The Monks of War

by Desmond Seward

  Such activities hardly harmonize with the name of 'Poor Knights'. As Jacques de Vitry pointed out, the Templars owned no individual property, but in common they seemed anxious to possess everything. Nevertheless their life was as ascetic as ever. Certainly by this time purely contemplative orders were no strangers to high finance; Cistercian techniques of agriculture brought great wealth to the white monks – the entire wool crop of many English abbeys was often sold for years ahead. Although rivalry over revenues made for little love between Poor Knights and Knights of St John, yet none the less both would unite in times of real danger.

  3. The head of St John the Baptist on the seal of a thirteenth-century Hospitaller Prior of England

  In 1154 the young Fatimid caliph was murdered by his homosexual favourite, Nasr, who fled to Syria and was captured by the Templars. To save his skin he asked for instruction in the Christian faith. He did not deceive the unsympathetic brethren. They accepted Cairo's offer of 60,000 dinars for him, and Nasr was taken home by the Egyptians in an iron cage, to be first horribly mutilated by the caliph's four widows and then, still living, crucified at the Zawila Gate, where his rotting corpse hung for two years. At least one contemporary chronicler appears to have been disturbed by the brothers' business acumen.

  Certainly one Armenian joined the brethren as a knight and probably many more were admitted to the sergeant class (which also numbered Christian Arabs). The Templars had an unfortunate experience with Fra' Mleh, a member of the Cilician ruling family, 'horn pleins de grant malice et trop desleaus'. After taking vows as a Poor Knight he attempted to murder his brother, Prince Thoros, then fled to Damascus where he turned Moslem. In 1170 he came back with Turkish troops to conquer Cilicia, after attacking the Templar stronghold at Baghras. 'Ce desloial Hermin' cherished a venomous hatred for his former co-religionists and treated Templar prisoners with particular cruelty. At last, outraged by their prince's apostasy, his own people killed him.3

  Fra' Raymond died in 1158. He was succeeded as Master of the Hospital by Fra' Gilbert d'Assailly. Until 1168 King Amalric's Egyptian policy had been a realistic one of alliance with the viziers of the Shia caliph against the Sunni Nur ed-Din who now ruled Aleppo and Damascus. However, it was clear that the Fatimid regime was near its end and Amalric negotiated an alliance with the Emperor Manuel; the Byzantines would attack by sea while the whole muster of Jerusalem struck overland. Success depended on the co-operation of the emperor, who was busy campaigning in Serbia. Amalric was prepared to wait, but Fra' Gilbert intervened with an offer of 500 knights and 500 Turcopoles, in return for the town of Bilbeis.4 At this the barons refused to wait any longer before enjoying the fabulous riches of Cairo. Fra' Bertrand de Blanquefort, the Templar Master, refused to support the expedition; there was not sufficient manpower to wage a campaign and at the same time cope with the counterattack which was certain to come from the north-east.

  The Franks captured Bilbeis, but the troops got out of hand and a massacre, including the local Christians, took place. The Egyptians were panic-stricken and the caliph himself wrote to Nur ed-Din for help, whereupon the atabeg sent his Kurdish general Shirkuh with 8,000 horsemen; they by-passed Amalric and entered Cairo. Shirkuh was proclaimed vizier but soon afterwards ate himself to death and was succeeded by his nephew, Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayub, better known as Saladin. Within two years the last Fatimid caliph was dead and Shia Egypt had returned to the Sunni fold; the Frankish protectorate was replaced by a Cairo–Aleppo axis, the most formidable coalition yet to threaten Outremer.

  The Hospital was nearly bankrupt as it had staked all available funds on a successful outcome. Fra' Gilbert was not noted for stability, and the failure of his gamble unbalanced him. He appears to have had a nervous breakdown in the summer of 1170, when he retired to a cave in the Hauran to become a hermit. Eventually he was coaxed out but, despite the General Chapter's pleas, abdicated; later he was drowned while crossing the English Channel. The Hospitallers had suffered a grievous setback and it took them years to recover their losses in money and manpower.

  In 1173 'the new Machabees', as the English pope Adrian IV called the Templars, had a fierce quarrel with the king over the Assassins. These Hasishiyum, 'eaters of Hashish', were an extremist sect of the Shias, whose founder had placed an excessive emphasis on the doctrine of Jihad – that paradise was the reward for death in combat against unbelievers. Their weapon was the poisoned knife, flat cakes their trade mark, and they terrorized Moslems and Christians alike. The sect's organization had a superficial resemblance to the brethren's. They had several 'eagle's nests' in the Nosairi mountains of the Lebanon, whose governor was called the Sheikh al-Gebel, the Old Man of the Mountains. In 1173 this was Rashid ed-Din Sinan, who was much alarmed by the recent extinction of the Fatimid caliphate. Suddenly he sent an embassy to King Amalric, announcing his imminent conversion to Christianity and asking to be relieved of the tribute imposed by the Templars. The king knew just how much belief to place in Rashid's conversion, but peace in the Nosairi and the use of the Assassin intelligence network were worth having. He remitted the tribute, announcing that his own ambassadors would visit the Sheikh. As the Assassin envoys were returning home they were ambushed by some Templars, under the one-eyed Fra' Gautier de Mesnil, and decapitated. Amalric was so furious that to his courtiers he appeared to be out of his senses.5 He had had trouble from Templars before, hanging ten for surrendering a castle without permission. He ordered the Master, Eudes de St Amand, to hand over the culprit. Fra' Eudes refused but offered to send the erring brother to Rome – the pope alone could try the case. However, Amalric burst into the Master's quarters and seized Gautier, whom he flung into prison.

  Next year Nur ed-Din died. Saladin now ruled Damascus as well as Cairo and was proclaimed King of Egypt and Syria in 1176, with the Caliph of Baghdad's official blessing. A Kurdish adventurer who hacked his way to the throne, once there he became a Moslem St Louis, something of a mystic, an ascetic who fasted, slept on a rough mat and gave alms unceasingly – in Gibbon's amusing phrase, 'while he emulated the temperance he surpassed the chastity of his Arabian prophet'.6 His ambition was to restore the unity of Sunni Islam, which would include a Jihad against the Franks. Nevertheless, with his sensitive, inquiring mind he saw that there was much good in Christianity, even if it lacked the Third Revelation, and he was intrigued by the Frankish code of chivalry. The Franks had a deep respect for his bravery and magnanimity; there was even a legend that in his youth he had been knighted by the constable of Jerusalem.

  Amalric died in the same year, succeeded by perhaps the most gallant figure of the whole Frankish venture, the leper king, Baldwin IV (1174–85), who inherited the throne at thirteen, a year after his leprosy had been discovered. He literally dropped to pieces during his reign, a via dolorosa on which he showed, with moving courage, political realism and remarkable powers of leadership.

  Outremer's strategic position was deteriorating rapidly. In 1176 the Seldjuk Sultan of Iconium wiped out the army of Emperor Manuel at Myriocephalum; Byzantium, finished as a military power, would never again intervene in Syria. Lesser Armenia was growing at the expense of Antioch, unedifyingly ready to ally with Moslem neighbours. Worse, however, was the kingdom's encirclement. Saladin would take Aleppo in 1183 and was steadily consolidating his empire.

  In November 1177 Saladin led the whole of his army, 26,000 Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Sudanese and Mamelukes, in a raid on the plain between Ramleh and Ascalon. Blockading the leper king in Ascalon with a small garrison, he marched on Jerusalem. Baldwin broke out with 300 Knights and, joined by Eudes de St Amand with eighty Templars, circled Saladin by hard riding. The little force caught him off his guard in the ravine of Montgisard and, with the leprous youth and the Bishop of Acre carrying the True Cross at their head, the heavy Frankish horsemen smashed into the Egyptian army. It was a bloodbath, and Saladin and his troops fled into the Sinai desert, where they all but perished of thirst.

  Next time Baldwin was not so lucky. On
the morning of 10 June 1179 the king ambushed a raiding party, commanded by Saladin's nephew, at Marj Ayun. Resting, he himself was surprised some hours later by Saladin's entire army and was routed with heavy losses. The Templars charged too soon and Fra' Eudes was taken prisoner but, in accordance with his Order's rule, refused to be ransomed. William of Tyre abuses the fire-breathing Master, 'homo nequam superbus et arrogans', 'fel et orgueilleus',7 but Eudes was a man of principle and died in prison the year after, probably from starvation.

  The sinister Gerard de Ridefort became Master of the Temple in 1185. A penniless noble from Flanders, he had taken service with Raymond III on condition that he be given the hand of the heiress of Botrun. Raymond did not keep his promise and the embittered Gerard joined the Templars. His driving ambition and aggressive self-confidence soon took him to the top, but he embodied all his Order's worst faults. A Master had to live with princes, and an impressive household pandered to Gerard's pathological pride; his personal staff included bodyguards and Arab secretaries, with two great officers always in attendance.8 It is interesting to compare Fra' Gerard with one of the companions of St Francis, Fra' Elias, Master General of the Franciscans, whose head was so turned by power that he would appear in public only on horseback. One may condemn Gerard without condemning his brethren.

  One of the two co-heiresses of Baldwin who died in 1185 was his sister, Sibylla, married to Guy de Lusignan, a brainless adventurer gifted with good looks. When the child king, Baldwin V, died in 1185 many in Outremer hoped to enthrone Sibylla's younger sister, Isabella, who would leave affairs of state to the one man capable of saving the kingdom, the Regent Raymond III of Tripoli. However, an unscrupulous faction, including the patriarch and the vindictive Master of the Temple, rallied to Guy. Fra' Gerard extorted the third key of the royal treasury from the Hospitaller Master, Roger des Moulins, who flung it from his window but would have nothing to do with the coronation. Guy was crowned king, guarded by a phalanx of Poor Knights, whose Master commented 'ceste corone vaut bien le mariage dou Botron'.

  Early in 1187 the Lord of Outrejourdain, Reynald de Chatillon, rode out from his desert stronghold, Krak-en-Moab, to slaughter a Damascene caravan with which the sultan's sister was travelling and which thought itself protected by the truce. Reynald was an archetypal robber-baron, a murderous throwback to the northern progenitors of the French aristocracy. His most lunatic exploit took place in 1182, when he transported ships, piece by piece, over the desert to the Red Sea and raided the pilgrims on their way to Mecca, earning the Franks the hatred of the whole Moslem world. Insanely brave and totally unscrupulous, he had much in common with Fra' Gerard. Outremer's affairs were exposed to the meddling of two irresponsible berserks at a time when the kingdom desperately needed wise and cautious leadership.

  In May a raiding party of 7,000 Moslem cavalry was tackled at the Springs of Cresson near Nazareth by 150 Knights, comprising Fra' Gerard, 90 Templars, 40 secular knights, and the Master of the Hospital, Roger des Moulins, with his Marshal Jacques de Mailly and their escort. Ridefort taunted Fra' Jacques: 'Vos amez trop cele teste blonde'.9 A Moslem eye-witness records how even the blackest head of hair went white with fright as the Frankish horsemen hurtled towards them. But the odds were too great. Fra' Roger went down, riddled with arrows, and only Fra' Gerard escaped with two brethren, all three badly wounded. It had been his decision to charge. He was a typical medieval man who believed in trial by battle – God always gave the victory to Christians unless they displeased Him, just as He had done with the people of Israel.

  On 1 July 1187 Saladin crossed the Jordan with an army of 60,000 men. The whole muster of Outremer assembled, 1,200 knights and perhaps 20,000 sergeants, Turcopoles and foot soldiers. Of the knights about 300 belonged to the Temple, 250 to the Hospital. There was also a small detachment of the brethren of Montjoie, and possibly another from St Lazarus. Prince Bohemond III of Antioch sent his son with 50 knights. No more than 600 could have been provided by the kingdom, this being the total 'knight-service'. They were better equipped than the men of the First Crusade. Chain stockings and a mail shirt were worn in place of the long hauberk. The shield was smaller, and sometimes the helmet was flat-topped like a saucepan, with a grille to guard the face, though not yet the great barrel helm of the next century. Lay knights wore a keffiyeh and a surcoat, while the brethren had their white, brown and black cloaks. This was not an alien expeditionary force, but an army of poulains marching out to defend their homeland. Many brethren and most secular knights and sergeants had been born there; some were of mixed, blood, Syrian and Armenian, or even pure Arabs. Colons and natives were united by their Christian faith and common peril.

  Instead of trusting Count Raymond's experienced judgement, Guy relied on those two berserks, Reynald de Chatillon and Fra' Gerard. Saladin had captured Tiberias and was besieging Raymond's wife in the castle, but the count advised Guy to wait at Saffaria where there was water. Gerard persuaded the king to change his mind, coming to the royal tent 'quant ce vint la nuit'10 and telling Guy that Raymond was a traitor, that he would be disgraced before God and his subjects if he did not recapture Tiberias. Guy succumbed to the fanatic and gave the order to march. Friday, 3 July, was the hottest day of an unnaturally hot summer. After a grim trek through waterless desert, the Frankish army pitched camp on a hill called the Horns of Hattin. Its well was dry. Saladin could hardly believe his eyes, but gave thanks to Allah, while his troops encircled the hill. The Christians spent a terrible night without water, awaiting death.

  At dawn the Moslems set fire to the scrub. Flames and smoke swept up the slopes, maddening men and horses tortured by thirst. The infantry soon broke and were slaughtered by the thousand, but the horsemen fought on in the appalling heat. After many charges over impossible ground and having beaten back attack after attack under a hail of arrows, King Guy's force was reduced to 150 dismounted knights, and surrendered. The Moslems captured the True Cross in its gold reliquary.11 Saladin was merciful, treating the king with kindness. Most prisoners were spared, but there were two exceptions. Reynald de Chatillon, the harrier of pilgrims, was struck down by Saladin himself. At his express orders every Templar and Hospitaller was beheaded. He had them killed, explains the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir, 'because they were the fiercest of all the Frankish warriors'.

  While the male population of Frankish Syria was driven off to the slave-markets of Damascus, Saladin proceeded to occupy their towns. Jerusalem had one man for every fifty women and children but, by putting up a gallant defence, was allowed to ransom a large proportion of its citizens, in humane contrast with the Christian sack of 1099. The Hospitaller and Templar financial officials were scandalously parsimonious, as there was not a single knight to take responsibility. However, Saladin let the penniless go free. Acre surrendered on the same conditions; within a month, apart from a few castles, only Antioch, Tripoli and Tyre resisted. A contemporary chronicler attributed the disaster of Hattin to the filth, luxury and adultery of Jerusalem; but, whatever the cause, Christendom had lost the 'City of the King of Kings' and with it the Temple and the Hospital.

  Reduced to Tripoli, Tortosa, Antioch and Tyre, the kingdom at first seemed doomed. The conviction that God had deserted him could produce a sudden, staggering demoralization in medieval man, and Count Raymond died of a broken heart. However, Saladin concentrated on the few remaining strongholds inland which cut his supply lines. The brethren realized that resistance would help the coastal towns. In January 1188 the Hospitallers of Belvoir in Galilee cut to pieces a besieging army. For a whole year the Moslems invested Belvoir as well as the Templars at Safed, battering the two castles with rock-throwing mangonels and trebuchets, ceaselessly mining and mounting assault after assault. The winter's drenching rain and mud nearly defeated the besiegers, but at last, in December 1188, Safed surrendered, followed by Belvoir in January 1189. The sultan spent June 1188 before Krak-des-Chevaliers, but the Hospitallers were not easily frightened. He then invested Tortosa, where he was beat
en off by the Templar garrison. Marqab, the Hospitallers' coastal stronghold, he left in peace. His caution was due to the arrival of 200 knights from Sicily, who relieved Krak at the end of July. In September, at Darbessaq, the Templars astonished the Moslems by standing motionless and silent in the breach. The castle resisted for a fortnight and then with Prince Bohemond's permission capitulated, as did Baghras, another Templar stronghold. Their garrisons retired to Antioch. These campaigns deflected Saladin from the reduction of Tyre, the centre of Christian resistance.

  In July 1188 the sultan released King Guy, who swore he would never again bear arms against Islam, and shortly afterwards Fra' Gerard was allowed to ransom himself, a flagrant breach of the Templar rule. The Master found many brethren at Tyre, as well as Hospitallers who had come in haste from Europe. Then, in April 1189, a fleet arrived from Pisa with further reinforcements. The following August, Guy suddenly laid siege to Acre, whose garrison outnumbered his troops by three to one. Perhaps one may detect Gerard's baneful counsel in breaking the oath sworn to Saladin; sworn to an infidel under duress, it had no validity. The long siege of Acre has been compared to the siege of Troy but was the beginning of the Frankish recovery.

  Saladin invested Guy's camp, and the besiegers found themselves besieged. Yet all the time reinforcements were arriving by sea – small parties of French, German and Danish crusaders. On 4 October Guy attacked Saladin for the first time since Hattin. It was a savage battle, though honours were even. Fra' Gerard, who commanded the advance guard, refused to leave the field and was taken prisoner. He was executed immediately on Saladin's express orders. Crusaders continued to arrive, including a contingent of Londoners, while since May 1189 Frederick Barbarossa had been marching to the Holy Land with 100,000 men. In 1190, however, while fording a river in Seleucia the old emperor was drowned and the German army disintegrated – not more than 1,000 reached Acre. The siege dragged on; the Franks could not take Acre, but nor could the Moslems dislodge them. Famine and plague broke out. By the spring of 1191 the crusaders were desperate.