The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem - A Short History

 

Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

According to Christian traditions, 2,020 years ago today Joseph of Nazareth and his pregnant wife Maria, went to Bethlehem, the birthplace of Joseph, in order to comply with a Roman edict to register for a census. They found the city of Bethlehem full to overflowing, and were unable to find a room in either in an inn or the home of Joseph’s relatives. In consequence, they lodged in the cave behind the residence of Joseph’s family in which, as was common at the time, livestock and stores were kept.  (To this day, this is a custom in the region.) Here Mary gave birth to a son, Jesus. 

At the time of his birth, Jesus was not of particular importance, hence his birthplace was not in any way noted, marked or honored. It was only after he had died that some of his followers sought to locate the place where he had been born. Since this was within the living memory of many of his friends and family, it is not improbable that the house in which Joseph and Mary had stayed--and the stables attached to it--could be accurately identified.   

Following the Jewish uprising of 132-135, Hadrian ordered Roman temples erected on top of all Jewish and Christian holy sites. Over the cave in Bethlehem, revered by the small but significant Christian community still resident in Palestine, a temple to Adonis was built. Although certainly an insult to Christians of the time, it was a fortuitous development for later generations since it effectively marked a location that might otherwise have been lost from memory.

In 312, Constantine became Roman Emperor and raised his mother Helena to the rank of Empress. Helena had converted to Christianity and within a year of coming to power, Constantine issued an edict that ended the persecution of Christians.  Thereafter and throughout his reign, Constantine was to protect and serve as a patron to the Christian church, without, however, fully suppressing pagan rites.   

Emperor Constantine - Wall Mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul (Constantinople)

Helena, however, had been an early convert to Christianity and after her son’s rise to ultimate power, she traveled to Palestine in search of the sites of Christ’s passion. According to Christian traditions, she located the site of the crucifixion, excavated the cross on which Christ had been crucified, and also found the tomb in which Christ had been buried. While her son commissioned the construction of a church over the Holy Grave (the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem), Helena is credited with commissioning the construction of a church on the site of Christ’s birth to replace the temple to Adonis.

Helena’s church was a five-aisled basilica, some of the mosaics of which are still visible to this day. However, in  529, this church was destroyed in a revolt by the Samaritans.

In 540, Emperor Justinian I sponsored the construction of a new basilica over the foundations of the old that stood over and incorporated the cave in which Christ had been born. When Palestine was overrun by the Persians in 614, they destroyed all the churches and monasteries, including Constantine’s church over the Holy Sepulcher — except for the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which was spared. The portal of the church was a mosaic depicting the adoration of the magi or Three Wise Men in which the magi were shown wearing “oriental” robes.  Based on their dress, Persians invaders recognized the figures in the mosaic as Persian priests; out of respect for their own priests they spared the church.  It is this church that can still be found in Bethlehem today, although the mosaic that saved it from destruction has itself since been lost.

In 640, Bethlehem fell to the forces of the Muslim Caliph Omar. Omar, rather than destroying the Church of the Nativity, used it as a place of prayer.  Thereafter, parts of the church complex were reserved for Muslim worship. This preserved the church from destruction by less tolerant Muslim leaders such as Caliph el-Hakim, who demolished the Church of the Holy Sepulcher again.

When the Crusaders reached Palestine in 1099, they took possession of Bethlehem before launching the assault on Jerusalem. The population of Bethlehem was still predominantly Christian at the time and welcomed the crusaders. 

With the establishment of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem, Bethlehem became the seat of a bishop. It remained part of the royal domain, however, and Baldwin of Bouillon was crowned the first King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Nativity. A tradition followed by his successor, Baldwin II, but not subsequent kings, who preferred to be crowned in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

Church of the Holy Sepulcher, Jerusalem

The Church of the Nativity became the second most important pilgrimage destination in the Christian world after the Holy Sepulcher itself.  As Christian pilgrims flooded to the Holy Land, the city of Bethlehem enjoyed an economic boom. This was supplemented by massive investments on the part of the crusader kings to restore a church that was in a state of significant disrepair when the crusaders arrived. Especially under King Baldwin III and King Amalric I, both of whom were married to Byzantine princesses (Theodora and Maria Comnena respectively), the restoration work was carried out by artists with very high levels of sophistication and influenced by Byzantine traditions -- and partially paid for by the Byzantine Emperor. 

The most extensive mosaics from the crusader period are found in the Church of the Nativity, and 28 frescos dating from the twelfth century can still be identified.  Furthermore, under Christian rule, religious orders were re-established in the Holy Land and a beautiful Romanesque cloister was built adjacent to the Church of the Nativity which can still be visited today. 

Crusader Mosaics at the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem

All that ended with the devastating defeat of the Christian army at Hattin on July 4, 1187.  Bethlehem had no defenses. It fell without a fight to the army of Saladin, and, except for a brief interval from 1229 to 1244, it remained in Muslim hands until it came under the British Protectorate in 1920. Under the various Muslim leaders, Bethlehem became impoverished again. In 1516, the town had only 100 inhabitants. Meanwhile, the church fell into increasing disrepair. The marble wall panels were ripped out to be used in other construction. In 1646 the tin roof was torn off and melted down for other purposes. The Church would almost certainly have become a complete ruin had not the Greek Orthodox church set out to restore the church with the tolerance of the Ottoman rulers in 1670.

Unfortunately, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw a bitter fight between the Greek Orthodox,  Roman Catholic and Armenian churches for control of the Church of the Nativity. Meanwhile, earthquakes, fires and uprisings damaged both the church and the town of Bethlehem. 

In 1920 Bethlehem came under British administration, and in 1948 fell to Jordan. In 1963, the city numbered roughly 60,000 mostly Christian inhabitants, but the number fell dramatically after Israeli occupation. Today, Bethlehem suffers visibly from the political situation and the tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.   

The Fortress-like Construction seems sadly appropriate. Palestinian Terrorists held nuns, priests and tourists hostage here in April 2002.

Nevertheless it is still worth a visit. To be sure, the mosaic mural depicting the adoration of the magi that saved the Church from Persian destruction has been lost, but St. Helena’s floor mosaics can still be seen, as can the mosaic murals of the crusader kings and the crusader-period cloisters. Most important, of course, beneath the high alter in the crypt of the church is the cave in which, according to two thousand years of tradition, Christ was born over 2000 years ago.

The Crusader cloisters -- my favorite place.

Dr. Helena P. Schrader is the author of six books set in the Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades. Find out more at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/crusades.html

                         

 

Christian Charity for the Poor in the Crusader Kingdoms

  For roughly two hundred years in the very heart of Christendom — in the Kingdom of Jerusalem -- free, modern (by the standards of the day), professional health care became "the norm." It was the product of an innovative new institution that viewed providing health and hospice care for the poor it's primary mission. At the time,  hospitals as institutions for the treatment and cure (as opposed to the spiritual care) of the sick were unknown in Western Europe. The innovations introduced by this new institution were rapidly imitated in the West and hospitals are now nearly universal. Yet the concept of providing all care free-of-charge is far less common. The example of Christianity set by this medieval institution seemed like a particularly appropriate topic for an entry here in the Christmas Season.

The Order of St. John of Jerusalem, soon known to contemporaries more simply as "the Hospitallers" evolved out of a hospice operating in Jerusalem in the decades before the First Crusade. After the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, this hospital expanded, assumed more duties and became a recognized order. It would eventually have thousands of associated houses spread all across Europe. It would also for several hundred years add military operations in to their agenda (the Knights Hospitaller and Knights of Malta). Yet throughout their history and to this very day the end the original mission of providing health care and what we would call hospice care to the “holy poor” has remained at the heart of hte institution. 

 

To fully appreciate just how innovative and charitable the Hospitaller were one must bear in mind that in the midst of the crusades the Hospital of St. John vow to provide medical assistance to anyone, regardless of their faith.  Jews and Muslims as well as Christians of all kinds (Latins, Greek Orthodox, Maronite, Jacobite, Coptic, Ethiopian etc.) — could obtain care and treatment at any Hospitaller facility — free of charge.

Furthermore, because many in need of medical care were not well-enough to walk to a hospital, the Hospitallers scoured the streets of city and town, collecting any in need of care. After a battle, they scoured the battlefield for the wounded and dying and transported them to field hospitals. The Hospitallers are, therefore, views as the first Western institution to develop an ambulance corps. Something the decendents of the Order still provide today.

The Hospitallers also took in nursing mothers (including and especially unwed mothers) and abandoned children also received free care at the institutions of the Hospital, and they provided for abandoned children. Children were raised by foster mothers, who received payment from the Hospital -- but were also subject to oversight to prevent abuse.

The hospitals of the Hospital were staffed by professional physicians and surgeons — again regardless of faith, so including Jewish and Muslim and Orthodox as well as Latin Christian doctors and surgeons. Each doctor had responsibility for a ward and had two trained assistants for making medicines and take lab tests and nine “servants” to feed, wash and otherwise care for the patients. (That’s a total of 12 staff members per ward.) The “servants” were the brothers and sisters of the Hospital itself, who viewed themselves as “serfs to the poor.”

Because the Hospitallers viewed every poor man and woman as Christ, the Hospitallers believed that the poor deserved not just care and treatment but the best and most luxurious care possible. Travelers from the 12th century particularly reported in awe about the size and brightness of the wards with large windows to let in the light. One described it as “a palace.” They noted too that hospital complex contained several baths, gardens, and cloistered courtyards to make it pleasant. Most important, however, was the care given to the individual patients.

Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith notes in his book Hospitallers (Hambledon Press, 1999, 26) that: There were separate beds for the sick at a time when only the grandest lords had their own beds (and in the obstetrical ward there were little cots so that the babies should not be disturbed by their mothers.) The beds had feather mattresses and coverlets, and the patients were provided with cloaks and sandals, so as to protect them when they went to the latrines.”

Speaking of which, the flagship facilities in Jerusalem and Acre had extremely sophisticated plumbing and sewage systems. Patients took regular baths and received foot washing twice weekly. There were also multiple kitchens to enable food to be prepared in accordance with Jewish and or Muslim dietary rules or for special meals for patients with special dietary needs.

 

The food offered patients was lavish and extravagant by contemporary standards including white bread, fresh meat on three days a week, fish on fasting days, and a wide range of fruits and vegetables. This was, remember, in the Near East where citrus fruits, dates and plums, pomegranates, grapes, apples and pears abound.

And all for free….

All my novels set in the crusader states reflect the important role of the Hospitallers. Find out more about all these books at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/crusades.html

 

                        

 

The Armies of the Franks

 The armies of Outremer differed substantially from contemporary Western and Muslim armies. They represented not only an adaptation of Western military traditions to the conditions in the Near East, but reflected the diversity of the population from which the armies were drawn. In his recent study "The Crusader Armies" Steve Tibble claims that the armies of the crusader states would have been completely "unrecognizable" to the modern eye expecting hoards of fanatical, white Western Europeans wearing red crosses on their surcoats. Rather: 

The voices talking and shouting [would be] perhaps Armenian or Syriac. The lower-level commands being issued in Arabic and what we now call medieval French...Turbans would have been worn to keep the heat of the sun off the helmets. Bedouin scouts would be bringing back news of he enemy troop movements, reporting in Arabic... Bad tempered camels and donkeys were in the baggage train, handled by increasingly frustrated Syrians shouting abuse at them in local dialect.

The 'crusader' armies of the Middle East in the twelfth century often had relatively few genuine crusaders in them. After the first couple of decades, the majority of the Franks were mixed-race local settlers...and in many crusader armies even these local Franks were in a minority, marching in units with Armenian-speaking comrades, or with other native Christian soldiers.

Below I take a closer look at the the component parts of the armies of Jerusalem in 12^th Century.

Barons and Knights

As in the West, the command in the feudal army of Jerusalem was in the hands of the king, his officer and the feudal elite: the barons. The barons were "tenants-in-chief" of the king, who held their fiefs in exchange for committing to bring fixed numbers of knights and/or sergeants to the feudal army on demand. These tenants-in-chief could be either secular or ecclesiastical lords, the former with the additional obligation to appear in person. The feudal obligations they incurred depended on the wealth and size of their respective fief and varied substantially. The thirteenth century Count of Jaffa, John d'Ibelin, compiled a comprehensive (but incomplete) list of feudal obligations that notes that the great baronies of Sidon, Galilee, and Jaffa/Ascalon, for example, owed 100 knights, while the Lord of Caymont and Bishop of Lydda owed only 6 knights. 

 

The elite and the most effective fighting component of the armies of Jerusalem was composed of these barons and the knights that they brought with them. It is important to remember, however, that the term “knight” does not refer to a single man but rather to a fighting-unit consisting of a knight and his warhorse (destrier), one or more mounted squires, a riding horse (palfrey) and one more pack-horses.  

 

Knights were expected to be armed and armored, which means that throughout the 12^th century they would be expected to provide their own chainmail hauberk, coif and mittens, and chainmail chausses for their legs. In addition, they would need a helmet, a sword, dagger and optionally a mace or axe. Lances, on the other hand, were relatively cheap, “throw away” weapons that the lord would provide or could be purchased as needed.

However, the fighting power that a baron brought to the battlefield generally exceeded the minimum set by feudal obligations. Barons would have been supported by younger brothers and adult sons, if they had them, and by “household knights,” i.e. men without land holdings of their own who served the baron (i.e. were “retained”) in exchange for an annual salary (that would include payments in-kind such as meals, cloaks, and in some cases horses). Peter Edbury’s analysis of the John d’Ibelin’s catalogue suggests that the ratio of “retained” knights to “vassals” (knights who owed their service by right of holding land from the lord) ranged anywhere from 1:2 to 3:2, making it clear that the knights fielded in the feudal army due to feudal obligation made up maybe no more than half of the total host!

So far, all is as it would have been in the West, including the large number of “household” or mercenary knights. However, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was unique in that activities and income sources not usually associated with feudal service were also often subject to military service obligations. Thus, for example, Baldwin d’Ibelin owed four knights service to the crown in exchange for the right to rent out grazing land to the Bedouins.  More common, income from customs duties, tariffs and other royal sources of income could be “enfeoffed” on a nobleman/knight in exchange for feudal service.  In the prosperous coastal towns of Outremer, there were many such “money-fiefs” with a military obligation.

While great lords, like Baldwin d’Ibelin, might hold multiple fiefs, they could only personally fulfill the obligation for one knight, which meant that a lord enjoying the income of a fief — whether from grazing Bedouins or customs duties — had to spend some of his income to hire as many trained and fully equipped “knights” (think fighting unit) as he owed. These knights would be drawn from the younger sons and brothers of fellow barons or from landless armed pilgrims, willing to stay in the Holy Land, but would like his landed knights be viewed as “vassals.”

 

Last but not least, as Tibble pointed out, by the end of the twelfth century the vast majority of these knights  had been born in Outremer, spoke Arabic, and might have Armenian or Greek mothers or grandparents.

Fighting Monks

Another anomaly of the armies of Outremer were, of course, the large contingents of fighting monks — most famously Templars and Hospitallers, but also Knights of St. Lazarus and later Teutonic Knights as well. The major “militant” orders of the 12^th Century were founded in Jerusalem with the explicit mandate to protect the Holy Land and Christian residents in and pilgrims to it. While the Templars started with just nine knights and the Hospitallers did not officially have “brother knights” until the 13^th century, contemporary descriptions suggest that both orders fielded hundreds of knights by the end of the 12^th century. 

 

John France in his book on the Battle of Hattin suggests that by 1180 the Templars had 300 knights deployed in the Holy Land and the Hospitallers 500 knights, but many of these knights would have been scattered about the country garrisoning castles. Undisputed, is the fact that 230 Templars and Hospitallers survived the Battle of Hattin to be executed on Saladin’s orders on July 6, 1187. Given the intense, two-day long nature of the Battle of Hattin, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that both militant orders, known for their devotion to duty, had suffered significant casualties before the battle ended. It is likely, therefore, that close to 500 Hospitallers and Templars were in the field with royal army and this seems a good “ball-park” figure for the kind of resources the militant orders could contribute to the army of Outremer in the latter part of the 12^th century generally.

 

Turcopoles

Despite the name, which was borrowed from the Byzantines, the term “turcopole” in the context of the crusader states refers not to an ethnic group but simply to “mounted archers” — of diverse ethnic character. They were not Muslim converts much less Muslim troops. Nor were the turcopoles the children of mixed marriages. Rather the turcopoles were native Christians, primarily Armenians and Maronites, who started with a comparatively strong tradition of warfare and who over the generations of Frankish rule developed outstanding skills as mounted archers to counter the Turks.

 

Keep in mind that the West had no tradition of mounted archers. The broken and wooded terrain of Western Europe offered little opportunity to deploy such troops effectively, and in the absence of a compelling need for such troops, the cost of raising and maintaining horses of sufficient strength, agility, and intelligence to be suitable for mounted combat appeared excessive. In the Near East, in contrast, the open steppe was ideal both for the deployment of light cavalry and for the breeding and raising of fleet horses.

The crusaders came in contact with the superb horse-archers of the Turks almost as soon as they crossed into Asia. Turkish mounted archers had by the First Crusade already conquered most of central Asia. They were a formidable enemy and the Franks who settled in Outremer and faced the Turkish archers in every engagement learned to respect them.

The Franks soon recognized that they needed light cavalry capable of conducting a variety of functions.  Turcopoles were employed in spying, scouting and reconnaissance. They were favored for carrying out hit-and-run raids, particularly on moving targets such as supply and relief caravans of the enemy. They were also valuable in providing a protective screen for the Frankish “fighting box” and also could add weight to a charge of heavy knights.

 

Having recognized the utility of turcopoles, the Franks moved rapidly to develop this combat arm. Already by 1109, there are references in the primary sources to these troops. However, the quality of Frankish turcopoles was initially poor -- a reflection of the fact that for over four-hundred years the Christian population of the region had been prohibited from riding horses or bearing arms. It took time to develop the skills of horse archers and to train suitable mounts. In the course of subsequent decades, as generations of native Christians grew up under Frankish rule, turcopoles started to play an increasingly important role in the fighting tactics and military successes of the Frankish armies of Outremer.

 

Historical studies suggest that by the second half of the twelfth century the turcopoles made up on average 50% of the mounted forces of the crusader armies. Two thirds of the cavalry with Amalric on his invasion of Egypt in 1167, for example, were turcopoles. Probably fifty percent of the Frankish horse at the Battle of Hattin were turcopoles. During the Third Crusade, the turcopoles supplied as much as 80% of the forces employed to relieve Kerak and Montreal in 1170. Furthermore, both the Templars and Hospitallers had Turcopoles integrated turcopoles into their organizations and their Rule carefully accounts for them. Indeed, the military orders accorded the turcopoles higher status than Sergeants, a fact consistent with such highly skilled fighting men.

 

This is probably because the turcopoles were almost certainly drawn from the upper echelons of native/Orthodox Christian society. The cost of training and maintaining a horse suitable to mounted archery, and the years of training necessary to develop a mounted archer make it improbable than anyone of lower status would have the resources or the time to become an effective mounted archer. The turcopoles, whose numbers most often mirror that of the equally expensive and highly trained knights, were almost certainaly the sons of the native Christian landowners and wealthy urban elites, those same wealthy patrons of the arts who also sponsored many of the beautiful icons featuring warrior saints as mounted archers.

Infantry

 

It is often forgotten in modern depictions of medieval warfare that the knights were the smallest contingent of medieval armies. The infantry made up the bulk of any feudal force and, far from being superfluous, the infantry was vitally important to success. But whereas in the West the infantryin the twelfth century was largely composed of amateur peasant levees (plus mercenaries), in the crusader states the infantry consisted of free “burghers” (citizens) drawn from the entire Christian (not just the Latin Christian) population -- plus mercenaries, of course. 

 

Furthermore, these troops were deployed with such regularity that they rapidly developed skills and discipline approaching professionalism. They were capable of manuervering under fire and of responding rapidly to orders. There were recorded incidents of units swapping out -- i.e. relieving the most exposed units with fresh units -- in the middle of a battle, and all Frankish infantry was drilled in the necessary -- but very tricky -- manueuver of stepping aside (without creating vulnerabilities) to allow their own knights to charge.  

 

In accordance with their greater professionalism and importance, the infantry in Outremer was exceptionally well armed and armored. The bulk of the infantry in Frankish armies were bowmen, often crossbowmen, although they might also have spears. They had metal helmets and quilted aketons/gambesons or jacks and over this most also had chainmail hauberks. Arab chronicles note that Frankish infantry -- no less than the knights -- could survive and continue to fight despite having multiple Saracen arrows sticking out of their protective clothing.

 

Their contribution of Frankish infantry to the success of Frankish arms was so signficant that Frankish noblemen were not ashamed to praise them and their role in engagements -- something almost unthinkable in the West of this period.  

 

But where did this remarkable infantry come from?

 

Citizen Soldiers -- Sergeants

All settlers and their descendants were freemen whether they lived in the cities as merchants and tradesmen or in agricultural settlements on royal and ecclesiastical domains, they were classed as “burghers” — not serfs. These freemen who had voluntarily immigrated to the crusader states were subject to military service, and when they served they were classed as “sergeants.” Likewise, the native Christian population enjoyed "free" status under the Franks. Again, whether urban or rural dwellers, Christians were not serfs. What is unclear is the extent to which non-Latin Christians had an obligation to serve in the feudal armies, and to what degree the large numbers of native Christians found in the armies of Jerusalem were volunteers. In either case, the term “sergeant” in the context of Outremer appears to have applied to what were often referred to as “man-at-arms” during the Hundred Years War. In short, it implies the financial means to outfit oneself with as described above with substantial body armor and serviceable weapons.

With maybe as much as half the population living in cities, it is not surprising that sergeants bore the brunt of the burden of providing garrisons for the cities, but according to John d’Ibelin’s records sergeants from the rural settlements in the royal domain and ecclesiastical fiefs were required to muster with the royal army. We also know that both the Templars and Hospitallers maintained significant forces of “sergeants,” and these were — notably — mounted fighting men. Although not as well equipped as the knights, they were nevertheless entitled to two horses and one squire. It is not clear, however, whether the “sergeants” of the king and the ecclesiastical lords were also mounted, and Tibble suggests that this depended entirely upon the circumstances. Sergeants might be employed either as light cavalry or as infantry, and they might deploy by foot or by horse as needed. 

 

Mercenaries

If prostitution is the oldest profession on earth, than mercenaries must belong to the second oldest profession. Mercenaries are recorded in ancient Greece and ancient Egypt. Certainly in the Middle Ages mercenaries were a vital component of warfare precisely because feudal levies in the West were only obligated to serve for 40 days at a stretch, but most kings and nobles needed fighting men who could serve whenever and for as long as needed.

 

Furthermore, certain military skills such building and manning siege engines or mining operations required a great deal of expertise and practice, making them unsuited to amateur armies composed of farmers. Mercenaries were everywhere on medieval battlefields. They were found in Outremer as well and, given the resources of the kingdom, were probably more prevalent there than in the West. They certainly included Greek and Armenians, and may -- surprisingly -- some Muslims as well.   

 

Nor should we forget that every household knight was technically of mercenary -- selling his arms and skill thereat for a fixed rate of pay. Reynald de Chatillon and Gerard de Rideford were both "mercenaries" to William of Tyre -- and so were many other Western knights who came to the Holy Land for the sake of their soul and to win fame and fortune with their swords.

 

Armed Pilgrims

 

The Holy Land, unlike the West, benefited from the fact that at any one time — and particularly during the “pilgrim season” between roughly April and October — there would be tens of thousands of pilgrims in the kingdom, a portion of whom would have been knights capable of rendering military service in an emergency. 

 

Sometimes barons brought small private armies of retainers and volunteers with them to the crusader states explicitly for the purpose of fighting in defense of the Holy Land. A good example of this is Philip Count of Flanders, who arrived at Acre in 1177 at the head of what Bernard Hamilton describes as “a sizeable army.” His army even included the English Earls of Essex and Meath. 

 

More common were individual knights and lords who came to the Holy Land as genuine pilgrims, only to be sucked into the fighting by military necessity. One such example is Hugh VIII de Lusignan, Count of the March, who came in 1165 and ended up dying in a Saracen prison. Another example is William Marshal, who came in 1184 to fulfill a crusader vow taken by his liege, Henry the Young King. It is impossible to know how many “armed pilgrims” — and not just knights! — took part in musters and engagements between the forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and its enemies at any time.

Arriere Ban

Last but not least, the Kings of Jerusalem had the right to issue the “arriere ban” which obligated every free man to come to the defense of the kingdom. This was in effect an early form of the “levee en masse” of the French Revolution. Significantly, the King of Jerusalem could command the service of his vassals for a full year, not just 40 days as in the West, but such service was intended for the defense of the realm.  If the king took his army outside the borders on an offensive expedition, he was required to pay for the services of his subjects.

 All my novels set in the crusader states attempt to reflect the above. Find out more about all these books at: https://www.helenapschrader.com/crusades.html

 

                        

 

A Medieval Scandal

In November 1190, Princess Isabella of Jerusalem, then 18 years old, was forcibly removed from the tent she was sharing with her husband Humphrey of Toron in the Christian camp besieging the city of Acre. Just days earlier, her elder sister, Queen Sibylla, had died, making Isabella the hereditary queen of the all-but-non-existent -- yet symbolically important-- Kingdom of Jerusalem. A short time after her abduction, she married Conrad Marquis de Montferrat, making him, through her, the de facto King of Jerusalem. This high-profile abduction and marriage scandalized the church chroniclers and is often cited to this day as evidence of the perfidy of Conrad de Montferrat and his accomplices. But scandal (like beauty) is in the eyes of the beholder.

 

The anonymous author of the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi (Itinerarium), for example, describes with blistering outrage how Conrad de Montferrat had long schemed to “steal” the throne of Jerusalem, and at last struck upon the idea of abducting Isabella—a crime he compares to the abduction of Helen of Sparta by Paris of Troy “only worse.” To achieve his plan, the Itinerarium claims, Conrad “surpassed the deceits of Sinon, the eloquence of Ulysses and the forked tongue of Mithridates.” Conrad, according to this English cleric writing after the fact, set about bribing, flattering and corrupting bishops and barons as never before in recorded history.

Throughout, the chronicler says, Conrad was aided and abetted by three barons of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (Sidon, Haifa and Ibelin) who combined (according to our chronicler) “the treachery of Judas, the cruelty of Nero, and the wickedness of Herod, and everything the present age abhors and ancient times condemned.” The author, however, brings no evidence of a single act of treachery, cruelty, or wickedness — beyond this one alleged abduction, which — as we shall see — was not a case of rape but rather a rational choice by a mature woman.

Indeed, even this chronicler himself admits that Isabella was not removed from Humphrey’s tent by Conrad, nor was she handed over to him. On the contrary, she was put into the care of clerical “sequesters,” with a mandate to assure her safety and prevent a further abduction, “while a clerical court debated the case for a divorce.”

Furthermore, in the very next paragraph our anonymous slanderer of some of the most courageous and pious lords of Jerusalem, declares that although Isabella at first resisted the idea of divorcing her husband Humphrey, she was soon persuaded to consent to divorce because “a woman’s opinion changes very easily” and “a girl is easily taught to do what is morally wrong.” Anyone detect a slight bias against women here?

While the Itinerarium admits that Isabella’s marriage to Humphrey was reviewed by a church court, it hides this fact under the abuse it heaps upon the clerics involved. Another contemporary chronicle, the Lyon continuation of William of Tyre, explains in far more neutral and objective language that the case hinged on the important principle of consent. By the 12th century, marriage could only be valid in canonical law if both parties (i.e. including Isabella) consented. The issue at hand was whether Isabella had consented to her marriage to Humphrey at the time it was contracted.

The Lyon Continuation further notes that Isabella and Humphrey testified before the church tribunal separately. In her testimony, Isabella asserted she had not consented to her marriage to Humphrey, while Humphrey claimed she had. The Lyon Continuation also provides the colorful detail that another witness, who had been present at Isabella and Humphrey's wedding, at once called Humphrey a liar, and challenged him to prove he spoke the truth in combat. Humphrey, the chronicler says, refused to “take up the gage.” At this point, the chronicler states that Humphrey was “cowardly and effeminate.”

Both accounts (the Itinerarium and the Lyon Continuation) agree that following the testimony and deliberations the Church council ruled that Isabella’s marriage to Humphrey was invalid. There was only one dissenting voice, that of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

However, both chroniclers insist that this decision was reached because Conrad corrupted all the other clerics, particularly the Papal legate, the Archbishop of Pisa. The Lyon Continuation claims that the Archbishop of Pisa ruled the marriage invalid and allowed Isabella to marry Conrad only because Conrad promised commercial advantages for Pisa if he was allowed to marry Isabella and became king. The Itinerarium, on the other hand, claims Conrad “poured out enormous generosity to corrupt judicial integrity with the enchantment of gold.”

There are a lot of problems with the clerical outrage over Isabella’s “abduction” — not to mention the dismissal of Isabella’s change of heart as the inherent moral frailty of females. There are also problems with the slander heaped on the barons and bishops, who dared to support Conrad de Montferrat's suit for Isabella.

Let’s go back to the basic facts of the case as laid out by the chroniclers themselves but stripped of moral judgments and slander:

• Isabella was removed from Humphrey de Toron’s tent against her will.
• She was not, however, taken by Conrad or raped by him.
• Rather she was turned over to neutral third parties, sequestered and protected by them.
• Meanwhile, a church court was convened to rule on the validity of her marriage to Humphrey.
• The case hinged on the important theological principle of consent. (Note: In the 12th Century, both parties to a marriage had to consent. To consent, they had be of age. The legal age of consent for girls was 12.)
• Humphrey claimed that Isabella had consented to the marriage (which was technically irrelevant since an 11-year-old was not considered legally competent to consent), but when challenged by a witness to the wedding he “said nothing” and backed down.
• Isabella, meanwhile, had “changed her mind” and consented to the divorce.
• The court ruled that Isabella's marriage to Humphrey had not been valid.
• On Nov. 25, with either the French Bishop of Beauvais or the Papal Legate himself presiding, Isabella married Conrad.
• Since a clerical court had just ruled that no marriage was valid without the consent of the bride, we can be confident that she consented to this marriage — at the comparatively mature age of 18. In fact, as the Itinerarium so vituperously reports, “she was not ashamed to say…she went with the Marquis of her own accord.”

To understand what really happened in the siege camp of Acre in November 1190, we need to look beyond what the church chronicles write about this fabricated “scandal.”

The story really begins in 1180 when Isabella was just eight years old. Until this time, Isabella had lived in the care and custody of her mother, the Byzantine Princess and Dowager Queen of Jerusalem, Maria Commena. In 1180, King Baldwin IV (Isabella’s half-brother) arranged the betrothal of Isabella to Humphrey de Toron. Having promised this marriage without the consent of Isabella’s mother or step-father, the king ordered the physical removal of Isabella from her mother and step-father’s care and sent her to live with her future husband, his mother and his step-father. The latter was the infamous Reynald de Chatillon, notorious for having seduced the Princess of Antioch, tortured the Archbishop of Antioch, and sacked the Christian island of Cyprus. Isabella was effectively imprisoned in his border fortress at Kerak and Toron's mother, Stephanie de Milly, explicitly prohibited Isabella from even visiting her mother for three years.

In December 1183, when Isabella was just eleven years old, Reynald and his wife held a marriage feast to celebrate the wedding of Isabella and Humphrey. They invited all the nobles of the kingdom to witness the feast. Unfortunately, before most of the wedding guests could arrive, Saladin's army surrounded the castle and laid siege to it. The wedding took place nevertheless, and a few weeks later the army of Jerusalem relieved the castle, chasing Saladin’s forces away.

Note, at the time the wedding took place, Isabella was not only a prisoner of her in-laws, she was also only eleven years old. Isabella could not legally consent to her wedding, even if she wanted to. The marriage had been planned by the King, however, and carried out by one of the most powerful barons during a crisis. No one seems to have dared challenge it at the time.

At the death of Baldwin V three years later, Isabella’s older sister, Queen Sibylla, was first in line to the throne but found herself opposed by almost the entire High Court of Jerusalem (that constitutionally was required to consent to each new monarch). The opposition sprang not from objections to Sibylla herself, but from the fact that the bishops and barons of the kingdom almost unanimously detested her husband, Guy de Lusignan.

Unable to gain the consent of the High Court necessary to make her coronation legal, Sibylla nevertheless managed to convince a minority of the lords secular and ecclesiastical to crown her queen by promising to divorce Guy and choose a new husband. Once crowned and anointed, Sibylla promptly betrayed her supporters by declaring that her “new” husband was the same as her old husband: Guy de Lusignan. She then crowned him herself (at least according to some accounts).

This struck many people at the time as duplicitous, to say the least, and the majority of the barons and bishops decided that since she had not had their consent in the first place, she and her husband were usurpers. They agreed to crown her younger sister Isabella (now 14 years old) instead. The assumption was that since they commanded far larger numbers of troops than did Sibylla’s supporters (many of whom now felt duped and were no longer loyal to her), they would be able to quickly depose of Sibylla and Guy.

The plan, however, came to nothing because Isabella’s husband, Humphrey de Toron, had no stomach for a civil war (or a crown, it seems), and chose to sneak away in the dark of night to do homage to Sibylla and Guy. The baronial revolt collapsed. Almost everyone eventually did homage to Guy, and he promptly led them all to an avoidable defeat at the Battle of Hattin. With the field army annihilated, the complete occupation of the Kingdom by the forces of Saladin followed – with the important exception of Tyre.

Tyre only avoided the fate of the rest of the kingdom because of the timely arrival of a certain Italian nobleman, Conrad de Montferrat, who rallied the defenders and defied Saladin.

Montferrat came from a very good and very well connected family. He was first cousin to both the Holy Roman Emperor and King Louis VII of France. Furthermore, his elder brother had been Sibylla of Jerusalem’s first husband (before Guy), and his younger brother had been married to the daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I. He effectively defended Tyre twice against the vastly superior armies of Saladin, and by holding Tyre he enabled the Christians to retain a bridgehead by which troops, weapons, and supplies could be funneled back into the Holy Land for a new crusade to retake Jerusalem. While Conrad was preforming this heroic function, Guy de Lusignan was an (admittedly unwilling) “guest” of Saladin, a prisoner of war following his self-engineered defeat at Hattin.

So at the time of the “scandalous” abduction, Guy was an anointed king, but one who derived his right to the throne from his now-deceased wife (Sibylla had died in early November 1190), and furthermore a king viewed by most of his subjects as a usurper—even before he’d lost the entire kingdom through his incompetence.

It is fair to say that in November 1190 Guy was not popular among the surviving barons and bishops of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The latter were eager to see the kingdom pass into the hands of someone they respected and trusted. The death of Sibylla provided the perfect opportunity to crown a new king because with her death the crown legally passed to her sister Isabella, and, according to the Constitution of the Kingdom, the husband of the queen ruled with her as her consort.

The problem faced by the barons and bishops of Jerusalem in 1190, however, was that Isabella was still married to the same man who had betrayed them in 1186: Humphrey de Toron. He was clearly not interested in a crown, and it didn’t help matters that he’d been in a Saracen prison for two years. Perhaps more damning still, he was allegedly “more like a woman than a man: he had a gentle manner and a stammer.”(According to the Itinerarium.)

Whatever the reason, we know that the barons and bishops of Jerusalem were not prepared to make the same mistake they had made four years earlier when they had done homage to a man they knew was incompetent (Guy de Lusignan). They absolutely refused to acknowledge Isabella’s right to the throne, unless she first set aside her unsuitable husband and took a man acceptable to them.

We know this because the Lyon Continuation is based on a lost chronicle written by a certain Ernoul, who as an intimate of the Ibelin family and so of Isabella and her mother. Ernoul (as cited in the Lyon Continuation of William of Tyre) provides the following insight: Having admitted that Isabella “did not want to [divorce Humphrey], because she loved [him],” he explains that her mother the Dowager Queen Maria Comnena persuasively argued that so long as she (Isabella) was Humphrey’s wife “she could have neither honor nor her father’s kingdom.” Moreover, Queen Maria reminded her daughter that “when she had married she was still underage and for that reason, the validity of the marriage could be challenged.” At which point, the continuation of Tyre reports, “Isabella consented to her mother’s wishes.”

In short, Isabella had a change of heart during the church trial not because “woman’s opinion changes very easily,” but because she was a realist—who wanted a crown. Far from being a victim, manipulated by others, or a fickle, immoral girl, she was an intelligent young woman with an understanding of politics.

As for the church court, it was not “corrupted” by Conrad or anyone else. It was simply faced by the unalterable fact that Isabella had very publicly wed Humphrey before she reached the legal age of consent. In short, whether she had voiced consent or not, indeed whether she loved, adored and positively desired Humphrey or not, she was not legally capable of consenting.

No violent abduction and no travesty of justice took place in Acre in 1190. Rather a mature young woman recognized that it was in her best interests -- and the best interests of her kingdom -- to divorce an unpopular and ineffective husband and marry a man respected by the peers of the realm. To do so, she allowed the marriage she had contracted as an eleven-year-old child to be recognized for what it was -- a mockery. Isabella's marriage in 1183 as a child prisoner of a notoriously brutal man — not her marriage in 1190 as an 18-year-old queen — was the real “scandal.”

Sadly, such marriages were all too common in the Middle Ages when noble marriages were political and neither party — man or woman, boy or girl — had much to say about it.

Isabella's second marriage is a major event in Envoy of Jerusalem.

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