ENEMIES OF GOD
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Gesta Francorum is the way in which the Anonymous describes the peoples the Crusaders encountered in the East. When in early 1097 the armies of the princes left Constantinople and crossed the Bosporus, they entered the territories of the Seljuq Turks, who in the immediately preceding decades had subjected most of the Anatolian plateau and the Levant to their rule. As they moved south toward the Holy Places, the Crusaders fought the Seljuq of Rum at Nicaea and Dorylaeum, captured Antioch from its Turkish governor Yaghi-Siyan despite the efforts of Ridwan of Aleppo and Duqaq of Damascus, and defeated a Seljuq relief army under Kerbogha, the atabeg of Mosul. Yet when the Crusaders reached Jerusalem in June 1099 they were met not by the Seljuq but by the Fatimid Egyptians, who had recaptured the city in the previous year, and it was the Egyptians whom the Crusaders routed at Ascalon in August of that year. Interspersed with these populations, the Crusaders also found Christian Syrians, Greeks, and Armenians.
The Anonymous displays a certain degree of perceptiveness regarding the differences between the peoples of the East. When describing those on the European side of the Bosporus, he differentiates Greeks, Byzantine Turcopoles, and Pecheneg mercenaries.23 On the Asian side, he separates Syrian and Armenian Christians from Muslim Turks and Arabs, and seems sensitive to the political developments of the recent past.24 He knows the names of individual army commanders, such as Kilij Arslan I, the sultan of Rum and son of Suleiman (“Solimanus … filius Solimani ueteris” [GF 22: “Suleiman … son of old Suleiman”]), Yaghi-Siyan (“Cassianus” on GF 47) and his son Shams ad-Daula (“Sensadolus” on GF 50), and Kerbogha (“Curbaram” on GF 49);25 he furthermore refers to others by their cities of provenance, as in “Hierosolimitanus ammiralius” [GF 49: “the amir of Jerusalem,” Soqman ibn Ortoq] and “Rex Damasci” [GF 49: “the king of Damascus,” Abu Nasr Shams al-Muluk Duqaq]. Given his subtlety in describing Easterners even through the fog of war, it is all the more remarkable that the Anonymous should be so wildly inaccurate when describing the enemies the Crusaders faced in battle. Although he appears very much aware in books 1–9 that the Crusaders’ antagonists are Turks and in book 10 that they are Arabs or Saracens, he is surprisingly imaginative when describing the ranks of the enemy. At the Battle of Dorylaeum, the Crusaders are fighting not only the Seljuq Turks but a wide variety of peoples:
Mirabantur ergo nostri ualde unde esset extorta tanta multitudo Turcorum, et Arabum et Saracenorum, et aliorum quos enumerare ignoro; quia pene omnes montes et colles et ualles et omnia plana loca intus et extra undique erant cooperta de illa excommunicata generatione.… Statim autem uenientibus militibus nostris, Turci et Arabes, et Saraceni et Agulani omnesque barbarae nationes dederunt uelociter fugam, per compendia montium et per plana loca. Erat autem numerus Turcorum, Persarum, Publicanorum, Saracenorum, Agulanorum, aliorumque paganorum trecenta sexaginta milia extra Arabes, quorum numerum nemo scit nisi solus Deus.
[GF 19–20: Our men could not understand whence could have come such a great multitude of Turks, Arabs, Saracens and other peoples whose names I do not know, for nearly all the mountains and hills and valleys, and all the flat country within and without the hills, were covered with this accursed folk.… As soon as our knights charged, the Turks, Arabs, Saracens, Agulani and all the rest of the barbarians took to their heels and fled through the mountain passes and across the plains. There were three hundred and sixty thousand Turks, Persians, Paulicians, Saracens and Agulani, with other pagans, not counting the Arabs, for God alone knows how many there were of them.]
The Christians’ victory at Dorylaeum is therefore one over a great many Eastern peoples, some real, some imagined, some as yet unknown. Similarly, the army that confronts the Crusaders at Antioch is a very diverse one:
Non multo post audiuimus nuntios de exercitu hostium nostrorum, Turcorum, Publicanorum, Agulanorum, Azimitarum, et aliarum plurimarum nationum.
[GF 45: Not long afterwards we heard news of an army of our enemies, drawn from the Turks, Paulicians, Agulani, Azymites and many other peoples.]
Hierosolimitanus ammiralius in adiutorum cum suo exercitu uenit. Rex Damasci illuc uenit, cum maxima gente. Idem uero Curbaram congregauit innumeras gentes paganorum, uidelicet Turcos, Arabas, Saracenos, Publicanos, Azimitas, Curtos, Persas, Agulanos, et alias multas gentes innumerabiles. Et Agulani fuerunt numero tria milia; qui neque lanceas neque sagittas neque ulla arma timebant, quia omnes erant undique cooperti ferro et equi eorum, ipsique nolebant in bellum ferre arma nisi solummodo gladios.
[GF 49: The amir of Jerusalem came to his help with an army, and the king of Damascus brought a great number of men. So Karbuqa collected an immense force of pagans—Turks, Arabs, Saracens, Paulicians, Azymites, Kurds, Persians, Agulani and many other people who could not be counted. The Agulani numbered three thousand; they fear neither spears nor arrows nor any other weapon, for they and their horses are covered all over with plates of iron. They will not use any weapons except swords when they are fighting.]
The enemy the Crusaders meet in battle is therefore not one people but many—varied, distinct, and if not imaginary then historically out of place. The Anonymous’s inaccuracy here is remarkable. It is possible to consider it hyperbole aimed at making the victories seem even more impressive; however, for this one really needs only numbers, not diversity.26 One can, as Hill does, ascribe it to the Crusaders’ ignorance of their enemies,27 but the Anonymous is otherwise knowledgeable about the peoples of the East, and other eyewitness accounts of the battles display a correct understanding of those against whom the Crusaders were fighting.28 Rather, the intent with which the Anonymous chose to portray the Muslims as such a varied lot can be seen in the strong resemblance of his descriptions to those of the pagan enemies in the chansons de geste. Note, for instance, how the Anonymous’s words compare to the following lines from the Chanson de Roland:
Dis escheles establisent après.
La premere est des Canelius les laiz:
De Val Fuit sun venuz en traver;
L’altre est de Turcs e la terce de Pers,
E la quarte est de Pinceneis e de Pers,
E la quinte est de Solteras e d’Avers,
E la siste est d’Ormaleus e d’Eugiez,
E la sedme est de la gent Samuel,
L’oidme est de Bruise e la noefme de Clavers,
E la disme est d’Occian le desert:
Ço est une gent ki Damnedeu ne sert;
De plus feluns n’orrez parler jamais;
Durs unt les quirs ensement cume fer;
Pur ço n’unt soign d’elme ne d’osberc;
En la bataille sunt felun e engrès.
[CR ll. 3237–51: Then they draw up ten more divisions. / The first is of ugly Canaanites; / They came across from Val Fuit. / The next is of Turks and the third of Persians, / The fourth of the fiery Petchenegs [sic], / the fifth of Soltras and Avars, / the sixth of Ormaleus and Eugies, / The seventh of the people of Samuel, / The eighth of Bruise, the ninth of Clavers / And the tenth of people from Occian the Desert; / They are a race which does not serve the Lord God. / You could never hear of more villainous men, / Their skins are hard as iron. / For this reason they scorn helmets and hauberks; / In battle they are treacherous and fiery.]
As indicated above, the chansons too embraced the historically incorrect and the imagined in their depiction of the pagan enemy, an enemy portrayed as diverse and disparate, creating a frenzy of whatever “others” their authors could imagine.29 The Anonymous is less imaginative than the jongleurs, but he retains hints of the marvelous: his Agulani, covered head to toe in iron, are perhaps as remarkable as the Chanson de Roland’s warriors