Knight of Jerusalem -- Search for the Cover

My current project is a biographical novel of Balian d'Ibelin in three parts. The first book in the trilogy will be released this fall under the title: Knight of Jerusalem. The publisher has provided three mock-up covers. Please tell me which you like best by taking part in the poll.

The cover text below will tell you a little more about the content of the book -- and I'll provide more information about it as the publication date gets closer.

Balian, the landless son of a local baron, goes to Jerusalem to seek his fortune. Instead he finds himself trapped into serving a young prince suffering from leprosy. He appears condemned to obscurity and an early death — until the king dies unexpectedly making the leper boy King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.

The Byzantine princess Maria Comnena was just 13 years old when she arrived in the Kingdom of Jerusalem to cement the alliance between Latin Jerusalem and Greek Constantinople.  Despite her excellent education and intelligence, she is little more than a pretty doll in the eyes of her husband, a man almost three times her age.  Then suddenly the King is dead and at just 20 years of age Maria finds herself a wealthy widow with a vulnerable two-year-old daughter on her hands.

 Meanwhile, the charismatic Kurdish leader Saladin has united the forces of Islam and vowed to drive the Christians into the sea.  Only a united and vigorous defense can save the Christian kingdom, but not only is the king young, inexperienced and mortally ill, the barons are divided among themselves and the militant orders bitter rivals.  As the King tries to chart a course to salvage his Kingdom from certain obliteration, he leans increasingly upon his boyhood friend, Balian d’Ibelin.

The King Who Would Be Saint: Excerpt from St. Louis' Knight

The king was not alone, but Eleanor was far too tense to take note of anyone else. She was only vaguely aware that there were far too many priests and monks and far too few knights. She could sense the presence of the Inquisition, whispering insidious things about her into the king’s ears, while the shortage of fighting men underlined the king’s hopeless situation. His brothers had sailed for home the day before, and they had been some of the last of the crusaders to depart. Surrounding King Louis now were not French but local barons, men who could not sail away because their land ― what was left of it ― was here, and officers of the Knights Templar and Hospitaller.

Eleanor kept her eyes fixed on the king. He was tall and blond with a strong resemblance to the Count of Poitiers, except that the king was much thinner and frailer. Poitiers looked like the kind of man who earned his living with the sword; the king looked like a monk. He was dressed simply for a king too, with none of Poitiers bright-colored clothes and glittering jewels. He was not wearing a crown or any form of collar. His belt, while tastefully made of brass and enamel disks, would not have been inappropriate on a merchant's waist. He wore no armor, but a long blue robe dusted with the lilies of France, over a silk shirt of a lighter blue. He wasn’t even wearing boots and spurs, Eleanor registered, with a pang of remembrance and a futile wish to be back on Cyprus with Sir Geoffrey at her side.

Perhaps it was this moment of inattention, or just the fact that she was so tense, but her foot caught on the edge of a carpet and she pitched forward headlong. As she tried to recover, the carpet slid on the polished marble floor and she crashed down on her hip so hard the thump was audible throughout the room. She gasped in pain and then felt what seemed like a dozen hands reaching out, voices asking if she was alright. Had she hurt herself? She tried to get up, assuring everyone that she was fine, but no one paid her any attention. Strong hands had hold of her and were guiding her to a seat, ordering her to sit down. “I’m so sorry,” she stammered, “I’m so sorry.”

The hands were warm and dry and reassuring. “Just sit and catch your breath, my dear,” the voice said gently.

A chalice with wine was pressed into her trembling hands. “Sip this. It will calm your nerves.”

Eleanor accepted the wine out of embarrassment, and grateful for anything that deferred the ultimate confrontation with the king. It had been bad enough with the Count of Poitiers in an old-fashioned gown, but to have stumbled and fallen was even worse. She was certain the king was watching this ridiculous drama with impatience.

And then she realized that the hand offering the cup of wine had a signet ring with lilies of France on it. She froze. The sleeves of the gown beyond the wrist were blue. Her eyes crept up toward the elbows to the broader sleeves of the gown: dark blue powered with lilies. She looked up and straight into kindly blue eyes. “Your Grace!” Eleanor gasped and tried to get up again so she could courtesy.

“Just relax,” The king ordered her. “You may have injured yourself more than you know.”

“But ― “

“Hush.” He insisted, his eyes smiling at her. When she went still, he pressed the wine on her again, remarking, “As my ward, child, you are as a daughter to me, and I intend to do my best to make up for the hardships you have already endured. I hope you are not too disappointed not to be going home with my beloved brother of Poitiers?”

“Home, your Grace?” Eleanor was still too disoriented to fully grasp how she had come to sit next to her worst enemy. The mention of home, however, roused the dead, and she realized with horror she was drinking from the king’s blood soaked hand. It was as if she the blood of her brothers had colored the wine he held. She drew back, fighting the temptation to let herself get seduced by his superficial kindness. “How can I ever go home?” she asked, seeing her brother Roger’s face, “when everyone I loved is dead? Killed, not by the Saracen, but by ―” on the brink of saying “you” she stopped herself and substituted “France.”

King Louis caught his breath, and Eleanor winced, expecting him to slap her for so much impudence. When the blow did not come, she held her breath and waited for the inevitable anger that would bring the full weight of royal fury down upon her head. Now it was her brother Henri, who spoke in a tone of desperate sadness, “Oh, Nel! How could you do that! Why insult a king to his face?”

Still King Louis did not answer. He considered her intently, while Eleanor looked down at her hands, clutching her skirts in her lap. Then he took a sip of his own wine before remarking. “I was still a boy when my father died; I became very dependent upon the advice of my mother. My mother saved my kingdom for me ― from Flanders, from the Plantagenets, from the rebellious barons Hugh de Lusignan and Peter de Dreux. Who was I to doubt her, when she said I must crush the rebellion of the Count of Toulouse? I do not mean to place blame on someone else, but I would like you to consider the fact that a king too must learn his trade. Your brother Roger murdered unarmed men of God, but your brother Henri, had he not died in prison, would have been pardoned.”

“I loved my mother too, your grace,” Eleanor countered softly but intensely, “And you burned her at the stake.”

The silence in the chamber was so intense Eleanor could hear the voices of the gardeners in the courtyard. She could feel the stares of all the other men in the room, sense their outrage.

Louis nodded slowly, and his eyes searched her face. She did not dare meet those eyes. She looked down at her hands; she had unconsciously wrapped her left hand in her skirts to cover the ugly burn scar on the palm.

“Will you try to forgive me?” The king asked softly, and Eleanor snapped her head up in astonishment. Their eyes met, and she felt her heart start to quaver. He meant it. He was asking for her forgiveness.

“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…” It was her mother’s voice in her head now. Her mother, who taught that forgiving the sins of others was the basis of all Grace. “Did Christ clothe himself in gold and jewels and ask his disciplines to bow down to him? Did he ask for praise and flattery?” she asked rhetorically. “No! All he asks is that we forgive the sins of others, if we expect Him to forgive our own.”

“Yes, your Grace,” Eleanor heard herself saying in a weak but clear voice that carried across the room. “Yes. I will try to forgive you.”

Suddenly, she and the King of France were smiling at each other.

Women in the Kingdom of Jerusalem

The crusader states, established at the beginning of the 12 century, rapidly developed unique political institutions and their own legal traditions. One of the most interesting ways in which they set themselves apart from contemporary societies was the prominent role played by women.  I

In the surrounding Muslim world, of course, women had neither names nor faces, much less a voice, in public. In the Byzantine Empire, on the other hand, women enjoyed considerable freedom, wealth, education and influence, but they did not directly hold power.  In Western Europe, the 12^th century saw several very powerful female rulers, notably the Empress Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine, yet the crusader kingdoms stand out because the high status of women in the Holy Land was more comprehensive and institutionalized than in either the Eastern Empire or the Western Europe.

This exceptional position for women probably evolved out of the repeated failure of the ruling dynasties to produce male heirs.  A look at the succession in the Kingdom of Jerusalem illustrates this well. When Baldwin II died in 1131, he was succeeded by his daughter, Melisende, who ruled jointly with her husband Fulk of Anjou (grandfather by his first marriage of Henry II of England). When Fulk died in 1143, Melisende remained Queen of Jerusalem, and ruled jointly with her eldest son, Baldwin III.  Although her son eventually side-lined her, it was only after a struggle in which several powerful barons and most of the clergy sided with the Queen. At Baldwin III’s death in 1163, his heir was his brother Amalric I, but Amalric’s heir was the ill-fated Baldwin IV, the Leper King, who could have no children.  This made his sisters (and through them and their husbands) his heirs.  At Baldwin’s death, the crown passed first to his sister Sibylla’s young son, Baldwin V, and, after his death, to her and her husband, Guy de Lusignan.  At Sibylla’s death, Guy lost his right to the crown (in the eyes of the Barons of Outremer), and it passed instead to Baldwin IV’s other sister Isabella and her successive husbands.  When Isabella died, she was succeeded by her only child, a daughter, Marie, and she conferred the kingship on her husband, John de Brienne, before dying giving birth to yet another girl, Yolanda (or Isabelle), who passed the crown of Jerusalem to her husband, Friedrich II, the Holy Roman Emperor.

In short, in the century between the death of Baldwin II and the ascension of Friedrich II, the crown of Jerusalem passed through the female line no less than ten times! Furthermore, the situation in the crusader states and baronies was similar, if not quite so dramatic; that is, the title to baronies repeatedly passed through heiress rather than heirs. This fact alone would have increased the importance of women, but it is significant that these queens (and countesses and ladies) were not passive vessels.

Melisende was Queen in her own right, commanded loyalty and support among her vassals and forced both her husband and later her son to take her political wishes into account.  Sibylla forced upon the kingdom a man patently unsuitable for the kingship and soon detested by her brother, the reigning King, and the majority of the barons.  When her son Baldwin V died, Sibylla – not Guy – was crowned by the patriarch, and she placed the crown on Guy’s head as her consort.  Furthermore, Guy’s vassals viewed their oaths to him absolved the moment Sibylla died – despite Richard of England’s determined support for Guy.  In the end, even the Lionheart gave up and recognized that without Sibylla, Guy could not be King of Jerusalem. The crown passed to Sibylla’s sister, Isabella. Isabella conferred the crown on three men in succession, Conrad of Montferrat, Henri de Champagne and finally AImery de Lusignan. Notably, Henri de Champagne, a nephew of both Philip II of France and Richard I of England (his mother was a daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine by Louis VII), never even called himself King of Jerusalem; he remained Count of Champagne, while Isabella was Queen of Jerusalem. Her daughter’s husband, John of Brienne, also lost his title of King of Jerusalem at his wife’s death, although he acted as regent for his infant daughter until she wed Friedrich II.

The dynastic importance of women was both cause and effect of a uniquely high status for women in the crusader kingdoms that took many other forms. Not only did women act as regents and receive homage from vassals, they enjoyed a freedom of movement and opinion that scandalized the Muslim – and sometimes the Christian – world.  Some claim Amalric I’s first wife, Agnes de Courtney, was set aside because of her immorality; certainly she was accused of having affairs with a prelate of the church (later the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius) and with Aimery de Lusignan. Her daughter Sibylla is alleged to have had an affair with Baldwin d’Ibelin before taking Guy de Lusignan to her bed.  A contemporary claimed that Baldwin IV wanted to hang Guy for “debauching” a princess of Jerusalem, but was then persuaded to let his sister marry her lover.  It was behavior such as this that led many in the West to believe Jerusalem had been lost because of God’s wrath with the immoral Christian rulers.

Yet while the antics of the royal women may indeed have deserved censure, the higher status of women generally meant that widows in the crusader kingdoms exercised far more control over their property and their lives. SIbylla is the most prominent example, but she was not alone in choosing her second husband. Constance of Antioch chose Reynald de Chatillon, and Maria Comnena chose Balian d’Ibelin, just to name two other prominent examples. In short, young girls were married often at very tender ages to boys or men of their parents’ choice, but widows had the power, property and right to choose their own husbands – and often did.

The higher status of women also impacted their daily lives. Upper class women were literate as they could not have otherwise conducted their affairs, and they owned books. Some accounts stress that they rode astride for greater safety in an always precarious environment, something that gave them greater mobility. They did not have to go veiled in public, although women almost certainly covered their faces from the ravaging effects of the summer sun when out of doors.  But perhaps most important, they were entitled to their opinions, free to voice them and often heeded by their male contemporaries. Compared to their faceless and voiceless sisters in the Muslim world, this was undoubtedly the greatest privilege of all.

The Crusader Kingdoms and the Elected Kingshiop

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Kings of Jerusalem is the fact that they were elected rather than born. 

The tradition started, of course, with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. The First Crusade had never had a single leader and there was considerable (often destructive) rivalry between the leading lords that took the cross, notably, Raymond IV Count of Toulouse, Stephan Count of Blois, Robert Count of Flanders, Hugh Count of Vermandois, Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew Tancred, and the brothers Godfrey and Baldwin of Boulogne. 

By the time the crusaders reached Jerusalem, Stephan had abandoned the crusade altogether, Baldwin of Boulogne had struck off on his own and captured Edessa, and Bohemond had remained in Antioch to re-establish a Christian state there.  The remaining lords, however, chose Godfrey of Boulogne to rule over Jerusalem.  Godfrey had won the respect of his fellow crusaders by his leadership, and although Raymond of Toulouse probably expected the honor himself, he accepted the choice.  Godfrey reputedly refused to wear “a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorn” and took the title of “Defender” or “Protector” or possibly just “Ruler” of Jerusalem.  

Just one year later, however, he was dead without an heir. The nascent kingdom was in a more precarious state than ever, since the majority of the surviving crusaders felt they had fulfilled their vow and returned home. Those noblemen remaining in the Holy Land again (not without controversy) selected a successor from among themselves, in this case, Godfrey’s brother Baldwin.  Baldwin did not share his brother’s qualms about calling himself king, and took the title of King Baldwin I.

 

Eighteen years later, Baldwin I also died without an heir of his body, and the barons of the crusader kingdoms chose for a third time a leader from among their ranks.  This time their choice fell on Baldwin of Bourcq, who thereby became Baldwin II of Jerusalem.

Three such “elections” (with admittedly limited franchise!) set a legal precedent and the Kings of Jerusalem were henceforth always “elected” by the High Court of Jerusalem, the later composed of the leading lords of the realm.  This is the equivalent of the English House of Lords electing the Kings of England!

As the products of European feudalism with strong ties to the ruling houses of England and France, the members of the High Court showed a strong bias in favor of blood relatives of the last monarch.  Nevertheless, the approval of the High Court was considered a pre-requisite for legitimate rule. Thus every time a king died, there was effectively an interregnum (if not outright crisis) while factions positioned themselves and consensus sought among the members of the High Court.

Perhaps the most serious succession crisis occurred at the critical period when Saladin had united Islam for the first time in a hundred years and declared his intention to wage jihad against the crusader kingdoms until he had pushed them into the sea. The king at the time, Baldwin IV, suffered from leprosy and was dying limb by limb; he had no children.  His closest male relative was his 8 year old nephew, the son of his sister Sibylla.  To prevent Sibylla’s husband, who the dying king detested and mistrusted, from becoming king, Baldwin IV orchestrated the coronation of his nephew as Baldwin V during his lifetime, thereby ensuring the barons had all sworn their oaths as vassals to the boy.  Recognizing, however, that life was fragile in the Holy Land in the 12^th century, Baldwin IV also made his vassals swear to  consult with the Kings of England and France and the Pope before a electing a king to succeed his nephew, if boy did not survive into adulthood.

This elaborate attempt to curtail the sovereignty of the High Court of Jerusalem failed.  When Baldwin V died less than a year after his uncle, no one had time for such a lengthy process as sending to London, Paris and Rome for advice.  (The English and French kings could be counted on not to agree on anything anyway, since they were at war with one another.) Instead, while the High Court was meeting in Tiberius, Princess Sibylla and her husband staged a coup: they persuaded the Patriarch to crown and anoint Sibylla queen of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. She  then crowned her husband Guy de Lusignan as her consort.

Without the consent of the High Court, however, Guy de Lusignan was a usurper.  The bulk of the barons were prepared to oppose him by crowning an alternative candidate, namely the husband of Baldwin IV’s other sister, Isabella. With the enemy almost literally at the gates, however, the High Court’s choice for king, Humphrey de Toron, chose not to contest the kingship and took an oath to Guy de Lusignan instead.  While this act made it politically impossible to oppose Guy de Lusignan, Raymond of Tripoli was legally within his rights to refuse to swear allegiance to Guy.

While the High Court was circumvented by Sibylla and Guy’s coup in 1186, the High Court exerted (and revenged) itself effectively six years later when Sibylla and her daughters by Guy died of fever in 1190.  Guy saw himself as an anointed king and sought the support of his father’s overlord, the most powerful monarch in Christendom and only military commander with a chance of restoring the fortunes of the crusader kingdoms: Richard “the Lionheart” of England. Richard unequivocally supported Guy’s claim to the throne of Jerusalem – but the High Court refused to cave in. With Sibylla’s death, Guy’s claim to the kingdom was deemed over.  Since Humphrey of Toron was unwilling or unable to oppose Guy, the High Court pressured a reluctant Isabella, the last surviving child of King Amalric I, to divorce Humphrey and take a new husband, Conrad of Montferrat. Conrad was then recognized by the High Court as the legitimate king of Jerusalem. Since Jerusalem was still in Saracen hands, no coronation actually took place, but after two years Richard the Lionheart backed down and conceded that without the consent of the High Court even an anointed king could not rule the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

St. Louis and the 7th Crusade -- Two Reviews

Last week I described the 7th Crusade; this week I'd like to talk about two books that deal with it.

Chronicles of the Crusades by Jean de Joinville and Geoffroy de Villehardouin

This is a rare book which offers us two contemporary accounts of the crusades through the eyes of participants -- and not just monkish chroniclers but fighting men.

Although the two accounts are by different authors (Geoffroy de Villehardouin for the Fourth Crusade and Jean de Joinville for the Seventh), they both offer stark, un-romanticized and often critical reports. These men are describing military campaigns not creating works of art. They are both soldiers and statesmen, intimates of the leaders of the respective campaigns, offering an analysis of events rather than poets trying to inspire. The clear, unembellished style is in part attributable to an outstanding modern translation of the medieval French by M.R.B. Shaw, but the descriptions of appalling conditions, fear, brutality, and betrayal are all the work of the original authors.

To be sure, Joinville's stated intention is to pay tribute to his beloved late King and to justify King Louis' reputation for saintliness. Joinville's handling of Louis is, in this sense, unabashedly biased. But this in no way detracts from the authenticity of his account of the Seventh Crusade. On the contrary, Joinville's Louis can only shine if he shows how very dark the surroundings were. I was particularly struck by Joinville's willingness to admit and describe his own fears, uncertainties and mistakes.

These accounts are also invaluable to historians because the narrators explain events in terms they consider self-evident -- but which are often alien to us, reminding us of the great differences in social attitudes between then and now.  Thus, while human emotions, motives and behavior is strikingly similar to today, other aspects of society are strikingly different. Likewise, details like how horses were loaded on ships or how provisions were pre-positioned and stored for the king of France are described lucidly, providing the novelist and historian with invaluable details of medieval military operations.

I highly recommend these accounts -- just don't expect them to be tales of brave knights and fair ladies. These are the accounts of real men about real wars.

 

Everything is Light by Robert Shea

This is a surprisingly well written tale, with an excellent portrayal of King Louis IX of France. Although the book starts with the fall of the last Cathar fortress of Montsegur in 1244, it provides a historically sound, comprehensible and (again) un-romaticized introduction to the key issues involved in the Albigensian crusades. It avoids the use of magic and mystery, far too common in modern writing about the Cathars, and instead presents complex, believable characters deserving of sympathy but flawed and inconsistent -- as we all are. This is without doubt the best book I have read on this fascinating episode in history.

The Last Crusades

There were to be four more crusades, but all of them were, each in their own way, dismal failures, mere echoes of the First and Third Crusades, and none could halt the inevitable end of the crusader kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Seventh Crusade was notable for being led by a man who would later be sainted, King Louis IX of France. I will deal with them all in this, my last entry, on the history of the crusades.

The Fifth Crusade: 1218-1221

The fate of the children sent a new shock through the courts of Europe, and a new attempt was made to rally political support for a military campaign to rescue Jerusalem. Pope Innocent III called officially for a new crusade in 1215, but the forces gathered were too weak for a direct assault. The leaders, none of whom were prominent, chose instead to put pressure on the Sultan of Egypt by laying siege to the Egyptian coastal city of Damietta. Although Damietta fell to the crusaders in 1219, this minor victory had no impact on the situation in the Holy Land. Two years later the crusaders withdrew.

The Sixth Crusade: 1228-1229

The Sixth Crusade was led by Emperor Friedrich II of Germany, however, the Emperor’s motives were largely secular. He laid claim to the title of King of Jerusalem by right of his wife, and wanted to establish his control over the Kingdom (such as it was) and furthermore exert his claim to overlordship of the Kingdom of Cyprus. He was, furthermore, under a ban of excommunication at the time he undertook the crusade, which made it difficult for the Knights Templar or the Knights Hospitaller to support him. In the end, he negotiated a treaty that returned Jerusalem and Bethlehem to the Christians for 10 years, but denied the Christians the right to fortify the city. This outraged the local nobility and the militant orders, who recognized that the Saracens would be able to retake Jerusalem at whim – and that they would be expected to bleed and die in the attempt to save it long after Friedrich had departed for Germany.

The Seventh Crusade: 1248-1254

 

 

 

As had been foreseen, Jerusalem was soon seized and sacked by Saracen forces (in 1244). That same year, King Louis IX of France was on his deathbed in Paris. With his family and barons gathered around to hear his last wishes, he had a vision of Jerusalem, and when he recovered seemingly miraculously from his illness, he was convinced that God had restored his health so that he could lead a new crusade to free Jerusalem. Not since the Third Crusade had there been a ruling monarch who took the cross out of religious fervor. Louis IX overcame the reluctance of his nobles and assembled a considerable force, said to have numbered 2,000 knights. He sailed for Outremer in 1248 from Aigues-Mortes in southern France, accompanied by his three younger brothers – the Counts of Artois, Poitiers, and Anjou – and by his queen.

 

 

After staging in Cyprus over the winter, Louis’ army embarked for Egypt and captured Damietta after a battle before the gates (but without a siege) in June 1249. The crusaders collected their forces in Damietta, and then in early 1250 started up the Nile with the objective of capturing Cairo. In February 1250 their advance was halted by a large Muslim force holding the fortified city of Mansourah. A rash attack by the vanguard, led by the Count of Artois, resulted in heavy losses, including the Count of Artois and nearly all the Knights Templar on the expedition. Meanwhile the Sultan’s forces had succeeded in cutting off the crusaders’ supplies from Cyprus and the Holy Land, and the French were soon suffering from hunger, dysentery, and scurvy.

In April, King Louis, along with all his surviving knights and men, was taken captive. The wounded were slaughtered, as were most of the priests and any of the captives considered too weak to make good slaves. The commoners were given the choice of conversion to Islam or death. Only the wealthy knights and noblemen were held for ransom.

 

 

Louis’ queen and consort, nine months pregnant and in Damietta with only a weak guard, rejected the advice to flee for her safety, wisely recognizing that Damietta was her husband’s most valuable bargaining chip. Within only a few weeks, a deal had been struck, by which Damietta was returned to the Sultan of Egypt in exchange for King Louis’ release, and a huge ransom in gold was paid by the King of France for all the rest of the surviving crusaders in Egyptian hands.

The Sultan with whom this deal was made, however, was murdered before Louis’ eyes before the deal could be implemented. The murderers of the Sultan were rebellious Mamlukes, technically slaves, who formed the backbone of the Sultan’s military leadership and his bodyguard. The Mamlukes cut the Sultan’s heart out of his chest in full view of the French king, then came aboard King Louis’ galley and held it out to him, demanding to know what he would give them for the heart of his “enemy.” Louis was (to his credit!) speechless. The Mamlukes next threatened the Christians with execution, and most of them confessed their sins to one another (because the priests had already been slaughtered by their captors), and prepared to die. In the morning, however, the Mamlukes consented to the agreed ransom. After Damietta was turned over and the first installment of the ransom paid, King Louis, his surviving brothers, and the most important noble captives – but not all the knights nor any of the commoners – were released.

King Louis – against the advice of his nobles – remained in the Holy Land for another four years, and engaged in sophisticated diplomatic maneuvering with the Sultan of Damascus (a descendant of Saladin, appalled by the Mamlukes’ murder of his cousin), the Mongols, and the Assassins. When his mother, left in France as his regent, died in 1254, however, he returned to France. By that time he had secured the release of at least 3,000 prisoners and had signed treaties that stabilized the fragile status quo in the Christian territories.

The Eighth Crusade: 1270

Although the Mongols captured Baghdad in 1258 and took Aleppo and Damascus in 1260, by 1265 the new Sultan of Egypt, the Mamluke general Baibars, had put them on the defensive, and he soon felt strong enough to focus his attention on eliminating the remaining Christian strongholds in the Holy Land. In 1265 he captured Caesarea and Arsuf. In 1266 he took Safed and Galilee. In 1268, Baibars took Jaffa, Antioch, and Sidon.

King Louis IX, although now 66 years old and very ill, “took the cross” again. He gathered an army and sailed for North Africa, where he laid siege to Tunis, but his army was soon decimated by sickness and demoralized by the death of King Louis himself on August 25, 1270. This was the ignominious end of the last official crusade.

Edward of England in the Holy Land: 1271-1272

Prince Edward of England, later Edward I, was in the Holy Land in 1271-1272, but despite tactical successes he had insufficient military strength to make a lasting impact on the imbalance of forces.

The End of Christian Palestine

Baibars’ successor, Kala’un, another Mamluke emir who murdered his way to power, was determined to eliminate the remaining Christian strongholds on the coast. Breaking a truce he had made with the Christians, he captured the Hospitaller fortress of Marquab in 1285. In 1289 he took the Christian city of Tripoli, slaughtering all the males and flooding the slave markets with the women and children. In 1291, the last Christian outpost, the city of Acre, was besieged and captured. The military orders withdrew from their remaining fortresses without a fight and re-established their headquarters on Cyprus. The Christian kingdoms established in the Holy Land by the First Crusade had been extinguished and there wound never again be an armed pilgrimage by Christians to recapture the sites of Christ’s passion.

 

 

 

The Children’s Crusade: 1212

The Fourth Crusade had exposed the corruption of the ruling elites, particularly the greed of the Italian city-states, and had patently failed to achieve the objective of freeing Jerusalem. Yet religious fervor was again on the rise. Genuine grass-roots passion for a new crusade took tragic shape in a movement to free Jerusalem by love rather than force.

 

A French shepherd boy, Stephan, claimed to have had a vision of Christ dressed as a pilgrim. Almost simultaneously, in Germany, a 10-year-old boy, Nicolas, had a similar vision. The concept of this crusade was that the sins of the earlier crusaders – and the very fact that they sought to use force to achieve their objective – made them unworthy of success. Only the innocent could free Jerusalem – or so the leaders and adherents of this new crusade believed. They expected Jesus to welcome them to his homeland and drive out the Saracen.

 

An estimated 20,000 children followed Nicolas’ call to free Jerusalem. Allegedly entire villages were emptied of children, and many believe that the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin has its roots in this crusade. Most of these children died crossing the Alps, and those who reached Rome were freed from their crusading vow by the Pope.

 

Meanwhile, Stephan had led his some ten thousand followers to Marseilles, only to discover that merchants and ship owners had no intention of transporting his child crusaders to Outremer free of charge. Eventually, however, some Genoese ship owners agreed to provide passage to the children – and promptly sold them to Arab slave traders.

 

 

The Second and Third Crusades

After the "excursion" of the last six weeks to the Languedoc and the Albigesian Crusades, I'd like to return to my series of essays on the Crusades to the Holy Land. I left off on September 13 with a description of the Crusader Kingdoms.

 

Here the Crusader Castle of Kerak

 

 

The Second Crusade,1146 - 1148

 







The crusader kingdoms were a remarkable achievement that astonished the contemporary world. But less than a half century after the re-capture of Jerusalem by Christian forces, the new Christian kingdoms suffered their first major set back. In 1144, the Principality of Edessa was captured by Saracen forces. By 1146, the Principality of Antioch was also threatened, and an appeal went out – not to the Byzantine Emperor, who was deemed untrustworthy -- but to the West.  The lords of "Outremer" expected more help from the kingdoms that had taken Jerusalem in 1099 than the Greeks in large part because the ruling elite retained cultural, linguistic and family ties with the West, particularly France.

This call for help elicited an enthusiastic response. This time even kings were persuaded to take the cross (i.e., the crusader vow): namely, the King of France, King Louis VII, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Konrad III. Furthermore, Bernard of Clairvaux, one of the most respected clerics of the age and a gifted orator, preached passionately in favor of the new crusade.

Konrad raised about 80,000 troops and set out first, but his army was so decimated by cavalry attacks, heat, and hunger after crossing into territory held by the Seljuks that he returned with what remained of his army (approximately 7,000 men) to Nicaea to await the arrival of the French. Louis’ army (including his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine) advanced slowly but with less significant losses, reaching Jerusalem in the spring of 1148 with an estimated 50,000 men.

There the fateful decision was made to try to seize Damascus, presumably to humiliate or weaken the enemy. Although a siege was established, news that a strong relief army was on the way spread so much panic among the crusaders that the crusading army disintegrated. This humiliating failure did profound damage to the support for crusades in the West, because it demonstrated that “God” was not inherently on the side of the crusaders and that victory was not assured. It also restored the confidence of the Saracen leaders.

The Fall of Jerusalem: Crisis in Christian Palestine

Between 1167 and 1174, a charismatic and gifted Kurdish general, Salah ad Din (Saladin), secured succession to the title of Sultan of Egypt and defeated his rivals for the title of Sultan of Syria. With the united forces of these two powerful states, Saladin attacked the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1177 and tried to capture Jerusalem. Although Saladin was soundly defeated before reaching Jerusalem by forces under King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, who forced Saladin to retreat, the Christian army was not strong enough to pursue Saladin or deliver a decisive blow against the Kurdish leader. An uneasy truce ensued, while Saladin turned his attention to his Muslim rivals, captured Aleppo, and moved his capital to Damascus. In 1185, King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem died, and the throne passed, after the death of his 8-year-old nephew a few months later, to his sister Sibylla and her husband, Guy de Lusignan, a French noblemen.

 

The violation of a 4-year truce by Reynold of Chatillon, a French adventurer who had married the widow of a powerful baron of Outremer,  led to a full-scale war between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Saladin in 1187. Saladin invaded with the largest force he had ever assembled, and captured the city of Tiberias in just one hour.  Guy de Lusignan called up his entire feudal host – roughly 1,200 knights, 2,000 native riders, and 10,000 foot soldiers. This Christian host advanced to meet Saladin’s army, but due to a series of tactical errors was decisively defeated at the Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187. King Guy and many other leading barons were taken prisoner, and – more important psychologically – a relic believed to be the cross on which Christ was crucified, the True Cross, fell into Muslim hands.

 

Saladin then proceeded to capture one after another of the Christian cities and fortresses, and took Jerusalem itself on October 2, 1187. Saladin – unlike the crusaders of the First Crusade – spared the lives of the citizens (in exchange for a ransom) and did not destroy the churches. Within days after he had taken control of Jerusalem, it was safe for Christian pilgrims to return to the city.

The Third Crusade: 1189-1192

The loss of Jerusalem and the True Cross shocked the West. Not only did the Pope call for a new crusade to recapture Jerusalem, but the Holy Roman Emperor, Friedrich I (Barbarossa), King Philip II Augustus of France, and King Henry II of England took crusading vows. Again, the Germans campaigned independently. They rapidly crossed the Balkans and modern Turkey, but Friedrich I drowned crossing a river and his army disintegrated. Meanwhile, Henry II of England had died and been succeeded by his son, Richard I “the Lionhearted.” Richard I was passionately committed to the crusade, and he and King Philip II agreed to campaign jointly, making the radical – and hugely expensive – decision to take their armies to the Holy Land by sea.

In 1190 Richard and Philip reached Sicily, expecting to join forces there with troops supplied by Richard’s brother-in-law, the King of Sicily. Unfortunately, William II of Sicily had died, but he had provided financial support and more ships for the crusade in his testament. Meanwhile, Richard’s and Philip’s armies and fleets collected in Sicily, where they wintered – not without the usual conflicts and tensions between expeditionary troops and local inhabitants. More ominous was the increasing hostility between Richard and Philip. By the spring of 1191, the tension between the two Christian monarchs was so intense that Philip sailed without Richard.  When Richard’s fleet put to sea, it was further delayed by storms, part of which was forced ashore on the Greek island of Cyprus. Richard captured this strategically significant base for crusader operations in just six weeks (I’ll write more about this in a later entry), but it delayed his arrival in the Holy Land until June.

At this point, King Guy (released by Saladin) and what forces he could rally was laying siege to the city of Acre, held by Saracen forces. Just a month after Richard’s arrival, on July 12, Acre capitulated to the Christians, and Philip of France returned to the West, leaving Richard of England in sole command of the Christian forces. Richard promptly moved out to capture Jerusalem, taking control again of Haifa and Caesarea, and confronted Saladin’s army at Arsuf. Richard defeated Saladin in the battle, but Saladin was able to rapidly rally his forces, blocking the route to Jerusalem. Richard therefore proceeded to retake Jaffa and Ascalon.

In 1192 Richard again gathered his forces for an assault on Jerusalem, but as soon as his forces moved inland, Saladin seized Jaffa behind Richard’s back. Richard returned and recaptured Jaffa, but had to face the fact that he did not have sufficient force to hold the coastal cities and recapture Jerusalem.

 

On September 2, 1192, Richard signed a peace treaty with Saladin, one which left the coastal cities in Christian hands and guaranteed Christians the right to pilgrimage in Jerusalem and other holy cities (e.g., Nazareth) still in Muslim hands – for 5 years. Saladin died the following year.

The Crusader Kingdoms of “Outremer”

The first crusade, described last week, was an armed pilgrimage in response to a plea from the Byzantine Emperor to free former Christian territories from Muslim rule.  The first crusade indeed re-established Christian rule over the Holy Land, but the Western knights and noblemen who fought their way to Jerusalem felt they had been betrayed by the Greeks by the time they finally got there.  Therefore, instead of returning the territory they had captured from the Saracens to Byzantine control, the crusaders established a series of independent states with Christian rulers from Antioch to Palestine: the Principality of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli, and – most important – the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In the course of the Third Crusade, the last - and most enduring - crusader kingdom was established on the Island of Cyprus.

The crusaders who founded and ruled these states were a tiny elite from Western Europe, dependent on the local population composed predominantly of Orthodox Christians, with smaller populations of Jews, Muslims, and new settlers from all across the West. In short, the inhabitants were not a homogenous population, but rather a motley collection of peoples who spoke a variety of languages (Greek, Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, Amharic, French, Italian, Spanish, German,  English etc. etc.) and lacked common traditions. Thus, although Latin churches were built and the various Latin religious orders soon established a presence, neither the Orthodox Churches nor the synagogues nor mosques were destroyed; the inhabitants of the crusader kingdoms were free to follow their religious conscience.

Furthermore, the states were at the crossroads of trade between East and West, and the ports of Christian Palestine were the key points for transshipping the riches brought by caravan from China, Persia, Egypt, and Arabia to the entire Western world. This made them prosperous and cosmopolitan. Christian Palestine, known in the West as “Outremer” (beyond the sea), rapidly became a melting pot for culture and a breeding ground for art and science.

Pilgrims and later crusaders often felt alienated by this openness to other cultures, particularly the tolerance of Muslims and Jews.  Yet it was this very openness -- and an appreciation of the complexities of the world around them -- that enabled the crusader kingdoms to endure almost 200 years in Palestine and another two hundred years on Cyprus.

 

This was a remarkable achievement that demonstrated diplomatic as well as military competence. If the crusader kingdoms had simply been bastions of bigotry, as sometimes portrayed in modern literature, they would not have survived. Instead, they thrived by adapting to their environment, building upon their own strengths and exploiting the weakness of their enemies. They erected magnificent castles that enabled the small Latin elite to effectively control their territories, while consciously cultivating support from the Italian city-states, whose superior ships ensured them virtual control of the Mediterranean. The inhabitants of the crusader kingdoms were not ignorant brutes, but savvy, educated and highly civilized men and women, who earned the respect of their enemies.

 

These fascinating kingdoms, with their cultural diversity, are the setting for seven of my ten Tales of Chivalry. Two of the Templar Tales are set in Outremer, the Lion of Karpas trilogy is set on crusader kingdom of Cyprus, and, of course, the story of Balian d'Ibelin is also the story of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the end of the 12th Century.

 

 

The First Crusade: 1096-1099

Last week I described the origins of the crusades. As I described, after centuries of Muslim expansion, in which Muslims conquered the Holy Land, Cyprus and much of Asia Minor, the Byzantine Emperor hoped to reverse the tide by appealing for aid from the West.  The Pope was receptive and called for knights and men-at-arms to embark upon an armed pilgrimage to free the holy places of Christianity from Muslim rule.

The response to the Pope’s appeal was overwhelming. It is believed that over 100,000 people, an enormous number given the population of Western Europe at this time, took part in this first crusade. First, an estimated 20,000 common people without particular organization or planning followed a self-proclaimed prophet, Peter the Hermit, thinking he would lead them to a kind of paradise on earth in Jerusalem. After plundering their way through the Balkans, they were completely destroyed by a Turkish army just beyond the Bosporus. The real crusading army, consisting of roughly 35,000 fighting men, set out on the official First Crusade several months later. This force was led by some of the most powerful noblemen of Western Europe at the time, including the Dukes of Flanders and Normandy and Count Raymond IV of Toulouse.

While some of the leaders, notably the Count of Toulouse and Godfrey de Bouillon, were men with land and riches at home, whose motives for embarking on such a dangerous and difficult expedition were largely pious, the same cannot be said of all crusaders. Bohemond, the Prince of Otranto, and Baldwin of Boulogne, for example, proved their interests were largely venal by setting themselves up as princelings in conquered territory even before reaching Jerusalem. As for their followers, as Richard Barber writes in The Knight and Chivalry: “The Papacy saw the crusades as a way of harnessing the concept of knighthood to spiritual ends; the knights saw them as a solution to earthly ills, with the promise of absolution and heavenly reward as well …. Furthermore, by removing the discontented knights from their homes in the West, the popes believed that they would bring peace to Europe as well as helping their fellow Christians in Palestine and Byzantium.”[i] In short, many men went on crusade for practical more than religious reasons: to avoid debts, taxes, and feudal duties, for adventure, for spoils, in hope of a better future in the Holy Land ….
 

The First Crusade reached Constantinople in April 1097. Here the leaders dutifully swore fealty to the Byzantine Emperor, in whose name they continued as soldiers of an Emperor seeking to re-take territory that had belonged to his predecessors. The crusaders then crossed into Muslim-held territory for the first time (modern Turkey) and confronted Seljuk forces on July 1. The crusaders routed the Seljuk army in a intelligently and courageously fought engagement involving combined tactics.  They then continued east until they came to Antioch.

Here, after an eight-month siege, Antioch fell to the crusaders – who promptly found themselves under siege by a much larger Muslim army. The crusaders appealed desperately for aid from the Byzantine Emperor, their ‘overlord,’ who had sent them on this mission and promised them support. In fact, the Byzantine Emperor had moved his troops in behind the crusaders, “mopping up” what remained of the Seljuk forces and re-establishing Byzantine control over Asia Minor. But, unfortunately for Christianity, one of the crusaders, Stephan of Blois, had deserted the crusader cause and on his way home told the Byzantine Emperor that the crusaders were defeated, Antioch already lost. The Emperor therefore decided to consolidate what he had and returned to Constantinople, leaving the crusaders on their own.
 

Trapped in Antioch, on the brink of starvation, the crusaders discovered a relic, which one of the priests identified as the lance that pierced Christ’s side before the Crucifixion. This “miracle” inspired the crusaders to undertake what turned out to be a decisive sortie that drove the besiegers off. But the survivors no longer trusted the Byzantine Emporer. His failure to come to their aid ended, in their eyes, the feudal oath they had taken, because he had not upheld his end of the bargain. Instead, two of the leaders (Bohemond of Otranto and Baldwin of Boulogne) established two independent kingdoms, at Edessa and Antioch. The hard-core of the crusaders, however, pressed on for Jerusalem itself. A year later, the weary, much decimated, ill-equipped, and half-starved crusading army reached Jerusalem.

 

This army had suffered extreme privation during its march, notably thirst so intense that according to the chaplain of the Count of Toulouse, at one pool “those who were strong pushed and shoved their way in a deathly fashion through the pool, which was already choked with dead animals and men struggling for their lives …. Those who were weaker sprawled on the ground beside the pool with gaping mouths, their parched tongues making them speechless, while they stretched out their hands to beg water from the more fortunate ones.”[ii]
 

The army was no longer large enough to encircle the city of Jerusalem, so no proper siege was possible. Furthermore, the leaders believed that a Muslim relief army from Egypt was on its way, which made a rapid victory all the more important. The crusaders therefore attempted to take the city by storm almost at once, but without sufficient ladders the assault was repulsed. An imperfect siege began, during which the Christians secured materials to build siege engines. On the night of July 13, 1099, a new assault was launched, but it was not until the afternoon of July 15 that a breakthrough was achieved.

 

The crusaders reportedly poured into Jerusalem. At this moment of their greatest triumph, the crusaders committed the atrocity that has besmirched the very words “crusades” and “crusaders” ever since. Knowing the Christians had been expelled before the siege, the crusaders killed every living human found within the holy city until, allegedly, their horses waded up to their fetlocks in running blood.

---

[i] Barber, Richard W., The Knight and Chivalry, p. 254.

 

[ii] Hopkins, Andrea, Knights: The Complete Story of the Age of Chivalry, from Historical Fact to Tales of Romance and Poetry, p. 85.

 

The Tenth Tale of Chivalry and "Everything is Light"

When I announced my "Tales of Chivalry" project just over three months ago, I was planning on releasing three series of three books each set in the Age of Chivalry.  All of the novels in the Tales of Chivalry project had been written over the previous decades but never sent to publishers because I thought the market too small. The ability to self-publish ebooks convinced me that  it was now possible to publish books for niche markets, and encouraged me to undertake the publication of the nine tales. But this week I decided to add a tenth tale.

 

The exciting aspect of this tenth tale for me personally is that it is a completely new novel and so entails writing not just re-writing and editing. I haven't worked on a new book since the completion of the Leonidas Trilogy, and frankly it has taken me that long to recoup my energy and inspiration. Now, however, I am ready to start on this new book and completely energized and excited about it -- as I am at the start of any new novel.

 

The Tenth Tale will be based on the life of a historical figure, Balian d'Ibelin, who I'll introduce later with a full blog entry. For now, suffice it to say that Balian lived at the end of the 12th century (so very much in the Age of Chivalry) in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. (I'll probably use "A Tale of the Kingdom of Jerusalem" as the subtitle.) Watch this blog for more information about Balian, the crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land, the crusades and my novel, possibly surveys of title options etc.  For now, however, I'd like to conclude my entries on the Albigensian crusade with a recommendation and review:

Everything is Light by Robert Shea

This is a surprisingly well written story, with an excellent portrayal of King Louis IX of France. Although the book starts with the fall of the last Cathar fortress, Montsegur, in 1244, it provides a historically sound, comprehensible and non-romaticized introduction to the key issues involved in the Albigensian crusade (e.g. an independent Southern nobility with its own culture and language, a corrupt clergy that turned the common people against the Catholic church, a new interpretation of Christianity that was preached by devoted followers.) It avoids the use of magic and mystery, far too common when dealing with the Cathars, and instead presents complex, believable characters deserving of sympathy but flawed and inconsistent -- as we all are. This is without doubt the best book I have read on this fascinating episode in history.

The Meaning of Easter - An Excerpt from my Templar Trilogy

Sir Jean of Acre, the second novel in my Templar Trilogy, is set in the late 13th Century and much of the action takes place during the last  years of the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem. The follow excerpt from that novel seemed a good way to remember Easter in this blog.

Easter Sunday, 1290 AD

Nazareth

Madeleine felt the heat and became aware of her thirst. That was the one thing she had not learned to master. The trader could always get her to eat in the end by denying her water until she had consumed the food he put before her. She licked her lips and tasted the layer of dust upon them with revulsion.

A shadow fell across her, abruptly blocking out the sun. At once her body cramped as she registered it could only be a customer. He had stopped directly before her and she could feel his eyes studying her, boring into her. She closed her eyes more tightly and tried not to move, to not even breathe. Surely any man would be repulsed by what he saw: the hair dyed the color of straw a month ago and -- she presumed -- already growing out its natural hazelnut color at the roots, the sallow skin prematurely aged by the Syrian sun, the lips painted on larger than life with a fatty red cream.

The man -- she could tell it was a man by the smell of horse sweat and leather -- did not move, and nervously her eyes fluttered just enough to peep through her lashes. She saw two chain mailed feet and a shudder went through her. Only soldiers wore chain mail -- though she could not remember seeing a Muslim in chain mail leggings. Her eyes cautiously ran up to the leather garters buckled just below the knee. Her heart was thundering in her chest; no Muslim dressed like this.

Her eyes flew open and she gasped in terror. Looming over her was a militant angel -- white surcoat over glittering mail and a head of golden hair framed by a halo. "Gabriel!" She gasped in wonder. She had died.

And then the man dropped down on to his heels and the sun remained high over his head and he was not an angel after all.

Madeleine swallowed and her eyes fixed upon the red cross on his breast. Though he was dressed like a Templar, she had seen with her own eyes the heads of all the garrison and relief on stakes before Tripoli.  And since he could not be a Templar, he could only be an apparition sent to admonish her for her loss of faith.

"What did you say?" he asked her, and she was startled by the gentleness of his voice.  Her eyes were released from the cross and sought his face. It was a handsome face: tanned and weathered with deep lines creasing his cheeks and crows' feet about his grey eyes yet retaining a youthfulness and a kindness. The eyes searched her face prying into every crevice, registering the cracks on her lips and the infection in her eye, seeing the dust and the sweat.

Madeleine started to tremble with shame. She felt as if she were naked before him. But this was a different nakedness from the matter-of-fact disrobing of a slave girl. It was as if his eyes could read her very soul. "What are you?" she asked the apparition.

"I am Commander Sir Jean de Preuthune of the Knights Templar at Acre," came the answer.

"Acre too has fallen?" she asked in alarm. "You are enslaved?" But then she realized how absurd the question was. A Templar commander did not allow himself to be taken alive -- and if he did, the Muslims killed him because the Temple forbade ransom.  "You are a spirit!" she concluded.

"No," he told her calmly, and she saw pity in his eyes, which made her want to cry. "I am very much alive and free." Seeing the disbelief and confusion, he explained. "We still have the right of pilgrimage to Nazareth."

"Nazareth?" she repeated, lifting her head and staring about her. "Are we in Nazareth?"

"Yes"

"Nazareth?" She repeated again, and suddenly it was too much for her and she dropped her face in her hands. Squatting in the dirt He had trodden, she had not even known she was in His city. She had not felt His presence here where He had lived....

"Who are you?" he asked her gently. "Your accent sounds almost as if you were from the Languedoc...."

"Poitou. From Poitou." She lifted her face and looked at him again. "From Lys-St-Georges. My father is the lord of Lys-St-Georges. My name is Madeleine.

The village was obscure and Jean did not know Poitou, but he nodded and smiled. "And you came on pilgrimage?" he asked cautiously. "You were captured en route? Your father was killed?"

"No... I came... I was a sister at the Convent of St Helena in Tripoli--"

"You want this woman?" The trader had at last returned from his midday meal and, seeing Jean conversing with Madeleine, he hurried over. "You have an eye for a bargain! Skinny as she is now, I'll let you have her for a mere twelve dinhars! But she'll soon fatten up if you treat her right." He smiled lecherously.

Jean turned on the trader and would have made a sharp retort if Paul had not suddenly grasped him on the arm. "Commander! Come quick! It's my brother! I've found him!"

"A Templar?" Jean asked eagerly, as he let Paul pull him away from the female to the male slaves.

....

Having reached his stallion, he unbuckled his saddlebag and removed his mantle.  With this in his hand, he returned to Madeleine, who still crouched under the awning unaware that she had been bought and paid for in the transaction regarding Paul's brother.

"Come," Jean addressed her. "I'll deliver you to the Hospice of the Annunciation where you'll be fed, bathed and given clean clothes. You may have to wait until you reach Acre for a proper  habit. From Acre you can return to a Cistercian convent on Cyprus or in France."

Madeleine gazed up at him in a kind of dazed uncertainty. It was less a matter of disbelief than a new fear: how could she return to a Christian world after what she had become? How could she enter a church again without remembering the Mameluke smashing her maidenhead to the words "Allah is great"? How could she mix again with women who were pure and self-contained as she had been before? How could she face a mother superior or a confessor, knowing that her heart was empty of faith? Could she go through the rituals, recite the prayers, sing the hymns and kiss the cross in a perpetual routine of deception?

Jean bent and severed the rope that tied her to her fat neighbor.  Then he held out his hand to her, and she -- ashamed to take it -- tried to scramble to her feet without help.  But she went dizzy from trying to stand too abruptly, and almost lost her balance.  Jean had to reach out a hand to steady her.  His hand was warm but gentle -- not like a man's hand, for it sought neither to dominate nor humiliate her. It offered her support.

She seemed so fragile to Jean as she swayed on her stick-like legs that he was afraid to hold her firmly. Her very bones seemed to have shrunk until they felt as though they would break in two if he closed his fist upon them. He released her and swung his mantle over her shoulders. She staggered under the weight of the wool.

Madeleine gasped and looked up at him with hug, shocked eyes. "I can't wear this! The white is for purity, the cross...."

"Christ died for our sins, Sister. For yours as well as mine." He took her hand....