Sylvia Schein The Image of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Thirteenth Century In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 64 fasc. 4, 1986. Histoire - Geschiedenis. pp. 704-717. Citer ce document / Cite this document : Schein Sylvia. The Image of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Thirteenth Century. In: Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire. Tome 64 fasc. 4, 1986. Histoire - Geschiedenis. pp. 704-717. doi : 10.3406/rbph.1986.3558 http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_0035-0818_1986_num_64_4_3558 The Image of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the Thirteenth Century (*) Sylvia Schein It is generally agreed among historians of the crusader kingdom that as its fortunes declined during the thirteenth century, it became increasingly criticized for its inadequacies ; this criticism, it is argued, culminated in Christendom's reaction to the fall of the kingdom in 1291 (l). However, a detailed analysis of this reaction as revealed in chronicles, treatises of the apologists as well as the De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae memoranda show surprinsingly little adverse comments than those made about the crusader kingdom earlier in the thirteenth century ; it appears more mild and indulgent than one would assume. The criticism levelled against the kingdom immediately after its fall can be summarily grouped under four headings : endless quarrels and dissensions among the various conflicting factions ; lack of leadership ; the attitude of the Franks towards the Moslem enemy ; finally, the moral conduct of the inhabitants of Outremer. Referring to the government of the kingdom our sources present it as a (* ) This study is partly based on my unpublished Ph. D. thesis : The West and the Crusade Attitudes and Attempts, 1291-1312 (Cambridge, England, 1980). (1) See e.g., S. Runiciman, A History of the Crusades, Cambridge U.P. 1954 (1971 ed.), vol. Ill, pp. 414 if. - G. B. Flahiff, "Deus Non Vult: A Critic of the Third Crusade", Medieval Studies, IV (1947), 169 n. 32. - E. Stickel, Der Fall vonAkkon. Untersuchungen zum Abklingen des Kreuzzugsgedankens am Ende des 13. Jahrhunderts, Frankfiirt/M. 1975, passim. - J. Prawer, Histoire du royaume Latin de Jerusalem, Paris 1970 (1975 ed.), vol. II, pp. 375 ff. et passim. The following abbreviations wil be used : MGH.SS for Moumenta Germaniae historica... Scriptores -, RHGF for Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France -, RIS for Rerum Italicarum Scriptores ·, RfSNS for Rerum Italicarum Scriptores Nova Series ; RS for Rolls Series. Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores ; SRG for Scriptores Rerum Germanica- rum ; ROL for Revue de l'Orient Latin -, AOL for Archives de l'Orient Latin -, HL for Histoire Littéraire de la France-, RHC.HOcc for Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. Historiens Occidentaux -, PL for Patrologia Latina. THE CRUSADER KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM 705 state of permanent bickering and competition, a war of all against all (2), prominent among them the seven lords of the city : the Templars, the Hospitallers, the Teutonic Knight, the consul of the Pisans, the king of Cyprus, King Charles II of Sicily and the patriarch of Jerusalem. Those seven "disagreed not only about the government but even about the defence of the kingdom" (3). The number of discordant factions in Acre on the eve of its fall amounts in Giovanni Villani's "Universal History", written two generations or so after the event, to seventeen (4). Among the ever warring factions the Military Orders and the Communes were particularly criticized. As recently shown by several studies the Military Orders, the Temple and the Hospital of Outremer were especially subject to criticism almost since their foundation (5). That criticism at the moment of the loss of Holy Land echoes accusations which were already prevailing : their constant quarrels and jealousies undermined the existence of the crusader state (6). And yet did the loss of the Holy Land intensify the existing hostility of public opinion ? Actually (2) Gesta Boemundim Gesta Treverorum, MGH.SS., XXVI, 475. - Continuatio Weichardi de Polhaim, MGH.SS, IX, 8 1 3. — Petrus de Dusbergg Cronica Terre Prussie, Scriptores Rerum Prussicarum, ed. Th. Hirsch et al., Leipzig 1861, I, 208 : Causa destructions hujus civitatis fuit duplex, prima diversitas dominorum, qui in defensione ipsius discordabant, secunda, quod cruce signati, quos dominus papa misit in subsidium, erant sine capite et rebelles et treugas continue infringebant. — Eberhardi Archidiaconi Ratisponensis Annales, MGH.SS, XVII, 594 — Bernardus Guidonis, Flores Chronicorum, RHGF, XXI, 709 : Causa autem proditionis ejusdem fuisse fertur multitude dominorum et diversitas nationum ibidem, quae faciebant contrarietatem voluntatum... — Franciscus Pipinus Chronicon, RIS, DC, 734 : causa proditionis fuisse multitudinem Dominorum et diversitatem Nationum ibidem, quae faciebant contrarieta temvoluntatum. — Johannis Abbatis Victoriensis Liber Certarum Historiarum, ed. F. Schnei der,I, SRG, Hannover - Leipzig 1909, pp. 302-304. - Ptolemaeus Lucensis, Annales, RIS, XI, 1196 : Una [ causa ] fuit diversitas voluntatum in dominis quia non simul concordabant in regimine sive defensione terrae. Erant autem ibidem VI vel VII Domini videlicet Templarii, Hospitalarii, Theutonici, Consul Pisanus, Rex Cypri, Rex Carolus, item Patriarcha. Propter hanc igitur diversitatem Soldanus invalescit ad expugnandum civitatem. — Joannis Elemosinae Liber Historariarum, ed. G. Golubovich, Biblioteca bio-bibliograflca della Terra Santa e dell' Oriente francescano, II, Quaracchi 1913, p. 109: ...Et cum christiani capud principale et ducem exercitus non haberent quia aliqui sequebantur Magistrum Templi et milites eius, alii Magistrum et milites Hospitalis, et alii alios capitaneos et principes, et sic unanimes non erant et in unum concordati... (3) See above, n. 2. (4) Giovanni Villani, Historia Universalis, RIS, XIII, 337. (5) J. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus 1050-1310, London 1967, pp. 201-202, 385-389. - J. Prawer, "Military Orders and Crusader Politics in the Second half of the Xlllth Century", Die Geistlichen Ritterorden Europas, ed. J. Fleckenstein et M. Hellmann, Sigmaringen 1980, pp. 217-229. - A. J. Forey, "The Military Orders in the Crusading Proposals of the Late-Thirteenth and Early-Fourteenth Centuries", Traditio, 36 (1980), 317-345. (6) Weichard de Polhaim, p. 8 1 3. — Eberhardi Archidiaconi Ratisponensis Annales, p. 594. — Chronicon Salisburgense, ed. H. Pez, Scriptores Rerum Austriacarum, I (1791) 390. — Annales de Dunstaplia, ed. H. R. Luard, Annales Monastici, III, RS, London 1869, p. 336. 706 S. SCHEIN surprisingly few chroniclers put the blame for the calamity upon the Military Orders. If they became a subject of a public debate, this was the result, it seems, of the widely diffused encyclical, the Dura nimis of 18 August 1291, which put on the agenda to be discussed by provincial church councils to be convoked all over the Christendom, the formulation of measures for the recovery of the Holy Land and the union of the Hospital and the Temple (7). It is thus possible that it was the papal demand which in a roundabout way shifted the responsibility for the calamity on to the dissenting orders, a view easily assimilated into the local church councils' decisions (8). Thus : "It was the opinion of many that if the brothers of those Houses, that is of the Hospital, Temple and the Teutonic Knights, and the rest of the people had been in agreement, the city of Acre would not have been captured" (9). The recommendations of the church councils were, it should be remarked, even more radical than those of the De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae treatises composed close to the loss of the Holy Land. Neither Fidenzio of Padua, who completed his treatise on the eve of the disaster (before January 1291) (10) nor Ramon Lull, who presented his Tractatus de modo convertendi infidèles seu Lo Passatge early in 1292 to Pope Nicholas IV (who died on 4 April 1292), ever suggested the merger of the Military Orders (n). As far as the plans for the recovery of the Holy Land are concerned, this demand appeared for the first time in the treatise of Charles II of Anjou, completed during the papal interregnum following the death of Nicholas IV, between 4 April 1292 and 5 July 1294, the date of the election of Celestine V(12). (7) Les Registres de Nicholas IV, ed. M. Langlois, Paris 1886-91, no. 6793-9. (8) Chronicon Salisburgense, p. 390 (for the council of Salzburg). — Eberhardi Archidia- coni Ratisponensis Annales, p. 594 (for the same council). - Weichard de Polhaim, p. 813 (also for the council of Salzburg). — Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, ed. G. D. Mansi, XXIV, 1079 (the council of Milano). - Councils and Synods with Other Documents relating to the English Church, éd. F. M. Powicke et C. R. Cheney, Oxford 1964, II, pp. 1099, 1109, 1113 (the decisions of the council of Canterbury). — Bartholomew Cotton, Historia Anglicana, ed. H. R. Luard, RS, London 1859, p. 913 (the council of Lyons) ; pp. 214-215 (council of Aries). - Johannis de Thilrode Chronicon, MGH.SS., XXV, 581 (council of Rheims). (9) See above, n. 6. (10) This is the most recent date mentioned in the treatise. See Fidentius de Padua, Liber recuperationis Terrae Sanctae, ed. G. Golubovich, Biblioteca, II, Quaracchi 1913, pp. 9, 25. A. S. Atiya, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages, London 1938, pp. 38, 43, 470, points out that the mention of the Hijra year narrows down the completion to the first three days of 1291, but he mistakenly assumes that it was written before the fall of Tripoli (1289). A. J. Forey refers mistakenly to the treatise as composed after the fall of Acre (A. J. Forey, p. 318). (11) Ramon Lull, Tractatus de modo convertendi infldelis, éd. J. Rambaud-Buhot, Beau Magistri R. Lulli Opera Latino, III, Palma 1954, pp. 96 if. (12) Charles II de Anjou, "Le Conseil du Roi Charles", ed. G. I. Brattanu, Revue du sud-est Européen, IXI (1942) 356. It is difficult to agree with Bratianu that Charles' Conseil was the first of the De recuperatione Terrae Sanctae treatises submitted to Pope Nicholas IV after the loss of the Holy Land.