Every campaign of Richard the Lionheart on the Third Crusade
Operations between the muster at Vézelay in July 1190 and the sailing from Acre in October 1192. Sicily and Cyprus are counted, not written off as a detour, and each row carries a Latin and where possible an Arabic source.
- 18operationsevery row in the record
- 26months of recorded operationsfirst to last month named in the date column, inclusive
- 2advances on Jerusalemoperations whose name contains "advance on Jerusalem"
- 0sieges of Jerusalemoperations of type "Siege" at Jerusalem
Richard took the cross in 1187, before he was king, and spent the first two years of his reign turning England and Anjou into money. When he finally sailed he did not go straight to Palestine. He wintered in Sicily and fought its citizens, then took Cyprus from its Byzantine usurper in under a month, and only reached the siege of Acre in June 1191, two years after it had begun.
Those two episodes are usually treated as preliminaries. They were not. Cyprus became the base that kept the crusader states supplied for the next four centuries, and it was the most durable territorial result of the entire Third Crusade. This record counts them alongside Arsuf and Jaffa, and sets the Latin accounts against Bahā' ad-Dīn ibn Shaddād, who served in Saladin's household and watched most of it from the other side.
| Jul 1190 | Muster and departure from Vézelay | Movement | None | Europe | Vézelay, Burgundy, France | No engagement | Roger of Howden, Chronica, ed. Stubbs, vol. III, p. 37 |
| Sept 1190 | Seizure of the Griffon quarter | Assault | Greek population of Messina | Sicily | Messina, Sicily, Italy | English victory | Itinerarium II.13 |
| Oct 1190 | Storming of Messina | Assault | Tancred of Lecce's garrison | Sicily | Messina, Sicily, Italy | English victory | Itinerarium II.16; Howden |
| May 1191 | Landing and battle at Limassol | Battle | Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus | Cyprus | Limassol, Cyprus | English victory | Itinerarium II.32 |
| May 1191 | Conquest of Cyprus | Campaign | Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus | Cyprus | Cyprus | English victory | Itinerarium II.33–42; Ambroise |
Nothing matches those filters. Try a place such as Jaffa, an opponent such as Saladin, or clear the filters.
The research edition
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What the record shows
Richard won every engagement he fought in person and never once laid siege to Jerusalem. He came within twelve miles of it twice, in January and again in July 1192, and turned back both times on the same reasoning: the city could be taken but not held with an army that would sail home once its vow was discharged. The Third Crusade is remembered as a failure because of the objective it did not attempt, not because of a defeat it suffered.
Who and what is included
An operation qualifies when Richard exercised command in person, from his departure from Vézelay on 4 July 1190 to his sailing from Acre on 9 October 1192. Actions fought by Henry of Champagne, the Duke of Burgundy or the military orders while Richard was elsewhere are excluded, as are the naval movements of the English fleet before it joined him. The capture of the Beirut supply ship is counted because Richard directed the interception himself.
Several entries are not battles and are marked by type: two movements, two occupations, a naval interception, a raid and one execution. The killing of the Acre garrison on 20 August 1191 is included because it was a deliberate military act with strategic intent, taken after the ransom negotiations broke down; it is recorded as an execution, not a battle, and the sources disagree sharply on the number.
The record closes with the relief of Jaffa in August 1192, the last operation Richard commanded. The truce sworn at Jaffa on 2 September and the sailing from Acre on 9 October are the end of the campaign but not operations, so they carry no row; both are covered in the article on the treaty.
The count of months above measures the span of the recorded operations themselves, from the muster in July 1190 to the last action in August 1192. The expedition as Richard reckoned it ran on to the sailing from Acre in October, which is a departure rather than an operation and so has no row of its own.
Disputed entries
The number killed at Acre is given by the Latin sources at around 2,600 and by Bahā' ad-Dīn at roughly 3,000; neither figure can be verified and the entry cites both. The date of the second withdrawal from Beit Nuba is placed at 4 July 1192 by Ambroise and a few days later by the Itinerarium. The scale of the caravan taken at the Round Cistern is inflated in the Latin accounts and much reduced in the Arabic ones.
Sources
The Latin backbone is the Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi and the Anglo-Norman verse chronicle of Ambroise, both written by men present on the crusade, with Roger of Howden for the departure and the Sicilian winter. The Arabic side comes from Bahā' ad-Dīn ibn Shaddād's life of Saladin and from 'Imād ad-Dīn al-Isfahānī. Where the two traditions give different dates, the source column names which is followed.
Supporting reading on this site
- Isaac Komnenos and the Fall of Cyprus, 1191 — the two operations in May 1191 that this record counts and most accounts skip — and the only territorial gain of the Third Crusade that outlasted the crusader states on the mainland.
- The Treaty of Jaffa, 1192: What Richard and Saladin Actually Agreed — how the campaign in this record ended: a three-year truce that kept the coast, gave up Ascalon, and left Jerusalem unbesieged.
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Cite as: Writesides of History, “Every campaign of Richard the Lionheart on the Third Crusade”, https://writesidesofhistory.com/datasets/richard-i-third-crusade/.