Jerusalem. The Biography

human bodies, headless bodies and mutilated limbs, strewn in all directions.’ There was something even more dreadful in the wild-eyed, gore-spattered Crusaders themselves, ‘dripping with bloodfrom head to foot, an ominous sight that brought terror to all who met them’. They searched the streets of the bazaars, dragging out more victims to be ‘slain like sheep’.
    Each Crusader had been promised possession of any house marked by his ‘shield and arms’: ‘consequently the pilgrims searched the city most carefully and boldly killed the citizens’, culling ‘wives, children, whole households,’ many of them ‘dashed headlong to the ground’ from high windows. *
    On the 17th, the pilgrims (as these slaughterers called themselves) were finally sated with butchery and ‘refreshed themselves with the rest and food they greatly needed’. The princes and priests made their way to the Holy Sepulchre where they sang in praise of Christ, clapping joyously and bathing the altar in tears of joy, before parading through the streets to the Temple of the Lord (the Dome of the Rock) and the Temple of Solomon. Those streets were strewn with body parts, decaying in the summer heat. The princes forced the surviving Jews and Muslims to clear the remains away and burn them in pyres, after which they were themselves butchered and presumably joined their brethren on the fires. The Crusaders who died were buried in the Cemetery of the Lion at Mamilla or in the sacred earth just outside the Golden Gate, already a Muslim cemetery, ready to arise at the Last Day.
    Jerusalem was so full of treasures, ‘gems, raiments, gold and silver’ and valuable prisoners that the Franks held slave-auctions for two days. Some respected Muslims had been saved for ransom: a thousand dinars was demanded for the Shafii scholar Sheikh Abd al-Salam al-Ansari, but when no one paid he was killed. Surviving Jews and 300 Hebrew books (including the Aleppo Codex, one of the earliest Hebrew Bibles that partially survives today) were ransomed to Egyptian Jews. The ransoming of prisoners was to be one of the most lucrative industries of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. But not all the human giblets could be collected, and Jerusalem literally stank for long afterwards – even six months later, when Fulcher of Chartres returned: ‘Oh what a stench there was aroundthe walls, within and without, from the rotting bodies of the Saracens, lying wherever they had been hunted down.’ Jerusalem was not yet secure: the Egyptian army was approaching. The Crusaders urgently needed a commander-in-chief – the first King of Jerusalem.
    GODFREY: ADVOCATE OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE
     
    The higher nobles and clergy made inquiries into the morals of the candidates for the crown. They felt they had to offer the throne to the senior prince, the unpopular Raymond, but did so grudgingly. Raymond obligingly turned it down, insisting he could not be a king in Jesus’ city. They then offered it to their real choice, the chaste and worthy Duke Godfrey, who accepted a newly coined title: Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre.
    This outraged Raymond who, realizing he had been tricked, refused to give up the Tower of David until the bishops mediated. Triumphant as their arms were, these warrior-pilgrims did not find it easy to enforce the morality expected in a city ruled by Jesus himself. They elected the Norman chaplain, Arnulf, as patriarch but he soon had to defend himself for adultery and fathering a child by an Arab woman.
    Arnulf placed bells in the churches (the ringing of church bells had always been banned by the Muslims). This was to be a Latin, Catholic Jerusalem. Now he demonstrated how vicious the schism was: he placed the Latin priests in charge of the Holy Sepulchre, banishing the Greek patriarch and clergy. He thereby started the unseemly conflict among Christian sects that continues to scandalize and amuse visitors to this day. Yet Arnulf could not find the main section of the True Cross and the Orthodox priests refused to reveal its hiding-place. The patriarch tortured them; a Christian torturing Christians to procure the Life-Giving Tree of the Lamb of God. They finally conceded.
    On 12 August, leaving Jerusalem almost undefended, Advocate Godfrey led the entire Crusader army out towards Ashkelon where he defeated the Egyptians. When Ashkelon offered to surrender to Raymond, Godfrey refused to accept unless it was ceded to him: Ashkelon was lost – only the first of many