The Crusader States

by Malcolm Barber

  Ibn al-Qalanisi does not properly explain Nur al-Din's subsequent willingness to grant an armistice based on a broad division of the lands between Antioch and Aleppo, although it is likely that a relief force under Baldwin III, which probably set out in the late summer, deterred him from undertaking the siege that would have been needed to take the city. Included in Baldwin's army was a strong contingent of Templars under Andrew of Montbard, the order's seneschal and acting head while the master, Everard des Barres, was away in France. In a letter to Everard, pleading with him to return as soon as he could with arms, knights, sergeants and money, the seneschal said that he had raised a force of 120 knights and up to 1,000 squires and sergeants for this army, a huge effort that needed a loan of 7,000 besants of Acre and 1,000 besants of Jerusalem to pay for it. According to Andrew, who was present, they had been trapped in the city of Antioch for a time by a twin attack from Mas'ud, the Seljuk sultan of Iconium, and Nur al-Din.101 This was unlikely to have been a serious attempt to take the city, for William of Tyre says that Baldwin was able to make a foray against Harim, but that he failed to retake it. Even so, Nur al-Din fully exploited the propaganda value of his victory; before returning to Aleppo, he had reached the coast, where he saw the sea for the first time, symbolically bathing in it in the presence of his troops.102

  The remains of the county of Edessa were similarly assailed, for when Ma'sud heard of Raymond's death he invaded and besieged Turbessel, pinning Count Joscelin and his family inside. The siege was raised when Baldwin sent his constable, Humphrey of Toron, with sixty knights to protect the fortress of ‘Azaz, giving Joscelin the opportunity to negotiate. Ma'sud accepted the release of all Joscelin's Turkish prisoners, together with twelve suits of armour, in exchange for peace.103 However, in May 1150, while travelling to Antioch to meet the patriarch, Joscelin was fortuitously captured by some of Nur al-Din's troops, apparently after he had stepped aside from his escort to urinate. Taken to Aleppo, he was imprisoned and tortured, eventually dying there in 1159. William of Tyre has little sympathy. Throughout his narrative he stresses how inferior he was in comparison with his father, characterising him as lazy and dissolute, and castigating him for his intense hatred of Raymond of Poitiers, which prevented the two men from co-operating against their common enemy.104 He was no better regarded by the local population. Michael the Syrian was particularly angry about his pillaging of the Jacobite monastery of Mar Bar Sauma, south of Melitene, in 1149, and about his imprisonment of Basil, the Jacobite bishop of Edessa, who had been forced to flee to Samosata after the second fall of the city. Joscelin had accused both the monks and the bishop of collaboration with the Turks, leading Michael to call him a tyrant who had abandoned God and ‘devoted himself to the cult of demons’.105

  Beatrice, Joscelin's wife, was left with a young son and two daughters, and almost at once her predatory neighbours fell upon the remnants of the county. Ma'sud of Iconium reappeared, forcing the Latins to retreat to Turbessel, abandoning their remaining fortresses, while Nur al-Din ravaged the southern parts of the county, grinding the people between two millstones, as William of Tyre puts it.106 Although Ma'sud subsequently withdrew, at the end of June Nur al-Din was able to take ‘Azaz.107 As he had the previous summer, Baldwin responded, although he was unable to derive any support from the nobility ‘in the part in which the queen ruled’, which suggests that relations with his mother had severely deteriorated, and he had to rely on Raymond of Tripoli. However, when Baldwin arrived he decided that the situation was hopeless. He knew he could not remain in Antioch, and even had he been able to, he did not have the resources to govern both provinces. He therefore accepted an offer from envoys of Manuel Comnenus to take over what remained of the county of Edessa in return for providing the countess and her family with a fixed annual revenue. William of Tyre claims that the king had little confidence in this arrangement, although of course when William wrote he knew that the land had been lost within months by ‘the soft and effeminate Greeks’.

  Meanwhile in August, the king and Count Raymond set about the evacuation of all those Latins and Armenians who wished to leave, an operation made all the more difficult by the constant attacks of Nur al-Din upon the slow-moving column. The Muslims harassed the refugees for two days, obliging them to take cover in the fortress of Aintab after the first day, but finally gave up when they ran out of supplies. William of Tyre, who must have interviewed many of those who had experienced this traumatic march when they later settled in the kingdom of Jerusalem, presents a dramatic picture of people distressed at leaving ‘the land of their birth’, a region of productive woods and fields capable of supporting 500 knights. As well as the blow to their military capacity, the Latins had also lost three archbishoprics in Edessa, Hierapolis (Manbij) and Corice (Quris).108

  In contrast, in the kingdom of Jerusalem, in July 1149, the rebuilt church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated by the patriarch, once more providing an appropriate setting for the most important shrines in Christendom. Even here, however, beneath the surface unity of the dedication ceremony, fissures were appearing, most critically in the growing animosity between Baldwin III and his mother, Queen Melisende. William of Tyre emphasises that she ruled by hereditary right and that it was appropriate for Baldwin to co-operate with her.109 Nevertheless, by 1151, Baldwin was twenty-one, six years older than the age required in the kingdom for independent rule, and he appears to have lost patience with his exclusion from power and patronage. Thus, when Elinand of Tiberias died in c.1149, there appears to have been a struggle over who should succeed him in the key lordship of Galilee, while in the summer of 1150 Baldwin was unable to muster the southern lords, despite a series of personal summonses.110 Moreover, in 1150 and 1151, there are signs that the queen was consolidating her position, both in the marriage of Manasses of Hierges to Helvis of Ibelin and in the promotion of her younger son, Amalric, to the county of Jaffa.

  William of Tyre is reluctant to blame Melisende for the ensuing conflict, so he falls back on the cliché of the evil counsellor. The real trouble was caused by Manasses of Hierges, he says, who provoked intense hatred among the baronage by his treatment of them. On 31 March 1152, the day after Easter Sunday, Baldwin appeared in procession in Jerusalem ‘crowned with the laurel’.111 This was quickly followed by a demand in the High Court that the kingdom be divided between him and Melisende, and it was determined that the queen should hold the south, centred on Jerusalem, Nablus and Samaria, while Baldwin should rule in the north, including the key cities of Acre and Tyre. Apparently the king was given the choice, although William does not say what options had been presented. Chief among the king's supporters was Humphrey of Toron, who held extensive lands around Tyre and was one of the kingdom's outstanding soldiers. Baldwin appointed him constable in direct opposition to Manasses of Hierges; indeed, it is possible that he had already been using the title even before this open breach between the two sides.112 Soon after, in April, Ralph, the former chancellor, reappears as the royal chancellor, having evidently decided that Baldwin was the more likely to win.113

  Although William rather piously states that ‘the people’ hoped that the settlement would be maintained, there was in reality no chance that it would, for it would have been impossible to combat the Egyptians in the south and the Turks in the north in a divided kingdom. It seems unlikely therefore that Baldwin intended this to be any more than a temporary arrangement. Baldwin now moved against Manasses in his castle at Mirabel, where he forced a surrender, and then, undeterred by the peacemaking efforts of Patriarch Fulcher, continued on to Jerusalem, where he was joined by southern nobles who had deserted the queen. Although the gates of the city were opened to him it took several days of fierce fighting before Melisende would concede the citadel in which she had taken refuge. The queen was now obliged to retire to Nablus and its territory, leaving Jerusalem to her son.114 In the circumstances, Manasses clearly could not survive and was banished from the kingdom, but men like Philip of Nablus and Andrew of Mon
tbard, seneschal of the Temple, were too powerful to ignore, and were incorporated into the new regime. Amalric's restoration may have been slower: he lost the county of Jaffa after Baldwin's victory and did not regain it until 1154.115

  Throughout this period William of Tyre has nothing to say about the affairs of the county of Tripoli. Raymond II had not been present at the siege of Damascus, perhaps feeling that it was wise to keep a low profile after the death of Alfonso-Jordan earlier in the year. However, even with Alfonso-Jordan dead, his natural son, Bertrand, remained a potential rival. Bertrand had taken part in the Damascus campaign, and was living with his mother in the fortress of al-'Arimah, situated midway between Tripoli and Tortosa. Ibn al-Qalanisi describes how, in September 1148, the castle was suddenly attacked by Nur al-Din and Unur of Damascus, falling to them after a fierce struggle. Bertrand and his mother were captured and Bertrand was not seen again until he was released in 1159 after negotiations by the Byzantine emperor, Manuel Comnenus.116 Despite al-'Arimah's proximity to the main cities of the county, there is no mention of any help from Raymond, which lends credibility to Ibn al-Athir's later claim that it was Raymond himself who had encouraged the Muslim attack. For Alfonso's son, says Ibn al-Athir, the following saying is appropriate: ‘The ostrich went out, seeking two horns and returned home minus both ears.’117

  As the possessor of the only adult male ruler in the three northern states, Tripoli appears to have been better equipped to survive than Antioch or Edessa. Raymond's creation of a Hospitaller enclave east of the Homs gap provided a screen against Nur al-Din, and in the summer of 1150 the count was in a position to reinforce Baldwin III's depleted army on its way north after the capture of Joscelin of Edessa. However, with Antioch and Edessa in tatters, Tripoli became vulnerable. Nur al-Din had already demonstrated his capacity to reach the coast and, in April 1152, he repeated the feat, penetrating the county's defences to take Tortosa, where he left a garrison. The arrival of Baldwin III in Tripoli soon after must, in part, have been a response to such a worrying development and appears to have persuaded the Muslims to abandon the town, which was left largely ruined.

  William, bishop of Tortosa, who was overlord of the town, moved quickly to fill the vacuum. A charter of 1157 shows that, a very short time after the Muslims left, he granted the Templars land on which to build a castle. Raynouard of Maraclea, who is recorded as lord in 1151, must have been compensated elsewhere. During the 1150s, the Templars built a strong fortress in the north-west corner of the town with access to the sea. They received a series of ecclesiastical privileges from the bishop, including control of parish churches on Templar lands and exemption from tithes on their own demesne and on booty taken in military expeditions. It is probable that Raymond granted additional land and feudal exemptions equivalent to those of the Hospitallers, although the charter recording this is now lost. The choice of the Templars was a logical step, for the Hospitallers already had heavy responsibilities to the east, and the 1157 charter shows that the Templars had previously been granted Chastel-Blanc (Safita), which was only about 10 miles to the south-east.118 By this time the Templars also probably held al-'Arimah, just to the south beyond the Abrash River, perhaps acquiring it after the capture of Bertrand, together with Chastel-Blanc. From this time the military orders dominated the northern part of the county of Tripoli.119 These grants reflect the changing nature of the county, which, after the mid-century, increasingly lost its ties with Toulouse, whose feudal lords had, until then, been drawn largely from southern French families. From this time more outsiders began to appear, not only from northern France, but also from other Syrian lands, such as Armenia, Antioch and Edessa, the last of which must have included refugees from the disasters of recent years.120

  However, it appears that Baldwin's primary purpose was the holding of a session of the High Court in Tripoli, the first since he had removed his mother from power. In contrast to 1150, he was able to command the full attendance of his vassals from both Jerusalem and Tripoli and, in an assembly reminiscent of that held by Baldwin I near the city in 1109, also the presence of Patriarch Aimery of Antioch and his suffragans and Princess Constance and her leading nobles. At the same time Queen Melisende travelled to Tripoli, although her primary purpose was an attempt to persuade her niece, Constance, to take a husband, rather than to participate in any of the public acts of the High Court.121 Constance, however, was not amenable. William of Tyre blames her intransigence on Patriarch Aimery, who he believes preferred the greater freedom of manoeuvre available to him when there was no prince ruling in Antioch, but subsequent events show that Constance had her own ideas about marriage.

  Melisende was also involved in the marital affairs of her sister, Hodierna, whose relations with Raymond II were breaking down, a consequence, says William of Tyre, of jealousy (simultas). She failed to reconcile them and the sisters set out for Jerusalem, accompanied for a short distance by Count Raymond. But, as he returned to Tripoli, Raymond was suddenly attacked and killed just outside the city by Assassins, together with Ralph of Merle and one of his knights, an event that led to a riot in the city with indiscriminate killing of anyone who did not look or dress like a Latin.122 The reason for the murder is unknown, for it was unusual for the Assassins to target a Christian ruler. Presumably conflict had arisen with the Syrian Assassins, whose bases in the Jabal Nahra, north of al-Buqai'ah, were close to Raymond's territories.

  Therefore, between 1149 and 1152, all three of the northern crusader states had been deprived of their adult male rulers, and Edessa had effectively been liquidated, while simultaneously in Nur al-Din they were faced with the most formidable opponent seen by the Franks in Syria since they had first settled in the region. Il-Ghazi had been a terrible enemy, but the evident flaws in his character, his apparent indifference to the aims of the jihad and his sometimes uncertain control over the Turcomans upon whom he relied undermined his credibility in the Muslim world. Nur al-Din, on the other hand, was genuinely committed to the holy war, and from this time worked assiduously to create an image of selfless devotion to the cause of defeating the infidel Franks. Although his military campaigns made it obvious that he believed the chief object of the jihad to be the elimination of the Franks, as a Turk he realised the need to convince the local population. An extensive building programme of madrasas and convents for Sufis, together with the repair and restoration of many mosques, enabled him to inspire a renewed interest in Sunnite doctrinal studies, which he saw as the basis for a unified Islamic Syria.123

  CHAPTER 9

  The Frankish Imprint

  BEFORE he left the Holy Land in May 1241, Richard, earl of Cornwall, had made the rebuilding of the fortifications of Ascalon his greatest priority. Having agreed a truce with as-Salih, the Egyptian sultan, he was anxious to ensure that the town was now as secure as possible. In a letter of July 1241, he describes how at the time of writing ‘it is totally protected by a double wall with high towers and ramparts made of cut stone’, and that it lacked only a fosse for completion. Richard was proud of his efforts because he understood the central importance of Ascalon to the kingdom of Jerusalem. The reason for this reconstruction, he explained, was that ‘if the truce was broken we would have a secure stronghold in the march on the edge of their territory, previously held by them, to which we could retreat if necessary’. The castle ‘is also useful in times of peace, since it is the key and protector of the kingdom of Jerusalem by land and sea, while it threatens danger to Babylon and the southern regions’.1

  Richard of Cornwall's concern for Ascalon had deep roots in the kingdom of Jerusalem. His uncle, Richard I of England, had rebuilt its defences at great expense in the spring of 1191, and even when he had abandoned his hopes of a march on Jerusalem he could not bring himself to accede to Saladin's demand that he dismantle its walls and towers. According to Ibn Shaddad, Saladin's qadi of the army, in July 1192, the king is supposed to have told the sultan's emissary, ‘It is impossible for us to demolish one stone of Ascalon. Such
a thing shall not be spoken of in the land. The boundaries of these lands are well known and there is no dispute about them.’2 In the end Richard was obliged to give in and, in the truce of 2 September 1192, it was at last agreed that Ascalon's defences be destroyed for three years.

  All the twelfth-century rulers of Jerusalem had been preoccupied with Ascalon. Attacks launched from there had been the most persistent danger to Jerusalem, and both Godfrey and Baldwin I had fought crucial battles for survival against Egyptian forces emanating from the town. At the end of his life Baldwin was exploring the possibility of an invasion of Egypt, and in 1123–4 there had been a vigorous debate about whether to use the Venetian fleet to besiege Tyre or Ascalon. Under Fulk, practical steps had been taken to control the threat by the building of Bait Jibrin, Ibelin and Blanchegarde.

  Baldwin III returned to the matter as soon as he was able and, in the winter of 1149–50, began the task of fortifying the ancient city of Gaza so that, as William of Tyre says, Ascalon would be hemmed in from the south as well as the north and the east. Although the hill on which the city had stood was too large to be completely encircled, part of it was fortified with walls and towers before handing it over to the Templars, who were left with responsibility for completing the interior. An immediate attack by the Egyptians proved fruitless and William says that from then onwards they could only supply Ascalon by sea. At the same time Frankish settlements in the south were far more secure, since Gaza served ‘as the fortified boundary of the kingdom’.3 The Egyptians, though, were by no mean cowed. In April 1152, when Baldwin was distracted by Nur al-Din's seizure of Tortosa, Ibn al-Qalanisi reports a ‘victory of the men of Ascalon over the Franks in their neighbourhood at Gaza, when a great number of them perished and the remainder fled’.4