ABSTRACT
Negotiations for peace, or the truce, according to the Muslim concept of the Holy War, took a whole year. Involved in the long, tortuous diplomatic game were Richard of England’s matrimonial plans, his exchange of gentlemanly courtesies with Saladin (and even more with his brother al-‘Adil), and the ceaseless military operations (Ascalon, Jaffa, Arsūf), in which the Frankish cruelty to the prisoners taken at Acre led to equally cruel reprisals by Saladin. Finally, de guerre lasse, came the agreement of September 1192 which in effect sanctioned the status quo. There was little in the agreement to remind the Muslims of the first great victories of 1187, and Saladin accepted it with reluctance and under pressure from a tired and undisciplined army. The plan to drive the Franks back to the sea, which had at one moment seemed a possibility, had to wait another century for its realization.
