by Jeffrey Lee
Chapter 18
KING-MAKER
The Patriarch, the Master of the Temple and Prince Reynald said that they were bound by no oath or faith. They would crown the lady Queen.
Ernoul
Watching from the congregation at the Holy Sepulchre that September day in 1186 was a spy.1
From Nablus, Raymond had sent a sergeant, disguised as a monk, to report on the situation in Jerusalem. Because the city gates were shut, the man had to enter by the postern of the Church of the Madeleine in the north wall. After the coronation, the spy slipped out of the city and returned to Nablus. The news that their anointed king was now Guy de Lusignan was greeted with dismay by the barons. Baldwin of Ibelin, who had wanted to marry Sybilla himself, was particularly disgusted. He swore that he would not serve under Guy, but would rather leave the kingdom, adding that Guy would not last a year as king.
The sheer speed of action by Reynald and Sybilla’s party in Jerusalem had comprehensively outmanoeuvred the barons. Raymond had been outflanked, but he had one card left to play. He suggested crowning Reynald’s stepson, Humphrey of Toron, as king in opposition to Guy. Like Guy, Humphrey’s claim came through his wife; Isabella was the younger daughter of King Amalric and therefore had a claim almost as good as Sybilla’s. The barons agreed. It was a fateful decision because, by setting up an anti-king, they were committing the country to civil war. However, they made a simple error, one that Reynald would never have made; they decided to crown Humphrey the next day.
The barons should not have given Humphrey time to think. Faced with the enormity of the decision, the young man realized he did not want to be king. Possibly this was due to his timid character; Humphrey was said to be ‘more like a woman than a man, gentle in his dealings with a bad stammer’.2 It may also have been due to the influence of his dominant, terrifying stepfather, Reynald de Chatillon. It is very likely that Reynald, for whom loyauté to the throne was always a cardinal virtue, would have sent a message to Humphrey in Nablus, reminding his stepson of the duty he owed to the rightful line and to the reigning monarch, whoever that might be. In this case, the galling fact was that the duly anointed king, to whom all loyal vassals owed allegiance, was now Guy de Lusignan. Humphrey may of course simply have rejected the crown to avoid plunging the country into a devastating conflict, one that would leave it at Saladin’s mercy. Whatever his reasons, the unwilling pretender scurried to Jerusalem, apologized to his sister-in-law, Queen Sybilla, made his homage to King Guy and thus avoided his stepfather’s wrath. Thanks to Humphrey’s defection, the barons’ revolt was aborted. The kingdom had been spared a disastrous civil war. The rebellious local nobility had only one viable alternative – submission. One by one the despondent barons made the journey to Jerusalem to do homage to the new king. Raymond, however, took refuge in Tiberias.
Guy was soon back to the old tricks he had tried as regent, favouring some of his Poitevin cronies over the native Poulains. When Guy became king, the Poitevins inflamed the locals’ resentment by singing in the streets of Jerusalem:
Maugre li Pulain,
Avrons nous roi Poitevin.
(In spite of the Poulains, We have a king who is Poitevin.)
According to the Estoire d’Eracles, ‘This hatred and scorn gave rise to the loss of the kingdom of Jerusalem.’3
In late 1186 Guy held his first parliament. He summoned all the barons to assemble at the Church of the Holy Cross in Acre. The new king mounted the pulpit and harangued the congregation on how he had been crowned by the grace of God. The true power behind the throne, Reynald de Chatillon, stood prominently at his right hand as the barons swore fealty, one by one. And when it came to the turn of Baldwin of Ibelin to make his homage, it was Reynald who called him forth. Three times, in the king’s name, Reynald summoned Baldwin to do his duty. Three times Baldwin refused. When the king called him in person, Baldwin still demurred, saying, ‘My father never paid homage to your father, and I will not do so to you.’4 Then he committed his lands to the care of his brother Balian and set off for Antioch with all his knights.
The arrival there of such a famed warrior and his powerful retinue was good news for Reynald’s stepson, Bohemond III of Antioch. Prince Bohemond may also have relished helping out his stepfather’s enemy:
When the prince of Antioch heard that Baldwin of Ibelin was coming to him with so many knights, he was delighted. He went to meet them and received them with great joy.5
But Antioch’s gain was Jerusalem’s loss. The kingdom could not spare such an experienced leader and so many fighting men. By leaving with all his vassals, Baldwin was doing his best to make Guy’s reign as short as the single year he had forecast, but any problems King Guy and his supporters had with Baldwin were nothing compared to the menace of Count Raymond.
In the most commonly accepted version of the crusader story, Raymond is a hero. He is one of the wise Poulains born and raised in Outremer who understood Muslims and was prepared to live amongst them. In the view of historians like Sir Steven Runciman, Raymond’s faction was that of an assimilated local baronage pitted against aggressive, short-sighted and acquisitive newcomers like Reynald and Guy. This version clearly does not make sense because the Courtenays, one of the great native families of Outremer, were at the centre of opposition to Raymond. And by the 1180s Reynald had spent more than thirty years in the East – hardly a newcomer.
This traditional view of the factions in the crusader kingdom has mutated subtly over the years into a different caricature, reflecting modern preoccupations with international geopolitics, especially in reference to Middle Eastern conflicts such as those in Iraq, Afghanistan and the wider conflict with fundamentalist Islam, the ‘War on Terror’. In this anachronistic view, Raymond’s faction is vaguely understood as the more tolerant, understanding ‘Doves’; Reynald’s as the more aggressive ‘Hawks’, with Reynald cast as the Hawk par excellence and portrayed as the arrogant expatriate crushing the local Muslims under his colonialist Christian boot. Somehow Reynald’s critics seem to believe that alliances such as those Raymond undertook with the Muslims offered an alternative future of accommodation for the Latin states in the Levant.
These views are of course misguided, relying on the naive idea that some sort of magical multicultural compact might have enabled Frank and Saracen to live together in harmony in the Promised Land.
The archetypal expression of this take on the factions of the Latin Kingdom is seen in Ridley Scott’s film Kingdom of Heaven. In the movie, the Raymond character, ‘Tiberias’, is wise, tolerant, dovish, virtually a pacifist. He is a crusader version of how the saintly Saladin is portrayed in the same film. Both portraits of these ruthless men of violence are wildly inaccurate of course, but in likening Raymond to Saladin, Scott was closer to the truth than he might have realized. Because, after Guy’s coronation, Raymond took the only route that still offered him a hope, however slim, of winning the throne. Perhaps it was a route to which he had been disposed ever since his captivity under Nur al-Din. Raymond had indeed ‘gone native’ to such an extent that he joined forces with the crusaders’ greatest enemy. He still sought the kingship and, to get it, he cut a deal with Saladin. According to Saladin’s secretary, Imad al-Din:
The count put himself under the protection of the sultan and became one of his partisans. The sultan had welcomed him with kind words and, to encourage him, released some of his officers he had in captivity. The count sent detachments against the countries of the Franks that came back with booty and prisoners…6
One of the chroniclers who continued the work of William of Tyre7 says that, after leaving Nablus in 1186, Count Raymond parleyed with Saladin’s nephew. The count came to terms with the Muslims and became Saladin’s vassal, paying homage to him for Tripoli. Ibn al-Athir recorded that Raymond asked Saladin for help in attaining his ambitions. Saladin accepted Raymond’s allegiance and, in return, ‘He guaranteed that he would make him independent leader of all the Franks.’8
Raymond�
��s treason was a devastating blow to crusader unity.* The lord of Tiberias, greatest magnate of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the ruler of its Christian ally, the county of Tripoli, had defected to the enemy, with all his strength. Muslim observers such as Imad al-Din were well aware that the count’s alliance with Saladin represented a dangerous weakening of the kingdom:
One of the events decreed by Providence in favour of Islam for the ruin of Unbelief was the following: The count of Tripoli desired to enjoy friendly relations with the sultan and resorted to an alliance with him against his fellow Christians.9
Ensconced in his fortress town of Tiberias on its great lake, the Sea of Galilee, Raymond continued to refuse homage to Guy. Indeed, it would have been tricky for him to swear homage to Guy, since he had already done so to Saladin. The king assembled an army and moved into Raymond’s fief, intending to bring him to heel. The count then took the extreme step of invoking his pact with Saladin. He put himself under the sultan’s protection and Saladin dispatched Muslim cavalry, infantry and archers to garrison Tiberias against the king. Faced with Saladin’s soldiers in a Frankish city and the prospect of a catastrophic civil war, Guy backed down.
Not only would such a conflict have been fatal for the realm, but it might also have violated the truce Guy himself had negotiated with Saladin after he had been crowned. Raymond’s displacement as regent and his alliance with Saladin meant that the truce he had negotiated for the Kingdom of Jerusalem was void. With rampant factionalism racking the country, one of Guy’s first acts as king – backed by leading advisers, including the Masters of the Temple and Hospital – had been to renegotiate the truce with Saladin; the kingdom was too fractured to risk a conflict with the sultan. The days of the Muslims paying for peace were long past. The Franks paid Saladin the swingeing price of 60,000 bezants for an armistice.
The peace was confirmed until the following Easter. That would fall on 5 April 1187. In theory, the kingdom could enjoy peace until then, unless something – or someone – got in the way.
* Even Runciman, a staunch Raymondophile, admits that the count’s actions were ‘undoubtedly treasonable’.
The King’s Highway, Oultrejordan, winter 1186–7
The grizzled veteran was back in his element. In full battle gear, Reynald de Chatillon sat on his warhorse, ready for action. Around him, in concealed positions flanking the highway, lurked his armed men – as many as he had been able to find at short notice. They lay in wait for a great prize.
Just a few days before, one of Reynald’s spies had come to him in haste at Acre. Oultrejordan’s early-warning system had detected a great caravan on its way from Cairo to Damascus. With the caravan marched a substantial military force. Their route would take them past Kerak. Reynald had mounted his horse without delay and ridden straight to his fief to prepare the ambush.
The magnificent caravan, a seemingly endless lines of beasts and their drivers, moved slowly into sight, camels swaying under their loads, columns of soldiers marching and riding alongside. Proceeding under the safety of the truce, they were completely unprepared when Reynald’s men sprang the trap.
Without warning, the Franks swept down on their prey like wolves on the fold. They captured the caravan in its entirety. Overwhelming the troops, Reynald seized their weapons, beasts and merchandise and imprisoned them in the dungeons of Kerak.
When Saladin heard that Arnat had taken the caravan, he was beside himself with rage. The sultan protested to King Guy, demanding restitution. Guy in his turn asked Reynald to return the prisoners and the goods.
‘I will return nothing,’ answered the Prince of Kerak. ‘I am lord in my lands, as you are in yours. I have no truce with the Saracens.’
To his Muslim prisoners, pleading to be released, Reynald was equally dismissive.
‘Let your Muhammad set you free!’ he said.10
Chapter 19
TRUCE-BREAKER
When there is peace on every hand, let there be a strip of war left for me
Blight his eyes who parts me from it, although I may have begun it first!
Peace gives me no comfort; I agree with war,
For I neither hold nor believe any other law.
Bertran de Born
Perish the hands of Abu Lahab, and perish he!
His wealth avails him not, neither what he has earned;
He shall roast at a flaming fire.
Quran, sura 111
Unlike the questionable capture of the caravan back in 1182, there is no doubt that Reynald attacked a caravan in the winter of 1186-7. Muslim and Frankish writers alike record this. The taking of this caravan is one of the great crimes laid at Reynald’s door. Ernoul said it was the cause of disaster for the Frankish kingdom. Posterity has long held the same view. For Sir Steven Runciman it was ‘impious brigandage… shameless… an outrage’.1 But even if this action did break the truce, it is wrong to use it to brand Reynald as more violent or irresponsible than other leaders of the period. Many truces had been broken over the years: Baldwin I invaded Damascene territory in 1113; King Baldwin III did the same in 1164; King Amalric breached his oath by invading Egypt in 1168. Baldwin II was shocked that a Muslim ‘knight’ like the emir Toghtekin reneged on his promises, but he did. According to William of Tyre, even the usually honourable Saladin broke a truce when it suited him in 1181. Reynald’s actions here have been magnified out of proportion. For instance, Ernoul spices up the story by incorrectly claiming that Saladin’s sister was captured with this caravan. And of course Reynald did his image no favours with his vivid use of language to Christian and Muslim alike – ‘I am lord in my lands, as you are in yours’, ‘Let your Muhammad set you free!’ – these phrases that the chroniclers ascribe to Reynald have his typically expressive, memorable ring.
There are also other questions over this event, or at least over whether it was seen as a violation of the truce at the time. The Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Athir, for instance, does not say that Arnat breached any general truce, but rather that he had had arranged his own personal aman, or armistice, for himself and his family. Given the sworn enmity between Saladin and Reynald, this is highly unlikely. For the pro-Saladin historian Imad al-Din, Reynald’s offence was the excessive tolls that he exacted on passing caravans. It appears that the sultan’s anger with Reynald was as much about the constant problem he represented as about any particular incident.
After all, why would Reynald have attacked this caravan? Perhaps he was simply an inveterate brigand acting on irresistible impulse. But hundreds of tempting caravans had passed through his dominions unmolested over the years. The Seigneur of Oultrejordan earned a healthy profit from them through taxes – an expense greatly resented by the Muslims, but hardly a violation of the truce. During the 1180s, Muslim observers confirmed that caravans routinely passed through Frankish territory, paying tolls and customs duty, even when truces were not in place. Why would Reynald have jeopardized this perennial revenue stream for one rash attack?
The mention of the substantial military escort is a clue. In the early months of 1187 Saladin was known to be planning an attack on the kingdom. He was mustering his forces, apparently with the intention of resuming the jihad when the truce expired at Easter. Ibn al-Athir stresses that the caravan was ‘accompanied by a good number of soldiers’.2 Reynald may well have regarded this as a movement of troops rather than a merchant caravan. Imad al-Din wrote that the rich caravan was:
escorted by a contingent of soldiers. He [Reynald] made them fall into a trap. He took them to Kerak. He took their mounts and equipment and inflicted on them the worst of punishments. The sultan then swore that he would have his life.3
However, under the terms of the truce, Reynald would have been within his rights to waylay a hostile military force moving through his territory. And he would have felt justified in rejecting calls for reimbursement. After Reynald captured the caravan, Imad al-Din records that Saladin sent Arnat a message, ‘Blaming him for his conduct and reproaching him for
his perfidy and pillage, but he simply became more obstinate and malicious.’4
It is clear, in the light of later events, that Saladin’s propaganda needed to paint Reynald as a villain. Frankish writers like Ernoul were also seeking to shift the responsibility for subsequent disasters away from their patrons (in Ernoul’s case, the Ibelin family and the man they followed, Raymond of Tripoli) and place the blame on Reynald. Ernoul’s version mirrors his two previous confused accounts of Reynald’s capture of caravans. In all three cases, Reynald rebuffs the monarch when he demands return of the goods and prisoners. In King Guy’s case, he is hardly likely to have made such demands. Reynald was, after all, Guy’s leading supporter. Any such requests would have been purely for show. Intriguingly, the Latin Continuation of William of Tyre records that Saladin asked Count Raymond to take up the question of restitution with Arnat. Unsurprisingly, Raymond got short shrift from the Lord of Kerak, and reported as much back to his master, the sultan.
Whatever the truth, Reynald had enraged Saladin once more, and again the sultan vowed to kill the Prince of Kerak. In any case the capture of the caravan was clearly not the real cause of the next stage in the Holy War. If Saladin did actually cite Reynald’s actions to justify taking up jihad again, it was only as a pretext. As the modern biographers of Saladin, Malcolm Lyons and D. E. P Jackson, put it:
The seizure of the caravan may have envenomed Saladin’s relations with Reynald, but it was obvious even without this that the Holy War was about to be resumed.5
Saladin had completed his subjugation of the Zengid territories, and his illness had finally focused his commitment to the jihad. He would have attacked the Franks anyway. This view is supported by the fact that Saladin allowed the truce to expire before invading the kingdom. He clearly felt he had no good justification for breaking the truce himself, though Reynald’s actions may have made him unwilling to renew it.