Jack Ludlow - Prince of Legend

There was much to plunder: weapons, private possessions, especially those of the commanders, whose tents yielded objects of value. Most of all there was abundant food, some of it ready to eat, for hungry men too much of a temptation. It was hard to carry that off, but in their enthusiasm to pillage and gorge, the men in command, French and Provencal captains, did not think to set a piquet to ensure that those who had fled did not return.

Likewise it did not occur to them that the darkness, which had aided their enterprise, was just as likely to favour the enemy. Had they been given warning of the Turkish approach they might have safely departed, and heavily laden. As it was, the Turks arrived in great numbers and suddenly, so that the panic was reversed: now it was the Crusaders who had to flee, some foolishly seeking to carry with them what they had looted, which slowed their retreat.

Yet that was not the main source of the debacle that followed: the cause was the postern gate by which they had exited. It was narrow, as such entrances have to be, only of a width enough to allow one man passage through at a time, so that the first few were lucky, the rest less so and those at the rear doomed to be slaughtered. In the balance of those slain on both sides, made public at another council meeting, it was moot as to which host had suffered most.

The following morning, as if sending a hard message, the enemy again essayed out from the citadel to do battle and the same men who had fought the previous day were once more desperately engaged. Ademar, who had taken the reverse on his plan badly, was at the same time saying a special Mass for the souls of those who had been lost.

The attack from the citadel was repeated over four long days, always by the doughty Turks, sapping strength in both numbers and the ability to keep fighting, so much so that morale plummeted to a point where it began to affect men who claimed to be immune. Escape from besieged Antioch had been, if a dribble, a constant even before the Turks actually arrived, with individual milities lowering themselves from the walls at night to make a run for open country or St Simeon, for the nearby small port was unaccountably still not in Turkish hands: such desertions, if not approved, could be ignored.

The depth of creeping despair really struck home when a twenty-strong party of influential knights chose to defect: these were trusted men, cohort leaders from every contingent, including William of Grandmesnil, a relative by marriage and a seemingly dependable captain of Bohemund. It was scant comfort that the act of such a numerous group seemed to activate the normally somnolent Turks.

Alerted by their numbers the enemy pursued them to St Simeon, where, as later reported, they did great slaughter in the town while also setting fire to any ships that had not been quick enough to clear the harbour, the smoke from those still burning vessels visible from the walls at dawn. How many knights got away was unclear; more obvious was the envy generated by the notion that they might have succeeded and survived.

The whole siege was in crisis and this could only make matters worse; if such high-born fellows and indomitable fighters could desert it could only be because they knew the outcome to be decided. Antioch would fall and every Latin, from lowly pilgrim to great nobleman, determined to abide by their faith was likely a dead man.

A rumour swept through the city that even the magnates themselves were about to flee and leave the common folk to face the wrath of Kerbogha. A public display of fortitude had to be arranged, at which each leader swore in turn, in a solemn oath administered by a weary-looking Ademar, not to desert the crusading cause.

The Bishop, once so smooth of countenance that no wrinkle troubled his brow, did not now look well: if the clerical lack of vigour could be explained by the military circumstances, he was finding religion just as debilitating. Hunger amongst the deeply religious pilgrims by nature brought on visions of either an approaching apocalypse or divine salvation. Many of them were simple folk who had come to Asia in droves to seek deliverance and they represented every walk of life in the chequered board that was the Latin Christian heartland.

Some, a very few, had been prosperous merchants, much reduced now, the majority everything from guild tradesmen to shopkeepers, housewives, landless peasants and, it had to be admitted, a strong contingent of the dregs and feckless of European society, albeit they had one thing in common: they had been led to seek salvation by non-sanctified preachers who promised them not only the remission of sins granted by the Pope, but had raised that to a guarantee of entry to heaven upon death, once they had breached the walls of the Holy City.

If there was rivalry amongst the magnates, called upon to swear their attachment to the cause till death or victory, they could not be outdone by the vicious jealousies that animated the various self-appointed divines. Clerical hierarchy, namely Ademar as the papal legate, could at least keep proper churchmen, the priests, deacons and abbots who had accompanied the great lords, in check. Not so the numerous unconsecrated preachers, who claimed to derive their authority directly from God and would have challenged Pope Urban himself to gainsay their rights.

The most noted of these charismatics was Peter the Hermit: he had set out for Palestine before a single warrior lance had pledged service, leading the first contingent of pilgrims from France and Germany to Constantinople. Twenty thousand strong, they had caused mayhem on the way given, if Peter had spiritual influence, he had no secular control at all.

The People’s Crusade, which it had come to be called, had plundered and looted their way through Bavaria, Bohemia and Hungary, robbing the locals of food and wine, sometimes committing murder and rapine on their fellow Christians while visiting much worse on any Jews they had encountered; they, being deemed Christ killers, had been ritually slaughtered and their synagogues torched, often with the believers inside.

Entering Byzantine territory had not tempered their abuses: imperial troops had been obliged to engage in pitched battles to contain their depredations and that had not lessened when, strongly shepherded, they came to the capital city of the Roman Empire. One of their lesser crimes was to strip the lead off church roofs to pay for not only food but also the more dubious pleasures of the bazaar. Worse, they robbed the locals at will and were a real danger to the womenfolk.

Fearing riot — the citizens of Constantinople wished to take revenge for the pilgrims desecrations — the Emperor Alexius had shipped them over the Bosphorus to a less-than-salubrious town called Civetot, where he had kept them supplied with food in the hope that they would rest still and content until the fighting Crusaders arrived. He added a strong warning that not to do so would rouse the warlike Turks of nearby Nicaea.

That had been a mistake soon made to appear like folly; those who could walk ravaged the lands near Civetot, caring not for the religion of those they robbed, be they Muslim or Christian, Turk or Greek. Those with horses, knights who had attached themselves to the People’s Crusade, plundered further afield, one party penetrating deep into the littoral to take a small fortress called Xerigordos with the intention of holding it as a fief.

The very thing Alexius feared came to pass: stung by such an act the massively strong Turks of Nicaea set out to deal with these Latin vermin. Xerigordos was soon recaptured and the Crusaders either had their throats cut or were forced to convert to Islam. On hearing this news the rest of the People’s Crusade, or at least those who could bear a weapon and were certain God was on their side, set out in an unruly and impossible-to-control multitude to gain revenge by taking Nicaea.