Holy Warriors Read online

  It is frustratingly difficult to reach a definitive conclusion on the matter: the need to preserve a royal bloodline meant that an affair would have been hugely dangerous, but not, of course, impossible. On the other hand, John of Salisbury and William of Tyre were serious, sober writers, not given to sensationalism for its own sake. The most contemporaneous piece of evidence has been widely ignored by historians and is from a letter sent to the king by Suger, the regent of France, in 1149. The abbot wrote: “Concerning the queen, your wife, we venture to congratulate you, if we may, upon the extent to which you suppress your anger, if there be anger, until with God’s will you return to your own kingdom and see to these matters.”48 While this is not a categorical statement of an affair it is a strong indication that rumors concerning Eleanor’s behavior were in circulation at the time of the crusade and that even back in France, Suger was aware of them, whether true or not. In short, it was widely believed that the queen had deserted her marriage bed.

  THE SIEGE OF DAMASCUS AND THE HUMILIATION OF THE SECOND CRUSADE

  On June 24, 1148, a general assembly gathered at the town of Palmarea, near Acre. This was the most splendid congregation of rulers and lords in the history of the crusader kingdom. Two reigning European monarchs, along with members of their families, senior churchmen, and nobles, met with Baldwin III and Melisende and the leading figures in the kingdom of Jerusalem to decide where to attack. Given the tensions between Raymond and Louis a campaign in the north was unlikely. Notwithstanding recent periods of friendship between the Franks and the Damascenes—largely brought on by a mutual fear of Zengi of Aleppo and Mosul, but now ended by the Syrian city’s rapprochement with Zengi’s son and successor Nur ad-Din—the choice of Damascus was almost a foregone conclusion, although the port of Ascalon remained in Muslim hands too. Damascus, however, was one of the great cities of the Islamic world and the chance to take a place of such spiritual and strategic importance had to be grasped.49

  The crusader armies marched from Tiberias to Banyas and then over Mount Lebanon to begin the gentle descent toward Damascus. The city lies on a flat plain overlooked by Mount Kasouin to its north and with the small, but vital, River Barada running through it. The most dominant feature of the region (and indeed still surviving outside the modern urban sprawl), was the immense orchards that surrounded most of the city and extended for up to five miles toward the west. The close, densely packed trees were a difficult obstacle for a large army to breach, but in spite of this the Franks decided to go ahead because the fruit and irrigation canals offered immediate supplies of food and drink, and they believed that if they broke through these defenses then morale in the city would collapse.

  King Baldwin led his men into the orchards where they were subjected to a strange form of guerrilla warfare quite beyond their military experience.50 Barricades blocked the paths, the mud walls that delineated each plot were pierced by lances thrust out of special peepholes, and arrows peppered the crusaders from the watchtowers that stood over each smallholding. Slowly, the Christians worked their way through the trees and emerged on the plain in front of the city. Once there the German knights used their favored tactics, dismounting from their horses to fight with swords and shields so as to push the Damascenes back to the walls. Conrad was at the front of his troops and so great was his ferocity that he reputedly severed the head, neck, and shoulder of one opponent with a single mighty blow. At this point the crusaders looked as if they were on the verge of a spectacular success, poised to add their own great chapter to the annals of holy warfare. Then, curiously, they moved away from their hard-won position to the west and marched over to the other side of the city where there were no orchards, water supply, or moat, only, allegedly, a low wall. Later, the crusaders would complain vehemently that they made this move on the advice of the local Franks, but once established in this location, they quickly ran out of food and could not then return to the orchards because of new barricades. Thus, with antagonism between the crusaders and the local lords growing fast, the armies reluctantly began to break camp. The finest collection of warriors in Christendom had been compelled to turn tail after only four days—an unimagined ignominy. They had not even been defeated in battle; it was far more humiliating for them to abandon the attack than to lose some epic military engagement. It seems that accusations that the Franks took bribes from the Damascenes to lift the siege—a common enough practice in Levantine warfare—offered the crusaders their most acceptable explanation for this turn of events. While it had the merit of exculpating the westerners from responsibility for the fiasco, it created a legacy of distrust between Europeans and the Franks that simmered for decades. What the Muslim sources tell us, however, is something slightly different.

  In the same way that parts of al-Sulami’s jihad sermon of 1105 resembled crusade preaching, reports of the Damascenes’ spiritual preparations during the siege echo crusader practices prior to military conflicts. As the citizens assembled in the hall and courtyard of the Great Umayyad Mosque, the revered Koran of Caliph Uthman (579–656) was shown to the crowd and the people sprinkled their heads with ashes and prayed for divine aid.51 This veneration of the Koran and the acts of humility recall the scene at Saint-Denis just over a year earlier with Louis and the relics of his own patron saint. Preachers urged the Damascenes to defend their holy city, and infused with jihad fervor, the Muslims were ready for battle. A subsequent engagement on the eastern side of Damascus proved inconclusive, but it showed the crusaders that resistance was hardening; more importantly, it gave time for relief forces to approach. Some reinforcements arrived from the Beqaa valley, and Nur ad-Din himself paused at Homs, ready to march south to Damascus. On this basis, the Christians’ attempt to move the focus of their attack and achieve a quick victory becomes understandable. When the defenses there proved stronger than anticipated it was clear that a retreat was the prudent course of action. At this point it is possible the Damascenes made payments to the Franks (rather than the crusaders) to ensure their departure and therein lay the basis for allegations of duplicity on the part of the local barons.

  A furious Conrad soon left for home: in contrast, Louis and Eleanor remained in the Levant for almost a year to visit the holy sites. Given the enormous sense of expectation prior to the campaign, it was inevitable that people sought to apportion blame. We have seen that some opprobrium fell upon the Frankish nobility, but the crusaders were held responsible too. Some of this was general in nature: the contemporary Chronicle of Morigny decried the expedition as having achieved “nothing useful or worth repeating;” the poet Marcabru called the leaders “broken failures;” John of Salisbury claimed it had irreparably damaged the Christian faith.52 For the first time, therefore, people seriously questioned the value of crusading, and the events of 1147–48 probably deterred many from taking the cross in future. Bernard of Clairvaux came in for severe criticism and he was forced to give sermons and write a treatise to explain what had happened. His answer was to point to the sins of man in general and to remind people of the mysterious ways of the Lord. Eugenius too felt a backlash from people because the number of letters issued by his chancery saw a huge decline—an indication that people were less inclined to turn to the papacy for confirmation or recognition of their rights; in other words, the standing of the curia had dropped because the crusade had failed.53

  To the Muslims of the Near East, the collapse of the expedition was a source of huge delight. Previously they had feared the western armies but now, as William of Tyre wrote: “they mocked at the shattered strength and broken glory of those who represented the substantial foundations of the Christians.”54 Nur ad-Din led an invasion of Antioch and in June 1149, at the Battle of Inab, he killed Prince Raymond of Antioch, the Franks’ most formidable warrior. The panic-stricken Franks appealed to Europe to help “the oppressed Mother Church of the East,” but a combination of exhaustion on the part of those recently returned crusaders, the need to raise more funds, and a general lack of morale meant that e
ven though Eugenius promised the usual spiritual rewards, there was no worthwhile response.55

  THE SECOND CRUSADE IN THE BALTIC

  The Second Crusade’s two other theaters of war produced very mixed results. The campaign against the pagans of northern Europe proved a grave disappointment but the expeditions to Almería and Tortosa in eastern Spain were successful. Within three months of Eugenius’s endorsement the Wendish crusaders (as the northern campaigners have become known) set out. Their motives seem a confused combination of the clerical wish to convert the pagans and the nobles’ desire for land and vengeance for recent enemy incursions. A joint Danish-Saxon force attacked the town of Dobin, just inland from the Bay of Wismar.56 This was the stronghold of Niclot, leader of the Abodrites, and it was defended by a combination of earthworks, waterways, and the surrounding marshlands. Niclot proved a dangerous opponent who struck hard at the Danish ships while they prepared to engage. Mutual distrust among the attacking forces surfaced: the Saxons suggested that the Danes were pugnacious fighters at home but unwarlike abroad, while the Danes disdainfully stated that “only self-indulgence and sausages” came from Germany. More seriously, there was a disjunction between Bernard’s “death or conversion” theme and the aspirations of the crusaders themselves. The latter questioned whether it was sensible to kill the locals because if this happened there would be no one to tax or make a livelihood from. The fighting was desultory and after a while the Slavs agreed to convert to Christianity and to release their Danish prisoners. As one local writer observed, however, theirs was a false baptism and they kept the able-bodied prisoners anyway.57

  A second crusading army containing many north German bishops and nobles, as well as a notable Polish contingent, laid siege to Stettin to the northeast. This quickly descended into the realms of farce when the defenders displayed crosses above their citadel—they had been converted to Christianity a couple of decades previously! The attack was therefore either a product of complete ignorance on the part of the crusaders or else the wish to conquer a strategically important site, regardless of its religious allegiance. The clergy managed to prevent an assault from taking place; as a local churchman pondered: “if they had come to confirm the Pomeranians in the Christian faith, then they ought to have done this through the preaching of bishops, not by arms.” Another writer noted, “thus that grand expedition broke up with slight gain.” While the northern Europeans were attracted to the offer of spiritual rewards, the rigorous aspirations of Bernard and Eugenius were far out of line with the existing practices of conversion combined with political submission.58

  SUCCESS IN SPAIN: THE CAPTURE OF ALMERÍA AND TORTOSA

  In eastern Spain, by contrast, the interests of the papacy, the Genoese, and the local rulers coalesced much more comfortably and this gave the Iberian crusaders a very strong focus. As we saw above, the Genoese and King Alfonso VII of Castile and León had made a formal contract to attack the city of Almería, deep in the south of Muslim Spain. Around the same time, Eugenius had issued a crusade bull to the people of Italy and also encouraged the Genoese to fight at Almería.59 It is possible that the pope had learned of this expedition, or else he was approached by the Genoese themselves, and he decided to endorse the move as part of a wider campaign of Christian expansion. Other sources report that negotiators sent to secure the involvement of Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona included a bishop who urged him to join the other parties “for the redemption of their souls.” The participants stood to gain the spiritual privileges of a crusader, as well as carefully demarcated financial, commercial, and/or property rewards: the Genoese would get one-third of the town, the king two-thirds. Ramon also made his own agreement with the Italians to besiege Tortosa the following year on much the same terms. The Spanish bishops exhorted their people to join the crusade and to “go bravely and surely to battle,” to have their sins pardoned, and “with victory [to] assure them once more that they will have all the gold that the Moors possess.”60 An explicit promise of financial gain would have been abhorrent to Bernard of Clairvaux, but in this context represents some recognition of what motivated the Iberian crusaders.

  In the late summer of 1147 a fleet of 63 galleys and 163 other ships left Genoa and in October began to attack the port from the sea. After a successful landing, the siege began in earnest with the construction of towers and catapults. The arrival of Alfonso VII provided further momentum and they soon broke down a section of the wall. On October 17, the crusaders poured into the city and “with the help and favour of God” put the place to the sword. In a dramatic contrast to the peaceful surrender of Lisbon (only a week later) thousands of Muslims were killed or enslaved. The citadel resisted for four days but capitulated on the payment of a huge sum of money. Alfonso now had an outpost in the south of Iberia and the Genoese possessed another vital trading station. Their fleet sailed north to lie up over the winter before heading on to its next target, Tortosa.61 Many southern French nobles, including a contingent from Narbonne led by Viscountess Ermengarde, contingents from the Templars and the Hospitallers and, amazingly, a group of Anglo-Norman veterans who had fought at Lisbon, joined in. The city had substantial walls and a formidable citadel but skillful use of siege towers by the Genoese brought them to the edge of victory. The defenders parleyed—if, after forty days, they were not rescued by the Muslims of Valencia, they would surrender: the crusaders agreed. The Christians successfully blockaded Tortosa to the south and on December 30, 1148, with no prospect of relief, the city opened its gates to a peaceful conquest.

  A contemporary Genoese charter reveals the city’s comfortable assimilation of crusading ideology and the blossoming sense of civic pride that would be a hallmark of medieval Italy: “they have captured the city for the honour of God and all of Christianity and they have determined to remain in control of the city out of the greatest necessity of Christians, and most of all because they know that it is honourable and useful to the city of Genoa.”62 There was no contradiction here between the prospect of secular and spiritual rewards. As we have seen before it is too simplistic to frame holy war and the pursuit of profit as a dichotomy. Pisa, Genoa, and Venice were as full of churches as every other contemporary city: in other words, they too had strong religious motives to defeat the Muslims. The fact that Eugenius must have known about the commercial contracts between Genoa, Alfonso VII, and Ramon Berenguer, yet still issued bulls in favor of the crusade, suggest that he too recognized the practicalities of the situation. The Genoese believed their success was evidence that God approved of their motives. At the heart of medieval Genoa, a few streets up from the docks, lies the cathedral of Saint Lawrence. This striking building—the spiritual centerpiece of the city—is cloaked in the black and white horizontally striped stonework so typical of Italian Romanesque architecture. Inside, on the south wall of the nave, the surviving fragments of a fresco depict the capture of Almería and Tortosa.63 This image encapsulates the essence of crusading for the Genoese: to them there was no clash between the overlapping aims of holy war, conquest, and commerce: everyone had acted in concert and all of the Christian community benefited. Aside from the massacre at Almería, deep in Muslim Spain, a policy of conquest and assimilation operated in Iberia, broadly similar to that in place in northern Europe; again born out of a need to rule lands effectively in the future. Ultimately, in spite of its grandiose ambitions, in Spain alone did the Second Crusade manage to extend the frontiers of Christendom.

  SALADIN, THE LEPER KING, AND THE FALL OF JERUSALEM IN 1187

  THE RISE OF NUR AD-DIN AND THE REVIVAL OF JIHAD

  In spite of the defeat of the Second Crusade outside the walls of Damascus, it would be a serious mistake to regard the period down to Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem in 1187 as one of inevitable decline for the Franks—on the contrary, there were times when the Christians seemed poised to take the ascendancy. Saladin’s ultimate success came about through a complicated cocktail of the political and the personal, a spectrum that encompassed g
ood fortune and sheer opportunism, clever strategy and the ability to arouse religious passion.

  Within weeks of Louis VII’s departure for home in June 1149 the leading nobles and churchmen of Jerusalem gathered to celebrate the reconsecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. With the completion of Fulk’s and Melisende’s plans the building at the spiritual heart of Christendom assumed much of the form that we see today. Pilgrims could process around such holy sites as the tomb of Christ, Calvary (the place of Christ’s Crucifixion), the Chapel of Saint Helena (where the True Cross was found), the Grotto of the Cross (where it was kept), the prison of Christ, and other, lesser shrines, all under one roof. The creation of a single, splendidly decorated building, rather than the slightly dilapidated structures found by the First Crusaders, constituted far more appropriate surroundings for the glorification of God. The rededication ceremony took place on July 15, 1149, a date chosen with particular care because it was the fiftieth anniversary of the crusaders’ capture of Jerusalem in 1099. Thus the new church recalled why that great expedition had taken place and boldly perpetuated the link with continued Christian custody of the Holy Land.1

  Soon, however, such convivial feelings evaporated as Baldwin III, encouraged by certain of his advisers—perhaps themselves jealous of the queen’s favorites—sought to end the regency of Queen Melisende and take full control of the kingdom. Baldwin was now over twenty years old and his age certainly permitted such a move, yet Queen Melisende was reluctant to step aside. She had proven a successful and widely admired ruler and since standing up to Fulk in 1134 she had exercised power in a variety of forms for almost seventeen years. Throughout history, the voluntary surrender of authority has proven immensely difficult and it was beyond Melisende. The kingdom’s nobility polarized and two separate courts came into being; each issued its own documents and judgments. The situation escalated and armed confrontations took place before mediators established peace. By 1152 Melisende agreed to allow her son full power and Baldwin started to rule in his own right. It seems, however, that the relationship between the two survived and the queen continued to fulfill important roles within the royal family.2