A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (28 page)

In the spring of 1142 John was ready to return
to Syria. As in 1136 he protected his rear by an alliance with the German
monarch against Roger of Sicily. His ambassadors visited the Court of Conrad
III, Lothair’s successor, to make the necessary arrangements and to seal the
friendship with a marriage. They returned in 1142, bringing with them Conrad’s
sister-in-law, Bertha of Sulzbach, who under the name of Irene was to be the
wife of John’s youngest son, Manuel. The good-will of the Italian maritime
cities was also assured. In the spring of 1142 John and his sons led his army
across Anatolia to Attalia, driving back the Seldjuks and their Turcoman
subjects who once again were trying to break through into Phrygia, and
strengthening the frontier defences. While he waited at Attalia the Emperor
suffered a heavy loss. His eldest son, Alexius, his appointed heir, fell ill
and died there. His second and third sons, Andronicus and Isaac, were detailed
to convey the body by sea to Constantinople; and during the voyage Andronicus
also died. Despite his grief, John pushed on to the east, giving out that he
was bound for upper Cilicia, to reconquer the fortresses that the Danishmends
had taken; for he did not wish to rouse the suspicions of the Franks. The army
passed by forced marches through Cilicia and across the upper Amanus range, the
Giaour Dagh, and in mid-September it appeared unexpectedly at Turbessel, the
second capital of Joscelin of Edessa. Joscelin, taken by surprise, hurried over
to pay homage to the Emperor and to offer him as hostage his daughter Isabella.
John then turned towards Antioch, and on 25 September he arrived at Baghras,
the great Templar castle that commanded the road from Cilicia to Antioch.
Thence he sent to Raymond to demand that the whole city be handed over to him,
and he repeated his offer to provide the Prince with a principality out of his
future conquests.

1142: John
returns to Cilicia

Raymond was frightened. It was certain that the
Emperor was now determined to follow up his demands with force; and it seems
that the native Christians were ready to help the Byzantines. The Franks tried
to gain time. Entirely changing the juridical position on which he had based
himself in 1131, Raymond answered that he must consult his vassals. A council
was held at Antioch at which the vassals, probably prompted by the new
Patriarch, declared that Raymond only ruled Antioch as the husband of its
heiress and therefore had no right to dispose of her territory, and that even
the Prince and Princess together could not alienate nor exchange the
principality without the consent of their vassals; who would dethrone them
should they attempt to do so. The Bishop of Jabala, who brought the council’s
answer to John, backed up the rejection of the imperial demand by citing the
authority of the Pope; but he offered John a solemn entry into Antioch. This
answer, completely counter to all Raymond’s previous undertakings, left John
with no alternative but war. But the season was too far advanced for immediate
action. After pillaging the property of the Franks in the neighbourhood of the
city, he retired into Cilicia, to recover the castles taken by the Danishmends,
and to spend the winter.

From Cilicia John sent an embassy to Jerusalem
to King Fulk, to announce his desire of paying a visit to the Holy Places, and
of discussing with the King joint action against the infidel. Fulk was
embarrassed. He had no wish for the great imperial army to descend into
Palestine; the price of the Emperor’s aid would inevitably be the recognition
of his suzerainty. The Bishop of Bethlehem, Anselm, accompanied by Roard,
castellan of Jerusalem, and by Geoffrey, abbot of the Temple, who was a good
Greek scholar, was sent to John to explain that Palestine was a poor country
which could not supply provender for the maintenance of so large an army as the
Emperor’s, but if he would care to come with a smaller escort the King would be
delighted to welcome him. John decided not to press his request further for the
moment.

In March 1143, when the Emperor’s preparations
for the reduction of Antioch were made, he took a brief holiday to go hunting
the wild boar in the Taurus mountains. In the course of a hunt he was
accidentally wounded by an arrow. He paid little attention to the wound; but it
became septic and soon he was dying of blood-poisoning. John faced his end with
composure. To the last he was at work arranging for the succession and the
smooth continuance of the government. His two elder sons were dead. The third,
Isaac, who was at Constantinople, was a youth of uncertain temper. John decided
that the youngest and most brilliant, Manuel, should be his heir, and he
persuaded his great friend, the Grand Domestic Axuch, to support Manuel’s
claim. With his own feeble hands he placed the crown on Manuel’s head and
summoned in his generals to acclaim the new Emperor. After making his last
confession to a holy monk from Pamphylia he died on 8 April.

John’s death saved Frankish Antioch. While
Axuch hurried to Constantinople ahead of the news, to secure the palace and the
government from any attempt by John’s son Isaac to claim the throne, Manuel led
the army back across Anatolia. Till he was sure of his capital there could be
no further adventures in the East. The imperial project was laid aside, but not
for long.

CHAPTER IV

THE FALL OF
EDESSA

‘An inheritance
may be gotten hastily at the beginning; but the end thereof shall not be
blessed.’
PROVERBS XX, 21

It was with relief that the Franks of the East
learnt of the Emperor’s death; and in their contentment they did not notice how
much more greatly relieved was their arch-enemy, the atabeg Zengi.
From
1141 for two years Zengi had been embarrassed by a desire of the Sultan Mas’ud
to reassert his authority over him. It was only by a timely show of submission,
accompanied by a gift of money and the dispatch of his son as a hostage that
Zengi averted an invasion into the territory of Mosul by the Sultan’s army. A
Byzantine conquest of Syria at that moment would have put an end to his western
schemes. They were further endangered by an alliance, formed by common fear of
him, between the King of Jerusalem and the atabeg of Damascus.

After the breakdown of the Franco-Byzantine
alliance in 1138, Zengi returned to the task of conquering Damascus. His siege
of Homs had twice been interrupted, first by the Frankish advance to
Montferrand, and secondly by the Byzantine siege of Shaizar. He now returned in
full force to Homs, and sent to Damascus to demand in marriage the hand of the
atabeg’s mother, the Princess Zumurrud, with Homs as her dowry. The Damascenes
were in no position to refuse. In June 1138 the dowager was married to Zengi;
and his troops entered Homs. As a gesture of good-will he enfeoffed the
governor of Homs, the aged mameluke Unur, with the newly conquered fortress of
Montferrand and some neighbouring castles.

Fortunately for the Burid dynasty of Damascus,
Unur did not take up his residence at Montferrand but came to Damascus. There,
on the night on 22 June 1139, the young atabeg, Shihab ed-Din Mahmud, was
murdered in his bed by three of his favourite pages. If Zengi, whose complicity
was suspected, had hoped thereby to take over the government, he was
disappointed. Unur at once assumed control. The murderers were crucified; and
the atabeg’s half-brother, Jemal ed-Din Mohammed, governor of Baalbek, was
summoned to take over Mahmud’s throne. In return Mohammed gave his mother and
Baalbek to Unur. But Unur stayed on at Damascus, in charge of the government.
This did not suit Zengi, who was urged on by his wife Zumurrud, and by a
brother of Mohammed’s, Bahram Shah, a personal enemy of Unur. In the late
summer of 1139 he laid siege to Baalbek, with a large army and fourteen
siege-engines. The town capitulated on 10 October; on the 21st the garrison of
the citadel, formed out of the ruins of the great temple of Baal, also
surrendered, after Zengi had sworn on the Koran to spare the lives of its
members. But Zengi broke his oath. They were all brutally massacred and their
women sold into captivity. The massacre was intended to terrify the Damascenes,
but it only hardened their resistance and led them to regard Zengi as a foe
outside the pale of the Faith.

1139
^:
Frankish Alliance with Damascus

During the last days of the year Zengi encamped
close to Damascus. He offered the atabeg Mohammed Baalbek or Homs, in exchange
for Damascus; and the young prince would have accepted had Unur permitted him.
On his refusal Zengi moved in to besiege the city. At this crisis, on 29 March
1140, Mohammed died. But Damascus was loyal to the Burids; and Unur without
difficulty elevated Mohammed’s youthful son Mujir ed-Din Abaq to the throne. At
the same time he decided that he would be justified, religiously as well as
politically, to call in the help of the Christians against his perfidious
enemy. An embassy led by the Munqidhite prince Usama left Damascus for
Jerusalem.

King Fulk had been attempting to take advantage
of the embarrassments of the Damascenes to strengthen his hold of Transjordan.
During the summer of 1139 he had received a visit from Thierry of Alsace, Count
of Flanders, whose wife Sibylla was his daughter by his first marriage; and
with Thierry’s help he invaded Gilead and with some difficulty captured a small
fortress near Ajlun, massacring its defenders. The effort had brought him
little profit; and when Unur offered him twenty thousand besants a month and
the return of the fortress of Banyas if he would drive Zengi from Damascus, he
was easily persuaded to change his policy. The idea of such an alliance was not
new. Already early in 1138 Usama had journeyed to Jerusalem on Unur’s behalf to
discuss its feasibility. But though the Frankish Court had given him an
honourable reception, his suggestions were rejected. Now the menace afforded by
Zengi’s growing power was better understood. When Fulk summoned his council to
consider the offer there was a general feeling that it should be accepted.

After hostages had been received from Damascus,
the Frankish army set out in April for Galilee. Fulk moved cautiously and
halted near Tiberias while his scouts went ahead. Zengi came down the opposite
coast of the Sea of Galilee to watch his movements, but, finding him
stationary, returned to the siege of Damascus. Thereupon Fulk advanced
northward. Zengi would not risk being caught between the Franks and the
Damascenes. He drew away from Damascus; and when Fulk met Unur’s forces a
little to the east of Lake Huleh, early in June, they learnt that Zengi had
retired to Baalbek. Some of Zengi’s troops returned later in the month to raid
right up to the walls of Damascus, but he and his main army retreated on
unscathed to Aleppo. The alliance had saved Damascene independence without a
battle. Unur remained true to his bargain. For some months past his troops had
been conducting a desultory siege of Banyas. Zengi’s lieutenant, Ibrahim ibn
Turgut took advantage of a lull in the siege to raid the coast near Tyre. There
he was surprised by an army led by Raymond of Antioch, who had come south to
help Fulk in the Damascene campaign. Ibrahim was defeated and killed. When Unur
himself appeared before Banyas, and was joined by Fulk and Raymond, who were
further encouraged by the visiting papal legate, Alberic of Beauvais, the
defenders soon decided to capitulate. Unur arranged that they should be
compensated with lands near Damascus. He then handed the city over to the
Franks, who installed its former governor, Rainier of Brus, while Adam,
Archdeacon of Acre, was appointed its bishop.

The alliance between Fulk and Unur was sealed
by a visit that Unur paid soon afterwards, accompanied by Usama, to the King’s
Court at Acre. They were given a cordial and flattering reception, and went on
to Haifa and Jerusalem, returning through Nablus and Tiberias. The tour was
conducted in an atmosphere of the greatest good-will, though Usama by no means
approved of everything that he saw. Fulk further showed his honest desire for
friendship with the Damascenes, when they complained to him of the raids
against their flocks committed by Rainier of Brus from Banyas. Rainier was
sternly ordered to end his forays and to pay compensation to his victims.

1140: Castles on
the Southern Frontier

By about the year 1140 King Fulk had reason to
be satisfied with his government. The position in northern Syria had
deteriorated since his predecessor’s days; nor did he enjoy such prestige or
authority there. It is doubtful whether Joscelin of Edessa even recognized him
as overlord. But in his own domain he was secure. He had learnt the lesson that
for the Franks to survive there, they must be less intransigent towards the
Moslems, but must be ready to make friends with the less dangerous of them; and
he had carried his nobles with him in this policy. At the same time he had
worked hard for the country’s defences. On the southern frontier three great
castles had been built to guard against raids from the Egyptians at Ascalon. At
Ibelin, some ten miles south-west of Lydda, at a well-watered spot that
commanded the junction of the roads from Ascalon to Jaffa and to Ramleh, he
used the ruins of the old Roman town of Jamnia to erect a splendid fortress
that was entrusted to Balian, surnamed ‘the Old’, brother of the Viscount of
Chartres. Balian had owned the land under the lords of Jaffa, and had won Fulk’s
favour by supporting the King against Hugh of Le Puiset. As chatelain of Ibelin
he was raised to the rank of a tenant-in-chief; and he married Helvis, heiress
of Ramleh. His descendants were to form the best-known noble family in the
Frankish East.