Bohemond of Taranto marshalled another host. He was son of the famous Robert Guiscard, founder of the Norman kingdom of Naples. Anna Comnena thus describes him: “He was taller than the tallest by a cubit. There was an agreeability in his appearance, but the agreeability was destroyed by terror. There was something not human in that stature and look of his. His smile seemed to me alive with threat.” The fair annalist recognized Bohemond’s inheritance of his great father’s prestige and ability, and at the same time of his disposition “to regard as foes all whose dominions and riches he coveted; and was not restrained by fear of God, by man’s opinions, or by his own oaths.” Robert Guiscard had died while preparing for an attempt to capture Constantinople. With filial pride, his son Bohemond had also “sworn eternal enmity to the Greek emperors. He smiled at the idea of traversing their empire at the head of an army, and, full of confidence in his fortunes, he hoped to make for himself a kingdom before arriving at Jerusalem.” When the march of the other crusaders was reported to him, with an ostentation of piety which his subsequent career scarcely justified, Bohemond tore his own elegant mantle into tiny crosses and distributed them to his soldiers, who were at the time engaged in the less glorious attempt of reducing the Christian town of Amalfi.
Tancred de Hauteville by his splendid character amply compensated the defects of Bohemond, his kinsman. In history and romance he is celebrated as the type of the perfect soldier:
“Than whom
... is no nobler knight,
More mild in manner, fair in manly bloom,
Or more sublimely daring in the fight.”
Dissatisfied with even the ideals of Chivalry, Tancred hailed the new lustre that might be given to arms when wielded only in the cause of justice, mercy, and faith, which, perhaps too sanguinely, he foresaw in the crusade. Thus nobly seconded by Tancred, Bohemond took the field with one hundred thousand horse and twenty thousand foot.
Hugh of Vermandois, brother of Philip I. of France, led the host of Langue d’Oil, as Raymond that of Languedoc.
Robert of Normandy, son of William the Conqueror, set out with nearly all his nobles. To raise money for the expedition, he mortgaged his duchy to his brother, William Rufus of England, for ten thousand silver marks, a sum which that impious monarch raised by stripping the churches of their plate and taxing their clergy. Robert was companioned by Stephen of Blois, whose castles were “as many as the days of the year,” and by Robert of Flanders, “the lance and sword of the Christians.”
These leaders, deterred by the difficulty of obtaining sustenance for such multitudes as followed them, agreed to take separate routes, which should converge at Constantinople. Count Hugh was the first afield. He crossed the Adriatic, and after much beating by tempest gathered his men at Durazzo. Here he experienced what his comrades were continually to meet, the treachery of the Greek emperor, Alexius. Being the brother of the French king, Hugh would be a valuable possession of the Greeks, as hostage for the good behavior of his brethren. By Alexius’s order he was seized and sent without his army to Constantinople.