God's War: A New History of the Crusades

Although probably the first magnate to take the cross, and the only one certainly to have had prior warning of Urban’s message at Clermont, Raymond had started late, in October 1096. His army was probably the largest and best funded; his preparations had been meticulous; his entourage filled with the eminent from the Limousin, Languedoc and Provence, including the counts of Orange and Montpellier, the viscounts of Béarn and Turenne, as well as the pope’s designated leader of the enterprise, Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy and his Monteil brothers from the Auvergne. It is possible Raymond’s planning lay behind the Genoese fleet despatched to the Levant in July 1097; Urban had sent a legation to the city led by Bishop William of Orange, who later accompanied Raymond east.⁴⁰ Yet Urban’s grant of a papal banner to Hugh of Vermandois and legatine authority to the chaplains of the duke of Normandy and the count of Blois at Lucca in October 1096 indicated that, despite Raymond’s early involvement and Urban’s tour of his lands in June and July 1096, he had no claim to overall command of the enterprise beyond his seniority (he was about sixty); possibly his experience in fighting in Spain; his association with Bishop Adhemar; and his money.⁴¹ He proved a difficult colleague; it is hard to determine whether his repeated displays of ill-temper were a cause or effect of his political isolation. However, his journey to Constantinople might have tried a saint.

Avoiding the Adriatic crossings from Italy, presumably because of the lateness of season, Raymond laboriously led his large army around the head of the Adriatic and down the Dalmatian coast across very difficult terrain. The natives proved unfriendly, provoking reciprocal atrocities. On reaching Byzantine territory at Durazzo in January, Raymond’s troops discovered a resentful populace, suspicious authorities and hard-pressed escorts. It was mid-winter; food supplies were beginning to present a problem, not least because of the recent passage of Bohemund’s army. There were increasing confrontations with locals and the Pecheneg police escort. Raymond of Aguilers caught the bitterness of the crusaders’ reaction:

we were confident that we were in our own land, because we believed that Alexius and his followers were our Christian brothers and confederates. But truly, with the savagery of lions they rushed upon peaceful men who were oblivious of their need for self defence.⁴²

In one incident, Adhemar of Le Puy was quite badly wounded; although he recovered after recuperating at Thessalonica, he appears hardly at all in the chroniclers’ accounts of the negotiations at Constantinople. The problem was food. The Provençals sacked Roussa and, after Raymond had left his troops to parley with emperor in April 1097, were dispersed by imperial soldiers as punishment for ravaging. When he heard, the count was unamused and in no mood to place himself under the lordship of a ruler whose conduct had to date appeared either incompetent or mendacious.

The last army to reach the Byzantine capital contained the contingents led by Robert of Normandy and his brother-in-law Stephen of Blois. Initially, they had travelled with Count Robert II of Flanders, whose father, Robert I the Frisian, having undertaken a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, had served with Alexius in the Balkans in the late 1080s and had later sent the emperor a force of 500 knights. Robert II of Normandy’s grandfather, Robert I the Devil (or Magnificent according to taste) had died on pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1035; his father, William the Conqueror, had been asked to assist the Byzantines against the Turks in the 1060s.⁴³ His own crusade owed as much to his political difficulties in his duchy as to the advice of his spiritual advisers, who were credited with persuading him to join the march to Jerusalem. A poor politician, Robert was an effective military leader and warrior and a popular companion. Supported by the 10,000 marks provided by his younger brother, William II Rufus, king of England, Robert cut a finer figure on crusade than he had at home. At the head of a substantial force of Anglo-Norman nobles, including representatives of the families of Montgomery, Grandmesnil, Gournay and Percy, he picked up more followers on the journey. Eustace III of Boulogne, eldest brother to Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin, and a major landowner in England, probably travelled with him; in Italy Norman émigrés such as Roger of Barneville joined their ancestral lord.