The Age of Chivalry (20 page)

L
EFT
A statue of Louis IX in Paris's Sainte-Chapelle, a building commissioned by the King and which served as his private chapel
.

Technological advances were certainly increasing the costs of war, but the drive to raise more money also reflected Philip's conviction that the French national monarchy should be an efficient bureaucracy with an exclusive authority over its subjects. His establishment in 1307 of a new court of law, the
Parlement
of Paris, was part of that program since its jurisdiction covered the whole kingdom. Philip's subjects could use the
Parlement
to appeal against the lower courts' decisions, a right which diminished the nobility's rights of jurisdiction locally.

Philip's drive for uniformity resulted in his imposition of taxation on the French clergy. That measure, while showing the increasingly important role of civil lawyers in the governmental machine, also led to a quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII (1294–1303). The wealth and independence of the Knights Templar made them Philip's next victims. Heavily indebted to the knights, Philip took advantage of their unpopularity and in
1307 ordered the arrest of those members of the Order who were operating in France. The papacy had now reverted to its usual pro-French position, and later that same year Clement V obliged Philip by issuing a papal bull instructing European monarchs to arrest all Templars and confiscate their assets. Following a series of trials on trumped-up charges, dozens of the knights arrested on Philip's command were burned at the stake in Paris in 1310, and the papacy officially dissolved the Order in 1312.

Three sons born to Philip IV sat on the French throne during the last years of Capetian kingship. The reign of Louis X (1314–16) saw alliances of regional nobles reacting against the fiscal demands initiated by Philip, and Louis's decision of 1315 to grant freedom to French serfs was prompted by the need to plug the consequent gap in royal revenue. Serfs owned directly by the king had to pay him for their freedom, and those owned by the king's subjects had to pay a sum shared equally between Louis and the former owners. Serfs who could not, or would not, buy their freedom had their goods confiscated, with the proceeds going to the Crown. The revenue-producing capacity of Jewish commerce prompted another major change in government policy: in 1315 Jews were allowed to return to France for an initial 12-year period under specific conditions that excluded them from practicing usury.

Some of the Crown's money was spent keeping military and commercial pressure on Flanders, whose independence and great wealth irked its feudal suzerain, the French monarchy. Philip V (1316–22) succeeded to the throne when John I, Louis X's posthumously born son, died after a reign lasting five days, and it was Philip who attempted a diplomatic solution of the Flemish question. Count Robert III agreed that his grandson Louis would inherit, and since the young prince was being brought up at Philip's court the agreement seemed to guarantee a reliably pro-French future for Flanders. Louis I (1322–46), however, lacked a local power base, and French forces had to intervene in his support following the Flemish revolt (1323–26) against the count's rule.

Philip V's accession had been controversial initially, but those nobles who supported the rights of Louis X's daughter, Joan, were trumped by Philip's swift coronation at Rheims in 1316. Thereafter, he relied on the famous Salic law, and its denial of a female right of regal succession, to bolster his authority. Philip's establishment of the
cour des comptes
, charged with governmental audit and prompt revenue payment, proved to be a lasting feature of French administration. Both Philip and his brother, who succeeded him as Charles IV (1322–28), nonetheless faced English challenges in the southwest. Guienne might be the only sliver of French land left to English kings, but it was a near-autonomous province. Edward II refused to pay homage to Louis X, only reluctantly paid homage to Philip V and then renewed his refusal in regard to Charles IV.

The insulting “treasure” that France's Dauphin sent to Henry V in Shakespeare's play had long since played its part in French sport. Louis X (1314–16) was an enthusiastic player of
jeu de paume
or “game of the palm” from which modern tennis is derived, and his innovation of an indoor court supplemented the game's outdoor version
.

In both cases the aim was to serve and hit the ball with gloved hands, though barehanded versions of the game were also played at an earlier stage. The server's cry of “
tenez
,” or “look out,” may be the origin of the word “tennis.” Its indoor form, when played with the racket (a post-medieval innovation), would later be called “real” to distinguish it from the lawn-based version that became popular in the 19th century.
Jeu de paume
, when played indoors, involved the hitting of the ball within an entirely enclosed space, while the original outdoor version involved a court consisting of just a front wall and two side walls. The game Louis played, however, was already historic, and earlier versions of it were being played in France by at least the 12th century. The Spanish game of
pelota
and the Italian
palla
, also handball games played within a court, are of similar antiquity. The English fives, a game played without a racket, belongs to the same family of sports. Louis's innovation was widely imitated in royal and aristocratic palaces across Western Europe, and the playing of
jeu de paume
in specially built indoor courts showed the emergent influence of the French as arbiters of fashion and social style. The pneumonia, or possibly pleurisy, that killed the young king has been attributed to the large amount of chilled wine he quaffed to cool himself down after a particularly vigorous game of
jeu de paume
.

Le Jeu de Paume,
an anonymous 18th-century engraving of the precursor to modern tennis
.

Anglo-French resentments came to a head in the military conflict of 1324 which is named after the village of Saint-Sardos in Guienne. It was here, just within the English-controlled side of the border, that a French subject had raised a
bastide
or small fortified town. Local landowners who feared it might attract their workers away from the land burned the
bastide
to the ground; in doing this, they had enjoyed the tacit support of the local English administration. Charles IV therefore declared that the English had forfeited the duchy of Aquitaine, and his forces encountered little resistance during their six-week campaign as they swept through Gascony. Charles IV, last of the Capetian kings, had made his point, and the English were allowed to retain their exiguous territorial presence in the southwest with the exception of the border region of Agenais, which became French controlled. Right to the last, therefore, Capetian kingship could exult in its triumphs, and England's courtiers, nobles and soldiers were left pondering the question of how best to avenge so bitter a defeat.

By the late 12th century the predominant power in the Islamic Middle East was the Ayyubid dynasty, whose founder Saladin (Salah ad-Din
, c.
1138–93) was of Kurdish descent. Following the deposition of Egypt's Fatimid caliphate Saladin became first the country's vizier (1169) and then its sultan. In 1174 he imposed his rule over Damascus, and in subsequent years his authority extended to Aleppo (1176) and then Mosul (1183). Saladin's construction of an Egyptian-Syrian power block meant that Muslim territories administered by a single ruler now surrounded the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem
.

In the early 12th century Jerusalem's Latin rulers had enjoyed substantial success in consolidating and extending their kingdom. Baldwin I's reign (1100–18) saw the capture of Acre (1104), Beirut (1110) and Sidon (1111). With its command of the Palestinian coast secured, Jerusalem's suzerainty was acknowledged by the crusader states to the north at Tripoli, Antioch and Baldwin's own county of Edessa. The first military Orders of monastic knights, the Templars and the Hospitallers, were established in Jerusalem during the reign of the king's relative and successor Baldwin II (1118–31), who maintained a series of offensives against Fatimid Egypt and the Seljuk Turks. The Council of Nablus, composed of the higher clergy and leaders of the aristocratic laity, issued in 1120 the canons that comprised the kingdom's earliest written laws, and although Baldwin II was held captive by Aleppo's emir in 1123–24 the king subsequently led his army to victory over the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Azaz (June 11, 1125). A regency government ran the Latin kingdom during Baldwin's captivity, and the extensive trading rights granted to Venice's merchants in the agreement of 1124 guaranteed significant Venetian military support in the campaign of that year which secured Jerusalem's capture of Tyre.

The marriage of Baldwin II's heir Melisande to the recently widowed Fulk V of Anjou, who ruled Jerusalem as co-sovereign (r. 1131–43), brought the kingdom within the ambit of the Angevin empire. Fulk was the father of Geoffrey V of Anjou and paternal grandfather of England's King Henry II, but his reign saw the start of serious internal dissidence because many opposed the influence of the king's Angevin retinue. There was also now a major external threat; Zengi (
c
.1095–1146) had been imposed by the Seljuks as governor both of Mosul (1127) and of Aleppo (1128), and then recognized by them as an independent ruler. The two cities were thereby united under Zengi's rule, and he became the founder of a new dynasty of Turkic rulers. In 1144 the Zengid army invaded and conquered Edessa, the last of the crusader states to be established and the first to fall. This was recognized as a major crisis in the West, and the Second Crusade (1147–49) led by Louis VII of France and the German king Conrad III made Damascus its primary object of attack.

R
IGHT
Crusaders fight a bloody battle during the Crusades in this detail from
“Passages fait Outremer”(Overseas Voyages),
by Sébastien Mamerot
,
c.1475
.

THE THIRD CRUSADE

1144
The county of Edessa, a crusader state, is captured by Zengi, the Turkic ruler of Mosul and Aleppo.

1148
Leaders of the Second Crusade (1147–49) fail to capture Damascus, which is now allied to Nur ad-Din, Zengi's son and successor.

1154
Nur ad-Din establishes control of Damascus.

1174
Death of Nur ad-Din. Saladin, already established as sultan in Egypt, extends his power across Syria.

1186
Saladin declares war on the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem.

1187
The Battle of Hattin, near Tiberias: Saladin's victory leads to Acre's capture and the surrender of Jerusalem. Western leaders prepare for a crusade.

1191
Philip II of France lands in Palestine (May) where his forces combine with those of Leopold V, duke of Austria. Richard I effects a military takeover of Cyprus en route, and on arriving in the Holy Land (June) he and his army join the forces besieging Acre. The city falls in July.

1192
Richard and Saladin agree a peace treaty: Acre becomes the Latin kingdom's capital and Jerusalem remains Muslim-controlled.

Zengi had targeted Damascus earlier when he launched a campaign against its Turkic ruling dynasty in the mid-1130s, but the alliance signed in 1139 between Damascus and Jerusalem had frustrated his goal of hegemonic power in Syria. By 1147, however, Damascus was in alliance with Zengi's son, Nur ad-Din, the emir of Aleppo. The siege of Damascus in July 1148 ended in utter failure and the disintegration of the entire crusade. Disputes about military strategy had divided the crusading leaders—and especially Conrad—from the nobility in Jerusalem whose reputation for fractious behavior made it difficult to interest Western leaders in crusading during the decades that followed. These, however, were the years when Nur ad-Din, sustained by his interpretation of
jihad
as an anti-Western holy war, succeeded in entrenching a new pattern of power in the Middle East. His forces' defeat of the army of Antioch at the Battle of Inab (June 29, 1149) exposed the principality to new levels of danger. Furthermore, the death in that conflict of the principality's ruler, Raymond of Poitiers, was a grievous blow to the collective interest of the crusader states.