Tales of Visions Encourage the First Crusade

The priest proclaimed his discovery; the people rushed into the church; and from the church throughout the city spread the flame of a fierce enthusiasm.

Continuing The First Crusade,
our selection from The Crusades by Sir George W. Cox published in 1898. The selection is presented in nine easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in The First Crusade.

Time: 1096-1099
Place: Palestine

The hopes of the crusaders were roused; with hope came a return of vigorous energy; and Peter Barthelemy, chaplain to Raymond of Toulouse, seized the opportunity for recounting a vision which was to be something more than a dream. To him St. Andrew had revealed the fact that in the Church of St. Peter lay hidden the steel head of the spear which had pierced the side of the Redeemer as he hung upon the cross; and that Holy Lance should win them victory over all their enemies as surely as the spear which imparted irresistible power to the Knight of the Sangreal. After two days of special devotion they were to search for the long-lost weapon; on the third day the workmen began to dig, but until the sun had set they toiled in vain. The darkness of night made it easier for the chaplain to play the part which Sir Walter Scott, in the Antiquary, assigns to Herman Dousterswivel in the ruins of St. Ruth. Barefooted and with a single garment the priest went down into the pit. For a time the strokes of his spade were heard, and then the sacred relic was found, carefully wrapped in a veil of silk and gold. The priest proclaimed his discovery; the people rushed into the church; and from the church throughout the city spread the flame of a fierce enthusiasm.

Nine or ten months later Peter Barthelemy paid the penalty of his life for his fraud or his superstition. A bribe taken by his master Raymond brought that chief into ill odor with his comrades, and let loose against his chaplain the tongue of Arnold, the chaplain of Bohemond. Raymond had traded on fresh visions of his clerk; and Arnold boldly attacked him in his citadel by denying the genuineness of the Holy Lance. Peter appealed to the ordeal of fire. He passed through the flames, as it seemed, unhurt. The bystanders pressed to feel his flesh, and were vehement in their rejoicings at the result which vindicated his integrity. He had really received fatal injuries. Twelve days afterward he died, and Raymond suffered greatly in his dignity and his influence.

The infidel was doomed; but the crusaders resolved to give him one chance of escape. Peter the Hermit was sent as their envoy to Kerboga to offer the alternative of departure from a land which St. Peter had bestowed on the faithful, or of baptism which should leave him master of the city and territory of Antioch. The reply was short and decisive. The Turk would not embrace an idolatry which he hated and despised, nor would he give up soil which belonged to him by right of conquest. The report of the hermit raised the spirit of the crusaders to fever heat; and on the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul they marched out in twelve divisions, in remembrance of the mission of the Twelve Apostles, while Raymond of Toulouse remained to prevent the escape of the Turks shut up in the citadel. The Holy Lance was borne by the papal legate, Adhemar, Bishop of Puy; and the morning air laden with the perfume of roses was now regarded as a sign assuring them of the divine favor. They were prepared to see good omens in everything; and they went in full confidence that departed saints would, as they had been told, take part in the battle and smite down the infidel. The fight — one of brute force on the Christian side, of some little skill as well as strength on the other — had gone on for some time when such help seemed to become needful. Tancred had hurried to the aid of Bohemond, who was grievously pressed by Kilidje Arslan; and Kerboga was bearing heavily on Godfrey and Hugh of Vermandois, when, clothed in white armor and riding on white horses, some human forms were seen on the neighboring heights. “The saints are coming to your aid,” shouted the Bishop of Puy, and the people saw in these radiant strangers the martyrs St. George, St. Maurice, and St. Theodore.

Without awaiting their nearer approach the crusaders turned on the enemy with a force and fury which were now irresistible. Their cavalry could do little. Two hundred horses only remained of the sixty thousand which had filled the plain a few months before. But the hedge of spears advanced like a wall of iron, and the Turks gave way, broke, and fled. It was rout, not retreat; and with the crusaders victory was followed by the massacre of men, women, and children. The garrison in the citadel at once surrendered. Some declared themselves Christians and were baptized; those who refused to abandon Islam were taken to the nearest Mohametan territory. The city was the prize of Bohemond; and in his keeping it remained, although Raymond of Toulouse had made an effort to seize it by hoisting his banner on the walls. The work of pillage being ended, the churches were cleansed and repaired, and their altars blazed with golden spoils taken from the infidel. The Greek Patriarch was again seated on his throne; but he held his office at the good pleasure of the Latins, and two years later he was made to give place to Bernard, a chaplain of the Bishop of Puy.

Ten months had passed away after the conquest of Antioch when the main body of the crusading army set out on its march to Jerusalem. They had wished to depart at once, but their chiefs dreaded to encounter waterless wastes at the end of a Syrian summer, and for the present they were content to send Hugh of Vermandois and Baldwin of Hainault as envoys to the Greek Emperor, to reproach him with his remissness or his want of faith. But the miseries endured by Christians and Turks were the pleasantest tidings in the ears of Alexius, for in the weakening of both lay his own strength; and he saw with satisfaction the departure of Hugh, not for Antioch, but for Europe, whither Stephen of Chartres had preceded him.

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