Crusader states

"Outremer" redirects here. For the modern French overseas territories, see Overseas France. For the album by Garage A Trois, see Outre Mer.

Eastern Mediterranean in 1135. Frankish states are indicated with a red cross ☩. The Byzantine Empire is visible in the west; the Seljuk Empire and Fatimid Egypt are shown in green.

The Crusader states were Latin Catholic polities created in the aftermath of the First Crusade at the beginning of the 12th century on the Levantine littoral. These medieval French states became known as Outremer or outre-mer, a phrase derived from outre or beyond and mere or sea.

In 1098 the armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem passed through Syria. The crusader Baldwin of Boulogne took the place of the Greek Orthodox ruler of Edessa after a Coup d'état and Bohemond of Taranto remained as the ruling prince in the captured Antioch. In 1099, Jerusalem was taken after a siege. Territorial consolidation followed including the taking of Tripoli. At the states' largest extent, territory covered the coastal areas of southern modern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. Edessa fell to a Turkish warlord in 1144, but the other realms endured into the 13th century before falling to the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. Antioch was captured in 1268, Tripoli in 1289. When Acre, the capital of the kingdom of Jerusalem fell in 1291 the last territories were quickly lost with the survivors fleeing to the Kingdom of Cyprus.

The study of the crusader states in their own right, as opposed to being a sub-topic of the Crusades, began in 19th century France as an analogy to the French colonial experience in the Levant. This was rejected by the 20th century historians where the consensus view was that the Franks, as the western European were known, lived as a minority society that was largely urban, isolated from the indigenous peoples, with separate legal and religious systems. The indigenous peoples were from Christian and Islamic traditions speaking Arabic, Greek and Syriac.

Background

Muslim expansion

  Muhammad, 622–632

  Patriarchal Caliphate, 632–661

  Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750

When the Franks arrived in Syria at the end of the 11th century the polities were fragmented, rulers inexperienced, the Great Seljuk sultanate and Fatamid Empire were both disinterested and declining. The Islamic world was vulnerable to surprise because it had disregarded the outside world. Historian of the Islamic world Carole Hillenbrand has compared Islamic politics of the time to the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, stating that "familiar political entities gave way to disorientation and disunity".

Arab Islamic expansion in the Middle East had been over for centuries. Turkic migration permeated the region. This had begun in the 9th century with rulers utilising Turkic nomads as slave soldiers. These were known as ghilman or mamluk and when converted to Islam they were emancipated, eventually rising in the Muslim hierarchy to dynastic founders and king makers. In the mid-11th century a minor clan of Oghuz Turks named Seljuks, after the warlord Saljūq, from Transoxania had supplanted the Ghaznavids in Khurasan. The clan expanded through Iran to Baghdad, assimilating into Perso-Arabic culture. The caliph granted the title Sultan, power in arabic to the Seljuk Tughril founding the Great Seljuk Empire. The empire was decentralised, polyglot and multi-national. Junior Seljuks were titled Malik, the Arabic for king, ruling provinces as appanages. Mamluks held positions of atabeg, derived from ata meaning father and beg meaning commander. The atabegs were often powerful guardians ruling on behalf of minors. This often continued when the malik reached majority enabling the atabegs to become emirs.

Battles between Byzantines and the Turks for the control of Anatolia in the 1070s.

Byzantine Greeks ruled what remained of the Eastern Orthodox and Christian Eastern Roman Empire. The Eastern and Western churches were divided over differences in custom, creed, and practice and had been in schism since 1054. The Eastern church viewed the pope as only one of the five patriarchs of the Church that included the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem.The Empire stretched east to Iran and controlled Bulgaria and much of southern Italy. The Byzantines were open to western military aid for campaigns on all frontiers and was on the offensive against the Seljuks having recaptured Antioch after three centuries of Arab rule and invaded Syria.. Turkish ghazi and their Byzantine equivalents called Akritai and often also Turkish, indulged in ephemeral cross border raiding. However, in 1071 Suljuk Sultan Alp Arslan defeated Romanos IV Diogenes at Manzikert while securing his northern border.} Romanos's capture and Byzantine factionalism broke Byzantine border control enabling the entry into Anatolia of ghazis and nomadic tribesmen seeking pasture.

Anatolia on the eve of the First Crusade (1097)

Alp Arslan's cousin Suleiman ibn Qutulmish seized Cilicia and in 1084 entered Antioch. In 1092, he was killed in conflict with the Great Seljuk Empire. In the same year, the vizier and effective ruler of the Seljuk Empire, Nizam al-Mulk, the Sultan Malik-Shah, the Mamluk Armenian vizier of Egypt Badr al-Jamali and the Fatimid khalif, Al-Mustansir Billah all died. Malik-Shah's brother Tutush, the atabegs of Aleppo and Edessa were killed in the succession conflict. Tutush's sons succeeded in Damascus and Aleppo but the atabegs were in control. Edessa was seized by an Armenian warlord. The Egyptian succession resulted in a split in the Ismāʿīlist branch of Shia Islam. The Persian missionary Hassan-i Sabbah led a breakaway group, creating the Nizari Ismaili state in Iran at Alamut. This was known as the New Preaching in Syria and Order of Assassins in western historiography. Targeted murder was utilised to compensate for their lack of military power and Nizam al-Mulk was their first victim.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem

The events that brought the Franks to the region were unexpected by contemporary chroniclers, but historical analysis demonstrates these derived from developments earlier in the century. Jerusalem was increasingly recognised as worthy of pilgrimage. From 1000 pilgrim numbers increased after the development of safer Hungarian routes. New devotional and penitential practise supported crusading appeals. The motivation may never be understood. It may have been a desire for penance through warfare. Historian Georges Duby suggested it was economic gain and improved social status for younger sons of nobles but this has been challenged for not accounting for wider kinship groups in Germany and Southern France. Gesta Francorum mentions the economic attraction of gaining "great booty". Adventure, enjoyment of warfare and extended patronage systems that obliged the following of feudal lords are also a possibilities. Violent dispute resolution in Western Europe was common, supported by a doctrine of holy war from the 4th-century theologian Augustine. It maintained that an aggressive war was sinful, but war could be "just" if proclaimed by a legitimate authority, was defensive or for the recovery of lands, and without excessive violence. Pope Alexander II developed recruitment via oaths for military resourcing that was expanded by Gregory VII. In 1071, the Turkish warlord Atsiz captured Jerusalem but Seljuk hold was weak. Pilgrims reported difficulties and the oppression of Christians. The Byzantine need for military aid converged with an increasing willingness among western nobility to accept papal military direction.

The Christian kingdom of Lesser Armenia followed a similar path to the crusader states. It was located to the north-west of Syria and established on former Muslim territory retaken by the Byzantines in the 10th century. The Armenians migrated from between Lake Van and the Caucasus. When the frontier collapsed after the battle at Manzikert they dominated Cilicia and territory east to the Euphrates. Another ghazi state was founded at the time as the Sultanate of Rum, in north and central Anatolia by someone known by the Persian honourific Danishmend Gazi.

History

Main articles: Kingdom of Jerusalem, Principality of Antioch, County of Tripoli, and County of Edessa

See also: Military history of the Crusader states, Crusades, Timeline of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and Timeline of the Principality of Antioch

Foundation

By the end of the 11th century the Byzantine army had a long history of utilising mercenaries, so Alexios I Komnenos’s request for military support against the Turks to Pope Urban II was not unusual. The Pope responded in November 1095 at the Council of Clermont, calling for the First Crusade. In October 1096, an initial force of poor Christians was ambushed and annihilated by the Turks at Civetot. Alexios cautiously welcomed the greater military capability of the feudal armies under the command of western European nobles, extracting promises from some that recaptured Byzantine territory would be restored to him. A Byzantine-Crusader coalition recaptured Nicaea and in July 1097 the crusade defeated a Seljuk and Danishmendid force at Dorylaeum.

The Byzantine Tatikios guided the crusade south through Anatolia to the large city of Antioch that controlled the road to Jerusalem. During the campaign junior nobles such as Bohemond of Taranto’s nephew, Tancred, and Godfrey of Bouillon’s brother, Baldwin squabbled over Cilician towns captured. In October 1097 Baldwin left the crusade heading for the west bank of the Euphrates with the probable intention of joining one side of an Armenian feud. Armenians in the small towns of Turbessel and Rawandan used his advance to expel Turkish garrisons. The crusade, native Christian allies and an English fleet secured the area around Antioch capturing local fortifications, the port of Saint Symeon and repulsing an army led by Ridwan of Aleppo. In February 1098 Tatikios left the crusade.

In Edessa Thoros ruled a Christian city that in terms of size and wealth matched Aleppo and Antioch. He attempted to hire Baldwin and his men as mercenaries in the fight with the Turks and for control of Christian subjects in a city wracked with factional conflict. Matthew of Edessa reported that the Edessans greeted Baldwin with enthusiasm. They were Armenian and Jacobite Christians who regarded the Orthodox Thoros as a Byzantine representative. A month after Baldwin's arrival a Christian mob killed Thoros and acclaimed him with the Byzantine title used by Thoros, doux. Baldwin's position was personal rather than institutional and the Armenian governance of the city remained in place. This was replacing one strongman with vague Byzantine connections with another. Baldwin's nascent County of Edessa consisted of pockets separated from Baldwin's other holdings of Turbessel, Rawandan and Samosata by the territory of Turkish and Armenian warlords and the Euphrates river. The city of Edessa was an important trading centre probably providing him with a substantial income.

Godfrey of Bouillon during the siege of Jerusalem (from the 14th-century Roman de Godefroi de Bouillon)

Stephen, Count of Blois deserted the crusade and told Emperor Alexios its defeat was imminent while heading to Europe. In response Alexios withdrew to the west rather than join the siege of Antioch. Some crusaders, notably Bohemond, claimed this and Tatikios departure were treacherous acts that freed them from their sworn oaths to the Byzantines. On 2 June, an Armenian commander helped Bohemond enter Antioch, taking the city but not the citadel. Hours later Kerbogha, atabeg of Mosul, arrived and the besieged the crusaders in turn. On the 28th the Franks defeated Kerbogha's army. The Franks competed for the spoils, captured Syrian towns such as Ma'arra and developed a reputation for savagery that prompted local emirs to negotiate rather than resist. The delay in the progress to Jerusalem dismayed mobs of poor Franks. Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse was forced to leave Bohemond in control of Antioch, faileding to take Arqa before continuing to Jerusalem.

The crusaders marched along the Mediterranean coast to Jerusalem. The Fatimids had regained the city from the Seljuks less than a year before in the second destructive siege the city had suffered in recent decades. On 15 July 1099 the city was taken after a siege barely longer than a month. Thousands of Muslims and Jews were killed, and the survivors were sold into slavery. Proposals to govern the city as an ecclesiastical state were rejected. Raymond refused the royal title claiming only Christ could wear a crown in Jerusalem. This may have been to dissuade Godfrey from assuming the throne, but Godfrey adopted the title Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri when he was proclaimed the first Frankish ruler of Jerusalem. In Western Europe at that time an advocate, or advocatus, was a layman responsible for the protection and administration of Church estates.

These medieval French crusader states in the Middle East became known as Outremer or outre-mer, a phrase whose Etymology was derived from outre or beyond and mere or sea.

Consolidation (1099 to 1126)

In August Godfrey defeated a counterattack by Fatimid vizier, Al-Afdal Shahanshah at Ascalon. He solidified his position by backing Daimbert of Pisa for the Patriarchy of Jerusalem, granting a sections of Jerusalem to him and Jaffa to the Pisans. Godfrey's following enabled the succession of his brother Baldwin who ceded Edessa to his cousin, another Baldwin, of Bourcq. In July Bohemond was captured and Tancred assumed the regency of Antioch until Bohemond's release three years later. Raymond laid the foundations of the County of Tripoli. He captured Tartus, Gibelet and besieged to Tripoli. His cousin William II Jordan continued the siege after Raymond's death in 1105. It was completed in 1109 when Raymond's son Bertrand arrived. Baldwin brokered a deal sharing the territory between them until William Jordan’s death united the county. Bertrand acknowledged King Baldwin I's suzerainty despite William Jordan having been Tancred's vassal.

Montréal castle

In 1097 or 1098, Syrian Sunnis had approached Sultan Barkiyaruq for assistance, but he was engaged in a power struggle with his brother Muhammad Tapar. Tripoli's fall encouraged Sultan Muhammad's mobilisation of forces in his western provinces. The Fatimid Caliphate repeatedly attacked in 1101, 1102 and 1105, on the last occasion in alliance with the Sunni Damascene atabeg Toghtekin. Baldwin I repulsed these and with Genoese, Venetian and Norwegian fleets conquered the towns on the Palestinian coast except Tyre and Ascalon. Antioch remained contested between the Byzantine Emperors and Bohemond in 1108 Bohemond failed in a campaign against the Byzantines from his Italian territory. Historian Thomas Asbridge argues that the Treaty of Devol absorbed Antioch into the structures of Byzantine rule but Tancred did not consider the terms applied to him. In 1112 Tancred died and his nephew, Roger of Salerno, followed him as regent.

In 1118 Baldwin of Bourcq succeeded Baldwin I in Jerusalem, ceding Edessa to Joscelin of Courtenay. His interests remained in the defence of the Syrian territories but the barons of Jerusalem considered his resulting absence as negligent. In 1119 the Artuqid Turk defeated and killed Roger at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis known as the "Field of Blood". Antioch survived only through Baldwin II's prompt intervention and military support. When Baldwin II was held prisoner in Syria for sixteen months, the barons attempted deposition and offered the throne to the Flemish count, Charles the Good. Charles declined and in 1125 Baldwin II returned. Relations developed between Tripoli and Antioch with Bertrand's son, Pons marrying Tancred's widow, Cecile of France.

Opposition of Zengi, Nur ad-Din and Saladin (1127 to 1189)

See also: Crusader invasions of Egypt

Baldwin II had four daughters. In 1126, Bohemond II of Antioch reached the age of majority and married Baldwin II's the second, Alice. Baldwin's heir was his eldest daughter Melisende. He married her to Count Fulk of Anjou. Jerusalem raised a large force for an attack on Damascus including the leaders of the other crusader states; Bohemond II, Pons and Joscelin I. Fulk provided a significant Angevin contingent and the Templars recruited in Europe. The campaign was abandoned when Atabeg Taj al-Muluk Buri destroyed the Franks foraging parties and bad weather made the roads impassable. In 1130 Bohemond II was killed raiding in Cilicia. Alice targeted the guardianship of her and Bohemond's daughter Constance and sought support from Mosul's atabeg, Imad al-Din Zengi. Baldwin moved on Antioch to prevent this.

In 1131, Baldwin named Fulk, Melisende and their infant son, Baldwin as his co-heirs on his deathbed. Fulk ignored this, attempting to rule independently. Between 1130 and 1135, Alice made repeated attempts to gain independence for Antioch, including an alliance with Pons of Tripoli and Joscelin II, Count of Edessa. Fulk defeated Pons and asserted control. Melisende's relation Hugh II of Jaffa unsuccessful revolted. In 1136, Alice's struggle for power ended when the Antiochene nobility asked Fulk to propose a husband for Constance and he selected Raymond of Poitiers. In response, John II Komnenos reasserted Byzantine claims of suzerainty, invading Cilicia, expelling Antiochene and Armenian garrisons, besieging Antioch and forcing vassalage on Raymond. Raymond promised he would surrender Antioch in return for Aleppo and Shaizar when they were captured, but this was never achieved. In 1137, Tripoli lost its eastern territories to Damascus, Pons was killed and Raymond II captured by Zengi. The ruler of Damascus, Mu'in ad-Din Unur agreed payment of a tribute for Fulk's protection.

Kings Louis VIII and Conrad III meet Queen Melisende and King Baldwin III at Acre from a 13th-century codex

In 1143 the Emperor and Fulk died. Manuel I's atttention was taken by internal Byzantine conflict, the Second Crusade and war with the Normans in Sicily. Zengi and the Turkic Artuqids battled for control of Mesopotamia. Joscelin alliance with the Artuqids provoked Zengi's march on Edessa. In December 1144 he captured the town and the county west of the Euphrates.

In September 1146 Zengi was assassinated. His first son, Sayf al-Din Ghazi I, succeeded in Mosul, and his second, Nur ad-Din, in Aleppo. Joscelin unsuccessfully attacked Edessa and Nur ad-Din destroyed the town. Louis VIII of France rejected the Byzantine claim to Antioch and Raymond's proposal to attack Aleppo and Shaizar. In June 1148 the French, Germans, Melisende and Baldwin III leading the Second Crusade agreed an attack on Damascus. This failed but encouraged rapprochement between Damascus and Nur ad-Din. In 1149 Mujir ad-Din Abaq, the new ruler of Damascus renewed the alliance with Jerusalem. Raymond of Antioch was killed fighting Nur ad-Din at Inab. The next year Joscelin was captured, blinded and later died. Beatrice of Saone, his wife, sold the remains of the County of Edessa to the Byzantines. Baldwin III and Melisende's armed disagreements prevented him from providing support to the northern states and her abdication. In 1153, he captured Ascalon and sanctioned the marriage of Constance and Raynald of Châtillon.

In 1154 Nur ad-Din forced Mujir ad-Din Abaq to surrender Damascus in exchange for Homs. He maintained treaties and tribute payments to the Franks while he expanded in Muslim territory. Reynald was poor, when the Emperor delayed payment for the suppression of raiding by the Armenians he raided Byzantine Cyprus. Thierry, Count of Flanders’s arrival provided military strength for campaigning. Thierry, Baldwin, Raynald and Raymond III attacked Shaizar. Baldwin offered the city to Thierry who refused Raynald’s demands that he became his vassal and the siege was abandoned. Baldwin married Manuel's niece, Theodora. In 1158 Manuel invaded Cilicia and Antioch to reassert this authority. Reynald begged the Emperor for forgiveness and submitted.

In 1162 Shawar, captured and executed Tala'i ibn Ruzzik's son and successor, Ruzzik ibn Tala'i. The following year Dirgham forced Shawar into exile. Amalric invaded Egypt when Dirgham refused to pay tribute but was forced to retreat. Shawar fled to Damascus and sought Nur ad-Din's support. Nur ad-Din sent the Kurdish general Shirkuh with Shawar to Egypt. In 1164, he captured Cairo and Shawar was restored as vizier. In October 1168, Amalric assaulted Cairo. Shirkuh hurried to Egypt to answer an appeal for support from caliph Al-Adid. In January Amalric withdrew, Shawar was murdered in uncertain circumstances. Al-Adid made Shirkuh vizier. Within months, Saladin succeeded his dead uncle Shirkuh. in December, an invasion by Amalric with Byzantine naval support was abandoned at Damietta when the attackers ran out of provisions. Nur al-Din demanded that Saladin remove the Shi’ite Fatimids. Saladin was helped in this by the death through illness of al-Adid. The Fatimid regime ended and the Friday khutbah was proclaimed in the name of the Abbasid caliph Al-Mustadi. The Ayyubid family determined to resist any attempt by Nur ad-Din to assert authority in Egypt, but to adopt a conciliatory public tone. In March 1171, Amalric undertook a surprising visit to Manuel in Constantinople with the aim that in the absence of support from the west he would get Byzantine military support for an attack on Egypt. John Kinnamos reports he agreed to "his subjection" to the Romans.

In 1174 Nur ad-Din and Amalric died. Nur ad-Din left an eleven-year-old son, As-Salih Ismail al-Malik. As-Salih moved from Damascus to Aleppo and the city surrendered to Saladin. Saladin's determination to reunite Nur ad-Din's empire led to twelve years of warfare with the Zengid rulers of Syria and Iraq. Amalric's 13-year-old son, Baldwin IV was a leper and expected to die young. He became king and Miles of Plancy took control. He was Seneschal of Jerusalem, lord of Transjordan through marriage to Stephanie of Milly and as a member of the Montlhéry family related to Baldwin II and his descendants. Raymond III of Tripoli appealed to the high court on the grounds he was Baldwin's closest relative and was granted the role of bailli and the rule of the kingdom. He married the richest heiress of the kingdom, Eschiva of Bures giving him Galilee and making him the most powerful baron.

In July 1176 Baldwin reached the age of 15 and majority ending Raymond's role. Baldwin revisited plans for a Byzantine alliance and invasion of Egypt. In November, Sibylla married William of Montferrat. Sibylla was Baldwin's heir. William was the cousin of both Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa and Louis VII of France. In 1177, William died, leaving Sibylla pregnant, Jerusalem vulnerable and the succession unresolved. Fulk's grandson, Philip I, Count of Flanders was offered the regency on his arrival with a Flemish army. The Byzantine Emperor provided an embassy, led by the Sicilian Alexander of Gravina with a fleet of seventy galleys plus support ships. Phillip wanted to be free to return to Flanders, suspected he would be blamed if an attack on Egypt failed and if it succeeded Baldwin or the Byzantines would rule Egypt. He rejected an attack on Egypt and instead he, Tripoli and Antioch unsuccessfully attacked Hama and Harim. With most of the Frankish forces in North, Saladin invaded from the South, but was defeated by Baldwin at Montgisard. Baldwin negotiated a marriage between Hugh III, Duke of Burgundy and Sibylla but the succession crisis in France prevented him sailing. Early in 1180 Baldwin married Sybilla to Guy of Lusignan. William of Tyre explains this as Baldwin's method of foiling what he believed was a plot by Raymond III of Tripoli and Bohemond III of Antioch to depose him and elevate Sibylla to the throne under their control. The two men had entered the kingdom, supposedly to celebrate Easter at Jerusalem. The nobility divided between the king’s maternal kin and a group that included Baldwin’s relatives descended from Queen Melisende’s sisters, Raymond of Tripoli, Bohemond of Antioch and the Ibelins. Saladin and Jerusalem made a truce that lasted from 1180 until 1182.

Saladin and Guy fight from a 13th-century manuscript of Matthew Paris's chronicle

In 1182, Saladin demonstrated the strategic advantage he held by holding both Cairo and Damascus. While he faced Baldwin at Kerak, Turkish troops from the North attacked east of Tiberias. He also re-established his navy. In 1183 the Franks levied an extraordinary tax for defence funding. Saladin captured Aleppo and three years later he completed the suppression of the Zengids by capturing Mosul. Guy became bailli taking command of the defence of Jerusalem. Saladin invaded Galilee. In response, the Franks raised what William of Tyre described as their largest army in living memory. After days of fierce skirmishing Saladin withdrew towards Damascus. Baldwin dismissed Guy from his position as bailli for failing to fully engage the enemy, although historians such as R.C. Small believe it was this was the result of obstruction by Guy’s baronial enemies. Baldwin crowned Guy's 5-year-old stepson, Baldwin V, as co-ruler while attempting to annul the marriage of Guy and Sibylla. Saladin attacked Kerak, possibly in revenge for Reynald of Châtillon’s attack on a caravan in 1182 and naval raiding in the Red Sea during 1183. Baldwin forced Saladin’s retreat, Guy and Sibylla fled to Ascalon. Baldwin handed Raymond governmental control. An embassy to Europe, meeting the Pope, Philip II of France and Henry II of England was met with offers of money but not of military support.

In 1185 Baldwin IV didn’t have long to live. He called a council of the Frankish barons in which Raymond became bailli for ten years. Baldwin V was put under the protection of Joscelin, which also protected Raymond, who was the nearest male relative, from suspicion should the boy die prematurely. As there was no consensus on what should happen in that event it would be for the pope, the Holy Roman Emperor, the kings of France and England to decide between the succession.

In 1186 Baldwin V died. Joscelin seized Acre and Beirut while Sibylla and her supporters gained control in Jerusalem. Raymond and the barons supported an alternative candidate in Isabella’s husband Humphrey IV of Toron. He submitted to Sibylla to avoid a civil war. The barons now had no alternative but to accept the new rulers, only Raymond and Baldwin of Ibelin resisted. Reynald seized another caravan, which in Saladin’s view violated a four year truce and prompted him to assemble his forces for another invasion. Raymond allied with Saladin and allowing Muslim troops to pass through his territory to raid around Acre. Raymond’s shock at the Frankish defeat in the resulting Battle of Cresson brought him to reconciliation with Guy. Guy and the barons now gathered a force numbering 40,000 according to Ernoul. The Franks divided on tactics. Raymond urged defensive caution while Reynald and the master of the Templars, Gerard de Ridefort urged attack. They considered that Raymond a traitor. Guy was persuaded to address Saladin’s siege of Tiberias. The march across Galilee was arduous and Saladin used his forces to separate the Franks from water supplies. On 4 July 1187 Raymond attacked, aiming to gain the springs at Hattin. The Franks trampled some of their own men and the Muslims retreated. The survivors included Raymond, his stepsons, Raymond of Antioch, Reynald of Sidon, Balian and Joscelin. They left the battle making their way north to Safed and eventually Tyre. The remains of the Frankish army retreated up the Horns of Hattin and were overwhelmed. In the defeat all the major Frankish leaders were taken prisoner including Guy, Gerard, Reynald of Châtillon, William of Montferrat, Aimery of Lusignan, Humphrey and Hugh of Gibelet.Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani reports Saladin beheaded Reynald himself. Terricus who was the most senior surviving Templar, wrote that 230 Templars were beheaded. Hattin was a massive defeat for the Franks. Guy had committed all the available Frankish resources. Letters to Europe describe it as a military defeat that had cost 25,000 lives in a single day. Eschiva surrendered Tiberias assuming that Raymond and her sons were lost. Joscelin submitted Acre and the citizens were given forty days to leave. According to Terricus by August the kingdom only retained Jerusalem, Ascalon, Tyre and Beirut. He did not realise that the great inland castles held out. Beirut fell quickly and the coastal towns followed without great loss of life, but numerous Christians were enslaved. Ascalon surrendered in return for safe passage to Jerusalem and freedom for ten people. These included Guy, his brother Aimery, the marshal, and Gerard of Ridefort. Although Guy was not released until the following July. Balian handed the keys. of Jerusalem to Saladin and those inhabitants who could afford ransom were released. Tyre resisted; its defences commanded by Conrad who was William of Montferrat's brother. He had arrived only days after Hattin. Raymond died leaving Tripoli to Raymond; his godson, Bohemond III's eldest son and heir. Instead, Bohemond empowered his younger son, Bohemond IV. In mid-May 1188 Saladin turned his attention to Tripoli and Antioch. Tripoli was saved by the arrival of William II of Sicily’s Sicilian fleet consisting of maybe sixty galleys and 200 knights. Ernoul wrote that William sent another 300 knights the following August. At the siege of Tortosa, Saladin released Guy of Lusignan and William of Montferrat on condition that they did not bear arms against him and that Guy went overseas. Later, after fierce fighting outside Acre Saladin accused Guy of breaking his oath. Bohemond asked Saladin for a seven-month truce, offering the release of Muslim prisoners. Also, if help did not arrive the city was to be surrended. Ali ibn al-Athir wrote after the Frankish castles were starved into submission that “the Muslims acquired everything from as far as [Ayla to the furthest districts of Beirut with only the interruption of Tyre and also all the dependencies of Antioch, apart from al-Qusayr”.

Recovery and Civil War (1190 to 1244)

The crusader states after Saladin's conquests and before the Third Crusade

The Historia de expeditione Friderici imperatoris records that in1190 Emperor Frederick Barbarossa drowned crossing the Saleph River He was leading a crusading force overland of between twelve and fifteen thousand which then suffered disease and fragmention.

According to Ernoul, in Tyre Conrad refused entry to Guy, his brothers Geoffrey and Aimery, Gerard of Ridefort and Andrew of Brienne and 600 knights. Instead they made a token move on Acre convinced that western crusaders would arrive soon. These did arrive, including Frederick's son Frederick, Philip II of France and Richard I of England. Sibylla died, allowing Conrad to argue Guy’s title was illegitimate. According to Ambroise and Itinerarium Peregrinarum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, Conrad bribed the princes to allow him to marry Isabella, Sibylla’s half-sister, despite her marriage to Humphrey of Toron and the belief that he had two living wives. Those hostile sources describe Isabella's mother Maria Comnena as "steeped in Greek filth from the cradle" and criticised her husband Balian of Ibelin's morals. After an attritional siege the Muslim garrison surrendered Acre and Philip and most of the French army returned to Europe. Richard led the crusade to victory at Arsuf, captured Jaffa, Ascalon and Darum. Internal dissension forced Richard’s abandonment of Guy and acceptance that of Conrad’s kingship. Guy was compensated with possession of Cyprus. In April 1192, Conrad was murdered in Tyre by Assassins. Within a week Henry, Count of Champagne was king through marriage to Isabella. Richard lacked the military force required to destroy Saladin’s army or attack Jerusalem, he needed to return home to attend to manage his affairs and was ill. A three-year truce was agreed. The Franks retained land between Tyre and Jaffa, but dismantled Ascalon, Antioch and Tripoli were included and pilgrimages to Jerusalem allowed. Frankish confidence in the truce was not high. In April 1193, Geoffroy de Donjon, the Grand Master of the Hospitaller wrote in a letter, "We know for certain that since the loss of the land the inheritance of Christ cannot easily be regained. The land held by the Christians during the truces remains virtually uninhabited." Five months after Richard's departure Saladin unexpectedly died.

Map of Lesser Armenia in 1200

Historian Claude Cahen described the early 13th century history of northern Syria as "a lack of conflicts with the Muslims, [but] constant conflicts with the Armenians". The Armenians of Cilicia became increasingly independent after the 1176 Byzantine defeat by the Seljuks at Myriokephalon ended Greek control in Cilicia and northern Syria. In 1185, during an Armenian civil war Bohemond III of Antioch forced his guest, Ruben III, Prince of Armenia, into becoming his vassal. When Roupen died, his brother Leo supplanted his daughter and heiress, Alice. In 1191, Saladin abandoned a three-year occupation of the Templar castle of Bagras and Leo seized it. In 1194, Bohemond III accepted Leo's invitation to discuss its return, but Leo imprisoned him in retaliation for the earlier capture of Rouben and demanding Antioch in return for Bohemond III's release. The Greek Orthodox population and Italian community rejected the Armenians, forming a commune under Bohemond's eldest son, Raymond. Bohemond III was released when he abandoned his claims on Cilicia, forfeiting Bagras and marrying Raymond to Alice. Any male heir of this marriage would be the heir to both Antioch and Armenia. Raymond died first. Bohemond III's second son, Bohemond IV, was recognised as heir by the commune while Alice and Raymond's posthumous son, Raymond-Roupen, were exiled to Cilicia. Bohemond III died in 1201. The commune of Antioch renewed its allegiance to Bohemond IV, although a number of the nobility felt compelled to support Raymond-Roupen and joined him in Cilicia. Bohemond requested aid from Saladin's son, Az-Zahir Ghazi of Aleppo and Suleiman, the Sultan of Rûm. They invaded Cilicia. This forced Leo to abandon his support of his great nephew. Bohemond IV was often absent asserting control in Tripoli. In 1203 the Templars prevented Leo taking advantage, in 1205/1206 it was Az-Zahir Ghazi. In 1207/1208 Bohemond suppressed an Antiochene revolt by the Latin patriarch of Antioch and the exiled nobles. Leo and Raymond-Roupen exhausted Antioch with frequent destructive raids and in 1216 occupied the city during another of Bohemond IV's absences. Leo left to fight the Anatolian Seljuks in Cilicia. Relationships between Leo and Raymond-Roupen soured and Bohemond IV's supporters took advantage, restoring him in 2019. Raymond-Roupen fled to Armenia, seeking Leo's support and when Leo died in May attempting to gain the throne. Constantine of Baberon who was regent for Leo's younger daughter, Isabellal, acted quickly. He captured Raymond-Roupen, who then died in prison. Isabella was married to Bohemond IV's son, Philip. In late 1224, Phillip was abducted and poisoned by Armenians. Bohemond attempts at revenge were foiled by an alliance between the Armenians and Bohemond IV's former Ayyubid allies in Aleppo.

A 13th-century manuscript of the marriage of Frederick and Isabella

In September 1197 King Henry died falling out of a palace window in Acre. In January 1198, the widowed Queen Isabella married Aimery of Cyprus. Saladin's brother Al-Adil I ruled the majority of Ayyubid territory while his third son Az-Zahir Ghazi retained Aleppo. Al-Adil agreed near constant truces with the Franks, 1198 to 1204, 1204 to 1210 and 1211 to 1217), allowing him to concentrate on the threats presented by the Zengids of Mesopotamia, the Seljuks of Anatolia, the Christian states of Armenia and Georgia. In 1205 Aimery and Isabella died. Isabella's daughter by Conrad, Maria of Montferrat, to succeeded and Isabella's half-brother, John of Ibelin became regent. A delegation to France to Western Europe seeking candidates for the throne resulted in the selection of John of Brienne. In 1210, he married Maria and when she died after the birth of Isabella II two years later became king-regent for their daughter. In 1217 John was de facto leader of a gathering crusade but the Emperor Frederick was expected to assume control on his arrival and the papal legate, Cardinal Pelagius, controlled the finances from the west. From May 2019 until the new Sultan Al-Kamil withdrew in November 2019 Damietta was besieged by the crusaders. Al-Kamil offered repeatedly the return Jerusalem and Palestine west of the Jordan in exchange for a crusader withdrawal. This was rejected contrary to the opinions of some of the Franks, probably including John. The defensibility of Jerusalem was questionable, the agreement was time limited, Palestine was controlled by al-Kamil's brother the sultan of Syria not al-Kamil and the crusaders’ vows would be unfulfilled. Instead after twenty-one months of stalemate the crusaders marched on Cairo before being trapped between the Nile floods and Egyptian army. Damietta was surrendered In return for safe conduct and the crusade ended. In 1225 Frederick became king by marrying Isabella. In 1228 Isabella died after giving birth to Conrad and Frederick arrived. The Cypriot Franks, Templars and Hospitallers were hostile to his rule. There was a negative reaction to the ten-year treaty he agreed with al-Kamil that regained Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and Sidon while granting Temple Mount to the Muslims. Frederick left for Italy in May 1229, never to return. Jerusalem's monarchs were then absent until Hugh III of Cyprus succeeded in 1269.

In 1231 Richard Filangieri, with an Imperial army, arrived in the kingdom of Jerusalem to rule as bailli on Frederick’s behalf. He occupied Beirut and Tyre, but the local baronage led by the Ibelins controlled Acre. These barons established a commune to protect their interests. Filangieri was supported by Bohemund IV of Antioch, the Teutonic Knights, the Knights Hospitaller, and the Pisans. The Ibelins by the Cypriot nobility, Acre, the Templars and the Genoese. More than a decade of baronial resistance to Imperial authority ended in 1243 when the barons captured Tyre. This brought the War of the Lombards to a close. Conrad never visited his kingdom, control passed through a succession of Cypriot and Ibelin regents. The kingdom was reliant on Ayyubid division, the military orders and western aid without Frederick's resources. The papacy’s conflict with Frederick meant that crusading was left to secular leadership. Nobles such as Theobald I of Navarre and Richard of Cornwall followed Frederick’s tactics of forceful diplomacy and played rival factions off against each other in the succession disputes in Egypt and Syria that following Sultan Al-Kamil's death.

Destruction by the Mamluks (1244 to 1291)

The 13th century Mongol invasion of Europe threatened the Crusader states. In central Asia they displaced the Turkish Khwarazmians who became allies of As-Salih Ismail, Emir of Damascus. In 1244 the Khwarazmians sacked Jerusalem and with the Egyptians defeated the Frankish and Damascene coalition at La Forbie. The Patriarch of Jerusalem recorded that the Franks lost 16,000 men. The kingdom never recovered; it was the last time the Franks had the resources for raising a field army. As-Salah captured much of the crusaders' mainland territory restricting the Franks to a few coastal towns. In 1246 Hethum of Armenia submitted to the Mongol Hulagu Khan and persuaded his son-in-law Bohemond VI of Antioch to do the same. After a failed crusade launched from Cyprus against Eqypt Louis IX of France became the de facto ruler of the kingdom of Jerusalem on his release from captivity in 1250 until his departure in 1254.

Krak des Chevaliers

In 1250s central authority was absent meaning there was no constraint on the political and economic ambitions of the Italian colonists. In the period from 1256 tol 1288 this resulted in a civil war known as the War of Saint Sabas over jurisdictions between the Genoese and the Venetians. The Military Orders and barons supported various sides. In 1260 Hethum and Bohemond VI joined forces with the Mongols in the sack of Aleppo, where Bohemond set fire to the Great Mosque of Aleppo himself, and in the conquest of northern Syria. Jerusalem remained neutral when the Mamluks of Egypt moved to confront the Mongols after Hulagu and much of his force moved east on the death of Möngke Khan to address the Mongol succession. The Mamluks defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut. On their return the sultan Qutuz was assassinated and replaced by the general Baibars. Baibers reformed governance in Egypt giving power to the elite military mamluks refashioning the empire of Saladin. Even with the military orders the Franks of Jerusalem, Cyprus and Antioch did not have the military capability to resist this new threat without the distraction of the Mongols. Baibers captured Caesarea and Arsuf in 1265, Safed in 1266, destroyed the Armenian army and in 1268 sacked Antioch. Jaffa surrendered and Baibers reduced the influence of the military orders by capturing the castles of Krak des Chevaliers and Montfort before returning his attention to the Mongols for the remainder of his life.

In 1268, Charles I of Anjou executed the titular king of Jerusalem, Conradin, in Naples after his victory at Tagliacozzo bringing the Hohenstaufen male line to an end. The succession was disputed between the descendants of the daughters of Isabella I. Hugh III of Cyprus was the grandson of Alice of Champagne, Isabella's daughter by Henry of Champagne. Maria of Antioch was the daughter of Bohemond IV of Antioch and Melisende of Lusignan Isabella I's daughter by Amalric II. The Barons preferred Hugh but in 1277 Maria sold her claim to Charles of Anjou who seems to have believed that Jerusalem was part of the kingdom of Sicily. He sent Roger of San Severino to act as bailli. With the support of the Templars he blocked Hugh's access to Acre forcing him to retreat to Cyprus again leaving the kingdom without a resident monarch.

In 1285 the death of the pro-Frank Mongol leader Abaqa Khan combined with the Pisan and Venetian wars with the Genoese gave the Mamluk sultan Al-Mansur Qalawun the opportunity to finally expel the Franks. In 1289 he destroyed Genoese held Tripoli, enslaving and killing the residents. In 1290 his truce with Jerusalem was broken by Italian crusaders killing Muslim peasants in Acre. Qalawun's death did not hinder the successful Mamluk siege of the city. Without hope of support from the west those who could fled to Cyprus, those who couldn't were subsumed into the Mamluk labour force. Tyre, Beirut and Sidon all surrendered without a fight. The Mamluk policy was to destroy all physical evidence of the Franks ruptured the history of a littoral civilisation rooted in antiquity.

Demography and Society

Modern research indicate Muslims and indigenous Christian populations were less integrated than previously thought. Christians lived around Jerusalem and in an arc stretching from Jericho and the Jordan to Hebron in the south. Comparisons of archaeological evidence of Byzantine churches built prior the Muslim conquest and 16th century Ottoman census records demonstrates some Greek Orthodox communities disappeared prior the crusades, but most continued during and for centuries after. Maronites were concentrated in Tripoli; Jacobites in Antioch and Edessa. Armenians were concentrated in the north, but communities existed in all major towns. Central areas had a Muslim majority population who were mainly Sunni, but Shi'ite communities existed in Galilee. The nonconformist Muslim Druzes lived in the mountains of Tripoli. Jews resided in coastal towns and some Galilean villages. Little research has been done on Islamic conversion but the available evidence led Ellenblum to believe that around Nablus and Jerusalem Christians remained a majority.

The vast majority of the indigenous population were Peasants living off the land. Charters from the early 12th century show evidence of the donation of local villeins to nobles and religious institutions. This may have been a method of denoting the revenues from these villeins or land where the boundaries were unclear. These are described as villanus, surianus for Christians or sarracenus for Muslims. The term servus was reserved for the numerous urban, domestic slaves the Franks held. The use of villanus is thought to reflect the higher status that villagers or serfs held in the near East or the indigenous men were considered to have servile land tenures rather than lacking personal freedom. Villeins’ status differed from Western serfs as they could marry outside their lords' domain, were not obliged to perform unpaid labour, could hold land and inherit property. However, Franks needed to maintain productivity, so the villagers were tied to the land. Charters evidence landholders agreeing to return any villeins from other landholders they found on their property. Peasants were required to pay the lord one quarter to a half of crop yields, the Muslim pilgrim Ibn Jubayr reported there was also a poll tax of one dinar and five qirat per head and a tax on produce from trees. 13th century charters indicate this increased after the loss of the first kingdom redressing the Franks’ lost income. Historian Christopher MacEvitt cites these as reasons that the term indentured peasant is a more accurate description for the villagers in the Latin East than serf.

The Frankish population of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was concentrated in three major cities. By the 13th century the population of Acre probably exceeded 60,000, followed by Tyre with the capital having a smaller population of between 20,000 and 30,000. At its zenith, the Latin population of the region reached c. 250,000 with the Kingdom of Jerusalem's population numbering c. 120,000 and the combined total in Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa being broadly comparable. Frankish peasants are evident in 235 villages, out of a total of around 1,200 rural settlements. Some were planned villages, established to encourage settlers from the West and some were shared with native Christians. The native population lived in casalia, or rural settlements of about 3-50 families. In context, Josiah Russell estimates the population of what he calls "Islamic territory" as roughly 12.5 million in 1000—Anatolia 8 million, Syria 2 million, Egypt 1.5 million and North Africa 1 million — with the European areas that provided crusaders having a population of 23.7 million. He estimates that by 1200 that these figures had risen to 13.7 million in Islamic territory—Anatolia 7 million, Syria 2.7 million, Egypt 2.5 million and North Africa 1.5 million— while the crusaders' home countries' population was 35.6 million. Russell acknowledges that much of Anatolia was Christian or under the Byzantines and that some purportedly Islamic areas such as Mosul and Baghdad had significant Christian populations.

Linguistic differences remained a key differentiator between the Franks lords and the local population. The Franks typically spoke Old French and wrote in Latin. While some learnt Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Syriac and Hebrew this was unusual. Society was politically and legally stratified. Ethnically-based communities were self-governing with relations between communities controlled by the Franks. Research has focussed on the role of the ruʾasāʾ, Arabic for leader, chief or mayor. Riley-Smith divided these into the urban freemen and rural workers tied to the land. ruʾasāʾ administered the Frankish estates, governed the native communities and were often respected local landowners. If communities were segregated as indicated by the written evidence and identified by Riley-Smith and Prawer inter-communal conflict was avoided and interaction between the landed and the peasants limited. McEvitt identifies possible tension between competing groups. According to the 13th century jurists, in the towns the Rais presided over the Cour des Syriens and there is other evidence that on occasion they led local troops. Civil disputes and minor criminality were administered courts of the indigenous communities, but more serious offences and cases involving Franks were dealt with by the Frankish cour des bourgeois. That is courts of the burgesses which is the name given to non-noble Franks. The level of assimilation is difficult to identify, there little material evidence. The archaeology is culturally exclusive and written evidence indicates deep religious divisions. Some historians assume that the states' heterogeneity eroded formal apartheid. The key differentiator in status and economic position was between urban and rural dwellers. Indigenous Christians could gain higher status and acquire wealth through commerce and industry in towns, but few Muslims lived in urban areas except those in servitude.

Frankish royalty reflected the region's diversity. Queen Melisende was part Armenian and married Fulk from Anjou. Their son Amalric married a Frank from the Levant before marrying a Byzantine Greek. The nobility’s use of Jewish, Syrian and Muslim physicians appalled William of Tyre. Antioch became a centre of cultural interchange through Greek and Arabic speaking Christians. The indigenous peoples showed the Frankish nobility traditional deference and in return Franks adopted their dress, food, housing and military techniques. However, Frankish society was not a cultural melting pot. Inter-communal relations were shallow, identities separate and the other communities considered alien.

Economy

Coins of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the British Museum. Left: European style Denier with Holy Sepulchre (1162–75). Centre: Kufic gold bezant (1140–80). Right: gold bezant with Christian symbol (1250s)

The crusader states were economic centres obstructing Muslim trade by sea with the west as well as by land with Mesopotamia, Syria and the urban economies of the Nile. Commerce continued with the coastal cities providing maritime outlets for the Islamic hinterland and unprecedented volumes of eastern wares were exported to Europe. Byzantine-Muslim mercantile growth may have occurred anyway in the 12th and 13th centuries but it is likely that the Crusades hastened this. Western European populations and economies were booming creating a growing social class that wanted city centred products and eastern imports. European fleets expanded with better ships, navigation improved and fare-paying pilgrims subsidised voyages. Largely indigenous agricultural production flourished before the fall of the First Kingdom in 1187 but was negligible afterwards. Franks, Muslims, Jews and indigenous Christians traded crafts in the souks, teeming oriental bazaars, of the cities. Olives, grapes, wheat and barley were the important agricultural products before Saladin's conquests. Glass making and soap production were major industries in towns. Shipping, imports, exports, transportation and banking was monopolised by the Italian, Provençal and Catalan merchants. The Frankish noble and ecclesiastical institutional income was based on income from estates, market tolls and taxation. Seigniorial monopolies, or bans, compelled the peasantry’s use of landowners' mills, ovens and other facilities. The serfs circumvention of monopolies is evidenced by the presence of hand-mills in most households. The centres of production were Antioch, Tripoli, Tyre and Beirut. Textiles with silk particularly prized, glass, dyestuffs, olives, wine, sesame oil and sugar were exported; The Franks provided an import market for clothing and finished goods. They adopted the more monetised indigenous economic system using a hybrid coinage of northern Italian and southern French silver European coins; Frankish copper coins minted in Arabic and Byzantine styles; and silver and gold dirhams and dinars. After 1124, the Franks copied Egyptian dinars creating Jerusalem's gold bezant. Following the collapse of the first kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187, trade replaced agriculture in the economy and the circulation of western coins predominated. Although Tyre, Sidon and Beirut minted silver pennies and copper coins there is little evidence of systematic attempts to create a unified currency.

Monarchy

The king of Jerusalem's foremost role was leader of the feudal host during the near-constant warfare in the early decades of the 12th century. They rarely awarded land or lordships and those awarded frequently became vacant and reverted to the crown due to the high mortality rate. Their followers' loyalty was rewarded with city incomes. Through this the domain of the first five rulers was larger than the combined holdings of the nobility. These kings of Jerusalem had greater internal power than comparative western monarchs but there wasn’t the necessary personnel and administrative systems for governance of such a large realm.

The feudatories of the king of Jerusalem in 1187

In the second quarter of the century magnates such as Raynald of Châtillon, Lord of Oultrejordain, and Raymond III, Count of Tripoli, Prince of Galilee established of baronial dynasties and often acted as autonomous rulers. Royal powers were abrogated and governance was undertaken within the feudatories. The remaining central control was exercised at the Haute Cour or High Court although only the 13th century jurists used this term. Curia regis was more common in Europe. These meetings were between king and tenants in chief. The duty of the vassal to give counsel developed into a privilege and then the monarch’s legitimacy was dependent on the court’s agreement. In practice, the High Court was the great barons and the king's direct vassals with a quorum of the king and three tenants in chief. The 1162 the assise sur la ligece expanded the court's membership to all 600 or more fief-holders. Those paying direct homage to the king became members of the Haute Cour. By the end of the 12th century they were joined by the leaders of the military orders and in the 13th century the Italian communes. The leaders of the Third Crusade ignored the monarchy. The kings of England and France agreed on the division of future conquests as if there was no need to take into account the local nobility. Prawer considered that the weakness of the crown of Jerusalem was demonstrated by the rapid offering of the throne to Conrad of Montferrat in 1190 and then Henry II, Count of Champagne in 1192 although this was given legal effect by Baldwin IV's will stipulating if Baldwin V died a minor the succession would be decided by the pope, the kings of England and France, and the Holy Roman Emperor.

Prior to the 1187 defeat at Hattin laws developed by the court were recorded as assises in Letters of the Holy Sepulchre. All written law was lost in the fall of Jerusalem. The legal system was now largely based on custom and the memory of the lost legislation. The renowned jurist Philip of Novara lamented "We know [the laws] rather poorly, for they are known by hearsay and usage...and we think an assize is something we have seen as an assize...in the kingdom of Jerusalem [the barons] made much better use of the laws and acted on them more surely before the land was lost". An idyllic view of early 12th century legal system was created. The barons reinterpreted the assise sur la ligece, which Almalric I intended to strengthen the crown to instead constrain the monarch. Particularly regarding to the monarch’s right to confiscate feudal fiefs without trial. The loss of the vast majority of rural fiefs evolved the baronage into an urban mercantile class where knowledge of the law was a valuable, well-regarded skill and a career path to higher status.

After Hattin the Franks lost their cities, lands and churches. Barons fled to Cyprus and intermarried with leading new emigres from the Lusignan, Montbéliard, Brienne and Montfort families. This created a separate class the remnants of the old nobility that had a limited understanding of the Latin East. This included the king-consorts Guy, Conrad, Henry, Aimery, John and the absent Hohenstaufen that followed. The barons of Jerusalem in the 13th century have been poorly regarded by both contemporary and modern commentators: James of Vitry was disgusted by their superficial rhetoric; Riley-Smith writes of their pedantry and the use of spurious legal justification for political action. The barons valued this ability to articulate the law. This is evidenced by the elaborate and impressive treatises of the baronial jurists from the second half of the 13th century.

From May 1229 when Frederick II left the Holy Land to defend his Italian and German lands, monarchs were absent. Conrad was titular king from 1225 until 1254 and his son Conradin until 1268 when he was executed by Charles of Anjou. Government in Jerusalem and the monarchies in the west had developed in opposite directions. European monarchs of France, Germany and England such as St Louis, Frederick and Edward I had bureaucratic machinery for administration, jurisdiction and legislation through which power could be exercised. Jerusalem had a royalty without power. In 1242 the Barons prevailed and appointed a succession of Ibelin and Cypriot regents. Centralised government collapsed in the face of independence exercised by the nobility, military orders and Italian communes. The three Cypriot Lusignan kings who succeeded lacked the resources to recover the lost territory. One claimant sold the title of king to Charles of Anjou. He gained power for a short while but never visited the kingdom.

Religion

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre

There is no written evidence that the Franks or local Christians recognised significant religious differences until the 13th century when the jurists used phrases such as men not of the rule of Rome. The crusaders filled ecclesiastical positions in the Orthodox church left vacant with Franks. When Simeon II the Frank Arnulf of Chocques took his place as patriarch of Jerusalem. The appointment of Latin bishops had little effect on the Arabic-speaking Orthodox Christians. The previous bishops were foreign Byzantine Greeks. The Franks used Greeks as coadjutor bishops to administer natives left without clergy and in Latin and Orthodox Christians often shared churches. In Antioch Greeks occasionally replaced Latin patriarchs. Toleration continued but there was an interventionist papist response from Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Acre. Outside communion with Rome the Armenians, Copts, Jacobites, Nestorians and Maronites had greater autonomy and retained their own bishops.. The Franks' had discriminatory laws against Jews and Muslims that prevented assimilation. They were banned from living in Jerusalem and sexual relations between Muslims and Christians were punished (at leat de jure) by mutilation. Mosques were converted into Christian churches, but the Franks did not force Muslims to conversion because this would end the Muslim peasants' servile status.

Communes

The Italian maritime republics of Pisa, Venice and Genoa.were enthusiastic crusaders whose commercial wealth provided the Franks with financial foundations and naval resources. In return these cities, and others such as Amalfi, Barcelona and Marseilles, received commercial rights and access to Eastern markets. Over time this developed into colonial communities with property and jurisdiction. Largely located in the ports of Acre, Tyre, Tripoli and Sidon, communes of Italians, Provençals and Catalans had distinct cultures and exerted autonomous political power separate from the Franks. They remained intricately linked to their towns of origin giving them monopolies of foreign trade, banking and shipping. Opportunities extending trade privileges were taken such as in 1124 the Venetians received one-third of Tyre and its territories with exemption from taxes in return for Venetian participation in the siege. These ports were unable to replace Alexandria and Constantinople as the major commercial centres of commerce but competed with monarchs and each other to maintain economic advantage. The communards' number never reached more than hundreds. Their power derived from the support of home cities. By the mid-13th century, the rulers of the communes barely recognised the authority of the Franks and divided Acre into several fortified miniature republics.

Military orders

Main article: Military order (religious society)

13th-century miniature of Baldwin II of Jerusalem granting the Al Aqsa Mosque to Hugues de Payens

There were few cultural innovations in the crusader states. The Franks habitually followed the customs of their Western homelands. Three notable exceptions were the establishment of military orders, warfare and fortifications. In 1119 the order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was foundered for the protection of pilgrims by a group of knights attached to the Holy Sepulchre. This gave the order the common name of Templars. The order was recognised at the council of Nablus. The order's name derives from Solomon's Temple, the Frankish name for the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount. In 1129 an embassy by leaders Hugues de Payens and Godfrey de Saint-Omer to Europe gained recognition from the Latin Church at the Council of Troyes. Papal support, privileges and immunities followed along with donations of estates across Western Europe and the Levant. This enabled the order to provide the crusader states with troops, funding, loans and luxury accommodation for travellers. The Knights Hospitaller or Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem began in the 1080s with an Amalfitano funded hospital in Jerusalem. The Frank’s arrival brought significant local and western donations. By 1113 the order had transformed from a lay to a papally recognised religious organisation. It became an enormous concern. Extensive estates in Italy, Catalonia and Southern France provided funding for hundreds of beds serving patients from all religions and genders. In 1126 military members formed part of the army from Jerusalem that attacked Damascus.During the 12th and 13th centuries these communities of warrior monks married the medieval ideals of monasticism and knighthood They became Latin Christendom's first professional armies and supranational organisations with autonomous powers in the region. The template presented by these two organisations led to the formation of further orders in the Iberian Peninsula and Christendom's northern borders. In 1180 the castles the military orders controlled, 700 knights, sergeants, clerics, layman and servants matched all other military resources available to Jerusalem.

Art and architecture

Further information: Art of the crusades and List of Crusader castles

12th-century Hospitaller castle of Krak des Chevaliers in Syria

Prawer asserts no major European poet, theologian, scholar or historian settled in the crusader states. Pilgrimages are reflected in imagery and ideas of western poetry encouraging others to journey to the east. Historians consider military architecture demonstrates a synthesis of the European, Byzantine and Muslim traditions providing the original and impressive artistic achievement of the crusades. Castles were a symbol of the dominance of the Frankish minority over a largely hostile majority population that acted as administrative centres. Modern historiography rejects the 19th-century consensus that Westerners learnt the basis of military architecture from the Near East. Europe had already experienced growth in defensive technology. Contact with Arab fortifications originally constructed by the Byzantines influenced developments in the east but there is little evidence for differentiation between design cultures and the constraints of situation. Castles included oriental design features such as large water reservoirs and the excluded occidental features like moats. Church design was in the French Romanesque style seen in the 12th-century rebuilding of the Holy Sepulchre. The Franks retained earlier Byzantine detail, but added northern French, Aquitanian and Provençal style arches and chapels. The column capitals of the south facade follow classical Syrian patterns but there is little evidence of indigenous influence in sculpture.

Visual culture demonstrates the assimilated nature of the society. The influence of indigenous artists was demonstrated in the decoration of shrines, painting and the production of manuscripts. Frankish practitioners borrowed methods from Byzantine and indigenous artists in iconographical practice. Monumental and panel painting, mosaics and illuminations in manuscripts adopted an indigenous style leading to a cultural synthesis shown in the Church of the Nativity. Wall mosaics were unknown in the west but widespread in the crusader states. It is unknown whether this was by indigenous craftsmen or learnt by Frankish ones, but it shows the evolution of a distinctive and original artistic style. Workshops housed Italian, French, English and indigenous craftsmen producing illustrated manuscripts demonstrating a cross-fertilisation of ideas and techniques. One example is the Melisende Psalter. This style either reflected or influenced the taste of patrons of the arts in increasingly stylised Byzantine-influenced content. Icons was previously unknown to the Franks. This continued, occasionally in a Frankish style and of western saints leading to Italian panel painting. It is difficult to track illustration and castle and castle design to their sources. It is simpler for textual sources where translations made in Antioch are notable, but of secondary importance to the works from Muslim Spain and the hybrid culture of Sicily.

Military

John of Ibelin wrote that in 1170 the military force of the kingdom of Jerusalem was based on a feudal host of about 647 to 675 heavily armoured knights who would also provide their own armed retainers. Prelates and the towns were to provide 5,025 non-noble light cavalry and infantry known as serjants. This force would be augmented by hired soldiery called Turcopoles and in times of emergency a general muster of the Christian population. Prawer estimated that the military orders could match the king's fighting strength giving a total military strength of approximately 1,200 knights and 10,000 serjants. This was enough for further territorial gains, but fewer than military domination required. Major field armies were a defensive problem requiring all able-bodied fighting men leaving castles and cities undefended in the case of a defeat, such as the Battle of Hattin. Muslim armies were incohesive and seldom campaigned outside the period between sowing and harvest. So, the crusaders adopted delaying tactics when faced with a superior invading Muslim force, avoiding direct confrontation, retreating to strongholds and waiting for the Muslim army to disperse. It was generations before the Muslims recognised that they could not conquer the Franks without destroying the Frankish fortresses. The Franks changed strategy from the tactics of gaining and holding territory to attempting the destruction of Egypt. This would have removed a constant regional challenge giving the Franks time to improve the kingdom's demographic weakness. Egypt was isolated from the other Islamic power centres, it would be easier to defend and was self-sufficient in food.

Legacy

After Acre fell, the Hospitallers first relocated to Cyprus then conquered and ruled Rhodes (1309–1522) and Malta (1530–1798). The Sovereign Military Order of Malta survives to the present-day. Philip IV of France probably had financial and political reasons to oppose the Knights Templar. He exerted pressure on Pope Clement V who responded in 1312 by dissolving the order on alleged and probably false grounds of sodomy, magic and heresy. The raising, transportation, and supply of armies led to flourishing trade between Europe and the crusader states. The Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice flourished through profitable trading communes. Many historians argue that the interaction between the western Christian and Islamic cultures was a significant and ultimately positive influence in the development of European civilisation and the Renaissance. Relations between Europeans and the Islamic world stretched across the length of the Mediterranean Sea making it difficult for historians to identify what proportion of cultural cross-fertilisation originated in the crusader states, Sicily and Spain.

Historiography

Further information: Historiography of the Crusades

Modern historians have developed a broad consensus on relationships between the Frankish and native communities in the crusader states. Joshua Prawer and others described an outnumbered Frankish elite dominating the coastal areas of southern modern Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. In this paradigm the Frankish elite is isolated from the majority population by discriminatory laws, conditions of serfdom and exclusion from positions of authority. Recently this position has been challenged by historians such as Ronnie Ellenblum, using archeological research. These challenges have recognised weaknesses and no alternative model has been presented. Christopher Tyerman points out the challenges are not a return to older theories, the sources remain the same and the archeological materials are virtually unprovable. Denys Pringle, a specialist in Frankish architecture, notes that new architectural research does not contradict the segregationist view of Frankish society that earlier in the 20th century, Hans Eberhard Mayer had already written that the number of Franks living in rural settlements should not be underestimated.

It was in the 19th century that subject of the crusader states, rather than just the crusades themselves, become a subject of study. This was particularly true among French historians. Joseph François Michaud's influential narratives had concentrated on topics of war, conquest and settlement. Later France's colonial ambitions in the Levant were explicitly linked with French-led crusading and the Frankish character of the states. Emmanuel Rey's Les colonies franques de Syrie aux XIIme et XIIIme siècles described Frankish settlements in the Levant as colonies in which Poulains, offspring of mixed marriages, adopted local traditions and values instead of those of their Frankish descent. The first American crusade historian, Dana Carleton Munro extended this analysis describing the care the Franks took to win the goodwill of the natives. In the 20th century historians rejected this approach. R. C. Smail argued that Rey, and the like, had identified an integrated society which did not exist in order to justify French colonial regimes. The new consensus was that the society was segregated with limited social and cultural interchange. Prawer and Jonathan Riley-Smith focussed on the evidence of social, legal and political frameworks in the kingdom of Jerusalem to present a widely accepted view of a society that was largely urban, isolated from the indigenous peoples, with separate legal and religious systems. Prawer's 1972 work, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem:European Colonialism in the Middle Ages extended this analysis: the lack of integration was based on economics with the Franks' position depending on a subjugated, disenfranchised local population. In this arrangement the Franks' primary motivations were economic. Islamic historian Carole Hillenbrand identified that Islamic population responded with resentment, suspicion and rejection of the Franks.

This model supports the idea that the crusader states were part of the wider expansion of Western Europe in places such as Ireland, eastern Europe and Spain: driven by religious reforms and the growth of papal power. However, historians now argue that were different in that there was no vigorous church reform in the East, or resulting persecution of Jews and heretics. Some historians consider it exceptional that the 1120 Council of Nablus regulated ecclesiastical tithes, outlawed bigamy and adultery, imposed the death penalty for sodomy and a penalty of castration and mutilation for any Frank engaging in sexual relations with a Muslim. Benjamin Z. Kedar considered that Nablus followed a Byzantine, rather than western reformist, precedent. This has led historians such as Claude Cahen, Jean Richard and Christopher MacEvitt to argue that the history of the crusader states is distinct from the history of the crusades. This allows other analytical techniques to be applied placing the crusader states in the context of Near Eastern politics. These ideas are sill in the process of articulation by modern historians.

Bibliography

• Asbridge, Thomas (2012). The Crusades: The War for the Holy Land. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-84983-688-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Barber, Malcolm (2012). The Crusader States. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11312-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Bassett, Hayley. (2018). "Regnant Queenship and Royal Marriage between the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Nobility of Western Europe". In Woodacre, Elena (ed.). A Companion to Global Queenship. Arc Humaities Press. pp. 39–52. ISBN 9781942401469. JSTOR j.ctvmd8390.9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Boas, Adrian J. (1999). Crusader Archaeology: The Material Culture of the Latin East. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-17361-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Burgtorf, Jochen (2016). "The Antiochene war of succession". In Boas, Adrian J. (ed.). The Crusader World. University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 196–211. ISBN 978-0-415-82494-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Cobb, Paul M. (2016) [2014]. The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-878799-0. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Davies, Norman (1997). Europe: A History. Pimlico. ISBN 978-0-7126-6633-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Ellenblum, Ronnie (1998). Frankish Rural Settlement in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-5215-2187-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Findley, Carter Vaughn (2005). The Turks in World History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-516770-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Hillenbrand, Carole (1999). The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-0630-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Holt, Peter Malcolm (1986). The Age Of The Crusades-The Near East from the eleventh century to 1517. Pearson Longman. ISBN 978-0-58249-302-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Housley, Norman (2006). Contesting the Crusades. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-1189-8. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Jotischky, Andrew (2004). Crusading and the Crusader States. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-582-41851-6. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Lock, Peter (2006). The Routledge Companion to the Crusades. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-39312-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• MacEvitt, Christopher (2008). The Crusades and the Christian World of the East:rough tolerance. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-2083-4. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Nicholson, Helen (2004). The Crusades. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32685-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Prawer, Joshua (1972). The Crusaders' Kingdom. Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1-84212-224-2. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Riley-Smith, Jonathan (1971). "The Assise sur la Ligece and the Commune of Acre". Traditio. 27: 179–204. doi:10.1017/S0362152900005316. JSTOR 27830920.
• Russell, Josiah C. (1985). "The Population of the Crusader States". In Setton, Kenneth M.; Zacour, Norman P.; Hazard, Harry W. (eds.). A History of the Crusades, Volume V: The Impact of the Crusades on the Near East. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 295–314. ISBN 0-299-09140-6.
• Tyerman, Christopher (2019). The World of the Crusades. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-21739-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
• Tyerman, Christopher (2011). The Debate on the Crusades, 1099–2010. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-7320-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

Further reading

• Andrew D Buck, "Settlement, Identity, and Memory in the Latin East: An Examination of the Term ‘Crusader States’." The English Historical Review
• Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174–1277. The Macmillan Press, 1973.