Armies of Heaven

by Jay Rubenstein

  The Last Days would begin, however, not with the gradual failure of Rome but with the appearance of a new emperor, a king of the Greeks and Romans who would reunite the empire and make it more powerful than it had ever been. And when his power was at its apogee, he would travel to Jerusalem, there to wear a crown and thus signal the triumph of Christian government. This vision had inspired Henry IV to dream of conquering first Rome, before marching on Constantinople, and then eventually arriving at Jerusalem. The same vision, as noted much earlier, seems to have inspired Emicho of Flonheim, who encouraged his followers to believe—for reasons now unfathomable—that he was the Last Emperor. And though Emicho had long ago abandoned the expedition, after his disastrous failure to cross Hungary, some of his followers remained, from time to time likely retelling the Last Emperor legend and speculating if either Bohemond or Raymond might be more likely to fulfill the role.

  But the Last Emperor had a problem. According to prophetic understanding—enshrined in Western Europe in the 950s when a book called The Life of Antichrist was written—the most dramatic act of that emperor would not be to rule in Jerusalem but to abdicate. For upon his arrival in the holy city, he would lay down his scepter and crown on the Mount of Olives. After nearly a millennium and a half, Roman government would draw to a close, “the end and the completion of the rule of the Romans and the Christians.” The way would be open for the terrifying armies of Antichrist, whose servants the Saracens so closely resembled. [Plate 7] As visions of one thousand years of unbroken peace started to fade, these dreams of a final world empire striking one last blow against the dragon would have haunted the thoughts of the crusaders. This happy fantasy just needed a prophet to give it substance.4

  New Visionaries

  There were several plausible candidates to assume this visionary role. One of them, Peter the Hermit, had never really left. As we have seen, he served as the princes’ emissary to Kerbogah before the final battle of Antioch, and he also seems to have delivered sermons and helped to preside at the trial of Peter Bartholomew. Just before the trial by fire, probably before Godfrey and Robert of Flanders arrived at Arqa, Peter the Hermit had taken responsibility for the distribution of charity within the army. According to a system established by Raymond of Saint-Gilles and Robert of Normandy, all of the pilgrims were to contribute tithes. From this sum, one-quarter would go to bishops, another quarter to priests, and half to Peter the Hermit, who would give the money to impoverished clerics and laymen. For a man who had begun the crusade brandishing a letter sent from heaven and inspiring his followers to massacre Jews, it was a surprisingly responsible position. Peter had obviously managed to regain the trust of many important people after his near desertion and disgrace at Antioch. But he also had become the princes’ prophet and as such might not have been the most effective person to capture and direct the energies of Peter Bartholomew’s supporters.5

  The person who most immediately sought to fill that role was Stephen of Valence, who at the siege of Antioch had spoken with Christ, Mary, and Peter and who had defended Peter Bartholomew during his trial. After the great ordeal but before Peter had died, Stephen informed Count Raymond that instructions continued to arrive from heaven. Most recently, as Stephen had been walking through the camp, the dead Bishop Adhémar had come out of nowhere and hit him with a stick. Stephen fell to the ground, understandably surprised, but Adhémar had already approached him twice before. “Why have you failed once and now twice,” Adhémar asked Stephen, “to do what I told you about the Cross of the Lord and of the Virgin Mary our Mother? I told you about that cross that I used to have carried before me in the army. What better sign is there than the Cross?” Adhémar’s personal cross had been left behind, just to the north, in the Greek city of Latakia. It was time to bring it back. Indeed, the Virgin Mary had decreed that until the cross was returned, the army would receive no useful counsel.

  “Oh, most beloved lord, where is Blessed Mary?” Stephen cried, no doubt remembering his previous encounter with her in Antioch and wanting to see her again.

  Adhémar pointed to a woman standing about thirty feet in the distance, alongside two other virgins. One of them Stephen did not recognize. The other he knew to be St. Agatha, likely because of her distinctive appearance. A third-century martyr, she was most famous for having had her breasts cut off. Mary declined to talk directly to Stephen, so Adhémar carried his request to her. She refused to grant it. Instead, she ordered Stephen to give his ring to Count Raymond and tell him, “Whenever you seem to fail in anything, remember the Lady who sent this to you. If you call on her, the Lord will help you.”

  Stephen also asked Adhémar if he had really been burned in hell, a rumor that must have left some in the army incredulous. “Look!” Adhémar said. “See my face? Doesn’t it look burned?” Adhémar, through Stephen, thus tried again to strengthen belief in the stories of Peter Bartholomew, even as Peter lay dying. In line with this goal, Adhémar ordered that the Provençals continue to carry the Holy Lance in public, but that it should be wrapped in sacred vestments, held by a priest, and carried behind Adhémar’s cross (still at Latakia) hanging from the tip of a spear. To illustrate his instructions, Adhémar dangled his cross from a spear, as a priest marched behind him with the Lance. The bishop then sang, “Rejoice, Virgin Mary! You alone crush all heresies!” It became a heavenly roar, as 100,000 voices joined in.

  Then the chorus vanished. Silence followed. Waking from the dream, Stephen ran to the count in part to discover if the Holy Lance still existed. As far as he knew, the fire had consumed it. When Raymond revealed the relic to him, Stephen burst into tears, and the count was so moved by Stephen’s story that he sent William Hugh of Monteil, Adhémar’s own brother, to recover the cross at Latakia. Peter may have died, but something of his message and of Raymond’s reputation might yet survive him.6

  By the time of this vision, political events were moving faster than Raymond or any of the visionaries could predict or control. For even as Adhémar was beating Stephen of Valence with a stick, a delegation had arrived from Alexius demanding that Bohemond return Antioch to the emperor. They were probably surprised not to find Bohemond at Arqa. Alexius also strongly recommended that the crusaders wait until July 25 before going to Jerusalem. At that time he would finally join them and march to the Holy Sepulcher. Some in the army were sympathetic to these requests. Raymond in particular still had hopes both of conquering Arqa and bringing Tripoli to heel. Most of the soldiers, however, had grown tired of this endless wrangling over Antioch. And many of them believed as well, based on rumors out of Tripoli, that Alexius was actively negotiating with the Egyptians, trying to find a mutually acceptable course that would allow Greek and Saracen together to drive the Franks out of the East. If anything, July 25 seemed like a deadline—a date by which the army needed to have conquered Jerusalem, before Alexius could arrive and interfere with its plans.7

  About the same time, the Franks received still more ambassadors into their camp. These men were from Cairo, and it seems to have been the first direct contact that the crusaders had had with “the Babylonian king” since they had sent his ambassadors, loaded down with severed heads, away from Saint-Simeon. At the time the Franks had been willing to strike an agreement with Cairo along the lines of what they had proposed to Alexius—they would restore Fatimid cities that the Seljuk Turks had recently captured in exchange for uncontested possession of Jerusalem. Al-Afdal, the vizier of Egypt, however, was no longer interested in power sharing. Jerusalem was his. He would allow the Franks to visit it unimpeded, in groups of two hundred or three hundred pilgrims, but he was no longer willing to concede possession of any part of the city. The Franks probably kept talking and kept making proposals, but they no longer believed anything the Egyptians told them. From Tripoli they had learned that al-Afdal was making diplomatic overtures not only to the Greeks but also to the Turks. The chaplain Raymond of Aguilers had even heard that the Turks were offering to convert to Shi’i Islam and become t
ributaries of Egypt if only Cairo would join them against the crusaders.8

  Before any of these diplomatic maneuvers had a chance to succeed, or before the Egyptians had a chance to consolidate their hold on Jerusalem, the Franks needed to move. They had two problems: extricating themselves from Arqa and convincing Count Raymond to leave with them. The former problem was relatively easy. The amir of Tripoli had always wanted a negotiated settlement with the Franks (and probably would not have minded seeing the crusade inflict real damage on Egypt). In order to reopen negotiations from a position of strength, the princes made a threatening advance on Tripoli itself. The amir decided to engage them, resulting in a brief, violent battle outside the city that ended with Tripoli’s Roman aqueduct filling up with Turkish corpses. It was, Raymond of Aguilers observed, a delightful sight. The amir then offered terms, promising to pay the Franks a handsome tribute and release all of the prisoners he had taken during the previous three months of the siege. And if the Franks took Jerusalem, he would consider conversion to Christianity.9

  But Raymond was reluctant to give up his prize. Supernatural pressure was needed to change the count’s mind, and it came from all directions. Arnulf the Norman priest motivated his people into action by sculpting a golden cross, strangely reminiscent of the golden calf Aaron cast for the Children of Israel in the Book of Exodus while Moses was receiving the law on Mount Sinai. Arnulf then delivered a simple sermon to the people that moved them to feel shame at their indolence. Closer to Raymond, the priest Peter Desiderius, who had spoken at Peter Bartholomew’s trial and confirmed that he had seen Bishop Adhémar in hell, approached the count of Saint-Gilles and told him that he now had just seen St. Andrew, who had asked Peter Desiderius to talk to the count. Raymond was, Andrew commanded, to give up his designs on Tripoli and Arqa. Neither of these cities would fall unless the Franks first captured Jerusalem. But if they did conquer Jerusalem, then both of these prizes, and others still, could be his.

  At the same time, William Hugh of Monteil returned with Adhémar’s cross. “And when they had seen this cross, even the count’s closest friends became so keyed up about the pilgrimage that they set their tents on fire, over the objections of the count and the other princes.” Like the destruction of the walls of Ma‘arra, it was a powerful symbolic statement. The Provençal nobles and commoners alike wanted to go. When Raymond realized what was happening, he grew “disturbed to the point of tears, and he hated himself and his followers.” He still made some abortive efforts to divert the army to Tripoli, pleading with the princes and offering them substantial bribes, but the crusade was moving on with or without him, prodded into action by the army’s new visionary, Peter Desiderius, and by the disaffected followers of Peter Bartholomew.10

  It was no longer Raymond’s crusade. Nor was it Peter Bartholomew’s. The millennial apocalypse had ended. The apocalypse of the Last Emperor was about to begin.

  18

  Jerusalem

  (May 1099–July 1099)

  Enriched by 15,000 gold pieces from the amir of Tripoli, not to mention a fresh supply of horses, pack animals, and food, the crusaders were ready to abandon both Arqa and Tripoli for Jerusalem. The amir was happy to see them go. He even provided a guide, “an elderly man, since the paths through the mountains by the shore were convoluted and unmarked.” The army also decided, against custom but with the guide’s help, to march at night.

  They moved quickly. In the two days after leaving Tripoli, they covered over fifty miles to reach Beirut on May 19. Their goal was to reach Jerusalem before anyone in Egypt even knew that they had left Arqa. They also likely wanted to arrive in advance of any Greek expeditionary force, whose leaders might complain that Jerusalem had long ago belonged to the Greeks, having last been conquered by Heraclius in 629 AD, and that to the Greeks it should return.1

  The other Muslim cities that the Franks encountered along the way largely followed Tripoli’s example, rushing the crusaders along before they could do any real damage, rather than trying to prevent them from reaching their destination. The citizens of Beirut offered them supplies on May 19, requesting only that the Franks respect the locals’ property for as long as they camped nearby. The princes happily agreed.

  The next day near Sidon, after another exhausting twenty-five-mile march, the Frankish camp became infested with poisonous snakes. Many people were bitten; their limbs swelled up tremendously, their wounds bursting. Some died. The inhabitants of Sidon, after some brief resistance, decided not to fight but to give advice. The Franks should set men around the camp to beat on their shields throughout the night. This noise would keep the snakes at bay. As for the people who were sick, the locals recommended having the leaders place their right hands on the wounds. The touch of a crusading prince—like the miraculous touch of French kings who were at that time curing their subjects of scrofula—would stop the flow of venom. If that didn’t work, the ailing people should try having sex. Albert of Aachen, our source for this story, did not say how successful either of these remedies was.2

  After a three-day rest, the Franks began another, two-day, fifty-mile march, this time camping outside the walls of Acre. Once again the local amir, fearful of a siege, offered the Franks terms, going so far as to promise Acre would become a tributary state of Jerusalem should the Franks capture the city. In the meantime he pledged them his friendship. It was a lie, as the Franks learned in miraculous fashion. While they were camping before Acre and scavenging for food, the bishop of Apt appreciatively watched a hawk in the sky pursue and kill a pigeon. The bishop ran to where the pigeon fell, somehow getting there before the hawk, and found attached to its body a note, written in Arabic letters—that the hawk, or rather God through the hawk, had delivered to the crusaders a carrier pigeon of the type Godfrey of Bouillon had seen a few months earlier during his negotiations with Omar of Azaz. The letter, as best the Franks could translate it, read, “The King of Acre to the Duke of Caesarea. A generation of dogs has passed me by—a stupid and violent people, without government, whom you and others should want to kill, as much as you love the law. And you can easily do it.” On another day the Franks might have made Acre pay for its amir’s treachery and insults. For now they pretended to be friends. The pilgrims’ beloved city awaited them. On June 3 she was within reach.

  The Franks camped at Ramla, a mere thirty miles from Jerusalem. They took two more days to consider their strategy (a few independent voices at this stage, either from fear or simple pig-headedness, urged a last-second change of course and an attack on Egypt; they were ignored). Then finally on June 6, the army set forth toward the destination which the soldiers had so long desired and of which they had so long dreamed.

  The city of Jerusalem

  Jerusalem Syndrome

  Tancred couldn’t wait. Throughout the crusade he had showed all of the ruthlessness, ambition, and independence of his uncle Bohemond, but by the time he was approaching Jerusalem, he had learned to combine these qualities with theological instincts that had always eluded his larger and more famous kinsman. As the rest of the army marched toward the village of Imwas, associated with the biblical town of Emmaus, where Christ had appeared to two of his disciples after death, Tancred, along with one hundred other knights, broke off and hurried instead toward Bethlehem.

  The people at Bethlehem, hearing the sounds of charging horses in the early dawn, feared a Saracen attack. At the sight of Tancred, they rejoiced, picking up crosses and banners and starting a makeshift liturgical procession. Joyfully, they proclaimed, “You, our Christian brothers, are here to cast off our yoke of slavery, and to restore the holy places of Jerusalem, and to eliminate the rituals and impurities of the gentiles from that holy place.” Tancred accepted their gratitude and offered them his lordship.

  Presumably, he and his knights then entered the Church of the Nativity to pray. Just to the side of the main altar, the Christians of Bethlehem would have shown him the entrance to a cave, allowing the Franks to descend into the earth to the st
able where Christ was born, there to see and touch the grotto where he had lain and the spot where the ox and the ass had stood nearby. Arising from the sacred earth, Tancred turned to his men and ordered them to plant his banner atop the Church of the Nativity, “as if over the town hall.” It was an unseemly claim to own a church—and what a church!—and the gesture would draw increasing criticism in the weeks to follow. But in that one action, Tancred managed to encompass all the piety, fervor, and raw greed that together defined the crusade princes.3

  From Bethlehem Tancred and his men rode quickly to the Holy City itself, arriving just a little ahead of the main army. With the walls and tow-ers of Jerusalem in sight, still under the spell of Bethlehem’s sacred history, Tancred dismounted, dropped to his knees, and sent kisses to the place for which he had so longed, his heart carried off to heaven. He ordered his men to set up camp near the gate at the Tower of David, but he rode alone toward the other side of Jerusalem, wanting to see for himself the places where Christ had lived and died.

  The tombs of the Kidron Valley—one of the sites Tancred would have passed as he approached the Mount of Olives (Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)

  The best views were to be found on the Mount of Olives. This was, perhaps coincidentally, the place prophecy indicated that the Last Emperor would make his presence known. The ride there would have been dangerous, the landscapes and monuments a little eerie, leading Tancred through the barren Hinnom Valley (known as Gehnna, the earthly incarnation of hell), past the ancient tombs in the Kidron Valley, past the garden of Gethsemane where Christ had prayed in agony as his apostles slept, and finally up the mountain to the site “where, Tancred had learned, the divine Christ had ascended to the Father.”