Battle of Hattin

Guy of Lusignan became king in 1186 in right of his wife Sibylla, against the wishes of Count Raymond III of Tripoli and the barons of his faction. Saladin, by then master of Egypt, Damascus and Aleppo, enclosed the kingdom on the south and east. When Raynald of Châtillon, lord of Transjordan, plundered a Muslim caravan in breach of the truce concluded in 1185, Saladin swore to kill him and prepared a full-scale invasion. In May 1187 a raiding force under his son al-Afdal and the emir Gökböri routed the Templars of Gerard of Ridefort at Cresson; Raymond, who had come to terms with Saladin, now made his peace with the king. On 30 June Saladin crossed the Jordan with the largest army he had ever led — modern estimates range from about 20,000 to 40,000 men — and on 2 July stormed the town of Tiberias, where Raymond's wife Eschiva held out in the citadel. The Frankish host, some 18,000–20,000 men with about 1,200 knights by modern estimates, had gathered at the springs of Saffuriya (La Saphorie), bearing the relic of the True Cross.

At a council on the night of 2 July Raymond urged the king to stay by the water and let Tiberias go, but Gerard of Ridefort, master of the Temple, and Raynald accused him of cowardice, and Guy ordered the advance. On 3 July the army set out across the dry upland, harassed all day by mounted archers; the springs of Turan proved insufficient, and when the Franks turned towards the springs of Hattin they were cut off and had to camp on the arid plateau, while the Muslims set fire to the dry grass around them. On the morning of 4 July the exhausted, thirsty army tried to break through to the lake. Raymond's division charged, the enemy opened its ranks, and the count escaped; the infantry fled up the Horns of Hattin and took no further part. The knights around the king charged Saladin's position again and again until the royal tent fell. Guy, his brother Aimery, Raynald, Gerard of Ridefort, Humphrey of Toron and many barons were captured; Balian of Ibelin was among the few who broke out.

In his tent Saladin offered the king a drink of water. When Guy passed the cup to Raynald, Saladin declared that he had not offered it to him, reproached him with breaking the truce and put him to death — with his own hand, according to his biographer Baha ad-Din — while assuring Guy that kings do not kill kings. About two hundred captured Templars and Hospitallers were beheaded, the turcopoles were executed, and many ordinary soldiers were sold into slavery. The Franks had stripped their towns of garrisons to field this army and could no longer resist: Tiberias surrendered on 5 July, and by mid-September Saladin held Acre, Nablus, Jaffa, Sidon, Beirut and Ascalon; of the coastal cities only Tyre, saved by the arrival of Conrad of Montferrat, held out. According to the chronicler Ernoul, the news killed Pope Urban III; his successor Gregory VIII called for a new crusade, and the Third Crusade set out in 1189.