In the midst of the general distress, Bohemond and the duke of Normandy were commissioned to go and scour the country in search of provisions. In the course of their incursion they defeated several detachments of Saracens, and returned to the camp with a considerable booty. But the provisions they brought could not be sufficient to support a large army for any length of time; every day they made fresh incursions, and every day were less successful. All the country of Upper Syria had been ravaged by the Turks and Christians. The Crusaders who were sent on these foraging parties often put the infidels to flight; but victory, which was almost always their only resource in moments of want, could not bring back abundance to their camp.
To fill up the measure of their miseries, all communication was stopped with Constantinople; the fleets of the Pisans and Genoese no longer coasted the countries occupied by the Crusaders. The port of St. Simeon, situated at three leagues from Antioch, saw no vessel now arrive from either Greece or the West. The Flemish pirates, who had taken up the cross at Tarsus, after possessing themselves of Laodicea, had been surprised by the Greeks, and were detained prisoners during several weeks. The darkest future lay before the Christians; they no longer talked of anything but of the losses they had sustained, and of the evils with which they were threatened; each day the most afflicting intelligence was spread through the army.
It was said that the son of Sweno, king of Denmark, who had assumed the cross, and was leading fifteen hundred horsemen to the holy war, had been surprised by the Turks whilst advancing rapidly across the defiles of Cappadocia. Attacked by an enemy superior in numbers, he had defended himself during a whole day, without being able to repulse the infidels, with all the efforts of his courage or the battle-axes of his warriors. Florine, daughter of Eudes I., duke of Burgundy, who accompanied the Danish hero, and to whom he was to be married after the taking of Jerusalem, had valiantly fought by his side. Pierced by seven arrows, but still fighting, she sought with Sweno to open a passage towards the mountains, when they were overwhelmed by their enemies. They fell together on the field of battle, after having seen all their knights and their most faithful servants perish around them. “Such were the news that came to the camp of the Christians,” says William of Tyre, “and so full were they of sadness and grief, that more than ever were their hearts depressed with the increase of their calamities.”[100]
Each succeeding day famine and disease made greater ravages. The provisions[101] brought to the camp by a few Syrians were at so high a price that the soldiers could not obtain any; the multitude filled the camp with lamentations, and there was not a Crusader who had not to weep for the death of several of his companions. Desertion was soon added to the other scourges. The greater part of the Crusaders had lost all hope of taking Antioch, or of ever reaching the Holy Land. Some sought refuge from misery in Mesopotamia, now governed by Baldwin; whilst others repaired to the cities of Cilicia which had fallen into the hands of the Christians.
The duke of Normandy withdrew to Laodicea, and did not return until he had received three summonses from the army in the name of religion and of Jesus Christ. Tatius, the general of Alexius, quitted the camp of the Crusaders with the troops he commanded, promising to return with reinforcements and provisions. His departure caused little regret, and his promises, in which they had no confidence, did not at all alleviate the despair of the sufferers. This despair was carried to its height among the defenders of the cross when they saw those who ought to have set them an example of patience and courage desert them. William, viscount de Melun, whose extraordinary exploits with the battle-axe had procured him the name of the Carpenter, could not support the miseries of the siege, and deserted the standard of Christ.[102] The preacher of the crusade, Peter the Hermit, whom the Christians, doubtless, blamed for all the miseries of the siege, was unable to bear their complaints or share their misfortunes; and despairing of the success of the expedition, he fled secretly from the camp.[103] His desertion caused a great scandal among the pilgrims, “and did not astonish them less,” says Abbot Guibert, “than if the stars had fallen from the heavens.” Pursued and overtaken by Tancred, he and William the Carpenter were brought back disgraced to the camp. The army reproached Peter with his base desertion, and made him swear upon the Scriptures that he would never again abandon a cause which he had preached. They threatened with the punishment usually inflicted upon homicides all who should follow the example he had given to his companions and brothers.
But in the midst of the corruption which reigned in the Christian army, virtue itself might have thought of flight, and have excused desertion. If contemporary accounts are to be credited, all the vices of the infamous Babylon prevailed among the liberators of Sion. Strange and unheard-of spectacle! Beneath the tents of the Crusaders famine and voluptuousness formed a hideous union; impure love, an unbounded passion for play, with all the excesses of debauch, were mingled with images of death.[104] In their misfortunes, the greater part of the pilgrims seemed to disdain the consolations that might have been derived from piety and virtue.
And yet the bishop of Puy, and the more virtuous portion of the clergy used every effort to reform the manners of the Crusaders. They caused the voice of religion to hurl its thunders against the excesses of libertinism and licentiousness. They recalled to their minds all the evils that the Christian army had suffered, and attributed them entirely to the vices and debaucheries of the defenders of the cross. An earthquake which was felt at this time, an aurora borealis, which was a new phenomenon to great part of the pilgrims, were pointed out to them as an announcement of the anger of Heaven. Fasts and prayers were ordered, to avert the celestial indignation. The Crusaders made processions round the camp, and hymns of penitence resounded from all parts. The priests invoked the wrath of the Church against all who should betray the cause of Christ by their sins. To add to the terrors which the threats of religion inspired, a tribunal, composed of the principal leaders of the army and the clergy, was charged with the pursuit and punishment of the guilty. Men surprised in a state of intoxication had their hair cut off; whilst blasphemers, or such as gave themselves up to a passion for play, were branded with a hot iron. A monk accused of adultery, and convicted by the ordeal of fire, was beaten with rods, and led naked through the camp. As the judges became aware of the guilty, they must have been terrified at their numbers. The severest punishments could not entirely stop the prostitution which had become almost general. They determined upon shutting up all the women in a separate camp—an extreme and imprudent measure, which confounded vice and virtue, and produced crimes more disgraceful than those they desired to prevent.
Among all these calamities, the camp of the Crusaders was filled with Syrian spies, who daily bore into the city accounts of the plans, the distress, and the despair of the besiegers. Bohemond, in order to deliver the army, employed a means of a nature to disgust even barbarians. My pen refuses to trace such pictures, and I leave William of Tyre, or rather his old translator, to speak. “Bohemond,” says he, “commanded that several Turks, whom he held in close confinement, should be brought before him. These he caused instantly to be executed by the hands of the officers of justice, and then ordering a great fire to be lighted, he had them spitted and roasted, as flesh prepared for the supper of himself and his troops; at the same time commanding, that if any one made inquiries about what was going on, that they should be answered in this fashion: ‘The princes and rulers of the camp have this day decreed in council, that all Turks or spies that shall henceforward be found in their camp, shall be, in this manner, forced to make meat with their own bodies, as well for the princes as the whole army.’”
The servants of Bohemond executed exactly the orders and instructions