by S. J. Hodge
Unlike most religious sects, the Cathars, or Albigensians, were extremely organized, and as their numbers increased, they established priests and bishops, collected funds, distributed them to the poor and lived off the land, making them effectively a greater threat to Christianity than many other, less organized fringe factions. They did not recognize the authority of either the French king or the Catholic Church, but they were protected by the powerful Counts of Toulouse who refused to persecute them. For many years, they were disregarded by Church authorities, but almost as soon as he became Pope in 1198, Innocent III resolved to deal with the Cathars. Initially, he sent Catholic priests and friars to try to persuade them to convert to Christianity, but after great concerted efforts, the priests were categorically unsuccessful. While trying to convert the Cathars, however, the priests discovered more about their beliefs and behaviour: they were chaste and honest, but they did not believe in the intercession of priests. To the Church, this was heresy and the Pope determined to take decisive action. But he needed the assistance of the rulers of the Languedoc region, and the powerful Count Raymond VI de Toulouse refused to support the Church against the Cathars. The Pope was furious. The papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was appointed by the Pope to suppress the Cathars, but in 1208, while in Languedoc, he was assassinated – this was believed to have been by some of Raymond’s friends. Pope Innocent immediately excommunicated Raymond and placed an interdict on his lands. This made things extremely difficult for Raymond, so eventually he apologized and complied with the Pope’s wishes.
Meanwhile, despite their obligatory loyalty to the Pope, the Templars strove to maintain neutrality. They remained reluctant to take up arms against their neighbours in France, as some of their patrons were known Cathar supporters and it is probable that some Cathars worked for them. But by 1209, Innocent prepared to instigate a military campaign to completely wipe out Catharism in Languedoc. He promised any knight who fought against them the same spiritual rewards that had been promised to the Crusaders in the Holy Land, and he promised to give the lands of Cathar ‘heretics’ to any French nobleman who took up arms against them.
A 13th-century miniature showing the Albigensian Crusade – the persecution and annihilation of the Cathars – in the Languedoc region of France.
Over the next few years, swelling Catholic armies marched through the Languedoc region, storming the dwellings of the Cathars, slaughtering them indiscriminately, even massacring those sheltering in churches. Any captured Cathars were burned. Innocent III died in July 1216 but the crusade continued, and for over 20 years the Cathars were oppressed and fought. From 1233, the Inquisition was called in to crush what remained of Catharism. Their final destruction came in 1244 at the fortress of Montségur on top of a high hill in the eastern Pyrenees. Over 200 Cathars held out for nearly two years against assaults and sieges by the 10,000 troops besieging them below, but in March 1244 they finally surrendered. Approximately 220 men, women and children who refused to renounce their faith were bound together and set alight on a huge pyre that had been prepared for them. During the Albigensian Crusade, methods were developed by the Church that were later taken up and refined by the Inquisition.
SHIFTING SANDS
A c.1180 print of a rare contemporary portrait of Saladin, who became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty.
Throughout their history, the Knights Templar remained a paradox to many. Devout monks who were also fighting soldiers; individually poor yet collectively wealthy; Christians who befriended many Cathars, Jews and Muslims. Yet despite these contradictions, their courage and gallantry made them extremely popular and successful – for a while anyway.
Approximately a century before the Albigensian Crusade, when Bernard of Clairvaux spoke and wrote ‘In Praise of the New Knighthood’, he aimed to convey the originality of the idea. The knights of the Templar Order, as opposed to other Templar brothers, were necessarily brave, disciplined and, as Bernard explained, determined to devote all their ‘energies to the struggle on both fronts, against flesh and blood and against the evil spirits in the air’. It was a completely new concept. The duty of a knight was to kill his enemies and fight in the name of his lord. The duty of a Christian was to love his neighbour as himself, and to turn the other cheek when confronted with aggression. The Order of the Knights Templar was somehow an amalgamation of the two conflicting concepts. In defending the Templars, Bernard condemned the behaviour of secular knights, proclaiming that Templar knights fought for the glory of God and not themselves. To further the cause of the Church, he promoted the Order as an option for secular knights to join and so redeem themselves in the eyes of God. He saw this ‘new knighthood’ as a solution to the prevalent sins of pride, vanity and desire for personal glory among ordinary knights, as well as a method of solving the problems of defence against the infidel in the Holy Land. Although no actual chivalric code was written, Bernard’s Rule gave the Templars instructions to govern their behaviour both on and off the battlefield.
So, the Knights Templar were contradictory in many ways. As soldiers as well as monks, they could not renounce the world as most monks did. The work they undertook required them to have relationships with many from the outside world, from the king and Patriarch of Jerusalem to the many pilgrims they defended, from the knights and nobles of other armies and countries to the many Muslims with whom they came into contact. Fasting and penance, usually an important aspect of monastic brotherhoods, were forbidden for the knights of the Order as they had a duty to maintain their strength and energy, to be permanently prepared for battle, so any practice that weakened them was discouraged. Similarly, most monks were encouraged to study, but this aspect of the religious life was largely disregarded for the Templars. Few Templars were well educated, although as most of the knights came from fairly aristocratic backgrounds, the rudiments of education had been attended to as they grew up. When drawing up their Rule, Bernard considered and included the most honourable aspects of lay knights’ behaviour, and the most dishonourable, which he ensured would be avoided by the Templars. Medieval knights were obligated to a ‘chivalric code’ or unwritten law of behaviour. Bernard’s personal chivalric code was governed by his strong Christian morality, and this also became part of the Templar Rule. There were four main knightly virtues that all knights were supposed to adhere to, and these were Christian values that were shared by the Knights Templar. They were: physical strength, courage with honour, loyalty to fellow knights, and the spirit of sacrifice.
First used at the end of the 13th century, the word ‘chivalry’ arose from the French word chevalier meaning horseman. The accepted chivalric code at that time developed among lay knights as basically a moral system, or code of behaviour. It comprised a duty to: fight for the welfare of all; protect those who could not protect themselves, such as widows, children and the elderly or infirm; obey those in authority; guard the honour of fellow knights; persevere to the end in any enterprise once started, and never turn one’s back on a foe. All knights were expected to be strong, disciplined, loyal, generous and honest. The Templars aimed to meet these ideals, but they also had a duty to put God and the Church before all. In the second half of the 12th century, an anonymous pilgrim observed:
The Templars are most excellent soldiers. They wear white mantles with a red cross and when they go to war a standard of two colours called a balzaus is borne before them. They go in silence. Their first attack is the most terrible. In going they are the first. In returning – the last. They await the orders of their Master. When they think fit to make war and the trumpet has sounded, they sing in chorus the Psalm of David, ‘Not unto us, O Lord’ … These Templars live under a strict religious rule, obeying humbly, having no private property, eating sparingly, dressing meanly and dwelling in tents.
In his treaty ‘In Praise of the New Knighthood’, Bernard set out to describe the new type of knighthood that – unlike secular knights, who fought inspired by pride, anger, gree
d or yearning for glory or power – was inspired by honourable motives and a wish to defend the holiest sites on earth as well as their fellow Christians, and a genuine wish to overcome evil:
This is, I say, a new kind of knighthood and one unknown to the ages gone by. It ceaselessly wages a twofold war both against flesh and blood and against a spiritual army of evil in the heavens … He is truly a fearless knight and secure on every side, for his soul is protected by the armour of faith just as his body is protected by armour of steel. He is thus doubly armed and need fear neither demons nor men … Gladly and faithfully he stands for Christ.
BERNARD OF CLAIRYAUX, ‘IN PRAISE OF THE NEW KNIGHTHOOD’, C.1135
Secular knights traditionally underwent a special ceremony before they were invested and this involved them laying their swords on an altar, which showed that they were God’s knights, but Bernard’s vision for the Knights Templar went even further. Although this concept of knightly culture was often contradictory (and the Templars’ role at first had seemed especially so), it became particularly popular during the period in which the Templars were gaining their respectability.
Saladin
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub (1137/8–93), better known as Saladin, was the son of a Kurdish Muslim who worked for Nur ad-Din as a soldier and politician. Allegedly, in 1132, his father saved the life of Nur ad-Din’s father Zengi, by helping him across the River Tigris when he had been defeated in a battle against the Caliph of Baghdad. From these humble beginnings, Saladin eventually became the first Sultan of Egypt and Syria, who plotted the Islamic reconquest of the Holy Land and the expulsion of the Christians there. A legendary hero of folk tales among Muslims and Christians alike, Saladin founded the Ayyubid dynasty and, leading his Muslim forces in the Holy Land, he became renowned for his courage, chivalry and magnanimity. A devout, courteous and merciful man, Christian chroniclers related stories of his benevolence and humanity. He was an astute and able ruler who could also be ruthless when he believed it to be politic. Although he had many Christian friends, he believed they were all damned. Described as small in stature with a round face, black hair and dark eyes, he was literate, cultured and skilled in combat. As well as Christian enemies, he also had many jealous Muslim rivals who made alliances with the Christians in efforts to arrest his rise to power. Saladin began his ascent by ruling Egypt on behalf of Nur ad-Din as vizier. In 1170, he invaded Jerusalem and took the city of Eilat, severing Christian-ruled Jerusalem’s connection with the Red Sea. In 1174, when Nur ad-Din died, he declared himself sultan in Egypt, and rushed to seize Damascus. Egypt’s enormous wealth enabled him to build a vast empire that included Damascus and Aleppo, and stretched from Cyrenaica in present-day Libya to the River Tigris in present-day Iraq. His power and determination earned him the support of several other influential Muslims, including the Caliph of Baghdad and the Sultan of Anatolia.
A French illumination, of the future Baldwin IV as a boy showing William of Tyre his sores. It illustrates how William of Tyre recognized Baldwin’s leprosy from an early age.
Amalric I and Baldwin IV
King Baldwin III, the eldest son of Melisende and Fulk of Jerusalem who had become king while still a child, died childless and was succeeded by his younger brother Amalric. Amalric I was King of Jerusalem from 1163 to 1174 and the father of three future rulers of Jerusalem: Sibylla, Baldwin IV and Isabella I. In 1157, Amalric had married Agnes de Courtenay, the daughter of Joscelin II of Edessa. The marriage had been accepted until Baldwin III died childless, then Patriarch Fulcher and others objected to Agnes de Courtenay on grounds of consanguinity, as the two shared a great-great-grandfather. Although Agnes and Amalric had three children: Sibylla, Baldwin and Alix (who died in childhood), opposition to Agnes increased and many refused to endorse Amalric as king unless his marriage to Agnes was annulled. Eventually Amalric agreed and ascended the throne without a wife, although Agnes continued to hold the title Countess of Jaffa and Ascalon, and received a pension. She soon married the man to whom she had been engaged before her marriage with Amalric. The Church ruled that Amalric and Agnes’s children were legitimate and preserved their place in the order of succession.
Amalric established himself as a good ruler, alternately attacking or creating treaties with Muslim neighbours in efforts to keep the peace. In 1167, he married Maria Comnena, a descendant of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus. They had a daughter Isabella, and another stillborn daughter. Over the next few years, Jerusalem continued to be threatened by Nur ad-Din, and then by Saladin and also by the Assassins. It is not clear why, but when Amalric was first on the throne, a band of Templars murdered the emissary of the Assassins. When Amalric, who was trying to keep the peace, demanded that the leader of the Templar band be surrendered to him for punishment, the Templar Grand Master, Odo de St Amand, refused. Instead, the Grand Master took the Templar in question and imprisoned him at Tyre. What happened to the prisoner after that remains a mystery, but relations between Amalric and the Templars became ambivalent. Two years later, when Nur ad-Din died in 1174, Amalric besieged Banias between Lebanon and Syria, but after giving up the siege he fell ill from dysentery. He reached Jerusalem but died a few weeks later, within a few months of Nur ad-Din. Baldwin succeeded his father and immediately brought his mother, Agnes de Courtenay, back to court.
Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (1161–85) was educated by the historian William of Tyre, later Archbishop of Tyre and Chancellor of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. It was William who recognized the symptoms of leprosy in the child, before he was crowned at the age of 13. A year into his reign, Baldwin’s father’s cousin, Raymond III of Tripoli, acting as regent for Baldwin, aimed to make a treaty with Saladin. Raymond was supported by the noble families established in Jerusalem and by the Knights Hospitaller, but opposed by the Templars and others in the Holy Land, such as Reynald de Châtillon (1125–87), who were eager to fight for more land rather than make compromising treaties. Raymond’s regency ended on the second anniversary of Baldwin’s coronation, when he was 15 years old. Noting the disunity within the Christian camp, according to William of Tyre, Saladin led a force of 26,000 men across the Sinai Desert towards the Templar fortress at Gaza. The Templars gathered to counter-attack, but Saladin and his army continued past them and laid siege to Ascalon, which the Christians had controlled since 1153. Young Baldwin IV raised an army to defend it, leaving Jerusalem unprotected. Saladin immediately left a minor force to restrain Baldwin at Ascalon and marched on to Jerusalem. Realizing his mistake, again according to William of Tyre, Baldwin summoned the Knights Templar from Gaza and broke out of Ascalon. In November 1177, Baldwin, Reynald de Châtillon, the Templars and a secular army of about 2,000 men fell upon Saladin’s huge army as they were crossing a ravine at Montgisard, near to the Jaffa–Jerusalem road. Taken completely by surprise, Saladin’s force was overwhelmingly defeated, with 90 per cent killed. Saladin narrowly escaped and fled back to Egypt.
A watercolour on parchment, c.1460, from William of Tyre’s ‘Historia,’ illustrating the death of Amalric I of Jerusalem and the Coronation of Baldwin IV.
United under Islam
Undaunted nevertheless, Saladin continued to work to unite the Islamic states surrounding the Holy Land, and gradually managed to encircle the Kingdom of Jerusalem with Muslim-held territories. Persuaded by the Templars to reinforce the route to Damascus, King Baldwin IV began building the castle of Chastellet, 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of Jerusalem on the River Jordan at Jacob’s Ford; the place where Jacob had wrestled with an angel, described in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. The building of Chastellet Castle was overseen by the Templar Grand Master, Odo de St Amand. The castle’s location and impregnability induced Saladin to offer Baldwin considerable amounts of money to have it demolished, but no amount of money could convince Baldwin to destroy it. The more Saladin offered, the more determined Baldwin was to keep it, as it was clearly a big threat to the Muslims. In the summer of 1179, before it was finished, Saladin attacked the
castle. Baldwin, Raymond III of Tripoli, the Knights Templar led by Odo de St Amand, and the Knights Hospitallers led by Roger des Moulins counter-attacked. A fierce fight ensued and the Muslims suffered heavy losses, but as usual, Saladin would not submit. He regrouped and decimated the Christian forces. Baldwin escaped with the relic of the True Cross, but Odo de St Amand was captured and died in captivity the following year. A few weeks later, Saladin returned and laid siege to Chastellet Castle. Within six days he had overwhelmed the castle’s defences by sapping, a traditional method of assaulting castles. Saladin’s men built tunnels beneath the ten-metre-high walls, filling them with wood and then setting the timber alight. At the time, there were 1,500 knights, architects and builders inside the castle; 700 were killed and the other 800, overpowered by smoke, were taken captive. The next year, Baldwin and Saladin signed an uneasy two-year truce. In recounting the battle, William of Tyre, whose brother was killed in the conflict, blamed Odo de St Amand for his arrogance and impetuosity. Naturally, William of Tyre was exceptionally biased because of the loss of his brother, but as he was the only chronicler of the events, our knowledge and understanding of them are incomplete.
