through his mother, Emma, of Robert Guiscard, and, according to all his contemporaries, the type of a perfect Christian knight, neither more nor less. “From his boyhood,” says Raoul of Caen, his servitor before becoming his biographer, “he surpassed the young by his skill in the management of arms, and the old by the strictness of his morals. He disdained to speak ill of whoever it might be, even when ill had been spoken of himself. About himself he would say nought, but he had an insatiable desire to give cause for talking thereof. Glory was the only passion that moved that young soul; yet was it disquieted within him, and he suffered great anxiety from thinking that his knightly combats seemed contrary to the precepts of the Lord. The Lord bids us give our coat and our cloak to him who would take them from us; whereas the knight’s part is to strip all that remains from him from whom he hath already taken his coat and his cloak. These contradictory principles benumbed sometimes the courage of this man so full of propriety; but when the declaration of Pope Urban had assured remission of all their sins to all Christians who should go and fight the Gentiles, then Tancred awoke in some sort from his dream, and this new opportunity fired him with a zeal which cannot be expressed. He therefore made preparations for his departure; but, accustomed from his infancy to give to others before thinking of himself, he entered upon no great outlay, but contented himself with collecting in sufficient quantity knightly arms, horses, mules, and provisions necessary for his company.”
With these four chieftains, who have remained illustrious in history—that grave wherein small reputations are extinguished—were associated, for the deliverance of the Holy Land, a throng of feudal lords, some powerful as well as valiant, others valiant but simple knights; Hugh, count of Vermaudois, brother of Philip I., king of France; Robert of Normandy, called Shorthose, son of William the Conqueror; Robert, count of Flanders; Stephen, count of Blois; Raimbault, count of Orange; Baldwin, count of Hainault; Raoul of Beaugency; Gerard of Roussillon, and many others whose names contemporary chroniclers and learned moderns have gathered together. Not one of the reigning sovereigns of Europe, kings or emperors, of France, England, Spain, or Germany, took part in the first crusade. It was the feudal nation, great and small, castle owners and populace, who rose in mass for the deliverance of Jerusalem and the honor of Christendom.
These three great armies of crusaders got on the march from August to October, 1096, wending their way, Godfrey de Bouillon by Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria; Bohemond by the south of Italy and the Mediterranean; and Count Raymond of Toulouse by Northern Italy, Friuli, and Dalmatia. They arrived one after the other in the empire of the East and at the gates of Constantinople. Godfrey de Bouillon was the first to appear there, and the Emperor Alexis Comnenus learned with dismay that other armies of crusaders would soon follow that which was already so large. It was not long before Bohemond and Raymond appeared. Alexis behaved towards these formidable allies with a mixture of pusillanimity and haughtiness, promises and lies, caresses and hostility, which irritated without intimidating them, and rendered it impossible for them to feel any confidence or conceive any esteem. At one time he was thanking them profusely for the support they were bringing him against the infidels; at another he was sending troops to harass them on their road, and, when they reached Constantinople, he demanded that they should swear fealty and obedience to him, as if they were his own subjects. One day he was refusing them provisions and attempting to subdue them by famine; and the next he was lavishing feasts and presents upon them. The crusaders, on their side, when provisions fell short, spread themselves over the country and plundered it without scruple; and, when they encountered hostile troops of Greeks, charged them without warning. When the emperor demanded of them fealty and homage, the count of Toulouse answered that he had not come to the East in search of a master. Godfrey do Bouillon, after resisting every haughty pretension, being as just as he was dignified, acknowledged that the crusaders ought to restore to the emperor the towns which had belonged to the empire, and an arrangement to that effect was concluded between them. Bohemond had a proposal submitted to Godfrey to join him in attacking the Greek empire and taking possession at once of Byzantium; but Godfrey rejected the proposal, with the reminder that he had come only to fight the infidels. The emperor, fully informed of the greediness as well as ambition of Bohemond, introduced him one day into a room full of treasures. “Here,” said Bohemond, “is wherewith to conquer kingdoms.” Alexis had the treasures removed to Bohemond’s, who at first refused, and ended by accepting them. It is even said that he asked the emperor for the title of Grand Domestic or of General of the Empire of the East. Alexis, who had held that dignity and who knew that it was the way to the throne, gave the Norman chieftain a present refusal, with a promise of it on account of future services to be rendered by him to the empire and the emperor.
The chiefs of the crusade were not alone in treating with disdain this haughty, wily, and feeble sovereign. During a ceremony at which some French princes were doing homage to the emperor, a Count Robert of Paris went and sat down free-and-easily beside him; when Baldwin, count of Hainault, took the intruder by the arm, saying, “When you are in a country you must respect its masters and its customs.” “Verily,” answered Robert, “I hold it shocking that this jackanapes should be seated, whilst so many noble captains are standing yonder.” When the ceremony was over, the emperor, who had, no doubt, heard the words, wished to have an explanation; so he detained Robert, and asked him who and whence he was. “I am a Frenchman,” quoth Robert; “and of noble birth. In my country there is, hard by a church, a spot repaired to by such as burn to prove their valor. I have been there often without any one’s daring to present himself before me.” The emperor did not care to take up this sort of challenge, and contented himself with replying to the warrior, “If you there waited for foes without finding any, you are now about to have what will satisfy you. I have, however, a piece of advice to give you; don’t put yourself at the head or the tail of the army; keep in the middle. I have learned how to fight with Turks; and that is the best place you can choose.” The crusaders and the Greeks were mutually contemptuous, the former with a ruffianly pride, the latter with an ironical and timid refinement.
This posture, on either side, of inactivity, ill-will, and irritation, could not last long. On the approach of the spring of 1097, the crusader chiefs and their troops, first Godfrey de Bouillon, then Bohemond and Tancred, and afterwards Count Raymond of Toulouse, passed the Bosphorus, being conveyed across either in their own vessels or those of the Emperor Alexis, who encouraged them against the infidels, and at the same time had the infidels supplied with information most damaging to the crusaders. Having effected a junction in Bithynia, the Christian chiefs resolved to go and lay siege to Nicaea, the first place, of importance, in possession of the Turks. Whilst marching towards the place they saw coming to meet then, with every appearance of the most woful destitution, Peter the Hermit, followed by a small band of pilgrims escaped from the disasters of their expedition, who had passed the winter, as he had, in Bithynia, waiting for more fortunate crusaders. Peter, affectionately welcomed by the chiefs of the army, recounted to them “in detail,” says William of Tyre, “how the people, who had preceded them under his guidance, had shown themselves destitute of intelligence, improvident, and unmanageable at the same time; and so it was far more by their own fault than by the deed of any other that they had succumbed to the weight of their calamities.” Peter, having thus relieved his heart and recovered his hopes, joined the powerful army of crusaders who had come at last; and, on the 15th of May, 1097, the siege of Nicaea began.
The town was in the hands of a Turkish sultan, Kilidge-Arslan, whose father, Soliman, twenty years before, had invaded Bithynia and fixed his abode at Nicrea. He, being informed of the approach of the crusaders, had issued forth, to go and assemble all his forces; but he had left behind his wife, his children, and his treasures, and he had sent messengers to the inhabitants, saying, “Be of good courage, and fear not the barbarous people who make show of besieging our city; to-morrow, before the seventh hour of the day, ye shall be delivered from your enemies.” And he did arrive on the 16th of May, says the Armenian historian, Matthias of Edessa, at the head of six hundred thousand horsemen. The historians of the crusaders are infinitely more moderate as to the number of their foes; they assign to Kilidge-Arslan only fifty or sixty thousand men, and their testimony is far more trustworthy, being that of the victors. In any case, the Christians and the Turks fought valiantly for two days under the walls of Niccea, and Godfrey de Bouillon did justice to his fame for valor and skill
