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Siege of Jerusalem
Saladin and Christians of Jerusalem
Date 20 September to 2 October 1187 Location Jerusalem Result Decisive Ayyubid victory Jerusalem surrendered by Balian of Ibelin to Saladin Fall of the First Kingdom of Jerusalem
Belligerents
Kingdom of Jerusalem	Ayyubids
Commanders and leaders
Balian of Ibelin  Heraclius of Jerusalem	Saladin
Strength
Unknown, 60 impromptu Ibelin knights, plus the city watch of men-at-arms, archers and people recruited into the city`s defence likely strength around 4,000-6,000 men	Unknown, the army primarily made up of the surviving army from the Battle of Hattin and reinforcements gathered from Syria and Egypt. likely strength around 20,000 men
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Unknown

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The Siege of Jerusalem was a siege on the city of Jerusalem that lasted from September 20 to October 2, 1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to Saladin. Citizens wishing to leave paid a ransom. The defeat of Jerusalem signaled the end of the first Kingdom of Jerusalem. Europe responded in 1189 by launching the Third Crusade led by Richard Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa separately.

Background

The Kingdom of Jerusalem, weakened by internal disputes, was defeated at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187. Most of the nobility were taken prisoner, including King Guy. Thousands of Muslim slaves were freed. By mid-September, Saladin had taken Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. The survivors of the battle and other refugees fled to Tyre, the only city able to hold out against Saladin, due to the fortuitous arrival of Conrad of Montferrat.

Situation in Jerusalem

In Tyre, Balian of Ibelin had asked Saladin for safe passage to Jerusalem in order to retrieve his wife Maria Comnena, Queen consort of Jerusalem and their family. Saladin granted his request, provided that Balian not take up arms against him and not remain in Jerusalem for more than one day; however, upon arrival in the holy city, Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem, Queen Sibylla, and the rest of the inhabitants begged him to take charge of the defense of the city. Heraclius, who argued that he must stay for the sake of Christianity, offered to absolve him of the oath, and Balian agreed.

He sent word of his decision to Saladin at Ascalon via a deputation of burgesses, who rejected the sultan's proposals for a negotiated surrender of Jerusalem; however, Saladin arranged for an escort to accompany Maria, their children, and all their household to Tripoli, Lebanon. As the highest ranking lord remaining in Jerusalem, according to the chronicler Ibn al-Athir, Balian was seen by the Muslims as holding a rank "more or less equal to that of a king."

Balian found the situation in Jerusalem dire. The city was filled with refugees fleeing Saladin's conquests, with more arriving daily. There were fewer than fourteen knights in the whole city, so he created sixty new knights from the ranks of the squires (knights in training) and burgesses. He prepared for the inevitable siege by storing food and money. The armies of Syria and Egypt assembled under Saladin, and after a brief and unsuccessful siege of Tyre, the sultan arrived outside Jerusalem on September 20.

The siege

Negotiations were carried out between Saladin and Balian, through the mediation of Yusuf Batit, one of the Eastern Orthodox clergy, who had been largely suppressed under Latin Christian rule and knew that they would have more freedoms if the city were returned to the Muslims. Saladin preferred to take the city without bloodshed and offered generous terms, but those inside refused to leave their holy city, vowing to destroy it in a fight to the death rather than see it handed over peacefully. Thus the siege began.

Saladin's army was facing the Tower of David and the Damascus Gate. His archers continually pelted the ramparts with arrows. Siege towers/belfries were rolled up to the walls, but were pushed back each time. For six days, skirmishes were fought with little result. Saladin's forces suffered heavy casualties after each assault, while the Crusaders lost only a few men. On September 26, Saladin moved his camp to a different part of the city, on the Mount of Olives where there was no major gate from which the crusaders could counter-attack. The walls were constantly pounded by the siege engines, catapults, mangonels, petraries, Greek fire, crossbows, and arrows. A portion of the wall was mined, and it collapsed on September 29. The crusaders were unable to push Saladin's troops back from the breach, but at the same time the Muslims could not gain entrance to the city. Soon there were only a few dozen knights and a handful of remaining men-at-arms capable of bearing arms and defending the wall; no more men could be found even for the promise of an enormous fee.

The civilians were in great despair. According to a passage possibly written by Ernoul, a squire of Balian, in the Old French Continuation of William of Tyre, the clergy organized a barefoot procession around the walls, much as the clergy on the First Crusade had done outside the walls in 1099. At Mount Calvary, women cropped their children's hair, after immersing them chin-deep in basins of cold water. These penances were aimed at turning away God's wrath from the city, but "…Our Lord did not deign to hear the prayers or noise that was made in the city. For the stench of adultery, of disgusting extravagance and of sin against nature would not let their prayers rise to God."

Surrender of Jerusalem

At the end of September, Balian rode out with an envoy to meet with the sultan, offering the surrender that he initally refused. Balian handed over the Tower of David on October 2. The take-over of the city was peaceful especially in contrast to the Crusader siege of the city in 1099. The Native Christians were allowed to remain in the city while those of Crusader origin were allowed to leave Jerusalem for other lands along with their goods through a safe passage via Akko by paying a ransom of 10 dinars. The wealthy ones including the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem left with treasure-laden wagons leaving the poor who were unable to pay the ransom to be ransomed into slavery. Upon seeing this, Saladin freed 7000 of the Christians of Crusader origin who were unable to pay the ransom themselves as did his brother Saphadin from their own money. The ransomed inhabitants marched away in three columns; the Templars and Hospitallers led the first two, with Balian and the Patriarch leading the third. Balian joined his wife and family in County of Tripoli. According to the Muslim chronicler Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, Heraclius took with him church treasures and reliquaries.

Some of the refugees went first to the County of Tripoli, which was under Crusader control. They were denied entrance and robbed of their possessions. Others went on to Antioch, Cilicia, Byzantium and Egypt. Some boarded Italian ships heading for Europe.

Saladin permitted Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem and allowed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to remain in Christian hands. To solidify Muslim claims to Jerusalem, many holy sites, including the shrine later known as Al-Aqsa Mosque, were ritually purified with rose water. He went on to capture a number of other castles that were still holding out against him, including Belvoir, Kerak, and Montreal, and returned to Tyre to besiege it for a second time.

Meanwhile, news of the disastrous defeat at Hattin was brought to Europe by Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre, as well as other pilgrims and travelers, while Saladin was conquering the rest of the kingdom throughout the summer of 1187. Plans were immediately made for a new crusade; on October 29, Pope Gregory VIII issued the bull Audita tremendi, even before hearing of the fall of Jerusalem. In England and France, the Saladin tithe was enacted in order to finance expenses. The Third Crusade did not get underway until 1189, in three separate contingents led by Richard Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa.

References

1. "Crusades" 2011
2. "Kingdom of Jerusalem" 2009
3. Saladin and the Fall of Jerusalem By Geoffrey Regan Page 135
4. God's War: A New History of the Crusades By Christopher Tyerman Page 230
5. Knights of Jerusalem: The Crusading Order of Hospitallers 1100-1565 By David Nicolle Page 73
6. http://books.google.co.in/books?id=sFatRBsSHIMC&pg=PA103&lpg=PP1&output=html_text

Bibliography

• Amin Maalouf, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes. London, 1984.
• "Crusades." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 24 Oct. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/144695/Crusades>.
• James A. Brundage, The Crusades: A Documentary Survey. Marquette University Press, 1962.
• Kenneth Setton, ed. A History of the Crusades, vol. I. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958 (available online).
• Peter W. Edbury, The Conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade: Sources in Translation. Ashgate, 1996.
• P. M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. Longman, 1986.
• R. C. Smail, Crusading Warfare, 1097–1193. Cambridge University Press, 1956.
• Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades, vol. II: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East, 1100–1187. Cambridge University Press, 1952.

31°47′00″N 35°13′00″E / 31.7833°N 35.2167°E / 31.7833; 35.2167

• Sieges of the Crusades
• Sieges of Jerusalem
• Battles involving the Ayyubids
• Conflicts in 1187
• 1187 in Asia