77 Chapter 15: Remaking the Holy Land

“And therefore we urge you, most beloved of the Lord, that you persist manfully along the path of truth and that your virtuous beginnings will lead to a better ending, since it is not he who begins a task, but he who perseveres in it until the end who will be saved.”

-Letter from Pope Urban II to his supporters in Bologna

“Multiply your supplications and prayers in the sight of God with joy and thanksgiving, since God has manifested His mercy in fulfilling by our hands what He had promised in ancient times…we call upon you of the Catholic Church of Christ and of the whole Latin church to exult in the so admirable bravery and devotion of your brethren, in the so glorious and very desirable retribution of the omnipotent God, and in the so devotedly hoped for remission of all our sins through the grace of God. And we pray that He may make you…to sit down at the right hand of God, who liveth and reigneth for ever and ever. And we ask and beseech you in the name of our Lord Jesus, who has ever been with us and aided us and freed us from all our tribulations, to be mindful of your brethren who return to you, by doing them kindnesses and by paying their debts, in order that God may recompense you and absolve you from all your sins and grant you a share in all the blessings which either we or they have deserved in the sight of the Lord. Amen.”

            -Letter from Duke Godefroi of Bouillon & Count Raymond of Toulouse to Pope Paschal II, 1099

            The holy war had succeeded. The Holy Land was again in Christian hands due to the perseverance and brutality of warriors from faraway lands. Following the conquest there remained a number of problems that the great lords had to contend with. Pope Urban II had called for a spirit of war amongst the Christians against their enemies, one which would take them all the way to the Holy Sepulcher. However, this was a general dictum, one which lacked any real plans for the war itself or for the postwar settlement.

            Lacking clear instruction, the lords fell back on tradition. By necessity, the new polity of Jerusalem had to be a monarchy. The only question was: who would be king? Given that Raymond of Toulouse led the largest army, was financing the holy war and had other great lords under his vassalage, he was the natural choice. However, when the lords offered to make him King of Jerusalem he refused, claiming that only Jesus Christ could be king. Raymond’s pious response did not address the real problem the iron men faced: they needed a strong leader to clamp down on factionalism and unite the Christians. This was incredibly important given that an army of around 20,000 Egyptians was heading towards the armed pilgrims even as they bickered over politics.

            With Raymond out of the running, the lords turned to Godefroi of Bouillon. Godefroi had led one of the largest armies in the war, perhaps second only to Raymond. Unlike the remaining great lords, he had sold all of his European possessions and planned to settle in the Holy Land. When the lords offered to make Godefroi the leader of the new Kingdom of Jerusalem, he accepted. However, given Raymond’s magnanimous gesture, Godefroi also decided it was best to refuse the crown itself. Instead, he took up the title ‘Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher’ and would rule as a steward until Christ returned to claim his kingdom.

            Raymond did not take Godefroi’s appointment well. The Count of Toulouse was furious that his rival was de facto King of Jerusalem, though he was unsure how to move against him. For a time, he occupied the important David Gate that served as the western entrance to the city. Godefroi needed to demonstrate his authority over his new kingdom; he could hardly allow someone who hated him to control passage in and out of his capital, and so he ordered Raymond’s forces to surrender the gate. Raymond refused, stating that he would occupy the fortress until Easter, 9 months later. At this point, the southern French soldiers serving under the Count grew exasperated. They had been away from their wives, children, families and fields for three years. The idea of spending another year away was too much. The Provençals defected in droves to Godefroi, believing that if they did, Raymond would be forced to give up this ego-driven power struggle and allow the men to go home. The plan worked; with Raymond disgraced and outnumbered, he angrily surrendered the gate to Godefroi. In short order, the former Duke became lord of Jerusalem and leader of the holy war. Consumed with rage, Raymond led his followers on an excursion to the Jordan River to take baptism. Calmed by this spiritual experience, the Count of Toulouse returned.

            As Godefroi set up his new kingdom he named Arnoul de Choques the Patriarch of Jerusalem. This was an audacious move. As a secular lord, Godefroi claiming the right to invest such an important position was a clear move against the Catholic Church’s authority. Moreover, by naming a Catholic Christian to the post he was openly defying the Eastern Roman Empire, whose people believed that the Eastern cities should be overseen by Eastern Orthodox Christians. If Godefroi’s ascendancy was not evidence enough that the Westerners decided to refuse Eastern hegemony, Arnoul’s appointment made that clear.

            By early August the Egyptian army was fast approaching. Since the Holy Lance was largely considered a fraud, the Christian soldiers needed a new relic. Eastern Orthodox Christians returned to Jerusalem in the wake of the conquest, and Arnoul seized upon the opportunity. He ordered the Greek priests tortured until they revealed the location of the True Cross, upon which Christ was crucified. The relic was not the complete cross, but a fragment encased in a gold container. The discovery of the holiest relic in all of Christianity inspired awe in the soldiers. Unlike the Holy Lance, it garnered no controversy over its legitimacy.

            At the same time, Tancred was patrolling the coast when he captured a number of Egyptian scouts. Under torture, the Egyptians revealed that the vizier’s army was only days away. The great lords held a war council and decided to meet the Egyptians on the open plain. Their greatest victories had come in open battle, where their heavy cavalry crashed through the enemy lines and their unbreakable infantry out-classed their counterparts. On 10 August the holy war marched south to fight its last battle. Duke Robert and Raymond initially refused to move. Yet, their followers threatened to mutiny if they did not aid their fellow Christians against a Muslim invasion. With no other choice, the Duke of Normandy and Count of Toulouse set out from the Holy City and eventually caught up with their fellows.

            When the holy war moved south, they captured yet more spies who revealed that the Egyptian army numbered 20,000; almost twice as much as the armed pilgrims, who had 9,000 infantry and 1,200 cavalry. The lords recognized that an even conflict would see them massacred, and so they sped south to the coastal fortress of Ascalon, hoping to catch their enemies unprepared. On the evening of the 11th of August, the Western host camped a few miles north of the castle. To their south lay an open plain; beyond that the Egyptian army encamped outside the city walls, completely unaware that their enemies were in the vicinity.

            In the early morning of the 12th of August 1099, the French and their allies launched their attack. On a sudden, they charged into their enemies’ camp. Most of the Egyptians were still sleeping when they awoke to the sounds of horns and their comrades’ dying screams. It was too late to organize a defense and the Egyptians were easily cut down. Those nearest the Mediterranean were pushed into the sea where they drowned under the weight of their armor. Those pressed against the walls were hacked to death, with nowhere to run. Many on the southeastern side tried to retreat into the city. So many followed this course that a stampede ensued, killing even more. Some Egyptians tried to hide in trees, only to be shot down by Christian archers or gored by lances. Perhaps half of the entire Egyptian army died in a single day while the armed pilgrims suffered relatively few casualties. The Egyptian vizier sailed home in disgrace, leaving most of his men behind at Ascalon.

            The Egyptian forces left behind watched in terror as the Christians set up camp outside the walls, feasting on the many animals the Muslims had brought with them. The Westerners looked as if they were going to besiege the city. Realizing their peril, the Muslims offered to surrender to Raymond of Toulouse and him alone. This was because, during the Siege of Jerusalem, Raymond had negotiated the peaceful surrender and removal of the elite Egyptian cavalry from the David Gate, while all the other great lords had massacred Jerusalem’s Muslims wholesale.

When Godefroi heard about this he was outraged. Furthermore, he did not want to give Raymond such a vital stronghold within a few days march from Jerusalem. This was too much for the majority of their followers. It was the dead of summer, the heat was unbearable to those accustomed to a much colder climate. They had no siege equipment with them, meaning if they wanted to take the city they would either have to spend weeks transporting and setting up materials or take even more time starving it out. Since the Egyptian forces inside Ascalon wanted to return home and posed no threat to Jerusalem, the soldiers had no interest in fighting them purely to satisfy a personal feud between Godefroi and Raymond. These men had fulfilled their oaths to deliver the Holy Land at the cost of seeing their children grow up, enjoying the comforts of home and sleeping with their wives. It was time to return home. Thus, the Christian hosts left Ascalon without a fight, allowing the bewildered Muslims to return to Egypt in peace.

            The holy war was over. Roughly 80% of the iron men marched from Jerusalem to the coast where they boarded Italian merchant vessels to begin the months’-long journey home. As the veteran soldiers left a new force arrived. 120 Pisan ships docked, bearing with them the papal legate Daimbert. Under orders from the new pope Paschal II, Daimbert was to take as much authority as he could in the Holy Land. At first, he and his supporters called for the dismissal of Arnoul as Patriarch of Jerusalem. Many of Godefroi’s rivals supported Daimbert, including Bohemond, who had arrived in Jerusalem to celebrate Christmas and fulfill his vows to make it to the Holy Sepulcher. Facing religious and secular pressure, Godefroi caved. He dismissed Arnoul, who was made Archdeacon of Jerusalem while Daimbert assumed the position of Patriarch.

            As one of his first acts, Daimbert led a ceremony recognizing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Principate of Antioch. Thus, two of the Crusader States were born. The County of Edessa had preceded these by a year when Baudoin seized it. Initially this county was subordinate to the Emperor, though its Latin Christians later broke with their Greek overlords.

            Daimbert was not content to remain a spiritual leader and he demanded Godefroi give him lordship of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, to rule on the Pope’s behalf. Godefroi delayed, making various promises to cede the territory after conquering two great cities or to pass it to the church upon his death. That day came sooner than he had anticipated. Godefroi fell ill that summer and died on 18 July 1100 in Jerusalem, having ruled just 4 days shy of a full year. At the age of 39 or 40, his death was the first of the Seven Great Lords that had led the holy war. Before Daimbert could consolidate his power, Godefroi’s cousin Baudoin travelled from the County of Edessa to Jerusalem. Since Godefroi had no wife or children, Baudoin claimed the kingdom for himself. Outmaneuvered, Daimbert conceded and Baudoin became the first Christian to claim the title King of Jerusalem.

            We’ll end our story on the First Crusade by briefly following the lives of each of the remaining Seven Great Lords. The next great lords to pass on were Hugues of Vermandois and Étienne of Blois. Hugues and Étienne had abandoned the Siege of Antioch in 1098 and returned home to France. When Paschal II became pope he threatened to excommunicate both of the lords for abandoning their oaths to take Jerusalem. Faced with eternal damnation and revolt by their vassals, the two lords sailed to the Levant. They were part a wave of soldiers that arrived in the East as part of the Crusade of 1101, another holy war called by the pope to reinforce the new Crusader States and expand their territory.

            The Crusade of 1101 was primarily between the Latin Christians and the Turks, led by none other than the Sword-Lion Kilij Arslan I, his ally Gazi Gümüshtigin who had also fought at the Battle of Dorylaeum, and Ridwan of Aleppo. This time the Turks proved far more successful, eventually winning the conflict and halting Christian advances. In September 1101 Hugues was mortally wounded at the Second Battle of Heraclea and died shortly thereafter at the age of 44. The Count of Blois soon followed him. Étienne fought the Fatimids at the disastrous Second Battle of Ramla. He was captured and executed on 19 May 1102 at the age of 56 or 57.

            It is curious that Raymond never returned to southern France. Either his religious devotion, his pride, his desire to die in Christian warfare or a combination of all these, caused him to stay in the Holy Land. More likely, he planned to leave southern France to his firstborn son Bertrand and he wanted to create another great polity for his second son, Alphonse. Raymond competed with his rival Bohemond for valuable territory along the rich northwestern coast of what is today Lebanon. During the siege of Tripoli, Raymond relocated to the nearby Pilgrim’s Mountain and built a castle there. An Islamic force attacked the castle, setting it on fire. While Raymond eventually escaped the blaze he was covered in burns and his aged body never recovered. The Count of Toulouse died on 28 February 1105 at the age of 63-64. When the Provençals took Tripoli in 1109 his son Alphonse became ruler of the new County of Tripoli, the last of the four Crusader States.

            Next was Bohemond. The haughty Italo-Norman waged wars in all directions, fighting against Eastern Romans and Turks alike. Sometimes he was successful, though he faced humiliating defeats, as in 1103 when he was captured and held in chains by the Turks. While Baudoin I negotiated his release, the giant’s nephew, Tancred, ruled Antioch in his place. By 1104, the Principality of Antioch faced growing pressure from Greeks and Turks. Fearing a loss of his new realm, Bohemond traveled to France. There he was treated as a Christian hero and leader of the holy war that had taken Jerusalem. He became such a celebrity that King Philippe I offered Bohemond his daughter Constance in marriage. Bohemond used his celebrity to raise a massive army.

In 1107, at the head of a force of over 10,000, he sailed to Dyrrachium with the intention of conquering the Eastern Roman Empire. Twenty-six years prior, Bohemond and his father Robert Guiscard had won a crushing victory over Alexios I during the 1081 siege, and Bohemond looked to replicate his old triumph. Yet, the aging Emperor had learned from his mistakes. Instead of giving battle, the Greeks waited for the French forces to starve. As Bohemond’s men defected to the Emperor, the giant surrendered. Bohemond signed a humiliating treaty, one which made him Alexios I’s vassal and which promised to give the Byzantines control of Antioch after his death. Rather than return to Antioch, Bohemond went into exile in southern Italy, leaving Tancred to rule the principality. He died in early March 1111 in San Marco Argentano at the age of 56 or 57.

            The last two great lords to pass on were Count Robert of Flanders and Duke Robert of Normandy. The two Roberts had left the Holy Land after the Battle of Ascalon and the ensuing Christmas celebrations. They traveled through the Eastern Roman Empire where they turned down any offers by Alexios I to serve him in his wars against the Turks and against the new Crusader States. Duke Robert took a detour on his way home, travelling to southern Italy. There he was reunited with Sibylle of Conversano, the woman who had entranced him during his initial voyage to the East. There the two married before leaving for Normandy.

            Had Robert returned a few months earlier he likely could have taken the English throne without much of a fight. On 2 August 1100 his younger brother Guillaume II died without an heir. By law, the crown should have gone to Robert. Yet, he was still journeying home when his younger brother Henri I took England. When Robert returned to the Duchy of Normandy he demanded Henri I concede the throne to him. When Henri I refused the two went to war.

            Count Robert of Flanders was later caught up in this cross-Channel conflict, though at first he had problems of his own. The Holy Roman Emperor had invaded the County of Flanders as he sought to remove it from the Kingdom of France and incorporate it into the empire. Robert fought against the Emperor and managed to maintain his territory, though he became the emperor’s vassal. During this conflict, Robert cut a deal with Henri I of England, selling him 1,000 warhorses for the promise of later payment. This deal may have decided the course of the war between the warring Normans. With far superior cavalry numbers, Henri I defeated his older brother on 28 September 1106 at the Battle of Tinchebray. There, Henri I captured his older brother and imprisoned him in England and later Cardiff for 28 years. When Henri I refused to pay Count Robert back for the warhorses, Robert joined with the King of France to invade Normandy. On 5 October 1111, Robert fell from his horse and was trampled to death at Meaux. He had lived roughly 46 years.

The former Duke Robert was the last of the great lords to pass on, and the second to do so peacefully. Robert died in the prison of Cardiff Castle in 1134 around the age of 83.

The world these men had inhabited was a grim one, filled with violence, something which they had a very definitive hand in perpetuating. Of the Seven Great Lords, four died in battle and one from disease. Only two died of natural causes, though this was to their shame. No doubt, Bohemond and Robert would have chosen death in battle over exile and imprisonment. In this manner, the leaders of the holy war passed on from this world.