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with determination and strategy: how much of this was due to the presence of his wife, whose life was characterised by the iron will to survive so characteristic of the women of Outremer?
Saladin had refortified Acre with the aid of the Egyptian general Karakush. He would not have been overly concerned, therefore, when King Guy's motley army sat down before Acre's landward gates on August 28, 1189. Saladin's much larger army arrived two days later, followed shortly afterwards by a fleet from Conrad in Tyre.
Acre is on a sandstone promontory on the northern end of a bay, jutting into the Mediterranean like an upside down fishhook. The landward side of the city was protected by an L shaped wall, with the longest side towards the North. About 100 metres north of this wall close to the sea was a low hill, known as Montmusard, an area subsequently covered with suburbs.
The war was fought on two fronts: Guy attacking the walls of Acre: Saladin harrying the Christians from inland. Isabella and Guy, says Hoveden, set up their camp on the western slopes of the hill looking towards the sea: near the summit of the mountain was Heraclius, together with Geoffrey, Guy's brother. The sea line was guarded by the Pisans, on the other side of the mountain were the Germans and the Templars, the Hospitallers and the rest.11
A set battle - in the end not a decisive victory - between Guy and Saladin occurred on October 4, resulting in a defeat for the Franks and the long awaited death of Gerard of Ridfort, who had played such a leading role in the loss of the Holy Land.
For the most part, however, the siege was a game of gut wrenching endurance, a match in which the women played a major role. It was now that women emerged as significant combatants in their own right. These women - the wives and relatives of the soldiers, as well as women of lesser rank - donned armour and fought in battle. When Conrad's fleet arrived, there had been a naval battle off the coast near Acre. The women involved in the battle had used knives to cut the throats of Turks whom they had seized by the hair. They then carried the heads triumphantly ashore.12
As well, the Itinerarium tells of a woman who shared the labour of building an earthwork close to the city walls. She worked tirelessly, without stopping, encouraging others by her zeal. Her inspiration drew many others of all ages and both sexes to assist her in completing the task as quickly as possible. Alas, she was too successful, and gained unwelcome notice from the besieged: she was hurrying to deposit another load when a Turk who was lying in ambush threw a spear at her. She fell, writhing in agony. Her husband and others ran to her side, in time to hear her final plea - she besought him "my love, my dear lord", by their sacred marriage vows and by the love they had shared not to let her body be moved from the spot. Rather, let her corpse have a share in the work - let it lie in the ditch in place of a load of earth. It will soon turn to earth anyway. 13
One senses that there is some moral embellishment by the author of her final words, but the story in its essence - the participation of the woman, and her inspiration of other women as well as the shared work with her husband, rings true in comparison to other tales of the great siege.
The camps of the respective armies formed themselves into the semblance of cities of canvas. An Arab visitor to the camp, Abd el Latif, described Saladin's camp as containing 140 smithies, kitchens big enough to hold 28 cooking pots, seven thousand registered shops, clothes markets of stupendous size, and a thousand baths supplied from a water table found two meters below the ground.14
The camps would have been brilliant with all the colours of heraldry, and the flags of all nations waved above cities of war, in which gaiety mingled with despair, fraternisation with bloodshed, and enmity with the friendship of shared suffering.
Roger de Hoveden described how the Christians held out behind two trenches, one facing Acre, the other Saladin "...so that no one could do them any injury from the opposite side; but the Christians there were exposed to the winds and rain, having neither houses nor cabins in which to shelter themselves; nor indeed, if they had sworn so to do, could they have retreated, but there they must live or die."15
One of those to die was the queen, and her two daughters. The accounts are brief: there was the expected epidemic in the summer of 1190. Amongst the resulting deaths were those of Sybilla and her two daughters on July 25.
Their deaths complicated the shaky alliance of men greedy for a crown that was forever to exist only in memory.
Guy had held the crown only through his wife. Now that she was dead, it was argued, he had no claim.16. However, Guy was not about to be challenged by his main rival, Humphrey, who held an avenue in right of his wife, Isabella. They were friends, companions in arms, and equally weak men.
The ambitious Conrad attempted to circumvent this impasse. He formed an alliance with the bitter enemy of the Courtenays and Lusignans, Maria Comnena. Her deposition to the papal legate and the bishop of Beauvais was that Isabella's marriage was invalid: the child had been only eight when it was contracted, much against her own wishes. Besides, Humphrey was known to be effeminate.
The young Isabella was reluctant, but at last she yielded to her mother's persuasions. As always, she appears to have borne herself with endurance and dignity. Ambroise's epitaph of her was thus a fitting one:
"God to her soul be gracious:
For she was known as valorous."17
Humphrey seems to have contented himself with the bribe of the reinstatement of his title to certain lands (incidentally still in the hands of the Saracens).
There was some difficulty over Conrad's marital status: he had at least one and possibly two wives in the Mediterranean region. 18
As well, there were political complications: English representatives amongst the court of the bishops presiding over the case were opposed to the annulment, as their king took the side of the Lusignans. The French bishop, however, was therefore automatically in favour of the new marriage. The papal legate - the Archbishop of Pisa - was won over, it was said, with the promise of trade concessions to his countrymen.
The English Archbishop of Canterbury, Baldwin, hurled excommunications, and died suddenly on November 19.
The marriage took place five days later: Guy, furious, challenged Conrad - fruitlessly - to single combat. But it was all over for him: a king without title, lands or artillery, he remained at Tyre, while his troops conducted the fitful siege at Acre without his aid.19
The newlyweds settled down to their new life in the same city where Guy sulked. Their union bore the fruit of a daughter the following year. The child was named Maria, after the woman who had been the main engineer of the ill fated marriage.
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