Port of Akko (Acre)

Medieval rendering of the 1291 Siege of Acre

Akko was the most important port city on the Palestinian coast and its capture was no doubt one of the priorities of the Franks after their occupation of Jerusalem (Plate 2.7). Following a failed attempt at taking the city by siege in March 1103, an agreement was reached with the Genoese in the spring of 1104. Aided by the Genoese fleet the Franks renewed their siege in early May and after twenty days the Muslims capitulated.

Map of Acre, 1291

Defences

Akko was a walled city when the Franks occupied it in 1104. Until the Third Crusade it had a single city wall, but at some time within the subsequent twenty-three years, probably in the early years of the thirteenth century, double walls were built around the city and its new northern suburb, Montmusard (Jacoby 1982: 213). Between 1251 and 1254 Louis IX of France rebuilt them; these are the walls depicted on fourteenth-century maps of Akko. The maps show the double line of fortifications enclosing the city on its eastern side and including the suburb of Montmusard. Almost nothing of these walls can be seen today, but recent excavations north of the Old City have uncovered part of a tower of the northern outer wall (Hartal 1993: 19–21). There are additional hints at the position of the walls, but these are vague enough to have generated considerable debate and little agreement. Traces of what may be the northernmost part of the outer wall have been discovered to the north of the Ottoman wall; these include the foundations of a round tower, now under water, some 750 m north of the Ottoman wall (Frankel 1987:256–61). Recently, a convincing case has been presented in support of the view that the walls to the east extended nearly as far as the ancient mound (Kedar 1997:15 7–80).

In the thirteenth century there were a number of gates giving access to Akko from the land. These included St Michael’s Gate, New Gate (Porta Nova), Our Lady’s Gate (Domine Nostre), St Antony’s Gate, Blood Gate (Sanguinis), St Nicholas’ Gate, Bridge Gate and Patriarch’s Gate. In the northern suburb of Montmusard there were two gates: the Evil Step Gate (Mallopasso) and St Lazarus’ Gate. The port The merchants and pilgrims who arrived at Akko by ship entered the city by its port. There are various interpretations of the appearance of this port in the Crusader period. William of Tyre described the port of Akko with the words ‘infra moenia et exterius’ (William of Tyre 1986:10.26). This is usually interpreted as meaning that there were an inner and an outer harbour. The fourteenth-century maps seem to support this view: a small, semi-circular bay is shown just north of the Venetian Quarter. However, recent studies claim that this is the perpetuation on later copies of an accidental ink blot that appeared on the original version of Pietro Vesconte’s map. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries however, the inner harbour was still to be seen, filled with sand according to M.E.G.Rey (Dichter 1973:65), and it is shown on maps drawn by Colonel Jaquotin of Napoleon’s army in 1799 and by Rey in 1871 (Dichter 1973: 44, 141). Trenches excavated in Khan al-Umdan, widely considered to have been the site of the inner basin, revealed that the Turkish khan was constructed on bedrock (Linder and Raban 1965:193). In fact the khan is situated just north of the site described in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the question of the existence of an inner harbour therefore remains open for the moment.

A merchant who entered the city from the port would pass through an iron gate (Porta Ferrae) into the Court of the Chain, which was the customs house and seat of the marine court. Along the Street of the Chain, which stretched to the north, were warehouses, palaces and dwellings. This area and the port were under the jurisdiction of the king. From the warehouses along the inner harbour sewage poured into the harbour, possibly giving rise to its medieval name Lordemer (Filthy Sea) (Jacoby 1993:88–91).

Port of Tyre (Sur, Tyr)

The siege of Tyre by the Crusaders and the Venetian fleet. On 15 February 1124 the Venetians and Franks began the siege of Tyre.[6] The seaport of Tyre, now in Lebanon, was part of the territory of Toghtekin, the Atabeg of Damascus. The Latin army was led by the Patriarch of Antioch, the doge of Venice, Pons, Count of Tripoli and William de Bury, the king's constable.

The Venetians and Franks built siege towers and machines that could throw boulders to shatter the city walls. The defenders of Tyre also built engines, hurling rocks at the siege towers. As the siege dragged out the citizens began to run short of food and sent urgent calls for help. Balak died while besieging the city of Hierapolis. Toghtekin advanced towards Tyre, but withdrew without fighting when the forces of Count Pons of Tripoli and Constable William rode to confront him. Toghtekin sent envoys in June 1124 to negotiate peace. After lengthy and difficult discussions it was agreed that the terms of surrender would include letting those who wanted to leave the city to take their families and property with them, while those who wanted to stay would keep their houses and possessions. This was unpopular with some of the crusaders, who wanted to loot the city.

Tyre surrendered on 29 June 1124. After the crusader forces entered the city, according to William of Tyre, "They admired the fortifications of the city, the strength of the buildings, the massive walls and lofty towers, the noble harbour so difficult of access. They had only praise for the resolute perseverance of the citizens who, despite the pressure of terrible hunger and the scarcity of supplies, had been able to ward off surrender for so long. For when our forces took possession of the place they found only five measures of wheat in the city."

After abortive sieges in 1102 and 1111, Tyre was finally captured by the Franks with the aid of the Venetian fleet in 1124. Its strength lay in its remarkable fortifications combined with the topographical advantage of being surrounded on three sides by sea. It remained strongly fortified under the Franks, who strengthened the walls and built the citadel in 1210. It was the only city in the kingdom of Jerusalem that did not fall to Saladin after the Battle of Hattin. Subsequently, after the entire kingdom had fallen, Tyre served as the bridgehead for the Frankish reconquest of the coast in the Third Crusade (1189–92). Thanks to its excellent harbour, Tyre soon came to rival Akko in importance. It had a population estimated at 30,000 (Benvenisti 1970:27), as large as the population of Akko and of Jerusalem. Tyre fell in 1291 after the fall of Akko.

While we are well informed about Tyre in medieval sources, very little remains or has been published of the Frankish city. A large part of the eastern side of the cathedral of Tyre was still standing in 1875 and can be seen in photographs published by Enlart (1927: Atlas, Plate 149). They show the exterior of the southern and central apses of the church and the fallen pillars that had supported the roof. These were later re-erected but little remains of the structure today.

Port of Ascalon

General plan of Tell al-Khadra, Ascalon. Having been a port and trade center since the II millennium B.C., the city became famous during the classical era for its temples (Dagon, Apollo, the Heavenly Aphrodite, Atargatis) and many gardens. 1. Cananaean Gate 2. Basilica 3. Bouleuterion 4. Ancient tell 5. Remains of the sea wall 6. “Peace Well” 7. Church of St. Mary the Green

Ascalon fell to the Franks only in 1153. Its strong walls and outworks, still visible today, were able to repel the Frankish army long after all the other towns in the Holy Land had fallen. Even in 1153 it took two months of siege and the construction of siege towers and battering-rams, constructed as in the siege of Jerusalem from dismantled ships, before the city fell. The Frankish siege tower used at Ascalon was so impressive that it was known about as far away as Damascus, where it was called the ‘cursed tower’. According to William of Tyre, the other trials the citizens had endured were light in comparison to the ills that assailed them from this tower. They tried to set it alight, but the flames spread to the walls which burned all night and finally collapsed. Since the breach of the walls was only partial the siege nearly failed, but the citizens of Ascalon decided to surrender, and fled the city. In 1187, after a two-week siege, the city fell again to the Muslims. However, on the approach of Richard I in 1191, Saladin decided to destroy the city to prevent his regaining it. The walls and towers were filled with wood and burned down. The city burned for twelve days, but the defences were so strong that the principal fortification, the Tower of Blood or Tower of the Hospital, fell only after repeated onslaughts. During a four-month period in 1192 the Crusaders restored the city but, after an agreement with the Muslims the walls were again demolished. In 1240 the Franks built a castle over the ruins, apparently on the north-west hill, but it too was destroyed by Baybars in 1270.

Ascalon is estimated to have had about 10,000 inhabitants. Its walls formed a semicircle surrounding an area of fifty hectares. This was a large area by medieval standards. Jerusalem covered seventy-two hectares and Akko sixty, while Sidon, the next largest town, covered an area of only fourteen hectares. The walls were the continuation of the Roman/Byzantine walls which were rebuilt by the Umayyad Caliph Abd’al Malik in the seventh century and probably restored by the Fatimids in the eleventh. Frankish work consisted largely of repairs and embellishments. The high and very thick walls were built on an artificial mound 7–10 m high, stone-lined to form a glacis, and were constructed of solid sandstone masonry with lateral columns and extremely hard cement. There were also outworks 2 m thick with occasional casemates. There were four gates with indirect access and with high, solid, round and square towers. Sources mention fifty-three towers around the walls, and Benvenisti estimates a distance of about 30 m between them. To the east was the Great Gate (Porta Major) or Jerusalem Gate. It was the best defended of the gates and in the barbican before it were three or four smaller gates with indirect entrances. There was a southern gate facing Gaza (Gaza Gate), a northern gate (Jaffa Gate) and a Sea Gate (Porta Maris). According to Benvenisti the citadel was by the Gaza Gate, where two large towers, the Tower of the Maidens (Turris Puellarum) and the Tower of the Hospital, were located (Benvenisti 1970:124). This area was called the Hill of Towers and is at the highest point of the defences. As mentioned above, however, it would seem that the castle built in 1240 was in the north-west (Pringle 1984a: 144). Frankish remains inside the walls consist of only two of the town’s five churches. The position of the cathedral church of St John is unknown; it was probably located near the centre of the town.