The Glory of the Crusades (12 page)

BOOK: The Glory of the Crusades

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The city in that passage from Revelation is a reference to Jerusalem as the true city of the saints, and the imagery of blood and divine wrath refers to the judgment of unbelievers.
188
At first glance the precise figure of 1,600 stadia seems superfluous, but the figure would have been known in the Holy Land since it is the approximate length of Palestine as measured from Tyre to the border of Egypt.
189
Blood flowing up to a horse’s bridle, meanwhile, “is figurate battle language and functions hyperbolically to emphasize the severe and unqualified nature of the judgment.”
190
In using well-known language and imagery from Scripture, First Crusade commentators made the point that victory over Muslim forces throughout the Crusade and specifically at Jerusalem was ordained by God as a judgment against unbelievers.
191

Although the killing of innocent civilians in Jerusalem cannot be justified, it can be explained as the actions of an army with “heightened emotions . . . which had been through terrible trials.”
192
Some Christian sources suggest the killings were undertaken to cleanse the holy places from Muslim profanation and others see the massacre as retribution for Crusader sufferings throughout the campaign.
193
Additionally, the military position of the Crusaders also influenced their actions, for “they had engaged in a race against time and the gamble had succeeded. But now they anticipated the coming of an Egyptian army and it was fear of leaving an enemy in the nest that brought about this atrocious killing.”
194

War is a nasty affair and massacres were by no means the sole province of Christian warriors. The Muslim warlord Zengi massacred 6,000 Christian men, women, and children on Christmas Eve 1144 when he conquered the city of Edessa.
195
Likewise Baybars, the thirteenth-century Mamluk general-turned-sultan of Egypt, pursued a policy of aggressive
jihad
in his campaigns against Christian settlements. After conquering Antioch, he ordered the city gates closed and locked with the entire Christian population trapped inside. All were massacred in a bloodbath so repulsive that it shocked even Muslim chroniclers.
196

Defender of the Holy Sepulchre

After achieving their objective, the Crusaders were faced with the reality of protecting, consolidating and organizing the territory they had liberated during the First Crusade.

The noble leaders of the Crusade gathered on July 17, two days after their momentous and miraculous victory, to choose a leader for the city. The nobles called for Raymond of Toulouse to be named king, but he refused (possibly out of a religious sense of unworthiness but also possibly because he really wanted the crown but did not want to
appear
to desire it). The nobles then looked to Godfrey, a warrior who had performed heroically throughout the Crusade, and offered him the crown on July 22. He accepted, but refused to be called king, taking instead the title, “Defender of the Holy Sepulchre.”
197

Going Home

Their vow fulfilled and Jerusalem secure, the vast majority of Crusaders still alive after their grueling three year journey turned west toward home.

Those who made it back to see loved ones again were a blessed few; eighty percent of those who participated in the First Crusade
never returned, most dying from disease and starvation rather than from battle wounds.
198
A few Crusaders remained in the Latin East but they were never numerous and, as a result, the Crusader States always suffered from a lack of internal manpower to defend and expand their meager outposts. After the final battle at Ascalon, Godfrey was left with only 300 knights and 2,000 infantry to defend Jerusalem and other Crusader territory.
199

It is estimated that only 11 percent of the surviving Crusaders remained in the Holy Land after the First Crusade, and by the year 1100 there were a maximum of only 4,000 Western Europeans total.
200
This confirms that most participants did not view the Crusades as a source of wealth or an opportunity to increase land holdings. The Crusade was primarily a pilgrimage. When it was over, the pilgrims returned whence they had come.

113
New American Bible translation.

114
Fulcher,
Chronicle
, Book I, XXX. 1, in Peters, 93.

115
John France,
Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades 1000–1300
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 210.

116
Thomas F. Madden,
The New Concise History of the Crusades Updated Edition
(New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005), 10.

117
Urban II, Letter to the Faithful in Flanders, December 1095, in Peters,
The First Crusade,
42.

118
Steven Runciman,
A History of the Crusades
,
vol. 1, The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
(London: The Folio Society, 1994), 94.

119
There were reports of exorcised demons, healings, and conversions. Some believed Peter held a letter from heaven wherein God urged Christians to take the cross. Madden,
The New Concise History of the Crusades
, 16.

120
John France,
Victory in the East—A Military History of the First Crusade
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 136.

121
The phrase “advance guard” is from Tyerman,
God’s War,
94.

122
Tyerman,
God’s War
, 97.

123
France,
Victory
, 93.

124
Madden,
The New Concise History of the Crusades
, 17.

125
France,
Victory
, 93.

126
Albert of Aachen in Peters,
The First Crusade
, 149.

127
Salomon bar Simson,
Chronicles of the Crusades—Nine Crusades and Two Hundred Years of Bitter Conflict for the Holy Land Brought to Life Through the Words of Those Who Were Actually There
, ed. Elizabeth Hallam (New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989), 69.

128
Anonymous of Mainz in Peters,
The First Crusade
, 114.

129
Pernoud,
The Crusaders,
126.

130
Tyerman,
God’s War
, 101–102.

131
Numbers from Albert of Aachen in Peters,
The First Crusade
, 110.

132
For the numbers of warriors, see France,
Victory
, 142. Raymond d’Aguilers, who was a participant, used the phrase “God’s Army” in his chronicle of the First Crusade. Crusaders possessing a special identity, see Tyerman,
God’s War
, 105.

133
Tyerman,
God’s War
, 119.

134
Henry IV, holy Roman emperor, had been excommunicated because of the Investiture Controversy. King Philip I of France was excommunicated by Urban II at Clermont for his bigamous marriage, and King William II of England had political issues with the Church and St. Anselm of Canterbury.

135
Fulcher of Chartres lists the following nationalities in his
Chronicle
: French, Flemings, Frisians, Gauls, Lotharingians, Allemani, Bavarians, Normans, English, Scots, Aquitanians, Italians, Dacians, Iberians, Bretons, Greeks, and Armenians. Fulcher of Chartres,
Chronicle
, Book I, XIII.4 in Peters, 68.

136
Hilaire Belloc makes this point: “For it was Gaul, between the Rhine, the Atlantic, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, which furnished by far the greater part of the armies which attempted to restore the Christian Roman world and throw back the Mohammedan in the East.”
Crusades—The World’s Debate
(Rockford, IL: TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., 1992), 22.

137
Tyerman,
God’s War
, 117.

138
Ibid., 82.

139
France,
Western Warfare
, 159.

140
His brother Baldwin I and his cousin Baldwin Le Bourcq (II).

141
Tyerman,
God’s War
, 114.

142
Warren Carroll,
The Building of Christendom
—
A History of Christendom, vol. 2
(Front Royal, VA: Christendom College Press, 1987), 538.

143
Ibid.

144
France,
Victory
, 155.

145
Ibid, 157.

146
The clearing of the old Roman road is in France,
Victory
, 122, and the placing of the crosses is mentioned in the
Gesta
in Peters, 180.

147
Tyerman,
God’s War
, 124.

148
Chronicle
, Book I, X.7, in Peters, 64.