The wonder was that there had actually risen to prominence on the side of the Abbasids and Seljuks, during the late struggles for the possession of Aleppo, Edessa, and Damascus, a well-consolidated might—that of the atabegs of Mosul, who disposed of a particularly warlike element in the Kurds, with whom their borders were overrun from the north. Nur ad-Din vigorously pursued the policy laid down by his father, Zenki. He was by far the more capable and enlightened of the two; since the days of the Omayyads, so historians tell us, there had been no prince so liberal and law-abiding, and there never reigned one more just. Four times each week he sat in judgment. He made no personal use of the state revenues, looking upon them as a sacred trust placed in his hands to be expended for the public good. He was equally zealous in the conduct of the holy war. All the dust that settled on his shoes and garments during his various battles against unbelievers, he caused to be collected in a sack which was to be placed under his head when he was dead. As already related, he conquered Damascus (1154), which was under the rule of a weak prince who had in vain sought safety on the side of the Christians, and took up his residence in the immediate neighbourhood of that kingdom. He was a brave and worthy representative of the Abbasid caliphate, which he had formerly served in the capacity of Emir al-Omara. At times the Christians rallied for a successful feat of arms, and under the sacred symbol of the cross, which after preliminary worship in the king’s tent they gave into the keeping of the archbishop of Tyre, they even inflicted defeat on Nur ad-Din (1158). Also Baldwin III, who died in 1162 at the age of thirty-three, achieved some fame and several victories. He was brave and circumspect—in every way a fit man for the particular kind of warfare he was obliged to carry on. Still it was not in these battles alone that the real issue lay; the result was determined as much by the weakness of the Fatimites in Egypt as by the strength of the atabegs in Syria.
Neither had the power of the Ismailite doctrines, founded on those in circulation before the beginning of the Fatimite caliphate, suffered any diminution; rather it had recently taken on a new form in the most singular and hideous of all religious sects. Who has not heard of the Assassins and of their leader, the Old Man of the Mountain? Unlike the Sunnite caliphate which had been restored to power by the victories of the great Seljuk sultans, the sect founded by the Persian, Hassan, towards the end of the eleventh century, rose to prominence by reason of teachings based on the extremest Ismailite beliefs, and compounded of fanaticism, sensuality, and blind obedience, which raised up men to be assassins and general instruments of terror. Mainly by the agency of that Ridwan of Aleppo who fought with the crusaders before Antioch, and wavered in allegiance between the Abbasids and the Fatimites, there was planted in northwestern Syria a colony of Assassins which, under the rule of a certain sheikh, Al-Jebel, grew to occupy an important place in history—if such can be said of a purely destructive principle. It was by the Assassins that Raymond of Tripolis was slain. But their dagger struck Moslem as well as Christian, Shiite as well as Sunnite, since a foe of their nature lies outside all partisanship—is in fact beyond the pale of any human ordinance.
That the Fatimite caliphate profited nothing by this latest religious movement is apparent from the symptoms of decay that shortly afterward began to be manifest. The caliphs themselves were given over to a life of luxury and disorder, and vizirs, who bore the title of sultan, were constantly engaged in quarrels with each other, in which right was decided by might alone. The conditions were similar to those which preceded the fall of the Abbasid caliphate in the tenth century. In the year 1163 the sultan and vizir Shawer was deposed and supplanted by his rival Dargham, who enjoyed for some time the fruits of his usurpation. But Shawer eventually returned, and with him the emir and Kurd chieftain, Shirkuh, whom Nur ad-Din, regardless of religious differences, had sent to his assistance. Dargham was murdered and Shawer again assumed the sultanate, but he could not reconcile himself to fulfilling the promise he had made the Kurds, that he would pay over to them one third of the revenues of Egypt. To protect himself more fully against his extortionate allies, he besought assistance of Almeric, king of Jerusalem, brother and successor of Baldwin III.
[1163-1168 A.D.]
Inheriting the desire of Baldwin I for ascendency in Egypt, Baldwin III had besieged and taken Askalon in 1153. The garrison had defended itself ably, even to the point of driving back a body of Templars that had penetrated within the walls, and the king had reason to believe that all was lost. But the support of the Jerusalem patriarchs enabled him to press the siege, and a successful sally on the part of the knights of St. John, who with their grand master had been particularly active, finally placed Askalon at his mercy. At this the inhabitants, in despair, having received no reinforcements from either Damascus or Egypt, called upon their military commander to surrender. Without doubt Almeric (1162-1173) was the most important of the later kings of Jerusalem. Like Louis VII he was tireless, despite his corpulence, in the hunt and in war, and took no pleasure in any kind of diversion. In theological questions he often revealed an acuteness that brought his prelates to confusion; with a firm hand he held the troublesome barons in subjection, even giving precedence over them to certain newly arrived Franks—Milo de Plancy, for example.
Italian Armour, Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
It could escape no one that there was danger to the kingdom in allowing the Kurds of Nur ad-Din to become firmly established in Egypt. Losing no time in reflection, Almeric took decisive steps at once, and fortune so far favoured him that he succeeded in confining the Kurds within Pelusium (1164); he was obliged to grant them a free withdrawal, however, in consequence of domestic troubles that had befallen Nur ad-Din. A Christian knight addressed Shirkuh, who was striding with uplifted axe behind his followers: “Think you we do not mean to keep our pact with you?” “You dare not break it!” was the reply.
No sooner had they returned home than the Kurds began preparations for a second and greater expedition; Shirkuh incited the Sunnites to wrath against the perfidious caliph in Cairo, and in 1167 he set out for Egypt. Almeric also assembled his forces at the same time, and in Egypt the native populations consolidated with the Pullanes in a formal alliance. That the caliph might be encouraged by the support of their presence, the Christian delegates were conducted into the palace. Scarcely could they repress their admiration and astonishment at the wonders that everywhere met their gaze. When they arrived in a splendid hall that was divided in the middle by a curtain embroidered in gold and pearls, the vizir prostrated himself and went through the form of taking a solemn oath; at the conclusion of this ceremony the curtain was drawn aside and the figure of the caliph was revealed. From his golden chair he extended his right hand to the Christian knights, but the hand was enveloped in a veil. Hugo of Cæsarea objected that in entering upon a pact both sides must act with perfect fairness and good faith; whereupon the caliph uncovered his hand, but with exceeding ill grace, as though his royal dignity had been affronted. To the Christian knights was entrusted the defence of the walls and towers of Cairo.
[1168 A.D.]