Rainald de Broves led six thousand Alemanni through the countryside and took a fortress called Xerogord which they found stocked with provisions. But the instrument of God’s wrath approached, a host of Turks ordered up by Sultan Kilij Arslan who was called the Red Lion. At the head of these Turks, Elchanes. Rainald hid some of his men outside the walls near a fountain. Elchanes discovered the trap and cut them down, after which he laid siege. Xerogord perched on a hill, so the Alemanni were deprived of water. According to the Gesta Francorum, those inside Xerogord had no water for eight days. They sucked the blood of mules and horses, drank their own waste, dipped rags into latrines and squeezed filth into their mouths, smeared shit on their bodies. Priests comforted them, urged them not to yield. Be strong. Be strong in the faith of Christ, said the priests. Be not afraid of those who would persecute you. Be not afraid of them that kill the body yet cannot kill the spirit.
After eight days Godfrey Burel, who was master of foot soldiers, vowed to fight alone against the Turks and rode forth to challenge them, spouting much brave talk. But instead of giving battle he bared his neck, miserably offering himself to these enemies of God. By certain accounts he agreed to surrender the fortress in exchange for his life. Whatever the truth, once the Turks occupied Xerogord they demanded to know which Christians would deny the Savior. Those who refused all at once sprouted arrows. Others marched into abject captivity like the animals they had stolen, marched away to Antioch, Chorosan, wherever their captors lived. These were the first pilgrims to suffer at infidel hands, the first to embrace martyrdom.
Elchanes turned against the Christian camp near Civetot. He directed spies to go and pretend that Germans had captured the city of Nicaea which was very rich. This excited the Franks at Civetot who thought themselves entitled to share the plunder. Trumpets began to sound. Soon enough five hundred knights accompanied by twenty thousand men afoot pressed noisily into the forest toward Nicaea. Only those who lacked weapons or felt too weak to march remained at camp. It is said they advanced in six battle lines, each with an uplifted standard, boasting, shouting. Now here came the Red Lion himself, Kilij Arslan, leading his Turks through the forest. Hearing such tumult among the trees he paused to marvel. What is this? he wondered. Behold! he said. Are these not the Franks? Let us go back to the open field where we will meet them, where they have no refuge.
So when the foolish pilgrims got out of the woods they saw a field thick with enemies and were amazed. They began to shout, to encourage themselves in the name of Jesus. But the Turks, skillful archers, unleashed flight upon flight of arrows. Fulk, a soldier famous in his own country, gave up the ghost. Walter the Penniless ascended to Paradise, ten or twenty darts piercing his chain mail. Walter de Breteuil fled through brambles and thickets. Godfrey Burel, according to some, did not bare his neck at Xerogord but turned from this battle and galloped back along the path to Civetot. God knows the truth. Now what remained of little Peter’s army rushed desperately through the forest, Turks rejoicing at their heels. And when these heartless pagans got into the Frankish camp they rode among the tents killing the old, the sick, the feeble. Some they caught naked, others asleep, women nursing infants, all butchered. They found a priest celebrating mass, cut him down where he stood at his altar. Delicate girls or young boys and nuns agreeable to the eye they led off to captivity. How often we approve the beginning of things yet do not guess their end.
What of the hermit whose lugubrious face led thousands to this diabolic shore? He returned to France but never preached again, nor often spoke about what he knew. They say he brought back various holy relics and entered a monastery near Liège where he vanished in the depths of time.
Later that year a priest who accompanied the Frankish barons noted heaps of skeletons bleached by desert sun along the gulf of Nicomedia, pyramids of severed heads. Princess Anna Comnena, when she came to look around, observed twenty thousand skeletons or more, by her account a mountainous testament to folly. And it is related that years afterward when Franks built new walls for Nicomedia they used the bones of little Peter’s soldiers in lieu of mortar, plugged chinks with Christian bones, made Nicomedia a tomb.
Exploits in which he took no part were attributed to the hermit until his reputation exceeded that of Godfrey de Bouillon, descended from Charlemagne, who held the richest fiefs in Lorraine. Why does Godfrey de Bouillon walk in the shadow of a monk with bare feet? This great duke sold estates on the Meuse to equip his army. He sold the city of Metz to its inhabitants for one hundred thousand gold crowns. He pledged Bouillon to the bishop of Liège. He bequeathed the castle of Ramioul to the Holy Church. All this born of his need to serve our Lord. Some say he vowed to avenge Christ’s death with the blood of Jews during this pilgrimage. Concerning the truth of that, I have no knowledge.
In the spring of 1096 these barons set forth, some with falcons riding on their wrists,
