A History of the Crusades-Vol 3 (51 page)

The iron candelabra used in the churches
were probably made on the spot but follow the usual designs of western Europe.
No identifiable pottery or glass has survived. Coins and seals were made
locally. The former were intended for use in the East and therefore followed
local Moslem patterns, even having inscriptions in Arabic. The seals of the
twelfth century are simple and crude, but those of the thirteenth century are
more graceful and elaborate. A reliquary of crystal set in a stirrup-shaped and
jewel-encrusted piece of silver and containing an inner case of carved wood,
now preserved at Jerusalem, may be indigenous, though the crystal and silver
work probably came from Central Europe. Of ivory-work there are the two
delicately carved plaques that serve as covers for the Psalter of Queen
Melisende. The one has medallions giving the story of David, with the
Psychomachia in the corners, the other the Works of Mercy, with fantastic
animals in the corners. The iconography is Western rather than Byzantine,
though the royal costumes are Byzantine, the animals Moorish and the decoration
Armenian in inspiration. It seems unlikely that there should have been any
ivory-worker of such a high calibre living in Jerusalem. The plaques were
probably a gift from elsewhere.

The slightness of the evidence should not
be interpreted to mean that little was done. If architecture flourished, it is
likely that the other arts flourished also, and gave the same reflection of
life in Outremer. The eclectic architecture of the twelfth century is that of
colonists that were ready to fit themselves into the land to which they had
come, though they were continually reinforced from the West. But the disasters
at the end of the century ended the old balance. In the thirteenth century few
of the older great families of Outremer survived. Their place was taken by the
Military Orders, who were mainly recruited in the West and had little feeling
for local traditions. In the cities the native elements were now set apart.
Acre looked westward. Wealth was in the hands of the Italians and power usually
in the hands of potentates from the West or their deputies. More and more of
the nobility retired to Cyprus, where a new Gothic civilization was arising. A
few echoes from Byzantium and the East were still heard, but they were growing
faint. Byzantium was in eclipse. The older Arab culture was extinguished by the
Mongols, and the newer culture of Mameluk Egypt was aggressively hostile. In
Antioch the synthesis may have been continued, but pillage, earthquake and
decay have destroyed all the evidence. Further south the attempt of Outremer to
build its own characteristic style was ruined on the field of Hattin. The
modest, sturdy work of twelfth-century Outremer was a prelude that led to
nothing. Thirteenth-century Outremer was only a distant province of the
Mediterranean Gothic world.

CHAPTER
III

THE
FALL OF ACRE

‘An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.’
EZEKIEL VII, 2

There was rejoicing in Outremer when news
came of the death of Baibars. His successor was his eldest son, Baraqa, a weak
youth whose time was employed in trying to control the Mameluk emirs. The task
was too much for him. In August 1279, the emir of the Syrian troops, Qalawun, revolted
and marched on Cairo. Baraqa abdicated in favour of his seventeen-year-old
brother; and Qalawun took over the government. Four months later Qalawun
displaced the child and proclaimed himself Sultan. The governor of Damascus,
Sonqor al-Ashqar, refused to accept his authority and proclaimed himself Sultan
there next April. But he was unable to maintain himself against the Egyptians.
After a battle close to Damascus in June 1280, he retired to northern Syria and
soon made his peace with Qalawun, who thus obtained the whole of Baibars’s
heritage.

The Franks made no use of the respite. In
vain the Ilkhan Abaga and his vassal, Leo III of Armenia, urged an alliance and
a Crusade. Their only advocate was the Order of the Hospital. Charles of Anjou,
with his hatred of Byzantium and its Genoese allies, ordered his
bailli
at
Acre, Roger of San Severino, to keep to an alliance with the Venetians, the
Templars and the Mameluk Court. The Pope, who had been promised by the Emperor
Michael the submission of the Byzantine Church, encouraged Charles in his
Syrian schemes in order to distract him from an attack on Constantinople. King
Edward I showed his sympathy with the Mongols; but he was far away in England
and had neither the time nor the money for a new Crusade.

In Outremer Bohemond VII might have been
willing to cooperate with his Armenian uncle, but he was on bad terms with the
Templars; and in 1277 he quarrelled with the most powerful of his vassals, Guy
II Embriaco of Jebail. Guy, who was his cousin and close friend, had been
promised the hand of a local heiress of the Aleman family for his brother John.
But Bishop Bartholomew of Tortosa desired the heritage for his own nephew and
won Bohemond’s consent. Thereupon Guy kidnapped the girl and married her to
John. Then, fearing Bohemond’s vengeance, he fled to the Templars. Bohemond
responded by destroying the Templars’ buildings at Tripoli and cutting down a
forest that they owned nearby at Montroque. The Master of the Temple, William
of Beaujeu, at once led the knights of the Order against Tripoli, to make a
demonstration outside the walls, and when he retired he burned the castle of
Botrun; but his attempt to storm Nephin resulted in the capture of a dozen of
his knights, whom Bohemond duly imprisoned at Tripoli. When the Templars had
moved back to Acre, Bohemond set out to attack Jebail. Guy, with whom William
of Beaujeu had left a contingent from the Order, went to meet him. A fierce
battle took place a few miles north of Botrun. There were barely two hundred
combatants on either side, but the carnage was tremendous. Bohemond was badly
defeated. Amongst the knights that he lost was his cousin and Guy’s
brother-in-law, Balian of Sidon, the last of the great house of Garnier.

1282: Civil War in Tripoli

After his defeat Bohemond accepted a truce
for a year; but in 1278 Guy and the Templars attacked him again. Once again Bohemond
was defeated; but twelve Templar galleys which attempted to force the harbour
of Tripoli were scattered by a storm. Fifteen galleys that Bohemond then sent
against the Templar castle of Sidon succeeded in doing some damage there before
the

Grand Master of the Hospital, Nicholas
Lorgne, intervened. He hastened to Tripoli and arranged another truce. But Guy
of Jebail was still truculent. He determined to capture Tripoli itself. In
January 1282, with his brothers and some friends, he smuggled himself into the
Templar quarters at Tripoli. But there had been a misunderstanding and the
Templar commander, Reddecoeur, was away. Guy suspected treachery and panicked.
As he tried to take refuge in the House of the Hospitallers, someone warned
Bohemond. The conspirators fled to a tower in the Hospital, where Bohemond’s
troops besieged them. After a few hours they agreed, at the request of the
Hospitallers, to surrender on condition that their lives were spared. Bohemond
broke his word. All Guy’s companions were blinded, but Guy himself, with his
brothers John and Baldwin and his cousin William, was taken to Nephin, and
there they were all buried up to their necks in a ditch and left to starve to
death.

The rebels’ ghastly fate horrified all
Bohemond’s vassals. Moreover the Embriaco family had always remembered its
Genoese origin; and there had been many Genoese amongst the conspirators. As
the Genoese were good friends of the Armenians and advocates of a Mongol
alliance, Bohemond held aloof from their policy. Meanwhile John of Montfort,
who was a devoted ally of the Genoese, planned to move up from Tyre to avenge
his friends. But Bohemond reached Jebail before him. Only the Pisans, who hated
the Genoese, found unalloyed pleasure in the whole episode.

Politics were not much happier further
south. Roger of San Severino’s government at Acre was resented by the local
nobility. In 1277 William of Beaujeu attempted to bring John of Montfort over
to his side and succeeded in reconciling John with the Venetians, who were allowed
to return to their former quarters in Tyre. But John kept aloof from the
government at Acre. In 1279 King Hugh suddenly landed at Tyre, hoping to rally
the nobility round him. John gave him support, but no one else rose in his
favour. The four months’ period for which he was legally entitled to claim the
presence of his Cypriot vassals overseas was passed in inaction. When his
knights returned to Cyprus the King had to follow. He blamed the Templars for
his failure, with reason, for it was William of Beaujeu who had kept Acre loyal
to Roger of San Severino. In revenge the Templars’ property in Cyprus was
confiscated, including their castle at Gastria. The Order complained to the
Pope, who wrote to Hugh to bid him restore the property; but he ignored the
Papal command. Though he seems to have approved of the Mongol alliance, chiefly
because Roger of San Severino opposed it, he was in no position to take any
action on the mainland.

The Ilkhan was eager to strike against the
Mameluks before Qalawun should be able to consolidate himself. Sonqor, ex-emir
of Damascus, was still defying the Egyptians in northern Syria, when, at the
end of September 1280, a Mongol army crossed the Euphrates and occupied Aintab,
Baghras and Darbsaq. On 20 October it entered Aleppo, where it pillaged the
markets and burned the mosques. The terrified Moslem inhabitants of the
districts fled south towards Damascus. At the same time the Hospitallers of
Marqab made a highly profitable raid into the Buqaia, penetrating almost to Krak
and, as they returned, defeating near Maraclea the Moslem army sent to restrain
them. But the Mongols were not in full enough strength to hold Aleppo. When
Qalawun assembled his forces at Damascus, they retreated across the Euphrates.
The Sultan contented himself with sending a force to punish the Hospitallers,
who defeated it in front of Marqab.

1281: Battle of Horns

About the same time a Mongol ambassador
appeared at Acre to tell the Franks that the Ilkhan proposed sending an army of
a hundred thousand men to Syria next spring, and to beg them to supplement him
with men and munitions. The Hospitallers sent the message on to King Edward;
but at Acre itself there was no response. The news of the coming Mongol
invasion frightened Qalawun. He made peace with Sonqor in June 1281, enfeoffing
him with Antioch and Apamea; and he sent to Acre to suggest a ten years’ truce
with the Military Orders. The truce made with the government at Acre in 1272
still had over a year to run. Some of the emirs in the Egyptian embassy told
the Franks not to make terms with Qalawun, as he would soon be overthrown. When
Roger of San Severino heard this, he at once wrote to warn the Sultan, who was
able to arrest the conspirators in time. Meanwhile the Orders at Acre agreed to
the treaty, which was signed on 3 May. On 16 July Bohemond made a similar
truce. It was a diplomatic triumph for Qalawun. A united Frankish effort on his
flank, even without reinforcements from the West, would have seriously
complicated his campaign against the Mongols.

In September 1281, two Mongol armies
advanced into Syria. One, commanded by the Ilkhan in person, slowly reduced the
Moslem fortresses along the Euphrates frontier, while the second, under his
brother Mangu Timur, first made contact with Leo III of Armenia, then marched
down through Aintab and Aleppo into the Orontes valley. Qalawun had already
gone to Damascus where he assembled his forces, and hurried northward. The
Franks held aloof, except for the Hospitallers of Marqab, who refused to
consider themselves bound by the truce made by the Order at Acre. A few of
their knights rode out to join the King of Armenia. On 30 October the Mongol
and Mameluk armies met just outside Homs. Mangu Timur commanded the Mongol
centre, with other Mongol princes on his left, and on his right his Georgian
auxiliaries, with King Leo and the Hospitallers. The Moslem right was under
al-Mansur of Hama; Qalawun himself commanded the Egyptians in the centre, with
the army of Damascus, under the emir Lajin, beside him, and on the left the
former rebel Sonqor, with the northern Syrians and Turcomans.

When the battle was joined the Christians
on the Mongol right soon routed Sonqor, whom they pursued right into his camp
at Horns, thus losing touch with their centre. Meanwhile, though the Mongol
left held firm, Mangu Timur himself was wounded in the course of a Mameluk
attack on the centre. His nerve left him, and he ordered a precipitate retreat.
Leo of Armenia and his comrades found themselves isolated. They had to fight
their way back northwards, suffering heavy losses. But Qalawun had lost too
many men to follow in pursuit. The Mongol army recrossed the Euphrates without
further losses. The great river remained the frontier between the two Empires;
and Qalawun did not venture to punish the Armenians.

The Prior of the English Hospitallers,
Joseph of Chauncy, who was visiting the East, was present at the battle and
wrote afterwards to Edward I to describe it. He said that King Hugh and Prince
Bohemond had not been able to join the Mongols in time. He was probably trying
to shield them both from the wrath of the English King, who was the only
Western monarch still to take an interest in the Holy War, and who strongly
favoured the Mongol alliance. But Edward’s perspicacity was not copied in the
East. King Hugh had done nothing; Bohemond had made a truce with the Moslems;
while Roger of San Severino, King Charles’s deputy, made a special journey to
meet Qalawun and congratulate him on his victory.