The Siege of Jerusalem: Crusade and Conquest in 1099

by Conor Kostick

  While the knights most proud of their riding prowess displayed their fi ghting skills and later their skill at chess, the senior princes behaved in a less

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  competitive manner: hosting the delegation in their tents, holding lengthy and serious conversations about the political and military situation, and, eventually, sending their guests home on the best of terms, with a large cart full of Seljuk heads. Quite what the Fatimid ambassadors thought of the Christians digging up a Muslim cemetery to decapitate the corpses of those of the garrison who had been killed on 6 March 1098 is not left on record. But they bore away the grisly present with good grace.3

  On the return of his embassy to Cairo and their report that the siege of Antioch was proceeding well for the Christians, al-Afdal took his askar and considerable quantities of wood needed for making siege equipment and marched towards Jerusalem, confi dent that his Seljuk enemies would be unable to mobilize against him. Already, in 1097, he had taken advantage of the disarray in the Seljuk world to regain the powerful maritime city of Tyre for the Fatimids and the time looked propitious for a strike at Jerusalem. Al-Afdal’s advance could not, in fact, have been more opportune; for while the Egyptian army was being mobilized, his greatest rival, Kerbogha, atabeg of Mosul, suff ered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of the Christians on 28 June 1098

  outside of Antioch. If there was one Seljuk ruler capable of exerting suffi cient

  hegemony over the various Seljuk emirs of Syria to lead a major army against the Fatimids, it was Kerbogha; with him out of the picture, there was a wonderful opportunity for the Fatimids to expand their realm and, in particular, to capture the prestigious city of Jerusalem.

  Economically, as it stood some distance from the important trading routes to the coastal cities, Jerusalem was in decline. Had military or economic considerations solely determined the issue, al-Afdal might have prioritized other goals than the conquest of Jerusalem. But from its capture by Caliph ‘Umar I in 637 the city had been treated with reverence and pride by Muslim rulers. Th is

  was most obviously demonstrated in the construction of the Dome of the Rock, the nearby al-Aqsā mosque and several other religious complexes in the years that followed. Th

  e Dome of the Rock is a spectacular example of Islamic archi-

  tecture and it was completed in 692, possibly the earliest monumental work of art of Islamic civilization.

  Th

  ese buildings did not, however, decisively establish the importance of Jerusalem in Muslim theology. For three centuries Jerusalem was eclipsed by the overwhelming importance to Islam of Mecca and Medina. Th

  at Jerusalem

  came to be seen as the third most holy city for Muslims was due, above all, to the spread of the idea that the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa¯ mosque, whose complex formed the ‘Haram’, were connected with a miraculous noctur-nal journey by the Prophet Muhammad from Mecca to Jerusalem. Th

  is journey,

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  it was believed, saw the Prophet ascend to Heaven from the rock now covered by the Dome. During his ascension the Prophet conversed with Moses, aft er which he prayed. Th

  e fi ve daily prayers observed throughout the Muslim world

  therefore became associated with Jerusalem. Th

  e defi nite connection between

  the night journey and the Haram came relatively late; it was not incorporated in the mosaics of the al-Aqsā mosque until the end of the tenth century.

  In 1098, to own and control Jerusalem, therefore, was a great prize for the Fatimid caliphate, which, aft er all, had previously ruled the city and had been responsible for much of the original Islamic building and, indeed, rebuilding following the eff ects of earthquakes. Delighted by the opportunity created by the problems of his enemies in the north, al-Afdal brought his army before the walls of the city to face the Seljuk governors, Suqmān and Īlghāzī, sons of the previous governor, Artuq, who had died in 1091. With them were their cousin Savanj and their nephew Yāqūtī. Suqmān was the more able of the family, as Īlghāzī was prone to disastrous bouts of drinking: ‘when Īlghāzī drank wine and it got the better of him’, wrote a contemporary Damascene chronicler ‘he habitually remained for several days in a state of intoxication, without recovering his senses suffi

  ciently to take control or to be consulted on any matter or

  decision.’4

  Th

  e crusaders who had been sent from Nicea to Cairo to liaise with al-Afdal watched the subsequent siege with a great deal of interest. Al-Afdal’s strategy was simple and eff ective; he used his advantage in resources to build twice as many mangonels as his opponents could bring to bear. Th

  en, from the north

  side of the city, his machines toiled away for over a month in a missile duel, until the wall was suffi

  ciently breached that, in August 1098, Suqmān accepted

  terms. By this time both sides had learned of the defeat of Kerbogha and it was clear that there would be no assistance coming to the garrison from their co-religionists.

  Th

  e surrender of Jerusalem to al-Afdal on 29 August 1098 was a relatively amicable aff air. On his arrival in July, al-Afdal had sent letters to Suqmān and Īlghāzī, appealing to them to avoid bloodshed and surrender the city. Th e fact

  that there had been casualties in the exchange of missile fi re over the month did not sour negotiations once Suqmān realized the situation was hopeless.

  Al-Afdal let the two brothers leave the city, along with their family, their followers and a large body of Turks.

  Th

  e expectation of the ruler of Cairo was that the advance of the Christian army had more or less fi nished; aft er all, they were nearly at the limits of the old Byzantine borders. Th

  ey had done very well to capture Antioch and would

  surely wish to consolidate their position in that region. Th

  is undoubtedly would

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  have been the case if al-Afdal was dealing with a Byzantine army. But this was a Christian army of a very peculiar nature. It was driven by a theological commitment to the idea of Jerusalem and while there were several princes with whom sophisticated negotiations could take place, these lords within the Christian army were unable to speak for or control the masses of foot soldiers and non-combatants. Understandably, al-Afdal misinterpreted the dynamics of the situation. He left Jerusalem in the hands of his competent general, Ift ikhār al-Dawla (‘pride of the nation’), and returned to Cairo.

  It must have been surprising therefore, when news of a southward moving Christian army was brought to al-Afdal early in the following year. Surprising, but not necessarily alarming. Th

  e Christians perhaps had their eye on targets

  on wealthy cities like Tripoli. Jalāl al-Mulk, the ‘qadi’ there, the spiritual and political governor, was nominally subject to the Fatimid vizier, but to all intents and purposes was ruling on his own account. Its loss could be borne.

  On 13 May 1099, shortly aft er Count Raymond of Toulouse had been forced to abandon the siege of ‘Arqā and the crusade had begun marching south again, a second embassy from Cairo came to the crusader camp. Th

  ey off ered contin-

  ued friendship and should unarmed groups of Christians wish to journey to Jerusalem to visit their holy places, the Fatimid coastal cities would grant them safe passage. It was a civilized and respectful off er. But at the time of the previous embassy it was the Seljuks who controlled Jerusalem; now the Fatimids held the city and they were no longer allies in the eyes of the Christians. Th ey

  were the enemy. Th

  is time there was no gaming, no negotiation, no exchange

  of presents. Rather, the ambassadors left with an unambiguous understanding of the state of aff airs. Th

  ey were at war.r />
  Th

  e city of Jerusalem is built on a very uneven V-shaped ridge of land between two gorges, both steep sided and rocky (see Figure 3). Inside the walls of Jerusalem, the land rises and falls due to the presence of a valley that eff ectively divides the city into east and west. Th

  e Haram es-Sharif (the Noble

  Sanctuary) complex, containing the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsā mosque, is on the higher ground to the east, walled off from the rest of the city. Adjacent to the Haram, running along the entire eastern side of the Jerusalem is the Kidron Valley. Across the south and – as it turns northwards – across part of the western side of the city runs the Hinnom Valley. Th

  ese two gorges merge

  just some two kilometres south of the city, creating cliff s and rocky slopes that gave the old city very strong natural defences around more than half of its walls. When the Roman general Pompey came to besiege the city in 63 BC, his assessment was that it could only be taken from the north, a policy that every subsequent attacker adhered to. Th

  is is because from the north the city has less

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  of a natural defence, as there the spur of land on which Jerusalem is built connects to the broad plateau of central Judea.

  In 1099 Jerusalem’s defences were contracted compared to how they had stood in ancient times, refl ecting a decline in the city’s economic importance.

  As a consequence, it had become more vulnerable to attack in that the high ground – which had formerly been enclosed – only some 200 metres to the north now overlooked the current city walls. Th

  e southern wall of Jerusalem,

  too, was not as extended as it had been in 63 BC and as a result no longer took full advantage of the natural defences. Between the southern walls of Jerusalem and the cliff s of the two gorges there was a potential weakness: Mount Zion.

  Th

  is was a hill that had formerly been enclosed inside the city’s defences, but now whose peak was just higher than the facing walls and from where attackers could move downwards to attack.

  As the crusading forces arrived at the city, approaching from the northwest, there would have been a number of experienced soldiers present among them, whose fi rst thought was to appraise the military geography of the city.

  But this was no ordinary army and no ordinary city. For many, the feelings evoked by the proximity of the city would not have been conducive to a clinical examination of its fortifi cations. For the devout Christian, Jerusalem was the ultimate pilgrim site, the centre of the world. Th

  e most sacred places of

  their religion were close, tantalizingly so. Everywhere the crusaders looked were places that evoked the life of Christ. Even the nearest gate to them, the

  ‘Nablus gate’ was, said those who knew the city, Pilate’s judgement-seat, where Christ was judged by the chief priests. Not far beyond it could be seen the domed roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Th

  is, along with the nearby

  Golgatha, the site where they believed Christ to have been crucifi ed, was their goal: a goal that had kept them marching through famine, thirst and the ever-present danger of attack. Now it was nearly theirs. Perhaps God would cause the walls to tumble for them? As they set up their camps, the overwhelming feeling among the army was that it would not be long before Jerusalem was in Christian hands. But which of their princes, if any, would be the new ruler of the Holy City?

  Th

  e Christian army that arrived before the walls of Jerusalem on 7 June 1099 was a fragment of the massive force that had united at Nicea, some two years earlier. Th

  ere had been many casualties on the way, from battle, but also

  from plague and starvation. Th

  en, too, there had been those who despaired

  of victory, or personal safety, and had abandoned the expedition in a state of demoralization. Even greater losses in strength had arisen from the decision of Bohemond to remain at Antioch and Baldwin at Edessa, both retaining a substantial number of followers.

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  At its height the crusading army had, very approximately, 100,000 participants, of whom 7,000 were knights. Outside of Jerusalem, the Christians had 1,200–1,300 knights, 12,000 foot soldiers, and several thousand non-combatants, perhaps 20,000 crusaders in all. It might have been expected that the bonds created amongst these survivors of such an extraordinary journey were powerful ones forged by solidarity in face of death and hardship, strengthened by common purpose and belief. Surely, now that they were at the place they had all worked so hard to obtain, a sense of awe and fellowship would unite them?

  Such sentiments existed within smaller groups of crusaders, but the army as a whole was riven by divisions so great that eff ective leadership had broken down and bitter regional rivalries soured all sense of unity.

  Th

  e Normans were putting it about that the Provençals were experts at foraging, to the neglect of fi ghting. Th

  eir children had a refrain with which

  they taunted their southern French counterparts: ‘the Franks go to fi ght, the Provençals to food’. Far worse, given the vital importance of cavalry, the Normans believed that the Provençals had a technique of wounding a healthy horse through its rectum, so that the cause of death was impossible to determine. In times of hardship at the siege of Antioch they had deployed this trick, so that fearing disease, the Norman owner of the carcass would decline to eat the meat, leaving it for the Provençals to fl ock to it, like a pack of crows. 5

  Relations between the Lotharingians and the French, both north and south, were little better. At Antioch, the Lotharingians had been caught resting while guarding a wall that protected the Christians from attacks by those Turks still in the citadel of the city. Th

  ey had concentrated their troops on night duty, little

  expecting a daytime attack. Having realized that there was a certain complacency among the guards of the wall during the day, the Turks in the citadel stormed out in bright daylight, raiding deep into the Christian camp and infl icting many casualties before retreating safely back to their defences. As a result of this failure by the Lotharingian guards, the French and Italian crowds had roamed the streets shouting ‘Germans are shit’. Duke Godfrey’s men were still smarting at the insult.6

  Th

  e single largest faction of the Christian army was that lead by Count Raymond of Toulouse, but not only was the elderly count unable to exert his will over the other princes, even his own following had become insubordinate.

  Th

  e depth of the discontent among the Provençals had already been revealed by their shocking action in burning their own camp at ‘Arqā, then setting out for Jerusalem. Now, at the Holy City itself, the fact that this discontent remained was made manifest as the Provençals set up their new camp.

  In the west wall of the city, standing just to the southeast of the Jaff a Gate was the major defensive structure of Jerusalem, a very massive tower from

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  Herodian times. Known as the ‘Tower of David’, it was build over a natural spring out of a red stone too hard to be vulnerable to undermining. Th e base of

  the tower consisted of large dressed stones sealed with cast lead. It was large enough to hold hundreds of people, having dwellings and a mosque within, and its defences had been supplemented by a deep ditch, which meant having to use a bridge to cross to the small gate that gave access to the ground fl oor of the tower.7

  When the Provençal army had arrived at Jerusalem they had taken up a position opposite this strongpoint. But although their camp was secure enough, the prospect of launching attacks on this, the most well defended part of the city, was intimidating. Count Raymond therefore scouted further south, searching for a better position for his troops. Opposite the southern gate of Jerusalem he came to
the very promising position of Mount Zion and immediately appreciated its potential. From here a southern force could realistically threaten the city. Th

  is was a much more favourable position from which to launch attacks than the west, not least because the intervening ground was fl at enough to allow a siege engine to be moved up to the walls of the city. Th

  e great disadvantage of

  making camp at Mount Zion, however, was its vulnerability to counter-attacks.

  In fact, as they later proved, should the garrison of Jerusalem employ a powerful enough mangonel, they would be able to launch missiles right into the besiegers’ defences.

  Count Raymond announced that the Provençal camp would be at Mount Zion. He did so, however, not by arguing for the military advantages of the position, but in a manner that revealed that he still clung to the notion of his being a champion especially chosen by God to lead the crusade. Th ere were

  ruins on the hill, those of the largely intact Church of the virgin, and those of a much more fragmentary structure, a synagogue known as ‘David’s Tomb’.

  Taking on the mantle of a prophet, Count Raymond announced that the sight of the ruins of the Church of St Mary on the hill had inspired him. ‘If,’ he asked,

  ‘we should give up these sacred places that God handed to us here, will the Saracens not then occupy them, to take them from us? Might they not defi le them and ruin them because of their hatred of us? Who knows, it could be that God has given us this trial, so as to prove our love of Him? Certainly, this above all I know: unless we carefully protect these sacred places, God will not give to us those that are in the city. ’8

  Count Raymond and the clergy in his entourage would have been very familiar with the deeds of Judas Maccabeus. Th

  is biblical commander, who had