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In a final act of bravery the Templar commander mounted his warhorse and charged into the fray. One of Saladin's lieutenants later described how 'he threw himself into a hole full of fire without fear of the intense heat and, from this brazier, he was immediately thrown into another - that of Hell'.
'He threw himself into a hole full of fire without fear of the intense heat...'
On that day 800 of the garrison were butchered, and a further 700 taken captive. With the stronghold overrun, Saladin set about razing it to the ground, later claiming that he ripped the foundation stones out with his own hands. The site was then abandoned and for eight centuries it lay untouched, its story all but forgotten.
The true significance of Jacob's Ford, around 50 miles north-west of Jerusalem, is only now becoming apparent. With its location rediscovered and archaeological excavation underway, it now appears that the fall of this seemingly obscure fortress was actually a pivotal moment in the history of the Crusades as well as the wider struggle between Islam and the West.
Baldwin IV ascended to the throne of the kingdom of Jerusalem aged just 13 and was already suffering from leprosy. In that same year, Saladin, more than 20 years Baldwin's senior and ruler of Egypt, seized possession of ancient Damascus, the seat of Muslim power in Syria.
'These two rulers were against one another in a bitterly fought contest for dominion over Jerusalem'
Saladin set out to forge an empire that encircled the Crusader states, promoting himself as a champion of Islamic Jihad, all with the avowed intention of recovering Jerusalem. At the same time, King Baldwin's reign was dominated by the spectre of Muslim invasion and the need to defend the Holy City at any cost.
These two rulers were against one another in a bitterly fought contest for dominion over Jerusalem, which the Crusaders had held since 1099.
In November 1177, Saladin launched his first full-scale invasion of the Latin kingdom, but in an unexpected show of courage and martial skill, King Baldwin managed to surprise and overwhelm the sultan's numerically superior force near a hill known as Mont Gisard.
This was a striking achievement - the only defeat in pitched battle that Saladin suffered before the advent of Richard the Lionheart and the Third Crusade. The sultan's troops were routed, while he himself only narrowly avoided death and was forced to limp back to Egypt, his aura of invincibility shattered.
Although the cost in manpower to Baldwin was severe - 1,100 dead and a further 750 injured - he had earned a resounding endorsement of his right to rule, the 'miracle' of his victory appearing as a sign of divine mandate. But how would the young king build upon this success?
He began fortifying a strip of raised ground on the west bank of the River Jordan, beside an ancient ford north of the Sea of Galilee. With swamps upstream and rapids to the south, this ford was the only crossing of the Jordan for 50 miles and, as such, acted as a gateway between Latin Palestine and Muslim Syria.
'It stood in a frontier zone contested by both Baldwin and Saladin - a kind of no-man's-land between their respective realms'
But Jacob's Ford did not lie on the Crusader's side of a literal border line. Instead it stood in a frontier zone contested by both Baldwin and Saladin - a kind of no-man's-land between their respective realms. Add to this the fact that Jacob's Ford was just one day's march from Damascus, and it becomes clear that Baldwin was, in 1178, adopting an audacious, even visionary, strategy.
His new castle was designed to be a defensive tool as well as an offensive weapon, to severely inhibit Saladin's ability to invade the Latin kingdom while simultaneously undermining the sultan's security in Damascus. If completed, this fortress could thwart Saladin's ambitions for an empire stretching into northern Syria and Mesopotamia.
Baldwin took his new project at Jacob's Ford exceptionally seriously, committing practically the entire resources of his realm to its construction. Between October 1178 and April 1179 he actually moved his seat of government to the building site to be on hand as supervisor and protector. He also enlisted the aid of the Templars, a military order that combined the ideals of knighthood and monasticism in the sacred pursuit of the Holy Land's defence
Instead he sought to use bribery in place of brute force. He offered Baldwin 60,000 dinars, then increased this offer to 100,000 dinars, if he halted building work and left Jacob's Ford, but the king refused, and by April, the first stage of construction was completed.
The castle now had a formidable ten metre high wall - what one Arabic contemporary later described as 'an impregnable rampart of stone and iron' – and a single tower, but it was still a work in progress.
'Jacob's Ford was described by an Arabic contemporary as 'an impregnable rampart of stone and iron''
By late August 1179 Saladin was ready to launch a full-scale attack on Jacob's Ford. On Saturday 24 August he began an assault-based siege, his intention to break into the castle as rapidly as possible. There was no time for a protracted encirclement siege, because Baldwin IV was by now stationed nearby at Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, just a half day's march to the south west.
As soon as news of the attack reached him the king began assembling a relief army, so the siege was effectively a race - could the Muslims crack the stronghold's defences before the Latin forces arrived?
Saladin began by bombarding the fortress with arrows from east and west - hundreds of arrowheads have been discovered on these fronts. At the same time, specialist miners, probably from Syrian Aleppo, were sent to tunnel under the north-eastern corner of the walls, working night and day to collapse the ramparts through the technique of sapping.
'Specialist miners, probably from Syrian Aleppo, were sent to tunnel under the north-eastern corner of the walls'
Meanwhile, Baldwin was preparing to march from Tiberias. In the half-light of dawn on Thursday 29 August the king set out with his army to save Jacob's Ford.
Unbeknownst to him, at that same moment fires were being lit within Saladin's expanded siege mine. Its wooden pit props burned and the passageway caved in, bringing down the walls above. With such a colossal breach the Latin garrison was all but beaten and a bloody sack followed.
With much of the castle in flames, Saladin slaughtered more than half of the garrison, amassing a mountain of plunder, including 1,000 coats of armour.
'Baldwin got his first despairing glimpse of smoke on the horizon - evidence of the destruction at Jacob's Ford'
By noon, racing northwards, Baldwin got his first despairing glimpse of smoke on the horizon - evidence of the destruction at Jacob's Ford. He was just six hours too late.
In the two weeks that followed, Saladin dismantled the castle of Jacob's Ford, stone by stone. Most of the Latin dead, along with their horses and mules, were thrown into the stronghold's capacious cistern. This was a rather ill-advised policy, because soon after a 'plague' broke out, ravaging the Muslim army and claiming the life of ten of Saladin's commanders.
By mid-October, with his primary objective achieved, Saladin decided to abandon the seemingly cursed site, and Jacob's Ford became a forgotten ruin.
The excavations undertaken represent a massive breakthrough in the field of Crusader studies. This dig offers an astonishingly detailed glimpse of the crusading world - a freeze-frame image of the 12th century - because Jacob's Ford is the first castle to be discovered, as it was in 1179, with its slaughtered garrison still within its walls.
Many of the site's physical and material finds can be dated with incredible precision to the morning of Thursday, 29 August 1179, because they lay beneath buildings known to have burned and collapsed when the fortress fell. The archaeology gives us a palpable, physical sense of crusading warfare.
'With the kingdom of Jerusalem destabilised and his hold over Damascus secured, Saladin flourished'
Between his victory at Mont Gisard and the fortification of Jacob's Ford, the young king had seized the initiative, garnering an aura of legitimacy and daring. But, with the advent of the 1180s, Baldwin's fortunes waned. Increasingly debilitated by leprosy, his reign now stained by bitter defeat, Baldwin's grasp on the throne faltered. He died in 1185, aged just 23, his hopes of defending the Holy Land in tatters.
In contrast, with the kingdom of Jerusalem destabilised and his hold over Damascus secured, Saladin flourished, uniting the Muslim world between the Nile and the Euphrates and encircling and isolating the Crusader kingdom.
In 1187, he met one of Baldwin's successors in pitched battle, crushed the Latin army and went on to recapture Jerusalem for Islam. The Holy City was to remain in Muslim hands until the 20th century.
A version of this article first appeared in the April 2006 issue of the BBC History Magazine.
Books
Crusader Castles and Modern Histories by Ronnie Ellenblum (Cambridge University Press, 2006)
The Leper King and His Heirs by Bernard Hamilton (Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War by Malcolm Lyons & DEP Jackson (Cambridge University Press, 1982)
The First Crusade: A New History by Thomas Asbridge (Free Press, 2004)
Published on BBC History: 2006-01-12
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