A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 (36 page)

The next days were spent in intrigues about the
appointment to the throne. Of the great princes that had set out from
Constantinople, only four now were left with the Crusade; Raymond of Toulouse,
Godfrey of Lorraine, Robert of Flanders and Robert of Normandy. Eustace of
Boulogne had always played a shadowy role behind his brother Godfrey; and
Tancred, for all his prowess, had few followers and was considered to be little
more than Bohemond’s poor relation. Of these, Raymond was the most formidable
candidate. His age, his wealth, his experience and his long association with
Adhemar were assets that no one else commanded. But he was unpopular with his
colleagues. He had shown too often and too arrogantly that he regarded himself
as the secular leader of the Crusade. His policy of friendship with the Emperor
was greatly disliked, even by many of his own following. His few months as
unquestioned commander had not been successful; the fiasco at Arqa and the
disavowal of the Holy Lance had damaged his prestige; and, though his personal
courage and energy were not doubted, he had not brought off any great victory
as a soldier. As a king, he would be overbearing and autocratic but would not
inspire confidence in his generalship nor in his politics. Of the others,
Robert of Flanders was the ablest. But he was known to wish to return to his
home as soon as Jerusalem was secure. Robert of Normandy was well liked and
commanded prestige as the head of the Norman race. But he was not a formidable
character; and he too was inclined to return to Europe. There remained Godfrey.
As Duke of Lower Lorraine he had in the past filled a higher post than any of
his colleagues. He had not been a very efficient duke; and his behaviour at
Constantinople had shown him to possess the suspicious obstinacy of a weak and
un-intelligent man. But his failings as a statesman and an administrator were
unknown to the Crusaders, who saw him to be a gallant and godly man and a
devoted servant of their cause. It was said that when the electors made
inquiries about the private lives of each leader, Godfrey’s entourage had no
fault in him to report save for an excessive fondness for pious exercises.

Who constituted the electors is unknown.
Probably they were the higher clergy and such knights as were tenants-in-chief
to the princes of the Crusade. The crown was first offered to Raymond; but he
refused it. His refusal has surprised historians, so obvious was his ambition
to lead the Crusade. But he realized that the offer did not have the sincere
support of the majority of the Crusaders and that his colleagues would never in
fact submit to his authority. Even his own soldiers, anxious to return to
Europe, declared themselves to be against his acceptance. He therefore
announced that he would not wish to be king in Christ’s holy city, hoping thus
to make it impossible for anyone else to become king. The electors then turned
with relief to Godfrey, who was known to be favoured by Robert of Flanders and
Robert of Normandy. Godfrey, after some show of unwillingness, accepted the
power but asked to be excused from wearing the title of a king. He would be
called
Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri
, the dedicated defender of the Holy
Sepulchre.

Godfrey’s
Triumph

Raymond considered that he had been tricked.
But Godfrey was certainly sincere when he declined to wear a crown in the city where
Christ had worn a crown of thorns. His chief asset was that his piety
corresponded with the piety of the average Crusader. He never rid himself of
the conviction that the Church of Christ should be the ultimate ruler of the
Holy Land. It was only after his death and after the bulk of the pilgrims had
gone home, leaving behind a colony mainly made up of adventurers and practical
men of affairs, that a king could be crowned in Jerusalem.

Raymond took Godfrey’s victory very badly. He
possessed the Tower of David, and he refused to yield it to the new ruler,
saying that he intended to remain in Jerusalem to celebrate the following
Easter there, and meantime the Tower would be his residence. After Robert of
Flanders and Robert of Normandy had both remonstrated with him, he agreed to
leave it in the care of the Bishop of Albara till a general council of the
Crusade should settle the case. But soon after he had moved out, the bishop,
without waiting for a judicial decision, handed it over to Godfrey. The bishop
excused himself before Raymond, saying that he was defenceless and obliged to
give way; but Raymond of Aguilers himself saw the great stacks of arms that the
faithless prelate took with him when he moved to a house near the Holy
Sepulchre. He may have been encouraged in his action by those of Raymond’s men
who were anxious to induce their master to return to France. In his rage
Raymond at first announced that he would at once return home. He left
Jerusalem, but went down with all his troops to the valley of the Jordan.
Obedient to the instructions given him by Peter Bartholomew at Antioch, he led
his men, each carrying a palm-leaf, from Jericho to the river. When he returned
the whole company, reciting prayers and psalms, bathed in the holy stream and
dressed themselves in clean garments; ‘though why the holy man told us to do
all this’, remarked Raymond of Aguilers, ‘we do not yet know’. Unwilling to
return to the scene of his humiliation at Jerusalem, Raymond then set up his
camp at Jericho.

Godfrey and his
Colleagues

Raymond’s failure to secure the crown weakened
his followers. When the clergy assembled on 1 August to elect a Patriarch the
opposition of the Provencals to Arnulf of Rohes was ineffectual. Secure in the
support of the Lorrainers and the Normans of France and Italy, the Bishop of
Marturano was able to persuade the majority in the assembly to appoint Arnulf.
In vain Raymond of Aguilers and his friends pointed out that the election was
un-canonical, as Arnulf was not even a subdeacon, and that his morals were such
that rhymes had been made about them in the army. The general public welcomed
his enthronement. As a politician Arnulf was moderate. If the clergy had expected
him to dictate to Godfrey, they were disappointed. Conscious, perhaps, that he
did not carry the weight to be the ruler of Jerusalem, he restricted his
activities to ecclesiastical affairs. There his aim was to latinize the see.
With Godfrey’s approval he installed twenty canons to hold daily services at
the Holy Sepulchre, and he provided the church with bells to call the people to
prayer — the Moslems had never permitted the Christians to use them. Next, he
banished the priests of the eastern rites who had held services in the church.
For then, as now, it contained altars belonging to all the sects of oriental
Christendom, not only Orthodox Greeks and Georgians but also Armenians,
Jacobites and Copts. The local Christian population had eagerly returned to
Jerusalem on the morrow of the Latin conquest; but now they began to regret the
change of masters. When they had been ejected from the city by Iftikhar,
certain of the Orthodox priests had taken with them the holiest relic of the
Church of Jerusalem, the major portion of the true Cross. They were unwilling
to hand it over now to a pontiff who ignored their rights. It was only by the
use of torture that Arnulf forced its guardians to reveal where they had hidden
it. But, though their resentment was growing, the native Orthodox Christians
had no choice but to accept the Latin hierarchy. Their own higher clergy were
scattered; and it never occurred to them to appoint their own bishops and
Patriarch in opposition to the Latins. There was as yet no schism between
eastern and western Orthodoxy in Palestine, though Arnulf had taken the first
steps towards making it inevitable. The heretic churches, who had enjoyed
tolerance under the Moslems, found that the Latin conquest began for them a
period of eclipse.

Godfrey’s relations with the colleagues that
had hitherto supported him deteriorated after his elevation. For some reason he
soon offended Robert of Normandy; and Robert of Flanders grew cooler towards
him. Tancred had gone off meanwhile to Nablus, whose inhabitants had sent to
Jerusalem surrendering themselves into the Crusaders’ hands. Possibly in order
to prevent his usual practice of taking all the booty for himself, he was
accompanied by Godfrey’s brother, Eustace of Boulogne. They were well received
there; but it seems that they obtained no loot.

Soon after their departure an Egyptian embassy
reached Jerusalem, to reproach the Franks for their breach of faith and to
order them to leave Palestine. It was followed by the news that the Egyptian
army, under the command of the vizier, al-Afdal himself, had crossed into
Palestine and was advancing on Ascalon. Godfrey therefore sent to Tancred and
to Eustace, telling them to descend into the maritime plain and report on the
movements of the enemy. They hastened down towards Caesarea, then turned
southward to Ramleh. On their way they captured several scouts sent ahead by
the Egyptians; and from them they extracted information about the numbers and
the disposition of the vizier’s forces. Gathering that al-Afdal was waiting for
his fleet to join him with additional supplies and that he did not expect the
Franks to attack him, they sent to Godfrey to urge that the Crusaders should
take him by surprise. Godfrey at once mustered his army and called upon his colleagues
to join him. Robert of Flanders responded to the summons; but Robert of
Normandy and Raymond, who was still in the Jordan valley, answered that they
would wait till the news was confirmed. It was only after their own scouts had
been sent to discover what was happening that they consented to move.

The Victory at
Ascalon

On 9 August Godfrey set out from Jerusalem with
Robert of Flanders and all their men. The Patriarch Arnulf accompanied them.
When they arrived at Ramleh and met with Tancred and Eustace, the Bishop of
Marturano was hastily ordered back to Jerusalem to announce how dangerous was
the situation and to urge every fighting man to join the army. Robert of
Normandy and Raymond were convinced by now, and left Jerusalem on the 10th.
Only a tiny garrison remained behind in the city, where Peter the Hermit was
instructed to hold services and processions of intercession, at which Greeks
and Latins alike should pray for the victory of Christendom. Early on the nth
the whole host of the Crusaders assembled at Ibelin, a few miles beyond Ramleh.
They advanced at once into the plain of Ashdod, where at dusk they discovered
and rounded up the herds that the Egyptians had brought to feed their troops.
After a brief night’s rest they emerged into the green and fertile plain of
al-Majdal, just to the north of Ascalon, where the vizier’s army was encamped.
They formed their battle-array in the dim light of dawn, with Raymond on the
right, by the sea, the two Roberts and Tancred in the centre and Godfrey on the
left; and as soon as the ranks were ordered they charged into the Egyptian
army. Al-Afdal was taken entirely by surprise. His scouting was at fault; and
he had not expected the Franks to be so near. His men put up hardly any
resistance. In a few minutes they were fleeing in panic. A large company took
refuge in a sycamore grove, where they were burnt to death. On their left flank
Raymond drove great numbers into the sea. In the centre Robert of Normandy and
Tancred penetrated into the heart of their camp; and Robert’s bodyguard
captured the vizier’s standard and many of his personal belongings. The vizier
himself, with a handful of officers, managed to escape into Ascalon and there
took a ship to return to Egypt. In a few hours the victory was complete; and the
Crusaders’ possession of Jerusalem was assured.

The booty taken by the victors was immense.
Robert of Normandy bought the vizier’s standard for twenty silver marks from
the Norman that had captured it, and presented it to the Patriarch Arnulf. The
vizier’s sword was sold to another prince for sixty bezants. Bullion and
precious stones were found in huge quantities amongst the Egyptian luggage; and
a vast amount of armaments and of beasts fell into the Crusaders’ hands. On
Saturday, 13 August, a triumphal procession returned to Jerusalem laden with
spoil. All that could not be carried with them was burnt.

The significance of the victory was fully
realized. But while it ensured that the Egyptians could not recover the
territory that they had lost, it did not mean that at once all Palestine would
be occupied by the Franks. The Egyptian navy still commanded the coasts and
offered protection to the seaports. Godfrey had hoped to follow up the battle
by the capture of Ascalon; whose garrison knew that it could not be held
against the united forces of the Crusade. But the massacre at Jerusalem had not
been forgotten. The Moslems in Ascalon had no wish to suffer a similar fate.
They knew that the only survivors at Jerusalem had been those that had
surrendered to Raymond of Toulouse, whose reputation for chivalry therefore
stood high. They sent now to the Crusader camp, saying that they would give up
the city to him alone. Godfrey, deeply suspicious of Raymond since the affair
of the Tower of David, refused to recognize any terms of surrender that did not
give himself the town. Raymond was angry and humiliated, and at once began to
move northward with all his men; and Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders
were so shocked by Godfrey’s pettiness that they too deserted him. Without
their help Godfrey could not venture to attack Ascalon, which was thus lost to
the Franks for more than half a century.

The little town of Arsuf next offered to
surrender to Raymond. But again Godfrey refused to honour any such agreement;
and again Raymond moved angrily away. Godfrey’s friends declared that Raymond
even encouraged the garrison of Arsuf to hold out against Godfrey, whose
weakness he carefully emphasized to them.