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.Hasan also gained control of other castles and their surrounding regions.Most of his subjects were peasants, but from them and from his religious adherents elsewhere he raised troops who garrisoned his castles and formed his armies.15 He also trained a select group of warriors as assassins, fi dais.They were not thugs, but religious zealots who were sent on missions to kill some of the political and religious leaders of the Islamic establishment.The fi dais needed great courage and dedication, for the chances of their escaping after fulfi lling their mission was often very slight.The daggers which they used to kill their victims were said to have been ritually consecrated,16 and Hasan taught that those who died in the service of the Imam would be assured of Paradise.Some assignments involved long-term planning, because the fi dais had to serve for many years in the retinues of princes before they were trusted enough to approach them closely.Although the fi dais were few in number, they had a high success rate and inspired considerable fear throughout the Abbasid and Fatimid empires.17The Frankish conquests which followed on from the First Crusade caused confusion among the Muslim rulers of Syria and Palestine.Hasan hoped to profi t from this chaos and sent agents there in about 1100, but it was not until the 1130s that the Nizarites were able to establish a permanent power base in the Jabal Bahra.This mountainous region, adjacent to the Crusader states of Antioch and Tripoli, had been partially, but never totally, subdued by the Franks.18 William of Tyre, writing in the 1170s, says that the Assassins had ten castles in this area and ruled over some 14 Daftary, Ismailis, pp.336–51.15 Hodgson, Order of Assassins, pp.62–81.16 Arnold of Lübeck, Chronica Slavorum, IV, 16, ed.I.M.Lappenberg in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores 21: 179.17 Hodgson, Order of Assassins, pp.82–4.18 P.Deschamps, Les châteaux des Croisés en Terre Sainte.III.La défense du comté de Tripoli et de la principauté d’Antioche (Paris, 1973), pp.36–43.16The Hospitallers, the Mediterranean and Europe60,000 subjects.19 The Syrian Assassins were governed by masters appointed by and responsible to the Grand Masters of Alamut, who were known to their followers as the Sheikh, or Elder, and to the Franks as ‘The Old Man of the Mountains’.20The Frankish rulers of Antioch and Tripoli reacted very differently to these new neighbours.Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch (1135–49), allied with the Nazirite leader Ali ibn Wafa against their common enemy, Nur ad-Din of Damascus, and both of them were killed fi ghting against him at the battle of Inab in 1149.21This tradition of goodwill was maintained by Raymond’s son, Bohemond III, who in 1180 granted the fi ef of Bikisrail, situated near the northern border of Nizarite territory, to the Order of St James of the Sword.Among the estates of the fi ef listed in Bohemond’s charter was ‘the castle of Gerennes with its appurtenances, except for the estates which we have given to the Sheikh of the Assassins [Vetulo Assideorum]’.22Raymond II of Tripoli (1137–52) had lost Rafaniya and much of the surrounding territory in the Orontes valley to Zengi of Mosul in 1137.He took defensive measures by creating in 1144 what amounted to a palatinate lordship centred on Crac des Chevaliers for the Knights of St John.Included in the grant were the lost lands in the Orontes valley, if they could be recovered from the Saracens.23 In 1151 Zengi’s son and successor, Nur ad-Din, sacked Tortosa and although he left no garrison there, the citadel and the other fortifi cations had been badly damaged and the castellan could not afford to restore them.In 1152 Raymond made the fi ef of Tortosa into what was in effect a Templar palatinate lordship, which adjoined the small lordship which that Order already held at Chastel Blanc (Safi ta).24 Later that year Nizarite fi dais fatally stabbed Raymond II as he rode through the city gate of Tripoli.25The Nizarites had no quarrel with Christians, and Raymond was the only important Frankish leader to be killed by them before the Third Crusade.It is possible that this was their response to Raymond’s foundation of the Templar lordship of Tortosa.Certainly the Templars fought the Nizarites at fi rst, but by King Amalric’s reign a peaceful solution had been found.James of Vitry, writing some 50 years later, relayed information perhaps supplied by the Templars: ‘For they [the Assassins]were at that time [c.1173] tributary to the brethren of the Temple, paying them two thousand bezants each year in order to hold securely a certain part of their territory, for [the Templars] had been accustomed to launch many attacks against it because 19 WT, 20, 29, p.953; Willey, Eagle’s Nest, pp.216–45.20 Lewis, Assassins, pp.97–124; C.Nowell, ‘The Old Man of the Mountain’, Speculum 22 (1947), pp.497–519.21 WT, 17, 9, pp.770–2; Ibn al-Qalanisi, The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, trans.H.A.R.Gibb (London, 1932), p.292.22 H.E.Mayer, Varia Antiochena.Studien zum Kreuzfahrerfürstentum Antiochia im 12und frühen 13 Jahrhundert (Hanover, 1993), pp.116–17.23 J.Riley-Smith, The Knights of St John in Jerusalem and Cyprus, c.1050–1310(London, 1967), pp.55–6.24 J
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Tematy
IndexKarl Wagner Kane 04 Cień Anioła Œmierci
Schroeder Karl Virga 01 Słońce Słońc
Borchardt Alice Srebrna wilczyca
Borchardt Alice Noc Wilka
Karl Gjellerup mlyn na wzgorzu
Alice Borchardt Noc wilka
Karl Wagner Pierœcień z krwawnikiem
Pedersen Bente Roza znad fiordów 15 Echo przeszłoÂści
Zaniewski Iwo Czego nie słyszal Arne Hilmen
Walka o Polskę – Bolesław Tejkowski