Between 1198 and 1291 both Christendom and crusade underwent a number of substantial changes. Considering crusade, we can see that earlier military expeditions between 1096 and 1204 tended to be responses by various popes to particular crises in the Holy Land and their armies to be composed of aristocratic warriors (either kings or great lords) and their followers drawn broadly from across Christian Europe, regularly as pilgrims and individual warriors but after the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1100 only on specific occasions as crusaders. After 1198 popes and jurists sharpened the definition of crusader status, and the components of crusade to the Holy Land and elsewhere—the papal or papal/conciliar invocation, appointing of preachers and preaching tours, recruitment, privileges, dispensations, and commutations—became more precisely identified, as did crusaders’ obligations, responsibilities, methods of recruitment, military strategy, and purpose. During this same period, popes reached out to a broader Christian public, partly for financial support in the forms of contributions, dispensations, commutations, legacies, and donations, but also for devotional commitment to the crusade and its spiritual benefits—through preaching, confessions, forms of penance, processions, images, liturgies, indulgences, and vernacular literature. And Christendom made the crusade its own, as it had not yet done in the twelfth century.
Failure and defeat, which had ended the twelfth century with the loss at Hattin and the surrender of Jerusalem in 1187 and occurred in later crusades—the Fifth Crusade, for example, and the two crusades of Louis IX in 1248–1254 and 1270—did not turn Christendom away from the crusade ideal. Not even the fall of Constantinople to the Greeks in 1261, the failure of the crusade against Aragón in 1285, or the systematic Mamluk conquest of the last outposts in the Levant, culminating in the loss of Acre in 1291, could dislodge crusade from its now-integral place in Christendom. As before, critics might complain about some aspects of the planning, execution, or delay of a crusade or emphasize missionary activity or small-scale crusades over large military expeditions of the type of passagium generale, but crusade itself survived in papal ambitions, crusading plans, in the devotional ethos of chivalry, in the commitment of a number of territorial monarchs, and in the spiritual ideals of much of Christian society.1 Christendom itself was now more firmly organized into parochial and diocesan structures managed by a more closely supervised clergy, reform-minded bishops, and aided by the extraordinary versatility and activity of the mendicant orders.
Yet for all the highly developed and increasingly articulated apparatus of crusade and the continued commitment to its ideals, after 1250 a number of structural features of crusading Europe underwent considerable transformation as a result of events that often had little to do with crusading but a great deal to do with sheer contingency. After midcentury, the role of the popes was largely reduced to the theological function of issuing spiritual and material privileges at the request of secular lords and the political role of urging secular participation. The last major expedition called out and organized by a pope was the Fifth Crusade; the last major attempt at asserting papal centrality was the canon Constitutiones pro zelo fidei issued by the crusade-minded Pope Gregory X (1271–1276) at the Second Council of Lyons in 1274 (below, No. 71). But no passagium generale could be assembled to follow it, nor did one follow the loss of Acre in 1291. Thus, we have to consider not only the place of crusade in Christendom during the thirteenth century and the changing nature of crusade itself, but also the particular historical circumstances that stimulated or limited crusade activity and determined various crusade components.
On September 1, 1271, after a vacancy in the papal office from 1268 to 1271, the cardinal-electors finally agreed on Tedaldo Visconti, archdeacon of Liège, who had taken the cross in London in 1267, traveled to the Holy Land, and was in the Holy Land with Lord Edward of England in 1270–1271 when he was elected. At his coronation in Rome on March 27, 1272, he took the papal name Gregory X (1271–1276). Within a week of his coronation, on March 31, 1272, Gregory issued the papal letter Salvator noster, calling for a general council to meet at Lyons in May 1274, a lead time comparable to that fixed by Innocent III for the Fourth Lateran Council. Its agenda consisted of church reform, reunion of the Latin and Greek churches, and the problem of the Holy Land. The text of Salvator noster left no uncertainty about the importance of crusade to the Holy Land. Invoking a theme long used in papal letters, Gregory cited Psalm 115:2, “And why will the heathen [Muslims] cry ‘Where is their god?’” Like Innocent III in 1213, Gregory also asked for advice from some recipients. In Gregory’s case a greater number of texts of advice, some of them extensive, have survived.2
Selections from the treatises of Gilbert of Tournai, a noted Franciscan, and Humbert of Romans, former minister general of the Order of Preachers are included below (Nos. 69–70). The council assembled on May 7, 1274, and adjourned on July 17, 1274, having sat longer than any of its predecessors. In attendance were three hundred bishops, sixty abbots, the ministers general of the major religious orders, many other prelates, and a single king, James I of Aragón, a ruler long interested in crusading.3 Prominent theologians were on hand to advise the pope. Saint Bonaventure, OFM, was present and with Peter of Tarentaise, OP (who became Pope Innocent V for five months in 1276), was a major adviser to Gregory at the council, but Thomas Aquinas, OP, had died at Fossanova while en route to Lyons.
In many respects the council ended on an optimistic note. Gregory was already negotiating with Michael VIII Palaeologus, not only for the reunion of the Latin and Greek churches, but also for Byzantine military aid to a crusade, and the kings of France, England, Aragón, and Sicily had agreed to participate. On July 4, 1274, Gregory received Mongol ambassadors. On September 24, 1274, Gregory recognized the election of Rudolf of Habsburg as emperor. Furthermore, the council had done considerable work. It made provision for taxation of the clergy, including the pope and cardinals. It maintained collection points in churches. It demanded of all laity the donation of the local equivalent of one sterling or tournois with an additional yearly tax. It condemned pirates and traders of weapons with Muslims. In the canon Ubi periculum it set a rule for the election of popes that with very few changes is still in effect. Its great crusade canon, Constitutiones pro zelo fidei (below, No. 71), drew heavily on Innocent III’s Ad liberandam and the First Council of Lyons’ crusade canon.4
In addition, contingencies that reduced the opportunities for a crusade might change—in 1274 there was an emperor again, a committed pope, and a widely publicized and productive church council. Earlier Muslim regimes, notably the Ayyubids, had failed. Might not the Mamluks fail too? There still existed a substantial network of Mediterranean bases from which expeditions might be launched—Rhodes, Cyprus, Sicily, Aragón, even Constantinople. Europe retained maritime superiority in the Mediterranean. The Mongols, for a while, remained a potential ally. The memory of earlier crusade victories and heroism survived in chronicles and poetry. Finally, there was the promise of eschatology—that God on the eve of the end-time would preserve the Holy Land for his people.
Gradually a new program for crusading took shape. Some of the advice given to Gregory X appeared in crusade proposals in the following decades. The idea of shifting to a largely mercenary army, staffing permanent garrisons in the East; the combining of the military orders into a single superorder; the launching of small expeditions regularly (a perpetual phased crusade); a blockade of Egypt; more effective papal peacemaking efforts in Europe; the regular taxation of both clergy and laity; the responsibility of individual territorial monarchs—all of these begin to characterize the crusade movement in the early fourteenth century. But they could not be activated in the years immediately following 1274.
Following the death of Gregory X in 1276, a series of short-lived popes and several periods when papal elections became impossible for longer than usual contributed to the restricted role of the papacy and the long delay in reviving Gregory’s project. The pontificates of Gregory’s immediate successors, Innocent V (January–June 1276), Hadrian V (July–August 1276), John XXI (September 1276–May 1277), Nicholas III (1277–1280), Martin IV (1281–1285), Honorius IV (1285–1287), and Nicholas IV (1288–1292) were all far too brief to organize a crusade, even though Innocent V, Nicholas III, and Nicholas IV were eager to do so, and Martin IV occupied himself with the crusade against Aragon on behalf of France and Angevin Italy. When Acre fell on May 28, 1291, Nicholas IV issued several papal calls in response, including the letter Dirum amaritudinis on August 13 and another on August 18, but he died a few months later, and the ensuing three-year papal interregnum prevented any response resembling that to Audita tremendi between 1187 and 1198. After the death of Nicholas IV rival interests among the cardinal-electors resulted in a vacancy in the papal office from April 4, 1292, until July 5, 1294, followed by the six-month pontificate of the saintly hermit Celestine V (July–December 1294), his astonishing resignation of the papal office, the highly controversial election of Boniface VIII (1294–1303) and the well-known ensuing chaos in papal diplomacy and rule and the accidental (but greatly influential) papal move to Avignon in 1308.
Nor did imperial affairs appear more promising. The deaths of Conrad IV in 1254 and those of Manfred in 1266 and Conradin in 1268 were the final acts in the disintegration of the Staufer territories and networks of Ghibelline allies in Italy and Germany. The interregnum between 1254 and the election of Rudolf of Habsburg in 1273 occupied the empire so that it, like the papacy, was essentially disabled from leading a crusade. Contending candidates for the imperial crown—William of Holland (d. 1256), Richard of Cornwall (d. 1272), and Alfonso X of Castile (d. 1275), the latter two elected by different groups of electors in the double election of 1257—and the vigorous efforts at internal pacification in Germany signaled by the establishment of the Rhine League in 1254 occupied German affairs until well after the end of the century. The turbulent conflicts of the northern Italian city-republics in the wake of imperial collapse and papal conflict exacerbating internal urban disputes temporarily removed these cities from crusade activity. The Greek conquest of Constantinople in 1261 meant that negotiations with the Byzantines were to be conducted on an entirely different plane, and not to the advantage of the Latins.
The initial success of Charles of Anjou and the Angevin dynasty in South Italy and Sicily after 1264, which included the initial geopolitical concern with the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean interests, meant that the Angevin presence in Italy threatened to dominate papal policy nearly as much as had that of the Staufer—and stymied papal efforts at reuniting the Latin and Greek churches. With the revolt against Angevin rule in Palermo in 1282, known as the Sicilian Vespers, Sicilians called in the king of Aragón, Pedro III, who had married Constance, daughter of Manfred. The dispute led Pope Martin IV to call out a crusade against Aragón, ultimately unsuccessful, and the issue was not settled until the treaty of Caltabelotta in 1302.5
Nor was the organization of Christian power in Cyprus and the kingdom of Jerusalem amenable to focused crusade activity. After the deposition of Conradin as king of Jerusalem by Clement IV in 1268, the power of any king of Jerusalem was continuously weakened by the fractious nobility. The military orders pursued independent military and political policies and offered little cooperation with other powers, and the mercantile colonies from Italy and elsewhere pursued their own self-interest, especially when crusade proposals entailed an embargo of trade with Muslims. The sheer economic dynamism of the Mediterranean as a trade emporium was often in conflict with geopolitical concerns on the part of Western rulers and popes. Not even the heroic and intelligent policies of Louis IX as overlord of Outremer from 1250 to 1254, increasing the strength of coastal defenses, establishing a garrison at Acre, and personally negotiating successfully with contending forces within the kingdom had significant lasting effects. But it also proved that a king was needed who could rule strongly. Such were the rulers of the territorial monarchies of Europe, but not the kingdom of Jerusalem.
On the other hand, of course, was the sheer political and military power of Mamluk Egypt under Baibars, Qalawun, and their successors. The old problems of Muslim rule—the Damascus-Cairo rivalry, the Mongol threat, and occasionally effective or at least threatening European military enterprises—were transformed after 1260. The prestige of the Mamluk victory over the Mongols at ‘Ain Jalut in 1260 only grew greater as Baibars united northern Syria (conquering Damascus and Aleppo) and shaped a highly militarized society that made him the sultan of the Muslim world. Professing himself, like Saladin, but even more effectively, to be a mujahid and a patron of religion, Baibars ruled autocratically, organized state finances, and established a communications network throughout his empire that rivaled any in the world. He rebuilt fortifications and encouraged the recruitment of troops, while at the same time encouraging the technical development of siege weapons and military/political intelligence. In terms of siege craft, numerical superiority, and technological achievement, he proved far too formidable an enemy for the unorganized powers of the European world and of Outremer.
In 1265 his forces took Arsuf, Caesarea, and Jaffa. In 1266 he took the great Templar inland fortress of Safad. In 1268 he took Antioch. In 1271 he gained the surrender by the Knights Hospitaller of the great castle of Krak des Chevaliers and in the same year the Teutonic Knights’ fortress of Montfort. One by one the coastal cities fell to Baibars, who died in 1277. His successors Qalawun (1279–1290) and al-Ashraf Khalil took the castle at Marqab in 1285 and Latakia in 1287. Although the arrival and effectiveness of Lord Edward (later Edward I, 1272–1307) delayed the siege of Tripoli, the city nonetheless fell to al-Ashraf Khalil in 1289. Finally, the greatest of the coastal cities, Acre, fell in May 1291. The rest was mopping up: Tyre fell in May 1291, Sidon in June 1291, Beirut, Château Pélerin, and Tortosa in July 1291. The kingdom of Jerusalem settled in Cyprus and the military orders in Malta and Rhodes until the sixteenth century. The other great threat to the Mamluks, the Ilkhanate of Persia, was finally defeated at the battle of Homs on October 29, 1281. From 1260 to 1291 the Mamluks had achieved far more than the Ayyubids, and their vast Muslim state survived into the sixteenth century.
The years 1198–1291 bracket a particular part of crusade history. The role of crusade and its place in Christian society is one dominant feature of this part. Most of the treatises of advice requested by Gregory X and most of the subsequent proposals over the next several decades regarding crusade had a variation of the title “On the Recovery of the Holy Land.” None of them indicated that such a goal was impossible. The recovery of the Holy Land remained high on the agenda of all of Christendom.
The best studies remain Sylvia Schein, Fideles crucis: The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1274–1314 (Oxford, 1991); and Norman Housley, The Later Crusades, 1274–1580: From Lyons to Alcazar (Oxford, 1992); and Housley’s collection of translated texts, Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274–1580 (London-New York, 1996). In the latter volume Housley shrewdly observes that the apparent homogeneity of crusade components after the late thirteenth century “has led some commentators to see the later crusades as essentially ossified and homogeneous. But this was far from the case. Much of the vitality which historians are increasingly identifying was facilitated by the malleability of crusading’s essential features. They were building blocks which could be put together in a number of different ways” ( Documents, 2–3). See also James M. Powell, “Church and Crusade: Frederick II and Louis IX,” Catholic Historical Review 93 (2007), 251–264, and Powell’s parallel essay, “A Vacuum of Leadership: 1291 Revisited,” in Balard, La Papauté et les croisades, 165–171. On Baibars and the early Mamluk sultanate, see Peter Thorau, The Lion of Egypt: Sultan Baybars and the Near East in the Thirteenth Century, trans. P. M. Holt (London-New York, 1992); Robert Irwin, The Middle East in the Middle Ages: The Early Mamluk Sultanate, 1250–1382 (London, 1986); Robert Irwin, Mamluks and Crusaders: Men of the Sword and Men of the Pen (Farnham UK-Burlington VT, 2010).
The treatise Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae was written by the Franciscan Gilbert of Tournai in response to Gregory X’s call for proposals for the Second Council of Lyons (1274). Largely devoted to issues of the reform of the clergy, the regular religious, and the laity, all of which were deemed essential for the recovery of the Holy Land, Gilbert’s treatise was based partly on the criticisms made by earlier writers, including James of Vitry. The section translated here deals directly with crusade as a component of larger reform. Gilbert was minister general of his order, which, with the Dominicans, was responsible for most of the promotion of the crusades. He knew Louis IX well and may have preached Louis’s first crusade. Some of his suggestions, notably that of a general tax, were adopted at the Second Council of Lyons, while others, notably the permanent presence of mercenary armies in the Holy Land, became a prevalent theme among later writers of crusade treatises that sought to address the failure of popes and secular rulers to organize the massive coordinated departures that had marked previous crusades. Some of Gilbert’s criticisms of crusade financing are echoed in the register of his fellow Franciscan, Eudes Rigaud, archbishop of Rouen, who played a considerable role in promoting Louis IX’s failed crusade of 1270 and also presided over the Second Council of Lyons during the absence of Gregory X (see above, No. 55).
See A. Stroick, “Verfasser und Quellen der Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae (Reformschrift des Fr. Gilbert von Tournay, OFM, zum II. Konzil von Lyon, 1274),” Archivum franciscanum historicum 23 (1930), 3–41, 273–299, 433–466; Anthony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot UK-Burlington VT, 2000), 13–14; and the work of Palmer Throop, Criticism of the Crusade, 69–104 (the best English summary of Gilbert’s treatise for the Second Council of Lyons); Siberry, Criticism of Crusading; and Schein, Fideles crucis;Cole, Preaching, 194–202; Maier, Crusade Propaganda and Ideology, 176–209, 250–263. For further criticism of financing, see Housley, Documents, 21–25.
ALREADY our inheritance has been handed over to strangers, our home to foreigners [Lam 5:2]; for we have lost that land which the Lord consecrated with his own blood. Nor has one sealed with the sign of the cross delivered it. Already as the price for our sins the Christian people have often been infused with shame. The enemies of the cross of Christ, who loathe the Lord, lift up their head [Ps 82:3] and those who hate Sion [Ps 128:5] frequently boast, saying in their hearts: we will cause the name of Christ to fall quiet, and we will abolish his temple and his people from this land. Certainly it is necessary that the Muhammadan sect should fall and that the scarlet beast should rush to its ruin. But let him who has knowledge reckon the number of the beast [Apoc 13:17, 17:1–7]. Yet a remedy ought to be applied, that is, let a pilgrimage [crusade] or another form of assistance not be accomplished from the sweat of the poor, from the despoliation of churches. Just as on account of these and very similar things and a manifold enormity of sin the sons of Ephraim aiming and loosing their bows were routed on the day of battle [Ps 77:9], so we did not succeed in our pilgrimages, for from days of old strife was poured out upon the princes [Ps 106:40], so that they do not enjoy success, and it disunites the church. The Lord allowed them to perish in vain, because the inheritance was wrested profitlessly from the children by a stranger, nor is Christ therefore set free when a Christian is injured. But when the Hebrews were plundered, the Egyptians were enriched.
Another confusion results from the redemption of vows through certain men who rate the sums paid for redemption, who with a foolish fist beat down the feeble and disabled and those who have taken the cross under predetermined conditions with secular justice and ecclesiastical censures, and wring more money from them by threatening them with judicial sentences and new, undue, and increasing valuations. This scandal has redounded upon the heads of those preaching the crusade. If they preached the indulgence of the cross anew, it is not certain that they would make progress; but it is certain that they would suffer various insults. So then, let the church devote itself to public prayers, let there be a general contribution, let stipendiary troops be hired, who renewed against the succeeding vicissitudes will be bound to remain in that land and pursue the Lord’s war and the business of the church; and with those the salaries of the prayers of the universal church ought to be established so that through the raising of hands in prayer, Moses might vanquish Amalek fighting against Israel, and the walls of Jericho might fall before the priests’ clamorings [Ex 17:8–13; Jo 6:1–27]. Papal legates ought not to perform the collection of monies. They ought to be motivated not by an eye for profit but by the glory of Christ, the honor of the church, and the salvation of the people.
Humbert of Romans, formerly master general of the Order of Preachers (1254–1263), wrote several works on preaching, including one called On Preaching the Holy Cross Against the Saracens. His Opusculum tripartitum, like Gilbert of Tournai’s treatise above, was written in response to Gregory X’s appeal for advice on matters that faced the Second Council of Lyons. Humbert focused on crusade, reunion of the Latin and Greek churches, and overall ecclesiastical reform.
As master general of his order, Humbert of Romans had overseen the involvement of the Dominican order in missions and the promotion of various crusades. In addition to the treatise written for the crusade preachers of his order, Humbert wrote another full of suggestions for the agenda of the Second Council of Lyons (1274). Although it shares the reforming fervor of Gilbert’s treatise, Humbert became more specific in his recommendations for the difficulties facing the organization of a new crusade. Humbert’s advice takes the typical form of an academic treatise, which lists by number arguments and counterarguments bolstered by recourse to authorities, including logic, the sacred scriptures, and canon law.
After recounting what he and many others perceived as past and present threats facing Christianity, including the “barbarians” opposing the Roman Empire, the Tartars, Jews, and heretics, and the “pagans” in the Baltic, Humbert presented Islam as the most potent of them all. Countering those such as William of Tripoli, OP, who argued eloquently for missionizing rather than military crusading, Humbert argued that what he viewed as the specious appeal of Islam made its adherents virtually impossible to convert.6 He then proceeded to counter various criticisms of the crusade and to offer suggestions for its organization. These suggestions were followed by lengthy treatments of the origin and proposed remedy for the schism between the Greek and Latin churches, and the reform of the clergy, including tirades against abuses associated with the crusades. It could be argued that Humbert’s treatise was perhaps the most influential of those submitted in shaping the agenda for the Second Council of Lyons. Many of his suggestions, including that of the creation of a perpetual and permanently funded body of professional warriors in service of the Holy Land, were adopted by later writers of crusade treatises.
Edward Tracy Brett, Humbert of Romans: His Life and Views of Thirteenth-Century Society (Toronto, 1984); Throop, Criticism, 147–213, 261; James A. Brundage, “Humbert of Romans and the Legitimacy of Crusader Conquests,” in B. Z. Kedar, ed., The Horns of Hattin (Jerusalem-London, 1992), 302–313. On Humbert’s treatise on preaching the cross, see Cole, Preaching, 202–217; Humbert’s own crusade sermons are in Maier, Crusade Propaganda and Ideology, 210–229.
Humbert’s text argues in great detail for the reasons that ought to move Christians to attack Saracens, providing an arsenal of arguments from canon law and theology to justify the crusade as a holy and just war, to assert that if Christianity had not opposed the military might of various Muslim powers by the sword, it would have been conquered completely, and to stress that Christians who died in what he carefully defines as defensive just wars were martyrs pleasing to God.7 Humbert emphasizes that Christians have a just cause and, unless their sins alienate them, possess God, the saints, and angels as their allies and therefore can overcome any adverse material circumstances. To fail to oppose the Muslims is comparable to the effects of heresy. Above all, Christians are not to despair. Any tepidness regarding the crusade results in a lack of manly advice, begrudging assistance for the crusade project, discouragement of others, endangerment of Christendom’s defense and encouragement of its adversaries. To contravene this, he suggests the following remedies.
. . . IT OUGHT to be noted, that it would be very profitable if in the church of God there were some upright and wise men who would be fired up regarding the promotion of this particular project. And so that this might be understood more clearly, it ought to be noted that the world was at one time converted to Christ partly through preaching, partly through miracles, and in part through the examples of holiness which were seen in those preaching. But the Saracens cut themselves off from the way of preaching, because according to their law they behead every man who would want to preach to them anything against the law or sect of Muhammad. Likewise the time of miracles is not at present, because God does not go forth at this time through our strengths. Moreover, Christians’ examples of holiness do not move the Saracens, because they prefer their prayers, their fasting, their almsgiving, their pilgrimages, and similar things to ours: in fact, what is even more absurd, they prefer their incontinence to our continence, calling the continence of Christians superstition, as is clear in the letter of a certain Saracen which urges a certain Christian, his friend, to accept the law of Muhammad.8
Therefore, missions to them ought to be abandoned, because there is no longer any hope for their conversion according to the customary course. And for this reason it follows, that as long as they remain in the world, they will multiply without measure unless they are destroyed by some Christian or barbarian power. For this reason it is customarily said that just as Muhammad conquered the world through the sword, so through the sword he would be destroyed, in accordance with that authority: “He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword” [Mt 26:52]. Moreover, it ought to be noted that, as is written in the transmarine history of Master James of Vitry,9 the Lord appeared to Peter the Hermit in a dream when he was keeping vigil in the church of the Lord’s resurrection and enjoined a legation upon him, that he should go to Pope Urban and to the Western princes so that they might lend aid to the Christians in the Holy Land trampled upon by the Saracens.10 Similarly Turpin says in a letter concerning the acts of Charles [Charlemagne] in Spain, that Saint James appeared to Charles in his dreams, exhorting him three times, that just as he had conquered many other lands, so he ought to go into Spain and free his country from the Saracens, so that a way would be provided for the faithful to visit him in perpetuity.11 From these it is clear that it is pleasing to God and to the saints that the Christian faithful purify countries from the Saracens through warfare. For formerly God similarly wanted the sons of Israel to expel the gentiles from the promised land through warfare, so that where previously dreadful things hateful to God were done, the worship of God might be established.
Nonetheless, it ought to be noted that this kind of project is extremely difficult for Christians both because of the remoteness of places and on account of the perils of the sea and many other things, and for that reason many are very lukewarm regarding that project. However, because there is no hope, according to human judgments, that the Saracens will ever be converted from their error, and it is the will of God and the saints that they be expunged through warfare, and on account of the trouble facing those engaged in this project, there will be many Christians who are extremely lukewarm toward it, [and] it would be very profitable for some upright men who would be fired up about it to spur on other tepid persons, so that this very scandal might be removed from the world through human power with the assistance of God and the worship of God might be enlarged in their lands. O the disgrace of our times! Formerly one poor hermit, that is, Peter of Amiens, roaming throughout Christian lands, stirred up and set almost all Christendom on fire regarding this very project. And yet in our times hardly any great man can be found who would spur on others, and even those roused could hardly be kindled to considerable fervor regarding entertaining this project. . . .
After urging the pope to promote a new crusade through publicizing indulgences and appointing preachers and other measures enshrined in the decree Ad liberandam of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), Humbert draws on his prior treatise on preaching the crusade for a stock of arguments to be used in promoting the crusade.
FOR CHRISTENDOM is downcast at heart, and yet it would not be of noble and burning spirit to desist from a just war on account of previous disastrous results, particularly when it is acceptable to God. For this very reason upright warriors are accustomed after an occurrence of this sort to devise novel stratagems for pursuing that undertaking. However there are three special reasons, among others, why we ought not to desist. One is the salvation of Christians. For countless persons have been and will be saved in the prosecution of this business, who perhaps otherwise would never have died in a state of salvation. Another matter is the repression of the Saracens. For unless they had been checked through this kind of struggle, they would perhaps have already seized virtually all of Christendom. Third is the hope of triumphing in the end. For Christians ought never to despair, for truly they will finally obtain victory over the Saracens, even if the Lord, for the sake of certain reasons known only to him, until the present has postponed it and has often permitted us to be beaten and slaughtered by them.
On the other hand, there are many examples, both in ancient histories and in our own, for confirming Christians in this hope. Throughout the entire book of Judges we read that the enemies of Israel often prevailed against them, but when they used to cry out to the Lord, he would unexpectedly send to them certain men, through whose hands they would triumph over their enemies. Similarly, when the sons of Israel were completely overcome by the men of Ai during their entry into the promised land and many were slain, after they humiliated themselves before the Lord and performed penance for the offense of Achan, when they returned against that city, and assailed it through various ruses at the Lord’s command, they obtained victory and razed the city after killing everyone in it [Jo 7]. Furthermore, the sons of Israel, after being beaten twice by the sons of Benjamin, returned to battle after prayers and fasting and weeping and burnt sacrifices and conquered them [Jgs 20]. Moreover, in the book of the Maccabees, we read that Antiochus rose up against the Jews and profaned the temple and burned their books and plagued them with countless cruelties and desiring to abolish their law, introduced the law of the gentiles among them. But when Matthias and Judas his son and his brothers opposed him, we read concerning them that afterward they often obtained glorious victories [1 Mc]. There are also many other similar things in the old law regarding the triumphs achieved by the Jews over the gentiles who had often vanquished them.
So then, if anyone would want to know in what way our men, who were defeated many times by the Saracens, afterward often obtained glorious victories over them, let him read the history of the acts of Charles [the Great] in Spain. Let him also read the Antiochene history, and also the transmarine history.12 And let him also peruse other histories, of which there are many, which testify concerning the same things. And he will discover how there are certain senseless people in our time, who on account of disastrous results think that we ought to desist from the struggle with the Saracens. At the time when these very same Saracens used to occupy Sicily, they also took Sardinia and pillaged Genoa, that most noble of cities, and also attacked various locations on the seacoast and laid waste to many more in Italy, Provence, Catalonia, and Spain. They also occupied all of Spain. Reaching as far as the Aquitaine, they captured many cities and killed countless Christians without mercy. But through the mercy of God, through Christian might they were expelled from all these regions, except for [one] corner of Spain. [And] in this province, albeit recently, throughout the kingdom of Aragón, the city of Valencia, and the kingdom of Majorca, and throughout the kingdom of Castile, particularly in the city of Seville, [these regions] were rewon from them.
Nor do they now dare to attack any of our places anywhere along the coast, because their power upon the sea is reckoned as nothing in comparison to our sea power. Why therefore ought one to despair, nay on the contrary why ought one not to hope that God, who gave to his Christians such a great victory over them, will not bring his work to completion at an opportune time, hidden to us, but known to himself alone? Since God is powerful indeed, either through the death of sultans, just as through the death of Holofernes he gave victory over his enemies [Jdt 10–14], or through striking them with terror, as at one time he did to the Syrians [2 Kgs 6:8–24], or through a divinely sent plague, as he once did in the camps of the Assyrians [2 Kgs 19:35], or through countless other means known to himself alone, and proceeding according to his own desire, he will lead the Christian conception concerning eradicating the Saracens to a successful conclusion, to his honor and glory.
. . . In order to laudably accomplish this project, I believe that prayers, deliberations, and consultations with those associated with it will be necessary. . . . Since it will be project common to Christendom, public prayers ought to be conducted. And because God does not listen to sinners, greater corrections than usual ought to be enforced everywhere, lest sin impede these prayers. And because it does not suffice to absolve from sin unless satisfaction is made for past offenses, amends ought to be made through communal repentance through some fasts and almsgiving and communal processions and other things of this sort which customarily appease God’s anger. For examples and authorities, both from the Bible and from other sources, teach how much power these practices possess, and to how great an extent they are customarily performed in similar cases.
Regarding deliberations, it ought to be noted that as pertains to the desire to efficaciously promote this project, one ought to frequently and for a long time ponder the same business with much deliberation and ought not to suddenly dispose anything. And because talking together customarily contributes much to prudent deliberation, one ought often to confer about this with men suitable for this. And because, once more, the knowledge of our forebearers contributes much to discussions of this kind, one ought to diligently examine ancient histories and [accounts of] deeds pertaining to this put into writing by our forebearers, because through these kinds of former exploits current deliberation is instructed in many things which ought to be accomplished in the future. So then, for confirming this there are many authorities and examples which can be easily found by those who are interested in things of this sort. . . . But one ought to note that there are three kinds of persons who are not suitable for [giving] this kind of advice. One is the inexperienced. For what can they advise concerning accomplishing anything whatsoever, who never learned about these things from experience? Another is the unwilling. For those who have no heart for this business will never give spirited advice concerning it. Third is wicked persons. For these do not possess the spirit of God within themselves. And for this reason there is no hope that the spirit of God, from whom every befitting plan flows, will speak through their mouths. And so for giving counsel concerning this project one ought to choose not indifferently any person whatsoever, but rather the experienced and those devoted to this project, and men whom it is believed possess the spirit of God.
. . . What the general opinion of men is concerning the promotion of this business ought to be noted. Some believe that it ought to be arranged that to those men who are overseas and are fit for battle, both the regular religious13 and other men, ought to be added a great host of fighters, both mounted men and foot soldiers, who could remain continually in that army, because then it could be plausibly hoped that our men would be able to prevail against the Saracens at all times. However, for this task, men ought to be chosen who are equal to labors of this sort and of a good life, and of such a kind as would not only have eyes for their stipends, as mercenaries do, but would possess zeal for the faith. And whenever any of them died, or were expelled from this kind of fellowship because of a wicked way of life, others should always be appointed in their place. . . . For it is likely that because of the small number of our men, or because of the discontinuation of the war, or because of the weakness of persons, or because of the evil lives of the many, or because of the lack of zeal for the project, this business has been less than successful up to this moment.
If, however, it is asked from what place can such great and continuous stipends necessary for fighters of this kind be procured, it can be said that such great riches exist in Christendom that unless both inclination and shrewdness were lacking to Christians in attending to it, they could be procured readily and without much inconvenience. For even if we were to remain altogether silent concerning the assistance of kings and princes and counts and laypersons, and held a discussion concerning only those ecclesiastical persons who are subject to the pope, what harm would there be to the faith of the churches . . . [if the] gold and silver and precious stones, which are encrusted upon superfluous vessels and crosses and things of this sort which exist in every single diocese, were sold to provide revenue to be applied to this kind of perpetual project? Moreover, what damage would occur if in the cathedral churches and other wealthy chapters where there are many canons, their number were diminished to some extent, and the incomes of the prebends subtracted in this manner were likewise devoted to this very use? On the other hand, what harm would it be if from the priories of the regular religious, which are spread throughout the world without number, and in which the religious living in a very lax manner cause scandal to those living in the world, many were devoted to the same use? And likewise the same thing ought to be done with ruined abbeys, concerning which there is no hope that they can ever be successfully reformed. Similarly, what harm would it be to the faith if some part of vacant and rich benefices were devoted to this same project for one or more years?
However, there are also many other things pertaining to ecclesiastical persons and laypersons which worldly wisdom would better know how to devise, which would ascend beyond human appraisal, if they were brought to effect and would forever strengthen this business. And from certain movable possessions pertaining to this, perpetual revenues could be bought, forever deputed to this business, and everything deputed to this would be rewarded by indulgences and ecclesiastical protection. But because the wisdom of this world would be very much afraid that once that particular time had elapsed these funds would be transferred through the Roman Church to other uses, lest by this occasion progress be impeded in this manner, it would be advantageous to find a suitable remedy against this, so that as the sacred council draws near,14 this very project might be promoted to the glory of Christ and the exaltation of the Christian faith and the salvation of souls. And if, perchance, permanent remedies cannot be procured, they ought at least to be procured for as long a time as can be obtained.
. . . It ought to be noted, that before the gathering of the council certain things ought to be set in motion which are able to have great influence upon the advancing of this project. One is that all efficacious arguments which can stir the hearts of Christians to aid Christendom against the Saracens ought to be set down in writing in suitable and short words, so that they can be shown at the proper time to those men to whom it will seem useful. For there are many, not only from the laity, but also from the clergy, who know virtually nothing of Muhammad and of the Saracens, except that they hear that there are certain infidels who do not believe in Christ and think that these Saracens view Muhammad as their God, which, however is false.
Another thing is that with the counsel of wise men, both of the learned and of laymen as well, and particularly of noblemen who might cherish this project in their hearts, and with assiduous examination every kind of aid ought to be devised which can be requested whether from the prelates, or from the clergymen, or from the regular religious, or from princes, or from communes on behalf of this project: and let these be put into writing in a short form and with some arguments, so that these things can be shown at the appropriate time either together or separately to those to whom it seems beneficial. . . .
Before the council, from every single country or province ought to be convoked some prelates and men of such a nature, who it is hoped might cherish this project in their hearts and prove suitable for persuading others. And these distinguished men ought to be solicited by the lord pope and effectually induced by the same to personally promote this project before the other prelates of their country or provinces, so that through this kind of advance preparation they might give better advice at the council.15 At regular intervals the lord pope ought to send official messengers to kings and princes, who would seem to benefit from this with letters including the aforementioned arguments. They ought to diligently explain this business to them and to those noblemen whom they can engage and lead them to lend assistance to this project. And these messengers ought to be accompanied by some noblemen, who might hold this project in their hearts, and would know how, with the aforesaid messengers, to persuade these magnates. For there are many things which ought to move magnates to this business, in addition to the arguments which pertain to everyone in common.
One is the power entrusted to them by God. For every person is bound to serve his lord from the fief which he holds from him. And so, just as clerks are obligated to serve God by the knowledge which they have from God and rich men by the wealth which they have from God, so too powerful men from the power which they hold, since they hold it from God alone. Another is the examples of the Old Testament. For it is found there that kings and magnates always fought against the Philistines and other enemies of that people. However the prophets were not accustomed to fight, equally the priests. But the prophets used to exhort and the priests offered up sacrifices and prayers on their behalf.
Another is the example of the New Testament, in which is found that magnates always prosecuted that very occupation against the Saracens, as is clear in the case of Charles [Charlemagne], who at the urging of Saint James, who appeared to him, twice went into Spain to expel the Saracens from that place, and so that he might have many of his men with him in his host, he granted many privileges to the Franks on this account. The same behavior is manifest in many other kings and countless magnates, who for the sake of this project tendered themselves and their possessions and their men, crossing the sea.
Another is the necessity of penance, which those who sin inevitably have to accomplish. However, how could they accomplish a more glorious penance than to serve God with their weapons, which they cannot customarily carry during fasts and afflictions of this sort? Another is office. For these men are ministers of the King of kings, according to that which the apostle intimates, saying of such “[for he is] a minister of God [for you for the good. However, if you do evil you ought to fear him, not without reason, for he carries the sword of God],” etc. [Rom 13:4]. And so, just as it pertains in the highest degree to the bailiffs of the king to resist the enemies of their king, so also it pertains in the extreme to those magnates to resist the spiritual enemies of God, that is, the Saracens. Another is nobility. For when there is warfare between two kingdoms, it pertains more to noblemen than to others to fight. And on that account, when the Saracens attack Christendom, this war pertains more to noble Christians than to others. Another is shame. For every nobleman, if he were inside some besieged castle, would consider himself put to shame, unless he resisted more than others on behalf of his men. How great a disgrace it therefore is for the noblemen who are among Christendom, unless they resist more than any other the Saracens besieging it, for the sake of their men? And there are many other things which can stir men up if they are investigated industriously.
The Second Council of Lyons, discussed extensively in the headnote to this chapter, was announced by Gregory X (1271–1276) in the letter Salvator noster within a week of his coronation at Rome on March 27, 1272. Gregory, who had attended the First Council of Lyons in 1245, had been elected following a vacancy in the papal succession of two years and nine months and had been in the Holy Land in 1270–1271 when he was elected pope. There was much local work for a new pope in these circumstances to do, and the curia was not very interested in long-range crusading prospects. But Gregory firmly put Holy Land crusade at the head of his conciliar agenda, along with the reunion of the Greek and Latin churches and moral reform. The similarity with the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215 was striking, and Gregory opened the Second Council of Lyons on May 7, 1274, with a sermon on the same text that Innocent III had used on the earlier occasion. The crusade constitution Zelus fidei, promulgated at the second session, echoed the constitution Ad liberandam of the Fourth Lateran Council. Unlike Innocent III, however, Gregory had seen for himself the situation in the Holy Land, the suffering of Christians, and the need for liberation. And Gregory wanted crusaders suitable for battle. Others might share in crusade spiritual benefits, but only fighters were to go, financed by clergy and laity alike.
But for all of Gregory’s dedication and energy, both the crusade plan and the union with the Greeks collapsed, and only some of the ecclesiological work of the council survived. The crusade collapsed when Gregory’s successors failed to gain the support of England and France and turned their attention instead to the conflict between Pedro III of Aragón and Charles of Anjou over the matter of Sicily and Charles’s concern to reestablish a Latin Empire in Constantinople, further alienating the Greeks. Zelus fidei had been a clarion call to recover the Holy Land as resonant as Ad liberandam. But there were few to answer it. And the circumstances of the later thirteenth and early fourteenth century meant that the cause of the Holy Land had to be considered in new ways.
THE HEARTS of the faithful ought to be aroused by zeal for the faith, ardent devotion, and compassionate affection, such that all who take pride in the Christian name, touched inwardly by heartfelt sorrow [cf. Gn 6:6] from the injury done to their Redeemer, might openly and mightily rise up for God’s sake for the defense and assistance of the Holy Land. Who, imbued with the light of the true faith, and meditating with devout consideration upon the extraordinary blessings which our Savior bestowed upon humankind in the Holy Land, which is the rope [measuring out] the Lord’s inheritance [Ps 104:11], would not be moved to compassionate love in their innermost parts and with their entire being? Whose heart would not melt with compassion for that very land where by our Creator so great a love was manifested by proofs? But alas, for shame! That very land in which the Lord saw fit to work our salvation [Ps 73:12], and so that he might redeem mankind by the price of his death, he consecrated with his own blood, has been for a long time invaded by the most impious enemies of the Christian name, the blasphemous and faithless Saracens, who moved by their temerity, have for a long time kept it in [a state of] fear and undauntedly laid it waste. The Christian people have been savagely butchered in that land, both to the more grievous affront to the Creator and to the injury and affliction of all who profess the catholic faith. Where is the God of the Christians? [Ps 41:11] They have mocked [us] with many taunts, insulting the worshippers of Christ.
These very things and other things which neither our soul suffices to fully comprehend or our tongue to relate aroused our heart and awakened our soul so that we, who not only heard in the aforementioned regions overseas but saw with our own eyes and touched with our own hands [1 Jn 1:1], might rise up, as far as our ability lies, to avenge the insult to the Crucified, with the intervening assistance of those consumed by zeal and devotion for the faith. And because the liberation of the aforementioned land ought to affect all who profess the catholic faith, we have ordered a council to be convoked, so that after having consulted with prelates, kings, and princes, and other experienced men in it, we might arrange and enact in Christ those things through which the liberation of the aforesaid land might be achieved; and, no less, that the Greek people, who have endeavored with insolent necks to rend the seamless tunic of the Lord [cf. Jn 19:23] to some degree, and have withdrawn themselves from allegiance and obedience to the Apostolic See, might be returned to unity with the [Latin] church; and to reform morals, which have so greatly deteriorated among both ecclesiastics and people on account of our sins. In all the aforesaid matters may he [God] direct our actions and deliberations, he for whom nothing is impossible [Lk 1:37], but who, when he wishes, makes troublesome matters easy and the difficult and crooked straight and level by his power [Is 40:4; Lk 3:5].
Certainly so that the aforementioned plans might be more freely brought to fruition, and mindful of the hazards of wars and perils of the way which those whom we are led to summon to the same council might have to undergo, and we and our brothers not shirking but rather willingly embracing hardships so that we might prepare rest for others, burdened with manifold dangers and diverse inconveniences and considerable risks, we entered with our brothers and our curia the city of Lyons. In it we believed those summoned to the council might assemble with less onerous hardship and expenses. In that place all those summoned met for the same council both in person and through fitting representatives, and we deliberated assiduously with them about assistance for the aforementioned land and they, aroused to avenge the injury to their Savior, as they should, gave advice and insights concerning assistance for the same land, recommending from experience the most worthy ways [to help it].
Now [after] listening to their advice, we deservedly commend the praiseworthy resolution and devotion which they demonstrated concerning the liberation of the aforesaid land. But lest we appear to place upon the shoulders of men heavy and insupportable burdens while not wishing to lift a finger [Mt 23:4], we begin with ourselves. For we freely acknowledge that all those things which we have we possess from the only begotten son of God, Jesus Christ, by whose gift we live, by whose support we are sustained, yes, indeed, by whose blood we were redeemed. For the next six years running, we and our brothers, the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, shall pay a full tenth from all our ecclesiastical revenues, fruits, and incomes in aid of the aforesaid land, and with the consent of this sacred council, we decree and order that for the same aforementioned six years, to be reckoned continuously from the next approaching feast of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, all ecclesiastical persons, no matter with whatever rank or preeminence they are distinguished, or whatever position or order or religious estate, are to pay a tenth from all their ecclesiastical revenues, fruits, and incomes in each year, within the limits set, that is a half at the feast of the Nativity of our Lord and another half on the feast of the blessed Saint John the Baptist, without fraud and without any kind of diminution. And we will not honor any privilege or exemption [from taxation] granted to them or their churches, no matter what its nature or expression in words [might be], rather, those which were already conceded to them we annul entirely.
And so that we might more mindfully uphold due veneration for the person of him whose business we undertake and for his saints and particularly for the glorious Virgin, whose intercessions we depend upon for this and other matters, and so that there might be fuller assistance for the aforesaid land, the constitution which our predecessor Pope Gregory of blessed memory pronounced against blasphemers we command to be observed without violation. And the monetary penalties of that very statute are to be collected by the authorities of the regions in which the blasphemy is committed, and by others who might exercise temporal jurisdiction in those places. And if it should prove necessary, their diocesan and other local [church] ordinaries are to assist in forcing them to pay the aforementioned aids [fines] in full and they ought to be entrusted to collectors to be converted into assistance for the same [land]. Moreover, we strictly command confessors hearing confessions both under ordinary jurisdiction and by special privilege that they enjoin upon those confessing to them and prompt them to devote the aforementioned money to the same land as full satisfaction [for their sins]; and that they lead those making known their final wishes to bequeath something in their wills from their possessions for the aid of the Holy Land according to their abilities.
Moreover, we order that in every church there be placed an empty chest locked by three keys, the first to be kept in the possession of the bishop, the second in the possession of the priest of the church, the third in the possession of some scrupulous layperson, and all the faithful ought to be instructed to place their alms in it for the remission of their sins, according to how the Lord should inspire them in their minds. And in those very churches for the remission of these sorts of sins and particularly for those offering alms, a mass ought to be sung publicly once per week on a set day which the priest ought to announce to the people beforehand. In addition to this, so that the Holy Land might be more fully assisted, we urge and endeavor to sway with admonishments and exhortations kings and princes, marquises, counts and barons, podestàs, governors [capitaneos], and other leaders of various lands that they see to it that in whatever lands fall under their jurisdiction, every single faithful pays one coin to the worth of one tournois or one sterling in accordance with the custom and conditions of the region. And they should impose [an additional] modest [tax] presenting no burden [to anyone] for the remission of sins, to be paid every year for the aid of the same land, such that no one may excuse themselves, because they are obliged to have compassion for the wretched condition of the Holy Land, nor may they be able to refuse to aid it or be prevented from acquiring merit [in this manner]. In fact, lest what was prudently ordered for the assistance of the aforesaid land happen to be impeded through anyone’s deceit or armed force or cunning, we excommunicate and anathematize anyone and everyone who should happen to knowingly be responsible for hindering, directly or indirectly, publicly or secretly, the collection of the tenth in aid of the aforementioned land, as was outlined above.
Moreover, since corsairs and pirates greatly hinder those crossing to that land and returning from it by capturing and despoiling them, we bind them and their chief aiders and abettors with the chain of excommunication, and forbid anyone, under threat of anathema, to wittingly communicate with them in any kind of contract involving buying and selling. Indeed, we urge the rulers of cities and [other] places to restrain and check them from this iniquity, otherwise we wish the prelates of the [local] churches to exercise ecclesiastical penalties in the same lands. In addition, we excommunicate and anathematize those false and impious Christians who against Christ and the Christian people transport weapons and iron and wood for building galleys and other sailing vessels [to the Saracens] with which they [the Saracens] attack Christians, and moreover those who sell them galleys or ships, and also those who are employed in the function of helmsman in piratical Saracen ships or in [building] machines for them or in anything else whatsoever lend them aid or counsel to the detriment of Christians, particularly those of the Holy Land. [And] we sentence them to be penalized by the loss of their possessions and they are to become the slaves of their captors. We command that through all the maritime cities on Sundays and feast days this sort of sentence be announced anew in public and that the bosom of the church should not be accessible to men of that ilk, unless everything which they should have received from such a condemnable commerce and moreover a similar amount from their own possessions be sent in aid of the Holy Land, such that they suffer a punishment equal to their transgression. And if perhaps the guilty will not have been [punished] by paying, then they ought to be restrained by other means of such a nature that their punishment might deter the temerity of others daring similar things. In addition we forbid all Christians and prohibit them under anathema to send or take their ships into the lands of the Saracens who live in the eastern regions for the next six years, so that by this a greater abundance of ships might be made available for those wishing to cross in aid of the Holy Land and so that the not inconsiderable assistance which the Saracens customarily receive from this is denied to them.
And since for the pursuit of this business it is particularly necessary that Christian rulers and the Christian populace keep the peace with one another, we therefore command with the approval of this sacred and general council that in the entire world a general peace ought to be upheld between Christians such that those in conflict might be led through the prelates of the churches to a full settlement [plena concordia] or peace or firm truce to be inviolably observed for six years. And those who perhaps should refuse to agree to this ought to be most strictly compelled to do so through the sentence of excommunication upon their persons and an interdict upon their lands, unless the malice of those committing the injuries is so great that such men ought not to enjoy peace. And if perhaps they should despise ecclesiastical censures, they ought not undeservedly to fear lest the secular power be invoked against them through ecclesiastical authority as disturbers of the business of the Crucified.
We, therefore, by the mercy of the omnipotent God and the authority entrusted to the blessed Peter and Paul, through which to us, albeit unworthy, God bestowed the power of binding and loosing, grant to all who should undertake personally the labor and the expense of departing for the protection of the Holy Land pardon from the penalty for their sins for which they have truthfully felt contrition in their heart and have orally confessed, and we promise the increase of eternal welfare as the recompense of the righteous. Moreover, to those who cannot personally travel to that place but at least send suitable persons [in their place] at their own expense according to their means and condition, and likewise to those who albeit at others’ expense should nonetheless travel there in person, we concede the full pardon of their sins. In addition we wish to be participants in this kind of remission and grant it to all who, according to the nature of their assistance and the sincerity of their devotion, give suitably from their possessions for the aid of the same land or should lend helpful counsel and assistance to the aforementioned [land] and in addition to all those who for the support of the Holy Land offer their own ships or to those who undertake to build ships for the sake of this work. Also, this general council makes participants in the spiritual benefits of its prayers and blessings all who devoutly promote this sacred and holy work, such that it might worthily contribute to their salvation.
Let us give glory and honor to God and not to ourselves [Ps 113:1], and let us give him thanks that at such a sacred council there assembled in response to our summons a numerous host of patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, provosts, deans, archdeacons, and other prelates of churches both through themselves and through fitting procurators, and also the procurators of chapters, colleges, and convents. Certainly although for the successful promotion of so important a business their counsel is very useful and we are pleased by the presence of the same like that of beloved sons and we are abounding in a certain way in spiritual rejoicing, nonetheless on the other hand because of the diverse inconveniences which their numbers inflict upon many of them, and lest on account of excessive crowding they should suffer any longer and their absence should prove injurious to themselves and their churches, moved by a certain provident affection, with the advice of our brother [cardinals] upon this matter, we determined to take beneficial precautions, such that the prosecution of this business, which we are pursuing with a zealous spirit and indefatigable solicitude, is in no way diminished by the troubles which they might meet. So, therefore, we decree that all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and priors specifically summoned by us by name are thus to remain, such that they ought not to depart before the end of the council without special permission from us. Certainly we compassionately grant, with the blessing of God and ourselves, permission to leave to the remaining nonmitered abbots and priors and other abbots and priors who were not summoned specifically and by name by us, and in addition the provosts, deans, archdeacons, and other prelates of churches and the procurators of any prelates, chapters, colleges, and convents. We command that all who are leaving in such a manner first should send adequate procurators, as described below, for receiving our mandates and those matters which, as the Lord inspires, will be arranged in our present council and may happen to be arranged in the future. That is, those leaving in such a manner should send adequate procurators [in these numbers]: four from the realm of France, four from the realm of England, four from the realms of Spain, four from the realm of Germany [Alemannia], one from the realm of Scotland, two from realm of Sicily, two from Lombardy, one from Tuscany, one from lands of the church, one from the realm of Norway, one from the realm of Sweden, one from the realm of Hungary, one from the realm of Dacia, one from the realm of Bohemia, and one from the duchy of Poland.
Moreover, it has become known to us through the reports of certain individuals that not a few archbishops and bishops and other prelates, on the pretext that we had commanded them to be summoned to this council, demanded from their subjects an excessive aid and extorted many things from them, imposing onerous tallages upon the same. Some of these prelates, albeit they exacted many things from their subjects, did not even come to the council. However, since it never was nor ever will be our intention that prelates, in coming to the council, should associate the virtue of obedience with the oppression of their subjects, we warn each and every prelate, firmly instructing them that none of them should dare to burden their subjects with tallages or exactions on the aforementioned pretext. If in fact anyone should not come to the council and should exact anything from their subjects on this pretext, we demand and specifically command that they restitute to them without delay those things which they will have received from them on that pretext. Moreover, those who have injured their subjects by demanding excessive subsidies from them should arrange to make satisfaction to them without [posing] any kind of difficulty, and our command ought to be fulfilled in such a way that it should not prove necessary for us to apply a remedy for this matter by our authority.
The narrative by the “Templar of Tyre” is the third part of a composite work that has been called since the nineteenth century the Gestes des Chiprois, or the “Deeds of the Cypriots.” The first part of the work is a version of the Latin text known as the Annals of the Holy Land, treating the years 1132–1218. The second part is the memoirs of Philip of Novara, with additions, recounting the wars between Frederick II and the Ibelins (above, No. 26), dealing with the period 1219–1243. The Templar of Tyre deals with the period 1243–1309, and his narrative is the only surviving Christian eyewitness account of the siege and conquest of Acre in 1291.
The unknown author had been born probably in Cyprus around 1255 and had lived in Tyre between 1269 and 1283, although there is no evidence that he was a Templar. He says that he served as a scribe for William of Beaujeu, master of the Templars, and lived in Acre during most of the siege of 1291. He seems to have been of knightly rank and a close and trusted adviser of the Templar master over several years. He knew Arabic and writes in a distinctive Old French, with Arabic and Greek terms included, and his evidence, where it can be checked in this and other instances, is usually reliable. His name, which he never gives, is assumed to have been Gérard de Montréal, based on a later history of Cyprus that used his narrative.
Besides the Templar of Tyre and the Arabic sources considered below, the main Latin sources for the fall of Acre have been edited by R. B. C. Huygens, Excidii Aconis gestorum collectio; Magister Thadeus civis Neapolitanus, Ystoria de desolatione et conculcatione civitatis Acconensis et tocius Terre Sanctae, with contributions by A. Forey and D. C. Nicolle, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis 202 (Turnhout, 2004). The remarkable letters of Ricoldo da Montecroce, the widely traveled Franciscan missionary and Arabist, have been edited and translated into French by René Kappler in Ricoldo da Montecroce, Pérégrination en Terre Sainte et au Proche Orient (Paris, 1997). The Templar of Tyre has been edited and translated into Italian by Laura Minervini, Cronaca del Templare di Tiro (1243–1314): La caduta degli Stati Crociati nel racconto di un testimone oculare (Naples, 2000); and into English by Paul Crawford, The “Templar of Tyre”: Part III of the “Deeds of the Cypriots,” Crusade Texts in Translation 6 (Aldershot UK-Burlington VT, 2003).
Now I will tell you the way and the reason why Acre was taken by the Saracens. . . .
The rulers of Acre and the military orders had made a ten-year truce with Qalawun in 1289. Under its terms, Muslim peasants and merchants could safely trade in the city. But at some point—the Old French and Arabic sources differ, but agree on this important fact—newly arrived Christian soldiers, probably from the twenty Venetian galleys sent to Acre by Pope Nicholas IV, attacked and killed a number of defenseless Muslims and even some bearded Christian Syrians whom they thought were Muslims.
News of the killing and the blood-stained clothing of the victims were carried to the sultan, who protested to the Akkans16 and received unsatisfactory answers from them. The sultan decided on revenge, found a phrase in the truce treaty that justified his proposed action, and mobilized an army.17 But Qalawun died suddenly, and his successor al-Malik al-Ashraf quickly established himself as the successor and, contrary to the Akkans’ expectations, took up the leadership of his father’s immense army, and set off for Acre. The Templar gives the figures as 70,000 horsemen and over 150,000 foot soldiers—in contrast, the entire population of Acre consisted of 30–40,000 inhabitants, including 700–800 horsemen and about 13,000 foot soldiers. As the Akkans attempted negotiations, al-Ashraf sent them the following letter, translated from Arabic by the Templar of Tyre.
487 [251] “The Sultan of Sultans, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, al-Malik al-Ashraf, the Powerful, the Dreadful, the Scourge of Rebels, Hunter of Franks and Tartars, and Armenians, Snatcher of Castles from the Hands of Miscreants, Lord of the Two Seas, Guardian of the Two Pilgrim Sites, Khalil al-Salihi, to the noble master of the Temple the true and wise:
“Greetings and our good will! Because you have been a true man, so we send you advance notice of our intentions, and give you to understand that we are coming into your parts to right the wrongs that have been done. Therefore, we do not want the community of Acre to send us any letters or presents [regarding this matter], for we will by no means receive them.”
488 [252] Such was the command and the tenor of the letter of the sultan, as you have heard. Notwithstanding this, they did not leave off sending him messengers, as I have told you; they were arrested and thrown into prison in Babylon, where they later perished miserably.
489 [253] The sultan came before Acre and besieged it on Thursday the fifth of April, in the year 1291 of the Incarnation of Christ, and he took it on the eighteenth day of May in the same year. Now you will learn how it happened.
490 [254] The sultan pitched his tents very close together, from Toron all the way up to as-Sumairiya, so that the whole plain was covered with tents. The tent of the sultan himself, which is called the dehlis, was on a small hill, where there was a lovely tower and gardens and vineyards of the Temple.18 This dehlis was entirely red, and its door opened facing the city of Acre. It was a custom of the sultans that everyone would know that the direction in which the door of the dehlis opened would be the direction in which he would take the road. They remained for eight days before Acre, doing nothing besides engaging in the occasional clash between our forces and theirs, in which a few were killed on either side.
At the end of the eight days, they brought up and emplaced their siege engines, and the stones that they threw weighed a quintar each.19 One of these engines was called Haveben, that is to say “Furious,” and it was set up in front of the Templars’ section.20 Another, which fired on the Pisans’ section, was called al-Mansuri, that is to say, “Victory.”21 Yet another, very large, whose name I do not know, fired on the Hospitallers’ section, and a fourth engine fired on a great tower called the Accursed Tower, which is at the second wall and was in the custody of the king.22
491 [255] They set up great barricades and wicker screens, ringing the walls with them the first night, and the second night they moved them further in, and the third night further still, and they brought them so far forward that they came up to the lip of the fosse. Behind these screens the armed men dismounted from their horses, bows in hand. And if you are wondering how they were allowed to draw so near, the answer is that they could not be stopped, as I shall now explain.
These people had their horsemen fully armed, on armored horses, and they stretched from one side of the city to the other, that is to say, from the beach on one side to the beach on the other. There were more than 15,000 of them, and they worked in four shifts a day, so that no one was overworked. None of our men went out against those who were behind the screens, for if they had, those who were behind [the first enemy line] would have defended them and barred the way, and so if it had happened that our men had gone out against them, the men on horseback would have defended them.
So in the end the Muslims advanced to the edge of the fosse, as I have told you, and the men on horseback each carried four or five buches23 on the necks of their horses, and threw them down behind the screens. And when night came, they put them in front of the screens, and bound a cord on top, and the pile became like a wall that no engine could harm, though some of our medium engines shot and battered at it without effect. The stones merely rebounded into the fosse.
After this the enemy brought up their carabohas, small, hand-operated Turkish devices with a high rate of fire which did more damage to our men than the larger engines did, since in the places where the carabohas were firing, no one dared to come out into the open. In front of the carabohas they had made the rampart so strong and so high that no one could strike or shoot at those who were firing [the carabohas]. And this situation lasted as long as they were mining, because a great emir named Sanjar al-Shuja’i commanded the enemy sector opposite a new little tower at the first walls in front of the Accursed Tower, which was called the Tower of the King.24 This Sanjar al-Shuja’i mined out toward the tower, and also mined one of the walls, called the King’s Wall. They pressed so hard against it that our men set it on fire and made it collapse. The Saracens also made another mine against the Tower of the Countess of Blois (which she had made when she came to this side of the sea for her soul’s sake),25 and our men countermined against it, and fought back fiercely. But the Saracens brought fresh men each day, because they had so many troops.
One day our men took counsel and decided to make a general sally on all sides with horse and foot, to burn the buches. So my lord the master of the Temple and his men, and Sir John [of Grailly and Sir Otto] of Grandson and other knights went out one night from the Templars’ sector (which ran from the seaside to the Gate of Saint Lazarus), and the master ordered a Provençal, who was viscount of the bourg of Acre, to set fire to the wooden buches of the great engine of the sultan.26 They went out that night, and came up to these buches, but the man who was supposed to hurl the Greek fire was afraid when he threw it, and it fell short and landed on the ground, where it burned out. The Saracens who were there were all killed, horsemen and footmen. But our men, both brethren and secular knights, went so far in among the tents that their horses got their legs tangled in the tent ropes and went sprawling, whereupon the Saracens slew them. In this way we lost eighteen horsemen that night, both brethren of the Temple and secular knights, though they did capture a number of Saracen shields and bucklers and trumpets and drums. Then my lord and his men turned back toward Acre.
On the way, they ran into a number of Saracens lying in ambush, all of whom they killed, for the moonlight was bright as day and they could see them clearly. As I have already told you, the lord of Hama was in that sector, and he rallied his troops to him and hit us on the seashore with showers of javelins, wounding some of our men.27 But they dared not close with our men. You should know that they seemed to have close to two thousand mounted men [in this skirmish], but our side had—including knights and other horsemen, and brethren of the military orders and valés and turcopoles—scarcely three hundred.
On the other sectors where action had been ordered, nothing was done, because the Saracens perceived the activity and were on guard, and attacked the Christians so fiercely that they turned back without accomplishing anything.
492 [256] Later on it was decided that all the lords and the forces of Acre should make a sortie in the middle of the night from the Gate of Saint Anthony, to fall suddenly on the Saracens. This was decided so secretly that no one knew of it until the command, “To horse!” was given. At the same time when our men mounted up and sallied forth from the Gate of Saint Anthony, the moon was not shining at all, but was obscured. The Saracens were forewarned, and illuminated the scene with torches so that it seemed to be day along their lines. A division so large that it contained well-nigh 10,000 men came against our men and raked them so fiercely with javelins that it seemed to be raining. Our men could not endure this and so withdrew into the city, many of the horsemen being wounded.
Our people in the city of Acre were thus in a sorry condition. But they received news that King Henry was about to come from Cyprus with significant assistance, and they looked for him daily.28
493 [257] The king had summoned his men in Cyprus, and assembled them and left from Famagusta, and arrived at Acre on the fourth of May. The city was in dire straits because, as I have told you, the [outer] wall was mined and the tower which had been mined had been burned.
But all the same they took great comfort in the arrival of these men, and that of the king a few days later, so they sent messengers to the sultan: Sir William of Villiers, a knight, and William of Caffran, a man from the household of the master of the Temple. The sultan came out from his dehlis before the gate of the city known as the Gate of the Legate, and there was a ceasefire on both sides. The messengers went out unarmed, and they came before the sultan, who was within a small tent.
When the messengers had thrice saluted him on their knees, he approached them and said, “Have you brought me the keys of the city, then?” The messengers replied that the city could not be surrendered so easily, but that they had come to him to ask for some measure of mercy for the poor people.
At this the sultan said to them, “I will give you this much grace, that you cede me the bare stones [of the city] alone, and carry off everything else, and go forth and leave the place. I will do this for your king, who has come here and who is a youth, just as I might have been. But I will do nothing more for you.”
Then the messengers said to him that this could not be, “because the people overseas would hold us to be traitors,” at which he said, “Then you should go away, for I shall offer nothing more.”
As he spoke these words, there was a siege engine which the crusaders were working from the Gate of the Legate, and it fired by I know not what accident, and the stone came so near the tent where the sultan and the messengers were, that the sultan (in an act of youthful bravado, not meaning serious harm) leaped to his feet, and laying his hand on his sword, he drew it out a palm’s length, and said, “Ah! You filthy swine, what prevents me from striking off your heads?”
At this, Sanjar al-Shuja’i said to him, “Sir, God forbid that you should foul the iron of your sword with the blood of these pigs! Those who fired the siege engine are traitors, but you should let these men go, for they are here with you.” And so the messengers returned to Acre, and thereupon the two sides began again their labors, firing mangonels at one another, and doing the things that are usually done between enemies.
494 [258] The new tower, which they called the Tower of the King, was so badly undermined that the front face fell in a heap into the fosse, so that it was impossible to pass over the top of the stones. Seeing this, the Saracens made small sacks of hemp cloth and filled them with sand. Every man carried one of these sacks on the neck of his horse and tossed it to the Saracens who were there behind the buches at that point. Then when night fell, they took the sacks and spread them across the top of the stones, and smoothed them out like a roadway, and the next day (Wednesday) they came across on the sacks at Vespers, and took the tower. Half of the vault was still intact and in one piece on the side of the town, and there were a great many of our men defending the tower, but the defense was all for nothing, because the Saracens took the tower anyway, and planted the ensign of the sultan on it. At this, we loaded the siege engines and aimed them at the tower and fired, and killed some of the Saracens, but not enough to drive them back.
When our men saw that the tower was taken, they built a structure out of leather-covered wood, called a chat, and put men inside it, so that the Saracens who had taken the tower might not advance further.
495 [259] When the tower had thus fallen, as I have explained, everyone was thoroughly demoralized, and began increasingly to send their women and children down to the ships. But on the next day, Thursday, the weather was very bad, and the sea ran so high that the women and children who had boarded the ships were unable to stay there, and they disembarked and returned to their homes.
496 [260] Before dawn on the next day, Friday, a drum began a powerful stroke, and at the sound of this drum, which had a horrible and mighty voice, the Saracens assailed the city of Acre upon all sides. The place where they entered first was by the Accursed Tower, which they had already taken. I shall tell you the way in which they came.
497 [261] They came on afoot, so many that they were without number. In the van came men carrying great tall shields, and after them came men who cast Greek fire, and after them came men who hurled javelins and shot feathered arrows in such a thick cloud that they seemed to fall like rain from the heavens. Our men who were inside the chat abandoned it. At this the Saracens, whom I have mentioned, took two routes, since they were between the two walls of the city—that is to say, between the first walls and the ditches, which were called the barbican, and the great [inner] walls and ditches of the city proper. Some of them entered by a gate of that great tower called the Accursed Tower, and moved toward San Romano, where the Pisans had their great engines. The others kept to the road, going to Saint Anthony’s Gate.
498 [262] When the master of the Temple, who was at his auberge with the men who were defending it, heard the drum beating, he realized that the Saracens were launching some assault. The master gathered ten or twelve brethren and his own household troops and headed for the Saint Anthony Gate, right between the two walls.
On the way he passed the Hospitaller sector, and he summoned the master of the Hospital to join him. The Hospitaller master in turn collected some of his brethren, and some knights of Cyprus and of the Holy Land and some footmen. They moved toward the Saint Anthony Gate, where they found the Saracens coming in on foot, and they counterattacked them.
But it was all to no effect, as I have explained, for there were too many Saracens. When the two masters of the Temple and the Hospital arrived there and went into combat, it seemed as if they hurled themselves against a stone wall. Those of the enemy who were hurling Greek fire hurled it so often and so thickly that there was so much smoke that one man could scarcely see another. Among the smoke, archers shot feathered arrows so densely that our men and mounts were terribly hurt.
It happened that one poor English valé was so badly hit by the Greek fire which the Saracens were hurling that his surcoat burst into flames. There was no one to help him, and so his face was burned, and then his whole body, and he burned as if he had been a cauldron of pitch, and he died there. He was on foot when this happened, because his mount had been slain under him.29
The Saracens hung back for a bit, and then raised their shields and moved forward a little way, and when men charged down on them, they straightaway fixed their shields and drew up. They did not cease from their work of hurling javelins and casting Greek fire all day. This conflict, this [particular] confused struggle, lasted up until midmorning.
In this place a great misfortune befell, by which those Saracens who had come into the city, as I have said, were able to enter more easily and quickly, and by which our people were greatly disheartened. The occasion was this: a javelin came at the master of the Temple, just as he raised his left hand. He had no shield save his spear in his right hand. The javelin struck him under the armpit, and the shaft sank into his body a palm’s length; it came in through the gap where the plates of the armor were not joined. This was not his proper armor, but rather light armor for putting on hastily at an alarm.
When he felt himself mortally wounded, he turned to go. Some of the defenders thought that he was retiring because he wanted to save himself. The standard-bearer saw him go, and fell in behind him, and then all of his household followed as well. After he had gone some way, twenty crusaders from the Vallo di Spoleto saw him withdrawing, and they called to him, “Oh for God’s sake, Sir, don’t leave, or the city will fall at once!” And he cried out to them in a loud voice, so that everyone could hear him: “My lords, I can do no more, for I am killed; see the wound here!”
And then we saw the javelin stuck in his body, and as he spoke he dropped the spear on the ground, and his head slumped to one side. He started to fall from his horse, but those of his household sprang down from their horses and supported him and took him off, and laid him on a shield that they found cast off there, a tall, broad buckler. They carried him off toward the Saint Anthony Gate, but found it closed; instead, they found a small door which had a bridge leading from the fosse into the residence of the Lady Maria of Antioch, which had previously belonged to Sir James of La Mandelée.
There his household removed his armor, cutting his cuirass off at the shoulders, for they could do nothing else because of the wound he had taken. Then they put him, still in his épaulières, under a blanket, and took him toward the seashore, which is to say, on the beach which is between the abattoir where they slaughter beasts and the house of the lord of Tyre. There they heard a cry from in front of the Tower of the Legate, that the Saracens were there, so some of the household leapt into the sea to try to reach two barks that were there—there were only those two, because the sea was so stormy and the waves were so great that the barks were unable to cope with them—and many of the men were lost because of this. Other members of his household carried him to the Temple fortress with the aid of other men, and they laid him within the house—not going in by the gate, which they did not want to open, but taking him by way of a courtyard where they piled manure.
He lived all that day without saying a word, for since he had been taken down from his horse he had not spoken, save only a word to those in the Temple; when he heard the clamor of men fleeing death, he wanted to know what was happening. They told him that men were fighting, and he commanded that they should leave him in peace.
He did not speak again, but gave up his soul to God. He was buried before his tabernacle, which was the altar where they said Mass. And God has his soul—but what great harm was caused by his death!
499 [263] Now I will tell you what happened next.
As men learned what had happened, and saw the master carried off, they began one by one to abandon their posts and flee. For the Saracens, as I have said, had come through the Accursed Tower, and went straight through San Romano, and set fire to the great engine of the Pisans, and went down the straight road to the Germans, and took Saint Leonard, and everyone they encountered they put to the sword. Other Saracens assaulted the Tower of the Legate, which was on the sea. From the edge of the sea to the foot of the tower, the Saracens prized off a latticework which had bars and points sticking out so that horses could not get through there. Then a great number of mounted Saracens came in. Sir John of Grailly and Sir Otto of Grandson and the men of the king of France put up a fierce defense, so that there were a great many wounded and dead. But Sir John of Grailly and Sir Otto of Grandson were unable to withstand the Saracen pressure, and they withdrew from the place and saved themselves, Sir John of Grailly being [badly] wounded.
500 [264] When Henry, king of Jerusalem and Cyprus, saw this disaster, he came to the master of the Hospital, and they perceived plainly that neither counsel nor reinforcement were of any further value, and so they saved themselves and boarded their galleys.
501 [265] Know that that day was terrible to behold. The ladies and the burgesses and the cloistered maidens and other lesser folk came fleeing through the streets, their children in their arms, weeping and despairing, and fleeing to the sailors to save them from death. And when the Saracens came across them, one seized the mother and another the child, and carried them from place to place, and separated them from each other. Once there was a quarrel between two Saracens over a woman and she was killed by them; and another time a woman was led away captive, and the infant at her breast was thrown to the ground where the horses trampled on it, slaying it thus. There were some women who were pregnant and who were caught up in the press of the flight and suffocated and died, and the life in her [sic] womb died with her [sic]. And there were some women whose husband or child was lying ill or wounded by an arrow at their lodging; they left them alone and fled, and the Saracens slew them all.
You should know that the Saracens set fire to the siege engines and to the garites,30 so that the whole land was lit up by the flames. The greater part of the people, men and women and children, more than ten thousand persons, sought refuge within the Temple [compound], for it was the strongest place in the city.
The Templar goes on to describe the Templar possessions in the city, then (502/266) those of the Hospital and of the Teutonic Knights (503/267).
AND now I want to go back to complete my story.
Everyone who could manage to do so came to the Temple, gathering inside. The king and the others who had retreated onto the galleys and other ships moved off and set sail, as did the tarides and nefs31 of the Venetian squadron. The good preudomme, the patriarch and legate, Brother Nicholas, withdrew to a nef of the Venetians. A sailor seized him by the hand, but he slipped and fell into the sea and was drowned. No one knows if he who took him by the hand let him go because he had put his valuables on that ship, or if he slipped from his hand because he could not hold onto him, but however it happened, the preudomme was drowned, as I said.
When all the leins32 had put on sail, those of the Temple who had gathered there gave a great cry, and the ships cast off and made for Cyprus, and those good men who were then come into the Temple were left to their fate, as you have heard. You should know that there were six armed leins of the church, and royal galleys, and two Genoese galleys (who did much good as everyone knows, for they collected the men from the seashore and put them on the nefs and on the other leins). The commander of these two galleys was a Genoese named Andrea Peleau.
504 [268] Now let me tell you of the fate of the city of Tyre, which was one of the strongest cities in the world. In it there was a bailli named Sir Adam of Caffran, acting on behalf of the king. As soon as he saw the sailing ships that had left Acre, he and all the other knights and the wealthy people cleared out and abandoned the city of Tyre. The poor people remained behind and were taken prisoner, men and women and children who had no ships on which they might withdraw.
505 [269] Now we shall tell you about the people who were within the Temple. There was the marshal, Peter of Sevrey, and some brethren of the Templars, and some other brethren who lay wounded within, and some secular knights, and women and burgesses and many other people. Among those who fell back on the Temple that day was Brother Matthew of Clermont, marshal of the Hospital of Saint John. He saw the master of the Temple, who was dead, as I have told you, and then returned to the battle, gathering around him all his brethren, for he would not abandon any of them, and some of the Templars went with him, and they came to a square of the Genoese quarter, which was empty of houses, and there Matthew plunged into combat. He and his companions slew many Saracens, but in the end he was slain, him and the others, like true knights and valiant and good Christians. May God preserve their souls.
506 [270] Know, fair lords, that no one could adequately recount the tears and grief of that day. The pitiful sight of the little children, tumbled about and disemboweled as the horses trampled upon them . . . ! There is no man in the world who has so very hard a heart that he would not have wept to see the slaughter. And I am sure that all Christian people who saw these things that day wept, because even some of the Saracens, as we learned afterward, had pity on these victims and wept.33
507 [271] The Temple held out for ten days [after the fall of the city itself]. The sultan parlayed with those who were in the Temple, to see if they wished to surrender themselves to his safe-conduct, and they sent word back that they would surrender if he should undertake to conduct them to safety wherever they wished to go. The sultan sent a message back agreeing, and dispatched an emir to those in the Temple. The emir brought four hundred horsemen inside the compound with him; these men saw the great number of refugees, and desired to seize the women who pleased them, to dishonor them.34 But the Christians found this conduct intolerable, drew their weapons and flung themselves upon the Saracens, slaying them all and beheading them, so that none escaped alive. Then the Christians set themselves determinedly to defend their bodies to the death.
The sultan was most displeased by this turn of events, but he did not show it. He sent again, saying that he knew quite well that the folly of his men had been [the cause of] their deaths, because of the outrages they had committed, that he did not hold this against the Christians, and that they could come out securely, trusting in his word. The marshal of the Temple, a great preudomme from Burgundy, whose name was Peter of Sevrey (whom I have mentioned above to you), trusted the sultan, and came out to him. Some wounded brethren remained in the tower.
508 [272] Therefore, when the sultan had the marshal and the men of the Temple in his power, he had the heads of all the brethren and all the other men cut off. When the brethren who were still within the tower, who were not so ill as to be unable to fight, heard that the marshal and the others had been beheaded, they set themselves to resist.
At this the Saracens began to mine the tower—they dug a mine and then shored it up. Thereupon those within the tower surrendered, but the Saracens entered the tower with so many men that the supports in the mine gave way, and the tower collapsed, and those brethren of the Temple and the Saracens who were inside were killed. Moreover, when the tower collapsed, it fell outward toward the street, and crushed more than two thousand mounted Turks.
And so this city of Acre was taken, abandoned, on Friday, the eighteenth day of May in the said year [of 1291], and the Temple compound ten days later, in the manner which I have described to you.35
Two of the best-informed Arab chroniclers of the siege and fall of Acre were both soldiers and scholars. Abu l-Fida’ (ca. 672/1273–732/1331) was an Ayyubid lord of Hama who participated personally as a young man in the siege of Acre and included a description in his Historical Compendium of the Human Race, a work that, like the Shining Stars Concerning the Kings of Egypt and Cairo of Abu l-Mahasin (813/1411–874/1469), consists largely of earlier accounts, now lost and preserved only in anthologies such as these. After the fall of the Ayyubids, Abu l-Fida’ managed to retain the lordship of Hama under the Mamluks. As Gabrieli points out, he resembles another earlier soldier and man of letters from the turn of the twelfth century, Usama ibn Munqidh, whose early twelfth-century Book of Contemplation has been newly translated.36 In the case of Abu l-Fida’, the author’s inclusion of events in his own lifetime makes this part of his text particularly useful.
Abu l-Mahasin was a fifteenth-century soldier and man of letters whose work was also largely an anthology of earlier writers. His account of the siege of Acre, however, derived from an eyewitness account, and together with the account of Abu l-Fida’ constitutes a remarkable Arabic perspective on the campaign of al-Ashraf.
The most exhaustive analysis of the historiography in Arabic of the siege and fall of Acre is that by Donald P. Little, “The Fall of ‘Akka in 690/1291: The Muslim Version,” in M. Sharon, ed., Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon (Jerusalem-Leiden, 1986), 159–181. Little offers a superbly reconstructed account of the Arabic versions of the conquest from all narrative sources, 165–181. On Abu l-Fida’, see P. M. Holt, trans., with intro., The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince: Abu l-Fida’, Sultan of Hama (Wiesbaden, 1983). During the siege of Acre Abu l-Fida’ was roughly the equivalent of a modern platoon leader.
IN 690/1291 the sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf marched on Acre with his Egyptian troops and sent word to the Syrian army to join up with him and to bring the siege engines. The ruler of Hama, al-Malik al-Muzaffar, set out with his uncle, al-Malik al-Afdal37 and the whole of Hama’s army for Hisn al-Akrad, where we collected a huge catapult called “the Victorious”; a hundred wagons were needed to transport it. (It was dismantled and the pieces) distributed through the army. The part consigned to me was only one wagonload, since at the time I was an “emir of ten.” It was the end of the winter when we marched off with the wagons; rain and snowstorms struck us between Hisn al-Akrad and Damascus, causing great hardship, for the wagons were heavy and the oxen weak and dying of cold. Because of the wagons it took us a month to march from Hisn al-Akrad to Acre, usually an eight-day ride. The sultan ordered all the other fortresses to send catapults and siege-engines to Acre, and in this way a great number of large and small artillery concentrated under its walls, more than had ever before been assembled in one place.
The Muslim troops mustered at Acre in the first days of Jumada I 690/beginning of May 1291, and the battle raged furiously. The Franks did not close most of the gates; in fact, they left them wide open and fought in front of them in their defense. The Hama army was in its usual position on the extreme right wing. This meant that we were on the seashore, with the sea on our right when we faced Acre. We were attacked by troops landing from boats protected by wood-faced frames covered with buffalo hides, from which they shot at us with bows and ballistas. Thus we found ourselves fighting on two fronts, the city and the sea. A ship came up with a catapult mounted on it that battered us and our tents from the sea. We were severely hindered by it, but one night when a fierce wind blew up, the ship was buffeted on the waves and the catapult broke up and was not rebuilt.
One night during the siege the Franks made a sortie, put the outposts to flight and reached the tents, where they became tangled up with the guy ropes. One knight fell into the latrine trench of one of the emir’s detachments and was killed. Our troops turned out in overwhelming numbers and the Franks turned tail and fled back to the city, leaving a number of dead accounted for by the Hama army. The next morning al-Malik al-Muzaffar, lord of Hama, had a number of Frankish heads attached to the necks of horses we had captured and presented them to the sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf.
The blockade was continually reinforced, until God granted to the attackers victory over the city on Friday, 10 Jumada II [June 17, 1291]. As the Muslims stormed the city some of the citizens took to the sea in boats. Within the city was a number of well-fortified towers, and some Franks shut themselves inside them and defended them. The Muslims killed vast numbers of people and gathered immense booty. The sultan forced all those in the towers to surrender, and they submitted to the last man, and to the last man were decapitated outside the city walls.38 At the sultan’s command the city was razed to the ground.
An amazing coincidence occurred: the Franks seized Acre from Saladin at midday on 17 Jumada II 587 [July 12, 1191], and captured and then killed all the Muslims therein; and God, in his prescience destined that this year it should be reconquered at the hand of another Saladin, the sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf.39
After the conquest of Acre God put despair into the hearts of the other Franks left in Palestine; they abandoned Sidon and Beirut, which (the emir) ash-Shuja ‘i took over at the end of Rajab [end of July]. The population of Tyre also abandoned the city and the sultan sent troops to occupy it. They received the surrender of ‘Atlit on the first of Shaban [July 30], and that of Tortosa on fifth of Shaban of the same year. So this sultan had the good fortune, granted to none other, to conquer without effort and without striking a blow these great, well-fortified cities, all of which were at his command demolished.
With these conquests the whole of Palestine was now in Muslim hands, a result that no one would have dared to hope for or to desire. Thus the whole of Syria and the coastal zones were purified of the Franks, who had once been on the point of conquering Egypt and subduing Damascus and other cities. Praise be to God!
AT THE beginning of 690 [1291] al-Malik al-Ashraf began preparations for his departure for Syria. He called up his troops, assembled siege engines, and employed craftsmen to put them all in order. Then on 3 Rabi I [March 1291] he left Egypt, and began his siege of Acre, on 4 Rabi II [April 5]. A vast army concentrated at Acre, of which more soldiers were volunteers than were regular troops or members of the sultan’s private army. There were also fifteen great “Frankish” catapults, capable of throwing a load weighing a Damascene quintal or more,40 and other, lighter machines as well as a good number of “devils” and the like. Some tunnels were dug for mines. The king of Cyprus himself came to help the people of Acre, who on the night of his arrival lit great fires, greater than were ever seen before, as a sign of their joy. But he stayed only three days before returning home, for he realized their desperate position and the disaster looming over them.
The city was besieged and vigorously attacked until the defenders’ morale began to crumble and weakness destroyed their unity. There was fighting every day and a certain number of Muslims fell as martyrs for the faith. At dawn on Friday, 17 Jumada II, the sultan and his troops, mounted on their horses, moved in to attack before sunrise. They beat their drums, creating a terrible, terrifying noise, and the army massed under the walls. The Franks fled and the city was taken by storm. Not three hours of the day had passed before the Muslims entered Acre and made themselves masters of it, while the Franks cast themselves into the sea, trampled on by the Muslim troops who killed and captured them. Only a few escaped. The Muslims took all the booty they could find, goods, treasure, and arms, and the population was killed or taken prisoner. Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic Hospitallers made a last stand in four lofty towers in the middle of the city, where they were besieged.
On Saturday, the nineteenth of the month, two days after the fall of the city, regular troops and others attacked the house and tower where the Templars were.41 The Templars begged for their lives, which the sultan granted them. He sent them a standard which they accepted and raised over the tower. The door was opened and a horde of regulars and others swarmed in. When they came face to face with the defenders some of the soldiers began to pillage and to lay hands on the women and children who were with them, whereupon the Franks shut the door and attacked them, killing a number of Muslims. They hauled down the standard and stiffened their resistance. The siege continued.
On the same day the Teutonic Hospitallers asked for an amnesty and this was granted to them and their women by the sultan, by the hand of the emir Zain ad-Din Kitbugha al-Mansuri. The battle against the Templars’ tower continued until Sunday, 20 Jumada II, when they and the defenders of the other two towers sued for their lives. The sultan granted them permission to go where they liked, but when they came out he killed more than two thousand of them, took an equal number prisoners and sent the women and children as slaves to the gate of the sultan’s pavilion. One reason for the sultan’s wrath against them, apart from their other crimes, was that when the emir Kitbugha al-Mansuri had gone up (to receive their surrender) they had seized and killed him. They had also hamstrung their horses and destroyed everything they could, which increased the sultan’s wrath against them. The army and volunteers made a vast haul of prisoners and booty.
When the remaining Franks realized what had happened to their companions they decided to keep up their resistance to the end. They rejected the assurances offered them and fought desperately, and when they captured five Muslims threw them down from the top of the tower. One alone escaped; the other four died. On Tuesday, the eighteenth of the same month of Jumada, the last of the towers to keep up a resistance was taken. The defenders abandoned it in return for their lives, for the tower had been mined from all sides. When the Franks had come out and most of the contents had been removed the tower collapsed on a group of sightseers and on the looters within, killing them all. After that the sultan set the women and children apart and decapitated all the men, of whom there was a great number. . . .
When the sultan had taken Acre, he sent a body of troops under the emir ‘Alam ad-Din Sanjar as-Sawabi al-Jashnighir in the direction of Tyre to patrol the roads, collect information, and blockade the city. While they were doing this, the ships fleeing from Acre arrived and tried to enter the harbor at Tyre. The emir prevented them, and the people of Tyre asked for an amnesty and were granted security for themselves and their possessions. So they surrendered the city, which is among the best situated and fortified. It was not taken by the sultan Saladin as one of his conquests in Palestine; when he took a town and granted the inhabitants their lives, he sent them to Tyre because of the strength of its fortifications. But now God filled the hearts of its inhabitants with despair and they surrendered it without a battle or a siege of any sort, whereas al-Malik al-Ashraf had in fact had no intention of attacking it. When he received the surrender he sent men to organize its demolition, to pull down the walls and buildings, and he gained from this a good quantity of marble and salvage. With Tyre so easily taken al-Malik al-Ashraf confirmed his intention to proceed with the conquest of all the remaining (Frankish territories).42
1. See the splendid study by Richard Kaeuper, Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry (Philadelphia, 2009).
2. There is an extensive discussion of these and a list in Sylvia Schein, Fideles crucis: The Papacy, the West, and the Recovery of the Holy Land, 1274–1314 (Oxford, 1991), 269–270. In addition, see Kedar, Crusade and Mission; Anthony Leopold, How to Recover the Holy Land: The Crusade Proposals of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Aldershot UK-Burlington VT, 2000); Jacques Paviot, Projets de croisade (v. 1290–v. 1330) (Paris, 2008).
3. Damian J. Smith and Helena Buffery, The Book of Deeds of James I of Aragon: A Translation of the Medieval Catalan Llibre dels fets, Crusade Texts in Translation 10 (Aldershot UK-Burlington VT, 2003). James’s Llibre is the first autobiography of a medieval monarch.
4. Parallel Latin texts of the 1215 and 1245 canons are printed in Purcell, Papal Crusading Policy, 196–199, with the 1274 canon.
5. Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers, needs to be used with caution. Norman Housley, Documents on the Later Crusades, 1274–1580 (London-New York, 1996), translates the bull of Martin IV of April 5, 1284, proclaiming the crusade against Peter of Aragón (25–27) as well as a list of French expenses for the crusade (27–28). The work of David Abulafia is of considerable value, especially Italy, Sicily, and the Mediterranean, 1100–1400 (Aldershot UK-Burlington VT, 1987); Commerce and Conquest in the Mediterranean, 1100–1500 (Aldershot UK-Brookfield VT, 1993), and Mediterranean Encounters: Economic, Religious, Political, 1100–1550 (Aldershot UK-Burlington VT, 2000); see also Powell, The Crusades, the Kingdom of Sicily, and the Mediterranean.
Source: Gilbert of Tournai, “Collectio de scandalis ecclesiae : Nova Editio,” ed. A. Stroick, Archivum franciscanum historicum 24 (1931), 33–62.
6. William of Tripoli, Notitia de Machometo: De statu Sarracenorum: Kommentierte lateinisch-deutsche Textausgabe, ed. Peter Engels (Würzburg, 1992); Thomas F. O’Meara, “The Theology and Times of William of Tripoli, OP: A Different View of Islam,” Theological Studies 69 (2008), 80–98; R. I. Burns, SJ, “Christian-Islamic Confrontation in the West: The Thirteenth-Century Dream of Conversion,” American Historical Review 76 (1971), 1386–1405;Les dominicains et les mondes musulmans (Paris, 2002). For another important figure, Ricoldo da Montecroce, OP (ca. 1242–1320), Pérégrination en Terre Sainte et au Proche Orient: Texte latin et traduction: Lettres sur la chute de Saint-Jean d’Acre, trans. René Kappler (Paris, 1997).
Source: Humbert of Romans, Opusculum tripartitum, 185–229, here 188–189, 191–201, 204–206, 227.
7. A number of key texts from canon law are translated by James M. Muldoon in Fighting Words: Competing Voices from the Crusades, ed. Andrew Holt and James Muldoon (Oxford-Westport CT, 2008), 259–273.
8. Humbert appears to be referring to one of the centerpieces of the repertoire of anti-Islamic treatises used by Western writers—the Risalat of al-Kindi, which Peter the Venerable had translated into Latin in the twelfth century.
9. See Jacques de Vitry, Historia orientalis. For a partial English translation of this history, see Jacques de Vitry, History of Jerusalem: A.D. 1180, trans. Aubrey Stewart, Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, vol. 11 (London, 1896; repr., New York, 1971). For a new edition and French translation, see Jean Donnadieu, ed. and trans., Jacques de Vitry: Histoire orientale/Historia orientalis (Turnhout, 2008).
10. Humbert here follows the emphasis on Peter the Hermit’s role in launching the First Crusade that was contained in the historia of Albert of Aachen and taken up by William of Tyre.
11. That is, at Saint James’s shrine in Compostela. Humbert here refers to the twelfth-century Pseudo-Turpin chronicle [Historia Caroli Magni], which together with the Song of Roland and other vernacular accounts spread the legend of Charlemagne’s exploits against the Moors in Spain and were frequently invoked in crusade propaganda.
12. By Humbert’s day, these literary works and others were widely known, and Humbert moves without hesitation from Old Testament stories to more recent Christian stories. He refers here to the Pseudo-Turpin’s Historia Caroli Magni, probably the Historia Antiochena of Fulcher of Chartres, and the Historia orientalis of James of Vitry.
13. That is, the military orders.
14. What would become the Second Council of Lyons (1274).
15. That is, at the Second Council of Lyons (1274).
Source: J. Alberigo et al., eds., Conciliorum oecumenicorum decreta (Bologna, 1973), const. 1(a–d), pp. 309–314.
Source: Crawford, The “Templar of Tyre,” 101, 104–117. In each segment, the initial unbracketed number indicates the section number of the entire three-part text used by Crawford, and the lower bracketed number indicates the numbering of the Templar of Tyre text in Minervini’s edition.
16. Akkan here refers to the inhabitants of Acre (Akko/Akka).
17. On treaties, P. M. Holt, Early Mamluk Diplomacy (1260–1290): Treaties of Baybars and Qalawun with Christian Rulers (Leiden, 1995).
18. The term dehlis is Arabic, one of several Arabic terms that the author uses competently. It refers to a particular kind of tent used by sultans on campaign.
19. A quintar was about one hundred pounds.
20. Each order and social group had responsibility for defending a particular section of the city walls. Haveben attempts to render the Arabic word Ghadban, which means “wrathful, furious.”
21. Abu l-Fida’, quoted below (No. 73), mentions the same catapult and its name, which the Hama contingent, of which he was a part, brought with immense effort from Krak des Chevaliers to Acre.
22. This tower was at an exposed corner of the walls, looking toward the fields. Acre was defended by two lines of walls; by “second wall” the author presumably means the inner wall. On the still unresolved question of the archaeology of Acre at this period, see Benjamin Kedar, “The Outer Walls of Frankish Acre,” Atiquot 31 (1997), 157–180.
23. Buches were bundles of various kinds of wood used to set up defenses for troops or siege engines.
24. Sanjar al-Shuja’i took over the government of Syria after the fall of Acre.
25. Jeanne of Châtillon, who came to Acre in 1287 on pilgrimage and returned to France in 1290, where she died in 1292.
26. On the topography of Acre, in addition to the study by Kedar, cited above, see the studies of David Jacoby in Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion (Aldershot UK-Brookfield VT, 1989). Excavations by the Israeli Antiquities Authority are ongoing.
27. Abu l-Fida’, below (No. 73), confirms the placement of the Hama troops.
28. Henry II, king of Cyprus and Jerusalem (1285–1324), who ruled from Cyprus, although Acre was the capital of the kingdom of Jerusalem at the time.
29. This is one of a number of references that indicate that the author himself had been an eyewitness.
30. A moveable defensive shelter or siege tower made of wood.
31. Tarides were large barge-like ships designed for the transport of horses. Nefs were single-masted ships commonly used for both military and commercial transport. In general, see Susan Rose, Medieval Naval Warfare, 1000–1500 (London-New York, 2002).
32. A type of ship smaller than a galley.
33. See the exculpatory remarks of Abu l-Mahasin, below (No. 73).
34. Other Latin and Arab sources agree on the nature of the sexual molestation of both women and boys. See Donald P. Little, “The Fall of ‘Akka in 690/1291: The Muslim Version,” in M. Sharon, ed., Studies in Islamic History and Civilization in Honour of Professor David Ayalon (Jerusalem-Leiden, 1986), 159–181; and Huygens, ed., Excidii Aconis gestorum collectio.
35. It seems likely that the Templar of Tyre managed to escape from the city on or shortly after May 18 with a detachment of Templars who managed to get to Cyprus (509 [273]). His information for May 18–28 seems not to be that of an eyewitness any longer.
36. Usama ibn Munqidh, The Book of Contemplation: Islam and the Crusades, trans. with intro. by Paul M. Cobb (London-New York, 2008).
Source: Gabrieli, Arab Historians of the Crusades, 344–350.
37. The two men were the author’s cousin and father.
38. Abu l-Fida’ does not mention the sultan’s grant of a guarantee of safety, which this massacre violated. However, see Abu l-Mahasin’s account, below.
39. Al-Ashraf bore, like his famous predecessor, the title Salah ad-Din.
40. A Damascene quintal is about one hundred pounds.
41. Gabrieli’s dates are no longer precise because of the defective copy of the source he was using.
42. That is, Beirut, Sidon, ‘Atlit, and Tortosa, all of which surrendered or were abandoned without a fight in the summer of the same year. The small island of Ruad facing Tortosa remained in the Templars’ hands until 1303.