High Middle Ages · Middle East · War

1177

Battle of Montgisard

November 25, 1177

A twenty-six-year-old leper king, Baldwin IV, rode out of Jerusalem with a handful of knights and caught Saladin's raiding force strung out across the coastal plain. The charge broke the Muslim army. Saladin barely escaped with his life on a racing camel, and the Crusaders won their last great open-field victory.