Gerard de Ridefort

Gerard de Riefort (that's his coat of arms to the left) is another of the many characters who has no known background recorded anywhere—we don't know his family, birthdate, education, even whence he came—until he rose to prominence in some group. In this case, he barely appears in records in the service of King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, and then is suddenly Marshal of the kingdom in October 1179.

It seems from the Chronicle of Ernoul that he was supposed to marry an heiress, Cécile Dorel, the niece of Raymond III of Tripoli. I told the story (in "The Power of Gold") of how he lost her because of 10,000 bezants. After that incident, Gerard fell ill for awhile, then swore off women and joined the Templars.

When Baldwin IV died and there was disagreement in the kingdom over the proper husband for the successor, Queen Sibylla, Raymond of Tripoli (and many others) felt her husband, Guy of Lusignan, was unsuitable, and a search in Europe was conducted to find some else. Gerard, holding a grudge against Raymond, chose to support Guy as king.

After 1187, when the trip to Europe resulted in a donation from King Henry II of England to support the Christian kingdoms in the Holy Land, Gerard took the money designated for the Templars and hired mercenaries to attack Saladin's son, al-Afdal, in the poorly planned Battle of Cresson. They were hopelessly outnumbered and Gerard was wounded. He was also one of the few that even survived.

That was in May. In July he led the Templars into the Battle of Hattin. Hattin was a disaster for the Christians. Saladin had taken the city of Tiberias. Gerard and others wanted to besiege it and take it back. Raymond's advice was to wait and let Saladin leave the strong-walled city to continue spreading his territory. Gerard wouldn't listen to Raymond and wound up on an undefended plain where they were surrounded and captured. Gerard was one of many prominent men taken hostage. Lower ranked Templars were executed.

Gerard was g\offered a deal by Saladin. If Gerard would convince a templar fortress to simply surrender without fighting, Saladin would let Gerard go. Gerard agreed, then did the opposite: he went to Tortosa, a major port on the Syrian coast, and set up its defense. He seized more of the money that Henry II had donated to the Crusader cause (but not specifically given to the Templars). Conrad of Montferrat wrote a letter in September 1188 complaining about this.

Gerard used the money for more mercenaries. He and Guy went to the Siege of Acre, where Gerard was again taken hostage by Saladin. Saladin had little patience with someone who had broken his promise once already, and beheaded Gerard.

The Siege of Acre became a significant event in the history of the Crusades, and though mentioned has never been discussed in detail. We'll take a close look at it starting tomorrow.

A Guy for Sibylla

After the death of William of Montferrat, Sibylla of Jerusalem needed a new husband. The kingdom of Jerusalem was in a difficult position. Her brother, King Baldwin IV, was suffering from leprosy and wanted to be able to turn the kingdom over to a man who could lead the armies, so he wanted to get his sister married.

The High Court wanted Duke Hugh III of Burgundy, but he turned down the offer. Baldwin gave the King of France the authority to choose an alternate to Hugh, but since Sibylla already had a son who was in the line of succession through her, who would want to be king and see someone else's son inherit the throne?

According to contemporary chronicler William of Tyre, during the Holy Week of 1180, both Count Raymond III of Tripoli and Prince Bohemond III of Antioch marched to Jerusalem to force Baldwin to have Sibylla marry Baldwin of Ibelin and then give up his power immediately to his sister and new brother-in-law.

The Ibelin family had recently risen to prominence. Hugh of Ibelin (Baldwin's eldest brother), had become the third husband of Agnes of Courtenay, and Sibylla's mother. Sibylla's father, Amalric, after being annulled from Agnes of Courtenay, had married Maria Comnena. After Amalric's death, Maria Comnena had married Balian, the Lord of Ibelin and Baldwin's younger brother. The Ibelin family had become intertwined with the royal family of Jerusalem, then why not have a trifecta and have Sibylla marry an Ibelin?

Well, Bohemond and Raymond were foiled. Baldwin either knew of their plan and did not approve, or out of desperation he hatched his own plan.

A Poitevin knight, Guy of Lusignan, had recently come to Jerusalem. Guy was not the noblest of knights, having been exiled from Poitou because he and his brothers tried to kidnap Eleanor of Aquitaine for ransom. (This was a dumb idea.)

Another contemporary chronicler, Ernoul, records that Sibylla wrote to Baldwin of Ibelin to tell him that she would persuade her brother to let them be married on one condition. The condition was that Baldwin of Ibelin had to get himself out of captivity: he was currently held for ransom by Saladin, by whom he and Templar master Odo of Saint Amand had been captured in 1179. Ernoul, a squire of Balian of Ibelin, was probably saying this to make the Ibelins look better. Modern historians doubt Ernoul's account.

On the other hand, it is said that Saladin learned of the plan to force Sibylla to marry Baldwin and make him king, and Saladin raised the ransom from a knight's to a king's ransom, making it prohibitively expensive to get him released. (He was ransomed later by Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenos.)

So Sibylla married Guy of Lusignan. Tomorrow we'll see how they handled the kingdom.