§ 50. FIRST CRUSADE AND CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM. 239
to the summer heat and the lack of water was intense. The valley and the hills were strewn with dead horses, whose putrefying carcasses made life in the camp almost unbearable. In vain did the Crusaders with bare feet, the priests at their head, march in procession around the walls, hoping to see them fall as the walls of Jericho had fallen before Joshua.1 Help at last came with the arrival of a Genoese fleet in the harbor of Joppa, which brought work men and supplies of tools and food.
Friday, the day of the crucifixion, was chosen for the final assault. A great tower surmounted by a golden cross was dragged alongside of the walls and the drawbridge let down. At a critical moment, as the later story went, a soldier of brilliant aspect 2 was seen on the Mount of Olives, and God frey, encouraging the besiegers, exclaimed: " It is St. George the martyr. He has come to our help." According to most of the accounts, Letold of Tournay3 was the first to scale the walls. It was noticed that the moment of this crowning feat was three o'clock, the hour of the Saviour's death.
The scenes of carnage which followed belong to the many dark pages of Jerusalem's history and showed how, in the quality of mercy, the crusading knight was far below the ideal of Christian perfection. The streets were choked with the bodies of the slain. The Jews were burnt with their synagogues. The greatest slaughter was in the tem ple enclosure. With an exaggeration which can hardly be credited, but without a twinge of regret or a syllable of
1 On this occasion Peter the Hermit and Arnulf, afterwards archbishop of Jerusalem, made addresses on the Mount of Olives to restore unity among the crusading leaders, especially Tancred and Raymund. Albert of Aachen, VI. 8, Rec., IV. 471, says, ad populos sermones . . . plurimam discordiam quce inter Peregrines de diversis causis excreverat exstinxerunt. Tancred had stirred up much jealousy by raising his banner over Bethlehem. Hagenmeyer, p. 259, accepts Albert's account as genuine against Sybel.
2 Miles splendidus et refulgens.
3 Guibert, VII. 7, Eec.\ IV. 226 ; Kobert the Monk, VII., Jfcc., III. 867.
240 THP: MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1049-1294.
excuse, it is related that the blood of the massacred in the temple area reached to the very knees and bridles of the horses.1 " Such a slaughter of the pagans had never been seen or heard of. The number none but God knew."2
Penitential devotions followed easily upon the gory butch ery of the sword. Headed by Godfrey, clad in a suit of white linen, the Crusaders proceeded to the church of the Holy Sepulchre and offered up prayers and thanksgivings. William of Tyre relates that Adhemar and others, who had fallen by the way, were seen showing the path to the holy places. The devotions over, the work of massacre was renewed. Neither the tears of women, nor the cries of chil dren, nor the protests of Tancred, who for the honor of chivalry was concerned to save three hundred, to whom he had promised protection — none of these availed to soften the ferocity of the conquerors.
As if to enhance the spectacle of pitiless barbarity, Saracen prisoners were forced to clear the streets of the dead bodies and blood to save the city from pestilence. " They wept and transported the dead bodies out of Jerusalem," is the heartless statement of Robert the Monk.3
Such was the piety of the Crusaders. The religion of the Middle Ages combined self-denying asceticism with heart less cruelty to infidels, Jews, and heretics. "They cut down with the sword," said William of Tyre, "every one whom they found in Jerusalem, and spared no one. The
1 So Raymund of Agiles, an eyewitness, usque ad genua et usque ad frenos equorum, XX., Rec., III. 300. This he calls "the righteous judgment of God."
2 So the Gesta : tales occisiones de paganorum gente nullus unquam audivit nee vidit . . . nemo scit numerum eorum nisi solus deus. The slain are variously estimated from forty thousand to one hundred thousand. Guibert, Gesta, VII. 7, Rec,, IV. 227, further says that in the temple area there was such a sea of blood, sanguinis unda, as almost to submerge the pedes trian.
3 IX., Rec., III. 869. Robert gives an awful picture of the streets filled with dismembered bodies and running with gore.