The First Crusade (38 page)

Bishop Adhemar's death was a severe and untimely blow to the expedition. He had never been the crusade's outright leader, and he had certainly been unable to resolve the dispute over Antioch, but his presence had had an unmistakable impact upon the overall progress of the campaign. His conciliatory attitude towards the eastern Churches had brought the crusaders much-needed assistance from the Greeks and, in particular, from Byzantine Cyprus. As the pope's official representative he possessed the authority to guide the expedition with a steadying hand. Now, just as the crusade seemed to be losing its way, that placatory presence was removed.
¹⁴

WHO
WILL
LEAD?

Through the summer of 1098, with the bitter dispute over Antioch unresolved and the setback of Adhemar's death, it became increasingly obvious that the crusade lacked decisive leadership. The committee rule of the council of princes that had functioned in the face of threats from the likes of Kerbogha was failing. The time seemed ripe for one individual to step forward, seize the reins of command and drive the crusade on to Jerusalem. Three men could fill this post: Bohemond of Taranto; Godfrey of Bouillon; and Raymond of Toulouse.

The candidates

Bohemond was perhaps the most obvious choice. He had proved his qualities as a military leader time and again over the preceding months, and had in June been made temporary commander-in-chief of the entire crusade. As the architect of Antioch's fall and Kerbogha's defeat, he was powerfully positioned to assume the mantle of leadership. But Bohemond's ambitions lay elsewhere. Antioch, rather than Jerusalem, was paramount in his mind - his goal was to retain possession of the city already captured rather than direct the advance on the Holy City. By mid-July, it was blatantly obvious where the full force of Bohemond's attention lay. Within a few days of the victory over Kerbogha, Mediterranean shipping began once again to move freely through St Simeon, bringing the crusaders badly needed supplies. Bohemond shrewdly realised that if he were to hold on to Antioch he must immediately secure lines of communication and support beyond the confines of northern Syria. Once the Byzantines saw that he had no intention of honouring the oath to Alexius and returning the city, the naval aid that they had siphoned through Cyprus and Latakia - the large port to the south of Antioch - would dry up.

With this in mind, Bohemond sought to purchase assistance from other quarters. The only Christian po
wers capable of challenging the
Greeks' domination of the Mediterranean were the Italian merchant cities of Venice, Pisa and Genoa. Bohemond chose to negotiate first with the Genoese, granting them property in Antioch and trading rights in return for their support. On
14
July they had documents -what would technically be known as charters - drawn up specifying the details of their agreement, copies of which survive to this day. As we have already seen, these charters, which at first sight might appear to be rather dull and formulaic, are actually rich mines of information. Typically in this type of material, the person ceding rights or property - the donor - opens by identifying himself with a lavish list of titles and honours. This 'address clause' offers an insight into how donors saw themselves or wished to be seen. Significantly, in his charter Bohemond identified himself simply as 'the son of Robert Guiscard, duke of Apulia'. His decision to make no claim to be ruler of Antioch, nor use of the title 'prince' - which he would later adopt - tells us that, at this point, Bohemond was unsure of his position. He was manoeuvring to gain power, but was not yet in a position to claim it. As one near-contemporary observed, while Raymond of Toulouse continued to hold the Bridge Gate and Palace of Antioch, Bohemond could be nothing more than the city's partial-ruler or 'half-prince'.
¹⁵

Around the same time, Bohemond looked to cement his connection with Cilician Armenia to the north. Tancred, his nephew, had established a southern Italian Norman foothold there in the early autumn of 1097. During the summer of 1098 Bohemond paid a lengthy visit to the region, probably basing himself at the town of Mamistra, on the eastern reaches of the Cilician plain. The fertile soil of this region made it an economic goldmine - for now Bohemond could use Cilicia to feed his troops, and in years to come its fisheries and textile industry could be expected to bring him great wealth - but of even greater import was its strategic value. One reason the crusaders sent an expedition to occupy the region back in September 1097, even before they arrived at Antioch, was to open the most direct route from Asia Minor to northern Syria for later waves of Byzantine and Frankish reinforcements. Now, the last thing Bohemond wanted was an open road running between Byzantium and Antioch, so he reaffirmed his foothold in Cilicia to create a buffer zone between himself and the Greeks.
¹⁶

From July 1098 onwards, Bohemond was more interested in securing northern Syria than leading the crusade to Jerusalem. An alternative candidate for that honour was Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lotharingia. As summer waned into autumn, his stock rose among the crusaders. In part this was a function of the support offered by his brother, Baldwin of Boulogne, a man otherwise preoccupied with the consolidation of his own hold over the city of Edessa, more than 150 kilometres north-east of Antioch. Back in March, Baldwin had given Godfrey rights to the income and produce of Tell Bashir, a town on the road to Edessa. By summer, Godfrey had garnered rights to exploit a second, neighbouring town, Ravendan. One commentator estimated, rather wildly, that Tell Bashir alone brought in 500,000 gold bezants per annum, a princely sum. In July, Godfrey moved to the region and, perhaps as a result of his increased prosperity, attracted a considerable number of new followers.
¹⁷

His reputation was further bolstered when Omar of Azaz, a local Muslim ruler, chose to approach him for assistance. The chronicler Albert of Aachen, who admired Godfrey, provided a colourful explanation of this episode. According to his account, a knight in Godfrey's retinue - Fulbert of Bouillon - was ambushed and killed by troops from Azaz while travelling with his wife to Edessa. While Fulbert was decapitated, his wife, 'because she was greatly pleasing to the eye on account of her beautiful face, was taken prisoner', and was soon forced to wed one of Omar's lieutenants. Azaz was at that time subject to Ridwan of Aleppo, but the advent of the First Crusade weakened his hold over the region and Omar saw his chance to make a break for independe
nce. Albert of Aachen implies th
at Omar chose to seek an alliance with Godfrey because Fulbert's widow had described the duke as the leading figure among the Franks.

In reality, Omar may well have turned to him simply because he was the closest option - Azaz lay on the old Roman road between Tell Bashir and Antioch - but his approach does at least demonstrate that the Franks had been incorporated into the sphere of Levantine power-politics, and that the boundaries of Latin-Muslim enmity were blurring. In early September, with Azaz facing imminent attack fro
m Ridwan of Aleppo, Omar urgentl
y dispatched a Syrian Christian envoy to Godfrey to make an urgent appeal for aid, and followed this up with the offer of his own son as hostage. When Godfrey finally agreed, news was carried back to Azaz by carrier pigeon. Godfrey duly led a relief force towards Azaz and quickly frightened off the Aleppan army. Realising that Godfrey stood to gain a new ally in northern Syria, Raymond of Toulouse and Bohemond rushed from Antioch to get in on the act, but they were too late. As far as Omar was concerned, Godfrey had saved the day, and he lavished gifts on him, among which was a richly decorated set of armour, 'marvellously inlaid with gold and silver'. Omar seemed to have made a wise decision - by allying himself to the new power in Syria he had won freedom from Aleppo - but within a year the tide had turned. His son died in the crusader camp, probably through illness rather than treachery, and, when the crusaders moved to the south, Omar was suddenly isolated. Taken captive by Aleppan troops and dragged before Ridwan, he pleaded for clemency, swearing lifelong o
bedience. Unmoved, Ridwan promptl
y had him executed.
¹⁸

Godfrey of Bouillon's reputation may have been growing in the second half of 1098, but there remained one crusader whom he could not, as yet, hope to eclipse. Raymond of Toulouse took the most purposeful strides towards pre-eminence in the aftermath of the Great Battle of Antioch. From the very earliest days of the crusade's inception, Raymond had thought of himself as the natural choice to become its secular leader, but throughout the first and second sieges of Antioch long bouts of illness had prevented him from playing a consistently high-profile role in events. His infirmity was doubtless linked to his advanced years - being in his mid-fifties, he would have been classed as elderly by medieval standards - but, nevertheless, in the minds of many he was deemed not to have been pulling his weight.

In the summer of 1098, with Bohemond having removed himself from the race, Raymond's natural advantages - the gravitas brought by his age and experience, and his broad base of support among the southern French - were amplified and consolidated by two further factors. As we have seen, in the aftermath of the second siege, the complex web of allegiance and alliance that enswathed the First Crusade was restructured. As one of the richest crusader princes, Raymond was perfectly placed to reap the benefits of this process. His wealth bought him hundreds, perhaps even thousands of new followers, as well as support from some surprising quarters. Around this time, the anonymous author of the
Gesta Francorum,
a man who had so far spent the entire expedition in the company of Bohemond, seems to have begun travelling with the southern French and, from this point on, a subtle shift in his presentation of Raymond's character can be detected.
¹⁹

The full significance of Raymond's connection to the Holy Lance also became apparent in this period. From the start, he had taken every opportunity to establish an intimate link between himself and the relic. Having played a central role in its discovery, he now became the Lance's protector and advocate. His partisan supporter, Raymond of Aguilers, took pains to emphasise this relationship. When the Lance was uncovered he wrote that St Andrew appeared to Peter Bartholomew saying: 'Behold God gave the Lance to the count, in fact, had reserved it for him alone throughout the ages, and also made him leader of the crusaders on the condition of his devotion to God.'
²⁰

This does not mean that, once the Lance was discovered, all the crusaders suddenly accepted Raymond of Toulouse's pre-eminence or authority. But this extract reflects the type of propaganda circulating about Raymond from July 1098 onwards. He wanted the Franks to believe that his connection to the Lance made him the obvious choice to become leader - he certainly seems to have thought this himself. His case became all the more powerful once Kerbogha was defeated. To the crusaders, their victory in the Great Battle of Antioch was so astounding, so utterly extraordinary, that it could only be explained by the intervention of divine agency. It was God's will, manifested through the power of the Holy Lance, which had brought them success. Thus was it that - in the summer of 1098, rather than in the destitution of the second siege - the full power of the crusaders' belief in the Lance began to mature. Raymond's patronage of the Lance may have affected the balance of power among the princes. Robert of Flanders, who had had no particular link to the Provengal camp before this point, now allied himself with Raymond. This was probably a function of the count's position as protector and advocate of the Lance, because Robert is known to have been a staunch devotee of the relic, founding a religious house in its honour upon his return to Europe.
²¹

Raymond managed the cult surrounding the relic with what, at times, appears to be almost ruthless efficiency. The support of Peter Bartholomew was central to this process. His popularity and influence was rising day by day, in tandem with that of the Lance he had uncovered. Whether through conscious design or unconscious impulse, the messages contained in Peter's continuing visions became increasingly audacious and outspoken in their support of his patron Raymond's political cause. This was never more apparent than in the startling manipulation of Adhemar of Le Puy s memory. Within forty-eight hours of the bishop's death on 1 August, Peter Bartholomew 're
ceived' his first vision of Adhe
mar's spirit. In life, the papal legate had always been sceptical about the Holy Lance's authenticity, a damaging blow to the relic's cult. In death, Raymond and Peter set about appropriating Adhemar's legacy to reverse this trend. It can be no coincidence that when the bishop was buried in the Basilica of St Peter, the spot chosen for his interment was the very hole from which the Holy Lance had been drawn. This was the definitive physical intermingling of their two cults and a powerful step towards the reconfiguration of Adhemar's persona.

Peters visions then began to relay the bishop's words' from beyond the grave. It turned out, of course, that Adhemar had been wrong all along. Now, at last, he realised that the metal shard discovered by Peter truly was a piece of the Holy Lance - but how he had suffered to reach this realisation. In his vision, Peter heard from Adhemar that after death his soul had been sorely punished for the sin of having doubted the Lance: 'Following the uncovering of the Lance, I sinned deeply and so was drawn down to hell, whipped most severely, and as you can see my head and face were burned
.
He was saved from damnation only by an act of faith - the three
denarii
he had given as alms to the Lance - and the cleansing power of a devotional candle lit in his memory. Adh£mar went on to say, through Peter, that he was quite happy with his resting place in Antioch.