The Crusades 1095-1197

by Jonathan Phillips

  Some evidence survives concerning the terms upon which settlers were offered land. In the mid-twelfth century King Baldwin III gave new-comers at the fortified village of Casal Imbert (c. 12 kilometres north of Acre), long-term leases on houses, an exemption from annual rent and plots of arable land. In return, the settlers were to pay the king one-seventh of all their crops, 25 per cent of the produce of the vineyards and orchards, and 40 per cent of the produce of the communal olive grove. Other rights pertaining to the tenants were exemptions of tax on moveable products sold in the market at Acre and free use of a nearby mill. One-fifteenth of the bread from the village oven was due to the king, along with 10 per cent of the proceeds from the bathhouse. At around the same time the Church of the Holy Sepulchre conferred upon settlers at Nova Villa (north of Jerusalem) land for building a house and for planting gardens and trees, rights to free use of the local flour mill, oven and other such facilities, and the right to cultivate the church’s local vineyard. In return the settlers had to pay tithes to the archbishop of Jerusalem, give him 25 per cent of the annual grain and vegetable production, 20 per cent of the produce of the vineyards and olive groves planted in the village and 25 per cent of the olives from older olive groves. Finally, all the produce and tithes were to be stored in the church’s storehouse in the village. Ellenblum explains the difference in rights between Casal Imbert and Nova Villa as a consequence of the latter settlement being sufficiently long-established and successful that it could demand more from settlers than the newer site in the north (Ellenblum, 1998: 72). Regardless of detail these examples show the basic pattern of land tenure for newcomers.

  From around the same period we have an insight into the place of origin and the occupation of two groups of settlers in the Latin kingdom. A document pertaining to the village of Magna Mahomeria allows the identification of forty-four westerners. The majority of these individuals came from France (with central France best represented and northern France absent) with a few Italians and Catalans (northern Spanish). A document from Bethgibelin enables a further nineteen settlers to be identified and here there is a bias towards southern and western France and again a dearth of people from northern France. This perplexing point may be a quirk of our evidence, but in any case, it seems certain that the settler villages were of a mixed western composition. The range of occupations mentioned includes builders, agriculture, animal husbandry, metalworking, a butcher and a baker, thus forming a coherent rural community appropriate to the social and economic conditions in the Levant.

  As the Franks began to settle they had the option of creating entirely new villages (villeneuves), or establishing themselves within and alongside native villages. The latter tended to be of a more random layout, reflecting irregular growth over time, but archaeological work also reveals Frankish villages (i.e. villeneuves), built to a consistent plan and connected to other settlements by new roads. These villages, such as the recently excavated site of Ramot, about six kilometres north-west of Jerusalem, were constructed on either side of a road with strip fields (again, of a uniform size) running behind them. Linear villages such as Ramot were commonly found in medieval Europe, which indicates that the Franks imported a pattern of settlement familiar to them. These villages usually had a fortified building, probably the residence of the lord or his representative, which might offer security and storage facilities. Houses in Ramot feature wine-treading basins, olive presses and an oven inside them. The religious needs of the populace might be catered for in a new church, either in the village or in the locality. At the fortified village of Sinjil, for example, the parish included several nearby Frankish villages whose landlords paid the church tithes to support it. In settlements established alongside a native Orthodox population the Franks often took over a local church, but still permitted the locals to use it to some extent, as at the church of St George Above Tiberias.

  In addition to rural communities the Franks also constructed isolated manor houses or farms — again a familiar sight in western Europe. Some of these were quite substantial buildings that obviously represented a serious investment in the working of the land. They would need to be connected to other sites by new roads, and often consisted of a barrel-vaulted hall, a residential tower and big reservoirs connecting irrigation channels to a series of terraced fields that could support crops such as bananas, indigo, dates and sugar cane. At Khalat Salman (c. 15 kilometres north-west of Jerusalem) the farm is located on a terrace above a wadi with irrigated fields spreading down below the house and adapted to the terrain to exploit the flow of water. Some of the irrigation systems were quite sophisticated and probably relied upon local advice and labour for their construction. The Franks obviously assimilated this technology quickly, although those from the dryer regions of southern Europe and the reclaimed marshlands and waterways of Flanders would have had some experience of hydrographics, if not the farming of unfamiliar crops such as sugar cane. The importance of irrigation is made plain in legal documents that outline agreements concerning the flow of water from springs owned by one institution to the lands of other farmers.

  The administration of a Frankish lord’s lands was through his representative or dragoman. This man lived permanently on the estates of his lord and might be a native Christian. His upkeep was provided for by contributions from the farmers and the produce of his master’s lands. In return he had to accompany his lord on missions that risked incurring losses of men or horses and he might have to provide the lord with a knight as well. The existence of such officials allowed Frankish lords to divide their time between rural estates and their properties in urban settlements.

  The pattern of Frankish settlement in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem

  As we noted earlier, there was a remarkably mixed population in the Levant. The majority of the indigenous population was Muslim or native Christian, with strong regional variations between these groups. Frankish rural settlement also seems to have displayed a distinct pattern. Ellenblum has observed that there was intensive Frankish habitation in western Galilee, but almost no Latin settlement in eastern Galilee (Ellenblum, 1998: 253-76). The latter area was characterised by William of Tyre as a lawless region not subject to Frankish law where Jews, Muslims, renegades and nomads lived. We know that a tribe of 100 Bedouin tents was based near Belvoir and it seems that groups of this sort were hard to control and promoted feelings of insecurity among the settlers. Central Samaria was another district with no written or archaeological evidence of Frankish habitation during the crusader period and there are clear indications that Muslim villages covered the region. Yet in southern Samaria (bordering on Jerusalem itself) there was extremely intensive Frankish settlement. Ellenblum concludes that the borders of Frankish settlement were set on cultural lines and that the Latins lived among or alongside the local Christian communities and avoided Muslim areas. He argues that the Franks did little to prejudice the landholding rights of individual native Christians (obviously this was a different matter for ecclesiastical institutions) and, as noted above in the case of the church of St George Above Tiberias, they might use the same churches too. Thus the original French model of a Franco-Syrian nation needs to be modified to place the Franks and native Christians together, but distinct from the Muslims. Likewise Prawer and Smail’s model of an urban-dwelling society fearful of external Muslim attacks and native uprising is flawed by the apparently secure conditions that existed in the kingdom of Jerusalem from the 1120s to the late 1160s. In consequence, there was no need to stay in the towns and cities and this permitted a close degree of interaction with the native Christians. The apartheid state envisaged by Prawer and Smail did not, therefore, exist as far as Latins and local Christians were concerned. Ibn Jubayr clouds matters a little in that his journey from Banyas via Hunin and Tibnin to Acre in 1184 passed through ‘continuous farms and ordered settlements which are all Muslims, living comfortably with the Franks’ (Ibn Jubayr, tr. Broadhurst, 1952: 316). The first part of this journey matches Ellenblum’s identific
ation of eastern Galilee as devoid of Franks, but Ibn Jubayr described Muslim villages in close proximity to Acre in an area where intensive Frankish settlement was found too. Perhaps the sharp regionalisation between Franks and Muslims that was found in central Samaria and eastern Galilee was not so distinct everywhere in the Levant, especially in the fertile coastal regions where a particularly large labour force was needed.

  Urban life and trade

  When the Franks conquered the Levant their power was based upon control of the urban centres. The imposition of Christian rule brought a number of changes to urban life, although many of the everyday aspects of city dwelling in the Eastern Mediterranean remained the same. One obvious and visible effect was the conversion of mosques to churches and, as the Franks established their religious hierarchy and Catholic spiritual life took root in the region, new churches and convents were also constructed. The case of the Holy Sepulchre will be discussed later (see pp. 112-13 below), and often other Frankish ecclesiastical buildings were erected on top of existing buildings, such as the church of St Anne in Jerusalem (Anne was the mother of the Virgin Mary and the church marked the home of her parents and her birthplace) where a structure had stood since the fourth century. The settlers also created their own graveyards to bury their dead.

  The population of Jerusalem was c. 20,000 in the early twelfth century, rising to c. 30,000 in later decades, although pilgrims would have increased this significantly during the summer months (Boas, 2001: 13, 35). The Franks needed to ensure their security in all the cities they had conquered and there was often a need to repair walls damaged during sieges or to develop new fortifications themselves. Medieval cities featured numerous gates — sites of defensive importance, but also essential in the financial operation of a town as key points of taxation for both people and goods. With rural land potentially subject to enemy raids and therefore an unreliable source of revenue, the king (or other major landholders) often gave knights the rights to the profit of a gate (an arrangement known as a money-fief). Tax levels varied from 4 per cent to 25 per cent and the crown usually kept back a proportion of this for the central treasury.

  In all urban centres, certain essential functions were needed. Markets were a focus of commercial life and those in Jerusalem are known to have included permanent covered streets, each with particular specialities such as spices, fish, leather, cloth, pilgrims’ souvenirs, furs, pigs, poultry; or in the case of Tripoli where there was an important centre of silk production, a silk market. A city might also feature other industries such as mints, blacksmiths, bakers, gold and silver smiths, abattoirs and tanneries. The inhabitants needed a water supply and the Franks took over existing cisterns and aqueducts and also added their own.

  Some Franks took property in the immediate aftermath of the early conquests. At Jerusalem in 1099 Fulcher of Chartres reported that ‘whoever first entered a house, whether he was rich or poor, was not challenged by another Frank. He was to occupy and own the house or palace and whatever he found in it as if it were entirely his own’ (Fulcher of Chartres, tr. Ryan, 1969: 123). After later sieges the Frankish rulers shared out their gains in a more orderly fashion, but in any case the newcomers’ arrival in urban life was made plain. The great institutions, such as the military orders and the principal churches of the Latin East would be given their own streets and districts which contained chapels, storehouses and accommodation. The Franks also built their own houses, some of two or three storeys, often with the lowest level used as a shop or storage facility. Other forms of accommodation included courtyard houses and tower houses, and cities would also feature bathhouses, hospitals and, often just outside the gates, a leprosarium.

  1. Map of Jerusalem from c. 1170. Universitetsbibliothek Uppsala MS. C. 691, fol. F. 39

  The strategic and economic importance of controlling the ports of the Mediterranean coast has been made clear above (see pp. 28-9, 33-4). Within these cities — principally Acre, Tyre, Tripoli and Saint Simeon (in the principality of Antioch) — the commercial life of the Levant was at its most active with traders from the West meeting those of the Latin East, Muslim Syria, North Africa, Iraq and Byzantium. There must have been an extraordinary buzz of languages and cultures in the crowded souqs (markets) of the Holy Land as trade flourished throughout the twelfth century, ignoring all but the most intrusive aspects of the conflict between Christianity and Islam (such as the siege of Acre, 1188-91, which did, obviously, curtail matters). We can see in Document 8 how the Italian trading communities negotiated their own districts (known as ‘quarters’) with a church, usually dedicated to their patron saint (such as St Lawrence of Genoa, St Michael of Venice), and their own houses, shops and palaces. The port area itself was the hub of all commercial activity and a brief survey of the process of buying and selling can demonstrate the complexities (and opportunities) of trade and tax collection. At any point in this chain, an individual or community (usually the Italians or southern French) might be granted exemptions from a particular tax (or taxes), often in return for military help. At first glance it would seem the grantor was writing off a substantial proportion of his revenue by this approach. In fact, alongside the strategic benefit of capturing a port, it was intended that the exemptions would give the privileged party sufficient incentive to trade even more and to generate an overall rise in the volume of commerce. Furthermore, taxes paid by other people at other points in the commercial process (see below) would also make up what had been conceded in the first instance. A merchant arriving at Acre, for example, would have had to pay his passage on the ship to the East. The ship needed to make a payment to moor at the outer harbour and then to raise the chain that protected the inner harbour. At Acre this area was known as the ‘Ordemer’ because of the refuse and excrement floating on the water. The merchant’s goods would have to be transferred to the shore (for a fee), and were then taxed according to their value, although in the case of bulk products such as wine, grain, oil and sugar, according to quantity. The goods had to be stored, which again required a fee. The sale of goods would attract a tax and the purchaser would then have to pay to take the goods out of a gate to leave the city. In short, there existed a series of economic opportunities for those in power to secure income and to favour those whom they wished to reward. Acre was the busiest port in the Frankish East and its atmosphere is described by Ibn Jubayr in 1185 as ‘a port of call for all ships. It is the focus of Christian and Muslim caravans, and the meeting place of Muslim and Christian merchants of all regions. Its roads and streets are choked by the press of men, so that it is hard to put foot to ground. It stinks and is filthy, being full of refuse and excrement’ (Ibn Jubayr, tr. Broadhurst, 1952: 318). Urban life, with its mixture of commerce and religion, must have been an intense and highly involving experience for the settlers, pilgrims and traders alike.

  A Frankish identity?

  As the Franks set up their new territories at the heart of the Christian faith it is worth noting contemporary views on the sense of identity that emerged in the Latin East. One perspective is provided by Fulcher of Chartres, the French-born chaplain to Count Baldwin of Boulogne. Fulcher wrote his account of the First Crusade and the early decades of the kingdom in three stages. The first was completed by c. 1107-8 and covered the First Crusade and the early years of the conquest. In October 1100, as Baldwin marched south to take the throne of Jerusalem, the Franks faced a difficult battle near Beirut. Fulcher wrote: ‘On all sides we were besieged by our enemies . . . . That day nothing went well. . . . Indeed I wished very much that I were in Chartres or Orleans and so did the others . . .’ (Fulcher of Chartres, tr. Ryan, 1969: 139). Although, de facto, these men had not returned home after the First Crusade, at this point they had not yet put down emotional or even practical roots to tie themselves to the Levant. Yet in the final part of his work, composed in the 1120s, Fulcher was able to write the famous lines contained in Document 6 i. While, to some extent, Fulcher may have been indulging in an element of recruitment (his Historia cir
culated in the West), he would have been rash to have presented an entirely false picture. He suggests, in fact, that the Franks regarded themselves as permanent settlers and that they had formed a self-image borne out of their common Christian stock and their achievements to date.

  We can also see reference to the process of intermarriage with native women. In the county of Edessa, marriage to women of the indigenous nobility was an important way for the newcomers to cement their rule over the local peoples and a similar practice had been employed with great success in southern Italy during the Norman conquests of the eleventh century. In the case of Edessa, the first three Frankish counts married Armenian wives. Jacoby has drawn attention to one Guibert of Jaffa, a house owner in Acre in the early 1120s, who had evidently shed the western surname found among many early Frankish settlers to take on a name that reflected his eastern home (Jacoby, 1997: 160). While they continued to share faith and family ties with their brethren in the West, the crusaders had indeed become settlers with their own independence and a real sense of identity.