Mathieu de Clermont

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Fra ' Mathieu de Clermont (lat .: fratis Mahé de Clermont ; † May 18, 1291 in Acre ) was a knight of the Hospitaller Order , whom he last served as marshal.

In 1289, Clermont led the Hospitaller Knights in the defense of Tripoli against the Mameluks . The city had to be abandoned on April 26th, forty friars were killed in battle, he himself was one of the few who managed to escape to the sea.

Mathieu de Clermont defends the walls of Acre. Historicizing painting by Dominique Papety. Château de Versailles, 19th century.

Clermont was one of the prominent protagonists in the defensive struggle for Acre , the last crusader bastion in the Holy Land, which had been besieged by the Mameluks under Sultan al-Ashraf Chalil since April 1291 . When the Mamluks had invaded the city on May 16, Clermont stopped the defenders fleeing to the port and in a counterattack drove the Mameluks back out of the city from the Saint Anthony's Gate. When the city was rushed again on May 18, he fought one more time in the front line and was killed in the Genoese quarter.

The seriously injured Grand Master Jean de Villiers paid tribute to his marshal shortly after the fall of Acre:

“He was noble, courageous and weapon-tested. May God be gracious to him! "

- Jean de Villiers : Letter to the Master of the Order of Provence, (June?) 1291

literature

  • Jochen Burgtorf: The central convent of Hospitallers and Templars: history, organization, and personnel (1099 / 1120-1310) , In: History of warfare , Volume 50 (BRILL, 2008)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Templars of Tire , Gestes des Chiprois , §477; He is called here "comandour de l'Ospitau", presumably he was already a marshal.
  2. ↑ Magister Thadeus civis Neapolitanus, Excidii Aconis gestorum collectio; Ystoria de desolatione et concvlcatione civitatis Acconensis et tocivs terre sancte , ed. by Robert BC Huygens (Turnholti, 2004), pp. 71-4
  3. ↑ ibid., P. 118; Templar of Tire, Gestes des Chiprois , §505
  4. ↑ see V. Le Clerc: Relation anonyme de le price d'Acre en 1291 , In: Histoire littéraire de la France , 20 (1842)
personal data
SURNAME Mathieu de Clermont
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mahé de Clermont
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Marshal of the Hospitaller Order
DATE OF BIRTH 13th Century
DATE OF DEATH May 18, 1291
Place of death Acre