WHO WILL LEAD?
Through the summer of 1098, with the bitter dispute over Antioch unresolved and the setback of Adhemar's death, it became increasingly obvious that the crusade lacked decisive leadership. The committee rule of the council of princes that had functioned in the face of threats from the likes of Kerbogha was failing. The time seemed ripe for one individual to step forward, seize the reins of command and drive the crusade on to Jerusalem. Three men could fill this post: Bohemond of Taranto; Godfrey of Bouillon; and Raymond of Toulouse.
The candidates
Bohemond was perhaps the most obvious choice. He had proved his qualities as a military leader time and again over the preceding months, and had in June been made temporary commander-in-chief of the entire crusade. As the architect of Antioch's fall and Kerbogha's defeat, he was powerfully positioned to assume the mantle of leadership. But Bohemond's ambitions lay elsewhere. Antioch, rather than Jerusalem, was paramount in his mind - his goal was to retain possession of the city already captured rather than direct the advance on the Holy City. By mid-July, it was blatantly obvious where the full force of Bohemond's attention lay. Within a few days of the victory over Kerbogha, Mediterranean shipping began once again to move freely through St Simeon, bringing the crusaders badly needed supplies. Bohemond shrewdly realised that if he were to hold on to Antioch he must immediately secure lines of communication and support beyond the confines of northern Syria. Once the Byzantines saw that he had no intention of honouring the oath to Alexius and returning the city, the naval aid that they had siphoned through Cyprus and Latakia - the large port to the south of Antioch - would dry up.
With this in mind, Bohemond sought to purchase assistance from other quarters. The only Christian powers capable of challenging the Greeks' domination of the Mediterranean were the Italian merchant cities of Venice, Pisa and Genoa. Bohemond chose to negotiate first with the Genoese, granting them property in Antioch and trading rights in return for their support. On 14 July they had documents -what would technically be known as charters - drawn up specifying the details of their agreement, copies of which survive to this day. As we have already seen, these charters, which at first sight might appear to be rather dull and formulaic, are actually rich mines of information. Typically in this type of material, the person ceding rights or property - the donor - opens by identifying himself with a lavish list of titles and honours. This 'address clause' offers an insight into how donors saw themselves or wished to be seen. Significantly, in his charter Bohemond identified himself simply as 'the son of Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia'. His decision to make no claim to be ruler of Antioch, nor use of the title 'prince' - which he would later adopt - tells us that, at this point, Bohemond was unsure of his position. He was manoeuvring to gain power, but was not yet in a position to claim it. As one near-contemporary observed, while Raymond of Toulouse continued to hold the Bridge Gate and Palace of Antioch, Bohemond could be nothing more than the city's partial-ruler or 'half-prince'.15
Around the same time, Bohemond looked to cement his connection with Cilician Armenia to the north. Tancred, his nephew, had established a southern Italian Norman foothold there in the early autumn of 1097. During the summer of 1098 Bohemond paid a lengthy visit to the region, probably basing himself at the town of Mamistra, on the eastern reaches of the Cilician plain. The fertile soil of this region made it an economic goldmine - for now Bohemond could use Cilicia to feed his troops, and in years to come its fisheries and textile industry could be expected to bring him great wealth - but of even greater import was its strategic value. One reason the crusaders sent an expedition to occupy the region back in September 1097, even before they arrived at Antioch, was to open the most direct route from Asia Minor to northern Syria for later waves of Byzantine and Frankish reinforcements. Now, the last thing Bohemond wanted was an open road running between Byzantium and Antioch, so he reaffirmed his foothold in Cilicia to create a buffer zone between himself and the Greeks.16
From July 1098 onwards, Bohemond was more interested in securing northern Syria than leading the crusade to Jerusalem. An alternative candidate for that honour was Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lotharingia. As summer waned into autumn, his stock rose among the crusaders. In part this was a function of the support offered by his brother, Baldwin of Boulogne, a man otherwise preoccupied with the consolidation of his own hold over the city of Edessa, more than 150 kilometres north-east of Antioch. Back in March, Baldwin had given Godfrey rights to the income and produce of Tell Bashir, a town on the road to Edessa. By summer, Godfrey had garnered rights to exploit a second, neighbouring town, Ravendan. One commentator estimated, rather wildly, that Tell Bashir alone brought in 500,000 gold bezants per annum, a princely sum. In July, Godfrey moved to the region and, perhaps as a result of his increased prosperity, attracted a considerable number of new followers.17
His reputation was further bolstered when Omar of Azaz, a local Muslim ruler, chose to approach him for assistance. The chronicler Albert of Aachen, who admired Godfrey, provided a colourful explanation of this episode. According to his account, a knight in Godfrey's retinue - Fulbert of Bouillon - was ambushed and killed by troops from Azaz while travelling with his wife to Edessa. While Fulbert was decapitated, his wife, 'because she was greatly pleasing to the eye on account of her beautiful face, was taken prisoner', and was soon forced to wed one of Omar's lieutenants. Azaz was at that time subject to Ridwan of Aleppo, but the advent of the First Crusade weakened his hold over the region and Omar saw his chance to make a break for independence. Albert of Aachen implies that Omar chose to seek an alliance with Godfrey because Fulbert's widow had described the duke as the leading figure among the Franks.
In reality, Omar may well have turned to him simply because he was the closest option - Azaz lay on the old Roman road between Tell Bashir and Antioch - but his approach does at least demonstrate that the Franks had been incorporated into the sphere of Levantine power-politics, and that the boundaries of Latin-Muslim enmity were blurring. In early September, with Azaz facing imminent attack from Ridwan of Aleppo, Omar urgently dispatched a Syrian Christian envoy to Godfrey to make an urgent appeal for aid, and followed this up with the offer of his own son as hostage. When Godfrey finally agreed, news was carried back to Azaz by carrier pigeon. Godfrey duly led a relief force towards Azaz and quickly frightened off the Aleppan army. Realising that Godfrey stood to gain a new ally in northern Syria, Raymond of Toulouse and Bohemond rushed from Antioch to get in on the act, but they were too late. As far as Omar was concerned, Godfrey had saved the day, and he lavished gifts on him, among which was a richly decorated set of armour, 'marvellously inlaid with gold and silver'. Omar seemed to have made a wise decision - by allying himself to the new power in Syria he had won freedom from Aleppo - but within a year the tide had turned. His son died in the crusader camp, probably through illness rather than treachery, and, when the crusaders moved to the south, Omar was suddenly isolated. Taken captive by Aleppan troops and dragged before Ridwan, he pleaded for clemency, swearing lifelong obedience. Unmoved, Ridwan promptly had him executed.18
Godfrey of Bouillon's reputation may have been growing in the second half of 1098, but there remained one crusader whom he could not, as yet, hope to eclipse. Raymond of Toulouse took the most purposeful strides towards pre-eminence in the aftermath of the Great Battle of Antioch. From the very earliest days of the crusade's inception, Raymond had thought of himself as the natural choice to become its secular leader, but throughout the first and second sieges of Antioch long bouts of illness had prevented him from playing a consistently high-profile role in events. His infirmity was doubtless linked to his advanced years - being in his mid-fifties, he would have been classed as elderly by medieval standards - but, nevertheless, in the minds of many he was deemed not to have been pulling his weight.
In the summer of 1098, with Bohemond having removed himself from the race, Raymond's natural advantages - the gravitas brought by his age and experience, and
his broad base of support among the southern French - were amplified and consolidated by two further factors. As we have seen, in the aftermath of the second siege, the complex web of allegiance and alliance that enswathed the First Crusade was restructured. As one of the richest crusader princes, Raymond was perfectly placed to reap the benefits of this process. His wealth bought him hundreds, perhaps even thousands of new followers, as well as support from some surprising quarters. Around this time, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum, a man who had so far spent the entire expedition in the company of Bohemond, seems to have begun travelling with the southern French and, from this point on, a subtle shift in his presentation of Raymond's character can be detected.19
The full significance of Raymond's connection to the Holy Lance also became apparent in this period. From the start, he had taken every opportunity to establish an intimate link between himself and the relic. Having played a central role in its discovery, he now became the Lance's protector and advocate. His partisan supporter, Raymond of Aguilers, took pains to emphasise this relationship. When the Lance was uncovered he wrote that St Andrew appeared to Peter Bartholomew saying: 'Behold God gave the Lance to the count, in fact, had reserved it for him alone throughout the ages, and also made him leader of the crusaders on the condition of his devotion to God.'20
This does not mean that, once the Lance was discovered, all the crusaders suddenly accepted Raymond of Toulouse's pre-eminence or authority. But this extract reflects the type of propaganda circulating about Raymond from July 1098 onwards. He wanted the Franks to believe that his connection to the Lance made him the obvious choice to become leader - he certainly seems to have thought this himself. His case became all the more powerful once Kerbogha was defeated. To the crusaders, their victory in the Great Battle of Antioch was so astounding, so utterly extraordinary, that it could only be explained by the intervention of divine agency. It was God's will, manifested through the power of the Holy Lance, which had brought them success. Thus was it that - in the summer of 1098, rather than in the destitution of the second siege - the full power of the crusaders' belief in the Lance began to mature. Raymond's patronage of the Lance may have affected the balance of power among the princes. Robert of Flanders, who had had no particular link to the Provengal camp before this point, now allied himself with Raymond. This was probably a function of the count's position as protector and advocate of the Lance, because Robert is known to have been a staunch devotee of the relic, founding a religious house in its honour upon his return to Europe.21
Raymond managed the cult surrounding the relic with what, at times, appears to be almost ruthless efficiency. The support of Peter Bartholomew was central to this process. His popularity and influence was rising day by day, in tandem with that of the Lance he had uncovered. Whether through conscious design or unconscious impulse, the messages contained in Peter's continuing visions became increasingly audacious and outspoken in their support of his patron Raymond's political cause. This was never more apparent than in the startling manipulation of Adhemar of Le Puy s memory. Within forty-eight hours of the bishop's death on 1 August, Peter Bartholomew 'received' his first vision of Adhemar's spirit. In life, the papal legate had always been sceptical about the Holy Lance's authenticity, a damaging blow to the relic's cult. In death, Raymond and Peter set about appropriating Adhemar's legacy to reverse this trend. It can be no coincidence that when the bishop was buried in the Basilica of St Peter, the spot chosen for his interment was the very hole from which the Holy Lance had been drawn. This was the definitive physical intermingling of their two cults and a powerful step towards the reconfiguration of Adhemar's persona.
Peters visions then began to relay the bishop's words' from beyond the grave. It turned out, of course, that Adhemar had been wrong all along. Now, at last, he realised that the metal shard discovered by Peter truly was a piece of the Holy Lance - but how he had suffered to reach this realisation. In his vision, Peter heard from Adhemar that after death his soul had been sorely punished for the sin of having doubted the Lance: 'Following the uncovering of the Lance, I sinned deeply and so was drawn down to hell, whipped most severely, and as you can see my head and face were burned. He was saved from damnation only by an act of faith - the three denarii he had given as alms to the Lance - and the cleansing power of a devotional candle lit in his memory. Adh£mar went on to say, through Peter, that he was quite happy with his resting place in Antioch.
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 dispute over Antioch acted as a costly 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, wh
ich 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
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