Saladin took Jerusalem in 1187 for a ransom, not a massacre

Jerusalem surrendered to Saladin on Friday 2 October 1187, after a siege that began on 20 September, ending 88 years of Crusader rule that dated from the First Crusade’s capture of the city in 1099. Unlike that conquest, it ended in a negotiated ransom rather than a sack, though the terms were harsher than many retellings suggest.

That July, Saladin had destroyed the kingdom’s field army at Hattin, then spent the summer taking its towns and castles. A Latin eyewitness, whose account survives as De expugnatione Terrae Sanctae, describes the siege from inside the walls. An arrow struck him on the bridge of the nose; the wooden shaft was pulled out, but the metal tip, he wrote, was still in his face. By the end, he says, scarcely 20 or 30 men were defending the walls. A public crier offered 5,000 besants to any 50 volunteers who would guard the breach overnight, and none came forward.

Envoys including Balian of Ibelin offered Saladin 100,000 besants, which he refused. He set a price per head instead: 10 besants for each male aged ten or over, 5 for each woman and 1 for each boy of seven or under. Those who paid could leave with their possessions. Those who refused, or could not raise the money, were to become booty.

The agreement was read out through the streets on 2 October, giving every resident 40 days to pay. The chronicler records the crowds wailing that they had no gold, while the patriarch and others with money were pleased with the deal. He also counts Christian rule as “some eighty-nine years”, reckoning inclusively from 1099.

Other chronicles give different ransom figures, and accounts disagree on how many people were later freed or enslaved. The loss shocked Latin Europe and set off the Third Crusade.