Used as they were to the cold rains and even colder winter of Europe, to the long twilights, and the brief temperate summers, the brilliance, blue skies and blinding light of these strange lands affected them like a drug. Listening to the biblical stories from their priests in their homelands they had probably never envisaged that Christ Himself had been an oriental, and that the Holy Land was a far remove from the settings in which they had pictured Him. The ultimate failure of the Crusades and the crusading Orders in the Near East was partly attributable to the material aims of Latin nobles, whose private quarrels often took precedence over their real obligations. The records show that they often lived in ostentatious splendour honouring chastity more in the breach than the observance and were constantly at odds with one another. At the same time they brought to this exotically unfamiliar environment the typical feudal system of Europe. In Palestine, since most of the Moslems had emigrated after the Norman conquest, the Latin peasant farmers were largely tied to the land, paying a percentage of their revenues to the local lord. In other areas agriculture was run on the basis of the farmers—whether Europeans or native—carrying on much as before, although subject always to any demands that their local ruler might make of them. As Sir Steven Runciman puts it, ‘The villagers’ dealings with their lord were conducted through their headman, called sometimes by the Arabic name of rais… On his side the lord employed a compatriot as his factor or drogmannus (dragoman), an Arabic-speaking secretary who could keep the record.’ It was from estates such as these—quite apart from those bequeathed to them in Europe—that the Order of St John largely drew its revenues.
The Latin conquerors, who had initially despised the Byzantines for the way in which they traded and had diplomatic treaties with the Moslem enemy, soon found out that it was only by these means that they could continue to hold on to their possessions. This pragmatism was reinforced by their contacts with Byzantines of the Orthodox Church, with Moslems of different sects, and with the Jews. Removed from the intellectual and spiritual security of their small European communities they found themselves in contact with many different streams of thought. The overall result was that they became more tolerant, more broad-minded and, indeed, easygoing. In the military Orders this process was less easily observable, but it existed none the less. It was impossible for all except the most dedicated man to observe that in the kingdoms of the East life was totally different from that which they had known in Europe.
Between the invaders of these eastern lands and the surrounding inhabitants there began a form of communication, a tolerance even, that was found extremely distressing by the newly-arrived European, hot for a chance to save his soul by fighting the infidel. If one may make the comparison, the situation was not unlike that of an officer newly arrived from Britain in the India of the nineteenth century. The old regulars who had been there long before him, or were even descended from several generations of Anglo-Indians, accustomed to the climate and the ways of the land, saw things with a very different eye from that of the new arrival. The newcomers to Outremer for their part found the settlers’ acquiescence in the status quo incomprehensible, irritating, and un-Christian.
The permanent Latin inhabitants of these eastern states certainly lived a considerably more pleasant form of life than they would have done in their native countries. The draughty discomfort of a Norman castle—with the weather baying outside and the dogs baying in the Great Hall—was replaced by elegance and splendour. The castles had refinements far beyond those of Europe. The Byzantines who had built their houses upon earlier Greek and Roman techniques and traditions had been emulated by the Moslems, who in their turn were copied by the resident crusaders. There were efficient sewerage systems—unknown in medieval Europe—piped water supplies in a number of cities, and in areas where water was scarce great underground cisterns ensured that even through the long hot summers the citizens or the soldiers did not go short of fresh drinking water.
The interiors of the houses with their beautiful carpets, hangings of damask, feather beds, and elegant furniture, amazed the newcomer. He was used to the rough furnishings of a Norman hall, where crude oak coffers, travelling beds stuffed with straw, and long simple tables were all designed so as to be easily transportable if the lord of the house decided to move to one of his other domains. In Outremer the furniture which had evolved through Greek and Moorish taste was designed with elegance and comfort in mind. The houses sparkled with beautiful glass (early examples of which, when they reached England, seemed so astonishing that they were thought to be the work of fairies). Feather beds, comfortable cushions, stuffed pillows, tapestries and silks all reached western Europe from the crusaders’ contact with the East. Exquisite faience had long been a product of Syria, and Egyptian glassware had been famous for centuries. Even articles from the Far East like porcelain sometimes reached the Levant through the Arabic trade across the Indian Ocean. The rough woollen clothes worn in the north were replaced by silks. The settlers adopted the burnous and the turban when at home, whether in castle or town house. On campaigns they wore a white surcoat made of linen over their chain mail, and an Arabic kerchief or keffiyeh over their helmets.
All this was eminently sensible and practical, but it seemed shocking to the visitor fresh from Europe. Some of the cities still had public baths, a relic from Roman days, but in the private houses of the rich or the nobility baths were almost a commonplace. Like their husbands the Latin ladies adopted the clothing of the East, wearing long silk dresses over which went a brief, heavily embroidered tunic. Jewellery of a quality unknown in Europe for centuries sparkled on wrists, fingers and hair, while the perfumes of Syria and the incenses of Egypt added to their and their homes’ attractions.
The castles of the great military Orders like St John were certainly more austere than those of the married nobility, but even here life was more gracious than in the palaces of their monarchs back in Europe. Part of the success of the Hospital in Jerusalem, and later in Acre, was also undoubtedly due to the fact that the Hospitallers had acquired an awareness of sanitation and hygiene that had disappeared from their homelands with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. The idea of serving the sick off silver dishes undoubtedly originated during these years, for silver and gold were not outstanding luxuries in the Levant. Of inestimable value to the Hospitallers in their treatment of the sick was the fact that—in Syria especially—the traditions of Greek medicine had survived the centuries. The works of Galen were to provide the physicians of St John with an excellent backbone for their study and practice of medicine.
The induction of a new member into the Order was a moving and deeply serious event. It was the crowning moment in a man’s life; a moment which divided him from being an ordinary secular Christian into a servant of God. From now on he was dedicated first of all to the care of the poor and the sick, and secondly to their defence. It has been said that the campaigns in which the Order took part were more often offensive than defensive, and this was often true. On the other hand, while they were attempting to preserve Jerusalem and the Holy Places and keep the pilgrimage routes open, it was not enough merely to wait until they were attacked. If they made a foray into Egypt, for instance, in company with the Templars, it was with the object of checking at source what would undoubtedly have grown into an even greater threat to the Latin kingdoms. Their later activities in Rhodes and in Malta may be read in a different light, but certainly in the centuries in the East it needed little casuistry to justify their militance.
No records exist as to the exact form that the induction of a new candidate took in this period of history. It probably did not vary much from that of later centuries. An aspiring brother came before the Chapter of a convent and, as Riley Smith writes,
asked the Master or the brother presiding for membership of the Order. The president asked his Chapter if it was agreeable, because no one could be received without the assent of the majority of the brethren present. He then addressed the candidate: ‘Good friend,
you desire the company of the House and you are right in this, for many gentlemen earnestly request the reception of their children or their friends and are most joyful when they can place them in this Order. And if you are willing to be in so excellent and so honourable company and in so holy an Order as that of the Hospital, you are right in this. But if it is because you see us well clothed, riding on great chargers and having everything for our comfort, then you are misled, for when you would desire to eat, it will be necessary for you to fast, and when you would wish to fast, you will have to eat. And when you would desire to sleep, it will be necessary for you to keep watch, and when you would like to stand on watch, you will have to sleep. And you will be sent this side of the sea and beyond, into places which will not please you, and you will have to go there. It will be necessary for you therefore to abandon all your desires to fulfil those of another and to endure other hardships in the Order, more than I can describe to you. Are you willing to suffer all these things?’
Once committed there was no turning back. The novice had to promise that he was neither married, nor in debt, nor subject to any other lord—let alone another Order. At a later date when distinctions of noble birth were all important for the knights militant, his family tree and necessary quarterings were investigated before he might even be interviewed. If he was received he swore to live and die in the service of the Order, in chastity and without personal property, and to regard the sick and the poor as his lords and masters. It was a hard oath for a young man to take, but at this date in history it was most definitely meant, and rigorously enforced. Some of the violence and love of battle that marked the militant arm of the Knights of St John must surely be ascribed to a repression of the natural instincts; a repression that could only find its release in that death of which ‘the little death’ is no more than a pale mirror.
Chapter 4
ETERNAL WARFARE
The Second Crusade in 1148 which had been largely prompted by the fall of Edessa—that ancient Christian city known as the ‘Eye of Mesopotamia’—was a complete failure. It was indicative of what was to come in the years ahead. The Latin kingdoms in the East could never be held if the surrounding Moslem sea were to unite and come against them in one great flood tide. As Sir Ernest Barker commented, ‘…the ignominious failure of a crusade led by two kings brought the whole crusading movement into discredit in western Europe.’ The Hospitallers had been prominent in the campaign, and Raymond de Puy himself was one of those present at the council of war when the fatal decision was taken to attack Damascus. It was the inability of the army to take the city that led to the collapse of the Crusade, and there were some who held that the Hospitallers were largely to blame. It is a curious fact that it is not until thirty years later that one finds the first mention in the statutes of the Order of there being a military arm attached to it. By the 1160s, however, one hears of the office of a Marshal, a purely military title. It is quite clear by now that the Hospitallers had followed the Templars into becoming ‘soldiers of Christ’ as well as being ‘servants of the poor’.
By the end of the twelfth century the Order of St John was rivalled only by the Templars in its wealth and power. It had come a long way from the simple hospice run by Brother Gerard, and was now in possession of such great castles as Krak des Chevaliers, Margat, and Belvoir. Even in Jerusalem there appears to have been a powerful military arm attached to the great hospital. Their original vocation nevertheless was still impressed upon them—that it was the sick and the poor who gave the orders, and it was the duty of the brethren to obey them. Revenues were set aside from various estates to ensure that white bread, for instance, was given to the patients; and clothing, blankets, food and wine were regularly distributed free. Unlike the Templars, who made a distinction in dress between those who were entered as knights and those admitted as sergeants (because they were not of noble blood), the Hospitallers all wore the black mantle. It was not until the second half of the thirteenth century that the caste system hardened. By this time the military side of the Order had become predominant, all the principal offices being held by knights. The Marshal was ranked second only to the Grand Master, At one time or another the Order of St John had as many as fifty castles in the Levant, some little more than fortified towers, but others immense complexes dominating the whole of the surrounding countryside.
Military architecture developed under the Knights of St John and the Templars to an unprecedented extent, far eclipsing anything hitherto known in western Europe. The castle which had first been introduced by the Normans into England during the conquest was essentially a circular earth-mound surrounded by a dry ditch. The mound was flattened at the top which was then surrounded by a wooden palisade. This was perfectly adequate against the attacks of men armed with the simple weapons of the time and had enabled the Normans to dominate the country. The logical extension was to convert the palisade into a stone wall, and then to put buildings inside it. In other parts of the countryside, where some natural hill or rock stronghold presented itself, they had little more to do than adapt and improve upon the position.
The Crusaders in the East found castles and fortifications already erected by the Byzantines and the Moslems. By a sophisticated graft of western upon eastern styles they evolved some of the grandest and most powerful castles in the world. This indeed they had to be for the Latins lived surrounded by an actively (or always potentially) hostile population. The main advance in military architecture was the use of flanking towers to protect the line of a wall. Before the age of gunpowder, the battering ram, sapping and mining were the only ways of breaching a wall. It was essential, therefore, that the teams of men engaged with battering rams could be shot at along the curtain of the wall. Mining was largely defeated by building the castle upon a base of solid rock.
Whereas in western Europe the single defence line that had evolved from the stake palisade was usually considered sufficient, in the East—where the besiegers might be expected to throw thousands of men for day after day at the defences—it was soon realised that a second line needed to be built within the outer. Inside that again, as the last place of resort, was the keep. This was usually a tower, slightly larger than all the rest, and sometimes built into the enceinte itself. The castle of course was always made strongest along its most exposed front. ‘Because of the shortage of manpower,’ as Quentin Hughes points out, ‘impregnable sites had to be chosen and exploited. Strong keeps built after the manner of the French castles became a feature of these fortresses, and concentric rings of defences, built one inside the other and rising higher and higher, were constructed, so that those defending the outer walls were covered by fire from positions behind and above them.’ T. E. Lawrence called Krak des Chevaliers ‘perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world’. To see it rising out of the Syrian foothills with a little fine-blown cirrus cloud feathering above it is to experience an emotional shock—to understand suddenly what the Crusaders really meant. ‘I am the kingdom, the power and the glory’ are the words that these walls shout to the sky.
The rivalry of the various factions in the Latin kingdoms of the East was largely responsible for their ultimate downfall. By 1187 conditions in the kingdom of Jerusalem were so bad that it was on the brink of civil war. There could have been no worse moment for the Europeans to engage in their internecine strife, for the shadow of Saladin was on the horizon. This brilliant and remarkable man, the first Ayyubite Sultan of Egypt, was by birth a Kurd from Armenia. Educated at Damascus, that great centre of Moslem learning, he was a devout Mohammedan (his name means ‘Honouring the Faith’), and the possessor of so many virtues that he would have been rare at any time in history. Honest, brave, chivalrous to a fault, he was devoted to children, and invariably generous and hospitable—as is shown by his treatment of captives, as well as by his many gifts to Richard Coeur de Lion. Saladin was lucky in the fact that his life spanned the period when the Moslem East had reached a point when there was a genuine desi
re for unity among the Faithful. It had become clear to many men that it was only because of the constant dissensions and religious divisions between the Moslems that the Franks had managed to retain a hold upon their lands. Saladin with his intense religious zeal was to unite them. Islam to him was everything, and he was determined to drive these Christian interlopers into the sea. ‘Let us purge the air of the very air they breathe,’ he said.
Despatched by Nur-ed-Din, the ruler of Syria, to assist in the conquest of Egypt he succeeded so well in his task that he was made vizier. It was during this period that four different Christian expeditions were sent to Egypt by King Amalric of Jerusalem, all of which ended in heavy Christian losses, particularly among the Templars and the Hospitallers. On the death of Nur-ed-Din Saladin set about the conquest of Syria. For nearly ten years he was engaged in encircling the Christians, town after town falling to him, so that by 1186 the Latin kingdom was completely surrounded by Saladin’s empire.
A four years’ truce which had been concluded between Christians and Saracens was almost immediately broken by the Lord of Montreal, Reginald de Châtillon, who ambushed a Moslem caravan and refused to surrender his plunder. Saladin had probably been expecting that something like this would happen. He could control the territories under his command and ensure the obedience of his subjects, but the anarchic Latins with their divided interests and warring factions had no such similar discipline. He intended to impose it with the sword. His orders went out, and soon the whole East began to stir.
The Shield and The Sword Page 3