The History of Chivalry

by G. P. R. James

Baldwin de Bourg, who, on the elevation of Baldwin I. to the throne of Jerusalem, had received the principality of Edessa, was now called to the vacant throne, and proved himself one of the wisest and most valiant of the Latin sovereigns of Judea. He also greatly extended the limits of his dominions; but in passing between Turbessel and Edessa, accompanied by a few soldiers only,[485] and unsuspicious of any ambuscade, he was suddenly surrounded, and carried a prisoner to Khortopret, where he remained in close confinement for several years. During his imprisonment Tyre was added to the territories of Jerusalem,[486] and various successful battles were fought against the Moslems. After his liberation he offered the hand of his daughter to Foulk of Anjou, who had some time before visited Jerusalem upon an armed pilgrimage. The Count of Anjou gladly accepted the proposal, and returning to the Holy Land, espoused Melesinda, soon after which he ascended the throne of Jerusalem, on the death of Baldwin. Foulk combined many virtues;[487] was kind, affable, and humane, as well as skilful and courageous in the field. After a reign of thirteen years he left the kingdom to his son, entire, indeed, but neither more extended in territory, nor more consolidated in power, than when he received it.

Baldwin III. succeeded; at the time of his accession being but a boy. Dissensions and animosities raged among all the feudal dependants of the crown of Jerusalem.[488] The Moslems scattered through the country, and girding it on every side, took advantage of each new dispute to harass their Latin invaders with desultory warfare. The emperors of the east strove continually to wrest something of their old possessions from the descendants of the crusaders, and thus divided the forces, and paralyzed all the efforts made by the Christians to establish and secure their yet infirm dominion. At length Zenghi, emir of Aleppo, and Mosul marched against Edessa, the government of which principality had been transferred, on the accession of Baldwin de Bourg to the throne of Jerusalem, to Joscelyn de Courtenay, and from him had descended to his son. The son had not inherited the virtues or the valour of his father; and while Zenghi attacked, stormed, and took Edessa, he was rioting in debaucheries at Turbessel. So severe a reverse spread consternation through Palestine. Others, though of a less important nature, followed; and the news of these misfortunes soon reached Europe, where it gave matter to the eloquence of St. Bernard, and occasion for a new crusade.

Long before this period, all the chiefs who had at first led the armies of the Cross to Jerusalem had tasted of the cup reserved for all men, and few words will end the history of each. Godfrey, Baldwin, and Baldwin de Bourg we have already conducted to the tomb. Boemond,[489] as I have said, fell into the hands of the Moslems; and after a captivity of two years, was permitted to pay a ransom, and return to his principality. On arriving, he found that his noble relative, Tancred,[490] had not only preserved, but increased his territories during his absence; and after several years continual warfare with Alexius on the one hand, and the Moslems on the other, mingled with opposition to the King of Jerusalem, Boemond sailed for Europe. There the fame he had acquired obtained for him the hand of Constantia,[491] daughter of the King of France. Her younger sister, Cecilia, was bestowed upon Tancred, who had remained in the government of Antioch.

By the aid of France, Boemond raised large forces and landing in Greece, ravaged the dominions of Alexius, who was at length fain to conclude a peace with the powerful and enterprising Italian. The Prince of Antioch then sent forward the greater part of his troops to the Holy Land, while he himself returned to Italy to prepare for the same journey. Death, however, staid his progress;[492] for, after a short illness, he ended his career in Apulia, in 1109.[493] Tancred still survived, and defended constantly the territories of his cousin against every attack for three years after the decease of Boemond. At last the consequences of a wound he had received some time before proved fatal, and the noblest and most chivalrous of all the Christian warriors died in the prime of his days. On his death-bed he called to him his wife, and Pontius, the son of the Prince of Tripoli,[494] and, aware of the necessity of union among the Christians, he recommended strongly their marriage, after death should have dissolved the ties between himself and Cecilia. The government of Antioch he bequeathed to his cousin Roger;[495] but, with the same noble integrity which he had displayed through life, he made the new regent promise, that in case the son of Boemond should ever come to claim those territories, they should be resigned to him without dispute. Thus died Tancred; who, from all that we read of the crusaders, was, with the exception of Godfrey, the noblest of the followers of the Cross—a gallant leader, a disinterested man, a generous friend, a true knight.

Previous to his death, however, he had been engaged in all the great events in Palestine. After the election of Godfrey, and the battle of Ascalon, the other chiefs of the crusade had either returned to Europe or spread themselves over the country, in pursuit of their own schemes of private ambition, leaving the new kingdom of Jerusalem to be supported by its king and Tancred, with an army of less than three thousand men. This penury of forces however, did not long continue, or the Holy Land must soon have resumed the yoke it had thrown off. The spirit of pilgrimage was still active in Europe; and combined with this spirit was the hope of gain, springing from vague and exaggerated accounts of the wealth and the principalities which the leaders of the first expedition had acquired.

Pilgrimages now differed from those that had preceded the conquest of Jerusalem, in being armed; and many bodies, of several thousand men each, arrived both by sea and land, and proved exceedingly serviceable in peopling the devastated lands of Palestine. Various larger enterprises, more deserving the name of crusades, were planned and attempted, which it would be endless to name, and tedious to recount. Nearly five hundred thousand people set out from Europe for Syria,[496] and to these several of those crusaders who had gone back to Europe joined themselves, urged either by shame for their former desertion, or by the hope of obtaining easier conquests, and less dangerous honours. Of these, then, I will speak first, before noticing more particularly the armed pilgrimages, in order that I may trace to the end all those leaders of the first crusade who died in the Holy Land. The first great expedition set out not many years after the taking of Jerusalem, and consisted of several smaller ones from various countries, which united into larger bodies as they proceeded, and endeavoured to force their way through Asia Minor. At the head of these armies were Count Albert,[497] of Lombardy; Conrad, Constable of the Western Empire; Stephen, Count of Blois, whom we have seen flying from the land to which shame now drove him back; Stephen, Duke of Burgundy; the Bishops of Laon and of Milan; the Duke of Parma; Hugh, Count of Vermandois,[498] who now again turned towards Jerusalem; and the Count of Nevers: as well as William, Count of Poitiers; Guelf, Duke of Bavaria; and Ida, Marchioness of Austria. At Constantinople the first division met with Raimond of Toulouse,[499] who had returned to that city from the Holy Land, in search of aid to pursue the schemes of a grasping and ambitious spirit. The new crusaders put themselves, in some degree, under his command and guidance; but their first step was to disobey his orders, and to take the way of Paphlagonia, instead of following the track of the former crusade. They were for many days harassed in their march by the Turks, then exposed to famine and drought, and finally attacked and cut to pieces by Kilidge Aslan, who revenged, by the death of more than a hundred thousand Christians,[500] all the losses they had caused him to undergo. The principal leaders made good their escape, first to Constantinople, and then to Antioch; except Hugh of Vermandois, who died of his wound at Tarsus. The Count of Nevers,[501] who commanded the second body, met the same fate as the rest, and followed them to Antioch, after the destruction of his whole force. William of Poitiers, with the Duke of Bavaria and the Marchioness Ida, were also encountered by the victorious Saracens, and their defeat added another to the triumphs of the infidels and to the Christian disasters. The Duke of Bavaria, stripping himself of his arms, fled to the mountains, and made his escape. The precise fate of Ida of Austria remained unknown; but it appears certain she was either suffered to die in captivity, or was crushed to death under the horses’ feet.[502] The Count of Poitiers, completely destitute of all resources, and separated from his companions, wandered on foot till he arrived at Antioch,[503] where he was kindly received by Tancred, still alive, and met the other chiefs who had encountered disasters like his own.[504] The principal leaders proceeded straight to Jerusalem, with the exception of Raimond of Toulouse, who had long fixed his heart upon the conquest of the rich tract of Tripoli, which he attempted for some time in vain. Death staid him in his progress,[505] and Baldwin succeeded in accomplishing what he had designed; after which the king erected the territory acquired into a feudal county, which was bestowed upon the son of the deceased Raimond.

In the mean while Stephen, Count of Blois, reached Jerusalem; and having, by a second completed pilgrimage, wiped out, as he thought, the disgrace of having quitted the first crusade, he embarked, with William of Poitiers, to return to Europe. A contrary wind, however, drove back the vessel into Jaffa,[506] and here Stephen found himself called upon to join Baldwin in an attack upon the Turks. The king advanced with only seven hundred knights,[507] deceived by reports of the enemy’s weakness; but in the plains of Ramula he found himself suddenly opposed to the whole Turkish army. The spirit of Chivalry forbade his avoiding the encounter, and in a short time the greater part of his force was cut to pieces. He himself, with his principal knights, made their way to the castle of Ramula, from which he contrived to escape alone. The rest were taken, fighting bravely for their lives; and though some were spared, Stephen of Blois[508] was one of several who were only reserved for slaughter. Thus died the leaders of the first crusade who met their fate in Palestine, and thus ended the greater and more general expeditions which had been sanctioned by the council of Clermont, and excited by the preaching of Peter the Hermit. The ultimate fate of that extraordinary individual himself remains in darkness. On the capture of Jerusalem, when the triumphant Europeans spread themselves through the city, the Christian inhabitants flocked forth to acknowledge and gratulate their deliverers.[509] Then it was that all the toils and dangers which the Hermit had endured, were a thousand fold repaid, and that all his enthusiasm met with its reward. The Christians of Jerusalem instantly recognised the poor pilgrim who had first spoken to them words of hope, and had promised them, in their misery under the Turkish oppression, that aid and deliverance which had at length so gloriously reached them.[510] In the fervour of their gratitude they attributed all to him; and, casting themselves at his feet, called the blessing of Heaven on the head of their benefactor. After that period Peter is mentioned several times by the historians of Jerusalem;[511] and we find that he certainly did act a very principal part in the clerical government of the city.[512] Whether he returned to Europe or not I confess I do not know. He is said to have founded the abbey of Montier, in France, and to have died there; but this rests upon no authority worthy of confidence.

In the meanwhile, many of the Christians who had escaped the active swords of the Saracens in Asia Minor made their way to Jerusalem, and served to people and protect the land. Various armaments, also, arrived at the different seaports, bearing each of them immense numbers of military pilgrims, who, after having visited the holy places, never failed to offer their services to the king of Jerusalem, for the purpose of executing any single object that might be desirable at the time.

Three only of these bodies are worthy of particular notice, that of the English, Danes,[513] and Flemings, who assisted Baldwin at the unsuccessful siege of Sidon—the Norwegian expedition which succeeded in taking that city—and that of the Venetians, who afterward aided in the capture of Tyre. The Genoese[514] and the Pisans, also, from time to time sent out vessels to the coast of Palestine; but these voyages, which combined in a strange manner the purposes of traffic, superstition, and warfare, tended rather to the general prosperity of the country by commerce, and to its protection, by bringing continual recruits, than to any individual enterprise or conquest.

Many anecdotes are told of the first crusaders by their contemporary historians, which—though resting on evidence so far doubtful as to forbid their introduction as absolute facts—I shall mention in exemplification of the manners and customs of the time.