knowledge of arabic in the crusader states in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 203–213, 19991999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

PII: S0304-4181( 98 )00022-0 Printed in The Netherlands.0304-4181/99 $ – see front matter 1 0.00

Knowledge of Arabic in the Crusader States in the twelfth andthirteenth centuries

Hussein M. AttiyaDepartment of History and Archaeology, University of United Arab Emirates, P.O. Box 17771, Al-Ain,

United Arab Emirates

Abstract

The Latins settled in the East in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had no alternative but toopen channels of communication with the Muslims, whatever might have been their originalmotivation for crusading. The need to negotiate treaties, to conduct mercantile transactions, and toadminister territories containing a largely Arabic-speaking population demanded that at least someof them learned Arabic. This article argues that knowledge of Arabic among the Franks was moreextensive than some historians have thought, even though the evidence that this knowledge wasused for deeper cultural interchange remains slight. 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rightsreserved.

Some scholars have concluded that Syria was of less importance as a vehicle of1Islamic influence on the intellectual activity of medieval Europe than Spain and Sicily.

This point of view, supported by the lack of evidence in Syria of translation into Latin ofArabic scientific and literary works, was not challenged until 1941. At this time,Professor J.L. La Monte tried to demonstrate the significance of the crusader states inmedieval history and urged orientalists to investigate the extent of Islamic influence on

2the culture of the Franks who settled in the East. However, orientalists may have beendeterred by the same lack of evidence as there has been no response to his appeal. Iintend to adopt a different approach, which is to examine how far the Franks, duringtheir settlement in the East, understood and learned Arabic.

Many historians considered the crusades to be merely military expeditions sent outfrom Europe to recapture the Holy Places from the infidels, and, indeed, at Clermont in1095 Pope Urban II urged his audience to take the road ‘to the Holy Sepulchre, rescue

3that land from a dreadful race and rule over it yourselves’. The implication of thisstatement is that, for the Franks who came to the East as crusaders, the hostilities would

HUSSEIN M. ATTIYA is Associate Professor of Medieval History at the University of Tanta, Egypt.1For example, P.K. Hitti, History of the Arabs (London, 1963), 662.2J.L. La Monte, ‘The Significance of the Crusaders’ States in Medieval History’ Byzantion, 15 (1940–1),

300–1.3Robert the Monk, Historia Hierosolymitana, in: Recueil des historiens des croisades. Historiens Occidentaux,

vol. 3 (Paris, 1844), 728.

203

204 Hussein M. Attiya

allow them no opportunity to recognise any aspects of Islamic civilisation. Those Frankswho accompanied Godfrey of Bouillon on the First Crusade, or who were led by Richardthe Lionheart on the Third Crusade, must have been affected by their leaders’ feelingsand political attitudes towards the Muslims, enemies they had met only on thebattlefield. Is it likely that they would be influenced by Islamic civilisation? ThoseFranks who were engaged in killing as many of the enemy as possible were described byboth Raymond of Aguilers and Ambroise. The former could see marvellous works in theslaughter of Muslims in Jerusalem in 1099 and, in his opinion, as his companions rodeup to the knees and bridles of their horses in the blood of Muslims it was poetic justice

4that the Temple of Solomon ‘should receive the blood of the pagans’. The latter revelsin the description of the massacre of the Muslim hostages by King Richard at Acre andrefers to the Saracens as pagan dogs. ‘The race God’s interdict hath cursed, may He the

5curse maintain.’Nevertheless, for the Franks who settled in Syria and the Holy Land, everything was

different. They established a modus vivendi within a generation of the First Crusadeitself. The Frankish settlers soon found the Saracens were not bad neighbours and easierto trade with than to fight. James of Vitry might denounce the Syrian Franks for being atpeace with the enemies of Raymond of Aguilers and Ambroise, but William of Tyrecriticised his king, Amalric, for waging war on these self-same enemies and for failingto recognise the economic significance of their countries to the Latin states. AfterAmalric’s third expedition against Egypt, the archbishop thought that, because ofboundless greed and unnecessary bloodshed, the treasures of Egypt were no longer at the

6disposal of the Franks and Egyptian trade no longer plied freely across the seas. TheFranks were indeed obliged to meet their neighbours in a variety of circumstances;outside times of war and hostilities they had peaceful and perhaps even cordial relationswith them. The Franks of Syria had to deal with Muslims of the inland cities and thoseMuslims subjected to their rule. There must have been a means of communication withMuslims both inside and outside the Latin states in order to make truces and to fulfilcommercial transactions. Arabic was that means. Franks intermingled with Muslims.

7They traded with them; they even exchanged hunting animals and falcons. They must

4Raymond of Aguilers, Liber, ed J.H. and L.L. Hill (Paris, 1969), 150–1. Tr. J.H. and L.L. Hill (Philadelphia,1968), 127–8.

5 ´Ambroise, L’Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, ed. G. Paris, Collection de Documents inedits sur l’Histoire deFrance (Paris. 1897), 147; trs. The Crusade of Richard the Lion Heart, trans. M.J. Humbert and J.L. LaMonte (New York, 1942), 218, 228.

6James of Vitry, The History of Jerusalem, trs. A. Stewart, Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, vol. 9 (London,1896), 64–5; William of Tyre, Chronicon, ed. R.B.C. Huygens, 2 vols, Corpus Christianorum, continuatiomediaevalis 63–63A (Turnhout, 1986), 924–5 (henceforth WT).

7In 1151 Mujir ed-Din Abaq, atabeg of Damascus, allowed some of Baldwin III’s soldiers to visit the bazaarswithin the walls of the city to buy what they needed, Ibn al-Qalanisi, History of Damascus, ed. S. Zakkar(Damascus, 1983), 487. The same permission was granted to the Franks by al-Saleh Ismail of Damascus in1240, Maqrisi, Kitab al-Suluk ii Maarifat Duwal al-Mulauk, ed. M.M. Ziada, vol. 1 (Cairo, 1934), ii, 304. In1140 Anar, atabeg of Damascus, visited King Fulk at Acre and received gifts which included a dog and afalcon, Usama Ihn Munquidh, Kitab al-I’tibar (Princeton, 1930), 252–3.

Knowledge of Arabic in the Crusader States in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 205

have been influenced by them. But even so, scholars have come to the conclusion that8Islamic influence on the culture of the Franks was negligible.

Professor H.E. Mayer believes that the Franks co-existed with the Muslims but thatthere was no symbiosis; the number of those from the upper ranks of society who

9bothered to learn Arabic was tiny. In this respect we can presume otherwise. William ofTyre, the most illustrious and erudite historian of the Latin East, learned Arabic. He tellsus in the prologue of his Historia that his substantial source of information for hissecond work Historia orientalium principum was the book of the Arab historian Said ibn

10Batrick (Eutychius). Here, William’s modern editor R.B.C. Huygens has expresseddoubts as to the extent of William’s knowledge of Arabic, noting that William’s

11renderings of Arabic names are either elementary and easily come by, or erroneous.That may be true of his account of the First Crusade which is based mainly on thenarratives of contemporary historians who seem to have mistranscribed these names. Itseems that the Franks did not become acquainted with the Arabic names of persons and

12places before the first two decades of the twelfth century. The names of Kerboga,Toghtekin, Ilghazi, and Saladin, the Muslim leaders best known to the Franks, are worthexamining here. The leaders of the First Crusade, as well as the majority of the Latinchroniclers, including William of Tyre, knew the atabeg of Mosul who came to rescue

13Antioch as Corboram, Corboran, Corbagath, or Corbagat. Toghtekin, the atabeg ofDamascus (1104–1128), was known to the Franks as Dodechinus, Tuldequinus, or

14Doldequinus. They knew Ilghazi, the Ortoqid prince of Aleppo (1118–1123), as Algazi15(Armigazi – Algazus) or Gazi. William of Tyre and his continuators, and the

thirteenth-century Dominican, William of Tripoli, knew Saladin as Saladinus, Salehadin,16Salahadin, Salahedyn. The form of each of the first three names makes their

pronunciation different from the Arabic (Korbogha – Toghtekin – Ilghazi). Here,17William of Tyre, basing his Historia down to 1127 on the works of these eyewitnesses,

8H.E. Mayer, The Crusades, tr J. Gillingham, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1988), 189; B.Z. Kedar, ‘The SubjectedMuslims of the Frankish Levant’, in: Muslims under Latin Rule (1100 –1300) (Princeton, 1992), 174.

9Mayer, ‘Latins, Muslims and Greeks in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem,’ History, 63 (1978), 175.10Said ibn Batrick was born in Egypt in 879 and became a famous physician. He was for many years Greek

Patriarch of Alexandria. His History of the Arabs covers the period from the time of the Prophet to 937. SeeWT, 100.

11Huygens, ‘Editing William of Tyre’, Sacris Erudiri, 27 (1984), 468.12See below, p. 213.13Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, ed. and tr. R. Hill (London, 1962), 49, 56; Raymond of

Aguilers, 259; ‘Epistula II Anselmi de Ribodimonte ad Manassem archiepiscopum Remorum’, in: DieKreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088 –1100, ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Innsbruck, 1901), 159; Chansond’Antioche en Provencal, tr. P. Meyer, in: Archives de l’Orient latin, vol. 2, ii (Paris, 1884), 481, 483–4;Fulcher of Chartres, 345, 347; WT, 289, 307, 311, 313, 316, 320, 323, 331, 336.

14Walter the Chancellor, Bella Antiochena, ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Innsbruck, 1896), 102, 106–7; Fulcher ofChartres, 446–7; WT, 525, 530, 532, 552, 556, 566, 595–7.

15Walter the Chancellor, 66, 79, 92, 94, 99, 101, 107–8; Fulcher of Chartres, 443; WT, 556, 559, 560ff.16 ´WT, 93, 99; Chronique d’Ernoul et de Bernard le Tresorier, ed. L. de Mas Latrie (Paris, 1871), 40–1; La

Continuation de Guillaume de Tyr (1184 –1197), ed. M.R. Morgan (Paris, 1982), 36–7; William of Tripoli,Tractatus de statu Saracenorum, in: Kulturgeschichte der Kreuzzuge, ed. H. Prutz (Berlin, 1883), 583.

17See P.W. Edbury and J.G. Rowe, William of Tyre. Historian of the Latin East (Cambridge, 1980), 46.


was obliged to use the spellings they used, and sometimes, because he did not care, or18did not have the time, to re-read what he had written, used the most typical ones. In

general, he seems to have taken most of these spellings from Fulcher of Chartres. As forthe name of Saladin, William of Tyre used the Latin form, ‘Saladinus’. His continuators,and William of Tripoli, either because they wrote in Old French or because they weremore acquainted with Arabic names than he was, added the ‘h’ which makes thepronunciation of the name more similar to its Arabic form.

It seems that there was bilingual communication between the Arabs and the Franks,but it must often have been oral. The Gesta Francorum explicitly refers to some Frankswho knew Arabic. In the Christian delegation to Karbuqa (1098) we find a priest namedHerluin who knew Arabic and acted as an interpreter for Peter the Hermit. The Gestarefers also to an interpreter sent by Bohemond to the Muslims of Maarat an-Numan

19promising to protect their lives if they surrendered the city to him (December 1098).Those Franks may have been the Normans of southern Italy and Sicily who had beendealing with Arab-speaking Muslims for a generation and had knowledge of Arabicbefore coming to the East. Nevertheless, there are incidental references in many of oursources to Franks from upper ranks of society who spoke and even wrote Arabic.William of Tyre refers to a Frank who was entrusted with a mission to Anar, the atabeg

20of Damascus, in 1147, because of his familiarity with Arabic. In 1173, the Muslimtraveller Aly al-Harawi visited Bethlehem where he listened to an old Frankish knightcalled Burn who told him much about what he had seen in the cave of Abraham when it

21was reconstructed in the reign of King Baldwin II (1119). Some Frankish rulers alsolearned Arabic: Reynald, lord of Sidon and Beaufort, ‘was a learned man, who knowsArabic and is well-versed in Arabic history and literature. He employed a Muslim toteach him, and he frequently visits the Sultan (Saladin), to debate with him about his

22religion’. In 1191, Reynald himself negotiated with Saladin on behalf of Conrad of23Montferrat. In the same year, Humphrey of Tibnin did the same on behalf of Richard24of England. Ambroise was impressed by Bernard, Richard I’s spy, born in Syria, and

two other Syrian Franks who, dressed in Arabic clothes and in no way differing inappearance from Arabs, gave the king intelligence of a caravan from Cairo. Ambroise

25‘never saw men who spoke Saracen speech more perfectly’. Some Latin officials knewArabic. Ibn Nazif refers to a certain Simon, a scribe of the Hospitallers who, in 1229,seems to have been the interpreter acting as intermediary between his Order and theTemplars and the Muslims of Homs. Simon played the same role in 1232 between the

26Templars and Muslims of Aleppo. John of Joinville related that Baldwin of Ibelin, who

18Huygens,‘Editing’, 408.19Gesta Francorum, 67, 79.20WT, 731.For the same reason the delegation sent to the Fatimid Caliph of Egypt in 1167 by King Amalric

included a Templar knight, Geoffrey Fulcher, who seems to have been an Arabic-speaking Frank, WT, 887.21 ´Aly al-Harawi, Guide aux lieux de pelerinage, ed. J. Soudel-Thomime (Damascus, 1953), 31.22Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad, al Nawadir al-sultaniyha wa’l-mahasin al-yusufiyah, ed. Gamal El Din El Shayyal

(Cairo, 1964), 97–8.23Baha al-Din, 199–202; Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, Kitab al-fath al-qussi fi al-fath al-Qudsi (Cairo, 1965), 560.24Baha al-Din, 202; Imad al-Din, 542.25Ambroise, 275; tr. Hubert and La Monte, 38.26Ibn Nazif al-Hamawi, al-Tarikh al-Mansuri, ed. Abu al-Eid Dudu (Damascus, 1981), 203, 261.


mastered Arabic, was at the head of the French delegation to the Mamluks to negotiatethe release of Louis IX of France. Joinville also tells us about a Frank named Nicholasof Acre, who spoke Arabic and played an important part in ending the debate between StLouis and the Mamluk princes about the oaths taken by them concerning the release ofthe French king. As well as Nicholas, Joinville gives us the name of the Arabic-speakingYves the Breton, who, as the envoy of King Louis in 1250 negotiated with an-NasirYusuf, the Ayubid sultan of Damascus. The same Yves negotiated with the Assassins of

27Syria on behalf of the king. Thus, any delegation sent by the crusaders to the Muslimrulers in Egypt or in Syria included Frankish settlers who had a good knowledge ofArabic.

Apart from negotiating with Muslims, the Franks had to speak Arabic to deal withMuslim merchants. Ibn Jubayr of Granada, the Muslim traveller, noticed that the Franksnever ceased to trade with Muslims despite the hostilities. Travelling from Damascus toAcre in 1184, he saw caravans coming from Egypt to Damascus, and Damascus to Acre,even though Saladin was attacking the Trans-Jordanian castle of Kerak for the secondtime. He reports that clerks of the Acre customs house who wrote and spoke Arabic

28were Franks (Nasara). Professor B.Z. Kedar argues that most of these Arabic-writingclerks appear to have been Oriental Christians (of seventeen indigenous scribesmentioned in Frankish charters, he counts nine bearing Christian names, six bearing

29Christian or Muslim, and one bearing a Muslim name) but the clerks described by IbnJubayr seem to have been Franks since he does not refer to the place they belong to, hisusual method of identifying Oriental Christians. For example he devoted some lines to adescription of Oriental Christians living near to the mountain of Lebanon and generouslyoffering food to the Muslim worshippers, referring to them as Nasara, ‘Christians’, ofthe mountain of Lebanon. In the same city he refers to the Franks who possessed a

30mosque at Ayn-al-Bagar (east of Acre) as Al-Nasara. In 1221, James of Vitry, who wasin Tripoli for just a month, reported that he dealt with its inhabitants through a translator

31since Arabic was the prevailing language in the city.Franks also dealt with Muslims living under Latin rule. The numbers of the subjected

Muslims varied from place to place. By 1110, Muslims were given the opportunity tostay in towns of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem under Frankish rule. That happened atSidon in 1110 and at Tyre in 1124, and was also the case in the Latin Principality of

32Antioch as early as 1104. Most of these Muslims were peasants who occupied the great33majority of the villages of the Latin states and of the Latin Kingdom in particular. In

1211, Wilbrand of Oldenburg, on his way to Armenia, noticed that Antioch itself

27Baldwin of Ibelin used to translate for Joinville, Jean de Joinville, Histoire de Saint Louis, ed. and tr. N. deWailly, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1874).

28Ibn Jubayr, Travels, ed. Al Helal Liberary (Beirut, 1981), 234–5, 244–5, 248.29Kedar, 157–8. J. Riley-Smith,‘Some lesser officials in Latin Syria’, English Historical Review, 87 (1972),

22–3, refers to‘Arabs’ among the scribes with no religious identification.30Ibn Jubayr, 234, 249.31 ´ ˆLettres de Jacques de Vitry, (1160/1170 –1240), eveque de Saint-Jean-d’Acre, ed. R.B.C Huygens (Leiden,

1960), no. 2, p. 93.32Kamal al-Din Ibn al-Adim, Chronicle of Aleppo, ed. Samy Al Dahhan, vol. 1 (Damascus, 1951), 157, 155;

Fulcher of Chartres, 422–3.33Emoul, 28; Ihn Jubayr, 247. See also Mayer,‘Latins’, 148.


34included Arabs among its inhabitants. Subjected Muslims had no role in the politics of35the Latin states but they must have played an important part in economic life, for

agricultural production was firmly in their hands. Ibn Jubayr, travelling from Tibnin toAcre, noticed that all villages in the region were inhabited by Muslims and so were thevillages and provincial lands along the Syrian Coast. Moreover, many Muslims werereduced to slavery during the crusader conquest of Syria and the Holy Land; in Acre, Ibn

36Jubayr saw many Muslim captives doing hard labour. The farmers among them were37forced to till the lands and the craftsmen to build Frankish castles. Others, women in

38particular, served in the Frankish houses. Incidentally, some subjected Muslims served39in the Frankish troops as archers.

Thus the Franks established a modus vivendi with the Muslims of the inland towns of40Syria and Muslims living under their rule used Arabic as the means of communication.

This point of view is supported by the presence of a class of bilingual administrators; therayses of towns and villages, the dragomans and the scribes, seem to have been

41intermediaries between the Frankish governments and the governed. The crusaderdocuments indicate that the majority of the town rayses must have been Latin

42Christians. On the other hand, the rays of a village, chosen by the Latin lord to run it43on his behalf, would have been a Muslim or non-Latin Christian. The majority of the

44 45dragomans were Latins and the scribes would have been Latins or Arabs. BeingLatin, these officials would have either spoken Arabic or would have used an interpreter

34As well as Syrians, Armenians, Jews, and Greeks, Wilbrand of Oldenburg, Itinerarium Terrae Sanctae, in:Peregrinatores medii aevi quatuor, ed. J.C M. Laurent (Leipzig, 1873), 172.

35Mayer,‘Latins’, 175–6; Kedar, 159.36Ibn Jubayr, 247–8, 252–3.37When Richard I ordered the massacre of the Muslim hostages at Acre in 1191, he spared only one man, who

‘was notable and strong enough to be of use in building castles’, Bahaa al-Din, 174. In 1263 the Templarsand Hospitallers refused the offer of the Sultan Baybars to exchange Christian and Muslim slaves becausethe latter were all craftsmen and hiring other craftsmen would be very expensive, Gestes des Chiprois, in:

´RHC, Documents armeniens, vol. 2, 756.38Usamah, 180. Fulcher of Chartres, 389, describes Muslim women who were spared in the conquest of

Caesarea in 1101 only to turn the mill wheel.39Kedar, 158.40J. Prawer, ‘Social Classes in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: the Minorities’, in: A History of the Crusades,

ed K.M. Setton, vol. 5 (Madison, 1969), 62.41Riley-Smith,‘Some lesser officials’, 11, 13, 15, 16, 22, 23; Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

(London, 1972), 367–9.42 ¨Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani, ed. R. Rohricht (Innsbruck, 1893) (henceforth RRH), no. 236, pp. 59–60;

no. 258, p. 65; no. 643, p. 170; no. 389, pp. 102–3; no. 424, p. 110; no. 519, p. 138. See also Usamah IbnMunqidh, 181. However, the office was also held by Muslims and indigenous Christians. Abd-al-Masih wasthe rays of Marqab in 1174, and John Semes was the rays of Saffuriya in 1255, RRH, no. 521, 138–9; no.1239, p. 326.

43Again, there were exceptions. In 1259, the rays of Baturatish, near Tripoli, was a Latin called Bolos (Paul), aposition also held by his brother, William, RRH, no. 1272, p. 333.

44Martin in Nazareth (1109), William, employed by the canons of the Holy Sepulchre (1135), Peter in Qaqun(1135), John in a fief near Tibnin (1151), Bernard in Valania (1163), Garutus in Kabul Tall Kaisan andKaukab (1175), another John in Hunin (1183), RRH, no. 56, p. 4; no. 134, p. 38; no. 159, p. 39; no. 266, p.67; no. 381, p. 100; no. 525, pp. 139–40; no. 642, pp. 160–1.

45Latins: Michael (1160): John of Haifa (1160); George of Beit Daras (1176); John of Arsuf (1261); Nicholasof Tripoli (1181). Arabs: Seit (Said) (1183): Souerio of Caesarea (1200); Homo Dei (Abd-Allah) (1243).RRH, no. 341, p. 89; no. 539, p. 143; no. 542, p. 144; no. 546, p. 145; no. 605, pp. 160–1; no. 624, p. 165,no. 768, p. 205; no. 1114, pp. 287–8; no. 1302, p. 341.


to transmit their commands to the Arabs subjected to Latin rule. Whatever their historicalbackground, the indigenous peoples of these states formed a linguistic and ethnic bloc by

46the twelfth century. Old Syriac was largely eclipsed in the thirteenth century and47Arabic became the language of the subject population. Among themselves, Eastern

Christians would have spoken their own languages, but in their daily dealings theywould have spoken and written Arabic. James of Vitry describes the Syrians, usingArabic in their common speech, ‘and they use the Saracen script in deeds and businessand all other writings, except for the Holy Scriptures and other religious books, in whichthey use the Greek letters’. The Jacobites used ‘the Saracenic alphabet, yet what iswritten is not the vulgar Saracen tongue but a peculiar language understood only by the

48learned’.Similarly the Franks had to deal with Muslims of inland towns of Syria and the Holy

Land. Ibn Jubayr knew two wealthy Muslim merchants from Damascus, Nasr IbnKawam and Abi al-dur Yaqut, who monopolised most of the commercial transactions

49along the coast of the Latin states. The Franks employed Arab physicians. William ofTyre criticised the Latin princes who preferred Jewish and Muslim physicians to

50Latins. Usama Ibn Munqidh relates that the Frankish lord of Monietra asked his uncle51to send him an Arab physician to treat some of his fellows.

Bearing in mind that James of Vitry used a translator in Tripoli because Arabic wasits main language, and that, within the frontiers of the Latin States, the Franks had todeal with an Arabic-speaking population, we can therefore assume that many of themspoke Arabic and many others had to speak and write Arabic. That means they learnedArabic. This point of view may be challenged, but a unique passage in Fulcher ofChartres may support it. Fulcher describes a Turk threatening a Frankish knight beforethe battle of Hab (August 14, 1119) as saying: ‘A certain Turk, noticing that one of ourknights knew the Persian language addressed him saying ‘‘I say to you Frank, why make

52a fool of yourself since you labor in vain . . . ?’’ ’ If within two decades, some of theFranks who settled in the East knew Turkish, it is likely that many of them would knowArabic after nearly two centuries of mingling with the Arabs. But this does not meanthat the Franks abandoned their native language. Arabic may have been their only means

53of communication with Muslims, but it was not their only everyday language.Non-Arabic Muslims themselves, Kurds, Turcomans, Seldjuks and Turks, dealing withArab Muslims, had to speak and write Arabic but, among themselves, they spoke theirown languages. Hanbali tells us that the Ayubid Sultan, al-Adil I, who failed to contain

46Prawer,‘Minorities’, 62.47 ´ ´See A.N. Poliak,‘L’Arabisation de l’Orient Semitique’, Revue des etudes islamiques, 12 (1938), 35–63; C.

Cahen,‘Un document concernant les Melkites et les Latins d’Antioche au temps de Croisades’, Revue desetudes byzantines, 29 (1971), 289, and n. 10; Prawer,‘Minorities’, 62.

48James of Vitry, 68, 76.49Usamah Ibn Munqidh, 253.50WT, 859.51Usamah Ibn Munqidh, 170.52Fulcher of Chartres, 443. By‘Persian language’ he means Turkish, since he thought of the Turks in this way

as they had originally reached Iraq through Persia. Translation from A History of the Expedition toJerusalem, tr. F.R Ryan (Knoxville, 1970), 228.

53Their everyday language was French. The Cypriot Franks developed their own lingua franca from French,Italian, and Greek, see Mayer, Crusades, 189.


the army of the Hungarian crusade at Bisan (1217), blamed his son al-Mu’azzam, inKurdish, for degrading people of high birth and replacing them with his Mamluks in his

54Syrian fiefs.There is no doubt that settling in Syria enriched the Franks’ knowledge of the East.

We can assume that initially their geographical, demographic and historical informationabout Muslims and their countries and religion was superficial. The Franks had manyfaults, but the image of crude barbarians, only partly civilised by their brief stay in theEast, is oversimplified. Of the early history of Islam, like other Europeans, they wereignorant. Western Europeans knew virtually nothing of Islam as a religion beyond thatwhich they were told by Latin scholars, whose writings during the period from 700 to1100 were confined to the use of the Bible as a means of discovering the origins ofMuslims. The first serious attempt to introduce Islam as a serious subject of study in theWest was the translation of the Koran undertaken at the expense of the Abbot of Cluny,

55Peter the Venerable, by the English scholar Robert of Ketton (completed in July 1143).Their knowledge of contemporary Arab politics was usually erratic. Their demographicknowledge of the Arab world was vague, though it began at an early stage. Most of theLatin chroniclers of the First Crusade could hardly identify Muslim rulers. They mistookSuleiman Ibn Kutulmush, the founder of the Seldjukid Sultanate of Rum, for his

56grandson, Kilij Arslan. Albert of Aix knew Barqyaruq, Sultan of Persia, as rex Persidis57de Babilonio, the Persian king of Baghdad. They did not know where their enemies

came from. Peter Tudebode and the author of the Gesta counted Turks, Arabs, Saracens,58Agulani, Persians, and Paulicians among Kilij Arslan’s troops. Stephen of Blois, in his

letter to his wife Adelaide, mentions Turks, Saracens, Paulicians, Arabs, Syrians,59Armenians and other Gentiles among the defenders of Antioch. Tudebode reported that

the Fatimid army, defeated by the Franks near Ascalon in 1099, included Turks,60Saracens, Arabs, Agulani, Kurds, Asurpates, Azymites and other pagans. Fulcher of

Chartres added Parthians, Medes, and Chaldeans to the Turks who defeated the61crusaders of Antioch and Edessa in 1104 at Harran. Tudebode and the author of the

Gesta made the Abbasid caliph live in Korasan, not in Baghdad. Kerboga, as theyrelated, wanted to lead the crusaders to captivity in Persia because they threatened to

62push Muslims beyond the rivers of the Amazons or to upper India. Raymond ofAguilers used the name of Hispania to mean the region south of Antioch, the land of

63pagans.

54British Museum, Add. 7311, fol. 62r-v. Al Hanbali, Abmad B. Ibrahim, Shifa al Qulub fi manqib bani Ayyub.55See M.T. d’Alverny,‘Deux traductions latines du Coran au Moyen Age’, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et

´ ´litteraire du Moyen Age, 16, annees 1946–8, 69–131.56Fulcher of Chartres, 334, 350, 398; Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere, ed. J.H. and

L.L.Hill (Philadelphia, 1974), 56; Gesta Francorum, 22; Raymond of Aguilers, 240.57Albert of Aix, Historia Hierosolymitani, in: RHC, Occid., vol. 4, 224.58Gesta Francorum, 19–20; Tudebode, 54.59‘Epistula II Stephani comitis Carnotensis ad Adelam uxorem’, in: Die Kreuzzugsbriefe, 150.60Tudebode, 147.61Fulcher of Chartres, 408.62Gesta Francorum, 52; Tudebode, 91–2.63Raymond of Aguilers, 243–44. Raymond’s scribe seems to have been from southern France. He was used to

seeing French knights crossing into Spain to fight the Muslims, see J. Richard,‘Raymond d’Aguilers,historien de la Premiere Croisade’, Journal des Savants (1971), 207.


These chroniclers had strange ideas that Muslims were polytheists; they worshipped64Mohammad or his cousin Aly. Everything was unfamiliar to them, people, places and

names. Yet from the reign of Baldwin II, this attitude was beginning to change. Walterthe Chancellor was rarely confused about the names of Roger of Antioch’s enemies. Herecognised Toghtekin, ruler of Damascus (Dodechinus) and Ilghazi (Algazi), the Ortoqidprince who defeated Roger in 1119. He also distinguished the Turks (Turci) from the

65Turcomans (Turcomagni). Besides being born and settled in Syria, William of Tyredepended on the Arabic sources that King Amalric I had provided him with, whichenabled him to write his lost book Historia orientalium principum, the first Latin historyof the Islamic world which certainly included the clearest image of Islamic peoples so

66far. The archbishop ends his account on the rise of the Fatimid caliphate with anindicative statement: ‘If any one wishes to know more of these matters, he may read thehistory which we have written with great care from the Arabic sources at the instance

67and command of King Amaury. It deals with the princes of the East and their acts . . . ’His Historia included some accounts that seem to have been excerpted from hisHistoriam orientalum principum. Despite his contradictory geographical informationabout the origin of the names of some Egyptian cities, excerpted from Antiquity, henevertheless describes Egypt, its frontiers, regions and important cities, Cairo andAlexandria, accurately enough: he describes the foundation of Cairo proper in 361Hijrah; he was right in refusing to identify Cairo with the ancient city of Memphis,which he accurately located ten miles farther up the Nile; he provided the proper Arabicname of Egypt, ‘Macer’, identifying the name the Westerners derived, wrongly forEgypt, ‘Babilyun’. His account of the origin and rise of the Fatimid Caliphate shows that

68he was acquainted with aspects of the historical background of the Islamic East. Hislost book was a substantial source for both James of Vitry’s Historia Orientalis andHistoria Hierosomitana abbreviata, and for William of Tripoli’s Tractatus de statu

69Saracenorum. Their works included many statements that demonstrate, on the onehand, that both were acquainted with the essence of Islam and, on the other, that Williamof Tripoli mastered Arabic. The author of L’Estoire d’Eracles gives us a good lesson inethnography when he tells us about the Turcoman tribes which devastated the region ofAntioch in 1251. He describes them as ‘savage people who have no cities or castles.They always encamp in tents made of felt. They have numerous animals such as sheep,

70oxen, goats and cows which they graze. They never cultivate land’.Settling in the East for nearly twelve years (1217–1229), James of Vitry had the

64Tudebode, 148; Gesta Francorum, 52, 96.65Walter the Chancellor, 101–5.66WT, 99–100. The suggested title of William’s lost book is Gesta orientalium principum, see Edbury and

Rowe, 23. In 1154 Usamah received a safe-conduct from King Baldwin III for his family to travel fromEgypt to Damascus, part of which journey was to be by sea. However, as the ship approached Acre, theking’s men plundered their luggage including Usamah’s 4,000 books. William of Tyre may later haveobtained from King Amalric some Arabic historical works from this collection, Usamah Ibn Munqidh, 43–5.

67WT, 892. Translation from A History of Deeds done beyond the Sea, tr. E.A. Babcock and A.C. Krey, vol. 2(New York, 1941), 325. See Edbury and Rowe, 23–4.

68WT, 884–5, 896–8, 902–3.69Edbury and Rowe, 24.70L’Estoire d’Eracles empereur et la conqueste de la terre d’Outremer, in: RHC, Occid, vol. 1–2, 435.


opportunity to learn much more about Islam and the Middle East. In his abbreviatedhistory, he proved that he had noticed the sense of fatalism in Islam, although in variousparts of his book he repeated stories based on the imputation of idolatry to Muslimswhich were quite inconsistent with his own substantially clear and accurate statement ofIslamic belief. He wrote part of his book concerning the description of the Holy Landfrom his own experience. Besides Muslims and Latins, he identifies the non-LatinChristians, who inhabited Syria and the Holy Land and notes their services and religiousrites. His history may be taken from William of Tyre but his geographical material is

71based upon his own travels in the Crusader States.William of Tripoli’s book, one of the reports submitted to Pope Gregory X in 1274,

showed that an understanding of Islam helped to determine how to face Muslims anddeclared that it would be by missions, not by the sword, that the East would be won. Hisbook included many quotations from the Qur’an and Arabic literary books. Hisknowledge of the Qur’an suggests that he knew and rejected better material about theProphet’s life than he actually used. His historical polemic followed traditional lines,although he made use of stories authentically Islamic in origin. He was particularlyconcerned to explain who the Prophet was, why his people and Book had become sopotent, and how Islamic doctrine differed from the Christian view of the Trinity. Hisaccount of the Qur’anic Jesus and Mary, based on what he quoted from the Qur’an,shows how well he understood Arabic. His accurate use of the text of the Qur’an,particularly the text he derived bodily from the third Surah on the history of Mary and

72the prophecy of Christ’s mission, is unique.If many of the Franks had indeed learned Arabic, is it not likely then that some of

them translated Arabic scientific and literary works into their own languages since at thistime Arab society in Syria, Egypt and Mesopotamia was full of schools, scientists,

73physicians, astronomers, engineers and architects? The evidence is slight but there aresigns that such cross-cultural influences did occur. At this time Antioch, Tripoli andJerusalem became centres for the study of medicine. Theodore of Antioch, Basil ofAleppo, and James of Tripoli were the most illustrious scholars who taught in these

74medical centres. Stephen of Antioch translated the important medical work of Alyibn-al-Abba ‘al Mjusi’, into Latin, at Antioch in 1127. In 1247, again at Antioch, Philipof Tripoli found a manuscript of the Arabic Sirr al-Asrar, composed by Aristotle for hispupil Alexander, and translated it into Latin as Secretum Secretorum. This work,containing the essence of practical wisdom and occult science, became one of the most

75popular books of the later Middle Ages.It is evident therefore that the Franks who settled in the East were influenced by

Islamic culture even though the intellectual achievements of the Latins in the East do not

71James of Vitry, Historia Hierosolimitana Abbreviata, in: Gesta Dei per Francos, ed. Bongars, vol. 1(Hanover, 1611), Vi, ixii. He mentions Syrians, Greeks, Jacobites, Maronites, Nestorians, Armenians, andGeorgians, see The History of Jerusalem, 68–84, 7–21.

72William of Tripoli, 573–92.73Ibn Jubayr, 230, counted twenty schools in Damascus and two hospitals. See also Ahmad A. Badawy,

Intellectual Life in Egypt and Syria in the Age of the Crusades (Cairo, 1972), 60ff.74See E.G. Rey, Les Colonies Franques de Syrie (Paris, 1883), 178–9, 181.75See Hitti, 663.


seem to have been as great as might be expected and even though the evidence of thetransmission of Arabic literary and scientific works into Latin is rare. Settling in Syrianevertheless enriched their geographical, demographic, and historical knowledge of theEast. Most importantly, however, knowledge of Arabic among the Franks seems to havebeen more extensive than hitherto thought, not the least because of the practical demandsarising from political negotiations, trading, and administration.