the time he expected to return, assuring her that if by God’s grace he survived he would come back home to her. He commended her to the Lord, kissed her lingeringly, and promised her as she wept that he would return. She, though, fearing that she would never see him again, could not stand but swooned to the ground, mourning her loved one, whom she was losing in this life as if he were already dead. He, however, like one who has no pity – although he had – and as if he were not moved by the tears of his wife nor the grief of any of his friends – yet secretly moved in his heart – departed with firm resolution. Sadness was the lot of those who remained, elation, of those who departed.26
The first great western lord to set out for Jerusalem, somewhat paradoxically, was the brother of the king Urban II had excommunicated at Clermont. Hugh count of Vermandois was the younger brother of Philip I, the Fat. Distinguished only by blood, Hugh acted as a magnet for some of his brother’s leading vassals, including the king’s constable (Walo of Chaumont-en-Vexin) and seneschal (Gilbert of Garlande). The Ile de France was well represented in Hugh’s entourage, including later William the Carpenter of Melun, Thomas of Marle and Drogo of Nesle. Capetian interest was not entirely ideological. Participation in the expedition was agreed during a council at Paris in February 1096; in July, Hugh’s participation was announced to the pope by King Philip with his own submission to Urban’s judgement over his adulterous marriage (to the wife of the count of Anjou, to whom Urban had presented a golden rose during his preaching tour in March). Thus Urban’s Jerusalem scheme produced immediate and direct political gains for the wider papal cause by allowing Philip to be reconciled without losing too much face. The settlement suited both sides, Hugh receiving a papal banner to carry on his pilgrimage. The numerous recruits from the Paris region indicate another political benefit, this time for the Capetians, by providing a rare opportunity to exhibit practical leadership over their unruly vassals of the Ile de France, although Hugh hardly proved a dominant figure.
His journey was carefully planned; before leaving, probably in late August, he wrote to Alexius I, informing him of his intended itinerary.27 This took him through Italy, where he may have received the papal banner and blessing, to Bari. By this time Hugh’s small contingent of knights had been swelled by the French lords from Emich of Flonheim’s misadventure led by William of Melun. In southern Italy, his party was joined by one of Bohemund’s nephews, William FitzMarquis, and others, including veterans of Byzantine service.28 Crossing the Adriatic in October, after the indignity of a shipwreck, Hugh was held under comfortable house-arrest in Durazzo by the nonetheless hospitable Greek authorities before being escorted under close guard to Constantinople. Alexius seemed concerned lest Hugh linked up with the large numbers of Italians following the same route along the Via Egnatia from Durrazzo to the capital; or he may have received warning that his old enemy Bohemund was only a fortnight behind the count. Hugh was welcomed at Constantinople in November, only a few weeks after the massacre at Kibotos. Alexius’s treatment of Hugh betrayed nervousness; although well entertained and apparently rather embarrassingly easily flattered by the emperor’s attention, the count’s movements were monitored and some of his followers kept under close arrest. The emperor was beginning to appreciate the scale of his problems. Almost every day, news came of more western grandees bearing down on him while the flow of lesser pilgrims became a flood, swelled by the bumper harvest experienced in the west in the autumn of 1096. Miraculous would not necessarily have been Alexius’s word for it.
Shortly before Christmas 1096, Godfrey of Bouillon, duke of Lower Lorraine, arrived at the Greek capital with a substantial army derived mainly from Lotharingia (Lorraine) and the Low Countries. He proved an awkward guest. His march through central Europe followed the pilgrims’ road which had carried Peter the Hermit’s armies some months earlier. In contrast to his predecessor, Godfrey’s diplomacy worked all the way, a sign of meticulous preparation. Far from the selfless hero of chivalric legend he later appeared, Godfrey struck a number of hard bargains to raise funds for his expedition. Apart from extorting money from Rhineland Jews, he sold some estates; Bouillon itself he mortgaged to the bishop of Liege, with a proviso of restitution if he returned. Although unmarried, perhaps from sexual preference, Godfrey did not regard the expedition to Jerusalem as an excuse for abandoning his status in the west. The younger brother of the wealthy Count Eustace III of Boulogne, Godfrey’s career had flourished as a partisan of Henry IV. Succeeding to the disputed duchy of Lower Lorraine as a teenager in 1076, Godfrey fought for Henry in Italy in 1083. In 1087, his rights as duke were confirmed by a grateful emperor: his army in 1096 attracted many imperialists from the diocese of Liege.29 Although before his departure he had minted coins inscribed ‘Godefridus Ierosolimitanus’, and despite apparent political ineffectiveness, he never relinquished his duchy even after becoming ruler of the Christian enclave in Palestine in 1099. With him were two future kings of Jerusalem, his ambitious opportunist younger brother Baldwin and his cousin Baldwin lord of Le Bourcq; the counts of Toul and Hainault; other relatives such as Henry and Godfrey of Esch; and perhaps over 100 other knights. He was later joined by survivors from Peter’s army, such as Fulcher, brother of the vidame of Chartres. One of his strengths on crusade, and as ruler of Jerusalem, lay in the loyalty of his sizeable military household.
Godfrey’s march was prolonged but not turbulent. Leaving Lorraine in August, he negotiated a peaceful crossing of Hungary and access to markets with King Coloman who insisted, as he had with Peter the Hermit, on the security of grand hostages, in this case an extremely reluctant Baldwin of Boulogne and his Anglo-Norman heiress wife, Godehilde of Tosni. Godfrey’s chief spokesman had been Godfrey of Esch, a veteran of earlier diplomacy with the Hungarians, another indication of the scale, depth and complexity of the political as well as material preparations. Reaching the Byzantine frontier in early November, Godfrey quickly struck a deal with the Greek authorities over provisions, promising not to engage in violent foraging in return for secure food supplies, the Byzantines having prepared large food dumps along the route. After a leisurely escorted progress, by the time he reached Adrianople, Godfrey, learning of the treatment of Hugh of Vermandois, become alarmed lest he was walking into a gilded trap. Given his minor role in western European politics, the duke’s pride and self-importance unexpectedly came to the fore as he insisted Alexius release the Frenchmen. As later admirers and perhaps he himself liked to recall, a descendant of Charlemagne, whose mythologized exploits furnished an important corner of the mental world of aristocratic crusaders,30 Godfrey behaved as if he were the emperor’s equal, not a policy designed to endear him to Alexius. Perhaps Godfrey saw himself in some way as representing his lord, the western emperor Henry IV; certainly the chronicler of Godfrey’s campaign, Albert of Aachen, placed the German king at the head of his list of rulers in 1096, above the pope.31 Godfrey’s objections to Alexius’s handling of Count Hugh spilt over into violence, as Alexius cut off aid and the Lorrainers began to pillage the neighbourhood of Salabria, between Adrianople and the Sea of Marmora. Only by sending an embassy of Franks in imperial service to reassure the duke of his reception did hostilities cease, but it was a somewhat prickly Godfrey who arrived at Constantinople on 23 December 1096. Stationed on the Golden Horn, then at Pera opposite the city, for weeks Godfrey resisted Alexius’s attempts, conveyed by Hugh of Vermandois and others, to arrange a meeting. Alexius again withdrew food supplies, forcing Godfrey into an abortive assault on the city (13 January 1097) and further ravaging until diplomacy prevailed. Hostages were exchanged (including Alexius’s son and eventual successor, John) before Godfrey attended an audience with the emperor. The outcome was satisfactory to all concerned. Godfrey swore an oath to the emperor, of vassalage according to Albert of Aachen.32 Alexius became his patron and helped ship his army across the Bosporus by the end of February 1097. For the Greek emperor, the presence of such a large army, even if peaceful, had presented serious logistical and political problems. Godfrey’s initial refusal to reach some accommodation with Alexius or to move forward across the Bosporus to Asia presented dangers as the winter progressed and the capital and its suburbs had to absorb increasing numbers of pilgrims. Both Alexius and Godfrey were exercised by the imminent arrival of the other major commanders of the expedition; the one fearful of the implications to his capital’s food supplies and security; the other eager to consult with his peers as to how best to proceed. Around 20 January 1097 Godfrey apparently received an embassy from Bohemund, then making very slow but careful progress from the Adriatic coast, suggesting a combined attack on the capital. Despite his stand-off, Godfrey rejected Bohemund’s plan; later veterans of his army spoke about the Greeks without hostility or malice.33 At a popular level, relations remained good; equally, Godfrey had not resisted manipulation by Alexius only to become a pawn in Bohemund’s deep-rooted schemes concerning the Greek empire.
Bohemund of Taranto is the most controversial leader of the First Crusade. Of all the major surviving commanders, he alone failed to join the march to Jerusalem in 1099, more concerned with securing his hold over Syrian Antioch. Admired for his generalship, his pious credentials have been impugned in the light of his priorities in 1099 and his career of attempting to carve out for himself a kingdom in the Balkans at the expense of the Byzantine empire. The traditional view sees his motives as basely material, in contrast to the supposedly more elevated inspirations of some of his colleagues. This is untenable. The psychologies of the crusade’s leaders cannot be
