Where human eloquence failed, one of those miracles, common enough in the ages of credulity, the result of overheated imaginations and excited brains, succeeded. A vision of the night came to one Peter Bartholomæus, a monk, of two men in shining raiment. One of them, St. Andrew himself, took the monk into the air, and brought him to the Church of St. Peter, and set him at the south side of the altar. He then showed him the head of a lance. “This,” he said, “was the lance which opened the side of Our Lord. See where I bury it. Get twelve men to dig in the spot till they find it.” But in the morning Peter was afraid to tell his vision. This was before the taking of Antioch. But after the town was taken, the vision came again, and in his dream Peter saw once more the apostle, and received his reproaches for neglect of his commands. Peter remonstrated that he was poor and of no account; and then he saw that the apostle’s companion was none other than the Blessed Lord himself, and the humble monk was privileged to fall and kiss His feet.
We are not of those who believe that men are found so base as to contrive a story of this kind. There is little doubt in our minds that this poor Peter, starving as he was, full of fervour and enthusiasm, dreamed his dream, not once but twice, and went at last, brimful of pious gratitude, to Adhémar with his tale. Adhémar heard him with incredulity and coldness. But Raymond saw in this incident a means which might be turned to good account. He sent twelve men to the church, and from morning till night they dug in vain. But at length Peter himself, leaping into the hole they had made, called aloud on God to redeem his promise, and produced a rusty spear-head. Adhémar acquiesced with the best grace in his power; the lance was exhibited to the people the next morning, and the enthusiasm of the army, famished, and ragged, and dismounted, once more beat as high as when they sewed the red Cross badge upon their shoulders, and shouted “Dieu le veut.”
They had been besieged three weeks; all their horses, except three hundred, were killed. Their ranks were grievously thinned, but they went out to meet the enemy with such confidence that the only orders given related to the distribution of the plunder. As they took their places in the plain, Adhémar raised their spirits by the announcement of another miracle. Saint George, Saint Maurice, and Saint Demetrius, had themselves been distinctly seen to join the army, and were in their midst. The Christians fought as only religious enthusiasts can fight—as the Mohammedans fought when the Caliph Omar led his conquering bands northwards, with the delights of heaven for those who fell, and the joys of earth for those who survived. The Turks were routed with enormous slaughter. Their camp, rich and luxurious, fell into the hands of the conquerors;[[50]] plenty took the place of starvation; the common soldiers amused themselves with decking their persons with the silken robes they found in the huts; the cattle were driven to the town in long processions; and once more, forgetful of all but the present, the Christians revelled and feasted.
[50]. Among the spoils taken by the Christians one of the chroniclers reports a mass of manuscripts, “on which were traced the sacrilegious rites of the Mahometans in execrable characters,” doubtless Arabic. Probably among these manuscripts were many of the greatest importance. Nothing is said about their fate, but of course they were all destroyed.
The rejoicings had hardly ceased when it was found that another enemy had to be encountered. Battle was to be expected: famine had already twice been experienced: this time it was pestilence, caused, no doubt, by the crowding together of so large an army and the absence of sanitary measures. The first to fall was the wise and good Adhémar, most sensible of all the chiefs. His was a dire loss to the Crusaders. Better could they have spared even the fiery Tancred, or the crafty Bohemond. The Crusaders, terrified and awe-stricken, clamoured to be led to Jerusalem, but needs must that they remained till the heats of summer passed, and health came again with the early winter breezes, in their camp at Antioch.
It was not till November that they set out on their march to Jerusalem. The time had been consumed in small expeditions, the capture of unimportant places, and the quarrels of the princes over the destination of Antioch, which Bohemond claimed for himself. Their rival claims were still unsettled, when the voice of the people made itself heard, and very shame made them, for a time at least, act in concert, and the advance corps, led by Bohemond, Robert of Normandy, and Raymond of Toulouse, began their southward march with the siege of Marra, an important place, which they took, after three or four weeks, by assault. Fresh disputes arose about the newly-acquired town, but the common soldiers, furious at these never-ending delays, ended them by the simple expedient of pulling down the walls. It was the middle of January, however, before they resumed their march. From Marah to Capharda, thence along the Orontes, when the small towns were placed in their hands, to Hums, when they turned westward to the sea, and sat down before the castle of Arca till they should be joined by the main body, which was still at Antioch. It came up in April, and the army of the Crusaders, united again, were ready to resume their march when they were interrupted by more disputes. In an ill-timed hour, Bohemond, the incredulous Norman, accused Raymond of conniving with Peter to deceive the army by palming off upon them an old rusty lance-head as the sacred spear which had pierced the side of the Lord. Arnold, chaplain to Duke Robert of Normandy, was brought forward to support the charge. He rested his argument chiefly on the fact that Adhémar had disbelieved the miracle: but he contended as well that the spear-head could not possibly be in Antioch. He was confuted in the manner customary to the time. One bold monk swore that Adhémar, after death, for his contumacy in refusing to believe in the miracle, had been punished by having one side of his beard burned in the flames of hell, and was not permitted a full enjoyment of heaven till the beard should grow again. Another quoted a prophecy of Saint Peter, alleged to be in a Syrian gospel, that the invention of the lance was to be a sign of the deliverance of the Christians; a third had spoken personally with Saint Mark himself; while the Virgin Mary had appeared by night to a fourth to corroborate the story. Arnold pretended to give way before testimony so overwhelming, and was ready to retract his opinion publicly, when Peter, crazed with enthusiasm, offered to submit his case to the ordeal of fire. This method was too congenial to the fierce and eager spirits of the Crusaders to be refused. Raymond d’Agiles, who was a witness, thus tells the story.
“Peter’s proposition appeared to us reasonable, and after enjoining a fast on Peter, we agreed to kindle the fire on Good Friday itself.
“On the day appointed, the pile was prepared after noon; the princes and the people assembled to the number of forty thousand; the priests coming barefooted and dressed in their sacerdotal robes. The pile was made with dry branches of olive-trees, fourteen feet long, and four feet high, divided into two heaps, with a narrow path, a foot wide, between each. As soon as the wood began to burn, I myself, Raymond,[[51]] pronounced these words, ‘If the Lord himself has spoken to this man face to face, and if Saint Andrew has shown him the lance of the Lord, let him pass through the fire without receiving any hurt: or, if not, let him be burnt with the lance which he carries in his hand.’ And all bending the knee, replied, ‘Amen.’
[51]. He was chaplain to Count Raymond of Toulouse.
“Then Peter, dressed in a single robe, kneeling before the bishop of Albaric, called God to witness that he had seen Jesus on the cross face to face, and that he had heard from the mouth of the Saviour, and that of the apostles, Peter and Andrew, the words reported to the princes: he added that nothing of what he had said in the name of the saints and in the name of the Lord had been invented by himself, and declared that if there was found any falsehood in his story, he consented to suffer from the flames. And for the other sins that he had committed against God and his neighbours, he prayed that God would pardon him, and that the bishop, all the other priests, and the people would implore the mercy of God for him. This said, the bishop gave him the lance.