THE CHRISTIAN KINGDOM. KING GODFREY.
A.D. 1099-1100.
Signor, ceste cité vous l’avez conquesté;
Or faut élire un roi dont elle soit gardée,
Et la terre environ des païens recensée.
_Romans de Godefroi._
For seven days after the conquest of the city and the massacre of
the inhabitants the Crusaders, very naturally, abandoned themselves
to rest, feasting, and services of thanksgiving. On the eighth day a
council was held to determine the future mode of holding and
governing their newly-acquired possessions. At the outset a
remonstrance was presented by the priests, jealous as usual of their
supremacy, against secular matters being permitted to take the lead
of things ecclesiastical, and demanding that, before aught else was
done, a Patriarch should be first elected. But the Christians were a
long way from Rome. The conduct of their priests on the journey had
not been such as to inspire the laity with respect for their valour,
prudence, or morality, and the chiefs dismissed the remonstrance
with contempt.
Robert of Flanders, in this important council, was the first to
speak. He called upon his peers, setting aside all jealousies and
ambitions, to elect from their own body one who might be found to
unite the best valour of a knight with the best virtue of a
Christian. And in a noble speech which has been preserved—if,
indeed, it was not written long after the time—he disclaimed, for
his own part, any desire to canvass their votes, or to become the
king of Jerusalem. “I entreat you to receive my counsel as I give it
you, with affection, frankness, and loyalty; and to elect for king
him who, by his own worth, will best be able to preserve and extend
this kingdom, to which are attached the honour of your arms, and the
cause of Jesus Christ.”
Many had begun to think of offering the crown to Robert himself. But
this was not his wish; and among the rest their choice clearly lay
between Godfrey, Robert of Normandy, Raymond of Toulouse, and
Tancred. Of these, Tancred and Robert were men ambitious of glory
rather than of honours. The latter had thrown away the crown of
England once, and was going to throw it away again. With equal
readiness he threw away the crown of Jerusalem. Raymond, who had
sworn never to return to Europe, was old and unpopular, probably
from the absence of the princely munificence and affability that
distinguished Godfrey, perhaps also from lack of those personal
charms which his rival possessed. To be handsome as well as brave
was given to Godfrey, but if it had ever been given to Raymond, his
day of comeliness was past. A sort of committee of ten was
appointed, whose business it was to examine closely into the private
character of the chiefs, as well as into their prowess. History is
prudently silent as to the reports made on the characters of the
rest, but we know what was said about Godfrey. Though the Provençal
party invented calumnies against him, his own servants were explicit
and clear in their evidence. Nothing whatever could be set down
against him. Pure and unsullied in his private life, he came out of
this ordeal with no other accusation against him, by those who were
with him at all hours of the day and night, but one, and that the
most singular complaint ever brought against a prince by his
servants. They stated that in all the private acts of the duke, the
one which they found most vexatious (_absonum_) was that when he
went into a church he could not be got out of it, even after the
celebration of service; but he was used to stay behind and inquire
of the priests and those who seemed to have any knowledge of the
matter, about the meaning and history of each picture and image: his
companions, being otherwise minded, were affected with continual
tedium and even disgust at this conduct, which was certainly
thoughtless, because the meals, cooked, of course, in readiness for
a certain hour, were often, owing to this exasperating delay, served
up cold and tasteless. There is a touch of humour in the grave way
in which this charge is brought forward by the historian, who
evidently enjoys the picture of Godfrey’s followers standing by and
waiting, while their faces grow longer as they think of the roast,
which is certain to be either cold or overdone.
No one was astonished, and most men rejoiced, when the electors
declared that their choice had fallen upon Godfrey. They conducted
him in solemn procession to the Church of the Sepulchre with hymns
and psalms. Here he took an oath to respect the laws of justice, but
when the coronation should have taken place, Godfrey put away the
crown. He would not wear a crown of gold when his Lord had worn a
crown of thorns. Nor would he take the title of king. Of this, he
said he was not worthy. Let them call him the Baron of the Holy
Sepulchre. He never wore the crown, but the voice of posterity has
always given him the name of king.
Godfrey of Lorraine, born at Boulogne in the year 1058, or
thereabouts, was the son of Count Eustace, and the nephew of the
Duke of Lorraine. His brother Baldwin, who came with him as far as
Asia Minor, but separated then from the Crusaders and gained the
principality of Edessa, was the second son. Eustace, who afterwards
became Count of Boulogne, was the third. And his sister, Matilda,
was the wife of our king Stephen.
The story of Godfrey, who is the real hero of the First Crusade, is
made up of facts, visions, and legends. Let us tell them altogether.
At an early age he was once playing with his two brothers, when his
father entered the room. At that moment the children were all hiding
in the folds of their mother’s dress. Count Eustace, seeing the
dress shaken, asked who was behind it, “There,” replied the Lady
Ida, in the spirit of prophecy, “are three great princes. The first
shall be a duke, the second a king, and the third a count,” a
prediction which was afterwards exactly fulfilled. Unfortunately, no
record exists of this prophecy till nearly a hundred years after it
was made. Godfrey was adopted by his uncle, the Duke of Lorraine,
and, at the age of sixteen, joined the fortunes of the emperor Henry
IV. He fought in all the campaigns of that unquiet sovereign; he it
was who, at the battle of Malsen, carried the Imperial banner, and
signalized himself by killing Rudolph of Swabia with his own hand.
He was present when, after three years’ siege, Henry succeeded in
wresting Rome from Hildebrand in 1083, and in reward for his bravery
on that occasion, he received the duchy of Lorraine when it was
forfeited by the defection of Conrad. An illness, some time after,
caused him to vow a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and until the
Crusade started Godfrey had no rest or peace.
During this period of expectation, a vision, related by Albert of
Aix, came to one of his servants. He saw, like Jacob, a ladder which
was all pure gold, ascending from earth to heaven. Godfrey, followed
by his servant Rothard, was mounting this ladder. Rothard had a lamp
in his hand; in the middle of the ascent the lamp went out suddenly.
Dismayed at this accident, Rothard came down the ladder, and
declined to relight his lamp or to climb up again. Godfrey, however,
undaunted, went on. Then the seer of the vision himself took the
lamp and followed his master; both arrived safely at the top, and
there, which was no other place than Heaven itself, they enjoyed the
favours of God. The ladder was of pure gold, to signify that
pilgrims must have pure hearts, and the gate to which it led was
Jerusalem, the gate of heaven. Rothard, whose light went out half
way, who came down in despair, was an image of those pilgrims who
take the Cross but come back again in despair; and he who saw the
vision and went up with Godfrey typified those Crusaders, a faithful
few, who endured unto the end.
Stories are told to illustrate the prowess of this great and strong
man. On one occasion, when he was compelled to defend his rights to
some land by the ordeal of battle, his sword broke off short upon
the buckler of his adversary, leaving him not more than six inches
of steel. The knights present at the duel interposed in order to
stop a combat so unequal, but Godfrey himself insisted on going on.
His adversary pressed him with all his skill and strength, but
Godfrey, collecting all his force, sprang upon and literally felled
him to the ground. Then taking his sword from him, he broke it
across his knee, and called upon the president of the duel to make
such terms as would spare his enemy’s life.
Again, a noble Arab, desirous of seeing so great a warrior, paid him
a visit, and asked him, as a special favour, to strike a camel with
his sword. Godfrey, at a single blow, struck off the head of the
beast. The Arab begged to speak apart with him, thinking it was the
effect of magic, and asked him if he would do the same thing with
another sword. “Lend me your own,” said Godfrey, and repeated the
feat with his guest’s own sword.
At the time of his election, Godfrey was in the fulness of his
strength and vigour, about forty years of age. He was tall, but not
above the stature of ordinarily tall men; his countenance was
handsome and attractive; and his beard and hair were a reddish
brown. In manners he was courteous, and in living, simple and
unostentatious. The first king of Christian Jerusalem, the only one
of all the Crusaders whose life was pure, whose motives were
disinterested, whose end and aim was the glory of God, was also the
only king who came near the standard set up by Robert of Flanders,
as one who should be foremost in virtue as well as in arms. The
kingdom over which he ruled was a kingdom without frontiers, save
those which the sword had made. Right and left of the path of the
Crusaders, between Cæsarea and Jerusalem, the Saracens had fallen
back in terror of the advancing army. The space left free was all
that Godfrey could call his own. To the north, Bohemond held
Antioch, Baldwin, Edessa, and Tancred was soon to occupy Galilee.
Egypt threatened in the south, wild Bedawín in the east, and on the
north and north-west were gathering, disorganized as yet, but soon
to assume the form of armies, the fanatic Mohammedans, maddened by
their loss. It must be remembered that during the whole eighty years
of its existence the kingdom of Jerusalem was never for one single
moment free from war and war’s alarms.
At this time the joy of the soldiers was increased by the
announcement made by a Christian inhabitant of Jerusalem that he had
buried in the city, before the Crusaders came, a cross which
contained a piece of the True Cross. This relic was dug up after a
solemn procession, and borne in state to the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre, where it was intrusted to the care of Arnold, who had
been appointed to act in the place of the patriarch. The appetite
for relics had grown _en mangeant_. Besides the holy lance, and this
piece of the True Cross, every knight, almost every common soldier,
had been enabled to enrich himself with something precious—a bone or
a piece of cloth, which had once belonged to a saint, a nail which
had helped to crucify him, or the axe which had beheaded him. And
there can be no doubt that the possession of these relics most
materially helped to inspire them with courage.
While the princes were still deliberating over the choice of a king,
came the news that the Egyptian Caliph had assembled together a vast
army, which was even then marching across the desert under the
command of a renegade Armenian named Afdhal. He it was who had taken
Jerusalem from the Turks only eleven months before the siege by the
Crusaders. The army contained not only the flower of the Egyptian
troops, but also many thousands of Mohammedan warriors from Damascus
and Bagdad, eager to wipe out the disgrace of their defeats.
Tancred, Count Eustace of Boulogne, and Robert of Flanders, sent
forward to reconnoitre, despatched a messenger to Jerusalem with the
news that this innumerable army was on its way, and would be, within
a few days, at the very gates of the city. The intelligence was
proclaimed by heralds through the city, and at daybreak the princes
went bare-footed to the Church of the Sepulchre, where they received
the Eucharist before setting out on their way to Ascalon. Peter the
Hermit remained in charge of the women and children, whom he led
round in solemn procession to the sacred sites, there to pray for
the triumph of the Christian arms. Even at this solemn moment, when
the fate of the newly-born kingdom trembled on the decision of a
single battle, the chiefs could not abstain from dissensions. At the
last moment, Robert of Normandy and Count Raymond declared that they
would not go with the army; the former because his vow was
accomplished, the latter because he was still sullen over the
decision of the electors. But by the entreaties of their soldiers
they were persuaded to yield. The Christian army collected in its
full force at Ramleh, attended by Arnold with the True Cross, whence
they came to the Wady Sorek.
The battle took place on the plain of Philistia, that lovely and
fertile plain which was to be reddened with blood in a hundred
fights between the Christians and their foes.
The Christian army had been followed into the plain by thousands of
the cattle which were grazing harmlessly over the country. The dust
raised by the march of the men and beasts hung in clouds over these
flocks and made the Egyptian army take them for countless squadrons
of cavalry. Hasty arrangements were made. Godfrey took two thousand
horse and three thousand foot to prevent a sortie of the inhabitants
of Ascalon; Raymond placed himself near the seashore, between the
fleet and the enemy; Tancred and the two Roberts directed the attack
on the centre and right wings. In the first rank of the enemy were
lines of African bowmen, black Ethiopians, terrible of visage,
uttering unearthly cries, and wielding, besides their bows, strange
and unnatural weapons, such as flails loaded with iron balls, with
which they beat upon the armour of the knights and strove to kill
the horses. The Christians charged into the thickest of these black
warriors, taking them probably for real devils, whom it was a duty
as well as a pleasure to destroy. A panic seized the Mohammedans;
Robert Courthose, always foremost in the _mêlée_, found himself in
the presence of Afdhal himself, and seized the grand standard. And
then the Egyptians all fled. Those who got to the seashore fell into
the hands of Raymond, who killed all, except some who tried to swim,
and were drowned in their endeavours to reach their fleet; some
rushed in the direction of Ascalon and climbed up into the trees,
where the Christians picked them off with arrows at their leisure;
and some, laying down their arms in despair, sat still and offered
no resistance, while the Christians came up and cut their throats.
Afdhal, who lost his sword in the rout, fled into Ascalon, and two
thousand of his men, crowding after him, were trampled under foot at
the gates. From the towers of Ascalon he beheld the total rout and
massacre of his splendid army and the sack of his camp. “Oh,
Mohammed,” cried the despairing renegade, “can it be true that the
power of the Crucified One is greater than thine?” Afdhal embarked
on board the Egyptian fleet and returned alone. No one has told what
was the loss sustained by the Mohammedans in this battle. They were
mown down, it is said, like the wheat in the field; and those who
escaped the sword perished in the desert.
It is well observed by Michault, that this is the first battle won
by the Christians in which the saints took no part. Henceforth Saint
George appears no more. The enthusiasm of the soldiers was kindled
by religious zeal, but it is kept alive henceforth by success. When
success began to fail, religion could do nothing more for them.
Raymond and Godfrey quarrelled immediately after the battle about
the right of conquest over Ascalon, which Raymond wished to take for
himself, and Godfrey claimed as his own. Raymond, in high dudgeon,
withdrew, and took off all his troops, like Achilles. Godfrey was
obliged to raise the siege of Ascalon, and followed him. On the way
Raymond attacked the town of Arsûf, but meeting with a more
determined resistance than he anticipated, he continued his march,
maliciously informing the garrison that they had no reason to be
afraid of King Godfrey. Consequently, when Godfrey arrived, they
were not afraid of him, and gave him so warm a reception that he was
obliged to give up the siege, and learning the trick that Raymond
had played him, flew into so mighty a passion, that he resolved to
terminate the quarrel according to European fashion. Tancred and the
two Roberts used all their efforts to appease the two princes, and a
reconciliation was effected between them. What is more important is,
that the reconciliation was loyal and sincere. Raymond gave up all
his schemes of ambition in Jerusalem; ceded all pretensions to the
tower of David, over which he had claimed rights of conquest, and so
long as he lived was a loyal supporter of the kingdom which he had
so nearly obtained for himself. But Ascalon remained untaken, a
thorn in the sides of the conquerors for many years to follow, and a
standing reminder of the necessity of concord.
The army returned to Jerusalem singing hymns of triumph, and entered
the city with sound of clarion and display of their victorious
banners. The grand standard and the sword of Afdhal were deposited
in the Church of the Sepulchre; and a great service of thanksgiving
was held for their deliverance from the Egyptians.
And then the princes began to think of going home again. They had
now been four years away. Their vow was fulfilled. Jerusalem was
freed from the yoke of the Mussulman, and they could no longer be
restrained. Three hundred knights and two thousand foot-soldiers
alone resolved to stay with Godfrey and share his fortunes. Among
them was Tancred, almost as great a Christian hero as Godfrey
himself. “Forget not,” those who remained cried with tears—these
knights were not ashamed to show their emotion—to those who went
away, “forget not your brethren whom you leave in exile; when you
get back to Europe, fill all Christians with the desire of visiting
those sacred places which we have delivered; exhort the warriors to
come and fight the infidels by our side.”
So went back the Crusaders, bearing each a palm-branch from Jericho,
in proof of the accomplishment of their pilgrimage. It was but a
small and miserable remnant which returned of those mighty hosts
which, four years before, had left the West. There was not a noble
family of France but had lost its sons in the great war; there was
not a woman who had not some one near and dear to her lying dead
upon the plains of Syria; not even a monk who had not to mourn a
brother in the flesh or a brother of the convent. Great, then, must
have been the rejoicing over those who had been through all the
dangers of the campaign, and now returned bringing their sheaves
with them;—not of gold, for they had none; nor of rich raiment, for
they were in rags—but of glory, and honour, and of precious relics,
better in their simple eyes than any gold, and more priceless than
any jewels. With these and their palm-branches they enriched and
decorated their native churches, and the sight of them kept alive
the crusading ardour even when the first soldiers were all dead.
Raymond of Toulouse went first to Constantinople, where Alexis
received him with honour, and gave him the principality of Laodicea.
Eustace of Boulogne went back to his patrimony, leaving his brothers
in Palestine. Robert of Flanders went home to be drowned in the
Marne. Robert of Normandy, to eat out his heart in Cardiff Castle.
Bohemond, Tancred, and Baldwin, with Raymond, remained in the East.
The miserably small army left with King Godfrey would have
ill-sufficed to defend the city, had it not been for the continual
relays of pilgrims who arrived daily. These could all, at a pinch,
be turned into fighting men, and when their pilgrimage was finished
there were many who would remain and enter permanently into the
service of the king. And this seems to have been the principal way
in which the army was recruited. It was nearly always engaged in
fighting or making ready for fighting, and without constant
reinforcements must speedily have come to an end. A great many
Christians settled in the country by degrees, and, marrying either
with native Christians or others, produced a race of semi-Asiatics,
called _pullani_,[55] who seem to have united the vices of both
sides of their descent, and to have inherited none of the virtues.
Footnote 55:
Perhaps _fulání_, _anybodies_. So in modern Arabic the greatest
insult you can offer a man is to call him, _fulán ibn fulán_, so
and so, the son of so and so—_i.e._, a foundling or bastard.
As for the people—not the Saracens, who, it must be remembered, were
always the conquerors, but not always the settlers—we have little
information about them. The hand of the Arab was against every man,
and every man’s against his. When the pilgrims, it will be
remembered, killed the sheikh at Ramleh, the Emir expressed his
gratitude at being rid of his worst enemy. But, as to the villagers,
the people who tilled the ground, the occupants of the soil, we know
nothing of what race they were. It was four hundred years since the
country had ceased to be Christian—it is hardly to be expected that
the villagers were anything but Mohammedan. William of Tyre
expressly calls them infidels, or Saracens, and they were certainly
hostile. No Christian could travel across the country unless as one
of a formidable party; and the labourers refused to cultivate the
ground, in hopes of starving the Christians out: even in the towns,
the walls were all so ruinous, and the defenders so few, that
thieves and murderers entered by night, and no one lay down to sleep
in safety. The country had been too quickly overrun, and places
which had surrendered in a panic, seeing the paucity of the numbers
opposed to them, began now to think how the yoke was to be shaken
off.
It was at Christmas, 1099, that Baldwin of Edessa, Bohemond, and
Dagobert, or Daimbert, Archbishop of Pisa, came to Jerusalem with
upwards of twenty thousand pilgrims. These had suffered from cold
and the attacks of Arabs, but had received relief and help from
Tancred in Tiberias, and were welcomed by the king at the head of
all his people, before the gates of the city. Arrived there, they
chose a patriarch, electing Dagobert; and Arnold, who had never been
legally elected, was deposed. They stayed during the winter, and
gave the king their counsels as to the future constitution of his
realm.
Godfrey employed the first six months of the year 1100 in regulating
ecclesiastical affairs, the clergy being, as usual, almost
incredibly greedy, and in concluding treaties with the governors of
Ascalon, Acre, Cæsarea, Damascus, and Aleppo. He was showing himself
as skilful in administration as he had been in war, and the
Christian kingdom would doubtless have been put upon a solid and
permanent footing, but for his sudden and premature death, which
took place on July the 18th, 1100. His end was caused by an
intermittent fever; finding that there was little hope, he caused
himself to be transported from Jaffa to Jerusalem, where he breathed
his last. He was buried in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where
his epitaph might have been read up to the year 1808, when the
church was destroyed by fire.
“Hic jacet inclitus dux Godefridus de Bouillon, qui totam istam
terram acquisivit cultui Christiano, cujus anima regnet cum
Christo.” And here, too, were laid up his sword, more trenchant than
Excalibur, and the knightly spurs with which he had won more honour
than King Arthur.
The _Assises de Jerusalem_, that most curious and instructive code
of feudal law, does not belong properly to the reign of Godfrey. As
it now exists it was drawn up in the fourteenth century. But it
embodies, although it contains many additions and interpolations,
the code which Godfrey first began, and the following kings
finished. And it is based upon the idea which ruled Godfrey and his
peers. It may therefore fairly be considered in this place.
It was highly necessary to have strict and clearly defined laws for
this new kingdom. Its subjects were either pious and fanatic
pilgrims, or unscrupulous and ambitious adventurers. Bishops and
vassals, among whom the conquered lands were freely distributed,
were disposed to set their suzerain at defiance, and to exalt
themselves into petty kings. The pilgrims were many of them
criminals of the worst kind, ready enough, when the old score was
wiped out by so many prayers at sacred places, to begin a new one.
They were of all countries, and spoke all languages. Their presence,
useful enough when the Egyptian army had to be defeated, was a
source of the greatest danger in time of peace. It is true that the
time of peace was never more than a few months in duration.
The duties and rights of king, baron, and bourgeois were therefore
strictly and carefully laid down in Godfrey’s _Assises_. Every law
was written on parchment, in great letters, the first being
illuminated in gold, and all the others in vermilion; on every sheet
was the seal of the king; the whole was deposited in a great box in
the sacred church, and called the “Letters of the Sepulchre.”
The duty of the king was to maintain the laws; to defend the church;
to care for widows and orphans; to watch over the safety of the
people; and to lead the army to war. The duty of the _seigneur_
towards his people was exactly the same as that of the king; towards
the king it was to serve him in war and by counsel. The duty of a
subject to his lord was to defend and to revenge him; to protect the
honour of his wife and daughters; to be a hostage for him in case of
need; to give him his horse if he wanted one, or arms if he wanted
them; and to keep faith with him. There were three courts of
justice; the first presided over by the king, for the regulation of
all differences between the great vassals; the second, formed of the
principal inhabitants—a kind of jury—to maintain the laws among the
_bourgeoisie_; and the third, reserved for the Oriental Christians,
presided over by judges born in Syria.
The king, the summit of this feudal pyramid, who was wont to offer
his crown at the Holy Sepulchre, “as a woman used to offer her male
child at the Temple,” had immediately under him his seneschal, who
acted as chief justice, chancellor of the exchequer, and prime
minister. The constable commanded the army in the name of or in the
absence of the king; he presided over the ordeal by battle, and
regulated its administration. Under his orders was the marshal, who
replaced him on occasion. The chamberlain’s duty was about the
person of the king.
As regards the power and duties of the barons, it was ruled that
they were allowed, if they pleased, to give their fiefs to the
church; that the fiefs should always descend to the male heir; that
the baron or _seigneur_ should succeed to a fief alienated by the
failure on the part of the feudatory to perform his duties; that the
baron should be the guardian of heirs male and female. These, if
male, were to present themselves when the time came, saying, “I am
fully fifteen years of age,” upon which he was to invest them; while
maidens were to claim their fiefs at the age of twelve, on condition
that they took a husband to protect it. Nor was any woman who
remained without a husband to hold a fief until she was at least
sixty years of age.
In the ordeal of battle, the formula of challenge was provided, and
only those were excused who had lost limbs, in battle or otherwise,
women, children, and men arrived at their sixtieth year. In a
criminal case death followed defeat; in a civil case, infamy.
Slaves, peasants, and captives were, like cattle, subject only to
laws of buying and selling. A slave was reckoned worth a falcon; two
slaves were worth a charger; the master could do exactly as he
pleased with his own slaves. They were protected by the natural
kindness of humanity alone. In the days of its greatest prosperity
the different baronies and cities of the kingdom of Jerusalem could
be called upon to furnish in all three thousand seven hundred and
twenty-nine knights. But this was after the time of Godfrey, the
David of the new kingdom.
Of course the _seigneurs_ and barons took their titles from the
places they held; thus we hear of the barony of Jaffa, of Galilee,
of Acre, and of Nablous; the seigneur of Kerak and of Arsûf. And
thus in the soil of Palestine was planted, like some strange exotic,
rare and new, the whole of the feudal system, with all its laws, its
ideas, and its limitations.
The news of the recovery of Jerusalem, and the return of the
triumphant Crusaders, revived the flame of crusading enthusiasm,
which in the space of four years had somewhat subsided. Those who
had not followed the rest in taking the Cross reproached
themselves with apathy; those who had deserted the Cross were the
object of contempt and scorn. More signs appeared in heaven;
flames of fire in the east—probably at daybreak; passage of
insects and birds—emblematic of the swarms of pilgrims which were
to follow. Only when the preachers urged on their hearers to take
the Cross it was no longer in the minor key of plaint and
suffering; they had risen and left the waters of Babylon; they had
taken down their harps from the trees and tuned them afresh; they
sang, now, a song of triumph; and in place of suffering, sorrow,
and humiliation, they proclaimed victory, glory, and riches. It
seemed better to a European knight to be Baron of Samaria than
lord of a western state; imagination magnified the splendour of
Baldwin and Tancred; things far off assumed such colours as the
mind pleased; and letters read from the chiefs in Palestine spoke
only of spoils won in battle, of splendid victories, and of
conquered lands. Again the cry was raised of _Dieu le veut_, and
again the pilgrims, but this time in a very different spirit,
poured eastwards in countless thousands.
The way was led by Hugh, Count of Vermandois and the unfortunate
Stephen of Blois, whose lives had been a mere burden to them since
their desertion of the Cross; the latter, who had little inclination
for fighting of any kind, and still less for more hardships in the
thirsty East, followed at the instigation of his wife Adela,
daughter of William the Conqueror. Neither of them ever returned.
William of Poitiers, like Stephen of Blois, a poet and scholar,
mortgaged his estates to William Rufus, the scoffer, who, of course,
was still lamentably insensible to the voice of the preacher—it must
have been just before his death; Humbert of Savoy, William of
Nevers, Harpin of Bourges, and Odo, Duke of Burgundy, followed his
example. In Italy the Bishop of Milan, armed with a bone of Saint
Ambrose, led an army of one hundred thousand pilgrims, while an
immense number of Germans followed the Marshal Conrad and Wolf of
Bavaria. Most of the knights professed religious zeal; but hoped,
their geographical knowledge being small, to win kingdoms and
duchies like those of Baldwin and Tancred. Humbert of Savoy, more
honest than the others, openly ordered prayers to be put up that he
might obtain a happy principality. It does not appear from history
that his petition was granted.
The new army was by no means so well conducted as the old. Insolent
in their confidence, and ill-disciplined, they plundered and
pillaged wherever they came. They menaced Alexis Comnenus, and
threatened to take and destroy the city. Alexis, it is said, but it
is difficult to believe this, actually turned his wild beasts upon
the mob, and his favourite lion got killed in the encounter. After
prayers and presents, the Emperor persuaded his unruly guests to
depart and go across the straits. _Non defensoribus istis_ might
have been the constant ejaculation of the much abused and long
suffering monarch.
Then they were joined by Conrad with his Germans and Hugh with his
French. Their numbers are stated at two hundred and sixty thousand,
among whom was a vast number of priests, monks, women, and children.
Raymond of Toulouse, who was in Constantinople, undertook
reluctantly to guide the army across Asia Minor, and brought with
him a few of his Provençaux and a body of five hundred Turcopoles
(these were light infantry, so called because they were the children
of Christian women by Turkish fathers), the contingent of the Greek
Emperor.
But the army was too confident to keep to the old path. They would
go eastward and attack the Turks in their strongest place, even in
Khorassan itself. Raymond let them have their own way, doubtless
with misgiving and anxiety, and went with them. The town of Ancyra,
in Paphlagonia, was attacked and taken by assault. All the people
were put to death without exception. They went on farther, exulting
and jubilant. Presently they found themselves surrounded by the
enemy, who appeared suddenly, attacked them in clouds, and from all
quarters. They were in a desert where there was little water, what
there was being so rigorously watched over by the Turks that few
escaped who went to seek it. They were marching over dry brushwood;
the Turks set fire to it, and many perished in the flames or the
smoke. There was but one thing to do, to fight the enemy. They did
so, and though the victory seemed theirs, they had small cause to
triumph, for division after division of their army had been forced
to fly before the Turks. Still this might have been repaired. But in
the night Count Raymond left them, and fled with his soldiers in the
direction of Sinope. The news of this defection quickly spread.
Bishops, princes, and knights, seized with a sudden panic, left
baggage, tents and all, and fled away in hot haste. In the morning
the Turks prepared again for battle. There was no enemy. In the camp
was nothing but a shrieking, despairing multitude of monks, and
women, and children. The Turks killed remorselessly, sparing none
but those women who were young and beautiful. In their terror and
misery the poor creatures put on hastily their finest dresses, in
hopes by their beauty to win life at least, if life shameful, and
hopeless, and miserable.
“Alas!” says Albert of Aix, “alas! what grief for these women so
tender and so noble, led into captivity by savages so impious and so
horrible! For these men had their heads shaven in front, at the
sides, and at the nape, the little hair left fell behind in
disorder, and in few plaits, upon their necks; their beards were
thick and unkempt, and everything, with their garments, gave them
the appearance of infernal and unclean spirits. There were no bounds
to the cries and lamentations of these delicate women; the camp
re-echoed with their groans; one had seen her husband perish, one
had been left behind by hers. Some were beheaded after serving to
gratify the lust of the Turks; some whose beauty had struck their
eyes were reserved for a wretched captivity. After having taken so
many women in the tents of the Christians, the Turks set off in
pursuit of the foot-soldiers, the knights, the priests, and the
monks; they struck them with the sword as a reaper cuts the wheat
with his sickle; they respected neither age nor rank, they spared
none but those whom they destined to be soldiers. The ground was
covered with immense riches abandoned by the fugitives. Here and
there were seen splendid dresses of various colours; horses and
mules lay about the plain; blood inundated the roads, and the number
of dead amounted to more than a hundred and sixty thousand.”
As for the arm of St. Ambrose, that was lost too, and it doubtless
lies still upon the plain beyond Ancyra, waiting to work more
miracles. It is exasperating to find all the chroniclers, with the
exception of Albert of Aix, passing over with hardly a word of
sympathy the miserable fate of the helpless women, and pouring out
their regrets over this trumpery relic.
There was another army still, headed by the Duke of Nevers. They
followed in the footsteps of their predecessors as far as Ancyra,
where they turned southwards. Their fate was the same as that of the
others: all were killed. The leader, who had fled to Germanicopolis,
took some Greek soldiers as guides. These stripped him, and left him
alone in the forest. He wandered about for some days, and at last
found his way to Antioch, as poor and naked as any beggar in his own
town.
The third and last army, headed by the Count Hugh of Vermandois, met
with a similar end. Thirst, heat, and hunger destroyed their
strength, for the Turks had filled the wells, destroyed the crops,
and let the water out of the cisterns. On the river Halys they met
their end; William of Poitiers, like the Duke of Nevers, arrived
naked at Antioch. The luckless Count of Vermandois got as far as
Tarsus, where he died of his wounds, and poor Ida of Austria, who
came, as she thought, under the protection of the pilgrims, with all
her noble ladies, was never heard of any more.
Of these three great hosts, only ten thousand managed to get to
Antioch. Every one of the ladies and women who were with them
perished; all the children, all the monks and priests. And of the
leaders, none went back to Europe except the Count of Blandrat, who
with the Bishop of Milan had headed the Lombards, the Duke of
Nevers, and William of Poitiers, the troubadour.
These were the last waves of the first great storm. With the last of
these three great armies died away the crusading spirit proper—that
which Peter the Hermit had aroused. There could be no more any such
universal enthusiasm. Once and only once again would all Europe
thrill with rage and indignation. It had burned to wrest the city
from the infidels; it was to burn once more, but this time with a
feebler flame, and ineffectually, to wrest it a second time, when
the frail and turbulent kingdom of Jerusalem should be at an end.
We have dwelt perhaps at too great length on the great Crusade which
really ended with the death of Godfrey. But the centre of its aims
was Jerusalem. The Christian kingdom, one of the most interesting
episodes in the history of the city, cannot be understood without
knowing some of the events which brought it about.
THE KINGS OF JERUSALEM
CHARLEMAGNE.
.
.
.
Ida = Eustace de Bouillon, Cousin to Hugh de Rethel.
│ │
┌─────┴─────┬───────────┬───────────┐ │
│ │ │ │ │
K. Godfrey. K. Baldwin I. Eustace. Matilda = King Stephen │
of England. │
│
K. Baldwin
du Bourg.
│
┌───────────────────┬────────────────────┬───────┘
│ │ │
K Fulke = Milicent. Alice = Bohemond II. Hodierne = Raymond
│ │ of Antioch. │ of Tripoli.
│ └─────────┐ └───────────┐
│ │ │
├──────────────────────┐ Raymond = Constance = Renaud │
│ │ of Poitou │ de Chatillon.│
│ │ │ │
│ │ └─────────┐ Raymond.
│ │ │
K. Baldwin III. = Theodora K. Amaury = Agnes, Bohemond III.
of Constantinople. │ d. of Jocelyn II.
│
┌─────────────────────┬───┴───────────────┐
│ │ │
K. Baldwin William of = Sybille = K. Guy de │
IV. Montferrat.│ Lusignan. │
│ │
│ ┌──────┘
│ │
│ Homfray = Isabelle = K. Conrad de Montferrat.
┌────────────────┤ de Toron │ K. Henry of Champagne.
│ │ │ K. Amaury de Lusignan.
K. Baldwin V. Two children │
died in infancy. │
┌───────┴─┐
│ │
│ │
K. John de Brienne = Constance. Alice = Hugh de Lusignan.
│
Yolante = K. Frederick II.