The Shield and The Sword

by Ernle Bradford

  In the summer of 1187 Saladin reviewed his troops, about 20,000 men, 12,000 being his formidable cavalry, magnificent horsemen who were to prove so deadly to the knights. On July 1st, he crossed the Jordan and the invasion had begun. One part of his army was sent against the town of Tiberias which swiftly fell to them, only the castle under the command of Eschiva, Countess of Tripoli, managing to hold out. (The wives of these Latin nobles in the East regularly showed as much courage and spirit as their men. There was no safe place, as it were, back behind the lines. When a castle or a city was attacked by the enemy the women were as much in the battle area as anyone else.) In the meantime the Christians had rallied their army, contingents from the Templars and the Hospitallers, and others from Tripoli and Antioch. The Patriarch of Jerusalem had even sent the most holy of all relics to ensure the success of their arms, the relic of the True Cross. This had been discovered in Jerusalem in the fourth century. (Within a comparatively few years Saint Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, was to remark that the whole world was full of relics of the Cross). To expose a relic so precious in those days is an indication of the concern felt about the safety of the kingdom. No doubt someone remembered what inspiration the men of the First Crusade had received from the discovery in Antioch of the lancehead that had pierced Christ’s side.

  Saladin meanwhile had personally joined in the siege of the castle of Tiberias, leaving the main body of his army in the hills around. He was taking a calculated risk, but he felt confident that the Christians would not leave the castle to its fate. If they fell for the bait he was confident about the outcome. The army assembled against him was about equal in numbers to his own: composed of some 1,200 knights, 4,000 mounted sergeants, probably a similar number of foot-soldiers, together with local mounted bowmen. They were encamped at a place called Sephoria where there were a number of wells. Between them and Saladin lay a burnt-out barren plateau. It was a question of who would cross it first.

  There was considerable division of opinion among the Christian commanders. The more hot-headed naturally said that they should set off right away for the relief of Tiberias. The cooler among them, and this included the Hospitallers, were in favour of delaying and making Saladin come to meet them. Even Count Raymond, whose wife was besieged in the castle, said that it would be folly to cross the plateau. Tiberias, he pointed out, was his city and Eschiva was his wife—but that was no reason for the army to hazard itself. Unfortunately, Guy, King of Jerusalem, who was in overall command, allowed himself to be persuaded by the party in favour of relieving Tiberias at once. It was a fatal decision. Saladin had lured his enemy into a death trap.

  Early on the morning of July 3rd, 1187, the Christians left their camp at Sephoria and began their march. (It is blazing on that plateau under the eye of the lion-sun of summer, and there are no water-holes or wells.) The plateau shook, danced with mirage, and through the wavering bars of heat the horsemen began to emerge—not to join battle, but to swoop and sting like desert hornets. The whole enterprise was illogical in the extreme, and the only justification that can be found for the army’s advance was that Guy, as feudal lord, must necessarily go to the aid of a vassal, whatever the circumstances. The fact that Count Raymond was himself in favour of waiting for the Saracens did not count. Feudal laws and the laws of chivalry dictated Guy’s action. In somewhat similar fashion one finds in classical days that generals behaved in what seems now a totally irrational fashion to go to the aid of their ‘clients’, or even to postpone giving action at a favourable moment because of an eclipse of the moon, or because omens were unfavourable. The Latins of the crusading period, swayed as they were by superstition and by chain-mail codes of behaviour, were every bit as irrational.

  Late in the afternoon the rearguard, largely composed of the Templars, was collapsing under the incessant attacks of Saladin’s horsemen. The decision was taken to halt the army for the night at the foot of a two-peaked hill known as the Horns of Hattin. The reason for this most probably was that it was known there was a well at this point. But at the height of summer it was dry. Tortured by now with thirst the army encamped to await the dawn-march and, as they hoped, the relief of Tiberias, which would also bring them into possession of drinking water. The Saracens were clearly not going to let them rest. The whole night was taken up by skirmishes, flights of arrows, and the dusty thunder of approaching hooves as other bands gathered around them. At dawn the enemy attacked.

  It was a foregone conclusion. Knights, foot-soldiers, sergeants and archers—above all the horses—were exhausted and tormented by thirst. It was not long before the soldiers broke and ran, leaving only the mounted knights and the King of Jerusalem to form a bodyguard around the relic of the Holy Cross. All were overwhelmed. King Guy himself, along with a number of other knights, was captured. Those who were distinguished by the Cross of the Temple or that of St John were summarily executed. Saladin was normally a merciful man but he knew from past experience that members of the military Orders were dedicated to the extinction of Islam. To allow any of them to be ransomed (always possible with their great wealth) was only to allow another demon to escape and return to battle against his Faith.

  Chapter 5

  THE ARMOURED MEN

  The ultimate consequence of Saladin’s victory at the Horns of Hattin was the fall of Jerusalem. This in its turn led to the Third Crusade and to the campaigns of Richard Cœur de Lion (among others) in attempts to restore the Latin Kingdom of the East. But before touching on these later battles, sieges and campaigns—in nearly all of which the Order of St John was actively engaged—it is important to take a look at the conditions under which these men fought: their arms and armour.

  It was still the age of mail. The development of plate armour had begun, but it was not until the fourteenth and even fifteenth centuries that armour, as it is generally understood, became synonymous with the fighting man. Plate armour had been widely used in the Roman world but, after the barbarian invasions of the western empire, it had practically disappeared. The only survivors from ancient days of plate armour were shields, often made of wood, hardened leather, or leather laid over wood, and the helmet. The Normans had evolved a highly efficient type of helmet, which was of conical shape and provided the maximum deflection for any blow aimed at the head. More often than not it had the addition of a bar coming down to cover the nose (the nasal) designed to protect eyes, nose and forehead against a swinging sword-cut against the face. The Norman helmet was usually made with a bronze or iron framework, and was lined with plates of bronze or iron. The best and strongest were forged out of a single piece of iron. The inside lining was quilted or padded to afford the wearer a little comfort although, in the midsummer heat of the East, the Norman helmet can never have been pleasant to wear. An alternative to it was the coif, a close-fitting hood made out of chain mail.

  Chain mail seems to have originated in the East, although the byrnie, a mail shirt, is often mentioned in Icelandic sagas. In earlier days only wealthier Europeans were able to afford mail, the lesser ranks being protected by leather or quilted fabric jackets. By the time of the Crusades, the European ironworkers were producing excellent mail—as they had been since the Norman conquest. It was constructed usually with circular rings, designed in fivefold lengths. The hauberk, or coat of mail, was sometimes accompanied by leggings of mail. The sleeves might only come down to the elbow, but the tendency was to extend them right down to the wrist, and later, into mittens of mail to protect the backs of the hands. The hauberk might reach down to the knees like an overcoat or, in its shorter form, the haubergon, be no more than jacket length.

  Beneath his coat of mail the knight wore a padded jacket. This was to make it tolerable to the skin as well as to prevent severe bruising or cutting if he were struck. When one reflects that temperatures in the hundreds (F) are common in the East in the summer months, one can only marvel at the physical resilience that enabled men to campaign under these conditions. As Charles Ffoulkes commented: ‘It is one of the
mysteries in the history of armour how the crusaders can have fought under the scorching sun of the East in thick quilted garments covered with excessively heavy chain mail, for this equipment was so cumbersome to take on and off that it must have been worn frequently night and day…’

  It had other disadvantages. Because of the weight of the fabric padding, coupled with the even greater weight of the mail, it was hardly possible to take more than a wide swinging cut with the sword arm. Furthermore, as the arm rose so the mail collected in folds at the elbow. At the same time, the action of raising the arm inevitably dragged upward the section of mail between the armpit and the waist. What with its weight, its heat, and its restrictions on fighting movements, chain mail can only be said to have justified its use in a purely defensive capacity. But this was its whole purpose, and when a body of armoured men were defending a tower or castle against far greater numbers of assailants it proved itself by cutting down the number of wounded. It was, as it were, the very inner ring of the human castle within the stone castle walls. Where it failed was under conditions like those that preceded the disaster at the Horns of Hattin. The loosely dressed Saracen horsemen with their mobility and their mounted bowmen had a marked advantage over the steel ring of Christians.

  The principal weapon was still the sword although the spear, lance, axe and mace were all used in hand-to-hand combat. The typical Frankish sword as borne by the knights was a descendant of the Viking sword which had conquered England, and large areas of Europe as far south as Southern Italy and Sicily. It had a larger crossguard than its ancestors, but in other respects it differed very little. About three feet long, it was primarily designed for slashing and cutting and, although pointed, was of little use for the thrust For this reason it was a relatively inefficient weapon for a mounted man and the knights fought best with it when they had dismounted and formed a protective circle, or engaged in a general mêlée. Under its own impetus, coupled with the weight of the man behind it, its cutting power was such that it could cleave clean through helmet and skull right down to the shoulders. Exhumed graves have revealed men who had been sliced open from shoulder to thigh bone, or who had lost whole arms, or even in one case both legs from a scything blow aimed at the knees. Despite its weakness as a horseman’s weapon, the long cutting sword continued in use until at a later date the advent of plate armour rendered it ineffective. Once an opponent was almost totally protected by angled, rounded, or fluted metal surfaces the only sword that could be of any real use was one designed for the thrust—to slide up and over a metalled expanse and find the weak point between one metalled area and another. These swords are hardly found until the fifteenth century—long after the drama of the Latin, Kingdom of the East had come to an end.

  Other weapons used by both knights and foot soldiers during these decades included those usually known as pole-arms or staff weapons. Some of these were descended from agricultural implements such as the billhook or scythe, and others from the spear used since the dawn of history for both warfare and hunting. Among them are to be found long spiked clubs, the pole-axe, the halberd (a long-handled axe with two spikes, one at the top and one at the rear), and the ‘bill’ with a cutting edge that ended in a hook. The mace, sometimes called the ‘morning star’ after the German word for it, had a heavy round head studded with spikes and was more of a knight’s weapon than a soldier’s. Another principal weapon was of course the bow, long used in the East and partly contributory to Saladin’s successes against the Latins. The knights themselves employed native and European bowmen, but it was not until the fifteenth century that the English long-bowman would finally proclaim the end of the armoured mounted man.

  The Latin kingdom suffered a year of disaster in 1187. After his great victory at Hattin Saladin swept on to capture all the important ports south of Tripoli with the sole exception of Tyre. By October Jerusalem itself was in his hands. The Third Crusade which followed, and in which Richard Cœur de Lion played so prominent a part, failed in its main objective, the recapture of the Holy City. It did, however, serve to prevent the complete expulsion of the Latins, which was always Saladin’s objective; and the coast from Jaffa to Tyre was secured. Similarly, the city of Antioch and its surrounding country along with Tripoli remained in their hands, as well as the great Hospitaller fortresses of Margat and Krak des Chevaliers. The death of Saladin in 1193 saved the fortunes of the Latins. Once his commanding personality and dedicated belief in Islam were removed from the scene the Moslems fell into the same disunity that had prevailed among them in previous decades.

  What finally emerges from this turbulent period in the history of Outremer is the power and prosperity of the two great crusading Orders, the Templars and the Hospitallers. While all the other Franks were impoverished through loss of lands and revenue, being dependent upon their resources in the Levant alone, the military Orders were secure. They had their firm bases in Europe, their lands and houses and income deriving from areas which were secure whatever disasters might befall in the East. It was this strength that was to preserve the Order of St John through all the centuries that were to follow. The wills of dying men, the revenues of their own properties, the gifts of protected pilgrims and of the sick who had been cured in their hospitals, these were to ensure an economic backbone which spelled survival.

  Chapter 6

  AN END AND A BEGINNING

  After the disastrous Fourth Crusade in 1204 the writing was plain on the wall—Outremer could not long survive when Christendom itself was so criminally divided. The Crusade had been inspired by Pope Innocent III, and it had been designed to strike at the heart of Moslem power in Egypt. Deflected by the cunning and cupidity of the Venetians, and in particular Doge Dandolo, the crusaders had first of all sacked the Dalmatian city of Zara, which belonged to the Christian King of Hungary. This in itself was bad enough, but far worse was to follow. Encouraged by the claims of a pretender to the throne of Constantinople (who promised them money and ships to take them to Egypt) and duped by Doge Dandolo, the crusaders found themselves in the position of investing the capital of Eastern Christendom. Weakened by the stupidities and excesses of a recent sequence of bad rulers who had ransacked the Treasury and allowed the imperial navy to fall into decline, Constantinople fell to the army of the Fourth Crusade and was sacked and plundered. It was one of the most miserable events in history. Not only was a great and wonderful city, rich in nine centuries of culture and civilisation, destroyed by these barbarous knights and their followers, but the whole fabric of the Byzantine Empire was shattered. And it was the Byzantine Empire which had been the shield of western Europe. It had provided the springboard from which the most successful Crusade, the First, had been launched, and it had been a buttress behind the Latin kingdom in Outremer.

  On hearing the news Pope Innocent condemned the crusaders outright. Any hopes that he may have had of effecting a reconciliation between the Western and Eastern Churches were utterly shattered. He saw too as a statesman how detrimental an effect it must have upon Christian interests in the East. In religious terms its principal effect was to continue that division between the two main bodies of the Christian Church which has hardly been eliminated to this day. In secular terms it provided the fatal opportunity for the Latin barons to carve out for themselves small kingdoms and principalities in the prostrate land of Greece. Here they could build their castles, engage in their intrigues and feuds against one another, go hunting, drink the Greek wine—and forget all about the Holy Land.

  With this diversion of Latin interest into the lands and islands of the former Byzantine empire Outremer received a fatal blow. Who would wish to go campaigning against hardened Moslem warriors, and especially the increasingly powerful forces of Egypt, when they could become rulers over comfortable estates in Greece? In any case, although further Crusades were yet to follow, the old crusading spirit was already on the wane. Even among the Hospitallers and the Templars the old ideals were being increasingly forgotten and a growing secularisation�
�due almost entirely in the case of the Order of St John to the dominance of the military caste—was making itself felt. Evidence for this can be found in the fact that, in 1236, the Hospitallers together with the Templars were threatened with excommunication on the ground that they were about to form an alliance with the notorious Moslem sect known as the Assassins.

  The latter were a fanatical branch of the secret Moslem sect of the Ismailis, who believed that all actions were morally indifferent, They eliminated their opponents by ‘assassination’, and were said to induce a blind frenzy among their supporters by the use of hashish, the hemp plant, from which their name derives. It is little wonder that the Pope was indignant at the idea of his ‘Soldiers of Christ’ coming to any terms with such a despicable branch of Islam. The fact remained that the Hospitallers and the Templars (like the Byzantines before them) had found out that, to survive under the conditions obtaining in the East, it was often necessary to conclude treaties of friendship with the Moslems. In 1238 the Pope issued a bill accusing the Hospitallers of living scandalous lives, including among his charges that they were no longer faithful to their vows of chastity and poverty. They were, he said, greedy and corrupt, in communication with members of the unorthodox Eastern Church, and abusing many of the privileges which their special status gave them. There can be little doubt that many of these charges were true, but the fact was that the Order was so rich and powerful that it could, even while paying lip service to the ruling Pope, more or less afford to disregard the words that were issued in Rome. The seeds of the desire to suppress these wealthy independent Orders were sown as early as the thirteenth century. It was to lead in 1314, to the burning of the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, to the torture and death of many of them on the ground of heresy, and to the sequestration of their lands and property. The Hospitallers were to be more fortunate. By that time they would have found another role.