And now Christ will have new honors, like those he had long ago, ornamenting our age with new martyrs. How fragrant are the laurels on the brows of those who prepare to offer their throats to the swift blade! I shall call them happy who endure those few moments: their firm faith has brought them eternal life. Now the least of us need despair no longer, having dared what can scarcely be imitated.[106]
The Turks divided up among themselves some of the captives, whose lives they had spared, or rather reserved for a more painful death, and submitted them to dismal servitude at the hands of cruel masters. Some were exposed in public, like targets, and were pierced by arrows; others were given away as gifts, while others were sold outright. Those to whom they were given took them back to their own homes, bringing some of them to the region called Khorasan, and others to the city of Antioch, where they would endure wretched slavery under the worst masters imaginable.
They underwent a torture much longer than that endured by those whose heads were severed swiftly by the sword. A cruel master drives them, subjecting them to painful labor; everywhere the pious man serves the ungrateful man. The conscientious worker is flogged; the faithful man, who performs eagerly and competently, is punished. What he sees, what he hears, what he does during the day, because he resists doing evil, becomes foul torture. I have no doubt that their suffering was more excruciating than three days of torture on the rack.[107]
These were the first martyrs God made in the nearly desperate state of our modern times.
Meanwhile Peter, about whom we spoke earlier, often troubled by the folly of his retinue, disturbed by frequent losses, finally gave the reins of leadership over to well-born man, a powerful warrior from beyond the Seine, whose name was Walter,[108] in the hope that those whom he had been unable to control by warnings might at least be restrained by military authority. Walter hurried, together with his insane army, to reach Civitot,[109] a city that is said to be located above Nicaea.[110] When the Turks, who were keeping track of our movements, found out, they hurried to Civitot, eager to act out their great ill will. Half-way there, they met up with the above-mentioned Walter and his group, and they killed him and a great many of his men. Peter, called the Hermit, unable to restrain the insanity of the men he had gathered together, was afraid of being caught up in their undisciplined, improvident folly, and wisely retreated to Constantinople. The Turks attacked them without warning, and, finding some of them asleep, and others not only without weapons, but unclothed as well, immediately killed them all. Among them they found a certain priest performing mass, and they killed him in the very act of completing the sacrament; while he was sacrificing to God, they sacrificed him at the same altar.
What better host can be offered to God than the flesh of him who becomes a victim for his God. What prayer did he utter from the depths of his heart when the trumpets of battle sounded? The victors tore them to pieces, the clangor of arms resounded, and the wretched band of fugitives howled. The fine priest embraced the altar, holding the sacred host closely, "Good Jesus," he said,"you are here as my protection. Since I am holding you, let the hope of flight disappear. I shall enter into an eternal pact with you. I am killed, and you, God, shall carry out the sacred things we have begun."[111]
Those who were able to escape fled to the city of Civetot. The depths of the sea received some, who, unable to escape, preferred to choose their death rather than have it thrust upon them. Others sought out the mountains and hid among the rocks, while others hid in the woods. After they had captured or taken vengeance on those they found outside, the Turks quickly attacked those who were hiding inside the castle and they set up a siege, bringing wood to start fire. They lit fires for those who were being besieged, thinking that the fire would burn those inside the castle. However, in accordance with God's judgment, the whole force of the fire fell upon the Turks, and burned some of them, while none of it reached our men. They continued to attack, however, and the town was captured. Those whom they found alive they tied up and then, as had been done to the others before them, they were sent to the various provinces from which the enemy had come, to endure perpetual exile. These things happened in the month of October. When the treacherous Emperor was informed of the disaster that had befallen the faithful, the wretch was elated with joy, and ordered that the remaining troops be given permission to cross the Arm of Saint George, and to retreat to the nearer parts of Greece. When he saw them return to the territory over which he had power, he forced them to sell their arms to him. Such was the end of the group under the command of Peter the Hermit. We have followed this story without interrupting it so that we might show that Peter's group in no way helped the others, but in fact added to the audacity of the Turks. And now we shall return to the men we have passed over, who followed the same path that Peter did, but in a far more restrained and fortunate way.
Duke Godfrey, the son of count Eustace of Boulogne, had two brothers: Baldwin, who ruled Edessa, and succeeded his brother as king of Jerusalem, and who still rules there; and Eustace, who rules in the county he inherited from his father. They had a powerful father, who was competent in worldly affairs, and their mother was, if I am not mistaken, a learned Lotharingian aristocrat, but most remarkable for her innate serenity and great devotion to God. The joys she received from such exemplary sons were due, we believe, to her profound religious belief. Godfrey, about whom we are now speaking, had received a duchy in Lotharingia as his maternal heritage. All three, in no way inferior to their mother in honesty, flourished in great military deeds, as well as in the restraint of their behavior. The glorious woman used to say, when she marveled at the result of the journey and the success of her sons, that she had heard from the mouth of her son the duke a prediction of the outcome long before the beginning of the expedition. For he said that he wanted to go to Jerusalem not as a simple pilgrim, as others had done, but forcefully, with a large army, if he could raise one. In accordance with this divinely inspired intuition, fortune later smiled on his project. The three brothers, heedless of the great honors they already had, set out on the journey. But even as Godfrey was wiser than his other brothers, so he was equipped with a larger army. He was joined by Baldwin, Count of Mons, son of Robert, the paternal uncle of the young count of Flanders. With the splendid knightly ceremony and spectacle, the band of powerful young men entered the land of the Hungarians, in possession of what Peter was unable to obtain: control over his army. Two days before Christmas, the first of the French leaders to arrive, they reached the city of Constantinople, but their lodgings were outside the city. The treacherous emperor, frightened when he heard that the brilliant duke had arrived, offered formal, but grudging signs of respect, and offered him permission to dwell in front of the walls, in a suburb of the city. And so, after accepting the emperor's offer, the duke and each of his men sent their own squires to get straw and whatever was necessary for their horses from wherever they could. While they were thinking that they could go safely and securely wherever they wished, the foul prince secretly ordered the men around him to kill, without making any distinctions, all of the men who were carrying out the duke's instructions, wherever they found them. When Baldwin, the duke's brother, found out about this, he set an ambush; when he discovered the Turcopolitans violently attacking his own men, he forcefully attacked them, as was right. And with God's favor he won such a victory that he captured sixty of them; he killed some of them and handed others over to his brother the duke. When news of this event reached the impious emperor, he was filled with self-reproach. Made more cautious by this event, the duke left the suburb of the city where he had been staying, and set up camp outside of its borders. However, as evening approached, the emperor, unable to put aside his anger, hastily collected an army and began hostilities against the duke and his men. Forcefully accepting the challenge, the duke defeated them and drove them in flight back into the city, killing seven men. After this fortunate turn of events, the duke returned to his encampment, and remained there for five days, while he and the emperor negotiated a treaty. The frightened emperor asked that the duke cross the Arm of Saint George, promising in return that he would order to be brought to them supplies of whatever kinds of food were to be found in Constantinople and that he would give alms to their poor. And this was done.
Since we have spoken about the duke and his journey up to this point, I must return to the leaders of central France; I shall give a brief sketch of who they were, by what roads they traveled, and what the outcome of their efforts was. The Bishop of Puy, a man to be admired for his life, knowledge, teaching, and wisdom in military affairs, together with a large group of his countrymen, chose to set out through the land of the Slavs. Earlier I expressed my regret at not knowing his name, and for being unable to learn it from the history of which I seem to be the interpreter; finally, however, through those who knew him on that expedition, and who were familiar with him, I learned that this precious man's name was Aimarus.
Among the rest of the leaders, it seems to me that Hugh the Great, the brother of Philip the king of the Franks, must be dealt with first. Although others were wealthier or more powerful, he was second to none in birth or in the probity of his behavior. He was most justly celebrated for being forceful in arms, serenely secure in his noble birth, and, even more important, humble towards every sacred order, forthright and restrained. Certain leaders attached themselves to him, thinking that they would make him king if it happened that, after the Gentiles were driven out, the occupation of the land came about as a result of battle.