Similar work was undertaken at the Aqsa mosque, which the Franks had first used as a royal palace and then reshaped as part of the Templars’ headquarters. A wall covering the mihrab (a niche indicating the direction of prayer) was removed and the entire building rejuvenated, so that, in the words of Imad al-Din, ‘truth triumphed and error was cancelled out’. Here the first Friday prayer was held on 9 October and the honour of delivering the sermon that day was hotly contested by orators and holy men. Saladin eventually chose Ibn al-Zaki, an imam from Damascus, to speak before the thronged, expectant crowd. Ibn al-Zaki’s sermon appears to have stressed three interlocking themes. The notion of conquest as a form of purification was emphasised, with God praised for the cleansing ‘of His Holy House from the filth of polytheism and its pollutions’ and the audience entreated ‘to purify the rest of the land from this filth which has angered God and His Apostle’. At the same time, the sultan was lavishly praised, acclaimed as ‘the champion and protector of [God’s] holy land’, his achievements compared to those of Muhammad himself, and the efficacious nature of jihad exhorted with the words: ‘Maintain the holy war; it is the best means which you have of serving God, the most noble occupation of your lives.’82
Saladin’s achievement
The summer of 1187 brought Saladin two stunning victories. Seizing the moment after the Battle of Hattin, he reconquered Jerusalem, eclipsing the achievements of all his Muslim predecessors in the age of the crusades. Decades earlier, his patron Nur al-Din had ordered the construction of a staggeringly beautiful, ornate pulpit, imagining that he might one day oversee its installation within the sacred Aqsa. Now, in a final, telling act of appropriation, the sultan fulfilled his predecessor’s dream and shouldered his legacy, bringing the pulpit from its resting place in Aleppo to Jerusalem’s grand mosque, where it would remain for eight centuries.
Tellingly, even Saladin’s contemporary Muslim critic Ibn al-Athir acknowledged the unrivalled glory of the sultan’s accomplishments in 1187: ‘This blessed deed, the conquering of Jerusalem, is something achieved by none but Saladin…since the time of Umar.’ Al-Fadil, writing to the caliph in Baghdad, emphasised the transformative nature of the sultan’s defeat of the Franks: ‘From their places of prayer he cast down the cross and set up the call to prayer…the people of the Koran succeeded to the people of the cross.’83 Eighty-eight years after the First Crusaders’ stunning triumph, Saladin had repossessed the Holy City for Islam, striking a momentous blow against Outremer. He had reshaped the Near East and now seemed poised to achieve ultimate and enduring victory in the war for the Holy Land. But as news of these extraordinary events reverberated throughout the Muslim world and beyond, eliciting shock and awe, Latin Christendom was stirred to action. A vengeful lust for holy war awakened in the West and, once again, vast armies set out for the Levant. Soon Saladin would be forced to defend his hard-won conquests against a Third Crusade, battling a towering new champion of the Christian cause–Richard the Lionheart.
III
THE TRIAL OF CHAMPIONS
13
CALLED TO CRUSADE
In late summer 1187, with Outremer still reeling from the cataclysm at Hattin and Saladin’s dismemberment of Frankish Palestine proceeding apace, Archbishop Joscius of Tyre set sail for the West. He bore tidings of Christendom’s calamitous defeat to the frail Pope Urban III, who promptly died of shock and grief. In the weeks and months that followed, the devastating news raced across Europe, eliciting alarm, anguish and outrage–triggering a new call to arms for the campaign known to history as the Third Crusade. The most powerful men in the Latin world took up the cross, from Frederick Barbarossa, mighty emperor of Germany, to Philip II Augustus, the astute young king of France. But it was Richard the Lionheart, king of England–one of the greatest warriors of the medieval age–who emerged as champion of the Christian cause, challenging Saladin’s dominion of the Holy Land. Above all, the Third Crusade became a contest between these two titans, king and sultan, crusader and mujahid. After almost a century, the war for the Holy Land had brought these heroes to battle in an epic confrontation: one that tested both men to breaking point; in which legends were forged and dreams demolished.1
THE PREACHING OF THE THIRD CRUSADE
The injuries suffered by Christendom at Hattin and Jerusalem in 1187 moved the Latin West to action, rekindling fires of crusading fervour that had lain dormant for decades. After the failure of the Second Crusade in the late 1140s, Christian Europe’s enthusiasm for holy war had waned dramatically. At the time, some began to question the purity of the papacy and the crusaders. One German chronicler described the Second Crusade in damning terms, writing: ‘God allowed the Western Church, on account of its sins, to be cast down. There arose, indeed, certain pseudo-prophets, sons of Belial, and witnesses of the anti-Christ, who seduced the Christians with empty words.’ Even Bernard of Clairvaux, arch-propagandist and passionate advocate of crusading, could offer scant consolation, merely observing that the setbacks experienced by the Franks were part of God’s unknowable design for mankind. Christian sin was also advanced as an explanation for divine punishment–and, more often than not, the supposedly dissolute Franks living in the Levant were targeted as transgressors.2
Not surprisingly, attempts to launch major crusading expeditions after 1149 foundered. Muslim strength and unity in the Near East increased under Nur al-Din and Saladin, while Outremer faced a succession of crises: Prince Raymond of Antioch’s death in the Battle of Inab; the defeat at Harim in 1164; the incapacitation of Baldwin the Leper King. Throughout, the Levantine Franks made ever more desperate and frequent appeals to the West for aid, and, while some few came to defend the Holy Land in minor campaigns, in the main the calls went unanswered.
Meanwhile, western monarchs, now crucial to any major crusading venture, had their own kingdoms to preserve and defend–tasks, so it was widely believed, that were themselves divinely appointed. Caught up in the concerns of politics, warfare, trade and economy, the prospect of spending months, even years, in the East crusading often proved less than inviting. Inertia rather than action predominated.
This problem was exacerbated by deepening rivalries between Latin Europe’s leading powers. In 1152 power in Germany passed to the Hohenstaufen Frederick Barbarossa (or Red Beard), a veteran of the Second Crusade. Frederick assumed the title of emperor three years later, but spent decades trying to subdue warring factions within his own realm and seeking to secure control of northern Italy, all the while enmeshed in a rancorous conflict with the papacy and Norman Sicily. In France the Capetian dynasty retained the crown, but in terms of territorial dominion and political control the real authority wielded by King Louis VII and his son and successor Philip II Augustus (from 1180) was still severely constrained. The Capetians were challenged, above all, by the rise of the counts of Anjou.
In 1152, just a few short years after the disappointments of the Second Crusade, Louis VII’s wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, pushed for the annulment of their marriage–their union had produced two daughters, but no sons, and Eleanor derided Louis’ desultory sexual appetite, likening him to a monk. Eight weeks later, she was wed to the more vigorous Count Henry of Anjou, a man twelve years her junior, who had already added the duchy of Normandy to his dominions. By 1154, he had ascended to the throne of England to become King Henry II, and together the pair created a new, sprawling Angevin ‘Empire’, uniting England, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine. Controlling most of modern-day France, their wealth and power far outstripped those of the French king, even though, nominally at least, they were still subjects of the Capetian monarch for their continental territories. Under the circumstances, it was all but inevitable that the Angevin and Capetian houses would become entrenched opponents. And throughout the mid-to late twelfth century, the festering antipathy and resentment between these two dynasties severely curtailed western participation in the war for the Holy Land. Locked into this struggle, Henry II of England proved unwilling or unable to honour rep
eated promises to go on crusade, usually providing financial support to Outremer by way of recompense.3
Only the truly epochal events of 1187 broke this deadlock, prompting real engagement. Old quarrels were not forgotten–indeed, Angevin–Capetian enmity had a profound effect upon the course of the Third Crusade. But the dreadful news from the Near East caused such uproar that the rulers of Latin Christendom not only heeded the call to arms; this time, they made good on their promises and actually went to war.
A cause for weeping
Upon his death on 20 October 1187, Pope Urban III was replaced by Gregory VIII, and by the end of the month a new papal encyclical–Audita Tremendi–had been issued, proclaiming the Third Crusade. As usual, care was taken to establish a justification for the holy war. The disaster at Hattin was described as ‘a great cause for mourning [for] the whole Christian people’ Outremer, it was said, had suffered a ‘severe and terrible judgement’ and the Muslim ‘infidels’ were depicted as ‘savage barbarians thirsting after Christian blood and [profaning] the Holy Places’. The encyclical concluded that any sane man ‘who does not weep at such a cause for weeping’ must surely have lost his faith and his humanity.
Two new themes were sewn into this familiar, if particularly impassioned, exhortation. For the first time, evil was personified. Earlier calls to arms had projected Muslims as sadistic but faceless opponents. Now, Saladin was named specifically as the enemy and likened to the Devil. This move bespoke both greater familiarity with Islam and the mammoth scale of the blow struck by the sultan’s ‘crimes’. Audita Tremendi also set out to explain why God had allowed his people to ‘be confounded by such great horror’. The answer was that the Latins had been ‘smitten by the divine hand’ as punishment for their sins. Franks living in the Levant were identified as the prime transgressors, having failed to show penitence after the fall of Edessa, but Christians living in Europe were also guilty. ‘All of us [should] amend our sins…and turn to the Lord our God with penance and works of piety’, the encyclical declared, ‘[and only] then turn our attention to the treachery and malice of the enemy.’ In line with this theme of contrition, crusaders were encouraged to enlist not ‘for money or worldly glory, but according to the will of God’, travelling in simple clothing, with no ‘dogs or birds’, ready to do penance rather than ‘to effect empty pomp’.
Audita Tremendi referred to the ‘misfortunes…recently fallen upon Jerusalem and the Holy Land’, but perhaps because news of Saladin’s actual conquest of the Holy City had yet to reach the West, special emphasis was placed upon the physical loss at Hattin of the True Cross–the relic of Christ’s cross. From this point forward, the recovery of the revered totem of the faith became one of the crusade’s primary objectives.
In common with earlier crusading encyclicals, the closing sections of the 1187 proclamation detailed the spiritual and temporal rewards on offer to participants. They were assured full remission of all confessed sins, and those who died on campaign were promised ‘eternal life’. For the duration of the expedition, they would enjoy immunity from legal prosecution and interest on debts, and their goods and families would be under the protection of the Church.4
Spreading the word
The unprecedented scale and significance of the disasters endured by the Franks in 1187 all but ensured a massive response in the West. Even in its barest form, the news carried to Europe by Joscius of Tyre had the power to terrify and inspire–indeed, before meeting the pope, the archbishop first made landfall in the Norman kingdom of Sicily and immediately convinced its ruler William II to send a fleet of ships to defend Outremer.
Nonetheless, Audita Tremendi set the tone for much of the preaching of the Third Crusade. In fact, the whole process of disseminating the crusading message was increasingly subject to centralised ecclesiastical and secular control, and the methods used to encourage recruitment ever more refined and sophisticated. The pope appointed two papal legates–Joscius of Tyre and Cardinal Henry of Albano, former abbot of Clairvaux–to orchestrate the call to the cross in France and Germany respectively. Large-scale recruitment rallies were also timed to coincide with major Christian festivals, with assemblies during Christmas 1187 at Strasbourg and Easter 1188 at Mainz and Paris, when crowds were already gathered and primed for a devotional message.
Preaching within the Angevin lands of England, Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine was planned carefully at conferences at Le Mans in January 1188 and Geddington, in Northamptonshire, on 11 February. At the latter meeting Baldwin, archbishop of Canterbury, another former Cistercian abbot, took the cross himself and thereafter led the recruitment drive. He carried out an extensive tour of Wales, spreading the word, while also reinforcing Angevin authority over this semi-independent area, and ended up enlisting three thousand Welshmen ‘skilled in the use of arrows and lances’.5
From this point forward, the act of crusading seems to have attained a more distinct identity, although it is not clear whether this was a response to centralised control or simply a by-product of gradual recognition and definition over time. Whereas previously crusaders had been variously dubbed pilgrims, travellers or soldiers of Christ, now, for the first time, documents began to describe them as crucesignatus (one signed by the cross)–the word that ultimately led to the terms ‘crusader’ and ‘crusade’.
The Third Crusade was also publicised and popularised within secular society. In the course of the twelfth century, troubadours (court singers who often were themselves nobles) came to play increasingly important roles in aristocratic circles, and notions of courtly life and chivalry began to develop, particularly in regions such as south-western France. Forty years earlier, the first traces of courtly commentary about the Second Crusade had been apparent. Now, after 1187, troubadour songs about the coming holy war poured out, drawing upon, and in places extending, the message inherent in Audita Tremendi.
Conon de Béthune, a knight from Picardy who joined the Third Crusade, composed one such Old French verse between 1188 and 1189. Here, familiar themes were echoed–lamentation at the capture of the True Cross and the observation that ‘every man ought to be downcast and sorrowful’. But elsewhere, new emphasis was placed upon the notions of shame and obligation. Conon wrote: ‘Now we will see who will be truly brave…[and] if we permit our mortal enemies to stay [in the Holy Land] our lives will be shameful for evermore’, adding that any who are ‘healthy, young and rich cannot remain behind without suffering shame’. The Holy Land was also portrayed as God’s imperilled patrimony (or lordship). This implied that, in the same way a vassal was obliged to protect his lord’s land and property, Christians, as God’s servants, should now rush to defend his sacred territory.6
The call to crusade prompted tens of thousands of Latin Christians to enlist. According to one crusader, ‘such was the enthusiasm for the new pilgrimage that already [in 1188] it was not a question of who had received the cross, but who had not yet done so’. This was something of an exaggeration, as many more stayed in the West than set out for the Holy Land, but the expedition nonetheless caused a staggering upheaval in European society. Particularly in France, whole tranches of the local aristocracy led armed contingents to war. The involvement of kings proved critical, just as it had done in the 1140s, prompting a chain reaction of recruitment across the Latin West through ties of vassalage and obligation. Around 1189 the crusader Gauclem Faidit commented on this phenomenon, arguing in a song that: ‘It behoves everyone to consider going there, and the princes all the more so since they are highly placed, for there is not one who can claim to be faithful and obedient to him if he does not aid [his lord] in this enterprise.’7
Yet even before the ominous news of Saladin’s victories spread, before the fever of enthusiasm took hold, one leader made an immediate commitment to the cause. In November 1187 Richard Coeur de Lion (the Lionheart) took the cross at Tours–the first noble to do so north of Alps.
COEUR DE LION
Today Richard the Lionheart is one of the most
widely remembered figures of the Middle Ages, recalled as England’s great warrior-king. But who was Richard? This is a vexed question, because even in his own lifetime he became something of a legend. Richard certainly was aware of the extraordinary power of reputation and actively sought to promote a cult of personality, encouraging comparisons with the great figures of the mythic past such as Roland, scourge of the Iberian Moors, and King Arthur. Richard even set out on crusade with a sword named Excalibur, although admittedly he later sold it to pay for additional ships. By the mid-thirteenth century stories of his epic feats abounded. One author tried to account for Richard’s famous appellation by explaining that he had once been forced to fight a lion with his bare hands. Having reached down the beast’s throat and ripped out its still-beating heart, Richard supposedly ate the blood-dripping organ with gusto.
A contemporary eyewitness and ardent supporter offered this stirring portrait of his physical appearance:
He was tall, of elegant build; the colour of his hair was between red and gold; his limbs were supple and straight. He had quite long arms, which were particularly convenient for drawing a sword and wielding it most effectively. His long legs matched the arrangement of his whole body.
The same source claimed that Richard had been endowed by God ‘with virtues which seemed rather to belong to an earlier age. In this present age, when the world is growing old, these virtues hardly appear in anyone, as if everyone were like empty husks.’ In comparison:
Richard had the valour of Hector, the heroism of Achilles; he was not inferior to Alexander…Also, which is very unusual for one so renowned as a knight, Nestor’s tongue and Ulysses’ wisdom enabled him to excel others in every undertaking, both in speaking and acting.8
The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land Page 38