[[Jerusalem]] | [[Bethlehem]] | [[Nazareth]] | [[Ashkelon]] | [[Pope Gregory IX]] | [[Crusaders]] | [[Albert IV of Habsburg]] | [[13th century]] ## The Crusade That Worked By Refusing To Fight There is a particular kind of military history that gets written about wars won through pitched battles, heroic charges, and decisive engagements. The Barons' Crusade of 1239–1241 belongs to an entirely different category — a crusade that achieved more through diplomacy, political opportunism, and the exploitation of its enemies' internal divisions than through any military action, and whose successes were so counterintuitive that contemporaries struggled to explain them and historians have largely neglected them ever since. It is one of the most successful crusading expeditions in terms of territorial recovery, accomplished almost entirely without fighting, by a group of fractious European nobles who spent as much energy quarreling with each other as they did engaging with the Muslims they had nominally come to fight. It is also a story that sits at the intersection of some of the most complex geopolitical dynamics of the 13th century Mediterranean world — the fragmentation of the Ayyubid sultanate, the emerging Mongol threat from the east, the political crisis of the crusader states, and the peculiar position of the papacy trying to manage crusading as an instrument of policy when the actual crusaders were largely ungovernable. --- ## The Context — A Truce Running Out To understand the Barons' Crusade you have to start a decade earlier, with one of the most controversial episodes in crusading history — the **Sixth Crusade** of **Frederick II** in 1228–1229. Frederick II — Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily, King of Jerusalem by marriage — conducted what was arguably the most diplomatically sophisticated crusading expedition ever mounted and was almost universally condemned for it by his contemporaries. Excommunicated by Pope Gregory IX at the time of his departure, Frederick sailed to the Holy Land and negotiated directly with **Sultan Al-Kamil** of Egypt — his personal acquaintance and diplomatic correspondent for years — producing the **Treaty of Jaffa** in February 1229. The treaty returned **Jerusalem** to Christian control — including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Bethlehem, and Nazareth — along with a corridor to the coast, in exchange for a ten-year truce. The Muslims retained the **Temple Mount** — the Haram al-Sharif — with the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque. Frederick crowned himself King of Jerusalem in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in a ceremony the Patriarch of Jerusalem refused to attend because Frederick was excommunicated. The reaction was extraordinary in its hostility from almost every direction. The Pope condemned it. The crusader nobility in the Holy Land condemned it. The Muslim religious establishment in Jerusalem condemned Al-Kamil for surrendering the city. The Patriarch of Jerusalem placed the city under interdict — meaning Christian religious services were suspended in the holy city Christians had just recovered. Frederick's treaty was simultaneously his greatest diplomatic achievement and his greatest political liability. But it had one unavoidable feature — it had a ten-year expiration date. The truce would run out in **1239**. When it did, Jerusalem's status would revert to being negotiated or contested. Somebody needed to be there. --- ## The Political Chaos of Crusade Organization Pope **Gregory IX** began calling for a new crusade to renew or replace Frederick's treaty well before its expiration. The political landscape of Europe in the late 1230s was, however, spectacularly unpropitious for organized crusading. Frederick II and Gregory IX were locked in one of the most bitter conflicts between Empire and Papacy in medieval history — a struggle for dominance in Italy and over the definition of imperial versus papal authority that consumed the political energy of both institutions throughout the decade. Gregory actually diverted crusade funds and preaching to a war against Frederick in Italy — a decision that generated considerable outrage among those who thought crusade resources should go to the Holy Land. The result was that the Barons' Crusade was organized almost entirely outside the framework of either imperial or direct papal leadership. It was genuinely what its name suggests — a collection of independent noble expeditions, organized and financed by individual barons and kings acting on their own initiative, loosely coordinated but fundamentally autonomous. The major figures who took the cross included: **Thibaut IV of Champagne** — Count of Champagne and King of Navarre, one of the most powerful nobles in France and a significant figure in the cultural life of the era — he was also a notable troubadour poet. He led the first and largest contingent. **Richard of Cornwall** — younger brother of King Henry III of England, one of the wealthiest men in Europe, and a figure of considerable political and diplomatic ability who would later be elected King of Germany. His contingent arrived after Thibaut's and proved the more diplomatically effective. **Duke Hugh IV of Burgundy** — leading a Burgundian contingent that arrived with Thibaut. **Peter of Dreux** — Duke of Brittany, a veteran political operator. Various other French, English, and Navarrese nobles completed the roster of participants. What was notably absent was any unified command structure, any agreed strategic objective beyond the vague goal of securing the Holy Land, and any mechanism for resolving disputes between the contingents when their interests and strategies diverged — which they did, repeatedly and consequentially. --- ## The Ayyubid Fragmentation — The Opportunity Nobody Planned For The single most important factor in the Barons' Crusade's eventual success had nothing to do with crusader military or diplomatic capacity. It was the political condition of the **Ayyubid sultanate** — the dynasty founded by Saladin — at the moment the crusaders arrived. Saladin had died in 1193, and the Ayyubid state he had built was, by the 1230s, in an advanced state of fragmentation. The empire had been divided among his descendants, producing a constellation of competing sultanates — Egypt, Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Kerak, and smaller principalities — that were perpetually at war with each other, forming and dissolving alliances with the speed and complexity that characterized medieval Islamic dynastic politics at its most fractious. The two dominant Ayyubid powers by 1239 were: **Al-Kamil's successor in Egypt** — Al-Kamil had died in 1238, leaving a succession struggle among his sons. **As-Salih Ayyub** eventually emerged as Sultan of Egypt, but his path to power was contested and his position initially insecure. **As-Salih Ismail of Damascus** — controlling Syria and increasingly dominant in the Levantine Ayyubid sphere, in direct competition with Egypt for overall Ayyubid supremacy. These two powers — Egypt and Damascus — were the primary contestants for dominance within the fractured Ayyubid world, and their competition created a situation where each had strong incentives to offer the crusaders favorable terms in exchange for alliance against the other. The crusaders, arriving at precisely this moment of maximum Ayyubid internal tension, were in a position to extract concessions simply by being present and allowing the competing Muslim powers to bid for their neutrality or support. This was not a situation the crusaders had engineered. It was a structural opportunity created by the internal dynamics of the Ayyubid world, and the degree to which the crusaders managed to exploit it varied considerably depending on which contingent was in charge at any given moment. --- ## The Disaster at Gaza — What Happened When They Actually Fought The Barons' Crusade's military record is almost entirely negative, which makes its diplomatic success all the more striking. Thibaut of Champagne arrived in the Holy Land in September 1239 with the first major contingent. He found the crusader states in their characteristic condition of political dysfunction — the **Kingdom of Jerusalem** was governed by a regent, the local barons were divided among competing factions, and the relationship between newly arrived crusaders and the permanent settler population of the crusader states was tense in the way it always was when fresh European forces arrived with aggressive intentions that the locals — who had to live with the consequences — found alarming. The immediate strategic question was what to do. Thibaut received intelligence — probably exaggerated or fabricated — that an Egyptian force in the Gaza area was isolated and vulnerable. A significant contingent of crusaders, led by **Henry of Bar** and **Amaury of Montfort**, decided to move against this force immediately, against the advice of the local military orders — the **Hospitallers** and **Templars** — who had better intelligence about actual conditions on the ground. The result was the **Battle of Gaza** in November 1239. The crusading force rode into a carefully prepared Egyptian ambush. The engagement was a comprehensive military disaster. Henry of Bar was killed. Amaury of Montfort and several hundred knights were captured. The military orders and the bulk of the crusading force, who had advised against the operation, did not participate and therefore survived intact — which generated considerable bitterness between the contingents. The defeat at Gaza was militarily embarrassing but strategically revealing. It demonstrated that the crusaders could not achieve their objectives through military force. It also, paradoxically, accelerated the diplomatic track — both Ayyubid factions now had evidence that the crusaders were militarily vulnerable, but the crusaders' continued presence in the region and their potential as an alliance partner remained valuable enough that negotiations intensified rather than collapsed. --- ## Thibaut's Diplomatic Achievements — Playing Damascus Against Egypt In the aftermath of Gaza, Thibaut of Champagne pursued diplomatic engagement with both competing Ayyubid factions with considerably more skill than he had shown in military command. **As-Salih Ismail of Damascus**, facing Egyptian pressure from the south and needing to consolidate his position in Syria, approached the crusaders with an extraordinary offer. In exchange for crusader alliance — or at least neutrality — against Egypt, Damascus would return to the crusaders territories including **Beaufort Castle**, **Safed**, significant portions of **Galilee**, and parts of the **Sidon** region. These were substantial territorial concessions representing lands that had been in Muslim hands for decades. Damascus also made the remarkable concession of allowing the crusaders to refortify **Ascalon** — the coastal city that had strategic significance as a potential base for operations against Egypt and that the Muslims had deliberately kept in ruins since Saladin's time specifically to prevent it serving that function. The deal Thibaut negotiated with Damascus represented a significant territorial recovery achieved entirely through diplomatic leverage — exploiting Ayyubid internal divisions rather than military victory. Jerusalem itself remained under Christian control from Frederick's treaty, and now additional territories were being added. However, Thibaut's position was complicated by the divisions within the crusading force itself. Different factions favored different Ayyubid alliances — some preferred the Egyptian connection, some the Damascene. The local military orders had their own strategic preferences that did not always align with the newly arrived nobles. Thibaut's authority was sufficient to conduct diplomacy but insufficient to impose a unified strategy on the entire crusading enterprise. He departed the Holy Land in September 1240, having achieved real but incomplete results, leaving the situation still fluid and the opportunities still open. --- ## Richard of Cornwall — The Diplomat as Crusader The second phase of the Barons' Crusade belongs primarily to **Richard of Cornwall**, who arrived in October 1240 with an English contingent and a very different approach to the entire enterprise. Richard was by temperament and training a political operator rather than a military commander. He had been involved in English politics since his early twenties, had managed his own considerable estates with commercial sophistication, and understood negotiation as a primary instrument of policy rather than a fallback when military options were exhausted. He arrived in the Holy Land at a moment when the diplomatic situation had evolved further in the crusaders' favor. **As-Salih Ayyub of Egypt**, now more securely established as Sultan, had his own reasons to want favorable relations with the crusaders. His position relative to Damascus remained contested, and a settled arrangement with the Christian states on his northern flank was strategically valuable. He also had in his possession several hundred crusader prisoners taken at Gaza — their release was a diplomatic asset he was prepared to trade. Richard negotiated directly with the Egyptian sultan's representatives with considerable skill. The resulting **Treaty of Jaffa** — deliberately echoing Frederick II's treaty of the same name a decade earlier — was comprehensive and favorable. Egypt released the prisoners taken at Gaza. The territorial arrangements negotiated with Damascus were confirmed and in some respects extended. A formal truce was established. More significantly, Richard organized the fortification of **Ascalon** — using the crusading force's labor and resources to rebuild the city's defenses to a standard that would make it genuinely defensible. Ascalon's fortification was strategically important because it created a buffer between Egypt and the crusader states and complicated any future Egyptian offensive into Palestine. Richard departed in May 1241. He had been in the Holy Land for approximately seven months. In that time, through diplomacy and the application of political intelligence to a complex situation, he had secured the release of hundreds of prisoners, confirmed major territorial recoveries, and left the crusader states in a stronger physical condition than he had found them. --- ## The Territorial Balance Sheet The combined results of the Barons' Crusade were, on paper, remarkable. When Frederick II had negotiated Jerusalem back in 1229, it had been regarded as a diplomatic miracle and condemned simultaneously by almost everyone. The Barons' Crusade, building on Frederick's foundation and exploiting Ayyubid fragmentation, recovered or confirmed: **Jerusalem** — retained from Frederick's treaty, now with the truce extended. **Beaufort Castle** — a major Crusader fortress in southern Lebanon, controlling the upper Jordan valley. **Safed** — in Galilee, strategically significant for controlling northern Palestine. **Significant portions of Galilee** — including territories that substantially expanded the usable agricultural and demographic base of the crusader presence. **Ascalon** — refortified and garrisoned, providing a forward defensive position. **Portions of the Sidon region** — extending coastal control. The territorial recovery represented the high-water mark of crusader political geography since Saladin's conquests in 1187. The Kingdom of Jerusalem controlled more territory in 1241 than at any point since the Crusade of 1187. This had been achieved almost entirely without significant military victory — through diplomatic exploitation of the Ayyubid civil war. --- ## The Immediate Unraveling — Why It Didn't Last The diplomatic achievements of 1239–1241 proved fragile almost immediately, for reasons that illuminate the structural problems of the crusader states. The fundamental problem was that the territorial arrangements depended on the continuation of Ayyubid internal division. As long as Damascus and Egypt were competing for supremacy and needed crusader neutrality, the concessions they had made retained value. If Ayyubid unity were restored — or if a third power intervened to alter the regional balance — the diplomatic foundations of the crusader recovery would be undermined. Both things happened. **As-Salih Ayyub of Egypt** gradually consolidated his position, eventually achieving dominance over the Ayyubid world through a combination of military force and political manipulation. As Egyptian power consolidated, the strategic logic that had made territorial concessions to the crusaders attractive to Damascus evaporated. More catastrophically, **As-Salih Ayyub** imported a new military force to compensate for the unreliability of his own Ayyubid vassals — the **Khwarazmian Turks**. These were a displaced warrior population, driven westward by the Mongol conquests that had destroyed the **Khwarazmian Empire** in Central Asia in the 1220s. They were formidable fighters with no particular connection to the Palestinian political landscape and no reason to respect the arrangements that local powers had negotiated. In **1244**, the Khwarazmians — operating as Egyptian allies — swept through Palestine. They sacked **Jerusalem** in August 1244, massacring the Christian population and destroying the Church of the Holy Sepulchre's contents. In October 1244, they combined with an Egyptian force to defeat a crusader and Damascene allied army at the **Battle of La Forbie** — one of the most complete military disasters in crusading history, comparable in its destructiveness to Hattin in 1187. Everything the Barons' Crusade had recovered was gone within three years of Richard of Cornwall's departure. Jerusalem would not be under Christian control again until the British conquest of 1917. --- ## The Mongol Shadow The Barons' Crusade operated in the long shadow of a development whose full implications were not yet understood in the West — the **Mongol conquests** under Genghis Khan and his successors. The Mongols had destroyed the Khwarazmian Empire in the 1220s — producing the displaced warriors who would eventually sack Jerusalem as Egyptian mercenaries. They had devastated Russia and Poland in 1241, reaching the Adriatic coast before withdrawing following the death of the Great Khan Ögedei. They had entered Iran and were pressing toward the Middle East. The Mongol threat fundamentally altered the strategic calculus of the eastern Mediterranean in ways that the Barons' Crusade's participants were only beginning to perceive. Some crusaders and papal diplomats were already exploring whether the Mongols — who included Nestorian Christians among their ranks and whose religious policy was broadly tolerant — might be potential allies against the Muslim powers. This was the beginning of the **Franco-Mongol alliance** discussions that would run through several decades of crusading diplomacy with ultimately inconclusive results. The irony is that the Mongols ultimately did more damage to the Ayyubid order — and to its successor the **Mamluk Sultanate** — than any crusading expedition, while simultaneously destroying any realistic prospect of a sustained crusader presence in the region by disrupting the entire political order of the Middle East beyond any diplomatic framework the crusaders had learned to navigate. --- ## Frederick II's Ghost — The Diplomatic Tradition The Barons' Crusade deserves to be understood as the most successful application of the diplomatic approach to crusading that Frederick II had pioneered in 1229 — an approach that treated Muslim powers as rational political actors whose interests could be engaged and whose internal divisions could be exploited, rather than as monolithic enemies to be defeated through holy war. This approach was consistently more effective than military force throughout the crusading period. The crusader states survived as long as they did not primarily through military dominance — they were always massively outnumbered and outresourced by the surrounding Muslim world — but through diplomatic skill, exploitation of Muslim political fragmentation, and the judicious use of their position as a third party that competing Muslim factions needed to accommodate. The Barons' Crusade represents the apex of this approach. It recovered more territory through seven years of intermittent diplomatic engagement than most militarily focused crusades achieved through years of campaigning and enormous casualties. It did so by sending relatively competent diplomats — particularly Richard of Cornwall — into a situation of maximum Ayyubid internal division and allowing structural conditions to do most of the work. --- ## Why History Forgot It The Barons' Crusade is not part of the popular crusading narrative for reasons that are themselves revealing about how military history gets written and remembered. It produced no great battles, no heroic sieges, no charismatic warrior-saints. Its achievements were diplomatic and therefore invisible to the chronicle tradition that recorded crusading history primarily through military events. Its successes were almost immediately reversed by the Khwarazmian sack of Jerusalem, meaning the territorial recovery it achieved left no lasting physical legacy that could anchor historical memory. It also lacks a single dominant figure around whom narrative can organize itself. Thibaut of Champagne is remembered primarily as a poet. Richard of Cornwall went on to more prominent political involvement in England and Germany. Neither became a crusading legend in the way Richard I of England or Louis IX of France did — partly because the Barons' Crusade's mode of operation, however effective, did not generate the kind of heroic narrative that crusading mythology required. The crusade that worked by refusing to fight, that recovered Jerusalem's hinterland through political intelligence rather than military valor, that exploited its enemies' weaknesses more skillfully than it applied its own strengths — it is precisely the kind of history that the conventional frameworks of military narrative tend to render invisible. Which is, of course, exactly why it is worth knowing.