How This History Was Written

I ask all who read this history, or who hear it read and understand what they have heard, to pardon whatever they find put together without polish. I was compelled by obedience to write it.

An abbot named Bernard, a man of letters and of upright character, showed me a history on this matter. It displeased him greatly: it had no beginning at the council of Clermont, and the sequence of so fair a matter lay uncultivated, the wording wavering and rough. He commanded me, who had been present at that council, to set a head before the headless matter and to compose it more carefully for those who would read it.

I had no secretary but myself. I both dictated and wrote. The hand obeyed the mind without a break, the pen the hand, and the page the pen; the lightness of the composition, and a wording by no means decked out, are proof enough.

If this publication of ours displeases anyone nurtured in academic studies — perhaps because, walking in pedestrian speech, we have been more rustic than is right — we wish him to know that among us it is better to make hidden things clear by speaking as rustics than to cloud over open things by philosophizing. Speech that is always exact is always unwelcome: what a difficult understanding grasps, a deafer ear drinks in. We wish to carry our discourse at so common a gait that anyone who hears it may hope for the same; and if by chance he has tried to be the same, he may be set far apart from the same.

If anyone asks where this history was composed: in the cloister of a cell of Saint Remigius, in the bishopric of Reims. If he asks the author's name: he is called Robert.

Prologue

Among all the historians of the Old and New Testament, holy Moses holds the first place. By the divine spirit of prophecy, in the Hebrew letters of which God made him the author, he described the beginning of the world, and brought before us the more marvelous acts of the first and second ages, and the deeds of the patriarchs. Joshua son of Nun, Samuel, and David imitated his example: the first wrote the book of Joshua; the second and the third, the histories of Kings.

From this it is clear that it is truly acceptable to God that, when he carries out on earth some marvelous work arranged for the times he had fixed beforehand, it should be committed to writing for the knowledge of his faithful. But after the creation of the world, what more marvelous thing has been done, apart from the mystery of the saving cross, than what has been done in modern times on this journey of our Jerusalemites?

The more carefully anyone attends to this, the more abundantly he will be astonished within the widened recesses of his mind. For this was not a human work, but a divine one. It ought therefore to be committed, by a joining together in writing, to the knowledge of those present and of those to come, so that Christian hope in God may be more firmly established, and his praise more vividly stirred in their minds.

For who among kings or princes could subdue so many cities and castles, fortified by nature, by art, or by human ingenuity, if not the blessed nation of the Franks, whose Lord is its God, the people whom he chose for an inheritance for himself? Therefore let the wisdom of God bring into us what we may bring forth to the praise of his name. And let those who read these things, or hear them, know that we shall recount nothing of frivolity, nothing of falsehood, nothing of trifles, except what is true.

1. The Call at Clermont

In the year of the Lord's Incarnation 1095, a great council was celebrated within the bounds of Gaul, in Auvergne, in the city called Clermont. Pope Urban II presided over it with the Roman bishops and cardinals. It was very famous for the gathering of Gauls and Germans, bishops and princes. When the ecclesiastical affairs had been arranged, the lord pope went out into a square of spacious breadth, because no building could hold all those people. With this persuasion of rhetorical sweetness he burst forth to them all:

"Nation of the Franks, nation from beyond the mountains, nation, as shines forth in many of your works, chosen and beloved by God, set apart from all nations as much by the situation of your lands as by the catholic faith, as by the honor of holy Church: to you our speech is directed, and our exhortation. We wish you to know what mournful cause has brought us to your bounds, what necessity of yours and of all the faithful has drawn us.

"From the bounds of Jerusalem and from the city of Constantinople a grave report has very often come to our ears: that a nation of the kingdom of the Persians, a foreign nation, a nation altogether alien from God, a generation, that is, which has not directed its heart, and whose spirit has not been trusted with God, has invaded the lands of those Christians, laid them waste with iron, with plunderings, with fire, led some away captive into its own land, struck others down with a wretched death, and either overthrown the churches of God from the foundations or handed them over to the rite of its own sacred things. They overthrow altars defiled with their filth; they circumcise Christians, and either pour the blood of the circumcision upon the altars or plunge it in the vessels of the baptistery. Those whom it pleases them to punish with a shameful death they pierce in the navel, draw out the head of the vitals, bind them to a stake, and so lead them around while flogging them, until, their bowels drawn out, they fall prostrate on the ground. Some, bound to a stake, they shoot with arrows; some they assail with neck stretched out and with bared sword, trying whether they can cut them off with a single stroke. What shall I say of the unspeakable ravishing of women, of which it is worse to speak than to be silent? The kingdom of the Greeks has already been so mutilated by them and made over to their own uses that it cannot be crossed in a journey of two months. On whom, then, does the labor fall of avenging this and snatching it away, if not on you, to whom before the other nations God has granted the distinguished glory of arms, greatness of spirits, agility of bodies, the power of humbling the crown of the hair of those who resist you?

"Let the deeds of your predecessors move you and stir your spirits to manliness — the worth and greatness of King Charlemagne, of Louis his son, and of your other kings, who destroyed the kingdoms of the pagans and widened the bounds of holy Church. Let especially the holy Sepulchre of our Lord the Saviour move you, which is possessed by unclean nations, and the holy places now treated dishonorably and irreverently fouled with their uncleannesses. O strongest soldiers and offspring of unconquered parents, do not degenerate, but remember the virtue of those who went before you. But if the dear affection of children and of parents and of spouses holds you, recall what the Lord says in the Gospel: He who loves father or mother above me is not worthy of me. Everyone who has left house, or father, or mother, or wife, or sons, or fields, for my name, will receive a hundredfold and will possess eternal life. Let no possession draw you away, no care of household affairs. This land which you inhabit, surrounded on all sides by the sea and by ridges of mountains, is cramped by your numbers; riches do not overflow, and it scarcely furnishes food alone to its cultivators. From this it is that you bite one another and contend, you stir up wars and for the most part kill with mutual wounds. Let hatreds among you cease, let quarrels fall silent, let wars rest, and let every controversy be lulled to sleep. Begin the way of the holy Sepulchre; take that land from the unspeakable nation, and subject it to yourselves. That land was given by God to the children of Israel as a possession, as Scripture says, which flows with milk and honey."

"Jerusalem is the navel of the lands, a land fruitful before the rest, as if another Paradise of delights. This the Redeemer of the human race illuminated by his coming, adorned by his manner of life, consecrated by his passion, redeemed by his death, marked out by his burial. This royal city, placed in the middle of the world, is now held captive by her own enemies, and enslaved to the rite of the nations by those who do not know God. She seeks and desires to be set free, and she does not cease to pray that you come to her aid. From you especially she demands aid, because God has granted you before all nations, as we have already said, the distinguished glory of arms. Seize therefore this way for the remission of your sins, sure of the unfading glory of the kingdom of heaven."

When Pope Urban had concluded these and very many things of this kind with urbane speech, he so united the affections of all who were present that they cried out: God wills! God wills! When the venerable Roman pontiff heard this, with his eyes raised to heaven, he gave thanks to God and, commanding silence with his hand, said:

"Dearest brothers, today there has been shown in us what the Lord says through the Gospel: Where two or three have been gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them. Unless the Lord God had been present to your minds, there would not have been one voice of all of you; although your voice came forth numerous, the origin of the voice was one. Therefore I say to you that God drew this from you, who planted it in your breasts. Let this voice be for you a military sign in warlike affairs, because this word has been brought forth from God. When a warlike onset is joined against the enemy, there will be for all this one shout from the part of God: God wills! God wills! We do not command or advise that old men or the feeble, or those least fit for arms, should seize this journey; nor let women go at all without their husbands, or brothers, or lawful testimonies. For such are more a hindrance than a help, more a burden than a use. Let the richer come to the aid of the poor, and lead with them, from their own resources, men ready for war. Priests or clerics of any order may not go without the license of their bishops; without it this way would become useless to them. Even for laymen it is not expedient to go as pilgrims except with the blessing of their own priest. Whoever has had the mind for this holy pilgrimage, has pledged it to God, and has vowed to offer him a living victim, holy and well-pleasing, let him display the sign of the Lord's Cross on his forehead or on his breast. But he who, having obtained his vow, has wished to return from there, let him place it behind between the shoulder-blades; for such men by a twofold working will fulfill that precept of the Lord which he himself commands through the Gospel: He who does not bear his cross and come after me is not worthy of me."

When these things had been completed, one of the Roman cardinals, named Gregory, said his confession for all who were prostrate on the ground. All, beating their own breasts, obtained absolution for those things which they had evilly committed; then a blessing; then license to return home. And so that it may become clear to all the faithful that this way has been established by God, not by man, as we have afterwards learned from many, on the very day these things were done and said, fame moved the whole world, so that even in the maritime islands of the Ocean it was known that the Jerusalem journey had been made firm in the council. From this there comes forth to the Christians glory and exultation, to the gentile Persians and to the cultivators of Arabia grief and trembling. Greatness of spirit is added to these; fear and dullness of mind is struck into those. So greatly did the heavenly trumpet resound that every nation hostile to the Christian name trembled. It shines forth that this was not the office of a human voice, but of the spirit of the Lord who fills the world of the lands.

Each of the laymen returned to his own home, and on the next day Pope Urban caused an assembly of bishops to sit. He took counsel as to whom he should set over so great a multitude of those desiring to go as pilgrims, because there was not yet among them any of the renowned princes.

All chose the bishop of Le Puy, asserting that he was very fit for human and divine affairs, skilled in both kinds of knowledge, and many-sided in his actions. He, though unwilling, took up, as if another Moses, the leadership and governance of the Lord's people, with the blessing of the lord pope and of the whole council. O how many men of diverse age and power or household resources took up crosses in that council and pledged the way of the holy Sepulchre! That venerable council was made known everywhere in the lands, and its ordinance reached the ears of kings and princes. It pleased all, and more than 300,000 conceive the journey in their mind, and strive to fulfill it, according as the Lord conferred ability on each. And already the savagery of the Frankish-born nation began to leap apart along the crossroads, and already their proven ferocity was fighting with the Turks in desire.

2. The First to Cross

There was in those days a certain man, who had been a hermit, named Peter. Among those who savor earthly things he was esteemed of great worth, and was exalted above the very prelates and abbots by the summit of religion, because he ate neither bread nor flesh, but nevertheless enjoyed wine and all other foods and sought the fame of abstinence in delicacies.

He gathered to himself no small multitude of horsemen and of foot, and directed his journey through Hungary. He is joined to a certain duke of the Teutons, named Godfrey, son of Eustace, count of Boulogne, but by office a Teutonic duke. This man was elegant in countenance, tall in stature, sweet in eloquence, outstanding in character, and so gentle toward soldiers that he portrayed in himself a monk more than a soldier. When he perceived the enemy at hand and battle imminent, then with a bold mind he conceived spirit, and, as if a lion gnashing his teeth, feared no one's encounter. And what mail or shield could sustain the onset of that man's sword? With his brothers Eustace and Baldwin and a great band of soldiers and of foot, he seized the journey through Hungary, by the way which Charlemagne, the incomparable king of the Franks, once commanded to be made for his army as far as Constantinople.

Peter the Hermit first came to Constantinople, with his own and a great nation of the Alemanni, and found a plentiful nation of the Lombards and many others assembled from diverse places. The emperor never granted them license to enter the city, because he always held the power of the Christian soldiery, and especially of the Franks, suspect. He allowed them a market, as in the city, but forbade them to cross the neighboring sea called the Arm of Saint George until the formidable army of the Franks should come. The number of the Turks was infinite, who with a bestial mind thirsted for their arrival; if they had come into those hands without the princes of the Franks, as afterward the outcome proved, they would all equally have been subject to death. Every congregation not governed by a good author, if a languid head rules it, daily languishes and is drawn far from safety. These men had no prudent prince over them, and they were doing reprehensible works. They destroyed the churches and palaces of the city, carried off what was in them, pulled away the covering lead, and sold it to the Greeks. The emperor, named Alexius, was vehemently angry, and commanded them to sail across the sea Arm of Saint George.

Those who had advanced farther chose a duke for themselves and set a certain Rainald over themselves. Although they had a prince, they did not cease the same works of plunder: they burned the houses they found, and stripped the churches of their goods. They came as far as Nicomedia, and from there entered the land of Romania. After three days' walking they proceeded beyond Nicaea, and found a castle named Exerogorgo, empty of a nation. Entering it they found a great abundance of grain, flesh, wine, and all goods that support human life. The Turks, terrified by fear of the Franks, had withdrawn far from that land, but they sent out scouts to announce the arrival of our men and how they stood. When they learned through intermediaries that they had come to plunder, not to hold, to destroy, not to possess, they ran against them at once and surrounded the castle with a siege. There was a huge number of them. Before the gate was a well, and nearby, on the other side, a living spring, beside which Rainald, prince of the Christians, had gone out and, placed in ambush, was awaiting their arrival.

The Turks, hesitating in nothing, rushed upon him and killed many who were with him. Others fled into the castle. The Turks carried off the water entirely from our men, and sent the Christians into great torment for want of water.

It was the feast of Saint Michael, which every faithful soul ought to venerate. The besieged came into so great a distress of thirst that, having cut the veins of the horses and of oxen and of asses and of other livestock, they drew out the blood and drank it. Others dug the damper earth, put it to the mouth, and so tempered the burning of thirst. Others passed their urine in a vessel, or in their hands, and, which is marvelous to say, swallowed it. What more? There was no comfort of life, where death alone was the aid for those perishing.

At last their prince, Rainald, entered a furtive pact with the Turks, preferring to hold a temporal life rather than to undergo death for Christ in such a martyrdom. His ranks drawn up, he pretended to enter an engagement with the adversaries; but soon, when he went out, he made a digression toward them with many others. Alas! alas! timorous soldier, having advanced not from the South, but from the North, how weakly and effeminately he fought for the heavenly, and the king, and the kingdom, who, not yet even touched by a light straw, shuddered to undergo martyrdom, and, sound, a horseman, and armed, abdicated the profession of the Christian faith. By right he deserved, before God, the loss of vanishing grace, and he came into the lot of him who chose his seat toward the North. But those who remained, and did not wish to change the title of the Christian faith, underwent the destruction of death.

From that whole multitude the Turks killed those whom they wished, and took captive those whom they liked. Some, placed at a mark, they shot with arrows, and with every mockery insulted the servants of God; and those men preferred thus to fall gloriously rather than, denying the faith of God, to live unhappily with them. But God, as we believe, received them within the precincts of ever-green Paradise, because they did not wish to wander from their faith. Already the diabolic legion, victorious, exults, and against Peter the Hermit, who was in a castle named Civito, it fights.

That castle was established above the city of Nicaea.

While the Turks were directing a course against it, they had met Walter, first officer and standard-bearer of the Hermit's column. The outstanding soldier, though he had shone with so many titles of soldiery, could not resist these men at all; yet he commended his precious death with much blood of the Turks. He rushed upon them like a hungry bear among animals, and those he found in the encounter he struck down. Those with him, armed, still living, were already bravely avenging the death they were about to suffer; and as long as arms availed them, the enemies never danced in triumph over the victory. But there the multitude overcame boldness, not boldness the multitude, except that high spirit lessened the numerousness sixfold. At last, their arms broken and not their spirits, they ended their life by a praiseworthy death, as in war, as for God, and angelic spirits transferred them into the lot of the heaven-dwellers. Then first the Turks, turning over the corpses of their own, recognized that those with whom they had fought were Franks.

These things accomplished, a part of the Turks ran to the camp of the Christians, and there found one priest celebrating mass, whom they beheaded before the altar. O happy martyrdom of the happy priest, to whom the viaticum of the Lord's body granted leadership! As many as they found, they either killed or led away. But Peter the Hermit was away and had returned to Constantinople.

Now in the castle named Civito a very great multitude of Christians had remained, and those who had escaped alive from the camp or from the battle had streamed back to it. The Turks, pursuing, placed piles of wood around, so that they might burn our men. The besieged, anxious for life, sent fire into the piles, and by the nod of God, the wind blowing, they burned most of the enemies. The Turks at last seized them by force, and, according to their mockery, having afflicted them with various kinds of punishments, killed some and sold others into captivity. Those who escaped by chance or device returned to the Arm of Saint George, and, the most wicked emperor commanding, went back to Constantinople. The emperor greatly exulted with his Greeks over the victory of the Turks, and cunningly acquired all the arms of our men, so that he might render them unarmed. These things done, let us put an end to this narrative, and, turning the style backward, let us set forth how the noble nation of the Franks came together there, and with which princes.

3. The Princes Take the Cross

Meanwhile, from the remote western parts, from the side of the North, the Lord stirred up two counts who had one name, one kinship, equal authority, the same vigor in arms and in spirits, even peers in the glory of the consulship: the Norman and the Flemish count. With them was Hugh the Great, brother of Philip, king of the Franks, who at that very time was subjecting France to his empire. By honorableness of character, elegance of body, and virtue of spirit, Hugh commended the royal lineage from which he had sprung. With them also was Stephen, count of Chartres, who from good beginnings afterwards obtained wicked endings. How countless magnates and consuls of lesser fame were joined with these, of the same France and of greater and lesser Britain!

From the southern side the camp of the bishop of Le Puy and of the count of Saint-Gilles, named Raymond, was set in motion. Although very rich and being enriched with temporal goods, he sold all that was his and seized the way of the deliverance of the Lord's Sepulchre. Behold, now we see present what the Lord once promised through Isaiah: Do not fear, because I am with you; from the North I will bring your seed, and from the West I will gather you. I will say to the North: "Give;" and to the South: "Do not forbid: bring my sons from far off, and my daughters from the ends of the earth." Now, as we see, the sons of God and the daughters make for Jerusalem from the ends of the earth; the South and the North do not dare to forbid those they have reared. Truly the Lord now ascends upon the west, because he rests in the souls of the westerners. The West prepares to illuminate the East, and, its new stars stirred up, to drive away the blindness by which it was being pressed.

Although among so great ranks there shone a terrible brightness of arms, the splendor of spirits would strike this back, if it could be gazed upon. These men go to war with one mind, not to flee but to die or conquer: to die they believe no loss of life; to conquer is the praise of divine aid. They went out from their seats at a sufficiently adjoining time; but, crossing their native soil, they crossed the Alps at a different time and by a different journey. Through Italy, with divine guardianship going before, they came as far as Rome at a second landing. O glorious soldiery of Christ, whom the spaces or the dwellings of so spacious a city could not contain! Many of the princes pitched their tents outside. Tarrying some days, they walked the holy places in pilgrim custom, commended themselves to the merits and prayers of the holy apostles and of the others, received the apostolic blessing, and directed their lines through Apulia.

While they were thus going, the rumor of so great an army came to Bohemond, a prince of that land, then in the siege of Amalfi, established upon the shore of the Scaphardian sea. Hearing these things, he caused inquiry to be made: by what princes so great an army was ruled, with what arms furnished, in what order they were going; whether they had come to plunder, or were acquiring necessities for themselves. To him it was reported that Hugh the Great, own brother of Philip, king of the Franks, was standard-bearer and duke of so great a soldiery; Robert, the Norman count, Robert, the Flemish count, Stephen, count of Chartres, Raymond, count of Saint-Gilles, and the bishop of Le Puy, were dukes and lords. The army was proceeding so devoutly and in file that there was no one whom they might harm. The arms of the horsemen were so fit, in so great a readiness of the soldiery of God, that what fleshly eye could bear the sight of the mail, or of the helmets, or of the shields, or of the lances, the sun radiating? The foot are so furnished with every kind of missile that, if it should come against them, it would strike terror into the whole East. Although girt with missiles and arms, yet, as unarmed pilgrims, they buy necessities for themselves.

When the circumspect man, most rich in riches, had heard these things, he put forth such words before all: "We all ought to give thanks to God, who has in his power the hearts of all, and inclines them where he wills. For who would have gathered so many princes and so great a people together, unless he himself were presiding over their minds?" When he asked what sign of the pilgrimage they were wearing, he learned that they were bearing the sign of the Holy Cross either on their foreheads or on their right shoulder-blades. But when, running about through the fields, they were exercising themselves for warlike use, and, jesting against one another, brandishing spears one at the other, all were crying with one voice, saying: God wills! God wills! And this was the sign of their warlike cry. When the prudent man, capacious in mind, heard these things again, he exulted more and more in God, because he understood that all these things were not only of men.

Kindled at once by the same devotion, he commanded two precious cloaks to be brought and cut into straps for crosses. Then he said to all, both to the foot and to the soldiers: "If anyone is the Lord's, let him be joined to me; O soldiers, now mine, be God's; and begin the way of the holy Sepulchre with me; and take what is mine as yours. Are we not also Frankish-born? Did not our parents come from France, and take this land for themselves by military arms? Ah, the disgrace! Will our kinsmen and brothers go without us to martyrdom, nay rather to Paradise? In all future times a backward poverty of spirit ought to be ascribed both to us and to our children, if, we being absent, this divine soldiery is being done." When the high-spirited soldier was putting an end to these and to things like these, all present cried, saying: "We will go with you and without drawing back we promise the way of the holy Sepulchre." Then the wise and astute man commanded the crosses to be brought. When these had been brought, he said: "If you wish to unite deeds to your words, from these crosses let whoever accept one; and let the accepting of the cross be the pledge of the way." Then so many streamed together to accept that the crosses were lacking.

Hearing that Bohemond had taken up the cross of the way of the holy Sepulchre, the magnates of Apulia, of Calabria, and of Sicily stream together to him, and middling and powerful, old and young, servants and lords, promise the way of the holy Sepulchre. But the duke of Apulia itself, when he saw and heard these things, grieved vehemently, because he greatly feared to remain alone with little ones and women in his duchy. That duke was the brother of Bohemond, each namely sons of Robert Guiscard. While Bohemond prepared the necessities of the way, the Frankish-born came to the sea-ports; some to Brindisi, some to Bari, some to Otranto, they entered the sea. Hugh the Great and William, son of the marquis, entered the sea in the port of Bari, and sailed as far as Durazzo.

4. The Roads to Constantinople

When the duke of that place detected that they were present, seized by an unjust thought, he commanded them to be seized and led across to Constantinople. The sly emperor had ordained that all the Jerusalemites be captured and led to him there. He wished that they all do fidelity to him, namely that whatever they acquired by arms should be his.

When they came to the city they found great comfort: Duke Godfrey with a great army. He who saw Hugh the Great and Duke Godfrey embrace and kiss one another could weep for joy. Hugh the Great rejoices that he has been seized, because he deserved to be brought to Duke Godfrey; the duke rejoices, because he embraces his heartfelt friend and kinsman, a noble man of all high birth. Each rejoices in the other at the renewed pact of ancient familiarity, and that in each there was the distinguished honor of worth. In these two men the emperor's frauds were first laid bare, as the following page will lay bare.

Duke Godfrey, first of all the princes of the Franks, came to Constantinople, because he journeyed through Hungary by a straight course. He came two days before the Lord's Nativity and wished to lodge outside the city; but the sly emperor received him within the suburbs. The duke hoped to remain secure there until the ranks of the Frankish-born nation should come together. When for some days he began to send his clients for necessities, the deceitful emperor commanded his Turcopoles and the Pechenegs, placed in ambush, to attack them and kill them.

Baldwin, brother of the duke, having recognized their wickedness, hid himself and forestalled their ambushes. While they were following his men in order to kill them, with a strong spirit and a manly onset he attacked them; and so, God helping, he overcame them, killed many, and presented the captured to his brother the duke. The emperor, hearing this, was angry, because he perceived that his deceits had been laid bare to the Franks. The duke, recognizing that anger toward him and his men, went out from the suburbs of that man and pitched his tents outside the city. When the sun had set and night had covered the earth, the satellites of the emperor presumed to attack the duke; but, divine grace assisting, with great loss to themselves, they were scarcely able to escape his hands. One rushed upon the other, but one was more excellent than the other. The duke with his men, as a lion gnashing his teeth, quickly scattered them, and killed seven, having pursued the rest as far as the gate of the city. From there he returned to his tents, and afterwards remained quiet.

The emperor sought peace from him through many intermediaries, and at last obtained it, and permitted him and his nation a market as in the city. Meanwhile the Gallic nation began to approach the royal city: the bishop of Le Puy and the count of Saint-Gilles, the counts also, the Norman and the Flemish, and Stephen of Chartres.

Bohemond the Apulian, his stipends prepared, matching so great a journey, entered the sea and in the region of Bulgaria sailed across. With him were the most noble princes: Tancred, namely his nephew and son of the marquis, Richard the prince, and all the magnates of that land, who found so great an abundance in Bulgaria that from the fruit of his grain, of wine and of oil they have all been multiplied. Then, descending into the valley Andronopolis, they rested there until all had crossed the strait.

There Bohemond, a prudent man, threatened his army that no one should carry anything off by force, but that each should acquire what was due to him. All having crossed the strait, they entered a region most abundant in all goods, from village to village, castle to castle, city to city, and came to Castoria; there they celebrated the solemnity of the Lord's Nativity, and rested for very many days. When they sought a market from the inhabitants, they could not obtain it, because all were fleeing from their face, reckoning our men to have arrived for the sake of preying, and of laying waste the whole land. Therefore our men were compelled by poverty of food to plunder — sheep, oxen, rams, pigs, and what was useful for food.

Having gone out from Castoria they came to Palagonia, in which there was a certain castle of the heretics, which they attacked from every side; and with trumpets sounding, and with missiles and arrows flying, they immediately seized it, and, stripped of all its goods, with the inhabitants themselves, they burned it with fire. Nor did this befall them as a wrong, because their detestable speech, like a cancer, was creeping, and already it had fouled the surrounding regions with its wicked doctrine, just as their foul intention had also led them away from the right faith.

Coming to the river Bardarum, many crossed that very day; others, unable to cross while the sun stood, remained. On the next day, at the very first light, the army of the emperor came upon those who had remained, preparing to kill all or take them captive bound. While our men were bravely resisting, a rumor came to the ears of Bohemond and of Tancred. Tancred, not long bearing his men to be thus wronged, flying on a horse, returned to the river, threw himself with horse and arms into it, and 2000 horsemen pursued him. Arriving immediately, they found Turcopoles and Pechenegs fighting with them; upon whom, suddenly rushing as if unbridled, they gave many to death, bound many captured, and brought them, entangled with thongs, to Bohemond. When he saw them, he gave thanks to God, and smiling with a cheerful countenance, said to them through an interpreter: "Nation unsound of mind, why do you seek to kill the nation of God and ours? We are partners of the Christian faith and household members and pilgrim soldiers of the holy Sepulchre. We seek to harm none of you, nor do we attempt to carry anything off from your emperor." To these things they, answering, said: "Lord, we are hired soldiers of the emperor, and we desire to deserve our donatives from him: we go where he likes, we do what he commands, and we obey him more than God. We nevertheless well recognize that it is more necessary to obey God than men. Our emperor shudders at your ranks more than at the thunderbolts of heaven, because he understands more that you wish to deprive him of his kingdom than that you wish to go as pilgrims; and therefore he does not cease to plot evil toward you. But for God, whose pilgrims and soldiers you are, deign to have mercy on us." To these words the outstanding man, moved by a spirit of mercy, granted them life, and permitted them to go away unharmed. While he proceeded thus, the army of the Franks had come together at Constantinople and was awaiting his arrival. The emperor, seeing the camps of God flowing in from every side and his army sent against Bohemond so scattered, seething in spirit began to be greatly anxious, and thoughts to turn fraudulently in his heart.

At last he pretended a spirit, as if rejoicing at Bohemond's arrival, and sent those who should receive him gladly through his cities and castles, and conduct him to himself with honor. But our men had learned that this was no service of friendship, but a secret pretence of the heart. The inhabitants of that land, the emperor's command having been received, were bringing the necessities for food in troops, and selling them at a sufficiently suitable price. Coming to the city named Susa, Bohemond dismissed his army, and with a few proceeded to Constantinople to the emperor's conference. Tancred remained duke and guardian of the army; and he did not wish to remain there longer, because the foods he had to buy were foreign, and he led them aside into a valley most abundant in all goods, and most excellent in bodily increases.

While Bohemond was arriving at the city, the greatest part of the army of the Franks came to meet him, and received him with one mind, as a mother her only son.

Bohemond, when he had caught sight that so many consuls, so many dukes, so many magnates were coming to meet him, raising his hands to heaven, tears having sprung up for joy, wept most abundantly; and, many having been kissed, when the sobs had scarcely been repressed so that he could speak, his face suffused with weepings, he began to speak in these words. "O warriors of God and unfailing pilgrims of the holy Sepulchre, who brought you to these pilgrim places, if not he who led the children of Israel across from Egypt through the Red Sea with dry footstep? Who else put a spirit into you that you should leave your possessions and native soil? Kinsmen and relations, spouses and children you have abdicated, nay you have also renounced every bodily pleasure. Now again you have been born again a second time, namely through confession and penitence, which you display daily with hard labors. O happy those who will fail in such a work; who will see Paradise before their fatherland! O order of soldiers, now three times and four times blessed! You who up to this point were defiled with the blood of homicide, now, a peer of the sweats of the holy martyrs, you are crowned with a heavenly diadem. Up to this point you have stood as an incitement of the wrath of God; but now you are a reconciliation of his grace, and a bulwark of his faith. Therefore, unconquered soldiers, because now first we have begun to soldier for God, let us not glory in arms or in our forces, but in God more powerful than all, because our war is his, and he himself will have dominion over the nations."

Holding out these things and more of that kind, he won the spirits of the hearers, and found great grace in the sight of all. Then all came with him to the city, and led him to his lodging, which the emperor had commanded to be prepared outside the city.

5. The Emperor’s Oaths

The sly emperor, seeing the camps of God grow from day to day, destitute of spirit, void of sense, poor of counsel, began to be inflamed with vehement wrath. He did not know where he should turn, or whither flee if necessity pressed him. For he feared that so great an army and of so great men should rise against him. A mind full of fraud is always anxious and solicitous; and what it plots for another, it always greatly fears to be plotted for itself. But our men were not seeking this at all, because they did not wish to battle against Christians. At last he commanded Bohemond to be summoned, and with him and with his Greeks had this counsel. He asked of our men that the princes of the army should do homage to him; and that he himself would conduct for them, through the desert regions they were about to enter, a market of all things for sale, and in all warlike affairs his presence and the aid of his nation; he would even swear generally to all that he would supply what they needed in arms and in clothing, nor any longer harm any pilgrim of the holy Sepulchre, or consent that harm be done. This counsel, when discovered, pleased almost in the hearts of all, because the necessity of temporal things was distressing most of them.

They therefore made this homage to him with a sacrament, on condition that it last so long as he himself persevered both in his sacrament and in his promise. But the count of Saint-Gilles, when he had been asked about homage, wished in no way to do it; but, if he were believed, the whole city with its inhabitants and the emperor himself would be destroyed. But there was not reason that so royal a city, and so great churches consecrated to God, should be overthrown, and so many bodies of the saints either be burned with fire, or be widowed of their seats. At last the count of Saint-Gilles, overcome by the persuasions of others, granted assent, and in these words promised fidelity to him, saying: "I swear to the emperor Alexius that never through me or through my men will he lose life or honor, or whatever he possesses today justly or unjustly." This trust he swore to him, and the emperor acquiesced.

Afterwards the same emperor swore, saying: "I, the emperor Alexius, swear to Hugh the Great and to Duke Godfrey, and to the rest of the princes of the Franks who stand here, that never in my life will I wrong any pilgrim of the holy Sepulchre, or permit him to be wronged; and that I will proceed with them in warlike affairs, and according to my ability I will have a sufficient market conducted with them." Let no one wonder that so many and so noble Franks made homage as if compelled: if the matter is weighed by reason, they were truly compelled. They were about to enter a desert and pathless land, utterly alien to all goods; and they knew that it does not suffice to bear the day's labor for him for whom daily food fails. For this kind of forced service, this pact of homage was made; but in the emperor's mind a fraudulent faction always remained. A ratified conciliation of homage would well be due, if with the emperor there were an assertion of entire faith. But whatever he stipulated, he emptied the whole with a word; and he preferred to incur the guilt of perjury rather than not to draw the nation of the Franks far from his borders. But lest we seem entirely, as mute, to have passed by the royal city, let us speak something of it, because it does not seem dissonant from the history.

We have read in a certain history that Constantine, the Roman emperor, when on a certain night, in the city named Byzantium, he had fallen asleep, saw a vision. A certain old woman, in a torn garment and as if girt about with half-girdles, was coming to him and demanding the aid of her own resources: a garment with which she might be clothed, a covering with which she might be covered, nourishment with which she might be fed. The king immediately promised that he would confer the things demanded. The vision vanished. Awakened from sleep, turning in his heart what this vision might be, he understood by the divine nod that the city itself in which he was was seeking aid, and greatly wishing to be restored to a better state. Constantine raised it from the foundations, and from his own name called it Constantinople, equal to Rome in high walls and in the noble structure of buildings, with equal glory and earthly honor: which, as Rome is the head of the West, so also that city ought to be of the East. It is situated between the Adriatic sea and that which they now call the Arm of Saint George, upon which the walls of the city are placed. This is fertile beyond all other cities in a rich territory and in all merchandise of the riches of the sea. Therefore let no one doubt that this was founded without the divine nod: because God foresaw what was to come, which we now see fulfilled. For if such a one had not been founded, where would eastern Christianity have had a refuge? There now the most consecrated relics of the holy prophets, of the apostles, and of innumerable holy martyrs have a receptacle, transferred from the face of the pagans. Asia and Africa were once of the Christians, now subjected to the unclean rites of the gentiles. Such was made the royal city Constantinople, so that it might be the safest royal house of those relics. And therefore it well ought to be made equal to Rome in the dignity of the sanctuary and in the excellence of royal dignity, except that Rome is exalted by the papal summit, and is the head and the summit of all Christianity. Therefore let it suffice to speak of these things, and let the second book receive an end here.

6. Nicaea

The princes of the Gauls having been confederated with the emperor, he commanded ships to the port, so that the whole army might cross the strait without great delay. First Duke Godfrey and Tancred crossed, proceeded as far as Nicomedia, and kept holiday there for three days. Seeing that no way lay open for so great an army, the duke sent ahead 4,000 men with axes, ploughshares, and other iron tools to prepare the way. That land was pathless, obstructed through mountain ridges, valley hollows, and excavations of the lands. With very much sweat they constructed a way as far as Nicaea, fit for the foot, for horses, and for everyone crossing, and they placed wooden crosses at the turns of the ways, as a testimony that that way was of the pilgrims. Thus the whole multitude passed through, except that Bohemond remained with the emperor to arrange the promise of a market. That promise had to be prolonged beyond measure: before it arrived, among the poorer the greatest torment of hunger was at work.

To Nicaea the strength of the army came together on the day before the Nones of May; and, before the market was brought, one bread was being sold for 20 or 30 denarii. After Bohemond came with the market, the shortage vanished, and abundance of all goods was present.

On the day of the Lord's Ascension they walled Nicaea with a siege, and set in place ballistas, rams, and the rest of that kind of instruments by which the inhabitants might be stormed. On the east, because the city seemed more impregnable and more fortified, these princes applied the strength of their army: the bishop of Le Puy, Count Raymond, Hugh the Great, the Norman count, the Flemish count, Count Stephen of Chartres; on the north, Duke Godfrey; from the setting of the sun, Bohemond; but on the South there was no part, because an immense lake was present there as a protection. Into it the citizens were entering with their ships, bringing wood and grass and other necessities. When the princes recognized this, their embassy ran to the emperor, that he should have ships conducted as far as Civito, where there is a port, and oxen with those who would draw them as far as the lake. He immediately obeyed, and it was done according to the wish of the princes. The ranks drawn up around the city, the worshippers of Christ press on manfully; and the Turks, because it is a matter of their life, resist bravely. They were sending poisonous arrows, so that those whom they might wound even with a light throw they might kill with a heavy death.

But our men, fearing very little to die for life, raise high engines around the walls, by which, below themselves, they look down upon those who were on the walls. Wooden towers are set against stone towers; and now at close quarters the enemy is attacked with lances and swords.

Everywhere mothers were fleeing with their sons and their daughters, hair unbound, seeking hiding-places, because they had hope of flight nowhere. Already the enemy was preparing to render himself vanquished, when he saw 60,000 of the Turks arriving from a distance. For they themselves had sent ahead from the city, saying that they should come through the Meridian gate and help them. But our men in the meantime had besieged that gate with a great company, because the bishop of Le Puy and the count of Saint-Gilles were guarding it. The Turks, descending from the mountains, when from a distance they saw the ranks of our men, were struck with fear; and unless they trusted in their multitude they would have seized flight, reins turned back. They made three troops: one to burst into the aforesaid gate, two to follow by fighting if necessity pressed. So the Turks arranged; but by the counsel of God our men, more skilled, exchanged this otherwise. The bishop of Le Puy and the army of Count Raymond, when they first reached them by sight, the city having been left, rush upon them in a very swift course, fearing their multitude no more than dogs a fleeing hare. O how many thousands of chosen soldiers pursued them, more ready to draw souls out of the bodies of the Turks than any hungry man of going to a wedding!

But the Turks, when they saw the excessive splendor of so many arms (for the sun was supplying brightness with flaming rays), so many swift encounters of neighing horses, so many spears brandishing against them, turned their backs, too lazy and sluggish, wishing to return to the mountains; but whoever had descended from there could not ascend again.

They, again ascending the engines, so that they might strike greater fear into the enemies, were throwing the heads of the killed Turks inside with ballistas and slings.

but on that day they did not send them into the lake, but at night, full of Turcopoles, namely the nation of the emperor, well taught and accustomed to the river.

On the next day, as dawn was rising, when those who were in the city saw the ships, they were terrified from too great fear, and no longer having spirit they fell to the earth as if now dead. They all were howling: daughters with mothers, young men with maidens, old men with the younger. On every side mourning and misery, no hope at all of escaping: inside, grief and dullness of mind; outside, joy and exultation. At last they found counsel of escaping: through the Turcopoles they sent word to the emperor that they would render the city to him, if he would permit them to go away unharmed and safe with their goods. When this is announced to the emperor, he rejoices greatly; but from that same thing he also conceives fraud in his mind, so that afterwards he may give birth to iniquity. He commands that the city be rendered to his men, that entire trust be assigned to the Turks, and that they be conducted to him to Constantinople. Which he did (as the matter itself afterwards became known) so that, when the time should approach, he might find them more ready for the loss of the Franks. Therefore the city is rendered, and the Turks are led to Constantinople. Nor was the emperor unmindful of so great a benefit: he commanded large alms to be distributed to the poor who were in the army.

And so for seven weeks and three days the storming of Nicaea was prolonged; nor would it have been overcome by any human force, except by the help of God. It is furnished with very dense walls and high towers, a head and a peer to none in all Romania. In this, once, in the time of Constantine the emperor, 318 bishops were assembled; they treated of our faith because of the craft of the heretics who were at that time, and with one mind sanctioned all things as the catholic Church now holds. Because of this it was worthy that it should be carried off from the enemies of the holy faith and reconciled to God and to our holy mother the Church, restored as her member. This new restoration was provided and arranged by God, consecrated by the martyrdom of very many killed there. In such a manner Nicaea was freed and all diabolic captivity driven out from it.

7. The Marvelous Fight

After they withdrew from the city, for two days the ranks, joined into one, proceeded and came to one bridge, beside which for two days they kept holiday, refreshing their horses and beasts from the green grass. Because they were about to enter a desert and waterless land, they entered counsel that they should be divided into two ranks: one land did not suffice for so many men, horses, and animals. The one and greater line is committed to Hugh the Great; the other is joined to Bohemond. In the first line with Hugh the Great were the bishop of Le Puy, Count Raymond, Duke Godfrey, and Robert, the Flemish count. In the second, with Bohemond, were Tancred, Robert, the Norman count, and many other princes whose names we do not know.

And so with prosperous success they were now riding through Romania as if secure. Three days having elapsed, on the fourth day at the third hour those with Bohemond saw 300,000 of the Turks come to meet them, and with clamorous voices shriek I know not what barbarous thing. Because of that immense multitude certain of our men began to hesitate, whether they should resist or seek the byways of flight. Then Bohemond, a many-sided man, and the Norman count, a high-spirited soldier, seeing the spirits of certain men falter, command all the soldiers to descend and drive in the stakes of the tents. There was there a stream of running water flowing past.

But before the tents had been stretched, 150 Turks on swifter horses drew near, and with bows stretched sent their poisonous arrows into them. Our men, horses let go, received them and killed those seized. It is the custom of the Turks that, arrows drawn, they flee backward and while they flee inflict a wound on those pursuing. But there was no place of flight: the density of the enemies had occupied the very peaks of the mountains. Our men were instantly slaughtering them on the right and on the left, but the bows and arrows had a useless place there. At last, the lances of the Franks broken in the bodies of the ungodly, the matter is done with swords. O how many bodies fell there, truncated at the heads or mutilated in some members, because the hinder part of the enemies was driving the former into the swords of those slaughtering!

They tear those down; they slaughter mothers with children, and those whom they find unprepared for war and without arms. The cry of the dying came to Bohemond's ears, and immediately he understood what it was. He committed the war to the Norman count, and went back to the tents with a few in a swift course.

Bohemond, having caught sight that many lifeless men were lying there, began to lament, and to pray the Lord that he might be a refuge to the living and to the dead. He returned in haste to the war, but left behind soldiers in the tents for a rampart and a fortification.

But before he returned, our men had already been so fatigued by thirst, labor, and the heat of the burning that unless the women had brought drink from the stream, many would have succumbed that day. Our men, the Turks rushing upon them, had once given their backs; and unless the Norman count quickly, brandishing a golden banner in his right hand, had turned his horse and with doubled voices exclaimed the military sign, God wills! God wills!,

After they saw Bohemond and the Norman count return, they took up again the spirit of boldness and chose more to die than to flee further. So great was the pressing of the Turks, one driving another, that nowhere was there a refuge. They had so walled our men that they were not finding an empty place except around the tents. Many of our men then died by the arrows of the Turks. No one was idle from office or without ministry. Soldiers ready for war were fighting; priests and clerics weeping and praying; the women, lamenting, drawing the bodies of the dead into the tents.

And while our men are thus hemmed in, while they are overshadowed by a cloud of flying arrows,

Who, when they came to the mountains with 40,000 chosen soldiers, catch sight of the tents of their men girt about on every side by ranks of Turks, and their companions fighting as they can, the women in the tents crying out with a great howling; they burn in spirit, and as an eagle is borne toward prey,

O how great a crash of arms there, how great a din of lances breaking, how great a cry of those dying, and how cheerful the voice of the Franks fighting, crying their military sign with high voices! Those voices are doubled while the hollows of the valleys, the peaks of the mountains, the clefts of the rocks receive them and send them out. The wretched whom they first find become corpses only: mail or a shield does not cover them, nor an arrow or a bent bow help. They howl, they groan, dying they rub the earth with their heels, or falling forward they tear the grass with their teeth. Those placed far off, some rejoice, others become sorrowful. The Franks understand the military sign of their men fighting; the Turks the lamentable groans of their men dying. The stunned hand of the unjust grows numb; the already fatigued hand of the Christians grows strong.

Meanwhile, while the Turks who were attacking our men look back to the mountains, they see the bishop of Le Puy and Count Raymond with the rest of the army of soldiers and of the foot descending from the mountains and attacking their men. They grew stiff with great fear for the multitude of warriors, thinking that either warriors had rained down from the seats above, or had emerged from the very mountains. Again battles are renewed, and newly very many thousands of the Turks are struck down.

Our men also, who were already almost shut in in their tents, are again animated and avenge their wounds and heavy wrongs upon the enemies.

From the third hour of the day until the twilight of night that conflict was continuous; and it could be a wonder whence so great a nation had been assembled. But, as those who judged themselves to know better asserted, Persians, Publicans, Medes, Candei, Saracens, Agulani, Arabs and Turks had come together there, and had covered the surface of the earth, as the locust and the bruchus, of which there is no number.

Night indeed broke off the strife and was a great protection to them; because, unless the darkness had hidden them, few out of so great a multitude would have survived.

Our men therefore, the darkness compelling, returned to their tents, the priests and clerics saying a hymn to God in this manner: You are glorious, Lord, in your saints, marvelous in your majesty; terrible and praiseworthy, and doing marvels. Your right hand, Lord, struck the enemy, and in the multitude of your glory you have put down our adversaries. The enemy had said: "I will pursue and I will seize them, I will divide the spoils, my soul will be filled, I will unsheathe my sword, my hand will kill them." But you, Lord, were with us, as a strong warrior, and you were leader and protector in mercy to your people whom you have redeemed. Now, Lord, we recognize that you carry us in your strength, to your holy dwelling, namely to your holy Sepulchre. These things having been said, they suppressed their voices and, already secure from the enemies, they rested that night.

On the next day, when the sun adorned the world with flaming light, all ran to the field of war and found many of their own killed; and unless there had been crosses, they would scarcely have been able to be separated from them. Those of sounder understanding were venerating them as Christ's martyrs and burying them with the more worthy honor they were able. The priests and clerics were pouring out the songs owed to burial. Mothers for sons, friends for friends, were sending forth mournful laments. These things completed, they hurried to strip the corpses of the enemies. Who can report how great an abundance of garments, gold, and silver they found there? O how great a multitude of horses, mules, she-mules, camels and asses our men then had! Those who first were poor, God helping, were made rich; the half-naked clothed with silk. Missiles and arrows are gathered, emptied quivers filled. Care is expended on the wounded, committed to the physicians.

To this deed of outstanding praise, if anyone should put the eye of the mind, he will observe God marvelous in his works. For he has filled his hungry with goods, but the rich who are not his he dismissed empty; he has put down the powerful, and has exalted the humble, rendering the powerful cast down, the humble glorious. This is what through Isaiah the prophet he pledged to his beloved Jerusalem: I will place you in the pride of the ages, a joy unto generation and generation; and you will suck the milk of the nations, and you will be suckled with the breast of kings, and you will know that I the Lord am saving you, and your Redeemer, the strong of Jacob. The pride of the ages is the nobility of illustrious men; the breast of kings, the riches of those digging their treasures into the earth — nobility fed by that breast, worldly power subjected, joy in this present generation and in the future generation of the ages.

On the other day, the third of the month of July, they pitched the tents at the very morning and hurried to follow the fleeing Turks. But they, as trembling doves from the face of the hawk, were fleeing before their face. Through four days hither and thither so fleeing, Soliman their duke found 10,000 of the Arabs coming to him in aid. Soliman was the son of Soliman the Elder, who carried off the whole Romania from the emperor. After he had fled from Nicaea he had gathered this nation into one and, as if for his wrong to be avenged, had brought them upon the Christians. When he had seen them and the Arabs him, from too great grief he slipped from the horse onto the earth, and began with great voices to howl, proclaiming himself wretched and unhappy. The Arabs, not knowing the chance of his misfortune, say: "O more shameless of all men, why do you thus flee? You degenerate much, because never your father fled from battle. Take up again the constancy of spirit, and return to the battle, because we have come to you in aid." To whom he, the sighs interrupting the voice, says:

"A great madness vexes you: you have not yet recognized the power of the Franks, nor have you experienced their high spirits. Their power is not human, but heavenly, or diabolic. Nor do they themselves trust only in their own aid, but in divine aid. Had we not so far conquered them that we were already preparing holm-oak ropes and hempen ones, so that we might send them onto their neck? When suddenly a countless nation, which does not dread death nor fear the enemy, burst from the mountains and without doubt put itself into our ranks. Whose eyes could bear the splendor of their terrible arms? Their lances were glittering as flashing stars; helmets and mail, as the brandishing lights of the flourishing dawn; the crash of arms was more terrible than the sound of thunders. When they prepare themselves for war, the lances raised to heaven, they go in file, and as if they were without a word, they fall silent. But when they approach their adversaries, then, the reins loosened, they rush with such an onset, as if lions whom hungry hunger goads, and they thirst for the blood of animals. Then they cry out and gnash with the teeth and fill the air with cries, and the pilgrims capture no one from mercy, but slay all. And what would I say of so cruel a nation? There is no nation able to resist this one, or find a place of fleeing; because they are supported either by divine or by diabolic aid. All other nations are terrified of our bows and fear the missiles; but these, after they are mailed, fear the arrow only as much as even a straw, the missile as a wooden club. Alas! alas! we were 360,000, and we all either have been killed by these, or, scattered, have fled. Now the fourth day is from which we have begun to flee from their face, and still we tremble with no lesser fear than on the first day. For which cause, if you wish to obey sound counsel, as quickly as you are able depart from the whole Romania; and that their eye not consider you, with very caution provide."

When the Arabs heard these things, with Soliman himself they seized flight at once. The Christians, with greater skill, were following those fleeing; but those never remained in the same state. To whichever cities or castles of the Christians they came in fleeing, they displayed a cheerful countenance, as if having obtained victory, saying: "Rejoicing and with joy, open your doors to us, because we have killed for you all the Frankish-born, who had come to plunder you and your lands: not even one survives of them but that he is either dead, or is held in our bonds. For Soliman our duke proceeds by another way, and leads captives with him." Those credulous to their words were opening, and having been seduced they were paying heavy punishments. Plundering their possessions, they were burning the houses and either slaughtering them or leading them bound with thongs. They did not wish the Franks pursuing them to find anything, so that constrained by poverty they might cease to pursue. Who in this used a prudent counsel: it greatly profited those and harmed our whole army. Our men found that land a desert, waterless, foreign to all goods. They were plucking the ears of the standing-crops, already approaching to ripeness, rubbing them between the hands, and with such food mitigating hunger as they can. There the greater part of the horses was dead, and many who had stood horsemen were made the foot. They were riding cows and oxen, rams of great strength and of the height of the land, and dogs. They crossed that soil as quickly as they were able, entered Lycaonia, a province most abundant in all goods, and came to Iconium.

8. The Road to Antioch

Iconium is a city most rich in temporal goods, of which Paul the apostle made mention in his epistles. Those who had wandered in solitude, in a waterless place, found the way of the city of dwelling and, the Lord supplying, were filled with earthly goods. When it pleased to depart, the inhabitants advising, they bore water in vessels and skins, because they found water nowhere on the next day. On the second day, toward evening, they came to a certain river and lodged there two days. On the other day the runners going before the ranks first came to Heraclea, where a greatest multitude of Turks was being assembled. Detecting from far off the flying banners of the Franks, they immediately fled, as a little deer snatched from a snare, or a hind shot with arrows. Our men, praising the Lord, entered without obstacle and remained through 4 days.

On the fifth day all went out, and then Count Baldwin, brother of Duke Godfrey, and Tancred divided themselves from the others with their soldiers and turned aside to Tarsus. Many Turks went out against them to war, but could not long stand. When they could not bear the swift onsets, bent charges, and dread blows, many of their own prostrate, they withdrew into the fortification; and our men placed camp and sentries before it. Those who were Christians in the city come at midnight to the camp, crying with great joy: "Rise, unconquered soldiers of the Franks, because all the Turks are fleeing from the city, and they do not presume to contend with you further." Our men did not wish to pursue them, because it was night, a time very little fit for fleeing. As day was growing light they entered the city and received the citizens most gladly.

A contention was made between Count Baldwin and Tancred, which of them should rule the city, or whether it should be subjected to the dominion of both. Tancred was struggling against it, because he wished to have it by himself; but at last he yielded to Baldwin, because the strength of the army was greater for him.

Two cities were handed over to them in a brief interval of time: one called Athena, another Manustra, and very many castles. Now they were going with favorable successes, because the Turks were now not riding, but hidden in the most fortified fortifications. The greater part of the Franks entered the land of the Armenians, because, gaping, they were desiring to make the land drunk with the blood of the Turks. All the land was silent in their sight, and the Armenians were coming glad to meet them, receiving them in their cities and castles. They came to a certain castle so fortified by natural position that it feared no arms, no warlike engines. Nevertheless they did not wish to linger there long, when the whole other land had been subjected to them and from affection wished to incline.

There was in the army a certain soldier, strong and strenuous, originating from that region, who requested that land from all the princes, so that he might guard it in the fidelity of God and of the holy Sepulchre and of them, and protect his life and honor. The princes with one mind granted assent, because they knew him to be a faithful man, strong, and fit for warlike affairs.

Thence with prosperous success they came to Caesarea of Cappadocia. Cappadocia is a region situated in the head of Syria, stretched toward the northern quarter; the inhabitants of that city of their own accord handed themselves over and received them kindly. Having gone out prosperously from Cappadocia, they came to a certain city, fairest and most abundant, which the Turks not much before had besieged, and for three weeks had attacked, but had been unable to storm it. Approaching which, presently the citizens came to meet them with very joy, and received them benevolently.

Another soldier, named Peter of the Alps, sought this again, and obtained it very swiftly from all the princes. That very night a certain informer of trifles came to Bohemond and said that as far as 20,000 of the Turks were at hand nearby, who did not yet know that the Franks had arrived there. He, credulous of lying words, chose chosen soldiers, led them with him, and went through the places in which they ought to lie hidden. But just as the informer was empty, so also the result of the inquiry emptied.

Thence rising they came to Coxor, a city full of all goods useful to human bodies. They were received most courteously by these Christians who were in it, and there they kept holiday for three days. There each looked to his own want: the weary found rest, the hungry refreshment, the thirsty drink, the naked covering. God therefore foresaw for them such a dwelling, by which they might more easily suffer the strong torment of the hunger that was to come upon them.

Meanwhile it was announced to Count Raymond that the Turks, terrified by fear, had fled from Antioch, and had left the city very little furnished beforehand. Who from there accepted counsel that he should direct 500 soldiers there to occupy the citadel of the city, before it was recognized to others. And when they came into a valley neighbouring Antioch, then first they heard that it was not true that the Turks had departed from the city, but with every effort they were attempting to defend.

They proceeded as far as the castle of the Publicans, and it having been subjected to them, they turned aside elsewhere on a second journey, came into the valley of Rugia, and found many Turks and Saracens there, whom, overcome in battle, they killed in the mouth of the sword. Seeing which, the Armenians, inhabitants of that land, rejoiced, because the Turks and pagans were so manfully overcome and killed by the Christians; and immediately they rendered themselves to them with their land. They obtained the city Rusa, and took very many castles into their dominion.

But the whole army which had remained seized the journey, and with a wretched success of misfortune through certain mountains passable to none except wild beasts or reptiles, where a path was not widened more than by the space of one foot, hemmed in on this side and on that by rocks and by dense thickets of thorns or of briars; the bottoms of the valleys seemed plunged into the abyss, the peaks of the mountains raised to the stars. On this uneven path the soldiers and the arms-bearers were wearing their arms hanging from their neck, all equally the foot, because none were riding; most would most gladly have sold their mails, helmets, and shields, if they had found a buyer; many, failing by very great weariness, were throwing them, so that at least thus ready they might be able to go. The beasts of burden with the loads were by no means able to go, but in most places the men were bearing the loads of the beasts. No one was able to stand in place or to sit, because each was driving the other; no one to help his companion except the last the one going before, the one going before scarcely able to be turned toward the one following. At last, so unhappy and pathless a way having been finished, they came to Marasim, and they are received by those inhabitants with honor and joy. There they find an abundance of temporal goods, and consolation of their misery and want. There the first awaits the last; but an entire day passed through before the tail clung to the head.

Gathered and resting one day, on the second they came into the valley in which Antioch is situated, a royal city established by Antiochus the king and named from him. This metropolis is the head of the whole region of Syria, once distinguished through the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, with the worship of the catholic faith; in it he placed an episcopal chair and ordained the apostles Barnabas and Paul. Now, so that the Lord might show to the eyes of mortals that there is no power nor any authority except from him, first he wished to acquire this in the humility of speech by the mouth of those preaching, now to recover it in the sublimity of power by the arms of those vanquishing. Our men, hastening to the city in the power of God, came to the Farrean bridge and found there a numerousness of Turks desiring to cross, so that they might furnish aid to these in the city. But it is not of men to direct their steps, but of him to whose empire all things are subject. Our men immediately rushed with one mind upon them and spared no one, but in the mouth of the sword killed a great multitude; others, stricken in mind, fled and looked to their present life. The Christians, having taken possession of the victory, received many spoils: beasts of burden, asses, camels, loaded with wine, grain and oil, and other things most necessary to the besieged. Then they encamped upon the bank of the river, not far from the walls. On the next day, laden with all goods, they arrange to go to the city; coming with God as guide, they place camps around in three parts. From one side the mountains forbid access and keep far off every device of warring. On the fourth weekday, the 12th of the Kalends of November, the siege around Antioch was placed, to the praise and future glory of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is always marvelous in good works.

9. Winter before Antioch

The Antiochene city was furnished beforehand not only by natural situation, but by lofty walls, towers stretched into the height, and very dense bulwarks on the peaks of the walls. The princes entered counsel that they would fight against it not by power but by device; by art, not by Mars; by engine, not by warlike conflict. First they set a bridge above the river, so that they might more readily cross as often as they had need. In the confines of the city they found a great abundance of good fruits, plentiful vintages, pits full of grain and barley and other victuals, and trees of many a kind stuffed with their apples. The Armenians who were in the city were insinuating this to them, coming in the day, the Turks consenting, while their wives and sons remained in the city. Although they were Christians, they were doing this cunningly, reporting the words of our men or their deeds to the Turks inside.

Warlike engines suitable for attacking are constructed by the worshippers of Christ: wooden towers, ballistas, sickles, rams, sows, moles, missiles, stakes, and slings. But what did they avail against an impregnable city? Especially when there were so many defenders in it who even would have been able to fight with our men in a field battle, if they had not been enemies of the Christian name:

The Turks, trusting in their most fortified city, went out at night with the doors open and drew arrows into the camps. Thus shooting, they killed one woman before the tents of Bohemond the prince. Therefore more watchful watches were placed through the camps, who also guarded the gate through which the Turks were accustomed to go out. The princes of the soldiery and the magnates constructed a castle for themselves, by which they might be more secure if the enemies of God should in any way prevail, who from every side, as bees to hives, were streaming together.

Meanwhile, when the outlay of daily food began to grow scarce, they entered counsel that they should seek foods, and send across arms-bearers and most soldiers for guardianship. But those who wished to prey,

For a certain castle was in the mountains not far from the camps, named Areth, full of rebelling Turks, who held out ambushes to our men, wounded many and killed more, detained most as captives, and compelled the rest, shamefully wronged, to return to the camps. When the soldiery of God recognized that misfortune, it grieved greatly, then found a wholesome counsel. They send ahead 1,000 arms-bearers, as before, whom Bohemond and the Flemish count follow with chosen soldiers, in the afore-named valley, in which the arms-bearers might flee to them if the Turks should pursue. Which so befell without delay. The Turks, after they recognized them from a distance, reins loosened, pressing the horses with the spurs, pursued them and turned them to flight. But our men fled to their own men as to the safest asylum, and found the protection of divine aid. The Turks, when they detected too from nearby that our soldiers were ready, at first hesitating, would most gladly have yielded the place, if they had been able to yield.

Yet when they recognized that the Christians were fewer than they themselves, they entered war; yet with trembling, trusting in their numerous multitude. But what does battle avail against which divine aid soldiers? For God is strong and powerful: the Lord powerful in battle. Only two of our men were killed there; but of the Turks, of whom there is no number, driven back from the hand of God, they were killed without number. Many captured they conducted to the camps, and before those upon the walls of the famous city they beheaded them. To strike greater grief and terror they threw the cut-off heads in the city with ballistas. Thence our men were able to go more readily to the villages and hamlets of the Armenians, seeking food, the Armenians themselves and the fellow-countrymen of that land bringing market to our men.

Meanwhile the most consecrated day of the Lord's Nativity arrived, which God conferred as most celebrated on all his faithful in this: because he who assigned to all creatures to be born arranged to be born for men only. Therefore the Christians made that day festive, as those who were in the tents were able to act more festively. Greater joy was in the camps than within the walls of the famous city: I call it famous, not because of the foul dwelling of the gentiles, but because of the position of the human condition, and especially the reconciliation of the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, with God.

Which celebration having been completed, they accepted counsel what they should do, because food was failing in the camps, and icy winter did not let those bringing market come to them. For those who were in the city, the more they knew our men to hunger, the more they began to rage against them. On this side the inclemency of the air, on this side the poverty of wretched want, on this side the distress of the adversaries was oppressing. And as is accustomed to befall in a multitude of those gathered, the voice of those murmuring was not failing; nor was it a wonder if human frailty, pressed under so many torments, murmured. Hail, snow, ice, the spirit of storms, was oppressing more violently those whom no covering covered; indeed no wonder if those who were outside the tents were badly maddening themselves, when the very tents were swimming.

For that reason, as we have said above, they entered counsel. Bohemond and the Flemish count offered themselves to come to the aid of this, and it pleased all. Those therefore chose 30,000 of horsemen and of the foot, and they entered into the land of the Saracens. O God, governor of all things, how more quickly you come to the aid of those laboring in dangers and necessity, that that might be fulfilled which Solomon wrote in the Proverbs: The substance of the sinner is preserved for the just! From Jerusalem and Damascus and Aleph and the rest of the regions had been gathered Persians and Arabs and Medes, a nation too great, which had arranged to come to Antioch and to defend it from the Christians. But otherwise it was arranged in heaven, and that arrangement inclined their ordinance downward. When they heard that a part of the Christians had entered into their land, they rejoiced vehemently, judging them now as if entangled in bonds. Then they divided themselves into two lines, so that our men, so walled by them, might nowhere find aid of flight. Which division was foolish, because folly always rests in the hearts of the unbelieving. Both lines, as they looked upon one another, immediately the one rushes upon the other; because that one trusts in its multitude, this one in the omnipotence of God, and for this reason the outcome of the war was unlike.

The armed soldiers struck down as many as they met in their encounter, as a reaper a harvest. But when, with reins loosened in a circle, they wished to return, they did not find any whom they might strike again except those fleeing. Those who came into the hands of our foot fell into an immense precipice. For those to whom wars are known know that the foot kill with heavier grinding than horsemen. The other line, which had separated itself so that it might encircle our men, when it heard the voices of those vanquishing and the sound of arms breaking, reins loosened, was running to the aid of its own. But when it recognized the wretched falls of those men, and looked around at those fleeing, a most vehement fear rushed upon them and conferred the fellowship of fleeing. What else should our men do, except pursue? For, as it is said in the common proverb: If there is one who flees, there will not be lacking one who pursues; now all our men were pursuing them, because those who had come as the foot were being made riders of horses. He who was able to escape was glad and cheerful; he who was intercepted fell by a most wretched death.

How many asses and camels, and how many beasts of burden, laden with grain, wine and the rest of the provisions, were captured there, welcome to the hungry army of God! How great a joy and the exultation of dancing in triumph there was that day in the camps, when they saw such gifts of the highest procurator! The Lord, from the wares of his enemies, brought from far off, was refreshing his faithful. He was filling the hungry with goods, with which he was stripping his adversaries. So too he once was doing for the children of Israel, when they desired to cross through the land of the gentile kings, and those men were denying them the public going of the royal way. All who were accepting the sword against them were perishing by the sword; and their land and resources were being given to them as a possession. Now the same Lord confers the same recompense on the adversaries of his own, so that these men may believe that what is written of those men was truly done. Through all things may God, who is to be blessed, be blessed, because without him we can do nothing.

In the meantime, while these glorious princes were away, those who were in the city suddenly went out and attacked our men within the camps, and killed very many of them. On that very day the bishop of Le Puy lost his steward, who used to bear the banner of his line. And unless a river had been between the camps and the city, they would have harassed them with greater and more frequent wrongs.

By which outcomes of wars, and most of all by the poverty of hunger, most of our men, afflicted, were attempting to go away; because it was too heavy for the unwilling to bear the fast, and for this reason they were plotting a flight from the siege. Whom Bohemond, an eloquent man, addressed thus, saying: "O men, who up to this point have stood outstanding warriors, whom God has already rendered victors through many dangers of wars, and whom the virtue of experience has honored as illustrious, why do you murmur against God, because the distress of poverty presses you? When he holds out his hand to you, then you exult; when he relaxes it, then you despair. In this you seem not to love the giver, but the gifts; not the bestower, but the offering of the one who bestows. When he bestows, he is the Lord and a friend; when he ceases, he seems to you to be indignant and foreign. To what nation ever has God granted, in so short a time, to engage in so many wars, to overcome so many most fierce enemies, to be made rich with so many spoils of nations, to be distinguished with so many palms of those triumphing? Behold now we have subjected innumerable enemies; behold now we have brought their spoils to you. What is this, that you so distrust, when you so conquer daily? He is not far off from you, who so fights for you; indeed he often tests his faithful, so that it may become known to the same whether they love him. Now he tests you through the troubles of poverty, and through the constant pressures of those hostile to you. But if they had inflicted on us as many wrongs as we also have imposed on them; if they had killed as many of us as we also have struck down of them: if anyone of us were surviving, he by right could have complained; but for certain there would be no one who would complain, because no survivor would have remained. For that reason do not distrust, but be men of heart; because if you live in him, or you die for him, you are blessed." With these and such words he rendered their unnerved spirits robust, and brought manliness into the effeminate minds.

When a few days had elapsed, the harshness of winter grew horrible, and in the camps the abundance of foods vanished. Those who were accustomed to sell foods, the snows and the ice preventing, were in no way able to come. The runners of the army, running across as far as into the land of the Saracens, were finding nothing at all; because all from the whole neighbouring region had either fled far, or had hidden in caves, or in the caverns of the rocks. When the Armenians and the Surani had seen our men placed in so great a crisis of hunger, they walked through places known to themselves, anxiously inquiring if they might find anything to bring to our men. But among so many it was rare, nor sufficient for so great a multitude; and therefore an ass's load of grain was sold at the price of 6 pounds; an egg for 12 denarii, and one nut for one. Whatever was held cheaper was sold too dear. Many there perished of hunger, who did not have that from which they might buy anything. And so there began to arise among them a great inconstancy of spirits and a distrust of the whole of good hope. And what wonder if the spirits of the poor, or of the feeble, were wavering, when those who seemed as if they were pillars were failing entirely?

For Peter the Hermit and William the Carpenter, by a nocturnal slipping away, were turned to flight, and were separated from the sacred fellowship of the faithful of God. But of William let us say who he was, because we have made mention of Peter above. William was sprung from a royal lineage, and formerly stood viscount of a certain royal castle, which is called Melun, who therefore began to be surnamed the Carpenter because in war no one wanted to encounter him. For there was no mail, helmet, or shield that would sustain the hard blows of his lance or of his sword. Whence it is to be wondered at, and to be grieved, how so great a dullness of mind came upon such a man, that he withdrew so shamefully from the camps of illustrious men. But this, as we hope, he had not done from fear of battles; he had never learned to suffer so great a wrong of hunger. When Tancred, a soldier strong and entire in spirit, came to know this rupture of flight, grieving vehemently, he pursued them and seized them, compelled them to return with disgrace, and brought them to the house of Bohemond. It is not to be said whether he suffered shame, who, with no one putting him to flight, had entered upon flight. Very many who had known him were grieving; all who did not know of what sort he had stood were reviling. At last, harassed with many wrongs, for the reverence of Hugh the Great, whose kinsman he was, and because he had already fought honorably with them in past contests, he obtained peace; but he swore before all that he would never again depart thus. Nevertheless he did not keep the sacrament long, because, as quickly as he could, he departed secretly.

God, then, that he might prove his own, permitted this bitterness of hunger to come about, so that his terror might also come into being among all nations. For he was both pressing his own with fasting and bounding the nations neighboring them with the sword. 1,000 were falling from the side of one, and 10,000 from the right of another. And therefore one must never despair of such a Lord; because whatever he does, for those who love him they work together unto good. Lest they grow insolent from so many victories of wars, he was oppressing them with the heavy want of fasts. For in the whole army 1,000 horses fit for fighting could not be found, so that by this it might become known that they would not have trust in the strength of a horse, but in him, through whom, both how he willed and when he willed, they overcame.

There was a certain soldier in the same army, named Tetigus, rich among his own and most renowned, well known in the parts of Romania, veiled under a cloaked covering of frivolity. He came to the princes, and said to them: "Why do we thus grow numb here? Why do we not seek the things that will profit us? If it seems good to you, I will go into the region of Romania, and from there I will bring you a plentiful market in the fidelity of the emperor; I will have ships laden with all merchandise, grain, wine, oil, barley, flesh, flour, cheeses, brought by sea, and horses, mules, and she-mules by land. And lest you have any expectation of distrust concerning me, I will leave behind my tents and all my goods, this only excepted, which I shall carry with me. And if you still distrust me, I will swear that I will return to you more quickly." The princes believed his lying words, but they received the sacrament; he himself, however, neither kept the sacrament, nor fulfilled the pledge of his words. We have therefore said these things about these two soldiers, so that anyone may perceive how great a want there was in the camps, which even compelled the rich to flee and to commit perjury. And when they were already being so pressed, and all human hope was failing altogether, the greatest part of the whole army sought from the princes license to go back; and they themselves, weeping with one mind, allowed them. For why should they retain those whom they could not console?

10. The Battle at the Bridge

And while desolation was thus weakly sprouting in the camps, and no one had any counsel, divine compassion granted them the accustomed aid. A messenger was present who reported that innumerable thousands of Turks were at hand nearby, and asserted that they were being assembled that night in the castle nearest to them, named Areth, which we have named above. They were coming secretly and in great silence so that they might find them unprepared in the camps. This word became known to all, and those whom it found sluggish in the sleep of sloth it rendered stirred up. He leaps and dances in triumph who now was unable to walk. The spirit of those whom want of food had put to sleep revived. With hands raised toward heaven they praise God, and they clap with their hands as if they had already conquered the war. For they preferred to die honorably in war rather than to be tortured by poverty of food. Then the nobles accepted counsel: one part of all should remain in the camps to guard; the other should go to battle to meet those coming. Those going out from the camps at night were placed in ambush, awaiting the encounter of those going before, and they lay between the river and the lake. At the very first light they sent scouts to see their ranks and report their being to them. The scouts report that they have never seen so many thousands of them together, and that from the side of the river two lines separated from the multitude are running with swifter horses. Then our men, placed on a certain slope, furnish themselves beforehand with the sign of the Cross together with arms, stretch out their hands in heaven, commit themselves to God, and demand his aid.

Presently our men receive those coming upon them, and piercing with the blow, they strike down to the ground as many as they meet. Others, scattered through the field, fly about and send out showers of poisoned arrows. They gnash with their teeth and bark after the manner of dogs, because they think so to terrify their adversaries. But our men were mocking these things; and, protected by shields, mail, and helmets, they were despising their discharges. But when their innumerable multitude drew near, they attacked our men with so great an onset that they were somewhat turned to flight. When Bohemond, who last was keeping the guardianship, saw this, he burst forth into the midst with his line, and gathering the companions again, he conducted the enemies to destruction. For when they saw our men's banners hanging down upon their heads, and our men, after the manner of roaring lions, being carried about into the midst of the enemies, and all around them being torn, they fear and are thrown into confusion, and, the horses' reins having been turned back, they go back to the Farrean bridge as swiftly as they can. What should the Franks do now unless they struck with the sword at close quarters? The way is strewn with the bodies of the dying, the air filled with the voices of those howling, the earth, made wet with blood, pierced by the feet of the trampling horses. When they come to the bridge, the way is pressed, and the bridge did not receive all; very many are thrown headlong into the river, and those whom the wave was holding it was swallowing, wrapped in a swift whirling. A greater part perished than escaped. Those who escaped fled to their castle, which we named above; but they did not remain long in it; they dismissed it plundered, empty, and fleeing they went away.

But our men took it, and placed guardians to guard it and the bridge. The Armenians also and the Surani pursued those who were fleeing, and by occupying the narrow places in advance they killed many, and detained more as captives. And so the sons of the Devil, according to their own merit, received destruction from ruin to ruin. Our men returned to the camp with huge joy, bringing horses and mules and she-mules, and very many spoils necessary to the companions who were in need. They also brought the heads of many of the dead, which they placed before the gate of the city, where the envoys of the amirald of Babylon had lodging. The companions who were in the camp, who had fought the whole day with the citizens who had gone out from the city and brought back the palm of victory, received them with the highest joy. Then the doubled joy of a double victory made a festive time, and restored those who had been almost consumed by the grief of want. Now the Armenians and the Surani were bringing food to the camp, rejoicing together at the happy outcome of our men. But those from the city were going out, hiding among the rocks of the mountains, lying in ambush for those who were bringing food, and killing as many as they could seize. This greatly saddened the nobles; they entered into counsel and found a remedy for this calamity.

They established a castle before the gate of the city, upon the bridge beside Machumaria, which greatly subdued them, because afterwards none of them dared to go out over the bridge. And because the men of the camp did not suffice to complete this work, Bohemond and the count of Saint-Gilles went to the port of Saint Symeon, and from there they strove to bring workmen hired at a price.

When they were bringing them, they found the Turks who that night went out of the city, placed in ambush, who with a sudden course so bravely attacked our men that they put those who were horsemen to flight into the mountains without any striking back of the contest; the foot, who could not flee, suffered a grim death. But the more bitter it was, the more glorious too. And those who died there were almost 1,000. But those killing did not rejoice long from there. A report of this killing came to the camps and moved all the princes and the nobles. They, leaping forth on horses, fly with ordered ranks to avenge the death of their own, and find them still in the field cutting off the heads of the slain. They, however, not at all terrified, trusting in their multitude, come together for the fight; but with our men trusting with their whole heart, with all their power, after our foot were joined together with the horsemen, they are overcome in a short time.

For when they saw those whom they had compelled to flee to the mountains running up, and our men's ranks growing bravely and pressing on more strongly, they turn their backs, and toward the bridge they seize the way of flight. But the difficulty of the narrow journey greatly hindered them: they could neither flee anywhere nor turn about. To turn back was not lawful, because the enemy was pressing; to turn aside to the right and the left, the impossibility of the narrow journey; the dense multitude of the fleeing forbade going before. And so it had befallen them by a divine nod, that it was permitted neither to flee nor to fight. There neither the poisonous arrow availed the Turk, nor did the horse's swiftness come to his aid. There the foot wrought a greater slaughter than those who sat on horses, because in file, as a reaper does meadows or harvest, they were cutting them down. There the swords and missiles of other nations could have been sated with the Turks' blood; but because they were of the Frankish-born, they could neither be blunted nor be filled with gore. Our men only were fighting; those men were suffering; our men were striking; those men were dying. Among the living the dead were standing, because, propped by the density of the living, they could not fall. So great a fear had attacked them that the one following was striking down the one going before, so that he might flee, each oppressing the other to death.

And so Duke Godfrey, the outstanding honor of the soldiery, when he saw that no one could strike them except from behind, flying on a swift horse, reached the entrance of the bridge first. They had begun to flee, and had thrown their arms on the ground; they were terrified of the duke's sword as of death, and yet they could not avoid it. He, with arms extended, sword bared, was cutting off their necks; they, not struggling at all, unwillingly offered their naked bodies. There place, wrath, sword, and a strong hand were fighting; and all this overflowed upon the limbs of the wretched. And when one of them, bolder than the rest, more excellent in bulk of body and more robust in strength, like another Goliath, saw the duke raging so mercilessly upon his men, with bloody spurs he presses his horse against him, and with the sword raised on high he strikes through the whole shield over the duke's head; and if the duke had not spread the boss to the blow and inclined himself to the other side, he would have paid the debt of death; but God guarded his soldier, and furnished him with the shield of his defence. The duke, kindled with vehement wrath, prepares to pay back the like, and in this way he makes for his neck. He raises the sword, and drove it in from the left side of the shoulders with such power that it split the breast in the middle, broke the spine and the vitals, and so the slippery sword came out whole over the right thigh; and so he plunged the whole head with the right part of the body into the flood, and sent the part that sat upon the horse back to the city. At this dreadful spectacle all who were in the city stream together, and seeing, they were so amazed, they were dismayed, they were shaken; trembling seized them: there, pains as of a woman in labour; there, voices of those howling, because that man had been one of their amiralds. Then they unsheathed their swords, they bent their bows, they prepared their arrows in their quivers, to shoot the duke, desiring, if it were permitted them, to put out so great a light of the Christian soldiery. But God did not consent to their wicked will, because the duke drew back; for he could not long sustain the hail of missiles and arrows. Praiseworthy is the right hand of the unconquered duke, and the sword which persevered in its wholeness. The duke's victory shone forth before the rest, because the part of the halved body that remained was a testimony of praise. But the flood that swallowed the bodies of the slain hid the marvelous deeds of the other princes, who were his peers in all the victories of the battles. As the wind of a whirlwind breaks the boughs of an aged tree, so the cut limbs of the dying were falling. In this battle one pursued 1,000, and two put 10,000 to flight. Those who were plunging themselves into the river at a rapid course, coming up, were embracing the wooden pillars of the bridge; but our men from above were piercing them with lances and killing them.

The gore poured out was giving a bloody color to the river, and it was striking a great horror into all who were looking on. The density of bodies was impeding the river's course and compelling it to go backward. For on the bridge 5,000 were struck down, all of which were thrown headlong inside. And who was able to number how many the raging sword compelled to be plunged into the river with a headlong leap? In that conflict the son of King Cassianus the Great was killed, and 12 amiralds of the king of Babylon, whom he had sent with their armies to bring aid to the king of Antioch. And those whom they call amiralds are kings, who are set over the provinces of the regions. A province, indeed, is that which has one metropolitan, 12 consuls, and one king. Therefore they came together from as many provinces as there were amiralds dead there; and those who were captured there were reckoned at 7,000. No one was able to hold in any memory the glory of the garments, of the arms, and of the rest of the array. And so the Turks were overcome with greatness of spirit by the Franks, and afterwards their chattering voice, the gnashing of teeth, and the clamorousness of daily insults, fell silent. But now they were going with lowered countenances, and most, entirely distrusting, going out of the city stealthily, were fleeing. Night coming on broke off the strife, and our men, the victors, returned to the camp; but they, with the doors barred, withdrew themselves within the city.

On the next day, as soon as the morning light came forth, the Turks went out from the city and gathered the bodies of the dead, as many as they could find, and handed them over to burial. When the young men of the Christian army heard this, many, massed into one, ran to the cemetery; and what those men had buried with great honor they drew outside with great disgrace. They had buried them underground beyond the bridge at Machumaria, which was before the gate of the city, and they had wrapped very many in cloaks, and had laid up with them golden bezants, arms, bows and arrows, and many other things: for as it is their custom to bury; but it is our men's to take those things most gladly. Therefore, when all the bodies had been pulled away, they cut off the heads, wanting to know the number of those who were slain at the bank of the river; they brought the heads they had cut off to the camp, and left the corpses unburied for the wild beasts and the birds. Those looking out from the high walls and the lofty towers grieved vehemently at this, and tearing their cheeks and plucking their hair, they began to call upon Muhammad, their teacher, to their aid; but Muhammad could not restore those whom Christ through his soldiers willed to exterminate.

11. The Fall of Antioch

A forerunner arrived, proclaiming that the messengers of the prince of Babylon would arrive on the next day, and seeking from the princes of the camps the trust of coming in safety. They readily consent and furnish themselves beforehand solemnly for their reception. The tents are made beautiful with various ornaments; shields are set upon stakes fixed in the earth, on which the next day the game of the quintain, the equestrian game, might be practiced. Dice, chess, swift courses of horses with the bridles bent into a circle were not lacking, nor military onsets, nor the brandishings of spears against one another. In these acts it was shown that they were trembling with no fear. The youth were cultivating such things; those older in age and in sense sat as one, conferring counsel and prudence. When the Babylonian messengers approached and caught sight of so many dancing in triumph with so great a joy, they wondered, because a report had run as far as Babylon that they were both being tormented by hunger and being shaken with fear. They were brought before the princes and reported in these words what had been committed to them. "Our lord, the admiraviss of Babylon, sends you, the princes of the Franks, greeting and friendship, if you are willing to obey his will. In the hall of the king of the Persians and of our lord, a great assembly has been gathered concerning you; and for seven days the counsel was prolonged, as to what was to be done by them about this. For they wonder why, armed in this way, you seek the Sepulchre of your Lord, driving their people out from borders long possessed, nay, what is unspeakable for pilgrims, slaughtering them at the mouth of the sword. But if henceforth you are willing to go in scrip and staff, they will make you pass through to that place with the greatest honor and with abundance of goods: they will make horsemen from the foot-soldiers; those who are poor will hunger no longer on the whole journey, nor on the return. And if it should please you to sojourn at the Sepulchre for a month, abundance of good things will not be lacking: leave to go through the whole of Jerusalem will be granted to you, so that both the Temple and the Sepulchre may be venerated with whatever honor it shall please. But if you despise these things granted to you, and you trust in the greatness of your spirits and in arms, we hold it among us to be rash that any human power should join battle against the Babylonians and the king of the Persians. Now indeed open to us what among these things meets your applause; but what displeases, declare in common."

To these things the common judgment of the princes answered, saying: "It is not to be wondered at by any wise man if we come with arms to the Sepulchre of our Lord and drive your nation from these borders; because whoever of our men had been accustomed up to this point to come with staff and scrip were wronged with shameful mockery, and, bearing the disgrace of insults, were finally killed. The land, however, is not that nation's, although they have possessed it long, because it was our men's from ancient times, and your hostile nation carried it off from them on account of its own malice. It ought not for that reason to be yours because you have held it long; for by heavenly censure it has now been decreed that what was unjustly taken from the fathers be mercifully rendered to the sons. Nor let your nation glory that it has overcome the effeminate nation of the Greeks, because, with divine power assisting, merit will be recompensed on your necks by the sword of the Franks. And it will be able to be known to those who do not know that it is not of men to overthrow kingdoms, but of him through whom kings reign. They themselves say that they wish to indulge us, if from now on we are willing to cross with scrip and staff: let their mercy be rendered upon itself, because, whether they will or will not, our poverty will be made rich or emptied by their treasures. When Jerusalem has been granted to us by God, who prevails to carry it off? There is no human power that may entirely strike terror into us: because when we die we are born, when we lose temporal life, we recover everlasting life. Therefore report to those who sent you that the arms which we took up in our fatherland, even when Jerusalem has been captured, we will not dismiss. For we trust in him who teaches our hands for battle, and sets our arms as a bronze bow; because a way will be opened by our swords, and all scandals will be rooted out, and Jerusalem will be captured. Then it will be ours, not through a man's indulgence, but through the equity of heavenly censure. For from the countenance of the Lord this judgment has gone forth, that Jerusalem will be ours."

The envoys did not find what further they might hold out. When they had heard this word they were scandalized, and they entered Antioch, our men consenting.

On the third day after the battle they began to build the castle of which we made mention above, at the entrance of the bridge, at Machumaria, in the place of the cemetery before the door of the city. They destroyed all the stone tombs of the dead and from those furnished the castle. When this had been completed, it was commended to Raymond, the outstanding count of Saint-Gilles. This deed greatly constrained those in the city, because they did not prevail to go out further from that side. Our men were now going securely wherever they were arranging to go. Then the nobles chose the most excellent men and the swifter horses; and not far from the city they crossed the river and found the greatest prey, horses and mares, mules and she-mules, asses and camels, and 5,000 animals. All these they brought to the camps, and great joy was celebrated among the worshippers of Christ. This misfortune vehemently wore the citizens down, because the abundance of goods which strengthened our men, being lost, weakened them.

There, where the prey had been captured, was an ancient castle, torn down by neglect and age, and a certain monastery still flourished there. So that they might constrain their enemies more, it pleased the nobles to rebuild this and encircle it with a strong fortification. When this had been made ready in a short time, inquiry was made who should guard it; and while the guardianship was being treated of, and very many words were proceeding into the wind, Tancred, an illustrious prince and outstanding young man, keen in speeches and in deeds, sprang forth into the midst, saying: "I will guard the castle, if a merit worthy of my guardianship will be recompensed." They all assessed a price in common and conferred 400 marks of silver upon him. Tancred entered the castle and made it firm with troops of foot-soldiers and with strong soldiery more than another fortification. This he took up happily, God helping: because on that very day a great people of the Armenians, and of the Surani, was coming to the city, bringing rich provisions to the city-dwellers. Tancred, placed in ambush, seized them all; nevertheless he did not wish to kill them, because they were Christians, but conducted them with the packs themselves to his castle. He permitted them at last to go away unharmed on this condition: that they promised him, in the Christian faith, that they would bring him the necessities for a suitable price until Antioch should be captured — which they strenuously fulfilled, as they had pledged.

Tancred had blocked the ways and paths for those in the city, so that no one dared to go out. For that reason they sought a truce of peace, saying that in that interval they would treat among themselves on what condition they would deliver themselves and the city to the Christians. The princes believed; the pacts drawn up and a time established, they gave and received sacraments of keeping the peace. The gates of the city are opened, and the liberty of going to one another is allowed. Then the Franks were going freely along the circuit of the walls and standing at the bulwarks with the citizens themselves, and the citizens were coming to the camp with joy.

When the last day of the truce was now arriving, a certain Gualo, a Christian soldier, outstanding in arms and most renowned among the foremost, too credulous toward the faithless nation, was walking about through their thickets, and with his eyes he was being fed on the Tempe of the places. Him, as an unarmed man, armed dogs attacked, and, divided member by member, they tore him to pieces with miserable torment. Alas! by Gualo's death peace is broken, the sacraments of faith that had been given are violated, the gates of the city are blocked again; and the perfidious Gentiles are shut up within the caverns of their walls and towers. Very great mourning is held in the camps, because Gualo's death is lamented with frequent sobs by all the men and women.

But his spouse was rousing all to tears, pitiably lacerating herself beyond the custom of other women; and she who was moving others to mourning, because of sobs and frequent sighs, could neither speak nor cry. She was born of the high blood of nobles, and, according to the infirmity of this flesh, outstanding in form beyond the rest. She was for the most part motionless like a marble pillar, so that she was more often thought to be dead, except that the vital heat throbbing in the uppermost breast was perceived; but also still a vein lying hidden under the very little hairy skin was beating at the down that parts the eyelashes. When she was breathing, forgetful of womanly modesty she was rolling herself on the earth, and, cutting her cheeks with her nails, she was rending her golden hair. Other matrons come to meet her, who forbid her to do such things to herself and watch her with pious guardianship. When she could speak, she burst forth in these words, saying:

"Alas! how greatly he desired to see your Sepulchre, for which he scorned all that he had, and himself! By what unhappy misfortune was his sword drawn far from him, which so came together with his side? O me at least happy, if it had been allowed me in his last spirit to close his eyes, to wash the wounds with tears, and to wipe them with my hands and my garment, and to commit the sweet members to the tomb!" At these sights Everard, her brother, intervened, and, so far as he let it, he checked the force of the grief. That indeed must not be passed by, which befell before the death of this man, while the time of the truce remained entire and faithful.

There was a certain amirald of the race of the Turks in that royal city, with whom Bohemond had very many private conferences in time of peace. This man asked of him where that countless army of the white-clad, by whose aid they were supported in all wars, had placed its camp. For he was saying that they could never sustain their arrival; but as soon as they saw them, they began to fear: those oppressed them as the wind of a whirlwind, and these wounded them; those overwhelmed them, and these killed them. To him Bohemond says: "Do you think there is another army than this one of ours that you see?" To him he: "By Muhammad, my teacher, I swear that if they were at hand here, this whole plain would not hold them. All have white horses, of marvelous swiftness, and clothing, and shields, and banners of the same color. But perhaps they are hidden for this reason, lest your camp be shown to us. But, by the faith you have in Jesus, where is their camp placed?" Bohemond, illuminated by the spirit of God, perceived that this vision which he had seen was of God, and that what this man was asking proceeded not from temptation but from good will; and answering he says: "Although you are foreign to our law, because I see you animated by good will toward us and by a good spirit, I will open to you some sacrament of our faith. If you had so much deep understanding, you ought to give thanks to the Creator of all, who has shown you the army of the white-clad; and know that they do not dwell on earth, but in the upper dwellings of the kingdom of the heavens. These are they who sustained martyrdom for the faith of Christ, and fought in every land against the unbelieving. Their chief standard-bearers are George, Demetrius, Maurice, who in this temporal life both wore military arms and were beheaded for the Christian faith. These, as often as it is expedient for us, at the command of the Lord Jesus Christ, support us, and through these our enemies are thrown down. And that you may know that I profess the truth, inquire today and tomorrow, and on the next day, whether in this whole region its camp will be able to be found. If they are found, we shall blush in your sight, convicted of a lie; and when you have been unable to find them in the whole region, if it will be necessary for us, on the next day you will see them at hand. From where, then, will they come so quickly, unless from the upper seats in which they dwell?" To him Pirrus answered (for such was his name): "And if they come from heaven, where do they find so many white horses, so many shields, so many banners?" To him Bohemond: "You ask great things, and beyond my understanding. Therefore if you wish, let my chaplain come, who will answer you upon these things."

To this the chaplain said: "When the almighty Creator disposes to send his angels, or the spirits of the just, onto the earth, then they take to themselves bodies of air, so that through them they, who cannot be seen in their spiritual essence, may become known to us. Therefore they now appear armed, so that they may indicate that they come to help those laboring in war. For if they appeared as pilgrims or as priests in white stoles, they would announce not war, but peace. When the affair for which they come has been completed, they return to the heavens from which they came; and the bodies which they received so that they might appear visible they put back into the same matter which they took up. Nor should you wonder if the almighty maker of all transmutes matter made by himself into any form whatever, he who brought all things from nothing into essence." And Pirrus said to this: "By him whom you assert to be the Creator, you say things marvelous, and reasonable, and until now unheard by us." To these things Bohemond added and said: "O Pirrus, does it not seem to you to be a great miracle, which the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we believe, works through us? For the fewer we are, the stronger we are; but you, the more numerous you are, the feebler. To what do you attribute this power, to humanity or to divinity? Man is not from himself, but from his creator: from whom he has being, he has ability also. From this you can conjecture that, although one creator created us and you, he nevertheless grants a richer abundance of his power to us than to you. We are certain in his power that we shall obtain not only Antioch, but also all Romania and Syria, even Jerusalem itself, because the almighty Son of God, Jesus, has promised us this." Pirrus prudently understood these and similar words of Bohemond, and Bohemond vehemently won him over with his love.

When that which was said above about Gualo had befallen, the enemy of the human race advising, Pirrus was not able to speak with his Bohemond any longer, but he sent word of these things to him secretly through an intermediary: "I know you to be a noble man and a faithful Christian; I commend myself and my house to your faith; I will do for you what you have urged me to do: I will hand over to you the three towers which I guard in Antioch, and I will open one of the gates to you and to your people; and, lest you believe this to be frivolous, and lest you distrust my faith, I send my son to you, whom I uniquely love as my only one, and I commit him, as I do myself, to your faith." When these things had been seen and heard, Bohemond rejoiced, and great devotion grew in him toward God; he burst abundant tears from his eyes; and giving thanks to God, he stretched his hands toward heaven. He summoned the princes together and brought such things before them, saying: "Outstanding princes and warrior men, you have learned how many wrongs we have suffered in this siege, and how many we suffer, and, as long as God shall will, we shall suffer. If God should wish to give this city to anyone by some device, say whether your authority would allow it to him." At these things many exclaimed together, saying: "We shall have it together, we who together have endured the distresses of necessities." Then Bohemond, smiling a little, says: "Woe to the city that will be subject to so many lords! Do not, brothers, speak thus; but let it be subjected to the command of him who will be able to acquire it." When he saw that nothing was availing, he returned to his camp, and nevertheless he detained the messengers of Pirrus who had come to him.

But the princes, Bohemond having been set aside, entered into counsel, saying: "We have not good counsel, we who go against the words of Bohemond, a most wise man. If from the first day on which we came together here this could have been done, great profit would have come to us from it. None of us went out from his own land for ambition of the city of Antioch: let him have it to whom God shall have willed to give it; let the intention of us all be one, namely the deliverance of the holy Sepulchre." It pleased all. Bohemond is called, and Antioch is granted to him benevolently by all, if he can acquire it.

Bohemond therefore sends back men faithful to him at the twilight of night to his friend, that he may report to him both the manner and the term. Pirrus sends word that on the next day the army of the Franks should be moved, as if it ought to go to prey in the land of the Saracens; and when night has begun to darken, let them return to the camp from the side of the city, "in which I myself," he says, "will keep watch with ears pricked up in my towers. Let them come ready near the wall, and let them never fear anything."

Bohemond entrusted this counsel to certain of his familiars, Hugh the Great, and Duke Godfrey, the bishop of Le Puy, and Count Raymond. He said to them: "On the coming night, with divine grace helping, Antioch will be handed over to us;" and he set forth the message to them. They, having heard all, rejoiced, and blessed the Lord.

On the next day the leaders of the warriors gathered huge wedges of soldiers and very many troops of foot soldiers, and having gone out they crossed the mountain country, as if about to prey in the land of the Saracens. When night was arriving, they returned with the utmost silence and prepared themselves in good hope.

But Bohemond went on to the place appointed for him by his friend, with only his own soldiers; with a few he remained far from the walls, and directed the rest with one ladder to the walls themselves, which, having been raised, was able to reach to the bulwarks.

When this was erected, from so great a multitude no one presumed to ascend first. When all were so hesitating, one soldier, named Fulcher, of Chartres by nation, bolder than the rest, says: "I, in the name of Jesus Christ, will ascend first to whatever God shall have called me to take up, whether to martyrdom, or to obtaining the prize of victory." As he is ascending, the rest follow, and in a short time the very summits of the walls are reached. Pirrus was standing there, awaiting their presence, and bearing too great a delay with difficulty. When he saw Bohemond very little, he inquired where he was. He is said to be at hand nearby; but Pirrus was vehemently saddened by the absence, saying:

A messenger is chosen who may announce these things to Bohemond. When he heard this, he ran up in haste; but when he came to the ladder, he found it broken.

Meanwhile Fulcher, who had ascended with 60 armed young men, had occupied, apart from the towers of Pirrus, three others by warlike virtue, and in them had killed two brothers of Pirrus.

Although Pirrus was not ignorant of this, he did not hold back from the promised pact of faith; but, when he heard that the ladder had been broken, he opened the gates to Bohemond as he came and to all the multitude of the Franks. And although he was drawing heavy groans from the bottom of his breast and long sighs, nevertheless no wrong that had been inflicted removed him from the promised faith. Bohemond greeted him at the very entrance of the gate with his head bowed, and gave him thanks for the benefit conferred. When he had learned the cause of his lamentation, he grieved greatly; and from his soldiers, who were to guard him and protect his goods, he left behind a faithful guardianship. During that night a comet, which prefigures a change of kingdom, was glowing red among the other stars of heaven, putting forth the rays of its light; and between the north and the East a fiery redness was flashing in heaven. While these evident signs were radiating in heaven, and the dawn was bringing back light to the lands, the army of God entered the gates of Antioch, in the power of him who crushed the bronze gates of hell and broke the iron bars, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, every kingdom and empire is subject, whose power remains unto ages of ages. Amen.

12. Corbanam at the Gates

All the faithful, attend to the faith of this Pirrus: if you promise anything from faith through faith, carry it through without any contradiction. No memory of a brother's death, no force of grief, no goading of sorrow could turn him from the promised faith; the pact availed more with him than the putting to death of two own brothers by dire torment. Samson's ancient riddle is equivalent to this. Samson says: From the eater food went out, and from the strong, sweetness. Now from the faithless, faith has proceeded, and from the foreigner, familiar and entire love. Lest we make a wearisome digression, let us return to the begun proposition of the history.

On the fourth of the Nones of June the Christians entered Antioch, and in the mouth of the sword they avenged it upon its invaders. Fulcher and his accomplices, who had ascended the wall with him, attacked the towers from every side, piercing the unwary watchmen, unbound by sleep, with darts and swords, and throwing them from the highest summit to the earth. Those sleeping in the houses, awakened by the cry, went outside and did not return: they found swords ready. Those who were Christians were sounding Kyrieleison and other praises to God, so that they might be known to our men as Christians, not Turks. Everywhere the squares are strewn with the bodies of the dying: none of them was resisting; all were seeking hiding-places and flight. Honor is paid to none: boys with girls, young men with old men, old men with young men, mothers also with daughters are killed. Those who could flee were going out through the gates, nevertheless escaping death very little, falling into the hands of those coming from the camps.

Cassianus also, king and lord of the city, covered in cheap rags, escaped among those fleeing, and came into Tancred's land. By his own evil misfortune the Armenians recognized him, immediately cut off his neck, and brought his head to the princes and the belt; they valued the price of the belt at 60 bezants. A great part fled into the castle that overhangs the city, so fortified by position and nature that it fears the artifice of no engine. A mountain adjoins the city, its peak stretched to the stars, which the eyes of those gazing can scarcely reach; from it the whole region can be surveyed. In it a numerous multitude of Turks fled, and they had that only receptacle.

There was one tower too near this castle, which Bohemond with his satellites was now obtaining, and through it he was preparing to attack. They, higher than the tower, send arrows and darts from above in the likeness of hail, so that our men could very little fight, but only cover themselves with shields. The narrow place distressed them, and the enemy from above oppressed them: there was no way of those contending than the breadth of the walls. The Turks, rushing against the tower, one drove another; there was no going back, nor a turning aside to left or right. As many onsets as struck upon our men, they received on lances, darts, and swords, and threw the wounded to the earth; from them they struck down those attempting to dig out the tower from below. So the dead inflicted death upon the living, and for him in whom life was in the soul, death appeared in the body.

In this conflict Bohemond was gravely shot with arrows in the thigh, and now he could not go except limping. Blood dripped copiously from the wound, and the heart of the most noble prince began to fail from its former power. Unwilling, he fell back into another tower and left the war behind. In his infirmity the power of the others fell, because each greatly grieved the pitiable fall of his leader.

One man nevertheless remained on the upper summit of the tower, whose outstanding death the whole army of our men lamented with one mind. Left behind alone, bearing an unconquered spirit, as a bear among mastiffs, he defended himself on both sides, tearing stones and rubble from the walls and throwing them down upon those who attacked him. At last, laden with 1,000 arrows, when he saw that he would not escape death, he hastened death for himself: with shield and arms he leaped forth where the crowd was denser, and was a torment to his killers. There is no tongue of flesh that can fully narrate what the band of the Franks was able to destroy there; and unless the castle's stronghold had been so strong, on that very day the Lord would have granted a great relief to the calamities that were to come upon his people. But God willed that the Antiochene city should be obtained with difficulty, so that once obtained it might be held more dear. Things more quickly acquired grow cheap; things long desired are embraced more dearly. Night intervening broke off the strife. It took away the fight, but did not grant the weary sleep: where the enemy is at hand within the walls, no means of resting can be. On the next day, the sixth weekday, some were dragging the stripped corpses of the dead outside the walls, others from the towers were contending with the men of the castle with javelins and arrows.

And while the matter is thus being done, those standing on the towers and walls gaze from a distance at an immense cloud of stirred dust. Some were saying that it was the Constantinopolitan emperor coming in aid; others, which was true, the ranks of the Persians. Those coming first, when they saw Antioch, sat down into one, awaiting the soldiery coming behind. Corbanam was the prince of the soldiery of the king of the Persians, who for a long time had gathered that column of diverse nations. There were Persians and Medes, Arabs and Turks, Azimites and Saracens, Curti and Publicans, and many others of diverse nations. Of the Agulani there were 3,000, bearing no arms except only swords: all covered on every side with iron, they feared no opposing arms. Their horses scorned to bear banners and lances, and were kindled with too great wrath against those who were bearing them. When these had come together, they directed their runners before the city to provoke our men to war and advise them to go out. Our men, fatigued from yesterday's conflict, judged it more wholesome to remain within the walls than to set wars in motion outside. They, running through the fields and plains, were stirring our men to wars and casting dire insults; they were throwing lances and swords on high and receiving them in their hands. When they could draw no one out, they arranged to return to the camp.

Whom, when they were returning, one of our men, Roger of Barneville, pursued with three other armed men, hoping that he might draw something out from them. They did not want a contest with equals, because they had already heard many things of the Franks' battles; they placed ambushes behind themselves under a hollowed rock, and sent out some of their own to harass them as if in a fight. When our men were crossing the ambushes, thieves came out from their caves and attacked them from behind. Those going before turn back to meet them, and they direct a swift course against them. Detected, with the reins bent aside, they hoped to gain flight, but it could in no way be found. Roger sends his companions ahead before his countenance, and he himself, with the buckler thrown back behind his back, sustains their most frequent blows. Already he had almost escaped, already he was holding the places nearest to safety, when his horse plunged to the ground, and clinging to the falling horse he himself fell, who could in no way be raised up, oppressed by the bulk of the horse. Alas! how great a grief and gnashing of teeth there was then upon the walls of Antioch, when the high-born youth of the Franks saw the dogs tearing their famous soldier limb from limb. They turned their eyes away, nor could they see it. At the last the dogs cut off his head; and driving it onto a pike, as if a banner of triumph, they carried it away to the camp. Their camp was beside the Farrean bridge.

Sensadolus, the son of the lately deceased king of Antioch, had gone against Corbanam, and as a suppliant had fallen forward at his feet, asking that he have mercy on him and help him against the Franks, who had killed his father and had disinherited him from the famous city. He had no refuge except in the city's stronghold alone, because now the whole city was subject to the Franks. "My father, while he still lived, sent a legion to you so that you might come to her aid, so that he might either make you rich with great gifts, or receive Antioch and the whole kingdom from you. I promise you the same, that if you can recover Antioch, I will receive it from you, and I will do all fidelity to you. But if you cannot, you must flee, and so must all the men of our nation. For Romania will not suffice them, or Syria, nor Khorasan: because they say Jerusalem is theirs, and the kingdom of Damascus." The kings of these provinces were there, hearing this word. Corbanam answered: "If you want me to help you in every way, and restore you to your kingdom, render the castle which you still have into my hand, because through it Antioch will be restored to you." To whom Sensadolus again: "If you prevail to drive the Franks out of the city, and to deliver to me their necks cut off, I will hand the castle over to you; and from there I will do homage to you." Each consented, and the castle was handed over; Corbanam delivered it to a certain faithful man of his to guard. He received the guardianship on this condition, that if the Franks should conquer, he too, as the others, having left the castle, would flee. To whom he: "And if we are vanquished, what would we do with the castle? It is worthy that the victors have the castle, because victory will be a greater prize than the castle."

When these things had thus been done, Corbanam fell silent upon them, and appointed a time for instituting other things. When he was sitting on the throne, they brought before him a Frankish-born sword, greatly contemptible and blunt and covered with foul rust, and a lance similar in the same deformity, which even by its own wretchedness made the sword superior. When Corbanam had seen these things, he says: "Who will tell us where these arms were found? Or for what cause have they been presented to our sight?" Those who had brought them said: "Glorious prince, and honor of the kingdom of the Persians, we took these arms from a certain Frankish-born man, and we have brought them to you, so that you may see and recognize with what arms that ragged nation threatens to plunder us and our borders, nay even to lay waste all Asia." Then Corbanam, smiling, says: "It is clear that that nation is sufficiently senseless, and uses reason too little, which with such arms reckons to subject the kingdom of the Persians to itself. The nation is indeed presumptuous, and too ambitious of another's right; namely a nation which trusts in its own high spirit; but by Muhammad, it has entered badly the borders of Syria and the walls of the royal city of Antioch."

He summons his secretary and says: "Take many sheets and ink, and write to our religious pope the Caliph, and to the king of the Persians the Sultan, glorious above all, and to the greater nobles of the kingdom of the Persians, that they may obtain long life, continuous peace, lasting safety of their bodies. Happy and joyful Fortune prospers well for us, and smiles with favorable successes, because I hold the army of the Franks shut in within the walls of Antioch, and I already have in our hand the castle which stands over the city. Whence let it be certain to you that the rumors which you had heard about them are not of that kind of which you also heard: because neither is a wolf made so great as is also the cry that follows him. But because you commanded that I should destroy them entirely from the land and deprive them of life by the sword, do not be angry against me if I send over to you most of the better ones bound: for then it will be in your deliberation whether you wish them to die or to live. For it seems to us to be suitable that those who had come to take us captive should become captives, and should exercise hard services with us. Indeed it will be honorable to the kingdom of the Persians if the brother of the king of the Franks is exiled in it. You, however, live in peace and the highest tranquillity, and devote effort to every bodily pleasure, and beget sons without cessation, who, if it should be necessary, may resist other Franks, and when our strengths have failed, then they may avail. I will not see the presence of your face before, until I have subjected the whole of Syria and Romania and Bulgaria to your dominion." These things Corbanam spoke in pride and abuse, which were turned for him into ignominy and confusion.

After this his mother came to him, mourning and sad; when they had come together in a private chamber, she said: "Son, comfort of my old age, and only pledge of all my love, I come to you in haste, fatigued by the length of the journey. I was in Aleph, a great city, when a heavy speech concerning you struck my ears, and by its blow drove the greatest grief into my heart. It was told me that you were drawing up your ranks, and wished to fight against the Christians. For that reason I came in haste, wanting to know from you yourself whether the matter stands so, or not." The son said: "Mother, you have never heard anything more true." And the mother: "Who, she said, unjust man, son, gave you such counsel? You have not yet experienced the power of the God of the Christians, and especially of the nation of the Franks. If you had read the writings of all the prophets and of the ancient wise men, you would surely not be ignorant that he himself is the Almighty and the God of all gods. If you fight against the Christians, you will fight against him and his angels. But it is most mad to fight against the Almighty; because that itself is to wish to destroy oneself. Of that most unconquered God indeed the prophet says: I will kill, and I will make to live; I will strike, and I will heal; and there is none who can snatch out of my hand. If I sharpen my sword as lightning, and my hand seizes judgment, I will render vengeance to my enemies, and I will repay those who have hated me. I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh. It is a fearful thing to enter into conflict against this one, who knows so to sharpen his sword, to make the sharpened drunk, and with the drunken to waste flesh. Son, who sank Pharaoh, king of Egypt, in the Red Sea, with all his army? Who disinherited Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan, and all the kingdoms of Canaan, and gave them to his own as an inheritance? That same God shows with how great a love he loves his people, and with how great a protection he walls him about, when he says: Behold, I will send my angel, who shall go before you, and shall keep you always. Observe and hear my voice, and I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will afflict those who hate you, and my angel shall go before you. That God is angry at our nation, because we neither hear his voice, nor do his will; and therefore from the remote parts of the West he has stirred up his nation against us, and has given it this whole land in possession. There is none who can turn it away from them; there is none who can any longer destroy it."

The son said: "I believe, mother, that you are either insane, or are driven by infernal furies. Who, he said, told you that this nation cannot be destroyed? There are more magnates and amiralds with me than they all are, gathered together. Tell me, mother: are Hugh their banner-bearer, and the Apulian Bohemond, and Godfrey the swordsman, themselves their gods? Are they not nourished, as we also are, on temporal food? Cannot their flesh, as ours also, be cut with iron?" The mother answered: "Those whom you name are not gods, but men, and soldiers of the lofty God, who gives them spirits, heaps up their strengths, and renders them great-hearted: as he himself speaks through the prophet, saying: One of you shall pursue a thousand, and two shall put ten thousand to flight: which has even been experienced in those who put our men to flight from all Romania. For that reason, son, I adjure you, by all the names of our divinities, that you turn yourself from the face of these men, and that you do not set war in motion against them. For it is foolish, as I said above, to rage against the Almighty, and to rave against his nation." The son answered: "Dearest, do not weep, do not be distressed with frequent groans; because by no art, by no device can it remain, even if I knew that I myself would perish in the battle."

Then the mother, made sadder, said again: "I know that you will fight, but you will not die now; but before a year has passed, you will depart from this life. Now you are endowed with praiseworthy fame in every eastern region, second to none in the hall of the king of the Persians: but when you have now been defeated, according to the glory that is now yours, you will be inglorious. For by how much anyone surpasses the rest, by so much more he is soiled, if he falls shamefully. But now, attended by every flower of the eastern kings and of the rich, walled about by so great a troop of innumerable satellites, if you are overcome, with whom will you further contend in equal or unequal number? You who once used to turn many to flight with few will now learn to run ahead of the few with many, as hares do a dog." Then the son, impatient of anger, could no longer bear his mother's words, but interrupting her, said: "Why, mother, do you stir the air with empty words, and drag us to weariness with unskilled speeches? No power of those who fight is able to resist us; nor is another army able to prevail over ours. But tell me, my mother, whence do you know that we ought to be conquered in this fight? and that I ought to die not here, but before a year has passed, by a sudden death? and that the Christian nation is to possess our bounds?" To whom the mother said: "From a hundred years and under, our fathers found in the sacred responses of the gods, and in their lots and divinations and in the entrails of animals, that the Christian nation would come upon us and would conquer us. Therefore the haruspices, the magi, and the soothsayers agree upon this, and the responses of our divinities, and the sayings of the prophets, in which it is said: From the rising of the sun and the setting, from the North and the sea, your bounds will be, and no one will stand against you. We believe that this whole is to come, but we do not know if it is now or in the near time; but because it seems near to certain of our people, because the continual ruins of the things of the world foreshow this, and the gazing upon the stars foretells it. Concerning this battle indeed which you are about to join I will tell you the truth, and concerning your death of which I have knowledge from this. From the time you began to gather soldiers to accomplish this war, I have examined with anxious inquiry whatever things can foretell to me what is to come; and they agree that no one will be able to overcome the Christians entirely. With the astrologers I have wisely contemplated the courses of the stars, namely the 7 planets and the 12 signs, and whatever can be read by natural signs with the haruspices, in the entrails and shoulders of cattle; with the lot-casters I have tempered the lots; and all things agree into one, and they proclaim the titles of victory to the nation of the Franks, and they threaten death to you, as I said above." Then he: "Mother, he said, cease from these things henceforth, because I will fight with the Franks as soon as I can." She, seeing that she would profit nothing, not having delayed long, returned to where she had come from, and brought back with her whatever of spoils she could obtain.

Now let us report something of those things which were done in the city in the meantime. The Turks had free leave to enter the castle and to go out; day and night, by hurling and shooting with arrows, they were stirring our men to war, and when the strength of those fighting failed, new and fresh men entered. With new men continually coming on, their power grew; that of our men failed from daily weariness. There was no rest, nor did they put down their arms; they were always in the readiness of soldiery. The squares were blocked with darts and arrows, and the roofs of the houses were loaded. Every day before the castle a new engagement takes place, and many times there was one mixing of our men and of them: of our men, God protecting them, few died; of those they were killed in troops.

And while time so slips by, hunger, crueler than every enemy, invades our men, and from day to day thinned their strength. Countenances wither, arms fail, and a trembling hand scarcely plucks grasses from the earth, and the leaves of trees, and the roots of wild turnips. All these things were cooked, and were taken as riches. An ass's leg was acquired for 61 solidi, and he who bought it was not reckoned a waster of substance. A small loaf was priced at one bezant; the flesh of asses, horses, camels, oxen, buffaloes, was consumed, and moreover their hides were boiled. Mothers hung their sons, perishing of hunger, at the breasts; but the children found nothing at all in the breasts, and from poverty of milk they palpitated with closed eyes. On a certain day Corbanam incited our men to battle outside the city, from that side on which the castle was; but the soldiers and the horses, tortured by hunger, could not long bear their swift onsets. Massed into one, our men understood it to be more wholesome to go back to the city; but, oppressed by the Turks, they found the gate too narrow, to such a degree that some there were ground even to death. A fight was going on inside and outside, nor was any rest given to our men as they perished of hunger. On account of these things, some of our soldiers, immoderately terrified, slipped away in flight that very night, ropes tied to the bulwarks, with which they entirely flayed their hands, and so they made for the sea on foot. Coming there they told the sailors to flee, because all the Christians were either dead or bound. They, grieving, put themselves to sea, and withdrew from the dominion of the Turks.

Stephen, the count of Chartres, who among the other princes seemed great, far-seeing in counsel, and outstanding in the honorableness of his manners, before Antioch had been captured was held by a heavy illness, and withdrew to a certain castle that was his, named Alexandretta. When he heard from those who were fleeing this report concerning our men, he secretly ascended the mountains standing above the city, to see whether the report was true. He saw innumerable tents of the Turks from far off, and detected that our men were shut in within the city; terrified by fear he fled away, and returning to his castle, he stripped it to the foundations, and began to ride toward Constantinople. Those besieged in the city were awaiting his arrival with the highest desire, thinking that he would bring the emperor with him, and with him would succor them with the necessities. But he, making for a different direction, came to Philomena, found the emperor there, and said to him in a secret address: "Lord emperor, our men truly hold Antioch; but the Turks still possess the castle that stands above it, countless hosts of the Turks besiege them from outside, and those who are in the castle attack them from inside. But what remains concerning these things, except that either they are now about to die, or in the near time they will all die? You, however, reverend emperor, if you believe our counsel, will not advance further, but will return to your city. There is nothing that any human power can avail to come to their aid; but if you go there, you will be able to perish with your army." When these speeches had been heard, the emperor is made greatly sad, and what had been said to him in secret he made known in the open to his princes and magistrates. All are saddened, and they weep for the deaths of our men.

There was a certain soldier there, named Guy, who had acquired a celebrated name for himself through soldiery, and had been very familiar with Bohemond. When he had heard this, he grieved so much that, as if he were dead, he fell to the earth. Recovering his spirit from that alienation of mind, he began to weep immoderately, and, furrowing his cheeks with his nails and tearing his hair with his hands, he compelled all to mourning, and he said: "O almighty God, where is your power? If you are almighty, why did you consent that this be done? Were these not both your soldiers and pilgrims? What king, or emperor, or powerful lord ever permitted his household to be so killed, if he could ever help? Who will still be your soldier or your pilgrim? O Bohemond, honor of other rich men, crown of the wise, glory of soldiers, solace of the desolate, strength of the soldiery, and distinguished honor of the whole world, why did such misfortune befall you, that you should be subject to the mockery of the Turks? Alas! why was I allowed to live after you? What welcome light will there be hereafter, what pleasant appearance, what delightful glory, what joyful life, with you by no means surviving? O God, or rather if you are God, if what this most worthless and fugitive count brought is true, what more will there be of the way of your Sepulchre? Why were they so killed, as if your servants had no lord? O Bohemond, where is that faith which you always had in your Saviour our Lord Jesus Christ? O emperor and outstanding soldiers, who with me mourn so great deaths of so many, who can perfectly believe that so great a soldiery has so perished? For certain, if they had been girt about in the middle of the field by the whole Eastern people, they would not all be killed before they were avenged. But now they also had a city in which they could defend themselves, and they have been so slain? O emperor, know most certainly that, if the Turks have killed our men, few of them have remained. Therefore do not fear to go there, because you will be able to have Antioch again." The emperor was unwilling to grant assent to his counsel, but too credulous of the words of the worthless count, resolved to go back, and commanded the places of Bulgaria to be laid waste, so that, if the Turks should come into those parts, they would find nothing at all. Together with him Guy himself also, and those who had gone with the emperor, returned, because they did not presume to go further. Thus all our men were left destitute of human comfort; and for 25 days they contended without cease with enemies and hunger, and with the sword and shortage.

13. The Holy Lance

Unless heavenly piety had provided for those destitute of human help, none of the Frankish-born, now Antiochene citizens, would have remained. When they were already despairing of life, and everything was threatening them with death, it pleased God the Saviour, the king of kings, Jesus Christ, to appear to a certain priest of his one night as he slept in the church of his chaste mother. With him were the Virgin mother Mary herself, and the blessed Peter the apostle, to whom the Lord himself gave the shepherding of his sheep. To him he also says: "Do you recognize me?" The priest to him: "No. Who are you, Lord?" Then a cross began to appear on the Saviour's head. To him the Lord again: "Do you still recognize me?" Again the priest answered: "I do not otherwise recognize you, except that I see a cross on your head, as I am accustomed to see in the images that are made in honor of our Lord Jesus Christ the Saviour." And the Lord says to him: "Behold, I myself am he." When the priest heard that it is the Lord, he immediately prostrated himself at his feet, humbly beseeching that he would come to the aid of his Christians, laboring under famine and the assault of the enemies. To him he says: "Does it not seem to you that I have helped them well thus far, because I both delivered the city of Nicaea to them, and made them conquer all the wars that came upon them? In the siege of Antioch I suffered with their miseries; but now at the last I granted entry into the city. All the tribulations and hindrances which they have suffered I therefore permitted to come about, because they have wrought many unspeakable things with Christian women, and with pagans, which greatly displease in my eyes." At these things the mother of mercy, the most pious Virgin, and the blessed Peter the apostle fell at his feet, asking that he would have mercy on his people. And the blessed apostle added to his prayer, and says: "Lord, I give you thanks, because you have given my church into the power of your servants, which, because of the wickedness of those inhabiting it through so many courses of years of the pagans, you permitted to be defiled with foulnesses. From there the holy angels rejoice in the heavens, and my companions, your apostles." Then the Lord says to his priest: "Go, and tell my people that they are to return to me, and I will return to them, and within 5 days I will send them sufficient help; and daily let them sing this responsory: OUR ENEMIES ARE GATHERED AND THEY GLORY IN THEIR POWER, the whole with the verse." This vision completed, the honorable priest awoke, and with hands spread toward God he prayed, as the Holy Spirit was giving him to speak. That day, in the midst of the third hour, he found the princes of the army up before the castle fighting against the enemies. When they had been called together, with a glad and cheerful countenance he said: "O warriors of the eternal king, I announce to you on the part of our Saviour joy and exultation; and he transmits to you his blessing; and if you obey him, you will obtain grace also." Then, with all listening attentively, he set forth the whole vision in order, and added: "If you distrust this vision and suspect it to be false, because it is true, I will make you whatever trial you please; and if I am found a liar, afflict my body with every wrong." Then the bishop of Le Puy ordered the cross to be brought, and the holy Gospel, that before all he should swear this to be true: which was thus done.

A certain pilgrim, named Peter, also reported this vision before all: "Hear, people of the Lord and servants of the lofty God, my voice, and to my speeches incline your ear. While we were in the siege of this city, on a certain night Saint Andrew the apostle stood by me in a vision, saying: Good man, hear and understand me. And I say to him: Who are you, Lord? And he: I am Andrew the apostle. Son, when you have entered this city and have it in your power, go quickly to the church of the blessed Peter, and in the place which I will show you, you will find the lance with which the side of our Saviour was pierced. These things the apostle said to me then only. But I then did not dare to indicate this to anyone, thinking that I had seen a vain vision. But now this night he appeared to me again, saying: Come, and I will show you the place where the lance is hidden, as I promised you. Hasten therefore to pull it away from the earth, because victory will follow those carrying it. And the holy apostle showed me the place; come and see it, and from there draw it out with me." And when all wished to run to the church of the blessed Peter, he added still: "Saint Andrew sends word to you: Do not fear; but confess and do penitence from your evil works, because within 5 days you will triumph again over your enemies." Then all with one mind glorified God, who was deigning to console their griefs, and ran at once to the church of the blessed Peter, desiring to see the place where the lance ought to be found.

13 men dug there, from morning until evening; and so they found it, the Lord disposing. There was great joy in all the people, and with great voices they were sounding: We praise you, God, and Glory to God in the highest. Then they all swore together that none of them would flee for any tribulation or death, nor depart from the journey of the holy Sepulchre that had been begun. The common multitude rejoiced when the greater men were swearing this sacrament; each was advising the other into manly strength, and applauding the divine help.

On the following night a fire coming from heaven appeared from the West, and fell within the army of the Turks: which sign vehemently stunned the hearts of all, and most of all of the Turks, within whose tents it fell. Among themselves they began to prophesy what afterward befell: that the fire descending from heaven was the wrath of God; but because it had come from the West, it designated the ranks of the Franks, through whom he was exercising the punishment of his wrath. Those who were older began to grow somewhat tame from their ferocity, and to grow numb from their former high spirit. But because the number of fools was infinite, and they were stirring our men to battles day and night, it pleased the older men to set up a wall between themselves and those men, so that even thus it might be permitted to breathe a little. On one day they rushed so fiercely upon our men that they shut three in one tower which was before the castle: two, wounded, were compelled to go out and were beheaded; one remained resisting bravely until evening, killed two of them, and afterwards finished his life by the sword. For whom, while they lived, however much Bohemond wished to bring help, he was scarcely able to draw anyone out, because it was not so much the enemy that pressed them as that hunger that oppressed them.

Angry at this, he commanded fire to be set in the houses on that side where the palace of Cassianus also was, so that those who were not willing to go out of their own accord might be compelled to go out unwilling. Together with the fire so great a tempest of wind arose that the flame burned as many as 2,000 houses and churches. Bohemond, seeing the flame rising thus, led by penitence, grieved vehemently, because he greatly feared for the church of the blessed Peter and of holy Mary, Mother of God, and for many others. The fire lasted from the third hour of the day until midnight; and so, the wind blowing from the right side, the flame turned back upon itself.

14. The Battle for Antioch

The lance having been found by the nod of God, the elders and the magistrates of the soldiery took counsel to send an embassy to Corbanam through an interpreter of their speech. When inquiry was being made among many, and no one would presume to bear these commands, at last two were found, Herluinus and Peter the Hermit. These, with an interpreter, came to Corbanam's tents. The Turks came together from every side, eager to hear what the Christians' messengers would say. Corbanam was sitting on a throne, clothed in royal attire and pompous dress: those coming before his face did not incline themselves at all, but stood with neck erect. The Turks took this ill; and had they not been messengers, they would have avenged the ignominy of that proud bearing. Then the messengers, delaying nothing, although all, moved by wrath, were roaring round about, said to the proud prince: "Corbanam, the nobles of the Franks command you: Whence has such drunken boldness befallen you, that you have come against them with an armed band, when you and your king and your nation are guilty in their sight, you who have invaded the lands of the Christians with immoderate greed, and have killed them all, having afflicted them with wrong. Your infernal gods could not have dishonored you more shamefully than that they have sent you to fight against them. If the reason of right were with you, and you wished to act with us by the censure of equity, we would reason with you, the honor of right being preserved, and we would show by incontrovertible speech that it ought to be of the Christians. But if with you right and reason are of equal weight as a will of pleasure, let a determined fight be made between yours and ours, and let this whole fatherland be allowed to the victors, without other loss of blood. But if neither thus nor so it is pleasing, either enter immediately upon flight, or prepare your necks for the swords and snares of our men." Corbanam, inflamed with great wrath, could scarcely speak, and at last burst forth into these words:

"Truly the nation of the Franks is a proud nation; but this pride will be reined in by our sword. Therefore, however, they ask for a named battle, and to those to whom victory shall yield, let the fatherland also be yielded, because without further loss of blood they wish either to be made rich with the fatherland, or to be freed from our hands. But then they did not find wholesome counsel, when they took up arms against us for an effeminate nation. Nevertheless go still, and report to them that, if they wish to deny their God and to renounce their Christianity, we will receive them all into so great a grace that we will give them this land, and a much better one, and we will make horsemen of them all. But if they neglect to do it, they will all die shortly, or bound they will be taken captive into our land."

After this Herluinus, who knew their language, added and says: "O prince of no soldiery but of all malice, if you knew how utterly mad it is with Christians to say Deny the Lord, never would such a word go out from your polluted mouth. We know for certain, God himself whom you urge us to deny revealing it, that our safety and your destruction are near; our joy, your loss. But who late sent you the fire, which so terrified you all, and so drove you from the place in which you had pitched your tents? This sign will come to you as a portent; to us, for safety: because from it we have a certain embassy of our God himself." Corbanan could not long bear the insults of Herluinus, and commanded him to be removed from his sight. Those who stood there said he should withdraw quickly, otherwise that embassy would never succeed but he would perish immediately. He departed with his companions and returned to the city.

Nor is it to be passed by what, as these were withdrawing, Corbanan said to his men: "You have now heard those ragged men, despicable in countenance, and little men of no standing, how firmly they have spoken; nor have they feared our anger and flashing weapons. One thing about them is that they are desperate, and they want to die, and they would rather die than be taken captive. For that reason, O strongest soldiers, when they have come to battle, hem them in on every side, so that no one has a place to turn aside, nor space to live long: because if they are allowed to live for some time, before they are all killed, they will work great slaughters of our men." In this it appears that Corbanam was a fool, because by speaking so he was striking terror into the minds of his men. Nor is it to be wondered at if a foolish man speaks madness, because the spirit of wisdom does not enter a malevolent soul.

Peter the Hermit and Herluinus returned to the princes and told what Corbanam had answered. The bishop of Le Puy, by the nod and assent of all, enjoined a three-day fast. Each confessed with a pure heart; he who had anything to eat distributed it to him who had none. They spent those three days going about the churches in procession, imploring the Lord's mercy. As the third day was growing light, masses were celebrated, and all were communicated with the holy communion of the Lord's body. By common counsel six lines are set up within the city. The first was Hugh the Great's and the Flemish count's; the second Duke Godfrey's; the third Count Robert the Norman's with his men; the fourth the bishop of Le Puy's, who carried the lance of our Saviour, and with him a great part of the army of the count of Saint-Gilles, who remained for the guardianship of the city; the fifth Tancred's; the sixth Bohemond's, with the foot-soldiers more ready for war, and the soldiers who, compelled by necessity, had sold their horses. Bishops and priests, monks and clerics, clothed in sacred vestments, went out with the soldiers outside the gate, carrying crosses in their hands, with which they signed the people of God, and with great voices, hands stretched out toward heaven, they cried: Save your people, Lord, and bless your inheritance, and rule them, and lift them up now and forever. Be to them a tower of strength in the face of their enemies. They sang these and other psalms, those especially which suited tribulation. Those upon the wall and in the towers were doing and singing the same. And so the soldiers of Christ went out against the satellites of Antichrist, through the gate that is before Machumaria.

Corbanam, standing on a certain little hill, was watching those going out, and, while they were going out, he was saying: "Stand quiet, my soldiers; and permit them all to go out, so that we may be better able to seize them." Now he had a certain Aquitanian placed beside him, whom we call a Provençal, who had renounced our faith, and, compelled by the gullet of gluttony, had gone out from the city to the adversaries' camp. This man had said many unspeakable things about our men: that they were dying of hunger and all were attempting the aids of flight, they had eaten their horses, they were wasting away from poverty of food, and there was nothing in between, except that they should either flee or submit themselves to Corbanam's dominion. While the lines were going out from the city in their orders, Corbanam was asking whose each one was, and the Aquitanian was reporting to him in succession. The sun, bringing its rays upon the hooked mail and the lances, was striking back the eyes of those gazing, and sending terror into the adversaries, as divine Scripture bears witness: that terrible is a line of camps drawn up. But when he saw them all together, he roared within himself, saying to those standing about: "That nation is great and armed with honorableness: it does not seem to me that they wish to flee, but to press on; or that they wish to give service, but to pursue." And so, turning to his apostate, he said: "Gallows-rogue, and most wicked of all, what frivolous things have you said to us about these men, that they had eaten their horses, and were being tormented by hunger, and were plotting flight? By Muhammad, this lie will be turned back upon your head, and the plague of the head by punishment."

Then the tyrant's swordsman, summoned, cut off that man's head with unsheathed sword; and he underwent a death worthy of his chatter and apostasy. Then he commanded his amirald, who was keeping his treasure, that if he should see a fire kindled at the head of his army, he should immediately take to flight, carry with him all things that were his, and compel the others to flee: for he should know that the war was of the nation of the Franks, and that for him victory had gone over to the contrary. Our soldiers, as soon as they came onto a certain plain, at a nod from the bishop of Le Puy, stood still, and with the highest silence heard his speech. He was clothed in mail, and in his right hand the Saviour's lance was raised on high. Opening his mouth in these words, he said:

"All of us who have been baptized in Christ are sons of God and brothers to one another: therefore those whom one spiritual bond has joined, let one love join them as well. Let us therefore fight with one mind, as brothers, for our souls and our bodies, as men placed in extremity. Remember how great tribulations you have suffered for your sins: as our Lord God has now deigned to become known to you in his visions. But now you have been purged, and reconciled to God in all things. And what would you fear? No misfortune can befall you at all. He who dies here will be happier than one who lives, because, for temporal life, he will obtain eternal joys. But he who remains a survivor will triumph in victory over his enemies, and will be enriched with their riches, and will be distressed by no poverty. You know what you have endured, and what at present you see before you. The Lord has brought eastern riches to you before your face, indeed in your hands. Be strengthened, and be robust men, because the Lord will now send the legions of his saints, who will avenge you of your enemies. Today you will see them with your eyes; and when they have come, do not fear their terrible crash. For the sight of them ought not to be unaccustomed to you, because on another occasion they came to you in aid. But the human gaze grows afraid at the arrival of the citizens above. Consider how your adversaries, with neck stretched out, like stags or little deer growing afraid, catch sight of your arrival, more ready for flight than for battle. And you well know their battles, because, once the arrow is drawn, they trust more in flight than in the fight. Go therefore against them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to war; and may our Lord God almighty be with you."

When all had answered, Amen, the legions stretched out lengthwise. First, with the banner raised, Hugh the Great goes ahead, who by right was called Great, because he commended this privilege by deed and manners. The others followed as they are ordained above; their extension was drawn out from the river as far as the mountains, in which space 2,000 intervene. Corbanan began to go back toward the mountains. Our men pursued little by little, advancing with a measured step. The Turks were divided in two: one part proceeded from the region of the sea, the greater part remained in the field, thinking thus to shut our men in between them and to shoot with arrows from the back. A seventh line was ordained against the divided part, from the soldiers of Duke Godfrey and of the Norman count, a certain leader named Rainald over it. They sent this man against them, and they battled; many fell on this side and on that. When the other six lines drew near to an arrow's throw, the Turks, refusing to go more closely, draw with stretched bows, but in vain: the wind blowing from the side reduces their throws to nothing. With reins turned they flee backward; the first line sought a war in the war, and did not find it. Meanwhile a messenger was sent from Bohemond to Hugh the Great, that he should bring him aid, because he was being pressed too greatly by the Turks. Hugh, having turned, says to his men: "O warrior men, the fight is fleeing us; let us seek the fight, and let us go to Bohemond, the outstanding duke: there is the fight which you seek, there the iron enemy presses, whom you desire."

When Godfrey, duke of dukes, saw the Great one, his friend, running at a swift course with all his men, he followed him, himself also idle from the war. There the greater strength of the Persians' soldiery was pressing; it well became them that Godfrey and Hugh should run together there, the one from the other as if the other the same. Hugh the Great, coming first to the conflict, gazed upon one of the adversaries bolder than the rest, who was exhorting the others by crying out; he directs a foaming horse against him, and with a lance pierced his throat, and thus stopped up that man's mouth. What was the wretched man to do? He fell at once to the ground, and commended his soul to the infernal gods.

After these things a great misfortune befell our men, because Odo of Beaugency, who was carrying the banner, was wounded by a poisonous arrow; and, as the pain of the wound grew stronger, he fell to the earth with the banner; but William Bleniensis, with his sword bared, opened a way through the midst of the enemy, and lifted the sign from the earth. What Godfrey, duke of dukes, what Bohemond, what the illustrious youth did there, neither tongue can say, nor page take up. None of our men there was sluggish, none timid, because there was no room for it, and the enemy towering above pressed each one. The more they were being killed, the more they seemed to grow. Just as flies stream together to rottenness, so they too were coming together from every side.

While it is thus fought, and the length of so long a contest could weary, and their number did not seem to decrease, an innumerable army of white-clad soldiers was seen to descend from the mountains, whose standard-bearers and leaders are said to be George, Maurice, Mercurius, and Demetrius. As soon as the bishop of Le Puy saw this, he cried out with a great voice, saying: "O soldiers, behold, the aid is coming which God promised you." And certainly our men would have been greatly terrified, had there not been the hope which they had in the Lord. Then a very great trembling rushes upon the enemies, and, their countenances turned, they cover their backs with their shields, and seize flight, wherever place gave to each one.

That part which was fighting on the side of the sea, seeing the flight of its own men, scattered fire upon the grass of the field, which burned swiftly, because the burning of summer had dried it — a sign that those in the tents should flee at once and carry off the richer spoils. Those in the mountains recognized the sign and fled with all the spoils they could carry. But what did it profit them, when they were not permitted to bear it long? The Armenians and the Surani, seeing them vanquished and our men pursuing, came to meet them and killed them. Hugh the Great and Duke Godfrey and the Flemish count were riding together with their ranks beside the water, where their army was more robust and denser, and pressed with so great an onset that they could not return to their tents. To pursue more swiftly they were ascending the horses of those who were dying, and leaving their own, leaner and afflicted with hunger, the reins drawn off from the head, in the field. O marvelous virtue of almighty God, and immense power! Your soldier, afflicted by a long fast, pursues those swelling with fat and plumpness, so that they did not even dare to look back at their own goods. Your good Spirit was in their minds, who both supplied strength of bodies and granted boldness of spirits. No greed of spoils delays him: victory tickles his mind more. As it is customary to tear the bodies of beasts in a slaughterhouse, so it was permitted to our men to waste the bodies of the Turks. Blood flies out from the wounded; dust stirred by the horses' feet flies out; the ether is clouded as if twilight were coming into being. Those fleeing came onto a certain hill, and there they hoped to gather themselves again against our men.

Then Gerard the old man of Melion, who for a long time had lain sick in the siege, borne on a swift horse, imprudently threw himself upon them, and was pierced through by their javelins, and so was slain by a deserved death. When those who were following him more closely saw this — namely Eward of Puteolus, Pagan of Beauvais, Drogo and Thomas, and Clarenbald, and the rest of the young men of Hugh the Great — they rush upon them; they found a fierce contest, but with God helping, as the troop of their own men grew, they scattered them. There much blood was poured out, the heads of many cut off, who, if they had fled as they had begun, could have escaped. They pursued them as far as the Farrean bridge, and to Tancred's castle; further they could not pursue, because the dark night put an end to the matter. There died on that day 100,000 horsemen; but because of weariness none was numbered from the whole multitude of foot-soldiers. The soldier, fatigued, far from the city, returned to the tents which had been their enemies', and found much that sufficed him for eating. Before the fear of God had come into their hearts, in frying-pans and cooking-pots and in kettles and in pots they had prepared all things for the meal: but it was not permitted to the wretches to cook what they had prepared, nor to carry it off.

There the venerable priest could be seen, the bishop of Le Puy, clothed in mail and helmet, and the holy lance in his hands, who from too-great joy was bedewing his face with most abundant weepings. He was exhorting them to give thanks to God through whom they had stood victors, and he was saying to them: "From the time they began to be soldiers, none have been your peers: because none in so short a time have warred so many and so great wars as you also have completed, from the time you crossed the Constantinopolitan sea. Indeed he is much foreign from the Christian faith, who sees what you have seen today, and is not continuous in the love of God." These things and things like these the venerable pontiff was saying, instructing the people committed to him, and tempering their jests and laughter. The contemplation of his presence and of his countenance so struck all back that no one presumed to put forth vain words, with him present.

That night completed, on the next day 15,000 camels were found; but the horses, mules and she-mules, oxen and asses and sheep and livestock of many kinds, who would count them? There were found many golden and silver vessels, too very many cloaks, and spoils of great price and of different variety. With all these they came triumphing to the city, and were received by those who had remained and by the clerics and the priests and the monks, with a solemn procession.

But the amirald who was in the castle, when he saw his prince turned aside from the field in flight, and countless thousands of horsemen in white running about over the plains with white banners, was greatly terrified, and demanded that one of our banners be given to him for protection. The count of Saint-Gilles, who had remained for the guardianship of the city, held out his banner; the amirald received it gladly and fastened it to the wall of the castle. When he recognized from certain Lombards standing there that it was not Bohemond's, to whom the whole city had been allowed, he rendered the sign to the count and sought Bohemond's; and Bohemond sent it. When he received it, he sent word that Bohemond should come to him. Bohemond walked to the embassy, close at hand, and listened. The gentile asks a pact of faith: that those with him who wished to depart should suffer the hurt of no wrong and should be conducted into the land of the Saracens; but whoever wished to become a Christian with him should have license to do so. Bohemond, filled with immense joy, said: "Friend, what you ask will gladly be done for you; but await a little, because I will report this to our princes, and I will return quickly to you." He ran, assembled the princes, and related the gentile's words. It pleased all; they gave thanks to almighty God. Bohemond goes back to the gentile, now a household member, and confirms the pledge. He, a very handsome man, rendered himself to the bishop of Le Puy and to holy Christianity, with three hundred of his soldiers, and young; and there was then among the Christians greater joy over their Christianity than over the recovery of the castle. Bohemond received the castle, and conducted those unwilling to be made Christian into the land of the Saracens. A three-day fast completed, the gentiles were baptized with great joy; and the praise of God and Christian glory grew there. They were afterward accustomed to report that, when they caught sight of the war from the citadel, they had suddenly seen countless thousands of white-clad soldiers, whose sight terrified them vehemently. Nor was it a wonder, because the whole castle trembled from its foundations. When they saw them join the ranks of the Christians, and their own men turned to ruin and flight, they understood that these were heavenly divinities, and that the God of the Christians cannot be overcome. From there their hearts were pricked, and they pledged themselves to become Christians.

This war took place on the 4th of the Kalends of July, namely the vigil of the Apostles Peter and Paul. Divine mercy looking back, the storm of the Antiochene tribulation, which had swollen for almost 10 months, was calmed; and the royal city, long inclined by the yoke of diabolic captivity, recovered the lost grace of its former liberty. The enemies who had taken it captive become captives themselves, scattered in the hiding-places of the woods, the caves of the rocks, and the ditches of the mountains. The Armenians and the Surani, inhabitants of that fatherland, searched them out for very many days, finding some half-dead, others wounded, others lacking part of the head, others putting their hands to their belly, lest the vitals go out entirely; and, having stripped off their spoils, they were killing them. The enemies of God were laid waste; the Christians, servants of the lofty God, were assembled in the glorious city with joy. On a certain day they took counsel to send envoys to the Constantinopolitan emperor, and to announce that he should come to receive their city.

15. After the Victory

And, ah, grief! they all judged that, because they were sending to the king, a royal messenger ought to go; and Hugh the Great was chosen, truly royal both in lineage and in character. They would in no way have sent him, if they had not known that he would return. He, when he had fulfilled his embassy to the king, intercepted by death, fell; and to where he had arranged to go back, in the end he could not. The fox-like Constantinopolitan emperor did not presume to come for the receiving of so great a city, because he recognized that he had violated the faith and the rights of the sacrament and the pledges given to the Franks, and had in no way guarded them. And so all the agreements that were made between them were wiped out.

Meanwhile the princes residing in the city began to treat of the way of the Lord's Sepulchre: whether they should presently begin, or when they should end the time. Common assent is brought to this, that what had been begun again of the way should be prolonged until the Kalends of October. The burning of summer had grown too hot; and the land of the Saracens, which they were about to enter, was waterless and too dry. For that reason they awaited a time which then becomes wet, and in which the earth bursts forth the hidden waters. It had also to be determined what so great a people should do in the meantime, and where, and how it should live. A herald went up and proclaimed: that he who was entirely in want should remain in the city, and should make a compact with those who were richer and should serve them. The princes were divided through their castles and cities.

There was a certain soldier of the army of the count of Saint-Gilles, Raymond by name, but Pilet by surname, manly in spirit and remarkable in body. This man was at enmity with the Turks with perfect hatred, and he could no longer bear that they should keep holiday for a long time. He bound to himself a very great multitude of soldiers and foot-soldiers, led it across into the land of the Saracens, crossed the bounds of 2 cities, and came to a certain castle called Talamania, over which a Syrian nation was ruling. The Syrians received our men there, and most gladly handed themselves over to their dominion. 8 days having been spent there, they proceeded to another castle, in which a great multitude of Saracens was lying hidden; they attacked it with a military onset, and, fighting daily with unremitting hand, stormed it as the day was drawing toward evening. When it had been thus taken, they killed all, except those who were willing to receive Christianity. This devastation done, they returned to Talamania. Having sojourned 2 days, on the 3rd day they went out to the city which is called Marra. There no small multitude of Turks and Saracens had been assembled, from Aleph and other cities and castles in its circuit, awaiting their encounter. When they began to draw near, those barbarians came out against them, but they were unwilling to hold the conflict long, and, turned to flight, withdrew within the city. Our men could not remain there long, because the summer heat was pressing them vehemently, and nothing could be found to drink. As the day's shadow was declining, they returned to Talamania. Very many Christians, inhabitants of that fatherland, had gone with our men, but they scorned to return with them: whom the Turks, hidden in ambush, took and killed. They perished by their own folly, because, if they had returned with our men, no one would then have died; but, as it is said in the common saying, a stolid nation fears nothing until unhappy fortune overwhelms it. Raymond did not go back to that city thereafter, because he did not have an army with which he might besiege it; but he remained in his castle until the appointed time of the Kalends of October, and in the meantime he always took the land of the Saracens captive.

Those who remained in Antioch were in great tranquillity and joy, until they lost their lord, the bishop of Le Puy. When there was the highest peace for the army of God, he began in the month of July to fall ill; but he did not languish long, because the Lord did not allow him to be tortured by a long sickness. On the Kalends of August his holy soul, unbound from the bonds of the flesh, was transferred into the Paradise of God, in a glorious seat, namely on the feast of Saint Peter which is called Ad vincula; and, that it may become clear that this was done by the censure of divine judgment, on the day on which the bonds of the prince of the apostles were brought from Jerusalem to Rome, the pontiff's soul was unbound from the bodily bonds. Nor was there ever, for any tribulation, so great grief in that soldiery of God as for his death. All wept for him by due right, because he was the counsel of the rich, the consoler of those who mourned, the supporter of the weak, the treasury of the needy, the reconciler of those at variance. He was accustomed to say to the soldiers: "If you wish to be victors and friends of God, guard the purity of bodies, and have mercy on the poor. For nothing will free you from death as alms will: because it both protects better than a buckler, and is sharper against the enemy than a lance. Let him who is not fit to pray for himself give alms, and it will pray for him." For these works and speeches of this kind he was dear to God and to all the people. If anyone wished to number the gifts of all his virtues, he would now seem to be drawing far from the history.

When this man had been buried decently, as was fitting, in the church of the blessed Peter, the count of Saint-Gilles crossed into the land of the Saracens, to the city which they name Albaria. Surrounding it on every side with a strong soldiery, he attacks it, and for a long time contended with missiles and arrows with those on the walls. When he saw that he was making too little progress thus, ladders were raised to the wall, the mailed soldiers ascended, and they compelled the enemies to go into flight:

The count commanded that all should be bound, and that those who were unwilling to believe in Christ the Saviour should be beheaded. There so many were seen to suffer capital punishment; and from so many children together with girls a long life was taken away. This was the Lord's judgment, because that city had been the Christians', and it had been taken from them by a like mockery of death. No one out of so great a multitude was reserved, except the man who of his own accord, confessing Christ, was baptized. And so that city was cleansed, and recalled to the worship of our faith. Then the count took counsel with his magnates that a bishop should be ordained in it, by whose counsel and aid the city might be ruled, and the faith of Jesus Christ made firm in the hearts of those newly baptized. A wise and distinguished man was chosen, strong in the learning of letters and endowed with both kinds of knowledge, and he was sent to Antioch for ordination.

16. Discord and Marra

When summer was now passing, the sun's burning repressed, and night exceeding the day in hours, the soldiers of Christ, wherever they had summered, returned to Antioch. On the Kalends of November, the feast of All Saints, they came together there. Blessed be the glory of the eternal King: the returning crowd was more numerous than when they had divided from one another, for from many parts of the world outstanding soldiers and foot-soldiers had followed the first, and daily the Christian soldiery was growing.

When they sat together as one, arranging the way of the holy Sepulchre, Bohemond asks for the pact of the city pledged to him. The count of Saint-Gilles said that could not be done because of the sacraments they had made through Bohemond to the Constantinopolitan emperor. For very many days an assembly was held in the church of Saint Peter, a great conflict of words from either side. When no definition could be made which would suit peace, the bishops and abbots, and the dukes and counts of sounder sense, entered the place of the chair of Saint Peter, and there divided how they might keep both the promises to Bohemond and the sacraments made to the emperor. They came out unwilling to make the counsel known to all. By a household address it was revealed to the count of Saint-Gilles, who praised it, provided Bohemond should complete the journey begun. Bohemond, asked the same, praised it; and each promised in the hands of the bishops, by a stipulation of faith, that the way of the holy Sepulchre would never be deserted by them, nor disturbed for any rupture between themselves. Then Bohemond fortified the castle above the city, and the count the palace of Cassianus and the tower above the gate on the side of the port of Saint Symeon.

But because Antioch has detained us in a long historical narrative, and fatigued our pilgrim soldiers for 8 months by a siege no human force, art, or device could overcome, let us open something of its situation to those who have never seen it.

65 kings established this city, as its history testifies: all owed to its principate the service of subjection. It is surrounded by two walls. The first is of great stones cut square and polished with subtle craft; in it 460 towers are ordered in their places. This wall smiles on those who gaze with the beauty of its composition, spacious with a breadth too ample. Within the walls 4 mountains stand out into height. On the higher a castle has been constructed, so fortified by natural position that it fears neither warlike onset nor any siege-work. It obtains 360 churches in the territory of its confines, and the patriarch has 154 bishops under his principate. On the east it is furnished by 4 great mountains; on the west watered by a river named Farfar. King Antiochus, with those 65 kings, established it and named it from his own name. Our pilgrim soldiers besieged this royal city for 8 months and one day; for three weeks they were shut in by the nation of the Parthians; which, overcome by divine aid, they afterwards rested in it for 4 months and 8 days.

When these things were finished, Raymond, count of Saint-Gilles, went out first from Antioch with his nation, and came to Rugia. On another day he came to Albaria. These two cities he had subjected by a compact soldiery, and taken into the service of Christ. On the fourth day, November going out, he came to Marra, which Raymond Pilet, his soldier, had first attacked, but withdrew, bravely driven back. That city was populous, overly crowded by every nation in circuit about it. The hostile nation, seeing our men from a distance few in comparison with itself, looked down on them and tried to resist outside the city. Immediately they recognized that a compact nation is by right preferred to a drunken multitude — especially that nation whose hope and trust is in the name of the Lord. Our men, seeing them prepared to resist, with shields against their breasts and lance-points in front, burst into them with a military onset and, going through the middle, break them apart. There the Lord broke the powers of the bows, the shield and the sword and the war: because after the fight is waged with swords, the bow and the arrow are useless. He who was nearer the gate judged himself more blessed; he who was far off wished either to become closer to the gate, or that the gate might come to him. It profited them that the engagement was near the door of the city. Not all who had gone out unharmed went back safely. Those especially had bad goings-back whom our men found in the first onset. They shot very many of our horses with arrows; but of their own riders, rolled down to the earth, they left far more. Those received within the city, our men place tents at the throw of one arrow. Watch kept the whole night; the next day, the sun's radiance mixing with the day's light, our men, equipped with arms, walled the city on every side and attacked it in a most fierce engagement.

But with the immense multitude of the enemies standing against them, on that day our men prevailed nothing, but weary they returned to the tents.

On that very day Bohemond followed the count with his people and many others, came there, and, encamping, walled the city on every side. Those within are struck with too great terror, and block all the gates with stones thrown in the way. The counts took counsel, because the battle was not coming into being on equal terms. Rams are commanded: iron-shod beams, hung from ropes and drawn by the soldiers' hands against the wall, to destroy it by frequent blows. A wooden tower was made, higher than the stone towers, standing out above all the engines within. It had 3 stories, furnished with shields and pulleys. In the 2 upper stories were mailed men with missiles, stakes, arrows, stones, javelins and torches. Below, armed men thrusting the wheels on which the tower itself was set. Others applied the tortoise to the wall and leveled the huge ditch, so they might join the tower to the wall and, protected by it, pierce the wall: which was done thus. The wretched citizens made an instrument throwing great stones against the tower, and even sent out Greek fire to burn it. But, the grace of God protecting, all their attempts were frustrated and reduced to nothing. The wooden tower, near the wall, put to shame all on that part of the wall, as if looking down upon those beneath it.

William of Montpellier was with many others in the upper storey. With him was a hunter named Everard, endowed with the spirit of sounding the trumpet: by that tumultuous voice he terrified the adversaries and incited his own men. While William lays waste the things around him (millstones sent, breaking the roofs of the houses), those below were digging the wall; others raised a ladder to the bulwarks, which, once raised, when no one dared be first in the ascent, Gulferius of Daturre, an honorable soldier, did not endure it, but climbed the wall without delay, and many strong men followed him. The Gentiles, seeing them climbing, were moved with vehement wrath, rose from every side, and hemmed them in with javelins and arrows, so that some who had climbed put themselves down to the earth, and, broken, found there the death they thought to escape. When the renowned youth saw Gulferius with a few fighting upon the pinnacles, unmindful of themselves but mindful of their companions, they climb at once and cover part of the wall with their multitude. Beside the wooden tower stood priests and Levites, ministers of the Lord, invoking the defender of the Christian people, Jesus Christ, the Son of God: Lord, have mercy on us. Be our arm in the morning, and our safety in the time of tribulation. Pour out your wrath upon the nations that have not known you, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon your name. Scatter them in your power, and put them down, our protector, O Lord. While some were fighting, others weeping and singing psalms, others undermining the walls, Gulferius was sweating in a heavier fight: all the adversaries against him and his partners, he with his own against all. His shield was the strong protection of all his own on the wall. The short and narrow width allowed neither a companion to be joined to him nor an adversary to come, except one. None of the enemies triumphed over Gulferius; he had triumphed over a great many. No one now presumed to come to meet him, each fearing the misfortune that had befallen others at his hands. They threw missiles, arrows, stakes, stones at him, and had so loaded his shield that it could no longer be lifted by one man.

And already the strongest man was exhausted, the sweats flowing from his whole body onto the earth, a great necessity demanding that another succeed him: when those who had undermined the wall entered the city with a great onset, beheading all whom they first found. By wonder at this unexpected thing, all upon the walls were stunned, and

What was a nation given over to death, and out of its senses, to do, whom its enemies were pressing both within and on the wall? Gulferius, a little before exhausted and failing, had taken up new strength; now no longer protected by shield or helmet, but holding a red sword in his right hand, swift he pursues the fleeing enemy, and killed more by fear than by the sword, who threw themselves from the wall. Above the gate was one tower, the most excellent and stronger than the rest; in it Bohemond ordered the richer citizens through an interpreter that they should flee: he himself would free them from death if they would redeem themselves from him. Which they did, and entrusted themselves to his faith. That burning pursuit then ceased, because the darkening of evening refused to be stretched further. When it was the Sabbath, there could be rest neither for the victors nor for the vanquished. The count sent sentries around the city, within and without, lest anyone flee and carry off the spoils. On the next day, as day began to grow light, our men run to arms, and through the streets and squares and the roofs of the houses they run about in rage, like a lioness whose cubs have been snatched:

They were sparing none, but hanging many with nooses, so that they might be finished more quickly. A marvelous thing and spectacle, that a multitude of so great a nation, and armed, was being killed thus with impunity, none of them resisting. Because whatever each of our men found was his, they were eviscerating the very bodies of the dead from the outside, and drawing bezants and gold coins out of them. O detestable greed for gold! All the ways of the city were being stained with streams of blood, and strewn with the corpses of those lying down. And O blind nation, entirely destined for death! There was none from so great a multitude who was willing to confess the name of Jesus Christ. Finally Bohemond caused those shut in the palace of the tower to come to him, and commanded women of aged years, decrepit old men, and the feeble of invalid body to be killed; youths and adults of strong body to be kept, and conducted to Antioch so that he might sell them all. This wasting of the Turks was done on the 12th day of December, on the Lord's day, yet it could not all be done that day. On the next day, whoever were found in whatever places were subjected to the same cutting-off of the head. There was no place in the whole city and no pit that was not defiled with their corpses or their gore.

The city thus acquired and freed from the rebellious Turks, Bohemond asked for the count's peace: that he should render Antioch unencumbered to him and permit him to have it in peace. The count said it could in no way be done without perjury, because of the sacrament which, with him even mediating, had been made to the Constantinopolitan emperor. Bohemond returned to Antioch and dismissed his company. The army of the Franks delayed in that city for 1 month and 4 days; and in this delay the bishop of Oriensis died a precious death. They wintered there far too long, because nothing they might eat or plunder could be found. With the wrong of famine compelling, it happened, which is horrible even to say, that they were cutting the bodies of the gentiles into pieces, and cooking them and eating them. Moved by this hardship, the count of Saint-Gilles commanded all the princes at Antioch to come together at Rugia and there draw up concerning the way of the Holy Sepulchre. They came together, but spoke not at all of that for which they had come; they held a conference about peace and concord between the count and Bohemond. When these had by no means been reconciled, all the princes returned to Antioch, and dismissed the count and the way. There remained with the count not only his own, but also much youth burning to complete the way. Trusting more in the Lord than in the princes, he returned to Marra, where the pilgrims were awaiting him; and there was great grief in the whole army of the Christians concerning the dissension of the princes. All knew that pure justice was with Raymond, and that no love or ambition could turn him aside to what was undue.

When he nevertheless saw that the way of the Holy Sepulchre was remaining because of him, he grieved greatly, and with unshod feet he came from Marra as far as Capharda. There, having sojourned 4 days, when the princes were coming together again, and a conflict of words was being held about the same matter, Count Raymond said: "Men, brothers and lords, who have denied all that is yours and your very selves for the love of God, show me whether without perjury I can be at peace with Bohemond, as he asks; or, if it cannot be done otherwise, whether for love of him I ought to be forsworn." And when no one was presuming to be judge of this speech, and all were praising concord, and were not saying how it ought to be done, they departed from one another, and returned to Antioch.

But the Norman count remained with Raymond with all his men, knowing that justice was with him. These two counts draw up their ranks and make for Caesarea. The king of Caesarea had often sent word to the count of Marra and Capharda that he wished to have peace with him, and to serve him gladly from his own. In this trust they went there and pitched camp near the city. The king, seeing the ranks of the Franks placed beside him, was vehemently astonished and grieved, and forbade that any market should be granted them. On the next day he sent two counts of his own to point out the fords of the river and conduct them where they could seize prey. The river's name was Farfar. They conducted them into a fit valley, enriched with temporal goods. Over it was a most strongly fortified castle, under which they found up to 15,000 animals grazing: all of which our men carried off. When they wished to besiege the castle, the men of it immediately surrendered, and had with the counts a pact to be kept in perpetuity: they promised on their faith and swore upon their law that they would never any longer harm Christians going as pilgrims, and would grant them market and lodging as to the men of their own people. They remained five days. On the sixth, camels and beasts of burden loaded with grain, flour, barley, cheeses, and other things fit for eating, they went out rejoicing and came to a castle of the Arabs. The lord of the castle, having used wise counsel, came to meet Count Raymond and made peace with him.

From there they came to a city in a fair and spacious valley, well furnished with walls and towers, most abundantly filled with every kind of fruit, which those inhabitants call Caphalia. The inhabitants, terrified at the rumor of the Franks, deserted their seats and fled to alien ones. The misfortune of Antioch and Marra had terrified all and made them household members of flight. When our men wished to place tents around it and besiege it in a circle, they wondered that no one came to meet them, nor appeared on the towers or the bulwarks, and a deep silence was held within. They sent scouts to inquire diligently and report. Coming nearer the gate, they found the door open, and no one within. Setting shields before their countenances, they go in under the gates still with some hesitation; but they found neither men, nor women, nor any beast. They find fair furnishings: granaries full of grain, winepresses overflowing with wine, chests full of nuts, cheeses, and flour. They go back to the counts and report what they have found. There was no need to pitch tents, because God was making them enter into the labors of others without iron or fight. There it was done which is said in the proverbs of Solomon: The substance of the sinner is preserved for the just. They found gardens full of vegetables and beans, and other legumes ripening to early ripeness. They rested 3 days; and when guardians had been appointed to guard the city, they climbed steep mountainous places and descended into a valley. That valley was freely given, most full with the abundance of all crops and fruits; they remained there 15 days. Near it was a castle full of a multitude of Saracens. When on a certain day our men were attacking it, the Saracens threw down from above the wall many livestock and animals, thinking our men sought nothing else except victuals: which our men received gladly and conducted to the tents.

On the other day they gathered the tents and the tents, and directed the camp there; but when they came there, they found it empty of every people. For on that night all fled; but they dismissed a great abundance of crops and fruits, of milk and honey. There our men celebrated the Purification of holy Mary, the mother of God, glorifying God who was ministering so great goods to them.

17. The Road South

The king of the city of Camela sent his messengers to the counts, asking for those things which are of peace, and sending ahead desirable gifts and horses and gold. He sent a golden bow, precious garments, and glittering missiles: all of which our men received; but they then reported nothing certain to them.

The king of Tripoli, moved by the same terror, sent 10 horses and 4 mules, likewise asking for those things which were of peace. They did receive the gifts, and sent word back that they would never have peace with him unless he were made a Christian. For the count of Saint-Gilles greatly desired his land, because it was most excellent, and his kingdom, because it was more honorable than the rest.

When 14 days had been completed, on the 15th they went out from the most excellent valley to a most ancient castle named Archas: which, though named a castle, could be matched with outstanding cities by the place, the walls, and the height of the towers. Into this, because of its strength, a great nation had streamed together, fearing neither arms, nor an enemy, nor any device. Our men walled it about with a swift siege and attacked it with haste; but the men of the castle manfully sustained their onset. They attacked more often with every kind of missiles and engines, and did not prevail, but lost more than they might gain. Then 14 of our soldiers, not knowing how to be idle, proceeded toward Tripoli, and found 60 Turks who had seized many captives and more than 1,050 animals, and were leading them before them. When our men saw them, although very few, stretching out their hands to heaven and calling upon King Sabaoth, they attacked in military fashion; and, with the Lord of hosts helping, they overcame them; they killed 6, held their horses, and, exulting, returned to the camp with immense prey. There was huge joy in the whole army at the great victory of the few and much plunder.

When others saw these things, many went out from the army of Raymond, kindled with zeal for worth: Raymond Pilet and Raymond, viscount of Turenne, were in command of them, and with banners stretched on high they rode against Tortosa. Coming to it, they attack with a strong onset; but on that day they did nothing, and as night came on they withdrew into a certain corner, and all night made immense pyres of fire, as if the whole army of the Christians remaining behind were at hand. The nation in the city, terrified by these balls of flame, thinking all our men were at hand, suddenly fled, and left the city full of all goods. That city is utterly alien to every necessity, established in a most excellent port of the sea.

On the next day, when our men came to it as to storm it, they found it entirely empty. Rendering the highest praises to God, they entered it, and as long as the siege lasted at Archas they remained there.

There is also another city not far from it, called Maraclea: whose prince entered into peace with them, and received them and their banners within. O wondrous virtue of God, and power to be wondered at! When the princes who seemed to rule and sustain the people were far away, through the fewer and as if the lesser, the Lord began to overcome even the kings themselves, lest human presumption say: "We have subdued Antioch and the other cities; we have conquered so many and so great wars" — because for certain they would never have overcome, unless he through whom kings reign had been with them. But when the duke of dukes and the soldier of soldiers, Godfrey, had heard the happy outcomes and distinguished trophies of those fighting, animated by zeal for gaining victory, then for the first time he himself and the Flemish count and Bohemond moved camp from Antioch, and came to Licia.

There indeed Bohemond divided himself from them and from all the army of God; and he had from his father, who was Frankish-born, most excellent beginnings; but from his mother, who was Apulian, he retained the footsteps.

Then the duke and the count directed their lines to Gibellum, and surrounded it with a siege. At that hour a messenger came to the count of Saint-Gilles that the Turks had prepared themselves to fight against him, and that the war would be all too heavy and the very greatest. Immediately the count sent to the duke and the Flemish count that they should come most swiftly to that battle and bring him aid. When the duke heard this, he sent the prince of the city the peace which he had already often sought. Peace made, and the gifts of the pledged promise received, they flew to the hoped-for war, came together to the siege at the aforesaid castle, and pitched camp on the other bank of the river which flows past it.

But when the duke saw that he was accomplishing nothing, he directed the lines against Tripoli, and found all the enemies ready there. With bows stretched they set themselves against our men; but our men, having thrown their shields, despised bow and arrows as straws. The fight is engaged, but not on even terms, because, with the arrows drawn, they, as is their custom, wanted to flee; but our men set themselves as an obstacle between them and the city. And why should I use more words? So much human blood was poured there that the water which flowed in the city was made red, and filled their cisterns. The more noble of that city died there; and those who remained alive groaned much at the contamination of the cisterns. That slaughter completed, our men, very little content, because they had gained nothing there except missiles and the spoils of clothing, ran into the aforesaid valley Desen; and without number they plundered sheep, oxen, asses, and livestock of different kind; and together they seized 3,000 camels. Our men wondered vehemently whence so great an abundance of beasts had come together, because they had lodged in the same valley for 15 days.

There was never any poverty in that siege, because ships were coming to a certain port bringing all necessities. They celebrated the Lord's Easter there, which was then the 4th of the Ides of April. That besieging lasted 3 months, less 1 day.

Now there died Anselm of Ribemont, a man praiseworthy for many things, and outstanding in his military rank, who, while he was in the world, accomplished many things worthy of relating, among which this is to be preferred, that he was the unwearied helper of the monastery of Anchin in all things. Likewise there died Pons of Balon, whose temples a blow of a stone hurled from a siege-engine pierced. William the Picard and Guarin of Petra Mora died, the first by a javelin, the other by an arrow. For these men and for such as they, our men abandoned that siege, because that impregnable castle feared no violence of those attacking.

The tents having been struck, they proceed to Tripoli, and make firm the peace long sought from the king and the citizens. Right hands given to one another, the nobles commended themselves to their faith to such a degree that they entered the city as far as the king's palace. The king, so that the trust of the peace might be believed more certain, unbound from bonds 300 pilgrims from among our men, and gave them to the nobles. He also gave 15,000 bezants, and 15 horses endowed with much honorableness; and he sent to the whole army a praiseworthy market, which entirely deprived them of every necessity. He even pledged and swore that, if he could acquire Jerusalem for himself, and overcome the war which Amiralidus of Babylon was threatening to inflict upon them, he would be made a Christian, and subjected to the dominion of the king of Jerusalem. They were at Tripoli for three days. The nobles and the warriors, seeing that the time of the new crops was now pressing, agreed that they would seize the Jerusalem journey entirely, and, having omitted all things, hold the straighter way. It was the fourth day of May when they went out from Tripoli, and, ascending through steep mountain-country, they came to the castle Betelon. On the other day they came to Zebaris, in whose neighborhood no water could be found. It was burning heat, and the horses and the whole multitude were thirsting. On the next day they came to the river Braim. There they spent the night, and put their thirst aside. The following night was of the Lord's Ascension; and they themselves ascended the mountain, in which there was a way too narrow, in which they thought to find those coming to meet them; but God, who was their only leader, and there was not with him an alien God, made them cross unharmed. Then they came to Beirut, situated upon the sea; then to Sagitta; after this to Sur; then to Acre; from Acre to the castle Caiphas; and so to Caesarea.

Caesarea is a distinguished city of Palestine, in which Philip the apostle is said to have had a house, shown even to this day; and also the chamber of his daughters, maidens who prophesied. It is situated on the shore of the sea, once called Pyrgos, that is the Tower of Strato. Built by King Herod more nobly, fairly, and usefully against the force of the sea, it was named Caesarea in honor of Caesar Augustus: for whom he even built in it a temple of white marble, in which his nephew Herod was struck by an angel, Cornelius the centurion was baptized, and Agabus the prophet was bound with Paul's belt. Beside it our men pitched their tents, and celebrated the Lord's holy Pentecost.

Then they came to Ramola, which the Saracens had left empty for fear of them: beside which was an illustrious church of Saint George the martyr, in which his most holy body rested, and in which place he himself received martyrdom for the name of Christ. In it the Christian soldiers, out of veneration for the soldier of Christ, elected a bishop, established him, and enriched him with the tithes of all their riches. And it was worthy that George, the unconquered soldier, the standard-bearer of their soldiery, should receive this honor from them. The bishop remained there with his own, rich in gold and silver, horses and animals. And the Christian army directed its journey to the holy city of Jerusalem, in the power of the name of him who lay dead in it, and on the third day rose again, to whom there is, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, equal power and unending glory. Amen.

18. Jerusalem

O good Jesus, when your camps saw the walls of this earthly Jerusalem, how many issues of waters their eyes led down! Falling forward to the earth, with the sound of the mouth and the nod of the inclined body, they saluted your holy Sepulchre, and adored you who lay in it, as sitting at the right hand of the Father, as the judge of all who is to come. Truly then from all you took away the heart of stone, and you bestowed a fleshly heart, and you placed your Holy Spirit in the midst of them. Against your enemies who were in it they were already fighting from far off, stirring you to their aid; and they were fighting better with tears than by hurling javelins, because although the tears flowed down onto the earth, they were nevertheless climbing up into heaven before you, their defender. Rising from prayer they hastened to the royal city; they found the enemies of the eternal king inside, and placed their camps around them in this order.

On the north two counts encamped, the Norman and the Flemish, beside the church of Saint Stephen the protomartyr, where he was stoned by the Jews; on the west, Duke Godfrey and Tancred; on the south, the count of Saint-Gilles, on Mount Zion, around the church of Saint Mary, the Lord's mother, where the Lord dined with his disciples. With the tents thus drawn up in a circuit around Jerusalem, while, fatigued by the hardship of the journey, they rested and prepared engines to storm the city, Raymond Pilet and Raymond of Taurina and a great many others went out from the camps to survey the neighbouring region, lest unforeseen enemies come upon them unprepared. They found 200 Arabs, fought with them, overcame them, killed many, and from there had 30 horses.

On the second weekday of the second week of June, namely the 4th of the Ides, the Christians attacked Jerusalem, but on that day they did not prevail; nevertheless the labor was not empty. They so struck down the outer wall that they raised one ladder to the greater wall; and if an abundance of ladders had then been at hand, that first labor would have been the last. Those who ascended by the ladder contended with the enemy at close quarters for a long time with javelins and swords. Many of our men died in that conflict, but far more of them. The hour of evening, unfit for war, broke off the contest, and night coming on conferred quiet on both sides. This repulse brought a heavy and too long labor upon our men, because loaves could not be found to eat for intervals of 10 days, until their laden ships came to the port of Jaffa. Too great a pressure of thirst wore them down, because Siloam, which rises at the foot of Mount Zion, could scarcely water the men alone; the horses and the rest of the animals were led 6 miles to water, and then with a great guard of soldiers: whence water was dear among them, and flesh was sold at a price.

Counsel having been taken, they chose soldiers to go to the ships and guard them from a foreign people. At the very first light of day, 100 soldiers went out from the army of the count of Saint-Gilles: Raymond Pilet, always at home to every labor of soldiery and utterly foreign to leisure; and with him the other Raymond of Taurina, Achard of Montmerle, and William of Sabran. They were going, as ready for war, to the port of the sea; and while they were going, 30 of them separated themselves from the others, that they might learn the paths of the ways and scout whether they would find enemies. When they had proceeded a little of the journey, they see from a distance 700 Turks and Arabs, whom, although they were very few, they attack without hesitation. The numerousness of the enemies was so great that the fewness of our men could not resist. Our men nevertheless consigned those whom they struck in the first onset to perpetual death. When they reckoned that they could turn back, hemmed in by the multitude, they could not fulfil their wish. Then there Achard died, a warrior, strong and outstanding, and certain of the foot-soldiers. Before the war began, a messenger on a swift horse had run to Pilet, to announce that Arabs and Turks had attacked our men. When Pilet heard this, urging his horse with the spurs without delay, he nevertheless arrived there late. Already Achard was dead, who before he departed exchanged his life for much blood, and his death for the death of very many. But when they caught sight of our men from a distance,

Our men pursued them, and killed many. They held one of them alive, who should report to them the deceits of the Turks and foretell what evil they were plotting; and they held from them 103 horses, which they sent back to the camp, and they themselves carry out the enjoined commands at the ships. The ships laden with food extinguished the hunger; but they could not extinguish the vehement thirst.

So great was the thirst in the siege that they hollowed out the earth and put the damper clods to their mouths, and licked the dewy marbles. They sewed the fresh hides of oxen and of buffaloes and of other animals, and when they arranged to go to water the horses, as many as 6,000 armed soldiers proceeded. Then they filled them with that water, brought them back to the camp, and drank from that stinking water; most, as they could bear it, fasted, because fasts tempered the thirst. And who would believe that hunger would be of use, that pain would drive out pain?

While these things were being suffered, the nobles were having wooden beams brought from a long stretch of land, with which towers and engines might be made that would storm the city. When these had been brought, Godfrey, duke of dukes, built his own tower and ordered it conducted near the city from the eastern quarter. Opposite, the venerable count of Saint-Gilles set up a similar castle and applied it from the southern part. On the fifth weekday our men celebrated fasts and distributed alms to the poor. On the sixth weekday, as dawn was flashing with serene light, the outstanding warriors ascend the towers and put ladders to the walls. The adulterous citizens of the excellent city are stunned and tremble when they see themselves hemmed in with so great strength. Seeing the last day imminent upon them and death hanging over their heads, they began to resist fiercely and, as already in no doubt of death, to fight in defense.

There Duke Godfrey stood out in his tower, not then a soldier, but an archer, whose hands to battle and fingers to war the Lord was directing; for, with arrows shot, he was piercing through the enemies' breasts and both their sides. Beside him his brothers Eustace and Baldwin, like two lions beside a lion, were receiving the hard blows of javelins and stones, and paying them back with fourfold interest. And while it was being fought thus from above the walls, a procession was being conducted around the walls themselves, and crosses and relics and consecrated altars are carried. For the whole day it was contended with alternating blows. But when the hour approached at which the Saviour of all underwent the cross, a certain soldier, named Letoldus, from the duke's castle, first leapt onto the wall, and Guicherius followed after him, who struck down a lion by his own power and killed it. At once the duke follows his soldiers, and all the other soldiers follow their duke. Then the bows and arrows are laid aside, and thunderbolt swords are seized. When these things were seen, the enemies immediately abandon the wall, slip down to the ground, and the soldiers of Christ pursue with swift step and with great voices. When Count Raymond, who was eager to bring his castle near to the wall, heard these voices, he understood that the Franks were in the city, and he says to his soldiers: "Why do we stand here? In vain we labor. The Frankish-born obtain the city; and they resound with great voices and blows." Then with swift step he went with his company to the gate which is beside the tower of David, and he called those who were in the citadel, that they should open to him.

Immediately the ammiravisus who was guarding the tower, when he recognized who he was, opened the door to him; and he commended himself and his men and his goods to his faith, that he might protect him so that he should not be destroyed. But the count said that he would never do that, unless he yielded the tower to him. He gladly assigned his assent; and the count pledged him, as he asked, all trust. But Duke Godfrey was not going after the citadel, not the hall, not gold, not silver, not any spoils whatever; but with his Frankish-born men he was striving to avenge upon them the blood of the servants of God which had been poured out in the circuit of Jerusalem, and the mockeries and the insults which they had inflicted on the pilgrims. In no war did he have such opportunity of killing, nor upon the bridge of Antioch, when he halved a giant gentile. But now, without any resistance, both he himself and Guicherius, who cut a lion through the middle, and many thousands of chosen soldiers, were cutting human bodies from the top of the head as far as the loins, and on the right and on the left through both sides. None of our men there was sluggish, none timorous, where no one was resisting, but each was fleeing according to his own ability; yet no one was able to flee, because the multitude, entangled from itself into itself, was an impediment to itself. Those who were able to slip away from so great a slaughter entered the temple of Solomon, and defended themselves there for a long stretch of the day. But when the day seemed to be declining, our men, fearing the going-down of the sun, having conceived high spirit, burst into the approaches of the temple, and brought them down by a wretched death. So much human blood was poured out there that the bodies of the slain, the wave of blood driving them, were being rolled over the pavement, and arms or truncated hands were flowing upon the gore and being joined to a foreign body, so that no one was able to discern whose body's arm it was, which had been joined to a truncated body. Even the soldiers themselves who were working this butchery scarcely endured the exhaling mists of hot gore. This unspeakable slaughter completed, they indulged nature a little; and they reserved many of the young people, both men and women, for life, and took them into their own service. Presently, running about through the streets and the squares, they seized whatever they found, and what each seized was his own. Jerusalem was then stuffed with temporal goods, nor was it in need of anything except spiritual delicacies. Then indeed she so made rich her sons coming to her from far off that no one remained poor in her.

Enriched with so great riches, they proceeded with glad gait to the Lord's holy Sepulchre; and giving thanks to him who was buried in it, they offered their head-coverings. On that very day, as had been foretold through the prophet, the Lord's Sepulchre was glorious, when all were going prone not with the gait of feet, but of knees and elbows, and were flooding the pavements with a rain of tears. There the Saviour's humility was triumphing, and the pomp of the deceiver was yielding far away. There the humble Christian people was venerating humble Christ, and was ashamed of that veteran Lucifer who wanted to compare himself with his creator. This offering completed with solemn devotion, they returned to their houses, destined for them by God; and indulging the necessities of nature, they gave food and the rest of sleep to their weary bodies. On the next day, when dawn showed her head to the lands, lest any place for ambush remain in the city, they ran armed to the temple of Solomon, to destroy those who had ascended onto the rooftops of the temple. A very great abundance of Turks had climbed up there, which would more gladly have fled if, having taken wings, it could have flown. But to those whom nature denied wings, wretched life gave unhappy endings. When they saw our men encountering them from the opposite side upon the temple, they came to meet them with naked swords, preferring to fall by a most swift death than to perish at the greatest length under the yoke of wretched servitude. They were casting themselves headlong to the earth, and at the earth which grants the nourishment of life to all mortals they were finding death. Nevertheless they did not kill them all; they reserved very many for their own servitude. Then it was established that the city should be cleaned; and it was enjoined upon the living Saracens that they should draw the dead outside, and utterly cleanse the city from all the filth of so great a carrion. Immediately obeying, they both were mourning and were drawing them out, and outside the gate they were building huge pyres, like castle-like and defensive houses. They were gathering truncated members in baskets and bearing them outside, and washing the pavements of the temples and of the houses from blood with water.

All the enemies having been driven out from the city of peaceful name, the question of ordaining a king had to be discussed: that one out of all of them should be chosen, who should be set over so great a city and so great a people. Therefore by the common decree of all, who by vow and general assent, Duke Godfrey is chosen, namely on the 8th day on which the city is stormed. In that governance he displayed himself such that he himself commended the royal dignity more than the royal dignity commended him. Honor did not make him illustrious; glory was multiplied to honor because of him. If the whole of the kings of the earth were at hand beside him, he would be judged by the censure of equity to rule over all, both by the merit of horseman's worth, and by the countenance-marked elegance of body and the prerogative of noble manners.

It was also appropriate afterwards that those who had chosen for themselves a governor of bodies, fittingly and a fitting one, should in like manner put forward a ruler of souls. And so they chose a certain cleric, named Arnulf, well skilled in divine and human law. He was a scribe taught in the kingdom of heaven, that is, in Holy Church: who could well put forth from his treasure things new and old. His election was made on the feast of Saint Peter in Chains: which feast well matches the bound city, which had long been tied with demonic bonds; because on the very day on which she had a worthy priest, she was free and loosed. Thanks therefore to God, the Saviour and liberator of his own, who so often permitted her to be destroyed and enslaved, and so often rebuilt her when destroyed, and by marvelous power freed her when enslaved.

By these alternating conflicts of wars, the Gallic nation penetrated the bounds of the East; and, with divine grace helping, cleansed Jerusalem of the uncleannesses of the gentiles with which she had been polluted for about 40 years. In her, when a priest had been canonically consecrated, and a king exalted, the celebrated name of the Franks became known to all the East, and the omnipotence of Jesus Christ crucified in her shone forth even in the minds of the faithless.

When the ordinance of priest and king had been displayed with solemn joy, messengers from the Neapolitan city came to King Godfrey, bearing the instructions of their citizens, that he should send to them of his own, and should receive their citizens and city into his governance and his dominion: for he wished to extend his own empire from themselves, they more desiring their own principate than that of another prince. Neapolis, however, is a city of Caria, which is a province of Asia. The king, having taken counsel, sent to them his brother Eustace, and Tancred, with a great band of soldiers and of foot-soldiers: whom they received with a great office of veneration, and handed themselves and the city over into their dominion.

19. Ascalon

When he had perceived that these things were thus coming into being, that twisting serpent and slippery snake, who always envies the happiness of the faithful, greatly grieved that the title of the Christian name was being so enlarged, and that the kingdom of the renewed city of Jerusalem was being so widened. And he moved Clement, or rather the demented, the ammiravisus of Babylon, against them with gall, and with him he stirred up the whole East. For the presumptor of all malice hoped to destroy all those men and the city, and to abolish the memory of the Lord's Sepulchre from the foundations. But as the thoughts of men are vain, so also powers vanish. Therefore he gathered whatever of men he could, and with pompous apparatus he came to Ascalon. When he had come there, a certain messenger in haste made the matter known to him as it was. Nor was the delay long: the king sent to those whom he had sent, that they should hasten to the war which the ammiravisus of Babylon had prepared. For he himself was now at Ascalon with a countless people, and was preparing to besiege Jerusalem. When Eustace and Tancred and the rest of the warrior men heard this, they showed the imminent war to the Neapolitan citizens; and bidding them farewell, they departed with the good of joy and friendship. Our men, desiring the encounter of the Turks, ascended the mountains, and sleepless through the whole day and night they came to Caesarea. On the next day, walking beside the sea, they came to a city called Ramola, and there they found many Arabs, the forerunners of the war. Pursuing them, they seized many, who opened to them in truth the whole apparatus of the war. They sent more quickly to the king messengers sitting on swift horses, that he should move all without delay, and proceed against Ascalon to the war.

Ascalon is a distinguished city of Palestine, distant from Jerusalem by 25,000: which the Philistines once founded, and they called it Ascalon, from the name of Celon, who was the grandson of Ham and the son of Mizraim. She was always the adversary of Jerusalem, and although neighboring to it she never wished to be joined by any familiarity. In this city the ammiravisus of Babylon was, when the messengers came to the king and reported what we have said above. The king, when he heard, commanded the patriarch to be summoned, and received counsel from him, that it should be proclaimed through the whole city that on the next day, at the very morning, all should come together to the church; that after the sacred solemnities of the masses they should receive the Eucharist of the Lord's body, and should ride to war toward Ascalon. This rumor disturbed the spirits of the hearers very little; but the following night seemed to them more drawn out with slower progress, and to have come about more quickly.

Thus the Christian lines proceed to battle, bearing God, the victor of war, in body and in mind, and for that reason they are not terrified by any multitude of men, because they do not trust in their own, but in his power. The patriarch indeed left behind his functions to Peter the Hermit, so that he might ordain masses, establish prayers, and compose processions to the Sepulchre, so that God the man, who lay in it, might become a protection to his people.

And when the king with his army came to the river which is this side of Ascalon, he found there many thousands of oxen, camels, asses, mules and she-mules, which were not only from the city, but had come with the army of the ammiravisus. 100 Arabs were guarding all these; but as soon as they saw our men they left the prey behind and sought a refuge of flight. Our men pursued them, but they could not seize except two. They plundered the whole prey, and from it they plentifully made Jerusalem rich. The king, the day now drawing toward evening, commanded it to be cried out through the whole column that all should rest, rise at first light, and prepare themselves for war. But the patriarch anathematized all who in that conflict should plunder anything before victory had been attained. The night having passed, the dawn burned brighter than usual, and stirred our men from sleep. It was the sixth weekday, on which the Saviour of the human race struck down the Devil, the king of Babylon, by the trophy of the cross, and now again the Lord overcame the ammiravisus of his Babylon through his satellites. The king crossed the river, but the patriarch, with the bishops and other religious men, both Greeks and Latins, remained on this side.

The king descended into a beautiful and spacious valley with all his own, entered along the shore of the sea, and there drew up his lines. He himself set up his own as the first, the Norman count the second, the count of Saint-Gilles the third, the Flemish count the fourth, Count Eustace and Tancred and Gaston of Béarn the fifth; and all the foot-soldiers with arrows and javelins and missiles set themselves in front of the soldiers, and thus drawn up they began to go against the Babylonians. On the right side, beside the sea, was the count of Saint-Gilles; on the left the king rode, where the greater strength of the enemies was pressing. Between these were all the others.

But it is not to be passed over what Clement the ammiravisus said, when it was announced to him that our men were riding against him to battle. Of the late prey which our men had captured no one had announced to him, since no one presumed to tell him anything except glad and prosperous things, because he wished always to be in joy. Whoever announced adverse things to him found thereafter no grace in his sight. Yet no possession had disturbed him by its being taken away: what remained was of such great resources. And lest anyone say that what we are about to say is frivolous, we have it from a certain man who afterwards related these things in Jerusalem, who of his own will was made a Christian, and in baptism was called Bohemond. And so at the very morning it was said to him that truly the Franks were ready for battle, and that they were already near, coming against him. Then Clement is reported to have said to the messenger: "What you say to me, I do not dare to believe, because I do not reckon to find them even within the walls of Jerusalem." And he to him: "Most certainly let your greatness know, Lord, that they come ready for battle, and they are already near." Then he commanded that all his men take up arms and hasten to war. And when all stood ready opposite, and he himself had gazed upon our men, he said: "O kingdom of Babylon, surpassing all kingdoms, how great a disgrace you suffer today, in this: that so small a nation presumes to come against you! But I never reckoned to find them even within the precincts of any city whatsoever; and they themselves have dared to come against me by a journey of one day! Either they have lost their sense, or they love to die as they love to live. I command you therefore, O Babylonian warriors, that you wipe all these from the earth; let your eye spare no one, and have mercy on no one." So then the battle was engaged.

First the count of Normandy, an undaunted soldier, began the engagement with his line, in that region in which he saw the banner of the ammiravisus, which they call standarun. Breaking a way with the sword through the midst of the lines, he dealt many slaughters, and at last, coming to the one who was holding the standarun, struck him down before the feet of the ammiravisus, and took the banner. The ammiravisus scarcely escaped, and, fleeing to Ascalon, stood before the door of the city; and the wretched man looked from far off upon the most wretched disaster of his men. With not unlike boldness the king and the rest of the counts rush upon those opposite, and with the most savage punishment, on the right and on the left, they kill as many as come to meet them. There the Turkish bow was of use to none of them, because the onset of our men was so swift and so dense that none was allowed to draw, but it was more pleasing to flee. Many thousands died there, who would not have died if they had prevailed to flee. The multitude was so great because those who were behind were driving those sent ahead onto the death-dealing swords of our men. Tancred and Eustace, count of Boulogne, rushed upon their tents, and there they did many splendid things, which, if they were written, would be worthy of memory. None of our men was found sluggish, none fearful, but all, animated with one spirit, were with one mind pursuing the enemies of the Cross of Christ. It was a wonder that the fewness of our men was not terrified of the multitude of so many armed men, but, with divine grace assisting, it was growing stronger and stronger, and was inclining their stiff-neckedness.

For the whole day the conflict of the fight is entered upon until the sun climbs above the centre of the pole, at the hour at which our Lord Jesus climbs the cross: at that same hour all the strength of the opposing people withered, who were so changed in their wits that they could neither flee nor defend themselves. They were climbing trees, thinking that they might so be protected there as not to be gazed upon by our men. But our men were shooting them with arrows, as fowlers do birds, and were slaughtering those plunged to the earth, as butchers do animals in a slaughterhouse. Others, holding swords in their hands, having thrown themselves at the feet of our men, were bowing themselves to the earth, and they did not dare to raise themselves against the Christians. Now the first part of the Babylonian army was all fleeing, and the hinder part was still in doubt about the victory, whose it was, except that there was nothing for which it hoped less than the flight of their own men and the victory of the Christians. For when it caught sight of its own men running about across the level of the fields in flight, it reckoned that they were pursuing the Christians and wished to kill them. After they learned that the victory was the Christians', sorrow overcame the joy they had had. Then they too, terrified, flee, and they furnish company to their followers as they flee; and as the north wind scatters the clouds, and a whirlwind sent in scatters heaped-up straws, so our men were scattering the wings and wedges of those fleeing. While the soldiers of Christ were thus destroying the satellites of the Devil, and the count of Saint-Gilles, who was fighting beside the sea, was killing without number, and was compelling far more to go headlong into the sea, let us hear what Clement, now indeed demented, the ammiravisus, standing before the gate of Ascalon, said: as the aforesaid proselyte afterwards related at Jerusalem, who was beside him, as his attendant and household-born slave.

Clement, as a madman, was saying, while the Christian nation was cutting down his nation: "O Muhammad, our teacher and patron, where is your power? Where is the power of the heavenly divinities, with whom you yourself glory? Where is the creator's effective power, to which your presence always stands? Why have you thus left your nation behind, which the poorest and ragged nation, a nation the offscouring of other nations and the dregs, rust, and slag of absolutely all men, is mercilessly destroying, scattering, killing; a nation, I say, which was accustomed to seek bread from ours, which had absolutely nothing except a staff and a scrip. So often we gave them alms, so often we had mercy on them! Alas, alas! why did we spare them? Why did we indulge their misery? Why did we not kill them all? Now we can know that they were coming here not as true worshippers, but as sly scouts. They saw the glory of our happiness, they coveted our riches, they carried the desire with them into their own land, and they announced it to these men. Now therefore these thirst for our gold and silver, and on this account they so cruelly pour out our blood. Are these then men who have such power, or surely infernal Gods? Perhaps hell has been broken open, and from there this people has burst. The abyss has sounded, and from there this nation has boiled forth, for they have no bowels of humanity, no signs of piety. If they were men, they would fear to die; but from where they emerged, they are not terrified of returning into hell.

"O glory of the kingdom of Babylon, how shamefully you are today dishonored, you who lose your warriors, once strong, now weakened! What nation will be able any longer to resist this nefarious nation, when your nation cannot stand against it even for an hour? Alas, alas! now they flee who never learned to flee, and they are shamefully struck down who were accustomed to strike others down. Ah, the grief! all things turn to the contrary for us. We used to conquer, and we are conquered; to be continually occupied in gladness of heart, and now we are afflicted with grief. For who is able to hold his eyes from tears, and to check the sobs bursting from the inmost heart? It is long now that in the gathering of this army I have expended the care of great anxiety, and I have consumed much time in vain. The stronger soldiers of the whole East I hired at an innumerable price, and I brought them to this war; and now at the end I have lost both them and the price. At a great loss of silver I had prepared wood for constructing wooden towers, and engines of every kind around Jerusalem, that I might besiege them, and they themselves far from it forestalled my face. What honor shall I have any longer in my land, when a stranger nation, an alien people, so dishonors me? O Muhammad, Muhammad, who is ever worshipped with more graceful worship than you, in shrines distinguished with gold and silver and adorned with fair images of you, and with ceremonies and solemnities and every rite of the sacred things? But this is that with which the Christians are accustomed to insult us, that the power of the Crucified is greater than yours: because he himself is powerful in heaven and on earth. But now it appears that those who trust in him conquer, but those who venerate you are conquered. But our neglect does not exact this, since with gold, gems, and all precious riches your burial is more distinguished than his. That city which is ennobled by your body has never been cut off from honor, but has always grown in every loftiness, and has shone forth with every service of due veneration. But this one in which the Crucified has been buried has never afterwards had honor, but has been destroyed, and trampled underfoot, and reduced to nothing many times. By whose fault, therefore, are we made so degenerate, when we show you every honor, and you repay us no return?

"O Jerusalem, seducing and adulterous city, if at any time it should happen that you came into our hands, I would level you entirely with the ground, and I would utterly destroy the Sepulchre of your Buried One."

When Clement the ammiravisus was rolling these things and things equivalent to them with a plaintive voice, our men, not unmindful of their accustomed power, rushed upon the Babylonians before the door of the city with so great an onset that they left none of them outside the door except dead or exhausted by wounds. In such a manner divine power conquered the war, and victory commended our men. And who could fully report how many were killed in the narrow entrance of the gate? Then Clement could by right weep, when he saw so many extinguished corpses of his men before him. Some, still placed in their last breath, were palpitating, and they were cursing Clement, who had brought them there. It is said that then Clement wept howling, and cursed our men.

There were, however, in the sea that lies next to the city, sailors and ships of the regions lying around the sea, who by command of the ammiravisus had brought a supply of all wealth necessary for the siege of Jerusalem; who, when they saw their own men and their lord so shamefully thrown into confusion, terrified with fear, hoisted the sails and drove themselves onto the high sea.

Our men, with hands raised to heaven, returned thanks to God with their hearts, and, returning to their tents, found gold, silver, and countless spoils of garments, an abundance of food, many kinds of animals, the instruments of all arms. They even found horses and beasts of burden, mules and she-mules, young asses and she-asses, and one dromedary; sheep and rams and other livestock ready for eating; cauldrons and kettles, cooking pots, beds and their coverings, baskets full of gold and silver and of golden garments, and all their equipment. Those who had the tents of the ammiravisus filled with royal riches were enriched with the richest prey.

The count of Normandy offered the standarun, which had a golden apple at the summit of a silver spear, to the Lord's Sepulchre, and it was valued at a price of 20 marks. Another bought the sword for 60 bezants. While our men were thus returning triumphantly, they were finding columns of rustics bearing wine vessels and water vessels, which they thought to be necessary in the siege for the uses of their lords: who, like beasts, stunned, were turning aside nowhere; but, with their heads inclined, they were awaiting the swords of our men. Most were rolling themselves in the blood of the dead, and as if dead they were lurking among the bodies of the dead. When our men came to the river where they had left the patriarch behind, they rested, and, fatigued, they slept their sleep. When day is rendered to the lands, dawn forestalling, they rise, and they hastened the journey begun.

When they began to draw near the city to almost 2 miles, they sounded, as conquerors, on trumpets, sistra, and horns, and with every kind of musician, so that the mountains and hills answered with the measured ringing of the harmony, and in a manner shouted for joy to the Lord with them. Then in reality was being fulfilled what is said spiritually through Isaiah concerning the Church of the faithful: The mountains and the hills were singing praise before you. There was a harmony greatly pleasing and delightful with a manifold sweetness, when the ringing of the mountains, the hollows of the rocks, and the depths of the valleys echoed to the voice of the soldiers and to the sound of the trumpets. When they came before the doors of the city, praises are proclaimed to the Lord by those who had remained, with divine praises, and no longer by earthly mountains but by heavenly ones. God was deservedly praised for this, because now his pilgrims have the gates opened to them with praises, who once were received with great difficulty amid great wrongs, even when gifts were given. Concerning these pilgrims and gates it is said through Isaiah: And your gates will be opened to them continually; day and night they will not be shut. This prophecy is fulfilled in our times, because now the gates of Jerusalem are opened to the sons of pilgrims, which before were shut to them day and night. This battle was accomplished, to the praise and glory of Jesus Christ our Lord, on the day before the Ides of August.

20. The City's Ancient Nobility

Because this historical discourse took the beginning of its name from Jerusalem, and holds both the end and the middle, let it seem out of keeping to no one if, at the close of this work, there is written who first made her, who called her thus. Melchizedek is said to have founded her after the flood, whom the Jews assert to have been the son of Noah. This, founded in Syria, he named Salem, and afterwards he reigned in her for many ages; which afterwards the Jebusites held, and they added to her a part of their name, which is Iebus, and so, the names having been gathered into one, B having been changed into R, they called her Ierusalem. Afterwards, more nobly constructed by Solomon with the Temple of the Lord, and with his royal house, and with many other buildings and gardens and a pool, she is called Ierosolima, and as if from his name she may be understood as Ierusalamonia. This is called Solima corruptly by the poets, and by the prophets she is called Syon, which in our tongue is interpreted Watching, for this reason: that, established on a mountain, she contemplates the things coming from far off. Ierusalem, however, in our speech, is transferred as Peaceful.

Concerning her ancient glorious opulence we find it written in the books of Kings that Solomon made it so that there was as great an abundance of silver in Jerusalem as even of stones. She shone forth far richer when in her the Son of God, for the general redemption of all, sustained the cross, overclouded heaven with its stars, and the earth trembled, the rocks were split, the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had slept rose. In which city did there ever befall so marvelous a mystery, from which the salvation of all the faithful would flow? From which this is inferred, that the Son of God so illumined her by his glorious death, because, if it had pleased our authors, she ought not to have been called Ierusalem, but, with R changed into S, Ihesuslem, and thus in our speech she could have been interpreted Salas pacifica. By these and such figurative actions she is the form and mystic sacrament of that heavenly Jerusalem, of which it is said: The city of our strength, Zion the saviour, a wall and an outer wall shall be set in her. Open the gates, and a just nation shall enter, keeping the truth. We cannot report all things concerning her praise which have been said by the prophets and the doctors of the law. But this earthly one in our age was abandoned by God, and held in hatred, from the malice of those dwelling in her. When it pleased the Lord himself, he brought the Frankish-born nation from the ends of the earth, and through her he willed to free that city from the unclean nations. This from afar he had foretold through Isaiah the prophet, when he says: I will bring your sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, in the name of the Lord your God, and to holy Israel, because he has glorified you. The sons of pilgrims were building your walls, and their kings were ministering to you. These and many other things we find in the prophetic books, which match this liberation accomplished in our ages. Through all things and above all things blessed is God, who by just judgment strikes and wounds, and by gratuitous goodness, when he wills and how he wills, has mercy and heals. Amen.