Consolidation and Cooperation with Constantinople

 Despite the loss of Edessa, the heartland of the crusader states was remarkably robust and resilient throughout this period.

 

 Baldwin II, who had no sons, was succeeded at his death in 1131 by his eldest daughter Melisende without controversy. She had married Fulk d’Anjou in 1129, and he was crowned co-regent with her in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The hereditary Count of Anjou, Fulk had taken the cross and served as an associate, temporary member of the Templars in the Holy Land in 1119-1121. After his heir Geoffrey married the daughter and heiress of King Henry I of England, the widowed Fulk abdicated Anjou in favor of his son and agreed to marry Melisende.

Jerusalem experienced and weathered its first serious constitutional crisis when Fulk tried to sideline his wife and co-regent Queen Melisende. The barons of Jerusalem suspected him of wanting to alienate the crown for a younger son from his first marriage and solidly backed Queen Melisende. Likewise, the ecclesiastical lords remained staunchly loyal to the queen. Insinuations of infidelity failed to undermine her position because the rumors were (rightly) dismissed as an attempt by her husband to discredit her.  In the end, a man famed for his ability to bring rebellious vassals to heel was forced to respect his wife’s position of equal power. So much so, that William of Tyre writes: ‘But from that day forward, the king became so uxorious that, whereas he had formerly aroused [his wife’s] wrath, he now calmed it, and not even in unimportant cases did he take any measures without her knowledge and assistance.’ [i]

Furthermore, once a working relationship had been established between the co-monarchs, they worked together as an effective team. A natural division of labor evolved in which King Fulk focused on military and foreign affairs, while Queen Melisende managed the domestic administration of the kingdom. Due to Melisende’s status as ruling monarch (not merely queen-consort), there was no disruption in government when King Fulk died in a hunting accident 10 November 1143. Melisende continued to rule, now jointly-with her son Baldwin III, who was just 13 at the time of his father’s death. Although the kingdom was briefly roiled when in 1152 Baldwin resolved to push his mother aside and take sole control of government, the crisis was rapidly resolved without international or security repercussions. Baldwin III reigned until 1163, when he died childless, and was succeeded by his brother Amalric. Amalric was required to set aside his wife Agnes de Courtenay before the High Court would recognize him as king, but once he complied with this requirement, his succession was seamless and rapid. The kingdom remained stable.  

Throughout this period, from 1131 when Melisende and Fulk were crowned until the death of Amalric in 1174, the Kingdom of Jerusalem enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity characterized by economic growth and development, the expansion of trading ties, the evolution of sophisticated judicial and financial systems, and decisive military superiority. It has been calculated that Muslims attacked twelve times less often during this period than in the first fifteen years of the kingdom’s existence. Furthermore, most major battles were ‘waged on Muslim ground in proximity to centres of Muslim population, and most ended in a decisive victory for the Franks.’[ii] Frankish superiority on the battlefield was so great that for most of this period the Saracens tried to avoid battle altogether. They preferred surprise raids on what we would call ‘soft’ targets. Furthermore, the Frankish army could muster and deploy so rapidly, that if Saracen raids ran into resistance, they broke off the attack before the kingdom’s military force could be brought to bear. Warfare of these period was, therefore, characterized by short raids of limited scope.

The exception to this was the Frankish capture of Ascalon in 1153 after an eight-month siege. This represented a major defeat for the Fatimids, who had invested heavily in holding on to the city. Ascalon was a base for the Egyptian fleet and as soon as it was lost to them, all the Frankish cities to the north became more secure as did merchant shipping in the Eastern Mediterranean. Furthermore, Ascalon had been a base for lightning raids into the interior of the kingdom, reaching as far as Hebron. To protect the surrounding region against these raids, in the early 1140s King Fulk ordered the construction of four major castles: Gaza, Blanchegarde, Bethgibelin, and Ibelin. At the same time (1142) the Baron of Transjordan built on Roman foundations the mighty castle of Kerak southeast of the Dead Sea. These castles, far from being indications of weakness and fear, represented the self-confidence of the Franks. They were bastions for projecting power, not places of refuge.

The growing importance and viability of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was also reflected in a shift in Byzantine foreign policy. Up to this time, Constantinoples’ relations with the crusader states were based on demands for submission to Byzantine suzerainty. While these claims were more formal or nominal in the case of Jerusalem itself, Byzantine efforts to regain control of Antioch were tenacious and largely successful, forcing the Princes of Antioch to recognize the Emperor as their overlord. Then, in 1155, the new Prince of Antioch, Reynald de Châtillon, provoked the just ire of Constantinople by raiding the Byzantine island of Cyprus and engaging in an orgy of savagery including the mutilation of prisoners, extortion, rape, pillage, and destruction. Although Châtillon was condemned by the Latin Church and Baldwin III of Jerusalem, his behavior reinforced existing Byzantine prejudices against the Latin Christians as ‘barbarians.’ Yet his savagery also surprisingly provoked change.

While Emperor Manuel I collected a large army to march against Châtillon, Baldwin III signaled agreement with the need to teach the violent Prince of Antioch a lesson. Châtillon rapidly recognized that he was trapped and friendless. In a dramatic gesture, he Manuel barefoot and bareheaded with a noose around his neck to symbolize his complete surrender to the Byzantine Emperor. After this incident, Manuel concluded that Baldwin III was worth cultivating. What followed were a series of strategic alliances symbolized by royal weddings. Two of Manuel’s nieces married successive Kings of Jerusalem (Theodora married Baldwin III in 1158 and Maria married Amalric I in 1167), and Manuel himself married Maria, the daughter of the Prince of Antioch in 1161.

One can see these marriages as a conscious attempt to civilize and subtly influence policy in Western courts, but Manuel was also willing to ransom prominent crusader lords languishing in Muslim captivity. Ransoming prominent prisoners created ties of gratitude, while also serving as public relations gestures that earned respect and admiration from the public at large. Thus, Manuel ransomed even his archenemy Reynald de Châtillon, as well as Bohemond III of Antioch and paid a king’s ransom (literally) for Baldwin d’Ibelin, the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel. Yet without doubt the most important feature of Manuel’s co-operative policies with the crusader states were a series of joint military operations. These included action against Nur ad-Din in 1158-59, an invasion of Egypt in 1167-68, and a joint siege of Damietta 1169.  

The Frankish-Byzantine invasion of Egypt in 1167-68 was only one in a series of five military interventions in Egypt undertaken by King Amalric between 1163 and his death in 1174. The key characteristics of these operations were their opportunistic and the geopolitical character. Amalric’s interventions in Egypt had nothing whatever to do with ‘crusading.’ Nor were they in any way racist or religious much less genocidal. In all campaigns, Amalric was operating exactly like his Muslim (and Christian) neighbors in seeking geo-political and economic benefits. Ideology, not to mention idealism, was completely lacking.

Since the capture of Ascalon in 1153, the Fatimids had been paying ‘tribute’ to the Kings of Jerusalem, but the Fatimid state was rotting from the inside as two competing viziers, Dirgham and Shawar, intrigued against one another for power. Inevitably, the tribute disappeared into someone’s purse or was used for other purposes providing a pretext for a Frankish invasion in 1163. Amalric’s invasion force came within 35 miles of Cairo before the acting vizier Dirgham, panicked, agreed to an even larger ‘tribute,’ and Amalric withdrew. Unfortunately, the success of this campaign appears to have whet Amalric’s appetite for more. Egypt was fabulously wealthy, and the ruling Shia elite was not particularly popular with the majority Sunni population or the Coptic Christians, who still formed a significant minority. Amalric smelled blood.

Meanwhile, however, Dirgham’s rival Shawar had fled to Damascus and appealed to Nur al-Din for assistance. Nur al-Din sent one of his most reliable emirs, a Kurd by the name of Asad al-Din Shirkuh. Despite initial setbacks, Seljuk-backed Shawar was able to kill Frankish-backed Dirgham, only to discover that his ‘protector’ (Shirkuh) was intent on replacing him.  Shawar immediately turned to the Franks for help. He offered Amalric payments greater than what Dirgham had paid to keep the Franks out, if the Franks would come in to fight his battles for him. In April 1164 Amalric obliged by returning to Egypt with an army. He rapidly put Shirkuh on the defensive, besieging him at Bilbies.  But Nur al-Din countered by attacking Antioch. In the Battle of Artah on 10 August 1164, Nur al-Din decisively defeated a combined Frankish-Byzantine army, taking Bohemond III of Antioch, Raymond III of Tripoli, the Byzantine Dux Coloman, and Hugh VIII de Lusignan captive — effectively decapitating the entire Christian leadership in the northern crusader states. Once again, a catastrophe in the north undermined successes in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Amalric was forced to negotiate a truce in Egypt in order to address the situation in the north. Both the Franks and the Damascenes withdrew from Egypt, restoring the status quo ante.

Three years later, Nur al-Din made a renewed attempt to seize control of Egypt, and Shawar again turned to the Franks. Amalric initially enjoyed astonishing successes, aided by an Egyptian population that blamed the invading Turks/Kurds for their misery. He succeeded in capturing Alexandria, briefly taking Shirkuh’s nephew Salah al-Din — better known in the West as Saladin — captive, but he then accepted terms. The Turks withdrew and the Egyptians agreed to pay an even larger annual tribute (100,000 gold dinars) for Frankish ‘protection.’

Amalric, however, let his three-fold success delude him into thinking more was possible. He appears to have envisaged a powerful kingdom controlling the Nile as well as the Eastern Mediterranean. It was an alluring illusion. The capture of Egypt would have made the Kingdom of Jerusalem a major Mediterranean power — and a majority Muslim state. No King of Jerusalem and Egypt could have retained the mantle of ‘Protector of the Holy Sepulcher,’ and a Christian ruling elite in Egypt would sooner or later have become as unpopular as the Shia Fatimids.

However, Amalric, the Hospitallers, and the Italian city-states were mesmerized by the wealth of Egypt. While Manuel I of Constantinople was probably more realistic, he had little to lose and much to gain if Christian control could be extended. Egypt had, after all, once been a component part of the Eastern Roman Empire. Manuel therefore sent a substantial fleet including impressive horse transports.

In Jerusalem, however, significant opposition to yet another invasion of Egypt surfaced. An attack constituted a violation of the agreement with Shawar, and the Templars warned King Amalric not to make the mistake of the Second Crusade: attacking an ally and creating a new enemy. The Templars refused to take part in the invasion of 1168. William of Tyre likewise expressed the views of other clerics that warned a violation of the treaty with Shawar would displease God. The militants triumphed and the invasion went ahead.

Again, the Franks met with initial successes, taking Bilbais in three days and engaging in an orgy of plunder and murder without discriminating between Muslims or Coptic Christians; this atrocity turned the Copts against the Franks for years to come. Meanwhile, betrayed by his former friends the Franks, Shawar turned to his old enemy Nur al-Din. Meanwhile, the Franks advanced on Cairo. Shawar set fire to the old city to stop the Frankish advance, and then started bribing Amalric again. By then, however, Shirkuh had arrived with his Kurdish/Turkish Sunni army. This now threatened Amalric’s rear. The Franks chose to withdraw — all the way to Jerusalem. The Byzantine fleet likewise headed for home, only to run into storms which destroyed much of it. The campaign had become a fiasco.

Yet far more fateful, this blatant violation of international law triggered a regime change in Cairo. Shirkuh had rescued Shawar from the Franks, but Shawar had no credibility left.  Within days of his arrival, the Kurdish emir had the Egyptian vizier murdered. The Sunni Shirkuh made himself vizier of Shia Egypt. Two months later, Shirkuh too was dead, apparently of over-eating. His successor was his nephew Saladin, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem would never be the same again.

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[i] William of Tyre. A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, translated by Emily Atwater Babcock and A. C. Krey [New York: Octagon Books, 1976] Book XIV, Chapter 18, 76.

[ii] Ellenblum, 164.

 

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

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The Second Crusade

The loss of Edessa shook Europe. The First Crusade had already become legendary and very few living in the West had any idea of how vulnerable the crusader states had been in the intervening forty-five years. Indeed, Europeans were largely unaware of the frequent setbacks suffered, the high cost (in blood) of the victories, or the continuing threats faced by the Franks in the east. To most Europeans, it appeared that God had granted the Holy Land to the Christians and all was well with the world — at least the world Beyond the Sea. As a result, the loss of Edessa shattered their world view and triggered a new crusading frenzy that culminated in what is known as the Second Crusade. 

 

           

 From the start, the character of the Second Crusade differed fundamentally from the First. There was no longer any need to ‘ransom Christ’ or ‘liberate’ his city or his people from oppression. Instead, a new and dangerous precedent was set of offering spiritual benefits merely for fighting for Christ in any expedition called for by the pope. Henceforth, a ‘crusade’ might entail fighting anywhere that the pope viewed useful — against the Wends east of the Elbe, against the Moors in Spain, or by the thirteenth century, against heretics or the political enemies of the papacy. The Second Crusade set the precedent by encompassing three divergent theatres of conflict: a campaign led by the Danes and Saxons against the pagans of northeastern Europe; an offensive against the Moors led by Alfonso VII of Castile and Alfonso Henriques of Portugal, and an expedition against the Saracens in the Near East. 

The crusade to the Near East was broken down into two main components: a German crusade under the Conrad III, and a French crusade under Louis VII. The Germans first attacked the Jews at home before crossing Byzantine territory in an undisciplined fashion the led to many clashes with the local authorities and population. They crossed into Turkish territory without awaiting the arrival of the French and promptly walked into a Turkish ambush near Dorylaeum. Here the bulk of the German crusaders were annihilated. The French followed in a more disciplined fashion. Although suffering one serious defeat in which King Louis was unhorsed and came close to being captured, they avoided annihilation. Despite remaining in Byzantine-controlled territory thereafter, they found markets rare and insufficient, the terrain inhospitable and the weather cold and wet. To add insult to injury, the Byzantine garrisons largely remained behind their walls, leaving the crusaders vulnerable to lighting strikes by Turkish light cavalry. Even without a major battle, the near continuous Turkish harassment resulted in steady attrition.  Worn down by these tactics, the weather and terrain, the French arrived in the Byzantine port of Adalia on 20 January 1148 in a sorry and dispirited state. Louis VII promptly abandoned his infantry and set sail for Antioch with his wife, knights and nobles.

As a result of this disastrous performance on the part of both commanders, few crusaders who came overland actually made it to the Holy Land. Most of Louis’ infantry died of hunger, exhaustion, wounds and disease or accepted slavery in exchange for their lives. On the other hand, a large contingent of northern Europeans, including many English, arrived by ship, swelling the number of combatants available in the Holy Land to an exceptional number. In consequence, on 24 June 1148, a council of crusade leaders and local barons convened to discuss what to do with their troops. The re-capture of Edessa was no longer viewed as a serious option. Not only had the destruction been too complete, Edessa lacked emotional appeal and religious significance. The argument that the re-capture of Edessa was vital to the defense of Antioch fell on deaf ears because the Prince of Antioch had done homage to the Byzantine Emperor a decade earlier; from the point of view of the Western leaders that made Antioch’s defense the Emperor’s problem, not theirs. The options narrowed down to an attempt to capture Ascalon, the only remaining port on the coast of the Levant still in Saracen hands, or an attack on Damascus.

Historians can only speculate why Damascus, technically still an ally of Jerusalem, became the target of the Second Crusade. Possibly the absence of a significant fleet made a siege of Ascalon impractical. Nevertheless, Damascus was far from an easy target. The crusaders did not have and did build siege engines, nor were their forces sufficient to surround the city and cut it off from supplies and reinforcement. In the event, the ‘siege’ lasted only five days, before the approach of Zengi’s relieving army sent the crusaders scampering back to Jerusalem. The only positive feature of this miserable performance was there were few casualties; the losses of the crusade came during the march to Jerusalem not during this disgraceful military (in)action.

Accounts of what happened in the ‘siege’ are contradictory and marred by untenable accusations of treachery levelled at practically everyone. Christian sources speak of an inexplicable and unjustified move from a good to a bad position, but Muslim sources record no such blunder. Conrad III blamed the barons of Jerusalem for giving bad advice. However, the King of Jerusalem at this time was a minor and the ruling Queen both opposed the attack on Damascus and was absent from the siege; she can hardly be blamed for the failure of an army doing something she had advised them against. Given the history of alliance with Damascus, it is far more likely that the crusaders — always shocked by the readiness to local lords to cooperate with Muslims — ignored the advice of Jerusalem’s barons not to attack Damascus in the first place. Other commentators blamed the militant orders for accepting bribes yet admit that no money actually passed hands — a fact they explained away with Saracen duplicity.  William of Tyre indirectly blamed Louis VII, saying he promised Damascus to the Count of Flanders, thereby offending and demotivating everyone else. Michael the Syrian, a native Christian chronicler, believed the Damascenes tricked Baldwin III into believing Conrad III would depose him and set himself up as King of Jerusalem, if the crusaders succeeded in taking Damascus, a complicated conspiracy story.

The consequences of the ignominious failure of a crusade led by two crowned heads of Europe and advocated by the most important clerics of the age were more far-reaching and damaging than the loss of Edessa that had triggered it. For one thing the sense of ‘manifest destiny’ that had inspired European confidence in their right to control the Holy Land was shaken. Naturally, clerics attempted to blame the crusaders themselves, suggesting their motives had not been pure enough or that they had sinned too greatly; God, they warned, had sent defeat to punish them. Alternatively, they argued that the defeat was a gift of God to ‘give brave men an opportunity to show courage and win immorality’ in the future.[i] People being people, however, it was much easier to blame someone else. The obvious scapegoats were the Byzantines, who had failed to provide sufficient support and protection during the long march through territory they nominally controlled, and the Franks living in the East, the so-called ‘Poulains,’ because they had ‘given bad advice’ or ‘taken bribes’ or been ‘too greedy for titles.’ Whatever the exact version of events, it further poisoned relations between the West and Constantinople while casting aspersions on the reliability of the Franks living in Outremer. Mistrust of ‘the Greeks’ and the ‘Poulains’ became a recurring sub-plot of all future crusades.

Furthermore, in the immediate aftermath of the failed crusade, Saracen confidence surged, triggering a new attack on Antioch. Prince Raymond, the consort of the heiress Constance and younger brother of Duke William of Aquitaine, sallied out to confront Nur al-Din in the field. Like his predecessor, he did so without awaiting reinforcements from Tripoli or Jerusalem. He was encircled on the night of 28 June 1149 and his army was slaughtered. Raymond’s body was found among the dead. Nur al-Din ordered his head and right arm hacked off. They were sent as trophies to the caliph in Baghdad. Such ‘civilized’ behavior has never been recorded among the Franks after a victory. Meanwhile, with the Frankish military force destroyed, Nur al-Din turned to absorbing into his own territory what was left of the County of Edessa.

When the relief force from Tripoli and Jerusalem arrived, there was nothing left to salvage. All the Frankish leaders could do was provide protection for the surviving Frankish civilians and any Armenians that wished to evacuate the former County of Edessa. The Franks ceded all claims to territory to the Byzantine Emperor, while Frankish troops escorted a column of refugees south. They had to withstand repeated assaults from the forces of Nur al-Din. It is noteworthy that thousands of Armenians preferred Frankish to Saracen rule and chose to abandon their homes in order to seek refuge in Jerusalem. These refugees flooded the Holy City, briefly overwhelming the capacity of charitable institutions to deal with them.

With the benefit of hindsight, historians often depict the capture of Edessa as the beginning of the end for the crusader states. In fact, Edessa had never been an objective of the crusade. It was not home to a single pilgrimage site. The population remained predominantly Armenian. Edessa might have been a useful buffer, but it was in no way essential to the raison d’être of the crusader states, their economy or their security.

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[i] Jotischky, Andrew. Crusading and the Crusader States. [Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004] 85.

 

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

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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Baldwin II

 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.

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