Another use of the True Cross was in a diplomatic context. Shavings or fragments of the relic were given to important visitors to the Holy Land or sent to churches and leading figures in the West. For example, when William of Bures, lord of Tiberias, was dispatched to France in 1127 to try to persuade Count Fulk V of Anjou to marry Melisende, heiress to the throne of Jerusalem, he carried with him a relic of the True Cross to be presented to the church of St Julian at Le Mans. Presumably the offering of such a prestigious gift was intended to enhance the status of the embassy and to help convince Fulk to accept the offer (which he did). Fulk himself provides evidence of the gift of a relic in a more devotional context when, having become king himself, he dispatched a fragment of the True Cross back to the church of St Laud at Angers. As a church in the heart of his former homeland, Fulk was showing his ongoing devotion to the site and this again reveals how the links between the settlers and the West continued to be maintained.
The ecclesiastical hierarchy
As the armies of the First Crusade established Latin control over northern Syria they allowed the existing Orthodox clergy to remain in place, thereby reflecting the planned co-operation between Byzantium and the crusaders envisaged by Pope Urban II and Emperor Alexius. Soon, however, the hostile relationship between Prince Bohemond and Alexius brought this to an end and the Orthodox patriarch of Antioch was replaced by a Latin patriarch. The conquerors could not subordinate themselves to a schismatic clergy and the imposition of the settlers’ religious hierarchy was a natural reflection of their political dominance. As the twelfth century progressed Greek claims to the overlordship of Antioch were backed up by military force and by 1165 Manuel was able to accomplish a long-cherished aim by restoring an Orthodox patriarch (alongside the Latin one) in Antioch. This was a short-lived success because within five years Athanasius was crushed to death in an earthquake, a fate that the Franks rather smugly viewed as God’s judgement, and after this the Latin patriarch remained as the unchallenged head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy in the north.
In the south most of the Orthodox clergy had fled the Holy Land before the First Crusade and so it was easy to appoint Latin bishops to existing (but vacant) episcopal thrones or, in the case of places such as Ramla, to set up new sees. The patriarchate of Jerusalem was obviously a position of huge prestige, but given the role of the papacy in creating the crusade movement, it, like Antioch, was kept subordinate to Rome. Many of the administrative practices of the Latin Church in the Levant were similar to those found in the West. The Church had its own courts to deal with heresy, marriage and the punishment of criminous clerks, except in the cases of murder and treason which were dealt with by the secular courts. Bishops were also responsible for licensing doctors. Income for the Church came from substantial landholdings although the money from tithes was limited by the fact that the Latin population was relatively small anyway and that tithes were not paid by the non-Latin majority. It should be noted that compared to contemporary western Europe the relationship between the king of Jerusalem and the ecclesiastical hierarchy was primitive. In the West the Reform Papacy had managed to reduce the influence of secular monarchs over the election of senior clergy, but in Jerusalem the king still had a right of scrutiny over this process and guarded such power carefully. On the other hand, when bishoprics fell empty the king of Jerusalem had the right to profit from the vacant see until a replacement was appointed. In general, however, apart from some controversial elections to senior church positions, relations between crown and Church can be characterised as good and there were none of the terrible schisms that afflicted contemporary Germany, probably because the Latin East owed its very existence and continued survival to the papacy.
11
The reign of Baldwin IV, the Leper-King, the rise of Saladin and the Battle of Hattin (1187)
Historians’ assessments of the period 1174 to 1187 are often coloured by their knowledge of events at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187 when the army of Saladin crushed the forces of King Guy of Jerusalem and precipitated the fall of the holy city to Islam. The Franks’ defeat at Hattin has been viewed as an inevitability: after the vigorous rule of King Amalric the obvious incapacity of his young son, the leper-king Baldwin IV, combined with the ceaseless in-fighting of the nobility is contrasted with the remorseless rise of Saladin and the triumph of Islam (Runciman, 1952: 2. 400). This is an attractive and easily assimilated picture, but on closer inspection, a false one. First, simply because Baldwin IV (1174-85) was a leper does not mean that he, or his commanders, were incapable of effective action. While it is true that, at times, the Franks revealed an extraordinary tendency to contribute to their own downfall through political conflict and personal jealousies, they also attracted — from their perspective at least — the most wretched and unpredictable ill-luck. On Saladin’s part, it should be remembered that he required thirteen years of hard struggle to establish his power and to create the conditions necessary to confront and defeat the Franks in battle. The political narrative of the period is, at times, complex and confusing, but following this thread is essential in understanding just how finely balanced the struggle was, the danger that the Franks posed to Saladin and the challenges that he faced against both his Christian and Muslim opponents; this in turn, enables a proper assessment of the emir’s own considerable achievements.
The first regency of Count Raymond III of Tripoli
Baldwin IV was crowned king of Jerusalem on 15 July 1174, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the capture of the holy city. As a minor, aged thirteen, he would need a regent during the early years of his reign and for a brief interlude his father’s seneschal, Miles of Plancy, controlled the land, but he was unpopular and within a few months he was murdered. He was succeeded by Count Raymond III of Tripoli, who was Baldwin’s closest male relative in the East. Raymond was an intelligent, energetic man of a rather austere nature. He had spent a decade in Muslim captivity from 1164 to 1174 so in one sense, he was an outsider to the contemporary politics of Jerusalem. Alongside his existing holdings as the count of Tripoli, he had married the wealthy heiress, Eschiva of Galilee, to secure for himself one of the most important lordships in the kingdom of Jerusalem. We have a good picture of Raymond and his supporters because William of Tyre, the great chronicler of the Latin East, was an ardent admirer of his (Raymond made him chancellor and archbishop of Tyre) and viewed him, by 1184, as ‘the best hope for the kingdom — a man of wisdom and magnanimity’ and assessed his standing thus: ‘it was plain to all that the only safety lay in placing the affairs of the kingdom in his hands’ (William of Tyre, tr. Babcock and Krey, 1943: 2. 509). Interestingly, Ibn Jubayr, a Spanish Muslim pilgrim who was in the Levant at the same time, echoed this sentiment: ‘The most considerable among the accursed Franks is the accursed count. . . . He has authority and position among them. He is qualified to be king and indeed is a candidate for the office’ (Ibn Jubayr, tr. Broadhurst, 1952: 324). While Raymond had his supporters, the fact that he never took the throne indicates that he had many opponents too. The development of faction is a key feature of this period, although because Raymond’s opponents have left no equivalent voice to counter William of Tyre’s bias it has been more awkward for historians to form a balanced assessment of this group.
As Baldwin approached puberty his leprosy began to worsen. The disease is bacterial and it probably spreads through air or sustained direct contact. The bacteria can cause inflammation and damage to nerves and skin. This leads to muscle weakness, loss of feeling (symptoms noted by William of Tyre, Baldwin’s tutor) and an inability to sweat. Wounds are suffered and ulcers form, and subsequent infections can destroy bones, usually in the hands and feet, and result in deformity. As Baldwin grew older the form of leprosy he had become more severe; he lost his sight and the bacteria multiplied further to destroy his nose. With such a terrible illness the need to find a husband for his sister, Sibylla, intensified. As in the past, it was essential to select an individual who fulfilled the settler
s’ needs of wealth, experience and, if possible, the ability to encourage a new crusade, as Fulk of Anjou had done in 1129.
In 1176 Raymond and the leading men of Jerusalem seem to have identified an ideal candidate and had chosen probably the most distinguished figure so far asked to marry an heiress in the Levant. William Longsword, son of the count of Montferrat (in northern Italy) was from a crusading family and he was a first cousin to the Capetian royal house and the German imperial line. He reached the Levant in October 1176 and soon married Sibylla. Thus, when Baldwin IV died or became incapacitated, a ready-made regent was in place.
In July 1176, aged fifteen, Baldwin IV came of age, Raymond’s regency ended and he returned to Tripoli. The king renewed ties with Manuel Comnenus to set in train yet another attack on Egypt, a strategy described by William of Tyre as the most effective way to destroy the enemies of Christ. While the Byzantines had recently suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Myriocephalum in Asia Minor (September 1176), their navy remained intact and they were determined to enhance their trading interests in Alexandria.
The rise of Saladin
At this point we must consider the situation in the Muslim world, remembering that, in parallel to the settlers’ loss of King Amalric, the Muslims had suffered the demise of their great leader, Nur ad-Din. His death fragmented the Muslim Near East and broke down the coalition of Egypt, Syria and the Jazira that he had assembled. Abu Shama, who wrote in the 1240s but used twelfth-century sources, commented that ‘confusion, discord and anarchy reigned everywhere’; at this point, ‘we were convinced’, Jerusalem could not be taken (Abu Shama, in Barber, 1998: 16). Yet thirteen years later the holy city fell. The man who would achieve this was born in 1137 of Kurdish stock at the castle of Takrit on the River Tigris, north of Baghdad. Saladin’s early years were marked by his skill as a horseman and his reputation as a polo player. He showed sufficient military prowess to rise through the ranks of the Muslim soldiery to join his uncle Shirkuh in the conquest of Egypt in 1169 and then established his power there. In the aftermath of Nur ad-Din’s death in May 1174, his son as-Salih held Aleppo, his nephew Saif ad-Din took Mosul, the Damascenes made a truce with their old Frankish allies, while Saladin, who proclaimed himself as the true heir to Nur ad-Din’s legacy, consolidated his hold on Egypt and began the long task of trying to assemble a force to unseat the Franks. In order to achieve this he would need huge resources, diplomatic successes, the endorsement of the Sunni religious hierarchy, military might and good fortune. Saladin’s determination and persistence are key features of his career. On occasion, as we will see, he would test the Franks’ strength (as in 1177 and 1183) and when it was apparent that his resources were insufficient to defeat the settlers, he would retrench and develop his position further.
In October 1174 he took control of Damascus, proclaiming himself the champion of Sunni Orthodoxy. His role in the removal of the Shi’i caliph of Cairo (in 1171) gave this claim some respectability and he organised his government according to strict Islamic law. He soon came into conflict with his rivals in the Muslim world and in the spring of 1175 he defeated an Aleppan force at Hama. In consequence of this show of power, the head of the Sunni Orthodox faith, the caliph of Baghdad, formally invested Saladin with the government of Egypt, Yemen and Syria, although not the city of Aleppo whose independence was a serious stumbling block to his authority in the Islamic world. William of Tyre, writing without knowledge of the defeat of Hattin, commented astutely: ‘Any rise in Saladin’s power was a cause for suspicion in our eyes. . . . For he was a man wise in counsel, valiant in war and generous beyond measure’ (William of Tyre, tr. Babcock and Krey, 1943: 2.405). It was at this time that Saladin survived two murder attempts by the Assassins. Their Shi’i faith made them an obvious objective for Saladin’s claims as the guardian of Sunni Orthodoxy. The Assassins, in turn, viewed him as a prime target. One attack saw the emir’s cheek slashed and his cuirass (leather chest armour) pierced, but he survived. When the attempts to kill him failed Saladin marched to the Assassins’ castle at Masyaf and ravaged the region, sending a message strong enough to deter further attempts on his life in the near future. Such was his fear of assassination, however, that from this time onwards Saladin slept in a special wooden tower rather than his normal tent. In late 1176 he returned to Damascus and reinforced his position as Nur ad-Din’s spiritual successor by marrying his widow. Over the next couple of years he moved to gather his strength in Egypt and Syria to confront the Franks and his Muslim opponents in the north.
The invasion of Egypt and the castle at Jacob’s Ford
As the settlers prepared to invade Egypt in the summer of 1177 they suffered a body blow when William Longsword died, leaving his wife pregnant. When the young king fell ill again, a new regent was needed and this was the cue for another important figure to move centre stage — Reynald of Chatillon, the former prince of Antioch, who by this time was also ruler of the lordships of Hebron and, through marriage, the strategically crucial area of Transjordan, the land that bisected the Muslim territories of Damascus and Egypt. Reynald was a remarkable man; as we saw earlier, he was capable of great cruelty, but he was now hardened after surviving fifteen years as a prisoner of the Muslims and he was also on close terms with Emperor Manuel Comnenus. The invasion of Egypt would be bolstered by the crusade of Count Philip of Flanders, a member of the most active crusading family in twelfth-century Europe, who reached the Levant in September 1177.
Ultimately the planned attack on Egypt broke down over a disagreement as to who should rule the land if it was conquered. The settlers believed that it should be part of the kingdom of Jerusalem; Philip of Flanders wanted at least some of the land for himself; while the Byzantines probably required recognition of their overlordship as earlier agreements with the settlers had stipulated (1168). They would also take a part of the territory for themselves, gaining commercial advantages and sharing the burden of rule with the Franks. The lack of strong leadership in the Latin East meant that a real opportunity had been wasted. Saladin was still building up his power and two formidable sources of outside assistance were present in the Levant, yet nothing was achieved. The Greeks were angered at the collapse of the expedition and returned home while Philip and a large force from Jerusalem fought a predominantly unprofitable campaign in northern Syria. Saladin exploited this by invading the kingdom. His forces moved confidently past Ascalon and devastated Ramla and Lydda, but at Montgisard, near Ibelin, he was caught unawares by a small Frankish army led by Prince Reynald and, in spite of his illness, King Baldwin IV. The Muslim army was routed and Saladin himself only just escaped. Many of his men were captured or killed, although the Franks suffered terrible casualties too with reports of 750 wounded being taken to the hospital of Jerusalem. In spite of this, the victory at Montgisard represented a significant achievement for the young king and it was also widely reported back in Europe, which may have caused some to regard the settlers’ position as stronger than it really was, and to view their subsequent appeals for help with less concern.
On Saladin’s part, the events at Montgisard made plain to him that the forces of Damascus and Egypt were insufficient to defeat the Franks. He would need to quell the danger from the Aleppans and Mosul and, preferably, to bring them along with him. To achieve this he used a combination of force, political machinations and his claims to be the defender of Sunni Orthodoxy and the only man capable of removing the infidel.
Encouraged by their success at Montgisard, in the autumn of 1178 the Franks made a highly aggressive move. They started to build a castle at Jacob’s Ford on the River Jordan. The construction of this fortress, about 55 kilometres from Damascus, signalled a genuine challenge to the Muslims and again showed Saladin the scale of the task he faced to defeat the Franks. The fortress — currently the subject of intensive archaeological work — was planned on a grand scale and absorbed much of the settlers’ financial resources. The remaining walls show large, expensivel
y finished stonework and reveal a substantial ground plan. Baldwin himself spent several months there in the autumn of 1178 and the spring of 1179. It was intended that the Templars should garrison the castle with eighty knights (a large figure) and have up to 900 other fighting men in support. To counter this threat Saladin tried to buy off the Franks on several occasions and offered to reimburse their full expenses and more (up to 100,000 dinars), but his suggestions were declined. Force was the only other option. In June he defeated a Latin army at Marj Ayyun, in August he launched a full-scale assault on the fortress and within five days — before Baldwin could bring up a relief army — the castle fell. The defenders were captured and the Templars and archers were executed. Contemporary sources inform us that the dead were thrown into a cistern and archaeologists have high hopes of discovering its location, potentially revealing the skeletons of twelfth-century crusaders. Such a find would allow us to learn much about diet, health and warfare in the Latin East. Back in 1179, however, Saladin could not take advantage of his success because of an epidemic in his army and a drought in Syria.
The marriage of Guy and Sibylla
In the spring of 1180 the kingdom of Jerusalem was plunged into turmoil. Two years earlier Sibylla had given birth to William Longsword’s son, Baldwin. Once her period of mourning had ended it was necessary to choose another husband for her. The settlers selected Duke Hugh III of Burgundy, a nephew of the queen of France and, in 1171, a visitor to the kingdom of Jerusalem. By early 1180, however, he had not set out for the Levant. In the meantime Raymond of Tripoli and Bohemond III of Antioch suddenly appeared in the kingdom of Jerusalem. King Baldwin was suffering a particularly bad phase of his illness and he feared his own deposition and the marriage of Sibylla to one of Raymond’s supporters, Balian of Ibelin. Encouraged by his mother, Agnes of Courtenay, and his uncle, Joscelin (formerly count of Edessa), the king moved swiftly to try to preserve his authority. Sibylla married Guy of Lusignan, a relative newcomer to the Levant, although his brother, Aimery, was the royal constable. Guy was a Poitevin and a vassal of King Henry II of England who, as we have seen, was one of the settlers’ principal targets in their approaches to the West. Perhaps it was hoped that this link might encourage Henry’s support. Guy and Sibylla were married in Holy Week of 1180, a highly irregular state of affairs. The key issue here, however, is that the rejection of Count Raymond’s candidate was the moment that sparked real division among the ruling families of the Latin East.
The Crusades 1095-1197 Page 18
