1. The Call from the West

The hour the Lord had long shown his people was at hand—the hour of the Gospel command: “If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

Across Gaul a resolve took hold. Whoever loved the Lord with a clean heart and meant to bear the cross in his steps was not to delay, but to set out at once for the Holy Sepulchre. The pope of the Roman see hurried into the mountain country with his archbishops, bishops, and priests. He preached with care: anyone who wished to save his soul must enter the Lord’s road without hesitation, and divine mercy would supply whatever money was wanting.

Lord Pope Urban put the cost plainly. “Brothers, we must endure much for Christ’s name—poverty and its miseries, persecution, want, sickness, nakedness, hunger and thirst, and hardships of that kind—just as the Lord himself told his disciples: ‘And you must suffer many things for my name. Do not be ashamed to speak before the faces of men; I shall give you utterance and eloquence, and afterward a generous reward will follow you.’”

As the word passed from province to province through the lands of the Gauls, the Franks took it to heart. They sewed crosses to the right sides of their shoulders and vowed, with one mind, to walk the road by which they had been bought out of hell.

Then the Gauls left their houses and split into bodies of march. One body entered Hungary: Peter the Hermit; Duke Godfrey; Baldwin his brother, that wise champion of Christ—may God keep and defend him—and other seasoned knights, with still more whose names I never learned, having no guide to name them. They used the road that Charles the Great, the famous king of France, had long before opened all the way to Constantinople.

2. The People's Crusade

Peter the Hermit was first into Constantinople, arriving on the Kalends of August with a huge German following. Lombards, Longobards, and many others had already gathered. The emperor ordered them a market as in the city and warned them not to cross the Arm of Saint George until the main Christian host arrived; they were still too few to face the Turks.

But these Christians behaved wickedly. They wrecked and burned the city’s palaces, tore the lead from church roofs, and sold it to the Greeks. This made Emperor Alexius still angrier. He soon ordered them to cross the Arm. After they had crossed, they did not cease committing every kind of evil: houses and churches burned and laid waste.

In time they came to Nicomedia. There Lombards, Longobards, and Germans broke from the French, whose pride had grown unbearable. The Lombards and Longobards set Rainald over themselves; the Germans chose a captain of their own. They pushed into Romania and marched four days beyond Nicaea.

They found a deserted stronghold named Exerogorgo and took it. Grain, wine, meat, and every sort of provision lay stored inside. Word reached the Turks that Christians held the place, and they came at once to besiege it. A well stood before the gate; a spring ran at the foot of the fort. Rainald posted himself by the spring as lookout. On the feast of Saint Michael’s dedication the Turks found him and those with him and cut many down. Survivors fled back into the fortress. The Turks closed around it and cut off every drop of water.

Thirst drove our men to desperate measures. They bled their horses and donkeys and drank the blood. Some wrung water from cloths dipped in the cistern; some drank urine from a comrade’s hands; others pressed damp earth against their chests to ease the dryness.

The bishop and the priests among them steadied the people. “Stand firm everywhere in the faith of Christ,” they said. “Do not fear those who persecute you. As the Lord says, ‘Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.’” Eight days the ordeal lasted.

Then the German leader conspired with the Turks to betray the rest. Feigning a sortie, he fled to the enemy, and many went with him. Whoever would not renounce God was beheaded. The Turks seized the survivors and portioned them out as a man portions sheep. Some they set up as targets and shot with arrows; others they sold or gave away like cattle. Each captor led his share home—some to Khurasan, some to Antioch, some to Aleppo, or wherever he lived.

These were the first to win blessed martyrdom for Christ’s name.

When the Turks learned that Peter the Hermit and Walter lay at Civitot, the fort above Nicaea, they hurried there in high spirits to destroy them. On the road they met Walter and his knights and killed them all at once. Not long before, Peter had gone back to Constantinople; he could not hold that mixed crowd, which neither obeyed him nor heard his words.

The Turks fell on the camp and slaughtered many. They found men asleep, men lying down, and some naked. They found a priest saying Mass at the altar and made a martyr of him on the spot. Whoever could still run fled toward Civitot—some into the sea, some into the woods or over the hills. The Turks pressed them into the fort and heaped timber against it to burn the place and everyone inside. The Christians set the pile alight; the flames turned back on the Turks, for God would not leave his people. Those taken alive were divided as before and scattered through every Turkish land—some to Khurasan, others to Persia.

All this fell in October. News that the Turks had broken and scattered our men pleased the emperor; he rejoiced at it. He had the survivors brought across the Arm, and once they were over he bought up every weapon they still held.

3. The Princes on the Road

Another column pushed through Slavonia under Raymond, count of Saint-Gilles, together with the honorable bishop of Le Puy. Still another followed the ancient route that led toward Rome. Among them rode the count of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, Hugh the Great, and a great company besides.

As they drew near Brindisi, Bari, and Otranto, Hugh the Great and William, the marquis’s son, embarked from Bari. Crossing over, they landed at Dyrrachium. When the city’s duke heard that these capable men had landed, an evil plan rose in his heart at once. He had them arrested and carefully taken to the wretched emperor in Constantinople, so that they might be made to swear fidelity.

Bohemond, meanwhile, was still pressing Amalfi at the site called Scaphardus Pontius when news reached him of a vast Frankish rising. Their aim was to take the road to the Holy Sepulchre from the most wicked pagans and leave it free and open to Christians everywhere. He set himself, carefully and shrewdly, to learn what weapons they carried, what mark of Christ they wore on the march, and what battle-cry they used. Report came back in order: war-gear never out of hand; the cross of Christ fixed on the right shoulder or between both; and a single shout from all—“God wills it! God wills it! God wills it!”

The Holy Spirit moved him. He ordered a precious mantle of his own fetched, cut it apart, and handed out the pieces as crosses. Knights streamed to him from the siege until Count Roger was left nearly alone and only just returned to Sicily, mourning the people he had lost.

Bohemond went home again and equipped himself thoroughly for the journey to the Holy Sepulchre. Then he crossed the sea with his host; the prudent Tancred, the marquis’s son, and many others sailed with him. They landed in the country of Bulgaria and found grain, wine, and food in abundance. Next they descended into the valley of Adrianople and pitched camp there until every man of theirs had crossed.

From that camp they advanced through a plentiful land, from one settlement to the next, fort to fort and town to town, until they reached Kastoria and kept the Lord’s Nativity with solemn rites. Beyond Kastoria lay Pelagonia and a heretic fortress built out in a lake. They assaulted it from all sides; it fell without delay. They burned the fort and its people—the whole heretic congregation—together.

They then came to the Vardar. Bohemond forded with one portion of his force; the remainder stayed under the count of Rossignol and that count’s brother the bishop. There the accursed emperor’s troops fell upon the count, the bishop, and everyone left behind. Prudent Tancred, hearing the alarm, turned back, threw himself into the stream, and swam to them. Two thousand soldiers followed him into the water. On the far bank they found Turcopoles and Pincenates already fighting our men. They charged, broke them by force and skill, took many captive, and led the bound prisoners before Lord Bohemond.

He demanded of them: “Why, you wretches, do you murder Christ’s people and mine? I have no quarrel with your emperor.” Their answer was: “We cannot do otherwise. We draw the godless emperor’s pay; his orders we must carry out.” Bohemond dismissed them without punishment. The action fell on a Wednesday at the opening of Lent. May God be blessed in all things, for ever and ever. Amen.

Alexius then sent a favorite soldier of his, called Corpolasius, to escort the Franks safely through imperial territory as far as Constantinople. Wherever they approached his cities, he bade the townsfolk open a market for them as freely as for himself. Even so, fear of Bohemond’s army kept every gate shut against them; not one man was allowed inside the walls. They halted at Rusa. From there learned Bohemond left the host and rode ahead to speak with the emperor, telling his men: “Advance on the city in good order. I go first with a few knights.”

Raymond of Saint-Gilles, together with the bishop of Le Puy, came out of Slavonia. There he had already paid dearly for Christ’s name and for the road to the Sepulchre—hardships he should never have met—and had lost many honorable knights on the way. They reached Dyrrachium, an imperial city. There, while Raymond longed to be in his own land, the worst of enemies closed in. Greeks lay in wait for these seasoned knights of Christ and never ceased, by day or night, from secret harm.

The local duke readily pledged them safe conduct for their stay in his territory. Under that very pledge his men treacherously killed one of our distinguished knights, Pontius Rainald, and badly wounded his brother. Our column moved on and met imperial letters of peace and brotherhood, promising that the count would be treated as one of the emperor’s own sons.

While those letters were still being read, Turks, Pincenates, Clavi, Cumans, Uzes, and Athanasians prowled around them, hunting any chance to strike. One day the bishop of Le Puy, quartered a little apart, fell into Pincenate hands. They threw him from his mule, stripped him, and gashed the crown of his head. Because the people of God still needed so great a bishop, the Lord’s mercy preserved his life. A shout went up in the tents; everyone rushed out and tore him free.

They next came to a fort named Buchinat. News reached the count that Pincenates were lying for him in a narrow mountain road. He stayed back with many knights, found them, killed a share, and hunted the rest. All this time peaceful letters arrived from the emperor, and all this time his enemies watched for them on every road.

At last they entered a city called Rusa. The inhabitants did them every open harm their cunning could invent. The count, furious, ordered his men to take up arms, had his signals sounded, and stormed the place, defeating it thoroughly. From there they moved to Rodosto. That same day imperial soldiers hit them from the rear of the column. The count met the attack, killed thirty men, and captured sixty horses.

There the envoys earlier sent to Constantinople rejoined the host. They reported that the emperor promised to make good all their losses once the count arrived, and that Duke Godfrey, Bohemond, the count of Flanders, and the rest of the princes urged Raymond to leave most of his army behind and hasten to the capital with a few unarmed knights. They also said the emperor had taken the cross and vowed to join us for Jerusalem as our leader and our head.

On that word the count left his army and went on to Constantinople to treat with the emperor.

4. Constantinople

Duke Godfrey reached Constantinople first among the princes, bringing a great army two days before the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. He camped outside until the wicked emperor had him lodged with honor in the suburb. Once quartered, the duke daily detailed squires to fetch straw and other necessities. They soon believed they might go about as they chose.

Alexius—the wicked emperor by name—had them watched secretly and ordered his Turcopoles and Pincenates to cut them down. Baldwin, the duke’s brother, learned what the treacherous emperor had ordered his men to do and rode out at full resolve to find the attackers. He caught them killing his people, struck with all his force, and by God’s help routed them. Sixty he took alive, some he killed, and the rest he led before the duke.

The emperor’s anger was sharp. Seeing it, the duke pulled his knights out of the suburb and back to their earlier camp beyond the walls. At nightfall the wretched emperor launched his forces against the duke and Christ’s people together. The unconquered duke countercharged with the knights of Christ, killed seven, and drove the others as far as the city gate. He returned to his tents and held the field nearly five days until an agreement was reached. Alexius told him to cross the Arm of Saint George, promising a market there as full as at Constantinople, and alms so that the poor might live.

When Bohemond’s arrival was known, the emperor had him received with honor and lodged with careful caution outside the walls. Once Bohemond was comfortably settled, Alexius summoned him to a private talk. They came to terms: Romania land fifteen days’ journey long and eight wide was granted to Bohemond. For that grant Bohemond pledged he would neither take the land from the emperor nor consent to its taking.

Count Raymond, arriving to deal with the emperor, was told to become the emperor’s man and offer the same pledge already given by Bohemond and the other princes. Raymond answered: “Far be it from me! I will acknowledge no lord on this road except the one I already serve, for whose love I have come this far. Yet if you truly take the cross and march with us to Jerusalem, I, my men, and all I hold by God’s mercy shall stand freely at your disposal.”

During the count’s stay in the capital, imperial troops found his army unsupported, sprang an ambush, and did it every injury they could. Raymond, hearing of the harm, groaned and was cut to the heart. He summoned Bohemond and the other princes at once and sent to ask why the emperor had drawn him to Constantinople by treachery and allowed his host to be abused.

Alexius denied the charge outright. “In truth,” he told them, “this was never done by my counsel, and to my knowledge no injury passed between them. What I do know is this: your army has wronged me, smashing castles and towns in my land. I offer satisfaction in good faith, and I set Bohemond as surety.” At the hearing the count first fulfilled his pledge; only after that was done did his army come up to Constantinople.

Again the emperor demanded homage and a pledge like the rest. While the demand stood, Raymond weighed how to avenge himself on the imperial force. Duke Godfrey, the count of Flanders, and the other princes held that fighting Christians would be unjust. Bohemond warned that if the count injured the emperor and withheld the pledge, he himself would take the emperor’s side.

Raymond therefore followed his men’s advice. He bound himself to protect Alexius’s life and honor, and never—by his own act or by another’s—to strip the emperor of his land. Called on for homage, he refused even at the risk of his head.

Alexius next addressed mighty Bohemond, whom he dreaded in his heart, knowing how often Bohemond’s army had driven him from the field. If Bohemond would freely swear, the emperor promised him a holding measured fifteen days’ travel long and eight wide, extending back from Antioch. Bohemond took the oath on this condition: so long as the emperor kept faith, Bohemond would never break his own.

Bohemond’s army then approached Constantinople. With all this settled, the whole host gathered at the harbor, crossed the Arm together, landed as one, and came to Nicomedia, where they remained three days.

5. Nicaea

Nicaea, capital of all Romania, was first besieged by Duke Godfrey and the count of Flanders with their armies. Bohemond came up and took the northern side. They pitched camp on the sixth day of May.

On the feast of the Lord’s Ascension the assault began from every quarter. Wooden engines and towers rose against the wall-towers. For two days the combined attack was so fierce that the wall itself was mined.

Inside, the Turks—a barbarous people—dispatched messengers to a relieving force. Let them come boldly, the note said, and enter by the southern gate; that face stood empty of defenders. But Raymond of Saint-Gilles and the bishop of Le Puy had already seized that gate the same day.

From the opposite side the count advanced, guarded by divine power and shining in worldly armor amid his bravest troops. There he met Turks moving against us. Armed under the sign of the cross, he hit them hard; they fled broken, and most of them were slain.

Fresh companies followed, elated by what their comrades reported and eager for a decisive clash. They carried ropes meant to bind us and drag us captive into Khurasan. Joyfully they eased down from the mountain crest. Every man who entered the valley below was beheaded by the hands of the Franks, and the heads were piled before the city. Those heads then went into a siege engine’s sling and were flung over the walls to deepen the anguish of the people within.

Raymond and the bishop of Le Puy next planned the ruin of a tower facing their tents. Diggers worked beneath it while crossbowmen and archers screened them on every side. They cut down to the foundations, set posts and timber under the masonry, and fired the props. Toward evening the tower fell in the night. Darkness kept them from pressing the defenders. That very night, however, the Turks rose in haste and rebuilt the wall so solid and clean that by morning no one could harm them from that quarter.

Seeing that they could obtain no help at all from their field armies, the Turks sent envoys to the emperor. They offered free surrender of the city if they might leave alive with their wives, children, and all they possessed. The emperor, filled with empty and wicked plans, ordered them sent away unharmed and without fear, and brought safely to him in Constantinople. Out of friendship for the emperor the pilgrims consented.

Seven weeks the siege had lasted. Many of our men won faithful martyrdom there and gave their blessed souls to God with joy. Many of the poorest perished of hunger and died blessedly for Christ’s name, who is blessed and worthy of praise for ever and ever. Amen.

Once the city was yielded and the Turks led off to Constantinople, the emperor’s joy grew as the place returned to his power. He ordered very large alms distributed among our poor.

The first day after our departure we reached a bridge and rested there two days.

6. Across Anatolia

Before dawn on the third day our army broke camp. Night still hung over the road, so the host could not hold a single line of march. We split into two columns and kept apart for two days. Bohemond rode with Robert of Normandy, Tancred, and many more. Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Duke Godfrey, the bishop of Le Puy, Hugh the Great, the count of Flanders, and the rest formed the second column.

On the third day the Turks struck Bohemond’s column with overwhelming force. The moment they sighted us they raised a wild, devilish din in a tongue none of us knew—shrieking, chattering, and howling as they came on.

Bohemond saw the endless ranks ahead and ordered every knight out of the saddle and the tents raised at once. Before the camp was even set he spoke again: “Lords and brave knights of Christ, battle closes on us from every side. Knights, ride out and face them. Foot soldiers, pitch the tents with care and speed.”

By the time that was done the Turks already surrounded us, fighting hard, casting javelins and darts, and shooting arrows that carried an extraordinary distance. We could not match their numbers or endure the press of so many foes, yet we held together and would not break. Our women served us greatly that day: they carried water to the fighters, urged them on without pause, and stood in the fight themselves to defend them.

Bohemond sent urgent word to the other column—to Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Duke Godfrey, Hugh the Great, the bishop of Le Puy, and every prudent knight with them—to hurry into the battle without delay: “If they mean to fight today, let them come like men.” At first our comrades laughed the messengers off and answered that the whole report was false. We no longer thought the enemy bold enough to rise and meet us again.

Yet Duke Godfrey and Hugh the Great arrived first with their hosts. The bishop of Le Puy followed with his, and Raymond of Saint-Gilles pressed close beside them with a great force.

We stared in wonder at where so vast a throng of Turks, Arabs, Saracens, and peoples I cannot count could have come from. Almost every mountain, hill, valley, and plain seemed buried under that excommunicate race. Among ourselves we spoke quietly and steeled one another: “Stand one in the faith of Christ, and take the standard of the holy Cross as your armor for victory. Today, if God wills it, every man of you will grow rich.”

The lines formed at once. On the left stood Bohemond and Robert of Normandy, with Tancred, Robert of Ansa, and Richard of the Principate. The bishop of Le Puy took another mountain and swung around the unbelieving Turks from that quarter. On the right rode Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Duke Godfrey, the fierce count of Flanders, Hugh the Great, and many others whose names I never learned.

The moment our knights advanced, the Turks, Arabs, Saracens, Angulani, and every barbarous nation with them bolted by short cuts over mountain and plain. Turks, Saracens, Publicani, Persians, Angulani, and other pagans numbered three hundred and sixty thousand, not counting the Arabs, whose count God alone knows. They raced back to their tents, yet found no safety there. They fled a second time, and we hunted and slaughtered them the whole day long. The spoils were huge: gold and silver, horses, asses, camels, sheep, cattle, and many things we had never seen before.

Had the Lord not stood with us in that fight and sent the second line of battle in time, not one of us would have lived. The combat ran from the third hour to the ninth. Almighty God, merciful and loving, would not let his knights perish or fall into enemy hands, and help came swiftly.

Two knights of standing died there: Goffred of Monte Scabioso and William, the marquis’s son and Tancred’s brother. Other horse and foot whose names I never learned fell with them.

What learned man would dare set down, or even picture, the skill, the war-craft, and the courage of the Turks? They meant to cow the Frankish people with the threat of their arrows, as they had cowed Arabs, Saracens, Armenians, Syrians, and Greeks. But if God wills it, that triumph over us will never be seen, done, spoken of, or imagined. Still they claim Frankish blood, and say that nature has made none knights but the Franks and themselves. Here is the full truth, which no one will deny: if they had held firm in the faith of Christ and in Christianity—if they had believed, with right mind and faith, in the One who abides in the Trinity, born of the Virgin Mother, who suffered and rose, sent the full consolation of the Holy Spirit, and reigns alike in heaven and on earth—no people more prudent, braver, or more cunning in war could have been found. The battle fell on the first of July. May God be blessed for ever and ever. Amen.

God’s enemies and the foes of holy Christianity, once shattered, ran this way and that for four days and nights. Soliman, their leader and son of Soliman the Elder, was himself still fleeing Nicaea when he fell in with ten thousand Arabs. “Most wretched and miserable of all pagans,” they asked him, “why do you keep running as if terror itself were at your heels?”

Weeping, Soliman told them his story. Earlier he had beaten the Franks and thought them already his captives, meaning to bind them up by degrees. Then he looked behind him and saw a host so vast that anyone present would have believed mountain, hill, valley, and plain alike packed with them. At that sight his people fled at once. Fear nearly undid them; they barely escaped, and the terror had not left them yet. If the Arabs trusted him at all, he said, they should quit the country—once the Franks so much as learned where they were, scarcely a man among them would survive.

The Arabs took the warning, turned about, and melted away through Romania. We kept after the most wicked Turks, who fled before us every day. At each fortress or town they reached they played the same deceit, mocking the inhabitants: every Christian had been crushed, they said; none would ever rise again—only open the gates. Once inside they looted churches and houses, drove off horses, asses, and mules, seized gold and silver and whatever else they found, carried away Christian children, and burned or ruined all that was of use, always fleeing on in dread of us.

The country we crossed in pursuit was empty, dry, and unfit for life; we barely came through it alive. Hunger and thirst pressed from every side. Food meant, at best, grain heads rubbed out in our hands—miserable fare on which we barely lived. Most of the war-horses died there, and many a knight was left to walk. Mounts grew so rare that oxen served in their place, and under hard necessity even goats, rams, and dogs carried our baggage. At last a rich country opened before us, full of food, delicacies, and every good thing.

Later we drew near Iconium. The people of the land warned us to fill waterskins, for a full day’s march ahead held almost no water. We took their advice and came to a river, where we camped two days.

Our scouts pushed on to Heraclea. A great host of Turks lay in wait there, hoping for a chance to strike Christ’s knights. When the knights of almighty God found them, they charged boldly. God favored us that day: the enemy broke and fled. Our men entered the city at once and stayed four days.

There Tancred—valiant son of the marquis—and Baldwin, Duke Godfrey’s brother, left the main host and entered the valley of Botrenthot together. Tancred then parted from Baldwin and rode for Tarsus with only his own knights. The Turks came out of the city, massed, and made ready to fight the Christians. When our men closed and engaged them, every enemy turned and raced back inside. Tancred, prudent knight of Christ, rode hard to the gate and pitched camp before it.

Count Baldwin approached from the other side with his army and begged the valiant Tancred to take him as partner in the city. Tancred answered, “I grant you no share in this partnership.”

Night fell, and terror drove every Turk out in flight. Under cover of darkness the townsfolk came out crying, “Hurry, unconquered Franks, hurry! Fear of you has driven every Turk away.”

As night thinned and day rose, the leading citizens surrendered of their own will. To the lords still quarreling they said, “Stop now, lords—stop. Let yesterday’s bravest fighter against the Turks be the one who rules us.”

Baldwin, still contending with Tancred, said, “Let us enter together and plunder the place. Whoever can seize more shall keep it, and whoever can snatch something may take it.” Tancred refused: “God forbid. I will not plunder Christians. These people choose me as lord and want me.”

In the end Tancred could not hold out long against Baldwin, who had the larger army. Willing or not, he yielded the city and withdrew in good order with his force. Athena and Mamistra—two fine cities—passed into his hands next, with a string of fortresses besides.

The main army—Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Bohemond, Duke Godfrey, and many other princes—entered the land of the Armenians, thirsting and burning for Turkish blood. At last they came to a fortress so strong they could do nothing against it. A local man named Simeon asked for the land so that he might hold it against the Turkish enemy. They granted it willingly, and he stayed there with his people.

From there we reached Caesarea in Cappadocia in safety. After leaving Cappadocia we came to a city of great beauty and fertility. The Turks had besieged it for three weeks not long before and failed to take it. The moment we arrived it surrendered into our hands with joy. A knight named Peter of Alipha asked the lords for the city, that he might defend it in fealty to God, the Holy Sepulchre, the lords, and the emperor. They granted it freely and with good will. As day faded and night drew on, Bohemond heard that the men who had been besieging the place were still advancing toward us. He made ready to fight them with his knights alone, but he never found them.

Next we came to Coxon, a city rich in every supply we needed. Its Christian natives surrendered at once, and for three days we lived well there while our men recovered their strength.

When Raymond of Saint-Gilles heard a report that the Turks charged with guarding Antioch had left, he and his men decided in council to send knights ahead to hold the place carefully. He chose Peter of Castillon the viscount, William of Monte Pisierio, Aralius the viscount, Peter of Roaix, and Peter Raymond of Dalphor, with five hundred knights. They reached a valley near Antioch and a fortress of the Publicani, and there learned that the Turks still held the city and meant to defend it hard.

Peter of Roaix left the others, passed close by Antioch the next night, and entered the valley of Rugia unharmed. He met Turks and Saracens, killed many, and drove the rest hard. To Count Raymond he sent a spear hung with Turkish lips and noses. When the Armenians of that land saw how thoroughly he had beaten the pagans, they surrendered to him. He took the city of Rursa and many fortresses at once.

Those of us still with the main host left Coxon and entered a mountain country that seemed diabolical. The track was so high and narrow that no man dared pass another on the path. Horses went over the edge; one pack animal knocked the next down. Knights stood about in grief, wringing their hands, not knowing what to do with themselves or their arms. They sold shields, their best mail, and helmets for three or five denarii—or whatever more they could get. Those who found no buyers threw the gear away and walked on.

Leaving that cursed range, we came to Marash. Its people came out joyfully with a great market, and we had plenty of everything while we waited for Bohemond. Then our knights entered the valley where the royal city of Antioch stands—capital of all Syria, which the Lord Jesus Christ entrusted to blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, that he might bring it back to the worship of the holy faith. He lives and reigns, God three and one, for ever and ever. Amen.

As we neared the Iron Port, our scouts, who always rode ahead, met an innumerable host of Turks hurrying to reinforce Antioch. Our men fell on them with one mind, and the Turks were utterly broken. The barbarians fled in confusion; many died in the clash. With God’s help we took a great haul: horses, camels, mules, and asses loaded with grain and wine.

7. Before Antioch

From the Iron Port our men rode back and camped along the river. Bohemond at once took four thousand knights and set a watch before the city gate, so that no one might slip out or in by night.

The next day, a Wednesday, at midday—the twelfth day before the Kalends of November—they reached Antioch. We laid a remarkable siege against three of its gates. On the remaining side a high, very narrow mountain left us no ground from which to besiege it. For nearly fifteen days the Turks inside were so afraid of us that none dared strike a single man of ours.

Once we were camped around the city, provision met us as if from heaven’s dew: vineyards, pits of grain everywhere, trees heavy with good fruit, and much else fit to feed the body.

Armenians and Syrians from within would come out pretending flight. Day after day they stayed among us, while their wives remained inside. They spied out our strength, our numbers, and our doings, and carried every report back to the excommunicate people shut in the city.

Instructed by those reports, the Turks began to leave the gates little by little and press our pilgrims from every quarter—not from one side only, but toward the sea and toward the mountain alike. Not far from the host stood a fortress called Aregh, where many hard-fighting Turks had gathered, and from there they harried us again and again.

When our lords learned how often the Turks tore our pilgrims apart and killed them, they grieved and sent knights to find the place of ambush. Those searchers found the enemy and, as they fell back slowly toward the rear where Bohemond lay hidden with his force, many of our knights were slain. Bohemond heard of it and rose at once like a champion of Christ. The barbarians charged hard, thinking our numbers few; but our men closed ranks and fought. Many of the enemy died. Prisoners were led before the city gate and beheaded there, so that those within might feel a sharper sorrow.

Others came out of the city, climbed a height above us, and shot down so that arrows fell into the open ground of Bohemond’s camp. One day a woman died from a swift shaft. All our leaders met in council and said, “Let us raise a fortress on the crest of the mountain over Bohemond’s camp, so that we may sit secure from Turkish fear.” Once the work was built and made strong, the leaders took turns guarding it with care.

Well before Christmas, grain and every bodily supply had grown ruinously dear. We dared not leave the camp, and Christian country yielded us nothing to eat. No one entered Saracen land unless he went with a very great force.

At last the lords sat in council to order the people rightly. They decided that one part of the army should go out for provisions and protect the foragers wherever they went, while the rest stayed to watch the enemy. Bohemond spoke first: “Lords and prudent knights, if it seems good and honorable to you, I will go with the count of Flanders.”

After they had kept the Nativity with full solemnity, Bohemond, the count of Flanders, and more than twenty thousand knights and foot soldiers set out on a Monday. They entered Saracen country safe and unharmed. Innumerable Turks, Arabs, and Saracens from Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo, and the lands round about had gathered to strengthen Antioch. Hearing that a Christian force had come into their country, they made ready for battle and at first light came to the place where our people stood. The barbarians split into two lines, one before and one behind, meaning to surround us.

The count of Flanders, armored in the faith and in the sign of the cross he bears each day, rode to meet them with Bohemond. Our men struck as one. The enemy fled at once, turning their backs in haste. Many died; we took many horses and other spoils. Those who lived ran straight into the wrath of perdition. We came back rejoicing, praising and magnifying the Lord, three and one, who lives and reigns now and always. Amen.

The Turks who held Antioch—enemies of God and of holy Christianity—learned that Bohemond and the count of Flanders were away from the siege. They came out boldly to fight us. Knowing those prudent knights gone, they hunted for the weakest point of the blockade and found that on a certain Tuesday they could do us harm. The most wicked barbarians crept up and fell on us while we neither expected battle nor suspected it, and they killed many of our knights and foot soldiers. On that bitter day the bishop of Saint Mary of Le Puy lost his seneschal, the man who carried and directed his banner. Had the river not stood between us and them, they would have struck us again and again, done our people very great hurt, and even ridden with loose reins into our tents.

Meanwhile Bohemond was bringing his army back from Saracen land. He came into Tancred’s mountain country hoping to find something worth carrying off, but the whole country had been stripped bare. Some found provisions; others returned empty. Those who found nothing hurried back at once. Bohemond rebuked them hard: “Wretched and most miserable people—basest and most sorrowful of all Christians—why do you rush away so soon? Wait until we are all together. Do not wander like sheep without a shepherd. Day and night the enemy watches to catch you alone or scattered, without a leader; daily he labors to kill us or lead us into captivity. What will you wretches do then?”

When he finished, he looked before and behind and found himself almost alone. Still he rejoined what men he could gather and returned to his army more empty-handed than laden.

When the Armenians, Syrians, and Greeks saw that our foragers had brought nothing back, they took counsel, left by mountain tracks they knew, bought grain and other supplies with care, and carried them to the army, where hunger was vast. They sold one ass-load for eight purpurati—worth a hundred and twenty denarii in solidi. Many of our knights died there for lack of money to buy at such a price.

The hardship and misery of the camp drove William the Carpenter and Peter the Hermit to take counsel and steal away in secret. Tancred went after them, caught them, and dragged them back in open shame. William promised to rejoin the army willingly and to make amends before the lords. All night he lay in Bohemond’s tent like some evil thing.

At daybreak he stood before Bohemond red with shame. Bohemond poured out his full contempt: “Wretch—disgrace of the whole of France! You are the shame and the crime of Gaul itself! Most wicked of all men the earth supports! Why did you run away so basely? Was it for this wicked end—to betray these knights and Christ’s army, as you once betrayed others in Spain?”

William had no answer; his mouth stayed shut. The Franks thronged around and begged Bohemond, Christ’s knight, to spare him worse punishment. Bohemond yielded only for their sake, and only if William swore with whole heart and mind never again to quit the road to the Holy Sepulchre, whether fortune went well or ill—and if Tancred, for his part, would harm him neither in person nor through any friend.

They accepted those terms at once. Bohemond freed him. Not long after, shame still mastering him, William the Carpenter slipped away in secret a second time.

It was for our sins that God let this poverty and misery fall on us. In the whole army one could not count even a thousand knights who still rode excellent horses.

Tatikios, a noble and wealthy knight of the emperor’s force, had been given to the Franks to guide them and to take, in the emperor’s name, land won back from the Turks. When news came of a Turkish army marching against us, that wretch groaned, convinced we were already dead or captive, and began to sow every falsehood he could invent. He told the leaders that extreme need pinned them here with help from no quarter; if they would let him go back into Romania, he would certainly return. Ships would come by sea packed with grain, wine, barley, meat, flour, cheese, and every supply the camp required; horses would be brought for sale; a market would open quickly through the emperor’s lands. He would swear to see it all done. His servants and his tent would stay in camp as pledges. They must not doubt; they must believe he would come back as soon as he could.

That enemy departed and left his goods behind. By that departure he stands a perjurer then, now, and forever.

Need of the worst kind closed on us. The Turks hemmed us in from every side, and fear of them grew so great that no man dared step outside the tents.

8. The Relief Battle

On one side the Turks pinned us; on the other, hunger gnawed. The whole camp was heavy with grief, and the princes themselves were afraid. Help came from nowhere. The poorer folk slipped away—some to Cyprus, some into Romania, some into the hills. We dared not make for the sea, so deep was our fear of those wicked Turks. No road stood open.

Word reached the leaders of an innumerable Turkish host on the march. They debated: they could not fight on two fronts at once with the numbers they had. The foot soldiers must stay and hold the tents against the garrison; the knights must ride out together against the enemy camped at Areght, beyond the Iron Bridge.

That evening they crossed the river from the camp and fixed the plan. They would all go against the enemy—said to number twenty-five thousand—while the bishop of Le Puy, Robert of Normandy, and Count Eustace stayed behind to guard the tents from the city.

At dawn scouts rode out to learn where the Turkish army was and what it was doing. Searching carefully, they found the enemy advancing from the river in separate bodies, drawn up in two lines, the main force coming last. They raced back with the alarm: the Turks were already near—every man must stand ready; the enemy could be seen from where they stood.

Each leader formed his own line until six stood ready. Five went forward together to strike. The count of Flanders led the first; Bohemond followed more slowly with his.

When the lines met, man cut down man. The cry went up to heaven; storms of missiles blackened the air. Then the enemy main body, which had hung in the rear, crashed into us so hard that our ranks began to yield a little.

Bohemond groaned and called to his constable, Robert son of Gerard, to remember the wise men of old and their own brave fathers—what kind of men they had been and what fights they had won. Robert rode out armed with the cross on every side, a true athlete of Christ, and charged bearing Bohemond’s standard.

The other lines, seeing that banner carried so well in front of all, swung back into the fight as one. Seven hundred of us faced twenty-five thousand Turks. By God’s grace the whole enemy host lost heart, turned, and fled. We hunted them down and cut them to pieces.

The survivors bolted into their fortress, stripped it of everything movable, fired the place, and ran. Armenians, Syrians, and Greeks, knowing the Turks had lost the day, blocked the narrow passes and killed or took many of the fugitives.

So God gave us the victory that day. We came away well stocked with horses and other things we had badly needed. Some captives we brought living; many heads of the dead we carried to the city gate, where envoys of the emir of Babylon lay camped on their way to the count of Saint-Gilles and the other leaders.

All day the Franks left at the tents fought the city garrison before its three gates. The battle fell on a Tuesday at the start of the fast, the fifth day before the Ides of February, by the favor of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit through ages without end. Amen.

God brought our men home in triumph, rejoicing over enemies who are forever beaten. The survivors wandered and strayed—some into Khurasan, others into the land of the Saracens.

9. Antioch Falls

Inside Antioch the enemy never stopped pressing us. Day and night they watched and set ambushes, looking for any chance to wound the host and wear it down. Our leaders met and debated what to do before God’s people—and our own—were lost. The plan they fixed on was to raise a work at Machomaria, opposite the gate and the bridge, from which they might choke the Turks’ room to move.

Everyone approved. Count Raymond of Saint-Gilles offered first: if the rest would help him build, he would hold and man the place. Bohemond proposed that he and the count ride to the port of Saint Symeon to bring back the workmen waiting there; those left at the siege were to stand ready in case God’s enemies and ours came out of the city to attack, and to gather at a point he would name.

The count and Bohemond set off for the port. We who stayed began the fortress. The Turks saw the work start, armed, poured out of the city, and met us in open fight. They drove us off, forced us to flee, and left many of our knights dead. Sorrow and distress filled the camp.

Next day they noticed the leaders still absent—gone to the port the day before. Their whole command rode out to intercept the column coming home. As soon as they saw the count and Bohemond with the people they were escorting from Saint Symeon, they raised a terrible din of shrieks and cries, closed around our men from every side, and cut into them with arrows and swords. The pressure was so fierce that our people broke for the nearest hills and any open path. Speed saved some; those who could not get away took martyrdom for Christ’s name. More than a thousand knights and foot soldiers died as martyrs that day. In white robes, wearing the glory of that death, they went up rejoicing into heaven. Praising the one God who is three, in whom they had triumphed, they cried together: “Why do you not defend our blood, our God, which has been shed today for your name?”

Bohemond chose another road. With only a few knights he rode hard and reached us where we stood massed beyond the Farfar. Fired with anger at the slaughter of our comrades, invoking Christ’s name, and trusting in the journey to the Holy Sepulchre, we drove forward; we formed and struck as one body. The Turks—enemies of God and of us—were stunned with fear. They expected to butcher this force as they had the count’s and Bohemond’s earlier column. Almighty God would not permit it.

Marked with the cross on every side, the knights of the true God hit them with crushing force. The Turks bolted for the narrow bridge and its entrance. In the jam of men and horses many never crossed alive; they met everlasting ruin and handed their wretched souls to the devil and his servants. We pushed the rest into the water with our lances until the fast river itself looked red with Turkish blood. Anyone who tried to edge along the bridge piles, or to swim for shore though wounded, we met on the bank, thrust back, and finished in the current. Shouts from both sides climbed to the sky. Missiles and arrows so filled the air that daylight itself seemed dimmed. Noise rose inside the walls and without. Christian women of the city leaned from openings in the rampart and, seeing the Turks’ wretched end, clapped quietly as they were used to do. Meanwhile, under orders from the Turkish tyrants, Armenians, Syrians, and Greeks—whether they wished it or not—kept shooting arrows down on us each day.

Twelve emirs of that host perished there in body and soul, and with them fifteen hundred of the city’s best fighting knights. Survivors no longer dared the bragging clamor they had raised before, night or day. Only darkness parted the armies while both still cast javelins, darts, and shafts. God and the Holy Sepulchre had broken the enemy so thoroughly that they could not recover their old boldness in speech or in action. We came away rich in their horses and in other supplies we had sorely lacked.

At dawn other Turks left the city, gathered every rotting corpse they could find on the bank—except those lost under the water—and buried them at Machomaria, past the bridge by the gate. Into the graves went clothing, gold bezants, bows, arrows, and gear we cannot name. Word of the burial brought our whole force out in arms. We tore open that devilish cemetery, hauled the dead from their tombs, flung the bodies into a pit, and carried the heads to camp so that their number might be known exactly—save for heads loaded on four horses and sent to the sea for the envoys of the emir of Babylon. The Turks, almost dying of grief at the sight, had no answer but daily weeping and wailing.

On the third day we set to work in high spirits and raised the planned fortress that very day, building with stones we had pulled from over the Turkish graves. Once it stood, we began to squeeze the enemy from every direction, and their pride collapsed. Each leader raised his own stretch of heavy rampart and wall; two towers went up at Machomaria. We could then move safely to the port and into the hills, giving glory and praise to our Lord God with glad voices. Honor and glory are his through every age. Amen.

The princes gave the fortress into Raymond of Saint-Gilles’s charge, for his household of knights was larger than the others’ and he could bear greater expense. He held it with his army. Beside him stood Gastos of Bearn and his men; Peter, viscount of Castello; Raymond, viscount of Torena; William of Monspeslerio; Golferius of the Towers; Peter Raymond Dalpoz; William of Sabra; and many more with their people. By agreement Raymond also hired whatever knights and retainers he could pay to strengthen the guard.

Once the Turks came out and closed on the fortress from every side, shouting, shooting, wounding, and killing, until arrows stood thick in our tents themselves. Only help from the rest of the army kept the losses from turning far worse. Our men then ordered a great siege-engine built to smash through the bridge, and they carried the plan out. In a fight on the span they brought the engine forward, killed many Turks, and broke the bridge. That night, while our people slept, the Turks slipped from the city, burned the engine, and mended the crossing. The army of Christ was furious.

Another day they led onto the wall a noble knight of ours named Rainald Porchet, long kept in hard prisons, and told him to bargain with the Christians for a high ransom before they took his head. From the wall he called to our leaders:

“Lords, treat me as a man already dead. As brothers I beg you: pay nothing for me. Trust Christ and the Holy Sepulchre without fear—God is with you and always will be. You have destroyed this city’s greater and bolder men: twelve emirs and five hundred nobles. No one is left who can fight you or hold the place.”

The Turks demanded of the interpreter what Rainald had said. “Nothing to your credit,” he answered. Cassian the emir had Rainald brought down at once and spoke through the same interpreter: “Rainald, will you live among us in honor and gladness?” “How could I live among you in honor without sin?” Rainald returned. Cassian pressed him: “Cast off the God you believe in and worship; take Muhammad and our other gods. Do that, and we will give you gold and silver, horses and mules, all the wealth you want, wives and lands, and raise you to the highest rank.” Rainald asked for time to counsel with himself. The emir allowed it freely.

Rainald then fell to prayer, hands joined, face toward the east, and asked God to help him and take his soul kindly into Abraham’s bosom. Cassian, watching, asked the interpreter what this meant. “He will never renounce his God,” came the answer. “He spurns your treasures and your gods alike.” Rage seized the emir. He ordered the beheading at once; the Turks struck off Rainald’s head with loud rejoicing. Angels received the soul without delay and, singing psalms in joy, bore it into God’s presence—for love of whom Rainald had chosen martyrdom.

Angry that he had failed to turn Rainald, Cassian had every pilgrim held in the city brought before him, hands bound behind them. He ordered them stripped naked, packed into one tight mass, and bound around with a rope. Dry wood, straw, and hay were heaped about the group; then, as God’s enemy, he had the fire set. The Christians—Christ’s own knights—screamed until their cries rose to heaven, to the God for whose love their flesh and bones burned. All of them were martyred that single day. In white robes they went up to the Lord for whom they had suffered these things in faith, while our Lord Jesus Christ reigns, to whom honor and glory belong now and forever, through ages of ages. Amen.

Every approach to the city was now closed against the Turks but one: across the river, a fortress in a monastery still gave them a way out. Fortify that post thoroughly, and no one would dare leave the gate again. The host took counsel with one mind: someone must seize that fortress, hold it hard, and bar the enemy from mountains, plain, and free passage in and out of the city. Many would not take the charge unless a large force went with them. Tancred stepped forward first. If he knew what profit would come of it, he said, he alone with his men would strengthen the place and seal the road the enemy used for constant raids. They offered him four hundred marks of silver on the spot. He accepted, went with his best knights and servants though he stood almost alone in the bargain, and shut every path against the Turks. Fear of him kept them from leaving the gate for grass, wood, or any other need.

From that post Tancred and his men crushed the city on every side. The same day many Armenians and Syrians came down from the mountains with food for the Turkish garrison. Tancred met the train, took the people and all they carried—grain, wine, barley, oil, and the rest—and kept the blockade tight and effective until Antioch fell.

I cannot tell everything that happened before the city was ours. I mean only a little of what was done and of what followed—and I say “a little” because no cleric or layman here can set the whole story down in speech or writing just as it was.

A Turkish emir named Pirus had grown close to Bohemond. Through messengers that went between them, Bohemond pressed him again and again to take him into the city as a trusted friend. He offered Pirus Christianity freely and promised great riches and high honor. Pirus accepted those terms: he held three towers carefully, he said, and would hand them over and receive Bohemond into them whenever Bohemond wished. Bohemond was now certain that he could enter the city.

In good spirits he went to the other leaders and spoke persuasively: poverty and misery had fallen on great and small alike, and no one could see where relief would come. If they thought it right, let them name one man among them to stand first; if that man, by any plan of his own or of others, could take the city or arrange its capture, let them give it to him with one voice as a gift. They refused without hesitation. The city would never pass to a single man; they would hold it in common, sharing honor as they shared labor. Bohemond left them at once, and not with a full smile.

Soon after, reports reached every leader of a hostile army—Turks, Publicani, Agulani, Azymites, and other heathen peoples I cannot name or number. The princes met again and resolved: if Bohemond could take the city by himself or through others, they would grant it to him willingly, on one condition—if the emperor came to their aid and kept every pact he had sworn, the city would be restored to him as due; if not, Bohemond would keep it forever as his own.

Bohemond then pleaded with his friend day by day in the softest terms: the moment for every good plan had come; let Pirus help him now. Glad of the message, Pirus promised full help as he ought. The next night he sent his son cautiously to Bohemond as a hostage, so that Bohemond might enter with more trust. His further word was this: tomorrow the whole Frankish host should be ordered out as if for a raid into Saracen country, then turn back quickly by the mountain on the left; Pirus would watch for those columns and gladly open the towers in his charge.

Bohemond called a servant named Mala Corona and had him proclaim through the host that they must prepare to enter Saracen land. It was done.

He then told Duke Godfrey, the count of Flanders, the count of Saint-Gilles, and the bishop of Le Puy the true plan: if God willed it, Antioch would be theirs that night. The plan was set—knights on the plain, foot soldiers on the mountain. They marched and rode until near dawn, then closed on the towers Pirus held. Bohemond left his horse and ordered them all: go up boldly and gladly; climb the ladder into Antioch; if God willed, the city would soon be in their hands.

The ladder already stood fixed securely against the wall. Nearly sixty of our men went up and spread through the towers under Pirus’s guard. Seeing how few had climbed, Pirus took fright for himself and for them, lest the Turks seize both, and cried out, “Micro Francos echome”—“We have few Franks.” “Where is Bohemond? Where is that unconquered knight?” A Lombard servant scrambled down, ran to Bohemond as fast as he could, and demanded why a prudent man stood idle when three towers were already theirs. Bohemond moved at once with the rest; all reached the ladder together in joy.

From the towers the cry rose as one: “God wills it! God wills it!” We answered the same. Crowds began to climb in astonishing numbers, gained the first tower, and raced for the others. Anyone found there was put to death at once. Pirus’s brother died among them.

Then the ladder broke under us. Horror and grief seized the host; we stood stunned. Near us on the left, however, a closed gate still waited—unknown to some. Night hid everything, yet by groping and careful search we found it, ran to it, forced it open, and poured through. A vast uproar rolled through the whole city.

Bohemond did not pause. He had his standard carried up a hill before the citadel. The city rang with shouting. At first light the men still outside by the tents heard the din within, rushed out, and saw Bohemond’s banner standing clear on the height. Each man raced for his own gate. They entered and killed every Turk and Saracen they found, save those who fled up into the citadel. Other Turkish knights broke out through the middle gates and escaped with their lives.

Cassian their lord, terrified of the Frankish host, fled by every means with many companions. In flight he reached Tancred’s country not far from the city. Their horses failed, so they took refuge in a house in a village. Syrians and Armenians of that mountain country knew him at once, seized him, cut off his head, and brought it to Bohemond to win their full freedom. His belt and scabbard were worth sixty bezants.

Corpses filled every street until the stench was almost unbearable. No one could walk a city way without stepping on Turkish dead. All this fell on the third of June, a Thursday. May God therefore be blessed through all ages of ages. Amen.

10. Kerbogha at the Gates

While Cassian still ruled Antioch, he had sent messenger after messenger to Kerbogha, the sultan of Persia’s commander, who remained in Khurasan. The emir begged him to arrive in time: a strong Frankish people had closed him in and were pressing the siege hard. For faithful help he offered either the city itself or a gift of great value. Kerbogha already commanded a vast Turkish host gathered over many months, and the caliph—whom they call their pope—had licensed him to kill. He set out at once on the long road to Antioch.

With him came the emir of Jerusalem and that emir’s troops. The king of Damascus joined the march with a huge following. From every direction Kerbogha drew together peoples without number—Turks, Arabs, Saracens, Publicani, Azymites, Kurds, Persians, Agulani, and others no one could name or count. Of the Agulani alone there were three thousand. Neither lance nor arrow nor any other weapon frightened them, for rider and mount were sheathed entirely in iron, and they carried nothing into battle but swords. All of them advanced to enclose Antioch and shatter the Frankish army.

As the host drew near, Cassian’s son Sanzedola rode out to meet it. Weeping, he threw himself on Kerbogha’s mercy: “Unconquered prince, I beg you. Help me. The Franks hem me in on every side within Antioch’s fortress. They hold the city, mean to thrust us from Romania and Syria, and even claim Khurasan. They have done all they set out to do. They have killed my father. Nothing is left but that they put me, you, and all our people to the sword. I have waited for you in good faith a long time, yet I cannot tell whether you will rescue me now.”

Kerbogha answered that if Sanzedola wanted wholehearted and faithful aid, he must first hand over the fortress; only then would Kerbogha serve his interest and post his own men as guards.

Sanzedola offered a bargain: if Kerbogha would kill the Franks, cut off their heads, and deliver those heads carefully to him, he would yield the fortress in good faith, become Kerbogha’s vassal everywhere, and hold the place in fealty to him.

Kerbogha refused that arrangement. The citadel must be given up at once. Whether Sanzedola wished it or not, he surrendered it.

On the third day after we took the city, the enemy’s advance parties rode up before the walls. The main army camped by the river opposite the Iron Bridge. Turks stormed the tower there and slaughtered everyone inside. Only the lord of that post escaped alive; after the great battle, on the vigil of the apostle Peter, we found him bound in iron chains. The next day the pagan host closed on the city and settled between two rivers, remaining two days.

Once he held the citadel, Kerbogha chose an emir known for truthfulness and mildness and spoke to him without harshness. He wanted that man in his service to guard the place—long fidelity, exceptional prudence, courage, and honesty made him, in Kerbogha’s view, the best man available.

The emir said he would never have sought such a charge, yet rather than be driven by force he would take it on one condition: if the Franks drove Kerbogha from the field in mortal combat, he would at once give the citadel up to them.

Kerbogha agreed to whatever good the man proposed, trusting his honor and judgment.

He then rode back to his army in the valley where it was camped. In mockery of the Franks, the Turks paraded before him a rusted, worthless sword, a miserable wooden bow, and a useless lance lately stripped from poor pilgrims. “These,” they said, “are the arms the Franks have brought to fight us.”

Kerbogha laughed aloud for all to hear. Such, he declared, were the fine weapons of war that Christians born in the West—in Europe, the world’s third part—had carried into Asia against them. With gear like this they imagined they could push the Turks past the borders of Khurasan and blot out every Turkish name beyond the Amazon River. These were the same men who had already driven Turkish kin from Romania and from royal Antioch, the honored capital of all Syria.

He called his trusted secretary and dictated several letters for Khurasan. They were to greet the caliph and pope, the king and sultan—that most valiant knight—and all the prudent knights of Khurasan with boundless honor. Let them rejoice in harmony, fill their bellies, order their pleasures, and speak of them through the whole land. Let them give themselves entirely to wanton lust and take joy in fathering many sons fit to fight Christians bravely. Let them receive with gladness these three weapons once taken from a Frankish company, and see what sort of arms the Franks had brought, and how perfect those arms were. Alas—the Franks meant to match weapons forged and purified two, three, even four times like purest silver or gold.

Further: Kerbogha now held every Frank shut inside Antioch and disposed of the citadel at will. The Franks were below in the town; he had them all in his hand. He would either put them to death or drag them into Khurasan as hard captives, for they threatened to drive the Turks with their weapons past Khurasan’s borders, erase their names beyond the Amazon, or expel them past upper India, just as they had already thrust Turkish kin from all Romania and Syria.

Swearing by Muhammad and by every god’s name, he vowed he would not reappear before them until his own right hand had taken royal Antioch, the whole of Syria and Romania, and Bulgaria out to Apulia—for the honor of the gods, of his hearers, and of all the Turks.

Kerbogha’s mother was then in Aleppo. She came to him at once in tears. “My son, is what I hear true?” “What do you hear?” “That you mean to fight the Franks.” “Know that it is entirely true.”

She begged him solemnly by the names of the gods and by his own courage and goodness not to choose battle with them. He was unconquered; she had never known folly from him or his army. No victor had ever driven him from the field. His renown ran from east to west; prudent knights trembled at the mere sound of his name. He was mighty and brave in war, ingenious in the arts of battle. No Christian or pagan people had ever shown strength before him; they fled at his name as sheep before a lion’s rage. She begged her dearest and most beloved son to take her counsel and never let the thought of fighting the Christian host enter his mind.

Kerbogha answered at length and fiercely. What was she saying? She must be mad or full of fury. He had more emirs with him than there were Christians of every rank, great or small.

She did not deny that the Christians could not match him in arms. She knew they could not wage battle against him by their own power. But their God fought for them every day. Night and day he shielded them and watched them as a shepherd watches his flock. He would not allow any people to harm or trouble them. Whoever tried to resist them, their God at once confounded, as he says through the prophet David: “Scatter the nations that have not called upon your name.”

Before the Christians even stood ready for battle, their almighty and warlike God, with his saints, had already overthrown their enemies. How much more would he do so now against Kerbogha, who was that God’s enemy and meant to resist with all his strength? These Christians were called sons of Christ and of God; through the prophets, sons of adoption and promise; through the apostle, heirs of Christ. Christ had already given them the inheritances promised them, saying, “Your boundaries shall extend from the rising of the sun to the west,” so that no bold man would stand against them. Who could contradict those words?

If Kerbogha opened this battle, she warned, it would bring him the heaviest loss and shame. He would lose many faithful men and knights, lose all the spoil he carried, and end in terrified flight. He himself would not die in this fight now, but he would lose everything he possessed in it. He would not die now because their God does not always strike the offender at once in open wrath, but visits clear vengeance when he wills. She feared grievous punishment for her son. She told him he would die that year.

The words cut him deep. Who, he asked, had told her all this about the Christians—that their God loved them so much, that he held the greatest power in war, that they would defeat the Turks at Antioch, seize the spoil, pursue them in immense victory, and that Kerbogha himself would die a sudden death that year?

Sorrowfully she answered. For more than a hundred years their book and the gentiles’ volumes alike had foretold that a Christian people would come against them, defeat them everywhere, rule the pagans, and make their people subject everywhere. Whether this was that people, or whether it was still to come, she did not know. In her grief she had followed him without rest to beautiful Aleppo. There she had watched the stars with skill, studied the heavenly planets, the twelve signs of the sphere, and countless lots, and in all of them she had found that the Christian people would defeat them everywhere. In greatest sorrow she feared she would be bereaved of him.

He pressed her for what still stuck in his heart and that he could not believe. She would gladly tell him if she knew what he did not. Then he asked: were not Bohemond and Tancred the gods of the Franks? Did they not free the Franks from every persecution by their enemies? And did they not eat two thousand cattle and four thousand pigs at every meal?

She answered that Bohemond and Tancred were mortal men like any others, except that their God loved them greatly above the rest and gave them, day by day, more strength in battle than he gave others. Their God was almighty—the one whose name is his who fashioned heaven and earth, fixed the seas, and made every living thing within them. Forever his throne stands ready in heaven; everywhere his power is to be feared.

“If that is so,” her son said, “I shall not stop fighting them.” Seeing he would not take her counsel at all, she withdrew in great sorrow to Aleppo, carrying off whatever spoil she could.

On the third day Kerbogha armed, and a large part of the Turks came with him against the city from the citadel side. We formed up to resist, but their strength was too great; willing or not, we were forced back inside. At one place the gate was so narrow that many died crushed by the press of their own comrades. Some fought outside the walls, some within. On Thursday the fighting ran the whole day until evening. On Friday they fought again all day and killed many of ours.

That Friday a most valiant knight, Arvedus Tudebovis, was wounded. His companions brought him down into the city. He lived until Saturday and died between the ninth and sixth hours, living in Christ. His brother, a priest named Peter, buried him by the west gate of the church of the blessed apostle Peter—though Peter and everyone else in the city feared they might lose their heads at any moment. We ask all who read or hear this account to give alms and pray for his soul and for all who died on the road to Jerusalem.

Another day, still terrified by the battle that had lasted until evening, a group of men—William of Grentamasnil and his brother Alberic, Yvo of Grentamasnil, William of Bernevilla, Guy Trosellus, William son of Richard, and Lambert the Poor—let themselves secretly down from the wall by night and fled on foot toward the sea. Nothing was left on their hands and feet but bone. Many others I cannot name went with them.

Reaching the vessels at Saint Symeon’s port, they cried to the sailors: “Why are you wretches still standing here? All our men are dead; we have barely escaped, for the Turkish army has surrounded us on every side in the city.” The sailors stood astonished and afraid, ran aboard, and put to sea. When the Turks arrived later, they killed those they found, burned the craft left in the river channel, and seized the goods.

We who stayed could not stand the weight of arms from the citadel. We raised a wall between ourselves and those above and watched it day and night. At times we were so hard pressed that we ate horses and asses. From the other side the Turks filled us with such terror that many of our leaders wished to slip away by night as the deserters had done.

The Turks in the citadel pressed us so hard that one day three of our knights were caught in a tower before it. The gentiles came out and attacked so fiercely that the three could no longer hold. Two came down wounded. The third was Hugh Lo Forsenes, serving under Godfrey of Monte Scabioso; all day he fought with such skill and courage that, even with a broken lance, he struck down two Turks on the approach to the wall. Three lances shattered in his grip before the day ended.

Bohemond and Tancred found they could not force the people up the mountain before the citadel for battle. Men clung to their houses, some afraid of hunger, some of the Turks. In anger Bohemond had fire set in the quarter of Cassian’s palace. Flames rose; the wind strengthened; people abandoned their homes and fled with their goods—toward the mountain before the citadel, toward the count of Saint-Gilles’s gate, toward Duke Godfrey’s—each to his own. Bohemond was deeply distressed for the churches of Saint Peter and Saint Mary. From the third hour until midnight the fire burned, and two thousand churches and houses were destroyed before the wind fell at midnight and the blaze sank.

Day and night the Turks in the citadel fought us until only weapons stood between the two sides. Sometimes four emirs came out with them, covered entirely in gold, their horses gilded to the knee joints, leading the Turks. Our men saw they could not last long: a man who had bread could not freely eat, nor a man who had water freely drink. So they built a wall between themselves and the enemy on the mountain and raised something like a fortress and a siege engine for safety.

Part of the Turkish army also lay around the city in a valley on the other side. By night a fire showed in the western sky and dropped among the Turkish camps. Turks and our men both marveled greatly. Morning found the Turks so frightened by that fire that they scattered in every direction. Even so they hemmed the city so closely that no one of ours dared go out or enter except in secret after dark. Thus those pagans, enemies of God and of holy Christianity, kept us under siege and hard oppression—three hundred sixty-five thousand of them, not counting the emir of Jerusalem and his people, the king of Damascus and his, and the king of Aleppo.

Those profane enemies of God kept us so tightly confined in Antioch that many died of hunger. A small loaf went for a gold bezant. Wine need not be mentioned: uquen grasin—“no wine.” Prices ran to fifteen solidi for a hen, two for an egg, one denarius for a nut, one denarius for three or four beans, sixty solidi for a small she-goat, five for its stomach, three solidi and nine denarii for a ram’s tail, four solidi for a camel’s small tongue.

Horse and ass meat were both eaten and sold. Fig leaves, vine leaves, and leaves of other trees were boiled in water and eaten. Some took dried hides of horses, asses, camels, oxen, and buffaloes five or six years old, steeped them two nights and a day, then cooked and ate them. For the name of Christ and to open the road to the Holy Sepulchre we suffered these torments and many further hardships I cannot set down.

Twenty-six days the servants of God bore that tribulation, hunger, and fear. May God therefore be blessed through all ages of ages. Amen.

The foolish Stephen, count of Chartres, had been chosen by all our leaders as our head and commander. Pretending a grave illness, he had shamefully withdrawn to another fortress, Alexandretta, before Antioch fell. We who were shut in the city without rescue waited for him day after day.

When he heard that the Turks had surrounded and besieged us inside, he climbed in secret a nearby mountain that overlooked all the surrounding hills and stood close to Antioch. At the sight of the countless tents he drew back in great terror. Overwhelmed by that fear, he fled shamefully and in haste with his army, stripped his own camp, and hurried foolishly back along his road.

Meeting the emperor at Philomena, he drew him aside in secret: “Know truly that Antioch has been taken, but the citadel is not yet ours. All our men are under close siege and, as I believe, have already been killed by the Turks. Turn back as fast as you can, lest they find you and the people you lead as well.”

Terrified, the emperor summoned Guy, brother of Lord Bohemond, and the rest in private. What should they do? All their men were caught in a tight siege; perhaps at that very hour the Turks had killed them or led them captive, just as this wretched count who had fled so foolishly reported. If they wished, let them turn back at once, lest they too die a sudden death as the others had.

Guy was a most honorable knight. At these false reports he and everyone with him fell into violent weeping and wailing. Together they cried out to the true God, three and one: why had he allowed this? Why had he given the people who followed him into the power of their Turkish enemies? Why had he so swiftly let those who were opening the road of his journey and of his Holy Sepulchre go down to death? If the tale told by these most wicked men were true, they and every other Christian would forsake him and remember him no longer; not one would dare speak his name again.

That bitter speech spread through the whole army. For several days no archbishop, bishop, abbot, priest, cleric, or layman ventured to call upon the name of Christ.

Guy could not be comforted. Weeping, beating his hands, breaking his fingers, he cried out for Bohemond—honor and glory of the whole world, feared and loved by all. Woe to himself in his grief: he had not been worthy to look on that most honorable face, though he desired nothing more. Who would let him die for his dearest friend and lord? Better to have perished the hour he left the womb than to live into this day of mourning. Better to have died at sea, or fallen from his horse, broken his neck, and met a sudden end. How he wished he had shared a blessed martyrdom with Bohemond and seen that most glorious death!

They closed round him and soothed him until the lament wore out. Then he recovered himself. Were they going to trust this half-gray, foolish knight? Had anyone ever truly spoken of a feat of arms he had done? The man had fled in shame and dishonor like a most wicked and wretched man. Everything that miserable creature reported was false from end to end.

The emperor meanwhile commanded that every inhabitant of the country be led into Bulgaria, and that every place there be stripped and wasted so the Turks would find nothing on arrival. Willing or not, our men turned back, almost dead with grief. Many pilgrims already desperately ill died on the way. Those too weak to keep the march were left dying along the road; the rest went back to Constantinople.

11. The Holy Lance

Our leaders were standing on the mountain in front of the citadel one day, weighed down by grief and without a plan, when a priest called Stephen came before them. He asked leave to tell them what he had seen. The night before, as he lay in Saint Mary’s church—Mary being mother of our Lord Jesus Christ—the Savior of the world had stood before him with Mary his mother and with blessed Peter, prince of the apostles. The Lord asked whether Stephen knew him. Stephen said no. As the Lord continued speaking, a full cross appeared on his head. Asked a second time whether he knew him now, Stephen said he could recognize him only by that cross on his head, as on our Savior. “I am he,” the Lord replied.

Weeping, Stephen threw himself at the Lord’s feet and begged help against the accursed people who had locked them in the city. The Lord answered that he had helped them well already and would help them well again. He had allowed them to take Nicaea and to win every battle; he had brought them all the way here and had compassion on what they suffered during the siege of Antioch; at the proper moment he had brought them into the city safe and with great relief. Yet many Christians were committing a grave wickedness by lying with pagan women, and from that an immense stench was rising to heaven.

Then Mary, the gracious Virgin, and Peter the blessed apostle fell at the Lord’s feet and pleaded for his people left in this distress. Pagans, they said, had long held their churches and done many unspeakable evils there. Now the Christians had driven those enemies out, and the angels in heaven were rejoicing.

Once more the Lord addressed Stephen. He was to go and tell the Lord’s people to return to him, and he would return to them. Within five days the greatest aid would be sent. Throughout the army they were to sing “Congregati sunt” daily, accept penances, go barefoot in procession from church to church, distribute alms among the poor, have the priests celebrate mass, and receive Christ’s body and blood. After that they should open battle, and the Lord would send them as helpers the blessed George, Theodore, and Demetrius, along with every pilgrim who had died on this road to Jerusalem. That was what the Lord told him.

If the leaders doubted the truth of it, Stephen offered to mount the greater tower immediately and hurl himself off. Remaining safe and unhurt would prove him right; any injury would allow them to behead him or throw him on the fire.

The bishop of Le Puy refused that test. Gospels and cross were brought, and Stephen was made to swear that the report was true.

That same hour the leaders conferred and bound themselves never to quit the city while life remained, come death or life. Bohemond is said to have sworn first; after him Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Robert of Normandy, Duke Godfrey, Robert of Flanders, and many other princes. Tancred added his own oath: as long as forty knights stayed with him, he would abandon neither Antioch nor the road to Jerusalem. Hearing this, the whole Christian host broke into great rejoicing.

Among our army was also a pilgrim named Peter Bartholomew. Before we took the city, the apostle Saint Andrew had appeared to him and asked what he was doing. Peter asked who he was. “I am the apostle Andrew,” came the reply. “Know this, my son: once you are inside the town, go to Saint Peter’s church. There lies the lance of our Savior Jesus Christ—the weapon that pierced him as he hung on the cross’s gibbet.”

Having said this, the apostle vanished. Peter feared to publish the message and told none of our men, the pilgrims, thinking he had merely dreamed. Saint Andrew returned and asked why the pilgrims had not been told what he was commanded to report. “Lord,” said Peter, “who would believe it?”

At once Saint Andrew caught him up and bore him into the city to the place of the buried lance. Before Peter’s eyes the apostle drew it from the earth and laid it in his hands: “Here is the lance of our Lord Jesus Christ. The apostle Peter, my brother, and I set it in this ground.” Then, still watched by Peter, he returned it to the same place.

He ordered Peter back to the army. Peter asked how he could leave: Turks stood on the walls and would kill him the moment they saw him. “Go without fear,” the apostle said. So Peter started out of the city under Turkish eyes, and not one of them spoke against him.

When we inside Antioch learned from Peter Bartholomew that blessed Andrew had visited him, shown him Christ’s lance, and named its hiding place, joy beyond measure filled us. Peter then sought the count of Saint-Gilles and pressed him to Saint Peter’s, where the relic lay. The count came gladly; Peter pointed to the place at the right before the choir doors. Twelve men dug from morning until evening. When the hole had grown extremely deep, Peter himself recovered the lance of Jesus Christ, just as blessed Andrew had shown him—on the fourteenth day after June began. With great rejoicing they lifted it, singing Te Deum laudamus, and bore it with praise to the altar. Joy filled the whole city. Word reached the Frankish army, and they flocked gladly to Saint Peter’s to see the lance. Greeks, Armenians, and Syrians came too, chanting Kyrie eleison at the top of their voices and crying, “Kalo Frangia exi condari Christo”—meaning, “The Franks are good, for they have the lance of Christ.”

12. The Battle for Antioch

Counsel was then taken on how to open battle with the Turks. The first decision was to send word to Kerbogha and the rest of those Turks, enemies of God, asking why they had come into Christian land.

Peter the Hermit and the interpreter Arluin were chosen for the mission. They were told to go among the accursed Turkish host, speak with care, and demand why those people had entered so boldly and arrogantly the land of the Christians—land that was ours.

Arriving before the Turks, the envoys said that our men wondered greatly at this coming. Perhaps the Turks had arrived intending to receive Christianity and faith in that one true God—born of the Virgin Mary—whom we confess. If not, then all our people, high and low, humbly asked them to quit at once the land of God and of the Christians. Ages earlier the blessed apostle Peter had preached there, turned the land to Christ’s worship, and been chosen its first bishop. Withdrawal would mean leave to carry off every possession—horses, mules, asses, camels, sheep, cattle, and all other treasure.

Kerbogha, who commanded the army of the sultan of Persia, and his emirs, puffed up with pride, answered with harsh words. They sought neither our God nor our Christianity, and rejected us together with both. They had come this far because they marveled that the lords and leaders we named, of every rank, claimed as their own a land the Turks had seized by main force from effeminate peoples.

Here was their message for our princes: if the Franks wished to become Turks in every way and would renounce the God they worshipped with bowed heads, the Turks would grant them this land and far more—cities, fortresses, wives, and vast inheritances. No man of ours would stay afoot; all would be knights as the Turks were, and would be held always in dearest friendship. Refusal meant death for all, or chains and lifelong captivity in Khurasan, serving the Turks and their children forever.

The envoys came straight back and reported all these things and the answer this most cruel people had given them.

Deadly hunger pressed them from one quarter and terror of the Turks from another; the army still did not know which way to turn. Yet they obeyed what the Lord Jesus Christ had ordered through the priest Stephen: three days of fasting, confession, processions from church to church, absolution and faithful communion in Christ’s body and blood, alms for the poor, and the singing of masses.

Six battle lines were then drawn up inside the city. Hugh the Great led the first, with the French and the count of Flanders. Duke Godfrey held the second with his army. Robert of Normandy the third with his men. Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy, took the fourth, bearing the lance of our Savior Jesus Christ, together with his own people and the troops of Raymond of Saint-Gilles—Raymond himself staying on the mountain by the citadel to hold that height, lest the Turks keep the city. The fifth combined Tancred son of the marquis and his men, Gastos of Bearn and his, and the followers of the count of Poitiers. Bohemond held the sixth with his army.

Bishops, priests, clerics, and monks in sacred vestments went out among them with crosses in their hands, praying God to save them, guard them, and free them from danger and evil of every kind. Over the city gate others stood with holy crosses, signing the troops and blessing them. Thus ordered and shielded by the sign of the cross, the host began to issue through the gate before Machomaria.

Kerbogha, watching the Frankish lines come out so well ordered, one after another, said, “Let them all come out; we shall take their heads the more easily.” Hugh the Great’s and the count of Flanders’s foot soldiers led the way, then each force in turn. Once the whole host stood clear of the walls and he saw its size, Kerbogha was seized with great fear. He told the emir who directed everything that if fire appeared kindled at the enemy’s front, retreat was to be cried through the army and the Turks were to fall back, knowing they had lost the field. He himself began to ease slowly toward the mountain; our men pressed after him by degrees.

Then the Turks divided. Part swung toward the sea; the rest held their ground, intending to catch our men between them. Seeing the maneuver, we formed a seventh line out of Duke Godfrey’s and the count of Normandy’s men, put Count Rainard at its head, and sent it against the force coming from the sea. Those Turks met them and killed many of ours with arrows.

The remaining companies stretched from the river to the mountain across two miles. Turkish squadrons pushed out on both flanks, surrounding our men, casting javelins, shooting arrows, and wounding them.

From the mountains still other armies came out without number. They rode white horses and bore white standards every one. At first no one among us knew who they were; then we understood them as the help of Christ promised through the priest Stephen. Their captains were Saint George, blessed Demetrius, and blessed Theodore. Believe these words: several of our men saw the sight.

The Turks toward the sea, no longer able to hold, set the grass alight as a signal for those by the tents to start flight. The camp recognized it, seized every precious thing and all the plunder, and fled.

Our lines advanced by stages toward the enemy’s strongest ground—the tents. Beside the water, where the enemy stood thickest, rode Duke Godfrey with Flanders’s count and Hugh the Great. Under the sign of the cross they struck together; when the other lines saw them, they struck as well.

Turks and other pagans raised devilish cries in a strange tongue and broke into flight. Calling on the one true God, our men rode them down. Invoking Jesus Christ and the Holy Sepulchre, they joined battle and, by God’s help, defeated them.

Terror drove the Turks; our men chased them through the tents. The knights of Christ preferred the pursuit to any spoils. They drove the enemy as far as the Iron Bridge and on to Tancred’s fortress. Abandoned in the camp were tents, gold and silver, many treasures, livestock of every kind—sheep, cattle, horses, mules, asses, camels—and grain, wine, flour, with much else we needed.

Armenians and Syrians of the countryside, learning of the defeat, ran into the hills to meet the fugitives and killed as many as they could seize. We came back into the city rejoicing, and gave praise and blessing to God for the victory he had granted his people.

The emir who held the citadel, seeing Kerbogha and all the other pagans flee the field before the Frankish host, was filled with anger and with deep fear. He began at once to beg for Frankish standards. Raymond of Saint-Gilles, posted on the mountain before the citadel, ordered his own standard brought to the emir. The emir took it gladly and set it carefully on the highest tower. He then asked for Bohemond’s, which Bohemond gave him once the fighting was done. That too he received with the greatest joy. He and Bohemond agreed that pagans who wished to become Christians would stay with Bohemond, while those who preferred Khurasan might leave unharmed and in safety. Bohemond granted all he asked and sent his men into the citadel without delay.

A few days later the emir received baptism, with all who chose to acknowledge Christ. Those who would not renounce their laws Bohemond had escorted as far as Saracen country.

The battle fell on the fourth day before the Kalends of July, the vigil of the apostles Peter and Paul, under the reign of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honor and glory through ages everlasting. Amen.

13. Ma'arrat and Dissension

With the enemy broken, we gave due thanks to the most high and true God and to the Holy Sepulchre. Fugitives—some already half-dead, others still bleeding from their wounds—lay dead along valleys, woods, fields, and roads. Greeks, Syrians, and Armenians, who knew the field had been lost, waylaid the stragglers in the narrow places and finished them off.

In high spirits after that victory over the foes of God and of holy Christianity, our pilgrims came back into the city. The princes met in the church of Saint Peter to decide how the host should be governed until the march to the Holy Sepulchre could begin—the march for which they had already borne so much. Summer heat made the Saracen country too dry and waterless to risk; no one would lead Christ’s people into it then. So they named the Kalends of November, the feast of All Saints, as the day when all should gather again at Antioch and set out for the Sepulchre in joy. The plan was accepted as both sound and honorable.

Each prince then went off to his own towns and castles until that date. Throughout Antioch they announced that any poor man short of gold or silver who wished to bind himself to them by agreement should stay: whatever terms were fixed, the leaders would keep them gladly.

Among the men of Raymond of Saint-Gilles was a knight named Raymond Pilet. With a company of knights and retainers he left the city, crossed into Saracen country past two pagan towns, and reached a castle called Thelemanit. The Syrian inhabitants handed it over of their own will. After eight days there, word came that a nearby Saracen castle was packed with pagans. Christ’s knights moved on it at once, struck from every side, and, by the help of God and the Holy Sepulchre, took it quickly. Every pagan inside was seized. Those ready to confess Christ and receive baptism were spared; those who refused Christianity outright were put to death on the spot. Our men returned to Thelemanit rejoicing.

Three days later they left that castle for the neighboring city of Ma’arrat. Turks, Arabs, Saracens, and other pagans had massed there from Aleppo, Damascus, and the strongholds round about. The barbarians rode out to fight. When our ranks formed, the enemy first broke and ran, then wheeled about and kept up the fight until evening. The heat was such that our men could no longer bear the thirst—no spring was to be found. They tried to fall back safely on their castle and failed. For their sins or faults, the Syrians and the common people, panicked by thirst and fear together, fled toward the castle. Seeing the retreat, the Turks pressed the pursuit with a great clamor; victory itself seemed to stiffen them. Among many who gladly gave up their souls to God, for whose love they had come, an excellent knight named Arnald Tudebovis fell. The survivors got back to their castle and stayed there some days.

Those still in Antioch, knowing nothing of this reverse, celebrated as before. Their shepherd and guide was Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy. By God’s will a hard illness took him, and by God’s will he left this world and fell asleep in the Lord, in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, on the feast of Saint Peter in Chains. His most holy soul rejoices with the angels. Grief and distress filled the whole army of Christ without measure: he had been the poor man’s stay and the rich man’s counsel.

He had ordained clerics and preached to and admonished the knights and other men of means in these words: “None of you can be saved unless he honors and sustains poor clerics. You cannot be saved without them, nor can they live without you. Day by day they must pray God for the sins by which you have offended him—sins that should never have been—and you must guide and support them, for they do not know how to seek and gain what they need as you do. So I ask you myself, for the love of God, to cherish them and keep them as far as you are able.”

Soon afterward Raymond of Saint-Gilles pushed into Saracen land and came to a city called Albara. He stormed it with his army and, God willing, took it at once. Every Saracen he found there—man and woman, grown and child—he put to the sword, and he made the place his own. Restoring it to the faith of Christ, he asked his wisest counselors for a bishop who would turn the city to God’s worship and, with a pure heart, make of the devil’s former house a temple of the living and true God and shrines of the saints. He chose a cleric, had him consecrated at Antioch, and that man later took Adhemar’s place in the councils of the host.

As All Saints approached, the princes returned to Antioch—all but Bohemond, who lay seriously ill in Romania and could not keep the day. As soon as he could bear arms again he hurried to Antioch, where the rest had already gathered. They began to urge the start of the march to the Holy Sepulchre: “The season is good; why wait any longer?” Bohemond, for his part, pressed daily for the pact the other leaders had made with him about the surrender of the city. His sharpest complaint was against Raymond of Saint-Gilles, who would bind himself to nothing with Bohemond for fear of perjuring himself against the emperor.

Again and again Bohemond, Raymond, Duke Godfrey, Robert of Normandy, and the greater and lesser leaders met in Saint Peter’s to settle the quarrel. Bohemond recited his agreement before them all; the count of Saint-Gilles set out his own words and the oath he had sworn to the emperor on Bohemond’s advice. The bishops, Duke Godfrey, Robert of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, Count Eustace, and the other princes withdrew into the place of Saint Peter’s chair to judge between the two. Fearing that an open sentence might wreck the journey to the Sepulchre, they would not publish their judgment.

Raymond saw this and said: “Rather than let the journey to the Holy Sepulchre fail—if Bohemond will come with us—I will gladly do whatever the bishops, Duke Godfrey, Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders, and the other leaders approve, so long as I keep faith with the emperor.” Bohemond agreed. Both men then placed their promises in the bishops’ hands before the pilgrims: the road to the Sepulchre would not be blocked.

Bohemond next took counsel on stocking the castle on the high mountain with weapons and food that would last. Raymond likewise provisioned Cassian’s palace and the tower over the bridge gate toward the port of Saint Symeon.

Antioch is a great, fair, and famous city. Four high mountains rise inside its walls; on the highest stands a castle of great strength. Below spreads the noble city itself, well sited and richly adorned, watered by beautiful springs that break from the hills. Twelve hundred churches once stood there, and three hundred and sixty monasteries of monks; the patriarch holds one hundred and fifty-three bishops under him. Two walls encircle the place. The greater is enormously high and broad, built of huge stones and set with four hundred and fifty towers. Four great mountains hem the city on the east; on the west the river Pharphar runs along the walls.

So fine a royal city the pilgrims would not lightly abandon. Tradition held that seventy-five kings had once established its authority, the last and chief of them Antiochus, from whom the city takes its name.

As already told, the pilgrims of the Holy Sepulchre sat before Antioch eight months and one day; then the Turks and other pagans shut them inside for twenty-six days. By the help of God and the Holy Sepulchre they broke that siege, and they rested in the city five and a half months in joy.

On the eighth day before the end of November, Raymond of Saint-Gilles marched out of Antioch with his army, passing through Rubea and Albaria. On the fourth day before the end of that month he reached Ma’arrat, where Saracens, Turks, Arabs, and many other pagans had massed in great force. The next day the count attacked with his men but could not take the place—God’s will had not yet come. Bohemond soon followed with his army and camped about the city on Sunday. On Monday they struck so hard from every side that, had ladders been set against the wall, the town would have been theirs. Hand to hand they fought with lance and sword; yet the pagans’ strength was such that that day our men did them no harm and only suffered themselves. Food ran short: no one dared range far to find it, so thick were the enemy about them.

Saint Andrew, who does not sleep but keeps watch over Christians in distress, showed Peter Bartholomew what must be done. If the Christians would repent their wrongs, keep mutual faith as the Lord commanded—“Love your brothers as yourselves”—and restore the tenth of all they owned, the portion God reserved for himself when he made the world and all in it, he would soon give them the city and fulfill their desire. That tithe was to be split four ways: for the bishop, the priests, the churches, and the poor. When the council heard this, all assented.

Soon Raymond of Saint-Gilles had a tall, strong wooden siege tower built on four wheels with skillful craft. Knights stood on its upper stage; Ebrard the Huntsman blew the trumpets hard, and fine standards streamed before him—a splendid sight. Under the tower more than a hundred armed knights shoved it up to the wall beside one of the city’s towers. The pagans answered with engines that flung huge stones onto our structure and nearly killed the knights; arrows and stones riddled the standards above, and others cast Greek fire, hoping to burn the tower. Merciful God would not let it catch.

From that tower our men overlooked every wall and tower of the city. In the upper gallery William of Monspeslerio and many others hurled great stones down on the Saracens along the wall, striking so hard that shield and man together dropped dead into the streets below. Others held standards on their spears and, with lances and iron weapons, tried to drag the enemy toward them.

So the knights and retainers fought, while priests and clerics in sacred vestments stood behind the tower, praying the Lord Jesus Christ to defend his people, give victory to the Christian knights, exalt holy Christianity, and destroy paganism. The struggle lasted until evening.

Then Golferius of the Towers, a knight of high renown, first gained the wall by a ladder—which broke at once under the weight of those who followed. Alone on the rampart he fought with his lance and killed. The rest found another ladder, raised it quickly, and so many knights and foot climbed that the wall could scarcely hold them. The Saracens answered fiercely along the wall and from the ground within, shooting and thrusting with lances at close quarters. Many of our men, terrified, let themselves down again. The stout hearts who stayed took the Saracen assault; others under the siege tower mined the wall. When the defenders saw the undermining, they fled in terror into the city.

All this fell late on Saturday, as the sun set, on the eleventh of December. Through an interpreter Bohemond told the chief Saracens to gather with their wives, children, and goods in a palace above the gate; he would spare them the death sentence. Our whole force entered, and each man took for himself whatever valuables he found in houses and pits.

The following day every inhabitant still found alive—man or woman—was put to death at once. Saracen corpses filled every corner; a man could hardly pass through the streets without stepping on them. Bohemond seized those he had ordered into the palace, took their gold, silver, and other valuables, had some killed, and ordered others taken to Antioch to be sold.

In the city some of our men found whatever they needed; many found nothing at all. The stay grew so long that famine closed in: they dared not range far into the land of the Saracens, and near at hand there was nothing to seize. The Christians of that country brought nothing for sale. Our poor pilgrims began cutting open the pagans’ bodies, for they found bezants hidden in the bellies. Others, driven by hunger, cut flesh from the corpses in pieces, cooked it, and ate it. When our leaders saw this, they had the bodies dragged outside to the gates, heaped almost into piles, and burned.

Bohemond could not be reconciled with Raymond of Saint-Gilles and went back to Antioch. Not many days later Raymond sent word to Antioch summoning Duke Godfrey, the count of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, and Bohemond to meet him at Rusa. They came and took counsel on beginning the journey to the Holy Sepulchre for which they had set out so far. No peace could be made between Bohemond and Count Raymond unless Raymond gave him Antioch; Raymond refused, bound by his pledge to Emperor Alexius. Duke Godfrey and the other counts therefore returned to Antioch.

Raymond, Christ’s champion, went back to Ma’arrat, where the pilgrims of the Holy Sepulchre still lay, and sent men to hold and provision Emir Cassian’s palace and the tower over the bridge gate facing the mosque. In that city the wise bishop of Orange died. The pilgrims stayed one month and three days. Bohemond, resolved to hold Antioch by his own power, drove out all of Raymond’s men.

When Raymond heard this, he made light of it. As a servant of our Lord Jesus Christ he began the road to the Holy Sepulchre and left the city barefoot. On January 13 he reached the fortress of Capharda, eight miles away, and remained there three days. Robert of Normandy joined him there.

14. The Road South

From Ma’arrat and again from Capharda the king of Caesarea had often sent envoys to Raymond, offering friendship and as large a share of his revenue as Raymond might name. He professed eagerness to favor the Christians, promised safety for pilgrims throughout his realm, and offered a market in horses and food. The host moved on and camped by the river Pharphar near Caesarea. The king then forbade the market unless they shifted away from the city. The next day he sent two Turks to show them the ford and to guide them until they could take something for themselves.

At last they came into a valley under a fortress and found more than five thousand animals, plenty of grain, and other goods, so that the whole army of Christ was well restored. The lord of that fortress made terms with Raymond, gave him horses and other gifts, and swore by his own law to do the pilgrims no more harm. Raymond and his men stayed six days.

Moving on, the pilgrims of Christ reached another Arab fortress; its lord likewise came to terms with Raymond. They entered a valley and arrived at a city named Caphalia, beautiful and stocked with every good. When the people heard the Christian host was coming, they fled and left the place empty—gardens full of vegetables, houses full of food.

On the third day they left that city, crossed a high and massive mountain, and came into the valley of Desem, rich in grain and livestock. They stayed fifteen days. One fortress they found empty: the Saracens had fired it and fled. Beside it stood another where a great pagan host had gathered. Our pilgrims pressed the attack so hard that they would have taken the place had the Saracens not driven vast herds out before them. Our men returned to camp with many animals. At first light they struck tents and moved to besiege the same fortress and pitch camp there. About midnight the pagans fled entirely and left it empty for the pilgrims of the Holy Sepulchre. Inside, the host found abundance “from the dew of heaven”—grain, wine, flour, oil, chickens, and all they needed.

There, with great devotion, they kept the Purification of Saint Mary on February 2. Envoys from Camela brought Raymond of Saint-Gilles horses and gold from that city’s king, who wanted terms and promised every favor and honor to Christians wherever they went. The king of Tripoli also sent messengers seeking peace if Raymond would grant it, with ten horses, four mules, and many bezants. The count answered that he would make no peace unless the king became a Christian. The king promised and agreed.

Leaving that rich valley, our men came on a Monday in mid-February to a fortress called Arqa and pitched tents around it. An innumerable pagan force filled the place—Turks, Saracens, Arabs, Publicani, and others—well fortified and stout in defense. The fortress was very strong, high on a mountain, and surrounded by two walls.

One day fourteen of our knights rode toward Tripoli, eight miles from the fortress: Raymond, viscount of Torena; Peter, viscount of Castelion; Amanevus of Lobene; Sicardus; Bego de la Ribere; William Botinus; and others whose names I do not know. These fourteen knights of Christ met sixty Turks, Saracens, Arabs, and Kurds driving our people and fifteen hundred animals before them. Fortified by the sign of the cross, our men attacked and, with God’s help, overcame them. They killed six and took six horses.

On another day Raymond Pilet and Raymond, viscount of Torena, left the army of Christ with their knights and came before Tortosa. They assaulted it fiercely, for a great pagan host held it. At evening our men drew off to a wooded corner and camped, lighting so many fires that it seemed the whole Christian army was there. The pagans took fright and fled by night, abandoning a city full of goods and set above an excellent harbor. The next day our knights came ready to attack from every side and found no one left. They entered and lived there for the whole siege of Arqa. Nearby lay Maraclea; its emir made terms and admitted our men and their standards into the city.

Of the princes still at Antioch, Duke Godfrey, Robert of Flanders, and Bohemond followed Raymond of Saint-Gilles as far as Lichia. There Bohemond parted from them and returned to Antioch. Duke Godfrey and the count of Flanders pressed on after Raymond and came to Gibellum, which they besieged and struck hard.

While Raymond still lay before Arqa, word reached him that the pagans were massing to fight him. He sent the bishop of Albara to Duke Godfrey and Robert of Flanders, asking them to come to Arqa because the enemy was gathering from every quarter against him and his people. On hearing this, Duke Godfrey and the count of Flanders made terms with the emir of Gibellum, who gave them horses and bezants and promised no further harm to pilgrims of the Holy Sepulchre. Then they hurried to Raymond’s aid and camped across the river from the fortress. They joined the siege; the pagans said to be gathering never came to battle.

Not many days later our men rode toward Tripoli and outside the city found Arabs, Turks, and Saracens. They attacked at once, drove them off, and killed most of the city’s nobles. The slaughter and the bloodshed were such that the water running into the city seemed to run red as it poured into the cisterns. Those still alive inside were deeply grieved. Fear so gripped the people that scarcely anyone dared step outside the gate.

Among many in the army of Christ a sharp controversy broke out: they denied that the lance in Raymond of Saint-Gilles’s keeping was the Lance of our Lord Jesus Christ. The charge enraged many pilgrims; Peter Bartholomew, its finder, was most deeply hurt. Numbers of them resolved to prove by fire whether this was the Lance Saint Andrew the Apostle had shown him at Antioch in Saint Peter’s church. The plan won broad assent. The ordeal was fixed for a Friday—the day our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross and was wounded with a lance.

Men of the army piled green and dry wood, small and finely cut, into a stack fourteen feet long and three and a half feet high. The bishop of Albara and the army’s priests came barefoot in sacred vestments, crosses in hand, and walked three circuits of the wood with psalms and a litany. The bishop alone kindled it. They then made three circuits of the flames with holy water while the whole pilgrim army of Christ prayed and sang, begging the Lord Jesus Christ to reveal whether this was the Lance that had wounded him on the cross, and to forgive their sins.

Peter Bartholomew approached the western end of the fire, stripped, put on only a black tunic, and held the Lance wrapped in linen. Three times he knelt in prayer to the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter the Hermit then declared so all could hear: “This Christian means to enter the fire on the condition that this Lance is the very one Andrew the Apostle showed to his brother Peter the Apostle at Antioch, with which our Lord Jesus Christ was wounded hanging on the cross. If it is not that Lance, let neither the man nor the Lance come out of the fire.” The compassionate Lord Jesus Christ, willing to show his miracle through Peter, let him emerge from the blaze unharmed. The Lance likewise passed through the fire before every eye.

On another day our men rode beyond the valley of Desem and found cattle, asses, sheep, and countless other animals. Sixty of them split off and found three thousand camels. They brought the whole take back to the army of Christ, and the host rejoiced greatly.

While we still held that siege, our ships put into a nearby harbor with a large market of grain, wine, meat, oil, and barley, so the whole army enjoyed plenty. Several of our men received martyrdom gladly in that siege: Pontius de Balaun, Anselm of Ribemont, William Picard, and others I cannot name. They kept the fortress under siege for three months less one day and celebrated the Lord’s Easter there on April 10. Again and again the king of Tripoli sent to Raymond of Saint-Gilles asking him to leave the fortress, promising terms if he would. Our leaders—Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Duke Godfrey, Robert of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, and the other pilgrims—heard this, and they also saw the new harvest coming: fresh beans were already being eaten in mid-March, new grain by mid-April. Leaders and common men therefore took counsel and said it would be well to start for Jerusalem with the new crop. All approved making terms with the king.

They left the fortress and reached Tripoli on Friday, May 13, and stayed three days. The king of Tripoli made terms with Raymond of Saint-Gilles and the other leaders and at once freed more than three hundred pilgrims taken in the city during the earlier battle. He gave Raymond fifteen thousand bezants and fifteen horses of great value, and he opened a large market in horses, asses, bread, cheese, and every kind of good, so the whole army of Christ was much enriched. He agreed that if they won the battle the emir was preparing against them and took Jerusalem, he would become a Christian and hold his land from them. On those terms the pact was made and sealed.

They left the city on the Monday in mid-May and traveled a narrow, hard road all day and night to a fortress called Bethelon. Then they came near the seaside city of Gibelon and suffered severe thirst. Exhausted, they reached the river Braim. On the day and night of the Lord’s Ascension they crossed a mountain where the road was extremely narrow and confined. They expected enemies there, but by God’s favor none stood against them. In turn they came to Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, and Acre. From Acre they passed the fortress of Haifa and came near Caesarea, where they kept Pentecost on May 29.

From there they reached Ramla, which the Saracens had abandoned for fear of the Franks. Nearby stood a venerable church holding the precious body of Saint George, who had suffered martyrdom there at the hands of faithless pagans for Christ’s name. Our leaders took counsel at once and devoutly elected a bishop to guard and govern the church. They gave him their tithes of gold, silver, livestock, and horses so that he and those who stayed with him might live honorably. The bishop remained there in great joy.

15. Jerusalem

Raymond of Saint-Gilles and Duke Godfrey, with the rest of the pilgrims, pressed on in high spirits and reached Jerusalem on Tuesday, June 7. They closed a hard siege against the walls. From the north Robert of Normandy took his post by the church of Saint Stephen the First Martyr—where Stephen gladly took stones for Christ’s name—and the count of Flanders camped next to him. Duke Godfrey held the west, Tancred at his side. From the south Raymond of Saint-Gilles sat on Mount Zion by the church of Saint Mary, Mother of the Lord: the place of her departure from the world, of the Lord’s last meal with his disciples, and of the Holy Spirit’s descent into their hearts.

On the third day Raymond Pilet, Raymond of Torena, and other knights of the Holy Sepulchre’s host rode out to raid and met two hundred Arabs. Christ’s knights closed with those pagans and, aided by God and the Holy Sepulchre, broke them, killing many and taking thirty horses.

Monday’s assault was so fierce that, had ladders been ready, the city would have fallen. As it was, they razed the lower wall and got one ladder up against the higher. Our knights climbed and met the city’s pagans at close quarters with sword and lance. Rainald, Hugh of Lusignan’s seneschal, was among those killed there—many of ours died, but more of the enemy. For ten days no bread could be found in the siege until a messenger reported that our ships had put into Jaffa. The leaders then agreed in council to dispatch knights and retainers to protect the men and vessels at that port.

At dawn a hundred knights rode out from Raymond of Saint-Gilles’s army: Raymond Pilet, Gaudemar Carpinel, Achard of Montemerlo, William of Sabra, and others whose names I do not know. On the road to the port thirty of Christ’s knights, Gaudemar and Achard among them, split from the rest and ran into seven hundred Arabs, Turks, and Saracens. They attacked hard, but the pagans’ strength closed round them on every side. Achard of Montemerlo and the poor footmen were killed. When our men were so hemmed in that each expected death, a messenger reached Raymond Pilet: “Why do you stand here with these knights? Look—our men are in the worst extremity among Arabs, Turks, and Saracens; perhaps every one of them is already dead. Help them! Help them!”

At those words our men spurred at once and found the fight still on. The pagans, seeing the Jerusalem knights, split into two companies. Calling on Christ’s name and the Holy Sepulchre, our force struck so hard that each man brought his opponent down. The pagans, unable to stand against Christian strength, fled in extreme terror. Our men chased them nearly four miles, killing many, took one prisoner for news, and captured one hundred and three horses.

Thirst nearly crushed the siege. Hides of ox, buffalo, and goat were sewn into bags so water could be carried six miles; from those little skins men drank foul, stinking water. Each day we suffered want and distress, living on nothing but that foul water and barley bread. Siloam’s spring at the foot of Mount Zion helped a little. Still, among God’s Christians of the Holy Sepulchre water cost so much that one penny would not quench a man’s thirst. At every spring and well Saracens lay in wait, killing those they caught and driving animals off into caverns, caves, and mountain dens. They also killed foragers who went out for grapes.

Anger and counsel followed. The bishops and priests urged a procession around the city. Barefoot, in sacred vestments, crosses in hand, they went from the church of Saint Mary on Mount Zion to the church of Saint Stephen the First Martyr, singing psalms and praying that the Lord Jesus Christ would free his holy city and the Holy Sepulchre from the pagan people and give it into Christian hands for his holy service. Clerics walked in the same habit; knights and retainers went armed beside them.

The Saracens answered in their fashion: they paraded along the walls bearing Muhammad on a spear under a cloth. When the Christians halted at Saint Stephen’s, as processions do, the enemy on the walls shouted, blew trumpets, and heaped on every mockery they could invent. Before all the Christian host they made a wooden cross in the likeness of the one on which merciful Christ shed his blood to redeem humankind, beat it with a stick, and then, to wound the Christians more, smashed it against the wall, crying, “Frangia, git salip”—in our tongue, “Franks, it is a good cross.”

Grief filled the Christians, yet their prayers did not stop. The procession climbed to the church on the Mount of Olives, from which Christ ascended into heaven. There a most honorable cleric named Arnulf preached on the mercy God had shown the Christians who had followed him as far as the stone of the Ascension. From that height the Saracens could see them clearly between the Temple of the Lord and the Temple of Solomon; they ran about with swords and clubs, threatening the host.

The same procession went on to the monastery of Saint Mary in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, from which her most holy body was taken up into heaven, and then returned to Mount Zion. As they sought to enter the church, an arrow struck a cleric at the head of the line in the middle of the forehead at the monastery door, and he died there. His soul, I believe, will reign with Christ for ever and ever. Amen.

The first man who wrote this should be believed, because he walked in that procession and saw it with his bodily eyes—namely Peter the priest, Tudebode of Civray.

The princes at once planned how to take the city by engines and enter our Savior’s Sepulchre in prayer. They built two wooden siege towers and several other machines—Duke Godfrey one tower with its engines, Raymond of Saint-Gilles the other. Timber came from distant lands; fifty or sixty Saracens held in Christian custody carried it on their shoulders, so that the Christians confounded the Saracens with Saracens. Seeing the engines rise, the Saracens fortified the city remarkably and raised their towers higher by night.

One day they sent one of their own to learn what engines the Christians were building. Syrians and Greeks spotted him for a Saracen and pointed him out: “Ma te Christo caco Sarrazin!”—in our language, “By Christ, here is a cowardly Saracen!” Seized and questioned through an interpreter, he said the Saracens had sent him to learn what engines we had. “Good,” the Christians answered. They bound his hands and feet, set him in the sling of a stone-thrower, and strained to hurl him into the city. They could not: the cast was so violent that his bonds broke and he was torn apart before he reached the wall.

Once the leaders saw which face of the city was weakest, they shifted engines and wooden towers there on a Saturday night. From first light they raised, fitted, and set the towers in place through Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, night and day.

From Wednesday until Prime, and all through Thursday, they stormed the city from every side until night with extraordinary force. At first light on Friday they attacked holy Jerusalem again, yet could do the pagans inside no real harm until the hour when our Lord Jesus Christ deigned to suffer his Passion on the cross for our sins. Then the knights of the Holy Sepulchre—Duke Godfrey and his brother Count Eustace—fought hard from the duke’s siege tower.

A knight named Lethot was first onto Jerusalem’s wall. Count Eustace and Duke Godfrey followed at once. The pagans holding that stretch came down from the wall and fled; our men pursued, killing and hacking them apart.

Raymond of Saint-Gilles advanced his tower from the south until it stood near the wall—yet a very deep ditch still separated them. He ordered the ditch filled and proclaimed a penny for every three stones carried in. The work took three days and two nights. They then moved the tower up beside a city tower. Defenders in the city and its tower met our men with fire and stones so fiercely that they smashed the upper stage of Raymond’s siege tower and set it alight. Angry and dismayed at the broken, burning top, Raymond suddenly saw three knights from Duke Godfrey’s army coming over the Mount of Olives and crying that the duke and his men were already inside. When he heard that the Franks were within, he said to his men: “Why do you delay? Look—all the Franks are already in the holy city of Jerusalem.” They took ladders, raised them against the wall, and fought their way in.

The emir holding the Tower of David surrendered to Raymond of Saint-Gilles and opened the gate where pilgrims customarily paid their tolls, provided Raymond would escort him and those with him in the tower safe and unharmed as far as Ascalon. Raymond gladly fulfilled that condition.

Our pilgrims entered holy Jerusalem, pursuing and killing Saracens and other pagans as far as the Temple of Solomon and the Temple of the Lord. There the enemy made a stand and fought hard until evening. The killing was such that blood ran through Solomon’s Temple and over the square about the Temple of the Lord. When the pagans were finally beaten, our men took many men and women in the Temple—killing some, sparing others as they chose.

A great crowd of pagans, men and women, still occupied the roof of Solomon’s Temple; Tancred and Gastos of Bearn gave them their standards. Our men then swept the city for gold and silver, horses and mules, and houses full of every kind of wealth. Later all gathered at our Savior’s Holy Sepulchre, rejoicing and weeping with immeasurable joy. At morning Tancred had it proclaimed that everyone should go to Solomon’s Temple to kill the Saracens. There each man took up his bow and shot many dead. Others climbed the Temple roof from another side and, with naked swords, beheaded Saracens of both sexes. Some of the pagans threw themselves headlong from the Temple; others died on the roof itself.

The next day they held council before the Temple of the Lord: all should pray, give alms, and fast, so that God might name whom he wished to rule the rest, govern holy Jerusalem, and fight the pagans. The bishops and priests first insisted that every dead Saracen be cast outside, lest the stench harm them—the whole city was thick with corpses. Living Saracens were forced to drag the dead beyond the gates. The bodies were piled into mounds the size of houses and then burned. Who has ever seen or heard of such slaughter among the pagan people? Their number God alone knew.

Eight days after the capture a festival was kept throughout Jerusalem. That same day a council chose Duke Godfrey as prince of the city, to fight the pagans and protect the Christians. In the patriarch’s place they also elected Arnulf, a most wise and honorable cleric, on the feast of Saint Peter in Chains. God’s Christians took Jerusalem on Friday, July 15, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1099, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

16. Ascalon

After the capture of Jerusalem a messenger ordered Tancred and Count Eustace to prepare and take possession of Neapolis. They rode there with knights and foot, and the inhabitants surrendered at once. Duke Godfrey then sent a second message summoning Tancred and his brother Eustace in haste: the emir of Babylon was at Ascalon, readying an attack on Jerusalem. He had brought chains and iron bonds to bind young Christians for perpetual servitude to him and his people, and he had ordered that all elderly Franks of both sexes be killed.

Joyful at the prospect of battle with the Saracens, Count Eustace and Tancred came through the mountains, armed for war, to Caesarea and then along the sea as far as Ramla. There they found many Arabs scouting for the emir’s army. They pursued and took several, who—willing or not—gave a full account of the army’s position, strength, and intended field of battle against the Christians.

At once Count Eustace and Tancred sent a messenger to Jerusalem, to Duke Godfrey, Patriarch Arnulf, and all the leaders: “Know that battle has been prepared for us at Ascalon. Come swiftly with all the force you can raise.”

The duke had it proclaimed throughout Jerusalem that they should prepare faithfully for war and march to Ascalon against God’s enemies. On Tuesday he left the city with Patriarch Arnulf, Robert of Flanders, and the bishop of Martorano. Raymond of Saint-Gilles and Robert of Normandy answered: “We will not go on any account unless we know for certain there will be a battle.” They ordered knights out to verify the report: “If it is true, return as fast as you can, and we shall be ready to go at once.” The knights went, saw the army, and came back quickly: “It is certainly true, just as we saw with our own eyes.”

Duke Godfrey then sent the bishop of Martorano back to Jerusalem, to Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Robert of Normandy, and the other leaders, bidding them come at once if they wished to fight the pagans. After delivering the words of Patriarch Arnulf and Duke Godfrey, the bishop of Martorano met Saracens on his return. They seized him and carried him off to a place unknown to us.

On Wednesday Raymond of Saint-Gilles and the other leaders left Jerusalem and marched to Duke Godfrey, armed for war and marked with the sign of the cross. Peter the Hermit stayed in Jerusalem, arranging and preaching that Greeks and Latins should make a faithful procession to God, offer prayers, and give alms to the poor so that God would grant his people victory. Barefoot, in sacred vestments, crosses in hand, the clerics processed from the Holy Sepulchre to the Temple of the Lord, singing a litany and other prayers.

Duke Godfrey, Raymond of Saint-Gilles, the patriarch, Robert of Normandy, the bishop of Albara, Robert of Flanders, and all the other leaders gathered at the river on the Ascalon side. There they found countless animals—cattle, camels, sheep, asses, and other livestock—sent by the Saracens as a stratagem. For the sake of the Holy Sepulchre, God was not yet willing to abandon his own. Christ’s knights and the retainers of the Holy Sepulchre seized every beast. That evening Patriarch Arnulf carried the portion of our Lord Jesus Christ’s Cross that the pilgrims of the Holy Sepulchre had found in Jerusalem; Raymond of Saint-Gilles’s chaplain likewise bore the lance of our Lord Jesus Christ. By the authority of God, the Holy Sepulchre, the most precious Lance, and the most holy Cross, the patriarch began to excommunicate anyone who turned to plunder before the battle was fought and God’s enemies beaten. Afterward, in glad rejoicing and full victory, they might take whatever the Lord had predestined for them.

Hearing this, the pilgrims of the Holy Sepulchre and Christ’s knights went out at first light on Friday into a very beautiful valley by the shore and drew up their lines there.

Duke Godfrey—now elected king in Jerusalem—formed his battle line; Raymond of Saint-Gilles his; Robert of Normandy his; Robert of Flanders his; Count Eustace his; and Tancred and Gastos of Bearn theirs. So six lines began to advance. Archers went before them, and all the animals already taken—camels and the rest—walked without a driver on both right and left. This was a very great miracle of God.

They advanced at once in the name of Jesus Christ and the Holy Sepulchre, bearing our Savior’s Lance and a portion of our Lord’s Cross, which the patriarch himself carried. Duke Godfrey and his line held the left; Count Raymond of Saint-Gilles rode by the sea on the right; the count of Normandy, the count of Flanders, Count Eustace, Tancred, Gastos of Bearn, and all the others rode in the center. Our men moved slowly toward the fight. The pagans stood ready for war, each with a drinking vessel hung from his neck so he could drink while fighting the Christians. Robert of Flanders struck them most fiercely; Tancred and all the others did the same. At that the pagans fled. The battle was immense: the pagan host was said to number six hundred and sixty thousand, though no one but God alone knew the true figure. Divine power went with our men, so strong that they counted the enemy’s multitude as nothing.

God’s enemies stood blinded and stupefied. Though their eyes were open and the Jerusalem knights of Christ stood before them, they perceived nothing and dared not rise, for God’s power made them tremble. In extreme fear some climbed trees and hid in the branches. Our men shot them with arrows and killed them with lances so that they fell from the trees like birds, then cut them to pieces with swords and other blades. Others flung themselves on the ground and would not rise; our men cut them up as a butcher does animals in a slaughterhouse.

Beside the sea Raymond of Saint-Gilles killed innumerable pagans. Those who could not flee plunged into the sea or fled into the city.

Before Ascalon the emir came in grief, mourning and weeping: “O Muhammad and our gods—who has seen or heard the like? An army of such force, strength, and courage, never beaten by any people, Christian or pagan, has now fallen to a host so small a man might enclose it in his fist. Woe to me in my sorrow! What more is there to say? How is it that beggars—unarmed, penniless, owning only a sack and a pouch—have defeated me? They even chase our Egyptians, who often gave them alms when they once begged across our land. I led here countless knights and foot—Turks, Saracens, Arabs, Agulani, Kurds, Acupatores, and other pagans—and I watch them all flee in shame, with reins hanging loose, along the road to Babylon, afraid to face so frail a foe.

“By Muhammad and all the gods’ powers I swear I will never again keep knights under contract, beaten as I am by this powerless people. I brought every weapon, every engine and instrument, and many iron bonds, meaning either to drag them captive to Babylon or to besiege them in Jerusalem. Instead they marched two days’ journey to meet me in the field. Had I taken my host to Jerusalem itself, I believe neither I nor any of my men would have escaped. What more can I say? Disgrace in Babylon will be mine forever.” So his speech ended.

One of our men took the emir’s stantarum. It had a golden knob at its top, and its whole shaft was covered with silver. What is called stantarum we call a standard. Robert of Normandy bought it for twenty marks of silver and gave it to the monastery of the Sepulchre in honor of God and the Holy Sepulchre. A pilgrim likewise bought the emir’s sword for sixty bezants.

Our enemies were so thoroughly overcome that they had no strength left against our men. Ships from every pagan land lay there; when their sailors saw the emir fleeing with his army, they raised sail at once, took him aboard, and put out to the open sea. Our men returned to the enemy tents and took countless spoils: gold, silver, rich cloths, and heaps of goods, with horses, mules, camels, sheep, cattle, asses, and many other animals. Every mountain and hill and all the level ground stood covered with that multitude of beasts. They found heaps of weapons, carried off what they wanted, and gathered the rest in one place and burned it.

Rejoicing and triumphant after defeating all the pagans, our men returned to holy Jerusalem. They brought much with them—camels and asses laden with hard-baked bread, flour, wheat, cheese, cloth, oil, and all else they needed. Such abundance rose among the Christians that an ox could be had for eight pennies, a measure of wheat for twelve, and a measure of barley for eight.

Finally, lest any Christian remain ignorant of it: this battle was fought on August 12, by the bounty of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom belong honor and glory now and always, for ever and ever. Amen.