The Dream and the Tomb

by Robert Payne

  To the barons of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the coming of Guy to a position of prominence was a disaster scarcely to be tolerated. But Sibylla doted on him, and the king, who was slowly dying, and going blind, acquiesced sufficiently to hold out the hand of friendship to him.

  The king had another half sister, Isabelle, who was described by the poet Ambrose as “exceedingly fair and lovely.” He decided to marry her to Humphrey of Toron, the grandson of the great Constable, and in October 1180 there was an announcement of the engagement of Humphrey and Isabelle, who was then eight years old. The marriage would take place three years later. Humphrey was a scholar of Arabic, and in later years he would be sent on embassies to the enemy camps, Saladin would compliment him on his use of Arabic, and he would become the translator of all the chief Arabic texts addressed to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The barons appear to have despised him because he was not a soldier like his famous grandfather, and they accused him of effeminacy, of being “soft in gestures and fruitful of speech.” What is certain is that Humphrey was among the very small group of people who had access to the king and was in the king’s trust, and that he exerted in his own way considerable influence on the course of events.

  While Humphrey of Toron was always helpful, Reynald of Châtillon, formerly prince of Antioch and later Nur ed-Din’s prisoner in an Aleppo jail, proved to be as unhelpful as it was possible to be. He had married Stephanie, the widow of Miles of Plancy and the heiress of the whole region of Oultrejourdain (Beyond the Jordan) stretching from Hebron to the Red Sea and including the two great castles of Kerak and Montreal and the lesser castles of Petra and Val Moysis. Embittered by his long imprisonment and exulting in his newfound power, Reynald defied the king’s truce with Saladin. It occurred to him to invade Arabia, to destroy the tomb of Muhammad at Medina and to sack Mecca and raze to the ground the sacred Kaaba. In the summer of 1181, he attacked and captured a caravan that was traveling peacefully to Mecca, taking possession of all the pilgrims, their animals, provisions, and goods. Later in the year he embarked on a daring escapade against Medina and Mecca. Only about three hundred Franks and perhaps an equal number of renegade Muslims took part in the disastrous expedition, but their depredations were out of all proportion to their numbers. They brought fire and sword to the Red Sea, which was hitherto a safe and protected region of the world. Saladin swore that if he could lay his hands on Reynald he would kill him.

  While the raid on the Red Sea invited a counterraid of equal proportions, it was not the only incitement to Saladin’s rage. Reynald was capturing all the caravans passing through his territory. These caravans were now heavily armed for protection. It did them no good to be well armed: Reynald could always capture them. He captured a great caravan traveling from Damascus to Mecca, and it was said that Saladin’s aunt was among the passengers. For Saladin the capture of this caravan was a crime almost as great as Reynald’s desecrations around the Red Sea.

  Baldwin IV, who had inaugurated the truce with Saladin and meant to keep to it, remonstrated with Reynald, ordered him to restore all the prisoners and all the booty to Saladin, and was laughed at for his pains. The king received letters from Saladin asking for an explanation, and had to admit that he was powerless regarding Reynald. While flouting the king’s authority, Reynald was digging his own grave—which was not perhaps a matter of great importance. What was more important was that he was digging the grave of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

  The kingdom was breaking up, for the lines of authority were tangled, obscure, or stretched to breaking point. It was as though the kingdom too, like the king, suffered from leprosy.

  On June 12, 1183, Aleppo fell to the forces of Saladin, and with its capture Saladin became the most powerful man of Islam, ruling from the Tigris to the Nile, from the frontiers of Ethiopia to the frontiers of Persia. He was an emperor in all but name, styling himself King of All the Kingdoms of the Orient. Such a man could scarcely be expected to tolerate the existence of Christian enclaves along the seacoast of Palestine and Syria. In August he marched out of Damascus with the intention of driving the Christians into the sea.

  The battle intended by Saladin to be the last of his battles with the Christians took place in the Plain of Esdraelon near the castle of La Fève. Thirteen hundred knights and fifteen thousand foot soldiers, well armed and aware that they were fighting a battle that might be decisive in the history of the kingdom, were confronted by a somewhat larger number of Muslims. The Christian force, which included Reynald of Châtillon, was led by Guy of Lusignan, whom the dying king appointed bailli or regent. Guy, who generally distinguished himself by his lack of distinction, his irresolution, and inefficiency, fought surprising well that day. It was not so much a battle as a hard-fought hand-to-hand struggle, a vast mêlée, with neither side gaining victory.

  Exhausted, the armies disengaged and took up positions facing each other at Tubaniya and at the Pools of Goliath, with a stream flowing between them. For five days they regarded one another. The Christian army was reinforced with hundreds of sailors from ships that had just come to port, all clamoring to join the army. Reynald of Châtillon was disputing the authority of the regent. He wanted to attack; Guy wanted to retreat to a stronger position. Saladin attempted to lure the Christians out of their encampment. He failed. On October 8, he withdrew beyond the Jordan, his rage against Reynald intact.

  Once the armies had withdrawn, Reynald hurried off to his seemingly impregnable castle, Kerak of Moab, the launching ground for all his adventures. Knowing that Reynald was scheming behind its walls, Saladin wanted it more than he wanted Jerusalem, and he would not rest until he had taken it.

  For nearly two months Saladin attacked the castle, using seven powerful mangonels to batter at the walls. But the castle was well provisioned—Reynald was as much a master of defense as of attack—and in December, confessing failure, Saladin withdrew his army to Damascus. It was in fact his fourth attempt to reduce the castle.

  In the summer of the following year he returned, more powerfully armed than before, swearing to take the castle and to kill Reynald with his own hands. On the day he arrived, Humphrey of Toron was celebrating his marriage to the Princess Isabelle, the king’s half sister, now eleven years old. The marriage was taking place in the castle because Reynald had married Humphrey’s mother, the Lady Stephanie of Milly. Saladin attacked the small town which clustered around the castle, separated by a great ditch from the castle gates. Most of the people in the town had made their way to the safety of the castle, bringing their sheep and cattle with them. Saladin might have led his troops up to the walls of the castle, but for a single knight who commanded the bridge over the ditch and kept the Muslims at bay. This time Saladin had brought nine mangonels, and the noise of rocks being hurled against stone walls continued day and night.

  The chronicler Ernoul, who continues the story of the Crusades where William of Tyre leaves off, tells a strange story about the Lady Stephanie on the wedding night of her son:

  She sent to Saladin bread and wine, sheep and cattle in celebration of her son’s wedding, reminding him that he used to carry her in his arms when she was a child and he was a slave in the castle. And when Saladin received these gifts, he was exceedingly delighted and gave thanks to those who brought them very effusively, and he asked where the bride and bridegroom were staying: their tower was pointed out to him. Thereupon Saladin gave orders throughout his army that no attack and no bombardment should be directed at this tower.

  Nevertheless he continued to attack the rest of the castle.

  The story is intriguing because there exists no other source for the enslavement of Saladin. In the many Arabic accounts of Saladin’s life there is no mention of his capture or of his being a slave in the castle. The story however is not improbable. In the forays and skirmishes of the time, a ten-year-old boy might be captured, and if his appearance were pleasing he might find himself transformed into a castle servant until he grew weary of the task and made his escape. The Muslim
chroniclers would probably go to some lengths to conceal such a story.

  Saladin’s forces were so powerful that it became necessary to send a relief column from Jerusalem. The king, now virtually a living corpse, quickly organized the expedition and led it. He was carried on a litter. When his small army was south of the Dead Sea, his strength failed, and he turned over the command to Raymond of Tripoli. Saladin, hearing of the advance of the royal forces, abruptly lifted the siege. The king entered Reynald’s castle like a conqueror. He was greeted by everyone as though he had been sent by God.

  The following spring, in Jerusalem, with all his nobles around him, he died. He was blind, faceless, his hands and feet eaten away; but to the end he remained kingly. He was only twenty-four years old when he was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Christians revered him; the Muslims respected him. It was a Muslim chronicler, Imad ed-Din of Isfahan, who wrote of him, “The leper child knew how to make his authority respected.”

  Under Baldwin IV the Crusaders experienced a resurgence of strength. The boy-king, in his long martyrdom, quickened the people with his high spirits, his defiance, his intelligence, his courage. The boy with the halting tongue and the burned-out eyes, so helpless in appearance, and so full of intellectual energy, represented all that was best in Western Europe, though he had never seen the West. He was the last of his dynasty, and of his kind. After him, the little men came out from under the stones.

  The Horns

  of Hattin

  DURING the last months of his life the leper-king was embroiled in a strange conflict with Guy of Lusignan, because the king was determined that Guy should not inherit the throne. The king seemed to know that, if Guy was permitted to rule, he would be fatally dangerous to the kingdom. He went to astonishing lengths to neutralize Guy and to attempt to destroy the marriage that gave a kind of legitimacy to Guy’s claims.

  Returning from his triumph at Reynald’s castle, the king ordered Guy to appear before him in Jerusalem. The urgent summons was resisted; Guy pleaded illness. The summons was repeated. When Guy absolutely refused to leave Ascalon, the king decided to go to him, but he found the gates of the city closed.

  In a rage the king rode off to Jaffa, which was governed by one of Guy’s lieutenants. This time the gate was opened for him without any difficulty. The king appointed a new governor and went off to Acre, where he summoned a general council to discuss the succession. The king was concerned with the fortunes of the kingdom, and he was aware at this time of the pressing dangers and the need to find a king who would defend the kingdom to the uttermost.

  The general council took place in January 1185. Guy did not attend, but he possessed powerful protectors. They included the Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem, Gerard of Ridfort, who was master of the Temple, Reynald of Châtillon, and Joscelin of Courtenay. Heraclius had reached his high position by intrigue; he was barely literate but wielded enormous powers. He was especially close to Guy of Lusignan, Reynald of Châtillon, and the members of the young, new nobility, who had assumed high positions by their charm and daring. William of Tyre, who belonged to the old order, warned against the growing power of the newcomers, who had no roots in the Holy Land, and who were concerned only with their own fortunes.

  At the general council in Acre, Heraclius, Ridfort, and others appealed to the king to abandon the feud with Guy of Lusignan, and to forgive whatever crimes he imputed to his brother-in-law. The king was adamant. He rejected their pleas, and he seems to have been unperturbed when they left the council chamber in high dudgeon. He had already decided that, when he died, the kingdom should be ruled by Raymond of Tripoli acting as regent for Sibylla’s young son by William of Montferrat. The boy was then five or six years old and in delicate health. And so it happened that when Baldwin IV died in March 1185, he was succeeded by Baldwin V, who was crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

  In this way, Guy of Lusignan was disinherited and Raymond became king in all but name.

  Raymond was a man of many talents. A superb diplomat, he arranged a truce with Saladin to last for four years. When a famine threatened the Holy Land, he even arranged that Saladin should supply him with corn and grain. Saladin himself fell ill, and during his illness conspiracies flourished in his court. He was believed to be dying, but by the end of the year he had recovered, and once again he set in motion his plans for destroying the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as those who had conspired against him. He had respect for Raymond of Tripoli but none for Guy of Lusignan.

  When Guy heard that he had been disinherited, he wreaked his vengeance not on the dying king but on some harmless Arab shepherds who, under the king’s protection, pastured their flocks outside the castle of Daron. He captured the shepherds, seized the flocks and drove them all to Ascalon. It was his way of telling the king, “You cannot protect anyone.”

  In August 1186 young Baldwin V died in Acre. It is possible that he died of natural causes. It is also possible that he died of poison. Raymond of Tripoli and Joscelin of Courtenay were present at the deathbed, and while Joscelin undertook to conduct the body to Jerusalem, Raymond hurried off to Tiberias to assemble the forces of the kingdom. While Raymond was making his way to the Galilee, Joscelin, Sibylla, and Guy of Lusignan hurried to Jerusalem. The city fell to them. The Patriarch Heraclius brought them the support of the clergy. Reynald came up from his castle with an army.

  The barons met at Nablus under Raymond of Tripoli and issued a proclamation denouncing Sibylla’s claim to be the legitimate heiress of the kings of Jerusalem, for had not Baldwin IV annulled her claim by royal edict? Had not Guy of Lusignan fought against the legitimate power of Baldwin IV? The parliament at Nablus called upon the people of Jerusalem to overthrow the government installed by means of a coup d’état. Heraclius was commanded not to crown Guy of Lusignan as the rightful king. The patriarch ignored the injunction of the barons and crowned Sibylla, who turned to her husband, removed the crown from her head, gave it to him as he knelt before her, and permitted him to crown himself. In this way Guy of Lusignan, the handsome and impecunious son of the count of Lusignan, with his courtly gestures and unfathomable ignorance, became king of Jerusalem.

  Gerard of Ridfort, Master of the Temple, regarded himself as the kingmaker, for he had thrown the forces of the Temple on the side of the new king. What pleased him more than anything else was the rebuke to Raymond of Tripoli, still sitting with his parliament at Nablus, still regarding himself as the lawful regent. He remembered in particular the time when the fiefdom of Botrun had been given to a merchant who could pay the bride price. “This crown,” he said, “is well worth the reversion of Botrun.” He spoke as one who felt he was on the eve of many triumphs. In fact he was on the eve of many defeats. The prophecy of Baldwin of Ramleh, one of the great barons of the kingdom, would prove accurate: “The new king will not last a year! The kingdom is lost!”

  In Nablus the barons devised a simple and quite impractical solution to the problem. Humphrey of Toron, the husband of the Princess Isabelle, was offered the throne. According to the chronicler, Humphrey behaved ignobly. He was so terrified by the weight of kingship that he slipped out of Nablus and made his way to Jerusalem, where he sought out Sibylla and blurted that it was not his fault that he had been offered the crown. Sibylla is supposed to have said, “Well then, I shall forgive you, but now you must go and do your homage to the king.”

  It probably happened differently. Humphrey was intelligent: he knew that if he assumed the crown, he would have provoked a civil war. He may have genuinely believed that he did not have the makings of a king. Related by marriage to Sibylla, it is possible that he felt more loyalty to her than to the barons, who had placed him in an intolerable position. The king was commander in chief of the kingdom’s military forces, and Humphrey had reason to doubt his military ability. Only a little while before, he had raised a column to go to the relief of Baldwin IV. Saladin’s forces swept down on the column, most of his soldiers were killed, and he had escaped
with difficulty. The memory of that disaster may have been with him when he refused the kingship.

  Indeed, it was a time of many disasters. The barons remained at Nablus, while King Guy remained in Jerusalem. Within a few days Guy was thinking of attacking the barons, thus ending once and for all the dispute over the succession. Wiser counsel prevailed. Meanwhile Raymond of Tripoli was in correspondence with Saladin, and he succeeded in arranging a truce which applied to his own territories in Tripoli and the Galilee. It was a separate peace, and he would claim that it was absolutely necessary for the survival of his principalities. Guy assumed Raymond was in treacherous communication with the enemy.

  In these ominous times, with Saladin building up his forces in a deliberate effort to bring about the destruction of the kingdom, with a king in Jerusalem and a regent in Tiberias, a man was needed who could in some way unify the kingdom. But no such man appeared. Instead the Crusader princes so conducted themselves that the worst prevailed. At a time when a spark could have caused a war and it was incumbent on the Christians to prepare their forces carefully and patiently, a spirit of wild impatience was gripping their leaders, and they acted carelessly and intemperately. Reynald of Chatillon chose this particular moment to provoke a war with Saladin.

  The hard-pressed Saladin had agreed to a truce with his archenemy Reynald, who agreed to exact customs dues from the travelers and pilgrims passing through his territory rather than order outright confiscation and the ransom of prisoners. But when, at the beginning of 1187, his spies reported that an especially large caravan was traveling from Cairo to Damascus, he was incapable of resisting the temptation to acquire booty. He laid an ambush, captured the entire convoy, threw the Muslims into his dungeons and all the wealth of the caravan into his storehouses.