Palestine during the Crusader Era
This substack will explore the history of Palestine during the period of late 11th until late 13th century when the Muslim rule in Palestine was challenged by the Crusaders and Mongol expansionism.
The First Kingdom of Jerusalem
The First Crusade
Following Pope Urban II's preaching at the Council of Clermont on November 27, 1095, European armies (mostly Frankish) across the continent were called to arms to support the crumbling Byzantine Empire against the Muslim rules of the Arabs and Turks in Anatolia and the Levant, later leading to the First Crusade.
The First Crusade commenced on 15 August 1096 and lasted until 12 August 1099. On 15 July 1099, Jerusalem was captured by the Latin Crusaders after over a month's siege, during which many Palestinian cities, such as Ramla, al-Ludd, Jaffa, and Bethlehem were conquered; consequently, the Fatimid Caliphate was defeated, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem was established in Palestine.
Aftermath of the Capture of Jerusalem
After Jerusalem was captured, the Latin Crusaders converted Jewish and Muslim sites into Christian monuments, including the Dome of the Rock (which was renamed to Templum Domini), and massacred thousands of Muslim and Jewish Jerusalemites, men, women, and children alike, there are various estimations of exact numbers, varying from 3,000 to 70,000 non-Christians were killed, the latter seems to be over exaggerated by Muslim sources, some sources finds the estimation of 40,000 victims of the massacres reasonable.1
There were only a few Muslims and Jews who managed to survive and escape the atrocities in Jerusalem; those who remained were held for ransom, those who were not able to pay the sum were killed, and those who afforded it were spared but were forced into exile.2 The First Crusade concluded with the decisive Battle of Ascalon on 12 August 1099, which finally forced the Fatimid Caliphate to retreat to Egypt.
Life under Crusader rule
One consequence of the persecution of the Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem, and the side effect of many Christians also fleeing these events, the city faced an acute population shortage. To manage the situation, the Kingdom encouraged Frankish migration to the city as well as local Orthodox Christians in neighboring towns to settle there.
By that time, Muslims and Jews who were living in Palestine prior to the First Crusade were allowed to return and settle in the Christian Kingdom on the condition of being subjected to the Crusaders’ discriminatory rule against non-Christians on the land. However, non-Christians (Jews and Muslims) were not allowed to return or settle in the Holy City of Jerusalem, where there was a ban on them since they were perceived as “infidels”.
It’s also important to mention that in most places in the Kingdom, there was Muslim presence, in the countryside and in places that met little to no resistance to the Crusaders’ invasion, such as Nablus had mostly their populations intact and still were able to maintain their way of living with little disturbance from the Kingdom. In fact, it’s likely that the majority of the population of the Kingdom were mostly Muslim Palestinians, following (local) Christians and Jews, despite the attempts to Christianize the region.3
Some examples of discrimination the Muslims and Jews were subjected to were that they were forced to pay a toll tax (similar to Islamic Jizya), they were not allowed to marry Christians (if they did not convert), they were also discriminated against in market courts and in regards of property ownership.4
Over time, the descendants of the settlers of the Crusaders from Europe began to identify themselves as native to the land.5
Palestine back under Muslim Rule
The First Kingdom of Jerusalem lasted until the first fall of the Kingdom on October 2, year 1187, when the Ayyubids, led by Saladin, sieged the city and defeated the Crusaders.
The Aftermath of Muslim Reconquest
Once the Muslims retook the city of Jerusalem, they allowed the Muslims and Jews who had been banned from the city for almost 100 years to return and settle there. Moreover, the native Christians were permitted to stay in the city under Muslim rule on the condition of paying Jizya (since Christians were not drafted to the military), while the Franks were held for ransom and were expected to leave for Christian lands; those who could not afford the ransoms were subjected to slavery.6,
There were around 22,000 Christians in Jerusalem who were not able to pay their ransoms; among them, 7,000 were released after the Christian authorities who ruled the city paid Saladin 30,000 dinars. The remaining ones, approximately 15,000 Christians, of them 7,000 men and 8,000 women and children were sold into slavery.7
Following the surrender of the Crusaders, Saladin cleared the al-Aqsa compound of Christian furnishings and decorated the compound with what’s described as beautiful oriental carpets.
For the local population, Saladin’s recapture of Palestine was a liberation
It’s important to mention that not only Muslims and Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem, but the previous religious exclusivism toward Latin Catholics began to be reversed. The Muslim rule allowed the city to become a city for Christians of all denominations. For instance, the Egyptian Orthodox Copts were finally allowed to visit the city after being barred for almost a hundred years by the Catholic Crusaders since they were regarded as heretics and atheists, Abyssinian Christians were generously treated by Saladin, which compared to other Christians who had to pay pilgrimage fee to visit the city, they were exempt from it.
Moreover, thousands of local Greek Orthodox Christians welcomed the Muslim conquest, even many participating in Saladin’s campaign, perceiving it as a liberation from the Latin Crusaders who dominated and mistreatment them, including initially banning Orthodox Christians from residing in Jerusalem, which was mostly revoked due to the population shortage.8 One example of how the local Christians perceived the Muslim conquests is summarized by the British Orientalist Arnold Thomas Walker:
“The Native Christian certainly preferred the rule of the Muhammadans [Muslims] to that of the Crusaders, and when Jerusalem fell finally and ever into the hands of the Muslims (A.D. 1244), the Christian population of Palestine seems to have welcomed the new masters and to have submitted quietly and contentedly to their rule”9
Some other differences between the treatment of the local non-Catholic Christians (Greek Orthodox and Syrian Orthodox) between the Crusaders’ rule and Saladin’s is that the latter allowed Christians to work in his service and government, while additionally allowing Christians of all denominations to visit Jerusalem on their pilgrimage, including Catholics.
One explanation for Saladin’s positive attitude toward the native Palestinian Christians was his warm relations with the Byzantine emperor Isaac Angelus, who congratulated him for his victory over the Crusaders and asked him to convert all the Churches in Jerusalem back to the Orthodox Church and all Christian practices should be conducted according to the Orthodox liturgy, which Saladin agreed to, although the rights of other Christian denominations were guaranteed as well.
Saladin allowed Christians a high degree of freedom of religion and let the Christian affairs be handled by the Byzantine patriarch in Constantinople; this was likely an opportunity the Sultan saw to improve his ties with the Byzantines while also turning them against the Roman Catholic church in a manner of divide and conquer strategy.10
The Second Kingdom of Jerusalem/(Kingdom of Acre)
Less than two years after the Fall of Jerusalem, another crusade commenced with the aim of capturing Jerusalem between 11 May 1189 and 2 September 1192, led by Richard the Lionheart.
The main object of conquering Jerusalem failed. However, the Crusaders managed to gain the coastline between Jaffa and Tyre (in modern-day Lebanon) and parts of inland Galilee in the Treaty of Ramla (also known as the Treaty of Jaffa) in 1192, which effectively established the Second Kingdom of Jerusalem,11 or the Kingdom of Acre, since the capital of it was, in fact, Acre most of its time between the years 1192 and 1291.12
During the Sixth Crusade, which took place from 1228 to 1129, alongside the Barons’ Crusade, which took place from 1239 to 1241, the Crusaders successfully recaptured Jerusalem, Nazareth, Jaffa, Bethlehem, and Sidon, leading to a resounding defeat of the Ayyubid Caliphate. During these years, the capital of the Latin Kingdom was once again proclaimed as Jerusalem.13
Jerusalem back under Muslim control
But these triumphs did not last long; on July 15, 1244, the Ayyubids invited armed Khwarazmians, who were previously displaced by the Mongols, to enter Jerusalem and assist them in recapturing the territory. The Khwarazmian forces brutally invaded the city, plundered and looted large parts of it, and massacred and expelled its residents, including Christians and Jews at random.
As a consequence of their actions, Sultan As-Salih Ayyub deemed his Khwarazmian allies dangerous and uncontrollable, which led him to turn against them and kill their leader in Homs in 1246 and disperse their remnants throughout Syria and Palestine. The brutality from these forces that uncontrolled plundered Jerusalem provoked King of France Louis IX to organize a crusade headed to Egypt, which was defeated later on.14
The rise of the Mamluks
In 1250, the Ayyubids’ dominance in Egypt and the Levant was eventually challenged by the Mamluks, who succeeded in overthrowing their Ayyubid overlords that year in Egypt and established the Mamluk Sultanate.15
The Mamluks, whose name derives from “owned” in Arabic were slaves of Turkic origin in Central Asia who were bought by the caliphs in Syria and Egypt to become their freed slave soldiers and were deemed to be reliable and strong units in fighting wars, unlike the African infantry during the Fatimid Caliphate, which Saladin replaced them with Mamluks after defeating the Fatimids in 1174. The Mamluk soldiers played a prominent role in fighting the Crusaders and Mongols alike and later ruled large parts of the Middle East.16
Mongol invasions of the Levant
The Battle of Ain Jalut
In January 1260, the Mongols stormed Syria and launched a bloody onslaught on Aleppo, and later forced Damascus, where the Ayyubid into surrendering, later on in the same year, the Mongols continued marching into Palestine and the imminent threat the Muslims faced compelled them to advance their troops into the Galilee in Northern Palestine in July, where their troops had a standoff with the Mongols until the 3 September 1260, when the armies confronted at the Ain Jalut.
The battle of Ain Jault was a resounding victory for the Mamluks, not only in Palestine but also in Syria, nonetheless in the Battle of Homs in December of the same year, where their troops successfully chased away the remnants of the Mongol forces. In fact, even the arch rivals of the Mamluks, the Crusaders in the Kingdom of Acre consented to the Mamluks using their lands as safe passage to attack the Mongols, which they saw as a larger threat.
After the defeat of the Mongols in Ain Jalut, the last Ayyubid ruler, An-Nasir Yusuf, who was in captivity was executed by the Mongols, which left the land with even less challenge of power for the Mamluks, implying that Palestine was from 1260 ruled from Cairo instead of Damascus or Aleppo.17
The Second Battle of Homs
On 29 October 1281, the Mongols mobilized an invading force of approximately 80,000 soldiers to fight the Mamluks in the Second Battle of Homs after succeeding in sacking Aleppo the autumn of the year prior. The Mamluks, led by Sultan Qalawun, were prepared for that battle, following the previous loss in Aleppo; the Sultan mobilized around 100,000 troops, with large parts consisting of Arab and Turcoman irregulars and civilian volunteers.
The battle was a decisive victory for the Mamluks, but likewise, much bloodier than the battle of Jalut and Homs in 1260, which came at heavy costs for the Mamluks and compelled them to withhold from conducting any major offensives for a few years.
With the Mamluks' assertion of power in Palestine, their ambition of defeating the Crusaders became much clearer. In 1283-84, the Mamluk Sultan campaigned in Cilician Armenia, whose king had allied with the Mongols and was no match for direct confrontation with the Mamluks. In vengeance against the Armenians allying with the Mongols, Qalawun forced the Armenian king to pay half a million dirhams in tribute for ten years.
Qalawun did not hesitate in 1285 to take revenge against the Hospitallers for aiding the Mongols at the Second Battle of Homs by first besieging and conquering Margat near the Syrian coastline. In the following year, and thanks to an earthquake in 1286, the Mamluks conquered Latakia in Syria with little resistance and Tripoli in Lebanon fell into the Sultan’s control in 1289, paving the path to the siege of Acre in 1291.
The Decline of the Second Kingdom
Sultan Qalawun died in November 1290, a couple of months before the siege of Acre happened. Briefly after his death, his son, al-Ashraf Khalil, assumed power as the new Sultan of the Mamluks and months later began the Siege of Acre, which his father had already prepared for. (Irwin 1999: 619-20)
The Siege of Acre
The Siege of Acre was initially intended to happen in 1290 but was postponed to the spring of 1291. In March 1291, Mamluk troops mobilized thorough toward the borders of the Kingdom of Acre, gradually acquiring Siege-engines, including large catapults and lighter mangonels all over the Sultanate; around a hundred of them were constructed in Cairo and Damascus. The mobilization of these heavy weapons in vast numbers, alongside the rallying of up to 60,000 horsemen and 160,000 infantrymen, took one month, which, on April 5th, was standing before Acre. (Runciman 1987: 305)
In the wake of the grand battle that was expected to take place, the people in Acre were horrified by the news of the Mamluk Sultan’s preparations to invade the Kingdom, leading to a mass mobilization of the civilian population, whereas every single person with a capability to fight was enlisted to contribute to the upcoming war.
It’s important to mention that the entire population of Acre was dwarfed in comparison with the enemy troops next to the Kingdom, with a civilian population of 30-40,000, less than a thousand knights, and more than 14,000 foot soldiers.
The Kingdom had to rely on fortifications, which had been reinforced prior to the siege by its King Henry II, which consisted of a double line of walls to protect the peninsula Acre’s buildup was situated on; there were twelve towers and interior walls separating the suburb Montmusart from Acre. (Runciman 1987: 306)
The siege started on April 6th, and on the Sultan’s order, the mangonels and catapults constantly attacked the city's walls, carrying with them heavy rocks and/or containers filled with an explosive mixture that damaged the city’s defenses. Meanwhile, the Crusaders were besieged by land, they still had a sea route that they used to import food and military equipment from Cyprus (which was also a part of Henry’s Kingdom).
King Henry’s army suffered from a shortage of armaments at the time of the siege, but was not keen to surrender, instead, he used one of his ships to suit with a catapult to attack the Mamluk Sultan’s camp, which caused massive damage on it.
The Crusaders were not a match to the Mamluks’ overwhelming army, the more time advanced, the more the morale among the Templars shattered and the sense of hopelessness against their much stronger enemy prevailed.
On May 4th, the King of Acre anchored from Cyprus with around 100 horsemen and 2,000 foot-soldiers in 40 ships. The King also brought with him John Turco of Ancona, the Archbishop of Nicosia, which were all attempts to increase the morale among the fighters to resist the Mamluks. Unfortunately for them, it was not enough.
In a final endeavor by the King to reconcile with the Mamluk Sultan, Henry sent two of his knights to al-Ashraf with the mission of finding out why the Sultan broke the truce and pledged to rectify any grievances who received them outside his tent.
Ahead of his response to the King’s request, the Sultan asked the Knights whether they had delivered him the keys to the city, which they denied. Al-Ashraf’s response to Henry’s messengers was that he wanted the city under his rule and gave no consideration over the destiny of its citizens.
The last attempt to restore peace in Acre
The Mamluk leader offered the King through the envoys that if the Crusaders surrendered the city, the Sultan would spare its residents’ lives in exchange, for which the envoys responded that they would be seen as traitors if they returned with a promise of capitulation in Mamluk conditions. The Sultan became enraged and was about to slay the delegates, but the Emir Shujai held him back and compelled him to allow the representatives to return to their King.
The Fall of Acre
The Mamluk intrusions of Acre’s fortifications became more apparent with every day passing, forcing the Crusaders to make more desperate attempts to withhold letting the Mamluks in the city. On May 8th, the Frankish settlers, on the order of King Henry, decided to set King Hugh’s barbican on fire and let it collapse; in the ensuing days, other fortifications were likewise destroyed to make way for the Mamluks more difficult. But it did not stop the Mamluks from achieving their goal, on Friday morning of 18 May, the Muslim soldiers on the command of the Sultan overran the forts and stormed the city, while the mangonels kept unhindered shelling the city.
![Siege of Acre (1291) - Wikipedia Siege of Acre (1291) - Wikipedia](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc505d154-e77a-47ad-983f-a3c8ea1f492f_2208x2797.jpeg)
It did not take long before the city was under total Mamluk control. The King and many of his subjects embarked on ships headed to Cyprus, whereas many accused Henry of cowardice for fleeing the city instead of remaining to the very end, which his advocates meant that if he remained in the city, he would have been captured against the interest of the Crusaders.
In the following weeks, the rest of the Kingdom's cities fell into the Mamluks, marking the end of the Crusader era in Palestine. (Runciman 1987: 307-313)
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