by Robert Payne
King Fulk rode to Antioch, where Alice had installed herself. Entering Tripoli, the king found the way barred; Pons had sent his knights to guard the approaches. For such matters there were always simple solutions. The king went by boat to the mouth of the Orontes, marched on Antioch, found the knights loyal to him, and learned that Pons had brought up an army and was prepared to fight. At the battle of Rugia, near Antioch, a Crusader army under King Fulk faced a Crusader army under Pons of Tripoli. It was a savage battle, and for a long time the issue was in doubt. At last the king won, and the surviving soldiers of Pons’s army were led in chains to Antioch.
This was the first battle between Crusading armies; but there were to be many more. The spirit of rebellion lay deep in the hearts of Crusaders; and even when they were outwardly at peace, the princes of the coastal cities were often secretly rebelling against the king. Pons fled back to Tripoli, escaping punishment. Alice was again banished. The captives from Pons’s army were released from their chains. A council of knights was established to rule the city, but so many Antiochenes begged the king to remain that he delayed his departure for Jerusalem for some months.
The main axis of the war was shifting to the north, and especially to the valley of the Orontes. The Saracens were determined to capture Antioch, thus reducing once and for all the danger to Aleppo. In Zengi, they found the first of the great Islamic strategists who were capable of uniting vast masses of people from many princedoms in a determined effort to free the country of Christians. The Arab world was stirring. A great army had crossed the Euphrates to descend upon Antioch; another army had descended on the castle of Montferrand, in Tripoli, where Pons of Tripoli was holding out. The king heard the news about Pons as he came rushing up the coastal road to help the people of Antioch. At Sidon, he was met by Pons’s wife, Cecilia, Countess of Tripoli, who was the daughter of Philip I of France. She had been the wife of Tancred. The king regarded her as his sister. Now she stood beside the road, begging the king to go to the aid of Pons and his beleaguered castle. She spoke urgently and persistently. She told him Zengi himself was attacking Montferrand. The king marched to the castle, but before he reached it, Zengi fled, thinking that a large, well-trained army was descending on him. Then the king marched on Antioch.
Zengi was acting cautiously. He was assembling his main army at Qinnasrin, the ancient Chalkis. The Turks from beyond the Euphrates had not all reached the main camp, and he wanted to wait until he commanded an overwhelming force. Fulk, acting with extraordinary speed and throwing every able-bodied man in Antioch into his army, knew or sensed that Zengi was in no mood to attack until his army was at full strength. Close to Qinnasrin, near the fortress of Harim, the king assembled his forces. Scouts reported that Zengi was not ready to advance, so the king made a sudden attack, throwing the full weight of his cavalry into the enemy camp. It was a famous victory, with three thousand of the enemy killed and every imaginable kind of booty: slaves, tents, tent furnishings, horses, and flocks of sheep. For the second time, Zengi’s army fled before the king.
When he returned to Antioch, the king was greeted as both conqueror and savior. Here he remained for some time, deliberating on the course he must pursue in order to safeguard Antioch now that Bohemond II was dead. Just as he had himself been brought from overseas to rule over the Kingdom of Jerusalem, so now it occurred to him to search for a French or English prince who would be strong enough to rule over Antioch and preserve it against the Saracens.
His choice fell on Raymond of Poitiers, the son of William of Poitiers, who had fought in the First Crusade. Raymond was about thirty years old, now serving in the English court, a favorite of the king of England, who had made him a knight. Everything about the young man suggested strength, determination, and courage. A messenger called Gerald Gerbarre was dispatched to England to invite him to the throne of Antioch. The messenger was sent secretly, for Alice still saw herself as the destined ruler of Antioch, and it was necessary that she should know nothing about the intended marriage of her daughter to Raymond of Poitiers.
Gerald Gerbarre carried out his mission faultlessly. He met Raymond at the court of King Henry I, conferred with him at length, and brought him safely to Antioch, where an extraordinary drama unfolded with the help of Radulph of Domfront, Patriarch of Antioch.
William of Tyre, although very young at this time, remembered the patriarch and describes him as a heavy-set man, with a military bearing, a man who looked more like a knight than a priest. He had a large popular following although it appears that he achieved the patriarchate by a ruse, rather than by election.
King Fulk and Raymond of Poitiers, relying upon his famous discretion, let him in on the secret. Radulph accordingly let it be known that Raymond had come to marry Alice, when in fact he had come to marry her daughter. While Alice, who had returned to Antioch in defiance of her father and with the help of her sister Queen Melisende, waited in the palace for the man she thought was her betrothed, Constance was carried off to the cathedral and married to Raymond of Poitiers. By this marriage, Raymond became Prince of Antioch. Constance was then about nine years old.
Both Princess Alice and Queen Melisende were outraged by this conspiracy, which had been organized by a simoniacal patriarch, an English prince, and the king of Jerusalem. Alice and Melisende were practiced conspirators themselves: the queen was Alice’s shield against the king’s wrath, and Alice, it seemed, was an inveterate troublemaker, who enjoyed nothing better than flaunting her powers.
Melisende also enjoyed flaunting her powers. Earlier in Fulk’s reign She had shown extraordinary favors to a certain Hugh of Le Puiset, Count of Jaffa, who was young, handsome, charming to women, and exceedingly bold. He had married a much older woman for her wealth, and was on bad terms with her sons, both of whom were well-known, powerful at court, and heirs to vast estates. Fulk knew about the queen’s intimacy with Hugh but tolerated it out of his deep love for his wife. Others found it less tolerable, and in the summer of 1132 one of Hugh’s stepsons, Walter Gamier, rose in court and publicly accused Hugh of high treason and of conspiring to murder the king. Hugh denied the charge vehemently but offered to submit to the judgment of the court. The matter was so serious that the judges decreed it must be settled according to the ancient custom of the Franks, by single combat. A day was chosen. Everything was prepared for the tournament that would decide the truth or falsity of the charge. But on the chosen day Hugh failed to appear. He had left Jerusalem for Jaffa, and then taken a ship to Ascalon, where he signed an agreement with the Egyptian governor. He had now committed himself to high treason, whether or not he had acted treasonously before.
The situation was now extremely dangerous, for Jaffa was the seaport of Jerusalem. Hugh commanded troops which began to ravage the approaches to Jerusalem. With him were detachments of Egyptian troops. Potentially, a combined operation from Ascalon and Jaffa could take Jerusalem. But the governor of Ascalon was not ready to put a whole army in the field, and Hugh could not rely on his own troops. Balian, Lord of Ibelin, who was vassal to Hugh, turned against him, fled to Jerusalem, and told the whole story to the king. To his own nobles, even the most rebellious, Fulk nearly always behaved mildly. William, Patriarch of Jerusalem, was sent to Jaffa to mediate. Hugh was offered his life on condition that he go into exile for three years. This was a light punishment, and he accepted it readily.
Until a suitable boat could be found to take him to Apulia, he was permitted to live in his own house in Jerusalem. He was playing chess in the Street of the Furriers when a knight of Brittany drew his sword and stabbed him repeatedly. A crowd gathered quickly; the knight was disarmed; Hugh was taken to a hospital; and the rumor spread through the city that Hugh had been attacked at the orders of the king. These rumors may have been inspired by Queen Melisende, who was doing everything she could to preserve the reputation of her lover at the expense of the king’s reputation.
The knight from Brittany was put on trial, and the king demanded exemplary punishm
ent. The knight was sentenced to death by mutilation: his arms and legs would be hacked off and he would be permitted to bleed to death. Usually, in such cases, the tongue was also cut off, but this part of the punishment was rescinded by the king in the hope of a full confession. The knight from Brittany insisted to his dying breath that the king had nothing to do with the attempted assassination of Hugh of Le Puiset, and in this way the king’s honor was vindicated.
Queen Melisende’s desire for vengeance was not completely appeased. At court she made it clear that anyone who had ever said a word against Hugh was her enemy. Such men took care to hide, for Melisende was believed to be quite capable of having them murdered. The king, too, appeared to be frightened of her and increasingly acceded to her wishes. Meanwhile Hugh lived out the few remaining years of his life as a vassal of King Roger II of Sicily.
Meanwhile, Zengi still threatened. His attention was now drawn to Tripoli. Pons had been killed in a ferocious border war, and his son Raymond had exacted a terrible revenge, torturing and massacring all the Muslims he could lay his hands on. Zengi realized that Raymond’s blood-thirstiness was a sign of weakness, and that Tripoli was ripe for plunder. He invested the castle of Montferrand in the heights above Rafaniya.
Raymond sent an urgent call for help to the king. Montferrand was an important castle, guarding the valley of Bek’aa. The king answered that he was on his way, and Raymond set out for Montferrand with as many troops as he could raise. He was not a military genius; he fell into a trap Zengi had carefully prepared for him, and was captured. Fulk, who was a far better soldier, broke through the ring and joined the defenders inside the castle. The king’s column had moved so fast that it had been unable to carry provisions. Soon the troops inside the beleaguered castle were weak from starvation, and it seemed that the time would soon come when the king would be Zengi’s prisoner.
Although it was impossible to break out of the ring, it was possible to smuggle out messages. Urgent appeals were sent to the patriarch of Jerusalem, Joscelin of Edessa, and Raymond, Prince of Antioch. All answered the appeal, and the patriarch brought with him the True Cross. Out of sympathy, Raymond of Antioch led his army to Montferrand in spite of the fact that Antioch itself, in one of those turns of fortune that could only happen in the Crusades, was being besieged by the huge army of John Comnenus, the emperor of Byzantium.
Zengi continued to bombard the castle of Montferrand with huge rocks and stones, hoping with his siege engines to batter it into submission. He was so determined to destroy the castle and everyone in it that he manned his siege engines all day and all night. The castle shook continually, the noise was unendurable, and the famished defenders were unable to sleep. The king found it difficult to smuggle out any more messages, and he knew nothing about the approach of the relief forces, which had already entered the county of Tripoli. Zengi’s spies reported the movements of the relief forces. They also told him that the emperor of Byzantium was at Antioch. The emperor’s presence evidently weighed heavily with him, for he feared that the Byzantine army would join the Christian forces and attack Aleppo or even Damascus. He therefore decided to let the king and his starving soldiers leave the castle peacefully. In addition, he would free all the prisoners he had captured, including Raymond of Tripoli. The king and the remnants of his army withdrew with their weapons and with all the honors of war, and Zengi entered the ruined castle of Montferrand.
The relief forces were only a few miles away. Instead of attacking the castle, they returned to their own lands after a pleasant parlay with the king, who thanked them for coming to his assistance, though they had come too late.
For Raymond, Prince of Antioch, the adventure had been especially dangerous. He had no idea in what state he would find Antioch when he returned. In fact he found the situation unchanged; the emperor had made no serious attack, and the popular militia of Antioch had made a number of sallies which showed that they were a force to be reckoned with. John Comnenus, the son of Alexius and the younger brother of Anna Comnena, was a man of principle, capable of great wisdom in his dealings with nations. The people of Constantinople called him Kalojohn, from kalos which means “good” or “beautiful.” It is possible to include him among the greatest of Byzantine emperors, for he reconquered most of Asia Minor from the Turks in a series of hard-fought annual campaigns which brought him at last to the gates of Antioch. Since the Byzantine emperors had always claimed Antioch for their own, he was merely coming to claim a city he considered as part of his empire.
Raymond, returning from his meeting with King Fulk, succeeded in breaking the blockade of the city at the north gate. The emperor, camped outside the walls, and realizing that Raymond was preparing to offer resistance, began to bombard the city with his siege engines. He hoped to break through the Gate of the Bridge, and most of his attacks were concentrated there. He was prepared to fight, but he was also prepared to accept an oath of loyalty from the prince of Antioch, and then perhaps join forces with him against the Saracens. On only one matter was he adamant: Antioch belonged by right to the Byzantine empire.
When he learned all this, Raymond sued for peace. Ambassadors from Antioch were sent to the emperor’s camp, and it was agreed that Raymond should swear fealty to the emperor, who would be permitted to enter the city whenever he pleased. It was also agreed that if the emperor succeeded in taking Aleppo, Shaizar, Hama and Hims (Homs), these too should be added to the fiefdom of the prince of Antioch. In this way peace was established, Raymond knelt before the emperor, and the imperial standard flew from the tower of the citadel. The emperor returned to Cilicia, intending to spend the winter on the seacoast near Tarsus.
During the winter, plans were made for a combined Byzantine-Crusader attack on Zengi’s strongholds. Shaizar was selected as the principal objective. In April, the entire Byzantine army, together with the armies of the prince of Antioch and Joscelin of Edessa, converged on Shaizar. The siege engines were set up, and thousands of heavy rocks and stones were hurled into the city. From early morning until late at night, the emperor himself, in gold helmet and breastplate, sword at his side, acted as the field commander, mingling with the soldiers and directing the men manning the siege engines. The prince of Antioch and Joscelin of Edessa, perhaps in protest against the emperor’s assumption of the powers of commander in chief, remained apart from the battle. They sat in their tent, playing at dice. The emperor was furious and ordered them onto the battlefield.
After three weeks, with the news that Zengi was approaching from the east, the emperor accepted a huge indemnity from the emir in return for raising the siege.
The emperor returned to Antioch with the intention of teaching the prince of Antioch a lesson. He had not previously entered the city. Now he entered in triumph, riding on horseback, with the prince and the count walking like lowly footmen on either side of him. He provided himself with a large escort of Byzantine troops. The patriarch met him at the city gate and escorted him to the cathedral through streets hung with carpets and scented with incense. After a solemn mass, the emperor rode to the prince’s palace, and it was clear that he intended to stay there. In a speech from the throne, he announced his dissatisfaction with many things seen in Antioch and Shaizar. The Byzantine army would take over the citadel, where he intended to store his own treasure and his own weapons, and henceforth Antioch would become the war capital, the center for the mobilization of a Christian army against the Saracens in Syria. The prince of Antioch was the emperor’s prisoner and must henceforth do the emperor’s bidding.
Help came from an unexpected corner. Joscelin of Edessa, a bad soldier but an excellent conspirator, devised a superb stratagem for getting rid of the emperor. He spread the rumor that the Byzantines would dispossess and expel the people of Antioch. He issued a call to revolt against these usurpers from overseas. Crowds formed, arms were seized; with the whole city in a frenzy, Joscelin went to the emperor. An armed mob had accused him of being a traitor, ready to sell the city to the emperor, he tol
d the emperor.
He presented himself as an innocent spectator who had stumbled on a revolt. The emperor offered to leave Antioch for the sake of the Christian peace, and when that news spread, the revolt abated,
A few days later the emperor’s army returned with him to Cilicia. Spurned by the Crusaders, John Comnenus washed his hands of them.
The man who was most pleased by the departure of the Byzantine army was Zengi, who was engrossed in a plan to seize Damascus, which was then under the government of an old Turk called Unur. Damascus was in great danger, and Unur had no hesitation in calling for help from the king of Jerusalem. Unur offered twenty thousand bezants a month, the restoration of the fortress at Banyas to the Christians, and a firm alliance against Zengi. Fulk set out for Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee, only to find part of Zengi’s army parading on the farther shore. Fulk moved his army toward Damascus; and Zengi pulled out, and set up his headquarters at Baalbek. By moving toward Damascus, Fulk had shown that he could be relied upon to help Unur, who was properly grateful. The alliance between Unur and Fulk was based on a common interest and on similar habits of mind. William of Tyre describes him as “a man of much wisdom and a lover of our people.” Actually, at heart Unur detested the Christians, yet he was one of the few Muslim leaders who had an understanding of them and could deal with them in a civilized manner.
Fulk invited Unur to attend his court at Acre. It was the first time that a Muslim ruler had been invited to attend the court of a king of Jerusalem. There were festivities, ceremonious exchanges of gifts, and endless diplomatic conversations. In Tiberias, there were more festivities. In Jerusalem a rather simple-minded Templar approached Unur and said, “Would you like to see God as a child?” “Yes, certainly,” Unur replied. Then the Templar led the vizier to a painting of the Virgin Mary with the Christ child on her lap. “Here,” said the Templar, “is God as a child.” Unur said nothing; there was wisdom in his silence.