A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (40 page)

The advantages brought by the Military Orders
were balanced by grave disadvantages. The King had no control over them, for
their only suzerain was the Pope. Lands that were given to them were held in
mortmain; no services were due from them. They refused to let their tenants pay
the
dime
due to the Church. The knights fought with the King’s armies
merely as voluntary allies. Occasionally the King or a lord might put a castle
under their temporary control, and they were sometimes asked to act as trustees
for a minor. In such cases they were liable for the proper services. The Grand
Masters or their deputies sat in the High Court of the kingdom; and their
representatives on the High Courts of the Prince of Antioch and the Count of
Tripoli. But the advice that they gave there was apt to be irresponsible. If
they disliked the official policy they might refuse to co-operate, as when the
Templars boycotted the expedition to Egypt in 1158. The perpetual rivalry
between the two Orders was a constant danger. It was seldom that they could be
induced to campaign together. Each Order followed its own line in diplomacy,
regardless of the official policy of the kingdom. We find both Orders making
their treaties with Moslem rulers; and the story of the negotiations with the
Assassins in 1172 shows the Templars’ readiness to upset an obviously desirable
arrangement in the interest of their financial advantages and their frank
disdain of the authority of the royal courts. The Hospitallers were throughout
more temperate and unselfish; but even with them the Order took precedence over
the kingdom.

The Italian
Merchant Cities

A similar balance of advantage and disadvantage
was shown in the relations between the Frankish states and the Italian and
Provencal merchant-cities. The Frankish colonists were soldiers, not sailors.
Tripoli and Antioch each later developed a small fleet, and the Orders built
flotillas, but the kingdom itself, with its few good harbours and general
shortage of timber, never had an adequate naval establishment. For any
expedition that involved sea-power such as the conquest of the coastal towns or
the campaigns against Egypt, it was necessary to invoke the help of some
maritime power. The two great sea-powers of the East were Byzantium and Egypt.
But Egypt was always a potential and often a real enemy, and Byzantium was
always suspect. The Sicilian fleet could have been useful; but Sicilian policy
was untrustworthy. The Italians and southern French were better allies; and
their help was further needed to keep open the sea-routes to the West and to transport
pilgrims, soldiers and colonists to Outremer. But the merchant-cities had to be
paid. They demanded trading facilities and rights, their own quarters in the
larger towns, and the complete or partial freedom from customs-dues; and their
colonies had to be given extra-territorial privileges. These concessions were
not on the whole resented by the Frankish authorities. Any loss in revenue was
balanced by the trade that they stimulated; and the royal courts had no wish to
have to administer Genoese or Venetian law, especially as cases involving a
citizen of the kingdom, or of serious crime, such as murder, were reserved to
them. Occasionally there were disputes. The Venetians were at perpetual enmity
with the Archbishop of Tyre; and the Genoese had a long quarrel with King
Amalric I. In both cases the Papacy supported the Italians, who probably had
legal right on their side. But the merchant-cities were out not for the welfare
of Christendom but for their own commercial gain. Usually the two interests coincided;
but if they clashed the immediate commercial interest prevailed. The Italians
and Provencals were therefore unsteady friends for the King. Moreover, the
jealousy between the two great Orders was pale beside that between the various
merchant-cities. Venice would far sooner help the Moslems than help Genoa or
Pisa or Marseilles; and her rivals held similar views. Thus, while the help
given by them all was essential in maintaining the existence of Outremer,
intrigues and riots between their colonists and their bland readiness to betray
the common cause for momentary profit cancelled out much of its value.

To pilgrims in particular they seemed
shamefully greedy and un-Christian. The conquest greatly stimulated the
pilgrim-traffic; the huge hostel of the Hospitallers was usually full. Despite
the original purpose of the Crusade the route across Anatolia was still unsafe.
Only a well-armed company could brave its dangers. The average pilgrim
preferred to travel by sea. He had to obtain a berth in an Italian ship; and
the fares were very high. A number of pilgrims might band together to charter a
whole ship, but even so a captain and crew were costly to hire. It was cheaper
for a pilgrim from northern France or England to travel in one of the small
convoys that sailed yearly from the Channel ports to the East. But that was a
long, perilous journey. Atlantic storms had to be faced; there were Moslem
corsairs lying in wait in the Straits of Gibraltar and along the African coast.
From Oporto or Lisbon to Sicily there were no ports at which water or
provisions could be safely obtained, and it was difficult to carry sufficient
supplies for the men and horses on board. It was far simpler to go overland to
Provence or Italy and there embark in vessels well used to the voyage. For a
single pilgrim a berth was found more easily and cheaply in ports in the King
of Sicily’s domain; but large parties were dependent on the fleets of the great
merchant-cities.

Clothes

When he landed at Acre or Tyre or St Symeon,
the traveller found himself at once in a strange atmosphere. Beneath the feudal
superstructure Outremer was an eastern land. The luxury of its life impressed
and shocked Occidentals. In western Europe life was still simple and austere.
Clothes were made of wool and seldom laundered. Washing facilities were few,
except in some old towns where the tradition of Roman baths lingered on. Even
in the greatest castle furniture was rough and utilitarian and carpets were
almost unknown. Food was coarse and lacked variety, especially during the long
winter months. There was little comfort and little privacy anywhere. The
Frankish East made a startling contrast. There were not, perhaps, many houses
as large and splendid as the palace built early next century by the Ibelins at
Beirut, with its mosaic floors, its marble walls and its painted ceilings, and
great windows looking, some westward over the sea, and others eastward over
gardens and orchards to the mountains. The Royal Palace at Jerusalem, lodged in
part of al-Aqsa Mosque, was certainly humbler, though the palace at Acre was a
sumptuous edifice. But every noble and rich bourgeois filled his town-house
with similar splendour. There were carpets and damask hangings, elegantly
carved and inlaid tables and coffers, spotless bed-linen and table-linen,
dinner-services in gold and silver, cutlery, fine faience and even a few dishes
of porcelain from the Farther East. In Antioch water was brought by aqueducts
and pipes to all the great houses from the springs at Daphne. Many houses along
the Lebanese coast had their private supplies. In Palestine, where water was
less abundant, the cities had well-organized storage tanks; and in Jerusalem
the sewerage system installed by the Romans was still in perfect order. The
great frontier-fortresses were almost as comfortably appointed as the
town-houses, grim and fierce though life might be outside the walls. They had
baths, elegant chambers for the ladies of the household and sumptuous reception
halls. Castles belonging to the Military Orders were slightly more austere; but
in the great family seats, such as Kerak in Moab or Tiberias, the chatelain
lived more splendidly than any king in western Europe.

The clothes of the settlers soon became as
Oriental and luxurious as their furnishings. When a knight was not in armour he
wore a silk burnous and usually a turban. On campaigns he wore a linen surcoat
over his armour, to protect the metal from the heat of the sun, and a
kefieh
in the Arab style over his helmet. The ladies adopted the traditional eastern
fashion of a long under-robe and a short tunic or coat, heavily embroidered
with gold thread and maybe with jewels. In winter they wore furs, as did their
husbands. Out of doors they were veiled like the Moslem women, but less from
modesty than to protect their complexions, which were generously covered with
paint; and they affected a mincing gait. But, for all their airs of delicacy
and langour, they were as courageous as their husbands and brothers. Many a
noblewoman was called upon to lead the defence of her castle in the absence of
her lord. The wives of merchants copied the ladies of the aristocracy and often
outshone them in the richness of their apparel. The successful courtesans — a
class unknown hitherto in western society — were equally gorgeous. Of Paschia
de Riveri, the shopkeeper’s wife from Nablus whose charms ensnared the
Patriarch Heraclius, the chronicler says that you would have thought her a
countess or a baroness from her silks and jewels.

Strange though this luxury seemed to the western
pilgrim, it was natural to a visitor from the Moslem East or from Byzantium.
The Frankish colonists had inevitably to try to fit into their new environment,
and they could not escape contact with their subjects and their neighbours.
There was the climate to consider. Winters in Palestine and Syria can be almost
as bleak and cold as in western Europe, but they are short. The long,
sweltering summers soon taught the colonists that they must wear different
clothes, eat different foods and keep different hours. The vigorous habits of
the north were out of place. Instead, they must learn native ways. They must
employ native servants. Native nurses looked after their children, and native
grooms their horses. There were strange diseases about, for which their own
doctors were useless; they soon had to rely on native medicine. Inevitably they
learnt to understand the natives and to work in with them. In the Kingdom of
Jerusalem and the County of Tripoli the absence of a native aristocracy to
challenge their rule, once the Moslems had fled, made this easy. Farther north,
the Greek and Armenian aristocracy were jealous of them and politics interfered
with their mutual understanding; though the Armenians in the end met them
half-way and adopted many Frankish habits.

Friendship with
the Moslems

Between the Franks and their Moslem neighbours
there could never be lasting peace, but there was increasing contact. The
revenues of the Frankish states came largely from tolls levied on the trade
between the Moslem interior and the coast. Moslem merchants must be allowed to
come down freely to the seaports and must be treated fairly. Out of their
commercial connections friendship grew. The Order of the Temple, with its great
banking activities, was ready to extend its operations to oblige infidel clients
and kept officials who could specialize in Moslem affairs. At the same time the
wiser statesmen amongst the Franks saw that their kingdom could only last if
the Moslem world were kept disunited; and for this purpose diplomatic missions
passed to and fro. Frankish and Moslem lords were often received with honour at
courts of the rival faith. Captives or hostages often spent years in the
enemies’ castles or palaces. Though few Moslems troubled to learn French, many
Franks, nobles as well as merchants, spoke Arabic. A few, like Reynald of
Sidon, even took an interest in the Arabic literature. In times of war each
side appreciated gestures of gallantry and chivalry. In times of peace lords
from either side of the frontier would join together in hunting expeditions.

Nor was there complete religious intolerance.
The two great Faiths shared a common background. The Moslem chroniclers were as
interested as the Christian when relics believed to be of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob were discovered at Hebron. Even in times of hostility Frankish pilgrims
could penetrate to the shrine of Our Lady of Sardenay in the hills behind
Damascus; and the protection given by the Bedouins to the great monastery of St
Catherine in the Sinai desert was usually extended to its visitors. Reynald of
Chatillon’s brutal treatment of Moslem pilgrims shocked his fellow-believers
almost as much as it infuriated Saladin. William of Tyre was ready to pay
tribute to Nur ed-Din’s piety, though he disagreed with his creed. Moslem
writers often showed admiration of Frankish chivalry.

The atmosphere of the time is best illustrated
in the memoirs of the Munqidhite prince Usama of Shaizar. The Munqidhites were
a petty dynasty in constant fear of absorption by more powerful
co-religionists. They were therefore ready to come to terms with the Franks;
and Usama himself spent many years at the courts of Damascus and Cairo when
both were in close diplomatic connection with Jerusalem. As an envoy, a tourist
and a sportsman Usama often visited Frankish lands, and, though when writing he
consigns them all piously to perdition, he had many Frankish friends whose
conversation he enjoyed. He was shocked by the crudity of their medicine,
though he learnt from them a sure cure for scrofula, and he was astounded by
the latitude allowed to their women; and he was embarrassed when a Frankish
acquaintance offered to send his son to be educated in western Europe. He
thought them a little barbarous, and would laugh about them with his native
Christian friends. But they were people with whom he could reach an
understanding. The one bar to friendship was provided by newcomers from the
West. Once when he was staying with the Templars at Jerusalem and was praying
with their permission in the corner of the old Mosque al-Aqsa, a knight roughly
insulted him; whereupon another Templar hurried up to explain that the rude man
had only just arrived from Europe and did not as yet know any better.