Economic Revival of the Levant under Crusader Rule

The establishment of the crusader kingdoms along the coast of the Levant resulted in an economic revival of the region as pilgrims, merchants and settlers flooded into the territories re-captured for Christianity.  What had been an unimportant backwater to the Ayyubid and Fatamid caliphates, whose religious, administrative and economic centers lay in Damascus and Cairo respectively, had suddenly become the spiritual heart of the Latin-Christian world.  In consequence, not only did existing cities undergo an economic boom, but ancient cities gone to ruin, such as Caesarea and Ramla were revived, and entire new towns and villages were built.

An estimated 140,000 settlers from Western Europe immigrated to the Holy Land in the first century after the First Crusade, eventually accounting for between twenty and twenty-five percent of the population of the crusader states. These numbers were swelled annually during the “sailing season,” roughly from April to October, with tens of thousands of pilgrims who came to see the holy sites as “tourists.” 

To serve the pilgrims, the mercantile city-states of Venice, Genoa and Pisa built fleets and established communities in the ports of the crusader states to cater to residents, pilgrims and home markets. In addition to passengers, the Italian merchant fleets transported a variety of goods: timber, horses, arms and armor from the West; sugar, olive oil, silk, and spices from the east.

But not everything used in the crusader states were imports and not all exports were commodities. The crusader states also developed indigenous crafts both for every day and ceremonial use. These included, of course, metal-working and wood-working, leather goods, ceramics, textiles, and glass. Most of these products were produced by native craftsmen, who continued to use the same techniques as before the Latin conquest, but the motifs shifted to include crosses, fishes and other Christian symbols. The styles were also influenced by the taste of customers and exposure to products imported from the West. The native craftsmen, however, had developed their crafts over the centuries, heavily influenced by earlier waves of invaders from the Romans and Byzantines to the Saracens. Thus their work inevitably reflected these layers of past influence now combined with Western European influences to form distinctly crusader crafts.

Because of its durability, we know that crusader metal-working was of a very high standards as surviving objects from several of the key churches attest. Objects included metal screens or grilles, candle sticks and candelabra, brass bowls and bells, as well as magnificent silver and gold work in reliquaries and jewelry. Jerusalem had an entire street known as the Street of the Goldsmiths, attesting to the quantity and popularity of gold work produced in the Holy City. Many (if not most) of the products from these workshops probably ended up in the West, as pilgrims took them home as keep-sakes and gifts. Many may not yet have been identified as originating in the crusader states. At the lower end of the scale, there were many blacksmiths in the Holy Land, both native and settlers, and most earned their living producing articles needed for daily life from horseshoes, plowshares, hammers and shovels, to maces and battle axes, although it appears that most swords were imported either from Damascus (famous for its steel) or the important weapons centers in Italy and Germany.

Wood, leather and textile goods have largely been lost, but some cloth fragments are witness to the use of wool, cotton, linen and silk in cloth manufacture in the crusader states. Interestingly, evidence of mixed fabrics — silk warp with wool, linen or cotton weft — have been found.  Fragments of both dyed and undyed fabrics have been found, as well as patterned fabrics created by woodblock printing.  In addition, there is evidence that cloth, particularly silk, was decorated with silk or gold embroidery and brocading. The colors that have survived in the few finds of textiles from the crusader period ranged from ivory, yellow and gold to red and various shades of blue. However, purple was the imperial color of Byzantium and would have been available at least as in import for the upper classes, and it is reasonable to assume that green tones could also be produced and would have been available.

Pottery from the crusader period has survived in much larger quantities and demonstrates that while some pottery was imported from Egypt and Syria, the vast majority of pottery objects in use in the crusader states was produced locally and was often of very high quality. Pottery was used for the production of cooking pots and pans, storage jars and jugs, basins, bowls, plates and cups. It was often decorated with incisions in the unfired clay, and designs were painted either beneath a transparent glaze or with colored glazes. The most common color scheme was red or brown painting on a white backdrop, although blue and black designs on white were also known. Cream and pale green glazes were also popular. Popular motifs included ancient geometric designs, foliage, birds and animals, but human figures, crosses and fishes — i.e. Christian symbols — were also used. One distinctive feature of much local pottery that made it popular with pilgrims was the use of transparent glaze on the inside of pots and pans to create an early kind of “Teflon” — stick-free cooking.

Perhaps the more sophisticated and beautiful craft of the Holy Land was glass-making. Glass was used in windows in the crusader period, both stained and painted glass for churches, and round and plate panes for windows in secular buildings. Green plate glass from the crusader period, for example, was found at a farmhouse less than five miles from Jerusalem; it would probably have graced the manor of a local lord.  Glass was also used for the drinking vessels, both beakers and goblets, and for bowls and bottles.  Bottles with long necks for perfumes and the scented oils produced in the Holy Land were probably popular among pilgrims as gifts for those left behind. Glass was also used for storage jars and for oil lamps, a continuation of Byzantine and Arab traditions. Glass of the crusader period was often dyed and/or decorated. The colors of crusader glass found to date include yellow, red and light brown, emerald and light greens, turquoise, shades of blue as well as light and dark purple. Decorations included geometric designs and heraldry, foliage, birds, animals as well as saints and religious motifs. Some glass objects also have inscriptions. Tyre was particularly known for its glass-making industry and the glass produced was reputedly particularly transparent. But glass-making was also carried out in other crusader cities, including Acre and Beirut; the latter was famous of its red glass.

In short, the crusader kingdoms had a lively, diverse and comparatively sophisticated craft industry capable of producing not only articles for everyday use, but beautiful and valuable objects. This reflects a high level of civilization typical of a society with extensive trading ties and elites with sufficient income to support quality craftsmanship. Particularly interesting in crusader crafts is the synthesis of Arab/Egyptian, Byzantine and Western influences to produce a unique and distinctive “crusader style” in a variety of objects.

Note: I could find no pictures in the public domain of objects made in the crusader states. The photos are simply examples of objects from the 12th and 13th century, although the pottery is similar to pottery I saw on Cyprus from the crusader period.

Recommended further reading:

Boas, Adrian J., Crusader Archaeology: The Material Culture of the Latin East, Routledge, London & New York, 1999.

The Holy Land described in the Jerusalem Trilogy reflects the above economic reality:

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Hospital Care in the Crusader Era

In his final guest post, Fermin Person talks about hospitals in the crusader era.

A hospital in a modern sense is a place where ill or wounded people go to be treated for their illness. Persons from all social strata use hospitals equally. In the medieval world, this was different.

The medieval Latin word hospitalia or hospite meant a variety of things. It could mean an institution along the basic idea of a modern hospital but it also meant hospice, guest house or hostel. It also could be charitable institution caring for old or poor people. This is largely because it was mostly poor people who needed and made use of these institutions, while wealthier people were cared for and treated at home.

The word domus infirmorum or firmaria meant “house of the sick”, but did not imply the attendance of physician. Usually a monk or a servant cared for the inmates there, although a physician or surgeon could be called on from the outside.

In the crusader states, because so many pilgrims were far from home and unable to avail themselves of “the family doctor,” there were several institutions that cared for the sick and wounded and had, exceptionally, had physicians and surgeons caring for their patient. These were predominantly run by religious orders such as the Order of St John (Hospitalers), the Teutonic order (from about 1200 onward) and by the order of St Thomas of Canterbury from the start of the 13^th century on. The orders of St Anthony and of St Lazarus also ran probably institutions for the specific chronic illnesses (Ergotism and Lepra) that were under their focus. The Templars, in contrast, appear to have run infirmaries only for their own members.

The biggest and best researched hospital in the crusading states is the hospital of St John in Jerusalem. According to estimates by Piers Mitchel and by B. Kedar the capacity of the hospital ranged from 400-900 beds under normal circumstances to as many as 2500 under extreme circumstances, for example after battles.

Under normal circumstances the hospital of St John in Jerusalem would house a mixture of exhausted pilgrims, sick, wounded or dying patients. On arrival, the guests had to confess, following that they were clothed by the hospital and fed, segregated by sex. Physicians, surgeon and bloodletters were employed by the hospital and paid a good salary to provide treatment to patients if necessary daily, while sergeants and sisters took care of non-medical needs of the patients.

Patients whose conditions made it dangerous, impossible or unsustainable to keep them with the other guests were separated from them. A classic example for this is diarrhoea or delirium because of a fever. 

Excursus: Medieval western urine-diagnostic Before the development of modern laboratory medicine there were only few possibilities to diagnose illnesses. One of those was the urine-diagnostics. It was an obligatory part of the medical treatment by a physician to inspect, smell and taste the urine of the patient. The smell or taste of urine could indicate metabolic disease of a patient such as diabetes or liver failure. Similarly, could the colour and the amount of the urine indicate several other diseases.

The guests / patients were given a diet that was seen to be healthy for them, but great emphasis was also placed on the spiritual cleaning of the patients. Prayers and mass were thus a fixed part of the treatment. Other than in big byzantine or Muslim hospitals the patients were not distributed at their admission per their conditions onto different wards, but members of the Order of St John had separate infirmaries in case of falling ill or getting wounded.

Little is known about the actual quality of the big hospitals in the crusade states, especially about the death rates etc. John of Würzburg (c 1170) reports that up to 50 dead per day were being carried out of the St Johns hospital in Jerusalem, he named 2000 inmates of the hospital. It is unclear if his numbers are exaggerated or if the hospital was at that moment particularly filled with patients. Similarly, without knowing the composition, the age and the general physical state of the inmates of the hospitals we can only guess about the quality of the medical caring.

Theoderich, a pilgrim that saw the hospital of St John in 1169 praised the equipment and the caring work of the hospital. Judging by the composition of the personal there was by the standards of time probably an adequate care for the sick and dying.

Field hospitals during the crusades

Little is known about field hospitals of the armies of the crusader states, however, there are various references to the wounded being carried to the army camp or the nearest city to be cared for. Examples of this is after the Battle of Antioch in 1119, the ambush of a Christian caravan on the 17 June 1192, and January 1192, when Richard I organised for the sick to be transported to Ramla. 

The first clear mention of something comparable to a field hospital is from the 1180s. According to the text of an anonymous cleric the Hospitallers set up a field hospital in the army’s camp, transporting wounded if needed back to Jerusalem. Similarly, German sailors from Bremen and Hamburg set up an improvised hospital during the siege of Acre in 1190, dismantling their ships to build it. During the same siege, English sailors also set up a field hospital dedicated to St Thomas Becket.

 

The Battle on the Litani: June 1179

The Battle on the Litani has not received much attention in the history of the crusader states. It is often completely ignored or acknowledged with no more than a passing mention. While it is true that this battle was only one in a series of indecisive engagements between Salah ad-Din and the forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the decade before the disaster at Hattin in July 1187, it was a sad precursor of things to come and is not entirely uninteresting.

The battle was allegedly provoked by Saracen “raiding,” of cattle and crops in the lordships of Beirut and Sidon. However, it seems highly unlikely that the King of Jerusalem would personally respond to mere raiding, particularly if it was conducted by Bedouins as some accounts suggest. Certainly, accounts of the engagement make clear that both Farukh Shah, a nephew of Salah ad-Din, and the Sultan himself were on hand with large cavalry, but notably no infantry, forces. This smells far more like a “reconnaissance in force” similar to the raid of 1187 that led to the disaster at the Springs of Cresson.

In any case, King Baldwin IV, now aged 18, responded by mustering a powerful cavalry force of his own. This included not only his most important baron, Raymond, Count of Tripoli, as well as Baldwin, Lord of Ramla and Mirabel, but also the Templars under their Grand Master, Odo de St. Amand. As W. B. Bartlett astutely points out in his Downfall of the Crusader Kingdom, this composition of forces underlines the fact that the Kingdom was not divided at this time; the Templars and Tripoli fought together without suspicion or recriminations.  

While the exact sequence of events is not clear, it appears that the King and his forces succeeded in surprising and routing the forces of Farukh Shah. They drove the bulk of his cavalry back across the Litani and may have temporarily taken Farukh Shah himself captive.  Meanwhile, however, the Templars had separately encountered the larger, main force under Sultan Salah ad-Din. William of Tyre, who was not in the Kingdom at the time and based his account on reports of others, blamed the Templars for attacking this larger force injudiciously.  While that is possible, it should also be remembered that Tyre was a consistent critic of the Templars and inclined to think poorly of them regardless, while other participants may have been only too ready to pin the blame on someone other than themselves.

What is clear is that the Templars broke and fled back toward the main feudal army around the King. At this point in time, however, the feudal army was already scattered across the valley floor “mopping up” after their successful action against Farukh Shah. They were in no position to form a cohesive force. Salah ad-Din’s cavalry, hot on the heels of the Templars, fell upon the dispersed Christian forces, killing and capturing large numbers of Christian knights and nobles, including Baldwin, Baron of Ramla and Mirabel, Hugh of Tiberius, and, according to Arab sources, some 270 knights and nobles altogether.

The King’s household, however, rallied around him and extricated him from the field with help and reinforcements from Reginald of Sidon. This was, of course, vital, as his capture would have had even more serious consequences than the other losses incurred. But his escape is notable for another reason as well: Baldwin was unhorsed during the — evidently heated — engagement, but his leprosy had by this stage advanced so far that he no longer had the use of his hand and arms and was unable to remount. The King had to be carried off the field on the back of a Frankish knight.

Just two months earlier, in another skirmish with Saracen cavalry, King Baldwin’s horse had bolted and, without the use of his hands, he had been unable to regain control. Now, because he was unable to remount, he had come within a hair’s breadth of capture. The eighteen-year-old king, who just two years earlier had led his chivalry to a stunning victory over Salah ad-Din at Montgisard, was now forced to face the fact that he could no longer command his armies from horseback. In a society in which the mounted warrior, the knight, was the incarnation of manly virtue and prowess, it must have broken Baldwin’s heart.  Not that he surrendered to his disability entirely: in the future he would lead his armies from a litter.

Meanwhile, the sorry outcome of this obscure engagement had two additional detrimental consequences for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.  First, among the captives was the Templar Grand Master, Odo St. Amand. Whether he was to blame for an unnecessary defeat, as William of Tyre suggests, or not, he had the courage and honor (as his successor Gerard de Rideford did not ) to  refuse ransom in accordance with the Templar Rule. He died miserably in a Saracen dungeon — thereby paving the way, indirectly, for the election of the disastrous and unscrupulous Gerard de Rideford.

Equally wide-reaching in its effect was the capture of Baldwin, Baron of Ramla and Mirabel. Baldwin (often referred to as Baldwin of Ibelin because he was the son of the First Baron of Ibelin and older brother of Balian of Ibelin, the founder of the Ibelin dynasty) was considered such a valuable prisoner that Salah ad-Din set his ransom higher than the ransom once asked for King Baldwin II of Jerusalem; in short, the Saracen Sultan demanded “a king’s ransom” for a baron whose feudal holdings were only two thirds of that of the upper tier of barons (Tripoli, Caesarea, Sidon, Galilee, Jaffa-Ascalon).  

This is not logical — unless the Sultan had some reason to believe that Ramla was destined to become a king. According to the chronicler Ernoul, who had close ties to the Ibelin family and so can be considered an “insider” — Princess Sibylla of Jerusalem had at this time promised to marry Ramla. Such a marriage would have made Ramla the effective heir to the throne, and Salah ad-Din would have had every reason to both demand the high ransom and hope that the cost of paying it would discredit Ramla to his future subjects. Curiously, the ransom was paid not by the treasury of Jerusalem but by the Byzantine Emperor instead, suggesting that the latter too had reason to expect Ramla would become King of Jerusalem. Both Salah ad-Din and Emperor Manuel I appear to have been misinformed. That, or — as Ernoul suggests — Princess Sibylla changed her mind after Ramla was captured.

In the latter case, Ramla’s capture can be seen as a contributing factor in Sibylla transferring her affections to the young, recently arrived French adventurer Guy de Lusignan. The consequences of her infatuation and life-long love for Lusignan are the subject of another entry.

The Battle on the Litani is described in detail in Book II of my three-part biographical novel of Balian d’Ibelin:

A divided kingdom,

                             a united enemy,

                                                       and the struggle for Jerusalem.

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The Knights of St. Lazarus

The most famous of the “fighting orders” or militant orders were of course the Knights Templar, and the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St. John), two orders founded in the Holy Land and, for their age, truly international in character. Although not powerful and largely forgotten, there was a third military order also founded in the Holy Land, the Order of St. Lazarus.

The Order of St. Lazarus evolved from a leper hospital that had existed in Jerusalem prior to the First Crusade. After the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem was established, it became part of the Hospitaller network of hospitals, but by 1142 the Order of St. Lazarus broke away, and by 1147 it was known as the Leper Brothers of Jerusalem. The Leper Pool and the foundations of the leper hospital run by the Knights of St. Lazarus have been located just beyond the norther wall of Jerusalem.

Critical to understanding the Knights of St. Lazarus is the fact that leprosy was far more common in the East than in Western Europe and the influence of Greek Orthodox ideology on the territories of the crusader states. By the end of the 10th century, the Byzantine clergy had come to see leprosy as a "holy disease" -- its victims were not seen as particularly vile sinner but rather as men and women marked by God's favor. A number of Greek Orthodox legends entailed Christ appearing as a leper. Caring for lepers was therefore seen as an act of great charity that would gain a person credit in heaven.

It is probably not surprising, therefore, that the Order of St. Lazarus grew rapidly in the mid-12th century, eventually having houses in Tiberias, Ascalon, Acre, Caesarea, Beirut, and possibly other cities as well. More surprising, however, is the fact that it began to have military brethren.  

It appears that initially, the role of these armed monks was primarily the defense of the leper hospitals. Some of these military men were undoubtedly former Templars and Hospitallers who had contracted leprosy, because we know that both the Templar and Hospitaller Rules required members with leprosy to join the Order of St. Lazarus. However, secular knights of the crusader kingdoms who contracted the desease were also expected to join the Knights of St. Lazarus. 

Knights already afflicted with disease would have been facing a steady deterioration of their fighting capabilities, however, and it appears that just as some healthy monks and nuns devoted themselves to the care of the sick in the habit of the Knights of St. Lazarus, some healthy fighting men likewise chose to join the Knights of St. Lazarus rather than the more powerful (and arrogant) military orders of the Templars and Hospitallers. This supposition is supported by the fact that there are recorded incidents of the Order of St. Lazarus taking part in military operations – possibly at the Battle of Hattin, and certainly at the Battle of Gaza in 1244, at Ramla in 1253, and during the defense of Acre in 1291.

Meanwhile, in 1265 Pope Clement IV issued a papal bull that commanded all the prelates of the church to assist in transferring the care of all lepers -- male and female -- to leprosariums run by the Knights of St. Lazarus. Pope Clement had taken a strong interest in the care of lepers before he became pope, and had written a set of regulations for leprosariums while still Bishop of Le Puy that included such remarkable features as the right of lepers to elect their own superiors from among their members. As pope, however, he seems to have been most concerned with ensuring that lepers remained segretrated from the rest of society by putting them under the control of the Knights of St. Lazarus. 

Thus after the fall of Acre, the Order of St. Lazarus moved its headquarters to Cyprus, abandoned all military activities, and thereafter concentrated on its mission of providing comfort and care for the victims of leprosy until the mid-14th century. Of all the so-called militant orders, arguably this was the "most Christian."

Find more about life in the crusader states in The Jerusalem Trilogy:

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Review: "The Holy Lance" by Andrew Latham

This is a book that (finally!) describes Templars as they really were: devout Catholic fighting men, rather than as fantasy creatures and costumed, modern myths.  Andrew Latham has with this comparatively short, action-packed book done the much-maligned Order of the Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem a worthy service by pulling them out of the realm of mystery and romance and putting back into a historical context and perspective.

The book does not attempt to paint a panorama of the Third Crusade much less the Holy Land at the end of the 12^th century. Instead, it follows a single Templar troop (or banner, as Latham calls it) on a fictional but completely plausible mission to try to recover from deep inside enemy territory a controversial relic found during the First Crusade, the “Holy Lance,” i.e the lance that pierced Christ’s side before the crucifixion. 

Historically, this relic discovered by a priest in Antioch inspired the Christians of the First Crusade, who were besieged in Antioch and suffering intense privation at the time, to successfully sortie out against the numerically superior enemy. Within the first decade after the establishment of the crusader states, however, the Holy Lance had been discredited and replaced by the True Cross as the most holy relic of Christendom. At the time of this novel, July/August 1191, the True Cross had been captured by the Saracens at the disastrous Battle of Hattin, and the crusader states reduced to the cities of Tyre, Tripoli and Antioch. It is completely plausible, therefore, that Richard the Lionheart and other Christian leaders would remember the Holy Lance and want to secure possession of it. A relic, even a dubious relic, would have been kept in a monastery, and every part of former Kingdom of Jerusalem except the above named cities was under nominal Saracen control, the recovery of the relic would inherently have entailed crossing into enemy controlled territory.

Based on this plausible mission into enemy-held territory, Latham has built a great war-story similar in structure to “Saving Private Ryan” about a small band of men on a dangerous mission with a guide of uncertain trustworthiness and unexpected enemies in their own ranks. Latham keeps his story focused and moving, with completely realistic situations and challenges, never once falling into the temptation of fantasy, legend or romance. His characters are fighting men: some of them mercenaries, others former mercenaries. They can be violent and brutal, but they remain men (not monsters) and they are grounded firmly in the 12^th century, with 12 century motives and beliefs.

Latham is a master of suspense, not so much in the overall plot as in his ability to tease out each new danger and make the reader really sweat it out with the protagonists. The way time gets stretched to unbearable infinity when one is in danger or approaching danger is brilliantly conveyed. The dialogue is also convincing and comfortable, with neither unnecessary anachronisms that shatter the sense of time and place nor with stilted, artificially old-fashioned speech. The use of Latin is excellent as an anchor to the period, but always translated so the reader is not left feeling like the author is talking down to him. The descriptions of equipment, landscapes, clothing etc. reflect the author’s meticulous research, and this is by far the best description of Templar daily routines I have ever seen in a work of fiction. I particularly liked the fact that Lathum has given the Turcopoles and Sergeants of the Knight’s Templar a significant role, reflective of their significance in historical Order but almost always ignored in works of fiction that feature the Templars.

My only quibble with the book is the exaggeratedly negative portrayal of Conrad de Montferrat. Although this has become commonplace and Lathum's plot needed an antagonist, Lathum's Montferrat is more a caricature villain than a nuanced historical figure.