Siege of Jerusalem (1187)
Siege of Jerusalem (1187) | |||||||
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Saladin and Christians of Jerusalem, illustration by François Guizot (1883) | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Ayyubid Sultanate |
Kingdom of Jerusalem Knights Hospitaller Knights Templar Order of St. Lazarus Order of Mountjoy Teutonic Order County of Tripoli | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Saladin |
Balian of Ibelin Heraclius | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Unknown, the army primarily made up of the surviving army from the Battle of Hattin and reinforcements gathered from Syria and Egypt.
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Casualties and losses | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown |
Part of a series on |
Jerusalem |
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The siege of Jerusalem lasted from 20 September to 2 October 1187, when
Background
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, weakened by internal disputes, was defeated at the
Situation in Jerusalem
In Tyre,
He sent word of his decision to Saladin at Ascalon via a deputation of burgesses, who rejected the sultan's proposals for a negotiated surrender of Jerusalem; however, Saladin arranged for an escort to accompany Maria, their children, and all their household to Tripoli. As the highest-ranking lord remaining in Jerusalem, according to the chronicler Ibn al-Athir, Balian was seen by the Muslims as holding a rank "more or less equal to that of a king."[5]
Balian found the situation in Jerusalem dire. The city was filled with refugees fleeing Saladin's conquests, with more arriving daily. There were fewer than fourteen knights in the whole city, so he created sixty new knights from the ranks of the squires (knights in training) and burgesses. He prepared for the inevitable siege by storing food and money. The armies of Syria and Egypt assembled under Saladin, and after conquering Acre, Jaffa, and Caesarea (though he unsuccessfully besieged Tyre), the sultan arrived outside Jerusalem on September 20.[6]
Siege
After a brief reconnoitre around the city, Saladin's army came to a rest before the
The civilians were in great despair. According to a passage possibly written by Ernoul, a squire of Balian, in the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, the clergy organized a barefoot procession around the walls, much as the clergy on the First Crusade had done outside the walls in 1099. At Mount Calvary, women cropped their children's hair, after immersing them chin-deep in basins of cold water. These penances were aimed at turning away God's wrath from the city, but "…Our Lord did not deign to hear the prayers or noise that was made in the city. For the stench of adultery, of disgusting extravagance and of sin against nature would not let their prayers rise to God."[8]
At the end of September, Balian rode out with an envoy to meet with the sultan, offering surrender. Saladin told Balian that he had sworn to take the city by force, and would only accept an unconditional surrender.[9] Saladin told Balian that Saladin's banner had been raised on the city wall, but his army was driven back. Balian threatened that the defenders would destroy the Muslim holy places, slaughter their own families and the 5000 Muslim slaves, and burn all the wealth and treasures of the Crusaders.[10] Saladin, who wanted to take the city with as little bloodshed of his fellow Muslims as possible, insisted that the Crusaders were to unconditionally surrender but could leave by paying a ransom of ten dinars for men, five for women and two for children; those who couldn't pay would be enslaved. Balian told him that there were 20,000 in the city who could never pay that amount. Saladin proposed a total of 100,000 dinars to free all the 20,000 Crusaders who were unable to pay. Balian complained that the Christian authorities could never raise such a sum. He proposed that 7,000 of them would be freed for a sum of 30,000 dinars, and Saladin agreed.[11]
Aftermath
Women and children together came to 8,000 and were quickly divided up among us, bringing a smile to Muslim faces at their lamentations. How many well-guarded women were profaned and women who had been kept hidden stripped of their modesty, and virgins dishonoured and proud women deflowered, and lovey women's red lips kissed, and happy ones made to weep. How many noblemen took them as concubines, how many ardent men blazed for one of them, and celibates were satisfied by them, and thirsty men sated by them and turbulent men able to give vent to their passion.
— Translation of the account of
On Balian's orders, the Crusaders surrendered the city to Saladin's army on October 2. The take-over of the city was relatively peaceful especially in contrast to the Crusader
On Saladin's orders, the ransomed inhabitants marched away in three columns accompanied by 50 cavalrymen of Saladin's army. The Knights Templar and Hospitallers led the first two, with Balian and the Patriarch leading the third. Balian joined his wife and family in the County of Tripoli. The refugees first reached Tyre, where only men who could fight were allowed to enter by Conrad of Montferrat. The remaining refugees went to the County of Tripoli, which was under Crusader control. They were denied entrance and robbed of their possessions by raiding parties from within the city. Most of the less affluent refugees went to Armenian and Antiochian territories and were later successful in gaining entrance into Antioch. The remaining refugees fled from Ascalon to Alexandria, where they were housed in makeshift stockades and received hospitable treatment from the city officials and elders. They then boarded Italian ships which arrived from Pisa, Genoa and Venice in March 1188. The captains of the ships at first refused to take the refugees since they were not being paid for them and did not have supplies for them. The governor of Alexandria, who had earlier taken the oars of the ships for payment of taxes, refused to grant sailing permits to the captains until they agreed. The latter then agreed to take the refugees along with them and were made to swear decent treatment and safe arrival of the refugees before they left.[15][16]
After the surrender of the city, the
The Byzantine emperor,
Saladin went on to capture a number of other castles that were still holding out against him, including
Meanwhile, news of the disastrous defeat at Hattin was brought to Europe by
In popular culture
- The final part of H.R. Haggard's novel The Brethren takes place during the siege.
- Much of the film Kingdom of Heaven focuses on the siege.
References
- ^ "Kingdom of Jerusalem" 2009
- ISBN 9780709942085.
- ISBN 9780674023871.
- ISBN 9781846030802.
- ^ Ibn Al-Athir, D.S. Richards trans, Vol. II, 330–331
- ^ a b Malcolm and Lyons, 272
- ^ "Internet History Sourcebooks Project".
- ^ The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, Trans Peter Edbury, 58–59
- ^ Edbury, 60
- ^ Malcolm and Lyons, 274–276
- ISBN 9780521347716.
- ^ Holt 1986, pp. 754–755.
- ^ Crusading and Masculinities. Routledge. 2019. p. 111.
- ISBN 9780521317399.
- ^ ISBN 9789004036765.
- ISBN 9780752468075.
- ^ ISBN 9780857713827.
- ^ ISBN 9780521347716.
- JSTOR 25188591.
- ISBN 978-0-300-122763.
Bibliography
- Maalouf, Amin (1984). The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. London.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - "Crusades". Encyclopædia Britannica. 2011. Retrieved 24 Oct 2011.
- Brundage, James A. (1962). The Crusades: A Documentary Survey. Marquette University Press.
- ISBN 0-299-04834-9.
- Edbury, Peter W. (1996). The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation. Ashgate.
- Holt, P. M. (1986). The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. Longman.
- Smail, R. C. (1956). Crusading Warfare, 1097–1193. Cambridge University Press.
- Runciman, Steven (1952). A History of the Crusades, Volume II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.