Armies of Heaven (34 page)

Stephen had promised, through the voice of Christ, that heavenly aid would arrive in five days. Count Raymond decided that the excavation for the Lance should occur on June 14, the fifth day after Stephen's vision. A cynical observer might think that this delay gave someone time to hide a lance in the church. It likely did. But it also gave Raymond, and other leaders, the opportunity to circulate Peter Bartholomew's story among the soldiers. It was five days to build up hope, to create excitement about the possible discovery of a major relic, and to instill confidence among the common soldiers that the words of the Lombard priest and St. Ambrose were true: Their final victory at Jerusalem had been preordained.

The princes also received an unexpected assist from heaven. The night before the dig, a meteor streaked across the skies of Antioch. It came from the West, like the crusaders themselves, and it seemed to crash into the middle of the Turks' camps. As signs from heaven go, this one wasn't subtle: God was hurling fire at the Turks. The chaplain Raymond, who had volunteered to dig for the Lance the next morning, described it thus: “A
great star stood above the city during the night and then, after a little while, it split into three parts and fell into three parts. Our men drew comfort from it, and awaited the day that the priest [Stephen of Valence] had predicted.”
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ON THAT FIFTH DAY, Raymond and eleven other men—including Count Raymond, the bishop of Orange, and Pons of Balazun, the knight who was working as Raymond of Aguilers's coauthor—began to dig behind the altar of the Church of St. Peter in search of the Holy Lance. Adhémar, notably, was not present. If he hesitated, it was not because he doubted the Lance's authenticity. A pious fraud was clearly in the works. Adhémar knew it was a fake and was complicit in the deception. He was more likely absent because he had doubts about the messenger, Peter Bartholomew. It was dangerous, even foolhardy to invest such an unknown and possibly unstable figure with so much prestige.

After a full day of digging, the blue ribbon panel of archaeologists found nothing. Peter ordered a stop to the work, stripped down to just a shirt, stepped into what must have been by this time a sizable hole, and prayed to God to show them mercy. Everyone present followed his example. And at last, with only a little more digging, the exotic, ornamental head of a clearly foreign, Eastern lance poked above the earth. The chaplain Raymond was one of the first to see it. “I, who wrote these things, when only the point had appeared above the ground—I kissed it.” Peter Bartholomew and Raymond carried it out to the city, where it inspired joy and fear at the awesome power of God.
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PROBABLY IN THE MIDST of all these signs and miracles, the army's leaders unveiled one final visionary, who on the night of June 10 had tried to escape down the walls with the other Secret Ropedancers. Halfway to the ground, he unexpectedly ran into his brother, a crusader, and, more to the point, a dead crusader. “Where are you running off to?” the dead brother asked. “Stay! Don't be afraid. The Lord will be with you in your battle, as will your friends, who have gone before you in death during this journey. They will fight with you against the Turks!” The dead crusaders would return for the fight against Kerbogah. Peter Bartholomew, at the apostle Andrew's instruction, similarly proclaimed, “Truly God will aid you. All your
brothers who have died, starting from the beginning of the journey, will be here with you in this fight, and you shall fight only a tenth of the enemy, since your brothers will destroy the other nine tenths, through the power and command of God.”
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The heavens were opening. The Christian God, like Zeus, was hurling firebolts against an unbelieving enemy. The dead were readying their ghostly mounts to ride out in force alongside the living, an army of spirits brought back to life to eviscerate the slaves of Antichrist. At about the same time, Kerbogah was withdrawing his men from the citadel, settling in for a longer siege. Apparently, the brutal combat had worn them down as well, or perhaps the meteor had rattled them as much as the Franks liked to think that it had. Ever the empiricist, still trusting in numerical advantage, Kerbogah continued to expect to wear the Franks down. They were starving. They would surrender. Kerbogah, in short, had no idea what he had unleashed.

The crusaders still needed a plan, and their resident military and diplomatic genius, Bohemond, may have at last found one. Predictably, he decided to forego caution. Waiting out the siege was pointless. The army couldn't survive the summer. They might just possibly make it until the end of the July, but no further. The only hope for victory lay in a frontal assault. But apart from a general plan to “ride out the gates in groups and attack,” he never revealed exactly what he had in mind or why he expected it to work. Keeping his counsel on this point may have been a wise decision. More than ever, the army had staked its identity and its mission on miracles. It was not a time for strategy and cunning. It was a time to unleash God's wrath.

Divine intervention aside, Bohemond's plan remained a long shot. The princes therefore (presumably with Bohemond's approval) decided to investigate one other way to resolve the siege, one that did not potentially involve destruction of the entire army. They sent two men to negotiate with Kerbogah. One of them, named Herluin, spoke enough Arabic to act as an interpreter. The other person, the true legate for the princes, was the original apocalyptic crusade preacher, Peter the Hermit. If ever a sign
was needed that Bohemond had learned to appreciate the power and importance of prophecy to the crusaders' mission, this was it: Peter the Hermit was to be his
porte-parole
. To borrow a phrase from the French historian Jean Flori, the apocalyptic-minded members of the army were at this stage “leading the dance.”
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In what must have been a terrifying experience, the two men left the relative safety of the city and walked into the heart of the Muslim camp under a flag of truce. Kerbogah received them inside his tent, a fabulous structure. It was, according to later tradition, embroidered with golden thread and held together with cords of silk and stakes of ivory, decorated with the ancient laws (presumably Arabic lettering) going back to the time of Adam. If Kerbogah had hoped to overwhelm his guests with showy displays of wealth and power, however, he had miscalculated. The Franks' chief negotiator was an inflexible hermit who dressed like a barefoot peasant.

Kerbogah must also have been surprised at the terms offered. Through his interpreter Peter gave Kerbogah the chance to surrender, to leave Antioch at once, since the city belonged “to St. Peter and to the Christians, according to law.” For “the blessed apostle Peter had converted it by his preaching to the worship of Christ.” The Franks were willing to take the matter to court: “If you wish to contend for this land according to legal judgment, surely it pertains to the Christians?” The Turks were usurpers who could hold the city only through “proud tyranny.” It was a stark argument, made from strength rather than weakness, and Kerbogah no doubt greeted it with equal parts amusement and derision.
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Peter also suggested a middle option between surrender and war: a judicial ordeal, trial by combat. In doing so, he was again suggesting that at the heart of the battle was a property dispute. Each side, Peter proposed, could choose anywhere from five to one hundred men. Hostages would be exchanged and oaths taken before the Christian God and the Saracen god respectively, and then the two teams would fight to the death, the winning side to receive Antioch.

Like many other elements in the crusade story, this proposal sounds outrageous, but it was not without precedent. A few years before in 1066, William of Normandy had made a similar offer to King Harold of England.
William would prove his right to rule England in a trial, either according to English or Norman law, as Harold preferred. And if Harold did not wish to risk a legal decision, they might settle everything through an ordeal, thus preventing an eventual massacre on the battlefield. The story could have served as the model for Peter the Hermit's legation—perhaps Robert of Normandy, who had been at Hastings, suggested it. But like King Harold of England, Kerbogah rejected the idea. According to one report, he offered instead to spare the Franks only if they renounced Christianity. Converts would receive lands, cities, and castles. Indeed, all of the Frankish foot soldiers could become mounted warriors. According to another version, Kerbogah promised nothing except to enslave the Franks' beardless boys and virgin women and to kill everyone else—postpubescent men and married women alike. He then showed Peter the vast collection of chains he had brought with him to shackle prisoners. There was, it seemed, no possible settlement outside of battle.
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The Arab historian Ibn al-Athir offers a slightly different version of events. Peter went to Kerbogah hoping only to surrender. The only thing the crusaders requested was safe conduct back to Europe. Kerbogah laughingly refused. The Franks would have to fight their way out, he told Peter.

Given the contradiction between the two accounts, which should we believe? Recent historians have tended to accept Ibn al-Athir's story on the grounds that the evidence behind it is “less partisan.” We should probably be more circumspect. Ibn al-Athir was a remarkably lucid historian, but no less partisan than the Latin writers. (In this case he might have wanted to show how unreasonable Kerbogah was being, how he had the chance to turn the Franks away, but in his arrogance rejected the opportunity.) Ibn al-Athir also knew much less about the mindset and intentions of the Franks than did contemporary Christian writers. Peter certainly might have floated some sort of handover of the city, probably asking for a guarantee of safe passage to Jerusalem—terms that Kerbogah did not accept. But the fact that Peter offered a possible compromise does not invalidate the impression created in chronicles that diplomatic bluster formed the better part of his presentation. Whatever the case, the two sides could not come to agreement, and Peter and Herluin returned to the city.
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Back inside Antioch Peter announced that Kerbogah would have only war. Drawing a crowd, as he was wont to do, he started to go into detail about the things he had seen, but Godfrey ordered him to be silent, “lest the people, already suffering from fear and deprivation withdraw from the battle.” Godfrey may have had still another reason for telling Peter to be quiet. Peter, or Herluin, may have been sent to gather other intelligence about the Turks, information that the princes did not want the rest of their armies to know. Or they may have feared that there were still spies in the city in communication with Kerbogah, and they did not want these spies relaying back to Kerbogah everything that Peter had learned.
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Over the next three days, in preparation for battle, the princes declared a fast. It was likely unnecessary. The army was already starving. The clergy also arranged liturgical processions in and around Antioch's churches, along with ceremonies of mass confession. Every available cleric preached, including the Provençal visionary Peter Bartholomew. Andrew was still talking to him, and the apostle's young spiritual companion had by now revealed himself to be Jesus Christ. (He made His identity known somewhat grotesquely—ordering Peter to kiss His foot. When Peter knelt down, he recoiled in horror at the sight of the bloody open wound. Whether he then pressed his lips to the gory mess, as requested, is unknown.)

Speaking to the crowd, Peter Bartholomew delivered three important messages. First, everyone who was able should perform five acts of charity in commemoration of the five wounds of Christ. Even in these tense circumstances, Peter was thinking of how best to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Second, the Lord wanted the crusaders to change their battle cry. It should be “God help us!” rather than “God wills it!” It is doubtful whether anyone followed him on this point, even among the Provençals. Adhémar of le Puy, who distrusted Peter anyway, would not have tolerated going against Urban II's instructions. Finally, he proclaimed, “know this well: the days have come that the Lord promised to Blessed Mary and to his apostles, that He would raise up the kingdom of Christians while casting down and trampling the kingdom of pagans.” In other words, based on what Andrew had told Peter, the Apocalypse was at hand.
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Few in the army would have contradicted this opinion. More than ever, the crusade belonged to the prophets.

The fasting over, on June 28, 1098, the Franks did what Kerbogah had least expected: They attacked. Their forces were badly outnumbered. Many of the knights were riding packhorses and mules. Nevertheless, most of the Franks left the city in waves, directly engaging Kerbogah's army at close range. Another group, under the leadership of Raymond of Saint-Gilles, stayed behind to guard the citadel lest Kerbogah's lieutenant Ahmad ibn-Marwan suddenly decided to fight aggressively on behalf of his lord. Outside the walls, according to Frankish lore, Kerbogah sat idly by, playing chess with one of his followers. When news of the battle reached him, he refused to believe that it was actually happening. His surprise at the news led him to berate one of his noble followers, a Turk named Mirdalin, who had assured him that the Franks were trapped in the city and would never dare challenge him. “What's going on? Didn't you tell me that there were very few Franks and that they'd never fight with me?”

“I never said that they wouldn't attack,” Mirdalin responded. “But come! I'll have a look and tell you if they can be easily beaten.” At that moment a third wave of Franks, led by Bishop Adhémar, exited the city, and Mirdalin observed, “They can be killed, but you can't make them retreat.” (Some Latin writers maintained that Mirdalin was an apostate Christian from Aquitaine. In their version of the story, Kerbogah turned to him and shouted, “You clod! You wretched criminal! What nonsense you told me about these men—that they were eating their horses, in the death throes of hunger, planning to flee! By Mathomos, this lie will come back on your head, and it will cost you the price of your head!” Kerbogah then summoned his “gladiator” and ordered him to unsheathe his sword and cut off the man's head in a way worthy of his prattling apostasy.)
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