A History of the Crusades-Vol 2 (19 page)

CHAPTER I

KING BALDWIN II

‘
There shall
not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.’
I KINGS IX, 5

Baldwin I had neglected his final duty as King;
he made no arrangement for the succession to the throne. The council of the
kingdom hastily met. To some of the nobles it seemed unthinkable that the crown
should pass from the house of Boulogne. Baldwin I had succeeded his brother
Godfrey; and there was still a third brother, the eldest, Eustace, Count of
Boulogne. Messengers were hastily dispatched over the sea to inform the Count
of his brother’s death and to beg him to take up the heritage. Eustace had no
wish to leave his pleasant country for the hazards of the East; but they told
him that it was his duty. He set out towards Jerusalem. But when he reached
Apulia he met other messengers, with the news that it was too late. The
succession had passed elsewhere. He refused the suggestion that he should
continue on his way and fight for his rights. Not unwillingly, he retraced his
steps to Boulogne.

Indeed, few of the council had favoured his
succession. He was far away; it would mean an interregnum of many months. The
most influential member of the council was the Prince of Galilee, Joscelin of
Courtenay; and he demanded that the throne be given to Baldwin of Le Bourg,
Count of Edessa. He himself had no cause to love Baldwin, as he carefully
reminded the council; for Baldwin had falsely accused him of treachery and had
exiled him from his lands in the north. But Baldwin was a man of proved ability
and courage; he was the late King’s cousin; and he was the sole survivor of the
great knights of the First Crusade. Moreover, Joscelin calculated that if
Baldwin left Edessa for Jerusalem the least that he could do to reward the
cousin who had requited his unkindness so generously was to entrust him with
Edessa. The Patriarch Arnulf supported Joscelin and together they persuaded the
council. As if to clinch their argument, on the very day of the King’s funeral,
Baldwin of Le Bourg appeared unexpectedly in Jerusalem. He had heard, maybe, of
the King’s illness of the previous year and thought it therefore opportune to
pay an Easter pilgrimage to the Holy Places. He was received with gladness and
unanimously elected king by the Council. On Easter Sunday, 14 April 1118, the
Patriarch Arnulf placed the crown on his head.

Baldwin II differed greatly as a man from his
predecessor. Though handsome enough, with a long fair beard, he lacked the
tremendous presence of Baldwin I. He was more approachable, genial and fond of
a simple joke, but at the same time subtle and cunning, less open, less rash,
more self-controlled. He was capable of large gestures but in general somewhat
mean and ungenerous. Despite a high-handed attitude to ecclesiastical affairs,
he was genuinely pious; his knees were callous from constant prayer. Unlike
Baldwin I’s, his private life was irreproachable. With his wife, the Armenian
Morphia, he presented a spectacle, rare in the Frankish East, of perfect
conjugal bliss.

Joscelin was duly rewarded with the county of
Edessa, to hold it as vassal to King Baldwin, just as Baldwin himself had held
it under Baldwin I. The new King was also recognized as overlord by Roger of
Antioch, his brother-in-law, and by Pons of Tripoli. The Frankish East was to
remain united under the crown of Jerusalem. A fortnight after Baldwin’s
coronation the Patriarch Arnulf died. He had been a loyal and efficient servant
of the state; but, in spite of his prowess as a preacher, he had been involved
in too many scandals to be respected as an ecclesiastic. It is doubtful if
Baldwin much regretted his death. In his place he secured the election of a
Picard priest, Gormond of Picquigny, of whose previous history nothing is
known. It was a happy choice; for Gormond combined Arnulf’s practical qualities
with a saintly nature and was universally revered. This appointment, following
on the recent death of Pope Paschal, restored good relations between Jerusalem
and Rome.

Map 2. Southern
Syria in the twelfth century.

King Baldwin had barely established himself on
the throne before he heard the ominous news of an alliance between Egypt and
Damascus. The Fatimid vizier, al-Afdal, was anxious to punish Baldwin I’s
insolent invasion of Egypt; while Toghtekin of Damascus was alarmed by the
growing power of the Franks. Baldwin hastily sent him an embassy; but confident
of Egyptian help Toghtekin demanded the cession of all Frankish lands beyond
Jordan. In the course of the summer a great Egyptian army assembled on the
frontier and took up its position outside Ashdod; and Toghtekin was invited to
take command of it. Baldwin summoned the militia of Antioch and Tripoli to
reinforce the troops of Jerusalem, and marched down to meet them. For three
months the armies faced each other, neither side daring to move; for everyone,
in Fulcher of Chartres’s words, liked better to live than to die. At last the
soldiers on either side dispersed to their homes.

1119: Raids in
Transjordan

Meanwhile,
Joscelin’s departure for Edessa was delayed. He was more urgently needed in
Galilee than in the northern county, where, it seems, Queen Morphia remained,
and where Waleran, Lord of Birejik, carried on the government. As Prince of
Galilee it was for Joscelin to defend the land against attacks from Damascus.
In the autumn Baldwin joined him in a raid on Deraa in the Hauran, the granary
of Damascus. Toghtekin’s son Buri went out to meet them and owing to his
rashness was severely defeated. After this check Toghtekin turned his attention
again to the north.

In the spring of 1119 Joscelin heard that a
rich Bedouin tribe was pasturing its flocks in Transjordan, by the Yarmuk. He
set out with two leading Galilean barons, the brothers Godfrey and William of
Bures, and about a hundred and twenty horsemen, to plunder it. The party
divided to encircle the tribesmen. But things went wrong. The Bedouin chief was
warned and Joscelin lost his way in the hills. Godfrey and William, riding up
to attack the camp, were ambushed. Godfrey was killed, and most of his
followers taken prisoner. Joscelin returned unhappily to Tiberias and sent to
tell King Baldwin; who came up in force and frightened the Bedouin into
returning the prisoners and paying an indemnity. They were then allowed to
spend the summer in peace.

When Baldwin was pausing at Tiberias on his
return from this short campaign, messengers came to him from Antioch, begging him
to hasten with his army northward, as fast as he could travel.

Ever since Roger of Antioch’s victory at
Tel-Danith, the unfortunate city of Aleppo had been powerless to prevent
Frankish aggression. It had reluctantly placed itself beneath the protection of
Ilghazi the Ortoqid; but Roger’s capture of Biza’a in 1119 left it surrounded
on three sides. The loss of Biza’a was more than Ilghazi could endure. Hitherto
neither he nor his constant ally, Toghtekin of Damascus, had been prepared to
risk their whole strength in a combat against the Franks; for they feared and
disliked still more the Seldjuk Sultans of the East. But the Sultan Mohammed
had died in April 1118; and his death had let loose the ambition of every
governor and princeling throughout his empire. His youthful son and successor,
Mahmud, tried pathetically to assert his authority, but eventually, in August
1119, he was obliged to hand over the supreme power to his uncle Sanjar, the
King of Khorassan, and spent the rest of his short life in the pleasures of the
chase. Sanjar, the last of his house to rule over the whole eastern Seldjuk
dominion, was vigorous enough; but his interests were in the East. He never
concerned himself with Syria. Nor were his cousins of the Sultanate of Rum,
distracted with quarrels amongst themselves and with the Danishmends and by
wars with Byzantium, better able to intervene in Syrian affairs.
Ilghazi,
the most tenacious of the local princes, at last had his opportunity. His wish
was not so much to destroy the Frankish states as to secure Aleppo for himself,
but the latter aim now involved the former.

During the spring of 1119 Ilghazi journeyed
round his dominions collecting his Turcoman troops and arranging for
contingents to come from the Kurds to the north and from the Arab tribes of the
Syrian desert. As a matter of form he applied for assistance from the Sultan
Mahmud, but received no answer. His ally, Toghtekin, agreed to come up from
Damascus; and the Munqidhites of Shaizar promised to make a diversion to the
south of Roger’s territory. At the end of May, the Ortoqid army, said to be
forty thousand strong, was on the march. Roger received the news calmly; but
the Patriarch Bernard urged him to appeal for help to King Baldwin and to Pons
of Tripoli. From Tiberias Baldwin sent to say that he would come as quickly as
possible and would bring the troops of Tripoli with him. In the meantime Roger
should wait on the defensive. Baldwin then collected the army of Jerusalem, and
fortified it with a portion of the True Cross, in the care of Evremar,
Archbishop of Caesarea.

1119: The Field
of Blood

While the Munqidhites made a raid on Apamea,
Ilghazi sent Turcoman detachments south-west, to effect a junction with them
and with the army coming up from Damascus. He himself with his main army raided
the territory of Edessa but made no attempt against its fortress-capital. In
mid-June he crossed the Euphrates at Balis and moved on to encamp himself at
Qinnasrin, some fifteen miles south of Aleppo, to await Toghtekin. Roger was
less patient. In spite of King Baldwin’s message, in spite of the solemn
warning of the Patriarch Bernard and in spite of all the previous experience of
the Frankish princes, he decided to meet the enemy at once. On 20 June he led
the whole army of Antioch, seven hundred horsemen and four thousand
infantrymen, across the Iron Bridge, and encamped himself in front of the
little fort of Tel-Aqibrin, at the eastern edge of the plain of Sarmeda, where
the broken country afforded a good natural defence. Though his forces were far
inferior to the enemy’s, he hoped that he could wait here till Baldwin arrived.

Ilghazi, at Qinnasrin, was perfectly informed
of Roger’s movements. Spies disguised as merchants had inspected the Frankish
camp and reported the numerical weakness of the Frankish army. Though Ilghazi
wished to wait for Toghtekin’s arrival, his Turcoman emirs urged him to take
action. On 27 June part of his army moved to attack the Frankish castle of
Athareb. Roger had time to rush some of his men there, under Robert of
Vieux-Ponts; then, disquieted to find the enemy so close, when darkness fell he
sent away all the treasure of the army to the castle of Artah on the road to
Antioch.

Throughout the
night Roger waited anxiously for news of the Moslems’ movements, while his
soldiers’ rest was broken by a somnambulist who ran through the camp crying that
disaster was upon them. At dawn on Saturday, 28 June, scouts brought word to
the Prince that the camp was surrounded. A dry enervating
khamsin
was
blowing up from the south. In the camp itself there was little food and water.
Roger saw that he must break through the enemy ranks or perish. The Archbishop
of Apamea was with the army, Peter, formerly of Albara, the first Frankish
bishop in the East. He summoned the soldiers together and preached to them and
confessed them all. He confessed Roger in his tent and gave him absolution for
his many sins of the flesh. Roger then boldly announced that he would go
hunting. But first he sent out another scouting-party which was ambushed. The
few survivors hurried back to say that there was no way through the encirclement.
Roger drew up the army in four divisions and one in reserve. Thereupon the
Archbishop blessed them once more; and they charged in perfect order into the
enemy.

It was hopeless from the outset. There was no
escape through the hordes of Turcoman horsemen and archers. The locally
recruited infantrymen, Syrians and Armenians, were the first to panic; but
there was no place to which they could flee. They crowded in amongst the
cavalry, hindering the horses. The wind suddenly turned to the north and rose,
driving a cloud of dust into the Franks’ faces. Early in the battle less than a
hundred horsemen broke through and joined up with Robert of Vieux-Ponts, who
had arrived back from Athareb too late to take part. They fled on to Antioch. A
little later Reynald Mazoir and a few knights escaped and reached the little
town of Sarmeda, in the plain. No one else in the army of Antioch survived.
Roger himself fell fighting at the foot of his great jewelled cross. Round him
fell his knights except for a few, less fortunate, who were made prisoners. By
midday it was all over. To the Franks the battle was known as the
Ager
Sanguinis
, the Field of Blood.

1119: Ilghazi
wastes his Victory

At Aleppo, fifteen miles away, the faithful
waited eagerly for news. About noon a rumour came that a great victory was in
store for Islam; and at the hour of the afternoon prayer the first exultant
soldiers were seen to approach. Ilghazi had only paused on the battlefield to
allot the booty to his men, then marched to Sarmeda, where Reynald Mazoir
surrendered to him. Reynald’s proud bearing impressed Ilghazi, who spared his
life. His comrades were slain. The Frankish prisoners were dragged in chains across
the plain behind their victors. While Ilghazi parleyed with Reynald, they were
tortured and massacred amongst the vineyards by the Turcomans, till Ilghazi put
a stop to it, not wishing the populace of Aleppo to miss all the sport. The
remainder were taken on to Aleppo, where Ilghazi made his triumphant entry at
sundown; and there they were tortured to death in the streets.

While Ilghazi feasted at Aleppo in celebration
of his victory, the terrible news of the battle reached Antioch. All expected
that the Turcomans would come up at once to attack the city; and there were no
soldiers to defend it. In the crisis the Patriarch Bernard took command. His
first fear was of treason from the native Christians, whom his own actions had
done so much to alienate. He at once sent round to disarm them and impose a
curfew on them. Then he distributed the arms that he could collect among the
Frankish clergy and merchants and set them to watch the walls. Day and night
they kept vigil, while a messenger was sent to urge King Baldwin to hurry
faster.

But Ilghazi did not follow up his victory. He
wrote round to the monarchs of the Moslem world to tell them of his triumph;
and the Caliph in return sent him a robe of honour and the title of Star of
Religion. Meanwhile he marched on Artah. The Bishop who was in command of one
of the towers surrendered it in return for a safe-conduct to Antioch; but a
certain Joseph, probably an Armenian, who was in charge of the citadel, where
Roger’s treasure was housed, persuaded Ilghazi that he himself sympathized with
the Moslems, but his son was a hostage at Antioch. Ilghazi was impressed by the
story, and left Artah in Joseph’s hands, merely sending one of his emirs to
reside as his representative in the town. From Artesia he returned to Aleppo,
where he settled down to so pleasant a series of festivities that his health
began to suffer. Turcoman troops were sent to raid the suburbs of Antioch and
sack the port of Saint Symeon, but reported that the city itself was well
garrisoned. The fruits of the Field of Blood were thus thrown away by the
Moslems.

1119: Drawn
Battle at Hab

Nevertheless the position was serious for the
Franks. Baldwin had reached Lattakieh, with Pons close behind him, before he
heard the news. He hurried on, not stopping even to attack an undefended
Turcoman encampment near to the road, and arrived without incident at Antioch
in the first days of August. Ilghazi sent some of his troops to intercept the
relieving army; and Pons, following a day’s march behind, had to ward off their
attack but was not much delayed. The King was received with joy by his sister,
the widowed Princess Cecilia, by the Patriarch and by all the people; and a
service giving thanks to God was held in St Peter’s Cathedral. He first cleared
the suburbs of marauders, then met the notables of the city to discuss its
future government. The lawful prince, Bohemond II, whose ultimate rights Roger
had always acknowledged, was a boy of ten, living with his mother in Italy.
There was no representative of the Norman house left in the East; and the
Norman knights had all perished on the Field of Blood. It was decided that
Baldwin, as overlord of the Frankish East, should himself take over the
government of Antioch till Bohemond came of age, and that Bohemond should then
be married to one of the King’s daughters. Next, Baldwin redistributed the
fiefs of the principality, left empty by the disaster. Wherever it was
possible, the widows of the fallen lords were married off at once to suitable
knights in Baldwin’s army or to newcomers from the West. We find the two
Dowager Princesses, Tancred’s widow, now Countess of Tripoli, and Roger’s
widow, installing new vassals on their dower-lands. At the same time Baldwin
probably rearranged the fiefs of the county of Edessa; and Joscelin, who
followed the King up from Palestine, was formally established as its Count.
Having assured the administration of the land, and having headed a barefoot
procession to the cathedral, Baldwin led his army of about seven hundred
horsemen and some thousand infantrymen out against the Moslems.

Ilghazi had now been joined by Toghtekin; and
the two Moslem chieftains set out on 11 August to capture the Frankish
fortresses east of the Orontes, beginning with Athareb, whose small garrison at
once surrendered in return for a safe-conduct to Antioch. The emirs next day
went on to Zerdana, whose lord, Robert the Leper, had gone to Antioch. Here
again the garrison surrendered in return for their lives; but they were
massacred by the Turcomans as soon as they emerged from the gates. Baldwin had
hoped to save Athareb; but he had hardly crossed the Iron Bridge before he met
its former garrison. He went on south, and heard of the siege of Zerdana.
Suspecting that the Moslems intended to move southward to mop up the castles
round Maarat an-Numan and Apamea, he hurried ahead and encamped on the 13th at
Tel-Danith, the scene of Roger’s victory in 1115. Early next morning he learnt
that Zerdana had fallen and judged it prudent to retire a little towards
Antioch. Meanwhile Ilghazi had come up, hoping to surprise the Franks as they
slept by the village of Hab. But Baldwin was ready. He had already confessed
himself; the Archbishop of Caesarea had harangued the troops and held up the
True Cross to bless them; and the army was ready for action.

The battle that followed was confused. Both
sides claimed a victory; but in fact the Franks came off the best. Toghtekin
drove back Pons of Tripoli, on the Frankish right wing; but the Tripolitans
kept their ranks. Next to him Robert the Leper charged through the regiment
from Homs and eagerly planned to recapture Zerdana, only to fall into an ambush
and be taken captive. But the Frankish centre and left held their ground, and
at the crucial moment Baldwin was able to charge the enemy with troops that
were still fresh. Numbers of the Turcomans turned and fled; but the bulk of
Ilghazi’s army left the battlefield in good order. Ilghazi and Toghtekin
retired towards Aleppo with a large train of prisoners, and were able to tell
the Moslem world that theirs was the victory. Once again the citizens of Aleppo
were gratified by the sight of a wholesale massacre of Christians, till
Ilghazi, after interrupting the killing to try out a new horse, grew disquieted
at the loss of so much potential ransom-money. Robert the Leper was asked his
price and replied that it was ten thousand pieces of gold. Ilghazi hoped to
raise the price by sending Robert to Toghtekin. But Toghtekin had not yet
satisfied his blood-lust. Though Robert was an old friend of his from the days
of 1115, he himself struck off his head, to the dismay of Ilghazi, who needed
money for his soldiers’ pay.

1119: Failure of
the Ortoqid Campaign

At Antioch soldiers fleeing from Pons’s army
had brought news of a defeat; but soon a messenger arrived for the Princess
Cecilia bearing the King’s ring as token of his success. Baldwin himself did
not attempt to pursue the Moslem army but moved on south to Maarat an-Numan and
to Rusa, which the Munqidhites of Shaizar had occupied. He drove them out but
then made a treaty with them, releasing them from the obligation to pay yearly
dues that Roger had demanded. The remaining forts that the Moslems had
captured, with the exception of Birejik, Athareb and Zerdana, were also
recovered. Then Baldwin returned to Antioch in triumph, and sent the Holy Cross
southward to arrive at Jerusalem in time for the Feast of the Exaltation, on 14
September. He himself spent the autumn in Antioch, completing the arrangements
that he had begun before the recent battle. In December he journeyed back to
Jerusalem, leaving the Patriarch Bernard to administer Antioch in his name, and
installing Joscelin in Edessa.
He brought south with him from Edessa
his wife and their little daughters; and at the Christmas ceremony at Bethlehem
Morphia was crowned queen.

Ilghazi had not ventured to attack the Franks
again. His army was melting away. The Turcoman troops had come mainly for the
sake of plunder. After the battle of Tel-Danith they were left idle and bored
and their pay was in arrears. They began to go home, and with them the Arab
chieftains of the Jezireh. Ilghazi could not prevent them; for he himself had
fallen ill once more and for a fortnight he hung between life and death. When
he recovered it was too late to reassemble his army. He returned from Aleppo to
his eastern capital at Mardin, and Toghtekin returned to Damascus.

Thus the great Ortoqid campaign fizzled out. It
had achieved nothing material for the Moslems, except for a few frontier-forts
and the easing of Frankish pressure on Aleppo. But it had been a great moral
triumph for Islam. The check at Tel-Danith had not counterbalanced the
tremendous victory of the Field of Blood. Had Ilghazi been abler and more
alert, Antioch might have been his. As it was, the slaughter of the Norman
chivalry, their Prince at their head, encouraged the emirs of the Jezireh and
northern Mesopotamia to renew the attack, now that they were free from the
tutelage of their nominal Seldjuk overlord in Persia. And soon a greater man
than Ilghazi was to arise. For the Franks the worst result of the campaign had
been the appalling loss of man-power. The knights and, still more, the
infantrymen fallen on the Field of Blood could not easily be replaced. But the
lesson had now been thoroughly learnt that the Franks of the East must always
co-operate and work as a unit. King Baldwin’s prompt intervention had saved
Antioch; and the needs of the time were recognized by the readiness of all the
Franks to accept him as an active overlord. The disaster welded together the
Frankish establishments in Syria.

On his return to Jerusalem Baldwin busied
himself over the administration of his own kingdom. The succession to the
principality of Galilee was given to William of Bures, in whose family it
remained. In January 1120 the King summoned the ecclesiastics and
tenants-in-chief of the kingdom to a council at Nablus to discuss the moral
welfare of his subjects, probably in an attempt to curb the tendency of the
Latin colonists in the East to adopt the easy and indolent habits that they
found there. At the same time he was concerned with their material welfare.
Under Baldwin I an increasing number of Latins had been encouraged to settle in
Jerusalem, and a Latin bourgeois class was growing up there by the side of the warriors
and clerics of the kingdom. These Latin bourgeois were now given complete
freedom of trade to and from the city, while, to ensure a full supply of food,
the native Christians and even Arab merchants were allowed to bring vegetables
and corn to the city free of customs-dues.