A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (11 page)

Rumours had reached Constantinople that
Richard was pressing for the latinization of the Holy Places. While Saladin was
still at Jerusalem an embassy arrived there from the Emperor Isaac Angelus,
asking that the Orthodox might be given back the full control of the Orthodox
Church that they had possessed in the days of the Fatimids. Saladin refused the
request. He would not allow any one sect to be dominant there, but, like the
Ottoman Sultans after him, he would be arbiter of them all. He also refused at
once a request made by the Queen of Georgia to purchase the Holy Cross for
200,000 dinars.

1199: Death of Richard

When the treaty was signed Richard
journeyed to Acre. There he set his affairs in order, paying the debts that he
owed and trying to collect those owed to him. On 29 September Queen Berengaria
and Queen Joanna sailed out from Acre, to reach France safely before the winter
storms. Ten days later, on 9 October, Richard himself left the land where he
had fought so valiantly for sixteen bitter months. Fortune was against him. Bad
weather forced him to call in at Corfu, in the territory of the Emperor Isaac
Angelus. Fearing that he might be taken prisoner, he took passage at once,
disguised as a Templar knight, with four attendants, in a pirate boat that was
bound for the head of the Adriatic. This boat was wrecked near Aquileia; and
Richard and his companions went on by land through Carinthia and Austria,
intending to hurry quietly on to the territory of his brother-in-law, Henry of
Saxony. But Richard was not a man to wear disguise convincingly. On ii December
he was recognized when he paused at an inn near Vienna. He was at once led
before Duke Leopold of Austria, the man whose banner he had thrown down at
Acre. Leopold accused him of the murder of Conrad of Montferrat and cast him
into prison. Three months later he was handed over to Leopold’s suzerain, the
Emperor Henry VI. His long friendship with Henry the Lion and his recent
alliance with Tancred of Sicily made him odious to the Emperor, who kept him
captive for a year and only released him in March 1194, on the payment of a
huge ransom and an oath of vassaldom. During the weary months of his captivity his
lands had been exposed to the intrigues of his brother John and the open
attacks of King Philip. When he returned to them he had far too many tasks to
do ever to contemplate another journey to the East. For five years he fought
brilliantly in France defending his inheritance against the cunning Capetian,
till, on 26 March 1199, a stray arrow shot from a rebel castle in the Limousin
brought his life to a close. He was a bad son, a bad husband and a bad king,
but a gallant and splendid soldier.

CHAPTER
IV

THE
SECOND KINGDOM

‘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.