CHAPTER VI.

THE FIRST CRUSADE.

“The sound

As of the assault of an imperial city,

The shock of crags shot from strange engin’ry,

The clash of wheels, and clang of armed hoofs,

* * * and now more loud

The mingled battle cry. Ha! hear I not

Ἐν τόυτῳ νίκη. Allah-illah-Allah!”

_Shelley._

Peter the Hermit, the preacher and main cause of the first Crusade,

was born about the year 1050, of a noble family of Picardy. He was

at first, like all men of gentle birth of his time, a soldier, and

fought in some at least of the wars that were going on around him.

For some cause—no one knows why—perhaps disgusted with the world,

perhaps struck with repentance for a criminal or dissolute life—he

withdrew from his fellow-men, and became a hermit. But it would seem

that his turbulent and unquiet spirit could not stand the monotony,

though it might support the austerities, of a hermit’s life, and he

resolved about the year 1093 to go as a pilgrim to Palestine. He

found the pilgrims miserable indeed. As most of them had been robbed

or exorbitantly charged on the road, there was not one in a hundred

who, on arriving before Jerusalem, found himself able to pay the fee

demanded for admittance within the gates. The hapless Christians,

starving and helpless, lay outside the walls, dependent on the small

supplies which their brethren within could send them. Many of them

died; many more turned away without having been able to enter the

city; famine, thirst, nakedness, and the sword of the infidel,

constantly thinned their ranks, which were as constantly renewed.

Even if they got within the walls, they were not much safer: the

monasteries could do little for them, though they did what they

could; in the streets they were insulted, mocked, spat upon, and

sometimes beaten. And in the very churches, and during the

celebration of services, they were liable, as we have seen, to the

attacks of a fanatic crowd, who would sometimes break in upon them,

and outrage the most sacred ceremonies.

Among all the indignant and pious crowd of worshippers none was more

indignant or more devout than Peter. He paid a visit to Simeon, the

aged patriarch, and wept with him over the misfortunes of the

Christians. “When,” said Simeon, “the cup of our sufferings is full,

God will send the Christians of the West to the help of the Holy

City.” Peter pressed him to write urgent letters to the sovereign

powers of Europe: he himself promised to exhort the people to arm

for the recovery of Jerusalem and to testify to the statements of

Simeon.

And then, to the fiery imagination of the Hermit, strange voices

began to whisper, and strange forms began to be seen. “Arise,

Peter,” cried our Lord Himself to him, when he was worshipping at

the Holy Sepulchre, “Arise, Peter. Hasten to announce the

tribulations of my people. It is time that my servants were

succoured and my sacred places delivered.” Peter arose and departed

to obey what he believed to be a divine command. The pope Urban, who

certainly saw in this an opportunity for strengthening himself

against the anti-pope, received him with ardour, real or assumed,

and authorized him to preach the Crusade over the whole of Europe.

He crossed the Alps, and began first to preach in France. His

appearance was mean and unprepossessing, his stature low; he rode on

a mule, bare-headed and bare-footed, dressed in a gown of the

coarsest stuff and with a long rope for a girdle. The fame of his

austerity, the purity of his life, the great purpose he had on hand,

went before him. The irresistible eloquence of his words moved to

their deepest depths the hearts of the people. He preached in

country and in town; on the public roads and in the pulpits of

churches; he reminded his hearers of the profanation of the holy

places; he spoke of the pilgrims, and narrated his own sufferings;

he read the letters of the venerable Simeon; and finally he told

them how from the very recesses of the Holy Sepulchre the voice of

Jesus Himself had called aloud to him, bidding him go forth and

summon the people to the recovery of Jerusalem. And as he spoke, the

souls of those that heard were moved. With tears, with repentant

sobs, with loud cries of anger and sorrow, they vowed to lead better

lives, and dedicated themselves for the future to the service of

God; women who had sinned, men who had led women astray, robbers who

lived by plunder, murderers rich with the rewards of crime, priests

burdened with the heavy guilt of long years of hypocrisy—all came

alike to confess their sins, to vow amendment, to promise penance by

taking the Cross. Peter was reverenced as a saint: such homage as

never man had before was his; they tried to get the smallest rag of

his garment; they crowded to look upon him, or, if it might be, to

touch him. Never in the history of the world has eloquent man had

such an audience, or has oratory produced such an effect. And in the

midst of this agitation, confined as yet, be it observed, to France,

whose soil has ever been favourable to the birth of new ideas, came

letters from the emperor Alexis Comnenus, urging on the princes of

the West the duty of coming to his help. The leader of the infidels

was at his very gates. Were Constantinople to fall, Christendom

itself might fall. He might survive the loss of his empire: he could

never survive the shame of seeing it pass under the laws of

Mohammed. And if more were wanted to urge on the enthusiasm of the

people, Constantinople was rich beyond all other cities of the

world; her riches should be freely lavished upon her defenders; her

daughters were fairer than the daughters of the West; their love

should be the reward of those who fought against the Infidels.

The pope received the letters, and held a council, first at

Plaisance, then at Clermont (1094). His speech at the latter council

has been variously given; four or five reports of it remain, all

evidently written long after the real speech had been delivered; all

meant to contain what the pope ought to have said; and all, as

appears to us, singularly cold and artificial. The council began by

renewing the Peace of God; by placing under the protection of the

Church all widows, orphans, merchants, and labourers; by proclaiming

the inviolability of the sanctuary; and by decreeing that crosses

erected by the wayside should be a refuge against violence. And at

its tenth sitting, the council passed to what was its real business,

the consideration of Peter’s exhortations and the reading of the

letters of the patriarch Simeon and the emperor Alexis. Peter spoke

first, narrating, as usual, the sufferings of the pilgrims. Urban

followed him. And when he had finished, with one accord the voices

of the assembled council shouted, “Dieu le veut! Dieu le veut!”

“Yes,” answered the pontiff, “God wills it, indeed! Behold how our

Lord fulfils his own words, that where two or three are gathered

together in his name He will be in the midst. He it is who has

inspired these words. Let them be for you your only war-cry.”

Adhémar, Bishop of Puy, begged to be the first to take the vow of

the Crusade. Other bishops followed. Raymond, Count of Toulouse,

first of the laity, swore to conduct his men to Palestine, and then

the knights and barons followed in rapid succession. Urban declined

himself to lead the host, but appointed Bishop Adhémar as his

deputy. Meantime he promised all Crusaders a full and complete

remission of their sins. He promised their goods and their families

the protection of Saint Peter and the Church; he placed under

anathema all who should do violence to the soldiers of the Cross;

and he threatened with excommunication all who should fail to

perform their oaths. As if the madness of enthusiasm was not

sufficiently kindled already, the pope himself went to Rouen, to

Angers, to Tours, and to Nismes, called councils, harangued the

people, and enjoined on the bishops the duty of proclaiming the

Crusade; and the next year was spent in preaching, exhorting, in

maintaining the enthusiasm already kindled, and in preparing for the

war. The kings of Europe, for their part, had good reasons for

holding aloof, and so took no part in the Crusade: the king of

France, because he was under excommunication; the emperor of

Germany, because he was also under excommunication; William Rufus,

because he was an unbeliever and a scoffer. But for the rank and

file, the First Crusade, which was instigated by a Frenchman, was

mainly recruited from France.

Here, indeed, the delirium of enthusiasm grew daily in intensity.

During the winter of 1095-96 nothing but the sound of preparation

was heard throughout the length and breadth of the land. It was not

enough that knights and men-at-arms should take upon them the vows

of the Cross; it behoved every man who could carry a pike or wield a

sword to join the army of deliverance. Artisans left their work,

merchants their shops, labourers their tools, and the very robbers

and brigands came out from their hiding-places, with the intention

of atoning for their past sins by fighting in the army of the Lord.

All industry, save that of the forging of weapons, ceased; for six

whole months there was no crime; for six months an uninterrupted

Peace of God, concluded by tacit consent, while the _croisés_

crowded the churches to implore the divine protection and blessing,

to consecrate their arms, and to renew their vows. In order to

procure horses, armour, and arms, the price of which went up

enormously, the knights sold their lands at prices far below their

real value; the lands were in many cases bought up by far-seeing

abbots and attached to monasteries, so that the Church, at least,

might be enriched, whatever happened. No sacrifice, however,

appeared too great in the enthusiasm of departure; no loss too heavy

to weigh for one moment against the obligation of the sacred oath.

And strange signs and wonders began to appear in the heavens. Stars

were seen to fall upon the earth: these were the kings and chiefs of

the Saracens; unearthly flames were visible at night: these

betokened the conflagration of the Mohammedan strong places;

blood-red clouds, stained with the blood of the Infidel, hovered

over the east; a sword-shaped comet, denoting the sword of the Lord,

was in the south; and in the sky were seen, not once, but many

times, the towers of a mighty city and the legions of a mighty host.

With the first warm days of early spring the impatience of the

people was no longer to be restrained. Refusing to wait while the

chiefs of the Crusade organised their forces, laid down the line of

their march, and matured their plans, they flocked in thousands to

the banks of the Meuse and the Moselle, clamouring for immediate

departure. Most of them were on foot, but those who by any means

could raise the price of a horse came mounted. Some travelled in

carts drawn by oxen. Their arms were such as they could afford to

buy. Every one, however, brandished a weapon of some kind; it was

either a spear, or an axe, or sword, or even a heavy hammer. Wives,

daughters, children, old men, dragged themselves along with the

exultant host, nothing doubting that they too would be permitted to

share the triumph, to witness the victory. From the far corners of

France, from Brittany, from the islands, from the Pyrenees, came

troops of men whose language could not be understood, and who had

but one sign, that of the Cross, to signify their brotherhood. Whole

villages came _en masse_, accompanied by their priests, bringing

with them their children, their cattle, their stores of provision,

their household utensils, their all; while the poorest came with

nothing at all, trusting that miracles, similar to those which

protected the Israelites in the Desert, would protect them also—that

manna would drop from heaven, and the rocks would open to supply

them with water. And such was their ignorance, that as the walls of

town after town became visible on their march, they pressed forward,

eagerly demanding if that was Jerusalem.

Who should be the leader of the horde of peasants, robbers, and

workmen who came together in the spring of 1096 on the banks of the

Meuse? Among all this vast host there were found but nine knights:

Gaultier Sans Avoir—Walter the Penniless—and eight others. But there

was with them, better than an army of knights, the great preacher of

the Crusade, the holy hermit and worker of miracles, Peter. To him

was due the glory of the movement: to him should be given the honour

of leading the first, and, it was believed, the successful army. By

common acclamation they elected Peter their leader. He, no less

credulous than his followers, accepted the charge; confident of

victory, and mounted on his mule—the mule which had borne him from

town to town to preach the war—clothed in his monastic garb, with

sandals on his feet and a cross in his hand, he led the way.

Under his command were a hundred thousand men, bearing arms, such as

they were, and an innumerable throng of women, old men, and

children. He divided this enormous host into two parts, keeping the

larger under his own orders, and sending on the smaller as an

advance-guard, under the knight Walter.

Walter started first. Marching down the banks of the Rhine, he

experienced no difficulties with the Germans. These, slow to follow

the example of the fiery French, and, moreover, not yet stimulated

by the preaching of a Peter, still sympathised with the object of

the army, which they doubtless thought was but a larger and a

fiercer band of pilgrims, like many that had gone before, and

assisted those who were too poor to buy provisions, to the best of

their power. Passing, therefore, safely through Germany, the

disorderly host, among whom all sorts of iniquities were already

rife, entered Hungary. The Hungarians, by this time christianised,

had yet no kind of enthusiasm for the objects of the Crusaders or

desire to aid them; but their King, Coloman, gave them guides

through his vast marshes and across his rivers, and permitted them

to purchase what they wanted at the public market-places; and by

great fortune no accident happened to them, save the beating of a

few laggards after the crossing of the river Maros. Judging it idle

to avenge an insult which it cost little to endure, Walter pushed on

till he reached Belgrade, the frontier town of the Bulgarians. These

were even a ruder people than the Hungarian Christians; they refused

to recognise the Crusaders as their brethren: subjects of the Greek

crown, they refused any submission but that which was extorted by

arms, and living in the midst of inaccessible forests, they

preserved a wild and savage independence which made them the terror

of the pilgrims, whom they maltreated, and the Greeks, who tried to

reduce them to submission.

Here the first troubles began. The Governor of Belgrade refusing

them permission to buy provisions, the army found themselves reduced

to the greatest straits for want of food; and seeing no other way

for help, they left the camp and dispersed about the country,

driving in the cattle, and laying hands on everything they could

find. The Bulgarians armed in haste, and slaughtered vast numbers of

the marauders, burning alive a hundred and forty who had taken

refuge in a chapel. Walter broke up his camp in haste, and pressing

on, left those to their own fate who refused to obey his order to

follow. What that fate was may easily be surmised. With diminished

forces, starving and dejected, he pushed on through the forests till

he found himself before Nissa, when the governor, taking pity on the

destitute condition of the pilgrims, gave them food, clothes, and

arms. These misfortunes fell upon them, it will be observed, in

Christian lands, and long before they saw the Saracens. Thence the

humbled Crusaders, seeing in these disasters a just punishment for

their sins—they were at least always ready to repent—proceeded, with

no other enemy than famine, through Philippopolis and Adrianople to

Constantinople itself. Here the emperor, Alexis Comnenus, gave them

permission to encamp outside the town, to buy and sell, and to wait

for the arrival of Peter and the second army.

But if the first expedition was disastrous the second was far worse.

Peter seems to have followed at first a somewhat different route to

that of his advanced guard. He went through Lorraine, Franconia,

Bavaria, and Austria, and entered Hungary, some months after Walter,

with an army of forty thousand men. Permission was readily granted

to march through the country, on the condition of the maintenance of

order and the purchase of provisions; nor was it till they arrived

at Semlin, the place where their comrades had been beaten, that any

disturbance arose. Here they unfortunately saw suspended the arms

and armour which had been stripped from the stragglers of Walter’s

army. The soldiers, incensed beyond control, rushed upon the little

town, and, with the loss of a hundred men, massacred every Hungarian

in the place. Then they sat down to enjoy themselves for five days.

The people of Belgrade, panic-stricken on hearing of the fate of

Semlin, fled all with one accord, headed by their governor, and

hurriedly carrying away everything portable; and Peter, before the

King of Hungary had time to collect an army to avenge the taking of

his city, managed to transport everything to the other side of the

Danube, and pitched his camp under the deserted walls of Belgrade.

There the army, laden with spoils of all kinds, waited to collect

their treasures, which they carried with them on their march to

Nissa. They stopped here one night, obtaining, as Walter had done,

permission to buy and sell, and giving hostages for good conduct.

All went well; the camp was raised, the hostages returned, and the

army on its march again, when an unhappy quarrel arose between some

of the stragglers, consisting of about a hundred Germans, and the

townspeople. The Germans set fire to seven mills and certain

buildings outside the town. Having done this mischief they rejoined

their comrades; but the indignant Bulgarians, furious at this return

for their hospitality, rushed after them, arms in hand. They

attacked the rear-guard, killed those who resisted, and returned to

the town, driving before them the women and children, and loaded

with the spoil which remained from the sacking of Semlin. Peter and

the main body hastened back on receiving news of the disaster, and

tried once more to accommodate matters. But in the midst of his

interview with the governor, and when all seemed to promise well, a

fresh outbreak took place, and a second battle began, far worse than

the first. The Crusaders were wholly routed and fled in all

directions, while the carnage was indiscriminate and fearful. In the

evening the unhappy Peter found himself on an adjoining height with

five hundred men. The scattered fugitives gradually rallied, but

one-fourth of his fighting men were killed on this disastrous day,

and the army lost all their baggage, their treasures, and their

stores; while of the women and children by far the greater number

were either killed or taken captive. Starving and destitute, they

straggled on through the forests, dreading the further vengeance of

the Bulgarians, until they entered Thrace. Here deputies from the

emperor met them, with reproaches for their disorderly conduct, and

promises that, should they conduct themselves with order, his

clemency would not be wanting.

Arrived at Constantinople, and having rejoined Walter, Peter lost no

time in obtaining an audience from the emperor. Alexis heard him

patiently, and was even moved by his eloquence; but he advised him,

above all things, to wait for the arrival of the princes who were to

follow. Advice was the last thing these wild hordes would listen to;

and, eager to be in the country of the Infidels—to get for

themselves the glory of the conquest—they crossed the Dardanelles,

and pitched their camp at a place called Gemlik or Ghio.

The first effervescence of zeal in Europe had not yet, however,

worked off its violence. A monk named Gotschalk, emulating the

honours of Peter, had raised, by dint of preaching, an army of

twenty thousand Germans, sworn to the capture of the Holy Land.

Setting out as leader of this band, he followed the same road as his

predecessors and met with the same disasters. It was in early autumn

that they passed through Hungary. The harvest was beginning, and the

Germans pillaged and murdered wherever they went. King Coloman

attacked them, but with little success. He then tried deceit, and,

persuading the Germans to lay down their arms and to join the

Hungarians as brothers, he fell on them, and massacred every one. Of

all this vast host only one or two escaped through the forests to

their own country to tell the tale.

One more turbulent band followed, to meet the same fate; but this

was the worst—the most undisciplined of all. Headed by a priest

named Volkmar, and a Count Emicon, they straggled without order or

discipline, filled with the wildest superstitions. Before their army

was led sometimes a she-goat, sometimes a goose, which they imagined

to be filled with the Holy Spirit; and as all sins were to be

expiated by the recovery of the Holy Land, there was a growing

feeling that there was no longer any need of avoiding sin.

Consequently, the wildest licence was indulged in, and this, which

called itself “the army of the Lord,” was a horde of the most

abandoned criminals. Their greatest crime was the slaughter of the

Jews along the banks of the Rhine and Moselle. “Why,” they asked,

“should we, who march against the Infidels, leave behind us the

enemies of our Lord?” The bishops of the sees through which they

passed vainly interposed their entreaties. In Cologne and Mayence

every Jew was murdered; some of the miserable people tied stones

round their own necks, and leaped into the river; some killed their

wives and children, and set fire to their houses, perishing in the

flames; the mothers killed the infants at their breasts, and the

Christians themselves fled in all directions at the approach of an

army as terrible to its friends as to its foes.

But their course was of short duration. At the town of Altenburg, on

the confines of Hungary, which they attempted to storm, they were

seized with a sudden panic and fled in all directions, being

slaughtered like sheep. Emicon got together a small band, whom he

led home again; a few others were led by their chiefs southwards,

and joined the princes of the Crusade in Italy. None of them,

according to William of Tyre, found their way to Peter the Hermit.

Once across the Dardanelles, Peter’s troops, who amounted, it is

said, in spite of all their losses, to no fewer than a hundred

thousand fighting men, fixed a camp on the shores of the Gulf of

Nicomedia, and began to ravage the country in all directions. The

division of the booty soon caused quarrels, and a number of Italians

and Germans, deserting the camp, went up the country in a body, and

took possession of a small fortress in the neighbourhood of Nicæa,

whose garrison they massacred. Then they were in their turn

besieged, and, with the exception of their leader, Renaud, or

Rinaldo, who embraced the Mahometan faith, were slaughtered to a

man. The news of this disaster roused the Christians, not to a sense

of their danger (which they could not yet comprehend), but to a

vehement desire for revenge. They made the luckless Walter lead them

against Nicæa, and issued forth from their camp _en masse_, a

disordered, shouting multitude, crying for vengeance against the

Turks. But their end was at hand. The Sultan of Nicæa placed half

his army in ambuscade in the forest, keeping the other half in the

plain; the Christians were attacked in the front and in the rear,

and, cooped up together in confusion, badly armed, offered very

slight resistance. Walter himself fell, one of the first; the

carnage was terrific, and of all the hundred thousand whom Peter and

Walter had brought across the Dardanelles, but three thousand

escaped. These fled to a fortress by the sea-shore. The bones of

their comrades, whitened by the eastern sun, long stood as a

monument of the disaster, pointing skeleton fingers on the road to

Jerusalem—the road of death and defeat.

Only three thousand, out of all these hordes, certainly a quarter of

a million in number, which flocked after Peter on his mule! We can

hardly believe that all were killed. Some of the women and children

at least might be spared, and without doubt their blood yet flows in

the veins of many Hungarian and Bulgarian families. But this was

only the first instalment of slaughter. There remained the mighty

armies which were even then upon the road. As for Peter, whose

courage was as easily daunted as his enthusiasm was easily roused,

he fled in dismay and misery back to Constantinople, having lost all

authority, even over the few men who remained with him. He inveighed

against their disorders and their crimes, and he declared that these

were the causes of their defeat. He might have added that his own

weakness, the vanity which led him to accept the _rôle_, offered him

by an ignorant crowd, of general as well as preacher, was no less a

cause of disaster than the disorder which it was his business to

check and combat day by day. His disappointment was such as would be

enough to kill a really proud and strong man; but Peter was not a

strong man; in the hour of danger he bent like the reed to the

storm; the violence of the tempest once past, however, like the

reed, he lifted up his head again. He could preach endurance, but he

could not himself endure; his faith required constant stimulants,

his courage the fresh fire of continual success. Peter lifted up his

head again when he saw the splendid array of Godfrey and Raymond;

but his old authority with the chiefs was gone. Like a worn-out

tool, he had served his purpose and was cast aside. He had no more

voice in their councils—no more power over their enthusiasm. He

lapsed into utter insignificance, save once, when we find him

actually trying to desert the army at Antioch and endeavouring to

run away; and once, later on, when he received the brief ovation

from the native Christians in the hour of final triumph at

Jerusalem. He returned, it may be added, in safety to France when

the war was over, and spent sixteen years more in honourable

obscurity, the head of a monastery. Never in the world’s history,

with the exception of Mohammed alone, has one man produced an effect

so great and so immediate; and seldom has one man wielded an

instrument so potent as Peter, when he set forth at the head of an

army which wanted only discipline to make it invincible.

But now _vexilla regis prodeunt_; armies of a different character

are assembling in the west. Foremost among them is that headed by

Godfrey de Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine. Of him, and of his brother

Baldwin, who accompanied him, we shall have to speak again. A word

on the other chiefs of the First Crusade.

With the army of Godfrey were joined the troops of Robert Duke of

Normandy and Count Robert of Flanders.

Robert, who had pledged his duchy for five years to his brother for

ten thousands marks, we all know. He was strong, brave, and

generous. But he had no other good quality. Had his prudence, his

wisdom in council, been equal to his courage, or had his character

for temperance and self-restraint been better, he would probably

have obtained the crown of Jerusalem before Godfrey. As it was, he

went out for the purpose of fighting; he fought well; and came home

again, no richer than when he went. He was joined in Syria by the

Saxon prince, Edgar Atheling, the lawful heir to the English crown;

but the chroniclers are silent as to the prowess of the English

contingent.

The other leaders who followed separately were Hugh Vermandois, Hugh

le Grand, the brother to the king of France, and Stephen, Count of

Blois, a scholar and a poet. He it was who married Adela, daughter

of William the Conqueror, and was the father of our King Stephen.

Both of these chiefs left the Crusade at Antioch and went home

disgusted at their sufferings and ill-success; but, after the taking

of the city, popular opinion forced them to go out again.

Count Raymond, of Toulouse, who led his own army by an independent

route, is perhaps the most difficult character to understand. He was

not pious; he was cold and calculating; he was old and rich; he had

already gained distinction by fighting against the Moors; he loved

money. Why did he go? It is impossible to say, except that he had

vague ambitions of kingdoms in the East more splendid than any in

the West. He alienated a great part of his territory to get treasure

for the war, and he was by far the richest of the princes. The men

he led, the Provençaux, were much less ignorant, less superstitious,

and less smitten with the divine fury of the rest. Provence, which

in two more centuries was to be itself the scene of a crusade as

bloody as any in Palestine, was already touched with the heresy

which was destined to break out in full violence before very many

years. The Provençaux loved music, dancing, good cheer; but they

were indifferent to the Church. They could plunder better than they

could pray, and they were more often gathered round the provisions

than the pulpits. It is singular, therefore, that the most signal

miracle which attended the progress of the Christian arms should

have been wrought among the Provençaux. It was so, however: Peter

Bartholomeus, who found the Holy Lance, was a priest of Provence.

Adhémar, Bishop of Puy, himself a Provençal, the most clear-headed,

most prudent, and most thoughtful of the army, treated the story of

Peter, it is true, with disdain; nor did Raymond believe it; as was

evident when, on there appearing, shortly afterwards, symptoms that

another miracle, of which he saw no use, was about to happen, he

suppressed it with a strong hand. At the same time, he did not

disdain to make use of the Holy Lance, and the “miracle” most

certainly contributed very largely, as we shall see, to the success

of the Christians.

The two remaining great chiefs were Bohemond and Tancred. Bohemond,

who was a whole cubit taller than the tallest man in the army, was

the son of that Norman, Robert Guiscard, who, with a band of some

thirty knights, managed to wrest the whole of Calabria, Apulia, and

Sicily from the Greeks. On his father’s death he had quarrelled with

his brother Roger over the inheritance, and was actually besieging

him in the town of Amalfi, when the news of the Crusades reached

him. The number of those engaged, the rank of the leaders, the large

share taken by the Normans, inspired him with the hope that here, at

last, was the chance of humiliating, and even conquering, his enemy

the Emperor of Constantinople. Perhaps, too, some noble impulse

actuated him. However that may be, he began himself to preach a

crusade to his own army, and with so much success—for he preached of

glory and plunder, as well as of religion—that he found himself in a

few days at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot.

With these he joined the other chiefs at Constantinople. His life

was a long series of battles. He was crafty and sagacious; hence his

name of Guiscard—the wise one; quite indifferent to the main object

of the Crusaders—in fact, he did not go on with them to Jerusalem

itself—and anxious only to do the Greeks a mischief and himself some

good.

With him went his cousin Tancred, the hero of the “Jerusalem

Delivered.” The history of the First Crusade contains all his

history. After the conquest of Jerusalem, and after displaying

extraordinary activity and bravery, he was made Prince of Galilee,

and his cousin was Prince of Antioch. Tancred is a hero of romance.

Apart from his fighting he has no character; in every battle he is

foremost, but when the battle is over we hear nothing about him. He

appears however to have had a great deal of his cousin’s prudence,

and united with the bravery of the lion some, at least, of the

cunning of the fox. He died about the year 1113.

Hugh, Count of Vermandois, who was one of the chiefs of the army

brought by Robert of Normandy, was the third son of Henry I. of

France. He was called Le Grand, not on account of any mental or

physical superiority, but because by marriage he was the head of the

Vermandois house. He was one of the first to desert the Crusade,

terrified by the misfortunes which overtook the expedition; but,

like Stephen of Blois, he was obliged by the force of popular

opinion to go back again as a Crusader. The second time he was

wounded by the Turks near Nicæa, and only got as far as Tarsus in

Cilicia, where he died. Like Robert of Normandy, he joined to great

bravery and an extreme generosity a certain weakness of character,

which marred all his finer qualities.

Robert of Flanders seems to have been a fighting man pure and

simple—by the Saracens called “St. George,” and by his own side the

“Sword and Lance of the Christians.” He, no more fighting remaining

to be done, returned quietly to his own states, with the comfortable

conviction that he had atoned for his former sins by his conduct in

the Holy War. He enjoyed ten years more fighting at home, and then

got drowned in the River Marne; an honest single-minded knight, who

found himself in perfect accord with the spirit of his age.

With these principal barons and chiefs were a crowd of poorer

princes, each with his train of knights and men-at-arms. The money

for the necessary equipments had been raised in various ways: some

had sold their lands, others their seigneurial rights; some had

pawned their states; while one or two, despising these direct and

obvious means of raising funds, had found a royal road to money by

pillaging the villages and towns around them.

It was not till eight months after the Council of Clermont[49] that

Godfrey’s army, consisting of ten thousand knights and eighty

thousand foot, was able to begin its march. Fortunately, a good

harvest had just been gathered in, and food of all kinds was

abundant and cheap. The army, moreover, was well-disciplined, and no

excesses were committed on its way through Germany. It followed

pretty nearly the same line as that taken by Walter and Peter, and

must have been troubled along the whole route by news of the

extravagances and disasters of those who had preceded them. Arriving

on the frontiers of Hungary, Godfrey sent deputies to King Coloman,

asking permission to march peaceably, buying whatever he had need

of, through his dominions. Hostages, consisting of his brother

Baldwin and his family, were given for the good behaviour of the

troops, and permission was granted; the King of Hungary following

close on the track of the army, in case any breach of faith should

be attempted. But none took place, and at Semlin, when the last

Crusader had crossed the river into Bulgarian territory, King

Coloman personally, and with many expressions of friendship and

goodwill, delivered over the hostages, and parted. Getting through

the land of the Bulgarians as quickly as might be, Godfrey pushed on

as far as Philippopolis. There he learned that Count Hugh, who had

been shipwrecked, sailing in advance of his army, on the shores of

Epirus, was held a prisoner by Alexis Comnenus, very probably as a

sort of hostage for the good behaviour of the very host whose help

he had implored. Godfrey sent imperatively to demand the release of

the Count, and being put off with an evasive reply, gave his troops

liberty to ravage and plunder along the road—a privilege which they

fully appreciated. This practical kind of reply convinced Alexis

that the barbarians were not, at least, awed by the greatness of his

fame. He hastened to give way, and assured Godfrey that his prisoner

should be released directly the army arrived at Constantinople.

Footnote 49:

August, 1096.

Meantime, the other armies were all on their way, converging to

Constantinople. The route followed by them is not at all times

clear. Some appear to have marched through Italy, Dalmatia, and

across Thessaly, while a few went by sea; and though the first

armies of Peter and Walter carried off a vast number of pilgrims,

there can be no doubt that these armies were followed by a great

number of priests, monks, women, and persons unable to fight.

Alexis, on hearing of Bohemond’s speedy arrival, was greatly

alarmed—as, indeed, he had reason to be. With his usual duplicity,

he sent ambassadors to flatter his formidable visitor, while he

ordered his frontier troops to harass him on his march; and Bohemond

had alternately to receive the assurances of the Emperor’s

friendship, and to fight his troops. No wonder that he wrote to

Godfrey at Constantinople to be on his guard, as he had to do “with

the most ferocious wild beast and the most wicked man alive.” But,

in spite of his hatred, the fierce Norman found himself constrained

to put off his resentment in the presence of Greek politeness; and

the rich gifts with which Alexis loaded him, if they did not quiet

his suspicions, at least allayed his wrath. Alexis got rid of his

unwelcome visitors as speedily as he could. After going through the

ceremony of adopting Godfrey as his son, and putting the empire

under his protection, he received the homage of the princes, one

after the other, with the exception alone of Tancred. And then he

sent them all across the straits, to meet whatever fortune awaited

them on the other side.

The story of the First Crusade is an oft-told tale. But it is a tale

which bears telling often. There is nothing in history which may be

compared with this extraordinary rising of whole peoples. The

numbers which came from Western Europe cannot, of course, be even

approximately stated. Probably, counting the women, children, and

camp-followers, their number would not be less than a million. Of

these, far more than a half, probably two-thirds, came from the

provinces of France. The Germans were but slightly affected by the

universal enthusiasm—the English not at all. Edgar Atheling brought

a band of his countrymen to join Robert of Normandy; but these were

probably those who had compromised themselves in former attempts to

raise Northumbria and other parts of England. The Italians came from

the south, but not from the north; and nearly the whole of Spain was

occupied by the caliphate of Cordova. That all these soldiers were

fired with the same ardour, were led by the same disinterested hope,

is not to be supposed; but it is certain from every account, whether

Christian or Arabic, that the main object of their enterprise was a

motive power strong enough, of itself, to enable them to endure

hardships and privations almost incredible, and to combat with

forces numerically, at least, ten times their superior.

The way to the Holy Land lay through a hostile country. Asia Minor,

overrun by the Mohammedans since twenty years, was garrisoned rather

than settled. Numerous as were the followers of the Crescent, they

had not been able to do more, in their rapid march of conquest, than

to take strongholds and towns, and keep them. There were even some

towns which had never surrendered, while of those which belonged to

them, many were held by insufficient forces, and contained an

element of weakness in the large number of Christian inhabitants.

And the first of these towns which came in their way was the town of

Nicæa.

The miserable remnant of Peter’s army, on the arrival of their

friends, made haste to show them the places of their own disasters.

These fugitives had lived hidden in the forest, and now, on seeing

the _brassard_ of the Cross, emerged—barefooted, ragged, unarmed,

cowed—to tell the story of their sufferings. They took the soldiers

to see the plain where their great army had been massacred—there

were the piles of bones, the plain white with them; they took them

to the camp where the women and children had been left. These were

gone, but the remains were left of the old men and those who had

tried to defend them. Their bodies lay in the moat which had been

cut round the camp. In the centre, like a pillar of reproach, stood

the white stones which had served for the altar of the camp.

Filled with wrath at the sight of these melancholy objects, the

soldiers cried out to be led against their enemy; and the whole

army, preceded by four thousand pioneers to clear the way, was

marched in good order towards Nicæa, where the enemy awaited them.

The Crusaders—they spoke nineteen different languages—were accoutred

with some attempt at similarity. The barons and knights wore a coat

of chain-armour, while a helmet, set with silver for the princes, of

steel for knights, and of iron for the rest, protected their heads.

Round bucklers were carried by the knights, long shields by the

foot-soldiers; besides the lance, the sword, the arrow, they carried

the mace and battleaxe, the sling, and the terrible crossbow; while,

for a rallying-point for the soldiers, every prince bore painted on

his standard those birds, animals, and towns, which subsequently

became coats-of-arms, and gave birth to the science of Heraldry.

The total number of the gigantic host amounted, it is said, to one

hundred thousand knights and five hundred thousand foot-soldiers.

But this is evidently an exaggeration. If it is not, the losses by

battle, famine, and disease were proportionately greater than those

of any wars recorded in history.

The first operation was the siege of Nicæa—Nicæa, the city of the

great Council—and the avenging of the slaughtered army of Peter.

Nicæa stood on the low shores of a lake. It was provided with

vessels of all kinds, by which it could receive men and provisions,

and was therefore practically impregnable. But the Mohammedans,

fully advertised of the approach of their enemies, had made

preparations to receive them; and with an immense army, all mounted,

charged the array of the Christians on the moment of their arrival

in the plains, and while they were occupied in putting up their

tents. Victory, such as it was, remained with the Crusaders, but

cost them the lives of more than two thousand of their men. The

siege of Nicæa, undertaken after this battle, made slow progress.

While the Christians wasted their strength in vain efforts to

demolish the walls and cross the moats, the garrison, constantly

reinforced during the night by means of the lake, held out unshaken

for some weeks. Finding out the means by which their strength was

recruited, Godfrey, by immense exertions, transported overland from

the neighbouring sea a number of light craft, which he launched on

the lake, and succeeded in accomplishing a perfect blockade of the

town. The Nicæans, terrified at the success of this manœuvre, and by

the fate of their most important town, were ready to surrender at

discretion, when the cunning of Alexis Comnenus—who had despatched a

small force, nominally for the assistance of the Crusaders, but

really for the purpose of watching after his own interests—succeeded

in inducing the town to surrender to him alone; and the Christians,

after all their labour, had the mortification of seeing the Greek

flag flying over the citadel, instead of their own. From his own

point of view, the Emperor was evidently right. The Crusaders had

sworn to protect his empire; he claimed sovereignty over all these

lands; his object was neither to revenge the death of a horde of

invaders, nor to devastate the towns, nor to destroy the country—but

to recover and preserve. Nicæa, at least, was almost within his

reach; and though he could not expect that his authority would be

recognised in the south of Asia Minor, or in Syria, he had reason to

hope that here at any rate, so near to Constantinople, and so

recently after the oaths of the princes, it would be recognised.

So, certainly, thought the princes; for, in spite of the unrepressed

indignation of the army, they refrained from pillaging the town and

murdering the infidels, and gave the word to march.

It was now early summer; the soldiers had not yet experienced the

power of an Asiatic sun; no provision was made against the dangers

of famine and thirst, and their way led through a land parched with

heat, devastated by wars, over rocky passes, across pathless plains.

The Crusaders neither knew the country, nor made any preparations,

beyond carrying provisions for two or three days. They were,

moreover, encumbered with their camp-followers, their baggage, and

the weight of their arms.

They were divided, principally for convenience of forage, into two

_corps d’armée_, of which one was commanded by Godfrey, Raymond,

Robert of Flanders, and the Count of Vermandois, while the other was

led by the three Norman chiefs, Robert, Tancred, and Bohemond. For

seven days all went well, the armies having completely lost sight of

each other, but confident, after their recent successes, that there

would be no more enemies at hand to combat. They were mistaken.

Tancred’s division, on the evening of the 30th of June, pitched

their camp in a valley called by William of Tyre the valley of

Gorgona. It was protected on one side by a river, on the other by a

marsh filled with reeds. The night was passed in perfect security,

but at daybreak the enemy was upon them. Bohemond took the command.

Placing the women and the sick in the midst, he divided the cavalry

into three brigades, and prepared to dispute the passage of the

river. The Saracens discharged their arrows into the thick ranks of

the Crusaders, whose wounded horses confused and disordered them.

Unable to endure these attacks with patience, the Christians crossed

the river and charged their enemies; but the Saracens, mounted on

lighter horses, made way for them to pass, and renewed the discharge

of their arrows. Another band, taking advantage of the knights

having crossed the river, forded it at a higher point, and attacked

the camp itself. Then the slaughter of the sick and wounded, and

even of the women, save those whose beauty was sufficient to ransom

their lives, began. On the other side of the stream the knights

fought every one for himself. Tancred, nearly killed in the _mêlée_,

was saved by Bohemond; Robert of Normandy performed prodigies; the

camp was retaken, and the women rescued. But the day was not won.

Nor would it have been won, but for the arrival of Godfrey, to whom

Bohemond, early in the day, had sent a messenger. He brought up the

whole of his army, and the Saracens, retreating to the hills, found

themselves attacked on all sides. They fled in utter disorder,

leaving twenty-three thousand dead on the field, and the whole of

their camp and baggage in the hands of the Christians. These had

lost four thousand, besides the number of followers killed in the

camp. The booty was immense, and the soldiers pleased themselves by

dressing in the long silk robes of the Mussulmans, while they

refurnished themselves with arms from those they found upon the

dead. Conscious, however, of the danger they had escaped, they were

careful to acknowledge that they would not have carried the day, had

it not been for St. George and St. Demetrius, who had been plainly

visible to many fighting on their side; and the respect which they

conceived for the Saracens’ prowess taught them, at least, a

salutary lesson of caution.

While they were rejoicing, the enemy was acting. The defeated Turks,

retreating southwards, by the way which the Christians must follow,

devastated and destroyed every thing as they traversed the country,

procuring one auxiliary at least in the shape of famine. They had

two more—thirst and heat.

The Crusaders, once more on the march, resolved not to separate

again, and formed henceforth but one army. But they journeyed

through a desert and desolate country; there was no food but the

roots of plants; their horses died for want of water and forage; the

knights had to walk on foot, or to ride oxen and asses; every beast

was converted into a beast of burden, until the time came when the

beasts themselves perished by the way, and all the baggage was

abandoned. Their path led through Phrygia, a wild and sterile

country, with no fountains or rivers; the road was strewn as they

went along by the bodies of those who died of sunstroke or of

thirst; women, overcome by fatigue and want of water, lay down and

were delivered of children, and there died, mothers and infants; in

one terrible day five hundred died on the march; the falcons and

hawks, which the knights had been unable to leave behind, fell dead

from their perches; the hounds deserted their masters, and went away

to seek for water; the horses themselves, in which the hope of the

soldier was placed, lay down and died. At last they came to a river;

even this timely relief was fatal, for three hundred killed

themselves by drinking too much. They rested, after this disastrous

march, at Antiocheia, the former capital of Pisidia. Here Raymond

fell ill, but happily recovered, and Godfrey was dangerously wounded

in a conflict with a bear. To account for the discomfiture of the

prince, it is recorded that the bear was the biggest and most

ferocious bear ever seen.

During their stay at Antiocheia, Tancred and Baldwin—the former with

a detachment of Italians, the latter with one of Flemings—were sent

to explore the country, to bring help to the Christians, and report

on the means of obtaining provisions. They went first to Iconium;

finding no enemies, they went southwards, and Tancred, leading the

way, made an easy conquest of Tarsus, promising to spare the lives

of the garrison. Baldwin arrived the next day, and on perceiving the

flag of Tancred on the towers, insisted, on the ground that his own

force was superior in numbers, on taking it down and replacing it by

his own. A violent quarrel arose, the first of the many which were

to disgrace the history of the Crusades. Neither would give way.

They agreed at last to refer the dispute to the inhabitants. These,

at first, gave the preference to Tancred; but at last, yielding to

the threats of Baldwin, transferred their allegiance to him, and

threw Tancred’s flag over the ramparts. Tancred withdrew, indignant,

and marched with all his men to Adana, an important place some

twenty miles from Tarsus. This he found in the possession of a

Burgundian adventurer, who had got a company of pilgrims to follow

him, and seized the place. History does not deign, unfortunately, to

notice the exploits of the _viri obscuri_, but it is clear enough,

that while the great princes were seizing states and cities, bands

of armed soldiers, separated from the great army, were overrunning

the country, taking possession of small forts and towns, where they

lived at their own will and pleasure, till the Turks came and killed

them all. The Burgundian was courteous to Tancred, and helped him

with provisions on his way to Malmistra, a large and important

place, before which he pitched his camp.

But a terrible calamity had happened at Tarsus. Baldwin got into the

town, and, jealous of his newly-acquired possession, ordered the

gates to be carefully closed and guarded. In the evening, a troop of

three hundred Crusaders, sent by Bohemond to reinforce Tancred,

arrived at the town, and asked for admission. Baldwin refused. They

pleaded the extremity of fatigue and hunger, to which a long march

had reduced them. Baldwin still refused. His own men urged him to

admit them. Baldwin refused again. In the morning they were all

found dead, killed in the night by the Turks, who took advantage of

their sleep and exhaustion. At this spectacle the grief and rage of

the soldiers were turned against the cause of their comrades’ death.

Baldwin took refuge in a tower, but presently came out, and,

lamenting the disaster of which he alone was the cause, pointed his

soldiers to the towers where the garrison of the Turks (prisoners,

but under promise of safety) were shut up. The Christians massacred

every one.

Here they were joined by a fleet of pirates, who, after having been

for ten years the terror of the Mediterranean, were desirous of

expiating their crimes by taking part in the Crusade. Their leader,

Guymer, was a Boulogne man, and readily brought his men as a

reinforcement to the troops of Baldwin, his seigneur. Baldwin left a

garrison in Tarsus, and set out to rejoin Tancred. But the death of

the three hundred could not so easily be forgotten. Tancred and his

army, maddened at the intelligence of Baldwin’s approach, clamoured

for revenge, and Tancred, without much reluctance, gave the order to

attack Baldwin’s camp. A sanguinary battle followed, in which

Tancred’s forces, inferior in numbers, were worsted, and obliged to

withdraw. The night brought reflection, and the next morning was

occupied in reconciliation and promises of friendship. Malmistra was

taken, and all the Mohammedans slaughtered, and after a few more

exploits, Tancred returned to the army. Baldwin, however, whose

ardour for the recovery of Jerusalem had yielded by this time to his

ambition, only saw, in the disordered state of the country, the

splendid opportunities which it presented to one who had the courage

to seize them. Perhaps the sight of the successful Burgundian of

Adana helped him to form projects of his own; perhaps the remarks of

an Armenian named Pancrates, who was always whispering in his ear of

the triumphs to be won by an independent line of action. He returned

to Godfrey, indeed, but only to try his powers of seduction among

the soldiers, whom he incited to follow him by magnificent promises.

The princes were alarmed at the first news of his intended

defection; at a council hastily assembled, it was resolved to

prohibit any Crusader, whatever his rank, from leaving the army.

Baldwin, however, the very night on which this resolution was

carried, secretly marched out of the camp, at the head of some

twelve hundred foot-soldiers and two hundred knights, accompanied by

his Armenian friend. His exploits, until he was summoned back to

Jerusalem, hardly concern us here. After taking one or two small

towns, and quarrelling with Pancrates, whom he left behind, he

pushed on to Edessa, which, by a series of lucky escapes, he entered

with only a hundred knights, to become its king. Here he must for

the present be left.

Meantime, the great army of the Crusaders was pressing on. For the

moment it was unmolested. Both Christian and Saracen had begun to

conceive a respect for each other’s prowess. The latter found that

his innumerable troops of light cavalry were of little use against

the heavily-armed and disciplined masses of the Crusaders: while

these, harassed by the perpetual renewal of armies which seemed only

destroyed to spring again from the earth, and convinced now that the

recovery of the Holy City would be no holiday ramble in a sunny

land, marched with better discipline and more circumspection. But

the Saracens, unable to raise another army in time, fled before

them, leaving towns and villages unoccupied. The Christians burnt

the mosques, and plundered the country. Even the passes of Mount

Taurus were left unguarded, and the Christian army passed through

defiles and valleys, where a very small force might have barred the

passage for the whole army. They suffered, however, from their

constant enemies, heat and thirst. On one mountain, called the

“Mountain of the Devil,” the army had to pass along a path so narrow

that the horses were led, and the men could not walk two abreast.

Here, wearied with the ascent, faint with thirst, hundreds sank,

unable to proceed, or fell over the precipices. It was the last of

the cruel trials through which they were to pass before they reached

the land of their pilgrimage. From the summit of the last pass, they

beheld, stretched out at their feet, the fair land of Syria. Covered

with ruins, as it was—those ruins which exist to the present day—and

devastated by so many successive wars, nothing had been able to ruin

the fertility of the soil; and after the arid plains through which

they had passed, no wonder the worn and weary soldiers rejoiced and

thanked God aloud, when they saw at last the very country to which

they were journeying. The ordeal of thirst and heat had been passed

through, and their numbers were yet strong. Nothing now remained, as

they fondly thought, but to press on, and fight the enemy before the

very walls of Jerusalem.

The successes of Tancred cleared the way for the advance of the main

army. Nothing interposed to stop them; provisions were plentiful,

and their march was unimpeded by any enemy. Count Robert of Flanders

led the advance corps. At Artasia, a town about a day’s march from

Antioch, the gates were thrown open to them; and though the garrison

of Antioch threw out flying squadrons of cavalry, they were not able

to check the advance of the army, which swarmed along the roads, in

numbers reduced, indeed, by one half, from the six hundred thousand

who gathered before Nicæa, but still irresistible. The old bridge of

stone which crossed the Orontes was stormed, and the Crusaders were

fairly in Syria, and before Antioch.

The present governor of this great and important town was Baghi

Seyan, one of the Seljukian princes. He had with him a force of

about twenty-five thousand, foot and horse; he was defended by a

double wall of stone, strengthened by towers; he was plentifully

supplied with provisions; he had sent messengers for assistance to

all quarters, and might reasonably hope to be relieved; and he had

expelled from the town all useless mouths, including the native

Christians. Moreover, it was next to impossible for the Crusaders to

establish a complete line round the city, and cut him off from

supplies and reinforcements.

It was late in the autumn when the Christian army sat down before

the first place. For the first two or three weeks the country was

scoured for provisions, and the soldiers, improvident and reckless,

lived in a luxury and abundance which they had never before

experienced. But even Syria, fertile and rich, could not long

suffice for the daily wants of a wasteful army of three hundred

thousand men. Food began to grow scarce; foraging parties brought in

little or nothing, though they scoured the whole country; bands of

Turks, mounted on fleet and hardy horses, intercepted straggling

parties, and robbed them of their cattle; the fleet brought them

very small supplies; Baldwin had as yet sent nothing from Edessa,

and famine once more made its appearance in the camp. The rains of

winter fell, and their tents were destroyed. The poor lived on what

they could find, bark and roots; the rich had to spend all their

money in buying food; and all the horses died. Worse still, there

was defection among the very leaders; Robert of Normandy went to

Laodicea, and was persuaded with great difficulty to come back.

Peter the Hermit fairly ran away, and was brought back a prisoner to

the army which his own voice had raised. And when Bohemond and

Tancred went out, with as large a force as could be spared, to

procure provisions, they were attacked by superior numbers, and

obliged to return empty-handed. Bishop Adhémar, seeing in the sins

of the camp a just cause for the punishments that were falling upon

it, enjoined a three days’ fast, and public prayers. The former was

superfluous, inasmuch as the whole camp was fasting. But he did

more. He caused all women to be sent away, and all games of chance

to be entirely prohibited. The distress continued, but hope and

confidence were revived; and when, early in the year 1098, supplies

were brought in, the army regained most of its old _bravoure_. A

victory gained over a reinforcement of twenty-five thousand Turks

aided in reviving the spirit of the soldiers: it was in this action

that Godfrey is reported to have cut a Turk completely through the

body, so that his horse galloped off with the legs and lower part of

the trunk still in the saddle. The camp of the enemy was taken, and

for a time there was once more abundance. But the siege was not yet

over. For eight months it lingered on, defended with the obstinacy

that the Turks always displayed when brought to bay within stone

walls. It was not till June that the town, not the citadel, was

taken, by the treachery of one Pyrrhus, an Armenian renegade. He

offered secretly to put the town, which was in his charge, into the

hands of Bohemond. The Norman chief, always anxious to promote his

own interests, proposed, at the council of the Crusaders, to take

the town on condition that it should be given to him. Raymond of

Toulouse alone objected—his objection was overruled; and on the

night of the 2nd of June, Pyrrhus admitted the Christians. They made

themselves masters, under cover of the darkness, of ten of the

towers round the walls; and opening the gates to their own men, made

an easy conquest of the town in the morning, slaughtering every

Mussulman they could find. Baghi Seyan fled, and, being abandoned by

his guards, was murdered by some Syrian woodcutters, who brought his

head to the camp. And then, once more, untaught by their previous

sufferings, the Crusaders for a few days gave themselves up to the

enjoyment of their booty. But the citadel was not taken, and the

host of Kerboga was within a short march of the town. He came with

the largest army that the Christians had yet encountered. Robert of

Flanders defended the bridge for a whole day with five hundred men,

but was obliged to retire, and the Christians were in their turn the

besieged.

And then, again, famine set in. The seashore was guarded by the

Turks, and supplies could not be procured from the fleet; the

horses, and all the beasts of burden, were slaughtered and eaten;

some of the knights who were fainthearted managed to let themselves

down by ropes from the walls, and made their way to Stephen of

Blois, who had long since separated from the main army, and was now

lying at Alexandretta. They brought such accounts of the misery of

the army, that Stephen abandoned the cause as hopeless, and set sail

with his men for Cilicia. Here he found Alexis himself, with a large

army, consisting chiefly of those who had arrived too late to join

the army of Godfrey. The newcomers heard with dismay the accounts

given by Stephen; they gave themselves up to lamentation and

despair; they blasphemed the God who had permitted His soldiers to

be destroyed, and for some days would actually permit no prayers to

be offered up in their camp. Alexis broke up his camp, and returned

to Constantinople. And when the news arrived in Antioch, the

Crusaders, too wretched to fight or to hope, shut themselves up in

the houses, and refused to come out. Bohemond set fire to the town,

and so compelled them to show themselves, but could not make them

fight.

Where human eloquence failed, one of those miracles, common enough

in the ages of credulity, the result of overheated imaginations and

excited brains, succeeded. A vision of the night came to one Peter

Bartholomæus, a monk, of two men in shining raiment. One of them,

St. Andrew himself, took the monk into the air, and brought him to

the Church of St. Peter, and set him at the south side of the altar.

He then showed him the head of a lance. “This,” he said, “was the

lance which opened the side of Our Lord. See where I bury it. Get

twelve men to dig in the spot till they find it.” But in the morning

Peter was afraid to tell his vision. This was before the taking of

Antioch. But after the town was taken, the vision came again, and in

his dream Peter saw once more the apostle, and received his

reproaches for neglect of his commands. Peter remonstrated that he

was poor and of no account; and then he saw that the apostle’s

companion was none other than the Blessed Lord himself, and the

humble monk was privileged to fall and kiss His feet.

We are not of those who believe that men are found so base as to

contrive a story of this kind. There is little doubt in our minds

that this poor Peter, starving as he was, full of fervour and

enthusiasm, dreamed his dream, not once but twice, and went at last,

brimful of pious gratitude, to Adhémar with his tale. Adhémar heard

him with incredulity and coldness. But Raymond saw in this incident

a means which might be turned to good account. He sent twelve men to

the church, and from morning till night they dug in vain. But at

length Peter himself, leaping into the hole they had made, called

aloud on God to redeem his promise, and produced a rusty spear-head.

Adhémar acquiesced with the best grace in his power; the lance was

exhibited to the people the next morning, and the enthusiasm of the

army, famished, and ragged, and dismounted, once more beat as high

as when they sewed the red Cross badge upon their shoulders, and

shouted “Dieu le veut.”

They had been besieged three weeks; all their horses, except three

hundred, were killed. Their ranks were grievously thinned, but they

went out to meet the enemy with such confidence that the only orders

given related to the distribution of the plunder. As they took their

places in the plain, Adhémar raised their spirits by the

announcement of another miracle. Saint George, Saint Maurice, and

Saint Demetrius, had themselves been distinctly seen to join the

army, and were in their midst. The Christians fought as only

religious enthusiasts can fight—as the Mohammedans fought when the

Caliph Omar led his conquering bands northwards, with the delights

of heaven for those who fell, and the joys of earth for those who

survived. The Turks were routed with enormous slaughter. Their camp,

rich and luxurious, fell into the hands of the conquerors;[50]

plenty took the place of starvation; the common soldiers amused

themselves with decking their persons with the silken robes they

found in the huts; the cattle were driven to the town in long

processions; and once more, forgetful of all but the present, the

Christians revelled and feasted.

Footnote 50:

Among the spoils taken by the Christians one of the chroniclers

reports a mass of manuscripts, “on which were traced the

sacrilegious rites of the Mahometans in execrable characters,”

doubtless Arabic. Probably among these manuscripts were many of

the greatest importance. Nothing is said about their fate, but of

course they were all destroyed.

The rejoicings had hardly ceased when it was found that another

enemy had to be encountered. Battle was to be expected: famine had

already twice been experienced: this time it was pestilence, caused,

no doubt, by the crowding together of so large an army and the

absence of sanitary measures. The first to fall was the wise and

good Adhémar, most sensible of all the chiefs. His was a dire loss

to the Crusaders. Better could they have spared even the fiery

Tancred, or the crafty Bohemond. The Crusaders, terrified and

awe-stricken, clamoured to be led to Jerusalem, but needs must that

they remained till the heats of summer passed, and health came again

with the early winter breezes, in their camp at Antioch.

It was not till November that they set out on their march to

Jerusalem. The time had been consumed in small expeditions, the

capture of unimportant places, and the quarrels of the princes over

the destination of Antioch, which Bohemond claimed for himself.

Their rival claims were still unsettled, when the voice of the

people made itself heard, and very shame made them, for a time at

least, act in concert, and the advance corps, led by Bohemond,

Robert of Normandy, and Raymond of Toulouse, began their southward

march with the siege of Marra, an important place, which they took,

after three or four weeks, by assault. Fresh disputes arose about

the newly-acquired town, but the common soldiers, furious at these

never-ending delays, ended them by the simple expedient of pulling

down the walls. It was the middle of January, however, before they

resumed their march. From Marah to Capharda, thence along the

Orontes, when the small towns were placed in their hands, to Hums,

when they turned westward to the sea, and sat down before the castle

of Arca till they should be joined by the main body, which was still

at Antioch. It came up in April, and the army of the Crusaders,

united again, were ready to resume their march when they were

interrupted by more disputes. In an ill-timed hour, Bohemond, the

incredulous Norman, accused Raymond of conniving with Peter to

deceive the army by palming off upon them an old rusty lance-head as

the sacred spear which had pierced the side of the Lord. Arnold,

chaplain to Duke Robert of Normandy, was brought forward to support

the charge. He rested his argument chiefly on the fact that Adhémar

had disbelieved the miracle: but he contended as well that the

spear-head could not possibly be in Antioch. He was confuted in the

manner customary to the time. One bold monk swore that Adhémar,

after death, for his contumacy in refusing to believe in the

miracle, had been punished by having one side of his beard burned in

the flames of hell, and was not permitted a full enjoyment of heaven

till the beard should grow again. Another quoted a prophecy of Saint

Peter, alleged to be in a Syrian gospel, that the invention of the

lance was to be a sign of the deliverance of the Christians; a third

had spoken personally with Saint Mark himself; while the Virgin Mary

had appeared by night to a fourth to corroborate the story. Arnold

pretended to give way before testimony so overwhelming, and was

ready to retract his opinion publicly, when Peter, crazed with

enthusiasm, offered to submit his case to the ordeal of fire. This

method was too congenial to the fierce and eager spirits of the

Crusaders to be refused. Raymond d’Agiles, who was a witness, thus

tells the story.

“Peter’s proposition appeared to us reasonable, and after enjoining

a fast on Peter, we agreed to kindle the fire on Good Friday itself.

“On the day appointed, the pile was prepared after noon; the princes

and the people assembled to the number of forty thousand; the

priests coming barefooted and dressed in their sacerdotal robes. The

pile was made with dry branches of olive-trees, fourteen feet long,

and four feet high, divided into two heaps, with a narrow path, a

foot wide, between each. As soon as the wood began to burn, I

myself, Raymond,[51] pronounced these words, ‘If the Lord himself

has spoken to this man face to face, and if Saint Andrew has shown

him the lance of the Lord, let him pass through the fire without

receiving any hurt: or, if not, let him be burnt with the lance

which he carries in his hand.’ And all bending the knee, replied,

‘Amen.’

Footnote 51:

He was chaplain to Count Raymond of Toulouse.

“Then Peter, dressed in a single robe, kneeling before the bishop of

Albaric, called God to witness that he had seen Jesus on the cross

face to face, and that he had heard from the mouth of the Saviour,

and that of the apostles, Peter and Andrew, the words reported to

the princes: he added that nothing of what he had said in the name

of the saints and in the name of the Lord had been invented by

himself, and declared that if there was found any falsehood in his

story, he consented to suffer from the flames. And for the other

sins that he had committed against God and his neighbours, he prayed

that God would pardon him, and that the bishop, all the other

priests, and the people would implore the mercy of God for him. This

said, the bishop gave him the lance.

“Peter knelt again, and making the sign of the cross he reached the

flames without appearing afraid. He remained one moment in the midst

of the fire, and then came out by the grace of God.... After Peter

had gone through the fire, and although the flames were still

raging, the people gathered up the brands, the ashes, and the

charcoal, with such ardour that in a few moments nothing was left.

The Lord in the end performed great miracles by means of these

sacred relics. Peter came out of the flames without even his gown

being burned, and the light veil which covered the lance-head

escaped uninjured. He made immediately the sign of the cross, and

cried with a loud voice, ‘God help!’ to the crowd, who pressed upon

him to be certain that it was really he. Then, in their eagerness,

and because everybody wanted to touch him, and to have even some

little piece of his dress, they trampled him under their feet, cut

off pieces of his flesh, broke his back-bone, and broke his ribs. He

was only saved from being killed there and then by Raymond Pelot, a

knight, who hastily called a number of soldiers and rescued him.

“When he was brought into our tent, we dressed his wounds, and asked

him why he had stopped so long in the fire. ‘Because,’ he said, ‘the

Lord appeared to me in the midst of the flames, and taking me by the

hand, said, ‘Since thou hast doubted of the holy lance, which the

blessed Andrew showed to thee, thou shalt not go out from this sound

and safe. Nevertheless, thou shalt not see hell.’ After these words

He sent me on. ‘See now the marks of fire on my body.’ And, in fact,

there were certain burnings in the legs, small in number, though the

wounds were great.”

Peter Bartholomew died the day after—of the fire, said Bohemond, the

doubter, who continued in his disbelief, in spite of the ordeal; of

the injuries he had received in the crowd, said Raymond of Toulouse.

But the authority of the lance was established, and it was to do

good service in the battles to come. The faith of the Crusaders was

kept up by many other visions and miracles. One that had the

greatest effect was a vision seen by Anselm. To him appeared by

night Angelram, the young son of the Count of Saint Paul, who had

been killed at Marra. “Know,” said the phantom, “that those who

fight for Christ die not.” “And whence this glory that surrounds

you?” Then Angelram showed in the heavens a palace of crystal and

diamonds. “It is there,” he said, “that I have borrowed my

splendour. There is my dwelling-place. One finer still is preparing

for you, into which you will soon enter.” The next day Anselm, after

telling of this apparition, confessed and received the sacraments,

though full of health, and going into battle, was struck by a stone

in the forehead, and died immediately.

On their way to Tripoli,[52] where they first saw the sugar-cane,

the impatience of the soldiers manifested itself so strongly that

the chiefs could not venture to sit down before the place, but

pushed on, after making a sort of treaty with its governor. Here

messengers arrived from Alexis, entreating them to wait for him, and

promising to bring an army in July. But the time was gone by for

negotiation and delay, and taking the sea-shore route, by which they

ensured the protection of the fleet, they marched southwards to

Beirout. Sidon, and Tyre, and Acre, were passed without much

opposition, and the Crusaders arrived at Cæsarea, which is within

sixty miles of Jerusalem. By marches quick rather than forced, for

the enthusiasm of the army was once more at its height, they reached

Lydda, where the church of Saint George lay in ruins, having

recently been destroyed by the Turks, and thence to Ramleh. Here an

embassy from Bethlehem waited for them with prayers to protect their

town. Tancred, with a hundred knights only, rode off with them. The

people received them with psalms of joy, and took them to see the

Church of the Nativity. But they would not stay. Bethlehem is but

four miles from Jerusalem, and Tancred rode on in advance, eager to

be the first to see the city. He ascended the mount of Olives

unmolested, and there found a hermit who pointed out to him the

sacred sites. The little troop rode back in triumph to tell the

Crusaders that the city was almost within their grasp. The soldiers,

rough and rude as they were, and stained with every vice, were yet

open to the influences of this, the very goal of their hopes. From a

rising ground they beheld at last the walls of the Holy City. “And

when they heard the name of Jerusalem, the Christians could not

prevent themselves, in the fervour of their devotion, from shedding

tears; they fell on their faces to the ground, glorifying and

adoring God, who, in His goodness, had heard the prayers of His

people and had granted them, according to their desires, to arrive

at this most sacred place, the object of all their hopes.”

Footnote 52:

While they were considering which road was the easiest for their

march to Jerusalem, the Crusaders received a deputation from a

Christian people, said to be sixty thousand in number, living in

the mountains of Lebanus. They offered their services as guides,

and pointed out that there were three roads: the first by way of

Damascus, level and plain, and always abounding in provisions; the

second over Mount Lebanon, safe from any enemy, and also full of

provisions, but difficult for beasts of burden; and the third by

the sea-shore, abounding in defiles, where “fifty Mussulmans would

be able, if they pleased, to stop the whole of mankind.” “But,”

said these Christians, “if you are of a verity that nation which

is to overcome Jerusalem, you must pass along the sea-shore,

however difficult that road may appear, _according to the Gospel

of St. Peter_. Your way, such as you have made it, and such as you

must make it, is all laid down in that Gospel which we possess.”

What was this Gospel? or is it only one of the credulous stories

of Raymond d’Agiles?

The army which sat down before Jerusalem numbered about twenty

thousand fighting men, and an equal number of camp followers, old

men, women, and children. This was the miserable remnant of that

magnificent army of six hundred thousand, with which Godfrey had

taken Nicæa and punished the massacre of Walter and his rabble.

Where were all the rest? The road was strewn with their bones.

Across the thirsty deserts of Asia Minor, on the plain of Dorylæum,

and on the slopes and passes of Taurus, the Crusaders’ bodies lay

unburied, while before and within Antioch, the city of disasters,

thousands upon thousands were thrown into the river or lay in

unhallowed soil. But they were not all killed. Many had returned

home, among whom were Hugh le Grand and Stephen of Blois; many had

left the main body and gone off in free-handed expeditions of their

own, to join Baldwin and others. Thus we have heard of Wolf, the

Burgundian conqueror of Adana. Presently we find that Guymer the

pirate of Boulogne, who joined Baldwin at Tarsus, must have left him

again, and returned to his piratical ways, for we find him in prison

at Tripoli; he was delivered up by the governor of Tripoli to the

Christians, after which he appears no more. Then some had been taken

prisoners, and purchased their lives by apostacy, like Rinaldo the

Italian. And those of the captive women who were yet young were

dragging out their lives in the Turkish harems. Probably the boys,

too, were spared, and those who were young enough to forget their

Christian blood brought up to be soldiers of the Crescent.

The neighbourhood of Jerusalem was covered with light brushwood, but

there were no trees; there had been grass in plenty, but it was

dried up by the summer sun; there were wells and cisterns, but they

had all been closed,—“the fountains were sealed.” Only the pool of

Siloam was accessible to the Crusaders; this was intermittent and

irregular, and its supply, when it did flow, was miserably

inadequate for a host of forty thousand. Moreover, its waters were

brackish and disagreeable. And the camp was full of sick, wounded,

and helpless.

On the west, east, and south sides of the city no attack was

possible, on account of the valleys by which it was naturally

protected. The Crusaders pitched their camp in the north. First in

the post of danger, as usual, was the camp of Godfrey, Duke of

Lorraine. His position extended westwards from the valley of

Jehoshaphat, along the north wall. Next to him came the Count of

Flanders; next, Robert of Normandy, near whom was Edgar Atheling

with his English; at the north-west angle was Tancred; and lastly,

the camp of the Count of Toulouse extended along the west as far as

the Jaffa Gate. Later on, however, Raymond moved a portion of his

camp to that part of Mount Sion stretching south of the modern wall.

But the only place where an attacking party could hope for success

was on the north. Bohemond was not with the army. He cared less

about taking the city than wreaking his vengeance upon the Greek

emperor. Meantime, within the city was an army of forty thousand

men. Provisions for a long siege had been conveyed into the town;

the zeal of the defenders had been raised by the exhortations of the

Imams; the walls were strengthened and the moats deepened.

Communication and relief were possible from the east, where only

scattered bands of the Christians barred the way.

Immediately before the arrival of the Crusaders, the Mohammedans

deliberated whether they should slaughter all the Christians in cold

blood, or only fine them and expel them from the city. It was

decided to adopt the latter plan; and the Crusaders were greeted on

their arrival not only by the flying squadrons of the enemy’s

cavalry, but also by exiled Christians telling their piteous tales.

Their houses had been pillaged, their wives kept as hostages;

immense sums were required for their ransom; the churches were

desecrated; and, even worse still, the Infidels were contemplating

the entire destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This

last charge, at least, was not true. But it added fuel to a fire

which was already beyond any control, and the chiefs gave a ready

permission to their men to carry the town, if they could, by

assault. They had neither ladders nor machines, but, covering

themselves with their bucklers, rushed against the walls and tried

to tear them down with pikes and hammers. Boiling oil and pitch, the

best weapons for the besieged, were poured upon their heads, with

huge stones and enormous beams. In spite of heavy losses, they

managed to tear down and carry a portion of the outer wall, and the

besieged retired to their inner works, which were impregnable, at

least to hammers and pikes. One ladder, and only one, was found.

Tancred, with his usual hardihood, was the first to place his foot

on the ladder, but he was forcibly held back by his knights, who

would not allow him to rush upon certain death. Two or three gained

the wall, and were thrown from it dead. Night put an end to the

fight, and the Christians, dejected and beaten back, retired to

their camp. Heaven would work no miracles for them, and it was clear

that the city must be taken according to the ordinary methods of

warfare. Machines were necessary, but there was no wood. Chance

threw into their possession a cavern, forgotten by the Saracens,

filled with a store of timber, which went some way. There were still

some beams in the houses and churches round Jerusalem not yet

burned. All these were brought into the camp, but still there was

not enough. Then a Syrian Christian bethought him of a wood six

miles off, on the road to Samaria, whither he led the Crusaders. The

trees were small, and not of the best kind, but such as they were

they had to suffice, and all hands were employed in the construction

of towers and engines of assault. They worked with the energy of men

who have but one hope. For, in the midst of a Syrian summer, with a

burning sun over their heads, they had no water. The nearest wells,

except the intermittent spring of Siloam, were six or seven miles

away. To bring the water into the camp, strong detachments were

daily sent out; the country was scoured for miles in every direction

for water; hundreds perished in casual encounters with the enemy,

while wandering in search of wells; and the water, when it was

procured, was often so muddy and impure that the very horses refused

to drink it. As for those who worked in the camp, they dug up the

ground and sucked the moist earth; they cut pieces of turf and laid

them at their hearts to appease the devouring heat; in the morning

they licked the dew from the grass; they abstained from eating till

they were compelled by faintness; they drank the blood of their

beasts. Never, not even in Antioch, not even in Phrygia, had their

sufferings been so terrible, or so protracted. And, as the days went

on, as the sun grew fiercer, the dews more scanty—as the miracle,

still expected, delayed to come—some lay despairing in their tents,

some worked on in a despairing energy, and some threw themselves

down at the foot of the walls to die, or to be killed by the

besieged, crying, “Fall, oh walls of Jerusalem, upon us! Sacred dust

of the city, at least cover our bones!”

These trials were to have an end. In the midst of their greatest

distress, the news came that a Genoese fleet had arrived off Joppa,

loaded with munitions and provisions. A detachment of three hundred

men was sent off at once to receive them. They fought their way to

Joppa. Here they found that the Christian ships had been abandoned

to a superior Egyptian fleet, but not till after all the stores and

provisions had been landed. With the fleet was a large number of

Genoese artificers and carpenters, whose arrival in the camp was

almost as timely as that of the wine and food.

The hopes of the Crusaders, always as sanguine as they were easily

dejected, revived again. This unexpected reinforcement—was it not a

miracle? and might there not be others yet to follow? Gaston of

Béarn superintended the construction of the machines. In the

carriage of their timber, as they had no carts or wheels, they

employed their Saracen prisoners. Putting fifty or sixty of them in

line, they made them carry beams “which four oxen could not drag.”

Raymond of Toulouse, who alone had not spent all he had brought with

him, found the money to pay those few who were exempted from

gratuitous service. A regular service for the carriage of water was

organised, and some alleviation thus afforded to the sufferings

caused by thirst.

Three great towers were made, higher than the walls. Each of these

was divided into three stages; the lowest for the workmen, and the

two higher for the soldiers. The front and sides exposed to the

enemy were cased with plates of iron, or defended by wet hides; the

back part was of wood. On the top was a sort of drawbridge, which

could be lowered so as to afford a passage to the wall.

All being ready, it was determined to preface the attack by a

processional march round the city. After a fast of three days and

solemn services, the Crusaders solemnly went in procession,

barefooted and bareheaded, round the city. They were preceded by

their priests in white surplices, carrying the images of saints, and

chanting psalms; their banners were displayed, the clarions blew. As

the Israelites marched round Jericho, the Crusaders marched round

Jerusalem, and doubtless many longing eyes, though more in doubt

than in hope, were turned upon the walls to see if they, too, would

fall. They did not. The besieged crowded upon them, holding crosses,

which they insulted, and discharging their arrows at the procession.

But the hearts of the rough soldiers were moved to the utmost, not

by the taunts of their enemies, but by the sight of the sacred

spots, and the memory of the things which had taken place there:

there was Calvary; here Gethsemane, where Christ prayed and wept;

here the place where He ascended; here the spot on which He stood

while He wept over the city. They, too, could see it lying at their

feet, with the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Great Mosque in

the midst of the place where had been the Temple of the Lord. These

places cried aloud to them for deliverance. Or, if they looked

behind them, to the east, they saw the banks of the river across

which Joshua had passed, and the Dead Sea which lay above the Cities

of the Plain.

Arnold, chaplain to Duke Robert of Normandy—an eloquent man, but of

dissolute morals—harangued them. His discourse had been preserved

after the manner of historians; that is, we are told what he ought

to have said; very likely, in substance, what he did say. God, he

told them, would pardon them all sins in recompense for their

recovery of the holy places. And he made the chiefs themselves, who

had sinned by quarrelling and dissension, embrace in presence of the

whole army, and thereby set the example of perfect union. Then they

renewed, for the last time, their oaths of fidelity to the Cross.

Peter the Hermit, who was with them, harangued them also. And in the

evening the soldiers returned to the camp to confess their sins, to

receive the Eucharist, and to spend the night in prayer.

Godfrey alone was active. He perceived that the Saracens had

constructed on the wall opposite to the position of his great tower,

works which would perhaps render it useless. He therefore took it

down, and transported it, with very great labour, and in a single

night, to a spot which he considered the weakest in the north wall.

Here it was re-erected to the dismay of the besieged.

At break of day on Thursday, July 14th, 1099, the attack began. The

towers were moved against the walls, the mangonels hurled their

stones into the city, and the battering-rams were brought into play.

All day long the attack was carried on, but to little effect, and at

nightfall, when the Crusaders returned to their camp, the tower of

Raymond was in ruins; those of Tancred and Godfrey were so damaged

that they could not be moved; and the princes were seen beating

their hands in despair, and crying that God had abandoned them.

“Miserable men that we are!” cried Robert of Normandy; “God judges

us unworthy to enter into the Holy City, and worship at the tomb of

His Son.”

The next day was Friday, the day of the Crucifixion. At daybreak the

battle began again. It went well for the Crusaders; the wall was

broken in many places, and the besieged with all their endeavours

could not set fire to the towers. In the middle of the day they

brought out two magicians—witches, it is said, though one hardly

believes it. They made their incantations on the walls, attended by

their maidens.[53] These were all destroyed at once by stones from

the mangonels. But the day went on, and the final assault could not

be delivered for the courage and ferocity of the Saracens. And then,

the usual miracle happened. Godfrey and Raymond, shouting that

heaven had come to their rescue, pointed to the Mount of Olives,

where stood a man, “miles splendidus et refulgens,” one clothed in

bright and glittering armour, waving his shield as a signal for the

advance. Who could it be but Saint George himself? In the midst of a

shower of arrows, Greek fire, and stones, the tower of Godfrey was

pushed against the wall; the drawbridge fell; Godfrey himself was

among the first to leap upon the wall. And then the rumour ran, that

not only Saint George, but Bishop Adhémar—dead Bishop Adhémar

himself—was in the ranks, and fighting against the Infidel. The

supreme moment was arrived! A whisper went through the troops that

it was now three o’clock; the time, as well as the day, when our

Lord died, on the very spot where they were fighting. Even the women

and children joined in the attack, and mingled their cries with the

shouts of the soldiers. The Saracens gave way, and Jerusalem was

taken.

Footnote 53:

Robert of Normandy might have remembered that a similar plan had

been adopted by his father against Hereward in Ely.

The city was taken, and the massacre of its defenders began. The

Christians ran through the streets, slaughtering as they went. At

first they spared none, neither man, woman, nor child, putting all

alike to the sword; but when resistance had ceased, and rage was

partly appeased, they began to bethink them of pillage, and tortured

those who remained alive to make them discover their gold. As for

the Jews within the city, they had fled to their synagogue, which

the Christians set on fire, and so burned them all. The chroniclers

relate with savage joy, how the streets were encumbered with heads

and mangled bodies, and how in the Haram Area, the sacred enclosure

of the Temple, the knights rode in blood up to the knees of their

horses. Here upwards of ten thousand were slaughtered, while the

whole number of killed amounted, according to various estimates, to

forty, seventy, and even a hundred thousand. An Arabic historian,

not to be outdone in miracles by the Christians, reports that at the

moment when the city fell, a sudden eclipse took place, and the

stars appeared in the day. Fugitives brought the news to Damascus

and Baghdad. It was then the month of Ramadan, but the general

trouble was such that the very fast was neglected. No greater

misfortune, except, perhaps, the loss of Mecca, could have happened

to Islamism. The people went in masses to the mosques; the poets

made their verses of lamentation: “We have mingled our blood with

our tears. No refuge remains against the woes that overpower us....

How can ye close your eyes, children of Islam, in the midst of

troubles which would rouse the deepest sleeper? Will the chiefs of

the Arabs resign themselves to such evils? and will the warriors of

Persia submit to such disgrace? Would to God, since they will not

fight for their religion, that they would fight for the safety of

their neighbours! And if they give up the rewards of heaven, will

they not be induced to fight by the hope of booty?”[54]

Footnote 54:

From a poem by Mozaffer el Abiwardí.

Evening fell, and the clamour ceased, for there were no more enemies

to kill, save a few whose lives had been promised by Tancred. Then

from their hiding-places in the city came out the Christians who

still remained in it. They had but one thought, to seek out and

welcome Peter the Hermit, whom they proclaimed as their liberator.

At the sight of these Christians, a sudden revulsion of feeling

seized the soldiers. They remembered that the city they had taken

was the city of the Lord, and this impulsive soldiery, sheathing

swords reeking with blood, followed Godfrey to the Church of the

Holy Sepulchre, where they passed the night in tears, and prayers,

and services.

In the morning the carnage began again. Those who had escaped the

first fury were the women and children. It was now resolved to spare

none. Even the three hundred to whom Tancred had promised life were

slaughtered in spite of him. Raymond alone managed to save the lives

of those who capitulated to him from the tower of David. It took a

week to kill the Saracens, and to take away their dead bodies. Every

Crusader had a right to the first house he took possession of, and

the city found itself absolutely cleared of its old inhabitants, and

in the hands of a new population. The true Cross, which had been

hidden by the Christians during the siege, was brought forth again,

and carried in joyful procession round the city, and for ten days

the soldiers gave themselves up to murder, plunder—and prayers!

And the First Crusade was finished.