Jack Ludlow: Soldier of Crusade

‘Which would be a waste, topoterites ,’ Bohemund added, ‘given we have come to coat the earth with the blood of your uncle’s enemies, not that of his own men and certainly not that of his family.’

‘I am minded to provide an escort.’

‘Something,’ Tancred replied, ‘given to those in need of succour, like pilgrims. We are not pilgrims.’

‘We move out on the morrow, topoterites ,’ Bohemund pronounced, ‘our aim to join the Via Egnatia at Vedona, and be assured I know the terrain well. I will give no trouble to those who do not trouble me. Now, allow me to offer you some refreshment in my tent.’

After, Comnenus thought, you have humiliated me in front of your Greek-speaking army.

‘I must decline,’ he said, ‘for I have the command of Durazzo and that I must protect.’

‘No doubt you will send to Alexius to tell of our arrival.’

‘I shall.’

Bohemund could not keep the wry tone out of his voice. ‘News to delight him, I’m sure.’

The despatch John Comnenus sent off to his uncle that night was full of foreboding about the intentions of the Apulians and while he was careful in his recommendations — he did not ask for troops with which to contest their passage for the very sound reason they did not exist — he did ask for gold with which to bribe Bohemund’s half-brother and primary enemy, the reigning Duke of Apulia, Roger de Hauteville, known as Borsa .

Rendered a bastard by the papal annulment of his father’s first marriage on the grounds of consanguinity, Bohemund saw himself as the rightful heir to his father’s domains; Borsa , first son of the second wedding to Sichelgaita of Salerno, had claimed his rights as the legitimate successor and his formidable mother had secured that for him. The two sons of Robert had contested that right over many years and Bohemund had wrested much of the Apulian domains from his half-sibling, who was, militarily, no match for him in the field or in the loyalty he could command from his subjects. Thus he would be easily tempted to stir up trouble.

If Borsa could be bribed to take up arms, that might force Bohemund to look to save his Italian possessions; in short it might oblige him to hurry home with his army, a repeat of the well-funded upheavals that had saved the empire in the past. This he did on the grounds that such an army and such a presence on the soil of Romania, regardless of the stated cause, was too dangerous for imperial security.

He also felt obliged to send ahead messengers to deny the Apulians easy access to supplies and, for all the weakness of the forces he commanded and the responsibilities thereof, Comnenus despatched in his wake a strongly armed party to ensure that they continued to progress east and did not succumb to the temptation to set down in any one place. That it was no more than a gesture Comnenus knew, but he thought it one worth making.

The despatch from Durazzo reached a ruler who had enough troubles without worrying about Bohemund of Taranto, though his arrival, as well as the method of it, underlined a difficulty that would be the devil to deal with. In calling for help from the Christian powers of the West, Emperor Alexius Comnenus had already got a great deal more than he had bargained for and the primary part of that was standing before him now, a charismatic preacher called Peter the Hermit.

On his own Peter was not a problem; he was a holy man with the simple tastes of his title, ascetic enough to fast regularly, humble in his person, a man happy to live wholly by the tenets of his Lord Jesus Christ and who even looked — tall and thin, with his great beard and the way he leant on his full-length crook — like an Old Testament prophet.

The problem was the nature of the multitude he had inspired with his sermons, for, if there was a body of knights amongst those he had led to the East, the mass was an unruly mob containing, amongst the pious majority, some of the dregs of Europe. This host had come to the capital of Byzantium in their onward search for absolution for the entirety of their sins, this to be granted to them when Jerusalem was once more a Christian city.

From what Alexius Comnenus knew — he would admit his knowledge was incomplete and would remain so until a papal legate arrived — Pope Urban had talked only of the remission of past sins for those who took part in his Crusade. Peter, in his enthusiasm for the cause, had elevated that promise to a guarantee of entry to paradise for any who took up the challenge, which, if it had enthused many thousands of the genuinely devout, had also gathered to him those with a great deal to gain from such a pledge, a mass of ne’er-do-wells with crimes against their name from which they needed pardon if they were not to burn for eternity in the pits of Hell.

‘My people are good simple folk, Your Eminence, easily led astray.’

They are not all that, Alexius thought, though he was too much the diplomat to say so. There are murders, rapists, thieves of every sort included in your rabble and they are beyond control even by a saintly fellow such as yourself. That was not a criticism of Peter, who saw only good where other men saw a less palatable truth, and the evidence of his error had reached imperial ears long before his followers saw the walls of the city.

Peter’s so-called ‘People’s Crusade’ had left a swathe of destruction all across the lands of middle Europe — the Jews in their path had suffered most, with much slaughter of those who refused to convert added to the burning of synagogues. It had even led to armed conflict once they were inside the boundaries of the empire as they ravaged the countryside through which they passed. On coming to Constantinople they had posed a threat to the city itself and even more to the public peace, added to which Alexius had been required to feed them while they committed arson as a cover for their manifest transgressions.

He was still doing so but now at a pleasing distance; recognising that matters would not improve he had them shipped across to the town of Civetot, on the southern shores of the Gulf of Nicomedia where their depredations were out of his sight as well as those of the inhabitants of his capital. Yet it was far from being without concern given their continued dismal behaviour; he felt a responsibility, if not for their well-being at least for their survival, and the reports he had told him that their conduct had not changed — they were doing to northern Bithynia what they had been stopped from doing within the walls of Constantinople.

Having made his statement in support of the masses he had led here, Peter was obliged to wait for a spoken response — that was the way it should be: no man, however saintly, had the right to hurry a Roman emperor in his musings.

‘It concerns me,’ Alexius said finally, ‘that your people do not confine themselves to the area around Civetot that I have granted to them and in which they may reside till the crusading armies arrive. They raid out from the lands around the port and risk, in their foraging and, dare I say it, plundering, to upset the Turks of Nicaea, who will not sit idly by and let the lands they control be ravaged.’

‘ Your lands, Eminence, Christian lands.’

Tempted to underline the nature of possession, Alexius demurred; Peter held a simple view that all lands were the property of his Christian God, while the Emperor knew that the sword of Islam held greater sway.

‘While the supplies you send us are adequate,’ Peter continued, ‘and you are to be thanked for your Christian charity in providing such, there are those who have come to expect, given they are set upon God’s work, that they deserve more.’

‘What is it you require, Peter?’ Alexius asked suppressing a sigh. Tempted to tell Peter to go to the devil he knew that bribery was so much easier than condemnation.