The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land (59 page)

Even at this final moment of accord, Saladin and Richard did not meet. Al-Adil brought the written treaty–the Arabic text of which was penned by the sultan’s scribe Imad al-Din–to Richard at Jaffa. The ailing king was too weak even to read the document and merely offered his hand as a sign of truce. Henry of Champagne and Balian of Ibelin then swore oaths to uphold the terms, and the Templar and Hospitaller masters also indicated their approval. The next day, at Ramla, a Latin delegation that included Humphrey of Toron and Balian was ushered into Saladin’s presence. There, ‘they took his noble hand and received his oath to observe the peace on the agreed terms’. Key members of Saladin’s family–al-Adil, al-Afdal and al-Zahir–and a number of leading emirs then proffered their own oaths. At last, with the elaborate rituals concluded, peace was achieved.
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In the month that followed, three delegations of crusaders made the journey to Jerusalem–achieving through truce what had been denied them in war. Among those who fulfilled their pilgrim vows were Andrew of Chauvigny and Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury. But Richard I made no attempt to travel to the Holy City. It may be that his continued ill health prevented him; or perhaps he deemed the prospect of visiting the Holy Sepulchre while Jerusalem yet remained in Muslim hands too shameful to bear. On 9 October 1192, after sixteen months in the Levant, the Lionheart began his journey back to Europe. As his royal fleet set sail, the king was said to have offered a prayer to God that he might one day return.

THE OUTCOME OF THE THIRD CRUSADE

In the end, neither Saladin nor Richard the Lionheart could claim victory in the war for the Holy Land. The Angevin king had failed to recapture Jerusalem or to recover the True Cross. But through his efforts and those of his fellow crusaders, Latin Christendom retained a foothold in Palestine, and the Frankish subjugation of Cyprus offered a further beacon of hope for Outremer’s survival.

After leading Islam to victory in 1187, Saladin had faced a series of humiliating setbacks during the Third Crusade–at Acre, Arsuf and Jaffa. Despite unswerving devotion to the cause of
jihad
, he had also been wholly unable to prevent the Frankish reconquest of the coast. In siege and battle Richard had prevailed, while in the art of diplomacy the Lionheart had proved, at the very least, to be the sultan’s equal. Yet, though beaten, Saladin remained undefeated. Jerusalem had been defended for Islam; the Ayyubid Empire endured. And now, the crusade’s end and King Richard’s departure offered the prospect of future triumphs–the chance to complete the work begun at Hattin.

The long road ends

Once news of King Richard’s departure from the Holy Land had been confirmed, Saladin finally felt able to disband his armies. Thought was given to undertaking the pilgrimage to Mecca, but the needs of the empire soon took precedence. After touring his Palestinian territories, Saladin returned to Syria to spend a rainy winter resting in Damascus. Bidding farewell to al-Zahir, he was said to have counselled his son not to become too familiar with violence, warning that ‘blood never sleeps’.

By early 1193, Saladin’s health was in decline and he began to show worrying signs of exhaustion. Baha al-Din remarked that ‘it was as though his body was full and there was a lassitude about him’. On 20 February the sultan fell ill, becoming feverish and nauseous. Through the days that followed his condition deteriorated. Together Baha al-Din and al-Fadil visited their master’s chambers in the citadel each morning and each night, and al-Afdal was also in close attendance. By early March Saladin’s fever had intensified, such that sweat soaked through his mattress to the floor and he began to slip in and out of consciousness. Baha al-Din described how on 3 March 1193:

Just after dawn, as the
imam
recited the Koran beside him, Saladin died. He was fifty-five. His body was laid to rest in a mausoleum within the compound of the Grand Umayyad Mosque of Damascus. It remains there to this day.
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In his early career, Saladin had been driven by personal ambition and a hunger for renown to usurp power from the Zangids and forge a new and expansive Ayyubid Empire. He had also shown a ready willingness to defame his enemies, Muslim and Christian, through the use of propaganda. The sultan’s dedication to
jihad
–a marked feature of his career only after his illness in 1186–was ever coloured by a determination to lead Islam in the holy war, rather than serve as a lieutenant.

Nonetheless, Saladin does seem to have been inspired by authentic religious fervour and a genuine belief in the sanctity of Jerusalem. It has recently been suggested that after 1187, once the overriding goal of the Holy City’s recapture was achieved, ‘Saladin’s emotional commitment to
jihad
faltered.’ In fact, if anything, the sultan’s devotion to this cause strengthened during the Third Crusade, even in the face of failure and defeat. It is also true that the sense of Muslim unity he engendered, while not absolute, was unparalleled in the twelfth century. Certainly, in the world of the crusades, adversaries and allies alike recognised that the sultan was a remarkable leader of men. Even his sometime critic, the great Iraqi historian and Zangid sympathiser Ibn al-Athir, wrote that:

Above all else, one fundamental question underpins any attempt to judge Saladin’s life and career: did he champion the cause of
jihad
, conquer and defend Jerusalem in pursuit of his own glory and gain, or in the wider interests of Islam? In the end, perhaps even the sultan himself remained unsure of the answer.

Richard the Lionheart’s later career

Even as the Ayyubid sultan passed away, his nemesis Richard the Lionheart was facing a new struggle. Narrowly avoiding disaster when his ship was wrecked by a storm near Venice, the king continued his homeward journey overland. Travelling in disguise to evade his European enemies, he was captured nonetheless in Vienna by his old rival from the siege of Acre, Duke Leopold of Austria–apparently Richard’s attempt to pass himself off as a lowly cook failed because he forgot to take off a fabulously bejewelled ring.

Confined in a lofty castle overlooking the Danube, the Lionheart was held prisoner for more than a year, causing political scandal throughout the West, and was released in February 1194 only after protracted negotiation and the payment of a massive ransom. By the late thirteenth century, however, a more romantic tale was circulating, in which the king’s faithful minstrel, Blondel, doggedly searched across Europe for his supposedly ‘missing’ master, pausing at the foot of countless castles to sing a song that he and Richard had written together. The king did compose at least two doleful laments while in captivity (both of which survive to this day), but the story of Blondel is pure fiction–one more layer of myth in the legend of the Lionheart.

Despite all his fears, and prolonged absence, Richard returned to find that the Angevin realm remained his to rule–the king’s loyal supporters had thwarted John’s attempts at rebellion. Philip Augustus, however, had been able to take some advantage–seizing a number of castles along the border with Normandy–and Richard dedicated much of the next five years to campaigning against the Capetians. Embroiled in the affairs of Europe, he never returned to the Holy Land. At the end of the twelfth century the Lionheart’s penchant for front-line combat finally caught up with him. While besieging the small castle of Chalus in southern France, he was struck in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt and badly injured. The wound turned gangrenous, and Richard died on 6 April 1199, at the age of forty-one. His body was buried at Fontevraud, beside his father Henry II, while his heart was interred at Rouen.
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Contemporaries remembered the Lionheart as a peerless warrior and superlative crusader: the king who brought the mighty Saladin to his knees. To a large extent, Richard can be credited with saving Outremer. Valorous and wily, adept in battle, he proved himself equal to the challenge of confronting the Ayyubid sultan. But for all his achievements in the holy war, the Angevin king always struggled to reconcile his various duties and obligations–torn between the need to defend his western realm and the desire to forge a legend in Palestine. Crucially, he also failed to understand the distinct nature and challenge of crusader warfare, and thus was unable to lead the Third Crusade to victory.

In the wake of the Third Crusade, anxious questions about the value and efficacy of Christian holy war began to surface in the West. The ‘horrors’ of 1187–the Frankish defeat at Hattin and the Muslim reconquest of Jerusalem–had prompted Europe to launch history’s largest and best-organised expedition to the East. Latin Christendom’s greatest kings had led tens of thousands of crusaders to battle. And yet, the Holy City remained in the hands of Islam, as did that most treasured of Christ’s relics, the True Cross. Given the physical, emotional and financial sacrifices made between 1188 and 1192, and the shocking failure, nonetheless, to achieve overall victory, it was inevitable that western Christendom would be moved to think again about crusading–looking inwards, to reconsider and reshape the idea and practice of fighting in the name of God.

TRANSFORMATION IN THE LATIN WEST

Fundamental shifts within Latin Europe also helped to kindle this ‘reformation’ in Christian holy war. Crusading had originally been born and fashioned in the world of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. But by 1200, many essential features of western society were in flux: accelerating urbanisation was altering population patterns, stimulating social mobility and the empowerment of a merchant class, and centralised monarchical authority was strengthening in regions like France. More significant still were the associated changes in Europe’s intellectual and spiritual landscape. From the start, crusade enthusiasm had been underpinned by the fact that almost all Latins felt an overwhelming need to seek redemption for their sins. But in the course of the twelfth century, attitudes towards penitential and devotional practice evolved, and new ideas about what a ‘good Christian life’ might actually entail began to percolate through the West.

One gradual change saw an increased emphasis on interior forms of spirituality, over external manifestations of piety. For the first time in the Middle Ages, what one truly thought, felt and believed was becoming as, or even more, important than what one said and did in public. In a parallel and related development, Man’s relationship with God and Christ came to be seen in more personal and direct, ‘internalised’ terms. These notions possessed the potential to overturn the established frameworks of medieval religion. A salvific ritual like physical pilgrimage–one of the bedrocks of crusading–made far less sense, for example, if what truly mattered was heartfelt contrition. And if, as many theologians had begun to suggest, God’s grace was omnipresent in everyone and everything, then why was it necessary to travel across half the Earth to seek His forgiveness at a site like Jerusalem? It would be many years before the full transformative force of this ideological revolution was felt in western Christendom, but early signs of influence were evident during the thirteenth century.

Latin Christianity also faced more immediate and urgent challenges around 1200. The first was heresy. Europe had once been a stronghold of religious orthodoxy and conformity, but over the last hundred years the West had experienced an outbreak of ‘heretical’ beliefs and movements of almost epidemic proportions. This ranged from the relatively innocuous rabble-rousing ravings of unordained demagogues to the inculcation of elaborately conceived, full-blown alternative faiths–like that of the dualistic Cathars, who believed in two Gods, one good, the other evil, and denied that Christ had ever lived in corporeal human form (and thus rejected the primary Latin tenets of Crucifixion, Redemption and Resurrection). Alongside those condemned as heretics by the Roman Church were others who strayed desperately close to the line, but nevertheless managed to garner papal approval. These included the Mendicant Friars–Franciscans and Dominicans–who advocated simple poverty and dedicated themselves to bringing God’s word to the people with new vigour and clarity. The Church soon sought to harness the Friars’ oratorical dynamism, not least to invigorate crusade preaching. But the Mendicants’ evangelical enthusiasm also had the power to affect the objectives of a holy war; to weave a strand of conversion into the familiar background of conquest and defence.
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The world of the thirteenth century was to be one of new ideas and fresh challenges, in which crusading might have to fulfil different roles and assume novel forms. The critical question–soon apparent to contemporaries–was what all of this would mean for the war in the Holy Land.

POPE INNOCENT III

One man who wrestled with just this issue was Pope Innocent III–perhaps the mightiest and most influential Roman pontiff in all medieval history; certainly the most active and enthusiastic papal patron of the crusades in the central Middle Ages. Innocent was elected pope on 8 January 1198 and immediately brought a refreshing lease of exuberant vitality to the office. Over the preceding seventeen years, no fewer than five elderly popes had died in succession soon after elevation to the pontifical throne. Innocent, by contrast, was just thirty-seven, brimful with vigour, afire with ambition. In background, he was perfectly suited to his new role. Being born of Roman aristocracy, he possessed excellent political and ecclesiastical connections in central Italy. He had also been educated in Europe’s finest centres of learning, studying Church law in Bologna and theology in Paris.

Moreover, the timing of Innocent’s rise to power was fantastically propitious. Since the days of Pope Gregory VII and the eleventh-century Reform movement, papal authority had been stifled persistently by the combative predations of the German Hohenstaufen Empire. Rome’s predicament only deepened in 1194 when Emperor Henry VI (Frederick Barbarossa’s son and heir) also became king of Sicily through marriage, thereby encircling the Papal State from north and south. But in September 1197, Henry VI died unexpectedly of malaria, leaving behind only a three-year-old son, Frederick, as heir. The Hohenstaufen world was suddenly plunged into a crippling dynastic crisis that would rattle on for decades. This gave the papacy under Innocent III an extraordinary opportunity to act on the European stage relatively unhindered.
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Innocent’s vision of papal authority

Pope Innocent was remarkably confident of the essential–and, in his opinion, divinely sanctioned–authority vested in the papal office. Innocent saw himself as Christ’s earthly vicar (or representative). Earlier pontiffs may have dreamt of achieving meaningful, rather than simply theoretical, dominion over the entire Latin Church; Innocent’s aspirations extended well beyond the ecclesiastical or spiritual sphere. Indeed, in his view, the pope should be the overlord of all western Christendom, perhaps even of all Christians on Earth; an arbiter of God’s will whose power superseded that of temporal rulers; capable of making (and breaking) kings and emperors.

Innocent also possessed a clear vision of what he wished to achieve with this absolute power–the recovery of Jerusalem. He seems to have felt an earnest and authentic attachment to the Holy City; much of his pontificate would be dedicated, one way or another, to securing its reconquest. But like many of his generation in the West, the new pope had been dispirited by the Third Crusade’s limited achievements. In his mind, the expedition’s failure to retake Jerusalem could be traced to two overriding causes, and he had solutions for each.

God evidently was allowing the Franks to be defeated in the Levant as punishment for the manifest sins of all Latin Christendom. Therefore, the work of reform and purification in the West must be redoubled. Europe had to be brought–by force if necessary–to a new state of perfection: unified spiritually and politically under the righteous authority of Rome; purged of the dreadful, corrupting taint of heresy. And the faithful must be shepherded towards lives of virtue; given every possible opportunity to atone for their transgressions, so that they might find a path to salvation. By these means, the Latin world could be cleansed so that the Lord might lift Christianity to victory in the war for the Holy Land.

Pope Innocent also believed that the practice of crusading itself should urgently be amended, and seems to have concluded that functional measures would lead to spiritual rejuvenation. He set out, therefore, to refine the management and operation of holy war, so as to empower participants to act with greater purity of intent. Looking back over the last century, the pope perceived three fundamental problems: too many of the wrong people (especially non-combatants) were taking the cross; the expeditions were poorly funded; and they were also subject to ineffective command. Not surprisingly, Innocent was certain that he knew how to resolve these difficulties–the Latin Church would step forth, reaffirming its ‘right’ to direct the crusading movement, assuming control of recruitment, financing and leadership. The beauty of this whole scheme, as far as the pope was concerned, was that crusaders fighting in a ‘perfected’ holy war not only stood a better chance of driving Islam from Jerusalem; the very involvement of these Latins in a penitential expedition would serve simultaneously to expiate their sins, thus helping the whole of western Christendom along the road to rectitude.

With all this in mind, Innocent sought to launch a new crusade to the Holy Land once he became pope, issuing a call to arms on 15 August 1198. He visualised a glorious endeavour–the preaching, organisation and prosecution of which would be under his direct control–imagining that so orderly and sacred an expedition could not fail to win divine approval.

Summoning a crusade

During the first years of his pontificate, Innocent III set out to recentre the mechanisms and machinery of crusading in Rome, hoping to institutionalise holy war as an endeavour governed by the papacy. In 1198 and 1199 he introduced a raft of innovative reforms, which came to form the backbone of his crusading policy throughout his time in office. Under Innocent, the spiritual reward (or indulgence) offered to crusaders was reconfigured and reinforced. Those taking the cross were given a firm promise of ‘full forgiveness of their sins’ and assured that their military service would absolve them of any punishment due, either on Earth or in the hereafter. Crusaders were required, however, to show ‘penitence in voice and heart’ for their transgressions–that is, external and internal remorse. Innocent’s indulgence also carefully distanced the purificational force of holy war from the physical works of Man: it was no longer suggested that the suffering and hardship endured on campaign itself served to salve the soul; instead, the spiritual benefits gained through the indulgence were presented as a gift, mercifully granted by God as just reward for acts of merit. This was a subtle shift, but one that laid to rest some of the theological difficulties raised by crusading (such as God’s relationship to Man). This formulation of the indulgence became the established ‘gold standard’ within the Latin Church, enduring virtually unchanged throughout the Middle Ages and beyond.

Innocent also tried to create a new financial system that placed the onus for crusade funding on the Church. This included a one-fortieth tax on almost all aspects of ecclesiastical income for one year and a ten per cent levy on papal revenue. The new pope set up donation chests in churches across Europe, into which lay parishioners were expected to place alms in support of the war effort. Crucially, the pope suggested that these monetary gifts, in and of themselves, would bring benefactors an indulgence similar to that enjoyed by actual crusaders. Over time, this notion would remould crusade ideology, and have far-reaching consequences for the whole history of the Roman Church.

Innocent openly acknowledged that the onerous burden of his duties in Rome made it impossible for him to lead a crusade in person, but in 1198 and 1199, he appointed a number of papal legates to represent his interests and oversee the holy war. He also placed precise limits on who was permitted to preach the crusade, enlisting the renowned French evangelist Fulk of Neuilly to trumpet the call. At the same time, the pope sought to impose stringent minimum terms of service on prospective crusaders, declaring that only after a set period of time spent fighting for the cross would an indulgence be earned (this began at two years, but was later downgraded to one year).

This all seemed wonderfully efficient. Yet, despite the verve and assurance of Innocent’s vision, all his multifarious efforts elicited only a muted response: the anticipated hordes of enthusiastic warriors did not enlist (although many of the poor took the cross); the donation chests strewn across the West failed to fill. Innocent’s first crusade encyclical had called for an expedition to start in March 1199, but that date soon came and went without any sign of action, and eventually a second call was made in December 1199. By this time, control of what would become the Fourth Crusade was already slipping through his fingers.

In fact, Innocent’s conception of crusading was fundamentally flawed. Absolutist in tone, it made no provision for interactive collaboration between the Church and the secular leaders of lay society. The pope imagined that he would simply bend the kings and lords of Latin Christendom to his will, as mere tools of God’s purpose. But this proved to be entirely unrealistic. From the First Crusade onwards, Europe’s lay nobles had been utterly essential to the crusading movement. It was their febrile enthusiasm that could spark expanding waves of recruitment through the social networks of kinship and vassalage, and their military leadership that could direct the holy war. Innocent had certainly hoped to enrol knights, lords and even kings in his crusade, but only as obedient pawns, not equals or allies.

Historians used to suggest that Innocent deliberately limited the degree of royal involvement in the crusade, but this is not entirely true. To begin with, at least, he sought to broker a peace deal between Angevin England and Capetian France, and made some attempt at convincing King Richard I to take the cross. But when the Lionheart died in 1199, these nebulous plans somehow still to incorporate the Latin monarchy within the ‘papal crusade’ evaporated. After Richard’s demise, his brother John was too busy battling to assume control of England and the Angevin realm to consider crusading. King Philip II Augustus of France equally made it clear that, until the Angevin succession was resolved, he would not leave Europe. And the ongoing power struggle in Germany precluded any direct Hohenstaufen participation. But even when it became obvious that there would be no crown involvement from these three realms, Innocent did not attempt to consult or recruit secular leaders from the upper aristocracy. He probably believed that the members of this class would flock to his cause of their own natural volition, eager to serve at his beck and call–but he was wrong, and this lapse of judgement would have tragic consequences for Christendom.
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