The object to which Andrew referred was “the Holy Lance”—the weapon with which a Roman soldier, traditionally named Longinus, had pierced Christ’s side during the Crucifixion. It was one of the most celebrated relics of the Passion—along with the True Cross, the Crown of Thorns, and the nails of the Crucifixion—and like those other relics, multiple churches (and both the Western and Eastern emperors) claimed to possess it. No tradition survived of Christians venerating the Holy Lance at Antioch, but, of course, Peter Bartholomew would be able to claim a source for his story higher than any mere book.
St. Andrew then guided Peter, wearing only a nightshirt (like so many dreamers, he was out in public in his pajamas), away from his hut and over the city walls. Together they approached a church—one Peter had obviously never seen while awake but with which he would grow familiar later on—and entered through its north door, passing through a “Mahomerie,” or mosque, that the Saracens had built in the entryway. Inside the church two lamps were burning. Andrew guided Peter to a column near the high altar and said, “Wait here.” He then ascended the steps and approached the altar from the south side. As he did, Peter noticed the apostle’s younger companion standing silently by. Andrew reached toward the ground, his hands miraculously sinking beneath the earth, and then suddenly, magically, he pulled forth a long and exotic-looking spear. “Behold!” he said, “the lance that tore open Christ’s side, from which salvation rained down on the earth.” Andrew placed the Holy Lance in Peter’s hands, and Peter wept copiously, promising to take it to Count Raymond.
But December was not the time, Andrew informed him. Peter would have to wait until the army had actually captured the city. Then he could guide Count Raymond, Bishop Adhémar, and twelve chosen men into the church. If they dug in the exact place that Andrew had indicated, they would find the Lance and be victorious against the Saracens. Andrew then reburied his treasure, guided Peter Bartholomew back into the city, over the walls, and to the camp, and left him in his little hut, bleary-eyed, won-derstruck, and more than a little frightened. Alone, Peter meditated on his dream. He looked at his own poor, ragged clothes and then thought about how magnificent Raymond and Adhémar always appeared as they paraded among the troops. And he feared to go to them. The story of the Lance would remain secret, at least for a few months longer.22
Two days later Bohemond’s troops started to return, first with no food at all, then with the pitifully small collection of supplies that Robert of Flanders had been able to secure. An unknown number of soldiers had died. The army continued to starve. Armenian merchants, distastefully pleased at the crusaders’ plight, began to engage in price gouging, unmoved as poor pilgrims fell dead in front of them from starvation. Bishop Adhémar, lacking guidance from St. Andrew, did not bless the troops with his cross. Rather, he declared a fast. For three days the starving soldiers would have to avoid food. And one starving pilgrim, Peter Bartholomew, kept his fearful secret to himself.23
An Apocalyptic Failure
Peter’s caution was justified. It was a bad time to be a prophet in the army. God was angry, the poor were dying, and the leaders were little by little disappearing. Robert of Normandy had temporarily deserted the army, Raymond and Godfrey were ill, and now even the giant Bohemond had begun making noise that he might have to abandon the expedition since he could not bear to witness the suffering of his men. It was enough to make a person believe that God was not, in fact, on the Franks’ side or, even worse, that the army’s sins were so great that there was no point in seeking absolution. And thus the most visionary of all the pilgrims—the other, more famous Peter, called “the Hermit”—decided that he, too, had been wrong, and on the night of January 20 he snuck away from camp, taking with him as a companion that artist with the ax, William the Carpenter, who had joined the expedition because of the wild promises of Emicho of Flonheim that he would establish a new kingdom in Jerusalem, from which he would rule the world and do battle with Antichrist.
Rumor of their departure quickly reached Tancred. He had both the Hermit and the Carpenter hunted down and brought back to his tent. It was a high-level desertion and would require an appropriately severe and public response. Tancred therefore called in his oversized uncle Bohemond, who directed his rage, as far as we can tell, mainly against the Carpenter. A warrior’s desertion probably seemed to Bohemond and Tancred a more serious matter than did that of a crackpot preacher. “Oh, you sad and disgraceful man, shame of all France,” Bohemond thundered. “You Gallic outrage! The earth suffers no more wretched man than you! Why did you flee so outrageously?” William promised not to do it again, and after many of his friends begged for his life, Bohemond reluctantly agreed not to do William physical harm. Nevertheless, the giant branded him with the mark of Cain: “For the rest of the days of your life, you shall be held as a disgrace throughout the lands.” William’s promises were for naught as it turned out, for a few days later he deserted for good, this time without Peter. Furious, Bohemond ordered the Carpenter’s tent turned into a latrine.24
Peter the Hermit stayed with the army, but at least a few of his critics must have taken delight at the stories of his near desertion. “As stars seemed to fall from the heaven in the book of the Apocalypse,” one of them later wrote, “so that Peter, a most famous hermit, gave into foolishness and departed.” Perhaps the apocalypse Peter had once hoped to ignite was beginning to fail as well.25
10
A Brief Account of Baldwin of Boulogne’s Adventures in Syria
(February 1098–March 1098)
While the rest of the army was starving, Baldwin of Boulogne, brother of the still-ailing Godfrey, was creating what would become known as the first of the “crusader states.” His activity in Syria would eventually provide real, tangible benefits to the main army, bogged down as it was in the long siege of Antioch. But he was probably not moving with any real sense of urgency or purpose, apart from seeking opportunity for himself. That he would find in abundance in February and March when he miraculously transformed into a Syrian count.
About the early stages of this process, the historical record is hazy. Between his departure from the crusade in October 1097 and his reemergence in the historical record in February 1098, his chaplain, the much-admired historian Fulcher of Chartres, observed only that Baldwin captured several cities, some by guile and some by force. He did so with the help of an Armenian advisor named Bagrat, whom Baldwin eventually rewarded with the possession of a grand fortress called Rawandan. The two men subsequently had a falling out when other Armenian lords warned Baldwin that Bagrat was conspiring against him with the Turks. Baldwin had Bagrat thrown in irons and threatened to tear him limb from limb unless he willingly returned his possessions. Once Bagrat’s son surrendered control of Rawandan, Baldwin released the father and continued his restless travels, “everywhere conquering the land and subjecting it to his power.”
These brief bits of information allow us to see, if nothing else, that Baldwin was continuing to do in Syria what he had tried to do in Cilicia: play politics and, through intimidation more than actual force, assert his authority over as many people and places as possible. This time he was able to do so with no interference from Tancred, and he seems to have found several petty local lords willing and anxious to work with him as a way to advance their own careers. His activities were not exactly the glamorous stuff of holy war, but they were profitable, and Baldwin was proving himself astonishingly adept at working within the Armenian system.1
Around February 1 his fortunes took a turn that even he could scarcely have imagined. An embassy arrived from T‘oros, the Armenian prince of the city of Edessa, asking Baldwin for military assistance. In return, T‘oros offered immediate financial reward, indicating that he might even cede to Baldwin some more permanent authority. Possibly, the ambassadors added, given that T‘oros had no children of his own, he might even name Baldwin his heir.
It was a proposal as attractive as it was unexpected. Edessa was a wealthy, well-for
tified city, blessed with abundant vineyards, fruit trees, and olive groves, as well as established industries in cotton and silk cloth. Edessa’s history stretched back into myth. Muslim tradition held that it was the birthplace of Abraham. Between Abraham’s birth and 1097, all of the major Western and Eastern civilizations had conquered it—Greeks, Arabs, Romans, and Persians, to name a few. In the fifty years preceding the crusades, the Byzantines, the Turks, and the Armenians had held it at different times. T‘oros, in fact, had only established himself as leader there in 1095, after driving out a Turkish governor who in turn had only recently wrested the city from Armenian rule. Surrounded by independent Armenian warlords and aggressively expanding Turkish princes, T‘oros needed all the help he could get, and Baldwin of Boulogne had in a short time put together an impressive résumé.2
Taking with him only eighty knights, Baldwin crossed the Euphrates and traveled by night toward Edessa, hoping to avoid the Turkish camps scattered throughout the area. After a further four-day delay while his small force waited out a planned ambush from a much larger Turkish army, Baldwin and his men finally began something of a triumphal procession toward Edessa. Villagers lined the roads leading to the city and cheered them on. They carried crosses and battle standards, and as the Franks passed close by, they threw themselves to the ground and kissed their feet and the hems of the garments, hoping to be liberated, if not from the Turks, then at least from the political chaos that had engulfed the region. Similarly before the walls of Edessa, a crowd rushed out, exuberantly sounding trumpets and making a joyful noise unto the Lord.
T‘oros, his wife, and his twelve closest advisors offered Baldwin formal greetings. So exotic were their dress and demeanor that they looked like something from ancient Rome, and Baldwin and his followers soon decided that these advisors must surely have been Edessa’s senators. Feeling himself, no doubt, like a victorious Roman general, he led his Frankish legion through the gates and graciously accepted comfortable lodging.3
Later, T‘oros summoned Baldwin and the twelve senators to a council. As it transpired, the prince of Edessa’s terms were not as generous as they had originally sounded. He was willing to pay Baldwin handsomely in money, treasure, and silks provided that Baldwin fought on his behalf, but he was not willing to give Baldwin a position in the government, let alone any control over tax revenues. Baldwin refused the offer outright and instead asked for safe conduct so that he might rejoin his brother at Antioch. The senators and other leading men of the city erupted in anger on Baldwin’s behalf, demanding that T‘oros honor his original promises. Under pressure from all sides, he relented, not only accepting Baldwin into the government, but also agreeing to adopt him as his son and to name him as heir. So deftly did Baldwin handle this situation that one must presume that he had received good advice from local power brokers about how best to exploit T‘oros’s situation. One also suspects that there was something unsavory about the whole affair—deals had been struck behind the scenes that no one subsequently wished to acknowledge. Fulcher of Chartres, Baldwin’s chaplain, seemed deliberately vague when describing these events, glossing over any difficulties in the negotiations with T‘oros and saying only that the city and its prince fulfilled their promises without delay.4
The adoption ceremony was a public affair and, from the Franks’ perspective, a strange one. Stripped down to the waist, Baldwin stood next to T‘oros, himself wearing a long linen shirt. T‘oros raised this garment up and over Baldwin’s head so that the two men stood next to each other, bare chest to bare chest, and they exchanged promises, oaths, and mutual pledges of support, all sealed with a kiss. T‘oros’s wife gave Baldwin a kiss, too, and with that he was formally welcomed into the family of the prince of Edessa. He was therefore the second member of his family to be adopted by an Eastern lord, after Godfrey, who maintained that Alexius had made him his son during the exchange of oaths in Constantinople.5
Baldwin’s adoption, however, yielded more immediate rewards than Godfrey’s. He engaged in only one act of real service for T‘oros, leading a brief campaign against the nearby fortress of Samosata and its Turkish leader, Balduk. Nothing much was accomplished there, and Baldwin quickly returned to Edessa, where a small group of dignitaries approached him in secret to express their displeasure with T‘oros’s leadership. They were confident that Baldwin could do a better job of protecting their interests. Succinctly put, just two weeks after the adoption, they planned to lynch Baldwin’s new father and proclaim Baldwin prince in his place.
According to the Frankish version of the story, Baldwin reacted with horror: “It would be an irredeemable sin if I were to raise my hand against this man after just accepting him as my father and to whom I have pledged faith.” The citizens then agreed to give Baldwin a little time to convince his foster father to resign for the benefit of the community. Baldwin ran to the tower and pleaded with T‘oros. “All the citizens and leaders of this city are conspiring to kill you,” he said, “and are coming here to this tower in a rage and impassioned, carrying every sort of weapon. I’m sorry to bring you such bad news.” Even as he spoke, a crowd surrounded the tower, firing arrows, throwing rocks, and screaming death threats at the prince.
With Baldwin acting as intermediary, T‘oros tried to buy the citizens off with promises of riches. But their bloodlust had become too intense. Baldwin, so the story goes, refused to give up and wanted to continue fighting for his father, driven on by “Frankish animosity.” But T‘oros, full of sadness and apparently full of love for his new child, miserably and tearfully told him to stop resisting; he preferred to die. T‘oros lowered himself down from his window on a rope, into the hands of a waiting mob, who proceeded to beat him to death. They cut off his head and carried it around on a spear, allowing anyone who wished to spit in T‘oros’ face and insult it. And the next day they proclaimed a reluctant Baldwin to be their new “prince and duke of the city.”6
A more likely interpretation, of course, is that Baldwin was complicit in the entire conspiracy. So argued a different version of the story that survives from an Armenian historian from Edessa. With Maundy Thursday fast approaching, forty citizens came together and plotted a Judas-like act of betrayal, assassinating the leader who had through “his ingenious sagacity, skillful inventiveness, and vigorous strength” delivered the city from the cruel dominion of the Turks barely three years earlier. During the night they went to Baldwin and “persuaded him to accede to their evil designs and promised to deliver Edessa into his hands; Baldwin approved of their vicious plot.” And so on March 8, 1098, the forty traitors incited a crowd of citizens to attack the tower. T‘oros commanded enough loyalty to put up a credible resistance, and he ultimately promised to surrender provided that the people gave him and his wife free passage out of Edessa. Perhaps at T‘oros’s request, Baldwin took an oath not to harm him, having a fragment of the True Cross brought forward so that he could swear not to do him injury. “Moreover, Baldwin vouched for his own sincerity in the presence of the angels, archangels, prophets, patriarchs, holy apostles, holy pontiffs, and all the host of martyrs—all of which was written down by the count in a letter to T‘oros.” Baldwin then moved his men into the tower.
The next day, March 9, a small gathering of the citizens of Edessa surrounded T‘oros, probably while he was still in the tower and in theory under Baldwin’s protection. A few of them threatened him with swords before someone with a club knocked him to the ground, allowing everyone to converge on him and kick him and beat him and then throw him over a rampart, still alive, into the midst of a mob. The people of Edessa beat and stabbed him to death, presumably with Baldwin watching from above. Still not satisfied, the crowd tied their dead prince’s feet together and dragged his bloody body by a rope throughout the city, giving everyone the chance to desecrate and dishonor it as he wished.7
These two stories are broadly similar, differing mainly in how direct a role Baldwin played in T‘oros’s death. The man who knew Baldwin’s heart best, his chapl
ain Fulcher, left his account deliberately vague. “The citizens criminally planned to kill their prince and to raise Baldwin in the palace so that he might rule the land. They certainly hated their prince. So it was said, so it was done. Baldwin was very sad about it, but had not been able to obtain any indulgence for him. When they had wickedly killed him, Baldwin accepted the principate as a gift from the citizens and immediately made war against the Turks who were then in that country, whom he again and again conquered and killed and overcame.”
Baldwin’s first act as prince of Edessa, in fact, was to return to Samosata and, upon the advice of his men, to offer the Turk Balduk a substantial bribe in gold, silver, purple cloth, and horses and mules if he turned over the fortress to him. “From that day forward, Balduk became a subject of Baldwin’s, a member of his household, and a regular companion among Gallic men.” Far from taking the war to the Turks, Baldwin allied himself with a former religious and political enemy and welcomed him into his household.8
Baldwin’s activity in Edessa was not quite a conquest and certainly not a proper victory. Nevertheless, it brought the First Crusade immediate advantage. Baldwin opened up a supply line to the armies, alleviating much of the economic hardship they had endured throughout the long winter. Even so, we cannot conclude from this observation that Baldwin’s adventures in Edessa were part of a grand plan designed to advance the goals of the crusade. Considering what Baldwin actually did do—abandon the pilgrimage to which he had vowed himself, leaving his two brothers potentially to starve at Antioch, venturing off with a small band of supporters and unbelievably establishing himself as prince of an ancient Near Eastern city—we can scarcely imagine how he would have understood his own goals during the winter months of 1098. What is clear is that Baldwin did not act as a conqueror. Rather, he recognized the complexities of Syrian politics, and he successfully inserted himself into that world. He learned to adapt to his new situation, which, given the utterly alien cultural landscape in which he found himself, was a remarkable achievement.
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