Another chapter for the record. The previous chapter had a timeskip that took our TL to 1109, but this one here is situated earlier in 1104, a brief "flashback" that has a great narrative importance, as you will see, due to the introduction of Bertrand, Prince Raymond's son.
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Bertrand of Toulouse, represented in an illuminated miniature from the 12th Century. The tower besides him represents the Citadel of Toulouse, which he reformed with great expense, shortly before he departed to the Outremer, never to return home.
In late 1104, an army arrived in Naples [
Napule] coming from northern France, from a tiny fief named Roucy. Its leaders were the scions of the Montdidier family, Guiscard and Thomas, both sons of
Ebles II of Roucy. Their father had been a proud and adventurous warlord, who had travelled to Spain, to fight the Moors in
Barbastro, and to Italy, where he became an ally and friend of Bohemond’s father (
Robert Guiscard) and participated on the invasion of Greece in the 1080s. In fact, Ebles’ sons were fruits of the womb of Sibylla [
Sibylle] – Bohemond’s paternal half-sister – which thus made Guiscard and Thomas nephews of the mighty Norman lord currently living in the Outremer. Now, Count Ebles had lived long enough to hear about Pope Urban II’s to the First Crusade, but, surprisingly, he did not partake in it, even if he had a dream of obtaining for his descendants a princedom more wealthy and prestigious than the boorish plains of Roucy and Ramerupt.
The Montdidier brothers, who had marched straight from France – together with their cousin, the
Count of Perche, Rotrou III, and with the young
Lord of Bourbon, Archambaud VI – and were received by their maternal uncle, the Duke of Apulia and Calabria,
Roger I Borsa, where they happily announced their intent of going to Greece and then to Asia to undertake the “holiest expedition”.
Duke Roger might have been (yet again) embittered to see another great army passing through his duchy to follow an almost-certain death course together with his estranged half-brother Bohemond, with whom he had fought a bloody war decades before. Nevertheless, the Italo-Norman count understood the inestimable value and reward that was to conduct such a sublime pilgrimage in the name of Christ, and, for these relatives who had been conceived in the other side of the continent, he would offer full cooperation.
Firstly, he warned his nephews against going overland through Greece and Asia, citing the various perils and tribulations suffered by the previous expeditions of the
Paupers’ Crusade, of the Normans and Toulousains, and of the French, Lombards and Germans, with many perishing not only by the hands of the Turks but also by hunger and thirst, considering that the “Greek” emperor was a deceitful and heartless tyrant, who had given them rotten food and poisoned water; evidently a scathing calumny owing from the hostile relationshipe between the Rhōmaîoi and the Italo-Normans. Roger recommended that the army of France should sail directly from Italy across the Mediterranean, and, indeed, there were flotillas from Amalfi and Messina [
Missina] voyaging on yearly basis to the Holy Land who might transport these new carriers of the cross-emblem.
Then, the Norman Duke of the Mezzogiorno explained, then, that a fleet of Crusaders coming from Narbonne had, in that very week, anchored in Reggio di Calabria, and from there they would voyage to the Outremer. This Narbonnais expedition was commanded by none other than
Bertrand [Bertran] of Toulouse, firstborn of Raymond of St. Giles. The fleet was intercepted by the Duke's messengers before it departed from Reggio di Calabria, and in a sensible letter, Roger I Borsa asked the Toulousains to wait for the newly-arrived pilgrims, to which Bertrand agreed, and they then travelled together to Jerusalem.
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The pilgrims disembarked in Jaffa in late 1104, and celebrated Christmas in Jerusalem itself, praying in the Temple of Solomon, in a grand ceremony presided by Archbishop Gerard of Amalfi.
The arrival of a host from Europe was received with applauses and celebrations by the Franco-Levantine settlers of Palestine. It is estimated that this combined Toulousain and French agglomeration of arrivals might have amounted to some 2.000 and up to 3.000 men (based on the number of ships that departed from Reggio), a substantial number, considering that, by 1105, the whole of Jerusalem might be hosting any figure between 9.000 to 12.000 Latins, comprising a cosmopolitan and unleveled mixture of Toulousains, Provençals, Lorrainers and Italo-Normans from the First Crusade, and handfuls of Bavarians, Burgundians, Aquitanians and Lombards from the Crusade of 1101.
By 1104, most of the magnates of the “After-Crusade” had returned to Europe, with but Welf I of Bavaria and William IX of Aquitaine still present in the Outremer, and a myriad of other minor barons, cavaliers and bishops spread across forts, manors and walled towns, including adventurers in Rhōmaîon Syria and in Crusader Edessa, such as the brave and devout
Godfrey of St. Omer [Godefroi de Saint Omer], who would go to Armenia with a cadre of Flemish and French adventurers, then successfully storm the citadel of Kaysun [
Çakırhüyük], in an abortive attempt of creating another Frankish state – the “County of Cazòne” –, neighboring the County of Edessa.
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Bertrand of Toulouse came to Jerusalem at request of his father, who had, after Alfonso-Jordan’s birth, sent his newborn child back to Toulouse in 1103 A.D. In that year, Alfonso-Jordan had been placed in the throne of Toulouse with his mother, Elvira of Castille, as a regent, while Bertrand went in his place to the Orient, bringing with himself, by orders of his father, able-bodied knights and volunteers to settle in the east. Bertrand, even with all resentment, was ever dutiful to his father and lord, and immediately complied.
Now, upon meeting his old and tired father - whom he had not seen for almost 8 years, but seemed to have aged 20 - he could barely contain the wrath and indignation, feeling genuinely punished for his many years of reverential obedience. He had given his blood for his father's titles and holdings, when the despicable Duke of Aquitaine marched against the citadel of Toulouse, fighting the invading armies of Aquitaine and Gascony, when William "the Troubadour" - who was, even now, in the Holy Land - besieged Toulouse and forced him to escape to Provence like a cornered dog. Now, in Jerusalem, he demanded satisfaction, fearing to have been stripped from the inheritance.
Only
Raymond of Aguilers [Raimon d'Aguilers] narrates, in a brief passage, that the lord of St. Giles convinced his son Bertrand to remain at his side in the Orient, fearing for the life of his infant son. Even if the realm itself was sacred, the “kingdom” was in eternal peril, surrounded by powerful conquerors, and, even inside, there might be wicked souls working to undo the divine work prosecuted by Duke Raymond and his followers. He was, of course, referring to the Italo-Norman party and their Lombard and Aquitanian allies. Thus, Raymond believed that young Alfonso had no conditions of remaining in the Outremer, while back home he might be protected and instructed by the county’s vassals. Bertrand, even if he expected to inherit Toulouse, was an experienced adult, and could very well continue his father’s purpose in securing the saintly realm against the infidels. We cannot imagine what Bertrand made of these answers; perhaps he was disappointed, perhaps he accepted the task with resolve out of filial piety. Nonetheless, it is a fact that he chose to remain the Levant, and would never return to Europe – now created the castellan of Acre and Hebron – even after his father’s death in 1108. He would thenceforward become a pivotal player in the problematic Jerusalemite political arena, and a stalwart rival of the Italo-Normans, a representative of the so-called Toulousain party [obviously an anachronistic deviation created by later historians].
Bertrand’s permanence in the Holy Land, however, would create a vacuum of power back in Toulouse, and only the presence of the infant Alfonso-Jordan as the heir-apparent of the county would provide little obstacle to the ambitions and greed of William IX, the Duke of Aquitaine, after he returns to Europe (not long after Raymond’s death) to press his wife’s
Phillipa’s claim to the fief of Toulouse.
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Notes and comments: Dramatic and bizarre as it may seem, the episode involving the "substitution" for Bertrand in Toulouse by his infant brother Alfonso-Jordan happened exactly like that IOTL. I obviously added some drama to the fictionalized portrayal of this first meeting between the newly arrived Bertrand and his father Raymond. The invasion of Toulouse by William IX of Aquitaine did happen historically, but later he "mortgaged" the fief back to Bertrand to raise funds for his participation in the Crusade of 1101, this also happens here without changes. From there onwards, however, the divergences become more noticeable: while IOTL the pretendents to Raymond's inheritance as the Count of Tripoli were disputed by Bertrand of Toulouse and his maternal cousin William-Jordan of Cerdanya (who had come to Jerusalem in the First Crusade with Raymond), ITTL, considering that William is already enfeoffed with his own barony (Gaza), he will lack any interests to put him at odds with Bertrand, and they will instead grow to be allies in the Jerusalemite politics, forming the "Toulousain faction".
Just to clarify: I'm using more modern terms such as "party" and "faction" to better represent the political allegiances that will arise in the next few decades of Levantine history. They are not "official" parties in our modern sense, but rather groups of interests that orbit around the aristocratic families with common traits and customs, such as the Norman families, the Occitan dynasties, the Lorrainers that remain in Palestine after Godfrey of Bouillon's death, and so forth.
