The Achilles' Heel of the Crusader States

 North of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, three other crusaders states had been established: the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa. The later two entities proved extremely vulnerable and Edessa would be the first of the crusader states to fall.

 

The crusader presence in Edessa was not the outcome of conquest. Baldwin of Boulogne had been invited by a local warlord and arrived in Edessa with just 60 knights. Edessa was an ancient and wealthy city that at the time of the First Crusede rivaled Antioch and Aleppo in importance. When in 1098 the First Crusade reached northern Syria, Edessa was in the hands of a Greek Christian warlord, the most recent “strongman” in a long line of short-lived warlords, who came to power by murder or popular acclaim ― only to lose favor rapidly and themselves be murdered or flee. Thoros fearing the fate of his predecessors if he could not fight off the ever present Turkish threat, sought help from the most recent military force to arrive on the scene: the crusaders. MacEvitt suggests convincingly that Thoros was making the same mistake that the Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Comnenus had made, namely, of conflating crusaders with Frankish/Norman mercenaries. Thoros wanted the evidently proven military man Baldwin of Boulogne to come fight his battles for him; he never really thought he was inviting in a successor.

 

Baldwin, however, was not a mercenary. He rejected mere material gifts such as gold, silver and horses, in a bid for something more important still: power and control. When Thoros refused, Baldwin threatened to leave, and “the people” (by which one presumes the chroniclers mean the elites) insisted that Thoros give way. Thoros formally adopted Baldwin in a ceremony (telling) using Armenian relics and customs. Baldwin’s career would certainly have been as short-lived and as forgettable as that of the previous half-dozen “rulers” of Edessa, had he not proved astonishingly adept at building alliances with surrounding warlords, nobles and elites. That process started with the simple expedient of leaving the Armenian administration of the city undisturbed. Baldwin also adopted Armenian symbols and rituals, and he rapidly married into the Armenian aristocracy as well.  

 

When Baldwin of Boulogne was called away to Jerusalem to take up his elder brother’s mantle, he invited his cousin Baldwin de Bourcq to succeed him as ruler of Edessa. Baldwin II (as he was to be known in both Edessa and Jerusalem) was quick to take the opportunity, and his eighteen-year rule in Edessa truly established Frankish control over Edessa.

 

However, in 1112, the Principality of Antioch passed to a minor heir still resident in the West, and the regency was given to Roger of Solerno, the brother-in-law of King Baldwin II.  Antioch had been under sustain attack from the Seljuks since its inception, with incursions of greater or lesser strength recorded almost yearly. Subscribing to the philosophy that the ‘best defense is a good offense,’ Roger attacked at the first opportunity. His success in capturing a number of key cities around Aleppo by 1119, however, provoked two powerful Seljuk leaders, Tughtigin of Damascus and Il-Ghazi the ruler of Mardin, to form an alliance aimed at his destruction. 

 

The two Seljuk leaders fielded a combined army estimated at 40,000 men. In response, Roger called up all his own troops, including many native Armenians, and sent word to Jerusalem that he was under threat. Thinking his own force of 700 knights, 500 turcopoles and 3,000 to 10,000 infantry, was sufficient, however, he opted not to await reinforcements from Jerusalem. On 28 June 1119, Roger confronted his enemies only to suffer a devastating defeat. The Frankish casualties were so high that the battle has gone down in history simply as ‘the Field of Blood.’ Among the dead were Roger himself and virtually all his barons. In addition, Il-Ghazi slaughtered 500 prisoners the day after the battle, increasing Frankish losses. Il-Ghazi then began laying waste to the entire area with impunity; only the city of Antioch, with its massive walls and 400 towers, was comparatively safe. 

 

King Baldwin hurried north to try to stabilize the situation. He personally assumed the regency of the principality for the nine-year-old prince and prepared to confront Il-Ghazi with troops from the remaining crusader states. This unified Frankish force, however, failed to deliver a decisive knock-out blow. Although il-Ghazi became more circumspect, his army was still intact when Baldwin returned to Jerusalem, leaving the defense of Antioch in the hands of the neighbouring Count of Edessa. 

 

Three years later, Joscelyn of Edessa blundered into a Saracen ambush and was taken captive along with other leading nobles, leaving both Edessa and Antioch in a precarious situation. Baldwin II again rushed north to defend the flank of his kingdom, only to promptly be taken captive himself on 18 April 1123. It was more than a year before he could negotiate a ransom. After his release, he remained pre-occupied with the insecurity of the northern crusader states, although his absence from his own kingdom cause growing resentment among the barons of Jerusalem. Baldwin II ended up spending roughly 40 per cent of his reign in Antioch and Edessa rather than Jerusalem — without solving the problems there.

 

The north remained the Achilles heel of the crusader kingdoms for two reasons. First, the Byzantines had never been reconciled to the loss of Antioch, which had been an important part of their empire until only twelve years before the crusader capture of the city. This culminated in a Byzantine attempt to seize the city by force in 1138. The then Prince of Antioch, Raymond of Poitiers, only averted disaster by doing homage to Constantinople for Antioch and agreeing to hold the city as a vassal rather than an independent ruler. Second and more dangerous, the north was threatened by the increasingly powerful Seljuk ruler Imad al-Din Zengi of Mosul.

 

Zengi was an exceptionally brutal and ambitious ruler who spent most of his career attacking his fellow Muslims, which perhaps explains why Muslim chroniclers readily describe him as ruthless and merciless. He seized Aleppo in 1128, took Homs in 1138 and repeatedly laid siege to Damascus. To save himself from Zengi, the Sultan of Damascus turned to the Franks for support, and the Franks obliged. Yet while this tactical alliance between the Jerusalem and Damascus prevented the latter’s fall to Zengi, it gave him an excuse (if he needed one) to attack the Franks. 

 

In 1144, taking advantage of Joscelyn II’s temporary absence, Zengi assaulted Edessa. His army broke into the city on Christmas Eve and took the citadel two days later. After the death of Zengi in September 1146, Count Joscelyn briefly retook his city, only to be trapped between the citadel, still in Seljuk hands, and a new army brought up by Zengi’s son Nur al-Din. The result was a massacre of appalling proportions. Significantly, according to a contemporary Syrian Christian account, those who fell into the hands of the Seljuks alive were not merely killed but humiliated — forced to strip naked — and then tortured before being killed. This was not simply the application of the ‘rules of war,’ but a vindictive and cruel act, shocking to both Muslim and Christian contemporaries. Altogether 30,000 Christians lost their lives in the Seljuk capture of Edessa, while another 16,000 ended in slavery. Furthermore, the bodies of the slain were left to rot, the wells poisoned, the defenses destroyed, the city abandoned altogether. This tactic of not just killing and carrying off the inhabitants but rendering a city indefensible and uninhabitable for the foreseeable future foreshadows the tactics of the Mamluks more than a century later. Yet it was exceptional and hugely shocking at this point in time.

 This entry is partially based on an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.

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Dr. Helena P. Schrader is also the author of six books set in the Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades.

                         

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"The Tale of the English Templar" is a fictional work that depicts the destruction of the Knight's Templar. 

An escaped Templar, an intrepid, old crusader, and a discarded bride

embark on a quest for justice in the face of tyranny. 

Find out more at: https://helenapschrader.net/the-english-templar/

"St. Louis Knight" is a novel set against the backdrop of the Seventh Crusade and St. Louis' sojourn in the Holy  Land. A Templar novice and King Louis are the central characters. 

It is now available in audiobook as well as paperback and ebook.

Buy Now!

 

 A crusader in search of faith --
A lame lady in search of revenge --
And a King who would be saint.

St. Louis' Knight takes you to the Holy Land in the 13th century, and a world filled with knights, nobles, prophets -- and assassins. 

(Available in Audiobook)

Baldwin II -- An Able but Unlucky King

At Baldwin de Boulogne’s death the throne of Jerusalem passed to Baldwin de Bourcq. The latter was crowned alongside his Armenian wife Morphia on Christmas Day 1118 at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem as Baldwin II.  Baldwin was undoubtedly an able king, but not always a lucky one. His misfortune included being taken captive and held for ransom.

 

Nevertheless, it was during Baldwin II’s reign that the vital coastal city of Tyre surrendered to the Franks after a five-month siege aided by a large Venetian fleet. The latter had first intercepted and destroyed the Fatimid navy at sea. The Muslim population of Tyre was granted the right to withdraw with their moveable possessions, but the Venetians ran riot and, against the terms of the surrender, engaged in acts of violence. Baldwin II also successfully defeated a coalition of Turkish forces at the Battle of Azaz on 11 June 1125.

Equally significant, during Baldwin II’s reign the Franks began to systematically build castles of their own rather than merely occupying existing fortification as they had done up to this point. Counter-intuitively, most of these castles were built in the parts of the kingdom that were already secure. They were built not in areas threatened by Muslim raids and incursions, but rather in regions of significant agricultural production and near concentrations of Christian inhabitants or important Christian shrines and pilgrim destinations. The obvious conclusion from this pattern of building was that these castles were not part of a defensive perimeter nor primarily defensive in character at all. Rather, these castles were an expression of growing administrative sophistication and control. The exception to this rule was the great castle of Montreal. This was built as an intimidating stronghold controlling the lands beyond the Jordan (the Barony of Transjordan) and threatening — or at least watching — the lines of communication between Egypt and Damascus.

Baldwin II was also responsible for the first codification of laws for the kingdom at an ad hoc ‘Council’ at Nablus, attended by both secular and ecclesiastical lords. He continued his predecessor’s policy of encouraging settlement, particularly appealing to the great monastic orders to establish houses in his kingdom. The importance of monastic presence was that the religious orders enjoyed huge patronage in the west and brought these enormous financial resources to bear when they established houses in the East. In short, the religious orders could tap the resources needed to rebuild and renovate the Christian churches and convents left in ruins by four hundred years of Muslim occupation. The religious orders of this period were also known for the sophistication of their administration and for fostering the introduction of modern agricultural techniques. Monasteries across Europe were bringing marginal land under cultivation and increasing yields through the construction of expensive infrastructure such as terracing, water mills, and irrigation.

Although we know little about the details, under Baldwin II the Kingdom of Jerusalem evolved efficient administrative, financial and legal structures. These were sufficiently robust to function even in the absence of the king. Taxes and duties were collected regularly, properly recorded and allocated to important building programs and the vitally important military operations. The construction of castles and cathedrals required quarries, roads, harbors, and other forms of infrastructure, which suggests that the economic base of the country was growing rapidly. Likewise, the population and the number of pilgrims was evidently increasing rapidly.

These factors combined enabled Baldwin II to take the offensive against two of the most important Seljuk power centers: Aleppo (in 1124) and Damascus (1129). The latter siege particularly was a major operation that appears to have been defeated more by bad weather than by enemy action. Furthermore, the Sultan was sufficiently unsettled by the Frankish threat to agree to an annual tribute of 20,000 dinars to be left in peace. This latter point underlines the degree to which the Seljuks as well as the Fatimids viewed the Franks as dangerous opponents. At his death on 21 August 1131, Baldwin II left behind a kingdom stronger than ever. Yet his reign was over-shadowed by severe set-backs in the northern Crusader states, which I will look at in my next entry.

 This entry is largely an excerpt from Dr. Schrader's comprehensive study of the crusader states.

Order now!

 

Dr. Helena P. Schrader is also the author of six books set in the Holy Land in the Era of the Crusades.

                         

           Buy Now!                                                  Buy Now!                                                    Buy Now!

 

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"The Tale of the English Templar" is a fictional work that depicts the destruction of the Knight's Templar. 

An escaped Templar, an intrepid, old crusader, and a discarded bride

embark on a quest for justice in the face of tyranny. 

Find out more at: https://helenapschrader.net/the-english-templar/

"St. Louis Knight" is a novel set against the backdrop of the Seventh Crusade and St. Louis' sojourn in the Holy  Land. A Templar novice and King Louis are the central characters. 

It is now available in audiobook as well as paperback and ebook.

Buy Now!

 

 A crusader in search of faith --
A lame lady in search of revenge --
And a King who would be saint.

St. Louis' Knight takes you to the Holy Land in the 13th century, and a world filled with knights, nobles, prophets -- and assassins. 

(Available in Audiobook)

The Poor Knights of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem

Ironically, more people nowadays know about an institution founded in the Kingdom of Jerusalem than the Kingdom itself. The religious order that became famous as the "Knights Templar" has captured the imagination of novelists and conspiracy theorists for centuries. Today I pause in my history of the crusader states to look more closely at the Knights Templar as they historically were -- not as they have become in the imagination of millions of gamers, film-makers, novelits and lunatics.

 

 

 

Medieval Depiction of the Founders of the Knights Templar -- Sharing a Horse

After the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem following the First Crusade, pilgrims flooded to the newly freed Holy Land, but the situation was far from stable and the secular authorities were unable to guarantee the safety of pilgrims who ventured out upon the dangerous roads from Jerusalem to other pilgrimage sites such as Jericho and Nazareth. In 1115 Hugues de Payens, a Burgundian knight, and Sir Godfrey de St. Adhemar, a Flemish knight, decided to join forces and form a band of sworn brothers dedicated to protecting pilgrims. They soon recruited seven other knights, all men like themselves – stranded in the Holy Land without wealth or land, and allegedly so poor that Payens and St. Adhemar had only one horse between them. In 1118 the King of Jerusalem gave them the stables of what was believed to have been the palace (or temple) of King Solomon for their quarters, and from this they took their name, “The Poor Knights of Christ of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem” – a name was soon shortened to the Knights Templar. At the same time, or shortly afterwards, these nine knights took monastic vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience before the Patriarch of Jerusalem.

The Templar HQ with the Dome of Al Aqsa Mosque (the Templar Church) as it looks today

 

 

 

 

The Knights Templar rapidly attracted new recruits -– and powerful patrons -- highlighting the extent to which the concept of knights dedicated to the service of God touched a chord in men at this time. But the concept of fighting monks was revolutionary. Even the crusades had not sanctioned the bearing of arms by men dedicated to the Church; the crusades had only allowed secular men to serve the interests of the Church. What the Knights Templar proposed was to allow men of God to also be fighting men.

Recognizing the need for guidance and official sanction, Payens approached the Pope, and not only was his new kind of monastic order recognized, it was enthusiastically praised. Bernard of Clairvaux, the most influential churchman of his age (credited with founding 70 new Cistercian monasteries), agreed to write the Templars’ Rule. Not surprisingly, he fashioned the Templar Rule on that of the Cistercians; more unusual, however, was that he also wrote a treatise in praise of the Knights Templar, the De Laude Novae Militiae (In Praise of the New Knighthood), in which he contrasted the virtuous Templars with the vain, greedy, and (senselessly) violent secular knights of the age.

A "Frivolous" Secular Knight Dancing and Consorting with Women as no Templar Would Have Done

 

According to De Laude Novae Militiae, the Knights Templar were disciplined, humble, and sober. Thus, “impudent words, senseless occupations, immoderate language, whispering, or even suppressed giggling are unknown. They have a horror of chess and dice; they hate hunting; they don’t even enjoy the flight of the falcon. They despise mimes, jugglers, storytellers, dirty songs, performances of buffoons – all these they regard as vanities and inane follies.” 

 

The documented initiation ceremonies – in contrast to the fabricated accusations of King Philip IV’s paid informers tasked with discrediting the Order two centuries later – were simple and sober professions of Catholic orthodoxy and vows to obey the officers of the Order, to remain chaste, to own no property, and to protect the Holy Land and Christians.” (See Andrea Hopkins, Knights, Collins & Brown Lt., London, 1990, p. 90.)

The Templars were an instant success (by medieval standards), and their resources increased exponentially over the next decades. They soon controlled properties in virtually every kingdom of Christendom, from Sicily to Ireland, but particularly in France, England, and Portugal. The Order also rapidly developed a sophisticated hierarchy and structure. The bulk of the Order’s members were lay brothers: men who worked the fields of Templar landholdings and served as skilled laborers, from blacksmiths to stone masons, in the fortresses of Outremer. 

 

Furthermore, although only men already knighted, i.e., men from the landed class, could become Knights Templar, men of lesser birth could be men-at-arms, just as in any other army of the age. In contrast to the usual pattern, however, these men were not foot soldiers or archers but mounted fighting men, armed with sword and lance and called “sergeants.” While the knights were allowed four horses and two squires, the sergeants appear to have been allowed two horses and one squire. (These squires, incidentally, were not members of the Order, and not bound by monastic vows nor compelled to fight.) Last but not least, as enthusiasm for the Holy Land waned in the West, the Templars came to rely more and more on auxiliary troops raised in the Holy Land itself: men of Armenian, Greek, Arab, or mixed descent, called “Turcopoles.” The Templars also had their own priests and clerks.

Collieure, Languedoc -- One of the Templars many "Commanderies" in the West

 

 

 

But manpower is only half the equation. Fighting men, particularly monks who had renounced all wealth and owned nothing, had to be clothed, equipped, mounted, armed, and fed at the expense of the Order. The great castles in the Holy Land – absolutely crucial to the defense of the Christian kingdoms – had to be built, maintained, and provisioned. The cost of equipping even one knight was substantial, the cost of keeping a castle enormous; the costs of maintaining thousands of knights in the field and dozens of castles in defensible condition were astronomical. It would not have been possible without the huge estates donated to the Templars in the West.

The Templars’ extensive properties in Western Europe provided the Order with recruits, remounts, and above all, financial resources. They also created a network through which the Templars could influence secular leaders. Furthermore, the extensive network of Templar “commanderies,” combined with the Templars’ reputation for incorruptibility and prowess at arms, enabled the Templars to move money (then still exclusively in the form of gold and silver) across great distances. Furthermore, the Templar network made it possible for someone to deposit money at one commandery and withdraw it from another with a kind of “letter of credit” – a service unknown before the Templars. Because of their own wealth and the funds deposited with them, the Templars were soon in a position to provide substantial loans, and are on record as having lent money to the Kings of both England and France. Because of their reputation as being scrupulously honest yet financially astute, they were also often employed as tax collectors and financial advisors by ruling monarchs, from Richard I of England to Philip IV of France.

A Templar Charge by Mariusz Kozik, Copyright Fireforge Games

 

Yet the Knights Templar would not have attracted these riches or enjoyed such prestige if they had not delivered impressive military accomplishments in the Holy Land. The ethos of the Knights Templar called on knights to fight to the death for the Holy Land, to defend any Christian molested by Muslims, never to retreat unless the odds were greater than 3 to 1, and to refuse ransom if captured. Such attitudes clearly set the Templars apart from secular knights of the period. A hundred years after their founding and a hundred years before their demise, the Bishop of Acre wrote in his History of Jerusalem that the Templars were: “Lions in war, mild as lambs at home; in the field fierce knights, in church like hermits or monks; unyielding and savage to the enemies of Christ, benevolent and mild to Christians.”

More important, the vow of obedience enabled disciplined fighting – a rarity in the Middle Ages, when most men sought to demonstrate individual prowess by conspicuous valour -- or fought for their own glory and gain. In contrast, a Templar who acted on his own was subject to severe disciplinary measures, including imprisonment or degradation for a year. There are many accounts of the Templars forming shock troops during an advance and rear guard during retreats, of Templars defending the most difficult salient in a siege, and of Templar sorties to rescue fellow Christians in distress. At the height of their power, the Templars controlled a chain of mighty castles from La Roche de Roussel, north of Antioch, to Gaza, as well as a powerful fleet.

Crusader Castle of Montreal - Typical of the Fortifications of the Templars

The Knights Templar suffered a fatal blow, however, when Jerusalem was lost to Saladin in 1187. Although the consequences were not immediately apparent, the loss of Jerusalem – and the failure of all subsequent crusades to regain permanent control – slowly eroded the faith in Christian victory and, ultimately, the interest in fighting for the Holy Land. As the territory controlled by Christians shrank, so did the resources of the local barons. Soon, sufficient resources could not be raised in the Holy Land to finance its defense. This meant that the defense of the remaining Christian outposts fell increasingly to the militant orders, the Templars and Hospitallers because they could still draw on the profits of their extensive holdings in the West. Yet even these enormous resources proved insufficient in face of the huge cost of maintaining their establishment in the Holy Land as Western enthusiasm for defending the Holy Land waned. Throughout the second half of the 13th century, the crusader territories were lost, castle by castle and city by city, mostly as a result of the defenders having insufficient manpower to maintain their garrisons. When the last Templar stronghold in the Holy Land, the Temple at Acre, fell to the Saracens in 1292, some 20,000 Templars had given their lives for the Holy Land.

The Knights Templar transferred their headquarters to Cyprus after losing their last foothold in Palestine, but they had lost their raison d’être. That would have been crippling in itself, perhaps, but what proved fatal was that they retained their apparent wealth. King Philip IV, whose coffers were again empty, decided to confiscate the Templar “treasure” – meaning their entire property.

The Arrest of the Templars from a Medieval Manuscript

 

To justify this move, Philip accused the Templars of various crimes, including devil worship, blasphemy, corruption, and sodomy. Without warning, on the night of Friday, October 13, 1307, officers of the French crown simultaneously broke into Templar commanderies across France and seized all the Templars and their property. While most of the men arrested were lay brothers and sergeants (since most knights who had survived the fall of Acre were on Cyprus), Philip IV made sure he would also seize the senior officers of the Temple by inviting them to Paris “for consultations” in advance of his strike. All those arrested, including the very men King Philip had treated as friends and advisors only days before, were subjected to brutal torture until they confessed to the catalog of crimes the French King had concocted.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the Templars were in any way heretical in their beliefs. Furthermore, although Philip persuaded the Pope to order a general investigation of the Templars, in countries where torture was not extensively employed (such as England, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Cyprus), the Templars were found innocent. Tragically, Pope Clement V lived in terror of King Philip IV, and he preferred to sacrifice the Templars rather than risk confrontation with the French king. Thus, although the evidence against the Order was clearly fabricated and the Pope could not find sufficient grounds to condemn the Order, he disbanded it in 1312. The last Grand Master and Marshal of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay and Geoffrey de Charney respectively, were burned at the stake in the presence of King Philip on March 18, 1314 for retracting their confessions.

Not until 2007 did the Vatican officially declare the Templars innocent based on the evidence still in the Papal archives.

Recommended Reading:

·         Barber, Malcolm, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994.

·         Hopkins, Andrea, Knights: The Complete Story of the Age of Chivalry, From Historical Fact to Tales of Romance and Poetry, Collins & Brown Ltd, London, 1990.

·         Howarth, Stephan, The Knights Templar, Barnes and Noble Books, New York, 1982.

·         Robinson, John J., Dungeon, Fire and Sword: The Knights Templar in the Crusades, Michael O’Mara Books Ltd.

"The Tale of the English Templar" is a fictional work that depicts the destruction of the Knight's Templar. 

An escaped Templar, an old knight, and a discarded bride embark on a quest for justice in the face of tyranny. 

Buy now on amazon

Buy now on Barnes and Noble

Find out more 

 

"St. Louis Knight" is a novel set against the backdrop of the Seventh Crusade and St. Louis' sojourn in the Holy  Land. A Templar novice and King Louis are the central characters. 

It is now available in audiobook as well as paperback and ebook.

Buy Now!

 

 A crusader in search of faith --
A lame lady in search of revenge --
And a King who would be saint.

St. Louis' Knight takes you to the Holy Land in the 13th century, and a world filled with knights, nobles, prophets -- and assassins. 

(Available in Audiobook)

 

 

 

The Knights Templar were at the height of their popularity in the late 12th century and appear in my novels set in this period. 

 Buy now!                                                           Buy now!                                                            Buy Now!