Heraclius of Jerusalem
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Heraclius or Eraclius (c. 1128 – 1190/91), was
Origin and early career
Heraclius was from the
Because most of information about Heraclius comes from his rival William and the 13th-century Old French Continuation of his chronicle, sometimes attributed to
Travel
In 1184, Heraclius, along with
England
While in England, Heraclius
, were more impressed by the Patriarch's spiritual qualities, describing him in phrases such as "vir sanctus et prudens", "vir sanctus" and "vitae sanctitatae non inferior".Return
Heraclius returned to Jerusalem late in 1185. Baldwin IV had meanwhile died and had been succeeded as King by his young nephew, Baldwin V. The boy king died in summer 1186. The heir was his mother Sibylla, but her husband, Guy of Lusignan, a relative newcomer to the kingdom, was widely disliked by the nobility. It was agreed that Sibylla would be crowned only after she had divorced Guy; in return she insisted on choosing her new husband for herself, with the understanding that the husband she chose would become king. Heraclius crowned her. To the astonishment of the assembled nobility she took the crown and placed it on Guy's head, with the words (as given by Roger of Howden), "I choose you as king, and my lord, and lord of the land of Jerusalem, because those whom God has joined no man must separate."[2] No one dared to object, and Heraclius anointed Guy King of Jerusalem.
Defense of Jerusalem
In 1187, Saladin invaded the kingdom, and when Guy marched out to meet him, he asked Heraclius to march along with him at the head of the army with the relic of the True Cross. As Heraclius was ill, the bishop of Acre took his place. Despite the relic, Saladin inflicted a crippling defeat on them at the Battle of Hattin on July 4, capturing the king. Heraclius' report of the battle and its immediate aftermath, addressed to Pope Urban III, survives; according to the Chronicle of Ernoul "Pope Urban, who was at Ferrara, died of grief when he heard the news". In the letter, he said that, without external aid, both Jerusalem and Tyre would fall within six months.
In Jerusalem Heraclius urged Balian of Ibelin to lead the defence of the city against Saladin. He ordered the stripping of the silver from the edicule in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to strike coins with which to pay the city's defenders. But Jerusalem was finally forced to capitulate on October 2. It was Heraclius who advised Balian to come to terms rather than fight to the death, which, he argued, would condemn the city's women and children to slavery and forced conversion. Heraclius helped Balian negotiate the surrender with Saladin, who allowed him and most of the other Christians leave the city unharmed.
He and Balian had organised, and contributed to, a collection of 30,000 bezants to ransom the poorer citizens. This paid the ransoms for about 18,000 people, but another 15,000 people still needed to be paid for. Heraclius and Balian offered themselves as hostages in exchange for them, but Saladin refused, and so these remaining citizens were enslaved. The two men led the last party of refugees from the city at the end of the 40-day ransom period (mid-late November).[citation needed]
Saladin's secretary Imad al-Din al-Isfahani claimed that Heraclius stripped the gold reliquaries from the churches on the Temple Mount, and carried away cartloads of treasure with him. [citation needed]
After the capture of Jerusalem, Heraclius sought refuge in Antioch, together with the queen. He then took part in the Siege of Acre, where his arrival heartened the army. Like so many others, he died of disease during the Third Crusade in the winter of 1190–1191.
Fiction
To date, the fictional representations of Heraclius are all derived from the negative portrayal in the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre: see
Notes
- ^ Gerald of Wales, De instructione principis 2.24–28.
- ^ Roger of Howden, Chronicle.
Sources
- Peter W. Edbury, "Propaganda and Faction in the Kingdom of Jerusalem: The Background to Hattin", in Crusaders and Muslims in Twelfth-Century Syria, ed. Maya Shatzmiller, 1993.
- Peter W. Edbury, The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation. Ashgate, 1996. [Includes Eraclius's letter to Urban III after the battle of Hattin (pp. 162–3: see also p. 47).]
- Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King & His Heirs, 2000
- Benjamin Z. Kedar, "The Patriarch Eraclius", in Outremer: Studies in the History of the Crusading Kingdom of Jerusalem presented to Joshua Prawer, ed. B. Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer, and R. C. Smail, 1982.