| Siege of Belvoir Castle | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of The Crusades | |||||||
 Belvoir Castle drawing | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Ayyubid Sultanate |  Knights Hospitaller | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Saladin Saif al-Din Mahmud Qaimaz | Armengol de Aspa | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 500 cavalry | Unknown | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
In late 1187, the Ayyubids, led by Saladin, besieged the Hospitallers fortress of Belvoir Castle for an entire year before the Ayyubid forces were successful.
Weakened and demoralized by the Battle of Hattin, the Knights Hospitaller seemed not to offer any resistance to the Ayyubids; their castle at Bethigibelin surrendered on the same terms as Jerusalem; however, they managed to recover. The grand masters of Hospitallers and Templars were in Tyre with Conrad of Montferrat, who had taken command of the Crusader forces by the end of July 1187. After their defeat at Hattin, surviving hospitallers determined to resist the Ayyubids fled to Belvoir Castle. [1]
The siege began in December 1187; the place was defended by well-supplied, tough survivors from earlier sieges. [2] Saladin, who was preoccupied with the Siege of Tyre, sent his general, Saif al-Din Mahmud, to occupy a position near the castle, but the garrison intercepted two Muslim caravans, one laden with booty taken by Saladin. On a stormy night in January 1188, the Ayyubid guards were negligent; the hospitallers made a sortie at dawn, surprised the besiegers, and overran their camp, inflicting severe casualties on the Ayyubids. [3] [4]
The news of this defeat reached Saladin as he was retiring from the unsuccessful siege of Tyre. Furious by the sufferings endured by his general, Saladin then dispatched his general Qaimaz ahead to Belivoir with a force of 500 cavalry. Disbanding most of his army, he followed at the beginning of March, confident that the castle would be taken easily, but he realized he had a little force and a long siege would be required. Saladin withdrew in May, leaving his general, Qaimaz, with 500 cavalry; [5] [6] nevertheless, Qaimaz seemed more successful. A hospitaler's letter, written in November 1188, included news that nothing had been heard from Belivour. [7]
In the autumn, Saladin besieged the templar fortress of Safed, the crusaders in Tyre, fearing that if Safed had fallen, Belivour would fall so easily, despatched a force of 200 men under two hospitaller officers; however, the ayyubids routed the force and the officers were captured. Safed had fallen on December 6. Saladin then marched to Belivour, where he dispatched a message to the garrison, promising them safety if they surrendered but threatening them with destruction if they kept resisting. [8] [9]
Saladin constructed a defensive wall to defend his men and tents, which were within the range of the castle, from the arrows of the castle. Since the nature of the land forced the Ayyubids to get closer to the walls, Saladin's army faced great difficulties, for it was rainy season and the Ayyubids crunched to the ground in thick mud. Heavy bombardment continued without cessation, accompanied by several assaults during which the Ayyubids suffered casualties, however, the Ayyubid archers shot so intensively that the defenders did not dare to look out of the main wall. [10] [11]
Finally, the Ayyubid sappers succeeded in breaking the outer wall tower. The Ayyubids assaulted the walls, which forced the hospitallers to retreat to the inner walls and ask for surrender. Saladin accepted their offer and allowed them to leave unharmed. The siege was finally over on January 9. [12] [13]
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, was a Crusader state that was established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1099 until the siege of Acre in 1291. Its history is divided into two periods with a brief interruption in its existence, beginning with its collapse after the siege of Jerusalem in 1187 and its restoration after the Third Crusade in 1192.
Year 1187 (MCLXXXVII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar.
The Third Crusade (1189–1192) was an attempt led by three European monarchs of Western Christianity to reconquer the Holy Land following the capture of Jerusalem by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin in 1187. For this reason, the Third Crusade is also known as the Kings' Crusade.
The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between the Crusader states of the Levant and the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. It is also known as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the shape of the nearby extinct volcano of that name.
Bohemond III of Antioch, also known as Bohemond the Child or the Stammerer, was Prince of Antioch from 1163 to 1201. He was the elder son of Constance of Antioch and her first husband, Raymond of Poitiers. Bohemond ascended to the throne after the Antiochene noblemen dethroned his mother with the assistance of the lord of Armenian Cilicia, Thoros II. He fell into captivity in the Battle of Harim in 1164, but the victorious Nur ad-Din, atabeg of Aleppo released him to avoid coming into conflict with the Byzantine Empire. Bohemond went to Constantinople to pay homage to Manuel I Komnenos, who persuaded him to install a Greek Orthodox patriarch in Antioch. The Latin patriarch of Antioch, Aimery of Limoges, placed Antioch under interdict. Bohemond restored Aimery only after the Greek patriarch died during an earthquake in 1170.
The Battle of Montgisard was fought between the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Ayyubids on 25 November 1177 at Montgisard, in the Levant between Ramla and Yibna. The 16-year-old Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, seriously afflicted by leprosy, led an outnumbered Christian force against Saladin's troops in what became one of the most notable engagements of the Crusades. The Muslim army was quickly routed and pursued for twelve miles. Saladin fled back to Cairo, reaching the city on 8 December, with only a tenth of his army. Muslim historians considered Saladin's defeat to be so severe that it was only redeemed by his victory ten years later at the Battle of Hattin in 1187, although Saladin defeated Baldwin in the Battle of Marj Ayyun in 1179, only to be defeated by Baldwin again at the Battle of Belvoir Castle in 1182.
Gérard de Ridefort, also called Gerard de Ridefort, was Grand Master of the Knights Templar from the end of 1184 and until his death in 1189.
The Battle of Cresson was a small battle between Frankish and Ayyubid forces on 1 May 1187 at the "Spring of the Cresson." While the exact location of the spring is unknown, it is located in the environs of Nazareth. The conflict was a prelude to decisive defeat of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin two months later.
Belvoir Castle is a Crusader castle in northern Israel, on a hill on the eastern edge of the Issachar Plateau, on the edge of Lower Galilee 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the Sea of Galilee. Gilbert of Assailly, Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, began construction of the castle in 1168. The restored castle is located in Belvoir National Park. It is the best-preserved Crusader castle in Israel.
The siege of Jerusalem lasted from 20 September to 2 October 1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to Saladin. Earlier that summer, Saladin had defeated the kingdom's army and conquered several cities. Balian was charged with organizing a defense. The city was full of refugees but had few soldiers. Despite this fact the defenders managed to repulse several attempts by Saladin's army to take the city by storm. Balian bargained with Saladin to buy safe passage for many, and the city was peacefully surrendered with limited bloodshed. Though Jerusalem fell, it was not the end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as the capital shifted first to Tyre and later to Acre after the Third Crusade. Latin Christians responded in 1189 by launching the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa separately. In Jerusalem, Saladin restored Muslim holy sites and generally showed tolerance towards Christians; he allowed Orthodox and Eastern Christian pilgrims to visit the holy sites freely—though Frankish pilgrims were required to pay a fee for entry. The control of Christian affairs in the city was handed over to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Christian Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these military expeditions are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were intended to conquer Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Muslim rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which resulted in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, dozens of military campaigns were organised, providing a focal point of European history for centuries. Crusading declined rapidly after the 15th century.
In the 1182 campaign and Battle of Belvoir Castle, also called the Battle of Le Forbelet, a Crusader force led by King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem battled with an Ayyubid army from Egypt commanded by Saladin. The Crusaders successfully repelled Saladin's invasion effort. The theatre of operations included Ayla, the Transjordan, Galilee and Beirut.
The Battle of Marj Ayyun was a military confrontation fought at Marj Ayyoun near the Litani River in June 1179 between the Kingdom of Jerusalem under Baldwin IV and the Ayyubid armies under the leadership of Saladin. It ended in a decisive victory for the Muslims and is considered the first in the long series of Islamic victories under Saladin against the Christians. However, the Christian king, Baldwin IV, who was crippled by leprosy, narrowly escaped being captured in the rout.
The siege of Tyre took place from 12 November 1187 to 1 January 1188. An army commanded by Saladin made an amphibious assault on the city, defended by Conrad of Montferrat. After two months of continuous struggle, Saladin dismissed his army and retreated to Acre.
The History of Jerusalem during the Kingdom of Jerusalem began with the siege of the city in 1099 as part of the First Crusade. This resulted in Jerusalem being conquered by Christian forces, after it had been under Muslim rule for nearly 450 years. It became the capital of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, until it was again conquered by the Ayyubids under Saladin in 1187. For the next forty years, a series of Christian campaigns, including the Third and Fifth Crusades, attempted in vain to retake the city, until Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II led the Sixth Crusade and successfully negotiated its return in 1229.
The siege of Safed was part of Saladin's invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
William Borrel was acting Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, ad interim, from 1 May 1187 until his death at the Battle of Hattin in 1187. He became custodian of the Hospitallers after the Grand Master Roger de Moulins was killed in the Battle of Cresson on 1 May 1187.
Armengol de Aspa, also known as Hermangard d'Asp, was the ninth Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller, holding the office from 1188 until his resignation in 1189 or 1190. He succeeded William Borrel who was interim Grand Master. It was under his magistracy that the headquarters of the Order was transferred from Jerusalem to Tyre. It was probably during the winter of 1189 or 1190 that Armengol's magistracy ceased, but this was not due to his death, since he appears again as lord of Amposta from December 1190 to April 1191. We have no information on what this first abdication in the history of the Order was, but he was succeeded by Garnier de Nablus sometime in 1190.
The history of the Knights Hospitaller in the Levant is concerned with the early years of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the Knights Hospitaller, through 1309. The Order was formed in the later part of the eleventh century and played a major role in the Kingdom of Jerusalem, in particular, the Crusades. This lasted until the West was expelled from the Holy Land, with the Order conquering Rhodes in the early fourteenth century. Among the most important internal events of the early years of the kingdom were the foundation of the Military Orders, which included the Hospitallers, the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Order. Unlike the Hospitallers' beginnings as a benevolent organization, the Templars and Teutonic knights began with a military mission. These three major Orders would play a major role in the military activities of the kingdom, sometimes cooperatively, sometimes not. On the battlefield they frequently shared among them the most important tactical roles, the vanguard and rear-guard.