A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (50 page)

Amalric left Acre for Constantinople on 10
March, with a large staff, including the Bishop of Acre and the Marshal of the
Court, Gerard of Pougi. The Master of the Temple, Philip of Milly, resigned his
post in order to go ahead as ambassador. After calling in at Tripoli the King
sailed on to the north. At Gallipoli he was met by his father-in-law, who, as
the wind was contrary, took him overland to Heraclea. There he embarked again
in order to enter the capital through the palace gate at the harbour of Bucoleon,
an honour reserved for crowned heads alone.

Amalric’s reception delighted him and his
staff. Manuel liked westerners in general, and he found Amalric sympathetic. He
showed his usual lavish generosity. His family, particularly the King’s
father-in-law, all joined in offering hospitality. There were endless religious
ceremonies and festivities. There was a dancing display in the Hippodrome and a
trip in a barge up and down the Bosphorus. In the midst of it all the Emperor
and the King discussed the future. A treaty was made and signed, but its terms
are unrecorded. It seems that the King recognized in some vague way the Emperor’s
suzerainty over the native Christians; that Manuel promised naval and financial
help whenever another expedition against Egypt should be planned; and that
common action should be taken against Mleh of Armenia. There were probably
clauses about the Greek Church in Antioch, and even perhaps in the kingdom,
where Manuel had already in 1169 taken charge of the redecoration of the Church
of the Nativity at Bethlehem. An inscription on the mosaic attests that the
artist Ephraim made them on the orders of the Emperor. He was also responsible
for the repairs at the Holy Sepulchre.

Whatever were the details of the treaty, the
Franks were well satisfied by their visit and full of admiration for their
host. They sailed homeward from Constantinople on 15 June, hopeful for the
future.

1171: End of the
Fatimid Dynasty

The appeal to the West was less successful.
Frederick of Tyre was still wandering ineffectually through the courts of
France and England. About the end of 1170 Amalric wrote to him to invite
Stephen of Champagne, Count of Sancerre, to Palestine, to marry the Princess
Sibylla. The suggestion was prompted by a tragedy that had befallen the royal
family. Amalric’s son Baldwin was now nine years old and had been sent with
comrades of his own age to be instructed by William, Archdeacon of Tyre. He was
a handsome, intelligent boy; but one day, when his pupils were testing their
endurance by driving their nails into each other’s arms, William noticed that
the prince alone never flinched. He watched carefully and soon realized that
the boy was insensitive to pain because he was a leper. It was the judgment of
God for the incestuous marriage of his parents, Amalric and Agnes; and it boded
ill for the kingdom. Even if Baldwin grew up he could never carry on the
dynasty. The young Greek Queen might yet bear a son; but meanwhile, for safety’s
sake, Amalric would be wise to marry his eldest child, Sibylla, to some rich
experienced western prince who could act if need be as regent or even as king.
Stephen accepted the invitation and landed with a party of knights in Palestine
in the summer of 1171, a few days before Amalric arrived back from Constantinople.
But he did not like the look of Palestine. He brusquely broke off the marriage
negotiations and, after paying his vows at the Holy Places, left with his
company for the north, intending to visit Constantinople. As he passed through
Cilicia he was waylaid by Mleh of Armenia, who robbed him of all that he had
with him.

Next year an even more important visitor came
to Jerusalem, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Bavaria, grandson of the
Emperor Lothair and son-in-law of Henry II of England. But he, too, refused to
fight for the Cross. He had come merely as a pilgrim and left as soon as
possible for Germany.

The indifference of the West was bitterly
disappointing; but perhaps an expedition against Egypt was not needed at once.
For Saladin’s relations with Nur ed-Din seemed close to breaking-point. By
January 1171 Nur ed-Din had installed a garrison of his own at Mosul, where his
nephew Saif ed-Din ruled, and had annexed Nisibin and the Khabur valley for
himself and Sinjar for his favourite nephew Imad ed-Din. Then, piously anxious
for the triumph of orthodox Islam, he wrote to Saladin demanding that prayers
in the Egyptian mosques should no longer mention the Fatimid Caliph but the
Caliph of Baghdad. Saladin did not wish to comply. After two centuries of
Fatimid rule Shia influences were strong in Egypt. Moreover, though he might
own Nur ed-Din as his master, his authority in Egypt came from the Fatimid
Caliph. He prevaricated, till in August Nur ed-Din threatened to come himself
to Egypt if he were not obeyed. After taking police precautions Saladin
prepared for the change; but no one dared make the first move till on the first
Friday of the Moslem year 567 a visiting divine from Mosul boldly stepped into
the pulpit of the Great Mosque and prayed for the Caliph al-Mustadi. His lead
was followed throughout Cairo. In the palace the Fatimid Caliph al-Adid lay
dying. Saladin forbade his servants to tell him the news. ‘If he recovers, he
will learn soon enough’, he said. ‘If he is to die, let him die in peace.’ But
when the poor youth a few hours before his death asked to see Saladin his
request was refused for fear of a plot. Saladin repented of his refusal when it
was too late, and spoke of him with affection. With al-Adid the Fatimid dynasty
perished. The remaining princes and princesses were rounded up, to spend the
rest of their lives in luxury cut off from any contact with the world.

1172: Raymond of
Tripoli released

A few days later Saladin set out to attack the
castle of Montreal, south of the Dead Sea. He pressed the siege hard; and
Amalric, owing to misinformation, left Jerusalem too late to come to its
rescue. But, just as the garrison was preparing to capitulate, suddenly Nur
ed-Din appeared on the road to Kerak; whereat Saladin raised the siege. He told
Nur ed-Din that his brothers’ wars in upper Egypt obliged him to return to
Cairo. To Nur ed-Din his action seemed mere treachery that must be punished by
force. Hearing of his anger Saladin was alarmed and summoned a council of his
family and his chief generals. The younger members of the family counselled
defiance. But Saladin’s father, old Najm ed-Din Ayub, rose to say that he for
one was loyal to his master and berated his son for his ambition, and scolded
him again in private for letting his ambition be so obvious. Saladin took his
advice and sent abject apologies to Nur ed-Din; who accepted them for the
moment.

In the summer of 1171 Nur ed-Din planned but
gave up an expedition into Galilee. In the late autumn, angered by an act of
piracy committed by Franks from Lattakieh on two Egyptian merchant ships, he
devastated Antiochene and Tripolitan territory, destroying the castles of
Safita and Araima, and had to be bought off with a heavy indemnity. But in 1172
he kept the peace, partly because of his distrust of Saladin and partly because
he wished to gain Seldjuk help for an attack on Antioch. But the Seldjuk
Sultan, after a stern warning from Constantinople, rejected his advances and
instead began a two years’ war against the Danishmends. The Byzantine alliance,
though it was to achieve little else, at least saved Antioch from a coalition
between Aleppo and Konya. About the same time Nur ed-Din at last consented to
release Raymond of Tripoli for the sum of 80,000 dinars. The King and the
Hospitallers together raised the bulk of the money; and Raymond was allowed to
return home. He never paid some 30,000 dinars that remained owing to Nur
ed-Din.

War began again in 1173. Amalric felt secure
enough to march north into Cilicia to punish Mleh for his outrage against
Stephen of Champagne and to carry out his promise to the Emperor. The campaign
achieved nothing except to check Mleh’s further expansion. Nur ed-Din used the
opportunity to invade Oultrejourdain, and summoned Saladin to come to his
support. Saladin, faithful to his father’s advice, came up with an army from
Egypt and laid siege to Kerak. Meanwhile Nur ed-Din moved down from Damascus.
On his approach Saladin raised the siege and returned to Egypt, saying, with
truth, that his father was dangerously ill. But it was clear that he had no
wish to destroy the Frankish buffer-state that lay between him and his
imperious master. Nur ed-Din in his turn encamped before Kerak. The fief of
Oultrejourdain, of which it was the capital, belonged to an heiress, Stephanie
of Milly. Her first husband, Humphrey, heir of Toron, had died a few years
before. Her second husband, Amalric’s seneschal Miles of Plancy, was away with
the King. It was her first father-in-law, the old Constable, Humphrey II of
Toron, who came to her rescue. On the mobilization of the forces left in the
kingdom, Nur ed-Din retired. His fury against Saladin was unbounded. When he
heard of the death, in August, of Najm ed-Din Ayub, his most loyal servant in
Cairo, he vowed to invade Egypt himself in the coming spring.

1173
^:
Murder of the Assassin Ambassadors

This disunity in the Moslem world was consoling
to the Franks; and in the autumn of 1173 they received overtures from another
unexpected quarter. Little had been heard of the Assassins during the last
decades, apart from their arbitrary murder of Raymond II of Tripoli in 1152.
They had been quietly consolidating their territory in the Nosairi mountains.
In general they showed no animosity towards the Franks. Their hated enemy was
Nur ed-Din whose power restricted them on the east. But he had been unable to suppress
them; and a dagger found on his pillow one night warned him not to go too far.
Shia rather than Sunni in their sympathies, they had been shocked by the end of
the Fatimid Caliphate. In 1169 the Assassin headquarters at Alamut in Persia
sent a new governor for the Nosairi province, Rashid ed-Din Sinan of Basra.
This formidable sheikh, who was to be known to the Franks as the Old Man of the
Mountains, began a more active policy. He now sent to Amalric suggesting a
close alliance against Nur ed-Din and hinting that he and all his flock were
considering conversion to Christianity. In return he apparently asked that a
tribute which the Templars at Tortosa had succeeded in imposing on various
Assassin villages should be cancelled. Whether or not Amalric believed that the
Assassins would ever become Christians, he was glad to encourage their
friendship. The sheikh Sinan’s envoys returned towards the mountains with the
promise of a Frankish embassy to follow soon after. As they journeyed past
Tripoli a Templar knight, Walter of Mesnil, acting with the connivance of his
Grand Master, ambushed them and slew them all. King Amalric was horrified. His
policy was ruined and his honour stained, just because the Order was too greedy
to sacrifice a small portion of its revenues. He ordered the Grand Master, Odo
of Saint-Amand, to hand over the culprit. Odo refused, merely offering to send
Walter to be judged by the Pope, whose sole authority he recognized. But
Amalric was too angry to trouble about the Order’s constitution. He hurried
with some troops to Sidon, where the Grand Master and the Chapter were staying,
forced his way into their presence and kidnapped Walter, whom he cast into
prison at Tyre. The Assassins were assured that justice had been done; and they
accepted the King’s apologies. Meanwhile Amalric planned to demand from Rome
that the Order be dissolved.

The year 1174 opened well for the Christians.
The Assassins were friendly. The Byzantine alliance held good. The young King
of Sicily, William II, promised naval help for the spring. The discord between
Nur ed-Din and Saladin was reaching a crisis; and Saladin himself was none too
secure in Egypt, where the Shia nobility was again intriguing against him and
was in contact with the Franks. In 1173 he had sent his eldest brother, Turan
Shah, to conquer the Sudan, so that it might serve as an asylum for the family,
should the worst occur. Turan occupied the country as far as Ibrim, near Wady
Haifa, where he slew the Coptic bishop and his flock, both his congregation and
his seven hundred pigs. But he reported that the land was unsuitable as a
refuge. Saladin then sent him to southern Arabia, which he preferred. He
conquered it in his brother’s name and ruled there as viceroy till 1176.

But there was no need to flee from the wrath of
Nur ed-Din. In the spring of 1174 the atabeg came to Damascus to plan his
Egyptian campaign. As he rode out one morning with his friends through the
orchards he talked to them of the uncertainty of human life. Nine days later,
on 15 May, he died of a quinsy. He had been a great ruler and a good man, who
had loved above all things justice. After his illness nineteen years before,
something of his energy had left him; and more and more of his time was spent
on pious exercises. But his piety, narrow though it was, won him the respect of
his subjects and of his enemies. He was austere and smiled seldom. He lived
simply and forced his family to do likewise, preferring to spend his vast
revenues on works of charity. He was a careful and watchful administrator; and
his wise government consolidated the realm that his sword had won. In
particular he sought to curb the restlessness of his Turkish and Kurdish emirs
by settling them on fiefs for which they paid the rent in soldiers, but his own
law courts kept them strictly under control. This mitigated feudalism did much
to restore the prosperity of Syria after nearly a century of the rule of
nomads. In appearance he was tall and dark-skinned, almost beardless, with
regular features and a gentle, sad expression. Polo-playing was his only
recreation.