A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (42 page)

1150: Turbessel
ceded to Byzantium

It then remained to settle the government of
the two lordless domains. On Joscelin’s capture, Nur ed-Din had attacked
Turbessel; but the Countess Beatrice put up so spirited a defence that he
withdrew. It was clear, nevertheless, that Turbessel could not be held. It was
overcrowded with Frankish and Armenian refugees from the outlying districts.
The Jacobite Christians were openly disloyal; and the whole area was cut off
from Antioch by Nur ed-Din’s conquests. The Countess was preparing to abandon
her lands when a message came through from the Emperor Manuel. He was aware of
the situation, and he offered to purchase from her all that was left of her
county. Beatrice dutifully referred the offer to King Baldwin, who was at
Antioch. The lords of his kingdom who were with him and the lords of Antioch
discussed the offer. They were loth to hand over territory to a hated Greek;
but they decided that it would at least be the Emperor’s fault now if the
places were lost to Christendom. The Byzantine governor of Cilicia, Thomas,
brought bags of gold — how many, we are not told — to the Countess at Antioch;
and in return she handed over to his soldiers the six fortresses of Turbessel,
Ravendel, Samosata, Aintab, Duluk and Birejik. The King’s army accompanied the
Byzantine garrisons on their journey, and escorted back the many Frankish and
Armenian refugees who distrusted Byzantine rule and preferred the greater
safety of Antioch. The Countess reserved one fortress from the sale, Ranculat
or Rum Kalaat, on the Euphrates near Samosata, which she gave to the Armenian
Catholicus. It remained his residence, under Turkish suzerainty, for a century
and a half. As the royal army and the refugees travelled back, Nur ed-Din tried
to surprise them at Aintab; but the King’s excellent organization preserved
them. His chief barons, Humphrey of Toron and Robert of Sourdeval, vainly
begged him to allow them to take possession of Aintab in his name; but he abode
by the bargain with the Emperor.

Why the Emperor made the bargain is uncertain.
The Franks believed that in his pride he thought that he could hold them. It is
unlikely that he was so badly misinformed. Rather, he was looking ahead. He
hoped before long to come in force to Syria. If he lost them now he could
recover them then; and his claim would be beyond dispute. In fact, he lost them
in less than a year, to an alliance between Nur ed-Din and the Seldjuk Mas’ud.
The alliance had been made on the morrow of Joscelin’s capture, and had been
sealed by the marriage of Nur ed-Din to Mas’ud’s daughter. Turbessel was to be
her dowry. But Mas’ud had not joined his son-in-law in his attack on Beatrice;
he contented himself with capturing Kaisun and Behesni, in the north of the
county, giving them to his son Kilij Arslan. But in the spring of 1151 he and
Nur ed-Din both attacked the Byzantine garrisons; and the Ortoqids hurried to
take their share. Aintab and Duluk fell to Mas’ud, Samosata and Birejik to the
Ortoqid Timurtash of Mardin, and Ravendel to Nur ed-Din. At Turbessel itself
the Byzantines resisted for a while but were starved out and surrendered to Nur
ed-Din’s lieutenant, Hasan of Menbij, in July 1151. All traces of the County of
Edessa were gone. The Countess Beatrice retired to Jerusalem with her children,
Joscelin and Agnes; who in time to come were to play disastrous parts in the
downfall of the kingdom.

1150: Princess
Constance’s Suitors

Edessa was gone, but Antioch remained. Raymond’s
death left the Princess Constance a widow with four young children. The throne
was hers by right; but it was felt that in such times a man must govern. Her
elder son, Bohemond III, was five years old at his father’s death. Till he came
of age there must be a male regent. The Patriarch Aimery had taken charge at
the moment of crisis; but lay opinion disliked the idea of a clerical regency.
It was clear that the young Princess ought to remarry. In the meantime the
proper regent should be her cousin, King Baldwin, acting as her nearest male
relative rather than as an overlord. Baldwin had hastened to Antioch on the
news of Raymond’s death. He dealt with the situation with a wisdom rare in a
boy of nineteen, and his authority was universally accepted. He returned in the
early summer of 1150, to give his authority to the sale of Countess Beatrice’s
lands. But he had too many anxieties in the south to wish to remain responsible
for Antioch. He urged Constance, who was only twenty-two, to choose another
husband and himself suggested three alternative candidates, first, Yves of
Nesle, Count of Soissons, a wealthy French noble who had come to Palestine in
the wake of the Second Crusade and was ready to make his home there; secondly,
Walter of Falconberg, of the family of Saint-Omer, which had held the lordship
of Galilee in the past; and thirdly Ralph of Merle, a gallant baron of the
County of Tripoli. But Constance would have none of them; and Baldwin had to
return to Jerusalem leaving her in possession of her government.

Irritated by her young cousin’s importunities,
Constance at once changed her policy and sent an embassy to Constantinople to
ask the Emperor Manuel as her overlord to choose her a husband. Manuel was
eager to comply with her wishes. Byzantine influence had been declining along
the south-eastern frontier of the Empire. About the year 1143 the Armenian
Prince, Thoros the Roupenian, had escaped from Constantinople and taken refuge
at the Court of his cousin, Joscelin II of Edessa. There he gathered a company
of compatriots, with which he recaptured the family stronghold of Vahka, in the
eastern Taurus mountains. Two of his brothers, Stephen and Mleh joined him, and
he made friends with a neighbouring Frankish lord, Simon of Raban, whose
daughter he married. In 1151, while the Byzantines were distracted by the Moslem
attack on Turbessel, he swept down into the Cilician plain and defeated and
slew the Byzantine governor, Thomas, at the gates of Mamistra. Manuel at once
sent his cousin Andronicus with an army to recover the territory lost to
Thoros; and now there came the timely chance to place his own candidate on the
throne of Antioch.

Neither project succeeded. Andronicus Comnenus
was the most brilliant and fascinating member of his talented family, but he
was rash and careless. As he moved up to besiege Thoros at Mamistra, the
Armenians made a sudden sortie and caught him unawares. His army was routed and
he fled back in disgrace to Constantinople. In choosing a husband for
Constance, Manuel showed greater ingenuity than sense. He sent his
brother-in-law, the Caesar John Roger, the widower of his favourite sister
Maria. John Roger was a Norman by birth, and though he had once plotted to
secure the imperial throne, he was now a proved and trusted friend of the
Emperor; who knew that he could count on his loyalty but believed that his
Latin birth would make him acceptable to the Frankish nobility. He forgot about
Constance herself. John Roger was frankly middle-aged and had lost all his
youthful charm. The young Princess, whose first husband had been famed for his
beauty, would not consider so unromantic a mate. She bade the Caesar return to
the Emperor. It would have been better if Manuel had sent Andronicus to Antioch
and John Roger to fight in Cilicia.

1152: The Murder
of Raymond II

King Baldwin would have welcomed almost any
husband for his cousin; for he had recently acquired a new responsibility. The
married life of Count Raymond II of Tripoli and his wife Hodierna of Jerusalem
was not entirely happy. Hodierna, like her sisters Melisende and Alice, was headstrong
and gay. Doubts were whispered about the legitimacy of her daughter Melisende.
Raymond, passionately jealous of her, attempted to keep her in a state of
Oriental seclusion. Early in 1152 their relations were so bad that Queen
Melisende felt it her duty to intervene. Together with her son the King, she
travelled to Tripoli to patch up a reconciliation. Baldwin used the opportunity
to summon Constance to Tripoli, where her two aunts scolded her for her
obstinate widowhood. But, perhaps because neither of them had made an
outstanding success of married life, their lectures were unavailing. Constance
returned to Antioch promising nothing. With Raymond and Hodierna the Queen was
more effective. They agreed to compose their quarrel; but it was thought best that
Hodierna should enjoy a long holiday at Jerusalem. Baldwin decided to stay on
at Tripoli for a while as there were rumours that Nur ed-Din was going to
attack the County. The Queen and the Countess set out on the road southward,
escorted for a mile or so by the Count. As he rode back through the south gate
of his capital a band of Assassins leapt out on him and stabbed him to death.
Ralph of Merle and another knight who were with him tried to protect him, only
to perish themselves. It was all over so quickly that his guard were unable to
catch the murderers. The King was playing at dice in the castle when cries came
up from the city below. The garrison rushed to arms and poured into the
streets, slaying every Moslem that they saw. But the Assassins escaped; nor was
the motive of their act ever known.

Messengers were sent to bring back the Queen
and the Countess, and Hodierna assumed the regency in the name of her twelve-year
old son, Raymond III. But, as at Antioch, a man was needed as guardian of the
government; and Baldwin, as the nearest male relative was obliged to take on
the guardianship. Nur ed-Din at once made an incursion as far as Tortosa, which
his troops held for a while. They were soon driven out; and Baldwin, with
Hodierna’s consent, handed over Tortosa to the Knights of the Temple.

1152: Melisende
yields to her Son

Baldwin was glad to be able to return to
Jerusalem. Queen Melisende, conscious of her hereditary right, was unwilling to
hand power over to her son. But he was now over twenty-two years of age and
public opinion demanded his coronation as an adult ruler. The Queen therefore
arranged with the Patriarch Fulcher that she should be crowned again by his
side, in order that her joint authority should be explicitly admitted. The
coronation was to take place on Easter Sunday, 30 March; but Baldwin postponed
it. Then, on the Tuesday, when his mother suspected nothing, he entered the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre with an escort of knights and forced the angry
Patriarch to crown him alone. It was the signal for an open breach. The Queen
had many friends. Manasses of Hierges, her protege, was still Constable; his
family connections included the great Ibelin clan, which controlled the
Philistian plain; and many of the nobles of southern Palestine were of his
party. It was noticeable that when Baldwin went to Antioch in 1149, few of the
nobility would accompany an expedition in which the Queen was not interested.
Baldwin’s friends came from the north. They were led by Humphrey of Toron and
William of Falconberg, whose estates were in Galilee. The King did not venture
to have recourse to force. He summoned a great council of the realm, before
which he pleaded his claims. Thanks to the influence of the clergy, he was
obliged to accept a compromise. He could have Galilee and the north as his
realm; but Melisende would retain Jerusalem itself and Nablus, that is to say,
Judaea and Samaria; and the coast, where the King’s young brother Amalric held
the County of Jaffa, was under her sovereignty. It was an impossible solution;
and before many months were passed, the King demanded from his mother the
cession of Jerusalem. Without Jerusalem, he said, he could not undertake the
defence of the kingdom. With Nur ed-Din’s power growing daily, the argument was
forceful; and even her best supporters began to desert the Queen’s cause. But
she held firm and fortified Jerusalem and Nablus against her son.
Unfortunately, the Constable Manasses was surprised and captured by the King’s
troops at his castle of Mirabel, on the edge of the coastal plain. His life was
spared on his promise to leave the East and never to return. Nablus thereupon
surrendered to the King. Melisende, deserted by the lay nobility but supported
still by the Patriarch, tried to hold out in Jerusalem. But the citizens also
turned against her and obliged her to give up the struggle. After a few days
she yielded the city to her son. He took no strong action against her; for
legal opinion seems to have held that right, if not expediency, was on her
side. She was allowed to retain Nablus and the neighbourhood as her dower; and,
though she retired from lay politics, she retained the patronage over the
Church. Baldwin, supreme now in the lay government, replaced Manasses as
Constable with his friend Humphrey of Toron.

These dynastic troubles in the ruling Frankish
families had been very much to Nur ed-Din’s liking. He did not trouble to make
any serious attacks against the Christians during these years; for he had a
more urgent task to complete, the conquest of Damascus. After the failure of
the Second Crusade Unur of Damascus kept up a desultory war against the
Christians for a few months; but fear of Nur ed-Din made him glad to accept
peace overtures from Jerusalem. In May 1149 a two-years’ truce was arranged.
Unur died soon afterwards, in August; and the Burid emir, Toghtekin’s grandson
Mujir ed-Din, in whose name Unur had ruled, took over the government. His
weakness gave Nur ed-Din his opportunity. He did not act at once; for his own
brother Saif ed-Din died in November, and a rearrangement of the family lands
ensued. The youngest brother, Qutb ed-Din, inherited Mosul and the territory in
Iraq, but he seems to have recognized Nur ed-Din as his superior. In March next
year Nur ed-Din advanced on Damascus; but heavy rains slowed his progress and
gave Mujir ed-Din time to ask for help from Jerusalem. Nur ed-Din therefore
retired on receiving a promise that his name should be mentioned on the coinage
and in the public prayers at Damascus after those of the Caliph and the Sultan
of Persia. His rights to a vague overlordship were thus admitted.