Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

Non habet eventus sordida præda bonos,

remarks the historian. Their cupidity proved the death of a great many of their body, for they were too few to carry everything before them, as they had hoped. Forty Templars perished in this attack, and the rest were not able to get in at all, for the people drove them back, and in an incredibly short time, fortified the broken wall with great beams of timber; and then, safe for a time behind their rampart, they tied ropes to the corpses of the knights, and dangled them up and down outside the wall, to the indignation of the Christians. After deliberation, confession, and a grand mass, a general assault was ordered, and for a whole day hand-to-hand fighting was carried on. And then the city yielded, and obtained fair terms. Provided they evacuated the town within three days, their lives were to be spared. And at last, in delusive imitation of the glories which were never to return again to the Christian arms, the standard of the Cross floated from the towers of Ascalon, the “Bride of Syria.” The unfortunate people, with their wives and children, made what haste they could to get ready, and in two days had all left their city, carrying with them all their portable goods. The king honourably kept his word with them, and gave them guides to conduct them to Egypt across the desert. All went well so long as their guides were with them. But these left them after a time, and gave them over to a certain Turk, who had been with them in Ascalon—“valiant in war, but a perverse man, and without loyalty”—on his promise to conduct them safely to Egypt. But on the way he and his men fell on them, robbed them of all their treasures, and went away—whither, history sayeth not—leaving them to wander helplessly up and down the desert. And so the poor creatures all perished. It is a pity that we cannot ascertain what became of the admirable Turk who knew so well how to seize an opportunity.

During the siege of Ascalon, the Lady Constance of Antioch, whom the king had been anxious to see married for a long time, chose, to everybody’s astonishment, a simple knight, one Renaud de Chatillon, as her husband. The king, anxious above all that a man should be at the head of Antioch, consented at once, and Renaud, of whom we shall have more to say, wedded the fair widow. Although the king approved of the marriage, it appeared that the Patriarch of Antioch did not, and trusting to the sacredness of his person went about the city spreading all sorts of stories about the fortunate young bridegroom. Renaud dissembled his resentment, and invited him to the citadel, and then, by way of giving the reverend bishop a lesson as to the punishment due to calumniators, set him in the sun all day, with his bald head covered with honey to attract the wasps. After this diabolical audacity, as William of Tyre calls it, there was nothing left for the patriarch but to pack up and get away to Jerusalem as fast as he could. The king reprimanded Renaud, but too late, for the mischief was done, and the head of the prelate already painfully stung.

Internal troubles occupied the king for the next year or two. These were caused by the quarrels between the two military orders and the Church of Jerusalem. We hear only one side of the story, which throws the whole blame upon the knights. No doubt the clergy were also in some way to blame. By special permission of the pope, no interdict or excommunication could touch the Knights of St. John or the Knights Templars. They were free from all episcopal jurisdiction, and subject only to the pope. It pleased Raymond, Grand Master of the Hospitallers, for no reason given by the chronicler, to raise up all sorts of troubles against the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the prelates of the Church, on the subject of parochial jurisdiction and the tithes. The way they showed their enmity is very suggestive of many things. “All those whom the bishops had excommunicated, or interdicted, were freely welcomed by the Hospitallers, and admitted to the celebration of the divine offices. If they were ill, the brothers gave them the viaticum and extreme unction, and those who died received sepulture. If it happened that for some enormous crime”—probably the withholding of tithes—“the churches of the city were put under interdict, the brothers, ringing all their bells, and making a great clamouring, called the people to their own chapels, and received the oblations themselves; and as for their priests, they took them without any reference whatever to the bishops.” Obviously, therefore, the quarrel was entirely an ecclesiastical squabble, due to the desire of the Church to aggrandize and preserve its power. The knights, ecclesia in ecclesiâ, a church within a church, would not recognise in any way the authority of the patriarch. For this they had a special charter from the pope. But they would not pay tithes, and they were constantly acquiring new territories. We may have very little doubt that it was the question of tithes on the knights’ lands which caused all the quarrel. But it is very remarkable to note the way in which the historian speaks of interdicts and excommunications. In the West an interdict was a great and solemn thing. In England only one interdict, at the memory of which the people shuddered for many years to come, was ever laid upon the country, while, though English kings have been excommunicated, it has happened rarely. In Palestine the custom of debarring offenders, whether towns or individuals, from the privileges of the Church, is spoken of as quite a common practice. The thing, evidently, was often happening. The patriarch was handy with his interdicts, and it must have galled him to the very soul to find that the people cared nothing for them, because they could get their consolations of the Church just as well from the knights.

One cannot, however, defend the manner in which the knights vexed the heart of the patriarch in other ways. For whenever he went to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the knights, who had a great building opposite (in what is now called the Muristàn), began to ring all their bells at once, and made so great a noise that he could not be heard. And once, though one can hardly believe this, they went to the doors of the church and shot arrows at the people who were praying. Probably they pretended to shoot them in order to frighten the priests. Such a practical joke, and its effect in the skurrying away of people and priests, would be quite in accordance with the spirit of the times.

The patriarch, though now nearly a hundred years of age, went himself to Rome, but got no satisfaction. He had with him six bishops and a band of lawyers to plead his cause; but he was badly received by the pope and badly treated by the cardinals. And after being put off from day to day, finding that he could get no redress, he retired in shame and confusion, and probably patched up some sort of peace with his enemies the knights.

And now followed a sort of lull before the storm, three or four years of actual peace and internal prosperity. Renaud de Chatillon disgraced the cause of Christianity by an unprovoked attack upon the Isle of Cyprus, which he overran from end to end, murdering, pillaging, and committing every kind of outrage. Nûr-ed-dín made himself master of Damascus, an event which more than counter-balanced the loss of Ascalon. And Baldwin committed the only crime which history can allege against him. For he had given permission to certain Turcomans and Arabs to feed their cattle on the slopes of Libanus. Here, for a time, they lived peaceably, harming none and being harmed by none. But the king was loaded with debts which he could not pay. Some one in an evil hour suggested to him an attack upon this pastoral people. Taking with him a few knights, the king went himself and overran the country sword in hand. Some of them escaped by flight, leaving their flocks and herds behind; some buried themselves in the forests; some were made slaves; and some were mercilessly slaughtered. The booty in cattle and horses was immense, and Baldwin found, by this act of iniquity, a means of paying off, at least, the most pressing of his creditors. But his subsequent misfortunes were attributed to this perfidy, the worst which a Christian king of Jerusalem had as yet displayed.

Nûr-ed-dín laid siege to the castle of Banias, into which Count Humphrey had introduced the knights of St. John on conditions of their sharing in the defence. Baldwin went to its assistance. Nûr-ed-dín raised the siege and retired. The king, seeing no use in staying any longer, began his southward march. They encamped the first night near the lake Huleh, where they lay without proper guards, believing the enemy to be far enough away. The king’s own body-guard had left him, and some of the barons had left the army altogether, followed by their own men. In the morning the enemy fell upon them all straggling about the country. Baldwin retreated to a hilltop with half a dozen men, and gained in safety the fortress of Safed. And then the historian adds a sentence which shows how utterly rotten and corrupt was this kingdom, founded by the brave arms of Godfrey and his knights. “There was very little slaughter, because everybody, not only those who were renowned for their wisdom and their experience in war, but also the simple soldiers, eager to save their miserable lives, gave themselves up without resistance to the enemy like vile slaves, feeling no horror for a shameful servitude, and not dreading the ignominy which attaches to this conduct.”

Is it possible to imagine a knight of the First Crusade, or even a simple soldier, preferring to surrender at once than to risk the chance of life in the battle? And when the news came south, which happened soon enough, instead of flying to arms, the men flew to the altars, chanting the psalm “Domine, salvum fac regem.”

Fortunately one of those little crusades, consisting of a fleet and a few thousand men, arrived at this juncture, headed by Stephen, Count of Perche. Baldwin welcomed them with delight, and made the best use of them, defeating by their help the Saracens at every point in the county of Tripoli and the principality of Antioch, and lastly gave the Damascenes the most complete defeat they had ever experienced. It must always be remembered that it was by such windfalls and adventitious aids as these that the kingdom of Jerusalem was maintained. The pilgrims who came to pray fought in the intervals of prayer; a small percentage of them always remained in the country and attached themselves to the fortunes of king or baron. When the influx of pilgrims was great the new blood kept up the stamina, physical as well as moral, of the Syrian Christians; when the influx was small the king had to depend upon the pullani, the Syrian born, the creoles of the country, who were weedy, false, and cowardly, like those knights and soldiers who surrendered, rather than strike a blow for their lives, to Nûr-ed-dín.