An excavation outside the walls of the old city uncovers a stock of unused stone trebuchet projectiles ready for firing. (Israel Antiquities Authority)
Archaeologists have also turned up arrowheads, possible fragments of ceramic grenades, and a large number of artillery stones of all sizes. Concentrations of stone balls have been found in various places—some within the city, others outside the likely line of the walls—which appear to have been stores of ammunition ready for firing. Close examination of these projectiles reveals the range of different sizes and their geology from which it’s been possible to deduce that the Mamluks sourced stone from a distance away. Some of these are of considerable size, but many of the smaller balls that also must have peppered the walls have not survived or have been incorporated into buildings. Of what is still visible of the city that went down in flames, the most impressive remnants are those of the Hospitallers’ compound with its halls and undercrofts, and the finely built tunnel running under the city that possibly connected the Templars’ castle with the harbor. Many of the secrets of crusader Acre and its destruction remain buried underground.
A NOTE ON NAMES IN THE BOOK
IN THIS BOOK I have taken some shortcuts with regard to the conventions of personal names with the aim of making it easier for readers to identify the shifting cast of characters that pass through its pages. The names of the Christians generally consist of a personal one, “Jacques,” and then their place of family origin, “de Vitry (“of Vitry”). It is usual to refer to them by either their first name or their full name rather than just by the town from which they came. However, in the fast-moving pace of events it is often unwieldy and sometimes confusing to refer to people in this way, so you will find Nicolas de Hanapes, Othon de Grandson, Jean de Grailly, et cetera, frequently cut down to their place of origin. So, Vitry, Hanapes, Grandson, and Grailly appear from time to time, hopefully to give the reader something to cling to as the arrows fly past. On the other hand, I have decided to resist anglicizing their names wherever possible, so Matthieu de Clermont rather than Matthew of Clermont, to give readers a more vivid sense of who these people actually were. I cannot claim complete consistency in this. It might be more accurate to refer to Richard as “Coeur de Lion,” as he barely spoke English, and this might give a better sense of who this man was, but I have, of course, stuck with the Lionheart. And Henry of Cyprus is the later ruler of Acre, rather than Henri de Chypre, and so on. My aim throughout has been to try to balance readability against a sense of the past.
With Muslim names, the situation is much more confusing. I’m sure the eyes of Western readers, including my own, tend to glaze over at the introduction of a character called, for example, Sayf al-Din Baktamur al-Silahdar. Baybars’s full name is al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Bunduqdari. These long name chains often include a reference to their father (as in “ibn”—son of), an occupation (“al-Silahdar”—the emir in charge of armaments), an honorific appellation such as “Rukn al-Din” (Pillar of the Faith), or a reference to their place of origin or one of their masters (“al-Mansuri,” from the regiment of the Victorious King, al-Mansur Qalawun). There are several people in this book with the al-Mansuri tag—and one trebuchet!
Mamluks often have a name of Turkic origin. That of the Lion of Egypt, Baybars, actually means something like “great panther.” As with the Christians, I have taken a decision to reduce names. After a first introduction, I have stripped names down to a single word where possible: Lajin, Baybars, et cetera, in the hope that readers will be able to cling on in the saddle, so to speak. (Unfortunately, we do get two people with the Baybars name in the book: Sultan Baybars and Baybars al-Mansuri.) With Salah al-Din, I have moved quickly to Saladin. I have chosen not to use diacritics in Arabic names in the main text, as these introduce a further layer of complexity. Overall, my approach to names is not completely consistent, but I hope it will help readers to keep track of who’s who and where they come from.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PRIMARY SOURCES
Abu’l-Fida. The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince. Edited and translated by P. M. Holt. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1983.
Albert of Aachen. Historia Ierosolimitana. Edited and translated by Susan B. Edgington. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Al-Jazari. La Chronique de Damas d’al-Jazari. Edited and translated by Jean Sauvaget. Paris, 1919.
Badr al-Dīn al-Ainī. Iqd al-Jumān fī Tārīkh Ahl al-Zamān. Edited by Muhammad Amin. Cairo, 1987.
Bartholomei de Cotton. Historia Anglicana. Edited by Henry Richard Luard. London, 1859.
Bartolomeo de Neocastro. Historia Sicula, 1250-1293. Edited by Giuseppe Paladino. Bologna, 1921–1922.
Baybars al-Manṣūrī. Zubdah al-Fikra fī al-Tārīkh al-Hijrah. Edited by Donald S. Richards. Beirut, 1998.
Bird, Jessalynn, Edward Peters, and James M. Powell, eds. and trans. Crusade and Christendom: Annotated Documents in Translation from Innocent III to the Fall of Acre, 1187–1291. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
Cartulaire Général de L’Ordre des Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jérusalem. Vol. 3, 1261–1310. Edited by J. Delaville Le Roux. Paris, 1899.
Chronicle of Lanercost, 1272–1346. Edited and translated by Herbert Maxwell. Glasgow: J. Maclehose, 1913.
Chroniques d’Amadi et de Strambaldi. Edited by René de Mas Latrie. Paris, 1891–1893.
Crawford, Paul, trans. The “Templar of Tyre”: Part III of the “Deeds of the Cypriots.” Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003.
Edbury, Peter W., ed. and trans. The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
Excidium Aconis. In The Fall of Acre, 1291, edited by R. B. C. Huygens. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2004.
Fulcher of Chartres. A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem, 1095–1127. Translated by Frances Rita Ryan. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1927.
Gabrielli, Francesco, ed. Arab Historians of the Crusades. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969.
Ibn ‘Abd al-Ẓāhir, Muḥỵī al-Dīn. Tashrīf al-ayyām wa-al-‘uṣūr fī sīrat al-Malik al-Manṣūr. Cairo, 1961.
Ibn al-Athir. The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir. Translated by Donald S. Richards. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006–2008.
Ibn al-Furat. Ayyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders. Translated by Ursula Lyons and Malcolm C. Lyons. Cambridge, UK: W. Heffer, 1971.
Ibn Jubayr. The Travels of Ibn Jubayr. Translated by R. J. C. Broadhurst. London: Jonathan Cape, 1952.
Ibn Khaldun. The Muqaddimah. Vol. 2. Translated by Franz Rosenthal. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1958.
Jackson, Peter, ed. and trans. The Seventh Crusade, 1244–1254: Sources and Documents. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007.
Jacques de Vitry. Lettres de Jacques de Vitry. Edited by R. B. C. Huygens. Leiden: Brill, 1960.
Jean de Joinville. Histoire de Saint Louis. Edited and translated by Natalis de Wailly. Paris, 1874.
Les Gestes des Chiprois. In Recueil des Histoires des Croisades, Documents Arménians. Vol. 2. Paris, 1906.
Les Registres de Nicolas IV. Vol. 2. Edited by Ernest Langlois. Paris, 1905.
Ludolph von Suchem. Description of the Holy Land, and of the Way There. Translated by Aubrey Stewart. London, 1895.
Maqrĭzĭ, Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī. Histoire des Sultans mamlouks. Translated by Étienne Marc Quatremère. 2 vols. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund, 1837–1845.
Maundrell, Henry. A Journey from Aleppo to Syria. London, 1810.
Muntaner, Ramón. The Chronicle of Muntaner. Translated by Lady Goodenough. London: Hakluyt Society, 1921.
Nicholson, Helen J., trans. The Chronicle of the Third Crusade: The Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001.
Paris, Matthew. Matthew Paris’s English History: From the Year 1235 to 1273. Translated by J. A. Giles. 3 vols. London, 1852–1854.
Pringle, Denys. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, 1187–1291. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2012.
Rice, David Talbot, and Basil Gray. The Illustrations to the “World History” of Rashid al-Din. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1976.
Sanudo Torsello, Marino. The Book of the Secrets of the Faithful of the Cross. Translated by Peter Lock. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2011.
Shafi ‘b. ‘Alī. Ḥusn al-Manāqib al-Sirriyya al-Muntaza’a min al-Sīra al-Ẓāhiriyya. Riyad, 1974.
Shirley, Janet, trans. Crusader Syria in the Thirteenth Century: The Rothelin Continuation of the History of William of Tyre with Part of the Eracles or Acre Text. London: Routledge, 1999.
Smith, Caroline, ed. and trans. Joinville and Villehardouin: Chronicles of the Crusades. London: Penguin, 2008.
Thadeus. Ystoria de desolatione et conculcatione civitatis Acconensis et tocius terre sancta. In The Fall of Acre, 1291, edited by R. B. C. Huygens. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2004.
‘Umar Ibn Ibrāhīm al-Awsī al-Anṣārī. A Muslim Manual of War. Edited and translated by George T. Scanlon. Cairo: American University at Cairo Press, 1961.
Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh. An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and a Warrior in the Period of the Crusades. Translated by Philip K. Hitti. New York: Columbia University Press, 1929.
Walter de Hemingburgh. The Chronicle of Walter of Guisborough. Edited by Harry Rothwell. London: Royal Historical Society, 1957.
MODERN WORKS
Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. “The Conquest of Arsuf by Baybars: Political and Military Aspects.” Mamluk Studies Review 9, no. 1 (2005): 61–83.
. “Diplomacy and the Slave Trade in the Eastern Mediterranean: A Re-examination of the Mamluk-Byzantine-Genoese Triangle in the Late Thirteenth Century in Light of the Existing Early Correspondence.” Oriente Moderno 87, no. 2 (2008): 349–368.
. Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Boas, Adrian J., Archaeology of the Military Orders: A Survey of the Urban Centres, Rural Settlement and Castles of the Military Orders in the Latin East (c. 1120–1291). London: Routledge, 2006.
Chevedden, Paul E. “Black Camels and Blazing Bolts: The Bolt-Projecting Trebuchet in the Mamluk Army.” Mamluk Studies Review 8, no. 1 (2004): 228–277.
. “Fortifications and the Development of Defensive Planning during the Crusader Period.” In The Circle of War in the Middle Ages, edited by Donald J. Kagay and L. J. Andrew Villalon. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1999.
. “The Invention of the Counterweight Trebuchet: A Study in Cultural Diffusion.” In Dumbarton Oaks Papers 54 (2000): 71–116.
. “The Hybrid Trebuchet: The Halfway Step to the Counterweight Trebuchet.” In On the Social Origins of Medieval Institutions: Essays in Honor of Joseph. F. O’Callaghan, edited by Donald J. Kagay and Theresa M. Vann. Leiden: Brill, 1998.
Chevedden, Paul E., Les Eigenbrod, Vernard Foley, and Werner Soedel. “The Trebuchet.” Scientific American, July 1995.
Clifford, Esther R. A Knight of Great Renown: The Life and Times of Othon de Grandson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
Cobb, Paul M. The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
Crowley, Roger. City of Fortune: How Venice Won and Lost a Naval Empire. London: Farber & Farber, 2011.
. Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453. London: Farber & Farber, 2005.
D’Souza, Andreas. “The Conquest of Akka (690/1291): A Comparative Analysis of Christian and Muslim Sources.” Muslim World 80, no. 3–4 (October 1990): 234–249.
DeVries, Kelly. Guns and Men in Medieval Europe, 1200–1500: Studies in Military History and Technology. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002.
Dichter, B. Akko: Sites from the Turkish Period. Haifa, Israel: Gottlieb Schumacher Institute for Research of the Christian Activities in 19th Century Palestine, University of Haifa, 2000.
. The Maps of Acre: An Historical Cartography. Municipality of Acre, Israel. 1973.
. The Orders and Churches of Crusader Acre. Municipality of Acre, Israel. 1979.
Ellenblum, Ronnie. Crusader Castles and Modern Histories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Favreau-Lilie, Marie-Luise. “The Military Orders and the Escape of the Christian Population from the Holy Land in 1291.” Journal of Medieval History 19, no. 3 (1993): 201–227.
Folda, Jaroslav. Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d’Acre, 1275–1291. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976.
France, John, ed. Acre and Its Falls: Studies in the History of a Crusader City. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
Fulton, Michael S. Artillery in the Era of the Crusades: Siege Warfare and the Development of Trebuchet Technology. Leiden: Brill, 2018.
. “The Development of Prefabricated Artillery during the Crusades.” Journal of Medieval Military History 13 (2015): 51–72.
. “The Siege of Edessa.” Medieval Warfare 7, no. 1 (2017): 48–53.
Hamblin, William J. “Muslim Perspectives on the Military Orders during the Crusades.” Brigham Young University Studies 40, no. 4 (2011).
Hartal, Moshe. Introduction to “Excavations of the Courthouse Site at ‘Akko.’” Atiqot 31 (1997): 1–2.
Hill, Donald R. “Trebuchets.” Viator 4 (1973): 99–114.
Hillenbrand, Carol. The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999.
Holt. P. M. Early Mamluk Diplomacy (1260–1290): Treaties of Baybars and Qalāwūn with Christian Rulers. Leiden: Brill, 1995.
. “Qalawun’s Treaty with Acre in 1283.” English Historical Review 91, no. 361 (October 1976): 802–812.
. “The Treaties of the Early Mamluk Sultans with the Frankish States.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 43, no. 1 (February 1980): 67–76.
Hosler, John D. The Siege of Acre, 1189–1191: Saladin, Richard the Lionheart, and the Battle That Decided the Third Crusade. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018.
Housley, Norman. The Later Crusades, 1274–1580: From Lyons to Alcazar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Humphreys, R. Stephen. “Ayyubids, Mamluks and the Latin East in the Thirteenth Century.” Mamluk Studies Review 2 (1998): 1–17.
. “The Emergence of the Mamluk Army.” Studia Islamica 45 (1977): 67–99.
Irwin, Robert. “The Mamluk Conquest of the County of Tripoli.” In Crusade and Settlement: Papers Presented at the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, edited by Peter W. Edbury. Cardiff, UK: Cardiff University Press, 1985.
. The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk Sultanate, 1250–1382. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1986.
. Mamluks and Crusaders: Men of the Sword and Men of the Pen. London: Routledge, 2010.
Jackson, Peter. “The Crisis in the Holy Land 1260.” English Historical Review 95, no. 376 (1980): 481–513.
Jacoby, David. “Aspects of Everyday Life in Frankish Acre.” In Crusades, edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar, Jonathan Phillips, and Jonathan Riley-Smith. Vol. 4. London: Routledge, 2005.
. “Crusader Acre in the Thirteenth Century: Urban Layout and Topography.” Studi Medievali 3, Ser. 20 (1979): 1–145.
. “L’expansion occidentale dans le Levant: les Vénitiens à Acre dans la moitié du treizième siècle.” In Recherches sur la Méditerranée du XIIe au XVe Siècle. London: Variorum, 1979.
. “Montmusard, Suburb of Crusader Acre: The First Stage of Its Development.” In Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem, edited by Benjamin Z. Kedar, Hans Eberhard Mayer, and R. C. Smail. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982.
. “Pilgrimage in Crusader Acre: The Pardouns d’Acre.” In De Sion Exibit Lex Et Verbum Domini De Hierusalem: Essays on Medieval Law, Liturgy, and Literature in Honour of Amnon Linder, edited by Yitzhak Hen. Turnhout,
Belgium: Brepols, 2001.
. “Ports of Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Eleventh–Fourteenth Century: Jaffa, Acre, Alexandria.” In The Holy Portolano: The Sacred Geography of Navigation in the Middle Ages, edited by Michele Bacci and Martin Rohde. Munich: De Gruyter, 2014.
. Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion. Northampton, UK: Variorum, 1989.
. “Three Notes on Crusader Acre.” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 109, no. 1 (1993): 83–96.
Jones, Dan. The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors. New York: Viking Books, 2017.
Kedar, Benjamin Z. “The Outer Walls of Frankish Acre.” Atiqot 31 (1997): 157–180.
Kedar, Benjamin Z., Hans Eberhard Mayer, and R. C. Smail, eds. Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdoms of Jerusalem. Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982.
Kennedy, Hugh. Crusader Castles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Khamisy, Rabei G., and Michael S. Fulton. “Manjaniq Qarabugha and Thirteenth-Century Trebuchet Nomenclature.” Studia Islamica 111, no. 2 (2016): 179–201.
The Accursed Tower Page 23
