The Deeds of God Through the Franks

by Abbot of Nogent-sous-Coucy Guibert

They were unable to buy bread during the siege, and for nearly ten days food was difficult to find anywhere, until God brought help, and our fleet reached the port of Jaffa. In addition, the army also suffered from thirst, and they not only were worn out by this great discomfort, but they had to drive their horses and pack animals a great distance, six miles, to find water, all the while fearful that the enemy might attack them. The fountain of Siloah, famous for having cured the blind man in the Gospel,[210] which rises from springs on mount Zion, supplied them with water, which was sold to them at the highest prices. After messengers had announced that the fleet had arrived at Jaffa, the leaders held a meeting and decided to send a group of knights to the harbor to guard the ships and the men in them. Early in the morning, at the crack of dawn, Raymond, of whom we have spoken often, together with two other nobles, took 100 knights from the army of his lord, the count of Saint-Gilles, and set out for the port, with his customary decisiveness. Thirty of the knights separated from the main group and came upon approximately 700 Turks, Arabs, and Saracens, whom the king of Babylon had sent to watch our comings and goings. Although greatly outnumbered, our men forcefully attacked their troops, but the strength and ferocity of the enemy was so great that we were threatened on all sides with imminent death. They killed one of the two leaders, whose name was Achard, as well as some of the most respected among the poor and the foot-soldiers. As they were surrounding our men, pressing them with arms on all sides, so that they were about to despair utterly, one man came to the above-mentioned Raymond and told him of the plight of his peers. "Why do you and your men remain here? See how your men, who recently separated from you, are now fiercely surrounded by an swarm of Saracens and Arabs. Unless you bring them help very quickly, you will undoubtedly soon find them dead, if they have not already perished. Therefore fly, hurry, I say, so that you may not be too late." Together with all of his nobles, Raymond quickly set off to look at the place where the fighting was going on. In preparing for combat he placed his faith not in arms, not in strength, but in faith in the Saviour. When the Gentile troops saw the Christian army, they swiftly broke up into two groups. Calling upon the Most High for support, our men attacked with such force that each man knocked the opponent charging at him to the ground. Judging themselves unable to withstand the onslaught of the Christians, the pagans stopped, and, driven by fear, fled swiftly. Our men followed them quickly, pursuing them for four miles. After having killed many of them, they brought back 103 horses as trophies of victory. They refrained from killing only one man, whom they brought back with them, and from whom they learned everything that was going on among their enemies, including what the prince of Babylon was planning against us.

Meanwhile the army was suffering from a terrible thirst, which compelled them to sew together the hides of cattle and oxen, in which they carried water from six miles away. They used the water carried in such bags, which were putrid with recent sweat, and multiplied the great suffering caused by hunger, to make barley bread for the army. How many jaws and throats of noble men were eaten away by the roughness of this bread. How terribly were their fine stomachs revolted by the bitterness of the putrid liquid. Good God, we think that they must have suffered so, these men who remembered their high social position in their native land, where they had been accustomed to great ease and pleasure, and now could find no hope or solace in any external comfort, as they burned in the terrible heat.[211] Here is what I and I alone think: never had so many noble men exposed their own bodies to so much suffering for a purely spiritual benefit. Although the hearts of the pilgrims burned for the dear, distant pledges of their affections, for their sweet wives and for the dignity of their possessions, nevertheless they remained steadfastly in place there, and did not cease to pursue the battle for Christ.

The Saracens were always waiting in ambush around the springs and rivers, eager to kill our men wherever they found them, strip their bodies, and, if they happened to gain booty and horses, to hide them in caves and caverns. Terrible hunger and thirst raged through the army surrounding the city, and the very great rage of the enemy prowling here and there thundered against them as well. But the leaders of the sacred army, seeing that so many men of such different capacities could scarcely endure such pain any longer, urged the use of machines by means of which the city might be made more vulnerable, so that, after all they had gone through, they might finally stand before the monuments of the passion and burial of the Saviour. In addition to the many other instruments, like battering rams with which they might tear down the walls, or catapults to topple the towers and walls, they ordered two wooden castles to be built, which we usually call "falas." Duke Godfrey was the first to build his castle, together with other machines; and Raymond, Count of Saint-Gilles, who permitted himself to be second to no one, also built his own. When they saw the machines being built, the castles being constructed, the missile launchers and equipment being moving up to the towers, the Saracens began, with unusual speed, to extend and to repair their walls and towers. Working all night long, they surprised our men by the speed with which they accomplished things. Moreoever, the wood from which our men had built the castles and other machines was brought from a distant region. When the leaders of the army of the Lord perceived which side of the city was most vulnerable, on a certain Sunday night they brought the castle, together with some other machines, to that place. At dawn they set up the machines on the eastern side, and on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday they established them firmly in place. The count of Saint-Gilles, however, set up his machine on the southern side. As they burned with eagerness for the siege, their hearts were burning with intolerable thirst, and a silver coin could not purchase enough water to quench a man's thirst. Finally, on the fourth and fifth day, gathering all their forces, they started to attack the walled city. But before the attack took place, the bishops and priests directed the people who were their subjects to sing litanies, and to undertake fasts, to pray, and to give alms. The bishops remembered what had once happened at Jericho, that the walls of the perfidious city had fallen when the Israelites' trumpets sounded, and they marched seven times around the city, carrying the sacred ark, and the walls of the faithless city fell down.[212] They too circled Jerusalem in their bare feet, their spirits and bodies contrite, as they tearfully cried out the names of the saints. Both the leaders and the people came together in this time of necessity, to implore divine assistance. When this was accomplished with great humility, on the sixth day of the week, after they had attacked the city with great forcefulness, and their common effort had proved to be of no avail, such a great torpor fell upon the whole army that their strength vanished, and the steady misfortunes undermined the determination of the most courageous men. As God is my witness, I have heard, from men renowned for their truthfulness, who were present in the divine army, that after their unsuccessful assault upon the walls of the city, you would have seen the best of the knights who had returned from the walls striking their hands, shouting angrily, lamenting that God had deserted them. And I also learned, from sources no less reliable, that Robert, count of Normandy, and the other Robert, prince of Flanders, met and shared their mutual grief, weeping copiously, and declaring themselves the most wretched of men, since the Lord Jesus had judged them unworthy of worshipping His Cross, and of seeing, or rather of adoring His tomb. But as the hour drew near at which Jesus, who for the second time delivered the people from the prison of Egypt, is believed to have ascended the Cross, duke Godfrey and his brother, count Eustace, who had not stopped battling from their castle, steadily struck the lower walls with battering rams, while at the same time attacking the Saracens, who were fighting to protect their lives and country, with stones, with various other kinds of missiles, and even with the points of their swords,

Meanwhile, Lietaud, one of the knights, who will be known for generations to come for his daring and for his deeds, was the first to leap onto the walls of the city, startling the Gentiles who surrounded him, and robbing them of their confidence When he had mounted the wall, several of the young Franks whose pious boldness had made them preeminent rushed forward, unwilling to seem inferior to him who had preceded them, and they climbed to the top of the wall. I would insert their names on this page, were I not aware of the fact that, after they returned, they became infamous for criminal acts; therefore, according to the judgment of men who love the name of God, my silence is not unjust. Very soon, when the Saracens saw the Franks breaching the walls, they quickly fled over the walls and through the city. While they were retreating, our entire army rushed in, some through the breaches made by the battering rams, others by jumping from the tops of their machines. Their struggle to enter resulted in harmful speed; with each man wanting to be perceived as the first, they got in each other's way. Moreover, near the entrance to the gates to the city, the Saracens had built secret covered pits, which injured many of our men, not to speak of the difficulties caused by the narrowness of the entrance as our men rushed in. The Franks chased the fleeing pagans fiercely, killing everyone they came upon, more in slaughter than in battle, through the streets, squares, and crossroads, until they reached what was called the Temple of Solomon. So much human blood flowed that a wave of damp gore almost covered the ankles of the advancing men. That was the nature of their success that day.

Raymond, the Count of Saint-Gilles, moved his army from the southern flank and had a very large machine on wheels brought to the wall, but between the machine, which was called the Castle, and the wall, was a very deep pit. The princes soon conferred about how to accomplish the breaching of the wall quickly, and ordered a messenger to announce throughout the army that anyone who carried three stones into the ditch would certainly receive a penny. In the space of scarcely three days the moat was filled in, since night did not prevent them from carrying out their project. When the moat had been filled in by this means, they pushed the machine against the walls. However, those who had taken on the defense of the inner city resisted us, not out of bravery I say, but out of obstinate madness, hurling what they call Greek fire at our men, and damaging the wheels of the machine with stones. The Franks, however, with remarkable skill, often managed to evade their blows and efforts. Meanwhile, at the eastern side of the city, the tumult of battle alone made the aforementioned count think that the Franks had broken into the city, and were racing though it, spreading death. "Why," he said to his men, "do we delay? Don't you see that the Franks have taken the city, and are now triumphantly seizing great booty?" The count, together with his men, then swiftly invaded the city. When he learned that some of the Franks had spread through the city's palaces, some into the Temple of the Lord, and that many were fighting at the altars of the Temple of Solomon, as it was formerly called, in order to retain power in the captured city he spoke with the emir (as they called him) in charge of the tower of David, which was called Zion, demanding that he hand over the tower with which he had been entrusted. Thus the satrap, after a pact had been agreed upon between them, opened for him the gate through which the pilgrims used to pass when they entered Jerusalem, and where they were cruelly and unfairly compelled to pay tribute, which was called *musellae*. When the Provencals, that is, the army of the Count of Saint-Gilles, and all the others had entered the city, a general slaughter of the pagans took place. No one was spared because of tender years, beauty, dignity, or strength: one inescapable death awaited them all. Those who had retreated to the Temple of Solomon continued to battle against us throughout the day, but our men, enraged at the feeble arrogance of these desperate men, attacked them with united force, and by means of their combined efforts penetrated to the depths of the temple, where they inflicted such slaughter on the wretches within the temple that the blood of the innumerable crowd of those who were killed nearly submerged their boots. An innumerable crowd, of mingled sexes and ages, had poured into this Temple; the Franks granted some of them a few moments of life, so that they might remove from the Temple the bodies of the fallen, of whom a foul pile lay scattered here and there. After they had removed the bodies, they were themselves put to the sword. Those who had climbed to the top of the Temple, a large crowd of the common people, received the standards of Tancred and Gaston as a sign that peace had been granted to them in the meantime. However, whether Gaston, a famous and very wealthy man, was a Gascon or a Basque, I don't exactly remember, but I am certain that he was one or the other.[213] The army then ran amok, and the entire city was looted. Palaces and other buildings lay open, and silver, gold, and silken garments were seized as booty. They found many horses and mules, and in the houses they found great abundance of every kind of food. This was right and proper for the army of God, that the finest things that offered themselves to each man, no matter how poor, became his by right, without doubt or challenge, no matter the social class of the man who first came upon them. And then, putting these things aside, they ran, equally joyful and sad, towards that which they had thirsted for so fervently.

They approached the sepulchre of the Lord and thanked Him for what they had sought, the liberation of the Blessed Places; He had performed such great deeds with them as his instruments, that neither those who had performed them nor any other men could properly evaluate these great deeds. They kept in mind how much anguish they had endured to achieve this, and how they had accomplished what they could not have hoped for, and when they considered that they themselves had done deeds which had been unknown for centuries, no man could understand how blessed were the tears which they poured forth. Omnipotent God, what deep emotion, what joy, what grief they felt, after unheard-of sufferings, never experienced by any army, like the tortures of child-birth, when, like new-born children, they saw that they had attained the fresh joys of the long-desired vision. Therefore they were sad, and after they had joyfully wept tears sweeter than any bread, they rejoiced, and with overflowing emotions they embraced the most pious Jesus, the cause of their excruciating daily labors, as though he had been hanging on the cross, or had been held until that moment in the shelter of the tomb from time immemorial. Magnificent gifts of gold and silver were offered there, but sincere devotion was more valuable than any gift.

At last the next day shone forth, and the Franks, sorry that they had permitted those who had climbed to the top of the Temple (to whom Tancred and Gaston had given their own standards, as we said earlier) to remain alive, invaded the heights of the temple and cut the Saracens to pieces, killing the women together with the men. Some of them, preferring suicide, threw themselves from the top of the Temple. Tancred, however, because he and Gaston had given their pledges of security, was much disturbed by this killing. Then our men ordered some of the Saracens to carry off the dead, because the foul stench of the bodies was oppressive, and the city was filled with so many corpses that the Franks were unable to move without stepping on dead bodies. Therefore the pagans, when they had carried the bodies from the city, in front of the main gates piled up mountains of corpses, and burned them in a huge pile. We merely read about, and have never seen such a killing of Gentiles anywhere; God repaid them who had inflicted such pain and death upon the pilgrims—who had suffered for such a long time in that land—by exacting a retribution equal to their hideous crimes. For no one except God himself can calculate how much suffering, how many labors, how much destruction all of those who sought the Holy Places endured at the hands of the arrogant Gentiles. God certainly must have grieved more over their suffering than over the delivery of his Cross and Tomb into profane hands. But before we turn our stylus to other matters, it should be made clear that the Temple of Solomon, to which we referred earlier, is not the structure which Solomon himself built, which the Lord had predicted would not continue to stand, "one stone upon another," and which was destroyed, but an imitation of it, built by I don't know whom, as tribute to the noble ancient House. It certainly was a place of very great beauty, built out of gold and silver, of immeasurable price, and of incredible variety, with walls and gates plated with layers of precious metals. Count Raymond then had the prefect who had been in charge of the citadel, to whom he had sent his banners, brought out of the citadel that night, together with his entire retinue, and given safe conduct to Ascalon.

Then, when the holy places had been liberated, the entire Christian army was ordered to give alms and offerings, so that their souls might be properly receptive to the divine grace that they needed to choose the man who would rule the holy city as its king. On the eighth day after the taking of the city, they made an offer to the count of Saint-Gilles, because of his excellence, but he, although mindful of his high position, refused to take on such an onerous task, for good reason (he was an old man, who had only one eye, but was famous for his remarkable feats of arms and for his energy). Finally, they approached duke Godfrey, and, at the urgent insistence of everyone, the labor rather than the honor of this task was imposed upon him, for he would have to battle unremittingly against the great strength of the Gentiles, and to show good will towards the neighboring Christians. Slender, relatively tall, eloquent, and even-tempered, he had made himself known for his strength in battle on the Lord's expedition. According to reliable, accurate testimony, the following story is told about a remarkable deed he did, when he met at Antioch, on the bridge over the Pharphar, a Turk, wearing no cuirass, but riding a horse. Godfrey struck his guts so forcefully with his sword that the trunk of his body fell to the earth, while the legs remained seated as the horse moved on. The men of Lotharingia customarily had remarkable long as well as sharp swords.

We think that another of his deeds, no less glorious, and worthy to be told, should be included. They had taken Nicea, and since things had gone well at Nicea, they hurried off to besiege Antioch; on the way, from time to time, when the chance to relax their usual caution occurred, they hunted beasts in the nearby forests (the fields in this region were not as tall and thick as in our country). On one occasion, a bear of enormous size came out of the bushes; when the army caught sight of him, they set out in pursuit. Frightened by the shouting crowd, the bear immediately sought out the woods from which it had emerged. While many men were surrounding it, one wretch happened to reach the beast's lair. Leaping forward, the bear attacked the rash man, pinned him in his arms, and with his teeth swiftly seized the leg of the man lying there.[214]

Then the Duke, separated from his men, went to help him; when the wretched man, weeping with pain and fear, saw him, he called upon the man's noble nature, and urged him to help him. Nor did the Duke, whose nature consisted almost entirely of virtue, delay helping him, but he swiftly drew his sword from its scabbard and forcefully struck the head of the beast. More annoyed than wounded, because of the hardness of its bones, the beast attacked the Duke, removing its teeth from the leg of the unfortunate man whom he had first attacked so fiercely. The man quickly departed, without troubling himself about the Duke's difficulty, but saving himself, leaving the man and the beast to resolve their conflict between them. The beast, angry at the blow he had received, leapt up, seized the Duke with his claws, threw him down, and pinned him under his terrible limbs. With his raging mouth he bit the Duke's leg,[215] but the noble-minded man remained steadfast in spite of his fall, and tightly held onto the sword he had drawn.[216]