16 Matthew of Edessa 2, 110, pp. 164–165, and 2, 124, pp. 173–174. Matthew is the only source for this legend. It is worth remembering in this context that Edessa was the city where Baldwin would eventually rule as count, making him likely the original source for the legend. Matthew also mentions on p. 164 that Godfrey was a descendant of Roman emperors.
17 The Pirates were Belgian in the sense that they hailed from towns within the old Roman province of Gallia Belgica. AA 3, 11–13, pp. 154–159.
18 AA 3, 14, pp. 158–161.
19 AA 3, 15, pp. 160–163; RC 41–42, pp. 636–637. AA says that Tancred attacked the city, but RC, Tancred’s biographer, seems better informed on this point.
20 AA 3, 16–17, pp. 162–167; RC, 44, p. 639. RC describes the peace as a naenia, which is a nursery song. The Latin reads “Qui habet, habet; qui perdidit, perdidit,” which means literally “He who has, has; he who lost, lost.” My translation seems true to the spirit of the original. The list of castles conquered by Tancred appears in AA 3, 26, pp. 180–181; n. 58 notes previous attempts to identify these castles. To me they seem to preserve the echo of soldierly insults hurled at Tancred by AA’s Lotharingian sources.
21 AA3, 27, pp. 180–183. AA mentions that another knight died of the same disease in the same place.
22 FC 2, 12, 1, p. 416. AA 3, 17, pp. 164–167, tells how the Armenian Pakrad (or Bagrat) enticed Baldwin to Syria. FC 1, 16, 2–4, pp. 205–209, gives details of Baldwin’s departure from the army. See also MacEvitt, Rough Tolerance, pp. 58–60.
23 RA, p. 46.
Chapter 9
1 AA 3, 32, pp. 190–191, describes the walls; on 3, 36, pp. 196–197, he says there were 360 towers. GF, p. 77, sets the figure at 450 and adds that the city contained 360 monasteries. Raymond’s description of Antioch, which contains many of these details, at RA, p. 48, says that there were three mountains rather than four around Antioch. GF, pp. 76–77, sets the figure at four. See also FC, 1, 15, 2, p. 217; France (1994), pp. 222–225; and Asbridge (2004), pp. 158–160.
2 Acts 11:19–30 describes the founding of the church at Antioch.
3 GF, pp. 26–27. S. Loutchitskaja tries to identify the historical realities behind some of the exotic names used by Frankish chroniclers in crusade histories in “Barbarae Nationes: Les peoples musulmans dans les chroniques de la Première Croisade,” in Autour de la Croisade, pp. 99–107. Following Ducange, Loutchitskaja (p. 105) identifies the Publicani as Paulicians, an early heresy that emphasized Christ’s humanity over his divinity.
4 RA, pp. 46–47; AA3, 35, pp. 192–195. GF, p. 28, observes simply that the Turks fell into panic and took flight, leaving much plunder for the Franks.
5 RA, pp. 48–49; Caffaro 3, pp. 49–50; GF, pp. 28–29 (who suggests that the Turks stayed in the city for two weeks out of simple fear). Caffaro places the port seventeen miles from Antioch. The best description of the Franks’ implementation of their strategy is France (1994), pp. 197–267 (on the Bridge of Boats, p. 229).
6 The emotive language is from BB 2, 9, p. 41. See also GF, p. 29; and GN 4, 13, pp. 188–189.
7 Details of the conflict (and the expression “Christ’s most powerful athlete”) come from GF, p. 29; and RA, p. 41. GN 4, 3, p. 171, praises the cunning of the ambush. A similar strategy of false retreat and sudden ambush was employed most famously by William the Conqueror at Hastings. As already noted, it was a standard battle practice of the Turks, too.
8 GF, p. 29; RtM 4, 3, p. 777.
9 OV 2, 4, pp. 320–323, for Waltheof’s execution. Orderic notes earlier (pp. 314–315) that beheading was the punishment in England for traitors. Chibnall adds (n. 1) that under Norman law forfeiture and imprisonment sufficed. When King William was presented with the head of another traitor, Earl Edwin of Mercia, he ordered the proditores (traitors) who brought it to him to leave the country: OV, 2, 4, pp. 258–259.
10 GN 4, 13, p. 189; FC 1, 15, 10, p. 221; HBS 54, p. 193.
11 BB 2, 9, p. 41. Robert’s sunnier account of the decapitations appears at RtM 4, 2–3, pp. 776–777. He describes the woman’s death at 4, 1, pp. 775–776. GN 4, 3, p. 172, discusses the same scenes and, like Baudry connects the woman’s death to anger at the executions. GN describes Adhémar’s offer at 7, 23, pp. 311–312.
12 WT 4, 23, pp. 266–267.
13 WM 4, 362, pp. 634–635. WM is the only historian to directly report cannibalism at Antioch, perhaps because cannibalism there was overshadowed by more spectacular and widespread examples from later in the crusade.
14 France (1994), pp. 229–232; GF, p. 30.
15 RA, p. 49 (and p. 55); RC 58, p. 649; FC 1, 15, 11–12, pp. 221–222, and 1, 16, 1–2, pp. 224–226; RtM 4, 4, p. 777.
16 FC 1, 15, 13–14, pp. 222–223, and 1, 16, 4, pp. 226–227; AA 3, 57, pp. 228–229.
17 RA, pp. 49 and 52; GF, pp. 31–32, though the story is preserved more fully in PT, pp. 66–67; AA 3, 51–52, pp. 218–221. Anselm of Ribemont says that Bohemond took 700 knights and “a few foot soldiers” and adds that they enjoyed a great victory over 12,000 Turks, led by “the king of Galipia,” Hagenmeyer, Epistulae, 15, p. 158. RA, p. 49, says that Bohemond could raise only 150 knights. In this case as in most others, numbers are a matter of making educated guesses.
18 I am privileging here the account of RA, p. 51; to be compared to GF, p. 32.
19 RA, p. 54; FC 1, 15, 16, p. 224; Apoc. 6:12; Matthew of Edessa 2, 116, p. 168; RC 56, p. 648. RC places these celestial phenomena after the crusaders were victorious in another battle on February 9. But because no one else reports similar activity at this time, and because chronology was, for RC and many medieval observers, an inexact science, it is likely that he misremembers or misdates these events.
20 I am basing this account primarily on what RA reports (pp. 68–69, thus far). The earliest manuscript of Raymond’s history begins this section in all capitals with the words THE DISCOVERY BEGINS and reads very much like a legal brief—a rough Latin translation of Peter’s testimony (taken in June 1098) about his experiences with Andrew. It can be compared to GF, pp. 57–58/Tudebode, p. 101. The GF account is somewhat garbled, as I have discussed in Rubenstein (2004), pp. 192–193. The most detailed treatment of Peter’s visions is France (2004).
21 The Andrew legend was already translated into many languages at the time of the crusade. See Robert Boening, ed. and trans., The Acts of Andrew in the Country of the Cannibals: Translations from the Greek, Latin, and Old English (New York: Routledge, 1991).
22 RA, pp. 69–70.
23 GF, p. 33; RA, p. 54. I am following the chronology of Hagenmeyer, Chronologie, here, though admittedly details are hazy.
24 GF, p. 34; PT, p. 69; BB, 2, 12, pp. 43–44; RtM 4, 12, pp. 781–782. The detail about the latrine comes from RC 60, pp. 650–651. RC’s version of the desertion is markedly different. He does not mention Peter the Hermit. Instead, William plans to desert with Guy the Red, an important French noble. When Bohemond learns of their plans, he threatens to convert their tents into latrines. I am taking some liberty in assuming that he did so. Flori (1999), pp. 482–492, suggests ingeniously that Peter never attempted to desert but rather that in circulating copies of GF later, Bohemond inserted Peter’s name in place of Guy’s out of fear of offending the Capetians, with whom Bohemond was negotiating a marriage on his own behalf. As Flori rightly points out, the sources describing Peter’s desertion all grow from a single text, but I have elected to follow them (and presume that Guy deserted on another occasion). AA 4, 37, pp. 304–305, places William’s final desertion much later in the siege.
25 GN 4, 8, pp. 179–180.
Chapter 10
1 The best primary source account of Baldwin’s activity in Syria is AA (quoted here at 3, 18, pp. 166–167). FC 1, 14, 4–15, pp. 208–215, is very brief (despite being an eyewitness and a political player in these events). On this all-but-lost period of conquest, see Christopher MacEvitt, The Crusades and the Christian World of the East: Rough Tolerance (Philadelphia: Universi
ty of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), pp. 58–63.
2 My overview of Edessan history owes its existence almost entirely to MacEvitt, Rough Tolerance, esp. pp. 65–68. On the economy of Edessa, see Monique Amouroux-Mourad, Le Comté d’Edesse, 1098–1150 (Paris: Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1988), pp. 131–135. The terms of T‘oros’s offer are not entirely clear: Compare AA3, 19, 168–169, to FC 1, 14, 6, p. 210. Matthew of Edessa, 2, 117, pp. 168–169, is vague.
3 FC 1, 14, 7–11, pp. 210–212; AA 3, 19–20, pp. 168–171. AA uses the word “senator.” Because he seems to have enjoyed especially good sources, I have elected to read his decision as growing out of the perceptions of Baldwin and his followers. AA also says that Baldwin had two hundred knights, not eighty. I am following FC here because, although laconic on most points, he is more trustworthy on such fine points of detail, having been present at these particular events.
4 FC 1, 14, 12, pp. 212–213; AA3, 20–21, pp. 168–173.
5 The adoption ceremony is described at AA3, 21, pp. 170–171; and GN 3, 14, pp. 163–164.
6 This is the version of AA3, 22–24, pp. 172–174. FC 1, 14, 13, pp. 213–214, places the uprising two weeks after the adoption. A briefer but broadly similar version of this story appears in GN 3, 14, p. 164, which describes T‘oros’s death as a noble sacrifice to save Baldwin.
7 Matthew of Edessa 2, 118, pp. 169–170; MacEvitt, Rough Tolerance, pp. 68–70.
8 FC 1, 13–14, pp. 213–215; AA3, 24, pp. 176–177.
9 MacEvitt, Rough Tolerance, provides the best treatment of Baldwin’s activity, esp. pp. 70–73. On the advantages brought to the crusade by Baldwin, see France (1994), pp. 132–133, 194–195, and 259–261.
Chapter 11
1 GF, pp. 34–35.
2 Alexiad 11, 4, p. 343. RA, pp. 55–56, tells of Tetigus’s withdrawal and his offer of cities to Bohemond. On these maneuvers, see Jonathan Shepard, “When Greek Meets Greek: Alexius Comnenus and Bohemond in 1097–8,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 12 (1988): 262–275.
3 The story of Hilary appears only in HBS 47, p. 190, a text that, as I have argued elsewhere, preserves certain battlefield legend and campfire lore better than other apparently older chronicles like GF and PT. France (1994), pp. 198–199, nicely outlines the complexities of Syrian politics in 1096–1097.
4 GF, pp. 35–36; AA 3, 61, pp. 234–235; RA, pp. 56–57 (who says that the army looked almost three times bigger than it was). See also the commentary of France (1994), pp. 245–246.
5 RA, p. 57. GF, p. 36, describes the formation of six divisions. On the numbers of the army, see France (1994), p. 246. Although France’s reconstruction of the details of the battle is, on the whole, superb, I cannot agree with his suggestion (pp. 247–248) that the Franks crossed the bridge before the battle. His argument overvalues the evidence of RC, 56, p. 648, written several years after the fact. RC did visit the battlefield when he was serving Tancred at Antioch, and he visited a grave near the Iron Bridge, but these facts make him no more able to reconstruct a battle narrative than anyone who visits a war site today. Based on the evidence of RA, who says that the knights traveled “two leagues” from camp before waiting to confront the Turks, and GF, p. 37, who says that the Franks eventually pursued the Turks all the way to the Iron Bridge, the reconstruction presented here seems more likely. It also seems unlikely that the seven hundred Frankish knights could have secretly crossed the Iron Bridge, even at night, unobserved.
6 In this description, I have followed the romanticizing instincts of GF, pp. 36–37, with detail from RA, p. 57.
7 HBS 50, p. 191.
8 RA, p. 58; AA 3, 62, pp. 236–239; GF, pp. 37–38; RC 56, p. 648.
9 BB 2, 17, p. 51; and RtM 4, 16, p. 784, both imply that the crusaders were trying to intimidate the Egyptians with the heads. AA 2, 28, pp. 108–111. About these Frankish-Egyptian negotiations, see Michael A Köhler, “Al-Afdal und Jerusalem—was versprach sich Ägypten vom ersten Kreuzzug?” Saeculum 37 (1986): 228–239.
10 RtM 5, 2, pp. 792–793. More coherent versions of the diplomatic missions appear in other sources listed in the next note. The wish to keep the purpose of these negotiations vague was equally true for both Christian and Muslim sides. See Hillenbrand (1999), pp. 44–45 and 84–85, n. 29. See also France (1994), pp. 251–253.
11 See AA 3, 59, p. 230; GN 4, 13, p. 189, and 7, 3, pp. 271–272; Hagenmeyer, Epistulae 15, p. 160, and 10, pp. 149 and 151. See also GF, pp. 37–38; BB 2, 7, p. 51; RA, p. 58; HBS 48, pp. 189–190; and PT, p. 72.
12 These details come from RtM 5, 1, p. 791.
13 Asbridge (2004), p. 194, oddly translates “Mahomerie” as “Blessed Mary.” I am presuming the Egyptian ambassadors accompanied Bohemond because as of May 9 they were at the port preparing to leave, as will become clear. On the decision to build the tower, see France (1994), pp. 231–232.
14 Based on AA 3, 63, pp. 238–41; and GF, p. 40. GF is, of course, the pro-Bohemond account; AA cannot resist the opportunity to criticize the Norman leader. RA, p. 59, puts the number of dead at three hundred.
15 RA, p. 60, provides the detail about the gates being locked. Yaghi-Siyan thus told his soldiers, “Conquer or die.” In the 110th laisse of Roland, the poet observes that many mistake the moment of Roland’s death for the beginning of the Last Judgment because of the great number of signs that accompany it.
16 BB 2, 17, pp. 50–51; GN 7, 11, p. 284; RtM 4, 20, pp. 786–787; AA 3, 65, pp. 244–245. It is notable that all of the writers who worked with GF report this incident, though GF does not. I have suggested elsewhere—Rubenstein (2004), p. 189, and nn. 53 and 54—that the story probably appeared in a now-lost rendition of GF. and nn. 53 and 54—that the story probably appeared in a now-lost rendition of GF.
17 GF, p. 41. The image of bodies not falling appears in RtM 4, 19, p. 786. The description brings to mind William of Poitiers’s observation about the English at Hastings that their battle formation was so dense that there was hardly room for the dead to fall: WP 2, 19, p. 130. See also Sweetenham’s note in her translation of RtM, p. 132, n. 42, about a similar image in Lucan. On the river battle more generally, see RtM 4, 21, pp. 787–788; RA, p. 61; and FC 1, 16, 8, p. 229. The reference made here is to Apoc. 16:4.
18 GF, p. 42; RtM 4, 21, p. 788; RA, p. 61. GF first tells the number of the dead and then reveals a few lines later the method used for counting them.
19 BB 2, 17, p. 51. GN, 4, 14, p. 193, comments on the tendency of the Saracens to bury their dead with treasure; as does RtM 4, 22, p. 788, where he also comments on the shame of the deed. It is possible that Robert means only that the Christians shamed the Saracens, but the other reading (that it was a shameful deed) seems more likely. See also GF, p. 42.
20 PT, pp. 79–81; HBS 56, p. 194. The dialogue here follows the HBS version of the story.
21 HBS 35, p. 186. See also HBS 60, p. 195.
22 AA 5, 1, pp. 338–339, is the only source to describe the patriarch being suspended over the walls. The patriarch’s feet were not, as common folklore has it, beaten with iron rods while he hung there—e.g., Asbridge (2004), p. 168—the result of a mistranslation of AA, who says simply that the patriarch’s feet were injured by being placed in chains. AA does not specify at what point in the siege this torture occurred.
23 HBS 35, p. 186, and 60, p. 195, with the note about the floors in 61, p. 195. The “temples” he describes as oracula.
24 RA, p. 129; WT 6, 23, p. 339. He is elaborating on AA 5, 1, pp. 338–339, which also mentions the “blinding” of the painted figures. A similar passage appears in EA 3, p. 13.
25 HBS 61, p. 195.
Chapter 12
1 RtM 5, 5, p. 794. GP, whose poetic history closely follows Robert’s, repeats this information in similar terms: GP 5 (2), ll. 411–460, pp. 126–129. Robert elsewhere describes Saracens simply as “rabid dogs” (canes rabidos): RtM 6, 8, p. 809. The lament occurs at RtM 5, 7, p. 795. See Riley-Smith (1997), pp. 88–89 and 224.
2 The second let
ter of Anselm of Ribemont, in Hagenmeyer, Epistulae 15, p. 159, written in July 1098, after the Franks defeated Kerbogah.
3 GN 7, 22, pp. 308–309.
4 On the three-week siege, see FC 1, 19, 2, pp. 242–243; and Matthew of Edessa 2, 119, p. 170.
5 RtM 4, 1, p. 775.
6 AA 4, 12–14, pp. 266–271, provides most of these details. His account is flawed because Bohemond belongs near the center of the story and one of AA’s obvious historical goals is to downplay the Norman leader’s contribution to the crusade. RA, p. 64, mentions some of the early desertions.
7 GF, pp. 44–45. The quip is from RtM 5, 10, p. 798.
8 GF, p. 45; AA 4, 15, pp. 270–271. The number 400,000 is used in a speech by Adhémar in RC 64, p. 653, as is the pronouncement about the dangers of abandoning Antioch. This incident is well served by two detailed recent treatments: Robert Levine, “The Pious Traitor: Rhetorical Reinventions of the Fall of Antioch,” Mittellateinishces Jahrbuch 33 (1998): 59–80; and Rebecca L. Slitt, “Justifying Cross-Cultural Friendship: Bohemond, Firuz, and the Fall of Antioch,” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 38 (2007): 339–349. I do not pretend here to resolve the question of whether Pirrus/Firuz was Armenian or Turkish, but see France (1994), pp. 257–264; Asbridge (2004), pp. 200–211; and Hillenbrand (1999), p. 57.
9 AA 4, 16, pp. 272–273, tells the hostage story; his information is somewhat garbled because he appears to confuse Pirrus with another Turkish convert who later took the name “Bohemond.” RC 62, p. 652, tells of the harsh taxes (see also RC 57, p. 649). GF, p. 44, says bribery—the preferred explanation of GN 5, 2, p. 201.
10 BB 2, 19, pp. 53, and, more generally, 52–54. On this topic, see especially Slitt, “Justifying Cross-Cultural Friendship.” GF, p. 44, speaks of the “closest friendship” between the two. See also RtM 5, 10, p. 798.
11 RtM 5, 8–9, pp. 796–798. The “jargon” necessary to interpret these visions grows out of the Eucharistic debate, still ongoing in the twelfth century. “Holy traitor” is the phrase of RC 66, p. 654. FC 1, 17, 1–5, pp. 230–232, also argues for a divine inspiration but more straightforwardly says that Jesus appeared three times to Pirrus and commanded him to hand over the city.
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