Mahomet had begun to preach in Arabia in 609. His followers had soon grown powerful, had overrun Asia Minor and were attacking Constantinople. They, of course, seized Jerusalem and the holy places in the far East. Now the Christians had made pilgrimages to Jerusalem from early times. This making of pilgrimages was a pagan custom. The old Greeks would travel far to a sacred shrine or temple where they wished to make a vow or a supplication. So the Christians went to Jerusalem.
After the Arabs took the Holy Land, they still allowed the Christian Patriarch to hold the Holy Sepulchre. For the Arabs allowed that Jesus was a prophet, but a much smaller prophet than Mahomet. So vast numbers of people came from Europe to Jerusalem, each one paying a certain fee which enriched the Mohammedans. They came in comparative safety, particularly in Charlemagne’s days, for Charlemagne was a friend of the great Caliph or Prince Haroun al Raschid; moreover as yet the Mohammedans felt no holy hatred of Christianity. Every spring whole caravans of Christians, princes, bishops, poor people, travelled across Europe and Asia to Jerusalem.
But in the year 1000 the Turks began to move out of Asia against the Arab Mohammedans. About 1070 they captured Asia Minor, and Jerusalem fell into their hands. The Turks became Mohammedans, but they by no means treated the Christians as the more civilised wise caliphs had done. They fell upon the Christian caravans, robbed and tormented them. Every step was danger and misery. At last some wretched pilgrims returned wasted and spent, to tell of their sufferings at the hands of the Turks. Great numbers never returned at all.
About 1090 a hermit of France, called Peter, reached Constantinople on his return from the Sepulchre. He was a battered pilgrim, a monk. He had been a gentleman. He and the Patriarch of Constantinople wept together over the sufferings and shame of the Christians, whose most holy places must lie in the hands of cruel heathens. The Patriarch could get no help from the weak, vicious emperors of Constantinople.
‘ I will rouse the martial nations of Europe in your behalf,’ cried Peter. The astonished Patriarch gave him letters of credit, and Peter hastened west. He kissed the feet of the Pope in Rome, and proclaimed his mission. He was a mad fanatic, but wonderful as a preacher and an inspirer of the people. Pope Urban II. saw that it would be wise to let him rouse Christendom to one great united act, and he gave Peter his blessing, and encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land.
Peter the Hermit was a small, insignificant-looking man, but his soul flamed, his eyes were flashing, he was wonderful in exhortation. Riding on an ass, he carried a heavy crucifix before him. His head and feet were bare, he wore a coarse dark garment, his body was thin and worn with fasting and vehemence. And so he traversed Italy, then France, then Germany, preaching to great crowds in the churches, in market-places, by the roadside, telling the sufferings of the pilgrims, wailing the shame to Jesus that the sacred Sepulchre was defiled by the Turks, calling to Christ and the Mother of God, as if he saw them in the air above him, weeping and crying to them to be with this people, to lighten their steps. He went into cottages, or castles, or palaces alike, and whether it was a poor man eating his grey porridge, or a baron before his venison and wine, he cried on the inmates of the house to gird their loins and prepare for the holy expedition. And peasant or baron, farmer or bishop, they all listened alike, and groaned and wept as if they saw Jesus in trouble, and vowed themselves to this service of the dear God. For in those days men felt Jesus as if He were suffering and beautiful amongst them, they defended Him as if He were a delicate, most wonderful heart’s-brother. And all men shared this feeling — serfs, barons, kings, bishops: when it came to the wonderful, sweet, delicate Jesus and His tender Mother, all hearts burned alike, all men were filled with one great hot yearning. And this passion for Jesus united men and made them one, across all the difference of serfdom anil tyranny. They were united in one passion, slave and lord alike, their hearts beat the same. It has never been so again, since the strange passionate days of the early Middle Ages.
Pope Gregory VII., the great Hildebrand, had already begun to arm Europe against the Mohammedans: but it was Urban the Second who was the great maker of the movement. He called a council of two hundred bishops of Italy, France, Burgundy, Suabia, and Bavaria; four thousand of the clergy, and thirty thousand of the laity attended the vast meeting, which was held on the plain outside Placentia. The ambassadors from Constantinople told the sad tale of the East, the shame that lay on Bethlehem and Calvary, the tale of the misery and suffering of the eastern Christians, till this vast assembly, thousands of men, burst into tears and wept. The most eager declared their willingness to march at once to rescue God and His servants. But Pope Urban knew that a short delay would gather greater hosts and stir the feeling deeper. Meanwhile in every parish the clergy preached the mission. Another great meeting was arranged at Clermont, in Aquitaine. When Urban mounted the high scaffold in the market-place, masses of people had gathered to hear him. And as he spoke and urged and persuaded them, suddenly one great cry went up from the hosts. Deus vult! Deus vult! cried the clergy, in pure Latin. Diex el volt! Diex el volt! cried the poorer people from the north. Deus lo volt! Deus lo volt! cried the people from the south. But it was all one cry, and had one meaning — ’ God wills it! God wishes it! ‘
‘ It is indeed the will of God,’ replied the Pope; ‘ and let this memorable word, surely inspired by the Holy Ghost, be ever your battle cry, you champions of Christ. Christ’s cross is the symbol of your salvation — wear it, a red, a bloody cross, on breast or shoulder, as an eternal mark of your irrevocable pledge.’
The greatest excitement spread over Europe. People were mad to release the holy places of the Saviour, to succour God and to behold the towers of Jerusalem the Golden, to know the wonders of Jordan, to touch the olive-trees for themselves, where Jesus had wept, to see His lilies. All Europe also had heard of the marvellous palaces of the caliphs, of the gold and jasper and emeralds of the magical Arabians, of sweet groves of cinnamon, and of the lovely dark-eyed women of the East. So adventurous souls were fired. They wanted to capture these marvellous palaces, to seize these jewels and this gold, to taste the spices, to know the soft-eyed women. Sure of great treasure from the East, as well as of everlasting glory in heaven, princes mortgaged their estates, barons their castles, peasants sold their cattle and implements. Horses and armour and weapons became enormously expensive, cows, land, furniture very cheap. Every man except merchants, clergy, Jews, wanted to go. Every man must provide himself with staff, and wallet for food. Each must sew on the shoulder of his garment the red cross. The rich sewed scarlet silk with gold thread and gems, the poor stitched on coarse red flannel. Some men branded their naked shoulders with hot irons.
The 15th August, 1096, was fixed for the day of departure. But early in the spring sixty thousand people of the poorer classes, men, women, youths, girls, were gathered in the east of France and in Lorraine, clamouring to be led by Peter the Hermit, at once to set off. In front eight horsemen led fifteen thousand foot pilgrims. The others followed in vast detachments. Behind these again came fifteen thousand German peasants, led by the monk Godescal. And away behind these came many thousands of the worst, most villainous people in Europe, hanging round for robbery and crime. All thoughtful men knew that such an expedition was wickedly foolish. Some counts and gentlemen, with three thousand horse, attended the multitude for its salvation. But in the very front of the mad host were carried a goose and a goat, emblems which were supposed to be possessed with the Holy Spirit. So the mad, raging, shameless mob trailed across Europe.
Peter led the way along the Moselle and Rhine. The first thing to do was to massacre the Jews. At Verdun, Treves, Metz, Spires, Worms, many thousands of these unhappy people were slaughtered and pillaged for having crucified Jesus. In these great border towns the Jews had prosperous trading quarters. These were wiped out. So the terrible hosts moved on, devouring the land, to the Danube. There they had to turn south, through Hungary and Bulgaria, making for Constantinople. The Hu
ngarians, Huns and Magyars had not much food, save their herds, for still they grew little com, and depended on milk and flesh. Therefore in the vast reedy plains there was small supply for the hosts. The Crusaders demanded provisions, seized the scanty stocks, and speedily devoured them. The Hungarians, newly Christianised but still pagan by blood, in anger mounted their swift little horses, and led by their king darted round the moving hosts, showering them with arrows. The Bulgarians also attacked the vast mob. There was some ugly murdering and fighting. About a third of the defenceless Crusaders, with Peter the Hermit, escaped to the mountains of Thrace. The rest perished, strewing their bones down the Balkan Peninsula.
The forces of the Greek emperor led the refugees to Constantinople, and settled them there to await their real leaders, the more noble Crusaders. But the mob of pilgrims so shamelessly robbed and broke into the houses of Constantinople, that Alexius the Emperor tempted them over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. There, like a herd of savages, they rushed towards the Turks who occupied the way to Palestine. The Sultan tempted them on. In a plain of Nicaea they were overwhelmed by Turkish arrows, and a pyramid of bones stood to show to the later Crusaders, the nobler and more regular host, the place of this defeat. Three hundred thousand of this first mob had perished before the true Crusaders were ready to start: and nothing at all had been done against the Turk.
The band of the true Crusaders contained many great lords. Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, was one of the greatest: then came Hugh, Count of Vermandois; Robert, Duke of Normandy, brother of William Rufus — he had pawned Normandy for about £25,000, in order to be able to go; Robert, Count of Flanders; Stephen, Count of Chartres; these four were the chief leaders of the Norman, British, and North French pilgrims: the Southern French were led by the Bishop of Puy and Raymond, Duke of Toulouse; Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard, led ten thousand horse and twenty thousand foot from South Italy, his nephew Tancred being his partner, a very famous and perfect knight; there were innumerable other nobles, too many to mention. The wives and sisters of the gentry wished to go with them. They converted their possessions into bars of gold and silver, and, mounted on horseback, gathered together. Princes and barons took with them hounds and hawks to amuse their leisure. The hosts were too many to go together, they would never find food, so they agreed to take separate routes, and meet near Constantinople.
Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, with his Germans and North French, came by the Danube and down Bulgaria to Constantinople. Having listened to the account of the crimes and the miseries of his forerunners, Godfrey made a treaty of peace with the King of the Hungarians. He arrived in the eastern capital without any bloodshed. Raymond of Toulouse with his Provengals came by Turin and Venice, round the head of the Adriatic, and down through Dalmatia, forty days’ wretched march through perpetual fog and half-hostile mountain natives, having little food to eat and no peace, till he too arrived at Constantinople. The Normans, French, and British under Robert of Normandy and Hugh of Vermandois marched splendidly over the Alps, along the Roman roads to Rome, feasted and welcomed in all the Italian towns. Their ranks were thinned by desertion, for the northerners could not withstand the temptation of remaining in the beautiful Italian cities. After a great display in Rome, this host passed on to Brindisi, where it had to wait till spring for a crossing, and did not reach Constantinople till the early summer of 1097.
Meanwhile the fourth host, the Normans of Sicily with the South Italians, under Bohemond and Tancred, kept near the sea, for they were a well-armed host and well attended with ships. The inhabitants of these old lands were Greek subjects of the Emperor, but they did not like this crusading invasion. Bohemond was fierce. He stormed the castles that interfered with his progress, and pillaged the lands of such offenders.
Poor Alexius, who had pleaded for help from the Roman Christendom against the Turks, now had tidings of the approach of host after host of terrible and ruinous friends who devoured the land. Twenty-four knights in golden armour rode in advance into Constantinople to announce the coming of Hugh of Vermandois, commanding the Emperor to revere the general of the Latin Christians, the brother of the King of Kings, Philip of France. Alexius was astonished and indignant at this announcement, for to his imagination the King of France was a barbarian, not much more important to him than an African chief to us. He waited. There was no preventing the advancing armed bands of northerners from ravaging the lovely Greek estates. Proud and insolent arrived Count Hugh, so unbearable that at last the Emperor had him imprisoned, before his forces had come up. Godfrey of Bouillon, the best and strongest leader, came down after his wretched, weary journey through the Balkan Peninsula to hear such news. He was very angry, and fell on the suburbs of the glittering city of Constantinople. Poor Alexius was at his wits’ end, finding the Christians far worse than the Turks. He was accused by the Crusaders of intending to starve and drown their hosts.
But peace was made, and at last the Emperor persuaded Godfrey to allow his army to be conveyed over to the Asiatic side of the Bosphorus. This was done, and the ships immediately returned to Constantinople, so that no Crusaders could come back. Then the army of Hugh was transported. As fast as one army arrived, the Emperor had it conveyed across, so that it should never join forces with the next comers in the great capital. He dreaded lest they should seize and sack the finest and wealthiest city in the world, his beloved Constantinople. The leaders remained his guests in Constantinople, while their armies or hosts were on the Asiatic side of the water.
One after the other, the great princes were presented at court. Bohemond and Raymond of Toulouse on their arrival urged Godfrey to unite with them and attack Constantinople. Godfrey refused. He had come as a Crusader — not as a marauder. So the poor Emperor trusted to Godfrey, even adopting him as his son. And in this way relations were more or less friendly with the Greek court, Alexius doing his best to conciliate the fierce chiefs. Bohemond, whom the Greeks dreaded, was lodged in a splendid palace, and served like an emperor. One day, as he passed through a gallery, a door left carelessly open showed an interior where gold and silver, gems, silk, and curious furniture were piled in disorder in great heaps. ‘ What conquests,’ said greedy Norman Bohemond, ‘ might not be achieved by the possession of such a treasure.’ ‘ It is vours,’ said the Greek attendant. And Bohemond was greedy-spirited enough to accept it, and the Greeks now felt he had submitted to them. Robert of Normandy, Stephen of Chartres, Raymond of Toulouse, one after another they bowed before the pompous and resplendent throne of the Byzantines.
They all marvelled at the splendours of the court of Constantinople, looking with wonder on such things as they, from their rough northern castles, could not even imagine. They were like the barbarians at Rome. But they hated having to do homage to the eastern Emperor. It was necessary, for they could not cross the Bosphorus without his ships, and they needed his support and guidance through Asia Minor, where his empire extended. So they bowed the knee before him as he sat on his high golden throne. But they hoped in their hearts that, when once in Asia, they could turn their swords against him.
Anna Comnena, daughter of the Emperor, a young, clever princess, wrote her memoirs in which we may still read her account of the visit of these Crusaders to her father’s capital. She did not like the counts and nobles of the north. She thought them the merest barbarians, insolent, overbearing, vulgar, gaping greedily at the treasures of the palacc. Their rude manners disgusted the delicate little lady, their very names, so uncouth, offended her Greek tongue. Some, she allows, were handsome, but all were uncivilised. She liked Raymond of Toulouse best, and hated Bohemond of Sicily. And she writes as if all these great chiefs of the north were but paid soldiers whom her father had hired.
But she is thankful when at last they are all transported over the Bosphorus, for she is staggered by their numbers. All Europe was loosened from its foundation, she says, and hurled against Asia. More than the stars in heaven or the sands of the shore these people came, an
d they passed like devouring locusts.
Indeed the hosts were countless. Most came from France, but all countries sent their bands. Even there were naked savages from Ireland and Scotland, for it was forbidden to prevent even the poorest Christian from making this holy excursion. It is impossible to say how many died of disease in the hot southern countries, how many perished from thirst and hunger in Syria. For the Greeks in the provinces of Asia Minor were unfriendly, the thoughtless masses devoured their provisions at once, and famine set in. It is said in their anguish of hunger they even roasted and ate their prisoners. Spies who found their way into Bohemond’s kitchen were shown human bodies, bodies of Turks or Saracens, turning on the spit. But this was probably a trick of Bohemond’s to make his name more feared. All the while the enemy hung round, cutting off all stragglers, making sudden attacks on unready bands. All the while the European soldiery had to protect the unarmed masses.
The great hosts divided. Nicaea, the Sultan’s capital near the sea of Marmora, was besieged and at last taken. Another party moved on. When they were far from the sea and fainting with heat they were attacked by the Turkish host, swift darting horsemen loosing their arrows. Bohemond, Tancred, and Robert of Normandy held the fight, and just as all seemed lost, the rest of the sacred army, under Godfrey and Raymond, sixty thousand horse, came up from Nicaea, and a great battle was fought. Four thousand Christians were pierced with Turkish arrows. But as evening approached the swiftness of Asiatic horsemen yielded to the slow but invincible iron strength of the Franks, and Soliman’s forces were routed, his camp with all its treasures seized.
Both the Turks and the northerners felt supreme contempt for the unwarlike Greeks and the soft people of Asia Minor. But in each other they met a worthy adversary. Now at last the Turks learned to respect the invincible slow power of the Franks, for as such they named all the Crusaders, since indeed the greater part of the knights were of Germanic, Norman or Frankish origin. And at last the Crusaders found themselves faced with dauntless, skilful soldiers in the Turks.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 905