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20 August 1191Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Richard I Takes Acre, Then Executes 2,500 Prisoners

A five-week siege succeeds where two years of prior fighting failed, and ends with a mass execution on the beach

On the timeline · around 20 August 1191 · The Third and Fourth CrusadesThe Second Crusade and the Rise of SaladinThe Third and Fourth CrusadesRichard I Takes Acre, Then Executes 2,500 Prisoners11801185119011951200

Quick facts

Location
Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem
City fell
12 July 1191
Prisoners executed
Over 2,500 (some sources say up to 3,000), including women and children
Date of massacre
20 August 1191

What happened

Acre had already been under siege for roughly two years by the time Richard I and Philip II arrived with reinforcements in June 1191. Richard's siege engines, cash incentives paid to sappers who undermined the city's landward walls, and divisions within Saladin's own army combined to force a surrender on 12 July 1191, capturing 70 ships along with the city, most of Saladin's remaining navy. According to legend Richard, possibly ill with scurvy, had himself carried to the walls on a stretcher to fire his crossbow at the defenders. On 20 August 1191, Richard ordered over 2,500 prisoners, including women and children, executed outside the city walls after negotiations over their ransom and the return of the True Cross stalled. The bound captives were killed with swords, lances, and stones while some of Saladin's remaining troops attempted, unsuccessfully, to intervene.

Why it matters

The massacre at Acre is one of the starkest atrocities of the entire crusading era committed by a crusader leader still celebrated in the West as chivalrous, and it stood in direct contrast to Saladin's own more restrained treatment of prisoners at Jerusalem four years earlier.

How we know

The massacre is described in the World History Encyclopedia's detailed account of the siege, which notes that Richard's own contemporaries offered competing justifications, from the delayed ransom payment to the practical danger of leaving armed men behind his line of march.

Sources

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Part of a timelineThe Crusades27 events · Two centuries of holy war for Jerusalem, fought and remembered very differently by Christians and MuslimsView all →
Richard I Takes Acre, Then Executes 2,500 Prisoners · The Crusades · SourcedStory