Clash of Culture and Character: Richard the Lionheart vs. Balian d'Ibelin
Dr. Helena Schrader
Richard Plantagenet,
King of England 1189 – 1199, known as Richard the Lionheart(ed), was a charismatic
king in life and literature. He was also a
contemporary and, at times, an opponent of Balian d’Ibelin, the hero of my
Jerusalem Trilogy. The reasons for their initial conflict were both political and
personal, yet in the end they found common ground, developed mutual respect, and
Ibelin became Richard’s envoy to Saladin. The shift from confrontation to
cooperation reveals a great deal about and reflects well on Richard, as he was
the one who moved most, but the clash also tells us a great deal about Ibelin and
the crusader states themselves.
The differences between the Ibelin and Richard Plantagenet started at birth. Richard was born to power, wealth, influence and title. The second son of two of the most powerful rulers in Christendom, he was already invested with one of the richest duchies in the West by the age of 13. He rebelled against his father at 15 and for the next 17 years he was almost continuously at war ― against his father, his brother, his vassals, and/or his would-be brother-in-law. He was viewed by the Church as excessively proud, greedy and sexual.
Ibelin in contrast was
a younger son of a comparatively insignificant “rear vassal” (i.e. not a crown
vassal, but a vassal to the Count of Jaffa). In other words, he was born into a
position of subordination to his father/elder brother, who in turn were
subordinate to both the Count of Jaffa and the crown. Although he is known to
have fought at the Battle of Montgisard, he did so as a bachelor knight, not as
a commander, and probably did not command troops before the age of 30. There is
no reason to think that he was particularly ambitious much less proud or
greedy. On the contrary, Ibelin had a reputation for piety and compassion, as
evidenced by his willingness to stand surety for the ransoms of the poor during
the negotiations for the surrender of Jerusalem. Despite the slander of
chroniclers writing decades after his death, the historical
record is rather of a man who was self-effacing and comparatively humble.
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| Richard the Lionheart by Henry Justice Ford |
We also know that
Richard was flamboyant and showy. He liked being the center of attention ―
especially on the battlefield. Richard was at the front in any attack and
excelled in action. Ibelin on the other hand appears to have been a competent
military leader, but not a dramatic one. His greatest military achievements
were holding together the rear-guard at Hattin and, more important, the
organization of women, priests and other non-combatants into a force capable of
holding off assaults by the victorious army of Saladin at Jerusalem. These were
defensive battles, and Ibelin organized them, but did not engage in the kind of
glamorous heroics for which Richard was famous.
Yet
despite these clear
differences in temperament and personality, what most set Richard and
Ibelin
apart was that Richard was a crusader, while Ibelin was a native of
Outremer. This determined their initial attitudes and positions at the
start of the Third
Crusade. Richard arrived in the Holy Land determined to regain Jerusalem
― and
consciously or unconsciously convinced that the men of Outremer had lost
it either through their sins or their incompetence. Richard, like other
crusaders from
the West, were quick to see the natives of Outremer as decadent and
compromised. Ibelin, naturally, placed the blame for the catastrophe on
its
architect, Guy de Lusignan, not the entire nobility and population of
Outremer.
Furthermore, Ibelin was more familiar with the enemy, their tactics,
ideology,
strengths and weaknesses.
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| Ibelin had negotiated the surrender of Jerusalem to Saladin: Here the Hollywood version |
To Richard’s credit, he appears to have learned about his opponents very rapidly, yet Richard's support for Guy de Lusignan was utterly unacceptable to Ibelin (and the other barons of Outremer). It was Richard’s insistence that Guy de Lusignan was a legitimate king with the right to again control the fate of the Kingdom of Jerusalem that made it impossible for Ibelin and Richard to see eye-to-eye. Ibelin recognized Conrad de Montferrat at the rightful king of Jerusalem by right of his wife, Ibelin’s step-daughter Isabella of Jerusalem. Because of this, he was willing to act as Montferrat’s envoy to Saladin in the fall of 1191, which put him in direct conflict with Richard. Montferrat was willing to cut a deal with Saladin not only behind Richard’s back but effectively against Richard. Saladin called Montferrat’s bluff, and broke off the negotiations with him, but the fact that Ibelin had represented Montferrat in some of these negotiations naturally made him seem a traitor to Richard, at least in the eyes of some of his followers and later chroniclers.
Yet less than a year
after his arrival in the Holy Land, Richard was forced to withdraw his support for Lusignan and accept Montferrat as king. It is
highly significant that in the tug-of-war over who should be king of
Jerusalem it was the highly successful and charismatic Plantagenet
that ultimately gave way to the largely humiliated and discredited
barons of Jerusalem -- led by Ibelin. Ibelin himself, of course, had not
been discredited or humiliated in the same way or to the same extent as
his colleagues; he had not been taken captive at Hattin. Yet, he
certainly had not delivered the kind of victories that Richard the
Lionheart had from the conquest of Cyprus to the capture of Acre and the
Battle of Arsuf.
This says a great deal about the self-confidence and independence of the barons of Outremer -- or at least about Ibelin himself. Apparently, Ibelin was prepared to face the powerful Plantagenet down, risk his displeasure, and even his withdrawal from the fight for Jerusalem. Ibelin's stance here foreshadows the attitude of his eldest son, who would face down the might of the Holy Roman Empire and lead a baronial revolt against the autocracy of Friedrich II.
Yet
it is also to Richard’s credit that he did not insist on his royal
prerogatives. Indeed, his willingness to abandon his protege Lusignan
belies attempts to portray him as stupid or excessively proud. The fact
that he both recognized his
mistake and was willing to reverse his policy are evidence that Richard
was more concerned about solutions than personal pride. He was capable
not only of compromise but of backing down publicly and completely.
How
well he would have worked together with the equally flamboyant and
prickly Montferrat is another question. Fortunately, Montferrat soon
fell victim to an
assassination. The selection of Richard’s nephew Henri de Champagne to
replace
Montferrat made it even easier for Richard to jettison
Lusignan and work closely with the now reconciled High Court of
Jerusalem ―
headed by Ibelin.
After Champagne’s
election as King of Jerusalem, Ibelin supported Richard’s crusade. He is
specifically named as commanding (again) the rear-guard of the army sent to the
relief of Jaffa, after Richard went by ship to stiffen the resistance of the
garrison. He is also the first and foremost of the emissaries Richard sent to
Saladin to negotiate a truce that would enable Richard to return home to his
threatened inheritance. Obviously, this had in part to do with the fact that
Ibelin had distinguished himself in negotiations with Saladin before, notably
at Jerusalem. Nevertheless, no man selects an envoy he does not trust and
respect. It is therefore safe to say that in the almost exactly 16 months Richard
the Lionheart spent in the Holy Land, he had come to appreciate, respect, and
possibly even like the so very different Baron of Ibelin. I think it is fair to
assume that Ibelin’s attitude toward the Plantagenet also underwent a sea
change in this same period.
