Gerard of Ridefort had his own reasons, for he was driven not only by a hatred of Raymond of Tripoli, but also by what Ernoul calls his desire ‘to avenge the shame and loss that they [the Saracens] had inflicted on him and on Christendom’, meaning of course the defeat at the Spring of the Cresson, the site of which was very close to Kafr Sabt, where Saladin had positioned his army. The master's whole outlook was profoundly affected by an acute noble class-consciousness, which demanded that he follow a code of knightly behaviour quite distinct from those whom he dismissed contemptuously as Italian usurers. Such a code required that affronts, real or imagined, be avenged.62 However, there was another dimension to the master's actions, for he had released the money so carefully accumulated by Henry II over the previous fifteen years, including the large sums deposited with the military orders as a result of Henry's will in 1182. Until 1187, none of this had been spent; Henry had enjoyed the credit for such generosity while keeping a tight hold on the money itself. Moreover, the 5,000 marks bequeathed ‘for the defence of the land of Jerusalem’ in 1182 carried the caveat that it could not be used without Henry's permission. Failure to obtain this meant that Henry would have to be compensated by the military orders. Thus, nothing less than a spectacular success would have been sufficient to assuage Henry's anger, and that could not have been achieved by the defensive tactics recommended by the count of Tripoli and his barons.63
On Friday 3 July, the march across Galilee proved as arduous as Raymond of Tripoli had predicted. Raymond himself led the column, as was apparently customary for the lord of the region through which the army was passing. They had set out, according to the Libellus, lacking necessities, but in the course of the morning they passed springs near the village of Turan on the south side of the mountain. However, these were no alternative to Saffuriya; discharge measurements show that the springs at Saffuriya are capable of producing as much as 600 times more water.64 Progress was slow and soon men and horses began to suffer from thirst and exhaustion in the heat. Ernoul says that around midday they came to a stop when Raymond wrongly advised that they should make camp, but the author of the Libellus, who seems to have been in Raymond's part of the army, ascribes the decision to the king, claiming that it was contrary to the count's wishes. The halt was at Maskana, just over halfway to Tiberias from Saffuriya. There may have been some water here, although in summer it would have been quite inadequate for an army of this size.65 Maskana was evidently the wrong place to stop, but there may have been no alternative, for at the rear of the army the Templars had come under heavy attack from Saladin's forces on Kafr Sabt, who must have been bearing down on them from above.66
Once the Christians had committed themselves, Saladin sent Taqi al-Din and Muzzafar al-Din, commanding the right and left wings respectively, to surround them, cutting off access to Turan and to the much larger springs at the village of Hattin, just over 3 miles away to the north-east.67 If the Franks had planned to push on in the hope of reaching these springs, as one of the Old French continuations of William of Tyre suggests, these moves effectively prevented them.68 The Muslim forces were now oppressively close; on the night of 3 July, the main army seems to have been at Lubiya, not much more than a mile away.69 The next morning the Christians attempted to continue their march towards Tiberias, but at various points during the day the Muslims lit brushwood and other combustible materials they had gathered overnight, adding to the immense suffering of the army. At the same time Saladin refrained from launching a major attack until the sun was fully up.
Direct confrontation followed. As constable, Aimery of Lusignan organised the army into units. Raymond of Tripoli, his four stepsons and Raymond of Antioch were stationed in the van, while Balian of Ibelin and Joscelin of Courtenay protected the rear. The Libellus shows that considerable effort was made to co-ordinate the knights and the infantry, with the former acting as a shield for the foot soldiers, who would then be able to fire their arrows at on the enemy.70 The exact sequence of events thereafter is not known for certain and has caused considerable controversy among historians, so any reconstruction remains problematic. Saladin, apparently warned by deserters from Raymond's ranks, moved quickly to prevent the Franks from settling into an effective battle formation, causing the infantry to retreat rapidly to the north up the hill known as the Horns of Hattin. Neither orders from the king, nor pleas from the bishop of Acre, custodian of the True Cross, could persuade them to come back.
Either on his own initiative or on the orders of the king, Raymond of Tripoli now charged the enemy, apparently hoping to gain the springs at the village of Hattin, since he was aiming at Taqi al-Din on the Muslim right wing. However, as they approached, the Muslim forces parted, not, it seems, for tactical reasons, but because they knew they could not withstand its ferocity. The Libellus says that in the confined space the knights trampled down some of their own men and Ernoul thought that only about ten or twelve survived. These included Raymond himself, his stepsons, Raymond of Antioch, Reynald of Sidon, Balian of Ibelin and Joscelin of Courtenay. Once through the Muslim ranks, they did not turn back, but made their way first to Safad, about 10 miles to the north, and eventually to Tyre.71
At the same time the military orders at the rear were having great difficulty holding out against the encircling Turks, since they had no infantry support, and the remains of the army now retreated up the Horns of Hattin.72 Although probably forced on them, this was the best move, since they might have been able to regroup on the higher ground, as well as defending themselves inside what appears to have been the remains of Iron and Bronze Age fortifications.73 Here, too, they had the rallying point of the True Cross, around which they tried to erect a barrier of tents. The knights were then able to make at least two charges against the Muslim centre, but when these failed resistance at last began to falter. Most appallingly for the Christians, Taqi al-Din seized the True Cross itself. The exhausted Christians were now overwhelmed and, around the middle of the afternoon, the Muslims captured the major leaders, including King Guy, Gerard of Ridefort, Reynald of Châtillon, William of Montferrat, Aimery of Lusignan, Humphrey of Toron and Hugh of Gibelet. Ironically, among the other captives was Plivain of Botron, whose acquisition of the port was, according to Ernoul, the original cause of Gerard of Ridefort's hatred of the count of Tripoli.74
It was almost impossible for those who wrote about the battle to remain uninfluenced by its result, so that a sense of inevitability pervades almost all descriptions then and since. At the time, however, it did not look like that to participants on either side. The decision to camp at Maskana on the Friday may have been unavoidable, given the condition of the army, but both Ernoul and the Libellus thought that they had a chance of fighting their way through to the Sea of Galilee had they not stopped. Ernoul goes as far as to say that some thought that ‘if the Christians had pressed on to meet the Saracens, Saladin would have been defeated’. The author of the Libellus thought this was a crucial decision, claiming that when Raymond of Tripoli had heard the king's command, he exclaimed that the land was destroyed.75 Again, this is hindsight. According to information obtained by Genoese merchants in Acre at the time, the turning point came with the desertion of six of the king's knights on the Saturday morning, when they informed the sultan of the condition of the Christian army. ‘This renewed Saladin's resolve as he had been anxious and in doubt about the outcome of an all-out battle.’76
Most telling, however, is the account given by Ibn al-Athir, who says that, even after the flight of the count, ‘they understood that they would only be saved from death by facing it boldly, so they carried out successive charges, which almost drove the Muslims from their positions despite their numbers, had it not been for God's grace’. Ibn al-Athir derived this information from a conversation he had with al-Afdal, Saladin's son, who twice believed that victory had been achieved when the Frankish charges were beaten back, only to be reprimanded by his father, who told him that they would not be defeated until the fall of the tent erected
by Guy on the hillside. When this happened, ‘the sultan dismounted, prostrated himself in thanks to God Almighty and wept for joy’.77 Even the triumphalist ‘Imad al-Din acknowledged the extent of the resistance. After they had learned of Raymond's flight, the Franks were at first downcast, but then their courage revived: ‘far from conceding, they held firm to their positions, and even once more took the offensive, charging us and penetrating our ranks.’78
This scenario is confirmed by an anonymous account known as the Persecutio Saalardini, which is perhaps based on a letter sent by one of the participants. This tells how Guy held another conference early on Saturday morning. Here a knight called John, ‘who had often fought in Turkish armies’, advised an attack on the enemy's centre, where Saladin's banner could be seen, since if they succeeded there the battle could be won. Raymond of Tripoli, however, argued against this, ‘saying that [John] was not to be believed, since he had broken his oath when he had abjured us and when he had sworn fidelity to the Turks’, that is, he had twice proved to be untrustworthy. Instead, they should entrench themselves on the mountain (meaning Hattin), from which they could launch more effective attacks. The author considers Raymond's advice to be malevolent, largely because he interprets the count's later departure from the battlefield as flight, but it is clear that the Christians believed that charges could still be an effective means of winning the battle.79 The Muslims knew that it was difficult to defeat Frankish knights as long as they retained sound horses, and Saladin had therefore taken particular care to provide himself with sufficient archers, many of whom were mounted, whose task was to bring down as many horses as possible.80 He was correct to take this seriously. Despite the terrible events of the night of Friday 3 July, the next day the Christians still fought for something like six hours under a fierce sun before succumbing to exhaustion.
After the battle the captured leaders were brought before Saladin. Guy was given a cup of iced water which, after he had quenched his thirst, he handed to Reynald of Châtillon. Ernoul presents Reynald as defiant, refusing to drink, although ‘Imad al-Din, who was probably present, says that he did drink, but that Saladin made it clear it did not oblige him to accord the aman to him. Saladin then mounted his horse and did not return until his tents had been erected. He then called Reynald to his tent, struck him with his sword and, while he lay on the ground, beheaded him.81 Ernoul says that ‘he ordered that Reynald's head be brought to Damascus, and there it was dragged along the ground to show the Saracens whom the prince had wronged that vengeance had been exacted’.82 Ibn Shaddad thought that this was fully justified, for ‘this accursed Reynald was a monstrous infidel and terrible oppressor’.83
Saladin was equally unforgiving to the members of the military orders. By Monday morning, he had retrieved them from their captors, who were given 50 dinars each to hand them over, an offer that produced several hundred of them. He then ordered their beheading, a task for which many scholars and Sufis volunteered, although when it came to it not all of them could face it, or they botched the blow, for which they were mocked. According to the senior surviving member of the Temple, Terricus, the grand preceptor, 230 Templars were beheaded at this time.84 The leaders and the other captives were taken to prison in Damascus and ‘the fire of this band of infidels ceased to burn and was extinguished’.85
‘About two years later,’ writes Ibn al-Athir, ‘I passed by the site of the battle and saw the ground covered with their bones, visible from afar, some of them heaped up and others scattered about and this was apart from those that torrents had swept away or wild beasts in those thickets and hollows had taken.’86 The battle was a huge defeat for the Christians, but they had survived disasters before. Hattin was different, however, in that Guy had committed all the manpower he could muster, so that the land now lay open to Saladin. Indeed, this situation suggests strongly that Guy had not originally intended to confront the Muslims in a full-scale battle and had only changed his mind on the evening of 2 July, by which time he could not redeploy his forces. Saladin went at once to Tiberias, where Eschiva assumed that Raymond and her sons had been killed or captured, and therefore surrendered in return for a safe-conduct to Tripoli.87 According to the Libellus, Saladin then moved to Saffuriya, symbolically taking up the position that had been occupied by the army of Jerusalem. Here he divided out booty among his emirs, whose support he now needed to effect the conquest of the crusader states.88
Although he did not expect any immediate challenge, he needed to take advantage of the situation as soon as possible, for his coalition would only hold together for a few more months. In the kingdom of Jerusalem, the three most important cities were Acre and Tyre, the commercial leaders and key ports, and Jerusalem itself, the capture of which was essential if Saladin were to justify his claim to be the leader of the jihad. Initially he sent Taqi al-Din to seize Acre and he quickly agreed a surrender with Joscelin of Courtenay, only to meet resistance from the local population, who rioted, setting fire to a number of places in the city. Saladin's arrival on 8 July and his promise of safe-conduct calmed the situation and the citizens were given forty days to leave.89 Ibn al-Athir says that the Muslims took over on 9 July, in time to celebrate Friday prayers in the former mosque, the first occasion this had been done on the Syrian littoral since the Frankish conquest. There were large stocks of goods in the warehouses, as demand had been depressed in the West and they had not been exported. These included gold, jewels, textiles and weapons, as well as the sugar manufactured in the vicinity. Again these were distributed among the sultan's followers, largely by al-Afdal, who had been given charge of the city.90
A series of rapid capitulations followed. When Terricus wrote to the Templars in the West in late July or early August, he told them that only Jerusalem, Ascalon, Tyre and Beirut still remained in Christian hands.91 Terricus was either exaggerating or not fully informed, for the great inland castles of Beaufort, Safad, Belvoir, Kerak and Montréal were still in Christian hands, but nevertheless between 10 July and 6 August, when Beirut fell, the major coastal cities of Jaffa, Arsuf, Caesarea, Haifa, Sidon and Gibelet all surrendered.92 This did not involve any great loss of life, but large numbers of Christians were enslaved. Ibn al-Athir describes a scene in Aleppo, which he thought was typical, when a Muslim and his slave went to a house in the city. ‘Then he [the owner of the house] brought out another Frankish woman. When the first one caught sight of this other, they both cried out and embraced one another, screaming and weeping. They fell to the ground and sat talking. It transpired that they were two sisters. They had a number of family members but knew nothing about any one of them.’93
Tyre, however, proved to be much more difficult. Its position on a peninsula presented special problems for besiegers and it was the only city that had a considerable complement of defenders, since those who had escaped from the battle or had been expelled from other cities had made their way there. The witness list of a privilege granted to the Genoese in mid-July shows who was present: the archbishops of Tyre, Nazareth and Caesarea, Raymond of Tripoli, Joscelin of Courtenay, Reynald of Sidon, Balian of Ibelin and Walter of Caesarea, as well as the acting heads of the military orders, Terricus of the Temple and Borellus of the Hospital.94 Even so, Ibn al-Athir thought that Saladin overestimated its strength, especially as Raymond of Tripoli appears to have left soon after the agreement with the Genoese, presumably to attend to the defences of Tripoli.95 At any rate, Saladin decided to concentrate on easier targets.
The delay was crucial. Reynald of Sidon had, in fact, already promised to surrender the city, but was prevented by the arrival of Conrad of Monferrat, son of the marquis, William, captured at Hattin. Conrad had sailed in a Genoese ship from Constantinople, ignorant of events in Palestine. On 13 July, his ship reached Acre and, as was the custom, waited outside the harbour for a bell and the dispatch of a small boat. Nothing happened and, when in turn the Genoese sent their own boat, they quickly discovered that the garrison in the Tower of the Flies, on the outer end of the eas
tern wall of the harbour, was Muslim. Conrad sailed on to Tyre, where he found Saladin's banners already flying over the city. Welcomed by the citizens, he threw down the banners and at once began to organise a defence. Ernoul says that Reynald of Sidon did not dare contradict him and left for Tripoli. Soon afterwards they were reinforced by three Pisan ships, so that when Saladin returned he found the city defiant. An attempt to offer Conrad his father's freedom in exchange for the city failed; Ernoul dramatically claims that to emphasise the point Conrad even shot a crossbow bolt at the marquis.96
Ascalon also resisted, its inhabitants encouraged by the strength of its fortifications on which the Franks had spent considerable sums. This time Saladin brought the king as a bargaining counter, but the defenders were not persuaded to capitulate, and Saladin began a regular siege. Finally, after two weeks, on 4 September, believing that no help was at hand, they gave in on conditions, most importantly their safe passage to Jerusalem. Gerard of Ridefort's presence was significant, because the Templars had held key fortresses in the south since the middle of the century, most importantly Gaza and Latrun (Toron des Chevaliers). As their vow of obedience demanded, the Templars acceded to the master's command to submit. In return, Saladin agreed to free ten nominated persons, including Guy himself, Aimery, his brother, the marshal, and Gerard of Ridefort, although the king's release would be delayed until the following July.97 Saladin then allowed Sybilla to join Guy in Nablus as ‘he did not want her in Jerusalem once he was besieging it’.98 This was a particularly important gain for Saladin since he needed to make the passage of troops and provisions from Egypt as easy as possible and could not afford to leave Ascalon and its surrounding complex of fortresses in Frankish hands.99
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