Lisbon Muslim Surrender
Dartmouth is famous for its involvement in D-Day – when 400 ships full of brave men sailed away to take part in the biggest naval invasion ever – but 797 years earlier another huge flotilla of boats had set out to war from the harbour: on the Second Crusade.
How did Dartmouth come to be part of this massive and still controversial campaign in the ‘Holy Land’ that resulted in more death, pain and anguish than we, in the modern world, can comprehend?
Dartmouth started as Tunstal – a Saxon settlement up on the hill about the mouth of the river Dart. The land by the water was, not surprisingly perhaps, unpopular for the building of houses.
But when the Norman’s arrived, following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, things began to change.
William the Conqueror – who must have been relieved to get the name because before that he was known as ‘William the Bastard’ – had raised his invasion force on promises of land and titles.
Walter of Doai – known as Walter the Fleming, giving the nearby village its name – was the man handed Townstal. He must have been very much trusted by William, because the river Dart led straight to Totnes – one of the most important towns in the South West at the time –only second in size to Exeter.
It was during his stewardship that construction by the river side, building jetty’s and houses, began. The strategic importance of Dartmouth as a port had been realised and the town quickly became a centre for boat building and trade.
The two communities of Clifton – on the southern jut of land which included St Saviours – and Hardness - where Mount Boone now stretches down to Coronation Park – became well established.
By the calling of the Second Crusade in 1145, Dartmouth was a thriving harbour town with ship wrights, supply routes and all the other things which would allow the fleet to be well-prepared and well-armed for the voyage - and battles – to come.
The Second Crusade was, as these things often are, a result of a previous war. The First Crusade had been called in 1069 as a response to the expanding Muslim empire. The Holy City of Jerusalem, which had been out of Christian hands for more than four and a half centuries, was the aim. A huge army was convened at the behest of Pope Urban II and it was strictly victorious, gaining control of Jerusalem in 1099. The Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, the Principality of Antioch and the County of Edessa were set up at its conclusion. The ‘Crusader States’ were seen as the ultimate embodiment of the exercise’s success.
However, as can be seen in many invasions, if that victory is not backed up with large amounts of soldiers prepared to set up new states and control them – they will be weak and prone to collapse.
And so it proved in 1144 when Edessa fell to the Muslim forces of Imad ad-Din Zengi.
The crisis in the region for the Christians was massive, surrounded and ill-equipped to deal with the challenges they faced. There was a real chance that the region would fall back into Muslim hands and the church would not stand for it.
The Crusade was called by Pope Eugene III in 1146. The call went out to all Christian Knights to support the Crusade. He even employed a marketing man – the Monk Bernard of Clairvaux, who was later to be named a saint – to preach throughout Europe that the Crusade was god’s will.
The first Crusade had seen many knights, Kings and landowners fail to go because it was considered a huge risk and, frankly, a bit of a mad cap scheme. But it then went and succeeded.
Those who failed to go were mocked in the streets and even threatened with excommunication by the Pope.
It seems the memory of this was still strong as ten’s of thousands of men signed up.
For all those going from the north of Europe, Dartmouth was, by now, the most natural point to assemble.
164 ships gathered there in 1147 to join the Crusade. According to the Chroniclers of the time, the force numbered 13,000 men. Or more than twice the population of Dartmouth today.
However many people were gathered in the harbour, it shows not only how important the crusade was but also how important Dartmouth was as a port. That number of ships gathering here meant it became well known internationally and that it had the people and infrastructure to support a great fleet.
The fleet left in May 1147. It had an inauspicious start as bad weather forced it into harbour in Portugal. There the King, Afonso, asked the knights to help him wrestle Lisbon back from a Muslim army. They agreed and the siege they lay to the city resulted in the ‘Moors’ surrender in October of that year.
It was the only success of the Crusade.
Two armies had set out on the Crusade, one under the French King Louis VII and one under the command of Conrad III of Germany.
Both armies were defeated by a well-organised army of Turks, and then tried to lay siege unsuccessfully to Damascus and Jerusalem. To say the attempt to retake the Holy Land was a shambles is an understatement of huge proportions.
Its failure lay the foundations for the third Crusade in 1190 to which Dartmouth also sent 34 ships.
So we can take pride in Dartmouth’s importance as a port at the time tinged perhaps by embarrassment at the complete failure of the expedition it supported.
First Published November 2011 By The Dart