Third Crusade

Third Crusade, military expedition (1189–92) that was mounted by western European Christians in an attempt to retake the Crusader states in the Levant (most notably the kingdom of Jerusalem) that had fallen to Muslim leader Saladin in 1187 as a result of his victory in the Battle of Ḥaṭṭīn. The Third Crusade’s leaders were Richard I of England, Philip II of France, and the Holy Roman emperor Frederick I. This mission was the third in a series of similar expeditions known collectively as the Crusades.

The successes of Saladin

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Following the collapse of the Second Crusade (1174–93), Saladin, the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, brought political and religious harmony to the Muslims of Egypt, Syria, Yemen, and Palestine as their sultan and capitalized on the divided leadership and ambition of the Crusader states to accomplish the Muslim reconquest of the greater part of the kingdom of Jerusalem, the county of Tripoli, and the principality of Antioch. When Reginald of Châtillon, prince of Antioch, broke a royal truce with Saladin by plundering a huge caravan en route from Egypt to Damascus, the sultan responded by launching the jihad that culminated in the expulsion of the Crusaders. The crowning blow in this effort was the Battle of Ḥaṭṭīn on July 4, 1187, in which the Muslim forces of Saladin vanquished the armies of Guy, king of Jerusalem. Saladin then proceeded to take most of the cities and castles of the defenseless Crusader states. Jerusalem fell on October 2, 1187. After two years, only Tyre and the castle of Belfort were left in the kingdom, Tripoli and four castles in the county of Tripoli, and Antioch and a few small places in the north.

The papal call for the Third Crusade and King Guy’s siege of Acre

After the fall of Jerusalem, Pope Gregory VIII and his successor, Clement III, called for a new Crusade, but, even before Gregory issued a Crusade bull, Conrad of Montferrat had struck back, landing at Tyre with a small Italian fleet and a number of followers barely two weeks after the Battle of Ḥaṭṭīn. Almost immediately he was attacked by Saladin but withstood the challenge. At the same time, Conrad also refused to submit to King Guy, whom Saladin had released in 1188 but who quickly violated the parole that had required him not to re-engage in combat.

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Guy surprised Saladin by leading some of his followers in a siege of Acre (now ʿAkko, Israel). A force under Henry of Champagne already had begun reinforcing the Crusaders deployed outside the city when Saladin finally reacted by moving his army toward Acre. As the resulting conflict dragged on, neither side made much progress. By the winter of 1190–91, Saladin was still unable to relieve the city, but the Crusaders had suffered significantly from famine and disease. When disease claimed the life of Guy’s wife, Sibyl, who had been the source of his claim to the throne of Jerusalem, many of the kingdom’s older barons who previously had supported Guy looked instead to Conrad to lead them. Although Conrad fortified his claim to the throne by marrying Sibyl’s sister, Isabella (whose marriage to Humphrey of Toron was annulled), Guy refused to relinquish power. This, then, was the situation when ships arrived off Acre in May 1191 laden with much-needed supplies and bearing news of the imminent arrival of the armies of the Third Crusade.

Frederick I’s ill-fated journey to the Levant

Although he himself would be dead in November 1189, William II, the king of Sicily, became the first ruler to respond to the papal appeal, abandoning a conflict with Byzantium to outfit a fleet that quickly left for the East. Crusader-bearing Danish, English, and Flemish ships also set sail. At the same time, Gregory VIII sent a legation to the nearly 70-year-old Holy Roman emperor Frederick I (Frederick Barbarossa), who had participated in the Second Crusade. A supporter of antipopes in the 1160s and ’70s, Frederick had been excommunicated by Pope Alexander III, but the emperor had a rapprochement with the church in 1177, and he had long desired to join another Crusade.

In May 1189 Frederick set out with the largest Crusader army theretofore assembled and crossed Hungary into Byzantine territory. Per a secret treaty with Saladin, Isaac II Angelus, the Byzantine emperor, did his best to impede Frederick’s progress through Greece, prompting Frederick to capture the city of Adrianople (now Edirne, Turkey), which he returned to Byzantine control only after Isaac transported the Germans across the Hellespont (Dardanelles) into Turkey. After defeating a Seljuq army, Frederick’s forces arrived at Iconium (now Konya, Turkey) in May 1190 and then entered Armenian territory. On June 10, having ridden ahead with his bodyguard, Frederick drowned while attempting to cross the Göksu River, near Silifke. His death crushed the morale of the German army, much of which returned home. Only a small remnant under Frederick of Swabia and Duke Leopold of Austria eventually made it to Tyre. Consequently, the German contribution to the Third Crusade was minimal. For Saladin and the Muslims, who had been wary of the emperor’s looming arrival, Frederick’s death seemed like an act of God.

Richard I and Philip II join the Crusade

In the meantime, Archbishop Josius of Tyre persuaded Philip II (Philip Augustus) of France and Henry II of England to join the Third Crusade, though it was Henry’s son Richard I (Richard the Lion-Heart) who took up the cause when he succeeded his father to the throne upon Henry’s death in 1189. The vast fiefs held by the English Angevin kings in France and Philip’s strong desire to regain possession of Normandy, however, were the cause of tension between the English and French rulers and posed problems for a common enterprise. Thus, it was not until July 4, 1190, three years after the Battle of Ḥaṭṭīn, that the two kings, not trusting each other to go separately, met at Vézelay and prepared to depart with their armies.

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Richard and Henry had notably divergent personalities. The English king had opposed his father and distrusted his brothers. While he was capable of great generosity, he also frequently turned violent toward those who stood in his way. A genius warrior with no talent for administration, Richard was the quintessential chivalrous Crusader, the personification of the era’s romanticization of war, including its notion of aristocratic courtly love. On the one hand, he could ceremoniously honour his noble Muslim adversaries; on the other, he could treat lowborn captives with ruthless brutality.

In contrast to Richard, Philip II, who had ruled France for a decade, was an unscrupulous but adept politician. While he was not a warrior himself, Philip nevertheless was skilled at planning sieges and designing siege engines. He was, however, a reluctant Crusader whose real interests lay in expanding his own domains.

After a storm-tossed voyage, Richard landed at Cyprus. His sister Joan and his fiancée, Berengaria of Navarre, who had been shipwrecked on the island, were being held by its rebellious Byzantine ruler, Isaac Comnenus. Underestimating the strength of Richard’s force, Isaac attacked the English king. Richard turned the tables on Isaac, defeating and capturing him. Moreover, in what would prove to be one of the most important events in the history of the Crusades, Richard went on to conquer Cyprus, which became a vital source of supplies throughout the Third Crusade and remained under direct Latin rule for the next four centuries. Even after the demise of the Crusader states, Cyprus stood as a Christian outpost in the East.

The Crusader victories at Acre and Arsūf

Having departed Cyprus, Richard made his way to Acre, arriving on June 8 and bringing new life to the siege. Roughly a month later, after the failure of Saladin’s nephew to fight his way into the city to reinforce and rescue it, Acre’s garrison succumbed to the constant battering at its walls by siege engines and, in violation of Saladin’s orders, surrendered. Although Saladin was stunned by this development, he ratified the surrender. The Muslim leader agreed to pay the Crusaders the sum of 200,000 dinars, release all his Christian prisoners—more than 1,000 men—and return the True Cross in exchange for the lives of the Muslim garrison.

Disputes over the dispersal of portions of the city arose between the Crusaders as they took possession of Acre. Notably, Richard offended Leopold of Austria. Even more significant was Philip’s decision to abandon the Crusade. Considering his Crusader’s vow to have been fulfilled and his being in poor health, he departed for France in August, prepared to harass Richard’s fiefs despite the French king’s earlier pledge not to do so. Having gone to great expense to undertake the Crusade and because he thrived on the battlefield, Richard chose to remain, in control of English and French troops who resented Philip’s absence. When Saladin was late in paying the first tranche of the ransom for the Muslim garrison, an enraged Richard ordered all 2,700 members of the garrison marched outside the city, where they were executed as Saladin and his army looked on. Saladin struck back by massacring most of his Christian hostages, and the agreement that had ended the siege evaporated.

The only full-fledged battle that would occur between Saladin’s forces and those of the Third Crusade was joined at Arsūf on September 7, 1191. That day Richard’s military skills were much in evidence as he dominated the encounter. Saladin was forced to retreat, having suffered heavy losses, whereas the casualties for Richard’s army were very light. Thereafter Saladin chose not to engage again in open battle with the English king. Richard soon retook Jaffa, and, after establishing his base of operations there, he moved to reinstate Christian control of the coast. To the south he refortified Ascalon (now Ashqelon, Israel). Although Richard advanced on Jerusalem twice, both times he was forced to retreat after coming within sight of his objective, having realized that, lacking control of the hinterland, he would be unable to hold the holy city for long. Richard’s decision not to lay siege to the city was tactically sound, but its unpopularity among his troops would have significant repercussions when most of the Crusaders bitterly rejected the king’s suggestion that the Crusade attack Saladin’s power base in Egypt.

Peace and aftermath of the Third Crusade

Back in France, Philip was preying upon the lands of the English king, who received urgent requests to return home. Richard, in the meantime, remained in constant communication with Saladin, with whom he seemed to share mutual respect. A variety of peace terms, including potential marriage alliances, were proposed. Ultimately, on September 2, 1192, Richard and Saladin entered into a three-year peace agreement. Under its terms, the coast from Jaffa northward remained in Christian hands; however, Ascalon returned to Saladin’s control, though only after the fortifications that the Crusaders had so painstakingly built were demolished by them. Significantly, pilgrims were granted free access to the holy places.

On October 9 Richard left the Levant, but before going he consented to the baronial request that Guy be deposed as king of Jerusalem and Conrad be accepted as his successor. Soon after Conrad’s ascent to the throne, he was killed by members of the Nizārī Ismāʿīliyyah, a movement within Shiʿi Islam. Isabella was then persuaded to marry Henry of Champagne, who became the king of Jerusalem. Guy was appointed the governor of Cyprus.

Although the Third Crusade had failed in its main objective, to retake Jerusalem, it had been very successful in a myriad of other ways, not least in expunging most of the gains Saladin had made in the aftermath of his victory at Ḥaṭṭīn. Moreover, in regaining the coast, Richard gave the truncated kingdom of Jerusalem a lease on life for another century.