# What The Crusaders Thought of Saladin

An episode of [Human History ASMR](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6793196842), 10 Oct 2026, 1 h 04 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/75561052/what_the_crusaders_thought_of_saladin_human_voiced_no_ads.mp3



## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The figure of Saladin Yusuf ibn Uyub, known to the
[0:06] Speaker 1: Latin West as Saladin, loomed large in Crusader history. As
[0:12] Speaker 1: the Kurdish sultan, who united Syria and Egypt, and recaptured
[0:17] Speaker 1: Jerusalem from the Christians in 1187, Saladin became at once
[0:23] Speaker 1: the scourge of Latin Christendom. But paradoxically, one of its
[0:28] Speaker 1: most respected followers, adversaries. Medieval European writers, churchmen, crusader knights,
[0:37] Speaker 1: and later historians, had hard time characterizing this formidable Muslim leader.
[0:44] Speaker 1: Was he a cruel enemy of Christ, an instrument of
[0:49] Speaker 1: God's punishment for Christian sins? Or was he a chivalrous
[0:53] Speaker 1: and gallant foe, worthy of a respectful admiration? The answer
[1:00] Speaker 1: varied over time and across sources, and that's what we're
[1:05] Speaker 1: going to be exploring today. Drawing on primary accounts from
[1:10] Speaker 1: the 12th and 13th century, with later medieval reflections noted
[1:14] Speaker 1: for context, we'll trace a thematic yet chronological path, from
[1:19] Speaker 1: only grudging respect in the 1170s, to the shock and
[1:25] Speaker 1: trauma of the Battle of Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem.
[1:30] Speaker 1: into the era of the Third Crusade, where Richard the
[1:35] Speaker 1: Lionheart's complex relationship with Saladin became something of legend, and onward,
[1:43] Speaker 1: thou subsequent generations of Crusader chronicles, and even medieval poets,
[1:48] Speaker 1: remembered this sultan. Throughout, we'll let the voices of the
[1:54] Speaker 1: contemporaries speak for themselves, revealing a nuanced tapestry of fear, respect,
[2:02] Speaker 1: but also hostility and admiration. Despite Saladin being the nemesis
[2:07] Speaker 1: of the Crusader states, some Latin writers could not deny
[2:11] Speaker 1: his military genius and other personal virtues. Others vilified him
[2:16] Speaker 1: as the incarnation of a heathen evil, a new Nebuchadnezzar,
[2:22] Speaker 1: a cruel enemy of God, sent to scourge the faithful.
[2:28] Speaker 1: Many reconciled these views, by casting Saladin as a scourge
[2:32] Speaker 1: allowed by God due to Christian failings, even as they
[2:36] Speaker 1: noted his honourable conduct. Well, by examining the chronicle entries,
[2:44] Speaker 1: battlefield anecdotes and diplomatic correspondence, I think by the end
[2:48] Speaker 1: of it we'll see how Saladin's military reputation, his reputed
[2:52] Speaker 1: chivalry and magnanimity, the religious prism through which the Crusaders
[2:57] Speaker 1: saw him, and the diplomatic interactions he had with the
[3:00] Speaker 1: Christian lords, all leave us with a very complex portrait.
[3:06] Speaker 1: In particular, the famous rivalry and mutual respect with King
[3:10] Speaker 1: Richard I during the Third Crusade. I think it reveals
[3:14] Speaker 1: both a fierce antagonism and genuine esteem. So, let's begin
[3:23] Speaker 1: with all that in mind. But let me welcome you
[3:27] Speaker 1: to the channel first. Hello to any newcomers. And hello
[3:32] Speaker 1: to anybody returning. Good to see you all. And I
[3:36] Speaker 1: hope you can tell me in the comments where you're
[3:38] Speaker 1: listening from. What time is it in your part of
[3:40] Speaker 1: the world? And thank you to those who are supporting
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[3:49] Speaker 1: Let us begin. Saladin He first entered the fray of
[3:57] Speaker 1: the Crusades as a young commander under his uncle, Chirco,
[4:03] Speaker 1: and then as a vizier of Egypt in the 1170s.
[4:07] Speaker 1: The Kingdom of Jerusalem's chronicler, William of Tyre, writing in
[4:11] Speaker 1: the late 12th century, provides one of the earliest Latin
[4:15] Speaker 1: assessments of Saladin. William was aware of Saladin's rise in
[4:20] Speaker 1: Egypt and Syria, and when he died in 1186— Before
[4:25] Speaker 1: Saladin's capture of Jerusalem, his chronicle notes Saladin's character in
[4:31] Speaker 1: striking terms. William describes Saladin when he succeeded Shurko in
[4:36] Speaker 1: Egypt in 1169 as, quote, a man of keen intelligence,
[4:42] Speaker 1: vigorous in war, unusually generous. And he illustrates this generosity
[4:49] Speaker 1: with an anecdote. After Saladin overthrew the Fatimid Caliph in 1171,
[4:56] Speaker 1: he seized the treasury of Cairo, but he gave everything
[5:00] Speaker 1: away to his soldiers, emptying the coffers within days. Phrase
[5:07] Speaker 1: like this is notable coming from a Christian prelate. It
[5:12] Speaker 1: suggests that even earlier on, observers in Outremer recognized Saladin's
[5:17] Speaker 1: military vigor and largesse, qualities admired, by that knightly ethos.
[5:25] Speaker 1: But William's tone is pretty measured, acknowledging Saladin's strengths without
[5:30] Speaker 1: overt disdain and implicit respect for a rising adversary. At
[5:38] Speaker 1: the same time, William sounded the alarm about the growing
[5:41] Speaker 1: power of Saladin's empire. He noted that the union of
[5:46] Speaker 1: Egypt and Syria under Saladin posed, I quote, an obvious
[5:52] Speaker 1: immediate peril to the Latin states of the East. Thus,
[5:59] Speaker 1: even before 1187, Saladin was respected as a formidable foe,
[6:05] Speaker 1: vigorous in war, and feared as the architect of a new,
[6:10] Speaker 1: united Muslim front, threatening the Crusader kingdom. Throughout the 1170s
[6:19] Speaker 1: and 80s, Saladin and the Crusaders had intermittent clashes. Latin
[6:25] Speaker 1: chroniclers of this period often frame Saladin as the principal
[6:28] Speaker 1: antagonist of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, yet sometimes with grudging
[6:33] Speaker 1: admiration for his leadership. For instance, William of Tyre records
[6:38] Speaker 1: how Saladin and King Baldwin IV, the Leper King, negotiated
[6:43] Speaker 1: truces in the early 1180s to halt continuous war. Despite
[6:49] Speaker 1: being an Infidel enemy. Saladin is portrayed as a ruler
[6:54] Speaker 1: who could be reasoned with. A rational actor in diplomacy.
[6:58] Speaker 1: A treaty in 1180 guaranteed free commerce between Frankish and
[7:03] Speaker 1: Muslim lands. Through raiders like Reynald de Châtillon, one of
[7:08] Speaker 1: the more reckless crusader lords, he notoriously breached it. William
[7:16] Speaker 1: chastises these Latin sons of Belial. who provoked Saladin by
[7:22] Speaker 1: attacking Muslim caravans during truces. And this acknowledgement is significant.
[7:29] Speaker 1: It shows a Crusader chronicler implicitly recognizing Saladin's sense of justice.
[7:36] Speaker 1: Saladin lodged formal complaints over the treaty breaches, and only
[7:40] Speaker 1: went to war when the Franks failed to rein in
[7:42] Speaker 1: their rogue lord. In other words, Saladin doesn't really appear
[7:48] Speaker 1: as a mere bloodthirsty invader, but as a ruler responding
[7:53] Speaker 1: in firm fashion to transgressions. William's account even suggests that
[8:00] Speaker 1: had the Latins had been more united and law-abiding, Saladin's
[8:05] Speaker 1: advance might have been checked. Instead, their internal discord and
[8:10] Speaker 1: greed gave Saladin plenty of openings to exploit. And by 1185,
[8:19] Speaker 1: after years of skirmishes, a fragile truce prevailed. But when
[8:24] Speaker 1: King Baldwin IV died and factionalism paralyzed the Crusader court,
[8:30] Speaker 1: Saladin watched for an opportunity. Latin writers sensed the storm
[8:36] Speaker 1: on the horizon. Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem and others sent
[8:41] Speaker 1: letters to Europe, pleading, begging for aid. portraying Saladin in
[8:48] Speaker 1: apocalyptic terms, trying to provoke a response. One contemporary letter
[8:54] Speaker 1: called him, quote, Saladin himself the cruel enemy of Christ,
[9:00] Speaker 1: gathering forces to besiege Jerusalem. Language like this certainly lays
[9:06] Speaker 1: bare the religious dimension of how crusaders viewed Saladin, not
[9:11] Speaker 1: just as a political foe, but as the enemy of
[9:14] Speaker 1: the Christian faith incarnate, a scourge permitted by God, to
[9:20] Speaker 1: test the faithful. The papal bull, Auditor Tremendi, of 1187,
[9:28] Speaker 1: issued after Jerusalem's fall, likewise painted the calamity, as a
[9:32] Speaker 1: judgment on Christian sin, with Saladin as the, quote, savage barbarian,
[9:39] Speaker 1: executing God's punishment. Though, The bill did not name him directly.
[9:44] Speaker 1: It was pretty obvious who they were referring to, though. Thus,
[9:50] Speaker 1: on the eve of Hattin and Jerusalem's loss, the prevalent
[9:55] Speaker 1: Crusader view oscillated between fearsome respect for Saladin's power and
[10:01] Speaker 1: a theological framing of him as this enemy of God.
[10:06] Speaker 1: This set the stage for the cataclysm to come, which
[10:09] Speaker 1: would sear the name of Saladin into the Crusader memory.
[10:17] Speaker 1: In July 1187 Disaster struck the Crusader kingdom at the
[10:23] Speaker 1: horns of Hattin. Saladin's army practically annihilated the flower of
[10:29] Speaker 1: Frankish knighthood, capturing King Guy of Lusignan and many nobles.
[10:35] Speaker 1: Soon after, Jerusalem itself was taken. These events generated numerous
[10:42] Speaker 1: Crusader accounts that both demonize and paradoxically praise Saladin. The
[10:47] Speaker 1: old French continuation of William of Tyre also known as
[10:51] Speaker 1: the Chronicle of Ernor, written in the early 13th century
[10:54] Speaker 1: by a participant squire, provides a vivid narrative of Hattin
[10:58] Speaker 1: and its aftermath from the Christian perspective. The chronicler attributes
[11:03] Speaker 1: the defeat partly to divine wrath for the sins of
[11:06] Speaker 1: the Christians, explicitly stating that after the tactical missteps, quote,
[11:12] Speaker 1: the anger of God was so great against the Christian
[11:15] Speaker 1: host because of their sins that that Saladin vanquished them quickly.
[11:23] Speaker 1: Of course, this reflects a pretty common trope. Saladin is
[11:27] Speaker 1: the instrument of God, triumphant, not purely by his own merit,
[11:32] Speaker 1: but because of the Crusader's moral failures, disunity, breaking truces, arrogance,
[11:38] Speaker 1: this kind of thing. All of this came together to
[11:42] Speaker 1: incur God's punishment. Thus, God sent Saladin to get them
[11:49] Speaker 1: But even so, the detailed description of Saladin's strategy at
[11:53] Speaker 1: Hattin shows braggarting admiration for his generalship. The chronicler describes
[12:00] Speaker 1: how Saladin ordered his men to collect brushwood, dry grass,
[12:05] Speaker 1: and early the next morning he ordered the fires to
[12:08] Speaker 1: be lit, using smoke and thirst to break the crusaders' resistance.
[12:13] Speaker 1: It notes how he denied water to the Frankish host,
[12:17] Speaker 1: and even dumped water in front of them to worsen
[12:20] Speaker 1: their anguish. Cruel, but effective psychological tactic. Such details show
[12:27] Speaker 1: how Saladin's shrewdness and tactical ingenuity on the battlefield, as
[12:32] Speaker 1: acknowledged by his foes. The aftermath of At-Din produced one
[12:38] Speaker 1: of the most iconic anecdotes in Crusader Chronicles. Saladin's handling
[12:43] Speaker 1: of the captured lords, especially King Ghi and Reynald de Chatillon,
[12:50] Speaker 1: The old French continuation relates that Saladin invited the thirsty
[12:55] Speaker 1: King Guy to drink from a golden cup, an act
[12:58] Speaker 1: signifying mercy, since in Muslim custom to give a captive
[13:03] Speaker 1: drink was to assure his life. But when Guy handed
[13:07] Speaker 1: the cup to Raynaud, Saladin did not like it. He
[13:12] Speaker 1: became enraged, perhaps because he had not personally extended this
[13:16] Speaker 1: mercy to Raynaud. In fact, Raynaud de Chatillon was infamous
[13:21] Speaker 1: for his atrocities. He had harassed Muslim caravans, and even
[13:27] Speaker 1: attempted to raid Islam's holy cities. Saladin had sworn to
[13:33] Speaker 1: kill him. The Chronicle dramatically records Saladin's word and deed.
[13:40] Speaker 1: He confronted Reynald, calling him a pig, and asked what
[13:45] Speaker 1: Reynald would do if their roles were reversed. Reynald's defiant answer,
[13:50] Speaker 1: that he would kill Saladin, prompted Saladin to draw his
[13:54] Speaker 1: sword and execute Reynald on the spot. The scene is
[13:59] Speaker 1: related with a kind of horrific awe. Saladin comes across
[14:05] Speaker 1: as both chivalrous and sternly just. He honoured King Guy
[14:09] Speaker 1: as a fellow monarch, but meted out deadly justice to Reynald,
[14:14] Speaker 1: whom even Christian writers admit had broken truces and behaved dishonourably.
[14:20] Speaker 1: The continuation doesn't shy away from depicting Saladin's harshness, beheading
[14:25] Speaker 1: a prominent captive. Yet it implies that this was retribution
[14:30] Speaker 1: Reynald brought upon himself. They seem to be almost kind
[14:35] Speaker 1: of embarrassed that Reynald de Chatillon was on their side. Well,
[14:41] Speaker 1: in fact, in the earlier account, when Saladin offers Reynald
[14:44] Speaker 1: a final chance to repent, Reynald's insolence seals his fate.
[14:50] Speaker 1: Apparently he'd said, so help me God, I would cut
[14:54] Speaker 1: off your head. It's not a good way to get
[14:58] Speaker 1: Saladin to change his mind. So to the Crusader readers,
[15:04] Speaker 1: Saladin's action, though brutal, could be seen as that of
[15:07] Speaker 1: a righteous avenger punishing a villain that even the Franks
[15:11] Speaker 1: had mixed feelings about. Soon after Hattin, Saladin swept through
[15:21] Speaker 1: the kingdom, reclaiming as many cities as he could. His
[15:26] Speaker 1: siege of Jerusalem in September of 1187 forced the Holy
[15:29] Speaker 1: City's largely civilian defenders into desperate negotiations. Crusader chroniclers here
[15:38] Speaker 1: highlight that Saladin's reputation was one of mercy and chivalry,
[15:43] Speaker 1: especially in contrast to the bloody capture of Jerusalem in
[15:46] Speaker 1: the First Crusade of 1099. about a hundred years before.
[15:52] Speaker 1: The French continuation and Latin eyewitness letters recount how Balian
[15:57] Speaker 1: of Iberlin led Jerusalem's defences, but ultimately bargained for surrender.
[16:04] Speaker 1: Initially Saladin offered generous terms. He promised that if the
[16:08] Speaker 1: city capitulated peacefully, he would spare the people and allow
[16:13] Speaker 1: them to leave with their possessions. He, quote, did not
[16:17] Speaker 1: want to risk damage to the holy places in an assault.
[16:22] Speaker 1: The chronicler notes that the Jerusalemites refused these terms out
[16:26] Speaker 1: of a kind of misguided zeal, declaring that they would
[16:31] Speaker 1: never surrender the city. Only after Salatin breached the wall
[16:37] Speaker 1: on the 29th of September, and the situation became hopeless,
[16:42] Speaker 1: did negotiations resume. The accounts describe a dramatic parley. Saladin,
[16:48] Speaker 1: initially intent on taking the city by storm and sparing
[16:52] Speaker 1: no one, angered that his earlier mercy was spurned, is
[16:56] Speaker 1: met by Balian under a flag of truce. Balian warns
[17:00] Speaker 1: that if no mercy is given, the cornered Franks would
[17:03] Speaker 1: inflict a final slaughter, killing their own families, destroying the
[17:08] Speaker 1: Muslim holy sites including the Dome of the Rock, and
[17:12] Speaker 1: dying the last man in a futile battle. This dire
[17:18] Speaker 1: threat of a citywide destruction pact and desecration forced the
[17:24] Speaker 1: hand of Saladin. According to Ernal's chronicle, Saladin capitulated in
[17:31] Speaker 1: the face of this blackmail and agreed to spare the populace.
[17:36] Speaker 1: But he did demand ransom payments, ten dinars per man,
[17:40] Speaker 1: five per woman, two per child. The rupee it would
[17:44] Speaker 1: be free. Those who couldn't would be enslaved. Here is
[17:51] Speaker 1: where the Crusader sources emphasize Saladin's pragmatism, tempered with a
[17:56] Speaker 1: little bit of compassion, at least compassion for the twelfth century.
[18:02] Speaker 1: Bellingham protested the most in the city were poor refugees
[18:05] Speaker 1: who could never afford such sums. Moved by these pleas,
[18:09] Speaker 1: and after much haggling, Saladin compromised. he accepted a lump
[18:15] Speaker 1: sum of 30,000 Byzants to free thousands of the poor.
[18:20] Speaker 1: Even after this, when 15,000 Christians still remained destitute and
[18:24] Speaker 1: slated for slavery at the expiration of the ransom period,
[18:29] Speaker 1: Saladin showed further clemency. He gifted 1,000 of them to
[18:33] Speaker 1: his brother Al-Adil and 500 to Balian and the Patriarch,
[18:38] Speaker 1: effectively freeing those 2,000 out of charity. Medieval Christian writers
[18:44] Speaker 1: took careful note of these acts. The image of Saladin
[18:48] Speaker 1: graciously allowing women and children and the poor to depart
[18:51] Speaker 1: Jerusalem unharmed stood in a stark contrast to the massacre
[18:55] Speaker 1: that followed the conquest in 1099 by the other side. Frankly,
[19:02] Speaker 1: it astonished and impressed contemporaries. The 12th century English historian
[19:08] Speaker 1: William of Newburgh writing a few years later in far-off England,
[19:13] Speaker 1: remarked with a tinge of shame, perhaps, that the Muslims'
[19:17] Speaker 1: mercy at Jerusalem in 1187 outshone the Christians' deeds there before.
[19:23] Speaker 1: In Crusadian narrative, Saladin at Jerusalem emerges as both a
[19:28] Speaker 1: feared conqueror and a merciful liberator. He fulfilled his vow
[19:34] Speaker 1: to reclaim Islam's holy city, yet largely spared the inhabitants' lives,
[19:40] Speaker 1: thus winning a reputation for chivalrous restraint, even among his enemies.
[19:47] Speaker 1: But hold your horses. Not all accounts were glowing. Some
[19:53] Speaker 1: Latin commentators still stressed Saladin's cruelty in victory. An anonymous
[20:00] Speaker 1: Christian tract, titled On the Conquest of the Holy Land
[20:03] Speaker 1: by Saladin, written in the 1180s, lamented the plight of
[20:08] Speaker 1: the enslaved and exiled, casting Saladin as a cruel tyrant,
[20:12] Speaker 1: despite the negotiated surrender. Likewise, a Latin chronicle of the
[20:18] Speaker 1: Third Crusade compiled in the 1190s, often simply called the Itinerarium,
[20:24] Speaker 1: describes Saladin's conquest of 1187 in a hostile tone. Its
[20:30] Speaker 1: prologue refers to Saladin as, quote, the enemy of Christendom,
[20:35] Speaker 1: and it launches into a moral critique of his rise. Interestingly,
[20:40] Speaker 1: the itinerarium author digs up sordid rumours to tarnish Saladin's character,
[20:46] Speaker 1: accusing him of moral degeneracy in his youth, licensing prostitution
[20:51] Speaker 1: in Damascus to fund his ambitions, and of treacherous opportunism, i.e.
[20:58] Speaker 1: marrying Nur al-Din's widow and disinheriting Nur al-Din's young son
[21:02] Speaker 1: to seize power. Not such allegations, whether they be true
[21:06] Speaker 1: or not, Show the propagandistic effort by Latin writers to
[21:10] Speaker 1: present Saladin as morally illegitimate, a way to reconcile how
[21:15] Speaker 1: a wicked man could triumph over the people of God.
[21:20] Speaker 1: The itinerarium even compares Saladin to infamous tyrants. One passage
[21:27] Speaker 1: likens his cruelty to that of Nero and the wickedness
[21:30] Speaker 1: of King Herod. Clearly, in the immediate wake of Jerusalem's loss,
[21:36] Speaker 1: many crusaders vilified Saladin to stoke outrage and piety among
[21:40] Speaker 1: the European audience. He was the new Babylonian, the infidel sultan,
[21:47] Speaker 1: who trampled the Holy Cross, the true cross relic captured
[21:52] Speaker 1: at Hattin. Yet even this same source concedes a theological point.
[21:58] Speaker 1: Saladin could not have exceeded, except that although Saladin is
[22:03] Speaker 1: God's tool to punish sin, The real cause of Christian
[22:08] Speaker 1: defeat was internal discord and their own sinfulness. Thus, within
[22:14] Speaker 1: a single chronicle, we find a dual image, Saladin as
[22:18] Speaker 1: a scourge of God and a bone-chilling villain, but his
[22:23] Speaker 1: success ultimately attributed to the Christians themselves, rather than his
[22:27] Speaker 1: inherent superiority. This nuanced blame reflects the Crusaders' struggle to
[22:32] Speaker 1: explain their defeat, while still maintaining faith in divine favour.
[22:39] Speaker 1: So to some it all up, the period of 1187-89
[22:44] Speaker 1: solidified Saladin's image in the Crusader mind. He was the
[22:48] Speaker 1: mighty conqueror who shattered their realm, an object of both
[22:52] Speaker 1: hatred and reluctant esteem. Chronicles from the Levant, like Ernor's,
[22:58] Speaker 1: remember him as a just and even merciful person at Jerusalem.
[23:02] Speaker 1: while polemical writings circulating in Europe painted him in darker tones. Still,
[23:08] Speaker 1: across these accounts, common threads emerge. Saladin is brave, sagacious,
[23:16] Speaker 1: and pious in his own faith, and his victories are
[23:19] Speaker 1: seen as a humbling lesson for Christendom. His ambivalent reputation
[23:24] Speaker 1: only grew during the Third Crusade, when Western princes personally
[23:28] Speaker 1: encountered the legendary Sultan on the battlefield, and in diplomacy.
[23:36] Speaker 1: Of course, the Third Crusade bought King Richard I of England,
[23:42] Speaker 1: that being King Richard the Lionheart, face to face, albeit
[23:46] Speaker 1: never sword to sword in combat with Saladin, spawning stories
[23:51] Speaker 1: of mutual respect that really became the stuff of legend.
[23:55] Speaker 1: Contemporary Crusader chronicles devote extensive pages to the duel of
[23:59] Speaker 1: wits and arms between the two famed leaders. and through
[24:03] Speaker 1: their eyes perhaps we see the most nuanced view of Saladin,
[24:09] Speaker 1: that of a worthy adversary. A significant corpus of primary
[24:13] Speaker 1: evidence comes from the Third Crusade, the Latin itinerarium Peregrinorum,
[24:19] Speaker 1: the Old French verse, Chronicle of Ambroise, who accompanied Richard,
[24:25] Speaker 1: and the Chronicles of Roger of Howden in England, letters
[24:29] Speaker 1: written during the campaign. These sources consistently depict a relationship
[24:35] Speaker 1: between Richard and Saladin, marked by fierce hostility and a
[24:39] Speaker 1: curious personal admiration. From the outset, Latin authors emphasise that
[24:46] Speaker 1: unlike previous crusades, this campaign pit the Christians against an, quote,
[24:52] Speaker 1: excellent military leader and even better diplomat, Saladin. The implication's
[25:00] Speaker 1: pretty clear. The Franks knew they were up against no
[25:03] Speaker 1: ordinary foe, but one whose tactical skill and statesmanship demanded respect.
[25:09] Speaker 1: When Richard arrived in the Holy Land in 1191, he
[25:13] Speaker 1: found that Saladin's reputation preceded him. The Sultan's very name
[25:17] Speaker 1: galvanized the Crusaders' zeal, even as it commanded their caution.
[25:23] Speaker 1: The Chronicles of the Siege of Acre, 1189-1191, and subsequent battles,
[25:30] Speaker 1: highlighted Saladin's prowess and the difficulty the Crusaders faced facing him.
[25:37] Speaker 1: During the long siege of Acre, Saladin's forces encircled the besiegers,
[25:42] Speaker 1: effectively turning the siege into a two-front struggle. An anonymous
[25:48] Speaker 1: Christian eyewitness notes how Saladin's banners and brightly coloured tents
[25:53] Speaker 1: dotted the hills around Acre, a constant reminder of his
[25:57] Speaker 1: innumerable army. that harassed the Crusaders day and night. Richard's
[26:05] Speaker 1: arrival turned the tide at Acre, but even after the
[26:09] Speaker 1: city fell, Saladin remained a formidable opponent in the field.
[26:15] Speaker 1: In the campaign of 1191, Richard led the Crusader armies
[26:19] Speaker 1: south along the coast. Saladin shadowed them inland, waiting for
[26:25] Speaker 1: Richard to make some kind of mistake. This reflects the
[26:29] Speaker 1: actual strategy recorded by contemporaries. Saladin repeatedly tried to provoke
[26:35] Speaker 1: or exploit any weakness in the Crusader march, knowing a
[26:39] Speaker 1: rash move could give him victory. The climactic battle of Arsuf,
[26:46] Speaker 1: September 1191, demonstrates how Latin writers credited Saladin with tactical skill.
[26:54] Speaker 1: They describe him following constantly through the hills, and choosing
[26:59] Speaker 1: the battlefield, forcing Richard into a pitched encounter. The battle
[27:05] Speaker 1: narratives often praised the generalship of Richard, but implicitly they
[27:09] Speaker 1: praised Saladin too, for it required all of Richard's skill
[27:14] Speaker 1: to win a hard-fought victory at Arsuf against the forces
[27:17] Speaker 1: of Saladin. Notably, at Arsuf, despite defeat, Saladin preserved most
[27:24] Speaker 1: of his army and continued to resist. The Crusader Chronicles
[27:29] Speaker 1: acknowledge that Saladin's resistance frustrated Richard's hopes of a quick
[27:34] Speaker 1: march upon Jerusalem. And so, as the campaign wore on,
[27:41] Speaker 1: the mutual respect between the adversaries became a dominant theme
[27:44] Speaker 1: in the Christian accounts. One famous episode, recorded by the
[27:48] Speaker 1: chronicler Ambroise, and repeated in later tales, involves Saladin's chivalrous
[27:54] Speaker 1: gestures towards Richard, during an encounter possibly at Arsuf or Jaffa,
[28:01] Speaker 1: Richard's horse was killed beneath him in battle, and Saladin,
[28:05] Speaker 1: seeing the English king on foot and vulnerable, swiftly sent
[28:09] Speaker 1: him two replacement horses, so that the fight could continue
[28:13] Speaker 1: on equal terms. Pretty remarkable, isn't it? Of course, this
[28:20] Speaker 1: act astonished both sides, and was taken as proof of
[28:23] Speaker 1: Saladin's chivalry. But don't worry, some modern historians want to
[28:29] Speaker 1: ruin the fun and question whether it literally happened or
[28:33] Speaker 1: was later romanticised. But either way, contemporary crusaders certainly believed it.
[28:40] Speaker 1: The story circulated widely enough to be recorded in multiple sources. Similarly,
[28:46] Speaker 1: when Richard fell seriously ill with fever in the winter
[28:49] Speaker 1: of 1191-92, Saladin is said to have sent him fresh
[28:51] Speaker 1: fruits and pears and snow-cooled sherbets to aid in his recovery.
[29:01] Speaker 1: These instances were cited in chronicles, even as evidence that
[29:05] Speaker 1: Saladin and Richard, for all their enmity, esteemed each other
[29:09] Speaker 1: as noble warriors. Saladin won the reputation for being exceptionally chivalrous.
[29:16] Speaker 1: He and Richard I each became each other's favourite opponent.
[29:22] Speaker 1: The very fact that such gestures were reported by Christian
[29:24] Speaker 1: writers shows how eagerly they latched onto narratives of honour.
[29:30] Speaker 1: It allowed them to cast the war not merely as
[29:32] Speaker 1: a clash of barbarians and civilization, but almost a contest
[29:37] Speaker 1: between two peer champions, who both shared a warrior code.
[29:44] Speaker 1: The Third Crusade, however, was not all battle. It was
[29:47] Speaker 1: punctuated by negotiation, truces, and proposals, which Crusader sources detail
[29:54] Speaker 1: with great interest. Perhaps the most extraordinary diplomatic episode was
[29:59] Speaker 1: the proposal to unite Richard's family with Saladin's, an event
[30:04] Speaker 1: so startling that some chronicles even omitted it, but it
[30:08] Speaker 1: is confirmed by reliable near-contemporary accounts. In late 1191, Richard
[30:16] Speaker 1: suggested a marriage alliance. His widowed sister, Joan, the Queen
[30:21] Speaker 1: of Sicily, would marry Saladin's brother, Al-Adil, with Jerusalem to
[30:27] Speaker 1: be their joint kingdom. The old French continuation of Tyre
[30:32] Speaker 1: is the lone Frankish source to mention this, and even
[30:36] Speaker 1: there it's hinted that perhaps Saladin himself initiates the idea,
[30:40] Speaker 1: which is frankly doubtful. Eastern writers, like Baha al-Din, make
[30:47] Speaker 1: clear that it was Richard's gambit. The very seriousness with
[30:52] Speaker 1: which this most implausible scheme was treated speaks volumes about
[30:57] Speaker 1: the respect between the leaders. Saladin was willing to consider
[31:02] Speaker 1: peace through kinship with his foe, and Richards trusted Saladin's honour,
[31:07] Speaker 1: enough to entertain handing Jerusalem to Saladin's own family by marriage. Ultimately,
[31:15] Speaker 1: the plan fell apart. Apparently, Richards' sister refused to marry
[31:21] Speaker 1: a Muslim, unless he converted, and political opposition on both
[31:26] Speaker 1: sides was just— it was too strong. It was never going
[31:30] Speaker 1: to work. But Crusader Chronicles, who do discuss it, convey
[31:37] Speaker 1: a sense of the almost camaraderie that had developed. Richard
[31:41] Speaker 1: and Aladiel met in person repeatedly, developed a rapport and
[31:46] Speaker 1: traded gifts. They even shared a few meals together. Through
[31:52] Speaker 1: Aladiel acting as an intermediary, Richard and Saladin exchanged proposals
[31:57] Speaker 1: and courtesies. This did not mean an end to war.
[32:02] Speaker 1: Far from it. But it created a foundation of mutual
[32:05] Speaker 1: respect that undergirded later treaty talks. Even the negotiation process
[32:12] Speaker 1: impressed the Latins. I mean, they saw Saladin unlike some
[32:15] Speaker 1: fanatical caricature. He could engage in pragmatic and even cordial
[32:19] Speaker 1: diplomacy when it suited his goals, I suppose. Yet for
[32:25] Speaker 1: all the chivalry, don't forget, The war was bitter. Crusader
[32:30] Speaker 1: accounts do not shy away from criticising Saladin when he
[32:35] Speaker 1: and Richard clashed fiercely. A notorious incident was the massacre
[32:40] Speaker 1: of Muslim prisoners at Acre in August of 1191. After
[32:46] Speaker 1: that city's capitulation, thousands of Muslim garrison troops became prisoner.
[32:53] Speaker 1: Richard agreed to release them for a ransom and exchange
[32:56] Speaker 1: for Frankish captives. but negotiations dragged as Saladin stalled on
[33:02] Speaker 1: some terms. Impatient and growing suspicious, Richard finally lost faith
[33:10] Speaker 1: that Saladin would fulfil the deal. So, in a grim decision,
[33:15] Speaker 1: Richard ordered 2,600 Muslim prisoners to be executed before Saladin's eyes.
[33:25] Speaker 1: The itinerarium peregrinorium includes Richard's own justification and a letter
[33:31] Speaker 1: to the Abbot of Clairvaux. He wrote, The time limit expired,
[33:38] Speaker 1: and as the pact with Saladin had agreed was entirely
[33:40] Speaker 1: made void, we quite properly had the Saracens put to death.
[33:47] Speaker 1: Crusader chronicles largely defend Richard's act as a harsh necessity,
[33:53] Speaker 1: laying blame on Saladin for delaying ransom payments. They report
[33:58] Speaker 1: that Saladin, outraged, retaliated by executing such Christian prisoners as
[34:04] Speaker 1: he still held. These bloodier episodes show that respect certainly
[34:09] Speaker 1: had limits. Nevisite hesitated to act ruthlessly when they felt
[34:14] Speaker 1: that it was strategically or perhaps honourably justified. However, importantly,
[34:22] Speaker 1: even this dark moment did not collapse the underlying esteem.
[34:26] Speaker 1: Richard Letters refers to Saladin in a matter-of-fact, almost courteous
[34:31] Speaker 1: terms amid the reproach. And Saladin's brother, Al-Adil, continued parties
[34:36] Speaker 1: with Richard shortly after. The episode did not tarnish Richard's
[34:41] Speaker 1: image among the Muslims. His reputation fell in the eyes
[34:45] Speaker 1: of Saladin himself, notes one account. Yet the war did
[34:52] Speaker 1: go on, undiminished on both sides. Through 1192, as Richard
[34:59] Speaker 1: and Saladin manoeuvred around Jerusalem, by the way, Richard never
[35:03] Speaker 1: managed to seize the Holy City, while Saladin could not
[35:07] Speaker 1: decisively defeat Richard in battle, the chroniclers increasingly focused on
[35:12] Speaker 1: the personal rivalry and the near-mythic quality that it assumed.
[35:18] Speaker 1: There is an oft-cited anecdote that at one point Richard, frustrated,
[35:23] Speaker 1: remarked that he would sooner turn Jerusalem over to Saladin
[35:26] Speaker 1: than any rival among the Franks. Now that is an
[35:31] Speaker 1: interesting way to put it. It's certainly a comment that
[35:35] Speaker 1: reflects his grudging regard for the Sultan's rights and honour,
[35:40] Speaker 1: as opposed to the infighting Latin claimants. Whether or not
[35:45] Speaker 1: Richard actually said this was recorded in later chronicles as
[35:50] Speaker 1: a testament to Saladin's integrity, even in the enemy's eyes. Ultimately,
[35:57] Speaker 1: The campaign ended, not with one vanquishing the other, but
[36:01] Speaker 1: with a peace treaty, the Treaty of Jaffa, September of 1192.
[36:07] Speaker 1: Richard and Saladin never met in person, but their emissaries,
[36:12] Speaker 1: chiefly al-Adil, negotiated a settlement respecting each other's dignity. The
[36:18] Speaker 1: treaty allowed the Crusader kingdom to survive in a coastal strip,
[36:22] Speaker 1: and guaranteed Christian pilgrims access to Jerusalem. while the city
[36:26] Speaker 1: itself remained under Saladin's control. Crusader chronicles note that Richard's
[36:33] Speaker 1: departure was met with mixed feelings, relief at the truce,
[36:37] Speaker 1: but also disappointment that Jerusalem was not won. However, many
[36:42] Speaker 1: writers pay tribute to Saladin's honour in upholding the truce.
[36:47] Speaker 1: The itinerarium Peregrinorum's account of the peace talk emphasises Saladin's
[36:52] Speaker 1: reasonable nature. It describes how Richard, weakened by illness and
[36:59] Speaker 1: pressing troubles in Europe, finally chose to seek a truce
[37:03] Speaker 1: and sent word via El Adil. Saladin, for his part,
[37:07] Speaker 1: was exhausted by years of war too, and had his
[37:10] Speaker 1: own difficulties holding this coalition together. He too sought an
[37:15] Speaker 1: honourable respite. The treaty is often summarised as a balanced outcome,
[37:21] Speaker 1: and indeed a Latin chronicler writes that when the accord
[37:24] Speaker 1: was struck Saladin agreed to confirm an inviolate peace between
[37:29] Speaker 1: Christians and Saracens, guaranteeing free passage to the Holy Sepulchre.
[37:36] Speaker 1: Even the usually hostile itinerarium but raised the conclusion without
[37:41] Speaker 1: really any bitterness. Saladin allowed the Christians to re-fortify Jaffa
[37:47] Speaker 1: and other cities as part of the truce, and Richard
[37:50] Speaker 1: ordered the strategic fort of Ascalon razed to satisfy Saladin's terms.
[37:57] Speaker 1: The respect was mutual. Each ceded something to the other.
[38:02] Speaker 1: When Richard fell gravely ill in September of 1192, Saladin
[38:07] Speaker 1: even sent his own physicians to tend to him. Final
[38:11] Speaker 1: gesture of goodwill between two weary champions. But perhaps the
[38:17] Speaker 1: most telling indicator of Richard's view of Saladin comes not
[38:20] Speaker 1: from the official chronicles, but from the tone of the
[38:24] Speaker 1: correspondence and narratives. Richard never disparages Saladin's personal honour in
[38:30] Speaker 1: the records, reserving his scorn for other Christian princes or
[38:34] Speaker 1: lesser emirs. Likewise, there's an oft-quoted line from Saladin's side. Bahauddin,
[38:42] Speaker 1: Saladin's biographer, reports that Saladin once said that no crusader
[38:48] Speaker 1: leader gave him as much trouble as Richard did, praising
[38:52] Speaker 1: the English king's courage and military skill. The compliments echoed
[38:57] Speaker 1: in the Christian memory. An English chronicler, upon relating Richard's exploits,
[39:03] Speaker 1: tactfully acknowledges that only a leader of Saladin's caliber could
[39:08] Speaker 1: withstand him. By the end of the Third Crusade, the
[39:13] Speaker 1: Crusader view of Saladin had evolved from a purely dreaded
[39:17] Speaker 1: infidel to a flesh-and-blood monarch. One who could be wise, honourable,
[39:26] Speaker 1: and even likeable. albeit still an adversary to the faith.
[39:36] Speaker 1: Running through the narratives of battles and treaties are deliberate
[39:41] Speaker 1: appraisals of Saladin's character traits. Medieval writers were keen to
[39:46] Speaker 1: judge not just what the enemy did, but Who he was.
[39:51] Speaker 1: Several recurrent themes emerge in crusader portrayals of Saladin's character.
[39:56] Speaker 1: Military bravery, chivalry, mercy, generosity, cunning and devoutness. Or lack
[40:03] Speaker 1: thereof from a Christian standpoint. These qualities were sometimes paradoxical
[40:08] Speaker 1: in the Christian depiction. He could be praised for one
[40:11] Speaker 1: virtue in one account and condemned for another vice elsewhere.
[40:15] Speaker 1: One prominent theme. was Saladin's chivalry and generosity, which became
[40:21] Speaker 1: almost legendary in itself. The biography of Richard I by Ambroise,
[40:27] Speaker 1: for example, lords Saladin's noble treatment of opponents. He recounts
[40:33] Speaker 1: how after the Battle of Jaffa, 1192, when Richard staged
[40:37] Speaker 1: a daring defence of the city against a surprise attack,
[40:41] Speaker 1: Saladin was so impressed by Richard's feat of arms, that
[40:46] Speaker 1: he personally sent fresh mounts to the king, kind of
[40:49] Speaker 1: a variant of that horse-gift story, and forbade his troops
[40:54] Speaker 1: from attacking Richard's entourage during a temporary ceasefire. The Normans
[40:59] Speaker 1: and French in the Crusade, steeped in chivalric culture, were
[41:04] Speaker 1: fascinated by the idea of a Saracen king who actually
[41:08] Speaker 1: embodied knightly virtue. As one modern historian observes, to them,
[41:15] Speaker 1: Although he was a heathen, he embodied those knightly virtues
[41:20] Speaker 1: that their culture was so accustomed to. This helps explain
[41:25] Speaker 1: why tales of Saladin's courtesy spread rapidly. Even the common
[41:29] Speaker 1: crusader soldiers took heart in believing that their foe, for
[41:33] Speaker 1: all his might, was honourable and merciful, perhaps hoping for
[41:38] Speaker 1: better treatment if captured. It will respect, however, coexisted with
[41:44] Speaker 1: accusations of treachery and faithlessness. It was standard for each
[41:48] Speaker 1: side in a holy war to accuse the other of perfidy.
[41:52] Speaker 1: Some Crusader chronicles assert that Saladin could be fickle and
[41:57] Speaker 1: faithless when it suited him. They cite, for instance, that
[42:01] Speaker 1: Saladin broke truces when advantageous or he made promises that
[42:05] Speaker 1: he later rescinded. One Latin account accuses Saladin of violating
[42:12] Speaker 1: an oath made to Raymond III of Tripoli during a
[42:14] Speaker 1: brief alliance, though evidence for that is pretty scant. Another
[42:21] Speaker 1: point of contention was Saladin's favour to— failure, rather— to immediately honour
[42:27] Speaker 1: that prisoner exchange at Acre. The Franks saw this as
[42:32] Speaker 1: duplicity that avoided the pact. Thus— while praising his courtesy
[42:38] Speaker 1: in person. Crusaders could still paint him as a typical
[42:43] Speaker 1: infidel inconstancy on the grand scheme. Of course, we see
[42:49] Speaker 1: this duality in the itinerarium. After lambasting Saladin's moral character,
[42:55] Speaker 1: the author nonetheless includes episodes of Saladin behaving with godly honour.
[43:01] Speaker 1: The contradiction was perhaps not felt as sharply by medieval
[43:04] Speaker 1: writers as it is by modern readers. They were content
[43:09] Speaker 1: to heap all attributes, good or bad, on this monumental figure.
[43:16] Speaker 1: Religious perception also gathered depictions of Saladin. To the Crusaders,
[43:21] Speaker 1: Saladin's greatest flaw, of course, was that he was not
[43:25] Speaker 1: a Christian. Some clerical writers portrayed him as irreligious or
[43:30] Speaker 1: impious by their standards. For example, the itinerarium claimed that he, quote,
[43:36] Speaker 1: insulted Christianity and patronized frivolities like plays and theater, implying
[43:43] Speaker 1: a lack of proper piety. They stressed that he was
[43:48] Speaker 1: an infidel and thus irrespective of his earthly virtues, damned
[43:54] Speaker 1: without Christ. Yet intriguingly, other accounts acknowledge Saladin's sincere devotion
[44:01] Speaker 1: to Islam, and even compare it favourably to Christian piety.
[44:06] Speaker 1: The Chronicles mention how Saladin cleaned and reconstructed, reconsequented rather,
[44:12] Speaker 1: holy sites in Jerusalem, according to Islamic rites, after 88
[44:17] Speaker 1: years of Christian control, showing reverence for his faith. Matthew Parris,
[44:24] Speaker 1: an English monk writing in the 1240s, notes how Saladin,
[44:27] Speaker 1: upon capturing Jerusalem, quote, purified the temple area with rose water,
[44:34] Speaker 1: and dedicated it to Muslim worship, an act of piety
[44:38] Speaker 1: from the Saracen point of view. Some writers drew an
[44:42] Speaker 1: implicit parallel, just as Crusaders fought for their faith, so
[44:47] Speaker 1: did Saladin for his, a grudging respect for the religious
[44:51] Speaker 1: conviction of the Sultan. This is exemplified in the story,
[44:56] Speaker 1: found in later romance but rooted in medieval sentiment. that
[44:59] Speaker 1: when Saladin once heard Christian priests chant in Jerusalem, he
[45:03] Speaker 1: marked upon their devotion, indicating that he understood and respected
[45:08] Speaker 1: genuine faith, even if it was a different one to
[45:12] Speaker 1: his own. A particularly humanising aspect of Crusader depictions is
[45:19] Speaker 1: the inclusion of anecdotes of Saladin's mercy and kindness off
[45:22] Speaker 1: the battlefield. We've already talked about his mercy at Jerusalem
[45:28] Speaker 1: and the kindness to Richard But additionally, some sources mention
[45:33] Speaker 1: Saladin's fair treatment of ordinary people. The chronicler Ibn Jubayr,
[45:38] Speaker 1: a Muslim traveller, though not a crusader, wrote The Frankish
[45:43] Speaker 1: Prisoners spoke highly of Saladin's humane treatment. Interestingly, this tidbit
[45:50] Speaker 1: entered Western circulation via translated accounts, furthering his image as
[45:55] Speaker 1: a ruler. The Old French Continuation even records that after
[46:00] Speaker 1: Jerusalem's fall, quote, Saladin welcomed back the Greek and Syrian
[46:05] Speaker 1: Christians into the city and allowed Latin clerics to remain
[46:10] Speaker 1: temporarily since they paid ransom, showing a tolerance that must
[46:15] Speaker 1: have favorably been surprised by the Franks. Nonetheless, Christian writers
[46:22] Speaker 1: never forgot Saladin was their enemy. They often emphasize his
[46:26] Speaker 1: role in humiliating Christendom For example, the Erechies Continuation dramatically
[46:33] Speaker 1: recounts how Pope Urban III died of shock and grief
[46:38] Speaker 1: upon hearing of Jerusalem's loss to Saladin. Such passages cast
[46:43] Speaker 1: Saladin as an almost scourge-of-God type figure, whose very mention
[46:49] Speaker 1: shakes the world. Even years later, when recounting the history
[46:55] Speaker 1: of the Crusades, authors like Georges de Vitry early 13th century,
[47:00] Speaker 1: and Primat of Sant'Enis, late 13th century, invariably refer to
[47:05] Speaker 1: the great Salahuddin, with a mix of awe and loathing,
[47:09] Speaker 1: awe at his victories, and loathing that a non-Christian could
[47:14] Speaker 1: so triumph over the faithful. By the mid-13th century, his
[47:20] Speaker 1: legend had grown in the Latin West, beyond the bare
[47:23] Speaker 1: facts of history. Interestingly, later medieval literature, though not strictly
[47:30] Speaker 1: chronicle history, started to romanticize Saladin as an exemplar of
[47:36] Speaker 1: a noble pagan. This is somewhat outside of the Crusader
[47:42] Speaker 1: Chronicles proper, but worth noting to see how perceptions evolved.
[47:47] Speaker 1: The evolution can be traced back within historical writing. Matthew
[47:51] Speaker 1: Parris includes a drawing of the Battle of Hattin in
[47:53] Speaker 1: his Chronica Maiora, portraying the Crusaders falling before an ominous
[47:59] Speaker 1: black-clad Saladin. Yet, Matthew Paris also inserts moral lessons, suggesting
[48:05] Speaker 1: that Saladin, despite being an enemy, embodied virtues of leadership
[48:10] Speaker 1: that some Christian kings unfortunately were lacking. By portraying Saladin
[48:15] Speaker 1: in his manuscripts, Paris signalled that the Sultan had become
[48:19] Speaker 1: a fixture in the historical consciousness of Christendom. Saladin died
[48:28] Speaker 1: in 1193. But after that, his legend only grew. The
[48:34] Speaker 1: immediate Crusader generation had grappled directly with him, sure. Subsequent generations,
[48:40] Speaker 1: once the immediacy of loss faded, often took a more
[48:44] Speaker 1: idealized view of the Sultan. While strictly speaking, these later
[48:49] Speaker 1: sources are not contemporary with Saladin, sorry to tell you,
[48:53] Speaker 1: but they do reveal how the Crusader's view was remembered
[48:56] Speaker 1: and perhaps reshaped in the medieval memory. It's important to
[49:01] Speaker 1: note that these are retrospective, sometimes romanticized, but they crown
[49:07] Speaker 1: the Ark of Saladin's image in the medieval West. One
[49:12] Speaker 1: significant source is the so-called Templar of Tyre Chronicle around 1300,
[49:17] Speaker 1: the anonymous continuation of Crusade history, written by a resident
[49:23] Speaker 1: of the Crusader kingdom of Cyprus. It looks back on
[49:26] Speaker 1: Saladin's era with a mixture of nostalgia and admiration. It
[49:33] Speaker 1: recounts how Saladin's deeds, alongside those of the later Crusaders,
[49:38] Speaker 1: often highlighting his clemency and honour to contrast with the
[49:40] Speaker 1: treachery the writer saw in the Fourth Crusade, or the
[49:44] Speaker 1: failings of the later Christian crusaders. By the office time,
[49:49] Speaker 1: Saladin was almost a yardstick for the ideal Saracen, a
[49:54] Speaker 1: foe who was formidable, but honourable, not like the Mongols,
[50:00] Speaker 1: or other alien enemies that the Franks had encountered since.
[50:06] Speaker 1: In literature, Saladin's legend took on a life of its own.
[50:11] Speaker 1: The 13th century French romance Laudan de Chivalry depicts a
[50:16] Speaker 1: fanciful tale in which Saladin captures a crusader knight and,
[50:20] Speaker 1: impressed by his virtue, asks to be taught the ways
[50:23] Speaker 1: of Christian knighthood and chivalry. In the story, Saladin is
[50:27] Speaker 1: secretly knighted and shown as deeply honourable, albeit he does
[50:33] Speaker 1: remain a Muslim. They didn't push the story that far
[50:38] Speaker 1: Such tales, while fiction, were popular in Europe, and demonstrate
[50:42] Speaker 1: that Saladin had become somewhat domesticated in the Western imagination
[50:46] Speaker 1: as a model of virtue. Essentially a knight, wearing heathen's clothes.
[50:54] Speaker 1: It's a striking transformation. Within decades of his wars, Saladin
[50:59] Speaker 1: shifted from the devilish enemy of Christ to a noble pagan, who,
[51:04] Speaker 1: if not for his wrong faith, could almost be a
[51:07] Speaker 1: Christian hero. The most famous medieval tribute comes from the
[51:13] Speaker 1: Italian poet Dante Alighieri. In The Divine Comedy, a tour
[51:19] Speaker 1: of the afterlife, Dante places Saladin in limbo among the
[51:23] Speaker 1: virtuous non-Christians. In Inferno, Canto IV, Dante sees Saladin seated
[51:30] Speaker 1: alone Distinguished among figures like Hector, Aeneas, Caesar and the
[51:37] Speaker 1: great philosophers. All souls who, though not saved, are honoured
[51:43] Speaker 1: for their virtues. The placement's pretty extraordinary. Dante, a devout Catholic,
[51:51] Speaker 1: who was under no obligation to include a recent Muslim
[51:54] Speaker 1: sultan in the company of Aristotle and Socrates, still does.
[52:00] Speaker 1: Why would he do this? Well, slightly, because by Dante's time,
[52:06] Speaker 1: Dante's time, well, Divine Comedy was circa 1308, 1320, something
[52:11] Speaker 1: like that. Saladin symbolized wisdom, chivalry, and heathen virtue at
[52:18] Speaker 1: its highest. By the time Dante's writing, Saladin's pretty much
[52:22] Speaker 1: a mythic figure, known for treating captured crusaders generously, for
[52:28] Speaker 1: meeting Christian knights in honorable combat, and for sending gold
[52:32] Speaker 1: to support poor pilgrims. Dante's readers would have recognized Saladin's
[52:39] Speaker 1: name and understood the implication. He was the quintessential good pagan,
[52:45] Speaker 1: an enemy of the Church, but still a man of
[52:49] Speaker 1: such moral stature that he merited respect. In an analysis
[52:54] Speaker 1: of Dante's sources, scholars can note that Dante recognized Saladin's
[52:58] Speaker 1: actions as just, even though they were against the Christian world,
[53:04] Speaker 1: and thus accorded him a place of honour in the afterlife.
[53:08] Speaker 1: It's a far cry from the polemical Screeds in the 1180s.
[53:13] Speaker 1: It illustrates how the memory of Saladin underwent a rehabilitation
[53:17] Speaker 1: of sorts, by defying expectations, sparing the populace of Jerusalem,
[53:23] Speaker 1: respecting prisoners like King Guy, showing courtesy to opponents too.
[53:29] Speaker 1: He won a kind of posthumous admiration, even from his foes.
[53:34] Speaker 1: Of course, we have to say that not everybody in
[53:38] Speaker 1: the later Middle Ages viewed Saladin with such rosy eyes.
[53:44] Speaker 1: Church chronicles still condemned him as an infidel who took
[53:46] Speaker 1: the true cross. When the Crusade ideal was preached anew
[53:51] Speaker 1: in the fourteenth century, Saladin's victory was still cited as
[53:55] Speaker 1: a cautionary tale of Christian lapse. Often the blame was
[54:00] Speaker 1: cast more on the Christians of that time for their
[54:02] Speaker 1: sins than on Saladin's wickedness. The narrative had shifted, where
[54:08] Speaker 1: once authors piled incentive on Saladin's person. A century later
[54:13] Speaker 1: they tended to criticise Christian failings, and almost wistfully regard
[54:18] Speaker 1: Saladin as a warrior of a bygone golden age of
[54:20] Speaker 1: crusading valour. For example, the Burgundian chronicler Jehan de Wavrin,
[54:27] Speaker 1: 15th century, Compiling earlier sources called Saladin, quote, a wise prince,
[54:33] Speaker 1: valiant in arms, pointing out how even the Knights Templar
[54:38] Speaker 1: respected him in their writings. Such commentary, though late, grew
[54:44] Speaker 1: from earlier accounts and cemented the duality of Saladin's betrayal.
[54:49] Speaker 1: He was a great enemy, but also the model of
[54:52] Speaker 1: what medieval nobility could look like. Through the primary eyes
[54:58] Speaker 1: of the 12th and 13th century, we've seen him described
[55:01] Speaker 1: in many ways. An able general, a generous lord, devout infidel,
[55:07] Speaker 1: the merciful saviour of Jerusalem, the second Herod, the new Alexander,
[55:12] Speaker 1: the courteous knight. The chronology of the sources is the key.
[55:17] Speaker 1: The closer to the events, the more raw the anger
[55:21] Speaker 1: and grief. Hence calling him that enemy of Christ. or
[55:25] Speaker 1: chronically detailing every single moral fault they can find, but
[55:30] Speaker 1: even then respect shines through in battlefield reports and negotiations.
[55:35] Speaker 1: As time passes, the tone softens. Saladin, the man separated
[55:42] Speaker 1: from the trauma he caused. What remains in many later
[55:46] Speaker 1: medieval minds is the idea of Saladin, a courteous warrior-king,
[55:53] Speaker 1: rich at the Lionheart's crusaders. who actually fought Saladin, perhaps
[55:58] Speaker 1: encapsulated the best. They cursed him on the field, but
[56:03] Speaker 1: some at night in their camps could be heard singing
[56:06] Speaker 1: songs that oddly celebrated his valour as much as Richard's.
[56:10] Speaker 1: They knew better than anyone that to defeat a foe
[56:13] Speaker 1: like Saladin was an honour indeed, and to have been
[56:16] Speaker 1: defeated by him was a fate that one could accept
[56:20] Speaker 1: without shame. In the end, The Crusader's view on Saladin
[56:26] Speaker 1: was as complex as the error itself, forged in blood
[56:31] Speaker 1: and faith, tempered by personal contact and communication. It's a
[56:36] Speaker 1: testament to Saladin's impact that even his own sworn enemies
[56:41] Speaker 1: wrote of him not as like a caricature, but often
[56:44] Speaker 1: very three-dimensional. This nuanced legacy in Christian sources may owe
[56:50] Speaker 1: as much to Saladin's own character as the chivalric ideals
[56:53] Speaker 1: of the ancient, Saladin had, in effect, won a kind
[56:57] Speaker 1: of victory in narrative. He lived on in Crusader Chronicles,
[57:01] Speaker 1: not only as the conqueror of Jerusalem, but a symbol
[57:05] Speaker 1: of chivalry and magnanimity that transcended all religious boundary. Thank
[57:15] Speaker 1: you so much for listening. Did you enjoy it? It's surprising,
[57:21] Speaker 1: isn't it? Old Saladin, the heathen knight. It's very cool. Well,
[57:32] Speaker 1: I'm going to thank my top dear patrons, supporters, Dark, Kimberly, Christine, Sally, Amber, Susan, Cameron, Logitmus, Gary, Charlene, Lynn, Therese, Katiana, Nicholas, Ulf, Ednear, Alexander, Charles, Christine, Dr. NeuroNerd, Aaron, Jaden, Jim, Jeffrey, Jessica, Madeline, Melissa,
[57:51] Speaker 1: Orthodox Review, Scott, Stark Factory, Shell, Wendy, Josie, Sarah, Ryan, Thor, Cameron, Stefan, Kevin, HMSHH,
[58:00] Speaker 1: Crystal and Tauvery. Thank you so much. So what do
[58:05] Speaker 1: you think about Saladin, hmm? I'd be interested to know.
[58:10] Speaker 1: Perhaps if you're still awake, and you've got a different
[58:13] Speaker 1: opinion about him now. How about you tell me? How
[58:18] Speaker 1: about you start a conversation at the dinner table with
[58:20] Speaker 1: your families about Saladin? That could be interesting. Well, that's
[58:27] Speaker 1: it from me, everyone. I'd like to wish you all
[58:31] Speaker 1: a good night or a good day, whatever time you
[58:35] Speaker 1: listen to it. And as always, lots of love to
[58:37] Speaker 1: you all. I'll see you next time. Bye-bye.

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