But they did not bring with them the Moslem civilisation that Saladin had known. There was little to choose between the desolation that the Mamelukes sowed behind them and that of the Tartar hordes.

Thousands of Christians now flooded the slave markets of the East. These became so glutted that the price of a nubile young woman was no more than a simple silver coin. The Crusades were over. The dream of Outremer was over. The Latin kingdom of the East was gone for ever. Henceforth the energies and the violence of the Latins and other western Europeans would largely be directed against one another. A refugee among many other refugees in Cyprus, John de Villiers, the Grand Master of the Order of St John, wrote that his heart was sick and troubled, and that he was ‘overwhelmed with grief’.

 

 

 

Chapter 7

CRUSADERS IN EXILE

 

The plight of all refugees is invariably a miserable one, but that of the former Latin settlers in Outremer was worse than most. They had lost not only their homes and private property but also their lands. Except for what they brought with then they were penniless. Their presence in the island only served to remind the Cypriots of the disaster that had befallen and as Sir Steven Runciman comments, ‘the Cypriots needed no reminder. For a century to come the great ladies of the island, when they went out of doors, wore cloaks of black that stretched from their heads to their feet. It was a token of mourning for the death of Outremer.’ The great military Orders on the other hand, although they too had lost castles, property and wide territories, were still immensely rich because of their money and holdings in Europe. In Cyprus itself, the Order of St John had several estates as well as properties in Limassol and Nicosia. On the southern promontory of the island, where the town and port of Limassol stands, they also had a castle at Colos. It was natural that Limassol should become their headquarters, and within a few years of their arrival they had begun the construction of a new hospital.

The Hospitallers were fortunate in the fact that they still had their original vocation. Even if they, like the other Orders were demoralised in the immediate years that followed the loss of Outremer they were still conscious of their vows that enjoined them to be the servants of the poor and the sick. It was a different matter for the Templars and the Teutonic knights. Deprived of their raison d’être, it seemed as if they must inevitably disintegrate. At first the Templars, acting in conjunction with the Hospitallers, strove to regain their ancient role by mounting commando-type raids on Egypt and the Palestine coastline. In 1300, for instance, a fleet was despatched from Famagusta which landed a small force in the Delta, burnt a village, and then sailed down to Alexandria where they found the defences too strong for them. They next sailed back north and raided what remained of Acre and Tortosa. In a later engagement on the coast they ran into heavy opposition and had to retire, the Hospitallers losing a number of men including one knight The interesting point about this relatively unimportant excursion is that it is the first time that we find the Hospitallers making use of seapower against the Moslems. It is their first tentative step in the direction of the role of Christian corsair which was later to make them the terror of their enemies and famous throughout the Mediterranean and Europe.

The Templars were less able to adapt and indeed were destined for extinction. Philip of France, who was desperately short of money, had long been casting a greedy eye upon their immense resources and property throughout the land. The opportunity to lay his hands upon the Templars’ wealth was presented by the fact that France at this time was under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. The head inquisitor of France was also Philip’s personal confessor so Philip had the tools to his hand. In 1307, at a moment when the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, as well as nearly all the Templars were in France, the king struck. All were arrested on the grounds of blasphemy and heresy. The charges were centred on the initiation ceremony, when the new knights were admitted into the Order.