Many crusaders must have felt that the end of their pilgrimage was almost in sight. They were wrong. The Holy City may have been only weeks away, but no crusader was to see its walls for more than a year. Ironically, in that interval, thousands of Latins who had had the strength and fortune to survive the testing journey from Europe and the savage ordeal of Antioch's siege fell victim to disease, hunger and small-scale fighting, never to reach Palestine. At a time when the crusade seemed on the verge of success, the entire expedition stalled, fragmented and almost dissolved.
DELAY AND DISSIPATION
On 3 July a council of crusader princes made a fateful pronouncement: They dared not enter into the land of the pagans, because in summer it is very dry and waterless, and so they decided that they would therefore wait until the beginning of November. Judging their troops to be exhausted and their lines of supply extended, they chose to delay any attempt to march south towards Jerusalem until 1 November. The Provencal crusader Raymond of Aguilers, for one, did not approve: We believe that, if the Franks had advanced, not one city between Antioch and Jerusalem would have thrown a rock at them, so frightened and weakened at this time were the Saracen cities following the defeat of Kerbogha. He may have been right, but in truth the crusaders were immobilised by more fundamental and far-reaching problems.1
The contest for Antioch
The princes were now confronted by an inescapable question: what to do with the city of Antioch. Back in the spring of 1097 almost all the crusader princes had sworn an oath at Constantinople promising to return any former Byzantine territories that they might capture to the Emperor Alexius. Antioch was at the top of the wish-list of cities that Alexius was hoping to recover in this way. However, just before the city fell to the crusaders, Bohemond convinced his colleagues to guarantee possession of Antioch to whomever could engineer its capture. Therefore, in July 1098 there were two claimants to the city -Alexius and Bohemond. Modern historians have often cast the latter as the villain of this contest, arguing that in the struggle for Antioch Bohemond revealed his true character. Driven by greed and ambition, he was determined to possess the city, no matter what the cost.
In part, this is an accurate picture. In his defence, one could argue that someone would have to stay behind to govern Antioch after the crusaders had gone to such lengths to capture it. Bohemond had long believed he was the only man for the job. He had harboured designs on Antioch ever since the crusade arrived in northern Syria, and perhaps even earlier. Back in October 1097, at the start of the siege, he had taken up position before one of Antioch's most important gates, that of St Paul, ensuring his troops quick access to the city once it fell. Speed was of the essence, because the crusader princes had agreed to observe the rule of'right by conquest' - that is, whoever was first to take possession of property or territory was deemed to have legal rights of ownership. When towns or cities fell crusaders literally sprinted in to grab whatever they could. Bohemond's priorities were further demonstrated by his management of the Firuz affair, as he revealed the renegade's existence only once the promise of Antioch had been made. Then, as soon as its defences were breached, Bohemond rushed to have his blood-red banner raised above the city as proof of his claim.2
Perhaps most significantly, Bohemond managed to take possession of Antioch's citadel in the immediate aftermath of the battle against Kerbogha. This was a crucial step because, as the crusaders had discovered, the city was really untenable without control of its fortress. Bohemond was, however, almost beaten to this prize by another crusader - his increasingly vocal rival Raymond, count of Toulouse. While his fellow princes were marching out of Antioch to do battle with Kerbogha on 28 June, Raymond, suffering from another of his frequent bouts of illness, remained within the city to guard against an attack from the citadel. Feigned or not, his infirmity put him in an excellent position to receive the citadel's surrender. According to one eyewitness, he tried to do just that:
When the emir who was in charge of the citadel saw Kerbogha and all the others fleeing from the battlefield before the Frankish army, he was much afraid, and he came in a great hurry to ask for a Frankish banner. [Raymond], who was there keeping watch outside the citadel, ordered his own banner to be delivered to the emir, who took it and was careful to display it upon his tower.
Unfortunately for Raymond, when this 'emir' - one of Kerbogha's lieutenants named Ahmad ibn-Marwan - discovered that the banner he had received was not Bohemond's he promptly sent it back, 'and just then the noble Bohemond came up and gave him his own banner, which he accepted with great joy'. Together they agreed terms of surrender, Bohemond garrisoned the citadel with his own men and Ahmad voluntarily converted to Christianity.3 If true, the story of Raymond's rejection would indicate that, at least in the minds of the conquered Muslims, Bohemond offered better prospects of protection. The exchange of a banner did, after all, represent a reciprocal agreement, whereby the victor laid claim to spoils while taking custody and responsibility for those captured. Above all, the citadel's garrison was hoping to avoid being butchered in an uncontrolled sack. Although Raymond could claim some legal right to the fortress because his banner had been raised first, Bohemond had the advantage of possession. With his men firmly ensconced in the citadel Bohemond was in no mood to budge.
Raymond was, however, not without his own foothold within the city. When Antioch fell on 3 June, he capitalised on the siege position he had held in front of the Bridge Gate, seizing the gatehouse itself and the nearby governor's palace. Then, after Kerbogha was defeated, Raymond moved to reoccupy the ruined siege fort of La Mahomerie. By the start of July he had carved out a cohesive Provencal enclave within Antioch. With possession of the Bridge Gate he controlled the roads to St Simeon and Alexandretta, two of the city's primary lifelines to the outside world. Bohemond might use the citadel to claim lordship of Antioch, but Raymond was poised to destabilise and even emasculate his position.4
The lines of confrontation had been drawn. Whether self-serving or pragmatic, Bohemond's intentions were fairly transparent. He wanted to rule Antioch. Raymond's objectives are harder to pinpoint. On the surface he appears as an honourable advocate of justice, a man whose determination to uphold the promises made to Alexius prompted him to become the upholder of Byzantine interests. In fact,
Raymond had been the only prince who refused to show the emperor full subservience at Constantinople. The count's newfound pro-Byzantine inclinations after the Great Battle of Antioch were actually fuelled, first and foremost, by his own ambition. In supporting Alexius' claim, Raymond weakened Bohemond and earned himself a valuable new ally. By these steps, Raymond sought to forge his own path towards wealth and power.5
An intense debate transfixed the princes at the start of July. Bohemond argued that the Byzantines had failed to reinforce the crusaders at Antioch, thereby forfeiting any rights to the city. His position was strengthened once news eventually arrived of the Greeks' decision to turn back from Philomelium. Raymond, on the other hand, maintained that the oath to Alexius still held and thus Antioch belonged to the emperor by right. Faced with this difficult choice, the remaining princes prevaricated. On the surface they offered to uphold the Byzantine claim. Hugh of Vermandois and the lesser prince Baldwin of Hainault were dispatched on an embassy to Constantinople, 'asking [Alexius] to come and take over the city and fulfil the obligations which he had undertaken towards them'. But behind the scenes the princes showed tacit support for Bohemond's position, ceding him control of those sections of Antioch that they had defended during the second siege. At this crucial juncture the council of princes failed to take decisive action. Instead they abdicated responsibility: if the emperor arrived with his army he could have Antioch; if not, the city was Bohemond's. Had they succeeded in reaching a more proactive decision at this point, the expedition might still have been able to begin the journey towards Palestine after a few months' rest. As it was, the first faltering steps down the road of delay and dissipation had been taken.6
&nb
sp; Even so, measures were taken at the start of July to bring a modicum of order to Antioch. The crusaders set about the laborious process of restoring, and in some cases reconsecrating, the city's many Christian churches. Chief amongst these was the Basilica of St Peter, where the Holy Lance had been unearthed. They began cleansfing] the basilica, which the Turks had profaned with their sacrilegious rites, from all defilement and rebuilt with every decoration the altars which had been overturned'. According to one Latin source, a magnificent fresco of Christ adorning the interior of the basilica, the centrepiece of its decoration, had remained untouched throughout the Muslim occupation. It was said that a Turk had climbed up to deface the image but, through a miracle, had fallen to his death -after this, we are told, no Muslim was brave enough to try again.7
With the restoration of Antioch's churches under way, the obvious next step was the reinstatement of its Christian clergy. This raised a rather delicate dilemma. The head of the Christian faith at Antioch -the patriarch - had for centuries been Greek, and so too had been the majority of the city's clergy. The Greek patriarch John IV the Oxite had remained in the city throughout the first siege, enduring public torture and abuse at the hands of the Muslims. When the city fell, he was set free. Now the expectation was that he would be reinstalled at the head of the Antiochene Church. The crusade had, after all, been preached, at least in part, to bring aid to the eastern Churches. The problem with this was that the presence of a powerful Greek cleric in Antioch gave the Byzantines a firm foothold in the city. It might prove very difficult for a Latin Catholic crusader, such as Bohemond, to hold on to Antioch against the Byzantine emperor's wishes with a Greek bishop living right under his nose. As it was, at the start of July John IV was confirmed as patriarch, probably at the absolute insistence of Adhemar of Le Puy, who had maintained close links with the Greek Church throughout the crusade. Unsure of whether the emperor would actually arrive to repossess Antioch, John settled for control of ecclesiastical affairs and made no attempt to interfere in Antioch's political future. For the time being at least, an uncomfortable compromise was achieved.8
The crusade is reshaped
The battle between Bohemond and Raymond for control of Antioch was compounded by, and connected to, a wider problem. The crusade now faced a full-scale crisis of leadership and direction. Having agreed to delay any march on Jerusalem until November, and with envoys dispatched to Constantinople, the princes had to decide how to prevent the fragmentation and dissolution of their armies during four months of inactivity. Up to this point the expedition had just about been held together by the common goal of Antioch's capture. Without a new, immediate focus the entire venture threatened to lose direction. Worse still, the crusaders had to be fed, but with Antioch now in Latin hands the surrounding region could no longer be treated as enemy territory and ravaged at will, and the Franks were running out of new places to raid. The council of princes came up with a partial solution. Each contingent would retire to the foraging centres used during the first siege of Antioch, so that the demand for resources might be spread across northern Syria. Bohemond and the southern Italians split their time between Antioch and Cilicia to the north-west. Raymond of Toulouse and the southern French based themselves in the Ruj valley to the south-east of Antioch, while Godfrey of Bouillon and many of the northern French headed for the environs of Edessa.
At the same time, the very makeup and fabric of these contingents were altering. Through the horrors of the preceding months, death, desertion and poverty worked to break down the intricate web of ties that had bound the crusaders to one another. Bonds of family, lordship and vassalage were severed. In this atmosphere of instability many crusaders sought, over the summer of 1098, to forge new allegiances, realigning themselves with new lords and new causes. In early July the princes issued a general proclamation at Antioch, stating, If there were any poor man, lacking gold and silver, who wished to take service with them and stay on, they would gladly enrol him. This process prompted a piecemeal revolution in the structure and distribution of power within the crusade. Many prominent knights, such as Drogo of Nesle and Reinhard of Toul, who had both led scouting parties to watch for Kerbogha's arrival in May, now took their retinues to Edessa in search of work: '[They] came with their fellow soldiers, some on horseback, others on foot, to the state of Edessa to earn rewards for military service from Baldwin, who had been made duke [there], spending some time with him. For they had suffered the utmost difficulty and become impoverished by the long expedition.9
Those who, like Baldwin of Boulogne, had reserves of wealth, were now in a position to assemble a swarm of new followers. Other leading knights began to take more entrepreneurial measures to ensure their survival. Around 17 July, Raymond Pilet, who had up until this point served in Raymond of Toulouse's army, 'took into his service many knights and footsoldiers' and set off south from the Ruj on a semi-independent expedition. His goal seems to have been fairly straightforward - to conquer towns and amass booty. He marched into the Jabal as-Summaq, the plateau region to the south-east of Antioch, in which Bohemond and Robert of Flanders had sought to forage back in December 1097. On that occasion the crusaders had run into a large army from Damascus. To begin with, at least, Raymond Pilet enjoyed greater success. The Syrian Christian inhabitants of a small fortress, Tell Mannas, surrendered to him, and from this base he set about plundering the region. A week later another local fortress, this one manned by Muslims, fell to a frontal assault and was looted. One crusader recalled: '[Raymond's men] captured all the peasants of the district and killed those who would not be christened, but those who preferred to acknowledge Christ they spared.' This seems to be one of the first occasions since the pogroms of Rhineland Jews that the First Crusade edged towards becoming a war of conversion. There is a relatively short distance between forced apostasy and Raymond Pilet's offer to accept Christianity or die.10
So far, Raymond's venture had been remarkably successful, but now he became somewhat over-ambitious. He was approached by a group of Syrian Christians from the region's largest town, Marrat an-Numan, a site of considerable commercial and strategic value given its position on the ancient Roman road connecting Aleppo to the southern city of Damascus. They encouraged him to launch an attack on Marrat's Muslim garrison, and, with his confidence buoyed by recent victories, Raymond decided to oblige them, setting off from Tell Mannas on 27 July. Marrat lay barely half a day's march away, but Raymond seems to have grossly underestimated the level of resistance he would encounter and therefore brought only a small supply of water with him - a terrible mistake in the burning heat of the Syrian summer. Upon arrival, instead of finding a feeble garrison that might be quickly overcome, Raymond was confronted by a sizeable, belligerent force of Aleppan troops rushing out of Marrat to meet him. Suddenly he had a real battle on his hands:
[The enemy] went on attacking our men all through the day, and their onslaught lasted until evening. The heat was unspeakable, and our men could not endure such fearful thirst, for they could find no water to drink, so they wanted to get back safely to their castle. The Syrians and poor pilgrims, for their sins, got into a blind panic and began to retreat in a hurry.
Raymond Pilet's assault turned into a rout, and we are told, grimly, that 'many of our people gave up their souls to God' in the chaos that followed. Among the dead was Arnold Tudebode, another relation of the contemporary crusade chronicler Peter Tudebode. Raymond's expedition may have ended in failure - after a few days his battered force returned to the Ruj - but it had pointed to the possibility of future conquests in the region.11
Meanwhile, back at Antioch, disaster struck. Even though most crusaders had dispersed across northern Syria, a large number, especially the poor, remained in Antioch. Adhemar of Le Puy, papal legate and spiritual shepherd of the crusade, chose to remain with them. This proved to be a fateful decision. In the last days of July a mysterious but deadly illness began to spread uncontrollably throughout the city.
A most deadly plagu
e struck Antioch, by which a countless multitude of the Christian army, as many noble leaders as of the common crowd, were taken. In this fatal scourge the reverend Bishop [Adhemar] was the first to be struck down and ended his life on the 1 August. Nobles and lesser people wept over him with overwhelming grief and agreed to bury him in the Basilica of St Peter itself, in the same place that the Lord's Lance was found.12
This epidemic - probably an outbreak of typhoid - gripped the city throughout August and began to spread to outlying regions. In a dreadful twist of fate, a large group of Latin reinforcements arrived in northern Syria at just that moment. Fifteen hundred German crusaders from the region of Regensburg had taken ship from Europe to join the latter stages of the expedition to Jerusalem. When they landed at St Simeon they were immediately exposed to the disease, which raced through their ranks like wildfire. Having travelled thousands of kilometres to reach the Levant, all 1,500 were dead within days of setting foot on its shores. Other fatalities included Henry of Esch, who had survived fierce fighting during the second siege of Antioch. In recognition of his heroism, he was buried with full honours in the doorway of St Peter's basilica.13
Bishop Adhemar's death was a severe and untimely blow to the expedition. He had never been the crusade's outright leader, and he had certainly been unable to resolve the dispute over Antioch, but his presence had had an unmistakable impact upon the overall progress of the campaign. His conciliatory attitude towards the eastern Churches had brought the crusaders much-needed assistance from the Greeks and, in particular, from Byzantine Cyprus. As the pope's official representative he possessed the authority to guide the expedition with a steadying hand. Now, just as the crusade seemed to be losing its way, that placatory presence was removed.14
The First Crusade Page 27
