ABSTRACT
One of the topics of Alan Forey’s research (published in 1994) has been the subject of captivity and redemption of members of the military orders, their attitudes regarding this crucial issue, and its military, moral, and economic implications on their lives. This chapter explores this issue further, providing a detailed discussion of how one of the most influential figures of this period - the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Robert of Nantes (1240-1254), noted and described the crucial events of his period. He participated in all major events of the Crusader Kingdom in the mid-thirteenth century, among them the fall of Jerusalem in 1244, followed by the battle of La Forbie in 1244, the struggle of Saint Louis and his troops in the Seventh Crusade in Egypt in 1249-1250, and finally the presence of the French king in the territories of the Latin East in 1254-1250 and his influence on its maintenance. Most of all, this chapter emphasizes Robert of Nantes’s unique descriptions of the history of warfare in this region, specifying the number of those who fell in battle and mentioning the prisoners who fell into Muslim captivity and the effort made to ransom them, among them many brethren of the military orders. These descriptions by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, together with other medieval chronicles dealing with captivity and redemption, present a wider picture of the history of the military orders and other distinguished leaders in this turbulent period in the history of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in the mid-thirteenth century.
