The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God's Holy Warriors

by Dan Jones

Few knew that they had also contributed to the triumph by means of cunning of the first order. Two sons of Saladin’s nephew Taqi al-Din were present at the battle. One of them, Ahmad, “a very handsome youth” who had only just come into a full beard, managed to shoot a Latin knight with an arrow but was killed shortly thereafter, attempting a second charge on enemy lines.22 The second, whom Abu Shama named as “Chahinchah,” had a rather more complicated story. Prior to the battle he was approached by an agent in Damascus who was secretly working for the Templars. This covert asset had managed to convince Chahinchah that in return for a pledge of allegiance King Baldwin was prepared to install him as ruler of Cairo in his great-uncle’s place.

Chahinchah had agreed to a personal meeting, but was only led up the garden path. He was taken to a “solitary place” and handed over to the Templars, who chained him up and took him away as a captive. He was held by the order for more than seven years and eventually used to leverage the release of Christian prisoners from Saladin’s own dungeons.

The position of this new fortress was both strategic and divine. It was where the Old Testament patriarch Jacob had stopped to divide his people into two bands, sent a message to his vengeful brother, Esau, and wrestled with an angel of God, who dislocated his hip.

To this ancient significance was added a more practical value: Jacob’s Ford was an important river crossing on the road linking Acre and Damascus, and was part of the much longer caravan route known as the Via Maris, connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia.

The pass at Jacob’s Ford was a troublesome spot, plagued by bandits and highwaymen, who launched lightning raids from their mountain hideout above the Zebulon Valley, robbing travelers and making the road near unpassable without a military escort.

The construction could scarcely have been concealed from Saladin, who rightly viewed the fortress as a provocative attempt to shift the balance of power in the region between Christian Acre and Muslim Damascus, and a basic affront to religious propriety: the infidels were building on ground that was held sacred to all good Muslims.

The horsemen riding ahead of the rest of the army encountered a group of Saladin’s forces out on a plundering expedition and bested them in a skirmish. Both sides fell back. The Latin knights pursued the scattered plunderers for several miles, but before long they ran into Saladin himself with a far more substantial body of men. Suddenly, fortunes were reversed. After a brief attempt to stand and fight, the Latins now found themselves fleeing for their lives.

In truth Odo was hardly alone in his failings. Ibn al-Athir noted that the other prisoners taken at Jacob’s Ford included Balian of Ibelin, “the highest-ranking Frank after the king,” as well as Hugh of Galilee, lord of Tiberias, the master of the Hospitallers “and other notorious knights and despots.”

“Within the year he died a captive in a squalid prison, mourned by no one,” wrote William of Tyre. Imad al-Din was even less sympathetic: “The master of the Templars went from his prison cell to the dungeon of hell.”

For two days the miners dug, until they had produced a tunnel some twenty yards below ground and around three yards wide. This was deemed sufficient to bring down the tower. The wooden props inside were duly set ablaze. But nothing happened. The great beast of a tower simply stood there.

Some bodies were left for carrion. Others were thrown into the water cistern: a foolish indignity, given the outbreak of disease that swiftly followed in the sultan’s army.40 Once the castle had been stripped of anything worth looting, Saladin fulfilled the dire promise he had made. He stayed in the area until October, by which time “he had demolished the fort and razed it to the ground.”

FOR SEVERAL YEARS, the Holy Land simmered. After Mont Gisard and Jacob’s Ford, both Saladin and the Franks needed time to recover, repair and consolidate. In the spring of 1180 a two-year truce was agreed, allowing the sultan to concentrate on cementing his power in Aleppo and Mosul and the Franks to deal with the crisis of leadership that spilled out from the declining health of King Baldwin IV.

Alexander was not a blind champion of the military orders. In the previous year he had presided over the Third Lateran Council, whose edicts had specifically admonished the Templars and Hospitallers for ignoring the authority of bishops and collecting tithes for their own use, but the brothers who made their way to Rome in 1180 were nonetheless successful in convincing the pope of their great need and hardship.

Robert Fraisnel assumed the title of “grand preceptor,” but he could not be elected as master while Odo lived.3 Then, when Odo died in prison in 1180 and and his post fell vacant, the Templars of the central convent chose not to promote Robert Fraisnel or indeed any other brother in the East. Instead they voted to hand the leadership to Arnold of Torrolla, an elderly and experienced knight who had spent much of his long career leading the armies of Christ in Aragón.

In light of the tormented relationship between the Crown and the order under Odo’s leadership, Arnold’s election was a thoughtful attempt to steer the Templars back to their primary duties and away from disruptive meddling in domestic politics.

Saladin framed his attacks on Christian territory and possessions in the language of jihad, for his claim to supremacy in Cairo, Damascus, Mosul and Aleppo rested on his self-hewn image as the scourge of the infidel.

The worst offender was Reynald of Châtillon, who, having given up the title of Prince of Antioch, was now lord of Kerak and remained a dominant political figure in the Christian states. In 1183 Reynald took a flotilla on a looting expedition along the eastern coast of the Red Sea and into the Hijaz—the most holy province of Arabia—inciting rumors that he intended to invade Mecca and Medina and steal the body of Muhammad.

In the early years of his rule, Saladin had spent much more time fighting Muslims who objected to his rule than he had attacking Christi...

By refusing to give battle and drawing the Muslims into a running skirmish around La Fève, Guy exhausted Saladin’s patience and provisions and forced him to abandon the engagement: a clever tactic, but one that earned him harsh accusations of cowardice from his opponents, including the powerful Raymond, Count of Tripoli. This criticism stung him deeply.

On one side was the young king’s stepfather, Guy of Lusignan; on the other Raymond, Count of Tripoli, who had served on several occasions as regent, had presided over the young king Baldwin V’s coronation and expected to be afforded the preeminence befitting his status. Guy and Raymond’s mutual loathing opened a fissure in Frankish politics at an already fragile time, and it would have devastating consequences for the kingdom they both thought it their duty to defend.

The succession of a child not old enough to lift a sword, let alone swing it in anger, had a direct impact on the Order of the Temple. In 1184, with the leprous Baldwin IV nearing the grave, and royal authority accelerating toward a major crisis, Arnold of Torrolla’s diplomatic skills were called into service on another mission to the West. The aim this time was to persuade a capable adult ruler from one of the great European realms to come east and assume the crown of Jerusalem by election.

Arnold of Torrolla did not even make it to their royal courts, for during the long expedition—an arduous sea and land journey of more than one thousand miles—the master died. The order was compelled to elect its third leader in four years.

But when an heiress did become available, Raymond welched on the deal and instead sold the hand of Gerard’s intended bride (the daughter of the lord of Botron) to a Pisan merchant called Plebanus, who was prepared literally to pay the girl’s weight in gold.

Ew. Dick.

Almost from the moment he was elected, Gerard divided opinion, thanks to a penchant for bold political action that all too often spilled into rashness.

In late August 1186 King Baldwin V died at Acre. He was only eight, and had reigned as sole king for little more than a year. The Templars escorted the boy’s corpse back to Jersualem, where he was laid to rest beside his royal uncle and grandfather in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in a small but lavishly appointed tomb intricately decorated with acanthus flowers, an image of Christ flanked by angels and small, carved images of dead baby birds.

Relying on the lottery of succession by birth and familial precedence had landed the kingdom with a leper and a child king; this was no way to defend the holiest realm on earth. Unfortunately, in August 1186, when Baldwin died, the notion of an election was abandoned in favor of a ruthless power grab: a coup that was enabled and to an extent orchestrated by Gerard of Ridefort.

They convinced Eraclius, patriarch of Jerusalem, to carry out the coronation ceremony before anyone could act to stop them. As a sop to their enemies, they promised that Sibylla would divorce Guy and take a new husband of her own choosing. A coup of this speed and audacity required practical help, for it relied on Sibylla being able to lay her hands on the sacred treasure required for her coronation. The treasury containing the royal jewels and regalia of Jerusalem could only be opened using three separate keys at the same time. One was held by the patriarch of Jerusalem, another by the master of the Hospital, Roger of Moulins, and the third was in the possession of the master of the Temple.

As the man who had literally collected the crown from the jewel house, Gerard of Ridefort had a prime position at the ceremony, and he could scarcely contain his glee. When the crown was placed on Sibylla’s head he was close to the altar, and he was even closer to Sibylla’s devious intentions.

The Templar master was now the kingmaker. He soon found his place among a hawkish faction at court, constantly advocating aggression as a guiding principle of government, directed toward both the forces of Islam and enemies closer to home. It would turn out to be a deadly combination.

Guy and Sibylla’s controversial accession in the autumn of the previous year had been justified as a means of improving the security of the Latin kingdom. Quite the opposite had followed.

After 1186 his vision expanded and he began to regard the Latins of the East not simply as rivals with whom to tussle but as an existential enemy to be cleansed from the earth. Saladin had forged a career by carefully cultivating an image as a purifying zealot, for whom jihad meant everything. He was bound at some point to follow through with his rhetoric.

During the winter of 1186–87 the factions supporting King Guy and his rival Raymond of Tripoli were spiraling toward civil war. Raymond’s disgruntlement at Guy’s naked power grab had evolved into a full-blown attempt to replace the joint monarchs with a pair of his own choosing: Humphrey of Toron and his wife, Isabella—Sibylla’s sister.

When Gerard of Ridefort learned that Raymond had allowed Saladin’s men the freedom to roam across his territory, the master’s most combative instincts were stirred. Nazareth was not subject to Raymond’s lordship, and its people were not bound by the truce he had negotiated.

One hundred and forty knights (the original party and their reinforcements) was a respectably large force considering its hasty muster, but it was dwarfed by the seven thousand men Saladin’s generals had under their command. On the morning of May 1 the disparity became horribly apparent as the Templars tracked down al-Afdal and his men to a wooded area at the Springs of Cresson, a natural fountain not far from Nazareth.

Even given the advantage of a surprise attack, it was vain to believe that a few hundred men fighting against thousands would lead to anything but annihilation. Gerard insisted it was the Christians’ duty to charge, “in a desire to defend Christ’s inheritance.”19 He taunted the Hospitaller master and James of Maillé for their reticence, sneering that they were cowards.

Instructed by Gerard to ride against an army perhaps twenty times larger than theirs, they had no choice but to obey. The men crossed themselves. They shouted together, “Christ is our life and death is our reward.” Then they rode madly toward al-Afdal and his horde.

it was one thing for Bernard to write this, theorizing a thousand miles from the Holy Land and glorifying in a martyrdom he would never himself experience. It was quite another for a band of ninety Templars, called from their castle and told to attack against impossible odds, to swallow down their fear and do it.

The cold truth was that of the one hundred and forty knights who rode at the Saracens, some of them Templars and others merely carried along in the madness, only a handful escaped alive. Gerard of Ridefort, who ordered the charge, was badly wounded in the fighting but eventually left the battlefield, accompanied by three of his companions. Fifty to sixty knights died in a shower of their own gore; the rest were taken away to imprisonment and enslavement at Saladin’s pleasure.

The Templars and their companions had sought the crown of martyrdom, and they had found it. So had the master of the Hospitallers along with a number of his own brothers, and a large number of citizens of Nazareth, who had been following the company of knights at a distance, hoping for plunder, only to be set upon by Muslim riders as they fled for home.

Can't really feel bad the corpse looters got it.

James of Maillé’s death was transformed into a Christian folktale and held up as an example of the idealized crusader, gloriously and joyously embracing martyrdom. According to the author of a contemporary chronicle, he stood alone when almost all his companions had been killed, “surrounded by enemy troops and almost abandoned by human aid, but when he saw so many thousands running toward him from all directions he strengthened his resolve and courageously undertook the battle, one man against all.”

Once cold and stiff and abandoned to the elements, James’s corpse became a source of holy relics. Some placed dust on the body and then sprinkled it on their own heads, hoping that it would infect them with the dead man’s valor. One man cut off his genitals “and kept them safely for begetting children so that even when dead, the man’s members—if such a thing were possible—would produce an heir with courage as great as his.”

This time he brought thirty thousand men, roughly half of whom were cavalry. They had spent several weeks at Ashtara, assembling their numbers, performing military drills and reviewing battlefield tactics. This was no longer an exploratory expedition. It was an all-out invasion: the long-promised strike to rub out the Christian kingdom of Jerusalem.

The cost of this was borne by a windfall fund paid to the Church by Henry II as penance for his role in the murder of Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in December 1170. The funds were intended to pay for a new crusade, and held for safekeeping by the Templars, who chose to release them in this hour of emergency.

After the debacle of Cresson a fragile peace had been struck between the king and Raymond of Tripoli—but Guy’s war council was far from united and many among them (including the Templar master) still considered Raymond an untrustworthy traitor.

Guy’s favored strategy was to avoid meeting Saladin long enough for his coalition to collapse and his army to begin to disintegrate. This was exactly the posture that Saladin wished to goad his opponent into abandoning.

To Raymond’s credit, he set aside his concern for his town and his wife and urged the king to hold firm and not be drawn into a battle on Saladin’s terms. He insisted that it was better to ransom his wife than to be coaxed into a trap.

Caught between the uncertainty of battle and the promise of a bloodless but shameful defeat, Guy took the Templar master’s advice and decided to attack.

The folly of Gerard of Ridefort’s words now became plain. To advance past Turan meant riding into territory where the army would weaken through simple dehydration with every hour that passed. But having committed to the strategy, Guy would not now change his mind.

As soon as Guy’s army left Turan, the sultan’s nephew Taqi al-Din and Muzaffar al-Din scrambled to take the town, cutting off the possibility of retreat and any hope of maintaining a water supply from the rear. They were, in Saladin’s words, “unable to flee and not allowed to stay.”41 Harrassed and moving hopelessly toward a rocky, exposed, dust-dry plateau, the Christian army was now surrounded.

Cruelly but brilliantly, Saladin prolonged their torture by letting them stumble onward a little longer toward the Horns of Hattin. Then he ordered his men to set alight the desert scrub.