The citadel soon surrendered; the soldiers who defended it only asking their lives; but, notwithstanding the capitulation, many were put to the sword. A great part of the priests who had survived the carnage were condemned to slavery; an Armenian patriarch was stripped of his vestments, dragged through the streets, and beaten with rods. Matthew of Edessa, one of the most celebrated historians of Armenia, fell under the sword of the Mussulmans. Hugh, a Latin archbishop, having endeavoured to escape, was, with all his clergy, slaughtered by the infidels. His treasures, which he carried with him, and which might have been usefully employed for the defence of the city, became the prey of the enemy. Pious historians impute the fall of Edessa to the avarice of this prelate, and appear to believe that he was punished in another world for having preferred his gold to the safety of his fellow-citizens.[261]
When the Mussulmans had become masters of the citadel, their priests ascended the steeples of the churches to proclaim these words: “Oh Mahomet! prophet of heaven, we have gained a great victory in thy name; we have destroyed the people that worshipped stone, and torrents of blood have been shed to make thy law triumph.” After this proclamation, the Saracens redoubled their excesses. The Gazis or conquerors satiated themselves with blood; the dead bodies were mutilated, and their heads sent to Bagdad; and even to Khorasan. All who remained alive in the city of Edessa were treated as a flock of animals, and sold in the public places. The Christians, loaded with chains, after having lost their property, their country, and their liberty, had the still further grief of seeing their religion, which was all they had left to console them in their misfortunes, made a subject of ridicule by the infidels. The churches were plundered of their ornaments, and the sanctuary became the scene of the most shocking debaucheries. Many of the faithful whom the horrors of war had spared, could not support the sight of such profanations, and died with despair.[262]
Thus a city, whose citadel, ramparts, and position on two mountains, rendered one of the strongest places in Asia, fell into the power of the Mussulmans. The traditions of religion and history carry back its origin to the highest antiquity. Narses, in a pathetic elegy, deplores the fall of this celebrated city, and makes itself speak of its ancient splendour.[263] “I was,” says she, “as a queen in the midst of her court; sixty towns standing around me formed my train; my numerous children passed their days in pleasures; the fertility of my fields, the freshness of my limpid waters, and the beauty of my palaces were admired; my altars, loaded with treasures, shed their splendour afar, and appeared to be the abode of angels. I surpassed in magnificence the proudest cities of Asia, and I was as a celestial edifice built upon the bosom of the earth.”
The conquest of Edessa exalted the pride of the Saracens. The caliph of Bagdad ordered that the barbarous destroyer of the Christians should be named in the public prayers of the Fridays, and that the whole Mussulman people should offer up thanks to Heaven for his victories. Zengui left some troops in the conquered city, and pursued the course of his triumphs; but fortune did not permit him to finish that which he had begun. He was besieging the castle of Schabar, in Mesopotamia, when he was assassinated by some slaves whom ill-treatment had irritated. The news of his death consoled the Christians for their defeats, and they expressed a joy as immoderate as if they had beheld the whole power of the Mussulmans fall at once. But this joy was of very short duration, for abundance of new enemies and new misfortunes soon followed to overwhelm them.
Josselin, who had taken advantage of the troubles which ensued upon the death of the prince of Mossoul to retake the city of Edessa, ill-guarded by the Mussulmans, found himself unexpectedly besieged by Noureddin, the second son of Zengui. Noureddin had received, as his share of the heritage of his father, the principality of Aleppo, and was eager to signalize his zeal against the Christians. Josselin and his companions, who had surprised the city of Edessa amidst the darkness of night, were wanting in machines of war to besiege and get possession of the citadel. When the city was invested by the prince of Aleppo, the Christian warriors who were placed between the garrison of the fortress and the Mussulman army, saw at once the danger of their position. As in desperate circumstances, a thousand resolutions are, by turns, formed and rejected; whilst they deliberated, the enemy pressed and threatened them. There soon remained no safety for them in a city which they had entered as conquerors; and, after having braved death to get possession of it, they decided upon facing equal perils to get out of it. The soldiers of Josselin, consisting of Christians who had gathered to the city, and of the small number of inhabitants who had survived the massacre of their brethren, had now nothing left but their endeavours to escape the barbarity of the Mussulmans. They made their preparations for flight in silence; the gates were opened in the middle of the night, and every one bearing away that which he esteemed most valuable, a weeping crowd pressed along the streets. Already a great number of these unhappy fugitives had passed the gates of the city, headed by the warriors commanded by Josselin, and had advanced into the plain where the Saracens were encamped, when the garrison of the citadel, warned by the tumult, made a sortie, and uniting themselves with the soldiers of Noureddin, who hastened towards the city, gained possession of the gates by which the Christians were issuing. Many severe conflicts were here maintained, of which darkness increased the horrors. The Christians succeeded in opening themselves a passage, and spread themselves about in the neighbouring fields. They who carried arms united in battalions, and endeavoured to pass through the camp of the enemy; whilst others, separated from the troop of warriors, went on at hazard, wandered about the plains, and everywhere found death following their footsteps. Whilst relating the events of this horrible night, William of Tyre cannot restrain his tears. “Oh disastrous night!” cries the historian Aboulfarage, “dawn of hell, day without pity, day of misfortune which arose upon the children of a city formerly worthy of envy!” In Edessa, out of Edessa, nothing was heard but cries of death. The warriors who had formed battalions, after having pierced through the army of the infidels, were pursued as far as the banks of the Euphrates, and the roads were strewed with their remains, their arms, and their baggage. Only a thousand of them succeeded in gaining the city of Samosata, which received them within its walls, and deplored their misfortunes, without being able to avenge them.
History relates that more than thirty thousand Christians were slaughtered by the soldiers of Zengui and Noureddin. Sixteen thousand were made prisoners, and dragged out their lives in misery and slavery. Noureddin in his vengeance did not spare either the ramparts or buildings of a rebel city; he razed the towers, the citadel, and the churches of Edessa to the ground. He banished all the Christians from it, and left nothing but a few mendicants to dwell amidst the ruins of their country.
Zengui had been considered as a saint, as a warrior beloved by Mahomet, for having conquered the city of Edessa; the blood-stained expedition of Noureddin rendered him dear to the Mussulmans, contributed much to the extension of his renown and his power, and already the Imans and the poets promised to his arms the much more glorious conquest of Jerusalem.
The inhabitants of Jerusalem and other Christian cities shed tears of despair on learning the fall and destruction of Edessa, sinister presages adding much to the terror which the news from the banks of the Euphrates inspired them with. Thunder fell upon the churches of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Sion; a comet with shining hair was seen in the heavens,