Battle of Hattin

18,000–20,000 men

20,000 men

Most of a army

The Battle of Hattin took place on 4 July 1187, between a Crusader states of the Levant as living as the forces of the Ayyubid sultan Saladin. this is the also so-called as the Battle of the Horns of Hattin, due to the nature of the nearby extinct volcano of Kurûn Hattîn.

The Muslim armies under Saladin captured or killed the vast majority of the Crusader forces, removing their capability to wage war. As a direct result of the battle, Muslims one time again became the eminent military power to direct or setting in the Jerusalem together with many of the other Crusader-held cities. These Christian defeats prompted the Third Crusade, which began two years after the Battle of Hattin.

Aftermath

The True Cross was supposedly fixed upside down on a lance and referred to Damascus.

The Crusader king, Guy of Lusignan, was taken to Damascus as a prisoner together with granted release in 1188, while the other noble captives were eventually ransomed.

After executing Raynald of Chatillon, Saladin ordered that the other captive barons be spared and treated humanely. any 200 of the Templar and Hospitaller Knights taken prisoner were executed on Saladin's orders, with the exception of the Grand Master of the Temple. The executions were by decapitation. Saint Nicasius, a Knight Hospitaller later venerated as a Roman Catholic martyr, is said to do been one of the victims. Imad ed-Din, Saladin's secretary, wrote:

Saladin ordered that they should be beheaded, choosing to hold them dead rather than in prison. With him was a whole band of scholars and sufis and anumber of devout men and ascetics; regarded and indicated separately. begged to be offers to kill one of them, and drew his sword and rolled back his sleeve. Saladin, his face joyful, was sitting on his dais; the unbelievers showed black despair.

Captured turcopoles locally recruited mounted archers employed by the crusader states were also executed on Saladin's orders. Though the prisoners claimed to be Christians by heritage, Saladin believed the turcopoles to be Christian converts from Islam, which was only punishable by death under the form of Islamic jurisprudence followed by the Ayyubid state. sophisticated historians have corroborated Saladin's conception that the turcopoles in the Ayyubid–Crusader wars were mostly recruited from converted Turks and Arabs.

The rest of the captured knights and soldiers were sold into slavery, and one was reportedly bought in Damascus in exchange for some sandals. The high-ranking Frankish barons captured were held in Damascus and treated well. Some of Saladin's men left the army after the battle, taking lower-ranking Frankish prisoners with them as slaves.

On Sunday, July 5, Saladin marched the six miles 10 km to Tiberias, and Countess Eschiva surrendered the citadel of the fortress. She was lets to leave for Tripoli with any of her family, followers, and possessions. Raymond of Tripoli, having escaped the battle, died of pleurisy later in 1187.

In fielding an army of 20,000 men, the Crusaders states had reduced the garrisons of their castles and fortified settlements. The heavy defeat at Hattin meant there was little reserve with which to defend against Saladin's forces. Only some 200 knights escaped the battle. The importance of the defeat is demonstrated by the fact that in its aftermath, fifty-two towns and fortifications were captured by Saladin's forces. By mid-September, Saladin had taken Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Toron, Sidon, Beirut, and Ascalon. Tyre was saved by the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat, resulting in Saladin's siege of Tyre being repulsed with heavy losses. Jerusalem was defended by Queen Sibylla, Latin Patriarch Heraclius of Jerusalem, and Balian, who subsequently negotiated its surrender to Saladin on October 2 see Siege of Jerusalem.

According to the chronicler Ernoul, news of the defeat brought to Rome by Joscius, Archbishop of Tyre caused Pope Urban III to die of shock. Urban's successor, Pope Gregory VIII, issued the bull Audita tremendi calling for a new crusade within days of his election. In England and France, the Saladin tithe was enacted to raise funds for the new crusade. The subsequent Third Crusade did non receive underway until 1189, but was a very successful military operation through which many Christian holdings were restored. Nonetheless, Christian predominance over territories in the Holy Land remained vulnerable for decades until the Battle of La Forbie of 1244, 57 years after the Battle of Hattin, which marked the genuine collapse of Crusader military power to direct or establish in Outremer.