A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (44 page)

There were other reasons for wishing to avoid
an open war at that moment. In the early autumn of 1156 a series of earthquakes
was felt throughout Syria. Damascus was not severely damaged, but news of
destruction came in from Aleppo and Hama, while a bastion collapsed at Apamea.
In November and December there were further shocks, in which the town of
Shaizar suffered. Cyprus and the coastal cities north of Tripoli were affected
by shocks during the following spring. In August 1157 the Orontes valley
underwent even more serious shocks. Many lives were lost at Homs and Aleppo. At
Hama the damage was so appalling that the earthquake was called by the
chroniclers the Hama earthquake. At Shaizar the family of the Munqidhites were
gathered together to celebrate the circumcision of a youthful prince when the
great walls of the citadel crashed down on them. Only the Princess of Shaizar,
rescued from the ruins, and Usama, away on his diplomatic missions, survived of
all the dynasty. Both Moslems and Franks were too busy repairing shattered
fortresses to think of serious aggressive expeditions for some time to come.

In October 1157, two months after his return
from Banyas, Nur ed-Din suddenly fell desperately ill at Sarmin. Thinking that
he was dying he insisted upon being carried in a litter to Aleppo. There he
made his will. His brother, Nasr ed-Din was to succeed to his states, with
Shirkuh ruling Damascus under his suzerainty. But when Nasr ed-Din entered
Aleppo to be ready to take over the heritage, he met with opposition from the
governor, Ibn ed-Daya. There were disturbances in the streets that were only
quelled when the notables of Aleppo were summoned to their prince’s bedside and
saw that he still lived. Indeed, the crisis was now past, and he began slowly
to recover. But he seemed to have lost something of his initiative and energy.
He was no longer the invincible warrior. Other forces were appearing in Syria
to dominate the scene.

CHAPTER III

THE RETURN OF
THE EMPEROR

‘For the king of
the north shall return
,
and shall set forth a multitude
greater than the former
,
and shall certainly come after certain years
with a great army and with much riches
.’ DANIEL XI, 13

In 115 3, while Nur ed-Din’s attention was
fixed upon Damascus and while King Baldwin and his army lay before Ascalon, the
Princess of Antioch decided her own destiny. Amongst the knights that followed
King Louis of France to the Second Crusade was the younger son of Geoffrey,
Count of Gien and lord of Chatillon-sur-Loing. Reynald of Chatillon had no
prospects in his own country; so he had stayed behind in Palestine when the
Crusaders returned home. There he took service under the young King Baldwin,
whom he accompanied to Antioch in 1151. The widowed Princess soon took notice
of him. He seems to have remained in her principality, no doubt in possession
of some small fief; and it may have been his presence that induced her to
refuse the husbands suggested for her by the King and the Emperor. In the
spring of 1153 she decided to marry him. Before she announced her intention she
asked permission of the King; for he was official guardian of her state and the
overlord of her bridegroom. Reynald hastened to Ascalon, where the King’s camp
had just been established, and delivered Constance’s message. Baldwin, knowing
Reynald to be a brave soldier, and, above all, thankful to be relieved of the
responsibility for Antioch, made no difficulty. As soon as Reynald arrived back
in Antioch the marriage took place and Reynald was installed as Prince. It was
not a popular match. Not only the great families of Antioch but also the
humbler subjects of the Princess thought that she was degraded by giving
herself to this upstart.

It would have been courteous and correct of
Constance to have asked permission also from the Emperor Manuel. The news of
the marriage was ill-received at Constantinople. But Manuel was at the moment
involved in a campaign against the Seldjuks. He could not give practical
expression to his wrath. Conscious of his rights, he therefore sent to Antioch
offering to recognize the new Prince if the Franks of Antioch would fight for
him against the Armenian Thoros. He promised a money-subsidy if the work were
properly done. Reynald willingly complied. Imperial approval would strengthen
him personally; moreover, the Armenians had advanced into the district of
Alexandretta, which the Franks claimed as part of the Antiochene principality.
After a short battle near Alexandretta he drove the Armenians back into
Cilicia; and he presented the reconquered country to the Order of the Temple.
The Order took over Alexandretta, and to protect its approaches reconstructed
the Castles of Gastun and Baghras, which commanded the Syrian Gates. Reynald
had already decided to work in with the Templars and thus started a friendship
that was to be fatal for Jerusalem.

1156: Reynald’s
Raid on Cyprus

Having secured the land that he wanted, Reynald
demanded his subsidies from the Emperor, who refused them, pointing out that
the main task had yet to be done. Reynald changed his policy. Encouraged by the
Templars he made peace with Thoros and his brothers; and while the Armenians
attacked the few remaining Byzantine fortresses in Cilicia, he decided to lead
an expedition against the rich island of Cyprus. But he lacked money for the
enterprise. The Patriarch Aimery of Antioch was very rich; and he had been
outspoken in his disapproval of Constance’s marriage. Reynald determined to
punish him to his own profit. Aimery had earned the respect of the Antiochenes
by his courage and energy in the dark days after Prince Raymond’s death; but
his illiteracy and the looseness of his morals damaged his reputation and made
him vulnerable. Reynald demanded money from him and on his refusal lost his
temper and cast him into prison. There the prelate was cruelly beaten on the
head. His wounds were then smeared with honey, and he was left for a whole
summer day chained in blazing sunshine on the roof of the citadel to be a prey
for all the insects of the neighbourhood. The treatment achieved its object.
The miserable Patriarch hastened to pay rather than face another day of such
torment. Meanwhile the story reached Jerusalem. King Baldwin was horrified and
sent at once his chancellor, Ralph, and the Bishop of Acre to insist on the
Patriarch’s immediate release. Reynald, having secured the money, let him go;
and Aimery accompanied his rescuers back to Jerusalem, where he was received
with the highest honours by the King and Queen Melisende and his
brother-Patriarch. He refused meanwhile to return to Antioch.

The Patriarch’s experience shocked responsible
Frankish circles; but Reynald was unabashed. He could now attack Cyprus; and in
the spring of 1156 he and Thoros made a sudden landing on the island. Cyprus
had been spared the wars and invasions that had troubled the Asian continent
during the last century. It was contented and prosperous under its Byzantine
governors. Half a century before, Cypriot food-parcels had done much to help
the Franks of the First Crusade when they lay starving at Antioch; and, apart
from occasional administrative disputes, relations between the Franks and the
island government had been friendly. As soon as he heard of Reynald’s plan,
King Baldwin sent a hasty message to warn the island. But it was too late;
reinforcements could not be rushed there in time. The governor was the Emperor’s
nephew, John Comnenus; and with him in the island was the distinguished soldier
Michael Branas. When news came of the Frankish landing, Branas hurried with the
island militia down to the coast and won a small initial victory. But the
invaders were too numerous. They soon overpowered his troops and captured him
himself; and when John Comnenus came to his aid, he too was taken prisoner. The
victorious Franks and Armenians then marched up and down the island robbing and
pillaging every building that they saw, churches and convents as well as shops
and private houses. The crops were burnt; the herds were rounded up, together
with all the population, and driven down to the coast. The women were raped;
children and folk too old to move had their throats cut. The murder and rapine
was on a scale that the Huns or the Mongols might have envied. The nightmare
lasted about three weeks. Then, on the rumour of an imperial fleet in the
offing, Reynald gave the order for re-embarkation. The ships were loaded up
with booty. The herds and flocks for which there was no room were sold back at
a high price to their owners. Every Cypriot was forced to ransom himself; and
there was no money left in the island for the purpose. So the governor and
Branas, together with the leading churchmen, the leading proprietors and the
leading merchants, with all their families, were carried off to Antioch to
remain in prison till the money should be forthcoming; except for some who were
mutilated and sent in derision to Constantinople. The island of Cyprus never
fully recovered from the devastation caused by the Frenchmen and their Armenian
allies. The earthquakes of 1157, which were severe in Cyprus, completed the
misery; and in 1158 the Egyptians, whose fleet had not ventured into Cypriot
waters for many decades, made some raids on the defenceless island, possibly
without the formal permission of the Caliph’s government; for amongst the
prisoners captured was the governor’s brother, who was received honourably at
Cairo and sent back at once to Constantinople.

1157:
The
Franks attack Shaizar

In 1157 Thierry, Count of Flanders, returned to
Palestine with a company of knights; and in the autumn Baldwin III determined
to profit by his arrival and by Nur ed-Din’s illness to re-establish the
Frankish positions on the middle Orontes. Reynald was persuaded to join the
royal army in an attack upon Shaizar. After the disastrous earthquake in August
the citadel had fallen to a band of Assassin adventurers. The Christian army
arrived there at the end of the year. The lower town fell at once to them; and
the ruined citadel seemed likely to surrender, when a quarrel broke out amongst
the besiegers. Baldwin promised the town and its territory to Thierry as the
nucleus of a principality to be held under the Crown; but Reynald, claiming
that the Munqidhites had been tributaries to Antioch, demanded that Thierry
should pay him homage for it. To the Count the idea of paying homage to a man
of such undistinguished origin was unthinkable. Baldwin could only solve the
difficulty by abandoning the disputed territory. The army moved away northwards
to occupy the ruins of Apamea, then laid siege to Harenc. This was undeniably
Antiochene property; but Baldwin and Thierry were prepared to help Reynald
recapture it in view of its strategic importance. After a heavy bombardment by
mangonels it capitulated in February 1158, and was given a little later to one
of Thierry’s knights, Reynald of Saint-Valery, who held it under the Prince of
Antioch.

The Prince of Antioch’s conduct had not been
satisfactory; and the King decided to reorientate his policy. He knew of
Reynald’s bad relations with the Emperor, who was unlikely to forgive the raid
on Cyprus, and he knew that the Byzantine army was still the most formidable in
Christendom. In the summer of 1157 he had sent an embassy to Constantinople to
ask for a bride from the imperial family. It was led by Achard, Archbishop of
Nazareth, who died on the journey, and Humphrey II of Toron. The Emperor Manuel
received them well. After some negotiation he offered his niece Theodora, with
a dowry of 100,000 golden hyperperi, and another 10,000 for wedding expenses,
and gifts worth 30,000 more. In return she was to be given Acre and its
territory as her dower, to keep should her husband die childless. When his
embassy came back and Baldwin had confirmed the terms, the young princess set
out from Constantinople. She arrived at Acre in September 1158 and travelled in
state to Jerusalem. There she was married to the King by the Patriarch Aimery
of Antioch, as the Patriarch-elect of Jerusalem had not yet been confirmed by
the Pope. She was aged thirteen, but well-grown and very lovely. Baldwin was
delighted with her and was a faithful husband, abandoning the easy morals of
his bachelor days.

1158: Manuel
enters Cilicia

During the negotiations it seems that Manuel
promised to join in an alliance against Nur ed-Din, and that Baldwin agreed
that Reynald should be humbled. Meanwhile the King campaigned on the Damascene
frontier. In March 1158 he and the Count of Flanders made a surprise march on
Damascus itself and on 1 April laid siege to the castle of Dareiya in the
suburbs. But Nur ed-Din, now convalescent, was already on his way south to put
an end to the intrigues that had flourished there during his illness. He
arrived in Damascus on 7 April to the great delight of its inhabitants; and
Baldwin thought it prudent to retire. Nur ed-Din then made a counter-offensive.
While his lieutenant Shirkuh raided the territory of Sidon, he himself attacked
the castle of Habis Jaldak, which the Franks had built as an outpost south-east
of the Sea of Galilee, by the banks of the river Yarmuk. The garrison was so
hard pressed that it soon agreed to capitulate if help did not arrive within
ten days. Baldwin therefore set out with Count Thierry to its relief, but instead
of going straight to it he took the road north of the lake leading to Damascus.
The ruse worked. Nur ed-Din feared for his communications and raised the siege.
The two armies met at the village of Butaiha, on the east of the upper Jordan
valley. At the first glimpse of the Moslems, the Franks attacked, believing
them to be only a scouting party; when the whinny of a mule that the King had
given to a sheikh whom they knew to be with Nur ed-Din — it had recognized the
smell of its old friends amongst the Frankish horses — showed them that the
whole Moslem force had arrived. But the impetus of their attack had been so
great that the Moslems wavered. Nur ed-Din, whose health was still frail, was
persuaded to leave the battlefield; and on his departure his whole army turned
and retired in some disorder. The Frankish victory was sufficient to induce Nur
ed-Din to ask for a truce. For the next few years there was no serious warfare
on the Syro-Palestinian frontier. Both Baldwin and Nur ed-Din could turn their attention
to the north.

In the autumn of 1158 the Emperor set out from
Constantinople at the head of a great army. He marched to Cilicia; and while
the main force followed slowly along the difficult coast-road eastward, he
hurried ahead with a force of only five hundred horsemen. So secret were his
preparations and so quick his movements that no one in Cilicia knew of his
coming. The Armenian Prince Thoros was at Tarsus, suspecting nothing, when
suddenly, one day in late October, a Latin pilgrim whom he had entertained came
rushing back to his Court to tell him that he had seen Imperial troops only a
day’s march away. Thoros collected his family, his intimate friends and his
treasure and fled at once to the mountains. Next day Manuel entered the
Cilician plain. While his brother-in-law, Theodore Vatatses, occupied Tarsus,
he moved on swiftly; and within a fortnight all the Cilician cities as far as
Anazarbus were in his power. But Thoros himself still eluded him. While
Byzantine detachments scoured the valleys he fled from hill-top to hilltop and
at last found refuge on a crag called Dadjig, near the sources of the Cydnus,
whose ruins had been uninhabited for generations. Only his two most trusted
servants knew where he lay hidden.

The Emperor’s arrival terrified Reynald. He
knew that he could not resist against this huge Imperial army; and this
knowledge saved him. For by making an immediate submission he could obtain far
better terms than if he were defeated in battle. Gerard, Bishop of Lattakieh,
the most perspicacious of his counsellors, pointed out to him that the Emperor’s
motive was prestige rather than conquest. So Reynald sent hastily to Manuel
offering to surrender the citadel of Antioch to an Imperial garrison. When his
envoy was told that that was not enough, he himself put on a penitent’s dress
and hurried to the Emperor’s camp, outside the walls of Mamistra. Envoys from
all the neighbouring princes were arriving to greet the Emperor, from Nur
ed-Din, from the Danishmends, from the King of Georgia, and even from the
Caliph. Manuel kept Reynald waiting a little. It seems that about this moment
he received a message from the exiled Patriarch Aimery suggesting that Reynald
should be brought before him in chains and be deposed. But it suited the Emperor
better to have him a humble client. At a solemn session, with the Emperor
seated enthroned in his great tent, his courtiers and the foreign ambassadors
grouped around him and the crack regiments of the army lining the approaches,
Reynald made his submission. He and his suite had walked barefoot and
bareheaded through the town and out to the camp. There he prostrated himself in
the dust before the imperial platform, while all his men raised their hands in
supplication. Many minutes passed before Manuel deigned to notice him. Then
pardon was accorded to him on three conditions. Whenever it was asked of him he
must hand his citadel over to an Imperial garrison; he must provide a
contingent for the Imperial army; and he must admit a Greek Patriarch of Antioch
instead of the Latin. Reynald swore to obey these terms. Then he was dismissed
and sent back to Antioch.