A crusade (sometimes known as the Barons’ Crusade) consisting of successive expeditions led by Thibaud IV, count of Champagne, and Richard, earl of Cornwall, that regained considerable Frankish territory in the Holy Land by way of diplomacy.
In 1229 Emperor Frederick II and the Ayyūbid sultan of Egypt, al-Kāmil, had agreed to a ten-year truce for the kingdom of Jerusalem. On 4 September 1234, Pope Gregory IX, who had condemned this agreement, wrote to the English and encouraged them to be ready to launch a crusade once the truce expired. A number of English and French nobles took the cross, but the crusade’s departure was delayed because Frederick, whose lands the crusaders had planned to cross, opposed any crusading activity before the expiration of his truce with al-Kāmil. Frederick’s excommunication (20 March 1239), prompted by differences between him and the pope regarding their Italian spheres of influence, caused most crusaders to avoid his territories on their way to Outremer.
Pope Gregory IX. (Library of Congress)
The crusaders of the French expedition assembled in Lyons in August 1239. Their leaders were Thibaud IV of Champagne (who since 1234 had also been king of Navarre) and Hugh IV, duke of Burgundy, joined by two officials of the French royal court, namely, the constable Amalric of Montfort and the butler Robert of Courtenay, and by Peter of Dreux, the former count of Brittany. Most of them sailed from Marseilles. On 1 September 1239, Thibaud arrived in Acre (mod. ‘Akko, Israel), where the crusaders set up camp. They were soon drawn into the Ayyûbid wars of succession, which had been raging since the death of al-Kāmil (1238). At the end of September, al-Kāmil’s brother al-Sālih Ismā‘īl seized Damascus from his nephew,al-Sālih Ayyûb, and recognized Ayyûb’s brother al-‘Ādil II as sultan of Egypt. On 21 October, Ayyûb was captured and imprisoned by his cousin al-Nāsir Dāwūd of Kerak. Realizing that a Damascus with close ties to Egypt would place Frankish Outremer in a dangerous embrace, the crusaders decided to fortify the city of Ascalon (mod. Tel Ashqelon, Israel) to protect the southern border of the kingdom and to move against Damascus later. While the crusaders were marching from Acre to Jaffa (2-12 November), Egyptian troops moved up to Gaza to secure the border. Contrary to Thibaud’s instructions and the advice of the military orders, a group of 400-600 knights, led by Henry of Bar, Amalric of Montfort, Hugh of Burgundy, and Walter of Jaffa, decided to move against the enemy without further delay, but they were surprised by the Muslims and forced into combat. Hugh and Walter escaped to Ascalon, Amalric and many others were captured, and Henry was killed (13 November 1239). Following this defeat, the military orders convinced Thibaud to retreat to Acre rather than pursue the Egyptians and their Frankish prisoners.
In the spring of 1240, al-Nāsir released Ayyûb and helped him to seize control of Egypt. Realizing that Ayyûb’s new position of power could become dangerous for Damascus, Ismā‘īl approached the crusaders, with whom he had been in negotiations for some time. He promised to restore Galilee, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and considerable coastal areas to the Franks in exchange for their support against Egypt. Much of the territory Ismā‘īl was offering in fact belonged to al-Nāsir. Naturally, the truce was opposed by those hoping to obtain the freedom of the Frankish prisoners held in Egypt. Al-Nāsir’s hopes that his support for Ayyûb would earn him assistance to win Damascus were disappointed once Ayyûb was firmly installed in Egypt, and so both al-Nāsir and al-Mansûr Ibrāhīm,ruler of Homs, joined the Frankish-Damascene alliance (summer 1240). In mid- September 1240, after a visit to Jerusalem, Thibaud departed for Europe, while Hugh of Burgundy remained to help fortify Ascalon.
On 8 October 1240, the crusaders of the English expedition arrived, led by Richard, earl of Cornwall, who had left England on 10 June, traveled through France, and then sailed from Marseilles to Acre. The crusaders marched to Jaffa, where an Egyptian envoy suggested that Ayyûb would honor Ismā‘il’s territorial promises (even though Ayyûb himself controlled none of those territories), with the exception of the strategically important cities of Gaza, Hebron, and Nablus, which Ayyûb reserved for himself, and that he would release the Frankish prisoners if the crusaders would abandon their alliance with Damascus for a position of “benevolent neutrality” [Jackson, “The Crusades of 123941,” p. 48]. Richard consented, the new agreement was ratified by Ayyûb by 8 February 1241, and the prisoners were released on 13 April. Meanwhile, Richard’s forces helped to work on Ascalon’s fortifications, which were completed by mid-March 1241. Since he was Emperor Frederick II’s brother-in-law, he entrusted the new fortress to Walter Pen- nenpié, an imperial representative, and departed for the West on 3 May. Throughout their crusade, Thibaud and Richard had to contend with opposing factions of local barons as well as disunity among the military orders. The main sources for this crusade are the Old French continuations of William of Tyre (Estoire d’Eracles and Rothelin), the Gestes des Chiprois, the Chronica maiora of Matthew Paris, and the works of Ibn Wāsil, Ibn Shaddād, and al-Maqrizi.