: One webwriter thinks the split had something to do with
: "the treason" or "treachery" of this
: fellow: GERARD DE RIDEFORT - MARTYR OR MADMAN?
Although he does not state this, I see what you mean. The piece
below is accurate except for part of the description of the battle of Hattin. The Hospital, however, played an important role
--- they were allied with Raymond of Tripoli during the period of the factions -- the master at the time was Roger de Moulins IIRC.
The factional fighting was political in nature & deemed to be
(at least in public) non-productive in the face of Salah-ed-din.
The actions of Reynald de Chatillon, however, were the real cause
of the loss of the kingdom --- breaking truces, attacking religious caravans etc etc -- caused Salah-ed-din to ask King Guy
to demand compensation from Reynald -- he refused, prompting Salah-ed-din to invade.
It is possible, although unlikely, that Reynald was pursuing geo-political gain by making a lot of fuss(he even sent a fleet to attack Mecca) --- thereby calling into question Salah-ed-dins
ability to live up to his recently bestowed(by the Sultan of Bahgdad) title of 'Defender of Mecca'
As to what the cutting of the elm represents --- I dont really
know --- I believe that study of the links between (a) Templars
& Pirates (b) Henry Sinclair, the blood royal & america
(c) Masons & Bikie gangs -- will yield results.
As I write this, there is something going down at the Columbian
Consulate in North Sydney about 1km from where I am -- there are
5 or 6 helicopters & the tactical boys are there too --- its
some sort of siege or hostage situation.
Funnily enough, our customs just made the biggest heroin & coke
bust ever seen in this country -- something like 4 billion $$
---street value.
I think I'll take a walk over & chaeck it out
sangraal
: A study of the Tenth Master of the Temple
: By Robert? de Tyre
: IN ORDER TO understand the disastrous fall of the Kingdom of
: Jerusalem to Saladin at the Battle
: of Hattin on 4 July 1187, one must understand the dynamics
: that drove the kingdom at the time.
: One of the chief driving forces of this downfall was a very
: militant Royalist Party led by the Military
: Orders, the Lord of Outrejordain and a church that believed in
: the invincibility of the Crusader
: host. One of the most militant and aggressive of the Royalist
: Party was Master Gerard de Ridefort.
: What we know of Gerard de Ridefort is that he came to the
: Kingdom of Jerusalem in the ill-fated
: Second Crusade, preached by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and was
: part of the Flemish contingent.
: When the French troops departed at the end of this crusade
: Gerard chose to remain behind. As a
: younger son, he had nothing to keep him in his native
: Flanders, so he took service with Count
: Raymond III of Tripoli. Gerard hoped to be given the next
: available fief. Upon the death of William
: Dorel in 1180, Gerard expected Raymond to give him in marriage
: the sole heiress, Lucia of Botrun,
: along with her vast holdings.
: According to Malcomb Barber?s The New Knighthood, Raymond gave
: the Lady Lucia to Plivain, a
: wealthy merchant from Pisa, in exchange for the lady?s weight
: in gold. Her weight is recorded as
: being "ten stone", or one-hundred forty pounds.
: According to the source, Lucia went on the scale
: and the gold went into Raymond?s coffers. Gerard joined the
: Templars in disgust, seeing no other
: chance for advancement in Outremer. Unfortunately for the
: Kingdom of Jerusalem, Gerard bore a
: vehement hatred for Count Raymond for the rest of his life,
: and this grudge was to have a
: disastrous impact on the Kingdom in the future.
: De Ridefort?s rise in the Order of the Temple was meteoric.
: Approximately 1183, he became
: Seneschal of the Order, second only to the Master of the
: Temple, Arnold deTorroga. Two years
: later, he himself rose to the office of Master of the Temple.
: During his tenure, events moved quickly
: for the Kingdom. Sadly, Master Gerard played a pivotal role in
: the downfall of the Kingdom.
: The year 1185 was a year of factional polarization in the
: Kingdom of Outremer. In March, King
: Baldwin IV, known as the Leper King of Jerusalem, finally
: succumbed to his illness. Foresighted
: enough to put in writing his wishes on the matter of
: succession, he designated his nephew
: Baldwin V, called "Baudoinet" as his heir. Raymond
: III of Tripoli was chosen as Regent until
: Baudoinet?s majority. Should Baudoinet die before his majority
: or without issue, the succession
: was to be decided between the Pope, the Holy Roman Emperor and
: the Kings of England and
: France.
: However, Baldwin IV?s wishes were ignored. During a palace
: coup, an alliance of Alice de
: Cortenay, the queen mother; Princess Sybilla, Baldwin?s
: sister, Lord Raymond de Chatillon, the
: Lord of Kerak and Outrejordain and the Templars, seized the
: city of Jerusalem. Princess Sybilla
: was crowned Queen of Jerusalem. She then placed the crown on
: the head of her husband, Guy de
: Lusignan, a landless adventurer. Gerard de Ridefort was heard
: to have shouted, "This repays for
: the marriage of Botrun!"
: Raymond III of Tripoli, the former regent, rebelled openly
: against the new king, and in the winter
: of 1186-1187 (at the urging of Master Gerard), King Guy
: harried Count Raymond, until he felt
: forced to ally with the Sultan of Egypt, Saladin. Gerard saw
: this as further cause to denounce
: Raymond as a traitor to the Crown. Most of the other barons of
: the Kingdom disagreed, and
: compelled King Guy to agree to arbitration to settle the
: dispute.
: An embassy from King Guy was dispatched to negotiate,
: including Lord Balian de Ibelin, one of
: the most powerful and respected of his nobles, as well as the
: Archbishop of Tyre and the Masters of
: the Military Orders. The embassy set off on 29 April 1187.
: However, Balian remembered an errand,
: and promised to catch up with the party on the way to
: Tiberius, Raymond?s chief city.
: Meanwhile, while Balian was away, the party got word of a
: reconnaissance in force, sent by
: Saladin and commanded by his son, Al-Adfal. Count Raymond,
: bound by his alliance, had to
: allow it, but stipulated they remain for but a single day and
: no pillage be allowed. Gerard was
: incensed, and ordered Jacques de Mailly, the Marshal of the
: Order, to summon the ninety knights
: from the Templar castle at Caco, and, along with the forty
: secular knights from the Nazareth
: garrison, went in search of the Muslim host. They found the
: Muslim formation near the Springs
: of Cresson, and learned the scouting force numbered five
: thousand.
: Jacques de Mailly, along with the Master of the Hospital, told
: Master Gerard that it would be mad
: to attack a force that outnumbered them by fifty-seven to one,
: but he goaded the knights with
: accusations of cowardice. Trading insults, the one-hundred
: twenty-three knights rode to the
: attack. The astonished Muslim recon force could not believe
: their luck. By the time it was over,
: only three Templar knights, including De Ridefort, managed to
: cut their way out of the melee.
: Master Gerard?s ears must have stung at the memory of Jacques
: de Mailly?s comment, "I will die
: in battle as a brave man should--it is you who will flee like
: a traitor!"
: Count Raymond of Tripoli found himself shamed into making
: peace with King Guy de Lu- signan
: due to the disaster of Cresson. The kingdom needed to show a
: united front against Saladin. A
: series of raids into the kingdom escalated into the invasion
: everyone feared would come, and King
: Guy called for the ban and arriere-ban, the mustering of every
: able-bodied male of the Kingdom to
: defend it. The troops of Crusaders mustered at the Springs of
: Saffuriya, a well-watered oasis with
: plenty of grazing for the horses. Its position was key in the
: defense of the kingdom, and if they
: stayed at the Springs, they could effectively checkmate the
: forces of Saladin.
: Scouts rode in, reporting an attack on Tiberius. The city had
: fallen, but the castle still held out.
: The wife of Count Raymond was there, along with his children.
: Master Gerard and Raymond de
: Chatillon urged to press the attack. Count Raymond pointed out
: that the way to the city was
: through a waterless plain, and that the army would risk defeat
: if it went to Tiberius. "Tiberius is
: my city!" Raymond declared, "My wife and children
: are there. But better to lose all of these rather
: than the Kingdom!" His counsel prevailed.
: Later that evening, Gerard went to the king?s tent, declaring
: that the Templars would sell their
: mantles rather than let a Christian city go so easily. He
: dragged up all of the old arguments,
: calling Raymond a traitor and a coward, unwilling to save his
: own family. These arguments won
: Guy over (not a difficult task, as King Guy was notoriously
: indecisive), and the order to march was
: given.
: The Hattin Campaign took place in the heat of July, and it is
: written that old men of ninety years
: couldn?t remember such a hot summer. The Crusaders line of
: march took them over harsh, rocky
: desert countryside, with few watering holes, and those dried
: in the heat. Even though the distance
: was only fifteen miles, about a day?s march, it was fifteen
: miles spent in Hell.
: As Saladin?s advance scouts reported the Crusader army
: approach, he could not believe the good
: fortune sent by Allah. He ordered horse-archers into the
: saddle, and these troops fired thousands
: of arrows into the slowly marching Crusader ranks, delaying
: their march even further.
: After eight hours of constant attack, the Christian forces
: were almost mad with heat and thirst.
: The Templars, holding the rearguard, were waning in number and
: nearly separated from the
: main body by the ferocity of the attack. King Guy ordered a
: halt for the evening, and when
: Raymond got the news, he cried, "Alas, Lord God! The
: Kingdom is finished, we are all dead men!"
: The Christian host spent an uneasy night under the watchful
: eyes of Saladin?s army. Kept awake
: by the sounds of sudden attacks, which never came, the sounds
: of comrades being sniped at by
: arrows and the singing from the Muslim camp, they were in poor
: morale. Just before sunrise,
: Saladin set fire to the scrub-brush surrounding the camp,
: causing choking black smoke to hurt
: already parched throats.
: The Crusaders camped on a pair of hills called the Horns of
: Hattin, within site of Tiberius and the
: Sea of Galilee. Tiberius was inaccessible to the crusaders for
: it was located a couple of hundred feet
: down a cliff face. With an enemy army between them and relief,
: they could see and smell water,
: but couldn?t even reach it. Their position was made even more
: perilous by the desertion of their
: infantry, who refused to march further. They watched as Muslim
: cavalry slaughtered the infantry
: as they gathered on one of the Horns, and knew they were
: trapped, with no escape.
: By the end of the battle, most of the nobility of the Kingdom
: of Outremer were captured. All of the
: surviving Templars (230 brothers, according to Brother
: Terricus? letter to the Templars in
: England) and the surviving Hospitallers were beheaded, except
: Master Gerard de Ridefort. He was
: kept alive to secure the surrender of several Templar castles
: during Saladin?s sweep of the
: Kingdom. We wonder if de Ridefort found that the high cost the
: kingdom paid was worth it.
: Tiberius fell shortly thereafter, the Countess Eschiva
: personally giving the keys to Saladin. Her
: husband Raymond escaped the battle, cutting his way out before
: the final push to take the Horns of
: Hattin, and died, it is said, of shame soon after. With
: Saladin?s victories, castles and towns
: surrendered to him and received generous terms until,
: ultimately, Jerusalem herself fell. The
: only major city remaining to the crusaders was Tyre, where
: Lord Conrad de Montferrat held firm.
: In September of 1187, Master de Ridefort was freed, after
: securing the surrender of the Templar
: castle of Gaza. He is next heard of as being part of the
: muster of troops assembled by the now freed
: King Guy of Lusignan as he prepared for his siege of Acre. As
: Guy was now a widower, his right
: to the throne was in question. This may explain the attack on
: Acre, as a way to stabilize a shaky
: grip on the throne. The planning of the attack, however, was
: pure de Ridefort. Little did they
: realize that the siege would last three long years, cost
: countless lives and, ultimately cost de
: Ridefort his life.
: He was killed on 4 October 1189. The sources vary as to how he
: died. Ambrose?s L?Estoire de
: Eracles Empereur et la Conqueste de la Terre de Outremer
: states he died in battle, refusing to
: leave the field for fear of being called a coward. Ibn
: al-Athir states that he was captured and
: executed. Saladin likely considered de Ridefort too dangerous
: to keep alive, particularly after
: releasing him and extracting from him a vow never to war
: against Islam again. De Ridefort
: clearly believed (and councelled Guy de Lusignan) that a vow
: to an infidel Saracen didn?t count.
: Looking at de Ridefort from the viewpoint of the Twentieth
: Century, we see a man at first focused
: on personal advancement, no matter what the cost. When he
: joined the Templars, a different
: person emerges, a person driven by revenge against a noble who
: wronged him. Again we observe
: he didn?t count the cost of his bellicose actions, not even
: the cost of a kingdom. At the end of his life,
: we see a man driven by dreams of glorious martyrdom and a fear
: that he would be seen as a
: coward. Gerard de Ridefort could be seen as a stubborn,
: arrogant man---or as a man completely
: insane. The reader may draw their own conclusions, but Gerard
: de Ridefort will remain an
: enigma to historians for years to come.