Historic writing The earliest form of writing

Historic writing
The earliest form of writing

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/themes/writing/historic_writing.aspx


The earliest writing we know of dates back to around 3,000 BC and was probably invented by the Sumerians, living in major cities with centralised economies in what is now southern Iraq. Temple officials needed to keep records of the grain, sheep and cattle entering or leaving their stores and farms and it became impossible to rely on memory. So, an alternative method was required and the very earliest texts were pictures of the items scribes needed to record (known as pictographs).



These texts were drawn on damp clay tablets using a pointed tool. It seems the scribes realised it was quicker and easier to produce representations of such things as animals, rather than naturalistic impressions of them. They began to draw marks in the clay to make up signs, which were standardised so they could be recognised by many people.

A wedge-shaped instrument (usually a cut reed) was used to press the signs into soft clay. This gave the writing system its name, 'cuneiform', meaning wedge-shaped.
Cuneiform



From these beginnings, cuneiform signs were put together and developed to represent sounds, so they could be used to record spoken language. Once this was achieved, ideas and concepts could be expressed and communicated in writing. Letters enclosed in clay envelopes, as well as works of literature, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh have been found. Historical accounts have also come to light, as have huge libraries such as that belonging to the Assyrian king,Ashurbanipal (668-627 BC).

The latest known example of cuneiform is an astronomical text from AD 75. During its 3,000-year history cuneiform was used to write around 15 different languages including Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Elamite, Hittite, Urartian and Old Persian.

While cuneiform was spreading throughout the Middle East, writing systems were also being developed in Egypt and China.
Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs

It is not known exactly where and when Egyptian writing first began, but it was already well-advanced two centuries before the start of the First Dynasty that suggests a date for its invention in Egypt around 3,000 BC. The most well-known script used for writing the Egyptian language was in the form of a series of small signs, or hieroglyphs.

Some signs are pictures of real-world objects, while others are representations of spoken sounds. These sound signs are pictures that get their meaning from how the word for the object they represent sounds when said aloud. Some signs write one letter, some more, while others write whole words.

Like cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs were used for record-keeping, but also for monumental display dedicated to royalty and deities. The word hieroglyph comes from the Greek hieros 'sacred' and gluptien 'carved in stone'. The last known hieroglyph inscription was AD 394.

Other scripts used to write Egyptian were developed over time. Hieratic was handwritten and easier to write so was used for administrative and non-monumental texts from the Old Kingdom (about 2613-2160 BC) to around 700 BC. Hieratic was replaced by demotic, which means popular, in the Late Period (661-332 BC), and was a more abbreviated version. In turn demotic was replaced by Coptic, which may have been introduced to record the contemporary spoken language, in the first century AD.
Writing in China

In China, the earliest writing dates back to around 1200 BC and was found at the Shang Dynasty (about 1500-1050 BC) site of Anyang. Shang kings believed their ancestors could advise them and would use hot rods to crack pieces of polished oxen shoulder blade or the under shell of turtles. The patterns of the cracks were used to forecast the future.

Scribes carved questions and answers into these ‘oracle’ bones. They might ask about the best time to grow crops, for example. The origins of this script are unclear, but the oldest examples are already highly-developed, suggesting it had been in use for some time. Inscriptions have also been found on Shang bronzes from this period.

Unlike cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, however, the Chinese script did not die out. It underwent major changes and was adapted for use in other languages, but is still in use today.

Later Chinese scripts were developed for specific reasons. Seal script was used by the First Emperor (around 221 BC) but is still used for seals as a personal signature. Clerical script was developed in around 200 BC for record keeping. An easy-to-read script was used for ordinary writing and printed books, while grass script was used when writing had to be done quickly, such as note-taking.

Writing, or calligraphy, is China’s highest art form. Characters must be drawn with perfect balance and proportion and the order in which the strokes are made always follows a set pattern.

The Chinese script still used today has 40-50,000 characters, although only around 3,000 are needed to write a newspaper. The characters can represent a sound, a whole word, or even a concept.
The glyphs of Central America

Across the Pacific Ocean, the Maya civilisation was at its height between AD300 and 900. Inscriptions have been found on monumental sculpture, public buildings, murals, pottery, shell, obsidian, bone, wood, jade and screenfold books called codices. They were only identified as a writing system by scholars during the nineteenth century.

The majority of surviving examples of Maya writing are from the Classic period (AD 250-900) although some date to the Late Preclassic (400 BC - AD 250). Inscriptions record calendar and astronomical information, and historical events such as alliances, wars, lineages and marriages.

Maya glyphs were inscribed in blocks placed in horizontal and vertical rows. One or more glyphs were set in each block. It is generally read from left to right and top to bottom. The text sometimes appears in single columns, but can appear in L-shaped or other arrangements, such as on the carved lintels from the city of Yaxchilán.

More information about objects featured here (from top)

Tablet recording the allocation of beer, southern Iraq
Clay tablet with a cuneiform letter and envelope, Turkey
Cuneiform tablet with omens, northern Iraq
The Flood Tablet, from Nineveh, northern Iraq
Ivory label for King Den's sandals, Egypt
Page from the Book of the Dead of Hunefer, Egypt
Bronze gui (ritual food vessel), China
The Fenton Vase, from Nebaj, Guatemala

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Cuneiform: 6 things you (probably) didn’t know about the world’s oldest writing system

Cuneiform: 6 things you (probably) didn’t know about the world’s oldest writing system

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Distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, cuneiform script is the oldest form of writing in the world, first appearing even earlier than Egyptian hieroglyphics
Tuesday 26th May 2015
Submitted by Emma McFarnon
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A counting of goats and rams in cuneiform script, ancient Ngirsu, Iraq, 2360 BC. (DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De Agostini/Getty Images)


Now, the curators of the world’s largest collection of cuneiform tablets – housed at the British Museum – have written a book exploring the history of cuneiform. In it, they reveal why the writing system is as relevant today as ever.

Here, Irving Finkel and Jonathan Taylor share six lesser-known facts about cuneiform…


1) Cuneiform is not a language

The cuneiform writing system is also not an alphabet, and it doesn’t have letters. Instead it used between 600 and 1,000 characters to write words (or parts of them) or syllables (or parts of them).

The two main languages written in Cuneiform are Sumerian and Akkadian (from ancient Iraq), although more than a dozen others are recorded. This means we could use it equally well today to spell Chinese, Hungarian or English.


2) Cuneiform was first used in around 3,400 BC

The first stage used elementary pictures that were soon also used to record sounds. Cuneiform probably preceded Egyptian hieroglyphic writing, because we know of early Mesopotamian experiments and ‘dead-ends’ as the established script developed – including the beginning of signs and numbers – whereas the hieroglyphic system seems to have been born more or less perfectly formed and ready to go. Almost certainly Egyptian writing evolved from cuneiform – it can’t have been an on-the-spot invention.

Amazingly, cuneiform continued to be used until the first century AD, meaning that the distance in time that separates us from the latest surviving cuneiform tablet is only just over half of that which separates that tablet from the first cuneiform.


3) All you needed to write cuneiform was a reed and some clay

Both of which were freely available in the rivers alongside the Mesopotamian cities where cuneiform was used (now Iraq and eastern Syria). The word cuneiform comes from Latin cuneus, meaning ‘wedge’, and simply means ‘wedge shaped’. It refers to the shape made each time a scribe pressed his stylus (made from a specially cut reed) into the clay.

Most tablets would fit comfortably in the palm of a hand – like mobile phones today – and were used for only a short time: maybe a few hours or days at school, or a few years for a letter, loan or account. Many of the tablets have survived purely by accident.


4) Cuneiform looks somewhat impossible…

Those who read cuneiform for a living – and there are a few – like to think of it as the world’s most difficult writing (or the most inconvenient). However, if you have six years to spare and work round the clock (not pausing for meals) it’s a doddle to master! All you have to do is learn the extinct languages recorded by the tablets, then thousands of signs – many of which have more than one meaning or sound.



c2044 BC, Sumeria, Ancient Iraq: Ur III clay administrative tablet, impressed with the scribes seal, which depicts a goddess leading a worshipper and the text Ur Gigir, scribe, son of Barran. The main text on the reverse (pictured) lists ploughmen employed by the state with the quantities of land assigned to them as wages. (Photo by Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)


5) … but children master it surprisingly quickly

Children who visit the British Museum seem to take to cuneiform with a kind of overlooked homing instinct, and they often consider clay homework in spikey wedges much more exciting than exercises in biro on paper.

In fact, many of the surviving tablets in the museum collection belonged to schoolchildren, and show the spelling and handwriting exercises that they completed: they repeated the same characters, then words, then proverbs, over and over again until they could move on to difficult literature.


6) Cuneiform is as relevant today as ever

Ancient writings offer proof that our ‘modern’ ideas and problems have been experienced by human beings for thousands of years – this is always an astounding realisation. Through cuneiform we hear the voices not just of kings and their scribes, but children, bankers, merchants, priests and healers – women as well as men.
It is utterly fascinating to read other people’s letters, especially when they are 4,000 years old and written in such elegant and delicate script.



Irving Finkel and Jonathan Taylor are the authors of Cuneiform (British Museum Press, March 2015). To find out more, click here.

To learn more about the world’s largest collection of cuneiform tablets, which contains more than 130,000 examples of cuneiform writing, click here.

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The Crusades: A Complete History

The Crusades: A Complete History
By Jonathan Phillips
Published in History TodayVolume 65 Issue 5 May 2015
Crusades
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Jonathan Phillips offers a comprehensive account of a compelling and controversial topic, whose bitter legacy resonates to this day.


During the last four decades the Crusades have become one of the most dynamic areas of historical enquiry, which points to an increasing curiosity to understand and interpret these extraordinary events. What persuaded people in the Christian West to want to recapture Jerusalem? What impact did the success of the First Crusade (1099) have on the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean? What was the effect of crusading on the people and institutions of western Europe? How did people record the Crusades and, finally, what is their legacy?

Academic debate moved forwards significantly during the 1980s, as discussion concerning the definition of a crusade gathered real steam. Understanding of the scope of the Crusades widened with a new recognition that crusading extended far beyond the original 11th-century expeditions to the Holy Land, both in terms of chronology and scope. That is, they took place long after the end of the Frankish hold on the East (1291) and continued down to the 16th century. With regards to their target, crusades were also called against the Muslims of the Iberian peninsula, the pagan peoples of the Baltic region, the Mongols, political opponents of the Papacy and heretics (such as the Cathars or the Hussites). An acceptance of this framework, as well as the centrality of papal authorisation for such expeditions, is generally referred to as the 'pluralist' position.

The emergence of this interpretation energised the existing field and had the effect of drawing in a far greater number of scholars. Alongside this came a growing interest in re-evaluating the motives of crusaders, with some of the existing emphases on money being downplayed and the cliché of landless younger sons out for adventure being laid to rest. Through the use of a broader range of evidence than ever before (especially charters, that is sales or loans of lands and/or rights), a stress on contemporary religious impulses as the dominant driver for, particularly the First Crusade, came through. Yet the wider world intruded on and then, in some ways, stimulated this academic debate: the horrors of 9/11 and President George W. Bush's disastrous use of the word 'crusade' to describe the 'war on terror' fed the extremists' message of hate and the notion of a longer, wider conflict between Islam and the West, dating back to the medieval period, became extremely prominent. In reality, of course, such a simplistic view is deeply flawed but it is a powerful shorthand for extremists of all persuasions (from Osama Bin Laden to Anders Breivik to ISIS) and certainly provided an impetus to study the legacy of the crusading age into the modern world, as we will see here, calling on the extensive online archive of History Today.

***

The First Crusade was called in November 1095 by Pope Urban II at the town of Clermont in central France. The pope made a proposal: 'Whoever for devotion alone, but not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penance.' This appeal was the combination of a number of contemporary trends along with the inspiration of Urban himself, who added particular innovations to the mix. For several decades Christians had been pushing back at Muslim lands on the edge of Europe, in the Iberian peninsula, for example, as well as in Sicily. In some instances the Church had become involved in these events through the offer of limited spiritual rewards for participants.

The Council of Clermont and the arrival of Pope Urban II. Bibliothèque Nationale / Bridgeman Images

Urban was responsible for the spiritual well-being of his flock and the crusade presented an opportunity for the sinful knights of western Europe to cease their endless in-fighting and exploitation of the weak (lay people and churchmen alike) and to make good their violent lives. Urban saw the campaign as a chance for knights to direct their energies towards what was seen as a spiritually meritorious act, namely the recovery of the holy city of Jerusalem from Islam (the Muslims had taken Jerusalem in 637). In return for this they would, in effect, be forgiven those sins they had confessed. This, in turn, would save them from the prospect of eternal damnation in the fires of Hell, a fate repeatedly emphasised by the Church as the consequence of a sinful life. To find out more see Marcus Bull, who reveals the religious context of the campaign in his 1997 article.

Within an age of such intense religiosity the city of Jerusalem, as the place where Christ lived, walked and died, held a central role. When the aim of liberating Jerusalem was coupled to lurid (probably exaggerated) stories of the maltreatment of both the Levant's native Christians and western pilgrims, the desire for vengeance, along with the opportunity for spiritual advancement, formed a hugely potent combination. Urban would be looking after his flock and improving the spiritual condition of western Europe, too. The fact that the papacy was engaged in a mighty struggle with the German emperor, Henry IV (the Investiture Controversy), and that calling the crusade would enhance the pope's standing was an opportunity too good for Urban to miss.

A spark to this dry tinder came from another Christian force: the Byzantine Empire. Emperor Alexios I feared the advance of the Seljuk Turks towards his capital city of Constantinople. The Byzantines were Greek Orthodox Christians but, since 1054, had been in a state of schism with the Catholic Church. The launch of the crusade presented Urban with a chance to move closer to the Orthodox and to heal the rift.

Crusaders embark for the Levant. From 'Le Roman de Godefroi de Bouillon', France, 1337. Bibliothèque Nationale / Bridgeman ImagesThe reaction to Urban's appeal was astounding and news of the expedition rippled across much of the Latin West. Thousands saw this as a new way to attain salvation and to avoid the consequences of their sinful lives. Yet aspirations of honour, adventure, financial gain and, for a very small number, land (in the event, most of the First Crusaders returned home after the expedition ended) may well have figured, too. While churchmen frowned upon worldly motives because they believed that such sinful aims would incur God's displeasure, many laymen had little difficulty in accommodating these alongside their religiosity. Thus Stephen of Blois, one of the senior men on the campaign, could write home to his wife, Adela of Blois (daughter of William the Conqueror), that he had been given valuable gifts and honours by the emperor and that he now had twice as much gold, silver and other riches as when he left the West. People of all social ranks (except kings) joined the First Crusade, although an initial rush of ill-disciplined zealots sparked an horrific outbreak of antisemitism, especially in the Rhineland, as they sought to finance their expedition by taking Jewish money and to attack a group perceived as the enemies of Christ in their own lands. These contingents, known as the 'Peoples' Crusade', caused real problems outside Constantinople, before Alexios ushered them over the Bosporus and into Asia Minor, where the Seljuk Turks destroyed them.

Led by a series of senior nobles, the main armies gathered in Constantinople during 1096. Alexios had not expected such a huge number of westerners to appear on his doorstep but saw the chance to recover land lost to the Turks. Given the crusaders' need for food and transport, the emperor held the upper hand in this relationship, although this is not to say that he was anything other than cautious in dealing with the new arrivals, particularly in the aftermath of the trouble caused by the Peoples' Crusade and the fact that the main armies included a large Norman Sicilian contingent, a group who had invaded Byzantine lands as recently as 1081. See Peter Frankopan. Most of the crusade leaders swore oaths to Alexios, promising to hand over to him lands formerly held by the Byzantines in return for supplies, guides and luxury gifts.

***

In June 1097 the crusaders and the Greeks took one of the emperor's key objectives, the formidable walled city of Nicaea, 120 miles from Constantinople, although in the aftermath of the victory some writers reported Frankish discontent at the division of booty. The crusaders moved inland, heading across the Anatolian plain. A large Turkish army attacked the troops of Bohemond of Taranto near Dorylaeum. The crusaders were marching in separate contingents and this, plus the unfamiliar tactics of swift attacks by mounted horse archers, almost saw them defeated until the arrival of forces under Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon saved the day. This hard-won victory proved an invaluable lesson for the Christians and, as the expedition went on, the military cohesion of the crusader army grew and grew, making them an ever more effective force.

Over the next few months the army, under Count Baldwin of Boulogne, crossed Asia Minor with some contingents taking the Cilician towns of Tarsus and Mamistra and others, heading via Cappadocia towards the eastern Christian lands of Edessa (biblical Rohais), where the largely Armenian population welcomed the crusaders. Local political conflict meant Baldwin was able to take power himself and thus, in 1098, the first so-called Crusader State, the County of Edessa, came into being.



Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem (c.1058-1118), from the Abrégé de la Chronique de Jerusalem, France, 15th century. De Agostini / Bridgeman Images

By this time the bulk of the army had reached Antioch, today just inside the southern Turkish border with Syria. This huge city had been a Roman settlement; to Christians it was significant as the place where saints Peter and Paul had lived and it was one of the five patriarchal seats of the Christian Church. It was also important to the Byzantines, having been a major city in their empire as recently as 1084. The site was too big to surround properly but the crusaders did their best to squeeze the place into submission. Over the winter of 1097 conditions became extremely harsh, although the arrival of a Genoese fleet in the spring of 1098 provided some useful support. The stalemate was only ended when Bohemond persuaded a local Christian to betray one of the towers and on June 3rd, 1098 the crusaders broke into the city and captured it. Their victory was not complete, however, because the citadel, towering over the site, remained in Muslim hands, a problem compounded by the news that a large Muslim relief army was approaching from Mosul. Lack of food and the loss of most of their horses (essential for the knights, of course) meant that morale was at rock bottom. Count Stephen of Blois, one of the most senior figures on the crusade, along with a few other men, had recently deserted, believing the expedition doomed. They met Emperor Alexios, who was bringing long-awaited reinforcements, and told him that the crusade was a hopeless cause. Thus, in good faith, the Greek ruler turned back. In Antioch, meanwhile, the crusaders had been inspired by the 'discovery' of a relic of the Holy Lance, the spear that had pierced Christ's side as he was on the cross. A vision told a cleric in Raymond of St Gilles' army where to dig and, sure enough, there the object was found. Some regarded this as a touch convenient and too easy a boost to the standing of the Provençal contingent, but to the masses it acted as a vital inspiration. A couple of weeks later, on June 28th, 1098, the crusaders gathered their last few hundred horses together, drew themselves into their now familiar battle lines and charged the Muslim forces. With writers reporting the aid of warrior saints in the sky, the crusaders triumphed and the citadel duly surrendered leaving them in full control of Antioch before the Muslim relief army arrived.

***

In the aftermath of victory many of the exhausted Christians succumbed to disease, including Adhémar of Le Puy, the papal legate and spiritual leader of the campaign. The senior crusaders were bitterly divided. Bohemond wanted to stay and consolidate his hold on Antioch, arguing that since Alexios had not fulfilled his side of the bargain then his oath to the Greeks was void and the conquest remained his. The bulk of the crusaders scorned this political squabbling because they wanted to reach Christ's tomb in Jerusalem and they compelled the army to head southwards. En route, they avoided major set-piece confrontations by making deals with individual towns and cities and they reached Jerusalem in June 1099. John France relates the capture of the city in his article from 1997.

Forces concentrated to the north and the south of the walled city and on July 15th, 1099 the troops of Godfrey of Bouillon managed to bring their siege towers close enough to the walls to get across. Their fellow Christians burst into the city and over the next few days the place was put to the sword in an outburst of religious cleansing and a release of tension after years on the march. A terrible massacre saw many of the Muslim and Jewish defenders of the city slaughtered, although the oft-repeated phrase of 'wading up to their knees in blood' is an exaggeration, being a line from the apocalyptic Book of Revelation (14:20) used to convey an impression of the scene rather than a real description – a physical impossibility. The crusaders gave emotional thanks for their success as they reached their goal, the tomb of Christ in the Holy Sepulchre.

Their victory was not yet assured. The vizier of Egypt had viewed the crusaders' advance with a mixture of emotions. As the guardian of the Shi'ite caliphate in Cairo he had a profound dislike of the Sunni Muslims of Syria, but equally he did not want a new power to establish itself in the region. His forces confronted the crusaders near Ascalon in August 1099 and, in spite of their numerical inferiority, the Christians triumphed and also secured a substantial amount of booty. By this time, having achieved their aims, the vast majority of the exhausted crusaders were only too keen to return to their homes and families. Some, of course, chose to remain in the Levant, resolved to guard Christ's patrimony and to set up lordships and holdings for themselves. Fulcher of Chartres, a contemporary in the Levant, lamented that only 300 knights stayed in the kingdom of Jerusalem; a tiny number to establish a permanent hold on the land.

***

Over the next decade, however, aided by the lack of real opposition from the local Muslims and boosted by the arrival of a series of fleets from the West, the Christians began to take control of the whole coastline and to create a series of viable states. The support of the Italian trading cities of Venice, Pisa and, particularly at this early stage, Genoa, was crucial. The motives of the Italians have often been questioned but there is convincing evidence to show they were just as keen as any other contemporaries to capture Jerusalem, yet as trading centres they were determined to advance the cause of their home city, too. The writings of Caffaro of Genoa, a rare secular source from this period, show little difficulty in assimilating these motives. He went on pilgrimage to the River Jordan, attended Easter ceremonies in the Holy Sepulchre and celebrated the acquisition of riches. Italian sailors and troops helped capture the vital coastal ports (such as Acre, Caesarea and Jaffa), in return for which they were awarded generous trading privileges which, in turn, gave a vital boost to the economy as the Italians transported goods from the Muslim interior (especially spices) back to the West. Just as important was their role in bringing pilgrims to and from the Holy Land. Now that the holy places were in Christian hands, many thousands of westerners could visit the sites and, as they came under Latin control, religious communities flourished. Thus, the basic rationale behind the Crusades was fulfilled. There is a strong case for saying that the crusader states could not have been sustained were it not for the contribution of the Italians.

One interesting side-effect of the First Crusade (and a matter of immense interest to scholars today) is the unprecedented burst of historical writing that emerged after the capture of Jerusalem. This amazing episode inspired authors across the Christian West to write about these events in a way that nothing in earlier medieval history had done. No longer had they to look back to the heroes of antiquity, because their own generation had provided men of comparable renown. This was an age of rising literacy and the creation and circulation of crusade texts was a big part of this movement. Numerous histories, plus oral storytelling, often in the form of Chansons de geste, popular within the early flowerings of the chivalric age, celebrated the First Crusade. Historians have previously looked at these narratives to construct the framework of events but now many scholars are looking behind these texts to consider more deeply the reasons why they were written, the different styles of writing, the use of classical and biblical motifs, the inter-relationships and the borrowings between the texts.

Another area to receive increasing attention is the reaction of the Muslim world. It is now clear that when the First Crusade arrived the Muslims of the Near East were extremely divided, not just along the Sunni/Shi'ite fault line, but also, in the case of the former, among themselves. Robert Irwin draws attention to this in his 1997 article, as well as considering the impact of the crusade on the Muslims of the region. It was a fortunate coincidence that during the mid-1090s the death of senior leaders in the Seljuk world meant that the crusaders encountered opponents who were primarily concerned with their own political infighting rather than seeing the threat from outside. Given that the First Crusade was, self-evidently, a novel event, this was understandable. The lack of jihad spirit was also evident, as lamented by as-Sulami, a Damascene preacher whose urging of the ruling classes to pull themselves together and fulfil their religious duty was largely ignored until the time of Nur ad-Din (1146-74) and Saladin onwards.

The Frankish settlers had to fit in to the complex cultural and religious blend of the Near East. Their numbers were so few that once they had captured places they very quickly needed to adapt their behaviour from the militant holy war rhetoric of Pope Urban II to a more pragmatic stance of relative religious toleration, with truces and even occasional alliances with various Muslim neighbours. Had they oppressed the majority local population (and many Muslims and eastern Christians lived under Frankish rule), there would have been no-one to farm the lands or to tax and their economy would simply have collapsed. Recent archaeological work by the Israeli scholar Ronnie Ellenblum has done much to show that the Franks did not, as was previously believed, live solely in the cities, separated from the local populace. Local Christian communities often existed alongside them, sometimes even sharing churches.

Muhammad al-Idrisi's map of the world, with Jerusalem at its centre, drawn for Roger II of Sicily in 1154. Bridgeman Images

The Frankish states of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli and Jerusalem established themselves in the complex religious, political and cultural landscape of the Near East. One of the early rulers of Jerusalem had married into native Armenian Christian nobility and thus Queen Melisende (1131-52) had a strong interest in supporting the indigenous as well as the Latin Church. The quirks of genetics, coupled with a high mortality rate among male rulers, meant that women exerted greater power than previously supposed given the war-torn environment of the Latin East and prevailing religious attitudes towards women as weak temptresses. It still needed a strong personality to survive and, in the case of Melisende, that was certainly so, asSimon Sebag Montefiore recounts in a 2011 article, which also gives a sense of the city of Jerusalem during the 12th century, as well as some contemporary Muslim views of the Christian settlers.

The Franks were always short on manpower but were a dynamic group who developed innovative institutions, such as the Military Orders, to survive. The Orders were founded to help look after pilgrims; in the case of the Hospitallers, through healthcare; in that of the Templars, to guard visitors on the road to the River Jordan. Soon both were fully-fledged religious institutions, whose members took the monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. It proved a popular concept and donations from admiring and grateful pilgrims meant that the Military Orders developed a major role as landowners, as the custodians of castles and as the first real standing army in Christendom. They were independent of the control of the local rulers and could, at times, cause trouble for the king or squabble with one another. The Templars and Hospitallers also held huge tracts of land across western Europe, which provided income for the fighting machine in the Levant, especially the construction of the castles that became so vital to the Christian hold on the region.

***

In December 1144 Zengi, the Muslim ruler of Aleppo and Mosul, captured Edessa to mark the first major territorial setback for the Franks of the Near East. The news of this disaster prompted Pope Eugenius III to issue an appeal for the Second Crusade (1145-49). Fortified by this powerful call to live up to the deeds of their first crusading forefathers, coupled with the inspiring rhetoric of (Saint) Bernard of Clairvaux, the rulers of France and Germany took the cross to mark the start of royal involvement in the Crusades. Christian rulers in Iberia joined with the Genoese in attacking the towns of Almeria in southern Spain (1147) and Tortosa in the north-east (1148); likewise the nobles of northern Germany and the rulers of Denmark launched an expedition against the pagan Wends of the Baltic shore around Stettin. While this was no grand plan of Pope Eugenius but rather a reaction to appeals sent to him, it shows the confidence in crusading at this time. In the event, this optimism proved deeply unfounded. A group of Anglo-Norman, Flemish and Rhineland crusaders captured Lisbon in 1147 and the other Iberian campaigns were also successful but the Baltic campaign achieved virtually nothing and the most prestigious expedition of all, that to the Holy Land, was a disaster, as Jonathan Phillips explains in his 2007 article. The two armies lacked discipline, supplies and finance, and both were badly mauled by the Seljuk Turks as they crossed Asia Minor. Then, in conjunction with the Latin settlers, the crusaders laid siege to the most important Muslim city in Syria, Damascus. Yet, after only four days, fear of relief forces led by Zengi's son, Nur ad-Din, prompted an ignominious retreat. The crusaders blamed the Franks of the Near East for this failure, accusing them of accepting a pay-off to retreat. Whatever the truth in this, the defeat at Damascus certainly damaged crusade enthusiasm in the West and over the next three decades, in spite of increasingly elaborate and frantic appeals for help, there was no major crusade to the Holy Land.

To regard the Franks as entirely enfeebled would, however, be a serious error. They captured Ascalon in 1153 to complete their control of the Levantine coast, an important advance for the security of trade and pilgrim traffic in terms of reducing harassment by Muslim shipping. The following year, however, Nur ad-Din took power in Damascus to mark the first time that the cities had been joined with Aleppo under the rule of the same man during the crusader period, something that greatly increased the threat to the Franks. Nur ad-Din's considerable personal piety, his encouragement of madrasas (teaching colleges) and the composition of jihad poetry and texts extolling the virtues of Jerusalem created a bond between the religious and the ruling classes that had been conspicuously lacking since the crusaders arrived in the East. During the 1160s Nur ad-Din, acting as the champion of Sunni orthodoxy, seized control of Shi'ite Egypt, dramatically raising the strategic pressure on the Franks and at the same time enhancing the financial resources at his disposal through the fertility of the Nile Delta and the vital port of Alexandria.

Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem, reconsecrated as an Islamic shrine when Jerusalem was retaken by Saladin in 1187. Jonathan Phillips

This period of the history of the Latin East is related in detail by the most important historian of the age, William, Archbishop of Tyre, as Peter Edbury describes. William was an immensely educated man, who soon became embroiled in the bitter political struggles of the late 1170s and 1180s during the reign of the tragic figure of King Baldwin IV (1174-85), a youth afflicted by leprosy. The need to establish his successor provided an opportunity for rival factions to emerge and to cause the Franks to expend much of their energy on bickering with each other. That is not to say that they were unable to inflict serious damage on Nur ad-Din's ambitious successor, Saladin, who from his base in Egypt, hoped to usurp his former master's dynasty, draw the Muslim Near East together and to expel the Franks from Jerusalem. Norman Housely expertly relates this period in his 1987 article. In 1177, however, the Franks triumphed at the Battle of Montgisard, a victory that was widely reported in western Europe and did little to convince people of the settlers' very real need for help. The construction in 1178 and 1179 of the large castle of Jacob's Ford, only a day's ride from Damascus, was another aggressive gesture that required Saladin to destroy the place. Yet by 1187 the sultan had gathered a large, but fragile coalition of warriors from Egypt, Syria and Iraq that was sufficient to bring the Franks into the field and to inflict upon them a terrible defeat at Hattin on July 4th. Within months, Jerusalem fell and Saladin had recovered Islam's third most important city after Mecca and Medina, an achievement that still echoes down the centuries.

***

News of the calamitous fall of Jerusalem sparked grief and outrage in the West. Pope Urban III was said to have died of a heart attack at the news and his successor, Gregory VIII, issued an emotive crusade appeal and the rulers of Europe began to organise their forces. Frederick Barbarossa's German army successfully defeated the Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor only for the emperor to drown crossing a river in southern Turkey. Soon afterwards many of the Germans died of sickness and Saladin escaped facing this formidable enemy. The Franks in the Levant had managed to cling onto the city of Tyre and then besieged the most important port on the coast, Acre. This provided a target for western forces and it was here in the summer of 1190 that Philip Augustus and Richard the Lionheart landed. The siege had lasted almost two years and the arrival of the two western kings and their troops gave the Christians the momentum they needed. The city surrendered and Saladin's prestige was badly dented. Philip soon returned home and while Richard made two attempts to march on Jerusalem, fears as to its long-term prospects after he left meant that the holy city remained in Muslim hands. Thus the Third Crusade failed in its ultimate objective, although it did at least allow the Franks to recover a strip of lands along the coast to provide a springboard for future expeditions. For his part, Saladin had suffered a series of military setbacks but, crucially, he had held onto Jerusalem for Islam.



Portrait of Saladin.

The pontificate of Innocent III (1198-1216) saw another phase in the expansion of crusading. Campaigns in the Baltic advanced further and the holy war in Iberia stepped forwards too. In 1195 Muslims had crushed Christian forces at the Battle of Alarcos, which, so soon after the disaster at Hattin, seemed to show God's deep displeasure with his people. By 1212, however, the rulers of Iberia managed to pull together to rout the Muslims at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa to seal a major step in the recovery of the peninsula. That said, the particular cultural, political and religious make-up of the region mean that it would be wrong, as in the Holy Land, to characterise relations between religious groups as constant warfare, a situation outlined by Robert Burns and Paul Chevedden. In southern France, meanwhile, efforts to curb the Cathar heresy had failed and, in a bid to defeat this sinister threat to the Church in its own backyard, Innocent authorised a crusade to the area. See the piece by Richard Cavendish. Catharism was a dualist faith, albeit with a few links to mainstream Christian practice, but it also had its own hierarchy and was intent upon replacing the existing elite. Years of warfare ensued as the crusaders, led by Simon de Monfort, sought to drive the Cathars out, but ultimately their roots in southern French society meant they could endure and it was only the more pervasive techniques of the Inquisition, initiated in the 1240s, that succeeded where force had failed.

The most infamous episode of the age was the Fourth Crusade (1202-04) which saw another effort to recover Jerusalem end up sacking Constantinople, the greatest Christian city in the world. Jonathan Phillips describes this episode. The reasons for this were a combination of long-standing tensions between the Latin (Catholic) Church and the Greek Orthodox; the need for the crusaders to fulfil the terms of a wildly over-optimistic contract for transportation to the Levant with the Venetians and the offer to pay this off by a claimant to the Byzantine throne. This combination of circumstances brought the crusaders to the walls of Constantinople and when their young candidate was murdered and the locals turned definitively against them they attacked and stormed the city. At first Innocent was delighted that Constantinople was under Latin authority but as he learned of the violence and looting that had accompanied the conquest he was horrified and castigated the crusaders for 'the perversion of their pilgrimage'.

Capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204

One consequence of 1204 was the creation of a series of Frankish States in Greece that, over time, also needed support. Thus, in the course of the 13th century, crusades were preached against these Christians, although by 1261 Constantinople itself was back in Greek hands.

***

In spite of this series of disasters, it is interesting to see that crusading remained an attractive concept, something made manifest by the near-legendary Children's Crusade of 1212. Inspired by divine visions, two groups of young peasants (best described as youths, rather than children) gathered around Cologne and near Chartres in the belief that their purity would ensure divine approval and enable them to recover the Holy Land. The German group crossed the Alps and some reached the port of Genoa, where the harsh realities of having no money or real hope of achieving anything was made plain when they were refused passage to the East and the entire enterprise collapsed.

Thus, the early 13th century was characterised by the diversity of crusading. Holy war was proving a flexible and adaptable concept that allowed the Church to direct force against its enemies on many fronts. The rationale of crusading, as a defensive act to protect Christians, could be refined to apply specifically to the Catholic Church and thus when the papacy came into conflict with Emperor Frederick II over the control of southern Italy it eventually called a crusade against him. Frederick had already been excommunicated for failing to fulfil his promises to take part in the Fifth Crusade. This expedition had achieved the original intention of the Fourth Crusade by invading Egypt but became bogged down outside the port of Damietta before a poorly executed attempt to march on Cairo collapsed. Frederick's attempts to make good this were frustrated by genuine ill health but by this time the papacy had lost patience with him. Recovered, Frederick went to the Holy Land as, by this time, king of Jerusalem (by marriage to the heiress to the throne) where – irony of ironies – as an excommunicate, he negotiated the peaceful restoration of Jerusalem to the Christians. His diplomatic skills (he spoke Arabic), the danger posed by his considerable resources as well as the divisions in the Muslim world in the decades after Saladin's death, enabled him to accomplish this. A brief period of better relations between pope and emperor followed, but by 1245 the curia described him as a heretic and authorised the preaching of a crusade against him.

Aside from the plethora of crusading expeditions that took place over the centuries, we should also remember that the launch of such campaigns had a profound impact on the lands and people from whence they came, something covered by Christopher Tyerman. Crusading required substantial levels of financial support and this, over time, saw the emergence of national taxes to support such efforts, as well as efforts to raise money from within the Church itself. The absence of a large number of senior nobles and churchmen could affect the political balance of an area, with opportunities for women to act as regents or for unscrupulous neighbours to defy ecclesiastical legislation and to try to take the lands of absent crusaders. The death or disappearance of a crusader, be they a minor figure or an emperor, obviously carried deep personal tragedy for those they had left behind, but might also precipitate instability and change.



St Louis embarking for the Crusades.

The previous year, Jerusalem had fallen back into Muslim hands and this was the principal prompt for what turned out to be the greatest crusade expedition of the century (known as the Seventh Crusade) led by King (later Saint) Louis IX of France. Simon Lloyd outlines Louis's crusading career. Well financed and carefully prepared and with an early victory at Damietta, this campaign appeared to be set fair only for a reckless charge by Louis's brother at the Battle of Mansourah to weaken the crusaders' forces. This, coupled with hardening Muslim resistance, brought the expedition to a halt and, starving and sick, they were forced to surrender. Louis remained in the Holy Land for a further four years – a sign of his guilt at the failure of the campaign, but also a remarkable commitment for a European monarch to be absent from his home for a total of six years – trying to bolster the defences of the Latin kingdom. By this time, with the Latins largely confined to the coastal strip the settlers relied more and more on massive fortifications and it was during the 13th century that mighty castles such as Krak des Chevaliers, Saphet and Chastel Pelerin, as well as the immense urban fortifications of Acre, took shape.

***

By this stage the political complexion of the Middle East was changing. The Mongol invaders added another dimension to the struggle as they conquered much of the Muslim world to the East; they had also briefly threatened Eastern Europe with savage incursions in 1240-41 (which also prompted a crusade appeal). Saladin's successors were displaced by the Mamluks, the former slave-soldiers, whose figurehead, the sultan Baibars, was a ferocious exponent of holy war and did much to bring the crusader states to their knees over the next two decades. James Waterson describes their advance. Bouts of in-fighting among the Frankish nobility, further complicated by the involvement of the Italian trading cities and the Military Orders served to further weaken the Latin States and finally, in 1291, the Sultan al-Ashraf smashed into the city of Acre to end the Christian hold on the Holy Land.

Some historians used to regard this as the end of the crusades but, as noted above, since the 1980s there has been a broad recognition that this was not the case, not least because of the series of plans made to try to recover the Holy Land during the 14th century. Elsewhere crusading was still a powerful idea, not least in northern Europe, where the Teutonic Knights (originally founded in the Holy Land) had transferred their interests and where they had created what was effectively an autonomous state. By the early 15th century, however, their enemies in the region were starting to Christianise anyway and thus it became impossible to justify continued conflict in terms of holy war. The success of Las Navas de Tolosa had effectively pinned the Muslims down to the very south of the Iberian peninsula, but it took until 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella brought the full strength of the Spanish crown to bear upon Granada that the reconquest was completed. Plans to recover the Holy Land had not entirely died out and in a spirit of religious devotion, Christopher Columbus set out the same year hoping to find a route to the Indies that would enable him to reach Jerusalem from the East.

The 14th century began with high drama: the arrest and imprisonment of the Knights Templar on charges of heresy, a story related by Helen Nicholson. A combination of lax religious observance and their failure to protect the Holy Land had made them vulnerable. This uncomfortable situation, coupled with the French crown owing them huge sums of money (the Templars had emerged as a powerful banking institution) meant that the manipulative and relentless Philip IV of France could pressure Pope Clement V into suppressing the Order in 1312 and one of the great institutions of the medieval age was terminated.

Modern painting of Mehmed II and the Ottoman Army approaching Constantinople with a giant bombard, by Fausto Zonaro

Crusading within Europe itself had continued to mutate, too. The papacy had issued crusading indulgences on many occasions during its own struggles against both political enemies and against heretical groups such as the Hussites of Bohemia. The main threat to Christendom by this time, however, was from the Ottoman Turks, who, as Judith Herrinrelates, captured Constantinople in 1453. Numerous efforts were made to draw together the leaders of the Latin West, but the growing power of nation states and their increasingly engrained conflicts, exemplified by the Hundred Years' War, meant that there was little appetite for the kind of Europe-wide response that had been seen in 1187, for example. Nigel Saul outlines this period of crusading history in his article.

Certain dynasties such as the dukes of Burgundy, were enthusiastic about the idea of crusading and a couple of reasonably-sized expeditions took place, although the Burgundians and the Hungarians were thrashed at Nicopolis in Bulgaria in 1396. By the middle of the 15th century the Ottomans had already twice besieged Constantinople and in 1453 Sultan Mehmet II brought forwards an immense army to achieve his aim. Last-minute appeals to the West brought insufficient help and the city fell in May. The Emperor Charles V invoked the crusading spirit in his defence of Vienna in 1529, although this struggle resembled more of an imperial fight rather than a holy war. Crusading had almost run its course; people had become increasingly cynical about the Church's sale of indulgences. The advance of the Reformation was another obvious blow to the idea, with crusading being viewed as a manipulative and money-making device of the Catholic Church. By the late 16th century the last real vestiges of the movement could be seen; the Spanish Armada of 1588 benefitted from crusade indulgences, while the Knights Hospitaller, who had first ruled Rhodes from 1306 to 1522 before making their base on Malta, inspired a remarkable victory over an Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Jonathan Riley-Smith relates the knights' story. The Hospitallers of Malta had also survived a huge Turkish siege in 1480 and their existence served as a long-lasting relic of the original crusading conflict until Napoleon Bonaparte extinguished their rule of the island in 1798.

***

Crusading survived in the memory and the imagination of the peoples of western Europe and the Middle East. In the former, it regained profile through the romantic literature of writers such as Sir Walter Scott and, as lands in the Middle East fell to the imperialist empires of the age, the French, in particular, chose to draw links with their crusading past. The word became a shorthand for a cause with moral right, be it in a non-military context, such as a crusade against drink, or in the horrors of the First World War. General Franco's ties with the Catholic Church in Spain invoked crusading ideology in perhaps the closest modern incarnation of the idea and it remains a word in common usage today.

In the Muslim world, the memory of the Crusades faded, although did not disappear, from view and Saladin continued to be a figure held out as an exemplar of a great ruler. In the context of the 19th century, the Europeans' invocation of the past built upon this existing memory and meant that the image of hostile, aggressive westerners seeking to conquer Muslim or Arab lands became extremely potent for Islamists and Arab Nationalist leaders alike, and Saladin, as the man who recaptured Jerusalem, stands as the man to aspire to. Articles by Jonathan Phillips and Umej Bhatia cover the memory and the legacy of the crusades to bring the story down to modern times.

Jonathan Phillips is Professor of Crusading History at Royal Holloway University of London and the author of Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades (Vintage, 2010).

- See more at: http://www.historytoday.com/jonathan-phillips/crusades-complete-history#sthash.QtrHrLpg.dpuf

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How far were the Military Orders responsible for the results of the Third Crusade?

How far were the Military Orders responsible for the results of the Third Crusade?
BY MEDIEVALISTS.NET – MAY 10, 2015POSTED IN: ARTICLES




By Jacob Deacon

Although failing in its ultimate aim to recapture Jerusalem the Third Crusade still met with several successes. With Cyprus, Acre, and Tyre under Christian control there existed `a series of genuine bridgeheads` with the potential to greatly benefit future Crusades.[1] Furthermore, when one also considers the death of Saladin shortly after the expedition, it is likely that the Third Crusade made a tremendous contribution to the immediate survival of the Crusader States.[2] In order to assess how responsible the Military Orders were for the results of the Third Crusade this article will be structured by the analysis of three key areas in which they played a part; the siege of Acre, the march to Jaffa and their other military contributions, and their role as councillors to King Richard I of England.



This article will further argue that despite facing criticism in the West for convincing Richard to abandon the campaign to capture Jerusalem, this was perhaps the strongest contribution made by the Military Orders to the Crusade; without their advice it is probable that thousands of men would have perished in a lost cause.[3] What they should be criticised for, however, is their martial conduct, a factor which placed the crusading army in jeopardy at the battle of Arsuf. Furthermore, whereas historians have traditionally seen the Military Orders as vital to the results of the Crusade, this article will argue that although undeniably contributing to the Crusade’s success, historians have placed too much emphasis on the strengths of the crusaders as a whole and not the weaknesses of Saladin.[4]

The siege of Acre provides historians with a fantastic chance to assess what the Military Orders contributed to the Third Crusade, due to the lengthy period of the engagement and the coverage from both Christian and Muslim chroniclers. However there are certain problems when it comes to using Muslim chroniclers to evaluate the actions of the Templars, as they very rarely make the distinction between secular and religious knights, usually relying solely on the term Franks when describing the Christian forces. For example, in an attack on Saladin’s camp Ibn al-Athīr refers only to Frankish knights being there, despite later detailing the death of Gerard de Ridefort.[5] One aspect in which the Military Orders contributed towards the capture of Acre was the engines which both the Templars and Hospitallers constructed. The Gesta Regis Ricardi records how the Templars had a trebuchet which wreaked impressive levels of destruction, whilst the Hospitallers’ never ceased hurling, `much to the terror of the Turks`.[6] Despite the damage which their engines must have caused to the city, it is important to remember that these two trebuchets made up only a small part of the arsenal; Philip Augustus built seven after his arrival, contributing to an already impressive artillery battery partly the responsibility of Count Henry of Champagne.[7] Furthermore, after Richard’s arrival the damage the crusaders did to the Muslims was an `unparalleled disaster` according to Ibn al-Athīr, and the fact that the crusaders then limited their activity to a trebuchet barrage would imply that there were a large number of siege engines.[8] Additionally, it is only in conjunction with Philip’s artillery that the Templars’ weapons are described as causing great damage to the city’s defences, further lessening their individual contribution.[9] It also seems odd that despite their extraordinary wealth the Templars and Hospitallers only contributed one trebuchet a piece, but it is equally possible that they built several yet only individual engines were deemed worth recording by the author of the Gesta Regis Ricardi. Ultimately in this regard, although the Military Orders can be seen as contributing towards the success of the Third Crusade in the capture of Acre, by no means were they responsible for the city’s capitulation.

However the Military Orders, the Templars in particular, also met with several setbacks during the siege. In one attack on Saladin’s camp the Templars `went on too far in their pursuit of fortune`, quickly becoming isolated from the rest of the army.[10] The attack quickly went downhill and after Gerard de Ridefort, the master of the Templars, was captured he was summarily executed by Saladin’s supporters.[11] This action characterises the stereotypically rash tactics the Templars were known for; one cannot help but think the attack on Saladin’s camp would have been much more successful if the Templars had not become separated from the rest of the army, and a united attack on the camp may have driven off the relief force entirely and helped bring the siege to a swifter conclusion. But perhaps the Templars should be given more praise for this action, as the author of the Gesta Regis Ricardi claims that `if the rest of the Christians had pressed on after them…that day they would have won a happy victory`.[12] Nonetheless, evaluation of the above evidence ultimately reveals that despite the Military Orders undoubtedly providing valuable men and munitions, this was a small part of an enormous military operation that only began to bear the fruits of its labour after the `Christ-like` arrival of Richard; the most sustained period of artillery attacks on the city came after his arrival, with the influx of European reinforcements proving vital to the concentration and protection of the siege engines.[13]

Another opportunity to assess how responsible the Military Orders were for the results of the Third Crusade can be found in the subsequent campaigns after the capture of Acre. One area in which the Military Orders have attracted praise, for example is in their efforts to instil discipline on the march from Acre to Jaffa. Unfortunately this ability to instil discipline disappeared on the day of the battle of Arsuf. After hours of repelling wave after wave of Saracen attacks, and twice being denied permission by Richard to charge until a prearranged signal had been given, Brother Garnier of Nablus, Master of the Hospitallers `began a foolish attack` by charging the Turkish line alongside one of Richard’s knights.[14] This charge `threw the army into confusion` as other knights followed and, according to Ambroise, `all was lost`; that is, until Richard `spurred his horse faster than the bolt from a crossbow` as he led his knights in a charge against the now committed Saracen cavalry. [15] Although it cannot be denied that the battle of Arsuf was a successful engagement for the Christian forces, the crusaders’ victory does not seem to have given Richard a strategic advantage. Indeed, it can been argued that Arsuf was a battle Richard would rather have not fought as he sought to preserve his army’s strength on the march to Jaffa; Richard himself described how the battle only begun as his vanguard were setting up camp.[16] As such, the Hospitallers’ rash decision to charge the Muslim army ultimately achieved little apart from threatening the army’s chances of survival. If Richard had not been so decisive in reacting to the Hospitaller’ charge, it seems likely that Arsuf would have become another Hattin with crusaders naively and routinely pursuing the faster Saracen cavalry whilst being shot at.[17] Furthermore, both Richard’s contemporaries and modern historians have been eager to praise the vital role played by the infantry and archers in repelling the Saracen army throughout the march, and it is possible that they and not the Military Orders’ knights should be praised for maintaining discipline.[18] Nonetheless, the fact that Richard trusted the Military Orders to form his vanguard and rearguard should not be overlooked; if he thought they were likely to break ranks he would never have given them such vital positions. Furthermore, despite the Hospitallers causing the army to break ranks and risk everything, they and the Templars deserve praise for keeping order for the rest of the march.

The Military Orders were also given several other responsibilities during Richard’s campaigns. The Templars, given their local knowledge, were appointed to protect the squires as they went to forage, and it is likely that their assistance in this matter greatly helped with keeping the army fed whilst on the march.[19] Furthermore, with the Military Orders as an omnipresent force in the vanguard, it is probable that they would also have been utilised as scouts, ensuring that the crusaders avoided any potential ambushes and securing the best possible route for the soldiers behind. With this all taken in to consideration, it is arguable that the Military Orders provided a vital service on the march from Acre to Jaffa, but it is still important to remember that their actions nearly proved very costly to the expedition’s chances of success.[20]

However, despite their reputation as elite warriors, it is also important to consider the responsibilities of the Military Orders which were not linked to warfare. Even before 1191 the Templars and Hospitallers had a part to play in financing the Crusade in assisting with the collection of the Saladin Tithe which was supposed to fund England’s contribution to the expedition, yet Guy de Lusignan later complained that the Templars had carried off the alms provided by the English crown.[21] On the Crusade itself, the largest non-military contribution made by the Military Orders was through their role as councillors, advisors, and arbitrators to the Western European generals. Nowhere is this more prominent than in their advice to Richard to abandon any campaign which led immediately to Jerusalem in favour of an attack on Egypt, the source of Saladin’s power, or their earlier advice to do the same in order to capture Ascalon.[22] The primary reasoning for this was the potential for the army to become isolated from their supply bases and surrounded by Saladin’s forces, not to mention the inevitable lack of soldiers once Jerusalem fell, but it is hard to imagine a seasoned siege commander such as Richard not being aware of these problems before any council meetings.[23] Yet perhaps the Military Orders’ role in this decision has also been exaggerated. John Gillingham asserts that Richard may have been considering Egypt and Ascalon as targets as opposed to Jerusalem as early as August in 1191, shortly after the capitulation of Acre.[24] This would imply that the Military Orders were not as instrumental in persuading Richard to abandon his ideas of investing Jerusalem, as has been traditionally argued. Furthermore it is also important to consider that it was not just the Military Orders pushing for this strategy but also the Poulains, members of the local aristocracy who were part of the Crusading army.[25]

However there are factors at play which mean that the importance of the Military Orders to the Crusade’s success have been exaggerated. Although the crusaders were successful in their besiegement of Acre, one must also consider whether Saladin’s military decisions were the primary cause for the loss of the city as opposed to any brilliance on behalf of the Christian armies. Bahā’ al-Dīn attests that upon arriving at Acre, Saladin chose to hold his army back and await further reinforcements, and arguably this surprising lack of initiative is what allowed the siege to drag on until Acre’s capitulation.[26] If Saladin had acted decisively upon his arrival it seems possible that the Latin soldiers would have been defeated, a fact inferred from Ibn al-Athīr’s decision to blame Saladin’s emirs and not his friend for the army’s failure to displace the Christian encampment.[27] Saladin’s disbandment of his army just a few weeks before the end of the Third Crusade also proved to be vital. If he had kept his soldiers at hand for just a short while more as Richard was forced to return to Europe because of his diminishing funds, personal health, and the mounting pressures on his domains, Saladin would have been able to renew his attacks on Tyre and Acre free from European intervention, with a very real possibility of capturing both cities before his death in 1193.[28] When one bears this in mind, it becomes entirely plausible that the siege of Acre and the continued survival of the Crusader States only succeeded due to Saladin’s mistakes, not the tactical brilliance of the Christian commanders; further evidence that the Military Orders, or indeed the rest of the Christian army, were not responsible for the results of the Third Crusade.

Ultimately, with the evidence presented above, it becomes apparent that although the Military Orders contributed towards the Third Crusade in a variety of ways, they cannot be seen as responsible for the successes which the campaign met with; these can be primarily accredited to Richard and the mistakes made by Saladin between 1189 and 1192. The siege of Acre would have been an utter failure if Saladin had seized the initiative; the battle or Arsuf, whilst successful, contributed little to the Crusade, whilst Garnier de Nablus’ premature charge would have spelt disaster if not for Richard’s quick thinking; and the decision to ultimately avoid Jerusalem is likely to have been one already made by Richard which the Military Orders and Poulains simply confirmed with their backing rather than contributed originally.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, ed. and trans. Edbury P., (Aldershot, 1988), pp.168-169

Ambroise, The History of the Holy War: Ambroise’s Estoire de la guerre sainte, ed. Ailes M. and Barber M., trans. Ailes M., (Woodbridge Suffolk, 2003)

Bahā’ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. Richards D.S., (Aldershot, 2001)

Henry II, King of England, The Saladin Tithe, 1188, in Select Charters of English Constitutional History, ed. Stubbs W., (Oxford, 1913), p. 189; reprinted in Cave R.C. and Coulson H.H., A Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (New York, 1965), pp. 387-388, athttp://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1188Saldtith.asp, accessed on 14/03/2015

Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’-ta’rīkh; Part 2; The Years 541-589/1146-1193; The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin , trans. Richards D.S., (Aldershot, 2007)

Itenerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, trans. Nicholson H., (Aldershot, 1997)

Richard I, King of England, Letter to the Abbot of Clairvaux, in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, ed. and trans. Edbury P., (Aldershot, 1988), pp.179-181

Richard of Devizes, Chronicon, ed. and trans. Appleby J.T., (London, 1963)

Roger de Hoveden, The Annals of Roger de Hoveden: Comprising the History of England and of Other Countries of Europe Vol.2, trans. Riley H.T., (Felinfach, 1997)

Secondary Sources

Asbridge T., The Crusades; The War for the Holy Land, (London, 2012)

Barber M., The New Knighthood; A History of the Order of the Temple, (Cambridge, 2000)

Flori J., Richard the Lionheart; King and Knight, trans. Birrell J., (Edinburgh, 1999)

Gillingham J., Richard I, (New Haven and London, 2002)

Lord E., The Knights Templar in Britain, (Harlow, 2004)

Nicholson H., A Brief History of the Knights Templar, (London, 2010)

Phillips J., Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades, (London, 2010)

Rogers R., Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century, (Oxford, 1992)

Smail R.C., Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193, (Cambridge, 1995)

Turner R.V. and Heiser R.R., The Reign of Richard Lionheart Ruler of the Angevin Empire, 1189-99, (Harlow, 2005)

Tyerman C., England and the Crusades, 1095-1588, (Chicago and London, 1988)

End Notes

[1]Philips J., Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusades, (London, 2010) p.164

[2]Barber M., The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple, (Cambridge, 2000) p.120

[3]Nicholson H., A Brief History of the Knights Templar, (London, 2010), p.80

[4]Barber M., The New Knighthood, p.119

[5]Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’-ta’rīkh; Part 2; The Years 541-589/1146-1193; The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin , trans. Richards D.S., (Aldershot, 2007), p.367-8

[6]Itenerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, trans. Nicholson H., (Aldershot, 1997), p.209

[7]Bahā’ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. Richards D.S., (Aldershot, 2001), p.147
Ibid p.123

[8] Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’-ta’rīkh, trans. Richards D.S., p.387

[9] Roger de Hoveden, The Annals of Roger de Hoveden: Comprising the History of England and of Other Countries of Europe Vol.2, trans. Riley H.T., (Felinfach, 1997), p.210

[10]Itenerarium Peregrinorum, trans. Nicholson H., p.79

[11]Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’-ta’rīkh, trans. Richards D.S., p.367-368

[12]Itenerarium Peregrinorum, trans. Nicholson H., p.78

[13]Richard of Devizes, Chronicon, ed. and trans. Appleby J.T., (London, 1963), p.39
Rogers R., Latin Siege Warfare in the Twelfth Century, (Oxford, 1992), p.234

[14]Ambroise, The History of the Holy War: Ambroise’s Estoire de la guerre sainte, ed. Ailes M. and Barber M., trans. Ailes M., (Woodbridge Suffolk, 2003), p.119

[15]Itenerarium Peregrinorum, trans. Nicholson H., p.253-4
Ambroise, The History of the Holy War, trans. Ailes M., p.119
Ibid p.120

[16]Asbridge T., The Crusades; The War for the Holy Land, (London, 2012), p.475
Richard I, King of England, Letter to the Abbot of Clairvaux, in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, ed. and trans. Edbury P., (Aldershot, 1988), pp.179-81, p.180

[17] Flori J., Richard the Lionheart; King and Knight, trans. Birrell J., (Edinburgh, 1999), p.138

[18]Smail R.C., Crusading Warfare, 1097-1193, (Cambridge, 1995), p.164

[19]Itenerarium Peregrinorum, trans. Nicholson H., p.269

[20]Barber M., The New Knighthood, p.117

[21]Henry II, King of England, The Saladin Tithe, 1188, in Select Charters of English Constitutional History, ed. Stubbs W., (Oxford, 1913), p. 189; reprinted in Cave R.C. and Coulson H.H., A Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (New York, 1965), pp. 387-388, athttp://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1188Saldtith.asp, accessed on 14/03/2015
Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem, Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, ed. and trans. Edbury P., (Aldershot, 1988), pp.168-169, p.169

[22]Itenerarium Peregrinorum, trans. Nicholson H., p.280

[23]Ibid.

[24]Gillingham J., Richard I, (New Haven and London, 2002), p.182

[25]Itenerarium Peregrinorum, trans. Nicholson H., p.280

[26]Bahā’ al-Dīn Ibn Shaddād, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. Richards D.S., p.98

[27]Ibn al-Athīr, al-Kāmil fī’-ta’rīkh, trans. Richards D.S., p.365

[28]Richard I, King of England, Letter to the Abbot of Clairvaux, in The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation, ed. and trans. Edbury P., p.181
Asbridge T., The Crusades; The War for the Holy Land, p.494

Top 10 Strangest Deaths in the Middle Ages

Top 10 Strangest Deaths in the Middle Ages
BY MEDIEVALISTS.NET – MAY 14, 2014POSTED IN: BEST OF MEDIEVALISTS.NET, FEATURES
http://www.medievalists.net/2014/05/14/top-10-strangest-deaths-middle-ages/


You may have heard how medieval rulers have been killed in battle or died from an assassin’s blade. But did you know about the king who died from uncontrollable laughing or the emperor who was dragged 16 miles through a forest by a deer? Check out our list of the top ten strangest deaths from the Middle Ages!
1


Zeno, Byzantine Emperor (d.491)




Some accounts state that the emperor fell unconscious after drinking heavily. His wife Empress Ariadne declared Zeno dead, had him placed in a sarcophagus and refused to allow anyone to open it when they heard his calls for help.
2
Philip, son of Louis VI of France (d.1131)




The brash son of the French king was riding with friends through the streets of Paris when a pig jumped in front of his horse causing it to the trip. Philip was thrown off and landing "so dreadfully fractured his limbs that he died on the day following."
3
Sigurd Eysteinsson, Earl of Orkney (d.892)



Marshall Astor

Marshall Astor
After defeating and killing Mael Brigte the Tusk in battle, Earl Sigurd strapped his severed head to his saddle and rode back home. As he was riding, Mael Brigte’s teeth cut into his leg and the wound became infected, leading to Sigurd's death.
4
Gruffydd ap Llywelyn (d.1244)



Matthew Paris

Matthew Paris
The son of a Welsh prince, Gruffydd was being held as hostage in the Tower of London when he tried to escape by lowering himself down in a rope. However the rope broke, and Gruffydd fell 90 feet to his death.
5
Pope Adrian IV (d.1159)




This English Pope suffered from a form of tonsillitis that caused puss to build up in his mouth. According to one account, he took a sip of wine and began to choke on a fly, which had been floating inside his goblet. Combined with the puss in his throat, the Pontiff died within minutes.
6
Henry II, Count of Champagne (d.1197)




The Crusade leader was watching his troops gather from his palace in Acre when, in the words of one chronicle, "He was leaning on the railings of a window and looking down. The railings gave way, and he fell to the ground. His dwarf, frightened and distressed, fell out too and landed on top of him. It was said that if the dwarf had not fallen on him he would perhaps not have died so soon."
7
Henry I, King of England




After a day of hunting, the English king decided, against his doctor's advice, to dine a plate of lamprey eels. That night he fell ill and soon died.
8
Basil I, Byzantine Emperor (d.886)




The 75-year old Emperor was out hunting when his belt was caught in the antlers of a deer, and he was allegedly dragged 16 miles through the woods. He was saved by an attendant who cut him loose with a knife, but he suspected the attendant of trying to assassinate him and had the man executed shortly before he himself died.
9
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence (d.1478)




The erratic brother of King Edward IV was found guilty of treason by and ordered to be executed. According to some reports, he asked to be drowned in a large vat of Malmsey Wine, his favourite beverage.
10
Martin the Humane, King of Aragon and Sicily (d.1410)




Martin was suffering from indigestion on account of eating an entire goose when his jester entered the king's bedroom. Martin asked him where he had been, the jester replied "Out of the next vineyard, where I saw a young deer hanging by his tail from a tree, as if someone had so punished him for stealing figs." The king started laughing uncontrollably until he fell over and died.

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Top 10 Strangest Deaths in the Middle Ages

3 curious medieval ghost stories

3 curious medieval ghost stories


http://www.historyextra.com/feature/medieval/3-curious-medieval-ghost-stories


Be it a horror movie or an MR James classic, many will be scaring themselves with a ghost story this Halloween. But we are so familiar with the conventions of what makes a spooky tale that it's easy to forget ghosts haven't always been represented as they are now
Friday 31st October 2014
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In fact, the medieval conventions of what constituted a ghost story can seem quite odd to a modern reader, as can the apparitions that haunt them. Here are some examples of creepy tales that enthralled readers in England more than 600 years ago:

The Haunting of Frodriver

First recorded in the 13th century as part of the Eyrbyggja Saga, and translated by Sir Walter Scott in 1814 in Illustrations of Northern Antiquities

The story begins as a Hebridian woman named Thorgunna arrives in Iceland one winter. A local woman named Thuirda notices the rich treasures that Thorgunna possesses, and presses her to come and stay with her at her home in Froda.

Thorgunna refuses to part with any of her precious things, but agrees to stay and work as a servant. Soon Thorgunna falls ill and dies, but leaves behind a warning: her bedding is to be burnt, and most of her effects given to local monks. This, she says, is not out of spite, but as a way to protect the settlement from an evil that is coming.

Inevitably, Thurida can't resist taking the rich bedding of Thorgunna for herself, and sure enough the residents of Froda begin to fall victim to a series of grisly accidents, ghostly attacks, and mysterious plagues. After a funeral feast is held, they are beset by a crowd of walking ghouls that refuse to leave, and which gather around the central fire of the main hall each night.

But deliverance soon arrives when Kiartan, the son of Thurida, engages a local priest to stage a trial. The ghouls are charged with staying unlawfully in the hall, and eventually their leader declares, somewhat petulantly: “We have here no longer a peaceful dwelling, therefore will we remove.”


The Bathkeeper

From The Dialogi of Gregory the Great, published in the mid-10th century. Translated by EG Gardner in 1911, and published in Medieval Ghost Stories, by Andrew Joynes

A priest is visiting a hot spring when he comes across a man he hasn't seen before. The man promptly begins to attend to him, helping him to take off his clothes and shoes, and the priest naturally assumes that he is one of the servants there.

The priest then visits the baths several more times, and each time the man appears to him and offers to help him, but doesn't extract any form of payment. Eventually the priest decides that he should give the man a reward. He returns the next time with two Eucharist loaves, and offers them to the man with his gratitude.

When the man sees the loaves, he becomes distressed. He explains that he cannot eat holy bread, for he isn't a living man at all, but an apparition of the former overseer of the baths. He entreats the priest to intercede on his behalf so that he might find peace in the afterlife, and when he finishes speaking he vanishes, so that the priest knows for certain he has seen a ghost.

The priest offers up prayers, and sure enough the ghostly attendant never returns to him.


Byland Abbey Ghost Stories

From fragments in a late 14th-century manuscript, transcribed by MR James in 1920 in Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories

There are many ghost stories recorded by the Monk of Byland. One such tale features a man trying to make his way home with a load of beans after his horse meets with an accident. He sees a terrifying apparition of a horse, and after he tries to scare it away it begins to stalk him. The spirit then appears as a glowing ball of light in a cloud of hay.

Finally the man confronts the spirit in the name of the lord, and a ghostly figure appears in front of him. The spirit claims that it means the man no harm, and asks to carry his load of beans for him. The man agrees, and the load is carried across a river, before reappearing on his back. After this, the spirit vanishes.

In another local story, a spirit accosts two farm labourers, attacking one of them. The man calls on the lord, and the ghost confesses that it was the canon of Newburgh, excommunicated for theft. The labourer digs up a set of spoons stolen by the ghost, and afterwards its spirit rests in peace.

Medieval ghost stories, then, often fall into the category of exempla – cautionary tales intended to reinforce Christian values. But they can also show the exchange of cultures happening over a large expanse of time.

The events at Frodriver read like a mixture of a Christian exempla with more traditional Nordic notions of the undead, while the events described at Byland in Yorkshire feature the kind of aggressive, physical apparitions that Vikings were fond of describing.

MR James – perhaps the most influential modern writer of ghost stories – was also an important medieval scholar who rediscovered many of these stories. He revived features of medieval folklore in his tales, including ghosts that transform into objects, and dangers that lurk in everyday settings. So perhaps our own ghosts are closer to the medieval than we might think…

George Dobbs is a freelance writer who specialises in literature and history, and H Somerset is the author of Rat Abbey: Three Ghost Stories.
Article Type: | Culture | Medieval | Social history | United Kingdom | Weird and wonderful | Feature | ghost stories | halloween |