The Crisis in the Holy Land in 1260

The Crisis in the Holy Land in 1260Author(s): Peter JacksonSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 95, No. 376 (Jul., 1980), pp. 481-513Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/568054 .

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English Historical Review O 1980 Longman Group Limited London 0013-8266/80/13400481/$02.00

The English Historical Review

No. CCCLXXVI- July I980

The crisis in the Holy Land in 1260*

IN the winter of I259-60, the Mongols under Huilegii, younger brother to the Great Khan Mongke (Mengii), invaded Syria. Their sack of Baghdad in the previous year, bringing to an end the eAbbasid Caliphate which had subsisted there for nearly five centuries, appeared as the greatest disaster ever sustained by the Islamic world. Now, as the Ayyiibid principalities established in Syria since Saladin's day crumbled before the invaders, Muslim domination of the Holy Land seemed correspondingly to have reached an end. But the Mongol regime in Syria was shortlived. Hiilegii very soon withdrew eastwards with the bulk of his army in order to keep watch on events in Mongolia, where a dispute over the succession had arisen following the Great Khan's death in August Iz5g; and the comparatively small detachment left in Syria under the general Kit-buqa was overwhelmed by the Egyptian Mamliks at eAyn Jaluit in September iz6o. This, and a further victory at Hims three months later, enabled the Mamlutks to occupy Syria, reuniting the country with Egypt for the first time since Saladin's death in 1193

and hence constituting a far greater threat to the Frankish enclaves on the coast.1 They conquered in turn the principality of Antioch (iz68) and the county of Tripoli (I289), and with the fall of Acre in I29I Latin Syria had ceased to exist.

During the Mongol occupation of I 260, the kingdom of Jerusalem had remained untouched, with the exception of a single armed clash that occurred, we are told, as a consequence of Frankish provocation. Moreover, the Franks not only failed to co-operate with the invaders, many of whom - notably Hulegu's chief wife and Kit-buqa himself - were Christians, but actually aided the Mamlaks by re- victualling their army prior to eAyn Jalut. These circumstances have given rise to the thesis that the Franks missed a golden opportunity in neglecting to ally with the Mongols and so brought about their

* I am grateful to Dr R. C. Smail, Professor P. M. Holt and Dr D. 0. Morgan for reading a draft and offering suggestions.

i. For these events, see generally R. Grousset, [Histoire des] Croisades [et du Royaume franc de Jerusalem] (Paris, I934-6), iii. 576 ff., and [L'Empire des] Steppes, 4th ed. (Paris, i965), pp. 433-9; Sir Steven Runciman, [A History of the] Crusades (Cambridge, I95I-4), iii. 305-I4, and ch. i6 in K. M. Setton (ed.), A History of the Crusades, ii: The Later Crusades, II89-131II, ea. R. L. Wolff and H. W. Hazard (Madison, Wisconsin, i969), 57I-4; J. A. Boyle, ch. 4, C[ambridge] H[istory of] I[ran], v [: The Saljuq and Mongol Periods] (Cambridge, I968), 350-2.

VOL. XCV-NO. CCCLXXVI R



482 THE CRISIS IN THE July

own overthrow within a few decades. Its main proponent was Rene Grousset,1 whose view of Hiilegui's expedition as 'une croisade nestorienne' has influenced a number of more recent authorities. The Christian king of Lesser Armenia, who had become a Mongol client at an earlier date, has been praised for his foresight, standing in such sharp contrast with the vulgar parochialism of the Franks.2 The unrealistic Frankish attitude has been attributed to the absence of any central authority at Acre during these years.3 For their supreme error in assisting the Mamliuks by a stance of benevolent neutrality it has seemed necessary to excuse them on the grounds that they were influenced by the Mongols' somewhat intimidating record of devastation in eastern Europe,4 or that they felt themselves to possess more in common with the traditional Muslim enemy.5 Underlying each of these views is the assumption that, whereas the Mongols constituted a threat of the greatest magnitude in Europe, they were Latin Christendom's natural allies in the Near East, where the dominant political powers were Muslim; that they were well disposed towards the Latin states, and that friendly co- operation was a possibility.6 At its most charitable, therefore, judg- ment on the attitude of the Franks of Syria has focused on their

i. Croisades, iii. 525-30, and ch. 20 ('La Croisade Mongole'), especially pp. 5 8o-6o6; Steppes, Pp. 437-8; cf. also his 'Saint Louis et les alliances orientales', eitudes Historiques (Paris, I948-9), iii. 3-I6.

2. Denis Sinor, 'Les relations entre les Mongols et l'Europe jusqu'a la mort d'Arghoun et de Bela IV', Journal of World History, III. i (I956), 49-50. G. A. Bezzola, Die Mongolen in abendldndischer Sicht (1220-1270) (Berne, I974), pp. I9I, I92-3: an otherwise full and detailed study, in which the events of I 260 are treated surprisingly briefly and Grousset's view is accepted without question.

3. Joshua Prawer, Histoire du Royaume latin de Jirusalem, trans. G. Nahon (Paris, I969-70), ii. 430. Cf. also Sinor, ch. I5 in Setton, A History of the Crusades, iii: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. H. W. Hazard (Madison, I975), 5 i6.

4. Jean Richard, [Le] Royaume latin [de Jerusalem] (Paris, I953), p. 303; cf. also pp. 308-9 on their 'immense erreur', and 3I6-I7. In 'The Mongols and the Franks', Journal of Asian History, iii (i969), he admits that an alliance with the Mongols was unthinkable for most of the West (p. 52, n. 30), but the Mongols' own intentions fail to come across clearly (but cf. p. 5 I). See now finally his La Papaute et les Missions d'Orient au Moyen Age (XIIIe-XVe siecles) (Rome, I977. Collection de l'1Ecole Fransaise de Rome, 33), p. I00,

where the invaders' intentions in Syria are assumed to be different from those of their confreres in eastern Europe. Cf. also Runciman, Crusades, iii. 298, 3 I I, and in Wolff and Hazard, pp. 572-3.

5. Cl. Cahen, [La] Syrie [du Nord a l'epoque des Croisades et de la principaute franque d'Antioche] (Paris, I940), p. 708. Prawer, ii. 433. Runciman, Crusades, iii. 3II. Sinor, 'Les relations', p. 6i, and in Hazard, p. 5i6.

6. Cahen, Syrie, pp. 708-9: 'On vit alors certains Francs, tetes legeres en verite, compromettre meme les bonnes dispositions des Mongols par des raids . . .' Richard, Royaume latin, p. 307 and n. 2. Sinor, 'Les relations', p. 5 I, claiming that by their raids the Franks 'perdaient la confiance des Mongols'. Prawer, ii. 424: 'Il n'est pas non plus impossible que leur politique pro-chretienne ait vis6 a etablir des liens avec les chretiens du littoral syro-palestinien et avec l'Europe'; p. 432: 'Kitbuqa pratiquait une politique de protection vis-a-vis des Francs ... ces bonnes dispositions . . .', etc.; this while quite realistically dismissing (p. 428, n. I7) Grousset's 'croisade mongole'. Bezzola, p. I9I.

Runciman, in Wolff and Hazard, p. 573, assumes that 'the Mongols had no intention of attacking the Franks'; but cf. his more qualified verdict in Crusades, iii. 308 ('. . . had no intention of attacking the Frankish kingdom, provided that it showed them sufficient



I980 HOLY LAND IN iz6o 483

incapacity - admitted to be understandable in the circumstances - to discern an objective reality, namely that a Mongol alliance was theirs for the taking and offered their sole hope of survival. In the following study I shall challenge this highly pervasive assumptionl and try to demonstrate that the reality was in fact quite otherwise.

I

The theory of the lost opportunity derives from three distinct elements, the first of which is an embassy sent by the Mongol general Eljigidei in December I248 to Saint Louis, then in Cyprus preparing for his disastrous invasion of Egypt. The tone of Eljigidei's letter, and still more the oral statements of the envoys themselves, who proposed simultaneous operations against the Muslim powers, were so much more cordial than the ultimatums received by European rulers over the previous decade that Louis was encouraged to reply with an embassy of his own, which pro- ceeded as far as the Mongol court in central Asia. But the results, showing that the Mongols had by no means abandoned their aim of world domination, were extremely disappointing, and Louis made no further official approaches to them.2 Eljigidei's overture had aroused a great deal of optimism in the West.3 But at least one observer had been astute enough to perceive his real aim: to draw the crusading army away from territories such as Syria - which had already been invaded briefly, as we shall see, and was expected to be taken in on the next forward thrust - towards Egypt, an area where the Mongols had no immediate ambitions but could hope to profit at a later date from Louis's attack having at least sapped the sultan's strength.4 And this has been the view of certain more recent secondary authorities.5 It was only hindsight that induced the propa-

deference'). The pioneer work of G. Soranzo, II Papato, I'Europa Cristiana, e i Tartari (Milan, I930), makes the same assumption, but on the basis of Hulegu's first mission to Rome, which has since been re-dated: see pp. I73-4 and sect. I infra. Cf. finally I. de Rachewiltz, Papal Envoys to the Great Khans (Stanford, I97I), pp. I49-50, on Hiulegu's friendliness, which the West was ill prepared to understand.

I. The only writer to avoid the pitfall, with the qualified exception of Richard (p. 482,

n. 4 supra), is J. J. Saunders, The History of the Mongol Conquests (London, I97I): see pp. io8, II2, II4-I5, for a brief but balanced treatment.

2. See Paul Pelliot, 'Les Mongols et la Papaute', 3, Revue de l'Orient Chrdtien, xxviii (I93I-2), I3-76; de Rachewiltz, pp. I20-4.

3. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard (London, I872-83, Rolls Series), V. 87.

4. The view expressed by Simon de Saint-Quentin, a member of the mission sent by Pope Innocent IV to Eljigidei's predecessor Baiju in I 245 and the author of an account of it which is no longer extant but is quoted in extenso by Vincent de Beauvais in his Speculum Historiale. The passages taken from Simon's Historia Tartarorum have been extracted and edited by Richard, S[imon de] S[aint-] Q[uentin. Histoire des Tartares] (Paris, I965. Documents relatifs a l'histoire des Croisades, viii): see p. 98.

5. Pelliot, pp. 34-37; Richard, 'The Mongols and the Franks', p. 5o, and 'Ultimatums mongols et lettres apocryphes', C[entralJ A[siatic] J[ournal], xvii (I973), 217.




gandists of the early fourteenth century, writing when Mongol Iran had been negotiating for some decades for a joint offensive against Egypt and Syria, to discern in Eljigidei's mission the first of such initiatives.1

The second element is these negotiations between the Mongols and the West, after eAyn Jluit, for military co-operation against the Muslim world. In reality they date from an embassy sent by Huilegii to Pope Urban IV. For a long time it was believed that the Pope's reply, constituting the sole evidence we possess for Hiilegui's mission, belonged to i z6o, an assumption that naturally did much to obscure the Mongols' attitude to Latin Christendom at the time of their invasion of Syria2; but Richard has demonstrated that both the mission and Urban's response should be placed no earlier than I263.3 This does not in itself mean, of course, that Huilegui was not disposed to ally with the West in i z6o. Nevertheless, there is one very powerful reason why he should have become ready to do so after that date. Late in i z6 i he became embroiled in a war with his cousin Berke, khan of the Mongols of the so-called Golden Horde in the southern Russian steppe. Berke, a Muslim convert, soon reached an understanding with his co-religionists, the Mamluiks in Egypt, who by i 263 were advancing as far as the Euphrates. Conse- quently, Hiilegui, faced with enemies on two fronts, was obliged to seek allies outside the Mongol world; and the obvious candidates were Islam's time-honoured enemies, the Franks of western Europe. This growing readiness to ally on equal terms with non-Mongol powers against other Mongol princes, and the need to play down the old claims to world dominion, signify the dissolution of the Mongol empire and the onset of a new phase in relations with the outside world.4 But the utmost caution must be exercised in our use of sources dating from this later period for the events that culminated in eAyn Jaluit: they are the third factor which has dis- torted the true picture.

Grousset relied heavily on the work of the expatriate Armenian

i. Guillaume Adam, De modo sarracenos extirpandi, ed. in R[ecueil des] H[istoriens des] C[roisades], D[ocuments] A[rminiens], ii (Paris, I906), 535; Raymond 1Etienne (pseudo- Brocardus), Directorium ad passagium faciendum, p. 504 ibid. This view has been adopted by modem writers. See, for example, Eric Voegelin, 'The Mongol Orders of Sub- mission to European Powers, 1245-1255', ByZantion, xv (1940-I), 380; Sinor, 'Les relations', p. 48; de Rachewiltz, p. 124.

2. Urban's letter Exultavit cor nostrum had been placed sub anno I 26o by 0. Raynaldus, Annales Eaclesiastici, iii (Lucca, I748), 63-64; cf. also Les Registres d'Urbain IV, ed. J. Guiraud (Paris, 1901-29), nos. 2868, 2814 bis (in that order). Hence later commentators, notably Soranzo, pp. 173-4.

3. Richard, 'Le debut des relations entre la Papaute et les Mongols de Perse', J[ournal] A[siatique], ccxxxvii (I949), 294 ff.

4. See Peter Jackson, 'The dissolution of the Mongol empire', CAJ, xxii (1978),

236-8; more generally, Grousset, Steppes, p. 440; on the alliance between Egypt and the Mongols of Russia, Bertold Spuler, Die Goldene Horde, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden, I965),

PP. 40-45.



i980 HOLY LAND IN iz6o 485

Hayton (Hetum) of Gorigos, La Flor des Estoires de la Terre d'Orient, written in France in I307.1 Although purporting to contain a historical survey of the East, it is in fact a major piece of political propaganda, and has generally been recognized as such.2 Hayton's object was to induce the powers of western Europe to launch yet another attack on the Mamluiks, who had expelled the Franks from the Syrian littoral and were now pressing hard on his native country, and to encourage military co-operation with the Armenians' traditional patrons, the Mongols of Iran. This undoubtedly colours his account at least of the Mongol invasion of Syria five decades before, since his plea acquires all the more urgency from the implication that Latin Christendom has already let slip one valuable opportunity for such co-operation in the past. Hence it is only in Hayton's work that we encounter such misleading statements as that Hulegu intended to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim hands and to restore it to the Christians.3 He was on the point of doing this, claims Hayton, when he learned of the death of his brother the Great Khan; whereupon he withdrew, leaving Kit-buqa ('Guiboga') to guard Syria and issuing orders that 'all the lands which had belonged to the Christians should be returned to them'.4 Kit-buqa, the story continues, 'was labouring to recover the Holy Land when the Devil sowed a great discord between him and the Christians of Sidon': as the result of an unprovoked attack by the Franks of that city first on some Muslims who were under Mongol protection and then on a Mongol squadron sent to claim back the plunder and led by Kit-buqa's own nephew, who was killed, Sidon was put to the sack. And since then, concludes Hayton, 'the Tartars have ceased to trust the Christians of Syria and the Christians the Tartars'.5 There is no mention, incidentally, of the fact that the Mongols did occupy the Holy City, as we learn from a number of independent sources.6 In this fashion, the disappearance of Mongol 'good will' in I z6o is attributed to the Sidon episode, for which the blame is put squarely on the shoulders of the Franks. We shall examine the actual clash later. For the moment it is sufficient to notice that Hayton's principal concern is to stress the Mongols' own Christian sympathies - or even Christian faith. And the reader is

i. Edited in RHC, DA, ii. I I 3-25 3: on Hayton, see the introduction, pp. xxv-xlvi. 2. See, for example, A. S. Atiya, The Crusade in the Later Middle Ages (London, I938),

pp. 62-63; Spuler, Die Mongolen in Iran, 3rd ed. (Berlin, i968), p. 23 I ('und doch war das Ganze nur ein Tendenzwerk'); Boyle, however, demurred (CHI, v. 404).

3. RHC, DA, ii. I70; hence Grousset, Croisades, iii. 580-i; Soranzo, p. I73. 4. RHC, DA, ii. I72; cf. Croisades, iii. 59I.

5. RHC, DA, ii. I74 (following MS 'L': the other manuscripts substitute for the Tartars Kit-buqa himself); see Croisades, iii. 594-6; Soranzo, p. I78.

6. Annales de Terre Sainte, A (see p. 487, n. I infra), p. 449; Ibn Shaddad (d. I285), Al-a7ldq al-khatira, ed. Sami Dahhan, L[iban,] J[ordanie,] P[alestine: Topographie Historique d'Ibn Sadddd] (Damascus, I 963), pp. 236-7; Moses ben Nahman (Nahmanides) of Gerona, cited in E. Ashtor, A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages (London, I976) p. 290.




furnished with this context by a detailed account of the journey of the Armenian King Heteum 1 to the Mongol capital at Qaraqorum in I 254, in which the king makes seven requests of the Great Khan and they are all granted. Two of these stand out in particular: that Mongke should accept baptism for himself and his people, and that he should wrest the Holy Land from the Muslims and restore it to Christian possession.1 All of this, none of which is found in the account of the king's journey given by the contemporary Armenian historian Kirakos of Gantsag,2 is unfortunately sheer fantasy, to which Hayton was reduced not merely out of a desire to glorify his own family and nation,3 but by the need to set Western-Mongol relations on a new footing. He is trying, as it were, to lay a ghost.

To a lesser extent, this same caveat in favour of contemporary testimony must apply also to the remaining Armenian, and to Frankish, sources. It is very probably such a later tradition which underlies the statement in the Gestes des Chiprois that Kit-buqa was accompanied into Damascus not only by King Heteum but by Bohemond VI of Antioch, and that the Frankish prince converted one mosque into a Latin church and desecrated many others.4 Bohemond had certainly accepted Mongol overlordship and col- laborated with the invaders. But his subsequent relations with the Mamliik Sultan Baybars have been well documented in the biography of the sultan written by his secretary Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir (d. I292).

Here we find a number of references to Bohemond's activities at the time of the Mongol invasion, and also a letter from Baybars to the prince reproaching him for his past conduct.5 Nowhere is mention made of the outrages at Damascus; and had Bohemond actually behaved in this way, it is inconceivable that either Baybars or Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir should have remained silent. Of the same order is the story retailed by another of Hayton's contemporaries, the Armenian Grigor of Akner (d. i335), who makes Huilegu in person enter Jerusalem and prostrate himself before the Holy Sepulchre.6 The whole drift of the early fourteenth-century Frankish and Armenian

i. RHC, DA, ii. i64-7. Cf. Croisades, iii. 529: 'Meme en faisant la part de l'exager- ation . . ., il est difficile de ne pas voir la les bases d'une alliance mongolo-chretienne ferme et precise'. Hayton is here followed by Marino Sanudo the Elder, Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis (I 32i), ed. J. Bongars, Orientalis Historia (Hanau, i6i i), ii. 236-7.

2. See Boyle, 'The Journey of Het'um I, King of Little Armenia, to the Court of the Great Khan Mongke', CAJ, ix (I964), I75-89.

3. Cf. RHC, DA, ii, p. xlviii, n. i. Saunders, n. 62 on p. 229, comments on Armenian wishful thinking.

4. Ed. in RHC, DA, ii. 737-872: see p. 75 I. This testimony is nevertheless regarded as conclusive by Prawer, ii. 426 and n. 14.

5. Al-rawd al-!Zhirfi sirat al-malik al-Zdhir, ed. A. al-Khowayter (Riyad, 1976), pp. 299-300, 312 (Baybars' letter), 324. On Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, see Cahen, Syrie, p. 74.

6. Trans. R. P. Blake and R. N. Frye, 'History of the Nation of the Archers (the Mongols) by Grigor of Akanc", Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, xii (i949), 349. Saunders, n. 87 on p. 232, rightly dismissed this story, while assuming incorrectly that the Mongols bypassed Jerusalem; see p. 485 and n. 6 supra.




tradition, as far as concerns the Mongol conquest of Syria, is to highlight the spirit of harmony that had allegedly existed between the newcomers and 'Christians'.

By contrast, the more nearly contemporary Frankish sources, in so far as they say anything at all about the Mongol invasion, depict Hiilegii's forces as a hostile power, with little mention even of Mongol favour towards non-Latin Christians. The letters, in particular, sent to the West by the leaders at Acre in i z6o, appealing for help against this unprecedented menace, give absolutely no indication that the Mongols were prepared to act as the Heaven-sent auxiliaries against Islam that they were to have become half a century later.1 But the Muslim chronicles, supplying as they do far more information than do Frankish sources on the Mongol invasion, have been most neglected. The three authors most commonly quoted, Abu'l-Fida (d. I 3 3 z), al-Maqrizi (d. 1442) and al-'Ayni (d. i45 I), wrote in fact compendious works and derived their material almost entirely from contemporary authorities, while omitting a great many invaluable details. In the following study, I shall draw especially on the data in these earlier Muslim sources.2

i. The letters that have survived are as follows: (i) Thomas Agni di Lentino, Papal Legate, to all kings, princes, archbishops, bishops, etc., i Mar. I260, in Menkonis Chronicon, ed. L. Weiland, M[onumenta] G[ermaniae] H[istorica.] S[criptores], xxiii. 547-9; (2) Thomas Berard, Master of the Temple, to Amadeus, Preceptor of the Temple in England, 4 Mar. [i 260], in A [nnales monasterii] B[urtonensis], ed. Luard, Annales Monastici (London, I864-9, Rolls Series), i. 491-5; a better text in Gui de Basainville, Visitor in partibus cismarinis, to Franco de Borno, Preceptor in Aquitaine, in M[onumenta] B[oica], XXIX. ii (Munich, I83I), 197-202, where Berard's letter, which he had received at Chateaudun on io June (p. I98), is reproduced verbatim; (3) Thomas Agni and the principal lay and ecclesiastical magnates of the kingdom to Charles of Anjou, 22 Apr. I260, ed. H. F. Delaborde, 'Lettre des Chretiens de Terre-Sainte a Charles d'Anjou', R[evue de 1'] O[rient] L[atin], ii (I894), 212-15, and C. V. Langlois, 'Lettre a Charles d'Anjou sur les affaires de Terre Sainte', B[ibliothbque de 1'] JA[cole des] C[hartes], lxxviii (1917), 487-90. The narrative sources are the A[nnales de] T[erre] S[ainte], in two recensions, based respectively on a thirteenth and a fifteenth-century MS (A & B), ed. R. Rohricht and G. Raynaud, A[rchives de 1'] O[rient] L[atin], ii (i884), Documents, 427-6I; and the two continuations of Guillaume de Tyre, the [Estoire de] Eracles [Em- pereur] and the so-called [MS de] Rothelin, ed. in RHC, H[istoriens] Occ[identaux], ii (Paris, I859), 1-48I and 489-639 respectively.

2. The three principal contemporary Muslim authors are: Ibn Wa.sil (d. I298),

Mufarrij al-kurub, Bibl. Nat. MS Arabe 1703; Abui-Shama (d. I 267), Dhayl'ala'l-rawdatayn, ed. M. Z. al-Kawthari, Tarajim rijal al-qarnayn al-sadis wa'l-sabi' (Cairo, 1947); and Ibn al-'Amid (d. c. 1273), Kitdb al-majmz' al-mubarak, ed. Cahen, 'La "Chronique des Ayyoubides" d'al-Makin b. al-'Amid', Bulletin d'Jtudes Orientales de l'Institut Franfais de Damas, xv (1955-7), 127-77. The relevant section of the biography of Sultan Baybars by Ibn Shaddad is unfortunately lost, but it is quoted by al-Yunini (d. 1326), Dhayl mir'dt al-!aman (Hyderabad, Deccan, 1954-6I), and by Ibn al-Dawadari (c. 1335) Kant al-durar, ed. Ulrich Haarmann, Die Chronik des Ibn ad-Dawaddri, viii (Freiburg i. Br., 1971. Deutsches Archaologisches Institut Kairo: Quellen zur Geschichte des islamischen Agyptens, ih). We possess also Ibn Shaddad's topographical-historical work, Al-a'ldq (p. 485, n. 6 supra), which is of great value, as well as the biography of Baybars by Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir (p. 486, n. 5 supra). Mention should finally be made of Qirtay al-'Izzi al- Khazandari (c. 1330), whose Ta'rikh majmu' al-nawadir contains a first-hand account of some of the events preceding 'Ayn Jalat written by Sarim al-din Ozbeg, a mnaml/k of the Ayyuibid ruler of Hims: it is only partly extant in the unique manuscript (Gotha




II

The Franks of Syria had first come into contact with the Mongols as early as I244. In the summer of that year, following a victorious campaign by the general Baiju against the Anatolian Seljiiks, a Mongol division appeared before Antioch and ordered Bohemond V to raze the walls of his fortresses, to remit his entire revenue in gold and silver, and to provide the invaders with three thousand maidens. He proudly refused.1 Nevertheless, from fear that the Mongols would return, the prince neglected to send further assistance to the Latin Kingdom after the disastrous battle of Gaza in October I2442;

and two years later Matthew Paris tells us that together with certain of his Muslim neighbours and King Het"um of Armenia Bohemond had become tributary to the Mongols.3 Consequently, we find both the embassies sent to the Near East by Pope Innocent IV reporting in I247-8 that the limits of Mongol domination now lay two days' journey beyond Antioch.4 That these limits were not extended for a further twelve years or so must be attributed to events within the Mongol empire itself. Already in I247 the papal mission to Mongolia led by Carpini had brought back news of an impending struggle between the Great Khan Guiyiig and his cousin Batu which promised Christendom a respite for many years to come.5 In I252 vague rumours reached St Albans that the Mongols were engaged in bitter internal strife.6 Guyug had in fact died prematurely in I248 and had been succeeded after an interregnum of three years by Mongke, whose enthronement followed only on the execution or exile of

Forschungsbibliothek, Or. I655) of Qirtay's work, but was edited by G. Levi della Vida, 'L'invasione dei Tartari in Siria nel I 260 nei ricordi di un testimone oculare', Orientalia, new series, iv (I9 35), 353-76, from the text found in the Ta'rikh al-duwal wa'l-mulbk of Ibn al-Furat (d. 1405). This last work, the most thorough and most useful of the later compilations, is readily accessible in U. and M. C. Lyons, A[yyubids,] M[amlukes and] C[rusaders], with historical introduction and notes by J. S. C. Riley-Smith (Cambridge, 1971). On all these Muslim sources, see generally Cahen, Syrie, pp. 66 ff.

i. Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, iv. 389-go. See also the letter of Robert, patriarch of Jerusalem, to Innocent IV, 2I Sept. I244, in Chronica de Mailros, ed. J. Stevenson (Edinburgh, I835, Bannatyne Club), p. I 58.

2. Ibid.; cf. also the patriarch's letters to the clergy of France and England, 25 Nov. 1244, in Chronica Majora, iv. 342-3, and to Innocent IV, of the same date (?), in AB, p. 26I. A contingent from Antioch and Tripoli did fight at Gaza: see Grousset, Croisades, 111. 415, 417.

3. Chronica Majora, iv. 547 (sub anno 1246). W. B. Stevenson, The Crusaders in the East (Cambridge, I907), p. 324; Prawer, ii. 42I-2.

4. I.e. to the south of the city, as is apparent from Richard, SSQ, p. 93: 'totam terram Christianorum et Saracenorum usque ad mare Mediterraneum et prope Antiochiam et ultra per duas dietas ejus [se. Baiju] dominio subjugavit'. Cf. also Andre de Longjumeau, as quoted in Chronica Majora, vi. 11 4: 'jam subjecerunt sibi totam fere Asiam Orientalem usque ad duas dietas ultra Antiochiam'. On these two missions, see generally de Rachewiltz, pp. II2-I8.

5. This detail is found only in the earliest version of Carpini's report, known as the 'Tartar Relation': I have used the edition of Alf Onnerfors, Hystoria Tartarorum C. de Bridia Monachi (Berlin, I967. Kleine Texte fur Vorlesungen und Obungen, i86), p. 21.

6. Chronica Majora, v. 340.



I980 HOLY LAND IN I260 489

several members of Giiyiug's family and their supporters.1 But with Mongke's accession the time was ripe for a further burst of expansion. In the Near East Baiju, whom Guiyuig had replaced by Eljigidei, once more assumed direction of local operations, and the westward advance from I 2 5 4 of a large army under the new sovereign's brother Hiilegii released his forces for the next forward thrust: in I256 he invaded Anatolia a second time and secured the definitive submission of its Seljuk rulers.2

Once again the invasion of Anatolia might be seen as a prelude to the next attack on Syria, where the warring sultans of Egypt and Damascus hastened to conclude a truce in view of the threat from the north3; and it appears to have been precisely the collapse of the Seljuks that gave rise to fresh alarms at Acre. Late in I256 the newly arrived Papal Legate and patriarch of Jerusalem, Jacques Pantaleon, wrote to Pope Alexander IV expressing his fears of an imminent Mongol invasion.4 The Preceptor of the Temple in the Latin Kingdom, Gui de Basainville, was more specific: he gave warning, on the authority of the Armenian king, himself not long returned from the Mongol capital, that an attack on Palestine was expected in the following spring.5 And as if in anticipation of this, the barons of the kingdom and the military orders received in I257 an ultimatum, which they decisively rejected. Such at any rate is the testimony of Matthew Paris, who does not name his source.6 Possibly it was the Master of the Order of St Thomas at Acre, who visited St Albans at some point during this year, bringing at least vague rumours of the Mongol advance7; but we know that news from the Holy Land was reaching western Europe by other channels also.8

When the Mongols finally moved into Syria in force in I259-60,

i. See Grousset, L'Empire Mongol (ire phase) (Paris, 1941. Cavaignac, Histoire du Monde, viii. iii), pp. 306-II; Steppes, pp. 338-41.

2. Cahen, Pre-Ottoman Turkey, trans. J. Jones-Williams (London, I968), pp. 275-6. 3. Gui de Basainville to the bishop of Orleans, 4 Oct. [1256], in Andre Duchesne,

Historiae Francorum Scriptores, v (Paris, I649), 272: on the date of this letter, see Rohricht, 'Die Kreuzzuge des Grafen Theobald von Navarra und Richard von Cornwallis nach dem heiligen Lande', Forscbungen !ur deutschen Gesbhicbte, xxvi (i886), I02.

4. Les Registres d'Alexandre IV, ii, ed. J. de Loye and P. de Cenival (Paris, 1917), no. I 726, I2 Feb. 1257 ('sicut te intimante didicimus . . . te formidantem Tartarorum adventum'); also in MGH, Epistolae saeculi XIII, ed. C. Rodenberg, iii (Berlin, I894), no. 450. The Legate had arrived at Acre as recently as 3 June 1256 (pace Runciman, Crusades, iii. 285, and in Wolff and Hazard, pp. 569, 570, with the summer of I260): Eracles, p. 442 ; ATS, B, pp. 446-7.

5. Duchesne, v. 272.

6. Chronica Majora, v. 655. 7. Ibid. vi. 350, where the initial formula of a Mongol ultimatum appears to be

quoted: '[Tartari,] quorum regis haec est sententia et principale propositum, ut videlicet unus sit dominus in terra sicut est unus Deus in caelo'; cf. pp. 348-9, v. 630-I, for the Master's visit. On the order, see A. J. Forey, 'The military order of St Thomas of Acre', ante, xcii (I977).

8. Richeri Gesta Senoniensis Ecclesiae, ed. G. Waitz, MGHS, xxv. 32.5-6 (a letter to Rome from the Templars).




therefore, their arrival was hardly unexpected. Two decades of military activity in Iraq and Anatolia had prepared the Franks for the certainty that they and their more immediate neighbours would be called upon to withstand the next forward thrust. Nothing, in all this time, had indicated that the newcomers might serve as deliverers or allies. It is in a document of I 248 that we first encounter provision made for the conquest of the Latin Kingdom not only by the Muslims but also by 'other infidels'l; and when eight years later de Basainville spoke of the Mongols as constituting no lesser a threat to Christendom in Outremer than to Islam and prophesied the annihilation of the Latin states, he was expressing a very widely held view.2 This is the essential backcloth to the events of I260, to which we must now turn.

III

The fall of Aleppo on 24 January i z6o gave rise to the greatest alarm throughout Syria. When the news reached Damascus early in February, the Ayyiibid Sultan al-Nasir Yuisuf abandoned his capital, followed by many of the Muslim citizens, and fled to Nablus.3 The rapid collapse of the power with which they had maintained an uneasy coexistence since II92 was no less alarming for the Franks. From Acre the Papal Legate, Thomas Agni, bishop of Bethlehem, wrote to the West urgently outlining the situation. Baghdad and Aleppo had both fallen, and the princes of Hims and Hamah had submitted to the Mongols. The Saracens were in such desperate straits that many of them were making for the coast and surrendering to the Franks like birds fleeing the hawk.4 We receive striking confirmation of this last statement from the historian Ibn al-'Amid, himself a Christian, who tells how he and other scribes (kuttdb) fled from Damascus and took refuge in Tyre.5 Bereft of its ruler and of the greater part of its administrative hierarchy, Damascus had no choice but to surrender: on 2 March, only a day after Thomas Agni had written to the West, a deputation met Huilegti's representatives

i. J. Delaville le Roulx, Cartulaire Giniral de l'Ordre des Hospitaliers de S. Jean de Jdrusalem (10oo-r31o) (Paris, i894-i906), ii. 673 (no. 2482): 'eciam si totum regnum Jerosolomitanum amitteretur per potenciam Sarracenorum vel aliorum infidelium'; cf. Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, 1174-1277 (London, I973), pp. 148, 289, n. 23, for this and later such references.

2. Duchesne, v. 272: 'de quorum adventu non solum pagani, verum etiam Christianus populus dubitat cismarino . . .'; and referring to the expected spring campaign: 'quod si futurum est, ut multorum tenet assertio, Christianitas Cismarina disperiet , & Domus Domini replebitur omni genere immundorum'.

3. Abui-Shama, p. 203; Ibn Wasil, fo. I5or.

4. Menkonis Chronicon, p. 548. The prince of HIamah had not in fact submitted along with his city, but escaped to join the Egyptians: see R. S. Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols: the Ayyubids of Damascus, 19 3-I260 (New York, I977), pp. 350, 352-3.

5. Ibn al-'Amid, p. I 72,11. 22-26.



I980 HOLY LAND IN iz6o 49I

and handed over the keys of the city.1 During the next few weeks the Mongol forces spread over the country and ravaged a considerable tract that included the Hawran, Nablus, Bayt Jibrin (Beth Gibelin), al-Khalil (Hebron), Barkat Ziza and Karak2; though the fortresses in these regions were not reduced until around May.3 Our sources are agreed that in the south the invaders advanced as far as Gaza.4 And especial mention should be made at this juncture of the capture of two fortresses, Ascalon5 and the castle of Banyas, known as al-Subayba, which Hiilegii had undertaken to restore to its hereditary lord, the renegade Ayyibid prince al-Sa"id b. al-'Aziz b. al-eAdil.6 By the end of the spring the Franks were completely shut in on the coast.7

In February, the government at Acre had received a fresh ultimatum, to which Thomas Agni refers and the tone of which, with its claims to world dominion, he found nothing less than blas- phemous.8 It may have been subsequent to the despatch of his letter that gifts were sent to Kit-buqa, who ordered the Franks to dismantle the walls of their cities and fortresses; but they refused to comply.9 Their best hope lay precisely in the retention of the fortified places, though in the event they encountered great difficulty in obtaining the soldiers to man them.10 This dearth of manpower - a perennial problem in the Latin states - must have been due in part to the current struggle between the Italian colonies and their respective allies, the so-called war of Saint-Sabas, in which the Temple and the Hospital had clashed, with heavy losses, only in the previous year."1 The situation was further exacerbated by a lack of ready cash, due to the absence from Acre of the Genoese and other merchants involved in

i. Abui-Shama, p. 203, 11. 26 ff. Ibn Wasil, fo. ISor. Ibn al-'Amid, p. I73, 11. 5-I0. 2. Abui-Shama, p. 204, 11. I4-I8: the Mongol troops arrived back in Damascus in

rabi' II 658 H./March-April. 3. Ibid. p. 206, 1. I5, suggesting that the news reached Damascus in mid-jumada

II/late May: but the list of castles includes 'Ajluin, which fell only in rajab/June-July, according to Ibn Shaddad (LJP, pp. 89-90). Cf. also Ibn al-'Amid, p. I74, 11. 9-I2

(Nablus), and Abui-Shama, pp. 204-5 (Ba'albak). 4. Abui-Shama, p. 204, 1. i6. Ibn Wasil, fos I5Iv, 1. II, I54r, 1. 5 f. 5. Menkonis Chronicon, p. 549: this information does not form part of Thomas Agni's

letter, but the list of fortresses taken, which includes 'Malbek' (Ba'albak) and 'Belmas' (Banyas), is clearly derived from another contemporary report. In any case the capture of Ascalon is confirmed by Ibn Shaddad (LJP, p. 263, 11. 4 f.).

6. Ibn al-Amid, p. I73, 11. I9 f.; cf P. I7I, 11. I3-I6. Ibn Wasil, fo. I54r, 11. I2-I4.

On the strategic importance of Banyas, see Riley-Smith in AMC, ii. I9I, I98.

7. As Ibn al-Furat was careful to note: AMC, i (text), 50, ii (tr.), 42.

8. Menkonis Chronicon, p. 548: 'Etenim idem rex Tartarorum nobis litteras blasfemiae plenas in Deum viventem inaudite superbie destinavit . . . Dominus Deus Israel, . . . inclina aurem tuam, et audi omnia verba regis Tartarorum, qui misit, ut exprobraret nobis Deum viventem, dicens, tuum posse esse in celis, AMangakan [= Mongke Qa'an] vero in terris' (my italics).

9. Ibn al-'Amid, p. I73, 11. 23-25.

io. Rothelin, p. 636. i I. Chronica Majora, v. 745-6. On the warfare at this time, see Richard, Royaume latin,

p. 289, and for the war of Saint-Sabas generally, Prawer, ii. 363 ff.




the war, according to the Master of the Temple, Thomas Berard, who was personally sending urgent appeals to the West early in March.1 He was of the opinion that in the kingdom itself, apart from Acre and Tyre, only two Templar fortresses and one held by the Teutonic knights were in a state to resist2: these were doubtless the Templar strongholds of Athlit (Chastel-Pelerin) and Safed, of which the latter had been very considerably fortified within the past twenty years, and the Teutonic Order's castle of Starkenberg (Montfort).3 Further north, where - as we shall see - the secular power had already submitted to the Mongols, the Templars were ready to hold out in three fortresses in the principality of Antioch and two in the county of Tripoli, where two Hospitaller castles were likewise set to resist.4 But it was doubtful whether the rest of Latin Syria could be held; and pleas for help were sent to the Christian powers of western Europe, and possibly also of the Mediterranean littoral, stressing the gravity of the situation.5

Yet the Mongol onslaught never came. As early as the first weeks of March, Hiilegu's vast army, which the author of the Gestes des Chifrois set at I zo,000,6 had retired from Aleppo and begun its slow progress back towards Azerbaijan.7 A much smaller force, numbering ten or possibly twenty thousand, was left in Syria under Kit-buqa to guard the new conquests.8 But this detachment in turn was to

i. AB, p. 494; MB, xxix. i 20I. The Genoese had abandoned Acre for Tyre in I258:

Prawer, ii. 37 I .

2. MB, xxix. ii. 200: 'Verum cum in cismarinis partibus Civitates Acco et Tyrus VII castra domus nostre videlicet III in antiochia duo in Tripoli duo in regno Jerusalem duo hospitalis sancti Johannis in tripoli unum Theotonicorum in Hierosolimitana provincia ad resistendum eisdem Tartaris ... sunt munita' (my italics); the version in AB is garbled.

3. See P. Deschamps, Les Chdteaux des Croises en Terre-Sainte, ii: La Defense du Royaume de Jirusalem (Paris, i939), 25 ff., ii9, I20. On Safed, cf. R. B. C. Huygens, 'Un nouveau texte du traite "De Constructione Castri Saphet"', Studi Medievali, 3a serie, vi (i965), 382-4.

4. Cf. MB, as quoted in n. 2 supra. The total number of fortresses to be garrisoned by the three orders in Latin Syria is given also in Rothelin, p. 636: 'et garniroient li Templier VII des plus forz chastiaux que il eussent, et li Hospitalier II, et li Hospitalier Nostre Dame des Alemanz IP (reading of two manuscripts).

5. According to Berard, a Templar named Stephanus had been sent to Spain, a Hospitaller to France, and a Teutonic knight to Germany: AB, p. 493; MB, xxix. ii. 200. His letter to Henry III arrived in London on i6 June I260: Flores Historiarum, ed. Luard (London, I890, Rolls Series), ii. 45I-2, where only an abstract is given, but we read: 'Hoc idem, ut dicebatur, significatum est omnibus aliis circa mare Graecorum potentibus'.

6. RHC, DA, ii. 751.

7. For the date, cf. Jackson, 'The dissolution', CAJ, xxii. 230.

8. The precise function of Kit-buqa's army will emerge later. Bar Hebraeus (d. I 286) gives its numbers as io,ooo: trans. E. A. Wallis Budge, The Chronography of Gregory AbV'l Faraj ... commonly known as Bar Hebraeus (Oxford-London, I932), i. 436, 437. Similarly Hayton, in RIHC, DA, ii. I72, I73. But the earlier Armenian sources give 2o,ooo: Ad. Dulaurier, 'Les Mongols d'apres les historiens armeniens', I (Kirakos), JA, se serie, xi (i858), 498, and 2 (Vardan Arawelci), ibid. xvi (i86o), 294. The Persian chronicler Wassaf, writing in i298-9, supplies a figure of 30,000 (3 tumens): Tajziyat al-amsdr wa tazjiyat al-a'sdr, lithog. ed. (Bombay, i853), p. 46; ed. and trans. J. von Hammer- Purgstall, Gesbhicbte Wassaf's (Vienna, i856, vol. i only), text p. 88, tr. p. 86.




content itself with the sack of a single Frankish city, and that too at the height of the summer, when some months had passed. Why did the Mongols exhibit such restraint? It would be possible, of course, to adduce at this point the Christian sympathies of certain of their leaders. Kit-buqa was himself a Christian, a member of the Naiman tribe, among whom Nestorianism had come to predominate over the past few centuries.1 And we are given the impression that the Mongols' arrival in Damascus was the signal for the native Christians, armed with an edict (farmndn) from Hulegii granting them free exercise of their religion, to assert themselves at long last at the expense of their Muslim fellow-citizens; who, on complaining to the Mongol governor about these excesses, not only received no redress, but were punished.2 Yet it is noteworthy that a Muslim writer of the early fourteenth century, holding no brief for Kit-buqa, says that he did not make his own Christian leanings obvious, out of deference to Chinggis Khan's original ordinance on the equality of all faiths3; while a closer examination of the events in Damascus reveals that the true picture is far from being as simple as it has been painted. There has come down to us a treatise on the rights of non-Muslim communities in the Mamluik empire, dating from about 1300, in which the Mongol occupation of Damascus is dealt with at some length. From this we learn that although it was the Christians of the city, headed by a nephew of the historian Ibn al-'Amid, who applied to Hiilegii, thefarman they brought back was for the enfranchisement of all religious communities, including Jews, Magians, Zoroastrians and 'idolators' (presumably Buddhists); and that this transpired, moreover, in mid-ramadan/August, when the Mongol occupation had already lasted over six months.4

Mongol rule in Syria was characterized not by especial favour towards Christianity per se, but by the customary emphasis on the equality of all religious faiths and sects. In Ayyiibid territory, of course, it was the Christians and the Jews in particular who benefited from this policy, simply because they happened to constitute the two largest minority groups in Syria. The representatives of such minorities promised, in fact, to be even more serviceable instruments

i. Juwayni, Ta'rikh-i Jabdn-Gushd, trans. Boyle, The History of the World-Conqueror (Manchester, I958), i. 64. Steppes, p. 244.

2. Maqrizi, Al-suluk li-ma'rifat duwal al-muluk, trans. Etienne Quatremere, H[istoire des] S[ultans] M[amlouks de 1'] iA[gypte] (Paris, I837-45), I. i. 98. Abui-Sh-ama, p. 208, is briefer, and there is yet another account in Ibn al-Dawadari, viii. 52. Yuinini, who at first (i. 362) follows Abui-Shama, later quotes a lengthy report (i. 363-5) from Ibrahim b. Abi-Bakr al-Jazari (d. I294), a resident of Damascus and father of the historian who died in I339: see Haarmann, Quellenstudien Zurfruhen Mamlukenzeit (Freiburg i. Br. I970.

Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, i), pp. I2-I3.

3. Yinini, ii. 35. 4. Ghazi b. al-Wasiti, Radd 'ald ahl al-dhimma, ed. and trans. Richard Gottheil, 'An

Answer to the Dhimmis', Journal of the American Oriental Society, xli (I92I), text 407-8, tr. 445-6.




of government than renegades from the old order.1 And that this same policy would be followed even at the expense of the Latin church in Frankish territory emerges clearly from Hiilegii's actions in the one Frankish enclave actually occupied by the Mongols, the principality of Antioch.

In the contemporary correspondence we find little trace of the favour which later sources allege to have been lavished by the Mongols on Bohemond VI. Thomas Berard, it is true, was aware that Hulegiu had received the submission of the commune of Antioch graciously, and that the prince had been allowed to reach a similar arrangement for his county of Tripoli: he was rumoured to be on the point of attending on Hulegu in person.2 This is fuller than the information contained in Thomas Agni's letter of i March,3 but seven weeks later the Legate wrote a letter to Charles of Anjou in which events further north are treated in some detail. If he had been dismayed by the collapse of the Ayyuibids, the submission of Antioch without a struggle, even before the Mongols had taken Aleppo, is nothing less than scandalous, and its consequences a serious blow to the unity of Christendom: for at Hulegiu's express order the Greek patriarch, who had been several times excommunicated by his Latin counterpart and exiled from the city by the temporal power, has now been brought back and restored to his office.4 Prince Bohemond, moreover, who had already submitted of his own free will, has seen his territories ravaged and has been compelled to wait on Hulegiu and to taste 'the baseness of Tartar slavery'.5 Certain benefits undoubtedly accrued to Bohemond from his newly acquired client status. Hayton claims, with his usual vagueness, that Hiilegii restored to him 'all the lands of his principality that he had taken from the Muslims'.6 Ibn Shaddad supplies more details, telling us that the Mongols handed over to Bohemond a number of districts in the Orontes valley - Dayrkuish, Kafr Dubbin and Kafr Bilmis - which remained in his hands until Antioch fell to Baybars in i z68.7 But it is

I. The point is made by Prawer, ii. 428, n. I7, though it serves as a serious qualifi- cation to his remarks elsewhere in the chapter (cf. p. 482, n. 6 supra).

2. AB, pp. 492, 493; MIB, xxix. ii. I99-200.

3. Menkonis Chronicon, p. 548: 'Princeps autem Antiocenus [sic] cum terra Tripolitana terribili tremore confractus Antiochenorum vestigia est secutus'.

4. Delaborde, p. 2I3; Langlois, p. 489. The Greek patriarch, who is not named, is commonly assumed to have been Euthymios, but there is no evidence that he held the office prior to I264, when he escorted the Byzantine princess Maria from Constantinople to Iran: Budge, Chronography, p. 445. In any case, the 'multiplici excommunicationis sententia' of the letter suggests a patriarch who had been on the throne for some time, probably therefore Euthymios's predecessor David: see E. G. Rey, 'Les dignitaires de la principaute d'Antioche', ROL, viii (I900-I), I47-9.

5. Delaborde, pp. 2I3-I4; Langlois, p. 489. 6. RHC, DA, ii. I7I.

7. Al-aVldq, Brit. Lib. MS Ar. I323 (Add. 23, 334), fos 54r-54v. Cf. also Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, who mentions only that Bohemond took these places at the time of the Mongol invasion (pp. 299-300, 3I2, 324). There was a later tradition, however, that Hulegu had failed to take Dayrkuish, alone of the fortresses in Syria: Gaudefroy-Demombynes, La




noteworthy that other districts acquired by the prince about this time, such as Laodicea, were annexed only after 'Ayn Jlalt, when the Mongols had withdrawn.1 Hayton and the author of the Gestes assert that Bohemond enjoyed great favour with Hiilegui as the son-in-law of his satellite King Hetfum.2 Yet not even the Armenians - those most zealous agents of Mongol expansion in the Near East - were treated with unmitigated generosity. Hetfum certainly had the privilege of setting fire to the Great Mosque at Aleppo; but when Hulegii learned of this, says Ibn Shaddad, he was angry and had a large number of the Armenian troops massacred.3 Bohemond and the Armenian king alike fared well in comparison with their immediate Muslim neighbours because they had submitted voluntarily. The yoke upon them was nevertheless a heavy one.

If the Mongols had not proved unduly gentle in their treatment of submissive Antioch or of their faithful Armenian auxiliaries, we have no grounds for expecting them to be any better disposed towards the Franks of the kingdom of Jerusalem. The Persian chronicler Rashid al-din (d. 13I8) portrays Hulegiu as summoning Baiju in 1257,

immediately after the destruction of the Assassins, and upbraiding him for his lack of energy in the war against the Caliph, concluding with the words:

Thou shouldst advance as far as the coasts of the sea, and wrest those countries from the hands of the children of France and [?] England.4

The details of the interview may be apocryphal, but we have seen how a Mongol ultimatum was received at Acre in this very year.5 Hiilegii's further ultimatum early in i z6o was in the same vein; and the Mongols' military operations in the neighbouring territories during the next few months were calculated to draw, as it were, a kind of cordon sanitaire around the Latin Kingdom. Indeed, contemporary Muslim observers entertained as little doubt concerning their

Syrie d l'6poque des Mamelouks (Paris, I923), p. 93, quoting the .Subb al-a'shd of al- Qalqashandi (d. I4I8).

i. Ibn 'Abd al-ZThir, p. 300; at pp. 445-6 he reproduces a letter from Baybars to Bohemond VII in I275, in which the late prince is accused of having seized Laodicea wrongfully. Cf. Cahen, Syrie, p. 706 and n. I8, for the date: Jabala appears to have been annexed at the same time, though Ibn Abd al-ZThir (p. 330) specifies that it was occupied by the Templars and Hospitallers. All these passages in Ibn 'Abd al-Z;ahir were incorporated by Ibn al-Furat: AMC, i (text), I46, i6o, I63, 207, ii (tr.), II5, I26, I28, I63.

2. RHC, DA, ii. I7I, 75 I.

3. Al-aildq, ed. D. Sourdel, La Description d'Alep d'Ibn Sadddd (Damascus, I953),

p. 36, 11. 7-I2. 4. The sentence is thus read by Boyle: 'Rashid al-Din and the Franks', CAJ, xiv

(I970), 63-64, and 'The Il-Khans of Persia and the Princes of Europe', ibid. xx (I976), 27, using the variant readings in the edition of A. A. Alizade (with trans. by A. K. Arends), Dgami-at-tavarikh, iii (Baku, I957), 39, and adopting Angilatdr for the az kuffdr of Quatrem6re's text: H[istoire des] M[ongols de la] P[erse] (Paris, I836, vol. i only), p. 224 (tr. p. 225: 'et aux infideles').

5. Chronica Majora, v. 655 ; and cf. p. 489 supra.




hostile intentions vis-a-vis the Franks as did the Franks themselves. Ibn al-'Amid confirms that Kit-buqa was left in Syria both to guard the country and to be 'over against the Franks' (qibdlat al-Faran/)l; while Ibn Wasil says specifically that a Mongol detachment advanced to Gaza in order to prevent the Franks receiving assistance from Egypt.2 This testimony is of the greatest importance, in view of the widespread belief that the Mongols were seeking to co-operate with the Syrian Frarnks against Islam as early as i z6o.

Yet if, now that the Mongols were actually confronting the government at Acre, they abandoned any attempt to simulate the kind of friendliness professed by Eljigidei's envoys in I248, we nevertheless gain the impression at least that Kit-buqa was prepared to postpone a definitive struggle with the Latin Kingdom. The reasons for this hesitation lie, I suggest, in the Mongols' estimation of Frankish power.

IV

The numerical strength and military prowess of 'the Frankish nation' had long been proverbial among the Muslims of the Near East.3 We may regard as typical the view expressed by the cosmographer Zakariyya al-Qazwini, writing around I 276 in the heart of Hulegu's Iranian domain:

The land of the Franks (Ifranja): a great country and a vast realm in the territory of the Christians ... They have a mighty king, and their numbers and armed forces are plentiful. Their king has two or three cities on the sea coast on this side, in the midst of Muslim territory, and he defends them from that direction. Every time the Muslims send someone there to conquer them, he sends someone to defend them from the other side. His armies are strong and powerful, and do not in any way feign flight in battle, but prefer death . . .4

Now as the Mongols pushed through Iraq towards Syria and the Mediterranean, it was only natural that they should acquire intelli- gence of this kind concerning the Frankish states on the Syrian coast;

i. Ibn al-'Amid, p. I73, 11. I8 f. 2. Ibn Wasil, fo. I54r, 11. I5 f.: wa madat minhum ta'ifa nabwa GhatjZa li-yamnu'

najdata'l-Faranj minjiha Misr. 3. See the remarks in David Ayalon, 'The Great Yasa of Chingiz Khan. A re-

examination', C2, Studia Islamica, xxxviii (1973), 152-6. Of the passages there quoted from 'Imad al-din al-Isfahani's Al-fate al-qussi, the most significant for our purposes is the third, taken from Saladin's letter to the Caliph of Nov.-Dec. I I89 and now available in translation in H. Masse, Conqu6te de la Syrie et de la Palestine par Saladin (Paris, 1972. Documents relatifs a l'histoire des Croisades, x), pp. 197-8.

4. Athdr al-bildd wa akhbdr al-'ibdd, ed. H. F. Wustenfeld, Zakarija Ben Muhammed Ben Mabmud el-Catuwini's Kosmographie, ii (Gottingen, I848), 334; cf. the briefer passage on Ifranja at p. 388. On the author (d. I283), see T. Lewicki, art. 'Kazwini', Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (Leiden, I954-), iv. 865-7.




and all the evidence indicates that this was precisely the picture they had formed. In a Chinese report drawn up in I263 under the Great Khan Qubilai, but based on an earlier document sent by Htilegii to Mongke in I 2 5 8, a survey of the peoples lying in the path of Hulegii's advance includes the Franks (Fu-lang), who are reputedly very fine warriors.1 But as far back as I 248 Simon de Saint-Quentin, describing the reception given to the papal envoy Ascelin by Baiju and his entourage, had observed that

in their initial enquiries, they kept asking the Friars, cautiously and with much concern, whether the Franks had yet crossed the sea to Syria. For they had heard from their traders, they said, that many Franks were shortly crossing the sea to Syria . . . And they dread and fear them, according to the testimony of the Georgians and Armenians, above all other men in the world.2

In other words, the Mongols were already aware at this stage of the phenomenon of the armed pilgrimage or crusade, which was period- ically responsible for disgorging unpredictable numbers of armed men in a region lying in the path of their own advance. And Ascelin's party, we are told, nearly met with execution in view of the Mongols' suspicion that a Frankish army was following close behind them.3

This concern over Frankish interests and activities in Syria by no means subsided during the next decade. We have seen how Eljigidei's embassy to Saint Louis was designed to draw the crusading army away from Mongol-occupied territory4; and his anxiety to contact the French king may be gauged merely from the fact that his letter bears a date corresponding to May I248, when Louis had not even embarked from Aigues-Mortes.5 The Persian historian Juwayni tells us that Eljigidei had been given special responsibility for the Near Eastern territories 'in order that nobody else might interfere with them', a precaution which it is not too fanciful to assume may have been partly prompted by news of Louis's crusading plans.6 And although the bulk of the French king's army headed in the event for Egypt, Mongol apprehensions were borne out by at least two episodes that occurred during his stay in Cyprus. First he despatched a corps

i. See Abel Remusat, 'Relation de l'expedition d'Houlagou au travers de la Tartarie', Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques (Paris, I829), i. i8i. The passage is found also in G. Pauthier, Le Livre de Marco Polo (Paris, i865), i, introduction p. cxlv, and in Emil Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources (London, I 888), i. I42.

2. SSQ, pp. 97-98. 3. Ibid. pp. 52, 101. 4. Supra, sect. I. 5. Pelliot, 'Les Mongols et la Papaute, 3, p. 26. 6. Boyle, History of the World-Conqueror, i. 2 5 7. Advance warning of Louis's expedition

would have been sent to Mongolia by the vassal ruler of Mosul, who had himself received the news from the Egyptian sultan: Eudes de Chateauroux, Papal Legate, to Innocent IV, 3I Mar. I249, in L. d'Achery, Spicilegium sive collectio veterum aliquot scriptorum, new ed. 12t. Baluze, etc. (Paris, I723), iii. 627a. Elsewhere I have tried to show that the Great Khan Giiyug's primary concern was to withdraw these regions from the control of his cousin Batu: CAJ, xxii. 200 (cf. also pp. 2i6-i9).




of six hundred crossbowmen to aid the prince of Antioch - a Mongol tributary, it should be remembered, since I246 - against the local Turcomans.1 And secondly, on hearing of an imminent clash between the Seljiiks on the one hand and the Armenians with their Mongol masters on the other, many Frankish serjeants crossed to the Cilician coast in order to obtain some of the spoils; though their subsequent fate is unknown.2 Not long previously the Mongols had issued instructions to subordinate Muslim rulers to disband their regiments of Frankish guards.3 The Franciscan Rubruck, finally, travelling to Mongolia unofficially in I 2 5 4, provides further evidence of the Mongols' concern over Frankish activities in Syria. He had an interview with the Great Khan's cousin Batu at his headquarters on the Volga, and was asked against whom Saint Louis was waging war: 'for he had heard', says the Friar, 'that you [the French king] had left your country with an army'.4

To a certain extent these apprehensions may have been related to technological factors, since Carpini tells us that the Mongols stood in great fear of the crossbow - the Frankish weapon par excellence; and the shock effect of a charge by heavily armed Western knights was renowned throughout the Near East.5 But their view of the Franks was principally one of another expansionist power which was interested in the very regions forming the objective of the Mongols' own next forward drive. It was, moreover, a power of considerable size. We know from the 'Tartar Relation' that the world was regarded as being split into two main parts: the east - occupied by the Mongols themselves and hence called 'Mo'al' - and the west, which was apparently almost coterminous with Latin Christendom.6 Even if the statements of Simon de Saint-Quentin and of Carpini, to the effect that the Mongols feared the Franks more than any other race,7 reflect merely a pardonable chauvinism, it is at least clear that they

i. Spicilegium, iii. 625a; hence Vincent de Beauvais, ed. J. Mentelin (Strassburg, I473), lib. XXXII. xcvi.

2. Jean de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, ed. N. de Wailly (Paris, i 868), p. 5 I. This campaign, which is ignored by Armenian and Seliuk sources, is mentioned in Rotbelin, p. 624.

3. SSQ, p. 5 2. See further Richard, 'An Account of the Battle of Hattin Referring to the Frankish Mercenaries in Oriental Moslem States', Speculum, xxvii (1952), I72-3.

4. Rubruck, Itinerarium, ed. A. van den Wyngaert in S[inica] F[ranciscana], i [Itinera et relationes Fratrum Minorum saeculi XIII et XIV] (Quaracchi-Firenze, I929), 2I5;

trans. W. W. Rockhill, The Journey of William of Rubruck to the Eastern Parts of the World 12J3-JJ (London, I900. Hakluyt Soc., 2nd series, iv), p. I25.

5. See R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare (Io97-II93) (Cambridge, I956), pp. II2-I5.

The Mongols, like their Turkish precursors, avoided close combat until the enemy was weakened by constant arrow fire: Carpini, Ystoria Mongalorum, ed. van den Wyngaert in SF, i. 82; see p. 96 for their fear of the crossbow. It does not appear that they had adopted it, in spite of contact with the Chinese, who had employed it for centuries: cf. Lynn White, Jr, Medieval Technology and Social Change (Oxford, i962), pp. 35, I5I-2.

6. Onnerfors, p. 4. 7. SSQ, pp. 5 2, 74, 98 (the passage quoted supra, p. 497). SF, i. 93: 'excepta christiani-

tate, nulla est terra in orbe quam ipsi timeant'.




were prone to certain superstitious beliefs in connection with their forthcoming struggle against this vast polity. There was current among them, it seems, a prophecy that they would be overthrown when sixty years had elapsed since their first emerging from their homelandl; and rumour had it that this would take place in Christian territory.2 Assuming, therefore, the era of Mongol domination to have begun in i 206, the deadline was no more than six years away, and probably less.3

All this provided every incentive for Hulegu's forces to tread carefully. The Franks of Syria, for all their intrinsic weakness, were an unknown quantity. They were liable to be reinforced by an infinitely larger force than their own resources could command, and which the Mongols had been led to believe would constitute a formidable adversary. Antioch had presented no problem, having submitted voluntarily; and indeed, given the dilapidated condition of its fortifications, on which Rubruck had commented five years previously,4 it had no choice. Bohemond VI, moreover, does seem to have been susceptible to the influence of his father-in-law King Hetfum, so that Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir could describe him as 'one of the chief supporters of the Tartars'.5 But it was otherwise with his fellow-Latins to the south. Power at Acre, as we shall see, was in the hands of Bohemond's enemies, who were bent on resistance. Con- sequently, Kit-buqa had to content himself with an impressive demonstration of force in the former territories of their Ayyiibid neighbours, and to wait until Hulegu should return with sufficient troops to ensure the Franks' subjection. This uneasy situation lasted until the summer.

V

On I7 August i260, the news reached Damascus that the Mongols had captured and sacked Sidon, taking three hundred prisoners.6 The city was well fortified, its defences having been strengthened by Saint Louis as recently as I 2 5 3-4,7 and Kit-buqa's forces were unable to take either the landward or the seawarcq castle. But before they withdrew, they were careful to destroy the city walls.8 Many of the citizens had been rescued by two Genoese galleys which happened

I. SF, i. 64; cf. also pp. 72 (with no time specified), 95. 2. Onnerfors, pp. 22, 26-27.

3. According to Carpini (SF, i. 64), 42 years had elapsed in I247. But Eljigidei's envoys reckoned that in I248 only 40 had passed: Spicilegium, iii. 627a.

4. SF, i. 329; Rockhill, p. 279. 5. Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, p. 300; hence Ibn al-Furat, in AMC, i. 145, ii. 115.

6. Abua-Shama, p. 207, 11. I2 f.: 8 ramadan. Yuinini, i. 360, who follows him, has 2 ramacdin/I I August, but tbani is probably an error for thdmin.

7. Grousset, Croisades, iii. 509. Prawer, ii. 35I.

8. The most detailed account is given in the Gestes (RHC, DA, ii. 7 5 2), where we read that the Mongols made an unsuccessful assault on the landward castle, where Julien, lord of Sidon, had himself finally taken refuge after a heroic resistance at the city gates.




to be on their way from Tyre to Armenia, and evacuated to the seaward castle.1 Hayton, as we noticed earlier, lays the blame for this episode on the Franks of Sidon, who had allegedly raided Mongol- occupied territory.2 No such details are found, however, in any other authority; though the Gestes des Chiprois supplies a character-sketch of the lord of Sidon, Julien,3 in which he appears as exactly the sort of hothead who would have provoked the Mongols in this fashion. But Sidon was admittedly a sensitive area. Since I254 it had been divided between the Franks and al-Nasir Yusuf, and Ibn Shaddad tells us that the former had seized control of the entire territory and its revenues at the time of the Mongol invasion4: this may be the incident described by Hayton. We know furthermore that another border fortress, Cavea de Tyron, a dependency of Julien's lordship of Beaufort until sold to the Teutonic Order in I257, was razed by the Mongols5; though whether prior to the raid from Sidon or as a part of Kit-buqa's punitive operation is uncertain. Yet, whichever party offered the initial provocation, it is unlikely that the Mongols planned at this stage to launch any further attacks on the Latin Kingdom. In any event, they were given no opportunity to do so, since Kit-buqa must have received news around this time of the Egyptian advance.

VI

An ultimatum had been sent to Cairo shortly before Hiilegu's departure from Syria in March.6 The newly established Mamlak regime was remarkably fragile. The current sultan, al-Muzaffar Sayf al-din Qutuz, had ascended the throne as recently as November I 2 5 9 through a coup d'etat - the third such change of ruler within six years. 7

Nor could he command the resources that had been available to his

Marino Sanudo, however, says simply that the Mongols took the city, but were unable to reduce the seaward castle: Bongars, ii. 22I; similarly ATS, B, p. 449. The remaining sources refer briefly to the capture of the city: Eracles, p. 444; Menkonis Chronicon, p. 549.

i. RHC, DA, ii. 752. The two galleys belonged to one Franceschino di Grimaldi, who appears in documents of I274, when in the service of Charles of Anjou, and I298.

See Annales Januenses, ed. C. I. di Sant'Angelo, Annali Genovesi di Caffaro e de' suoi continuatori (Rome, I890-I929, Fonti per la Storia d'Italia), iv. I70 (also in MGHS, XViii. 28I); A. Ferretto, 'Codice Diplomatico delle Relazioni fra la Liguria la Toscana e la Lunigiana ai tempi di Dante (I265-I32I)', Atfi della Societa Ligure di Storia Patria, xxxI. i (1901), 378; L. de Mas Latrie, 'Nouvelles preuves de l'Histoire de Chypre', BEC, xxxiv (I873), 50-54. 2. RHC, DA, ii. I74.

3. Ibid. ii. 752. On Julien, see generally J. L. La Monte, 'The Lords of Sidon in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries', ByZantion, xvii (I944-5), 206-9.

4. LJP, p. I oo, 11. I 2-I6. Humphreys, pp. 325, 355. 5. LJP, p. I59, 11. I3 f. (Sbaqif Tirun), suggesting that the place was still in Muslim

possession. Its cession had been promised in I250 (Prawer, ii. 335, n. 30), but Riley- Smith (AMC, ii. 204) believes that Julien was donating to the Teutonic knights a castle which was in enemy hands.

6. So according to Rashid al-din: HMP, text pp. 340, 342, tr. pp. 34I, 343; Alizade and Arends, text p. 7I, tr. p. 5 I . Similarly Maqrizi: HSME, i. i. i oi.

7. See Humphreys, p. 345, and for the previous changes of ruler, pp. 329-30.



I980 HOLY LAND IN I260 50I

Ayyubid predecessors at the time of Saint Louis's invasion in I 249-

50. Soon after the Mamlak seizure of power, Damascus had been lost to the Ayyabid al-Nasir Yiisuf of Aleppo, who represented legitimacy; and later in the reign of the first Mamlak sultan, Aybeg, a great many of the Bahriyya regiment which had put him on the throne fled the country and entered al-Nasir's service.1 It was probably in view of Egypt's known weakness that Kit-buqa was left in Syria merely to guard the new conquests, with no precautions taken against an Egyptian attack. During the next few months, however, the fortunes of the Mamliik sultan underwent a rapid im- provement. Al-Nasir's cowardice and vacillation alienated the great majority of his subordinates, who deserted him en masse at Birza and for the most part made their way to Egypt.2 Qutuz thus found his forces suddenly augmented by successive bands of immigrants: first the Bahriyya under Rukn al-din Baybars al-Bunduqdari, who arrived early in March,3 and then al-Nasir's troops, which the despairing monarch had entrusted to al-Mansur of Hamah.4 And the sources indicate that it was this accession of strength which induced Qutuz to prepare for Holy War against the Mongols, Baybars in particular being alleged to have urged on the sultan the execution of their envoys.5 It is possible, even so, that Qutuz might not have taken the initiative had he not learned that Kit-buqa was intending to invade Egypt itself.

For this we have the evidence of two contemporary writers, both extremely well placed to observe events. The first is King Heteum's brother, the Constable Smbat (Sempad), who says:

But the commander Kit-buqa did not remain at his station as he had been instructed. He gathered his forces, requisitioning also five hundred men from the Cilician king [Hetfum], and advanced against Egypt. When the Egyptian frontier patrols learned of this, they at once informed their own [people], who armed and made ready and came forth to meet them [the Mongols]....6

i. Ibid. pp. 326-8; cf. also Ayalon, 'Le regiment Bahriya dans l'armee mamelouke', Revue des Iltudes Islamiques (I95I), pp. I35-7.

2. Ibn al-'Amid, p. I74. Humphreys, pp. 346-7. 3. Baybars entered Cairo on 22 rabi' 11/7 Mar. I260: Ibn al-Dawaddri, viii. 49;

Yfinini, i. 365; hence Maqrizi (HSME, I. i. 99). 4. Ibn Wasil, fos. I 5 ir-'. Humphreys, p. 352.

5. Ibn 'Abd al-ZThir, p. 63. Ibn al-Dawaddri, viii. 48-49. Ibn Wasil, fo. 159v, 11. 17-21, says that prior to the arrival of these auxiliaries the sultan's own centre forces (qulub) had abandoned hope of being able to defeat the Mongols. Cf. finally Rashid al-din, who describes the consultation between Qutuz and the immigrant leaders, attributing the final word to Baybars: HMP, text pp. 344, 346, tr. pp. 345, 347; Alizade and Arends, text pp. 72-73, tr. pp. 5I-52.

6. A. G. Galstyan, Armyanskiye istocniki o mongolakh (Moscow, I962), p. 53. On this recension of Smbat's chronicle, fuller than the version used in RHC, DA, i (Paris, I 869), 6I0-72, see S. Der Nersessian, 'The Armenian Chronicle of the Constable Smpad or of the "Royal Historian" ', Dumbarton Oaks Papers, xiii (959), I43-4: the above passage is translated at p. i6o.




This may refer simply to the Mongol operations in the vicinity of Gaza, on the Egyptian frontier; though it receives striking confirmation from the other contemporary witness. This was Sarim al-din Ozbeg, a mamlz7k of al-Ashraf of Hims, who had accompanied his master when the latter went to submit to Huilegii: he tells us that Hulegti had actually ordered Kit-buqa to invade Egypt.l Now the Mongols had received encouragement from at least one quarter to move against the Mamlak sultan. When Hiilegu was on the point of leaving Aleppo for the east, says Qirtay, the Frankish lord of Jubayl (Gibelet, Byblos) wrote to him, saying:

'Send me ten thousand horse of thine, and I shall take a thousand horse from among the Franks; and I shall conquer Egypt for thee'. And throughout his proposal he told him how the Bahriyya were of no account, and how they were divided ...

Qirtay tells us that Hiilegu was wise enough to pay no heed.2 Certain details of the story present difficulties: the identity of the lord of Jubayl, for example, whom Qirtay calls 'Arndt' (Renaut ?), but who is known at this time to have been Henri II.3 It may have been some such overture, however, which prompted Kit-buqa to plan an immediate invasion of Egypt; though with so many Syrian troops fleeing to swell the sultan's army a pre-emptive strike would doubtless have appeared sound policy. $arim al-din says that Kit-buqa had been left in command at Aleppo, while another general, Baidar, had been ordered to Damascus.4 But subsequently we find Baidar commanding the forward position at Gaza and Kit-buqa encamped not far from the banks of the Jordan.5 The move was intended in all probability to be the first stage in the invasion of Egypt.

Qutuz and his army set out on 26 July.6 Baidar's force at Gaza was

i. Levi della Vida, text p. 365, 11. 5-7, tr. p. 374; cf. also text pp. 365, 11. 25-366, 1. i, tr. p. 375. Ibn al-Dawadari, viii. 56-57, likewise quotes Sarim.

2. Qirtay, fo. 84r, 11. 7-I2: kataba sadib Jubayl ild Huldwiin tusayyiru 1i 'asharat dldffdris min 'indaka wa and a'kbudbu a/ffdris mina'l-Faranj wa and aftuiu laka'l-diydra'l-Misriyya wa qdla lahu fijumla kaldmihi inna'l-Babriyya id-shay' wa innabum mukhtalifuin . . . wa kdna Huldwiin rajulan hakiman ... fa-lamyarjiIu ild kaldm sdbib Jubayl.

3. See Rey, 'Les seigneurs de Gibelet', ROL, iii (i895), 403-4. Qirtay, fo. 84r, 1. 2,

referring to Arnat's execution by Sultan Baybars in I265 in reprisal for his pro-Mongol stance and other outrages. Possibly we are here dealing with Renaut de Gibelet, lord of Avegorre, a distant cousin: see Les Lignages d'Outremer, ed. in RHC, Lois, ii (Paris, I843), 459- Qirtay's evidence was first noticed by Cahen, 'La chronique de Kirtay et les Francs de Syrie', JA, ccxxix (I937), 143. Here (n. 2) and in Syrie, p. 708, n. 21,

Cahen expresses surprise that a member of a family bitterly hostile to Bohemond VI should have allied with the Mongols; but the intention may simply have been to divert them from Frankish territory.

4. Levi della Vida, text p. 364, 11. II-I3, tr. p. 373. Qirtay is here followed by Maqrizi: HSME, i. i. iOO.

S. Kit-buqa encamped on the plain (marj) of Barghuith: Ibn al-'Amid, p. I73, 1. 22.

Cf. Menkonis Chronicon, p. 549: 'Postea venit idem exercitus in terram sanctam et castra iuxta lordanem fluvium est metatus'.

6. Ibn al-Dawadari, viii. 49; Yuinini, i. 365. Both have IS sha'bin: hence Maqrizi (HMSE, i. i. I03). Ibn 'Abd al-Zihir (p. 63) has simply mid-sha'ban/late July.




swiftly overwhelmed, and its commander fled with the news to Kit-buqa.1 Then the Egyptians moved up the coast to Acre. At this juncture there is a sharp divergence between our Muslim and our Frankish sources regarding the negotiations which ensued. Accord- ing to the MS de Rothelin, Qutuz asked the government at Acre for military assistance; though the author of the Gestes says that the Egyptians merely sought permission to cross Frankish territory.2 Muslim sources, on the other hand, claim - in so far as they say anything - that the offer of an alliance came from the Franks, but that Qutuz extracted from them an oath to remain neutral in the struggle, threatening that if a single Frankish soldier followed him with hostile intent he would return and massacre them all prior to engaging the Mongols.3 All we know for certain is that the Egyptian army encamped outside Acre for three days and was furnished with pro- visions,4 while the leaders entered the city and some sort of compact was made.5 Evidently neither side wished to acknowledge having taken the initiative in these negotiations; and certainly Qutuz, in his role of defender of Islam against the Mongol menace, could ill afford to share the glory with the more familiar infidel at Acre. The total silence of almost all the early Muslim writers, and the laconic account of Ibn eAbd al-Z4hir, who was among the party that actually entered Acre,6 suggest, in fact, that it was the sultan who first requested the Franks' assistance and that they refused, while agreeing to remain neutral.

VII

Nevertheless, the government at Acre had found itself in a very difficult position. Co-operation with the Mongols had been unthinkable from the beginning. Bohemond's acceptance of client status in Antioch and Tripoli had attracted little sympathy further south, as we have seen. With the example of Antioch and the restoration of its Greek patriarch before their eyes, the Franks of the kingdom of

i. HMP, text p. 346, tr. p. 347; Alizade and Arends, text pp. 73-74, tr. p. 52. Maqrizi ascribes the defeat of the Mongols at Gaza to Baybars, commanding the sultan's van (HMSE, I. i. I03-4). Rohricht, 'Ptudes sur les derniers temps du royaume de Jerusalem', i, AOL, i (i88i), 636, erroneously dated this engagement as early as March.

2. Rothelin, p. 637. RHC, DA, ii. 753- 3. AMC, i. S I, ii. 42: hence Maqrizi (HMSE, i. i. Io4). Rohricht (ubi supra) somehow

contrived to see in these words of Qutuz 'les assurances les plus amicales'. 4. Rothelin, p. 637. Guillaume de Tripoli, De statu Sarracenorum (I272), ed. Hans

Prutz in Kulturgesbhicbte der Kreuzzuge (Berlin, i883), p. 586; cf. also the extract in Duchesne, v. 433.

5. Prutz, ubi supra ('cum eis foedus inivit'): cf. also Annales Sancti Rudberti Salis- burgenses, ed. W. Wattenbach, MGHS, ix. 795: 'Soldanus Babylonie associatis sibi Templariis, Hospitalariis et fratribus Teutonicis ac omni ecclesia transmarina . Grigor of Akner, in Blake and Frye, p. 349.

6. Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, pp. 63-64.




Jerusalem would have been justified in anticipating a general levelling-out of the society over which they had presided for the past century and a half, and the consequent loss of their privileged position as Latin Christians. It was suspected, moreover, that once the whole of Latin Syria were subjugated the Mongols would prove still harsher taskmasters than they had so far shown themselves at Antioch.1 But in any case, since February i 2 5 8, when Bohemond had visited Acre at the head of an army and had succeeded in foisting on the barons both a new regent, in the person of his sister Queen Plaisance of Cyprus, and a pro-Venetian policy in the war of Saint- Sabas,2 his influence in the kingdom had somewhat diminished. The new Papal Legate, Thomas Agni, had arrived in April I259 with instructions from Pope Alexander IV to bring the war between the Italian colonists to a speedy conclusion, and the previous Legate, the pro-Venetian Jacques Pantaleon, had hurried off in umbrage to Rome.3 The bailli also, Geoffroi de Sargines, although appointed by Plaisance in May I259, had made a name for himself by his strict regard for justice, not least at the expense of Venice's Pisan allies.4 Two of the other principal offices in the kingdom, finally, had come to be filled by Bohemond's avowed enemies. In I259 he had at last expelled from Tripoli most of his pro-Genoese vassals, the Embriachi and their associates; but two of them, Jean de Gibelet ar?d Guillaume, lord of Botrun, took refuge at Acre, where they were soon promoted to the dignity respectively of Marshal and Constable.5 These exiles in particular would have had little love for King Het'um, who had assisted Bohemond's victory.6

There was no possibility, therefore, of an accommodation with the

i. Thomas Berard, in AB, p. 492 (MB, xxix. ii. I99), speaking of the initial favourable reception given to the Antiochene representatives by Hulegii: 'Timetur tamen ne subpeditatis aliis, quod absit, Christicolis, extremo contrarium sortiantur'.

2. See Prawer, ii. 366-9; Riley-Smith, Feudal Nobility, pp. 2I5-I7; Hans Eberhard Mayer, 'Ibelin versus Ibelin: The Struggle for the Regency of Jerusalem I253-I258', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cxxii (I978), 46-5I.

3. Eracles, p. 445; see p. 444 for Thomas Agni's arrival at Acre, the year alone being given: the full date, I8 Apr., is in ATS, B, p. 449. Cf. Riley-Smith, The Knights of St. John in Jerusalem and Cyprus c. Ioro-i3io (London, I967), pp. 402-3. Pantaleon's pro- Venetian stance may have derived in part from the fact that the Genoese patriarch of Antioch, Opizo di Fieschi, had been his rival for the patriarchate of Jerusalem in I254-5:

Registres d'Alexandre IV, i, ed. C. Bourel de la Ronciere (Paris, I902), no. 3I7.

4. RHC, DA, ii. 750. The other sources testify to his vigour in enforcing order: Eracles, p. 444; ATS, A, p. 448, and B, p. 449; Bongars, ii. 22I.

S. RHC, DA, ii. 749-50: no precise date is given. Jean de Gibelet was Marshal by Jan. I26I: Rohricht, R[egesta] R[egni] H[ierosolymitani (MXCVII-MCCXCI)] (Innsbruck, I893-I904), i. 339 (no. I298). Du Cange incorrectly took a passage in Eracles (p. 445) as clear evidence that he already held the office in I260, but the episode in question is the raid of Feb. I 26I (see infra): Rey, Les Familles d'Outre-Mer de Du Cange (Paris, I 869), p. 627. Guillaume of Botrun was still in Tripoli in Apr. I259: RRH, i. 333 (no. I272).

6. So according to the chronicle of King Het'um II of Armenia (I 296): see Galstyan, p. 72 (sub anno I259). But Smbat claims that Het'um went to Tripoli with 200 men simply to make peace between Bohemond and his vassals: ibid. pp. 5I-52 (Der Nersessian, p. i6o, mistranslates this passage).




Mongols1; and the letters sent to the West by the leaders at Acre during this year all testify to their dread and distrust of the invaders. Yet we may discern also in this correspondence a more optimistic strain. The Franks at Acre were appealing for reinforcements not merely because they were afraid that otherwise the Mongols would overwhelm the Latin Kingdom: such fears would have been present since the Mongols had first appeared on the Syrian horizon in I 244, but a new element had now been injected into the situation in the form of the unexpectedly swift and total collapse of the Ayy5bids.2 Especially significant in this respect is the letter sent to Charles of Anjou:

Placing our hope in the mercy of God, we duly believe that Jerusalem and the whole of the kingdom of Jerusalem could, with God's aid, be obtained easily if those who are called Christians were swiftly and manfully to make ready to assist us. For the Saracens, for the most part, are now gone. And as for the Tartars, if they meet with resistance on the part of the Latins, we believe that the more [opposition] they fear they will find, the sooner they will sheathe their bloodstained swords.3

I. It is usually assumed that it was in I260 that the government at Acre sent to Hulegu a mission headed by the Dominican David of Ashby, who returned from Iran only in I274, together with an embassy from Hulegu's son and successor, the Ilkhan Abagha (I26 5-82), and submitted to the Council of Lyons a report entitled Les fais des Tatars: see Richard, 'Le debut des relations', JA, ccxxxvii. 295-6, and 'The Mongols and the Franks', pp. 52-5 3; Cl. Brunel, 'David d'Ashby, auteur meconnu des Faits des Tartares', Romania, lxxix (I958), 40, 45; Burkhard Roberg, 'Die Tartaren auf dem 2.

Konzil von Lyon I274', Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum, v (i973), 274-6 (opting for a date between Apr. I259 and the autumn of I260). Now the contents of David's report, of which the unique manuscript at Turin was destroyed in a fire in I904, are known today only through the notes of A. Scheler, 'Notices et extraits de deux manuscrits frangais de la bibliotheque royale de Turin', 3, Le Bibliophile Belge, 3e serie, ii (i867), 26-28. Scheler wrote (p. 27): 'L'auteur . .. dit avoir ete employe comme ambassadeur des chretiens aupr&s du roi Halason [sic] apr&s la prise d'Aleppo'. But this is the sole evidence we possess that he was sent in I260 rather than later, since the only other extant document that deals with David's mission is more equivocal. This is the report of Abagha's own envoys to the Council, first edited by Borghezio in I936 and I938 and now available in a more critical edition in Roberg, pp. 298 ff. Here we read (p. 299):

'Cum igitur peruenissent nuncii legati summi pontificis, qui tunc in Acon prefuit . . . ad predictum serenissimum regem Helau, venerabiles videlicet patres fratres de ordine Predicatorum, quorum vnus erat frater Dauid, nuncius domini patriarche lerusalem et domini regis regni eiusdem et Cypri . . .' Now in i 260 there was no resident patriarch, Jacques Pantaleon having left for Rome (see p. 504 and n. 3 supra), and although it is possible, as Roberg suggests, that David was sent prior to his departure, it is equally likely that the mission should be ascribed to late I263, when the next patriarch, Guillaume, arrived to replace Thomas Agni as Legate (Eracles, p. 447; 25 Sept.). In this case, the embassy would have been sent to Hulegu on the instructions of Urban IV and would have carried his letter Exultavit cor nostrumz (p. 484, n. 2 supra): see Raynaldus, Annales Ecclesiastici, iii. 64a, where the Pope says that he has instructed the patriarch, 'quem ... ad hoc duximus eligendum', to enquire into Hulegu's alleged Christian faith. This is still compatible with the fact that David is known to have been Thomas Agni's chaplain: Edward I to Abagha, 26 Jan. I275, in T. Rymer, Foedera (The Hague, I739-45), I. 11. I44.

2. Cf. Berard's obvious surprise at the flight of al-Nasir Yuisuf, who had an army of I50,000 with which to resist: AB, pp. 492-3; MB, XXIX. ii. I99.

3. Langlois, p. 490; his text is here preferable to that of Delaborde, p. 2I4. Prawer,




In other words, the Frankish leaders saw in this unprecedented catastrophe that had befallen Muslim Syria a Heaven-sent opportunity for Latin Christendom to recover the Holy Land; and believed, moreover, that the Mongols stood in such awe of Frankish power that a crusade would induce them to retreat. We have already noticed evidence of the Mongol attitude which suggests that this latter assumption was to some extent justified. Nor were the Franks of Acre in i z6o the first to view the Mongol assault on the Islamic world in this light. In I 248 it had been widely felt that were Saint Louis to lead his crusade against Anatolia, rather than to Egypt, his chances of success were considerable, given the gravely weakened condition of the Seljiiksl; and a similar opinion had been expressed by Rubruck a few years later.2

In spite of their numerous appeals to the West,3 however, there was no indication by the autumn that the necessary army of reconquest was on its way. The sack of Sidon had been followed by a panic: the citizens of Acre had taken the most strenuous measures for its defence, cutting down the trees in the orchards outside and removing even the stones from the cemetery.4 Consequently, the Egyptian advance into Syria promised a welcome deliverance from the Mongol threat - and at no expense to Christendom. Such was the feeling against the Mongols, particularly in view of their-recent atrocities,5 that the majority were for contributing auxiliaries to share in the sultan's victory; but the counsel of the Master of the Teutonic Order, Anno von Sangerhausen, won the day. It was unwise, he argued, to spend the lives of Christians in a victory which might well simply encourage the Egyptians to turn next upon the Franks: let them rather conserve their resources.6 His words doubtless carried all the

ii. 430, regards this appeal merely as 'un pieux mensonge destine a obtenir un secours rapide de l'Europe'.

i. Vincent de Beauvais, lib. xxxi. cli; SSQ, p. 8I, where Richard suggests (n. 2) that this may represent a parenthetical comment by Vincent himself and may not have figured in Simon's original report.

2. SF, i. 33I; Rockhill, pp. 28I-2.

3. Supra, p. 487, n. I, p. 492, n. 5: in Apr. I263 Thomas Agni, writing to Henry III, was to speak of 'numerous letters and envoys' sent to the West (Rymer, i. ii. 5 4, wrongly sub anno I260: cf. RRH, ii. 87, no. I325).

4. Bongars, ii. 22I; ATS, B, p. 449. 5. RHC, DA, ii. 75 3, referring to Qutuz's request for safe passage: 'Les Crestiens lor

otroierent volentiers, et ce fu por ce que les Crestiens furent courouses as Tatars, por le mau que il aveent [fet]'.

6. Rothelin, p. 637. Du Cange expressed doubt whether Anno was ever in Syria (Rey, Familles, p. 905), but see Rohricht, Zusdtze und Verbesserungen zu Du Cange (Berlin, I886), p. I3, n. I2; in addition to the evidence there cited for his presence from late I 2 5 7 to mid- I 26 I, his name appears on the letter to Charles of Anjou. Runciman suggests that Anno was taking a pro-Mongol stance, influenced by his order's close connections with Armenia (Crusades, iii. 3I2; Wolff and Hazard, p. 573). But this is improbable. The Teutonic knights were building up a veritable principality of their own in the Sidon region, the area the Mongols had just devastated: see Prutz, Die BesitZungen des Deutschen Ordens im Heiligen Lande (Leipzig, I877), pp. 54-57.




more weight in that the Frankish government was growing alarmed at the number of its Egyptian and Syrian guests, fearing a ruse, and finally secured their departure from Acre by a mixture of blandish- ments and force.1 But there were no regrets when the report reached Acre of the sultan's victory over Kit-buqa at the end of September. The reception given to the news in western Europe clearly indicates an awareness that Qutuz was fighting the Franks' battle also.2 And the author of the Gestes reflects simply the resentment felt when the Egyptians broke their promise to sell the Franks at a fixed price all the Mongol horses they had captured.3

It is important to recognize that the Frankish attitude was based upon a realistic appraisal of the situation, and that the decision to allow the Egyptians to annihilate Kit-buqa's army represented sound policy. Observation of the course of Egyptian history over the previous decade could hardly have induced the Franks to regard the Mamliuk sultan with any greater concern than they had grown accustomed to reserve for their Ayyubid neighbours in Syria. The Mongols, on the other hand, constituted a threat of larger propor- tions than the Latin states had faced at any time since the campaigns of reconquest by Saladin; and their expulsion from Palestine could be greeted with unqualified relief. Only the widespread misappre- hension that they were pro-Christian (or even pro-Latin) and that they could in some real sense be regarded as allies of the Franks has enabled historians to dismiss the leaders at Acre as passive and short- sighted.4 Nobody in August i 26o could have foreseen the murder of Qutuz within two months and the accession of a monarch who would retain the throne for seventeen years and provide the Mamliuk regime with a stability that had hitherto been conspicuously absent. Still less could they have been aware that Baybars' task would be greatly facilitated by Mongol inactivity: that Hulegu would not again invade Syria in force, and that consequently the Latin Kingdom would be unable, in the role of tertiusgaudens, to play off two powerful neighbours one against the other.

i. RHC, DA, ii 753. 2. Continuatio Sancrucensis Secunda, ed. Wattenbach, MGHS, ix. 644, reads significantly:

'eodem anno commissum est prelium cum Tartaris in transmarinis partibus . . .'; Annales Sancti Rudberti, p. 795 ibid.: 'Soldanus Babylonie . .. Deo dante ipsos vicit'.

3. RHC, DA, ii. 753. 4. Sinor, 'Les relations', p. 5 I: 'Les seigneurs de la Syrie franque contemplaient les

bras croises et avec une satisfaction evidente les preparatifs mamelouks . . .'; and in Hazard, p. 5 i 6: 'no circumstances have been discovered that would mitigate the political short-sightedness displayed by the crusaders'. Prawer, ii. 430: 'Chose moins croyable encore: les Francs crurent le moment venu de tirer profit . . .'; p. 433: 'leur decision surprenante . . .' and 'les Francs ne furent que les temoins d'evenements . . .'. Cf. also Richard, Royaurne latin, pp. 308-9. Bezzola, p. i9i, speaks of 'eine vollig einseitige Orientierung des Westens uber die Verhaltnisse im Nahen Orient durch die Christen im Heiligen Land . . .'. The statement by M. M. Ziada, ch. 22 in Wolff and Hazard, p. 745, that Kit-buqa 'offered alliance and protection to the crusader barons at Acre if they would refuse passage to the Mamluks', is totally without foundation.




VIII

Qutuz's murder on zz October by a group of amirs under Baybars, and the latter's return to Cairo as sultan, provided the opportunity for which the Franks had waited. Syria was in confusion. At Damascus the late sultan's governor, Sanjar al-Halabi, virtually established his independence.' Qutuz had entrusted Aleppo to al- Muzaffar Yiisuf, a son of the ruler of Mosul; but old mamlziks of its Ayyuibid rulers were plotting against him, and his position was tenuous.2 One potentially disruptive element at least had been recently removed. Al-Nasir Yusuf had been captured by Kit-buqa's forces during the summer and forwarded to Hiilegu, who sent him back with a diploma conferring on him much of his former authority in Syria; but on hearing of the disaster at 'Ayn Jaliit, he at once suspected that the Ayyiibid ruler would prove disloyal, and despatched in pursuit a detachment which overtook him in northern Iraq and massacred al-Nasir and his suite.3 But the Mongols themselves were still hovering on the frontiers of Syria; and when they learned of the assassination of Qutuz and of Baybars' coup, they re- occupied Aleppo in mid-November i 26o and raided the surrounding territory as far as Hamah.4 Possibly it was their return which encouraged Bohemond to annex Laodicea and to conduct a raid of his own towards Hims.5

It was a few months, on the other hand, before the Franks of Acre acted. The phraseology of the MS de Rothelin suggests that they recognized their truce with Egypt to have ended with Qutuz's death6; though the first step appears to have been taken by Baybars' lieutenant at Jerusalem, who closed the gates of the city to the pilgrim traffic.7 It was believed that Qutuz was murdered because Baybars wished to follow up the victory at 'Ayn Jluit with an attack on the Franks, and that the sultan refused to break the truce.8 But this may simply represent a hindsight. Initially Baybars concentrated on punishing Bohemond for his support of the Mongols.9 When he first turned against the Latin Kingdom in the spring of i 263, however, it was thought in the West that he did so from a suspicion that the

1. Abui-Shama, p. 2IO. Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, p. 94. Ibn al-Dawadari, viii. 63-64. Yunini, .373.

2. Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, p. 96. Ibn al-Dawadari, viii. 64-65. Yunini, i. 374-75. 3. Humphreys, pp. 357-58. 4. Ibn al-Dawadari, viii. 65; Yfinini, i. 375. 5. Supra, p. 495 and n. I; and for the raid on Hims, which occurred soon after

Baybars' accession, cf. Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, p. 300,11.5 f. 6. Rothelin, p. 638: 'Li Crestien n'en furent mie lie, car il avoient trivez a lui. Et quant

il fu murtriz et mort, la trive fu failliee, et fu touz li paiz en guerre'. 7. Ibid. pp. 638-9. The manuscript terminates at this point. 8. So according to Guillaume de Tripoli: Prutz, Kulturgesbhicbte, p. 586; Duchesne,

v. 433. The author was in the Holy Land until late in 1263: Registres d'Urbain IV, no. 473. Ibn 'Abd al-Zahir, p. 68, 11. 1-3, says that Baybars wanted to gain distinction in the Holy War, but that Qutuz, out of jealousy, would not allow it.

9. Richard, Royaume latin, p. 308. Prawer, ii. 440. Cahen, Syrie, p. 712.



I980 HOLY LAND IN i26o 509

Franks of Acre were likewise in league with the Mongols against him.' And Muslim authors report that when his troops had advanced north against Aleppo in March iz6i, the Franks had written from Acre to warn its Mongol garrison.2 This raises the question whether the government at Acre had undergone a change of heart within a very short space of time, or whether elements sympathetic to the Mongols had somehow made their influence felt. But we need not necessarily see any inconsistency here: the Franks were in all probability simply endeavouring to play off two enemies against each other. The correspondence with Rome shows that the Mongols were still an object of fear as late as I 263 .3 And the dominant mood during these years was one of seeking to take advantage of the chaotic situation in Muslim Syria and of appealing to the West for reinforcements for this purpose. It was unfortunate that their first attempt to take the field unaided resulted in disaster. In February i26i the Templars of Acre, Safed, Athlit and Beaufort, together with Jean II d'Ibelin, lord of Beirut, and the Marshal of the kingdom, Jean de Gibelet, attempted to surprise a large body of Turcomans encamped in the Jawlan region, east of the Sea of Galilee. But the Turcomans were warned and the Frankish army suffered a crushing defeat. The Marshal, the lord of Beirut, and various high ranking Templars were captured, and released only on payment of a ransom of 20,000

besants: of the entire force - numbering 900 knights and serjeants, I,500 Turcopoles, and some 3,000 foot - practically all were either killed or taken prisoner.4 The failure of this cheveauchee was a heavy blow to the Franks' hopes of filling the power vacuum in Syria left by its depopulation under the Mongols and the subsequent annihilation of Kit-buqa's army, and does much to explain the ease with which Baybars was able to reduce the kingdom's fortresses piecemeal later in the decade.

For the vital reinforcements from Europe never came, not least because the Papacy, the one power capable of organizing a joint effort, had too many concerns elsewhere. When the first appeals for

i. Annales Sancti Rudberti, p. 796. 2. Ibn al-Dawaddri, viii. 7I, 11. I3-I6; Yunini, i. 439-40, ii. 93. The Mongols evacu-

ated Aleppo again at the beginning of jumada I 659 H./Apr. I26I.

3. Registres d'Urbain IV, no. I87, 25 Jan. i263: 'tante necessitatis tempore, immani scilicet Tartarorum imminente tyrampnide'; no. 374, 9 Jan.: 'hoc presertim tempore quo ex persecutione Tartarica magnum eis periculum imminet'; cf. also no. 2908, 2I

May I262. Richard, Royaume latin, p. 309.

4. Abui-Shama, p. 2i2, 11. I4-I7; there is a dateless but fuller account in Ibn al-Furat (AMC, i. 59, ii. 49), who alone mentions the Jawlan. It is curious that certain secondary authorities have tried to place this raid during the Mongol occupation: Grousset, Croisades, iii. 597; Runciman, Crusades, iii. 308-9, and in Wolff and Hazard, p. 573 and n. 34; Prawer, ii. 430-I (but cf. n. 23). The correct date, as given by Abui-Shama, had long ago been quoted by Stevenson, Crusaders in the East, p. 335 and n. 4. For the most detailed of the Frankish accounts, see RHC, DA, ii. 75.2-3; cf. also Eracles, p. 445; ATS, A, p. 449 (with 'Thoron' as the locality raided), and B, pp. 449-50; Bongars, ii. 221.

See Riley-Smith, AMC, ii. I95-6, on the raid and its importance.



5I0 THE CRISIS IN THE July

help reached him in the summer of iz6o, Pope Alexander IV sum- moned a general council for the following year; but the agenda included not only the Mongol threat but also the security of the Latin empire at Constantinople, the contumaciousness of Manfred in the Regno, and the steps to be taken against those - such as Bohemond, HetCum and the Russian Grand Prince Alexander Nevskiy - who had become Mongol tributaries.' Since he died in May i 26i, the council was postponed; and not even the election of the patriarch of Jerusalem as Urban IV was to furnish the Holy Land with the assistance it so desperately needed. Ironically enough, the principal obstacle was the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople in July with Genoese help, itself a by-product of the war between the Italian colonists in Syria. Such was the subtle connection that had formed in men's minds between Constantinople and the Holy Land that the Byzantine recovery of the one could be viewed as a major impedi- ment to the rescue of the other.2 But the failure of the West to launch a fresh crusade was only one of the two factors underlying the collapse of Latin Syria after iz6o. The other was the comparative inactivity of the Mongols.

There was no reason to suppose in the autumn of i 26o that Hiilegu would not return to avenge Kit-buqa. He had withdrawn eastwards in March, according to Muslim sources, owing to the news of the Great Khan Mongke's death and of the succession dispute in Mongolia.3 His presence would have been required at an assembly called to elect a new sovereign in the Mongol homelands. Hayton's statement that Hulegui expected himself to be a candidate for the vacant throne is implausible, though borne out at least by rumours which reached western Europe at the time.4 But in any case his with- drawal from Syria would have been necessitated by logistical con- siderations. Even if we discard the larger figures given for his army in a variety of sources5 and settle for that of i zo,ooo quoted in the

i. MB, XXIX. ii. 202. For the Pope's vacillations, see Flores Historiarum, ii. 465. C. J. Hefele, Histoire des Conciles, ed. H. Leclercq, vi. i (Paris, I914), 95 if.

2. Urban IV to Saint Louis, 5 June I262, in Raynaldus, Annales Ecclesiastici, iii. 96-97. See E. Jordan, Les Origines de la Domination Angdvine en Italie (Paris, I909), pp. 384 if. For the measures taken against the Greeks, cf. D. J. Geanokoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, I278-1282 (Cambridge, Mass., I959), pp. I 39-43.

3. Baybars al-Mansuiri (d. I 325), Zubdat al-fikra, Brit. Lib. MS Ar. I233 (Add. 23, 325), fo. 37V, 1. I7: lamma ittasala bihi min ikhtildfin .haala bayna ikhwatihi. Rashid al-din says simply that he had heard the news of Mongke's death (HMP, text p. 340, tr. p. 34I; Alizade and Arends, text p. 70, tr. p. 5o), but this is chronologically dubious: see Jackson, 'The dissolution', pp. 227-30.

4. RHC, DA, ii. I72: Hayton is followed by Sanudo (Bongars, ii. 238). Cf. Menkonis Chronicon, p. 549: 'sperans se dominium suscepturum, ulterius non processit'.

5. 300,000 in Rashid al-din: HMP, text p. 352, tr. p. 353; Alizade and Arends, text p. 75, tr. p. 53. Bar Hebraeus gives 400,000 (Budge, Chronography, p. 435), a figure which also appears in Chronica Majora, v. 66I (sub anno I257). John Masson Smith, Jr, 'Mongol manpower and Persian population', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, xviii (i975), 274-8, is inclined to take these higher figures at face value.



I980 HOLY LAND IN i26o 5II

Gestes,' it is clear that the country could support such a sizeable force only for a limited period. The pasturages of Azerbaijan and the Hamadan plain afforded a natural base for a nomadic power intending to strike at Anatolia or at Syria and Egypt, and thither Hulegii retired with the aim, presumably, of sending another large expedition west in the following winter.2 It was only the growing dissension with his cousins of the Golden Horde, leading to the outbreak of war in iz6i-z, that prevented him from launching a major offensive to avenge Ayn Jalu1t.3 Instead, a token force was sent into northern Syria in November i z6o. Its defeat at Hims in the following month was hailed by Ibn al-Dawadari seventy years later as a more critical engagement than 'Ayn Jlalt, in view of the relative numbers involved: 6,ooo Mongols as against I,400 men under the rulers of Hims and Hamah.4 But this invasion by a detachment even smaller than Kit-buqa's surely reflects how little importance HJulegu could afford to attach to Syria at the time.

Ix

We began with the thesis that Latin Christendom in i26o missed a vital opportunity to ensure the survival of its outposts on the Syrian coast by failing to co-operate with the one power that could halt the Muslim advance; and I have tried to demonstrate that this view has only hindsight to commend it. In i 26o Hiilegii's forces represented a far greater threat to the security of the Latin Kingdom than had been posed by its Muslim neighbours. If there was an opportunity lost at this time, it lay in the failure of the Franks to exploit the new situation in Syria following the collapse of the Ayyiibids and the Mongols' expulsion a few months later, and of their western brethren to supply the necessary reinforcements. Nevertheless, this alone does not account for the rapidity with which the Frankish possessions were eroded from I263 onwards. Baybars was able to achieve so much in so short a space because there was no continuing restraint upon him in the form of Mongol press re in the north. The Mongol threat to Egypt - as also to the Latin states - receded owing to a factor which bore no relation to local reverses such as 'Ayn Jalut and

I.RHC, DA, ii. 75I.

2. Cf. Sinor, 'Horse and pasture in Inner Asian history', Oriens Extremus, xix (1972),

I78-82: he argues convincingly that the sudden evacuation of Hungary in the spring of I242 was due to similar logistical problems. Kirakos says that Hulegu moved east with the aim of wintering in the Hamadan plain: Dulaurier, 'Les Mongols d'apres les historiens armeniens', I, p. 498. But his practice in previous years had been to spend the spring and summer here (CHI, v. 346-7, 349).

3. As Rashid al-din admits: HMP, text p. 358, tr. p. 359; Alizade and Arends, text p. 77, tr. p. 54. For the dispute with the Golden Horde, see Steppes, pp. 440, 474-5; CHI, v. 352-4; Jackson, 'The dissolution', pp. 232-5.

4. Ibn al-Dawddiri, viii. 68.



5 I2 THE CRISIS IN THE July

Hims: namely to divisions within the Mongol empire of which the Mamlaks became aware far sooner than did the Franks, and of which, with the alliance between Cairo and the Golden Horde in I262-3,

they were able to take advantage. Hulegu was thereby obliged himself to adopt a different attitude towards the Franks. But it was scarcely their fault if all their previous dealings with the Mongols had prepared them to view his overtures, and those of his successors, as anything but sincere.

Churchill College, Cambridge PETER JACKSON

APPENDIX

In the Yiuan Shih, the official history of the Mongol period in China compiled after the Mongols' expulsion in I368 but from contemporary documents, there is a curious reference to what appears at first sight to be a campaign against the Franks. It occurs in the biography of the Chinese general Kuo K'an, who accompanied Hulegu to western Asia, and reads as follows:

In [the cyclical year] wu-wu [I258], Hsii-lieh-wu [Hulegu] ordered [Kuo] K'an to cross the sea westwards and to take Fu-lang. K'an informed [them] of the evil consequences [of resistance] or blessings [of surrender]. Wu-tu suan-t'an said, 'The- divine man of whom I dreamed recently is [this] general'. So he came immediately and surrendered. [K'an's] army turned back, and in the south-west came to Shih-lo-tzu . . .1

It must be recognized at the outset that the geographical context of this passage is extremely vague, since Shih-lo-tzu can only be Shiraz in south-western Iran, and the names that follow all refer to localities well to the east.2 Moreover, the whole account is clearly based on reports designed to inflate the achievements of Kuo K'an and his detachment, for we have just been told of the subjection of Mie-si-rh (Arabic Misr, Egypt) !3 Nevertheless, Fu-lang is certainly the standard Chinese rendering of the Arabo-Persian Faranj ('Frank'), even though the second half of the ruler's name would usually represent 'sultan' and ought thereby to indicate some Muslim potentate. The identity of Wu-tu is problematical. The reference to

i. Yuan Shib, compiled by Sung Lien et al., ch. cxlix; ed. Peking, Chung-hua shu-chui, I976, p. 3525, cols. i-2. I am indebted to the kindness of Dr David MacMullen, of St John's College, Cambridge, for the translation of this passage. It was quoted by Pauthier, Le Livre de Marco Polo, i, p. cxxxi, and by Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, 1. I42.

2. See Pauthier, i, pp. cxxxii f.; Bretschneider, i. I45-6, I47.

3. Its ruler is called Kho-nai, but the second element may well be a mistranscription of t'o, and Kho-t'o would be a fair rendering of Qutuz, as Bretschneider suggested (i. I42, n. 388).



I980 HOLY LAND IN iz6o 5 I3

crossing the sea led Richard to see here King Hugues II of Cyprus,' but the form suggests Eudes (Odo) or even Guido.2 It is possible, of course, that the passage is a garbled account of relations with the Franks of Constantinople, since Baudouin II is known to have sent envoys to the Mongol court at Qaraqorum as early as around I25 0,3

and Hiilegu may have renewed diplomatic pressure on the Latin empire at the same time as forwarding an ultimatum to its rival Theodore II Lascaris of Nicaea (I 25 4-8).4 The exaggerated tone of the whole account is only one of its suspicious features,5 and pending the discovery of more specific evidence from Chinese sources we must discount this passage as an authority for the relations of Hulegu's army with the Franks of Syria.

i. Richard, 'The Mongols and the Franks', p. 49 (with the date as i2.6o in error): he follows the less reliable text of Pauthier, where Wu-tu is called 'O-fou-ou-tou'. Pauthier had seen the passage as a reference to the sack of Sidon (i, n. 2 on pp. cxxxi f.); cf. also Bretschneider, i. I43 n.

2. One is reminded of how Rubruck calls Manuel I of Trebizond (d. I263) Guido (SF, i. I67; Rockhill, p. 46), mistaking him for his predecessor, Andronicos I Ghidos (d. I238). But it is unlikely that Trebizond is in question here.

3. The mission included Baudouin de Hainault, whom Rubruck met in I2a53 in Palestine: SF, i. 268; Rockhill, p. I96.

4. Pachymeres, De Michaele Palaeologo, lib. II; ed. in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cxliii, cols. 572 if. J. B. Pappadopoulos, Theodore II Lascaris, Empereur de Nicee (Paris, I908), pp. I29-30.

S- It is a curious coincidence that the territories allegedly conquered by Kuo K'an appear in exactly the same order as those listed in the survey sent to Mongke in I258 (supra, p. 497): cf. Remusat, Nouveaux Melanges Asiatiques, i. i8I-3; Pauthier, i, pp. cxlv-cxlvii; Bretschneider, i. I4I-7. Possibly the editors of the Yuan Shih incorporated this document in Kuo K'an's biography in error.

VOL. XCV-NO. CCCLXXVI S



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