The Templars

by Dan Jones

  Great men had been arriving in Acre throughout the spring, among them the king of France, Philip II ‘Augustus’, who landed on 20 April with six large ships, surrounded by his leading nobles and thousands of enthusiastic crusaders, causing Saladin’s biographer and administrator Ibn Shaddad to admit that he was ‘a great man and respected leader, one of their great kings to whom all present in the army would be obedient’.24 Richard trailed his rival by several weeks, and was one of the last to arrive. But what the English king lacked in punctuality, he more than made up for with the sheer force of his personality. Ibn Shaddad lavished even greater praise on Richard, writing that he was ‘a mighty warrior of great courage and strong in purpose. He had much experience of fighting and was intrepid in battle’. He further noted that although he was, in the crusaders’ eyes, ‘below the king of France in royal status’ he was ‘richer and more renowned for martial skill and courage’.25

  Richard had taken the cross in 1187 while still a prince, inflamed like almost every young soldier of his generation by the devastating news from Hattin. Instability in the west, including a deadly quarrel with his dying father King Henry II, meant that it had taken Richard four years to make good on his oath to travel east and liberate Jerusalem.† But his halting preparation had eventually produced a spectacular crusading force. One hundred and fifty ships set off from Portsmouth and sailed more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) via Lisbon, Sicily and Cyprus, collecting Richard in southern Italy. Their progress had been a bloody spree: Lisbon was sacked and Sicily invaded. Cyprus was conquered and Richard had ordered the Byzantine governor, Isaac Comnenus, arrested and clapped in silver manacles for having the impertinence to oppose his landing. None of this was very pious, but it lacquered Richard’s reputation as a decisive military commander of the sort sadly lacking among the Latins of the Holy Land since the death of King Baldwin III. The king of England arrived at Acre with ships, money, horses, weapons, cloth, food and men. Most of all, he came carrying the hopes of the Christian world on his shoulders.

  Richard’s arrival was an important boost to the Templars’ morale and manpower. The months that followed the defeat of 4 October 1189 were gloomy. There was such a dearth of senior brothers left in the east that the order’s central convent was either unable or unwilling to elect a suitable candidate to replace Gerard of Ridefort as master. For a few months command was assumed by a brother known in documents simply as ‘W’.26 He was a chaplain brother, one of the order’s private priests who wore black robes like a sergeant and the distinctive ceremonial gloves that were the privilege of ordained members. ‘W’ was apparently a devout and educated brother, but he was not a warrior.

  In 1190 temporary cover had come in the form of two of the west’s most senior brothers, who replaced ‘W’ and shared a brief joint command. The first, Amio of Ays, was a Burgundian intellectual with family ties to Provence, who took up the post of seneschal. Amio had previously visited Outremer in the late 1160s, during the reign of King Amalric, but he had not settled, instead going on to build his reputation in Paris, managing business transactions on behalf of the more financially motivated Templars of France. He was successful enough at this to be appointed master in the west, the most senior posting outside the Holy Land. But at heart Amio was nothing like his brothers in the kingdom of Jerusalem. His main job in Paris was managing a network of agricultural estates, negotiating land and property deals with churches and abbeys and ensuring proper standards of religious observance were maintained in Templar houses under his supervision. His chief hobby horse, expressed regularly in the documents he witnessed and sealed, was a desire for ‘perpetual peace’. This platitude was enough to sustain a very successful career in a land where Templars were religious servants first and soldiers second. In the Holy Land, however, peace-mongers like Amio were in short supply and even shorter demand.

  Fortunately, Amio was joined in 1190 by Girbert Eral, a former confidant of the late Master Arnold of Torrolla, under whom he had briefly served as the order’s preceptor (commander). Since 1184 Girbert had been master of the Temple in Spain and Provence. The Iberian peninsula was still a live theatre of war: in the mid-twelfth century an Islamic revolution in north Africa and southern Spain had seen the Almovarid dynasty replaced by a severe and murderously intolerant Sunni regime known as the Almohads, whose leaders declared themselves caliphs and sought to push back against Christian advances on the peninsula. In the year Girbert was appointed as master in Spain and Provence a huge siege had taken place at the castle of Santarém, close to the Templars’ Portuguese headquarters at Tomar. Portuguese forces had battered back an Almohad besieging army and killed the caliph Abu Ya’qub Yusuf with a poisoned arrow. Exposure to this sort of grinding conflict meant Girbert was rather more attuned to strife and bloodshed than his thoughtful, peace-loving comrade. He was well suited to the east. In 1190 Girbert once again took up the role of preceptor, and together he and Amio shepherded the order through a troubled year.

  The Templars’ fighting staff had been gutted by Saladin, but Amio and Girbert’s arrival showed that the order was able to absorb near-mortal blows in the Holy Land and rebuild their numbers in relatively short order. In May 1191 Amio left his post and returned to Paris, to be replaced by Roric of La Courtine. The change came not a moment too soon: Richard landed at Acre several weeks later, on 8 June, carried on a wave of exuberant belligerence that would call for the Templars’ full involvement. It was as well for Amio that he had left before the trouble began.

  The crusading force Richard had brought with him from his royal lands in England and his French holdings of Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine had been planned and executed on a grand scale. He arrived in Acre with his fleet expanded to nearly 200 ships, a huge personal army, many powerful and experienced noble supporters and a mountain of gold, raised by selling political offices, lordships and property back in England. He also brought experienced and trusted military advisors, whom he had come to know and rely upon during the thirty-three years of his life, more than half of which had been spent on military campaign in and around Poitou, which Richard first ruled as count when he was fifteen years old.

  One of these advisors, Robert of Sablé, was one of Richard’s most important feudal vassals and allies. Robert held a large swathe of lands around Le Mans, the Plantagenet family heartlands, and had been deeply involved in Richard’s preparations for crusade in Anjou and Normandy over the spring and summer of 1190.27 He was one of the king’s three admirals, and as well as commanding a large division of the royal fleet he had served as an ambassador when the army had overwintered in Sicily. He also sat on an official committee responsible for dividing up the possessions of crusaders who died on the journey. Richard trusted him deeply. Not long after his arrival at Acre Richard ordered Robert to take his vows as a Templar knight, whereupon the order promptly elected Robert of Sablé as their new master.

  Richard was not the first king to cajole the Templars into appointing a master of his own choosing: Everard of Barres had been a trusted servant of King Louis VII, and Philip of Nablus and Odo of Saint Amand were both effectively creations of King Amalric. But never had a master so obviously and purposefully been parachuted into position by a visiting monarch. Co-opting the military orders by splicing their leadership into his own command structure was an important plank of Richard’s crusading strategy. The English king had also brought with him a new Hospitaller master, Garnier of Nablus, who was prior of the Hospital in England, and Robert Anglicanus, an Englishman who was appointed treasurer of the Hospital in 1192.28 For the Templars and for the kingdom of Jerusalem, this policy would have a long-lasting effect.

  *

  For a month an abominable torrent of stone was hurled against the walls of Acre. The huge crusader army commanded by Richard the Lionheart and Philip Augustus was pelting the city’s towers and fortifications with monstrous trebuchets built to the latest designs. Richard owned four, the count of Flanders two and the duke of Burgundy one. Philip Augustus po
ssessed a particularly ingenious array of siege weapons, including a huge catapult he had nicknamed Malvoisine (‘Bad Neighbour’) and several mobile engines that could be pushed up against the walls to allow hand-to-hand fighting on the battlements. Philip himself would sit in a wooden hide close by the city, aiming his crossbow at soldiers high above him, and avoiding burning missiles that were hurled in his direction. The Templars manned a powerful trebuchet of their own, as did the Hospitallers; public conscription among the ordinary pilgrims who had joined the crusader army had paid for another, which they christened ‘God’s Stonethrower’. Beneath the ground sappers clawed at the foundations of Acre’s towers, while this great battery of heavy artillery smashed the beleagured citizens from the air. Morale inside Acre had been collapsing for some time, and with the steady bombardment throughout June and July it reached a nadir. ‘The defenders’ spirits sank when they stared death in the face,’ wrote Ibn Shaddad.29

  Saladin’s army remained camped around Tell al-Ayyadiya, from where they communicated with the frightened townspeople by beating drums and sending swimmers between the ships in the harbour carrying messages around their necks. Largely, though, they were helpless. The crusaders numbered around 25,000 and they had dug in their positions behind ditches and earthworks. When Saladin’s forces attempted to assault the Latin ranks, they were driven back by men – and women – wielding bows, swords, daggers, lances, double-headed axes and clubs studded with iron teeth.30 Both King Richard and King Philip had been ill with a disease, probably scurvy, that made their hair and nails fall out, but Richard had remained defiant, and insisted on being carried out from his tent each day on a stretcher to shoot crossbow bolts at defenders patrolling the walls.

  By the first week of July the townspeople of Acre had all but given up. Their walls were breached in several places, they were running short on supplies and they feared a massacre if the city fell by storm. They decided to sue for peace. Negotiations were overseen on the Latin side by a delegation that included the new master of the Hospitallers, Richard’s companion Garnier of Nablus. Despite Saladin’s hostility to any peace process, a surrender was agreed: by its terms the city would be given up, 200,000 gold dinars paid in compensation, more than 1,500 Christian prisoners released and the True Cross that was lost at Hattin returned. The sultan reluctantly approved the terms and on 12 July the gates of Acre were flung open. The crusaders piled in, and, at midday, the watching Ibn Shaddad was depressed to see ‘the banners of Unbelief’ raised above Acre’s rooftops.31 Richard took up residence in the citadel, and Philip Augustus and his entourage were accommodated as guests of the Templars, restored at last to their spectacular house by the docks. The French royal flag was hoisted on the Templars’ new tower, added during the tenancy of Issa el-Hakkari. The piebald banner would have to wait. Still, after four years in the wilderness, the Templars once again had a home.

  They also had a purpose. The siege of Acre marked the end of King Philip’s crusade: he considered that he had fulfilled his vows and set off for Paris, eager to escape the Lionheart, who had repeatedly belittled him during the crusade, and broken an agreement to marry Philip’s sister. One of the French king’s leading nobles, the count of Flanders, had died at Acre and Philip wished to stake the crown’s claim on the richest parts of his inheritance. King Richard, by contrast, was only just getting started.

  He began with a mass march down the coast, aiming to retake as many ports and settlements as possible between Acre and Ascalon – including Haifa, Destroit, Caesarea, Arsuf and Jaffa – before turning inland and heading for Jerusalem itself. A long foot campaign was liable to collapse into indiscipline, given the logistical demands of provisioning tens of thousands of men, and the certainty of harassment by Saladin’s agile, lightly armoured horsemen. The experience of the Second Crusade, with its awful slog through Asia Minor, suggested that the military orders would be essential to providing security and discipline on the move, and they were asked to deploy in exactly that capacity in the late summer and early autumn of 1191. There was no time for the Templars to sit and enjoy their restoration. On Tuesday 20 August Richard summarily massacred around 2,600 Muslim prisoners on the plain of Acre, citing Saladin’s failure to make good on his promise to return the True Cross and pay 100,000 dinars of the fee agreed at the city’s surrender. Two days later his crusader army had packed up camp and was on the move.

  The huge column snaked its way slowly south, tracked on its right-hand side by a fleet of ships hugging the coast. The Templars rode rearguard, watchful and alert as they followed in the distance Richard’s war banner of a giant dragon, which was being wheeled along on a cart.32 Their job was to beat back raiding parties swooping down from the mountains, whose assaults were occasionally heavy enough to force the whole convoy to a standstill. By day they endured heat exhaustion and dodged the arrows shot by riders determined to revenge the merciless slaughter of family members and friends outside Acre. By night they lay in the dark listening to the crusaders chant pilgrim prayers into the blackness and enduring swarms of giant tarantulas that crawled into the camp and gave painful bites to anyone not alert enough to scare them away.

  Little by little they ground their way south. Muslim garrisons abandoned the towns ahead of them, destroying what they could before they left. On Tuesday 27 August the crusaders left Haifa; on Sunday 1 September they passed out of Caesarea. Two days after this they fended off a full-blooded assault during which the Templars lost a large number of horses as their tormentors rode behind them raining down javelins and arrows. After the attackers had been beaten back a huge pile of dead horses was made and ‘the common people made a great commotion as they struggled greedily to buy the meat, which was not cheap’. Fights broke out among the ranks in the scrabble to buy horseflesh. ‘Flavoured with hunger rather than sauce... it was delicious,’ wrote one wry observer.33

  By 5 September the army had reached the forest of Arsuf, the last significant landmark on the road to Jaffa. They were relieved to find that, contrary to rumours, the enemy had not set fire to the woodland to prevent them from passing. Once they had traversed the woods they set up camp, and Richard requested a parlay with Saladin. The sultan deferred to his brother al-Adil (known to the crusaders as Saphadin), who had instructions to spin out discussions as long as he could in anticipation of mounted reinforcements. Bad-tempered talks soon broke up with al-Adil scornfully rejecting Richard’s demand for the return of all Christian lands lost since 1187. Meanwhile, Christian scouts reported that a large enemy force was forming up ahead, ready for battle. ‘Their army covered the whole face of the earth all around and was beyond numbering,’ recorded one writer.34

  On the morning of 7 September Richard ordered his army to rise at dawn and don their armour in readiness for an immediate assault. Then he divided the crusaders into twelve squadrons, which were proportionally arranged into five battalions and lined up with one flank by the sea. Reversing positions from the march, the Templars under Robert of Sablé were now in the front line, and the Hospitallers in the rear. Their strategy was to avoid being pinned down; to keep moving, as they had done since the departure from Acre. They hoped to hold their formation and fight on the move until they reached higher terrain up ahead that could be taken for a fortified camping ground. It was a tactic that depended on a high dose of self-belief and, above all, discipline, which was why the Templars were placed in the lead.

  Around 9 a.m. the crusaders were charged by a wave of Muslim soldiers assembled from far across Saladin’s empire: Bedouins carrying round shields and bows, black Africans on foot and, behind them, Turkish cavalry, whose deadly gallop was accompanied by a discordant cacophony of trumpets, clarions, horns, flutes, rattles, cymbals and high-pitched war cries. Behind it all, from the direction of Saladin’s personal guard, a drum could be heard, beating relentlessly.35

  Rather than attacking the Templars in the vanguard, Saladin’s men flanked the crusader army and concentrated on fighting the Hospitallers at the rear. Prot
ected by a dense arrowstorm, they hurtled into the Christian lines, swinging swords and jagged cudgels. Richard’s instructions were for the whole army to remain firm and repel the waves of attack, waiting for a pre-arranged signal of six trumpet blasts to start their own cavalry surge. But, needled by the oppressive heat and the pressure of a sustained attack, the Hospitallers lost their discipline and charged early. It could have brought disaster, but Richard and the rest of the Frankish command kept order for long enough to co-ordinate the horse assault they had planned. As the trumpets sounded, all along the crusader lines, infantry parted and knights flew out. The timing was perfect: three charges was all it took to send both flanks of Saladin’s army scattering in disarray. Despondent and angry, the sultan withdrew, consoling himself by beheading a handful of captives.

  The battle of Arsuf was another splendid victory for Richard. The Templars had played their part, helping maintain the army’s shape under fierce pressure. After the battle was over, the king conferred on them a sombre honour: a deputation of Templar and Hospitaller brothers, guarded by Syrian turcopoles, were sent back to the area where the bulk of the fighting had taken place to search for the body of James of Avesnes. The famous Flemish knight and nobleman had gone missing during the violence and he was feared dead. Once again, the Templars did their duty, scouring the field of battle until they found him, reportedly surrounded by the headless corpses of fifteen Muslim fighters, ‘his face so smeared with congealed blood that they could hardly recognize him until it had been washed with water’. The brothers bore his lifeless body back to camp, where it was buried amid great lamentation, with full military honour.36