‘The law made nothing perfect.’ HEBREWS VII, 19
The death of the Old Lord of Beirut deprived Outremer of its natural leader. No other Frankish baron was ever to enjoy again such a high prestige. But he had fulfilled his role. He had founded an alliance between the baronage and the Commune of Acre, and he had given them a common policy based on their legal rights. Of his four sons two remained on the Syrian mainland, Balian, who succeeded to Beirut, and John, who inherited his mother’s fief of Arsuf, and two took over the family estates in Cyprus, both making politic marriages that reunited the nobility of the kingdom; Baldwin, who became Seneschal, married the sister of Amalric of Beisan, and Guy, who became Constable, the daughter and heiress of the arch-rebel, Amalric Barlais. The Old Lord’s nephew, another John, later to become Count of Jaffa, and the author of the Assizes of Jerusalem,was the leading lawyer in the kingdom. Their cousin, Balian of Sidon, still acted as bailli, together with Odo of Montbeliard, but the failure of his policy of compromise had lessened his authority. The most vigorous among the barons was another cousin, Philip of Montfort, son of Helvis of Ibelin and her second husband, Guy of Montfort, brother of that Simon who led the Albigensian Crusade. Philip had recently married the Armenian Princess Maria, daughter of Raymond-Roupen, who was heiress of Toron through her great-grandmother, sister of its last lord. Yet another cousin, John of Caesarea, son of Margaret of Ibelin, completed the family party that now dominated Outremer. It was a tribute to the Old Lord’s posthumous reputation that his sons and nephews were ready to work together in amity; and they were further united by their hatred of Filangieri, who still held Tyre for the Emperor.
Even so, the position of Outremer was precarious. Bohemond IV, Prince of Antioch and Count of Tripoli, had died in March 1233, reconciled at last with the Church. During the wars between the Imperialists and the barons of Outremer he had shown a remarkable suppleness. He had at first welcomed Frederick, chiefly from his dislike of the Ibelins, who had opposed the appointment of his son Bohemond, the husband of Queen Alice, to the regency of Cyprus. Then, fearing Frederick’s ambition, he had changed his policy, and, when Alice and the young Bohemond were divorced for consanguinity, willingly agreed to a suggestion by John of Ibelin that his youngest son, Henry, should marry Isabella of Cyprus, King Henry’s eldest sister, a marriage that was eventually to put a Prince of Antioch on the Cypriot throne. But at that moment Filangieri won the battle of Casal Imbert; so Bohemond prevaricated, wishing to be on the victor’s side. It was only after the Imperialists’ defeat in Cyprus that the marriage took place. About the same time Bohemond reconciled himself with the Hospitallers. Their common dislike of the Emperor Frederick had made the Temple and the Hospital co-operate for a while, and he could not play off the one against the other. He therefore made his own submission to the Church and asked Gerold, Patriarch of Jerusalem, to negotiate with the Hospital for him. In return for large rents on property in the cities of Antioch and Tripoli, the Order agreed to abandon its claim to the privileges promised it by Raymond-Roupen and to recognize Bohemond’s feudal rights. At the same time Gerold lifted the sentence of excommunication against him, and sent to Rome to have the settlement confirmed; the Pope’s approval came a few weeks after Bohemond’s death.
1233: Bohemond V of Antioch
For all his faults, Bohemond IV had been a vigorous ruler; and even his enemies admired his culture and his learning as a lawyer. His son, Bohemond V, was a feebler man. He was a good son of the Church, and allowed the Pope, Gregory IX, to choose him his second wife, Lucienne of Segni, who was of the Pope’s family. A few years later, in 1244, profiting from his father’s experience, he obtained from Rome a guarantee that he could only be excommunicated by the Pope in person. But he was not master in his own principality. Antioch itself was governed by its Commune, with which he did not enjoy his father’s popularity, probably because his friendship with Rome displeased the strong Greek element there. He preferred therefore to reside at his second capital, Tripoli. He had no control over the Military Orders. Armenia, under the Hethoumians, was unfriendly. The Moslem enclave of Lattakieh cut his dominions in two. His reign marks a rapid decline.
Frederick, who was annoyed at the time with Bohemond IV, had excluded Antioch and Tripoli from his peace treaty with al-Kamil. Bohemond had, however, kept the peace with his Moslem neighbours, apart from some desultory attacks on the Assassins, whom he disliked as the allies of the Hospital. Much to his disapproval, the Military Orders were more incautious. The Hospitallers had provoked al-Kamil to make a raid against Krak when he was attacking Damascus in 1228. In 1229 they made a counter-raid on Barin; and in 1230 they combined with the Templars of Tortosa to make an attack on Hama, where they were caught in ambush and severely defeated. Next year the Orders made a sudden swoop on Jabala, only to hold it for a few weeks. A truce was at last made in the spring of 1231, which lasted for two years.
Soon after his accession, Bohemond V sent his brother Henry, together with contingents from Acre and Cyprus, to help the Orders in another attack on Barin, which was bought off by the promise of a tribute to be paid by Hama to the Hospital. The renewed truce lasted till 1237, when the Templars of Baghras fell upon the unsuspecting Turcoman tribes settled east of the Lake of Antioch. In revenge the army of Aleppo moved in force to besiege Baghras, which was only rescued by the arrival of Bohemond himself, who arranged to renew the truce. The Preceptor of the Temple at Antioch, William of Montferrat, resented this humiliation, and, against Bohemond’s expressed wishes, decided to break the truce almost as soon as it was made. In June that year he induced his own knights, together with the lord of Jebail and a few other lay barons, to attack the castle of Darbsaq, to the north of Baghras. The garrison there was taken by surprise, but put up a strong resistance, while messengers hastened to Aleppo whose governor at once dispatched a powerful army. Some Christian captives in Darbsaq, hearing of the relieving force, managed to send a message to William to urge him to retire. He arrogantly ignored the warning, only to find the Moslem cavalry upon him. His small force was routed, he himself slain and most of his comrades captured. On the news of the disaster both the Temple and the Hospital wrote anxiously to the West for succour; but the Moslems did not follow up their victory. After receiving the promise of ample sums of money for the ransom of their prisoners they agreed to renew the truce. The Orders were abashed, and they kept the peace for ten years, with the approval of the Pope, who had been obliged to provide most of the ransom money.
1229: Al-Kamil re-unites the Ayubite Empire
The lack of aggressive spirit fortunately shown by the Moslems was largely due to the personality of the great Sultan al-Kamil. Al-Kamil was a man of peace and honour. He was ready to fight and to indulge in unscrupulous intrigue in order to unite the Ayubite dominions under his rule; for the family quarrels and divisions were to no one’s advantage; and he was ready to ward off attacks from the Seldjuk or the Khwarismian Turks. But so long as the Christians caused no trouble, he would leave them in quiet. All the Moslem princes were well aware of the commercial advantages of having the Frankish sea-ports close to their borders. They were unwilling to risk the dislocation of the great trade between the East and West by imprudent hostilities. Al-Kamil in particular was anxious to secure his subjects’ material prosperity. He was moreover, like his friend Frederick II, a man of wide intellectual interests and curiosity; and he was more genuinely tolerant and far more kindly than the Hohenstaufen. Though he lacked the heroic grandeur of his uncle Saladin and the brilliant subtlety of his father al-Adil, he had more human warmth than either. And he was an able King. Moslem contemporaries might deplore his liking for the ‘blond men’, but they respected the justice and good order of his government.
Al-Kamil succeeded in his ambition to restore unity to the Ayubite world. In June 1229, his brother al-Ashraf at last managed to oust their nephew, an-Nasir, from Damascus. An-Nasir was given as compensation a kingdom in the Jordan valley and Transjordan, with Kerak as its capital, to hold under al-Kamil’s effective suzerainty. Al-Ashraf kept Damascus, but acknowledged al-Kamil’s hegemony and ceded to him lands in the Jezireh and along the middle Euphrates. These were the provinces of the Ayubite Empire that were most open to attack; and al-Kamil wished to have a more direct control of them. Jelal ad-Din the Khwarismian was a very positive menace; and behind him to the east was the unknown strength of the Mongols, while the great Seldjuk Sultan Kaikobad was pressing eastward from Anatolia. In 1230, when al-Ashraf was at Damascus, Jelal ad-Din captured his great fortress of Akhlat, near Lake Van, and moved on to attack the Seldjuks. Al-Ashraf hastened northward and made an alliance with Kaikobad. The allies decisively beat Jelal ad-Din near Erzinjan. Attacked at the same time in the rear by the Mongols, the Khwarismian Empire began to disintegrate. Next year Jelal ad-Din was defeated in person by the Mongols. During his flight from the battle he was murdered on 15 August 1231 by a Kurdish peasant, whose brother he had long ago slain.
His elimination upset once more the balance of power. The Seldjuks were left without a rival in eastern Anatolia, and the Mongols could advance freely westward. Meanwhile the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad enjoyed a few, rare, precarious months of independence. It was not long before Kaikobad cast his eye on al-Kamil’s lands on the middle Euphrates. From 1233 to 1235 there was continual war while Edessa, Saruj and other towns of the province passed from one master to the other, till at last al-Kamil re-established his position. Al-Kamil’s successes roused his relatives’ jealousy. Al-Ashraf disliked his subservient position. At Aleppo the young King al-Aziz, az-Zahir’s son, suddenly died in 1236, and his mother Dhaifa, al-Kamil’s sister, who took over the regency for her young grandson, az-Zahir II, feared her brother’s ambition. A number of minor Ayubite princes shared her fears. During the early months of 1237 al-Ashraf assembled his allies and secured the active help of Kaikobad. A civil war seemed inevitable when, early in the summer, Kaikobad died, and al-Ashraf fell dangerously ill. His death on 27 August dissolved the conspiracy. A younger brother, as-Salih Ismail, took over Damascus and tried to reunite the conspirators, in vain. With the aid of an-Nasir of Kerak, al-Kamil marched on Damascus in January 1238, and annexed it. As-Salih Ismail was compensated with an appanage at Baalbek. But al-Kamil did not long survive his triumph. Two months later, on 8 March, he died at Damascus, aged sixty.
1239: Civil Wars among the Ayubites
His death let loose civil war. His elder son, as-Salih Ayub, whose mother was a Sudanese slave, was in the north, but marched at once on Damascus, where one of al-Kamil’s nephews, al-Jawad, had seized power. With the help of Khwarismian freebooters he dislodged his cousin. Meanwhile his younger brother, al-Adil II, was installed as Sultan in Egypt. Ayub was determined to have his father’s richest province, but when he set out to invade Egypt a sudden coup d’etat in Damascus dethroned him in favour of his uncle as-Salih Ismail. As Ayub fled southward he fell into the hands of an-Nasir of Kerak, who, however, joined his cause and lent his troops for the invasion of Egypt. It was an easy task; for al-Adil offended his ministers by entrusting the government to a young negro whom he adored. A successful plot deposed him in June 1240; and Ayub was invited to take over the Egyptian throne. An-Nasir was rewarded with the post of military governor of Palestine. But Ismail remained master of Damascus; and for the next decade the Ayubite world was torn by the rivalry between uncle and nephew. The north was soon in chaos. Leaderless Khwarismians roamed ravaging through northern Syria, nominally under the orders of Ayub. In the Jezireh the Ayubite prince of Mayyafaraqin, al-Muzaffar, kept small authority. Ayub’s son, Turanshah, attempted to hold his grandfather’s lands together, but many of the towns fell into the hands of the Seldjuk Sultan, Kaikhosrau II. In Aleppo an-Nasir Yusuf, who had succeeded his brother in 1236, remained on the defensive, while the princes of Hama and Homs were fully occupied in warding off the Khwarismians.
It was in the midst of these convulsions that the treaty made between Frederick II and al-Kamil came to an end. In preparation for this, Pope Gregory IX had sent out in the summer of 1239 agents to preach the Crusade in France and England. Neither the French nor the English King felt ready to respond in person to his appeal, but they gave every encouragement to the preachers. By the early summer a distinguished company of French nobles was ready to sail for the East. At their head was Tibald of Champagne, King of Navarre, the nephew of Henry of Champagne and cousin therefore to the Kings of France, England and Cyprus. With him were the Duke of Burgundy, Hugh IV, Peter Mauclerc, Count of Brittany, the Counts of Bar, Nevers, Montfort, Joigny and Sancerre, and many lesser lords. The number of infantrymen was less than might have been expected, considering the eminence of the leaders; but the whole expedition was formidable.
Tibald had hoped to embark with his comrades at Brindisi; but wars between the Emperor and the Pope made travel through Italy difficult; and the Emperor, in whose dominions Brindisi lay, was not pleased by the Crusade. He considered himself ruler of Palestine for his young son, and an expedition to help his kingdom should have been organized under his authority. He could not approve of French nobles whose instinct would certainly be to support the barons of Outremer against him. Moreover, aware of the position in the Moslem world, he hoped to drive a good bargain for the kingdom by diplomacy. The coming of these rash impatient knights would ruin any such negotiations. But, owing to his troubles in Italy he could not afford to send men himself to control them. He secured a promise that nothing would be done till the truce came to an end in August, then dissociated himself from the whole affair. The Crusaders were therefore obliged to embark from Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles.
1239: Tibald of Champagne’s Crusade
The Crusade had a stormy voyage through the Mediterranean, some of its ships being driven to Cyprus and some even back to Sicily. But Tibald himself arrived at Acre on 1 September; and during the next few days an army of about a thousand knights had assembled there. A Council was held at once to decide how best this army could be used. Besides the visiting princes the chief local barons were present, with representatives from the Military Orders, while the Archbishop of Tyre, Peter of Sargines, deputized for the Patriarch of Jerusalem. It was a moment for diplomatic enterprise. The quarrels between al-Kamil’s heirs offered to the Christians the opportunity of using their new strength as a bargaining point and to obtain handsome concessions from one or other of the warring factions. But the Crusaders had come to fight; they would not follow Frederick II’s disgraceful example. The local barons therefore recommended an expedition against Egypt. This would not only cause no offence to their immediate Moslem neighbours in Syria, but in view of the Sultan al-Adil’s known unpopularity promised a good chance of success. Others maintained that Damascus was the enemy; the army should fortify the Galilean castles, then march on against the Syrian capital. But Tibald desired a plurality of victories. He decided that the army would first attack the Egyptian outposts of Ascalon and Gaza, probably on the suggestion of the Count of Jaffa, Walter of Brienne, who did not belong to the Ibelin family faction; then, when the southern frontier was secure, he would attack Damascus. On the news of his decision messengers hurried round the Ayubite Courts, to arrange a temporary armistice between the Moslem princes.
The expedition set out from Acre for the Egyptian frontier on 2 November, detachments from the Orders and several local barons accompanying the Crusaders. As they were marching to Jaffa a spy told Peter of Brittany that a rich Moslem caravan was moving up the Jordan valley towards Damascus. Peter at once rode out with Ralph of Soissons and two hundred knights and laid an ambush for it. The caravan was well armed, and in the ensuing battle Peter was nearly killed; but in the end the Moslem soldiers fled, leaving a great herd of cattle and sheep in the Christians’ hands. Peter drove his booty back in triumph to Jaffa, where his colleagues had now arrived. As food for the army was running short, his victory was very welcome. But it made an enemy of an-Nasir of Kerak.
An Egyptian army, under the Mameluk Rukn ad-Din, had hastily been sent from the Delta to Gaza. The first news that reached the Christians of its arrival told of only a thousand men. Henry of Bar, who was jealous of the Count of Brittany’s success, determined at once to attack it and secure all the credit and the loot. He kept his plan secret from all but a few friends, such as the Duke of Burgundy and various lords from eastern France. Then the two baillis of the kingdom, Balian of Sidon and Odo of Montbeliard, who were resentful of Tibald’s command, together with Walter of Jaffa and one of the Ibelins, John of Arsuf, were admitted into the company. At nightfall on 12 November, the whole party, five hundred horsemen and over a thousand foot, prepared to march out against Gaza. But the news leaked out; and as they were mounting their horses King Tibald, with the three Grand Masters of the Orders and the Count of Brittany, came up and first begged, then ordered them to go back to the camp. But Henry of Bar refused to be deflected. Accusing the King and his friends of cowardice, he defied his command; and the cavalcade set out into the moonlit night. Tibald, who suspected the true strength of the enemy, was powerless to prevent it. Next morning he moved his camp up to the walls of Ascalon, to be at hand, should help be needed.
1239: Frankish Defeat at Gaza
The Count of Bar was so confident of success that when he drew near to Gaza about dawn, he halted his men in a hollow in the dunes of the seashore and told them to rest awhile. But the Egyptian army was far larger than he knew, and its spies were all around. The emir Rukn ad-Din could scarcely believe that his foes could be so foolish. He sent bowmen to creep round sandhills till the Franks were almost encircled. Walter of Jaffa was the first to realize what was happening. He advised a swift retreat, for the horses could not be manoeuvred in the deep sand. He himself rode away to the north, along with the Duke of Burgundy; and the other knights from Outremer followed him as soon as they could. But Henry of Bar would not leave the infantry whom he had led into the trap; and his closest friends stayed with him. The battle was soon over. With their horses and their heavy infantry floundering in the dunes, the Franks were impotent. More than a thousand were slain, including Count Henry himself. Six hundred more were captured and carried off to Egypt. Among them was the Count of Montfort and the poet, Philip of Nanteuil, who spent his days in prison writing rhymed maledictions on the Orders, whom, with more passion than logic, he blamed for the failure of the senseless expedition.
When the fugitives reached Ascalon, Tibald forgot his caution and wished to march on Gaza at once to rescue his comrades. But the knights of Outremer would not agree. It would be folly to risk the army, and certainly the Moslems would slay what captives they had taken rather than lose them again. Tibald was angry and never quite forgave his hosts. But there was nothing to be done. The diminished army moved slowly back to Acre.
Meanwhile an-Nasir of Kerak replied to the Breton attack on the Moslem caravan by marching on Jerusalem. The Holy City was undefended except for the section of wall by St Stephen’s Gate, which Frederick had begun, and a citadel incorporating the Tower of David, which had recently been strengthened. It owed allegiance not to the government at Acre but to Filangieri at Tyre; and he had neglected to supply an adequate garrison. An-Nasir occupied the city without difficulty, but the soldiers in the citadel held out for twenty-seven days, till their supplies were exhausted. They surrendered on 7 December in return for a safe-conduct to the coast. When he had destroyed the fortifications, including the Tower of David, an-Nasir retired to Kerak.
After the disaster at Gaza, Tibald moved his forces northward to Tripoli. An envoy had come from the emir of Hama, al-Muzaffar II, who had quarrelled with all his Ayubite relatives and was threatened by a coalition between the Regent of Aleppo and the Prince of Horns. In return for Frankish help he offered to cede one or two fortresses and held out hopes of his conversion to Christianity. Tibald accepted the offer with alacrity; but his advance to Tripoli was enough to deter al-Muzaffar’s enemies, and the emir sent politely to say that his services would not be required after all.
It was while the Crusade lingered at Tripoli that Ayub made himself master of Egypt, and war broke out between him and Ismail of Damascus. It was obvious that the Franks could now make a good bargain. Tibald hastily returned to the south and encamped his army in Galilee by the fountains of Sephoria. He had not long to wait. Early in the summer of 1240 Ismail, terrified of an invasion by Ayub and an-Nasir in conjunction, proposed a defensive alliance with the Franks. If they would guarantee to guard the Egyptian frontier by the coast and supply him with armaments, he would cede to them the great fortresses of Beaufort and Safed, and the hills that lay between them. The Templars, who now had financial connections in Damascus, conducted the negotiations and were rewarded with the possession of Safed. But Ismail’s subjects were shocked. The garrison of Beaufort refused to hand over their trust to Balian of Sidon, son of its last Christian lord, and Ismail was obliged to go himself to blockade the castle into submission. Two of the leading Damascene theologians, including the chief preacher at the Great Mosque, left the city in disgust and sought refuge at Cairo.
1240: End of Tibald’s Crusade
A common distrust of the Emperor Frederick had kept the Hospital and the Temple in an uneasy alliance for the last twelve years. But the Templars’ acquisition of Safed was more than the Hospitallers could endure. While Tibald took his army to join up with Ismail’s forces, between Jaffa and Ascalon, they opened negotiations with Ayub. Their argument was strengthened when half of Ismail’s men, disliking to have to work with Christians, deserted to the Egyptian camp, and the allies were obliged to retreat. Ayub, whose first objective was the defeat of Ismail, was delighted to have an opportunity of breaking the alliance. He offered the Franks the release of the prisoners made at Gaza and the right to occupy and fortify Ascalon in return for their neutrality. The Grand Master of the Hospital then signed the agreement at Ascalon with the Sultan’s representative. It was a diplomatic triumph for Ayub, who at small cost to himself had broken an alliance which Ismail had humiliated himself to achieve. Tibald, delighted to secure the release of Amalric of Montfort and his other friends, had given his support to the Hospitallers; but public opinion in Outremer was shocked by the shameless abandonment of the pact with Damascus, which, till Saladin’s day, had been the traditional ally of the Christians. So unpopular did Tibald become that he decided to return to Europe. After paying a hurried pilgrimage to Jerusalem he sailed from Acre at the end of September 1240. Most of his comrades followed him, except for the Duke of Burgundy who swore to await the completion of the fortifications of Ascalon, and the Count of Nevers who joined the party of the Templars and the local barons, with whom he encamped near Jaffa, vowing to maintain the treaty with Damascus and to oppose any Egyptian invasion.
Tibald’s Crusade had not been entirely valueless. Beaufort, Safed and Ascalon had all been recovered for the Christians. But the Moslems had noted one more example of the perfidy of the Franks.
On 11 October, a few days after Tibald’s departure, a still more distinguished pilgrim arrived at Acre. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, was the brother of Henry III of England, and his sister was the wife of the Emperor Frederick. He was aged thirty-one and was considered to be one of the ablest princes of his time. His pilgrimage had the full approval of the Emperor, who gave him powers to make what arrangements he thought best for the kingdom. He was horrified at the anarchy that he found on his arrival. The Temple and the Hospital were almost at open warfare with each other. The local barons, except for Walter of Jaffa, supported the Templars; therefore the Hospitallers were beginning to seek the friendship of Filangieri and the Imperialists. The Teutonic Order kept itself apart. It garrisoned its Syrian castles but devoted its main attention to Cilicia, where the Armenian King entrusted it with large estates. Filangieri himself still held Tyre and was responsible for the administration of Jerusalem.
1241: Richard of Cornwall
On his arrival Richard hurried to Ascalon. There he was met by ambassadors from the Egyptian Sultan, who asked him to confirm the treaty made by the Hospitallers. Richard agreed, but, to placate the barons of Outremer, he insisted that the Egyptians should confirm the cessions of territory made by Ismail of Damascus and should add to it the remainder of Galilee, including Belvoir, Mount Thabor and Tiberias. Ismail, who had lost control of Eastern Galilee to an-Nasir, could not prevent this further cession. Meanwhile the Frankish prisoners captured at Gaza were returned, in exchange for the few Moslems that were in Christian hands. The kingdom thus recovered all its ancient lands west of the Jordan, as far south as the outskirts of Gaza, with the ominous exception of Nablus and the province of Samaria. Jerusalem remained unfortified; but Odo of Montbeliard, whose wife was the heiress of the Princes of Galilee, began to rebuild the castle of Tiberias; and the work on Ascalon was completed. As governor of Ascalon, Richard appointed Walter Pennenpie, who had been Filangieri’s representative at Jerusalem. Probably on Richard’s suggestion, the Emperor Frederick sent a congratulatory embassy to the Sultan Ayub. His two ambassadors were received with great honour and pomp at Cairo and remained there till the early spring.
Richard himself stayed in Palestine till May 1241. He had behaved with great wisdom and tact and had made himself generally accepted as temporary viceroy of the kingdom. The Emperor was well satisfied with him, and everyone in Outremer regretted his going. He returned to Europe, to a career of high hopes and small fulfilment.
The order established by Richard of Cornwall did not long survive his departure. The local barons hoped to continue it by petitioning the Emperor to appoint one of his companions, Simon of Montfort, as bailli. Simon, whose wife was Richard’s sister, and who himself was the cousin of the lord of Toron, had made an excellent impression. But Frederick ignored their request; and Simon returned to a great and stormy career in England. In the Holy Land quarrels soon began again. The Templars refused to be bound by his treaty with Ayub and in the spring of 1242 raided the Moslem city of Hebron. An-Nasir of Kerak retorted by sending troops to cut off the road to Jerusalem and to levy tolls on the pilgrims and merchants that passed by. This roused the Templars to set out from Jaffa and to fall on Nablus on 30 October and sack it, burning its great mosque and massacring many of the inhabitants, including large numbers of native Christians. Ayub was not yet ready for a war. He contented himself by sending a strong army to blockade Jaffa for a while, as a warning for the future. Within the kingdom there was no overriding authority. The Orders behaved as independent republics. Acre was ruled by the Commune, which, however, could not prevent the Templars and Hospitallers from fighting with each other in the streets. The barons kept to their fiefs, ruling them as they pleased.
To Filangieri in Tyre the chaos seemed full of promise. He was privately in touch with the Hospital in Acre and he won over two of the leading bourgeois, John Valin and William of Conches. One night, in the spring of 1243, he came from Tyre and was admitted secretly into Acre, ready to organize a coup d’etat. But his presence was noticed, and Philip of Montfort, lord of Toron, who happened to be in Acre, was informed. Philip at once warned the Commune and the Genoese and Venetian colonies. Their officials arrested John Valin and William of Conches, and policed the streets. A message was sent to bring Balian of Ibelin from Beirut and Odo of Montbeliard from Caesarea. Filangieri realized that he had missed his chance, and slipped quietly back to Tyre. The complicity of the Hospitallers was obvious. Balian, when he arrived, blockaded their headquarters in Acre. The blockade lasted for six months. The Grand Master, Peter of Vieille Bride, was at Marqab, conducting a desultory campaign against his Moslem neighbours. He could not afford men to try to rescue his knights at Acre. In the end he made his peace with Balian, offering apologies and swearing that he had no hand in the plot.
1243: Queen Alice accepted as Regent
On 5 April 1243, Conrad of Hohenstaufen, son of the Emperor Frederick and Queen Yolanda, was fifteen years old and officially came of age. It was his duty to appear at Acre and personally take possession of the kingdom. His father had no longer any right to the regency. But, though the young King at once sent Thomas of Acerra as his deputy, he showed no signs of coming himself to the East. The barons therefore considered it their legal obligation to nominate as his regent the next available heir. This was Alice, Queen-Dowager of Cyprus, his great-aunt. After her divorce from Bohemond V, Alice had reconciled herself with her Ibelin cousins, and in 1240, with their approval, she had married Ralph, Count of Soissons, a young man about half her age, who had come to the East with King Tibald. A parliament was summoned by Balian of Ibelin and Philip of Montfort to meet at Acre, in the Patriarch’s palace, on 5 June 1243. The barons were all present. The Church was represented by Peter of Sargines, Archbishop of Tyre, and the bishops of the kingdom. The Commune sent its officials, and the Genoese and the Venetian colonies their presidents. Philip of Novara expounded the juridical situation and recommended that no homage should be paid to King Conrad till he came in person to receive it, and that, till he came, Alice and her husband should be entrusted with the regency. Odo of Montbeliard suggested that Conrad should be officially requested to visit his kingdom and nothing be done till he replied. But the Ibelins saw no point in that. Their view prevailed. The assembly swore oaths of allegiance to Alice and Ralph, saving King Conrad’s rights.
The decision removed from Filangieri the vestige of authority that had made the barons hesitate to attack him in Tyre. On the appointment of Thomas of Acerra, he himself had just been summoned back to Italy by the Emperor; and he had left his city under the command of his brother Lothair. On 9 June Lothair was ordered by the parliament at Acre to surrender Tyre to the Regents. On his refusal Balian of Ibelin and Philip of Montfort, with contingents from the Venetians and the Genoese, marched on the city. Lothair put his faith in the great walls, which had successfully defied Saladin himself. But the local citizens were weary of Filangieri, and offered to open the postern of the Butchers, close by the sea. On the night of 12 June Balian and his men crept round over the rocks to the postern and were let in. They then opened the main gates to their allies. Once they had occupied the houses of the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights, the city was theirs, except for the citadel, on the south, to which Lothair retired. It was a formidable fortress; and for four weeks the Imperialists held out. But by an unlucky chance the ship that was carrying Richard Filangieri to Italy was forced by bad weather to turn back. Richard landed unsuspecting at the port of Tyre and fell straight into his enemies’ hands. They carried him bound to the gate of the citadel and threatened to hang him unless the garrison surrendered. Lothair refused till he saw the rope tightening round his brother’s neck; then he accepted the easy terms offered by the victors. The brothers were allowed to go free with their households and their possessions. Lothair retired to Tripoli, where Bohemond V received him well. He was joined there by Thomas of Acerra. Richard conscientiously returned to his Imperial master, who promptly threw him into gaol. With the Filangieri gone, Jerusalem and Ascalon passed officially with Tyre into the Regents’ hands.
1243: Treaty with Ismail of Damascus
Ralph of Soissons had confidently expected that the control of the captured city would be given to the Regents. But Philip of Montfort desired Tyre for himself, to round off his fief of Toron; and the Ibelins gave him their support. When Ralph angrily demanded the city, the barons with cynical amusement replied that they would hold it in trust themselves till it was certain to whom it should belong. Ralph suddenly realized that he was intended to be a mere figurehead. In his humiliation and disgust he promptly left the Holy Land and returned to France. Queen Alice, whose fifty years of life had taught her patience, remained as titular regent till she died in 1246.
The triumph of the barons meant the triumph of Templar over Hospitaller foreign policy. Negotiations were reopened with the Court of Damascus. Ayub of Egypt had recently quarrelled with an-Nasir of Kerak and was alarmed at the Frankish defection. When Ismail of Damascus, with the approval of an-Nasir, offered the Franks to withdraw from the Temple area at Jerusalem the Moslem priests whose presence there had been guaranteed by Frederick II, Ayub at once made the same offer. By skilfully playing off the Moslem princes against each other, the Templars, who were managing the transaction, secured the approval of them all to the restoration of the area to the Christian cult. The Grand Master, Armand of Perigord, wrote enthusiastically to Europe at the end of 1243 to relate the happy result and to announce that the Order was now busily refortifying the Holy City. It was the last diplomatic triumph of Outremer.
The Emperor Frederick wrote rather acidly to Richard of Cornwall to comment on the Order’s readiness to seek a Moslem alliance, when it had denounced him for so doing.
The success encouraged the Templars. When war broke out between Ayub and Ismail in the spring of 1244, they persuaded the barons to intervene actively on the latter’s behalf. An-Nasir of Kerak and the young Prince of Homs, al-Mansur Ibrahim, had both joined Ismail; and al-Mansur Ibrahim came in person to Acre to seal the alliance and to offer on the allies’ behalf a share of Egypt to the Franks, when Ayub should be defeated. The Moslem prince was received with great honour. The Templars provided most of the entertainment.
But Ayub was not to be so easily defeated. He had found allies that were more effective than the Franks. The Khwarismian Turks, ever since the death of Jelal ad-Din, their king, had been wandering through the Jezireh and northern Syria, raiding and pillaging as they went. A coalition of the Ayubite princes of Syria had attempted to control them in 1241 and had severely beaten them in a battle not far from Edessa. But the Khwarismians then established their headquarters in the countryside between Edessa and Harran, and were still prepared to sell their services. Ayub had been in touch with them for some time, and now he invited them to invade the territory of Damascus and Palestine.
1244: Final Loss of Jerusalem
In June 1244 the Khwarismian horsemen, ten thousand strong, swept down into Damascene territory, ravaging the land and burning the villages. Damascus itself was too strong for them to attack, so they rode on into Galilee, past the town of Tiberias, which they captured, and southward through Nablus towards Jerusalem. The Franks suddenly realized the danger. The newly elected Patriarch, Robert, hastened to the city with the Grand Masters of the Temple and the Hospital, and reinforced the garrison in the fortifications that the Templars had just rebuilt, but they did not themselves dare to remain there. On 11 July the Khwarismians broke into the city. There was fighting in the streets, but they forced their way to the Armenian convent of St James and massacred the monks and nuns. The Frankish governor was killed in making a sortie from the citadel, together with the Preceptor of the Hospital. But the garrison held out. No help came from the Franks; so they appealed to their nearest Moslem ally, an-Nasir of Kerak. An-Nasir had no liking for the Christians and had resented the necessity of their alliance. So, after sending some troops which cowed the Khwarismians into offering the garrison a safe-conduct to the coast if they would surrender the citadel, he then dissociated himself from its fate. On 23 August some six thousand Christian men, women and children marched out of the city, leaving it to the Khwarismians. As they moved along the road towards Jaffa, some of them looked back and saw Frankish sags waving on the towers. Thinking that somehow rescue had arrived, many insisted on returning towards the city, only to fall into an ambush under the walls. Some two thousand perished. The remainder, as they journeyed down to the sea, were attacked by Arab bandits. Only three hundred reached Jaffa.
Thus Jerusalem passed finally from the Franks. Nearly seven centuries passed before a Christian army would once again enter its gates. The Khwarismians showed little mercy to the city. They broke into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. A few old Latin priests had refused to leave the city and were celebrating Mass there. These were slain, as well as the priests of the native denominations that were there. The bones of the Kings of Jerusalem were torn up from their tombs, and the church itself set on fire, Houses and shops throughout the city were pillaged, and churches burned. Then, when the whole place was desolate, the Khwarismians swept on, to join the Egyptian army at Gaza.
While the Khwarismians sacked Jerusalem, the knights of Outremer had been gathering outside Acre. There the armies of Homs and Damascus joined them, under the command of al-Mansur Ibrahim of Homs; and an-Nasir brought up the army of Kerak. On 4 October 1244, the allied forces began to march south-ward, along the coast road. Though an-Nasir and his Bedouins kept themselves apart, there was perfect comradeship between the Franks and al-Mansur Ibrahim and his men. The Christian army was the largest that Outremer had put into the field since the fatal day of Hattin. There were six hundred lay horsemen, led by Philip of Montfort, lord of Toron and Tyre, and Walter of Brienne, Count of Jaffa. The Temple and the Hospital both sent over three hundred of their Orders, under the two Grand Masters, Armand of Perigord and William of Chateauneuf. There was a contingent from the Teutonic Order. Bohemond of Antioch sent his cousins, John and William of Botrun, and John of Ham, Constable of Tripoli. The Patriarch Robert himself accompanied the army, with the Archbishop of Tyre and Ralph, Bishop of Ramleh. There was a proportionate number of sergeants and foot-soldiers. The troops under al-Mansur Ibrahim’s command were probably more numerous, but lighter armed. An-Nasir seems to have provided Bedouin cavalry.
The Egyptian army lay before Gaza, under the command of a young Mameluk emir, Rukn ad-Din Baibars. It consisted of five thousand picked Egyptian soldiers and the Khwarismian horde. The opposing armies made contact on 17 October at the village of Herbiya, or La Forbie, on the sandy plain a few miles north-east of Gaza. The allies hastily held a council of war. Al-Mansur Ibrahim recommended that they should stay where they were, fortifying their camp against any Khwarismian attack. He calculated that the Khwarismians would soon grow impatient. They disliked attacking a strong position; and the Egyptian army could not attack without them. With good luck, the whole Egyptian army might soon retire to Egypt. Many of the Christians agreed with him; but Walter of Jaffa eagerly urged an immediate attack. Their forces were superior in number; it was a glorious opportunity for destroying the Khwarismian menace and humiliating Ayub. He had his way; and the whole army moved out to the attack. The Franks were on the right flank, then came the Damascenes and the men of Horns in the centre, and an-Nazir on the left.
1244: Disaster at La Forbie
While the Egyptian troops held the Frankish attack, the Khwarismians charged down upon their Moslem allies. Al-Mansur Ibrahim and his men from Horns stood their ground, but the Damascene troops could not withstand the shock. They turned and fled, and with them an-Nasir and his army. While al-Mansur Ibrahim fought his way out, the Khwarismians turned and swooped on to the flank of the Christians, driving them against the Egyptian regiments. The Franks fought bravely but in vain. Within a few hours their whole army was destroyed. Amongst the dead were the Grand Master of the Temple, and its Marshal, the Archbishop of Tyre, the Bishop of Ramleh and the two young lords of Botrun. The Count of Jaffa, the Grand Master of the Hospital and the Constable of Tripoli were taken prisoner. Philip of Montfort escaped with the Patriarch back to Ascalon, where they were joined by the survivors of the Orders, thirty-three Templars, twenty-six Hospitallers and three Teutonic Knights. They went on by sea to Jaffa. The number of the dead was estimated as being not less than 5000 and probably far more. Eight hundred prisoners were taken back to Egypt.
The victorious army marched at once on Ascalon, which was now garrisoned by the Hospital. Its fortifications proved their value. The Egyptians’ assaults failed, and they settled down to blockade it, bringing up ships from Egypt to watch the coast. Meanwhile the Khwarismians hurried to Jaffa with its captive Count, whom they threatened to hang unless the garrison surrendered. But he shouted to his men to hold firm. The fortifications were too formidable for the Khwarismians. They retired with their prisoner whose life they spared. He died later in captivity, after a brawl with an Egyptian emir, with whom he was playing chess.
The disaster at Gaza robbed the Franks of all the precarious gains that diplomacy had won for them during the last decades. It is unlikely that Jerusalem and Galilee could have been held against any serious Moslem attack, but the loss of manpower left Outremer quite unable to defend more than the coastal districts and a few of the strongest inland castles. Only at Hattin had the losses been greater. There was, however, a difference between Hattin and Gaza. The victor of the earlier battle, Saladin, was already master of all Syria and Egypt. Ayub of Egypt still had to overcome his rival of Damascus before he could venture to finish with the Christians. This delay saved Outremer.
The Khwarismians had hoped that as a reward for their help Ayub would settle them in rich lands in Egypt. But he refused to allow them across the frontier and posted troops there to see that they remained in Syria. They turned back to raid Palestine, as far as the suburbs of Acre, then moved inland to join the Egyptians at the siege of Damascus. The Egyptian army, under the emir Mu’in ad-Din, marched up through central Palestine, depriving an-Nasir of Kerak of all of his lands west of the Jordan and eventually arrived before Damascus in April 1245. The siege lasted for six months. Ismail of Damascus cut out the dykes that held in the river Barada and the land outside the walls was an impenetrable marsh. But the tight blockade organized by the Egyptians soon caused unrest amongst the merchants and shopkeepers. Early in October Ismail came to terms. He yielded up Damascus in return for a vassal-principality consisting of Baalbek and the Hauran. But the Khwarismians were still left unrewarded. They therefore decided to abandon Ayub’s cause and early in 1246 offered their services to Ismail. With their help he returned towards Damascus and laid siege to the city. He had hoped that other Ayubite princes would join him against Ayub; but they disliked the Khwarismians more. The Regent of Aleppo and the Prince of Horns, subsidized by Ayub, sent an army to the relief of Damascus. Ismail and his allies raised the siege and came northward, and met the relieving force early in May, somewhere on the road from Baalbek to Horns. He was severely defeated and the Khwarismians almost annihilated. Those that survived found their way to the East, to join up with the Mongols, while the head of their leader was carried in triumph through the streets of Aleppo. The whole Arab world rejoiced at their disappearance. Ayub’s possession of Damascus was confirmed. Ismail was restricted once more back to Baalbek, and the Ayubites of the north recognized Ayub’s seniority. He could give his attention again to the Franks.
1247: Loss of Ascalon
On 17 June 1247, an Egyptian army captured Tiberias and its castle, which Odo of Montbeliard had recently rebuilt. Mount Thabor and the castle of Belvoir were occupied soon afterwards. The army moved next to the siege of Ascalon. The fortifications which Hugh of Burgundy had constructed were in good condition, and there was a strong garrison of Hospitallers. Further help was summoned from Acre and from Cyprus. King Henry of Cyprus at once sent a squadron of eight galleys with a hundred knights under his Seneschal, Baldwin of Ibelin, to Acre, where the Commune, with the aid of the Italian colonists, had fitted out seven more galleys and fifty lighter vessels. The Egyptians had brought up a fleet of twenty-one galleys which was blockading the town and which now sailed out to meet the Christians. But before contact was made it ran into a sudden Mediterranean storm. Many of the ships were driven ashore and wrecked; the survivors sailed back to Egypt. The Christian fleet was able to sail on unmolested to Ascalon and revictual the garrison and land the knights. But the bad weather continued, and the ships could not remain in the unprotected anchorage off the town. They returned to Acre and left Ascalon to its fate. The besieging army had been handicapped by a lack of wood for siege-engines; but the wreckage of their ships scattered along the shore provided them with all the material that they needed. A great battering-ram forced a passage-way under the walls right into the citadel; and on 15 October the Egyptian army poured through. The defenders were taken by surprise. Most of them were killed outright, and the remainder taken prisoner. By the Sultan’s orders the fortress was dismantled and left desolate. Ayub did not follow up his victory. He paid a visit to Jerusalem, whose walls he ordered to be reconstructed, and then passed on to hold court in Damascus. He was in residence there over the winter of 1248 and the spring of 1249, and all the Moslem princes of Syria came to do him homage.
In the diminished kingdom of Outremer, despite its losses and its lack of a central authority, there was internal tranquillity. Queen Alice died in 1246; and the regency passed to the next heir, her son King Henry of Cyprus, after a protest from her half-sister, the Dowager Princess Melisende of Antioch. King Henry, whose chief distinction was his enormous corpulence, was not the man to assert his powers. He appointed Balian of Ibelin as his bailli and confirmed Philip of Montfort in the possession of Tyre. When Balian died in September 1247, he was succeeded as bailli by his brother, John of Arsuf, and as lord of Beirut by his son, another John.
Further north, Bohemond V of Antioch and Tripoli tried to keep himself apart as far as possible from the concerns of his neighbours. The influence of his Italian wife, Lucienne of Segni, kept him on good terms with the Papacy; but the number of her Roman relatives and friends whom she invited to the East irritated his barons and was to cause him trouble later. It was probably at the Pope’s request that he sent a contingent to the disastrous battle of Gaza. But at the same time he kept up friendly relations with Frederick II, and gave Lothair Filangieri and Thomas of Acerra asylum at Tripoli, to the Pope’s annoyance, though he refused them active aid. His quarrel with the Armenian Kingdom lasted for some years. He vainly attempted to persuade the Pope to arrange a divorce between the young Roupenian heiress Isabella and the new King Hethoum, in order to deprive Hethoum of his right to the throne. But both he and Henry of Cyprus were specifically forbidden by Rome to attack the Armenians, while Hethoum for his part was too busily engaged in warding off the attacks of the great Seldjuk Sultan, Kaikhosrau, to be aggressive. The marriage of Hethoum’s sister Stephanie to Henry of Cyprus in 1237 gradually paved the way to a general reconciliation.
1245: A Uniate Patriarchate at Antioch
Bohemond had little control over the Military Orders settled in his dominions; but they had grown more cautious. In an attempt to reconcile the Commune of Antioch, with its strong Greek element, the Papacy, it seems with Bohemond’s approval, changed its policy towards the Orthodox Church there. It was clearly impossible now to integrate the Greeks and Latins into one Church. So Honorius III offered the Greeks an autonomous Church with its own hierarchy and ritual, so long as the Greek Patriarch would recognize the supreme authority of Rome. The Greek clergy refused the offer, possibly with the secret encouragement of Bohemond, who considered that an independent Greek hierarchy would be more tractable; and the Patriarch Symeon bustled off to the anti-Latin Council summoned by the Nicaean Emperor at Nymphaeum, where the Pope was solemnly excommunicated. But when Symeon died, about the year 1240, his successor David, in whose appointment it may be that the Princess Lucienne had some part, was willing to enter into negotiations. In 1245 Pope Innocent IV sent the Franciscan, Lorenzo of Orta, to the East with instructions that the Greeks who acknowledged Papal ecclesiastical suzerainty were to be put everywhere on the same footing as the Latins. They need only obey Latin superiors where there was a good historical precedent for it. The Patriarch was invited to dispatch a mission to Rome, at the Pope’s expense, to discuss disputed points. David accepted these terms. About the same time the Latin Patriarch, Albert, who was not entirely pleased with the arrangements, went off to France to attend a Council at Lyons, where he died. The next Latin Patriarch, Opizon Fieschi, the Pope’s nephew, was not appointed till 1247 and came to Antioch the following year. In the meantime David was the only Patriarch resident at Antioch. But on David’s death, the date of which is unknown, his successor Euthymius rejected Papal authority, for which he was excommunicated by Opizon and banished from the city.
A large party in the Jacobite Church had already made its submission to Rome. In 1237 the Jacobite Patriarch, Ignatius of Antioch, while visiting Jerusalem, took part in a Latin procession and was given a Dominican habit, after making an Orthodox declaration of faith. On his return to Antioch he carried many of his clergy with him, and Latins were officially told that they might confess to Jacobite priests, when Latin confessors were not available. In 1245 a Papal emissary, Andrew of Longjumeau, visited Ignatius at Mardin, where he had his main residence; and the terms for union were negotiated. Ignatius was prepared to accept a verbal formula about doctrine and administrative autonomy under the direct suzerainty of Rome. But unfortunately Ignatius spoke only for one party of the Jacobite Church. There was already a feud between the Jacobites of northern Syria and those of the eastern and southern provinces; and the latter disregarded the union. So long as Ignatius lived, his followers remained loyal to the Latins. But after his death in 1252 there was a dispute over the succession. The pro-Latin candidate, John of Aleppo, triumphed for a time, but considered that his Lath friends had given him insufficient support, while his rival, Denys, who eventually displaced him, was consistently opposed to them. Only a small portion of the Church, based on Tripoli, maintained the union.
1252: Scandals in the Church of Antioch
The work to achieve union had been carried out mainly by the preaching friars, Dominicans and Franciscans, who had begun operations in the East soon after the foundation of their Orders. In the restricted kingdom of Jerusalem they did not find much scope; but they were particularly active in the Patriarchate of Antioch, the Patriarch Albert being their devoted patron. They tended more and more to replace the secular clergy in the scattered dioceses of the Patriarchate. The relations of the Patriarchs with the new monastic order of the Cistercians were less happy. Peter II, himself a former Cistercian abbot, had installed them in two monasteries, Saint George of Jubin, near Antioch, and Belmont near Tripoli. But various scandals arose during the Patriarchate of Albert; and a series of appeals to Rome had to be made before order was reintroduced into the monasteries and the Patriarch’s authority made good.
Bohemond V himself took little interest in these proceedings. He seldom visited Antioch, but held his Court at Tripoli. As in the kingdom, the various elements in his dominions drifted apart, saved from extinction by the quarrels of the Ayubites and by a newer and tremendous force that was beginning to agitate the Moslem world, the Empire of the Mongols.