*Where no information is available categories have been omitted to save space.

Royal Household

William of Longchamp

Title/s Royal chancellor, regency council, royal justiciar, papal legate, bishop of Ely, castellan of Cambridge castle

Notes Richard I's chancellor when count of Poitou, made chancellor of England (1189). Great Council at Pipewell (1189). Papal legate (1190). Related to Stephen, Osbert, and Henry of Longchamp.

Sources Devizes, pp. 4, 7, 13; Diss, Vol. 2, pp. 96, 100–1; Gesta Regis, Vol. 2, pp. 35, 105–6, 108, 207, 210–15, 225, 239–40, 243–4; Itinerarium, pp. 145, 333; Landon, Itinerary, nos. 1–3, 5–12, 15–16, 19–22 etc.; PR2 RI (1190), p. 26; Wendover, pp. 167, 172, 175, 194.

Walter of Coutances

Title/s Archbishop of Rouen, regency council

Notes Brother to Roger Fitz-Reinfrid and uncle to Gilbert Fitz-Reinfrid. Former member of Young Henry's household. Helped formulate Saladin Tithe at Le Mans (1188). Invested Richard I as Duke of Normandy. Geddington (1189). Rouen (1190). Vézelay (1190). Lyon-sur-Rhône (1190). Messina (1190). Laid aside his crusading vow to return to England at Richard I's behest (1191).

Sources A.W. Lewis, ‘Six Charters of Henry II and his Family for the Monastery of Dalon’, EHR, 110 (1995), no. 6; Devizes, pp. 22, 27–8, 32; Diss, Vol. 2, pp. 68, 90, 663; Gesta Regis, Vol. 2, pp. 30–2, 45–6, 68–70, 73, 79, 101, 128, 153, 158, 212–13, 223, 225–6, 237, 247–8; Itinerarium, pp. 170, 176; Landon, Itinerary, nos. 2–8, 10–11, 33–55, 61, 72–6, 104, 115, 129, 132, 135–6, 148–52, 164–5, 183, 186–93, 196–202, 208–10, 226–48, 251–9, 264–5, 284, 321–6, 328–30, 344, 347; Rigord, p. 83; RHF, XXIII, pp. 359, 362; Wendover, pp. 152, 164–6, 204.

John of Alençon

Title/s Vice chancellor, archdeacon of Lisieux

Notes Vézelay (1190). Arrived in Holy Land with news of the grave situation in England.

Sources Ambroise, line 9414; Itinerarium, pp. 358; Landon, Itinerary, nos. 6–8, 147, 156, 207–10, 214–16, 219–20, 217, 219–20, 222–3, 225–34, 236–8, 263, 268, 272–8, 283–4, 286, 288–90, 292, 295, 298–304, 306, 308, 310, 312–18, 321, 324, 326, 328–9, 331.

Despite being more akin to a cultural history or perhaps even a genealogy of the Third Crusade than a traditional military history, this book grew out of my interest in unit cohesion, or the bonding together of warriors in a military organisation to sustain them in combat. In particular, it was inspired by Jan-Frans Verbruggen's view that the Règle du Temple was in part an attempt to replicate the bonds found in lay military households, which were arguably based on established social bonds – on family and locality. However, the base assumption on the composition of lay households required, in my view, more investigation before it could be safely used to consider this question.

Recent debate on unit cohesion has featured a distinction between the components of social cohesion and task cohesion – the commitment to working together on a shared goal. Since some studies have concluded that unit effectiveness is determined more by task cohesion than social cohesion, I thought it important to focus on a period in which various households from across Christendom were brought together for a common goal, such as in the attempted reconquest of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Like any such endeavour, researching and writing this book has benefited from the support of various bodies, as well as the goodwill and generous help of my own kinship and friendship network. Though it is impossible to repay many of the debts incurred, it is my pleasure to recognise them and to publicly offer my thanks for the help I was given during this project. Among the many debts of gratitude to individuals that I have incurred over the years whilst researching and writing this book the first is due to Tom Asbridge, who throughout the whole time has been an unfailing source of wisdom and support. Without his diligent guidance and unceasing encouragement, this may have stalled early on. I wish to express my profound thanks to Matthew Bennett for his keen insights and encouragement throughout the process. Similarly, I am also grateful to Caroline Palmer, Judith Everard, and Nick Bingham for their patience and support.

Traditions of familial commitment to the crusading movement were established very quickly. By the time of the Third Crusade some families could draw upon nearly a hundred years of dynastic practice and this chapter shows that significant numbers of participants enjoyed a crusading pedigree. Similarly, from the First Crusade onwards, crusaders often departed for the Holy Land alongside their kith (friends) and kin (family) or as members of military households as part of a collective response. This chapter shows that the Third Crusade was no exception.

In many elite families, crusading took place both across and within generations, and individuals might take the Cross on a number of separate occasions alongside differing members of their family. Based on his comprehensive prosopographical research of the early crusaders, Jonathan Riley-Smith argued that ‘the crusading movement itself was as much in the collective consciousness of certain noble and knightly families as in the action and the thinking of theoreticians’. Christopher Tyerman came to a similar conclusion in his review of English crusaders, referring to collective consciousness as a ‘habit of mind and action to be passed down to succeeding generations’. Current thinking on the Third Crusade is focused predominantly on participants as either part of the contingents of Frederick Barbarossa, the kings of France and England, and the count of Flanders, or listing crusaders from a particular region, such as Normandy. Analysis of the influence of crusading pedigree on participation in the Third Crusade, as well as the degree to which they fought within kinship groups, has yet to have been undertaken.

In November 1187 Richard, count of Poitou, took the cross at Tours Cathedral. By mid 1190 he had been crowned king of England and had departed on the Third Crusade, only returning some four years later following his release from captivity in Germany. This case study revisits the question of how Richard succeeded in attracting members of the nobility to his crusading contingent whilst ensuring the stability of his realm. In analysing the functions and roles of members of King Richard's military household during the Third Crusade, it offers deeper insights into how medieval armies were commanded in battle, especially crusader armies. It also presents a new perspective on Richard's approach to loyalty, homage, and reciprocity, which is more in line with the pragmatism of L’Histoire de Guillaume le Marechal than more romantic depictions of allegiance.

Historians have accused Richard of inept governance of the Angevin realm and lack of interest in English affairs. Norgate portrayed him as ‘totally destitute of his father's business capabilities’ and Stubbs dismissed him as ‘a bad son, a bad husband, a selfish ruler and a vicious man’. In general, however, this does not match his depiction in contemporary chronicles, and recent research has done much to rehabilitate Richard's reputation.

In many ways, Richard was in a unique situation. He ascended the throne of England having previously taken the Cross and, despite threats to his position – both internal and from beyond the borders of his realm – he remained committed to fulfilling his vow to regain the True Cross and recover Jerusalem. Notwithstanding his father's preparations, that he was able to mount a major expedition to the other side of Europe less than twelve months after becoming king of England was a considerable achievement. Moreover, he sought to establish a robust structure of governance prior to departing on crusade, ensuring that contingencies were in place to deal with potential threats, notably that from his younger brother, John, as well as from King Philip II of France.

The previous chapters have highlighted how geographical associations underpinned religious and familial influences on participation in the Third Crusade from north-western Europe. Religious houses, such as Forde Abbey and the hospital at Burton Lazars, were often patronised by benefactors who lived in the same locality. Similarly, whilst a crusading heritage or experience on crusade might lead to the joining of families together by marriage, analysis of familial associations with elite social networks has shown that barons routinely married their sons and daughters into the families of their geographical neighbours. This chapter studies the meaning and consequences of locality against the backdrop of the Third Crusade for the noble elite and, where the data permits, non-elite (artisanal) actors.

An assessment of the significance of territorial spaces, such as counties, to those who were associated with them has been an important element in analyses of noble elites. Some historians have approached this through patterns of marriage, friendship, and association – often based on witness lists – while others have concentrated on patterns of office holding and the membership of the retinues of magnates. More recently, localities have been seen as entities whose significance is best explored in cultural and conceptual terms – as imagined communities – rather than in concrete social ones. Coined by Benedict Anderson to address nationalism, imagined communities are socially constructed, imagined by people who perceive that they are part of a group. Unlike physical communities, such as villages or towns, members of imagined communities accept that they may never know most of their fellow members, yet they share in their mind's eye the image of their communion. However, the question of how imagined communities relate to networks of nobility in pre-nationalist Europe through family, friendship, and commercial or sporting association deserves greater attention. In this chapter, the tournament circuit is considered as a route to a better understanding of the relationship between an imagined noble community and crusading.

The Third Crusade was one of the largest expeditions to the Holy Land conducted by Latin Christendom. In addition to the royal military households of Frederick Barbarossa, Philip Augustus, and Richard I, the retinues of magnates such as Henry II of Champagne, Hugh III of Burgundy, Philip of Alsace, and Robert Fitz-Pernel, and the military might of the Italian citystates, tens of thousands took the Cross and journeyed eastwards to join the siege of Acre. Failure threatened not only the loss of the kingdom of Jerusalem, but arguably the whole of Outremer.

Despite incurring losses so great that the crusader council decided that, should they take Jerusalem, they lacked the strength to hold it, the Third Crusade recovered sufficient territory that the kingdom of Jerusalem would endure for another century. In addition, the absence of the crusaders from their homes and estates, the raising of funds to cover their participation, and the logistical demands of their journeys to and from the Holy Land meant that the expedition had an impact across Christendom.

Whilst this examination of the official records and narratives from northwestern Europe has encountered the leading figures of the Third Crusade – kings, great lords, and ecclesiastical magnates – it has also revealed characters with neither high rank nor substantial influence. Most of the 583 protagonists that have emerged here could be described as important enough to enjoy a degree of independence but were still beholden to a higher secular or clerical authority. That is to say, they were typical of the majority of the noble elite of the late twelfth century. In this way, this research provides a clearer idea of the social norms of the noble elite than might have been possible through a study limited to the great men and women.

Ultimately, as Andrew Jotischky has argued, an individual crusader's motivations for taking the Cross and then journeying to the Holy Land are unknowable. However, the employment of Social Network Analysis to consider elite participants in the Third Crusade highlights a number of characteristics common amongst those who responded to the call to arms that followed the loss of the True Cross in 1187 and the subsequent fall of Jerusalem to Saladin.

This chapter demonstrates that, along with the recovery of Jerusalem, the concept of following in Christ's footsteps (imitatio Christi) was a significant influence on motivation to take the Cross and join the Third Crusade. Whilst it is a topic that has not gone unnoticed by historians, the question of crusader spirituality in relation to participants in this expedition has either received little attention or has been subordinated to emphasis on the roles of the Great Men.

Jean Leclercq introduced the idea that the crusades should be considered as part of the same process that brought about twelfth-century religious reform, including the foundation of the Military Orders and reformed orders, such as the Cistercians and Premonstratensians. The intersection between monastic reform and crusading has been evidenced in a number of studies. It is a theme that is reflected in Jonathan Riley-Smith's argument that the First Crusade was considered by some contemporaries to be ‘a military monastery on the move’. Similarly, in his study of the religious practices of members of the military elite, Marcus Bull identified the close relationship between transactions with religious institutions and those beliefs that generated enthusiasm for a crusade.

Giles Constable also placed the devotions of crusaders firmly within the framework of overall medieval religious practice. Rather than focusing purely on the professed religious – monks and canons – he suggested that historians should place religious experience at the centre. He argued that a pilgrimage or a crusade ‘might fill as profound a need in some people as a lifetime of reciting psalms or enclosed in a cell did for others’.In his study of crusading spirituality, William Purkis established the crucial importance of the ideal of imitatio Christi to crusading spirituality, and he bridged the gap identified by Constable between crusading, pilgrimage, and monasticism.

The response to Pope Urban II's call to arms at Clermont in 1095 was overwhelming and the subsequent campaign to aid Byzantium and liberate the Holy Land established a number of new states in western Asia. This campaign came to be known as the First Crusade and its conquests as the Latin East, the Crusader States, or Outremer – the lands over the sea. The greatest of these polities was the kingdom of Jerusalem based on the Holy City captured in the final stages of the First Crusade in July 1099.

Over the next hundred years, Latin settlers aided by waves of crusaders sought to defend their conquests against growing Muslim pressure. Whilst Edessa had fallen to Muslim forces in 1144, the remaining Crusader States seemed relatively secure. Yet, in 1187, Salah ad-Din Yusuf (Saladin r.1174–1193) annihilated Latin forces under Guy of Lusignan, king-consort of Jerusalem, at the battle of Hattin (4 July 1187), and seized control of the majority of Guy's kingdom, including its capital. The Third Crusade (1187–1192) sought to recover Jerusalem and re-establish Latin control over the Holy Land.

When word reached Europe of Saladin's destruction of the army of the kingdom of Jerusalem at Hattin and his capture of the True Cross, Pope Urban III was said to have fallen dead in shock. Even before Archbishop Joscius of Tyre had spread the news of the fall of Jerusalem, hundreds across Latin Christendom rushed to take the Cross – to pledge themselves to a crusade. Amongst their number was Richard ‘the Lionheart’, duke of Aquitaine and heir to the throne of England (1157–1199), who risked the ire of his father, Henry II, in taking the vow without permission. Tens of thousands more joined them in response to a call for a crusade by the new pope, Gregory VIII, and the efforts of his preachers at mass cross-taking ceremonies.

*Where no information is available categories have been omitted to save space.

Philip II of France

Title/s King of France

Alias/es Rex Francie, Phillippo rege Francorum, Felippe, reis Filippes de France, Philippus rex Franciae

Notes Took the Cross alongside King Henry II (1188). Messina (1190). Siege of Acre (1191). Returned to France after the capture of Acre (1191). Ancestor/s Louis VII, Philip of Beauvais

Family Theobald V of Blois, Robert II of Dreux, Bishop Philip of Beauvais, Henry II of Champagne, Peter II of Courtenay

Orders Augustinians, Benedictines, Cistercians (Barbeau), Hospitallers, Lazar Houses (Boigny), Premonstratensians (Saint-André-au-Bois), Templars

Region France

Sources Ambroise, lines 87–154, 254–60, 4523, 4688, 4809–34, 4835–5032, 5243–97; Baha’ al-Din, pp. 145, 147–9, 153, 163; Chronica, Vol. 2, p. 335; Devizes, pp. 16, 22, 27, 42, 44; Diss, Vol. 2, pp. 51, 55, 57–8, 62–3, 83–4, 91, 111; Gilbert of Mons, pp. 270–1; Gesta Regis, Vol. 2, pp. 29–30, 35–6, 45, 49, 61, 67–8, 7, 147–8, 150–20, 73–4, 104–5, 112–13, 126, 128, 160–1, 170–1, 173–6, 178, 182–3, 185, 192–9, 236–7; Ibn al-Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn Al-Athir for the Crusading Period from Al-Kamil Fi’l-Ta’rikh. Part 2: The Years 541–589/1146–1193. The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin, trans. D.S. Richard (Farnham, 2007), p. 386; Itinerarium, pp. 5, 32, 138, 140–1, 155–6, 159–77, 181, 210–23, 229, 231–39, 351; Rigord, pp. 83, 90–1; Wendover, pp. 143, 152, 157–9, 182, 186–7, 195, 197, 208.

Robert II of Dreux

Title/s Count of Dreux

Alias/es Robert, count of Dreux, cuens Roberz, coens Robert de Dreues, Drous, Robertus comes Druensis

Notes Took the Cross alongside King Philip II (1188). Silves (1189). Siege of Acre (1190). Battle of Arsuf (1191). Joined Albigensian Crusade (1210).

Ancestor/s Robert I of Dreux

Family Bishop Philip of Beauvais, Philip II of France, Raoul I of Coucy

Orders Premonstratensians (Saint-Yved of Braine), Templars, and Hospitallers

Region Dreux