God's Battalions (20 page)

Another rule of medieval war was “To the victor go the spoils.” Loot and booty were major motivating factors, especially for the common soldiers in all armies. Hence, surrender agreements with cities usually provided for very substantial settlements, which then were shared out. But when cities were taken by storm, the spoils were obtained by looting. As Guibert of Nogent described the looting of Jerusalem: “Palaces and other buildings lay open, and silver, gold, and silken garments were seized as booty…and in the houses they found a great abundance of every kind of food. This was right and proper for the army of God, that the finest things that offered themselves to each man, no matter how poor, became his by right, without doubt or challenge, no matter the social class of the man who first came upon them.”
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When troops began to loot, things often got out of hand. In this instance, as Guibert put it, “[t]he army ran amok,” and a killing spree began. Soon Jerusalem “was filled with so many corpses that the Franks were unable to move without stepping on dead bodies.” Captives were set to work collecting the bodies and carrying them from the city. Placed in front of the main gates in huge piles, they then were burned. Thus, “God repaid them…by exacting a retribution equal to their hideous crimes.”
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Granted, it was a cruel and bloody age, but nothing is to be gained either in terms of moral insights or historical comprehension by anachronistically imposing the Geneva Convention on these times. Moreover, the sources may have greatly exaggerated the extent of the massacre: these same writers routinely reported armies of nearly a million men and hundreds of thousands of casualties on each side in various battles. Surely, no sensible person will believe Raymond of Aguilers’s report that “men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.”
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What most likely happened was, as the distinguished John France put it, “not far beyond what common practice of the day meted out to any place that had resisted.”
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Caution should especially be applied to the claim that when the Jewish residents of Jerusalem fled to their major synagogue, they all died when angry crusaders burned the building down around them. This is the favorite example of those determined to condemn the Crusades and one I repeated in an earlier study of anti-Semitic outbursts.
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On the face of it, the story is plausible. As reported in several previous chapters, Jews frequently sided with the Muslims against the Christians in the Holy Land. In this instance, there were Jews in Ifitkhar’s regular forces as well as in the city militia.
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Hence, there is no reason to assume that the Jews would have received special treatment; people inside synagogues were as endangered as those inside mosques. Nor can there be any doubt that there were substantial taints of anti-Semitism among the crusaders.

Even so, there is very credible evidence that most of the Jews were spared and that the story that all the Jews were burned alive may be false! Some of the Christian accounts report that the Jews were taken captive and later forced to clear the corpses out of the city, which is what the Israeli historian Moshe Gil believes happened.
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Indeed, one of the famous Geniza letters discovered in Cairo in 1952 was written in Hebrew by Jewish community leaders seeking funds to ransom Jews taken captive at the fall of Jerusalem.
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It is possible, too, that some Jews died when their synagogue was burned while most Jews in Jerusalem did not take shelter in a synagogue and were taken captive.

Despite taking several years and costing thousands of lives, the capture of Jerusalem was, in many ways, only the beginning of the story. In fact, it was only about three weeks before the next chapter took place: a battle against a newly arrived Fatimid army from Cairo.

ASCALON

When al-Afdal, grand vizier to the Fatimid caliph of Egypt, first heard that the crusaders were advancing on Antioch, he assumed that they were Byzantine mercenaries and would be excellent allies against the Seljuk Turks. Emperor Alexius strengthened that impression and even coaxed the crusader commanders into negotiating with the Fatimids. Eventually al-Afdal realized that the crusaders were on an independent mission, and he scrambled to assemble a mighty army. It was too late to save Jerusalem, which at this time had been a Fatimid possession, but it was not too late to take it back.

Part of al-Afdal’s army marched across the Sinai Desert to Palestine. Another part sailed with al-Afdal and landed at Ascalon, about fifty miles southwest of Jerusalem. The rest of the army joined him there, as did a number of other contingents, including various Bedouin tribes. The crusaders were, of course, kept fully abreast of these developments by their agents and scouts, and even had they not been they would have learned of this threat when al-Afdal sent them a message suggesting negotiations. Instead, the crusaders marched off to Ascalon, leaving all their noncombatants behind under the protection of a tiny garrison. Peter the Hermit also was left behind with instructions to hold constant services of intercession for victory. At this point, the crusader force could not have numbered more than ten thousand, and al-Afdal’s force probably totaled around twenty thousand.
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On the 11th of August the crusaders arrived just north of Ascalon, where they discovered immense herds that had been brought to feed the Muslim army. Taking control of these, they then rested for the night. In the early morning the crusaders formed up their ranks and advanced on al-Afdal’s camp. Incredibly, they took the enemy completely by surprise; once again, an arrogant Muslim leader had not even posted sentries, let alone sent out scouts. The Muslims offered no sustained opposition and fled for their lives, but there were few survivors. The vizier managed to escape with a few of his officers by sailing away to Egypt.

The booty taken by the crusaders seems incredible, not only for the staggering amounts involved, but why it was there at all: “[b]ullion and precious stones were found in huge quantities.”
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CONCLUSION

What Pope Urban had begun in that field in Clermont had now come to pass. God’s battalions had been victorious, and the unbelievers had been driven from Jerusalem. Almost immediately, large numbers of crusaders began to head for home; after all, they had been gone much longer than anyone had expected. Within several months the crusader forces remaining in the Holy Land had fallen to perhaps no more than three hundred knights and an unknown, but not very large, number of foot soldiers. This was a very dangerous development, for surely Muslim forces would come again; the Holy Land remained encircled by a large Muslim world. Unfortunately, no plans had been made at the outset for maintaining a liberated Jerusalem, because it was thought that the Byzantines would take the lead. No one believed that now. Thus the question that had been bothering many leading crusaders for several years was, How can our miraculous achievement be sustained?

W
HEN THEY BEGAN
their journeys east, the crusader princes were not concerned about what would happen once the Holy Land was back in Christian hands. They assumed that it would simply become part of Byzantium, just as they assumed that Alexius Comnenus would lead them into battle. But, of course, the Byzantine emperor had done no leading, and everyone from the West now regarded him as a treacherous fraud who had repeatedly betrayed them. It also was clear that Alexius was not interested in defending the Holy Land and would gladly restore it to Islam if offered an attractive treaty. So, if their victories were to have lasting significance, some crusaders would need to stay in the East, even though their ranks had become precariously slim as most of their comrades went home. The solution was to create a permanent state, ruled and defended by Christians. Thus, in 1099, they founded the kingdom of Jerusalem. It also came to be known at Outremer, the French word for “overseas”
(outre-mer).

The kingdom of Jerusalem occupied essentially the same area as ancient Palestine (see map 8.1). It was created by and initially ruled by Godfrey of Bouillon, who had led the capture of Jerusalem and then the defeat of the Egyptian army that tried to recapture the city. Godfrey refused to be crowned king on grounds that he could not wear “a crown of gold” where Christ had worn “a crown of thorns.”
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Instead, he settled for the title of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.

In addition to the kingdom of Jerusalem, there were three other minor crusader kingdoms. These were the county of Edessa, named for its major city (and the only one of the kingdoms that was landlocked); the principality of Antioch, which surrounded the city of Antioch in what is now southern Turkey; and the county of Tripoli, located just south of Antioch and named for the Lebanese coastal city of that name. To keep a proper perspective, it is useful to note how small these “cities” were. Antioch was much the largest city of the area, having about forty thousand residents. Edessa had about twenty-four thousand; Tripoli, about eight thousand; Jerusalem had only about ten thousand.
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The foundings of Edessa and Antioch were discussed in the previous chapter. Baldwin of Boulogne rose to power in Edessa in 1098, having marched there with a small force while the main body of crusaders attacked Antioch. When his brother Godfrey died in 1100, Baldwin became king of Jerusalem, and Edessa soon became a fief of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Edessa was not only the first crusader kingdom but also the first to be retaken by Islam, in 1144.

The same year that Baldwin took power in Edessa, Bohemond of Taranto became prince of Antioch after he negotiated the betrayal of a gate that allowed the crusaders to enter and conquer the city, and subsequently he had led the successful defense of Antioch against what seemed like overwhelming odds. The other leading crusaders eventually supported Bohemond’s decision to remain in Antioch because “somebody had to defend the lines back to Asia Minor and Christian territory,”
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and no one wished to trust the emperor Alexius to do so. From the start, Antioch was threatened by the Byzantines as rightfully theirs, but they never got it back. Instead, Antioch remained an independent kingdom until 1119, when it was joined to the kingdom of Jerusalem.

The county of Tripoli was the last of the four crusader states to be established—in 1102. It came into being when Count Raymond IV of Toulouse laid siege to the port city of Tripoli. When Raymond died suddenly in 1105, he left his infant son as heir, and the county became a vassal state of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

The three minor kingdoms will receive only passing mentions; the story of the Christians in the Holy Land following the First Crusade is primarily the story of the kingdom of Jerusalem. That story stretches over nearly two centuries, but this chapter will be limited to sketching the history, economy, and social organization of the kingdom as it developed during the first few decades of the twelfth century. Then the chapter turns to the claim that the crusader kingdoms were the first manifestation of European colonialism and, as such, justifiably still provoke Muslim wrath. What cannot be contested is that, whatever else they may have been, the crusader kingdoms were embattled enclaves surrounded by a large, militant, and powerful Muslim world. In fact, the kingdom of Jerusalem was never entirely cleared of fortified Muslim cities that remained enemy outposts and from which raiding parties continued to attack small settlements and travelers—especially groups of Christian pilgrims. Consequently, defense was the primary preoccupation of rulers of the kingdom. The latter part of this chapter concerns the founding of two knightly religious orders that were dedicated to the defense of the Holy Land.

THE KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM

The kingdom of Jerusalem hugged the Mediterranean coast; the eastern border was, on average, only about fifty miles from the sea, and aside from Jerusalem, all the principal cities were ports. The coastal plain was mostly a sandy waste, with few farmable areas, but for many centuries it served as a thriving caravan route. Back from the coastal plain were mountain ranges, and most of the good agricultural land lay in a valley between them. Given how narrow the kingdom was, and that populous Muslim nations lay just beyond the eastern and southern borders, all four of the crusader kingdoms “had to be garrison states.”
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The initial steps to create the kingdom of Jerusalem took place against the sense of urgency caused by the massive departures of crusaders and their entourages for home. According to Fulcher of Chartres, soon after the conquest of Jerusalem there were no “more than three hundred knights and as many footmen to defend [the kingdom]…We scarcely dared to assemble our knights when we wished to plan some feat against our enemies. We feared that in the meantime they would do some damage against our deserted fortifications.”
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These totals do not include the troops available in the other three kingdoms, but these would have been only minor forces, too. Perhaps the most amazing thing about this entire era was that the kingdoms were not retaken at once by Muslim armies.

Although the massive departures posed a serious problem for the defense of the Holy Land, they pose two serious questions for the historian: who stayed, and why did they do so?

Just as enlistment in the Crusades was a network phenomenon, so was staying. That is, those who stayed were not scattered individuals but overwhelmingly were members of a
domus,
or household—a group of noblemen, knights, and retainers associated with a leading figure such as Godfrey of Bouillon. When Godfrey decided to stay, his household stayed with him just as they had followed him when he went on the Crusade. Many who favor the notion that the kingdoms were colonies suggest that it was the landless with little awaiting them back in Europe who opted to stay. But according to a careful “census” of those who stayed by Jonathan Riley-Smith, the decisions to stay that mattered were those made by the heads of households, and these were “rich men who certainly had no financial need to stay in the East.”
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As to why they chose to stay, Riley-Smith concluded that most did so out “of idealism or [in the case of followers] of dependence on the close emotional ties binding lord and vassal, patron and client.”
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This helps to explain why the governance of the kingdoms was based on the European feudal system. This is what they all knew and accepted. Hence, almost at once Godfrey began to assign fiefs to various members of his household, who were thereby committed to supplying a quota of knights and foot soldiers for the defense of the kingdom—which was the basis of feudalism. But there was a crucial difference. European feudalism was based on agricultural land. It was the productivity of this land that paid the bills. But in the kingdom there was very little agricultural land, and the nobility could not base themselves on their “estates” as in Europe; consequently, manor houses “did not exist in the kingdom.”
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Instead, the “overwhelming majority [of knights] were simply salaried warriors,”
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and poorly paid ones at that. The average knight’s salary was barely sufficient to meet the costs of keeping his horses and necessary retainers. Because they were not supported by rural estates, knights and nobles preferred to live in cities and towns as did most everyone else. For the times, the kingdom was remarkably urban: Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa were nearly as large as Paris and Venice, and were far larger than London or Rome.
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Acre, Jaffa, Sidon, Gaza, and Tyre also were sizable.

Godfrey lived only long enough to establish feudalism, dying on July 18, 1100, a year and three days after his victory at Jerusalem. His brother Baldwin was called from Edessa to take his place and was crowned king of Jerusalem in Bethlehem on Christmas Day 1100; his cousin Baldwin of LeBourg replaced him as count of Edessa, which subsequently became a fief of the kingdom of Jerusalem. Baldwin was the real founder of the kingdom, and he greatly expanded its territory. Reinforced by a contingent of newly arrived Norwegian crusaders led by Magnus Barefoot, he conquered important port cities such as Acre, Beirut, and Sidon, which enabled the kingdom to establish trade relations with Genoa, Pisa, and Venice.

Pilgrims continued to be a major source of revenue, and they also often served as a temporary source of defenders.
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Additional funds were raised by taxing the large Muslim caravans that had long followed the coastal route north from Arabia and Egypt to Damascus. Several major castles, including the famous Krak de Montréal, were built along the caravan route for this purpose. Given the constant warfare that marked the entire history of the kingdom, booty also played a significant role in the kingdom’s economy,
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and by the end of the twelfth century the spice trade became quite profitable—passing through the kingdom’s ports to merchants from the Italian city-states. But in early days, the rulers of the kingdom and their retainers relied greatly on their own European wealth, and when Baldwin’s funds ran low he recouped by marrying a rich widow from Sicily, who brought him “a huge treasure of money, weapons, and supplies.”
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The bottom line was that the kingdom could be sustained in Christian hands only, as it was supported by subsidies sent from Europe, many of them raised by special “crusader” taxes (see chap. 10).

After King Baldwin of Jerusalem died in 1118 during a campaign against Egypt, once again the barons turned to Edessa for a new king, and Baldwin of LeBourg was crowned as Baldwin II. He reigned for thirteen years and added the city of Tyre to the kingdom.

In 1144 Islam struck back when Imad al-Din Zangi took the city of Edessa, but that part of the Edessan County west of the Euphrates River remained in Christian hands. The city was recaptured by Christian forces in 1146 when Zangi died but was quickly retaken by the Muslims. Meanwhile, partly in response to this Muslim incursion, the Second Crusade had been proclaimed back in Europe, and a great expedition was gathering, to be led by Louis VII, king of France, and the German king, Conrad III. That story awaits in chapter 9.

Not only were the kingdoms sustained by a very small number of resident men-at-arms; even when their noncombatant relatives are added in, “there can only have been from two to three thousand adult members of the Frankish upper classes”
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in the kingdoms. Even so, many of them had come as pilgrims after the conquest of Jerusalem, and many others were
pullani
—the children or grandchildren of crusaders.
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As time passed, even many of the original crusaders began to think of themselves as easterners (Orientals). Fulcher of Chartres, who had served as chaplain to Baldwin of Boulogne, wrote in about 1124: “For we who were Occidentals have now become Orientals. He who was a Roman or a Frank has in this land been made into a Galilean or a Palestinian. He who was of Rheims or Chartres has now become a citizen of Tyre or Antioch. We have already forgotten our places of birth; already these are unknown to many of us or not mentioned any more.”
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Fulcher went on to note that they now all spoke Greek and many spoke Arabic as well, and that they were often married to Eastern Christians.

Although many attempts were made to attract settlers from Europe, few came, and so people of Western backgrounds always were only a small minority of residents of the kingdom. A substantial number of residents were Eastern Christians, not only Greek Orthodox but also Jacobites, Maronites, Nestorians, Copts, and Armenians.
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Many other residents were Jews, but the majority were Muslims, split between Sunnis and Shiites. Of course, the proportions of these various groups differed by area.
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Although, as noted, there were enclaves of Muslims who continued to rob and attack Christians, most Muslims in the kingdom were peasants who reportedly were quite content under Christian rule. For one thing, there were no land-hungry Christians eager to confiscate their fields or animals. For another, taxes were lower in the kingdom than in neighboring Muslim countries. Fully as important, the Christian rulers tolerated the Muslims’ religion and made no effort to convert them.
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(So much for modern claims that the crusaders went in search of converts and new religious “markets.”) Finally, the Christians “administered justice fairly.”
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Thus, a Muslim pilgrim who passed through the kingdom while returning from Mecca to Spain wrote that Muslims “live in great comfort under the Franks; may Allah preserve us from such a temptation…[Muslims] are masters of their dwellings, and govern themselves as they wish. This is the case in all the territory occupied by the Franks.”
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