by Robert Payne
The Siege
of Antioch
ANTIOCH was a city like no other in the Near East. It was once the largest in Asia; under the Romans it was the third largest of the empire; and in the time of the Crusades it was the richest and the most powerful city on the Palestinian coast. The seaport of St. Symeon, twelve miles away, was usually filled with ships, for Antioch was a vast trading center with merchants who came from North Africa, Egypt, Byzantium, from Central Asia and all the emirates in the hinterland. The city clustered at the foot of a mountain called Mount Silpius, and the fortifications extended to the top of the mountain. The river Orontes flowed just outside the city walls, which had originally been built by Justinian. Four hundred towers had been built into the walls, with the result that there was no part of the city that was not under examination by the troops stationed on the walls. Antioch, formidable in its wealth and defenses, and now made even more formidable by the determination of Yaghi-Siyan to hold it for the Muslims, was a city which in the normal course of events could resist a two-year siege without too much difficulty. It could be conquered only by treachery from within.
The military governor of Antioch was well aware that a large force of Crusaders was about to descend upon him, and he put the city in a state of defense. He was a capable commander but the Christians had no lack of equally capable commanders. For once the Christians were not quarreling excessively among themselves, and they settled down to besiege a city that by its very nature could not be completely blockaded, for there was always a way in which supplies could be brought in over those immensely long walls.
The first Christians to arrive on the Orontes River formed a small detachment under Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy. They attacked the Iron Bridge, which was heavily fortified with two huge towers, and when the bridge fell to them in a surprise assault, the road to Antioch lay open. On the following day, October 21, 1097, Bohemond came up with the vanguard of the army, and soon the entire Crusader army was deployed outside the walls of Antioch.
Even though the Crusaders could not encircle the city, they could set up their camps in places where the Turks were most vulnerable. Bohemond set up his camp opposite the Gate of St. Paul, where the mountains came down to the plain. Raymond of Toulouse, with the largest army, stood opposite the Gate of the Dog, farther to the west, while Godfrey of Bouillon commanded a position opposite the Gate of the Duke, still farther to the west. But there were no Crusaders facing the Gate of the Bridge and the Gate of St. George, and the road to the seaport of St. Symeon remained in the hands of the Turks.
At first the Crusaders simply mounted guard, with a few tentative assaults. They had spies in the city, and they felt it necessary to feel their way, to establish the geography of the place in their own minds. The Count of Toulouse characteristically demanded an immediate general attack. Bohemond, who wanted the city for himself, was more cautious. Least of all did he want an attack that would enable Adhemar and the count to claim the city for the pope. So for two weeks there was a standoff between the Turks inside the city and the Christian army outside.
During that time Yaghi-Siyan went about sending embassies for help to emirs and princes who would realize that the Crusaders must be stopped. The size of the Crusader army had surprised him.
Antioch was still a predominantly Christian city with a large population of Greeks and Armenians who were likely to go over to the enemy at the first opportunity. On the other hand, the Syrian Christians, long established in Antioch, were more loyal to Yaghi-Siyan because they had felt repressed by Byzantine rule. Yaghi-Siyan cultivated them, rewarding them handsomely for any information about the Crusaders. So the Christians within the city remained divided. If Bohemond hoped they would rise up against the Turks, whom they outnumbered, he was mistaken. Antioch would not fall like ripe fruit into their hands.
After a two-week wait Yaghi-Siyan decided to test the strength of the Christians. There were sorties, ambuscades, sudden descents from the hills above Bohemond’s camp. There were some severe skirmishes, and the Christians began to lose heart. As winter came, they became increasingly fearful. They had gorged themselves on the sheep and cattle they found in the villages near Antioch; they had captured many granaries; they had taken possession of mills and bakeries; yet they had failed to make provision for the long days ahead. It was decided by the princes in council that they would have to detach some troops and march up the Orontes valley in search of provisions. Bohemond and Robert of Flanders were to lead the expedition, leaving Bishop Adhémar and the Count of Toulouse in command of the army outside the walls of Antioch. According to the chroniclers, Bohemond led twenty thousand Crusaders on this foraging expedition. This was an astonishingly large number of men to be detached from the main army, and it is possible that Bohemond was aware that a large column under Duqaq of Damascus was coming to relieve Antioch and that it was his duty to destroy it. The Turkish column encountered the column led by Robert of Flanders at Albara. Bohemond held back his forces, waiting for the first onslaught of the Turks to exhaust itself, and then hurled his own troops into battle. Robert’s troops were badly mauled, but Duqaq’s troops were torn to shreds. Yet there was little booty and there were almost no provisions to be found in the neighboring villages. Bohemond and Robert returned to Antioch, sadder and poorer. They had killed some Turks, and it was unlikely that Duqaq would ever again come to the relief of Antioch, but it was a hollow victory.
The days after their return from Albara were nightmarish. The earth trembled; the aurora borealis glittered in the shimmering sky; and soon the rain began to fall incessantly and the temperature dropped so low that they were all shivering. The suffering was so extreme that Bishop Adhémar ordered his army to fast for three days in the hope that God would have pity on his soldiers. The order may have seemed redundant to the starving soldiers.
Then, as the Crusaders received help from the Armenians in Cilicia and ships loaded with provisions and building materials reached the port of St. Symeon, the tide slowly began to turn. The Turks did their best to blockade the road leading to the seaport; Bohemond and the count of Toulouse broke through and some supplies were brought to the Crusader camps. But when an effort was made to bring a large caravan of supplies to Antioch, the Turks sent out strong columns to capture the caravan. The Crusaders lost three hundred men, but not the caravan. They had fought with desperation and renewed vigor because they knew that failure would mean death from starvation and the abandonment of the Crusade.
When spring came, there was a new excitement in the air. Bohemond still dreamed of making Antioch his own. He let it be known that he could no longer remain in Syria; he must return immediately to Italy. It was a ruse. He wanted the other leaders to let him set his own conditions for staying; so he said that if they gave him Antioch he would regard it as payment for his services and compensation for his absence from Italy. Bishop Adhémar, the Count of Toulouse, and Duke Godfrey remained unimpressed. Had the Crusaders come to the Holy Land for private profit? Was one man to benefit in a cause for which thousands upon thousands had died? Bohemond’s followers argued that their handsome Norman had made himself the war-chieftain and deserved the prize.
In all his actions Bohemond showed that he possessed a fierce imagination and an absolute ruthlessness. When it was becoming evident that too many spies were coming out of Antioch, many of them disguised as Armenians, he acted in character. He ordered his cooks to prepare a meal of captured spies. The cooks obeyed him. The throats of the prisoners were cut, they were then spitted, and the cooks set about roasting them. When asked whether he really intended to eat Turkish spies, Bohemond answered that he was serving them up in a good cause. Everyone in the camp came running up to see the spies being turned on the spit, marveling at Bohemond’s solution to a problem that had plagued the Crusader army for some time. That night all the remaining spies made their way secretly back to Antioch.
Bohemond had his own spies in Antioch among the Armenian Christians. There were some Christians wh
o had been forced to embrace Islam and wanted to become Christians again. Among them was a certain Firouz, who commanded three towers and was in communication with Bohemond. After some coaxing, he offered to surrender his towers to Bohemond’s forces. Bohemond addressed the council of princes and once more made claim to the city, saying that it was only proper to grant full possession of the city to one who conquered it or was able to bring about its downfall. The princes smelled a rat and decided against him, saying that the city should not be granted to a single man but to all, “for as we had had equal labor, so we should have equal honor.”
Meanwhile, Kerbogha, Atabeg of Mosul, was at last bringing a large army to the relief of Antioch. The princes learned of the coming of Kerbogha and became frightened. There was a very real danger that they might be overwhelmed. Once more Bohemond addressed the council of princes, this time even more urgently exhorting them to grant him the city if he was the first to enter it. Adhemar appears to have demurred; the Count of Toulouse rejected the plan; Duke Godfrey accepted it. At this moment, with Kerbogha only three days’ march away, Bohemond prepared to put in action the plan that had been delayed for so long. His spies went into the city, there were secret meetings with Firouz, and it was arranged that Bohemond’s men should climb up a leather ladder slung from the Tower of the Two Sisters, near St. George’s Gate. Antioch, attacked unsuccessfully for so many months, would be won by a single act of treachery.
Everything happened as Bohemond wanted it to happen. Sixty men climbed up the ladder, captured three towers, opened a gate, killed many Turks and caused widespread havoc even before Bohemond was aware of what was happening. Seeing that he was not on the walls, one of his soldiers went in search of him. Bohemond was surprised, followed the soldier into the city, and took command. His chief aim now was to plant his standard on the citadel, thus providing physical evidence that he possessed it. Soon the Gate of the Bridge and the Gate of St. George opened wide, and the Crusaders streamed in. It was shortly before dawn on June 3, 1098. Because Kerbogha was approaching, the Crusaders acted with the utmost speed, once they had taken the city. By the end of the day there was scarcely a single living Turk left in Antioch.
Antioch belonged to Bohemond: only the citadel refused to surrender. On the following day, the army of Kerbogha came up to the walls. It was at once obvious that this new army was large enough and strong enough to maintain a close blockade. The besiegers were now besieged. The Christians, who had suffered famine during the winter, when they were free to move about in the countryside, suffered all the more when they were enclosed within the great double walls.
From wild elation the Crusaders descended to despair. As Kerbogha’s ring around the city tightened, the joy over the conquest of the city was exchanged for a melancholy knowledge that they could hold out only for a few weeks and would be forced to surrender.
There were dead Turks in all the alleyways, and the stench was so terrible that people walked about with squares of cloth covering the lower part of their faces. Astronomical prices were paid for food. Kerbogha let it be known that a special fate was reserved for the Crusaders: they would be marched to distant Khorassan and then sold in the slave markets.
On the day before Kerbogha began the encirclement of Antioch, one of the Crusader princes, Stephen, Count of Blois and Chartres, slipped out of the city, taking with him many members of his private army. He left the city partly because he was afraid, partly because he thought he could intervene with the emperor, Alexius Comnenus, and partly because he was at odds with Bohemond. In a letter to his wife he described the siege of Antioch as he saw it, before Kerbogha came to wreck the Crusaders’ plans.
EXCERPTS FROM A LETTER FROM STEPHEN, COUNT OF BLOIS AND CHARTRES, TO HIS WIFE, ADELE, FROM ANTIOCH, MARCH 29, 1098.
. . . Together with all the chosen army of Christ, endowed with great valor by Him, we have been continually advancing for twenty-three weeks toward the home of our Lord Jesus. . . .
. . . Hastening with great joy to the aforesaid chief city of Antioch, we besieged it and very often had many conflicts there with the Turks; and seven times with the citizens of Antioch and with the innumerable troops coming to its aid, whom we rushed to meet, we fought with the fiercest courage, under the leadership of Christ. And in all those seven battles, by the aid of the Lord God, we conquered and most assuredly killed an innumerable host of them. In those battles, indeed, and in very many attacks made upon the city, many of our brethren and followers were killed and their souls were borne to the joys of paradise.
We found the city of Antioch very extensive, fortified with incredible strength and almost impregnable. In addition, more than 5,000 bold Turkish soldiers had entered the city, not counting the Saracens, Publicans, Arabs, Turcopolitans, Syrians, Armenians and other different races of whom an infinite multitude had gathered together there. In fighting against these enemies of God and of our own we have, by God’s grace, endured many sufferings and innumerable evils up to the present time. . . .
When truly Caspian, the emir of Antioch—that is, prince and lord—perceived that he was hard-pressed by us, he sent his son Sensodolo by name to the prince who holds Jerusalem, and to the prince of Calep, Rodoam, and to Docap, prince of Damascus. He also sent into Arabia to Bolianuth and to Carathania to Hemelnuth. These five emirs with 12,000 picked Turkish horsemen suddenly came to aid the inhabitants of Antioch. We, indeed, ignorant of all this, had sent many of our soldiers away to the cities and fortresses. . . . But a little before they reached the city, we attacked them at three leagues’ distance with 700 soldiers on a certain plain near the “Iron Bridge.” God, however, fought for us, who were faithful to Him, against our enemies. For on that day we fought with the strength given to us by God and conquered them, killing a great multitude—God was continually at our side—and we returned with more than 200 heads, so that the people might rejoice at the sight of them. . . .
On the day following Easter, while Alexander, my chaplain, was writing this letter in great haste, a party of our men were lying in wait for the Turks, fought well against them, killed sixty horsemen and brought their heads back to the army.
These things I am writing to you, dearest, are only a few of the things we have done; and because I cannot tell you, my darling, all that is in my heart, I charge you to do right and to watch carefully over your land, and to do your proper duty to your children and your vassals, for you will certainly see me as soon as I can come to you.
Farewell.
The King of
the Tafurs
IT was during the siege of Antioch that for the first time we see the strange tribe of Tafurs. They had been there from the beginning, invisible only because the chroniclers thought so little of them that they were mentioned very rarely. Nearly everything we know about them comes from the Chanson d’Antioche, an enormously long poem written by Richard the Pilgrim and Graindor of Douai. There is not the least doubt that the Tafurs existed and played an important role in the Crusade. We see them in battle and sometimes we are aware of their presence even when they cannot be seen clearly. Sometimes we have a glimpse of their faces: hollow cheeks, burning eyes, ragged beards, wild hair falling to their shoulders. If we could look closely into their eyes we would see spiritual exaltation and terrible despair.
The Tafurs were the expendables, the poor devils who followed the army to pick up the scraps; they were unskilled laborers, poor peasants, men who would hold a bridle and expect a crust of bread for their pains. They were the scavengers of the battlefield but they were also to be found among the most daring of the warriors. They marched barefoot, sometimes naked, or clad in rags, covered with sores and filth, too poor to afford swords and lances, armed only with knives, clubs, pointed sticks, axes, and scythes. They never rode on horseback and were always kept at a distance from the main army in a kind of ghetto. In their own eyes they were the plebs pauperum, the poor people of Christ, the Chosen Ones. They were never paid, they expected no reward except the blessing of Christ and
a place in the Heavenly Jerusalem, and they fought like scrawny lions. They were the rabble that accompanied all medieval armies, but with a difference. At a word from their king they became shock troops, and they sometimes won the battles that were credited to the Crusading knights.
The Tafurs were both well organized and without any visible organization. They had no training but were trained in battle. Their most remarkable quality after their poverty was their absolute indifference to danger. They were all equal but they possessed a king, le roi Tafur. He was a Norman knight who had deliberately put aside sword and armor to wear sackcloth and wield a scythe. In the Chanson d’Antioche he appears as a formidable presence, towering over his naked rabble and leading them during their sudden onslaughts against the enemy. The king of the Tafurs had taken the vow of poverty and insisted that everyone in his army should do the same. If he found any Tafurs with money, he would order them to buy weapons and join the main army: to have money was a disgrace. A Tafur who put on the silk raiment he found in a Muslim house could expect to be drummed out of the Tafur kingdom.
Around the king of the Tafurs there gradually emerged a kind of collegium of men who were devoted to the laws of poverty and obedience. Significantly it was Bohemond, the wildest and most unscrupulous of the princes, who most often attempted to take the Tafurs under his command.
Yet the princes and the knights seem to have been in awe of the Tafurs. In battle they formed a human wave; they were mown down, but they continued to march against the enemy. When they entered a conquered town, they raped and murdered in a wild frenzy; and when the Emir of Antioch complained about their excesses, he was told, “All of us together cannot tame King Tafur.”