crusaders were alternately exalted by victory or sunk in despair; either
swelled with plenty or emaciated with hunger. A speculative reasoner
might suppose, that their faith had a strong and serious influence on
their practice; and that the soldiers of the cross, the deliverers of
the holy sepulchre, prepared themselves by a sober and virtuous life
for the daily contemplation of martyrdom. Experience blows away this
charitable illusion; and seldom does the history of profane war display
such scenes of intemperance and prostitution as were exhibited under
the walls of Antioch. The grove of Daphne no longer flourished; but the
Syrian air was still impregnated with the same vices; the Christians
were seduced by every temptation that nature either prompts or
reprobates; the authority of the chiefs was despised; and sermons and
edicts were alike fruitless against those scandalous disorders, not less
pernicious to military discipline, than repugnant to evangelic purity.
In the first days of the siege and the possession of Antioch, the Franks
consumed with wanton and thoughtless prodigality the frugal subsistence
of weeks and months: the desolate country no longer yielded a supply;
and from that country they were at length excluded by the arms of the
besieging Turks. Disease, the faithful companion of want, was envenomed
by the rains of the winter, the summer heats, unwholesome food, and the
close imprisonment of multitudes. The pictures of famine and pestilence
are always the same, and always disgustful; and our imagination may
suggest the nature of their sufferings and their resources. The remains
of treasure or spoil were eagerly lavished in the purchase of the vilest
nourishment; and dreadful must have been the calamities of the poor,
since, after paying three marks of silver for a goat and fifteen for a
lean camel, the count of Flanders was reduced to beg a dinner, and Duke
Godfrey to borrow a horse. Sixty thousand horse had been reviewed in the
camp: before the end of the siege they were diminished to two thousand,
and scarcely two hundred fit for service could be mustered on the day
of battle. Weakness of body and terror of mind extinguished the ardent
enthusiasm of the pilgrims; and every motive of honor and religion was
subdued by the desire of life. Among the chiefs, three heroes may be
found without fear or reproach: Godfrey of Bouillon was supported by
his magnanimous piety; Bohemond by ambition and interest; and Tancred
declared, in the true spirit of chivalry, that as long as he was at
the head of forty knights, he would never relinquish the enterprise of
Palestine. But the count of Tholouse and Provence was suspected of a
voluntary indisposition; the duke of Normandy was recalled from the
sea-shore by the censures of the church: Hugh the Great, though he
led the vanguard of the battle, embraced an ambiguous opportunity of
returning to France and Stephen, count of Chartres, basely deserted
the standard which he bore, and the council in which he presided. The
soldiers were discouraged by the flight of William, viscount of Melun,
surnamed the _Carpenter_, from the weighty strokes of his axe; and the
saints were scandalized by the fall of Peter the Hermit, who, after
arming Europe against Asia, attempted to escape from the penance of a
necessary fast. Of the multitude of recreant warriors, the names (says
an historian) are blotted from the book of life; and the opprobrious
epithet of the rope-dancers was applied to the deserters who dropped in
the night from the walls of Antioch. The emperor Alexius, who seemed to
advance to the succor of the Latins, was dismayed by the assurance of
their hopeless condition. They expected their fate in silent despair;
oaths and punishments were tried without effect; and to rouse the
soldiers to the defence of the walls, it was found necessary to set fire
to their quarters.
For their salvation and victory, they were indebted to the same
fanaticism which had led them to the brink of ruin. In such a cause, and
in such an army, visions, prophecies, and miracles, were frequent and
familiar. In the distress of Antioch, they were repeated with unusual
energy and success: St. Ambrose had assured a pious ecclesiastic, that
two years of trial must precede the season of deliverance and grace; the
deserters were stopped by the presence and reproaches of Christ himself;
the dead had promised to arise and combat with their brethren; the
Virgin had obtained the pardon of their sins; and their confidence was
revived by a visible sign, the seasonable and splendid discovery of
the holy lance. The policy of their chiefs has on this occasion been
admired, and might surely be excused; but a pious baud is seldom
produced by the cool conspiracy of many persons; and a voluntary
impostor might depend on the support of the wise and the credulity of
the people. Of the diocese of Marseilles, there was a priest of low
cunning and loose manners, and his name was Peter Bartholemy. He
presented himself at the door of the council-chamber, to disclose an
apparition of St. Andrew, which had been thrice reiterated in his sleep
with a dreadful menace, if he presumed to suppress the commands of
Heaven. "At Antioch," said the apostle, "in the church of my brother
St. Peter, near the high altar, is concealed the steel head of the lance
that pierced the side of our Redeemer. In three days that instrument
of eternal, and now of temporal, salvation, will be manifested to his
disciples. Search, and ye shall find: bear it aloft in battle; and that
mystic weapon shall penetrate the souls of the miscreants." The
pope's legate, the bishop of Puy, affected to listen with coldness and
distrust; but the revelation was eagerly accepted by Count Raymond, whom
his faithful subject, in the name of the apostle, had chosen for the
guardian of the holy lance. The experiment was resolved; and on the
third day after a due preparation of prayer and fasting, the priest
of Marseilles introduced twelve trusty spectators, among whom were the
count and his chaplain; and the church doors were barred against the
impetuous multitude. The ground was opened in the appointed place; but
the workmen, who relieved each other, dug to the depth of twelve feet
without discovering the object of their search. In the evening, when
Count Raymond had withdrawn to his post, and the weary assistants began
to murmur, Bartholemy, in his shirt, and without his shoes, boldly
descended into the pit; the darkness of the hour and of the place
enabled him to secrete and deposit the head of a Saracen lance; and the
first sound, the first gleam, of the steel was saluted with a devout
rapture. The holy lance was drawn from its recess, wrapped in a veil
of silk and gold, and exposed to the veneration of the crusaders; their
anxious suspense burst forth in a general shout of joy and hope, and
the desponding troops were again inflamed with the enthusiasm of valor.
Whatever had been the arts, and whatever might be the sentiments of the
chiefs, they skilfully improved this fortunate revolution by every aid
that discipline and devotion could afford. The soldiers were dismissed
to their quarters with an injunction to fortify their minds and bodies
for the approaching conflict, freely to bestow their last pittance on
themselves and their horses, and to expect with the dawn of day the
signal of victory. On the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, the gates
of Antioch were thrown open: a martial psalm, "Let the Lord arise, and
let his enemies be scattered!" was chanted by a procession of priests
and monks; the battle array was marshalled in twelve divisions, in honor
of the twelve apostles; and the holy lance, in the absence of Raymond,
was intrusted to the hands of his chaplain. The influence of his relic
or trophy, was felt by the servants, and perhaps by the enemies,
of Christ; and its potent energy was heightened by an accident, a
stratagem, or a rumor, of a miraculous complexion. Three knights, in
white garments and resplendent arms, either issued, or seemed to issue,
from the hills: the voice of Adhemar, the pope's legate, proclaimed them
as the martyrs St. George, St. Theodore, and St. Maurice: the tumult of
battle allowed no time for doubt or scrutiny; and the welcome apparition
dazzled the eyes or the imagination of a fanatic army. In the season
of danger and triumph, the revelation of Bartholemy of Marseilles
was unanimously asserted; but as soon as the temporary service was
accomplished, the personal dignity and liberal arms which the count of
Tholouse derived from the custody of the holy lance, provoked the envy,
and awakened the reason, of his rivals. A Norman clerk presumed to sift,
with a philosophic spirit, the truth of the legend, the circumstances of
the discovery, and the character of the prophet; and the pious Bohemond
ascribed their deliverance to the merits and intercession of Christ
alone. For a while, the Provincials defended their national palladium
with clamors and arms and new visions condemned to death and hell the
profane sceptics who presumed to scrutinize the truth and merit of the
discovery. The prevalence of incredulity compelled the author to submit
his life and veracity to the judgment of God. A pile of dry fagots, four
feet high and fourteen long, was erected in the midst of the camp; the
flames burnt fiercely to the elevation of thirty cubits; and a narrow
path of twelve inches was left for the perilous trial. The unfortunate
priest of Marseilles traversed the fire with dexterity and speed; but
the thighs and belly were scorched by the intense heat; he expired the
next day; and the logic of believing minds will pay some regard to his
dying protestations of innocence and truth. Some efforts were made by
the Provincials to substitute a cross, a ring, or a tabernacle, in the
place of the holy lance, which soon vanished in contempt and oblivion.
Yet the revelation of Antioch is gravely asserted by succeeding
historians: and such is the progress of credulity, that miracles most
doubtful on the spot, and at the moment, will be received with implicit
faith at a convenient distance of time and space.
The prudence or fortune of the Franks had delayed their invasion till
the decline of the Turkish empire. Under the manly government of the
three first sultans, the kingdoms of Asia were united in peace and
justice; and the innumerable armies which they led in person were equal
in courage, and superior in discipline, to the Barbarians of the West.
But at the time of the crusade, the inheritance of Malek Shaw was
disputed by his four sons; their private ambition was insensible of
the public danger; and, in the vicissitudes of their fortune, the
royal vassals were ignorant, or regardless, of the true object of their
allegiance. The twenty-eight emirs who marched with the standard or
Kerboga were his rivals or enemies: their hasty levies were drawn from
the towns and tents of Mesopotamia and Syria; and the Turkish veterans
were employed or consumed in the civil wars beyond the Tigris. The
caliph of Egypt embraced this opportunity of weakness and discord
to recover his ancient possessions; and his sultan Aphdal besieged
Jerusalem and Tyre, expelled the children of Ortok, and restored in
Palestine the civil and ecclesiastical authority of the Fatimites. They
heard with astonishment of the vast armies of Christians that had passed
from Europe to Asia, and rejoiced in the sieges and battles which broke
the power of the Turks, the adversaries of their sect and monarchy.
But the same Christians were the enemies of the prophet; and from the
overthrow of Nice and Antioch, the motive of their enterprise, which
was gradually understood, would urge them forwards to the banks of
the Jordan, or perhaps of the Nile. An intercourse of epistles and
embassies, which rose and fell with the events of war, was maintained
between the throne of Cairo and the camp of the Latins; and their
adverse pride was the result of ignorance and enthusiasm. The ministers
of Egypt declared in a haughty, or insinuated in a milder, tone, that
their sovereign, the true and lawful commander of the faithful, had
rescued Jerusalem from the Turkish yoke; and that the pilgrims, if they
would divide their numbers, and lay aside their arms, should find a safe
and hospitable reception at the sepulchre of Jesus. In the belief
of their lost condition, the caliph Mostali despised their arms and
imprisoned their deputies: the conquest and victory of Antioch prompted
him to solicit those formidable champions with gifts of horses and silk
robes, of vases, and purses of gold and silver; and in his estimate of
their merit or power, the first place was assigned to Bohemond, and the
second to Godfrey. In either fortune, the answer of the crusaders was
firm and uniform: they disdained to inquire into the private claims
or possessions of the followers of Mahomet; whatsoever was his name
or nation, the usurper of Jerusalem was their enemy; and instead of
prescribing the mode and terms of their pilgrimage, it was only by a
timely surrender of the city and province, their sacred right, that
he could deserve their alliance, or deprecate their impending and
irresistible attack.
Yet this attack, when they were within the view and reach of their
glorious prize, was suspended above ten months after the defeat of
Kerboga. The zeal and courage of the crusaders were chilled in the
moment of victory; and instead of marching to improve the consternation,
they hastily dispersed to enjoy the luxury, of Syria. The causes of this
strange delay may be found in the want of strength and subordination. In
the painful and various service of Antioch, the cavalry was annihilated;
many thousands of every rank had been lost by famine, sickness, and
desertion: the same abuse of plenty had been productive of a third
famine; and the alternative of intemperance and distress had generated
a pestilence, which swept away above fifty thousand of the pilgrims. Few
were able to command, and none were willing to obey; the domestic feuds,
which had been stifled by common fear, were again renewed in acts, or at
least in sentiments, of hostility; the fortune of Baldwin and Bohemond
excited the envy of their companions; the bravest knights were enlisted
for the defence of their new principalities; and Count Raymond exhausted
his troops and treasures in an idle expedition into the heart of Syria.
* The winter was consumed in discord and disorder; a sense of honor and
religion was rekindled in the spring; and the private soldiers, less
susceptible of ambition and jealousy, awakened with angry clamors the
indolence of their chiefs. In the month of May, the relics of this
mighty host proceeded from Antioch to Laodicea: about forty thousand
Latins, of whom no more than fifteen hundred horse, and twenty thousand
foot, were capable of immediate service. Their easy march was continued
between Mount Libanus and the sea-shore: their wants were liberally
supplied by the coasting traders of Genoa and Pisa; and they drew large
contributions from the emirs of Tripoli, Tyre, Sidon, Acre, and CÊsarea,
who granted a free passage, and promised to follow the example of
Jerusalem. From CÊsarea they advanced into the midland country; their
clerks recognized the sacred geography of Lydda, Ramla, Emmaus, and
Bethlem, and as soon as they descried the holy city, the crusaders
forgot their toils and claimed their reward.
Chapter LVIII: The First Crusade.--Part V.
Jerusalem has derived some reputation from the number and importance of
her memorable sieges. It was not till after a long and obstinate contest
that Babylon and Rome could prevail against the obstinacy of the people,
the craggy ground that might supersede the necessity of fortifications,
and the walls and towers that would have fortified the most accessible
plain. These obstacles were diminished in the age of the crusades. The
bulwarks had been completely destroyed and imperfectly restored: the
Jews, their nation, and worship, were forever banished; but nature is
less changeable than man, and the site of Jerusalem, though somewhat
softened and somewhat removed, was still strong against the assaults
of an enemy. By the experience of a recent siege, and a three years'
possession, the Saracens of Egypt had been taught to discern, and in
some degree to remedy, the defects of a place, which religion as well
as honor forbade them to resign. Aladin, or Iftikhar, the caliph's
lieutenant, was intrusted with the defence: his policy strove to
restrain the native Christians by the dread of their own ruin and
that of the holy sepulchre; to animate the Moslems by the assurance of
temporal and eternal rewards. His garrison is said to have consisted
of forty thousand Turks and Arabians; and if he could muster twenty
thousand of the inhabitants, it must be confessed that the besieged were
more numerous than the besieging army. Had the diminished strength and
numbers of the Latins allowed them to grasp the whole circumference
of four thousand yards, (about two English miles and a half, ) to what
useful purpose should they have descended into the valley of Ben Hinnom
and torrent of Cedron, or approach the precipices of the south and east,
from whence they had nothing either to hope or fear? Their siege was
more reasonably directed against the northern and western sides of the
city. Godfrey of Bouillon erected his standard on the first swell of
Mount Calvary: to the left, as far as St. Stephen's gate, the line of
attack was continued by Tancred and the two Roberts; and Count Raymond
established his quarters from the citadel to the foot of Mount Sion,
which was no longer included within the precincts of the city. On the
fifth day, the crusaders made a general assault, in the fanatic hope of
battering down the walls without engines, and of scaling them without
ladders. By the dint of brutal force, they burst the first barrier;
but they were driven back with shame and slaughter to the camp: the
influence of vision and prophecy was deadened by the too frequent abuse
of those pious stratagems; and time and labor were found to be the only
means of victory. The time of the siege was indeed fulfilled in forty
days, but they were forty days of calamity and anguish. A repetition
of the old complaint of famine may be imputed in some degree to the
voracious or disorderly appetite of the Franks; but the stony soil of
Jerusalem is almost destitute of water; the scanty springs and hasty
torrents were dry in the summer season; nor was the thirst of the
besiegers relieved, as in the city, by the artificial supply of cisterns
and aqueducts. The circumjacent country is equally destitute of trees
for the uses of shade or building, but some large beams were discovered
in a cave by the crusaders: a wood near Sichem, the enchanted grove of
Tasso, was cut down: the necessary timber was transported to the camp by
the vigor and dexterity of Tancred; and the engines were framed by some
Genoese artists, who had fortunately landed in the harbor of Jaffa. Two
movable turrets were constructed at the expense, and in the stations, of
the duke of Lorraine and the count of Tholouse, and rolled forwards with
devout labor, not to the most accessible, but to the most neglected,
parts of the fortification. Raymond's Tower was reduced to ashes by
the fire of the besieged, but his colleague was more vigilant and
successful; the enemies were driven by his archers from the rampart;
the draw-bridge was let down; and on a Friday, at three in the
afternoon, the day and hour of the passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood
victorious on the walls of Jerusalem. His example was followed on every
side by the emulation of valor; and about four hundred and sixty years
after the conquest of Omar, the holy city was rescued from the Mahometan
yoke. In the pillage of public and private wealth, the adventurers had
agreed to respect the exclusive property of the first occupant; and the
spoils of the great mosque, seventy lamps and massy vases of gold
and silver, rewarded the diligence, and displayed the generosity, of
Tancred. A bloody sacrifice was offered by his mistaken votaries to the
God of the Christians: resistance might provoke but neither age nor sex
could mollify, their implacable rage: they indulged themselves three
days in a promiscuous massacre; and the infection of the dead bodies
produced an epidemical disease. After seventy thousand Moslems had
been put to the sword, and the harmless Jews had been burnt in their
synagogue, they could still reserve a multitude of captives, whom
interest or lassitude persuaded them to spare. Of these savage heroes of
the cross, Tancred alone betrayed some sentiments of compassion; yet
we may praise the more selfish lenity of Raymond, who granted a
capitulation and safe-conduct to the garrison of the citadel. The holy
sepulchre was now free; and the bloody victors prepared to accomplish
their vow. Bareheaded and barefoot, with contrite hearts, and in an
humble posture, they ascended the hill of Calvary, amidst the loud
anthems of the clergy; kissed the stone which had covered the Savior of
the world; and bedewed with tears of joy and penitence the monument of
their redemption. This union of the fiercest and most tender passions
has been variously considered by two philosophers; by the one, as easy
and natural; by the other, as absurd and incredible. Perhaps it is too
rigorously applied to the same persons and the same hour; the example
of the virtuous Godfrey awakened the piety of his companions; while they
cleansed their bodies, they purified their minds; nor shall I believe
that the most ardent in slaughter and rapine were the foremost in the
procession to the holy sepulchre.
Eight days after this memorable event, which Pope Urban did not live to
hear, the Latin chiefs proceeded to the election of a king, to guard
and govern their conquests in Palestine. Hugh the Great, and Stephen of
Chartres, had retired with some loss of reputation, which they strove
to regain by a second crusade and an honorable death. Baldwin was
established at Edessa, and Bohemond at Antioch; and two Roberts,
the duke of Normandy and the count of Flanders, preferred their fair
inheritance in the West to a doubtful competition or a barren sceptre.
The jealousy and ambition of Raymond were condemned by his own
followers, and the free, the just, the unanimous voice of the army
proclaimed Godfrey of Bouillon the first and most worthy of the
champions of Christendom. His magnanimity accepted a trust as full of
danger as of glory; but in a city where his Savior had been crowned with
thorns, the devout pilgrim rejected the name and ensigns of royalty;
and the founder of the kingdom of Jerusalem contented himself with the
modest title of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre. His government
of a single year, too short for the public happiness, was interrupted
in the first fortnight by a summons to the field, by the approach of the
vizier or sultan of Egypt, who had been too slow to prevent, but who was
impatient to avenge, the loss of Jerusalem. His total overthrow in the
battle of Ascalon sealed the establishment of the Latins in Syria, and
signalized the valor of the French princes who in this action bade a
long farewell to the holy wars. Some glory might be derived from the
prodigious inequality of numbers, though I shall not count the myriads
of horse and foot on the side of the Fatimites; but, except three
thousand Ethiopians or Blacks, who were armed with flails or scourges of
iron, the Barbarians of the South fled on the first onset, and afforded
a pleasing comparison between the active valor of the Turks and the
sloth and effeminacy of the natives of Egypt. After suspending before
the holy sepulchre the sword and standard of the sultan, the new king
(he deserves the title) embraced his departing companions, and could
retain only with the gallant Tancred three hundred knights, and two
thousand foot-soldiers for the defence of Palestine. His sovereignty was
soon attacked by a new enemy, the only one against whom Godfrey was a
coward. Adhemar, bishop of Puy, who excelled both in council and
action, had been swept away in the last plague at Antioch: the remaining
ecclesiastics preserved only the pride and avarice of their character;
and their seditious clamors had required that the choice of a bishop
should precede that of a king. The revenue and jurisdiction of the
lawful patriarch were usurped by the Latin clergy: the exclusion of the
Greeks and Syrians was justified by the reproach of heresy or schism;
and, under the iron yoke of their deliverers, the Oriental Christians
regretted the tolerating government of the Arabian caliphs. Daimbert,
archbishop of Pisa, had long been trained in the secret policy of Rome:
he brought a fleet at his countrymen to the succor of the Holy Land, and
was installed, without a competitor, the spiritual and temporal head of
the church. The new patriarch immediately grasped the sceptre which
had been acquired by the toil and blood of the victorious pilgrims;
and both Godfrey and Bohemond submitted to receive at his hands the
investiture of their feudal possessions. Nor was this sufficient;
Daimbert claimed the immediate property of Jerusalem and Jaffa; instead
of a firm and generous refusal, the hero negotiated with the priest; a
quarter of either city was ceded to the church; and the modest bishop
was satisfied with an eventual reversion of the rest, on the death of
Godfrey without children, or on the future acquisition of a new seat at
Cairo or Damascus.