Chapter XXIV: Book V: A.d. 1099-1148 (3)

Hugh was descended from the famous lord of Puyset, who raised the standard of revolt against the king of France, and who, conquered in the end by Louis le Gros,[255] despoiled of his possessions and banished his country, had taken refuge in Palestine, where his exploits had secured him the county of Jaffa, which he had transmitted to his son. Hugh possessed the turbulent and impetuous character of his father, and, like him, could neither pardon an injury nor submit to an act of authority. On learning that he was condemned without being heard, he set no bounds to his anger, but hastened immediately to Ascalon, to implore the aid of the infidels against the Christians. The Mussulmans, highly pleased with the division which had sprung up among their enemies, at once took the field, and ravaged the country as far as the city of Asur. Hugh, after having contracted a criminal alliance with the Saracens, shut himself up in Jaffa, where he was soon besieged by the king of Jerusalem.

The thirst of vengeance animated both parties; Foulque of Anjou had sworn to punish the treason of his vassal; and Hugh was equally determined to succeed, or bury himself under the ruins of Jaffa. Before the king’s forces commenced the attack, the patriarch of Jerusalem interposed his mediation, and recalled to the minds of the Christian warriors the precepts of Gospel charity. Hugh at first rejected all mention of peace with indignation; but having been abandoned by his followers, he at last lent an unwilling ear to the pacific appeals of the patriarch, and consented to lay down his arms. The king of Jerusalem sent home his army, and the count of Jaffa agreed to quit the kingdom, into which he was not to return till after three years of exile. He was awaiting at Jerusalem the favourable moment for his departure, when an unexpected circumstance was on the point of renewing stifled quarrels. “It happened,” says William of Tyre,[256] “as the count was playing at dice in the street of the Furriers, before the shop of a merchant named Alpham, that a soldier, a Breton by nation, having drawn his sword, fell suddenly upon the said count, who, being attentive to his game, expected nothing less than such an attack, and with the first cut, without the least warning, dealt him such a blow with the said sword on the face as stretched him upon the ground.” At the sight of such a tragical scene the people gathered round in crowds, anxiously inquiring the cause of it. The whole city was filled with rumours of various kinds; all mourned the fate of the count of Jaffa, and thought no more of his rebellion. They did not even hesitate to whisper complaints against the king, whom they accused of having himself directed the poniard of the assassin. The king, however, caused the murderer to be immediately arrested, and he was tried with the utmost rigour of the laws. He was ordered to have his limbs broken; and the king, whilst confirming the sentence, only added that the assassin of the count of Jaffa should not, as was usual, have his tongue cut out, in order that he might name his accomplices. The unhappy wretch expired, declaring that no one had induced him to commit the deed, but that he thought he should serve religion and his king by it. Every one was thus left free to form conjectures according to the feeling that animated him, or the party he had adopted. The count of Jaffa was not long in recovering from his wound; at the end of a few months he quitted Palestine, and went to Sicily, where he died before the time fixed for the end of his exile.

Queen Melisende entertained a deep resentment at all which had taken place; by which she proved that she was not a stranger to the origin of these fatal discords. “From the day on which the count left the kingdom,” says William of Tyre, “all who had against him been informers to the king, and brought him into his ill graces, so incurred the indignation of the queen that they were not in too great safety of their persons, and even the king did not seem to be quite at his ease among the relations and favourites of the queen.” The anger of the queen, however, yielded to time, and did not outlive the count of Jaffa. Foulque himself, whether it was that age had blunted his feelings, or that it appeared more prudent to him to efface the last traces of an unfortunate affair, repented of having compromised the honour of the queen, and neglected nothing that could make her forget the excess of his jealousy and the rigours he had employed.

Amidst these disagreeable events the king of Jerusalem had reason to congratulate himself at having no invasion of the Mussulmans to repel. The prince of Mossoul, Zengui, attacked some Christian fortresses, but he was soon diverted from his enterprises against the Franks by the project of uniting the principality of Damascus to his states. The Mussulman prince who reigned at Damascus could find no other means of resisting Zengui than by calling in the Christians to his help. The king of Jerusalem, after having received hostages and considerable sums of money, took the field at the head of his army, for the purpose of defending a Mussulman city; but Zengui, who feared to try his strength with the Franks, did not venture to attack Damascus. According to the conditions of the alliance with the Christians, the city of Paneas, or Cæsarea of Philippi, which had recently fallen into the hands of the Saracens, was to be given up to them. The warriors of Damascus and Jerusalem marched together to lay siege to that city, situated at the foot of Libanus, and near the sources of the Jordan. For the second time the standards of Christ and Mahomet were seen floating over one army and one camp. Cæsarea of Philippi capitulated after a siege of a few days, and was given up to the king of Jerusalem.

This conquest was the most important event that signalized the latter years of the reign of Foulque of Anjou. The king of Jerusalem, whilst hunting in the plain of Ptolemaïs, fell from his horse, and died of the fall, leaving no one to succeed him but two children of tender age. He was less regretted on account of his personal qualities than for the sad condition in which his death left the kingdom. William of Tyre, who praises the virtues of Foulque of Anjou, remarks, with a _naïveté_ worthy of these remote times, that this prince had red hair, and yet he could not be reproached with any of the faults usually attributed to men of that colour. He was more than sixty years of age when he ascended the throne of Jerusalem; in the last years of his life his memory was so weakened that he did not know his own servants, and had not sufficient strength and activity to be the head of a kingdom surrounded by enemies. He employed himself more in building fortresses than in collecting armies, and in defending his frontiers than in making new conquests. Under his reign the military ardour of the Christians seemed to grow weaker, and was displaced by a spirit of discord, which brought about calamities much greater than those of war. At the period of the coronation of Foulque of Anjou, the Christian states were at the highest degree of their prosperity; towards the end of his reign they showed a tendency to decline.

Baldwin III., thirteen years of age, succeeded his father, and Queen Melisende became regent of the kingdom. Thus the reins of government fell from the weak and powerless hands of an old man into those of a woman and a child. Parties soon sprung up around the throne; the clergy, the knights, the barons, even the people took a dangerous part in affairs of state, and the authority of the prince, which hitherto had been but that of the general of an army, lost under the regency of Queen Melisende the consideration and splendour it had derived from victory. The government insensibly assumed the turbulent form of a republic, and in the political relations which the Christians held at this period with the Saracens,[257] the latter believed that several chiefs were at the head of the kingdom of Jerusalem.

Baldwin did not wait for the period of his majority to be crowned king, being scarcely fourteen years old, when, in the presence of the barons and the clergy, he received the sword[258] with which he was to defend religion and justice; the ring, the symbol of faith; the sceptre and the crown, marks of dignity and power; and the apple or globe, as an image of the earth and the kingdom he was called upon to govern. Young Baldwin already displayed courage above his age; in the very first days of his reign he achieved a glorious expedition beyond the Jordan, in which he gained possession of the Valley of Moses; but he had not experience enough to know what enemies he ought to attack or what allies he ought to defend. On his return from the expedition of the Jordan he undertook an unjust and unfortunate war, the presage of a sad future for the kingdom of Jerusalem.

An Armenian, who governed the city of Bosra in the name of the sultan of Damascus, came to Jerusalem to offer to deliver up to the Christians the place which he commanded, and the barons and principal people were convoked to hear his proposals. The wiser part of the assembly referred to the alliance made with the Saracens of Damascus; the promises of an unknown soldier appeared to them to have no security, and to inspire no confidence; they said the kingdom of Jerusalem did not want for enemies to combat, or conquests to attempt; it was their duty to attack the most formidable, and protect the others as useful auxiliaries. This advice, which was the most reasonable, was that which obtained the smallest number of suffrages. Wonders were related of the country they were about to conquer; Bosra was the capital of Upper Arabia, all the riches of that country appeared already to belong to the Christians, and all who opposed a conquest so brilliant and so easy were accused of treason. They deliberated in the midst of tumult,[259] and the cries of a misled multitude smothered the voice of reason and prudence. The council of the barons and the principal people decided that an expedition, upon which so many hopes were built, should be undertaken.

The Christian army was soon on its march, and across the mountains of Libanus. When it arrived in the territory of Damascus, its first conflict was with the Saracens gathered together to oppose its passage. After sustaining several severe encounters, the Christians succeeded in gaining the country called Traconite, where they found nothing but plains burnt up by the ardent rays of the sun. The roads were difficult, and the locusts having fallen into the wells and cisterns, had poisoned all the waters. The inhabitants, concealed in subterranean caverns, laid ambushes in all directions for the Christian army; whilst the Mussulman archers, planted upon all the hills and acclivities, left the warriors of Jerusalem not a moment’s repose. The misfortunes of the army ’it is William of Tyre who speaks) increased every day, _and there was poured upon the Christians such a quantity, and as it were continually, of all sorts of arrows, that they appeared to descend upon them like hail or heavy rain upon houses covered with slates and tiles, men and beasts being stuck all over with them_. Nevertheless, the hope of winning a rich city sustained the courage of the Christian soldiers, and enabled them to brave all these perils. But when they arrived within sight of Bosra, it was announced to them that the wife of the Armenian commandant had called the garrison to arms, and that she was prepared to defend the city which her husband had promised to give up to the king of Jerusalem. This unexpected news at once spread consternation and discouragement through the Christian army. The knights and barons, struck with the misfortunes that threatened the Christian soldiers, pressed the king to abandon his army, and save his person and the cross of Christ. Young Baldwin rejected the advice of his faithful barons, and insisted upon sharing all their perils.

As soon as the order for retreat was given, the Mussulmans, with loud cries, set out in pursuit of the Christians. The soldiers of Jerusalem closed their ranks, and marched in silence, sword in hand, bearing away their wounded and dead. The Saracens, who could not shake or break through their enemy, and who, in their pursuit, found no trace of carnage, believed they were actually fighting against men of iron. The region which the Christians were traversing was covered with heath, thistles, and other plants dried by the heat of the summer. The Saracens set fire to these; the wind bore the flames and smoke towards the Christian army, and the Franks marched over a burning plain, with clouds of smoke, ashes, and dust floating over and around them. William of Tyre, in his history, compares them to smiths, to such a degree were their clothes and their faces blackened by the fire which devoured the plain. The knights, the soldiers, and the people who followed the army, gathered in a crowd around the bishop of Nazareth, who bore the wood of the true cross, and conjured him with tears to put an end by his prayers to calamities they were no longer able to bear.

The bishop of Nazareth, touched by their despair, raised the cross, imploring the mercy of Heaven,—and, at the moment the direction of the wind was changed. The flames and the smoke which desolated the Christians were immediately wafted against the Mussulmans. The Franks pursued their march, persuaded that God had wrought a miracle to save them. A knight, whom they had never before seen, mounted on a white horse, and bearing a red standard, preceded the Christian army, and conducted it out of danger. The people and the soldiers took him for an angel from heaven, and his miraculous presence reanimated their strength and their courage. At length the army of Baldwin, after having undergone all sorts of misery, returned to Jerusalem, where the inhabitants rejoiced at its arrival, singing these words from the Scriptures, “_Let us give ourselves up to joy, for that people that was dead is resuscitated; it was lost, and behold here it is found again._”

But whilst the inhabitants of Jerusalem were rejoicing at the return of their warriors, the Christian states lost one of their most important places, and experienced an irreparable misfortune. Zengui, whom the caliph of Bagdad and all true Mussulmans considered as the buckler and the support of Islamism, extended his empire from Mossoul to the frontiers of Damascus, and was continuing without intermission the course of his victories and conquests. The Christians made no effort to stop the progress of so redoubtable a power. Zengui, who united with bravery all the resources of a skilful policy, left them in a deceitful security, and determined only to awaken them from their long sleep when he had it in his power to give a mortal blow to their empire. He knew, by experience, that nothing was more fatal to the Christians than too long a repose; the Franks, who owed everything to their arms, were almost always weakened by peace, and when not fighting against the Saracens, generally fell out among themselves.

The kingdom of Jerusalem had two formidable barriers, the principality of Antioch and the county of Edessa. Raymond of Poictiers defended the Orontes from the invasion of the Saracens, and old Josselin de Courtenay had been for a long time the terror of the infidels on the banks of the Euphrates; but he was recently dead. He had fought to his last breath, and even on his bed of death made his arms and his bravery respected.

Josselin was besieging a castle near Aleppo, when a tower fell down near him and covered him with its ruins. He was transported in a dying state to Edessa, and as he lay languishing on his bed, expecting nothing but death, it was announced to him that the sultan of Iconium had laid siege to one of his strong places; upon which he sent for his son and commanded him to go instantly and attack the enemy. Young Josselin hesitated, and represented to his father that he had not a sufficient number of troops to meet the Turks. The old warrior, who had never acknowledged the existence of obstacles, was determined before he died to leave an example to his son, and caused himself to be borne in a litter at the head of his soldiers. As they approached the besieged city, he was informed that the Turks had retired, whereupon he ordered his litter to stop, raised his eyes towards heaven as if to return thanks for the flight of the Saracens, and expired surrounded by his faithful warriors.

His mortal remains were transported to Edessa, the inhabitants of which city came out to meet and join the funeral procession, which presented a most affecting spectacle. Here were to be seen the mourning soldiers bearing the coffin of their chief; and there a whole people lamenting the loss of their support and defender, and celebrating the last victory of a Christian hero.

Old Josselin died deploring the fate of Edessa, about to be governed by a weak and pusillanimous prince; for from his childhood the son of Courtenay had been addicted to drunkenness and debauchery. In an age and a country in which these vices were sufficiently common, the excesses of young Josselin had frequently scandalized the Christian warriors. As soon as he was master, he quitted the city of Edessa, to take up his abode at Turbessel, a delicious retreat on the banks of the Euphrates. There, entirely abandoned to his vicious inclinations, he neglected the pay of his troops and the fortifications of his forts, equally heedless of the cares of government and the menaces of the Saracens.

Zengui had been for a length of time watching for a favourable opportunity of surprising the city of Edessa; as this conquest would not only flatter his pride and ambition, but would render him dearer to all the disciples of Mahomet. In order to retain Josselin in his fancied security, the prince of Mossoul feigned to make war against the Saracens; but at the moment he was supposed to be most busily engaged in an attack upon several Mussulman castles in the east of Mesopotamia, he appeared at the head of a formidable army before the walls of Edessa.[260] A great number of Curds and Turcomans, wandering and barbarous tribes, had joined his standard, attracted by the hopes of a rich booty. At the first signal given by Zengui, the city was surrounded on all sides; seven enormous wooden towers were raised higher than the ramparts; numbers of formidable machines unceasingly battered the walls, or hurled into the city stones, javelins, and inflammable matters; whilst the foundations of the towers of the fortifications were being undermined by the infidels. The walls, which were only supported by slight, ill-fixed posts, were falling to pieces, and, covering the earth with their ruins, seemed ready to offer an easy passage to the Mussulman soldiers.

When on the point to give the signal for destruction, the fierce Mussulmans stopped, and summoned the city to surrender. The sight of the death which threatened them did not at all weaken the courage of the inhabitants, and they answered that they would all perish sooner than give up a Christian city to the infidels. They exhorted each other to merit the crown of martyrdom: “Let us not fear,” said they, “these stones launched against our towers and our houses; he who made the firmament, and created legions of angels, defends us against his enemies, or prepares us an abode in heaven.” Animated by such discourses, the inhabitants of Edessa exerted themselves to destroy the towers and the works of the besiegers, the hopes of being succoured redoubling their zeal and courage. They expected, says an Armenian author, _assistance from a nation which they called the valiant_, and every day looked to see, from the height of their walls, the standards of the victorious Franks.

The hoped-for succours were vainly expected. When Josselin learnt the danger of his capital, he aroused himself from his sloth, and sent information of it to Raymond of Poictiers, and the queen regent of Jerusalem. But the prince of Antioch, who disliked Josselin, refused to assist Edessa, and the troops of Jerusalem, although set forward on their march, could not arrive in time. Josselin ought to have devoted himself to repair the consequences of his faults, but he had not the courage to seek death under the walls of a city he could not save, and whose defence he had neglected.

On the twenty-eighth day of the siege, several towers fell down with a horrible crash; and Zengui at once ordered his army to enter the place. To paint the frightful scenes of this last attack, I must borrow the words of a contemporary author: “The moment at which the sun began to shine above the horizon, appeared like a night illumined by the fires of the storm. As soon as the ramparts and towers fell, all the city was filled with terror. Nevertheless the defenders of Edessa thought not, for a moment, of flight, but all joined in the cry of the brave, _conquer or die_. Some employed themselves in propping up the walls, whilst others boldly flew to meet the enemy; the clergy, clothed in helmet and cuirass, marching at their head. The bishops, bearing each a cross in his hands, bestowed their benedictions on the people and animated them to the fight.”

The enemy advanced uttering frightful cries; even amidst the din of a general assault, the voices of the Saracen heralds-at-arms were heard encouraging the soldiers, and promising the pillage of the city to the conquerors. Then, to employ the expression of an Armenian poet, the pusillanimous were seen shedding torrents of tears, whilst the brave, heedless of the stroke of the sabre, rushed amidst the ranks of the Mussulmans.

Neither prodigies of valour, nor the last efforts of despair could save the city or its inhabitants. A great part of the Mussulman army was already in the place; and all who crossed the steps of the conquerors fell beneath the sword. Most of those who sought safety in the citadel, found death under its ramparts, and were trampled upon and stifled by the crowd. The city of Edessa presented, everywhere, the most lamentable scenes; some fell whilst flying, and died, crushed to death by the feet of the horses; whilst others, hastening to the succour of their friends and neighbours, were themselves slaughtered by the barbarians. Neither the weakness of a timid sex, nor age on the brink of the tomb; neither the cries of infants, nor the screams of young girls who sought safety in the arms, or beneath the garments of their parents, could abate the rage of the Saracens. They whom the sword had not yet reached, looked for nothing but death; some crept to the churches to await it, and died embracing the altars of Christ; whilst others, yielding to their despair, remained motionless in their houses, where they were massacred with their families.

The citadel soon surrendered; the soldiers who defended it only asking their lives; but, notwithstanding the capitulation, many were put to the sword. A great part of the priests who had survived the carnage were condemned to slavery; an Armenian patriarch was stripped of his vestments, dragged through the streets, and beaten with rods. Matthew of Edessa, one of the most celebrated historians of Armenia, fell under the sword of the Mussulmans. Hugh, a Latin archbishop, having endeavoured to escape, was, with all his clergy, slaughtered by the infidels. His treasures, which he carried with him, and which might have been usefully employed for the defence of the city, became the prey of the enemy. Pious historians impute the fall of Edessa to the avarice of this prelate, and appear to believe that he was punished in another world for having preferred his gold to the safety of his fellow-citizens.[261]

When the Mussulmans had become masters of the citadel, their priests ascended the steeples of the churches to proclaim these words: “Oh Mahomet! prophet of heaven, we have gained a great victory in thy name; we have destroyed the people that worshipped _stone_, and torrents of blood have been shed to make thy law triumph.” After this proclamation, the Saracens redoubled their excesses. The Gazis or conquerors satiated themselves with blood; the dead bodies were mutilated, and their heads sent to Bagdad; and even to Khorasan. All who remained alive in the city of Edessa were treated as a flock of animals, and sold in the public places. The Christians, loaded with chains, after having lost their property, their country, and their liberty, had the still further grief of seeing their religion, which was all they had left to console them in their misfortunes, made a subject of ridicule by the infidels. The churches were plundered of their ornaments, and the sanctuary became the scene of the most shocking debaucheries. Many of the faithful whom the horrors of war had spared, could not support the sight of such profanations, and died with despair.[262]

Thus a city, whose citadel, ramparts, and position on two mountains, rendered one of the strongest places in Asia, fell into the power of the Mussulmans. The traditions of religion and history carry back its origin to the highest antiquity. Narses, in a pathetic elegy, deplores the fall of this celebrated city, and makes itself speak of its ancient splendour.[263] “I was,” says she, “as a queen in the midst of her court; sixty towns standing around me formed my train; my numerous children passed their days in pleasures; the fertility of my fields, the freshness of my limpid waters, and the beauty of my palaces were admired; my altars, loaded with treasures, shed their splendour afar, and appeared to be the abode of angels. I surpassed in magnificence the proudest cities of Asia, and I was as a celestial edifice built upon the bosom of the earth.”

The conquest of Edessa exalted the pride of the Saracens. The caliph of Bagdad ordered that the barbarous destroyer of the Christians should be named in the public prayers of the Fridays, and that the whole Mussulman people should offer up thanks to Heaven for his victories. Zengui left some troops in the conquered city, and pursued the course of his triumphs; but fortune did not permit him to finish that which he had begun. He was besieging the castle of Schabar, in Mesopotamia, when he was assassinated by some slaves whom ill-treatment had irritated. The news of his death consoled the Christians for their defeats, and they expressed a joy as immoderate as if they had beheld the whole power of the Mussulmans fall at once. But this joy was of very short duration, for abundance of new enemies and new misfortunes soon followed to overwhelm them.

Josselin, who had taken advantage of the troubles which ensued upon the death of the prince of Mossoul to retake the city of Edessa, ill-guarded by the Mussulmans, found himself unexpectedly besieged by Noureddin, the second son of Zengui. Noureddin had received, as his share of the heritage of his father, the principality of Aleppo, and was eager to signalize his zeal against the Christians. Josselin and his companions, who had surprised the city of Edessa amidst the darkness of night, were wanting in machines of war to besiege and get possession of the citadel. When the city was invested by the prince of Aleppo, the Christian warriors who were placed between the garrison of the fortress and the Mussulman army, saw at once the danger of their position. As in desperate circumstances, a thousand resolutions are, by turns, formed and rejected; whilst they deliberated, the enemy pressed and threatened them. There soon remained no safety for them in a city which they had entered as conquerors; and, after having braved death to get possession of it, they decided upon facing equal perils to get out of it. The soldiers of Josselin, consisting of Christians who had gathered to the city, and of the small number of inhabitants who had survived the massacre of their brethren, had now nothing left but their endeavours to escape the barbarity of the Mussulmans. They made their preparations for flight in silence; the gates were opened in the middle of the night, and every one bearing away that which he esteemed most valuable, a weeping crowd pressed along the streets. Already a great number of these unhappy fugitives had passed the gates of the city, headed by the warriors commanded by Josselin, and had advanced into the plain where the Saracens were encamped, when the garrison of the citadel, warned by the tumult, made a _sortie_, and uniting themselves with the soldiers of Noureddin, who hastened towards the city, gained possession of the gates by which the Christians were issuing. Many severe conflicts were here maintained, of which darkness increased the horrors. The Christians succeeded in opening themselves a passage, and spread themselves about in the neighbouring fields. They who carried arms united in battalions, and endeavoured to pass through the camp of the enemy; whilst others, separated from the troop of warriors, went on at hazard, wandered about the plains, and everywhere found death following their footsteps. Whilst relating the events of this horrible night, William of Tyre cannot restrain his tears. “Oh disastrous night!” cries the historian Aboulfarage, “dawn of hell, day without pity, day of misfortune which arose upon the children of a city formerly worthy of envy!” In Edessa, out of Edessa, nothing was heard but cries of death. The warriors who had formed battalions, after having pierced through the army of the infidels, were pursued as far as the banks of the Euphrates, and the roads were strewed with their remains, their arms, and their baggage. Only a thousand of them succeeded in gaining the city of Samosata, which received them within its walls, and deplored their misfortunes, without being able to avenge them.

History relates that more than thirty thousand Christians were slaughtered by the soldiers of Zengui and Noureddin. Sixteen thousand were made prisoners, and dragged out their lives in misery and slavery. Noureddin in his vengeance did not spare either the ramparts or buildings of a rebel city; he razed the towers, the citadel, and the churches of Edessa to the ground. He banished all the Christians from it, and left nothing but a few mendicants to dwell amidst the ruins of their country.

Zengui had been considered as a saint, as a warrior beloved by Mahomet, for having conquered the city of Edessa; the blood-stained expedition of Noureddin rendered him dear to the Mussulmans, contributed much to the extension of his renown and his power, and already the Imans and the poets promised to his arms the much more glorious conquest of Jerusalem.

The inhabitants of Jerusalem and other Christian cities shed tears of despair on learning the fall and destruction of Edessa, sinister presages adding much to the terror which the news from the banks of the Euphrates inspired them with. Thunder fell upon the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Sion; a comet with shining hair was seen in the heavens, and spread general consternation; several other signs appeared, says William of Tyre, _contrary to custom, and out of time, indicative of future things_. As a crowning misfortune, Rodolphe, chancellor of Jerusalem, was taken by force to the siege of Tyre, and scandal prevailed in the sanctuary. All the faithful of the East were persuaded that Heaven had declared itself against them, and that horrible calamities were about to fall upon the Christian people.