With the advent of the New Year, 1098, the crusader forces were reunited. They had survived two dangerous tests, but their material position at Antioch had not improved. Most of them were already hungry, exhausted and depressed, and the next month brought absolutely no respite. Instead, their conditions of living became increasingly unbearable – death through starvation, illness or battle not simply a possibility, rather a probability – and for the first time fear began seriously to weaken their ranks.
Within Antioch, the Turkish garrison also must have felt the pinch, but with three of the city’s gates still open, and with access to much closer allies, they appear to have been far more successful at gathering supplies. In February, the crusader Anselm of Ribemont remarked in a letter: ‘The city is supplied to an incredible extent with grain, wine, oil and all kinds of food.’ Outside, however, events seemed to conspire against the crusaders. First, the local population began to exploit Latin hunger:
The Armenians, Syrians and Greeks learned that our foraging forces had come back destitute. Consequently, they scoured the countryside, buying grain and other foodstuff which they carried to camp where great famine gripped the besiegers. They sold an ass for eight hyperoi, which is worth 120 solidi in denarii. Despite this market, many crusaders died because they did not have the money for such inflated prices.24
The exact value of these prices cannot be calculated, but it is obvious that they were exorbitant. Under these conditions wealth and social status became determinants of life. The poor were of course the first to suffer, but many that had reached Antioch with some riches intact now found themselves destitute. Some were saved by the leaders’ charity. Writing to his wife in March 1098, Stephen of Blois remembered the torment of these months: ‘Many have already exhausted all their resources in this very holy passion [the siege]. Very many of our Franks, indeed, would have met a temporal death from starvation, if the clemency of God and our money had not succoured them.’ Even though these acts of generosity saved some, starvation and suffering were still widespread:
At that time, the famished ate the shoots of beanseeds growing in the fields and many kinds of herbs unseasoned with salt; also thistles, which, being not well cooked because of the deficiency of firewood, pricked the tongues of those eating them; also horses, asses, camels, dogs and rats. The poorer ones even ate the skins of the beasts and seeds of grain found in manure.25
On top of all this, a series of natural phenomena – including a comet and an aurora – were experienced in northern Syria and interpreted by the crusaders as miraculous signs of God’s displeasure. One Frank recalled that ‘at that time, we saw an astonishing glow in the sky, and, in addition, we felt a great movement of the earth, which made us all quake. Many also saw a certain sign in the shape of a cross, whitish in colour, advancing toward the East in a straight path.’26
In the face of such unpromising conditions, the crusaders began to panic. Profound adversity sometimes clarifies and crystallises the human heart, and we can learn a great deal about the crusaders’ mindset and motivation by exploring how they sought to rationalise their predicament. They were confronted by one central question: if they were fighting a holy war in the name of God, why was their Lord allowing them to suffer and die? Their answer, or at least that of the clergy, was that mainstay of medieval Christianity – sin. Fulcher of Chartres, himself a chaplain, offered this explanation: ‘We believed that these misfortunes befell the Franks, and that they were not able for so long a time to take the city, because of their sins. Not only dissipation, but also avarice, or pride, or rapaciousness corrupted them.’ If God was punishing the crusaders for their sins, then, the clergy believed, the only solution was to purify the army by whatever means possible. Adhémar of Le Puy began to advocate a return to righteousness through extreme austerity and Christian ritual, urging ‘the people to fast three days, to pray, to give alms, and to form a procession; he further ordered the priests to celebrate masses and the clerks to repeat psalms.’ The efficacy of a fast among those who were already starving may seem dubious, but the formula of imposed physical denial and intense liturgical observance was believed to be a tried-and-tested recipe for success. It was one to which the crusaders would return.27
The process of purification also had more unpleasant sides. One particularly regrettable feature of medieval Christian dogma was the belief that women were essentially agents of sin. This extraordinary concept can be traced back to St Augustine of Hippo, the late-fourth- and early-fifth-century architect of the Just War theory whose enormously influential theological writings continue to shape Christianity to this day. Unfortunately for womankind, Augustine had, like many saints, been quite a philanderer before he turned to God. Once he had dedicated his life to the Church, however, he decided, rather uncharitably, that women had seduced him into sin, and indeed that they were in essence corrupt and dangerous. Perhaps most notably, he contributed to a reinterpretation of the story of Man’s fall from Eden, focusing blame upon Eve rather than the serpent. By the eleventh century, then, women could be portrayed as temptresses, agents of evil. It is in this context that we must try to understand one crusader’s dispassionate observation that, in January 1098, ‘After holding council, [the Franks] drove out the women from the army, both married and unmarried, lest they, stained by the defilement of dissipation, displease the Lord.’ The near-contemporary writer Albert of Aachen recorded a more general list of measures and prohibitions:
All injustice and wickedness was to be cut out from the army, no one was to cheat a Christian brother; no one was to commit theft; no one was to take part in fornication or adultery. If anyone should disobey this order, they would be subject to most severe penalties if caught, and thus God’s people would be sanctified from filth and impurity.
It seems, however, that Albert believed that transgression was inevitable, because he went on to record:
When indeed many of the pilgrims disobeyed the decree they were severely sentenced by the appointed judges: some were put in chains, other flogged, others shaved and branded for the correction and improvement of the whole army.
In that place a man and woman were caught in the act of adultery and they were stripped in the presence of all, their hands were tied behind their backs and they were severely whipped by strikers and rods, and were forced to go round the whole army so that when their savage wounds were seen the rest would be deterred from such and so wicked a crime.28
Many sought to combine this rigorous programme of purification with more direct, practical action. It became common for large groups of men, 200 to 300 at a time, to set off on wide-ranging foraging expeditions. Most of these were probably unsanctioned by the crusade leadership, but they were certainly not the preserve of the lower classes. Ludwig, the archdeacon of Toul, once a relatively wealthy cleric, decided, when his money ran out, to lead 300 other clerics and lay people in search of food. Unfortunately for them, spies reported their departure to the Antiochene garrison; 600 Turks were sent out of the Iron Gate to ambush them, and Ludwig and all his followers were butchered.29
Even with all the efforts to restore ‘purity’ and morale, it is not surprising that some crusaders considered desertion when faced with such levels of suffering. Thousands of kilometres from home, adrift among enemies, many must have believed that the entire expedition was close to complete collapse and annihilation. Often, those who left to forage in outlying areas chose not to return to the siege. Even well-known crusade figures were not immune. Towards the end of January 1098, two leaders of the former People’s Crusade, the charismatic preacher Peter the Hermit and the knight William the Carpenter, lord of Melun, stole away from the siege in the dead of night. They appear to have travelled on from Constantinople in Bohemond’s army, because when the flight was discovered it was Tancred who was sent after them:
[He] caught them and brought them back in disgrace. William spent the whole night in my Lord Bohemond’s tent, lying on the ground like a piece of rubbish. The following morning, at daybreak, he came and stood before Bohemond, blushing for shame. Bohemond said to him, ‘You most loathsome of all men whom the earth has to bear, why did you run off in such a shameful way?’30
William evidently had a reputation for desertion – he was known to have fled during an earlier expedition against the Moors in Spain – but, even so, most of the army begged Bohemond to be lenient, perhaps because they understood only too well the fear that had afflicted him. In the end, both William and Peter returned to the crusade without further punishment, having sworn an oath to persevere in the siege. The crusade leadership evidently judged them to be too valuable as figureheads for the poor, talismans of morale, for their escape or banishment to be acceptable. Indeed, in the months to come, Peter went on to play a more active role in events.31
The crusaders were less sympathetic in their response to another significant departure. Since leaving Constantinople, the Franks had been accompanied by the Greek guide and adviser, Taticius. At the end of January, he announced his intention to travel back into Asia Minor in search of supplies and reinforcements for the siege. The crusaders had, since their arrival at Antioch, been expecting to be reinforced by the Byzantine emperor Alexius Comnenus. At the time, Taticius’ proposal was probably accepted, his promises believed. Apparently, he even left all his possessions behind in camp as evidence of his determination to return. He and his men duly set off and eventually rendezvoused with the emperor, but, for reasons that will become clear, Taticius never returned to the siege of Antioch. This betrayal shocked the Franks, and, writing with the benefit of hindsight, most crusader sources were deeply critical of the Greek guide’s conduct. Raymond of Toulouse’s chaplain wrote: ‘Under the pretence of joining the army of Alexius, Taticius broke camp, abandoned his followers, and left with God’s curse; by this dastardly act, he brought eternal shame to himself and his men.’32
Around this time, Bohemond himself may have considered leaving the army. According to the Provençal crusader Raymond of Aguilers, who, it must be said, was not particularly fond of Bohemond, he ‘threatened to depart’ because of the suffering of his troops and his own poverty. Raymond went on to state, ‘we learnt afterwards that he made these statements because ambition drove him to covet Antioch’, and noted that, in order to maintain Christian unity, ‘All the princes with the exception of the Count [Raymond of Toulouse] offered Antioch to Bohemond in the event it was captured. So with this pact Bohemond and the other princes took an oath they would not abandon the siege of Antioch for seven years unless it fell sooner.’ Raymond may have confused this promise of full rights to the city with later events, and no other contemporary source recorded these negotiations, but it is possible that Bohemond was already angling for a guaranteed share of Antioch’s spoils in early 1098.33
That January the crusade reached its lowest point to date. One of Bohemond’s followers, who lived through this terrible period, explained the Frankish predicament, conveying an immediate sense of their despair:
We were thus left in direst need . . . The Turks were menacing us on the one hand, and hunger tormented us on the other, and there was no one to help us or bring us aid. The rank and file, with those who were very poor, fled to Cyprus, Asia Minor or into the mountains. We dared not go down to the sea for fear of those brutes of Turks, and there was no road open to us anywhere.34
With this in mind, Simeon, the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem, with the support of Bishop Adhémar, wrote a heartfelt letter of appeal to all the Christians of western Europe. His insistent message is a sure indication of how many crusaders had been lost to death or desertion. What the Franks needed now was more manpower: ‘Come to fight in the army of the Lord . . . Bring nothing with you except only what may be of use to us. Let only the men come; let the women, as yet, be left. From the home in which there are two, let one, the one more ready for battle come.’ In particular he sought to goad any who had taken a crusading vow but not yet left for the East with the threat of excommunication. Of course, he was not above using deception to encourage recruitment. In spite of all the suffering at Antioch, he still described the Holy Land as ‘flowing with milk and honey’; he also maintained that the hardest section of the campaign was over.35
Through all of January 1098 only one faint glimmer of hope briefly illuminated the crusaders’ cause. During one of the minor skirmishes outside Antioch that were a daily feature of the siege, the Franks captured a young, high-ranking Muslim nobleman. Learning that his family commanded one of the city’s towers, they sought to negotiate secret access to the tower in return for his release. A dialogue was established and the scheme might have come to fruition had Yaghi Siyan not discovered the plot and relieved the family members of their command. Showing a complete absence of clemency, the crusaders responded by hauling their bedraggled prisoner, who had already suffered severe torture, before the walls, where he was summarily decapitated in full sight of the Muslim garrison. Their plan had failed on this occasion, but a potential weakness in the city’s defences – betrayal – had been exposed.36