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Chapter 12 the Crusades to the Eastern Mediterranean, 1095-1291

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Chapter 12 the Crusades to the Eastern Mediterranean, 1095-1291 Chapter 12 The crusades to the eastern Mediterranean, 1095-1291 Nicholas Morton The month of October 1242 was a rare moment for the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem; it was on the advance. For decades, it had played the weaker party to the Ayyubid Muslim territories lying to the east and south, and was capable of taking the offensive only with the assistance of massive crusader reinforcements from western Christendom. Recently, however, it had been able to flex its muscles and it was with this renewed strength that the Franks seized the town of Nablus. The Coptic author Yūḥannā ibn Wahb explains what happened next. The Frankish forces swiftly took control of the town, then assembled its inhabitants and divided Chris- tians from Muslims, before killing or imprisoning all non-Christians.1 Twenty-one years later, in April 1263, the Mamluk Sultan Baybars staged one of his many incursions against the Kingdom of Jerusalem. All the Crusader states were by this time in brisk decline, brought about by the Mamluks’ incessant incursions. On this occasion, as a deliberate act of hostility towards his Christian opponents, he ordered the destruction of the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, a site of fundamental importance to Christianity.2 The recollection of such stories immediately evokes some of the darkest and best-known judgements made about the wars of the crusading period: the idea that cumulatively they represented a bitter and cruel contest between two diametrically opposed religions, each bent on the other’s destruction. Even so, such tales need to be bal- anced with other reports. In 1111, the Antiochene ruler Tancred decided that he could no longer maintain his siege on the Arab town of Shaizar. He then attempted to withdraw his forces, but immediately came under heavy attack. At that 1 Yūḥannā ibn Wahb, History of the patriarchs of the Egyptian Church, ed. A. Khater and O.H.E. Burmester, vol. 4, pt 2, Cairo, 1974, pp. 268-9; see S. Moawad, ‘Yūḥannā ibn Wahb’, in CMR 4, 316-19, pp. 318-19. 2 D. Pringle, The churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A corpus, vol. 2, Cam- bridge, 1998, p. 121; Ibn al-Furāt, Ayyubids, Mamlukes and Crusaders. Selections from the Tārīkh al-duwal wa’l-mulūk, trans. U. Lyons and M.C. Lyons, Cambridge, 1971, vol. 2, p. 56. 282 the crusades to the eastern mediterranean moment, an unnamed warrior stepped out from the Christian ranks and single-handedly protected the Christian column, holding his enemies at bay so that the army could escape. Soon afterwards, this same warrior set off to Shaizar to converse with his erstwhile enemies and to compare notes about their martial skills. He arrived at Shaizar bearing a letter of introduction and clearly expected to receive his former foes’ hospitality and welcome. The rulers of Shaizar were probably rather surprised by his arrival but, nonetheless, they had been impressed by his valour and it seems they received him warmly.3 In 1211, the German pilgrim Wilbrand of Oldenburg landed at the Cru- sader city of Acre and then began to make his way north on an embas- sage for his master, the Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV (r. 1209-15). En route, he visited the Templar stronghold of Tartus. Within the town was the famous Church of St Mary the Virgin, where Wilbrand not only noted the presence of Muslim worshippers, but even observed that the Virgin granted miracles to both Christians and Muslims.4 These four episodes have been plucked out from among the hundreds of reports arising from the history of the Crusader states on the Levantine mainland (1097-1291). As should already be clear, such tales are far from consistent in the way they report relations between Christians and Mus- lims, and thus reflect the diversity of contemporary interactions. This chapter offers a survey of the main features of Christian-Islamic relations in this period. It seeks to reveal the complexity of cross-cultural interac- tions whilst demonstrating how war, faith, trade and realpolitik could create some fascinating and – at times – bizarre relationships across eth- nic and religious boundaries. As a first step, it is necessary to begin with two important predi- cates, which will be discussed over the next few pages. The first is to recognise the sheer diversity of the ethnic and religious groups spread across the Middle East region. The second is to show that each of these communities had a complex range of objectives, alliances, enmi- ties and interests that were defined by many factors – not simply their religious identity – creating an intricate web of relationships. Both these points became clear to the First Crusaders during their jour- ney to Jerusalem, and they encountered a huge variety of societies en 3 Usāma ibn Munqidh, The book of contemplation. Islam and the crusades, trans. P.M. Cobb, London, 2008, pp. 80-1; see A. Mallett, ‘Usāma ibn Munqidh’, in CMR 3, 764-8. 4 Wilbrand of Oldenburg, ‘Peregrinatio’, in J.C. Laurent (ed.), Peregrinatores medii aevi quatuor, Leipzig, 1864, 169-70..
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