Balian of Ibelin - The Battle of Hattin

The Battle of Hattin

Since al-Afdal's army had been allowed to enter the kingdom through their alliance with Raymond, the count now regretted his actions and reconciled with Guy. Guy marched north and camped at Sephoria, but insisted on marching the army across a dry and barren plain to relieve Tiberias. The army had no water and was constantly harassed by Saladin's troops, and was finally surrounded at the Horns of Hattin outside Tiberias early in July. In the battle that followed on July 4, Balian and Joscelin III of Edessa commanded the rearguard, but the crusader army was completely defeated. The anonymous text, De Expugnatione Terrae Sanctae per Saladinum Libellus claims that Balian, Raymond and Reginald of Sidon fled the field in the middle of the battle, trampling "the Christians, the Turks and the Cross" in the process—but this is not corroborated by other accounts, and likely reflects the author's hostility to the Poleins (a European born in the Levant).

The defeat was a disaster for the Kingdom of Jerusalem: King Guy was taken prisoner, and nearly every town and castle soon fell to Saladin. Balian, Raymond, Reginald, and Payen of Haifa were among the few leading nobles who managed to escape to Tyre. Raymond and Reginald soon left to attend to the defence of their own territories, and Tyre came under the leadership of Conrad of Montferrat, Baldwin V's paternal uncle, who had arrived not long after Hattin. Balian was to become one of his closest allies. Leaving Tyre, Balian asked Saladin for permission to return through the lines to Jerusalem to escort his wife and their children to Tripoli. Saladin allowed this, provided that Balian leave the city and take an oath to never raise arms against him.