Jerusalem is Lost! The Surrender of Jerusalem 1187

The Damascus Gate of Jerusalem by which some of Saladin's troops would have entered the city.

On Oct. 2, 1187, the gates of Jerusalem opened to admit Salah ad-Din and his army. The most holy city in Christendom, site of Christ’s passion, had been surrendered to the Muslims after 88 years of Christian rule. The surrender of Jerusalem was the inevitable consequence of the devastating defeat of the feudal forces of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin three months earlier. That battle had left Jerusalem defenseless; all fighting men including the knights of the Temple and the Hospital had been called up to halt the invasion that ended in disaster at Hattin, leaving the city itself denuded of troops. Left behind in Jerusalem were non-combatants: women, children, the old and infirm and the clergy. Furthermore, by the time Jerusalem surrendered, these civilian residents of Jerusalem had been joined by as many as 60,000 to 80,000 refugees from other parts of the Kingdom overrun by Saladin’s troops. An estimated 100,000 Christians were in Jerusalem when it surrendered, predominantly women, children and clergy.

What is remarkable about the surrender of Jerusalem in 1187 was not that it surrendered under the circumstances, but that it did not surrender without a fight. Saladin had offered the inhabitants very generous terms. He said he did not want to risk damage to the holy sites in Jerusalem (as was nearly inevitable in a siege and assault) and therefore offered to let the inhabitants leave peacefully with all their portable goods if they would surrender peacefully. But the anonymous “burgesses” who represented the city of Jerusalem in the absence of any noblemen refused. According to the Old French continuation of the Chronicle of William Tyre (widely believed to be based on first-hand accounts) the “burgesses” replied “if it pleased God they would never surrender the city.” Saladin the offered to leave the city alone for roughly six months if they promised to surrender the city at the end of that time, if no reinforcements had arrived. They still refused, saying again “if it pleased God they would never surrender that city where God had shed His blood for them.”[1] This was a clear commitment to martyrdom rather than surrender — perhaps not such a surprising sentiment from a city that at this time must have been dominated by clergy as they would have been the only men of “authority” (read noble birth and education) left in the city.

The "Dome of the Rock" errected over the rock on which Mohammend allegedly ascended into Heaven; it was this monument sacred to Islam that Saladin did not want to risk damaging in a siege and assault.

But Saladin did not enter Jerusalem over the corpses of “martyrs” and their families. He entered it peacefully after a negotiated settlement that ended a week of ferocious fighting.  Ibn al-Athir writes: “Then began the fiercest struggle imaginable; each side looked on the fight as absolute religious obligation. There was no need for a superior authority to drive them on: they restrained the enemy without restraint, and drove them off without being driven off. Every morning the Frankish cavalry made sorties to fight and provoke the enemy to battle; several of both sides fell in these encounters.”[2] Imad ad-Din’s report is (as always) even more melodramatic in his description. According to him, “They challenged [us] to combat and barred the pass, they came down into the lists like enemies, they slaughtered and drew blood, they blazed with fury and defended the city, they fumed and burned with wrath, they drove us back…. They fought grimly and struggled with all their energy, descending to the fray with absolute resolution… they blazed and set fire to things…they made themselves a target for arrows and called on death to stand by them.”[3] Turning to Christian sources, the source considered by scholars the most authentic claims that: “The Christians sallied forth and fought with the Saracens…. On two or three occasions the Christians pushed the Saracens back to their tents.”[4] Women, children and clergy did that? For eight days?

Clearly this was not merely a fanatical but a well-organized defense, and the key to that is one man: Balian d’Ibelin. Balian, Baron of Ibelin, had been one of only four barons to escape the catastrophe at Hattin. At Hattin he had commanded the third largest contingent of troops after the King and the Count of Tripoli, and he, along with the Templars, had been charged with the thankless and gruesome task of commanding the rear-guard in a situation where it was under near continuous attack while on the march. The Templars suffered enormous losses during this march and we must assume that Ibelin did too. Certainly, when he broke out of the trap at Hattin it was with at most 3,000 infantry and a couple hundred knights. These troops, however, he had led to Tyre. His presence in Jerusalem was solitary — the result of a safe-conduct granted him by Saladin so that he could remove his wife and children to safety. The terms of the safe-conduct were that he go to Jerusalem unarmed and remain only one night. On arrival, however, the citizens of Jerusalem and particularly the Patriarch begged him to remain and take command of the defense. This he did.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem and the Patriarch clearly recognized Ibelin’s value. He wasn’t just any baron, he was a man who had played a prominent role in the defeat of Saladin at Montgisard, and had fought at every major battle against Saladin since. Still, he was just one man. He brought not a single additional fighting man to the defense of Jerusalem, and -- on taking stock of what men he had in Jerusalem -- he discovered there was only one other knight in the entire city. This induced him to knight over eighty youths of “good birth,” which was undoubtedly a morale-booster to the individuals honored, but hardly a significant increase in the fighting strength of the defenders!

The Seal of Balian d'Ibelin's son John

So how did Ibelin put up such a ferocious and effective defense with women, children and clergy for 8 days?  We don’t know exactly, however, it is clear Ibelin must have had an exceptional organizational talent and also been a charismatic and inspirational leader. He would have had to organize civilians into improvised units, and then assign these units discrete tasks — whether it was defending a sector of the wall, putting out fires, or ensuring that the men and women doing the fighting were supplied with water, food and ammunition. Most astonishing, his improvised units not only repulsed assaults, they also sortied out several times, destroying some of Saladin’s siege engines, and “two or three times” chasing the Saracens all the way back to the palisades of their camp.

Ibelin must have relied heavily upon women in his defense of Jerusalem. The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre quotes the Patriarch of Jerusalem saying: “For every man that is in this city, there are fifty women and children.” [5] Furthermore, we know from sieges only a few decades later in the Languedoc (notably the siege of Toulouse in which Simon de Montfort was killed) that women could be very active in manning the walls. Unlike Victorian women, medieval women were not known for being delicate and prone to swooning. They were partners in crafts and trades, often had their own businesses, and when it came to this siege they understood perfectly what was at stake: their freedom.

Although hard to see in this medieval depiction, the siege engine that fired the fatal shot against Simon de Montfort was allegedly manned by women.

Notably, the Arab sources never acknowledge this simple fact. First of all, their own women were not in a position to contribute to the defense, so women manning siege engines, pouring boiling oil over the ramparts, or even exposing themselves to danger to bring men (strange men not their husbands, brothers or sons) water, food and ammunition was utterly inconceivable to them.  Secondly, it was considered dishonorable to be killed by a woman under any circumstances, so no one wanted to even contemplate this possibility; it would have disgraced the fallen. Instead, the Arab sources explained the surprisingly spirited and tenacious defense of Jerusalem to phantom survivors of Hattin. Imad ad-Din conjures up no less than “70,000 Frankish troops, both swordsmen and archers”[6] — a fantastic figure more than double the total Frankish army deployed (and destroyed) at Hattin!

After five days of futile assaults on the northwest corner of the city from the Gate of St. Stephen to David's Gates, Saladin had nothing but casualties to show for his efforts. He therefore redeployed opposite the northeast corner of the city. More important, he deployed sappers to undermine the walls.  The sappers were protected by heavy wooden roofs and platforms as well as covering fire. Within three days they managed to dig tunnels under the city walls, and on September 29 a segment of the northern wall roughly 30 meters long collapsed. Although the Christians managed to beat-back the initial assaults sent through the breach, by nightfall it was clear that the city was now no longer defensible.

That night, Ibelin led a last desperate sortie out of the Jehosaphat Gate, probably directed at Saladin’s own tent, which had been set up on the Mount of Olives. The sortie was easily repulsed. As dawn broke on September 30, the remaining inhabitants of Jerusalem, residents and refugees alike, were facing almost certain slaughter. Because they had rejected his generous terms earlier, Saladin had sworn before multiple witnesses that he would take the city by force and spare no one.

Nevertheless, under a flag of truce Ibelin sought a parlay with Saladin. The Sultan met with Ibelin outside the walls of the city, but flatly refused to negotiate. He reiterated his intention to take the city by force. Indeed, while Ibelin and Saladin were speaking, the Sultan’s banners were planted on the northeast corner of the city, and Saladin pointed out that no one negotiated for a city he already possessed. Fortunately for the Christians in the city, the Sultan’s banners were tossed down again; Ibelin could retort that Saladin did not yet possess the city. Ibelin then played his only trump. He told Saladin that if the defenders knew they would be granted no mercy, then they would fight all the harder. Not just that, he said, they would slaughter their own families, the Muslim prisoners/slaves inside Jerusalem, and the livestock, and then they would destroy the holy places — including the Rock sacred to Islam — before sallying forth to certain death intent on taking as many of the enemy to their graves with them as possible.

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives Today; the Dome of the Rock is visible between the trees.

Saladin, who had already made his desire to preserve the holy places known, capitulated in face of this blackmail. After consulting with this emirs, he agreed to spare the lives of the Christians in Jerusalem, but only on the condition that they bought freedom. After much haggling, it was agreed that each man would have to pay 10 dinar, each woman 5 and each child 2. Those that could not pay this ransom would become the property of the Sultan, slaves.

Ibelin protested that the city was full of refugees, who had already lost everything. According to the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre he argued “In a city such as this there are only a few people apart from the burgesses who could manage [the ransom], and for every man who can pay the ransom there are a hundred who could not redeem themselves even for two bezants. For the city is full of ordinary people who have come from the surrounding area for protection.”[7] After considerable haggling, the Sultan agreed to a lump-sum payment of 30,000 bezants for (varying by source) between 7, 000 and 18,000 Christian paupers.

The Medieval Working-Class would have had difficulty paying the ransom set by Saladin. 

These 30,000 bezants were paid by the Hospital with the money deposited by King Henry II of England, but even so when the 40 days granted the Christians to raise their ransoms were up, some 15,000 Christians were unable to pay and condemned to slavery. Ibelin, appalled, offered to stand surety for them while the ransom was raised, but Saladin refused, although he did “give” 1,000 slaves to his brother and 500 each to Balian and the Patriarch of Jerusalem, so that 2,000 souls were freed at the last minute.

Allegedly, some non-Latin Christians also opted to pay the extra taxes imposed on Christians in Muslim states in order to remain in Jerusalem, but there is no indication that the non-Latin Christians undermined the defense of Jerusalem itself. On the contrary, they appear to have contributed substantially to the defense of Jerusalem as long as the fighting was going on. Only after the city became indefensible as a result of the breach in the wall, did they begin to seek a compromise with their assailants — a perfectly comprehensible reaction that does not imply fundamental hostility to the Latin rulers of Jerusalem.

On November 18, 1187, forty days after the surrender of Jerusalem, the Christians departed Jerusalem, leaving the city in Muslim hands. The news of the fall of Jerusalem allegedly killed Pope Urban III and so shocked the Christian kingdoms in the West that it set in motion the Third Crusade.

The siege and surrender of Jerusalem in 1187 is described in:

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[1] The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, translated and quoted The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, by Peter Edbury, p. 55.

[2] Ibn al-Athir, translated and quoted in Arab Historians of the Crusades by Francesco Gabrieli, p. 140-141.

[3] Imad ad Din, translated quoted and translated in Arab Historians of the Crusades by Francesco Gabrieli, p. 154.

[4] Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, translated and quoted The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, by Peter Edbury, p. 56.

[5] Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, translated and quoted The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, by Peter Edbury, p. 58.

[6] Imad ad Din, translated quoted and translated in Arab Historians of the Crusades by Francesco Gabrieli, p. 154.

[7] Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, translated and quoted The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, by Peter Edbury, p. 60.

King Henry's Treasure and the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Henry II's Effigy on his Tomb at Frontevralt.

Henry II of England is one of England’s most colorful, fascinating and controversial kings.  He is usually remembered for forging the Angevin Empire, for his tempestuous relationship with his strong-willed and powerful queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, for the murder of Thomas Becket, and – among more serious scholars – for laying the foundations of English Common Law.

He is not remembered as a crusader. This is because, 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. Certainly, his refusal to accept the keys of the Holy Sepulchre from the Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1185, reflected a preference for holding on to what he had over seeking glory and salvation “beyond the sea” in “Outremer.”

Yet a focus on Henry’s legacy in the West obscures the fact that his ties to the Holy Land were much closer than is commonly remembered. First of all, his grandfather, Fulk d’Anjou, had turned over his inheritance to his son Geoffrey in order to go to the Holy Land and marry the heiress to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Melisende. Geoffrey d’Anjou was thus the half-brother of Kings Baldwin III (reigned 1143 – 1162) and Amalaric I (1162-1174) of Jerusalem. This made Henry II first cousin to the ill-fated Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. 

The Arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

Baldwin IV suffered from leprosy and could not sire an heir. As his condition worsened and the armies of Saladin drew stronger, he looked desperately for a successor capable of defending his inheritance. He did not see this either in his five year old nephew, or in the husbands of his sisters. It is before this incipient succession crisis, with Saladin beating the drums of jihad at his doorstep, that the mission of the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Grand Masters of the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller of 1185 must be seen. Baldwin IV sent these emissaries to offer the keys to the Holy Sepulchre and the Tower of David first to Philip II of France and then to Henry II of England. By all accounts, Baldwin’s real hopes lay with Henry II – a powerful monarch, who had proved his abilities on the battlefield again and again. The Patriarch’s plea was for Henry II – or one of his sons – to come to Jerusalem and, implicitly, take the crown itself. Baldwin IV, many historians believe, wanted Henry II to end the succession crisis and restore the House of Anjou in the East.

The Tower of David in Jerusalem, Seat of the Kings of Jerusalem

Henry II, as I noted above, declined to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and surrender his hereditary lands for the Kingdom of Jerusalem. But he was far from indifferent to the fate of his cousin or the Holy Land. As early as 1172, when Henry II had become reconciled with the Church for his role in the murder of Thomas Becket, he had taken the cross and started accumulating “large sums” of money in Jerusalem. This money, historian Malcolm Barber writes in The Crusader States, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2012) was “intended for use when he eventually travelled to the East.” In 1182, Henry II made a will which left an additional 5,000 marks silver to both the Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller for the defense of the Holy Land, and another 5,000 marks was bequeathed for the general “defense of the Holy Land.” That is a total of 15,000 marks silver, an enormous sum, which he intended for the defense of the Holy Land.

Manuscript Illustration of a 12^th Century King

Since he did not die in 1182, this money never reached the crusader kingdom, but three years later, although Henry felt he dare not leave his kingdom in 1185 (at a time when the French and his sons were trying to tear it apart), he did agree to a special tax (often referred to as the “Saladin Tax”) the proceeds of which were also to go to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

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 it was undoubtedly more than the 15,000 silver marks mentioned in his will of 1182 because there had been money deposited prior to this, and the “Saladin Tax” that came afterwards. Significantly, the money had been entrusted to the militant orders for safe keeping. This means that the money could be deposited in London, and paid out in Jerusalem through the networks of the Templars and Hospitallers. Furthermore, based on the testament of 1182, it would appear that Henry carefully distributed the funds between the two militant orders, 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.

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 some 40,000 (some sources say 100,000) Latin Christian 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….

"Jerusalem" by Cecilia Holland - A Review

Holland clearly is an experienced writer with considerable competence. She can construct a good scene, build up suspense and her characters are nuanced and complex, yet this book utterly failed to captivate me.

In part it was the constant, minor inaccuracies that nagged at me like flies.  No, it’s not terribly important that Felx isn’t a German name (Felix is) and “Deutschlander” isn’t a word — in any language. No, it’s not important that Nablus belonged to Maria Comnena not Agnes de Courtney, or that Baldwin d’Ibelin wasn’t Balian’s younger, landless brother, but the first born and Baron of Ramla and Mirabelle, one of the richest baronies in the Kingdom. But it rubbed me the wrong way that the author of a book titled “Jerusalem” had obviously never been there. If she had, she would know the Temple Mount is not the highest point in the city and that the David Gate (now Jaffa Gate) faces west not east, among other things. It also set my teeth on edge to have 12^th century knights portrayed as earring-wearing dandies with feathers in their caps, while the court scenes read like Versailles in the age of Louis XIV rather than like barons of a Kingdom conquered and held for a hundred years by cagy, clever and astonishingly successful fighting men.

To be sure, Holland wrote her novel before the excellent histories of the period by Bernard Hamilton and Malcolm Barber were released, so she must be forgiven for her inaccurate portrayal of Baldwin IV’s leprosy. And, of course, she is within her rights as a novelist to completely ignore the subsequent Queen of Jerusalem, Isabella, and to make Tripoli a coward on the Litani (although historically he captured Saladin’s nephew), but as a historian the gratuitous changes to the historical record that do not move the plot forward just seem sloppy. Why have Balian d’Ibelin taken captive at both the Litani and Hattin when he was captured at neither? Why refer to Farrukh Shah as Saladin’s brother when he was his nephew?

For readers with no particular interest in accurate history, these errors might seem unimportant, yet it was not just the eclectic mixture of historical fact and sheer fancy that ultimately made me dislike this book: it was the lack of positive characters. Holland’s characters may be complex but only in their layers of unsavoriness. I am repelled by male protagonists for whom “love” manifests itself as the desire to rape, and by female leads that fling themselves at men they hardly know and beg to be debauched. In this book there are no heroes one can really care about: all the Christian lords are either effeminate cowards or brutal barbarians, and even Saladin is portrayed as a vengeful tyrant. There is no nobility or honest kindness and affection in this book, and so it left a sour taste in my mouth: it seemed like an insult to Jerusalem.

The Establishment of the Crusader States

The first crusade re-established Christian rule over some parts of the Holy Land, notably Antioch and Jerusalem, but the Western knights and noblemen who finally made it to Jerusalem felt they had been betrayed by the Byzantine Emperor.  Instead of returning the territory they had captured to Byzantine control, the crusaders established a series of independent states with Christian rulers: the Principality of Antioch, the County of Edessa, the County of Tripoli, and – most important – the Kingdom of Jerusalem. (Later, during the Third Crusade, the Latin Kingdom of Cyprus was also established, but that will be dealt with in a separate entry.)

Initially, these "kingdoms" were little more than Christian-controlled islands in an Islamic sea, separated from one another by large swaths of territory. Between 1099 and 1144 the Christians steadily increased their area of control -- in most cases giving the defeated Muslim defenders of cities and castles a safe-conduct after surrender. By 1144, the crusaders controlled the entire coastline of the Levant from south of Gaza to roughly Antalya. In short, the crusader kingdoms covered all of what is now Israel, most of modern Jordan, Lebanon, and parts of Syria and Anatolia as well.

The Arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem

The crusaders who founded and ruled these states were a tiny elite of Latin Christians from Western Europe, dependent economically on the local population – composed predominantly of Byzantine, Syrian, and Maronite Christians, with smaller populations of Jews, Muslims, and new settlers from the West – all speaking a variety of languages. Although Latin churches were built and the various Latin religious orders soon established a presence, neither the Orthodox Churches, nor the synagogues nor mosques were destroyed; the inhabitants of the crusader kingdoms were free to follow their religious conscience. 

Furthermore, the states were at the crossroads of trade between East and West, and the ports of Christian Palestine were the key points for trans-shipping the riches brought by caravan from China, Persia, Egypt, and Arabia to the entire Western world. This made these states both prosperous and cosmopolitan. The crusader states, known collectively in the West as “Outremer” (beyond the sea), rapidly became a melting pot for culture and a breeding ground for art and science.