was beneath the main altar, it took the form of a great cross, the interior of which was decorated with Greek mosaics.88 Even Fulcher of Chartres, so terse in his account of relations between the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, could hardly pass over such a significant event without comment. ‘This,’ he says, ‘had not been done for his brother and predecessor because Godfrey had not wished it, and there were others who did not approve of it. Still, upon wiser consideration they decided that it should be done.’
As Fulcher presented it, kingship was an honourable calling, approved by God for the fundamental purpose of rendering justice.89 Anselm of Bec, archbishop of Canterbury, and a personal friend of Countess Ida of Boulogne, Godfrey's mother, seems to have regarded both brothers as kings. In his letter of congratulation to Baldwin, probably written in the spring or summer of 1101, his main concern is that Baldwin should ensure the liberty of the Church, a role that he evidently did not regard as incompatible with a Jerusalem monarchy. Indeed, in a second letter he calls on Baldwin to reign in such a manner as to become an exemplar for all the kings of the earth.90 Even so, at this point in his narrative, Fulcher devotes considerably more space to a lengthy description of the Dead Sea, while William of Tyre simply records the coronation without further elaboration, although agreeing with Fulcher that a reconciliation had taken place between Baldwin and Daibert.91 In fact, Bethlehem was probably chosen as a location for the ceremony to avoid an overt confrontation over Daibert's claims to Jerusalem, since there was no physical impediment to a coronation in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. For Albert of Aachen, however, Baldwin had similar scruples to Godfrey in not wishing to be crowned in Jerusalem, ‘where Lord Jesus, King of kings and Lord of lords, was brought low and subject even to death for the redemption of the world’.92
CHAPTER 4
The Origins of the Latin States
BALDWIN'S situation was actually very unpromising. When Geldemar Carpenel complained that he had been unjustly deprived of Haifa by Tancred, the king, in his role as dispenser of justice, summoned Tancred to Jerusalem. Albert of Aachen, the only chronicler to describe this, says that Tancred answered that ‘he was not going to reply concerning these things in Baldwin's presence, because he would not recognise him as king of the city and judge of the kingdom of Jerusalem’. Given the history of enmity between the two men, particularly arising from their conflict in Cilicia in the autumn of 1097, as well as the extent of the landed base built up by Tancred, this defiance had the potential to undermine Baldwin's authority and prestige even before he was fully established as king. Two further summonses eventually led to a meeting, not in Jerusalem, to which Tancred claimed he was afraid to come, but at a place on the river that ran between Jaffa and Arsuf, a location that implied a kind of frontier between their lands. They failed to reach agreement, so a new date was set for Haifa in early March 1101, but by that time events beyond the control of either man had changed the political landscape, for a delegation of Antiochene nobles had asked Tancred to take over the government in Bohemond's absence. This enabled Baldwin to restore Haifa to Geldemar Carpenel and to grant Tiberias to Hugh of Fauquembergues, although Tancred protected his own interests by ensuring that he would receive ‘these lands and cities as a fief held from the king’ if he returned within a year and three months.1 Ralph of Caen, writing at a time when Baldwin had long been established, says quite bluntly that Baldwin's accession ‘raised up the flames of great dissension and war’, which were avoided by Tancred's summons to Antioch, but neither Fulcher of Chartres nor William of Tyre discusses the implications of this crisis.2 William of Tyre, usually so scrupulous in his regard for lawful authority, unconvincingly presents Tancred's opposition as that of a man unable ‘to be bound by the oath of fidelity to a lord whom he could not love with a pure affection’.3
The Latin states were indeed highly volatile. Less than eighteen months after the capture of Jerusalem all four of the main territorial blocs established by the crusaders had changed hands, a pattern that can be seen among the major fief-holders as well. When Tancred left for the north, one of these four potential states disappeared, leaving the Latins with three isolated entities in Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia, the last of which had no access to the coast. The number of fighting men available to improve the situation appears quite inadequate, not only to modern historians but to contemporaries as well. Fulcher of Chartres, so reticent about the key stages of Baldwin's rise to power in Edessa and Jerusalem, is eloquent about manpower deficiencies, asking rhetorically why the many thousands of Muslims in Egypt, Persia, Mesopotamia and Syria did not come in force and wipe out the Latins completely, as they could easily have done. He found his answer in the skill and courage of Baldwin and in the consequent divine protection of the righteous.4
More specifically, in early 1101, Fulcher says that in the kingdom of Jerusalem they could muster no more than 300 knights and the same number of foot soldiers. In these circumstances Baldwin certainly expected the patriarch and the canons of the Holy Sepulchre to make a contribution, for he did not consider the donations they received from the faithful to be exclusively for their own use. When the patriarch or his representative carried the True Cross into battle, he was indeed surrounded by his own corps of knights, as well as by some members of the chapter itself. Moreover, he also provided a contingent of sergeants drawn from the clients and dependants of the chapter, mostly burgesses from Jerusalem and peasants from the villages endowed by Godfrey of Bouillon.5 There seems to h
ave been a core of 250–300 knights, which only reached as many as 500 in the battle with the Egyptians at Ramla in August 1105, a figure probably inflated by temporary residents.6 During the summer months there was a regular flow of maritime traffic, much increased from the pre-crusade days. Albert of Aachen claims that 200 ships arrived in the summer of 1102 and that pilgrims from them fought the Egyptians near Jaffa; certainly, demand for passage was so high that the English pilgrim Saewulf had difficulty finding a ship to take him to Jaffa from Apulia during that sailing season.7 However, at the time of Baldwin's accession, Fulcher records no help from anybody travelling by land (indeed, there was no direct link with Antioch), while those coming by sea appear to have been unable to transport horses.
The varied backgrounds of these men reflect the heterogeneous nature of the crusade. This heterogeneity had swelled the numbers of recruits who had responded to Clermont, but made it more difficult to mould those who did stay into a coherent body whose first loyalty was to their new country. Flemings and Picards were the single largest group, despite the Lotharingian origins of the first two rulers. This link persisted throughout the twelfth century: at least four of the six counts of Flanders in the period upto 1193 participated in the crusades, two of whom were offered the rulership of Jerusalem, while one died at the siege of Acre in 1191. Thierry of Alsace, who was count for forty years between 1128 and 1168, visited the Holy Land four times, his wife, Sibylla, became a nun at the monastery of Bethany, and their son, Philip, made three expeditions.8 In Baldwin's time the Lotharingians were not as numerous, although they did include some of the king's most important advisers, while smaller numbers came from the Ile-de-France, Normandy, Languedoc, northern and southern Italy and England.
The king had an acute need for the help of his vassals, but at the same time they knew that their survival depended upon mutual co-operation, essential both to achieve military success and to ensure God's approval and support. These lords were nearly autonomous as long as they supplied the forces needed by the king, for the absence of any institutional infrastructure meant that there were no public courts outside the royal demesne through which the king could enforce any form of closer control.9 Nor was the king well supplied with ready cash, much needed to augment the forces owed by the major fief-holders. Indeed, initially, the rulers of the crusader states even lacked their own currencies, as can be seen by the circulation of both billon denarii from Lucca and deniers from Valence in Jerusalem and Antioch during these early years.10
In these circumstances, as William of Tyre puts it, the king devoted 'his entire attention to extending in every possible way the narrow limits of the kingdom’.11 During the first five years of the reign he captured three major coastal cities, Arsuf (29 April 1101), Caesarea (17 May 1101) and Acre (26 May 1104), and survived three serious Egyptian invasions, in September 1101, May 1102 and August 1105, engagements more dangerous than the urban sieges, for failure in such circumstances usually meant there would be no second chance.
The arrival of a Genoese fleet in Jaffa at Easter 1101 was the key to the fall of both Arsuf and Caesarea. The Genoese had already mounted two expeditions, in April 1098, when they had helped the crusaders at the siege of Antioch, and in May 1099, when their appearance at Jaffa had provided the crusaders with much needed timber during the siege of Jerusalem. Their third sailing, however, was in much greater numbers: according to Caffaro, the Genoese chronicler, who was a participant in this expedition, it consisted of twenty-six galleys and four other ships.12 Arsuf capitulated in three days, but Caesarea proved tougher, holding out for fifteen days. Control of the coast from Jaffa to Haifa having been secured, the next objective was Acre, since, according to William of Tyre, Caesarea, while having well-watered gardens, lacked a proper port.13 Acre, however, had the best harbour on the Palestinian coast, as well as serving as an effective base for Egyptian attacks. Baldwin failed to take it in April 1103, but the next year, the arrival of a new fleet of perhaps seventy ships, both Genoese and Pisan, enabled him to overcome it on 26 May. ‘This city,’ says Fulcher of Chartres, ‘was very necessary to us since it contained a port so commodious that a great many ships could be safely berthed within its secure walls.’14
These successes owed more to Genoese help than to any other Christian power. The crusade had been preached in Genoa by Hugh of Châteauneuf, bishop of Grenoble, and William, bishop of Orange, in 1097, and the powerful noble class that dominated both the city and its hinterland had responded by fitting out fleets most years thereafter. By Italian standards it was not a huge city, having a population of about 10,000 at the beginning of the twelfth century, and little is known about the development of its sea power before this time.15 However, the needs of the crusader states presented Genoa with obvious commercial opportunities, especially since Venice and Pisa were already drawing large profits from the spice trade, which was channelled through Egypt.16 Baldwin's charter of 1104, issued after the fall of Acre, sets out the privileges the Genoese received for their help. The basis was a grant of a third of the cities conquered, both those already gained and those that might be obtained in the future. In the latter case they were to receive an income of 300 besants per annum as well, provided the help given consisted of fifty or more Genoese. Territorial concessions were buttressed by commercial and legal rights, by which they were exempted from the regular tax on trade known as the commercium and were free of royal jurisdiction in cases involving capital punishment, maiming or imprisonment, as well as in all testamentary arrangements.17 Sometime between spring 1106 and early July 1109, the Genoese were permitted to record their privileges in a golden inscription placed in the Rotunda of the church of the Holy Sepulchre.18 The Genoese crusaders were not concerned exclusively with economic advantage, however, for they were equally impelled by the desire for pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. Their disappointment at the failure of the Holy Fire at Easter 1101, as described by Caffaro, is palpable, as is their exaltation when it did finally appear.19
Such alliances did nevertheless present problems. When Acre fell, the Genoese and the Pisans attacked and plundered Muslims leaving the town under a royal safe-conduct, an action that incited the Frankish soldiers as well.20 Yet it was evident to the king and his advisers that gratuitous destruction of cities and their populations was unsustainable for a regime with such meagre resources. Arsuf, which capitulated with little resistance, seems to have escaped unscathed; Albert of Aachen says that Baldwin spared the inhabitants, allowing them to leave with any possessions they could carry. The attack on Caesarea was more destructive, since it involved the clearing of the immediate vicinity to prevent ambushes. Albert's informant had been very impressed by the ‘extraordinary orchards all round the walls, as closely planted as woodland, of great beauty and providing an invaluable abundance of fruit’.21 Moreover, stiffer resistance tended to provoke greater retribution and, when the city fell, most of the male populace were killed. Even then it was not an unrestrained sack, since the emir and the qadi were ransomed, while most of the women were spared to be sold as slaves or used to turn hand-mills.22 As this suggests, Baldwin had also learned the value of taking ransoms rather than killing prisoners, a practice well established in the Levant, but which had not initially been considered by the crusaders, who had seen their actions as representing God's will.23 Moreover, a depopulated city was of little use to the conquerors if they wished to retain it as a functioning entity: sixteen years after the massacre of 1099, Baldwin was still trying to fill the gaps in Jerusalem by offering privileges aimed at persuading Syrian Christians from the Transjordan to settle in the city.24 By the spring of 1108, when Baldwin made an unsuccessful attack on Sidon, this cooler assessment of monetary advantage had become policy. During the bombardment of the city's towers, Arnulf of Chocques, at this time archdeacon of Jerusalem, persuaded the king to desist. ‘For Arnulf said that so outstanding a piece of work would cost at least two thousand bezants to rebuild, and if it was not ruined and subjected to a bombardment of stones it
could be taken by storm and handed over into the king's hands after a few days.’25
The emirs of the coast were often supported by Egyptian shipping, but the real danger from Egypt arose on the occasions when al-Afdal managed to put together a large army, which could be landed at Ascalon and used to attack the kingdom from the south. In August 1099, the main crusader armies had not yet dispersed, so the victory of the Frankish forces, hardened by over two years of desperate fighting, is not surprising. A new invasion in the spring of 1101 was much more threatening, for the Christians were clearly outnumbered, even though contemporary Frankish estimates of the size of the Egyptian army cannot be relied upon. The Franks were wary of advancing from Jaffa, fearing that they would be trapped under the walls of Ascalon, so, although fully aware of the Egyptian presence from at least late May, they did not move until 6 September, when the enemy advanced onto the plain near Ramla. Baldwin therefore had time to assemble his forces, drawn from Jerusalem, Tiberias, Caesarea and Haifa. Fulcher says these amounted to 260 knights and 900 foot soldiers, a figure that must represent the maximum available, as it includes squires who were hastily knighted. The battle was fought on 7 September and within an hour the ground was covered with bodies and equipment, while riderless horses picked their way through the debris. Fulcher of Chartres, who was present, says that there was such slaughter on both sides that it turned his stomach. The Egyptians finally fled back to Ascalon, leaving eighty Frankish knights and many more foot soldiers dead. Nobody could have been confident of the outcome. In Jaffa a report that the Christians had been defeated was accepted as fully credible and led to panic; an appeal for help to Tancred had to be rescinded when it was found to be false.26
The Crusader States Page 10
