Clash of Cultures: Crusaders vs the Crusader States

Acre, the commercial heart of the crusader states, where the clash of culture often occurred.

Last week I described some of the urban architecture in the crusader states that inspired admiration — but also envy — on the part of visitors from the West. Throughout the existence of the crusader states, pilgrims from the West flocked to the Holy Land, some in search of salvation, some simply “sight-seeing,” and some as “armed pilgrims” to offer their sword (or bow or axe) in the defense of the Christian territories. Many of these pilgrims wrote accounts of their travels, and many chroniclers in the West, whether they had personally been there or not, included impressions of the Holy Land obtained second (or third, or fourth) hand from these travellers in their works. From the mid-12^th century on, a hefty strain of critique and censure of the settlers in “Outremer” runs through many of these works. Each defeat, each unsuccessful crusade, was routinely attributed to the sins of those involved: that is the crusaders and the residents of the Holy Land.

Medieval Depiction of a Godfrey de Bouillon, the first pious and devout Ruler of Jerusalem,
often contrasted to the later "degenerate" kings.

By the Third Crusade Westerners clearly viewed the residents of Outremer with suspicion. No previous set-back was comparable to the loss of the entire kingdom, including, obviously, the most sacred site of all, the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Although men flocked to take the cross and the largest armies led by the most prominent rulers of the age set out on the Third Crusade, their objective was to rescue the Holy Land — not the kingdom or people who had occupied the Holy Land since the First Crusade. On the contrary, most of the crusaders appear to have blamed the residents of Outremer collectively (rather than just Guy de Lusignan personally) for losing the Holy Land. These people were at the latest by this time given the derisive name of poulain, which derives from the French for foal and imputed mixed blood. They were viewed as the sinners to blame for the catastrophe, which the (by inference) virtuous men from the West now needed to rectify.

Crusaders

These were the beliefs held before setting out on crusade, but they were reinforced by confrontation with life in Outremer.

The first problem was the widespread use of stone building materials, something that was still pretty much a luxury in the West. The extensive use of stone, therefore, made the cities of Outremer appear exotic to the pilgrim arriving by sea before he or she even set foot on land.  Admittedly, those coming by land would have already adjusted to the use of stone and brick. Still, the physical differences in the architecture and the heat of the summer sun (most pilgrims came in the spring and departed in the fall), undoubtedly created a sense of being in a very different world, and most people are suspicious of things that seem very different from home.

White Limestone and Palms -- so different from Northern Europe

The second problem, of course, was that the majority of the natives (Orthodox Christians, Jews and Muslims) dressed in “oriental” styles. Although the Latin elites still followed Western fashion for the most part, the climate alone dictated some adaptation of Western clothing. In temperatures approaching 40 degrees Centigrade (100 degrees Fahrenheit), it was unthinkable to wear the heavy furs and wools, or the layers of clothing common in the West. While Latin women never adopted “the veil” in the Arab tradition of black robes completely concealing a woman’s figure including arms and face, Latin women would certainly have protected their faces from the ravages of the Palestinian sun with sheer silks, probably short enough to be thrown back over their head when indoors.  More shocking to the new-comers, however, the very same fashions if worn in gauze and silk rather than wool and linen would have resulted in gowns that clung and revealed more of the female figure. Meanwhile, while neither knights nor sergeants went around in turbans and kaftans (as some modern writers would have you believe), again the fabrics used for shirts, tunics, hose and surcoats would have been considerably lighter and sheerer than fabrics common in the West. Easy access to some of the more powerful dyes (saffron for yellow, the sea snails (porphyra) for purple, etc.) may have made these clothes brighter and more vivid as well. The result was undoubtedly a somewhat mind-boggling mixture of styles and colors that seemed extravagant and exotic to the newcomer.

Hollywood's Interpretation of Mixed Styles and Opulence in the Crusader Sates
Sibylla of Jerusalem as depicted in "The Kingdom of Heaven"

The third problem was the discovery that the majority of the population in Outremer, including the Orthodox Christian natives, spoke Arabic. Regardless of religion, this was the lingua-franca of Outremer, used by merchants across the region alongside Greek. The poulains born in Outremer, living side-by-side with Arabic speaking neighbors in the cities, trading with Arabic-speaking shopkeepers, or even lords dealing with Arab-speaking tenants and servants all had to acquire a degree of competency in Arabic just to conduct daily business.  To more recent arrivals this command of the “infidel's” language smacked of treason. The fact that many Latin Christians, who had come out as crusaders, later married Arabic- or Greek-speaking women reinforced the impression of ambiguous loyalty on the part of the poulains. At a minimum, it created suspicion simply because the newcomers could not hope to understand Arabic based on an understanding of Latin, the lingua-franca of the West.

Church Art was particularly influence by Byzantine traditions and mosaics, for example, were more common.

This suspicion about the loyalty of the residents of the crusader states had been reinforced over the decades leading up to the Third Crusade by a series of truces the Kings of Jerusalem had made with their Muslim counterparts. While the residents in the crusader states recognized the sheer tactical utility of periodic truces and pauses in the fighting, newly arrived crusaders were often appalled to think they had come so far to fight the Saracens, only to be told:  “Oh, well, thanks for coming, but at the moment we have a truce and aren’t fighting the Saracens, we're trading with them instead.” Such armed pilgrims returned home embittered and told stories about how the poulains had “sold out” to the Saracens.

Another source of friction between Western visitors and permanent residents of the crusader states was the apparent “wealth” of the natives. As early as 1125, Fulcher of Chartres, one of the chroniclers of the First Crusade, had written that in the crusader states “he who was poor [at home in the West] attains riches here. He who had no more than a few deniers finds himself here in possession of a fortune. He who owned not so much as one village finds himself, by God’s grace, the lord of a city.” (Cited in Bartlett, Downfall of the Crusader Kingdom, p. 189.) Fulcher was trying to recruit settlers, and was doubtless exaggerating, but his claims seemed to match what visitors encountered.

Because the Latin Christians in the crusader states were integrated into the upper and middle levels of society while the very bottom rungs were filled by native Christians or Muslims, travelers to the crusader states from the West was more likely to encounter and interact with men and women from a higher strata of society.  Furthermore, because items that were outrageously expensive in the West were produced in the crusader states (silk, glass, sugar, citrus fruits, pomegranates) these “luxury” items were accessible to people much farther down the social scale than in the West. Visitors were undoubtedly aghast to find common laborers and soldiers enjoying lemons and sugar, or wearing, if not pure silk, some of the mixed textiles that combined silk with cotton or linen.

This glass and enamel cup is believed to originate from the crusader states.

And then there was the issue of bathing. Not that bathing was not an integral part of Western culture in this period; it was. But in the West bathing was considerably more difficult and less convenient, at least during the winter months when a bath could only be enjoyed if the water was first heated up. Furthermore, for the upper classes, bathing was a private affair — a tub carried up to a bedchamber, filled with buckets of water hauled there by servants, and attended upon by a wife, daughter or squire. In the crusader states the public bath-houses of the Greeks and Romans had been taken over, rebuilt and supplemented by those of the Arabs and Turks. Bathing was not only easier and cheaper in a climate where cooler was better most of the time, bathing was also a public affair with professional bath attendants rather than retainers and family in attendance. The public baths in the tradition of the Greeks, Romans and Turks included massages with fragrant oils rubbed into the skin. All of this smelled, particularly clerics, like “dins of iniquity” reminiscent of Jezebel, Salome and the Queen of Sheba.

A 19th Century -- equally erroneous - depiction of a Turkish bath that reflects the same misconception about the mixing of sex with cleanliness.

Last but not least, the culture of West Europeans clashed with the culture of the crusader states because the crusader states were heavily urbanized and cosmopolitan at a time when most Western kingdoms were still predominantly agricultural and parochial. The poulains had little choice but to be tolerant of different customs, clothes, foods and even religions because they were surrounded by these things. To survive they traded with Cairo and Damascus, Aleppo and Constantinople. Jews were allowed to live throughout the kingdom except in Jerusalem itself. Muslims likewise lived, and were allowed to follow their religion, across the kingdom, again with the exception of Jerusalem itself. Muslims even had the right to the haj in some cities such as Nablus. Although taxed more heavily, neither Muslims nor Jews were subject to persecution, and some enjoyed wealth and administrative power. This was quite simply because poulains, who never made up more than 20% of the population, could not afford bigotry in any regard. Yet that very tolerance struck many newcomers as near-heresy. It was a short step from being scandalized at poulain tolerance and jealous of the poulain wealth to seeing in the poulains the sinners to blame for all the disasters that had befallen the Holy Land — reinforcing all the prejudices which with the crusaders had sailed from the West.

My novels set in the crusader kingdoms show Outremer through the eyes of the poulains rather than the crusaders:

 Buy now!                                       Buy now!                                   Buy now (paperback)
                                                                                                                or Kindle!

                                                 

  

"The Ibelin Brothers"

In the chronicles that record the history of the Holy Land in the later 12^th century, "the Ibelin brothers" are often named together. This is actually quite odd because Baldwin, the elder brother, was Lord of Ramla and Mirabel, probably from a very early age. Together Baldwin's baronies owned 60 knights to the crown of Jerusalem. Ibelin owed only 10. So Baldwin should have been referred to by contemporaries as "Ramla."

That he is referred as "Ibelin" in the chronicles probably stems from the fact that most chronicles (except William of Tyre) were written in the 13th century when the descendants of his younger brother, Balian Baron d’Ibelin, had become one of the most important families in the Latin East, and had married into both royal families. In short, the fact that Baldwin is referred to as an "Ibelin" is a tribute to the fact that within a generation his younger brother had completely eclipsed him in importance and memory. By the start of the 13h century, Baldwin had disappeared from the pages of history, while Balian had become the revered founder of a dynasty. Baldwin had renounced his titles, gone to Antioch and disappeared without a trace. He left no surviving children in Jerusalem. Balian briefly held his lordships of Ramla and Mirabel, but only from July 1185 until they fell to Saladin in July 1186, so name of Ibelin (also lost in 1187) stuck to Balian, but not Ramla and Mirabel. Ibelin became a family surname, with the various members of the family all calling themselves d’Ibelin regardless of what other titles they held.

The Ibelin Seal from the mid-13th Century

The fact that “the Ibelin brothers” are so often named jointly has led many to assume that the Ibelin brothers were very close. This is not necessarily the case. 

In the 12th century, family ties were imprisoning. Everything revolved around family. Families stuck together through thick and thin. They paid each other's ransoms, they stood as hostages for one another, they were witnesses for one another, they were each other’s clients and lords. They fought together under the same banner and were buried together in the same crypt. Does that mean that all family members got along with one another all the time?  Highly unlikely. On the contrary, the tensions within medieval families could be brutal, enormous and bitter. (The best example is, of course, the Plantagenets. Henry II had to fight wars with his sons, and the brothers fought each other in a series of shifting alliances.)  But most families, where there was less at stake perhaps or personalities (and egos) were less excessive, usually worked together and presented a common front to the outside world regardless of how many rivalries and tensions they had among themselves.

The tombs of Henry II and Richard I lie side-by-side at Fontevrault, yet these two men -- some of England's most colorful and each in their own way attractive kings -- were bitter enemies in life.

Thus, although "the Ibelin" brothers are often lumped together by chroniclers and historians of the era, this is not proof that they were best friends and always of one opinion. On the contrary, William of Tyre claims that Baldwin of Ramla (Ibelin) plotted with Tripoli and Antioch to depose Baldwin IV, and refused to take the oath of fealty to Guy de Lusignan, eventually renouncing his entire inheritance to go to Antioch. Clearly, Baldwin was impulsive and hot tempered, and as a novelist I have chosen to make him flamboyant and arrogant as well – as I believe many older sons were.

Balian, on the other hand, must have been a man of a very different temperament as was demonstrated by the fact that he tried on two occasions to reconcile Tripoli with Lusignan. His loyalty to Baldwin IV and V is never questioned, and indeed he must have had a close relationship with Baldwin IV or he would never have been given the right to marry Maria Comnena or singled out ahead of all the more senior and more powerful noblemen of the realm to carry Baldwin V to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

In their personal lives also, the brothers would appear to have been equally different. Baldwin married very young, and then set this wife of almost two decades and the mother of his daughters aside, apparently for no better reason than he hoped to marry the Princess Sibylla. When that failed (for whatever reason) he married again twice. He had one son, but he either disinherited him when he renounced his own titles and went to Antioch, abandoning the boy to the care of his brother Balian, or his son had already died in obscurity.

In the Hollywood film "The Kingdom of Heaven," Balian is portrayed having an affair with Sibylla of Jerusalem; historically, his brother Baldwin allegedly had the affair.

Balian, in contrast, married only once and the marriage appears to have been not only fruitful (two sons and two daughters), but Balian and his wife Maria Comnena are described even by their detractors as a team.  Certainly, the idea of riding hundreds of miles through enemy held territory – even if it was with a safe-conduct from Saladin – to rescue his wife and children from Jerusalem is almost crazy, and suggests ties of affection unusual in this age.  Tripoli, remember, urged the army not to relieve the siege of Tiberius, although his wife was caught in the fortress and had requested relief.

Even after Balian had been persuaded by the Patriarch and people of Jerusalem to take command of the defense of Jerusalem, he still saw to the safety of his wife and children; they were escorted out of the city by Saladin’s own guard. After the fall of Jerusalem, Balian rejoined his family, now a penniless man and baron of nothing. Yet Maria did not return to Constantinople or join any of her other powerful family members in safe places. Instead she joined Balian at the siege of Acre! That too is a pretty strong act of devotion from a woman born to the purple in the Greek Empire.

In short, I think it is safe to suggest that "the brothers Ibelin," no matter how closely they cooperated with one another in war or how often the chroniclers lumped them together in history, were in fact very different men with different temperaments and character.

Read more about the Ibelin brothers in:

A Biographical Novel of Balian d'Ibelin

Book I

A landless knight,

                  a leper king,

                             and the struggle for Jerusalem.

Buy now in Paperback or Kindle format!