The times of the crusades were one of the bloodiest in Church history.  Thousands of men of all walks of life from kings to serfs, engaged in marches across the eastern empire on supposedly religious missions called crusades.  For the crusaders, though, the attainment of land and wealth and the overthrow of their Turkish oppressors were the uppermost concerns in their minds.  This was due to the oppressiveness the system of feudalism had placed upon them.  The restoring of the Holy Lance became an underlying objective to the crusaders, but in the final stages it was the main force which brought about victory for them.  The First Crusade reveals the turbulence of the Eastern Empire, the power of suggestion, and the acts men will commit in the name of Christ, when they believe that forgiveness is eminent.  This account of the First Crusades shows that the Crusaders, on a Holy Crusade, were all but holy in their actions.¹
     The Holy Lance was first lost in 614 when the Persians invaded Jerusalem.  There were 60,000 Christians murdered and 30,000 sold into slavery.  The Holy Lance was sent to Persia as a gift to Queen Meryem.  In 622 the Emperor Heraclius began what was, in reality, the First Crusade, against the Persians and the Jews.  His battle against the Jews was due to the fact that the Persian victory was in part due to the help received from anti-Christian Jews.  In six years he had driven the enemy back beyond the Tigris River.  He returned the Holy Cross to Jerusalem and attempted, unsuccessfully, to convert the Jews to Christianity.
     The year 629 marked an Arab chieftain named Mahomet’s appearance and what would lead to the official First Crusade almost 500 years later.  Mahomet declared, in Mecca, that he was a Prophet of God.  He was responsible for initiating a new religion called Islam.  Not all the Arabs were willing to surrender to this new religion and Mahomet soon had to flee from Mecca as a result of attempts on his life.  Mahomet reached safety in Medina and was joined there by a few disciples.  Soon he had amassed a large enough army to march against and retake Mecca.  Unlike Christian prophets, Mahomet came with a sword.  In the sacred Arab month of Rahab, when all the tribes acknowledged a truce, Mahomet commanded his followers to attack one of the Meccan caravans, shedding blood.  In 627, he attacked and breached a Jewish fortress near Medina, butchered nine hundred men, and sold all the women and children into slavery.
     Upon Mahomet’s death, he had successfully united all Arabia and converted them to Islam.  Abu Bekr ruled as the first Moslem Caliph for two years.  In 634 he was succeeded by Omar the Faithful, a man of immense force.  Christian Arabs, Jews, and Byzantines all flocked to his call to all the Faithful.  On August 20, 636 on the banks of Yarmuk near the Sea of Galilee a decisive battle was fought in a blinding sandstorm. During this battle, 12,000 Christian Arabs passed over to the side of Islam, due to the Emperor’s lack of purpose and the fact that they had not been paid for months.  The Arabs were victorious and when the Emperor heard of the defeat he boarded a ship and left for Constantinople.
     The victorious Arabs pressed on south to Jericho and, after a year of siege, in 638 Jerusalem fell.  The Moslem tide swept on; the Byzantine Empire was pushed completely out of Syria, Armenia was taken, and the Persians were crushed at Kadesiah and Nekhavend.  In 641 the Moslems took Alexandria and by 700 Roman Africa was also in their hands.  Eleven years later the Moslems occupied Spain and in the year 715 their Empire stretched from Pyrenees to Central India and was threatening the walls of Constantinople.  Here the Moslems were defeated by the Greeks under the usurping Greek Emperor, Leo III, and suffered heavy losses and their shipping fleet was burned.
     Although Jerusalem fell in 638; it was not until 1095 that the First Crusade was called by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont.  During this time under the liberal and tolerant Moslem regime, most Christians of the lost Eastern Empire became indifferent to the claims of the weakened Emperor at Constantinople.  This position changed later after Moslem defeats by the Franks, led by Charles Martel “The Hammer”, and because a race of Mongoloid warriors, the Seljuk Turks, had established themselves in the Saracen dominions of the East.  In 749 the Addasids, organized a revolution, declared the Omayyads usurpers, hunted down and slew the last Omayyad Caliph in Egypt, and established a new capital in Bagdad.  This precipitated a change in policy from a Greek to a Persian model.  A result of this change was that Christianity was now barely tolerated.
     Then emerged a man called Charlemagne of the Franks.  He was the grandson of Charles Martel who had driven back the Saracens at Tours.  In 773 Charles began his greatest drive by wiping out the old Lombard kingdom of Northern Italy and assuming title of King of the Lombards and Patrician of the Romans.  This was followed by a push against the Saxons who were forced to accept Christianity in 776.  Charles then rode against the Slavonic tribes beyond the Elbe and broke through the huge fortifications of Mongol Avars in Hungary.  Upon the surrender and baptism of the proud khan, there was no doubt in the European mind that here was a man to outrival the Emperor of Constantinople.  It was no surprise then that Pope Leo III hailed Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor.  Following Charlemagne’s death his Frankish Empire soon crumbled under weaker successors.  This situation left the Pope without a champion.  The Saracens took Sicily, Byzantium was rising again and rebellious Roman nobles openly flouted the Pope.  Such a situation led to insecurity and decadence in both the East and the West.
     Another problem was the Vikings.  These violent Northmen began ravaging the coasts of southern France, Italy, and the Mediterranean Islands.  In 881, they struck at the heart of Charle’s Empire, burning Maestricht, Liege, Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen.  After attacks on Constantinople, the Emperor persuaded these Vikings to stay peacefully, thus he was able to use them to form his own royal guard.  The result of the Viking intrusion is that it drove large masses of the stable European population to seek homes elsewhere.  The Vikings also reopened trading routes through Russia to Constantinople, showed pilgrims a route through the Western ocean and Straits of Gibraltar, and another route over the Alps, which was linked to the Italian ports and to the east.  This latter route became the main pilgrim route from Central Europe to Jerusalem.
     Before the crusades the economic system had become so oppressive that only those who owned land had any freedom.  The serfs were attached to the soil and could not leave the village or marry without permission.  Their children belonged to their master and everything was automatically bequeathed to their master or seignior.  Freemen could move about but had to pay formidable charges.  Everything they used was from the seignior and they paid large amounts for each service.  When the Normans overran England, they imposed a more oppressive life for 100 years .  Under William of Normandy the land was reallocated to estates for the Norman warriors and most of the old English lords were disposed.  Freemen became serfs or villeins, bound forever to this often cruel and humiliating service of the new Norman lord.  These freemen began looking upon their Norman masters as enemies and robbers.  By 1095, when the First Crusade was called by Pope Urban II,  peasants and any others tied for life to land by their conquerors, were only too willing to evade their masters while receiving the blessings of the Church.
     The calling of the First Crusade resulted from what was called a sign from heaven.  In April, 1095 a great shower of meteorites fell over Europe.  Bishop Gislebert of Lisieux interpreted these meteorites as a sign from God and asked for a crusade to the Holy Places of the East.  In November, 1095, Pope Urban II called a solemn Council at Clermont in Auvergne.  He slated the crusades as wars which have in themselves the glorious reward of martyrdom, and the halo of present and everlasting fame.  The Pope also went on to promise God’s pardon of all past sins to the confessed soldiers in the proposed war; to assure all who died of a martyr’s crown; and to protect the family and possessions of all crusaders.  Constantinople was to be the gathering place of all crusaders and the date of departure was set for August 15, 1096.  This created a problem because the princes, who had to equip themselves, would not be ready by this date.
     This resulted in what is called the People’s Crusade.  A man emerged named Peter, a hermit of Amiens.  Peter the Hermit, as he was called, was said to have a hypnotic effect upon the countrymen of Northern France.  Wherever Peter the Hermit preached the word of Pope Urban, men vowed to follow him to Jerusalem, via Constantinople.  The peasants sold all they had in order to raise money for their departure.  Even though the princes were not ready, the peasants were and they had to move out without delay or starve.  Peter the Hermit was elected to lead this People’s Crusade accompanied by a knight, Sir Walter the Penniless, and the German monk, Gottschald.  The vanguard led by Sir Walter had only 15,000 foot soldiers at the start and were joined by 3,000 others under the command of noblemen more concerned with gaining loot than access to the Holy Sepulchre.
     While on their journey it occurred to the crusaders that the Jews were as much the enemy as were the Saracens and this idea resulted in the massacre of Jews.  At the palace of the Archbishop of Cologne, 10,000 Jews were slaughtered.  After a month the crusaders and pilgrims reached Hungary.  The towns were little more than huddles of thatched huts, but they offered what shelter they had to the pilgrims.  Upon seeing the country rich in foodstuffs, this undisciplined crowd began to riot in self indulgence against the kindness of the inhabitants.  They set fires to the wheat stores and indulged in orgies of rape thinking the Hungarians were a timid race.  They rushed forward to pillage Moysson, but were ambushed and attacked by the furious citizens, who drove them into the river to drown.  When another wave of crusaders pressed on through Hungary; they found roads and villages now closed to them, and death lurking behind every bush and ravine.
     When Peter the Hermit and his followers found the armor of certain knights who rode with Walter the Penniless on the city walls of Semlin; they broke in and slaughtered 4,000 Hungarians.  The news of this massacre traveled through Bulgaria and soon every man’s hand were against the crusaders.  They were killed at night while asleep by the fires and wells, along the route, were defiled by rotting carcasses of sheep.  Of a total of 300,000 crusaders who started, only 100,000 survived the first stage of the journey.
     These 100,000 remnants of the crusaders fed into Constantinople all through July of 1096.  They
were treated kindly by the Emperor, who forbade them to cross the Bosporus into Seljuk Turkish
territory, where they would only too easily be massacred by the superior forces of the enemy.  Once the crusaders had eaten and rested they began to interpret the Emperor’s words as a reflection on their manhood.  Again they went mad, setting fire to palaces, stripping churches of lead and murdering all who tried to reason with them.  Instead of punishing them, the Greek Emperor immediately commanded them to cross the Bosporus and conquer the Turks of Kilij Arslan.  100,000 crusaders crossed the straits to Nicomedia, but quarreling separated them.  The Franks separated from the Germans, Lombards and Italians, who then chose as their leader one Rainald, and marched into the Turkish kingdom of Roum.  Upon arriving they found the walls deserted at the castle of Exorogorgon and invaded and claimed an easy victory.  The Turks then surrounded the city walls in great strength.  After eight days of siege; the elected leader Rainald surrendered all on the condition that his own party be spared.  The Turks accepted his offer, gave him a place in their army, and then slaughtered or sold into slavery the remaining occupants of the city.
     The French peasants who were left behind at Nicomedia became so unruly that Peter the Hermit turned over the leadership to Walter the Penniless and returned to Constantinople.  Sir Walter decided to attack the city of Civitot(Hersek), but halfway they were ambushed by the Turks.  Walter and 17,000 of his army were killed.  The few remnants who remained were allowed to cross over into Constantinople by the Greek Emperor.
     The actual men of the crusade were a cross-section of eleventh-century feudal Europe-bishops, knights, barons, peasants, and kings.  The knights were the typical crusaders.  These crusading men were 600,000 trained fighters, both on horse and foot, with common ideals--destroying the Turkish menace and gaining estates.  At the same time, if possible, they intended to satisfy the Pope that the Holy Places should be opened up again to visits by European pilgrims.
     There was no general leader.  The first group of Southern Frenchmen and Italians were under papal legate and Count Raymond of Toulouse, a veteran warrior.  They marched down through Italy, crossed by boat to Dalmatia, and then continued through mountainous Albania.  The second group was composed of 70,000 northern Frenchmen and Germans.  They were led by Godfrey de Bouillon and his two brothers; Eustace, Count of Boulogne, and Baldwin, Duke of Lorraine.  Their route followed the Danube through Hungary and Bulgaria.  Godfrey de Bouillon was the most moderate and the least self-seeking of all the crusaders  who made this first attempt against the craft and power of the Seljuk Turk.
     The third group of crusaders was the main one and contained the majority of French contingents with a few English Normans.  They were led by princes of the highest degree; Hugh of Vermandois, brother to the King of France; Robert of Normandy, eldest son of William the Conqueror; Robert, Count of Flanders; and Stephen, Count of Chartres, Blois, and Troyes.  They took much the same route as that of Raymond of Toulouse and the papal legate.  The fourth group which, in the end, gained more glory than others, joined the movement almost as an afterthought.  They were led by Prince Bohemond of Tartentum in Southern Italy, son of an equally famous warrior, Robert Guisard.  Prince Bohemond was besieging Amalfi when upon the urging of his men he joined the crusade .  They took the old Roman road down the Appian Way to Brindisi, and across the Adriatic to Durazzo in Bulgaria.  Bohemond instructed his men that they were God’s pilgrims, were not to plunder the land nor to take more than is needful to eat, with God’s blessing.  In spite of this warning his soldiers took what they wanted and probably raped as well.
     In the next stage of the journey, at Pelagonia, the Bulgarians fortified the town, but the crusaders attacked them on all sides, set fire to it, and burned the town with everyone in it.  Then the crusaders crossed the river Vardar and were met by the Greek Imperial Army.  The Emperor attacked Bohemond.  At the height of battle Bohemond’s cousin and lieutenant, Tancred, swam across the Vardar with 2,000 warriors to aid him.  This won the battle for Bohemond, who routed the Emperor’s forces.
     After defeating the Patzinaks, a fierce and basically Mongolian people, Bohemond had proved that his own crusaders were not inferior to anything they would likely encounter further east.  With high confidence, Bohemond and his crusaders entered Constantinople, where other crusaders swarmed about.  The crusaders then headed to Nicaea.  They mined the walls and lit fires in the holes so
that the principal tower fell, but night came before they could engage the Turks.  By dawn, the next day, they saw that the Turks had worked through the darkness and rebuilt the ruined wall so strongly that entrance was impossible.  After three weeks of stalemate the crusaders planned their attack for June 19, but when they woke, they found the Byzantine flag fluttering from all the city’s towers.  During the night the Emperor Alexius had sailed across the Ascanion Lake and conducted a surrender treaty with the Turks.  So, after a siege of seven weeks, the Emperor issued orders that all Turkish inhabitants of Nicaea be given safe conduct to Constantinople.
     Upon leaving Nicaea, the crusaders became separated, owing to their poor system of liaison.  At Dorylaeum, Bohemond’s men were suddenly surrounded on all sides by Turks in immense numbers.  Bohemond sent riders through the attackers to Godfrey de Bouillon, the Bishop of Le Puy, and the noble Count of Toulouse.  The princes rode to relieve Bohemond where, with the entire weight of the crusading force against them, the army of 360,000 Turks, Persians, Saracens, and Africans, were defeated.
     Between Dorylaeum and Antioch, about 500 miles, there were no other pitched battles against the Seljuks.  The march, during the height of summer, was, in itself, laborious.  This was eased when they reached the rich country of Iconium.  This relief didn’t last long for the army moved southward across a desert and the Taurus range.  Armor was sold for water, and when no buyers could be attained, the armor was discarded.  At last they came down from the mountains to Maragh, where they were welcomed by the Christian inhabitants of the city who had made preparations for the liberating army of Bohemond.  Here the crusaders rested, ate, and drank, regaining the strength they would need for their assault on Antioch.
     As the crusaders approached Antioch, a small force of Turks made a flanking attack, appearing out of nowhere and disappearing in clouds of dust when the Franks turned against them.  The crusaders surrounded the city and prepared for a siege of some length.  Every day Armenians and Syrians would make a mock escape from the city and run for shelter to the crusaders’ tents with stories of their ill-treatment by the Saracens.  Then, after being fed, they would disappear again to take what military intelligence they could gather back to their Turkish allies and masters.
     The Turkish commanders then began to make a series of small-scale attacks from all possible angles.  Daily attacks also came from the nearby Turkish fortress of Harenc, until at last Bohemond decided that he must wipe them out.  The prisoners he captured at Harenc were dragged within sight of the walls of Antioch and beheaded.  As Christmas approached, supplies among the crusaders ran out.  This resulted in Bohemond and the Count of Flanders leading a force of 20,000 men to pick up what they could from outlying districts.  They returned empty handed to find out that, during their absence, the Turks of Antioch had made a surprise attack on the weakened army.
     Now the Turks of Antioch, were able to come out as they wished to make surprise attacks, even at night; a time when medieval armies usually ceased hostilities.  At last, during a particularly bloody engagement, Bohemond called on all to stake their lives on a last desperate effort.  He and his constable, Robert Fitzgerald, another Norman, led the counter-attack.  The Turks, taken by surprise, began a terrified retreat back to Antioch, but, unable to pass in one body over the iron bridge before the city, were massacred there in great numbers.
     This battle was not a decisive one.  The Turks came out again and again, from various gates to harry the crusaders, and once killed over a thousand crusaders in one skirmish.  Once again Bohemond drove the Turks to their death on the narrow iron bridge outside Antioch.  This battle cost the Turks twelve emirs and 1,500 soldiers.  The crusaders then built a fortress to stop food supplies from entering Antioch.  This grim siege lasted seven months and was ended when Bohemond got in touch with Firuz, one of the besieged Turkish emirs known to be tired of the whole affair.  Bohemond
promised all safety and honours if he would betray the city and make Bohemond the prince of the city.  Firuz opened the city gates one night giving the Christian crusaders command of the outer wall.  The crusaders then proceeded to massacre all they could find in the houses and streets.  Three days later, Kerboga of Mosul arrived with 200,000 Moslems and crushed attacks by the crusaders, trapping and killing them on the bridge before the main gate of Antioch, just as Bohemond had twice trapped the Turks themselves.
     At this point the courage of many crusaders broke.  Many of them escaped over the walls of Antioch and fled to the port of St. Simeon, spreading news that the whole Christian Army was defeated and commanding the sailors to set course immediately for Europe.  Before the ships could leave the shores, Kerboga’s Turks came aboard and burned and plundered the ships.  Food had became so scarce in Antioch that the crusaders ate their horses and asses.  They were almost without water.  This situation lasted for nearly a month and left the crusaders almost too weak to make an attack outside the city.  Bohemond burned nearly 2,000 buildings, churches, and houses of the citadel and set up siege-engines to take it.
     Then a certain priest named Peter Bartholomew professed to have seen a vision in which Christ warned the crusaders against having further intercourse with Moslem women, and would once again help Bohemond’s army.  The priest then had another vision that St. Andrew had appeared to him to tell him that in the Church of St. Peter in Antioch was the actual Roman lance which had pierced Christ’s side.  It would assure victory to whichever side carried it into battle.  The crusaders proceeded to dig in the Church of St. Peter and by nightfall they unearthed a lance-head similar to those used by the Normans.  When the great body of crusaders were shown the Holy Lance, they immediately accepted it as a token of forthcoming victory.  Once again they prepared to fight under Bohemond.  For three days the crusaders made processions from church to church confessing their sins.  Then they marched, convinced of victory, through the main gates.
     The crusaders, in a frenzy, rode through barrages of arrows, unaware that they had been wounded by them.  They had reached a point where death was welcomed provided they could take a Turk or two with them.  This unnerved the Turks and, when many of the crusaders looked up towards the mountains and cried out that they could see countless soldiers riding on white horses and carrying banners, galloping down to assist them, the Turks, caught up in the hysteria, tried to gallop away.  The crusaders clung to them, slashing and clubbing them.  The Armenians and Syrians, hearing of the victory, killed all the Turks that they could catch.
     When the victorious crusaders re-entered Antioch they found the inner citadel had surrendered.  The Count of Toulouse announced himself as the Prince of Antioch, but Bohemond, tore down the count’s banner and set up his own on the highest tower of the citadel.  The Moslem Emir and many others now agreed to become Christians.  The crusaders rested in Antioch for over five months.  Then they began the movement towards Jerusalem.  Against smaller towns the crusaders showed no mercy.  Even Bohemond wasn’t without reproach.  At Marra, Bohemond assured the Saracen leaders that, if they retired to a certain palace above the gate, he would see that they came to no harm, even if he had to defend them with his own life.  The Saracens obeyed him, surrendering their weapons.  The main body of crusaders came through the citadel killing all they saw, including women and children.  Then Bohemond took from those he had told to go into the palace all that they had;
gold, silver, and other ornaments.  He killed some of them and sent others to be sold at Antioch.
     The crusaders rested at Marra for a month, at which time the Bishop of Orange died.  Bohemond laid claim to Marra, and the Count of Toulouse contested him.  This caused soldiers to mutiny, and Bohemond retired with his garrison to Antioch.  Godfrey de Bouillon, general of the northern French and German contingent, summoned an immediate council of war.  At this council he rated Raymond as a man of selfish ambition and assumed leadership of the remaining army.  This brought about the greatest unity the crusaders had known during the whole campaign.
     Under Godfrey they traveled down the coastal strip towards Jerusalem.  The crusaders traveled from Marra in January, 1099, through Arca, Tripoli, Beirut, Sidon, Tyre, Acre, and Caesarea, turning inward through Bethlehem to Jerusalem.  Their army of 600,000 men was now down to 25,000.
 On June 7, 1099 they began their siege of Jerusalem.  Godfrey and his nephew Tancred led the attack from the east; the other commanders from all remaining sides.  The crusaders demolished the outer wall, but lost large numbers when climbing the higher inner wall. They  were still able to inflict heavy losses on the enemy.
     For ten days the crusaders were without bread, but their biggest enemy was thirst.  The Saracens lay in wait at every fountain and pool.  The crusaders built two wooden siege-towers, but after five weeks, they were ineffective.  On Thursday, July 13, a fierce assault began.  Godfrey commanded one siege-tower and Raymond of Toulouse the other.  The crusaders once again reached a height of exhortation.  Even the Count of Toulouse became a crazed madman when he thought his own ambitious goal was in jeopardy.   The emir guarding this section of the wall finally surrendered and flung open the gates.  Raymond swept thorough, drove all before him into Solomon’s Temple and butchered them.
     On the roof of the Temple were many Saracen women and old men.  Tancred sent up his banner to them to indicate that they were under his protection, but, when day broke,  the men climbed to the Temple roof attacked and beheaded those who didn’t jump from the roof.  On the eighth day after the fall of Jerusalem, the crusaders elected Godfrey de Bouillon as prince of the city.  Godfrey, not wanting to antagonize the Christians of Europe, refused the crown.  The Patriarch chosen was Arnulf, chaplain to Robert of Normandy.  This allowed Robert, the brother of King William of England, a measure of control indirectly.  It’s ironic that Pope Urban II never learned that Jerusalem had been recovered because of his death on July 29.
     The Patriarch soon had to do battle with the Sultan of Egypt, who hoped to regain the Holy City.  On August 12, 1099, the crusaders engaged the Egyptians. The Egyptians were no match for these crusaders who had become seasoned from their battles with the Turks.  The Egyptians panicked and were overcome.  Thus ended the First Crusade with victory for the crusaders of Christ.  Again, as in the Old Testament, murder and total destruction was carried out in the name of the Lord.