The theory, however, was far from the reality. The all-seeing eye and the all-judging intelligence of the emperor were at the mercy of thousands of officials who diluted his powers. They ruled in his name, and far too many of them were peculators. The civil service was corrupt. Alexius I Comnenus was one of the few emperors who was determined to stamp out corruption although he was not always aware of the extent of the corruption.
He was also one of the few emperors who was popular with the people. This hard-bitten, black-browed and black-bearded man possessed to a quite extraordinary degree a gift for government. He had spent most of his early years soldiering and he was not afraid of taking risks. With the help of the Venetians, he had prevented Robert Guiscard and his son Bohemond from establishing themselves along the Adriatic coast. Once, after losing a
battle with Bohemond, he had fled from the battlefield with a detachment of the imperial guards, with a flying column of enemy troops in hot pursuit. Suddenly he reined in his horse and shouted to a companion, “We cannot go on running like this.” He then wheeled around, drew his sword, and waited for the first of his pursuers to catch up with him. The man fell with a sword-thrust in the face. The rest of the pursuers decided they were dealing with a man who was absolutely reckless, and they withdrew. Alexius returned to Constantinople, raised another army, and this time defeated Bohemond decisively, who returned to Italy.
This was the same Bohemond who was now hurrying to Constantinople, claiming to be a Crusader. Bohemond had raised his small army at his own expense. Alexius was informed of its coming, he had given permission for it to enter his territories, and he was receiving reports on its progress. Bohemond was behaving well; his troops did not plunder, and indeed they had no need to plunder, since provisions were being supplied them by imperial officials. They set out from Dyrrhachium on October 1 and Bohemond, in advance of his troops, reached Constantinople on April 9. The distance from Dyrrhachium to Constantinople, as the crow flies, is five hundred miles: they were advancing at a rate of less than a hundred miles a month. This shows that he was in no particular hurry.
For Alexius the slow march of Bohemond was something to be thankful for. If Bohemond had joined forces with Godfrey a few weeks earlier at the time of the sudden attack on the walls near the Blachernae Palace, there was no doubt that the battle would have been more hard fought, but there was also no doubt that the Byzantine forces would have been victorious.
Alexius had no illusions about Bohemond, who was capable of astonishingly audacious acts. He was a brilliant commander in the field and a relentless enemy. Even if he were friendly, it would be impossible to trust him. So he was watched carefully, and because he was well aware of being watched, he behaved in an exemplary manner and took the oath of allegiance, promising to become a proper servant of the emperor. He was playing a role and the emperor knew it. When Bohemond suggested that it might be appropriate for the emperor to appoint him Grand Domestic of the East, or Viceroy of Asia with command of all the armies to the east of Constantinople, Alexius demurred. That Bohemond should request such a position was only one more example of his astonishing audacity.
Bohemond was lodged in the monastery of St. Cosmas and St. Damian north of the city, overlooking the Golden Horn, at a short distance from the Blachernae Palace. Here the emperor kept a suite of rooms for distinguished guests. Bohemond was accompanied only by his bodyguard, ten knights who rode the best available horses. Anna Comnena tells a story about the first day Bohemond stayed at the monastery. A luxurious table had been prepared for him. A majordomo advanced and said that if Bohemond for whatever reason would prefer to have his own meals prepared
rather than eat those offered by the emperor, this was perfectly understandable. The majordomo pointed to a tray of uncooked meats which were at Bohemond's disposal. Bohemond refused to touch either the cooked or the uncooked meats, though he permitted his knights to cook the meats, and the next morning he asked them how they had fared. They said they had suffered no discomfort at all. “I really thought the emperor might have poisoned the food,” Bohemond told them. “I remembered the terrible wars we had fought.” All this was reported to Alexius, who also remembered those wars and needed to know how suspicious and distrustful Bohemond was, in spite of all his fine words and his oath of loyalty sworn over the Crown of Thorns.
What Alexius most disliked in Bohemond was a certain coarseness, almost a cheapness. Alexius himself was too much a soldier to care about the good or bad manners of the Crusader chieftains, but he possessed a keen eye for moral qualities. Alexius ordered a room in the Blachernae Palace to be filled with treasure: rich stuffs, vessels of hammered gold and silver, an abundance of silks and jewels. The floor was covered with these objects so that it was impossible to move among them. The emperor ordered an official to lead Bohemond up to the doors, which were to be opened suddenly in order to take Bohemond by surprise. This was done, and a startled Bohemond was heard to exclaim, “If I had all this treasure, I would long ago have made myself master of many lands.”
The official said, “They are all yours. The emperor has given them to you.”
Bohemond, overjoyed, thanked the official and returned to his quarters in the monastery of St. Cosmas and St. Damian. Soon the entire treasure was brought to him. He gazed at it, and remembered that he was a prince of the House of Guiscard and therefore it was impossible for him to accept so large a bribe.
“I never imagined the emperor would inflict so much dishonor on me!” he said in his booming voice. “Take them away! Give them back to him who sent them!”
This was his first reaction. His second reaction was somewhat different. He was upset at the thought of the treasure's being taken away from him. Suddenly, as he watched the imperial servants dismantling the exhibition of more treasure than he had set eyes on in his life, he changed his manner abruptly. The look of horror was exchanged for smiles, compliments, and polite gestures. He told the servants he would keep the treasure and was most grateful to the emperor. The incident was reported to the emperor, who commented, “The mischief will return on the head of the mischief-maker.” Anna Comnena, who recorded the story, said that Bohemond was “like a sea-polyp that changes its shape every instant.” His sudden transformations were not however the most important things about Bohemond. The most important things were his courage and his cunning.
While Bohemond was changeable as a sea-polyp, the Count of Toulouse
was as changeless as the Pole Star. The one-eyed soldier who led the largest army to Constantinople was quiet and reserved, sometimes obstinate but always courteous, deeply religious, and deeply attached to Adhémar of Monteil, Bishop of Le Puy. He believed in visions, miracles, and the divine power of relics to a degree that may have alarmed the bishop, who believed in none of them. Anna Comnena noted his superior wisdom, genuine sincerity, and purity of life. “He was a man,” she wrote, “who valued truth above everything.” He shone among the Crusaders like the sun among the lesser stars.
His army consisted of about two thousand knights and twelve thousand foot soldiers, and there were some four thousand camp servants, carters, tentmakers, camp followers, and auxiliaries. Most of the men came from Gascony and Provence. They were well armed, plentifully supplied with provisions, and extremely well disciplined. Many of the nobles of southern France accompanied the Count of Toulouse, including Francis-Lambert of Monteil and William-Hugh of Monteil, the younger brothers of Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy, who in theory was the commander in chief of the entire Crusade.
Raymond of Aguilers, the chronicler of the Count of Toulouse's army, has nothing to say about the early days of the march. We do not know where the troops assembled, although it is likely to have been in Lyons, or where exactly they crossed over into Italy. They may have crossed the Alps by the Col de Genèvreand taken the road through Lombardy and Venetia. We know they followed the coastline of Istria and Dalmatia, and were welcomed by the Byzantine envoy John Comnenus at Dyrrhachium. Thereafter they followed roughly the road taken by Bohemond. Raymond of Aguilers picks up the story as the army enters the region he calls Sclavonia, a desolate land of rugged mountains and dense forests. He has much to say about the cowardice of the Sclavonians, who would leave their villages when they saw the count's army approaching, hide in the forest until the last baggage carts and the last stragglers came in view, and then pounce on them. In this way many old and infirm people, and many who were sick, were cut off. The count was so exasperated by this maneuver that he stationed himself with the rear guard, waited until he was able to capture six Sclavonians and, in full sight of others who held back but were capable of doing much harm, he deliberately mutilated them. Some had their eyes snatched out, others had their feet cut off, and others had their noses and hands cut off. All this had to be done very quickly because the count's forces were outnumbered. He fled back to his army, having given the Sclavonians a lesson they might never forget.
This story makes a somewhat sardonic beginning to Raymond of Aguilers's narrative, a tone that can be heard throughout. He is a fine historian, because imbued with intense faith and a belief in miracles, he nevertheless shows a calm, pragmatic, sardonic eye.
Raymond was the historian attached to the Count of Toulouse, while
the unknown author of the
Gesta Francorum
was just as evidently attached to the army of Bohemond. Each historian praised his own man, yet valid portraits emerge of two heroic characters so different from one another that there could scarcely be any real communication between them.
When Bohemond was commanded to take the oath of loyalty, he did so without demur, and we know that he had not the slightest intention of keeping his oath. The Count of Toulouse had refused to take the oath as a matter of principle. He was a sovereign prince, and under Adhémar of Le Puy he was the appointed leader of the Crusade. How could he be the vassal of the emperor?
The Count of Toulouse met the emperor under difficult auspices. He had reached Constantinople in advance of his army. Lodged in a palace outside the walls and treated by Byzantine officials with the respect due him, he was soon summoned to an audience with the emperor. On the way to the palace he learned that his own army, during the last stages of the march, had been raiding Byzantine villages and the imperial army had been called out to stop the Latins. The emperor was polite; the matter was not mentioned. Raymond of Aguilers suggests that the meeting was stormy; it is more likely that they spoke with excessive politeness, while the storms gathered beneath the surface. Anna Comnena, who reflected the opinions of the emperor, spoke of the Count of Toulouse's courtesy and honesty and of his aristocratic demeanor. In the end the count took a modified oath to respect the life and possessions of the emperor, to do nothing whatsoever that would harm them. The emperor grew genuinely fond of the count and respected him more than he respected any other leader of the Crusades. Two days after the oath taking, the count led his army to join all the other armies at Pelecanum. Unlike Godfrey and Bohemond, he was invited to return to the court, and he appears to have spent the two following weeks by the emperor's side.
The last army to arrive in Constantinople was led by Robert, Duke of Normandy, the fiery and intractable son of William the Conqueror. He was accompanied by Stephen, Count of Blois and Chartres. Stephen was his brother-in-law, married to Adela, the high-spirited daughter of the Conqueror, who had ordered him to embark on the Crusade, although originally he had not the least intention of doing anything so dangerous. Self-indulgent and uxorious, he was one of the wealthiest men of his time, and almost as proud and vainglorious as Hugh the Great. Robert, Duke of Normandy, had no hesitation in taking the oath of allegiance, and he was one of those who quarreled with the Count of Toulouse when he was refusing to take it.
Now all the armies had been ferried to Asia, and the emperor was satisfied at last that these barbarians from western Europe no longer threatened his empire. He had acted with finesse and intelligence under the
most severe provocations; he had offered provisions and supplies, his own scouts and engineers, his own siege engines to the Crusaders; he was prepared to help them with his limited means in every way possible. He insisted only that they keep their oath of loyalty and restore to him the lost Byzantine provinces of Asia Minor.
On the last days of April or very early in May the Crusaders struck their tents in Pelecanum and set out on the second stage of their long journey to Jerusalem.
THE city of Nicaea, where the Nicene Creed came to birth in the time of Constantine, had until recently been in the possession of the Byzantine empire. It lay some sixty miles southeast of Constantinople, and it belonged now to the empire of Kilij Arslan, the Seljuk sultan, who made it his capital, partly because it was one of the best defended cities in Asia Minor and partly because it was close to Constantinople, which he hoped to conquer. Here he kept his treasure, his wife, his children, and his best soldiers. All the refinements of Byzantine architecture had gone into the building of the city walls, which were regarded as virtually impregnable. The population was mostly Christian; there was a large and well-equipped Turkish garrison; the walls were very high, and there were two hundred and forty towers. The Emperor Alexius Comnenus seems to have had very little doubt that Nicaea could be reconquered with the help of the Crusaders and he made his plans accordingly.
Since the city lay at the western end of the Ascanian lake, the west wall rose straight out of the water, and all the remaining walls were protected by a moat fed by the lake, the capture of the city presented formidable problems. Nevertheless there were many factors working in favor of the attackers. The most important was the absence of the sultan, who was fighting a border war near Melitene nearly five hundred miles to the east against the princes of Danishmend. His intelligence system seems to have broken down and, apparently, he knew nothing about the great Crusader encampment at Pelecanum or about the coming invasion. Nicaea, though provided with a garrison force ample for its defense against a small army, was incapable of defending itself for long against a massive and well-provisioned army of Crusaders. Another factor was the desire of the Christians in Nicaea to be restored to the Byzantine empire and to communion with the Orthodox Church. There is evidence that they possessed an intelligence system of their own and were in continual touch with the emperor. Still another factor was the way the Crusading princes worked in
unison; they supported one another, and refused to be deterred by the formidable task of reducing a powerful city. Later they would quarrel violently among themselves, and they would continue to pay off old scores with astonishing bitterness and contempt for one another. But during this first siege, meeting the enemy for the first time, they were on their best behavior.