See also
| Husband: | Raynald + (1125-1187) | |
| Wife: | Stephanie of MILLY (1156- ) | |
| Children: | Alix + of CHATILLON (1182-1235) | |
| Raynald of CHATILLON (c. 1184- ) | ||
| Marriage | 1176 | |
| Name: | Raynald + | |
| Sex: | Male | |
| Father: | Henry I + (1094-1131) | |
| Mother: | Ermengarde + of MONTJAY (1098-1139) | |
| Birth | 1125 | Chatillon-sur-Marne, Champagne,Ardenne, France |
| Occupation | Lord of Chatillon | |
| Title | Lord of Chatillon | |
| Title | frm 1153 to 1160 (age 27-35) | Prince of Antioch |
| Title | Lord of Oultrejordain | |
| Death | 4 Jul 1187 (age 61-62) | Antioch, Hatay, Turkey |
| Cause: executed by Saladin | ||
| Name: | Stephanie of MILLY | |
| Sex: | Female | |
| Father: | - | |
| Mother: | - | |
| Birth | 1156 | |
| Name: | Alix + of CHATILLON | |
| Sex: | Female | |
| Spouse: | Alberto + Azzo IV of ESTE (1160-1212) | |
| Birth | 1182 | |
| Death | 1235 (age 52-53) | |
| Name: | Raynald of CHATILLON | |
| Sex: | Male | |
| Birth | 1184 (est) | |
Raynald of Châtillon (also Reynald, Reynold, Renald, or Reginald; French: Renaud de Châtillon, old French: Reynaud de Chastillon) (c. 1125 – July 4, 1187) was a knight who served in the Second Crusade and remained in the Holy Land after its defeat. He ruled as Prince of Antioch from 1153 to 1160 and through his second marriage became Lord of Oultrejordain. He was an enormously controversial character in his own lifetime and beyond.
Raynald's origins are obscure; Du Cange believed he was from Châtillon-sur-Marne,[1] but according to Jean Richard, he was a son of Hervé II of Donzy, and he inherited Châtillon-sur-Loing sometime before joining the Second Crusade in 1147. In the east, he entered the service of Constance of Antioch, whose first husband had died in 1149. She married Raynald in secret in 1153, without consulting her first cousin and liege lord, Baldwin III of Jerusalem. Neither King Baldwin nor Aimery of Limoges, the Latin Patriarch of Antioch, approved of Constance's choice of a husband of such low birth. With Constance he had a daughter, Agnes of Châtillon, in 1154 (who later married the Hungarian Prince Béla, who was living at the court of Byzantine emperor Manuel I Comnenus in Constantinople, and eventually became King Béla III of Hungary).
In 1156 Raynald claimed that the emperor Manuel I Comnenus had reneged on his promise to pay Raynald a sum of money, and vowed to attack the island of Cyprus in revenge. When the Latin Patriarch of Antioch refused to finance this expedition, Raynald had the Patriarch seized, stripped naked, covered in honey, and left in the burning sun on top of the citadel. When the Patriarch was released, he collapsed in exhaustion and agreed to finance Raynald's expedition against Cyprus. Raynald's forces attacked Cyprus, ravaging the island and pillaging its inhabitants.
The Emperor Manuel I Comnenus raised an army and began a march into Syria. Faced with a much larger and more powerful force, Raynald was forced to grovel, barefoot and shabby, before the emperor's throne for forgiveness. In 1159 Raynald was forced to pay homage to Manuel as punishment for his attack, promising to accept a Greek Patriarch in Antioch. When Manuel came to Antioch later that year to meet with Baldwin III, King of Jerusalem, Raynald was forced to lead Manuel's horse into the city.
Soon after this, in 1160, Raynald was captured by the Muslims during a plundering raid against the Syrian and Armenian peasants of the neighbourhood of Marash. He was confined at Aleppo for the next seventeen years. As the stepfather of the Empress Maria, he was ransomed by Manuel for the extraordinary sum of 120,000 gold dinars (500 kg of gold-worth approx. £15,819,706.00 in Oct 2010) in 1176.
[edit] Rise to prominence
Raynald depicted in captivity as part of a statue of Saladin in Damascus, SyriaRaynald served as Baldwin IV's envoy to Manuel and, because his wife Constance had died in 1163, was rewarded with marriage to another wealthy widow, Stephanie, the widow of both Humphrey III of Toron and Miles of Plancy and the heiress of the lordship of Oultrejordain, including the castles Kerak and Montreal to the southeast of the Dead Sea. These fortresses controlled the trade routes between Egypt and Damascus and gave Raynald access to the Red Sea. He became notorious for his wanton cruelty at Kerak, often having his enemies and hostages flung from its castle walls to be dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
In November 1177, at the head of the army of the kingdom, he helped King Baldwin defeat Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard; Saladin narrowly escaped. In 1181 the temptation of the caravans which passed by Kerak proved too strong and, in spite of a truce between Saladin and the king, Raynald began to plunder. Saladin demanded reparations from Baldwin IV, but Baldwin replied that he was unable to control his unruly vassal. As a result, war broke out between Saladin and the Latin kingdom in 1182. In the course of the hostilities, Raynald launched ships on the Red Sea, partly for piracy, but partly as a threat against Mecca and Medina, challenging Islam in its own holy places. His pirates ravaged villages up and down the Red Sea, before being captured by the army of Al-Adil I only a few miles from Medina. Although Raynald's pirates were taken to Cairo and beheaded, Raynald himself escaped to the Moab. Saladin vowed to behead Raynald himself, and at the end of the year Saladin attacked Kerak, during the marriage of Raynald's stepson Humphrey IV of Toron to Isabella of Jerusalem. The siege was raised by Count Raymond III of Tripoli, and Raynald was quiet until 1186.
That year he allied with Sibylla and Guy of Lusignan against Count Raymond, and his influence contributed to the recognition of Guy as king of Jerusalem, although Raymond and the Ibelins were attempting to advance the claim of his stepson Humphrey's wife Princess Isabella. Humphrey remained loyal to his stepfather and Guy.
Later in 1186 Raynald attacked a large caravan travelling between Cairo and Damascus, breaking the 4 year truce between Saladin and the Crusaders signed in 1185. He took all the merchants and their families prisoner as well as a large amount of booty and refused to receive envoys from Saladin demanding compensation. This led directly to the end of the truce.[2] Saladin sent troops to protect a later caravan (in March 1187) in which his sister was returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca. Later writers (such as the 13th century Old French Continuation of William of Tyre and the Latin Continuation of William of Tyre) conflated these two incidents, claiming erroneously that Saladin's sister, aunt, or even mother, had been taken prisoner, but this is contradicted by Arabic sources, such as Abu Shama and Ibn al-Athir. King Guy chastised Raynald in an attempt to appease Saladin, but Raynald replied that he was lord of his own lands and that he had made no peace with Saladin. Saladin swore that Raynald would be executed if he was ever taken prisoner.
[edit] Capture and execution
Raynald of Châtillon's death
Guillaume de Tyr, Historia (BNF, Mss.Fr.68, folio 399)In 1187 Saladin invaded the kingdom, defeating the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin. The battle left Saladin with many prisoners. Most prominent among these prisoners were Raynald and King Guy, both of whom Saladin ordered brought to his tent. The chronicler Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, who was present at the scene, relates:
Saladin invited the king [Guy] to sit beside him, and when Arnat [Raynald] entered in his turn, he seated him next to his king and reminded him of his misdeeds. "How many times have you sworn an oath and violated it? How many times have you signed agreements you have never respected?" Raynald answered through a translator: "Kings have always acted thus. I did nothing more." During this time King Guy was gasping with thirst, his head dangling as though drunk, his face betraying great fright. Saladin spoke reassuring words to him, had cold water brought, and offered it to him. The king drank, then handed what remained to Raynald, who slaked his thirst in turn. The sultan then said to Guy: "You did not ask permission before giving him water. I am therefore not obliged to grant him mercy." After pronouncing these words, the sultan smiled, mounted his horse, and rode off, leaving the captives in terror. He supervised the return of the troops, and then came back to his tent. He ordered Raynald brought there, then advanced before him, sword in hand, and struck him between the neck and the shoulder-blade. When Raynald fell, he cut off his head and dragged the body by its feet to the king, who began to tremble. Seeing him thus upset, Saladin said to him in a reassuring tone: "This man was killed only because of his maleficence and perfidy".
Guy of Lusignan was also captured. Seeing the execution of Raynald, he feared he would be next. But his life was spared by Saladin, who said of the execution:
It is not the wont of kings, to kill kings; but that man had transgressed all bounds, and therefore did I treat him thus.
To a few Christians of his time, Raynald was considered a martyr killed at the hands of the Muslims. Saladin's actions ultimately proved to be beneficial to his own interests. By killing Raynald while sparing Guy, the faction struggle in Jerusalem continued. This struggle would later greatly diminish the potency of the Third Crusade.[citation needed]
[edit] Personal lifeRaynald and Constance had two daughters: Agnes de Châtillon, who married King Béla III of Hungary and Jeanne de Châtillon, probably the second wife of Marquis Boniface I of Montferrat.
From his second marriage with Stephanie de Milly, he had two children: a son, Raynald of Châtillon, who died young, and a daughter, Alix (Alice) de Châtillon, who married Azzo VI d'Este.