Deeds of the Franks, Book 6, Chapter 16

Meanwhile, the hostile Tetigus (A Byzantine general sent along with the army by the emperor to guide the Crusaders see below) hearing that an army of Turks had come against us, said himself to have feared, judging us to have been completely ruined and to have fallen into the hands of the enemies, forming all sorts of lies, he said: "Sires and most skilled men, see that we are here now in the greatest of need, and from no parts will aid come to us. Behold only, allow me to return to my homeland in Romania and I will without a doubt arrange from there that many ships come by sea with an abundance of corn, wine, barley, meat, wheat and cheese, in short all goods that are necessary to us. I will arrange some horses to be lead for selling and I will arrange a market to come across the land with the guarantee of the emperor. Behold, I swear this to you faithfully and I will attend to it. Also to this, my servants and my tent are in the camp and from this you can believe me firmly, by these guarantees I will return."

Thus, in this way, he had finished his speech. He was an enemy, he left all of his own things at the camp but he was persisting in his lie and will continue in his lie. There was the greatest need upon us, since the Turks were pressing upon us on all sides, so that no one would dare to leave his tent. For they were hemming us in on one side and hunger was tormenting us from the other. The rescue of aid had failed for us, the weakened and most impoverished people were fleeing to Cyprus, Romania, and into the mountains. We did not dare go especially towards the sea because of fear of the most villainous Turks. There was no way open to us.

Tetigus, called Taticius by Anna, was a Saracen general in Alexius's army. He was a Grand Primicerius, a post of which E.R.A. Sewter has written in the footnotes to my translation of "Alexiad' that he was an officer of the imperial household and it was a position reserved for eunuchs. This is one reason perhaps why the Franks and Normans might have scorned him. As well, he was one of the leaders of the imperial army when Bohemond and his father tried to wrest the empire from the Byzantines which means that Bohemond and he had a long history of enmity. He went along with the Crusaders to guide and advise them (not that they listened to him at all) and to take charge of any cities that they captured since they swore they would turn these over to the emperor. Of course that was never going to happen either. He was probably a decent man and was not lying.

Deeds of the Franks, Book 6, Chapter 15

Then William the Carpenter and Peter the Hermit, because of their great misfortune and misery, left in secret. Tancred, following them, caught them and brought them back in disgrace, they gave the right hand and a guarantee, to him, that they would gladly return to camp and give satisfaction to the leaders. Then, William lay down all night in the tent of Lord Bohemond like a bad thing. The next day, at first light, he went blushing and stood in the presence of Bohemond. Addressing him, Bohemond said: " O ruin and disgrace of all the Franks, shame and calamity of the Gauls, O most worthless of all those who tread upon the earth, why do you so shamefully flee? Perhaps in this you had wished to betray these knights and host of Christ, just you betrayed others in Spain." To this, he was completely silent, and no words proceeded from his mouth. Nearly all of the Franks had gotten together and had humbly asked that he permit no worse to be done to him. Bohemond nodded with a calm face and said: "This I would agree willingly to for your love, if he swears with a whole heart and mind to me that he will not withdraw from the journey to Jerusalem either for good or bad and Tancred will agree that nothing bad will happen to him either from him or his own men" Hearing these words, William ceased voluntarily and on the spot he was sent away. After William the Carpenter had been seized by the greatest wantonness, he was not long in delaying running away.

God has given this poverty and misery because of our transgressions, for in the whole host, no one could find a thousand knight who had good horses.

Deeds of the Franks, Book 6, Chapter 14

Then the Turks, those enemies of God and sacred Christianity, in whose hands was held the city of Antioch, hearing that Lord Bohemond and the Count of Flanders had left the siege, came out of the city and boldly came to battle with us, looking for ways in which the siege lines were weaker and knowing the most skillful knights to be away. On one Tuesday, they found that they were able to resist us and to even to hurt us. Those most wicked barbarians came warily and rushed in to attack us zealously, and killed most of our knights and footsoldiers, who were taken off guard. Also on that bitter day, the Bishop of Le Puy lost his own seneschal, who had been carrying and guiding his standard. And if the river had not been between us and them, they would have attacked us more frequently, and would have done the greatest harm to our people.

As that most cautious of men, Bohemond was leaving with his own army for the land of the Saracens, he came to Tancred's Mountain, thinking that perhaps there he would prevail in finding something which he would be able to carry away. For he had been sent in search through the whole land and some men found stuff, others went back empty handed. Then the wise Bohemond rebuked those men saying "O unlucky and most wretched people. O vilest of all Christianity, why are you willing to go away so quickly? Allow, only allow until where we will be assembled in one group and do not wander as sheep who do not have a shepherd. Moreover, if our enemies find you wandering, they will kill you, since they are vigilant day and night in order to find you without a guide or separated from the group. They labor every day to kill you and even to lead you into captivity." And when he was done saying this, he returned to his own camp, with his own men more empty-handed than full.

However the Armenians and Syrians seeing that our men returned empty handed, formed a agreement where they were crossing through the mountains and known places, delicately asking for and buying corn and food, which they were carrying back to the camp in which there was great famine and were selling the load of one ass for eight 'purpuratis', which was worth a hundred and twenty solid denaries. There were many dead from our people, not having the price from whence they were able to buy so dearly.

Some Comments and Links About the First Crusade

Reading that the Crusaders built a tower near Antioch, made me curious if anything remained of the tower. The first difficulty that comes up is the name of the tower. Anonymous does not give it a name; he simply says there was a tower on Mount Maregart. Antioch was built beside a mountain called Mount Silpius by one of Alexander the Great's generals, Seleucus. Looking at a book called The First Crusade; the accounts of eyewitnesses and participants by August C. Krey, he seems to think that this tower was at Margat. Just about everyone else calls this tower Malregard, that is "evil glance" or "looking bad" or "bad omen" however you want to translate the French name.

Margat was on the coast and seems a bit far to be the tower, where other authors are sure the tower was built on Mount Silpius near Bohemond's camp. The history of Margat seems to cancel it out as a candidate but I did find an interesting account of its fall from an Arab perspective in the Third Crusade here. There do not seem to be any accounts of the First Crusade from an Arab eyewitness perspective but some later Arab writers like Ibn Al-Athir wrote about the First Crusades and a biography of Saladin. Also interesting to read are accounts like Usmah Ibn Munqidh's autobiography about life under the Frankish occupiers here.

Making the search for Bohemond's tower harder is that most of ancient Antioch is buried under the modern Turkish city of Antakya and there seem to be little that has been uncovered. However it does make more sense to build a watchtower near the city since the Crusaders had not lifted their siege and remained there for about a year and a half.

I found a nice map of all the Crusader forts in the Middle East. I don't know how accurate it is but there are also some very good books on the Crusades worth buying besides the Krey book. I have had a good look at a book called The First Crusade: A New History by Thomas Ashbridge. It looks very, very good with maps of the routes they took and ancient cities so you can see the layout of the battles. August C. Krey's book is also excellent but an older book and includes some funny details like calling the Arabs 'barbarian hordes' where Anonymous clearly hasn't but he has broken up the account in Gesta with many other eyewitness accounts to give you a chronological history from various points of view. If you just want a copy of Deeds of the Franks, Oxford Medieval Texts has an excellent version with Latin on one page and the English translation facing it. It is pricey but you get the assurance of it being of the best quality in scholarship.

One more link I would like to post is a photo of the Cilician Gates which is the mountain pass that Anonymous describes as narrow and dangerous. The Taurus mountain range which they had to pass through was very difficult to pass indeed. Here is one photo and here is another rather bleak looking mountain.

Although Anonymous does not say as much, after Baldwin took that town from Tancred, Tancred returned to the main Crusader army but Baldwin did not. Baldwin headed east and carved a kingdom for himself in Edessa. Judging by the accounts of Fulcher of Chartres, Baldwin was prepared for all kinds of back stabbing to carve out a kingdom for himself. Should I be using judgemental words? Why not since this is not a academic or 'scholarly work'. Anyway, while I was trying to find out more about the tower, I came across all kinds of information as to what lies ahead of the Crusaders or later Crusades. They eventually won Jerusalem but at what a cost in human suffering.