A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (25 page)

But, before Frederick set out, the
situation was altered. Al-Mu’azzam died on 11 November 1227, leaving his
dominions to a youth of twenty-one, his son an-Nasir Dawud. As the new ruler
was weak and inexperienced, al-Kamil at once prepared to annex his territory.
He marched into Palestine and captured Jerusalem and Nablus. An-Nasir appealed
to his uncle al-Ashraf, who hastened to his rescue, announcing that he had come
to see that the Franks did not take advantage of the situation to annex
Palestine. Al-Kamil was loudly making the same claim, which sounded plausible,
as Frederick was now on his way to the East. Eventually the two brothers met at
Tel-Ajul, near Gaza, and decided to divide their nephew’s lands between them,
still protesting that they were acting altruistically in the interests of
Islam. An-Nasir was encamped at Beisan, where al-Ashraf planned to capture him.
But the boy heard of the plot and fled to Damascus. His uncles’ armies followed
him and laid siege to the city about the end of the year 1228.

Under these circumstances al-Kamil
regretted Frederick’s coming. He had every prospect of obtaining Palestine
permanently for himself; for the Khwarismians showed no sign of coming to
an-Nasir’s help. But the presence of a Crusading army at Acre meant that he
could not concentrate all his forces on the siege of Damascus. Frederick was
not entirely to be trusted; he might decide to intervene on an-Nasir’s behalf.
When Frederick sent Thomas of Acerra and Balian of Sidon to al-Kamil to
announce his arrival, al-Kamil told Fakhr ad-Din to visit the Emperor once
more, to open negotiations and keep them open as long as possible, till
Damascus should fall or Frederick go home. There followed several months of
bargaining, in an atmosphere partly of mutual bluff and partly of mutual
admiration. Neither Emperor nor Sultan was fanatically devoted to his religion.
Each was interested in the other’s way of life. Neither was prepared to go to
war if it could be avoided; but each had, for the sake of his prestige with his
own people, to drive as hard a bargain as possible. Frederick was pressed for
time and his army not large enough for a major campaign; but al-Kamil was
alarmed by any show of force while Damascus was still untaken, and he was ready
to make concessions to the Christians if it would help him to pursue his
greater policy, which was to reunite and dominate the Ayubite world. But the
concessions must not go too far. When Frederick demanded the retrocession of
all Palestine, Fakhr ad-Din, on al-Kamil’s instructions, told him that his
master could not afford to offend Moslem opinion to such a degree.

At the end of November 1228, the Emperor
tried to hasten matters by a military display. He assembled all the troops that
would follow him and marched down the coast to Jaffa, which he proceeded to
refortify. At the same moment an-Nasir, who was not yet closely invested in
Damascus, led an army to Nablus, to intercept his uncle’s supply lines. But
al-Kamil refused to be bluffed. He broke off negotiations, saying that
Frederick’s men had pillaged Moslem villages, and only resumed them again when
Frederick paid out compensation to the victims.

1229: Recovery of Jerusalem

In the end Frederick proved the better
bargainer. When February came an-Nasir was still unscathed in Damascus, and
Jelal ad-Din the Khwarismian was turning his attention westward again.
Frederick had completed the fortifications of Jaffa, and, on Fakhr ad-Din’s
advice, he sent Thomas of Acerra and Balian of Sidon once more to al-Kamil. On
11 February they brought back
the Sultan’s final terms. Frederick agreed to them, and a week
later, on the 18th, he signed a peace treaty, together with al-Kamil’s
representatives, Fakhr ad-Din and Salah ad-Din of Arbela. The Grand Master of
the Teutonic Order and the Bishops of Exeter and Winchester were witnesses. By
this treaty the kingdom of Jerusalem was to receive Jerusalem itself and
Bethlehem, with a corridor running through Lydda to the sea at Jaffa, Nazareth
and western Galilee, including Montfort and Toron, and the remaining Moslem
districts round Sidon. But in Jerusalem itself the Temple area, with the Dome
of the Rock and the Mosque al-Aqsa, was to remain in Moslem hands, and Moslems
were to be allowed the right of entry and freedom of worship. Frederick might
rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, but the concession was made to him personally.
All prisoners on both sides were to be released. The peace was to last ten
years by the Christian calendar and ten years and five months by the Moslem.
But it did not apply to Bohemond’s principality of Antioch-Tripoli.

Thus, without striking a blow, the
excommunicate Emperor won back the Holy Places for Christendom. But seldom has
a treaty met with such immediate and universal disapproval. The Moslem world
was horrified. At Damascus an-Nasir, not without relish, ordered public
mourning for the betrayal of Islam. Even al-Kamil’s own imams abused him to his
face; and his lame reply that he had only ceded ruined houses and churches,
while the Moslem shrines were intact and saved for the Faith, was little
consolation; nor did his comment that the Moslems were still strategic masters
of the province seem an adequate excuse. The Christians, on the other hand,
were well aware of the strategic position. The more intransigent of them lamented
that Jerusalem had not been won back by the sword, and were disgusted that the
infidel should retain their
shrines; and all of them remembered the negotiations of the Fifth Crusade, when
al-Kamil’s offer of all Palestine was rejected because the strategists pointed
out that without Oultrejourdain Jerusalem could not be held. How then could it
be held when only one narrow strip of land connected it with the coast? There
was none of the rejoicing that Frederick had expected. No one suggested that excommunication
should be lifted from the man who had done such a great service to Christendom.
The Patriarch Gerold proclaimed his displeasure and hurled an interdict against
the Holy City if it should receive the Emperor. The Templars, furious at the
Temple remaining with the Moslems, made their protest. Neither they nor the
Hospitallers would have dealings with the enemy of the Pope. The local barons,
already resentful of Frederick’s absolutism, were alarmed by the
impracticability of the new frontier; and their dislike of the Emperor was
enhanced when he announced that he would go up to Jerusalem and be crowned
King. For, in fact, he was not their King, but only the regent and father of
the King.

1229: Frederick at Jerusalem

On Saturday, 17 March 1229, Frederick made
his ceremonious entry into Jerusalem. His German and Italian troops escorted
him, but very few of the local baronage. Of the Military Orders only the
Teutonic Knights were represented; and of the clergy there were only Frederick’s
Sicilian Bishops and his English friends, Peter of Winchester and William of
Exeter. The Emperor was met at the gate by the Qadi Shams ad-Din of Nablus, who
handed him the keys of the city in the name of the Sultan. The short procession
then passed through empty streets to the old building of the Hospital, where
Frederick took up his residence. There was no sign of enthusiasm. The Moslems
had deserted the city except for their shrines. The native Christians held
aloof, fearing with reason that a Latin restoration would do them no good.
Frederick’s own companions were embarrassed by his excommunication; and when it
was known that the Archbishop of Caesarea was on his way with orders from the
Patriarch to put the city under an interdict, there was constraint and hesitation
at the Court. Next morning, Sunday the 18th, Frederick went to attend Mass in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Not a priest was there, only his own soldiery
and the Teutonic Knights. Undeterred, he had a royal crown laid on the altar of
Calvary, then took it up himself and placed it on his head. Thereupon the
Master of the Teutonic Knights read out, first in German, then in French, an
encomium of the Emperor-King, describing his achievements and justifying his
policy. The Court then moved back to the Hospital; and Frederick held a council
to discuss the defence of Jerusalem. The Grand Master of the Hospital and the
Preceptor of the Temple, who at a discreet distance had followed the Emperor to
Jerusalem, consented to be present, along with the English bishops and Hermann
of Salza. Frederick ordered that the Tower of David and the Gate of St Stephen
were to be repaired at once, and he handed over the royal residence attached to
the Tower of David to the Teutonic Order. Except from the Teutons he met with little
co-operation.

It was with relief that Frederick turned
aside from his work to visit the Moslem shrines. The Sultan had tactfully
ordered the Muezzin at al-Aqsa not to make the call to prayer while the
Christian sovereign was in the city. But Frederick protested. The Moslems must
not change their customs because of him. Besides, he said, he had come to
Jerusalem in order to hear the Muezzins’ call through the night. As he entered
the holy area of the Haram as-Sharif he noticed a Christian cleric following
behind. He at once himself rudely ejected him, and gave orders that any
Christian priest that crossed its threshold without permission from the Moslems
should be put to death. As he walked round the Dome of the Rock he noticed the
inscription that Saladin had erected in mosaic round the cupola, to record the
building’s purification from the polytheists. ‘Who asked the Emperor with a
smile, ‘might the polytheists be?’ He remarked on the gratings over the windows
and was told that they were put up to keep out the sparrows. ‘God has now sent
you the pigs’, he said, using the vulgar Moslem term for the Christians. It was
noted that he had Moslems in his suite, amongst them his teacher of philosophy,
an Arab from Sicily.

The Moslems were interested by the Emperor
but not deeply impressed. His appearance disappointed them. They said that he
would not be worth two hundred dirhems in the slave-market, with his smooth red
face and his myopic eyes. They were disquieted by his remarks against his own
faith. They could respect an honest Christian; but a Frank who disparaged
Christianity and paid crude compliments to Islam roused their suspicions. It
may be that they had heard the remark universally attributed to him that Moses,
Christ and Mahomet were all three impostors. In any case he seemed a man
without religion. The enlightened Fakhr ad-Din, with whom he had often
discussed philosophy in the palace at Acre, fell victim to his fascination; and
the Sultan al-Kamil, whose speculative outlook was akin to his own, regarded
him with affectionate admiration, particularly when Fakhr ad-Din reported his
confidence that he would never have insisted on the cession of Jerusalem had
not his whole prestige been at stake. But pious Moslems and pious Christians
alike looked askance at the whole episode. Obvious cynicism never wins the
hearts of the people.

1229: End of Frederick’s Crusade

On Monday the 19th, Peter of Caesarea
arrived, to hurl the Patriarch’s interdict on Jerusalem. In his rage at the
insult, Frederick at once abandoned further work on the defence of the city
and, gathering together all his men, hastened down to Jaffa. He paused for a
day there, then moved up the coast to Acre, where he arrived on the 23rd. He
found Acre seething with discontent. The barons could not forgive him for
flouting the constitution; though only Regent he had made a treaty without
their consent and had crowned himself King. There were riots between local men
at arms and the Emperor’s garrison. The Genoese and Venetian colonists resented
favours shown to the Pisans, whose mother-city was one of Frederick’s few
constant allies in Italy. The Emperor’s return only intensified the bitterness
in the atmosphere.

On the following morning Frederick
summoned representatives of all the realm to meet him and gave them an account
of his actions. His words were met with angry disapproval. He then had recourse
to force. He threw a cordon of police round the Patriarch’s palace and round
the headquarters of the Templars; and he put guards at the city gates so that
no one unauthorized could leave or enter the city. It was rumoured that he
intended to confiscate the great Templar fortress at Athlit, but he learned
that it was too strongly garrisoned. He contemplated kidnapping John of Ibelin
and the Grand Master of the Temple and sending them to Apulia; but they each
kept themselves well guarded, and he did not attempt the venture. But meanwhile
he received serious news from Italy, where his father-in-law, John of Brienne,
had invaded his states at the head of a Papal army. He could not defer his
departure from the East much longer. Without more troops than he possessed in
Syria he could not crush his opponents. So he compromised. He announced his
forthcoming departure and appointed as
baillis
for the kingdom Balian of
Sidon and Gamier the German. Balian was known for his moderate views and his
mother was an Ibelin. Gamier, despite his German origin, had been a lieutenant
of King John of Brienne. Odo of Montbeliard was left as Constable of the
kingdom, in charge of the army.

These appointments in fact represented a
defeat for the Emperor. He knew that he had lost and, to avoid humiliating
scenes, he planned to embark on 1 May at sunrise, when no one would be about.
But the secret was not kept. As he and his suite passed down the Street of the
Butchers to the harbour, the people crowded out of the doors and pelted him
with entrails and dung. John of Ibelin and Odo of Montbeliard heard the riot
and rode up to restore order. But when they bade a courteous good-bye to the
Emperor on his galley, he answered with muttered curses.

From Acre Frederick sailed to Limassol. He
remained some ten days in Cyprus, where he confirmed that the
baillis
should
be Amalric Barlais and his four friends, Gavin of Chenichy, Amalric of Beisan,
Hugh of Jebail and William of Rivet. He entrusted the King’s person to them. At
the same time he arranged a marriage between the young King and Alice of
Montferrat, whose father was one of his staunch supporters in Italy. On 10 June
1229, he landed at Brindisi.