The First Crusade (48 page)

THE RULE OF JERUSALEM

On 17 July, with the smell of blood still thick in their nostrils, the crusader princes met in council to discuss the fate of their hard-won prize. In the weeks and months leading up to the sack of Jerusalem the Latin expedition had been almost ripped apart by a fractious leadership struggle. The right to rule the Holy City now became the focus of this friction. Raymond of Toulouse, once the crusade's prospective leader, had lost so much support because of the debacle at Arqa and his continued patronage of the widely discredited Holy Lance that he was now eclipsed by Godfrey of Bouillon. Having played an instrumental role in the capture of Jerusalem, Godfrey could in some sense claim right of conquest. But the clergy continued to resist the idea that this most sacred of cities might be ruled by a secular king. Yet, in the absence of the late Greek patriarch Simeon, only recently deceased, the Church had no obvious candidate to promote. On 22 July a compromise was reached: Godfrey was elected ruler, but rather than styling himself as outright king, he adopted the less assertive title of 'Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre', implying a position of protector, subordinate to the Church.
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Outmanoeuvred, Raymond of Toulouse was enraged. When Godfrey invited him to vacate the Tower of David he stubbornly refused, saying that he planned to stay in residence at least until Easter. The lessons learned at Antioch a year earlier had taught him that possession of such a significant citadel might still enable the rule of Jerusalem to be contested. But his intransigence proved profoundly unpopular, even antagonising many of his own followers who were now starting to think of the journey back to Europe. In the face of intensifying protests, Raymond turned to his old ally, Peter of Narbonne, the recently elevated Latin bishop of Albara, ceding him control of the Tower so that the matter could be put to proper arbitration. Yet even Peter now decided that the tide of political fortune had turned and swiftly betrayed Raymond, opening the citadel to Godfrey's men without a fight. By the end of July, Raymond and his remaining southern French supporters had been thoroughly neutralised. Leaving Godfrey in full possession of Jerusalem, the count set out to visit the River Jordan and then established a camp at the nearby town of Jericho.
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In his absence, a new patriarch of Jerusalem was elected. The man chosen was the Norman French crusader Arnulf of Chocques, who had risen to prominence as a vocal opponent of the Holy Lance. His elevation on 1 August 1099 marked a definitive turning point in the course of the First Crusade. One year after the death of the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy, the commanding influence of the southern French had evaporated and Rome's policy of co-operative deference to the Byzantine Church was in tatters. The creation of a Latin patriarch was an open attack on Greek rights, although as yet Arnulf stopped short of actually ostracising the Orthodox clergy. He did, nonetheless, rapidly earn a rather unsavoury reputation. It was widely rumoured that his election had been uncanonical given the low ecclesiastical status from which he was raised. He was also said to have been a rapacious womaniser and a popular subject of lewd camp stories. Arnulf also demonstrated a particular proclivity for religious intolerance. Rather than embrace eastern Christian sects like the Armenians, Copts, Jacobites and Nestorians - the self-same 'brethren' that the crusaders had been nominally charged to protect -the new patriarch oversaw their expulsion from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In a bitter revelation, these eastern Christians soon discovered that they had in fact been better off under Muslim rule than they were in a 'liberated' Jerusalem.
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Against this background of crude bigotry, Arnulf sought to cement his position through the cultivation of a new relic cult. Soon after the city's fall, stories began to circulate that a piece of the True Cross, an artefact of extraordinary potency, was hidden somewhere in the city. The story of its discovery around 5 August is confused. Most contemporary sources agree that this relic - a rather battered silver and golden crucifix believed to contain a chunk of wood from the actual cross upon which Christ had died - had been concealed by the indigenous Christian population of Jerusalem to keep it from their Muslim masters, the secret of its location being known only to a select few. It is, however, impossible to confirm that the cult surrounding this relic actually predates 1099. The exact site of its supposed resting place and the method of its recovery are even less clear. According to one source, a crafty Syrian willingly volunteered the information, but another text suggests that Arnulf practically had to torture the locals before they would reveal the spot. Similarly, the True Cross is variously described as being uncovered 'in a secluded corner of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre .
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concealed within a silver case' or 'in a humble and dusty place in an abandoned house'. But, in spite of all this uncertainty, there is no question that, once unearthed, this relic was seized upon by Arnulf, its cult widely promoted by special celebratory services in the Holy Sepulchre. He was determined to use this new remnant of Christ's life finally to eradicate any lingering memory of the Holy Lance and to legitimate the new Latin order in Jerusalem.
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The last battle

The First Crusaders had brought Latin rule to the secular and spiritual realm of Jerusalem, but one dreadful danger still threatened to obliterate their achievement. The Fatimid ruler of Egypt, the vizier al-Afdal, was leading a powerful strike force on Palestine to recapture the Holy City. After the inhuman trials involved in securing the crusade's success, little thought was now given to surrender, but, with an Egyptian attack imminent, the Franks did have to decide how to react. They rejected the idea of knuckling down within Jerusalem's fortifications to endure a siege, that stratagem having almost cost them the ultimate price at Antioch. Instead, with characteristic daring, they chose to meet the Fatimids head on in battle.
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This type of martial audacity had propelled the expedition across the face of the known world, but before now it had always been married to an empowering, unifying sense of purpose. By the mid-summer of 1099, with the campaign's primary objective achieved, the fire of crusading enthusiasm began to flicker as never before. The gnawing threat of discord had all but shattered the principle of command by council, leaving Godfrey and Raymond in open dispute and Latin resources in a state of sluggish disorder. As the new ruler of Jerusalem sought to rally the crusaders for one last battle, it suddenly looked as though the entire expedition might collapse at the final hurdle.

It was Tancred, patrolling the Palestinian coastline, who procured the intelligence proving that an Egyptian offensive was only days away. In early August he captured a group of advance Fatimid scouts who, under interrogation, revealed that al-Afdal was massing his forces some eighty kilometres south-east of Jerusalem, at Ascalon, the only major port between Palestine and Egypt. Once the news reached Godfrey he realised that the crusaders must unite to survive, but Raymond of Toulouse and, for some inexplicable reason, Robert of Normandy refused his urgent call to arms, claiming that they needed still further confirmation that a Fatimid attack was at hand. Thus on 9 August Godfrey was forced to march out of Jerusalem with only the support of Robert of Flanders. Their troops left the city barefoot, as penitent soldiers of Christ, accompanied by Patriarch Arnulf and the relic of the True Cross, but, without the full weight of Frankish manpower, they looked doomed to annihilation. Reaching Ramleh that night, Godfrey issued one last desperate appeal stating that from this advanced position there was no question that battle would be joined.

Under pressure from their followers, Raymond and Robert relented, setting out on 10 August. Even though it was now widely discredited, the core of the count's Provencal supporters still carried the Holy Lance with them as a totem of victory. Jerusalem was stripped of Latin troops. Only Peter the Hermit was left behind to organise propitiatory prayers among the clergy. There would be no way back from defeat in the coming confrontation. Should the crusader ranks falter, the Holy City would undoubtedly fall back into the hands of Islam.
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The Frankish host, patched together by a vague semblance of ideological unity, gathered at Ramleh. It was the sheer lethal force of the ordeals endured by these men on the road to Jerusalem that now enabled them to function as an army Three long years of hard campaigning had left only the toughest, most able and luckiest warriors alive. Thus a deeply experienced if divided force of elite troops - some 1,200 knights and 9,000 infantrymen - marched south out of Ascalon on 11 August in tightly disciplined formation. Late in the day they captured another group of Egyptian spies who were able to confirm al-AfdaPs battle plan and the size and disposition of his forces. The Fatimids had raised a substantial army, perhaps 20,000 strong, with a heavy cavalry at its core and incorporating an array of north African troops, including Bedouins, Berbers and fearsome Ethiopians wielding giant flails capable of eviscerating man and horse in one blow. This force, camped in the fields outside Ascalon, was preparing to march on Jerusalem on the very next day.
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Outnumbered perhaps two to one, the crusaders decided that their only hope lay in surprise. They settled down to a night of dread and discomfort a few miles north of the port. Starting out before dawn on 12 August, with Raymond of Toulouse on the right flank, Godfrey on the left and the two Roberts and Tancred holding the centre, they closed distance, and once the Fatimid camp came into sight, charged at pace. Al-Afdal had failed to set sufficient scouts, and in the half-light the Franks fell on their sleeping, stunned enemy. Robert of Normandy drove his knights into the heart of the camp, seizing al-Afdal's personal standard and most of his possessions. Racing along the coastline, Raymond chased many Fatimids into the sea to drown, while elsewhere others rushed back to Ascalon only to be crushed to death as they tried to press through the gates. The Egyptian army never recovered from that first shock attack, and the battle quickly turned into a rout:

In their great fright [the Fatimids] climbed and hid in trees, only to plunge from boughs like falling birds when our men pierced them with arrows and killed them with lances. Later the Christians uselessly decapitated them with swords. Other infidels threw themselves to the ground grovelling in tenor at the Christians' feet. Then our men cut them to pieces as one slaughters cattle for the meat market.
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Al-Afdal and a few of his officers managed to escape into Ascalon, astonished at being so easily crushed by a force that the vizier had assumed would be a spent rabble. Horrified, he set sail for Egypt. The crusaders secured a rich assortment of treasure and weaponry amid the ruins of the Fatimid camp, 'gold, silver, long cloaks, other clothing and [twelve kinds of] precious stones
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. helmets decorated with gold, the finest rings, wonderful swords, grain, flour and much else'. Al-Afdal's sword alone was later sold for the princely sum of sixty gold bezants. So great was the hoard that not everything could be carried off the field, and so the Latins decided to burn whatever weapons were left behind. Just a few days after anxiously leaving Jerusalem, they made a triumphant return, proudly processing through the city streets. The First Crusaders had survived their last true test.
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The cancer of factionalism that had been eating away at the expedition did still inflict its wound. In the wake of the battle, the terrified garrison of Ascalon sought to arrange terms of surrender. But they refused to hand the city over to anyone other than Raymond of Toulouse, the one prince known to have upheld his promise of safe passage during the sack of Jerusalem. Incensed and suspicious, Godfrey interfered, fearful that Raymond might establish an independent enclave on the coast. The negotiations collapsed and Ascalon remained in Muslim hands. A vital opportunity had been missed and, because of the princes' bitter but ultimately petty rivalry, a resurgent Fatimid navy was able to maintain a dangerous foothold on the Palestinian coast for more than half a century.
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With the victory in the Battle of Ascalon, the main armies of the First Crusade reached the end of their remarkable journey. Those that survived had witnessed a miracle'. The Holy City of Jerusalem had been recaptured against incalculable odds and all the might of Islam had broken on the rock of Latin devotion. Now, as summer waned, the thoughts of most turned to home. In early September 1099 Robert of Normandy, Robert of Flanders and the vast majority of the remaining crusaders set out for Europe, taking ship from Syria to Constantinople and beyond. For the time being at least, Raymond of Toulouse lingered in the northern Levant. Only 300 Latin knights remained in Jerusalem to help Godfrey of Bouillon defend this new outpost of Latin Christendom.
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THE
CRUSADING
EXPERIENCE

Like the participants in any military campaign, the First Crusaders were changed by their experiences. Some found fame, others notoriety; a select few were catapulted to power and influence, but thousands more were left broken and destitute. Many felt they had lived through a miracle and, having been touched by the hand of God, found their faith strengthened. But, whether they remained in the East or returned to the West, all were marked by the scouring wind that was this holy war.