The Troubadour's Song

by David Boyle

  'Pen cannot fully describe, nor tongue tell, the people's rapture at his arrival,' wrote Canon Richard of Holy Trinity in London about Richard's arrival in Acre. 'Horns resounded, trumpets rang out, while pipers added their shrill notes. To show the gladness of their hearts, they burst into popular songs.' Richard, with his wife, Berengaria, his sister Joanna and their entourage — and accordingto Sir Walter Scott this included Blondel — moved into the royal palace on the middle of the north wall. Philip Augustus moved into the former Templar headquarters by the harbour. All would then have experienced for themselves a city that made crusaders of previous generations gasp with astonishment. This was the port where the gold and silver coins of Western Europe poured through the docks and customs, in exchange for cargoes of pharmaceuticals, herbs, spices, jewels and pearls — not to mention the luxurious fabrics of the Middle East: damask (Damascus), gauze (Gaza) and muslin (Mossul).

  What is now the dilapidated walled Israeli city of Akko, eight miles from the modern port of Haifa, was a former Phoenician trading city as important as Constantinople. Even then, it was a meeting place between two worlds, and for the newly arrived crusaders it was a glimpse into another universe. The new arrivals wandered through the captured city. Its famous wine shops and brothels, pulled down by the Muslims, had been replaced with 7,000 new cookshops and 1,000 baths to serve Saladin's army. They must have watched the heavy iron chain raised and lowered to let in the ships that began to flock once again to the inner harbour, and heard the church bells ringing for their arrival, heralded by the sentinels in the Tower of Flies. Like everyone else, they will have joined in the Acre habit of watching to see what flag was flying from the mast of the galleys as they arrived — whether it was St Mark (Venetians), St Peter (Pisans) or St Lawrence (Genoese). Or if it was a whole convoy—and sometimes I oo ships arrived at once, the bigger ones carrying anything up to 1,000 packed pilgrims each or 500 tons of cargo — they watched the forests of masts and sails squeeze into the docks, and experienced the enormous injection into the local economy from the passengers and crew. The new arrivals docked first at the wharf of the inner harbour. Straight ahead of them they would have seen the Court of the Chain — the customs — the round tower and the coffee house. They would then have glimpsed the great iron gates into the city on the left, and on their right the Church of San Marco, dominating the Venetian sector of the city, facing out into the bay.

  There, ranged before them, were the taverns, dice games and prostitutes, and they would have experienced the strange sensation of watching the whole world pass by in the narrow streets. Acre was also a divided city. There were Jews, rabbis and synagogues from rival sects all over the Mediterranean. The bitter trading rivalries of Italy had also transferred themselves there, to such an extent that the different nationalities had their own city walls and squares, even their own officials and police inside the city — and their own clutch of customs officers at the dockside making sure their own nationals got their respective privileges. As well as the Venetian quarter, there was the Genoese quarter, around the church of St Lawrence, with its covered shopping street and its famous soap-makers. Both the Templars and the Hospitallers had their own cities within the city, and their own rival systems of weights and measures. There were enclaves for Pisans, Amalfitans, Provencals, Germans and Bretons. There was even an English street, dedicated to poor pilgrims, with a hospice named after St Thomas Becket. There was also the magnificent Hospitaller headquarters, with its underground chambers and beds for 2,000 patients. The new arrivals took all this in as the city sprang back to life around them, sipping the spiced tea with sugar and lemon like the locals, tasting the dates and the sugar cane — Acre had its own refinery — as well as the gingerbread from Alexandria and the oranges from Lebanon. It was also for many of them their first sight of bananas — the crusaders called them apples of paradise — grown on the left bank of the Jordan.

  It is possible to imagine Blondel and his compatriots wandering down the main rue de la Boucherie, running from the outer wall to the harbour, holding their noses at the stench of the slaughterhouses and tanneries down by the docks, and watching Acre's notorious sex trade rapidly re-establishing itself through the bazaars. Not to mention the smell of camels mixed in with the pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, figs and pomegranates, all set out on stalls under canopies to keep off the sun. Around them, the mosques were being converted quickly back into churches and minarets into bell towers, and pigs were arrivingback on to the streets to eat the garbage. And the banks were re­establishing their branches so that crusaders could cash a money draft rather than carry gold all the way across the known world. This was a city of remittance men, spies, heretics and assassins, of plots and skulduggery, where poisons were openly on sale in the street and where even the priests rented their houses out as brothels because it was just so lucrative. It was a place of misunderstandings, with a multiplicity of races and languages — Saladin's secretary complained about the appalling translation problems they had interrogating prisoners — and of uncategorizable mixtures of races too. And here from his palace high on the walls, Richard planned the next stage of his advance.

  Richard's first few weeks in this wonder city included two of the most important events of his life. The first, barely remarkable at the time, would be a major cause of his eventual arrest; the second would leave a stain on his reputation that history has never quite washed out.

  Two days before Richard moved into the royal palace, the non-aligned barons — some of whom had been outside Acre for two years, waiting for the booty that would make the trip worthwhile — held a protest meeting. Richard and Philip met them and promised they would be rewarded, though absolutely nothing happened, and many of them just sold their arms so that they could go home. The German army was led by Barbarossa's younger son, Frederick of Swabia, but he had died of disease earlier in the year and, in the spring, Duke Leopold V of Austria arrived from Venice to take command of the remaining Germans. He was a nephew of Barba­rossa but also — and here was yet another diplomatic twist — the son of Theodora Comnena, a relative of the Cyprus tyrant Isaac, still in his silver chains and therefore a source of continued friction between the two families. It was even said that Richard had conceived a passion for Isaac's daughter. Leopold came to represent those remaining barons who owed allegiance to neither the French nor the English.

  To make matters worse, once the crusaders had moved into thecity, Leopold ordered a small protest on their behalf. He ordered his flag to be flown next to Richard's lions and Philip's fleurs-de-lis. This was more than just a gesture — it was a claim to share the city's booty from a junior party in the crusade. The banner was removed by English soldiers and thrown into the moat. Whether or not Richard had actually ordered this, Leopold firmly believed that he had. Modern scholarship suggests that Richard might have ordered the disposal of the flag as a gesture of solidarity with his brother-in-law and Leopold's enemy, Henry the Lion of Saxony. 'From what lord do you hold your land?' Richard asked him when Leopold challenged him over the flag, with the strong implication that Leopold was a mere princeling among kings. Leopold stormed back to Austria, and in little over a year Richard would have reason to look back on this contretemps with serious regret.*

  The other incident was never forgiven. Negotiations with Saladin to fulfil the surrender agreement were delayed and constantly broke down, partly because Saladin was in no position to meet their strict terms so quickly. Meanwhile, the remaining hostages Richard and Philip were holding from the Muslim garrison were a serious drain on their resources. They had to be fed and guarded and there was no way that the crusaders could march on until they had been handed over. Richard finally came to believe this was a deliberate policy to delay him and, giving in to the advice he was getting, he ordered their execution. On 20 August they were slaughtered outside the city walls in full view of Saladin's army; it was a bloody business and it took all day.

  'The time limit expired,' explained Richar
d in a letter to the Abbot of Clairvaux. 'And as the treaty to which Saladin had agreed was entirely made void, we quite properly had the Saracens we had in custody — about 2,600 of them — put to death.' Their stomachs were cut open in case they had swallowed preciousstones, and their bodies were burned and the ashes sifted through to widen the search. This outrage was approved by most of the Christian chroniclers, but the Muslim world never quite forgot it.

  More complications followed. Richard and the army council hammered out an agreement between the rivals for the throne of Jerusalem: Guy would stay king for life and would be succeeded by Conrad, and both claimants would share the revenues in the meantime. But the disease-ridden crusaders were not good com­pany for a serious hypochondriac like Philip Augustus, especially one who was continually being upstaged by his partner and former friend. In the heat and worry, Philip demanded half of Cyprus -according to their agreement — and when this was refused, he came to believe that Richard was plotting against his life. With the death of Philip of Flanders without an heir in a melee outside the walls a few weeks before, Philip also realized that he could be overlord of the whole of Artois if he was on the spot to claim it. Add to that his growing sense of being unneeded in Acre and going home seemed increasingly tempting.

  Three tearful French nobles came to see Richard and he guessed immediately what it was they were telling him. Although he begged Philip to stay, all he could extract was a solemn promise -sworn on the holy disciples — not to harm Richard's lands until forty days after Richard had returned home himself. On 31 July 1191 Philip sailed with Conrad of Montferrat — still intriguing for the throne of Jerusalem — as far as Tyre, and three days later he set off on the voyage home. Back in Paris some months later, he went straight to Saint-Denis to give thanks for his survival, and publicized his continuing fear of Richard by going around the city with armed guards, letting it be known that he carried a bludgeon with him at all times. Richard was left in sole command in Pales­tine. 'Never have we had to face a subtler or a bolder opponent,' wrote the Arab historian Baha ad-Din. Philip left behind most of his army and some treasure to pay them, under the command of Hugh, Duke of Burgundy. The treasure ran short within weeks and Richard was soon having to advance them money. When his reserves ran short in turn, Hugh refused to serve under him. Conrad, meanwhile, was still disaffected because of Richard's support for Guy, and remained fuming in Tyre.

  So it was a difficult alliance — now also without Leopold and the Austrians — that marched south down the coast towards the port of Jaffa. But it was disciplined, without the usual military hangers-on — the only women allowed were what the eyewitness chronicler Ambroise called 'elderly laundresses, who washed clothes and got rid of lice'.* Richard's tactics were to march close to the shore, supplied by the fleet who sailed along beside them — all the surrounding crops had been destroyed under Saladin's orders — with the foot soldiers marching alternately on the right and then the left to give them a break from the constant harassing attacks. At the front, the great Templar battle flag, Beau-Seant, was carried on a cart of its own, drawn by four horses. As the soldiers marched, they chanted, 'Sanctum sepulcrum adjuva (Help us, Holy Sepulchre), fighting off wave after wave of attacks from Arab archers on horseback and lightly armed African and Bedouin foot soldiers. The arrows did not pierce the crusaders' chain mail, but stuck out awkwardly, and after some hours the knights began to take on the appearance of hedgehogs. It was an exhausting march in the searing heat with little or nothing to drink — undiluted wine in the sun was believed to cause insanity and death — and it soon became clear that Saladin was determined to force a battle on the plain to the north of Arsuf. In the middle of the morning of 5 September, Saladin's men moved forward with the beating of drums and the clashing of cymbals.

  Strangely enough, like his father before him, Richard had never fought a pitched battle before. They were just too dangerous in Europe for most military leaders to risk unless they absolutely had to. But there was no doubt what the tactics should be: the overwhelming advantage the crusaders possessed would be a heavycavalry charge by the knights, but timing was absolutely crucial. If it came too early, Saladin's men would simply get out of the way and then cut the knights off from the main body. If it came too late, the battle could be over already. It was a hair's-breadth military decision.

  As the morning wore on, Richard began to receive increasingly urgent messages from the Hospitallers in the rear, who were taking the brunt of the fighting, begging for permission to charge. Richard consistently said no, but by late afternoon two of them — the Marshal of the Hospital and Baldwin of Carew — lost their nerve and went ahead anyway, scattering the Christian infantry in front of them. Making the best of it and dashing to the front, Richard was able to get into a position to lead the charge — hundreds of knights with streamers flying, holding their reins and shield in their left hand, their lance under their right arm, as their heavy war horses plunged into Saladin's lines in clouds of dust. Right at the front, Richard was able to regroup and charge a second time — and the battle was won. It was a serious blow to Saladin's reputation. Richard had been wounded slightly in the side but was described at the height of the battle as 'carving a wide path for himself, cutting them down like a reaper with a sickle'.

  Three days later, they arrived in the port of Jaffa to find its fortifications razed to the ground. Jerusalem was just twenty-five miles away, but they were inhospitable desert miles. 'With God's grace,' Richard wrote in the army's bulletin in October, 'we hope to recover the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre within 20 days after Christmas, and then return to our own dominions.'

  It took three months after Arsuf for the fortifications to be rebuilt and the castles along the road from Jaffa to be repaired. But Richard kept stolidly to the timetable he had drawn up. Just before Christmas 1191, the army was finally camped at Beit Nuba, just twelve miles from Jerusalem. But once they had got there, it became increasingly clear that their situation was not good: they were too far from the sea and the supply fleet to lay siege safely. In January the army council agreed and Richard gave the order tomarch back to Jaffa. It was a bitter blow to the soldiers and pilgrims, who returned in heavy rain and thunderstorms, while the disaffected French went all the way back to Acre. Soon there were rumours from there of orgiastic drinking sessions in the streets. The crusade was no longer going according to plan, because the planning had taken them no further than the start of the siege. Any military strategist peering any further ahead had serious questions to ask.

  As agreed with the army, Richard led the main body to the next port down to the south: Ascalon. This was well known for its olive and sycamore trees, its towers and its silkworms. Its significance depended on who you were: Richard believed it was the key to the road south to Egypt along the coast; the French saw it as an irrelevant and distant southern outpost. Once again, the fortifica­tions had been dismantled by Saladin some months earlier, and — aware of the need for the army to be kept busy — Richard spent the next four months rebuilding the walls and turning it into one of the strongest cities on the coast.

  Time was passing and on 15 April 1192 news arrived that Richard had been dreading. Only seven and a half months since Philip had left for home, he was threatening the borders of Nor­mandy. Added to the regular and worrying reports about the factional disagreements in England, it meant that Richard badly needed to go back to England — but if he left now, the feuding crusaders would tear the precarious kingdom apart. The issue simply had to be decided, so the following day he called a meeting of the army council and gave them a choice of kings. They voted unanimously for Conrad.

  Richard can't have been surprised. He apologized to Guy and, as a consolation prize, made him Lord of Cyprus. The Lusignan family ruled the island for the next two and a half centuries. Meanwhile, he sent his dashing nephew Henry of Champagne north to give Conrad the good news. When he arrived in Tyre, Conrad fell on his knees, asking God not to let him be crowned if he was u
nworthy to be king. A hasty coronation was arranged in Acre a few days later. But on 28 April, God intervened.

  Conrad had intended to have supper at home with his young wife, Isabella. But she took so long in one of those scented crusader baths that he gave up waiting and went to see Philip, Bishop of Beauvais, the friend who had married them eighteen months before. When he got there, the bishop had just finished eating, so he wandered back through the streets of Tyre. On the way, he met two monks, one of whom indicated that he had a letter for him. But when Conrad went over to collect it, the monk drew out a knife and stabbed him. Carried back to his palace as he died, he begged Isabella to give the keys to Tyre to nobody but Richard or the elected king of Jerusalem.

  Before their execution, one of the monks admitted that they were actually followers of the shadowy leader of a heretical Muslim sect that followed Rashid el-Dun Sinan, known as the Old Man of the Mountains. Sinan lived secure and secluded in the mountain fortress of Alamut, and specialized in sending his fervent followers on suicide missions, promising them they would live for ever, dreaming dreams, if they died carrying out his commands. They were known as Assassins, from the Arabic 'hashish', which they were widely rumoured to use to put them into a state of ecstasy. The Old Man of the Mountains may have had a particular disagree­ment with Conrad, but the reasons for his shocking dispatch were never clear, and there were those who remembered Richard's previous opposition to Conrad and pointed the finger at him. It was another omen for the future.*