One part of his army was sent against the town of Tiberias which swiftly fell to them, only the castle under the command of Eschiva, Countess of Tripoli, managing to hold out. (The wives of these Latin nobles in the East regularly showed as much courage and spirit as their men. There was no safe place, as it were, back behind the lines. When a castle or a city was attacked by the enemy the women were as much in the battle area as anyone else.) In the meantime the Christians had rallied their army, contingents from the Templars and the Hospitallers, and others from Tripoli and Antioch. The Patriarch of Jerusalem had even sent the most holy of all relics to ensure the success of their arms, the relic of the True Cross. This had been discovered in Jerusalem in the fourth century. (Within a comparatively few years Saint Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem, was to remark that the whole world was full of relics of the Cross). To expose a relic so precious in those days is an indication of the concern felt about the safety of the kingdom. No doubt someone remembered what inspiration the men of the First Crusade had received from the discovery in Antioch of the lancehead that had pierced Christ’s side.

Saladin meanwhile had personally joined in the siege of the castle of Tiberias, leaving the main body of his army in the hills around. He was taking a calculated risk, but he felt confident that the Christians would not leave the castle to its fate. If they fell for the bait he was confident about the outcome. The army assembled against him was about equal in numbers to his own: composed of some 1,200 knights, 4,000 mounted sergeants, probably a similar number of foot-soldiers, together with local mounted bowmen. They were encamped at a place called Sephoria where there were a number of wells. Between them and Saladin lay a burnt-out barren plateau. It was a question of who would cross it first.

There was considerable division of opinion among the Christian commanders. The more hot-headed naturally said that they should set off right away for the relief of Tiberias. The cooler among them, and this included the Hospitallers, were in favour of delaying and making Saladin come to meet them. Even Count Raymond, whose wife was besieged in the castle, said that it would be folly to cross the plateau. Tiberias, he pointed out, was his city and Eschiva was his wife—but that was no reason for the army to hazard itself. Unfortunately, Guy, King of Jerusalem, who was in overall command, allowed himself to be persuaded by the party in favour of relieving Tiberias at once. It was a fatal decision. Saladin had lured his enemy into a death trap.

Early on the morning of July 3rd, 1187, the Christians left their camp at Sephoria and began their march. (It is blazing on that plateau under the eye of the lion-sun of summer, and there are no water-holes or wells.) The plateau shook, danced with mirage, and through the wavering bars of heat the horsemen began to emerge—not to join battle, but to swoop and sting like desert hornets. The whole enterprise was illogical in the extreme, and the only justification that can be found for the army’s advance was that Guy, as feudal lord, must necessarily go to the aid of a vassal, whatever the circumstances. The fact that Count Raymond was himself in favour of waiting for the Saracens did not count. Feudal laws and the laws of chivalry dictated Guy’s action. In somewhat similar fashion one finds in classical days that generals behaved in what seems now a totally irrational fashion to go to the aid of their ‘clients’, or even to postpone giving action at a favourable moment because of an eclipse of the moon, or because omens were unfavourable. The Latins of the crusading period, swayed as they were by superstition and by chain-mail codes of behaviour, were every bit as irrational.

Late in the afternoon the rearguard, largely composed of the Templars, was collapsing under the incessant attacks of Saladin’s horsemen. The decision was taken to halt the army for the night at the foot of a two-peaked hill known as the Horns of Hattin. The reason for this most probably was that it was known there was a well at this point.