Maps Dedication To Neville Lewis Chevalier of the Inner Temple and friend of many years Contents Maps The Mediterranean on the Eve of the Crusades Outremer: Crusader territory in the Holy Land Crusader Jerusalem Dedication Prologue Part I: The Middle East before the Crusades The Christian World The Arab Conquests Palestine under the Umayyads and the Arab Tribes The Abbasids and the Arab Eclipse Byzantine Crusades Muslim Wars and the Destruction of Palestine Part II: The Turkish Invasion and the First Crusade The Turkish Invasion The Call The First Crusade Part III: The Founding of the Templars and the Crusader States 10 The Origins of the Templars 11 Outremer 12 Zengi’s Jihad 13 The Second Crusade Part IV: The Templars and the Defence of Outremer 14 The View from the Temple Mount 15 The Defence of Outremer 16 Templar Wealth Part V: Saladin and the Templars 17 Tolerance and Intolerance 18 Saladin’s Jihad 19 The Fall of Jerusalem to Saladin Part VI: The Kingdom of Acre 20 Recovery 21 The Mamelukes 22 The Fall of Acre Part VII: Aftermath 23 Lost Souls 24 The Trial 25 The Destruction of the Templars Photo Section Bibliography Notes Index About the Author Back Ad Also by Michael Haag Credits Copyright About the Publisher Prologue Jerusalem 1187 ON FRIDAY OCTOBER 1187, after a twelve-day siege, and less than a century after the victorious climax of the First Crusade, the inhabitants of Jerusalem surrendered their city under the terms allowed them by Saladin Those who could afford to pay their ransom were free to walk towards the coast; those who could not pay were to be taken away as slaves A few Knights Hospitaller were permitted to remain to run their hospital for pilgrims located in the heart of the city adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre The knights of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ were driven out altogether – their headquarters had been the Aqsa mosque on the Temple Mount The Franks believed that the Aqsa mosque had been built on the very site of the Templum Solomonis, as they called it in Latin, and it was not long before the knights became known as the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon; or, simply and most famously, the Templars Saladin’s order to purify Jerusalem ‘of the filth of the hellish Franks’, in the words of his secretary Imad al-Din, began with the Aqsa mosque, for the Templars had been ‘overflowing with impurities’ so that ‘slackness in purifying it is forbidden to us’ The walls and floors of the Aqsa mosque and the nearby Dome of the Rock were cleansed with rosewater and incense; then Saladin’s soldiers went about the city tearing down churches or stripping them of their decorations and converting them to mosques and madrasas, ‘to purify Jerusalem of the pollution of those races, of the filth of the dregs of humanity, to reduce the minds to silence by silencing the bells’ Only the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was spared, Saladin saying that it would pay its way by charging Christian pilgrims an extortionate entrance fee To the Franks of Outremer – ‘the land across the sea’, as the crusader states were called – the fall of Jerusalem was seen as the terrible judgement of God Saladin’s capture of the city even suggested to some that Christianity was an inferior belief to Islam ‘Our people held the city of Jerusalem for some eighty-nine years’, wrote the anonymous author of the De Expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum ‘Within a short time, Saladin had conquered almost the whole Kingdom of Jerusalem He exalted the grandeur of Mohammed’s law and showed that, in the event, its might exceeded that of the Christian religion.’5 Frankish misery was more than matched by Muslim exultation ‘The victory of Islam was clear, and so was the death of Unbelief’,6 wrote Imad al-Din, as though Christianity itself was destroyed that day For maximum effect, Saladin had waited until Friday 27 Rajab in the Muslim calendar, the anniversary of Mohammed’s Night Journey from Jerusalem into Heaven, to take possession of the city ‘What a wonderful coincidence!’ exclaimed Ibn Shaddad, Saladin’s biographer and friend Saladin radiated the triumph of jihad as he entered the city, sat upon a throne ‘which seemed as if surrounded by a lunar halo’ and gave an audience to receive congratulations ‘His carpet was kissed, his face glowed, his perfume was sweet, his affection all-embracing, his authority intimidating.’8 Saladin carefully presented his capture of Jerusalem as a great victory for the jihad for, like the ‘propagandistic posing’9 of purifying the Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock, it gave out the message that he and his family, the Ayyubids (from his father, Ayyub), were the effective rulers and the protectors of Islam, not the caliph in Baghdad To hammer home the point, Saladin ordered that gold coins be struck describing him as ‘the sultan of Islam and the Muslims’.10 Yet since 1174, when Saladin became sultan of Egypt and began his independent career, though notionally subject to the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, he had campaigned against the Franks for barely more than a year; all the rest of his campaigns were directed against his fellow Muslims, whom he defamed as heretics and hypocrites, and who in turn saw him as ‘a dynast who used Islam for his own purposes’.11 Indeed right up until 1187, Saladin’s reputation in Muslim eyes amounted to nothing more than ‘a record of unscrupulous schemes and campaigns aimed at personal and family aggrandisement’ 12 Not surprisingly, when the news of Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem reached Baghdad, the caliph was less than happy, for he had been counting on the Franks to limit Saladin’s ambitions, and the caliph let it be known through his advisers that ‘this man [Saladin] thinks that he will overturn the Abbasid dynasty’ 13 As the caliph understood, by his conquest of Jerusalem, though it had no strategic value, Saladin had won what he most needed to further his dynastic ambitions, the acquiescence of Muslims to his rule; as Saladin’s adviser Al-Qadi al-Fadil wrote, he ‘has become my master and the master of every Muslim’.14 As well as using the propaganda of jihad to make his Muslim rivals submit to his authority or to eliminate them altogether, Saladin also used jihad as an excuse for imposing Muslim rule on Christians, who even at this time were still the majority of the population in Syria, Palestine and Egypt.15 Jihad has its origins in the Koran, which enjoins Muslims to ‘proclaim a woeful punishment to the unbelievers’16 and to ‘make war upon them: God will chastise them at your hands and humble them’.17 Defined as a ‘divine institution of warfare’, the purpose of jihad is to extend Islam into the dar al-harb – that is, the abode of struggle or disbelief (as opposed to the dar al-Islam, the abode of peace, where Islam and sharia law prevail); and jihad ends only when ‘the unbelievers have accepted either Islam or a protected status within Islam’.18 Jihad is also fought when Islam is in danger, so that when Christians reclaim Christian territory from Muslim occupation, that too can be a reason for jihad It was a concept that perfectly suited Saladin’s ambitions, providing religious justification for his imperialist war against Outremer Saladin and his army conquered Jerusalem and made war in the Middle East as an alien power – alien in religion from the Christian majority and both ethnically and culturally alien from the indigenous Greek-, Armenian-, Syriac- (that is, Aramaic-) and Arabic-speaking population Saladin himself was a Turkified Kurd who began his career serving the Seljuk Turks, who were invaders from Central Asia, and his army at Jerusalem was Turkish, though with a Kurdish element 19 The Turks looked down on the Arabs whose rule in the Middle East they had replaced, and the Arabs viewed the Turks with bitter contempt; nor is there much evidence ‘of the Arab knights learning Turkish, the language of their military overlords, nor that the Turks learned much Arabic’ 20 Being alien also meant being indifferent, so that after his capture of the city Saladin acknowledged that the Franks had ‘turned Jerusalem into a garden of paradise’;21 yet he himself neglected Jerusalem and caused it to decline,22 just as he destroyed everything he could along the coast, regardless of the welfare of the native population This was no war of liberation, of reclaiming lost lands; it was the Sicilian Vespers 320–21 Sidon 228, 329 sieges Frankish castles 218–19 Frankish strategy 163 Middle Ages 205 Saladin’s techniques 259–60 see also Acre, Damascus, Edessa, Jerusalem Siffin, battle (657) 28 Simon, Franciscan brother 346 al-Sinaji, Mohammed 61 Sinan, Rashid al-Din 250, 251 slave trade 229–30 Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem 25 Spain Alfonso VII’s crusade 177 Almohades 263 Almoravids 87, 93, 177 Arab invasion (711) 36 Cluniac priories 94 emirate of Cordoba 44 house of Aragon 321 independence (756) 58 pilgrims 174, 198 Reconquista 37, 93, 94, 149 Templars’ position 149, 179, 224, 229, 232, 354 Umayyads 52, 58 Springs of Cresson, battle (1187) 222, 266, 269, 275, 293 Stables of Solomon 202, 203 Sufism 237, 267 Suger, abbot of St Denis 173 Sulaiman, Umayyad caliph 36 Sunni Islam Alp Arslan’s campaigns 75 Assassins and 248–9, 250, 252 battle with dualists 245 caliphate 44, 64, 233, 333–4 in Egypt 63, 65, 66, 211, 237 in Jerusalem 88 Kurds 211 Mamelukes 333–4 Nur al-Din’s jihad 195 Saladin’s regime 237, 238, 244, 250 Shia split 44 Umayyad period 64 Syria Abbasid rule 58 administration 30 Arab conquests 23, 29, 209 Arab tribes 30, 43, 48, 58 army 267 Assassins 248 Byzantine rule 15, 17, 61, 62 Christian population 3, 31 crusaders 109, 111 decline 45–6 drought 260, 263 dualism 245 Fatimids 63–4, 75 Ismailis 248 Jacobite Christians 41, 239 Mameluke rule 315, 329–30 Mongol advance 336 Nestorian Christians 239 persecution of Christians 53, 60, 68, 334–5 Persian conquest 16 pilgrim journeys 86 Saladin’s conquests 256, 262, 264, 292 Sunni Islam 248 Templar presence 221, 222, 337 Turkish conquest 79–81 Turkish rule 214, 248 Umayyad rule 30, 32, 45–6 Zengi’s invasion 162 T Tafurs 110–11, 121 Tancred 104, 113, 121 Taranto 55 Tarsus, capture (968) 61 taxation crusade tax 179 land tax (kharaj) 31 poll tax (jizya) 25, 31, 39, 49, 55, 280 tithes 140, 147, 179, 224, 243 Templar of Tyre, chronicler 229, 319, 325, 329 Templars abolition by pope 365–6 absolution by pope 356, 358, 361, 367 Acre base 289–90 Acre headquarters 228–9, 287, 300, 319 allegiance to pope 306, 339, 345 alms giving 199–200 archives 127, 152, 178, 223 arrest of French network (1307) 248, 344, 345–6 Arsuf battle (1191) 297–8 Assassin relations 250–52 banking system 226–8, 314 beards 138 building works 201–3 burned at the stake 363, 367, 368 castles in Amanus mountains 150–51, 214, 220 castles in Aragon 149 castles in Cyprus 329 castles in kingdom of Jerusalem 153 castles in Syria 221–2, 248 castles lost to Baybars 316, 317 casualties 214 chastity 137–8 Commander of kingdom of Jerusalem 203–4 confessions 348–51, 355, 356–8, 359–60, 366 costs 217, 313 credit notes 226 crusade tax 179 Cyprus headquarters 333 Cyprus position 295 Damascus campaign (1129) 134–5 description of 215–16 diplomatic achievements 309–10 discipline 181, 220, 226 Draper 203 dress 140, 179, 197 Egyptian expedition policy 213, 214–15 emissaries imprisoned in Egypt 309 encounter with Assassins 64 entrance rituals 344, 356–7, 360 established 120, 125–7 estates 152 European headquarters 178, 230 examination by cardinals 358–60 examination by pope 356–8 Fifth Crusade role 303–4 fleet 224, 228, 229, 320, 335 founding members 126, 142 founding vows (1119) 125, 130, 142 Frederick’s treatment of 308 Grand Masters 139–40, 203–4 guardians of the Grail 185 guarding Antioch passes 150–51, 220 Hattin battle (1187) 270–74 heresy charge 346–8, 356–7 horses 217 Jerusalem headquarters 1, 131, 147–8, 160, 197, 201, 203–5, 282, 307 Jerusalem refugees 286 knights 200, 204, 217 La Forbie defeat (1244) 312–13 land held by 223, 224, 225–6 Latin Rule 137–8 loans 227 markets and fairs 224, 228 Marshal 203 membership 200 military role 149–50, 223, 332 monastic life 148 name 1, 127 numbers 142, 153, 178–9, 204–5 origins 126, 140–44 papal bulls 139–40 papal inquiry 355, 362–3 policy against Egypt 309–10 policy and purpose 5–6 privileges and concessions 228 property granted to Hospitallers 366 proposed merger with Hospitallers 340–42, 344 raids (1300) 336 records 226 relationship with Frederick 306, 308 religious order 137–40, 151, 204 rite of the Passion of Christ 358 rivalry with Hospitallers 215 role 127, 131, 133–4, 149, 200, 217, 223, 331–2 rural development in Outremer 155 seal 143 Second Crusade role 180–81, 187, 189 Seneschal 203 sentences 366, 367 Sephoria position (1187) 268 sergeants 200, 204, 217, 224 Sixth Crusade 306 slave trade 229–30 squires 217 stables 202, 204 Third Crusade role 287–8, 297–8 tortured 348–9, 359–60 trade 224, 228, 229–30 treasure ships 227 treasurer 179 treasury 303 vows 194, 215–16 wealth 142–3, 149, 153 Temple Herod’s 9, 26 Holy of Holies 21, 26, 122, 148 Solomon’s 9, 25, 27, 130–31 Western Wall 148 Temple Mount Aqsa mosque 27, 68, 280, 282, 307, 310 Christian attitude to 26, 130–32, 139 Christian pilgrims 201 construction Dome of the Rock 27, 31–2, 34–5, 310 expulsion of Muslims 309–10 Fatimid surrender to Franks (1099) 113 Frederick’s visit (1229) 307 Jewish attitude to 129, 148 jihad propaganda 278 madrasas 88 massacre (1077) 80 Muslim attitude to 27, 31–2, 129 Muslim pilgrims 32 Muslim worship under Frankish rule 148, 160–61, 244 Night Journey 33–4, 278, 280 Saladin’s purification 201, 281–3 Seljuk garrison 86, 122 Templar control 309–10 Templar headquarters 1, 131, 147, 197, 203–5, 282, 307 Umar’s mosque 26–7 Umar’s visit 25–6 Templum Domini (Temple of the Lord) 122, 201, 281–2 Templum Solomonis (Aqsa mosque, Templar headquarters) 1, 116, 122, 126–7, 147–8, 282 Terricus, grand preceptor 275–6 Teutonic Knights 303, 306, 307, 312, 317 Theobald Gaudin, Templar commander 328, 329 Theobold, count of Champagne 137 Theoderich, German pilgrim 201, 204, 290 Theodoret of Cyrrhus 11 Theodosius I, Roman emperor 10, 13 Theophanes, Byzantine chronicler 43–4 Thomas, patriarch of Jerusalem 53–4 Thomas, son-in-law of Heraclius 23–4 Thomas Bérard, Grand Master 315 Thomas the Presbyter 23 Thoros II, prince of Armenia 152–3 A Thousand and One Nights 47–8 Tiberias meeting 265–6 siege (1187) 268–9 Titus, Roman emperor Toledo 93 Toleration, Edict of 11 Tortosa county of Tripoli 219 defences 221, 248, 307 destruction by Nur al–Din (1152) 221 fall (1291) 329 port 228, 276 Saladin’s attack (1188) 292 Templar forces 204, 221, 223, 318, 319 Templar raids (1300) 336–7 ten-year truce with Mamelukes 324 trade 219, 224, 228, 258 Trapesac, castle 150 Trdat, architect 75 Tripoli county of 119, 149–50, 219, 287 defences 319 fall (1289) 321, 325 port 228, 276 Templar commander 204 Troyes capital of counts of Champagne 183 Council of 137, 139, 142 Truce of God 96 True Cross 16, 25, 201, 227, 268, 271, 296 Tughril, Seljuk sultan 74 Tughtigin, Damascus atabeg 128 Tulunid dynasty 58, 61 Turanshah, brother of Saladin 235–6 Turcopoles 204, 214, 224 Tyre Fatimid control 289 port 228, 289 refugees from Jerusalem 80, 286 siege by Franks (1124) 128, 218 siege by Saladin (1187–88) 276, 277, 286, 291–2 Tzachas, Turkish pirate 89, 90 U al-Ullayqa, Assassin castle 248 Umar, caliph 23, 25–7, 32, 42, 61, 130, 282 Umar II, Umayyad caliph 39 Umayyad dynasty achievements 45–6 established 29 jihad against Byzantines 36–7 military defeats 37–8 overthrown by Abbasids 44, 45, 48, 58 religion 64 Temple Mount development 27, 32–6, 122, 204 wars of expansion 29–30, 36 Unam Sanctam (papal bull 338, 340 Urban II, pope Alexius’s appeal 89, 90–91, 101 Clermont council 91 Clermont speech 71, 95–101, 102, 104–5, 336 Cluny visit 93–4 crusader crosses 102–3 death 119 Piacenza council 90 reformist programme 90, 114 support for military action against Turks 91–2, 94–5, 108–9 Urban III, pope 277 Usamah ibn Munqidh, writer and diplomat 156–7, 158–61, 162, 244 Uthman, caliph 23, 28 V Venice, Venetians Acre community 289, 323 Constantinople colony 257 Egyptian trade 65, 258, 320 Fourth Crusade 301–2 galleys from 335 Vézelay abbey church 240 Easter meeting (1146) 173–4 Vienne, council (1311) 363–6 Vox in Excelso (papal bull) 365–6 W Wadi al-Haramiya, Templar settlement 152, 155 Waldensians 246 Walid, Umayyad caliph 36 Walter Map, archdeacon of Oxford 141, 251–2 Warmund of Picardy, patriarch of Jerusalem 125 William, archbishop of Tyre as source 141 career 140–41 criticisms of Templars 207, 214–15 death 5, 141 history of Outremer 209 on Amalric 213 on Baldwin IV 253–4 on Damascus 187 on Edessans 166–7 on Eleanor of Aquitaine 182–3, 185 on foundation of Templars 141–2 on Hospital 199 on massacre of Latins 257–8 on murder of Sinan’s envoy 251 on Saladin’s conquests 5, 261 on Templar knights 178 on wealth of Templars 143–4 on Zengi 158 William, seneschal of the Templars 178 William Falco, Templar knight 178 William of Beaujeu, Grand Master 319–20, 326–7 William of Nogaret, minister of Philip IV 338–9, 343, 347–8, 355, 359, 362–3 William of Paris, French inquisitor 353, 355 William of Plaisians, lawyer 359 Würzburg chronicler 189 Y Yazdegerd III, King of Persia 23 Yazid III, Umayyad caliph 43 Yolanda, queen of Jerusalem 305 Z Zab, battle of the (750) 44 al-Zahir, Fatimid caliph 68 Zalaca, battle (1086) 93 Zara, fall (1202) 302 Zengi, Imad al-Din, governor of Mosul and Aleppo alliance against 158, 162 army 233, 234 Baalbek siege 164 career 162 character 165 Damascus siege (1135) 158 death 169 Edessa conquest (1144) 165–9, 170, 187, 198 Homs siege (1137) 162–3 jihad 164–5, 169, 194, 237, 248 Montferrand siege 163–4 murder of monks 223 religion 237, 245 strategy 162 Zoroastrianism 16, 40, 46–7, 244 433 About the Author Michael Haag Historian and writer MICHAEL HAAG has written widely on the Egyptian, Classical, and Medieval worlds He is the author of The Templars: The History & the Myth and Alexandria: City of Memory, a definitive study of Cavafy, Forster, and Lawrence Durrell in the city, as well as travel guides to Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt He lives in London WWW.MICHAELHAAG.COM Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors Back Ad Also by Michael Haag The Templars: The History & the Myth Credits Cover design by Richard Ljoenes Cover artwork © RMN-Grand Palais /Art Resource, NY Author photograph by Michael Haag Copyright Originally published in Great Britain in 2012 by Profile Books, Ltd THE TRAGEDY OF THE TEM PLARS Copyright © 2013 by Michael Haag All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books FIRST U.S EDITION Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request ISBN 978-0-06-205975-8 EPub Edition August 2013 ISBN 9780062059772 13 14 15 16 17 /RRD 10 About the Publisher Australia HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty Ltd Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia http://www.harpercollins.com.au Canada HarperCollins Canada Bloor Street East - 20th Floor Toronto, ON, M4W, 1A8, Canada http://www.harpercollins.ca New Zealand HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) Limited P.O Box Auckland, New Zealand http://www.harpercollins.co.nz United Kingdom HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77-85 Fulham Palace Road London, W6 8JB, UK http://www.harpercollins.co.uk United States HarperCollins Publishers Inc 10 East 53rd Street New York, NY 10022 http://www.harpercollins.com ... exaltation of the emperor, of the princes, of all the soldiers and inhabitants of the city; and nobody could sing the hymns of our Lord on account of the great and poignant emotion of the emperor and of. .. model for the Dome of the Rock was the ‘Dunghill’ itself, the Anastasis, the domed rotunda of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; the dimensions of its inner circle of piers and columns and their alternating... States 10 The Origins of the Templars 11 Outremer 12 Zengi’s Jihad 13 The Second Crusade Part IV: The Templars and the Defence of Outremer 14 The View from the Temple Mount 15 The Defence of Outremer