Knight of Jerusalem
Page 33
• Although the chronicles, both Christian and Muslim, agree that Balian d’Ibelin and Salah ad-Din knew and respected one another, there is no account of how they had made one another’s acquaintance. It is unclear whether they had met before the negotiations for Jerusalem, and if so, when and where, or if they knew of one another by reputation and hearsay only. The incident with the prisoners was designed to pave the way for the documented negotiations at Jerusalem in 1187 and after the Third Crusade in 1192.
• Last but not least, it may surprise some readers that I describe a lot of rain in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. However, this was the “land of milk and honey,” not a desert wasteland (as some novels might have you believe), and there is a distinct rainy season, no matter how hot and arid summers—or some parts—of the Kingdom were. Ibelin lies on the fertile coastal plain, not on the Dead Sea.
The dialogue, the physical descriptions of the characters, and the supporting characters are all fiction. This is a novel—one based on historical fact, but a novel nevertheless.
Note on Leprosy
BALDWIN IV OF JERUSALEM SUFFERED FROM leprosy from the time he was a boy. He was diagnosed by his tutor William, later Archbishop of Tyre, while Baldwin was still a schoolboy, and he was recognized as a leper by contemporary society.
In writing this book, where Baldwin IV is a central character, it was important to understand both the disease as we know it today and what medieval man knew and thought about leprosy. I have relied heavily on Piers D. Mitchell’s essay titled “An Evaluation of the Leprosy of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem in the Context of the Medieval World,” which appears as an appendix in Bernard Hamilton’s The Leper King and his Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the excellent study of attitudes toward leprosy published by Timothy S. Miller and John W. Nesbitt, Walking Corpses: Leprosy in Byzantium and the Medieval West.
It was important to me that the actual evolution of the disease as depicted in this novel be consistent with both the historical record and the stages of the disease based on modern medical knowledge. For example, we know from William of Tyre that the leprosy first manifested itself as a lack of feeling in Baldwin’s right hand. We know that Baldwin was an agile rider as a young adult and that he commanded his armies in person at Montgisard, on the Litani, at Le Forbelet, and even as late as the relief of Kerak in late 1183. However, his body was, in fact, decaying progressively and noticeably. William of Tyre also noted a particularly dramatic deterioration of Baldwin’s health in the year 1183, and by the time he died in 1185 just short of his twenty-fourth birthday, he had gone blind and did not have the use of any of his limbs.
Based on the historical descriptions of Baldwin’s initial illness, which state he had lost the feeling in his arm but that there were no other symptoms such as discoloration or ulcers, Mitchell suggests that Baldwin IV initially had primary polyneuritic tuberculoid leprosy, which deteriorated into lepromatous leprosy during puberty. There is, according to Mitchell, nothing inevitable about this deterioration—however, puberty itself can induce the deterioration, as can untended wounds (that go unnoticed due to loss of feeling) which cause ulcers to break out. Historically Baldwin led the dangerous campaign against Salah-ad-Din that led to the surprise victory at Montgisard when he was in puberty, just sixteen years old. I hypothesize that it was in part because of this campaign—which required camping out in the field and going without the usual bathing of his feet and hands—that caused his disease to take a turn for the worse. According to Mitchell, children who develop lepromatous leprosy are likely to die prematurely, and so once Baldwin’s leprosy had become lepromatous, it inevitably took its course through the gruesome stages of increasing incapacitation and disfigurement to an early death.
The degree to which the disease is contagious is another critical issue in this novel. Modern medical research suggests that although during an epidemic as much as 30 per cent of a population can catch the disease, once leprosy has become endemic to a population (as it was in the Levant in the twelfth century), only about 5 per cent of the population has a genetic proclivity to the disease and hence a high risk of contagion if exposed to the disease. Furthermore, if a person is susceptible to leprosy, he or she is most likely to develop it between the ages of ten and twenty—exactly the age at which Baldwin IV became ill. The adults in attendance upon him, however, such as the Archdeacon of Tyre and, in the novel, Balian, had less than a 5 per cent chance of becoming ill.
Just as important as an accurate depiction of the course of decay caused by leprosy, however, is a depiction of medieval beliefs about leprosy. We know today that less than 5 per cent of the population was likely to contract the disease if exposed, but medieval man believed the chances of contagion were much, much higher. Medieval medicine suggested at one extreme that just breathing the same air as lepers could result in infection. Yet because the disease was widespread, medieval man also knew that many men and women washed, cared for, and even kissed lepers without themselves contracting the disease. I have chosen, therefore, to have my characters subscribe to a non-scientific but plausible “enlightened” view of leprosy’s contagion that is consistent with the fact that Baldwin IV was never completely isolated from society. Those closest to him evidently thought that by taking certain precautions they could remain healthy, while the majority avoided intimacy and maintained some distance without avoiding Baldwin altogether.
Medieval attitudes were not governed by the state of medical knowledge alone. Religion played a critical role. Leprosy was not seen as a sign of sin, but rather as a sign of Divine grace—particularly in Byzantium. Indeed, the Byzantines came to call leprosy “the holy disease,” and there are a number of Greek Orthodox legends in which Christ appears as a leper. Miller and Nesbitt note that the harshest views on leprosy came from pre-Christian Germanic tribes and the Jews. Crusader Jerusalem, however, was far more heavily influenced by Byzantium than by the Germanic tribes or Judaism. This fact is underlined by the creation of the Knights of St. Lazarus in Jerusalem, probably in the second decade of the twelfth century, as an outgrowth from an earlier Byzantine or Armenian leper hospital.
In short, while the progression of the disease depicted in this novel is based on modern medical knowledge of leprosy, the attitudes and treatment provided Baldwin in the book are based on what we know of medieval remedies and attitudes toward leprosy during the twelfth century.
Additional Reading
FOR MORE READING ON THE HISTORICAL Balian d’Ibelin, Baldwin IV, the crusader states, and the crusades, I recommend the following sources:
Barber, Malcolm, The Crusader States, Yale University Press, 2012.
Bartlett, W.B., Downfallof the Crusader Kingdom: The Battle of Hattin and the Loss of Jerusalem, The History Press, 2007, 2010.
Conder, Claude Reignier, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1099 to 1291 A.D., Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, 1897.
Edbury, Peter W., John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, The Boydell Press, 1997.
Edbury, Peter W., and John Gordon Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Hamilton, Bernard, The Leper King and His Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Nicolle, David, Hattin 1187: Saladin’s Greatest Victory, Osprey Military Campaign Series, 1193.
I also recommend the following websites/blogs:
http://Defendingcrusaderkingdoms.blogspot.com
http://crusades.scout.com
http://Tales-of-Chivalry.com
Also by Helena P. Schrader
Anno Domini 1212
Seduced by a shepherd boy with a vision of freeing Jerusalem through the power of innocence alone, tens of thousands of children have left their homes to embark upon a new, peaceful crusade. They sing the old crusader ballad “The Song of Palestine,” and the melody awakens memories in the heart of Blanche, a rich widow. Long ago, when she was still young and beautif
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Anno Domini 1232
Sir Gerard, a mercenary, is as godless as he is fearless—until he receives an unexpected summons to the bedside of a dying monk, his father. The encounter sets him on a journey to the castle of his birth and a confrontation with the man who has stolen his family’s lands and titles. Set against the backdrop of the Albigensian crusades, this novel tells the story of a man’s search for peace.
Anno Domini 1250
A crusader in search of faith—
A lame lady in search of revenge—
And a King who would be a saint.
St. Louis’ Knight takes you to the Holy Land in the thirteenth century, and into a world filled with knights, nobles, prophets—and assassins.