A History of the Crusades

by Jonathan Riley-Smith

  Relations between the rulers of the Frankish settlements were generally quite good although occasionally tensions came to the surface. The Latin East consisted of four different territories. Each had a distinctive character and was capable of independent action, although it was obviously in the settlements’ interests to pull together against common enemies. Relations between Jerusalem and its smaller northern neighbour, the county of Tripoli, were usually close and the count was a vassal of the king. The counts of Edessa paid homage to Jerusalem, and by the 1130s they were also vassals of the prince of Antioch. The prince of Antioch owed no formal obligation to the king of Jerusalem but in theory was subject to the overlordship of the Greek emperor, as we shall see. None the less, the Antiochenes needed a strong relationship with those in the south because they were often forced to turn to Jerusalem for military help. On fifteen occasions between 1110 and 1137 the rulers of Jerusalem assisted their co-religionists in the north and for thirteen of those years the king acted as regent in the principality. The relationship was not entirely one-sided because men from Antioch fought on behalf of Jerusalem in 1113, 1129, and 1137, but it is plain that Antioch was the settlement which required more assistance. It is possible to discern a more competitive edge between the four settlements around the time of the Second Crusade. William of Tyre, a twelfth-century historian of the kingdom of Jerusalem, wrote that when King Louis VII of France arrived at Antioch in March 1148 representatives of each of the Latin territories visited him and tried to persuade him to base himself in his particular land, regardless of the needs of others.

  In the 1140s the military situation took a turn for the worse. The first major setback to affect the Latin settlers came in December 1144 when Zangi, the Muslim atabak of Mosul, captured the city of Edessa. Although the march across Asia Minor of two large armies of the Second Crusade, led by Louis VII and King Conrad III of Germany, was a disaster, the combined force of crusaders and settlers attacked Damascus in July 1148. The siege broke down within a week. It seems likely now that fear of Muslim relief forces had compelled the Christians to make a tactical error, but this simple explanation did not satisfy the settlers and the crusaders, who accused each other of treachery. The westerners returned home, leaving the Franks to fend for themselves.

  The northern settlers had always had the worst of the Muslim onslaught and their situation began to deteriorate further. William of Tyre wrote that the Christians were under such pressure that it was as if they were being ground between two millstones. Zangi’s successor, Nur al-Din of Aleppo, worked hard to draw together the disparate Muslim lordships of northern Syria. In 1149 he killed Prince Raymond of Antioch at the battle of Inab and Raymond’s head was sent to the caliph in Baghdad to mark Nur al-Din’s position as the Sunni Muslims’ leading warrior. His influence extended southwards and in 1154 he took control of Damascus, which meant that the Christians faced a united Muslim Syria for the first time. At this point the political situation was finely balanced; the Muslims were an increasing threat to the Franks, yet in Baldwin III of Jerusalem (1143–63) and his successor, Amalric (1163–74), the settlers had two strong kings who were prepared to confront their enemies.

  The keystone of Amalric’s policy rested on the control of Egypt. The Shi’i Fatimid caliphs were weak and with Nur al-Din in control of both Aleppo and Damascus it was essential to prevent him capturing Egypt and surrounding the settlers by land. Between 1163 and 1169 Amalric made no less than five attempts to conquer Egypt. But in order to defend themselves from growing Muslim hostility, let alone contemplate such ambitious schemes as the capture of Egypt, it was plain that the settlers themselves needed greater military resources. The first place they sought help from was western Europe. The raisond’être of the Frankish states was to guard the holy places on behalf of Latin Christendom. The real affinities of the settlers were with their co-religionists in Europe, who they anticipated would help to defend Christ’s patrimony because in theory the welfare of the Holy Land was of concern to all Christians. The settlers also tried hard to exploit their family connections with western nobles to encourage people to take the cross.

  From 1160 onwards they sent a series of letters and envoys to the leading men of western Europe asking for help. The papacy backed up these appeals by issuing letters which called for new crusades. Some financial assistance was sent to the Levant and, more importantly, a number of medium-sized crusades set out for the East led by men such as the counts of Flanders and Nevers. Short-term military assistance of this sort was, of course, welcome but what the settlers really wanted was a largescale crusade. They focused particular attention on King Louis VII of France and King Henry II of England, but the political differences between these two rulers frustrated their efforts.

  The need for substantial military assistance remained. Where else could the settlers turn to? An answer was Byzantium. The Greeks had been involved in the affairs of the Latin East from the first, and they had been in conflict with Bohemond of Taranto until in the Treaty of Devol (1108) Bohemond had sworn fealty to the emperor and acknowledged him as overlord of Antioch. The presence of a substantial Orthodox population in northern Syria also encouraged Greek involvement in the region. King Baldwin III decided to form closer ties with Constantinople and in late 1150 he allowed the Greeks to secure a foothold in northern Syria by purchasing the remaining Frankish lands in Edessa. Relations between the Greeks and the Latins soon developed further. In 1158 Baldwin married a member of the Greek imperial family. Nine years later his successor, Amalric, did likewise. And in the interim the Emperor Manuel Comnenus wedded Maria of Antioch. These marriages enhanced the prospects for military co-operation. It was intended that the primary goal of the Frankish–Greek alliance would be Egypt, but in early 1169 Nur al-Din took the country before the Christians could implement their agreement. This latest Muslim success dramatically increased the threat to the kingdom of Jerusalem and in light of the continued lack of large-scale help from the West Amalric persisted with his pro-Greek policy. He travelled to Constantinople in 1171 where it is likely that he paid homage to Manuel. It was the first time that a king of Jerusalem had made such a journey and this dramatic gesture demonstrated how desperate he had become. Further Greek assistance arrived in the Levant in 1177, but the rapport between the two powers ended with Manuel’s death in 1180. The relationship had not been a great success, although on rare occasions the fear of Greek intervention had influenced the Muslims’ approach to the settlers. For example, after Nur al-Din had crushed a Frankish army in northern Syria in 1164, his lieutenants advised him to continue into the principality of Antioch and to destroy the remaining Franks, but Nur al-Din rejected the plan because he was convinced that Greek reprisals would result if he captured too much Christian territory.

  The year 1174 marked a turning point for both the Franks and their enemies. In May Nur al-Din’s death presented the Franks with a golden opportunity and, by sheer good fortune, they had arranged for a Sicilian fleet to assist them in another attack on Egypt. Unfortunately for them, just as the Sicilians reached the Levant, King Amalric fell ill and died. The campaign failed and the Sicilians returned home. This disappointment was compounded by the fact that Amalric’s heir, Baldwin IV, was a leper, which meant that he was incapable of ruling effectively and could not father children. Baldwin struggled on until his death in 1185 but he presided over an increasingly divided kingdom. This was a period of intense feuding between two rival factions of nobles who sought to manipulate the unfortunate king to serve their own ends. The succession of his infant nephew, Baldwin V, changed little and the child died within a year. Yet as the Franks became more and more divided, the Muslim world began to recover its strength. Nur al-Din’s lieutenant in Egypt, Saladin, succeeded him and by 1186 had constructed a coalition of Muslim forces which, in the name of the jihad, he prepared to turn against the Franks. The Christians needed help urgently and a delegation led by the patriarch of Jerusalem and the masters of the military orders tried to persuade
the rulers of western Europe to help defend the Holy Sepulchre; the settlers were so desperate that they even offered in vain the overlordship of the kingdom to Philip II of France and Henry II of England. They were left isolated. In 1187 Saladin invaded and on 4 July crushed the settlers’ forces led by Guy of Lusignan, who was the King-consort of Baldwin IV’s sister, at the battle of Hattin. The Franks’ lack of manpower was exposed and their settlements lay almost defenceless. In the succeeding months Saladin occupied Jerusalem and pushed the Latins back to the coast, leaving Tyre as the only Palestinian city in Christian hands; Tripoli and Antioch were less affected, although both lost territory on their eastern borders. As we have seen, the western response was the Third Crusade.

  Cyprus

  In May 1191 Richard I of England captured Cyprus from Isaac Comnenus, a renegade member of the Greek imperial family. Richard was sailing towards the Holy Land when part of his fleet—including the ship carrying his sister and his fiancée—had to shelter off the island during a storm. Isaac’s hostile reaction prompted Richard to use force and his troops soon compelled the Cypriots to surrender. In spite of his status as a crusader Richard had not hesitated to take land from a Christian ruler, although it is clear that he had acquired the territory on his own behalf. The seizure of Cyprus was hardly an act of religious colonization, yet the island formed a very close relationship with the other Latin Christian settlements in the eastern Mediterranean and came to play an integral role in the defence of the Holy Land. Given favourable winds the journey from Cyprus to the Syrian coastline could be accomplished in a day. Its location meant that it was an obvious supply base for crusading expeditions. This was most apparent during the first crusade of King Louis IX of France. On reaching the eastern Mediterranean Louis spent eight months on the island and he was accompanied by King Henry I and leading Cypriot nobles when he invaded Egypt in June 1249. The Frankish Cypriots were not always so keen to help such expeditions and during the Lord Edward of England’s crusade in 1271–2 some of them tried to argue that they should not perform military service outside the island and that when they had assisted their king elsewhere in the past it had been in a purely voluntary capacity. They finally agreed to serve him abroad for only four months a year.

  Richard sold the island to Guy of Lusignan, the former king of Jerusalem, whose brother and successor Aimery established a dynasty which ruled Cyprus for almost 300 years. Compared to the Latin settlements on the mainland, Cyprus was far less susceptible to Muslim raids, although fear of external attack caused Aimery of Lusignan to seek the overlordship of the western emperor Henry VI in 1195. Aimery, who was also granted a crown by the western emperor, became king-consort of Jerusalem in 1197 when he married the heiress to the throne, Isabella I. Although he spent more time in Acre than in Nicosia this did not mean that the two kingdoms merged. Their institutions remained separate and Aimery refused to allow the financial resources of Cyprus to be absorbed in the defence of Jerusalem. He was, however, prepared to consider deploying the islanders’ military strength on behalf of those on the mainland. His marriage to Isabella produced no children and on his death in 1205 the two kingdoms were ruled, for a time, by different dynasties.

  In order to consolidate Frankish rule on Cyprus the early Lusignans granted hundreds of knights, mounted sergeants, and burgesses territory and rights, a policy which also helped to offset the recent territorial losses to Saladin on the mainland. There were no palatinates on Cyprus which meant that justice was more closely under royal control. The Lusignans were also prudent enough to ensure that no castles or walled towns were held by lay vassals, a practice that rulers elsewhere in the Latin East could not contemplate because of the threat of Muslim attack. Such factors prevented the nobles from building up regional power-bases and may help to explain the relative calm on the island, apart from an externally inspired civil war between 1229 and 1233. The only non-royal fortresses were probably those at Kolossi and Gastria which formed part of the extensive estates held by the Hospitallers and the Templars.

  Fertile shore plains, terraced valleys, and the use of irrigation channels meant that Cyprus could produce substantial quantities of cereals, sugar, and olive oil for export. Wine was another important product although some varieties were so viscous that contemporaries reported they could be spread on bread like honey. Under Lusignan rule the Cypriot economy grew rapidly, with the city of Limassol the first centre of commercial activity. The island’s position as a natural stopping-off point for traders on their way to the mainland and the growing interest of the Italian merchant communities contributed to its prosperity. The Venetians had secured privileges during the period of Byzantine rule, but under the Lusignans the Genoese became increasingly prominent, particularly after the civil war of 1229 to 1233. King Henry I (1218–53) needed naval help and the Genoese assisted him in return for substantial commercial privileges. Pisan, Catalan, and Cilician Armenian merchants also entered into trading agreements with the Cypriots. Towards the end of the thirteenth century Famagusta began to overtake Limassol as the commercial capital of the island because it was fifty miles closer to the mainland and more convenient for the growing trade with Syria and Cilicia. After the fall of Acre in 1291 Europeans were prohibited from direct trade with the Muslims. Western merchants made use of Ayas in Christian Cilicia and Syrian Christians transported merchandise from the Levant to Famagusta to enable Europeans to purchase it. Cyprus became a key staging post on a major international trade route and the volume of commerce generated meant that Famagusta became a wealthy and cosmopolitan city.

  One of the biggest changes brought about by the Frankish conquest was the establishment of the Latin Church. The majority of the native population was Greek Orthodox but a Latin archbishop became the senior churchman and the Greek bishops were required to subordinate themselves to their Catholic counterparts. The Orthodox were also compelled to acknowledge the primacy of the pope, a situation that their co-religionists on the mainland were not forced to accept. The Orthodox archbishop formally agreed to this in 1261, but the lower clergy were less prepared to accept Catholic jurisdiction. There were moments of crisis. One, following from the Greeks’ insistence on the use of leavened bread in the eucharist because it symbolized for them the resurrection, led to thirteen Orthodox believers being martyred, while numbers of their co-religionists were excommunicated. The injury to the Orthodox community was exacerbated by the Franks’ appropriation and use of property owned by the local Church. The quality of the surviving Latin cathedrals, churches, and monastic buildings testify to the dominant status of the Latin Church during this period.

  For over half the period between 1205 and 1267 the government of the crown of Cyprus was marked by minorities and regencies. One consequence of this was the emergence of the Ibelin family, which was already well established in the kingdom of Jerusalem, as a powerful force in Cypriot affairs. In c .1218 Philip of Ibelin became regent for his nephew, the infant King Henry I. Philip had sufficient support to brush off a challenge to his authority from Henry’s mother, but the Emperor Frederick II, who arrived on the island in 1228, was determined to check the power of the Ibelins, led at this time by Philip’s brother, John. The emperor was furious that they had ignored his rights as overlord by crowning Henry without any reference to him. He claimed custody of the young king and the profits from royal properties. He invited John of Ibelin to a banquet, received him cordially and then had him surrounded by armed men and arrested. John was forced to hand over Henry before escaping to the castle of St Hilarion in the northern mountains. Shortly afterwards, Frederick left for the mainland and when a papal invasion of southern Italy compelled him to return home, he sold the regency of Cyprus to five imperial supporters. There followed four years of civil war as the Ibelins struggled to defeat the imperialists in Palestine as well as on Cyprus. Richard Filangieri, the imperial marshal, besieged their castle at Beirut and fomented opposition to them on Cyprus. John secured the backing of a Genoese fleet and the majority of
the Cypriot population, and by 1233 he had routed imperial forces on the island. The overlordship of the emperor on Cyprus was ended in 1247 when Pope Innocent IV absolved King Henry of any oaths he had taken to Frederick and the kingdom came under the direct protection of the Holy See.