All Things Medieval

With Jerusalem conquered and slowly being cleaned up from the stench and disease of rotting body parts, the big question was who should become its ruler.

The Princes’ Crusade set out with a number of ambitious aristocrats, but by three years later, the ranks had thinned. The Duke of Normandy, Count of Flanders and Count of Boulogne all seemed content with their original lands and titles back home, and the French King’s brother had gone home. There were five remaining noblemen, and two had already seized territory as Count of Edessa and Prince of Antioch.

So the last three contenders were Raymond Count of Toulouse, who had a lovely patrimony back in southern France but was determined to become the ruler of something in the Holy Land; Godfrey of Bouillon—brother to Count of Edessa and Count of Boulogne, himself (insecurely) Duke of Lorraine but definitely still in the hunt for more titles; and Tancred, nephew of the new Prince of Antioch and grandson of the Norman who conquered southern Italy.

Tancred was hotly ambitious but lower in status, so he didn’t really have a chance at Jerusalem. Jerusalem was considered to be the center of the world; it was also where Christ would return. It was even the principle city of the region in secular terms, since Tel Aviv didn’t exist and Jaffa was just a small port. But overall, it was the Holy City, center of the world.

On July 22, they held a council at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Raymond of Toulouse stated that he could not be King in a city where Jesus had worn a crown of thorns. It is almost certain that he hoped the other princes would insist on electing him anyway; Bohemund had pulled a similar stunt at Antioch, allowing them to reject him and then come back in a panic and “force” to him lead. But instead, Godfrey of Bouillon quickly agreed that it would be a really impious act to be king in the city where etc., so he offered to be an uncrowned ruler. The others in the council just as quickly accepted his offer.

Raymond, who was not a Norman, felt that the council had been rigged by the other Normans. This time, the breach between the disappointed prince and the successful one could not be bridged. Raymond pulled his forces away from Jerusalem and began to act independently. When Raymond’s army did not coordinate with the others, their forces were cut in half. They had already left knights behind in Cilicia, Edessa, and Antioch. The remaining knights had to guard Jerusalem and be prepared to assault other Muslim-held cities, which meant every town except the Antioch and Jerusalem: Jaffa, Ascalon, Acre, Tyre, Sidon… There were just not enough boots on the ground.

The council had to determine more feudal hierarchy, creating and assigning titles. Tancred was made Prince of Galilee, so that he was responsible for holding the land between Antioch and Jerusalem. Other knights were made Counts of Haifa, Nazareth, and Beirut, assigned to be vassals to Tancred. Even smaller towns and regions were assigned to be under them. In this way, the Crusaders could divide governing, taxation, and defense as efficiently as they knew how.

We usually remember Godfrey as King Godfrey of Jerusalem, even though he turned down the title and remained, officially, only a Duke (“dux”). He acted as a king, trying to mediate disputes and use the collective knights and infantry to extend their territory. His first challenge came quickly as the Fatimids rode in force to take back Jerusalem. Jerusalem was captured on July 15, and by August 10, Godfrey was leading the troops southward to meet the Fatimids in the desert.

During those few short weeks, a monk had discovered a fragment of the True Cross. Our modern minds find this very hard to believe; but it only matters to the story that everyone at the time believed it. The True Cross came to have its own cult, in a sense, people whose faith largely centered around knowing that the relic was here and could be carried with the troops or in procession to church before a battle. In this case, both the True Cross and the Holy Lance of Antioch were carried by priests in front with the Crusade’s leaders. Reluctantly, Raymond of Toulouse came too.

Al-Afdal led the Fatimid army himself, and although numbers are uncertain, he probably had twice as many men as the Latins. His intent was a siege of Jerusalem, but the Crusaders met him outside Ascalon (modern Ashkelon). It’s hard to believe, but the Crusaders found the Fatimids and prepared an attack before Fatimid scouts had alerted al-Afdal. They forced a battle in the open fields, and in this first Battle of Ascalon, the Crusaders won relatively easily and very decisively. When al-Afdal fled, he left behind a lot of plunder for the knights to carry away. Ascalon itself refused to surrender, and the Crusaders had no will to batter it down.

Most of the leading knights now went home. They had vowed to go to Jerusalem, and they’d done it. The only leaders who stayed behind were the ones primarily interested in the new feudal structure of this hot, dry place: Tancred Prince of Galilee, Godfrey of Jerusalem, Bohemund Prince of Antioch, and Baldwin Count of Edessa. Many more unsung knights also went home, leaving a very small force to guard Jerusalem. Over the next year, a fresh wave of pilgrim knights helped build it up again, but from this time, Godfrey began finding his men often outnumbered.

Godfrey spent most of his time away from the city, staging battles and sieges of all the nearby coastal towns still ruled by Fatimid Muslims. But in June 1100, he became ill outside Caesarea and died.

Godfrey’s only heir was his younger brother in Edessa. So Baldwin left Edessa with his Armenian wife Arda, and came to Jerusalem. This time, he accepted a real coronation. On Christmas Day, 1100, he was crowned in Bethlehem.

A distant cousin of Godfrey and Baldwin, the younger Baldwin of Bourg, inherited the County of Edessa. He had been the older Baldwin’s right hand man, so he was well prepared to take over. He married a local girl, and soon after, new Crusaders arrived and included his best friend from home, Joscelin of Courtenay. Edessa’s power shifted from Count Baldwin and Sir Baldwin, to Count Baldwin II and Sir Joscelin. Count Baldwin II and the new King Baldwin of Jerusalem are both major players in the story going forward.

When the organized Princes’ Crusade armies set out, they had the best standard weaponry of the time. So what did the average soldier carry?

The most important weapon of the era was the spear, whether it was a throwing lance (or even dart) or a pole-ax that included a spear point with other hooks and barbs. Spears are the primary weapon of the Bayeux Tapestry. Their shafts were eight or nine feet long, probably made of ash wood. Spear heads were made of iron, and the quality of the iron (therefore how sharp its edge stayed) varied with the owner’s wealth.

Imagine being a foot soldier who had to walk across Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and then Anatolia (Turkey). Do you want to carry that spear the whole way? While it might make an okay hiking staff occasionally, you don’t want to wear out the ash pole by constantly slamming it on the ground. You will bring a pack horse (or donkey or mule) along to carry your gear, with the spear tied into the bundle.

The pack horse will also carry your mail shirt, the most expensive gear you own. It’s made of iron wire that was wrapped around a stick while hot, so that it cooled into a non-springy spiral. The wire was cut into rings, and the ends of the rings flattened, with holes bored into each side. When the rings were hooked together like the Olympic symbol, tiny rivets slipped into the holes, securing the rings shut.

Tens of thousands of iron rings are fitted into your shirt. It may only cover your torso, protecting at least your vital organs. If you can afford more rings, your shirt hangs down as a curtain around your upper legs, too. It’s split in front to let you ride a horse or walk easily, but it forms a swinging barrier for any blade aiming to cut your leg off. If you can afford even more rings, it has arm protection too.

The mail shirt is very heavy and uncomfortable, and it must be stored wrapped in oiled cloth to protect it from rusting. When you wear it, you need a quilted tunic against your skin so that the rings won’t pinch and cut you. So that’s another key part of your gear, a linen quilt-shirt that’s stuffed with wool or other padding (when cotton starts being imported, that will be its first use).

The Bayeux Tapestry, which shows the fathers of the current Crusaders, also shows mail shirts being carried with a pole through the arms, between two men. This suggests the weight as well as the need to let gravity keep the rings straight. I don’t think the Crusaders managed them this way, but it does suggest how heavy and inconvenient they were.

You have a linen hood to go under your helm, and probably a padded cap as well. The helm is made of plate iron, probably with some chain mail attached to the bottom edge as neck protection.

You also need a light-color linen tunic to go over the mail, to reflect the sun. First Crusaders may have learned this part the hard way. A mail shirt gets very, very hot in the Middle Eastern sun. This concern was probably also why the Princes’ Crusade set off in August, 1096: so that the hottest months were already past. When fighting pilgrims (they still just called themselves pilgrims at this time) wore a fabric cross as the Pope had suggested, they put it on the outer reflective tunic.

If you’re a knight or in training to be one, you have at least one sword, but if you are a foot soldier from the manors and towns around the province, you don’t. Sword technology going into the First Crusade was similar to what’s found in Viking graves. The blade had been specially treated to increase the carbon content; some of its metal might qualify as steel. The pommel had a guard on each side of the hand, while the iron shaft at the handle’s core was covered by wooden grips carved to fit the hand. Some swords were made so large and heavy that they required two hands, but I think they came later than 1100.

Shields were made of wood: plywood layers with the grains crossed to make it stronger. Shields couldn’t stop a hurtling spear or a direct blow from a sword. They could block arrows or turn less direct blows. It was worth having a shield, more than not, but it wasn’t a big iron plate you could hide behind. That would have been way too expensive and heavy. The shield was covered with linen to stop splintering, and then shellacked with paint. It carried the lord’s insignia.

The rest of your gear, piled on the pack horse, consists of food and water storage containers, small tools, and extra cloth items like a blanket. You always carry a knife at your belt, the way modern people routinely put on wristwatches. Your boots are made of leather, but they have soft soles like moccasins. You probably have some extra soles along, with a needle and awl; you may even have an extra whole pair of boots in the pack, knowing that you’ll be walking. Somewhere in Bulgaria or Anatolia, your pack horse will die, and you’ll have to decide what you can heft on your back.

The Princes, of course, had even more gear: tents, chests of money, more extras of everything, and servants who needed gear just to tend the gear.

The Crusaders besieged Jerusalem on June 7, 1099, exactly a year after their siege of Antioch. Between Antioch and Jerusalem, they had passed by Fatimid-ruled cities but these governors had permitted them to go without opposition. The Fatimids abandoned Jaffa on the coast and concentrated all defenses inside Jerusalem.

Jerusalem is situated on a hilly plateau on the eastern edge of the Great Rift Valley’s last rift. King David had captured it because of its location; it was a natural stronghold, unlike coastal Jaffa. Attackers always wanted to find some point looking down on the city, and it was difficult with Jerusalem. The Mount of Olives and Mount Zion were both just outside the city walls, but some other approaches to the city were impassible. The princes grouped in roughly three forces under Raymond, Godfrey, and Tancred the nephew of Bohemond, who had risen in status during the Crusade. Tancred was intent on becoming a prince in the Holy Land; he wanted to do what Bohemond had done in Antioch, becoming the personal conqueror and subsequent ruler. The Duke of Normandy and Count of Flanders were content to be part of Tancred’s forces, although they may not have viewed it quite like that.

The army needed siege engines, but they were in a land without good timber. They solved the problem by purchasing some Genoese ships docked at Jaffa. The ships, dismantled, provided them enough timber to make three wheeled siege engines, ladders and some catapults. The siege engines were built on the plain and then reassembled on the hilltops near city walls.

As they prepared and planned for the big assault, a priest had a vision from Adhemar Le Puy, the Papal Legate who died of typhus a few months earlier at Antioch. He suggested that the Crusaders should imitate Joshua by marching around Jerusalem. The men fasted for three days and then walked barefoot around the city. At nightfall on July 13, 1099, they began the attack.

While catapults hurled missiles from both sides of the city walls, the Crusaders filled in defensive ditches meant to keep out wheeled siege engines. The first siege tower went up against the wall on Mount Zion, but the Egyptian forces defended the wall fiercely. Godfrey of Bouillon suddenly noticed in the pre-dawn light that the north-eastern gate was not well defended. While Raymond’s men kept up the attack on Mount Zion, other forces rushed siege engines to this new point. At dawn, both attacks were pressed simultaneously. The Fatimid forces were not able to keep up both defenses, and by mid-day, Godfrey crossed from his siege engine to the top of the wall. The first men into the city flung open the gate that’s now where the Damascus Gate is located. (The city walls from 1099 were destroyed completely in 1244, and later rebuilt in 1538, so old as the current gates are, they are not the same ones that Godfrey flung open.)

Tancred’s men rushed in, cheering. On Mount Zion, the men of Provence heard the cheering and raced to enter the city lest the Normans get all the spoils. Within a few days, all of the city’s residents and defenders were dead. This may not be truly accurate; chroniclers of the conquest of Jerusalem were eager to magnify the slaughter, writing like fans of a winning Superbowl team. But from what historians can tell, it was probably true enough.

Tancred aspired to rule Jerusalem. He wanted to be in control of the city’s sacking; as part of this, he wanted to spare a small group of Fatimid defenders. When he discovered about 300 men (many North Africans) crowding onto the roof of Al-Aqsa Mosque, he posted his banner there, placing them under his protection. They remained there overnight, as massive slaughter went on all around them. Thousands of Muslim clerics, families with small children, and groups of Jews were killed. Some Jews hid in a synagogue, which the Crusaders burned down. But in the morning, men under Raymond of Toulouse climbed onto Al-Aqsa, took down Tancred’s banner, and slew the men there. Raymond was not going to allow Tancred that sort of sovereignty.

In a last sweep of the city, knights killed the inhabitants of houses they liked and marked the houses with their arms. There were some survivors who got ransomed by the Fatimids, and some survivors who were forced to clean up and bury the dead. But to a great extent, the city was left deserted. Simon Sebag Montefiore, in his book about Jerusalem, says that the Crusaders had to go outside the city into the eastern countryside and find local Christian peasants to move in. These, he said, became the medieval Arab population. Jews did not come back into the city until Saladin retook it in 1187.

Jerusalem had not been conquered in such a devastating way since 70 AD. When the original Muslim conquest took place, its leaders were interested in mostly leaving city economies intact so that they could tax them. The Crusaders’ victory was ideological. Their vision of Jerusalem did not include Muslims or Jews; their idea of diversity meant Armenian Christians, Latin Christians, and Greek Christians. It was part of the hardening of ideology in this period; it set a bloody precedent.