Nablus

Nablus, the ancient Sichem (mod. Nablus, West Bank), a town in Samaria, known as Naples or Naplouse during the period of the crusades.

The ancient city of Sichem, originally populated by Canaanites, became an important center of the Israelites in the first millennium b. c. After King Solomon’s death and the split of his realm, Jeroboam made it the religious center of the northern Israelite kingdom and built a temple on the top of the Mount Gerizim, situated to the south of the city. After the Assyrian conquest and expulsion of the “ten tribes of Israel,” the remnant of the population coalesced with other elements and, becoming known under the name of Samaritans, continued to worship in the Mount Gerizim temple. Under Herod the Great the city was rebuilt after the model of Hellenistic cities and renamed Neapolis; this new name was preserved by its Arab conquerors in 640 a. d., who called it Nablus. In the eleventh century the city declined, deprived of its walls, though it was still inhabited by a Muslim majority, as well as by Samaritans, concentrated around their temple on Mount Gerizim.

After the crusader conquest of Jerusalem in July 1099 a crusader army commanded by Tancred seized Nablus without opposition. While the Norman prince continued his expedition northward to Galilee, Nablus became part of the royal demesne. In 1111 the inhabitants welcomed the Damascene army of Tughtigin, atabeg of Damascus, who was forced to withdraw by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem. The king gave the town to the abbey of the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, while the Hospitallers founded a hospice. A slow trend of Frankish settlement followed, and the town became a center of Frankish rule in the area, but since it had little strategic importance, it was not fortified.

In 1120 a council convened in the city was attended by the ecclesiastical and lay hierarchy of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. Its canons became the basis of legislation that was intended to preserve the integrity of the Frankish stock of the realm and codified the segregation between the Franks and the Muslim elements in Palestine. Frankish merchants, mainly drapers, and knights settled in the western part of the city.

After an invasion by the Damascene army in 1137, King Fulk established a lordship in southern Samaria centered on Nablus and granted it to a French knight, Philip of Milly, who built a castle in the unfortified city. Other villages of Samaria had been enfeoffed to various Frankish knights, who established lesser lordships in the area.

Philip of Milly supported Queen Melisende in her struggle with her son Baldwin III and welcomed her in the city in 1152, when Nablus and its region were bestowed on her as her dower. Philip continued to administer the lordship until 1161, when Baldwin III granted him the more important lordship of Transjordan. Nablus returned to the royal demesne and, following the precedent of Melisende, formed the dower of the queen mother. Thus, in 1173 it was given to Maria Komnene, the widow of King Amalric I. However, she later married Balian of Ibelin and the town became the center of the Ibelin lands in the kingdom of Jerusalem. After the death of King Baldwin IV, Balian supported the claims of Raymond III of Tripoli against the king’s sister, Sibyl, and her husband, Guy of Lusignan, and called for a meeting of the High Court in 1185 at Nablus in order to elect a king. When Guy was crowned in Jerusalem, Nablus remained the center of the baronial opposition until 1186, when Balian became reconciled with the king. In the aftermath of the battle of Hattin (5 July 1187) Balian went to Jerusalem and organized its defense. His vassals resisted the army of Saladin but were forced to surrender, obtaining an honorable capitulation.

The Ayyubid conquest of Nablus marked the end of its history under Frankish rule. The Frankish population left the city and settled in the coastal areas. After the Third Crusade (1189-1192) no attempt was made to restore Frankish rule in Nablus and its environs, while the Muslim element flourished, to the point that under the rule of the Ayyubids of Syria the town became famous as “little Damascus.”

-Aryeh Grabois

Bibliography

Barber, Malcolm, “The Career of Philip of Nablus in the Kingdom of Jerusalem,” in The Experience of Crusading, ed. Marcus Bull, Norman Housley, Peter Edbury, and Jonathan Phillips, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2:60-75.

Beyer, Gustav, “Neapolis und sein Gebiet in der

Kreuzfahrerzeit,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Paldstina-Vereins 63 (1940), 155-206.

Mayer, Hans Eberhard, “The Concordat of Nablus,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 33 (1982), 531-542.

Prawer, Joshua, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972).

-, “Crusader Cities,” in The Medieval City, ed. Harry A.

Miskimin, David Herlihy, and A. L. Udovitch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 179-205.

Runciman, Steven, A History of the Crusades, 3 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953-1955).

The Samaritans, ed. A. D. Crown (Tubingen: Mohr, 1989).