The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

The loss of the crusaders, after so long and severe a battle, if we can depend upon the account generally given, was very much less than might have been anticipated. Only four thousand men[271] are supposed to have fallen on the part of the Christians; these were principally, also, of the inferior classes, who, unprotected by the armour which defended the persons of the knights, were fully exposed to the arrows of the Turks.

Three men of great note, among the champions of the Cross, were added to this list of killed[272]—William, the brother of Tancred; Geoffrey of Mount Scabius; and Robert of Paris, whose conduct at the court of Alexius we have before mentioned. The loss on the part of the Turks was infinitely more considerable, and thus, at the close of the battle of Dorylœum, the Christian leaders found that they had marked their progress towards the Holy Land by a great and decisive victory.

The crusading armies now paused for several days,[273] enjoying the repose and comfort which the spot afforded, and which their exhausted troops so much required. The wounds of the soldiers who had suffered in the late battle were thus in some degree healed; and the abundance of provisions the enemy had left behind served to renovate the strength and raise up the hopes and enthusiasm of the Christians. In the mean while, the Turks, who had survived their defeat at Dorylœum, spread themselves in large bands over the country, and, pretending to have totally overcome the Latins, forced themselves into the cities, destroying and wasting every thing in their way.[274] The Christians thus, in their march through Phrygia, had to cross a large tract which had been completely ravaged by the enemy. With their usual improvidence, they had exhausted the provisions they had found in their adversary’s camp; and ignorant of the country, they had provided themselves with no water, so that they had to encounter all the heat of the solstitial days of a Phrygian climate, without a drop of liquid to allay their burning thirst. Men and horses fell by thousands in the way;[275] and the women, parched with drought, and dying with fatigue, forgot delicacy, feeling, and even the ties of human nature—rolled prostrate on the ground with the agony of thirst—offered their naked bosoms to the swords of the soldiers, and prayed for death—or threw down their new-born children in the track of the army, and abandoned them to a slow and miserable fate! The most terrible mortality prevailed among the beasts of burden, so that the animals accustomed to bear the baggage of the host having nearly all died by the way, dogs and oxen, and even hogs,[276] are said to have been loaded with the lighter articles of necessity, while an immense quantity of luggage was cast away on the road. Many falcons and dogs—a part of knightly equipage never forgotten—had been brought from Europe to Asia; but the dogs, spreading their nostrils in vain to the hot wind for the least breath of moisture, left the long-accustomed hand that they were wont to love, and straying through the desolate land, died among the mountains; while the clear eye of the noble falcon withered under the fiery sky, which nothing but a vulture could endure; and, after long privation, he dropped from the glove that held him.[277]

At length water was discovered, and the whole army rushed forward to the river. Their intemperate eagerness[278] rendered the means of relief nearly as destructive as the thirst which they had endured, and many were added to the victims of that horrible march by their own imprudent indulgence in the cool blessing that they had found at last. The country now had changed its aspect, and nothing presented itself but splendid fertility till the host of the crusade reached the city of Antiochetta, where, surrounded by rivulets, and forests, and rich pastures, they pitched their tents, determined to enjoy the earthly paradise that spread around them.

Some of the warriors, however, whose energetic spirit no fatigues could daunt[279] or subdue, soon tired of the idle sweets of Antiochetta[280] and voluntarily separated themselves from the army, seeking either renown or profit, by detached enterprises. Tancred on the one hand, with the Prince of Salernum, and several other nobles, five hundred knights, and a party of foot-soldiers, set out from the army of Boemond, to explore the country, and ascertain the strength of the enemies by which they were surrounded. Detaching himself, at the same time, from the division of Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin, the brother of that leader, joined Tancred with a somewhat superior force, actuated probably more by the hope of his own individual aggrandizement, than by any purpose of serving the general cause of the crusade.

After wandering for some time through the districts round Iconium and Heraclea,[281] which the Turks had taken care to desolate beforehand, the two chieftains again separated, and Tancred, pursuing his way by Cilicia, came suddenly before Tarsus. The Turks, by whom that city was garrisoned, knowing that the greater part of the populace was opposed to them, surrendered almost immediately on the approach of the Christian leader, and while he encamped with his forces under the walls, waiting, according to stipulation, for the arrival of Boemond, his banner was hoisted upon the towers of the town.[282] Scarcely had this been done when Baldwin also appeared, and at first, the two armies, each conceiving the other to be an enemy, prepared to give one another battle. The mistake was soon discovered, and Tancred welcomed his comrade in arms to Tarsus. The feelings of Baldwin, however, were less chivalric than those of the noble chief of Otranto, and the banner of Tancred flying on the walls of Tarsus was an object that he could not long endure. After passing a day or two in apparent amity, he suddenly demanded possession of the city, declaring, that as he led the superior force, he was entitled to command. Tancred scoffed at the absurd pretence, and both parties had nearly betaken themselves to arms.[283] The noble moderation of the Italian leader brought about a temporary reconciliation. He agreed that the people of the city themselves should be referred to, and choose the chief to whom they would submit. This was accordingly done, and the inhabitants instantly fixed upon the knight to whom they had first surrendered.[284] But Baldwin was yet unsatisfied; and after having made a proposal to sack and pillage the town, which was rejected with scorn and abhorrence by his more generous fellow-soldier, he caballed with the citizens and the Turks, till he won them to throw down Tancred’s banner, and yield themselves to him. Mortified, indignant, even enraged, the steady purpose of right within the bosom of the chief of Otranto maintained him still in that undeviating course of rectitude which he had always pursued; and, resolved not to imbrue a sword drawn for honour and religion in the blood of his fellow-christians,[285] he withdrew his forces from before Tarsus, and turned his arms against Mamistra. The Turks here, more bold than those of the former city, beheld his approach unawed, and held out the town for several days, till at length it fell by storm, and the victorious chief planted his banner on those walls with far more honourable glory than that which surrounded the standard of Baldwin at Tarsus.

In the mean while, another body of crusaders, detached from the troops of Boemond, arrived before the city in which Baldwin had established himself, and demanded entrance, or at least assistance and provisions. Baldwin[286] cruelly caused the gates to be shut upon them; and had it not been for the charitable care of some of the Christian inhabitants, who let them down wine and food from the walls, they would have been left to expire of want. A fate hardly better awaited them. The Turks had still, by their capitulation, maintained possession of several of the towers of Tarsus, but fearful of the superior force of Baldwin, they sought but a fair opportunity to escape without pursuit. The very night that the detachment of which I have spoken above arrived, the Turks carried their intentions into effect,[287] and finding a small body of Christians sleeping under the walls without defence, they made the massacre of the whole the first step in their flight. The soldiers of Baldwin and the citizens of Tarsus, who had together witnessed, with indignation, the barbarous conduct of the French chieftain, now rose in absolute revolt.[288] Baldwin, however, having remained in concealment for a few days, contrived to pacify his followers, and to overawe the city. After this he joined himself to a band of piratical adventurers, who about that time arrived accidentally at Tarsus, and who, mingling their lust of prey with some dark and superstitious notions of religion, had turned their course towards the Holy Land, in the pleasant hope of serving both God and Mammon with the sword.[289] With these Baldwin continued to ravage Cilicia, and at length approaching Mamistra, in which Tancred had established himself, he pitched his tents upon the immediate territory of that city. Tancred now gave way to his indignation, and issuing forth, though accompanied by very inferior forces, he attacked Baldwin sword in hand, when a fierce engagement ensued between the two Christian armies. The struggle was severe but short: the superior numbers of the French prevailed, and Tancred was forced to retreat into the city. On one side, the Prince of Salernum was made prisoner by Baldwin,[290] and on the other, Gilbert of Montclar was taken; but the next day, shame for their unchristian dissensions took possession of each chief. Peace was agreed upon; they embraced in sight of the two hosts; the captives were exchanged, and, as usual, Satan got the credit of the dispute. Baldwin proceeded, after this, to join the main army, and left his piratical associates to aid Tancred in laying waste the country.

During these events the great body of the crusade had remained for some time at Antiochetta, where the people continued to acquire new health and strength, in the enjoyment of that tranquillity and abundance which had been so long withheld from them. Not so the chiefs, two of whom[291]—and those of the most distinguished—had nearly, in this period of repose and peace, found that death which they had so often dared in the midst of battle and hardship.

Godfrey of Bouillon, in delivering a pilgrim from the attack of a huge[292] bear in the woods of Antiochetta, had almost fallen a victim to his chivalrous courage: he received so many wounds, that even after having slain his ferocious adversary, he could not drag himself from the forest to the camp; and remained long and dangerously ill in consequence. At the same time, the Count of Toulouse was seized with a violent fever, which brought him to the brink of the grave. He was taken from his bed and laid upon the ground—as was customary among the pilgrims at the hour of death, that they might expire with all humility—and the Bishop of Orange administered the last sacraments of the church:[293] but a certain Count of Saxe, who accompanied the army, came to visit the leader of the Provençals, and told him that St. Giles (the patron saint of the Counts of Toulouse) had twice appeared to him in a dream, assuring him that so valuable a life should be spared to the crusaders.

Whether from the effect of that most excellent medicine, hope, or from a natural turn in his disease, the count suddenly began to recover, and before long was sufficiently well to accompany the army in a litter. The chiefs of the crusade now directed their march towards Antioch, suffering not a little from the desolate state of the country, which, devastated on every side by the Turks, afforded no means of supplying the immense multitude that followed the standard of the Cross. After passing Iconium and Heraclea, their fatigues were destined to increase rather than diminish. Their road now lay through uninhabited wilds, which Robert the Monk describes in language at once picturesque and terrific.[294] “They travelled,” says he, “with deplorable suffering through mountains where no path was to be found except the paths of reptiles and savage beasts, and where the passages afforded no more space than just sufficient to place one foot before the other, in tracks shut in between rocks and thorny bushes. The depths of the precipices seemed to sink down to the centre of the earth, while the summits of the mountains appeared to rise up to the firmament. The knights and men-at-arms walked forward with uncertain steps, the armour being slung over their shoulders, and each of them acting as a foot-soldier, for none dared mount his horse. Many would willingly have sold their helmets, their breastplates, or their shields, had they found any one to buy, and some, wearied out, cast down their arms, to walk more lightly. No loaded horses could pass, and the men were obliged to carry the whole burdens. None could stop or sit down: none could aid his companion, except where the one who came behind might sometimes help the person before him, though those that preceded could hardly turn the head towards those that followed. Nevertheless, having traversed these horrible paths, or rather these pathless wildernesses, they arrived at length at the city named Marasia, the inhabitants of which received them with joy and respect.”