Armies of Heaven (55 page)

7
Albert describes the gifts to the emperor and the catapulting of heads into the city at AA 2, 28, pp. 108–111. Other chroniclers confirm that the heads were used to frighten the enemy. See, for example, GF, p. 15, though the anonymous author observes only that the heads were cut from the dead, not from the wounded, too. Anselm of Ribemont says that the heads made a “happy spectacle” for the Christian army: Hagenmeyer,
Epistulae
8, p. 144. See also
Alexiad
11, 1, p. 334.

8
E.g., “These acts may appear to be utterly barbaric by modern standards, but they were a staple feature of medieval warfare and became a consistent theme of the siege of Antioch. In viewing such events, we must try to temper our instinctive judgment with an awareness that in the eleventh century war was governed by medieval, not modern, codes of practice. Within the context of a holy war, in which the Franks were conditioned to see their enemy as sub-human, Christian piety prompted not clemency but, rather, an atmosphere of extreme brutality and heightened savagery”: Asbridge (2004), p. 168. The argument contradicts itself since it states, on the one hand, that these practices were typical of medieval war, and, on the other hand, that they were the peculiar products of holy war. The references to the Norman Conquest are in WP 2, 26, pp. 142–143, and 2, 25, pp. 140–141 (the latter concerning the burial of Harold's body).

9
AA 2, 30–33, pp. 112–119. I am privileging Albert's account over RA, p. 44, who credits the Provençal tortoise with bringing down the tower; and over GF, p. 15; and FC 1, 10, 6–9, pp. 185–188, whose accounts are somewhat vague. I am also in this case following Albert's analysis more than France's (1994), pp. 162–165, though as France observes, Albert's chronology is not always clear.

10
AA 2, 35–36, pp. 120–125, is the only source to mention the Lombard engineer.
Alexiad
11, 1, p. 335, describes the same machine and attributes its construction to Count Raymond, as does RA, p. 44. AA makes this event the turning point in the siege.

11
The chronology of these events is admittedly vague. Most writers, as cited previously, place the destruction of the tower a few days before the arrival of the ships (if they deal with both incidents, which not all of them do). Albert places the arrival of the ships fairly early on in the siege. France (the best military historian of the crusade) states definitively that the placement of the ships on the lake was the turning point in the battle: France (1994), pp. 164–165, though the basis for his chronology is not altogether clear. Hagenmeyer's
Chronologie
dates the destruction of the tower to June 10, the arrival of the ships to June 17, and the surrender to June 19. The dating for most of these events, apart from the surrender, is therefore not at all certain—e.g., what AA divides into two attacks (the Provençal “tortoise” and the Lombard siege engine), Hagenmeyer conflates into one (no. 156 in the
Chronologie
). I have attempted to give equal weight in my narrative to the destruction of the tower and to the arrival of the ships, in part by having them occur almost simultaneously, a reading not confirmed with certainty by any one of the sources,
though an honest attempt to reconcile all of them. Readers, however, should take my arrangement of events in this instance with a grain of salt.

12
Alexiad
11, 2, p. 337.

13
Hagenmeyer,
Epistulae
4, p. 140, and 8, p. 144. The letter from Stephen (4) describes the meeting place as “an island.” See Hagenmeyer's n. 61 in
Epistulae
, pp. 235–236. RA, p. 44, curses Alexius. GN 3, 10, p. 153, notes the hostility among the commoners toward the princes. In doing so, he contradicts GF, p. 18, which observes that Alexius distributed bountiful charity to the poor pilgrims, raising the possibility that Guibert based this observation on conversations with crusade veterans. GF, p. 17, does, however, outline the conspiracy theory.

14
AA 2, 34, pp. 118–121.

15
FC 1, 10, 9–10, pp. 188–189; HBS 22, p. 181. The latter source is the only one to mention the sending of this delegation to Egypt, and it is an extremely problematic text. In this instance, however, its testimony has gained general acceptance: France (1994), pp. 165–166; Asbridge (2004), p. 132. RA, p. 110, mentions the distinctions between the two branches of Islam without using the proper names but noting correctly that the cause of the rift concerned the succession to the caliphate.

16
RC 17–18, pp. 618–620.

17
Albert gives all these reasons, adding that no one in the army knew why she had returned: AA 2, 37, pp. 126–129. Henry is mentioned departing with Godfrey in AA 2, 1, pp. 60–61. In assigning penance, clerics could have referred to Augustine's
City of God
1, 16–19, the famous chapters where Augustine discusses nuns, and other women, who were raped by barbarians during the 410 Sack of Rome. Augustine argues that the women committed no sin because of the rape and that they were not obligated, as Roman women in the past had been, to commit suicide in order to preserve honor after a sexual assault.

18
Hagenmeyer,
Epistulae
3, pp. 137–138, outlines Urban's restrictions on clerics joining the crusade.

1
RC 29, p. 627. The passage refers to the battle of Dorylaeum, to be discussed in the next chapter. On the dating of
Roland
, see Luis Cortés, ed.,
La Chanson de Roland
, trans. and introduction by Paulette Gabauda (Mayenne, France: Librarie Nizet, 1994), pp. 42–44. WM 3, 242, pp. 454–455, writing around 1120, says that William the Conqueror's army, in order to prepare itself for battle against the Anglo-Saxons in 1066, together struck up
The Song of Roland
—suggesting both the appeal of the
chanson
for a military audience and the popularity of the poem in the later eleventh century (even if, as seems likely, the Normans did no such thing at Hastings; WM believes they could have).

2
The Song of Roland
is available in numerous translations. I tend to prefer the one by Robert Harrison (New York: New American Library, 1970), reprinted often
since. On the 112 characters, see Paul Aebischer,
Préhistoire et protohistoire du Roland d'Oxford
(Lausanne, Switzerland: Éditions Francke Berne, 1972), p. 287. About resonances between historical and literary treatments of Muslims in medieval texts, see Matthew Bennett, “First Crusaders' Images of Muslims: The Influence of Vernacular Poetry?”
Forum for Modern Language Studies
22 (1986): 101–122.

3
Guibert of Nogent,
De pigneribus sanctorum
, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, CCCM 127 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1993) 4, p. 170. See also the commentary of Norman Daniel,
Heroes and Saracens: An Interpretation of the
Chansons de Geste (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1984), pp. 115–116: The Saracens are “just bogeys.... They are entirely imaginary, and their character as Saracens is a work of imagination too, not an interpretation of Islam.”

4
The relevant texts are Gen. 16 (16:12, quoted here) and 21–22. The birth of Ishmael occurs before the Covenant, when Abraham and Sarah were still called Abram and Sarai, but for simplicity's sake I am using their later names. On this theme, S. Loutchitskaja, “
Barbarae nationes
: Les peuples musulmans dans les chroniques de la Première Croisade,” in
Autour de la Croisade
, pp. 99–107, notes the tendency of crusade chroniclers to rely on ancient and biblical traditions for understanding Islam, rather than on firsthand knowledge or experience. Jerome,
Hebraicae quaestiones in libro Geneseos
, ed. P. Antin, CCSL 72 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1959) 16, 12, pp. 20–21.

5
For an example of this commentary tradition, see Rupert of Deutz,
De sancta Trinitate et operibus suis
, ed. H. Haacke, CCCM 21 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1971) 5, 26, pp. 358–359. Among crusade-era historians, see the popular chronicle by Hugh of Fleury: “This Muhammad, prince of the Saracens and Arabs and pseudo-prophet, was from the family of Ishmael, son of Abraham”: “
Porro iste Muham et Sarracenorum et Arabum princeps. et pseudo propheta. fuit de genere His-mael filii Abrahe
.” Printed editions of Hugh's chronicle tend to be somewhat irregular, reflecting a confused manuscript tradition. I have transcribed this passage from the Vatican MS Reg. lat. 545, fol. 64r. The advice on the Agarenes appears in Adelphus,
Vita Machometi
, ed. B. Bischoff, as “Ein Leben Mohammeds (Adelphus?) (Zwölftes Jahrhundert),”
Anecdota Novissima: Texte des vierten bis sechzten Jahrhundert
(Stuttgart, Germany: A. Hiersemann, 1984), pp. 113–114, identifying his informant as a
greculus
who spoke Saracen and Latin (p. 113). The historical tradition behind this idea is a venerable one. The Merovingian Fredegar, writing in the seventh century, uses the terms synonymously,
Agarrini, qui et Saracini
(Hagarenes, who are also Saracens):
Chronica
, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM 2, 4, 66, p. 153. On this topic as well, Tolan (2002), pp. 10–11, notes that Isidore treats as synonymous Agarenes, Saracens, and Ishmaelites, as distinct from “Arabs,” whereas other writers treat all four terms as identical. See also Tolan (2002), pp. 128–129 and 138.

6
GN 1, 3, p. 94. The verb that I have translated as “spell” is
exprimere,
meaning “to express” or to “force out,” referring here, I think, to Guibert's attempts to spell a name he has only heard phonetically. I briefly discuss Guibert's life of Muhammad
in Rubenstein (2002), pp. 121–122. See also C. Meredith Jones, “The Conventional Saracen of the Songs of Geste,”
Speculum
17 (1942): 201–225 (p. 202).

7
Sibyllinische Texte
, pp. 67–69. Gideon's career is described in the Book of Judges, Chapters 6–8. The war in question is against the Midianites, who were traditionally descendants of Midian, one of Abraham's sons by his second wife, Ketu-rah; Gen. 25:1–2, though Judg. 8:22–24, indicates that they have assimilated with the Ishmaelites.

8
Sibyllinische Texte
, pp. 80–82 and 84–86. All of these images, including the phrase
incontaminatum sacrificium
, are taken from Pseudo-Methodius,
Sibyllinische Texte
, pp. 84–86. An abridged version of the text circulating around the time of the crusade mentions Jerusalem filling with slaves: “
Replebitur Hierosolima de cunctis gentibus qui captivi ducuntur
” (taken from BnF MS lat. 7400A, fol. 146v.). Methodius says that Paul foretold some of these events in Rom. 1:26–27.

9
GN 1, 5, p. 101 (the opening point in Alexius's letter to Robert of Flanders, as Guibert paraphrases it).

10
The lives I am using here, in addition to Guibert's, are Adelphus,
Vita Machometi
; Walter of Compiègne,
Otia de Machomese
, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, in
Sacris Erudiri
8 (1956): 287–328; Embrico of Mainz,
Historia de Mahumete
, in PL 171, cols. 1343–1366A; and a brief précis of the prophet's life in Sigebert of Gembloux's universal history,
Chronica
, MGH SS 6, p. 323, an. 630. Embrico's life is included in the bundle of crusade materials that is BR MS 9823–24, fols. 149r–156v.

11
GN 1, 4, pp. 94–95 and 98; Adelphus,
Vita Machometi
, pp. 114–15; John Victor Tolan, “Anti-hagiography: Embrico of Mainz's
Vita Mahumeti
,”
Journal of Medieval History
22 (1996): 25–41 (quotes at pp. 32–33 and 38).

12
Adelphus,
Vita Machometi
, p. 121; Sigebert,
Chronica
, p. 323: “
Gabrihelem archangelumm loquentem mecum contemplor. et non ferens splendorem vultus eius. utpote carnalis homo deficio: et cado
”; Hugh of Fleury, Vatican MS Reg. lat. 545, fol. 64v. Muhammad is attempting to placate his new wife, distressed at his disturbing condition. Guibert includes a similar anecdote, saying that Muhammad develops epilepsy from having too much sex and that the Alexandrian heretic offers this explanation: GN 1, 4, pp. 96–97.

13
Walter,
Otia de Machomese
, p. 327. Embrico says that Muhammad is developing new false doctrine when the seizure strikes:
Historia de Mahumete
, col. 1362D–1363A. See also GN 1, 4, p. 99. In Embrico's version, the Magus (who outlives his pupil) drives away the pigs and reclaims a now badly lacerated body. Adelphus simplifies the story by having wild pigs attack Muhammad while alone, leaving behind only the prophet's right arm: Adelphus,
Vita Machometi
, pp. 121–122.

14
John Victor Tolan describes this process as “anti-hagiography”: Tolan, “Anti-hagiography,” p. 30.

15
FC 1, 3, 6, p. 135; Ripoll Account, pp. 646–647. BB hints that the Saracens were Canaanites in a scene where the Turkish general Kerbogah explained to Peter the Hermit why his people's claim to the land was much older than that of the Franks': “We wonder at the greed with which you claim this land as your own. Our ancestors
possessed it before your superstitious Peter [who was patriarch of Antioch before he was bishop of Rome] did; but he turned them from the worship of their deity through his lies and seduced them through deception into your frivolous sect”: BB 3, 15, p. 75. Thus, St. Peter convinced the original possessors of Antioch to turn away from the worship of a god whom Kerbogah viewed as legitimate, which would imply that their pre-Christian cult was Islam. Tolan (2002), pp. 73–74, shows how the seventh-century exegete and historian Bede similarly, though with more sophistication, attempted to fit the Saracens into the framework of Old Testament history. Cited here also are RtM 7, 8, p. 828; BB 4, 13, p. 101; and Adso, p. 149 (also LF, fol. 109v, p. 222). The commentary comes from Rupert of Deutz,
De sancta Trinitate
, 5, 25, p. 358, analyzing Gen. 16:6–9, where God sends Hagar back to Abraham and Sarah.