by Jeffrey Lee
Prince Reynald, who was an expert in warfare, and had considered the matter deeply, spoke to the King and all his barons. His cogent arguments persuaded them all to leave [Chastel Rouge] and make straight for Antioch.3
The crusader army proceeded to Antioch ‘under more favourable auspices’, which included the ‘most agreeable news’ that Nur al-Din, the crusaders’ most dangerous enemy, had been taken severely ill. He had been struck by a severe, unidentifiable disease and was rumoured to be dead, or close to death. Typically such a situation would result in chaos and disunity amongst the Muslims, as different emirs scrambled to secure their own part of the ruler’s treasure and dominions. Nur al-Din’s sickness was no different, as William of Tyre noted:
The report brought by the messenger proved in fact to be true. Nureddin had been attacked by a most serious malady; the ranks had become disorganized, and, as is the custom among them when the master dies, plundering and unrestrained violence was rife in his army.4
The Franks needed to capitalize on this confusion with a major offensive. Reynald convinced Thierry and the crusader leaders that the best place to focus the additional Flemish strike force was on the Muslim stronghold of Shayzar.
Shayzar, known to the crusaders as Caesarea-on-the-Orontes, was an ancient settlement dating back to the Assyrian Empire. Later it had been Roman and Byzantine for more than a thousand years, until the late eleventh century. It was the home town of the Arab warrior Usama Ibn Munqidh, whose family, the Banu Munqidh, had ruled there since 1081 when they purchased the city from the Byzantines. It was the linchpin of the Muslim strongholds along the east bank of the Orontes River and its capture would drive a wedge between Nur al-Din’s heartland of Aleppo and the territory of Damascus to the south. But its defences were daunting. A castle protected Shayzar’s bridge across the Orontes. The lower town was well fortified, the citadel impregnable.
The Franks of Antioch had attacked Shayzar many times before, without capturing it; when the indomitable Norman, Tancred de Hauteville,* was ruler of Antioch (1100–10) he had put Shayzar under tribute, but he had never breached its walls. In 1138 Shayzar had even withstood a fearsome siege by the combined forces of Antioch and the Byzantine emperor John Comnenos. The Byzantines’ massive siege engines had battered the ramparts, destroyed towers and houses and killed many of the citizens. But while the lower town had been captured and its Muslim inhabitants massacred, the defenders in the citadel had held firm. Eventually, rising dissension in the Christian camp between Greeks and Latins led to the lifting of the siege.
Reynald was aware, however, that the major earthquakes of the previous twelve months, which had damaged Antioch and Tripoli, had also weakened the defences of many of the Muslim fortresses. The first quake in autumn 1156, which had damaged the lower suburb of Shayzar, had also destroyed bastions in the nearby castle of Apamea and other towns. A series of tremors continued for months, and then, after a lull, another massive quake struck in August 1157. Known as the ‘Hama earthquake’, it was horribly lethal. In the town of Hama, Ibn al-Athir recorded how when a school collapsed, every pupil was killed. The teacher reported that not a single parent came to enquire after any of the children. All their relatives were dead, too.5 This was the quake that collapsed the citadel of Shayzar on top of the emir, Taj al-Dawla Ibn Munqidh, and his family. The story goes that the emir had a favourite horse, which he could not let out of his sight. That day the horse was standing in the doorway of the emir’s residence. When the earthquake struck and everyone rushed for the door, ‘the horse kicked the first man and killed him. The people were prevented from leaving and the building collapsed on all of them.’6
Of all the Banu Munqidh, only two survived: a princess pulled alive from the rubble, and the warrior Usama, who was away from the city at the time. An emir sent by Nur al-Din had quickly occupied the town and rebuilt the walls, but – given the combination of Nur al-Din’s sickness and Shayzar’s uncertain defences – Reynald understood that the Franks might never have a better chance of subjugating the city. At first his strategy succeeded brilliantly. After the sack of the lower town, the citadel had no hope of a relief force from the ailing Nur al-Din. Nothing, it seemed, could prevent Reynald winning a great victory. On his watch, Shayzar was finally going to be brought under the control of Antioch. But then, as William of Tyre recorded bitterly, political rivalries intervened:
Just when it seemed certain that, under the continued pressure, the citadel also might be taken easily together with all who had fled thither for refuge, an insignificant but most annoying source of friction arose among our leaders.7
The unanimous view amongst the crusader leaders (including Reynald) was that Shayzar should be given to Thierry of Flanders as a fief, ‘to be held by him as a hereditary possession forever’. Shayzar was a patrimony prestigious enough to ensure that Thierry – and the wealth, connections and armed retinue he commanded – would settle once and for all in Outremer. So far everyone agreed. The point of contention was precise: who would be Thierry’s overlord? The scandalized William of Tyre recorded that it was Reynald himself, the instigator of the Shayzar campaign, who threw a spanner in the works:
Prince Renaud alone raised difficulties; he declared that Shayzar with its dependencies had, from the beginning, formed a part of the heritage of the prince of Antioch; hence, whoever held it must pledge loyalty to him as lord.8
The proud Thierry, however, refused to pay homage to the upstart Reynald. He would only agree to become a vassal of the King of Jerusalem. Baldwin, unsurprisingly, was ready to take this course, as it would have recognized him as overlord of Shayzar. At Ascalon in 1153, Reynald had sworn to be King Baldwin’s man. If the king still believed this oath, it was here that he would have realized Reynald’s loyalties now lay elsewhere. The Prince of Antioch simply could not accept the King of Jerusalem as overlord of Shayzar. And, unfortunately for Thierry and Baldwin, Reynald was in the right. It was beyond dispute that Shayzar had always ‘belonged’ to Antioch. The bishops of Shayzar (who had sold the city to the Muslims) had been suffragans of the Patriarchate of Antioch. The city was included in a planned grant of lands to Raymond of Poitiers by the Byzantine emperor John in 1138, and for the previous sixty years it was the princes of Antioch who had maintained an undisputed claim to the town, a claim they had backed up by constant campaigning. At times Shayzar had even paid tribute to Antioch. By insisting on Thierry’s homage, Reynald was loyally fulfilling his role as protector of the lands of Antioch and the patrimony of his stepson, Bohemond. To allow the King of Jerusalem to assume suzerainty of Shayzar would have been irresponsible, and would have set a dangerous precedent for the independence of Antioch as a whole. Indeed, in the face of Thierry’s intransigence, Reynald was quite conciliatory. He did not insist on homage being paid to him personally, but was quite happy for Thierry to swear fealty to the young heir to the principality, Bohemond, as long as Thierry recognized the supremacy of Antioch over Shayzar. Thierry’s pride would not allow him to accept even this. ‘Never have I done homage,’ he said, ‘except to kings.’
The impasse was total. The united Christian force abandoned the siege and returned to Antioch laden with loot, but without the great prize of Shayzar. Blame for this failure has been laid at Reynald’s door. William of Tyre, a partisan of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, implicitly criticized Reynald for enforcing Antioch’s rights; and modern historians have seen yet another example of his unbending, selfish ambition and short-sightedness. His conduct overall ‘had not been satisfactory’.9 The implication is that Reynald should have seen the bigger picture. The capture of Shayzar would have been better for the future of the Frankish states as a whole, so he should have overlooked the narrow interests of Antioch. This view does not recognize that Reynald’s task as prince was primarily to uphold the rights of Antioch and its ruling family, which he represented. Though they may have been in the East to fight for Christendom, all the leaders of the Latin states put their interests and those of their dominions
first. Reynald was no different. Plus, Thierry had caused problems before. In 1148, when the Second Crusade’s siege of Damascus had broken down in recriminations and mutual suspicion, Thierry was at the heart of it; ‘he is said to have approached each of the kings separately, one after another, and urgently demanded that the city when taken be given to him’.10 Some of the local barons were incensed that Thierry thought he could waltz in from France and take one of the greatest prizes in the East. Such resentment may well have left them open to the rumoured bribes from the Damascenes to sabotage the siege. At Shayzar, Thierry again played his part in a political fiasco.
Reynald was nothing if not persistent. Having failed to win Shayzar for Antioch, he was not going to let Thierry return to Europe without achieving something. Despite the bad blood between him, Baldwin and Thierry, Reynald still managed to persuade the crusader army to turn its attention to Harim. On a steep, conical hill just a few miles from Antioch, this powerful castle had been captured by Nur al-Din in 1149, after he killed Raymond at the battle of Fons Muratus. Led by Reynald, the Franks now attacked Harim with the same energy they had applied to Shayzar, setting up great mangonels that soon pounded the town into submission. They were helped when one of the great stone missiles killed the castellan. Once he died, says William of Tyre, the defenders:
Dispersed like sheep when the shepherd is struck down, and, as sand without lime cannot hold together, so the obstinate resistance, which they had hitherto shown, ceased.11
There was no dispute here about jurisdiction. Harim belonged to Antioch, and when the castle surrendered in February 1158, it was given to one of Thierry’s knights, who immediately swore homage to Reynald for his fief. Reynald repaired the fortifications and left a strong garrison.
Reynald had at least managed to win something from the opportunities offered by Thierry’s crusade and Nur al-Din’s illness, which, unfortunately for the crusaders, had not proved mortal. The recapture of Harim restored the supremacy of Antioch west of the Orontes, while to the east Reynald’s forces successfully maintained an aggressive posture. The capture of Harim, we learn from the Arabic chronicler Abu Shama, ‘encouraged the boldness of the Franks and they launched raiding parties into all the districts of Syria, pillaging and sacking fortresses and villages’.12
Antioch – and Reynald’s position in it – was secure. To the south, King Baldwin III then asserted his authority with a substantial victory over Nur al-Din near the cave fortress of Habis Jaldak, east of the Jordan. A truce was subsequently established between Baldwin and Nur al-Din. The balance of power seemed stabilized all along the frontier.
Then suddenly, in the autumn of 1158, the balance shifted.
Alliances crumbled and priorities were redrawn. Reynald’s days as Prince of Antioch – indeed, his very days on earth – were suddenly numbered. His crimes against the empire were finally being called to account. The terrifying news came south from Cilicia like a thunderbolt: the emperor had come.
* Tancred had style. When the First Crusade passed through Constantinople, he had scandalously sat on the emperor’s throne. He later described himself to imperial envoys as ‘Ninus the Assyrian, a giant whom no man could resist’.
Mamistra, Cilicia, Easter 1159
Raised up on a dais outside the imperial tent, the Emperor Manuel, in all his exalted glory, sat. He relaxed on a throne glinting with gold and resplendent with precious stones. Flanking him, their massive axes gleaming, stood the tall, blond barbarians of his Varangian Guard. Gathered before the monarch in varying attitudes of servility were the high courtiers of the empire, the hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox Church and emissaries from all the potentates of the Orient. Drawn up around them was Manuel’s gigantic army in full array, its formations stretching, legion after legion, into the distance.
Through this great throng came a line of Frankish monks and nobles, unshod, weeping, beseeching forgiveness. At their head trudged a pitiful figure. Barefoot and bareheaded, he wore nothing but a short, rough tunic with sleeves pulled humiliatingly above his elbows.13 A rope was tied about his neck and he held a naked sword in his hand by the blade. Reynald de Chatillon, great Prince of Antioch, was coming to beg for mercy.
The procession wound its way through the jeers and taunts of the massed battalions, and up to the dignitaries around the emperor. Then it halted, a stone’s throw from his presence. Flinging himself to the ground in front of Manuel, Reynald proffered his sword, hilt first, towards the emperor. Behind Reynald, the monks and lords of Antioch knelt down, wailing, begging the basileus to acknowledge their pleas.
Reynald lay motionless, abased, prostrate in the dust. His life hung in the balance, at the whim of the emperor.
The ‘divine’ Manuel Comnenos, born in the purple, basileus, despot, Emperor of the Romans, successor of Augustus and overlord of Antioch, ignored him.
Chapter 8
IMPERIAL VASSAL
Shortly before the coming of the emperor, [Reynald] had wreaked his fury upon the innocent Cyprians and had perpetrated upon them and upon their wives and children outrages abominable in the sight of both God and men. Consequently, he feared the arrival of the emperor.
William of Tyre
He was a man of violent impulses, both in sinning and in repenting.
William of Tyre
During the year 1158 the emperor Manuel Comnenos felt secure enough in his western dominions to turn his attention to the old imperial territories in Asia and re-establish imperial pre-eminence in Cilicia and northern Syria. He gathered a huge army and marched southwards. His first target was the rebellious Armenian, Thoros. To take him by surprise, the emperor secretly rode ahead of his cumbersome army with just 500 cavalry. Thoros escaped only by chance, after meeting a talkative pilgrim who had come across the emperor (and been given a gold piece by him) the previous day. According to William of Tyre:
So unexpected was the coming of the imperial armies that Thoros, who was then staying at Tarsus, had barely time to flee to the neighbouring mountains before the legions and the chiefs of the army were spreading over the open plain.1
Manuel’s innumerable host covered the earth. It swiftly recaptured all the cities of Cilicia from the Armenians. The emperor then settled in with his army to winter in Mamistra and prepare for the next stage of his campaign in the spring. His destination, he openly proclaimed, was Antioch; his objective, punishment for Reynald’s attack on the innocent Cypriots – that outrage ‘abominable in the sight of both God and men’.
The emperor’s coming did not concern Reynald alone. The Muslim powers were equally daunted by the arrival of this massive Christian army. Nur al-Din, now fully recovered from his illness, raised troops and warned all his governors to be ready for the Holy War against the emperor, though realistically there was no power in the region capable of resisting such a mighty force. The great expedition confirmed King Baldwin of Jerusalem’s strategy; he had already thrown in his lot with Byzantium. In 1157, he had sent to the emperor suggesting an alliance by marriage. In requesting the match, he was also implicitly abandoning Reynald to his fate. The chroniclers go further, stating that Baldwin actively conspired against the Prince of Antioch. Baldwin, it appears, hoped to receive Antioch as a fief from the emperor, once Reynald had been dealt with.
Manuel was on board – he sent his niece Theodora to Baldwin with a huge dowry of 100,000 gold bezants, and many thousands more to distribute in gifts. By agreeing to the marriage alliance with Jerusalem, the emperor was ensuring that Reynald was isolated politically. In the autumn of 1158, while Baldwin was cementing the new Jerusalem–Byzantium axis by marrying Theodora, Reynald was scrambling to find a way out of his very serious predicament. Patriarch Aimery, who had plotted against Reynald ever since his humiliating treatment on the castle turret five years before, again offered to betray his enemy to Manuel. The offer was contemptuously rejected. With his irresistible army in attendance, Manuel needed no help to take care of Reynald.
Reynald found himself isolated.
Nobody was foolish enough to ally with him against the full might of Byzantium. William of Tyre gives him credit for developing a ‘guilty conscience’ about his Cyprus expedition, but self-preservation probably trumped guilt in Reynald’s hierarchy of concerns. The humiliating performance of penance at Mamistra was simply the public culmination of a long series of diplomatic negotiations with Manuel over Reynald’s fate, and that of his principality. As soon as he heard of Manuel’s approach, Reynald consulted with his advisers, such as Gerard, Bishop of Latakyeh, on how to react. There was nowhere to run, no way to hide. It was impossible to fight. The only thing he could do was grovel.
Reynald was negotiating for his life and, with so much at stake, he proved extremely resourceful, demonstrating considerable diplomatic skill. First, he won over some Byzantine nobles who could intercede with the emperor on his behalf. Then the negotiations began in earnest, with Reynald making excuses, begging for forgiveness and promising to behave better in future. He had to offer concessions strong enough to outbid the Cypriots, who were calling for his head. He also had to counter the machinations of his Frankish enemies and of pretenders to power in Antioch, such as King Baldwin and the Patriarch Aimery. Reynald and his team outmanoeuvred them all. Once they had won Manuel round, the final negotiation was the form and extent of the public submission. The upshot was the humiliating show of contrition at Mamistra.
Reynald led the procession of Antioch’s nobles and churchmen through the laughing ranks of Manuel’s troops and knelt before the emperor. This was a pointedly public display, designed to be seen not just by the Greeks, but also by the ambassadors and chiefs of all the realms of the east. As John Kinnamos observed: