Not that Raymond of Tripoli was a paragon, for he had many faults. He had foresight, but did not always see far enough. His relationship with the king was firm but not affectionate, and he could do very little to exorcise the dark spirits which crowded round the head of the king, who knew he was dying even before he was raised to the throne. Raymond of Tripoli's appointment to the guardianship augured well for the kingdom.
It is one of the fictions of history that men gifted with foresight, intelligence, and sobriety will bend history to their will more effectively than those who are lacking in these virtues. They are men who can be relied upon to act decisively; they will not make terrible errors. Yet Raymond of Tripoli, always acting reasonably, with far more understanding of the real problems of Syria and Palestine than anyone else in his time, contributed as much as any man to the downfall of the kingdom.
There was a moment shortly before Baldwin IV ascended the throne when Raymond of Tripoli made one of the greatest mistakes of his life. If he was aware of it, he thought it was something that could easily be repaired. A Flemish knight called Gerard of Ridfort, just arrived from Flanders, entered his service. He was strongly built, handsome, audacious, quite obviously one of those young men who would amount to something. King Amaury was also impressed with him. Here was someone who could be trained for high position, but needed a more or less prolonged period of discipline. In character he was exactly the opposite of Raymond, and this may account for the attraction between them. Since Gerard of Ridfort had no fortune, Raymond in an unguarded moment promised, or half-promised, him the first good marriage that would become available within his territory. Some months passed, and a certain Guillaume Dorel, Lord of Botrun, died, leaving a daughter by his first wife. Gerard asked for the hand of the daughter, who was an heiress and very beautiful. He was refused. It so happened that a certain merchant from Pisa, having recently arrived in Tripoli, became violently enamored of Lucia of Botrun and offered to pay her weight in gold in order to be permitted to marry her. Raymond accepted the offer, put her on the scales, watched as the merchant heaped ten thousand bezants in the other pan, and accepted the offer. In these feudal times, the property of the underlords at their deaths fell by right of inheritance to the overlords, and there was nothing remarkable in the fact that Lucia of Botrun should be sold in this way. But it would have been better for the safety of the kingdom if the merchant from Pisa and all his money had been thrown into the sea.
For Raymond had made a mortal enemy of Gerard of Ridfort. Raymond was not himself a man who bore grudges, and it is possible that he knew
nothing whatever about Gerard's infatuation with Lucia, or very little. It was something that could be explained away; the young knight had asked for something quite impossible and easily forgotten. But Gerard of Ridfort swore vengeance.
At about this time the affairs of the kingdom were no longer in the control of the king: the fate of the kingdom depended upon the decisions of Saladin, who, possessing both Cairo and Damascus, needed only Aleppo to make himself master of an Islamic empire. Accordingly he laid siege to Aleppo with a powerful army composed of troops from both Egypt and Damascus. He expected Aleppo to fall; so did many of its citizens. But the governor of the city called upon the Crusaders and the Assassins for help and their indirect intervention. The Assassins, in their headquarters at Masyaf, a fortress in the Nosairi mountains, belonged to a heretical sect which believed that murder was a legitimate political weapon. They were at this time ruled by a certain Sheikh Sinan, known as the Old Man of the Mountain, who possessed authority over perhaps a thousand men trained in political assassination. This word derives from hashish, and it was widely believed that the youthful Assassins were high on drugs when they committed murder.
The Assassins sent out their cutthroats in disguise to attempt to kill Saladin, and the Crusaders attacked the fortress of Hims as a diversionary measure and forced Saladin to raise the siege. Gumushtekin, Governor of Aleppo, was so delighted with the assistance offered him by the king's army that he released Reynald of Châtillon who had been languishing in a dungeon for sixteen years.
The strange alliance between the Assassins and the Crusaders lasted a little while longer. Saladin attacked Masyaf but then thought better of it, being convinced that the Old Man of the Mountain possessed magic powers. Once an Assassin slipped into his tent while he was sleeping and would have killed him if Saladin had not been wearing chain mail under his turban. At another time, he found a poisoned dagger on his bed and was convinced that the Old Man of the Mountain had himself entered his tent. He conducted a correspondence with Sinan and made an accommodation with him: they agreed not to enter each other's territory, to respect each other's rights, and to negotiate such differences as might arise. Even so, Sinan continued to help the Crusaders as long as it served his purpose.
While Saladin was besieging Aleppo, the combined armies of Raymond of Tripoli and the king converged on the Bek'aa, the fertile valley which leads to the city of Baalbek. The valley was being defended by Turanshah, the brother of Saladin, and here the Crusaders won a signal victory. Turanshah's army was crushed, a vast amount of booty was taken, and the Christians returned to Tyre to divide the booty. The king had shown himself to be a very capable military commander.
There followed a period of truce, while Saladin regrouped his forces and
the young king set about strengthening his position by repairing his fortresses and by urging the princes of Europe to join the Crusade.
Since it was obvious that Baldwin IV would not enjoy a long life, the question of the succession arose quite early in his reign. By the law of Jerusalem, his elder sister Sibylla would become queen at his death, and her husband would become king. It was, therefore, of the utmost importance that a husband worthy of kingship should be found for her. Sibylla was impetuous, with no understanding of royal responsibilities; she needed to be tamed. A suitable tamer was found in William Long-Sword, a son of the marquis of Montferrat, who had the reputation of being a good commander. He had a fierce temper, but could be very calm and judicious when it served his purpose. William Long-Sword was eminently a man who could control Sibylla and rule a kingdom.
Unfortunately, three months after the marriage, William died of malaria, leaving a pregnant Sibylla. The succession was once more in doubt, and messages were sent all over Europe in the hope of securing another bridegroom. The king himself was very ill with malaria, and was expected to die at any moment. The choice of a new king therefore presented considerable urgency.
Not long after the death of William Long-Sword, there arrived in Acre the very personable and illustrious Philip of Alsace, Count of Flanders. He was accompanied by an impressive retinue of knights, a considerable amount of wealth, and a reputation nearly as exalted as that of William Long-Sword. His father, Thierry of Alsace, Count of Flanders, had taken part in earlier Crusades and his mother, Sibylla of Anjou, was a notable benefactor of the Holy Land. Philip was met in Jerusalem by the king, who came hurrying up from Ascalon while still weak from his long bout with malaria. Deeply impressed by the count of Flanders, the king summoned an assembly, which included the patriarch of Jerusalem, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, the chief members of the laity, and the masters of the Hospital and the Temple, and it was agreed that Philip should become regent “without restraint.” He was to be given full powers to administer the kingdom in peace and war, in internal affairs and in foreign affairs, and the treasury and revenues of the kingdom were to be placed at his disposal. The count rejected this royal gift, saying that he had come to Jerusalem not to seek power, but in order to devote himself to divine service. In fact, as he admitted later, the real reason for his coming was to marry off two of his cousins, Sybilla and Isabelle, to the sons of a nobleman called Robert of Béthune. The barons of Jerusalem were aghast when they heard that, and they said openly that they thought he had come for the sake of the Holy Sepulchre, not to act as the marriage broker of two young women. Philip, distressed by so many baronial admonitions, threatened to leave Jerusalem.
This was a bad time for leaving, because the Emperor Manuel Comnenus,
in a gesture that showed he had forgiven the loss of an entire fleet, was preparing to offer the king of Jerusalem another fleet for the conquest of Egypt, but only on condition that Philip lead the expedition. Philip studied the situation and concluded that this new invasion of Egypt would be suicidal. He had evidently read reports by the captains of the previous invasion and talked to the survivors. He spoke a little too loudly. The emperor's ambassadors heard of it, and William of Tyre, who acted as the chief negotiator, felt that Philip was being unnecessarily frivolous. Philip thereupon offered to obey the king in all things, even to leading the Egyptian expedition; but then he retracted the offer, saying that he had no interest in fighting but only in making pilgrimages.
Having lost hope that Philip would serve in any notable capacity, and being desperately in need of a captain-general who would take command of the kingdom in the absence of the king or when the king was incapacitated by his illness, the barons with the king's assent began to search for a new regent. Their choice fell on Reynald of Châtillon, the former prince of Antioch, who was described by William of Tyre as “a man of proven loyalty and remarkable steadfastness.” He became regent of the kingdom and commander in chief of the army, and it was declared that he would be assisted by Raymond of Tripoli, the implication being that Raymond would share the power with him. Power, therefore, was divided between three men: the king, Reynald of Châtillon and Raymond of Tripoli. This was an unworkable division of power, and in fact the power remained in the hands of the king, who recovered from his malaria, although his leprosy progressed apace.
When Raymond and Philip joined forces to attack Hims and HamaâPhilip could hardly return home without taking part in fighting against the enemyâthe king as a mark of his goodwill lent them a thousand knights and two thousand foot soldiers. This was a mistake for, according to William of Tyre, the king was now left with a pathetically small army numbering no more than 375 men “including all ranks and conditions.”
While Philip and Raymond were fighting in the north, Saladin decided to attack from the south. He had an excellent intelligence system, knew that the king's army was pathetically small, and believed he had been presented with an opportunity to destroy the kingdom once and for all with the help of an army so large, so overwhelming, and so well provisioned that the Crusaders would be quite unable to stand up against it. William of Tyre says his army consisted of twenty-six thousand light-armed cavalry, at least eight thousand men on camels or beasts of burden, and another thousand men who served as Saladin's bodyguard, all of them wearing yellow silk over their breastplates like Saladin himself.
The king also possessed an excellent intelligence system. He knew that Saladin, with his huge army, was marching on Ascalon. With Bishop
Albert of Bethlehem holding up the True Cross, the king's army rushed to Ascalon, occupying it only a few hours before Saladin came up to the city's walls and began to lay siege to it. Then Saladin had second thoughts. There was no need to lay siege. Knowing how many men were hidden behind the walls, Saladin decided that it was possible to bypass and thus isolate them. All Judaea lay before him. Jerusalem and the coastal cities were at his mercy, or so he thought.
The main body of the Egyptian army swept onward to Ramleh, which they burned, and on to Lydda, where the entire population took refuge in the Church of St. George, and to the outskirts of Jerusalem, where the population crowded into the Tower of David. Farms were burned, villagers were massacred, stragglers were cut down, while Saladin, supremely confident of his power, prepared to lay siege to Jerusalem.
Meanwhile, Baldwin IV summoned the knights defending Gaza, which Saladin had also bypassed, and slipped out of Ascalon with all the forces he could muster, marching up the coastal road and preparing to do battle with Saladin against all odds, for the alternative was to see all of Judaea in the hands of the conqueror. He came with perhaps two hundred knights and five hundred infantrymen. They saw the burning villages and were determined to hurl themselves at Saladin's army wherever they could find it.
On November 25, 1177, Saladin's army was crossing the bed of a wadi near the castle of Montgisard, only a few miles southeast of Ramleh, when the Christians fell upon them. The crossing of the wadi was a confused and ill-organized operation. The Muslims felt so safe that they posted no guards. The heavily armed knights charged into them and, like a great hammer striking them at the point of greatest weakness, they shattered the Egyptian army. The hammer came from the north, the least expected direction. From the neighborhood of the castle of Montgisard, the remnants of Saladin's army fled in wild disorder. The Christian soldiers spent days retrieving the treasure scattered by the Muslims, including enough swords and lances to equip an army twenty times larger than their own. Saladin's army was pursued for twelve miles; the Christians showed very little mercy. The region south of Ramleh was filled with Egyptians wandering, weaponless, in the direction of Egypt.
On the following day, and for the ten succeeding days, the rains fell. There were thunderstorms, the temperature dropped, and the Egyptians died of hunger. Most of them were on foot, for they had lost their horses. Day after day, prisoners were brought in from the forests and mountains, even from the desert. Those who reached al-Arish were plundered by the Bedouin. Some Egyptians, lost in the Holy Land, begged for food from villagers, who either killed them or handed them over to the military.