The Crusades and the Near East
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seeking pardon. We have already seen that, as a gesture of surrender asking for one’s life to be spared, this gesture was not effective during the First Crusade. In the East, the usual procedures for initiating treaty-making included bowing, kneeling and the bringing of gifts, generally performed not by the ruler himself, but by proxy, via his messenger. A messenger sent to the Byzantine court or the court of the Abbasid caliph was expected to kiss the ground in front of the ruler and to bow and kneel.81
The bowing gestures in both Christianity and Islam originated in the religious sphere and were part of prayer ritual. This has been amply illustrated in the detailed prayer gestures in the West.82 The religious connotations of prostration were problematic for the Muslims, as sujud – the full-fledged proskynesis before a person – is forbidden, as it is supposed to be restricted exclusively to the religious sphere. Bowing is therefore misused when performed before anyone other than God, even more so in this case of bowing not just before a human being, but an infidel.83 Nevertheless, the Byzantine diplomatic protocol insisted on this gesture, so when the Franks and locals met in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, this gesture was well known and understood by both sides.
The above-mentioned difference in height could become part of a power play, as in the case of Muhyi al-Din Ibn ‘Abd al-Zahir (1223–93), the head of the royal chancery under Baybars and Qalawun, and a court biographer, who described his part as a diplomat sent to ratify Baybars’ treaty with the Latin kingdom in 1268: I was an ambassador together with the Amir Kamal al-Din b. Shith to
take the king’s oath . . . We entered Acre on 24 Shawwal [7 July 1268]
and were received by a numerous gathering. The sultan had instructed us not to demean ourselves before [the king] in sitting or speech. When we entered to him, we saw him sitting enthroned together with the
Masters [of the orders] and we would not take our seat until a throne was placed for us opposite him.84
To this point, many of the gestures of conciliation belong to the sphere of natural human behaviour and, as we have seen, some of its aspects, like gestures of humiliation and issues of height, have universal meaning. But other gestures were certainly culture-specific, and we must inquire how the parties to the conflict learned what they signified to the other side.
This is the case for gifts, which were part of the trust-building, deferential steps taken by the parties to negotiations. There was, however, a cultural difference between East and West. In the East bringing gifts was a primary gesture necessary to open negotiations. In one of the Old French manuscripts of William of Tyre’s history there is an illustration showing the satraps of the northern principalities extending their gifts of gold, horses and expensive clothes to Baldwin I, who receives them sitting on his throne.85 The incident depicted is typical of this kind of opening gesture. But even when the Muslim side had the upper hand, it still saw gift-giving as a preliminary stage of negotiations. Thus the messengers 244
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Baybars sent to Acre, who were instructed to behave insultingly to the Frankish ruler, as we saw above,86 were still dispatched with the gift of twenty of the prisoners of Antioch, priests and monks.87 When Baybars laid siege to Safed in 1266 he sent the Templars gifts to initiate negotiations for their surrender ‘after the custom of the Saracens’. When they refused the gifts and catapulted them back by mangonel, this infuriated Baybars. After conquering the castle he executed all the Templars even though he had previously promised them safe-conduct.88
In the West, on the other hand, gifts marked the culmination of the agreement-reaching process, and usually signified the hierarchical relationship between the parties: the more prominent side gave a gift to the lesser, thereby signifying its dependent status. Not to accept was tantamount to effrontery, if not a declaration of war.
Following Marcel Mauss, Essai sur le don,89 anthropologists emphasize the need for reciprocity in gift-giving. As it creates some sort of obligation on the part of the recipient, it is sometimes a dubious blessing. In the words of Arnoud-Jan A.
Bijsterveld:
Gift exchange is defined as a transaction to create, maintain or restore relations between individuals or groups of people. The reciprocity is an essential element of this exchange. A gift has the capacity to create those relationships, because the initial gift obliges the recipient to return some other gift in the future. Because of the counter-gift, gift-giving is not restricted to one occasion: do ut des, it is an episode in a continuous social relationship. Gifts and counter-gifts, landed property, money, objects, brides and oblates act as a means of social integration.90
If we have seen that, in the encounter between enemies, gift-giving can work to initiate talks or to seal a mutual obligation, according to cultural background, Richard the Lionheart exemplifies what I see as a process of acculturation. When al-Adil initiated peace negotiations by sending Richard ‘seven valuable camels and an excellent tent’, Richard was severely criticized for accepting these gifts.91 Later, when Richard wanted to initiate talks with Saladin, he sent him two falcons, specifying what he would like in return, although it is not clear if these were really meant as a gift or as a pretext to spy on the enemy.92
The falcon, a hunting bird, was in and of itself a symbol of peace, as hunting was the favourite pastime of non-belligerent warriors among both the Eastern and Western nobility. Hunting – the use of arms outside the battlefield – symbolized peaceful encounters, somewhat similar to modern sport. This is illustrated, for example, by the Bayeux tapestry, where a herald rides with a falcon on his shoulder to prove his peaceful intentions.93 Usamah Ibn Munqidh’s colourful description of the two rivals Amir Muin-al-Din and Fulk, King of Jerusalem, hunting together conveys the same meaning.94 Thus, if in fact carried out, Richard’s gesture, which is not mentioned by the Latin sources, had dual layers of meaning.
It is interesting to note that Baha al-Din claims that the gift was accepted only on 245
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the explicit condition that Richard accept a comparable present.95 At the same time al-Adil made a point of emphasizing that the initiative had come from the English king; in other words, by Oriental standards, he was the weaker party. The gift of a falcon as part of a peace treaty is further illustrated by a Western illumination to William of Tyre’s chronicle showing the Hungarian king returning the hostages to Godfrey of Bouillon. The two leaders clasp right hands and a falcon sits on the Hungarian king’s arm, this hunting bird being a gift to seal the agreement.96 The importance of gifts in the Eastern tradition of negotiations is further illuminated by the Kitab al-Hadaya wa al-Tuhaf ( The Book of Gifts and Rarities), apparently compiled a generation before the First Crusade.97 Gifts presented to Muslim rulers are carefully described, valued and detailed; there was evidently a special treasury where royal, diplomatic gifts were kept and registered.
Another example of mutual acculturation comes from the gesture of giving the right hand. Comparison of two treaties, one from 1098 – between the ruler of Azaz and Godfrey of Bouillon – and the other from 1167 – between the Caliph of Egypt and a Frankish emissary – shows a process of mutual acculturation, exemplified by the employment of the Western ceremony of extending the right hand and the Eastern use of gifts. Both cases reflect cultural mediation via outside intervention. In the earlier treaty, a captive Christian wife of the Muslim ruler teaches him Western mores. She instructs him to give Godfrey his right hand rather than to use his preferred Eastern method of messengers bearing gifts, a gesture that did not inspire trust on Godfrey’s part. Later Western sources describe Godfrey, as the victorious party, giving gifts as a sign of lordship and supremacy. In the second treaty, the diplomat Hugh of Caesarea forces the caliph to extend his bare hand, contrary to his usage:
‘Therefore, unless you offer your bare hand [my emphasis] we shall be obliged to think that, on your part, there is some reservation or lack of sincerity.’ Finall
y, with extreme unwillingness, as if it detracted from his majesty, yet with a slight smile, which greatly aggrieved the Egyptians, he put his uncovered hand into that of Hugh. He repeated, almost syllable by syllable, the words of Hugh as he dictated the formula of the treaty and swore that he would keep the stipulations thereof in good faith, without fraud or evil intent.98
The treaty clauses were important, but for the chronicler, William of Tyre, imposing the gesture of giving his right hand was seen as a greater diplomatic victory.
In September 1192, during the protracted negotiations between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin, this basically Western usage for sealing a treaty is attributed to both sides. Thus Baha al-Din claims that Richard, who was too sick to read the draft of the treaty presented to him, said, ‘I have no strength to read this, but I herewith make peace and here is my hand,’ while Saladin said to the Christian envoys, ‘These are the limits of the land that will remain in your hands. If you can 246
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accept these terms, well and good. I give you my hand on it.’99 Thus, according to the Muslim chronicler, this gesture had become part of the conventions of treaty-making on both sides. Notwithstanding this ‘victory’ of Western mores of peace gestures in the twelfth century, I think that careful comparison of the few surviving written treaties and earlier treaties in the West and in the East demonstrates the greater influence of Eastern usage in the Latin East. Such a comparison must, however, take into account the tendency of the victorious side to impose its norms on the text and terms of agreement. For the period for which written texts are extant, this was usually the Muslim party.100
A further source for the ceremonial aspects and nonverbal gestural language of peacemaking encounters is pictorial evidence. One such source is Matthew Paris’
illustration of the treaty between Crac and Acre, in which both rulers meet, kneel, extend their hands, and remove their helmets while their forces look on from a distance.101 The scene clearly represents a Western image of peacemaking, whereas Eastern illustrations of peacemaking emphasize gift-giving and a subservient gesture of bowing, as with the scene depicting Baldwin I from the Old French manuscript of William of Tyre’s history, described above. Similarly, the Leningrad manuscript (1225–35) of the illustrated Maqamat al- Hariri has a characteristic miniature where the hero of the tales, Abu Zaid, approaches a city governor in a bent posture, arms raised in supplication.102
Another major mechanism of treaty-making that required familiarity with the enemy was ratification by oath. The use of oaths as a way of ensuring a treaty would be upheld necessitated some knowledge of the enemy’s religious tenets and is thus in a way recognition of the other’s belief at the supreme moment of distrust, when assurance was most needed. The texts of these oaths, extant for some of the Mamluk treaties, include a detailed list of the religious beliefs that the oath-taker is willing to abrogate should he fail to keep his promises, as well as a self-imposed penance of thirty pilgrimages. Clearly based on local usage, it was necessary to find a way to make an infidel’s oath valid. Only one of the extant oaths cited requires swearing on the Gospels, which was the normal Western procedure in oath-taking and belonged to the legal procedures of the Latin kingdom. For the Christians, swearing by touching a relic or a holy book served as a surety, as it made the saint a guarantor of the oath-taker’s good faith. But this gesture of touching a holy object had no meaning for the Muslims, for whom the verbal component of the oath was the main one. Even though Saladin and Richard signed a written document described in detail by Baha al-Din,103 this was not considered sufficient to ensure its endurance. The taking of oaths was an important part of peacemaking, and probably more binding than the written contract. Because both societies were religious, an oath ensuring the involvement of what they saw as holy – be it their tenets of belief or their saints – was considered necessary.
But can we extrapolate from the detailed late thirteenth-century texts of oaths to the earlier oaths taken by crusaders and Muslims? No earlier evidence exists for the content of early twelfth-century oaths, but oath-taking on both sides is 247
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mentioned in the late twelfth century, during the Third Crusade. Joinville (1250), however, describes the same kind of pre-formulated, written oaths as the late Mamluk ones in relating how Louis IX refused to swear because he would never agree to the clause inserted by renegades: ‘He should be as dishonoured as a Christian who denies God and his law and in contempt of him, spits on his cross and tramples it underfoot,’ and was only persuaded to change his mind by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was tortured by the Muslims to this end and promised to take the sin upon himself in addition.104 The emirs’ oath, which included the clause, ‘they were to incur the same disgrace as a Saracen who has eaten pork’, was checked by Nicole d’Acre, ‘a priest who knew their language, and assured him that according to their law they could have devised no oaths that were stronger’.105
When there was a diplomatic will to compromise, a neutral form could be used, as in the following example from a Latin document from Genoa, clearly translated from Arabic: ‘In the name of God the Beneficent, the merciful. May God bless all the Prophets and Have Peace upon them.’106 This general opening, clearly formulated by a Muslim, could fit any prophets and all three monotheistic religions.
The formal language of the oaths, while being a tool to bridge the suspicion between the sides, also made it necessary to learn the other side’s religious tenets.
Yet another realm of peacemaking involving gestures was the concluding stage of negotiations. In the Christian setting, conflict resolution was achieved not only by one side admitting the other’s supremacy; the sign of peace was an act of friendly association – eating and drinking with the other party – and one consequence was the return of the letter of diffidatio. When war was over, it was over.107 Gestures of emotion were part and parcel of treaty-making and expected of the protagonists. In the West public tears were taken as a sign of sincerity,108
but they would probably have been misunderstood in the case of a religious adversary. In the thirteenth century King Alfonso el Sabio of Spain was able to provide a format for peacemaking that included not only the formal treaty but its accompanying gestures, especially the ‘kiss of peace’.109
Men sometimes agree to make peace with one another . . . know all
persons who see this instrument, that . . . So and So . . ., and . . . So and So . . . have mutually agreed to keep peace with one another perpetually with regard to the disagreements, disputes, grudges, and insults, of which they have been guilty toward one another in word and in deed
. . . And as a mark of the true love and concord which should be preserved between them, they kissed each other before me, notary public, and the witnesses whose names are subscribed to this instrument, and promised and agreed with one another that this peace and concord
should forever remain secure, and that they would do nothing against it, or to contravene it, of themselves, or by anyone else either in word, deed or advice, under a penalty of a thousand marks of silver; and whether the penalty is paid or not, this peace and this agreement is to remain forever enduring and valid.110
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Such a kiss had very little to do with emotions, but was an obligatory part of signing an agreement in the West. The kiss of peace was not part of Muslim cultural heritage, nor was it part of their gestural language. For the Muslims, any physical contact with a ruler was a special privilege. Usually not granted to an infidel mediator or envoy, the decision to grant it even to his co-religionists lay with the ruler.111 Thus, it did not become part of the shared Muslim–Christian repertoire of gestures in the Latin East.
This was also the case for another significant gesture in the East, the khil’a –
giving a garment or a horse invested with military meaning to a dependant to signify the transfer of authority and as a special sign of honou
r – which dates back to antiquity. This is illustrated by the biblical story of Esther, where Mordecai is endowed with a horse that the king has ridden and a garment he has worn, with a herald crying out before him: ‘This is what is done for the man whom the king desires to honour!’112 This may well be an example of ancient Persian usage.
It was clearly used in the medieval Islamic world, but not in the Western lay community (although the investiture of clergy may retain something of this old gesture).113 But it was not a gesture of peace in the medieval West. However, in one of the first treaties between the crusaders and the local northern principalities, Godfrey of Bouillon bestowed on Omar of Azaz a hauberk and a golden helmet.
From his perspective, this gesture was part of the feudal gesture of submission, where the recipient proves his inferiority by giving an oath of fidelity and receiving a present. For his part, Omar of Azaz probably accepted this ceremony as the bestowing of authority through a military outfit. Thus, in this case, the misunderstanding of the gesture’s meaning by the other side probably facilitated the treaty-making and its accompanying ceremony. Three generations later, after a long process of acculturation, Henry of Champagne asked Saladin to send him a garment that he would wear although it was against Western usage. At this stage, accepting the gift of a khil’a was understood by the Western side, but he was certainly cognizant of deviating from his own mores.114
The final stage of signing a treaty was its public proclamation by a herald.
Witness Baha al-Din’s description of the proclamation of the treaty of 1192: ‘He ordered the herald to proclaim in the encampments and in the markets, “Listen all! Peace has been arranged. Any person from their lands who wishes to enter ours may do so and any person from our lands who wishes to enter theirs may also do so.”’115
The connection between trade and proclamation of peace was also described by William of Tyre after the surrender of Alexandria and the agreement that both Saladin and Amalric would leave Egypt in 1167: