Episode 301 - The Fifth Crusade with Nicholas Morton

AI is transforming customer service.

It's real and it works.

And with Finn, we've built the number one AI agent for customer service.

We're seeing lots of cases where it's solving up to 90% of real queries for real businesses.

This includes the real world complex stuff like issuing a refund or canceling an order.

And we also see it when Finn goes up against competitors.

It's top of all the performance benchmarks, top of the G2 leaderboard.

And if you're not happy, we'll refund you up to a million dollars, which I think says it all.

Check it out for yourself at fin.ai.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly.

Must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

This episode is sponsored by Better Help.

Hello, everyone.

It can be tough finding someone to talk to these days.

For example, I work from home, alone, and I moved out of London where all my friends live.

Now I have to bother my neighbours or ask ChatGPT when I need some help.

Maybe you've turned to some funny places for support.

But not everyone is a therapist.

Not everyone is the one.

Find your right match with BetterHelp.

If you're in need of empathy, compassion and a real listening ear, there is nothing like therapy.

It can be priceless to carve out a space just for you, where you can get things off your chest and get your head to a happier place.

BetterHelp's online service can help you find the one you're looking for.

Fill in a questionnaire, and they'll match you with a therapist who'll be a good fit for your needs.

They have years of experience and an industry leading match fulfilment rate.

And if they aren't the one for you, you can switch to a different therapist at any time at no extra cost.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise.

Find the one with BetterHelp.

Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/slash Byzantium.

That's better

H-E-L-P dot com slash Byzantium.

hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium episode 301 the fifth crusade with Nicholas Morton

As part of this very brief pause in the narrative I thought it was worth checking in with the crusading movement, since it's had such a dramatic impact on Roman history.

Having covered the first four major crusades and some of the minor efforts as well, I was curious about the Fifth Crusade and what it achieved.

Thankfully, Professor Nicholas Morton, author of The Mongol Storm, offered to tell me and you all about it.

This latest Latin effort did actually make it to Egypt, and as you can imagine, the going was tough.

There's some fascinating stuff in this story about religious faith and the impact of the Mongols on people's imaginations, as well as your usual dramatic battle scenes.

To find out more about this campaign, check out Professor Morton's book, The Mongol Storm, Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East, also available on Audible.

For now, here's the story of the Fifth Crusade.

Dr.

Nicholas Morton, welcome back to the podcast.

Thank you very much.

It's great to be back.

It's great to have you.

And it's very enjoyable for me because I haven't had to pour over all the sources for the Fifth Crusade to set up today's episode where you're going to do all the heavy lifting for me.

I am very grateful.

No problem.

The Fifth Crusade actually came up during our conversation about the Mongols.

And you actually cover it in...

the Mongol storm.

So this is a good tie-in.

We can recommend listeners if they've liked anything they've heard in the previous two episodes to check out your new book um but you've also published a number of books on crusading history so i am with the right person for today's story

thank you i hope so

all right so listeners will be very familiar with what happened with the fourth crusade um and obviously from the papacy's point of view and from the people in the Crusader state's point of view, that was not helpful particularly at all.

So

what happens next?

Can you tell, remind the listeners where people in Utramiya are at this stage and then what the next moves are back in Rome?

Sure.

So, the Fifth Crusade is one of the biggest crusades in the history of crusading, tens of thousands of participants.

And the best starting point for understanding the crusade

is if you go back to 1187.

And in that year, Saladin, putting together a huge army drawn from his territories in Syria and Egypt,

staged a major assault on the Crusader states.

And the Crusader states, of course, are the territories created by the First Crusade and in its immediate aftermath along the coastal regions of the East Mediterranean.

And 1187 is crucial because in that year, Saladin substantially overthrew the greater part of those states, including the capture of Jerusalem in October of that year.

And so this event defines much of what follows, because really from this point on, the papacy has got one objective in the region, and that is to get Jerusalem back.

And so to this end, multiple crusades are sent into the East Mediterranean.

There's famously the Third Crusade led by people like Philip II of France, Richard I of England, Frederick I of Germany, which saw the partial reconquest of some parts of the kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost crusader state.

And then you've got further crusades.

There's a large German crusade in 1197.

And then, as you say, there's the Fourth Crusade, which was supposed to attack Egypt, but ended going wildly off course and besieging Constantinople.

And then you have the Fifth Crusade.

And the Fifth Crusade, it's not original in any way, shape or form in terms of its objectives.

It's there to try and conquer jerusalem and it's following what is by this point a fairly well-worn strategy the idea is not to attack jerusalem directly and the reason for that is because it's known jerusalem economically isn't particularly valuable and so it's quite possible a crusade army could conquer jerusalem that's not a problem but how would it be held in the long term there's got to be an economic basis to support a large army that can can then defend Jerusalem for the long term.

But that's just not possible with the Crusader states in their much reduced state at this particular moment in time.

And so Crusade strategists of this era,

their solution to this is to attack Egypt first.

And

their reasons for this...

basically come down to the simple fact that Egypt is enormously wealthy.

It's the confluence point of multiple trade routes.

The spice routes going via the Red Sea, then across Egypt before entering the Mediterranean, the Trans-Saharan gold routes which come up from places like Mali and Nigeria across the Sahara.

They go to various North African cities, but that includes Egypt.

and then part of the Silk Roads out of Central Asia and China.

One leg of those roads will go into Egypt.

So commercially, it's important.

But then there's also the Nile Delta itself.

Now the Nile Delta is obviously

incredibly fertile and that fertility comes from rains that fall annually far to the south in the Ethiopian highlands, which cause the Blue Nile to flood, which then carries on and floods the Nile Delta, bringing with it all sorts of nutrients and minerals that it's picked up on the way, which is natural fertilizer.

And so in the Middle East, which isn't overly gifted with good quality agricultural land this is really important so for all these reasons egypt is incredibly important and so what crusade strategists are thinking is if egypt can be taken first

that will then provide an economic basis for the conquest of jerusalem in the long term

So from the Crusaders perspective, that's what's going on.

But of course, there's another major perspective here, too.

and that's the perspective of the current rulers of Egypt.

And the current rulers of Egypt,

Egypt itself, forms part of what is known as the Ayyubid Empire.

And the Ayyubid Empire is basically the empire that Saladin created.

He created it in the 1160s, 1170s, so several decades before the Fifth Crusade.

The reason it's called the Ayyubid Empire is because it's named after Saladin's father, Ayyub.

And so it's the empire of the family of Ayyub, basically.

And it consists of Egypt, and it consists of much of Syria, and also parts of the Jazira.

The Jazeera meaning the island, referring to the area of land between the Euphrates and Tigris River.

So it's a very large empire, but crucially for everyone concerned, it's not particularly cohesive.

And the reason for this is that in the 1190s, in 1193, when Saladin died, his empire was inherited by his sons and also by his brother, who took various portions for themselves, acting effectively like independent rulers.

Now, there is a strong sense of family identity.

At the same time, there's also a great deal of rivalry.

And so almost immediately after Saladin's death, they start fighting amongst themselves.

So here's the dynamic for the Fifth Crusade.

The Fifth Crusade arrives in large numbers.

It arrives initially in the kingdom of Jerusalem on the East Mediterranean coastline, but its major target is Egypt.

So the goal for them is to invade and seize Egypt and then to advance on Jerusalem.

As for the Ayyubids, they are,

as always, rather divided amongst themselves between the various leaders of their major cities and territories.

And so for them, their goal is obviously to resist the crusade but in doing so they'll need to work together

brilliant so going back to uh rome where i'm assuming the calls for another crusade are coming from after constantinople is taken is there a reaction to what happened during the fourth crusade um i'm assuming um that the papacy says well we're not going to use the venetians again after what's happened here.

And possibly we're not going to be able to recruit from Champagne and other areas of France because they've just sent their volunteers to the Fourth Crusade.

Are those two ideas sort of fairly accurate?

Sure.

Well, of course, yeah, the conquest of Constantinople hangs over all these events as

it's such a crucial turning point in the history of the region.

The papacy is originally horrified, of course, by the conquest of Constantinople and then kind of gets on board with it when it realizes this has happened.

In terms of the Fifth Crusade, there's all sorts of pressures on the Fifth Crusade.

There is, from the Papacy's perspective, a need to send additional troops to support the various crusading forces and dynasties that are seeking to carve up the former Byzantine Empire and turn it into a series of essentially crusader states in Byzantium, including places like the Kingdom of Thessalonica, Latin Empire of Constantinople, Duchy of Athens, places like that.

But it's also fighting an anti-heresy crusade in southern France.

And it's also, of course, wants to support the Fifth Crusade to Egypt.

And so the papacy is juggling multiple agendas.

Unlike the Fourth Crusade, there's no real attempt to try and find

a major transport provider, to use a rather modern way of putting it.

So they're not expecting any of the big Mediterranean cities to provide the bulk of the transport.

For the most part, the various different contingents arrive independently.

There's no problem from the papacy's perspective with Venice taking part, but Venice isn't quite so prominent in terms of providing so much transportation, not least because Venice at this point is also deeply involved in the Aegean, where it's been conquering various Byzantine islands or trying to secure its control over various Byzantine islands in the wake of the Fourth Crusade.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so

is there an attempt to coordinate strongly?

Because obviously this was an issue with the Fourth Crusade that lots of people just set off and went to Acre to serve.

They didn't gather in Venice to head to Egypt.

So

how does that work itself out?

Yeah, so

it's a little bit like you were saying, for the most part, it's more like the other members of the Fourth Crusade in the sense that most people make their own way to the East Mediterranean.

They find their own transport.

It's not coordinated in quite the same way.

So yeah, those kinds of issues don't really arise.

And so who are the big

players

from Western Europe?

Well, this is...

one of the most interesting and most complicated factors of the Fifth Crusade in that there is no clear overall leader.

you've got some very senior nobles people like the duke of austria for example there's also a papal legate who is the pope's representative on the crusade called pelagius and he has um prior history in the latin empire of constantinople so he's he's very familiar with both those regions and then you have the current king of jerusalem called john of brienne as well as many other leaders as people like the master of the temple, master of the hospital, master of the Teutonic Knights and the military orders, the representatives of the Italian cities who participate, as well as a whole host of other aristocrats from across Western Christendom.

But crucially, there's no major ruler.

It is anticipated

that Emperor Frederick II of Germany will arrive and lead the crusade.

And he takes the cross at 1215.

So they have every reason to believe that he will turn up and of course if the emperor of germany turns up he will simply claim leadership but uh we'll come back to that in a little bit

uh so when when do the first crusaders set off and where do they where do they land okay so the crusaders set off uh they don't set off in sort of one fleet they set off piecemeal um squadrons arriving part by part and they begin to gather in the summer to late uh 1217 and they don't go straight to Egypt because they want to assemble sufficient numbers to make that initial landing.

And so they go instead to the kingdom of Jerusalem, which is, I would say, the largest of the Crusader states.

It is, but it's still very small compared to what it had been previously in the 12th century.

Its major city, of course, is not Jerusalem, which is under Ayyubid control at this time, it's Acre, which is one of the biggest port cities along the Eastern Mediterranean coastline.

And so they begin to gather there.

The the king of hungary arrives for a time

and while they're gathering they initiate a series of raids onto ayubid territory raiding into places like the jordan valley and there's an attempt to attack a fortress on mount tabor which is just to the east of acre

These raids and the attack on Mount Tabor aren't particularly effective.

The assault on Mount Tabor,

it doesn't ultimately succeed.

But nonetheless, these are really sort of preliminary moves as the army assembles.

But one of the biggest problems they've got is that as tens of thousands of pilgrims and crusaders arrive, the Crusader States don't have a huge amount of farmland because they're not that big.

And so there is a question mark placed over how much

food can be provided in the Crusader States while the Crusader is massing, because it doesn't actually have much in the way of excess food supply.

So that does become a consideration.

And do we have an idea of the numbers who eventually move on to Egypt?

No, we don't.

Not a clear one.

But I think if I were going to make a guess, and this is more of an informed guess rather than anything based on serious sources, because we don't really have really good estimates.

The first thing to say is, as I've mentioned, crusading contingents are arriving and departing the whole time.

So there's never a sort of a set number.

Having said that, I would say that probably at its greatest extent, we're probably looking at something in the region of 30,000 troops, which, by the standards of the region, is enormous.

To put that in context, the largest army the kingdom of Jerusalem ever raised was in 1183, possibly 1187, but it managed about 20,000.

And the largest army Saladin ever managed was about 30,000.

So we're looking at armies of the size that are the largest that would be raised in the area, at least prior to the Mongols, whose armies were a great deal larger.

Yeah.

And it's interesting because that number is about what the Venetians were prepared to transport for the Fourth Crusade.

Yeah.

But obviously.

If they turned up.

No, exactly.

And

you need unified command if 30,000 people are going to conquer the whole of Egypt.

So

take us on from there in the story, really.

They've been raiding around Acre and what happens next?

So next, the crusading fleet set sail for Egypt.

And there are a number of possible targets where they could begin their landing.

The Fourth Crusade, initially at least, was tasked with attacking Alexandria.

And from a strategic perspective, that makes a great deal of sense.

It's a big port.

It's one of the most lucrative ports in Egypt.

A lot of Egypt's wealth goes through and from Alexandria.

And so, take Alexandria, and

that would very much give the Crusaders the upper hand.

But it's a very heavily fortified city and a very large city.

Attacks have been made by the Crusaders or the Franks on Alexandria before,

including one that succeeded in 1167 when the Crusaders were operating

in cooperation with the rulers of Egypt at that time, the Fatimid Empire.

But there are downsides to Alexandria as well.

It is a very large city.

It's also further away, it's further west from the Crusader States, which may also have been a concern given obviously the supply lines are wider.

Damietta is the alternative.

It's on the eastern side of the Nile Delta on the Mediterranean coast.

It's also a major port, but it's closer to the Crusader State, so the supply lines are narrower, which may have been seen to be an advantage.

It may also have been hoped that because Demiet is at the eastern end of the Nile Delta, that reinforcements might even hope to arrive over land to support the Crusading effort, although that doesn't really happen.

But yeah, Demieta is a smaller town, it's a less ambitious target, but it is still a major port, and it would give the Crusaders a starting point for their broader intention to conquer Egypt as a whole.

And this had been the target during Manuel Komnenos' reign when he lent the Crusader states a fleet.

So we've been here before.

And

how does that attack unfold?

So, yes, the Crusading Fleet makes landfall in May 1218.

And just to sort of try and sketch out the geography of the region, what you've got is you've got a...

tribute, what you've got, one of the major channels of the Nile that meets the sea right next to Damietta.

So if you visualize

this branch of the Nile meeting the sea, and then on the east side of that tributary, you have

Damietta itself, heavily fortified, multiple lines of fortifications and ramparts.

Saladin knew Damieta was a potential weak point in his defenses.

So a few years before this, he and later on his successors plowed money into building up its defences so it is very solidly fortified.

The Damietta on the east side of the tributary, so it's the corner between the tributary and then where it meets the coast.

And then on the other side of the tributary, the west bank, that's where the Crusaders make their initial landing in the sand dunes in that area.

And that really sets up the tactical scenario for what's going to happen next.

in that the Crusaders have landed on the west bank of the Nile.

They seem to have struggled to find a landing spot on the east bank.

So, what they are seeking to do is to advance across the branch of the Nile, which to the south of Damietta.

So, that would bring them then onto the same bank as the city itself, and then to lay siege to Damietta proper.

But in order to get across the river, there is a major obstacle, and that is that Saladin, I can't remember if it's not Saladin's brother, built a very large tower in the middle of

the Nile,

heavily fortified, capable of supporting a large garrison, which then had a large chain which ran from the tower to Damietta's walls, therefore blocking ships from going further up the Nile.

So if the Franks want to

cross the Nile and then lay siege to Damietta, they're going to have to take that tower first.

And it's not an easy target to attack because it's in the middle of the river.

So this is their first military objective.

And of course,

the Ayyubids are not seemingly going to let them do this because the current Sultan of Egypt called Al-Kamil, he arrives with his main field army soon after the Crusaders and he makes camp just to the south of Dabieta on the east bank.

of the Nile facing the Franks.

So this sets up what's going to happen next.

And so for a time, there is a great deal of warfare across the Nile.

You've got Al-Kamil sending forces across a bridge of boats, trying to attack the Crusader camp directly.

And you've got the Franks trying to destroy that bridge of boats whilst trying to seize the chain tower, which will then give their ships access to the Nile so they can then stage a landing across the Nile.

And so there's a great deal of sort of river-ine warfare.

And from the Crusaders' perspective, things get more complicated when there's a big storm at sea which swamps their camp

and initially things go quite well for al-Kamil

his resistance to the crusaders proves to be very successful his garrison in the chain tower is

very strong and it holds out for weeks and the franks are quite innovative in how they attack it what they basically do is they get large ships

and they strap them together and build siege towers on their decks and then ram them up against the tower and try and gain access to the tower that way and eventually they do succeed in conquering the tower nonetheless it takes them a long time and several attempts to do this and this is all to the good from al-camille's perspective because presumably al-camille knows all we've got to do is not to defeat the crusade we just have to wait for them to run out of food or to run out of money or to go home crusades are always time sensitive.

And so Al Camille would know perfectly well.

He's just got to hold on and then eventually they'll go away.

And so what is the supply situation for the Crusaders?

Are they able to forage inland at all?

Or are they entirely dependent on new boats arriving with food?

Sure, it's a mixture.

Some ships arrive by sea.

Some of them are then intercepted by Ayubid warships.

Some raiding parties set out across the Nile Delta seeking to gather food and fodder for their troops and horses.

But of course, with a very large army, there's a limit to how much you can get from the surrounding territory.

And very quickly, the local areas is devastated by raiders as they try to gather food.

And so things that has become a pressure on the crusading camp.

And Al-Khamil knows this and he's very effective at holding them off.

Nevertheless, things begin to turn for Al-Khamil soon afterwards, because the Crusaders do ultimately take the Chain Tower, and then they're poised

to make that landing across the Nile, and then to be able to lay siege to Damietta proper.

And Al-Kamil knows this, but this is where things become difficult, because Al-Kamil learns that there is a possible coup developing against him.

So he withdraws sharply from his encampment and his army goes with him.

And so suddenly suddenly where he was preparing lines of defense on the banks of the Nile against an assault across the river by the Crusade,

in fact, he has to pull his troops back from those defenses and this creates a moment of weakness.

And what seems to have happened is that a mercenary formerly in Al-Kamil's employ started waving to the Crusaders on the other bank to inform them that in fact all the various earthworks earthworks created to defend the river were now, in fact, abandoned.

And of course, the Crusaders were perhaps understandably a little skeptical about this to begin.

Is this a trap?

Is this a ruse?

But it turned out to be true.

And so, as a result, they crossed the Nile virtually unopposed.

And then in February 1219, they lay siege to Damietta itself.

It's funny, isn't it?

When you hear about a moment like that, you kind of think you would be on that crusade thinking, this is God,

you know, smoothing the way for us.

Because, you know, that's exactly, you couldn't dream of a better thing happening if you've been standing on top of a boat trying to get onto a tower for weeks and thinking this is never going to work.

And suddenly the enemy's gone.

Yeah, absolutely.

And all of this is interpreted from a spiritual perspective.

So when I was talking about the Chat Hacks and the Chain Tower, for example, I mean, the sight of it must have been astonishing.

These massive ships with a siege tower on their decks being rammed through the quite rough water where the Nile reaches the sea against this massive fortified tower in the middle of the stream.

On the banks, you've got watching crusaders, but also priests and monks praying to God that he will give them victory in battle.

And so, the sound and the sight of that must have been truly astonishing.

And

yes, it's hard to put into words, really.

But yes, absolutely, all of this is interpreted spiritually.

So, this is all about if the Crusaders, the Crusading Army encounters obstacles, those are viewed as obstacles set up by God to test their faith, just as then if they have a major advance, that too would probably have been interpreted as being, as you say, God smoothing the way for them.

But the Crusaders now have access to Damietta and they begin to lay siege to the city.

And Al-Kamil, you know, after he sorts out

the attempted coup, he comes back very quickly.

And so you've then got what is basically a three-sided conflict.

You've got Damietta in the north

with its garrison trying to fend off the Crusaders, who very quickly set up catapults in order to fling stones at the battlements.

And further south, below the Crusading encampment, you've got Al-Kamil trying to break the Crusading siege.

And that creates

an ongoing sequence of battles and skirmishes as repeatedly Al-Kamil tries to break through the Crusaders' lines.

The Crusaders themselves fortify their encampment against him whilst maintaining a pressure on Damietta.

And as for the people of Damietta, having been cut off for months from all their supply lines, their food stocks dwindled down to virtually nothing, and famine and disease spread through the city with extremely high casualties among the populace

and by the time you get to the summer of 1219 things are beginning to sort of reach a crescendo in on the 29th of august 1219

alchemy's al-chamil's army and the crusaders fight a major pitched battle which the crusaders win

and that frees them up to some degree to really press home their attack on damietta until on the 5th of november 1219, the Crusaders finally conquer the city.

And it's not quite clear how this came about.

Some people say that it was as a result of the garrison surrendering.

There's one story that says that on a dark and rainy night, a group of Frankish infantry saw that a watchtower on the walls was unguarded.

So they stealthily

put a ladder against the wall, climbed up, it was unguarded, and from there they were able to open the gates.

It's not quite clear.

Either way, the Crusaders did conquer Damietta, and once they gained access to the city, they discovered just how much the population had suffered

during the Crusading siege with, as I mentioned, very substantial loss of life.

But

it's taken a long time, but the Crusaders, viewed from a military perspective, have now achieved their main target.

Having said that, although Al-Kamil suffered a number of defeats,

he's actually done a very effective job of slowing them down, which of course is really what he's looking for.

And that then opens the next phase of the crusade.

So yeah.

Yeah.

So obviously, this is quite a specific question, but did the people on the crusade have a sense of when their duty would be done?

Because obviously,

ideally, you conquer the whole of Egypt and you march on Jerusalem, but realistically, that could take years.

So are there people who go, great, well, I've done my bit.

I'm going to sail home now because

we've got the port.

Now it's somebody else's turn to step up and serve for another year.

Yeah, no, there's a strong sense of that.

And most crusade contingents, they've brought enough money and food to keep them going for several months, but they can't keep going indefinitely.

And so, yes.

The crusading contingents are constantly cycling in, cycling out.

That

happens very frequently.

And many do feel that once Damietta has been taken, well, yeah, that's enough.

They may feel that they've made their contribution and then withdraw.

So the army does seem to dwindle a bit after the conquest of Damietta.

But now we come to one of the most interesting phases of the siege, because although there are time pressures on them the whole time, the Crusaders then stop

and they don't do anything.

For a long time

over a year they're in damieth they've got damietab but that's it they do some raiding in the in the sort of surrounding area but there's no serious attempt to march up the nile and to lay siege to cairo and historians have wondered why this is because of course they don't have time on their side and at the same

In the same period, Al-Kamil is writing to his various brothers, al-Muwazzim in Damascus, al-Ashraf in northern Syria, asking them to march to his aid.

And so he's been given time, effectively, to

gather reinforcements and auxiliaries against a future crusading assault.

And so historians have often wondered why this is.

And in fact, some contemporaries...

who are participants in the crusade got very cross because they say well what what's all what's the wait for basically

Why is the Crusade not advancing?

And there are various theories about this.

One theory is that the Crusade was waiting for Emperor Frederick II of Germany to arrive with a sizable crusading army that would then give them more than enough resources to complete the conquest of Egypt.

That's possible.

In fact, in 1220, Frederick's main concern was getting himself crowned as emperor by the Pope in Rome.

So he was busy, despite the fact he did send some contingents and some money to the crusade,

along with reassurances that he would arrive himself in due course.

There is another possibility here,

which is one of the most,

how shall I say, colourful reasons why the Crusade may not have advanced.

And that's because it expected to be reinforced from a rather different direction.

There is a serious case to be made.

That the Crusaders expected to be supported by the priest-emperor Prester John of the Indies leading an army of monsters.

Now, yes, you did hear me right,

but this will require a little bit of explaining.

So, there is a myth in Western Christendom, and the myth seems to date back to about the 12th to about the 1120, so it's been around for about a century, that somewhere out to the east, there is a priest-emperor called Presta John.

And he rules over an incredible empire in the Indies, as it was described, but shouldn't necessarily be sort of equated automatically with India, because Western Christianity has a very sketchy idea of where India is.

It's more a sort of region out to the east, as far as they're concerned.

But Prester John is believed to be Christian, and he's believed to rule over an empire that includes many different types of monster, as well as human subjects as well.

And in time, this legend becomes embroidered so that there are crags in his empire where the dragons live.

And some of his subjects can ride the dragons and they're called dragon masters.

I mean, it sounds like sort of Game of Thrones in some respects.

And off the coast of Prester John's empire, there's an island where you can find the fountain of eternal life.

And so you can see how it becomes mixed up with

myths and legends.

But there is a sense that Prester John is on the march, that he is assertively moving to aid the Fifth Crusade.

And this might sound like a strange thing to say, but they're not.

This is not some sort of weird delusion.

They actually have some pretty concrete reasons for believing this.

And the main reason is that there is an army, a massive army on the march moving westwards towards the Middle East.

But it's not Prestijan, it's the Mongols.

And the Mongols at this point are in the business, or in the process, I should say, of conquering much of eastern Persia and areas like Afghanistan, parts of Uzbekistan, to use some of the modern countries.

and they are moving west very rapidly.

One Mongol flying column goes through northern Persia and then up round the Caspian through the Caucasus, passing very close to Ayyubid territory.

And so we're told, at least,

various people fleeing the conflict or merchants returning from that region report to the Prince of Antioch, that's the northernmost crusader state, saying the armies of Prestajon are on the march.

And then this gets reported.

to

the crusade in Damietta.

So it's not actually entirely irrational.

They are working on information that has been gathered and they do believe that Presta John is out there and it seems like circumstantial evidence is corroborating this is what's happening.

Of course, it's not happening for the simple reason that Presta John doesn't exist, but they don't know that.

I love this story, absolutely.

And it does make a lot of sense because

you've got to think about, say,

Muslim people living in, you know, Afghanistan or eastern Iran who are being attacked by this people who speak another language, but are clearly not Muslim.

And you might pick up your family and run.

And so you tell people in the next town, oh, there's just this foreign non-Muslim people who are killing everyone.

So then they start fleeing and tell.

And so this game of, you know, telephone, or as the Americans would say, or whispers, as we might say, happens.

And

it does then get interpreted by each new town the rumors hit through a lens that they can understand.

And it makes me think of how people must have interpreted

the rise of the Arab Caliphate or Alexander the Great's victories, who lived 500 miles away from this, going, what do you mean?

the Achaemenid Persian Empire has fallen.

Like, that doesn't make any sense.

How do we interpret this astonishing news?

So, yeah, it's a really interesting

development.

One of the interesting features of this comes later when they realize the Mongols are not, in fact, Prester John's armies, how the Prester John myth is then fitted around the Mongols.

And so some writers claim, well, the Mongols must have overthrown Prester John's empire, or perhaps, and some say, well, actually, Prester John's empire is in a long-standing war with the Mongols who are trying to conquer his empire, and Presto John's resisting them.

But they're trying to fit the myth alongside what they have learnt to be the case.

And so you do have some very interesting sort of intellectual juggling exercises where they try and make the myth continue to fit even as they acquire better information.

But for the crusade in Damietta, they expect Prester John to arrive and to help them, but of course he doesn't.

But

the main point is that this is another factor, another reason to wait.

And so it's not really until the summer of 1221.

that the crusade then embarks on a new offensive, the long-awaited offensive, south.

But of course, by this stage, Al-Khamil's ready.

And Al-Khamil's brothers are both willing to support him.

His brother Al-Ashraf moves to join Al-Khamil's camp, and his brother Al-Muwazim is en route.

So there are various armies in play here.

And the Crusading army at this point, because Emperor Frederick doesn't arrive, the Duke of Bavaria arrives with some forces, but the Crusade's not actually as large as it once was at this point.

But it advances south towards Cairo.

And initially it makes reasonable progress, but Al-Kamil chooses to

encamp himself

at a place called Al-Mansurah.

Now,

just to sort of picture the geography here is really important.

So the Crusade is advancing down this fork of the Nile, heading towards Cairo.

But

the branch of the Nile they're advancing alongside has various tributaries and streams that

come off it at various points.

And there's one branch of the Nile that comes off just to the north of Mansura.

And so the Crusaders advance down the Nile, and then they have then to cross this tributary that comes off the branch of the Nile.

And the crucial point is that on the other bank of that tributary is the main Ayyubid camp.

So that tributary that comes off the branch of the Nile basically acts like a moat in front of the Ayyubid camp.

And so

Al-Kamil cited himself well.

It's a very defensible position.

It's very difficult for the Crusaders to get at his camp at all.

And so

the Crusaders make camp on the other side of that tributary.

And for a time, archers and crossbowmen and catapults fling stones and arrows at each other across the tributary.

But it becomes clear that, in fact, the Crusades are really going to struggle to get anywhere near to Al-Kamil's camp.

Meanwhile,

Al-Kamil, of course, has access to

sailors who are tremendously experienced and knowledgeable about the Nile and the various systems of streams and canals that criss-cross the Nile Delta.

And he's able to use that knowledge to launch river boats on the Nile behind the Crusader camp.

So on the stretch of the Nile that separates the Crusader camp facing Al-Mansurah

and then all the way up to Damietta.

Now the Crusaders need that stretch of the Nile because they're bringing in their food by boat.

So their boats load up with stores at Damietta and then sail down the Nile or sail up the Nile to then provide those goods to the Crusading encampment.

But crucially, Al-Kamil is able to cut that supply line.

And the Crusaders know this.

And so they begin to heavily fortify their ships.

There's even talk of them iron plating the ships to prevent them being burnt with Greek fire, which is a kind of sort of natural,

people often say it's sort of medieval napalm, but it's very effective at burning ships.

And so you should imagine massive ships capable of holding up to a thousand people,

slabbed with iron in their most exposed areas,

hundreds of crossbowmen on their decks, and then around them, Ayyubid riverboats.

filled with soldiers trying to attack them.

And ultimately, they are successful.

The Ayyubids are successful in cutting the supply lines for the Crusade, and the Crusade begins to starve.

And so for Al-Kamil, things go well, and things go even better when he learns that his brother Al-Muwazim, rather than traveling to join him directly at Mansurah, Al-Muwazzim went first to Damietta.

realized it was under Crusader control, and then followed the river up behind the Crusade.

So there's now a

ayubid army to the north of the crusading encampment governed by al-mawazim which blocks their retreat to damieth and then to the south on the other side of the tributary there's al-kamil's main army so this is a very difficult um

a difficult position for the crusade to be in and amidst all of this there's various diplomatic talks and negotiations.

Al-Kamil's prepared to offer territorial concessions to the crusade in Syria if they withdraw, but they always refuse those concessions.

But then the Nile floods, the Egyptians raise the sluice gates, which release the Nile waters onto the fields.

The Crusade army soon finds its living in a marsh, and that marsh is then becoming a lake as the Nile floods.

Their position is untenable.

And so eventually,

and we're talking now about sort of August 1221.

Eventually, they begin to stage a retreat back to Damietta, but they don't make it.

Al-Muwazim is blocking their way.

There's too much water, and the army eventually bogs down and surrenders.

And that's the end of the Fifth Crusade.

The closing narrative is that a treaty is then formed by which both the Crusaders and the Ayyubids agree to release their prisoners.

Damietta is to be handed back to Al-Kamil, and the Crusade is to withdraw.

And that's the end of the Fifth Crusade.

Wow.

And

so is that the army saves themselves from being enslaved by saying, we'll give you back Damietta?

Because presumably they're trapped and they won't get out.

They're trapped, but they've also got a large number of Ayyubid prisoners themselves.

It seems that both sides are willing just to sort of end it by that stage.

Al-Kamil wants the Crusade gone and he wants Damietta back.

The Crusades, Crusaders want their their prisoners back, and they realize their position in Damietta is untenable.

One of the most interesting,

it's a bit of a digression, this, but something I've found very interesting about the treaty negotiations is that Al-Kamil specifies as a stipulation of the treaty that the Crusaders must leave behind all the spare masts they've got for their ships.

Every single spare mast they've got must be left behind.

They must only have the masts that they require to get off the coast, basically.

And it's an interesting touch, but it reflects the fact that Egypt, whilst it's enormously wealthy, it has a substantial lack of timber.

And that lack of timber is so significant that Alchemiel is actually prepared to make it a treaty, a treaty, a point of

a turning point of the treaty.

He must have those masts because he recognizes that large bulks of timber suitable for ships' masts are not readily available?

It's a small point, but it's quite a nice point, I think.

Absolutely.

And I mean, if they had a fleet,

the Crusaders would be completely unable to

pursue the strategy of taking Egypt, presumably, if the Egyptians had a good fleet.

Fantastic.

Thank you for taking us through the narrative.

It's interesting how crusading has developed, because obviously,

thinking back to the first crusade, they would have just said, well, let's charge them.

Let's keep fighting.

At this point,

the fighting has gone on so long that people are willing to negotiate surrender and go home rather than giving their lives in exchange for the cleansing of their souls.

And so, what is the consequence of this on kind of crusading thinking?

Do people say this is a complete disaster?

We shouldn't go back to Egypt.

Or no, we'll go back to Egypt as soon as we can, but we'll do things differently next time.

Okay, so yes, it is viewed as a disaster in Western Christendom at the time.

Of course, it has to be said, from Alcamil's perspective, this is an enormous success.

And it fully,

it very much sets him up in the tradition of Saladin as a great military hero over the Crusaders.

So this is...

a real high point for the Ayyubid dynasty as a whole, a victory over one of the largest crusading forces in history.

But yes, for the Crusaders, this is

a major problem.

There seems to have been a bit of a malaise in crusading motivation over the next few years.

Various emissaries go around Western Christendom trying to sort of rustle up new crusading forces.

They don't get much of a reaction.

Emperor Frederick of Germany is eventually persuaded to go on a crusade rather reluctantly.

But no, the Crusaders haven't given up

the objective.

And 30 years later, they'll try again

with a crusading army led by Louis IX of France.

They continue to see Egypt as being a major strategic predicate before any advance could be staged on Jerusalem.

But there's another interesting dimension viewing it from a spiritual

aspect is that during the Crusade,

a very famous figure joined the Crusading army, and that's saint francis of assisi

and he joined the crusading army and he then marched out well he then left the ranks of the crusader crusade army and went to al-camil's court and it seems likely that what he was hoping to do was to preach to al-Kamil's court and therefore to convert the Ayyubid Sultan and he wasn't successful in that ambition but it is interesting to hear that he spent several days at al-Kamil's court He had various conversations and negotiations and discussions with Al-Kamil's leading intellectuals and religious leaders, and then he went back again.

And so it's when we talk about the Fifth Crusade, it's easy to see it as sort of head-to-head conflict.

And of course, to an extent for this period, at least it was.

But there are some very interesting nuances that are taking place at the same time as well.

Yeah, that's brilliant.

And he clearly was an incredibly impressive figure because he's then one of the few bits of surviving Crusader artwork in Constantinople.

He's a fresco cycle of Saint Francis,

which, you know, given he was only recently dead, gives you a sense of the impression he made on people that they thought, no, this guy is touched by God and that there's no doubt about it.

And when he's willing to do things like that, you can see why.

Yeah, and the king of Jerusalem at this time is John of Brienne,

who

will later on be deposed as king of Jerusalem by Emperor Frederick II of Germany, at which point the Pope will then find a new job for him to do, which is to become Emperor of Constantinople in the Latin Empire of Constantinople.

And you're absolutely right.

All the way through that stage of his career, he shows a sustained interest and support for the Franciscan order.

And in fact, John of Brienne's tomb is in Assisi.

So that again makes that link.

So yes, yes, indeed.

And last question, I mean,

you wouldn't say the Fifth Crusade had a particular impact on the popularity of crusading, as it were, back in Western Europe.

There isn't a sense from this particular campaign of

let's stop going to the Holy Land.

Not really.

Again, viewing this very much from a contemporary Western sort of Christendom perspective, the Fifth Crusade is a failure.

But at the same time, there are other ventures that are deemed to be successes taking place

at a similar time.

So in 1212,

various Iberian Christian armies score a major victory at Las Namaste-Tolosa, which sees a great deal of what today would be sort of modern-day Spain conquered by the Christian kingdoms of the north.

Likewise, at around this time, the Albigensian crusade in southern france that's gathering pace

um

and the crusade commanders are conquering many um strongholds held by the cathars or albigensians in southern france likewise in the baltic there's various crusades going on there and they're not ubiquitously successful but nonetheless the bigger picture is one of expansion in that region too

so the Fifth Crusade's a failure, but there are other military successes taking place on other crusading frontiers at this time, which presumably will have balanced it out a bit.

What you do have is a shift in crusading interests.

And so where for the previous century, it was always the Holy Land that was the most...

most the area of greatest interest for crusading for most people increasingly german and eastern european nobles begin to look much more towards the Baltic for their main sort of point of effort for crusading.

Other nobles are much more wrapped up in anti-heresy crusades.

There's other crusades going on in other parts of Christendom.

Towards the end of the 13th century, there'll even be a crusade against the Eskimos, believe it or not.

So crusades take place.

all over Christendom, all over its borders, not just in the Mediterranean, not just in the Middle East.

And so that to some extent will reduce

the amount of effort being put into crusading into the Eastern Mediterranean region.

So

it's not a decrease in popularity per se, but it is that popularity has been spread out a lot more.

And it does seem that by the time we get to, say, the late 13th century, although we're a little bit after the Fifth Crusade, now so sort of 1260s, 1270s, I would say that I think there's enough evidence to suggest a slump in crusading popularity, although it does pick up again in the early 14th century.

Brilliant.

Thank you so much.

Listeners who want to know more about the Fifth Crusade and all the

things happening before and after it in the medieval Middle East, check out The Mongol Storm, Making and Breaking Empires in the Medieval Near East.

And Dr.

Nicholas Morton, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.

My pleasure.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game, Day Scratchers, from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly must be 18 years or older to purchase, play, or claim.

If you thought goldenly breaded McDonald's chicken couldn't get more golden, think golden!

Because new sweet and smoky special edition gold sauce is here.

Made for your chicken favorites.

At Participating McDonald's for a limited time.