God's Battalions (16 page)

Walter the Penniless

Walter’s group led the way along what was known as the northern route. Leaving Cologne, they marched through Swabia, Bavaria, and Austria and on through Hungary, entering the Byzantine Empire at Bulgaria. From there they went through Nish to Sophia and on to Constantinople. The march was not entirely uneventful. When they entered Bulgaria, sixteen of Walter’s contingent lingered in the town of Semlin, just west of Belgrade, hoping to purchase arms. According to Albert of Aix, “[S]eeing the absence of Walter and his army, [locals] laid hands upon those sixteen and robbed them of arms, [armor], garments, gold and silver and so let them depart naked and empty-handed.”
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Walter refused to be provoked and marched on to Belgrade, where a new crisis arose. Having had no knowledge that crusaders were headed his way, the local Byzantine magistrate sent urgent word to the governor at Nish asking for instructions. Meanwhile, he stupidly refused to allow Walter’s troops to buy food. Rather than starve, the crusaders went out foraging and rounded up some local herds, which upset some Bulgarians to the point that they drove one foraging party into a church and burned the building, killing about sixty crusaders. Knowing that retaliation would cost him time and casualties, as well as lead to greater hunger, Walter marched his troops through the forests to Nish, the provincial capital, where they were well received and able to resupply. Then, moving right along, they arrived at Constantinople on July 20, having been 102 days on the road. Once at their destination, Walter and his contingent were welcomed by the emperor and set up camp outside the walls to wait for Peter.

Peter’s Progress

Peter the Hermit led his people east from Cologne on April 19 and followed the route taken by Walter’s contingent. The march to the Hungarian border was peaceful and uneventful. King Coloman granted them passage across Hungary provided “there should be no plundering, and that whatever the army required should be purchased without contention and at a fair price.”
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Peter’s company observed these rules all across Hungary. But Bulgaria was another matter. Just as Walter had trouble at Semlin, so did Peter.

As he approached Semlin, Peter got word that the Bulgarians planned to ambush his contingent and seize its treasury. Peter dismissed this as mere rumor, but as his company approached the city, they saw the armor that had been robbed from Walter’s sixteen stragglers hanging from the walls. This enraged many in the advance guard, and Peter lacked sufficient control to prevent them from assaulting the city and killing a large number of its inhabitants. Albert of Aix reported that Peter and his forces remained there for five days and systematically looted both the city and surrounding area, taking “an abundance of grain, flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, a plentiful supply of wine, and an infinite number of horses.”
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Moving on, the crusaders suffered serious losses while attempting to cross a river. Eight days later they reached Nish, and Peter sought permission to purchase food. This was granted, but the next day some German stragglers got into a dispute and set fire to some mills near the city. Peter hurried to the rear to try to put things right, but he was too late to prevent thousands of his men from getting into a battle with the Bulgarians. As many as a third of Peter’s contingent were killed,
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and many of their wagons were lost to the Bulgarians, including Peter’s treasure wagon.

When word of all this reached Constantinople, Emperor Alexius sent officials with large gifts to meet Peter and supervise the remainder of the journey. After traveling for more than three months, Peter’s forces reached Constantinople on August 1 (fourteen days before the departure date set by the pope). Shortly thereafter Peter met with the emperor, who gave him a substantial amount of gold coins, and the two agreed that Peter should lead his contingent across the Sea of Marmara and establish camp at Hellenopolis. He was joined there by Walter the Penniless and his knights.

The plan was that this combined force would wait for the arrival of the other crusader groups just then leaving for the Holy Land. Peter’s people had ample supplies, and Hellenopolis was a safe haven so long as they did not venture into Turkish territory; Nicaea, the Seljuk capital of Asia Minor, was only twenty-five miles away. It probably was too much to expect this poorly disciplined company to mind their own business for the period it was going to take for groups in the Princes’ Crusade to reach them. After two months, monotony led to pillaging raids in the direction of Nicaea. Initial success led to “war fever,” and while Peter was absent, all of his fighting men marched out to attack the Turks, whereupon they were slaughtered; Albert of Aachen claimed that Walter the Penniless was killed by seven arrows. A Byzantine relief force managed to rescue a few survivors who had taken refuge in a deserted castle on the shore. These seem to have been knights. Apparently all of the noncombatants, including women and children, had perished or been enslaved.

Many historians have blamed the debacle on the emperor for stationing the People’s Crusaders at Hellenopolis. But Hellenopolis served as a secure haven so long as the Europeans remained there. The proximate cause of this disaster was simply that Peter’s people arrived far too early and then failed to understand the strength and abilities of their enemy. But the fundamental cause was lack of authority.

THE GERMAN CRUSADE AND THE JEWISH MASSACRES

Historians often claim that the main body of Peter’s followers attacked Jews along the way to Constantinople.
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This is careless. As Frederic Duncalf (1882–1963) pointed out, Peter’s followers “do not seem to have been guilty of the persecution of the Jews which became so prevalent in the Rhine valley after their departure.”
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Several of these massacres were committed by two groups that were following in the wake of Peter’s expedition, but most of them were the work of German knights who seem not to have been involved with Peter.

Emicho of Leisingen was a minor Rhineland count who responded to the pope’s call to crusade by assembling a small army of German knights. Then, on May 3, 1096, two weeks after Peter’s group had set out for the Holy Land, Emicho led his troops in an attack on the Jewish population of Speyer (Spier).
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Some historians believe that Emicho’s attacks on the Jews were cynical, prompted primarily by greed, while others accept that he sincerely believed that all “enemies of Christ” should be converted or killed. In any event, warned of Emicho’s approach and intentions, the bishop of Speyer took the local Jews under his protection, and Emicho’s forces could lay their hands on only a dozen Jews who had somehow failed to heed the bishop’s alarm. All twelve were killed. Then Emicho led his forces to Worms. Here, too, the bishop took the local Jews into his palace for protection. But this time Emicho would have none of that: his forces broke down the bishop’s gates and killed about five hundred Jews. The pattern was repeated the next week in Mainz. Here, too, the bishop attempted to shield the Jews but was attacked and forced to flee for his life. The same again in Cologne, and again in Metz. As the distinguished historian of anti-Semitism Léon Poliakov (1910–1997) summed up: “It is important to note that almost everywhere…bishops attempted, sometimes even at the peril of their own lives, to protect the Jews.”
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At this point a portion of Emicho’s forces broke away and set out to purge the Moselle Valley of Jews. Being careful only to attack towns
without a resident bishop,
they managed to kill several thousand Jews.

Meanwhile, two of Peter the Hermit’s followers, who had remained behind to organize stragglers, also attacked Jews. Volkmar overwhelmed the opposition of the local bishop and massacred Jews in Prague. Gottschalk led a murderous attack on the Jews of Ratisbon (Regensberg). The pope “harshly condemned” all these attacks, “but there was little more he could do.”
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However, it turned out that there was a lot that the knights of Hungary could do. When Volkmar and his forces reached Hungary and began to pillage, they were wiped out by Hungarian knights. The same fate befell Gottshalk. And when Emicho and his forces reached Hungary they were denied passage, and when they tried to force their way through, they also were dispatched by Hungarian knights.

According to the revered historian of the Crusades Sir Steven Runciman (1903–2000), these defeats struck “most good Christians” as “punishments meted out from on high to the murderers of Jews.”
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This is consistent with the efforts of local bishops to preserve the Jews, and with the fact that other armies gathered for the First Crusade did not molest Jews—with the possible exception of several hundred Jews who may have died in Jerusalem during the massacre subsequent to its fall to crusaders.

THE PRINCES’ CRUSADE

Five major groups made up the Princes’ Crusade—appropriately named, since not only were these groups led by princes, but many others of equally high rank were enrolled. The groups left at different times and followed different routes, but all of them reached Constantinople (see table 6.1).

Hugh of Vermandois

King Philip I of France was ineligible to go on the Crusade, having been excommunicated for marrying another man’s wife without either of them getting divorced and for refusing to give her up when the Church demanded that he do so. However, he supported the crusading enterprise by buying several large counties from nobles raising money to enable them to go, and he encouraged his brother Hugh to take part.

TABLE
6.1
Elements of the First Crusade

CRUSADE
: People’s

LEADERS
: Walter the Penniless

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: April 3, 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: July 20, 1096

LEADERS
: Peter the Hermit

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: April 19, 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: August 1, 1096

CRUSADE
: German

LEADERS
: Volkmar

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: April 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: Did not arrive. Probably killed by Hungarian knights.

LEADERS
: Gottschalk

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: May 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: Did not arrive. Killed by Hungarian knights.

LEADERS
: Emicho of Leisingen

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: June 3, 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: Did not arrive. Returned home after defeat in Hungary.

CRUSADE
: Princes’

LEADERS
: Hugh of Vermandois

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: August 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: December 1096

LEADERS
: Godfrey of Bouillon

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: August 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: December 23, 1096

LEADERS
: Bohemond of Taranto

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: October 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: April 9, 1097

LEADERS
: Raymond IV of Toulouse

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: October 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: April 21, 1097

LEADERS
: Robert, Duke of Normandy

DATE OF DEPARTURE
: October 1096

DATE OF ARRIVAL IN CONSTANTINOPLE
: May 1097

Hugh, Count of Vermandois (1053–1101), was the son of King Henry I of France and a Scandinavian princess, Anne of Kiev. When he left to go east he was about forty and, as will be seen, remarkably arrogant even for these times. He was long remembered as Hugh the Great (“Hugh Magnus”) because he was so designated by William of Tyre. This turns out to have been a copyist’s error, mistaking
Minus,
meaning “the younger,” for
Magnus.
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This correction is consistent with reality, because despite all his boasting and posturing, Hugh was an ineffectual commander. But given his royal connection he was able to assemble a very select group of noble knights from the area near Paris, and just before he left he was joined by knights who had survived Emicho’s defeat in Hungary. Hugh’s contingent left in August, in accord with the pope’s plan.

Hugh chose to make part of the journey by sea from the port of Bari in the Norman kingdom of southern Italy. His march down the Italian Peninsula was uneventful, and he arrived at Bari in October, where he found the Norman prince Bohemond organizing a company of crusaders. But Hugh did not want to wait for the Normans despite warnings that it was a bad time of the year for voyaging. Before setting sail, according to Anna Comnena, Hugh sent this message ahead to Emperor Alexius: “Know, Emperor, that I am the King of Kings, the greatest of all beneath the heavens. It is my will that you should meet me on my arrival and receive me with the pomp and ceremony due to my noble birth.”
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