Around the time of Easter last year, the knight I mentioned earlier, whom we called the prefect of Tiberiad, and who had been victorious in that battle, was involved in another encounter, less fortunate for our men, in which he was captured, and brought alive by the pagans to a city belonging to them. During I don't know which one of their sacrilegious celebrations, they brought this knight out and urged him to renounce and to abjure his own belief. Splendidly obdurate, he rejected such criminal behavior, and was horrified even to hear such a suggestion. This praiseworthy man was immediately seized, tied, as they say, to a tree that stood in the middle of a field, and was torn by a hail of arrows from all sides. The crown was then sawed from his head, and the rest was made into the form of a cup, as though to hold drinks for the king of Damascus, by whose orders these acts had been done, to frighten our men. By dying to preserve the confession of his faith, this knight made himself a martyr who would be known for ages to come. His name was Gervais, of noble blood, from the castle of Basilcas[268] in Soissons.
These are the things that, by the grace of God, we have found out from entirely reliable men up to this day. If, in following the opinions of other men, we have said anything false, we have not done so with the intention of deceiving anyone. We are grateful to God, the Redeemer of this holy City, through the efforts of our people. For when the siege of the city began, He himself revealed, to an anchorite living in Bethania, as the story has been reliably told to us, that the city would be besieged furiously, but that it would be entered on Easter day, at the hour at which Christ was brought to the cross, to demonstrate that He again redeemed it from its afflictions by the suffering of his own limbs. This anchorite then called together some of our leaders, and told them these things, which were all proven true by the manner in which the city was actually captured. We thank God for having composed these deeds with his own spirit, through our mouth. For the rest, if anyone thinks that we have not laid things out as diligently as Julius Caesar and Hirtius Pansa[269] did in the history of the Gauls, Spaniards, Pharsalians, Alexandrians, and Numidians, he should carefully consider the fact that the same people who waged the wars wrote them down. As a result, nothing general or particular that happened is omitted from their accounts. They tell how many thousands of men there were, how many from each region, who the princes were, to whom power was delegated, who the leaders and princes were on the other side, what the cavalry, what the lightly armed troops did, how many shields were pierced by javelins, and, if I may use their own words, "after the consuls and their officers had sounded the retreat," how many men were missing and wounded at the end of the battle. Since another profession detains us who write this history, and our confidence is not strengthened by what we saw, we have decided, in reporting what we have heard, to exercise restraint. Observing the discipline of the Julian Quirites,[270] the officers of the legions, the troops of cavalry, the common soldiers, and the cohorts were compelled to rally around their banners, and if the locations were favorable, and in suitable places they set up their encampments, as though they were towns or cities, with moats and towers. Before they set up battle lines, they occupied the neighboring mountains, taking into account the irregularities of the terrain, and they had large numbers of servants, workers, and expensive baggage. Since almost nothing like these arrangements and activities existed among our men, their deeds were due, I shall not say to Frankish courage, but rather to their strength and their aroused faith. Let those who wish say that I have omitted more than I have written: I prefer being less to being more. If anyone knows other things that were done, let him write what he please. We thank God and such victors, who, when they had no grain, learned to feed upon roots that they dug up. If anyone is in doubt about the name of the Parthians, whom we have called Turks, or of the Caucasus, let him read Solin on Wonders, Trogus-Pompeius on the origin of the Parthians, and Jordanus the Goth on the Getae. May God stand watch as this pious work comes to an end.—
Endnotes
[1] A translation into French was done more than 170 years ago by F. Guizot, in v. 9 of his *Collection des mémoires rélatifs a l'histoire de France*, Paris, 1825.
[2] John Benton, *Self and Society in Medieval France*, New York, 1970; Guibert de Nogent, *Autobiographie*, edited and translated by Edmond-René Labande, Paris, 1981; Paul J. Archambault, *A Monk's Confessions*, University Park, 1995. The *Monodiae*, however, was also not popular in its own time. No medieval writer mentions the work, and no manuscript has survived. See Labande's edition, pp. xxiii-xxviii, for a discussion of the editorial problems that stem from being compelled to work from BN. f.l. Baluze 42. For recent discussion of Guibert, see M.D. Coupe, "The personality of Guibert de Nogent reconsidered," *Journal of Medieval History* IX, no. 4 [Dec. 1983], pp. 317-329, which supplies summary and judgement of the work of J. Kantor, Benton, and others. See also Jacques Charaud, "La conception de l'histoire de Guibert de Nogent," *Cahiers de civilisation médiévale* VIII (1965), pp. 381-395, and Klaus Schreiner, "Discrimen veri ac falsi," *Archive fur Kulturgeschicht* XLVIII (1966), pp. 1-51. Both Charaud and Schreiner are concerned to demonstrate the degree to which Guibert's vision of history is ruled by theology, and tropology in particular; both articles can be read as respectful corrections of Bernard Monod, "De la méthode historique chez Guibert de Nogent," *Revue historique* 84 (1904), pp. 51-70. Unfortunately, Laetitia Boehm's thesis, *Studien zur Geschichtschreibung des ersten Kreuzzuges Guibert von Nogent*, Munich, 1954, has remained unpublished. Georg Misch also makes an attempt to characterize Guibert, for the most part on the basis of Book One of the *Monodiae*, in *Geschichte der Autobiographie*, vol. 3, part two, first half, Frankfurt, 1959, pp. 108-162
[3] Early in the *Memoirs* Guibert says that his father died eight months after his own birth; later he gives the time between his birth and his father's death as scarcely six months; in both instances he neglects to give the year.
[4] Characteristics at work also in his other writings; see Guibert's *De pignoribus sanctorum* (Migne PL 156.607-684) for an extended attack on those who believe in the wrong relics.
[5] *Journal of Medieval History* 2 (1976), p. 299 (of pp. 281-303).
[6] See Louis Bréhier's edition and translation, *Histoire anonyme de la première croisade*, Paris, 1924; for a later edition, see Rosalind Hill, *Gesta Francorum*, London, New York, 1962.
[7] Baldric of Dole and Robert the Monk also insistently added to the story of the First Crusade what Riley-Smith (pp. 135-153) calls "theological refinement."