The Deeds of God through the Franks

G >> Guibert of Nogent >> The Deeds of God through the Franks

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Therefore, understanding that her son, intent on fighting with the
Franks, was unwilling to heed her advice, the mother collected
whatever supplies she could gather and, spurned by her son, retired
to the above-mentioned city of Aleppo. And so, three days later,
Kherboga took up arms, and a large group of Turks approached the city
with him on the side where the fort they had recently captured and
fortified was located. Our men, however, judging that they could
resist them, set up lines of defense against them, but the number of
Turks was so great that our men did not have the force or boldness to
resist. Therefore they were compelled to retreat into the city, but,
as they were entering the gate in crowded flight, the entrance proved
too narrow, and many were crushed to death. It was the fifth day of
the week, and some outside the city were attacking the gate, while
others continued to battle the inhabitants inside the city until
evening.

But because Christ knew once and knows now whom he has chosen, some
men who, so to speak, were not of the kind by means of whom salvation
would come to Israel,[173] when they saw that they were surrounded by
the Turkish army,

and that the day's battle was scarcely ended when night came, they
grew fearful and panic-stricken, aware only of their imminent death.
Petrified, each saw his own life hanging before him, and in their
frightened minds the men saw Turks already before them, about to
strike them with deadly spears. Each lost faith in his own ability
to fight, and therefore turned his mind to flight. Those who gave up
hope in God made a filthy descent into the foul sewers, a worthy
place for those who were giving such a bad example to the troops.
The crawling cowards made their way to the sea, with the skin from
their hands and feet torn away, and their bones stripped of flesh by
the sharp rocks. Like Paul the doctor, who escaped from Damascus by
means of a wall,[174] they showed that the sewers were fitting for
them.[175]

Among those who retreated were a certain William of Normandy, nobly
born, and his brother Alberic, sent to school early, who became a
cleric, and then, out of passion for fighting, dropped away from the
church and foully, like an apostate, became a knight. I would name
the towns from which they came, were I not constrained by my close
friendship with some members of their family to limit my remarks,
thereby protecting them from shame. A certain Guido Trossellus, well
known for his power and influence in cities across the Seine, and who
was considered remarkable by the whole race of Franks, was the
standard-bearer for the escape. There were other deserters from the
holy army also, who, when they came back to their native land, were
held in contempt and denounced as infamous everywhere. Some of them
we do not know; others we know very well, but we prefer not to
humiliate them.

They came to the port which is called the gate of Saint Simeon, where
they found boats and sailors, and they asked the sailors, "Why are
you waiting here, unhappy men? You should know that all those to
whom you customarily bring food are about to die, for the city and
those within it are besieged by an army of Turks, and we scarcely
escaped from their onslaught with our naked bodies." Stung by the
dire news, they hesitated, stunned for a long time, and then placed
all their hope in flight.

They got into the ships and sought the depths of the sea.[176]

Almost immediately afterwards, as their prows began to move through
the waves, the Turks arrived, killed everyone they found there,
burned the ships they found riding at anchor, and despoiled the
bodies of those whom they had killed. After those base men, fleeing
from divine assistance, had escaped through the foul places we have
mentioned, those who had chosen to remain were no longer able to
withstand the enemies' weapons or onslaughts. Therefore they built a
wall between themselves and their enemies, which they patrolled night
and day. The suffering of our men was so great there that they were
compelled to eat the foulest food, the flesh of horses and donkeys.

One day, when the leaders of the army were standing before the
citadel they were besieging, and were gravely worried about the
misery they were suffering, a priest presented himself before them,
and said, "Leaders and elders, I shall relate a vision of your
excellence which, if you give it credence, may offer you some
consolation, as I hope. While I was asleep one night in the church
of the blessed mother of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, together with
his most blessed mother and the blessed leader of the apostles, Peter,
appeared standing before me and said, 'Do you know who I am?' 'Not
at all,' I said. He spoke, and lo in a cloud above his head a cross
appeared, like those one sees in paintings. Again questioning me,
the image of the Savior repeated, 'Now do you know whom you see?' I
said, 'O lord, I can recognize your identity only because I see above
your neck the figure of the cross, which customarily represents your
image wherever it is painted.' He said, 'you are not wrong. I am he.
' Aware of how much we have suffered, I threw myself immediately at
his feet and urgently begged him to relieve the suffering of those
who were fighting for our faith. 'I have seen what you have endured,
' he said, 'and I shall not now hesitate to bring you help. At my
instigation you vowed to undertake this expedition; you have captured
the city of Nicea with my support; under my leadership you have won
many victories; having brought you this far, I have grieved for the
sufferings you endured in besieging the city of Antioch, and which
you are suffering even now within the city itself. However, after I
raised you up with so much help and with so many victories, and I
granted you victory in the city, preserving you safe and unharmed,
you have behaved badly towards Christians, and have entered into
filthy relations with pagan women; you have raised a foul clamor to
heaven.' At this point the Virgin of unconquerable piety, always the
intercessor with God for the human race, and Peter, the heavenly
gatekeeper, and the patron bishop of Antioch, threw themselves at the
feet of the most merciful Lord, praying and asking that He grant
relief to his people. The miraculous Peter himself said, 'Your
majesty remembers with what shameful things the pagans desecrated my
home in this city, insulting your divinity by filling your shrines
with disgraceful actions and with murder. Since you at last showed
pity and expelled them, bringing joy to the heavenly kingdom, will
you now relent and permit their pride to regain its former position
against you yourself?' Moved by these words, God said to me, 'Go and
tell my people to return with all their hearts to me, and I shall
eagerly restore myself to them; within five days I shall provide the
greatest help. Let them recite litanies, and let each man sing this
response from *Ecclesiastes*: Our enemies have joined against me,
and they rejoice in their strength; destroy their strength, O Lord,
and scatter them (add here the verse)."[177] The priest then added,
"If you have any doubt about what I have said, I shall submit, in the
name of truth, to whatever trial you wish, gladly undergoing trial by
fire or by being thrown from a cliff. If I am harmed in the test,
you may add to my injuries the worst punishment you can imagine."
The bishop of Puy, always attentive to church law, ordered the bible
and the Cross brought forward, so that the reliability of his words
might be tested by oath.

When this had been done, the leaders, after consultation, mutually
pledged that neither death nor life would compel them to abandon the
defense they had undertaken, no matter how difficult the
circumstances. Therefore first Bohemund, then the count of Saint
Gilles, Hugh the Great, Robert of Normandy, duke Godfrey, and the
count of Flanders, swore with equal vigor that they would never
abandon the undertaking. But Tancred swore on this condition, that
as long as he could rely on the support of forty knights he would not
only refuse to retreat from the siege under which they presently
labored, but he would not turn from the path to Jerusalem, unless
death intervened. The news of these transactions fortified the
hearts of the multitude.

Before Antioch was captured, a vision of the apostle Andrew appeared
to one of the soldiers, whose name was Peter, and the vision said,
"What are you doing?" Stunned, he did not reply, but asked who he
was. He revealed that he was the apostle Andrew. "You should know,
my son, that when the army of the Franks enters the city which God
will open for them, you will go to the church of the blessed Peter,
my brother and fellow apostle, and there in a certain place you will
find the lance with which it is said the side of our Savior Jesus
Christ was pierced." Saying no more, he departed. Peter wanted no
one to know about the vision, nor did he think that it was anything
more than one of those deceptive dreams to which we are all regularly
subjected. But during his conversation with the apostle he had the
presence of mind to ask him, "Lord, if I tell to our people what you
have told me to do, what reliable evidence can I offer to overcome
their doubts and to convince them to believe me?" In response, the
glorious apostle took him and carried him in spirit to the basilica
of his blessed brother, to the place in which the lance rested.
After the city had been captured, when the people of God were
subjected to the tribulations which we have described, the same
memorable apostle who had undertaken to preserve in every way the
elaborate beauty of the home of his famous brother again appeared to
the man Peter, and said, "Why have you delayed carrying out my
command? Since you see your people undergoing terrible hardships,
attacked by the Turks, about to fall into the depths of despair, you
should tell them what you learned from me, since they certainly
should know that wherever they bear this same lance, they will have
certain victory." After this second warning from the apostle, Peter
began to relate to our people what he had seen in the vision.
However, the people rejected his words, thinking them false, since
they were surrounded on all sides by misfortunes, and could in no way
conceive of any hope for their conditon. Firmly relying on the
authority of what the apostle had said, Peter insisted that the
apostle had appeared to him and had said to him twice in a vision,
"Hurry, do not delay telling the imperilled army of God, as quickly
as possible, to set aside their fears and cling to their firm belief
in God, who will help them. Within five days the Lord will reveal
things that will joyfully relieve their hearts. If they go into
battle carrying this sign before them, their opposition will quickly
be defeated and will submit to them." Peter's steady persuasiveness
began to have an effect, and the Christians began to urge each other
to have some hope, and they began to feel some relief. They said,
"We should not be so stupid as to believe that God, who has thus far
given us so many victories, would now permit us, besieged while
defending the true faith, having placed our trust in Him, with our
souls eagerly groaning for him, to be cut down by Turkish swords.
Instead, we should certainly believe that, after our long suffering,
He will shine the light of pity on us, and will cast fear of Himself
upon the peoples who have not sought Him out."

Then the Turks who were guarding the citadel made sudden attack on
our men, trapping three of our knights at fortification facing the
citadel. Then the pagans stormed out of the citadel against our men
with such force that they were unable to resist. Two of the men
under attack were wounded and escaped, while the third continued to
defend himself vigorously against the enemy, killing two of them on
the top of the ramparts, having broken the shafts of their spears,
while the Turks themselves had shattered three spears in their hands.
The name of this knight was Hugh, nicknamed "the Madman," and he was
one of the servants of certain Godfrey of Mount-Scabieuse.

Famed Bohemund, however, scarcely able to persuade some men to attack
the citadel (for of those who hid in their homes, some suffered from
lack of bread, while others were frightened by the ferocity and
number of the pagans), driven by great anger, ordered that the part
of the city around the palace of the now dead Cassian be burned.
When they saw what was happening, they fled the conflagration, some
towards the citadel, some towards the gate guarded by the count of
Saint-Gilles, and some towards Godfrey; each fled towards the people
to whom he most closely connected. Soon the suffering was increased
by a very powerful storm, and the power of the wind was such that
almost no one could walk upright. Meanwhile, when Bohemund saw that
the city would be entirely destroyed by the conflagration, he was
seized with anxiety about the fate of the church of blessed Peter and
of the Holy Mother, and other churches as well. From the third hour
until midnight the raging flames turned two thousand churches and
homes into dust. In the middle of the night, the force of the raging
fire abated.

Meanwhile those in the citadel cruelly attacked our men, who turned
back into the city, worn out by hunger; they struck our men with
steady effort, and by day and by night the two sides were separated
only by the length of their swords and spears. When our men saw that
they were caught in a non-stop battle, and had no opportunity at all
to eat or drink, even if they had had a great supply of food, they
built a wall out of cement and stone, and quickly surrounded it with
many machines, so that they would have a feeling of greater security.
In the citadel, a group of Turks remained who would, almost
continually, come out to harass our men in battle, while other Turks
remained in the field, facing the fortification. On the following
night, a kind of fire appeared in the western sky, falling between
the enemy camps. To both sides the sight of the falling fire seemed
miraculous. In the morning, the Turks left the place in which the
celestial fire had fallen as quickly as possible, and set themselves
up in front of the gate that Bohemund was guarding. The portent
which had appeared clearly before them announced the destruction that
was obviously approaching them, had they understood it. The
inhabitants of the citadel, who made frequent, relentless sorties
against our army, their bows always stretched, inflicted wounds and
death upon our men. The Turks who surrounded the city outside, and
who occupied all the territory near the walls, vigilantly blocked
every entrance to the city, so that the Christians were unable to
leave or to enter, except at night, and even then only secretly. The
enemy had assembled here in such great numbers and with such wealth,
that everywhere one looked there were only men and tents, expensive
furnishings, the brilliance of variegated costumes, flocks of cattle
and sheep to be eaten, and women dressed as though they were, so to
speak, temples. To add to this list of luxury, young women came with
quivers full of arrows, looking like a new form of the ancient Diana;
they seemed to have been brought here not to fight, but rather to
reproduce. When the battle was over, those who were present asserted
that new-born babies, born by women brought for this purpose on the
expedition, were found thrown into the grass by these women, who, in
their urgent flight from the Franks, could not endure the burden, and,
more concerned for themselves than for the babies, heartlessly cast
them away.

In the way in which we have described, then, with Turks everywhere
preventing our men from getting out, and therefore unable to procure
provisions from outside, the dangers of famine took hold of nearly
the entire army, and the extraordinary lack of food particularly
weakened the courage of the poor people. Since the Franks, at the
time that they were besieging Antioch, had prevented the inhabitants
from increasing their dwindling supply of food, when they captured
the city they found very little to eat. After they had used up
everything they could find, a mere piece of bread cost a bezant. The
scarcity of produce and of spices resulted in great hardship, and
many died, their bellies bloated with starvation. About wine I shall
say nothing, since no one had any at all, and he who had nothing to
eat would certainly drink fruit juice. Since there was no proper
meat to eat, no one finally refused to eat the flesh of horses, and
the small amount of donkey meat, sought for throughout the
marketplaces and purchased at exorbitant prices, was a bitter
resource for many crusaders. A chicken sold for fifteen sous, an egg
for two sous, and a nut for penny. If many men assemble in a place
where food is scarce, everything becomes expensive. They ate a
mixture of figs, thistles, and grape leaves; fruit could no longer be
found on the trees; out of the leaves they made a substitute for
vegetables. Wealthy men ate the flesh of horses, camels, cows, and
deer, but the poor prepared the dried skins of these animals, cut
them into slices, boiled them and then ate them.

Among the ancient stories of besieged cities, where might we find
people who, exiles from their native land, enduring such suffering,
were able to persevere as steadfastly as these men? Even the
ten-year siege of Troy was often interrupted by mutually beneficial
truces, during which men might recover their strength, and the earth
and the sea might offer them sustenance. And even if any besieged men
had suffered similar dangers, certainly they suffered to preserve
their own freedom, and the defense of one's own life and country is
considered more important than all other things. The crusaders,
however, were driven from their native soil by no desire for personal
gain, but by the intention of working for God. To deliver the church
from harm, they endured the hardships of famine, rough sleeping
places, long watches during the night, cold, rain, and the torment of
ceaseless fear, which exceeded that endured by anyone whose
sufferings have ever been recorded. What must be recognized as even
more of a miracle is the fact that these men, at home in their own
native lands, could scarcely endure setting up their tents as part of
the king's army for three days, even when they were not forced to
venture beyond the borders of their own regions. In my opinion, none
of those who risked such danger could remember all of the anxieties
of mind and agonies of body they had been compelled to endure. For
twenty-six straight days this punishment continued.

At that time, Count Stephen of Blois, formerly a man of great
discretion and wisdom, who had been chosen as leader by the entire
army, said that he was suffering from painful illness, and, before
the army had broken into Antioch, Stephen made his way to a certain
small town, which was called Alexandriola.[178] When the city had
been captured and was again under siege, and he learned that the
Christian leaders were in dire straits, Stephen, either unable or
unwilling, delayed sending them aid, although they were awaiting his
help. When he heard that an army of Turks had set up camp before the
city walls, he rode shrewdly to the mountains and observed the amount
the enemy had brought. When he saw the fields covered with
innumerable tents, in understandably human fashion he retreated,
judging that no mortal power could help those shut up in the city. A
man of the utmost probity, energetic, pre-eminent in his love of
truth, thinking himself unable to bring help to them, certain that
they would die, as all the evidence indicated, he decided to protect
himself, thinking that he would incur no shame by saving himself for
a opportune moment. And I certainly think that his flight (if,
however, it should be called a flight, since the count was certainly
ill), after which the dishonorable act was rectified by martyrdom,
was superior to the return of those who, persevering in their pursuit
of foul pleasure, descended into the depths of criminal behavior.
Who could claim that count Stephen and Hugh the Great, who had always
been honorable, because they had seemed to retreat for this reason,
were comparable to those who had steadfastly behaved badly? The
results of the action for which they are blamed were so splendid,
that surely one might praise them for what they did, while the
behavior of the others embarrasses all good men. Let us look
carefully at those who take pride in having been present at the
capture of Jerusalem; we shall see that none permitted himself to be
second to anyone else in committing crimes, betrayals, and perjuries.
These two, however, were known for the nobility of their previous
and subsequent behavior. The others, because they had seen Jerusalem
and the Holy Sepulchre, thought that they could safely commit any
crime, offering their own example as a reproach to holy men who had
retreated, without considering how much they themselves should be
blamed for the many stinking crimes they had committed. But laying
these matters aside, let us continue in the direction in which we set
out.

When he left Alexandriola, his own town, the count went to the town
called Philomena.[179] The capture of Antioch had been made known to
the tyrannical emperor, who had quickly set out in that direction
with many troops, thinking that he would undoubtedly be given the
town by the Franks. When he had met the greedy emperor, who asked
him about the condition of the Christian army and of the betrayed
town, the count told him that the town had been captured, but he also
told him that the citadel was held by the Turks. "Alas," he said, "a
second siege destroys the joy of winning the city, for those who had
at first besieged the Turks are now, in a wretched reversal,
surrounded by Turks. I do not know what happened between them after
I left." This is what the count said in secret to the prince. When
the emperor heard this, he became discouraged, and summoned
Bohemund's brother Guido, a man conspicuous for his martial spirit,
together with some others, and described the situation to them,
although he exaggerated what the count had told him. "What do you
think should be done? The Franks are surrounded by a terrible
Turkish siege, and perhaps have already fallen before their swords,
or have been led away to different regions under the yoke of
perpetual slavery. Since we do not have the ability or occasion to
provide them with aid, particularly since, if we went forward, we
would have to fear being killed by the Turks we might encounter, we
should turn back, if this is in accord with your judgement." Having
said this, the traitor was undoubtedly pleased with himself, because
he had heard that those whom he hated no less than the Turks had been
killed.

But Guido, having heard of the danger in which his brother and the
Franks found themselves, together with the entire Norman household,
began to howl with grief, launching complaints self-righteously even
against God himself; they said, "All powerful God, whose judgement
never errs, who never permits the unjust to triumph over the just,
why have you betrayed those who, out of love for you, have given
themselves over to daily torment and death, who have left their
relatives, wives, sons, the greatest honors, their native land, and
why have you exposed them, without the aid of your protection, to be
cut down by the swords of abominable men? If it becomes known that
you have permitted profane hands to deliver them to a horrible death,
whom will you find willing to obey your commands, since everyone will
judge you unable to defend your own people? But so be it. It may be
that you want them to die for you, and that you you will crown them
with glory and honor, yet even if you bestow land one hundred fold on
these people, you will have brought about eternal shame among nations
for the people of your own faith. You have plunged the entire
Christian world into the depths of despair and incredulity, and you
have provoked the worst men to display relentless aggression against
your people. From this day forth no man will expect anything great
from you, since those who believed themselves dearer to you than all
other mortals have been subjected to such an unworthy fate.
Therefore, O most gracious one, from now on why should they call upon
you, when your own people will expect such a death?" Thus they
expressed their terrible grief and desperate anguish, so that for
several days none of the astonished bishops, abbots, clerics or
laymen in the entire army led by the tyrant dared to call upon God.
Guido, remembering his love for his noble brother, going over in his
mind the splendid qualities of the man, expressed his inmost anguish
with many a groan.

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