The Source: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  The count refused comment, but Wenzel confided, “At least he’s written to the emperor for a judgment.”

  “Volkmar!” the excited young knight cried. “You’re one of us. The emperor gave Conrad of Mainz permission to go.”

  “He did?” Volkmar asked cautiously.

  “Yes! Conrad’s bringing a troop of nine hundred.”

  The words stunned Volkmar. How could the city of Mainz, no larger than Gretz, spare nine hundred men? Who would tend the fields? And for the first time he realized that a sweeping, all-embracing movement was afoot, one which ignored plow fields and ordinary husbandry.

  “From Gretz we’ll take away twelve hundred men,” Gunter predicted. “I’ve got Klaus circulating tonight. We’ll need horses and carts, too.” He had discarded his mail suit and appeared in light robes, covered by the tunic which bore the large blue cross, and as he spoke he kept his left arm about the pretty girl whose name no one knew. “It’s an enterprise of great danger, and perhaps I have spoken too much of the principality I intend carving for myself with this right arm. For there is also the matter of God’s will, and Wenzel here can tell you that it is shameful to have the holy places of our Lord in infidel hands. By God,” he cried, striking the table, “it shall not continue.”

  He led his strange girl to bed and in the morning assembled his group and rode off, taking with him three more horsemen from Gretz. He had been gone only a short time when from the south a messenger rode in with the emperor’s reply: “We have passed far beyond the matter of Popes. We must win Jerusalem for our Lord Jesus Christ. So if you find it in your heart to fight for the recovery of His homeland, proceed.” When Volkmar heard the words he knelt on the stone and asked Wenzel to bless him; for if his brother-in-law was marching to the Holy Land for a broad mixture of reasons, Volkmar would go for one only: to strike the infidel and drive him from the holy places. Looking up, he laid hold of his priest’s hands and swore, “I take the cross. It is God’s will.”

  But when he came to ask Matwilda to sew upon his tunic a red cross he found himself confronted by a problem which he was quite unable to solve, and he walked through the city to Hagarzi’s house, where he was again greeted by the Jew’s pregnant daughter. As soon as he was closeted with the moneylender he burst out, “Hagarzi, I need help.”

  “Money?” his friend asked.

  “Much more difficult.”

  “The only thing more difficult is a man’s wife.”

  “Correct. I’ve pledged myself to go crusading …”

  “I hope you reach Jerusalem,” Hagarzi replied solemnly.

  “We’ve a good army,” Volkmar assured him.

  “Then you have a chance.”

  “But when I informed my wife I found her sewing the cross on her own garments and on those of our children.”

  The moneylender leaned back in his chair and opened his eyes very wide. “She intends going too?”

  “Yes, her brother has infected her with his strange dreams.”

  “Volkmar,” the banker said earnestly. “I’ve been four times to Constantinople and never were we able to take a woman. It’s a hundred days through dangerous country.”

  “She insists.”

  God’s Man looked with compassion at his count. The two had worked together on numerous projects and the amount of gold that Hagarzi had contributed to works initiated by the count could not be calculated, for the Jew had long since stopped keeping accounts. Of Volkmar’s friends only Hagarzi could appreciate what decisions the count was now facing. In such crises the experienced Jew had found it was best to speak frankly: “Volkmar, if a hundred men leave Gretz headed for Jerusalem and back, fighting Hungarians, Bulgarians, Turks …”

  “Last time you said that Hungarians and Bulgarians are now Christians.”

  “They are, but you’ll still have to fight them.”

  “It’s the infidel we intend fighting,” Volkmar protested.

  “Of a hundred men who leave, nine will be lucky if they return.”

  Volkmar was stunned. He had thought that fighting the infidels in Jerusalem would be much like fighting the Normans in Sicily. A few would die on each side, but most would come home with here and there a scar. The Jew continued, “So if you leave us, there is little chance that I’ll ever see you again.” He hesitated. “Or that your countess will, either.”

  “You would take her?” Volkmar asked.

  “Yes. But not your son. We’ll need a count in Gretz.”

  Volkmar sighed and looked at the row of folios above the moneylender’s head; the castle owned not one. He asked, “Could you lend me gold on the fields across the river?”

  “Of course. But if you go you must leave a will protecting me.”

  Without deciding then, the count left the banker’s house and walked through the market, where women sold the first fruits of spring—fine onions and beans—and when he reached the castle he did something that he had not done for a long time. He kissed his son, then ripped from the boy’s shoulder the red cross which his mother had that morning sewed to the tunic. “You are not going.” The boy began to weep and Volkmar summoned his family. They gathered in a cold, bare room, for the German castle of that period was little better than a commodious barn with stone flooring. The chairs were rough, the table unsmoothed and the linen coarse. A damp smell of horses and urine permeated the place and there were no fabrics to soften the effect of the sweating walls. Painting and music were unknown, but an open fire kept the dank rooms reasonably comfortable in winter, and there was plentiful food, cooked pretty much as barbarian forefathers had cooked it six centuries before.

  “Matwilda and Fulda will ride with me,” Volkmar announced. “Otto will stay home to hold the castle with his uncle.” He drew his son to him and held the boy’s chin to keep it from trembling.

  Matwilda, then in her middle thirties and as attractive as when Volkmar had ridden north to court her, was pleased with the news that she could make the trip, and she understood why Otto had better stay at home. She consoled her son, then listened as her husband summoned Wenzel and a scribe: “If I should not return, the fields across the river are to become the property of the monastery at Worms, which shall first discharge the debt I owe to the Jew, Hagarzi, known in Gretz as God’s Man. The castle, the town and all lands pertaining to both shall become the property of my good wife Matwilda, or if she do not return, to my son Otto.” The detailed description continued, the thoughtful words of a man who loved God, his family and his fief, concluding with a final paragraph that was to be much quoted in later years when men tried to penetrate the motives which had inspired the Crusaders: “Let it be known that I am marching to Jerusalem because the will of God should be respected in this world and because the scenes in which our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, lived should not remain in pagan hands. I am marching with a goodly band, and we have placed ourselves entirely in the hands of God, for we go forth as His servants to accomplish His will.” When the words were read aloud to him he nodded and made his mark, which as it appears on the document today resembles the red cross he was wearing as he signed.

  The next weeks were filled with unusual activity. If Count Volkmar of Gretz was going to Jerusalem, along with more than a thousand of his people, he would leave little to chance. For his wife and daughter, eight wagons and sixteen draft horses were provided filled with enough equipment to serve them and the six servants who would care for them. Eight additional wagons carried foodstuffs, implements and armor. Besides the servants for the countess, an even dozen serfs marched on foot to care for the count and Wenzel of Trier. In addition, eight grooms brought along some two dozen riding horses for the minor knights associated with the count, and these were followed by about a thousand men consisting of merchants and farmers, monks and ordinary serfs. About a hundred women wanted to join the procession, but this number diminished after Matwilda had weeded out the known prostitutes.

  On Sunday morning, May 24, 1096, the Gretz contingent formed up out
side the city gates, an orderly crowd of peasants waiting for the arrival of Gunter and his men from the north. At about ten o’clock outriders appeared, soon followed by a host of some six thousand, and it was quickly apparent that the care which Count Volkmar had given to the selection of the men from Gretz had not been duplicated by Gunter when he chose the volunteers at Cologne; for he appeared with a rabble. Thieves, men sprung from jail and notorious prostitutes were conspicuous. There were gangs of debtors who had shaken free of their creditors, and peasants who would hoe the fields no more. Boredom was banished and the frenzy of unknown adventure was high as Gunter, now splendid in new armor and a red tunic with a blue cross, spurred his horse through the wagons and the cattle. He was attended by eleven knights, and these were not rabble but hardened young men capable of defending themselves and the unruly crowd they led.

  “Did you ever see such an army?” Gunter cried with animal joy as the knights rode up to welcome the new recruits.

  Volkmar made no reply, but as the mob pressed in upon his own well-disciplined people he suggested, “Let Wenzel bless us as we start,” and all uncovered as the priest intoned, “Dear God, protect this holy army as we march to Jerusalem to recover it from the infidel. Strengthen our arms, for we fight Your battle. Sweet Jesus, lead us, for we wear Your cross. Death to the infidel!”

  The multitude echoed, “Death to the infidel!” and at this unfortunate moment a Jew of Gretz who sold clothes in the market happened to pass the gates, and Gunter cried, “Great Jesus! Why should we ride to Jerusalem to fight His enemies there and leave His greater enemies here to prosper?”

  And in the heat of the moment he dashed with a loud cry through the gates and with one swipe of his great sword slashed off the head of the unsuspecting Jew. The mob howled its approval, and men from the north started spurring their horses into the city, followed by thousands on foot.

  “Kill the Jews!” they bellowed.

  A Jewish woman was coming to market, and a lancer ran her through, using his tremendous strength to toss her in the air, where she hung suspended for a terrible moment, her eyes still seeing the sudden mob beneath her. The crowd shrieked and she descended sickeningly toward the street, where they trampled her to death.

  Volkmar, sensing what must follow, tried to fight his way back into the city, but he was powerless. “Stop!” he begged, but none would listen.

  The mob was after Jews but could not have explained why. In the obligatory Easter sermons they had listened to ill-informed priests crying, “The Jews crucified Jesus Christ and God wants you to punish them.” From learned discourses delivered by bishops they had discovered that in the Old Testament, Isaiah himself had prophesied that a Virgin would give birth to Jesus Christ, and that the Jews had stubbornly rejected the teaching of their own Book: “For this sin they shall be outcast forever.” And in their daily life they watched as the Jew lent money, which honest men were forbidden to do, and some had known at first-hand the interest which moneylenders charged. But stronger than any of these complaints was the inchoate suspicion, not often expressed in words, that in a world where all decent men were Christian, there was something intolerably perverse in a group who clung obstinately to an earlier religion which had been proved an error. The Jews were a living insult to the trend of history, and if one helped exterminate them, he must be doing God’s work. Therefore, when Gunter pointed out the folly of marching to Jerusalem to confront God’s enemies while the greater foe stayed here in Gretz, he awakened a score of latent hatreds.

  “Kill the Jews!” the mob roared, storming its way through the gates, and local residents—who had no specific cause for cursing Jews—were caught up in the frenzy and suddenly turned informer. “In that house a Jew lives!” Like locusts the mob descended upon the house, killing, pillaging and laying waste.

  “Get the moneylender!” cried a man who had never borrowed from any Jew, and like a monstrous animal the crowd turned with one accord and swept into the southern corner of the city, where a Christian led them to Hagarzi’s four-storied house. Fortunately the banker was absent, but soldiers flushed out his daughter, whom they ran through with two lances, throwing her far over their shoulders. As she flew in the air it became evident that she was pregnant, and women shrieked approvingly, “With that one you caught two!” And they stamped her to pieces.

  “The synagogue!” they shouted, and this low building so unlike a church infuriated them, for when they came to that holy place they found that some sixty-seven Jews had taken refuge inside. “Burn them all!” the mob screamed, and about the entrances chairs and scraps of wood were placed, drenched with oil, and set afire. When gasping Jews tried to fight their way free they were greeted with lances jabbing them back into the flames. All perished.

  They were the lucky ones, for now the Crusaders started flushing out Jewish women. Old ones they killed on the spot, running them through with daggers. Younger ones they stripped naked and raped time after time in the town square, with all applauding. Then, in disgust, they hacked off the girls’ heads.

  For two sickly hours the Crusaders stormed through the streets of Gretz, killing and maiming and defiling. When at last they leaned weary on their swords, with blood on their tunics and smoke in their eyes, they justified their slaughter to each other: “It would have been folly to leave for Jerusalem when the men who crucified our Saviour stayed behind to grow rich.” When they withdrew from the city they left behind eighteen hundred dead Jews and the beginning of a heritage that would haunt Germany forever.

  In the dreadful silence that followed, when the great knights were gone and the priests, one sturdy Jew wearing cloth from Venice and a fur collar crept out from the refuge into which he had fought his way some hours before and started moving cautiously through the alleys. He saw the gutted synagogue with its sixty-seven charred skeletons. He saw his offspring strewn across the streets. He saw the smoldering memorials and the frightened, bewildered faces of the neighborhood Christians whom he had often befriended. They recognized him as a Jew, one of the great men of their city, but they were so sated with killing that no one raised his hand against the pitiful man. We leave him there—an honest banker—beginning to pick up the hideous shreds of his life, moving with glassy eyes through the alleys of Gretz; but we do not abandon him, for he will be with us again and again. His name is Hagarzi of Gretz, a fugitive groats maker from the town of Makor, and to his neighbors, when the grandeur of his courage is recognized, he will continue to be known as God’s Man.

  When the Crusaders camped that night beside the Rhine, Count Volkmar left his wife and went to the tent of the captains, where he accosted his brother-in-law, who lounged in a chair, demanding, “How dare you kill the Jews of my city?”

  Gunter, relaxed after the exciting day, had no desire for argument. “They are the known enemies of God,” he explained, not raising his voice, “and in this tent we have just sworn that when we have passed none will live along the Rhine.” The knights showed that they supported this resolve.

  Volkmar, appalled by the coldness of this evil decision, grasped Gunter’s arm. “You must not encourage the men,” he pleaded. “Look at the madness they performed in Gretz.”

  Patiently Gunter brushed away his brother-in-law’s hand. “I’m sorry the fire from the synagogue burned some of your city,” he apologized, determined that no argument should mar the profitable day.

  Volkmar dragged him to his feet. “You must prevent such riots,” he commanded. “You’re not to kill Jews.”

  Gunter was annoyed. He was taller than Volkmar, heavier, younger. But he merely removed his brother’s arm and slumped back into his seat. “It would be folly to leave the Jews behind. They crucified Christ and they must not grow rich while we are absent fighting.” He turned from the count, dismissing him, but such contempt Volkmar would not tolerate, and he roughly dragged Gunter to his feet; but the young blond warrior had had enough. Raising his powerful right hand he pushed it into his brother’s face and shoved with forc
e. Volkmar was driven back. He staggered and fell. Reaching for his sword he would have unsheathed it, but was prevented from doing so by Gunter’s knights, who closed in on him and lifted him to his feet, rushing him from the tent. Gottfried, the foolish one with no chin, found bravery and shouted from the tent flaps, “Bother us no more. Gunter leads this army and we shall leave not one Jew alive.”

  Up the Rhine surged the Crusaders, led by Gunter with his cross of blue, and wherever they struck, Jews were slaughtered. At Mainz, at Worms, at Speyer there were killings to make a man sick. At the head of the murderers rode Gunter, shouting that God Himself had ordained the destruction of His enemies. In small towns Jews huddled together in one house and were burned alive. In cities they crept into protected quarters and were chopped to death as bold knights coursed among them. In one town the Jews assembled, and with knives sharpened as the Torah demanded for ritual slaughter, methodically cut their own throats so that the floors were slippery with blood when the Crusaders crashed down the door.

  “Filthy infidels—to do such a thing!” the knights protested, but their rage reached its apex when Jewish mothers slit the throats of their own babies rather than wait for the crusading lances.

  “They’re animals,” Gunter bellowed. “What mother would kill her own babe?”

  We can speak accurately of these matters because Wenzel of Trier recorded them in his chronicle of the German Crusade:

  Most strange in this chain of death was the fact that except for a few Jews who were killed in the heat of first assault, all could have saved their lives and their souls by the simple act of converting to the True Faith, but this they obstinately refused to do, preferring to maintain their abominable error rather than to accept salvation. I myself offered not less than four thousand Jews the love and peace of my Lord Jesus Christ, but obstinately they turned their backs upon me, crying, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one,” and our Christians had no other choice but to slay them.