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.71 His reasons for doing so are self-evident: his security arrangements had proved incapable of screening him from the Assassins and this increased the likelihood that one of their future attempts would prove successful.Sinan had secured his goal: by making peace with Saladin he had neutralised his chief enemy, but that precluded any fresh negotiations with the court of Jerusalem.The agreement of 1176 was observed by both parties.The Assassins did not make any further attempt on Saladin’s life, and he honoured the alliance by insisting that the Assassins should be included in the peace which he made with Richard I at the end of the Third Crusade.72 Nevertheless, Saladin was reluctant to invoke the aid of Sinan and his followers.Since he justifi ed his wars against fellow Muslims by claiming that he wished to unite Western Islam in the jihad against the Franks, he could not afford to be seen as the ally of the heretical Assassins, who were execrated by the whole of orthodox Islam.73 Ibn Jubayr, secretary to the Moorish governor of 66 Baldwin, Raymond III, p.14, n.23.67 Hamilton, Leper King, pp.84–94.68 Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, pp.81–4.69 B.Lewis, ‘Saladin and the Assassins’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies [London] 15 (1953), pp.240–1.70 Hamilton, Leper King, pp.106–8.71 Lewis, ‘Kamal al-Din’, pp.236–7.72 Abu Shamah, Two Gardens, RHC Or.V (Paris, 1906), p.77.73 Lyons and Jackson, Saladin, pp.200–41.24The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and EuropeGranada, who visited the Levant in 1184, made no attempt to conceal his distaste for the Assassins, even though they were allied to Saladin at this time; ‘[On the slopes of the Jabal Bahra] are castles belonging to the heretical Ismailites, a sect which swerved from Islam and vested divinity in a man.Their prophet was a devil in man’s disguise called Sinan, who deceived them with falsehoods and chimera.’74It is possible that the Knights Templar, like Saladin, shared a distaste for the Nizarites’ methods of warfare and, as a religious brotherhood dedicated to the service of Christ, did not wish to be associated with a group whose behaviour differed so radically from the ideals of the new Knighthood.74 Ibn Jubayr, Travels, p.264.Chapter 3The Old French William of Tyre, theTemplars and the Assassin EnvoyPeter W.EdburyWilliam of Tyre is justly famous as an early and infl uential critic of the military orders.Scattered through the latter part of his history are several reports of events that detract from the Templars’ reputation for probity in seeking the best interests of the Latin East.These range from the Templar greed which delayed the capture of Ascalon in 1153 through to the Christian defeat at Marj Ayun in 1179, for which William held the Templar master, Odo of St Amand, responsible.1 In some instances alternative accounts of these episodes exist in sources from Western Europe, and, by comparing them with William’s version, we can glimpse something of the extent to which William was prepared to denigrate the Order.2 William’s hostility is understandable.As a bishop, he would have resented the orders’ privileges, which meant that he and his fellow bishops had lost jurisdiction and income, and, as chancellor of the kingdom and thus a prominent servant of the crown, he would have been fearful of their ever- increasing wealth and military might, which in time was to bring them into a position to challenge royal authority.It is likely, but not certain, that in 1179 William had participated in moves at the Third Lateran Council to curtail their privileges,3 and perhaps his critical anecdotes were in part an attempt to justify the attack on the orders on that occasion and to discourage people in the West from making further endowments and thus facilitating their growing power.It is in this context that historians have tried to interpret William’s well-known story of the Templars and the Assassin envoy.In late 1173 or early 1174 the leader of the Syrian branch of the Assassins sent an envoy to the king offering to convert to Christianity if the king would agree to remit the annual tribute of 2,000 dinars they were paying to the Templars who controlled Tortosa and other nearby fortresses.King Amaury was delighted by this proposal and expressed his readiness to compensate the Order from his own resources, but then the Templars ambushed and killed the 1Guillaume deTyr, Chronique, ed.R.B.C.Huygens, Corpus Christianorum,Continuatio Medievalis, 63, 63A (Turnholt, 1986) (hereafter WT), 17:27 (pp.798–9), 18:9(pp.822–3), 19.11 (p.879); 20.29–30 (pp.953–5), 21.28 (p.1002).2 H.Nicholson, ‘Before William of Tyre: European Reports on the Military Orders’Deeds in the East, 1150–1185’, in The Military Orders, vol.2: Welfare and Warfare, ed.H.Nicholson (Aldershot, 1998) pp.111–18.3 P.W.Edbury and J.G.Rowe, William of Tyre: Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge, 1988), p.128; M.Barber, The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple (Cambridge, 1994), p.107.26The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europeenvoy as he was returning.The king demanded satisfaction, but the master, Odo of St Amand, refused, saying that he had enjoined a penance on the chief culprit and was sending him to the pope – in other words the master was making it clear that, thanks to the papal exemptions, the king had no jurisdiction [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]