(Old French for 'Saladin's Pass') is a fourteenth-century poem in Old French, describing a fictitious battle where a group of twelve crusaders including Richard the Lionheart hold a mountain pass against the army of Saladin. It survives in one manuscript, 24432.
The poem did not originate the story, and the term is used consistently across medieval sources to name the common motif of Richard and eleven or twelve other knights standing against Saladin's army. Versions featuring slightly different groups of knights defending a pass, a bridge, a castle, or the city of Jaffa are recounted or referenced in a number of other medieval texts, and it was a popular subject for visual art in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Summary The crusader kingdoms of Jerusalem and Acre have been lost, due to five crusader lords betraying the King of Jerusalem, Guy of Lusignan. When the news reaches Pope Lucius, he calls for a new crusade, which King Philip Augustus of France and King Richard of England join. When they arrive in the Holy Land, they meet Guy, who explains how the traitors betrayed him to Saladin, but that Saladin treated him well and let him go.
The crusaders go to besiege Tyre. Saladin plans a surprise attack through the mountain pass at "Armonie". Philip seeks advice from his barons and Richard on what to do. Guillaume le Barrois and Hues de Florine say they will defend the pass; each picks five other men, for a total of twelve.
Saladin's army attacks the pass. The knights immediately kill two of his commanders, and the army cannot break through. Saladin sends a spy, Tornevent, to find out why. Tornevent reports that the pass is being held by only twelve knights, and lists who they are, having recognised them from their heraldry.
Saladin, as a lover of chivalry, cannot bear to push on and kill the twelve. Instead, he calls the retreat and his army departs for Damietta. The twelve knights return to the crusader forces and are greeted as heroes.
Manuscript
is known from a single manuscript, MS Bibliothèque Nationale fonds français 24432. It is six hundred and eleven lines long, in octosyllabic rhymed couplets. The explicit gives it the title . The manuscript is a collection of shorter pieces, dominated by religious texts and morality tales, and including many poems of similar length and structure to . It was most likely produced in the first half of the 1300s. The date of the poem's original composition is unknown, but R. S. Loomis judges that the inclusion of Guillaume Longu'Espée as one of the knights means that it was likely composed after the death of the historical William Longespée the Younger in 1250.
The poem has been edited four times in the modern era: by Guillaume Stanislas Trébutien in 1836; by Frank Lodeman in 1897 as a set of four articles, of which the text itself is the second; by Danièle Gatto-Pyko and H. F. Williams in 1976; and by Richard Leson, Linda M. Paterson and Carol Sweetenham in 2026. The 2026 edition includes a prose translation into English.
Language
The dialect of the poem is dominated by forms characteristic of Île-de-France (central France and Paris) with some that suggest the northeastern regions of Picardy and Wallonia (now part of Belgium). Lodeman proposes that the poem's original author was from Île-de-France and that the copyist of the specific manuscript might have been from the northeast; Leson, Paterson and Sweetenham tend to agree. Loomis instead suggests that the original author was from Wallonia or the French–German border, based on the prominent role given to knights from the region.
Sources The poem explicitly compares the fictional setting to the Battle of Roncevaux Pass, the last stand of the French folk hero Roland as portrayed in the Song of Roland, with the twelve knights echoing the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne's legendary entourage. is similar in some respects to the broader genre which the Song of Roland established, such as in its descriptions of battles. were frequently adapted into other poetic formats; might have had a direct source, but could equally well be drawing on miscellaneous tropes of the genre.
shows resemblances to an anonymous work usually known as the ('Minstrel of Reims') after its unnamed author; one such similarity is the shared portrayal of Guy of Lusignan as the victim of a conspiracy led by Raymond of Tripoli. It is possible that used the as a source, or that both of them reflect a narrative in wider circulation.
The depiction of Saladin as a chivalrous enemy, who chooses not to kill the twelve knights because he respects their valour, paraphrases a poem of around 1220, the ('Order of Chivalry'). In the , a fictionalised version of Hugh II of Saint-Omer discusses the nature of chivalry with Saladin while held captive by him.
Historical background Events depicted
Saladin's forces had defeated those of the crusader kingdoms in 1187 at the Battle of Hattin. The crusaders were surrounded and fighting in extreme heat without adequate water supplies; as well as suffering heavy casualties, many prominent crusader lords including Guy of Lusignan were taken prisoner, and a relic of the True Cross was lost.
In the following months, Saladin reconquered most of the crusader territories in the Holy Land. When the news reached Europe, Pope Gregory VIII issued the papal bull , calling for a new crusade. (The poem's Pope Lusiiens likely refers to his predecessor, Lucius III, who had died in 1185.) After two years of fundraising and preparations, the Third Crusade eventually got under way in 1189. Philip Augustus of France and Richard of England both arrived in the Holy Land in 1191, Philip first and Richard six weeks later. The crusader army recaptured Acre in July 1191 after a long siege, after which Philip returned home, a move criticised by his peers. Richard remained in the Holy Land and won several more victories, notably the defence of Jaffa, but did not retake Jerusalem. In 1192, he signed a treaty with Saladin and also departed. He and Saladin never met in person.
The twelve knights All of the knights in the poem are identifiable as real people, but were not all crusaders; they were also not historically a group, but fought in different campaigns at different times, including on opposite sides of the same conflict. Many of the knights come from Flanders (northeastern France and modern Belgium) and northwest Germany, suggesting the poet had a connection with that part of Europe.
Romances from as early as the 1220s feature tournaments where a subset of the knights cameo as competitors. Leson, Paterson and Sweetenham propose that the 12 in the poem were most likely selected because they were already well known as both real and fictional heroes"famous for being famous"rather than for any particular action on crusade. Other versions of the Pas Saladin story in text and art substitute different knights for some or all of the twelve. This may reflect how different crusaders became more or less prominent in culture over time; it may also reflect that certain authors, artists, or their patrons wanted to see local heroes - or, for nobles, their own ancestors - included in the legend.
The twelve in , in the order they appear, are: Hues de Florine: Hugh of Rumigny and Florennes, who took the cross in 1188 and had relatives on the Second Crusade. Guillaume le Barrois: , a French crusader who fought at Acre and Arsuf, and stayed in the Holy Land as part of Richard's army after King Philip Augustus left; named as especially valiant in the Estoire de la guerre sainte. He is often referred to in the poem simply as ['of Barres'] and so the poet may also have blurred him with the unrelated but similarly titled Henry of Bar, who died at Acre. Gofroy de Lusegnon: Geoffrey of Lusignan, the brother of Guy of Lusignan; fought at Acre and was briefly Count of Jaffa and Ascalon; named as especially valiant in the chronicle . Gautier de Chastelon: Walter III of Châtillon. Lodeman suggests he may also be inspired by Raynald of Châtillon, who was captured and executed after the Battle of Hattin in 1187. Renart de Boloigne: Renaud of Boulogne, who did not take part in the Third Crusade but was allied to both King Philip and King Richard at different times. Valerant de Lenbor: Waleran III of Limburg, who took the cross in 1196 and commanded a crusader force raised by Henry VI of Germany. Roi Richars d'Angleterre: Richard I of England. Richard commanded the English army in person at the Siege of Acre, the Battle of Arsuf and the Battle of Jaffa, all crusader victories. As well being King of England in his own right, he held extensive lands on the Continent, for which he was formally a vassal of King Philip of France, but the two frequently quarrelled. Philippon de Flandres: Philip I of Flanders, who fought in the Third Crusade and died at the Siege of Acre. Guillaume Longu'Espee: William Longespée ('Longsword') was Richard I's half-brother, who did not go on crusade; his son William Longespée the Younger did, dying at the Battle of Mansurah in 1250, and was celebrated as a hero and martyr. The poet may have misunderstood the details of one man or the other's life, or conflated the two either accidentally or on purpose. It is possible that the unrelated William Longsword of Montferrat, father of Baldwin V of Jerusalem, was also an inspiration. Simon de Monfors: Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester, a prominent figure in the Fourth Crusade and the Albigensian Crusade. He did not fight in the Third Crusade, but it is possible the poet confused or conflated him with his brother Guy de Montfort, Lord of Sidon, who did. Bernarz de Horstrinale: Bernard of Horstmar, a knight mentioned in chronicles as fighting with Richard at Acre and later joining the army of Waleran of Limburg. Mentioned as especially valiant in the chronicle . Tiry de Cleves: . ("Tiry" = Thierry, the French equivalent of Dietrich.) Mentioned in chronicles as fighting in the Third Crusade, first with Frederick Barbarossa, then with Richard. He was involved in founding the Teutonic Order.
Connection with the battle of Jaffa Gaston Paris proposed in 1893 that the story derives from a real incident during Richard's relief of Jaffa: "" ('when [...] with a very small number of men, he had pushed back all of the Muslim army and obliged Saladin to retreat'). The chronicler Baha ad-Din ibn Shaddad records how Saladin mounted a surprise attack to retake the city before crusader reinforcements could arrive, but was held off by a much smaller force of defenders led by Richard. He also gives its exact date, 5 August 1192. A small number of medieval sources do associate the battle and the story of the dozen knights at the pass. One manuscript of the , the Old French translation of a Latin chronicle by William of Tyre, illustrates the battle with an illumination of Richard and eleven knights, and the rubric refers to the battle as the "". The Latin refers to the thwarted surprise attack at Jaffa as ('the deed Saladin is said to have suffered'), and names the defenders as Richard and eleven other knights, many of whose names overlap with those in . The gives a similar portrayal of the battle and also lists Richard and eleven knights; the list again overlaps but does not exactly match either or the .
Scholars disagree on whether Paris is correct in his theory that the poem evolved from a depiction of real events at Jaffa. Chism and Luchitskaya both consider that it did. Leson, Paterson and Sweetenham find it significant that some fictional versions, including the poem, pre-date the chronicle sources that link the twelve knights to Jaffa. They propose that rather than the fictional account being inspired by the battle, elements from the fiction were added into later chronicles by writers attempting to fit what was by then a popular story into the historical record.
Political context