God's War: A New History of the Crusades

by Christopher Tyerman

  All that was left for the demoralized crusaders at Acre, as Hubert Walter wrote anxiously from there in the early weeks of 1191 to the mandarin English bureaucrat, Richard FitzNeal bishop of London, was to ‘maintain their efforts and withstand the discomforts of the siege until the coming of our kings’. He hoped they would arrive at Easter (14 April). Perhaps he expected them to. Without them, Hubert prophesied, ‘the hope of worldly consolation will die away’.49 All eyes, Christian and Muslim, were strained westwards, awaiting the appearance of the kings of France and England.

  THE ANGLO-FRENCH EXPEDITION 1190–91

  The delay in the arrival of the kings of France and England at the siege of Acre constituted one of the scandals of the age, evidence of Satan at work.50 Frederick Barbarossa was dead before his fellow monarchs had even set out. Chroniclers, chanteurs and clerics united in condemnation of the unseemly politics that enveloped royal preparations in France and England after Henry II and Philip II had taken the cross together at Gisors in January 1188. By the end of March, both monarchs had issued instructions for the Saladin Tithe and details of how crusaders’ privileges would operate. However, unrest, rebellion and war in Richard of Poitou’s lands in Aquitaine distracted attention from the crusade and drew Philip II and Henry II into another round of military thrust and parry. As 1188 wore on, Philip successfully managed to entice Richard into an alliance against his father by suggesting that the old king was planning to disinherit him in favour of his youngest son, John. As John had conspicuously not taken the cross, and so was available to rule the Angevin lands in the absence of Henry and Richard, the idea seemed plausible. Despite repeated attempts at negotiation, tension over the Angevin succession, heightened by Henry’s ill-health in the winter and spring of 1188–9, turned to open warfare between the old king on one side and Philip and Richard on the other. Yet pressure for the crusade continued. At a peace conference on 4 July 1189, the three protagonists, among other things, agreed to muster for the crusade at Vézelay in late February, mid-Lent, 1190. Three days later, Henry II died.51

  Given the upheavals and arrangements consequent on a new reign in Angevin lands in France as well as in England, the remarkable feature of the crusade preparations was not delay but their acceleration on both sides of the Channel. Although twice, in November 1189 and in March 1190, the date for departure was postponed, first to 1 April, then to 24 June, both kings set about preparing their realms administratively and politically for their absence and arranging for their transport east. Remarkably, even the deaths in childbirth on 15 March 1190 of Philip’s queen and the twins she was carrying scarcely deflected the king’s resolve. The French succession now rested on a three-year-old child, Prince Louis. Not only Philip, but also possible claimants such as Count Robert II of Dreux, a first cousin, left for the east. Their participation in the crusade echoed that of heir-less Louis VII and his brother Robert I of Dreux in 1147 by imperilling Capetian dynastic security, the rock on which the royal house’s fortunes had rested for two centuries. As for Richard he was unmarried and childless, with a younger brother and nephew who inevitably would (and after 1199 did) compete for his inheritance. In such circumstances, embarkation a year after Henry II’s death was not unduly dilatory. Much criticism of Henry, Philip and Richard appears polemical or wishful. There would have been no participation by the French and English kings of any kind without the resolution of outstanding disagreements over the succession to Angevin lands in France and the honouring of past treaties. More widely, critics underestimated the extent of non-royal crusade activity, especially in France.

  By the time Philip II and Richard I finally left Vézelay together on 4 July 1190, thousands of Frenchmen, some vassals of Philip II, some of Henry II, had already reached Acre in the fleets of James of Avesnes and Henry of Champagne, including many of the leading barons of Philip II’s early years, such as the count of Dreux in 1189 and the counts of Blois, Clermont and Sancerre a year later. Englishmen and Anglo-Normans such as William Ferrers earl of Derby, who joined French contingents in northern France in 1189,52 or Ralph Hauterive archdeacon of Colchester, who had travelled with other Londoners by sea in 1189, were already entering the rich folklore of heroes in the crusader camp long before their king had ever reached the Mediterranean. Even in England and Normandy, with their centralized mechanisms of royal administration and control, independent action, based on lordship, town, region or kin, accounted for many departures beyond the ambit of the crown’s preparations. Among the arrivals at Acre in 1189–90 were representatives of the London clerical and commercial elites, including members of the chapter of St Paul’s and civic swells such as Geoffrey the Goldsmith and William ‘Longbeard’ FitzOsbert, who had to raise a mortgage on some of his city property to pay for his journey. In 1190, a significant contingent from Normandy came, probably with Henry of Champagne, linked by kinship as well as regional and lordship ties: Richard of Vernon and his son; Gilbert of Tillières and his military entourage, ‘manu valida bellatorum’, literally, ‘with a strong hand of warriors’.53 Some of these companies may have been modest, Ivo of Vipont on one occasion commanding a mere ten men on a trip from Acre to Tyre.54 Archbishop Baldwin was accompanied by an extensive household, domestic servants and, possibly, dozens of fighting men. Other contingents were very substantial, such as the knights of Richard of Clare or the extended Glanvill affinity, which included, as well as the ex-justiciar, his uncle, nephew and steward and their respective military and civilian followers. Less formal associations among the English may be found in the list of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire crusaders who died at Acre in 1190 recorded by their fellow countryman Roger of Howden, who, on arriving with Richard I in June 1191, seems to have made contact with the survivors of this group.55

  However, although these Anglo-Norman crusading journeys in 1189–90 paralleled those from the nobility of the rest of France, French and Anglo-Norman, specifically English, experiences of the Third Crusade differed significantly. Despite similar royal attempts in Angevin and Capetian lands to raise the Saladin Tithe and to regulate crusaders’ privileges, especially in relation to debt and financial transactions, Philip II was unable to impose his authority, lacking both the political and bureaucratic tradition to organize or compel on a national scale.56 The level of royal subsidy to any individual or group of crusaders is hard to estimate. In England and probably Normandy, crusaders had access to the proceeds of the Saladin Tithe, collected under the aegis of the government, while their French colleagues had not. More important, once the decision to travel by sea had been reached, a significant proportion of the followers of the Angevin king could travel in ships prepared by royal administrators with royal cash. At every stage of the crusade, from commandeering ships in English ports to Palestine, Richard hired men as well as materials. Most strikingly, while Philip II may have sent some siege engines and troops ahead of him, the force he paid the Genoese in 1190 to be shipped to the Holy Land numbered 650 knights and 1,300 squires. By contrast, Richard equipped his own fleet of more than 100 vessels and hired another small fleet of ten cargo ships and twenty galleys at Marseilles. The army he was transporting, when mustered in Sicily in the winter of 1190–91, including sailors may have numbered as many as 17,000. Not only was Richard ‘the first crusader king to equip and take his fleet to Outremer’, the armada he led remained one of the largest.57

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  Active crusade preparations had in fact begun under the much-maligned Henry II. The Saladin Tithe was vigorously collected even if, as many assumed, much of it actually went on the wars of 1188–9. Initially, Henry, and therefore Philip, who had agreed to travel with him, toyed with the idea of the land route. Archbishop Baldwin may have been expecting it when he forced his reluctant team to walk rather than ride up steep Welsh valleys in training for the journey to come.58 An embassy was sent in 1188 to Frederick Barbarossa, Bela III of Hungary and Isaac II requesting and receiving promises of safe passage and open markets for the Capetian and Angevin armies. At this
stage, Richard of Poitou may already have decided to go his own way, by sea. Perhaps news of the German choice of the land route put Henry off; the precedent of 1147 was not auspicious. It seems that at some point, perhaps to preempt his attention-seeking son, Henry switched his plan and began negotiating with William II of Sicily, his son-in-law. The substance of these negotiations may have been reflected in King William’s will, in which he left Henry treasure, grain, wine and a hundred armed war galleys.59 As William died five months after Henry, these provisions must date from at least the spring of 1189, if not earlier. If so, they indicate the scale of the royal expedition envisaged by Henry; such a fleet was capable of carrying up to 8,000 men.

  Government financial accounts for September 1188 to September 1189 suggest activity below that of grand strategy, even if some of it dated from after Henry’s death in July. A separate depository for the Saladin Tithe was established at Salisbury, with a tiny staff of ten tellers. Chroniclers complained of the enormous amounts raised. The highly critical monk Gervase of Canterbury put it at £70,000, while the well-informed Roger of Howden thought that Henry left a treasure, from all sources, worth more than 100,000 marks (£66,666). Even if such witnesses exaggerated Henry’s rapacity, the Salisbury depository did not let the money lie idle. Two hundred marks were sent to Bristol, perhaps for hiring ships, 2,500 marks to Gloucester, perhaps for horseshoes from the of Forest of Dean, 5,000 marks to Southampton, over the following year a major centre of crusade preparations.60 Whatever the contortions of high politics, many Englishmen, Normans and Poitevins conducted their own arrangements with official blessing. For Henry II, domestic and dynastic political calculation had always taken priority over quixotic or pious gestures. This remained the case until the day he died. However, after 1187 help for the Holy Land was no longer an option: it had become a requirement of state.

  On his accession Richard I brought to the crusade his experience as a general, his ability to push forward a scheme through administration as well as politics, and a strong personal commitment. Like his father, he recognized there was probably no limit to the treasure needed to finance the planned expedition, especially as it had been decided, possibly before he became king, to equip a massive royal fleet as well as a substantial royal army. However much there remained in Henry II’s coffers, Richard sought more in spectacular fashion. As Roger of Howden observed with only mild exaggeration, ‘he put up for sale all he had, offices, lordships, earldoms, sheriffdoms, castles, towns, lands, everything’. Famously, Richard quipped he would have sold London itself if he could have found a buyer.61 Sheriffs were sacked and fined; their successors appointed at a price; town charters, forest rights, earldoms, high government offices and bishoprics exchanged for cash. The scale of preparations matched this auction. Royal agents scoured the ports of England, Normandy, Brittany and Poitou for vessels, the crown offering to pay two-thirds of the cost of hire and the wages, for a year, of the sailors (2d a day) and steersmen (4d a day). In the financial year from Michaelmas 1189, Henry of Cornhill, the official most involved in arrangements for the fleet, spent more the £5,000. If, as well-informed observers calculated, the fleet collected numbered over 100 ships, the combined bill for wages and hire could have exceeded £14,000, more than half the king’s annual revenue from England. On top of that, each ship carried military equipment, horses, infantrymen, food and barrels of silver pennies for expenses. Royal accounts reveal the scale of the crown’s purchasing: as well as 50,000 horseshoes from the Forest of Dean and 10,000 from Hampshire, 14,000 cured pigs’ carcases from Lincolnshire, Essex and Hampshire, arrows, crossbow bolts, and huge quantities of cheeses and beans. The urgency of such demand drove up prices.

  The fleet could have carried, on one well-informed estimate, 8,750 soldiers and sailors, with equipment and horses for a further 4,000 or more knights.62 Richard’s own army, which he led to the Mediterranean in the summer of 1190, may have numbered as many as 6,000, including his own military household of perhaps between 2,500 and 3,000 and the contingents under Archbishop Baldwin and Ranulf Glanvill. The combined fleet that left Messina in 1191 may have contained as many as 219 vessels with perhaps 17,000 troops and seamen.63 Although the king had not paid for all his followers, the preparations had enabled such a large force to travel together. The terms of wages indicated a clear central strategic grasp. Richard had budgeted to pay his crews for a year from, at the latest, June 1190. Thus his measured progress to Sicily, his wintering there 1190–11, fitted a prearranged timetable. Although deflected by the storm of April 1191 and his subsequent lightning conquest of Cyprus (6 May–1 June 1191), he reached Acre on 8 June 1191, more or less on schedule.

  The progress of the fleet itself provides further evidence of Richard’s control over crusade planning. There were at least three separate elements in Richard’s armada, one that left England from Dartmouth in April 1190; another under Richard of Camville, a knight who was an important English curial official, and Robert of Sablé, a powerful Angevin baron, which left the mouth of the Loire in mid- to late June; and a final squadron of thirty-three ships under the Poitevin William of Fors of Oléron in early to mid-July.64 Although drawing on ships and companies from all over the Angevin lands, the bulk of the fleet, as of Richard’s army as a whole, probably came from England. It was placed under strict disciplinary regulations promulgated by Richard I at Chinon in June, when he also appointed justiciars to oversee them. Apparently he also distributed some vessels to crucesignati from his household while he retained the rest for his own use.65 Although clearly a collaborative venture, the Angevin crusade fleet would not have been assembled in such as well-organized manner without royal subsidy and direction. The first muster point was Lisbon, at the mouth of the Tagus, where members of the first two contingents, comprising sixty-three vessels, found ready distraction from waiting. Fuelled as much by alcohol as religion, they attacked the Muslim and Jewish quarters of Lisbon, extending their rape and plunder to the Christian population before being brought under control, with some difficulty, by King Sancho I of Portugal and their own officers. The whole fleet was united at the mouth of the Tagus in late July. The next agreed rendezvous was with Richard’s army at Marseilles at the beginning of August. This clearly proved impractical, but when the fleet put in at Marseilles on 22 August it had only missed an impatient King Richard by three weeks. Undaunted, after a refit, the fleet sailed on to the final planned rendezvous at Messina, which it reached at much the same time as the king in late September. The ability to organize in advance such an operation involving a huge fleet and a significant land army working in concert over hundreds of miles and without ready communication says as much about the twelfth-century development of the experience of sea travel around the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts as it does of the ability of Richard I’s government to translate extravagant ambition into efficient action.

  The contrast with Philip II’s preparations, while exaggerated by the comparative lack of surviving documentation, appears stark. Failure to collect the Saladin Tithe threw Philip and his nobles on to their own, separate and independent demesnal resources, although before the end of September 1189 the king seems to have received a windfall of 25,000 marks from Richard I in fulfilment of an outstanding debt.66 This may explain the apparently rather modest contract negotiated with the Genoese to transport his force to the east. In February 1190, Duke Hugh of Burgundy was appointed to arrange details with Genoa. For 5,850 marks (whether of Paris weight or the much heavier sterling is unclear), the Genoese would provide a fleet for 650 knights and 1,300 squires, their horses, food for men and beasts for eight months and wine for four.67 This may have represented only Philip’s immediate military entourage. Even though the duke of Burgundy acted as Philip’s agent, it is possible that he made separate arrangements for the transport of his followers, as did Count Philip of Flanders. While the presence with King Philip of these wealthy provincial magnates suggests that the French army was not negligible, very considerable French armies had a
lready left for the east over the previous two years without needing to wait for the king. However large the total French force in 1190, it seems to have put a strain on Genoese resources, as Philip at Genoa in August was already trying to borrow galleys from Richard. That Philip desired to control his vassals is witnessed by his payments at Christmas 1190 in Sicily of 1,000 marks to the duke of Burgundy and 600 marks to the count of Nevers.68 Nevertheless, most sources say Philip was outspent, outnumbered and outmanoeuvred by Richard.

  Such was the size and complexity of Richard’s cross-Channel inheritance in July 1189 that he was only crowned king of England at Westminster on 3 September. Richard’s crusade preparations exposed the existence of a wider political community beyond the nobility, knights and urban elites. The combination of fundraising, recruitment and revivalist crusade preaching created wide public involvement with occasionally violent consequences. All coronations acted as rituals of political demonstration and dialogue. In Richard’s case, denying access to the coronation feast to Jews who had come to pay their loyal respects provoked a riot when Jews were discovered in the crowds pressing to witness the banquet. The violence spread to Jewish districts in the city of London, where houses were destroyed and Jews murdered. Rioting soon turned to indiscriminate looting of property regardless of the owner’s religion. The perpetrators included retainers of the nobles gathered for the coronation as well as Londoners. At one point, Ranulf Glanvill and other leading officials unsuccessfully attempted to quell the rioters. This personal involvement of government ministers on one side and a combination of nobles’ households and a cross-section of locals on the other emphasized the link between public policy and popular political action. Some believed they were following royal instructions; others talked providentially of Christian destruction of the ‘enemies of the Cross of Christ’, the very theme of crusade preaching and recruitment campaigns.69