Previous historians (Runciman, Vol. 2, 1952; Setton, Vol. 1, 1969; Mayer, 1988) have tended to treat the struggle as one between ‘hawks’ and ‘doves’. The ‘doves’ were said to be native barons who favoured peace with the Muslims and included Raymond of Tripoli, the Ibelins and William of Tyre. The ‘hawks’ (sometimes known as the ‘court’ party) were identified as aggressive newcomers and numbered Guy, Reynald of Chatillon, Baldwin’s mother Agnes, and Gerard of Ridefort, the master of the Templars. Edbury (1993) has shown the fixed groups, and the enmities and characteristics of aggression and peacemaking attached to these parties, to be unrealistic. For example, at times, the ‘doves’ made aggressive moves and the ‘hawks’ negotiated truces. The party of newcomers included people such as Agnes and Joscelin, who were from a family settled in the Levant since the First Crusade. In reality, the lines were drawn between Baldwin’s maternal line (Agnes) and his paternal line (his cousins, Raymond and Bohemond III).
8. The marriage of Guy of Lusignan and Sibylla. Bibliotheque Municipale, Boulogne-sur-Mer
In November 1180 Sibylla’s younger sister, Isabella, was married to Humphrey IV of Toron. For the time being, therefore, there was no possibility of a planned western marriage into the royal house of Jerusalem, removing one of the settlers’ prime diplomatic cards. In May 1180 a two-year peace deal was agreed with Saladin because both sides had to attend to internal political matters. In the meantime, on 24 September 1180, Emperor Manuel Comnenus died, marking the demise of one of the settlers’ most important supporters. His widow, Maria of Antioch, was regent for their eleven-year-old son, Alexius II. In light of Maria’s origins, for the time being at least, a pro-Frankish line would continue to be followed in Constantinople and envoys from Byzantium travelled to Antioch and Jerusalem to secure backing and allegiance (as vassals) for the young emperor.
The 1181 crusade appeal of Pope Alexander III
The recent defeat at Jacob’s Ford and King Baldwin’s continued incapacity prompted another embassy to Europe. Templar envoys were sent to Pope Alexander III who, in January 1181, issued crusade appeals to the churchmen of the West and to Philip II of France and Henry II of England. This was Alexander’s first formal crusade appeal since 1173, and the death of Manuel Comnenus, as well as events at Jacob’s Ford, caused him to act. Alexander wrote that the Holy Land was ‘trodden down under the incursions of the infidels’. More seriously, however, he mentioned a lack of leadership in the East and explicitly criticised King Baldwin. He equated the king’s physical condition as a leper to God’s judgement on the sins of the settlers — a remarkable observation in the context of an appeal for help and a perspective hardly guaranteed to encourage support for the ruling house of Jerusalem. As noted earlier, such attitudes, in part, prompted William of Tyre to write his Historia. Alexander obviously saw Philip and Henry as bearing the main responsibility for the defence of the Latin East, but as before, while money was forthcoming, political circumstances in western Europe (this time it was tensions between France and Flanders) hampered the effort. From King Henry’s perspective the changing situation in the Holy Land made a crusade increasingly unattractive. When he had planned to crusade in 1171 and 1173 he would have been working with King Amalric. While Henry may have been given considerable authority, he would, nonetheless, have been a temporary visitor only. By now Baldwin IV was very weak. Henry was Baldwin’s nearest living relative on the male side of the family; his grandfather Fulk had ruled Jerusalem (1131-43); and the king of England had already made two clear, but unfulfilled, promises to crusade. With the death of William Longsword (the obvious choice as regent), should Henry himself need to leave the Holy Land, or if Baldwin died, the English monarch would stand accused of deserting Christ’s patrimony. Combined with his own advancing years and the rising threat from his sons, the chances of Henry taking the cross seemed to be fading. Alexander’s appeal may have prompted a small crusade led by Duke Henry of Lotharingia to come to the Holy Land in 1183. While expeditions of this sort were welcome, they were of relatively limited value and did not permit the Franks to make a major step forward in their conflict with Saladin.
Prince Reynald’s attack on the Arabian peninsula
Back in the kingdom of Jerusalem, tensions between Guy and Raymond continued, although some form of reconciliation was reached in the spring of 1182 in order to confront the imminent end of the truce with Saladin. In July 1182 the Franks and Muslims met in battle near La Forbelet in southern Galilee. Baldwin himself was present and the smaller Frankish army was able to win the day. Saladin was not discouraged and, using the Egyptian navy, a force that he had carefully built up from a period of decline under the Fatimids, he blockaded Beirut. The arrival of a joint Frankish and Pisan fleet drove him off and once again the settlers had demonstrated their resilience. In the winter of 1182-83, Count Reynald of Chatillon launched a campaign into the Arabian peninsula. This striking episode was designed to humiliate and embarrass Saladin and to disrupt trade and pilgrim traffic between Egypt and Mecca and Medina, the holy cities of Islam. Reynald constructed five warships in kit form and transported them by camel down to the gulf of Aqaba on the Red Sea. No Frankish warship had ever been launched into these waters and the element of surprise was complete. At least seventeen merchant and pilgrim ships were attacked and on landing on the Arabian coast, the Christians hit towns and pilgrim caravans as well. An Egyptian fleet finally responded and the Franks were captured in early 1183 having abandoned their ships and fled inland to within a day’s march to Medina. Saladin ordered the Christians to be executed in the towns and cities across his lands in order to demonstrate that he was the true defender of the faithful. Two captives were taken to Mecca where they were ritually slaughtered in front of the pilgrim masses as martyrs for their faith. Unsurprisingly, this episode evoked in Saladin a profound hatred of Prince Reynald. His secretary, Imad ad-Din described Reynald as ‘the most perfidious and the most evil of the Franks, the most avid, the most eager to do injury and to make evil’. Saladin swore ‘that he would have his life’ (tr. Barber, 1998: 20-1). While this episode damaged the emir’s prestige, he had been making progress in his efforts to achieve supremacy in the Muslim Middle East. After Nur ad-Din’s son, as-Salih, died in Aleppo in 1181, Saladin marched to Mosul to forestall its leading men taking over as-Salih’s lands. Saladin accused those in Mosul of colluding with the Franks and (more realistically) dealing with enemies of the caliph of Baghdad in Persia. In May 1183 he forced Aleppo (‘the eye of Syria’ as he described it) to surrender, thereby bolstering his position considerably. Saladin argued that it was he, among all the rulers of Islam, whose extension of power was a source of grief and affliction to the Christians.
On the Frankish side, the pressure of mounting the military expeditions of 1182 had stretched the kingdom of Jerusalem’s resources to the limit and in February 1183 the curia generalis imposed an unprecedented general levy: 1 per cent on all property of a value of 100 bezants, and 2 per cent on all incomes of over 100 bezants. Those with income below these levels were to pay 1 bezant, ‘whatever their tongue, race, creed or sex’. The scale of this levy graphically demonstrates the cost of warfare and the settlers’ serious financial needs.
Baldwin’s health was in steep decline. He was blind and could not use his hands or feet, yet he refused to abdicate and tried to rule as best he could. By the autumn of 1183, however, the king’s condition became so bad that he had to appoint a regent. He chose Guy of Lusignan, a man who had only minimal leadership experience in the Levant. Saladin was prepared to invade and to face the Muslim threat Guy summoned the full military strength of the kingdom, plus troops from Antioch and Tripoli. These forces numbered c. 1300 cavalry and c. 15,000 infantry. The visiting forces of Duke Henry of Lotharingia were also engaged. The Christians shadowed Saladin’s army in Galilee, but there was no battle. By mid-October, Saladin was running low on supplies and had to withdraw. From a Frankish perspective, the campaign could be seen as a real success: the Muslims had
conquered no land and the settlers had lost no men. Yet the failure to engage the enemy after gathering so many men, the damage to wide areas of crops, and a raid on the Orthodox monastery on Mount Tabor left Guy open to charges of incompetence. His political opponents were swift to exploit this and King Baldwin was persuaded of the error in not confronting the Muslims and Guy was stripped of the regency. Both sides needed a breathing space: Saladin to deal properly with Mosul, the Franks to resolve their political differences.
The mission of Patriarch Heraclius
It was decided that the king’s five year-old nephew, Baldwin, should be crowned co-king. Furthermore, in the summer of 1184, Baldwin IV’s weakness, the strength of Saladin and the emergence of an anti-Latin regime in Constantinople (in other words, the end of any prospects of help from the Greeks), persuaded the settlers of the need to ask the West for help again. This was the most high-level mission yet sent to Europe. It was led by Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem, who was accompanied by the masters of the Temple and the Hospital. The unprecedented decision to dispatch the senior churchman in the Levant on such a journey emphasised the need to defend Christ’s patrimony and also demonstrated the seriousness of the situation. To send the masters of the military orders was to employ the leaders of two enormously popular institutions that were, with their huge landholdings in the West, the most visible reminders of the need to defend Christ’s patrimony. The embassy met Pope Lucius III at Verona in September 1184. The pope issued a crusade bull and the envoys moved north, reaching Paris in January 1185. As in 1169, they offered the king of France the keys of Jerusalem in the hope that he would accept these symbols and travel to the East, automatically generating the large-scale military expedition needed to defeat Saladin. Philip realised the scale of the commitment that he would be making and as a young ruler still not comfortably established on the throne of France he declined.
In February and March 1185 Heraclius held meetings with Henry II. The king was moved to tears by reports of the danger to the Holy Land and he venerated the keys of Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre and promised to consult his barons to consider whether to accept them. Henry’s nobles feared he might become ensnared in the politics of the Levant and recalled his coronation oath to preserve peace for all of his people; they recommended that he should stay in northern Europe. Heraclius berated the king and reminded him of his earlier promises to crusade. The patriarch exhorted his audience to act: he argued that sending money was no longer good enough and Henry should go to the Levant in person. The king decided to confer with Philip and while both kings promised financial and military assistance — the former in the shape of a substantial tax that might have raised 30,000 marks — they decided not to go to the East in person. Heraclius was despondent and returned to Jerusalem in the summer of 1185. While some nobles such as Roger of Mowbray and Hugh of Beauchamp took the cross, in essence the patriarch’s mission had failed.
The death of King Baldwin IV and the coronation of King Guy
Meanwhile Saladin had engaged in a lengthy siege of the vital fortress of Kerak in Transjordan. Baldwin was carried in a litter to the castle and the sight of this relief force caused the Muslims to withdraw. Faced with his imminent demise Baldwin wanted to annul the marriage of Guy and Sibylla to prevent them from reasserting control after his death. His ill-feeling towards Guy was now plain; William of Tyre wrote that ‘rancour had now burst forth violently’ (William of Tyre, tr. Babcock and Krey, 1943: 2.507). Guy refused to answer the royal summons, but in order to avert outright conflict Baldwin was compelled to allow him to hold on to his lands at Ascalon and Jaffa. In early 1185, Baldwin had to ask Raymond of Tripoli to take over as regent for him. Although the king had hitherto resisted giving Raymond any public position in the kingdom, the need for an experienced military leader to resist Saladin was paramount. Baldwin realised that he was dying and asked all his vassals to perform homage to Raymond and the child-king Baldwin V, although the regency was bound by a series of conditions that indicate the level of mistrust some felt towards the count’s ambitions. Raymond insisted that he was not the legal guardian of the young king to avoid trouble if Baldwin (a sickly child) died. Furthermore, the royal castles were to be under the control of the military orders (in other words, out of Raymond’s immediate reach), and if Baldwin V died before the age of majority a committee of western leaders (the pope and the rulers of England, France and Germany) should decide which of his sisters, Isabella or Sibylla, should succeed.
Baldwin IV finally passed away in May 1185, aged 23. He had fought bravely against his debilitating illness and worked as hard as he could to leave a viable legacy. As Hamilton observes, he had been prepared to stand aside for Henry of Burgundy and William Longsword, although he made a serious mistake in the marriage of Guy and Sibylla, which lacked popular support. In spite of his sickness no one refused to serve him and both the settlers and the Muslims regarded him highly (Hamilton, 2000).
Once Raymond assumed the regency he concluded a truce with Saladin which gave both sides a breathing space. In the summer of 1186 Baldwin V died (aged nine). Even by the standards of the Latin East, there followed an extraordinary series of political manoeuvres that resulted in Raymond of Tripoli’s removal from power. On Baldwin V’s death the count tried to gather his supporters (principally the Ibelins) at his base in Tiberias in preparation to take control of the kingdom. In the meantime, Guy, Sibylla, Reynald of Chatillon and Joscelin of Courtenay assembled for the young king’s funeral in Jerusalem. They were also backed by Patriarch Heraclius and Gerard of Ridefort. Sibylla, as the eldest relative of the king, had a wide base of support, although the position of her husband Guy was less firm and many were unhappy at the idea of him becoming ruler. In the event, the nobles present agreed that Sibylla should succeed to the throne if she divorced Guy, although she reserved the right to choose a new husband for herself. Raymond tried to prevent Sibylla’s coronation but, presumably after she had divorced Guy, Patriarch Heraclius crowned her queen. He asked her, in turn, to give a crown to her preferred choice of regent and future husband. Incredibly, her choice was Guy. She placed a crown on his head and Heraclius anointed him as king. Through maintaining the right to select her ‘new’ husband, Sibylla — with the obvious connivance of Heraclius — had managed to fool her opponents. In doing so she showed her love and trust of Guy; as an early thirteenth-century writer commented, she was ‘to be commended both for her virtue and courage. She so arranged matters that the kingdom obtained a ruler while she retained a husband’ (Roger of Wendover, in: Hamilton, 2000: 221). Raymond, predictably, was furious. He tried to argue that Sibylla’s sister, Isabella, and her husband, Humphrey of Toron, should be king and queen, but Humphrey himself rejected the idea and went to offer his loyalty to Guy. Raymond and his main supporter, Balian of Ibelin, refused to submit to the new king. The count was strongly rumoured to have made a deal with Saladin whereby Muslim troops could enter the lordship of Tiberias and the emir would help him become king in return for peace. The latter prospect seemed increasingly unlikely, however. With thirteen years’ momentum behind him Saladin was now intent on invasion. The emir had spent much of 1185 fighting in northern Syria and eventually, in December, he was recognised as overlord of Mosul soon after he had extracted a promise from the city’s leading men that it would provide troops to assist him. Saladin had also worked hard to ensure that his borders would be secure when his attention was focused on the Holy Land, and in c. 1184-85 he made an alliance with the emperor of Byzantium.
The descent into war
Saladin was unfailingly generous to his supporters and this, combined with the strict administration of justice and the mantle of the jihad, had helped to give him a strong position. Lyons and Jackson, in the most comprehensive biography of Saladin, observe that he used the resources of Egypt to conquer Syria, those of Syria to conquer the Jazira and those of the Jazira to launch his attack on the coast (Lyons and Jackson, 1982: 369). Beha ad-Din commented that the jihad ‘had ta
ken a mighty hold on his heart and all his being, so much so that . . . he thought of nothing but the means to pursue it’ (Beha ad-Din, tr. Richards, 2001: 28). The emir’s goading and fighting of his fellow-Muslims had created a tension that could no longer be contained. Having campaigned so relentlessly as the leader of the jihad, Saladin had to deliver.
In the winter of 1186-87 Prince Reynald of Chatillon attacked a Muslim caravan travelling from Cairo to Damascus. Some sources indicate that the caravan had a substantial armed escort which was a violation of the truce in itself. Regardless of this, Reynald’s killing of Muslim pilgrims and traders gave Saladin — if he really needed it by this point — the causus belli (cause for war) to break the truce. In April 1187 he again besieged the castle of Kerak and his son, al-Afdal, was ordered to raid through Galilee towards Acre. News of this thrust reached the masters of the military orders near Nazareth. With a force of 130 knights and 300 sergeants they attacked an enemy force of 7,000 at the Springs of Cresson on 1 May. Frankish bravery could not overcome the numerical deficit and only four knights escaped alive. This disaster, which provoked an appeal to the West in its own right, is often overlooked given the calamities that followed, but the damage to Frankish morale and the scale of the losses should not be underestimated as contributing towards the defeat at Hattin. Rumours that Raymond had allowed the Muslims through his lands forced him to renounce his agreement with Saladin and swear homage to the King Guy.
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