A Traitorous Baron? Raymond de Tripoli

Raymond of Tripoli, the most powerful baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the last quarter of the 12^th century, has always been controversial figure. His independent truce with Saladin in 1186, threatened the very existence of the kingdom at a time when it was surrounded by a resurgent Islam under a masterful general, Saladin. The Templar Grand Master went so far as to accuse Tripoli of conspiring with Saladin for a Saracen victory at the Battle of Hattin. In short, he has been blamed for nothing short of the disaster at Hattin and the loss of the Holy Land to Saladin. Yet, later historians such as Sir Stephen Runciman, have seen in Tripoli a voice of reason, compromise and tolerance -- a positive contrast to the fanaticism of the Templars and recent immigrants from the West such as Guy de Lusignan.  Tripoli was the inspiration for Ridley Scott’s “Tiberius” in the Hollywood film “The Kingdom of Heaven.”

 

While the Grand Master’s accusations can largely be dismissed as self-serving (the two men detested one another), and Scott’s portrayal is far from fact, even the most reliable and credible chronicler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in this period, William Archbishop of Tyre, has left an ambiguous image. On the whole the Archbishop of Tyre portrays Tripoli in a positive light, yet he also suggests offhandely that Tripoli was plotting a coup against Baldwin IV in 1180.  More recently, revisionist historians intent on challenging the still prevalent portrayal of Reyald de Chatillon as a madman, brute and self-interested rogue, have forcefully come out calling Raymond of Tripoli a "traitor" and the architect of the disaster at Hattin. In their zeal to rehabilitate Chatillon, I believe they overshoot the mark, however. Here is my analysis starting with some background.

The County of Tripoli was created after the liberation of Jerusalem by Raymond Count of Toulouse, one of the most important leaders of the First Crusade. Toulouse was widely believed to have coveted the crown of Jerusalem. When it fell to Godfrey de Bouillon instead, he set about conquering his own kingdom eventually capturing the entire coastal area between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Principality of Antioch. This gave the Latins control of three contiguous states along the shore of the Eastern Mediterranean. Although de jure autonomous, in reality the County of Tripoli did not have the resources to defend itself and so it was always quasi-dependent on the larger, more prosperous neighbors, Antioch and Jerusalem. In return, the Counts of Tripoli usually brought their knights, turcopoles and sergeants to the feudal muster of Jerusalem.

The Raymond of Tripoli under discussion here was the third by that name. His father Raymond II of Tripoli had been Count of Tripoli from 1137 and his mother, Hodiera, was a Princess of Jerusalem, the younger sister of Queen Melisende. However, the marriage was so notoriously turbulent that Queen Melisinde intervened and recommended an amicable separation. In 1152, Raymond II was assassinated, leaving his minor son Raymond III, his heir. The King of Jerusalem served as regent until Raymond came of age, and not long after this, in 1164, Raymond was taken captive by the Saracen leader Nur ad-Din. He was not released for eight years, and became proficient in Arabic while in captivity. It is often imputed by his enemies that it was during this period in captivity that he was "converted" or "coopted" by the the Muslims and in effect became as Saracen "mole" or "sleeper" in the Frankish camp.

When he was set free, it was for a ransom largely contributed by the Knights of St. John, and in exchange for the ransom he gave the Order considerable territory on his western border. Here the Hospitallers built a series of castles including the famous Krak de Chevaliers. 

So far, Raymond’s career had not been very auspicious. 

In 1174, however, King Amalric died suddenly, leaving his 13 year old son Baldwin as his heir.  As the closest male relative of the young king, Raymond of Tripoli was elected, although not immediately, regent. William of Tyre describes him as follows:

He was a slight-built, thin man. He was not very tall and he had dark skin. He had straight hair of medium color and piercing eyes. He carried himself stiffly. He had an orderly mind, was cautious, but acted with vigor.

Contemporary Arab chronicles noted he was highly intelligent, and this was borne out by his sophisticated diplomatic policies in the coming 15 years.

Shortly after becoming regent, Raymond also married for the first time, taking to wife the greatest heiress in the Kingdom, Eschiva, princess of Galilee. She was a widow with four sons by her previous marriage, but William of Tyre explicitly states it was a happy marriage and that Tripoli was on excellent terms with his step-sons. More important, however, the marriage made Tripoli the greatest nobleman inside the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a baron owing 200 knights to the crown. Thus, even after he stepped down as regent when Baldwin IV came of age in 1176, he remained a powerful figure in the kingdom as well as in his own right as Count of Tripoli.

By now, however, it was evident that Baldwin IV was suffering from leprosy and was not going to sire an heir — or live very long. The need to find a replacement was acute. Baldwin had two sisters, the elder of which, Sibylla, was the heir apparent to the throne, but the constitution of Jerusalem dictated that a female heir could only rule jointly with a consort. Sibylla was duly married to a suitable candidate (William Marquis de Montferrat), but he promptly died of malaria, leaving her a young (and pregnant) widow. In 1180, she made a surprise and hasty marriage to a young nobleman only recently arrived in the Holy Land, Guy de Lusignan. There are various versions about why she married Guy (see Sibylla and Guy). The version provided by William of Tyre is that the Prince of Antioch, the Baron of Ramla and Mirabel, and Raymond of Tripoli had been planning to marry Ramla to Sibylla and then depose Baldwin IV, so he married his sister off in great haste — only to regret it latter.

Because Tyre is considered such a knowledgeable insider and sober historian, most modern historians accept this version uncritically. I find it flawed in many ways. First, if Tripoli had been intent on power, he was in a far better position to seize it after becoming regent. Secondly, Tyre admits that the trio of lords came to Jerusalem as if to attend Easter Mass at the Holy Sepulcher, and when they found Sibylla already married they went away peaceably — which hardly sounds like the behavior of men intent on a coup d’etat. Most important, Sibylla’s behavior from this point until her death ten years later was that of a woman passionately in love with her husband. Had she in fact been married in haste against her will to a man far beneath her station by a panicked brother, she would probably have been resentful. She also would have  been receptive to the idea of setting the unwanted husband aside the minute her brother changed his mind. Instead, she clung tenaciously to Guy even when her brother pressed her to divorce him, and later went to great lengths to get her husband crowned king despite the opposition of the entire High Court.

Meanwhile, Baldwin IV was getting weaker. He briefly made Guy his regent in the hope of being able to retire from the world and prepare to face God, but Guy was such an unmitigated disaster that Baldwin was forced to take the reins of government back into his decaying hands. He then took the precaution of having his nephew (Sibylla’s son by William de Montferrat) crowned co-king as Baldwin V, and the High Court (i.e. his peers) selected Raymond of Tripoli to be regent after Baldwin IV’s death. The latter occurred in 1185, and Raymond duly became regent of Jerusalem a second time. He explicitly refused to be the guardian of the young king, however, arguing that if anything happened to the boy he would be accused of have done away with him.

Clearly some people thought him capable of murdering the young king, and Arab sources suggest that he already coveted the crown, but no one suggests that, in fact, he did murder the young king, who was in Sibylla’s not Raymond’s custody when he died in August 1186. What followed instead was not Tripoli's usurpation by Sibylla's, which left the crusader states in the hands of a completely incompetent man -- her husband Guy.

Raymond’s refusal to pay homage to Guy de Lusignan was completely comprehensible under the circumstances. His separate peace with Saladin, on the other hand, was just as clearly treason because it endangered not just he usurper Guy but every man, woman and child in the crusader states. This separate peace is what modern historians point to when calling Tripoli a traitor. But it is not the end of the story.

In Tripoli's defense, however, he soon saw the error of his ways. When Saladin requested a "safe-conduct" for a “reconnaissance patrol” to pass through Tripoli's lands of Galilee, Tripoli felt compelled to grant the request -- but warned his fellow Franks to leave the patrol in peace. The Saracen "reconnaissance patrol" was, however, a provocation that the Master of the Knights Templar felt honor-bound to meet. A combined attack by Templar, Hospitaller and civilian knights led by the Templar Grand Master resulted in a Frankish defeat from which only three Templars escaped. The sight of Templar and Hospitaller heads spiked on the tips of Saracen lances so distressed Raymond that he acceded to the pleas of the Baron of Ibelin and made peace with Guy de Lusignan. He did homage to the usurper as his king, and was received the kiss of peace from Guy. This is a very significant concession on both parts, and underlines how great Tripoli's remorse was.

The problem was that while Raymond’s action (and the abrogation of his treaty with Saladin) healed the fracture of the kingdom, it did not transform Guy de Lusignan into a competent leader. Raymond of Tripoli dutifully brought his troops to the feudal muster called by Lusignan in late June 1187, and he followed Lusignan’s orders, even though he vehemently disagreed with them. The catastrophe of Hattin was not of Raymond’s making; it was Guy de Lusignan and Grand Master of the Temple between them who had engineered the unnecessary defeat. (See Hattin.)

Trapped on the Horns of Hattin, Raymond of Tripoli led a successful charge through the Saracen lines. There is nothing even faintly cowardly or treacherous about this action. On the contrary, a massed charge of heavy cavalry was the most effective tactic the Franks had against the Saracens. It was the tactic used by Richard the Lionheart to win at Arsuf. It was not the charge that discredited Tripoli, but the fact that so few men broke out with him, and apparently no infantry was able to reinforce the breakout. That, however, was hardly Tripoli’s fault. He spearheaded the attack with is knights. It was the duty of the King to reinforce his shock-troops. Something Guy de Lusignan singularly failed to do.

So the Kingdom of Jerusalem was lost, and Raymond of Tripoli retreated to his own county to die within a few months by all accounts a broken man.

In summary, Raymond of Tripoli was a highly intelligent, well-educated and competent man, who as regent and Count of Tripoli ruled prudently and effectively. Yet he was condemned to watch as a parvenu usurper led the crusader states into an avoidable disaster. It is hardly any wonder that he harbored thoughts of seizing the throne himself when the alternative, as history was to show, was to leave it in the hands of a man so totally unsuited to wear a crown. If Tripoli was a traitor, it was for the right reasons: to save the kingdom from destruction. For me he more a tragic figure than a traitorous one. 

Tripoli is a character in my Jerusalem Trilogy, particularly Book II: "Defender of Jerusalem"

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"Hattin" by John France - A Review

Despite its title, this book is not about the Battle of Hattin. Instead, it is a concise history of the historical events that led up to the crushing defeat of the army of Jerusalem by Saladin in 1187, and an equally concise discussion of the aftermath and impact of Hattin right up to the present day. For anyone interested in understanding the rhetoric about “crusades” in the context of today’s conflict with ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, and al Qaida, this book is an incredibly useful starting point.

“Hattin” is only 168 pages long, contains useful maps, a collection of interesting photographs and a useful bibliography. Despite its brevity, on the whole it avoids over simplification and the usual misrepresentations of basic facts. France, for example, makes clear right on page 3 that “many parts of the Middle East, especially those areas seized by the westerners, were not Muslim at all but eastern Christian: their populations often welcomed the new rulers.” He highlights the fact, so often forgotten or ignored today, that Muslim raiders had burned St. Peter’s in Rome in 847 and draws attention to the very real fear of Islamic expansion and conquest that shaped European attitudes right up to the First Crusade. Yet he also notes that once the crusader states had been established “the western settlers were far from fanatical, understanding the importance of exploiting Muslim divisions.” (p.37)

France does a remarkable job of making the complex and (particularly to Western eyes) very confusing divisions and rivalries within the Muslim world comprehensible. He manages to boil down the intrigues that led to Saladin’s seizure of power in Egypt to the essentials, and likewise avoids the usual drivel about the barons of Jerusalem being self-seeking and exceptionally greedy or perversely divided. France notes soberly: “All aristocracies were inevitably divided by factional struggles in which personal likes and dislikes played a major role.” (p.65) In short, there was nothing particularly unique about this in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and nothing inherently fatal about it. France also highlights that “the barons of Jerusalem were not, for the most part, fanatics…but they were fiercely and proudly Catholic and deeply aware of the dangers posed by their Muslim neighbours to their very existence…As a whole they were quite prepared to deal peacefully with the Muslims, but they were also aware that they needed to be strong….”

France does his best to reconstruct the Battle of Hattin itself, but given the absence of first-hand Christian accounts the task is nearly impossible. The contradictions in later accounts written with the benefit of hindsight and designed to serve various contemporary agendas and biases, make a variety of interpretations both plausible and defensible. France’s account is no more than one plausible interpretation, and he only devotes 15 pages to the battle itself. This is completely justifiable as the book far from being about tactical details of no particular relevance in the 21^st century but rather about the impact of Hattin both strategically and ideologically.

France’s most valuable contribution to the literature on the crusades and Hattin is his last chapter titled “Hattin Today: A Poisoned Heritage.” In this chapter he not only traces and explains the emergence of the “chivalrous” Saladin myth in the 13^th and later centuries, he catalogues the various ways in which Saladin and Hattin have been harnessed to modern ideologies and aspirations from the Ottoman empire to ISIS.  France argues, “the European myth of Saladin arose from the desire among the military aristocracy to show the victor as a worthy, indeed praiseworthy opponent who, underneath it all, is ‘one of us’ in some sense.” (p. 142) In the Muslim world, on the other hand, by the 19^th century “the crusader-imperialist linkage catered to the growing sense of victimhood across Islam….” Later, he notes, “the parallel between the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and Israel, which occupied much the same territory, provided a permanent reminder of the crusading past.” (p. 152) He notes that Saddam Hussein gave one of his divisions the name “Saladin” — and built a statue of himself dressed as Saladin. The PLO had both a “Saladin” and a “Hattin” brigade. The Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS to this day lay claim “to the inheritance of Saladin and aspire to cleave a way to a new Hattin.” (p. 159)

Given the very real fact that Hattin has, as France puts it, “become a rallying cry for radical Islamic groups, and a factor in the politics of hate in the Middle East,” (p. 168) anyone who wants to understand international affairs today owes it to himself to read this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

The battle of Hattin is a key event in:

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Defender of Jerusalem won the 2015 Chaucer Award for Historical Fiction set in the Middle Ages and the Silver for Spiritual/Religious Fiction in the 2015 Feathered Quill Book Awards. 

The Reluctant Crusader? Henry II and the Holy Land

Henry II's Effigy on his Tomb at Frontevralt.

Henry II of England is not remembered as a crusader. Afterall, although he took crusader vows, he never actually went to the Holy Land. Indeed, most historians credit Henry II with disdaining crusading in preference to building an empire at home. Yet a focus on Henry’s legacy in the West obscures the fact that his ties to -- and arguably his concerns for -- the Holy Land were much closer than is commonly remembered. 

First of all, his grandfather, Fulk d’Anjou, was King of Jerusalem.  He had turned over French his inheritance to his son Geoffrey in order to go to the Holy Land and marry the heiress to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Melisende. Thus Henry's father, Geoffrey d’Anjou, was half-brother to Kings Baldwin III (reigned 1143 – 1162) and Amalaric I (1162-1174) of Jerusalem. Henry II himself was first cousin to the ill-fated Baldwin IV of Jerusalem (King 1174-1185) and both his sisters, Sibylla (Queen of Jerusalem 1186-1190) and Isabella (Queen of Jerusalem 1190 -1204.)

The Arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

As early as 1166, Henry levied a crusading tax. Although we know little about this tax it significantly pre-dates the murder of Thomas of Becket or the crises in the Holy Land brought on by the rise of Saladin and the leprosy of Baldwin IV. Rather, it coincides with a period of crusader strength and aggression as Amalric I led multiple invasions of Egypt. As such, this tax tells us significantly that Henry was not responding to clerical pressure to "rescue" Jerusalem. It is far more likely he was responding to a request from his cousin for financial assistance to expand Angevin interests on the other side of the Mediterranean. Henry II in 1166 was at the peak of his power. Neither his wife nor his sons had yet rebelled against him. Louis VII was still King of France. Henry II had nothing to fear at home. He may have been bored and looking for new fields of endeavor. A crusade may have appealed to his sense of adventure and family pride. We will never know. 

After Thomas of Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral, however, Henry II publicly took the cross in 1172, and promised to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This obviously was intended as penance and very different in character from helping his cousin on an aggressive campaign. Yet Henry's willingness to take the cross may have reflected an underlying interest in going to the Holy Land anyway. Before he could depart, however, his wife and eldest three sons rose up in revolt against his authority and he was formally excused by the Pope from fulfilling his crusader vow. 

In 1177, however, Henry II again pledged to go on crusade. The context this time was a treaty with France that was intended in part to distract the Kings of England and France from preying upon each other and turn their aggressive instincts and mercenary armies on the foes of Christendom rather than each other. But the hostility between  Plantagenet and Capet could not be patched over with a pledge to go fight in the Holy Land -- certainly not at a time when all seemed well in Jerusalem. After all, it was in November 1177 that Baldwin IV decisively defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard. So nothing came of this crusading vow.

Yet, Henry's failure to actually go on crusade is not proof of indifference to the Holy Land. On the contrary, Henry's concern for his cousin's kingdom was documented by annual contributions to a crusade fund. The money was entrusted in equal amounts to the Templars and Hospitallers. This means that the money could be deposited in London, and paid out in Jerusalem through the networks of the Templars and Hospitallers. This was hard cash that went to the vaults of the Templars and Hospitaller in Jerusalem year after year to ensure that King Henry would have the funds he needed to recruit, equip, pay and feed an appropriate force of troops when he did reach Jerusalem on crusade. 

In 1182, Henry Plantagenet fell ill. He thought he was on his deathbed and made a will. The largest money bequests were to the Holy Land. He bequeathed 5,000 marks (a mark was a measure of currency equal to 2/3 of a pound sterling) to each the Templars and the Hospitallers for the defense of the Holy Land. He left an additional 5,000 marks to the militant orders to use jointly in the defense of the Holy Land. In short, he left 15,000 marks, or 10,000 pounds sterling -- an enormous sum in the late 12th century -- to the military orders for the defense of the Holy Land.

Since he did not die in 1182, this money never reached the crusader kingdom, but the very next year, after initial resistance, Henry II was persuaded to finance a crusade by his eldest son, Henry the Young King. It is debatable whether the Young King ever intended to go on crusade or not, so perhaps it was an easy promise for his father to make.  

By 1184, the situation in the Holy Land had deteriorated dramatically. Baldwin IV of Jerusalem was dying, and his co-king Baldwin V, the young child of his sister, was also sickly. The next obvious candidate to succeed Baldwin IV was his sister Sibylla, but she was married to a completely unsuitable man, Guy de Lusignan. The King of Jerusalem therefore took the desperate measure of sending the Masters of the Hospital and Temple along with the Patriarch of Jerusalem to the West with an unusual plea. He did not ask for a new crusade, as so often in the past. Instead his emissaries took with them the keys to the Tower of David and the Holy Sepulcher -- the symbols of secular and sacred power in Jerusalem. Their mission was to convince the Western rulers to send not an army but a prince -- someone to step into the dying king's footsteps.  

Henry's reaction is again used as evidence of his reluctance to crusade, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem bitterly accused Henry of duplicity and procrastination. Certainly, he failed to answer the call and forbade his youngest son John from going on crusade as well. Yet Henry himself had put the question to his barons of whether he was to be King of England or Jerusalem because he could not be both. There is nothing inherently deceitful about putting England (Normandy, Anjou and Maine) ahead of distant Jerusalem. Henry was no longer at the peak of power. He was fighting for his survival and that of his "empire." 

Finally, when the news reached him in 1187 of the fall of Jerusalem and the desperate straits of the Kingdom, Henry II again took a crusader vow. While many historians (and even more novelists) disparage this as a ploy, it is just as possible that he was sincere – so long as those who coveted his kingdom and threatened his crown, Philip II of France and his son Richard – went on crusade with him. We will never know how sincere his intentions were because he died before the Third Crusade got underway.

Meanwhile, however, his treasure had already played a crucial role in the history of Jerusalem. There are no figures for just how large King Henry’s treasure was, but money had deposited annually since 1172 and the figure of 30,000 silver marks is often named. Significantly, the money had been entrusted to the militant orders for safe keeping, and distributed equally between them, rather than favoring one over the other. This, unintentionally, resulted in his treasure having two very different uses.

In 1187, as Saladin prepared to launch an all-out offensive against the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem, King Guy had little choice but to call-up a levee en masse to put the largest force possible in the way of the invaders. Against a force of 45,000 including some 12,000 cavalry, King Guy could muster only about 1,000 knights, 4,000 light horse and some 15,000 infantry. In light of this, the Grand Master of the Templars, Gerard de Ridefort, handed over King Henry’s treasure to finance more fighting men. It is unclear from the sources whether these were mercenaries, light troops, or, as some say, the outfitting of 200 additional knights. In any case, Henry II’s money helped contribute to the army that marched out to meet Saladin – and was destroyed on the Horns of Hattin on July 4, 1187.


Hans Eberhard Mayer makes the point that the Grand Master of the Temple made the decision to break into King Henry's treasure without the permission of the English King.  He further suggests that it was fear of the great Angevin's wrath that forced Guy de Lusignan's hand at Hattin. Having effectively stolen King Henry's treasure, Guy de Lusignan (or at any rate the Templar Master, who had violated the Templar's code of trustworthiness) needed a victory to justify such an unprecedented act. Mayer writes:

"The opening of Henry's treasure gave the Templar master a disproportionate influence on the king. But what counted more was the predictable wrath of Henry II when he learnt about the opening. It could be justified, and Henry's wrath cooled, only by a spectacular success ....[A]lready at the time when the army was assembled, precautions had been taken to pacify Henry when the King of Jerusalem ordered that the soldiers hired with English money should fight under the English flag. The hoped for success was to be presented to Henry as being due largely to his money, but first there had to be success at practically all costs."  (Hans Eberhard Mayer, "Henry II of England," Kings and Lords in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Variorum, 1194, p. 737.)

The Grand Master of the Hospitallers, however, did not release King Henry’s treasure in advance of the Battle of Hattin. The money Henry II had deposited with the Hospitallers for the Holy Land was still in Jerusalem when the city surrendered to Saladin in October 1187. The terms of the surrender allowed the residents 40 days to raise a ransom of 10 dinars per man, 5 dinars per woman and 2 dinars per child. Those who failed to pay the ransom, became slaves by right of conquest at the end of the 40 days. 

At the time these terms were negotiated, the Christian defender of Jerusalem, Balian d’Ibelin, knew that there were 40,000 (some sources say 100,000) refugees in the city.  He knew that many of these were destitute, having lost all they owned to Saladin already. They were in no position to pay their ransom. Ibelin therefore negotiated the release of 18,000 poor for a lump sum of 30,000 dinars. 

Sources differ, however, on where this money was to come from. Some suggest that it came from King Henry’s treasure, but others suggest the initial sum was paid from the treasury of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but that it soon became evident that there were many more poor in the city than Ibelin had estimated – or had the resources to ransom. (He’d lost all his lands to Saladin already too.) It was at this juncture, they say, that the Hospitallers handed over King Henry’s treasure to ransom as many of the poor as they could. In the end, even Henry’s treasure was not enough and some 15,000 Christians were sold into slavery. Nevertheless, King Henry of England played an important role in ransoming thousands of Christians trapped in Jerusalem, minimizing the number sold into slavery. His son, of course, played an even greater role in rescuing the Kingdom from complete obliteration, but that is another story….

The Battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem in 1187 are described in the second book of my Balian d'Ibelin series, Defender of Jerusalem.

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Montgisard Revisited -- The Consequences of the Christian Victory

A modern portrayal of the Battle of Montgisard by Mariusz Kozik, copyright Marius Kozik

As described last year, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem crushed and humiliated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard on Nov. 25, 1177. Although Saladin had invaded with a force estimated at 26,000 light horse and an unspecified number of infantry, he was decisively defeated by a force under the command of Baldwin IV numbering something less than 500 knights, also supported by unquantified numbers of foot soldiers.  Baldwin IV was at this time an untried youth of 16, already suffering from leprosy. Saladin, in contrast, was a highly successful leader already 41, who had proved himself repeatedly in both defensive and offensive warfare. 

Just ten years later, however, on July 4, 1187 the entire Christian army with an estimated 1,600 knights, thousands of Turcopoles and tens of thousands of infantry was obliterated by Saladin at the Battle of Hattin. The garrisons of the cities and towns of the kingdom had been denuded to bring together this record force, and after the battle there were insufficient fighting men left alive in freedom to defend the rest of the kingdom. City after city and castle after castle surrendered to Saladin. Within a year, the once proud Kingdom of Jerusalem that had stretched from modern-day Turkey to the Red Sea, encompassing much of modern-day Lebanon, Israel and Jordan, had been reduced to a single city: Tyre. 

Despite the Third Crusade that recovered the coast of the Levant for Christendom, the Kingdom of Jerusalem was never again self-sustainable, much less a threat to the Muslim states surrounding it. It survived almost a hundred years longer, but from 1187 onwards it was living on borrowed time. The defeat at Hattin has so over-shadowed the victory at Montgisard, that Montgisard is treated as little more than a footnote in history, a curiosity rather than a event of historical significance. 

This is somewhat oversimplified because it ignores two important consequences of Montgisard. First, that Saladin learned his lesson and never again showed contempt for his Christian opponents. He was, as a result of Montgisard, a far more cautious commander when engaging the Franks in the decade that followed. He was careful to retain control of his troops (for the most part), and avoided pitched battles with the Franks unless he had chosen the position and believed himself at a clear advantage. 

Second, the victory at Montgisard (and subsequent victories of King Baldwin, especially at Le Forbelet and Kerak) lulled Western rulers into a sense of complacency. Baldwin's frantic appeals for sustainable assistance in the form of a king ready to take up his burden fell on deaf ears. No monarch in Western Europe understood just how precarious the situation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was -- until Jerusalem fell.

Had Baldwin IV been defeated at Montgisard, it is highly unlikely that this would have led to the loss of the Kingdom. The bulk of the Christian army was not even at Montgisard; it was engaged in an offensive campaign in the north. Thus even the complete obliteration of Baldwin's force at Montgisard would not have denuded the kingdom of fighting men as did the defeat at Hattin did ten years later. The defeat would have created a highly dangerous situation in which Saladin might well have seized control of key assets from Ascalon to Jerusalem itself. However, an intact fighting force and the kingdom's most experienced commanders such as Humphrey de Toron II and Raymond de Tripoli, would still have been in a position to come to the relief of any city taken by Saladin.  In short, the Christian kingdom would have been in a difficult, but not hopeless, situation, and the West might have been alerted to the danger facing the crusader states before it was too late.

Even the death of Baldwin IV at Montgisard would not have had disastrous consequences. It would have shortened his own life by less than a decade, and it would have made Sibylla queen before her marriage to Guy de Lusignan. As a reigning queen, she would probably have been a more attractive bride to a Western ruler. At a minimum, her marriage would have been negotiated by the High Court of Jerusalem with a mind to what was best for the kingdom, not Sibylla's personal inclinations. 

Satisfying as the victory at Montgisard seemed at the time -- and it was widely seen as a sign of Divine favor for Baldwin and his kingdom -- in retrospect it contributed to the disaster at Hattin. Montgisard did not make Hattin inevitable. Many other developments (e.g. William of Montferrat's survival, Sibylla's marriage to the Baron of Ramla, the successful coronation of Isabella instead of Sibylla etc.) could also have averted the catastrophe at Hattin. Nevertheless, with the wisdom of hindsight, Montgisard was perhaps too successful for the long term good of the Christianity in the Holy Land.

The Battles of Montgisard and Hattin are key events in my novels Knight of Jerusalem and Defender of Jerusalem respectively.

A landless knight, 

a leper king,

and the struggle for Jerusalem.

 A divided kingdom,

a united enemy,

and the struggle for Jerusalem

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