The First Crusade (39 page)

Bohemond said that he would carry my body to Jerusalem. For his sake he shall not move my corpse from its resting place because some of the blood of Christ, with whom I am now associated, remains there. But if he doubts my statements, let him open my tomb and he shall see my burned head and face.
²²

With this U-turn in his stance on the Holy Lance, Adhemar's spirit became the perfect mouthpiece for the promotion of Count Raymond's political agenda. Indeed, in the first vision, he promised to return regularly to 'offer better counsel than I did in life'. His initial instructions were all in Raymond's favour. He swelled the count's army by entrusting all his former followers to him and then suggested that 'the count and his chosen ones [should] select a bishop in my place' to act as the new spiritual leader of the crusade, although Raymond was ultimately unable to implement this instruction.

The alliance between Raymond and Peter Bartholomew - prince and prophet - was a powerful one, but Peter was a potentially dangerous bedfellow. In a few short weeks he had been catapulted out of impoverished obscurity to become a demagogue to the crusader masses. As time went on, this newfound power went to his head, his character became increasingly unstable, his pronouncements more wide-ranging and outlandish. After his first vision of Adhemar, Peter reported another visitation from St Andrew. Scattered among the now familiar rhetoric regarding Raymond's power and connection to the Lance were additional, potentially more disturbing messages. According to Peter, St Andrew did not want Antioch to be returned to the Greeks, suggesting that they would 'desecrate' the city. Instead, he said, a Latin patriarch should be appointed and Antioch retained by the crusaders. This explosive message did not sit comfortably alongside Raymond's new pro-Byzantine policy and the 'official' line that he was only showing an interest in Antioch on the emperor's behalf.

Raymond almost certainly nursed his own dreams of ruling Antioch and did everything in his power to retain a foothold in that great city. In mid-summer he even made an abortive attempt to provoke a full-scale riot against Bohemond in the city streets. But in many ways the disp
ute over Antioch acted as a costl
y distraction from Raymond's main ambition - to lead the crusade.
²³

An impasse is reached

By summer's end the crisis within the crusade was no closer to resolution. Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Hainault, dispatched as ambassadors to Alexius, were attacked by Turks while recrossing Asia Minor. Baldwin was lost and Hugh's journey severely delayed.
²⁴
By the time he reached Constantinople to tell the full story of Kerbogha's defeat, autumn had set in and it was too late in the year for the emperor to march on Antioch. Although no Byzantine representative appeared to claim the city, Raymond of Toulouse continued to oppose any suggestion that Bohemond should be given sole possession. As yet no crusade leader held sufficient power or influence to reinvigorate or redirect the expedition. Facing this stalemate, the princes turned back to Europe for aid. On 11 September they wrote a joint letter to Pope Urban II in Rome outlining the course of the expedition to date and relating the grievous news of Adhemar's death. This missive implored Pope Urban II to come to Antioch and lead the crusade on to Jerusalem in person:

Since you initiated this pilgrimage and by your sermons have caused us all to leave our lands
...
we [now] beg you to come to us and urge whomsoever you can to come with you. For it was here [in Antioch] that the name of Christian first originated
...
Therefore what in the world would seem more proper than that you, who are the father and head of the Christian religion, should come to the principal city and capital of the Christian name and finish the war, which is your project, in person
...
For if you come to us and finish with us the pilgrimage that you inaugurated the whole world will be obedient to you.
²⁵

This heartfelt appeal for spiritual leadership and military reinforcement played upon Antioch's link to St Peter, the foundation of the Christian Church, and Pope Urban's own responsibilities and ambitions. But another, more subtle message is also interlaced within this petition. Bohemond, the chief architect of this letter, wove his own self-serving agenda into the text. By stressing Antioch's Christian heritage and the 'global' power that ecclesiastical control of the city would bring to the papacy, he hoped to lure Urban into Latinising the Church in northern Syria, thus ending Bohemond's problems with the Greek patriarch and Byzantine influence. The letter thus contained a startling clause that seems wholly at odds with the crusade's avowed mission to aid eastern Christians: 'We have subdued the Turks and the pagans; but the heretics, Greeks and Armenians, Syrians and Jacobites, we have not been able to overcome
...
Use us, your obedient sons, [to] eradicate and destroy by your authority and our strength all heresies of whatever kind.'
²⁶

Preoccupied in Europe, Urban II was not tempted by this uncompromising image of Latin expansionism, and by 1 November, the Feast of All Saints, neither Roman pope nor Greek emperor had arrived in Syria to resolve the crusaders' quandary. As agreed, all the princes reassembled at Antioch at the start of the month to plan the next stage of the expedition, but the intractable division between Bohemond and Raymond remained. Even after days of negotiation in the Basilica of St Peter no solution could be reached. Bohemond, perched in his citadel, dominated the city, but Raymond clung on to his foothold around the Bridge Gate with unshakeable tenacity. Neither Godfrey, nor either of the two Roberts, nor any other prince possessed the will or authority to impose a settlement. Raymond's chaplain summarised the impasse, writing that, 'divided by contradictions, the princes became so violent that they almost took up arms. As a result the journey [to Jerusalem] and all matters pertaining to it and the care of the poor were postponed.'
²⁷

By mid-November all attempts at arbitration broke down and the princes began, once again, to disperse. This time, no date for reassembly was set - it looked as though the entire expedition was doomed simply to fizzle out. The indecision of autumn 1098 was lamentable. Bohemond's greed, Raymond's obstinacy and the feeble ineptitude of their colleagues looked set to cost the crusade dearly. While a focused and purposeful force might have used the autumn to reach Jerusalem, the First Crusaders now faced an unnecessary second winter of aimless delay and vulnerability to attack or starvation in northern Syria. This prospect did not sit well with the mass of crusaders, and popular discontent began to bubble to the surface:

The people, on seeing this princely fiasco, began to suggest first privately and later publicly: 'It is obvious that our leaders, because of cowardice or because of the oath to Alexius, do not wish to lead us to Jerusalem
...
If the Antiochene quarrel continues, let us tear down [the city's] walls; then the era of princely goodwill existing prior to its capture will return with its destruction. Otherwise, we should turn back to our lands before hunger and fatigue exhaust us.'
²⁸

As yet, such protests failed to sway the princes, but the will of the crusader masses could not be ignored for ever.

ON
TO
THE
PLAINS
OF
SYRIA

The stark winter months that followed the impasse of early November 1098 have been widely misunderstood by modern historians. They have suggested that, with stalemate reached, the quarrel over Antioch temporarily fell dormant. It is argued that, instead, the crusaders concentrated on the need to forage for food or even made preliminary attempts to continue the march to Jerusalem. In reality, the bitter contest for control of Antioch burned on as fiercely as ever, as did the struggle to become the crusade'
s outright leader, but the battl
eground upon which these disputes were played out moved south.
²⁹

Throughout the summer, Raymond of Toulouse had sought to destabilise Bohemond's hold over the citadel of Antioch and to amass a wide-based platform of popular support through the agency of the Holy Lance. By autumn, he realised that nothing short of outright warfare would pry the city from the tightening grip of the southern Italian. For a leading prince to make such a blatant break with the fraternal ethos of crusading was unacceptable, so, finding the way blocked in one direction, Raymond elected to fight on new ground. If he could not actually oust Bohemond from Antioch, he would instead attempt to make the city untenable. The first step towards this had already been taken - Raymond had a strong foothold within Antioch that hampered Bohemond's access to the sea. To add to this, the count now set about expanding and consolidating the Provencal enclave to the south of Antioch. From this power-base Raymond hoped to hamper Bohemond's lines of supply and compromise Antioch's strategic integrity. Bohemond might keep his seat in the city, but, if Raymond had his way, he would not be sitting comfortably.

The contest moves south

With all this in mind, Raymond turned his gaze south to the plateau region known as the Jabal as-Summaq. Geographically, this was a natural choice, an extension from the Provencal base of operations in the neighbouring Ruj valley. In strategic terms, dominion over this fertile region offered wealth through trade and farming, and control over one of the two southern approaches to Antioch. In fact, Raymond's expansion into the Jabal as-Summaq had begun even before the assembly in early November. Around 25 September 1098 he had led an expeditionary force against the ancient town of Albara. His chaplain, Raymond of Aguilers, accompanied him and later described how the town fell after a short but fiercely fought assault: 'Here [Raymond] slaughtered thousands, returned thousands more to be sold into slavery at Antioch, and freed those cowardly ones who surrendered before the fall of Albara.'

Raymond of Aguilers may have exaggerated the size of the town's population, but he seems to have been singularly unimpressed by Albara itself. The Provencal army cannot all have been so unmoved, for the medieval town of Albara was built alongside a much larger, vasdy imposing late-Roman settlement. Even today one can walk out of the small, unremarkable modern town, pass through cherry orchards and find oneself in the midst of an amazingly well-preserved sixth-century community, with startling stone mausoleums topped by pyramidal roofs. So striking are these structures that local legend has it they were built by giants. In fact, Albara is only one of many abandoned, now almost forgotten, Roman 'Dead Cities' scattered across this part of the Syrian landscape, shards of a lost, classical age. It is still possible to walk through these hills and literally stumble across uncatalogued, uninhabited but largely intact late-Roman watchtowers. The effect on the crusaders as they moved through this mysterious, deserted landscape must have been unsettling.

Raymond of Toulouse may have seized Albara with relative ease, but he took great care to ensure that the town remained in Proven
c
al hands. First 'he restored the town to the Christian faith
⁷
, converting its mosque into a church. More significantly, he decided to install a priest from his army, Peter of Narbonne, as the first Latin bishop of Albara. Peter was later consecrated by the Greek patriarch of Antioch, but his appointment was a clear sign that even Raymond - now a Byzantine ally - wanted the territories he captured to follow the Latin creed. Bishop Peter's task, however, was as much military and political as it was spiritual. He was generously endowed with 'one-half of Albara and its environs' and was instructed to 'hold [the town] even unto death'. With this wealth Peter was later able to keep a garrison of seven knights and thirty foot soldiers under the command of another of Raymond of Toulouse's followers - William Peyre of Cunhlat, the former master of Peter Bartholomew - and this quickly grew to seventy infantry and sixty or more knights. The first bastion of Raymond's Provengal enclave had been established.
³⁰

After the Antiochene assembly failed to restore peace in early November, Raymond renewed his interest in the Jabal as-Summaq. Around 23 November 1098 he and Robert of Flanders set out for the region from Antioch, taking the road via Rugia and Albara. Their destination was Marrat an-Numan, the region's most prized settlement in both strategic and economic terms, and the site of Raymond Pilet's humiliating defeat the previous summer. If his experience was anything to go by, Raymond of Toulouse could expect Marrat to put up much stiffer opposition than Albara. This may be why he chose to launch his campaign with the assistance of his new ally Robert of Flanders. Together they arrived at Marrat on 28 November. Sensing that Raymond was on the brink of establishing his own, potentially threatening power-base in the Jabal as-Summaq, Bohemond decided that he could no longer bide his time in Antioch, and so rushed off in pursuit, reaching Marrat by the end of November. His intention was not so much to hamper Raymond's attack as to prevent the Provencals from seizing sole rights to the region.
³¹

The siege of
Marrat an-Numan