First Crusade: Siege of Jerusalem

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‘Jerusalem is the navel of the world, a land which is fruitful above all others, like another paradise of delights, wrote Robert the Monk in Historia Hierosolymitana. And, indeed, for centuries Jerusalem, sacred to Jew, Christian and Muslim alike, had been the center of attention for a succession of conquering armies–which made life anything but a paradise for its populace.

The summer of 1098 saw the much-fought-over fortress city in Egyptian hands. The Fatimid Emir (commander) al-Afdal Shahinshah had taken Jerusalem from the Seljuk Turks after a 40-day siege, on orders of Vizier (minister of state) al-Musta’li, ruler of Egypt. Many months of political and diplomatic maneuvering with the Franj (Franks–the Arabic term used for all Western European Crusaders) and the Rumi (Romans–actually the Greeks of the Byzantine Empire) had not gotten the vizier the concessions he wanted, so he simply had sent Emir al-Afdal to seize the city the Crusaders were coming to capture, thereby presenting the Franj invaders with a fait accompli.

In the months ahead, the Shiite Muslim poets of the Fatimid court would work diligently to compose great eulogies to the man who had wrested Jerusalem from the Sunni Seljuk heretics. The poetry ended in January 1099, when the Franj departed Antioch to resume their southward march.

These European warriors had first set out on the road to Jerusalem after Pope Urban II made an appeal for troops at Clermont, France, on November 27, 1095. The pope was responding in part to rumors, mostly false, of Muslim atrocities committed against Christian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, and he also sought a means of uniting Europe’s contentious kings and lords in a common cause. Since then, waves of zealots had made their way toward their ultimate goal–Jerusalem–but the road had been far from easy. Indeed, many of the survivors who tramped their way along that final leg of their journey regarded the incidents that had occurred along the way as a series of trials to weed out all but the most worthy soldiers of the cross.

In 1096, German Crusaders, led by the Swabian Count Emich von Leiningen, vented their religious zeal on unarmed Jews, murdering thousands until they ran afoul of King Kolomon of Hungary, whose army killed some 10,000 of them and drove the rest from his country. Others, led by Peter the Hermit, became so unruly that they were set upon by the Byzantine soldiers who were ostensibly to have escorted them to Constantinople. Thousands of others were slaughtered in their first encounter with the Seljuk Turks, at Civitot on October 21, 1096 (see Military History, February 1998).

The Crusade of the Poor People represented something of a false start to the First Crusade. A second wave, more professionally led by such hardened campaigners as Raymond IV of Toulouse, Count of St. Gilles; Raymond of Flanders; Robert of Normandy; Godfrey of Bouillon; Bohemund of Taranto; and Adhémar of Monteil, bishop of Le Puy, fared better, marching into Syria and taking the fortress of Antioch in June 1098 (see Military History, June 1998). Hardship, disease and discord among the Crusaders’ joint leadership continued to take its toll, however. On August 1, 1098, Bishop Adhémar, the pope’s representative, died during an epidemic. Later that month the king of France’s brother, Count Hugh of Vermandois, departed for home, taking his troops with him. Bohemund quarreled with Raymond of Toulouse over who would rule Antioch until the more zealous Crusaders threatened to raze the city’s walls if the march on Jerusalem did not resume. Raymond conceded possession of Antioch to Bohemund and agreed to lead the Crusaders onward. Bohemund’s Norman-born nephew, Tancred, accompanied the march, partly out of faith and partly, no doubt, to keep an eye out for further opportunities for his family.

It was a smaller army that marched on Jerusalem, but its soldiers were much tougher. The Crusaders seldom encountered resistance. Many local emirs, guided by the Arab proverb, Kiss any arm you cannot break–and pray to God to break it, aided the Christian host just to ensure that it would move on. Greater conflict continued between Robert’s and Tancred’s Norman followers and Raymond of Toulouse’s knights of Provence. While the Crusaders laid siege to the resistant Muslim town of Arqa, Peter Bartholemew (the peasant who had gained celebrity by discovering a rusty piece of iron in a pit at Antioch and convincing everyone that it was the tip of the holy lance that had pierced Jesus Christ’s side during the Crucifixion) was claiming to have discourse with saints, resulting in prophesies that, the Normans noted, invariably seemed to favor the Provençals. When the Normans denounced Peter as a fraud and questioned the authenticity of the holy lance, he offered to undergo a trial by fire, declaring that God would allow him to pass through the flames unharmed. A gantlet of flames was duly prepared and blessed by the bishops, after which Peter ran through the blaze and emerged badly burned, dying in agony 12 days later. Raymond, of course, said it was the crowd’s lack of faith and not the fire that caused Peter’s fatal burns.

Tags: Ancient-Medieval, Historical Conflicts

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