The Deeds of God through the Franks

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

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While our men were unsuccessfully engaged in the lengthy siege of the
citadel of Archas, set atop a high mountain, and the army had pitched
their tents in a distant valley, Anselm of Ribemont, a rich and
powerful lord, exceedingly generous and remarkably capable at leading
an army, saw how difficult the siege had become, and, without delay,
advised our men to use machines for launching stones. They had
already begun to undermine a lofty tower, digging a long tunnel which
they shored up with planks and posts; they dug and scraped steadily
every day with great energy, and women and the wives of the nobles,
even on holidays, in flowing robes or tunics, carried off the
material that had been dug up. When those inside the citadel
discovered what our men were trying to do, they put up great
resistance to those carrying out the digging, doing them great harm.
When he saw that undermining the tower could not be accomplished,
Anselm undertook the task of urging our men to use the ballistic
machines. When the machines were set in place, and had fired many
stones at the tower, the besieged put in place similar machine at the
same spot. After it had been set in place, the machine hurled
massive rocks down, doing great damage to the entire Frankish army;
Anselm himself was the first, or among the first, to be struck down.
He, who had always behaved faithfully and steadfastly as a member of
the Lord's army, had shown other signs of his wisdom and strong faith;
one particular example, which is most pleasing to men of letters, is
brilliantly evident in the set of two letters he composed to Manassas,
the archbishop of Rheims, a man of pious memory, who died about two
years ago,[198] in which Anselm related everything which our men did
at the siege of Nicea, how they traveled through Romania and Armenia,
how they attacked, captured, and defended what they had captured at
Antioch, and how at the same time they had fought against the king of
Aleppo, against the king of Damascus, and against the king of
Jerusalem, whom he called the adulterer. As testimony of his devoted
love towards the noble martyr, on the day of the anniversary of the
passion of the blessed Quintinus,[199] he held a celebration,
surrounded by a crowd of clergy whom he had assembled to honor the
saint, and he offered a fine ceremony for the celebrants. On the
same day Anselm himself, together with many others, underwent joyous
martyrdom, earning the kingdom of heaven as their reward for a holy
death.

BOOK SEVEN

That the Eastern Church was restored by the labor of the Western
faithful offers no small stimulus for our faith. We see the most
pious battles fought solely for God, an army burning with a passion
for martyrdom, without a king, without a prince, driven only by a
dedication to their own salvation. We read of how the Gauls went off
into the distant East, eager for battle, and they searched the secret
places of Delphic Apollo, and we know that the treasures taken from
the sacred shrines were thrown into the swamps of Toulouse. We know
that all these troops were summoned together by the princes in those
days; we have heard that, in this instance, not a single man was
compelled against his will, by any master, to go on the journey.
Here, weeping, confessing their sins, abandoning their possessions,
spurning their wives and fleeing from their children, they took up
arms. Foremost in the minds of all of them was the desire for a
blessed death, for the love of God. Here, I say, I wish to weigh
God's wonders: He who once strengthened the minds of the martyrs to
undergo torture out of a love for invisible things, again in our own
times, in an entirely unexpected way, which would have been
considered absurd had anyone said it, placed in the hearts of our men
such contempt for the things of this world, even in the hearts of the
most bloodthirsty and greedy men. He accomplished so much with so
few men, that one must refrain from praising those who did it, since
it is clearly God who was responsible. This is clearly demonstrated
by the fact that men who have won many victories often grow insolent,
and princes rise up against each other, or they become stained with
sin, and the Gentiles find them reduced, I might say, almost to the
level of animals. However, if they were to grow aware of themselves,
and were motivated by penitence, they would immediately be restored
to their proper fortunes and pious successes. Let us rejoice then in
the battles they won, undertaken purely out of spiritual desire,
granted by divine power, which had never before appeared, but was
made manifest in modern times; and let us not admire the fleshly wars
of Israel, which were waged merely to fill the belly.

The king of Tripoli ceaselessly petitioned our princes to remove
themselves from the town, and make an alliance with him. In response,
the leaders of the army, that is, Duke Godfrey, Raymond the Count of
Saint-Gilles, Robert, Count of Flanders and Robert, Count of Normandy,
took into account the fact that the land was abundant with new
produce, that beans, sowed earlier, ripened by the middle of March,
and that barley could be harvested before the middle of April, and
they also considered the general condition of the land, and the great
quantities of supplies, and they decided to resume the journey to
Jerusalem. They abandoned the siege of the town and reached Tripoli
on the sixth day of the week, on May 13, and they remained there
three days. The king of Tripoli made an agreement with our leaders,
and immediately freed more than 300 captives whom he held in chains.
At their departure, as a sign of his gratitude, he gave them 15,000
besants, as well as fifteen costly horses. In addition, he gave our
men a very good price on horses, donkeys, and other goods that would
prove useful for the army, as a result of which the Lord's expedition
was now fully restored to fighting condition. After this agreement
had been made, he also added that if the Crusaders won the war which
he had been told they were preparing strenuously to wage against the
emperor of Babylon, and if they captured Jerusalem, then he would
immediately convert to Christianity and hand himself and his land
over to them. When they left this city, on the second day of May,
they traveled over rough, narrow road all day and all night, and they
finally reached a fort named Betholon.[200] Then they traveled on to
a city located on the sea, called Zabari,[201] at whose river, called
the Braim,[202] they quickly and opportunely relieved the great
thirst from which they had been suffering. On the evening of the
Ascension of the Lord they ascended a mountain along a very narrow
road, in great fear that the narrowness of the path might prevent
them from evading any enemies they might meet at the end of the road.
But God's providence prevented anyone from daring to attack them.
Our soldiers formed a vanguard that kept the road free from hostile
attack. At length they reached a city by the sea, which was called
Baruth; then they went on to Sarepta,[203] once inhabited by the
Sidonians, and made famous by Elijah's feeding of the widow;[204]
from there they went to Sur,[205] and then to Acre, once the capital
of Palestine. Continuing on, they came to a castle called Caiphas,
finally reaching the renowned Caesarea of Palestine, where they
remained for three days after the end of May, celebrating Pentecost.
Then they went on to Ramathan,[206] famed as the birthplace of Samuel,
which some wiser men, more knowledgeable about topography, claim to
be Ramothgalaad, in the struggle for which the wicked Ahab was
defeated by Benadab, the king of the Syrians.[207] When they heard
that the Franks were coming, the inhabitants fled. This city, even
if it were not notable for any ancient monuments, would still seem to
me to overshadow all other cities because of the presence of the
brilliant martyr George, whose tomb they claim is there. After the
inhabitants left, a large supply of every kind of food was found
there, which offered, for many days, ample provisions for our army.
The leaders, after consulting with and obtaining the approval of the
clerics and bishops were were able to be present, decided to choose a
bishop for this city. They tithed themselves, enriching him with
gold and silver; they also supplied him with horses and other animals,
so that he and his household might live without the pain of
indigence, and in accordance with his rank. Amid general rejoicing,
the bishop[208] settled in the city which had been entrusted to him,
to guard the people, to build cathedral as soon as possible, and to
install officials who would look after the church, ready to obey the
leaders who had vehemently sought this out of love and worship of the
martyr.

Finally they reached the place which had provoked so many hardships
for them, which had brought upon them so much thirst and hunger for
such a long time, which had stripped them, kept them sleepless, cold,
and ceaselessly frightened, the most intensely pleasurable place,
which had been the goal of the wretchedness they had undergone, and
which had lured them to seek death and wounds. To this place, I say,
desired by so many thousands of thousands, which they had greeted
with such sadness and jubilation, they finally came, to Jerusalem.
As one reads that the sojourners ate and worshiped the Body of the
Lord,[209] so it may be said of these men that they adored Jerusalem
and took it by storm. Tuesday, the sixth of June, the siege was
begun with remarkable energy, by a remarkable combination of forces.
From the north, Count Robert of Normandy laid siege to it, near the
church of the blessed Saint Stephen, who, because he said that he had
seen the Son of man standing at the right hand of God, was covered
with a rain of stones by the Jews. From the west, Duke Godfrey, the
count of Flanders, and Tancred attacked. From the south, the count
of Saint-Gilles laid siege, on the mount of Zion, near the church of
the blessed Mary, mother of God, where the Lord is said to have sat
at dinner with his disciples, the day before his Passion. On the
third day after they had arrived at the city, Raymond, whose deeds on
the Lord's expedition were well known, this man, I say, whom they
called Pelet, together with another man who had the same name, and
several others, marched some distance from the place of siege, to see
if he could find any of the enemy wandering into our ambushes, as
they often did. Suddenly a band of nearly 200 Arabs fell upon them;
as soon as Raymond saw them, he attacked as fiercely as a lion, and,
in spite of their boldness, with the aid of God, they were subdued.
After killing many of them, and capturing thirty horses, they brought
the victory back to the army, which took pleasure in their glorious
deed. At dawn, on the second day of the next week, the outer,
smaller wall of the city was attacked with such force and with such
teamwork that both the city and its outskirts would have immediately
fallen to the Franks, if they had not lacked ladders. After the
outer wall was broken, and a broad passage opened through its rubble,
the ladder they did have was extended towards the battlements of the
main wall. Some of our knights climbed it quickly and began to fight
at long range. And when the arrows ran out, they fought with lances
and swords; both the defenders of the city and the besiegers battled
hand-to-hand with steel. Many of our men fell, but more of their men.

One should know that while Antioch was under siege, Jerusalem was
held by the Turks, under the authority of the king of Persia.
Moreover, the emperor of Babylon, as I mentioned previously, had sent
ambassadors to our army, for the sole purpose of determining the
condition of our enterprise. When they saw the terrible need that
afflicted the Christian army, and when they discovered that the
nobles had become foot-soldiers because of a lack of horses, they
considered us valueless in a struggle against the Turks, whom they
hated intensely. The king of Persia had taken great part of the
Babylonian empire, which was very large, for his people were wiser
and more energetic in military matters. When the Babylonian prince
heard, however, that the Franks--that is, God working through the
Franks--had taken Antioch, and had defeated Kherboga himself,
together with the pride of Persia, before the walls of Antioch, he
quickly gathered his courage, bore arms against the Turks, and laid
siege to them in Jerusalem, which they occupied. Then, I don't know
whether by force or by some agreement, they entered the town, and
placed many Turks, whether to guard it or to take charge of it I
don't know, in the tower bearing the name of David, which we think
more correctly should be called the tower of Zion. In any case,
during the siege they harmed none of us, merely watching peacefully
over their assigned tower. As a result, our men fought only with the
Saracens.

They were unable to buy bread during the siege, and for nearly ten
days food was difficult to find anywhere, until God brought help, and
our fleet reached the port of Jaffa. In addition, the army also
suffered from thirst, and they not only were worn out by this great
discomfort, but they had to drive their horses and pack animals a
great distance, six miles, to find water, all the while fearful that
the enemy might attack them. The fountain of Siloah, famous for
having cured the blind man in the Gospel,[210] which rises from
springs on mount Zion, supplied them with water, which was sold to
them at the highest prices. After messengers had announced that the
fleet had arrived at Jaffa, the leaders held a meeting and decided to
send a group of knights to the harbor to guard the ships and the men
in them. Early in the morning, at the crack of dawn, Raymond, of
whom we have spoken often, together with two other nobles, took 100
knights from the army of his lord, the count of Saint-Gilles, and set
out for the port, with his customary decisiveness. Thirty of the
knights separated from the main group and came upon approximately 700
Turks, Arabs, and Saracens, whom the king of Babylon had sent to
watch our comings and goings. Although greatly outnumbered, our men
forcefully attacked their troops, but the strength and ferocity of
the enemy was so great that we were threatened on all sides with
imminent death. They killed one of the two leaders, whose name was
Achard, as well as some of the most respected among the poor and the
foot-soldiers. As they were surrounding our men, pressing them with
arms on all sides, so that they were about to despair utterly, one
man came to the above-mentioned Raymond and told him of the plight of
his peers. "Why do you and your men remain here? See how your men,
who recently separated from you, are now fiercely surrounded by an
swarm of Saracens and Arabs. Unless you bring them help very quickly,
you will undoubtedly soon find them dead, if they have not already
perished. Therefore fly, hurry, I say, so that you may not be too
late." Together with all of his nobles, Raymond quickly set off to
look at the place where the fighting was going on. In preparing for
combat he placed his faith not in arms, not in strength, but in faith
in the Saviour. When the Gentile troops saw the Christian army, they
swiftly broke up into two groups. Calling upon the Most High for
support, our men attacked with such force that each man knocked the
opponent charging at him to the ground. Judging themselves unable to
withstand the onslaught of the Christians, the pagans stopped, and,
driven by fear, fled swiftly. Our men followed them quickly,
pursuing them for four miles. After having killed many of them, they
brought back 103 horses as trophies of victory. They refrained from
killing only one man, whom they brought back with them, and from whom
they learned everything that was going on among their enemies,
including what the prince of Babylon was planning against us.

Meanwhile the army was suffering from a terrible thirst, which
compelled them to sew together the hides of cattle and oxen, in which
they carried water from six miles away. They used the water carried
in such bags, which were putrid with recent sweat, and multiplied the
great suffering caused by hunger, to make barley bread for the army.
How many jaws and throats of noble men were eaten away by the
roughness of this bread. How terribly were their fine stomachs
revolted by the bitterness of the putrid liquid. Good God, we think
that they must have suffered so, these men who remembered their high
social position in their native land, where they had been accustomed
to great ease and pleasure, and now could find no hope or solace in
any external comfort, as they burned in the terrible heat.[211] Here
is what I and I alone think: never had so many noble men exposed
their own bodies to so much suffering for a purely spiritual benefit.
Although the hearts of the pilgrims burned for the dear, distant
pledges of their affections, for their sweet wives and for the
dignity of their possessions, nevertheless they remained steadfastly
in place there, and did not cease to pursue the battle for Christ.

The Saracens were always waiting in ambush around the springs and
rivers, eager to kill our men wherever they found them, strip their
bodies, and, if they happened to gain booty and horses, to hide them
in caves and caverns. Terrible hunger and thirst raged through the
army surrounding the city, and the very great rage of the enemy
prowling here and there thundered against them as well. But the
leaders of the sacred army, seeing that so many men of such different
capacities could scarcely endure such pain any longer, urged the use
of machines by means of which the city might be made more vulnerable,
so that, after all they had gone through, they might finally stand
before the monuments of the passion and burial of the Saviour. In
addition to the many other instruments, like battering rams with
which they might tear down the walls, or catapults to topple the
towers and walls, they ordered two wooden castles to be built, which
we usually call "falas." Duke Godfrey was the first to build his
castle, together with other machines; and Raymond, Count of
Saint-Gilles, who permitted himself to be second to no one, also
built his own. When they saw the machines being built, the castles
being constructed, the missile launchers and equipment being moving
up to the towers, the Saracens began, with unusual speed, to extend
and to repair their walls and towers. Working all night long, they
surprised our men by the speed with which they accomplished things.
Moreoever, the wood from which our men had built the castles and
other machines was brought from a distant region. When the leaders
of the army of the Lord perceived which side of the city was most
vulnerable, on a certain Sunday night they brought the castle,
together with some other machines, to that place. At dawn they set
up the machines on the eastern side, and on Monday, Tuesday, and
Wednesday they established them firmly in place. The count of
Saint-Gilles, however, set up his machine on the southern side. As
they burned with eagerness for the siege, their hearts were burning
with intolerable thirst, and a silver coin could not purchase enough
water to quench a man's thirst. Finally, on the fourth and fifth day,
gathering all their forces, they started to attack the walled city.
But before the attack took place, the bishops and priests directed
the people who were their subjects to sing litanies, and to undertake
fasts, to pray, and to give alms. The bishops remembered what had
once happened at Jericho, that the walls of the perfidious city had
fallen when the Israelites' trumpets sounded, and they marched seven
times around the city, carrying the sacred ark, and the walls of the
faithless city fell down.[212] They too circled Jerusalem in their
bare feet, their spirits and bodies contrite, as they tearfully cried
out the names of the saints. Both the leaders and the people came
together in this time of necessity, to implore divine assistance.
When this was accomplished with great humility, on the sixth day of
the week, after they had attacked the city with great forcefulness,
and their common effort had proved to be of no avail, such a great
torpor fell upon the whole army that their strength vanished, and the
steady misfortunes undermined the determination of the most
courageous men. As God is my witness, I have heard, from men
renowned for their truthfulness, who were present in the divine army,
that after their unsuccessful assault upon the walls of the city, you
would have seen the best of the knights who had returned from the
walls striking their hands, shouting angrily, lamenting that God had
deserted them. And I also learned, from sources no less reliable,
that Robert, count of Normandy, and the other Robert, prince of
Flanders, met and shared their mutual grief, weeping copiously, and
declaring themselves the most wretched of men, since the Lord Jesus
had judged them unworthy of worshipping His Cross, and of seeing, or
rather of adoring His tomb. But as the hour drew near at which Jesus,
who for the second time delivered the people from the prison of
Egypt, is believed to have ascended the Cross, duke Godfrey and his
brother, count Eustace, who had not stopped battling from their
castle, steadily struck the lower walls with battering rams, while at
the same time attacking the Saracens, who were fighting to protect
their lives and country, with stones, with various other kinds of
missiles, and even with the points of their swords,

Meanwhile, Lietaud, one of the knights, who will be known for
generations to come for his daring and for his deeds, was the first
to leap onto the walls of the city, startling the Gentiles who
surrounded him, and robbing them of their confidence When he had
mounted the wall, several of the young Franks whose pious boldness
had made them preeminent rushed forward, unwilling to seem inferior
to him who had preceded them, and they climbed to the top of the wall.
I would insert their names on this page, were I not aware of the
fact that, after they returned, they became infamous for criminal
acts; therefore, according to the judgment of men who love the name
of God, my silence is not unjust. Very soon, when the Saracens saw
the Franks breaching the walls, they quickly fled over the walls and
through the city. While they were retreating, our entire army rushed
in, some through the breaches made by the battering rams, others by
jumping from the tops of their machines. Their struggle to enter
resulted in harmful speed; with each man wanting to be perceived as
the first, they got in each other's way. Moreover, near the entrance
to the gates to the city, the Saracens had built secret covered pits,
which injured many of our men, not to speak of the difficulties
caused by the narrowness of the entrance as our men rushed in. The
Franks chased the fleeing pagans fiercely, killing everyone they came
upon, more in slaughter than in battle, through the streets, squares,
and crossroads, until they reached what was called the Temple of
Solomon. So much human blood flowed that a wave of damp gore almost
covered the ankles of the advancing men. That was the nature of
their success that day.

Raymond, the Count of Saint-Gilles, moved his army from the southern
flank and had a very large machine on wheels brought to the wall, but
between the machine, which was called the Castle, and the wall, was a
very deep pit. The princes soon conferred about how to accomplish
the breaching of the wall quickly, and ordered a messenger to
announce throughout the army that anyone who carried three stones
into the ditch would certainly receive a penny. In the space of
scarcely three days the moat was filled in, since night did not
prevent them from carrying out their project. When the moat had been
filled in by this means, they pushed the machine against the walls.
However, those who had taken on the defense of the inner city
resisted us, not out of bravery I say, but out of obstinate madness,
hurling what they call Greek fire at our men, and damaging the wheels
of the machine with stones. The Franks, however, with remarkable
skill, often managed to evade their blows and efforts. Meanwhile, at
the eastern side of the city, the tumult of battle alone made the
aforementioned count think that the Franks had broken into the city,
and were racing though it, spreading death. "Why," he said to his
men, "do we delay? Don't you see that the Franks have taken the city,
and are now triumphantly seizing great booty?" The count, together
with his men, then swiftly invaded the city. When he learned that
some of the Franks had spread through the city's palaces, some into
the Temple of the Lord, and that many were fighting at the altars of
the Temple of Solomon, as it was formerly called, in order to retain
power in the captured city he spoke with the emir (as they called
him) in charge of the tower of David, which was called Zion,
demanding that he hand over the tower with which he had been
entrusted. Thus the satrap, after a pact had been agreed upon
between them, opened for him the gate through which the pilgrims used
to pass when they entered Jerusalem, and where they were cruelly and
unfairly compelled to pay tribute, which was called *musellae*.
When the Provencals, that is, the army of the Count of Saint-Gilles,
and all the others had entered the city, a general slaughter of the
pagans took place. No one was spared because of tender years, beauty,
dignity, or strength: one inescapable death awaited them all. Those
who had retreated to the Temple of Solomon continued to battle
against us throughout the day, but our men, enraged at the feeble
arrogance of these desperate men, attacked them with united force,
and by means of their combined efforts penetrated to the depths of
the temple, where they inflicted such slaughter on the wretches
within the temple that the blood of the innumerable crowd of those
who were killed nearly submerged their boots. An innumerable crowd,
of mingled sexes and ages, had poured into this Temple; the Franks
granted some of them a few moments of life, so that they might remove
from the Temple the bodies of the fallen, of whom a foul pile lay
scattered here and there. After they had removed the bodies, they
were themselves put to the sword. Those who had climbed to the top
of the Temple, a large crowd of the common people, received the
standards of Tancred and Gaston as a sign that peace had been granted
to them in the meantime. However, whether Gaston, a famous and very
wealthy man, was a Gascon or a Basque, I don't exactly remember, but
I am certain that he was one or the other.[213] The army then ran
amok, and the entire city was looted. Palaces and other buildings
lay open, and silver, gold, and silken garments were seized as booty.
They found many horses and mules, and in the houses they found great
abundance of every kind of food. This was right and proper for the
army of God, that the finest things that offered themselves to each
man, no matter how poor, became his by right, without doubt or
challenge, no matter the social class of the man who first came upon
them. And then, putting these things aside, they ran, equally joyful
and sad, towards that which they had thirsted for so fervently.

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