The Crusades 1095-1197

by Jonathan Phillips

  Zengi and the fall of Edessa (1144)

  The Greeks and the Armenians were not the only danger to Frankish lands in northern Syria. During the 1130s, Zengi, the atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo, had developed sufficient strength to mark himself as the most serious challenger yet to the Christians of the Levant. Hillenbrand has revealed a ruthless personality who inflicted terror and cruelty on his army and his subjects, as well as the Franks (Hillenbrand, 2001). Ibn al-Adim, a thirteenth-century Aleppan writer, noted, ‘When Zengi was on horseback, the troops used to walk behind him as if they were between two threads, out of fear that they would trample on the crops. If anyone transgressed, he was crucified’ (Hillenbrand, 2001: 123). Zengi spent many years establishing his power in the Muslim world as well as raiding Frankish lands. In December 1144, however, he besieged the Christian city of Edessa. Zengi set up a close blockade and dug a complex series of mines to bring down one of the walls. This allowed him to enter the city which fell on 24 December. The Muslims came to see this as the turning of the tide against the Christians. Ibn al-Athir wrote, ‘Islam became like the full moon after it had been obscured’. Zengi’s feat was lauded in contemporary poetry, which depicted him as a mujahid, or holy fighter, and for the first time the jihad became a truly active force to push towards the ultimate reconquest of Jerusalem. Zengi himself had few associations with men of religion, but his achievement was rewarded by the caliph of Baghdad, the spiritual head of Sunni Islam, with a string of honorific titles: ‘The adornment of Islam, the King helped by God, the helper of the believers’ (Hillenbrand, 2001: 119). For the Franks, the loss of one of their key cities was the greatest setback that they had yet faced and Muslim forces followed up their success to take much of the county to the east of the River Euphrates. The Edessans sent messengers to Antioch and Jerusalem pleading for help and this, in turn, resulted in the appeals to Europe that prompted the Second Crusade.

  The regency of Melisende and the accession of Baldwin III

  When news of the fall of Edessa reached Jerusalem it was the regent, Queen Melisende, who ordered a relief force north. On the death of her husband, King Fulk, in 1143, the throne passed to their son, Baldwin, but he had not yet come of age and so the queen governed on his behalf. She had shown her political acumen in the Hugh of Jaffa affair (see below, pp. 106-8) and she undoubtedly played a prominent part in ruling Jerusalem during the remainder of Fulk’s reign. William of Tyre was a particular admirer of Melisende and described her as a ‘woman of great wisdom’. He observed that she ‘dared to undertake important measures’ (William of Tyre, tr. Babcock and Krey, 1943: 2. 139-40).

  Such was Melisende’s power that when Baldwin came of age (at 15) in 1145, she continued to govern. In June 1148 the leaders of the Second Crusade would meet both Baldwin and Melisende at Palmarea (near Acre) in the great council that decided to attack Damascus, although as a woman Melisende did not accompany the army on campaign. She continued to play the leading partner, however, much to Baldwin’s increasing displeasure. By 1152, when the king was aged 22, he had gathered enough backers — in part through his effective military exploits in northern Syria and the Hauran — to try to force his mother to step down. The situation polarised the kingdom’s nobility; both camps formed their own chanceries and issued charters in their own name and each established their supporters in positions of power. The struggle had reached the point of armed conflict when Baldwin besieged a castle controlled by Melisende’s constable (her chief military leader). At first the kingdom was partitioned between the two rivals, but given the growing Muslim threat this was impractical and, in any case, Baldwin wanted to exercise full authority. He besieged Melisende in the citadel of Jerusalem and forced her to surrender her lands, except the city of Nablus, and to promise to abstain from politics. In fact, Melisende continued to exert a considerable influence in public life until her death in 1161.

  Melisende was more than an astute political player, she was also a great patron of the Church and art. She founded a convent for religious women at Bethany (her youngest sister Iveta was the first abbess), and gave many estates, precious vessels and ornaments to provide for their development. She was a generous donor to the Templum Domini church, the convent of St Anne’s, the abbey of St Mary Jehosophat and the Holy Sepulchre. Melisende’s mother had been an Armenian and this was one reason why the queen was a supporter of the Eastern Christian church of St James in Jerusalem. She is also connected with an exquisite psalter (a book of private prayers, reading and meditation), known as the Melisende Psalter, that is still preserved in the British Museum. It is beautifully illustrated with images from the New Testament and the Zodiac and its contents include the Psalms and prayers. Its ivory covers and silk spine indicate a work of huge cost.

  Melisende was one of the most memorable figures in the history of twelfth-century Latin Christendom. In spite of the endemic warfare in the Levant, and the fact that the prime function of a medieval ruler was as a warrior, she overcame her inability to participate in warfare by her formidable political skills and her position as the carrier of the blood-line of the royal house of Jerusalem. She was involved in high-level politics for almost twenty years, and she had ruled, effectively in her own right, for the best part of a decade. It is a vivid testimony to Melisende’s power that she had the strength to hold on to the crown for seven years after Baldwin III had reached his majority. While at first there may have been some misgivings over the king’s youth, the excuse to remove Melisende could have been brought into play very quickly had there been doubts as to her abilities. She attracted the blessing of Bernard of Clairvaux who described her as ‘a strong woman, a humble widow, a great queen’, while William of Tyre adjudged her the equal of her ancestors as a ruler. On her death in September 1161 she was buried in the church of St Mary at Jehosophat where her tomb remains today.

  Conclusion

  The first five decades of the twelfth century had seen the Franks establish themselves in the Levant. The ruling houses of Antioch and Jerusalem had taken root, although not without the need to adapt and incorporate outside influences such as Fulk of Anjou and Raymond of Poitiers. The Italian mercantile communities had played a central part in the conquest of the coast. Their rewards of land and privileges cemented their involvement in the Frankish East and ensured a flow of pilgrim and commercial traffic from the West. The idea of the crusade had expanded to include Bohemond’s campaign against the Greeks in 1108 and also saw papally authorised expeditions (marked by letters and the award of privileges) against the Muslims of the Balearic islands in 1114 and mainland Spain in 1116 and 1118. By the end of this period, however, the Muslims of the Levant were beginning to develop some cohesion in their opposition to the Christians and the jihad was truly underway.

  4

  The challenges of a new land: Frankish rule and settlement

  In the early years of the twelfth century the Frankish settlers faced a daunting series of problems if they were to establish themselves permanently in the Levant. In part they required the same determination, religious devotion and military success that had propelled the First Crusade to victory. Yet further attributes were needed because, if the First Crusade had confronted a formidable challenge, that of the early generations of settlers was, by reason of the diversity and duration of their task, even greater. Interestingly, we see this recognised in contemporary western sources (see Document 6 ii). Among the issues that the settlers had to resolve were: first, to complete the conquest of unfamiliar lands inhabited by a culturally, ethnically and politically heterogeneous group of peoples (for the events of the conquest, see Chapter 3); secondly, to establish a rule of government over these regions — in other words, to form a relationship with the indigenous population and to create or take over administrative systems; thirdly, to prevent internal revolts and to fend off enemy attacks; and finally, to settle themselves in both rural and urban areas. All of this had to be achieved far from their homeland. The Christian kingdoms of Spain were taking over Muslim
lands at this time, but their own territories were contiguous with existing Catholic possessions which provided a base to work from. Similarly, during the Norman conquest of Muslim Sicily (c. 1061 to c. 1091), the nearby southern Italian mainland could supply men and resources and was close enough to retreat to if necessary. For the nascent Frankish States in the Levant, geographically distant from the West, there were no such luxuries. The awareness of this is powerfully conveyed by Fulcher of Chartres’s eye-witness report of King Baldwin I’s speech just before the Battle of Ramla in September 1101: ‘If you should be slain here, you will surely be among the blessed. Already the kingdom of Heaven is open to you. If you survive as victors you will shine in glory among all Christians. If, however, you wish to flee remember that France is indeed a long distance away’ (Fulcher of Chartres, tr. Ryan, 1969: 157-8).

  Relations with indigenous peoples

  Because of its rich history and ongoing importance to Christianity, Islam and Judaism, the indigenous population of the Levant was extremely diverse. The Franks had to confront, assess and establish friendly or hostile relations with ethnic groups and faiths whom, in some cases, they were unlikely to have encountered before. Walter the Chancellor, who wrote in the principality c. 1115 to c. 1122, related that the population of the city of Antioch contained ‘Franks, Greeks, Armenians, strangers and pilgrims’ (Walter the Chancellor, tr. Asbridge and Edgington, 1999: 81); there were Muslim farmers in some areas as well. The county of Edessa was predominantly Armenian in population; the county of Tripoli had enclaves of Greek Orthodox and other eastern Christians (such as Maronites), as well as Sunni and Shi’i Muslims (the renegade Shi’i sect known as the Assassins). The kingdom of Jerusalem was particularly mixed, with Muslim villages, eastern Christian settlements and roving Bedouin tribesmen. Small Jewish communities reappeared in urban areas across the Latin East once the initial turmoil of the conquest had subsided.

  The outstanding feature of Frankish settlement was the newcomers’ numerical inferiority. Population figures are very hard to establish, but a peak ratio of one Frank to three of the indigenous populace (Eastern Christian or Muslim) seems a consensus, although in the early years of settlement the gap would have been much wider. In 1101 Fulcher of Chartres recorded that only 300 knights remained in the kingdom and while new crusaders and settlers continued to arrive the Christians still had to make a calculated judgement as to what area of lands they could hold without overstretching themselves. It was not viable for the Franks to remove all non-Christians; equally, it was not practical for all of the native peoples to leave their farms and to start afresh elsewhere. In any case, their services were more valuable to the Franks than in Muslim-ruled lands, therefore a modus vivendi was to be established in order to satisfy the basic needs of day-to-day life. The sack of Jerusalem and the bloody aftermath of other sieges, such as Caesarea in 1101 or Beirut in 1110, have to be balanced with the surrender of other cities such as Sidon (1110) where the inhabitants were offered a choice of leaving or remaining under Frankish rule. It was reported that Baldwin I let the farmers stay at Sidon ‘because of their usefulness in cultivating the land’ (Fulcher of Chartres, tr. Ryan, 1969: 200). In the same year, Tancred of Antioch was sufficiently concerned that native labourers should remain on his lands that he arranged for their wives to return from Aleppo where they had fled for safety. It must be remembered that Tancred and the southern Italians in Antioch had completed the conquest of Muslim Sicily as recently as 1091. There was, therefore, a body of men among the crusaders with recent experience of taking over Muslim territories and who, constrained by lack of numbers in the same way that the Franks of the East were, had adopted a low-key approach that did relatively little to disturb the majority of the urban and rural populace. The conquest of Sicily had proven effective and in the early twelfth century a similar policy was often operated in the Latin East.

  Details of the treatment of Muslims under Frankish rule are hard to ascertain because very little material survives. Document 10 contains two accounts, although there are problems with both sources. Ibn Jubayr was a Spanish Muslim on pilgrimage to Mecca who only stayed in the Latin East for around four weeks in 1184 and visited a limited area of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The Hanbali peasants described in Diya al-Din’s thirteenth-century work were a hard-line minority religious group who saw exile from the Frankish lands as a positive achievement and have left a source that reflects a particularly tense (and probably unrepresentative) element of the relationship between the settlers and the Muslims. In spite of these limitations, both writers, in conjunction with other evidence, enable us to indicate that Muslims were allowed to practise their faith and to worship at shrines that formed part of Christian churches. The mosque in Tyre was in full Muslim possession, but the status of those elsewhere is unclear. The payment of a poll tax of one dinar and five qirats (24 qirats to one dinar) as a subject people, plus the yield of up to half of their crops was, in fact, lighter than that demanded in Muslim lands — a reflection of the Franks’ wish to keep the farmers reasonably content. The Muslim Rais or headman, would deal with a Frankish estates steward and also had jurisdiction over minor disputes within Muslim communities. In more serious cases (such as physical injury) the dispute was brought before the Frankish Court of the Burgesses and in cases between members of different communities the Court of the Market (Cour de la Fonde) was the relevant forum, although it was chaired by a Frank and had four Eastern Christian and two Frankish jurors. The omission of Muslim representation showed them to be at the bottom of the legal ladder, with the Eastern Christians above them and the Franks at the top.

  The danger of a revolt by indigenous peoples must have been of real concern in the early decades of settlement. After the calamitous defeat at the Battle of the Field of Blood (1119), when most of the Antiochene nobility had been killed, Walter the Chancellor recorded that the native populace ‘could greatly oppress our people by betrayal . . . because that is how the scales of justice change; for indeed the people of Antioch had been deprived of their goods by the force and deviousness of our people’ (Walter the Chancellor, tr. Asbridge and Edgington, 1999: 138). Given the profile of the population of Antioch, this statement probably refers to the Eastern Christians and shows how a heavy-handed approach to government — especially at times of military weakness — might provoke a rebellion against the Frankish minority. Muslim uprisings could also take place, especially if they believed the Franks were on the verge of defeat. Fulcher of Chartres noted that in 1113 the Saracens who were subject to the settlers around Nablus deserted them at a time of Muslim invasion. However, it should be emphasised that such episodes were extremely rare and that, in general, the Franks managed to maintain full authority over the indigenous people in their lands, largely through military presence supported by provision of justice and a reasonable burden of taxation.

  Frankish rural settlement

  The nature of Frankish rural settlement has been a highly contentious issue which touches further upon relations with the indigenous population (more with the Eastern Christians than with the Muslims), as well as the policies of the Franks themselves. The form and extent of this practice has long been debated by historians and until recently two basic models had been put forward. The first, constructed by French scholars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, argued that the Franks became highly assimilated with the indigenous population of the Levant and adopted many of their customs and practices, thus becoming ‘orientalised’. Relations with the locals were good, with Ibn Jubayr’s description of a Muslim workforce living contentedly under Christian rule providing the main evidence for this. A second, and completely contrary, view emerged in the 1950s. Prawer and Smail claimed that the Latin East was a highly segregated society in which the ruling Franks, separated by religion and language, lived in their castles and cities, aloof from contact with an untrustworthy local populace (both Muslim and native Christian) and fearful of external attack from the neighbouring Muslim powers (Prawer,
1980; Smail, 1995). Both of these models have been challenged recently by the work of Ellenblum (Ellenblum, 1998). Through the use of archaeological evidence — to supplement the written sources employed by earlier historians — he has put forward a new and largely convincing interpretation of the nature of Frankish settlement, although his study applies only to the kingdom of Jerusalem and not the more northerly regions. In essence, Ellenblum argues that a substantial element of the Frankish population lived in the countryside, but they chose to inhabit only certain areas of land and seemed to avoid others according to the identity of the indigenous people in situ.

  The origins of the Frankish settlers and their way of life

  The reasons for Frankish rural settlement in the Levant were varied and multi-faceted. The rulers of the Latin East granted their nobles areas of land in return for military service (see Document 17) and the barons then protected and administered these regions to the best of their ability. The rural districts under their control might already have an indigenous populace, but would also be subject to immigration from western farmers and workers. The spiritual resonance of living in the Holy Land would have attracted a number of settlers, while some crusaders must have chosen to stay in the Levant after completing their vows, doubtless attracted by the prospect of acquiring property and financial privileges. Others may have been obliged to remain with their lord if he had chosen to settle. Economic motives would have been a vital inducement for westerners to uproot themselves from their native lands and to seek a new life in the distant orient. It should be remembered, however, that this was an age of population growth with areas such as the Low Countries experiencing overcrowding and frequent famines. It was also a time when migration was not at all uncommon: as Christendom expanded its borders into Eastern Europe and Iberia, land agents offered new opportunities which many thousands of people accepted. We presume that similar recruitment drives were mounted to persuade people to live in the Levant, where, as noted, there was a spiritual dimension to the settlement, but there was also the risk of enemy attack and unfamiliar and sometimes hostile agricultural conditions. As with the motives of a crusader, we are dealing with a combination of the religious and the secular and it is impossible to determine the precise nature of the mix, although given the needs of daily survival it seems likely that in the case of the average farmer it was the more practical aspect that dominated.