---
title: "The Treaty of Jaffa, 1192: What Richard and Saladin Actually Agreed"
url: https://writesidesofhistory.com/treaty-of-jaffa-1192-what-richard-and-saladin-signed/
description: "The Third Crusade ended in a three-year truce, not a battle. What the Treaty of Jaffa gave each side, why Jerusalem stayed Muslim, and why both rulers could call it a success."
era: medieval
published: 2026-09-09
topics: ["crusades"]
words: 1218
publisher: "Writesides of History"
licence: "Quote freely, with attribution to Writesides of History and a link to the article url. The articles are written and published by Writesides of History, which is both author and publisher."
cite_as: https://writesidesofhistory.com/treaty-of-jaffa-1192-what-richard-and-saladin-signed/
sources:
  - "Bahā' ad-Dīn ibn Shaddād; trans. D. S. Richards, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin (al-Nawādir al-Sultāniyya), 2001 (primary)"
  - "Anonymous; trans. Helen J. Nicholson as *Chronicle of the Third Crusade*, Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi, 1997 (primary)"
  - "Ambroise; trans. Marianne Ailes and Malcolm Barber, The History of the Holy War: Ambroise's Estoire de la Guerre Sainte, 2003 (primary)"
  - "John Gillingham, Richard I, 1999 (scholarly)"
  - "Christopher Tyerman, God's War: A New History of the Crusades, 2006 (scholarly)"
---

# The Treaty of Jaffa, 1192: What Richard and Saladin Actually Agreed

**On 2 September 1192, a truce was sworn at Jaffa that ended the Third Crusade without a final battle and without Jerusalem changing hands. Richard was too ill to attend and swore by proxy; Saladin, by custom, did not swear at all, and his relatives and emirs gave the oath in his place.** The Third Crusade is remembered as a failure, and the document that closed it is the reason. That reputation rests on a single measure — the city — and the agreement itself is more interesting than the verdict.

## What was left to bargain with

By the summer of 1192 both sides were finished. Richard had twice advanced to Beit Nuba, within about twelve miles of Jerusalem, and turned back both times without giving battle. His reasoning was consistent and is recorded on both sides: the city could probably be taken, and could not be held once the army sailed home, because holding it required a garrison in a fortress cut off from the sea by hostile country. In July his own council of Templars, Hospitallers and Syrian barons told him the same thing.

Saladin's position was no better. His coalition had been in the field for years, his emirs wanted to go home to their own lands, and the loss of the Egyptian caravan in June had shown how exposed his supply lines were. When Richard, already preparing to leave, was drawn back to relieve Jaffa in August and beat a much larger force in front of the town, the message was unmistakable to both: neither could finish the other.

Richard was seriously ill at Jaffa through late August. Negotiations that had run intermittently for a year — including the extraordinary proposal that Saladin's brother al-Adil marry Richard's sister Joanna and rule Jerusalem jointly — came to a conclusion in the first days of September.

## The terms

The agreement was a truce, not a peace, and it ran for three years and eight months from September 1192. Its substance was territorial and practical:

- **The coast from Tyre to Jaffa remained in Latin hands.** This was the real gain of the crusade: a functioning coastal strip with harbours, which is what kept the kingdom of Jerusalem alive for another century.
- **Jerusalem remained under Muslim rule**, and Saladin guaranteed safe passage for unarmed Christian pilgrims to visit the Holy Sepulchre. Ambroise describes the parties that went up; Richard himself did not go.
- **Ascalon was to be demolished.** Richard had spent the winter and spring rebuilding its walls at his own expense, and giving it up was the concession that cost him most. A refortified Ascalon threatened the road between Egypt and Syria, which is exactly why Saladin would not leave it standing.
- **Merchants of both sides could move freely** through the other's territory.

Ascalon is the term to watch. It is the clearest evidence that this was a negotiated settlement between two exhausted powers rather than a favour granted by a victor — Saladin conceded the coast, Richard conceded the fortress that would have made the coast dangerous.

## Why the city stayed out of reach

The usual explanation is that Richard lacked the strength. The better one is that he lacked the *afterwards*. A crusading army was a temporary thing: men had taken a vow, discharged it, and went home. Whoever took Jerusalem would hold it with whatever garrison stayed behind, in a city with no port, surrounded by territory Saladin's successors would continue to control.

[The full record of Richard's operations](https://writesidesofhistory.com/datasets/richard-i-third-crusade/) makes the shape of this plain. He fought and won every engagement he commanded in person, from Limassol to the relief of Jaffa. Two of the eighteen operations are advances on Jerusalem; neither is a siege. That is not a record of a commander who was beaten in front of the objective. It is the record of a commander who declined the objective twice, on the same reasoning, and was proved right by what happened to the kingdom that came after him.

## Chronology

| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| Sept 1191 | Battle of Arsuf; Richard reaches Jaffa |
| Dec 1191 – Jan 1192 | First advance to Beit Nuba; withdrawal without battle |
| Jan – May 1192 | Ascalon rebuilt at Richard's expense |
| June 1192 | Egyptian caravan captured near Tell al-Khuwaylifa |
| Jun – Jul 1192 | Second advance to Beit Nuba; withdrawal without battle |
| 27 July – 5 Aug 1192 | Saladin takes Jaffa; Richard's counter-attack retakes and holds it |
| 2 September 1192 | Truce sworn at Jaffa |
| 9 October 1192 | Richard sails from Acre |
| 4 March 1193 | Saladin dies at Damascus |

## Conclusion: a truce both men could survive

Saladin died six months after the truce was sworn, and his empire divided among his relatives almost immediately. Richard was shipwrecked on the way home, taken by Leopold of Austria, and held for over a year while England raised a ransom that has been estimated at several times the crown's annual revenue. Neither man ever returned to the question.

The truce held. It was renewed and adapted by their successors, and the coastal kingdom it preserved lasted until 1291. Judged against the promise that launched the crusade — the recovery of Jerusalem — the Treaty of Jaffa is a failure. Judged against what either side could still enforce in September 1192, it is close to the best outcome available to both, which is why both could present it at home as a success.

## Frequently asked questions

**Did Richard and Saladin ever meet?** No. All the negotiations went through intermediaries, most often Saladin's brother al-Adil, and the two exchanged gifts and messages without ever being in the same place.

**How long was the truce meant to last?** Three years and eight months from September 1192. It was intended as a breathing space, not a settlement, and both sides expected the war to resume.

**Why did Richard not visit Jerusalem when pilgrims were allowed in?** The chroniclers give no single reason, and the explanations offered since — that he would not enter as a guest a city he had failed to take, or that he was still unwell and anxious to sail — are inferences rather than evidence. What is recorded is that parties of his men went and he did not.

**Was giving up Ascalon a defeat?** It was the price of keeping the coast. Richard had rebuilt it at his own cost and it was militarily valuable, which is why Saladin insisted; that both sides fought hard over this one clause is the best indication that the treaty was a genuine negotiation rather than a dictated peace.

## Recommended reading

- John Gillingham, *Richard I* (1999) - the standard biography and the fullest defence of the decision not to besiege Jerusalem. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0300094043)
- Bahā' ad-Dīn ibn Shaddād, trans. D. S. Richards, *The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin* (2001) - the negotiations from inside Saladin's household. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0754640779)
- Helen J. Nicholson (trans.), *Chronicle of the Third Crusade* (1997) - the Latin narrative of the same months. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0754605817)
- Christopher Tyerman, *God's War: A New History of the Crusades* (2006) - the wider context of truces and coexistence in the Latin East. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0674023870)
- Malcolm Cameron Lyons and D. E. P. Jackson, *Saladin: The Politics of the Holy War* (1982) - the scholarly biography that reads Saladin's diplomacy as statecraft rather than chivalry. [View on Amazon →](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521317398)

*Image: "Saladin the Victorious" (coloured), after Gustave Doré. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.*