The Knights Templars

Whilst Saladin was making these vigorous preparations for the defence of Jerusalem, the Templars halted at Ramleh, the ancient Arimathea, situate in the middle of the plain, about nine miles from Jaffa, and lingered with the crusaders amid the ruins of the place for six weeks. In one of their midnight sallies they captured and brought into the camp more than two hundred oxen. On New Year’s day, A. D. 1192, they marched to Beitnubah, and encamped at the entrance of the gorges and defiles leading to the Holy City; but these defiles were guarded by a powerful army under the personal command of Saladin, and the warriors of the cross ventured not to penetrate them. The weather became frightful; tempests of rain and hail, thunder and lightning, succeeded one another without cessation; the tents were torn to pieces by furious whirlwinds, and all the provisions of the army were destroyed by the wet. Many of the camels, horses, and beasts of burthen, perished from fatigue and the inclemency of the weather, and orders were given for a retrograde movement to the Mediterranean.

The Templars faithfully adhered to the standard of Cœur de Lion, and marched with him from Jaffa along the sea-coast to the ruins of Ascalon; but the other warriors, who owned no allegiance to the sovereign of England, abandoned him. The duke of Burgundy and the French proceeded to enjoy themselves in the luxurious city of Acre: some of the crusaders remained at Jaffa, and others went to Tyre and joined the rebellious party of Conrad, marquis of Montferrat. During the march from Jaffa to Ascalon, a distance of twenty-eight miles, the Templars suffered great hardships from hail-storms and terrific showers of rain and sleet; and on their arrival amid the ruins of the once flourishing city, they were nearly starved, by reason of the shipwreck of their vessels freighted with the necessary supplies. They pitched their tents among the ruins on the 20th of January, A. D. 1192, and for eight days were compelled to subsist on the scanty supply of food they had brought with them from Jaffa. During the winter they assisted king Richard in the reconstruction of the fortifications, and took an active part in the capture of several convoys and caravans which were traversing the adjoining desert from Egypt.

Whilst the Templars and the kings of England and Jerusalem thus remained under tents or in the open fields planning the overthrow and destruction of the infidels, Conrad, marquis of Montferrat, the pretender to the throne of the Latin kingdom, was traitorously intriguing with Saladin for the advancement of his own schemes of private ambition. He was supported by the duke of Burgundy and the French, and was at the head of a strong party who hated king Richard, and envied him the fame of his military exploits. The marquis of Montferrat went to Saladin’s camp. He offered, Bohadin tells us, to make war upon king Richard, to attack the city of Acre, and join his forces to those of the sultan, provided the latter would cede to him the maritime towns of Tyre, Sidon, and Beirout, and all the sea-coast between them; but before these traitorous designs could be carried into execution, the marquis of Montferrat was assassinated. Six days after his death, the fickle princess Isabella, his wife, the younger sister of the late queen Isabella, married Henry, count of Champagne, nephew of king Richard. This nobleman possessed great influence in the councils of the christian chieftains, and a general desire was manifested for his recognition as KING of Jerusalem. The Templars accordingly induced Guy de Lusignan to abdicate in favour of Isabella and the count of Champagne, offering him as a recompense the wealthy and important island of Cyprus, which had been ceded to them, as before mentioned, by king Richard.

Cœur de Lion and the Templars remained encamped amid the ruins of Ascalon, and employed themselves in intercepting the caravans and convoys which were crossing the neighbouring desert, from Egypt to Palestine, and succeeded in setting at liberty many christian captives. The second Sunday after Trinity, the tents were struck, and they once more resumed their march, with the avowed intention of laying siege to the Holy City. They again proceeded, by easy stages, across the plain of Ramleh, and on the 11th of June, five days after they had left Ascalon, they reached Beitnubah where they again halted for the space of an entire month, under the pretence of waiting for Henry, the new king of Jerusalem, and the forces which were marching under his command from Tyre and Acre. But the rugged mountains between Beitnubah and Jerusalem were the real cause of delay, and again presented a barrier to their further progress. Saladin had fixed his station in the Holy City, leaving the main body of his army encamped among the mountains near Beitnubah. His Mamlooks appear to have been somewhat daunted by the long continuance of the war, and the persevering obstinacy of the Christians. They remembered the bloody fate of their brethren at Acre, and pressed the sultan to reserve his person and their courage for the future defence of their religion and empire. Bohadin gives a curious account of their misgivings and disinclination to stand a siege within the walls of Jerusalem. He made an address to them at the request of the sultan, and when he had ceased to speak, Saladin himself arose. A profound silence reigned throughout the assembly, – “they were as still as if BIRDS were sitting on their HEADS.” “Praise be to God,” said Saladin, “and may his blessing rest upon our Master, Mahomet, his prophet. Know ye not, O men, that ye are the only army of Islam, and its only defence. The lives and fortunes and children of the Moslems are committed to your protection. If ye now quail from the fight, (which God avert,) the foe will roll up these countries as the angel of the Lord rolls up the book in which the actions of men are written down.” After an eloquent harangue from the sultan, Saifeddin Meshtoob, and the Mamlooks exclaimed with one voice, “My Lord, we are thy servants and slaves; we swear, by God, that none of us will quit thee so long as we shall live.”94 But the anxiety of Saladin and the Mamlooks was speedily calmed by the retreat of the christian soldiers who fell back upon the sea-coast and their shipping. The health of king Richard and of Saladin was in a declining state, they were mutually weary of the war, and a treaty of peace was at last entered into between the sultan, the king of England, Henry, king of Jerusalem, and the Templars and Hospitallers, whereby it was stipulated that the christian pilgrims should enjoy the privilege of visiting the Holy City and the Holy Sepulchre without tribute or molestation; that the cities of Tyre, Acre, and Jaffa, with all the sea-coast between them, should belong to the Latins, but that the fortifications recently erected at Ascalon should be demolished. Immediately after the conclusion of peace, king Richard, being anxious to take the shortest and speediest route to his dominions, induced Robert de Sablè, the Grand Master of the Temple, to place a galley of the order at his disposal, and it was determined that, whilst the royal fleet pursued its course with queen Berengaria through the Straits of Gibraltar to Britain, Cœur de Lion himself, disguised in the habit of a Knight Templar, should secretly embark and make for one of the ports of the Adriatic. The plan was carried into effect on the night of the 25th of October, and king Richard set sail, accompanied by some attendants, and four trusty Templars. The habit he had assumed, however, protected him not, as is well known, from the cowardly vengeance of the base duke of Austria.95

In the year 1194, Robert de Sablè, the Grand Master of the Temple, was succeeded by Brother Gilbert Horal or Erail, who had previously filled the high office of Grand Preceptor of France.96 The Templars, to retain and strengthen their dominion in Palestine, commenced the erection of several strong fortresses, the stupendous ruins of many of which remain to this day. The most famous of these was the Pilgrim’s Castle, which commanded the coast-road from Acre to Jerusalem. It derived its name from a solitary tower erected by the early Templars to protect the passage of the pilgrims through a dangerous pass in the mountains bordering the sea-coast, and was commenced shortly after the removal of the chief house of the order from Jerusalem to Acre. A small promontory which juts out into the sea a few miles below Mount Carmel, was converted into a fortified camp. Two gigantic towers, a hundred feet in height and seventy-four feet in width, were erected, together with enormous bastions connected together by strong walls furnished with all kinds of military engines. The vast inclosure contained a palace for the use of the Grand Master and knights, a magnificent church, houses and offices for the serving brethren and hired soldiers, together with pasturages, vineyards, gardens, orchards, and fishponds. On one side of the walls was the salt sea, and on the other, within the camp, were delicious springs of fresh water. The garrison amounted to four thousand men in time of war.97 Considerable remains of this famous fortress are still visible on the coast, a few miles to the south of Acre. It is still called by the Levantines, Castel Pellegrino. Pocock describes it as “very magnificent, and so finely built, that it may be reckoned one of the things that are best worth seeing in these parts.” “It is encompassed,” says he, “with two walls fifteen feet thick, the inner wall on the east side cannot be less than forty feet high, and within it there appear to have been some very grand apartments. The offices of the fortress seem to have been at the west end, where I saw an oven fifteen feet in diameter. In the castle there are remains of a fine lofty church of ten sides, built in a light gothic taste: three chapels are built to the three eastern sides, each of which consists of five sides, excepting the opening to the church; in these it is probable the three chief altars stood.” Irby and Mangles, referring at a subsequent period to the ruins of the church, describe it as a double hexagon, and state that the half then standing had six sides. Below the cornice are human heads and heads of animals in alto relievo, and the walls are adorned with a double line of arches in the gothic style, the architecture light and elegant.

On the death of Saladin, (13th of March, A. D. 1193,) the vast and powerful empire that he had consolidated fell to pieces, the title to the thrones of Syria and Egypt was disputed between the brother and the sons of the deceased sultan; and the pope, thinking that these dissensions presented a favourable opportunity for the recovery of the Holy City, caused another (the fourth) crusade to be preached. Two expeditions organized in Germany proceeded to Palestine and insisted on the immediate commencement of hostilities, in defiance of the truce. The Templars and Hospitallers, and the Latin Christians, who were in the enjoyment of profound peace under the faith of treaties, insisted upon the impolicy and dishonesty of such a proceeding, but were reproached with treachery and lukewarmness in the christian cause; and the headstrong Germans sallying out of Acre, committed some frightful ravages and atrocities upon the Moslem territories. The infidels immediately rushed to arms; their intestine dissensions were at once healed, their chiefs extended to one another the hand of friendship, and from the distant banks of the Nile, from the deserts of Arabia, and the remote confines of Syria, the followers of Mahomet rallied again around the same banner, and hastened once more to fight in defence of Islam. Al-Ma-lek, Al-a-del, Abou-becr Mohammed, the renowned brother of Saladin, surnamed Saif-ed-din, “Sword of the Faith,” took the command of the Moslem force, and speedily proved himself a worthy successor to the great “Conqueror of Jerusalem.” He concentrated a vast army, and by his rapid movements speedily compelled the Germans to quit all the open country, and throw themselves into the fortified city of Jaffa. By a well-executed manœuvre, he then induced them to make a rash sortie from the town, and falling suddenly upon the main body of their forces, he defeated them with terrific slaughter. He entered the city, pell-mell, with the fugitives, and annihilated the entire German force. The small garrison of the Templars maintained in the Temple of Jaffa was massacred, the fortifications were razed to the ground, and the city was left without a single christian inhabitant.98 Such were the first results of this memorable crusade.

The Templars on the receipt of this disastrous intelligence, assembled their forces, and marched out of the city of Acre, in the cool of the evening, to encamp at Caiphas, four miles distant from the town. The king placed himself at the castle window to see them pass, and was leaning forward watching their progress across the neighbouring plain, when he unfortunately overbalanced himself, and fell headlong into the moat. He was killed on the spot, and queen Isabella was a second time a widow, her divorced husband, Humphry de Thoron being, however, still alive. She had three daughters by king Henry, Mary, who died young, Alix, and Philippine. Radolph of Tiberias became an aspirant for the hand of the widowed queen, but the Templars rejected his suit because he was too poor, declaring that they would not give the queen and the kingdom to a man who had nothing. They sent the chancellor of the emperor of Germany, who was staying at Acre, to Amauri, king of Cyprus, offering him the hand of Isabella and the crown of the Latin kingdom. Amauri had succeeded to the sovereignty of the island on the death of his brother Guy de Lusignan, (A. D. 1194,) and he eagerly embraced the offer. He immediately embarked in his galleys at Nicosia, landed at Acre, and was married to queen Isabella and solemnly crowned a few weeks after the death of the late king.

On the arrival of a second division of the crusaders, under the command of the dukes of Saxony and Brabant, the Templars again took the field and overthrew the Arab cavalry in a bloody battle, fought in the plain between Tyre and Sidon. The entire Mussulman army was defeated, and Saif-ed-din, desperately wounded, fell back upon Damascus. Beirout was then besieged and taken, and the fall of this important city was followed by the reduction of Gabala and Laodicea, and all the maritime towns between Tripoli and Jaffa.99 Intelligence now reached Palestine of the death of the emperor Henry VI., whereupon all the German chieftains hurried home, to pursue upon another theatre their own schemes of private ambition. After having provoked a terrific and sanguinary war they retired from the contest, leaving their brethren in the East to fight it out as they best could. These last, on viewing their desolated lands, their defenceless cities, and their dwellings destroyed by fire, exclaimed with bitterness and truth, “Our fellow Christians and self-styled allies found us at peace, they have left us at WAR. They are like those ominous birds of passage whose appearance portends the coming tempest.” To add to the difficulties and misfortunes of the Latin Christians, a quarrel sprung up between the Templars and Hospitallers touching their respective rights to certain property in Palestine. The matter was referred to the pope, who gravely admonished them, representing that the infidels would not fail to take advantage of their dissensions, to the great injury of the Holy Land, and to the prejudice of all Christendom. He exhorts them to maintain unity and peace with one another, and appoints certain arbitrators to decide the differences between them. The quarrel was of no great importance, nor of any long duration, for the same year pope Innocent wrote to both orders, praising them for their exertions in the cause of the cross, and exhorting them strenuously and faithfully to support with all their might the new king of Jerusalem.100

In the year 1201 the Grand Master of the Temple, Gilbert Horal, was succeeded by brother Philip Duplessies, or De Plesseis,101 who found himself, shortly after his accession to power, engaged in active hostilities with Leon I., king of Armenia, who had taken possession of the castle of Gaston, which belonged to the Knights Templars. The Templars drove King Leon out of Antioch, compelled him to give up the castle of Gaston and sue for peace. A suspension of arms was agreed upon; the matters in dispute between them were referred to the pope, and were eventually decided in favour of the Templars. The Templars appear at this period to have recovered possession of most of their castles and strongholds in the principalities of Tripoli and Antioch. Taking advantage of the dissensions between the neighbouring Moslem chieftains, they gradually drove the infidels across the Orontes, and restored the strong mountain districts to the christian arms. Some European vessels having been plundered by Egyptian pirates, the Templars unfolded their war-banner, and at midnight they marched out of Acre, with the king of Jerusalem, to make reprisals on the Moslems; they extended their ravages to the banks of the Jordan, and collected together a vast booty, informing their brethren in Acre of their movements by letters tied to the necks of pigeons. Coradin, sultan of Damascus, assembled a large body of forces at Sepphoris, and then marched against the hill fort Doc, which belonged to the Templars. The place was only three miles distant from Acre, and the population of the town was thrown into the utmost consternation. But the military friars, assembling their forces from all quarters, soon repulsed the invaders, and restored tranquillity to the Latin kingdom.

At this period king Amauri, having partaken somewhat too plentifully of a favourite dish of fish, was seized with an alarming illness, and died at Acre on the 1st of April, A. D. 1205. He had issue by Isabella one daughter; but before the close of the year both the mother and the child died. The crowns of Jerusalem and Cyprus, which were united on the heads of Amauri and Isabella, were now after their decease again divided. Mary, the eldest daughter of the queen, by the famous Conrad, marquis of Montferrat, was acknowledged heiress to the crown of the Latin kingdom, and Hugh de Lusignan, the eldest son of Amauri by his first wife, succeeded to the sovereignty of the island of Cyprus. This young prince married the princess Alice, daughter of Isabella by king Henry, count of Champagne, and half sister to the young queen Mary by the mother’s side. The young and tender princess who had just now succeeded to the throne of the Latin kingdom, was fourteen years of age, and the Templars and Hospitallers became her natural guardians and protectors. They directed the military force of the Latin empire in the field, and the government of the country in the cabinet: and defended the kingdom during her minority with zeal and success against all the attacks of the infidels. As soon as the young queen arrived at marriageable years, the Templars and Hospitallers sent over the bishop of Acre and Aimar, lord of Cæsarea, to Philip Augustus, king of France, requesting that monarch to select a suitable husband for her from among his princes and nobles. The king’s choice fell upon the count of Brienne, who left France with a large cortége of knights and foot soldiers, and arrived in Palestine on the 13th of September. The day after his arrival he was married to the young queen, who had just then attained her seventeenth year, and on the succeeding Michaelmas-day, he was crowned king of Jerusalem.

At this period the truce with the infidels had expired, the Grand Master of the Temple having previously refused to renew it. Hostilities consequently recommenced, and the Templars again took the field with the new king of Jerusalem and his French knights. Some important successes were gained over the Moslems, but the Latin kingdom was thrown into mourning by the untimely death of the young queen Mary. She died at Acre, in the twentieth year of her age, leaving by the king her husband, an infant daughter, named Violante. The count de Brienne continued, after the example of Guy de Lusignan, to wear the crown, and exercise all the functions of royalty, notwithstanding the death of the queen. Pope Innocent III. had long been endeavouring to throw an additional lustre around his pontificate by achieving the re-conquest of Jerusalem. By his bulls and apostolical letters he sought to awaken the ancient enthusiasm of Christendom in favour of the holy war; and following the example of pope Urban, he at last called together a general council of the church to aid in the arming of Europe for the recovery of the Holy City. This council assembled at Rome in the summer of the year 1215, and decreed the immediate preaching of another crusade. The emperor Frederick, John, king of England, the king of Hungary, the dukes of Austria and Bavaria, and many prelates, nobles, and knights, besides crowds of persons of inferior degree, assumed the cross. Some prepared to fulfil their vow, and embark for the far East, but the far greater portion of them paid sums of money to the clergy to be exempt from the painful privations, dangers, and difficulties consequent upon the long voyage. The king of Hungary, and the dukes of Austria and Bavaria, were the first to set out upon the pious enterprise. They placed themselves at the head of an army composed of many different nations, embarked from Venice, and landed at the port of St. Jean d’Acre at the commencement of the year 1217. The day after the feast of All Saints they marched out of Acre, and pitched their tents upon the banks of the brook Kishon; and the next day the patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Templars and Hospitallers, came with great pomp and solemnity into the camp, bearing with them “a piece of the true cross!” It was pretended that this piece of the cross had been cut off before the battle of Tiberias, and carefully preserved by the oriental clergy. The kings and princes went out bare-foot and uncovered to receive the holy relic; they placed it at the head of their array, and immediately commenced a bold and spirited march to the Jordan.

Under the guidance of the Templars they followed the course of the brook Kishon, by the ruins of Endor, to the valley of Jezreel, and traversing the pass through the mountains of Gilboa to Bisan or Scythopolis, they descended into the valley of the Jordan, and pitched their tents on the banks of that sacred river. From Bisan they proceeded up the valley of the Jordan to the lake of Tiberias, skirted its beautiful shores to Bethsaida, passing in front of the strong citadel of Tiberias, and then proceeded across the country to Acre, without meeting an enemy to oppose their progress. The Templars then pressed the christian chieftains to undertake without further loss of time the siege of the important fortress of Mount Thabor, and at the commencement of the autumn the place was regularly invested, but the height and steepness of the mountain rendered the transportation of heavy battering machines and military engines to the summit a tedious and laborious undertaking. The troops suffered from the want of water, their patience was exhausted, and the four kings and their followers, being anxious to return home, speedily found excuses for the abandonment of the siege. The customary scene of disorder and confusion then ensued; a large body of Arab horsemen, which had crossed the Jordan, infested the rear of the retiring crusaders. The disordered pilgrims and foot soldiers were panic-stricken, and fled to the hills; and the retreat would have been disastrous, but for the gallant conduct of the Templars and Hospitallers, who covered the rear and sustained the repeated charges of the Arab cavalry. The two orders sustained immense loss in men and horses, and returned in sorrow and disgust to their quarters at Acre.102

The Grand Master Philip Duplessies had been unable to take part in the expedition; he was confined to the Temple at Acre by a dangerous illness, of which he died a few days after the return of the Templars from Mount Thabor. Immediately after his decease a general chapter of knights was assembled, and Brother William de Chartres was elevated (A. D. 1217) to the vacant dignity of Grand Master.103 Shortly after his election he was called upon to take the command of a large fleet fitted out by the order of the Temple against the Egyptians. He set sail from Acre in the month of May, cast anchor in the mouth of the Nile, and proceeded, in conjunction with the crusaders, to lay siege to the wealthy and populous city of Damietta. The Templars pitched their tents in the plain on the left bank of the Nile, opposite the town, and surrounded their position with a ditch and a wall. They covered the river with their galleys, and with floating rafts furnished with military engines, and directed their first attacks against a castle in the midst of the stream, called the castle of Taphnis.