Peter in Jerusalem

When the main body of the First Crusade reached the Holy Land, Peter the Hermit joined them as a member of the council that made decisions. Peter had drummed up so much support for the Crusade that he was welcome, even though his "People's Crusade" (see the last few posts) had gone spectacularly off the rails.

In fact, Guibert of Nogent, a contemporary of the Crusade who wrote a chronicle of it, refers to Peter's status in 1098 as a "fallen star." His preaching continued, however. During the Siege of Antioch, for instance, Guibert gives Peter credit for making a stirring speech to the starving Crusaders that inspired them to leave the city and attack the larger Muslim force and achieve victory. (Part of that inspiration may have been from the discovery of the Holy Lance.)

The march to Jerusalem included besieging the town of Arqa, during which it is recorded that Peter was given responsibility as treasurer of alms.

Peter was present at Jerusalem when the Crusade captured the city, and spent some time there. According to The Alexiad, the account written by Anna Comnena of that time from the viewpoint of the reign of her father, Alexios I:

He saw many forbidden and wicked things occurring there… so he sought out the patriarch of the holy church of Jerusalem and asked why gentiles and evil men were able to pollute holy places and steal away offerings from the faithful, using the church as if a stable, beating up Christians, despoiling pilgrims through unjust fees, and inflicting on them many sufferings." The frustrated patriarch threw up his hands in exasperation: "Why do you reprimand me and disturb me in the midst of my fatherly cares? I have but the strength and power of a tiny ant when compared to those proud men. We have to redeem our lives here by regular tribute payments or else face death-dealing punishment."

Perhaps he was discouraged by what he saw in Jerusalem. In 1099 he went to Latakia (Laodicea) in Syria, and from there sailed west and home. On his way home, with Count Conon of Montaigou, a storm threatened their ship, but subsided when they prayed and promised to found a church if they survived. The two later founded Neufmoustier Abbey in Huy.

It seems he founded an Augustinian monastery in France, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The contemporary Albert of Aachen claims Peter died there in 1131 as its prior, but this must be a fabrication. In the records of Neufmoustier Abbey we find an entry for 8 July 1115:

...the death of Dom Pierre, of pious memory, venerable priest and hermit, who deserved to be appointed by the Lord to announce the first to the holy Cross.

We assume this is more accurate than Albert, especially since Albert had a tendency to presume things that suited him. And because Neufmoustier contains Peter's tomb (see illustration).

One item attributed to Peter that cannot be proven is that he invented the rosary, presumably as a guide for the illiterate in their prayers. Tomorrow we'll look at what history we know about the rosary.

The People's Crusade Ends

After the terrible situation (for the People's Crusade) at Xerigordos, where several thousand German Crusaders were converted to Islam or killed, some Turkish spies infiltrated the main Crusader camp before news of the Xerigordos outcome was known and spread rumors that Nicaea had similarly been captured by the Germans.

Peter the Hermit, who had been leading the Crusade, had gone back to Constantinople for supplies. In his absence, the Crusade—under the leadership of a Frenchman, Geoffrey Burel—convinced the fighting men they should go right away to Nicaea, leaving the women and children and the old and sick behind. As a result, 20,000 headed toward Nicaea on 21 October 1096.

The Turks were waiting on the road to Nicaea and ambushed the Europeans in a narrow wooded valley in an event called the Battle of Civetot. Most of the men were slaughtered. Any women and children who tagged along were spared. A few thousand, including Burel, fled to a nearby abandoned fortress, besieged by Turks until a Byzantine army arrived to rescue them.

Of the 40,000 who set out after meeting Peter the Hermit in Cologne, the 3,000 who survived the Turks' ambush were all that remained of useful Crusaders. Peter, with a fraction of the original group, spent the winter of 1096/97 in Constantinople, waiting for the main army to arrive, after which they continued to the Holy Land.

The events referred to as the "People's Crusade" were now concluded. What happened after was all part of the official First Crusade. Since I started several days ago intending to discuss Peter the Hermit, however, let us follow him to Palestine where his story continues. (The illustration is from a 1270 French manuscript with Peter showing the way to Jerusalem.)

The People's Crusade Continues

After the Rhineland Massacres, the People's Crusade continued from Cologne toward the Holy Land. Some took boats down the Danube. Some marched over land into and through Hungary, meeting up again at the Danube on the borders of the Byzantine Empire, at a town called Zemun.

A dispute over prices turned into a riot between the Crusaders and the townspeople, in which 4000 Hungarians were killed. The Crusaders crossed into Belgrade, pillaging and burning the city. Days later, at the town of Niš, its commander promised Peter the Hermit that he would provide food and an escort to Constantinople if the Crusaders would depart immediately.

This was agreed to, and all would have been well if some Germans in the group had not started a fight with some locals and set fire to a mill. The garrison of Niš came out and attacked the Crusaders, supposedly killing about 25% of the 40,000-person contingent. (The illustration shows the fighting at Niš.)

They regrouped and arrived on 12 July at Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, where a Byzantine escort met them and led them without further incident to Constantinople on 1 August.

Emperor Alexios I, whose initial request for aid from the West motivated the Crusade, now had 30,000 extra people on his hands. He may have had news of their prior behavior. He ferried them immediately across the Bosphorus, but warning Peter not to engage the Turks until the main (and better armed) army showed up.

The group was eager to push on to the Holy Land, however, and harassed towns along the way, finally reaching the suburbs of Nicaea. A 6,000-strong contingent of Germans marched on the castle of Xerigordos and occupied it. (Xerigordos' exact location is not known. Guibert of Nogent said it was four days' journey from Nicaea.)

They were now firmly in Seljuk Turk territory, and one of the generals of Kilij Arslan laid siege to Xerigordos. The water supply was insufficient, and there are reports that the Crusaders drank their own urine and the blood of donkeys to survive. The Turks prevailed, and the occupiers of Xerigordos were forced to either convert to Islam or be killed.

I wish I could say that this was the worst of their problems, and the rest of the People's Crusade went smoothly. Unfortunately, there was more to come. See you next time.

The Rhineland Massacres

After Peter the Hermit gathered his followers in Cologne, Germany, on Holy Saturday in 1096 (12 April), they prepared to go south and eventually toward the Holy Land as part of the First Crusade. (Technically, at this stage they were not part of the army called by Pope Urban II, and have been referred to as the People's Crusade.)

This was tens of thousands of peasants in a poorly organized militia, moving through unfamiliar territory with the noble goal of doing something "Christian"; unfortunately, this mood of theirs made them see any non-Christian as a target.

This anti-non-Christian mindset motivated them to attack Jews. There were some specific factors we might consider. One was the need for money: they were peasants, and travel expenses (food, shelter) were beyond their meager personal means. Thousands of people crossing unfamiliar land was always stressful for the natives. Jews were a popular source of quick funds by simply stealing from them or even killing them.

Also, to the Christian citizens of France and Germany, Jews were responsible for the Crucifixion of Christ, and so clearly were the enemy of Christians. This was the beginning of "Crusade fever" that inspired anti-Jewish violence for the next couple centuries at least.

Another factor was the presence of Count Emicho of Leiningen. While Peter's people were likely to threaten Jews in the towns through which they passed, bribes of money smoothed this over and people were usually unharmed. He joined Peter the Hermit and brought along his own history of attacking Jews. Emicho shortly before all this was known to attack Jews and force conversions on them.

Peter supposedly carried with him a letter from the Jews of France requesting of the Jews of the Rhineland that they support the Crusade. A Jewish chronicler of the mid-12th century, in the Solomon bar Simson Chronicle, records that Peter's arrival caused such fear in a town that the Jews readily supplied him with his needs.

Jewish communities in Mainz, Speyer, and Worms were ransacked before the Crusaders moved on. These three prominent populations of Jews banded together to enact a series of rules and policies concerning interactions between Jews and Gentiles. We may continue Peter the Hermit's People's Crusade a little later, but first let's take a look at the Enactments of SHU"M.

Peter the Hermit

After the announcement of the First Crusade, a French Roman Catholic priest from Amiens named Pierre took it upon himself to preach the Crusade around the countryside. He chose to go about in a long coarse robe, forsaking shoes and hat. Riding a donkey, he preached all over Italy. Outside Italy, he preached around Huy in Lower Lotharingia. In fact, tradition in Huy says he was there when the word came (not at Clermont for the announcement, as some historians reported), and immediately started preaching to anyone who would listen of the need to join up.

His mother's name was Alide Montaigu, so he may have been related—albeit distantly—to the Counts of Montaigou. He certainly traveled with Count Conon on the Crusade itself, as seen in yesterday's post.

He tried to get to Jerusalem on his own, not waiting for the Crusading army called by Pope Urban II. He persuaded thousands of lower-class folk to follow him to the Holy Land. The result was thousands of  unskilled men and women with little means to pay their way across Europe (and some knights as well). This "pre-Crusade" is known as the People's Crusade, as I explained 13 years ago.

Why did many thousands of poorer people join? Millenarianism, the belief that the Year 1000 could bring the Apocalypse, may have been a concern for people who wanted to expiate their sins with a grand gesture. There had been a recent outbreak of ergot poisoning that seemed like an end-time sign. Sights in the sky recently—a meteor shower, a lunar eclipse, the Aurora Borealis, a comet—also created fear.

Peter claimed a divine mandate from Christ to preach the Crusade, and even claimed he had a letter to prove it. He had everyone to whom he preached agree to meet at Cologne in Germany, which they did on 12 April 1096, Holy Saturday.

Their religious fervor became indiscriminate in their choice of enemy, finding people to kill before they ever left Germany. Tomorrow we'll learn about the shameful Rhineland Massacres.

Count of Montaigou

When Huy became the first municipality north of the Alps to be granted city rights, its right to some self-governance meant Conon, Count of Montaigou, lost some of his rights over it.

Conon was connected to Huy from an early age. His parents were Gozelon of Montaigou and Ermengarde de Grandpré. Ermengarde's father was Count of Clermont, and after his death that title passed through Ermengarde to her son. Count Gozelon died in 1064, succeeded by his eldest, Conon, a couple years before Huy's city rights charter. Conon up to that time was a knight who had only appeared as witness to a few royal charters.

Records are scarce for that part of Lotharingia, but a 1 January 1071 document confirms that he was then known as Count Conon, whose liege lords were Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV and the Duke of Lower Lotharingia, Godfrey IV "The Hunchback." (Godfrey has appeared a few times in this blog, as godfather to Godfrey of Bouillon and as former husband of the widowed Matilda of Tuscany.)

Conon and his wife, Ida, had four sons: Gozelon, Lambert, Henry, and Theobald. Theobald died young. Henry became an archdeacon and provost. Lambert became count of Montaigou and Clermont after his father's death. Gozelon's fate? You'll see shortly.

Conon was one of the nobles who agreed to the Treuga Dei, the Truce of God. Conon loved justice. When Bishop Otbert of Liège tried to depose Abbot Theodoric II of the monastery of Saint Hubert, Conon supported Theodoric.

When the First Crusade came along, Conon went along with his two eldest sons under Godfrey of Bouillon's banner. Among the first to arrive at Constantinople, Conon was one of the men negotiating with the representative of Emperor Alexios I. Gozelon died before reaching Jerusalem, but Conon and Lambert fought in Jerusalem and lived.

While Conon was returning home (a legend says) with Peter the Hermit and some men of Huy, a storm endangered their ship. They prayed that they would build a church if they survived, at which the storm immediately subsided. Conon and Peter founded the Augustinian canonry of Neufmoustier in Huy, where (according to tradition), Peter lived until his death in 1115 and was buried there. It was said that if you could not make it to Jerusalem after vowing to go, a pilgrimage to the abbey was sufficient to fulfill the vow. (Some of the ruins are shown above.)

Conon himself died on 1 May 1106, succeeded by Lambert, who lived at least until 1140.

Peter the Hermit, although he has cropped up in a few blog posts over the years, has never been fully discussed. Let's resolve that next time.

The Holy Lance, Part Two

After the "finding" of the Holy Lance, the Crusaders in Antioch felt emboldened to break the siege around the city by Kerbogha, the atabeg of Mosul.

Peter the Hermit was sent to Kerbogha to suggest settling the conflict with a duel, but Kerbogha declined. A different Peter, Peter Bartholomew, whose "visions" led to the "buried" "Lance," joined the fight against the Muslims. Unknown to the Crusaders, Kerbogha's army had some internal conflicts and was not as powerful as it appeared. His superiors decided to teach the arrogant Kerbogha a lesson by not sending reinforcements. Kerbogha was forced to retreat to Mosul.

Inside Antioch afterward, the issue of the Holy Lance was re-examined, even though some attributed their military victory to its presence. Peter Bartholomew's vision of the Lance suggested it was buried just below the surface, but teams of men dug far down without success, until Peter went alone into the hole and "found" the lance point sticking up from the ground. Even though Peter's vision predicted a win against the Muslims, there were those who questioned Peter's truthfulness. One was papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy, who may have already been aware that a piece of the Lance was said to be in Constantinople. 

Then, Adhemar died from plague on 1 August 1098, and Peter put himself forward as the spiritual leader on the Crusade. Peter actually claimed that Adhemar appeared to him in a vision and said he had suffered in Hell for three days because he had doubted the discovery of the Lance.

Peter claimed that Christ told him the Crusaders must march barefoot to Jerusalem, and other visions from Jesus and St. Andrew expressed anger at the sins of the Crusaders. When his further visions were ignored, and the veracity of the Lance was questioned, Peter volunteered to submit to a Trial by Ordeal to prove his innocence.

As a result, he went through trial by fire on 8 April 1099, which was Good Friday*. Peter would walk through a fire. Two piles of dry olive branches were made, four feet high and 13 feet long, with a one-foot space between them for Peter to walk through. Peter came to the trial wearing a simple tunic and prepared to walk through, carrying the Lance. If both appeared unharmed after the ordeal, he would be vindicated.

..and I will leave you there until tomorrow.

*Coincidentally this post has been made on Good Friday in 2024.

The Siege of Nicaea

When the First Crusade was on their way to free the Holy land from the "infidel," they passed through Constantinople and asked for help from Emperor Alexios I. They left Constantinople in stages, starting in April 1097. Their first target was the city of Nicaea (now İznik), held by Seljuk Turks on the shore of Lake Ascania in Turkey.

Godfrey of Bouillon arrived first on 6 May, followed by other parts of the army including Raymond IV of Toulouse, Tancred, and Peter the Hermit with the remains of the People's Crusade.

The ruler of Nicaea, Sultan Kilij Arslan, was away, but rushed back when he got word the siege, but he was unsuccessful in breaking through the Crusaders. Nicaea had to make a decision.

Alexios had not joined the Crusading army for the siege, but stationed his forces at a nearby town. He had boats transported over land to the Crusaders to aid in a blockade on Lake Ascania, to prevent the Turks from getting food. The boats were sent with general Manuel Boutoumites. Following them was general Tatikios with 2000 foot soldiers. This was not simple support of the siege, however. Alexios instructed Tatikios to join the assault on the walls while Boutoumites from the lake side of the city secretly negotiated with Nicaea to surrender, making it appear that the Byzantines had captured Nicaea themselves and could dictate what happened in the aftermath. Here's how they pulled it off.

Boutoumites sent messages to the city rulers, offering them amnesty for surrender but promising destruction if they did not. Boutoumites was even allowed into the city (all out of sight from the land-side Crusaders). When Nicaea learned that Kilij Arslan was on his way, they forced Boutoumites out, but with the failure of Arslan's attack, they re-considered the Greek's offer. On the morning of 19 June, when the Crusading army prepared a large assault, the Byzantines on the lake-side were allowed into Nicaea; they raised their standard above the city walls, showing that they—not the Western Europeans—had control of the city.

Nicaea surrendered peacefully to Boutoumites, who as its new leader protected the city by forbidding plundering. Groups of Crusaders were allowed in of no more than 10 at a time. Arslan's family were sent to Constantinople, but were released with ransom once the Crusaders had moved on from Nicaea. Alexios did supply the Crusade with money and horses, but the wealth they might have had by ransacking Nicaea was denied them.

Part of Boutoumites' negotiation included showing Nicaea the chrysobull, which I suppose needs some explanation. I'll be happy to do that...tomorrow.

The First First Crusade

To be thorough: there was more to the plan. Emperor Alexios I of Byzantium had requested help from the pope against invading Turks, and the pope saw an opportunity to help his Christian brother and then, since a western European army would be so close (800-900 miles!), why not take back the city that had been occupied by non-Christians since the 7th century? Expeditions like this required careful planning, and so the pope intended that it should begin in August of 1096.

Unfortunately, "crusading fever" spread quickly, and the spring of 1096 saw a movement of tens of thousands of peasants and lesser knights from across Western Europe amassing in separate groups and making their way toward the Holy Land. These various groups have been called the People's Crusade, the Peasants' Crusade, and the Paupers' Crusade. One group, led by a Walter Sans Avoir (Walter "Haves Not"), went through Germany and Hungary relatively peacefully, but reached the Belgrade area having exhausted their supplies. The leaders of Belgrade had no idea what to do with the newcomers and refused them aid, whereupon the "crusaders" took what they needed from he Belgrade area, causing much consternation and destruction.*

Other crusading groups (there were five major groups prior to the official and organized army) traveled down the Rhine and, finding communities of Jews, took it upon themselves to slaughter them or force them to convert to Christianity. Estimates of casualties among Jews range from 2,000 to 12,000.

The largest group was led by a priest from Amiens, Peter the Hermit (d.1115), who preached the Crusade in France. He rode a donkey and claimed to have a divine commission to lead. He arrived at Constantinople with 30,000 followers, putting Emperor Alexius I in the position of needing to provision this "army" (which included women and children). Walter's group and others showed up as well. Constantinople could not play host to so many needy tourists, and Alexios agreed to ship them across the Bosphorus to Turkey, telling them to wait while he arranged soldiers to get them through the Turkish territory. Crusading fever would not allow delay, however, and the largely non-military masses advanced, to be cut down in the thousands by the Turks. Wounded, starving, and penniless, the handful of survivors could only wait with Peter (Walter had been killed by several arrows at once) for the real army to arrive.

Jerusalem was captured by the armies of the First Crusade, but none of the success can be attributed to any of the tens of thousands of people who set out months early with little but faith on their side.

*I think of Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi in the movie "The Blues Brothers": "They can't stop us: we're on a mission from God!"