Victory in the East

by John France

  According to the Gesta Alexius demanded that Hugh Magnus, the first of the leaders to arrive at Constantinople in November 1096, should swear fealty to him, ‘ei fidelitatem faceret’; this was certainly a customary oath in the west. Bohemond, the same source tells us, took a precisely similar oath. However, the Anonymous gives a long account of Godfrey’s dealing with Alexius and concludes simply that he made a pact, ‘pactum iniit cum imperatore’, with no mention of an oath of any kind. However, in describing negotiations between Alexius and the count of Toulouse, the Anonymous says that Raymond refused to become his vassal, ‘hominum et fiduciam’, and Raymond of Aguilers agrees, but his passage is largely based on that in the Gesta.99 The implication is that others had taken such an oath. This inconsistency is a matter of some importance, for the oath of vassalage represented a much closer tie between one man and another than that established by mere fealty, and it is usually a consequence of the giving of a fief, of which there is no question here. The caveat has to be taken seriously, for vassalage did not always imply a landed relationship. In the famous oath of Bonneville, Harold first swore fealty to William, ‘ei fidelitatem … juravit’, and promised to safeguard his succession to the throne of England. This act made Harold a vassal of William, for it was accompanied by the placing of Harold’s hands between those of the duke ‘satelliti suo accepto per manus’, and only then did he proceed to confirm Harold’s possession of lands – fealty, homage and investiture are all separate elements.100 Moreover, there is another element in the Anonymous’s account of events. Just as Anna stresses one-sidedly the obligations of the Franks, so he stresses those of the emperor who:

  guaranteed good faith and security to all our men, and swore also to come with us, bringing an army and a navy, and faithfully to supply us with provisions both by land and sea, and to take care to restore all those things which we had lost. Moreover he promised that he would not cause or permit anyone to trouble or vex our pilgrims on the way to the Holy Sepulchre.101

  The Anonymous gives a particular picture of events at Constantinople; the oath is a ‘crafty plan’ of ‘the wretched emperor’ and he claims that all the leaders refused to swear it, and only consented ‘driven by desperate need’. The implication is clear; the oath is devalued by the circumstances in which it is taken. Further, there was no occasion when the leaders conferred on the matter to reject it, as stated here in a passage which includes one obvious interpolation. There then follows the careful enumeration of the Byzantine obligations.102 Overall the account in the Gesta is highly convenient in view of the later dispute over Antioch when Bohemond would make the case that the Byzantines had broken their oath. It is as if the later comment about the princes having become vassals of Alexius slipped through in the drama of the passage about the count of Toulouse’s refusal to take the oath. Moreover, Albert of Aachen quite consistently says that the leaders became the men of Alexius, and his account is peculiarly interesting.

  Godfrey is Albert’s hero and his reputation is carefully safeguarded. His was the first major army to approach Constantinople, where it arrived on 23 December 1096. Even before he reached Constantinople, Godfrey heard of the supposed ‘captivity’ of Hugh of Vermandois and had raided the countryside in vengeance. At Constantinople Hugh was sent to invite Godfrey to a meeting with Alexius, but Godfrey refused to go on the advice of some mysterious strangers, originally Franks but now inhabitants of the city. The emperor withheld supply, then restored it and a Christmas peace was arranged. In late December Godfrey, still under the influence of the mysterious strangers, refused again to meet Alexius. The issue was distrust and fear of treachery, and Godfrey sent envoys to explain this to Alexius who responded with assurances which the Lorrainer spurned. Food supplies were again withdrawn by Alexius and this led to friction and an open attack on Constantinople by the Franks on 13 January 1097 and, after this had been repulsed, six days of ravaging. Anna Comnena’s account is broadly comparable, except that the attack on Constantinople is wrongly dated to Easter 1097, but she makes it clear that Alexius feared that Godfrey might intrigue with Bohemond. It is interesting, therefore, that Albert of Aachen tells us that Godfrey received ambassadors from Bohemond, on or about 20 January, who suggested that he should fall back on Adrianople for the winter and await Bohemond’s forces with a view to a joint attack on Constantinople. Albert says that disgust at this suggestion of Bohemond’s was Godfrey’s prime motive for arriving at a peace with Alexius. However, Godfrey was also subject to harrassment by imperial forces and threats of withdrawal of food supplies. Moreover Alexius complimented this pressure by diplomatic overtures and offers to exchange hostages.103 Once hostages had been exchanged, the emperor’s own son John amongst them, Godfrey went for an audience with Alexius in a scene in which Albert notes the etiquette of the imperial court in which Alexius remained seated. Godfrey then took what was unmistakably an oath of vassalage: ‘[Godfrey] gave him [Alexius] his hand and declared that he was his vassal, and all the leading men who were present at the ceremony or came later did the same.’104 In the course of his account, Albert reveals that all the leaders became the ‘men’ of the emperor. This, however, includes Raymond of Toulouse who we know took a modified oath of a type customary in Provence under which he promised not to harm the emperor or his lands.105 The overall impression that the leaders swore an oath of vassalage is enhanced by Ralph of Caen whose Gesta Tancredi is unrelievedly hostile to the Byzantines. He says that Bohemond gave hominagium to Alexius, but that Tancred slipped across the Hellespont to avoid it and later at Pelekanum refused any oath. The Gesta confirms Tancred’s evasion as do Albert and Anna who, however, say that he swore eventually at Pelekanum.106 The overwhelming impression is that the leaders of the crusade were asked to take a very serious oath. Godfrey’s resistance owed much to a general sense of distrust fanned by misinformation, and the count of Toulouse was angry because his army had been attacked. All the leaders found themselves exposed as individuals in a strange land to the diplomatic wiles of the emperor, of whose determination there can be no doubt. Alexius wanted to control the army while it was in his dominions and to make sure that it restored any lost imperial land. He wanted something much more than a simple agreement to this effect – he knew something of western society and was determined to cast the arrangement in the most solemn form possible. He had wanted mercenaries; by making the independent leaders who came his sworn men, his vassals, he very nearly achieved this end. Alexius was able to approach each leader separately, and use the oath of one as a pressure to achieve that of the next, and we must not forget that he extracted it not only from the princes, but also lesser lords like Tancred whom he pursued so mercilessly. Bohemond was in a different position; under the will of his father Byzantium was his inheritance. His own army was much too small to attack, but he deliberately travelled very slowly watching events. He sent envoys to Godfrey proposing an alliance against Alexius, and Anna says that her father took steps to intercept any further communications of this sort. When he failed to attract support for his designs on Byzantium, Bohemond changed tack. He adopted a policy of friendship, swore the oath of homage, then asked to be made Grand Domestic of the East, commander of the imperial forces in Asia. Bohemond understood that Alexius was seeking to place the crusaders in much the same position as the mercenaries he had hired before who had also sworn ‘customary oaths’, and so shrewdly asked for an office which would make him commander of the whole crusader force – it was refused, but in temporising terms.107 Alexius had wanted mercenaries – he tried to reduce the crusaders to as near to that status as was possible. Fulcher is extremely evasive about the whole vexed question – he wrote as a servant of the house of Boulogne and was aware of the controversy over Antioch. But in a revealing passage he tells us that after the capture of Nicaea ‘our barons received permission from the emperor to depart’.108

  The form of the agreement between the leaders and Alexius was therefore that of an oath of vassalage. This was a very solemn undertaking,
but it reflects the flexibility of such undertakings which were sometimes used by major princes as forms of peace between them.109 All the princes already had lords in the West, but multiple homage was commonplace. Robert of Flanders was the vassal both of King Philip of France and Henry IV of Germany. The new vassalic tie, into which he and others entered, was clearly for a specific set of circumstances and would have made little difference to their lords in the west. The notion of liege-homage was only slowly establishing itself: in the treaty between Henry I of England and Robert of Flanders, Henry was effectively allying with Robert against their overlord the king of France, and the solution to the problem was for Robert to promise to advise King Philip against war with England and, if pressed, to send as few troops as was compatible with his vassal status. By such devices would liege-homage emerge, but not yet.110 However, the demand seems to have shocked Godfrey, but in the end he was isolated and vulnerable to the threat of withdrawal of supply. His oath was a tremendous pressure upon all who came after, particularly as it was preceded by that of Hugh of Vermandois and his companions and followed by those of many in his own force. The count of Toulouse took a different kind of oath but one customary in the south where fealty rather than acts of homage was central in relationships between nobles.111 And it may be that in the course of the discussions he came to see the value of the friendship with Alexius which Urban had advocated. But whatever the form of the oath, in substance Alexius and the leaders were creating a treaty, or at least an understanding. What was its nature?

  Anna Comnena insists that return of conquered imperial territory was a vital part of the agreement. Although her insistence on the one-sided nature of the agreement which placed obligations upon the crusaders almost certainly reflects the Byzantine view that the crusaders were, virtually, mercenaries at the command of Alexius at least within the old Byzantine lands, there is no doubt that Alexius had to enter into obligations as well. Such obligations are detailed only in the Gesta and its derivatives in a form which probably represents a maximal interpretation, to say the least. That Alexius gave military assistance to the crusade at Nicaea is self-evident from all accounts, and we know that Tatikios accompanied them on the march to Antioch, while Byzantine ships were active in their support and in bringing supply.112 However, it is extremely unlikely that Alexius swore to come with them at any stage as the Anonymous would have us believe. Raymond of Aguilers says that Alexius explicitly ruled out personal participation. He certainly did not participate in the siege of Nicaea and Anna tells us quite plainly that this was because he did not trust the crusaders and, indeed, she shows that he later deceived them in the ‘drama of betrayal’ by which Nicaea surrendered.113 If Alexius really had promised to go, all the sources would have said so – it was not the kind of statement that could be kept secret. The Gesta’s statement should be read in the context of its presentation of the betrayal at Philomelium – it is a deliberate exaggeration of Alexius’s promise to give military aid to the crusaders. There were good reasons why Alexius could not join the western army for, as he said to Raymond of Toulouse, he had many enemies on many frontiers. What he did not say was that Jerusalem was strategically irrelevant to the empire and that any emperor who went off on such irrelevancy would be endangering his throne.114 Of course this does not mean that Alexius could not decide to join them at some future date when conditions might be very favourable, merely that he had no intention of binding himself to such a dangerous course of action, and did not. From the emperor’s point of view the treaty with the leaders was very satisfactory. The leaders were his vassals. He recognised that this was a fragile bond, hence his insistence on some renewing their oaths at Pelekanum after the siege of Nicaea and on making a wide range of senior crusaders take the oath. In this capacity they were sworn to return to him all former imperial territories. There must have been some geographical limitation on this, for, if one goes back far enough in time, all of the Middle East had been ruled from Constantinople. In September 1098, Raymond of Toulouse seized Albara and installed a Latin bishop there. Since at this time he was the champion of imperial rights, and was resisting Bohemond’s seizure of Antioch, he would hardly have offended his ally Alexius by holding the city himself and appointing an alien bishop. Furthermore, Count Raymond was later to hold Laodicea of the emperor (see fig. 4).115 Antioch and its immediate area probably formed the boundary of the old imperial posessions which were to be restored. Of course, the Greeks were very sceptical of the ability of the westerners to conquer any of this, as Anna indicates, but should they succeed Alexius was in a position to profit with a minimum commitment of his own.116 From the point of view of the crusaders they had obeyed Urban’s directive and profited from the addition of imperial forces which would be substantial at Nicaea, rather less thereafter. In the longer run the Byzantines would take over cities and fortresses which it would be unwise to leave unguarded in their rear, but which were irrelevant to the achievement of Jerusalem. In addition, they were promised naval aid and supplies and a clear passage for any reinforcements that might come after them. It is very probable that they were also able to lay plans for the war in Asia Minor, for Anna says that Alexius advised them about the tactics of the Turks and he must surely have explained something of the political situation in the Middle East for he certainly suggested how they could exploit this by negotiating with the Egyptians.117 Adhémar was ill at Thessalonica at the time that most of the arrangements were made and we know nothing of his dealings with the imperial authorities. However, he was later at pains to establish close relations with Simeon, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, with whom he wrote two letters to the west, and after the fall of Antioch John the Oxite, its Orthodox Patriarch, was restored.118 This suggests that after the initial difficulties, good relations prevailed.

  Fig. 4 Syria and the First Crusade

  In addition, the negotiations at Constantinople produced a special relationship between Alexius and Raymond of Toulouse. Quite how this was achieved is not clear; they had begun on very bad terms indeed, according to the Latin sources, as we have noted, with Raymond refusing any oath of homage. However, by the time the army was setting off to Nicaea Raymond was at Alexius’s court, hence his late arrival at Nicaea.119 Anna never mentions the early hostility; in her story all is sweetness and light from the first, and she suggests that it was mutual mistrust of Bohemond which brought the two men together.120 However, this may well reflect later events – hindsight is highly developed in the Alexiad. Later, Raymond would appear as by far the wealthiest of the crusaders and when the army was frustrated at Antioch by the quarrels of the princes the suggestion was made that those who favoured the imperial party, amongst whom Raymond was the most prominent, were in Byzantine pay, but this may merely have been camp rumour. Raymond appears as far wealthier than any of the other leaders – in the spring of 1098 he took over the Mahomeries tower at Antioch when his followers were murmuring about his paid Tancred to man the fort by the St Paul Gate and produced money to compensate knights for loss of horses. In early 1099 he offered huge sums to the other leaders to enter his service.121 After the crusade was over Raymond would hold Laodicea for Alexius and act with him in dealing with the crusade of 1101.122 There is no clear evidence, but it is possible that Alexius gave Raymond of St Gilles significant military subsidies. What is certain is that under the pressure of events at Antioch in the summer of 1098 Raymond became a close ally of the emperor. Between the conversations at Constantinople and this time there is little direct evidence of his attitudes, though Albert of Aix says he received rich presents from the emperor.123

  The arrangements at Constantinople laid the basis for cooperation between Byzantium and the crusading army. Militarily the crusaders were strengthened by the deal with Alexius. But one matter never seems to have been discussed at Constantinople – leadership of the crusade in the absence of the emperor. The princes had made their arrangements with Alexius as individuals. None of them had overlords with any real power and even men of the secon
d rank were used to a high degree of independence. The device of a council of leaders seems to have emerged quite naturally in this situation and Adhémar would seem to have been its mentor and political guide – as a priest would later say.124 But this was a dangerous omission for a military expedition, and one for which they would later pay dearly. However, after the arrangements made at Constantinople the leaders could turn their attention to the clash of arms which was now imminent.