The Crusader States

by Malcolm Barber

  Despite the belief of the royal clerk, Gerald of Wales, who was present at court at this time, that the king was not interested in helping the Holy Land, Henry took the matter very seriously, summoning all his vassals and the leading clergy as well as King William of Scotland to a council at the house of the Hospitallers in Clerkenwell. The meeting lasted for a week, between 10 and 17 March, but the patriarch now undid much of what he had achieved at Reading by criticising the king, and some of the emotion generated was dissipated. Indeed, by this time the patriarch must have decided that there was little chance of Henry actually making a personal appearance in the Holy Land and, according to Gerald of Wales, had an almighty row with the king at Dover while they were waiting to cross the Channel, in the course of which Eraclius repeated his prophesy that in a very short time Henry would meet with many misfortunes. In fact, Henry was well aware that even his departure on crusade, let alone acceptance of any responsibility for the government of the kingdom of Jerusalem, would be certain to cause upheaval in the Angevin lands, for his sons could not be trusted. Nor was this to be wondered at, said the patriarch tartly, ‘since they have come from the devil, and to the devil they will go’.124

  Although Henry would not leave his lands, in April he did travel to Vaudreuil in Normandy to meet Philip II and the two kings agreed that they would levy a special tax, assessed according to income, for three years for the aid of the Holy Land.125 But the envoys had wanted much more than this. Gerald of Wales claims that Eraclius lamented that everybody was willing to offer money, but nobody would actually come to Jerusalem. Certainly his offer of the keys suggests real desperation; indeed, Baldwin may have intended to abdicate in favour of Henry II and at least temporarily hand over government until Baldwin V came of age.126 This was the single most important mission to the West in the twelfth century and the patriarch had left no one in any doubt about the extent of the crisis facing the crusader states.127

  CHAPTER 12

  The Battle of Hattin and its Consequences

  WHEN Patriarch Eraclius returned to Jerusalem in July 1185, he cannot have been surprised to learn of the death of Baldwin IV. The exact date is not known, but the king had been dead for at least three months by the time he arrived.1 According to Roger of Howden, the patriarch had hoped that he would be able to bring back the king of England, or one of his sons, or ‘some other man of great authority’, but he had achieved none of these things, and he had left Vaudreuil ‘grieving and confounded’.2

  In Jerusalem, Eraclius found a new regime in power. Baldwin had not been reconciled to Guy of Lusignan, despite the patriarch's efforts the previous spring, and the king, again very ill, had appointed Raymond of Tripoli as temporary governor, probably in early 1185.3 However, it had soon become evident that this time the king would not recover, so more long-term arrangements had to be made. According to Ernoul, Baldwin had called the barons together and they had sworn an oath to accept Raymond until the king's nephew came of age. The presence of Bohemond III in Acre in April suggests that the assembly took place at this time and, indeed, that Baldwin wanted the adherence of Tripoli and Antioch as well as that of the barons of Jerusalem.4 If he died prematurely they would either choose Raymond as king, since he was the nearest male relative, or, if they wanted an outsider from the West, ‘they should act in accordance with the count's advice and wishes’. Raymond had agreed on conditions, the nature of which reflect the fragility of relations between the leaders. If Baldwin V died he wanted it to be clear that it was not his responsibility, so care of the boy was handed over to the seneschal, Joscelin of Courtenay. Raymond was to be bailli for ten years, although if the child died before then, the position would pass to the closest heir until the great rulers of the West – the pope, the emperor, and the kings of England and France – should judge between the two sisters, Sibylla and Isabella, since ‘the barons were not in agreement that the elder sister should have the throne’. All the fortresses and castles were to be held under the guard of the Temple and the Hospital. Raymond, ever short of money because of the burden of his ransom, also wanted recompense for his expenses and this he received in the form of the grant of the city of Beirut.5

  Baldwin V had been crowned co-ruler in November 1183; his uncle, aware that he had only a short time to live, now arranged a ceremonial crown-wearing for the boy. Ernoul says that he was carried on the shoulders of Balian of Ibelin to the Temple of the Lord, that is, the Dome of the Rock, in a ceremony that apparently imitated the offering of Christ in the Temple as described in chapter two of the Gospel of Luke. Baldwin V wore the crown from the church of the Holy Sepulchre, and when he arrived at the Temple of the Lord he offered the crown and then bought it back. ‘For it used to be the custom that when a mother had her first male child she would offer him at the Temple and buy him back with a lamb or with two pigeons or two turtledoves.’ After the king had received the crown, he and the barons and ‘all those who wished to eat’ sat down together in the Temple of Solomon, where the food was served by the burgesses of Jerusalem.6

  In these circumstances it is not difficult to see the kingdom as lurching towards an inevitable crisis. Eraclius had brought money but no major western leader, while the kingdom itself was under the governorship of a man barely tolerated by some of the most powerful in the land. The king was only seven or eight years old and therefore would not reach his majority for another seven to eight years.7 Some thought they could see the writing on the wall: at some point during this period, an English Templar called Robert of St Albans apostasised, promising Saladin he would deliver Jerusalem to him. Furnished with troops, he caused considerable damage in Galilee before he was beaten off.8 To make matters worse, the following summer was especially hot and dry. Ernoul says that no rain fell for a year after Baldwin IV's death and he tells the story of how a charitable burgess of Jerusalem called Germain, accustomed to providing drinking water for the poor, was obliged to resort to prayer when all the cisterns dried up. He was rewarded by God, who revealed the location of an old well near the Spring of Siloam to the south of the city, which Germain then refurbished.9

  In fact, this picture is misleading. Although the chronology is unclear, Raymond was able to negotiate a four-year truce with Saladin, probably in the spring of 1185, as Saladin wished once more to turn his attention to Mosul, which still eluded his grasp. Saladin besieged Mosul during the summer, although the extreme heat seems to have taken the impetus out of the attack. He returned in November, but again failed to take it and, on 26 December, retreated to Harran.10 By this time Saladin was seriously ill, although attempts were made by his entourage to hide the fact. According to Ibn Shaddad, ‘He arrived at Harran very sick and extremely weak. His life was despaired of and a rumour went round that he had died.’11 At the same time feuding between the Turcomans and the Kurds over which he had no control was disrupting the Jazira and the Diyar Bakr and causing huge casualties.12 For his part, ‘Izz al-Din, atabeg of Mosul, had received no help from elsewhere in the Islamic world and had decided that his best hope was to seek peace. The result was an agreement, negotiated by Ibn Shaddad, who was not yet in Saladin's service, at the beginning of March 1186, by which time Saladin was convalescing. ‘Izz al-Din agreed to accept Saladin's overlordship and to provide military aid. Even so, Saladin did not arrive in Aleppo until 6 April.13

  In view of what happened just over a year later at Hattin, it is important to assess the situation in the spring of 1186. It is possible to see Saladin's position in a very positive light, with the peace agreement with Mosul as the final piece in a ‘grand coalition’, added to which was the possession of Egyptian resources not available to Nur al-Din.14 This, though, is too favourable a picture. He had not actually made any inroads into Frankish territory, while his attacks on Kerak had ended in failure, leaving Reynald of Châtillon as a continuing threat. Indeed, part of the reason for making peace with Mosul may have been the fear that the Franks would take the initiative and attack Damascus. Saladin's expenditure on his armi
es was disproportionate and unsustainable unless he continued to expand his empire; even then, his grip on the lands he did occupy was not always certain. He was very close to death in 1186. Had that happened, ‘the Franks could confidently have looked forward to a period of discord’ and the Muslim capture of Jerusalem would have remained a dream.15 However, like Nur al-Din in 1157, Saladin survived and, according to ‘Imad al-Din, the effects of his recovery were salutary, reawakening in him his proper objective, which was the jihad against the Franks.

  At the same time, despite the political instability that a minority inevitably caused, the Latins continued to maintain and develop their infrastructure in the manner that had characterised them throughout the twelfth century. A case in point is the rebuilding and embellishment of the church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, the third most holy site in the kingdom. This project had begun after the earthquake of 1170, although the connection between the disaster and the rebuilding seems to have been exaggerated. The site was particularly associated with Lethard II, whose longevity as archbishop of Nazareth between 1158 and 1190 provided a continuity that enabled him to oversee the erection of a very large church, replacing the relatively small building which Tancred had endowed. There had probably been a church here since the time of Constantine; indeed, the Christians believed that the Apostles had changed the home of the Virgin Mary into a church. However, in contrast to the sites at the Holy Sepulchre and at Bethlehem, in practice Lethard was unencumbered by the legacy of the past and was free to build an entirely new church.16

  Although the church was destroyed by the Mamluk sultan Baybars in 1263, it is possible to reconstruct the overall plan. It was nearly 173 metres long, with a nave of three aisles and six bays, ending in a choir with three apses. There were two portals, on the west and the north, the second of which gave access to the conventual buildings of the Augustinian canons. Within the church on the north side was the aedicule or shrine grotto where the Virgin received the Annunciation from the Angel Gabriel.17 This was where Christ spent his childhood and where Joseph was buried. According to John Phocas, who saw it in 1185, above the entrance ‘is painted the winged angel coming down beside her who is to be a Mother, yet has no husband’.18

  However, the characteristic of the building was an elaborate series of figural sculptures quite unlike the fresco and mosaic traditions seen in the other two great churches. Only a small proportion of the work is known, but there was a major programme on the west front centred upon the Incarnate Lord, who was surrounded by angels, saints and prophets, together with an important inscription on the door arch.19 Inside, the Latins had built a two-storey chapel around the shrine grotto on which they had planned to place a number of capitals. Five of these capitals were discovered in 1908, seemingly having been hidden at the time of the defeat at Hattin in July 1187.20 One of the capitals was rectangular and the other four polygonal and, although made from relatively soft local limestone, all were in good condition, apparently because they had never been put into position (see plate 15).

  The large rectangular capital was one of several perhaps intended for the lower storey of the chapel, although another possible location was the nave arcade. It shows the Virgin leading an apostle through the perils of Hell where they are assailed by grotesque demons, an appropriate theme within the wider context of the twelfth-century cult of the Virgin, whose popularity as an intercessor had continued to grow over the previous decades. The other four capitals were destined for the exterior of the unfinished baldacchino or architectural canopy above, and they depict the stories of the missions of the apostles Thomas, Peter, James the Greater and Matthew in the East. All these capitals are of very high quality and bear obvious affinities to contemporary French Romanesque sculpture, especially in Berry and the Rhône valley. Nevertheless, they are the work of local sculptors, some of whom had perhaps worked in Jerusalem or at the Hospitaller castle of Belvoir, and are not directly derived from any specific French prototypes.21 None of this would have been possible if the finance, skills and materials had not been available locally, nor likely if the archbishop and his advisers had perceived themselves to be part of a society on the brink of disaster. While William of Tyre offers a persuasive analysis of contemporary conditions in crusader states, projects like this suggest that not everybody shared his gloomy view of the future.22

  Not surprisingly, Raymond of Tripoli did not last the ten years he had set out in his conditions when he became bailli. In the late summer of 1186, the young king, Baldwin V, died, still less than nine years old, provoking a new governmental crisis in Jerusalem barely a year after the last one.23 In the twelfth century, when there was more than one candidate for a throne, the issue was usually settled by speed rather than by legal argument and, in this case, those around Sibylla acted faster. Her mother, Agnes, had died, probably earlier in the year, but Joscelin, her uncle, delivered Baldwin's body to the Templars to be taken to Jerusalem for burial. According to Ernoul, he advised Raymond to go to Tiberias and he foolishly followed this advice. Joscelin then took advantage of the time gained to seize both Acre and Beirut, while telling Sibylla and her supporters to secure Jerusalem. Once the boy had been buried, she could then have herself crowned.24

  Ernoul sees Joscelin's actions as a great betrayal, but it must be assumed that Raymond planned to become king and had taken a conscious decision to stay away from the funeral to give himself time to muster his own supporters. This he did by calling a curia at Nablus, to which, as bailli, he summoned all the barons. Ernoul says that they all came except for Joscelin of Courtenay and Reynald of Châtillon. However, as Ernoul's own narrative shows, they were not the sole men of influence present in Jerusalem. Apart from these two, the masters of the military orders, the patriarch and William V, marquis of Montferrat, all attended the boy's funeral. The presence of William of Montferrat shows that this was not a simple polarisation of two distinct parties, divided by deep-rooted enmities, as it has sometimes been presented. William had decided to commit himself to the kingdom of Jerusalem soon after Baldwin V's coronation and had ceded his lands in Lombardy to Conrad, his oldest surviving son. On arrival in the East – welcomed, according to Ernoul, by Raymond of Tripoli and all the barons, as might be expected of a veteran of the Second Crusade – he was granted the castle of St Elias in Judaea, which was part of the royal demesne.25 It was quite natural and legitimate for him to oversee his grandson's welfare in these circumstances, and it must therefore have seemed to him entirely appropriate to attend Baldwin's funeral and to support the succession of the boy's mother. Once the funeral was over, Sibylla summoned all the barons at Nablus to attend her coronation, but they refused, instead sending two Cistercian abbots to forbid the patriarch and masters of the military orders from doing this on the grounds that it was contrary to the oath they had all sworn to Baldwin IV. But Sibylla's supporters had control of the key cities as well as the support of Eraclius and, far from obeying, now closed Jerusalem to outsiders.

  Raymond's position was further weakened by a long-standing quarrel with the new master of the Temple, Gerard of Ridefort, who had succeeded Arnau of Torroja in 1185. Like many others, Gerard had come to the East to improve himself, at first serving both the Crown and the count of Tripoli for pay, but eventually becoming marshal of the kingdom, a position in the military establishment second only to that of the constable. In 1180, Raymond had promised him marriage to the daughter of William Dorel, lord of the small coastal town of Botron between Gibelet and Nephin, but the count had reneged on his promise when a Pisan merchant called Plivain had offered him a substantial sum for the heiress. Raymond was probably influenced by the burden of the large debts still outstanding for his ransom, but Gerard, a man very conscious of his social position as a member of the knightly class, was deeply insulted. He never forgave Raymond and, in accordance with the values of the class to which he was so proud to belong, thereafter sought the opportunity to take revenge. At some time before 1183, after an illness, he had entered the Order of
the Temple, where he rose to be seneschal, before becoming master two years later.26 The situation prevailing in Jerusalem in the autumn of 1185 gave him a power which he had never held before and he determined to take full advantage of it.

  Reynald of Châtillon and Gerard of Ridefort now took Sibylla to the Holy Sepulchre to be crowned by the patriarch, where she was acclaimed by all those present, but they needed the keys to the Treasury where the crowns were kept, keys held by the masters of the Temple and the Hospital. Ernoul was well aware of the drama of this story, describing how Roger des Moulins, who was against the enterprise from the beginning, would not co-operate, at first hiding and then, when found, flinging the key into the middle of the room in anger after being harassed by Eraclius, Gerard and Reynald.

  There is no eyewitness account of the coronation, since Ernoul was presumably with the barons at Nablus and claims to have obtained his information from a spy who had gained access to Jerusalem through a postern gate, while western chroniclers like Roger of Howden derived their versions from conversations with Guy's supporters at the siege of Acre in 1190 and 1191.27 Ernoul has Eraclius place one crown on the altar and the other on Sibylla's head. The patriarch then asked her to give the other crown to the man who could govern the kingdom and she at once chose Guy, placing the crown on his head as he knelt before her. Gerard of Ridefort helped her to do this, saying that this was worth the marriage of Botron. Eraclius, Ernoul says, did this for love of her mother, a reference to the story that Agnes of Courtenay had been his mistress. As far as Ernoul was concerned, they had all broken their oaths, but it seems probable that after his experiences in 1185 Eraclius saw no point in consulting western rulers.28