by Robert Payne
The olive branch from the emperor came at exactly the right moment. Peter gladly accepted the invitation, and the ragged army set off for Constantinople in good heart. Money was given to him, for he had lost the baggage carts that contained his treasury; mules and horses were provided; and in all the towns they passed through they were given food. The emperor’s generosity continued until at last the army reached Constantinople on or about August 1, 1096. Walter Sans-Avoir had arrived in the city two weeks earlier.
When Peter was received in audience by the emperor, he was voluble in his gratitude and convincing in his description of the trials he had passed through at the hands of the Turks when he was living in Jerusalem some years earlier. He said that a divine voice had urged him to bring a vast army to the Holy Land, and he had returned to France to organize a Crusade which would save the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians. Impressed by his speech and his manner, the emperor gave him splendid gifts. Peter wanted to march against the Turks immediately. The emperor suggested that it would be wiser for him to remain in camp until the coming of the army of the princes, but Peter was determined. Five days later, at Peter’s request, the remnant of the once great army of poor folk, now numbering less than thirty thousand men, women, and children, was ferried across the Bosphorus.
They pitched camp in a small place called Helenopolis. There they rested for a few days, recuperating from their adventures and receiving gifts of food from the emperor. According to William of Tyre, the emperor’s bounty was so great that they were incited to arrogance by their well-being. Against the emperor’s repeated warnings, they insisted on going to war against the Turks, although they were ill prepared, knew nothing about fighting the Turks and nothing about the geography of Asia Minor.
The army of the poor was not the elite army of knights the emperor had called for. Though he half-admired Peter the Hermit, he had no confidence in his leadership nor any hope that his unruly, cantankerous, pathetic soldiers would amount to anything. Integrated into the army of the princes they might serve as laborers, scouts, water-carriers, or grooms, but they were not a fighting force.
Near Helenopolis was a fortified camp formerly occupied by English mercenaries. The Greeks called it Cibotos, the Franks called it Civetot. Here the army rested and debated the coming offensive against the Turks, and when Peter the Hermit explained that this was not to be contemplated until the great army of the princes crossed the Bosphorus, they simply disregarded him and relieved him of his authority. There were some Germans and Italians in the army of the poor, and they elected a certain Rainald to be their leader, while Geoffrey Burel, who had been Peter’s chief military adviser, was elected leader of the Franks. Peter was relegated to the position of ambassador to the court of Byzantium and charged with obtaining as much assistance as possible for the Crusaders.
The savage momentum of the army of the poor survived its transplantation to the shores of Asia. In their restlessness they began to attack surrounding Christian villages, murdering and plundering; then they advanced farther and attacked the villages within the Turkish frontier, which were also inhabited by Christians. All their plunder was sold to Greek sailors at Civetot; all their success was at the expense of defenseless villagers who shared their own faith.
Thus emboldened, the Franks decided to attack Nicaea, the capital of the Seljuk Sultan Kilij Arslan. They plundered the villages around Nicaea, drove off huge herds of sheep and cattle, caroused and murdered as they pleased. Anna Comnena wrote that they had the unpleasant habit of impaling babies on wooden spits and roasting them over a fire. There is no doubt that they were merciless. But Nicaea was a very large walled city with huge defensive towers, a large garrison, capable commanders. A Turkish column raced out of the city and there was a pitched battle. The Franks were able to flee from the battlefield with much of their booty, and if they had not conquered Nicaea, they had acquired the wealth of many villages.
Then it was the turn of the Germans and Italians under Rainald, about six thousand men, who imagined they would do even better. They marched beyond Nicaea to a fortress called Xerigordon, which was captured without any difficulty because it was undefended. Here they found all the provisions they could wish for. They would have been well advised to take the stores and hurry back to Civetot. Instead, they remained in the castle, enjoying their good fortune. Then, on September 21, 1096, the Turks arrived in force, surrounded the castle, and conquered it eight days later, massacring all those who refused to abjure their Christian faith. The unknown author of the Gesta Francorum describes the horrors of the siege:
The Turks then invested the castle and cut off the water supply.
Our men were terribly afflicted by thirst. They bled their horses and asses to drink the blood. Some let their belts and handker-chiefs down into a cistern, and squeezed the liquid into their mouths, while others urinated into their fellows’ cupped hands and drank. Still others dug up the moist earth and lay down on their backs and spread the earth over their breasts, being so dry with thirst. The bishops and priests encouraged our men and admonished them not to despair. . . .
Then the commander of the Germans agreed to betray his companions to the Turks. Pretending to go out in order to fight them, he fled to them with many of his men. The remainder were put to death unless they were willing to betray God. Others, who had been captured alive, were divided among them, like sheep; and there were some who were put up as targets and shot with arrows, and still others they sold or gave away, like animals. And they took their prisoners to their own homes, to Khorasan, Antioch, or Aleppo, wherever they lived.
These men were the first to endure blessed martyrdom in the name of the Lord Jesus.
The army of the poor had suffered many disasters, but this was the worst. There remained one more disaster, and then the army would be destroyed forever as a fighting force.
At Civetot the leaders of the army burned to avenge the disaster at Xerigordon. Peter was in Constantinople, and in any case he was powerless to influence any of the leaders. Geoffrey Burel had taken command, and it was on his advice that the Crusaders marched out against the enemy. There were about twenty thousand troops. The old men, women, and children were left behind at Civetot. They marched in six columns, with standards flying and trumpets blaring, making a good deal of noise, on their way to Nicaea, where they hoped to provoke the enemy into a pitched battle. It was early in the morning, and they were of good heart.
Three miles from Civetot, the road to Nicaea entered a narrow wooded valley, where the Turks had posted scouts and were able to watch the progress of the army. Behind the scouts, in the plain beyond the valley, the Turkish army was waiting. By coincidence the Turks had decided on this day to attack Civetot and to destroy the camp and everyone in it, and they were overjoyed to see the Christians marching through the valley like lambs to the slaughter. They waited until the cavalry emerged from the valley. Then, their bowmen sent a shower of arrows into their midst. Many of the riders and many of the horses were maimed or killed, while the rest tried to flee back to Civetot. But there was no space to move in; the onward-marching infantry collided with the retreating cavalry, and the Turks, who enjoyed ambushes, raced through the woods and massacred the Christians with the greatest ease. Some fugitives reached Civetot with the Turks hard on their heels. Only about two hours had passed since the Christian army set out, and it was still early morning. A priest was celebrating mass; the Turks killed him on the altar. Some old men were still asleep in their beds. The Turks overturned the tents and went on killing, sparing only boys and girls with pleasing features who could be sold profitably into slavery. Walter Sans-Avoir was killed: seven arrows were found embedded in his body. Albert of Aix records that the Turks suffered many casualties, but this seems unlikely. The Christian army panicked from the first moment of the battle, and a panicking army inflicts few casualties.
Some Christian soldiers were able to hide in the forests and mountains. About three thousand of them reached a nearby fort
ress on the seashore. This ancient fortress, long since abandoned, without roof or gateway, served them well, for they were able to build a gate by throwing up rubble and stones and stout leather shields to prevent the enemy from coming in. They had slingshots, bows, and lances, and they fought desperately. The Turks had their own way of dealing with a situation like this. Since the fortress had no roof, they fired heavy arrows into the air and these arrows had the effect of knives hurtling down on the defenders. Many Christians were killed but the greater number of them survived.
They survived because the siege of the fortress became quickly known in Constantinople, because the old fortress was on the seacoast, and because Peter the Hermit urged immediate assistance. The emperor ordered part of his fleet to go to their rescue. At midnight, while the fleet was on its way, the Turks quietly lifted the siege and stole away.
The army of Peter the Hermit was a flame that had been blown out. Of the vast numbers who set out there remained only the three thousand who were taken off the coast of Asia Minor by the emperor’s ships. The Crusade of the Poor was a total disaster.
If Peter the Hermit had shown himself to be incompetent militarily, he was nevertheless a legend in his own time. He went on to become a leader of the peasant militia that accompanied the army of the princes to Jerusalem, and was among the first to enter the city, although he returned to France soon afterward.
A few days after the disaster at Civetot, there arrived in Constantinople the first contingent of the army of the princes. Although the princes inevitably quarreled among themselves, they led armies that were disciplined, with clear lines of command, well trained and capable of dealing with the Turks on their own terms. To the princes went the victory denied to Peter the Hermit’s rabble army.
A Pride of
Princes
WHEN the medieval chroniclers set out the names of the great lords who led their armies on the Crusade, they usually began with Hugh, Count of Vermandois, who was the brother of the king of the Franks. William of Tyre calls him Hugh the Great, but he was a totally ineffective warrior, great only in his boasting, his presumption, and his love of finery. This caricature of a prince was placed first on the list only because he was the brother of a king who ruled over a large and important fragment of northern and central France.
He was not, however, the only brother of a king to set forth on the First Crusade. Robert, Duke of Normandy, was the son of William the Conqueror and the brother of King William Rufus, who ruled England ineffectively until the day when he was struck down by an unknown assailant in the New Forest. Robert was the first-born, but so exasperated his father by his rebelliousness and hot temper that he was denied the throne. He was called “Curthose,” which means “Short Boots,” an affectionate nickname for a man who was gregarious and mischievous and liked his creature comforts. He became grotesquely fat in his later years, but at the time of the Crusades he kept himself in good physical condition and on a few occasions he is known to have distinguished himself in battle, although he was far from being a natural leader.
Among the men who found their true vocation in the Crusades, and possessed a determination to carry through to the end, was Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse. He was also the most deeply committed. The Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, who grew very fond of him, regarded him as a man of great probity and even sanctity, vastly more intelligent and understanding than any of the other Western Europeans he encountered.
The Count of Toulouse was about fifty-six when he embarked on the Crusade. He felt he would soon die, and he hoped to die in the Holy Land, a wish that was fulfilled. He had fought against the Almoravides in Spain, and he was proud of the fact that he had lost an eye in single combat while fighting the Moors. His mother was Almodis, Princess of Barcelona. The last of his many wives—for he married often and was twice excommunicated by the Church for marriages of consanguinity—was Elvira, the natural daughter of Alfonso VI, King of Leon and Castile, one of the greatest Spanish kings, who had fought implacably against the Moors.
We shall not understand the half-Spanish Count of Toulouse unless we remember that he had already waged war against the Moors and throughout his life maintained his connections with Spain. Just as Alfonso VI vanquished the Moors at one end of the Mediterranean, so the Count of Toulouse intended to vanquish them at the other end. The count was a great womanizer while remaining deeply religious: he had a Spanish gravity and a Spanish sensuality. He was by far the richest of the Crusader leaders and he was the first of the princes to take the Cross.
Bohemond, Prince of Otranto, was a man of another color and of a more barbaric character. He was about forty years old when he set out on the Crusade, but he had retained a young man’s fierce ambitions and ferocious temper. He was a pure Norman, with a Norman’s cruelty and a Norman’s belief that the whole world was ripe for conquest. His consuming ambition was the conquest of the Byzantine empire, and he had already made a serious attempt to conquer it before he embarked on the Crusade. The Byzantine emperor had reason to distrust him, realizing that he was a man who was totally unscrupulous and dangerous, capable of all manner of stratagems to accomplish his aims. Anna Comnena, the emperor’s eldest daughter, who saw him when she was fourteen, described him in a famous passage in her history of her father’s life and times:
Never before had anyone set eyes on a man like this in our country, whether among the Greeks or the barbarians, for he was a marvel to behold and his reputation was terrifying. Let me describe this barbarian’s appearance more particularly—he was so tall in stature that he overtopped the tallest by nearly one cubit, narrow in the waist and loins, with broad shoulders and a deep chest and powerful arms. And in the whole build of the body he was neither too slender nor overweighted with flesh, but perfectly proportioned and, one might say, built in conformity with the canon of Polycleitus. . . .
. . . His skin all over his body was very white, and in his face the white was tempered with red. His hair was yellowish, but did not hang down to his waist like that of the other barbarians; for the man was not inordinately vain of his hair, but had it cut short to the ears. Whether his beard was reddish, or any other color I cannot say, for the razor had passed over it very closely and left a surface smoother than chalk. . . . His blue eyes indicated both a high spirit and dignity; and his nose and nostrils breathed in the air freely; his chest corresponded to his nostrils and his nostrils explained the breadth of his chest. For by his nostrils nature had given free passage to the high spirit that bubbled up from his heart. A certain charm hung about this man but was partly marred by a general air of the horrible. For in the whole of his body the entire man showed implacable and savage both in his size and glance, or so I believe, and even his laughter sounded like roaring. He was so made in mind and body that courage and passion reared their crests within him and both inclined to war. His wit was manifold and crafty and able to find a way of escape in every emergency. In conversation he was well-informed, and the answers he gave were quite irrefutable. This man, who was of such a size and such a character, was inferior to the emperor alone in fortune and eloquence and other gifts of nature.
Anna Comnena provided no comparable portrait of the other Crusader princes. She was evidently fascinated by Bohemond, by the terribilità which he wore like a garment and by his extraordinary beauty. She had studied him at length, and knew him to be a merciless marauder. What, she wondered, was such a man doing on a Crusade?
It was a question which many people asked during the course of the Crusade. The Count of Toulouse asked it, and came to the same conclusion as Anna: that Bohemond was there for all the mischief he could create, and all the territory and glory he could acquire. As a result the count exerted a great deal of energy in attempting to neutralize Bohemond. They were at odds with one another throughout the campaign.
There remained the Lotharingian princes, led by Godfrey of Bouillon, and his brothers Baldwin and Eustace. They were the sons of Eustace II, Count of Boulogne, and Ida, the daughter of Duke
Godfrey II of Lower Lorraine, and through their mother they were descended from Charlemagne, and it was this more than anything else that distinguished them from the other princes. To have royal blood signified a great deal at a time when kings were regarded as nearly divine. Godfrey, the second son, possessed enormous strength: once in Cilicia he wrestled with a huge bear, and when an Arab sheikh invited him to slaughter a camel, he sliced off its head with a single sword-stroke. He was deeply religious, and it was related that he accompanied the German King Henry IV on his march through Italy. He was so horrified by the sack of Rome in 1082 that he fell into a fever; when he had recovered he promised himself he would take part in no more fighting in the West; he would reserve his strength for fighting against the Saracens. He sometimes prayed for so long before a meal that his entourage complained their meals were cold by the time they were permitted to eat. He had his mother’s piety and he had Charlemagne’s sense of the lord’s proper humility in the face of his subjects.
Once when some Arab dignitaries came to visit him in his tent, they found him sitting on the ground, resting against a tawdry sack of straw. There were no carpets, no curtains, no silk hangings, and no furniture. The dignitaries asked him why he lived like this, and he answered, “The earth serves well enough for a seat in life as it does in death.”
Godfrey of Bouillon was about thirty-five years old when he set out on the Crusade, his younger brother Baldwin about thirty-two. Baldwin was originally intended for the Church and became a prebendary in various churches in Rheims, Cambrai, and Liege. Suddenly he abandoned the Church, became a soldier, married a high-born Englishwoman called Godehilde, who accompanied him on the Crusade. Baldwin gave every sign of remaining a soldier for the rest of his life. Unlike Godfrey, he enjoyed finery and never appeared in public without a mantle hanging from his shoulders. He was very grave in manner, so that they said of him that he looked more like a bishop than a warrior. His chief vice was venery; he loved women passionately. But he was also something of a scholar, and a man of exquisite manners.