A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 (35 page)

But the work went slowly; and meanwhile the
Franks suffered terribly from the heat. For many days the sirocco blew, with
its deadly effect on the nerves of men unused to it. The provision of water grew
increasingly difficult. Numbers of the pack-animals and the herds that the army
had collected died daily from thirst. Detachments would go as far as the Jordan
to find water. The native Christians were well-disposed and acted as guides to
the springs and the forests of the neighbourhood; but it was impossible to
prevent forays and ambushes from Moslem soldiers, either of the garrison or of
companies that were wandering freely round the country. Quarrels arose again
among the princes, concerning, first, the possession of Bethlehem. Tancred had
liberated the town and had left his banner waving over the Church of the
Nativity. But the clergy and the rival princes felt it to be wrong that so holy
a building should be in the power of one secular lord. Tancred defended his
claims to Bethlehem; and, though public opinion was against him, the matter was
deferred. Next, discussions were begun about the future status of Jerusalem.
Some of the knights suggested that a king should be appointed; but the clergy
unanimously opposed this, saying that no Christian could call himself king in
the city where Christ was crowned and suffered. Here again public opinion was
on the side of the clergy; and further discussions were postponed. Their
physical miseries, combined with disappointment at the failure of the attempted
assault and the renewed quarrels of the princes, induced many of the Crusaders
even now to desert the Crusade. A company of them went down to the Jordan to
undergo rebaptism in the holy river; then, after gathering palm branches from
the river bank, they journeyed straight down to Jaffa, hoping to find boats to
carry them back to Europe.

Early in July it was learnt in the camp that a
great army had set out from Egypt to relieve Jerusalem. The princes realized that
there was no time for delay. But the morale of their men was low. Once more a
vision came to their support. On the morning of 6 July the priest Peter
Desiderius, who had already testified that he had seen Bishop Adhemar after his
death, came to Adhemar’s brother, William Hugh of Monteil and to his own lord,
Isoard of Gap, to say that the bishop had again appeared to him. After ordering
the Crusaders to give up their selfish schemes, Adhemar ordered them to hold a
fast and to walk in procession barefoot round the walls of Jerusalem. If they
did so with repentant hearts, within nine days they would capture Jerusalem.
When Peter Desiderius had claimed to see Adhemar suffering hell-fire for his
doubting of the Holy Lance, he had been widely disbelieved; but now, perhaps
because the beloved bishop was shown in a nobler light, and because the family
of Monteil gave their support, the vision was at once accepted as genuine by
all the army. Adhemar’s instructions were eagerly obeyed. A fast was commanded
and steadfastly observed during the next three days. On Friday, 8 July, a
solemn procession wound around the path that surrounded the city. The bishops
and priests of the Crusade came first, bearing crosses and their holy relics.
The princes and the knights followed, then the foot soldiers and the pilgrims.
All were barefoot. The Moslems gathered on the walls to mock them; but they
gloried in such mockery, and having completed the circuit ascended the Mount of
Olives. There Peter the Hermit preached to them and after him Raymond’s
chaplain, Raymond of Aguilers, and Robert of Normandy’s chaplain, Arnulf of
Rohes, who was now considered the finest preacher with the army. Their
eloquence moved and excited the host. Even Raymond and Tancred forgot their
quarrels and vowed to fight together for the Cross.

Preparations for
the Assault

The enthusiasm lasted on. During the next two
days, in spite of their sufferings from thirst, the men of the army worked hard
to complete the great siege towers. The skill of the Genoese, under William
Embriaco, was of great assistance; and even the old men and the women did their
part in sewing ox-hide and camel-hide and nailing it on the exposed parts of
the woodwork, as a protection against the Greek fire used by the Saracens. On
the 10th the wooden structures were ready and were wheeled up to their
stations, the one against the north wall and the other on Mount Sion. A third,
slightly smaller, was built to go against the north-west corner of the
defences. The work of construction had been carefully carried on out of sight
of the soldiers of the garrison; who were astounded and alarmed to find such
castles opposing them. The governor, Iftikhar, hastened to reinforce the weaker
sections of the defences; and the siege towers were steadily bombarded with
stones and with liquid fire to prevent them from closing in against the walls.

It was decided that the assault should begin
during the night of 13-14 July. The main attack would be launched
simultaneously from Mount Sion and on the eastern sector of the northern wall,
with a feint attack on the north-west angle. According to Raymond of Aguilers,
whose figures need not be doubted, the effective fighting strength of the army
was now twelve thousand foot-soldiers and twelve or thirteen hundred knights.
There were in addition many pilgrims, whose numbers he does not try to assess,
men too old or too sick to fight, and women and children. The first task of the
assailants was to bring their wooden castles right up to the walls; which
involved the filling up of the ditch that ran round their feet. All night long
and during the day of the 14th the Crusaders concentrated on their task,
suffering heavily from the stones and the liquid fire of the defence, and
answering with a heavy bombardment from their own mangonels. By the evening of
the 14th Raymond’s men had succeeded in wheeling their tower over the ditch
against the wall. But the defence was fierce; for it seems that Iftikhar
himself commanded in this sector. Raymond could not establish a foothold on the
wall itself. Next morning Godfrey’s tower closed in on the north wall, close to
the present Gate of Flowers. Godfrey and his brother, Eustace of Boulogne,
commanded from the upper storey. About midday they succeeded in making a bridge
from the tower to the top of the wall; and two Flemish knights, Litold and
Gilbert of Tournai, led the pick of the Lotharingian army across, followed soon
by Godfrey himself. Once a sector of the wall was captured, scaling ladders
enabled many more of the assailants to climb into the city. While Godfrey
remained on the wall encouraging the newcomers and sending men to open the Gate
of the Column to the main forces of the Crusade, Tancred and his men, who had
been close behind the Lorrainers, penetrated deep into the city streets. The
Moslems, seeing their defences broken, fled towards the Haram es-Sherif, the
Temple area, where the Dome of the Rock and the Mosque of al-Aqsa stood,
intending to use the latter as their last fortress. But they had no time to put
it into a state of defence. As they crowded in and up on the roof, Tancred was
upon them. Hastily they surrendered to him, promising a heavy ransom, and took
his banner to display it over the mosque. He had already desecrated and
pillaged the Dome of the Rock. Meanwhile the inhabitants of the city fled back
in confusion towards the southern quarters, where Iftikhar was still holding
out against Raymond. Early in the afternoon he realized that all was lost. He
withdrew into the Tower of David, which he offered to hand over to Raymond with
a great sum of treasure in return for his life and the lives of his bodyguard.
Raymond accepted the terms and occupied the Tower. Iftikhar and his men were
safely escorted out of the city and permitted to join the Moslem garrison of Ascalon.

Massacres by the
Victors

They were the only Moslems in Jerusalem to save
their lives. The Crusaders, maddened by so great a victory after such
suffering, rushed through the streets and into the houses and mosques killing
all that they met, men, women and children alike. All that afternoon and all
through the night the massacre continued. Tancred’s banner was no protection to
the refugees in the mosque of al-Aqsa. Early next morning a band of Crusaders
forced an entry into the mosque and slew everyone. When Raymond of Aguilers
later that morning went to visit the Temple area he had to pick his way through
corpses and blood that reached up to his knees.

The Jews of Jerusalem fled in a body to their
chief synagogue. But they were held to have aided the Moslems; and no mercy was
shown to them. The building was set on fire and they were all burnt within.

The massacre at Jerusalem profoundly impressed
all the world. No one can say how many victims it involved; but it emptied
Jerusalem of its Moslem and Jewish inhabitants. Many even of the Christians
were horrified by what had been done; and amongst the Moslems, who had been
ready hitherto to accept the Franks as another factor in the tangled politics
of the time, there was henceforward a clear determination that the Franks must
be driven out. It was this bloodthirsty proof of Christian fanaticism that
recreated the fanaticism of Islam. When, later, wiser Latins in the East sought
to find some basis on which Christian and Moslem could work together, the memory
of the massacre stood always in their way.

When there were no more Moslems left to be
slain, the princes of the Crusade went in solemn state through the desolate
Christian quarter, deserted since Iftikhar had exiled its inhabitants, to give
thanks to God in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Then, on 17 July, they met
together to appoint a ruler for the conquered city.

The ruler whom most would have welcomed was
dead. The whole army grieved that Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy should not be living
to see the triumph of the cause that he had served. It was not to be believed
that he had not really seen it. Soldier after soldier testified that there had
been a warrior fighting in the forefront of the assault, in whom they had
recognized the features of the Bishop. Others too, who would have rejoiced in
the victory, did not survive to hear of it. Symeon, Patriarch of Jerusalem, had
died a few days earlier in exile in Cyprus. Far away in Italy the founder of
the Crusade was lying sick. On 29 July 1099, a fortnight after his soldiers had
entered the Holy City, but before any news of it could reach him, Pope Urban II
died at Rome.

CHAPTER III

‘ADVOCATUS
SANCTI SEPULCHRI’

‘In those days
there was no king in Israel.’
JUDGES XVIII, 1

The goal had been reached. Jerusalem was
recovered to Christendom. But how was it to be preserved? What was to be its
government? The question over which every Crusader must have pondered in
private could not now be deferred. It seems that public opinion, remembering
that the Crusade had been planned by the Church for the glory of Christ, felt
that the Church should have the ultimate authority. Had Adhemar of Le Puy still
been alive there is no doubt that he would have been expected to plan the
constitution and to name its officers. He was beloved and respected, and he
knew Pope Urban’s wishes. Probably he envisaged an ecclesiastical state under
the Patriarch Symeon, with himself as papal legate to act as his adviser, and
with Raymond of Toulouse as lay protector and commander of its armies. But we
cannot claim to describe his intentions; for they had perished with him. Pope
Urban had, indeed, unknown as yet to the Crusade, appointed a legate to succeed
him, Daimbert of Pisa. But Daimbert proved to be personally so ambitious and at
the same time so easily influenced that he cannot be regarded as an interpreter
of papal policy. There was no one left with the Crusade whose advice would be
unquestionably obeyed.

Intrigues for
the Throne

On 17 July the leaders met together to deal
with immediate matters of administration. The streets and houses had to be
cleared of corpses, whose disposal must be arranged. Quarters within the city
had to be allotted to the soldiers and the pilgrims. Preparations must be made
to meet the coming Egyptian counter-attack. It was also discussed whether
Tancred should be allowed to keep all the treasure, which included eight huge
silver lamps, that he had taken from the Dome of the Rock. Then someone raised
the question of the election of a king. The clergy at once protested. Spiritual
needs came first. Before a king could be elected a Patriarch must be appointed,
who would preside over the election. William of Tyre, writing nearly a century
later when the monarchy was fully accepted, regarded this, archbishop though he
was, as a scandalous attempt of the Church to go beyond its rights. But it was
only resented at the time because its promoters were unworthy churchmen. A
Patriarch was needed. Had Symeon still been living, his rights would have been
respected. Adhemar had approved of him; and the Crusaders remembered gratefully
the gifts that he had sent to them to Antioch. But no other Greek or Syrian
ecclesiastic would have been acceptable. None, indeed, was there to put in a
claim; for the higher Orthodox clergy of Jerusalem had followed the Patriarch
into exile. A Latin must be elevated to the see; but amongst the Latin clergy
there was now no one outstanding. After Adhemar’s death, William of Orange had
been the most respected of the bishops. But he had died at Maarat an-Numan. The
most active ecclesiastic now was a Norman-Italian, Arnulf, Bishop of Marturana.
He proposed that his friend Arnulf Malecorne of Rohes, Robert of Normandy’s
chaplain, should become Patriarch and he himself would be rewarded by the
archbishopric of Bethlehem. Arnulf of Rohes was not undistinguished. He had
been tutor to William the Conqueror’s daughter, the nun Cecilia, and she had
induced her brother Robert to engage him and to promise him a bishopric. He was
an excellent preacher and a man of letters but he was considered to be very
worldly, and he was remembered as the enemy of Peter Bartholomew. Moreover the
whole transaction looked like a Norman plot. The southern French clergy,
supported, no doubt, by Raymond of Toulouse, would not co-operate; and the
proposal to elect the Patriarch before the king was abandoned. The episode was
not as important as William of Tyre believed. As the sequel showed, public
opinion still backed the Church against the secular power.