The Templars at the Battle of Mansourah

Jean de Joinville and Matthew Paris on the Battle of Mansourah

Introduction


The Seventh Crusade, led by Louis IX of France, began successfully with the capture of Damietta. The city at the eastern side of the Nile Delta fell in 1249, without the need for a long and costly siege such the armies of the Fifth Crusade had endured three decades previously. However like the earlier crusade, Louis's campaign ran into difficulty as the army passed south in pursuit of Cairo, and unravelled due to a debacle at Mansourah. My intention here is to look at two documentary accounts of the pivotal event of early February 1250 - the initial phase of the battle of Mansourah which resulted in the destruction of a major part of the Christian cavalry and prefigured the disaster the remaining crusaders would suffer.
The first account is from the Vie de Saint Louis by Jean de Joinville (c.1224-1317), a nobleman of Champagne. Jean de Joinville participated actively in the Seventh Crusade and became close to the king. The second is from the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris (c.1200-1259), an English monk based in St Albans. Jean de Joinville was closer to events- dangerously close at times- but he wrote later in life, and with a clear purpose linked to King Louis's posthumous reputation and, by extension, the reputation of the Capetian dynasty in the form of Philip IV and his sons. Matthew Paris, meanwhile, was geographically more distant from events and had his information at second hand. However he wrote closer to the time, and was free from any pressure to toe the line of the French monarchy.

Background
The Seventh Crusade had been launched in a delayed response to the loss of Jerusalem in 1244 to the Khoresmians, Turkic mercenaries of Egypt displaced by the Mongols from their homeland. After pillaging in the Holy City, the Khoresmians has joined up with Egyptian forces and defeated the Franks of Acre and their Damascene allies at la Forbie. King Louis, in France, weak with malaria, had vowed to take the cross and to aid the Holy Land if he recovered his health. By 1250, the royal crusade was well under way. In June 1249, the crusades' French-dominated forces had landed from Cyprus and taken Damietta. After that, echoing the events of thirty years before, they had rejected an offer from the sultan of Egypt to return Jerusalem in exchange for Damietta. Louis was subsequently persuaded by his brother Robert, count of Artois that the best strategy was to push south to take Cairo rather than west to secure Alexandria. Robert had asserted that Cairo was the chief city in Egypt, and 'if you wished to kill a serpent, you must first crush its head'. Having encountered stiffer opposition during the passage and enduring barrages of Greek fire, the army finally managed to ford a waterway close to the town of Mansourah. Paris and Joinville's accounts have been called the two major versions of what happened next.

The account of Jean de Joinville
Jean de Joinville related how, having had much trouble trying to cross the water to the side of the Saracen camp, the Christians managed to cross after being shown a ford by a local Bedouin, who revealed the place in exchange for five hundred bezants. King Louis instructed that certain nobles including the Duke of Burgundy and others from overseas would remain to guard the camp, while he and his three brothers (Charles of Anjou, Robert of Artois and Alphonse of Toulouse) would lead an attack force across the ford. At dawn on Shrove Tuesday, they reached the place, and crossed on their horses, finding the ford tolerably usable. On the far bank, they encountered three hundred enemy cavalry.
Some of the banks were slippery and muddy, dragging down certain knights, including the standard bearer Jean d'Orleans. Joinville had therefore directed his men to a less treacherous position. The Turks then took to flight. The Templars were meant to form the vanguard in the ensuing encounter, with Robert of Artois following with the second division. As soon as Robert was across the stream, however, he and his men flung themselves at the enemy. The Templars let the count know that they were offended, as they had been usurped in the lead position, and begged that they be allowed to go on ahead as had been arranged by the king:

The count, however, did not venture to answer them, on account of an error on the part of Foucalt de Merle, who was holding the bridle of his horse. The man was a very good knight, but being completely deaf, he heard nothing at all of what the Templars were saying to his lord, and kept on shouting: 'After them, men, after them!'

At this, the Templars, fearing to be shamed if the count got in front of them, charged at the enemy, pursuing the fleeing Turks, right through the town of Mansourah and into the fields beyond, towards Cairo. When the knights tried to return, the Turks in Mansourah threw great beams down from the rooftops to block the narrow streets. Count Robert was killed there (as Joinville later mentioned, apparently while defending himself in a house). Also killed were Raoul de Couchy and many Templars. Joinville wrote that the Grand Master had subsequently told him that the Order lost two hundred and eighty mounted warriors.

The account of Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris's chronicle describes the same event. The relevant entry began by reporting the content of a letter received by the Earl Richard in London. In Paris's version of events, King Louis, encouraged by reports from 'a certain guardian of Cairo' moved south from Damietta, slaughtering those who stood in his way. Then on the third Sunday after Easter (3 April) many crossed a large river called the Tafnis, by means of boats tied together. Robert of Artois, Louis' brother, took a number of knights across, unbeknown to the king, hoping to triumph alone and keep all the glory for himself. He and his men put the Saracens to the sword, and Robert 'advancing boldly but incautiously' resolved to attack Mansourah. Forcing his way in, he was assailed by stones and forced to withdraw in confusion, having killed many of the inhabitants.
Count Robert then met in council with the Templars, and with William Longespee, the leader of an English contingent. Robert wanted to attack, believing that the enemy were fleeing, and that if anything went wrong, his brother and the king and the 'unconquerable' force following could save them. At this, the 'discreet and wary' Master of the Temple (Guillaume de Sonnac) advised caution, so that the tired, wounded and thirsty knights could recover a little after their earlier triumph. He advised that it would be better to wait for the rest of the royal army to arrive before charging, predicting disaster if they attacked because the fleeing enemy would rally to the sultan, who would come with his large forces, forewarned of the small size and exhausted state of the Christian contingent thus far across the water.
Count Robert was indignant and 'excited and flushed with anger and pride'. He accused the Templars of 'time-honoured treachery', and of secretly hindering the success of the crusades for their own advantage '…surely Frederick, who has witnessed their deceit, is a most reliable witness'. Thus angered and goaded the Templars and Hospitallers prepared to fight, against their better judgement. William Longespee, meanwhile, tried to calm the situation, advising the count to heed the Grand Master's advice, acknowledging the Templar's advantage of age and experience. The count responded by 'shouting as the French do and swearing indecently', saying how blessed the army would be if purged of people with tails (a common anti-English barb among the French). William, provoked and upset, responded 'Count Robert, I shall assuredly advance unafraid into any danger of death. We shall be today, I fancy, where you will not dare to touch my horse's tail'. Thus they advanced against the numerous enemy, while the count, wishing to retain all the glory, disdained to notify his brother of the possible danger.
The Muslims, delighting in the Christian disunity, surrounded the count and his contingent 'like an island surrounded by sea', so that none could escape to the river. The count regretted his decision and called to William Longespee, who was bearing the brunt of the fight: 'William God is fighting against us, we cannot resist any longer'. He told William to flee while he could, but William refused. Robert fled to the river, trying to cross, and drowned under the weight of his armour. So he perished, 'miserable but commiserated by no-one… mourned by no one's tears, for though born of the noble blood of kings he set a pernicious example to others'. With the death of the count the French began to despair and withdrew in disarray. William fought on, meanwhile, until unhorsed and overwhelmed. With him perished 'a great many Englishmen who had followed his standard from the beginning'. Meanwhile only two Templars and a single Hospitaller escaped 'nor did the anger… or rather fury of the Lord allow anyone of note to escape'.

The different natures of the documents
Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis is part a biography/hagiography of King Louis IX, part autobiography, and part general history of the Seventh Crusade. Jean had been in his twenties during the expedition. He began writing his book (in which he portrayed the late king as highly virtuous) at the behest of Queen Jeanne de Navarre, the wife of Louis IX's grandson Philip IV. By this time (c. 1290-1308), Joinville was quite elderly. His testimony before a church commission had earlier contributed to Louis's canonisation. Joinville's narrative was perhaps constrained by a need to meet with the requirements of the ruling family, or by a desire to please them. His work could not be overly critical of members of the house of Capet, but had to serve to enhance their name.
The Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris was a monastic annal running up to the year 1250. It was compiled at St Albans Abbey, a well-connected Benedictine institution, with a rich literary and scholarly tradition. Travellers, letters, and occasional royal visits kept the monks informed of wider events. Matthew's chronicle includes several copied letters, including that which informed his account of the engagement at Mansourah. Matthew may likewise have been acquainted with the king of France, having acted as a messenger between Louis and King Haakon IV of Norway in 1248. Matthew was also familiar with King Henry III, and the king's brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, one of the leasers of the earlier Barons' Crusade, and thus another possible source of information on the East. Matthew's intended audience was probably the other monks of his order- a fairly restricted circle. His acerbic comments regarding the pope and other powerful individuals indicate that he did not anticipate his work becoming widely read abroad, or that if he did he was none too concerned about his opinions being known. Where he was partial (as he was towards Longespee), he made little attempt to hide it, and his chronicle's value lies largely in revealing Matthew's opinions concerning personalities of his time, how news carried and how events were interpreted.
The two narratives contain many differences. The dates given, for example, do not reconcile, and neither do the explanations for why the Seventh Crusade was passing south. The account of Matthew Paris implies that Louis marched on Cairo having received favourable intelligence from an insider or spy who was a 'guardian' of the city. Joinville does not seem aware of this, and attributes the decision to march south to Robert of Artois's influence on Louis. It is unlikely that Joinville would be mistaken here, as, being a lord and Seneschal of Champagne, he would probably have been involved in the strategic discussions that were held before the mobilization. Moreover the count's influence would presumably have been common knowledge among the crusader barons, especially if the count got his way where they did not.
While Joinville described a Bedouin showing the crusaders where the water could be forded, Paris only mentions this later, when he transcribes the letter to Richard, which mentioned a converted Muslim assisting. (This letter also provided Paris's information that the crusaders had tried to cross using a pontoon). Joinville, meanwhile, seems to have remembered the local Bedouin quite vividly despite the elapse of time, even how much the man had asked in payment for the information, and the fact that he refused to show the crossing place until he was paid.
Paris and Joinville gave different accounts of the sequence of events following the river crossing. Paris had Count Robert pressing into Mansourah directly after ransacking the Muslim encampment, but being ejected prior to leading his fatal charge. He made no mention of the Templars trying to assert their position in the vanguard or of problems with communication caused by the alleged deafness of Foucalt de Merle.
The accounts correspond in the basic fact that a force including Robert of Artois and the Templars crossed the river before the main party of the crusade, and that it was all but wiped out after a charge against the enemy under controversial circumstances, and before the arrival of reinforcements. The letter Paris includes confirms that the knights were ambushed within Mansourah and that few managed to cut their way out.

The Role of Robert, Count of Artois
Joinville's account of the action was somewhat brief. Evidently he sought to avoid direct criticism of Count Robert. Writing as he was at the behest of the Capetian dynasty, this is understandable: Joinville may have considered it prudent to gloss over Robert's culpability. Instead he deflects attention towards the deaf knight holding the count's reigns on the one hand, and attributes the decision to charge into Mansourah to the Templars on the other. He thus presented Count Robert in a more favourable light, emphasizing his boldness, and avoiding the suggestion that he was at fault. It may be noted that Jean de Joinville was not present at this particular event, but was near King' Louis's contingent behind. Joinville however hinted at Robert's domineering nature when earlier describing how the count had advocated a strategy contrary to the consensus of the crusading barons. The introduction of the deaf attendant Foucalt seems to be an attempt to cover up the full extent of the count's obstreperousness.
Matthew Paris, in his version, presented Count Robert as a supercilious firebrand. (Paris, as mentioned, had no need to fear criticizing the Capetian dynasty, and indeed was not shy about censuring even the pope, or his own king, Henry III.) The monk had made earlier mention of Robert's unfair and jealous behaviour towards William Longespee and of Louis's inability to restrain his brother. Paris reported how Longespee had complained to the king that the French barons had deprived him of his personal spoils, and that Count Robert was the captain of the 'misconduct and violent robbery' he had suffered. Unable to find satisfaction, Longespee had quit the army in Damietta for the Holy Land for a time, but had returned in time for the ill-fated battle of Mansourah. Louis's lack of control over his brothers is explicit, therefore, in the writing of Matthew Paris. Putting words in Longespee's mouth, Paris more than insinuated that Louis did not have the nerve to stand up to Robert. Louis' going along with Robert's plan to march against Cairo rather than Alexandria, against the advice of all the other nobles (as Joinville mentioned without comment on the merits of the strategy) perhaps bears this assessment out. This may be seen as a failing on the part of Louis.
All in all Joinville did not dwell on the deeds of Robert of Artois, and one is left suspecting that he was reluctant to do so because it could taint Louis's reputation by association. Joinville may also have been mindful of the sensitivity of the issue with King Philip IV, who was keen to foster the prestige the Capetian bloodline, and who was not a ruler to be crossed. Count Robert II of Artois (the son of the Robert who perished at Mansourah) had also become powerful in France, and Joinville may also have sought to avoid offending him. Finally, King Louis was known to have hoped that his brother had attained martyrdom and it would not have been fitting for Joinville to contradict that view, whatever his personal doubts.
On the eve of the fateful charge, Matthew Paris portrayed Robert taunting as a coward the more cautious Longespee who ultimately met martyrdom heroically. This echoes the story of how in 1187 Gerard de Ridefort, the late Templar Grand Master, had accused his subordinate Jacquelin de Mailly of cowardice, after Jacquelin protested at the order to charge at a vastly superior Muslim force at Cresson. Paris seemingly rewrote this story, placing Longespee in Jacquelin's role as the 'glorious champion' who vindicates his courage, finally falling atop a pile of slain Saracens, while the senseless leader who had initiated the engagement fled ignominiously. This tragic theme may have become something of a literary motif by Paris's time, introduced for purposes of didactic dramatization.


The Role of the Templars
Other parts of Joinville's memoir are generally favourable to the Templars. It is possible one of his ancestors has belonged to the order . There is no suggestion that he ever thought ill of the Templars in general, or anticipated their suppression, which was imminent (if not underway) as he wrote. Earlier in his writing, he had noted how the Order had successfully driven away a Saracen attack after Reynald de Vichiers, Marshal of the Order, had witnessed a brother knight being felled before him. Jean also wrote favourably of the bold Guillaume de Sonnac, who continued to lead the surviving Templars outside Mansourah even though he had lost an eye there. Guillaume lost his other eye and then his life during the unrelenting Muslim counter-attack on the crusaders' camp. (Joinville, after the retreat from Mansourah, had a confrontation with the treasurer of the Order when it came to extracting funds from them for the king's ransom, but was placated by de Vichiers, who was by then Grand Master and Joinville's friend).
Without actively condemning the Templars, however, Joinville was compelled to cast them as the reckless party when it came to the attack into Mansourah, in order to salvage the reputation of Count Robert. It is notable that Joinville's account has no mention of Robert's goading the Templars or the English into action, or of any cautionary advice that the count received from the Grand Master. Instead it is the Order's concern with battlefield protocol and placing of prestige above common sense that seems to precipitate the disaster.
Matthew Paris, on the whole, by contrast to Joinville, was apathetic towards the Military Orders, adopting a similar attitude to them as that previously shown by William of Tyre. Paris could be fairly hostile towards all ecclesiastical rivals to his monastic order, including the secular clergy and the Mendicant Orders. Some hostility towards the Templars might therefore be expected, an indeed Paris elsewhere in his chronicle accused them of sending falsely favourable reports from the East. He portrayed the Templars at Mansourah, however, as practically minded as well as courageous. The source of Paris's information on this occasion may have been close to the Templars, which would explain the unusually positive account of their actions and motives. Even so, Paris nowhere cast doubt on the information he had related, and was adamant that Count Robert's hubris was the root of the fiasco. Another noteworthy point is that when taunting the Templars, Matthew has the count dredging up the accusations made against them by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, with whom the Templars had feuded bitterly during the Sixth Crusade. This indicates that these slurs still had some currency, and application- if only as insults- and that they were likely to touch a raw nerve with the Templars.
Paris's is the only version of these events to mention the participation of the Knights Hospitaller as well as of the Templars in this particular engagement. He seems to have assumed that the two Orders shadowed each other and that where there were Templars there would also be Hospitallers. This may have been true much of the time, on account of the rivalry that was sometimes perceptible between them.

The role of William Longespee
William Longespee (or Longsword), the exiled Earl of Salisbury, is absent from Jean de Joinville's memoir. Though Longespee was a renowned crusader, his part in the battle (and in the Seventh Crusade in general) seems to have been expunged from the French version of events. This may be because Joinville's account was intended to eulogise King Louis as a French national hero as well as a Christian saint. Therefore Joinville had a motive for portraying the Crusade as an almost wholly French affair. Moreover he may have felt that no French audience would wish to hear about English participants. (At around the time Joinville was writing, Philip IV of France and Edward I of England were engaged in wars over Gascony and over control of Flanders- another reason for the memoirist to omit mention of English crusaders. Presuming that the account given in Matthew Paris is accurate in its general thrust, meanwhile, then the dishonourable treatment Longespee suffered at the hands of the French barons and the circumstances of his death may have been a cause of embarrassment to Joinville. This would be another reason for silence on the matter. (That said, elsewhere, Joinville, though a patriot, plainly expressed disapproval of the late Duke of Brittany, who had apparently sabotaged the Third Crusade, half a decade before, because he had not wanted the English-led army to have the glory of recovering Jerusalem. Perhaps, from Joinville's standpoint, it was safer to criticize those Frenchmen who had been in their graves some while longer.) At any rate, for whatever reason, Joinville neglected to mention William Longespee.
Matthew Paris was equally a patriot, and had as strong a motive for emphasizing Longespee's role as Joinville had for negating it. Paris's account, presents Longespee as the hero of the crusade, and also as a long-suffering victim of abuse from the jealous French barons. The sources thus have vale in indicating the rise of the nationalistic prejudices that were beginning to permeate a fragmenting Christendom, and the heightening tensions between societies. Paris's account also enveloped Longespee in an aura of saintliness similar to that with which Joinville surrounded the memory of King Louis. Paris later mentioned Longespee's mother the Countess Ela, abbess of Lacock, receiving a dream on the night before the battle, wherein she saw a knight in armour being received gloriously into heaven, surrounded by angels. She recognized the heraldry on his shield and was told by a voice that the knight was indeed William her son. Paris presented Longespee as a martyr- as much a victim of French arrogance and recklessness as of the Muslim enemy.

Were the Christians deliberately trapped?
The accounts of the battle given in these two narratives make it difficult to tell whether the Crusaders fell victim to a trap. A feigned withdraw followed by an ambush was indeed a classic Mameluk manoeuvre, as Baybars later demonstrated at Ayn Jalut, defeating the Mongols. Some accounts of the battle of Mansourah have the Egyptians deliberately luring the Christian knights into the town, in order to bottle them up where they could not manoeuvre and to attack them from the side streets- the Mameluks supported by thousands of volunteers. Joinville's account better supports this interpretation of events, whereas Paris's more complicated version is more ambiguous. If Robert had listened to the Templars and to Longespee, or had waited for the king and the others to support them, then the disaster would have been averted.
Paris has the Sultan expressing delight when told by his scouts that the Christian forces had divided, with one brother no-longer supporting the other. 'They are ours for booty and plunder'. This indicates that the Muslims opportunistically took advantage of the count's advance rather than having a predetermined strategy to lure him into the town. They were also taking advantage of the battle-weary condition of the first wave of Franks.

The Generalship of Louis
Louis's crusade had been well planned, at least in its early phases. However the decision to attack Egypt (instead of Palestine) was not without controversy, and that it was left until after the fall of Damietta to decide the next stage in the strategy, as Joinville indicated was the case, calls into question how well plans had been made, and how clear Louis was concerning the crusade's long term goals. Indeed Louis repeated the questionable policy of Pelagius on the Fifth Crusade. He declined the Sultan's overtures regarding the return of Jerusalem in exchange for Damietta and aspired to conquer the whole of Egypt. Neither of the sources in question mention the Sultan's offer of a negotiated settlement, both wishing, perhaps, to avoid the problematic implication that the infidel enemy might actually have a less belligerent outlook than those about the 'business of Christ' - or indeed that it might have been sinful for the Christians to have tried to gain by war what they could have obtained by peaceful means. However, like Pelagius before him, Louis was over ambitious, and paid the price with humiliation at Mansourah. Like Pelagius he wanted to colonise Damietta and would not exchange it even for Jerusalem. In the end he had to surrender the city for his liberty.
Only when Louis had heard what had happened did he rally his men to 'attack our enemies, who are stained with the blood of our brothers', as Paris reported. What seems clear, however, is that Louis had not been in control. Joinville's admired the sight of the king, in his golden helmet, fending off a Saracen attack . However though he never criticized Louis's leadership, he left the king open to the criticism that he has failed to keep his forces together, or to ensure that his brother adhered to the prearranged plan. Louis, though dedicated to his cause, was indecisive at times and hardly exhibited any great mastery of strategy. None of the sources have Robert feeling the need to inform his brother of his intentions.
Paris recorded how the Saracens transported boats overland to cut the crusaders' supply link to Damietta- a tactic Louis clearly failed to foresee or forestall. In a blazing battle, 'the enemies of Christ, through some obscure decision of God, triumphed at their pleasure over the Christians'. Joinville gave graphic depictions of the effects of attrition, hunger and disease on the crusaders, who subsequently abandoned their camp and retreated north- nearly all being killed or captured before they reached Damietta.

Attitude to the Muslims and to Crusading
In neither source are the Muslims presented as inherently wicked, though they are sometimes aggressive and effective fighters, sometimes disposed to dismember and mutilate the bodies of those they had slain . Later Paris put words in the sultan's moth which perhaps betray some sympathy with their position, or at least some doubt concerning the merits of crusading outside the Holy Land:

What rash insanity incites them to attack us, we who have inhabited this most noble country since the flood? Surely they do not want us to believe in their Christ against our will?… The Christians have some small pretext for wanting the land they call Holy; but what has Egypt got to do with them?

Louis having become a prisoner of the Muslims, Paris reported him giving a melancholy defence of his ideology, that the almighty knew that he had not come from France to gain land or wealth, but to win endangered souls to God.
Joinville was captured on the river. His account of his captivity is ambivalent; a Muslim commander saved his life, while sick and wounded prisoners were executed, and some knights were given a choice between apostasy and being beheaded. During this time the Mameluks seized power and executed the Sultan. Joinville was later freed along with Louis, eventually reaching the relative safety of Acre. There his sense of duty made him argue in favour of remaining in the Holy Land. Louis stayed for four years, fortifying towns but failing to implement any strategy to secure the vestigial Latin kingdom's long-term future. Instead, by destabilizing Egypt, the crusaders had helped bring to power the militant Mameluk regime that would be the kingdom's nemesis. Joinville did not reflect on this irony, and said little about why he became a crusader in the first place. Both he and Paris attributed Christian defeats to divine punishment. Evidently Joinville came to be disillusioned with the merits of crusading. He refused to join Louis's last crusade, that which floundered in Tunis.

Conclusion
L'Estoire de Eracles Empereur introduces the notion that the rash charge stemmed from 'the greed of the common soldier to sack the town'. This may be an attempt to deflect an aristocratic failure onto those lower down. From these sources it is difficult to be certain how the debacle began, or whether the count or the Templars were primarily responsible. The letter to Earl Richard stated that Robert and his people were not content with their initial victory- the count wantonly wished to advance further. Paris built on this, embellishing the heroism of Longespee and damning Robert. Yet it does seem that the count was greedy for glory, and that Joinville sought to disguise this, talking of a deaf attendant and misconstruing the nature of the Templars' appeals to Robert. At the later Templars' trials, Jacques de Molay mentioned Mansourah, which had evidently entered the Order's collective memory, reflecting that Count Robert had wanted Templars as his vanguard, and that if he had heeded the Master, they would not all have died.


Bibliography:


Primary Sources
Jacques de Molay, 'Second Deposition', trans. M. Barber & K. Bate, The Templars: Selected Sources Translated and Annotated (Manchester, 2002).
Jean de Joinville, 'Vie de Saint Louis', trans. M.R.B. Shaw, Joinville and Villehardoun, Chronicles of the Crusades (London 1963).
'L'Estoire d'Eacles Empereur', Recueil des Hostoriens des Croisades. Historiens Oxidentaux, vol. 2, (Paris, 1844-59) pp. 436-42.
Matthew Paris, 'Chronica Majora', trans. R. Vaughan, The Illustrated Chronicles of Matthew Paris: Observations of Thirteenth Century Life (Stroud, 1993).


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