A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (10 page)

1109: Bertrand
and William-Jordan

Tortosa was held by one of William-Jordan’s
lieutenants; who at once admitted Bertrand into the town and gave him all the
provisions that he required. Next day Bertrand sent a messenger to
William-Jordan’s headquarters at Mount Pilgrim, requiring the surrender of all
his father’s inheritance in the lands of La Chamelle, that is to say the
principality of Homs that Raymond had hoped to found. But William-Jordan had
recently won a signal success. When the Egyptians took over Tripoli, the town
of Arqa, under the leadership of one of Fakhr’s favourite pages, had placed
itself under the protection of Toghtekin of Damascus. Toghtekin set out in
person to inspect his new dependency; but the winter rains delayed his progress
through the Buqaia. While waiting for the weather to improve, he attacked
certain forts that the Christians had built near the frontier. William-Jordan,
with three hundred horsemen and two hundred native infantrymen, crept over the
shoulder of the Lebanon and fell on him unexpectedly, near the village of Akun.
The Damascene army, with Toghtekin at its head, fled in panic to Homs, pursued
by the Franks, who could not venture to attack the city, but then turned
northward to raid the territory of Shaizar. The Munqidhite brothers, Murshid
and Sultan, emirs of Shaizar, hearing that the Frankish army was small, came
out in the confident expectation that it could easily be captured. But the
Franks attacked at once so fiercely that the men of Shaizar broke and fled.
William-Jordan then returned to Arqa, which capitulated to him after a siege of
only three weeks.

Encouraged by these victories, William-Jordan
was in no mood to abdicate in Bertrand’s favour. He replied that he held
Raymond’s lands by the right of inheritance and that moreover he had defended
them and added to them. But the size of Bertrand’s armada alarmed him. He sent
to Antioch to ask Tancred to intervene in his favour. In return he promised to
become Tancred’s vassal. His move obliged Bertrand to take corresponding
action. He sent a messenger to Jerusalem, to put his case before King Baldwin,
to whom he appealed as supreme arbiter of the Franks in the East and whom he
thereby recognized as his suzerain.

Baldwin, whose statesmanship saw that the
Franks in the East must work together and whose ambition pictured himself as
their leader, at once answered the appeal. He was already angry with Tancred
over his treatment of Baldwin of Edessa and Joscelin of Courtenay. Bertrand had
moved southward to Tripoli, where his army was conducting the double task of
continuing the blockade of the Moslem city and besieging William-Jordan’s
supporters on Mount Pilgrim. William-Jordan had meanwhile left Mount Pilgrim
and had reoccupied Tortosa, where he awaited Tancred. No sooner had Tancred
joined him than they were visited by the envoys of the King, Eustace Gamier and
Pagan of Haifa, who ordered them both to appear at the Royal Court before
Tripoli, to settle the question of Raymond’s inheritance as well as the
restitution of Edessa and Turbessel to their rightful owners. William-Jordan
wished to refuse the summons; but Tancred realized that defiance was
impracticable.

In June 1109 all the princes of the Frankish
East assembled outside the walls of Tripoli. Bertrand was there with his army.
King Baldwin came up from the south with five hundred knights and as many
infantrymen. Tancred brought seven hundred of his best knights; and Baldwin of
Edessa and Joscelin arrived with their bodyguards. At a solemn session in the
castle of Mount Pilgrim Tancred was formally reconciled with Baldwin of Edessa
and with Joscelin, while the Toulousain inheritance was divided. William-Jordan
was to keep Tortosa and his own conquest, Arqa; and Bertrand was to have Jebail
and Tripoli as soon as it was captured. The former swore allegiance to Tancred,
and the latter to King Baldwin; and it was agreed that on the death of either
candidate the other should inherit his lands.

1109: The
Surrender of Tripoli

With peace made between its leaders, the
Frankish army set seriously about the capture of Tripoli. The Egyptian
governor, Sharaf ad-Daulah, had been desperately demanding help from the
authorities in Egypt, who equipped a huge fleet, with transports for an army
and boats laden with supplies. But intrigues and quarrels amongst the Egyptian
commanders had delayed its departure from the ports of the Delta. Months passed
by, while the vizier half-heartedly tried to compose the quarrels; and now at
last orders were given for it to sail. But the north wind blew steadily and the
ships could not leave harbour. When at last they set out reduced in number, it
was too late.

The garrison of Tripoli, cut off from help by
sea by the fleets of Genoa and Provence, and with their land-wall battered by all
the machines that the Frankish army could muster, soon abandoned all thought of
resistance. Sharaf ad-Daulah sent to King Baldwin offering to surrender on
terms. He asked that the citizens wishing to emigrate from the city should be
allowed to go in safety with their movable goods, and that those wishing to
remain should become Frankish subjects and should keep all their possessions,
merely paying a special yearly tax; he himself would be permitted to depart
with his troops to Damascus. Baldwin agreed; and on 12 July 1109 the Christians
entered Tripoli.

Baldwin himself kept to his agreement. In the
districts that he took over there was no pillage or destruction. But the
Genoese marines, finding the city undefended, forced their own way in. They
began to sack and to burn houses and to slay every Moslem that they met; and it
was some time before the authorities could restrain them. In the tumult the
great library of the Banu Ammar, the finest in the Moslem world, was burnt to
the ground, and all its contents perished.

When the city was fully occupied and order was
restored, Bertrand was installed as its ruler. He took the title of Count of
Tripoli and reaffirmed his vassaldom to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. His
obligations to the Emperor Alexius were ignored. The Genoese were rewarded by a
quarter in Tripoli, by a castle, known as the Castle of the Constable, ten
miles south of Tripoli, and the remaining two-thirds of the town of Jebail.
Jebail was given by them to the Admiral Hugh Embriaco, whose descendants formed
it into a hereditary fief.

Bertrand did not have long to wait before he
secured the whole of his father’s eastern inheritance. While the Frankish army
was still at Tripoli William-Jordan was shot by an arrow. The circumstances
remained a mystery. It seemed that he rashly intervened in a scuffle that had
broken out between two grooms, and as he tried to separate the men, someone
fired on him. Suspicion inevitably fell on Bertrand; but nothing could be
proved. Bertrand at once took over all William-Jordan’s lands; which thus
passed under the allegiance of King Baldwin. Tancred had backed the wrong
horse.

So it was that Raymond’s son fulfilled his
father’s ambition of founding a state in the East. It was a lesser principality
than Raymond had envisaged. The lands of La Chamelle were never to form part of
it; and instead of acknowledging the distant suzerainty of the Emperor at
Constantinople, it had an overlord close at hand at Jerusalem. But it was a
rich and prosperous heritage. By its wealth and by its position, linking the
Franks of northern Syria with the Franks of Palestine, it was to play a vital
part in the history of the Crusades.

CHAPTER V

KING BALDWIN I

‘His heart is as
firm as a stone
;
yea, as hard as a piece of the nether
millstone.’
JOB XLI, 24

King Baldwin’s intervention at Tripoli in 1109
revealed him as the chief potentate of the Frankish East. He had won his
position by patient and arduous industry and by boldness of enterprise. When he
arrived in Jerusalem, against the allied opposition of the Patriarch Daimbert
and the Prince of Antioch, it was to inherit an empty treasury and a scattered
dominion, made up of the central mountain-ridge of Palestine, the plain of
Esdraelon and a few outlying fortresses set in a hostile countryside, and a
tiny army of lawless, arrogant knights and untrustworthy native mercenaries.
The only organized body in the kingdom was the Church; and within the Church
there were two parties, Daimbert’s and Arnulf’s. Godfrey’s central
administration had been conducted by his household, which was small and
ill-suited to govern a country. The barons to whom border castles had been
entrusted were left to rule their territories as they pleased.

Baldwin saw that the most pressing danger was
of a Moslem attack before his state could be set in order. Believing that the
best defence is to take the offensive, he started out, before he had even
settled the urgent question of his relations with Daimbert or had himself
assumed the crown, on a campaign to awe the infidel. His exploits at Edessa and
his victory at the Dog River had given him a terrible reputation, from which he
sought to profit. Barely a week after his arrival at Jerusalem he marched down
to Ascalon and made a demonstration in front of its walls. But the fortress was
too strong for his little army to attack; so he moved eastward to Hebron and
thence down into the Negeb to Segor, in the salt land at the southern tip of
the Dead Sea, burning villages as he went, and on through the wilderness of
Edom to Mount Hor, and its ancient monastery of St Aaron, by Petra. Though he
made no permanent settlements in the region, his progress cowed the Arabs. For
the next few years they refrained from infiltrating into his territory.

He returned to Jerusalem a few days before
Christmas. The Patriarch Daimbert had had time to reflect on his situation. He
bowed to the inevitable; and on Christmas Day, 1100, he crowned Baldwin King of
Jerusalem. In return, he was confirmed in the Patriarchate.

In the early spring of 1101 Baldwin heard that
a rich Arab tribe was passing through Transjordan. At once he led a detachment
across the river and fell by night on its encampment. Only a few of the Arabs
escaped. The majority of men were slain in their tents, and the women and
children were carried off into captivity, together with a great hoard of money
and precious stuffs. Amongst the captives was the wife of one of the sheikhs of
the tribe. She was on the point of bearing a child; and when Baldwin learnt of
her condition, he gave orders that she should be released with her
maid-servant, two female camels and a good supply of food and drink. She gave
birth successfully by the wayside, where her husband soon found her. Deeply
moved by Baldwin’s courtesy he hurried after him to thank him and to promise that
some day he would repay him for his kindness.

News of the raid added to Baldwin’s fame. In
March embassies came to Jerusalem from the coastal cities, Arsuf, Caesarea,
Acre and Tyre, bearing valuable gifts; while Duqaq of Damascus sent to offer
the sum of fifty thousand gold besants for the ransom of the captives that
Baldwin had made at the battle of the Dog River. Baldwin’s most pressing
financial problem was thereby solved.

1101: Capture of
Arsuf and Caesarea

Their tribute did not long benefit Arsuf or
Caesarea. In March a Genoese squadron was sighted off Haifa, and on 15 April it
put in at Jaffa. Amongst the passengers was Maurice, Cardinal-Bishop of Porto,
sent out as Legate by Pope Paschal. Hitherto Baldwin had been dependent for
sea-power on the small Pisan fleet that had accompanied the Pisan archbishop,
his enemy Daimbert, to the East. An alliance with the Genoese, chief rivals of
the Pisans, suited him better. He hurried down to Haifa to greet them and to
receive the Legate, and took their leaders with them to spend Easter at
Jerusalem. There they made an agreement to serve him for a season. Their
payment was to be one-third of all the booty that might be captured, of goods
as well as of money, and a street in the bazaar quarter of every conquered
town. As soon as the pact was signed, the allies moved against Arsuf, Baldwin
by land and the Genoese by sea. Resistance soon broke down. The authorities of
the town offered to capitulate on condition that the inhabitants might emigrate
safely with their families and their possessions to Moslem territory. Baldwin
accepted their terms. They were escorted by his troops to Ascalon. Baldwin then
garrisoned the town, after assigning their share to the Genoese.

From Arsuf the allies went to Caesarea, whose
siege began on 2 May. The garrison, relying on its old Byzantine walls, refused
to surrender; but on 17 May it was taken by assault. The victorious soldiers
were given permission to pillage the city as they pleased; and the horrors of
the sack shocked even their own leaders. The cruellest massacre took place in
the Great Mosque, which once had been the synagogue of Herod Agrippa. Many of
the citizens had taken refuge there and begged for mercy. But they were
butchered, men and women alike, till the floor was a lake of blood. In all the
city only a few girls and young infants were spared, and the chief magistrate
and the commander of the garrison, whom Baldwin himself saved in order to
obtain good ransom-money. The ferocity was deliberate. Baldwin wished to show
that he would keep his word to all that came to terms with him. Otherwise he
would be pitiless.

Baldwin had only time to divide the booty
according to his pact and to install a Frankish garrison before the news came
to him that an Egyptian army had entered Palestine.