The Knights TemplarsAddison, C. G. (Charles Greenstreet)
History
The Knights Templars
Addison, C. G. (Charles Greenstreet)
Templars
By the terms of the surrender of Acre, the inhabitants were to pay
a ransom of two hundred thousand pieces of gold for their lives and
liberties; two thousand noble and five hundred inferior christian
captives were to be set at liberty, and the true cross, which had
been taken at the battle of Tiberias, was to be restored to the
Latin clergy. Two months were accorded for the performance of these
conditions. I’Bn Alatsyr, who was then in Saladin’s camp, tells us that
Saladin had collected together 100,000 pieces of gold, that he was
ready to deliver up the two thousand five hundred christian captives,
and restore the true cross, but his Mamlook emirs advised him not to
trust implicitly to the good faith of the christian adventurers of
Europe for the performance of their part of the treaty, but to obtain
from the Templars, of whose _regard for their word, and reverence for
the sanctity of an oath_, the Moslems had, he tells us, a high opinion,
a solemn undertaking for the performance, by the Christians, of the
stipulations they had entered into. Saladin accordingly sent to the
Grand Master of the Temple, to know if the Templars would guarantee
the surrender to him of all the Moslem prisoners, if the money, the
christian captives, and the true cross, were sent to them; but the
Grand Master declined giving any guarantee of the kind. The doubts
about the agreement, and the delay in the execution of it, kindled the
fierce indignation of the English monarch, and Richard Cœur de Lion
led out all his prisoners, 2,000 in number, into the plain of Acre,
and caused them all to be beheaded in sight of the sultan’s camp![90]
During his voyage from Messina to Acre, king Richard had revenged
himself on Isaac Comnenus, the ruler of the island of Cyprus, for an
insult offered to the beautiful Berengaria, princess of Navarre, his
betrothed bride. He had disembarked his troops, stormed the town of
Limisso, and conquered the whole island; and shortly after his arrival
at Acre he sold it to the Templars for 300,000 livres d’or.[91]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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