the First Crusade

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Death

"While he was besieging the city of Acre, Godfrey, the ruler of Jerusalem, was struck by an arrow, which killed him," reports the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi. Christian chronicles make no mention of this; instead, Albert of Aix and Ekkehard of Aura report that Godfrey contracted an illness in Caesarea in June, 1100. It was later believed that the emir of Caesarea had poisoned him, but there seems to be no basis for this rumour; William of Tyre does not mention it. It is also said that he died after eating a poisoned apple. In any event, he died in Jerusalem after suffering from a prolonged illness.

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Godfrey in history and legend

According to William of Tyre, the later 12th-century chronicler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Godfrey was "tall of stature, not extremely so, but still taller than the average man. He was strong beyond compare, with solidly-built limbs and a stalwart chest. His features were pleasing, his beard and hair of medium blond."

Because he had been the first ruler in Jerusalem Godfrey of Bouillon was idealized in later accounts. He was depicted as the leader of the crusades, the king of Jerusalem, and the legislator who laid down the assizes of Jerusalem, and he was included among the ideal knights known as the Nine Worthies. In reality he was only one of several leaders of the crusade, which also included Raymond IV of Toulouse, Bohemund of Taranto, Robert of Flanders, Stephen of Blois and Baldwin of Boulogne to name a few, along with papal legate Adhémar of Montiel, Bishop of Le Puy. Baldwin I of Jerusalem, Godfrey's younger brother, became the first titled king when he succeeded Godfrey in 1100. The assizes were the result of a gradual development.

Godfrey's role in the crusade was described by Albert of Aix, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum, and Raymond of Aguilers amongst others. In fictional literature, Godfrey was the hero of numerous French chansons de geste dealing with the crusade, the "Crusade cycle". This cycle connected his ancestors to the legend of the Knight of the Swan,[4] most famous today as the storyline of Wagner's opera Lohengrin.

By William of Tyre's time later in the twelfth century, Godfrey was already a legend among the descendants of the original crusaders. Godfrey was believed to have possessed immense physical strength; it was said that in Cilicia he wrestled a bear and won, and that he once beheaded a camel with one blow of his sword.

Torquato Tasso made Godfrey the hero of his epic poem Gerusalemme Liberata.

In The Divine Comedy Dante sees the spirit of Godfrey in the Heaven of Mars with the other "warriors of the faith."

Godfrey is depicted in Handel's opera "Rinaldo" (1711) as Goffredo.

Since the mid-19th century, an equestrian statue of Godfrey of Bouillon has stood in the center of the Royal Square in Brussels, Belgium. The statue was made by Eugène Simonis, and inaugurated on August 24, 1848.

Godfrey plays a key figure in the pseudohistorical theories put forth in the books The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and The Da Vinci Code.

In 2005 he came in 17th place in the French language Le Plus Grand Belge, a public vote of national heroes in Belgium. He did not make the 100 greatest Belgians, as voted by the Flemish speakers in De Grootste Belg (the Greatest Belgian).

Godfrey also plays a key role in the book The Iron Lance by Stephen R. Lawhead, and in an historical novel Godfrey de Bouillon, Defender of the Holy Sepulchre, by Tom Tozer.

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Guglielmo Embriaco portrayed on the main façade of the Palazzo San Giorgio, Genoa.

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Guglielmo Embriaco

Guglielmo Embriaco (English William; born c. 1040), was a Genoese merchant and military leader who came to the assistance of the Crusader States in the aftermath of the First Crusade.

Embriaco was probably born in the late 1030s, but did not gain fame until he and his brother Primo di Castello landed at Jaffa in June 1099 with a squadron of galleys: two, according to the Annales of Caffaro di Rustico, and six or nine according to Raymond of Aguilers. The expedition was a private undertaking. He and Primo initially marched south towards Ascalon, but an Egyptian army forced them to march inland towards the Siege of Jerusalem, then in progress. The lumber from their dismantled ships was converted into siege towers which were instrumental in the successful taking of the city on 15 July. It was there that Embriaco earned his sobriquet Caputmallei or Testadimaglio, meaning "mallet head".

Embriaco assisted in the capture of Jaffa and then, with 200 to 300 men, at the Battle of Ascalon on 12 August, where he commanded a naval contingent offshore. Embriaco and his brother returned to Genoa with letters from Godfrey of Bouillon and Daimbert of Pisa, the Defender of the Holy Sepulchre and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem respectively, describing the success of the Crusaders and the urgent need of reinforcements. They arrived in Genoa on 24 December. Embriaco was granted the title of consul exercitus Ianuensium — "consul of the Genoese army" — by the Compagna and sent back with a fleet of twenty six or seven galleys, four to six cargo ships, and three to four thousand men. He embarked, carrying the new papal legate, the cardinal-bishop of Ostia, on 1 August 1100.

Upon his second arrival in the Holy Land, he met King Baldwin I at Laodicea and together they planned a campaign against for the next spring. At Laodicea, he wintered and fought many skirmishes with the Saracen corsairs. In March 1101, he set out from Laodicea, evading a large Egyptian fleet near Haifa, and landed at Jaffa on Easter Monday. He accompanied Baldwin from there to Jerusalem to celebrate Easter and visit the River Jordan. The Genoese were promised a third of the booty of the campaign and they set out for Arsuf, which fell after three days on 9 May. Caesarea held out until 17 May. A thousand Arab merchants who had taken refuge in the mosque paid the Genoese for their release and safety.

In July, Embriaco returned to Genoa after making a treaty with Tancred, Prince of Galilee. He met a Byzantine fleet in the Ionian Islands and landed at Corfu to send ambassadors to Constantinople. He entered Genoa in triumph in October.

In February 1102 he was elected Consul, but that is the last recorded trace of him.

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Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse

Raymond IV of Toulouse sometimes called Raymond of St Gilles (c. 1041 or 1042 – 1105) was Count of Toulouse, Duke of Narbonne, and Margrave of Provence and one of the leaders of the First Crusade. He was a son of Pons of Toulouse and Almodis de La Marche. He received Saint-Gilles with the title of "count" from his father and succeeded his brother William IV in Toulouse in 1094.

According to an Armenian source, he had lost an eye on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before the First Crusade, but this statement probably refers to the fact that he was one-eyed (monoculus). He also fought against the Moors in Spain before 1096, and he was the first to join the crusade after Pope Urban II's sermon at the Council of Clermont.

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Imaginary portrait of Raymond IV of Toulouse, by Merry-Joseph Blondel, 1840s, Salles de Croisades, Versailles

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Early years

In 1094, William Bertrand of Provence died and his margravial title to Provence passed to Raymond. A bull of Urban's dated 22 July 1096 names Raymond comes Nimirum Tholosanorum ac Ruthenensium et marchio Provintie Raimundus.

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The Crusader

Raymond was deeply religious, and wished to die in the Holy Land, and so when the call was raised for the First Crusade, he was one of the first to take the cross. The oldest and the richest of the crusaders, Raymond left Toulouse at the end of October 1096, with a large company that included his wife Elvira, his infant son (who would die on the journey) and Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy, the papal legate. He ignored requests by his niece, Philippa (the rightful heiress to Toulouse) to grant the rule of Toulouse to her in his stead; instead, he left Bertrand, his eldest son, to govern. He marched to Dyrrhachium, and then east to Constantinople along the same route used by Bohemond of Taranto. At the end of April, 1097, he was the only crusade leader not to swear an oath of fealty to Byzantine emperor Alexius I. Instead, Raymond swore an oath of friendship, and offered his support against Bohemond, mutual enemy of both Raymond and Alexius.

He was present at the siege of Nicaea and the Battle of Dorylaeum in 1097, but his first major role came in October of 1097 at the siege of Antioch. The crusaders heard a rumour that Antioch had been deserted by the Seljuk Turks, so Raymond sent his army ahead to occupy it, offending Bohemond of Taranto who wanted the city for himself. The city was, however, still occupied, and was taken by the crusaders only after a difficult siege in June of 1098. Raymond took the palatium Cassiani (the palace of the emir, Yaghi-Siyan) and the tower over the Bridge Gate. He was ill during the second siege of Antioch by Kerbogha which culminated in the discovery of the Holy Lance by a monk named Peter Bartholomew.

The "miracle" raised the morale of the crusaders, and to their surprise they were able to rout Kerbogha outside Antioch. The Lance itself became a valuable relic among Raymond's followers, despite Adhemar of Le Puy's skepticism and Bohemond's disbelief and occasional mockery. Raymond also refused to relinquish his control of the city to Bohemond, reminding Bohemond that he was obligated to return to Antioch and the court of Emperor Alexius, as he had sworn to do. A struggle then arose between Raymond's supporters and the supporters of Bohemond, partly over the genuineness of the Lance, but mostly over the possession of Antioch.

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Extending his territorial reach

Many of the minor knights and foot soldiers preferred to continue their march to Jerusalem, and they convinced Raymond to lead them there in the autumn of 1098. Raymond led them out to besiege Ma'arrat al-Numan, although he left a small detachment of his troops in Antioch, where Bohemond also remained. As Adhemar had died in Antioch, Raymond, along with the prestige given to him by the Holy Lance, became the new leader of the crusade. Bohemond however, expelled Raymond's detachment from Antioch in January of 1099. Raymond then began to search for a city of his own. He marched from Ma'arrat, which had been captured in December of 1098, into the emirate of Tripoli, and began the siege of Arqa on February 14, 1099, apparently with the intent of founding an independent territory in Tripoli that could limit the power of Bohemond to expand the Principality of Antioch to the south.

The siege of Arqa, a town outside Tripoli, lasted longer than Raymond had hoped. Although he successfully captured Hisn al-Akrad, a fortress that would later become the important Krak des Chevaliers, his insistence on taking Tripoli delayed the march to Jerusalem, and he lost much of the support he had gained after Antioch. Raymond finally agreed to continue the march to Jerusalem on May 13, and after months of siege the city was captured on July 15. Raymond was offered the crown of the new Kingdom of Jerusalem, but refused, as he was reluctant to rule in the city in which Jesus had suffered. He said that he shuddered to think of being called "King of Jerusalem". It is also likely that he wished to continue the siege of Tripoli rather than remain in Jerusalem. However, he was also reluctant to give up the Tower of David in Jerusalem, which he had taken after the fall of the city, and it was only with difficulty that Godfrey of Bouillon was able to take it from him.

Raymond participated in the battle of Ascalon soon after the capture of Jerusalem, during which an invading army from Egypt was defeated. However, Raymond wanted to occupy Ascalon himself rather than give it to Godfrey, and in the resulting dispute Ascalon remained unoccupied. It was not taken by the crusaders until 1153. Godfrey also blamed him for the failure of his army to capture Arsuf. When Raymond went north, in the winter of 1099-1100, his first act was one of hostility against Bohemond, capturing Laodicea from (Bohemond had himself recently taken it from Alexius). From Laodicea he went to Constantinople, where he allied with Alexius I, Bohemond's most powerful enemy. Bohemond was at the time attempting to expand Antioch into Byzantine territory, and blatantly refused to fulfill his oath to the Byzantine Empire.

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Defeat

Raymond was part of the doomed Crusade of 1101, where he was defeated at Mersivan in Anatolia. Raymond escaped and returned to Constantinople. In 1102 he travelled by sea from Constantinople to Antioch, where he was imprisoned by Tancred, regent of Antioch during the captivity of Bohemond, and was only dismissed after promising not to attempt any conquests in the country between Antioch and Acre. He immediately broke his promise, attacking and capturing Tartus, and began to build a castle on the Mons Peregrinus ("Pilgrim's Mountain") which would help in his siege of Tripoli. He was aided by Alexius I, who preferred a friendly state in Tripoli to balance the hostile state in Antioch.

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Spouses and progeny

Raymond IV of Toulouse was married three times, and twice excommunicated for marrying within forbidden degrees of consanguinity. His first wife was his cousin, and the mother of his son Bertrand. His second wife was Matilda (Mafalda), the daughter of King Roger I of Sicily. Raymond's third wife was Elvira, the illegitimate daughter of King Alfonso VI of Castile, the Spanish king who also campaigned furiously against the Moors.

Raymond died in 1105, before Tripoli was captured. He was succeeded by his nephew William-Jordan, who, in 1109, with the aid of King Baldwin I of Jerusalem, finally captured the town and established the County of Tripoli. William was deposed in the same year by Raymond's eldest son Bertrand, and the county remained in the possession of the counts of Toulouse throughout the 12th century.

Raymond of Toulouse seems to have been driven both by religious and material motives. On the one hand he accepted the discovery of the Holy Lance and rejected the kingship of Jerusalem, but on the other hand he could not resist the temptation of a new territory. Raymond of Aguilers, a clerk in Raymond's army, wrote an account of the crusade from Raymond's point of view.

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Stephen II, Count of Blois

Stephen II Henry (c. 1045 – 19 May 1102), (in French, Étienne Henri), Count of Blois and Count of Chartres, was the son of Theobald III, count of Blois, and Garsinde du Maine. He married Adela of Normandy, a daughter of William the Conqueror around 1080 in Chartres.

Count Stephen was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, often writing enthusiastic letters to Adela about the crusade's progress. He returned home in 1098 during the lengthy siege of Antioch, without fulfilling his crusading vow to forge a way to Jerusalem. He was pressured by Adela into making a second pilgrimage, and joined the minor crusade of 1101 in the company of others who had also returned home prematurely. In 1102, Stephen was killed in the Battle of Ramla at the age of fifty-seven.

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Original coat of arms of the county of Blois.

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Baldwin I of Jerusalem

Baldwin I of Jerusalem, formerly Baldwin I of Edessa, born Baldwin of Boulogne (French: Baudouin de Boulogne), 1058?[1] - April 2, 1118, was one of the leaders of the First Crusade, who became the first Count of Edessa and then the second ruler and first titled King of Jerusalem. He was the brother of Godfrey of Bouillon, who was the first ruler of the crusader state of Jerusalem, although he refused the title of 'king' which Baldwin accepted.

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Baldwin I
King of Jerusalem
 
Reign 25 December 1100 - 2 April 1118
Coronation 25 December 1100
Successor Baldwin II
Spouse Godehilde de Toeni
Arda (Armenian)
Adelaide del Vasto
Father Eustace II of Boulogne (10??-1093)
Mother Ida of Lorraine (c. 1040-1113)
Born 1058?
Lorraine, France
Died 2 April 1118 (aged 60)?
Al-Arish , Egypt
Burial Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem