The Crusades, the Genoese and the Latin East - DSpace at ...

fare bottino. '293 Cipollone demonstrated that such hostile activities were documented in the
chronicle of Abü Säma. Indeed, in 1198 Abü Säma mentioned an attack of an Egyptian fleet in
Cilicia in which the Egyptians captured 550 people. Later, in 1203, there was a Frankish attack
along the Nile in which the Franks seized much booty. More encounters occurred in Ilims in
1206 and in the territory of Acre in 12 10.294 The Ayyubid chronicle mentioned many Latin
prisoners taken by al-Malik in 1207 in the region of Tripoli, as well as the plunder and the
considerable booty obtained. 295
These incidental figures of captives taken during the years of peace truces, however, do
not add up to thousands of captives or anything similar to the grave results of the war experience
in 1187. According to the Muslim chronicler 'Imäd ad-Din in flattin and Jerusalem alone
Saladin's troops captured tens of thousands of Christians. Some captives were exchanged,
according to 'Imdd ad-Din, already in 1187: `in that year more than twenty thousand captives
were released, whereas one hundred thousand non-believers fell into our hands. '296 flow many
people were still in captivity in 1213 and 1215? There is no clear answer to this question. In a
recent study on Innocent III and the attitude to captives, Brenda Bolton argued that Christian
captives were held in Egypt for decades. Bolton reached this conclusion on the basis of Innocent
III's correspondence from 1212. In his letter to Albert the patriarch of Jerusalem Innocent
expressed his concern about the spiritual state of the captives on account of the length of time
they spent in prison: 'ne propter acerbitatem poenaruin quas longo tempore stint perpessi
apostatare cogantur, '297 Consequently, Bolton suggested that `some had been held for at least
twenty years. '298
According to the evidence provided, Bolton's argument does not seem plausible. All that
is known for sure is that twenty thousands Christians were already exchanged in 1187; those who
made special arrangement with Saladin left Alexandria in March 1188. But there is no way to
determine how many more captives were released when the first peace truce was signed in 1192.
It is not impossible that in the negotiations in the following years, presumably before the signing
of each of the three truces, many other captives regained their freedom.
293 Cipollone, Cristianitä Islam
- callivitä e liberazione in nome di Dio, p. 326.
2941bid,
pp. 326-27.
295 Al-Makin ibn Al-`Amid, Chronique des Ayyoubides (602-658 / 1205-6-1259-60), trans. Anne-Marcie
Edde and Francoise Micheau (Paris, 1994), p. 17: 11 devasta beaucoup de lerritoires francs, pitta tua, fit des
prlsonniers, et les musulmans prirent aux Francs un butin considerable'
466 Cette annee lä, it delivra plus de vingi mille captifs, Landis que cent mille mecreanls tomberent entre
nos mains', ' Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, Al-Fath al-quc, si fi l fa1/ial-quds i, trans. 11. Masse, in Documents
relatifs ä 1'histoire des Croisades, vol. 10, p. 38. See also Friedman, p. 86; Cipollone, pp. 327.
297 PL 216, no. 147, pp. 508A
29s Brenda Bolton, `Perhaps You Do Not Know? Innocent III's Approach to the Release of Captives', in
Giulio Cipollone (ed. ), La liberazione dei 'captivi'tra Cristianitä e Islam: Oltre la crociata e it Oihäd.
-
Tolleranza e servizio umanitario (Vatican City, 2000), p. 460.
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