Medieval Sourcebook:
Ludolph of Suchem:
The Fall of Acre, 1291
[Adapted from Brundage] As the Mongol armies began their advance into the Near East,
there was for a time some hope that they might cooperate with the Christian powers of the
Near East against the Moslem armies of that area. St. Louis, in fact, continued to cherish
the hope - not entirely without foundation-that the Mongols might in time become Christian
converts.
That the hope for Christian-Mongol cooperation against Islam was not unfounded was
demonstrated when a large Mongol host under the Great Khan's brother, Hulagu, moved into
Persia in 1256, destroying first the Assassin headquarters and then, in 1258, Baghdad
itself. In the following year Hulagu's army moved into Syria, destroying Aleppo and taking
Damascus as they went.
In 1260 word came to the Mongol armies in Syria that the Great Khan was dead. Hulagu
anticipated trouble over the succession and withdrew his forces from Syria to hold them
ready for fighting in the East. The Egyptian Sultan, meanwhile, had been preparing to
fight off the Mongol horde. When the Sultan's armies advanced into Syria, they found only
a relatively small Mongol rear guard there. At Ain Jalud on September 2, 1260 the Sultan
defeated this Mongol army decisively.
The battle of Ain Jalud was of major importance, for it demonstrated both the
prowess of the Egyptians and the vincibility of the Mongols. True, the Mongol force at Ain
Jalud was comparatively small, but since no major Mongol forces were sent to Syria in the
years immediately after the battle, Sultan Baibars was left free to attack the Latins in
Palestine. The hope of joint Latin-Mongol cooperation in Palestine had failed.
Egyptian campaigns against the Latin kingdom came thick and fast. In 1265 Caesarea,
Haifa, and Arsuf all fell to the Sultan. The following year saw the loss of all the
important Latin holdings in Galilee. In 1268 Antioch was taken.
To help redress these losses, a number of minor Crusading expeditions left Europe
for the East. The abortive Crusade of St. Louis to Tunis in 1270 was one such attempt. The
tiny Crusade of Prince Edward (later King Edward 1) of England in 1-271-1272 was another.
Neither of these expeditions was capable of giving any sound assistance to the beleaguered
Latin states. The forces involved were too small, the duration of the Crusades too short,
the interests of the participants too diverse to allow of any solid accomplishment.
Pope Gregory X (1271-1276) labored valiantly to excite some general enthusiasm for
another great Crusade, but be labored in vain. The failure of his appeal was variously
ascribed by the Pope's advisors to the laziness and vice of the European mobility and to
clerical corruption. Though each of these factors may have been in part to blame, a more
basic reason for the failure seems to have been the debasement of the ideal of the Crusade
itself. The use by Gregory X's predecessors of the label and privileges of the Crusade to
recruit armies which could fight the Papacy's European armies had done much to throw the
whole movement into disrepute.
In any event, no Crusade of any major importance was forthcoming, despite the Pope's
best efforts. Meanwhile the attacks on the Latin East continued, as did also the internal
difficulties within what was left of the Latin Kingdom. By 1276 the situation of the
Kingdom, both external and internal, had become so perilous that the "King of
Jerusalem" withdrew from Palestine altogether to take up his abode on the Island of
Cyprus.
The desperate plight of the Latin Kingdom worsened. In 1278 Lattakioh fell. In 1289
Tripoli was lost, too. Frantic efforts once again to conclude an alliance between Europe
and the Mongols failed." At last, in 1291, the Egyptian Sultan, al-Ashraf, began an
assault upon the last major Latin city left in Palestine - Acre.
THE FALL OF ACRE
After having told of the glories and beauties of Acre, I will now shortly tell you of
its fall and ruin, and the cause of its loss, even as I beard the tale told by right
truthful men, who well remembered it. While, then, the grand doings of which I have spoken
were going on in Acre, at the instigation of the devil these arose a violent and hateful
quarrel in Lombardy between the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, which brought all evil upon
the Christians. Those Lombards who dwelt at Acre took sides in this same quarrel,
especially the Pisans and Genoese, both of whom had an exceedingly strong party in Acre.
These men made treaties and truces with the Saracens, to the end that they might the
better fight against one another within the city. When Pope Urban [note; Some confusion
here - perhaps Pope Nicholas IV, 1288-92 is meant?] heard of this, he grieved for
Christendom and for the Holy Land, and sent twelve thousand mercenary troops across the
sea to help the Holy Land and Christendom. When these men came across the sea to Acre they
did no good, but abode by day and by night in taverns and places of illrepute, took and
plundered merchants and pilgrims in the public street, broke the treaty, and did much
evil. Melot Sapheraph, Sultan of Babylon," an exceedingly wise man, most potent in
arms and bold in action, when he heard of this, and knew of the hateful quarrels of the
people of Acre, called together his counselors and held a parliament in Babylon, wherein
he complained that the truces had frequently been broken and violated, to the prejudice of
himself and his people. After a debate had been held upon this matter, he gathered
together a mighty host, and reached the city of Acre without any resistance, because of
their quarrels with one another, cutting down and wasting all the vineyards and fruit
trees and all the gardens and orchards, which are most lovely thereabout. When the Master
of the Templars, [William of Beaujeu] a very wise and brave knight, saw this, he feared
that the fall of the city was at hand, because of the quarrels of the citizens. He took
counsel with his brethren about how peace could be restored, and then went out to meet the
Sultan, who was his own very especial friend, to ask him whether they could by any means
repair the broken truce. He obtained these terms from the Sultan, to wit, that because of
his love for the Sultan and the honor in which the Sultan held him, the broken truce might
be restored by every man in Acre paying one Venetian penny. So the Master of the Templars
was glad, and, departing from the Sultan, called together all the people and preached a
sermon to them in the Church of St. Cross, setting forth how, by his prayers, he had
prevailed upon the Sultan to grant that the broken treaty might be restored by a payment
of one Venetian penny by each man, that therewith everything might be settled and quieted.
He advised them by all means so to do, declaring that the quarrels of the citizens might
bring a worse evil upon the city than this as indeed they did. But when the people heard
this, they cried out with one voice that he was the betrayer of the city, and was guilty
of death. The Master, when he beard this, left the church, hardly escaped alive from the
hands of the people, and took back their answer to the Sultan. When the Sultan heard this,
knowing that, owing to the quarrels of the people, none of them would make any resistance,
he pitched his tents, set up sixty machines, dug many mines beneath the city walls, and
for forty days and nights, without any respite, assailed the city with fire, stones, and
arrows, so that [the air] seemed to be stiff with arrows. I have beard a very honorable
knight say that a lance which he was about to hurl from a tower among the Saracens was all
notched with arrows before it left his hand. There were at that time in the Sultan's army
six hundred thousand armed, divided into three companies; so one hundred thousand
continually besieged the city, and when they were weary another hundred thousand took
their place before the same, two hundred thousand stood before the gates of the city ready
for battle, and the duty of the remaining two hundred thousand was to supply them with
everything that they needed. The gates were never closed, nor was there an hour of the day
without some hard fight being fought against the Saracens by the Templars or other
brethren dwelling therein. But the numbers of the Saracens grew so fast that after one
hundred thousand of them had been slain two hundred thousand came back. Yet, even against
all this host, they would not have lost the city had they but helped one another
faithfully; but when they were fighting without the city, one party would run away and
leave the other to be slain, while within the city one party would not defend the castle
or palace belonging to the other, but purposely let the other party's castles, palaces,
and strong places be stormed and taken by the enemy, and each one knew and believed his
own castle and place to be so strong that he cared not for any other's castle or strong
place. During this confusion the masters and brethren of the Orders alone defended
themselves, and fought unceasingly against the Saracens, until they were nearly all slain;
indeed, the Master and brethren of the house of the Teutonic Order, together with their
followers and friends, all fell dead at one and the same time. As this went on with many
battles and thousands slain on either side, at last the fulfillment of their sins and the
time of the fall of the city drew near; when the fortieth day of its siege was come, in
the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and ninety-two, on the twelfth day of the
month of May, the most noble and glorious city of Acre, the flower, chief and pride of all
the cities of the East, was taken. The people of the other cities, to wit, Jaffa, Tyre,
Sidon and Ascalon, when they heard this, left all their property behind and Red to Cyprus.
When first the Saracens took Acre they got in through a breach in the wall near the King
of Jerusalem's castle, and when they were among the people of the city within, one party
still would not help the other, but each defended his own castle and palace, and the
Saracens had a much longer siege, and fought at much less advantage when they were within
the city than when they were without , for it was wondrously fortified. Indeed, we read in
the stories of the loss of Acre that because of the sins of the people thereof the four
elements fought on the side of the Saracens. First the air became so thick, dark, and
cloudy that, while one castle, palace, or strong place was being stormed or burned, men
could hardly see in the other castles and palaces, until their castles and palaces were
attacked, and then for the first time they would have willingly defended themselves, could
they have come together. Fire fought against the city, for it consumed it. Earth fought
against the city, for it drank up its blood. Water also fought against the city, for it
being the month of May, wherein the sea is wont to be very calm, when the people of Acre
plainly saw that because of their sins and the darkening of the air they could not see
their enemies, they fled to the sea, desiring to sail to Cyprus, and whereas at first
there was no wind at all at sea, of a sudden so great a storm arose that no other ship,
either great or small, could come near the shore, and many who essayed to swim off to the
ships were drowned. Howbeit, more than one hundred thousand men escaped to Cyprus. I have
heard from a most honorable Lord, and from other truthful men who were present, that more
than five hundred most noble ladies and maidens, the daughters of kings and princes, came
down to the seashore, when the city was about to fall, carrying with them all their jewels
and ornaments of gold and precious stones, of priceless value, in their bosoms, and cried
aloud, whether there were any sailor there who would take all their jewels and take
whichever of them he chose to wife, if only he would take them, even naked, to some safe
land or island. A sailor received them all into his ship, took them across to Cyprus, with
all their goods, for nothing, and went his way. But who he was, whence he came, or whither
he went, no man knows to this day. Very many other noble ladies and damsels were drowned
or slain. It would take long to tell what grief and anguish was there. While the Saracens
were within the city, but before they had taken it, fighting from castle to castle, from
one palace and strong place to another, so many men perished on either side that they
walked over their corpses as it were over a bridge. When all the inner city was lost, all
who still remained alive fled into the exceeding strong castle of the Templars, which was
straightway invested on all sides by the Saracens; yet the Christians bravely defended it
for two months, and before it almost all the nobles and chiefs of the Sultan's army fell
dead. For when the city inside the walls was burned, yet the towers of the city, and the
Templars' castle, which was in the city, remained, and with these the people of the city
kept the Saracens within the city from getting out, as before they had hindered their
coming in, until of all the Saracens who had entered the city not one remained alive, but
all fell by fire or by the sword. When the Saracen nobles saw the others lying dead, and
themselves unable to escape from the city, they fled for refuge into the mines which they
had dug under the great tower, that they might make their way through the wall and so get
out. But the Templars and others who were in the castle, seeing that they could not hurt
the Saracens with stones and the like, because of the mines wherein they were, undermined
the great tower of the castle, and flung it down upon the mines and the Saracens therein,
and all perished alike. When the other Saracens without the city saw that they had thus,
as it were, failed utterly, they treacherously made a truce with the Templars and
Christians on the condition that they should yield up the castle, taking all their goods
with them, and should destroy it, but should rebuild the city on certain terms, and dwell
therein in peace as heretofore. The Templars and Christians, believing this, gave up the
castle and marched out of it, and came down from the city towers. When the Saracens had by
this means got possession both of the castle and of the city towers, they slew all the
Christians alike, and led away the captives to Babylon. Thus Acre has remained empty and
deserted even to this day. In Acre and the other places Dearly a hundred and six thousand
men were slain or taken, and more than two hundred thousand escaped from thence. Of the
Saracens more than three hundred thousand were slain, as is well known even to this day.
The Saracens spent forty days over the siege of the city, fifty days within the city
before it was taken, and two months over the siege of the Templars' castle. When the
glorious city of Acre thus fell, all the Eastern people sung of its fall in hymns of
lamentation, such as they are wont to sing over the tombs of their dead, bewailing the
beauty, the grandeur, and the glory of Acre even to this day. Since that day all Christian
women, whether gentle or simple, who dwell along the eastern shore [of the Mediterranean]
dress in black garments of mourning and woe for the lost grandeur of Acre, even to this
day.
[Adapted from Brundage] The fall of Acre closed an era. No effective Crusade was raised
to recapture the Holy Land after Acre's fall, though talk of further Crusades was common
enough. By 1291 other ideals had captured the interest and enthusiasm of the monarchs and
nobility of Europe and even strenuous papal efforts to raise expeditions to liberate the
Holy Land met with little response. The ideal of the Crusade was irretrievably tarnished.
The Latin Kingdom continued to exist, theoretically, on the Island of Cyprus. There the
Latin Kings schemed and planned to recapture the mainland, but in vain. Money, men, and
the will to do the task were all lacking. One last effort was made by King Peter I in
1365, when be successfully landed in Egypt and sacked Alexandria. Once the city was
pillaged, however, the Crusaders returned as speedily as possible to Cyprus to divide
their loot. As a Crusade, the episode was utterly futile.
The fourteenth century saw some other so-called Crusades organized, but these
enterprises differed in many ways from the eleventh and twelfth century expeditions which
are properly called Crusades. The "Crusades" of the fourteenth century aimed not
at the recapture of Jerusalem and the Christian shrines of the Holy Land, but rather at
checking the advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe. While many of the
"Crusaders" in these fourteenth century undertakings looked upon the defeat of
the Ottomans as a preliminary to the ultimate recapture of the holy Land, none of the
later crusades attempted any direct attack upon Palestine or Syria.
Source:
Ludolph of Suchem, Description of the Holy Land and of the Way Thither, trans.
Aubrey Stewart (London: Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society, 1895), XII, 5461. reprinted in
James Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary History, (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette
University Press, 1962), 268-72
Copyright note: Professor Brundage informed the Medieval Sourcebook that
copyright was not renewed on this work. Moreover he gave permission for use of his
translations.
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