From the perspective of his enemies, yes! But he had his champions in the medieval world who felt he was a hero and a martyr.

You may be thinking of his portrayal in Kingdom of Heaven, where’s he sort of a deranged hippie with shabby clothes and dyed hair and beard. (I could swear that in the theatrical version, he randomly shouts “I am Reynald of Chatillon!” for no reason!? Seems to be edited out of the DVD version…) The screenwriter used Steven Runciman’s History of the Crusades for a lot of the background information and some of the plot points, and Runciman was certainly not a fan of Reynald. The reality is a lot more complicated. First of all, here's a summary of his career, so we can see the good and the bad altogether:

Reynald's career

We don’t really know anything about his early life, but apparently he was a minor feudal lord in Burgundy, and he probably came to the east on the Second Crusade in 1147. There’s no record of him at all until the 1150s when he was already in Jerusalem. In 1153 he married Constance, the widow of Prince Raymond of Antioch. Constance was the granddaughter of King Baldwin II of Jerusalem, and the aunt of the king in 1153, Baldwin III. So, all of a sudden Raymond was raised from the status of a landless knight to the prince of an important and powerful crusader state.

It seems like he was pretty inconsequential before that, but maybe he had significant relatives or contacts in the east, or maybe he impressed Baldwin III in some other way, or maybe he and Constance simply met and fell in love - we don’t really know that either, but it would be pretty strange if Baldwin let his aunt marry just some random guy.

In any case, as Prince of Antioch, Reynald caused lots of chaos. He came into conflict with the church, and he imprisoned and tortured the Latin Patriarch of Antioch by burying his lower body in the ground and covering his head with honey to attract ants and flies. He launched an invasion of Cyprus, which was a Byzantine province at the time - and so was Antioch, according to the Byzantines. The Byzantine emperor expected the princes of Antioch to be loyal to the empire although that wasn’t always true in practice, since Antioch was a crusader state allied with Jerusalem so its status was pretty ambiguous. Reynald certainly didn’t show any respect for the Byzantines though and Emperor Manuel eventually showed up in Antioch and forced him to submit. Manuel later married Reynald’s stepdaughter Maria (Constance’s daughter from her first husband).

Meanwhile Reynald was captured in battle in 1160 and was held in prison in Aleppo for about 16 years until 1176. He was probably ransomed by Emperor Manuel. Princess Constance had died while he was in prison so Reynald no longer had any claim to Antioch, so he was once again a landless knight, but now a much more famous one. He found another rich widow to marry: Stephanie of Milly, the ruler of Oultrejordain (the land “beyond the Jordan”, i.e. east of the Jordan river). This was one of the major baronies of the kingdom and Reynald may have been even more powerful there than he had been in Antioch. He was also regent for the king, now Baldwin IV, who had leprosy and often couldn’t rule on his own. In 1177 Baldwin defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard, but it was probably Reynald who led the army.

Along with his treatment of the Patriarch of Antioch and his raid on Cyprus, Reynald’s poor reputation mostly comes from his actions as Lord of Oultrejordain. He acted as independent prince in an independent territory, just as he had done in Antioch. Usually today we say that there was the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Tripoli, and the Principality of Antioch, and they were all sovereign states with feudal vassals. The barony of Oultrejordain and the County of Jaffa were, among others, vassals of Jerusalem. But were they really? This is how people in the 13th-century Kingdom of Jerusalem saw it, long after Jerusalem had fallen in 1187. The kingdom was much different then. Was the lord of Oultrejordain really any different from the Count of Tripoli? According to Reynald, apparently no.

Oultrejordain was on the caravan and pilgrimage route from Syria to Arabia and usually the crusaders were content with collecting taxes from them, but Reynald attacked and robbed them instead. He even tried to launch a naval expedition down the Red Sea to capture Mecca and Medina. Supposedly at one point Reynald attacked (or captured, or killed) the sister of Saladin, the ruler of Syria and Egypt, but there’s no real evidence of that (it was depicted in Kingdom of Heaven though). Saladin responded by attacking the fortress of Kerak in Oultrejordain in 1183, during the wedding of his stepson (Stephanie’s son from her first marriage) Humphrey IV of Toron to princess Isabella, King Baldwin IV’s sister. Baldwin and Saladin made a truce afterwards, but Reynald refused to acknowledge it.

Baldwin IV died in 1185 and then his nephew, Baldwin V, died as a child in 1186. There was a bit of struggle for the throne after that…not to get too sidetracked by that here, but Reynald supported Baldwin IV’s other sister, Sibylla (Baldwin V’s mother), and Sibylla’s rather unpopular second husband, Guy of Lusignan. Like Reynald, Guy was a minor knight from France who had quickly become prominent in Jerusalem. And now Guy was the king! In 1187, Saladin invaded Jerusalem, thanks to Reynald’s continued provocations in Oultrejordain, Guy and Reynald and their supporters decided to face Saladin in battle. The Battle of Hattin was a complete disaster for Jerusalem. Guy and Reynald were both taken prisoner, and Reynald was then executed in Saladin’s tent.

This is a brief (and hopefully not too confusing) overview of Reynald’s career. But how did people come to see him as a hero or a villain?

Reynald the Devil

William of Tyre, the official historian of Jerusalem, hated Reynald and since William is our main source for the history of the 12th century, his opinions are sometimes taken as fact even when he is clearly biased. According to William, Reynald was no better than a mercenary and was

“a man of violent impulses.” (William of Tyre, vol 2, p. 277)

Saladin’s secretary, Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani, tells what happened to Reynald after the Battle of Hattin:

“When the Prince was brought before him he made him sit beside the King, and reproached him for his treachery and paraded his wickedness before him. ‘How often have you made a vow and broken your oath; how many obligations have you failed to honour, how many treaties made and unmade, and agreements reached and repudiated!’” (Gabrieli, pg. 134-135)

From the Muslim perspective you get the sense that if Saladin could have destroyed Reynald while keeping the truce with Jerusalem intact, he would have; but Saladin felt he had no choice but to destroy them and he lay the blame squarely on Reynald. Reynald’s opponents in Jerusalem felt the same way. Among modern historians, Runciman also blames Reynald for Hattin and the fall of Jerusalem.

“With the kingdom so torn into embittered factions it was as well that the truce with the Saracens held firm. Guy would have maintained it; but he reckoned without his friend Reynald of Chatillon.” (Runciman, vol. 2, pg. 450)

Reynald, the Elephant of Christ

In recent years Reynald’s career has been reevaluated, and although he might not be totally rehabilitated, his actions make a bit more sense in the context of everything else going on in Jerusalem. Bernard Hamilton argued that Reynald was actually acting within the limits of his authority as lord of Oultrejordain, not as some rogue agent of discord. Oultrejordain was independent and Reynald could act as he wished; but even if he was an independent lord, Hamilton suggests that Reynald was actually aligned with the king’s policies.

Everything Reynald did was meant to undermine Saladin’s power and authority. Contrary to Reynald’s 12th-century opponents, and modern historians like Runciman, Saladin would not have simply left Jerusalem alone if Reynald had behaved. They knew Saladin’s goal was to take back Jerusalem, so they tried to delay an invasion as long as possible by harassing Saladin's territory. They also tried to weaken his prestige in the eyes of other Muslims by attacking caravans and pilgrims. If Saladin couldn't protect them, maybe his vassals would rebel against him, which would further delay his invasion of Jerusalem.