Joseph François Michaud - The History of the Crusades (Vol.1-3)

The leaders of the Christian armies which now quitted the West were already celebrated by their valour and their deeds. At the head of the great captains who commanded in this crusade, history, as well as poetry, must place Godfrey de Bouillon, [61]duke of the Lower Lorraine. He was of the illustrious race of the counts of Boulogne, and descended on the female side from Charlemagne. From his earliest youth he had distinguished himself in the open war carried on between the Holy See and the emperor of Germany. On the field of battle he had killed Rodolphe de Rhenfield, duke of Suabia, to whom Gregory had sent the imperial crown. When the war broke out in Italy for the cause of the anti-pope Anaclet, Godfrey was the first to enter the city of Rome, besieged and taken by the troops of Henry. He afterwards repented of having embraced a party which victory itself could not make triumphant, and which the greater part of Christendom considered sacrilegious. To expiate exploits condemned as useless by the spirit of his age, he made a vow to go to Jerusalem, not as a simple pilgrim, but as a liberator.

Contemporary history, which has transmitted his portrait to us, informs us that he joined the bravery and virtues of a hero to the simplicity of a cenobite. [62]His prowess in fight and his extraordinary strength of body made him the pride of camps. Prudence and moderation tempered his valour; his devotion was sincere and disinterested; and in no instance during the holy war did he employ his courage or inflict his vengeance but upon the enemies of Christ. Faithful to his word, liberal, affable, full of humanity, the princes and knights looked upon him as their model, the soldiers as their father—all were eager to fight under his standard. If he was not the leader of the crusade, as some writers pretend, he at least obtained that empire which virtue bestows. Amidst their quarrels and divisions, the princes and barons constantly appealed to the wisdom of Godfrey, and in the dangers of war, his counsels became absolute orders.

At the signal of the duke of Lorraine, the nobility of France and the borders of the Rhine were prodigal of their treasures in preparing for the crusades. All things serviceable in war mounted to so exorbitant a price, that the produce of an estate was scarcely sufficient to defray the equipment of a single knight. The women despoiled themselves of their most precious ornaments to furnish forth their sons and their husbands for the expedition. Men even, say the historians, who in other times would have suffered a thousand deaths rather than give up their hereditary domains, either sold them for a low price or exchanged them for arms. Gold and steel appeared to be the only desirable objects in existence.

Now appeared the stores of riches which had been concealed by fear or avarice. Ingots of gold, coined pieces, says the Abbé Guibert, were to be seen in heaps in the tents of the principal Crusaders, like the most common fruits in the cottages of villagers.

Many barons, having neither lands nor castles to sell, implored the charity of the faithful who did not take up the cross, and might hope to participate in the merits of the holy war by assisting in the equipment of the Crusaders. Some ruined their vassals; others, like William, viscount de Melun, [63]pillaged the burghs and villages to place themselves in a condition to combat the infidels. Godfrey de Bouillon, guided by a more enlightened piety, was content with alienating his domains. We read in Robert Gaguin that he permitted the inhabitants of Metz to redeem their city, of which he was suzerain. He sold the principality of Stenai to the bishop of Verdun, and ceded his rights over the duchy of Bouillon to the bishop of Liège for the small sum of four thousand silver marks and a pound of gold, which makes an historian of the Crusaders say [64]that the secular princes ruined themselves for the cause of Jesus Christ, whilst the princes of the Church took advantage of the fervour of the Christians to enrich themselves.

The duke de Bouillon had gathered under his standard eighty thousand foot-soldiers and ten thousand horsemen. He began his march eight months after the council of Clermont, accompanied by a great number of German and French nobles. He took with him his brother Eustace de Boulogne, his other brother Baldwin, and his cousin Baldwin de Bourg. These two last, who were destined one day, like Godfrey de Bouillon, to become kings of Jerusalem, held then the rank of simple knights in the Christian army. They were all less animated by sincere piety than by the hope of achieving a great fortune in Asia, and quitted without regret the mean possessions that they held in Europe. Still further were to be remarked in the train of the duke de Lorraine, Baldwin, count de Hamaut; Garnier, count de Grai; Conon de Montaigu, Dudon de Contz, so celebrated in the “Jerusalem Delivered;” the two brothers Henri and Godfrey de Hache, Gérard de Cherisi, Rinaldo and Peter de Toul, Hugh de St. Paul, and his son Engelran. These chiefs brought with them a crowd of other knights, less known, but not less formidable by their valour.

The army commanded by the duke of Lorraine, composed of soldiers formed by discipline and tried in battle, offered to the Germans a very different spectacle from the troop of Peter the Hermit, and re-established the honour of the Crusaders in all the countries they passed through. They met with assistance and allies where the first champions of the cross had found nothing but obstacles and enemies. Godfrey deplored the fate of those who had preceded him, without seeking to avenge their cause. The Hungarians and the Bulgarians, on their part, forgot the violences committed by the soldiers of Peter, Gotschalk, and Emicio; they admired the moderation of Godfrey, and offered up vows for the success of his arms.

Whilst the duke de Lorraine was advancing towards Constantinople, France was raising other armies for the holy war. A few months after the council of Clermont, the nobles of the kingdom assembled to deliberate upon the affairs of the crusade. In this assembly, held in the presence of Philip I., who had just been excommunicated, no one was opposed to the war preached under the auspices of the Holy See; no one even thought of invoking policy either to moderate or direct the passions which agitated Europe. The cabinets of princes were as much infatuated as the multitude, and it may be said that the fortune of France took charge alone of these great events, which, though unfortunate at first, afterwards concurred to raise the monarchy which had fallen into ruins under the feeble successors of Charlemagne.

Towards the middle of the tenth century, the chief of the third dynasty had consecrated the usurpation of the nobles, and to obtain the title of king, had almost abandoned the little that remained of the rights of the crown. Philip I., grandson of Hugh Capet, found that his dominions extended but little beyond Paris and Orleans; the rest of France was governed by the great vassals, of whom several surpassed monarch in power. Royalty, the only hope of the people against the oppressions of the nobles and the clergy, was so feeble, that we are at the present time astonished that it did not fall, so numerous were the difficulties and the enemies that surrounded it on all sides. As the monarch was exposed to the censures of the Church, it was an easy matter to lead his subjects to disobedience, and to legitimatize any sort of revolt, by giving it the colour of a sacred pretext.

The crusade removed far from Europe all who could have taken advantage of the unhappy situation in which the kingdom was placed; it saved the country from a civil war, and prevented such sanguinary discords as had broken out in Germany under the reign of Henry and the pontificate of Gregory.

Such were the considerations which might present themselves to the most enlightened men, and which must strike us more strongly than they would the contemporaries of Philip. [65]It would be difficult to believe that any one of the counsellors of the king of France perceived, in all their extent, these salutary results of the crusade, which were recognized long after, and which have only been properly appreciated in the age in which we live. On the other hand, they had no conception that a war in which all the most dangerous passions should be brought into action would be accompanied by great misfortunes and calamitous disorders. Ambition, license, the spirit of enthusiasm, all so much to be dreaded by the country, might also bring about the ruin of armies. Not one of the enemies of Philip, not one of those who remained at home, made this reflection. Everybody, as we have already said, they who were of the party of the Holy See and they who adhered to royalty, allowed themselves to be carried along by the current of events, without either perceiving the causes of them or foreseeing their consequences. The most wise blindly followed that invisible destiny which orders the world as it pleases, and makes use of the passions of men as of an instrument to accomplish its designs.