God's Wolf

by Jeffrey Lee

  William of Tyre also disapproved of Aimery, whom he thought corrupt and unfit for office, but Aimery was still Patriarch of Antioch and an assault on him was an assault on Holy Mother Church. Suddenly the priest, whom William criticized as an ‘unlettered man from the Limousin, whose life was far from noble’, became ‘the aged priest, a successor of Peter, the chief of the apostles’. Aimery’s arrest and torture were ‘a most abominable act’, the ‘mad conduct of the foolish prince’.3 William lamented the fact that nobody stood up for the poor old man: ‘No one, for piety’s sake, offered him any relief from the relentless rays of the sun or tried to drive away the flies.’ Given that twelfth-century historians were almost exclusively clergymen, attacking the Church or its ministers was a surefire way to generate negative coverage. Reynald’s bad reputation starts here. So extreme was this event, however, that secular society was scandalized as well. King Baldwin of Jerusalem sent emissaries to Antioch reproving Reynald for his outrageous act and warning him to turn from his wicked ways. Reynald eventually relented and ‘released the patriarch, but not without heaping much abuse upon him’ – and not without seizing Aimery’s vast wealth.

  The outrage is not surprising. One of the cardinal duties of the feudal leader was to defend the Church, to ‘venerate the priesthood and protect the clergy’. Violence towards men of the cloth was reprehensible, and Reynald was roundly condemned both by his contemporaries and by posterity. However, he was not the only lay lord in the Latin states to quarrel with the Church. Raymond, his predecessor as Prince of Antioch, had quarrelled with his patriarch, the rich and arrogant Ralph de Domfront. Raymond had the patriarch deposed and replaced by Aimery. At one stage Ralph was ‘shamefully bound and treated ignominiously like a man of blood’4 (in other words, like a murderer). He died in exile in Rome, still striving for papal support to reclaim his bishopric. King Baldwin I of Jerusalem had also fought bitterly with his patriarch, Daimbert, while King Baldwin II was suspected of poisoning the patriarch Stephen of La Ferté in 1130. Money and land lay behind all these clashes. Raymond coveted Ralph’s famous wealth, while the kings of Jerusalem needed the Church’s gold reserves to pay their troops, and Church lands to enlarge their demesne. But none of these leaders attracted the censure subsequently aimed at Reynald for his treatment of Aimery. The difference lies in the overt, unique style of savagery utilized by Reynald. When he had to act decisively – and be seen to act decisively – in crushing Aimery, Reynald was able to conceive and execute his response in a way so dramatic that everyone would pay attention, and no one would forget.

  Interestingly, in contrasting Reynald with the other knights who could have married Constance, William of Tyre uses the word ‘discreet’ for the rejected suitors. The implication is perhaps that the successful suitor, Reynald, was indiscreet. This is born out by his flamboyant, extravagant actions. Reynald could certainly put on a show – whether of anger or, if needed, of contrition. After torturing the patriarch and stealing his treasure, he made a demonstration of remorse, dressing Aimery in his regalia and leading him through the streets of Antioch. The charade did not placate Aimery, who ‘was no less enraged against him’. The patriarch eventually fled to exile in Jerusalem, where he remained for years, plotting incessantly, even with Antioch’s traditional political foe (and theoretical overlord), the Byzantine emperor. He was always on the lookout for an opportunity to take vengeance on Reynald and wrote repeatedly to the emperor, offering to betray Reynald to him.

  With his chief adversary gone, other dissent cowed by the virulent crushing of the patriarch and, no doubt, his treasury enriched, Reynald got down to the business of running Antioch. Later historians have belittled his contributions as prince – Jonathan Phillips, for instance, dismisses him as ‘far inferior’ to Raymond of Poitiers5 – but, in the eyes of his contemporaries, Reynald demonstrated excellent qualities as leader in a very challenging role.

  The prince had the task of protecting the magnificent patrimony of Antioch for his stepson Bohemond, and maintaining its independence in the face of a range of threats. First, Reynald had to keep internal order. The patriarch was not the only potential source of a challenge to his rule. There was a complex web of communities in Antioch, where the Frankish conquerors and their Italian merchant allies formed only a small minority. There were many Greek and Syrian Christians in Antioch, too, members of the Orthodox, Nestorian, Jacobite and other churches. The loyalty of these people was dubious. Also questionable was the loyalty of the substantial Christian Armenian population, and that of the Muslims living in the principality. While these communities might usually be loyal, if central authority weakened, they could not be relied upon.

  This underlying mistrust was seen after Prince Raymond’s death in 1149. When the Patriarch Aimery took control of Antioch, a curfew was imposed on all non-Frankish inhabitants. As well as fending off the forces of Nur al-Din outside the walls, the Franks kept watch on their fellow citizens inside the city. All non-Frankish inhabitants were disarmed and forbidden from going around after dark without a torch.

  Normally all communities lived in peace with each other in their own neighbourhoods, and were judged by their own peers according to their own traditional laws. Reynald wisely did nothing to disturb this modus vivendi, showing the trademark crusader tolerance of the different local Christian sects, most of which preferred any overlord to the Byzantines and their Greek Church. He was careful to maintain cordial relationships with all the communities under his aegis. In December 1156, for instance, he attended the consecration of a new chapel built by Latins for the Monophysite Syrian Church and dedicated to the Syriac saint, Barsaumo. The ecumenical congregation included Franks, Armenians and prominent Syrian Christians, including the future Syrian archbishop, the chronicler Michael the Great. There is no evidence of Reynald mistreating Muslim subjects in his territories. Indeed, in his later career he would collaborate with them on more than one occasion, and there is evidence that he even made an effort to learn Arabic.6 Along with Muslim citizens and visiting merchants, however, reminders of the underlying enmity with Islam were always present in Frankish territory. A Muslim traveller from Granada, Ibn Jubayr, was particularly distressed by what he witnessed:

  Among the misfortunes that one who visits their land will see are Muslim prisoners walking in shackles and put to painful labour like slaves. In like condition are the Muslim women prisoners, their legs in iron rings Hearts are rent for them, but compassion avails them nothing.7

  The chief administrative body of Antioch was the High Court, comprising the prince and the knights and churchmen who held fiefs from him. This court was the political cabinet and also dealt with civil and criminal issues involving the Frankish nobility: the prince’s feudal vassals. Frankish commoners – the burgesses – had their own court, presided over by a jury of their fellow citizens. To aid him in his administration, the Prince of Antioch had a deputy, his seneschal, to control the treasury and a constable to run the army. Revenues were mainly raised from the prince’s extensive demesne and from tolls and duties on imports and exports.

  Very soon after his marriage, Reynald began the everyday work of a feudal lord, signing charters and grants in his capacity as prince. He is seen signing jointly with his wife: Ego Raynaldus, Dei gratia Antiochorum princeps, unaque Constantia, Bohemondis Junioris filia – ‘I Reynald, by grace of God Prince of Antioch, with Constance, daughter of Bohemond the Younger…’ His first recorded act as prince, in tandem with his wife, was to confirm the privileges of the Venetians resident in the principality, and to reduce their duties on silk from 5 per cent to 4 per cent and on other merchandise from 7 per cent to 5 per cent. A year later Reynald and Constance granted the Pisan merchant community and its church a reduction of tolls and ceded them some property near Latakyeh and a house in Antioch. In 1155 Reynald officially confirmed the gift of some mills, given by a burgess of Antioch to the Hospitallers.

  Even Muslim subjects benefited in many ways under Frankish rule. Typically, Mu
slim villages paid a portion (around one-third) of their crops to their Christian overlords, a token tax on fruit and olive oil and a small poll tax, but otherwise were not interfered with. So light and fair was Frankish rule, complained Ibn Jubayr, that many Muslims were ‘seduced’ into preferring Frankish rule to Muslim:

  This is one of the misfortunes afflicting the Muslims. The Muslim community bewails the injustice of a landlord of its own faith, and applauds the conduct of its opponent and enemy, the Frankish landlord, and is accustomed to justice from him.8

  It appears that Reynald adhered to these norms, but his relations with the different interest groups in Antioch were not always plain sailing. He seems to have quarrelled with the merchants of Genoa, and in 1155 a letter from Pope Adrian IV to Patriarch Aimery ordered that the patriarch should excommunicate Reynald, unless he followed the Pope’s instructions and reimbursed the Genoese for damages done to them. Generally, however, once the uppity patriarch had been dealt with, Reynald’s domestic affairs seem to have been relatively stable.

  Reynald also worked diligently at international diplomatic relations and at protecting the future of the ruling dynasty. Early in his reign he looked very much to his homeland of France to provide international backing. For instance, in 1155 he wrote to King Louis VII requesting his aid in the form of another crusade. Unfortunately the letter’s language reveals little of Reynald’s character. It is written in a standard, rhetorical style, rehearsing the perennial complaints of the Franks in Outremer: ‘The mouth cannot express, nor the hand write of the misfortunes and anguish which we have to endure…’ But the main thrust of the message was more interesting: Reynald was asking the king to find suitable husbands for his stepdaughters. Maria and Philippa were ‘of an age to be married’ and were ‘more than beautiful in both face and form’. There is a certain irony, of course, in the parvenu Reynald insisting that none of the vagabond local knights were good enough for Maria and Philippa. The letter demonstrates his genuine concern for the family into which he had married, and also underlines his interest in, and understanding of, the use of political marriages – a recurrent theme in his life. This time he was unsuccessful in his matchmaking, but a few years later he would organize Maria’s engagement to the most eligible fiancé in the world.

  Reynald’s own marriage, with its blend of love and pragmatism, proved a success. Princess Constance quickly bore Reynald three children – two sons, Baldwin and Reynald, and a daughter, Agnes. Very different fates awaited the children and the three stepchildren of the minor knight from Burgundy: one would marry a spy of Saladin; one would die heroically in battle; another would be cruelly murdered in Byzantium. Reynald’s blood-descendants would be kings and emperors. Unfortunately the younger Reynald did not father any of them. Though medical care in the East was much more advanced than in Europe, the frailty of baby boys in Outremer was notorious. The little Reynald died in infancy.

  His father had little time to grieve. The external threats to Antioch were Prince Reynald’s main concern. The only secure border was to the south – with the Frankish county of Tripoli. There the promising young Count Raymond III had ruled since his father’s murder by the Assassins in 1152. Born and bred in the East, Raymond was a brilliant and ambitious politician, who is generally cast by Western historians as a hero of crusader history. Dark-complexioned, with a piercing gaze, Raymond was closely related to the royal family of Jerusalem and nursed a long-held and destabilizing desire to become king. Slight in build, discreet and gifted with patience and foresight, Raymond had a character that was the opposite of Reynald’s bluff warrior. They differed in their strategic approach, too; Reynald would never trust Count Raymond’s predilection for appeasing the Muslims. Over time, the cunning Raymond would prove Reynald’s greatest political rival among the Franks and their clashes would undermine the Latin states at a critical period. For now, the relationship between the arriviste in Antioch and the youthful count in Tripoli was harmonious.

  To the north of the principality of Antioch, the lush Cilician plain was disputed with the warlike Armenians. In the years before Reynald’s accession, this fiercely independent Christian people, led by the aggressive and fearsome Thoros II, had taken control of most of Cilicia. Soon they would be confronted by the new Prince of Antioch. To the east, Nur al-Din of Aleppo remained the greatest threat. Antioch’s inland border had previously lain far beyond the Orontes River, but Nur al-Din’s conquests meant that the effective eastern frontier now ran from the Anti-Taurus Mountains in the north down to the Orontes and along the river to the region of Shayzar.

  At the beginning of Reynald’s reign, Nur al-Din was still focused on dominating Muslim Syria and he did not exert much pressure on Antioch. In 1154, however, he finally took control of Damascus, uniting that Muslim power centre with Aleppo. This was an ominous strategic setback for the Franks, who had benefited from Muslim political fragmentation in Syria since the time of the First Crusade. At this stage Nur al-Din’s control of Damascus was still uncertain enough for him to pay a tribute to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in return for a truce, but there were clear signs of danger for the Franks. The forces of Aleppo and Damascus, united under a strong leader, would be hard to resist. While Reynald did not have the strength to decisively defeat Nur al-Din, or even to capture any of his main strongholds, he could not afford to sit back passively and allow the atabeg to act with impunity.

  To take the fight to his enemies, Prince Reynald had a variety of military forces at his disposal. First he had the knights, the medieval fighting machine par excellence. Most of these were raised via the feudal services owed to him by his noble vassals. Some knights were drawn from the prince’s own personal ‘demesne’ lands, but most knights were provided by magnates such as the Mazoirs, lords of the great castle at Margat, and by many other smaller vassals who owed the service of just one knight – often themselves. The total number of knights available in Antioch had been around 700 at the time of the Field of Blood in 1119, but since then much of Antioch’s territory had been lost. Reynald might not have been able to count on more than 400. There were also the sergeants, mostly foot soldiers, who were provided by ecclesiastical lords and the burgess citizens of the towns. Then there were the Turcopoles, light cavalry after the Turkish fashion, a mixture of native Christians, sons of mixed Frankish and Syrian parents and Muslim converts. Alongside these was a standing mercenary force, composed of soldiers of fortune like Reynald himself.

  Once he had established his authority and stamped out internal dissent from the patriarch and any other doubters, Reynald harnessed all his forces and set about patrolling his borders with unremitting vigour. According to Ernoul:

  From the moment he became prince, he wore no silk, no proud colours or rich furs, whether squirrel, blue or grey. Instead he always wore his mail hauberk and his leather jerkin.9

  So, now aged about thirty, the new Prince of Antioch put aside ostentation, eschewed his previous frivolities and the luxuries that came with the throne, and committed himself to his main task – warfare. Ernoul’s comment suggests that, as we suspected, the young Reynald had indulged in the good things in life – at least in couture – even before he became prince. Later he would prove, very publicly, that although he campaigned incessantly, he had not abandoned his taste for luxury, or his fashion sense.

  The new prince plunged with gusto into the constant raids and counter-raids of the frontier, inflicting ‘plundering and devastation’ on the districts around Aleppo.10 Rustling livestock, looting villages, taking captives for ransom or for sale as slaves – all these provided much-needed revenue and weakened the enemy’s economy. As the modern crusades historian R. C. Smail put it, such warfare ‘was both a profitable pastime for feudal magnates and an instrument of policy’.11 Ambushes and skirmishes wore down an opponent’s military strength. Pitched battles were rare and, with able-bodied fighting men always at a premium, the Franks tended to husband their resources and avoid risky confrontations. Usama Ibn Munqidh noted thi
s Frankish reticence to engage. To him, the Franks were above all nations ‘the most cautious in warfare’.12 In keeping with this tradition, Reynald was not a general who charged recklessly to destruction, but neither could he afford passivity. He went toe-to-toe with Nur al-Din and met with both successes and setbacks. In 1156, troops from Aleppo defeated a Frankish force, presumably Reynald’s, that had been ravaging Turkish territory around Harim. The heads of the slain Frankish warriors were paraded through the streets of Damascus. It was a sign of the far greater violence to come.

  Reynald’s earliest substantial campaigns, however, were not against the Muslim enemy that had brought him to the East.

  There were plenty of Christian rivals to deal with first.

  Chapter 6

  A VIOLENT SINNER

  They took and pillaged cities and towns. They seized gold and silver and silks in great quantities. They raped virgins and married women alike.

  Estoire d’Eracles

  In crusader Antioch, the strategic situation was never a simple one of Christian versus Muslim. Some modern writers have dismissed Reynald as an anti-Muslim bigot, ascribing to him the ignorant prejudices of newly arrived crusaders, as opposed to the realism of those born in the East, who were more accustomed to, and more accepting of, their Muslim neighbours. In fact Reynald seems to have grasped the strategic realities rather well. Like all the leaders of Outremer, instead of focusing all his energies against the heathen, he was quite prepared to fight against his co-religionists if necessary. Reynald’s main task was to maintain the integrity of Antioch, repelling Armenians to the north and Muslims to the east, while steering a narrow path between the might of Byzantium on the one hand and the ambitions of the kings of Jerusalem on the other.