Chapter XIX

GODFREY, FIRST BARON OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE—CONQUEST OF THE LAND—THE
KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM.

When wearied with gathering the spoil the crusaders deliberated how best to secure their possessions. This could be done only by maintaining peace within the city and adequate defence against the armies of the Infidels, who would undoubtedly rise to assail them from without.

Their first business was the selection of a king of Jerusalem. The popularity of Godfrey, merited by his genius, bravery, and devotion, readily suggested his name to the ten electors who were chosen to voice the suffrage of the host. To secure his enthusiastic reception by the people, he did not need additional arguments drawn from imagined revelations of the will of Heaven. Yet visions were invoked to confirm the judgment of human discretion. One reported that he had seen Godfrey enthroned in the sun, while numberless flocks of birds from all lands came and nestled at his feet. This was interpreted to mean the coming glory of Jerusalem and the crowds of pilgrims who should be safe beneath his sway. Godfrey modestly declined the royal title, accepting only that of Defender and Baron of the Holy Sepulchre, saying that he would not wear a crown of gold in the city where Christ had worn only a crown of thorns (July 22, 1099).

With less unanimity and only after unseemly brawls, which were in strange contrast with the orderly arrangement of their secular affairs, Arnold de Rohes, the eloquent but dissolute ecclesiastic, was selected by the priests as Patriarch of Jerusalem.

With true statesmanlike purpose, Godfrey addressed himself to the organization of the political and military government of his new dominion. He had, however, little time to devote to the peaceful progress of his kingdom. Raymond diverted his chief’s attention more by plots of ambition and jealousy than he aided him by wisdom of counsel. Multitudes of Christians resident in the East, excited to become such by the fame of the conquests of the crusaders, poured into the city and vicinage, and thus added to the governor’s cares.

At the same time the Mussulmans, quickly recuperating from their despair, inaugurated new campaigns. The Turks and Persians laid aside their jealousy of the Egyptians, and poured southward and westward to join the army of the caliph of Cairo. Afdhal, already famous for having wrested Jerusalem from the Turks, gathered the warriors of Islam of all tribes and races, from the Nile to the Tigris. His advancing army was supported by a vast fleet, which had been laden at Alexandria and Damietta with provisions and siege apparatus for a second capture of what to them, as well as to the Christians, was the sacred city.

Learning that the Moslems had reached Gaza, Godfrey set forth to meet them, with Tancred as his most worthy coadjutant. Raymond, having quarrelled with Godfrey about the independent possession of the tower of David, sulked in his house, and Robert of Normandy also refused to march to the aid of Godfrey. These leaders were, however, at length driven from the city by the taunts of the priests and the women. Their martial pride was also stirred by the message of Godfrey that a battle was imminent. The crusaders made their camp at Ramleh, and August 11th advanced towards Ascalon. By the banks of the wadi Surak they captured immense herds of camels, oxen, and sheep, which encouraged them as much, doubtless, as did the wood of the True Cross that was carried through the ranks. The herds also seemed to be marshalled by a special providence as their rearward. We must describe this in the words of Godfrey: “When we advanced to battle, wonderful to relate, the camels formed in many squadrons, and the sheep and oxen did the same. Moreover, these animals accompanied us, halting when we halted, advancing when we advanced, and charging when we charged.” The enormous dust-clouds raised by the herds led the Moslems to take them for a contingent of the Christian force, which imagination magnified to many times its real numbers. A paralysis of fear fell upon the Infidels. Most of them, being fresh troops, had never met the crusaders in battle, and had dared the issue, relying upon their own superiority in numbers. Now that this dependence seemingly failed them, they anticipated defeat at the hands of the heroes of Nicæa and Antioch and Jerusalem, and stood nerveless before the attack. The Christians, coming near, fell every man upon his knees in prayer, then rose to make the charge. Raymond struck the column of Turks and Persians; Tancred led his braves through the Moors and Egyptians; Godfrey crushed the Ethiopians, who resisted him but for an instant with their long flails armed with balls of iron; Robert of Normandy wrested the standard from the hands of Afdhal himself. As the Moslems cast away their bows and javelins to hasten their flight, the Christians cast away theirs that they might speed the pursuit with the sword. Back they drove the Infidels against the walls of Ascalon. Two thousand were trampled or suffocated in the crowd that choked the gate; multitudes, avoiding the city, were driven into the sea and were drowned. The panic communicated itself to the Egyptian sailors on the fleet, who spread their sails and disappeared over the sea, leaving the Moslem soldiers no opportunity of escape. Godfrey says: “There were not in our army more than five thousand horsemen and fifteen thousand foot-soldiers, and there were probably of the enemy one hundred thousand horsemen and four hundred thousand foot-soldiers.... More than one hundred thousand perished by the sword; and if many of ours had not been detained plundering the camp, few of the great multitude would have escaped.”

Raymond claimed the city of Ascalon for his own possession. Godfrey declared that all conquests belonged to their common kingdom of Jerusalem. Raymond, in mean revenge, encouraged the Moslems not to surrender their stronghold, which still resisted. By similar counsel he prevailed upon the Saracen garrison of Arsuf to hold out. Godfrey could not restrain his anger at this treachery, and turned his arms upon his old comrade. Tancred and Robert of Normandy threw themselves between the swords of the combatants and effected their reconciliation.

With the victory at Ascalon (August 19, 1099) the first crusade may be said to have terminated. The events of the subsequent year relate to the history of the new kingdom of Jerusalem. The closing months of the eleventh century witnessed the return of the mass of crusaders to their European homes. In almost every castle and hamlet of France the thrilling events of three years were narrated by those whose scars corroborated the story of their valor and sufferings. Nearly every family remembered a father, a brother, or a son as a martyr, or rejoiced in his return renowned as a hero or revered as a saint.

Few of the leaders enlarged their repute by any subsequent actions. Peter the Hermit ended his days at advanced age in the monastery of Huy, which his renown for sanctity had enabled him to found. Robert of Normandy seems to have exhausted all the manliness of his nature in his Eastern adventures. He allowed an amour to detain him in Italy for more than a year, during which time his brother Henry took the throne of England on the death of William Rufus, a reward which might easily have come to Robert, had he shown disposition to defend his right of inheritance. Henry wrested from him even his duchy of Normandy, and confined him in the castle of Cardiff, where he died after twenty-eight years of captivity.

Raymond retired to Laodicea, the government of which he had secured. From this place he was summoned to command new bands of crusaders. Multitudes set out under him. Some followed Stephen of Blois, brother to the French king, whose desertion of the crusaders brought upon him such dishonor that he was eager to restore his repute by a second enlistment. William, Count of Poitiers, Lord of France, reputed as the first of the Troubadours, departed with a retinue of soldiers and girls. A German horde was led by Conrad, the marshal of the empire. Italians followed Anselm, Archbishop of Milan, in whose train were lords, knights, and noble ladies, among them the Princess Ida of Austria.

These various bands, like the earlier crusaders, met at Constantinople, repeating the annoyance to the Emperor Alexius, who begged Raymond to relieve him of their presence. This veteran accepted the duty, bearing with him the Holy Lance that had wrought wonders at Antioch, and which Raymond regarded as a match for the arm of St. Ambrose that the Archbishop of Milan had brought from his cathedral.

This march eastward was without discipline, monks and women often filling the places of soldiers. Kilidge-Arslan, the Sultan of Iconium, burned with desire to avenge his defeat three years before at Nicæa. Kerbogha, Sultan of Mosul, was equally inflamed to wipe out his disgrace at Antioch. These joined their forces and overwhelmed the Christians at the river Halys. The massacre almost amounted to extermination. Raymond fled with the other leaders. The Turks repeated their assault upon a second army, under the Count de Nevers, at Ancyra, with similar results. And again they administered their terrible vengeance upon a third army, under the Count of Poitiers, the Duke of Bavaria, and Count Hugh of Vermandois, of whose reputed one hundred and fifty thousand scarcely one thousand escaped. The leaders found a sorry refuge in rags and wounds at Tarsus and Antioch. The women, among them the Princess Ida, disappeared within the curtains of numberless harems. A forlorn remnant reached Jerusalem, to add, perhaps, more to the care than to the assistance of Godfrey.

The rule of Godfrey as Baron of the Holy Sepulchre was brief, but such as to promise, had his career been extended to even the age of most of his companions, a record worthy of the greatest of kings. Despising the mere gilding of a throne, he sought to strengthen his government by the best laws known to Europe, as well as to guard and extend his power by the sword.

The latter was, however, the first and pressing necessity. The departure of the crusading hosts left him but three hundred knights with their retainers, out of six hundred thousand who during three years had taken the cross. His strongholds were, besides Jerusalem, a score of towns scattered over the vicinage of the capital, in many cases antagonized by the still remaining fortresses of the Infidels. The country between these towns was open to the passage of his foes. The land was untilled, and offered scanty provision for his people. To prevent a further exodus of Christians, it was enacted that land could be acquired in ownership only after a year’s continuous occupancy, and would be alienated by a year’s absence.

Tancred was as Godfrey’s right hand. These two men stand out together as preëminent for their moral qualities among many as brave as they in merely physical prowess. To Tancred was assigned the principality of Tiberias, the possession of which he quickly acquired with his sword. Godfrey at the same time forced the acknowledgment of his government by exacting tribute from the Arabs west of the Jordan, and from the emirs along the coast of the Mediterranean. One city, Asur (Arsuf), refused submission and maintained its independence in spite of siege. The spirit of Godfrey was strangely tried here by an incident. Gerard of Avernes had been given up by Godfrey as a hostage for his clemency and justice in dealing with the people of the town. While the arrows of the Christians were sweeping the walls, Gerard was placed unshielded at a point where they were falling thickest, that his danger might divert the assault. Godfrey, coming near, cried aloud to him, “If my own brother were in your place I could not cease my attack; die, then, as a brave knight.” Gerard accepted his martyrdom, and fell beneath the missiles of his friends.

To Jerusalem came a multitude of pilgrims, among them Dagobert (Daimbert) as special legate from the Pope. By virtue of his high office he claimed for himself the patriarchate of Jerusalem, together with the secular sovereignty of Jaffa and the section of the sacred city in which was located the Holy Sepulchre. Following further the policy of the popes to make their dominion a world monarchy, secular as well as spiritual, Dagobert required Godfrey to acknowledge himself a temporal vassal of the pontiff, and to pledge to the patriarch the sovereignty of the kingdom in the event of Godfrey dying without children. Bohemond, as Prince of Antioch, and Baldwin, Prince of Edessa, brother of Godfrey, and Raymond, now of Laodicea, were at the time visiting Jerusalem. These also made their submission, and received their governments anew from the Holy Father.

With the counsel of these and others, his wisest advisers, Godfrey inaugurated the system of laws afterwards known as the Assizes of Jerusalem. They were not completed until a subsequent century, but their inception belongs to his statesmanship. These regulations are interesting as reflecting in brief compass the best customs of Europe. Their study may, therefore, be on that wider field. The Assizes were a sort of written constitution, and when prepared the original document was placed with solemn pomp in the archives of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

But the reign begun under such favorable auspices was suddenly terminated. Returning from an expedition for the succor of Tancred, Godfrey accepted the hospitality of the emir of Cæsarea, and immediately falling ill, his sickness was accredited to poisoned fruit. He died soon after reaching his capital (June 18, 1100), at the early age of thirty-eight. In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is still to be seen his tomb, near by that of his Lord, which he had given his brief but brave life to rescue and defend.

Godfrey’s preëminence among the original crusader chieftains was due not so much to any single virtue in which he was their superior as to a rare combination of many excellent qualities. It was said of him that he was the peer of Raymond in counsel and of Tancred in the field. To this we may add that for piety he outshone Adhemar the priest. In the midst of the fight he would pause for prayer to the God of battles; and his meditation on sacred themes was ordinarily prolonged far beyond the hours prescribed for devotion by the church. His nature was gentler and more just than that of his companions. If at times his actions were cruel, they might be attributed rather to the habit of the age than to his own inclination. Since he surpassed his generation in so many respects, it would be neither just nor generous to criticise his defects. In him we see the budding of a better type of humanity amid the prevailing grossness of animalism and superstition.