How Different Was the Kingdom of Jerusalem Compared to other Western Feudal Kingdoms?

[Derpy Hooves]

Must be a really moronic podcast considering Barbarossa could have not wielded more than 23 000 men and that he died more than a thousand kilometers away from Acre, never even reaching Syria, let alone Palestine.

Remember, there is a really horrible bias against the crusaders because, in the modern post euro-centric historiography, they practically embody authority of religion and European imperialism in general.
About 90% of everything I have ever seen online about them is horrible history, exaggerating their losses, minimizing their victories and wholeheartedly trying to portray them as cartoonishly evil and incompetent.

People tend to forget that during those times, the various local muslim warlords were basically no better than them.
For every Saladin(exaggerated as he may be), there were dozens of petty rulers who would make ISIS blush.

It's debateable whether his army began with 100,000 or 20,000.
However, what is agreed is that by the time it reached Acre (without Barbarossa, did I really have to include that detail for you?) there were only 5,000.

Saladin was awesome though. For his time, he was pretty based.

[+Marius+]

It's debateable whether his army began with 100,000 or 20,000.

Not in modern historiography it is not.
The number of 100 000 is obviously inflated, we know the approximate size of his army by studying his campaigns in Italy with adding the possible(but realistic) number of those who additionally joined him.
The current estimate is between 19-24 000 men, 1200-2000 of those "knights".

It was basically impossible for him to have anything near 100 000 men as the Holy Roman Emperor in the 12th century.
King Henry V, more than two hundred years later barely managed to raise 9000 men and he was a king of a far more centralized state.

However, what is agreed is that by the time it reached Acre (without Barbarossa, did I really have to include that detail for you?) there were only 5,000.

No, it is definitely not agreed since we have basically no idea of the amount of German troops that remained with Richard.
The vast majority of knights and nobles left back to Europe, satisfied with the amazing victories and plunder gained in Anatolia.

Saladin was awesome though. For his time, he was pretty based.

How so?

[+Marius+]

Yes that is true, but the previous poster said he had more Ghulams alone than the the combined Crusading force, and I also presumed that, that Ghulam force was under Salladin in one singular instance, not over his entire reign.

A 1181 review listed Saladin's Mamluk forces at 6,976 Ghulams and 1,553 Qaraghulams, that is only 4 years after he lost most of his army at Montgisard.
That is a huge number of professional cavalrymen.
It was nice ruling an area dozens of times larger than that of your enemy, manpower is a b**ch.

Also Salladin won in Battle of Marj Ayyun, where he almost captured Baldwin IV.

Minor clash after another minor clash where he lost.
Nothing important(it could have been if Baldwin was captured ofc), but good for him.

What I meant is a Muslim lord's army gets routed, he simply leaves and more often than not continues his political life, while Crusading lords die in the battle and usually cause a disaster if anything a major setback.

As stated before, they rarely engaged themselves in battle while the feudal lords, on the other hand, were actually expected to be at the front of the fray, not just present.

Then what about the 1101 Crusade? And Danishmend Gazi captured Bohemond, arguably the best military leader in the First Crusade.

The 1101 crusade was a failure, but it was not some epic disaster.
They tried an idiotic idea after being warned by the crusaders of how idiotic it is, they still tried...and failed.
Also, Godfrey of Bouillon was, by far, the best military leader in the first Crusade.

Is it not true that the Crusaders success compared to the first one were pitiful? They lost Edessa and Jerusalem in less than 100 years.

The fact that it took the Muslims that long is more a statement of success.
Remember that the newly arrived crusader armies were fighting in a foreign land after a gruesome journey of thousands of kilometers.
All the cards were against them constantly.

Is it not true that Guy De Lusignan was a weak imbecile king who was not born in Levant and was influenced by Templars?

He was not weak, merely misguided.
If Hattin was a success he would have been praised for centuries, but it was not, because he frontally engaged an army significantly larger than his own(as was customary for the Crusaders) and he lost the battle.
That is it.
War with Saladin was inevitable, he merely did what he though was right for the Kingdom(since he obviously planned to rule it for a long time).

Also, he was the one who influenced the Templars, not the other way around.

Is it not true that since the Third Crusade all the following ones just delayed the inevitable at best or were a disaster at worst. None of them had the utter indisputable win for the Crusaders that pushed the Muslim power back so decisively like the first one.

How so?
All of them could have been successes.
The crusaders of the Fourth Crusade proved themselves to be capable in conquering cities, imagine if they actually went to the Holy Land...
Also, the entire Holy Land was retaken by Crusaders in the Sixth Crusade, including Jerusalem, a testament to just how unwilling Muslims were in meeting crusaders in combat irregardless of their sporadic failures.

Interesting thing about Hattin is that Conrad De Montferrat advised them to NOT attack Salladin and just let them take Tiberiass(his fief) yet they fell into the most obvious trap and lost water supplies. You know it's funny, when I watched KoH for the first time as a child, I kind of assumed the Crusaders are going somewhere in Egypt or towards Mecca and that's how their supply lines were cut, but Hattin is in middle of the freaking Kingdom and yet they their enemy cornered them there.

The alternative was to allow Saladin to pass through and besiege whatever city he desired(which maybe would not be Jerusalem at first), he had a larger army.
Meeting him at Hattin could have resulted in victory just as Arsuf could have resulted in failure.
These are not definitive things and ofc, it is easy to be general after the battle

What we now know as being a really bad move, was to most(because the Crusaders acted in council decisions, meaning the majority agreed for Hattin) a necessary risk to defend the Kingdom.

Remember, the battle of Montgisard was not so long ago at that point, and there the Crusaders engaged in much more insane odds winning the day.

Can you please tell me about the immense successes of Bohemond after the first Crusade, since I don't recall them. Or you simply don't like my non-academic way of expressing the same facts.

You are insulting him yet he did nothing unusual, he wanted to be an independent ruler but was surrounded by much larger and powerful political entities, his actions were completely rational.
Again, people just like to make fun of crusader rulers when there is nothing irrational about their decisions, they did what, in their opinion, was necessary for the continuation of their newly founded states, which were, btw, still surrounded by enemies and had a muslim majority population.

Funny because you can still find bigots like this.

Note the name of the channel yet the tone and the style of narration are of questionable objectivity at best(Even if the events themselves are true).

I would not call him a bigot because I see no bigotry coming out of him, only bias...just...pure...bias.

But stull there is too much of Islamic divination in the middle ages and too much Crusader/Western Europe demonization.

Agreed.

[Exarch]

how wealthy would the KoJ have been? wealthy enough to be the richest Western kingdom of them all?

[+Marius+]

how wealthy would the KoJ have been? wealthy enough to be the richest Western kingdom of them all?

Well, they were a small kingdom but, as already stated, they were extremely efficient administrators(which is really surprising because they were pretty much the exact same feudal lords that ruled throughout Europe).
They had various deals with both Venice,Genoa and certain Islamic factions so they basically turned every single city and feud they had into a trading hub since they could not rely properly on land taxes and farming.

For instance, by 1150, Acre reached a supposed population of 25-30 000(...in the 12th century mind you, from a mere 3-6 000 before the crusade) and became the busiest port in the entire Eastern Mediterranean(yes, including the City).
By some estimates the total annual income of the entire diocese of Acre by the end of the 12th century was greater than the annual income of the king of England, with exaggerated sources mentioning 50 000 silver pounds and other sources mentioning 240 000 bezants or 2112 pounds of gold...annually.

Of course, Acre was, by far, the richest example of them all(along with the fact that a lot of that money was spread out...everywhere to everyone *cough* Italians *cough*) so it is not actually representative of the entire Kingdom, but you get the picture.

We have numerous Muslim chroniclers being absolutely shocked by the competence of crusader administration, particularly, they were amazed by the decentralization of the feudal system and an amazing symbiotic relationship between the crusader feudal lords and the swarms of Italian merchant guild leaders(and their fleets of ships ofc).

In contrast, during this time the Islamic states were passed their Golden Age(when a single Muslim city could overshadow an entire European Margraviate) and rapidly descended into a horrible age of complete despotism where every warlord demanded absolute control over every aspect of his land, often turning away from any kind of development because they found it threatening.
This became more apparent as the effects of the radicalization of their entire religion came into place with the rise of the Almoravids/Almohads whose ISIS-like version of government ideas quickly spread to the Middle East(although in a more toned down form) and caused massive stagnation in every core of administrative development and bureaucracy.


This quote is also very important;

"European merchants supply the best weaponry, thereby contributing to their own defeat." - Ṣalāḥ ad-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb

Saladin with this one sentence stated two things;

1) He implied that the European merchants in the Levant made a lot of money selling European weaponry to the Muslims.
2) The European smiths apparently became very good at forging those said weapons...considering that the man who stated that sentence had access to the best Middle Eastern weaponry money could buy.

I believe that the exaggerated trade income sources of Crusader cities are exactly the result of that, massive arms dealing during peacetime, especially by people who had no plan to, you know...stick around enough to witness those weapons being used.

[The Despondent Mind]

I really can't find where I read this, but apparently Damask and some other Muslim cities paid tribute to KoJ, probably between the first and second crusade.

Not in modern historiography it is not.
The number of 100 000 is obviously inflated, we know the approximate size of his army by studying his campaigns in Italy with adding the possible(but realistic) number of those who additionally joined him.
The current estimate is between 19-24 000 men, 1200-2000 of those "knights".

It was basically impossible for him to have anything near 100 000 men as the Holy Roman Emperor in the 12th century.
King Henry V, more than two hundred years later barely managed to raise 9000 men and he was a king of a far more centralized state.

Perhaps he had more than your estimates, since he wasn't mustering for a war against a catholic lord, but to go on a crusade, I wouldn't be surprised that religious or opportunistic knights and other men would join from all corners of the empire, perhaps even Poland. I am not saying it would be 100k but maybe 30+.

Also, the entire Holy Land was retaken by Crusaders in the Sixth Crusade, including Jerusalem, a testament to just how unwilling Muslims were in meeting crusaders in combat irregardless of their sporadic failures.

Nobody was convinced that Jerusalem would be hard to take back like the the first time. It was an impressive feat, but long term it didn't had much prospects.

He was not weak, merely misguided.
If Hattin was a success he would have been praised for centuries, but it was not, because he frontally engaged an army significantly larger than his own(as was customary for the Crusaders) and he lost the battle.
That is it.
War with Saladin was inevitable, he merely did what he though was right for the Kingdom(since he obviously planned to rule it for a long time).

Also, he was the one who influenced the Templars, not the other way around.

I don't know how he could have had any influence since he wasn't KoJ native, and he's house wasn't even that prestigious and everybody hated the fact Sybilla married him. But we can't banter on and on. But for the record Reynold De Chatillon's actions had more merit to me.

You are insulting him yet he did nothing unusual, he wanted to be an independent ruler but was surrounded by much larger and powerful political entities, his actions were completely rational.
Again, people just like to make fun of crusader rulers when there is nothing irrational about their decisions, they did what, in their opinion, was necessary for the continuation of their newly founded states, which were, btw, still surrounded by enemies and had a muslim majority population.

I just can't understand him attacking Alexius, it seems like didn't really think long term, but wanted revenge and easy booty. Instead for example he could have formed some kind of agreement with him and attacked the Turks in Anatoliya. Or perhaps with Baldwin but on some different target.

I more or less agree with other stuff you wrote.

[+Marius+]

Perhaps he had more than your estimates, since he wasn't mustering for a war against a catholic lord, but to go on a crusade, I wouldn't be surprised that religious or opportunistic knights and other men would join from all corners of the empire, perhaps even Poland. I am not saying it would be 100k but maybe 30+.

He had barely 3000 men in his Italy campaign, same number at his march on Legnano and a measly 1600 men assembled at the battle of Monte Porzio.

If we take into account that his main army, maybe could have reached 10 000(that is, if he tripled it's size), how many men would have additionally joined him?
We do not know, but I sincerely doubt it would have been much, especially when considering that the entire crusading army of the Kingdom of Hungary was less then 2000.

This is 12th century Europe we are talking about.

I don't know how he could have had any influence since wasn't KoJ native, he's wasn't even that prestigious and everybody hated the fact Sybilla married him. But we can't banter on and on. But for the record Reynold De Chatillon's actions had more merit to me.

You have a really good point, I will look into this again, perhaps I got the wrong conclusion.

I just can't understand him attacking Alexius, it seems like didn't really think long term, but wanted revenge and easy booty. Instead for example he could have formed some kind of agreement with him and attacked the Turks in Anatoliya. Or perhaps with Baldwin but on some different target.

I personally believe that the only explanation lies in the fact that he believed that Alexius was not a forgiving man and not a forgetting man.
Consider their entire relationship by that point, I think that he believed that Alexius(who officially demanded Antioch to be handed over) will never let him stay in power but will rather convert the entire principality into a Byzantine theme with a proper, Roman noble on the seat.

He probably did not even consider the prospect of Alexius allowing him to remain in power as a vassal.
In his mind(perhaps ofc), it was a fight between ruling Antioch as a glorious independent crusader King, or loosing everything.

[Mangalore]

It's debateable whether his army began with 100,000 or 20,000.
However, what is agreed is that by the time it reached Acre (without Barbarossa, did I really have to include that detail for you?) there were only 5,000.

Saladin was awesome though. For his time, he was pretty based.

In contrast to the first crusades in this crusade you had kings fielding armies. When Barbarossa died there was no reason for a German vasall to keep his troops in Anatolia or even go with them to Acre when there is a succession crisis at home.

In essence the majority of German troops left with their commanders to return to the Holy Roman Empire and pledge their fealty to a new king.

Best point in case: Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned by an Austrian noble he had pissed off during the crusade and who had returned with Barbarossa's army after the king died.

[Thorn777]

I've been listening to the HIstory of the Crusades podcast, and I think the dumbest part I've come across is how Barbarossa left Germany with an army of 100,000, and by the time it reached Acre, it was only 5,000

Barbarossa died around Seleukeia because he drowned in a lake, so the army turned back. Some went to the Levante anyhow. Barbarossa actually won all battles in Asia minor, one at Iconium cost Kylydsch Arslan 3000 men.

[Dr. Croccer]

It's debateable whether his army began with 100,000 or 20,000.

Not really. 100.000 is far too great. That's more than 2% of the estimated total population of the entire Holy Roman Empire at that point, or about the population of its three or four biggest cities combined.

[Marcus Aemilius Lepidus]

Everyone speaks about the french character of the realm, but in fact Italians and a bit less Germans played a significant rule. After all it was the Italian faction within the Kingdome which eventually destroyed the kingdome with civil war just after Friedrich II. brought Jerusalem back in to the kingdome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Lombards

[+Marius+]

Everyone speaks about the french character of the realm, but in fact Italians and a bit less Germans played a significant rule. After all it was the Italian faction within the Kingdome which eventually destroyed the kingdome with civil war just after Friedrich II. brought Jerusalem back in to the kingdome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Lombards

Well yes, absolutely, in terms of culture and personhood(for the lack of a better term).
Not so much in terms of statehood, administration, military etc.

The first crusaders pretty much set the norm for the society that others who came later simply adapted to it and followed, there was little to be seen of Italian forms of government and statehood in the crusader states and only slightly more of that of the Holy Roman Empire.

These were not urban nobles, princes or ecclesiastical "nobles", it was a king and his feudal vassals set in a clear feudal hierarchy.

There actually were attempts by both members of the Church and merchant guilds(obviously Italians) to impose themselves within the said hierarchy and indeed put a bit of Italy into the mix, but they were immediately stopped in their tracks.

[dogukan]

A 1181 review listed Saladin's Mamluk forces at 6,976 Ghulams and 1,553 Qaraghulams, that is only 4 years after he lost most of his army at Montgisard.
That is a huge number of professional cavalrymen.
It was nice ruling an area dozens of times larger than that of your enemy, manpower is a b**ch.

Just going to comment on this bit, Ghulams were more relevant to wealth than land as they were bought from elsewhere.

[+Marius+]

Just going to comment on this bit, Ghulams were more relevant to wealth than land as they were bought from elsewhere.

True, but I sincerely doubt that a significant portion of those Ghulams was recruited from outside the borders of Saladin's domain.

Even if it was, it was still arguably "next door".

Not to mention the ludicrous superiority implied by such high numbers of professional cavalry.

We are talking about thousands of such warriors supported by God knows how many infantry against a political entity that barely managed to put together 1500 men in the August of 1179.

So altogether about 8000 Ghulams, their numbers increasing to 12,000 leading up to Hattin while king Baldwin managed to field 375 knights in total, and Guy 900-1200(modern estimate without contemporary source), most of which were nearly irreplaceable if lost on the battlefield.

[Ringeck]

Not really. 100.000 is far too great. That's more than 2% of the estimated total population of the entire Holy Roman Empire at that point, or about the population of its three or four biggest cities combined.

Less than 5 million people in the entire late 12th century HRE? That sounds awfully low. What do you base this on?

[+Marius+]

Less than 5 million people in the entire late 12th century HRE? That sounds awfully low. What do you base this on?

"Atlas of Europe in the Middle Ages" by Ostrovski apparently states it to be 5 million in 1200, however other sources mention it surpassing that number in 1000 and mention 7.3 million in Germany alone by 1200.

[The Despondent Mind]

Now that I think about it, KoJ had way more unity and co-operation than England, France and Holy Roman Empire, there was internal strife and rivalry sure, but it rarely went too far, if ever from it's founding until Hattin.

[+Marius+]

Indeed.

For instance, even though nobody really wanted Guy as king, the moment Baldwin/Sibylla appointed him every single lord pledged his vassal oath to him within a single afternoon.
No bickery.
No conspiracy.
Nothing.

The Kingdom came above everything else.

[The Despondent Mind]

Yeah, even his worst rivals and opponents followed him.

[Cyclops]

Not really. 100.000 is far too great. That's more than 2% of the estimated total population of the entire Holy Roman Empire at that point, or about the population of its three or four biggest cities combined.

Didn't the Emperor send Graf Sifo Dyas to the island of Kamino to solve that exact problem?