Battle of Cresson The Battle of Cresson was a small battle fought on May 1 , 1187 , at the springs of Cresson , or ' Ain Gozeh , near Nazareth . It was a prelude to the decisive defeat of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin two months later . Background . The political situation in Jerusalem was tense because of factional rivalries between two branches of the royal house . Raymond III of Tripoli , who had previously been regent for the kingdom , refused to accept Guy of Lusignan as king , following the death of the child king , Baldwin V ( Guy ' s stepson ) the previous year . Gerard of Ridefort , master of the Knights Templar ; Roger de Moulins , master of the Knights Hospitaller ; Balian of Ibelin , Joscius , Archbishop of Tyre ; and Reginald Grenier , lord of Sidon , were sent to Tiberias to negotiate with Raymond and try to bring him back into the Christian fold . The battle . Meanwhile , Saladin had sent a small force towards Tiberias led by his son al - Afdal , seeking revenge for an attack on a Muslim caravan by Raynald of Châtillon . Raymond III hoped Saladin would ally with him against Guy , and allowed this force to pass through Tiberias on April 30 , although he warned the Christians in Nazareth about the army ' s presence . Hearing this , Gerard quickly assembled a small army , consisting of the Templar garrisons from Qaqun and al - Fulah and the royal knights stationed at Nazareth , only about 130 knights in total ; Balian had stopped along the way at his fief of Nablus and Reginald was also elsewhere . Saladin ' s force , led by his son , consisted of about 7 , 000 men . Gerard reached Cresson on May 1 . As the " Itinerarium Peregrinorum et Gesta Regis Ricardi " , a chronicle of the Third Crusade , records it : " So Saladin assembled armed forces and marched violently on Palestine . He sent the emir of Edessa , Manafaradin ( al - Muzaffar ) , on ahead with 7 , 000 Turks to ravage the Holy Land . Now , when this Manafaradin advanced into the Tiberias region , he happened to encounter the master of the Temple , Gerard de Ridefort , and the master of the Hospital , Roger des Moulins . In the unexpected battle which followed , he put the former to flight and killed the latter . " The Muslims feigned a retreat , a common tactic which should not have fooled Gerard ; nevertheless , he ordered a charge , against Roger ' s advice , and the knight s were separated from the foot - soldiers . The Muslims easily repulsed a direct Christian attack , killing both the exhausted knights , and , later , the foot - soldiers . Gerard was wounded , but survived ; however , almost all the others were killed . According to the " Itinerarium " , however , Gerard did not rashly engage the enemy , but was actually caught unaware and was the victim of an attack himself . The " Itinerarium " also records the exploits of a certain Templar named Jakelin de Mailly , who , after all his companions had been killed , fought singlehandedly against the throng of Muslims until he too fell . Aftermath . Balian was still a day behind , and had also stopped at Sebastea to celebrate a feast day . After reaching the castle of La Fève , where the Templars and Hospitallers had camped , he found that the place was deserted . He sent his squire Ernoul ahead to learn what had happened , and news of the disastrous battle soon arrived from the few survivors . Raymond heard about the battle as well and met the embassy at Tiberias , and agreed to accompany them back to Jerusalem . Raymond was finally willing to acknowledge Guy as king , but the damage to the kingdom was severe , and both Gerard and Raynald considered Raymond a traitor . However Guy , knowing that Saladin ' s army was already forming for a renewed assault on the kingdom , could not afford to let this internecine quarrel continue and welcomed Raymond with open arms . Saladin gathered a much larger army of 20 , 000 men , invaded the kingdom in June , and defeated Guy at Hattin on July 4 ; by October he captured Jerusalem itself . The problem of the sources . The battle is mentioned in a number of contemporary chronicles . These accounts differ considerably , and have never been fully reconciled by historians . Instead historical accounts tend to be dominated by the early interpretations of the Latin " De expugnatione Terrae Sanctae libellus " . The aforementioned Latin " Itinerarium " was probably compiled in the late 1190s or early 13th century , incorporating material from a member of Richard I ' s army in the unsuccessful Third Crusade , and some other sources . The " Old French Continuation of William of Tyre " ( 1230s in its present form ) includes an account of the immediate aftermath which is attributed to Balian ' s squire Ernoul : Ernoul himself was travelling with his lord and was not present for the actual fighting . Gerard of Ridefort ' s own report of the battle was the source for a short narrative written by Pope Urban III to Baldwin of Exeter , archbishop of Canterbury . The Arabic chronicle of Baha ad - Din ibn Shaddad briefly mentions Saladin ' s expedition but does not refer specifically to Cresson ; according to him the advance guard remained in the Hawran while Saladin was in Damascus . There is no real secondary literature on this battle , which was a minor prelude to Hattin . However , the classic study on crusader warfare of this period is Smail . A useful additional read is Marshall , which covers the armies of the region shortly after the battle of Hattin .