God's Armies by Malcolm Lambert

Author:Malcolm Lambert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books

8

STRATEGIC CRUSADES

AND THE COMING OF

THE MONGOLS

Jerusalem and the Ayyubids

Saladin’s legacy crumbled. He had intended to leave behind him a confederacy with territories apportioned between his sons and his brother, al-Adil. But in the years after Saladin’s death in 1193 the coldly calculating al-Adil through his superior diplomatic talents, outmanoeuvred the sons and by 1202 had made himself master of the Ayyubid world. Even he lacked security though, for he had enemies among the Seljuqs, in Mesopotamia, in Christian Georgia and in Armenia and troops under his command in Syria and Palestine were widely dispersed. As sultan in 1202, he set about apportioning territory: to his son al-Muazzam, Damascus, and to his son al-Kamil, Cairo. This resulted in weak successor states eyeing each other with suspicion and jockeying for supporters and strongpoints, none being in a sufficiently secure position to carry Saladin’s jihad to its conclusion and expel the surviving Franks from the Holy Land.

Titular kings of Jerusalem continued but resided in Acre, the true capital of the Crusader States, the monarchy descending through Isabella, Queen Sibylla’s half-sister. In 1197 her third husband, the capable warrior Henry of Champagne, fell to his death from the balcony of his palace in Acre with his pet dwarf beside him. She then married Aimery of Lusignan, ruler of Cyprus and brother to the deceased king, Guy, thus uniting Cyprus to the Holy Land in a way advantageous to both. By 1205 both were dead.

Maria, Isabella’s daughter by her marriage to Conrad of Montferrat, succeeded and John of Ibelin, lord of Beirut and holder of wide territories in the Holy Land, became regent. Maria came of age unmarried, as she was not a great catch because the state was now so frail. Finally John of Brienne, a Champagne knight of good crusading lineage but limited resources, came forward and they married in 1210. After two years Maria died, having given her husband a daughter, known as Isabella II or Yolande. Thus John continued as king of Jerusalem, regent to an infant daughter.

The Ayyubids, with their economic links to the remnant kingdom, had another reason for not wishing to pursue jihad. Acre boomed, benefiting from a growing Western interest in exotic luxuries from the Levant. A network of commercial links from the city as far as the well-established colonies of Western merchants in Alexandria benefited from intimate connections between Muslim-occupied lands which supplied raw materials to craftsmen and fuelled the traditional spice trade between East and West. Peaceful contacts brought advantages in dues to Ayyubids, especially al-Adil, and favoured stability.

The weakness of the Ayyubids coincided with a lack of confidence within the crusading movement. A new breed of crusader not only looked for some means of unlocking the riches of the Nile delta and altering the balance within the Muslim world so that Jerusalem would fall back easily into Christian hands but also sought some counterweight to Muslim power. Mission could make little progress where Muslims were concerned, but it might draw other hitherto neutral powers onto the Christian side.

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