ABSTRACT
When Celestine was elected pope at the end of March 1191 the Third Crusade was in full swing. In 1187 Saladin had conquered Jerusalem and most of the Latin Kingdom, and he had followed up these successes with further gains in 1188. Celestine’s predecessors had called a new crusade to regain what had been lost, but things had not gone to plan. Frederick Barbarossa had died in 1190 while making his way across Anatolia, and only a comparatively small section of his forces actually reached the Holy Land. The kings of France and England, largely because of their mutual rivalries, had delayed setting out until the summer of 1190, and at the time of Celestine’s election were still en route for Palestine. Since the summer of 1189 those crusaders who had responded more promptly to the call for the crusade had, together with the surviving followers of the king of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan, been engaged in the siege of Acre, but well before Celestine’s accession this enterprise had become bogged down in a military stalemate.
