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1179
Year 1179 ( MCLXXIX) was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Levant * April 10 – A Crusader army, led by King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem ("the Leper"), is ambushed by Muslim forces in a narrow valley in the forest of Banyas. Baldwin is only able to extricate his forces owing to the heroism of Humphrey II, lord of Toron, who holds up the Muslims with his bodyguard till Baldwin and his army escape. Humphrey suffers mortal wounds and dies on April 22. He is succeeded by his 13-year-old grandson Humphrey IV. * June 10 – Battle of Marj Ayyun: A Crusader army (some 10,000 men) led by Baldwin IV is defeated by Muslim forces under Saladin near the Litani River (modern Lebanon). The Knights Templar join the battle, but they are driven back in confusion. Baldwin narrowly escapes being captured in the route. Amongst Saladin's prisoners are Odo de St. Amand, Grand Master of the Templars, and Lord Baldwin of Ibelin. * August 30 &nda ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siege Of Jacob's Ford
The siege of Jacob's Ford was a victory of the Muslim Sultan Saladin over the Christian King of Jerusalem, Baldwin IV. It occurred in August 1179, when Saladin conquered and destroyed Chastelet, a new border castle built by the Knights Templar at Jacob's Ford on the upper Jordan River, a historic passage point between the Golan Heights and north Galilee. Jacob's Ford is also known by the Latin name of ''Vadum Iacob'' and in modern Hebrew as ''Ateret''. Many scholars believe that Saladin's reconquest of the Holy Land and Jerusalem in 1187 was heralded by this earlier victory. Background Saladin was Sultan of Egypt and, by 1174, Sultan of Syria after his takeover of Damascus. After seizing power in Syria, Saladin vowed to forge an Islamic empire around Jerusalem. Naturally, the end goal was to recapture the Holy City of Jerusalem from the Crusaders, a significant stride towards an end to the Jihad. However, such a plan would take the Holy Land without major military con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battle Of Marj Ayyun
The Battle of Marj Ayyun was a military confrontation fought at Marj Ayyun near the Litani River (modern-day Lebanon) in June 1179 between the Kingdom of Jerusalem under Baldwin IV and the Ayyubid armies under the leadership of Saladin. It ended in a decisive victory for the Muslims and is considered the first in the long series of Islamic victories under Saladin against the Christians. However, the Christian King, Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, who was crippled by leprosy, was saved by his bodyguard and narrowly escaped capture. Background In 1177, Saladin's Ayyubid army invaded the Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem from Egypt. In that year King Baldwin IV surprised and defeated the Saracen host at the Battle of Montgisard. In 1179, Saladin again invaded the Crusader states, from the direction of Damascus. He based his army at Banias and sent raiding forces to despoil villages and crops near Sidon and the coastal areas. Farmers and townspeople impoverished by Saracen raiders wou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odo De St Amand
Odo of St. Amand (; 1110 – October 1180) was the 8th grand master of the Knights Templar, between 1171 and 1179. Personal life Odo was born to a noble family from Limousin, France. He was marshal of Jerusalem and later viscount. He was a headstrong leader of the order, which earned him praise and resentment in equal measure. An example of this can be found 1172. When a Templar knight, Gauthier du Maisnil, was accused of murdering an Assassin dignitary to King Amalric, Odo refused to hand him over. He cited the papal bull which stipulated the only power over the Templars was Rome. Military career Odo took part in several expeditions during his time as grand master. He spearheaded military action in Naplouse, Jericho and Djerach, scoring considerable victories with the Templars. Perhaps his finest hour was at the battle of Montgisard, where his knights convincingly defeated a superior detachment of Saladin's army. In March 1179, Odo oversaw the construction of the Chastele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphrey II Of Toron
Humphrey II of Toron (1117 – 22 April 1179) was lord of Toron and constable of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He was the son of Humphrey I of Toron. Biography Humphrey had become lord of Toron sometime before 1140 when he married the daughter of Renier Brus, lord of Banias (the Herodian city of Caesarea Philippi). Through this marriage, Banias was added to Toron. Humphrey became castellan of Hebron in 1149 when Hebron became a domain of the royal family of Jerusalem. In 1153 he became constable of Jerusalem when Baldwin III of Jerusalem became sole ruler after a struggle with his mother Melisende. That year he was present with the king at the Siege of Ascalon. Humphrey was defeated by Nur ad-Din at Banias in 1157 and was besieged in its castle until Baldwin III arrived to lift the siege. That year Humphrey also sold Banias and Chastel Neuf to the Knights Hospitaller (Chastel Neuf was captured by Nur ad-Din in 1167). Also in 1157 he helped negotiate the marriage of Baldwin III ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saladin
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia. Alongside his uncle Shirkuh, a Kurdish mercenary commander in service of the Zengid dynasty, Saladin was sent to Fatimid Egypt in 1164, on the orders of the Zengid ruler Nur ad-Din. With their original purpose being to help restore Shawar as the vizier to the teenage Fatimid caliph al-Adid, a power struggle ensued between Shirkuh and Shawar after the latter was reinstated. Saladin, meanwhile, climbed the ranks of the Fatimid government by virtue of his military successes against Crusader assaults and his personal closeness to al-Adid. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Erling Skakke
Erling Ormsson (1115 – 18 June 1179), known as Erling Skakke, was a Norwegian Jarl during the 12th century. He was the father of Magnus Erlingsson, who reigned as King of Norway from 1161 to 1184. Biography Erling Ormsson was born at Etne in the county of Hordaland, Norway. He was the son of Kyrpinga Orm Sveinsson. He earned his reputation crusading with Rögnvald Kali Kolsson, the Earl of Orkney in the Mediterranean from 1152 to 1155. Erling first sailed to the Holy Land, then Constantinople, and lastly visited Rome. During a battle with Arab warriors on Sicily a sword-wielding Arab cut Erling in the neck. This caused him from then on to tilt his head to one side ("skakke" means slanted). He was married to Kristin Sigurdsdatter, the daughter of King Sigurd Jorsalfar. Erling was the guardian of King Inge I of Norway and was one of the leaders of the Lendman Party (''lendmannspartiet'') after King Inge's death in 1161. Erling Skakke managed to have elected his son, Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Humphrey IV Of Toron
Humphrey IV of Toron ( 1166 – 1198) was a leading baron in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. He inherited the Lordship of Toron from his grandfather, Humphrey II, in 1179. He was also heir to the Lordship of Oultrejourdan through his mother, Stephanie of Milly. In 1180, he renounced Toron on his engagement to Isabella, the half-sister of Baldwin IV of Jerusalem. The king, who had suffered from leprosy, allegedly wanted to prevent Humphrey from uniting two large fiefs. Humphrey married Isabella in Kerak Castle in autumn 1183. Saladin, the Ayyubbid sultan of Egypt and Syria, laid siege to Kerak during the wedding, but Baldwin IV and Raymond III of Tripoli relieved the fortress. Baldwin IV made his young nephew, Baldwin V, his successor before his death, but Baldwin V also died in the summer of 1186. The barons, who did not want to acknowledge the right of Baldwin V's mother, Sybilla, and her husband, Guy of Lusignan, to inherit the kingdom, decided to proclaim Humphrey and hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baldwin IV Of Jerusalem
Baldwin IV (1161–1185), known as the Leper King, was the king of Jerusalem from 1174 until his death in 1185. He was admired by historians and his contemporaries for his dedication to the Kingdom of Jerusalem in the face of his debilitating leprosy. Choosing competent advisers, Baldwin ruled a thriving crusader state and succeeded in protecting it from the Muslim ruler Saladin. Baldwin's parents, King Amalric and Agnes of Courtenay, separated when Baldwin was two. At nine years old, he was sent to be educated by Archbishop William of Tyre. William noticed preliminary symptoms of leprosy, but Baldwin was only diagnosed after he succeeded his father as king. Thereafter, his hands and face became increasingly disfigured. He mastered horse riding despite gradually losing sensation in his extremities and fought in battles until his last years. Miles of Plancy ruled the kingdom in Baldwin's name until the former was murdered, and Count Raymond III of Tripoli took over until the kin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon, mainly known as the Knights Templar, was a Military order (religious society), military order of the Catholic Church, Catholic faith, and one of the most important military orders in Western Christianity. They were founded in 1118 to defend pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem, with their headquarters located there on the Temple Mount, and existed for nearly two centuries during the Middle Ages. Officially endorsed by the Catholic Church by such decrees as the papal bull ''Omne datum optimum'' of Pope Innocent II, the Templars became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and power. The Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantle (monastic vesture), mantles with a red Christian cross, cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades. They were prominent in Christian finance; non-combatant members of the order, who made up as much as 90% of their members, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vassals Of The Kingdom Of Jerusalem
The Kingdom of Jerusalem, one of the Crusader states that was created in 1099, was divided into a number of smaller Manorialism, seigneuries. According to the 13th-century jurist John of Ibelin (jurist), John of Ibelin, the four highest crown vassals (referred to as barons) in the kingdom proper were the count of Jaffa and Ascalon, the prince of Galilee, the lord of Sidon, and the lord of Oultrejordain. There were also a number of independent seigneuries, and some land held under direct royal control, such as Jerusalem itself, Acre, Israel, Acre and Tyre (Lebanon), Tyre. Northern states Aside from the Kingdom of Jerusalem, there were also three other major Crusader states in the Near East: * County of Edessa * County of Tripoli * Principality of Antioch These states nominally bore some dependency on the kingdom of Jerusalem. The king of Jerusalem was bound to reconcile them in case of disputes, or between a vassal prince and the Latin patriarch of Antioch, and could claim the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mieszko III Stary (275028)
Mieszko III ( 1122/25 – 13 March 1202), sometimes called the Old, was Duke of Greater Poland from 1138 and High Duke of Poland, with interruptions, from 1173 until his death. He was the fourth and second surviving son of Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth of Poland, by his second wife Salomea, daughter of the German count Henry of Berg-Schelklingen. Early life According to the 1138 Testament of Bolesław III, Mieszko received the newly established Duchy of Greater Poland, comprising the western part of the short-lived Greater Poland. He had previously been duke of Poznań"Encyclopædia Britannica", 1815 edition where he had his main residence. His older half-brother, Władysław II, the eldest son of the late duke with his first wife Zbyslava of Kiev, was proclaimed high duke and overlord of the Seniorate Province at Kraków, including the Greater Polish lands of Gniezno and Kalisz, as well as duke of Silesia. First conflict with Władysław II The first major conflict with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daughters Of Jacob Bridge
The Daughters of Jacob Bridge (, ) is a bridge that spans the last natural ford of the Jordan River between the Korazim Plateau in northern Israel and the Golan Heights. The area has been used as a crossing point for thousands of years; it was part of the recently dubbed Via Maris, and was strategically important to the Ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, Jews, Saracens (early Muslims), Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Ottomans, and to modern inhabitants and armies who crossed the river at this place. The site was named Jacob's Ford () by Europeans during the Crusades. A stone bridge was built by the Mamluks sometime in the 13th century, who called it (). The medieval bridge was replaced in 1934 by a modern bridge further south during the draining of Lake Hula.Sufian, 2008, pp165ff The bridge currently in civilian use was built in 2007. Within the vicinity of the ford is the location of a well known Paleolithic archaeological site with Acheulean artifacts dated to around 7 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
