Robert Curthose, Duke of Normandy

by Charles W. David

Finally, the twelfth-century poet Gilo remarks that English victors gave Laodicea to the Norman count.[17]

(5) The problem of Laodicea in its relation to the First Crusade is still further complicated by a statement of Anna Comnena that the Emperor wrote—she gives no date—to Raymond of Toulouse, directing him to hand over the city to Andronicus Tzintzilucas, and that Raymond obeyed.[18] Both Riant[19] and Chalandon[20] accept this statement and assign the Emperor’s letter to the first half of 1099. Their reason for so doing appears to be found in the strange narrative of Albert of Aix, which is unique among the sources.

(6) According to Albert of Aix, while Baldwin and Tancred were at Tarsus on the way to Antioch (circa September 1097) a strange fleet approached the Cilician coast. It proved to be made up of ‘Christian pirates’ from “Flanders, Antwerp, Frisia, and other parts of Gaul [sic],” who under their commander, a certain Guinemer of Boulogne, had been pursuing their calling for the past eight years. But when they learned of the Crusade, they concluded a treaty with Baldwin, and, landing, joined forces with him and advanced as far as Mamistra. But here they turned back, and, reëmbarking, sailed away to Laodicea, which they besieged and took. Then resting there in the enjoyment of ease and plenty, they sent no aid to their Christian brothers at Antioch. But presently they were attacked and cut to pieces by ‘Turcopoles’[21] and men of the Emperor, who recovered the citadel and threw Guinemer into prison, Godfrey and the other chiefs at Antioch being ignorant of the whole affair. Later Guinemer was released at the request of Godfrey.[22]

Elsewhere Albert sets forth another version of these curious events. Guinemer and his pirates, he tells us, had assembled their fleet in conjunction with the Provençaux of the land of Saint-Gilles under the dominion of Count Raymond.[23] Then, sailing to Laodicea, they had taken it and driven out the Turks and Saracens whom they found there. Then, after the siege of Antioch, they had handed their prize over to Count Raymond. Still later, Guinemer, the master of the pirates, had been captured by the Greeks, and after long imprisonment had been released through the intervention of Duke Godfrey. Then, when the advance to Jerusalem had been decided upon, Raymond had restored Laodicea to the Emperor, and so kept his faith inviolably.[24]

Thus, if we could rely upon Albert of Aix, Laodicea came into the hands of the count of Toulouse after the siege of Antioch, and Alexius might naturally be expected to write him demanding its restoration to the Empire, as Riant and Chalandon suppose in accepting the above mentioned statement of Anna Comnena regarding the Emperor’s letter. It should be noted, however, that from Albert’s statement that Raymond handed over Laodicea to Alexius when the advance to Jerusalem had been decided upon,[25] it follows that the transfer could not have taken place later than 16 January 1099, the date on which Raymond moved southward from Kafartab;[26] whereas Chalandon has shown that the letter of which Anna speaks cannot be earlier than March 1099.[27] Albert of Aix and Anna Comnena, therefore, are not mutually confirmatory.

(7) Finally, note should be taken of the statement of Cafaro of Genoa—who passed the winter of 1100-01 at Laodicea, but who wrote as an old man years afterwards—that, at the time of the capture of Antioch by the crusaders, Laodicea with its fortresses was held by the Emperor, and was under the immediate command of Eumathios Philocales, duke of Cyprus.[28]

So much for an analysis of the sources. It remains to consider what conclusions may reasonably be drawn from them. And since the efforts which have been made to accept them all as of equal validity and to bring them into reconciliation have plainly not been successful, it will be well to begin with a consideration of some things which must probably be eliminated.

And first, it seems clear that the account of Ordericus Vitalis, which represents Edgar Atheling as landing at Laodicea between 6 and 28 June 1098 at the head of a great body of English pilgrims, cannot be accepted without serious modification; for we know from reliable English sources that towards the end of 1097 Edgar was engaged in Scotland, assisting his kinsman, another Edgar,[29] to obtain the Scottish throne;[30] and it would, it seems, have been impossible for him to have made the necessary preparations for a crusade and to have journeyed from Scotland to Laodicea within the limitations of time which our sources impose. It is perhaps conceivable that he should have made a hurried trip to Italy in the winter of 1097-98 with a small band of attendants, and sailing from there, have reached the Syrian coast by June. But according to Ordericus he arrived at the head of “almost 20,000 pilgrims … from England and other islands of the ocean.” Further, if the account of Ordericus were to be brought into chronological accord with the other sources which deal with Robert’s sojourn at Laodicea, the arrival of Edgar Atheling would probably have to be placed several months earlier, indeed, in the early winter of 1097-98, almost at the very time he is known to have been in Scotland. The chronology of Ordericus, therefore—which in general is notoriously unreliable—seems at this point unacceptable; and William of Malmesbury, who places Edgar’s arrival in the East in May 1102, appears to give the necessary correction. In view of the testimony of both Ordericus Vitalis and William of Malmesbury, it can hardly be doubted that Edgar Atheling actually went to the Holy Land; but that he reached Laodicea in time to have anything to do with the calling in of Robert Curthose seems highly improbable, if not impossible.

The tale of Guinemer of Boulogne and his fleet of Christian pirates, as told by Albert of Aix, must also meet with rougher handling than it has yet received, and for the following reasons: (1) The description of this fleet with its “masts of wondrous height, covered with purest gold, and refulgent in the sunlight”[31] is not such as to inspire confidence, particularly in such a writer as Albert of Aix, where one expects at any time to meet with the use of untrustworthy poetical materials. (2) As the narrative proceeds it becomes self-contradictory. At one point we are told that Guinemer was captured by the Greeks during the siege of Antioch, whereas at another he seems to have held Laodicea throughout the siege—since he turned it over to Count Raymond after the siege—; and his capture and imprisonment by the Greeks are placed still later. (3) Albert of Aix is in direct contradiction with Raymond of Aguilers, the best of all our authorities, who tells us that the English held Laodicea during the whole of the siege of Antioch and rendered important services to the crusaders; whereas, according to Albert’s account, Guinemer and his pirates held it and refused to aid the crusaders. (4) Not a scrap of evidence concerning Guinemer and his pirates has come to light in any source except Albert of Aix—unless perchance their fleet is to be identified with the ships which, according to Kemal ed-Din, came from Cyprus 19 August 1097, pillaged Laodicea, and sailed away;[32] and this seems unlikely. (5) In any case, outside the pages of Albert of Aix, evidence is lacking that such a piratical fleet held Laodicea for any considerable period; and apparently the only reason why Riant and Chalandon have accepted this fantastical tale of Guinemer and the Christian pirates is the fancied possibility of connecting it with the letter which, according to Anna Comnena, the Emperor wrote at an undetermined date to Raymond of Toulouse, directing him to hand over Laodicea to Andronicus Tzintzilucas. But Riant and Chalandon have somewhat arbitrarily assigned this letter to the first half of 1099. If Raymond was directed to hand Laodicea over, he must have possessed it. Therefore, so the argument seems to run, the Guinemer episode should be accepted as explaining how Raymond came into possession of Laodicea. But, as has already been pointed out, this explanation involves a serious chronological inconsistency. Further, the evidence is not conclusive that the letter ever existed—it rests upon the sole statement of Anna Comnena—and, if it did exist, it may with more reason, and with less violence to Anna’s chronology, be assigned to the period between September 1099 and June 1100, when Raymond is known to have been in possession of Laodicea and on terms of close understanding with the Emperor.[33]

The foregoing considerations are not, it may be conceded, sufficient to prove that there is no shadow of truth in the tale of Guinemer and the pirates; but they do constitute a strong case against the narrative as it stands, and suggest the probability that it is one of the strange pieces of fiction occasionally to be met with in the pages of Albert of Aix.