Muslim-Christian relations: warfare and alliances
One factor in the Franks’ favour, and a theme that would run through most of the first fifty years of settlement, was the disunity of the Muslim world. As we saw earlier, this was a major reason for the success of the First Crusade, and the continuing political dissent of the northern Syrian Muslims was of particular advantage to the Christian settlers (see Document 5). This is not to say that the Muslims, including the Fatimids of Egypt, did not pose a significant threat, but the fragmented nature of this danger did much to dilute its menace. Two other features stand out concerning the Frankish-Muslim conflict in this period. First, the Franks were strong enough to impose annual payments of tribute from local emirs such as that rendered on occasion by Aleppo and Shaizar in the second decade of the twelfth century. Secondly, as we saw earlier, there were times when the settlers were in conflict with each other and this, in turn, led them to seek allies in the Muslim world. In 1105, for example, both Tancred of Antioch and King Baldwin I had Turkish allies in their struggle with each other. In 1114 Roger of Antioch fought alongside Tughtigin of Damascus and Il-Ghazi of Mardin to fight off the threat of Bursuq, commander of the sultan of Baghdad’s army. Such alliances seem contradictory to the ideals of the First Crusade, yet they represent the practicalities of divided Muslim and Christian powers living alongside one another. Walter the Chancellor saw the 1114 agreement as ‘an alliance of Belial [the devil]’, yet it served both Antiochene and Muslim interests well and accomplished its aim of fending off a more powerful outside force (Walter the Chancellor, tr. Edgington and Asbridge, 1999: 95). In any case, such deals were nearly always short-lived and the parties involved might soon be at war with one another.
The kingdom of Jerusalem and the succession of Baldwin I
If the early decades of the principality of Antioch can be characterised as turbulent and unstable, then events to the south saw the Franks establish themselves more steadily and effectively. The process of taking the coastal cities continued with Acre falling to the Christians in 1104, the county of Tripoli coming into being in 1109, and Beirut and Sidon being taken in 1110 (the latter with the help of a large force of Norwegian crusaders under King Sigurd). The armies of the kingdom of Jerusalem fought almost annual battles against the Egyptians and sometimes against the Damascenes, although the latter regarded the Muslims of northern Syria as their most serious enemy and often chose to ally with the Franks or at least remain neutral. The settlers expanded their territories inland with, in 1115, Baldwin I’s construction of the huge castle of Montreal in Transjordan to ‘dominate the country in the interests of the Christians’ (Fulcher of Chartres, tr. Ryan, 1969: 215). The control of this region east of the River Jordan and the Dead Sea, and extending down to the Red Sea port of Eilat, meant a valuable increase in revenue because traders from Damascus to Egypt had to pay taxes to traverse the area.
Baldwin I’s reign can be viewed as a successful period for the Franks. As a monarch he held his nobles in close control for much of his reign until the issue of his succession finally came to a head (see below, pp. 105-6). Baldwin died in April 1118, returning home from a campaign in Egypt. He was determined to be buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and on his deathbed the king instructed his cook to attend to his corpse properly: the intestines were to be removed and the body embalmed to enable the royal wishes to be fulfilled. The army hurried back to Jerusalem and the king was duly buried next to his brother, Godfrey.
The Battle of the Field of Blood (1119)
Soon after Baldwin II’s accession in April 1118 he had to deal with a major crisis in northern Syria. A period of Frankish expansion had created a semi-circle of Christian-held settlements around Aleppo, some no less than 25 kilometres from the city. This unprecedented threat provoked deep anxiety in the Muslim camp. Il-Ghazi of Mardin was called in to take control and, with the forces of Tughtigin, he led an aggressive push to the west. On 28 June 1119 Prince Roger of Antioch’s army was surrounded near Sarmarda (c. 45 kilometres west of Aleppo), and in the ensuing battle he was killed and almost all of his 700 knights and 3,000 footsoldiers were either slain or captured. Ibn al-Qalanisi, a contemporary Damascene chronicler, rated this victory as ‘one of the finest of victories, and such plenitude of divine aid was never granted to Islam in all its past ages’ (Ibn al-Qalanisi, tr. Gibb, 1932: 160-1). Matthew of Edessa, a contemporary Armenian Christian, noted the Turks ‘ravaged all the country . . . bringing bloodshed and enslavement, while the whole Frankish army was practically annihilated’ (Matthew of Edessa, tr. Dostaurian, 1993: 224). Il-Ghazi took back a number of towns on the Muslim-Christian frontier and raided the environs of Antioch itself. Compared to the situation after Harran in 1104, while the area of land lost was far smaller (but strategically more important), it was the death of so many of the Antiochene nobility that caused the real crisis. Baldwin II marched northwards and took command of the situation. He provided for the defence of the city of Antioch and remarried the widowed to his own men. The king would need to travel north several more times in subsequent years, but in the short term he had succeeded in preserving the viability of the principality at a moment of extreme pressure.
From the Muslim perspective, the Battle of the Field of Blood also marked the first time that jihad imagery began to be used with any frequency in the age of the crusades. The concept appears to have lain largely dormant except for the lone cries of the Damascene writer, al-Sulami, who in c. 1105 had written cogently and incisively of the need to react to the crusaders (Document 5 iii). Yet his call was ignored until, prompted by the events of 1119, jihad references (including some from the Koran) start to appear in the surviving evidence, principally in epigraphic sources (inscriptions on buildings or tombs). This material is also useful because it is often precisely dated and we may note that no similar quotations are found elsewhere in the Islamic Mediterranean at this time. Tughtigin was described in 1122 as ‘protector of those who fight the holy war’. Another memorial dating from 1130, the year after his death, called him ‘the prince, the one who fights the holy war, the one who perseveres assiduously on the frontier, the warrior’ (Hillenbrand, 1994: 66). Balak of Aleppo died fighting the Christians in 1124. He was portrayed as a martyr and the appropriate Koranic inscription adorns his tomb: ‘Think not of those who are slain in the way of Allah as dead. Nay, they are living. With their Lord they have provision’ (Hillenbrand, 1994: 67). This evidence, although limited, indicates that in northern Syria at least, in conjunction with the Muslims’ first real success against the Franks, the seeds were being sown for the later propaganda campaigns of Nur ad-Din and Saladin.
The 1120-24 crusade and the capture of Tyre
The defeat at the Field of Blood, combined with recent troubles in the kingdom of Jerusalem — a plague of locusts in 1117 and a massacre of pilgrims in 1119 — provoked much soul-searching and a church council was convened at Nablus in January 1120. This meeting tried to reaffirm the moral purity of the settlers in order to win back God’s favour, in much the same way that processions and fasts were organised before battles on the First Crusade and in the Latin East. Sexual relations between Christians and Muslims were forbidden; men who infringed this were to be castrated and consenting women were to have their noses split open (nasoctomy). The meeting may also have approved the creation of the Order of the Temple and also sent an appeal to Pope Calixtus II for a new crusade. While no text of the papal encyclical survives, it seems that letters were sent to France and Germany encouraging people to take the cross. The response to this plea was limited, although a number of western nobles is known to have travelled to the Levant at this time, possibly in response to Calixtus’s call. The kingdom of Jerusalem also made an approach to Venice because negotiations for a joint naval and land campaign were opened — again with papal encouragement. This resulted in the siege of Tyre which, along with Ascalon, was the remaining Muslim-held port on the coast. By early 1124 the Franks had gathered all the resources that the
y could muster, even pledging ornaments from the churches of Jerusalem to raise cash, and the attack began. After five months the Fatimid defenders could do no more and on 7 July 1124 the city surrendered. Charters of the agreement between Jerusalem and Venice survive, both the texts confirmed by Patriarch Gormund of Jerusalem (because Baldwin II was in Muslim captivity in the north) and the king himself once he was free. As we can see from Document 8 the arrangements covered an extensive range of territorial, legal and fiscal rights. Land was to be held freely (known as an allod) and full legal and fiscal rights existed over Venetians and non-Venetians in houses owned by the Italians. Intriguingly, much of the Pactum Warmundi concerns Acre rather than Tyre, reflecting the former’s greater commercial importance and the Venetians’ concern to secure an advantageous position there. Contrary to most previous interpretations, Jacoby has shown that these privileges were not so sweeping as previously thought, in part because Baldwin II cut back on those terms earlier agreed by Patriarch Gormond. For example, the Venetians’ legal rights did not extend to the higher aspects of criminal justice (such as murder) because no medieval ruler would consider resigning such a prerogative. Jacoby has also shown that Venetian lands in the lordship of Tyre were fiefs (held from the king), rather than allods as originally agreed, and thus owed the crown knight-service (Jacoby, 1997: 157-66). While such clauses were important to Baldwin the end-result of this agreement was still of considerable benefit to the Venetians as well. The settlers had secured one of the two remaining Muslim-held ports on the Mediterranean and the Venetians had gained possessions and important privileges to encourage their full involvement in the commerce of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The campaigns of King Baldwin II
The reign of King Baldwin II was characterised by vigorous military endeavour. Baldwin led at least nineteen campaigns in his thirteen-year rule, which included a period of sixteen months in captivity (April 1123 to August 1124). He was forced to ride from Antioch to Jerusalem no less than six times, a round trip of c. 900 kilometres, and from 1119 to 1126 he had to act as regent in the principality and in 1130 he was required to restore order there again after the death of Prince Bohemond II. A glimpse of the intensity of Baldwin ITs activities can be seen in his itinerary of August 1124 to January 1126. He was released from prison in August
1124 and capitalised on the momentum of the Franks’ success at Tyre to continue to take the offensive; he also needed to re-establish his own authority in the eyes of his nobles. By October that year he had gathered sufficient forces to engage in a five-month siege of Aleppo, the sole time Christian forces ever seriously threatened this key Muslim city. In February
1125 he returned to Jerusalem, only to ride north to Antioch again in April. Fulcher of Chartres noted that he had only a few men of Jerusalem with him because ‘in the present and preceding year thay had been much exhausted’ (Fulcher of Chartres, tr. Ryan, 1969: 278). He then fought and won two big battles at A’zaz and Zerdana. Baldwin went to Damascus and Ascalon in 1125 and, in January 1126, back to Damascus, with success in all instances. 1126 saw further victories at Raphania and Egypt and there was another visit to Antioch. It was Damascus, however, that held the key to his next moves because, although he had been victorious in the battle of January 1126, it is evident that he had more ambitious plans for the city.
In 1127 three issues came to the fore and required the king to make important choices. First, as we will see later, he encouraged Hugh of Payns, master of the Templars, to travel to the West to gain papal endorsement for the order and then to raise men and money for the brothers. Hugh was also entrusted with another task: to recruit men from Europe for a new crusade. Baldwin’s raids on Damascus had shown the king that he could only threaten the city — to capture it would need outside help. This crusade would be wholly aggressive in purpose and was to expand Christian territory (the justification of defending the holy places could not really be applied here); such a plan showed Baldwin II’s confidence and his belief that the Christians could conquer a major Muslim city. Hugh visited Pope Honorius II in Rome and gained his backing. There survives no papal bull endorsing the crusade or any record of preachers other than Hugh being delegated to generate support. But, we do have unambiguous and contemporary evidence of people taking the cross to journey to Jerusalem for the remission of their sins and to fight the Muslims. In other words, this was a crusade. The origins of most of these individuals are linked to the third element of Baldwin’s decision-making — that concerning his succession. By 1127 his wife had died and he was left with four daughters. It was essential that the eldest, Melisende, should marry to provide the kingdom with a military leader and to father future rulers. With the unanimous agreement of the nobility of Jerusalem, Baldwin chose Count Fulk V of Anjou as his prospective successor. Fulk was already known to the settlers because he had spent a year in Jerusalem (1120) as a confrater (lay associate) of the Templars. The pope offered his approval of the marriage and an embassy from Jerusalem led by William of Bures, lord of Galilee, travelled to Anjou. The missions of William and Hugh of Payns coalesced in the person of Fulk because, if he could be persuaded to marry Melisende, when he travelled to the East, it made sense to try to draw a crusade along with him as well. Fulk agreed to these proposals and led a substantial contingent from Anjou, while Hugh of Payns is said to have recruited men from England and Scotland too. The army sailed to the Holy Land in 1129 and in the late autumn joined with forces from Antioch, Tripoli, Edessa and Jerusalem to march on Damascus. The Christians’ campaign was dogged by bad weather and poor discipline and broke up having achieved nothing of note. Fulk, however, married Melisende, and their first child, Baldwin, was born in 1130; in addition, a number of his Angevin associates remained with him in the Levant.
The reign of King Fulk (1131-43)
King Baldwin II died in August 1131. Fulk succeeded him, although as Chapter 9 below reveals, the early years of his rule were marked by a struggle for supremacy between the newly-arrived Angevins and the native Levantine nobles. Two other features marked Fulk’s reign. First, the Franks took action to contain the threat from Egyptian-controlled Ascalon to the south of their lands (as discussed below, p. 82). The second principal concern centred on Antioch where Christian and Muslim forces exerted considerable pressure on the principality. In the 1130s King Leon, the Christian ruler of Armenia and a former ally of the Franks, became antagonistic and he recaptured the southern Cilician towns of Tarsus, Adana and Mamistra taken by the First Crusade. In part, Leon was exploiting the state of near civil war in Antioch caused by the actions of Alice, widow of Prince Bohemond II. When her husband died Alice had decided that she wanted to rule in her own right until their infant daughter, Constance, came of age. On no less than three occasions, first Baldwin II (in 1130), and then Fulk (1133 and 1135) were forced to march north to answer calls from disaffected Antiochene nobles who wanted Alice to marry again or to be replaced. Finally, Raymond of Poitiers married Constance in 1136 to bring some stability to the situation.
In 1137-38 and 1142-43, the prince had to contend with the appearance of John Comnenus and a Byzantine army. The emperor was furious that he, as overlord of Antioch, had not been involved in choosing Constance’s husband and that through her marriage to Raymond an opportunity to increase Byzantine influence in the area had been missed. He arrived at the gates of Antioch in 1137 with a huge army and demanded the city should submit to him. John was wary of open conflict with the Franks because it would almost certainly provoke a crusade against him. Nonetheless, he wanted his authority recognised. The threat was sufficient to compel Raymond to swear homage to the emperor and to acknowledge that his land was subject to Greek overlordship. Furthermore, if Christian forces should take Aleppo and Shaizar (presently held by the Muslims), then he would receive these towns and, in return, hand over Antioch to the Byzantines. In 1138 the Greeks and the Franks besieged Shaizar to try to fulfil this agreement, but the siege was unsuccessful. John then tried to coerce Raymond into
handing over Antioch regardless of the failure to take Aleppo and Shaizar as agreed the previous year. Raymond asked for time to consult his people and an anti-Byzantine riot broke out which forced John to depart. Any further trouble was stayed by news of unrest elsewhere in the Byzantine Empire and John returned to Constantinople. Yet tension persisted and the Antiochenes had still to acknowledge Byzantine overlordship to John’s satisfaction. In 1142 he threatened the principality anew. Once again the Antiochenes managed to play along the emperor sufficiently to delay a full-scale assault on the city and, to the Franks’ great good fortune, when the Byzantine forces withdrew to Cilicia for the winter, John suffered a fatal hunting accident which lifted the threat to the settlers.
The Crusades 1095-1197 Page 6