Victory in the East

by John France

  It was probably a family conference which decided the only crusader with royal blood, Hugh of Vermandois, often referred to in the crusading sources as Hugh Magnus, to take the cross. The house of Capet was embarrassed by the success of Urban’s appeal, for King Philip was excommunicate because of his marriage 10 Bertrada of Montfort. A meeting of the Capetians and their leading nobles was held in February 1096 and in July the king wrote a letter to Urban at Nîmes, announcing the participation of his younger brother, Hugh of Vermandois, and his own submission to the pope’s judgement on his marriage.6

  According to the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum, Bohemond heard of the crusade only in September 1096 when Frankish forces (which are not identified) began to move through Italy and he was at the siege of Amalfi with his uncle Roger of Sicily and his half-brother Roger Borsa. Thus inspired, he cut his most valuable cloak into crosses which he gave to those who would follow him with the result that the besieging army melted away. It is unlikely that Bohemond had remained so long in ignorance of a major papal initiative. He was a rear-vassal of Pope Urban, whom he had received at Bari in 1089 and again at Taranto in 1092. They had met at Anglona in 1092 and again at Monte Cassino in 1093.7 The scene at Amalfi was a coup de theatre staged by Bohemond in a setting, an important siege, which would enable him to find recruits. There can be little doubt that the great expedition offered Bohemond an outlet for his adventurous temperament and military talents. He outshone his half-brother Roger Borsa easily, but Roger of Sicily’s formidable power meant that further expansion at Borsa’s expense was out of the question. The Normans of the south must have had a very different perspective on Urban’s expedition. The Byzantine east was a close and familiar neighbour. Unsuccessful Norman rebels commonly fled to the Byzantine lands – amongst them William of Grantmesnil, a brother-in-law of Roger, who fled there in 1094. Norman-Italians, as we have seen, often took service in the East: Bohemond’s own half-brother Guy was in imperial service at the time of the First Crusade.8 So for Bohemond here was an opportunity and if things did not turn out well he could return as many others had done before. It was a different perspective from that of the northerners for whom the east was less familiar.

  Of Stephen of Blois’s reasons for going on crusade we know very little. His family were very important princes on a par with the dukes of Normandy and the counts of Anjou. Reputedly one of the richest lords in France, Stephen was evidently fairly experienced in contemporary war and politics but he lived much of his life under the shadow of his great father. One of the few things we know about him is that he married Adela, the daughter of the Conqueror, and a letter he sent to her while on crusade suggests that he was frightened of her, hence the idea that it was she who made him join the crusade from which he would defect.9 Eustace of Boulogne was the elder brother of Godfrey, yet his role on the crusade was so subdued that we are not even sure with whom he travelled to the east.10 It is worth noting that Robert of Flanders and Stephen had only just emerged as rulers in their own right and so they may have seen the crusade as a chance to assert themselves.11 The leaders of this northern group of crusaders were closely interrelated. Stephen of Blois married Adela, Robert Curthose’s sister whose mother was Mathilda, the aunt of Robert of Flanders. Robert’s grandmother was Adela, aunt of Hugh of Vermandois. The house of Boulogne, Eustace III, Godfrey and their brother Baldwin stood outside this immediate kin-group, but Eustace was a vassal of the English king and the count of Flanders, while Baldwin had married Godehilda of the great Norman house of Tosny.12 Only two major lay crusaders came from outside this tight-knit group from the north of France – Raymond of Toulouse, and Bohemond. As his second wife, Raymond had taken Mathilda, daughter of Count Roger of Sicily, a cousin of Bohemond, but she seems to have been replaced by 1094.13 On the face of it Bohemond was the most far removed of the leaders, but he was a Norman. His half-brother, Roger Borsa, married Robert of Flander’s sister and widow of Cnut II of Denmark (1080–86), Adela.14 Raymond of Toulouse was the most isolated, though he appears to have had a big army. He worked in close alliance with Adhémar of Le Puy, the Papal Legate, until his death in 1098, but he appears to have been unloved by the other leaders. These two men, Raymond and Bohemond, were to exercise great influence on the crusade. It is a reflection of this and the very different perceptions of their motives that the gossipy monk, William of Malmesbury, tells us that Bohemond persuaded Urban to call the crusade as a cloak for his ambitions on Byzantium, while Raymond and his ally the bishop of Querci persuaded Urban to the same end to provide them with a worthy spiritual exercise.15 This group of major leaders – the ‘Princes’ as the sources call them – were experienced men, almost all of whom had participated in war and knew its demands. Of them all only Bohemond, and to a lesser extent Robert Curthose, had experience of commanding large military forces, though Godfrey had served in great expeditions as a subordinate. Bohemond alone had experience of eastern affairs and had commanded a big army in a major campaign and in open battle. Once they had agreed to go on crusade the princes, like the other participants, needed to find money.

  A peace was arranged between Robert Curthose and his brother William Rufus by the papal legate, abbot Jarento of St Bénigne. Robert agreed to pawn the duchy of Normandy to his brother for 10,000 marks, which would have to be repaid over three or five years. The collection of such a sum necessitated a levy of four shillings on the hide in England where the barons and bishops resorted to extreme measures to collect it.16 Godfrey’s preparations were complex and on a smaller scale. To bishop Richer of Verdun Godfrey sold his claims to the county of Verdun together with Mosay, Stenay and castle Falkenstein, all for silver and gold, while properties at Genappe and Baisy went to a nunnery at Nivelles. Some minor holdings near Maastricht were sold or given to the church, but he was forced to retract his dissolution of the priory of St Peter at Bouillon which belonged to the abbey of St Hubert through the intervention of his mother. He extorted 500 pieces of silver each from the Jewish communities of Cologne and Mainz. Against his county of Bouillon he borrowed from Bishop Otbert of Liège the sum of 1,300 silver marks and three marks of gold; the debt was redeemable by him if he returned or by his brother if he did not. The collection of such a sum caused Otbert considerable difficulties.17 It has often been suggested that Godfrey swore to stay in the east, but this is later legend. He retained the option of redeeming the mortgage on Bouillon and was careful to ask his overlord, the Emperor Henry IV, for permission to leave the realm. He kept his title of duke of Lower Lorraine and was not replaced until after his death.18 Stephen of Blois, in a letter to his wife written at Antioch, speaks of the ‘gold silver and other riches’ with which he left the west though nothing is known of how he raised the money and Hugh of Vermandois’s preparations are similarly obscure.19 Bohemond gave considerable financial support to his nephew Tancred and it is likely that his army was well-disciplined precisely because it relied on his great resources, but there is no record of sales or gifts except for a charter empowering Guidelmus Flammengus, his captain at Bari, to sell or dispose of his property in the area.20 Robert of Flanders was rich enough to decline financial help from Roger Borsa.21 Throughout the crusade Raymond of Toulouse would show clear evidence of financial resources on a scale quite different from the other leaders, and the source of this wealth has generated much interest and controversy amongst historians. A number of gifts to churches made on the eve of his departure for the East may represent disguised sales. He probably passed the county of Rouergue to Richard of Millau in return for cash but the evidence for this is not totally clear. Southern French society was enjoying a great prosperity at this time as cities and a money economy grew. Mints can be traced in many of the cities of the south: indeed the visionary, Peter Bartholemew, was to direct that a church should be built near Aries to house the Holy Lance, and that a mint should be established there for its support. It is worth noting that Raymond of Aguilers lists seven coinages used in the army. Of these, four came from Souther
n France (Poitou, Valence, Melgueil and Le Puy), two from France north of the Loire (Le Mans and Chartres), one from Italy (Lucca). This suggests that the count of Toulouse ruled over a rich society and was perhaps able to finance his crusade from revenue without pledging major assets.22 We really have no evidence upon which to base a decision on the matter. It is possible that Count Raymond was just vastly richer than any other leader, but it is more likely that his wealth was generated by political arrangements in the east.23

  The activities of the great as they raised money were mirrored by lesser crusaders who equally sold claims and rights, lands and dues, to finance their long journey. Evidence of only a fraction of this activity has survived but a substantial number of cases have been unearthed and here one may stand for all, Achard of Montmerle, a Burgundian who mortgaged his properties to Cluny:

  because I wish fully armed to join in the magnificent expedition of the Christian people seeking for God to fight their way to Jerusalem … I give in mortgage to these eminent men one of the properties which came to me by right of inheritance from my father, receiving from them the sum of 2,000 solidi of Lyons and four mules … no person … can redeem it except myself. Thus if I die in the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, or if I should decide to stay in those parts, that which is the subject of this mortgage … shall become a rightful and hereditary possession of the monastery of Cluny in perpetuity.24

  This sale, or some variant, seems to have been common and we hear also of lords taxing their dependents. Many means of raising money had been used by pilgrims. In 1088 Aimeric II, count of Fézensac, sold some windmills to the canons of Auch to finance his pilgrimage but with the rider ‘if I come back alive from Jerusalem I can have them back until my death’. Such methods of finance, along with levies on tenants which became customary feudal dues in some parts of France, are frequent in the sources for the eleventh century and later.

  A modern estimate suggests that a pilgrim to Jerusalem needed to consecrate at least a year’s income to this purpose.25 It is more difficult to estimate the cost of crusading. Money was needed not merely for subsistence, travel, servants and equipment, but also for political purposes. The princes and the lords were masters of men and wealth was necessary to maintain this status on the journey. The princes knew that they would be surrounded by multilayered entourages, ranging from their personal retinues to any poor pilgrims they might choose to maintain or who became their hangers-on. This was not unlike the general nature of the armies of the age, as we have noted, and it was also the natural consequence of pilgrimage. In 1064 a group of important German clerics, the archbishop of Mainz and the bishops of Utrecht, Ratisbon and Bamberg, set off on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. A band estimated to have been some 7,000 strong gathered around them including people from all walks of life. When they were ambushed by brigands close to Jerusalem their sheer numbers enabled them to give a good account of themselves.26 There was a well-established tradition of mass pilgrimage, dating back at least to the vast crowds inspired to travel by the millennia of the Nativity and Passion of the Lord.27 Indeed, the preparations which were being made took place amongst people who must have been fairly knowledgeable about the route and its difficulties. Robert Curthose’s grandfather had died returning from the Holy Land in 1035, while the pilgrimage of Robert of Flanders’ father took place only a few years before Urban launched his crusade. The leaders knew about the difficulties of the journey and made their preparations accordingly. This was even true of that remarkable phenomenon which we call the ‘People’s Crusade’.

  Fig. 1 The armies march to Constantinople

  The title ‘People’s Crusade’ is something of a simplification. It was a remarkable phenomenon, for Urban clearly had in mind an expedition of nobles and knights. But the religious fervour of the eleventh century had infected a wide social range. The church had enlisted the people of the countryside into the ‘Peace Movement’ as a moral pressure upon the mighty. Peasants were amongst those who had responded to the ideas of hermits and popular preachers like Robert of Arbrissel who attempted to create for them a new religious order. We know little of Peter the Hermit but he seems to have been much the same kind of charismatic figure as Robert who, significantly, was commissioned by Urban to preach the crusade. So great was his skill that he touched off wild enthusiasm for the crusade, beginning in his own area of Berry and extending across all of France. So profound was his impact that later generations credited him with inventing the whole idea of liberating Jerusalem.28 This was not just a crusade of the lesser people which collapsed through lack of skill in arms and military leadership, for there were a considerable number of people of rank amongst them.29 We know of five major groups of people, all of whom left the west long before the date fixed by Urban II, 15 August 1096, for the gathering of the armies at Constantinople. Peter the Hermit quickly whipped up enormous excitement with his preaching in northern France and by early March 1096 he had dispatched a large force of foot-soldiers with only eight knights under Walter Sans Avoir. Their arrival in the Rhineland seems to have set off a savage wave of persecution and massacre of Jews driven by religious hatred and the desire to raise money. This phenomenon had its more genteel side in Godfrey’s extortion of money from his local Jews. Peter seems to have mistreated Jews in France, for they sent a letter warning their co-religionists of the danger; he would arrive at Trier in early April 1096, bearing letters from French Jews suggesting that support be provided for the crusaders. This is not the place to explore the roots of this bitter religious hatred. It does reveal, however, the underlying hatreds which drove on the crusaders, and their preoccupation with the sinews of war.30 The groups inspired by Peter the Hermit seem to have intended to use the classic pilgrim route across Hungary and so Walter marched to Cologne which he left on 15 April (see fig. 1). They crossed Hungary peacefully, entering on 21 May, but at the border with the Byzantine empire, on or about 11 June, they left sixteen men behind to buy arms in Semlin and these were set upon and mistreated. Once across into imperial territory problems multiplied, for they were refused a market at Belgrade, presumably because the empire was unprepared. After a fracas in which sixty pilgrims were killed, Walter and his army were well received by the imperial authorities and hastened on their way to Constantinople, where they arrived in mid-July 1096.31 Only a reasonably well organised and supplied army could have gone so far with so little trouble. Peter’s army, after menacing Jewish communities, left Cologne by 20 April and was at Semlin by 12 June.32 His force was much larger, and within it military command seems to have been vested in four captains; Godfrey Burel in charge of the infantry, Raynald of Broyes, Walter FitzWaleran and Fulcher of Chartres who joined Godfrey’s army later and would end as a major vassal in the county of Edessa. To these were joined some Germans.33 The presence of men of such status argues also for that of armed retinues and servants, who would have formed a strong core for the force. We know of no troubles in Hungary until the army reached Semlin where news of the beating of Walter’s sixteen men and rumours about Hungarian and imperial intentions led to an attack on the city between 5 and 12 June. This was evidently an organised affair, for Albert of Aachen speaks of knights in full armour leading the attack and the division of two hundred foot commanded by Burel breaking in first.34 After a further skirmish with imperial troops at a river crossing Peter’s army arrived at Nish on 27 June where the Byzantine governor, Nicetas, had withdrawn, abandoning Belgrade because of events at Semlin. He agreed to provide a market in return for guarantees and hostages and all went well until a dispute between a Bulgar merchant and some Germans led to the burning of some mills and Nicetas ordered an attack which captured many of the crusaders’ supplies and inflicted losses on the rearguard. Peter was a mile away at the head of the column of march, which suggests that his army was very large. He led them back to Nish to patch up a peace, but some 2,000 of his men got out of hand and attacked the city and though the rest remained in good order the massacre of their hot-headed colleagues drew them into
a conflict at the end of which the army as a whole was scattered. Peter and his four captains rallied some 500 men, then gathered together 7,000 more, but Albert says they had originally had 40,000 and 2,000 wagons. He soon received messages from Alexius, his men gathered again and came on peacefully via Sofia (7 July), Philipopolis (modern Plovdiv) (13 July), Adrianople (modern Edirne) (22 July) to arrive at Constantinople on 1 August.35 Both these forces seem to have been well organised for they had crossed Hungary with little trouble and it was the inability of the Byzantines to procure supplies which caused the real trouble. Under pressure, however, the military organisation of Peter’s force had broken up – it was a bad omen for the future.

  In early August a formidable army under the command of a Count Emicho arrived at the Hungarian border. He was a south German noble who was followed by Count Hartmann of Dillingen-Kybourg and a contingent of French, English and Lorrainers including William the Carpenter, viscount of Melun, Thomas of Marie lord of Coucy, and Drogo of Nesle. In May they massacred Jews at Spires and Mainz, but this was not a sign of their disorganisation, for when the Hungarian king forbade them passage through his lands they settled down to capture the border fortress of the Wieselburg with an army which Albert of Aachen says was 200,000 strong including 3,000 knights. This can only be an exaggeration, but Ekkehard agrees that it was formidable and the fact that the siege continued for three weeks before the Hungarian king eventually defeated them suggests good organisation. In the course of the siege the crusaders built a bridge which enabled them to attack the walls with a machine and were close to victory when a sudden panic enabled the Hungarians to win. The French leaders returned to France and joined Hugh of Vermandois in his journey to the east.36 The prohibition on crossing into Hungary by King Coloman I (1095–1114) was probably a result of the troubles caused by other crusading bands. Folkmar and his Saxons were probably involved in attacks on Jews at Prague on 30 May, but in late June they were broken up by the Hungarians because ‘sedition was incited’. Another group, led by a Rhineland priest Gottschalk, was 15,000 strong, according to Albert, and numbered as many knights as foot, but they took to pillaging and cruelty and the Hungarians massacred them in late July. Apparently they were quite well organised; after initial fighting, Coloman proposed a truce under which the crusaders gave up their arms. This enabled the Hungarians to massacre them, but presumably only a cohesive group would have actually surrendered in this way.37 These were probably not the only such groups which made up the People’s Crusade, for we hear of attacks on Jews at various times and places in the Rhineland which are hard to match with the suggested journey times of these known groups. As late as June and July 1095 there were a number of massacres of Jews north of the main departure areas at Neuss, Werelinghoven, Altenahr, Xanten and Moers. We do not know who was responsible for these any more than we know who the people were who were led on their journey by a goose and a goat.38 The departure of the People’s Crusade was a deeply confused affair and we may suspect that there were forces heading for the east of which we know nothing. The Hungarian king must have been thoroughly exasperated by their passage. This spontaneous gathering of forces also affected Italy, for Peter’s forces met with a large Italian contingent at Constantinople, but we know nothing of them or their journey.