SHLOMO LOTAN

The ‘Other’ in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Crusaders and their Varying Images of the Muslims in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin

One of the most interesting and familiar singularities in the medieval era was the Crusader social and religious movement which began in the late 11 th cen- tury and declined in the early 14 th century. During this period many Christians from Europe – peasants, merchants, bourgeois and nobles – left their houses, abandoned their possessions and traveled to the eastern Mediterranean shores in the hope of acquiring wealth or positions, and beginning a new life in a new land conquered from Muslims. The Crusade idea was born in a period of reli- gious visions and of pilgrimages. The social movement occurred as a regular series of large expeditions punctuated by long periods. Thousands of western Christians became Crusaders by taking a public vow and receiving plenary in- dulgences from the Church authorities for freeing the Holy Land of the infi- dels. 1 The Crusades were acts of mass migration from Europe to the con- quered territories in the Mediterranean basin. The Crusaders were the first Eu- ropean population groups to leave Medieval Europe. They were called Franci in Latin, from Francia in Western Europe. 2 In the 19 th and 20 th centuries Crusade studies became an important histori- cal research field in Europe. Many scholars approached the subject as a form of colonialism, involving the conquest of new territories from the Muslim provinces in the East.3 An example reinforcing this view can be found in the writings of the prominent Israeli historian Joshua Prawer. The idea of the re-

1 Harald Kleinschmidt: People on the Move: Attitudes toward and Perceptions of Migration in Medieval and Modern Europe, Westpoint: Praeger Publishers, 2003, pp. 80-84; Olivia R. Constable: Clothing, Iron and Timber: The Growth of Christian Anxiety about Islam in the long Twelfth Century, in: European Transformations, the Long Twelfth Century, edited by Thomas F.X. Noble and John H. Van Engen, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012, pp. 279-313, here pp. 298-306. 2 Joshua Prawer: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ag- es, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972, pp. 60-85; Christopher Tyerman: The Debate on the Crusades, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011, pp. 7-15. 3 Steven Runciman: A History of the Crusades. The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, vol. I, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951, pp. 106-118, 121-133; Prawer: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (note 2), pp. 503-533; Ronnie Ellen- blum: Crusader Castles and Modern Histories, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 43-61; Nikolas Jaspert: Die Kreuzzüge, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchge- sellschaft, 2013, pp. 67-70. 106 SHLOMO LOTAN demption of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the liberation of the Chris- tian holy places from Muslim occupation followed, over the years, with mili- tary activities for the survival of the newly established Latin Kingdom against the increasing threat of Muslim armies. 4 These activities happened in the period following the end of the First Cru- sade in 1099, and the establishment of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. Yet the complications and the basic problems remained – what were the social and spiritual foundations on which the Latin Kingdom had been established? Also of significance was the Crusader attitude to the local population in the Latin Kingdom territories. These and other issues are examined in this article. It seems that after the end of the First Crusade the Frankish nobility and the Church leaders who remained in the East faced a number of issues, including how to continue expanding their estates and how to maintain their hold on the territory, now mostly inhabited by hostile populations. At first, the Crusaders sought to increase the European portion of the population. However, immigra- tion from Europe remained low. Thus, the Crusaders began to strengthen the local Christian element – the Eastern Orthodox Christians, and encouraged migration from remote areas, such as Transjordan, to the main occupied cities in the kingdom. 5 The area in question was extensive, ranging from Beirut to Gaza and from the Jordan River and the Arab desert to the Mediterranean coast. These areas remained largely uninhabited and never attracted the anticipated immigrant populations. 6 After the end of the first Crusade, the local population was sub- jugated. The populations of some of the cities in the Frankish Kingdom were very diverse, but most of the countryside remained dominated by Muslims and it was on them that the Crusaders relied for supplies of food and agricultural products. 7 This interpretation of the Crusaders’ strategy was challenged in the early 1990s by the work of Israeli scholars Ronnie Ellenblum and Adrian Boas, who surveyed the majority of Crusader sites in Israel. In his study of Frankish set- tlements, Ellenblum concluded that the Christian settlers had not only gathered in walled cities but also moved into rural and agricultural regions close to the urban centers of Jerusalem, Acre and Nazareth. This led Ellenblum to draw

4 Joshua Prawer: Histoire du Royaume Latin de Jérusalem, tome premier, Paris: Centre Na- tional de la Recherche Scientifique, 1975. 5 Joshua Prawer: Crusader Cities, in: The Medieval City. Studies in Honor of Robert S. Lopez, edited by Harry A Miskimin, David Herlihy, Abraham L. Udovitch and Robert S. Lopez, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977, pp. 179-199, here pp. 182-185. 6 Jean Richard: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, vol. A, Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub., 1979, pp. 15-17. 7 Norman Housley: The Crusades and Islam, in: Medieval Encounters 13, 2007, pp. 189-208, here pp. 191-192; Nicholas E. Morton: William of Tyre’s Attitude toward Islam: Some His- toriographical Reflections, in: Deeds Done Beyond the Sea: Essays on William of Tyre’ Cyprus and the Military Orders presented to Peter Edbury, edited by Susan B. Edgington and Helen J. Nicholson, Farnham: Ashgate, 2014, pp. 13-23, here p. 18.