The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land (44 page)

Some German crusaders sailed to the Levant–including those from Cologne, Frisia and, eventually, those under Duke Leopold V of Austria–but Frederick elected to lead the vast majority along the land route used by earlier expeditions. Hoping to ease the journey eastwards, he initiated diplomatic contacts with Hungary, Byzantium and even the Muslim ruler of Seljuq Anatolia Kilij Arslan II. On 11 May 1189, only marginally later than scheduled, he set out from Regensburg at the head of a massive army, including eleven bishops, around twenty-eight counts, some four thousand knights and tens of thousands of infantry.

The German crusaders made good progress on their march until they reached Byzantium in late June. There Emperor Isaac II Angelus had rejected Frederick’s attempts to negotiate safe passage through Greek territory. Isaac had already formed a pact with Saladin agreeing to delay any crusader advance and was also nervous of Barbarossa’s dealings with Kilij Arslan, suspecting that the pair might try to launch a combined offensive on Constantinople. Moving south-east, Frederick occupied the city of Philippopolis and then marched to Adrianople in November 1189, amidst open warfare with the Greeks. Barbarossa rested his army through the depths of winter, but left open the threat of a direct assault on the Byzantine capital. In February 1190, however, a compromise was reached with Isaac. Keeping their distance from Constantinople, the Germans travelled to Gallipoli, and from there crossed the Hellespont to Asia Minor in late March with the help of Pisan and Greek ships. Frederick’s experience as a seasoned campaigner had proved its worth. Decisive and formidable as a leader, and a stern advocate of troop discipline, he had successfully guided the German crusade to the edge of the Muslim world.
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DELAYS IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE

Though they enlisted months before Frederick Barbarossa, the monarchs of England and France took far longer to set out on crusade. In fact, more than two and a half years passed before the main Angevin and Capetian armies even left their homelands. Preparations for the expedition were initiated in early 1188, but after a brief respite the two dynasties resumed their feuding. To make matters worse, Richard was distracted further by a rebellion in Aquitaine and warfare with the county of Toulouse.

From that spring onwards the Lionheart faced a series of probing attacks from Philip Augustus, while Henry waited on the sidelines doing little to intervene, happy to let his two younger rivals squabble among themselves. But by late autumn 1188 Richard had had enough of his father’s double-dealing and deliberate prevarication over the succession. Convinced that the old king was about to declare John his heir–the prince having rather pointedly not taken the cross–the Lionheart switched sides, once again joining forces with Philip and making a dramatic public show of allegiance to the Capetian monarch in November. This time there was to be no reconciliation with Henry II.

Through that winter ill health immobilised the old king at the very moment when he needed to prove he could still dominate the field. With the balance of power shifting inexorably, scores of once loyal supporters among the Angevin aristocracy began to switch allegiance to Richard. When the Lionheart and Philip launched a blistering offensive against Normandy in June 1189, sweeping up a succession of castles as well as Le Mans and Tours, Henry had little option but to sue for peace. At a conference on 4 July 1189 he acceded to all terms, confirming Richard as his successor, agreeing to pay Philip a tribute of 20,000 marks and promising that together all three of them would set out on crusade the following Lent. By now Henry was physically shattered–barely able to sit astride his horse–but he was said still to have mustered the energy for one final, vituperative barb. Leaning forward to seal the accord by conferring the ritual kiss of peace upon his son, Henry apparently whispered, ‘God grant that I may not die until I have had my revenge on you.’ He was then borne away to Chinon on a litter, where he passed away two days later.
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Richard I, king of England

The events of early July 1189 transformed Richard the Lionheart from a scheming prince and wilful crusader into a royal monarch and ruler of the mighty Angevin dynasty. At Rouen, on 20 July 1189, he was installed as duke of Normandy and then, on 3 September 1189, crowned king of England in London’s Westminster Abbey. Richard may have achieved his ambition through intrigue and betrayal, but once in power he assumed a more regal dignity, comporting himself with sober maturity. Visiting the abbey church at Fontevraud, where his father’s body was laid in state, Richard was said to have shown no flicker of emotion. That summer he made a point of rewarding not only his own trusted supporters, men like Andrew of Chauvigny, but also those who had remained loyal to Henry II throughout, such as the famed knight William Marshal. Those who had turned away from the old king in his final months were shown less favour.

Richard’s elevation also brought about a profound change in the tenor of his relationship with Philip Augustus. As allies the pair had defeated Henry II. Now, with Richard as head of the Angevin dynasty, they were pitted against one another as adversaries. The potential for rancour was heightened by the peculiarities of their respective standings. Richard was just shy of his thirty-second birthday when he became king, making him six years older than Philip. But the Lionheart was newly risen to the throne, while the young Capetian was experienced, having shouldered the burdens of monarchy for almost a decade. As crown rulers the two were equals, but in reality Richard possessed the more powerful realm, even though he was officially Philip’s vassal for the Angevin lands in France such as Normandy, Anjou and Aquitaine. The two also were somewhat dissimilar in their natures and attributes. Richard was a man of war and action who was, nonetheless, politically astute. Philip was more single-minded in his dedication to the Capetian crown, subtle and cautious.

From the summer of 1189 onwards both rulers faced one overbearing question: when would they set out on crusade? The problem was that neither king was willing to leave without firm assurances of truce from the other and the arrangement of a carefully coordinated, simultaneous departure. In the end it was the best part of another year before they began their journey. During that time, a considerable number of French crusaders, including James of Avesnes and Henry of Champagne, went on ahead.

The years lost to delay through rivalry and dispute certainly had a marked impact upon the course of the Third Crusade, and it would be easy to censure the Angevin and Capetian rulers for not putting aside their differences in the wider interests of Christendom and the crusade. In truth, though, Richard and Philip still made significant sacrifices and took real risks to fight the holy war. As a recently crowned king, whose position was threatened by a grasping younger brother, John, the Lionheart might sensibly have stayed in the West to consolidate his authority. Instead, Richard tried to pull off a dangerous balancing act: departing for a long absence in the East, leaving trusted supporters, including his mother Eleanor of Aquitaine and William of Longchamp, to guard the Angevin realm. The English king also relied upon a near-constant stream of exchanged correspondence to keep abreast of events in Europe. Philip could have called off his crusade in mid-March 1190 when his wife died in childbirth, along with their twins. This left arrangements for the Capetian succession in a precarious state, with the king’s three-year-old son Louis as the only extant heir, but, even so, Philip left France behind.

PREPARATIONS, FINANCES AND LOGISTICS

The Angevins and Capetians may have taken their time to start the crusade, but they at least made detailed and comprehensive campaign preparations. This meant that Richard I left Europe with the twelfth century’s most organised and best-funded crusading army. Soon after taking the cross in January 1188, Henry II and Philip Augustus imposed a special crusading tax in both England and France, with the aim of amassing the fortune needed to finance their expeditions. Known as the Saladin Tithe, this levy of ten per cent on all movable goods was enforced by the threat of excommunication. Members of the Templar and Hospitaller orders were also drafted in to aid in gathering the duty.

Among those staying in the West, this unprecedented tax proved deeply unpopular, with voluble complaints raised within secular society and the ecclesiastical hierarchy alike. But in the Angevin Empire, at least, the tithe worked. Before his death, Henry II managed to amass around 100,000 marks. Richard then intensified and broadened money-raising efforts. According to one eyewitness, in England ‘he put up for sale all he had, offices, lordships, earldoms, sheriffdoms, castles, towns, lands, everything’. The Lionheart was even supposed to have joked that he would have sold London if he could.
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The mountain of cash raised had a direct bearing upon the fortunes of the Third Crusade. In part this was because both Richard and Philip were expected to pay their soldiers’ wages for the duration of the expedition, so a ready supply of money would be critical to the maintenance of morale and martial momentum. The Lionheart also made extensive but judicious use of his fiscal resources before leaving Europe to secure the logistical underpinnings of his campaign. Thanks to the unusually fastidious attitude towards record keeping in England, some details of these preparations can be recovered. In the financial year 1189–90 (then measured from Michaelmas on 29 September) Richard spent around £14,000–the equivalent of more than half of the annual crown revenue from all England. He is also known to have ordered 60,000 horseshoes from the Forest of Dean and Hampshire, 14,000 cured pig carcasses, an abundant supply of cheeses from Essex and beans from Kent and Cambridgeshire, as well as thousands of arrows and crossbow bolts.

Philip Augustus had far less success implementing the Saladin Tithe. He lacked the absolute regnal authority enjoyed by English kings since the time of the Norman Conquest, nor could he rely upon the same developed governmental and administrative machinery at Henry’s and Richard’s disposal. Thus, although Philip’s right to exact the levy was accepted at Paris in March 1188, within a year he had to withdraw the tax and actually apologised for ever having sought its imposition. The Capetian monarch therefore began the crusade with a considerably smaller war chest, even though the Lionheart does seem to have paid off the 20,000 marks his father promised Philip at the settlement of July 1189.

Careful economic planning and preparation were all the more imperative because the Angevins and Capetians decided to travel to the Levant by ship. This form of transport was potentially quicker and more efficient. Given the costs involved, it also drastically curtailed the ability of poor, ill-equipped non-combatants to follow the crusade. These factors suited Richard’s and Philip’s plans to lead more competent, professional armies to the East and to minimise the amount of time spent away from their respective realms. However, hiring or commissioning ships was an expensive business, involving massive upfront outlay even before the campaign was properly begun. And naval transport also carried with it considerable risks–such as difficulties of navigation and coordination, and the ever present threat of shipwreck.

Attention was needed if military discipline was to be maintained during a confined, uncomfortable and perilous sea journey. With this in mind, Richard enacted a detailed set of regulations in 1190, mandating harsh penalties for disorder: a soldier who committed murder would be tied to the corpse of his victim and thrown overboard (and if the offence took place on land, he would be tied to the body and buried alive); attacking someone with a knife would cost you your hand, while for hitting someone with a fist you would be plunged into the sea three times; thieves would be shaved of their hair, and then have boiling pitch and feathers poured over their heads ‘so that [they] may be known’.
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In the course of the Third Crusade, Richard I and Philip Augustus managed, by and large, to negotiate all of the potential problems with naval transport. In doing so they established an important precedent and, from this point onwards, it became far more common for crusade armies to depend on sea travel to reach their objectives.

TO THE HOLY LAND

Richard I and Philip Augustus met to discuss final preparations for the crusade on 30 December 1189 and again on 16 March 1190. At last, on 24 June, the Lionheart took up his pilgrim scrip (satchel) and staff in a public ceremony at Tours, while the French king performed an identical ritual that same day at St Denis (following in the footsteps of his father Louis VII). On 2 July the two monarchs met at Vézelay and agreed to share any acquisitions made during the coming campaign. Then, on 4 July 1190, exactly three years after the Latin defeat at Hattin, the main Angevin and Capetian crusading armies set out together. To distinguish between the two hosts it had been decided that Philip’s men would wear red crosses, while Richard’s bore white. These two forces separated at Lyons on the understanding that they would regroup at Messina in Sicily before setting sail for the Levant.

Richard had been able to muster and equip a large host–drawing upon the resources of the expansive Angevin realm and the riches accumulated through the Saladin Tithe. He probably departed from Vézelay with a royal contingent of around 6,000 soldiers, although by the time he left Europe he may have accumulated a total force of 17,000 men. The Lionheart made his way south to Marseilles, whence he took ship down the Italian coast to arrive at Messina on 23 September, while a portion of his army sailed on directly to the Holy Land under the command of Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury. Richard had also managed to prepare a fleet of some one hundred vessels from England, Normandy, Brittany and Aquitaine, which sailed round Iberia to rendezvous with the king in Sicily. Philip Augustus’ personal contingent appears to have been far smaller. From Lyons he marched to Genoa and there negotiated terms of carriage to Sicily and the Near East, paying a hire price of 5,850 marks on ships for 650 knights and 1,300 squires. The Capetian king reached Messina in mid-September.