A History of the Crusades (21 page)

The kingdom of Jerusalem was not the only settlement to be affected by political upheavals. In 1201 claimants from Armenia and Tripoli began to dispute the succession of Antioch and many years of conflict followed before Bohemond IV (1219–33) triumphed. He ruled over both Antioch and Tripoli, although the legal and administrative systems of the two settlements remained distinct. The prince chose to reside in Tripoli and in his absence Antioch was heavily influenced by its large Greek community. The politics of northern Syria were complicated further by the influence of the military orders which were based in powerful castles—Margat, Baghras, Tortosa, Crac des Chevaliers, and Chastel Blanc—and constituted semi-independent forces in the region, as we shall see.

The era of relative prosperity ended in the 1240s. The settlers broke a truce with the sultan of Egypt and discovered that they had stirred up a hornets’ nest when the Muslims allied with the Khorezmians, a displaced people forced into nomadism by the Mongols. Jerusalem was lost in August 1244 and two months later the Christian forces were crushed at the battle of La Forbie in which over 1000 knights were killed. New calls for help resulted in the first crusade of King Louis IX of France. After the disaster which befell it in Egypt, the French king remained in Palestine and organized, at great expense, the refortification of the defences of Acre, Sidon, Jaffa, and Caesarea.

Louis’s invasion of Egypt led, as we shall see, to the replacement of the Ayyubid dynasty by Mamluk government. Around the same time the Mongol armies appeared on the scene. In 1258 they sacked Baghdad and two years later attacked Aleppo. Bohemond VI of Antioch-Tripoli (1252–75) became their ally, but the leaders of Jerusalem, pincered between the Mongols and the Mamluks, allowed the Egyptians to pass through their territory before their victory over the Mongols at the battle of Ayn Jalut in 1260. The leadership of the Mamluks passed to the formidable Sultan Baybars, who soon imposed his authority in Syria.

The settlers’ lack of manpower dictated their military response. A strategy based on holding isolated strongpoints, often under the control of the military orders, was a key element in the defence of Frankish territory. The Christians had insufficient troops to form a field army and provide adequate garrisons for their fortified sites as well, although Louis IX’s innovation of establishing a permanent French regiment in the East was a positive development. Financed largely by the French monarchy, the force consisted of about 100 knights, along with crossbowmen, and mounted and foot sergeants. Unlike the military orders it was not tied to the defence of individual sites and therefore could be deployed in a more flexible fashion. It became customary for the captain to hold the position of seneschal of the kingdom of Jerusalem (the royal deputy in the High Court and the administrator of royal
castles) which demonstrates the regiment’s standing in the East. Overall, however, the French regiment was a case of too little too late. The Franks’ offensive action was usually restricted to raiding, because with their limited resources they could hardly envisage permanent territorial gains, and pitched battles were generally avoided. Unless crusaders were in the East the Franks’ inferior numbers meant that the unpredictability of battle held far greater risks for them than their opponents. The Franks’ military problems were exploited by the brilliant generalship and careful strategy of Baybars, who methodically cut back the area under their control. Confined to a passive form of defence, the settlers could only watch as their lands were devastated. Even their increasingly sophisticated castles such as Margat and Crac des Chevaliers could not resist the huge enemy invasion forces. From time to time a city or fortress would fall and Christian-controlled territory would shrink even further. The Frankish economy began to decline too. The Mongol invasions of Iraq and north Syria had disrupted the trade routes and the Black Sea replaced the Levant as the terminus for much oriental commerce. All sections of society suffered financial strain. Hugh III of Cyprus found the kingdom of Jerusalem ungovernable in the face of a claim from Charles of Anjou, who had bought the crown from a pretender to the throne, and he decided to concentrate his attention on Cyprus. In 1286 his successor, King Henry II, regained Acre and was crowned amid great pageantry and splendour, but the Mamluks were closing the net on the remaining settlements. In 1287 Tripoli fell and on 5 April 1291 the final assault on Acre began. A vast army battered its way through the town walls. The king and his nobles escaped to Cyprus but many of the defenders perished. On 28 May the final resistance was crushed and within three months the Christian hold on the mainland had ended. The Latins in the eastern Mediterranean no longer ruled any land that had ever been occupied by Muslims: ironically, a movement which had originally expressed itself through religious colonization was now exploiting the resources of territories which had always been in Christian hands.

JAROSLAV FOLDA

WHEN
the armies of the First Crusade took Jerusalem on 15 July 1099, they succeeded wonderfully in fulfilling many of the main goals articulated by Pope Urban II in his famous speech at Clermont. Urban had vividly described the oppression of Christian churches in the East, and how the infidels had desecrated or destroyed Christian monuments. He had called on arms bearers to go to the aid of their brethren in the Holy Land and to liberate the Christian holy sites from the heathen.

The artistic traditions which the participants in the First Crusade brought with them from Europe were varied, deriving from Lorraine, the Meuse Valley, Normandy, the Île de France, southern France and South Italy in the late eleventh century. The crusaders also carried certain portable art objects with them: essentials for a long expedition such as prayerbooks and liturgical vessels (chalices, portable altars, reliquaries, etc.); there were also painted standards, arms and armour, and, of course, coins, common currency from Valence and Lucca among other places. The remarkable fact is that, when these European crusaders arrived in the Holy Land, the art they sponsored there changed rapidly and dramatically from that associated with their homelands. The changes varied according to medium and project, and were apparently caused by the new context and environment and the special functions the art was called on to serve. There was also a rich and different multicultural socio-religious and
artistic milieu: a bringing together of artists and patrons from diverse backgrounds; new media such as icon painting to deal with; new materials such as the local stone; and the local Christian, that is, Byzantine, Syrian, and Armenian artistic traditions and artists as well as Muslim monuments from which to learn. The new art of the Franks is sometimes called ‘Crusader Art’.

It took several years for the settlers to consolidate their remarkable conquests of 1099. Fortifications and church buildings were needed everywhere, but very little figural art survives from the three northern settlements of Edessa, Antioch, and Tripoli. Most of what we have is coinage: strongly Byzantine-influenced coin design at Antioch and Edessa, but designs firmly rooted in French (specifically Toulousain) numismatic tradition at Tripoli. It is in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, stretching from Beirut to Aqaba, that Frankish artistic activity can be observed most fully throughout the twelfth century.

With the capture of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and Nazareth in 1099, the crusaders re-established Christian control over the main holy sites of Christendom—the birthplace of Christ, the site of Calvary and the Holy Sepulchre, and the place of the Incarnation—setting the agenda for some of the most important art sponsored by the Franks in the twelfth century. Two of these sites also served important political roles. The church of the Nativity in Bethlehem served as the coronation church of the Latin kings in the first quarter of the century. The church of the Holy Sepulchre was the burial place of the Latin kings from 1100 to 1187 and it became the coronation church from 1131 onwards.

Given the importance of the Holy Sepulchre, it is not surprising that artistic attention would be centred on this complex site from the very beginning. In 1100, when Godfrey of Bouillon died, his tomb was placed at the entrance to the chapel of Adam at the foot of Calvary, and this provided a precedent for every subsequent king before 1187. In 1114, following the momentous decision to install Augustinian canons at the Holy Sepulchre, a large cloistered residence was built for them to the east of the Byzantine
triporticus
, that is, the arcaded courtyard
of the Byzantine church of the Holy Sepulchre rebuilt in the 1040s.

At about the same time attention was concentrated on the aedicule of the Holy Sepulchre, a small free-standing building sheltering the tomb which stood within the Anastasis rotunda. The Russian pilgrim, Daniel of Chernigov, who visited the Holy Land in the years 1106 to 1108, mentioned a life-sized silver statue of Christ that was placed on top of the aedicule by the Franks. Daniel’s testimony is our only source for what must have been the first Latin effort to beautify the Sepulchre. In 1119, however, the aedicule was completely redecorated with marble sculpture and mosaics. The famous drawing by Bernhard von Breydenbach, circulated as a woodcut in the fifteenth century, and Jan van Scorel’s painted image from the 1520s give us some idea of the aedicule, but do not, unfortunately, record details of the programme of redecoration the Franks sponsored, which are known to us only by later pilgrims’ accounts. It is notable that all of the early work at the church of the Holy Sepulchre featured art rooted in western European traditions.

While artistic activity was getting underway in Jerusalem sponsored by king and patriarch, in Bethlehem it was the pilgrims to the holy site who apparently commissioned devotional icons for the church of the Nativity. In the south aisle, an icon of the Virgin and Child
Glykophilousa
was painted directly on the fifth column. Along with prayers and labels, the date of 1130 can be read among its inscriptions, identifying this work as the earliest dated ‘crusader’ monumental painting extant. Here a Byzantine-trained western artist combines the Greek enthroned madonna type with Italian sensibilities for the human relationship between Mary and her son. Furthermore, a cave is indicated as the background in this work, which here at Bethlehem can only refer to the grotto of the Nativity beneath the crossing of the church. Thus for the first time, site-specific iconography is seen in a work for a pilgrim painted by an artist conversant with Byzantine, western, and local traditions.

The 1130 fresco is an important example of the shift we see in crusader art with the second generation of settlers. Fulcher of
Chartres had commented on the transformation of outlook in a famous passage written about the time the crusaders captured Tyre in July 1124: ‘For we who were Occidentals have now become Orientals. He who was a Roman or a Frank has in this land been made into a Galilean or a Palestinian. He who was of Reims or Chartres has now become a citizen of Tyre or Antioch. We have already forgotten the places of our birth; already these are unknown to many of us or not mentioned any more.’

The patrons who stimulated this transformation in the arts after 1131 were the patriarchs of Jerusalem, King Fulk, and especially Queen Melisende, the first rulers to be crowned in the church of the Holy Sepulchre. Fulk was a great castle builder. His armies carried the ensign of the kingdom, a reliquary of the True Cross, on all their major expeditions. So important had relics become that an important centre for goldsmiths’ work had grown up in Jerusalem just south of the Holy Sepulchre to produce the characteristic double-armed cross reliquaries for pilgrim patrons. The handsome True Cross reliquary now in Barletta was probably made in Jerusalem about 1138.

King Fulk’s most important commission was, however, the Psalter of Melisende. No expense was spared on this manuscript. At least seven persons collaborated on the production of this luxury manuscript by early 1135. A team of four illustrators (including Basilius, a Byzantine-trained ‘crusader’ artist who signed the Deësis image) combined with a northern French scribe for the calendar and text of the Latin psalter, a ‘crusader’ ivory carver for the book covers, and a ‘crusader’ embroiderer for the silk spine of the book embroidered with silver thread. The decoration of the book reflects crusader taste that Byzantine was synonymous with aristocratic style in artistic terms, and it reflects Melisende’s Orthodox religious sensibilities. This manuscript is the most important extant work from the scriptorium of the Holy Sepulchre in the twelfth century and, along with the 1130 icon in Bethlehem, it represents a new phase of crusader art in which East and West are distinctively integrated.

Queen Melisende was a figure of extraordinary importance in the Latin kingdom from 1131 to 1161: she was the daughter
of King Baldwin II, the wife of King Fulk, and the mother of two kings, Baldwin III and Amalric; as has already been pointed out in
Chapter 6
, she was a powerful force in politics and the arts, at least until 1152, when Baldwin III took control. Melisende, as the daughter of a Frankish father and an Armenian mother, was the embodiment of the new eastern perspective seen in the arts of this flourishing period. The 1140s were an especially remarkable time for her patronage and crusader art in general.

William of Tyre, the famous historian of the Latin East, writing in the 1180s, tells us that Melisende commissioned the building of the convent of St Lazarus at Bethany at the site of Lazarus’s Tomb for her younger sister Yvette. Melisende must have had a significant hand in numerous other major works: one of her earliest projects may have been the rebuilding of the convent of St Anne while Yvette lived there, that is prior to 1144. In 1141 the Dome of the Rock was consecrated as the church of the Templum Domini and Melisende may have helped sponsor an entire new programme of mosaic decoration along with a splendid iron-work grille around the rock inside. In the early 1140s, the royal residence was moved from the Templum Salomonis to the south side of the citadel, an undertaking in which she obviously must have been heavily involved.