The First Crusade (34 page)

Fantastical as Peter's tale may sound today, saintly visions and empowered relics were firmly established elements in the Christian cosmology of the eleventh century. Western European society had been conditioned to believe that saints - the sanctified dead - could act as intercessors in heaven for ordinary Christians living on earth, petitioning God for aid on their behalf and appearing through visions and miracles to manifest his divine will on earth. The physical remnants of these venerated Christians' lives - including parts of their body and objects that they had touched - were deeply revered. These relics were tangible foci of sanctity, mobile powerhouses of spiritual authority and intervention. Where a relic went, so the presence of the saint followed and thus, also, the power of God. Of all the relics in the Christian world, an item from Christ's own life was considered to be the most precious and powerful, so the potential significance of the Holy Lance was immeasurable. We should not for one minute imagine that belief in the efficacy and reality of this seemingly eccentric ideological framework was limited to the credulous poor. Kings, counts, popes and bishops venerated saints and their relics. Bishop Adhemar brought a small piece of wood, which he believed had been part of the cross upon which Christ was crucified, with him on crusade; Raymond of Toulouse carried a chalice that had belonged to St Robert of Chaise-Dieu, a celebrated holy man and founder of a Benedictine monastery. The crusaders had also been picking up new relics throughout their journey. A priest in Robert of Flanders' contingent actually stole an arm of St George from a Byzantine monastery. When he died the relic eventually found its way into the possession of Robert himself, who then became so devoted to the saint that he began styling himself'the son of St George'.
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Peter Bartholomew's revelations about the location of the Holy Lance came at a time when spiritual fervour was near boiling point-as one eyewitness remarked in mid-June, 'now reported revelations of our comrades became rife' - but at first his story met with a rather mixed reception. Even Raymond of Aguilers, chaplain to the count of Toulouse, and the firmest advocate of the Lance's authenticity and power among the eyewitness crusader writers, admitted that at the end of their interview 'The Bishop [Adhemar] considered the story fraudulent, but the count immediately believed it and placed Peter Bartholomew in the custody of his chaplain, Raymond [of Aguilers].'
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In many ways, Bishop Adhemar's scepticism was quite understandable. The Latin Church and its clergy certainly accepted that saints might appear in visions and manifest miracles through their relics, but they were also keen to validate the authenticity of such stories very carefully. Such proof was, of course, not easy to come by. Often the decision to accept or condemn was made on the basis of the visionary's social status and his willingness to swear a sacred oath in support of his story. On this basis, Peter - a poor servant in the employ of the Provencal knight William Peyre of Cunhlat -
started off at a disadvantage in comparison, for example, to the priest Stephen of Valence, although one source does record that, like the latter, Teter came forward and swore
the whole story was quite true.
The real problem, as Adhemar must have known, was that a Holy Lance was already sitting in the relic collection of the Byzantine emperor in Constantinople. According to Greek tradition, the Lance had been discovered in Jerusalem by St Helena in the early fourth century, and then brought to Constantinople some 400 years later. Naturally, therefore, Adhemar greeted Peter's tale with caution.
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Even so, by the time Kerbogha began redeploying his forces to encircle Antioch on 14 June, Raymond of Toulouse had decided that a search for the Lance must be made. Raymond of Aguilers, who played an intimate part in these events, wrote a feverishly detailed account of what took place:

On [14 June] twelve men and Peter Bartholomew collected the appropriate tools and began to dig in the church of the Blessed Peter, following the expulsion of all other Christians. The bishop of Orange, Raymond of Aguilers, author of this work, Raymond of [Toulouse], Pons of Balazun, and Farald of Thouars were among the twelve. We had been digging until evening when some gave up hope of unearthing the Lance. In the meantime, after the count had gone to guard the citadel, we persuaded fresh workers to replace the weary diggers and for a time they dug furiously.

But the youthful Peter Bartholomew, seeing the exhaustion of our workers, stripped his outer garments and, clad only in a shirt and barefooted, dropped into the hole. He then begged us to pray to God to return His Lance to the crusaders so as to bring strength and victory to His people. Finally, in His mercy, the lord showed us his Lance and I, Raymond, the author of this book, kissed the point of the Lance as it barely protruded from the ground. What great joy and exultation then filled the city.
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In physical terms, the relic 'discovered' by Peter was probably little more than a small shard of metal, but, initially, most First Crusaders wholeheartedly accepted its authenticity. Adhemar may have continued to harbour some doubts, but among the majority of .the princes and throughout the massed ranks of the army the Lance enjoyed a rapturous reception. One Latin eyewitness recalled that 'across all the city there was boundless rejoicing, while another Frankish chronicler remarked that a 'great euphoria seized the city' as the native Greek, Armenian and Syrian population of Antioch rushed to join the celebrations. The discovery of such an extraordinarily powerful relic, coming at the very moment at which the crusade had seemed to face certain annihilation, was interpreted by many as an irrefutable indication of God's renewed support for the expedition.

Traditionally, modern historians have drawn a clear, almost unwavering, connection between the Lance's discovery and the events that followed, arguing that, from the edge of defeat, the crusaders were galvanised into action by the Lance's electrifying impact. With morale rejuvenated, they elected to pursue a bold, aggressive and extremely dangerous strategy - to break out of the city and confront Kerbogha's army head on. Hans Eberhard Mayer, one of the greatest living authorities on the crusading movement, has written: 'The immediate effects of the discovery were enormous. The army's morale was raised and all were united in the urgent determination to break the blockade and destroy Kerbogha.'
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This approach does have a solid basis in evidence - in short, we believe that the crusaders were directly inspired to act by the Holy Lance because that is precisely what they tell us. Later that year, on 11 September 1098, the crusader princes declared in a letter to the pope: We were so comforted and strengthened by [the Lance's] discovery and by so many other divine revelations that some of us who had been discouraged and fearful beforehand, then became courageous and resolute to fight, and encouraged each other
.
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The
Gesta Francorum,
written by an anonymous southern Italian Norman crusader, has done even more to shape our opinion. Widely circulated and often copied in the Middle Ages, this eyewitness account has come to exert an almost inescapable influence over our own modern reading of the First Crusade. Crucially, the anonymous author of this text, having just described the unearthing of the Holy Lance, recorded that 'from that hour we decided on a plan of attack, and all our leaders forthwith held a council'.
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From these words, one is almost left imagining the crusaders - their zealous blood boiling with battle hunger - sprinting from the Basilica of St Peter, straight out of the city gates and into combat. But this impassioned image is deeply misleading. The Holy Lance was discovered on 14 June 1098, yet the crusaders did not go into battle until 28 June. Two whole weeks separate these events.

Precise evidence for the period is lacking, but a reconstruction of this shadowy hiatus can be attempted. The crusaders would have been in no mood to hang around because food was, day by day, becoming scarcer in the city and many Franks were beginning to starve. It also seems unlikely that the crusaders would have needed two weeks to prepare for battle, given that they had, back in February of that same year, defeated Ridwan of Aleppo with just a few days' notice. Peter Bartholomew did issue a series of proclamations after having received a new visitation from St Andrew and Christ during the night of 15/16 June. These included the recommendation that all crusaders 'turn from sin to God and offer five alms because of the five wounds of the Lord'. Raymond of Toulouse, who organised the collection of these donations, amassed quite a fortune as a result. The Franks were also instructed to celebrate the discovery of the Lance on 21 June, although we have no idea how widely this was observed. Even so, no particular or dramatic event prevented the crusaders from going to battle.
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We can then explain the delay of two weeks that followed 14 June only by accepting that, while the discovery of the Holy Lance certainly bolstered Frankish morale, it was not enough to convince them to go immediately into battle against such terrible odds. This would mean that the unearthing of the relic was not the key turning point in the second siege of Antioch, much less a watershed in the fortunes of the entire crusade. To understand when and why the Franks decided to risk battle on 28 June we must consider other factors.

The crusaders had, since late 1097, been expecting Byzantine reinforcements to arrive at Antioch, possibly under the command of the Greek emperor himself, Alexius I Comnenus. For their part, the Byzantines had been busy trying to exploit the damage done by the crusaders to Seljuq power in Asia Minor. In the early spring of 1098 Alexius sent a fleet, under the command of his brotiier-in-law John Doukas, into the Mediterranean to mop up pockets of Turkish resistance along the west coast at Smyrna and the city of Ephesus, once a grand Roman metropolis. John then made a break inland, overrunning the famous spring-town of Hierapolis, before making camp at Philomelium. By early June, Alexius had marched an army from Constantinople to rendezvous with John. This two-pronged sweep brought much of the south-west quarter of Asia Minor back under Byzantine control.

According to his daughter and biographer Anna Comnena, Alexius was then at last ready to march on Antioch to be reunited with the Franks. But this was not to be. Around 20 June a rather forlorn group of travellers arrived out of the east at Philomelium. After deserting his comrades at Antioch on 11 June and taking ship from St Simeon, William of Grandmesnil landed at Alexandretta. There he found another deserter, Stephen of Blois, who, on the basis of William's story and his own surveillance of Kerbogha's army, decided that the time was ripe for quitting the perils of northern Syria. Together they set sail for Tarsus, and from there continued their journey overland, only to come across Alexius at Philomelium. Not surprisingly, they painted a grim picture of events at Antioch, apparendy telling the emperor that 'the Franks had been reduced to a position of the utmost danger; in fact, they swore on oath that the collapse was complete'. The Latin sources that recounted this meeting imagined Count Stephen making even more dire predictions: 'I tell you truly that Antioch has been taken, but the citadel has not fallen, and our men are all closely besieged, and I expect by this time they have been killed by the Turks. Go back, therefore, as fast as you can, in case they find you and your followers
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In truth, Alexius may never have planned to make an immediate move to Antioch - from his perspective it made more sense to hold his ground in Anatolia and advance to claim Antioch only once the crusaders had done the hard work of securing its downfall - but now he faced a clear choice. Naturally, his absolute priority was the safety of Constantinople and the empire. If the crusaders had already been overrun then he could do little for them. If he set off for Antioch only for the city to fall while he was en route his army might well be caught by a resurgent wave of Turkish aggression and obliterated. With the First Crusade on the brink of collapse, the risks involved in making a headlong rescue attempt were simply too great. Despite voluble protestations from a group of Latin mercenaries within his army - among them Bohemond's own brother, Guy - the emperor made his choice. An immediate evacuation of the entire area was ordered, and a scorched-earth policy set in motion, so that any advancing Muslim force would be unable to forage for food. With the fields of Anatolia aflame, Byzantium turned its back on the crusaders.
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We cannot be certain that news of Alexius' decision reached the Franks in Antioch before 28 June. Albert of Aachen believed that it did, writing that 'the terrible news of the emperor turning back and his army dispersing sped across the ramparts of Antioch and afflicted the pilgrims' hearts with great grief and shook much of the boldness from their spirits'. But Albert was not an eyewitness and his chronology could well be at fault. A messenger would literally have had to sprint back to northern Syria for it to be possible. Even so, as the days of June slipped by and Kerbogha's iron grip around Antioch tightened, the Franks must have begun to give up hope of reinforcement.
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If this reading of events is correct, then by the fourth week in June the crusaders were in desperate straits - weak with starvation, surrounded by enemies and abandoned by their allies. It is in this context that we must examine the strange and seemingly incongruous events of 24 June. On around that date, the crusader princes sent two envoys into the midst of Kerbogha's camp. They chose as ambassadors Peter the Hermit, disgraced deserter and demagogue to the masses, and an interpreter named Herluin. At least three eyewitnesses, actually in Antioch at the time, recorded that Peter carried a bold message of extraordinary defiance. Even though it was they, the Franks, who were trapped, seemingly powerless, within Antioch, Peter reportedly confronted Kerbogha with an ultimatum, saying, 'Our leaders, as one man, require you to take yourselves off quickly from the land which belongs to God and the Christians, for the Blessed Peter converted it long ago to the faith of Christ by his preaching. But they give you permission to take away all your goods.
..
whithersoever you may choose
.
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