Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Deeds of the Franks, Book One, Chapter Four, cont.

Note that Anonymous has shifted to 'we' since this is where he joins Bohemond.

Then exiting from that place, they traveled through extraordinary abundance from farm to farm, from state to state, from castle to castle, until we came to Castoria. There we solemnly celebrated the Nativity of the Lord. We were there for many days and we tried to obtain a market but they had been unwilling to approve this for us because they were so afraid of us, not reckoning us to be strangers but they thought we wished to take their land and kill them. Wherefore we seized cows, horses and asses and everything that we were finding. Having left Castoria, we entered Pelagonia, which was what one might call a fortified town of heretics. Because we attacked them from all sides, they soon fell under our rule. Thus by starting a fire, we burned the town with its inhabitants. Afterwards we came to the river of Vardar. Then Lord Bohemond made his way beyond with his people but not with all of them. For the Count of Russignolo remained there with his brothers. The army of the emperor came and attacked him and his brothers and everyone who was with them. Hearing this, Tancred turned back, threw himself into the river to swim across and came to the others, and two thousand men threw themselves into the river following. Then they found the Turcopoles and Patzinaks fighting with our men. Those strongly regretted having attacked. Our men skillfully vanquished them and seized many of those men, tied them up, and led them to present to Lord Bohemond. He said these words to those men, " Why , wretched men, do you seek to kill men of Christ and my men? I have no quarrel with you emperor." To which they responded, "We are unable to do otherwise. We are subject to the emperor and whatever he orders us, it is proper to compel us." Bohemond allowed those men to go away unpunished. This battle had taken place in the fourth day of the week(Thursday), which is the beginning of fasting. On behalf of all, blessed is God. Amen.
End of Book 1, Book 2 to follow.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

As you see the excuse: "we are just following our orders, we are innocent" has been popular even before Hitler.

Bridget

The Red Witch said...

Yeah, except in this case they really did have to follow orders or they would be executed. Methods of execution were brutal as well and included torture. Anna describes with great satisfaction the burning of some heretics that she witnessed.

Tracy said...

Having left Castoria, we entered Pelagonia, which was what one might call a fortified town of heretics. Because we attacked them from all sides, they soon fell under our rule. Thus by starting a fire, we burned the town with its inhabitants
Well, I guess that's what you do with heretics! *cough*

The Red Witch said...

@Well, I guess that's what you do with heretics! *cough*

That's right. I don't know where this started but Christians were far more brutal with other Christians that they didn't agree with than they were with Muslims or Jews.

Tracy said...

Always the way with both political and religious ideologies (as satirised in Monty Python's Life of Brian - The People's Front of Judea versus the Judean People's Front). We just can't seem to stand someone who should be on exactly the same side having a slightly but apparently significantly different interpretation, they might steal your supporters! Whereas someone who has a radically-different ideology can be safely ignored - they are self-evidently on a different planet.