The Siege of Jerusalem: Crusade and Conquest in 1099

by Conor Kostick

  campaigned against the Seleucid Empire as military and religious leader of the Jewish people, was seen by the Latin clergy – especially those intellectuals associated with the papacy of Urban II and his predecessor Gregory VII – as the

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  model of a ‘knight of Christ’. According to the Old Testament, Judas Maccabeus had built a sanctuary on Mount Zion. Count Raymond was therefore echoing the deeds of this Christian champion and once more casting himself as a divinely approved leader, this time adding to his credentials by proclaiming knowledge of the will of God.

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  e other leading Christian princes thought it more advisable that the Provençal army remain facing the west wall, and thus be in on the right fl ank of a united army in direct contact with one another’s camps, exerting pressure on the northwest and north walls of Jerusalem. Th

  e count’s own soldiers were

  equally unconvinced of the need to move. In fact, they protested both at the relocation of the camp and also at the corresponding requirement that they would have to organize watches throughout the night. Very few Provençal knights came voluntarily to Mount Zion, the majority remaining on the west of the city. Fortunately for Count Raymond he was in control of a considerable amount of coin, gathered as tribute from the coastal cities that the crusaders had passed en route. With large payments from these funds, the count was able to attract a suffi

  cient garrison of knights and foot soldiers to make the southern

  camp viable; viable providing he also use precious timber to construct a defensive palisade and gate between his camp at the city walls. Th

  e Christian army

  was now physically split in two, a potentially hazardous distance between the Provençals facing the south gate of Jerusalem and the other princes on the north side of the city.

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  e Lotharingian brothers, Godfrey and Eustace had the single biggest army on the north side and pitched alongside them were Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders. Nearby, too, were those with a smaller following, notably Tancred and Gaston of Béarn. Th

  e latter, being from Provençe, might have been

  expected to join the southern camp, but Gaston now thought his fortune would be better served in association with Tancred. His calculation was not mistaken, as he would shortly be given the important responsibility of overseeing the construction of the northern siege tower.

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  e association of proud and warlike knights who had once banded together under Hugh the Great also took to the northern camp. Drogo of Nesle, Everard of Le Puiset, Raimbold Crotton, Th

  omas of Marle and others had been fi rst

  into Antioch at the storming of the city; they had been assigned the daring task of scouting for the arrival of Kerbogha’s army as it approached Antioch; they had been among the most fervent in insisting that the army press on to Jerusalem; and now that they had reached their goal, they looked forward with eager anticipation to one fi nal act of destruction, the glory of which would lead to their names being sung throughout Christendom.

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  e poor, both male and female, who in many cases had organized themselves in bands independently of the princely leaders, on the whole took to the southern camp. It was dangerously close to the city, true, but their religious spokespersons were in the southern camp as part of the entourage of Count Raymond. Peter Bartholomew was dead, but there were others, such as the priest Peter Desiderius, whose visions continued to express the importance of attending to the poor. Peter Desiderius was an ally of those Provençal knights who had come with the papal legate, Adhémar of Le Puy, and who now looked to his brother, William Hugh of Monteil, as well as Isoard I, count of Die, for leadership. Disillusioned as they were with Count Raymond, these lords were willing to accept his payments in return for their military activity. As the count was liberal with his money, paying for the fi lling of ditches, the serving of night duty and the hauling of timber, his camp off ered greater attraction for the non-combatants than that set up on the north side.

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  ere was another faction among the Christian army that crossed regional boundaries, creating a division as great as that between rich and poor: the clergy. Now that the expedition had arrived at Jerusalem, the clergy on the crusade were beginning to feel that their moment had come. Th

  ey demonstrated

  their knowledge of scripture and of the pilgrim trail to show the laity the spiritual signifi cance of the landscape around them. Here, for example, on the Mount of Olives, the hills to the east of the city, was where Christ ascended to heaven.

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  ere, at the ruins on Mount Zion, was where Mary departed the world, the place that the Lord broke bread with the disciples, and the place that Holy Spirit entered the disciples. Proud of their role as intermediaries between the army and God, the clergy were beginning to unite as a political force across their respective geographical contingents.

  On 6 June, the day before the Christian army had reached Jerusalem, Tancred and his knights had ridden ahead into Bethlehem. Th

  ere, according

  to the custom that evolved over the course of the expedition, he had raised his banner to signify the fact that he claimed the town. Th

  e most appropriate

  building for his purpose was the Church of the Lord’s Nativity. But the sight of a military banner fl ying over the church, as if it were a temporal possession akin to a castle, scandalized the crusading clergy. Aft er all, this was an expedition called for and organized by the pope. Moreover, what did Tancred’s claim mean in the context of the seizure of Jerusalem?

  By the start of July this discontent among the clergy had surfaced in the form of a major assembly at which the bishops and leading clergy made their case that the next ruler of Jerusalem should be a Latin patriarch. It would be wrong to elect a king where the Lord had suff ered and was crowned. Yes, a

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  noble warrior could play an important role as servant of the Church and pro-tector of Jerusalem, but they, the clergy, should rule. Th

  is division, between the

  clergy and the princes, was potentially an extremely serious one, capable of paralysing the army. It would have strengthened the clergy’s ability to infl uence the outcome of the crusade if Jerusalem had been promptly and miraculously delivered to the Christians. Why, they told one another, shouldn’t God, who was able to make earth to tremble, shake down the walls of the city now that they had arrived? Th

  eir hopes for divine intervention in the taking of the city per-

  meated the whole army.

  Soon aft er the crusaders had arrived at Jerusalem, Tancred had ridden up to the top of the Mount of Olives – the 830 metre tall hills to the east of Jerusalem, across the Kidron Valley – in order to study the city below him. From there he could see the streets busy with people making preparations for the coming siege. Th

  e Mount of Olives was home to several Christian hermits and one of them approached Tancred. To their mutual surprise, they discovered that the hermit had set out on his travels as a result of the destruction of his home lands by Tancred’s grandfather, Robert Guiscard. Now, however, the hermit took Tancred’s presence at Jerusalem as a sign of penitence by the Guiscardians and was eager to help the Christian army. He predicted that if the city was attacked on the 13 June, it would fall.

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  eir conversation was interrupted by the sight of fi ve Muslim riders making their way up the rough terrain of the hill towards them. As these riders were some distance from one another, Tancred declined to fl ee, but rather charged the foremost, sending his body crashing from his mount. Turning on the second rider, Tancred severely wounded the horse, which in its death throes brought its rider to the ground, wounded and stunned from having smashed his head on the g
round. Th

  e third Muslim rider now arrived; having rushed on as fast as he

  could to join battle while Tancred was still engaged; but too late. Th e young

  Norman prince had time to round on him and slay him too. Th

  e last two riders

  had seen enough, they turned and made their way as rapidly as they could back to the safety of the walls, all the while being chased by Tancred, shouting war cries. 9

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  e other princes of the Christian army appreciated the value of the Mount of Olives as a position from which to overlook Jerusalem and they were also interested in meeting the hermit who had promised them victory in a short space of time. On 12 June the hermit repeated his prophecy to a group of leading crusaders, insisting that if they attacked the city the following day until the ninth hour, it would fall to them. ‘But’, the princes pointed out, pragmatically,

  ‘we do not have the equipment needed to storm the walls.’ To this the hermit

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  answered that ‘God is omnipotent, if He desires it, someone with just a ladder can rush the walls. He is at hand for those who are working for the truth. ’10

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  at evening the entire Christian army was full of talk and enthusiasm generated by the hermit’s message, an enthusiasm that was fuelled by their proximity to the holy places. If Godfrey, Raymond, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders, or any of the lesser princes thought the proposed attack absurd, they nevertheless dared not stand in opposition to the mounting excitement.

  During the night the army made ready to assault the city with whatever they could make from the limited materials at hand. Th

  eir eff ective equipment the

  next morning though, amounted to just one ladder. It is testimony to the fever-ish state of mind of the Christian forces and their hope in divine intervention that, regardless, they charged towards the walls on the morning of the 13 June.

  What did the garrison and townspeople of Jerusalem think of this mob, carrying only one ladder, hurtling towards them? Contempt, no doubt, for their enemies’ evident lack of the knowledge of the military arts; but perhaps fear also crept into their hearts. A fear not that this wild crowd might obtain some kind of miraculous aid, but a shiver of trepidation about what it might mean should this ferocious army somehow get into the city.

  Volley aft er volley of arrow fi re, a constant hail of sling stones, and the thunderous release of large stones from mangonels took a heavy toll of the attacking forces. Nevertheless, the Christians reached an outer wall, which gave them cover while they took their mattocks and iron hammers to it. Th

  roughout the

  morning, the ringing blows of the crusader tools struck against stone, until with a crash of rubble and dust, a section fell that was large enough to allow the attackers to press on to the inner wall of the city. By this time the initial giddy excitement of the attackers had become tempered and it was helmeted knights in chainmail who led the way, shields over their heads in a ‘tortoise’ formation.

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  ey bore the onslaught of missiles well, despite losses from arrows fi nding eyeholes and the blows of heavy masonry that crushed both shield and knight.

  Gaining the foot of the walls, these knights then raised up their ladder and stood it against the walls of the city.

  For one glorious moment the eyes of the entire army, from the most senior princes to the lowest peasant, were raised enviously at the knight who now ascended the ladder and gained the honour of being the fi rst to the top of the walls of the Jerusalem: Raimbold Croton. Raimbold had earned the right to try to be fi rst into the city by his actions on the crusade thus far. He had been among those who risked climbing on to the walls of Antioch and entering the city on 3 June 1098, the night it was betrayed to Bohemond. Aft er the incident where the Turks of the citadel had successfully raided the crusaders in the city

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  proper, Raimbold was among a select few praised for taking responsibility for guarding the wall that protected the Christians. But now, above him, hardy Muslim warriors were pressing around the ladder. It would have been miraculous if under the circumstances Raimbold had managed to fi ght his way through them to stand on to the walls of Jerusalem. In fact, as soon as he placed his left hand on the wall of the city, one of the defenders chopped down upon it, so that the hand was almost severed. Raimbold fell back and was carried away.

  He did not die of this wound, surviving to earn a reward from Godfrey the following year. For his bravery in mounting the ladder on 13 June, Raimbold was given a fragment of the True Cross, preserved in a cross-shaped reliquary covered with worked gold, a relic that stayed in his family for centuries. Indeed, his family adopted a white cross on a red background as their coat of arms in honour of their crusading ancestor. Verse makers relished this extraordinary incident and before long songs of Raimbold’s bravery were being proclaimed across Christendom, with later legend ascribing to him the role of being fi rst into the Jerusalem on the day that the city fi nally fell.11

  Not that the actual warrior was as saintly as his later reputation was to suggest. On Raimbold’s return to Chartres directly aft er the crusade, he became embroiled in a dispute with Bonneval Abbey in the course of which he castrated a monk who had beaten some of his servants, having caught them stealing hay from the abbey. As a result Raimbold was given 14 years’ penance, which, on appeal to Pope Paschal II, seems to have been lift ed in time for him to get himself killed at another siege, that of Montmorency in 1101, fi ghting with Louis VI of France against dissenting lords.12

  While Raimbold escaped with his life there were other notable knights killed in this reckless and ill-prepared assault on the walls of Jerusalem, including Reginald, seneschal of Hugh of Liziniac. Despite the failure, the overall mood of the army was nevertheless optimistic. Th

  e feeling in both northern

  and southern camps was that but for the lack of a few more ladders, they could indeed have climbed into the city with no more strategy than the head on assault.13

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  e princes, though, settled down to a more sophisticated plan and one that relied less on the advice of hermits and visionaries. Th

  e truth be told, theirs was

  not a comfortable position. Th

  e greatest danger and one that they were already

  being warned about was that al-Afdal was assembling an army to come from Cairo to Jerusalem. Th

  ere could be no question of conducting a long and pro-

  tracted siege, such as that of 637 when Caliph ‘Umar I took nearly a year to wear down the resistance of the defenders. In any case, if the siege turned into a test of attrition, there was no guarantee that the inhabitants of Jerusalem would run

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  out of supplies before the crusaders. Th

  e question of keeping the army supplied

  with food was a diffi

  cult enough one, but the issue of water was more urgent

  still. No, if the Christians were to gain Jerusalem they had to do it swift ly, time was not on their side. Th

  eir instructions the day following the failed assault

  were to scour the land for timber in order that they could build the siege equipment that was so demonstrably needed.

  Chapter 4

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  irst

  When you lose two per cent of your normal water volume, you feel extremely thirsty and your mouth is constantly dry. With the loss of fi ve per cent of your water volume, you have bouts of dizziness and painful attacks of cramp in your limbs caused by a rising concentration of sodium and potassium. Although the pain might make you want to cry, your eyes are too dry for tears to form. As your intestines dry out, you get bouts of severe abdominal cramps. A further symptom of protracted thirst is a constant feeling of lethargy. With the los
s of ten per cent of your water volume, your lips begin to crack and dehydration of the mucous membranes causes nosebleeds. Your brain begins to shrink and you experience constant headaches and occasional hallucinations. While your body temperature rises – due to lack of sweat – your hands and feet feel cold; the body’s circulation having withdrawn to the vital organs. With the loss of 15 per cent of your water volume you have only a matter of hours to fi nd water before falling into a coma and dying. In the summer of 1099, so close to their goal, thousands of crusaders experienced exactly this progression of dehydration and many of them expired of thirst outside the walls of Jerusalem.

  Both the crusaders and the Fatimid garrison understood that access to drinking water was the key logistical issue of the siege. Lack of water had the potential to force the Christian army to abandon the undertaking. Control of the water sources could be far more eff ective in the Fatimid cause than arrows and blades. Just how seriously the crusaders took the matter was evident as they turned away from the coast in their march towards Jerusalem. At Ramla, in the fi rst week of June 1099, a special assembly of the Christian army was convened to discuss whether a siege of Jerusalem was viable. Th

  ere was a body of opinion

  that argued against an immediate attack on Jerusalem, precisely because of the lack of water available to them. Th

  ese crusaders proposed instead that the

  army stay close to the sea and attack Egypt. Reasonably enough, the majority of army were having none of this: their small force could not possibly mount an expedition to such remote regions. But to have even contemplated marching off towards Cairo shows how anxious were some of the crusaders over the question of water supply. Th

  e problem for the majority who wished to press on to

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  Jerusalem was that they had no answer to the question of where they expected water to be found. God, they conjectured – rather hopefully – would take care of the question. 1

  To stave off the eff ects of thirst an active male in a warm climate requires six litres of water a day. A horse in the same circumstances needs about 50 litres a day. Where were the Christian army to fi nd a daily source of 200,000 litres of drinking water? Th