Is it not true that visions breed quicker than mice? The ghost of Saint George addressed a priest, Peter Desiderius, bidding him enter the church of Saint Leontius, saying he would find within it the relics of four saints that he should carry to Jerusalem. John Chrysostom. Cyprian. Omechios. Leontius.
Peter Desiderius did not fully believe the specter, entreating God if it were false or true. But at this Saint George threatened him and said he must do as he was told or things would go ill for him and his lord, the count of Die. Much affrighted, the priest went scurrying to chaplain Raymond d’Agiles, who consulted the bishop of Orange, Count Raymond, and others. So they proceeded to the church where they lighted candles to God, praying mightily. And next morning they discovered a chest stuffed with bones. Yet no one could guess who these bones were. The priest of Saint Leontius wanted to keep them, whereupon Raymond d’Agiles said if the saint wished to go with the army to Jerusalem he ought to disclose his name. If not, he should be content with his niche in Antioch. For, said Raymond, why burden ourselves with strange bones?
No voice being heard, the relics were bound up in cloth.
That night a youth of surpassing radiance came to visit Peter Desiderius and inquired angrily why his relics were not set aside with others.
Who art thou? Peter asked.
Dost not thou know? the youth demanded. Dost not know who bears the standard of this army?
Saint George, Peter replied.
I am he. Now set aside my bones with the rest. And close by thou wilt find in a small ampule twelve drops of the blood of Saint Tecla the martyr, which likewise must go to Jerusalem.
Peter did as he was instructed and afterward chanted mass.
Is not our Savior an irrefutable fountain whose munificence enriches all? Gerbault de Lille obtained from a monastery in Greece one arm of a saint. Robert the Fleming in Apulia acquired numerous holy bones. Ilger Bogod in Jerusalem was privileged to see a tangle of hair the Virgin clawed from her head while mourning. And in ancient times a king of Britons by name Quilius got for himself a length of rope that bound our Lord to the whipping post, a bit of the scourge that furrowed His body, thorns from the Crown, a splinter from the Cross, a shred of the garment His mother wore while giving birth. Thus do they benefit who truly believe.
Anon, the living host marched from Antioch. But what followed? Tafurs. That is to say in our language Trudennes, those who skulk and wander about killing time. Jackals. Vagabonds. Dregs of Gaul. Sluts. Ribalds. Clapperclaws. Brigands. Who could describe such offal? Breeches undone, leaking ulcers, reeking of Paris gutters, born with a need for poverty. Weeds and grass they munched. For a crust of bread they would hold a bridle, carry a log. Leather they chewed, gobbled roots, sucked raindrops out of rock. Mice they relished, clubbed bony dogs to death, trotted with flaming eyes toward putrid mounds of camel flesh. Pagan burials they searched for corpses that they strung up in the wind to dry, pounded rotten bodies with flails, thrust moldy arms and legs into bubbling cauldrons, claimed the meat of a Turk superior to pork. So sang the minstrel Robert le Pèlerin. Barefoot did these Tafurs march, pouches slung at their necks by plaited cords, menacing with pointed sticks, jaw bones, mattocks, never a lance or sword but common daggers. Unpaid, looking to no reward save the benediction of our Savior, a chance to sleep in heaven. Like mangy lions they attacked the infidel, overturned ballistas, hurled stones, boasted Le Roi Tafur as king, some Norman petty noble who traded sword and breastplate for scythe and sackcloth. Indigence to this chuff seemed godly. And did their grimy sovereign meet a vassal parading in filched robes, straightway was he drummed out of the wretched kingdom.
Twenty leagues from Antioch stood Maarat al-Numan whose citizens were haughty because in times past they had killed or enslaved numerous Christians. God’s army bivouacked among the olive groves and set to work constructing huts roofed with grapevine and branches. They built hurdles, rams, siege engines. Each day at sundown they looked up at Turks climbing a hill toward a mosque on the summit. Here the pagans would assemble for evening worship, persisting at wicked misbelief, led astray by ignorance, by obdurate depravity.
These Turks cursed the living army of God, vilified the barons. They dangled crosses outside the wall to infuriate Jerusalemfarers. When scaling ladders were placed against the wall they let down iron hooks to catch any who set foot on a ladder and drag him up where he would be stabbed with curved knives, yateghans, or slashed to death with scimitars. The knights climbed timidly because the ladders were fragile, so they were repulsed. Many in the host despaired, thinking they would starve before escaping this accursed land. Some turned homeward. Others trudged through the fields, pausing to search out beans, roots, grains of wheat.
Our Lord observing His troubled children resolved to comfort them. In Count Raymond’s chapel the servant Bartholomew lay fast asleep when he awoke to find a man with a
