by John France
The army left Ramla on 6 June and arrived at Qubeiba which was then supposed to be the biblical Emmaus sixteen kilometres west of Jerusalem. That evening Tancred left the army in response to calls for help from the Christians of Bethlehem.15 The army which approached Jerusalem on 7 June 1099 numbered only some 1,200–1,300 knights and 12,000 other armed men, according to Raymond of Aguilers, a small force indeed to take on the Fatimid empire. They were working against time and the leaders were divided amongst themselves by the events of the preceding months. The count of Toulouse moved his camp early in the siege, against the advice of the other princes and despite much hostility in his own army which he only overcame by paying lavishly.16 Gaston of Béarn was an important magnate in Raymond of Toulouse’s army in the early stages of the crusade. During the siege of Jerusalem he was in charge of the building of the siege engines of the North French. Later he was closely associated with Raymond of Toulouse’s enemy Tancred.17 The fact that two Provençals, Galdemar Carpenel and William of Montpellier, are both later found in the service of Godfrey may indicate tensions within the Provençal army.18 Count Raymond’s quarrel with Tancred, who we have seen left his service at ‘Akkār, certainly continued, for we are told that on the eve of the final assault on the city after the procession around it and during the accompanying religious celebrations on 8 July they were reconciled.19 It was the custom of the army that when a crusader took a castle or town his banner flying over it would be respected by the others. Tancred seized Bethlehem and was arraigned by other leaders for it (see fig. 16). Later, after the fall of Jerusalem, he would plunder the Dome of the Rock to the scandal of the faithful which would involve him in a quarrel with the Patriarch.20 His attempt to ransom those of the enemy who took shelter there was frustrated by the blood lust of the Franks who massacred them, much to his annoyance.21 When the leaders censured Tancred in early July for his treatment of Bethlehem another problem arose, for Raymond of Aguilers alleges that its church was so holy that it could not be treated like any temporal possession. Then some of the clergy protested at the idea of choosing a ruler for Jerusalem when that matter was discussed because they regarded it as a special possession of the church. Raymond of Toulouse was clearly associated with this group amongst the clergy. Thus, to the personal rivalries of the leaders was added an ideological quarrel which would have a considerable influence on events after the fall of the city.22 The question of the government of Jerusalem was not raised again until 22 July 1099 when the leaders met to choose a ruler. The election was bitterly contested. Many of the clergy protested that a Patriarch should be elected first as a symbol of the church’s rights. This was rejected, but Count Raymond refused the offer of the kingship and what was offered to Godfrey was something else, the Advocacy of Jerusalem.23 However, the count clearly intended to keep a strong position in Jerusalem for he refused to hand the citadel which had surrendered to him over to Godfrey, and gave way only to considerable pressure from other leaders and much discontent within his own army. Bitter at this, he sulked in company with his ally Robert of Normandy and was even reluctant to believe the news of the landing of the Egyptian army at Ascalon in early August. After the victory he disputed control of Ascalon and Arsuf with Godfrey, and as a result neither city surrendered to the crusaders.24
Throughout the struggle for Jerusalem there would be two Christian armies rather than one, and at no stage was there a single commander. This makes their achievement all the more remarkable. The basic religious motivation of the crusaders reasserted itself and substituted a driving sense of purpose for leadership. It was this spirit which had rallied and triumphed over Kerbogah and then held the crusade together through the second half of 1098 when it had filled a real vacuum in the leadership and direction of events. In Raymond of Aguilers’s chronicle the death of Peter Bartholemew, who had played such a major role in articulating the demands of the mass of the army, is clearly followed by the reappearance of Stephen of Valence and then the emergence of Peter Desiderius in the later stages of the siege of ‘Akkār. It is possible that Raymond has tidied up events somewhat, but the outburst of enthusiasm for the journey which he says accompanied the arrival of Adhémar’s cross in the camp at ‘Akkār is consistent with later manifestations. As they approached Jerusalem many marched on to seize forts and settlements, but Raymond says that some at least approached the city barefoot and penitent as Peter Bartholemew had commanded. Albert describes the joyful emotions and the ceremonial as the army arrived before the city on 7 June 1099 and the Anonymous speaks of their ‘rejoicing and exulting’ at this time.25 In this spirit, the leaders consulted a hermit on the Mount of Olives and launched an almost immediate and fruitless attack on the city on 13 June. Peter Desider-ius had a vision of Adhémar, as a result of which on 8 July the whole army made a solemn procession around the city in the style of Joshua before Jericho in preparation for the great assault which they were preparing. In the final assault on Jerusalem it is alleged that Adhémar was seen in the thick of the fighting while the ultimate catharsis of this overwhelming spirit of righteousness was the terrible massacre which followed the fall of the city when the Anonymous records that ‘our men were wading up to their ankles in enemy blood’.26 The army which encamped before Jerusalem on 7 June 1099 was sadly divided in leadership, but in spirit it was united at this culmination of their quest. Without this they would undoubtedly have failed, for the task which they faced was immense and had to be achieved quickly.
The Christian army was dangerously isolated for the nearest friendly Christian base was Laodicea, (held by the Byzantines over 500 kilometres to the north), and no reinforcement could be expected from them nor from Bohemond, who was consolidating his position at Antioch another eighty kilometres away. Between these Christian bridgeheads in North Syria and Jerusalem was a string of Moslem cities about the fundamental attitudes of which the westerners could have had no illusions, especially after they shot down a carrier pigeon bearing messages from the governor of Acre to Caeserea.27 Even sea communication with the friendly north would be difficult as the fortifications of Jaffa, the nearest port to Jerusalem, had been dismantled by the enemy (see fig. 16).28 Moreover, the crusaders were aware that they were challenging the great power of Egypt, which had seized Jerusalem from the Artukid Turks in August 1098 taking advantage of their defeat of the Turks at Antioch. This had produced doubts about the wisdom of attacking Jerusalem when the army reached Ramla and Albert alleges that the Egyptians were in breach of promises they had made to the crusaders at Antioch.29 Albert of Aachen interrupts his account of the final attack on Jerusalem to report on the interception of messages from the Vizier, al-Afdal, to the garrison of Jerusalem, assuring them that he would come to their relief in fifteen days. According to Albert, deserters from the garrison told the crusader leaders that messengers were passing into the city on the eastern side which was not invested. An ambush was mounted killing one envoy and capturing the other. He was tortured to report his message and then tossed into the city on a mangonel with fatal results.30 The placing of Albert’s story emphasises the simple and obvious fact that the crusaders were engaged in a race against time and feared an attack from Egypt catching them during the siege of Jerusalem. Ascalon was a major Egyptian base on the coast only about eighty kilometres away, and it seems likely that some of those who attacked the crusader army during the siege were from there. So it was evident to all the parties that the issue would be decided quickly for time was against the Christian army. This imperative explains the early and ill-prepared attack on the city on 13 June, only a few days after their arrival.
Jerusalem was a formidable nut to crack. Its defences seem to have been put in order after the fall of the city in 1098 and the Fatimid governor, Iftikhar-ad-Daulah, had a garrison which included negroes, whom Fulcher describes as Ethiopians, and a corps d’élite of 400 cavalry, specially sent from Egypt, which acted as a reserve during the siege. Many of the Christian population had been driven out of the city, for Albert mentions those
who had fled to Bethlehem petitioning the crusaders for protection – whereupon Tancred was sent there. The Patriarch of Jerusalem was in Cyprus though the Armenian Catholicus remained in the city for part of the siege. In fact, it is likely that many Christians, and not just women, children and the old as William of Tyre suggests, remained in the city, for there were priests and others to welcome the crusader entry. The Jews stayed and suffered in the crusader sack. Despite these security precautions deserters from within the city informed the leaders of the comings and goings of Egyptian messengers and told Tancred about the plunder in the Dome of the Rock, while it was ‘brothers from within the city’ who warned the army that the fire cast at their towers could only be put out by vinegar.31 The garrison tried to drive off animals and destroy food in the vicinity of the city, but Gaston of Béarn and Tancred captured a lot of stock as they raided ahead of the approaching Christian army. Ralph of Caen speaks of the army tormented by hunger and thirst and virtually in a state of siege, cut off from supply by enemy raiders, but this was at a point late in the siege and as Fulcher remarks, there never seems to have been a desperate food problem. The Anonymous says that the army was short of bread until the arrival of a fleet at Jaffa on 17 June and this may have been a crucial factor in the supply of food. What all the sources complain of most bitterly was the shortage of water. The enemy had poisoned or blocked wells, forcing the crusaders to travel at least three kilometres or more. The threat of enemy ambushes obliged them to form convoys. As a result, water was sold at great cost in the camp and this was the cause of quarrels and dispute. Some was sold with leeches in it, which when swallowed caused swelling of the throat and stomach and ultimately death. The water shortage had direct military effects. Count Raymond’s camp outside the Zion Gate was very close to the walls and was assailed by an enemy fire machine and shortage of water made it difficult to put out the fires. The same problem aided and abetted enemy efforts to burn the ram during the final assault. Only the pool of Siloa provided water in the immediate vicinity of the city and its supply ebbed and flowed and it was, in any case, within bowshot of the walls. The conveying of water seems to have become a major activity of the army during the siege but supply of other goods seems to have been reasonable. Albert reports that while the poor struggled over water the rich had grapes and wine.32
As the crusaders approached Jerusalem many of the knights, like Tancred, went ahead seizing properties. Raymond of Aguilers grumbled about this, but it was essential that they dominate the land around Jerusalem, for hostile raiders were present in force. Some of these may have been based in Jerusalem, which was never completely blockaded, but perhaps others came from Ascalon. On 9 June, Raymond Pilet and Raymond of Turenne attacked 200 Arabs. These raiders were a major problem for, as we have seen, they forced the army to convoy water supplies. The failure of the initial assault on Jerusalem on 13 June was partly due to the lack of wood to build ladders and machines, and a meeting of the leaders two days later agreed that machines would have to be constructed. There was no suitable timber in the general area of Jerusalem and Robert of Flanders was told to provide escorts for timber-cutters who found material near Nablus over fifty kilometres away, whose general area was later raided for supplies by Tancred in the period 10–13 July. Finding wood was a major problem for the army. After the conference on 15 July, Albert says that a Christian Syrian showed them where to find it in the mountains towards Arabia, some ‘four miles’ away. Since Albert’s miles are very fluid and the description vague it is impossible to know where this was. Later the young, old and non-combatants were sent to Bethlehem to gather light branches and twigs for the outer coverings of the assault machines. Ralph of Caen says that Tancred found the wood to build the only scaling ladder used in the initial attack on 13 June, and subsequently found some used by the Egyptians in their siege the year before and hidden in a cave where he sought privacy during a bout of dysentery.33
However, it was undoubtedly the arrival of the fleet of six ships at Jaffa on 17 June which was the key event in providing wood and the skilled labour and technical knowledge with which to manufacture. A major force was gathered to protect the sailors in the undefended port, but even so it was ambushed on its way to the coast on 18 June (see fig. 16). This was the largest encounter during the siege and all the crusaders were chosen from Count Raymond’s army, a reflection perhaps of his close relations with Genoa which had provided four of the six ships. According to the Anonymous 100 knights including Raymond Pilet, Achard of Montmerle and William of Sabran set out, but thirty became separated from the others and were ambushed by 700 Arabs with heavy loss including Achard and some poor foot-soldiers. Raymond Pilet’s forces were sent for and the enemy fled with heavy casualties, leaving 103 horses to be captured. Raymond of Aguilers describes three parties, the first of which led by Galdemar Carpinel, consisted of twenty knights and fifty foot. They fell in with 200 Arabs whom they attacked boldly with knights and archers to the fore, but they were encircled and all but overcome by the enemy whose archery was deadly. Achard was amongst the dead when Raymond Pilet’s force of fifty knights, probably accompanied by the following of William of Sabran, came up and the enemy fled. Albert says that Achard of Montmerle and Gilbert of Trèves were killed when the enemy from Ascalon ambushed a crusader force ravaging near to Ramla; the rest were saved by Baldwin of Le Bourcq’s intervention, and he captured an important enemy ‘knight’ who was executed before the Tower of David. The mention of Achard suggests that this was the same engagement, perhaps conflated with another event, but Albert, like Fulcher and Ralph of Caen, does not mention the fleet.34 The importance of this victory was seen in the sequel. The crusader fleet in Jaffa failed to keep a good lookout and was trapped in the harbour by Egyptian ships. Because the port had no defences the sailors burned their ships (bar one which escaped) and marched to Jerusalem with supplies and wood, a long vulnerable supply train which escaped attack because of the expensive victory the previous day. However, the whole episode had demonstrated the isolation of the crusader force and its vulnerability as it stood before Jerusalem.
The city which the crusaders now confronted was well protected by nature and the works of man (see fig. 17).35 In the later eleventh century the city occupied much the same site as the present Ottoman enceinte set upon a sharp hill rising from south to north amongst the Judean Hills. The valley of Qidron, rising from the direction of the Dead Sea, divides on Jerusalem’s south-eastern flank. To the east the Qidron valley cuts an enormous gash between the city and the Mount of Olives, providing great natural strength in that quarter; towards the north of the city it is called the Valley of Josaphat. Its western extension, the Valley of Hinnon, similarly, but less spectacularly, protects the western flank of the city. In the course of the eleventh century, two rebuilding campaigns on the north and south reduced the fortified area of a city whose economic importance was rapidly declining. By far the most radical was the reconstruction about the end of the first third of the century which excluded the ancient city of David and Mt Zion, and created the present southern aspect. A similar reconstruction about 1063 excluded much of the northern part of the old city. The result of these rebuilding campaigns was, in a military sense, highly unsatisfactory. In the south-west the exclusion of Mount Zion created a level platform some 160 metres wide from fifteen metres east of the southwestern corner of the city to about the same distance east of the Zion Gate, and well over fifty metres deep extending back from the wall to the ancient church of St Mary, from which any attacker could threaten. This is only a small part of the 1.3 kilometres extent of the south wall, and for the rest the land falls steeply away to the east down to the Temple Mount and the walls rise high above the old city of David. But the situation to the north was far more dangerous. The new line of fortification, centred on what is now the Damascus Gate (called in crusader times the St Stephen Gate) is markedly below the brow of the hill which lies well to the north. This gate stands across the Tyropoeon Valley and on its western side th
e land slopes up sharply to the high point of the defences where the Quadrangular Tower (later known as Tancred’s Tower) marked the northwestern corner of the city. However, at this point the land slopes down very sharply indeed from the north, so that this Tower was an obvious attempt to strengthen a vulnerable point where the slope of the land really would naturally dominate the city wall; in the Ottoman defences it is the site of a major salient.36 To the east of the Damascus Gate the northward rise of the hill is less menacing, and the wall climbs gently from the Tyropoeon valley and then falls away slightly to where the Wadi Zahira enters the enceinte east of what is now Herod’s Gate. In this stretch every effort has been made to use rocky outcrops and rises, but in general the attacker is presented with a less than frightening aspect and a fair choice of attacking points, and can work with a useful downslope. In 1073 the city fell to the Seljuks and an effort was made to address these weaknesses. Outerwalls were either built or rebuilt, though these were probably not continuous and may have formed elongated enclosures. The eastern side of the city, just under one kilometre long, needed little strengthening for it was protected by the Qidron or Josaphat Valley but at the foot of this wall from the Josaphat Gate to the northeastern corner was a moat for here the defences stood on a plateau accessible from the north. This moat continued along the northern side of the city, reinforced by an outer wall, though it is not certain that they were absolutely continuous. The outer wall may have been formed into enclosures, effectively barbicans, while tracing the moat raises difficulties. This double line turned south at the Quadrangular Tower (later called Tancred’s Tower) and covered the western side as far as the citadel by the Jaffa Gate (which the crusaders called the Tower of David), around which the moat connected with the outer system and also isolated it from the city. South of the citadel the land rises steeply to the walls, but from the south-west corner a moat protected the whole southern wall facing Mt Zion as far as the Temple Platform.37 Thus, great trouble had been taken to strengthen the vulnerable area of the Quadrangular Tower, connecting it with the citadel in a triple line of defence, and the one weak point to the south was strengthened. However, the north wall of the city, roughly 1.4 kilometres long, was overlooked by the lie of the land, giving enemy missile firers an advantage and providing an enormously long frontage for the garrison to watch. The size of the garrison is not known. Raymond of Aguilers’s figure of 60,000 is clearly nonsense. Iftikhar-ad-Daulah probably had a core of Egyptian regulars; we know that a number of Jews also served and it was usual for such forces to be augmented by city militias. These, together with the 400 mounted reinforcements sent by the Egyptian Vizir al-Afdal, probably formed a barely adequate garrison for they were not particularly aggressive defenders.38