The soldiers of Godfrey, on witnessing the death of Gerard, burned with rage to revenge him, and redoubled their efforts to render themselves masters of the city. On their side, the besieged reproached the Christians with their barbarity, and defended themselves with vigour. The Greek fire consumed the towers and the machines of the besiegers; Godfrey had lost a great number of his soldiers, and despaired of reducing the city, which received succours by sea. As winter was approaching, he resolved at last to raise the siege and return to Jerusalem, deeply affected at having caused the death of Gerard of Avesnes without any advantage to the cause of the Christians.
During the siege of Asur several emirs from the mountains of Samaria came to visit Godfrey. They were struck with the greatest surprise when they found the king of the Christians without a guard, without splendour, sleeping on a straw pallet like the meanest of his soldiers. They were not less astonished when, at their request, he exhibited before them his extraordinary strength by cutting off the head of a camel at a single blow with his sword. The emirs, after having offered presents to Godfrey, returned to their own country, and related the wonders they had seen. Their recitals, which history has not disdained, contributed greatly to increase the fame of the king of Jerusalem.
When Godfrey reached his capital, he learnt the approach of a great number of pilgrims, the greater part of whom were Pisans and Genoese, led by the bishop of Ariana, and Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa. To the Christians arrived from the West were added Bohemond, prince of Antioch, Baldwin, count of Edessa, and Raymond, count of Thoulouse. These latter had come to visit the holy places, and to celebrate the epoch of the birth of Christ at Jerusalem.
Godfrey went out to meet the pilgrims as far as Bethlehem, with his knights and the clergy. “After they were come into the holy city,” says an old chronicle, “the king received them and feasted them magnificently; and detained them in Judea during the winter, being much gratified with the presence of his brother Baldwin.” Daimbert, archbishop of Pisa, had come into Palestine as legate from the Holy See. By means of presents and promises he got himself to be named patriarch of Jerusalem, in the place of Arnoul de Rohes. This prelate, brought up in the school of Gregory VII., maintained with warmth the pretensions of the Holy See, and it was not long before his ambition introduced trouble among the Christians. In the places even where Christ had said that his kingdom was not of this world, he who called himself his vicar desired to reign with Godfrey, and demanded the sovereignty of a part of Jaffa, and of a quarter of Jerusalem in which the church of the Resurrection was built. After some debates, the pious Godfrey yielded to the imperious demands of Daimbert; and such was then the ascendancy of the Church and the clergy, that the new king was obliged to consent to a treaty by which the kingdom should belong to the patriarch, if Godfrey should die without children. Godfrey thus acknowledged himself the vassal of the sovereign pontiff, and received from the pope and his legate permission to reign over a country conquered by his arms. Bohemond and Baldwin consented at the same time to receive from the pope the investiture of their principalities. The prince of Antioch had refused to render homage to the king of Jerusalem, but he did not hesitate to acknowledge himself the vassal of a power which bestowed empires, and was able to send fresh armies into the East.
In the mean time the wise Godfrey, after having freed his territory from the incursions of the Mussulmans, and carried the terror of his arms beyond the Jordan, reflected that victory was not all that was required to found a state. His capital had been depopulated by the sword of the Crusaders; several other cities, like Jaffa, had lost the greater part of their inhabitants; and this new king reckoned among his subjects Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Arabs, renegades from all religions, and adventurers from all countries. The state confided to his care was like a place of passage, and had no other supporters or defenders but travellers and strangers. It was the rendezvous and the asylum of notorious sinners, who came thither to mitigate the anger of God, and of criminals, who thus eluded the justice of men. Both of these were equally dangerous when circumstances awakened their passions, or when fear and repentance gave way before new temptations. Godfrey, according to the spirit of feudal customs and the laws of war, had divided the conquered lands among the companions of his victories. The new lords of Jaffa, Tiberias, Ramla, and Naplouse, scarcely acknowledged the authority of a king. The clergy, encouraged by the patriarch, assumed the tone of masters, and the bishops exercised a temporal power equal to that of the barons. Some attributed the conquest of the kingdom to their valour, others to their prayers; every one claimed the reward of either his piety or his labours; and whilst the greater part aimed at domination, all insisted upon independence.
Godfrey undertook to rule so many conflicting pretensions, and to bring a tumultuous government into some regular form. In order that the execution of his project might have the greater solemnity, he chose the circumstance which had conducted the Latin princes to Jerusalem. After having accompanied them as far as Jericho, to celebrate with them the festival of the Epiphany, he returned to his capital, where he assembled the enlightened and pious men of the city, of whom he formed the states, or the assizes, of his kingdom. In this solemn assembly the first care was to regulate and determine the duties of the barons, the lords, and the common subjects, towards the king, and the duties of the king towards the lords and subjects. The king was to undertake to maintain the laws, to defend the Church, to protect widows and orphans, to watch over the safety of both people and lords, and to lead in war. The lord, who was the lieutenant of the prince, as regarded his vassals, was to guarantee them from insult, and to protect their property, their honour, and their rights. The first duty of the counts and barons towards the king was to serve him in council and fight. The first obligation of a subject or a vassal towards his prince or his lord, was to defend him or avenge him in every case of outrage, and to protect the honour of his wife, his daughter, or his sister; to follow him in all perils, and to surrender himself as hostage for him, if he fell into the hands of his enemies.[227]
The king and his subjects, the great and the small vassals, mutually engaged their faith to each other. In the feudal hierarchy, every class had its privileges maintained by honour. Honour, that grand principle among knights, commanded all to repulse an injury inflicted upon a single one, and thus became, restrained within just limits, the security of public liberty.
War was the great affair in a kingdom founded by knights and barons; every one capable of bearing arms was reckoned as something in the state, and protected by the new legislation; all the rest, with the exception of the clergy, whose existence and privileges were held by divine right, were reckoned as nothing, and scarcely merited any attention from the legislators. The Assizes of Jerusalem did, indeed, deign to take notice of villains, slaves, peasants or cultivators, or captives taken in war; but they were only considered in