Chapter 15
In This Chapter
● Creating a crisis in Outremer with Saladin
● Shifting through the myth and history of Richard ‘The Lionheart’
● Hitting the road with the Third Crusade
As I describe in Chapter 14, the Second Crusade was a total failure. It was meant to strengthen the position of the kingdom of Outremer (the Crusader-controlled states) but in fact did the complete opposite. For a time Crusading went seriously out of fashion. European kings and nobles were far keener on starting fights with each other than making journeys to the Holy Land.
In 1165, Pope Alexander III asked for a further Crusade, but all the relevant parties were otherwise engaged. None of the Western European kings were prepared to go; in particular, Henry II of England and Louis VII of France were far too busy fighting each other to bother turning up. Perhaps the entire notion of Crusading was at an end?
No such luck. Everything changed in the 1180s when a fresh Crusade was launched. Two men dominated the new contest - Richard I and Saladin. This chapter is all about their successes and encounters in the Holy Land.
Turning Up the Heat: The Rise of Saladin
The man who historians refer to as Saladin was born Salah ad-Din Yusuf in around 1137. He was a Kurd whose family came from Armenia, but he was born in the city of Tikrit in modern-day Iraq. The Kurdish people originally came from an area around the borders of modern-day Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria now known as Kurdistan and had been incorporated into the Great Seljuk Empire.
As a young man Saladin was in the service of the Seljuk leader Zengi (whom I discuss in Chapter 14) and lived in the city of Damascus. Historians know little about Saladin’s early years, but he was extremely well-educated and, despite his Kurdish background, developed a deep knowledge of Islam and Islamic customs, and became a Sunni Muslim (see Chapter 7).
Coming out on top in Egypt
Saladin’s military career began under his uncle, Asad al-Din Shirkuh, who was one of the leading generals loyal to Nur ed-Din, the man who controlled the whole of the western Seljuk empire (flip to Chapter 14 for more on Nur ed-Din). In 1164 a civil war took place in Egypt. Shawar, the vizier who oversaw the territory for the Fatamid caliph, was driven out by a local rival. Shawar requested help from Nur ed-Din, who in turn despatched Asad al-Din Shirkuh, along with his nephew Saladin, to help restore Shawar to power.
Working with his uncle, Saladin did well in Egypt - to put it mildly. The force led by his uncle Shirkuh won a great victory against the rebel forces and as a result managed to take control of Alexandria and the other major cities. However, Shirkuh didn’t much fancy giving back the power he’d acquired.
Shawar, who had asked for their help, was left in a bit of a no-man’s-land.
He sought help from Jerusalem and formed an alliance with its leader King Amalric, but the arrangement didn’t work. In 1169 Shawar was assassinated, allegedly by Saladin, and Shirkuh became the new vizier. Shirkuh also didn’t last long in the position and was dead by the end of the year.
With Shirkuh dead, the caliph made Saladin the new vizier at the age of just 32, and within another two years he had been awarded the title of Sultan. Saladin instantly became one of the most powerful men in the world.
Sweeping all before him
The possession of Egypt meant that Saladin had huge wealth and military strength at his disposal - and he made the most of it. Over the next 20 years, he fought a series of campaigns that extended his influence throughout Syria and Mesopotamia. The death of King Amalric of Jerusalem in 1174 also helped to expand his influence. Amalric’s successor was his son Baldwin IV, who was just 13 years old and suffering with an illness that developed into leprosy. Outremer descended into political chaos as various pretenders for the throne jockeyed for position.
Within ten years Saladin had managed to unify all Nur ed-Din’s territories and incorporate them into his growing empire. Aleppo, Damascus and the other towns of the regions fell to him. By 1185 Saladin’s territory completely encircled the kingdom of Outremer, which looked very small and vulnerable in comparison (see Figure 14-1 in Chapter 14).
Taking Jerusalem
Sensibly the kingdom of Outremer signed a peace treaty with Saladin in 1180, and yet things still didn’t go well. Poor Baldwin IV eventually expired of leprosy in 1185 and was replaced by his own nephew, the handily named Baldwin V. He managed only 17 months in power, however, before his own death. His mother, Sibylla, replaced him and her husband Guy became king. This unsteady, complicated situation was about to become even worse.
Reckless Reynald
Having signed a treaty, Outremer was technically at peace with Saladin. The treaty was sensible considering that Saladin commanded territory between the Nile River and Edessa and was able easily to raise an army that would dwarf the military strength of Outremer. Saladin wasn't a man to mess with - unless you were the reckless Reynald of Chatillon (check out the next section 'Breaking the truce').
Reynald arrived in Outremer as part of the Second Crusade (which I cover in detail in Chapter 14) and stayed, becoming one of the princes of Antioch. In 1156 Reynald decided that he wanted to attack Cyprus and needed funds to do so. He asked the Catholic Patriarch of Antioch - the pope's representative in the region - to fund a military expedition. When the Patriarch said no, Reynald had him stripped naked, covered with honey and tied to the top of the citadel. Humiliated and exhausted (and probably quite sticky), the Patriarch had a change of heart and financed the expedition.
Reynald duly went off to invade Cyprus, raping and pillaging his way around the island. In the process, he upset the Byzantine emperor Manuel I, who was responsible for Cyprus. The emperor brought his army to Syria, threatening Reynald's estates there and forcing him to return. Overwhelmed by the size of Manuel's forces, Reynald was forced publicly to grovel in front of him, and when Manuel visited Antioch, Reynald was required to lead Manuel's horse into the city like a defeated enemy, as a public humiliation.
The following year, while he was on a raiding expedition, Muslims captured Reynald and he spent the next 17 years held captive in Aleppo. His long stay in prison was partly because nobody wanted to pay his massive ransom of 150,000 gold dinars (500 kilograms or 79 stone of gold - a huge sum at the time) and partly because everybody was sick to the back teeth of him.
Eventually the Byzantine emperor Manuel I coughed up the cash in 1176. Whilst he can't have been keen to do so, Reynald was the second husband of Constance of Antioch, the mother of Manuel's wife - the empress Maria. So effectively he spent the equivalent of millions of pounds to bail out his wife's stepfather! Reynald was released. Free - but as wild as ever - Reynald's biggest blunder was yet to come.
Breaking the truce
In May 1187, Reynald of Chatillon decided he wanted to engage in his passion for raiding (see the preceding sidebar ‘Reckless Reynald’ for more on Reynald’s other exploits). He chose as his target a Muslim trading caravan that was travelling between Cairo and Damascus. The raid was successful, and Reynald took considerable plunder. The caravan, however, was technically under the protection of Saladin; by attacking it Reynald broke the peace treaty between Outremer and the great Muslim leader.
This episode and the events surrounding it form part of the 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott. The film is well worth seeing, with some fantastic battle scenes giving a visceral idea of what medieval warfare was like. Also, Brendan Gleeson plays Reynald and gives him just the right mixture of arrogance, barbarism and stupidity!
Fighting the Battle of Hattin
Saladin had stuck to his peace treaty with Outremer, but Reynald’s attack gave him the excuse that he needed to attack the Crusader states. During late May and early June 1187, Saladin gathered his forces before attacking the town of Tiberias (around 150 kilometres or 93 miles north of Jerusalem). His army was huge, with around 30,000 regular troops being supplemented with many more volunteers.
King Guy of Jerusalem was in a quandary. Taking the field against Saladin meant almost certain defeat, but if he did nothing he was sure to be accused of cowardice. In the end chivalry won out. Guy received a message from Tiberias that the Countess of Tripoli had been captured. Her husband, Raymond of Tripoli, argued that she should be left to get on with it as Guy shouldn’t risk the kingdom for the wife of one of his vassals, but Guy decided that he had to intervene militarily.
The Frankish army of around just under 20,000 marched out on 3 July and camped in the valley beneath a set of two hills called the Horns of Hattin. When the Muslim army appeared, the Franks set at them in a desperate charge. Saladin opened his lines and let the Franks advance. He then closed around the Franks, completely surrounding them. The result was a massacre, and virtually the entire Frankish force was destroyed in one day.
Muslim forces took a huge number of prisoners at the battle, including King Guy and Reynald. Both were brought to the tent of Saladin. Remarkably, a scholar and personal friend of Saladin called Isfahnai provides an eye-witness account of what happened.
According to Isfahnai’s account, both King Guy and Reynald were brought in gasping with thirst after the battle, and Saladin offered them water. Guy thanked him before drinking but then gave some to Reynald without asking Saladin for permission to do so. Saladin then said to Guy:
‘You did not ask permission before giving him water. I am therefore not obliged to grant him mercy.’ After pronouncing these words, the sultan smiled, mounted his horse, and rode off, leaving the captives in terror.
He supervised the return of the troops, and then came back to his tent. He ordered Reynald brought there, then advanced before him, sword in hand, and struck him between the neck and the shoulder-blade. When Reynald fell, he cut off his head and dragged the body by its feet to the king, who began to tremble. Seeing him thus upset, Saladin said to him in a reassuring tone: ‘This man was killed only because of his maleficence and perfidy [disloyalty] ’.
Guy spent the next year imprisoned in Damascus but Saladin eventually released him in 1188 and allowed him to return to his family.
After such a victory the fall of Jerusalem was inevitable. Saladin first moved to capture the towns of Acre, Beruit and Sidon. On 2 October 1187 he officially took control of the city of Jerusalem. The takeover was entirely peaceful; no looting or violence. He restored the city’s mosques but allowed its Christian churches to remain open for pilgrims.
Outremer was virtually wiped from existence. All that remained were the ports of Tyre and Tripoli - everything else was under Saladin’s control. Something remarkable would need to happen for the situation to change, but within two years the rather remarkable Richard I arrived on the scene.
Readying for Round Three: Europe Prepares for Crusade
The fall of Jerusalem sent shockwaves around Europe. The Franks had held the city for just 88 years. The Europeans felt that losing the city to Saladin was like driving the final nail into the coffin of Outremer. When news arrived in Italy in the autumn of 1187, a new call for Crusade was put together.
Pope Gregory VIII responded very quickly to the news and issued something known as the Audita tremendi, one of those large papal special offers to encourage European monarchs to sign up for a long, hard battle. Gregory repeated the offer that Pope Eugenius made before the Second Crusade (check out Chapter 14 for more): all Crusaders were guaranteed places in Heaven and their property would be protected while they were away. The offer had worked before, but would it work again?
Dealing with false starts and empty promises
Crusading had gone out of fashion in the years following the Second Crusade, but the fall of Jerusalem was a huge shock. Despite the risks, nobles from around Europe began making their way to the Holy Land arriving in Tyre or Tripoli. Knights and adventurers from Denmark, Flanders, Hungary and elsewhere all made the journey. A small flotilla of ships from London also joined them. The forces were gathering.
Although losing Jerusalem to Saladin was a shock to most Europeans, going on Crusade was a difficult endeavour. For a monarch, Crusading was hugely expensive and very time-consuming. Although individual nobles were able to make a healthy profit from Crusading, a king had to pay for his army. He was unlikely to recoup those costs from an expedition, never mind make a profit.
The following sections look at some stumbles along the way to assembling the Third Crusade.
On again, off again: Henry II and Philip II Augustus
Henry II, king of England, was one of the first European monarchs to write back to Pope Gregory confirming his desire to fight - but an obstacle stood in the way. For the past few years Henry had been at war with the French king Philip II Augustus. The main bone of contention was the lands in what is now France that Henry claimed as his own, partly due to his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine (turn to Chapter 14 for more background details). In January 1188 the two kings met at Gisors in northern France and agreed to a truce in their war to allow them both to take the cross and join the Crusade.
Calling a truce was easy compared to raising money for the new Crusade. Having been at war for so long, neither the English nor the French king had the funds. In a council held at Le Mans, both kings agreed to introduce a tax known as the ‘Saladin Tithe’ to raise funds.
English chronicler Roger of Howden describes the details:
Everyone is to give a tenth of his income and property in the present year in the form of alms as a subsidy for the land of Jerusalem . . . Excommunication has already been pronounced against anyone who does not legitimately pay this tithe in the presence of the assessment of whose duty it is to collect it.
Unsurprisingly the ‘Saladin Tithe’ was about as popular as Reynald of Chatillon was diplomatic (check out the earlier section ‘Breaking the truce’ for more on Reynald’s exploits). People were forced to pay it but they protested. Philip Augustus was eventually forced to abolish it in 1189. Nevertheless the tax did the job and raised a huge amount of money.
A war of words
Frederick obviously wasn't planning on using any surprise tactics in waging his battles in the Third Crusade. In fact, he wrote a letter to Saladin demanding that he vacate Jerusalem and elsewhere if he wanted to avoid a war, telling Saladin:
With God's help you will find out by experience what our conquering eagles can do, our battalions of many races ... You will discover that my own right hand, which you accuse of being feeble with age, has not forgotten how to wield a sword.
Saladin responded to Frederick in kind. Unsurprisingly, Saladin seemed equally confident in his own ability, threatening that after he defeated Frederick, he would travel to Europe and take control of his empire. Saladin rather threateningly added:
The combined forces of Christendom have twice come against us in Egypt, once at Damietta and once at Alexandria... but you knowhowon both occasions the Christians returned, and the end to which they came.
A bit of playground bragging, but impressive words nonetheless.
England and France were all set for a new Crusade, when another problem emerged. The peace treaty between Philip Augustus and Henry II was blown apart after Henry’s own sons (with the support of Philip) made an attack on Henry! A new war began in 1189, and the Crusade was put on hold.
Ready, Freddie? Frederick I
While Henry and Philip continued to fight among themselves, Frederick I, the Holy Roman Emperor, was the first to make a move, leading a Crusade army from Germany in March 1188.
Frederick was known as Barbarossa meaning ‘red beard’ and had been a successful and relative long-serving emperor. Now 67 years old he must have seen recapturing Jerusalem and defeating Saladin as a final achievement in a glorious career. Unfortunately for him, things didn’t quite work out like that.
Frederick managed to recruit a huge army of over 30,000, by far the biggest that had ever gone on Crusade under a single commander. It was so big in fact that he was unable to find enough ships to transport it and was forced to march overland to the east.
Arriving at Constantinople, Frederick found that he and his army weren’t really wanted there. The Byzantine emperor, Isaac II Comnenus, refused to give the army shelter or food, and Frederick’s forces were continually attacked by bandits and raiders as they made their way through the empire. Isaac clearly felt threatened by Frederick and the size of his army, but his obstructive behaviour almost forced Frederick into laying siege to Constantinople.
Eventually Frederick’s army crossed the Bosphorus, but the journey east took a terrible toll. They slowly progressed through Asia Minor, fought several battles against the Turks and struggled on to the Taurus mountains. After making camp by the Goksu River, Frederick stripped off and plunged into the water to cool down. It was the last thing he ever did, because he drowned shortly afterwards, in front of his devastated army. The expedition ended right there. The biggest army ever assembled for a Crusade never even reached as far as Syria. Some of the men made their way to Acre to fight under new commanders, but the rest disbanded and began the long trudge home.
Roaring into battle: Richard the Lionheart
Around the same time that Frederick went for his fatal swim, Henry II of England died too. Age and illness finally caught up with him during the wars with France and against his own sons. He was succeeded by his son Richard, known as couer de leon or the ‘lion-hearted’.
Richard had revolted against his father at the suggestion of Philip Augustus of France, and consequently the French king wasn’t upset to see Richard take the English throne. Along with his new title of King of England, Richard became Duke of Normandy and Count of Anjou as well as Duke of Aquitaine and Count of Poitou - quite a haul! He went on to become one of the most famous figures in medieval history, as well as one of the most controversial.
Setting England by the pound
England was definitely Richard’s least favourite territory. Essentially, we would now regard him as French, speaking the language and having grown up in the country, although he wouldn’t have considered himself as such. He visited England only when he took control of it. Having taken the throne, he regarded England as one huge cash machine to fund his activities. He allegedly said, ‘I would sell London if I could find a buyer’ - and he certainly drained every last penny of revenue from his new kingdom.
Richard had already pledged to go on Crusade prior to becoming king, and so after gaining the crown, he set about raising cash for the expedition. Henry’s treasury had been filled with the Saladin Tithe (see the earlier section ‘On again, off again: Henry II and Philip Augustus’), but those funds were soon spent on the wars he fought against his own sons.
Richard raised taxes in England to swell his coffers and took a fee of 10,000 marks from William of Scotland to release him from his subservience to the English throne. Eventually, Richard was able to raise an army of around 8,000 men and 100 ships. He took a huge amount of supplies with him: 14,000 pig carcasses, immense stores of cheese, beans and wine as well as 50,000 horseshoes! It must have taken a while to pack it all, but by July 1190 he was ready to set sail.
A mass of contradictions and controversy
Richard I is heralded as a great English king, but the facts don't quite add up. To English eyes Richard was essentially a foreigner who, in common with most of the nobility, didn't speak English and made his distaste for England very public. All in all his time in England was a dead loss. Specifically:
● He spent just six months in England organising finances for the Third Crusade before leaving, never to return.
● He derided England as 'cold and always raining' and was upset about the lack of tournaments, which his father Henry II had banned.
● His coronation was spoiled when antiSemitic riots broke out across London and thousands of Jewish people were massacred throughout the country.
Rumours surrounded Richard throughout his reign, and historians today still debate his character and even his sexuality. Before he even left on Crusade, he was dogged with gossip about his relationship with Philip Augustus. The chronicler Roger of Hoveden wrote that the two kings 'slept in the same bed' and that 'passionate love [existed] between them'. Other stories allege huge cruelty when he raped and pillaged his way through his military campaigns in France.
Although details are sketchy, one thing is certainly true: before going on Crusade he had to swear an oath to a priest renouncing his past wickedness!
As for England, Richard left the job of running it to his advisors. Richard’s brother John wasn’t given control of the country, and some people claim that Richard barred him from entering the country, perhaps concerned that he would try and seize it. Richard must have changed his mind though because by 1191 John was back in England and ruling it as regent (see Chapter 17).
Sojourning in Sicily: A marriage of inconvenience
Richard and Philip Augustus embarked on Crusade in July 1190, but became distracted. Arriving in Sicily in September, Richard took the opportunity of resolving a dispute with the ruler of the island, Tancred Count of Leece. Tancred had seized the throne after the death of the previous ruler, William of Sicily, who was Richard’s brother-in-law. This meant that Richard’s sister Joan was still inside the city being effectively held prisoner by Tancred.
In an abrupt change of mission, Richard laid siege to the town of Messina and eventually captured it. Richard’s actions put Philip Augustus on edge; he disliked the way that Richard was turning the Crusade to his own interests.
To make things more difficult, Richard further upset Philip by becoming engaged to, but then refusing to marry, Philip’s sister Alice. The refusal was bad enough, but his reason was that Alice had slept with his father, Henry, when she was a guest at his court as a young girl! Philip had had enough; he set sail from Sicily without Richard at the end of March 1191.
Shortly afterwards Richard agreed to marry Berengaria, the daughter of the king of Navarre (in the Pyrenees, in modern-day France). The marriage was a great diplomatic arrangement, strengthening the southern borders of his territory in Aquitaine.
But just before his marriage to Berengaria, Richard departed for Cyprus, taking her with him. At the time, Cyprus was in the hands of a man called Isaac Ducas Comnenus, who had conned his way into power by convincing the former governor that he was his replacement, sent from Constantinople. When Richard turned up, Comnenus must have thought that the king had been sent by the Byzantine emperor to oust him! In the event, that’s exactly what Richard did. While Richard rested on the island, Guy, the exiled king of Jerusalem, arrived along with some Templar knights (Chapter 14 contains more on these warrior monks). Richard led them in the ‘liberation’ of the island, no doubt enjoying himself hugely in the process.
Shortly afterwards, Richard married Berengaria in Limassol and finally sailed for the Holy Land. He arrived in June 1191, a year after setting out - but now with a new wife and a management interest in Sicily and Cyprus!
Duelling for Dominance: Richard Versus Saladin
When Richard finally arrived in Outremer in 1191, he found himself in the middle of a difficult situation. Not only was the kingdom reduced to just two cities (Tripoli and Tyre), but also it was further split into two factions. (A noble from Outremer could start an argument in an empty room!)
Vying for Outremer
Ever since the fall of Jerusalem (which I cover in the earlier section ‘Taking Jerusalem’), Outremer had been split into two groups. Guy was the king of Outremer, but shortly after Saladin’s capture of the Holy City, a man called Conrad of Montferrat arrived in the Holy Land and began asserting himself.
Conrad’s father William was captured during the battle of Hattin (see the earlier section ‘Fighting the Battle of Hattin’) while Conrad travelled to assist him. Conrad made his way to Tyre and slipped in during Saladin’s siege of the city. He managed to rally the population sufficiently to resist Saladin and later refused to surrender even when Saladin threatened to kill his father. Eventually Saladin gave up and left, leaving Conrad as the master of Tyre.
All this was well and good, but Conrad’s new position put him somewhat at odds with King Guy, who was still claiming to be the master of Outremer, which included Tyre. Over the next few years the pair jockeyed for position.
Besieging Acre - for years
King Guy had to make his mark and assert himself as the rightful ruler and Conrad’s superior. In August 1189 he took his army to the town of Acre (around 100 kilometres or 62 miles north of Jerusalem) which was under Muslim control, and laid siege to it. The attack was a good idea in theory because Acre was a port that would make a great launch pad for a further attack on Jerusalem. Unfortunately for Guy, it didn’t work out well in practice. Guy’s army wasn’t large enough to take the city, and Acre was relatively well provisioned by sea. Also, soon after Guy arrived, Saladin did too, with his army, although initially he didn’t attack Guy’s men.
The siege of Acre turned into the longest in medieval history and reached a point where Guy and Saladin’s armies were regularly fraternising with each other as the siege dragged on, despite the fact that they were frequently involved in skirmishes with each other!
As the siege dragged on, food became scarce and the behaviour of the besieging army increasingly savage. A contemporary chronicler paints the following desperate picture:
A measure of wheat small enough to tuck under your arm was selling for a hundred gold pieces, a fowl for twelve shillings and an egg for sixpence. Priceless chargers were slaughtered for their meat. They devoured the horseflesh sometimes without even skinning them. Horses’ guts were sold for ten shillings.
Some reports talk of cannibalism as the situation became ever worse.
Philip and Richard arrived in the region in the summer of 1191. The siege had been in place for more than two years and showed no sign of drawing to a close. Unfortunately, poor Philip, who arrived first in the region, immediately came down with a nasty disease known as arnaldia, thought to be a type of scurvy. This condition has no modern equivalent, but its symptoms include hair loss, pustules, blotches on the skin and fingernails falling out. To make matter worse, as soon as Richard arrived in Acre, he caught the disease too!
The Crusade seemed about to grind to a halt again, but Richard plunged into the middle of the siege of Acre to help Guy, commanding from his sickbed. The fresh troops he brought were vital to ending the attack. Eventually, by 12 June, with sickness rife in the city and no prospect of relief from Saladin, who didn’t want to get into an open battle with the Crusaders, Acre caved in to them. King Guy had the city back - 25 months after he first attacked.
Dealing with diplomatic baggage
During the siege, Richard demanded a meeting with Saladin who, unsurprisingly, politely declined. Instead Saladin suggested that Richard meet with his brother al-Adil. Richard in turn refused, and Saladin left the Crusaders to squabble amongst themselves. They didn’t disappoint:
● Richard and Philip disagreed about who should rule Outremer. Richard supported Guy; Philip supported Conrad because they were cousins.
● Philip intensified the squabbling by deciding that he wanted half the territory that Richard had taken in Cyprus during their earlier voyage to the Holy Land (as I discuss in the earlier section, ‘Sojourning in Sicily: A marriage of inconvenience’) claiming that they’d agreed to split all spoils between them before setting out.
● A man called Duke Leopold of Austria, the last remnant of Frederick Barbarossa’s Crusade (see ‘Ready, Freddie? Frederick I’), claimed that he should be in command, just to complicate matters. Leopold had been at the siege of Acre for two years and felt that he deserved to fly his banner over the city just as much as Richard and Philip, and was pushing for a three-way split!
● Acre was full of rich Genoese and Pisan merchants wanting guaranteed trading rights in the cities, who tied themselves to Conrad or Guy.
Richard made some tough decisions. After much arguing, agreement was reached that Guy would remain king (in Acre) and that Conrad would be lord of Tyre, which gave both the Italian merchant cities a trading base. Sounds like a neat enough plan, but nobody was particularly happy. Especially not Leopold of Austria after Richard tore down his standard and threw it in the moat around Acre! Leopold went home in a huff.
Philip soon followed Leopold back to Europe. By this point Philip was worn out with the constant bickering among the nobles, fed up with Richard’s endless self-promotion and presumably none too pleased that his hair had fallen out. Before he left he was forced to swear an oath to Richard that he wouldn’t threaten his territories until he himself returned. Richard was probably relieved too. Philip’s presence had also been frustrating to him. According to the English chronicler Richard of Devizes, the king had found Philip’s presence to be ‘like a hammer tied to the tail of a cat’!
Regaining Jerusalem (sort of)
All the arguments about leadership notwithstanding, in reality Richard was in charge in the Holy Land. His first decision was what to do with the 2,700 Muslim survivors of the garrison at Acre. Not wanting to hang around to negotiate their release with Saladin, he had them killed - every last one - outside the city walls and in full view of Saladin’s army.
Venturing on: The Battle of Arsuf
Richard set out on an absurdly optimistic march to Jerusalem, around 60 kilometres or 37 miles away, through enemy territory and in the height of summer. His army was not large, and the march was incredibly heavy going. By early September, they reached the small town of Arsuf, just outside Jaffa, and Saladin attacked, bringing his entire army into the field. Amazingly, despite repeated attacks, Saladin’s army failed to break through the Crusaders’ lines. Instead Richard surprised them by charging himself.
At the advance of the heavily-armed Europeans, Saladin’s army broke. The result was a tremendous victory, and shortly afterwards Richard marched into and captured the city of Jaffa.
Negotiating and a bit of battling
Richard’s army was now only a march away from Jerusalem, but the problem he faced was whether he would be able to hold the city after taking it. Also, he was in a strong position on the coast, but as soon as he ventured inland he knew he would lose the support of his ships.
He chose to negotiate with the Muslim forces, and met with Saladin’s brother, al-Adil. According to some sources, Richard offered al-Adil his sister Joan with the idea that the two rule Jerusalem as king and queen! Unfortunately for history, Saladin turned this intriguing idea down. Instead, Richard and al-Adil had a big feast and parted as friends. This rather anti-climactic conclusion can’t have been what Gregory VII had in mind when he called for Crusade.
Negotiations eventually resulted in a treaty whereby Saladin kept hold of Jerusalem but agreed to allow Christian pilgrims. The Europeans were to retain the territory they had recovered. So Jerusalem was not in any real sense regained. Richard was being pragmatic though. He realised that he had nowhere near enough men to hold the city against Saladin’s forces and if he did take the city it would be lost fairly swiftly afterwards. In the circumstances, free passage for pilgrims and keeping the lands that they’d already taken was a fairly good deal.
With negotiations complete, however, events took an unfortunate turn. On the eve of Richard’s departure from Acre in July 1192, Saladin’s army suddenly appeared at Jaffa. Richard rushed to the scene but found that Jaffa had been completely routed, worse still Richard and a tiny force (only around 50 knights and some infantry) were left isolated outside the ruined city. Their attack had been entirely independent of Saladin. His troops had acted of their own volition, wanting revenge for the massacre of prisoners at Acre.
Days later, a few hundred troops attacked Richard’s remaining forces. The majority of Saladin’s army had already mutinied after sacking Jaffa, though; they’d had enough of war. So, too, had both commanders: Saladin had fallen ill, and Richard was anxious to get home because he was concerned about the activities of his brother John back in England (see Chapter 17).
In September 1192, Richard and Saladin signed a three-year peace treaty. Jerusalem stayed in Muslim hands, but Outremer continued to exist in the form of its various coastal towns. Essentially, the Third Crusade finished in an unsatisfactory draw.
Ending unhappily
Neither Richard nor Saladin profited from their agreement:
● Richard suffered a shipwreck off the coast of Italy on his way home and was forced to journey over land. He travelled in disguise but near Vienna was captured by Leopold of Austria, who hadn’t forgotten Richard’s insults at Acre (remember him from the earlier section ‘Dealing with diplomatic baggage’?). Leopold imprisoned Richard and set a massive ransom of 150,000 marks. Richard’s mother eventually raised the capital, but Richard was to stay in captivity for the next 12 months before it could be paid. Chapter 17 has more on how this situation played out.
● Saladin fared no better. Having fallen ill in the aftermath of the battle at Jaffa, he never really recovered. He died on 3 March 1193 in Damascus at the age of 67. His empire quickly dissolved into in-fighting between his sons, but Outremer was too weak to take advantage.
In the following years, European religious and military leaders tried again to recruit fresh Crusade armies, but none of these efforts were particularly successful. For the time being, both the Muslim and Christian sides remained content with what they had.