The Deeds of God Through the Franks

by Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy Guibert

When the entire force of the army behind the vanguard poured into the hideous strife, the sharpness of our men began to grow dull under the fierce assault of the enemy; as their numbers grew, our men began to lose some of their previous ardor. When Bohemund, who was waiting in the rear with reinforcements, saw this, he gnashed his teeth in rage. He sent for his constable, Robert, the son of Girardus, and gave him the following directions, "Go, and make use of the courage which you should now show, and which is right for such a great task; keep in mind the purpose of this effort, and understand that our motive is to aid all of Christianity by redeeming Jerusalem for God and liberating his tomb. It is clear to you that to carry out this task divine rather than human aid is necessary. Go then, and offer your bravery for the suffering Christ, and do not let such an opportunity find you slow to act, for God may be preparing to give you great glory." Inflamed by these words, relying on God with his whole soul,

He sprung forward, and tore at the thick crowd of enemies with his sword, holding aloft the standards of the duke, which inspired such awe that wherever they appeared the spirits of our men were uplifted, and he raged like a lioness who, bereft of her cubs, kills anyone in her way. The sword carved a path, cut through the dense battalions, smashing everyone who got in the way, pointing the way for the soldiers who followed.[164]

When our men saw that the familiar standard of Bohemund was not faltering in the least, and the constable was raging with such eagerness against the Turks, they all took heart and attacked with such force that flight was the only protection the enemy could hope for. Our men fell upon the fleeing Turks, who were running at great speed, helter-skelter, and we did not cease cutting them down and decapitating their bodies all the way to the narrow bridges of the Pharphar, After such slaughter, the Turks entered the fort of Areg, which I mentioned above, looted it entirely, set it afire, and then fled, never to return to it. However, the perfidious Armenians and Syrians, who had awaited the outcome of the battle without taking sides, so that they could join the side to whom victory was granted, when they saw the Turks vanquished, moved forward and blocked the roads, killing the Turks as they tried to go by. The painful indigence of our men was somewhat alleviated with what was taken from the conquered enemy; horses and money provided relief, and even more so, our growing triumphs vitiated the Turkish reputation for fierceness. After the victory, they cut off the heads of one hundred of those who had fallen in battle, and hung them before the walls of Antioch for the besieged Turks to look at. It is, of course, the custom of the Gentiles to keep the decapitated heads and to display them as a sign of victory. While these things were going on, the Babylonian emperor sent ambassadors to the leaders of our army, congratulating them for what they had done to the Turks; in addition, he promised, although falsely, that he would become Christian, if our people would grant and restore to him what the Turks had taken from his kingdom. We had said earlier that the Babylonian empire was far more powerful than the other eastern kingdoms, but that the Turks, more ferocious in arms and in spirits, had usurped much of their territory. Those who had remained to maintain the siege of the city had fought bitterly with the inhabitants, not merely at one point, but at every gate of the city. This triumph occurred on the fifth day before the Ides of February,[165] the day before the beginning of the fast. It was right that on the day before Christians were to fast they grew fat on what they most desired, the blood of their evil enemies. The Franks, in their fervent victory celebrations, thanked God for granting them so many of their prayers, and went back to their camps, loaded with booty. The Turks, on the other hand, ashamed to be seen, would have made their way, if they could, through secret passages, back to their native lands.

Then the leaders of the army, considering the many humiliations they were suffering from the attacks of the besieged people, held a meeting and decided, to prevent the chance of any diminution of their forces, to build, at the gate of the city, where the pagan temple was located, a fort by means of which they could restrain, to some extent, the enemy's forays. All the junior officers assented to this plan. Then the count of Saint-Gilles was the first to speak: "I shall provide for and protect the fort; you must help build it only." Bohemund said, "If it please you, I promise to go with this count who has offered his services, to the Gate of Saint Simeon, where we shall both supervise those who do the work. Let the others continue the siege, and prevent the enemy from getting out of the city." And so the Count and Bohemund then proceeded to the Gate, as they had proposed. Those who had remained to build the castle began to work, but the Turks made a sudden, violent attack on the beginnings of the structure. With their sudden attack they compelled our men to flee, killing many of them, bringing a day of grief to the Franks. The next day the Turks learned that some of our leaders had left the siege and gone to the Gate of Saint Simeon. They prepared a large force and quickly moved to encounter those who were returning from the Gate. When they saw the count and Bohemund, together with a large military force, coming towards them, they began to shout and utter hideous noises. They surrounded our men on all sides, inflicting terrible wounds on them, hurling spears, firing arrows, and savagely killing them. Their attack was so severe that our men scarcely were able to escape into the nearby mountains, or wherever else escape seemed possible. Those who were, in manner of speaking, swifter than winged horses, escaped; anyone whom the swift pagans found slower, however, died. In this disaster, as it was considered, a thousand of our men perished; those who were found, because of their proven faith, to be acceptable, received glorious rewards after death for their sufferings. For those who needed to expiate their sins, the outpouring of blood alone was the most potent way to purge their guilt. In great anguish because of such a misfortune, and separated from his companions because he had taken a shorter road, Bohemund, with a few of his knights, whom he found banded together, returned to the siege. Driven to distraction by the death of so many of their own men, sobbing bitterly, crying out to Christ, they moved out against those who had inflicted such pain upon them, and reached the field of battle. Confident because of their recent victory, the cohorts of the enemy stood firm, expecting to perform exactly as they boasted they had performed against Bohemund and the count. Against these proponents of evil the loving God in his mercy arranged proper remedy for his suffering people. Therefore these famous men, moved by grief and compassion for their dead brothers, with the sign of the Lord's cross fixed on their foreheads and in their hearts, hurled themselves with all their strength against the enemy. As soon as they saw this, the enemy fled towards the Pharphar river, intending to cross the strait. In their hasty flight the mass of men was jammed together in the attempt to cross, and as the wedge of knights and infantry piled up in a very small space, struggling to pass each other, men knocked each other down. Our men watched all this very carefully, and when the crowd of fugitives seemed to thicken, a fall was more effective than a wound. If any man fell into the water and tried to get out either by hanging on to the columns of the bridge, or by swimming to dry land, our men located on the shore forced him back into the water to drown. The signs of carnage were so great that the Pharphar seemed to flow with blood, not with water. The sounds made there by the vanquished and the victors, by the dying and by those who were forcing them to die, were so terrible that the highest vault of the heavens seemed to resound with their shrieks. The air became clouded with arrows and other kinds of missiles, and the brightness of the solar globe was covered by a shower of flying spears. The women of the city who were Christian stood on the ramparts of the wall, feeding upon the sight; as they watched the Turks perish and submit to calamity they groaned openly, but then turned their faces away and secretly applauded the fortunate course events had taken for the Franks. The Armenians and Syrians, although they were Christian, were compelled to fire arrows at us; some even did so willingly. Twelve of the principal enemy leaders, called "satraps" in the Chaldean language, and "emirs" in the barbaric tongue, fell in battle on this occasion, as well as many others, amounting to perhaps 1500 of the wealthiest and most important people, upon whom the entire defense of the city rested. Those who survived the carnage no longer hurled their customary insults at our men; their boisterous, scurrilous chattering ceased. On that day their daily joy was turned into grief.

Then oncoming night separated the enemies; strength and arms dropped from their agitated minds.[166]

This victory for us resulted in an apparent dimunition of their strength and force, and their derisory remarks entirely ceased. Moreover, the short supply of many things whose lack pressed our men was amply replenished, thanks to God's benevolence. At daylight the next day, some of the Turks came forth from the city to collect the bodies of their dead; they found some, but others had disappeared, carried off in the bed of the river. They buried those they found in the temple called the Mahometry, on the other side of the Pharphar, near the gate of Antioch. In these tombs they buried cloaks, gold besants, bows and arrows, and many other utensils that I shall refrain from describing. When they heard about these funeral ceremonies, our men armed themselves and entered the cemetery, broke open the tombs, took out the bodies, heaped them up and dropped them into deep pit. Then they decapitated them and had the heads brought to their own tents, in order to calculate accurately the number they had killed, with the exception of the bodies that the ambassadors of the Babylonian emperor transported on the backs of four horses, as evidence of the victory won over the Turks. When the Turks saw this, they suffered more bitterly from the uncovering of the bodies than from the killings themselves. Now they did not restrain their grief with a few modest tears, but, putting aside all shame, they screamed in public agony. Three days later they began building the fort mentioned above, with the very stones they had taken from the tombs of the Gentiles that they had broken open. When the fort was finished, the besieged town began to suffer exceedingly, and their discomfort became even greater. Our own men were now free to go where they wished, and even the mountain paths, which previously had been treacherous, were now favorable for searching for food. With all the roads shut off to the Turks, one section near where the fort and the temple next to the fort were located, seemed to offer the possibility of entering and leaving the river. If we properly equipped this fort, which belonged to us, none of the enemy could have hoped to have found a way out. A meeting was held, and the leaders decided that they would choose one of our men to guard the fort, to fortify it carefully, and to defend it faithfully, so that the pagans might be kept from wandering through the mountains and fields, and might be cut off from entering or leaving the city. When they were looking for someone fit for such task, Tancred, who earned and still deserves the title of wise young man in the Lord's wars, unable to restrain himself, broke in at this point, saying:, "If I were to know what future advantages for me might result from the present hard task, then I might undertake, carefully and with the aid of my retinue, to strengthen this fort, and I shall try to block our enemies from moving along the roads they are accustomed to use." Pleased with his generous offer, the leaders immediately promised to give him 400 silver marks. Displeased with the offer, which seemed not to match the magnitude of the task, Tancred nevertheless agreed; and so, lest he be considered cowardly if he refused, he gathered his knights and clients quickly and resolutely, took charge of the fort, and cut the enemy off from the possibility of getting out through the city's gates. By this means he inflicted upon them the greatest scarcity of food for their horses, as well as a great dearth of wood and other necessary items. This outstanding man chose to remain there resolutely, cutting off all traffic, and he set about surrounding the city and setting up a vigilant blockade. On the very day on which he entered the fort, a large group of Armenians and Syrians came through the mountains, bringing supplies of all sorts to the besieged city. This superb knight, to ensure that the task he had begun would have positive outcome, intercepted them, compelled by God more than by his own boldness, and seized a great amount of grain, wine, oil, and other no less necessary supplies. The good man could no longer complain, that while he was carrying out such a holy task God was forgetful of him, but he had learned, for the first time, from this remarkable good fortune that he would never again lack bodily necessities, and that he would not lack eternal reward from God, after His earthly assistance. The Turks were entirely prevented from leaving the city or moving around outside the walls, but were compelled to make do with what they could find within the city walls, until Antioch was under siege.

In the course of this siege the strength of Christian law flourished greatly, and, if anyone was convicted of a crime, he submitted to the severe judgment of the leaders of the army. Moreover, sexual crimes were punished with particular severity, and this was just. Those who were surrounded by atrocious deprivations, who seemed to be exposed to the swords of the enemy every day, if God were not protecting them, should not have been at the mercy of lustful thoughts. And how could pleasure enter where the fear of death was ceaselessly present? So it happened that merely speaking of a prostitute or of a brothel was considered intolerable, and they feared dying beneath the swords of the pagans if they committed such a crime. If any of the unmarried women was found to be pregnant, she and her pimp were submitted to hideous punishments. A certain monk of the most prestigious monastery, who had fled from the cloister to go on the expedition to Jerusalem, moved not by piety but by whim, was caught with a certain woman, and convicted, if I am not mistaken, by a trial by fire. Then they were stripped naked and led, by order of the bishop of Puy and others, through all the nearby camps, and beaten in the cruellest fashion with whips, to the terror of the onlookers.

The above-mentioned bishop of Puy assiduously exhorted men to be more patient in their sufferings and more careful about their vices; he let no Sunday or holiday go by without preaching the authority of holy writ through every corner of the camp. He enjoined every priest, bishop, abbot, and cleric whom he met and who seemed educated, to do the same.

It seems to me worthwhile, since the word "abbot" has made its way into my work, to tell about a certain abbot who, when this journey was first proposed among our people, finding himself without sufficient funds for the pilgrimage, cut into his forehead by I know not what means the sign of the cross, which ordinarily was made out of some kind of material and affixed to clothing. It did not look as though it had been painted on, but as though it had been inflicted, like stigmata received in battle. After he had done this, to make the trick look authentic, he claimed that an angel had appeared to him in a vision and placed it there. His hopes were not disappointed; when the restless crowd, always avid for novelty, heard this story, the man was innundated with gifts, both from people in and from people outside of his own region. Such a trick, however, could not be hidden from the eyes of those who looked at him carefully, because a slimy liquid seemed very clearly to ooze from the forcefully inscribed lines that formed the cross itself. Finally he set out on the crusade, was present at the siege of Antioch, displayed what he had fabricated, although others had seen through it for some time, and did not hide his intention to gain money. He behaved well there, and was very useful in instructing the Lord's army. He wished to emulate God, but he did not do this the way a wise man would. He was so outstanding that after the capture of Jerusalem he was made abbot of the church of the blessed Mary in the vale of Josaphat,[167] and later was made archbishop of Caesarea, metropolis of Palestine. It is an indubitable fact that had the solace of the divine Word not been administered with great frequency to them, their patient perseverance would never have survived the hunger and hardships of war. Therefore we may say that those among them who were circumspect in their lives and endowed with wisdom were not less but more valuable than those who fought the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. He who provides encouragement that strengthens a wavering mind certainly is greater than the person to whom his exhortation provides strength, especially when the advisers and the advisees share the same suffering.

What shall I say finally about those who, on this same expedition, were sanctified in various places by becoming martyrs? They were not only priests, learned men, but warriors, and ordinary people, who had had no hope of confession, but were called to this glorious fate. We have heard of many who, captured by the pagans and ordered to deny the sacraments of faith, preferred to expose their heads to the sword than to betray the Christian faith in which they had once been instructed. Among them I shall select one, a knight and an aristocrat, but more illustrious for his character than all others of his family or social class I have ever known. From the time he was a child I knew him, and I watched his fine disposition develop. Moreover, he and I came from the same region, and his parents held benefices from my parents, and owed them homage, and we grew up together, and his whole life and development were an open book to me. Although he was already an outstanding knight, he was a singularly expert warrior, but entirely free from sexual vice. He was well-known at the court of Alexis, the emperor of Constantinople, for he often traveled in his service. To consider his manner of living: although he had been blessed with wealth by fortune, he was considered to be unusually generous in giving alms; he attended divine services so regularly that he seemed to lead a life more like that of a bishop than a knight. When I recall his steadfast prayer, his pious words, and his generosity in giving gifts, I am extremely pleased with his holy purpose, but also with my own good fortune in having known him. I witnessed him perform acts that entitled him to nothing less than a martyr's death. I certainly take pride, as all those who were able to know him may take pride, in having known him, since I do not presume to say that I was his friend. Whoever saw him knew without a doubt that he had seen martyr. Captured by the pagans, who demanded that he renounce the Christian faith, he asked these unbelievers to delay until the sixth day of the week. They readily agreed, thinking that his stubbornness would be altered, and when the day arrived, and the Gentiles in their madness pressed him to agree to their demand, he is reported to have said, "If you think that I have put off the sword hanging above my head because I wanted to enjoy a few more days alive, and not because I wanted to die on the day on which my Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, then it is fitting that I give evidence of how a Christian mind thinks. Get up, then, and kill me for the example that you want, so that I may restore my soul to him for whom I die, who on this day gave his own life for mankind." Having said this, he stretched his neck out to the sword that hung over him, and when his head was cut off, he was carried to God, whose death he had longed to imitate. His name was Matthew, as his name indicates, "given to God."