The elation of the crusaders over the possession of Antioch was of briefest duration. Their three days’ license, in the enjoyment of what they had so ingloriously won, was terminated on the fourth day by fearful menace. Kerbogha was really coming. To his own veteran experience he added the wisdom of the most redoubtable sultans and emirs of Syria, Asia Minor, and Persia, who commanded an army of one hundred thousand horse and three hundred thousand foot. So stealthily had they approached that the news was conveyed to the Christians only by their observing from the walls the advance of the mighty host as it dashed through the camps but recently consecrated to the cross. Quickly the Moslems completed their investment of the city. The Christians could make no foray over the fields, and no provisions were allowed to reach them from the port. To add to their fears, the citadel of Antioch had not fallen into their hands with the rest of the city, and was still occupied by watchful foes. They were thus assailed from without and from within the walls.
The gay robes, costly gems, and arms which the Christians had taken were no compensation for the lack of provisions. Godfrey paid fifteen silver marks for the flesh of a half-starved camel. Knights killed for meat the proud chargers they loved oftentimes more than they did their companions in arms, who were now their greedy contestants for what scanty provision remained. Common soldiers gnawed the leather off shoes and shields, and some dug from the graves and devoured the putrid flesh of the Turks they had slain. We might doubt this horrible deed were not similar acts of cannibalism confessed by Godfrey and Raymond in a letter to the Pope, written a year later. Every morning revealed the numbers of those who had deserted during the night, among whom were some of the most famous warriors, such as the counts of Melun and Blois and Chartres. In the general despair even faith gave way. Men cursed the God who had deserted them while they were defending His cause, and the priests hesitated to perform the rites of religion among a people who had become as infidel as the foe they sought to destroy.
The Greek emperor, Alexius, started out from Constantinople with an army, but upon hearing of the desperate straits of the Latins returned, leaving them to their fate. The Christians, it is said, offered to capitulate to Kerbogha upon condition of being permitted to return to Europe in abandonment of the crusades. Godfrey and Adhemar, the one in the name of all that was valiant among men, the other as the representative of the Pope, presumably speaking for Heaven, remonstrated in vain. The refusal of even so much mercy by the Moslems alone prevented the consummation of this disgrace. The warriors who had won the applause of Europe then sat sullenly in their houses and could not be prevailed upon to fight along the walls, believing that additional wounds would only protract their woe without averting the final catastrophe.
In this hour of abject despair the besieged were reinspirited by an occasion which is as much the marvel of the psychologist as of the historian. In the prostration of bodily nature through hunger and disease, imagination often tyrannizes the faculties. Man becomes the prey of unrealities; his dreams create a new world, generally of terror, but often of hope. Then it is that the demons and angels of theory materialize into seeming facts. Thus the emaciated men in the beleaguered camp were ready to believe the story of a priest, who related that Christ had appeared to him, denouncing destruction upon His faithless followers, but that at the intercession of the Virgin Mary the Lord was appeased, and promised immediate victory if the soldiers of His cross would once more valiantly endeavor to merit it. At the same time two deserters returned to the camp, relating how the Saviour had met them and turned them back from flight. But the crowning miracle was revealed to the priest, Peter Barthelemi. St. Andrew appeared to him and said, “Go to the church of my brother St. Peter in Antioch. Near the principal altar you will find, by digging into the earth, the iron head of the lance which pierced the side of our Redeemer. Within three days this instrument of salvation shall be manifested to His disciples. This mystical iron, borne at the head of the army, shall effect the deliverance of the Christians and shall pierce the hearts of the Infidels.” For two days the people fasted; on the morning of the third day twelve trusty knights and ecclesiastics dug at the appointed spot, while the multitude remained in silence and prayer about the church. All day long they waited. At midnight there was no response to their expectation. As the twelve ceased their labors, and were bowed in renewed petition around the excavation, Peter Barthelemi suddenly leaped into the hole. In a moment he reappeared bearing a lance-head in his hands. The news spread through the city as if shouted by angels. The effect upon the desponding minds of the soldiers was like the revival of life in the dead bodies of Ezekiel’s valley of vision. Some, it is true, shook their heads, or, like Foulcher of Chartres, declared that the lance had been concealed by Barthelemi in the designated place. Whether really credulous, or shrewd enough to try any new expedient, the leaders were loudest in heralding the discovery as miraculous.
Peter the Hermit was sent to announce to the Moslems the decree of Heaven for their immediate overthrow. Sultan Kerbogha, however, proved a match for the zealot in vituperative bravado and religious devotion. He haughtily declared but one condition of his raising the siege, namely, the acknowledgment by the Christians that “Allah is great, and Mohammed is His prophet.” “Bid thy companions,” said he to Peter, “take advantage of my clemency; to-morrow they shall leave Antioch only under the sword. They will then see if their crucified God, who could not save Himself from the cross, can save them from the fate I have prepared for them.” With that he drove Peter and his band of deputies back to their walls.
The Christians ate that night what they deliberately called their last supper in Antioch. With the remnant of bread and wine they celebrated mass. At dawn the city gates were thrown open, and in twelve divisions the host marched out, following the standard of the Holy Lance. The clergy went first, as in the days of Jehoshaphat, singing their faith in coming victory. The words of the psalm, “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered,” seemed to be answered by invisible hosts on the mountains, who took up the crusaders’ war-cry of “Deus vult!” Excited imaginations saw the mountains filled with the chariots of the Lord, as in the days of Elisha. But to the eye of flesh the Christian host presented a sorry spectacle. Many limped with wounds or trudged slowly from weakness; most were in rags, many were stark naked. The prancing charger had been changed for a camel or ass, and many a knight was reduced to the condition of a foot-soldier, and shouldered his spear.
Sultan Kerbogha haughtily refused to leave a game of chess he was playing, to listen to what he supposed would be an entreaty for mercy from the entire Christian army, that was coming to throw itself at his feet; but he was soon undeceived. With sudden dash, Count Hugh attacked and cut to pieces two thousand of the enemy who guarded the bridge before the city. The main body of Christians formed against the mountains and, thus shielded from a rear attack, advanced steadily upon the foe. The surprise of Kerbogha did not prevent that experienced soldier from seeing the advantage gained by his assailants. Under flag of truce he proposed to decide the issue by battle between an equal number of braves selected from either side. The enthusiasm of the Christian host forbade such a limitation of the honor of attaining what seemed to all a certain victory. Heaven gave manifest token of favor in a strong wind, that sped the missiles of the crusaders, while it retarded those of their foes. In vain did Kerbogha storm them in front, while Kilidge-Arslan, having climbed the mountain, attacked their rear. The Turks had fired the bushes to bewilder the Christians, but through a dense smoke there appeared a squadron descending the mountains, led by three horsemen in white and lustrous armor. These were recognized as St. George, St. Demetrius, and St. Theodore, the same materialized spirits that had been seen upon the plains of Nicæa. With a superhuman fury and strength, the Christians broke upon the Moslems as a tornado upon a forest, making through the opposing ranks a path of utter destruction. When this breath of heaven had passed one hundred thousand Infidels lay dead upon the field. Fifteen thousand camels, a proportionate number of horses, immense stores of provisions, and priceless treasures enriched the victors. The tent of Kerbogha, capable of covering over two thousand persons, glowing like a vast gem with jewels and tapestries, was taken and sent to Italy, where the sight of it inflamed the greed of new bands of crusaders.
Those who are disinclined to believe in the heavenly portents that aided the Christians may content themselves with the explanation which the Moslem writers give of their defeat. They relate that the Arabs had quarrelled with the Turks, and retired from the field before the battle; that the latter pursued their coreligionists more bitterly than they fought the common enemy. The credulity of the Christians also abated when they discovered that the camps of Kerbogha were more adorned than fortified. Then, too, they recalled the skill and courage of their own assault, and listened to the thousand stories of the Christians’ exploit from the lips of the performers. Pride, if not reason, triumphed over superstition, and the Holy Lance fell into disparagement. A letter from the leaders to Pope Urban, written from Antioch just after this battle acknowledged that the divine weapon “restored our strength and courage”; but the writers are more particular to tell how “we had learned the tactics of the foe” and, “by the grace and mercy of God, succeeded in making them unite at one point.” Later the Christian host was divided into two parties, who contended violently for and against the credibility of the miracle. Normans and the crusaders from the north of France were rationalistically inclined, while the men from the south adhered to the story as told by their geographical representative, Peter Barthelemi, the priest from Marseilles, who had discovered the sacred symbol. The veracity of Peter was finally subjected to trial by Ordeal. A vast pile of olive-branches was erected. A passage several feet in width was left through the middle of the heap. When the wood had been fired, Peter appeared, bearing the Holy Lance. As he faced the flames a herald cried, “If this man has seen Jesus Christ face to face, and if the Apostle Andrew did reveal to him the divine lance, may he pass safe and sound through the flames; but if, on the contrary, he be guilty of falsehood, may he be burned.” The assembled host bowed and answered, “Amen.” Peter ran with his best speed down the fiery aisle. The furious heat impeded him. He seemed to have fallen, and disappeared amid the crackling branches and smoke. At length, however, he emerged at the other end of the flaming avenue amid the cries of his partisans, “A miracle! a miracle!” Yet the test was indecisive, for, while Peter succeeded in running the gantlet, he was terribly burned, and was carried in mortal agony to the tent of Raymond, where a few days later he expired. It is to be noted that from that time the Holy Lance wrought no more miracles, even in the credulity of its most reverent adorers.
The zeal of the mass of crusaders urged them to an immediate advance upon Jerusalem. This, however, was opposed by the discretion of Godfrey, who predicted the hardship of the campaign in a Syrian midsummer. The evident dissensions among the Moslems and their apathy in further warfare, if they gave opportunity for rapid conquest by the Christians, at the same time allayed the feeling of necessity for immediate advance. It was therefore resolved to postpone the enterprise southward until November.
While waiting for the order to march, an epidemic broke out in the camps, which was more fatal than would have been any perils of the journey. Upward of fifty thousand perished in a month, among them Adhemar, Bishop of Puy, the special representative of the Holy Father, and the spiritual head of the crusade. Idleness also engendered strife among brethren. Bohemond and Raymond threatened each other with the sword. Common soldiers fought in opposing bands for the possession of the booty captured in their raids. Restless spirits, disgusted with the general apathy, joined Baldwin, now the master of Edessa. Some made alliance with such Moslems as were at war with their fellow-Moslems. Even Godfrey fought for the emir of Hezas against Redowan, Sultan of Aleppo.
Heaven also seemed to have become impatient at the inaction of the crusaders. A luminous mass, as if all the stars had combined their fires, like a suspended thunderbolt, glared down from the sky upon the quiet ramparts of Antioch. Suddenly it burst and scattered in sparks through the air. Did it mean that God was about to thus disperse the Christians, or that He would scatter their enemies? The omen, though not clearly interpreted, sufficed to rouse the indolent host.
Raymond and Bohemond, with worthy compeers, assaulted Maarah, between Hamath and Aleppo. A novelty of the defence of this place was the hurling upon the assailants of hives filled with stinging bees. The resistance of the inhabitants, however, proved unavailing, and was punished by their indiscriminate massacre when the city had been gained. A dispute between Raymond and Bohemond for sole possession of what they had jointly conquered delayed further operations, until the soldiers who were left in Maarah with their own hands destroyed the fortifications, and thus rendered it useless to the ambition of either of the leaders.
It was not until far into the year that the united host took up the march southward. Everywhere they were lured from their grand objective, the sacred city, by the sight of goodly lands and strong towers, the spoil or possession of which might compensate the sacrifices of the campaign. Raymond laid siege to Arkas, at the foot of the Lebanons; others captured Tortosa.
While detained before the walls of Arkas they were met by an embassy from the caliph of Egypt, composed of the same persons that had previously visited the camp at Antioch. They narrated how they had been thrown into prison because of the failure of their former mission, when their master heard of the straits of the Christians; and how they had been liberated and sent back upon his hearing of the subsequent triumph of the Latins. They announced that Jerusalem had recently come into the hands of the Egyptians, and as its new possessors, proposed peace and privilege of pilgrimage to all who should enter the city without arms. They offered splendid bribes to the chieftains in person; but these worthies rejected the proposal.
The fame of the Christians’ victory at Antioch brought new crusaders from Europe, among them Edgar Atheling, the last Saxon claimant of the crown of England against its possession by William the Conqueror.
On the way southward the hosts harvested the groves of olives and oranges, and the waving fields which have always enriched the western slopes of Lebanon. They discovered a rare plant, juicy and sweet, refreshing like wine and nourishing as corn. The inhabitants called it zucra. The later crusaders introduced it as the sugar-cane into Italy. Proceeding along or near to the coast, that they might be able to receive succor from over the sea, they traversed the plain of Berytus (Beirut) and the territory of Tyre and Sidon. Many pilgrims, whose zealotry had led them to settle in the Holy Land notwithstanding its hostile possession, hailed their brethren with benedictions and provisions. On the bank of the river Eleuctra their camp was invaded by hosts of serpents, whose bite was followed by violent and often mortal pains. At Ptolemaïs (Jean d’Acre) the commanding emir averted assault by pledging himself to surrender the place as soon as he should learn that the Christians had taken Jerusalem. His pretence of peaceableness was singularly exposed. A hawk was seen to fly aloft with a dove in its talons. By strange chance the lifeless bird fell amid a group of crusaders. It proved to be a carrier-pigeon, whose peculiar instinct was then unknown to Europeans. Under its wing was a letter written by the emir of Ptolemaïs to the emir of Cæsarea, containing the words: “The cursed race of Christians has just passed through my territories and will soon cross yours. Let all our chiefs be warned and prepare to crush them.” This timely revelation of the treachery of their assumed ally, coming literally down from the sky, was regarded as a special sign of Heaven’s favor.
Pressing still southward, they captured Lydda and Ramleh, on the road between Jaffa and Jerusalem. Here the enthusiasm of the Christians blinded their judgment. It was with difficulty that the more cautious leaders restrained the multitude from moving against Egypt, in the vain expectation of conquering not only Jerusalem, but the ancient empire of the Pharaohs, at a single swoop. The credulity as to Heaven’s favor was matched by an equal display of very earthly motives. The crusaders devised a system for dividing the spoil. Whatever leader first planted his standard upon a city, or his mark upon the door of a house, was to be regarded as its legitimate owner. This appeal to human greed led many to leave the direct march upon Jerusalem, which was but sixteen miles away, and to expend in petty conquests or robberies the ardor which for weary months had been augmenting as they approached the grand object of the crusades. A faithful multitude, however, pushed on. They took off their shoes as they realized that they were on holy ground. Tancred, with a band of three hundred, making a circuit southward by night, set the standard of the cross on the walls of Bethlehem, to signal the birth of the kingdom in the birthplace of its King.
On the morning of June 10, 1099, the sight of the Holy City broke upon the view. The shout of the host, “Deus vult! Deus vult!” rolled over the intervening hills like the “noise of many waters.” Had a host of angels filled the sky, it would have seemed to their enthusiastic souls but a fitting concomitant of their approach. The joy of the apparent accomplishment of their purpose was, however, followed by the affliction of their souls, as the most devout among them reminded the others of the spiritual significance of the scene before them. Jerusalem had witnessed the death of their Lord. For a while the soldier remembered only that he was a pilgrim; knight and pikeman knelt together and laid their faces in the dust.
The Egyptian commandant of Jerusalem had not idly awaited the slow approach of its assailants. He had stored it abundantly with provisions, strengthened the walls with masonry and defensive machines, and by appeals to Moslems everywhere had completed its garrison. The suburban country was reduced to a desert, stripped of all vegetation which could furnish food for man or beast; all standing trees, and the timber in houses that might be wrought into machinery of assault, were destroyed. The wells in the valleys were filled with stones, and poison thrown into the cisterns where water had been stored.
Possibly the knowledge that the district about Jerusalem could furnish them no help led the leaders to listen to the counsel of a solitary hermit who dwelt on the Mount of Olives, and who promised in Christ’s name a successful assault if undertaken at once. It does not seem clear how an army without siege apparatus could take a place so strongly fortified. On the east the vast walls, rising from the valley of Jehoshaphat, were too lofty to tempt the most daring. Those on the south, overlooking the Kidron, were not less impregnable. The crusading army took every possibility of approach into consideration, and in imitation of Vespasian and Titus a thousand years before, stretched their lines on the north and west of the city. But only a blind faith in divine assistance could have led to the assault, even on these sides, without battering-rams or scaling-ladders. Yet at the trumpet’s call the Christians advanced. They joined their shields into a roof, which was a poor defence against the stones and boiling oil that descended upon them. Still the front ranks dug into the walls with pikes and axes, while the rear ranks of archers and slingers endeavored to drive the foe from the ramparts above. A few, finding a solitary ladder, mounted the walls, but were unable to withstand the crowd of Infidels who met them. In deep discouragement, they abandoned the assault, having learned the lesson that, even at Jerusalem, Heaven assures no enterprise which is conceived regardless of human discretion.
Events soon occurred which turned this distrust of miraculous intervention into a belief that Heaven was actually fighting against the Christians. It was a summer of fearful heat even for that land. Tasso’s description of those fiery days is as truthful as it is poetic:
To avoid the burning atmosphere which drained their blood, men buried themselves naked in the ground. At night they sought to gather the dew, with which to moisten their lips. Those who found some tiny pool fought among themselves for the possession of its foul water. It seemed that the very “stars fought in their courses” against the people of God, as once against Sisera. The occasional raids of Moslems upon defenceless bands of Christians, as they wandered in search of relief, were magnified by general fear into the approach of vast armies. It was rumored that Egypt had massed its power and was approaching from the south.
But for opportune relief it is probable that the crusaders would have been compelled to raise the siege. At the most critical moment some Genoese ships entered Jaffa. Three hundred of the bravest knights fought their way through the Moslems who obstructed the road to the coast, and succeeded in bringing to the camp before Jerusalem a quantity of provisions and material for siege machinery, as well as a number of skilled engineers and artisans. They were unable to prevent the ships being destroyed by the enemy. Gathering new courage from this reinforcement, a band penetrated to the forests of Samaria, full thirty miles distant, and cut timber, which, with incredible toil, they brought back for the construction of battering-rams, catapults, and strong roofs under which to conduct their renewed operations. Among the most formidable contrivances was the movable tower, three stories high, within the base of which men worked with levers to move the structure close to the walls, while on the upper floors soldiers were massed, who at the lowering of the drawbridge descended upon the ramparts.
Encouraged by this material aid, the crusaders again sought the heavenly succor. They remembered that Joshua combined faith with valor, and that, having invested Jericho with prayers and psalms, its walls fell down. They would now repeat the experiment. For three days they held a solemn fast. On the fourth, preceded by the priests bearing images of the saints, with song and cymbals and trumpet, and burnished arms flashing in the hot air, they set out for the mystic investment of the frowning walls of Jerusalem. Beginning on the west, the procession moved northward. The entire army worshipped prostrate at the tombs of St. Mary and St. Stephen. Bending their course to the southeast, they wept at the reputed garden of Gethsemane. They then went up the Mount of Olives, and there, on the spot whence Christ had ascended, held a grand convocation. At their feet lay the landscape, hallowed by the exploits of Hebrew patriots and prophets, but chiefly by the footprints of the Son of God. On the one hand gleamed the Jordan and the Dead Sea; on the other was Jerusalem, like an altar overturned and desecrated by the presence of the heathen. Their most eloquent orator, Arnold de Rohes, harangued them as he pointed to the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the grand objective of all their toil, heroism, and piety. Chieftains who had long cherished mutual animosity, like Tancred and Raymond, stood together in the embrace of forgiveness and the pledge to forget all their differences, while their hearts were reunited as in a celestial flame.
The Moslems themselves added fuel to the fire of Christian enthusiasm by parading on the walls of the city with crosses, which they saluted with blasphemous gestures and cries. Peter the Hermit voiced the fresh fury which swayed all breasts. He cried, “Ye see, ye hear, the blasphemies of the enemies of God. Swear to defend the Christ, a second time a prisoner, crucified afresh. I swear by your faith, I swear by your arms, that these mosques shall again serve for temples of the true God.”
Descending from the Mount of Olives, the procession moved southward, paying reverence at the Pool of Siloam and the tomb of David. As the red sun was setting in the white gleam of the Mediterranean, the host returned to their camps on the west of the city, chanting the words of Isaiah: “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun.” In strange attestation of the unity of religious sentiment in antagonistic faiths, the songs of the Christians were echoed from the city by the voices of the muezzins, who, from the minarets of mosques, called their faithful to prayer.
During the night Godfrey made a rapid change in his point of attack, so that in the morning the bewildered Moslems saw the walls threatened where they had made little preparation for defence. A great ravine which thwarted the operations of Raymond was quickly filled by the multitude, who rushed amid the thick rain of arrows, carrying stones, which they threw into it.
At daybreak, July 14, 1099, as from a single impulse, the rams began their blows; the catapults and ballistæ filled the air with flying stones and blazing combustibles, and a storm of arrows swept the walls. The assault was met with equal skill and courage, and night fell upon an indecisive engagement. Raymond’s tower had been destroyed, and those of Godfrey and Tancred were injured so that they could not be moved.
The 15th of July witnessed a repetition of the carnage. The priests kept up an unceasing procession of prayer around the city, a pious exhibition, which was matched by the appearance on the walls of two Moslem sorceresses, who, as the Christians said, invoked the aid of nature and demons. In vain was the heroism and sacrifices of the crusaders. Their towers were burned and fell, burying their defenders beneath the blazing fagots. The host was beginning to withdraw from the seemingly useless slaughter. Suddenly the cry, “Look! look!” directed all eyes towards the Mount of Olives. The imagination of some one had seen—or his shrewdness, recalling the ruse of the Holy Lance at Antioch, had invented—the apparition of a gigantic knight on the sacred mount, waving his shield. The cry of “St. George! St. George!” rent the air. A timely change in the wind blew the flames and smoke of the Christians’ remaining towers towards the walls. The Moslems were blinded and choked as by the breath of unearthly spirits. Godfrey’s men rushed upon them, drove them from their defences, and, climbing over the wall, pursued them down through the streets of the city. Tancred obtained a similar advantage, and in another torrent poured his contingent over the northern end of the ramparts. The Christians within the city opened the gates, and new tides of slaughter and victory rolled among the houses. Last of all, Raymond carried the battlements which opposed him; thus the various bands met within the city. One rally of the Moslems checked but for an instant the inevitable result.
The valor of this last effort of the defendants might have elicited the magnanimity of the victors for so worthy a foe, but it only enraged their brutality. They who paused long enough in the carnage to remember that it was Friday, and the very hour when Christ died in love for all men, did not remember the simplest precepts of their holy religion, and visited their now unresisting enemies with slaughter unsurpassed in the annals of cruelty. Neither age nor sex was spared. Children’s brains were dashed out against the stones, or their living bodies were whirled in demoniacal sport from the walls. Women were outraged. Men were prodded with spears over the battlements upon other spears below, or were reserved to be roasted by slow fires amid the mockeries of their captors. In the letter sent by Godfrey and others to the Pope occur these words: “If you desire to know what was done with the enemy who were found there, know that in Solomon’s porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracen up to the knees of their horses.”
Both Latin and Oriental historians give seventy thousand as the number of Mussulmans who were massacred after the capture, besides those who fell in the fight. It is certain that the entire population that did not escape from the city were intended for death, for such was the deliberate decree of the council of chiefs. The blood-crazed soldiers extended the scope of this outrageous mandate to include the Jews, who perished in the flames of their synagogue. From their hiding-places in mosques, homes, and the vast underground vaults, the citizens were plucked out by the point of the lance and sword. Thus many a Moslem died in the confirmed belief of the superior humanity of his own religion, though it was called the religion of the sword.
The only apology for this cruelty that can be given is the brutality of manhood in these dark ages. The gentler Christianity of earlier days had been sadly changed by the propensities of the semi-barbaric Northern conquerors who embraced it. The church had as yet been able to affect the masses with only its dogmas and ritual, not with its deeper and more truly religious influence for the restraint of passion and the tuition of the sentiment of love. The military spirit, too, had allied itself with the ecclesiastical; as Milman says, “The knight before the battle was as devout as the bishop; the bishop in the battle no less ferocious than the knight.” The truth of this is evident from the fact that contemporary writers do not attempt to excuse it, but glory in sights the imagination of which appals our modern sensibilities. Raymond d’Agiles, an eye-witness, speaks with pleasantry of the headless trunks and bodies dancing on ropes from the turrets. The ghost of the dead Adhemar was seen in his ecclesiastical robes partaking of the triumph, but those who describe the vision report no rebuke from his lips for the carnage. Tancred and Raymond of Toulouse alone seem to have raised any voice of mercy, and they suffered the imputation of mercenary motives for their clemency.
Jerusalem was given over to the Christian spoilers. Every man secured possession of the dwelling upon which he first set his mark or name. To Tancred’s share fell the entire furniture of the mosque of Omar, six chariot-loads of gold and silver candelabra and other ornaments. With characteristic generosity, he divided the booty with Godfrey and many private soldiers, reserving fifty marks of gold for the redecoration of the Christian churches. But most precious to their credulity was the True Cross, alleged to have been miraculously discovered by Helena, the mother of Constantine, in the fourth century, which, having been stolen by Chosroes the Persian, had been restored to the sacred city by Heraclius.
When wearied with gathering the spoil the crusaders deliberated how best to secure their possessions. This could be done only by maintaining peace within the city and adequate defence against the armies of the Infidels, who would undoubtedly rise to assail them from without.
Their first business was the selection of a king of Jerusalem. The popularity of Godfrey, merited by his genius, bravery, and devotion, readily suggested his name to the ten electors who were chosen to voice the suffrage of the host. To secure his enthusiastic reception by the people, he did not need additional arguments drawn from imagined revelations of the will of Heaven. Yet visions were invoked to confirm the judgment of human discretion. One reported that he had seen Godfrey enthroned in the sun, while numberless flocks of birds from all lands came and nestled at his feet. This was interpreted to mean the coming glory of Jerusalem and the crowds of pilgrims who should be safe beneath his sway. Godfrey modestly declined the royal title, accepting only that of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, saying that he would not wear a crown of gold in the city where Christ had worn only a crown of thorns (July 22, 1099).
With less unanimity and only after unseemly brawls, which were in strange contrast with the orderly arrangement of their secular affairs, Arnold de Rohes, the eloquent but dissolute ecclesiastic, was selected by the priests as Patriarch of Jerusalem.
With true statesmanlike purpose, Godfrey addressed himself to the organization of the political and military government of his new dominion. He had, however, little time to devote to the peaceful progress of his kingdom. Raymond diverted his chief’s attention more by plots of ambition and jealousy than he aided him by wisdom of counsel. Multitudes of Christians resident in the East, excited to become such by the fame of the conquests of the crusaders, poured into the city and vicinage, and thus added to the governor’s cares.
At the same time the Mussulmans, quickly recuperating from their despair, inaugurated new campaigns. The Turks and Persians laid aside their jealousy of the Egyptians, and poured southward and westward to join the army of the caliph of Cairo. Afdhal, already famous for having wrested Jerusalem from the Turks, gathered the warriors of Islam of all tribes and races, from the Nile to the Tigris. His advancing army was supported by a vast fleet, which had been laden at Alexandria and Damietta with provisions and siege apparatus for a second capture of what to them, as well as to the Christians, was the sacred city.
Learning that the Moslems had reached Gaza, Godfrey set forth to meet them, with Tancred as his most worthy coadjutant. Raymond, having quarrelled with Godfrey about the independent possession of the tower of David, sulked in his house, and Robert of Normandy also refused to march to the aid of Godfrey. These leaders were, however, at length driven from the city by the taunts of the priests and the women. Their martial pride was also stirred by the message of Godfrey that a battle was imminent. The crusaders made their camp at Ramleh, and August 11th advanced towards Ascalon. By the banks of the wadi Surak they captured immense herds of camels, oxen, and sheep, which encouraged them as much, doubtless, as did the wood of the True Cross that was carried through the ranks. The herds also seemed to be marshalled by a special providence as their rearward. We must describe this in the words of Godfrey: “When we advanced to battle, wonderful to relate, the camels formed in many squadrons, and the sheep and oxen did the same. Moreover, these animals accompanied us, halting when we halted, advancing when we advanced, and charging when we charged.” The enormous dust-clouds raised by the herds led the Moslems to take them for a contingent of the Christian force, which imagination magnified to many times its real numbers. A paralysis of fear fell upon the Infidels. Most of them, being fresh troops, had never met the crusaders in battle, and had dared the issue, relying upon their own superiority in numbers. Now that this dependence seemingly failed them, they anticipated defeat at the hands of the heroes of Nicæa and Antioch and Jerusalem, and stood nerveless before the attack. The Christians, coming near, fell every man upon his knees in prayer, then rose to make the charge. Raymond struck the column of Turks and Persians; Tancred led his braves through the Moors and Egyptians; Godfrey crushed the Ethiopians, who resisted him but for an instant with their long flails armed with balls of iron; Robert of Normandy wrested the standard from the hands of Afdhal himself. As the Moslems cast away their bows and javelins to hasten their flight, the Christians cast away theirs that they might speed the pursuit with the sword. Back they drove the Infidels against the walls of Ascalon. Two thousand were trampled or suffocated in the crowd that choked the gate; multitudes, avoiding the city, were driven into the sea and were drowned. The panic communicated itself to the Egyptian sailors on the fleet, who spread their sails and disappeared over the sea, leaving the Moslem soldiers no opportunity of escape. Godfrey says: “There were not in our army more than five thousand horsemen and fifteen thousand foot-soldiers, and there were probably of the enemy one hundred thousand horsemen and four hundred thousand foot-soldiers.... More than one hundred thousand perished by the sword; and if many of ours had not been detained plundering the camp, few of the great multitude would have escaped.”
Raymond claimed the city of Ascalon for his own possession. Godfrey declared that all conquests belonged to their common kingdom of Jerusalem. Raymond, in mean revenge, encouraged the Moslems not to surrender their stronghold, which still resisted. By similar counsel he prevailed upon the Saracen garrison of Arsuf to hold out. Godfrey could not restrain his anger at this treachery, and turned his arms upon his old comrade. Tancred and Robert of Normandy threw themselves between the swords of the combatants and effected their reconciliation.
With the victory at Ascalon (August 19, 1099) the first crusade may be said to have terminated. The events of the subsequent year relate to the history of the new kingdom of Jerusalem. The closing months of the eleventh century witnessed the return of the mass of crusaders to their European homes. In almost every castle and hamlet of France the thrilling events of three years were narrated by those whose scars corroborated the story of their valor and sufferings. Nearly every family remembered a father, a brother, or a son as a martyr, or rejoiced in his return renowned as a hero or revered as a saint.
Few of the leaders enlarged their repute by any subsequent actions. Peter the Hermit ended his days at advanced age in the monastery of Huy, which his renown for sanctity had enabled him to found. Robert of Normandy seems to have exhausted all the manliness of his nature in his Eastern adventures. He allowed an amour to detain him in Italy for more than a year, during which time his brother Henry took the throne of England on the death of William Rufus, a reward which might easily have come to Robert, had he shown disposition to defend his right of inheritance. Henry wrested from him even his duchy of Normandy, and confined him in the castle of Cardiff, where he died after twenty-eight years of captivity.
Raymond retired to Laodicea, the government of which he had secured. From this place he was summoned to command new bands of crusaders. Multitudes set out under him. Some followed Stephen of Blois, brother to the French king, whose desertion of the crusaders brought upon him such dishonor that he was eager to restore his repute by a second enlistment. William, Count of Poitiers, Lord of France, reputed as the first of the Troubadours, departed with a retinue of soldiers and girls. A German horde was led by Conrad, the marshal of the empire. Italians followed Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, in whose train were lords, knights, and noble ladies, among them the Princess Ida of Austria.
These various bands, like the earlier crusaders, met at Constantinople, repeating the annoyance to the Emperor Alexius, who begged Raymond to relieve him of their presence. This veteran accepted the duty, bearing with him the Holy Lance that had wrought wonders at Antioch, and which Raymond regarded as a match for the arm of St. Ambrose that the Archbishop of Milan had brought from his cathedral.
This march eastward was without discipline, monks and women often filling the places of soldiers. Kilidge-Arslan, the Sultan of Iconium, burned with desire to avenge his defeat three years before at Nicæa. Kerbogha, Sultan of Mosul, was equally inflamed to wipe out his disgrace at Antioch. These joined their forces and overwhelmed the Christians at the river Halys. The massacre almost amounted to extermination. Raymond fled with the other leaders. The Turks repeated their assault upon a second army, under the Count de Nevers, at Ancyra, with similar results. And again they administered their terrible vengeance upon a third army, under the Count of Poitiers, the Duke of Bavaria, and Count Hugh of Vermandois, of whose reputed one hundred and fifty thousand scarcely one thousand escaped. The leaders found a sorry refuge in rags and wounds at Tarsus and Antioch. The women, among them the Princess Ida, disappeared within the curtains of numberless harems. A forlorn remnant reached Jerusalem, to add, perhaps, more to the care than to the assistance of Godfrey.
The rule of Godfrey as Baron of the Holy Sepulchre was brief, but such as to promise, had his career been extended to even the age of most of his companions, a record worthy of the greatest of kings. Despising the mere gilding of a throne, he sought to strengthen his government by the best laws known to Europe, as well as to guard and extend his power by the sword.
The latter was, however, the first and pressing necessity. The departure of the crusading hosts left him but three hundred knights with their retainers, out of six hundred thousand who during three years had taken the cross. His strongholds were, besides Jerusalem, a score of towns scattered over the vicinage of the capital, in many cases antagonized by the still remaining fortresses of the Infidels. The country between these towns was open to the passage of his foes. The land was untilled, and offered scanty provision for his people. To prevent a further exodus of Christians, it was enacted that land could be acquired in ownership only after a year’s continuous occupancy, and would be alienated by a year’s absence.
Tancred was as Godfrey’s right hand. These two men stand out together as preëminent for their moral qualities among many as brave as they in merely physical prowess. To Tancred was assigned the principality of Tiberias, the possession of which he quickly acquired with his sword. Godfrey at the same time forced the acknowledgment of his government by exacting tribute from the Arabs west of the Jordan, and from the emirs along the coast of the Mediterranean. One city, Asur (Arsuf), refused submission and maintained its independence in spite of siege. The spirit of Godfrey was strangely tried here by an incident. Gerard of Avernes had been given up by Godfrey as a hostage for his clemency and justice in dealing with the people of the town. While the arrows of the Christians were sweeping the walls, Gerard was placed unshielded at a point where they were falling thickest, that his danger might divert the assault. Godfrey, coming near, cried aloud to him, “If my own brother were in your place I could not cease my attack; die, then, as a brave knight.” Gerard accepted his martyrdom, and fell beneath the missiles of his friends.
To Jerusalem came a multitude of pilgrims, among them Dagobert (Daimbert) as special legate from the Pope. By virtue of his high office he claimed for himself the patriarchate of Jerusalem, together with the secular sovereignty of Jaffa and the section of the sacred city in which was located the Holy Sepulchre. Following further the policy of the popes to make their dominion a world monarchy, secular as well as spiritual, Dagobert required Godfrey to acknowledge himself a temporal vassal of the pontiff, and to pledge to the patriarch the sovereignty of the kingdom in the event of Godfrey dying without children. Bohemond, as Prince of Antioch, and Baldwin, Prince of Edessa, brother of Godfrey, and Raymond, now of Laodicea, were at the time visiting Jerusalem. These also made their submission, and received their governments anew from the Holy Father.
With the counsel of these and others, his wisest advisers, Godfrey inaugurated the system of laws afterwards known as the Assizes of Jerusalem. They were not completed until a subsequent century, but their inception belongs to his statesmanship. These regulations are interesting as reflecting in brief compass the best customs of Europe. Their study may, therefore, be on that wider field. The Assizes were a sort of written constitution, and when prepared the original document was placed with solemn pomp in the archives of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
But the reign begun under such favorable auspices was suddenly terminated. Returning from an expedition for the succor of Tancred, Godfrey accepted the hospitality of the emir of Cæsarea, and immediately falling ill, his sickness was accredited to poisoned fruit. He died soon after reaching his capital (June 18, 1100), at the early age of thirty-eight. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is still to be seen his tomb, near by that of his Lord, which he had given his brief but brave life to rescue and defend.
Godfrey’s preëminence among the original crusader chieftains was due not so much to any single virtue in which he was their superior as to a rare combination of many excellent qualities. It was said of him that he was the peer of Raymond in counsel and of Tancred in the field. To this we may add that for piety he outshone Adhemar the priest. In the midst of the fight he would pause for prayer to the God of battles; and his meditation on sacred themes was ordinarily prolonged far beyond the hours prescribed for devotion by the church. His nature was gentler and more just than that of his companions. If at times his actions were cruel, they might be attributed rather to the habit of the age than to his own inclination. Since he surpassed his generation in so many respects, it would be neither just nor generous to criticise his defects. In him we see the budding of a better type of humanity amid the prevailing grossness of animalism and superstition.