Rebuilding the Crusader States, 1192-1244

Saladin’s Victories and the Fall of Jerusalem

Between the years 1187 and 1192, Saladin achieved his most famous victories, marking the culmination of years of war. During preceding decades, he spent much of his time fighting against rival Muslim dynasties, and he failed to land a heavy blow against the Crusader States (the territories established in the Middle East long before during the First Crusade). Then, in 1187, at a place called Hattin, he won an overwhelming victory against the largest of the Crusader States, the kingdom of Jerusalem. Immediately afterwards, his forces dismembered the kingdom, seizing Jerusalem itself as well as almost all its other major strongholds and cities, the exception being the port of Tyre. Saladin also despatched forces northwards, causing substantial damage to the smaller Crusader States of Tripoli and Antioch. For a moment, it seemed that the entire Frankish (Western European) position in the Middle East might collapse.

A detail of a 19th century CE painting by Merry-Joseph Blondel of the English king Richard I of England, the ‘Lionheart’ (r. 1189-1199 CE). (Palace of Versailles, France)

The Arrival of the Third Crusade

Then the huge armies of the Third Crusade arrived, seeking to retake Jerusalem and rebuild the Crusader States. Led by commanders such as Philip II of France and Richard I of England, Saladin confronted attack after attack by these large and determined armies. In the ensuing years of war, he suffered several battlefield defeats and territorial losses, with the Franks regaining the port cities of Acre and Jaffa, yet crucially, he prevented them from retaking Jerusalem. Finally, in 1192, with Saladin’s forces on the point of exhaustion and Richard I of England facing urgent calls to return home, the two sides agreed to make peace.

The Treaty of Jaffa and Saladin’s Fears

The resulting Treaty of Jaffa marked both the end of this mighty conflict and also the first step in a new project – the reconstruction of the Crusader States. According to one of his leading courtiers, Saladin expressed serious fears about this treaty. He knew very well that the Franks had not abandoned their ambition to retake Jerusalem. He also knew that, by acknowledging their lordship over the major coastal cities of Tyre, Acre, and Jaffa (the latter two regained during the crusade), the Franks possessed a toehold which they could build upon in later years. As he commented during the treaty negotiations, he could foresee a time when further crusading armies would advance to reconquer their lost lands, with their every step forward marked by the construction of new hilltop castles, each one embedding their control, making them very hard to dislodge. It also didn’t help that Richard I conquered the isle of Cyprus (just off the coast) during the crusade, re-establishing it as a new Crusader State and supply base for the much-reduced territories on the Levantine mainland.

Challenges to Rebuilding the Crusader States

So how did the leaders of the Crusader States rebuild their position in the wake of the Third Crusade?

Saladin was absolutely correct; the Franks fully intended to return in force. Even so, viewed from the Frankish perspective, the reconstruction of the Crusader States was an extremely difficult undertaking. It required Christendom’s rulers and nobles to despatch armies against targets lying hundreds of miles from their homelands and then for their commanders to prop up and expand a cluster of small territories perched precariously on the borders of Saladin’s very substantial empire (commonly referred to as the Ayyubid Empire, the name deriving from Saladin’s father ‘Ayyub’). In addition, the treaty settled with Saladin in 1192 only stipulated a peace lasting three years so there wasn’t much time for the Franks to consolidate control over the territories captured during the Third Crusade.

Continued Crusading Efforts in the Middle East

As anticipated, many crusading armies arrived in the Middle East in later years. In 1197, the German Emperor Henry VI sent a large army by sea to the kingdom of Jerusalem. The following year, Pope Innocent III launched a massive new crusade, commonly referred to today as the “Fourth Crusade.” The campaign’s initial objective was to attack the Egyptian port city of Alexandria. This target lay a long way from the Crusader States, but Innocent’s strategy was initially to conquer Egypt (the Middle East’s economic powerhouse) and then to use the Nile Delta’s considerable resources to fund the permanent reconquest of Jerusalem and its surrounding territories. In the event, much to the pope’s fury, a substantial chunk of the Fourth Crusade veered wildly off course and in 1204 ended up brutally sacking Constantinople (the capital city of the Byzantine Empire). Here is not the place to work through the complex events that led to this unanticipated outcome; nonetheless, some crusading forces did reach the Crusader States.

The Fifth Crusade and Frederick II’s Diplomacy

Then, in 1217, the earliest contingents of the Fifth Crusade reached the kingdom of Jerusalem, initiating a series of raids along the kingdom of Jerusalem’s borders. In 1218, the Fifth Crusade went on to stage a new assault on Egypt, following the strategic logic outlined above – conquer Egypt and then use its resources to permanently reconquer Jerusalem. A decade later, further crusading forces arrived, despatched to the area by the German Emperor, Frederick II. Frederick himself arrived in 1228 and, in early 1229, he managed to negotiate a ten-year peace with the Ayyubids as well as the return of Jerusalem to Frankish control. Finally, at the expiration of this truce in 1239, a new crusade arrived led by a group of French nobles (often referred to as the “Barons Crusade”).

The Ineffectiveness of the Crusades

These frequent crusading campaigns demonstrated Christendom’s firm commitment to the reconstruction of the Crusader States; the ventures mentioned above were also merely the largest and most significant of the crusading armies travelling to the east during this era; many smaller companies arrived independently at other times. These armies provided troops, money, and other resources to the Crusader States, yet they also had something in common – they all performed poorly on the battlefield. The 1197 German crusade achieved only very limited gains, taking Beirut in this year; the Fourth Crusade (the elements that reached the Middle East) made no significant conquests; the Fifth Crusade ended in a shambolic failure; Frederick II’s crusade took place almost solely through diplomacy, and the Barons Crusade swiftly encountered defeat at the hands of the Ayyubid sultan.

The Role of Diplomacy in Rebuilding

For all their enthusiasm and resources, these crusades – viewed as military undertakings – were remarkably ineffective. Curiously, however, they still played an important role in the reconstruction of the Crusader States. Many of these armies helped to build castles and fortify Frankish towns – strengthening their defences – but more importantly, Crusade commanders proved much more effective at gaining territory via diplomacy than on the battlefield.

The Internal Struggles of the Ayyubid Empire

The background to this curious phenomenon was the situation in the Ayyubid Empire during these years. Saladin died soon after the Third Crusade (1193), and immediately afterwards, infighting broke out between his brother and sons. These disputes continued generation by generation, for the greater part of the Ayyubid Empire’s lifespan, with control over the empire’s major cities and regions of Aleppo, the Jazira, Damascus, and Egypt, being the main points of contestation. Compounding these internal disputes, the Ayyubids also faced many threats on their other borders, including from the often-hostile Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate to the north or the Khwarazmian Sultanate (later the Mongols) in the east. In this environment, the Ayyubids often proved willing to negotiate with the Crusaders so that they could concentrate their efforts against other challengers. Sometimes one Ayyubid faction offered territorial concessions to the Crusaders in the hope of winning their support against a rival Ayyubid faction; sometimes they offered territorial concessions in exchange for the withdrawal of a crusader army or a period of peace. Either way, the Crusaders gained territory, even if their army suffered defeat on the battlefield.

The Role of the Military Orders

Prime movers in all these matters were the Knights Templar and Hospitaller. They conducted much of the diplomacy with the Ayyubids during each crusade, while their soldiers and military advisors fought alongside the crusading armies. Their garrisons also protected the Crusader States’ fragile frontiers. The Templars and Hospitallers (or ‘military orders’ as they and similar institutions are known) also helped to drive the recovery of the Crusader States during these years and their contribution to this process ties closely to the way they operated as international organisations.

Western Support for the Crusader States

Krak des Chevaliers, NW Syria

Back during the twelfth century, both orders became immensely popular in Western Christendom for their work in the Crusader States, both military and (for the Hospitallers) also medical. Consequently, eager benefactors poured donations upon the orders, and these gifts often took the form of land, including houses, fields, churches, mines, and estates. As the century progressed, both the Templars and Hospitallers acquired massive networks of estates across most of Christendom’s core countries, including Italy, the British Isles, France, Germany, Eastern Europe, and Iberia. Once established, these estates sent one-third of their income to the Crusader States on an annual basis, along with any recruits or crusaders gathered from their particular area, the whole system essentially becoming a pipeline for channelling resources to the Eastern Mediterranean. This network grew rapidly, and the orders’ popularity only increased following Saladin’s conquests in 1187 as donors from across Western Christendom sought to contribute to the defence and reconstruction of the Crusader States. For this reason, in later years, the annual arrival of the orders’ ships bearing huge quantities of supplies and personnel from the orders’ western estates provided the Crusader States with a substantial chunk of the means necessary to rebuild their position. The military orders also used their resources to construct or reinforce their many massive castles in the Middle East, with notable examples including the Hospitaller fortress of Krak des Chevaliers (defending the eastern borders of the county of Tripoli) and the Templar stronghold of Safad (defending the north-eastern borders of the kingdom of Jerusalem).

The Rebuilt Crusader States by 1244

Drawing together all these threads, by early 1244, the Crusader States had managed to substantially rebuild their position. In the south, the kingdom of Jerusalem was smaller than at its height in the Twelfth century, but it had regained many of its former towns and cities while many heavily fortified strongholds now lined its frontiers. Further north, the county of Tripoli and the principality of Antioch remained reasonably stable, not least because they rarely suffered attacks from their Ayyubid neighbours. The Ayyubids continued to fight amongst themselves, and Jerusalem itself lay under Frankish control.

The Economic Revival of the Crusader States

It also helped the Frankish cause that the region as a whole experienced a commercial boom during the early thirteenth century, with many of the Crusader States’ ports, including Acre, Tyre, Tripoli, and Latakia, serving as major waypoints for this burgeoning traffic (which of course could all be taxed). Likewise, many of the Ayyubids’ major cities depended on the ports of the Crusader States for their commerce (and vice versa), thereby providing another incentive for peace.

The End of the Rebuilding Era

Battle of Forbie, from Chronica Majora by Matthew Paris

The recovery of the Crusader States did not, however, endure beyond this point. The wider world was changing. From 1218 onwards, the Mongol Empire began a sustained advance into the Middle East, with further major invasions in 1220, 1230, and 1243. Soon, it seemed likely that the entire area would fall under Mongol control, and thousands of refugees fled westwards. Among these displaced people was a very large force from the former Khwarazmian Empire (encompassing Persia and many surrounding territories), which moved west and allied with the Egyptian Ayyubids, joining them in their ongoing struggle against the Ayyubids of Damascus. The Franks also entangled themselves in this conflict, backing the Damascene Ayyubids. The outcome was a major battle at Forbie on 17 October 1244, in which the Damascene Ayyubids and their Frankish allies lost decisively. Over the following years, the Egyptian Ayyubids managed to seize two of the kingdom of Jerusalem’s major towns while the Khwarazmians encamped themselves on the kingdom’s farmlands, causing widespread disruption. The Khwarazmians also seized Jerusalem on their march down to join the Egyptian forces before the battle. No one could have known it at the time, but these reverses marked a turning point in the fortunes of the Crusader States. Many decades and events separated these events from the mainland Crusader States’ final collapse in 1291, yet the era of rebuilding was over.