ENDGAME
By summer 1192 Saladin and Richard had fought one another to a standstill. The sultan had survived the crusaders’ second inland advance and remained in possession of Jerusalem, but his Muslim armies were utterly exhausted and the Ayyubid Empire practically at the point of collapse. The Third Crusade, meanwhile, had suffered no deadly defeat, but its martial energy had been squandered through irresolute leadership. Frankish unity–so recently buoyed by Henry of Champagne’s election as titular king of Latin Palestine–was now shattered irrevocably and the Latin coalition forces dispersed (with Hugh of Burgundy and the French congregating in Caesarea). Deprived of the requisite manpower and resources, the Lionheart’s plan to open a new front in Egypt was eventually abandoned. At the same time, anxiety over events in Europe continued to figure heavily in Richard’s thinking. With the forces of neither Christendom nor Islam able to win the Palestinian war, all that really remained was to settle upon a path to peace.
Much of that summer was given over to protracted negotiation as each side jockeyed for the most favourable terms, ever watchful for opportunities to gain diplomatic leverage. One such opening came in late July 1192, when Saladin sought to capitalise on Richard’s temporary absence in Acre by leading a strike force on Jaffa. The sultan came within hours of conquering the port, but the Lionheart arrived by ship (having been alerted to the attack) to relieve the Frankish garrison. Wading ashore, the king spearheaded a fearless counter-attack, beating back the Muslim assault. Richard established a camp outside Jaffa and, in the days that followed, brazenly saw off all attempts to overrun his position, despite being heavily outnumbered. Attended by a small party of loyal supporters–including Henry of Champagne, Robert of Leicester, Andrew of Chauvigny and William of L’Estang–the king was said to have ‘brandished his sword with rapid strokes, slicing through the charging enemy, cutting them down in two as he met them, first on this side, then on that’. Whatever his recent failings as a crusade commander, the Lionheart remained a warrior of unquestioned skill and fearsome repute. According to Muslim testimony, around 4 August Richard even rode out alone, lance in hand, before the Ayyubid lines, in an act of sheer defiance, ‘but no one came out against him’. Soon after, Saladin ordered the retreat, utterly incensed by his troops’ deepening reluctance to confront this force of nature despite his exhortations to attack.
In truth, the sultan’s anger–and the uncharacteristic recalcitrance of his soldiers outside Jaffa–can be at least partially explained by the fact that Richard had resorted to more devious tactics in the war of diplomacy. To Saladin’s annoyance, his Angevin rival was making relentless, and increasingly successful, attempts to establish friendships with leading Ayyubid emirs. Already in 1191 the Lionheart had shown an interest in exploiting the potential for rivalry and suspicion between the sultan and his brother al-Adil. Now, in the second half of 1192, as the pace and intensity of negotiation quickened, Richard extended this ploy–re-establishing lines of communication with al-Adil, but also forging contacts with a number of other Muslim potentates drawn from Saladin’s inner circle. The men he targeted were not necessarily openly disloyal to the sultan, but, like everyone else, they could sense that the crusade was drawing to a close. As such, they recognised that their role in any future settlement might be markedly improved if they served as mediators and peace brokers.
Richard deliberately conducted much of this contact in public–seemingly intent upon demonstrating to Saladin that his emirs’ appetite for hard-bitten conflict was waning. Even outside Jaffa on 1 August, Richard invited a group of high-ranking Ayyubid commanders to visit his camp during a lull in the fighting. He spent the evening entertaining and joking with them, speaking of things both ‘serious and light-hearted’. Unfortunately for Richard, the advantage accrued through this scheming was largely squandered when he fell gravely ill in mid-August. Up to this point he had stubbornly insisted that Ascalon–painstakingly rebuilt through his own efforts just months earlier–must remain in Christian hands, always adding that he had every intention of staying in the Levant until Easter 1193. By late August, however, with the Lionheart debilitated by fever, the haggling ceased.101
Through lengthy and convoluted diplomatic dialogue the terms of a three-year truce were eventually settled on Wednesday 2 September 1192. Saladin was to retain control of Jerusalem, but agreed to allow Christian pilgrims unfettered access to the Holy Sepulchre. The Franks were to hold on to the narrow coastal strip between Jaffa and Tyre conquered during the crusade, but Ascalon’s fortifications were once again to be demolished. Strangely, no discussion over the fate of the Jerusalemite True Cross seems to have taken place–in any case, the revered Christian relic remained in Ayyubid hands.
Even at this final moment of accord, Saladin and Richard did not meet. Al-Adil brought the written treaty–the Arabic text of which was penned by the sultan’s scribe Imad al-Din–to Richard at Jaffa. The ailing king was too weak even to read the document and merely offered his hand as a sign of truce. Henry of Champagne and Balian of Ibelin then swore oaths to uphold the terms, and the Templar and Hospitaller masters also indicated their approval. The next day, at Ramla, a Latin delegation that included Humphrey of Toron and Balian was ushered into Saladin’s presence. There, ‘they took his noble hand and received his oath to observe the peace on the agreed terms’. Key members of Saladin’s family–al-Adil, al-Afdal and al-Zahir–and a number of leading emirs then proffered their own oaths. At last, with the elaborate rituals concluded, peace was achieved.102
In the month that followed, three delegations of crusaders made the journey to Jerusalem–achieving through truce what had been denied them in war. Among those who fulfilled their pilgrim vows were Andrew of Chauvigny and Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury. But Richard I made no attempt to travel to the Holy City. It may be that his continued ill health prevented him; or perhaps he deemed the prospect of visiting the Holy Sepulchre while Jerusalem yet remained in Muslim hands too shameful to bear. On 9 October 1192, after sixteen months in the Levant, the Lionheart began his journey back to Europe. As his royal fleet set sail, the king was said to have offered a prayer to God that he might one day return.
THE OUTCOME OF THE THIRD CRUSADE
In the end, neither Saladin nor Richard the Lionheart could claim victory in the war for the Holy Land. The Angevin king had failed to recapture Jerusalem or to recover the True Cross. But through his efforts and those of his fellow crusaders, Latin Christendom retained a foothold in Palestine, and the Frankish subjugation of Cyprus offered a further beacon of hope for Outremer’s survival.
After leading Islam to victory in 1187, Saladin had faced a series of humiliating setbacks during the Third Crusade–at Acre, Arsuf and Jaffa. Despite unswerving devotion to the cause of jihad, he had also been wholly unable to prevent the Frankish reconquest of the coast. In siege and battle Richard had prevailed, while in the art of diplomacy the Lionheart had proved, at the very least, to be the sultan’s equal. Yet, though beaten, Saladin remained undefeated. Jerusalem had been defended for Islam; the Ayyubid Empire endured. And now, the crusade’s end and King Richard’s departure offered the prospect of future triumphs–the chance to complete the work begun at Hattin.
The long road ends
Once news of King Richard’s departure from the Holy Land had been confirmed, Saladin finally felt able to disband his armies. Thought was given to undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca, but the needs of the empire soon took precedence. After touring his Palestinian territories, Saladin returned to Syria to spend a rainy winter resting in Damascus. Bidding farewell to al-Zahir, he was said to have counselled his son not to become too familiar with violence, warning that ‘blood never sleeps’.
By early 1193, Saladin’s health was in decline and he began to show worrying signs of exhaustion. Baha al-Din remarked that ‘it was as though his body was full and there was a lassitude about him’. On 20 February the sultan fell ill, becoming feverish and nauseous. Through the days that followed
his condition deteriorated. Together Baha al-Din and al-Fadil visited their master’s chambers in the citadel each morning and each night, and al-Afdal was also in close attendance. By early March Saladin’s fever had intensified, such that sweat soaked through his mattress to the floor and he began to slip in and out of consciousness. Baha al-Din described how on 3 March 1193:
The sultan’s illness grew ever worse and his strength dwindled further…[an imam] was called upon to spend the night in the citadel, so that if the death throes began, he would be with the sultan, [able] to rehearse his confession of faith and keep God before his mind. This was done and we left the citadel, each longing to give his own life to ransom the sultan’s.
Just after dawn, as the imam recited the Koran beside him, Saladin died. He was fifty-five. His body was laid to rest in a mausoleum within the compound of the Grand Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. It remains there to this day.103
In his early career, Saladin had been driven by personal ambition and a hunger for renown to usurp power from the Zangids and forge a new and expansive Ayyubid Empire. He had also shown a ready willingness to defame his enemies, Muslim and Christian, through the use of propaganda. The sultan’s dedication to jihad–a marked feature of his career only after his illness in 1186–was ever coloured by a determination to lead Islam in the holy war, rather than serve as a lieutenant.
Nonetheless, Saladin does seem to have been inspired by authentic religious fervour and a genuine belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem. It has recently been suggested that after 1187, once the overriding goal of the Holy City’s recapture was achieved, ‘Saladin’s emotional commitment to jihad faltered.’ In fact, if anything, the sultan’s devotion to this cause strengthened during the Third Crusade, even in the face of failure and defeat. It is also true that the sense of Muslim unity he engendered, while not absolute, was unparalleled in the twelfth century. Certainly, in the world of the crusades, adversaries and allies alike recognised that the sultan was a remarkable leader of men. Even his sometime critic, the great Iraqi historian and Zangid sympathiser Ibn al-Athir, wrote that:
Saladin (may God have mercy on him) was generous, forbearing, of good character, humble, ready to put up with something that displeased him [and] much given to overlooking the faults of his followers…In short, he was a rare individual in his age, with many good qualities and good deeds, mighty in jihad against the infidels, for which his conquests are the proof.104
Above all else, one fundamental question underpins any attempt to judge Saladin’s life and career: did he champion the cause of jihad, conquer and defend Jerusalem in pursuit of his own glory and gain, or in the wider interests of Islam? In the end, perhaps even the sultan himself remained unsure of the answer.
Richard the Lionheart’s later career
Even as the Ayyubid sultan passed away, his nemesis Richard the Lionheart was facing a new struggle. Narrowly avoiding disaster when his ship was wrecked by a storm near Venice, the king continued his homeward journey overland. Travelling in disguise to evade his European enemies, he was captured nonetheless in Vienna by his old rival from the siege of Acre, Duke Leopold of Austria–apparently Richard’s attempt to pass himself off as a lowly cook failed because he forgot to take off a fabulously bejewelled ring.
Confined in a lofty castle overlooking the Danube, the Lionheart was held prisoner for more than a year, causing political scandal throughout the West, and was released in February 1194 only after protracted negotiation and the payment of a massive ransom. By the late thirteenth century, however, a more romantic tale was circulating, in which the king’s faithful minstrel, Blondel, doggedly searched across Europe for his supposedly ‘missing’ master, pausing at the foot of countless castles to sing a song that he and Richard had written together. The king did compose at least two doleful laments while in captivity (both of which survive to this day), but the story of Blondel is pure fiction–one more layer of myth in the legend of the Lionheart.
Despite all his fears, and prolonged absence, Richard returned to find that the Angevin realm remained his to rule–the king’s loyal supporters had thwarted John’s attempts at rebellion. Philip Augustus, however, had been able to take some advantage–seizing a number of castles along the border with Normandy–and Richard dedicated much of the next five years to campaigning against the Capetians. Embroiled in the affairs of Europe, he never returned to the Holy Land. At the end of the twelfth century the Lionheart’s penchant for front-line combat finally caught up with him. While besieging the small castle of Chalus in southern France, he was struck in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt and badly injured. The wound turned gangrenous, and Richard died on 6 April 1199, at the age of forty-one. His body was buried at Fontevraud, beside his father Henry II, while his heart was interred at Rouen.105
Contemporaries remembered the Lionheart as a peerless warrior and superlative crusader: the king who brought the mighty Saladin to his knees. To a large extent, Richard can be credited with saving Outremer. Valorous and wily, adept in battle, he proved himself equal to the challenge of confronting the Ayyubid sultan. But for all his achievements in the holy war, the Angevin king always struggled to reconcile his various duties and obligations–torn between the need to defend his western realm and the desire to forge a legend in Palestine. Crucially, he also failed to understand the distinct nature and challenge of crusader warfare, and thus was unable to lead the Third Crusade to victory.
IV
THE STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
19
REJUVENATION
In the wake of the Third Crusade, anxious questions about the value and efficacy of Christian holy war began to surface in the West. The ‘horrors’ of 1187–the Frankish defeat at Hattin and the Muslim reconquest of Jerusalem–had prompted Europe to launch history’s largest and best-organised expedition to the East. Latin Christendom’s greatest kings had led tens of thousands of crusaders to battle. And yet, the Holy City remained in the hands of Islam, as did that most treasured of Christ’s relics, the True Cross. Given the physical, emotional and financial sacrifices made between 1188 and 1192, and the shocking failure, nonetheless, to achieve overall victory, it was inevitable that western Christendom would be moved to think again about crusading–looking inwards, to reconsider and reshape the idea and practice of fighting in the name of God.
TRANSFORMATION IN THE LATIN WEST
Fundamental shifts within Latin Europe also helped to kindle this ‘reformation’ in Christian holy war. Crusading had originally been born and fashioned in the world of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. But by 1200, many essential features of western society were in flux: accelerating urbanisation was altering population patterns, stimulating social mobility and the empowerment of a merchant class, and centralised monarchical authority was strengthening in regions like France. More significant still were the associated changes in Europe’s intellectual and spiritual landscape. From the start, crusade enthusiasm had been underpinned by the fact that almost all Latins felt an overwhelming need to seek redemption for their sins. But in the course of the twelfth century, attitudes towards penitential and devotional practice evolved, and new ideas about what a ‘good Christian life’ might actually entail began to percolate through the West.
One gradual change saw an increased emphasis on interior forms of spirituality, over external manifestations of piety. For the first time in the Middle Ages, what one truly thought, felt and believed was becoming as, or even more, important than what one said and did in public. In a parallel and related development, Man’s relationship with God and Christ came to be seen in more personal and direct, ‘internalised’ terms. These notions possessed the potential to overturn the established frameworks of medieval religion. A salvific ritual like physical pilgrimage–one of the bedrocks of crusading–made far less sense, for example, if what truly mattered was heartfelt contrition. And if, as many theologians had begun to suggest, God’s grace was omnipresent in everyone and everything, then why was it necessary to travel
across half the Earth to seek His forgiveness at a site like Jerusalem? It would be many years before the full transformative force of this ideological revolution was felt in western Christendom, but early signs of influence were evident during the thirteenth century.
Latin Christianity also faced more immediate and urgent challenges around 1200. The first was heresy. Europe had once been a stronghold of religious orthodoxy and conformity, but over the last hundred years the West had experienced an outbreak of ‘heretical’ beliefs and movements of almost epidemic proportions. This ranged from the relatively innocuous rabble-rousing ravings of unordained demagogues to the inculcation of elaborately conceived, full-blown alternative faiths–like that of the dualistic Cathars, who believed in two Gods, one good, the other evil, and denied that Christ had ever lived in corporeal human form (and thus rejected the primary Latin tenets of Crucifixion, Redemption and Resurrection). Alongside those condemned as heretics by the Roman Church were others who strayed desperately close to the line, but nevertheless managed to garner papal approval. These included the Mendicant Friars–Franciscans and Dominicans–who advocated simple poverty and dedicated themselves to bringing God’s word to the people with new vigour and clarity. The Church soon sought to harness the Friars’ oratorical dynamism, not least to invigorate crusade preaching. But the Mendicants’ evangelical enthusiasm also had the power to affect the objectives of a holy war; to weave a strand of conversion into the familiar background of conquest and defence.1
The world of the thirteenth century was to be one of new ideas and fresh challenges, in which crusading might have to fulfil different roles and assume novel forms. The critical question–soon apparent to contemporaries–was what all of this would mean for the war in the Holy Land.
The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land Page 53
