God's War: A New History of the Crusades

in England repudiated the whole idea of the war, pointing out that Frederick had not been condemned as a heretic.⁶⁸ More pointedly, if the biased anti-papal Matthew Paris of St Alban’s can be trusted, on 12 November 1239, Richard of Cornwall and other English crucesignati swore an oath confirming their intention to relieve the Holy Land ‘lest their honest vow be hindered by the objections of the Roman Church and diverted to shedding Christian blood in Greece or Italy’.⁶⁹

While attempt to divert the crusaders and their funds largely failed, they exacerbated the confused and divided nature of the Holy Land enterprise. The absence of a clear command structure, a united army or even a shared strategy contrasted with the financial discipline imposed within some of the contingents themselves. Yet the crusades of 1239–41 showed that the transition from the traditional expeditions of often rather loosely allied military households to those relying on central funding and organization could be more apparent than real. Although each noble contingent had access to a share of the central funds, their viability depended, as had all earlier crusade armies, on pre-existing bonds of clientage, association and dependency. Traditional means of self-finance persisted. One crusader poet, Philip of Nanteuil-le-Hardouin, later complained bitterly from an Egyptian prison that ordinary knights and freemen, once the money they had raised by mortgaging their lands had run out, received ‘no kindness or help or comfort from the great lords’.⁷⁰ Other evidence reveals how cohesion within noble contingents was based on written contract, specific promises of agreed cash payments rather than less concrete ties of loyalty and expectation of patronage. This may be an accident of evidence. Earlier crusades had contained paid troops and retained knights, even nobles, since the First Crusade. By the mid-thirteenth century, such techniques had developed written records and, perhaps, a greater precision in the process.

The entourage of Richard of Cornwall revealed this combination of the obviously traditional and the possibly new, serving as a balance to the chroniclers’ accounts of support for the crusade in terms of grand political gestures and popular emotion. Richard himself stood as financial guarantor for his followers, many of whom, such as his steward John FitzJohn, belonged to his familia, his paid household, which included knights as well as officials. Three days after landing in October 1240, Richard proclaimed throughout Acre that he would take any crusader into his pay.⁷¹ Amongst his followers, similar but more formal contracts were drawn up. Philip Basset, one of Richard’s followers, agreed with another, the king’s forester, John of Neville, that they would travel together, with Philip paying for his own passage with two knights and four horses. Once at Acre, Neville would take Basset and his two knights into his paid familia.⁷² Such relationships provided the bones to support all the campaigns of 1239–41 as suggested by the cohesion within the different retinues on the French crusade of 1239–40 and the contrasting inability of Theobald of Champagne to weld them into a single unit. Money can bind and sever. After another generation of use, by the 1270s, such contracts were commonplace throughout crusading hosts, as indeed they later became across the armed forces of western Europe.

The subtleties of internal organization and material preparations could not prevent the perfunctory nature and mixed military fortunes of the campaigns. Diplomatic achievements depended on continuing divisions between the Ayyubid rulers of Damascus, Transjordan and Egypt. The death of al-Kamil of Egypt in 1238 had left the succession to be disputed between al-Kamil’s sons, al-Salih Ayyub and al-Adil II, and their uncle, al-Kamil’s brother, al-Salih Isma ‘il. Holding the ring as an important powerbroker stood the ruler of the crucial region around Kerak, al-Nasir, the former ruler of Damascus deposed in 1229, who could negate any settlement made by the others as to the future of southern Palestine. In 1240, al-Salih Ayyub, with the help of al-Nasir of Kerak, ousted al-Adil II from Egypt, having previously surrendered control of Damascus to his uncle al-Salih Isma ‘il. The tensions between these rulers provided the Franks with an opportunity at the same time as making any territorial concessions difficult to guarantee. Within the kingdom of Jerusalem, different factions argued for different alliances. Consistency was impossible in the face of such volatile regime changes in the Ayyubid empire. A large, concerted crusader-Frankish army might have exerted considerable influence in the region. But no such force was assembled and, even if it had been, no obvious strategic plan was available.

The crusade that arrived at Acre under Theobald of Champagne in early September 1239 comprised in some near-contemporary estimates well over 1,000 knights. Most of the fleet had left from Marseilles, others using the southern Italian ports. Well stocked with great lords, the army lacked horses, a potential penalty of sea travel. Some knights were apparently reduced to riding donkeys.⁷³ The total number of non-knights could have reached a few thousand. The diplomatic and military options were complicated. Neither Damascus nor Egypt, the main military threats to the Franks, were in control of Jerusalem and southern Palestine during the crusaders’ stay. At the expiry of the truce in 1239, the Holy City was threatened instead by al-Nasir of Kerak, who eventually occupied it at the end of the year. Yet the council at Acre that accepted Theobald’s leadership agreed a potentially disastrous policy of threatening both Egypt and Damascus. First Ascalon would be refortified to secure the south and perhaps dissuade the Muslims from attacking Jerusalem. Then the Christians would launch a campaign against Damascus. This account of the plan may owe more to subsequent events than to what was decided at Acre.⁷⁴ However, a policy to unsettle both Damascus and Egypt may have appealed during the unresolved Ayyubid succession conflict. The logic, if any, to this scheme also reflected the divisions and interests within the local baronage. A recent prominent newcomer to Outremer, Walter of Brienne, a vassal of Theobald of Champagne in the west and married to the sister of Henry I of Cyprus, held the county of Jaffa in the right of his mother-in-law, Alice of Champagne. Ascalon traditionally formed part of that county, and Walter held a powerful voice in the local baronage. The concern of many, not least from the merchant community in Acre, lest relations with Damascus be harmed, may also have encouraged a foray southwards, as would the desire of the crusaders to visit the Holy City. Egypt in the winter of 1239–40 may have seemed a softer target than Damascus, while direct assistance for the garrison at Jerusalem would mean aiding the imperialist garrison there. Throughout the proceedings, although Theobald had hoped for a subsidy from Frederick II when he reached Acre, the hostility of the local barons led by the Ibelins ensured that the emperor’s agent in the east, Richard Filangieri at Tyre, would remain excluded from operations.

As in 1228–9, the military manoeuvres of Theobald’s crusade appeared chiefly designed to produce a diplomatic solution. This was achieved, but more by internal Ayyubid politics than Christian action. The march to Ascalon began on 2 November, reaching Jaffa ten days later. En route, the count of Brittany conducted a successful raid on a large convoy of herded livestock bound for Damascus, his success supplying the army with necessary food but feeding internal resentment at his independent action.⁷⁵ Once at Jaffa, news of an Egyptian army approaching from the south provoked a large division of nobles and knights under the duke of Burgundy, Walter of Brienne and the counts of Bar and Montfort, together with other local barons and members of the military orders, to offer battle. Ignoring warnings and pleas for unity from Count Theobald they advanced during the night to pitch camp beyond Ascalon, near Gaza. Omitting to post sentries, by morning this splinter expeditionary force found itself surrounded. Some of the leaders managed to break out and escape. The rest, led by the counts of Bar and Montfort, remained to be overwhelmed by the Egyptians. Henry of Bar was killed; Amaury of Montfort and many others captured. The defeat at Gaza, although modest in numbers lost, seriously undermined any potential diplomatic strategy by weakening the crusader army in repute if not materially. It provided the Egyptians with scores of well- connected aristocratic hostages. Hamstrung militarily and diplomatically, Theobald abandoned plans to rebuild Ascalon and withdrew from Jaffa back to Acre, seemingly waiting for something to turn up.

The activity during the rest of the count’s stay was fashioned by events within the Ayyubid empire. In the autumn of 1239, al-Salih Ayyub had been expelled from Damascus by his uncle, al-Salih Ismai ‘il and imprisoned by his cousin al-Nasir of Kerak. At the turn of the year, al-Nasir occupied Jerusalem. In the early months of 1240, the kaleidoscope received a further series of twists. In the north the change of government in Damascus prompted the emir of Hamah, a supporter of al-Salih Ayyub, to offer an alliance with the Franks against the lord of neighbouring Homs, an ally of the new Damascus regime. This prospect drew Count Theobald north to Tripoli, only for his presence to cause the lord of Homs to ease the pressure on Hamah, whose emir promptly withdrew from the promised alliance with the crusaders. While Theobald was being manipulated by political factions in northern Syria, in Egypt al-Adil II was deposed by a new partnership between al-Nasir and his erstwhile prisoner al-Salih Ayyub, who now assumed the sultanate. By May 1240, with no contribution by the crusaders or Franks, the political landscape had altered significantly from the one that Count Theobald had found nine months earlier. Jerusalem was under the control of al-Nasir of Kerak; his new ally al-Salih Ayyub was installed in Egypt, but retained the Gaza hostages won under his ousted predecessor al-Adil II; and the authority of al-Salih Isma ‘il had been consolidated over Damascus and its northern Syrian dependencies. The diplomatic options facing Theobald were thus dictated for him. If he wished to regain the hostages, a treaty with Egypt was necessary. But to secure territorial concessions