[444] Fulcher relates, with great coolness, that he saw the bodies of the Turks, who were slain at Cæsarea, piled up and burned, in order to obtain the bezants which they had swallowed. Hist. Hierosol. ap. Du Chesne, tom. iv. 845. This practice of swallowing money is referred to by pope Urban, and, by his account, the merely burning dead bodies to obtain the hoard was a very humble imitation of the Saracen custom, with respect to those who visited Jerusalem before the crusades; which was to put scammony in their drink to make them vomit, and if this did not produce the desired effect, they proceeded to immediate incision! Guibert Abbas. Opera, p. 379.
[445] Juvenal, Sat. i. 43.
[446] Among a variety of instances adduced of her wealth, it is stated, that the mast of the vessel which conveyed her to Palestine, was covered with pure gold. Alb. Aquens. ap. Gesta Dei, p. 373.
[447] Fulcher assigns a different reason for her being divorced. The king, being extremely ill and thinking he should not survive, recollected that he had another wife living, to whom he had been previously married at Edessa. Du Chesne, t. iv. 864. He had been twice married before. His first wife, an English woman, accompanied him on the Crusade, and died in Asia: the second, daughter of Taphnuz, an Armenian nobleman, following him, by sea, to Jerusalem, was taken by pirates; and being suspected of improper conduct during her absence, was, on her arrival at Jerusalem, about A.D. 1105, repudiated, and shut up in the convent of St. Anne. Alb. Aquens. ubi sup. Guib. Abbat. Opera, p. 452.
[448] “Roger, prince-regent of Antioch, son of Richard, seneschal of Apulia, married Hodierna, sister of Baldwin II. He was slain in 1119.”—Hardy.
[449] This account appears in some measure incorrect. Gozelin and the king were both confined in the same castle. On its being seized Gozelin escaped, and collected troops to liberate his friends, who were now themselves besieged. But ere his arrival, the Turks had made themselves masters of the fortress and carried off the king, who did not recover his liberty for some time, and then only by paying a considerable ransom. Fulch. Carnot. et Will. Tyr. ap. Gesta Dei.
[450] Baldwin died 21st August, A.D. 1131.—Hardy.
[451] Boamund was baptized Mark; but his father hearing a tale related of a giant named Buamund, gave him that appellation. When, after his captivity, he returned to France, many of the nobility requested him to stand for their children; this he acquiesced in, and giving them his own name, it became frequent in these parts, though before nearly unknown in the West. Ord. Vital. p. 817.
[452] There is a play here on the words Mollucium and Durachium, intended to imply soft and hard, “mollis” and “durus,” which it is not easy to translate.
[453] Orderic. Vital. p. 797, gives a different account of his deliverance, and which has quite a romantic air.