The expedition set out from Acre for the
Egyptian frontier on 2 November, detachments from the Orders and several local
barons accompanying the Crusaders. As they were marching to Jaffa a spy told
Peter of Brittany that a rich Moslem caravan was moving up the Jordan valley
towards Damascus. Peter at once rode out with Ralph of Soissons and two hundred
knights and laid an ambush for it. The caravan was well armed, and in the
ensuing battle Peter was nearly killed; but in the end the Moslem soldiers
fled, leaving a great herd of cattle and sheep in the Christians’ hands. Peter
drove his booty back in triumph to Jaffa, where his colleagues had now arrived.
As food for the army was running short, his victory was very welcome. But it
made an enemy of an-Nasir of Kerak.
An Egyptian army, under the Mameluk Rukn
ad-Din, had hastily been sent from the Delta to Gaza. The first news that
reached the Christians of its arrival told of only a thousand men. Henry of
Bar, who was jealous of the Count of Brittany’s success, determined at once to
attack it and secure all the credit and the loot. He kept his plan secret from
all but a few friends, such as the Duke of Burgundy and various lords from
eastern France. Then the two
baillis
of the kingdom, Balian of Sidon and
Odo of Montbeliard, who were resentful of Tibald’s command, together with
Walter of Jaffa and one of the Ibelins, John of Arsuf, were admitted into the
company. At nightfall on 12 November, the whole party, five hundred horsemen
and over a thousand foot, prepared to march out against Gaza. But the news
leaked out; and as they were mounting their horses King Tibald, with the three
Grand Masters of the Orders and the Count of Brittany, came up and first
begged, then ordered them to go back to the camp. But Henry of Bar refused to
be deflected. Accusing the King and his friends of cowardice, he defied his
command; and the cavalcade set out into the moonlit night. Tibald, who
suspected the true strength of the enemy, was powerless to prevent it. Next
morning he moved his camp up to the walls of Ascalon, to be at hand, should
help be needed.
1239: Frankish Defeat at Gaza
The Count of Bar was so confident of
success that when he drew near to Gaza about dawn, he halted his men in a
hollow in the dunes of the seashore and told them to rest awhile. But the
Egyptian army was far larger than he knew, and its spies were all around. The
emir Rukn ad-Din could scarcely believe that his foes could be so foolish. He
sent bowmen to creep round sandhills till the Franks were almost encircled.
Walter of Jaffa was the first to realize what was happening. He advised a swift
retreat, for the horses could not be manoeuvred in the deep sand. He himself
rode away to the north, along with the Duke of Burgundy; and the other knights
from Outremer followed him as soon as they could. But Henry of Bar would not
leave the infantry whom he had led into the trap; and his closest friends
stayed with him. The battle was soon over. With their horses and their heavy
infantry floundering in the dunes, the Franks were impotent. More than a
thousand were slain, including Count Henry himself. Six hundred more were
captured and carried off to Egypt. Among them was the Count of Montfort and the
poet, Philip of Nanteuil, who spent his days in prison writing rhymed
maledictions on the Orders, whom, with more passion than logic, he blamed for
the failure of the senseless expedition.
When the fugitives reached Ascalon, Tibald
forgot his caution and wished to march on Gaza at once to rescue his comrades.
But the knights of Outremer would not agree. It would be folly to risk the
army, and certainly the Moslems would slay what captives they had taken rather
than lose them again. Tibald was angry and never quite forgave his hosts. But
there was nothing to be done. The diminished army moved slowly back to Acre.
Meanwhile an-Nasir of Kerak replied to the
Breton attack on the Moslem caravan by marching on Jerusalem. The Holy City was
undefended except for the section of wall by St Stephen’s Gate, which Frederick
had begun, and a citadel incorporating the Tower of David, which had recently
been strengthened. It owed allegiance not to the government at Acre but to
Filangieri at Tyre; and he had neglected to supply an adequate garrison.
An-Nasir occupied the city without difficulty, but the soldiers in the citadel
held out for twenty-seven days, till their supplies were exhausted. They
surrendered on 7 December in return for a safe-conduct to the coast. When he
had destroyed the fortifications, including the Tower of David, an-Nasir
retired to Kerak.
After the disaster at Gaza, Tibald moved
his forces northward to Tripoli. An envoy had come from the emir of Hama,
al-Muzaffar II, who had quarrelled with all his Ayubite relatives and was
threatened by a coalition between the Regent of Aleppo and the Prince of Horns.
In return for Frankish help he offered to cede one or two fortresses and held
out hopes of his conversion to Christianity. Tibald accepted the offer with
alacrity; but his advance to Tripoli was enough to deter al-Muzaffar’s enemies,
and the emir sent politely to say that his services would not be required after
all.
It was while the Crusade lingered at
Tripoli that Ayub made himself master of Egypt, and war broke out between him
and Ismail of Damascus. It was obvious that the Franks could now make a good
bargain. Tibald hastily returned to the south and encamped his army in Galilee
by the fountains of Sephoria. He had not long to wait. Early in the summer of
1240 Ismail, terrified of an invasion by Ayub and an-Nasir in conjunction,
proposed a defensive alliance with the Franks. If they would guarantee to guard
the Egyptian frontier by the coast and supply him with armaments, he would cede
to them the great fortresses of Beaufort and Safed, and the hills that lay
between them. The Templars, who now had financial connections in Damascus,
conducted the negotiations and were rewarded with the possession of Safed. But
Ismail’s subjects were shocked. The garrison of Beaufort refused to hand over
their trust to Balian of Sidon, son of its last Christian lord, and Ismail was
obliged to go himself to blockade the castle into submission. Two of the
leading Damascene theologians, including the chief preacher at the Great
Mosque, left the city in disgust and sought refuge at Cairo.
1240: End of Tibald’s Crusade
A common distrust of the Emperor Frederick
had kept the Hospital and the Temple in an uneasy alliance for the last twelve
years. But the Templars’ acquisition of Safed was more than the Hospitallers
could endure. While Tibald took his army to join up with Ismail’s forces,
between Jaffa and Ascalon, they opened negotiations with Ayub. Their argument
was strengthened when half of Ismail’s men, disliking to have to work with
Christians, deserted to the Egyptian camp, and the allies were obliged to
retreat. Ayub, whose first objective was the defeat of Ismail, was delighted to
have an opportunity of breaking the alliance. He offered the Franks the release
of the prisoners made at Gaza and the right to occupy and fortify Ascalon in
return for their neutrality. The Grand Master of the Hospital then signed the
agreement at Ascalon with the Sultan’s representative. It was a diplomatic triumph
for Ayub, who at small cost to himself had broken an alliance which Ismail had
humiliated himself to achieve. Tibald, delighted to secure the release of
Amalric of Montfort and his other friends, had given his support to the
Hospitallers; but public opinion in Outremer was shocked by the shameless
abandonment of the pact with Damascus, which, till Saladin’s day, had been the
traditional ally of the Christians. So unpopular did Tibald become that he
decided to return to Europe. After paying a hurried pilgrimage to Jerusalem he
sailed from Acre at the end of September 1240. Most of his comrades followed
him, except for the Duke of Burgundy who swore to await the completion of the
fortifications of Ascalon, and the Count of Nevers who joined the party of the
Templars and the local barons, with whom he encamped near Jaffa, vowing to
maintain the treaty with Damascus and to oppose any Egyptian invasion.
Tibald’s Crusade had not been entirely
valueless. Beaufort, Safed and Ascalon had all been recovered for the
Christians. But the Moslems had noted one more example of the perfidy of the
Franks.
On 11 October, a few days after Tibald’s
departure, a still more distinguished pilgrim arrived at Acre. Richard, Earl of
Cornwall, was the brother of Henry III of England, and his sister was the wife
of the Emperor Frederick. He was aged thirty-one and was considered to be one
of the ablest princes of his time. His pilgrimage had the full approval of the
Emperor, who gave him powers to make what arrangements he thought best for the
kingdom. He was horrified at the anarchy that he found on his arrival. The
Temple and the Hospital were almost at open warfare with each other. The local
barons, except for Walter of Jaffa, supported the Templars; therefore the
Hospitallers were beginning to seek the friendship of Filangieri and the
Imperialists. The Teutonic Order kept itself apart. It garrisoned its Syrian
castles but devoted its main attention to Cilicia, where the Armenian King
entrusted it with large estates. Filangieri himself still held Tyre and was
responsible for the administration of Jerusalem.
1241: Richard of Cornwall
On his arrival Richard hurried to Ascalon.
There he was met by ambassadors from the Egyptian Sultan, who asked him to confirm
the treaty made by the Hospitallers. Richard agreed, but, to placate the barons
of Outremer, he insisted that the Egyptians should confirm the cessions of
territory made by Ismail of Damascus and should add to it the remainder of
Galilee, including Belvoir, Mount Thabor and Tiberias. Ismail, who had lost
control of Eastern Galilee to an-Nasir, could not prevent this further cession.
Meanwhile the Frankish prisoners captured at Gaza were returned, in exchange
for the few Moslems that were in Christian hands. The kingdom thus recovered
all its ancient lands west of the Jordan, as far south as the outskirts of
Gaza, with the ominous exception of Nablus and the province of Samaria.
Jerusalem remained unfortified; but Odo of Montbeliard, whose wife was the heiress
of the Princes of Galilee, began to rebuild the castle of Tiberias; and the
work on Ascalon was completed. As governor of Ascalon, Richard appointed Walter
Pennenpie, who had been Filangieri’s representative at Jerusalem. Probably on
Richard’s suggestion, the Emperor Frederick sent a congratulatory embassy to
the Sultan Ayub. His two ambassadors were received with great honour and pomp
at Cairo and remained there till the early spring.
Richard himself stayed in Palestine till
May 1241. He had behaved with great wisdom and tact and had made himself
generally accepted as temporary viceroy of the kingdom. The Emperor was well
satisfied with him, and everyone in Outremer regretted his going. He returned
to Europe, to a career of high hopes and small fulfilment.
The order established by Richard of
Cornwall did not long survive his departure. The local barons hoped to continue
it by petitioning the Emperor to appoint one of his companions, Simon of
Montfort, as
bailli.
Simon, whose wife was Richard’s sister, and who
himself was the cousin of the lord of Toron, had made an excellent impression.
But Frederick ignored their request; and Simon returned to a great and stormy
career in England. In the Holy Land quarrels soon began again. The Templars
refused to be bound by his treaty with Ayub and in the spring of 1242 raided
the Moslem city of Hebron. An-Nasir of Kerak retorted by sending troops to cut
off the road to Jerusalem and to levy tolls on the pilgrims and merchants that
passed by. This roused the Templars to set out from Jaffa and to fall on Nablus
on 30 October and sack it, burning its great mosque and massacring many of the
inhabitants, including large numbers of native Christians. Ayub was not yet
ready for a war. He contented himself by sending a strong army to blockade
Jaffa for a while, as a warning for the future. Within the kingdom there was no
overriding authority. The Orders behaved as independent republics. Acre was
ruled by the Commune, which, however, could not prevent the Templars and Hospitallers
from fighting with each other in the streets. The barons kept to their fiefs,
ruling them as they pleased.
To Filangieri in Tyre the chaos seemed
full of promise. He was privately in touch with the Hospital in Acre and he won
over two of the leading bourgeois, John Valin and William of Conches. One
night, in the spring of 1243, he came from Tyre and was admitted secretly into
Acre, ready to organize a
coup d’etat.
But his presence was noticed, and
Philip of Montfort, lord of Toron, who happened to be in Acre, was informed.
Philip at once warned the Commune and the Genoese and Venetian colonies. Their
officials arrested John Valin and William of Conches, and policed the streets.
A message was sent to bring Balian of Ibelin from Beirut and Odo of Montbeliard
from Caesarea. Filangieri realized that he had missed his chance, and slipped
quietly back to Tyre. The complicity of the Hospitallers was obvious. Balian,
when he arrived, blockaded their headquarters in Acre. The blockade lasted for
six months. The Grand Master, Peter of Vieille Bride, was at Marqab, conducting
a desultory campaign against his Moslem neighbours. He could not afford men to
try to rescue his knights at Acre. In the end he made his peace with Balian,
offering apologies and swearing that he had no hand in the plot.
1243: Queen Alice accepted as Regent
On 5 April 1243, Conrad of Hohenstaufen,
son of the Emperor Frederick and Queen Yolanda, was fifteen years old and
officially came of age. It was his duty to appear at Acre and personally take
possession of the kingdom. His father had no longer any right to the regency.
But, though the young King at once sent Thomas of Acerra as his deputy, he
showed no signs of coming himself to the East. The barons therefore considered
it their legal obligation to nominate as his regent the next available heir.
This was Alice, Queen-Dowager of Cyprus, his great-aunt. After her divorce from
Bohemond V, Alice had reconciled herself with her Ibelin cousins, and in 1240,
with their approval, she had married Ralph, Count of Soissons, a young man
about half her age, who had come to the East with King Tibald. A parliament was
summoned by Balian of Ibelin and Philip of Montfort to meet at Acre, in the
Patriarch’s palace, on 5 June 1243. The barons were all present. The Church was
represented by Peter of Sargines, Archbishop of Tyre, and the bishops of the
kingdom. The Commune sent its officials, and the Genoese and the Venetian
colonies their presidents. Philip of Novara expounded the juridical situation
and recommended that no homage should be paid to King Conrad till he came in
person to receive it, and that, till he came, Alice and her husband should be
entrusted with the regency. Odo of Montbeliard suggested that Conrad should be
officially requested to visit his kingdom and nothing be done till he replied.
But the Ibelins saw no point in that. Their view prevailed. The assembly swore
oaths of allegiance to Alice and Ralph, saving King Conrad’s rights.