Reynald de Chatillon - Villain of the Crusades
Reynald de Chatillon (1125-1187) was a bad dude. If you’ve seen a movie about the crusades, he’s probably in it, and his character probably is portrayed as a villain. This is because he was a villain.
He starts out in life as a very minor noble who came to the Holy Land on the Second Crusade. In 1153 he was just your garden-variety greedy, violent, brutish thug, who seduced the heiress of the Principality of Antioch, Constance, and married her to become the Prince of Antioch.
The Patriarch of Antioch opposed the marriage, so Chatillon tied him up, covered him in honey, and set him out to roast in the sun covered in flies. Reynald released the patriarch once he agreed to pay him a huge amount of money. If he would do this to the highest Church official in the area, what wouldn’t he do?
Reynald de Chatillon used this payoff in 1156 to attack Cyprus, a Christian country that was allied to the Byzantine Empire. This action turned everyone against him, so he begged forgiveness from Emperor Manuel I, barefoot with a noose around his neck. This obsequiousness following his unchivalrous acts made him a pariah by 1159. He was unloved by his fellow Christians and hated by the Muslims.
In 1161 he was captured by the Seljuk leader Nur ad-Din. No one would pay his ransom, so he was imprisoned until 1176. When was released, he was 52 years old, no longer a prince, broke, and disrespected. Naturally, he found another widow to marry, became the Baron of Oultrejourdain, and befriended King Baldwin IV of Jerusalem.
King Baldwin had made treaties with Saladin, and Reynald set about breaking them. In 1182, Reynald de Chatillon took up piracy in the Red Sea, blockading the Muslim port of Eilat. In 1187, the robber knight attacked a caravan of Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca.
This was a blatant violation of the peace treaty between the Christians and Muslims and was condemned by both sides. Saladin used this as a pretext to attack Jerusalem, which he conquered before the year was out.
When the chivalry-focused Saladin captured King Guy of Jerusalem and Reynald de Chatillon after their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Hattin on July 4, 1187, he let King Guy go but beheaded Reynald on the spot.
You’ve known villains at the office. Why do they get away with it? Usually, their boss knows about their behavior and lets them continue acting that way because either the boss is a) a weak leader who is afraid to confront them or b) a greedy leader likes the results so turns a blind eye to their mayhem.
A person who thinks that they can get away with anything, and observes that, in fact, they do seem to get away with anything, will continue to push the boundaries past all expectations.
The arc of history bends toward justice, or at least you hope it does, and so they will get away with it until one day when they don’t. Something will happen that will cause them to get fired, or maddeningly, they will feel the dragon’s breath on their neck and leave before they can be fired.
The day after the office villain is gone, many of your colleagues will express outrage over why this villain was allowed to get away with it for so long. Where was their outrage when the doer of evil deeds was doing his deeds of evil?
You can’t control a villain, but you can control your actions. Do you stand up to them, risking your own neck? Do you see their behavior and decide to become a villain as well? You might get what you want today, but you might be remembered as a villain long after.
