Those who did stay faced immense practical problems, all of which grew out of the circumstances that had first created and then sustained the crusade. Bohemond had engineered the fall of Antioch on 3 June 1098, and Baldwin of Boulogne had pushed east from Marash to be welcomed by Armenians resentful of Turkish rule. Ravendel and Turbessel (Tell Bashir) submitted to him before he reached Edessa in February 1098. In March, an internal conspiracy (in which Baldwin was probably involved) overthrew Thoros, its Armenian ruler, and he was able to take control.68 However, the other crusader leaders had been forced to leave Antioch because of popular pressure and, although most local rulers were keener to pay them off than to fight them, the drive to Jerusalem precluded a systematic conquest. Long sieges were not practical. When Raymond of Toulouse had tried to take Arqa, north-east of Tripoli, in 1099, he found himself sucked into a fruitless siege lasting three months between February and May, and in the end was forced to abandon it.69
Apart from the capture of Antioch and Edessa, the crusaders had been buttressed on the coast by the Byzantine possession of the ports of Saint Simeon and Latakia (apparently taken before the crusaders had reached northern Syria), and in the course of the expedition they had captured Tortosa (February 1099) and Jaffa (June 1099), the second of which was the nearest port to Jerusalem. Inland they took the towns of Rugia and Albara (September 1098) and Ma'arrat-an-Nu'man (December 1098) in the north, and Ramla (May 1099) in the south, while Tancred had seized Bethlehem, just to the south of Jerusalem, shortly before the city fell. Their main centres of power were far apart: the distance between Antioch and Jerusalem was over 360 miles and that between Antioch and Edessa 160 miles. On this slender basis the crusaders had to attempt to construct viable states so that the holy places could be protected from what they saw as Muslim tyranny and thus become properly accessible to pilgrims from the West. Whatever their ultimate physical condition, it could be said that those who did eventually settle in 1099 and immediately after were the best fitted psychologically for the hugely demanding task that lay before them.
The first requirement was a military leader, a matter so pressing that, on 22 July, within eight days of the capture of Jerusalem, they had elected Godfrey of Bouillon. This was very much the decision of the secular leaders on the expedition; the crusade may have been initiated by the papacy, but the Roman see was too far away to be consulted, while the pope's chief representative, Adhémar of Le Puy, was dead. Indeed, Raymond of Aguilers reports that they had discussed the question in early July, even before the capture of Jerusalem, apparently provoked by Tancred's seizure of the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem the previous month. Clerical attempts to argue that they should not elect a king as he could become a David and ‘degenerate in faith and goodness’, thus inducing the Lord to overthrow him, and that they should appoint an advocate instead, simply increased the conflicts within an already tense army. ‘Nothing good came from this quarrel,’ said Raymond.70 As the most senior and wealthiest of the leaders, Raymond of Toulouse was the obvious choice, but at around sixty he was also the most elderly as well as being the least popular, having been identified as the chief reason for the excessive delay at Antioch after the defeat of Kerbogha in June 1098, which he had been reluctant to leave in Bohemond's hands. Raymond was undoubtedly asked but, according to Raymond of Aguilers, he baulked at taking the title of king in the city of Christ.71 The English chroniclers William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon later claimed that Robert of Normandy had been offered the kingdom, but had turned it down ‘through fear of its insoluble difficulties’, as William put it, but there is no contemporary evidence for this.72 Godfrey, however, did not attempt to become king, and is usually described in the sources as princeps or advocatus, titles which may have reflected the current political thinking that kings could only be created by popes or emperors.73 As prince, he evidently believed that he exercised full authority under God, while the title of advocate implied a special responsibility for the defence of the Church, a role that was obviously fundamental in such a unique place. It is true that in Germany an advocate would have meant a lay protector of an ecclesiastical institution, but in this case it did not signify any kind of subordination to the patriarch. Advocates were often dominant figures, but in any case there was no cleric available for the patriarchate who had anything like the status necessary for such a role.74
The need for military leadership was quickly proved, for within three weeks of Godfrey's election the crusaders were forced to fight a major battle with the Egyptians under their vizier, al-Afdal. Initial contacts with the Egyptians had not been unfriendly. As adherents of the Shi'ite cause, the Fatimids of Cairo had been regarded with extreme hostility by the Seljuks, who saw themselves as the chief representatives of the Sunnite caliphs in Baghdad. The arrival of the crusaders at Antioch encouraged the Egyptians to send envoys in the hope of achieving co-operation against a mutual enemy.75 However, the Christian victory over Kerbogha in June 1098, followed soon after by the restoration of Egyptian control over Palestine as far north as the Dog River (including Jerusalem), discernibly weakened the Turks and changed al-Afdal's perspective, so that he was less inclined to be accommodating. Perhaps misunderstanding the ideological drive that lay behind the crusade, he was prepared to allow parties of pilgrims into Jerusalem on a restricted basis, but he had no intention of giving up control either of the city itself or of the surrounding holy places.76 Only when the crusaders captured Jerusalem did he fully grasp that their aims were incompatible with Egyptian policy, and realise that he would have to fight them. According to Fulcher of Chartres, he was particularly angry when he heard that Jerusalem had been captured ‘with such savagery’, and set about equipping an army based at Ascalon with the intention of either provoking a battle or of besieging Jerusalem.77 For what was the last time, despite the evident tensions within the crusader ranks, they gathered together their combined forces and, taking the Egyptians by surprise, fell upon their encampment near Ascalon in the early morning of 12 August 1099. Robert of Normandy was particularly prominent, charging into the centre of the Egyptian camp, an action later commemorated in the stained glass at the abbey of Saint-Denis.78 Such a bold tactic was fully rewarded and the much larger Egyptian army was completely overcome and put to flight, many in such a panic that they suffocated as they tried to force their way back into the safety of the city.79 The author of the Gesta Francorum, who has a penchant for putting imaginary speeches into the mouths of his Muslim opponents, has al-Afdal wailing that he had been defeated by ‘a wretched little force of Christians’, and swearing that he would never raise another army against the Franks, a pronouncement that turned out to be a piece of wishful thinking on the part of the anonymous author.80
After Dorylaeum and Antioch, this was the third decisive battle of the campaign. On each occasion the crusaders had defeated different forces from the Muslim world, but the nearest Islam had come to putting together a coalition was under Kerbogha, and even then it was both partial and fragile. Informed contemporaries were well aware of this. According to Ibn al-Qalanisi, viewing events from Damascus: ‘the peoples of Khursn, ‘Irq and Syria were in a state of constant bickering and hatred, wars and disorder, and fear of one another, because their rulers neglected them and were distracted from the task of governing them by their dissensions and mutual warfare.’81 Even so, on any one of these occasions the whole project could have foundered;82 it had not done so because of a combination of religious conviction and military boldness. Such characteristics continued to be displayed by those who stayed in the East, for the only alternative to returning home was to make a life in Palestine and Syria. Bohemond and Baldwin had already taken the first steps at Antioch and Edessa, and Tancred, vigorous from the very beginning in protecting his own interests and unimpressed by Godfrey's authority, whatever his title, now attempted to create a viable lordship centred on Galilee. He had taken Bethlehem before the fall of Jerusalem, but lands farther north seemed to represent a more realistic opportun
ity for establishing his own lordship, and he seized Samaria and Galilee, including the important towns of Nablus and Baisan. Then, in a foray across the Jordan into Damascene territory he forced its ruler to divide the revenues of the area. When, in August 1100, he gained a port at Haifa, the outline of a potential state began to emerge.83
Tancred, however, was not entirely free from external restraint; ultimately he knew he could not survive without some degree of co-operation with Godfrey of Bouillon and the other leaders, including the clergy. The crusade had been created by the pope and it was evidently closely woven into the reform agenda that had dominated papal thinking for a generation. Yet the project depended upon the willingness of the ‘arms-bearers’ to put ecclesiastical plans into some form of practical action, a situation that was certain to produce strain among the crusaders, especially since the papal legate, Adhémar of Le Puy, had died in August 1098. Again, the men on the spot had been obliged to take matters into their own hands and it is not surprising that they had given priority to military survival.
Nevertheless, they were attentive to the claims of the Church, for the election of a patriarch took place on 1 August, only ten days after Godfrey had been chosen as ruler, and before the great battle with the Egyptians on the 12th.84 The man selected was Arnulf of Chocques, the chaplain of Robert of Normandy, who came from the diocese of Thérouanne in the Pas-de-Calais and who had originally set out in the retinue of Odo, bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror.85 He appears to have been the only surviving cleric with legatine powers and this may have influenced the choice, as may his association with Robert of Normandy, a leader who, shortly before, perhaps came into consideration as the first ruler.86 According to Ralph of Caen, a former pupil of Arnulf at the cathedral school at Caen, as he lay dying, Adhémar had entrusted the spiritual care of the army to Arnulf.87 Further support came from the bishop of Martirano, who was a close associate and, having established himself in Bethlehem, was seeking patriarchal recognition.88 In any case there was only a narrow range of candidates, for nearly all the bishops on the crusade returned to the West,89 while the only other Latin bishopric in the patriarchate at this time was that of Lydda-Ramla, to which Robert of Rouen had been hastily appointed the previous June before the siege of Jerusalem.90
As the alleged son of a priest and, according to the very hostile account of Raymond of Aguilers, a known fornicator, Arnulf of Chocques was not exactly an exemplar of the kind of prelate to which the reform papacy aspired.91 Nevertheless, he had become well known in the course of the crusade as an effective preacher and, says Guibert, abbot of Nogent, who appointed himself to rewrite the Gesta Francorum for more sophisticated readers, ‘since a man's voice is of more concern than the life he has led, he was called to the patriarchy of Jerusalem’.92 Moreover, he was a learned man, who had had a successful teaching career, something that could not be said for the bishop of Martirano, of whom Ralph of Caen alleges that he was ‘not much better educated than the common folk and hardly well read’.93 Ironically, if the arguments about his supposed role in the genesis of the crusade have any validity, Symeon II, the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, still living in Cyprus, was ignored.94
Such personal failings did nothing to dent Arnulf's confidence or undermine his assertiveness, although Raymond of Aguilers thought he should have been frightened by the capture and disappearance of the bishop of Martirano soon after his election, which Raymond ascribed to divine punishment.95 Almost immediately he came into conflict with Tancred, whose acquisitiveness during the taking of Jerusalem had extended to stripping away gold, silver and gems from the Temple (that is, the Dome of the Rock), apparently on the pretext that they represented Muslim idolatry and that he was acting for the common good. Arnulf later described in detail the clash that followed to Ralph of Caen, who had come out to Antioch in about 1111. He had assembled the leaders and made a speech about his role. There seems to have been little pretence that the election had been free of secular influence. ‘You,’ he said, meaning the crusade leaders, ‘have vested me as the vicar of the pope.’ His major theme, though, was the misconduct of Tancred, who had despoiled the churches and persecuted the new patriarch, a denunciation that, in the time-honoured fashion of polemical abuse, included an attack on Tancred's ancestry, in particular Robert Guiscard, father of Bohemond and the most powerful of the south Italian Normans until his death in 1085. Given Guiscard's character, it was, he said, necessary to make ‘allowances’ for the behaviour of his descendants. Tancred replied in kind, claiming that Guiscard was ‘second only to Alexander’ and that there was no one in Arnulf's family who could compare with him. Moreover, he had been assured by Arnulf before the capture of Jerusalem that whoever occupied a property could keep it, but now it appeared that Arnulf had changed his mind. In the end the leaders decided that Tancred should pay back 700 marks to the Temple. Struggling to reconcile his friendship for Arnulf with his admiration for the deeds of Tancred, Ralph concluded by blaming the others. ‘Both were renowned, both had become powerful from meager beginnings, and both were the subject of jealousy by everyone else, although neither one was jealous of the other except by chance.’96
When Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders sailed from Latakia in September 1099, they left behind a Frankish presence that was precarious in the extreme. Huge losses during the journey, as well as the return home of many pilgrims, left only a thin military establishment spread over a very wide area. Nor were the settlers helped by the expeditions of autumn 1100 and spring 1101, which, even though led by powerful lords and backed by large numbers of soldiers, did not form a united army and were defeated piecemeal by Kilij Arslan and his allies in Asia Minor. As a result, relatively few of them actually reached Syria and Palestine, and even fewer settled permanently.97 Although Islam had failed to offer united opposition to the initial invasion, it is evident from Fulcher of Chartres's chronicle that the Latins left in the East were highly nervous. Fulcher says that there were insufficient people to defend Jerusalem from the Saracens ‘if only the latter dared attack us’. He could not understand why they did not. ‘Why did they not gather from Egypt, from Persia, from Mesopotamia, and from Syria at least a hundred times a hundred thousand fighters to advance courageously against us, their enemies? Why did not they, as innumerable locusts in a little field, so completely devour and destroy us that no further mention could be made of us in a land that had been ours from time immemorial?’ His only explanation was that the Christians enjoyed the protection of God, but he knew that ‘His mercy aids in their tribulations those who trust in Him alone'; in other words, it depended upon their conduct.98
Such conduct was always at risk given the evident divisions caused by the ambitions of the competing leaders and their followers, and by the unresolved relationship between ecclesiastical and secular power, itself entangled with those ambitions. Nor could they rely on help from the Byzantines, since, although Greeks and Latins shared a common goal in their wish to undermine Islam, there were fundamental differences both in their strategic objectives and in their perceptions of the world. Like the crusaders, the Greeks saw the defence of the holy places as the responsibility of all Christendom, but their priority was to regain control of Asia Minor and northern Syria, for they knew that they could not hold Jerusalem without them. Whatever the imagined limitations covered by the oath sworn to Alexius by the crusade leaders, they certainly believed that Bohemond's seizure of Antioch was a blatant violation of it.99 Moreover, although Byzantine military traditions had deep roots in the Roman era, roots reinforced since then by the adoption of Christianity and the cult of warrior saints like St Demetrius and St George, the Greeks did not see the waging of the just war in Augustinian terms, nor did they believe that warfare, whatever the cause, was a means of expiating sin.100
This divergence of outlook found a focus at Antioch. By the latter part of 1098, the crusaders had become convinced that they had been betrayed by Alexius, who had failed to bring them help at the time of
their direst need. In the late spring of 1098, threatened by Kerbogha's army approaching from the east and apparently unable to break the resistance of the defenders of Antioch, they were in greater danger than at any other time during the expedition. At this point Stephen of Blois abandoned the crusade and, in the course of his return across Asia Minor, met Alexius at Philomelium in central Anatolia around 20 June. When the count gave him news of what appeared to be a hopeless situation, the emperor decided to retreat.101 The meeting at Philomelium was crucial, creating a depth of anti-Greek feeling among the crusaders not previously present.102 Indeed, after the crusaders had taken Antioch and defeated Kerbogha, but apparently before they were aware of Alexius's retreat, they had sent Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Hainault to arrange for the handover of the city to imperial power.103
However, Bohemond had begun to act as if he were the legitimate ruler of Antioch almost at once, for he had no intention of conceding the city to the Byzantines, and in September, in a letter heavily influenced by him, the crusaders referred to the Greeks as heretics, along with the other eastern Christian Churches: the Armenians, Syrians and Jacobites. Urging the pope to come out to head them, the leaders asked that they be separated ‘from the unjust emperor who has never fulfilled the many promises he has made us. In fact, he has hindered and harmed us in every way at his disposal.’104 Nine months before, Adhémar had ensured close liaison with the patriarch, Symeon, but Adhémar's death on 1 August had removed the one leader with the weight and prestige to moderate these resentments. The powerful anti-Byzantine propaganda contained in the Gesta Francorum stemmed from these circumstances and thereafter was taken up in the West by the many chroniclers influenced by the Gesta.105 Although Adhémar's death did not completely extinguish feelings of fraternal solidarity with the Greeks, nevertheless Urban II's wish to rescue the eastern Christians from infidel oppression had never inspired the crusaders in the way that his call for an armed pilgrimage to liberate Jerusalem had done.106
The Crusader States Page 4