The Monks of War

by Desmond Seward

  Perhaps thirty brother-knights were resident in its Hospital, the Temple holding as many Poor Knights. Most brethren were on garrison duty in the great castles or scattered throughout their wide properties, busy with estate management, collecting taxes and inspecting supply depots. It was not only diminished resources which sapped the strength of the military brotherhoods for, as with other religious orders, there was evidence of growing laxity. Knight-brethren no longer slept in dormitories but in their own cells, and senior officers enjoyed considerable comfort.

  Acre was especially gay in 1286 when, after the coronation of Henry II, the epileptic boy who was also King of Cyprus, his court spent a fortnight celebrating. Nothing so lively or so decorative had been seen in Palestine since the old court at Jerusalem. There were tournaments and sumptuous banquets, while in the 'Herberge del Ospitau de Saint-Johan'6 pageants of King Arthur and the Round Table were enacted, Syrian and Cypriot nobles playing the parts of 'Lanselot, et Tristan, et Pilamèdes', and other games 'biaus et délitables et plaissans'.7 The king then returned to his other kingdom, leaving two Ibelin baillis. Yet the city was as turbulent as always and in 1287 Pisan and Genoese galleys fought in the harbour; the latter even attempted to sell their Pisan captives in the Moslem slave-market but were dissuaded by the outraged brethren.

  In February 1289 Qalawun marched into Syria. The Templars' spies learnt from an emir in their pay that the sultan's objective was Tripoli. But the prosperous merchants did not want to believe this alarming news. Fra' Guillaume's weakness for political intrigue was too well known. To their incredulous horror Qalawun arrived in front of the city at the end of March with 40,000 cavalry, 100,000 foot soldiers and a menacing train of mangonels. Tripoli, with its famous schools, silk factories and fertile gardens, seemed strong enough, defended by Venetian, Genoese and Cypriot contingents. The Italians' galleys guarded it against any attack from the sea. There was also a large detachment of Templars, commanded by the Marshal Geoffroi de Vendac, and a smaller force of Hospitallers led by the Marshal of St John, the redoubtable Matthieu de Clermont. None the less many citizens prudently embarked for Cyprus. An incessant battering by nineteen mangonels eventually demolished two key towers whereupon the Venetians decided that the city was lost and sailed away. Soon after, on 26 May, the Mamelukes assaulted the undermanned walls with fanatic bravery and the defence collapsed. Most brethren died fighting, but the two Marshals escaped by boat. For the citizens it was a blood-bath in the style of Baibars. Nearly all were butchered and their families herded off to the slave-markets. Outremer was foundering, yet even now the Franks did not see their doom.

  Not even a spectacular disaster could revive the crusader spirit. However, a band of out-of-work labourers from northern Italy volunteered and sailed for Acre, where they arrived in August 1290, a drunken rabble. There had been a fine harvest, caravans were coming down from Damascus, and the capital, gayer than ever, was crowded with Moslem visitors. The 'crusaders' had not been in the city very long before they rioted and cut the throat of every Saracen in sight, though the poulains and the brethren did their utmost to save them. Qalawun was infuriated and prepared to invade Syria. Once again Templar spies got wind of his plans and once again the Franks refused to listen to Fra' Guillaume's warning. He was so alarmed that on his own initiative he tried to negotiate with Cairo. Qalawun's terms were a gold piece per head of Acre's population. The Master was howled down by the citizens and accused of cowardice.

  The sultan died in November but made his son, al-Ashraf, swear to destroy the Christian capital, and in March 1291 an enormous Mameluke army marched on Acre – 160,000 infantry and 60,000 cavalry. Their artillery was awe-inspiring, including no fewer than 100 mangonels. The two greatest were known respectively as al-Mansour (the Victorious)8 and Ghadaban (the Furious) while the smaller, but almost equally lethal, catapults were called 'Black Bulls'. Al-Mansour threw stones weighing one hundredweight. On 5 April al-Ashraf invested the city.

  By this time the Franks were not altogether unprepared. The Orders had thrown in every brother available so that, out of a population of fifty thousand, 14,000 were foot soldiers and 800 were mounted men-at-arms. There was no shortage of experienced leaders. All Masters were present, the Templar Guillaume de Beaujeu, the Hospitaller Jean de Villiers and the Hochmeister Konrad von Feuchtwangen. Unfortunately the latter had been able to bring only a few German brethren. St Lazarus provided twenty-five knights, while there were nine from St Thomas under their Master. Other troops included a Cypriot contingent, the Pisan and Venetian garrisons, the French regiment led by Jean de Grailly, a few Englishmen commanded by the Swiss, Otto de Grandson, armed citizens of Acre, and the Italian rabble who had caused the war. King Henry's young brother, Prince Amalric, was nominal commander-in-chief. The troops were divided into four divisions, each entrusted with a sector of the double walls. These and the twelve great towers were in excellent condition, while much of the city was protected by water, and, as the Franks retained control of the sea, ships could arrive at any time with food and reinforcements.

  On the night of 15 April Master de Beaujeu led 300 brethren and the English troops on a sortie to burn the Mameluke siege engines, but their horses became entangled in the enemy's tent-ropes and they were ignominiously chased back to Acre, losing eighteen knights. Later the Hospitallers launched another night-raid, this time in pitch darkness, but it was equally disastrous. Spirits sank, only to be restored on 4 May by the arrival of King Henry from Cyprus with 500 infantry and 200 knights.

  But the young king and his advisers soon realized that the situation was hopeless. Turkish engineers were steadily undermining the towers, which began to crumble beneath a ceaseless bombardment from the sultan's mangonels, a hail of enormous rocks and timber baulks. Lighter machines hurled pots of Greek fire or burning pitch which burst when they hit their targets, and the sky was ablaze with naphtha arrows. Henry tried to negotiate, but the implacable al-Ashraf would accept nothing but complete surrender. By 15 May the first wall and all its towers had been breached. Filling the moat with the bodies of men and horses as well as sandbags, the Saracens swept through the main gate, encouraged by 300 drummers on camels. Charging on horseback down the narrow streets, the Templar and Hospitaller brethren drove them out, but by evening the desperate Franks were forced to withdraw behind the inner wall. Next day, many citizens put their wives and children on board ship for Cyprus, but unfortunately the weather was too bad to put out to sea.

  Just before dawn on Friday, 18 May 1291, the sultan ordered a general assault, announced by first one great kettle-drum, then by massed drums and a battery of trumpets and cymbals, 'which had a very horrible voice'.9 Mangonels and archers sent an endless shower of fire bombs into the doomed city, the arrows 'falling like rain', while Mameluke suicide-squads led by white-turbaned officers attacked through the dense smoke all along the wall in deep columns. At the St Anthony gate they were hurled back by Marshal Matthieu de Clermont, the Hospital's chief battle commander, who then counter-charged at the head of a band of Templars and Hospitallers to recapture the 'Accursed Tower'.

  He was unsuccessful, and after a short breathing space at the Temple, where he saw the Master's lifeless body brought in, Fra' 'Mahé' deliberately went out to find his own death. The Templar chronicler wrote that the Marshal returned to the battle taking all his brethren with him, for not one would desert him, and they came to 'la rue de Jenevés' and there he fought fiercely 'and killed, he and his companions, many Saracens and in the end he died, he and the others, like brave gallant Knights, good Christians, and may God have mercy on their souls'.10

  The elderly Guillaume de Beaujeu had also attempted to recover the 'Accursed Tower', with only a dozen men. On the way there he met the Master of St John, who joined him, and the two stumbled grimly towards the Mamelukes, forcing a path through fleeing soldiers and over piles of dead and wounded, many horribly burnt by Greek fire, amid screams, groans, triumphant yells from the Turks and a few defiant shouts of 'St. Jean
' or 'Beau Sire, Beau Séant'. But the little band in red-and-white surcoats could do nothing against the victorious horde and were so blinded by smoke, naphtha flames and dust from falling rubble that they could not see one another. Still the heroic old men and their bodyguards fought on, while a small group of Italians rallied to them. Finally a crossbow quarrel hit Fra' Guillaume beneath the left armpit, and he reeled back. The Italians pleaded with him to stay but the Master cried: 'Gentlemen, I can't go on because I'm a dead man – look at this wound.'11 He collapsed and his aides took him into the Temple, where he soon died. Fra' Jean also was badly wounded and his brethren carried him, weeping and protesting, down to a ship.12

  Acre was now lost irretrievably. The terrified population, women, children, babies and old men, ran to the harbour in frantic despair, though many able-bodied citizens died fighting. King Henry had already sailed for home and there were too few ships. Frenzied struggles took place on the crowded jetties, and overloaded boats sank. A deserting Templar, Rutger von Blum, seized a galley and made his fortune by extorting ruinous passage money from the ladies of Acre fleeing from rape, mutilation and death, or at best slavery. To add to the horror a great storm blew up. The Saracens soon reached the jammed quays to butcher the screaming fugitives. Every one of the Teutonic Knights except their Hochmeister died in the sack, as did all the brethren of St Thomas and St Lazarus. Among the few male prisoners taken by the Mamelukes were several Templars who apostatized; years afterwards, visitors to Cairo saw some slaves who had once been Poor Knights. However, most of their brethren who had not yet been killed held out in the Temple, by the sea.

  The Order's Marshal, Pierre de Sevrey, was there to direct its defence. A large number of women and children had fled to them for protection and the Templars showed that they could be generous, putting as many refugees as possible aboard the Order's galleys and sending them off to join the king's fleet. There was not enough room for everyone, and all the brethren, even the wounded, stayed behind. An eye-witness who saw the ships leave wrote afterwards that 'when they set sail everyone of the Temple who remained raised a great cheer, and thus they departed'. After several days al-Ashraf offered good terms, which Fra' Pierre accepted, and some Mamelukes were admitted. They hoisted the crescent flag of Islam but then began to rape the women and boys, whereupon the infuriated Templars killed them. The infidel flag was torn down and 'Beau Séant' hauled up again. That night the Marshal sent away the Commander, Tibald Gaudin, by boat with the Temple treasury, the holy relics and some non-combatants. Next day the sultan once more proposed excellent terms, admitting that his men had got what they deserved, so Fra' Pierre went out to discuss surrender. He was immediately seized and beheaded. Some of the brethren were old men, most of them were wounded and all were exhausted, yet they decided to fight to the finish. They beat off assault after assault. 'They can fight the battle of the Lord and indeed be soldiers of Christ. Let them kill the enemy or die, they need not be afraid.' But the brethren had no reply to mangonel fire and the tunnels which riddled the foundations. On 28 May the mines were fired. Part of the massive wall collapsed and 2,000 Turkish troops poured in to meet a bloody reception. The weight was too much for the already badly damaged Temple, which came crashing down, and Saracens and brethren perished together in a flaming hecatomb.13

  Outremer died with its capital. Tortosa, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Haifa and Chastel Pelerin remained to the Franks, but they had made their supreme effort at Acre and were exhausted. All these places were quickly abandoned, though the Templars at Sidon made some show of resistance. By the end of August only the waterless island of Ruad was left, two miles from the coast opposite Tortosa, with a small garrison of Poor Knights. The local Christians, including the Latin peasants, fled into the hills while 'la Douce Syrie' was methodically laid waste by the sultan's army, who dug up irrigation channels, felled and uprooted orchards, poisoned wells and devastated even the richest farmlands to make sure the accursed Franks would never return. Acre became a city of ghosts.* Those poulains and brethren who survived took refuge in Cyprus.

  Historians differ in their judgements on the brethren in Latin Syria. Yet the most hostile cannot deny their good intentions, for the Holy Land meant everything to them. Certainly Templars were avaricious, Hospitallers scarcely less so, but both were prodigal of their treasure and their lives in defending a land which they loved passionately; they would hardly have been human had they refrained from politics, while to be combative and aggressive are necessary qualities in front-line troops. If their asceticism wilted during the thirteenth century, so did that of almost every monastic order.

  What has not been attempted – until now – is to contrast the Templars and Hospitallers in Syria with the Spanish military orders in their own land or with the Teutonic Knights on the Baltic; as will be seen, in Spain the Reconquista would have been impossible without such brethren, who alone could provide professional armies to consolidate the Christian advance, while in Prussia the Deutschritter built an entire new state. In this wider context it must surely be recognized that during that long, losing battle which was Latin Syria the contribution of the brethren of the Temple and the Hospital, who possessed all the gifts of their Spanish and German cousins, was beyond price.

  III

  THE CRUSADE ON THE BALTIC

  1200–1560

  German orders in Prussia and Livonia:

  Teutonic Knights – Brethren of the Sword

  Seven brethren from a Teutonic house together with a few noblemen built a fort in the Kulmerland beside a sacred oak tree. It is said that at first they had to fight a vast horde of natives, beyond number, but as time passed – perhaps fifty-three years – they drove them out [exterminaverunt] so that no one remained who would not bow his neck to the yoke of faith; this with the help of the Lord Jesus Christ who is blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

  Petrus von Dusburg

  'Chronica Terre Prussie' III, 3 (in S.R.P. vol. I)

  5

  THE CRUSADE ON THE BALTIC

  Throughout the history of the Deutschritter the German genius is very evident, romantic idealism implemented with utter ruthlessness. Tradition claims that a Hospital of St Mary of the Germans had been founded at Jerusalem in 1127. After the débâcle of 1187, members of this establishment were included in a new foundation, a field hospital set up in 1190 by merchants from Bremen and Lübeck during the siege of Acre. Their first headquarters was a tent, made from a ship's mainsail, on the seashore.1 In 1198 some noblemen who had come with the abortive German crusade joined these brethren to form a military order, 'the Teutonic Knights of St Mary's Hospital of Jerusalem'. Heinrich Walpot von Bassenheim, a Rhinelander, was appointed Master, recruits were enrolled and the new Order was given statutes similar to the Templars' but with provision for hospitaller work. There were three classes of brother: knight, priest and sergeant. Brother-knights, who had to be of noble birth and German blood, wore a white cloak with a black cross over a white tunic; priests wore a longer-skirted version, while the sergeants' cloak was grey, its cross truncated with only three arms. In certain hospitals a fourth class existed – nursing women known as half-sisters.

  The new brotherhood's hierarchy resembled that of the Poor Knights. Under the Hochmeister (Magister Generalis) were the Gross-Komtur, the Ordensmarschall (later called Grossmarschall), the Spittler (Hospitaller),* the Tressler (Treasurer) and the Trapier (Quartermaster), who constituted the Grand Council. The General Chapter, which elected the Hochmeister, met every September on the feast of the Holy Cross. A commandery contained no fewer than twelve knight-brethren under a pfleger or hauskomtur. The houses of a province formed a landkomturei or ballei. In charge of German balleien was the Landmeister whose headquarters were at Mergentheim in Swabia.

  4. A Teutonic Knight

  Eventually this organization would be repeated in many parts of Europe. At first the Hochmeister stayed in the east, though later he moved his headquarters to Italy, then to Prussia and finally to Swabia. Elsewhere, sin
ce he was so far away, the Knights were ruled by Landmeisters, and not just those Knights in Germany but also those in Prussia, Livland (today's Baltic states), Greece and Italy. The headquarters of the Italienische Landmeister was at Venice.

  The empire endowed the new brethren generously with lands in Germany, Sicily and southern Italy, while they were also given Greek estates by the Frankish lords of Achaia. Teutonic Knights could not hope to compete with Templars or Hospitallers in Syria, so they devoted their energies to Armenia, where their chief strongholds appear to have been Amouda – a plain keep of Rhineland pattern – and Haruniye. King Lavon the Great became a halbbruder or confrère. In 1210 most brethren perished with their third Hochmeister, Hermann Bart, on an obscure Cilician campaign. At that date the Teutonic Order numbered twenty at most.

  Hermann von Salza, his successor, was the real founder of the Order's greatness.2 Born in about 1170, in his youth he attended the court of the dukes of Thuringia, where he was supposed to have acquired distinguished manners, and certainly he knew how to win the favour of princes. In 1219 King Jean de Brienne awarded the Hochmeister the privilege of bearing the Gold Cross of Jerusalem under the Order's black cross in his achievement of arms to commemorate the knights' bravery at the siege of Damietta. In 1226 the Emperor Frederick II made Hermann and his successors Princes of the Empire, while the pope presented him with a magnificent ring, afterwards used at the inauguration of every Hochmeister. It is a testimony to Hermann's statesmanship that he succeeded in remaining on good terms with both papacy and emperor; at the 'coronation' of the excommunicated Frederick as King of Jerusalem in 1229, Teutonic Knights mounted guard in the Holy Sepulchre and Hermann read the emperor's proclamation in French and German. The sceptical, ruthless Frederick appears to have had a genuine regard for the dedicated religious, and encouraged his order's progress. In 1229 a second headquarters was built, Montfort (or 'Starkenberg'), north-east of Acre, whose original function was to defend the thin corridor which then connected Jerusalem with the sea. However, there is not sufficient space to deal fully with their activities in Palestine, where they were always overshadowed by Templars and Hospitallers. The German brothers were to find their true destiny in Europe.