Tyre

Who holds it

Name

King Aimery and Queen Isabella, through the viscount of Tyre (name not pinned); the Venetian third under Venice's officers

Title

Royal city (two thirds), Venetian (one third)

Since

Royal since 1192 (Conrad of Montferrat's city 1187-1192)

Confidence

high

Lists of lordships (royal domain 1192-1246); Pactum Warmundi for the Venetian third.

Lord in 1200

The king and queen (two thirds); the commune of Venice (one third); Genoese and Pisan quarters within the royal part.

Overlord

King Aimery and Queen Isabella.

How things stand that morning

Royal under the truce; the Venetians still press for their losses since Conrad's time.

Wealth

Second only to Acre; no figures.

Military

The strongest walls of the kingdom.

Threats

• The earthquake of May 1202 (later, likely course of 1202)
• Venetian claims

Charter

Royal city with a Court of the Burgesses under the viscount; the Venetians hold a third of the city with their own court under the Pactum Warmundi (1124); the Genoese and Pisans hold quarters granted by Conrad in 1187.

Council

The viscount and the burgess jurors; the communes' officers in their quarters.

Communities

Franks; Venetians, Genoese and Pisans; Greek Orthodox and other Eastern Christians; a Jewish community (about 500 in the 1170s, Benjamin of Tudela, before 1187), many of them glass-makers; Muslim villagers in the plain.

Fairs and markets

None recorded; the trade follows the sailing seasons.

Militia

Burgess sergeants, as at Acre; no figures.

Walls and castle

Land walls across the isthmus, strengthened by Conrad's trench (1187); sea walls round the old island; the harbour on the north side closed by a chain. The great earthquake of 20 May 1202 brings down most of its towers and walls (later).

Trade and crafts

Glass made by the Jewish community, sendal silk, purple dye and sugar from the plantations and mills of the plain, watered by the springs of Ras al-Ain (History of Tyre, Wikipedia); the harbour trade with the West.

Places of note

• Ras al-Ain, the springs of Tyre: Springs and aqueduct watering the gardens and sugar cane.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: The siege of 1187 and the communes' grants are well known; the details of 1200 are general.

On the map: The district is drawn from the Litani to Mansouri, with the Venetian villages not separated.

Primary sources for Kingdom of Jerusalem

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Book of the Two Gardens, on the Reigns of Nur al-Din and Saladin, and its Sequel, Abu Shama (Shihab al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi) (about 1240 to 1267, at Damascus). The Rawdatayn ends with Saladin's death in 1193 and matters for 1200 as the store of Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's lost al-Barq al-Shami and of al-Qadi al-Fadil's letters, quoted at length, which describe the Ayyubid princes, the Jazira and the frontier a few years earlier. Read online
• The Chronicle of Ernoul and Bernard the Treasurer, Ernoul, squire of Balian of Ibelin, and later compilers (the 1187 core soon after the event; the whole in its present form 1227 to 1232). The Ibelin household's version of events in Outremer. Read online
• The Old French Continuation of William of Tyre (Eracles), Anonymous continuators, the earliest drawing on Ernoul (about 1220 to 1277; the first continuation (1184 to 1197, the Lyon Eracles) compiled about 1230 from material of the 1190s). For the Latin East at 1200 it narrates the aftermath of the Third Crusade: the truce of 1192, the succession to Jerusalem through Queen Isabella's marriages to Henry of Champagne (died September 1197) and Aimery of Lusignan, Aimery's rule as king of Jerusalem from 1198 while king of Cyprus, the German crusade of 1197 to 1198 and the recovery of Beirut and Sidon, the truce with al-Adil of 1198, the Antioch succession quarrel between Bohemond IV and Leo of Armenia, and the Pisan plot against Aimery. Read online
• Chronicle of Alberic of Trois-Fontaines, Alberic of Trois-Fontaines (about 1227 to 1241, at the Cistercian abbey of Trois-Fontaines in Champagne). The widest net of any Latin chronicle for 1200, compiled from dozens of sources, many now lost. Read online
• The Chronicle of Smbat Sparapet (Sempad the Constable), Smbat Sparapet, brother of King Hetum I of Cilicia (about 1270 to 1276). The Cilician court chronicle, drawing on Matthew of Edessa for its early part and on family memory later. Read online
• The Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem, Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (al-Katib) (about 1192 to 1193). Saladin's secretary's ornate account of the conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, ending with Saladin's death in 1193. Read online
• The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad (after 1193, probably between about 1198 and 1228, at Aleppo). Ends with Saladin's death in March 1193 and so gives no event of 1200, but it is the formative portrait of the Ayyubid house of 1200: al-Adil, al-Afdal, al-Aziz and al-Zahir Ghazi as Saladin's lieutenants, the Mosul and Jazira campaigns, the war of Acre and the treaty of Jaffa of 1192. Read online
• Calendar of the Acts of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Various, calendared by Reinhold Rohricht (documents 1097 to 1291; calendar published 1893, Additamentum 1904). A chronological calendar of every charter, letter and treaty of the Latin East then known, with date, parties, witnesses and the edition where each is printed. Read online

7 more in the sources library for The Latin East and the Ayyubids.