God's War: A New History of the Crusades

widely, critics underestimated the extent of non-royal crusade activity, especially in France.

By the time Philip II and Richard I finally left Vezelay together on 4 July 1190, thousands of Frenchmen, some vassals of Philip II, some of Henry II, had already reached Acre in the fleets of James of Avesnes and Henry of Champagne, including many of the leading barons of Philip II’s early years, such as the count of Dreux in 1189 and the counts of Blois, Clermont and Sancerre a year later. Englishmen and Anglo-Normans such as William Ferrers earl of Derby, who joined French contingents in northern France in 1189,⁵² or Ralph Hauterive archdeacon of Colchester, who had travelled with other Londoners by sea in 1189, were already entering the rich folklore of heroes in the crusader camp long before their king had ever reached the Mediterranean. Even in England and Normandy, with their centralized mechanisms of royal administration and control, independent action, based on lordship, town, region or kin, accounted for many departures beyond the ambit of the crown’s preparations. Among the arrivals at Acre in 1189–90 were representatives of the London clerical and commercial elites, including members of the chapter of St Paul’s and civic swells such as Geoffrey the Goldsmith and William ‘Longbeard’ FitzOsbert, who had to raise a mortgage on some of his city property to pay for his journey. In 1190, a significant contingent from Normandy came, probably with Henry of Champagne, linked by kinship as well as regional and lordship ties: Richard of Vernon and his son; Gilbert of Tillieres and his military entourage, ‘manu valida bellatorum’, literally, ‘with a strong hand of warriors’.⁵³ Some of these companies may have been modest, Ivo of Vipont on one occasion commanding a mere ten men on a trip from Acre to Tyre.⁵⁴ Archbishop Baldwin was accompanied by an extensive household, domestic servants and, possibly, dozens of fighting men. Other contingents were very substantial, such as the knights of Richard of Clare or the extended Glanvill affinity, which included, as well as the ex-justiciar, his uncle, nephew and steward and their respective military and civilian followers. Less formal associations among the English may be found in the list of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire crusaders who died at Acre in 1190 recorded by their fellow countryman Roger of Howden, who, on arriving with Richard I in June 1191, seems to have made contact with the survivors of this group.⁵⁵

However, although these Anglo-Norman crusading journeys in 1189–90 paralleled those from the nobility of the rest of France, French and Anglo-Norman, specifically English, experiences of the Third Crusade differed significantly. Despite similar royal attempts in Angevin and Capetian lands to raise the Saladin Tithe and to regulate crusaders’ privileges, especially in relation to debt and financial transactions, Philip II was unable to impose his authority, lacking both the political and bureaucratic tradition to organize or compel on a national scale.⁵⁶ The level of royal subsidy to any individual or group of crusaders is hard to estimate. In England and probably Normandy, crusaders had access to the proceeds of the Saladin Tithe, collected under the aegis of the government, while their French colleagues had not. More important, once the decision to travel by sea had been reached, a significant proportion of the followers of the Angevin king could travel in ships prepared by royal administrators with royal cash. At every stage of the crusade, from commandeering ships in English ports to Palestine, Richard hired men as well as materials. Most strikingly, while Philip II may have sent some siege engines and troops ahead of him, the force he paid the Genoese in 1190 to be shipped to the Holy Land numbered 650 knights and 1,300 squires. By contrast, Richard equipped his own fleet of more than 100 vessels and hired another small fleet of ten cargo ships and twenty galleys at Marseilles. The army he was transporting, when mustered in Sicily in the winter of 1190–91, including sailors may have numbered as many as 17,000. Not only was Richard ‘the first crusader king to equip and take his fleet to Outremer’, the armada he led remained one of the largest.⁵⁷

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Active crusade preparations had in fact begun under the much-maligned Henry II. The Saladin Tithe was vigorously collected even if, as many assumed, much of it actually went on the wars of 1188–9. Initially, Henry, and therefore Philip, who had agreed to travel with him, toyed with the idea of the land route. Archbishop Baldwin may have been expecting it when he forced his reluctant team to walk rather than ride up steep Welsh valleys in training for the journey to come.⁵⁸ An embassy was sent in 1188 to Frederick Barbarossa, Bela III of Hungary and Isaac II requesting and receiving promises of safe passage and open markets for the Capetian and Angevin armies. At this stage, Richard of Poitou may already have decided to go his own way, by sea. Perhaps news of the German choice of the land route put Henry off; the precedent of 1147 was not auspicious. It seems that at some point, perhaps to preempt his attention-seeking son, Henry switched his plan and began negotiating with William II of Sicily, his son-in-law. The substance of these negotiations may have been reflected in King William’s will, in which he left Henry treasure, grain, wine and a hundred armed war galleys.⁵⁹ As William died five months after Henry, these provisions must date from at least the spring of 1189, if not earlier. If so, they indicate the scale of the royal expedition envisaged by Henry; such a fleet was capable of carrying up to 8,000 men.

Government financial accounts for September 1188 to September 1189 suggest activity below that of grand strategy, even if some of it dated from after Henry’s death in July. A separate depository for the Saladin Tithe was established at Salisbury, with a tiny staff of ten tellers. Chroniclers complained of the enormous amounts raised. The highly critical monk Gervase of Canterbury put it at ?70,000, while the well-informed Roger of Howden thought that Henry left a treasure, from all sources, worth more than 100,000 marks (?66,666). Even if such witnesses exaggerated Henry’s rapacity, the Salisbury depository did not let the money lie idle. Two hundred marks were sent to Bristol, perhaps for hiring ships, 2,500 marks to Gloucester, perhaps for horseshoes from the of Forest of Dean, 5,000 marks to Southampton, over the following year a major centre of crusade preparations.⁶⁰ Whatever the contortions of high politics, many Englishmen, Normans and Poitevins conducted their own arrangements with official blessing. For Henry II, domestic and dynastic political calculation had always taken priority over quixotic or pious gestures. This remained the case until the day he died. However, after 1187 help for the Holy Land was no longer an option: it had become a requirement of state.

On his accession Richard I brought to the crusade his experience as a general, his ability to push forward a scheme through administration as well as politics, and a strong personal commitment. Like his father, he recognized there was probably no limit to the treasure needed to finance the planned expedition, especially as it had been decided, possibly before he became king, to equip a massive royal fleet as well as a substantial royal army. However much there remained in Henry II’s coffers, Richard sought more in spectacular fashion. As Roger of Howden observed with only mild exaggeration, ‘he put up for sale all he had, offices, lordships, earldoms, sheriffdoms, castles, towns, lands, everything’. Famously, Richard quipped he would have sold London itself if he could have found a buyer.⁶¹ Sheriffs were sacked and fined; their successors appointed at a price; town charters, forest rights, earldoms, high government offices and bishoprics exchanged for cash. The scale of preparations matched this auction. Royal agents scoured the ports of England, Normandy, Brittany and Poitou for vessels, the crown offering to pay two-thirds of the cost of hire and the wages, for a year, of the sailors (2d a day) and steersmen (4d a day). In the financial year from Michaelmas 1189, Henry of Cornhill, the official most involved in arrangements for the fleet, spent more the ?5,000. If, as well-informed observers calculated, the fleet collected numbered over 100 ships, the combined bill for wages and hire could have exceeded ?14,000, more than half the king’s annual revenue from England. On top of that, each ship carried military equipment, horses, infantrymen, food and barrels of silver pennies for expenses. Royal accounts reveal the scale of the crown’s purchasing: as well as 50,000 horseshoes from the Forest of Dean and 10,000 from Hampshire, 14,000 cured pigs’ carcases from Lincolnshire, Essex and Hampshire, arrows, crossbow bolts, and huge quantities of cheeses and beans. The urgency of such demand drove up prices.

The fleet could have carried, on one well-informed estimate, 8,750 soldiers and sailors, with equipment and horses for a further 4,000 or more knights.⁶² Richard’s own army, which he led to the Mediterranean in the summer of 1190, may have numbered as many as 6,000, including his own military household of perhaps between 2,500 and 3,000 and the contingents under Archbishop Baldwin and Ranulf Glanvill. The combined fleet that left Messina in 1191 may have contained as many as 219 vessels with perhaps 17,000 troops and seamen.⁶³ Although the king had not paid for all his followers, the preparations had enabled such a large force to travel together. The terms of wages indicated a clear central strategic grasp. Richard had budgeted to pay his crews for a year from, at the latest, June 1190. Thus his measured progress to Sicily, his wintering there 1190–11, fitted a prearranged timetable. Although deflected by the storm of April 1191 and his subsequent lightning conquest of Cyprus (6 May–1 June 1191), he reached Acre on 8 June 1191, more or less on schedule.

The progress of the fleet itself provides further evidence of Richard’s control over crusade planning. There were at least three separate elements in Richard’s armada, one that left England from Dartmouth in April 1190; another under Richard of Camville, a knight who was an important English curial official, and Robert of Sable, a