At that time, the famished ate the shoots of beanseeds growing in the fields and many kinds of herbs unseasoned with salt; also thistles, which, being not well cooked because of the deficiency of firewood, pricked the tongues of those eating them; also horses, asses, camels, dogs and rats. The poorer ones even ate the skins of the beasts and seeds of grain found in manure.25
On top of all this, a series of natural phenomena - including a comet and an aurora - were experienced in northern Syria and interpreted by the crusaders as miraculous signs of God's displeasure. One Frank recalled that 'at that time, we saw an astonishing glow in the sky, and, in addition, we felt a great movement of the earth, which made us all quake. Many also saw a certain sign in the shape of a cross, whitish in colour, advancing toward the East in a straight path.'26
In the face of such unpromising conditions, the crusaders began to panic. Profound adversity sometimes clarifies and crystallises the human heart, and we can learn a great deal about the crusaders' mindset and motivation by exploring how they sought to rationalise their predicament. They were confronted by one central question: if they were fighting a holy war in the name of God, why was their Lord allowing them to suffer and die? Their answer, or at least that of the clergy, was that mainstay of medieval Christianity - sin. Fulcher of Chartres, himself a chaplain, offered this explanation: 'We believed that these misfortunes befell the Franks, and that they were not able for so long a time to take the city, because of their sins. Not only dissipation, but also avarice, or pride, or rapaciousness corrupted them. If God was punishing the crusaders for their sins, then, the clergy believed, the only solution was to purify the army by whatever means possible. Adhemar of Le Puy began to advocate a return to righteousness through extreme austerity and Christian ritual, urging 'the people to fast three days, to pray, to give alms, and to form a procession; he further ordered the priests to celebrate masses and the clerks to repeat psalms. The efficacy of a fast among those who were already starving may seem dubious, but the formula of imposed physical denial and intense liturgical observance was believed to be a tried-and-tested recipe for success. It was one to which the crusaders would return.27
The process of purification also had more unpleasant sides. One particularly regrettable feature of medieval Christian dogma was the belief that women were essentially agents of sin. This extraordinary concept can be traced back to St Augustine of Hippo, the late-fourth-and early-fifth-century architect of the Just War theory whose enormously influential theological writings continue to shape Christianity to this day. Unfortunately for womankind, Augustine had, like many saints, been quite a philanderer before he turned to God. Once he had dedicated his life to the Church, however, he decided, rather uncharitably, that women had seduced him into sin, and indeed that they were in essence corrupt and dangerous. Perhaps most notably, he contributed to a reinterpretation of the story of Man's fall from Eden, focusing blame upon Eve rather than the serpent. By the eleventh century, then, women could be portrayed as temptresses, agents of evil. It is in this context that we must try to understand one crusader's dispassionate observation that, in January 1098, 'After holding council, [the Franks] drove out the women from the army, both married and unmarried, lest they, stained by the defilement of dissipation, displease the Lord. The near-contemporary writer Albert of Aachen recorded a more general list of measures and prohibitions:
All injustice and wickedness was to be cut out from the army, no one was to cheat a Christian brother; no one was to commit theft; no one was to take part in fornication or adultery. If anyone should disobey this order, they would be subject to most severe penalties if caught, and thus God's people would be sanctified from filth and impurity.
It seems, however, that Albert believed that transgression was inevitable, because he went on to record:
When indeed many of the pilgrims disobeyed the decree they were severely sentenced by the appointed judges: some were put in chains, other flogged, others shaved and branded for the correction and improvement of the whole army.
In that place a man and woman were caught in the act of adultery and they were stripped in the presence of all, their hands were tied behind their backs and they were severely whipped by strikers and rods, and were forced to go round the whole army so that when their savage wounds were seen the rest would be deterred from such and so wicked a crime.28
Many sought to combine this rigorous programme of purification with more direct, practical action. It became common for large groups of men, 200 to 300 at a time, to set off on wide-ranging foraging expeditions. Most of these were probably unsanctioned by the crusade leadership, but they were certainly not the preserve of the lower classes. Ludwig, the archdeacon of Toul, once a relatively wealthy cleric, decided, when his money ran out, to lead 300 other clerics and lay people in search of food. Unfortunately for them, spies reported their departure to the Antiochene garrison; 600 Turks were sent out of the Iron Gate to ambush them, and Ludwig and all his followers were butchered.29
Even with all the efforts to restore 'purity' and morale, it is not surprising that some crusaders considered desertion when faced with such levels of suffering. Thousands of kilometres from home, adrift among enemies, many must have believed that the entire expedition was close to complete collapse and annihilation. Often, those who left to forage in outlying areas chose not to return to the siege. Even well-known crusade figures were not immune. Towards the end of January 1098, two leaders of the former People's Crusade, the charismatic preacher Peter the Hermit and the knight William the Carpenter, lord of Melun, stole away from the siege in the dead of night. They appear to have travelled on from Constantinople in Bohemond's army, because when the flight was discovered it was Tancred who was sent after them:
[He] caught them and brought them back in disgrace. William spent the whole night in my Lord Bohemond's tent, lying on the ground like a piece of rubbish. The following morning, at daybreak, he came and stood before Bohemond, blushing for shame. Bohemond said to him, You most loathsome of all men whom the earth has to bear, why did you run off in such a shameful way?'30
William evidently had a reputation for desertion - he was known to have fled during an earlier expedition against the Moors in Spain - but, even so, most of the army begged Bohemond to be lenient, perhaps because they understood only too well the fear that had afflicted him. In the end, both William and Peter returned to the crusade without further punishment, having sworn an oath to persevere in the siege. The crusade leadership evidently judged them to be too valuable as figureheads for the poor, talismans of morale, for their escape or banishment to be acceptable. Indeed, in the months to come, Peter went on to play a more active role in events.31
The crusaders were less sympathetic in their response to another significant departure. Since leaving Constantinople, the Franks had been accompanied by the Greek guide and adviser, Taticius. At the end of January, he announced his intention to travel back into Asia Minor in search of supplies and reinforcements for the siege. The crusaders had, since their arrival at Antioch, been expecting to be reinforced by the Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus. At the time, Taticius' proposal was probably accepted, his promises believed. Apparently, he even left all his possessions behind in camp as evidence of his determination to return. He and his men duly set off and eventually rendezvoused with the emperor, but, for reasons that will become clear, Taticius never returned to the siege of Antioch. This betrayal shocked the Franks, and, writing with the benefit of hindsight, most crusader sources were deeply critical of the Greek guide's conduct. Raymond of Toulouse's chaplain wrote: 'Under the pretence of joining the army of Alexius, Taticius broke camp, abandoned his followers, and left with God's curse; by this dastardly act, he brought eternal shame to himself and his men.'32
Around this time, Bohemond himself may have considered leaving the army. According to the Provencal crusader Raymond of Aguilers, who, it must be said, was not particularly fond of Bohemond, he 'threatened to depart' because of the suffering
of his troops and his own poverty. Raymond went on to state, 'we learnt afterwards that he made these statements because ambition drove him to covet Antioch', and noted that, in order to maintain Christian unity, 'All the princes with the exception of the Count [Raymond of Toulouse] offered Antioch to Bohemond in the event it was captured. So with this pact Bohemond and the other princes took an oath they would not abandon the siege of Antioch for seven years unless it fell sooner.'
Raymond may have confused this promise of full rights to the city with later events, and no other contemporary source recorded these negotiations, but it is possible that Bohemond was already angling for a guaranteed share of Antioch's spoils in early 1098.33
That January the crusade reached its lowest point to date. One of Bohemond's followers, who lived through this terrible period, explained the Frankish predicament, conveying an immediate sense of their despair:
We were thus left in direst need .. . The Turks were menacing us on the one hand, and hunger tormented us on the other, and there was no one to help us or bring us aid. The rank and file, with those who were very poor, fled to Cyprus, Asia Minor or into the mountains. We dared not go down to the sea for fear of those brutes of Turks, and there was no road open to us anywhere.34
With this in mind, Simeon, the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, with the support of Bishop Adhemar, wrote a heartfelt letter of appeal to all the Christians of western Europe. His insistent message is a sure indication of how many crusaders had been lost to death or desertion. What the Franks needed now was more manpower: 'Come to fight in the army of the Lord . . . Bring nothing with you except only what may be of use to us. Let only the men come; let the women, as yet, be left. From the home in which there are two, let one, the one more ready for battle come. In particular he sought to goad any who had taken a crusading vow but not yet left for the East with the threat of excommunication. Of course, he was not above using deception to encourage recruitment. In spite of all the suffering at Antioch, he still described the Holy Land as 'flowing with milk and honey'; he also maintained that the hardest section of the campaign was over.35
Through all of January 1098 only one faint glimmer of hope briefly illuminated the crusaders' cause. During one of the minor skirmishes outside Antioch that were a daily feature of the siege, the Franks captured a young, high-ranking Muslim nobleman. Learning that his family commanded one of the city's towers, they sought to negotiate secret access to the tower in return for his release. A dialogue was established and the scheme might have come to fruition had Yaghi Siyan not discovered the plot and relieved the family members of their command. Showing a complete absence of clemency, the crusaders responded by hauling their bedraggled prisoner, who had already suffered severe torture, before the walls, where he was summarily decapitated in fiill sight of the Muslim garrison. Their plan had failed on this occasion, but a potential weakness in the city's defences - betrayal - had been exposed.36
A NEW ENEMY CONFRONTED
In the first days of February news arrived that a fresh Muslim army was approaching Antioch. This time it was Ridwan of Aleppo who had chosen to lead around 12,000 men to relieve Yaghi Siyan, and was now camped at Harim. By this point, the surprise encounter with Duqaq of Damascus back in December must have alerted the crusaders to the need for better local intelligence. They had perhaps improved their network of scouts and local informers; certainly they had a little time to plan for Ridwan's arrival, but they still faced the very real possibility of being crushed between Antioch's garrison and the Aleppan army. In the face of this new threat, the Latins had three overwhelming concerns, born out of the experiences and depredations of the previous months. They were, above all, desperately short of horses. Concern for their mounts had already been evident during the troublesome crossing of Asia Minor, but, through the winter of 1097-8, the crusaders became wholly fixated upon the wellbeing of their horses. When eyewitnesses described the struggles to find supplies, they almost invariably went on to comment on the excessive cost of horse feed: '[The Franks] endured the sight of their horses wasting away from starvation. Straw was scarce and seven or eight solidi did not buy an adequate amount of grain for one night s provender for one horse.
One of Bohemond's main justifications for his threat to leave the siege in January had been that he was sick of watching 'his men and horses dying from hunger'. Indeed, our sources give the impression that horses were valued almost as much as men. There were two reasons for this: from a practical military standpoint, the crusaders knew that their most powerful weapon in battle was the mounted knight - the medieval equivalent of a tank; to the individual, a horse conveyed status, indeed one could not effectively maintain the position of knight without a mount. In early 1098, horses were precious commodities. A strange incident amid the chaotic fighting outside Antioch on 29 December was indicative: in the heat of battle a group of knights suddenly turned from the fray, deserting the infantry; but their flight was not inspired by cowardice; instead, they were racing to be the first to catch a single riderless horse which had been spotted leaving the field. Knights soon became reluctant to fight in skirmishes for fear that their horses might be killed, their status lost. In response, the crusader princes, led by Raymond of Toulouse, established a common war chest from which knights could claim funds to replace mounts lost in battle. Funded by the crusader 'confraternity', this arrangement was another example of practical economic co-operation among the crusade leadership. Even so, new horses could be bought only if they were available, and by February they were extremely scarce. It was said that the Provencals could muster only a hundred, and that even these were 'scrawny and feeble'; in the whole army there were at best a thousand knights who still had mounts. Many of these would not have been frilly fledged warhorses, and we know that some knights even rode into battle on mules and donkeys. The first question, then, that faced the crusaders when they heard of Ridwan's approach was how to make best use of their limited cavalry.37
Two other related matters needed to be resolved: the experience of recent months had demonstrated that a single overall commander was needed in full-scale pitched battles; it was also apparent that, in the heat of a melee, proper co-ordination between infantry and cavalry was extremely difficult to achieve. The crusader princes duly held an urgent council on 8 February to discuss these matters and their response to Ridwan's approach. They decided to divide their forces to cover two fronts. Seven hundred knights under the command of Bohemond, Robert of Flanders and Stephen of Blois would ride out to meet Ridwan. Meanwhile, the remaining princes would maintain the siege with the entire infantry. A division of manpower was obviously necessary, but such a radical separation of cavalry and foot is quite revealing. One Latin eyewitness argued that 'this decision came because it was likely that the unfit and timid ones in the ranks of the footmen would show more cowardice than bravery if they saw a large force of Turks'.
This may not be entirely accurate, given that a fair proportion of the infantry must, by this time, have been made up of experienced knights who had now lost their horses. In fact, the division probably had more to do with strategy. Freed of the encumbrance of slow-moving footsoldiers, the cavalry could potentially move with greater precision and speed. The Franks had clearly learned from experience, adopting and adapting the Turkish penchant for mobile, horse-based warfare. The princes probably made a further innovation, electing Bohemond as overall commander of the expeditionary force.38
The crusaders were facing an immense challenge: to repel some 12,000 Muslims with under 1,000 troops of their own. The sheer imbalance of these forces makes one wonder whether the Frankish sources exaggerated the severity of their predicament, but, for once, even the Arabic sources confirm that the Aleppan army was numerically superior. How, then, could the crusaders possibly hope to prevail against such odds? Looking back on the battle, one crusader argued that God had miraculously multiplied the number of Latin knights from 700 to 2,000 as the fighting began. In reality, the crusaders might have risked drawing m
ore men from the siege to create a larger combined force, but they chose to rely upon divine support and superior tactics rather than sheer weight of numbers. Their plan was both inspired and audacious. They could have fought a defensive battle, centred around the Iron Bridge, but this would have relied upon grinding attrition and, win or lose, would have been extremely costly in terms of manpower. Instead, outnumbered twelve to one, they decided to go on the offensive.
In a direct reversal of their experiences in the Foraging Battle, they sought to use surprise to their advantage. They set out from Antioch, under the cover of darkness, on the night of 8 February, advancing rapidly along the road to the Iron Bridge. In a sense, they were trying to set up a large-scale ambush and, having taken the initiative, they were able to choose their point of attack. The ground they selected probably lay on the approach to the Iron Bridge, but its exact location cannot be determined with any certainty. It does seem that they hoped to limit the possibility of long-range encirclement by hemming in the Muslim forces on ground flanked by natural obstructions, so they may well have chosen a point between the River Orontes and the foothills behind Antioch. Indeed, the main force of knights may themselves have taken limited cover behind a low hill.
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