What is Jerusalem worth?: Secunda Pares
"What is Jerusalem worth?"
This question is asked near the conclusion of the film Kingdom of Heaven (2005). The Christians are about to surrender Jerusalem to Saladin and his army. The main character, Balian of Ibelin (Orlando Bloom), has successfully resisted the siege long enough to reach favorable terms for the city's inhabitants. Long since disillusioned about the purported holiness of the Holy Land, Balian wonders what justification may be offered for the carnage that he has witnessed.
"Nothing," Saladin replies as he turns to walk away. Then he stops and looks back.
"Everything."
I guess this is supposed to be profound. So is the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, Ridley Scott has given us banality and simplicity rendered within an ahistorical mess. We get it, Mr. Scott, we get it. The "idea" of Jerusalem, a place where one has equal standing before God, where one finds grace and enlightenment and warm fuzzies, that is worth everything. The brick-and-mortar city is no more important than any other. Next episode of "School House Rock," please.
Kingdom of Heaven tries to say something about our current global situation by illuminating the past, but it fails on both counts. This is largely the fault of its moralizing anachronisms. The protagonists of the film are too busy sounding like 21st-century multiculturalist progressives to be believable. Some critics who have reviewed the film suggested that it may be impossible to make a Middle Ages movie that is both generally faithful to the period and yet palatable to modern film audiences. Becket, anyone?
While the film is a general disappointment, one thing I have gained from it is an ongoing fascination with the realm whose collapse it narrates: the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem that was established after the First Crusade. When I saw the movie in theaters, it was the first time I really understood that something more happened between this crusade and that. I had never thought about what life in the region was like after the Western Christians captured and held Jerusalem.
There were other states established after the First Crusade as well: the counties of Edessa and Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch. But Jerusalem was the largest, most prestigious, and longest-lasting of these states. And, of course, the Kingdom encompassed the holiest and most contested sites. In this kingdom one could encounter a strange, dynamic, complex mix of Christian sects and Muslim communities and multiple languages and ethnicities. It wasn't a harmonious melting plot, but it was anything but bland. Here, West and East found themselves face-to-face long before free trade and globalization.
Kingdom of Heaven, ahistorically, portrays the Latin Kingdom as generally being that melting pot - a place where Jews, Christians and Muslims live together in peace and with respect for each other. Good King Baldwin IV ensures this harmony and works hand-in-hand with Saladin to keep tensions from boiling over into open conflict. That peace is only disturbed by the unhappy fundamentalists on both sides, whether the Knights Templar and newcomers from Europe on the one hand or the religious advisors to Saladin on the other.
Ironically, this progressive movie has adopted a reactionary portrait of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. A number of postwar French historians argued that the kingdom was, in fact, an integrated society. This offered a convenient justification for the contemporary French colonial holdings in Syria and Algeria. If their Frankish forebears could humanely rule foreign territories in the past, why couldn't they do so again under de Gaulle? Let's all get together and sing Kum Ba Yah...or at least La Marseillaise.
The pendulum soon swung the other way, and around the 1970s medieval historians argued that Jerusalem was something else entirely: a completely segregated society in which the Frankish lords kept their own institutions and customs, remained aloof from the native population, and treated their colonized subjects with disdain. The contemporary parallel shifted from Algeria to minority-rule apartheid in South Africa.
These historians had good reason to argue thus. The supposedly enlightened and tolerant Baldwin IV of the movie was nicknamed "the pig" by Muslims in Galilee. The Code of Nablus, a body of laws drawn up in 1120, forbade intermarriage between Christians and Muslims. The latter were banned from owning property in the cities and, like the Christians under Muslim rule, paid an extra tax.
However, the record is not uniformly oppressive. First of all, the simple question of Christian-Muslim relations ignores the fact that perhaps up to half the population of Palestine when the crusaders arrived was still Christian. They weren't Catholic Christians, mind you. Some were Greek holdovers from Byzantine days and thus were Eastern Orthodox. But most were Syrian Christians who belonged either to the "Nestorian" or the "Monophysite" church. While the Frankish rulers and settlers may have been inclined to view the Syrians and Greeks as heretics or schismatics, some historians have recently begun to speak of a fairly well-integrated Franco-Syrian society in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Franks adopted the local dress and some local customs. They also intermarried with Syrian Christians at all levels of society, including the royal family. Peasant immigrants from Europe settled in Syrian Christian villages or started new villages nearby. Franks and Syrians often shared public spaces such as churches.
But was there any assimilation with the Muslim population, or at least any genuine efforts at understanding or coexistence? While archaeological surveys suggest segregation in rural areas, the cities were genuinely cosmopolitan. While Muslims were disallowed from owning property in the cities, there were plenty of renters. Muslim traders, merchants and artisans (and, unfortunately, slaves) mingled in close quarters with the Franks as well as Italian merchants and seamen. Although Muslims were initially banned from Jerusalem, by the time of its fall to Saladin several thousand lived there - enough that Balian of Ibelin supposedly threatened their massacre if favorable terms of surrender were not reached. However, it should be noted that in legal documentation, the kingdom recognized in principle that the Saracens "are men just like the Franks." A Muslim could sue a Frank over unpaid debt. Some Frankish knights gained battle experience by serving in Muslim armies. Mosques and shrines in the Kingdom of Jerusalem were open for worship and, according to historian Jonathan Riley-Smith, there was even a mosque-church. Tolerance in some form, if not principled, was at least beneficial both to business and security.
Meanwhile, there are various accounts of friendship and respect between Muslims and Frankish Christians. Perhaps most of these exchanges were characterized by a deep ambiguity inherent to the geopolitical circumstances. Examples include the Muslim merchant Usama ibn Mundiqh, who could describe the Franks as animals in one paragraph of his autobiography and in the next praise their religious devotion, or at another point laud a Frankish knight for rescuing an associate from a lynch mob in Antioch and then entertaining him at his home. Or consider the aforementioned Balian. The same man who threatened massacre was also apparently a friend of Saladin. After escaping Hattin, he swore an oath not to take up arms against the sultan, only to have the citizens of Jerusalem prevail upon him to lead the defense of the city. Balian wrote a letter to Saladin explaining why he broke his promise. Saladin forgave Balian and allowed him to go free once Jerusalem surrendered.
A purportedly less ambiguous figure was Raymond III of Tripoli, a leading noble in the kingdom and competitor to Guy of Lusignan for succession to the throne in 1186. Raymond had spent eleven years in captivity under the Muslims, learned Arabic, and grew to respect his adversaries. He may have believed that genuine coexistence was possible, and he also counted Saladin as a friend. By contrast, Reynald of Chatillon also spent several years in captivity and learned to hate Muslims with a tremendous ferocity.
In the end, however, a genuine pluralism was impossible. The founding ideology of the Kingdom was the crusade to liberate territories that were considered rightfully Christian. Any respect that Muslims developed for the Western settlers was limited by Islam's own claim to superiority, particularly its inherent conviction that the world is irreconcilably divided into two realms: the advancing Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) and the chaotic, degenerate Dar al-Harb (House of War). The Kingdom of Jerusalem was certainly a fascinating mosaic of cultures, languages and traditions, but it was doomed to be a only a fleeting and tense one.
This question is asked near the conclusion of the film Kingdom of Heaven (2005). The Christians are about to surrender Jerusalem to Saladin and his army. The main character, Balian of Ibelin (Orlando Bloom), has successfully resisted the siege long enough to reach favorable terms for the city's inhabitants. Long since disillusioned about the purported holiness of the Holy Land, Balian wonders what justification may be offered for the carnage that he has witnessed.
"Nothing," Saladin replies as he turns to walk away. Then he stops and looks back.
"Everything."
I guess this is supposed to be profound. So is the rest of the movie. Unfortunately, Ridley Scott has given us banality and simplicity rendered within an ahistorical mess. We get it, Mr. Scott, we get it. The "idea" of Jerusalem, a place where one has equal standing before God, where one finds grace and enlightenment and warm fuzzies, that is worth everything. The brick-and-mortar city is no more important than any other. Next episode of "School House Rock," please.
Kingdom of Heaven tries to say something about our current global situation by illuminating the past, but it fails on both counts. This is largely the fault of its moralizing anachronisms. The protagonists of the film are too busy sounding like 21st-century multiculturalist progressives to be believable. Some critics who have reviewed the film suggested that it may be impossible to make a Middle Ages movie that is both generally faithful to the period and yet palatable to modern film audiences. Becket, anyone?
While the film is a general disappointment, one thing I have gained from it is an ongoing fascination with the realm whose collapse it narrates: the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem that was established after the First Crusade. When I saw the movie in theaters, it was the first time I really understood that something more happened between this crusade and that. I had never thought about what life in the region was like after the Western Christians captured and held Jerusalem.
There were other states established after the First Crusade as well: the counties of Edessa and Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch. But Jerusalem was the largest, most prestigious, and longest-lasting of these states. And, of course, the Kingdom encompassed the holiest and most contested sites. In this kingdom one could encounter a strange, dynamic, complex mix of Christian sects and Muslim communities and multiple languages and ethnicities. It wasn't a harmonious melting plot, but it was anything but bland. Here, West and East found themselves face-to-face long before free trade and globalization.
Kingdom of Heaven, ahistorically, portrays the Latin Kingdom as generally being that melting pot - a place where Jews, Christians and Muslims live together in peace and with respect for each other. Good King Baldwin IV ensures this harmony and works hand-in-hand with Saladin to keep tensions from boiling over into open conflict. That peace is only disturbed by the unhappy fundamentalists on both sides, whether the Knights Templar and newcomers from Europe on the one hand or the religious advisors to Saladin on the other.
Ironically, this progressive movie has adopted a reactionary portrait of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. A number of postwar French historians argued that the kingdom was, in fact, an integrated society. This offered a convenient justification for the contemporary French colonial holdings in Syria and Algeria. If their Frankish forebears could humanely rule foreign territories in the past, why couldn't they do so again under de Gaulle? Let's all get together and sing Kum Ba Yah...or at least La Marseillaise.
The pendulum soon swung the other way, and around the 1970s medieval historians argued that Jerusalem was something else entirely: a completely segregated society in which the Frankish lords kept their own institutions and customs, remained aloof from the native population, and treated their colonized subjects with disdain. The contemporary parallel shifted from Algeria to minority-rule apartheid in South Africa.
These historians had good reason to argue thus. The supposedly enlightened and tolerant Baldwin IV of the movie was nicknamed "the pig" by Muslims in Galilee. The Code of Nablus, a body of laws drawn up in 1120, forbade intermarriage between Christians and Muslims. The latter were banned from owning property in the cities and, like the Christians under Muslim rule, paid an extra tax.
However, the record is not uniformly oppressive. First of all, the simple question of Christian-Muslim relations ignores the fact that perhaps up to half the population of Palestine when the crusaders arrived was still Christian. They weren't Catholic Christians, mind you. Some were Greek holdovers from Byzantine days and thus were Eastern Orthodox. But most were Syrian Christians who belonged either to the "Nestorian" or the "Monophysite" church. While the Frankish rulers and settlers may have been inclined to view the Syrians and Greeks as heretics or schismatics, some historians have recently begun to speak of a fairly well-integrated Franco-Syrian society in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The Franks adopted the local dress and some local customs. They also intermarried with Syrian Christians at all levels of society, including the royal family. Peasant immigrants from Europe settled in Syrian Christian villages or started new villages nearby. Franks and Syrians often shared public spaces such as churches.
But was there any assimilation with the Muslim population, or at least any genuine efforts at understanding or coexistence? While archaeological surveys suggest segregation in rural areas, the cities were genuinely cosmopolitan. While Muslims were disallowed from owning property in the cities, there were plenty of renters. Muslim traders, merchants and artisans (and, unfortunately, slaves) mingled in close quarters with the Franks as well as Italian merchants and seamen. Although Muslims were initially banned from Jerusalem, by the time of its fall to Saladin several thousand lived there - enough that Balian of Ibelin supposedly threatened their massacre if favorable terms of surrender were not reached. However, it should be noted that in legal documentation, the kingdom recognized in principle that the Saracens "are men just like the Franks." A Muslim could sue a Frank over unpaid debt. Some Frankish knights gained battle experience by serving in Muslim armies. Mosques and shrines in the Kingdom of Jerusalem were open for worship and, according to historian Jonathan Riley-Smith, there was even a mosque-church. Tolerance in some form, if not principled, was at least beneficial both to business and security.
Meanwhile, there are various accounts of friendship and respect between Muslims and Frankish Christians. Perhaps most of these exchanges were characterized by a deep ambiguity inherent to the geopolitical circumstances. Examples include the Muslim merchant Usama ibn Mundiqh, who could describe the Franks as animals in one paragraph of his autobiography and in the next praise their religious devotion, or at another point laud a Frankish knight for rescuing an associate from a lynch mob in Antioch and then entertaining him at his home. Or consider the aforementioned Balian. The same man who threatened massacre was also apparently a friend of Saladin. After escaping Hattin, he swore an oath not to take up arms against the sultan, only to have the citizens of Jerusalem prevail upon him to lead the defense of the city. Balian wrote a letter to Saladin explaining why he broke his promise. Saladin forgave Balian and allowed him to go free once Jerusalem surrendered.
A purportedly less ambiguous figure was Raymond III of Tripoli, a leading noble in the kingdom and competitor to Guy of Lusignan for succession to the throne in 1186. Raymond had spent eleven years in captivity under the Muslims, learned Arabic, and grew to respect his adversaries. He may have believed that genuine coexistence was possible, and he also counted Saladin as a friend. By contrast, Reynald of Chatillon also spent several years in captivity and learned to hate Muslims with a tremendous ferocity.
In the end, however, a genuine pluralism was impossible. The founding ideology of the Kingdom was the crusade to liberate territories that were considered rightfully Christian. Any respect that Muslims developed for the Western settlers was limited by Islam's own claim to superiority, particularly its inherent conviction that the world is irreconcilably divided into two realms: the advancing Dar al-Islam (House of Islam) and the chaotic, degenerate Dar al-Harb (House of War). The Kingdom of Jerusalem was certainly a fascinating mosaic of cultures, languages and traditions, but it was doomed to be a only a fleeting and tense one.
Labels: Historia
I agree. The movie sucked. The slut who played the princess or queen or whatever the devil she was, said in an interview that they were trying to portray the Christians as dogs and those poor ole mussies as honorable people.
While Saladin was a good commander, he had no problem with slaughtering other Christian groups. And the caravan raids the Christians did in the movie was simply a repeat of what Mahomet did in his career.
the fight scenes in the movie, however, were quite good. I love it in the beginning when the German challenges the baron's men to trial by combat.
Posted by
Jacob of Monroe |
Wednesday, May 06, 2009 9:25:00 AM
I couldn't take that movie seriously, from the way it projected postmodern mores onto medieval characters to its stupid loss of faith theme. It was one of three movies I saw theatrically that year where a Christian suddenly realizes that his faith is meaningless but his life has meaning because, for example, he's fighting to save Jerusalem, so I was pretty tired of that tired motif.
It also played pretty fast in loose with history, something I don't normally mind unless it's used for an anti-Christian/anti-faith agenda.
Posted by
Vershal |
Sunday, May 10, 2009 4:54:00 PM
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