Bishop Adhémar wisely gave orders to plough and sow the fields, understanding how those inside Antioch expected the Christians to retreat. But if they saw grain being planted they must admit to themselves that nothing could dissuade these servants of Christ. Crops would be sown and harvested until Antioch was taken. It happened that during this time God’s enemies dangled a cage outside the wall. In this cage sat the patriarch for everyone to see and pity. Yet our God remains forever a wall of strength to those who trust in Him.
Syrians are wont to speak of Antioch as a pissoir because rain so often falls. Now indeed the sky darkened and lowered. Marshes flooded. Armor rusted. Mud seeped through rugs and blankets, rotted tents. Bowstrings slackened. Next came pestilence creeping out of the marshes, bearing away the sick or discouraged. As many as one thousand died on a single day. Bodies putrefied, the air stank. At night here came archers through the Bridge Gate launching clouds of arrows. Muslim narratives tell how the citizens could hear Franks in their tents pray to God for mercy.
Muslim spies reported to the governor, Yaghi Siyan. They said a Frankish baron lay ill with plague and twenty thousand soldiers had marched away in search of food. Yaghi Siyan ordered cavalry across the bridge, which surprised some Provençals who rushed back and forth not knowing how to escape. Only when Bishop Adhémar came to help did these Provençals regain their wits. During this skirmish the bishop’s standard with an image of Blessed Mary was captured. And the Turks, having stolen as much as they could, mutilated bodies and rode triumphantly back to Antioch. That night candles burning at the altars gave feeble reassurance. Pilgrims looked for signs, omens, and beheld visions that cheered or depressed them accordingly. A comet in the shape of a cross blazed overhead, which presaged victory. Yet a gust of wind blew apart the tents of puissant lords. The ground underfoot grew restless. Surely men are not granted the power to comprehend in thought, nor to expound in speech, the majestic course of our Lord’s divine work.
Bishop Adhémar now wrote to his bishopric at Le Puy that the army of God had fought three battles, had marched from Nicaea to Antioch, and had stormed many fortified outposts. Although this army numbered one hundred thousand knights and sergeants it was threatened by infidels more numerous than locusts. Pray for us, Bishop Adhémar concluded. Pray for us.
During Lent the barons considered a gate situated between them and the sea. Turks very often rushed out this gate to assault pilgrims going to the port of Saint Symeon five leagues distant, or when they returned with supplies. It was decided to build a fort. Lords Raymond and Bohemond should go to Saint Symeon with knights and sergeants to fetch carpenters, mattocks, whatever materials might be required. So they departed. But the watchful Turks, who could not guess why these knights were going to Saint Symeon, guessed that in a little while they would come back and laid plans to intercept them. Narratives from those days tell how whistling chattering infidels surrounded the Christians. Some escaped, riding frantically out of sight, but those afoot or otherwise limited could not do much. According to the Gesta Francorum, one thousand knights and sergeants ascended to heaven gowned in white, clothed in the white robe of martyrdom. From the Gesta we learn how Bohemond rallied his followers, how they called upon Christ, how they armed themselves with the sign of the cross fixed on their foreheads and in their hearts, how they scattered the pagans, drove them across the narrow bridge. So frightened were God’s opponents that many leapt head downward to hell, yielded deformed souls to ministers of Satan. They succumbed howling to Christian steel, plummeted screeching into the river Orontes. If any wounded or drowning Turk sought to climb up columns of the bridge or struggled to gain the bank he was assaulted by servants of God who stood around waiting. Twenty Turks at least were struck with planks from the bridge until they sank and the water flowed red. Shrieks of anguish could be heard from the ramparts. But at windows in the wall appeared the faces of Christian women who lived in Antioch, who fed ravenously upon the spectacle, stealthily applauding with their hands this massacre of our Lord’s enemies.
According to Raymond d’Agiles, the governor Yaghi Siyan ordered a host of Turks to defeat the Franks or perish, and shut the gate behind them. Now when they came against each other Ysoard de Ganges, sinking to his knees, called upon God for aid. Soldiers of Christ! he shouted. Soldiers of Christ! With no more than one hundred and fifty sergeants he attacked these Turks, who felt astounded by such audacity, horrified, and no longer wished to fight.
With victory achieved the Franks collected as much spoil as they could. Impoverished knights came back proudly wearing silk garments. Some boasted three and four painted shields. Some went prancing around the tents on Arab chargers. They did not stop to gather enemy heads because this happened at dusk. Very soon one and all were overwhelmed by darkness.
No more was it light than Turks crept out of the city to gather corpses on the
