The Great Defeat

In 1187 the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and indeed the entire Frankish project in the Holy Land suffered a series of major disasters, including the defeat of the massed armies of the kingdom on July 4 and culminating in the conquest of Jerusalem on October 2. As Katrine Funding Højgaard explains, news of the disasters quickly spread to the West in letters desperately seeking help and western intervention. Commemoration of the events in writing did not end there, however, and a variety of chroniclers offered their own accounts of the great defeat. Among the many narratives is the somewhat mysterious, but greatly detailed chronicle known as the Lyon Eracles, whose account of the battle of Hattin and its consequences differs markedly from the one found in letters and other western accounts.