[399] The penates of the Romans were household gods. William of Malmesbury here uses the term half-humorously to designate the various sorts of household articles which the crusaders thought they could not do without on the expedition, and hence undertook to carry with them.
[400] This was in the summer of 1097. The whole body of crusaders, including monks, women, children, and hangers-on, may then have numbered three or four hundred thousand, but the effective fighting force was not likely over one hundred thousand men.
[401] The crusaders reached Nicæa May 6, 1097. After a long siege the city surrendered, although to the Emperor Alexius rather than to the French.
[402] This battle—the first pitched contest between the crusader and the Turk—was fought at Dorylæum, southeast of Nicæa.
[403] Romania (or the sultanate of Roum) and Cappadocia were regions in northern Asia Minor.
[404] The country immediately southeast of the Black Sea.
[405] Antioch was one of the largest and most important cities of the East. It had been girdled with enormous walls by Justinian and was a strategic position of the greatest value to any power which would possess Syria and Palestine. The siege of the city by the crusaders began October 21, 1097.
[406] Bohemond of Tarentum was the son of Robert Guiscard and the leader of the Norman contingent from Italy. Raymond of St. Gilles, count of Toulouse, was leader of the men from Languedoc in south France.
[407] The modern Orontes.
[408] The barons attended the meeting under the pretense of making a religious pilgrimage.