William of Tyre: HISTORIA RERUM IN PARTIBUS TRANSMARINIS GESTARUM

CAPUT PRIMUM. Boamundus, Antiochenorum princeps, commisso principatu Tancredo, transfretans in Franciam properat, Francorumque regis filiam ducit uxorem. Hierosolymorum patriarcha Romam petit.

CHAPTER ONE. Bohemond, prince of the Antiochenes, the principality having been committed to Tancred, crossing over the sea hastens into France, and takes to wife the daughter of the king of the Franks. The patriarch of Jerusalem makes for Rome.

Rex uxorem legitimam absque causae cognitione deserit.

The king deserts his legitimate wife without knowledge of the cause.

Aestate vero transcursa, dominus Boamundus, multo aeris alieni pondere fatigatus, ut ad debiti solutionem se pararet et ut de partibus ultramarinis majores militum secum traheret copias, principatus sui cura et administratione generali, cum plena jurisdictione dilecto suo consanguineo domino Tancredo commissa, in Apuliam navigavit; et cum eo dominus Daybertus, Hierolosymorum patriarcha. Qui, postquam in Apuliam pervenit, modico tempore in sua regione moram faciens, assumpto de suis fidelibus honesto comitatu, Alpes transiens, ad dominum Philippum illustrem Francorum regem pervenit. A quo inter caetera duas ejus obtinuit filias, unam de legitimo natam matrimonio, Constantiam nomine, quam sibi foedere conjugali copulavit in uxorem; alteram nomine Ceciliam, quam ei Andegavensium comitissa, (quae spreto marito, ad eumdem dominum regem se contulerat) uxore adhuc vivente, pepererat, quam domino Tancredo nepoti suo, ex Apulia missam, destinavit uxorem.

But when the summer had passed, lord Bohemond, wearied by a great weight of debt, in order that he might prepare himself for the payment of the debt and that he might draw with him greater forces of soldiers from the parts beyond the sea, having committed the care and general administration of his principality, with full jurisdiction, to his beloved kinsman lord Tancred, sailed to Apulia; and with him lord Daybert, Patriarch of Jerusalem. He, after he reached Apulia, making a stay for a short time in his own region, taking from among his faithful an honorable retinue, crossed the Alps and came to lord Philip, the illustrious king of the Franks. From whom, among other things, he obtained two of his daughters: one born of a legitimate marriage, by name Constance, whom he joined to himself as wife by the conjugal bond; the other, by name Cecilia, whom the Countess of Anjou (who, spurning her husband, had betaken herself to that same lord king), while his wife was still living, had borne to him—this one he appointed as a wife for lord Tancred, his nephew, sent to him from Apulia.

Completis ergo negotiis tam apud eumdem dominum regem quam in aliis ultramontanis partibus, cum ingenti equitum peditumque transfretare volentium multitudine, in Apuliam iterum reversus est. At vero dominus Daybertus ad Ecclesiam Romanam accedens, et injuriarum, quas patiebatur, modum aperiens; simul et Arnulfi nimis efficacem malitiam ordine pandens, nec non domini regis sinistram intentionem, qua Ecclesiam Dei humiliare nitebatur, omnes ad sui movit compassionem, gratiam obtinens universorum. Nec solum id enorme, quod de domino patriarcha Dayberto supra memoravimus factum esse, contra disciplinam ecclesiasticam, rex commiserat; verum etiam uxorem legitimam, quam apud Edessam, dum ibi comes esset, duxerat, absque causae cognitione, non convictam, non confessam, lege matrimoniorum neglecta, dimisit, eamque in monasterio Sanctae Annae, matris Dei Genitricis et semper virginis Mariae, monacham fieri compulit violenter.

Therefore, the affairs being completed both with that same lord king and in the other transalpine parts, he returned again into Apulia with an enormous multitude of horsemen and footmen wishing to cross the straits. But indeed lord Daybert, acceding to the Roman Church and disclosing the extent of the injuries which he was suffering, and at the same time unfolding in order Arnulf’s all-too-effective malice, and also the lord king’s sinister intention, by which he was striving to humiliate the Church of God, moved all to compassion for himself, obtaining the favor of all. Nor had the king committed only that enormous thing which we have above mentioned to have been done concerning lord patriarch Daybert, against ecclesiastical discipline; but he also dismissed his legitimate wife, whom at Edessa, while he was count there, he had taken in marriage, without examination of cause, neither convicted nor confessing, the law of marriages neglected, and he violently compelled her to become a nun in the monastery of Saint Anne, mother of the God-Bearer and ever-virgin Mary.

Est autem idem locus Hierosolymis in parte orientali, juxta portam quae dicitur Josaphat, secus lacum qui tempore antiquo Probatica dicebatur piscina; ubi ostenditur cripta, in qua Joachim et praedictae Annae traditiones habent veterum domicilia fuisse; ubi et Virgo perpetua nata esse perhibetur. Erant autem ibi tres vel quatuor pauperes mulierculae vitam sanctimonialem professae, quibus gratia uxoris introductae ampliavit possessiones et patrimonium dilatavit. Causa autem cur ab uxore diverterit, apud diversos varia ferebatur: dicentibus aliis, dominum regem ideo dimisisse uxorem ut, ditiorem et nobiliorem ducendo, conditionem suam faceret meliorem; et paupertati, qua plurimum premebatur, sumpta dotis nomine aliunde opulentia, consuleret; aliis vero asserentibus, reginam improvidam minusque prudentem, tori maritalis minus caute observasse foedera.

Now the same place is at Jerusalem on the eastern part, near the gate which is called Josaphat, beside the pool which in ancient time was called the Probatica pool; where a crypt is shown, in which the traditions of the ancients hold that the dwellings of Joachim and of the aforesaid Anna were; where also the perpetual Virgin is reported to have been born. There were there three or four poor women, professing the monastic life, for whom, by the favor of the wife who had been brought in, he enlarged the possessions and expanded the patrimony. But the cause why he turned away from his wife was being reported variously among different people: some saying that the lord king therefore dismissed his wife so that, by taking a richer and more noble one, he might make his condition better, and that, with wealth taken from elsewhere under the name of a dowry, he might provide for the poverty by which he was very much pressed; others, however, asserting that the queen, imprudent and less than prudent, had less cautiously observed the covenants of the marital bed.

Cumque prius, quasi gaudens, religionis habitum videretur assumpsisse, et primo conversionis suae tempore, satis honeste videretur in eodem monasterio conversata, tandem occasione sumpta ex commentis fraudibus, ad dominum regem accedens, licentiam obtinet ut pro necessitate monasterii sui, ad sublevandam ejus inopiam liceret ei consanguineos suos, qui Constantinopoli erant, visitare: sub quo praetextu de regno exiens, sordibus et immunditiis omnem coepit dare operam; depositoque religionis habitu, divaricans se ad omnem transeuntem nec propriae parcens aestimationi, nec regiam quam habuit reverita dignitatem.

And although at first, as if rejoicing, she seemed to have assumed the religious habit, and in the first time of her conversion she seemed to have conducted herself quite honorably in that same monastery, at length, taking occasion from contrived deceits, approaching the lord king she obtains license that, for the necessity of her monastery, to alleviate its indigence it might be permitted her to visit her blood-relatives who were at Constantinople; under which pretext, going out from the kingdom, she began to give all her effort to filths and immundities; and, the habit of religion laid aside, splaying herself to every passer-by, sparing neither her own estimation, nor revering the royal dignity which she had.

CAPUT II. Dominus Raimundus Tolosanus comes moritur. Willelmus Jordanis, ejus nepos, ei succedit. Rodoan, Turcorum princeps magnus, fines nostros ingreditur, cui Tancredus occurrit, et confusum vertit in fugam.

CHAPTER 2. Lord Raymond, count of Toulouse, dies. William Jordan, his nephew, succeeds him. Rodoan, great prince of the Turks, enters our borders, whom Tancred goes out to meet, and puts to flight in confusion.

Anno sequenti, qui erat ab Incarnatione Domini 1195, dominus Raimundus bonae memoriae, comes Tolosanus, vir religiosus et timens Deum, vir per omnia commendabilis, cujus actus admirabiles et vita virtutibus insignis speciales desiderant tractatus, in oppido suo quod ipse fundaverat ante urbem Tripolitanam, cui nomen Mons Peregrinus, viam universae carnis, verus Christi confessor, ingressus est, pridie Kal. Martii; cui successit nepos ejus Willelmus Jordanis, in eadem obsidionis sollicitudine; in quo opere usque ad adventum comitis Bertrami, satis strenue viriliterque desudavit, quousque super eadem re quaestionem passus, aliquantulum ab opere destitit, ut in sequentibus dicetur. Admirandam sane hujus venerabilis viri et tam praesentibus quam futuris commendabilem insignis animi credimus constantiam, qui semel pro Christo initam, usque ad supremum exitum vitae, non fastidivit patienter portare peregrinationem.

In the following year, which was, from the Incarnation of the Lord, 1195, lord Raymond of good memory, count of Toulouse, a religious and God-fearing man, a man in all respects commendable, whose admirable deeds and a life distinguished by virtues call for special treatises, in his town which he himself had founded before the city of Tripoli, which is named Mount Pilgrim, entered the way of all flesh, a true confessor of Christ, on the day before the Kalends of March; to whom his nephew William Jordan succeeded, in the same solicitude of the siege; in which work he toiled vigorously and manfully until the arrival of Count Bertrand, until, having undergone a dispute about the same matter, he withdrew somewhat from the work, as will be said below. Truly we deem admirable the constancy of this venerable man, commendable to both those present and those to come, of an outstanding spirit, who, the pilgrimage once undertaken for Christ, did not disdain to bear it patiently unto the utmost end of life.

Et cum in patria tanquam vir illustris et praepotens et amplissimum habens patrimonium, potuisset bonis omnibus abundare pro votis, elegit potius abjectus esse in obsequiis Domini, egressus de terra et de cognatione sua, quam in tabernaculis apud suos abundare peccatorum. Caeteri enim principes ejusdem peregrinationis professores, urbe sancta restituta libertati, quasi votorum potiti consummatione, reversi sunt ad propria; hic autem semel assumptam crucem veritus est deponere. Cumque a suis familiaribus et domesticis illi cum multo suggereretur studio, ut voti compos, desideranti se patriae restitueret, maluit se in holocaustum dare Domino quam illecebris se reddere saecularibus; magistrum imitatus, cui cum diceretur: Descende de cruce (Matth.

And though in his homeland, as an illustrious and very powerful man and possessing a most ample patrimony, he could have abounded in every good at his desire, he chose rather to be abject in the services of the Lord, going forth from his land and from his kindred, than to abound in the tabernacles of sins among his own. For the other princes, professors of the same pilgrimage, the Holy City having been restored to liberty, as though having attained the consummation of their vows, returned to their own; but this man feared to lay down the cross once assumed. And when by his intimates and household it was urged upon him with great zeal that, as one having achieved his vow, he should restore himself to his longed-for fatherland, he preferred to give himself as a holocaust to the Lord rather than to render himself to secular allurements; imitating the Master, to whom, when it was being said: Come down from the cross (Matt.

XXVII, 40), maluit consummata passione, alienis deponi manibus, quam ab incoepto nostrae salutis deficere proposito.

27, 40), he preferred, the passion consummated, to be taken down by others' hands, rather than to fall away from the purpose of our salvation once begun.

Eodem etiam anno, Rodoan, quidam vir praepotens, Halapiae dominus, de adjacentibus regionibus tam prece quam pretio, convocatis auxiliis, in gravi multitudine Antiochenorum fines ingressus, regionem totam in incursionibus deterrebat et incendiis molestabat frequentibus. Quod audiens dominus Tancredus, convocatis viribus et tam equitum quam peditum militaribus copiis, illuc procedit ei obviam, ubi eum suas habere copias fama celebriore compererat. Egressus igitur ab Antiochia, versus Artasiam exercitus dirigit: quo perveniens, hostium ingentem multitudinem, ut ei nuntiatum fuerat, reperit; in quos, invocato de supernis auxilio et pro meritis impetrato, viriliter irruens, primo resistere tentantes, sed mox in dissolutionem datos, in fugam adegit.

In the same year also, Rodoan, a certain very powerful man, lord of Halapia, from the adjacent regions both by entreaty and by price, having convoked auxiliaries, entered the confines of the Antiochenes with a heavy multitude, terrifying the whole region with incursions and molesting it with frequent conflagrations. Hearing this, lord Tancred, having called together his forces and the military troops both of horse and of foot, proceeds thither to meet him, to where he had learned by a more widely-bruited report that he had his forces. Having gone out therefore from Antioch, he directs the army toward Artasia; arriving there, he found, as it had been announced to him, an enormous multitude of the enemy; against whom, the aid from on high invoked and, as his merits deserved, obtained, rushing manfully in, they at first attempted to resist, but soon, given over to dissolution, he drove them into flight.

Caesis autem innumeris, captivati sunt ex eis plurimi, retento vexillo praedicti Rodoan; qui, ut vitae consuleret, fugam primus inierat; quodque nostris multo fuit solatio, in recompensationem eorum quos in similibus negotiis amiserant saepius, equos optimos, quos ab hostibus dejectis eorum sessoribus abstulerant violenter, sibi multos vindicaverunt.

However, with countless slain, very many of them were taken captive, the vexillum of the aforesaid Rodoan being retained; he, that he might have regard for his life, had been the first to take flight; and what was much solace to our men, in recompense for those whom in similar affairs they had often lost, they claimed for themselves many excellent horses, which, their riders having been cast down, they had violently carried off from the enemy.

CAPUT III. Aegyptii cum ingentibus copiis regno se infundunt; quibus rex occurrens, captis nonnullis, pluribus interemptis, reliquos in fugam adegit.

CHAPTER 3. The Egyptians, with huge forces, pour themselves into the kingdom; against whom the king, meeting them, with some captured and more slain, drove the rest into flight.

Eodem anno, accesserunt ad Aegyptium calipham quidam de principibus ejus, dicentes: Populus ille peregrinorum, qui hoc novissimo tempore regnum tuum violenter ingressi sunt, et animarum prodigi suarum, hactenus principibus a te missis restiterunt, de multitudine confisi quam prior introduxerat exercitus, hanc sibi comparaverant audaciam. Nunc autem illis ex maxima parte reversis ad propria, et adventantium peregrinorum solatio destituti, facti sunt rariores, frequentibus expeditionibus facultatibus eorum omnino consumptis. Unde nobis videtur opportunum, si tuae id ipsum visum fuerit majestati, ut electum unum de magnatibus tuis.

In the same year, some of his princes approached the Egyptian caliph, saying: That people of pilgrims, who in this most recent time have forcibly entered your kingdom, and, prodigal of their own lives, have until now stood fast against the princes sent by you—trusting in the multitude which the former army had introduced, they had acquired for themselves this audacity. Now, however, with those men for the greatest part returned to their own places, and deprived of the solace of arriving pilgrims, they have become fewer, their resources entirely consumed by frequent expeditions. Whence it seems opportune to us, if this same thing should seem good to your majesty, that one chosen from among your magnates.

ad partes illas dirigas, qui regionem illam ab illo infelici populo occupatam, expediat. Placuit sermo et optimus visus est in conspectu caliphae; et praecipiens ingentem convocari exercitum et classem parari maximam, designatis principibus utrique seorsum exercitui, eos in Syriam dirigit; qui pervenientes Ascalonam, magnam regno universo intulerunt formidinem. Quod audiens rex, Joppen cum universis regni viribus celer pervenit, lege edictali praecipiens ut omnes illuc de singulis urbibus sine mora conveniant. Adfuerunt igitur sub omni celeritate qui evocati fuerant; inter quos et dominus Ebremarus Hierosolymorum patriarcha, vivificae crucis lignum salutare secum deferens, nihilominus adfuit.

that you dispatch to those parts one of your magnates, who may free that region, occupied by that ill-fated people. The speech pleased and seemed best in the sight of the caliph; and ordering that a huge army be convened and a very great fleet be prepared, with leaders appointed for each army separately, he directs them into Syria; who, arriving at Ascalon, brought great fear upon the whole kingdom. Hearing this, the king swiftly arrived at Joppa with all the forces of the kingdom, by an edictal law ordering that all from each city should assemble there without delay. Therefore those who had been summoned were present with all speed; among whom the lord Ebremarus, patriarch of Jerusalem, was likewise present, carrying with him the saving wood of the life-giving Cross.

Quibus receptis, recensito nostrorum numero, inventi sunt habere equites quingentos, peditum duo millia. Hostium vero dicebatur esse numerus ad quindecim millia, exceptis illis qui in classe militabant. Qui ab Ascalona discedentes, classem praeceperunt versus Joppen properare; ipsi autem Azotum transeuntes, in duas se turmas dividunt, ordinantes ut altera illarum versus Ramulam procedat, dominum regem ad pugnam provocans; altera Joppen properet, ut rege contra alteram occupato, illam urbem impugnet, convocatis iis qui in classe illuc jam advenerant.

When these had been received, and the number of our men reviewed, they were found to have five hundred horsemen and two thousand foot. But the number of the enemy was said to be up to fifteen thousand, excepting those who served in the fleet. They, departing from Ascalon, ordered the fleet to hasten toward Joppa; but they themselves, crossing over to Azotus, divide themselves into two squadrons, ordaining that one of them should advance toward Ramula, provoking the lord king to battle; the other should hasten to Joppa, so that, the king being occupied against the former, it might assault that city, having convoked those who had already arrived there with the fleet.

Juxta ergo praedictum consilium, bipertito agmine, pars altera Ramulenses fines ingressa, instructis aciebus, adventus sui, tubarum crepitu et strepitu tympanorum, evidens dederunt argumentum. Hoc autem de industria fiebat ut, dominum regem cum suis expeditionibus in se provocantes, pars altera oram maritimam secuta, Joppen tuta posset pervenire; sed evanuerunt in cogitationibus suis. Nam, cum regem cum suis expeditionibus appropinquantem intuerentur, contabuerunt corda eorum prae timoris angustia; et alteram partem revocantes, vix adhuc putabant se sufficientem habere multitudinem ut ejus possent manus evadere.

Accordingly, therefore, in keeping with the aforesaid counsel, with the host divided in two, the other part, having entered the borders of Ramla, with the battle-lines drawn up, gave manifest evidence of their arrival by the blare of trumpets and the din of drums. This, however, was being done deliberately so that, provoking the lord king with his expeditionary forces against themselves, the other part, following the maritime shore, might safely reach Joppa; but their plans evaporated. For when they beheld the king approaching with his expeditionary forces, their hearts melted from the straitness of fear; and recalling the other part, they scarcely still thought that they had a sufficient multitude to be able to escape his hands.

Factum est ergo quod, convenientibus contra se mutuo legionibus, rex cum suis in hostes irruens instat animosius; verbo simul et exemplo suorum exhortans acies, vires ingeminat. Dominus quoque patriarcha, vivificae crucis lignum praeliaturis ingerens et percurrens agmina, monet et hortatur ut ejus meminerint, qui pro nobis peccatoribus in eodem ligno salutem operari voluit; praecipit etiam, in remissionem peccatorum, ut contra hostes nominis et fidei Christianae decertent viriliter, ab eodem mercedem exspectantes, qui suis solet centuplum retribuere. Sic ergo nostri facti animosiores, hostibus vehementius instant; et implorato de coelis auxilio, perempta ex eis infinita multitudine, reliquos in fugam convertunt. Cecidit autem in eodem conflictu praeses Ascalonitanus; sed universi exercitus procurator evasit fugiens.

It came to pass, therefore, that, the legions coming together mutually against each other, the king, rushing upon the enemies with his men, presses more spiritedly; by word as well as by example exhorting the battle-lines of his own, he redoubles strength. The lord patriarch also, thrusting the wood of the life-giving cross before those about to do battle and running through the ranks, warns and encourages that they remember him who for us sinners on the same wood willed to work salvation; he also enjoins, for the remission of sins, that they contend manfully against the enemies of the Christian name and faith, expecting the reward from the same one, who is accustomed to repay a hundredfold to his own. Thus, therefore, our men, made more high-spirited, press the enemies more vehemently; and, aid from the heavens having been implored, with an infinite multitude of them slain, they turn the rest to flight. However, in the same conflict the Ascalonite praeses fell; but the procurator of the whole army escaped by fleeing.

Dicuntur caesa illa die, de hostibus quasi quatuor millia; de nostris vero sexaginta inter mortuos reperti sunt. Obtinuerunt ergo, praevia Domini clementia, hostium castra et infinitas camelorum phalanges; sed et asinos et equos innumerabiles, cum optimis spoliis et pluribus mancipiis secum trahentes, Joppen cum laetitia et exsultatione pervenerunt. Captus est etiam illa die quidam nobilis, qui aliquando fuerat procurator in civitate Acconensi, pro quo rex postmodum viginti millia dicitur habuisse aureorum.

They are said to have been cut down that day, of the enemy about four thousand; but of our men sixty were found among the dead. They therefore, the Lord’s clemency going before, seized the enemy’s camp and infinite phalanxes of camels; and asses and horses innumerable as well, dragging along with them the choicest spoils and many captives, they came to Joppa with joy and exultation. There was also taken that day a certain noble, who had once been procurator in the city of Acre, for whom the king afterwards is said to have received twenty thousand in gold.

Classis tamen hostium nihilominus adhuc in portu Joppensi morabatur; sed cognito suorum interitu, austro flatus ministrante necessarios, in portum se Tyrensem receperunt. Unde postmodum in Aegyptum redire cupientes, orta repente in mari procella, vi turbinis ab invicem divisi, viginti quinque naves ex eis fretum sustinere non valentes, in nostra littora impegerunt; ex quarum remigibus et nautis, exceptis mortuis, nostri in vincula conjecerunt plus quam duo millia.

Nevertheless the enemy’s fleet was still lingering in the port of Joppa; but when the destruction of their men was learned, with the south wind supplying the necessary blasts, they withdrew into the port of Tyre. Whence afterwards, wishing to return into Egypt, a squall having suddenly arisen at sea, divided from one another by the force of the whirlwind, twenty-five of their ships, unable to withstand the strait, were driven onto our shores; of whose oarsmen and sailors, the dead excepted, our men cast into chains more than 2,000.

CAPUT IV. Daimbertus patriarcha cum prosecutione apostolicarum rediens litterarum, apud Messanam urbem Siciliae moritur. Ebremarus sedis illius incubator, Romam contendit. Legatus Arelatensium archiepiscopus Gibelinus mittitur, qui postmodum in patriarcham substituitur.

CHAPTER 4. Daimbert the patriarch, returning in prosecution of apostolic letters, dies at the city of Messana in Sicily. Ebremar, the incubator of that see, hastens to Rome. The legate, Gibelinus, archbishop of the Arlesians, is sent, who thereafter is substituted as patriarch.

Interea dominus Daimbertus, Hierosolymorum patriarcha, post longam exspectationem, qua eum detinuerat dominus Paschalis papa et Ecclesia Romana, volens plenius edoceri utrum rex Hierosolymorum et qui eum expulerant vellent contra eum aliquid allegare, unde hoc videri possent de jure fecisse; postquam nemo comparuit, qui contra eum aliquid objiceret, nec in ejus facto aliquid aliud notari poterat, nisi quod regia expulsus erat violentia, cum plenitudine gratiae et apostolicarum prosecutione litterarum, jussus est ad propria redire et sedem recipere, ex qua indebite fuerat deturbatus. Qui tandem in Siciliam veniens, apud Messanam moram faciens necessariam, transitum exspectans, gravi correptus aegritudine, sexto decimo Kal. Julii, viam universae carnis ingressus est.

Meanwhile lord Daimbert, patriarch of Jerusalem, after a long expectation during which lord Paschal the pope and the Roman Church had detained him, wishing to be more fully instructed whether the king of Jerusalem and those who had expelled him would wish to allege anything against him, whereby they might seem to have done this by right; after no one appeared to object anything against him, nor could anything else be noted in his case except that he had been expelled by royal violence, with the plenitude of grace and with the accompaniment of apostolic letters for his prosecution, he was ordered to return to his own and to recover the see from which he had been unduly thrust down. He, at length coming into Sicily, making a necessary delay at Messina, awaiting a crossing, was seized by a grave sickness, and on June 16 entered upon the way of all flesh.

Sedit autem in pace annis quatuor, in exsilio vero, tribus. Ebremarus vero ejusdem sedis incubator, audiens quod praedictus dominus Daimbertus, cum plenitudine gratiae revertebatur, sedem suam recepturus, antequam de obitu ejus instrueretur, ad eamdem Romanam transfretare decrevit Ecclesiam, allegaturus de sua innocentia quomodo invitum et renitentem in eamdem sedem eum locaverant. Quo perveniens nihil impetrare potuit, quam ut cum eo dirigeretur legatus, qui de causa ejus, Hierosolymis constitutus, plenius posset cognoscere.

He sat, moreover, in peace for four years, but in exile for three. Ebremarus, however, the usurper of that same see, hearing that the aforesaid lord Daimbert was returning with the fullness of grace to receive back his seat, before he was informed of his death, resolved to cross over to that same Roman Church, intending to allege his innocence—how they had placed him in that same see unwilling and resisting. On arriving there, he was able to obtain nothing except that a legate should be sent with him, who, once positioned at Jerusalem, might be able to learn his case more fully.

Designatus est autem ad id munus prosequendum dominus Gibelinus, vir senior et grandaevus, Arelatensis archiepiscopus, qui de mandato domini papae, Hierosolymam profectus, convocato episcoporum regni concilio, de causa domini Ebremari cognovit plenius. Cumque ei constitisset per testes idoneos sufficientes et majores omni exceptione, quod dominus Daybertus absque causa legitima, Arnulfi factionibus et regia violentia fuerat expulsus, et quod Ebremarus adhuc viventis pontificis et Ecclesiae Romanae habentis communionem sedem occupaverat, auctoritate qua praeeminebat, eum a patriarchatu deposuit. Sed considerans multam viri religionem et simplicitatem miram, Caesariensem, quae tunc vacabat, Ecclesiam, ei concessit habendam.

But Lord Gibelin, an elder and very aged man, the archbishop of Arles, was designated to prosecute that charge; who, by mandate of the lord pope, having set out to Jerusalem, with a council of the bishops of the kingdom convened, learned more fully about the case of Lord Ebremar. And when it had been established to him by suitable and sufficient witnesses, unimpeachable, that Lord Daimbert, without lawful cause, had been driven out by the factions of Arnulf and by royal violence, and that Ebremar had occupied the see while the pontiff was still living and in communion with the Roman Church, by the authority in which he was preeminent he deposed him from the patriarchate. But considering the man’s great religion and remarkable simplicity, he granted to him the Church of Caesarea, which was then vacant, to be held.

Postmodum vero, dum de substituendo Ecclesiae Hierosolymitanae patriarcha clerus et populus disceptarent, constituta ad hoc specialiter die ut super eo negotio de more tractaretur, post multas hinc inde deliberationum partes, in dominum Gibelinum apostolicae sedis legatum unanimiter conveniunt, et eum in sedem locant patriarchalem. Hoc etiam praedictus Arnulfus malitiose dicitur construxisse, ut homo senex et decrepitus in illa sede diu vivere non posset. Eodem anno, qui erat ab Incarnatione Domini 1107, Ascalonitae, solita usi malitia, in via publica, qua ab Hierosolymis ad mare descenditur, in locis opportunis insidias locaverant, equitum quingentorum et peditum mille.

Afterwards, indeed, while the clergy and people were disputing about appointing a patriarch for the Church of Jerusalem, a day having been specially constituted for this, that concerning that business it might be dealt with according to custom, after many sides of deliberations on this side and that, they unanimously agree upon Lord Gibelin, legate of the Apostolic See, and place him in the patriarchal seat. This too is said to have been maliciously contrived by the aforesaid Arnulf, so that an old and decrepit man might not be able to live long in that seat. In the same year, which was 1107 from the Incarnation of the Lord, the Ascalonites, using their wonted malice, had set ambushes on the public road by which one goes down from Jerusalem to the sea, in suitable places, of five hundred horse and a thousand foot.

Audierant enim quod nostrorum caterva, ab urbe Joppensi egrediens, Hierosolymam esset profectura; volentesque quod viribus non poterant, dolis procurare, in praedictis latebant insidiis; cum ecce nostri omnium horum ignari, iter coeptum conficientes, in eorum offenderunt insidias. Cumque plurimum anxiarentur, dubitantes utrum cederent aut contenderent, instantibus hostibus deliberandi spatium abstulerunt. Videntes ergo nostri quod aut ignominiose occumbere, aut cum eis viriliter pugnare oporteret, facientes de necessitate virtutem, animos induunt; et quos prius habuerant formidabiles, resumpta audacia et spiritu vehementi instantes, in mentis convertunt stuporem; et jamjam nostrorum impetus ferre non valentes, multis interemptis, captivatis etiam nonnullis, eos in fugam versos aliquandiu prosecuti sunt.

For they had heard that a cohort of our men, going out from the city of Joppa, was going to set out for Jerusalem; and wishing to procure by wiles what they could not by forces, they lay hidden in the aforesaid ambushes; when behold, our men, ignorant of all these things, completing the journey they had begun, stumbled upon their ambush. And when they were greatly anxious, doubting whether they should yield or contend, with the enemies pressing they took away the space for deliberating. Therefore our men, seeing that either it was necessary to fall ignominiously or to fight with them manfully, making a virtue of necessity, put on courage; and those whom previously they had held fearsome, resuming audacity and pressing with vehement spirit, they turn into stupefaction of mind; and now, being no longer able to endure the impetus of our men, with many slain and several also taken captive, they, turned to flight, were for a while pursued.

Tandem divina opitulante gratia, victoria potiti, tribus tantum de suo numero perditis, Hierosolymam profecti sunt.

At length, with divine grace helping, having obtained the victory, with only three lost of their number, they set out for Jerusalem.

CAPUT V. Vir nobilis Hugo de Sancto Aldemaro, Tiberiadensium dominus, in montibus qui urbi praeeminent Tyrensi castrum locat, cui nomen est Toron; idemque non multo post cum Damascenis confligens, lethaliter confossus, sed tamen victor, occubuit. Ascalonitae quoque nostris volentes praetendere insidias, in laqueum quem paraverant incidunt.

CHAPTER 5. A noble man, Hugh of Saint-Audemar, lord of the Tiberians, in the mountains which are preeminent over the city of Tyre, places a castle, to which the name is Toron; and the same man, not much later, engaging with the Damascenes, lethally transfixed, yet as victor, fell. The Ascalonites also, wishing to present ambushes to our men, fall into the snare which they had prepared.

Eodem etiam tempore, cum Tyrensium civitas adhuc ab hostibus detineretur et nostrorum modis omnibus impediret processum, vir nobilis et potens, et inclytae in Domino recordationis, dominus Hugo de Sancto Aldemaro, qui post dominum Tancredum urbi praefuit Tiberiadensi, quantum locorum distantia permittebat (distant enim a se praedictae duae civitates quasi milliaribus triginta), frequentibus et occultis irruptionibus cives molestabat Tyrenses. Cumque in eundo et redeundo saepius ejus periclitaretur militia, eo quod in medio praedictarum urbium nec praesidium inveniretur, nec munitionis aliquod genus in quo se sui possent recipere et subsequentium hostium declinare importunitatem, adjecit vir praeclarus in summis montibus urbi Tyrensi prominentibus et ab eadem quasi per decem distantibus milliaria, in loco cui nomen priscum Tibenin, castrum aedificare; cui, quoniam in monte erat excelso admodum et cacuminato, nomen indidit Toronum. Est autem locus is inter mare et Libanum, quasi in medio constitutus, a Tyro et Paneade aeque distans, in tribu Aser, salubritate et aeris grata temperie commendabilis; solum habens opimum, vineis et arboribus prorsus habile; sed et frugibus et agriculturae commodissimum.

At that same time also, when the city of the Tyrians was still held by the enemies and in every way hindered the progress of our men, a noble and powerful man, and of illustrious remembrance in the Lord, lord Hugh of Saint Aldemar, who after lord Tancred presided over the city of Tiberias, as far as the distance of the places allowed (for the aforesaid two cities are distant from each other by about 30 miles), with frequent and clandestine irruptions was troubling the Tyrian citizens. And since in going and returning his soldiery was more often put in peril, because between the aforesaid cities neither was a garrison to be found, nor any kind of fortification into which his men might withdraw themselves and avoid the importunity of the pursuing enemies, the distinguished man resolved to build a castle on the highest mountains that loom over the Tyrian city and are distant from the same by about 10 miles, in a place whose ancient name is Tibenin; to which, since it was on a mountain very high and sharply peaked, he gave the name Toron. Now that place is situated between the sea and Lebanon, as though set in the middle, equally distant from Tyre and Paneas, in the tribe of Asher, commendable for healthfulness and the pleasing temper of the air; having rich soil, wholly fit for vineyards and trees; but also most suitable for grains and agriculture.

Praestitit ergo non solum fundatori, diebus illis, ad opus praedictum commoditatem optatam; verum usque hodie et ubertate quam porrigit, et multa munitione qua praeeminet, et Tyrensium urbi, et regno universo utilitates incomparabiles. Nec mora, post praedicti fundationem praesidii, idem nobilis homo cum equitibus septuaginta hostium fines ingressus, cum quatuor millibus Damascenorum praelium committens semel, et secundo eodem die ab hostibus repulsus graviter; tertio melioribus irruens auspiciis et animositate divinitus collata, simul et viribus, auctore Domino, fortioribus receptis, hostes in fugam convertit. Ipse tamen ictu sagittae lethaliter confossus, interiit, vir prudens et strenuus, et exigentibus meritis regi et regno plurimum commendabilis et acceptus.

Therefore it furnished not only to the founder, in those days, for the aforesaid work, the desired commodiousness; but even to this day, both by the abundance which it extends, and by the great fortification wherein it excels, both to the Tyrian city and to the whole kingdom, incomparable utilities. Without delay, after the foundation of the aforesaid stronghold, the same noble man, having entered the borders of the enemy with 70 knights, joining battle with 4,000 Damascenes, once, and a second time on the same day, was heavily repulsed by the enemy; a third time, charging under better auspices and with spiritedness divinely bestowed, and at the same time, with stronger forces received, the Lord being the author, he turned the foes to flight. He himself, however, pierced lethally by the stroke of an arrow, perished—a prudent and strenuous man, and by his deserts most commendable and acceptable to the king and to the kingdom.

Caesi sunt in eo conflictu de hostibus ducenti, et equi totidem a nostris recepti. Post eosdem etiam dies visa sunt in oriente signa et prodigia multa in coelestibus. Nam, per quadraginta dies et eo amplius, cometa circa noctis initium visus est longe comam trahere; et iterum ab ortu solis usque ad horam tertiam visus est sol duos habere collaterales, paris magnitudinis, sed inferiores splendore solis.

Two hundred of the enemies were cut down in that conflict, and just as many horses were recovered by our men. After those same days also, signs and many prodigies were seen in the orient in the celestial regions. For, for forty days and more, a comet, about the beginning of night, was seen to draw its hair long; and again, from sunrise until the third hour, the sun was seen to have two collateral suns, of equal magnitude, but inferior in the sun’s splendor.

Visa est et Iris circa solem, suis distincta coloribus. Quae omnia certum erat mortalibus nova portendere.

Also the Rainbow was seen around the sun, distinguished by its own colors. All these things were assuredly portending new things to mortals.

CAPUT VI. Boamundus de Francia in Apuliam reversus, cum ingentibus copiis Graecorum fines eos depopulaturus ingreditur; demumque in Syriam volens redire, relicto Boamundo filio, vita decedit.

CHAPTER 6. Boamund, having returned from France to Apulia, with immense forces enters the borders of the Greeks to lay them waste; and at length, wishing to return to Syria, leaving his son Boamund behind, he departs this life.

Per idem tempus, Alexius Constantinopolitanus imperator, vir malitiosus et nequam, volentibus per ejus regiones Hierosolymam proficisci multa ministrabat impedimenta. Nam et contra primam expeditionem, quae ei multo fuerat emolumento, ut praemissum est, Solimannum potentissimum Turcorum principem, et barbaras ex universo Oriente sollicitaverat nationes; et contra secundam, cui Pictavensium praeerat comes, easdem nihilominus nationes et infideles populos frequentibus concitaverat legationibus; unde, ejus efficiente malitia, posterior expeditio pene tota deperiit. Nec solum semel et secundo ita in nostros malignatus fuerat; sed quoties se offerebat opportunitas eis damna moliri, parare praecipitia, pro lucro sibi reputabat; praesentibus tamen et coram positis benigne dabat responsa et munera largiebatur, ut eo falleret commodius, Graecorum observans morem de quibus dicitur:

At the same time, Alexius, the emperor of Constantinople, a malicious and wicked man, for those wishing to set out through his regions to Jerusalem furnished many impediments. For both against the first expedition, which had been to him much of an emolument, as has been premised, he had stirred up Soliman, the most powerful prince of the Turks, and the barbarous nations from the whole Orient; and against the second, over which the count of the Poitevins presided, he had nonetheless aroused the same nations and unbelieving peoples by frequent embassies; whence, his malice effecting it, the later expedition almost wholly perished. Nor had he thus borne malice against our men only once and a second time; but as often as an opportunity offered itself to contrive harms for them, to prepare precipices, he reckoned it as profit to himself; yet to those present and set before him he gave kindly answers and lavished gifts, that he might deceive them the more conveniently, observing the custom of the Greeks, about whom it is said:

Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. VIRG. Aeneid.

I fear the Danaans even bearing gifts. VIRG. Aeneid.

l. II, 49.

Book 2, 49.

Suspectum enim habens omnium Latinorum generaliter processum, nec eorum vires multiplicari, nec dilatari potestatem, ubicunque ministrare poterat impedimentum, patiebatur. Harum igitur dominus Boamundus memor injuriarum, a transmontanis reversus partibus, universorum Latinorum causam prosequens, equitum habens quinque millia, peditum vero quadraginta millia, septimo Idus Octobris in terram praedicti imperatoris navigio pervenit; et confractis pene universis maritimis urbibus et in direptionem datis, universam Epirum, tam primam quam secundam depopulatus est; tandemque Durachium obsidens, Epiri primae metropolim, regionem circumquaque incendiis et depopulationibus tradens, circumjacentibus regionibus, pro libero arbitrio utebatur, parans ad delendas Latinorum injurias, auctore Domino, ad ulteriora imperii violenter procedere. Audiens igitur imperator dominum Boamundum, cum ingenti militia Latinorum, intra fines suos ingressum, ipse suos nihilominus colligit exercitus, et ei procedens obviam, copias suas in vicino constituit: ubi communibus intervenientibus amicis, imperator foedus iniit cum eo, interpositis juramentis, quod de caetero Christi fidelibus in Orientem transire volentibus, bona fide, sine fraude et malo ingenio, consilium ministraret et auxilium; nec eorum iter ab iis quos ipse cohibere posset, impedire pateretur. His ita compactis et fidei nexu interposito confirmatis, dominus quoque Boamundus juramento corporaliter praestito, amicitiam et fidelitatem perpetuo conservandam promisit.

For he, holding in suspicion the progress of all the Latins generally, would allow neither their forces to be multiplied nor their power to be dilated; wherever he could supply an impediment, he permitted it. Therefore the lord Bohemond, mindful of these injuries, returned from the transmontane parts, prosecuting the cause of all the Latins; having 5,000 horse and indeed 40,000 foot, on the 7th before the Ides of October (October 9) he reached by ship the land of the aforesaid emperor; and with almost all the maritime cities shattered and given over to plundering, he ravaged all Epirus, both the First and the Second; and at length, besieging Durachium, the metropolis of Epirus the First, delivering the region everywhere to fires and depredations, he used the surrounding regions at his free will, preparing, to delete the injuries of the Latins, with the Lord as author, to proceed by force to the further parts of the empire. Therefore, hearing that lord Bohemond, with an immense soldiery of the Latins, had entered within his borders, the emperor himself nonetheless gathers his armies, and going forth to meet him, set his forces nearby; where, common friends intervening, the emperor entered a treaty with him, oaths interposed, that henceforth, to the faithful of Christ wishing to cross into the Orient, he would in good faith, without fraud and evil contrivance, furnish counsel and aid; nor would he allow their journey to be impeded by those whom he could restrain. These things thus compacted and confirmed by the interposition of a bond of faith, the lord Bohemond likewise, with an oath bodily rendered, promised that friendship and fidelity would be preserved perpetually.

Inde in Apuliam reversus, dimissa peregrinorum turba, quae votis obligata, tenebatur iter Hierosolymitanum perficere, ipse domi, familiaribus adhuc detentus curis, remansit. Aestate vero sequente, praeparatis jam ex parte ad iter necessariis et congregato navigio, dum ad iter accingeretur, copiis undecunque convocatis, valida correptus aegritudine, in fata concessit, unico filio principatus et nominis haerede relicto, ex domina Constantia domini Philippi, illustris Francorum regis, filia suscepto. Mortuus est etiam eodem anno dominus Philippus Francorum rex illustris, socer ejus.

Thence, having returned into Apulia, the crowd of pilgrims dismissed, who, bound by vows, were held to complete the Jerusalem journey, he himself remained at home, still detained by domestic cares. But in the following summer, the necessaries for the journey already in part prepared and a fleet assembled, while he was girding himself for the journey, with troops summoned from every quarter, he was seized by a strong illness and passed away to his fate, his only son left as heir of the principality and of the name, begotten by Lady Constance, daughter of Lord Philip, the illustrious king of the Franks. Lord Philip, the illustrious king of the Franks, his father-in-law, also died in the same year.

CAPUT VII. A finibus Orientalibus item ingentes Turcorum copiae partes Edessanas occupare nituntur; sed Tancredus una cum rege resistunt viriliter.

CHAPTER 7. From the Oriental borders likewise vast Turkish forces strive to occupy the Edessan parts; but Tancred, together with the king, resist manfully.

Accidit etiam per eosdem dies, dum adhuc praedicti nobiles, dominus videlicet comes Balduinus et Joscelinus, ejus consanguineus, apud hostes detinerentur in vinculis, occasione sumpta ex eorum absentia, collecta est ex Orientali sinu Turcorum infinita multitudo et innumerabiles copiae; atque in Mesopotamiam descendentes, circa partes Edessenas coeperunt hostiliter degrassari, praesidia quaedam violenter occupantes, suburbana tradentes incendiis, colonos captivantes et agriculturae dantes operam: ita ut extra ambitum urbium muratarum tutus non reperiretur locus, et deficiente agricultura, victus omnino deficeret. Dominus autem Tancredus, cui regionis commissa erat sollicitudo, circa partes Antiochenas detinebatur occupatus, cujus curam etiam, ut praemisimus, domino Boamundo discedente, susceperat. Audiens tamen quod tanta hostium in partibus illis esset importunitas, vocato domino Hierosolymorum rege et causa vocationis manifestata, ipse quoque quantas potest ex universis urbibus et praesidiis convocat copias.

It also befell in those same days, while the aforesaid nobles—namely lord Count Baldwin and Joscelin, his kinsman—were still being held among the enemy in chains, that, taking occasion from their absence, there was gathered from the Oriental gulf an infinite multitude of Turks and innumerable forces; and descending into Mesopotamia, around the Edessene parts they began to ravage in hostile wise, violently occupying certain garrisons, delivering the suburbs to fires, taking the colonists captive and those giving their labor to agriculture: so that outside the circuit of walled cities no safe place was to be found, and with agriculture failing, sustenance altogether failed. But lord Tancred, to whom the solicitude of the region had been committed, was detained occupied about the Antiochene parts, whose charge also, as we have premised, upon lord Bohemond’s departure, he had undertaken. Hearing, however, that there was such importunity of the enemies in those parts, having summoned the lord king of Jerusalem and made manifest the cause of the summons, he himself likewise convokes as many forces as he can from all the cities and garrisons.

Cui sic acceleranti et pro regione sollicito infra paucos dies rex adfuit, junctisque simul agminibus Euphratem transierunt: quo pervenientes hostes reperiunt, ut eis fuerat nuntiatum, per universam regionem liberis discursibus evagantes; qui, cognito nostrorum adventu, coeperunt se ad invicem recolligere; et illam quam prius habuerant, discurrendo minus experiri licentiam. Compertas iterum habentes saepius nostrorum vires, cum eis pugnare formidant; nec tamen ad propria redire disposuerant, sed scientes utrumque principem liberas ferias non habere ut moram diuturnam in ea possent facere regione, ita diu nitebantur eos protrahere, ut taedio affecti maturarent reditum et ipsi ad consuetas recurrerent infestationes. Cognoscentes igitur nostri eorum propositum, consilium ineunt quale pro temporis angustia poterant invenire commodius; congregari enim praecipiunt, ex ea regione quae est circa Euphratem, quae frugibus copiosissime abundabat, universi generis alimentorum copias; et, flumine transmisso, oneratis equis, camelis, asinis et burdonibus victum copiosissimum et ad multa tempora sufficientem urbibus inferunt et praesidiis; maxime autem urbem Edessanam usque ad redundantem sufficientiam communientes.

To him thus hastening and solicitous for the region the king was present within a few days, and their columns being joined together they crossed the Euphrates; where, arriving, they find the enemy, as it had been announced to them, roaming with free excursions through the whole region; who, when they learned of our men’s arrival, began to gather themselves to one another, and to experience less of that license of ranging which they had previously enjoyed. Having again and often found out the forces of our men, they fear to fight with them; nor yet had they resolved to return to their own, but, knowing that both princes had no free leisure so as to be able to make a long delay in that region, they strove so long to protract them, that, affected with weariness, they might hasten a return and they themselves might run back to their accustomed infestations. Our men therefore, recognizing their purpose, enter upon a counsel such as, given the straitness of the time, they could find more expedient: for they command that from that region which is around the Euphrates, which was most copiously abounding in grain, supplies of provisions of every kind be gathered; and, the river being crossed, with horses, camels, asses, and mules laden, they bring into the cities and garrisons a most copious victual, sufficient for many times, but especially fortifying the city of Edessa unto overflowing sufficiency.

Postmodum vero de corporibus civitatum et praesidiorum non multam gerentes sollicitudinem, quoniam admodum armis, viris et victu erant munita, revocantibus eos majoribus rerum articulis, ad Euphratem reversi sunt. Ubi dum modicis et corpore et numero fluvium transeunt naviculis, quosdam de inferiore manu qui adhuc transitum exspectabant, ulteriorem ripam tenentes, hostes nostrorum vestigia secuti, irruunt; et ex eis quosdam interficientes, reliquos captivos trahunt, praesentibus domino rege dominoque Tancredo, et eis subsidium ministrare non valentibus; amnis enim medius erat, quem vadis transire non poterant; neque erat facile paucis parvisque naviculis tantum exercitum reportare. Nostri vero dolentes admodum super illis pauperibus, quos se praesentibus occidi viderant et ex parte captivari, reversi sunt ad propria; regionem etiam cis Euphratem praecipientes magnatibus, qui ei praeerant, diligentius communiri.

Afterwards, indeed, not carrying much solicitude about the bodies (i.e., the corporate frames) of the cities and garrisons, since they were very well fortified with arms, men, and victual, being recalled by weightier junctures of affairs, they returned to the Euphrates. There, while they are crossing the river in boats small both in bulk and in number, the enemies—having followed the tracks of our men—rush upon certain of the lower rank, who were still awaiting the passage, holding the further bank; and killing some of them, they drag the rest away captive, though the lord king and Lord Tancred were present, yet not able to furnish them succor; for the stream was between, which they could not cross by fords, nor was it easy with a few little boats to bring back so great an army. Our men, however, grieving greatly over those poor fellows, whom they had seen, with themselves present, being slain and in part taken captive, returned to their own; and they also gave orders to the magnates who presided over it that the region on this side of the Euphrates be more diligently fortified.

Erant autem qui supra ripam Euphratis capti fuerant et interfecti, pauperes Armenii, qui Turcorum fugientes importunitatem, in loca tutiora se conferre proposuerant.

Now those who had been captured and slain above the bank of the Euphrates were poor Armenians, who, fleeing the importunity of the Turks, had proposed to betake themselves into safer places.

CAPUT VIII. Balduinus comes Edessanus redit de vinculis hostium, et Joscelinus cum eo; et adversus Tancredum guerram excitant.

CHAPTER 8. Baldwin, Count of Edessa, returns from the bonds of the enemy, and Joscelin with him; and they stir up war against Tancred.

Sequente anno, qui erat ab Incarnatione Domini 1109, dominus Balduinus comes Edessanus, cum annis quinque continuis fuisset apud hostes detentus in vinculis, una cum Joscelino cognato suo, datis obsidibus pro certa summa pecuniae, quam pro sua redemptione pepigerant, in suam se libertatem receperunt, redeuntes ad propria: cum quibus etiam satis misericorditer fecit Dominus. Nam obsides eorum in quodam praesidio custodibus deputatis commissi, casu, sive somno sive mero gravatis, mortem intulerunt, unde postmodum ad propria clam et per diverticula de nocte errabundi pervenerunt. Accedenti ergo praedicto comiti ad Edessanam urbem, dominus Tancredus dicitur ei introitum denegasse; sed tandem memor juramentorum, quae interposita fuerant, cum, eodem comite capto, domino Tancredo civitas tradita fuerat, ad cor rediens, tam ipsam urbem quam regionem universam eidem praecepit resignari.

In the following year, which was from the Incarnation of the Lord 1109, lord Baldwin, count of Edessa, since for five consecutive years he had been detained among the enemies in chains, together with Joscelin his kinsman, hostages having been given for a certain sum of money which they had bargained for their redemption, recovered themselves into their freedom, returning to their own: with regard to whom also the Lord dealt quite mercifully. For their hostages, assigned in a certain garrison to appointed guards, the guards being by chance weighed down either by sleep or by wine, brought death upon them, whence afterwards they reached their own places secretly and by by-ways at night, wandering. Therefore, as the aforesaid count was approaching the city of Edessa, lord Tancred is said to have denied him entry; but at length, mindful of the oaths which had been interposed when, the same count having been captured, the city had been handed over to lord Tancred, coming back to his heart, he ordered that both the city itself and the whole region be resigned to the same man.

Qua injuria moti, postmodum bellum eidem Tancredo ambo pariter indixerunt. Joscelinus autem specialiter, qui citra Euphratem sua habebat praesidia et Antiochenis vicinior erat partibus, principem magis infestabat. Accidit autem quadam die ut, Turcorum multitudinem in suum convocans auxilium, in terram principis irruptiones moliretur, quod princeps praesentiens, ei occurrit; commissoque inter eos praelio, prima fronte de exercitu domini Tancredi ceciderunt viri quasi quingenti; sed, tandem resumptis animis et aciebus instauratis, Turcorum magnam straverunt multitudinem, Joscelinum et suos in fugam convertentes.

Moved by this injury, afterwards both together declared war on that same Tancred. But Joscelyn in particular, who had his own garrisons on this side of the Euphrates and was nearer to the Antiochene parts, harassed the prince more. It happened, however, one day that, summoning a multitude of Turks to his aid, he set about making incursions into the prince’s land; which the prince, foreseeing, went out to meet him, and with a battle joined between them, at the first onset about 500 men fell from Lord Tancred’s army; but at length, with spirits recovered and the battle-lines restored, they laid low a great multitude of Turks, turning Joscelyn and his men to flight.

Porro videntes majores regionis et qui sensus habebant magis exercitatos, quod tantorum virorum periculosa nimis erant odia et quod in multum poterant Christiano populo detrimentum cedere, interpositis partibus suis, eos adinvicem reconciliaverunt.

Moreover, the elders of the region and those who had their sense more exercised, seeing that the hatreds of such great men were too perilous and that great detriment could fall to the Christian people, by interposing their good offices, reconciled them to one another.

CAPUT IX. Bertramus, comitis Tolosani filius, cum classe Januensium in Syriam descendit, patri quaerens succedere; Willelmus Jordanis contradicit. Capitur Biblium.

CHAPTER 9. Bertram, son of the count of Toulouse, descends into Syria with the fleet of the Genoese, seeking to succeed to his father; William Jordan contradicts. Byblus is taken.

Eodem tempore, Bertramus, domini Raimundi bonae memoriae comitis Tolosani filius, cum classe Januensium circa urbem applicuit Tripolitanam, ubi Willelmus Jordanis ejus consanguineus urbem obsidione vallabat eamdem, sicut et continue fecerat a die obitus praedicti venerabilis viri, qui in eodem negotio moriens defecerat. Statim autem in ejus adventu orta est contentio inter eos, Bertramo de patris successione allegante; Willelmus autem, proprii laboris et impensae per quatuor annos continuos sollicitudinis merita praetendebat. Ille in bona paterna tanquam haeres legitimus volebat succedere; iste locum, sua expugnatum instantia, sibi nitebatur vindicare.

At the same time, Bertram, son of Lord Raymond of good memory, count of Toulouse, made landfall with the fleet of the Genoese near the Tripolitan city, where William Jordan, his consanguineous relative, was encircling that same city with a siege, as he had continuously done from the day of the obit of the aforesaid venerable man, who, dying in that same undertaking, had passed away. Straightway upon his arrival, however, a contention arose between them, Bertram alleging his father’s succession; but William put forward the merits of his own labor and expense, of continuous solicitude for four years. The former wished to succeed to the paternal goods as the legitimate heir; the latter strove to vindicate for himself the place, taken by storm through his own instancy.

Dumque ista diu esset agitata controversia, intervenientibus amicis communibus, ut de pace tractarent, convenit inter mediatores, quod pro bono pacis, Willelmo Jordanis civitates Archis et Tortosa cum suis pertinentiis concederentur; Bertramo vero Tripolis, et Biblium, et mons Peregrinus, item cum suis pertinentiis. Factumque est ita, et ratum habitum partis utriusque concessu. Unde Willelmus pro parte sibi designata factus est homo principis Antiocheni, fidelitate ei manualiter exhibita; Bertramus partis sibi designatae a domino rege Hierosolymorum investituram suscepit, ei solemniter exhibens fidelitatem.

And while this controversy had been long agitated, with common friends intervening to treat of peace, it was agreed among the mediators that, for the good of peace, to William Jordan the cities of Archis and Tortosa, with their appurtenances, should be conceded; but to Bertram, Tripoli, and Byblus, and Mount Pilgrim, likewise with their appurtenances. And so it was done, and it was held ratified by the consent of both parties. Whence William, for the portion designated to him, became the vassal of the prince of Antioch, fidelity to him being rendered by hand; Bertram, for the portion designated to him, received investiture from the lord king of Jerusalem, solemnly exhibiting fidelity.

Additum est etiam in compositionis forma, quod si alter sine liberis vita decederet, alter ei succederet in universum. Quaestione vero praedicta per hujusmodi sopita transactionem, accidit quod inter armigeros utriusque familiae, ex causa levi, orta est contentio; pro qua pacificanda, cum velox in equo saepe dictus comes Willelmus occurreret, sagitta casu percussus, interiit. Dicebatur a nonnullis, quod comitis Bertrami dolis et machinationibus comes Willelmus interierit; sed tamen usque hodie illius vulneris non comparuit certus auctor; sic igitur sublato aemulo et praedictae urbis competitore, Bertramus solus in expeditione mansit.

It was also added in the form of the composition that, if one should depart this life without children, the other should succeed to him in entirety. But the aforesaid question, being lulled by a transaction of this sort, it befell that between the men-at-arms of each family, from a slight cause, a contention arose; for the pacifying of which, when the oft-mentioned Count William, swift on his horse, rode up, struck by an arrow by chance, he perished. It was said by some that Count William had perished through the wiles and machinations of Count Bertram; but nevertheless up to this day no definite perpetrator of that wound has appeared; thus then, with the rival and competitor for the aforesaid city removed, Bertram remained alone on the expedition.

Erat autem classis Januensium, cum qua venerat, galearum septuaginta; cui praefecti erant duo nobiles viri Januenses, Ansaldus et Hugo Ebriacus. Videntes ergo quod circa urbem Tripolitanam, per idem tempus operam consumerent, utile judicant interim aliquid memoria dignum aggredi: commonitoque familiarius comite Bertramo, ut cum eis praesens velit esse per terras, ipsi classem versus Biblium dirigunt. Est autem Biblium urbs maritima, in Phoenice constituta, una de suffraganeis urbibus, quae Tyrensi metropoli jure metropolitico intelliguntur esse subjectae, cujus memoriam Ezechiel propheta facit, dicens: Senes Biblii, et prudentes ejus, o Tyre, praebuerunt nautas ad ministerium variae supellectilis tuae (Ezech.

There was, moreover, the fleet of the Genoese, with which he had come, of seventy galleys; over which two noble Genoese men were prefects, Ansaldus and Hugo Ebriacus. Seeing therefore that around the city of Tripoli, at that same time, they were consuming their effort, they judge it useful meanwhile to undertake something worthy of memory; and, Count Bertram having been more familiarly admonished that he should wish to be present with them by land, they themselves direct the fleet toward Byblos. Now Byblos is a maritime city, situated in Phoenice, one of the suffragan cities which are understood to be subject to the Tyrian metropolis by metropolitan right, the memory of which the prophet Ezekiel makes mention, saying: The elders of Byblos, and its prudent men, O Tyre, furnished sailors for the service of your various furnishings (Ezech.

XXVII, 9). Item in secundo libro Regum de eadem scribitur ita: Porro Biblii praeparaverunt ligna et lapides ad aedificandum domum Domini (III Reg. V, 18). Dicta est autem prisco vocabulo Eve, eamque fundasse creditur Eveus, sextus filiorum Chanaan. Ad hanc pervenientes et eam mari terraque circumvallantes, civibus admodum territis et de sui tuitione diffidentibus, classis praefectos praedictum Ansaldum et Hugonem Ebriacum missa legatione conveniunt, significantes, quod si volentibus egredi liberum cum uxoribus et liberis vellent dare exitum; nolentibus autem sua deserere domicilia, in urbe liceret bonis conditionibus immorari, parati essent reseratis aditibus, eos tanquam dominos admittere.

27, 9). Likewise in the second book of Kings about the same matter it is written thus: Moreover the Byblians prepared timbers and stones for building the house of the Lord (3 Kings 5, 18). It was called, however, by the ancient name Eve, and it is believed that Eveus, the sixth of the sons of Canaan, founded it. Coming to this place and surrounding it by sea and by land, with the citizens very terrified and distrustful of their own defense, they meet, by a mission sent, the commanders of the fleet, the aforesaid Ansaldus and Hugo Ebriacus, signifying that, if they were willing to grant an exit free to those wishing to go out with their wives and children; but for those unwilling to desert their homes, it would be permitted to remain in the city on good conditions, they were prepared, the approaches having been opened, to admit them as lords.

Quibus conditionibus juxta vota eorum admissis, urbem praedictis duobus tradiderunt viris; quorum alter, Hugo videlicet Ebriacus, sub annua certi census praestatione fisco Januensium inferenda, usque ad certum tempus eam recepit. Hic idem, hujus Hugonis, qui eidem hodie praeest civitati, avus fuit, qui ejus nomen obtinet et agnomen. Capta ergo praedicta civitate, classis iterum Tripolim est reversa.

With these conditions admitted according to their wishes, they handed over the city to the two aforesaid men; of whom the one, namely Hugh Ebriacus, under an annual prestation of a fixed census to be paid into the Genoese fisc, received it for a set time. This same man was the grandsire of that Hugh who today presides over the same city, who bears his name and agnomen. Therefore, the aforesaid city having been taken, the fleet returned again to Tripoli.

CAPUT X. Rex Balduinus Tripolim properat; fervet obsidio, et capitur civitas.

CHAPTER 10. King Baldwin hastens to Tripoli; the siege seethes, and the city is taken.

Audiens igitur dominus rex praedictam Januensium classem, capta Biblio, circa Tripolitanas partes moram adhuc facere, illuc properus accedit, tentaturus si eosdem Januenses aliquibus conditionibus secum posset detinere, quatenus eorum fretus auxilio, unam de urbibus maritimis sibi vindicaret. Restabant enim adhuc in nostro littore quatuor rebelles, Berythum videlicet, Sidon, Tyrus et Ascalona, quae nostrorum novellae plantationi multum oberant, ad obtinendum incrementum. Illuc ergo veniens, omnes qui in obsidione erant, tam per mare quam per terras, sua exhilaravit praesentia et in opere coepto reddidit ferventiores.

Therefore, the lord king, hearing that the aforesaid fleet of the Genoese, with Byblus taken, was still making a delay about the Tripolitan parts, hastens thither and approaches, intending to try whether he could detain those same Genoese with himself on certain conditions, so that, relying on their aid, he might vindicate to himself one of the maritime cities. For four rebels still remained on our shore, namely Berytus, Sidon, Tyre, and Ascalon, which were greatly obstructing the new plantation of our people in obtaining increment. Therefore coming there, he cheered by his presence all who were in the siege, both by sea and by land, and made them more fervent in the work begun.

Statim enim in ejus adventu visi sunt, qui exterius in obsidendo laborabant, maximum reperisse solatium; ita ut et major eis audacia accessisse videretur, et vires non dubitarent incrementum accepisse; obsessis autem e converso, et desolatio se intulit solito amplior, et spes resistendi omnino succubuit enervata: quoque hostes vident solito fortiores, eo se debiliores reputant; quodque illis accederet, totum sibi decedere reputantes. Innovant ergo nostri quasi novi recentesque, assultus; et hostibus omnino ubicunque locus est, solito instant protervius: tanquam obsidionem, quam continuo pene septennio multo labore protraxerant, tunc primitus inchoassent. Videntes ergo cives nostrorum singulis diebus vires invalescere, eorum vero e converso minui, diuturnis laboribus fatigati, spem subsidii nullam habentes, communicato inter se consilio, tractant quomodo tantis malis possent finem imponere.

For immediately at his advent those who were laboring without in the besieging seemed to have found the greatest solace; so that both a greater audacity seemed to have come to them, and they did not doubt that their forces had received an increment; but to the besieged, conversely, both a desolation larger than usual presented itself, and the hope of resisting altogether succumbed, enervated: and the more they see the enemies stronger than usual, the more they reckon themselves weaker; reckoning that whatever accrued to those, the whole declined from themselves. Therefore our men, as if new and freshly recruited, renew assaults; and upon the enemies, wherever there is any place at all, they press more aggressively than usual: as though the siege, which they had prolonged with much toil for almost seven continuous years, they had then for the first time begun. Therefore the citizens, seeing the forces of our men grow strong day by day, and theirs, conversely, to be diminished, wearied by long labors, having no hope of succor, after counsel communicated among themselves, consider how they might be able to impose an end upon such great evils.

Missis igitur legationibus tam ad dominum regem quam ad dominum comitem, sub conditione spondent eis urbem se resignaturos, si egredi volentibus, libere et sine difficultate liceret, et familias suas cum omni supellectile ad loca optata transferre possent; nolentibus autem exire, si sub certa pensione domino comiti annuatim persolvenda, tute et tranquille in domibus suis manere et possessiones suas colere concedatur. Auditis igitur civium postulationibus, rex, cum comite et aliis magnatibus consilio communicato, utile judicat, eorum admissis desideriis, urbem sine dilatione recipere. Placuit igitur sermo iste omnibus, et praestita conniventia, evocatis ante se civibus, eorum admittunt petitiones.

Therefore, envoys having been sent both to the lord king and to the lord count, they pledge under a condition that they will resign the city to them, if it should be permitted to those wishing to go out to do so freely and without difficulty, and to transfer their households with all their supellectile to the desired places; but for those not willing to depart, that it be granted that, under a certain pension to be paid annually to the lord count, they might remain safe and tranquil in their own houses and cultivate their possessions. The citizens’ demands having been heard, the king, counsel having been shared with the count and the other magnates, judges it expedient, their desires being admitted, to receive the city without delay. Therefore this proposal pleased all, and, assent having been given, the citizens being summoned before them, they admit their petitions.

Praestitisque juramentis, quod praedictae conventiones eis sine fraude et malo ingenio, bona fide conservarentur, urbem recipiunt, introire volentibus aditibus reseratis. Capta est praedicta civitas anno ab Incarnatione Domini 1109, mense Junio, decima die mensis. Factus est autem ibidem comes Bertramus, fidelitate manualiter exhibita, domini regis homo ligius; unde et ejus successores, usque in praesentem diem, regi Hierosolymorum id ipsum tenentur exhibere.

And, the oaths having been given that the aforesaid conventions would be preserved for them without fraud and evil ingenuity, in good faith, they receive the city, the entrances unbarred for those wishing to enter. The aforesaid city was taken in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1109, in the month of June, on the tenth day of the month. And there Bertram was made count, with fealty exhibited manually, the liege man of the lord king; whence also his successors, down to the present day, are bound to exhibit that same to the king of Jerusalem.

CAPUT XI. Balduinus comes Edessanus, ad socerum Gabrielem Meleteniam descendit, ubi factum ejus exstat satis memorabile.

CHAPTER 11. Baldwin, count of Edessa, goes down to his father-in-law Gabriel at Melitene, where a deed of his stands forth as quite memorable.

Accidit autem per eosdem dies quod a vinculis hostium absolutus dominus Balduinus Edessanorum comes, cum multos haberet equites, nec haberet unde eis exhibitae militiae et impensi fideliter officii persolveret stipendia, arguto habito satis et acuto consilio, destinat cum eisdem suis commilitonibus, socerum, qui valde pecuniosus erat, apud Meleteniam visitare, praestructo et praeordinato solerter, ut postquam ad ejus ventum esset praesentiam, quid fieri oporteret. Compositis igitur ad iter necessariis, illuc pervenit, ubi ex more depenso mutuae salutationis affatu, et pacis signo cum mutuis amplexibus et plena charitate alternatim praebito, magnifice nimis et supra hospitalitatis leges, tanquam domesticus et affectione filius, susceptus est a socero. Cum igitur per dies aliquot ibi dominus comes moram fecisset, et semel confabulationibus fortasse necessariis, hinc socer, inde gener diei partem aliquam protraxissent, accesserunt (sicut inter eos prius condictum fuerat), et eis colloquentibus ingesserunt se milites ejus.

It happened, moreover, in those same days that Lord Baldwin, count of the Edessenes, having been released from the bonds of the enemy, when he had many knights but had not the means from which to pay them the stipends for the military service rendered and the duty faithfully expended, having taken a rather shrewd and sharp counsel, resolves, with these his fellow-soldiers, to visit his father-in-law—who was very wealthy—at Meletenia, having cleverly pre-arranged and pre-ordained what ought to be done after they had come into his presence. The necessaries for the journey being accordingly made ready, he arrived there, where, the interchange of mutual greeting having been paid according to custom, and the sign of peace, with mutual embraces and full charity, having been given in turn, he was received by his father-in-law too magnificently and beyond the laws of hospitality, as a member of the household and by affection a son. Therefore, when the lord count had stayed there for several days, and once, perhaps with conversations of necessity, on the one side the father-in-law, on the other the son-in-law, had prolonged some part of the day, there approached (as had previously been agreed between them), and while they were conversing his soldiers thrust themselves in.

Tunc unus ex eis, quasi omnium autoritate factus verbi patronus, comitem alloquitur, dicens: Nosti, comes, et nemo te melius, quam fideliter et quam strenue turba haec militum, quae praesens est, tibi jam multo tempore, fidem tuam et promissionem secuta, militaverit: quantos labores, quantasque in vigiliis, siti, fame, frigore, simul et aestus importunitate pertulerit molestias, ut te et regionem tibi divinitus commissam, ab hostium injuriis redderet securam; et a civibus et reliquo populo in ea commorante, infidelium et inimicorum crucis Christi averterent impetus et molestias propulsarent. Te introducit pro se testem hoc collegium, tibi aliquando necessarium. Compertum habes, quantum jam effluxerit temporis, ex quo sine stipendiis tibi militaverimus; quoties nobis solvi necessitate compulsi postulaverimus; quoties petitas inducias, tibi compatientes, indulserimas, de die in diem aequanimiter sustinentes; et nunc res eo deductae sunt nostrae, quod diutius praestolari non possumus.

Then one of them, as if made spokesman of the word by the authority of all, addresses the count, saying: You know, Count, and no one better than you, how faithfully and how strenuously this troop of soldiers, which is present, has for a long time now, following your faith and promise, done military service for you: what labors, and what troubles in watches, thirst, hunger, cold, and likewise the importunity of heat, it has borne, in order to render you and the region divinely committed to you secure from the injuries of the enemies; and, for the citizens and the rest of the populace dwelling therein, to avert the assaults of the unfaithful and the enemies of the cross of Christ and to repel annoyances. This company produces you as a witness on its own behalf, at times needful to you. You are aware how much time has already flowed by since we have served you without stipends; how often, compelled by necessity, we have asked to be paid; how often we, pitying you, have granted the respites requested, patiently enduring from day to day; and now our affairs have been brought to this point, that we can no longer await.

Paupertas invincibilis est, quae diuturniores ferias, et tempus auctius tibi iterum dari negat. Elige tibi unum; aut debitum solve, inopiae nostrae subveniens; aut pignus quod obligasti, juxta pactum exhibe. Miratus est Gabriel quidnam sibi vellet haec concio, et sermo ita solemnis quid portenderet. Tandemque edoctus per interpretes, rem tenuit; sed quaerit cujusmodi pignus, pro pactis stipendiis, dominus comes obligasset.

Poverty is invincible, which denies that longer respite and more ample time be granted to you again. Choose one for yourself: either pay the debt, coming to the aid of our indigence; or produce the pledge which you obligated, according to the pact. Gabriel was amazed what this assembly might be wanting, and what such a solemn speech portended. And at length, having been taught through interpreters, he grasped the matter; but he asks what sort of pledge, for the stipulated stipends, the lord count had obligated.

Cui, cum quasi pudore prohibitus, dominus comes responsum non daret, respondit eorum advocatus: Quia barbam suam hypothecaverat eis, ut nisi statuta die pacta militibus solverentur stipendia, eidem barba sine contradictione raderetur. Quod audiens Gabriel, stupidus prae facti novitate et complosis manibus supra modum admirans, anhelare coepit, et prae angustia nimis aestuare. Mos enim est Orientalibus, tam Graecis quam aliis nationibus, barbas tota cura et omni sollicitudine nutrire; pro summoque probro et majori quae unquam irrogari possit ignominia reputare, si vel unus pilus quocunque sibi de casu barba cum injuria detrahatur. Interrogansque dominum comitem, si ita esset sicut dicebatur?

To whom, when the lord count, as if restrained by shame, gave no answer, their advocate replied: Because he had hypothecated his beard to them, so that unless on the appointed day the agreed stipends were paid to the soldiers, that same beard should be shaved without contradiction. Hearing this, Gabriel, stupefied at the novelty of the deed and, clapping his hands, marveling beyond measure, began to pant, and from anguish to seethe excessively. For it is the custom among the Orientals, as much the Greeks as other nations, to nurture beards with total care and every solicitude; and to reckon it the supreme reproach and the greatest ignominy that can ever be imposed, if even a single hair, from whatever chance, be with injury taken from the beard. And he asked the lord count whether it was so as was being said?

respondit: Ita. Iterum fortius admirans, pene extra se factus, quaerit iterum: Quare rem tanta diligentia conservandam, argumentum viri, vultus gloriam, hominis praecipuam auctoritatem, ita obligasset, tanquam rem mediocrem, et ab homine sine confusione separabilem? Cui comes: Quia non erat mihi res alia dignior cujus interpositione, militibus proterve instantibus, possem plenius satisfacere. Sed nec oportet dominum et patrem meum, multum super hoc esse sollicitum; nam spero de misericordia Domini, quod impetratis a militibus induciis, postquam Edessam rediero, militum instantiae satisfaciens, cum mea honestate pignus luam obligatum. Milites e diverso statim se diversuros ab eo, minasque intentare, sicut edocti erant, nisi solvat maturius, unanimiter asserebant. Quod audiens Gabriel, vir simplex et collusionis eorum ignarus, apud se fluctuans quid faceret, elegit potius de suo solvere militibus id in quo tenebatur gener obligatus, quam ejus pati, qui reputabatur filius, tantam ignominiam.

he replied: Yes. Again wondering more vehemently, almost beside himself, he asks again: Why did you obligate that thing to be conserved with such diligence—the argument of a man, the glory of the countenance, the man’s chief authority—thus, as though it were a middling thing, and separable from a man without confusion? To whom the count: Because there was not for me another thing more worthy, by the interposition of which, with the soldiers pressing insolently, I might be able more fully to satisfy them. Nor ought my lord and my father to be over-much anxious about this; for I hope from the mercy of the Lord that, a truce having been obtained from the soldiers, after I have returned to Edessa, satisfying the soldiers’ urgency, I will redeem the pledged pledge with my honor intact. The soldiers, for their part, unanimously asserted that they would straightway withdraw from him and hurl threats, as they had been instructed, unless he should pay more promptly. Hearing this, Gabriel, a simple man and ignorant of their collusion, wavering with himself what he should do, chose rather to pay out of his own to the soldiers that in which the son-in-law was held bound, than to suffer such great ignominy on behalf of him who was reckoned a son.

Quaerit quae sit debiti summa. Cui responsum est: Triginta millium Michaelitarum; quod genus aureorum tunc in publicis commerciis erat celebre, a quodam imperatore Constantinopolitano, qui eam monetam sua fecerat insignem imagine, Michaele nomine, sic nuncupatum. Solvere igitur spondet pro genero, conditione tali, pactam pecuniam, ut media dominus comes fide firmiter promittat, quod de caetero nullo casu, nullo necessitatis articulo, ita quibuslibet personis se velit obligare.

He asks what the sum of the debt is. To whom it is answered: Thirty thousand Michaelites; a kind of gold coin then famous in public commerce, so named from a certain emperor of Constantinople, Michael by name, who had made that money distinguished by his image. Therefore he pledges to pay on behalf of his son-in-law, on such a condition, the agreed money: namely, that, with surety interposed, the lord count firmly promise that hereafter, in no case, in no crisis of necessity, he will thus wish to bind himself to any persons whatsoever.

Soluta igitur pecunia sumptaque a socero licentia, dominus comes cum suis, tumentibus loculis et depulsa inopia, dives ad propria reversus est.

Accordingly, the money having been paid and leave taken from his father-in-law, the lord Count, with his own, his coffers swelling and want driven away, returned rich to his own.

CAPUT XII. Bethlehemitica Ecclesia per regis studium ad cathedralem erigitur dignitatem.

CHAPTER 12. The Bethlehemite Church, through the king’s zeal, is raised to cathedral dignity.

Anno sequenti, qui erat ab Incarnatione Domini 1110, sollicitus rex, et curam gerens pervigilem, quomodo sibi regnum a Deo commissum posset honorare et Deo protectori suo aliquid acceptione dignum offerre, proposuit de pio mentis fervore, Ecclesiam Bethlehemiticam, quae usque ad illum diem prioratus tantum fuerat, ad cathedralem sublimare dignitatem. Quod qualiter gestum fuerit, ex rescripto ejusdem piissimi regis super hoc edicto, amplius et perfectius erit manifestum, quod sic habet: Divina inspirante gratia gens Francorum admonita, Hierusalem civitatem sanctam, diuque oppressione paganorum fatigatam, ubi mors, quae primo praevaricante parente genus humanum invaserat, morte Salvatoris est destructa, a spurcitia praedicta liberavit. Obsessa est namque civitas haec cultu divino digna septimo Idus Junii, a gente praefata; et Idibus Julii, Deo pro ea pugnante, est capta.

In the following year, which was 1110 from the Incarnation of the Lord, the solicitous king, bearing a ever-vigilant care as to how he might honor the kingdom committed to him by God and offer to God his protector something worthy of acceptance, proposed, from the pious fervor of his mind, to exalt the Bethlehemite Church, which up to that day had been only a priory, to cathedral dignity. How this was carried out will be made more and more perfectly manifest from the rescript of that same most pious king concerning this edict, which runs thus: With divine grace inspiring, the nation of the Franks, being admonished, freed Jerusalem, the holy city, long wearied by the oppression of the pagans—where death, which had invaded the human race through the first transgressing parent, was destroyed by the death of the Savior—from the aforesaid defilement. For this city, worthy of divine worship, was besieged by the aforesaid nation on June 7; and on July 15, with God fighting for it, it was taken.

Capta autem civitate anno Domini 1100, dispositione divina suggerente, placuit clero atque Raimundo Sancti Aegidii, Roberto Northmanniae, et Roberto Flandrensi comitibus, Tancredo, et caeteris primatibus, cum universa Francorum multitudine, ut piissimus et misericordissimus dux Godefridus, charissimus frater meus, eidem praesideret; ipse vero, vir Deo dignus, sanctae civitatis gubernator, primo principatus sui anno peracto, Deo propitio, tertia die sequentis, in pace quievit. Cui ego Balduinus ab exsultante clero, principibus et populo, primus rex Francorum, nutu divino, excellentiam Bethlehemiticae Ecclesiae, nativitatem Domini nostri Jesu Christi praefulgida mente pertractans, in qua primum venerabiliter caput meum diademate ornatum effulserat, ut episcopali dignitate donaretur mihi per omnia placuit. Igitur quod corde caste conceperam, indesinenter excogitans, tandem ad aures Arnulfi archidiaconi, viri clarissimi, et Hierosolymitani capituli usque perduxi, eumque et idem capitulum, ut super hac re mihi consulerent, obnixe rogavi.

However, the city having been taken in the year of the Lord 1100, with divine disposition suggesting it, it pleased the clergy and Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Robert of Normandy, and Robert of Flanders, counts, Tancred, and the other primates, together with the whole multitude of the Franks, that the most pious and most merciful duke Godfrey, my dearest brother, should preside over the same; he himself, a man worthy of God, governor of the holy city, the first year of his principate completed, God being propitious, on the third day of the following he rested in peace. To whom I, Baldwin, by the exultant clergy, the princes, and the people, the first king of the Franks, by the divine nod, while with a resplendent mind considering the excellence of the Bethlehemite Church, the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ—in which for the first time my head had shone, venerably adorned with a diadem—it wholly pleased me that it should be endowed with episcopal dignity. Therefore what I had chastely conceived in my heart, pondering unceasingly, at length I brought to the ears of Arnulf the archdeacon, a most illustrious man, and of the Jerusalemite chapter, and I earnestly begged him and that same chapter to advise me concerning this matter.

Qui tam justae petitioni meae obsequentes, tum pro Hierosolymitana sede quae postea quasi orbata parente videbatur, tum pro hoc negotio Romam peti decreverant. Hanc itaque legationem Arnulfus archidiaconus, et Aichardus eodem tempore decanus suscipientes, Romam perrexerunt: et sancto Spiritu cooperante, apud domnum Paschalem secundum, universalis Ecclesiae pontificem, de utroque negotio honestum invenientes consilium, Hierusalem remearunt. Domnus vero Paschalis papa, Gibellinum Arelatensem archiepiscopum, virum sapientiae radiis coruscum, omnique morum honestate fulgidum, cui id legationis Arnulfo atque Aichardo praesentibus injunxerat, post eos Hierusalem direxit.

They, complying with my so just petition, both on behalf of the Jerusalemite See, which afterwards seemed as though orphaned of a parent, and on behalf of this business, had resolved to go to Rome. Therefore Arnulf the archdeacon and Aichard, at that time the dean, undertaking this legation, went to Rome; and, the Holy Spirit cooperating, with lord Paschal the Second, pontiff of the universal Church, finding honorable counsel concerning both matters, they returned to Jerusalem. But lord Paschal the pope sent, after them, to Jerusalem Gibelin, archbishop of Arles, a man coruscating with the rays of wisdom and gleaming with every honesty of morals, upon whom he had enjoined that charge of legation in the presence of Arnulf and Aichard.

Propterea a me, clero simul et populo gaudenter susceptus pro praecepto domni Paschalis papae et mea bona voluntate, et assensu Hierosolymitani capituli, ac totius favore consilii, et propria deliberatione omnia dispensans, in Bethlehemitica Ecclesia, Aschetinum, virum illustrem eamdem gubernantem, quem Hierosolymitanum capitulum ejusdem Ecclesiae cantorem, me cum meis proceribus et populo volente Ascalonae elegerat atque statuerat episcopum, obtinere primatum episcopalem decrevit; Bethlehemiticaeque sedi, pro praecepto et consideratione nostra, Ascalonae Ecclesiam parochiali jure subjugavit. Tandem ego Balduinus, Dei gratia rex Hierusalem, Latinorum primus, jam dicta laetus obnixe firmavi. Villam etiam Bethlehem, quam Ecclesiae concesseram, pro salute animae meae, et misericordissimi ducis fratris mei Godefridi, atque omnium parentum meorum; et unum casale, quod est in territorio Accon, nomine Bedar; aliud etiam quod est in territorio Neapolitano, nomine Seylon; aliud quoque adjacens Bethlehem, quod dicitur Bethbezan: et duo casalia in territorio Ascalonitano, unum videlicet Zeophir, et aliud nomine Caicapha, cum suis pertinentiis episcopo, ejusque successoribus firmiter ac libere tenere ac possidere praecepi, dedi atque concessi.

Therefore, by me, together with the clergy and the people, he was gladly received, by the precept of Lord Pope Paschal and by my good will, and with the assent of the Jerusalem chapter, and the favor of the whole council; and, dispensing all things by his own deliberation, in the Bethlehem Church he decreed that Aschetinus, an illustrious man governing the same, the cantor of that Church, whom the Jerusalem chapter, with me consenting together with my nobles and the people, had elected and appointed as bishop at Ascalon, should obtain the episcopal primacy; and to the Bethlehem see, by our precept and consideration, he subjected the Church of Ascalon by parochial right. At length I, Baldwin, by the grace of God king of Jerusalem, the first of the Latins, joyfully and earnestly confirmed what has now been said. The village also of Bethlehem, which I had granted to the Church, for the salvation of my soul and of my most merciful duke, my brother Godfrey, and of all my parents; and one casale which is in the territory of Acre, by the name Bedar; another also which is in the territory of Neapolis, by the name Seylon; another likewise adjoining Bethlehem, which is called Bethbezan; and two casalia in the territory of Ascalon, namely one Zeophir, and another by the name Caicapha, with their appurtenances, I ordered, gave, and granted to the bishop and his successors to hold and possess firmly and freely.

Praefatam quoque Ecclesiam a calumnia qua Hierosolymitana Ecclesia eam vexabat, commutatione terrarum ac vinearum quae in circuitu Jerusalem in meo dominio erant, absolutissimam reddidi. Statuimus autem quod si quis clericus, vel laicus, nefandissima cupiditate ductus, illud quod pro petitione mea de Bethlehemitica Ecclesia, nativitate Domini ac Salvatoris nostri praeclara, Spiritu sancto juvante, a domino Paschale, Romanae sedis summo ac venerando pontifice, per Gibelinum ejusdem legatum, Arelatensem archiepiscopum roboratum est, post decessum meum violare praesumpserit, invasionis crimine, nisi commonitus resipuerit, obligetur, ac totius regni nostri expers effectus, graviter judicetur. Praeterea concedo quod quicunque meorum optimatum, vel aliquis militum seu burgensium, Dei afflatus Spiritu de suis redditibus, pro sua suorumque animabus, dare eidem Ecclesiae voluerit, libera sit sibi piae voluntatis exsecutio, et in perpetuum valeat facultatum suarum legitime facta donatio.

I also rendered the aforesaid Church most absolutely free from the calumny with which the Jerusalem Church was vexing it, by a commutation of lands and vineyards which were around Jerusalem in my dominion. We have furthermore decreed that if any cleric or layman, led by most unspeakable cupidity, shall presume, after my decease, to violate that which, for my petition concerning the Bethlehemite Church, illustrious by the Nativity of our Lord and Savior, with the Holy Spirit helping, by lord Paschal, the supreme and venerable pontiff of the Roman see, through Gibelin, his legate, archbishop of Arles, was strengthened, let him be bound under the crime of invasion, unless, being admonished, he shall have come to his senses; and, made without share of our whole kingdom, let him be gravely judged. Moreover, I grant that whoever of my magnates, or any of the knights or burghers, inspired by the Spirit of God, from his own revenues, for his own soul and for those of his people, shall wish to give to the same Church, the execution of his pious will shall be free to him, and the donation lawfully made of his faculties shall have force in perpetuity.

Facta est autem haec concessionis, vel confirmationis nostrae inscriptio, rerumque gestarum designatio, anno ab Incarnatione Domini 1110, indictione III, praesidente Romanae Ecclesiae papa domno Paschale secundo, Hierosolymis vero Gibelino Arelatensi archiepiscopo, sedis apostolicae vicario in patriarcham electo. Sunt ergo istius assertionis testes:

However, this inscription of our concession, or confirmation, and the designation of the things done, was made in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1110, in indiction 3, with lord Pope Paschal the Second presiding over the Roman Church, and at Jerusalem with Gibelin, Archbishop of Arles, vicar of the apostolic see, elected as patriarch. Therefore, the witnesses of this assertion are:

Arnulfus archidiaconus,
Aichardus decanus,
Eustachius Garnerius,
Anselmus turris David custos,
Radulfus de Foritaneto,
Pisellus vicecomes,
Simon ducis filius,
Anfredus vir religiosus,
Gerardus camerarius, et alii quamplures.

Arnulfus the archdeacon,
Aichardus the dean,
Eustachius Garnerius,
Anselmus, keeper of the Tower of David,
Radulfus of Foritaneto,
Pisellus, viscount,
Simon, the duke’s son,
Anfredus, a religious man,
Gerardus the chamberlain, and very many others.

CAPUT XIII. Obsidetur terra marique civitas Berythensium; et secundo capitur mense.

CHAPTER 13. The city of the Berythians is besieged by land and sea; and in the second month it is taken.

Eodem anno praedictus Dei cultor, et magnificus triumphator, idem dominus rex curam gerens indefessam, quomodo regnum sibi a Deo commissum posset ampliare, sumpta occasione ex galeis quibusdam quae in regno hiemaverant, mense Februario, congregata pro viribus Christiani populi ex universi regni finibus multitudine, urbem obsidet Berythensium. Est autem Berythum civitas maritima, inter Biblium et Sidonem in Phoenice sita, una de suffraganeis urbibus, quae Tyrensi metropoli intelliguntur subjectae, Romanis quondam acceptissima, ita ut, jure Quiritium civibus concesso, inter colonias reputaretur; de qua ita Ulpianus testatur in Digestis, titulo de Censibus, loquens de Phoenice provincia: Est et Berythensis colonia, in eadem provincia, Augusti beneficiis gratiosa. Et ut divus Adrianus in quadam oratione ait: Augustiana colonia, quae jus Italicum habet.

In the same year the aforesaid worshipper of God and magnificent triumphator, the same lord king, bearing indefatigable care as to how the kingdom committed to him by God might be amplified, taking occasion from certain galleys which had wintered in the kingdom, in the month of February, having gathered, to the extent of his powers, a multitude of the Christian people from the borders of the whole realm, besieges the city of the Berythenses. Now Beirut is a maritime city, situated between Byblos and Sidon in Phoenicia, one of the suffragan cities understood to be subject to the Tyrian metropolis, most acceptable once to the Romans, such that, the right of the Quirites having been granted to its citizens, it was reckoned among the colonies; concerning which Ulpian thus attests in the Digests, under the title On the Censuses, speaking of the province of Phoenice: There is also the colony of the Berythenses, in the same province, favored by the benefits of Augustus. And as the deified Hadrian says in a certain oration: an Augustan colony, which has the Italic right.

Nec solum jus Italicum, verum etiam et docendi jus, quod raris concessum fuit urbibus, ab eodem Augusto obtinuit potestatem, sicut in primo codicis, ea constitutione quae sic incipit: Cordi nobis est, in qua ita legitur: Et Berytensium doctorem Dorotheum. Dicta autem creditur prisca appellatione Gerse, quam Gerseus quintus filiorum Chanaan fundasse legitur. Ad hanc perveniens, accito sibi domino Bertramo Tripolitano comite, urbem coepit studio vehementi arctare.

Not only the Italian right, but even the right of teaching, which was granted to few cities, it obtained authority to have from the same Augustus, as in the first book of the Code, in that constitution which thus begins: Cordi nobis est, in which it is read thus: And Dorotheus, teacher of the Berythians. Moreover it is believed to have been called by the ancient appellation Gerse, which Gerseus, the fifth of the sons of Canaan, is read to have founded. Coming to this place, having summoned to himself Lord Bertram, Count of Tripoli, he began with vehement zeal to hem the city in.

Advenerant autem, ut eidem urbi ministrarent subsidium, ex Tyro et Sidone naves quaedam, viris fortibus et bellicosis refertae. Quod si liberum introitum et exitum habere potuissent, inutiliter operam consumerent, qui obsidioni ejus incubuerant. Sed adveniente classe, de quarum ope confisus rex, opus praesens assumpserat, timentes se mari committere, protinus intra portum se receperunt: ita ut civibus omnino per mare et introitus negaretur et exitus.

However, certain ships had arrived from Tyre and Sidon, crammed with brave and bellicose men, to minister aid to that same city. But if they had been able to have free entrance and exit, those who had pressed its siege would have spent their labor to no purpose. Yet, with the fleet arriving—on whose help the king, confident, had undertaken the present work—fearing to commit themselves to the sea, they straightway withdrew within the harbor: so that for the citizens altogether by sea both entrance and exit were denied.

Erat autem eidem civitati pinea silva vicinior, quae multam et idoneam obsidentibus, ad componendum scalas et quaslibet machinas, abunde praestabat materiam. Ex hac igitur erigentes sibi turres ligneas, et machinas jaculatorias componentes, et quae adversus hujusmodi solent esse necessaria fabricantes argumenta, urbem continuis impugnant assultibus, ita ut nec horae spatio, interdiu vel de nocte, obsessis requiem indulgerent; alternatim enim et per vices mutuas, sibi succedentes adinvicem, labore intolerabili cives fatigabant. Cum autem per menses duos continuos incepto opere viriliter desudassent, arguentes moram adinvicem, quadam die dum solito vehementius urbem in pluribus locis, congressionibus molestarent, quidam de turribus ligneis, quae moenibus fuerant violenter applicatae, saltu super murum se intulerunt; quos alii tum eodem modo, tum per scalas ascendentes, secuti, in urbem descendentes, portam civitatis violenter aperuerunt.

However, there was for that same city a pine forest nearer, which supplied abundantly much and suitable material to the besiegers for putting together ladders and whatever machines. From this, therefore, erecting for themselves wooden towers, and assembling hurling machines, and fabricating the contrivances which are wont to be necessary against things of this sort, they assail the city with continual assaults, so that not for the space of an hour, by day or by night, did they grant rest to the besieged; for alternately and by mutual turns, succeeding one another in turn, they wearied the citizens with intolerable toil. But when for two continuous months they had sweated manfully at the work undertaken, reproaching one another for delay, on a certain day, while more vehemently than usual they were vexing the city in many places with encounters, some from the wooden towers which had been forcefully applied to the walls, by a leap carried themselves over the wall; whom others, both in the same manner and by ascending by ladders, following, descending into the city, violently opened the city gate.

Ingressus igitur sine difficultate noster exercitus, civibus ad mare confugientibus, urbem occupavit universam, Qui autem in navibus erant, audientes quod rex cum suis urbem effregerat, prosilientes et ipsi de navibus portum occupant; et cives qui gratia salutis illuc confugerant, gladiis repellentes, in hostes redire compulerunt: sicque cives miseri, inter hostium cohortes geminas infeliciter angustiati, nunc his, nunc illis instantibus, gladiis in medio depereunt: quousque rex stragem immoderatam conspiciens, eis qui residui erant, misericordiam implorantibus, voce praeconia finem caedis indicit, et victis vitam indulgeri praecipit. Capta est autem praedicta civitas anno ab Incarnatione Domini 1112, mense Aprili, vicesima septima die mensis.

Our army therefore, having entered without difficulty, with the citizens fleeing for refuge to the sea, occupied the whole city, Who however were on the ships, hearing that the king with his men had broken into the city, leaping forth from the ships they too occupy the port; and, repelling with swords the citizens who for the sake of safety had fled thither, they compelled them to return back into the enemies: and so the wretched citizens, unhappily constricted between the twin cohorts of the enemies, now these, now those pressing upon them, perish by swords in the midst: until the king, beholding the immoderate slaughter, to those who were left, imploring mercy, with a herald’s voice proclaims an end of the slaughter, and commands that life be granted to the vanquished. Now the aforesaid city was taken in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1112, in the month of April, on the twenty-seventh day of the month.

CAPUT XIV. Danorum et Noroegiorum classis descendit in Syriam; quorum ope rex Sidonem obsidet et capit; narraturque casus circa regem mirabilis.

CHAPTER 14. The fleet of the Danes and the Norwegians descends into Syria; by whose aid the king besieges and takes Sidon; and a wondrous event concerning the king is recounted.

Eodem anno quidam populus de insulis occidentalibus egressus, maximeque de ea occidentis parte quae Noroegia dicitur, audientes quod a Christi fidelibus capta esset civitas sancta Hierosolyma, volentes illuc devotionis gratia properare, classem sibi paraverant opportunam. Quam ascendentes, aura flante secunda, mare Britannicum navigantes, dein Calpen et Athlanta, angustias hujus Mediterraneae influxionis ingressi, nostrum hoc mare pertranseuntes, apud Joppen applicuerunt. Erat autem praedictae classis primicerius, et praeceptor supremus, quidam juvenis, procerus corpore et forma decorus, Noroegiae regis frater.

In the same year a certain people, having gone forth from the western islands, and most especially from that part of the West which is called Norway, hearing that the holy city Jerusalem had been taken by the faithful of Christ, wishing to hasten thither for the sake of devotion, had prepared for themselves a suitable fleet. Boarding it, with a favorable breeze blowing, sailing the Britannic Sea, then, having entered the narrows of this inflow of the Mediterranean at Calpe and Atlas, traversing this our sea, they made landfall at Joppa. Now the primicerius of the aforesaid fleet, and the supreme preceptor, was a certain youth, tall in body and fair in form, the brother of the king of Norway.

Qui postquam portum Joppensem attigerunt, propositum iter aggredientes, Hierosolymam, cujus gratia venerant, adierunt. Rex igitur cognito eorum adventu, illuc cum omni celeritate properat; et cum illo praedicto nobili viro, benigne et familiariter locutus, tentare coepit et diligenter inquirere, utrum navalis ille exercitus, moram vellet in regno facere et operas suas ad tempus Christo dedicare, ut una de infidelium urbibus per eorum studium, fideli populo posset accrescere. Qui communicato consilio ad invicem, responderunt quod ad id venerant et ea intentione ferebantur, ut Christi servitio se manciparent.

Who, after they had reached the port of Joppa, undertaking the proposed journey, went to Jerusalem, for the sake of which they had come. The king, therefore, when their arrival was known, hastens thither with all speed; and having spoken kindly and familiarly with that aforesaid noble man, he began to test and diligently inquire whether that naval host would be willing to make a stay in the kingdom and to dedicate their services for a time to Christ, so that one of the cities of the unbelievers might, through their zeal, be able to accrue to the faithful people. They, after counsel had been shared among themselves, replied that they had come for that and were borne by that intention, namely, to consign themselves to the service of Christ.

Juxta quod propositum parati erant, ut quamcunque de urbibus maritimis rex cum suo exercitu, obsidere vellet, illuc itinere marino cum omni celeritate contendere, nihil praeter victum pro stipendiis exigentes. Rex igitur devotissime verbum amplectens, congregans regni robur universum, et militiam quantam potuit, Sidonem pervenit. Classis quoque nihilominus a portu Acconensi egressa, illuc directe properaverat, ita ut pene eodem momento uterque exercitus ante urbem conveniret.

According to that plan they were prepared, that whichever of the maritime cities the king with his army might wish to besiege, they would hasten thither by the sea-route with all speed, exacting nothing for stipends except victuals. The king therefore, most devoutly embracing the proposal, gathering the entire strength of the realm, and as much soldiery as he could, arrived at Sidon. The fleet likewise, nonetheless, having put out from the port of Acre, had made directly for that place, so that at almost the same moment each army came together before the city.

Est autem Sidon civitas maritima inter Berythum et Tyrensem metropolim sita, provinciae Phoenicis portio non modica, commodissimum habens situm, cujus tam Veteris quam Novi textus Instrumenti frequentem habet memoriam. De ea quippe in secundo Regum libro, ita Salomon ad Hiram, Tyriorum regem: Praecipe igitur, ut praecidant mihi cedros de Libano et servi mei sint cum tuis; mercedem autem servorum tuorum dabo tibi quamcunque petieris. Scis enim quoniam non est in populo meo, qui novit ligna caedere sicut Sidonii (III Reg.

Sidon, moreover, is a maritime city situated between Berytus and the Tyrian metropolis, no small portion of the province of Phoenicia, having a most commodious site, of which both the Old and New Testament text has frequent mention. Indeed, about it, in the second book of Kings, thus Solomon to Hiram, king of the Tyrians: Command therefore that they cut for me cedars from Lebanon, and let my servants be with yours; moreover, I will give you the hire of your servants, whatever you ask. For you know that there is in my people no one who knows to fell timber like the Sidonians (3 Kings.

V, 6). In Evangelio quoque ejus facit Dominus mentionem, dicens: Amen dico vobis, si haec facta essent in Tyro et Sidone, et caetera (Matth. XI, 1); et alibi: Egressus Jesus, secessit in partes Tyri et Sidonis (Marc. VII, 24). Hanc Sidon Chanaan fundasse legitur; unde et usque in praesentem diem nomen tenet auctoris.

5, 6). In his Gospel also the Lord makes mention of it, saying: Amen I say to you, if these things had been done in Tyre and Sidon, and the rest (Matt. 11, 1); and elsewhere: Jesus, going out, withdrew into the regions of Tyre and Sidon (Mark 7, 24). This Sidon is read to have been founded by Canaan; whence even to the present day it holds the name of its author.

Est autem una de urbibus suffraganeis Tyrensis metropolis. Hanc igitur noster exercitus ex utraque parte obsidione vallans, civibus magnam intulere formidinem; videntesque quod viribus nequaquam possent resistere, et ab imminentibus se tueri periculis, dolis perficere quod virtute nequeunt, machinantur. Erat porro in domini regis comitatu, ejus familiaris et quasi cubicularius, quidam Balduinus, aliquando gentilis, quem dominus rex pietatis intuitu accedentem ad baptismatis lavacrum, de sacro fonte susceperat; et ei nomen imponens suum, in numero domesticorum receperat; hunc nobiles de civitate viri, quocunque modo se volentes expedire, clam per internuntios conveniunt, infinitam promittentes pecuniam, et in civitate possessiones amplissimas, si a tantis calamitatibus eos, regem interficiendo, absolvat.

Moreover, it is one of the suffragan cities of the Tyrian metropolis. Therefore our army, encircling it with a siege on both sides, brought great dread upon the citizens; and seeing that by forces they could by no means resist and protect themselves from the imminent dangers, they contrive to accomplish by dolus what they cannot by virtue. Now there was in the lord king’s comitatus, his familiar and, as it were, chamberlain, a certain Baldwin, once a gentile, whom the lord king, out of regard for piety, when he approached the laver of baptism, had taken up from the sacred font; and imposing his own name upon him, had received him into the number of the household. This man the noble men of the city, wishing to extricate themselves by whatever means, secretly approach through internuncios, promising infinite money and most ample possessions in the city, if he would release them from such great calamities by slaying the king.

Erat autem hic idem domino regi adeo familiaris et charus, ut etiam ad loca secretiora quibus naturae, se purgare volentis, satisfit necessitatibus, regem solus plerumque comitaretur. Verbum itaque oblatum ille gaudens suscepit, et eorum postulationes effectui mancipare promittens, totus in hoc erat, ut tempus ad complendum facinus exspectaret opportunum. Interea quidam fideles de civitate, ad quos verbi hujus pervenerat notitia, timentes, ne per domini regis incuriam verbum hoc tam detestabile posset effectum sortiri, litteras scribunt sine certi auctoris titulo, easque cum sagitta in exercitum nostrorum dirigunt, rei seriem ordine pandentes; quae casu ad dominum regem pervenientes, animum ejus, nec immerito, plurimum affecerunt.

Now this same man was so familiar and dear to the lord king that even to the more secret places where the necessities of nature of one wishing to purge himself are satisfied, he alone for the most part would accompany the king. The proffered word, therefore, he gladly received, and promising to make over their postulations to effect, he was wholly intent on this: to await an opportune time for completing the crime. Meanwhile certain faithful men of the city, to whom the knowledge of this word had come, fearing lest through the negligence of the lord king this so detestable word might obtain effect, write letters without the title of a fixed author, and with an arrow direct them into our army, laying open in order the sequence of the matter; which, arriving by chance to the lord king, very greatly affected his mind, and not without cause.

Qui convocans principes, et quid eum facere oporteret deliberatione habita, vocatus est ille; et crimen confessus, principibus in eum dictantibus sententiam, suspendio vitam finivit. Videntes ergo cives commenta sua felices non habere successus, alia via coeperunt ingredi; et missa legatione petunt, ut nobilibus concedatur exitus; plebi vero, sicuti et prius, agriculturae operam dare liceat, bonis conditionibus. Quo concesso urbem resignant, cum uxoribus et liberis ad loca desiderata, sine contradictore tendentes.

He, convening the princes and, a deliberation having been held about what he ought to do, was summoned; and, confessing the crime, with the princes dictating sentence against him, he ended his life by hanging. Seeing therefore that their contrivances did not have happy success, the citizens began to enter upon another way; and, a legation having been sent, they ask that an exit be granted to the nobles; to the plebs indeed, as also before, that it be permitted to give their effort to agriculture, on good conditions. This being conceded, they resign the city, proceeding with their wives and children to the desired places, with no one gainsaying them.

Quam protinus et sine dilatione, cuidam de magnatibus suis, Eustachio videlicet Grener, jure haereditario possidendam liberaliter concessit. Classis vero receptis a domino rege donariis, et accepta licentia, prosequente eos universorum benedictione, ad propria reversi sunt. Capta est autem praedicta civitas anno ab Incarnatione Domini 1111, mense Decembri, decima nona die mensis.

Which forthwith and without delay he liberally granted to one of his magnates, namely Eustace Grener, to be possessed by hereditary right. The fleet, moreover, having received gifts from the lord king, and leave having been given, with the blessing of all attending them, returned to their own homes. The aforesaid city, however, was captured in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1111, in the month of December, on the nineteenth day of the month.

CAPUT XV. Moritur Gibelinus Hierosolymorum patriarcha; succedit ei vir impius et nequam Arnulfus.

CHAPTER 15. Gibelinus, patriarch of Jerusalem, dies; an impious and worthless man, Arnulfus, succeeds him.

Per idem tempus, mortuus est dominus Gibelinus, bonae memoriae, Hierosolymorum patriarcha, cui substitutus est invita, ut credimus, divinitate Arnulfus, de quo saepissimam in superioribus mentionem habuimus, Hierosolymitanus archidiaconus, qui vulgo cognominatus est Malacorona. Sed propter peccata populi patitur Deus regnare hypocritam (Job XXXIV, 30). Hic, sicuti et prius, seipsum continuans, multa pessima gessit opera. Nam inter caetera neptem suam, apud dominum Eustachium Grener, unum de majoribus regni principibus, nobilium duarum urbium dominum, Sidonis videlicet et Caesareae, nuptui collocavit, cum ea conferens ecclesiastici patrimonii optimas portiones, Jericho videlicet, cum omnibus pertinentiis suis, cujus hodie redditus annualis quinque millium dicitur esse aureorum.

At the same time, Lord Gibelinus, of good memory, patriarch of Jerusalem, died, to whom, with the Divinity unwilling, as we believe, Arnulf was substituted, of whom we have had most frequent mention above, the Jerusalem archdeacon, who is commonly surnamed Malacorona. But on account of the people’s sins God suffers a hypocrite to reign (Job 34, 30). He, continuing as before, performed many most-wicked works. For among other things he gave his niece in marriage to Lord Eustace Grenier, one of the greater princes of the realm, lord of two noble cities, namely Sidon and Caesarea, granting with her the choicest portions of the ecclesiastical patrimony, to wit Jericho, with all its appurtenances, whose annual revenue today is said to be 5,000 gold pieces.

Fuit autem et in suo pontificatu conversationis immundae, ita ut ejus vulgo pateret ignominia. Cui rei colorem quaerens, ordinem quem primi principes studiose et cum multa deliberatione in Ecclesia Hierosolymitana instituerant, regulares canonicos introducendo commutavit. Regem etiam ad hoc impulit, ut vivente adhuc uxore sua aliam duceret, sicut in sequentibus dicetur.

Moreover, even in his pontificate he was of unclean manner of life, such that his ignominy lay open to the common people. Seeking a pretext for this matter, he altered the order which the foremost princes had studiously and with much deliberation established in the Church of Jerusalem, by introducing regular canons. He also impelled the king to this: that, while his own wife was still living, he should take another, as will be said in what follows.

CAPUT XVI. Ab Oriente Turcorum ingens manus, et innumerabiles copiae finibus se infundunt Antiochenis; sed Tancredus una cum Tripolitano comite Bertramo, resistit viriliter.

CHAPTER 16. From the East a huge band of the Turks, and innumerable forces, pour themselves into the Antiochene borders; but Tancred, together with the Count of Tripoli, Bertram, resists manfully.

Nec mora interposita diuturniore, post Sidonem captam, collecta est in Perside equitum manus infinita; qui ut proprias experirentur vires, ut super eo aliquando possent gloriari, in regiones nostras ascenderunt. A primo enim Latinorum introitu, usque ad annum regni eorum quasi quadragesimum, non defuit nostris pestis illa, saevior hydra, recens et damno capitum facta locupletior. Annis quippe pene singulis de illo sinu Persico tanta erumpebat illius populi detestabilis multitudo, ut pene universam terrae superficiem sua numerositate operirent.

Nor was a longer delay interposed: after Sidon had been captured, in Persia an infinite band of horsemen was gathered; who, in order to try their own forces, that they might at some point be able to glory over it, ascended into our regions. For from the first entry of the Latins, up to about the 40th year of their reign, that pest did not fail us, more savage than the Hydra, made fresh and enriched by the loss of heads. For indeed almost every year from that Persian gulf there burst forth such a multitude of that detestable people that they almost covered the entire surface of the land by their numerosity.

Sed miserante nostros labores divina clementia, suscitavit Persarum insolentiae et regno nimis de se praesumenti aemulum imperium gentis Hiberorum: quo per gratiam Dei incrementum suscipiente, et vires acquirente, per successus continuos contrita est Persarum superbia; et qui prius praedicto populo suspecti erant et formidabiles, facti sunt, versa vice, eis et viribus et armorum experientia longe inferiores; quique regnis exteris; etiam remotioribus consueverant inferre sollicitudinem, nunc sibi sufficere reputant, si intra fines suos tranquillitatem reperiunt vel ad tempus. Est autem Hiberia regio in plaga septentrionali constituta, quae alio nomine dicitur Avesguia, Persis contermina, homines habens corpore proceros, robustos viribus, multa strenuitate commendabiles. Hi frequentibus bellis et congressionibus assiduis Persarum adeo copias attriverunt, ut jam se nec pares reputent, et pro suo statu solliciti aliorum provincias vexare destiterint.

But as divine clemency took pity on our labors, it raised up against the insolence of the Persians and the kingdom overmuch presuming of itself a rival empire of the nation of the Hiberians; which, by the grace of God receiving increment and acquiring strength, through continuous successes crushed the pride of the Persians; and they who before were to the aforesaid people objects of suspicion and formidable became, the turn reversed, far inferior to them both in forces and in experience of arms; and they who were wont to bring solicitude upon foreign realms, even the more remote, now deem it enough for themselves if within their own borders they find tranquility, even for a time. Moreover, Hiberia is a region situated in the northern quarter, which by another name is called Avesguia, conterminous with the Persians, having men tall in body, robust in strength, commendable for much strenuousness. These, by frequent wars and assiduous encounters, so attrited the forces of the Persians that they now no longer reckon themselves even equal, and, solicitous for their own condition, have ceased to vex the provinces of others.

Praedicta ergo multitudo, a finibus illis egressa, Mesopotamiam transcurrens, transmisso Euphrate fluvio magno, regionem circa fluvium pro arbitrio tractantes, optimum regionis praesidium Turbessel obsident; cumque per mensem continuum ibidem operam consumpsissent, videntes quod non proficerent, ad partes Halapienses se contulerunt, de sua multitudine confisi, machinantes ut dominum Tancredum incaute et cum impetu provocarent ad praelium. Dominus autem Taucredus, sicut vir prudens erat et in agendis circumspectus, dominum regem litteris evocat et nuntiis, ut mature subsidium conferat. Qui sine mora convocata ingenti militia, assumpto sibi Bertramo comite Tripolitano, cum suis iterum copiis ad partes illas se contulit.

Therefore the aforesaid multitude, having departed from those borders, coursing through Mesopotamia, the great Euphrates river having been crossed, treating the region around the river at their discretion, besieged Turbessel, the best stronghold of the region; and when for a continuous month they had spent their effort there, seeing that they were not advancing, they betook themselves to the parts of Aleppo, confident in their multitude, machinating to provoke lord Tancred incautiously and with impetus to battle. But lord Tancred, since he was a prudent man and circumspect in his conduct, summons the lord king by letters and by messengers, that he may promptly furnish aid. He, without delay, an immense militia having been convoked, having taken to himself Bertram, count of Tripoli, with his forces again betook himself to those parts.

Qui cum pervenissent ad oppidum Rugiam, ibi dominum Tancredum cum suis expeditionibus invenerunt: unde in hostes progressi, ante urbem Caesaream, quae vulgo appellatur Caesarea, ubi hostes castrametati fuerant, ordinatis agminibus pervenerunt. Ubi cum se mutuo uterque conspexisset exercitus, Turcis declinantibus praelium, a regione discesserunt, nostris, ab invicem sumpta licentia, ad propria reversis.

When they had arrived at the town Rugia, they found lord Tancred with his expeditions there; whence, advancing against the enemies, they came, with the columns arranged, before the city Caesarea, which in the common tongue is called Caesarea, where the enemies had encamped. Where, when each army had mutually caught sight of the other, the Turks, declining battle, withdrew from the region, our men, mutual leave having been taken, returning to their own places.

CAPUT XVII. Tyrus obsidetur; sed, resistentibus potenter civibus, obsidentium deluditur intentio.

CHAPTER 17. Tyre is besieged; but, with the citizens powerfully resisting, the design of the besiegers is foiled.

Consequenter autem eodem anno, cum Tyrus sola de urbibus maritimis, quae sunt a Laodicia Syriae usque ad Ascalonam, quae est novissima regni civitas, infidelitatis jugum pateretur; adjecit dominus rex, qui alias auctore Domino expedierat, illam regno vindicare. Congregatis ergo ex universa ora maritima navibus quotquot invenire potuit, classem ordinat qualemqualem; cui praecipit, ut illuc sub omni celeritate maturarent: et ipse convocatis regni viribus et populo undique accito universo, praedictam urbem, locatis in gyrum copiis, obsidione vallat. Est autem Tyrus civitas in corde maris sita, in modum insulae circumsepta pelago, caput et metropolis provinciae Phoenicis; quae a rivo Valeniensi, usque ad Petram incisam, Dorae conterminam, protenditur, infra sui ambitum, urbes suffraganeas continens quatuordecim.

Consequently, however, in the same year, since Tyre alone of the maritime cities which lie from Laodicea of Syria as far as Ascalon, which is the furthest city of the kingdom, was suffering the yoke of infidelity, the lord king—who had elsewhere, with the Lord as author, campaigned—added to vindicate that city for the kingdom. Therefore, having congregated from the whole seacoast as many ships as he could find, he arranges a fleet such as it was; to which he orders that they hasten thither with all speed: and he himself, the forces of the kingdom having been convoked and the entire populace summoned from every side, girds the aforesaid city with a siege, troops being placed around in a circle. Now Tyre is a city set in the heart of the sea, surrounded by the deep in the manner of an island, the head and metropolis of the province of Phoenice; which extends from the Valenian brook as far as Petra the Carved, conterminous with Dor, containing within its compass fourteen suffragan cities.

De situ et commoditatibus hujus civitatis, in inferioribus dicetur latius, ubi de ejus obsidione novissima et captione concessa divinitus, auctore Domino tractabitur. Obsessa itaque civitate praedicta, sicut princeps erat valde sollicitus, omnem dabat operam, omne studium impendebat, quomodo multipliciter gravatis civibus, eos ad deditionem compelleret; percurrensque argumenta singula, quibus obsessis urbibus solent irrogari molestiae, omnia diligenter impendebat, ut civitas in suam transiret ditionem. Nam crebris assultibus continuis pene congressionibus, murorum et turrium flagellatione, et violentis ictibus, telorum quoque et sagittarum immissione perpetua, affligebat obsessos.

Concerning the site and the commodities of this city, it will be said more at length below, where its most recent siege and its capture granted divinely, with the Lord as author, will be treated. The aforesaid city therefore being besieged, as the prince was very solicitous, he gave every effort, expended every zeal, how, by burdening the citizens in manifold ways, he might compel them to surrender; and running through each expedient by which annoyances are wont to be imposed upon besieged cities, he diligently applied them all, that the city might pass into his dominion. For with frequent assaults, almost continuous engagements, with the scourging of the walls and towers and with violent blows, and with the perpetual discharge of missiles and arrows, he afflicted the besieged.

Tandemque ad malorum cumulum duas praecepit erigi ex lignea materia turres, lapideis aedificiis multo sublimiores; unde et urbem esset quasi subjectam inspicere; et bellum civibus quasi de superioribus inevitabiliter inferre. Cives autem e converso viri prudentes et strenui, et hujusmodi versutiarum non omnino expertes, argumentis objiciunt argumenta; et modis paribus quibus eis inferebantur injuriae, repellere satagebant. Duas siquidem turres, comportatis lapidibus et congesto ad multam quantitatem caemento, quae machinis nostrorum recte videbantur oppositae, ascendentes, superaedificare coeperunt: ita ut subito et intra paucos dies ligneis machinis, quae exterius erant oppositae, multo altiores invenirentur.

And at last, to the cumulus of evils, he ordered two towers to be raised from wooden material, much loftier than the stone edifices; whence both the city might be looked upon as if lying subject below, and war might be unavoidably brought in upon the citizens as it were from higher ground. But the citizens, on the contrary, men prudent and strenuous, and not altogether unexperienced in such versutiae, set arguments against arguments; and they strove to repel, by equal methods, the injuries by which injuries were being inflicted on them. For indeed, having brought together stones, and with caementum heaped up to a great quantity, they began, ascending the two towers which seemed rightly opposed to our engines, to build up upon them; so that suddenly, and within a few days, they were found to be much higher than the wooden machines which had been set against them from outside.

Unde in subjectas machinas ignem jaculantes, omnia sine difficultate parati erant incendere; videns ergo rex, quod ars arte deluderetur, longis laboribus et expensis non modicis, quas per quatuor menses et eo amplius ibidem consumpserat, gravatus plurimum, ab incepto destitit, spe frustratus: solutaque obsidione, ipso Ptolomaidam reverso, reliqui certatim ad propria redierunt.

Whence, hurling fire upon the machines set beneath, they were ready to ignite everything without difficulty; therefore the king, seeing that art was being outwitted by art, greatly burdened by long labors and by expenses not moderate, which he had consumed there for four months and more, desisted from the undertaking, his hope frustrated: and the siege being lifted, he himself returning to Ptolemais, the rest vied with one another to return to their own homes.

CAPUT XVIII. Moritur dominus Tancredus, relicto principatu Rogero, Ricardi filio.

CHAPTER 18. Lord Tancred dies, the principate being left to Roger, the son of Richard.

Per idem tempus, dominus Tancredus, illustris memoriae et piae in Domino recordationis, cujus eleemosynas et pietatis opera, in perpetuum enarrabit omnis ecclesia sanctorum, lethale debitum persolvit. Hic dum in supremae lecto aegritudinis decubaret, circa se in sui obsequio adolescentem Pontium, domini Bertrami comitis Tripolitani filium habebat; vidensque sibi mortis imminere diem, uxore sua coram se posita, Caecilia, quae, ut superius praemisimus, domini Philippi Francorum regis filia erat, et praedicto juvene, consuluisse dicitur ambobus, ut post ejus obitum jure convenirent maritali. Factumque est ita, ut post ejus ex hac luce decessum, mortuo etiam domino Bertramo comite Tripolitano, ejusdem patre, praedictus Pontius, eamdem dominam, praedicti domini Tancredi viduam, uxorem duxerit.

At the same time, lord Tancred, of illustrious memory and pious remembrance in the Lord, whose alms and works of piety the whole church of the saints will recount forever, paid the debt of death. While he was lying on the bed of his last illness, he had about him, in his service, a youth, Pontius, the son of lord Bertram, count of Tripoli; and seeing the day of death to be imminent for him, with his wife set before him, Cecilia, who, as we have premised above, was the daughter of lord Philip, king of the Franks, and with the aforesaid youth, he is said to have advised both, that after his death they should come together by marital right. And so it came to pass that, after his departure from this light, lord Bertram also, count of Tripoli, his father, being dead, the aforesaid Pontius took that same lady, the widow of the aforesaid lord Tancred, as his wife.

Successit autem ei in eodem principatu, de ejus supremo judicio, quidam ejus consanguineus, Rogerius Richardi filius, ea conditione, ut quandocunque dominus Boamundus junior, domini Boamundi senioris filius, Antiochiam cum suis pertinentiis, quasi haereditatem propriam reposceret, eam sibi sine molestia et contradictione restitueret. Sepultus est autem idem vir illustris, in porticu ecclesiae Principis apostolorum, anno ab Incarnatione Domini 1112.

However, there succeeded to him in the same principate, by his final judgment, a certain kinsman of his, Roger, son of Richard, on this condition: that whenever Lord Boamund the Younger, son of Lord Boamund the Elder, should demand Antioch with its pertinences as his own inheritance, he would restore it to him without trouble or contradiction. But that same illustrious man was buried in the portico of the church of the Prince of the Apostles, in the year from the Incarnation of the Lord 1112.

CAPUT XIX. Menduc, Turcorum princeps potentissimus, iterum cum ingentibus copiis regnum ingreditur: rex ei occurrens, conficitur; supra vires universa regio fatigatur.

CHAPTER 19. Menduc, a most powerful prince of the Turks, again enters the kingdom with vast forces: the king, going out to meet him, is slain; the whole region is worn out beyond its strength.

Anno quoque ab Incarnatione Domini 1113, aestate subsecuta, iterum de Perside, quae mala semper consuevit effundere germina, ex qua tanquam ex fonte pernicioso, aquae solent pestilentes derivare, multitudo infanda prorupit sub principe potentissimo et titulis generositatis praeclaro, Menduc nomine: tantam secum trahens numerositatem, ut eorum neque numerus certus esset, neque finis. Hi mediis transcursis regionibus, ad Euphratem pervenerunt, novis utentes consiliis. Nam qui eos de eodem populo praecesserant, saepius circa partes Antiochenas vires suas consueverant primum experiri; his autem sicut ex postfacto patuit, longe alia mens, et propositum erat dissimile; nam omnem Coelesyriam pertranseuntes, relicta a sinistris Damasco, inter Libanum et oram maritimam, Tiberiadem praetereuntes, circa pontem sub quo Jordanis defluit, castrametati sunt.

In the year also from the Incarnation of the Lord 1113, with the summer following, again from Persia, which has ever been accustomed to pour forth evil seeds, from which, as from a pernicious fountain, pestilent waters are wont to be derived, an unspeakable multitude burst forth under a most potent prince and renowned in titles of nobility, by name Menduc; dragging with him such numerosity that of them there was neither a fixed number nor an end. These, the central regions having been raced through, reached the Euphrates, using new counsels. For those of the same people who had gone before them had more often been accustomed first to try their strength around the Antiochene parts; but to these, as was evident after the fact, the mind was far other and the purpose dissimilar; for traversing all Coele-Syria, with Damascus left on the left, between Lebanon and the maritime shore, passing by Tiberias, around the bridge under which the Jordan flows down, they encamped.

Quod audiens rex, cognito quod de infinita multitudine praesumerent, dominum Rogerum Antiochenorum principem, comitemque Tripolitanum in suum evocat subsidium; tamen antequam illi convenirent, ipse cum suis expeditionibus in vicino eis loco castra posuerat: quod hostibus ut innotuit, emissis de exercitu equitum duobus millibus, intelligentes magis opus esse industria quam viribus, mille quingentos ex eis praecipiunt latere in insidiis; quingentos vero reliquos procedere jubent longius, et quasi se habentes incautius, regem cum suis insequendo irritare. Quod non longe ab eorum proposito certum est accidisse. Nam praedictos quingentos, quasi incautius se habentes, et progressos longius, rex considerans et impetuose suos convocans, illis procedit obviam, et versos in fugam prosequens, imprudentius in eorum decidit insidias: quibus ex suis latebris egredientibus, facta est hostium ingens multitudo, collectisque et ad se revocatis quingentis prioribus, in nostros irruunt impetu vehementi.

Hearing this, the king, having learned that they were presuming upon their infinite multitude, calls Lord Roger, prince of the Antiochenes, and the Count of Tripoli to his aid; however, before they could convene, he himself with his expeditions had pitched camp in a place near to them: when this became known to the enemies, sending out from the army 2000 horse, understanding that there was more need of industry than of forces, they order 1500 of them to lie hidden in ambush; but they bid the remaining 500 to advance farther, and, as if behaving more incautiously, to provoke the king with his men by pursuing. Which, it is certain, happened not far from their intention. For the king, observing the aforesaid 500 as if acting incautiously and having advanced farther, and impetuously calling his men together, goes to meet them, and, pursuing them turned to flight, more imprudently falls into their ambush: and they, coming forth from their lairs, a huge multitude of enemies was made; and, the earlier 500 having been gathered and called back to themselves, they rush upon our men with a vehement onset.

Quibus, cum nostri tentarent resistere et gladiis a se propulsare, protervius instantes, oppressi multitudine, fugam inire compelluntur, quam nec etiam tutam reperiunt; nam fugientium facta est strages maxima, ita ut rex ipse relicto vexillo quod gestabat in manibus, et Arnulfus patriarcha, qui cum eo erat, et alii regni principes, relictis castris et impedimentis omnibus vix evaserint. Obtinuerunt ergo hostes nostrorum castra; et facta est, peccatis nostris exigentibus, confusio multa in populo Dei, idque totum domino regi ascribebatur, quod impetuose nimis, et de sua virtute plus aequo confidens, convocata noluit auxilia praestolari. Nam dominus Rogerus princeps Antiochenus et Tripolitanus comes in proximo erant, die sequente vel tertia, procul omni dubio venturi.

Against whom, when our men tried to resist and to drive them off with swords, as they pressed on more insolently, overwhelmed by the multitude, they are compelled to enter upon flight, which they do not even find safe; for a very great slaughter of the fugitives took place, such that the king himself, having left behind the standard which he was bearing in his hands, and Arnulf the patriarch, who was with him, and the other princes of the kingdom, leaving the camp and all the impedimenta, scarcely escaped. The enemies therefore seized the camp of our men; and there was, our sins demanding it, much confusion in the people of God, and the whole of this was being ascribed to the lord king, because, too impetuously, and trusting more than was meet in his own virtue, he refused, after he had called them, to await the auxiliaries. For lord Roger, prince of Antioch, and the count of Tripoli were close at hand, without any doubt going to come on the following day or the third.

Ceciderunt illa die de equitibus nostris triginta; de peditibus vero, mille ducenti. His ita gestis, adfuerunt praedicti duo magni potentesque viri: cognitoque casu qui acciderat, regem arguunt tanquam nimis praecipitem; tandemque redeuntes in unum, in montibus vicinis castra locant, unde erat inferius in valle hostium exercitus contueri. Illi autem scientes reliquas regni partes militia vacare, missis de suo exercitu ad varias partes, terram universam coeperunt percursitare, caedes passim per vias publicas operari, incendia procurare, effringere suburbana, captivare colonos, ita libere per universam se habere regionem, tanquam sibi omnia subjecissent.

On that day there fell of our horsemen 30; but of the foot-soldiers, 1,200. With these things thus done, the aforesaid two great and powerful men arrived; and, having learned the mishap that had occurred, they accuse the king as over-headlong; and at length, reuniting into one, they pitch camp in the neighboring mountains, whence it was possible to behold below in the valley the enemy’s army. But they, knowing the remaining parts of the kingdom to be void of soldiery, having sent out detachments from their host to various quarters, began to scour the whole land, to work slaughters here and there along the public roads, to procure conflagrations, to break open the suburban districts, to make captive the coloni, and to conduct themselves so freely throughout the whole region as though they had subjected all things to themselves.

Recesserant etiam a nobis per illos dies nostri domestici, et suburbanorum nostrorum, quae casalia dicuntur, habitatores, Sarraceni: et hostium adjuncti cohortibus, alios erudiebant in nostram perniciem; qui tanto id melius facere poterant, quanto status nostri pleniorem habebant scientiam: Nulla enim pestis efficacior ad nocendum quam familiaris inimicus. His ergo ducibus hostes freti et eorum fortiores facti solatio, villas circuibant et castella, praedas, et mancipia secum trahentes. Tantusque horror regnum occupaverat universum, ut extra moenia nemo prorsus auderet comparere.

Our domestics also had withdrawn from us in those days, and the inhabitants of our suburbs, which are called casalia, Saracens: and, having joined the enemy’s cohorts, they were instructing others to our destruction; and they could do that so much the better, the fuller knowledge they had of our condition: For no pest is more efficacious for harming than a familiar enemy. Therefore, with these as guides the enemies, relying on them and made stronger by their support, were going around villas and castles, dragging along with them booty and slaves. And so great a horror had occupied the whole kingdom that outside the walls no one at all dared to appear.

CAPUT XX. Ascalonitae impugnant Hierosolymam; sed tandem hostium dissolvuntur acies, et redeunt ad propria.

CHAPTER 20. The Ascalonites assail Jerusalem; but at length the enemy’s battle-lines are dissolved, and they return to their own.

Accesserat praeterea ad timoris et aerumnae cumulum, quod Ascalonitae, tanquam vermes inquieti, scientes quod rex cum omnibus regni viribus, circa partes Tiberiadenses detineretur occupatus, hostes quoque regionem pene totam obtinerent, egressi cum ingenti multitudine, ad montana conscendunt, et Hierosolymam, militaribus destitutam copiis, obsident; nonnullos, quos extra urbem reperiunt, aut captivant, aut interficiunt: messes aridas, quas agricolae in areas congesserant, tradunt incendiis. Tandem cum per aliquot dies ibi consedissent, videntes quod nullus ad eos egrederetur, sed omnes intra moenia cautius se haberent, timentes regis adventum, reversi sunt ad propria. At vero aestate jam in autumnum declinante, juxta consuetudinem, peregrinorum coeperunt applicare naves.

Moreover, there was added to the heap of fear and hardship that the Ascalonites, like restless vermin, knowing that the king, with all the forces of the realm, was detained and occupied about the Tiberiadene parts, and that the enemies likewise were holding almost the whole region, having gone out with a huge multitude, climb to the highlands and besiege Jerusalem, destitute of military forces; some whom they find outside the city they either take captive or kill; the dry harvests which the husbandmen had heaped upon the threshing-floors they consign to fires. At length, when they had sat there for several days, seeing that no one went out against them, but that all kept themselves more cautiously within the walls, fearing the king’s advent, they returned to their own places. But indeed, with the summer now declining into autumn, according to custom, the ships of pilgrims began to make landfall.

Qui vero in eis advecti erant, audientes quod rex et populus Christianus tantis laborarent angustiis, illuc cum omni celeritate tam equites quam pedites certatim properant; ita ut evidentibus incrementis noster per singulos dies multiplicaretur exercitus. Quod intelligentes hostium principes, timentes ne multiplicatis viribus, ad ulciscendum suas se pararent injurias, in fines Damascenorum se receperunt; nostri vero ab invicem discedentes, reversi sunt ad propria. At vero hostilium exercituum princeps, qui regnum ita potenter afflixerat, Damascum perveniens, consentiente, ut dicitur, Damascenorum rege Doldequino, a quibusdam sicariis interfectus est; suspectam enim ejus dicebatur habere potentiam, ne eum regno privaret.

But those who had been conveyed in them, hearing that the king and the Christian people were laboring under such straits, thither with all speed both knights and footmen hasten in emulous rivalry; so that by evident increments our army was multiplied day by day. Understanding this, the princes of the enemy, fearing lest, with forces multiplied, they would prepare themselves to avenge their injuries, withdrew into the borders of the Damascenes; but our men, departing from one another, returned to their own places. But indeed the prince of the hostile armies, who had so powerfully afflicted the kingdom, on arriving at Damascus, with the king of the Damascenes, Doldequin, consenting, as it is said, was slain by certain assassins; for he was said to hold his power in suspicion, lest he should deprive him of the kingdom.

CAPUT XXI. Comitissa Siciliae, regis uxor futura, in portu applicat Acconensium.

CHAPTER 21. The Countess of Sicily, the king’s future wife, puts in at the port of the people of Acre.

Diviso igitur ab invicem exercitu et singulis ad propria remeantibus, adfuit nuntius, domino regi significans quod comitissa Siciliae apud urbem Acconensem applicuerat. Fuerat praedicta comitissa, domini Rogeri comitis, qui cognominatus est Bursa, qui frater fuit domini Roberti Guischardi, uxor; nobilis, et potens, et dives matrona. Ad hanc anno proxime praeterito, quosdam nobiles de regno suo rex direxerat, invitans eam et cum instantia postulans, ut cum eo lege conjugali vellet convenire.

Therefore, the army having been divided from one another and the individuals returning to their own places, a messenger was present to the lord king, signifying that the countess of Sicily had put in at the Acconensian city. The aforesaid countess had been the wife of lord Roger the count, who is surnamed Bursa, who was the brother of lord Robert Guiscard; a noble, and potent, and rich matron. To her, in the year most recently past, the king had sent certain nobles from his kingdom, inviting her and with urgency petitioning that she should be willing to come together with him by conjugal law.

Quae verbum filio communicans, domino videlicet Rogero, qui postea fuit rex Siciliae, coepit cum eodem de verbo illo deliberare; et tandem visum est ambobus quod si dominus rex sub certis conditionibus praedictum verbum vellet confirmare, ipsi petitioni ejus parati erant acquiescere. Forma autem conditionum haec erat: Quod si rex et praedicta comitissa prolem susciperet, ei post regis obitum sine contradictione et molestia regnum concederetur; quod si absque haerede ex eadem comitissa suscepto defungeretur, comes Rogerus, filius ejus, haeres existeret; et in regno, sine contradictione et molestia rex futurus, succederet. Rex autem abeuntibus legatis in mandatis dederat ut, quibuscunque petitionibus parentes, eam secum modis omnibus deducere laborarent. Audierat enim, et vere scierat, quod mulier locuples erat; et filio accepta, bonis omnibus abundabat.

She, communicating the word to her son, namely lord Roger, who afterwards was king of Sicily, began to deliberate with him about that word; and at length it seemed good to both that, if the lord king would confirm the aforesaid word under certain conditions, they were ready to acquiesce in his petition. Now the form of the conditions was this: That if the king and the aforesaid countess should raise up progeny, to him after the king’s death the kingdom should be granted without contradiction and trouble; but if he should die without an heir begotten from the same countess, count Roger, her son, should be heir, and in the kingdom, without contradiction and trouble, should succeed as king. Moreover, as the envoys departed, the king had given instructions that, to whatever petitions her relatives should make, they should strive by every means to lead her with them. For he had heard, and had truly known, that the woman was opulent; and, her son being received, she abounded in all goods.

Ipse vero e converso pauper erat et tenuis, vix ad necessitates quotidianas et equitum stipendia sibi poterat sufficere: unde et de illius redundantia suae sitiebat inopiae subveniri. Missi igitur legati conditiones praedictas gratanter suscipiunt; et interpositis juramentis, prout exigebantur, quod his pactis a domino rege et suis principibus, bona fide, sine fraude et dolo malo staretur, comitissa, filio universa necessaria suggerente, se accingit ad iter, et oneratis navibus frumento, vino et oleo, et salsis carnibus, armis praeterea et equitaturis egregiis, assumens secum infinitam pecuniam, omnibus eam prosequentibus copiis, in nostram, ut praedictum est, appulit regionem. Haec autem, ut praedictum est, Arnulfi patriarchae machinabatur malitia, ut illa nobilis et honesta deciperetur femina: deceptam quippe negare non possumus eam, quae in simplicitate viarum suarum, regem putabat idoneam gerere personam, ad hoc ut ei nuberet legitime.

He, however, on the contrary, was poor and slight, scarcely able to suffice for daily necessities and the stipends of the knights: whence he thirsted that his poverty might be succored from her abundance. Therefore the envoys dispatched gladly accept the aforesaid conditions; and, oaths interposed as were required, that to these pacts by the lord king and his princes it should stand in good faith, without fraud and evil deceit, the countess—her son suggesting all the necessaries—girds herself for the journey, and, the ships being laden with grain, wine, and oil, and salted meats, with arms moreover and excellent horse-equipments, taking with her boundless money, with all forces escorting her, as has been said, she made land in our region. This, moreover, as has been said, was being machinated by the malice of Patriarch Arnulf, to the end that that noble and honest woman might be deceived: indeed we cannot deny her to have been deceived, who in the simplicity of her ways thought the king to bear a persona fit for this very thing, namely that she might lawfully marry him.

Erat autem longe secus; nam uxor quam ipse apud Edessam legitime duxerat, adhuc in rebus agebat humanis. Postquam ergo applicuit dicta comitissa, praesente domino rege, patriarcha, et regni principibus, innovata sunt juramenta, juxta eamdem formam, qua prius in Sicilia fuerant exhibita. Et quia intentione sinistra et oculo non simplici haec fuerant inchoata, respiciens Dominus ad eorum intentionem, nec solitam mulieri, licet innocenti, in regno concessit fecunditatem, et extrema hujus gaudii luctus occupavit (Prov.

But it was far otherwise; for the wife whom he had legitimately taken at Edessa was still alive in the realm of human affairs. After, therefore, the said countess arrived, with the lord king, the patriarch, and the princes of the kingdom present, the oaths were renewed, according to the same form in which previously in Sicily they had been exhibited. And because these things had been begun with sinister intention and with an eye not single, the Lord, looking upon their intention, did not grant to the woman, though innocent, the customary fecundity in the kingdom, and “the end of this joy mourning occupied” (Prov.

XIV), ut in sequentibus dicetur: Difficile est enim, ut bono claudantur exitu, quae malo sunt inchoata principio. Interim tamen tot tantasque adveniens regno intulit commoditates, ut merito minimus dicere posset: Et nos de plenitudine ejus accepimus (Joan. XVI).

14), as will be said in what follows: For it is difficult that things which have been inchoated with an evil beginning be closed with a good exit. Meanwhile, however, upon her arrival she brought into the kingdom so many and such great advantages that the least could deservedly say: And we also from his plenitude have received (John 16).

CAPUT XXII. In regione Edessana fames oritur valida. Balduinus Joscelinum consanguineum suum capit, et ab universa regione violenter exire compellit.

CHAPTER 22. In the Edessan region a strong famine arises. Baldwin seizes Joscelin, his kinsman, and compels him violently to depart from the whole region.

Accidit autem illis diebus quod in finibus Edessanis suborta est fames validissima, tum propter terrae et aeris intemperiem; tum quia in medio hostium regio illa sita erat et inimicis undique vallata; nec locorum incolae hostilitatis metu liberam agriculturae poterant operam dare, ita, quod cives illius urbis simul et suburbani nihilominus hordeaceum panem, et etiam glande mistum, edere prae inopia cogerentur. Terra autem domini Joscelini in tuto cis Euphratem collocata, frugibus et alimentorum copia plenius abundabat. Verum, licet ita bonis omnibus afflueret ejus provincia, praedictus Joscelinus, in hac parte minus sapiens, et ingrato similis, domino et consanguineo suo, qui ei haec eadem universa contulerat, de sua plenitudine et ubertate stupenda nihil omnino porrigebat, licet dominum comitem suosque extremam pati non dubitaret inopiam.

It happened, moreover, in those days that within the Edessan borders a very mighty famine arose, both on account of the intemperateness of the land and the air, and because that region was situated in the midst of enemies and was girded on all sides by foes; nor could the inhabitants of the places, for fear of hostility, give free effort to agriculture, so that the citizens of that city and likewise the suburbanites were compelled, on account of scarcity, to eat barley bread, and even mixed with acorn. But the land of Lord Joscelin, placed in safety on this side of the Euphrates, abounded more fully with crops and with a plenty of provisions. Yet, although his province thus overflowed with all good things, the aforesaid Joscelin, in this matter less wise and like an ingrate, to his lord and kinsman—who had conferred upon him all these same things—extended absolutely nothing from his fullness and astounding abundance, although he did not doubt that his lord the count and his men were suffering extreme want.

Factum est autem ut pro quibusdam negotiis dominus comes Balduinus ad dominum Rogerum, filium Richardi Antiochenorum principem, cui etiam quamdam sororem suam in uxorem contulerat, nuntios destinaret. Hi abeuntes, Euphrate transito, per terram domini Joscelini iter habentes, euntes redeuntesque ab eo sunt satis hospitaliter et humane tractati. Tandem, sicut mos est imprudentibus, quidam de familia domini Joscelini, nuntios domini comitis verbis lacessentes, exprobrare coeperunt domini comitis paupertatem; domini vero sui immensas e converso extollere copias; frumenti, vini et olei, et alimentorum redundantiam, auri argentique immensa pondera; militum peditumque numerositatem, adjicientes etiam, sicut lingua pruriens, incaute plerumque loquitur, quod non erat comes illi regioni, cui praeerat, commodus: consultius faceret, si comitatum suum domino Joscelino venderet; et, recepta innumera pecunia, remearet in Franciam.

Now it came to pass that, on account of certain business, the lord count Baldwin sent envoys to lord Roger, son of Richard, the prince of the Antiochenes, to whom also he had bestowed a certain sister of his in marriage. These, departing and, the Euphrates having been crossed, holding their journey through the land of lord Joscelin, going and returning were by him treated quite hospitably and humanely. At length, as is the custom with the imprudent, certain of the household of lord Joscelin, provoking the envoys of the lord count with words, began to reproach the poverty of the lord count; but, conversely, to extol the immense resources of their own lord: the abundance of grain, wine, and oil, and of provisions; the immense weights of gold and silver; the numerousness of knights and foot-soldiers—adding also, as a prurient tongue very often speaks incautiously, that the count was not suitable to the region over which he presided: he would act more advisably if he sold his county to lord Joscelin, and, an innumerable sum of money received, returned to France.

Quae verba in pectus nuntiorum (etsi dissimulare viderentur) altius descenderunt; et, licet a levibus personis essent dicta, tamen domini mentem redolere videbantur; sumptaque licentia, ad dominum comitem redierunt. Quo pervenientes, omnia quae in via acciderant, simul et verba, quae in domo domini Joscelini audierant, ordine pandunt. Quibus auditis, iratus dominus comes et multo libramine ponderans apud se verba quae audierat, intellexit quod a domino Joscelino haec omnia ortum habuerant; et indignatus plurimum quod ille, cui tantas contulerat copias cum de sua opulentia merito teneretur suam relevare inopiam, contra bonos mores paupertatem, tanquam vitium, exprobraret: in quam tamen non levibus actibus, sed necessitate descenderat inevitabili; sibique id ipsum unde ille gloriabatur, liberaliter detraxerat, ut in eum conferret; coepit aestuare indignatione plenus.

These words sank deeper into the breast of the messengers (although they seemed to dissemble); and, although they had been spoken by light persons, yet they appeared to redolently betray the mind of their lord; and, leave having been taken, they returned to the lord Count. Arriving there, they unfold in order all that had happened on the road, and likewise the words which they had heard in the house of Lord Joscelin. When these were heard, the lord Count, angered, and weighing with much counterpoise within himself the words he had heard, understood that all these things had taken their origin from Lord Joscelin; and he was exceedingly indignant that he, upon whom he had conferred such great supplies, since by his own opulence he was deservedly bound to relieve his poverty, should upbraid against good morals poverty, as though it were a vice: into which, however, he had descended not by light actions, but by inevitable necessity; and from himself he had liberally taken away that very thing of which that man was boasting, in order to confer it upon him; he began to seethe, full of indignation.

Simulat ergo aegritudinem, et lecto decubans, mandat domino Joscelino, ut absque mora ad se venire properet: quo comperto, festinat dominus Joscelinus, nihil veritus, in nullo viam habens suspectam; tandem Edessam perveniens, invenit comitem in praesidio civitatis, et in ea ejus parte, quae Rangulath dicitur, in interiore conclavi decubantem: ad quem ingrediens, depenso debitae salutationis affatu, quaesivit a domino comite, quomodo ei esset? Cui ille respondit: Multo melius, per gratiam Dei, quam tu velis. Et iterum verbum continuans, intulit: Josceline, habesne aliquid, quod ego tibi non dederim? Cui ille: Domine, nihil.—Unde est ergo quod ingratus et meorum beneficiorum immemor, de meo superabundans et dilatatus, et mihi benefactori tuo indigenti, non ex temeritate, sed ex causa, quam nullus sapiens, nullus peritus declinare posset (quia non est consilium contra Dominum) non compateris? portionem ejus quod totum dedi, non retribuis?

Therefore he simulates sickness, and, reclining on the bed, commands Lord Joscelin to hasten to come to him without delay: this learned, Lord Joscelin hastens, fearing nothing, having the road in no respect suspect; at length, arriving at Edessa, he finds the count in the stronghold of the city, and in that part of it which is called Rangulath, lying in an inner chamber: entering to him, after paying with the speech of due salutation, he asked the lord count how it was with him? To whom he replied: Much better, by the grace of God, than you would wish. And again, continuing the word, he added: Joscelin, have you anything which I have not given to you? To whom he: Lord, nothing.—Whence is it then that, ungrateful and forgetful of my benefactions, abounding and enlarged by what is mine, and to me, your benefactor, being in need, not from temerity, but for a cause which no wise man, no skilled man could decline (for there is no counsel against the Lord) you do not have compassion? Do you not repay a portion of that of which I gave the whole?

insuper et tenuitatem divinitus collatam, quasi pro vitio exprobras et pro crimine objicis? Sumne ego tam inutilis, ut vendam tibi quod mihi contulit Dominus, et fugiam, ut dicis? Resigna quod dedi, et redde universa quae tibi contuli, quia indignum te fecisti. His verbis dictis, praecepit eum captum vinculis mancipari, afflixitque eum mirabiliter et miserabiliter, non minus et multimodis quaestionibus et tormentis: quousque adjurata universa regione, cuncta quae ab eodem comite dono susceperat, resignaret.

moreover you reproach even the slenderness granted by God, as though for a fault, and you allege it as a crime? Am I so useless that I should sell to you what the Lord has bestowed on me, and flee, as you say? Resign what I have given, and render all that I have conferred on you, for you have made yourself unworthy. With these words spoken, he ordered him, once seized, to be handed over to bonds, and he afflicted him marvelously and miserably, and not less with manifold interrogations and torments, until, the whole region having been adjured, he resigned everything which he had received as a gift from that same count.

Exiens ergo de finibus illis, bonis omnibus spoliatus, ad dominum Balduinum Hierosolymorum regem primum accessit, cunctisque quae ei acciderant ordine manifestatis, propositum aperit, quod in patriam redire proposuerat. Quo audito, dominus rex videns eum regno maxime necessarium, dedit ei urbem Tiberiadensem cum finibus suis jure perpetuo possidendam, ut tanti viri solatio se muniret. Quam urbem strenue et prudenter cum omnibus suis pertinentiis, quandiu in ea mansit, rexisse et fini ampliasse dicitur praestantissime; cumque adhuc Tyrus ab infidelibus detineretur, exemplo praedecessoris sui, multas ejus civibus dicitur intulisse molestias.

Going out therefore from those borders, despoiled of all his goods, he first approached lord Baldwin, king of Jerusalem; and, with all the things which had happened to him set forth in order, he disclosed his plan, namely that he had proposed to return to his fatherland. On hearing this, the lord king, seeing him most necessary to the kingdom, gave him the city of Tiberias with its borders to be possessed by perpetual right, that he might fortify himself with the support of so great a man. Which city, with all its appurtenances, he is said to have governed vigorously and prudently, so long as he remained in it, and most excellently to have enlarged its boundary; and since Tyre was still held by the unbelievers, after the example of his predecessor, he is said to have inflicted many molestations upon its citizens.

Et, licet aliquantulum montibus interpositis ab eis videretur esse remotior; saepe tamen eorum fines ingrediebatur, eis damna collaturus.

And, although, with mountains interposed, he seemed to be somewhat more remote from them; yet he often entered their boundaries, to inflict damages upon them.

CAPUT XXIII. Terrae motus ingens partes concutit Antiochenas. Borsequinus quoque, Turcorum satrapa potentissimus, in eadem desaevit regione.

CHAPTER 23. A huge earthquake shakes the Antiochene parts. Borsequin also, the most powerful satrap of the Turks, rages savagely in the same region.

Anno ab Incarnatione Domini 1114, tantus universam Syriam terrae motus concussit, ut multas urbes et oppida infinita dirueret funditus; maxime autem circa Ciliciam, Isauriam et Coelesyriam. Nam in Cilicia Mamistram cum multis oppidis solotenus prostravit; Maresiam quoque dejecit cum suburbanis suis, ita ut quorumdam vix etiam exstarent vestigia: quatiebantur turres et moenia, majoribusque aedificiis periculosius ruentibus, fiebat populorum strages infinita; et civitates amplissimae quasi agger lapidum constitutae, tumulus erant oppressorum, et contritis habitatoribus vicem praestabant sepulcri. Fugiebat plebs mente consternata habitationem urbium, domiciliorum ruinam formidantes; et dum sub dio requiem invenire sperant, timore concussi, somnos interrumpunt, oppressiones quas vigilantes timuerant, in somnis perpessi Nec erat hoc, tam ingens, in una tantum regione, periculum; sed usque ad extremos Orientis fines, haec pestis late se diffuderat.

In the year 1114 from the Incarnation of the Lord, so great an earthquake shook all Syria that it razed to the very foundations many cities and countless towns; and most especially around Cilicia, Isauria, and Coele‑Syria. For in Cilicia it threw Mamistra down level with the soil together with many towns; it also cast down Maresia with its suburbs, so that scarcely even the traces of some places remained: towers and walls were shaken, and as the larger buildings collapsed more perilously, there was an infinite slaughter of peoples; and the most ample cities, as if constituted into a mound of stones, were a burial‑mound of the crushed, and with the inhabitants shattered they performed the office of a sepulcher. The common folk, their minds confounded, fled the dwelling of the cities, fearing the ruin of their homes; and while they hoped to find rest under the open sky, shaken by fear they broke their sleep, suffering in dreams the crushings which while awake they had feared. Nor was this peril, so immense, in only one region; but even to the farthest confines of the East this pestilence had spread itself widely.

Anno quoque sequenti, juxta morem solitum, Bursequinus, Turcorum potentissimus, congregata gentis ejusdem multitudine infinita, regioni Antiochenae hostiliter se infudit, pertransiensque totam illam provinciam, inter Halapiam et Damascum castrametatus est, exspectans ut, opportunitate concessa, inde in partes nostras has vel illas irruptiones moliretur. Porro Doldequinus Damascenorum rex, illorum expeditiones habens nimis suspectas: timensque ne magis ea intentione illuc convenissent, ut sibi et regno suo detrimenta molirentur, quam ut contra Christianos quorum vires saepius erant experti, dimicaturi advenissent; factus est sollicitus. Imputabatur enim ei mors praedicti nobilis viri, qui apud Damascum fuerat interemptus, quasi de ejus conscientia talis illius interitus processisset.

In the following year also, according to the customary manner, Bursequinus, the most powerful of the Turks, having gathered an infinite multitude of that same nation, poured himself in hostile fashion into the Antiochene region; and passing through that whole province, he encamped between Aleppo and Damascus, awaiting until, opportunity being granted, from there he might set on foot irruptions into these or those of our parts. Moreover, Doldequinus, king of the Damascenes, regarding their expeditions as highly suspect, and fearing lest they had come together there with the intention rather of contriving detriments for himself and his kingdom than of arriving to fight against the Christians, whose forces they had more than once experienced, became solicitous. For the death of the aforesaid noble man, who had been slain at Damascus, was imputed to him, as though such a destruction of his had proceeded with his cognizance.

Audito ergo Turcorum adventu et eorum intentione plenius cognita, missis legationibus cum ingenti munerum magnificentia tam ad dominum regem quam ad dominum principem Antiochenum, pacem petit ad certum tempus et implorat; juramenta praestans et obsides, quod toto concessi temporis foedere, Christianis tam ex regno quam ex principatu fidelem debeat societatem observare. Interea princeps Antiochenus videns eos suis partibus viciniores; et quorumdam edoctus relatione, quod in terram suam impetus molirentur, dominum regem in sui subsidium evocat; Doldequinum quoque nihilominus jure foederis obligatum, ut cum suis adesse procuret copiis, invitat. Rex autem pro salute regionis sollicitus plurimum, congregata militia et honesto stipatus comitatu, illuc impiger contendit: assumptoque secum Tripolitano comite Pontio, intra paucos dies ad eum locum, ubi dominus princeps suas collegerat copias, pervenit.

Therefore, when the coming of the Turks had been heard and their intention more fully ascertained, he sent embassies with immense magnificence of gifts both to the lord king and to the lord prince of Antioch, and asks and implores peace for a fixed time; furnishing oaths and hostages, that for the whole covenant of the time granted he should observe faithful society toward the Christians both of the kingdom and of the principality. Meanwhile the prince of Antioch, seeing them nearer to his borders, and instructed by the report of certain persons that they were contriving an inrush into his land, summons the lord king to his succor; and Doldequin likewise, bound by the law of the treaty, he invites, that he should take care to be present with his forces. But the king, very solicitous for the safety of the region, with the soldiery gathered and escorted by an honorable retinue, hastens thither vigorously; and, having taken with him Pons, the Count of Tripoli, within a few days he arrived at the place where the lord prince had assembled his forces.

Porro Doldequinus, sicut et vicinior erat, ita et domini regis praevenerat exercitum, nostrorum castris tanquam socius se adjungens. Collectis ergo omnibus in unum copiis, ante urbem Caesaream, ubi hostes adesse prius audierant, unanimiter constituerunt: quo hostibus cognito, videntes quod nisi cum gravi periculo non possent nostros sustinere, simulant recessum, tanquam de caetero non redituri. Unde nostri ab invicem separati, reversi sunt ad propria.

Furthermore Doldequin, as he was the nearer, had likewise gone on ahead of the lord king’s army, joining himself to our camp as an ally. Therefore, with all forces gathered into one, before the city of Caesarea, where they had previously heard the enemies were present, they unanimously resolved; which, once known by the enemies, seeing that they could not sustain our men except with grave peril, they simulate a retreat, as though henceforth not about to return. Whence our men, separated from one another, returned to their own places.

CAPUT XXIV. Ascalonitae urbem Joppensem obsident; sed regis adventum formidantes, infecto negotio recedunt ad propria.

CHAPTER 24. The Ascalonites besiege the Joppan city; but, fearing the king’s advent, with the business unfinished they withdraw to their own places.

Interea, dum rex ita circa partes Antiochenas detineretur occupatus, Ascalonitae ea freti fiducia quod rex absens erat secumque majores regni vires contraxerat, sumpta opportunitate ex tempore, urbem Joppensem obsident. Modico siquidem ante tempore, septuaginta navium classis in eorum subsidium ex Aegypto ascenderat, quam ante se praeire, et Joppensium littus occupare praecipiunt; ipsi vero subsecuti in multis millibus, erectis vexillis, subito ante urbem constiterunt. Qui vero in classe erant, cognito suorum per terras adventu, e navibus certatim prosiliunt, civitatem quominus impugnaturi.

Meanwhile, while the king was thus detained, occupied about the Antiochene parts, the Ascalonites, relying on the confidence that the king was absent and had drawn together with himself the greater forces of the kingdom, taking the opportunity of the moment, besiege the Joppan city. Indeed, a short time before, a fleet of 70 ships had ascended from Egypt to their succor, which they command to go on before them and to occupy the shore of the Joppans; but they themselves, following after in many thousands, with standards erected, suddenly took their stand before the city. And those who were in the fleet, upon learning of their comrades’ arrival by land, leap forth from the ships in emulous haste, to assault the city without more delay.

Sic ergo dispositis in gyrum ordinibus, urbem ex omni parte ambiunt et signo dato impugnant, undique instantes animosius. Cives autem, etsi pauci essent numero et viribus longe impares, pro uxoribus et liberis, pro libertate et patria, pro qua quivis egregius honestum mori reputat, resistunt viriliter; turresque ac moenia pro viribus communientes, arcubus et balistis, jactu quoque pugillarium lapidum hostes a se propellunt longius, nec ad murum patiuntur accedere. Contigit autem Ascalonitis longe secus a spe quam conceperant; nam, urbem arbitrantes vacuam reperire, scalas fabricaverant et altitudine et numero sufficientes, per quas statim sine contradictore intra moenia irrumpere posse non diffidebant.

Thus therefore, with the ranks disposed in a circle, they surround the city on every side and, the signal having been given, assail it, pressing in from all quarters more spiritedly. The citizens, however, although few in number and far unequal in strength, for their wives and children, for liberty and fatherland, for which any distinguished man reckons it honorable to die, withstand manfully; and strengthening the towers and walls to the best of their power, with bows and ballistae, and with the hurling of fist-stones as well, they drive the enemies farther from themselves, nor do they suffer them to approach the wall. It befell the Ascalonites, however, far otherwise than the hope they had conceived; for, supposing they would find the city empty, they had constructed ladders sufficient both in height and in number, by which they did not lack confidence that they could straightway, without opposition, break within the walls.

Resistentibus igitur viriliter obsessis, non dabatur eis scalas moenibus applicare; quibus vix licitum erat ad eos, qui in turribus erant, aliquid jaculari. Tantam enim civibus Dominus contulerat gratiam, ut circumstantem multitudinem, divino freti auxilio, non formidarent. Erant autem portae civitatis ligneae, nullum ex aere vel ferro habentes operimentum.

Therefore, as the besieged were resisting manfully, it was not granted them to apply ladders to the walls; and they were scarcely permitted to hurl anything at those who were in the towers. For the Lord had conferred such favor upon the citizens that, relying on divine aid, they did not dread the surrounding multitude. Moreover, the gates of the city were wooden, having no covering of bronze or iron.

Has ignem artificiose contorquendo ex parte combusserunt; non tamen eatenus ut per eas major vis civibus, aut major inferri posset molestia. Videntes ergo post dies aliquot Ascalonitae quod non proficerent, timentesque ne regionis populus ad obsessorum conveniret subsidium, soluta obsidione, domum reversi sunt. Classis vero secundis usa flatibus, in portum Tyrensium se recepit.

These they partially burned by skillfully hurling fire; yet not to such an extent that through them a greater force against the citizens, or a greater molestation, could be inflicted. Therefore, the Ascalonites, seeing after several days that they were not advancing, and fearing lest the people of the region would gather to the aid of the besieged, with the siege lifted, returned home. But the fleet, using favorable breezes, withdrew into the port of the Tyrians.

Evoluto autem decem dierum spatio, tentare volentes utrum Joppitas incautos aliquando reperire possent, Ascalona secretius egressi, congregata suorum ingenti multitudine, subito et sine strepitu, iterato ante Joppen astiterunt. Cives autem, in talibus assueti, semper erant in excubiis, continuas noctibus per successiones agentes vigilias, ut semper ad resistendum invenirentur parati. Videntes ergo hostium reversas legiones et bella sibi recidiva parari, certatim turres conscendunt et moenia; tantoque acrius contendunt resistere, quanto vires hostium minores conspiciunt et numerum vident imminutum.

With the space of ten days elapsed, wishing to test whether they might at some time find the Joppites off their guard, having gone out more secretly from Ascalon, and a huge multitude of their own gathered, suddenly and without noise they stood again before Joppa. The citizens, however, accustomed in such matters, were always on watch, keeping continual vigils by night in succession, so that they might always be found ready to resist. Therefore, seeing the legions of the enemy returned and renewed wars being prepared against them, they vie with one another to mount the towers and the walls; and they strive so much the more keenly to resist, the more they perceive the enemy’s forces to be lesser and see their number diminished.

Nam, classem quae alia vice multa civibus intulerat discrimina, abesse conspiciunt, non facile redituram. Augebat et nihilominus obsessorum fiduciam, quod rex in proximo dicebatur venturus. Unde facti animosiores et resistentes confidentius, variis casibus, multos de hostium exercitu protervius instantes peremerunt.

For they perceive that the fleet, which on another occasion had brought many dangers upon the citizens, is absent and not likely to return easily. And nevertheless the besieged’s confidence was augmented by the report that the king was said to be coming nearby. Wherefore, made more high-spirited and resisting more confidently, in various encounters they slew many from the enemy host who were pressing on more insolently.

Cum ergo quasi per septem horas continuas urbem impugnassent, videntes quod inutiliter consumerent operam, revocatis agminibus hostes Ascalonam reversi sunt.

When, therefore, they had assailed the city for about seven continuous hours, seeing that they were spending their effort uselessly, the enemy, their columns recalled, returned to Ascalon.

CAPUT XXV. Borsequinus iterum Antiochenorum vexat fines; sed occurrente sibi principe Rogero cum suis auxiliis, confusus in fugam vertitur, legionibus dissolutis.

CHAPTER 25. Borsequin again vexes the confines of the Antiochenes; but, with Prince Roger, with his auxiliaries, meeting him, he is confounded and turned to flight, the legions being dissolved.

Dum igitur haec in regno geruntur, Bursequinus, de quo superius diximus, qui ad adventum domini regis et aliorum nobilium qui contra eum convenerant, fugam et discessum a partibus Antiochenis simulaverat, videns quod rex et princeps Antiochenus, Doldequinus quoque discesserant abinvicem, et curis tracti domesticis redierant ad propria, arbitratus quod non facile denuo possent convenire, rursum partes infestat Antiochenas; et percurrens regionem universam, villas incendit, concremat suburbana; et quidquid extra munita praesidia reperire poterant, sibi dabant in direptionem et praedam: divisis etiam catervatim agminibus ad varias dirigebant partes, ut stragem passim operarentur, et incautis occurrentes, sive per agros, sive iter agentes, aut captivos secum traherent, aut gladiis obtruncarent. Nec solum villas absque muro suis effringebant irruptionibus, verum etiam et murata municipia violenter occupabant. Marram siquidem et Cafardam, comprehensis intus habitatoribus, partim peremptis gladio, partim compedibus mancipatis, ad solum usque dejecerant; et obtinentes regionem totam, undique praedam, undique Christiana mancipia singulis diebus contrahebant.

While, therefore, these things are being done in the kingdom, Bursequinus, of whom we spoke above—who, at the arrival of the lord king and of the other nobles who had gathered against him, had simulated flight and withdrawal from the Antiochene parts—seeing that the king and the prince of Antioch, and Doldequinus as well, had departed from one another and, drawn by domestic cares, had returned to their own places, thinking that they could not easily meet again, once more infests the Antiochene parts; and running through the whole region, he sets the villages on fire, burns up the suburbs; and whatever they could find outside fortified garrisons, they gave to themselves for direption and booty: their columns also divided in bands, they directed to various quarters, that they might work slaughter everywhere; and, encountering the incautious, whether through the fields or traveling on the road, they either dragged them along as captives with them, or cut them down with swords. Nor did they only break open with their irruptions villages without walls, but they also violently seized walled municipalities. For Marra and Cafarda, the inhabitants within having been seized—some slain by the sword, others mancipated in shackles—they had leveled to the very ground; and, holding the whole region, on every side they were gathering booty, and on every side Christian slaves, day by day.

Quod ut principi nuntiatum est, accito sibi domino comite Edessano, duodecima mensis Septembris, Antiochia egressus, ante oppidum Rugiam cum suis expeditionibus impiger astitit. Missisque statim exploratoribus qui de hostium statu eum certificarent et proposito, ipse acies instruit, componit agmina, ad pugnam viriliter se accingens: circa quae, dum juxta rei militaris disciplinam a domino comite fideliter adjutus desudaret, ecce nuntius cum omni celeritate properans, hostes in valle Sarmati castrametatos asserit. Quo audito, exhilaratus est admodum universus exercitus, quasi spe victoriae jam concepta.

When this was reported to the prince, having summoned to himself the Lord Count of Edessa, on the 12th of September, setting out from Antioch, he stood energetically with his expeditions before the town Rugia. And sending immediately scouts to certify him regarding the condition and purpose of the enemies, he himself arrays the battle-line, composes the battalions, girding himself manfully for battle; around which, while, in accordance with the discipline of the military art, he was toiling, faithfully assisted by the lord count, behold, a messenger hastening with all speed avers that the enemies are encamped in the valley of Sarmati. On hearing this, the whole army was very much exhilarated, as if the hope of victory were already conceived.

Ipse etiam Bursequinus, audito nostrorum adventu, suos armari praecipit, et instructis agminibus ad agendum strenue commilitones invitat. Volens tamen suae providere saluti, cum fratre et quibusdam familiaribus, montem vicinum nomine Danim, antequam nostri accedant, occupat; unde suos possit praeliantes intueri et de belli ordine necessario suos plenius instruere. Factum est ergo ut, dum circa haec esset occupatus, ecce nostrorum acies, erectis vexillis coeperunt comparere; visisque hostibus, spreta eorum multitudine, dominus Balduinus Edessanus comes, qui cum sua cohorte caeteros praecedebat, in eos animosius irruens, impetu vehementi totum eorum concussit exercitum.

Bursequinus himself also, on hearing of our arrival, orders his men to be armed, and, the battle-lines having been drawn up, invites his comrades-in-arms to engage strenuously. Yet wishing to provide for his own safety, with his brother and certain familiars he occupies a nearby mountain named Danim, before our men should approach; whence he might behold his men fighting and instruct his men more fully concerning the necessary order of battle. It came to pass therefore that, while he was occupied with these things, behold, the battle-lines of our men, with standards erect, began to appear; and, the enemy having been sighted, their multitude scorned, Lord Baldwin, Count of Edessa, who with his own cohort was preceding the rest, rushing upon them more boldly, by a vehement charge shook their whole army.

Quem pari exemplo reliquae acies consecutae, in medios hostium cuneos se immergunt, ensibus et gladiis instantes cominus; injurias parati refundere, quas villanis et pauperibus nimis licenter intulerant. Hostes itaque primis congressionibus resistendi spem habentes, proterve nimis a se nostros tentabant propulsare; sed tandem nostrorum vires, impetus et admirabilem stupentes constantiam, dissolutis penitus eorum agminibus, in fugam versi sunt. Bursequinus vero de montis culmine suorum videns defectum, nostros vero invalescere, cum fratre et familiaribus quos in monte collegerat, relicto vexillo, castris et sarcinis omnibus, fuga elapsus, vitae consuluit.

Which, following by like example, the remaining battle lines plunged into the midst of the enemy wedges, pressing with swords and blades at close quarters; ready to refund the injuries which they had too licentiously inflicted upon peasants and poor folk. The enemies, therefore, in the first encounters having a hope of resisting, tried over-insolently to drive our men back from them; but at length, amazed at our men’s forces, onrush, and admirable constancy, their columns being utterly dissolved, they were turned to flight. Bursequinus indeed, from the mountain’s summit seeing his men’s failure, but ours waxing strong, with his brother and the familiars whom he had gathered on the mountain, leaving the banner, the camp and all the baggage, having slipped away in flight, took thought for his life.

Dissolutas itaque acies et in fugam versas nostri persequuntur instantius; et gladiis obtruncantes fugitivos, quasi per duo milliaria stragem infinitam operati sunt. Princeps autem cum parte suorum, tanquam victor, in campo certaminis biduo moram faciens, suos operiebatur, qui ad partes diversas hostes fuerant insecuti. Quibus receptis, et comportatis ante se spoliis omnibus, portiones congruas victoriae praestat consortibus.

Accordingly our men pursue more urgently the battle-lines broken and turned to flight; and, cutting down the fugitives with swords, they wrought an immeasurable slaughter for about two miles. But the Prince, with a part of his own, as a victor, making a delay for two days on the field of contest, was waiting for his men, who had pursued the enemy into various quarters. When these had been received, and when all the spoils had been carried together before him, he grants to his companions congruous portions of the victory.

Castra enim deserentes omnibus referta commoditatibus, et ingentibus divitis redundantia usque ad supremum, omnium eorum immemores fugam inierant. Sed et praedam et manubias, quas de locis diversis contraxerant; simul et captivos nostros, quos in vincula conjecerant, receperunt nostri; et gaudentes cum suis animalibus, uxoribus et liberis remiserunt ad propria. Dicuntur autem in eo conflictu cecidisse de hostibus plus quam tria millia.

For, abandoning the camp, stocked with all commodities and overflowing to the utmost with immense riches, forgetful of all these things they had entered upon flight. But our men recovered both the plunder and the spoils which they had collected from diverse places; together with our captives, whom they had cast into chains; and, rejoicing, they sent them back to their own homes with their animals, wives, and children. Moreover, it is said that in that clash more than three thousand of the enemy fell.

His peractis, princeps equis, mulis et captivorum ante se praemissa multitudine, divitiarum quoque omnimoda varietate antecedente, Antiochiam cum ingenti plausu et populorum laetitia victor ingressus est.

With these things completed, the prince, the multitude of horses, mules, and captives having been sent on ahead before him, and with an all‑mannered variety of riches also going before, entered Antioch as victor with immense applause and the joy of the peoples.

CAPUT XXVI. Arnulfus Hierosolymorum patriarcha super multis accusatus Romam proficiscitur. Rex in Syria Sobal trans Jordanem castrum, cui nomen mons Regalis est, aedificat.

CHAPTER 26. Arnulf, patriarch of Jerusalem, accused on many counts, sets out to Rome. The king in Syria Sobal, across the Jordan, builds a castle whose name is Mount Royal.

Eodem tempore, dominus papa, auditis enormitatibus Arnulfi patriarchae et de ejus immunda conversatione plenius edoctus, legatum dirigit ad partes Syriae, quemdam virum venerabilem et multa religione conspicuum, Aurasicensem episcopum; qui ad partes nostras perveniens, convocato universi regni episcoporum concilio, praedictum Arnulfum coram se astare praecepit: tandemque meritis exigentibus, auctoritate sedis apostolicae ab officio pontificali deposuit. Ille vero adhuc fiduciam habens in suis praestigiis, quibus pene universorum subvertebat animos, transfretare coactus, ad Romanam perrexit Ecclesiam: ubi domini papae et totius Ecclesiae, blandis verbis et larga munerum profusione, religionem circumveniens, cum gratia sedis apostolicae remeavit ad propria, sedem obtinens Hierosolymitanam eadem vivendi licentia, qua prius meruerat depositionem.

At the same time, the lord pope, having heard of the enormities of Arnulf the patriarch and being more fully instructed about his unclean conversation, dispatches a legate to the parts of Syria, a certain venerable man and conspicuous for much religion, the Aurasican bishop; who, arriving in our parts, with a council of all the bishops of the realm convened, ordered the aforesaid Arnulf to stand before him: and at length, the merits demanding it, by the authority of the apostolic see he deposed him from the pontifical office. But he, still having confidence in his prestidigitations, by which he was almost overturning the minds of all, being forced to cross over by sea, proceeded to the Roman Church: where, by soft words and a large profusion of gifts, circumventing the religious scruple of the lord pope and of the whole Church, he returned to his own with the favor of the apostolic see, obtaining the Jerusalemite seat with the same license of living by which earlier he had deserved deposition.

Per idem tempus, cum adhuc Christianus populus ultra Jordanem non haberet ullum praesidium, cupiens rex in partibus illis regni fines dilatare, proposuit, auctore Domino, in tertia Arabia, quae alio nomine dicitur Syria Sobal, castrum aedificare, cujus habitatores terram subjectam et regno tributariam ab hostium irruptionibus possent protegere. Volens igitur proposito satisfacere, convocatis regni viribus, mare transit Mortuum; et transcursa Arabia secunda, cujus metropolis est Petra, ad tertiam pervenit. Ubi in colle, ad ejus propositum loco satis idoneo, praesidium fundat, situ naturali et artificio valde munitum, in quo post operis consummationem tam equites quam pedites, ampla illis conferens praedia, habitatores locat; oppidoque muro, turribus, antemurali et vallo, armis, victu et machinis diligenter communito, nomen ex regia dignitate deductum ei imposuit, montemque Regalem, eo quod regem haberet fundatorem, appellari praecepit.

At the same time, since as yet the Christian people beyond the Jordan had no garrison at all, the king, desiring in those parts to dilate the borders of the realm, proposed, with the Lord as Author, to build in Third Arabia, which by another name is called Syria Sobal, a fortress whose inhabitants might protect from the irruptions of enemies the land subject and tributary to the kingdom. Wishing therefore to satisfy his purpose, having convoked the forces of the kingdom, he crosses the Dead Sea; and Arabia Second having been traversed, whose metropolis is Petra, he came to the Third. There, on a hill in a place quite suitable to his design, he founds a stronghold, very much munited by natural situation and by artifice, in which, after the work’s completion, he settles as inhabitants both horsemen and footmen, conferring on them ample estates; and the town, diligently furnished with a wall, towers, an antemural and a vallum, with arms, victuals, and machines, he imposed on it a name derived from royal dignity, and ordered it to be called Mount Royal, because it had the king for its founder.

Est autem praedictus locus commoditates habens fecundi soli, frumenti, vini et olei copias uberes ministrantis; salubritate simul et amoenitate praecipua singulariter commendabilis, totam adjacentem regionem suae vindicans ditioni.

Moreover, the aforesaid place has the advantages of a fertile soil, furnishing abundant supplies of grain, wine, and oil; by healthfulness together with amenity it is especially and singularly commendable, claiming the whole adjacent region to its dominion.

CAPUT XXVII Rex videns urbem sanctam habitatoribus vacuam, Syros fideles ex Arabia deducit; quibus conferens domicilia, urbis eos constituit habitatores.

CHAPTER 27 The king, seeing the holy city empty of inhabitants, brings faithful Syrians from Arabia; granting them dwellings, he appoints them inhabitants of the city.

Eo temporum articulo, videns rex et super eo valde sollicitus, urbem sanctam et Deo amabilem habitatoribus vacuam, ita ut eo ad caetera regni negotia de necessitate populus *, qui saltem ad protegendos civitatis introitus, et turres et moenia, contra repentinas hostium irruptiones munienda sufficeret; anxius cogitabat, apud se deliberans, et ab aliis percunctabatur frequentius, quomodo fidelibus populis, et Dei cultoribus incolis eam posset replere. Gentiles enim qui fuerant ejus habitatores, urbe violenter effracta, pene omnes in gladio ceciderant; si qui autem casu evaserant, iis non est datus locus intra urbem ad manendum. Instar enim sacrilegii videbatur Deo devotis principibus, si aliquos, qui in Christiana non censerentur professione, in tam venerabili loco esse permitterent habitatores.

At that juncture of time, the king, seeing and being very solicitous over it, the holy city and beloved by God empty of inhabitants, so that, for the other affairs of the kingdom, there was of necessity a lack of people *, which would at least suffice for protecting the city’s entrances, and the towers and walls, to be fortified against sudden irruptions of the enemies; he anxiously pondered, deliberating with himself, and more frequently inquired of others, how he might be able to fill it again with faithful peoples and inhabitants worshippers of God. For the Gentiles who had been its inhabitants, the city having been violently broken open, had nearly all fallen by the sword; but if any by chance had escaped, no place was given to them within the city to remain. For to the princes devoted to God it seemed in the likeness of sacrilege, if they should permit any who were not reckoned in the Christian profession to be inhabitants in so venerable a place.

Nostrates vero adeo pauci erant et inopes, ut vix unum de vicis possent incolere. Suriani autem, qui ab initio urbis cives exstiterant, tempore hostilitatis per multas tribulationes, et infinitas molestias adeo rari erant, ut quasi nullus eorum esset numerus. Ab introitu siquidem Latinorum in Syriam, maxime autem postquam, Antiochia capta, versus Hierosolymam tendere coepit exercitus, adeo praedictos Dei famulos concives eorum coeperunt affligere, ut pro quolibet levi verbo multos ex eis occiderent, aetati non parcentes, aut conditioni: suspectos eos habentes, quod Occidentales principes, qui dicebantur advenire, in eorum perniciem ipsi litteris et nuntiis evocassent.

Our people, however, were so few and so indigent that they could scarcely inhabit a single one of the quarters. The Syrians, moreover, who from the beginning had been citizens of the city, during the time of hostility, through many tribulations and infinite vexations, had become so scarce that, as it were, there was no number of them. For from the entry of the Latins into Syria—especially after, Antioch having been taken, the army began to press on toward Jerusalem—they began to afflict the aforesaid servants of God, their fellow-citizens, to such a degree that for any slight word they killed many of them, sparing neither age nor condition, holding them suspect because they themselves, by letters and messengers, had summoned the Western princes, who were said to be coming, to their ruin.

Sic ergo pro ejus desolatione curam gerens debitam, sciscitabatur diligentius unde illic cives posset evocare, tandemque didicit quod trans Jordanem in Arabia multi fideles in villis habitarent, qui sub gravibus conditionibus hostibus serviebant in tributo. Hos evocans dominus rex, et meliores promittens conditiones, tractos tum locorum reverentia, tum nostrorum dilectione et amore libertatis, intra modicum tempus multos cum uxoribus et liberis, cum gregibus et armentis et universa familia recepit. Multi etiam sine vocatione, durae servitutis jugum declinantes, ut urbem Deo dignam incolerent, convenerunt.

Thus, therefore, taking due care for its desolation, he inquired more diligently whence he might be able to summon citizens there, and at length learned that beyond the Jordan in Arabia many faithful were dwelling in villages, who under heavy conditions were serving the enemies in tribute. Summoning these, the lord king, and promising better conditions, drawn both by reverence for the places and by the affection of our people and the love of liberty, within a little time received many with their wives and children, with flocks and herds and the entire household. Many also, without a summons, declining the yoke of hard servitude, came together so that they might inhabit the city worthy of God.

Quibus rex eas civitatis partes, quae magis hoc solatio videbantur indigere, conferens, eis domicilia replevit.

To these the king, assigning those parts of the city which seemed more in need of this solace, filled those quarters with domiciles for them.

CAPUT XXVIII. Rex cleri suggestione a domino papa postulat, ut quascunque urbes subegerit, Hierosolymitanae subdantur Ecclesiae. Subjiciunturque variarum epistolarum rescripta.

CHAPTER 28. The king, at the suggestion of the clergy, petitions the lord Pope that whatever cities he shall have subjugated be subjected to the Church of Jerusalem. And the rescripts of various letters are subjoined.

Interea decidit in mentem domino regi (et fortasse cleri suggestione ad hoc devenit), ut, missis nuntiis ad Ecclesiam Romanam, domino papae petitiones porrigeret; quarum tenor erat, ut quascunque urbes, quamcunque provinciam sudoribus bellicis et regia sollicitudine, auctore Domino, sibi posset vindicare et de potestate hostium violenter eripere, omnes ditioni et regimini Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae subjacerent. Super quo rescriptum a sede apostolica impetravit, cujus tenorem praesenti interserere narrationi dignum duximus:

Meanwhile it fell into the lord king’s mind (and perhaps by the suggestion of the clergy he came to this), that, messengers having been sent to the Roman Church, he would present petitions to the lord pope; the tenor of which was, that whatever cities, whatever province by warlike toils and royal solicitude, with the Lord as author, he might be able to vindicate for himself and violently snatch from the power of the enemies, all should lie subject to the dominion and governance of the Church of Jerusalem. Upon which he obtained a rescript from the apostolic see, the tenor of which we have judged worthy to insert into the present narration:

PASCHALIS, servus servorum Dei, glorioso Hierosolymitano regi BALDUINO, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.

PASCHALIS, servant of the servants of God, to the glorious king of Jerusalem BALDWIN, greeting and apostolic blessing.

Ecclesiarum quae in vestris partibus fuerunt, vel sunt, terminos atque possessiones, diutina infidelium possessio tyrannisque confudit: cum itaque certos ejus fines assignare deliberatione nequeamus, tuis precibus non immerito duximus annuendum, ut, quia pro Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae sublimatione personam tuam extremis periculis exponere devovisti, quascunque infidelium urbes ceperis, vel cepisti, ejusdem Ecclesiae regimini dignitatique subjaceant. Porro earumdem civitatum episcopi, patriarchae, tanquam proprio metropolitano, obedientiam exhibere procurent; quatenus ei ipse illorum fultus suffragiis, et ipsi adinvicem ipsius unanimitatis auxilio vegetati, sic in Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae exaltatione proficiant, ut de illorum profectibus omnipotens Deus glorietur.

The boundaries and possessions of the churches which have been, or are, in your parts, long possession by the infidels and tyrannies have thrown into confusion: since therefore we are not able by deliberation to assign its certain limits, we have judged it not undeserved to assent to your prayers, that, because for the sublimation of the Church of Jerusalem you have vowed to expose your person to extreme perils, whatever cities of the infidels you shall have taken, or have taken, be subject to the governance and dignity of that same Church. Furthermore, let the bishops of those same cities take care to exhibit obedience to the patriarch, as to their own metropolitan; to the end that he himself, supported by their suffrages, and they in turn, invigorated by the aid of that unanimity, may thus make progress in the exaltation of the Church of Jerusalem, that almighty God may glory in their advances.

Data Laterani V Idus Julii.

Given at the Lateran 5 Ides of July.

Ad petitionem quoque ejusdem domini regis, idem dominus Paschalis, domino patriarchae Gibelino, et successoribus ejus in perpetuum super eodem articulo privilegium indulserat, cujus rescriptum huic praesenti narrationi interserere curavimus; cujus verba sunt haec:

At the petition likewise of that same lord king, that same lord Paschal granted a privilege to lord Patriarch Gibelin and his successors in perpetuity on the same article; the rescript of which we have taken care to insert into this present narration; the words of which are these:

PASCHALIS episcopus, servus servorum Dei, reverendissimo fratri Hierosolymitano patriarchae GIBELINO, et successoribus ejus in perpetuum canonice promovendis.

PASCHAL bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the most reverend brother, the Hierosolymitan patriarch GIBELINO, and to his successors to be canonically promoted in perpetuity.

Secundum mutationes temporum transferuntur etiam regna terrarum: unde etiam ecclesiasticarum parochiarum fines, in plerisque provinciis mutari expedit, et transferri. Asianarum siquidem ecclesiarum fines antiquis fuerunt definitionibus distributi; quas distributiones, diversarum diversae fidei gentium confudit irruptio. Gratias autem Deo, quod nostris temporibus, et Antiochiae et Hierosolymae civitates cum suburbanis suis et adjacentibus provinciis, in Christianorum principum redactae sunt potestate.

According to the changes of the times the kingdoms of the earth also are transferred: whence also it is expedient that the bounds of ecclesiastical parishes, in very many provinces, be changed and transferred. For the bounds of the Asian churches were distributed by ancient definitions; which distributions the irruption of nations of various and diverse faith has confounded. But thanks be to God, that in our times both the cities of Antioch and Jerusalem, with their suburbs and adjacent provinces, have been reduced into the power of Christian princes.

Unde oportet nos divinae mutationi et translationi manum apponere, et secundum tempus, quae sunt disponenda, disponere, ut Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae urbes illas et provincias concedamus, quae gloriosi regis Balduini, ac exercituum eum sequentium sanguine, per Dei gratiam acquisitae sunt. Praesentis itaque decreti pagina tibi, frater charissime et coepiscope Gibeline, tuisque successoribus, et per vos sanctae Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae, patriarchali sive metropolitano jure regendas disponendasque sancimus civitates omnes atque provincias, quas supradicti regis ditioni aut jam restituit, aut in futurum restituere gratia divina dignabitur. Dignum est enim ut Sepulcri Dominici ecclesia, secundum fidelium militum desideria, competentem honorem obtineat; et Turcorum seu Sarracenorum jugo libera in Christianorum manu abundantius exaltetur.

Whence it behooves us to lay hand to the divine change and transfer, and, according to the time, to dispose the things that are to be disposed, that we may concede to the Hierosolymitan Church those cities and provinces which, by the grace of God, were acquired by the blood of the glorious King Baldwin and of the armies following him. Therefore, by the page of the present decree, we sanction to you, most dear brother and co-bishop Gibelinus, to your successors, and through you to the holy Hierosolymitan Church, all the cities and provinces to be governed and disposed under patriarchal or metropolitan right, which the divine grace has either already restored to the sway of the aforesaid king, or will deign to restore in the future. For it is fitting that the Church of the Lord’s Sepulcher, according to the desires of the faithful soldiers, should obtain a competent honor; and, free from the yoke of the Turks or Saracens, should be more abundantly exalted in the hand of Christians.

Super qua exauditione dominus Bernardus, vir vitae venerabilis, Antiochenorum patriarcha, quoniam in laesionem Ecclesiae suae redundare videbatur, indignatus est plurimum, ita ut, missis nuntiis ad Romanam Ecclesiam, super eo facto plurimum conquereretur; et de illata sibi et Ecclesiae suae manifesta injuria, dominum papam et Ecclesiam totam litteris suis argueret. Cujus dominus papa indignationem mitigare cupiens, in haec verba rescripsit:

Concerning which favorable hearing, lord Bernard, a man of venerable life, the patriarch of the Antiochenes, because it seemed to redound to the lesion of his Church, was very indignant, to such a degree that, messengers having been sent to the Roman Church, he complained greatly about that deed; and, about the manifest injury inflicted upon himself and his Church, he charged the lord pope and the whole Church by his letters. Whose indignation the lord pope, wishing to mitigate, wrote back in these words:

PASCHALIS episcopus, servus servorum Dei, venerabili fratri BERNARDO, Antiocheno patriarchae salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.

PASCHALIS bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the venerable brother BERNARD, Patriarch of Antioch, greeting and apostolic blessing.

Quamvis inter caeteras apostolicas sedes illa emineat, quam Petri apostoli morte in corpore dignatio superna clarificavit, inter Romanum tamen et Antiochenum episcopos tanta quondam legitur charitas exstitisse, ut nulla inter eos diversitas videretur. Eadem enim Petri persona utrasque illustravit Ecclesias; multa post haec tempora transierunt, quibus infidelium dominatio unitatem hanc in personis praesidentium impedivit. Gratias autem Deo, quod temporibus nostris Christianorum principatum in Antiochena civitate restituit.

Although among the other apostolic sees that one stands out, which the supernal condescension glorified by the death in the body of the Apostle Peter, yet between the Roman and the Antiochene bishops such charity once is read to have existed that no diversity seemed between them. For the same person of Peter illumined both Churches; many times after these have passed, in which the domination of the unfaithful impeded this unity in the persons presiding. Thanks, however, be to God, that in our times He has restored the principate of the Christians in the city of Antioch.

Dignum est igitur, charissime frater, ut ejusdem charitatis in nobis unitas firma permaneat; nec de nobis menti tuae opinio ulla subrepat, quod Antiochenam Ecclesiam deprimere aut inhonorare velimus. Si quid ergo vel Antiochenae, vel Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae aliter fortasse quam oportuit de parochiarum finibus scripsimus, nec levitati est nec malitiae ascribendum, nec propter hoc apud nos est scandalum concitandum; quoniam et locorum prolixa longinquitas et antiquorum nominum commutatio, quae civitatibus vel provinciis accidit, magnam nobis ambiguitatem vel ignorantiam intulerunt. Caeterum et optavimus et optamus non scandali, sed pacis fomitem fratribus ministrare; suum jus et honorem quibusque ecclesiis conservare.

It is therefore fitting, dearest brother, that the unity of the same charity remain firm in us; and let no opinion steal upon your mind about us, that we wish to depress or dishonor the Antiochene Church. If therefore we have written anything either to the Antiochene or to the Jerusalem Church about the boundaries of parishes perhaps otherwise than was proper, it is to be ascribed neither to levity nor to malice, nor for this reason is a scandal to be stirred up among us; since both the prolonged remoteness of the places and the commutation of ancient names, which has happened to cities or provinces, have brought upon us great ambiguity or ignorance. Moreover, we both have desired and do desire to minister to the brethren not tinder of scandal, but of peace; to preserve to each of the churches its own right and honor.

Data Laterani VII Idus Augusti.

Given at the Lateran 7 Ides of August.

Volens autem dominus papa mentem suam interpretari, et qua intentione domino regi et Ecclesiae Hierosolymorum id concesserat, quod in ejus rescriptis continebatur, eidem patriarchae Bernardo in hunc modum rescripsit:

Willing, moreover, the lord pope to interpret his own mind, and to show with what intention he had granted to the lord king and to the Church of Jerusalem that which was contained in his rescripts, he wrote back to the same Patriarch Bernard in this manner:

PASCHALIS episcopus, servus servorum Dei, coepiscopo BERNARDO, Antiocheno patriarchae, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.

PASCHALIS bishop, servant of the servants of God, to fellow-bishop BERNARD, Antiochene patriarch, greeting and apostolic benediction.

Sicut aliis litteris fraternitati tuae scripsimus, nos et personam tuam, et Ecclesiam tibi commissam plena charitate diligimus; nec ullo modo volumus honorem vestrae dignitatis imminui, quin Antiocheni patriarchatus praelatio, sicut praeteritis temporibus conservata est, ita etiam in futurum integra, praestante Domino, conservetur. Illud autem quod filio nostro Balduino, Hierosolymitanorum regi, per nuntios suos intercedenti, concessimus, charitatem vestram omnino conturbare non debet, si litterarum nostrarum sensum interius perscruteris. Sic enim in eis scriptum est: Ç Ecclesiarum quae illis in partibus fuerunt, vel sunt, terminos atque possessiones diutina infidelium possessio tyrannisque confudit.

As we have written to your fraternity in other letters, we love both your person and the Church committed to you with full charity; nor do we in any way wish the honor of your dignity to be diminished, but rather that the praelation of the patriarchate of Antioch, just as it was conserved in past times, so also in the future, entire, the Lord providing, may be conserved. But that which we granted to our son Baldwin, king of the Jerusalemites, interceding through his own envoys, ought in no way to disturb your charity, if you examine inwardly the sense of our letters. For thus it is written in them: Ç The boundaries and possessions of the churches which were, or are, in those parts, long-continued possession by unbelievers and tyrannies has confounded.

Cum itaque certos eis fines assignare praesenti deliberatione nequeamus, tuis non immerito precibus duximus annuendum, ut quia pro Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae sublimatione personam tuam extremis periculis exponere devovisti, quascunque infidelium urbes ceperis, vel cepisti, ejusdem Ecclesiae regimini dignitatique subjaceant. È Eodem sensu illa etiam verba discutienda sunt, quae felicis memoriae Gibelino Hierosolymitano patriarchae, de civitatibus atque provinciis scripsimus, quae supradicti Balduini regis prudentia, et exercituum eum sequentium sanguine, per Dei gratiam, acquisitae sunt. Siquidem Ecclesias illas, quibus certi fines assignari possunt, quarum termini ac possessiones diutina possessione ac tyrannide confusi non sunt, et ipsarum Ecclesiarum urbes, illi volumus Ecclesiae subjacere, ad quam ex antiqua sciuntur justitia pertinere.

Since therefore we are not able by the present deliberation to assign to them certain boundaries, we have judged, not without reason, that your prayers are to be assented to: namely, that because for the exaltation of the Church of Jerusalem you have devoted your person to extreme perils, whatever cities of the unbelievers you shall take, or have taken, may be subject to the governance and dignity of the same Church. È In the same sense those words also are to be examined which we wrote to Gibelinus of happy memory, patriarch of Jerusalem, concerning the cities and provinces which, by the prudence of the aforesaid King Baldwin and by the blood of the armies following him, through the grace of God, have been acquired. For indeed those Churches to which definite boundaries can be assigned, whose borders and possessions have not been confounded by long occupancy and tyranny, and the cities of those Churches themselves, we wish to be subject to that Church to which by ancient right they are known to pertain.

Non enim volumus aut pro principum potentia, ecclesiasticam minui dignitatem; aut pro ecclesiastica dignitate principum potentiam mutilari.

For we do not wish either, on account of the potency of princes, the ecclesiastical dignity to be diminished; or, on account of ecclesiastical dignity, the power of princes to be mutilated.

Data Beneventi, XV Kalend. Aprilis.

Given at Benevento, 15 days before the Kalends of April.

Sed et domino regi eodem modo scripsit, exponens qua intentione praedictis illius petitionibus assensum praebuerat; et significans quod Ecclesiam Antiochenam in nullo velit indebite gravari, in haec verba:

But he also wrote to the lord king in the same way, expounding with what intention he had given assent to that man’s aforesaid petitions; and signifying that he wishes the Church of Antioch to be in no way unduly burdened, in these words:

PASCHALIS episcopus, servus servorum Dei, charissimo BALDUINO, illustri Hierosolymitanorum regi, salutem et apostolicam benedictionem.

PASCHAL, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to the most dear BALDWIN, the illustrious king of the Jerusalemites, greeting and apostolic blessing.

Concessio illa quam nos petitioni tuae accommodavimus, ut quascunque infidelium urbes ceperis, vel cepisti, Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae regimini dignitatique subjaceant, non parum cum fratrem nostrum Bernardum patriarcham, tum universam Antiochenam turbavit Ecclesiam. Cum enim nos concessionem illam super illis Ecclesiis indulserimus, quarum terminos atque possessiones diutina infidelium possessio tyrannisque confudit, illi eas Ecclesias a Hierosolymitano patriarcha, te connivente invasas, conqueruntur, de quibus ambiguitas nulla sit, quin eas etiam Turcorum vel Sarracenorum temporibus sedes Antiochena possederit; quia earum episcopi, etiam infidelium oppressi tyrannide, Antiocheno patriarchae obedientiam exhibebant. Porro nos litteris ad supradictum patriarcham missis, Antiocheni patriarchatus praelationem, sicut ab antiquis Patribus distributa, et praeteritis temporibus conservata est, ita etiam in futurum integram conservari sanxeramus.

That concession which we accommodated to your petition, that whatever cities of the unbelievers you shall capture, or have captured, be subject to the governance and dignity of the Church of Jerusalem, has not a little disturbed both our brother Bernard the patriarch and the whole Church of Antioch. For whereas we indulged that concession over those Churches whose boundaries and possessions the long-standing possession of the unbelievers and their tyrannies have confounded, they complain that those Churches have been invaded by the Jerusalem patriarch, you conniving, concerning which there is no ambiguity but that even in the times of the Turks or Saracens the See of Antioch possessed them; since their bishops, although oppressed by the tyranny of the unbelievers, were exhibiting obedience to the Antiochene patriarch. Moreover, by letters sent to the aforesaid patriarch, we had decreed that the prelation of the Antiochene patriarchate, as it was distributed by the ancient Fathers and preserved in past times, be likewise kept intact in the future.

Tuam igitur strenuitatem monemus, et monentes praecipimus, ne a te invasiones hujusmodi fieri (ubi manifesta est veritas) permittantur; sed unaquaeque Ecclesia justitiae suae limitibus perfruatur. Nec enim possumus manifeste sanctis patrum nostrorum constitutionibus obviare; nec omnino volumus, aut pro principum potentia ecclesiasticam minui dignitatem, aut pro ecclesiastica dignitate principum potentiam mutilari; ne apud vos occasione alterutra pax, quod absit! turbetur Ecclesiae.

We therefore admonish your strenuousness, and, admonishing, we command that invasions of this sort not be permitted by you to be made (where the truth is manifest); but let each Church enjoy the limits of its own right. For neither can we manifestly oppose the holy constitutions of our fathers; nor do we at all wish either that, for the power of princes, ecclesiastical dignity be diminished, or that, for ecclesiastical dignity, the power of princes be mutilated; lest among you, on the occasion of either side, the peace of the Church—far be it!—be disturbed.

Clericis quoque Hierosolymitanis per praesentia scripta praecipimus, quandoquidem paternas possessiones et patriam pro Ecclesiae, ut creditur, exaltatione, pro religionis observantia reliquerunt, ut Hierosolymitanae Ecclesiae sint jure contenti; nec injuste aut procaciter usurpare ea contendant, quae certo sciuntur ad jus Antiochenae Ecclesiae pertinere. Omnipotens Dominus, sua te in omnibus dextera protegat et de hostibus Ecclesiae triumphare concedat.

We also command the Jerusalem clerics through the present writings, since they have left their paternal possessions and their fatherland for the exaltation of the Church, as is believed, and for the observance of religion, that they be content with the right of the Church of Jerusalem; nor should they strive to usurp unjustly or impudently those things which are certainly known to pertain to the right of the Church of Antioch. May the Almighty Lord protect you in all things with His right hand, and grant you to triumph over the enemies of the Church.

Data Laterani, XV Kal. Aprilis.

Given at the Lateran, 15 Kalends of April.

CAPUT XXIX. Rex ad mare Rubrum descendit; regionem perlustrat: comitissam Siciliae, quam uxorem deduxerat, remittit ad propria, aegritudine fatigatus.

CHAPTER 29. The king descends to the Red Sea; thoroughly surveys the region: sends back to her own the countess of Sicily, whom he had conducted as wife, himself wearied by sickness.

Anno sequente, ut adjacentium regionum rex pleniorem haberet experientiam, et de situ provinciarum magis edoceretur, assumptis secum locorum peritis, et comitatu, qui sibi ad propositum sufficere videbatur, transiens Jordanem, et transcursa Syria Sobal, per vastitatem solitudinis ad mare Rubrum descendit, ingressus Helim civitatem antiquissimam, populo Israelitico aliquando familiarem, ubi leguntur fontes duodecim fuisse, et palmae septuaginta. Ad quam cum pervenisset, loci illius incolae domini regis adventu praecognito, naviculas ingredientes, in mare vicinum, mortem effugere cupientes, se contulerunt. Ubi dominus rex, locis notatis et consideratis diligentius, eamdem qua venerat remensus viam, ad montem Regalem, castrum videlicet, quod de novo fundaverat, reversus est.

In the following year, so that the king might have a fuller experience of the adjacent regions and be more instructed about the situation of the provinces, having taken with him local experts and a retinue which seemed to him sufficient for his purpose, crossing the Jordan, and with Syria Sobal traversed, through the vastness of the solitude he descended to the Red Sea, entering Helim, a most ancient city, once familiar to the Israelitic people, where it is read that there were twelve springs and seventy palms. When he had reached it, the inhabitants of that place, having foreknown the lord king’s approach, boarded small boats and betook themselves into the neighboring sea, desiring to escape death. There the lord king, the places marked and more carefully considered, retraced the same road by which he had come, and returned to Mount Royal, namely the fortress which he had newly founded.

Inde Hierosolymam rediens, gravi ex insperato correptus est aegritudine, qua cum supra vires fatigaretur et timeret deficere, laesam habens conscientiam, super eo quod legitima uxore injuste abjecta, aliam superduxerat; corde compunctus et facti poenitens, viris religiosis et Deum timentibus aperiens conscientiam, reatum confessus est, satisfactionem promittens; cui cum pro consilio daretur, ut reginam quam superduxerat, a se demitteret; abjectam vero, ad regiam unde deciderat revocaret dignitatem, acquievit: et quod ita facturus esset, si vita ei concederetur productior, voto se obligavit. Unde factum est ut, evocata ad se regina, ordine rem aperuerit; quae, licet super eodem facto aliquantulum esset instructa, nam id ipsum aliquando a pluribus audierat; tamen visa est aegre ferre quod ita temere fuerit evocata, et fraude principum regionis, qui ad eam citandam missi fuerant, circumventa. Dolens igitur et tristis tam de illata contumelia, quam de opibus inutiliter consumptis, ad reditum se praeparat; post tertium annum, quo ad dominum regem venerat, in patriam reversura.

Thence returning to Jerusalem, he was seized unexpectedly by a grave sickness, by which, as he was wearied beyond his strength and feared to fail, having a wounded conscience on this account, that, his lawful wife having been unjustly cast off, he had taken another to wife; with heart compunct and repentant of the deed, opening his conscience to religious men and God-fearing, he confessed his guilt, promising satisfaction; and when it was given to him as counsel that he should dismiss from himself the queen whom he had taken to wife, but should recall to the royal dignity, whence she had fallen, the one cast off, he acquiesced: and that he would do so, if a more prolonged life were granted to him, he bound himself by a vow. Whence it came to pass that, the queen having been summoned to him, he disclosed the matter in due order; who, although she had been somewhat instructed concerning the same deed—for she had at times heard that very thing from many—nevertheless seemed to take it hard, that she had been so rashly summoned, and to have been circumvented by the fraud of the princes of the region who had been sent to cite her. Grieving therefore and sad both at the contumely inflicted and at the resources uselessly consumed, she prepares herself for return; after the third year since she had come to the lord king, about to return to her fatherland.

Qua redeunte ad propria, turbatus est supra modum filius; et apud se odium concepit adversus regnum et ejus habitatores, immortale. Nam cum reliqui fideles diversi orbis principes, aut in propriis personis, aut immensis liberalitatibus regnum nostrum, quasi plantam recentem promovere et ampliare sategerint, hic et ejus haeredes usque in praesentem diem, nec etiam verbo amico nos sibi conciliaverunt; cum tamen quovis alio principe longe commodius faciliusque nostris necessitatibus consilia possent et auxilia ministrare. Videntur ergo injuriae perpetuo memores; et delictum personae, injuste in populum refundunt universum.

As she was returning to her own, the son was perturbed beyond measure; and within himself he conceived an immortal hatred against the kingdom and its inhabitants. For whereas the other faithful princes of the diverse world, either in their own persons or by immense liberalities, have endeavored to promote and amplify our kingdom as a recent plant, this man and his heirs, down to the present day, have not even by a friendly word conciliated us to themselves; although, more than any other prince, they could far more conveniently and easily furnish counsels and aids for our necessities. They seem therefore perpetually mindful of the injuries; and they unjustly impute the fault of the person to the whole people.

CAPUT XXX. Ante urbem Tyrensem castrum Alexandrium, quod vulgari appellatione Scandalium dicitur, aedificatur.

CHAPTER 30. Before the city of Tyre, the Alexandrian castle, which by the common appellation is called Scandalium, is built.

Eodem anno postquam rex de praedicta convaluit aegritudine, anxius quomodo urbem Tyrensium, quae sola de urbibus maritimis ab hostibus detinebatur, suo mancipare posset imperio, inter Ptolomaidam et praedictam Tyrum, castrum aedificat; in eodem loco ubi Alexander Macedo, ad expugnandam eamdem urbem, olim dicitur fundasse idem praesidium, et de suo nomine Alexandrium vocasse. Est autem locus fontibus irriguus, vix quinque milliaribus a Tyro distans, in littore maris constitutus. Hoc autem ea reaedificavit intentione, ut Tyrensibus esset pro stimulo, et unde eis frequentes irrogarentur injuriae.

In the same year, after the king had recovered from the aforesaid sickness, anxious how he might mancipate to his dominion the city of Tyre, which alone of the maritime cities was held by the enemies, he builds a fortress between Ptolemais and the aforesaid Tyre; in the same place where Alexander the Macedonian, for the purpose of storming that same city, is said formerly to have founded the same stronghold, and to have called it from his own name Alexandrium. The place moreover is irrigated by fountains, scarcely five miles distant from Tyre, situated on the sea-shore. This, however, he re-edified with this intention, that it might be to the Tyrians for a goad, and whence frequent injuries might be inflicted upon them.

Hunc locum hodie appellatione corrupta populares appellant Scandalium. Arabice enim Alexander Scandar dicitur, et Alexandrium, Scandarium; vulgares vero r in l conversa, dicunt Scandalium.

This place today, by a corrupted appellation, the common folk call Scandalium. For in Arabic Alexander is called Scandar, and Alexandrium, Scandarium; but the vulgar, with r changed into l, say Scandalium.

CAPUT XXXI. Rex in Aegyptum descendit; Pharamiam occupat, in aegritudinem incidit, qua fatigatus in eodem itinere vita decedit; Hierosolymis juxta fratrem sepelitur.

CHAPTER 31. The king goes down into Egypt; he occupies Pharamia, falls into sickness, and, wearied by it, on that same journey departs life; at Jerusalem he is buried next to his brother.

Anno sequente, ut Aegyptiis vicem refunderet pro iis quae in regno saepius commiserant, cum ingentibus copiis descendit rex in Aegyptum, et urbem antiquissimam, Pharamiam nomine, confregit violenter; et confractae copias suis commilitonibus dedit in praedam. Est autem Pharamia urbs antiqua, ut diximus, in littore maris sita, non longe ab ostio Nili, quod Carabeix dicitur; supra quod iterum Tampnis, urbs antiquissima: et signorum, quae Dominus per Moysen servum suum coram Pharaone operatus est, familiaris. Capta igitur urbe, egressus rex ad praedictum ostium Nili, admiratus est aquarum quas prius non viderat fluenta; eoque maxime, quod Nilus, cujus portionem alvens ille usque in mare deducit, unum de quatuor paradisi fluminibus dicitur esse, et creditur.

In the following year, that he might refund to the Egyptians a recompense in return for the things which they had more often committed in the kingdom, the king descended into Egypt with huge forces, and violently shattered the most ancient city, by name Pharamia; and the broken forces he gave over to his fellow-soldiers for plunder. Now Pharamia is an ancient city, as we have said, situated on the littoral of the sea, not far from the mouth of the Nile, which is called Carabeix; above which, again, stands Tampnis, a most ancient city, and one familiar with the signs which the Lord wrought through Moses his servant before Pharaoh. Therefore, the city having been taken, the king went out to the aforesaid mouth of the Nile, and marveled at the streams of waters which he had not previously seen; and especially for this reason, that the Nile, a portion of which that channel conducts all the way to the sea, is said and believed to be one of the four rivers of Paradise.

Captis igitur de piscibus, quorum illic maxima est copia, in urbem quam occupaverant redeunt, et parato prandio refecti sunt ex eis; cumque rex surrexisset a coena, sensit se dolore plurimo interius praegravari; et recrudescente antiqui vulneris molestia, coepit laborare vehementius, ita ut de vita periclitans desperaret. Indicto igitur legionibus per vocem praeconiam reditu, domino rege, aegritudine invalescente, eatenus debilitato, ut equitare non posset, lecticam instruunt, eumque in ea, anxie laborantem collocant. Sicque continuatis itineribus, transcursa ex parte solitudine, quae inter Aegyptum et Syriam media diffunditur, Laris antiquam ejusdem solitudinis urbem perveniunt maritimam.

Accordingly, after some fish had been caught—of which there is there the greatest abundance—they return to the city which they had occupied, and, a luncheon prepared, they were refreshed from them; and when the king had risen from supper, he felt himself inwardly weighed down by very great pain; and, with the annoyance of the old wound recrudescing, he began to suffer more vehemently, so that, imperiled for his life, he despaired. Therefore, a return having been proclaimed to the legions by the voice of a herald, the lord king, as the sickness was growing stronger, being by then so debilitated that he could not ride, they equip a litter and place him in it, laboring anxiously. And so, their journeys continued, the wilderness in part traversed which spreads in the midst between Egypt and Syria, they reach Laris, an ancient maritime city of that same wilderness.

Ubi morbo superatus rex, ad extremum veniens, in fata concessit; unde lugentibus et prae doloris angustia deficientibus legionibus, Hierosolymam deportatus est. Et ea Dominica quae dicitur in Ramis palmarum, per vallem Josaphat, ubi de more populus ad diem festum convenerat, in urbem introductus, et juxta fratrem sub Calvaria, in loco qui Golgotha dicitur, regia magnificentia sepultus est. Mortuus est autem anno ab Incarnatione Domini 1118 regni ejus octavo decimo.

Where, overcome by sickness, the king, coming to the very end, passed away; whence, with the legions mourning and failing from the straitness of grief, he was carried to Jerusalem. And on that Sunday which is called in the Branches of Palms (Palm Sunday), through the Valley of Josaphat, where according to custom the people had gathered for the feast day, he was brought into the city and, near his brother beneath Calvary, in the place which is called Golgotha, was buried with royal magnificence. He died, moreover, in the year 1118 from the Incarnation of the Lord, the eighteenth of his reign.