The Crusade of Louis IX in Egypt

I. The Vow of 1244

In December 1244 Louis IX of France, then thirty years old, fell gravely ill with dysentery or malaria at Pontoise. He was thought to be dying, and according to his biographer Jean de Joinville, one of the ladies watching over him wanted to draw the sheet over his face. When he recovered, his first act was to ask for the cross. His mother, Blanche of Castile, and the bishop of Paris tried to dissuade him, but he insisted.

The news from the east that year was dreadful. In August 1244 the Khwarazmian Turks had sacked Jerusalem, regained by Frederick II in 1229, and in October the army of the Latin kingdom had been destroyed at La Forbie. The kingdom of Jerusalem, reduced to a strip of coastal towns, needed a great expedition to restore its position.

Louis was a man of intense personal piety. He heard two Masses a day, recited the hours, wore a hair shirt, fed the poor at his own table and washed the feet of beggars. He had bought the crown of thorns from the Latin emperor of Constantinople in 1239 and built the Sainte-Chapelle to house it. For him, the crusade was a personal obligation as a Christian king.

II. Preparations

The preparations took more than three years and were the most thorough of any crusade. Louis raised money through a clerical tenth granted by Pope Innocent IV, through contributions from the towns, and through the confiscation of property from Jewish moneylenders. He sent investigators throughout the kingdom, the enquêteurs, to hear complaints against royal officials and make restitution for wrongs, so that he could set out with a clear conscience.

Because the French crown had no Mediterranean port of its own, Louis built a new port at Aigues-Mortes in the marshes of the Rhone delta, with a great tower, the Tour de Constance. He hired ships from Genoa and Marseilles. He sent agents to Cyprus to stockpile grain and wine, which were stored in such quantities that Joinville described the wine barrels as looking like barns and the heaps of wheat and barley as hills, on which grass grew from the rain.

Innocent IV was at war with Frederick II, and the papacy diverted much of its effort to the struggle against the emperor. Louis tried to mediate between them but without success. Few rulers outside France joined the crusade, though an English contingent under William Longespée took part.

III. Departure and Cyprus

Louis sailed from Aigues-Mortes on 25 August 1248 with his queen, Margaret of Provence, and his brothers Robert of Artois and Charles of Anjou. His third brother, Alphonse of Poitiers, followed later. The army numbered perhaps 15,000 men, including about 2,500 knights. It wintered in Cyprus, where many died of disease.

While in Cyprus Louis received envoys from the Mongol commander in Persia, Eljigidei, who claimed that the great khan had become a Christian and proposed an alliance against the Muslims. Louis sent back the Dominican Andrew of Longjumeau with gifts, including a tent chapel embroidered with scenes from the life of Christ. When Andrew reached the court of the regent Oghul Qaimish, the Mongols treated the gifts as tribute and demanded the submission of the French king. Louis later regretted having sent the embassy.

IV. The Landing at Damietta

The fleet sailed for Egypt in May 1249 and arrived off Damietta on 4 June. As at the time of the Fifth Crusade, the city was the gateway to Egypt. On 5 June the crusaders landed on the shore in the face of the Egyptian army. Joinville describes how Louis, against the advice of his counsellors, leapt into the sea with the oriflamme carried before him, his shield at his neck, and waded ashore with the water up to his armpits. The crusaders formed a line on the beach, planting their shields and lances in the sand, and the Egyptian cavalry, after a charge, withdrew.

To the astonishment of the crusaders, the garrison and population of Damietta abandoned the city the following night, setting fire to the bazaar. The crusaders entered on 6 June 1249 and found it full of supplies. The capture of Damietta, which had taken eighteen months in 1218–1219, had been achieved in a day. The sultan, al-Salih Ayyub, was furious and had some of the commanders of the garrison hanged.

V. The Delay and the Advance

As in 1219, the capture of Damietta was followed by a long delay. The Nile flood was rising, and Louis decided to wait for it to subside and for the arrival of his brother Alphonse with reinforcements. Alphonse arrived in October. The council then debated whether to attack Alexandria or Cairo. Robert of Artois argued that whoever wanted to kill the serpent must crush its head, and the king agreed to march on Cairo.

The army left Damietta on 20 November 1249 and advanced slowly up the eastern branch of the Nile. Meanwhile al-Salih Ayyub, who had been gravely ill, died on 22 November in his camp at al-Mansura. His widow, Shajar al-Durr, a former slave of Turkish or Armenian origin, concealed his death, forging documents in his name, while messengers were sent to summon his son Turanshah from Mesopotamia. The command of the army passed to Fakhr al-Din, the same emir who had negotiated with Frederick II twenty years before.

VI. The Canal of Ashmun

In December the crusaders reached the Bahr al-Saghir, a canal of the Nile which separated them from al-Mansura. For six weeks they tried to build a causeway across it, protected by wooden towers, the chats-chateils, while the Egyptians bombarded them with Greek fire from catapults. Joinville describes the terror of the Greek fire, which came through the night like a dragon flying through the air, with a noise like thunder, and lit up the camp as if it were day. Each time the fire struck, Louis raised his hands to heaven and wept, saying, Good Lord God, guard my people.

In February 1250 a local man, a Copt or a Muslim Bedouin, offered for a payment of 500 bezants to show the crusaders a ford across the canal. On 8 February the advance guard, led by Robert of Artois with the Templars and the English contingent, crossed at dawn.

VII. The Battle of al-Mansura

Robert of Artois had been ordered to wait on the far bank until the rest of the army had crossed. Instead, he attacked the Egyptian camp at once, taking it by surprise. Fakhr al-Din, who was in his bath, rode out unarmed and was killed. Encouraged by this success, Robert ignored the pleas of the master of the Temple, William of Sonnac, and of William Longespée to wait for the king, and charged into the town of al-Mansura itself.

In the narrow streets the knights were trapped. The Bahri Mamluks, the elite slave soldiers of the late sultan, commanded by Baybars, closed the streets and attacked them from the rooftops and alleys. Robert of Artois was killed, along with almost all the Templars, about 280 knights, and William Longespée and most of the English. The master of the Temple escaped, having lost an eye.

Louis meanwhile crossed the canal with the main army and fought a desperate battle all day on the plain outside al-Mansura. Joinville, who fought beside him, describes the king as the finest knight he ever saw, his gilded helmet on his head and his German sword in his hand. By evening the crusaders held the Egyptian camp. But the loss of the advance guard was a disaster.

VIII. Disease and Retreat

The crusaders held their position outside al-Mansura for nearly two months, but their situation became desperate. On 11 February the Egyptians attacked again and were beaten off after heavy fighting. Then the army was struck by disease, probably scurvy and dysentery. Joinville describes the gums of the sick swelling so that the barbers had to cut away the flesh so that they could eat, and the cries of the men in the camp were like those of women in labour.

At the end of February Turanshah arrived from Mesopotamia and took command. The Egyptians brought ships overland on camels and launched them in the Nile downstream from the crusaders, cutting the supply line from Damietta. Starvation was added to disease. Louis offered to exchange Damietta for Jerusalem, as al-Kamil had once offered, but the Egyptians refused.

IX. The Capture of the King

On 5 April 1250 the army began to retreat towards Damietta, the sick and wounded by boat on the river and the rest by land. Louis, though gravely ill with dysentery, refused to go by boat and remained with the rearguard. The Egyptians attacked the retreating army, and on 6 April, at Fariskur, the army was overwhelmed. Louis, too ill to stand, was taken to a house in a village, where he surrendered. His brothers Alphonse and Charles were also captured.

Thousands of prisoners were taken. The Egyptians killed many of the sick and those who could not pay ransom. Others were offered the choice of conversion to Islam or death. Joinville, who was captured on the river, describes how the sailors and the poor prisoners were taken out each night and killed. It was the greatest disaster of the crusades since Hattin, and the first time a king of France had been captured in battle.

X. The Ransom and the Mamluk Revolution

Louis was imprisoned in al-Mansura in chains. When the Egyptians demanded the surrender of the castles of the kingdom of Jerusalem, he replied that they were not his to give. He agreed to pay a ransom of 500,000 livres, later reduced to 400,000, for the army and to surrender Damietta for his own release, saying that a king should not be ransomed for money.

Before the terms were carried out, the Mamluks of the late sultan, resentful of Turanshah, who was replacing them with his own men, rose against him. On 2 May 1250 they attacked him in the tower where he was dining. He fled into the Nile and was killed by Baybars and his companions. According to Joinville, one of the murderers came to Louis with the sultan's heart in his hand, demanding a reward. The Mamluks then ruled Egypt, first through Shajar al-Durr, who became sultana, and then through a series of Mamluk sultans. The Mamluk sultanate would rule Egypt and Syria until 1517 and would destroy the crusader states.

The Mamluks honoured the agreement. Damietta was surrendered on 6 May 1250, and Louis was released after paying the first instalment of 200,000 livres. When the counting of the money was completed, it was found that the French had cheated the Egyptians of 10,000 livres, and Louis insisted that the full sum be paid, saying he had given his word.

XI. Queen Margaret in Damietta

Queen Margaret had remained in Damietta, where she was pregnant. Three days before she gave birth, she learned of the king's capture. Joinville records that she made an old knight sleep beside her bed, and asked him to swear that if the Saracens took the city he would cut off her head rather than let her be taken. The knight replied that he had already thought of doing so. She gave birth to a son, named John Tristan, son of sorrow.

The Italian merchants in Damietta wanted to leave the city, which would have made its defence impossible and the king's ransom worthless. The queen persuaded them to stay by buying all the food in the city at her own expense, at a cost of 360,000 livres. Her courage preserved the bargaining position on which the king's release depended.

XII. Four Years in Acre

After his release Louis sailed to Acre. Most of his surviving nobles, including his brothers, returned to France. Louis decided to remain in the Holy Land, despite the pleas of his mother, who was ruling France as regent. He argued that if he left, the prisoners still held in Egypt would be lost, and the kingdom of Jerusalem would be defenceless.

He stayed for four years, from 1250 to 1254. He negotiated with the Mamluks and with the Ayyubid ruler of Damascus, who were at war, and secured the release of many prisoners. He spent enormous sums refortifying the coastal cities of the kingdom, Acre, Caesarea, Jaffa and Sidon. He carried stones for the walls of Caesarea himself, to win the indulgence that the papal legate had offered. He also sent the Franciscan William of Rubruck on a mission to the Mongols, whose account is one of the most important descriptions of the Mongol empire.

In 1252 his mother died, and in 1254 he finally returned to France, landing at Hyères in July.

XIII. Joinville's Life of St Louis

The principal source for the crusade is the Life of St Louis by Jean, lord of Joinville, seneschal of Champagne, who accompanied the king and remained his friend for the rest of his life. Joinville wrote his book in his old age, in about 1305–1309, at the request of Queen Jeanne of Navarre. It is one of the most vivid and personal accounts of the Middle Ages, full of incidents of the campaign told with frankness and humour.

Joinville was devoted to Louis but not uncritical. He records his disagreements with the king, including his refusal to accompany him on the second crusade in 1270, which he thought a disaster for France. He records that Louis asked him whether he would rather be a leper or commit a mortal sin, and that he replied he would rather commit thirty mortal sins, which shocked the king. The book shows the human side of a saint and the realities of crusading warfare.

XIV. The Burning of the Talmud

Louis's piety had a darker side, shown in his treatment of the Jews. In 1240, at the instigation of Nicholas Donin, a convert from Judaism, Pope Gregory IX ordered the Talmud to be examined for blasphemy against Christianity. A disputation was held in Paris before Queen Blanche between Donin and four rabbis, led by Yehiel of Paris. The Talmud was condemned, and in June 1242 twenty-four cartloads of manuscripts, thousands of volumes, were burned in the Place de Grève in Paris.

Louis also restricted Jewish moneylending and confiscated Jewish property to finance his crusade. Joinville records that Louis said that a layman, when he heard the Christian faith maligned, should defend it only with the sword, which he should thrust into the belly as far as it would go. The site's page on the Rhineland Massacres describes how earlier crusades had turned against Jewish communities.

The burning of books, and the use of the sword to defend faith, stand far from the example of the apostles, who reasoned from the Scriptures in the synagogues (Acts 17:2-3) and wrote that a slave of the Lord does not need to fight, but needs to be gentle toward all, instructing with mildness those not favourably disposed (2 Timothy 2:24-25).

XV. The Shepherds' Crusade

The news of the king's capture in 1250 provoked a strange popular movement in France. A preacher known as the Master of Hungary claimed that the Virgin Mary had commanded him to raise the shepherds and the poor to rescue the king, since the proud knights had failed. Thousands of peasants, shepherds and poor townspeople followed him, the Pastoureaux. At first Queen Blanche received the leader, but the movement turned violent. The Pastoureaux attacked clergy, especially the friars, and Jews, whom they massacred in Bourges and other towns. They were eventually suppressed by force, and the Master was killed. The movement shows the explosive mix of popular piety, social resentment and anti-Jewish violence that the crusade could release.

XVI. Louis as Saint and King

After his return Louis devoted himself to the government of his kingdom according to his religious ideals. He banned trial by combat, restricted private war, reformed royal administration and coinage, and acted as arbiter in disputes among other rulers. He gave large sums in charity, founding hospitals and the Quinze-Vingts hospice for the blind in Paris. His reputation for justice was such that he was asked to arbitrate between Henry III of England and his barons in 1264.

Yet he never gave up the crusade. In 1267 he took the cross again, and in 1270 he led the Eighth Crusade to Tunis, where he died. He was canonised in 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII. The image of Louis as the ideal Christian king, pious, just and devoted to the crusade, became central to French royal tradition.

XVII. Crusade and Penance

For Louis the crusade was an act of penance and devotion. He believed that the defeat in Egypt was a punishment for his own sins and those of his army. Joinville reports that after the disaster Louis told him that God had sent the defeat because of the sins of the crusaders, many of whom had indulged in luxury and immorality at Damietta.

This understanding of the crusade as a means of satisfaction for sins, earned by suffering and violence, was central to the crusade indulgence. It differs fundamentally from the teaching of the Greek Scriptures that forgiveness comes through faith in the ransom sacrifice of Christ. Paul wrote that it is by undeserved kindness that Christians have been saved through faith, not owing to works, so that no one should have grounds for boasting (Ephesians 2:8-9), and John wrote that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).

XVIII. The Mamluks

The crusade of Louis IX had an unintended and momentous consequence. The Bahri Mamluks, who had defeated the crusaders at al-Mansura and murdered Turanshah, took power in Egypt. In 1260 the Mamluk sultan Qutuz and Baybars defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut in Galilee, halting their advance into the Near East. Baybars then murdered Qutuz and became sultan himself. Over the next seventeen years he systematically conquered the crusader states, taking Caesarea, Arsuf, Safed, Jaffa, Antioch and the great Hospitaller castle of Krak des Chevaliers.

The Mamluk state was organised for war, and its rulers saw the expulsion of the Franks as a religious duty. The conquest was completed by the sultan al-Ashraf Khalil, who took Acre in 1291. The site's page on the Fall of Acre describes the end of the crusader states.

XIX. Assessment

The Seventh Crusade was the best prepared and best financed of all the crusades, led by a king of exceptional devotion, and it ended in catastrophe. The causes were partly military: the impetuosity of Robert of Artois, the failure to understand the Nile, and disease. But they were also strategic, since the conquest of Egypt was beyond the resources of a single kingdom, even one as wealthy as France.

The crusade's failure did much to undermine faith in the crusade as an expression of divine will. If so pious a king could fail so completely, what did this say about God's support for the enterprise? Some contemporaries questioned whether God approved of crusading at all. The troubadour Austorc d'Aurillac wrote that God had abandoned the Christians. Yet Louis himself, and many others, did not lose faith in the crusade, and he set out again in 1270.

XX. Blanche of Castile

Louis's mother, Blanche of Castile, was one of the most formidable rulers of the thirteenth century. A granddaughter of Henry II of England and Eleanor of Aquitaine, she had married Louis VIII, and when he died in 1226 she governed France as regent for her twelve-year-old son, defeating a series of baronial revolts and securing the gains of the Albigensian Crusade in the south through the Treaty of Paris of 1229. She raised Louis in strict piety, and he later recalled her saying that she would rather see him dead than guilty of a mortal sin.

When Louis departed on crusade, Blanche again became regent. She governed France effectively for six years, raising money and men for the crusade and dealing with the Shepherds' Crusade in 1251. She opposed his decision to remain in the Holy Land after his release, believing that his kingdom needed him. Her death in November 1252 was a heavy blow to Louis, who learned of it in the spring of 1253 at Sidon and was so overcome that he did not speak for two days. Her death made his return to France necessary.

XXI. Shajar al-Durr

Shajar al-Durr, whose name means Tree of Pearls, was a slave of Turkish or Armenian origin who became the wife of al-Salih Ayyub. When the sultan died at the height of the crusader invasion, she concealed his death, governing in his name with the help of the emir Fakhr al-Din and the chief eunuch, and maintained the morale of the army until the arrival of Turanshah. After Turanshah's murder, the Mamluks made her sultana, and coins were struck and the Friday prayer said in her name, an almost unique position for a woman in the medieval Muslim world.

The caliph in Baghdad objected to a woman ruling, reportedly writing that if there were no men left in Egypt he would send one. After about three months she married the Mamluk commander Aybak, who became sultan. In 1257 she had Aybak murdered in his bath when she learned that he planned to take another wife, and she was herself killed shortly afterwards. Her tomb still stands in Cairo. Her role in the defeat of the Seventh Crusade made her one of the most remarkable figures of the age.

XXII. Baybars

Baybars al-Bunduqdari was a Kipchak Turk from the steppes north of the Black Sea, sold as a slave and bought by al-Salih Ayyub for his Bahri regiment, so named because its barracks were on an island in the Nile, the bahr. He distinguished himself at La Forbie in 1244 and at al-Mansura in 1250, where he led the Mamluks who trapped Robert of Artois. He was among the murderers of Turanshah.

After the Mamluk victory at Ain Jalut in 1260, Baybars murdered the sultan Qutuz and took his throne. Over the next seventeen years he waged a relentless war against the crusader states and the Mongols, taking one fortress after another. His capture of Antioch in 1268 was accompanied by the massacre or enslavement of its population, and he wrote a letter to the count of Antioch describing the destruction in exultant terms. He died in 1277, possibly from drinking poison intended for someone else. He is remembered in the Arab world as a great hero, the subject of a popular romance, the Sirat Baybars.

XXIII. The Templars at al-Mansura

The Templars bore the brunt of the disaster at al-Mansura. William of Sonnac, the master, had urged Robert of Artois to wait, warning that the army would be destroyed if it entered the town. Robert accused the Templars and Hospitallers of treachery, saying that they wished to prolong the war for their own profit. Stung by the accusation, the master and his knights followed the count into the town, where almost all were killed. William of Sonnac escaped with the loss of an eye, only to be killed in the fighting of 11 February.

The accusation that the military orders were more concerned with their own interests than with the crusade was common in the thirteenth century, and it contributed to the hostility that led to the suppression of the Templars in 1312. Yet at al-Mansura they paid with their lives for the folly of a royal prince. The site's page on the Crusader States and Military Orders describes the orders.

XXIV. The Prisoners

The fate of the prisoners taken in 1250 was a constant concern for Louis. Many of the sick and wounded were killed immediately after the battle of Fariskur. Others were taken to Cairo, where some were pressed to convert to Islam. Joinville records that he saw prisoners being offered the choice of apostasy or death, and that many chose death.

The treaty of 1250 provided for the release of all prisoners, but the Mamluks did not release them all, and many remained in captivity. Louis's negotiations from Acre over the following years secured the release of many of them, as well as the return of the bones of Christians killed in the fighting. He also secured the release of children who had been forced to convert. The fate of these captives was one of the main reasons he gave for staying in the east.

XXV. William of Rubruck

The Franciscan William of Rubruck set out from Acre in 1253 with a letter from Louis, travelling across the Black Sea and the steppes to the court of the great khan Möngke at Karakorum in Mongolia. He was not an official ambassador but a missionary, seeking to preach to the Mongols and to minister to the Christian captives among them. He stayed at Möngke's court for several months in 1254.

His report to Louis is one of the best accounts of the Mongol world written by a European. He described the customs of the Mongols, their tents and food, the city of Karakorum with its Chinese, Muslim and Christian quarters, and the European captives he met there, including a goldsmith from Paris named William Buchier. He took part in a debate before the khan between Christians, Muslims and Buddhists. His conclusion was that the Mongols would not become Christians and that their aim was to conquer the world. His report confirmed Louis's disillusion with the hope of a Mongol alliance.

XXVI. The Seventh Crusade and the Coastal Cities

The fortifications that Louis built during his four years in the Holy Land were his most lasting contribution to the kingdom of Jerusalem. He rebuilt the walls of Caesarea, Jaffa and Sidon, and he enclosed the suburb of Montmusard at Acre with a new wall. These works cost more than 100,000 livres, a vast sum.

The fortifications helped the kingdom to survive for another forty years. But they could not stop the Mamluks. Baybars took Caesarea in 1265 and Jaffa in 1268, and Sidon was abandoned in 1291. The walls of Acre that Louis strengthened were breached by al-Ashraf Khalil's engineers in 1291. The French king's investment in stone delayed but could not prevent the end.

XXVII. Robert of Artois

Robert, count of Artois, was the second son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile, three years younger than Louis. He was brave, impetuous and contemptuous of caution, qualities admired in the chivalric culture of the time but disastrous in command. He had been the leading advocate of the march on Cairo. His death at al-Mansura was mourned by Louis, who, when told of it, answered that God should be worshipped for what he gave, and great tears fell from his eyes.

Later writers were divided about Robert. Some French chroniclers presented him as a martyr who died for the faith. Others, including Matthew Paris in England, blamed him for the disaster, contrasting his arrogance with the wisdom of William Longespée, who was killed beside him. The episode became a classic example of the dangers of rashness in war, and of the conflict between the chivalric pursuit of personal glory and the discipline that a successful campaign required.

XXVIII. The Sick at Damietta

Disease killed more crusaders than battle. The army that sat at Damietta through the summer and autumn of 1249 suffered from the heat, poor water and the unfamiliar climate. In the camp before al-Mansura the soldiers ate the eelpout of the river, which Joinville believed had fed on the bodies of the dead, and many fell sick. Scurvy, caused by a diet without fresh food, rotted their gums and legs.

The king himself suffered from dysentery so severe that the bottom of his breeches had to be cut away. His physicians urged him to go by ship, but he refused to leave his army. The condition of the army at the time of the retreat made it an easy prey for the Mamluks.

XXIX. Chronology

In June 1242 the Talmud was burned in Paris. In August 1244 Jerusalem was sacked, and in October the Franks were defeated at La Forbie. In December 1244 Louis took the cross. On 25 August 1248 he sailed from Aigues-Mortes, and in September 1248 he arrived in Cyprus. On 5 June 1249 the army landed in Egypt, and on 6 June Damietta was taken. On 20 November 1249 the army advanced, and on 22 November al-Salih Ayyub died.

On 8 February 1250 the battle of al-Mansura was fought. On 6 April 1250 Louis was captured at Fariskur. On 2 May 1250 Turanshah was murdered. On 6 May 1250 Damietta was surrendered and Louis released. From 1250 to 1254 Louis remained in Acre and refortified the coast. In 1251 the Shepherds' Crusade occurred. In November 1252 Blanche of Castile died. In July 1254 Louis returned to France. In 1260 the Mamluks defeated the Mongols at Ain Jalut. In 1270 Louis died at Tunis, and in 1297 he was canonised.

XXX. Bibliography

The following studies, editions and reference works underlie this account.