The Deeds of God through the Franks

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

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Moreover, one of the delegates of the tyrannical emperor, whose name,
unless I am mistaken, was Tetigus, and who was present at this siege,
was a man heavy with age; his nose had been cut on some occasion or
other, and for this reason he had a golden nose. A skilled liar,
compelled by fear of the Turks as well as driven by the danger of
starvation, he addressed the leaders: "Necessity compels your
excellency, O finest of leaders, to recognize how hard pressed we are
by internal suffering, and how much we are goaded on by external
fears. Since battle threatens us outwardly, while hunger insistently
gnaws at us inwardly, there seems to be no refuge for us anywhere, no
solace that would permit us to catch our breath. If in your wisdom
it seems appropriate, grant me permission to go back to Byzantium,
and I shall see to it that grain, wine, wheat, meat, cereal, cheese,
and various other necessary items be brought here by a large fleet.
I shall also see to it that constant commercial traffic in these
items will be established by imperial decree. By land, all of Greece
will send to you horses and whatever other animals and supplies may
be useful. The emperor himself, who has not known of your great need
until now, as soon as he hears of your distress, will provide aid to
you in your great need. And I myself swear to carry out faithfully
what I have promised; and when I have finished these tasks I shall
certainly not be afraid to present myself here again to undertake the
labors of this siege. If you fear that I am leaving your camp
because of hunger, lo, my tents and my men shall remain here with you.
Although I am leaving them for a while, I shall not be able finally
to value them lightly." He spoke, and charmed the ears of the
leaders with his smooth, elaborate speech. Then he left, not at all
fearing what punishment his perjury might incur. Having fabricated a
complete lie, he never afterwards gave thought to what he had
promised.

The presence and strength of the enemy began to constrain us so
greatly that none of our men presumed to leave his tents or the
encampment for any business whatever. In addition, within the camp,
famine, like a madness, plagued them. For if, as they say, "nothing
does more harm than hunger wrung from the unwilling," what suffering
do you think they endured, to what crosses were they constantly
condemned, without a single, even false, consoling hope, as they laid
siege each day to the impenetrable walls? The ordinary people, eaten
away by poverty, wandered through various provinces; driven by the
lack of food, some began to wander towards Cyprus, others to Romania,
while others made their way to the mountains. But the frequent
forays of the Turks had closed off the road to the sea. In short,
there was no exit for our men.

When Bohemund heard that a very large army of Turks was approaching
the Crusaders' camp, he called the other leaders together and said,
"Since the very small part of our army that remains seems
insufficient and too weak to fight single battle, nor can it be split
into two parts to carry on two battles, we should consider, if we are
going to fight the attacking Turks with whatever kind of army we can
muster, which soldiers to leave to continue the siege of the city,
and which to defend our tents. Therefore, if it seems reasonable to
you, let us assign the best part of the finest infantrymen to guard
the besieged city; in our judgment, the strongest knights should be
put up against the madness of the Turks." He spoke, and none of the
leaders spoke against his plan.

The enemy army now set up camp near the fort called Areg, which was
close to the city, across the river Pharphar. The day was ending,
and Bohemund, having summoned the entire army, came out of the camp
and quickly set up camp between the river and the lake next to it.
In the morning he swiftly instructed sentinels to determine the size
of the Turkish forces, as well as what they were doing and where they
were located, and then to report to him as quickly as possible. They
had advanced a short distance and begun to search out the enemy,
whose advance could be clearly heard, when they saw an infinite
number of soldiers, divided into legions of two battalions, appear
before them. They were followed by very large group of foot-soldiers.
As soon as they saw them the sentinels returned: "The enemy," they
said, "is at hand; see to it that they find you strong and prepared."
Then, to stir up his brothers in Christ and fellow-soldiers,
Bohemund said, "O finest knights, your frequent victories provide an
explanation for your great boldness. Thus far you have fought for
the faith against the infidel, and have emerged triumphant from every
danger. Having already felt the abundant evidence of Christ's
strength should give you pleasure, and should convince you beyond all
doubt that in the most severe battles it is not you, but Christ, who
has fought. In the face of any attack, what desperate folly can
enter the mind of you who have thus far, with God's assistance,
escaped harm greater than any men have ever encountered, and who have
achieved triumphs impossible for mere human beings? I ask only that
you place your trust in your own experience, so that at last no human
force may now resist us. Fortify your minds, proceed carefully, and
strive mightily to emulate Christ, who carries your banners, as he
usually does, and call upon him." They responded by shouting that
they would behave faithfully, energetically, and prudently, and they
entrusted to him, because he was the most experienced in battle, the
task of dividing up the army; Bohemund ordered each leader to collect
his liege men and to draw them up into individual battle lines. Six
lines were drawn up, as he had directed, each to attack the enemy in
separate formations, and five of them cautiously marched forward.
Bohemund followed behind with his own group, to offer help if needed.
Drawn up in this manner, closely packed and filled with courage, our
troops went forth to fight, each man encouraging the other by his
close presence, so that no one, to the extent that it depended upon
each individual, would allow the conflict to falter.

Swiftly the enemy came forth with curved spears; as their courage
grew warm, they pricked their horses with their spurs, and the air
was shaken with wild clamor on both sides. The battle-lines clashed,
the Turks threw their javelins, the Franks thrust their weapons
through the breasts of their enemies. Swords grew dull from striking
blows, the collision of steel made a splitting noise. The swift
right hand, thirsting for the filthy blood, inflicted sword wounds.
Like a line of flying crows, like a countless flock of thrushes, thus
the arrows blocked the celestial light, crowding and darkening the
air with the hail of spears. Arms resounded, horses were caught up
in the charge, bronze echoed. They grieved for the losses and
rejoiced in the successes, making for wild discord.[163]

When the entire force of the army behind the vanguard poured into the
hideous strife, the sharpness of our men began to grow dull under the
fierce assault of the enemy; as their numbers grew, our men began to
lose some of their previous ardor. When Bohemund, who was waiting in
the rear with reinforcements, saw this, he gnashed his teeth in rage.
He sent for his constable, Robert, the son of Girardus, and gave him
the following directions, "Go, and make use of the courage which you
should now show, and which is right for such a great task; keep in
mind the purpose of this effort, and understand that our motive is to
aid all of Christianity by redeeming Jerusalem for God and liberating
his tomb. It is clear to you that to carry out this task divine
rather than human aid is necessary. Go then, and offer your bravery
for the suffering Christ, and do not let such an opportunity find you
slow to act, for God may be preparing to give you great glory."
Inflamed by these words, relying on God with his whole soul,

He sprung forward, and tore at the thick crowd of enemies with his
sword, holding aloft the standards of the duke, which inspired such
awe that wherever they appeared the spirits of our men were uplifted,
and he raged like a lioness who, bereft of her cubs, kills anyone in
her way. The sword carved a path, cut through the dense battalions,
smashing everyone who got in the way, pointing the way for the
soldiers who followed.[164]

When our men saw that the familiar standard of Bohemund was not
faltering in the least, and the constable was raging with such
eagerness against the Turks, they all took heart and attacked with
such force that flight was the only protection the enemy could hope
for. Our men fell upon the fleeing Turks, who were running at great
speed, helter-skelter, and we did not cease cutting them down and
decapitating their bodies all the way to the narrow bridges of the
Pharphar, After such slaughter, the Turks entered the fort of Areg,
which I mentioned above, looted it entirely, set it afire, and then
fled, never to return to it. However, the perfidious Armenians and
Syrians, who had awaited the outcome of the battle without taking
sides, so that they could join the side to whom victory was granted,
when they saw the Turks vanquished, moved forward and blocked the
roads, killing the Turks as they tried to go by. The painful
indigence of our men was somewhat alleviated with what was taken from
the conquered enemy; horses and money provided relief, and even more
so, our growing triumphs vitiated the Turkish reputation for
fierceness. After the victory, they cut off the heads of one hundred
of those who had fallen in battle, and hung them before the walls of
Antioch for the besieged Turks to look at. It is, of course, the
custom of the Gentiles to keep the decapitated heads and to display
them as a sign of victory. While these things were going on, the
Babylonian emperor sent ambassadors to the leaders of our army,
congratulating them for what they had done to the Turks; in addition,
he promised, although falsely, that he would become Christian, if our
people would grant and restore to him what the Turks had taken from
his kingdom. We had said earlier that the Babylonian empire was far
more powerful than the other eastern kingdoms, but that the Turks,
more ferocious in arms and in spirits, had usurped much of their
territory. Those who had remained to maintain the siege of the city
had fought bitterly with the inhabitants, not merely at one point,
but at every gate of the city. This triumph occurred on the fifth
day before the Ides of February,[165] the day before the beginning of
the fast. It was right that on the day before Christians were to
fast they grew fat on what they most desired, the blood of their evil
enemies. The Franks, in their fervent victory celebrations, thanked
God for granting them so many of their prayers, and went back to
their camps, loaded with booty. The Turks, on the other hand,
ashamed to be seen, would have made their way, if they could, through
secret passages, back to their native lands.

Then the leaders of the army, considering the many humiliations they
were suffering from the attacks of the besieged people, held a
meeting and decided, to prevent the chance of any diminution of their
forces, to build, at the gate of the city, where the pagan temple was
located, a fort by means of which they could restrain, to some extent,
the enemy's forays. All the junior officers assented to this plan.
Then the count of Saint-Gilles was the first to speak: "I shall
provide for and protect the fort; you must help build it only."
Bohemund said, "If it please you, I promise to go with this count who
has offered his services, to the Gate of Saint Simeon, where we shall
both supervise those who do the work. Let the others continue the
siege, and prevent the enemy from getting out of the city." And so
the Count and Bohemund then proceeded to the Gate, as they had
proposed. Those who had remained to build the castle began to work,
but the Turks made a sudden, violent attack on the beginnings of the
structure. With their sudden attack they compelled our men to flee,
killing many of them, bringing a day of grief to the Franks. The
next day the Turks learned that some of our leaders had left the
siege and gone to the Gate of Saint Simeon. They prepared a large
force and quickly moved to encounter those who were returning from
the Gate. When they saw the count and Bohemund, together with a
large military force, coming towards them, they began to shout and
utter hideous noises. They surrounded our men on all sides,
inflicting terrible wounds on them, hurling spears, firing arrows,
and savagely killing them. Their attack was so severe that our men
scarcely were able to escape into the nearby mountains, or wherever
else escape seemed possible. Those who were, in manner of speaking,
swifter than winged horses, escaped; anyone whom the swift pagans
found slower, however, died. In this disaster, as it was considered,
a thousand of our men perished; those who were found, because of
their proven faith, to be acceptable, received glorious rewards after
death for their sufferings. For those who needed to expiate their
sins, the outpouring of blood alone was the most potent way to purge
their guilt. In great anguish because of such a misfortune, and
separated from his companions because he had taken a shorter road,
Bohemund, with a few of his knights, whom he found banded together,
returned to the siege. Driven to distraction by the death of so many
of their own men, sobbing bitterly, crying out to Christ, they moved
out against those who had inflicted such pain upon them, and reached
the field of battle. Confident because of their recent victory, the
cohorts of the enemy stood firm, expecting to perform exactly as they
boasted they had performed against Bohemund and the count. Against
these proponents of evil the loving God in his mercy arranged proper
remedy for his suffering people. Therefore these famous men, moved
by grief and compassion for their dead brothers, with the sign of the
Lord's cross fixed on their foreheads and in their hearts, hurled
themselves with all their strength against the enemy. As soon as
they saw this, the enemy fled towards the Pharphar river, intending
to cross the strait. In their hasty flight the mass of men was
jammed together in the attempt to cross, and as the wedge of knights
and infantry piled up in a very small space, struggling to pass each
other, men knocked each other down. Our men watched all this very
carefully, and when the crowd of fugitives seemed to thicken, a fall
was more effective than a wound. If any man fell into the water and
tried to get out either by hanging on to the columns of the bridge,
or by swimming to dry land, our men located on the shore forced him
back into the water to drown. The signs of carnage were so great
that the Pharphar seemed to flow with blood, not with water. The
sounds made there by the vanquished and the victors, by the dying and
by those who were forcing them to die, were so terrible that the
highest vault of the heavens seemed to resound with their shrieks.
The air became clouded with arrows and other kinds of missiles, and
the brightness of the solar globe was covered by a shower of flying
spears. The women of the city who were Christian stood on the
ramparts of the wall, feeding upon the sight; as they watched the
Turks perish and submit to calamity they groaned openly, but then
turned their faces away and secretly applauded the fortunate course
events had taken for the Franks. The Armenians and Syrians, although
they were Christian, were compelled to fire arrows at us; some even
did so willingly. Twelve of the principal enemy leaders, called
"satraps" in the Chaldean language, and "emirs" in the barbaric
tongue, fell in battle on this occasion, as well as many others,
amounting to perhaps 1500 of the wealthiest and most important people,
upon whom the entire defense of the city rested. Those who survived
the carnage no longer hurled their customary insults at our men;
their boisterous, scurrilous chattering ceased. On that day their
daily joy was turned into grief.

Then oncoming night separated the enemies; strength and arms dropped
from their agitated minds.[166]

This victory for us resulted in an apparent dimunition of their
strength and force, and their derisory remarks entirely ceased.
Moreover, the short supply of many things whose lack pressed our men
was amply replenished, thanks to God's benevolence. At daylight the
next day, some of the Turks came forth from the city to collect the
bodies of their dead; they found some, but others had disappeared,
carried off in the bed of the river. They buried those they found in
the temple called the Mahometry, on the other side of the Pharphar,
near the gate of Antioch. In these tombs they buried cloaks, gold
besants, bows and arrows, and many other utensils that I shall
refrain from describing. When they heard about these funeral
ceremonies, our men armed themselves and entered the cemetery, broke
open the tombs, took out the bodies, heaped them up and dropped them
into deep pit. Then they decapitated them and had the heads brought
to their own tents, in order to calculate accurately the number they
had killed, with the exception of the bodies that the ambassadors of
the Babylonian emperor transported on the backs of four horses, as
evidence of the victory won over the Turks. When the Turks saw this,
they suffered more bitterly from the uncovering of the bodies than
from the killings themselves. Now they did not restrain their grief
with a few modest tears, but, putting aside all shame, they screamed
in public agony. Three days later they began building the fort
mentioned above, with the very stones they had taken from the tombs
of the Gentiles that they had broken open. When the fort was
finished, the besieged town began to suffer exceedingly, and their
discomfort became even greater. Our own men were now free to go
where they wished, and even the mountain paths, which previously had
been treacherous, were now favorable for searching for food. With
all the roads shut off to the Turks, one section near where the fort
and the temple next to the fort were located, seemed to offer the
possibility of entering and leaving the river. If we properly
equipped this fort, which belonged to us, none of the enemy could
have hoped to have found a way out. A meeting was held, and the
leaders decided that they would choose one of our men to guard the
fort, to fortify it carefully, and to defend it faithfully, so that
the pagans might be kept from wandering through the mountains and
fields, and might be cut off from entering or leaving the city. When
they were looking for someone fit for such task, Tancred, who earned
and still deserves the title of wise young man in the Lord's wars,
unable to restrain himself, broke in at this point, saying:, "If I
were to know what future advantages for me might result from the
present hard task, then I might undertake, carefully and with the aid
of my retinue, to strengthen this fort, and I shall try to block our
enemies from moving along the roads they are accustomed to use."
Pleased with his generous offer, the leaders immediately promised to
give him 400 silver marks. Displeased with the offer, which seemed
not to match the magnitude of the task, Tancred nevertheless agreed;
and so, lest he be considered cowardly if he refused, he gathered his
knights and clients quickly and resolutely, took charge of the fort,
and cut the enemy off from the possibility of getting out through the
city's gates. By this means he inflicted upon them the greatest
scarcity of food for their horses, as well as a great dearth of wood
and other necessary items. This outstanding man chose to remain
there resolutely, cutting off all traffic, and he set about
surrounding the city and setting up a vigilant blockade. On the very
day on which he entered the fort, a large group of Armenians and
Syrians came through the mountains, bringing supplies of all sorts to
the besieged city. This superb knight, to ensure that the task he
had begun would have positive outcome, intercepted them, compelled by
God more than by his own boldness, and seized a great amount of grain,
wine, oil, and other no less necessary supplies. The good man could
no longer complain, that while he was carrying out such a holy task
God was forgetful of him, but he had learned, for the first time,
from this remarkable good fortune that he would never again lack
bodily necessities, and that he would not lack eternal reward from
God, after His earthly assistance. The Turks were entirely prevented
from leaving the city or moving around outside the walls, but were
compelled to make do with what they could find within the city walls,
until Antioch was under siege.

In the course of this siege the strength of Christian law flourished
greatly, and, if anyone was convicted of a crime, he submitted to the
severe judgment of the leaders of the army. Moreover, sexual crimes
were punished with particular severity, and this was just. Those who
were surrounded by atrocious deprivations, who seemed to be exposed
to the swords of the enemy every day, if God were not protecting them,
should not have been at the mercy of lustful thoughts. And how
could pleasure enter where the fear of death was ceaselessly present?
So it happened that merely speaking of a prostitute or of a brothel
was considered intolerable, and they feared dying beneath the swords
of the pagans if they committed such a crime. If any of the
unmarried women was found to be pregnant, she and her pimp were
submitted to hideous punishments. A certain monk of the most
prestigious monastery, who had fled from the cloister to go on the
expedition to Jerusalem, moved not by piety but by whim, was caught
with a certain woman, and convicted, if I am not mistaken, by a trial
by fire. Then they were stripped naked and led, by order of the
bishop of Puy and others, through all the nearby camps, and beaten in
the cruellest fashion with whips, to the terror of the onlookers.

The above-mentioned bishop of Puy assiduously exhorted men to be more
patient in their sufferings and more careful about their vices; he
let no Sunday or holiday go by without preaching the authority of
holy writ through every corner of the camp. He enjoined every priest,
bishop, abbot, and cleric whom he met and who seemed educated, to do
the same.

It seems to me worthwhile, since the word "abbot" has made its way
into my work, to tell about a certain abbot who, when this journey
was first proposed among our people, finding himself without
sufficient funds for the pilgrimage, cut into his forehead by I know
not what means the sign of the cross, which ordinarily was made out
of some kind of material and affixed to clothing. It did not look as
though it had been painted on, but as though it had been inflicted,
like stigmata received in battle. After he had done this, to make
the trick look authentic, he claimed that an angel had appeared to
him in a vision and placed it there. His hopes were not disappointed;
when the restless crowd, always avid for novelty, heard this story,
the man was innundated with gifts, both from people in and from
people outside of his own region. Such a trick, however, could not
be hidden from the eyes of those who looked at him carefully, because
a slimy liquid seemed very clearly to ooze from the forcefully
inscribed lines that formed the cross itself. Finally he set out on
the crusade, was present at the siege of Antioch, displayed what he
had fabricated, although others had seen through it for some time,
and did not hide his intention to gain money. He behaved well there,
and was very useful in instructing the Lord's army. He wished to
emulate God, but he did not do this the way a wise man would. He was
so outstanding that after the capture of Jerusalem he was made abbot
of the church of the blessed Mary in the vale of Josaphat,[167] and
later was made archbishop of Caesarea, metropolis of Palestine. It
is an indubitable fact that had the solace of the divine Word not
been administered with great frequency to them, their patient
perseverance would never have survived the hunger and hardships of
war. Therefore we may say that those among them who were circumspect
in their lives and endowed with wisdom were not less but more
valuable than those who fought the enemy in hand-to-hand combat. He
who provides encouragement that strengthens a wavering mind certainly
is greater than the person to whom his exhortation provides strength,
especially when the advisers and the advisees share the same
suffering.

What shall I say finally about those who, on this same expedition,
were sanctified in various places by becoming martyrs? They were not
only priests, learned men, but warriors, and ordinary people, who had
had no hope of confession, but were called to this glorious fate. We
have heard of many who, captured by the pagans and ordered to deny
the sacraments of faith, preferred to expose their heads to the sword
than to betray the Christian faith in which they had once been
instructed. Among them I shall select one, a knight and an
aristocrat, but more illustrious for his character than all others of
his family or social class I have ever known. From the time he was a
child I knew him, and I watched his fine disposition develop.
Moreover, he and I came from the same region, and his parents held
benefices from my parents, and owed them homage, and we grew up
together, and his whole life and development were an open book to me.
Although he was already an outstanding knight, he was a singularly
expert warrior, but entirely free from sexual vice. He was
well-known at the court of Alexis, the emperor of Constantinople, for
he often traveled in his service. To consider his manner of living:
although he had been blessed with wealth by fortune, he was
considered to be unusually generous in giving alms; he attended
divine services so regularly that he seemed to lead a life more like
that of a bishop than a knight. When I recall his steadfast prayer,
his pious words, and his generosity in giving gifts, I am extremely
pleased with his holy purpose, but also with my own good fortune in
having known him. I witnessed him perform acts that entitled him to
nothing less than a martyr's death. I certainly take pride, as all
those who were able to know him may take pride, in having known him,
since I do not presume to say that I was his friend. Whoever saw him
knew without a doubt that he had seen martyr. Captured by the pagans,
who demanded that he renounce the Christian faith, he asked these
unbelievers to delay until the sixth day of the week. They readily
agreed, thinking that his stubbornness would be altered, and when the
day arrived, and the Gentiles in their madness pressed him to agree
to their demand, he is reported to have said, "If you think that I
have put off the sword hanging above my head because I wanted to
enjoy a few more days alive, and not because I wanted to die on the
day on which my Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, then it is fitting
that I give evidence of how a Christian mind thinks. Get up, then,
and kill me for the example that you want, so that I may restore my
soul to him for whom I die, who on this day gave his own life for
mankind." Having said this, he stretched his neck out to the sword
that hung over him, and when his head was cut off, he was carried to
God, whose death he had longed to imitate. His name was Matthew, as
his name indicates, "given to God."

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