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Essay for 'Recording the Crusades', part of Crusader
Studies MA, 2006. (Footnotes omitted here)
Jean de Joinville and Matthew Paris on the Battle of Mansourah
Illumination showing Louis IX and Jean de Jonville
on crusade.
From 14th Century manuscript of La Vie de Saint Louis
by Joinville.
Introduction
The Seventh Crusade, led by Louis IX of France, began successfully with
the capture of Damietta. The city at the eastern side of the Nile Delta
fell in 1249, without the need for a long and costly siege such the armies
of the Fifth Crusade had endured three decades previously. However like
the earlier crusade, Louis's campaign ran into difficulty as the army
passed south in pursuit of Cairo, and unravelled due to a debacle at Mansourah.
My intention here is to look at two documentary accounts of the pivotal
event of early February 1250 - the initial phase of the battle of Mansourah
which resulted in the destruction of a major part of the Christian cavalry
and prefigured the disaster the remaining crusaders would suffer.
The first account is from the Vie de Saint Louis by Jean de Joinville
(c.1224-1317), a nobleman of Champagne. Jean de Joinville participated
actively in the Seventh Crusade and became close to the king. The second
is from the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris (c.1200-1259), an English
monk based in St Albans. Jean de Joinville was closer to events- dangerously
close at times- but he wrote later in life, and with a clear purpose linked
to King Louis's posthumous reputation and, by extension, the reputation
of the Capetian dynasty in the form of Philip IV and his sons. Matthew
Paris, meanwhile, was geographically more distant from events and had
his information at second hand. However he wrote closer to the time, and
was free from any pressure to toe the line of the French monarchy.
Background
The Seventh Crusade had been launched in a delayed response to the loss
of Jerusalem in 1244 to the Khoresmians, Turkic mercenaries of Egypt displaced
by the Mongols from their homeland. After pillaging in the Holy City,
the Khoresmians has joined up with Egyptian forces and defeated the Franks
of Acre and their Damascene allies at la Forbie. King Louis, in France,
weak with malaria, had vowed to take the cross and to aid the Holy Land
if he recovered his health. By 1250, the royal crusade was well under
way. In June 1249, the crusades' French-dominated forces had landed from
Cyprus and taken Damietta. After that, echoing the events of thirty years
before, they had rejected an offer from the sultan of Egypt to return
Jerusalem in exchange for Damietta. Louis was subsequently persuaded by
his brother Robert, count of Artois that the best strategy was to push
south to take Cairo rather than west to secure Alexandria. Robert had
asserted that Cairo was the chief city in Egypt, and 'if you wished to
kill a serpent, you must first crush its head'. Having encountered stiffer
opposition during the passage and enduring barrages of Greek fire, the
army finally managed to ford a waterway close to the town of Mansourah.
Paris and Joinville's accounts have been called the two major versions
of what happened next.
The account of Jean de Joinville
Jean de Joinville related how, having had much trouble trying to cross
the water to the side of the Saracen camp, the Christians managed to cross
after being shown a ford by a local Bedouin, who revealed the place in
exchange for five hundred bezants. King Louis instructed that certain
nobles including the Duke of Burgundy and others from overseas would remain
to guard the camp, while he and his three brothers (Charles of Anjou,
Robert of Artois and Alphonse of Toulouse) would lead an attack force
across the ford. At dawn on Shrove Tuesday, they reached the place, and
crossed on their horses, finding the ford tolerably usable. On the far
bank, they encountered three hundred enemy cavalry.
Some of the banks were slippery and muddy, dragging down certain knights,
including the standard bearer Jean d'Orleans. Joinville had therefore
directed his men to a less treacherous position. The Turks then took to
flight. The Templars were meant to form the vanguard in the ensuing encounter,
with Robert of Artois following with the second division. As soon as Robert
was across the stream, however, he and his men flung themselves at the
enemy. The Templars let the count know that they were offended, as they
had been usurped in the lead position, and begged that they be allowed
to go on ahead as had been arranged by the king:
The count, however, did not venture to answer them, on account of an
error on the part of Foucalt de Merle, who was holding the bridle of his
horse. The man was a very good knight, but being completely deaf, he heard
nothing at all of what the Templars were saying to his lord, and kept
on shouting: 'After them, men, after them!'
At this, the Templars, fearing to be shamed if the count got in front
of them, charged at the enemy, pursuing the fleeing Turks, right through
the town of Mansourah and into the fields beyond, towards Cairo. When
the knights tried to return, the Turks in Mansourah threw great beams
down from the rooftops to block the narrow streets. Count Robert was killed
there (as Joinville later mentioned, apparently while defending himself
in a house). Also killed were Raoul de Couchy and many Templars. Joinville
wrote that the Grand Master had subsequently told him that the Order lost
two hundred and eighty mounted warriors.
The account of Matthew Paris
Matthew Paris's chronicle describes the same event. The relevant entry
began by reporting the content of a letter received by the Earl Richard
in London. In Paris's version of events, King Louis, encouraged by reports
from 'a certain guardian of Cairo' moved south from Damietta, slaughtering
those who stood in his way. Then on the third Sunday after Easter (3 April)
many crossed a large river called the Tafnis, by means of boats tied together.
Robert of Artois, Louis' brother, took a number of knights across, unbeknown
to the king, hoping to triumph alone and keep all the glory for himself.
He and his men put the Saracens to the sword, and Robert 'advancing boldly
but incautiously' resolved to attack Mansourah. Forcing his way in, he
was assailed by stones and forced to withdraw in confusion, having killed
many of the inhabitants.
Count Robert then met in council with the Templars, and with William Longespee,
the leader of an English contingent. Robert wanted to attack, believing
that the enemy were fleeing, and that if anything went wrong, his brother
and the king and the 'unconquerable' force following could save them.
At this, the 'discreet and wary' Master of the Temple (Guillaume de Sonnac)
advised caution, so that the tired, wounded and thirsty knights could
recover a little after their earlier triumph. He advised that it would
be better to wait for the rest of the royal army to arrive before charging,
predicting disaster if they attacked because the fleeing enemy would rally
to the sultan, who would come with his large forces, forewarned of the
small size and exhausted state of the Christian contingent thus far across
the water.
Count Robert was indignant and 'excited and flushed with anger and pride'.
He accused the Templars of 'time-honoured treachery', and of secretly
hindering the success of the crusades for their own advantage '
surely
Frederick, who has witnessed their deceit, is a most reliable witness'.
Thus angered and goaded the Templars and Hospitallers prepared to fight,
against their better judgement. William Longespee, meanwhile, tried to
calm the situation, advising the count to heed the Grand Master's advice,
acknowledging the Templar's advantage of age and experience. The count
responded by 'shouting as the French do and swearing indecently', saying
how blessed the army would be if purged of people with tails (a common
anti-English barb among the French). William, provoked and upset, responded
'Count Robert, I shall assuredly advance unafraid into any danger of death.
We shall be today, I fancy, where you will not dare to touch my horse's
tail'. Thus they advanced against the numerous enemy, while the count,
wishing to retain all the glory, disdained to notify his brother of the
possible danger.
The Muslims, delighting in the Christian disunity, surrounded the count
and his contingent 'like an island surrounded by sea', so that none could
escape to the river. The count regretted his decision and called to William
Longespee, who was bearing the brunt of the fight: 'William God is fighting
against us, we cannot resist any longer'. He told William to flee while
he could, but William refused. Robert fled to the river, trying to cross,
and drowned under the weight of his armour. So he perished, 'miserable
but commiserated by no-one
mourned by no one's tears, for though
born of the noble blood of kings he set a pernicious example to others'.
With the death of the count the French began to despair and withdrew in
disarray. William fought on, meanwhile, until unhorsed and overwhelmed.
With him perished 'a great many Englishmen who had followed his standard
from the beginning'. Meanwhile only two Templars and a single Hospitaller
escaped 'nor did the anger
or rather fury of the Lord allow anyone
of note to escape'.
The different natures of the documents
Joinville's Vie de Saint Louis is part a biography/hagiography of King
Louis IX, part autobiography, and part general history of the Seventh
Crusade. Jean had been in his twenties during the expedition. He began
writing his book (in which he portrayed the late king as highly virtuous)
at the behest of Queen Jeanne de Navarre, the wife of Louis IX's grandson
Philip IV. By this time (c. 1290-1308), Joinville was quite elderly. His
testimony before a church commission had earlier contributed to Louis's
canonisation. Joinville's narrative was perhaps constrained by a need
to meet with the requirements of the ruling family, or by a desire to
please them. His work could not be overly critical of members of the house
of Capet, but had to serve to enhance their name.
The Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris was a monastic annal running up to
the year 1250. It was compiled at St Albans Abbey, a well-connected Benedictine
institution, with a rich literary and scholarly tradition. Travellers,
letters, and occasional royal visits kept the monks informed of wider
events. Matthew's chronicle includes several copied letters, including
that which informed his account of the engagement at Mansourah. Matthew
may likewise have been acquainted with the king of France, having acted
as a messenger between Louis and King Haakon IV of Norway in 1248. Matthew
was also familiar with King Henry III, and the king's brother Richard,
Earl of Cornwall, one of the leasers of the earlier Barons' Crusade, and
thus another possible source of information on the East. Matthew's intended
audience was probably the other monks of his order- a fairly restricted
circle. His acerbic comments regarding the pope and other powerful individuals
indicate that he did not anticipate his work becoming widely read abroad,
or that if he did he was none too concerned about his opinions being known.
Where he was partial (as he was towards Longespee), he made little attempt
to hide it, and his chronicle's value lies largely in revealing Matthew's
opinions concerning personalities of his time, how news carried and how
events were interpreted.
The two narratives contain many differences. The dates given, for example,
do not reconcile, and neither do the explanations for why the Seventh
Crusade was passing south. The account of Matthew Paris implies that Louis
marched on Cairo having received favourable intelligence from an insider
or spy who was a 'guardian' of the city. Joinville does not seem aware
of this, and attributes the decision to march south to Robert of Artois's
influence on Louis. It is unlikely that Joinville would be mistaken here,
as, being a lord and Seneschal of Champagne, he would probably have been
involved in the strategic discussions that were held before the mobilization.
Moreover the count's influence would presumably have been common knowledge
among the crusader barons, especially if the count got his way where they
did not.
While Joinville described a Bedouin showing the crusaders where the water
could be forded, Paris only mentions this later, when he transcribes the
letter to Richard, which mentioned a converted Muslim assisting. (This
letter also provided Paris's information that the crusaders had tried
to cross using a pontoon). Joinville, meanwhile, seems to have remembered
the local Bedouin quite vividly despite the elapse of time, even how much
the man had asked in payment for the information, and the fact that he
refused to show the crossing place until he was paid.
Paris and Joinville gave different accounts of the sequence of events
following the river crossing. Paris had Count Robert pressing into Mansourah
directly after ransacking the Muslim encampment, but being ejected prior
to leading his fatal charge. He made no mention of the Templars trying
to assert their position in the vanguard or of problems with communication
caused by the alleged deafness of Foucalt de Merle.
The accounts correspond in the basic fact that a force including Robert
of Artois and the Templars crossed the river before the main party of
the crusade, and that it was all but wiped out after a charge against
the enemy under controversial circumstances, and before the arrival of
reinforcements. The letter Paris includes confirms that the knights were
ambushed within Mansourah and that few managed to cut their way out.
The Role of Robert, Count of Artois
Joinville's account of the action was somewhat brief. Evidently he sought
to avoid direct criticism of Count Robert. Writing as he was at the behest
of the Capetian dynasty, this is understandable: Joinville may have considered
it prudent to gloss over Robert's culpability. Instead he deflects attention
towards the deaf knight holding the count's reigns on the one hand, and
attributes the decision to charge into Mansourah to the Templars on the
other. He thus presented Count Robert in a more favourable light, emphasizing
his boldness, and avoiding the suggestion that he was at fault. It may
be noted that Jean de Joinville was not present at this particular event,
but was near King' Louis's contingent behind. Joinville however hinted
at Robert's domineering nature when earlier describing how the count had
advocated a strategy contrary to the consensus of the crusading barons.
The introduction of the deaf attendant Foucalt seems to be an attempt
to cover up the full extent of the count's obstreperousness.
Matthew Paris, in his version, presented Count Robert as a supercilious
firebrand. (Paris, as mentioned, had no need to fear criticizing the Capetian
dynasty, and indeed was not shy about censuring even the pope, or his
own king, Henry III.) The monk had made earlier mention of Robert's unfair
and jealous behaviour towards William Longespee and of Louis's inability
to restrain his brother. Paris reported how Longespee had complained to
the king that the French barons had deprived him of his personal spoils,
and that Count Robert was the captain of the 'misconduct and violent robbery'
he had suffered. Unable to find satisfaction, Longespee had quit the army
in Damietta for the Holy Land for a time, but had returned in time for
the ill-fated battle of Mansourah. Louis's lack of control over his brothers
is explicit, therefore, in the writing of Matthew Paris. Putting words
in Longespee's mouth, Paris more than insinuated that Louis did not have
the nerve to stand up to Robert. Louis' going along with Robert's plan
to march against Cairo rather than Alexandria, against the advice of all
the other nobles (as Joinville mentioned without comment on the merits
of the strategy) perhaps bears this assessment out. This may be seen as
a failing on the part of Louis.
All in all Joinville did not dwell on the deeds of Robert of Artois, and
one is left suspecting that he was reluctant to do so because it could
taint Louis's reputation by association. Joinville may also have been
mindful of the sensitivity of the issue with King Philip IV, who was keen
to foster the prestige the Capetian bloodline, and who was not a ruler
to be crossed. Count Robert II of Artois (the son of the Robert who perished
at Mansourah) had also become powerful in France, and Joinville may also
have sought to avoid offending him. Finally, King Louis was known to have
hoped that his brother had attained martyrdom and it would not have been
fitting for Joinville to contradict that view, whatever his personal doubts.
On the eve of the fateful charge, Matthew Paris portrayed Robert taunting
as a coward the more cautious Longespee who ultimately met martyrdom heroically.
This echoes the story of how in 1187 Gerard de Ridefort, the late Templar
Grand Master, had accused his subordinate Jacquelin de Mailly of cowardice,
after Jacquelin protested at the order to charge at a vastly superior
Muslim force at Cresson. Paris seemingly rewrote this story, placing Longespee
in Jacquelin's role as the 'glorious champion' who vindicates his courage,
finally falling atop a pile of slain Saracens, while the senseless leader
who had initiated the engagement fled ignominiously. This tragic theme
may have become something of a literary motif by Paris's time, introduced
for purposes of didactic dramatization.
The Role of the Templars
Other parts of Joinville's memoir are generally favourable to the Templars.
It is possible one of his ancestors has belonged to the order . There
is no suggestion that he ever thought ill of the Templars in general,
or anticipated their suppression, which was imminent (if not underway)
as he wrote. Earlier in his writing, he had noted how the Order had successfully
driven away a Saracen attack after Reynald de Vichiers, Marshal of the
Order, had witnessed a brother knight being felled before him. Jean also
wrote favourably of the bold Guillaume de Sonnac, who continued to lead
the surviving Templars outside Mansourah even though he had lost an eye
there. Guillaume lost his other eye and then his life during the unrelenting
Muslim counter-attack on the crusaders' camp. (Joinville, after the retreat
from Mansourah, had a confrontation with the treasurer of the Order when
it came to extracting funds from them for the king's ransom, but was placated
by de Vichiers, who was by then Grand Master and Joinville's friend).
Without actively condemning the Templars, however, Joinville was compelled
to cast them as the reckless party when it came to the attack into Mansourah,
in order to salvage the reputation of Count Robert. It is notable that
Joinville's account has no mention of Robert's goading the Templars or
the English into action, or of any cautionary advice that the count received
from the Grand Master. Instead it is the Order's concern with battlefield
protocol and placing of prestige above common sense that seems to precipitate
the disaster.
Matthew Paris, on the whole, by contrast to Joinville, was apathetic towards
the Military Orders, adopting a similar attitude to them as that previously
shown by William of Tyre. Paris could be fairly hostile towards all ecclesiastical
rivals to his monastic order, including the secular clergy and the Mendicant
Orders. Some hostility towards the Templars might therefore be expected,
an indeed Paris elsewhere in his chronicle accused them of sending falsely
favourable reports from the East. He portrayed the Templars at Mansourah,
however, as practically minded as well as courageous. The source of Paris's
information on this occasion may have been close to the Templars, which
would explain the unusually positive account of their actions and motives.
Even so, Paris nowhere cast doubt on the information he had related, and
was adamant that Count Robert's hubris was the root of the fiasco. Another
noteworthy point is that when taunting the Templars, Matthew has the count
dredging up the accusations made against them by the Holy Roman Emperor
Frederick II, with whom the Templars had feuded bitterly during the Sixth
Crusade. This indicates that these slurs still had some currency, and
application- if only as insults- and that they were likely to touch a
raw nerve with the Templars.
Paris's is the only version of these events to mention the participation
of the Knights Hospitaller as well as of the Templars in this particular
engagement. He seems to have assumed that the two Orders shadowed each
other and that where there were Templars there would also be Hospitallers.
This may have been true much of the time, on account of the rivalry that
was sometimes perceptible between them.
The role of William Longespee
William Longespee (or Longsword), the exiled Earl of Salisbury, is absent
from Jean de Joinville's memoir. Though Longespee was a renowned crusader,
his part in the battle (and in the Seventh Crusade in general) seems to
have been expunged from the French version of events. This may be because
Joinville's account was intended to eulogise King Louis as a French national
hero as well as a Christian saint. Therefore Joinville had a motive for
portraying the Crusade as an almost wholly French affair. Moreover he
may have felt that no French audience would wish to hear about English
participants. (At around the time Joinville was writing, Philip IV of
France and Edward I of England were engaged in wars over Gascony and over
control of Flanders- another reason for the memoirist to omit mention
of English crusaders. Presuming that the account given in Matthew Paris
is accurate in its general thrust, meanwhile, then the dishonourable treatment
Longespee suffered at the hands of the French barons and the circumstances
of his death may have been a cause of embarrassment to Joinville. This
would be another reason for silence on the matter. (That said, elsewhere,
Joinville, though a patriot, plainly expressed disapproval of the late
Duke of Brittany, who had apparently sabotaged the Third Crusade, half
a decade before, because he had not wanted the English-led army to have
the glory of recovering Jerusalem. Perhaps, from Joinville's standpoint,
it was safer to criticize those Frenchmen who had been in their graves
some while longer.) At any rate, for whatever reason, Joinville neglected
to mention William Longespee.
Matthew Paris was equally a patriot, and had as strong a motive for emphasizing
Longespee's role as Joinville had for negating it. Paris's account, presents
Longespee as the hero of the crusade, and also as a long-suffering victim
of abuse from the jealous French barons. The sources thus have vale in
indicating the rise of the nationalistic prejudices that were beginning
to permeate a fragmenting Christendom, and the heightening tensions between
societies. Paris's account also enveloped Longespee in an aura of saintliness
similar to that with which Joinville surrounded the memory of King Louis.
Paris later mentioned Longespee's mother the Countess Ela, abbess of Lacock,
receiving a dream on the night before the battle, wherein she saw a knight
in armour being received gloriously into heaven, surrounded by angels.
She recognized the heraldry on his shield and was told by a voice that
the knight was indeed William her son. Paris presented Longespee as a
martyr- as much a victim of French arrogance and recklessness as of the
Muslim enemy.
Were the Christians deliberately trapped?
The accounts of the battle given in these two narratives make it difficult
to tell whether the Crusaders fell victim to a trap. A feigned withdraw
followed by an ambush was indeed a classic Mameluk manoeuvre, as Baybars
later demonstrated at Ayn Jalut, defeating the Mongols. Some accounts
of the battle of Mansourah have the Egyptians deliberately luring the
Christian knights into the town, in order to bottle them up where they
could not manoeuvre and to attack them from the side streets- the Mameluks
supported by thousands of volunteers. Joinville's account better supports
this interpretation of events, whereas Paris's more complicated version
is more ambiguous. If Robert had listened to the Templars and to Longespee,
or had waited for the king and the others to support them, then the disaster
would have been averted.
Paris has the Sultan expressing delight when told by his scouts that the
Christian forces had divided, with one brother no-longer supporting the
other. 'They are ours for booty and plunder'. This indicates that the
Muslims opportunistically took advantage of the count's advance rather
than having a predetermined strategy to lure him into the town. They were
also taking advantage of the battle-weary condition of the first wave
of Franks.
The Generalship of Louis
Louis's crusade had been well planned, at least in its early phases. However
the decision to attack Egypt (instead of Palestine) was not without controversy,
and that it was left until after the fall of Damietta to decide the next
stage in the strategy, as Joinville indicated was the case, calls into
question how well plans had been made, and how clear Louis was concerning
the crusade's long term goals. Indeed Louis repeated the questionable
policy of Pelagius on the Fifth Crusade. He declined the Sultan's overtures
regarding the return of Jerusalem in exchange for Damietta and aspired
to conquer the whole of Egypt. Neither of the sources in question mention
the Sultan's offer of a negotiated settlement, both wishing, perhaps,
to avoid the problematic implication that the infidel enemy might actually
have a less belligerent outlook than those about the 'business of Christ'
- or indeed that it might have been sinful for the Christians to have
tried to gain by war what they could have obtained by peaceful means.
However, like Pelagius before him, Louis was over ambitious, and paid
the price with humiliation at Mansourah. Like Pelagius he wanted to colonise
Damietta and would not exchange it even for Jerusalem. In the end he had
to surrender the city for his liberty.
Only when Louis had heard what had happened did he rally his men to 'attack
our enemies, who are stained with the blood of our brothers', as Paris
reported. What seems clear, however, is that Louis had not been in control.
Joinville's admired the sight of the king, in his golden helmet, fending
off a Saracen attack . However though he never criticized Louis's leadership,
he left the king open to the criticism that he has failed to keep his
forces together, or to ensure that his brother adhered to the prearranged
plan. Louis, though dedicated to his cause, was indecisive at times and
hardly exhibited any great mastery of strategy. None of the sources have
Robert feeling the need to inform his brother of his intentions.
Paris recorded how the Saracens transported boats overland to cut the
crusaders' supply link to Damietta- a tactic Louis clearly failed to foresee
or forestall. In a blazing battle, 'the enemies of Christ, through some
obscure decision of God, triumphed at their pleasure over the Christians'.
Joinville gave graphic depictions of the effects of attrition, hunger
and disease on the crusaders, who subsequently abandoned their camp and
retreated north- nearly all being killed or captured before they reached
Damietta.
Attitude to the Muslims and to Crusading
In neither source are the Muslims presented as inherently wicked, though
they are sometimes aggressive and effective fighters, sometimes disposed
to dismember and mutilate the bodies of those they had slain . Later Paris
put words in the sultan's moth which perhaps betray some sympathy with
their position, or at least some doubt concerning the merits of crusading
outside the Holy Land:
What rash insanity incites them to attack us, we who have inhabited this
most noble country since the flood? Surely they do not want us to believe
in their Christ against our will?
The Christians have some small
pretext for wanting the land they call Holy; but what has Egypt got to
do with them?
Louis having become a prisoner of the Muslims, Paris reported him giving
a melancholy defence of his ideology, that the almighty knew that he had
not come from France to gain land or wealth, but to win endangered souls
to God.
Joinville was captured on the river. His account of his captivity is ambivalent;
a Muslim commander saved his life, while sick and wounded prisoners were
executed, and some knights were given a choice between apostasy and being
beheaded. During this time the Mameluks seized power and executed the
Sultan. Joinville was later freed along with Louis, eventually reaching
the relative safety of Acre. There his sense of duty made him argue in
favour of remaining in the Holy Land. Louis stayed for four years, fortifying
towns but failing to implement any strategy to secure the vestigial Latin
kingdom's long-term future. Instead, by destabilizing Egypt, the crusaders
had helped bring to power the militant Mameluk regime that would be the
kingdom's nemesis. Joinville did not reflect on this irony, and said little
about why he became a crusader in the first place. Both he and Paris attributed
Christian defeats to divine punishment. Evidently Joinville came to be
disillusioned with the merits of crusading. He refused to join Louis's
last crusade, that which floundered in Tunis.
Conclusion
L'Estoire de Eracles Empereur introduces the notion that the rash charge
stemmed from 'the greed of the common soldier to sack the town'. This
may be an attempt to deflect an aristocratic failure onto those lower
down. From these sources it is difficult to be certain how the debacle
began, or whether the count or the Templars were primarily responsible.
The letter to Earl Richard stated that Robert and his people were not
content with their initial victory- the count wantonly wished to advance
further. Paris built on this, embellishing the heroism of Longespee and
damning Robert. Yet it does seem that the count was greedy for glory,
and that Joinville sought to disguise this, talking of a deaf attendant
and misconstruing the nature of the Templars' appeals to Robert. At the
later Templars' trials, Jacques de Molay mentioned Mansourah, which had
evidently entered the Order's collective memory, reflecting that Count
Robert had wanted Templars as his vanguard, and that if he had heeded
the Master, they would not all have died.
Bibliography:
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