The Deeds of God through the Franks

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In proceeding to offer a model to correct (or perhaps to corrupt) the
history, I have first attempted to consider the motives and needs
that brought about this expedition, as I have heard them, and then,
having shown how it came about, to relate the events themselves. I
learned the story, related with great veracity, from the previous
author whom I follow, and from those who were present on the
expedition. I have often compared the book's version of events with
what was said by those who saw what happened with their own eyes, and
beyond a doubt I have seen that neither testimony was discordant with
the other. Whatever I have added, I have learned from eye-witnesses,
or have found out for myself. If anything described is false, no
clever critic may rightly accuse me of lying, I say, since he cannot
argue, as God is my witness, that I have spoken out of a desire to
deceive. How can it be surprising if we make errors, when we are
describing things done in a foreign land, when we are clearly unable
not only to express in words our own thoughts and actions, but even
to collect them in the silence of our own minds? What can I say then
about intentions, which are so hidden most of the time that they can
scarcely be discerned by the acuity of the inner man? Therefore we
should not be severely attacked if we stumble unknowingly in our
words; but relentless blame should be brought to bear when falsity is
willfully woven into the text, in an attempt to deceive, or out of a
desire to disguise something. Furthermore, the names of men,
provinces, and cities presented me with considerable difficulties; I
knew some of the familiar ones were written down incorrectly by this
author, and I do not doubt that in recording foreign, and therefore
less known, names, errors were also made. For example, we inveigh
every day against the Turks, and we call Khorasan[48] by its new name;
when the old word has been forgotten and has almost disappeared, no
use of ancient sources, even if they were available, has been made: I
have chosen to use no word unless it were in common use. Had I used
Parthians instead of Turks, as some have suggested, Caucasus and not
Khorasan, in the pursuit of authenticity, I might have been
misunderstood and laid myself open to the attacks of those who argue
about the proper names of provinces. In particular, since I have
observed that in our lands provinces have been given new names, we
should assume that the same changes take place in foreign lands. For
if what was once called Neustria is now called Normandy, and what was
once called Austrasia is now, because of a turn of events, called
Lotharingia, why should one not believe that the same thing happened
in the East? As some say, Egyptian Memphis is now called Babylon.
Instead of using different names, thereby becoming obscure or
participating in polemics, I have preferred to make use of the common
word. I was in doubt for a long time about the name of the bishop of
Puy, and learned it just before finishing this work, for it was not
in the text from which I was working. Please, my reader, knowing
without a doubt that I certainly had no more time for writing than
those moments during which I dictated the words themselves, forgive
the stylistic infelicities; I did not first write on wax tablets to
be corrected diligently later, by I wrote them directly on the
parchment, exactly as it is, harshly barked out. I inscribed a name
that lacks arrogance, and brings honor to our people: The Deeds of
God through the Franks. Here ends the preface to the history which
is called the Deeds of God through the Franks, written by the
reverend Dom Guibert, abbot of the monastery of Saint Mary at Nogent,
which is located near Coucy, in the district of Laon.--

BOOK ONE

Sometimes but not always incorrectly, certain mortals have developed
the foul habit of praising previous times and attacking what modern
men do. Indeed the ancients should be praised for the way in which
they balanced good fortune with restraint, as well as for the way in
which thoughtfulness controlled their use of energy. However, no
discerning individual could prefer in any way the temporal prosperity
of the ancients to any of the strengths of our own day. Although
pure strength was pre-eminent among the ancients, yet among us,
though the end of time has come upon us, the gifts of nature have not
entirely rotted away. Things done in early times may rightly be
praised because done for the first time, but far more justly are
those things worth celebrating which are usefully done by
uncultivated men in world slipping into old age. We admire foreign
nations famous for military strength; we admire Philip for his
merciless slaughter and victories everywhere, never without
relentless shedding of blood. We commend with resounding rhetoric
the fury of Alexander, who emerged from the Macedonian forge to
destroy the entire East. We measure the magnitude of the troops of
Xerxes at Thermopylae, and of Darius against Alexander, with the
terrible killing of infinite numbers of nations. We wonder at
Chaldean pride, Greek bitterness, the sordidness of the Egyptians,
the instability of the Asiatics, as described by Trogus-Pompeius[49]
and other fine writers. We judge that the early Roman institutions
usefully served the common good and the spread of their power.
And yet, if the essence of these things were laid bare, not only
would their bravery be considered praiseworthy by wise men, but
the relentless madness of fighting without good reason, only for the
sake of ruling, would obviously deserve reproach. Let us look
carefully, indeed let us come to our senses about the remains, I
might have said dregs, of this time which we disdain, and we may find,
as that foolish king said,[50] that our little finger is greater
than the backs of our fathers, whom we praise excessively. If we
look carefully at the wars of the pagans and the kingdoms they
traveled through by great military effort, we shall conclude that
none of their strength, none of their armies, by the grace of God, is
comparable in any way to ours. Although we have heard that God was
worshipped among the Jews, we know that Jesus Christ, as he once was
among the ancients, today exists and prevails by clear proofs among
the moderns. Kings, leaders, rulers and consuls, have collected vast
armies from everywhere, and from among the so-called powerful of
nations everywhere, have amassed hordes of people to fight. They,
however, come together here out of fear of men. What shall I say of
those who, without master, without a leader, compelled only by God,
have traveled not only beyond the borders of their native province,
beyond even their own kingdom, but through the vast number of
intervening nations and languages, from the distant borders of the
Britannic Ocean, to set up their tents in the center of the earth?
We are speaking about the recent and incomparable victory of the
expedition to Jerusalem, whose glory for those who are not totally
foolish is such that our times may rejoice in a fame that no previous
times have ever merited. Our men were not driven to this
accomplishment by desire for empty fame, or for money, or to widen
our borders--motives which drove almost all others who take up or
have taken up arms. About these the poet correctly says:

Quis furor, o cives, quae tanta licentia ferri,

Gentibus invisis proprium praebere cruorem? (Lucan 1.8,9)

What madness was this, my countrymen, what fierce orgy of slaughter...
to give to hated nations the spectacle of Roman bloodshed?[51]

and:

Bella geri placuit, nullos habitura triumphos.

It was decided to wage wars that could win no triumphs.[52]

If they were taking up the cause of protecting liberty or defending
the republic, they would be able to offer morally acceptable excuse
for fighting. Indeed, in the case of an invasion of barbarians or
pagans, no knight could rightly be prevented from taking up arms.
And if these conditions were not the case, then simply to protect
Holy Church they waged the most legitimate war. But since this pious
purpose is not in the minds of everyone, and instead the desire for
material acquisitions pervades everyone's hearts, God ordained holy
wars in our time, so that the knightly order and the erring mob, who,
like their ancient pagan models, were engaged in mutual slaughter,
might find new way of earning salvation. Thus, without having chosen
(as is customary) a monastic life, without any religious committment,
they were compelled to give up this world; free to continue their
customary pursuits, nevertheless they earned some measure of God's
grace by their own efforts. Therefore, we have seen nations,
inspired by God, shut the doors of their hearts towards all kinds of
needs and feelings, taking up exile beyond the Latin world, beyond
the known limits of the entire world, in order to destroy the enemies
of the name of Christ, with an eagerness greater than we have seen
anyone show in hurrying to the the banquet table, or in celebrating a
holiday.[53] The most splendid honors, the castles and towns over
which they held power, meant nothing to them; the most beautiful
women were treated as though they were worthless dirt; pledges of
domestic love,[54] once more precious than any gem, were scorned.
What no mortal could have compelled them to do by force, or persuade
them to do by rhetoric, they were carried forward to do by the sudden
insistence of their transformed minds. No priest in church had to
urge people to this task, but one man urged another, both by speech
and by example, proclaiming his determination, both at home and in
the streets, to go on the expedition. Every man showed the same
fervor; the chance to go on the trip appealed both to those who had
little property, and to those whose vast possessions or stored-up
treasures permitted them to take the richest provisions for the
journey. You would have seen Solomon's words clearly put into action,
"the locusts have no king, yet they march together in bands."[55]
This locust made no leap of good works, as long as he lay in the
frozen torpor of deep sin, but when the heat of the sun of justice
shone, he leaped forward in the flight of a double (or natural)[56]
movement, abandoning his paternal home and family, changing his
behaviour to take on a sacred purpose. The locust had no king,
because each faithful soul had no leader but God alone; certain that
He is his companion in arms, he has no doubt that God goes before him.
He rejoices to have undertaken the journey by the promptings of
God's will, who will be his solace in tribulation. But what is it
that drives a whole community unless it is that simplicity and unity
which compels the hearts of so many people to desire one and the same
thing? Although the call from the apostolic see was directed only to
the French nation, as though it were special, what nation under
Christian law did not send forth throngs to that place? In the
belief that they owed the same allegiance to God as did the French,
they strove strenuously, to the full extent of their powers, to share
the danger with the Franks. There you would have seen the military
formations of Scots, savage in their own country, but elsewhere
unwarlike, their knees bare, with their shaggy cloaks, provisions
hanging from their shoulders, having slipped out of their boggy
borders, offering as aid and testimony to their faith and loyalty,
their arms, numerically ridiculous in comparison with ours. As God
is my witness I swear that I heard that some barbarian people from I
don't know what land were driven to our harbor, and their language
was so incomprehensible that, when it failed them, they made the sign
of the cross with their fingers; by these gestures they showed what
they could not indicate with words, that because of their faith they
set out on the journey. But perhaps I shall treat these matters at
greater length when I have more room. Now we are concerned with the
state of the church of Jerusalem, or the Eastern church, as it was
then.

In the time of the faithful Helen, the mother of the ruler
Constantine, throughout the regions known for the traces of the
Lord's sufferings, churches and priests worthy of these churches were
established by this same Augusta.[57] From church history we learn
that, for a long time after the death of those just mentioned, these
institutions endured while the Roman Empire continued. However, the
faith of Easterners, which has never been stable, but has always been
variable and unsteady, searching for novelty, always exceeding the
bounds of true belief, finally deserted the authority of the early
fathers. Apparently, these men, because of the purity of the air and
the sky in which they are born, as a result of which their bodies are
lighter and their intellect consequently more agile, customarily
abuse the brilliance of their intelligence with many useless
commentaries. Refusing to submit to the authority of their elders or
peers, "they searched out evil, and searching they succumbed."[58]
Out of this came heresies and ominous kinds of different plagues.
Such a baneful and inextricable labyrinth of these illnesses existed
that the most desolate land anywhere could not offer worse vipers and
nettles. Read through the catalogues of all heresies; consider the
books of the ancients against heretics; I would be surprised if, with
the exception of the East and Africa, any books about heretics could
be found in the Roman world. I read somewhere that Pelagius, unless
I am mistaken, was a British heretic; but I believe that no one has
ever been able to compose an account of the mistaken people, or their
errors. The Eastern regions were lands cursed on earth in the work
of its teachers,[59] bringing forth thorns and prickly weeds for
those working it. Out of Alexandria came Arius,[60] out of Persia
Manes.[61] The madness of one of them tore and bloodied the mantle
of holy Church, which had until then no spot or wrinkle,[62] with
such persistence that the persecution of Datian[63] seemed shorter in
time, and more narrowly confined in space. Not only Greece, but,
afterwards, Spain, Illyria, and Africa succumbed to it. The fictions
of the other, although ridiculous, nevertheless deceived the sharpest
minds far and wide with its trickery. What should I say about the
Eunomians, the Eutychians, the Nestorians, how can I represent the
thousands of hideous groups whose frenzy against us was so relentless,
and against whom victory was so difficult, that the heresies seemed
to be beheaded not with swords but with sticks? If we examine the
early histories of the beginnings of their kingdoms, and if we
chatter about the ridiculous nature of their kings, we must wonder at
the sudden overthrowing and replacing of rulers brought about by
Asiatic instability. Anyone who wants to learn about their
inconstancy may look at the Antiochi and Demetrii, whirling and
alternating in and out of power; the man flourishing in power today
may be driven tomorrow not merely from power, but from his native
land, exiled by the fickleness of the peoples whom he had ruled.
Their foolishness, both in secular behavior and in religious belief,
has thrived until this day, so that neither in the preparation of the
Eucharist, nor in the location of the Apostolic see do they have
anything in common with us. But if making the sacrament out of
leavened bread is defended with the apparently reasonable argument
that using yeast is not harmful when it is done in good faith, and
that the Lord had put an end to the old ways by eating lamb with
unleavened bread, and celebrating the sacrament of his own body with
the same bread, because there was no other bread, and he could not
fulfill the law at that time in any other way, to them the use of
unleavened bread, necessary at the time, did not seem a central part
of the mystery, just as the dipping of the mouthful[64] was an
indication not of the carrying out of the sacrament but of Judas'
betrayal. If, I say, these things and others also can be proposed as
either true or false, then what will they say about the Holy Spirit,
those who impiously argue, in accordance with the vestiges of the
Arian heresy, that He is less than the Father and the Son, and who
disagree, both in thought and in many of their actions, with the
ancient laws of the fathers, and with the holy ritual of the Western
Church, they have added this increment to their damnation: they claim
that God limps, having inflicted upon him an inequality of his own
nature. For if one is baptized according to the teaching of the Son
of God, "in the name of the Son and the Holy Spirit," it is for this
reason, that the three are one God; arguing that any of the three is
less than the other is to argue that he is not God. Therefore the
herd of such bulls among the cows of the people now shuts out those
who have proved themselves worth their weight in silver, since some
of our countrymen, stirred by the debate with the Greeks, have
published splendid books on the office of the Holy Spirit. However,
since God places stumbling-block before those who sin voluntarily,
their land has spewed forth its own inhabitants, since they were
first deprived of the awareness of true belief, and rightly and
justly they have been dispossessed of all earthly possessions. For
since they fell away from faith in the Trinity, like those who fall
in the mud and get muddier, little by little they have come to the
final degradation of having taken paganism upon themselves; as the
punishment for their sin proceeded, foreigners attacked them, and
they lost the soil of their native land. Even those who managed to
remain in their native land must pay tribute to foreigners. The most
splendidly noble cities, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Nicea,[65] and the
provinces, Syria, Palestine, and Greece, the seed-beds of the new
grace, have lost their internal strength at the roots, while the
aborted[66] Italians, French, and English, have flourished. I am
silent about the fact that so many abuses have become customary in
those worthless churches, that in many of these regions no one is
made a priest unless he has chosen a wife, so that the apostle's
statement that a man who is to be chosen should have only one wife be
observed. That this statement does not concern a man who has and
uses a wife, but does concern man who had a wife and sent her away,
is confirmed by the authority of the Western church. I am also
silent about the fact that, against Latin custom, people of the
Christian faith, regardless of whether they are men or women, are
bought and sold like brute animals. To add to the cruelty, they are
sent far from their native country to be sold as slaves to pagans.
Finally, worse than all these, it appears that imperial law among
them generally sanctions young girls (a freedom permitted everywhere
as though to be just) being taken to become prostitutes. An example:
if a man has three or four daughters, one of them is put in a house
of prostitution; some part of the smelly lucre derived from the
suffering of these unhappy women goes to the wretched emperor's
treasury, while part goes to support the woman who earned it in such
a base way. Hear how the clamor ascends mightily to the ears of the
Lord of Hosts.[67] Moreover, the priests who are in charge of
celebrating the divine sacraments prepare the Lord's body after they
have eaten, as I have heard, and offer it to be eaten by anyone who
is fasting. While they wander in these and similar paths of evil,
and while they "follow their own devices,"[68] God has set up over
them a new law-giver, "so that the people may know that they are
mortal."[69] And since they, more wanton than the beasts of the
field, have knowingly transgressed the limits set by their fathers,
they have become objects of opprobrium. But just let me tell
something about the authority upon which the nations of the East rely
when they decide to abandon the Christian religion to return to
paganism.

According to popular opinion, there was a man, whose name, if I have
it right, was Mathomus, who led them away from belief in the Son and
in the Holy Spirit. He taught them to acknowledge only the person of
the Father as the single, creating God, and he said that Jesus was
entirely human. To sum up his teachings, having decreed circumcision,
he gave them free rein for every kind of shameful behavior. I do
not think that this profane man lived a very long time ago, since I
find that none of the church doctors has written against his
licentiousness. Since I have learned nothing about his behavior and
life from writings, no one should be surprised if I am willing to
tell what I have heard told in public by some skillful speakers. To
discuss whether these things are true or false is useless, since we
are considering here only the nature of this new teacher, whose
reputation for great crimes continues to spread. One may safely
speak ill of a man whose malignity transcends and surpasses whatever
evil can be said of him.

An Alexandrian patriarch died, I'm not sure when, and the leaderless
church was divided, as usual, into various factions; the more eagerly
each argued for the person whom he favored, the more strongly he
argued against the person whom he opposed. The choice of the
majority was a hermit who lived nearby. Some of the more discerning
men often visited him, to find out what he was really like, and from
these conversations they discovered that he disagreed with them about
the Catholic faith. When they found this out, they immediately
abandoned the choice they had made, and, with the greatest regret,
set about condemning it. Scorned, torn apart by bitter grief, since
he had been unable to reach what he had striven for, like Arius, he
began to think carefully how to take vengeance by spreading the
poison of false belief, to undermine Catholic teaching everywhere.
Such men, whose whole aim in life is to be praised, are mortally
wounded, and bellow unbearably, whenever they feel that their
standing in the community is diminished in any way. Seeing his
opportunity with the hermit, the Ancient Enemy approached the wretch
with these words, "If," he said, "you want certain solace for having
been rejected, and you want power far greater than that of a
patriarch, look very carefully at that young man who was with those
who came to you lately--I shall recollect for you his clothing, his
face, his physical appearance, his name--fill his vigorous, receptive
mind with the teaching that lies near to your heart. Pursue this man,
who will listen faithfully to your teachings and propagate them far
and wide." Encouraged by the utterance, the hermit searched among
the groups that visited him for the identifying signs of the young
man. Recognizing him, he greeted him affectionately, then imbued him
with the poison with which he himself was rotting. And because he
was a poor man, and a poor man has less authority than a rich one, he
proceeded to procure wealth for himself by this method: a certain
very rich woman had recently become a widow; the filthy hermit sent a
messenger to bring her to him, and he advised her to marry again.
When she told him that there was no one appropriate for her to marry,
he said that he had found for her a prophet who was appropriate, and
that, if she consented to marry him, she would live in perfect
happiness. He persisted steadily in his blandishments, promising
that the prophet would provide for her both in this life and in the
next, and he kindled her feminine emotions to love a man she did not
know. Seduced, then, by the hope of knowing everything that was and
everything that might be, she was married to her seer, and the
formerly wretched Mahomet, surrounded by brilliant riches, was lifted,
perhaps to his own great stupefaction, to unhoped-for power. And
since the vessel of a single bed frequently received their sexual
exchanges, the famous prophet contracted the disease of epilepsy,
which we call, in ordinary language, falling sickness; he often
suffered terribly while the terrified prophetess watched his eyes
turning upward, his face twisting, his lips foaming, his teeth
grinding. Frightened by this unexpected turn of events, she hurried
to the hermit, accusing him of the misfortune which was happening to
her. Disturbed and bitter in her heart, she said that she would
prefer to die rather than to endure an execrable marriage to a madman.
She attacked the hermit with countless kinds of complaints about
the bad advice he had given her. But he, who was supplied with
incomparable cleverness, said, "you are foolish for ascribing harm to
what is a source of light and glory. Don't you know, blind woman,
that whenever God glides into the minds of the prophets, the whole
bodily frame is shaken, because the weakness of the flesh can
scarcely bear the visitation of divine majesty? Pull yourself
together, now, and do not be afraid of these unusual visions; look
upon the blessed convulsions of the holy man with gratitude,
especially since spiritual power teaches him at those moments about
the things it will help you to know and to do in the future." Her
womanly flightiness was taken in by these words, and what she had
formerly thought foul and despicable now seemed to her not only
tolerable, but sacred and remrkable. Meanwhile the man was being
filled with profane teaching drawn by the devil's piping through the
heretical hermit. When the hermit, like a herald, went everywhere
before him, Mahomet was believed by everyone to be a prophet. When
far and wide, in the opinion of everyone, his growing reputation
shone, and he saw that people in the surrounding as well as in
distant lands were inclining towards his teachings, after consulting
with his teacher, he wrote a law, in which he loosened the reins of
every vice for his followers, in order to attract more of them. By
doing this he gathered a huge mob of people, and the better to
deceive their uncertain minds with the pretext of religion, he
ordered them to fast for three days, and to offer earnest prayers for
God to grant a law. He also gives them a sign, because, should it
please God to give them law, he will grant it in an unusual manner,
from an unexpected hand. Meanwhile, he had a cow, whom he himself
had trained to follow him, so that whenever she heard his voice or
saw him, almost no force could prevent her from rushing to him with
unbearable eagerness. He tied the book he had written to the horns
of the animal, and hid her in the tent in which he himself lived. On
the third day he climbed a high platform above all the people he had
called together, and began to declaim to the people in a booming
voice. When, as I just said, the sound of his words reached the
cow's ears, she immediately ran from the tent, which was nearby, and,
with the book fastened on her horns, made her way eagerly through the
middle of the assembled people to the feet of the speaker, as though
to congratulate him. Everyone was amazed, and the book was quickly
removed and read to the breathless people, who happily accepted the
licence permitted by its foul law. What more? The miracle of the
offered book was greeted with applause over and over again. As
though sent from the sky, the new license for random copulation was
propagated everywhere, and the more the supply of permitted filth
increased, the more the grace of a God who permitted more lenient
times, without any mention of turpitude, was preached. All of
Christian morality was condemned by a thousand reproofs, and whatever
examples of goodness and strength the Gospel offered were called
cruel and harsh. But what the cow had delivered was considered
universal liberty, the only one recommended by God. Neither the
antiquity of Moses nor the more recent Catholic teachings had any
authority. Everything which had existed before the law, under the
law, under grace, was marked as implacably wrong. If I may make
inappropriate use of what the Psalmist sings, "God did not treat
other nations in this fashion, and he never showed his judgements to
any other people."[70] The greater opportunity to fulfil lust, and,
going beyond the appetites of beasts, by resorting to multiple whores,
was cloaked by the excuse of procreating children. However, while
the flow of nature was unrestrained in these normal acts, at the same
time they engaged in abnormal acts, which we should not even name,
and which were unknown even to the animals. At the time, the
obscurity of this nefarious sect first covered the name of Christ,
but now it has wiped out his name from the furthest corners of the
entire East, from Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, and even the more
remote coasts of Spain--a country near us. But now to describe how
this marvelous law-giver made his exit from our midst. Since he
often fell into sudden epileptic fit, with which we have already said
he struggled, it happened once, while he was walking alone, that a
fit came upon him and he fell down on the spot; while he was writhing
in this agony, he was found by some pigs, who proceeded to devour him,
so that nothing could be found of him except his heels. While the
true Stoics, that is, the worshipers of Christ, killed Epicurus, lo,
the greatest law-giver tried to revive the pig, in fact he did revive
it, and, himself a pig, lay exposed to be eaten by pigs, so that the
master of filth appropriately died a filthy death. He left his heels
fittingly, since he had wretchedly fixed the traces of false belief
and foulness in wretchedly deceived souls. We shall make an epitaph
for his heels in four lines of the poet:

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