Who was Greater? Saladin or Richard the Lionhearted??

well i think homosexuality or sexual misconduct is noteworthy , maybe not in our time but it was back then , it was punished by capital punishment , in fact in his fathers reign it was the first time torture was used against alleged homosexuals , It is also note worthy that although all of henry II sons rebelled against him , save john who was a mere boy at the time , Richard would never be back in royal favor for the rest of his reign..and even before then , Richard was largely raised by his mother and neglected by his father , he had his lands and titles confiscated by his father at one point , this is of course after his mother had already ceded her title of duchess of Aquitaine to him , he did not however confiscate any of the young king or the duke of Brittany's lands , over all there must have been a reason for such a disaffection between the two for various reasons and maybe Richards alleged homosexuality was one.
trying to recapture a holy city for religious reasons and also committing the vilest sin  against god ( as according to both faiths ) shows a contradiction of sorts , over all despite what we know of Richard today , many things have not been brought to light , often we tend to forget or over-emphasize his pros and cons

to the original question:
it's obvious that the resources of kingdom of Jerusalem couldn't compete to resources of unified Egypt and Syria. That is where Saladin was successfull and in the long run finaly turned the advantage to muslims

on the other side Richard couldn't afford to fight long lasting war as he had duties back home in France (and England).
Saladin was very close to the final victory when Richard came and delayed it for several decades

IMO Richard managed to do even more than original crusaders in 1099 who didn't fought against unified muslim power in the region, while Richard did and defeated it, eventhugh(or because?) it was wisely led by Saladin.
But Saladin knew he could lose every single battle to Richard and just pull his forces back into Egypt and deeper in Syria and wait when Richard returns home and the final victory still will be on his side.

So considering the background Richard achieved more than he could and Saladin finaly turned the balance of power on muslim side untill the end of middle ages. Both achieved almost all they wanted, Richard in his lifetime (what he wanted) and Saladin in long term history (what he wanted)
but Saladin could use much wider scale of resources, so if I would give Richard 51 out of 100 points and 49 to Saladin

so I think that very slightly, but Richard was little greater


Edited by elvain - 26-Feb-2007 at 18:55

Sorry Duchess, have to correct you there.

As far a military ganius and skill, I think that they were about the same. However, I like Richard better.

Of course Saladin...