Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin

by Walter Besant; Edward Henry Palmer

The other leaders who followed separately were Hugh Vermandois, Hugh le Grand, the brother to the king of France, and Stephen, Count of Blois, a scholar and a poet. He it was who married Adela, daughter of William the Conqueror, and was the father of our King Stephen. Both of these chiefs left the Crusade at Antioch and went home disgusted at their sufferings and ill-success; but, after the taking of the city, popular opinion forced them to go out again.

Count Raymond, of Toulouse, who led his own army by an independent route, is perhaps the most difficult character to understand. He was not pious; he was cold and calculating; he was old and rich; he had already gained distinction by fighting against the Moors; he loved money. Why did he go? It is impossible to say, except that he had vague ambitions of kingdoms in the East more splendid than any in the West. He alienated a great part of his territory to get treasure for the war, and he was by far the richest of the princes. The men he led, the Provençaux, were much less ignorant, less superstitious, and less smitten with the divine fury of the rest. Provence, which in two more centuries was to be itself the scene of a crusade as bloody as any in Palestine, was already touched with the heresy which was destined to break out in full violence before very many years. The Provençaux loved music, dancing, good cheer; but they were indifferent to the Church. They could plunder better than they could pray, and they were more often gathered round the provisions than the pulpits. It is singular, therefore, that the most signal miracle which attended the progress of the Christian arms should have been wrought among the Provençaux. It was so, however: Peter Bartholomeus, who found the Holy Lance, was a priest of Provence. Adhémar, Bishop of Puy, himself a Provençal, the most clear-headed, most prudent, and most thoughtful of the army, treated the story of Peter, it is true, with disdain; nor did Raymond believe it; as was evident when, on there appearing, shortly afterwards, symptoms that another miracle, of which he saw no use, was about to happen, he suppressed it with a strong hand. At the same time, he did not disdain to make use of the Holy Lance, and the “miracle” most certainly contributed very largely, as we shall see, to the success of the Christians.

The two remaining great chiefs were Bohemond and Tancred. Bohemond, who was a whole cubit taller than the tallest man in the army, was the son of that Norman, Robert Guiscard, who, with a band of some thirty knights, managed to wrest the whole of Calabria, Apulia, and Sicily from the Greeks. On his father’s death he had quarrelled with his brother Roger over the inheritance, and was actually besieging him in the town of Amalfi, when the news of the Crusades reached him. The number of those engaged, the rank of the leaders, the large share taken by the Normans, inspired him with the hope that here, at last, was the chance of humiliating, and even conquering, his enemy the Emperor of Constantinople. Perhaps, too, some noble impulse actuated him. However that may be, he began himself to preach a crusade to his own army, and with so much success—for he preached of glory and plunder, as well as of religion—that he found himself in a few days at the head of ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot. With these he joined the other chiefs at Constantinople. His life was a long series of battles. He was crafty and sagacious; hence his name of Guiscard—the wise one; quite indifferent to the main object of the Crusaders—in fact, he did not go on with them to Jerusalem itself—and anxious only to do the Greeks a mischief and himself some good.

With him went his cousin Tancred, the hero of the “Jerusalem Delivered.” The history of the First Crusade contains all his history. After the conquest of Jerusalem, and after displaying extraordinary activity and bravery, he was made Prince of Galilee, and his cousin was Prince of Antioch. Tancred is a hero of romance. Apart from his fighting he has no character; in every battle he is foremost, but when the battle is over we hear nothing about him. He appears however to have had a great deal of his cousin’s prudence, and united with the bravery of the lion some, at least, of the cunning of the fox. He died about the year 1113.

Hugh, Count of Vermandois, who was one of the chiefs of the army brought by Robert of Normandy, was the third son of Henry I. of France. He was called Le Grand, not on account of any mental or physical superiority, but because by marriage he was the head of the Vermandois house. He was one of the first to desert the Crusade, terrified by the misfortunes which overtook the expedition; but, like Stephen of Blois, he was obliged by the force of popular opinion to go back again as a Crusader. The second time he was wounded by the Turks near Nicæa, and only got as far as Tarsus in Cilicia, where he died. Like Robert of Normandy, he joined to great bravery and an extreme generosity a certain weakness of character, which marred all his finer qualities.

Robert of Flanders seems to have been a fighting man pure and simple—by the Saracens called “St. George,” and by his own side the “Sword and Lance of the Christians.” He, no more fighting remaining to be done, returned quietly to his own states, with the comfortable conviction that he had atoned for his former sins by his conduct in the Holy War. He enjoyed ten years more fighting at home, and then got drowned in the River Marne; an honest single-minded knight, who found himself in perfect accord with the spirit of his age.

With these principal barons and chiefs were a crowd of poorer princes, each with his train of knights and men-at-arms. The money for the necessary equipments had been raised in various ways: some had sold their lands, others their seigneurial rights; some had pawned their states; while one or two, despising these direct and obvious means of raising funds, had found a royal road to money by pillaging the villages and towns around them.

It was not till eight months after the Council of Clermont[^[49]] that Godfrey’s army, consisting of ten thousand knights and eighty thousand foot, was able to begin its march. Fortunately, a good harvest had just been gathered in, and food of all kinds was abundant and cheap. The army, moreover, was well-disciplined, and no excesses were committed on its way through Germany. It followed pretty nearly the same line as that taken by Walter and Peter, and must have been troubled along the whole route by news of the extravagances and disasters of those who had preceded them. Arriving on the frontiers of Hungary, Godfrey sent deputies to King Coloman, asking permission to march peaceably, buying whatever he had need of, through his dominions. Hostages, consisting of his brother Baldwin and his family, were given for the good behaviour of the troops, and permission was granted; the King of Hungary following close on the track of the army, in case any breach of faith should be attempted. But none took place, and at Semlin, when the last Crusader had crossed the river into Bulgarian territory, King Coloman personally, and with many expressions of friendship and goodwill, delivered over the hostages, and parted. Getting through the land of the Bulgarians as quickly as might be, Godfrey pushed on as far as Philippopolis. There he learned that Count Hugh, who had been shipwrecked, sailing in advance of his army, on the shores of Epirus, was held a prisoner by Alexis Comnenus, very probably as a sort of hostage for the good behaviour of the very host whose help he had implored. Godfrey sent imperatively to demand the release of the Count, and being put off with an evasive reply, gave his troops liberty to ravage and plunder along the road—a privilege which they fully appreciated. This practical kind of reply convinced Alexis that the barbarians were not, at least, awed by the greatness of his fame. He hastened to give way, and assured Godfrey that his prisoner should be released directly the army arrived at Constantinople.

[49]. August, 1096.

Meantime, the other armies were all on their way, converging to Constantinople. The route followed by them is not at all times clear. Some appear to have marched through Italy, Dalmatia, and across Thessaly, while a few went by sea; and though the first armies of Peter and Walter carried off a vast number of pilgrims, there can be no doubt that these armies were followed by a great number of priests, monks, women, and persons unable to fight.