‘And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah.’ ZEPHANIAH II, 7
The Third Crusade had come to a close. Never again would such a galaxy of princes go eastward for the Holy War. Yet, though all Western Europe had combined in the great effort, the results were exiguous. Tyre had been saved by Conrad before the Crusaders arrived and Tripoli by the Sicilian fleet. Acre and the coastline down to Jaffa were all that the Crusaders had contributed to the rebirth of the Frankish kingdom, apart from the island of Cyprus, filched from its Christian lord. One thing, however, had been achieved. Saladin’s career of conquest had been checked. The Moslems were wearied by the long war. They would not yet awhile try again to drive the Christians back into the sea. The kingdom had indeed been reborn, firmly enough to last for another century. It was a very small kingdom; and though its kings were in name Kings of Jerusalem, Jerusalem lay out of their grasp. All that they owned was a strip of land, never as much as ten miles wide, stretching for ninety miles by the sea, from Jaffa to Tyre. Further north Bohemond’s judicious neutrality had preserved for him his capital and a little land around, down to the port of Saint Symeon; while his son retained Tripoli itself and the Hospital held Krak des Chevaliers and the Templars Tortosa under him. It was not much to have salvaged from the wreck of the Frankish east; but for the moment it was safe.
1193: Death of Saladin
Saladin was only fifty-four, but he was tired and ill after all the struggles of the war. He stayed on at Jerusalem till he heard that Richard had set sail from Acre, busying himself over the civil administration for the province of Palestine. He hoped then to revisit Egypt and afterwards to fulfil his pious ambition of a pilgrimage to Mecca. But duty called him to Damascus. After touring for three weeks through the lands that he had conquered and meeting Bohemond at Beirut to sign a definite peace with him, he arrived at Damascus on 4 November. There was a pile of work awaiting him there, an accumulation that had mounted during his four years of life with the army. It was a severe winter and, with so much to be done in his capital, he put off his journey to Egypt and his pilgrimage. When he had time to spare he would listen to the debates of men learned in philosophy, and sometimes he would go hunting. But as the winter months went on, those that knew him best saw that his health was failing. He complained of utter weariness and of forgetfulness. He could scarcely make the effort to hold audiences. On Friday, 19 February 1193, he braced himself to ride out to meet the pilgrimage coming home from Mecca. That evening he complained of fever and of pain. He bore his sickness patiently and calmly, knowing well that the end was coming. On 1 March he fell into a stupor. His son, al-Afdal, hurried off to secure the allegiance of the emirs; and only the Cadi of Damascus and a few faithful servants stayed by the Sultan’s bedside. On Wednesday the 3rd, as the Cadi was repeating the words of the Koran over him and came to the passage, ‘there is no God but He; in Him do I trust’, the dying man opened his eyes and smiled, and went in peace to his Lord.
Of all the great figures of the Crusading era Saladin is the most attractive. He had his faults. In his rise to power he showed a cunning and a ruthlessness that fitted ill with his later reputation. In the interests of policy he never shrank from bloodshed; he slew Reynald of Chatillon, whom he hated, with his own hand. But when he was severe it was for the sake of his people and his faith. He was a devout Moslem. However kindly he felt towards his Christian friends, he knew that their souls were doomed to perdition. Yet he respected their ways and thought of them as fellowmen. Unlike the Crusader potentates, he never broke his word when it was pledged to anyone, whatever his religion. For all his fervour, he was always courteous and generous, merciful as a conqueror and a judge, as a master considerate and tolerant. Though some of his emirs might resent him as a Kurdish parvenu and though preachers in the West might call him Antichrist, there were very few of his subjects that did not feel for him respect and devotion, and few of his enemies could withhold admiration from him. In person he was slight of build. His face was melancholy in repose but would readily light up with a charming smile. His manner was always gentle. His tastes were simple. He disliked coarseness and ostentation. He loved the open air and the chase, but he was also well read and delighted in intellectual discussions, though he held free-thinkers in horror. In spite of his power and his victories he was a quiet modest man. Many years later a legend reached the ears of the Frankish writer, Vincent of Beauvais, that when he lay dying he summoned his standard-bearer and bade him go round Damascus with a rag from his shroud set upon a lance calling out that the Monarch of all the East could take nothing with him to the tomb save this cloth.
1193: Saladin’s Sons
His achievements had been great. He had completed the work of Nur ed-Din in uniting Islam and he had driven the Western intruders out of the Holy City down to a narrow strip of coast. But he had been unable to expel them altogether. King Richard and the forces of the Third Crusade had been too much for him. Had he been followed by another ruler of his calibre, the small remaining task might soon have been done. But the tragedy of medieval Islam was its lack of permanent institutions, to carry on authority after a leader’s death. The Caliphate was the only institution to have an existence transcending that of its holders; and the Caliph was now politically impotent. Nor was Saladin Caliph. He was a Kurd of no great family who commanded the obedience of the Moslem world only by the force of his personality. His sons lacked his personality.
At the tune of his death Saladin had seventeen sons and one little daughter. The eldest of them was al-Afdal, an arrogant young man of twenty-two, who had been designed by his father to inherit Damascus and the headship of the Ayubite family. While Saladin was dying al-Afdal had summoned all the emirs at Damascus to swear allegiance to him and to promise to divorce their wives and disinherit their children if ever they broke the oath. The last clause shocked many of them, and others would not swear unless al-Afdal in turn swore to maintain them in their fiefs. But when his father died and was buried in the great Mosque of the Ommayads, his authority in Damascus was accepted. His next brother, al-Aziz, was already governor of Egypt, at the age of twenty-one, and proclaimed himself there as independent Sultan. A third, az-Zahir, ruled in Aleppo and showed no willingness to admit his brother as overlord. Another, Khidr, younger still, held the Hauran but acknowledged al-Afdal’s suzerainty. Only two of Saladin’s brothers survived, Toghtekin, who had succeeded Turanshah as lord of the Yemen, and al-Adil, whose ambitions Saladin had come to mistrust. He had the former Frankish land of Oultrejourdain as his fief, and lands in the Jezireh, round Edessa. Nephews and cousins possessed lesser fiefs throughout the Sultan’s dominions. Princes of the house of Zenghi, Izz ed-Din and Imad ed-Din, held Mosul and Sindjar as vassals: and the Ortoqids were still established at Mardin and Kaifa. Of the other feudatories, most of them successful generals whom Saladin had employed, the most prominent was Bektimur, lord of Akhlat.
On Saladin’s death the unity of Islam began to crumble. While his sons watched each other jealously, a plot was hatched in the north-east to restore Zengid rule in the person of Izz ed-Din, with the support of Bektimur and the Ortoqids. The Ayubites were saved by the precautions of al-Adil, and by the sudden deaths of both Izz ed-Din and Bektimur, in which his agents were thought to have had a hand. Izz ed-Din’s son and heir, Nur ed-Din Arslan, and Bektimur’s successor Aqsonqor took note of the lesson and for the time being were deferential to al-Adil. Further south al-Afdal soon quarrelled with al-Aziz. The former had unwisely dismissed most of his father’s ministers and had given his entire trust to az-Ziya ibn al-Athir, the brother of the historian Ibn al-Athir, while he himself spent his days and nights enjoying the pleasures of music and wine. The ex-ministers fled to Cairo, to al-Aziz, who was delighted to welcome them. On their advice al-Aziz invaded Syria in May 1194, and reached the walls of Damascus. Al-Afdal appealed in terror to his uncle al-Adil, who came in force down from the Jezireh and interviewed al-Aziz in his camp. A new family arrangement was made. Al-Afdal was obliged to cede Judaea to al-Aziz and Lattakieh and Jabala to his brother az-Zahir of Aleppo, but both al-Aziz and az-Zahir recognized his supremacy. Al-Adil received nothing from the bargaining except the prestige of having been arbiter of the family. Peace did not last for long. In less than a year al-Aziz marched again on Damascus, and again al-Adil came to his eldest nephew’s rescue. Al-Aziz’s allies amongst the emirs began to desert him; and al-Afdal drove him back across Judaea into Egypt and planned to march on Cairo. This was more than al-Adil wished. He threatened to give his support to al-Aziz, unless al-Afdal returned to Damascus. Once again his wishes were obeyed.
1199: Ayubite Quarrels
It was soon clear that al-Afdal was unfit to reign. The government of Damascus was entirely in the hands of the vizier az-Ziya, who provoked sedition amongst all his master’s vassals. Al-Adil decided that Ayubite interests could not afford so incompetent a head of the family. He changed his policy and allied himself with al-Aziz, with whose help he took Damascus in July 1196, and annexed all al-Afdal’s lands. Al-Afdal was provided with an honourable retreat in the little town of Salkhad in the Hauran, where he gave up sensual pleasures for a life of piety; and al-Aziz was recognized as supreme Sultan of the dynasty.
This arrangement lasted for two years. In November 1198, al-Aziz, whose authority over his uncle had never been more than nominal, fell from his horse when hunting jackal near the Pyramids. He died from his injuries on 29 November. His eldest son, al-Mansur, was a boy of twelve. His father’s ministers, frightened of al-Adil’s ambition, summoned al-Afdal from Salkhad to be Regent of Egypt. In January 1199 al-Afdal arrived at Cairo and took over the government. Al-Adil was then in the north, laying siege to Mardin, whose Ortoqid prince, Yuluk-Arslan, was restive at Ayubite control. His temporary embarrassment roused his third nephew, az-Zahir of Aleppo, to plan an alliance against him. Az-Zahir throughout his reign had been troubled by turbulent vassals whom he suspected his uncle of encouraging. While al-Afdal sent an army up from Egypt to attack Damascus, az-Zahir prepared to come down from the north. Other members of the family, such as Shirkuh of Homs, joined them. Al-Adil, hurrying from Mardin, where he left his son al-Kamil in charge of the siege, reached Damascus on 8 June. Six days later the Egyptian army came up and at its first assault penetrated into the city, to be quickly driven out again. Az-Zahir and his army arrived a week later; and for six months the two brothers besieged their uncle in his capital. But al-Adil was a trained and subtle diplomat. Gradually he won over many of his nephew’s vassals, including Shirkuh of Homs; and when at last in January 1200, his son al-Kamil appeared with an army that had been victorious in the Jezireh, the brothers, who had begun to quarrel, separated and retired. Al-Adil pursued al-Afdal into Egypt, defeating his troops at Bilbeis. In February al-Afdal, in a new access of piety, yielded to his uncle and returned to his retirement in Salkhad. Al-Adil took over the regency of Egypt. But az-Zahir was undefeated. Next spring, while al-Adil was still in Egypt, he made a sudden march on Damascus and persuaded al-Afdal to join him again. Again al-Adil hastened back to his capital in time to be besieged by his nephews. But he was soon able to foment a quarrel between them. Al-Afdal was bought off by the promise of the cities of Samosata and Mayyafaraqin in the north, in exchange for Salkhad. Az-Zahir’s vassals one by one began to desert him; and he was glad to make his peace with al-Adil whose strict suzerainty he admitted. By the end of 1201 al-Adil was master of all Saladin’s empire and had taken the title of Sultan. Al-Mansur of Egypt was given only the city of Edessa. Al-Afdal was never allowed to control Mayyafaraqin, which was passed with its neighbouring lands to al-Adil’s fourth son al-Muzaffar. The eldest son, al-Kamil, held Egypt under his father, the second, al-Muazzam, was his father’s deputy in Damascus, and the third, al-Ashraf, ruled most of the Jezireh from Harran. Younger sons were enfeoffed as they grew old enough; but all of them were closely supervised by their father. The unity of Islam was thus restored under a prince less respected than Saladin, but wilier and more active.
1194: Henry’s Government
The family squabbles of the Ayubites prevented the Moslems from taking the offensive against the renascent Frankish kingdom. Henry of Champagne had slowly been able to restore some order there. It was not an easy task; nor was Henry’s position entirely secure. For some reason that cannot now be explained, he was never crowned king. He may have waited in the fond hope of some day recovering Jerusalem; he may have found public opinion unwilling to accept his royal title; or he may have found the Church un-cooperative. The omission limited his authority, particularly over the Church. On the death of the Patriarch Heraclius there had been some difficulty in finding a successor to his throne. Eventually an obscure cleric called Radulph had been appointed. When he died in 1194, the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, who were now at Acre, met together and elected as Patriarch Aymar, surnamed the Monk, Archbishop of Caesarea, and sent to Rome to have the election confirmed. Henry, who was displeased at the choice, complained angrily that he had not been consulted and arrested the Canons. His action was severely criticized even by his friends; for he was not the crowned king and therefore had no right to intervene. His chancellor, Josias, Archbishop of Tyre, persuaded him to climb down and to appease the Church by releasing the Canons with an apology and by presenting the new Patriarch’s nephew with a rich fief near Acre; and at the same time he received a sharp reproof from the Pope. Though peace was restored the Patriarch may well have been unwilling to oblige Henry now by crowning him. With his lay vassals Henry was more fortunate. He had the support of their leader, Balian of Ibelin, and of the Military Orders. But Guy of Lusignan still looked longingly from Cyprus at his former kingdom, and was encouraged by the Pisans, to whom he had promised rich concessions and who were angry at the favour shown by Henry to the Genoese. In May 1193, Henry discovered that the Pisan colony at Tyre was plotting to seize the city and hand it over to Guy. He at once arrested the ringleaders and ordered that the colony should be reduced to thirty persons. The Pisans retaliated by raiding the coastal villages between Tyre and Acre. Henry therefore expelled them from Acre itself. The Constable of the kingdom was still Guy’s brother, Amalric of Lusignan, who had been responsible for Guy’s arrival in Palestine many years before but who had managed to establish good relations with the local baronage. His wife was Eschiva of Ibelin, Balian’s niece and daughter of Guy’s bitterest opponent Baldwin of Ramleh; he had not been a faithful husband in the past but he was now reconciled to her. He intervened on behalf of the Pisans only to be arrested himself by Henry for his interference. The Grand Masters of the Hospital and the Temple soon persuaded Henry to release him; but he thought it prudent to retire to Jaffa, of which King Richard had appointed his brother Geoffrey as Governor. He did not resign from his office of Constable, but Henry considered that he had forfeited it and in 1194 appointed as his successor John of Ibelin, Balian’s son and Isabella’s half-brother. Peace was made about the same time with the Pisans, whose quarter in Acre was restored to them and who henceforward admitted Henry’s government.
1197: The Kingdom of Cyprus
A general reconciliation was made possible by the death of King Guy in Cyprus in May 1194. His elimination left Henry secure and deprived the Pisans and other dissidents of a rival candidate. Guy had bequeathed his authority in Cyprus to his eldest brother Geoffrey. But Geoffrey had returned to France; and the Franks in Cyprus had no hesitation in summoning Amalric from Jaffa to take his place. Henry at first demanded as representative of the Kings of Jerusalem to be consulted about the succession, but he could not implement his claim; and both he and Amalric soon saw that they must work together. The Constable of Cyprus, Baldwin, formerly lord of Beisan, came to Acre and induced Henry both to recognize Amalric and to offer to visit him in Cyprus. Their interview was very friendly, and they planned a close alliance, binding it with the betrothal of Amalric’s three young sons, Guy, John and Hugh, with Isabella’s three daughters, Maria of Montferrat and Alice and Philippa of Champagne. It was thus hoped to unite their possessions in the next generation; but two of the little Cypriot princes died too young. The only one of the marriages to be achieved was that between Hugh and Alice, which bore its dynastic fruit in time to come. Some such arrangement was badly needed; for if the Frankish possession of Cyprus was to benefit the Franks in Palestine and provide them with a secure base, the two countries must co-operate. There was a continuous temptation not only for immigrants from the West to settle in the pleasant island rather than in the small remnant of the Palestinian kingdom where no fiefs were now to be found, but also for the dispossessed baronage of Palestine itself to cross the narrow sea. If the Cypriot lords were willing to come over the ea to fight for the Cross whenever danger approached, then Cyprus would be an asset to the Frankish east. If there were misunderstandings it might well become a dangerously centrifugal force.
Friendly though he was, Amalric was not prepared to be subservient to Henry. He had already sought for himself the title of king, in order to define clearly to his subjects and colonists, as well as to foreign powers, the nature of his authority. But he felt in need of some higher sanction. It must have been the past history of the Kings of Jerusalem that made him unwilling to apply to the Pope for his crown. The Eastern Emperor would certainly never give it to him. So, unwisely for the future, he sent to the Western Emperor, Henry VI. The Emperor was planning a Crusade; and a client king in the East would suit him well. In October 1195, Amalric’s ambassador, Rainier of Jebail, did homage for the kingdom of Cyprus on his master’s behalf to the Emperor at Gelnhausen, near Frankfurt. Amalric was sent a royal sceptre by his suzerain; and the coronation took place in September 1197, when the Imperial Chancellor, Conrad, Bishop of Hildesheim, came to Nicosia to take part in the ceremony, and Amalric did homage to him. The government of the country was planned to follow the strictly feudal practices that had been worked out in the kingdom of Jerusalem, with a High Court equivalent to the High Court of Jerusalem; and the laws of Jerusalem, with the emendations made by its kings, were held to operate in the island. For organizing his church, Amalric had recourse to the Pope; who appointed the Archdeacon of Lattakieh and Alan, Archdeacon of Lydda and Chancellor of Cyprus, to establish sees as they thought best. They created an Archbishopric of Nicosia, of which Alan became the holder, and Bishoprics at Paphos, Famagusta and Limassol. The Greek bishops were not immediately expelled, but they lost their tithes and much of their lands to the new Latin incumbents.
Though Henry of Champagne could not obtain control over Cyprus, the barons in his own kingdom were now loyal to him. Indeed, his opponents retired happily to Cyprus, leaving the Palestinian lands to his friends. The former lords of Haifa, Caesarea and Arsuf were reinstated in their former baronies; and Saladin, before he died, presented Balian of Ibelin with the valuable fief of Caymon, or Tel-Kaimun, on the slopes of Carmel. The friendship of the Ibelins, his wife’s stepfather and half-brothers, was of value in making Henry’s authority generally acceptable. A greater problem was provided by the Principality of Antioch.
1186: Leo II of Armenia
Bohemond III of Antioch, ruler also of Tripoli in the name of his young son, had played a rather equivocal part during Saladin’s wars of conquest and the Third Crusade. He had made no serious effort to prevent Saladin’s capture of his castles in the Orontes valley in 1188, nor to recover Lattakieh and Jabala, which had been betrayed to the Moslems by his Moslem servant, the qadi Mansur ibn Nabil. He had been glad to accept from Saladin a truce that allowed him to keep Antioch itself and its port of Saint Symeon. Tripoli had been saved for his son only by the intervention of the Sicilian fleet. When Frederick of Swabia and the remnants of Barbarossa’s army had arrived at Antioch, Bohemond made a mild suggestion that they might fight for him against the Moslems in the north, but when they pressed on southward, he took no active part in the Crusade, beyond paying a deferential visit to King Richard in Cyprus. He had meanwhile changed his position with regard to Palestinian party politics. As soon as his cousin Raymond of Tripoli was dead and he had secured his inheritance for his own son, he gave his support to Guy of Lusignan and his friends, probably for fear lest Conrad of Montferrat should have designs on Tripoli. He had no wish for a strong aggressive king on his southern border, for he was fully occupied in a quarrel with his northern neighbour, the Roupenian prince of Armenia, Leo II, brother and heir of Roupen III.
On his accession in 1186 Leo sought an alliance with Bohemond and recognized his suzerainty. The two princes joined to beat off a Turcoman raid in 1187; and soon afterwards Leo married a niece of the Princess Sibylla. About the same time he lent a large sum of money to Bohemond. But there the friendship ended. Bohemond showed no haste to repay the loan; and when Saladin invaded Antiochene territory, Leo remained carefully neutral. In 1191 Saladin dismantled the great fortress of Baghras, which he had captured from the Templars. Hardly had his workmen left before Leo came up and reoccupied the site and rebuilt the fortress. Bohemond demanded its return to the Templars and, when Leo refused, complained to Saladin. Saladin was too busy elsewhere to intervene; and Leo remained in possession of Baghras. But he was furious at Bohemond’s appeal to Saladin, and his resentment was fanned by Bohemond’s wife, Sibylla, who hoped to use his help in securing the Antiochene inheritance for her own son William, at the expense of her stepsons. In October 1193, Leo invited Bohemond to come to Baghras to discuss the whole question. Bohemond arrived, accompanied by Sibylla and her son, and accepted Leo’s offer of hospitality within the castle walls. No sooner had he entered than he was taken prisoner by his host, with all his entourage, and was told that he would be released only if he yielded the suzerainty over Antioch to Leo. Bohemond ruefully accepted the terms, persuaded, perhaps, by Sibylla who hoped that Leo as overlord of Antioch would give the succession there to her son. Bohemond’s Marshal, Bartholomew Tirel, and Leo’s nephew-in-law, Hethoum of Sassoun, were sent with Armenian troops to Antioch to prepare the city for the new regime.
When the delegation arrived at Antioch, the barons there, who had no great liking for Bohemond and many of whom had Armenian blood, were ready to accept Leo as overlord, and allowed Bartholomew to bring the Armenian soldiers into the city and establish them in the palace. But the bourgeois citizens, Greeks as well as Latins, were horrified. They believed that Leo intended to govern the city himself and that Armenians would be put over them. When an Armenian soldier spoke disrespectfully of Saint Hilary, the French bishop to whom the palace chapel was dedicated, a cellarer who was present began to throw stones at him. At once a riot began in the palace and spread through the city. The Armenians were driven out and prudently retired with Hethoum of Sassoun back to Baghras. The citizens then assembled in the Cathedral of St Peter, with the Patriarch at their head, and proceeded to set up a Commune to take over the administration of the city. To legalize their position the elected members hastened to take an oath of allegiance to Bohemond’s eldest son, Raymond, till Bohemond should return. Raymond accepted their homage and recognized their claims. Meanwhile messengers were sent to his brother Bohemond of Tripoli and to Henry of Champagne, begging them to come and preserve Antioch from the Armenians.
1194: Henry and the Assassins
The episode showed that while the barons of Antioch were ready to go even further than their cousins in Jerusalem to identify themselves with the Christians of the East, opposition to such a merger came from the commercial community. But the circumstances differed from those in the Kingdom a few years before. Both the Franks and the Greeks in Antioch considered the Armenians as barbarous mountaineers. The Latin Church, in the person of the Patriarch, showed its sympathy with the Commune, but it is doubtful whether it played a leading part in its inception. The Patriarch, Radulph II, was a weak and aged man who had only recently succeeded the redoubtable Aimery of Limoges. It is more likely that the chief instigators were the Italian merchants, who feared for their trade under Armenian domination. The idea of a commune was one which at that time would occur more easily to an Italian than to a Frenchman. But whoever promoted the Commune, the Greeks of Antioch soon played a leading part in it.
Bohemond of Tripoli hurried to Antioch in answer to his brother’s summons; and Leo realized that he had missed his chance. He retired with his prisoners to his capital at Sis. Early next spring Henry of Champagne decided to intervene. It was fortunate that the Saracens were in no state after Saladin’s death to be aggressive; but so dangerous a situation could not be allowed to continue. As he moved northwards he was met by an embassy from the Assassins. The Old Man of the Mountains, Sinan, had recently died; and his successor was anxious to revive the friendship that had existed between the sect and the Franks. He sent apologies for the murder of Conrad of Montferrat, a crime that Henry found easy to forgive; and he invited Henry to visit his castle at al-Kahf. There, on a rugged crest in the Nosairi mountains, Henry was offered sumptuous entertainment. He was shown, till he begged that the demonstration should stop, how willingly the sectaries would kill themselves at their sheikh’s orders. He left laden, with costly gifts and the Assassins’ friendly promise to assassinate any of his enemies whom he might name.
From al-Kahf Henry marched up the coast to Antioch, where he barely paused before continuing his journey into Armenia. Leo, unwilling to face an open war, met him before Sis, ready to negotiate a settlement. It was agreed that Bohemond should be released without any ransom, that Baghras and the country around should be recognized as Armenian territory and that neither prince should be suzerain of the other. To seal the treaty and ultimately, it was hoped, to unite the principalities, Bohemond’s heir Raymond was to marry Leo’s niece and heiress-presumptive, Alice, daughter of Roupen III. Alice, it is true, was already married to Hethoum of Sassoun. But the difficulty was easily overcome. Hethoum met with a sudden but timely death. The settlement promised peace for the north; and Henry as its architect showed himself a fit successor of the early kings of Jerusalem. He returned southward with his prestige greatly enhanced.
1198: Leo II’s Coronation
Leo’s ambitions were not, however, satisfied. Knowing that Amalric of Cyprus was seeking a royal crown he followed his example. But legal opinion at the time considered that a crown could only be granted by an Emperor or, according to the Franks, by the Pope. Byzantium, cut off now from Cilicia and Syria by Seldjuk conquests, was no longer strong enough for its titles to carry weight with the Franks, whom Leo wished to impress. He therefore sent to the Western Emperor, Henry VI. Henry prevaricated. He hoped to come soon to the East and he would look into the Armenian question then. So Leo approached the Pope, Celestine III. He had already been in touch with Rome in the time of Clement III, hinting at the submission of his Church to the Papacy; for he knew that as chief of a heretic state he would never be an acceptable overlord for Franks. His own clergy, jealous for their independence and their creed, violently opposed the flirtation. But Leo patiently persevered. His bishops were at last grudgingly persuaded that Papal suzerainty would be merely nominal and would change nothing, while Pope Celestine’s legates were told that the bishops unanimously welcomed the change. The Pope had ordained forbearance and tact; so the legates asked no questions. Meanwhile the Emperor Henry, who had now promised a crown to Amalric, made the same promise to Leo, in return for a recognition of his suzerain rights over Armenia. The actual coronation would take place on his arrival. He never visited the East; but in January 1198, soon after his death, his Chancellor, Conrad of Hildesheim came with the Papal legate Conrad, Archbishop of Mainz, to Sis and was present at a great coronation ceremony. The Eastern Emperor, Alexius Angelus, hoping to retain some influence in Cilicia, had a few months previously sent Leo a royal crown, which was gratefully received. The Armenian Catholicus, Gregory Abirad, placed the crown on Leo’s head, while Conrad gave him a royal sceptre. The Orthodox Archbishop of Tarsus, the Jacobite Patriarch and ambassadors from the Caliph all assisted at the rite, as well as many of the nobility from Antioch. Leo could claim that his title was recognized by all his subjects and his neighbours.
It was a great day for the Armenians, who saw in it a revival of the ancient kingdom of the Armenians; and it completed the integration of the Roupenian principality into the world of the Frankish East. But it is doubtful whether Leo’s policy was in the interests of the Armenians as a whole; for it divided off the Armenians of old Great Armenia, the home of the race, from their southern brothers. And, after a brief spell of glory, the Cilician Armenians were to find that in the end occidentalization brought them very little profit.
The Archbishop Conrad’s presence in the East was due to the determination of the Emperor Henry to launch a new Crusade. Owing to his father Frederick’s untimely death the German contribution to the Third Crusade had been pitiably ineffective. Henry was ambitious to make of his empire an international reality; and his first task, as soon as he was firmly established in Europe, must be to restore German prestige in the Holy Land. While he himself laid plans for a great expedition that would bring the whole Mediterranean under his control, he arranged for the early dispatch of a German expedition to sail straight to Syria. Archbishop Conrad of Mainz and Adolf, Count of Holstein, set out from Bari with a large company of soldiers, derived mainly from the Rhineland and the Hohenstaufen duchies. The first contingents arrived at Acre in August, but the leaders paused in Cyprus for Amalric’s coronation. Henry, Duke of Brabant, with a regiment of his companions had preceded them.
Henry of Champagne did not welcome them gladly. He had learned from experience of the folly of provoking an unnecessary war. His chief advisers were the Ibelins, his wife’s stepfather and stepbrothers, and the lords of Tiberias, the stepsons of Raymond of Tripoli. They, faithful to their family traditions, advised an understanding with the Moslems and a delicate diplomacy playing off the sons and brothers of Saladin against each other. The policy had been successful, and peace, vital for the recovery of the Christian kingdom, had been maintained, in spite of the provocation caused by the pirate emir of Beirut, Usama, whom neither al-Adil at Damascus nor al-Aziz at Cairo could control. Beirut and Sidon were still in Moslem hands, separating the kingdom from the county of Tripoli. Early in 1197 this gap was lessened by the recovery of Jebail. Its Dowager Lady, Stephanie of Milly, was the niece of Reynald of Sidon, and had his gifts for dealing with Moslems. An intrigue with the Kurdish emir there enabled her to reoccupy the town without a struggle and to hand it over to her son.
1197: Death of Henry of Champagne
The Germans had come determined to fight. Without stopping to consult the government of Acre, the first arrivals marched straight into Moslem territory in Galilee. The invasion roused the Moslems. Al-Adil, to whom the land belonged, summoned his relatives to forget their quarrels and join him. Hardly had the Germans crossed the frontier before there was news of al-Adil’s approach. Rumour exaggerated the size of his army; and, without waiting to meet it, the Germans fled in panic towards Acre, the knights deserting the infantrymen in their haste. It seemed likely that al-Adil would march on unopposed to Acre. But Henry, on the advice of Hugh of Tiberias, rushed up his own knights and such Italian soldiers as he could muster to reinforce the German infantrymen; who, braver than their leaders, were ready now to stand firm. Al-Adil was not prepared to risk a pitched battle, but was unwilling to waste his army. He swerved southward and marched on Jaffa. Jaffa was well fortified, but its garrison was small; and Henry could not afford to replenish it. Amalric of Lusignan had governed the town before he went to Cyprus. Henry now offered it back to him if he would defend it. It would be better to have the Cypriots there than that it should pass either to the Moslems or to the irresponsible Germans. As soon as the offer reached him, Amalric sent one of his barons, Reynald Barlais, to take command at Jaffa and to prepare for the coming siege. But Reynald was an easy-going man. News soon came to Acre that he was spending his days in frivolous gaiety and had no intention of putting up any resistance to al-Adil. Henry therefore gathered together what troops he could spare in Acre and asked the Pisan colony there to provide reinforcements.
On 10 September 1197 his troops assembled in the palace courtyard; and Henry reviewed them from the window of an upper gallery. At that moment envoys from the Pisan colony entered the room. Henry turned to greet them, then, forgetting where he was, stepped backward through the open window. His little dwarf, Scarlet, was standing by him and grabbed at his clothes. But Henry was a heavy man and Scarlet very light. They crashed together on to the pavement below and were killed.
1198: Marriage of Isabella and Amalric
The sudden elimination of Henry of Champagne threw the whole kingdom into consternation. He had been very popular. Though a man of no outstanding natural gifts, he had by his tact, his perseverance and his reliance on good advisers proved himself a capable ruler, ready to learn from experience. He had played a useful part in ensuring the continuance of the kingdom. But the barons could not afford to waste time on grief. A new ruler must be found quickly, to deal with the Saracen war and the German Crusade and all the regular problems of government. Henry’s widow, Princess Isabella, was too utterly distraught by her bereavement to take charge; but she was the pivotal figure, as heiress of the royal line. Of her children by Henry two little girls, Alice and Philippa, survived. Her daughter by Conrad, Maria of Montferrat, known from her father’s rank as La Marquise, was only five years old. It was clear that Isabella must remarry. But the barons, while acknowledging her position as heiress, considered it their business to choose her next husband. Unfortunately they could not agree on a suitable candidate. Hugh of Tiberias and his friends proposed his brother Ralph. His family, the house of Falconberg of St Omer, was one of the most distinguished in the kingdom. But it was poor; it had lost its lands in Galilee to the Moslems; and Ralph was a younger son. It was widely felt that he lacked sufficient wealth and prestige. In particular, the Military Orders opposed him. While the debate went on, news came that Jaffa had fallen without a struggle. The Duke of Brabant had set out for its relief. Now he turned back to Acre and took charge of the government. A few days later, on 20 September, Conrad of Mainz and the German leaders arrived from Cyprus. Conrad, as a prelate of the Western Empire and confidant of the Emperor, and friend, as well, of the future Pope, Innocent III, was a man of immense authority. When he suggested that the throne should be offered to King Amalric of Cyprus, there was no opposition, except from the Patriarch, Aymar the Monk, whose own clergy would not support him. It seemed an excellent choice. Amalric’s first wife, Eschiva of Ibelin, had recently died; he was free to marry Isabella. Though many of the Syrian barons could not quite forget that he was a Lusignan, he had ostentatiously abandoned any partisan policy, and he had shown himself a far abler man than his younger brother Guy. His election pleased the Pope, to whom it seemed wise to combine the Latin East under one chief. But the Chancellor Conrad’s motive was subtler. Amalric owed his Cypriot crown to the Emperor Henry, whose vassal he had become. As King of Jerusalem would he not therefore bring his new kingdom under imperial suzerainty? Amalric himself hesitated a little. It was not till January 1198 that he came to Acre. On the morrow of his arrival he was married to Princess Isabella; and a few days later the Patriarch crowned them King and Queen of Jerusalem.
The union of the crowns was not to be as complete as the Pope or the Imperialists had hoped. Amalric made it clear from the outset that the two kingdoms were to be administered separately and that no Cypriot money was to be spent on the defence of the mainland. He himself was only a personal link between them. Cyprus was a hereditary kingdom; and his heir there was his son Hugh. In the kingdom of Jerusalem hereditary right was admitted by public sentiment, but the High Court preserved its claim to elect to the throne. There Amalric owed his position to his wife. If he died she might remarry, and the new husband be accepted as king. And her heir was her daughter, Maria of Montferrat. Even if she bore Amalric a son it was doubtful whether the child of a fourth marriage could claim precedence over a child of the second. In fact their surviving children were two daughters, Sibylla and Melisende.
Though he regarded himself as little more than regent, Amalric was an able and active ruler. He persuaded the High Court to join him in a revision of the constitution, in order that the royal rights should be clearly defined. In particular he made a point of consulting Ralph of Tiberias, his rival for the throne, whom, we are told, he esteemed but did not like. Ralph was celebrated for his legal knowledge, and it was natural that he should be asked to edit the Livre au Roi, as the new edition of the Laws was called. But Amalric feared that Ralph’s learning might be used against him. In March 1198, when the Court was riding through the orchards round Tyre, four German horsemen galloped up to the King and fell on him. He was rescued without serious hurt. His assailants refused to say on whose behalf they were acting; but Amalric announced that Ralph was guilty and sentenced him to banishment. Ralph, as was his right, demanded trial by his peers; and John of Ibelin, the Queen’s half-brother, persuaded the King that he must submit the case to the High Court; which found that the King had done wrong in banishing Ralph without a hearing. The matter was only resolved when, probably owing to the tactful intervention of John of Ibelin, Ralph himself announced that as he had lost the King’s good-will he would go into voluntary exile, and retired to Tripoli. The episode had shown the barons that the King could not be opposed with impunity, but it had shown the King that he must abide by the constitution.
His foreign policy was vigorous and flexible. In October 1197, before he had accepted the throne, he had helped Henry of Brabant to take advantage of the Moslem concentration at Jaffa by sending a sudden expedition, composed of Germans and Brabancons, under Henry’s leadership, to recover Sidon and Beirut. Sidon had already been demolished by the Moslems, who had thought it untenable. When the Christians arrived there, they found the town a mass of ruins. The pirate-emir Usama at Beirut, finding that al-Adil was sending him no aid, decided that he would destroy his town. But he started too late. When Henry and his troops came up, they found the walls dismantled, so that they could easily enter them, but the bulk of the town was intact and soon repaired. Beirut was given as a fief to the Queen’s half-brother, John of Ibelin. With Jebail already restored to its Christian lords, the kingdom once again marched with the county of Tripoli. But the coast round Sidon was not yet entirely cleared of the enemy, who remained in possession of half the suburbs.
1197: The German Crusade of 1197
Encouraged by their success at Beirut, the German Crusaders, with the Archbishop at their head, planned next to march on Jerusalem. The Syrian barons, who had hoped to restore peace with al-Adil on the basis of ceding Jaffa and keeping Beirut, tried vainly to dissuade them. In November 1197 the Germans entered Galilee and laid siege to the great fortress of Toron. So vigorous was their first assault that the Moslem garrison soon offered to abandon the castle, with the five hundred Christian prisoners lying in its dungeons, if the defenders could be assured of their lives and personal possessions. But the Archbishop Conrad insisted on unconditional surrender; and the Frankish barons, eager to make friends with al-Adil and fearing that a massacre might provoke a Moslem jihad; sent to warn the Sultan that the Germans were not wont to spare lives. The defence continued with renewed vigour; and al-Adil persuaded his nephew al-Aziz to send an army from Egypt to deal with the invaders. The Germans began to grow weary and slacken their efforts. Meanwhile news had come to Acre that the Emperor Henry had died in September. Many of the leaders were therefore anxious to return home. And when news followed of a civil war in Germany, Conrad and his colleagues decided to abandon the siege. On 2 February 1198 the Egyptian army approached from the south. The German rank and file was ready to do battle, when suddenly a rumour went round that the Chancellor and the great lords had fled. There was a general panic. The whole army never paused in its flight till it had reached the safety of Tyre. A few days later it began to embark on its return journey to Europe. The whole Crusade had been a fiasco and had done nothing to restore German prestige. It had, however, helped to recover Beirut for the Franks; and it left a permanent institution behind in the organization of the Teutonic Knights.
The older Military Orders, though they were officially international, had recruited few German members. At the time of the Third Crusade some merchants of Bremen and Lubeck organized a hospice for Germans at Acre on the lines of the Hospital of St John. It was dedicated to the Virgin, and it saw to the care of German pilgrims. The arrival of the German expeditions in 1197 inevitably increased its importance. When a number of Crusading knights determined not to return at once to Germany, the organization copied the example of the Hospital of St John a century before. It incorporated these knights, and in 1198 received recognition from the King and from the Pope as a Military Order. It is probable that the Chancellor Conrad was aware that a purely German Order might be of value in furthering imperialistic designs and himself was largely responsible for its inception. It was soon endowed with rich estates in Germany and began to acquire castles in Syria. Its first possession was the tower over the Gate of St Nicholas at Acre, granted by Amalric on condition that the knights surrendered it back at the King’s command. Soon afterwards they purchased the castle of Montfort, which they renamed Starkenberg, on the hills dominating the Ladder of Tyre. The Order, like those-of the Temple and the Hospital, provided soldiers for the defence of the Frankish East but did not facilitate the government of the kingdom.
As soon as the German Crusaders had gone, Amalric opened negotiations with al-Adil. Al-Aziz had returned quickly to Egypt; and al-Adil, eager to secure the whole Ayubite inheritance, had no wish to quarrel with the Franks. On 1 July 1198, a treaty was signed leaving him in possession of Jaffa and the Franks in possession of Jebail and Beirut, and dividing Sidon between them. It was to last for five years and eight months. The settlement proved useful to al-Adil, for it left him free, on al-Aziz’s death in November, to intervene in Egypt and annex the late Sultan’s lands. His increased power made Amalric all the more determined to keep the peace with him, the more so as there was trouble again at Antioch.
1197: The Succession to Antioch
Bohemond III had attended the siege of Beirut, and on his return had planned to attack Jabala and Lattakieh. But he had to hurry home. The happy arrangement by which Cilicia and Antioch were to be united in the persons of his son Raymond and his Armenian bride broke down when Raymond suddenly died early in 1197. He left an infant son, Raymond-Roupen, who was heir to Antioch by hereditary right. But Bohemond III was already close on sixty, and unlikely to survive till his grandson came of age. There was every danger of a minority and a regency dominated by the boy’s Armenian kin. Bohemond sent the widow Alice back with her infant son to Armenia, perhaps because he planned that one of Sibylla’s sons should succeed, perhaps because he thought that they would be safer there. It was about the time of Leo’s coronation; and Conrad of Mainz, eager to secure the throne of Antioch for one of his master’s vassals, thus complementing his work at Acre, hastened from Sis to Antioch, where he obliged Bohemond to summon his barons and make them swear to uphold Raymond-Roupen’s succession.
Conrad would have done better to have gone to Tripoli. Bohemond, Count of Tripoli, Bohemond III’s second son, was a young man of great ambition and few scruples, well versed in the law and able to find an argument to justify his most outrageous actions. He was no friend of the Church. He had already supported the Pisans, no doubt for money, in a dispute over some lands with the Bishop of Tripoli; and when the Bishop, Peter of Angouleme, was appointed Patriarch of Antioch and appointed a successor to his see of Tripoli with uncanonical haste, the Pope accepted his excuse that with a ruler like Bohemond the Church could not afford the risk of delay. Bohemond was determined to secure the succession to Antioch, and at once refused to acknowledge the validity of the oath sworn in favour of Raymond-Roupen. He needed allies. The Templars, furious at Leo’s retention of Baghras, gladly joined him. The Hospitallers, though never very eager to work with the Templars, were won over by judicious grants. The Pisans and Genoese were bribed with trade concessions. Most important, the Commune of Antioch itself was frightened of the Armenians and hostile to any action taken by the barons. At the end of 1198 Bohemond of Tripoli appeared suddenly in Antioch, ejected his father and induced the Commune to take an oath of allegiance to himself.
But Leo had one formidable ally, Pope Innocent III. Whatever doubts the Papacy might have felt about the sincerity of the submission of the Armenian Church to Rome, Innocent was unwilling to alienate his new vassals. Cordially dutiful messages and requests poured into Rome from Leo and his Catholicus; and they could not be ignored. Owing, probably, to the opposition of the Church, the young Bohemond allowed his father back to Antioch and himself returned to Tripoli; but somehow he managed to reconcile himself with the old Prince, who veered round to his side. Meanwhile the Templars brought all their influence to bear at Rome. But Leo ignored hints from the Church that he should restore Baghras to the Order; for Baghras was strategically essential to him if he were ever to control Antioch. He invited old Prince Bohemond and the Patriarch Peter to discuss the whole question; but his intransigence drove even the Patriarch over to Bohemond of Tripoli’s side. The Church in Antioch joined the Commune and the Orders in opposing the Armenian succession. When Bohemond III died in April 1201, Bohemond of Tripoli had no difficulty in establishing himself in the city. But many of the nobility, mindful of their oath and fearful of Bohemond’s autocratic tastes, fled to Leo’s court at Sis.
1201: Civil War in the North
For the next quarter of a century the Christians of Northern Syria were distracted by the Antiochene War of Succession; and long before it was settled, the whole situation in the Orient had altered. It was fortunate that neither the Seldjuk princes of Anatolia nor the Ayubites were in a position to embark on a war of conquest there. The death of the Seldjuk Sultan Kilij Arslan II had been followed by a long civil war between his sons. Nearly ten years passed before one of the younger sons, Rukn ad-Din Suleiman of Tokat, succeeded in reuniting the family lands. There had been a Seldjuk raid on Cilicia in 1193, and again in 1201, distracting Leo at the critical moment when Bohemond III lay dying. But when Rukn ad-Din had time to spare from wars with his brothers and the decadent Danishmend princes, he used it to attack Georgia, whose great Queen Thamar seemed a far more dangerous menace to Islam than any Latin potentate. At Aleppo Saladin’s son az-Zahir was far too nervous of his uncle al-Adil’s ambition to risk any foreign enterprise. The Antiochenes were free to continue their quarrels without any Moslem interference. From Acre King Amalric watched the civil war in the north with growing impatience. His sympathies were with Leo and the young Raymond-Roupen rather than with the truculent Bohemond, but he never attempted any active intervention. His main preoccupation was to prevent the outbreak of war with al-Adil. There were rumours of a huge Crusade gathering in Europe. Till it arrived, peace must be kept. Al-Adil on his side could not count on the loyal support of his nephews and cousins unless serious Christian aggression was to provoke a Holy War.
It was not always easy to keep the peace. At the end of 1202 a Flemish squadron put in at Acre. It had sailed round past Gibraltar under the castellan of Bruges, John of Nesle. A few days later a handful of knights arrived in ships from Marseilles, under Bishop Walter of Autun and the Count of Forez. They were followed by a further group of French knights coming from Venice, including Stephen of Perche, Robert of Montfort and Reynald II, Count of Dampierre. The three parties altogether only numbered a few hundred men, a tiny proportion of the great host that was now sailing from Dalmatia; but soon afterwards Reynald of Montmirail, who had left that host at Zara, brought news that it would be some time, if ever, before the whole expedition would appear in Syria. Like all newcomers, the French knights were determined to go out at once to fight for the Cross. They were horrified when King Amalric urged them to wait in patience. Reynald of Dampierre insulted the King to his face as a coward, and, as self-appointed leader, persuaded the knights to take service under Bohemond of Tripoli. They set out to join him at Antioch, and passed safely through the county of Tripoli. But Jabala and Lattakieh were still in Moslem hands. The emir of Jabala was a peaceful man, on excellent terms with his Christian neighbours. He offered the travellers hospitality, but warned them that to pass safely through the territory of Lattakieh they must obtain a safe-conduct from his suzerain, az-Zahir of Aleppo. He offered to write himself to the Sultan; who would have granted the request, for he was interested in exacerbating the civil war at Antioch. But Reynald and his friends would not wait. They pressed on past Lattakieh, whose emir, thinking to do his Moslem duty, lured them into an ambush and captured many of them and massacred the rest.
1205: Death of King Amalric
Amalric himself allowed occasional raids against the Moslems. When an emir established himself near Sidon and began to raid the Christian coasts, and al-Adil offered no redress, Amalric retaliated by sending out ships to intercept and capture a rich Egyptian convoy sailing to Lattakieh, and leading a raid into Galilee. Al-Adil, though he marched as far as Mount Thabor to meet him, refused to do battle. Nor did he react violently when the Christian fleet sailed to the Nile Delta and up the river past Rosetta to sack the little town of Fuwa. About the same time the Hospitallers from Krak and Marqab carried out raids, without any lasting success, against Hama, the emirate of al-Adil’s great-nephew, al-Mansur.
In September 1204 a peace treaty to last for six years was concluded between Amalric and al-Adil. It seems that the initiative came from Amalric. But al-Adil on his side was anxious to end the fighting. He may have been disquieted by the Christians’ superiority in sea-power, but he was certainly aware that his empire would gain by the resumption of settled trade with the Syrian coast. He was therefore ready not only to abandon Beirut and Sidon finally to Amalric, but also ceded to him Jaffa and Ramleh and simplified the arrangements for pilgrims going to Jerusalem and to Nazareth. To Amalric, who could not expect now to receive any effective help from the West, the terms were surprisingly good. But he was not able to enjoy his enhanced prestige for long. On 1 April 1205, after a short illness caused by a surfeit of fish, he died at Acre, aged little more than fifty.
Amalric II was not a great king, but, like his predecessor Henry, he learned from experience a political wisdom that was very valuable to this poor and precarious kingdom; and his tidy legal mind not only created a constitution for Cyprus but did much to preserve monarchy on the mainland. As a man he was respected but not greatly liked. In his youth he had been irresponsible and quarrelsome, and he always resented opposition. But it was to his credit that though he would have clearly preferred to remain King of Cyprus alone, he accepted and carried out dutifully the tasks that his second crown laid on him. On his death, the two kingdoms were separated. Cyprus passed to his son by Eschiva of Ibelin, Hugh I, a child of ten. The boy’s eldest sister, Burgundia, had recently married Walter of Montbeliard, to whom the High Court of the island entrusted the regency. In the Kingdom of Jerusalem the authority passed automatically to Queen Isabella, who was not too deeply distraught by the death of this latest husband to assume government. But she herself did not long survive. The date of her death, like most of her life, is shrouded in obscurity. Alone of the ladies of the Royal House of Jerusalem she is a shadowy figure of whose personality nothing has survived. Her marriage and her very existence were of high importance. Had she held political ambitions she could have been a power in the land; but she let herself be passed from husband to husband without consideration of her personal wishes. We know that she was beautiful; but we must conclude that she was feckless and weak.
Isabella left five daughters, Maria of Montferrat, Alice and Philippa of Champagne, and Sibylla and Melisende of Lusignan. Maria, who was now thirteen, succeeded to the throne; and John of Ibelin, lord of Beirut, was appointed regent. Whether he was nominated by the dying Queen or elected by the barons is unknown. But he was the obvious candidate. As Isabella's elder half-brother he was the child's nearest male relative. He owned the richest fief in the little kingdom and was the accepted leader of the barons; and he combined his father Balian's gallantry and wisdom with a Greek subtlety inherited from his mother, Maria Comnena. For three years he governed the country tactfully and quietly, undisturbed by Saracen wars or by the embarrassment of a Crusade. Indeed, as Amalric had ruefully foreseen when he made his treaty with al-Adil, no Western knight would trouble now willingly to come to Palestine. The Crusade had found a richer hunting-ground elsewhere.