And All Nations Shall Gather To It - Volume I: The Abode of Peace
- Thread starter Ricard (i.e. Rdffigueira)
- Start date
Honestly if they start working together too well ill be calling bull. How likely is it these nords even know french, to say nothing of being to organize themselves into an effective fighting force. More likely they'll but heads before they work together, this is a king in the holy land after all.
There was always racism—it’s just that quite often in this period,it’s rooted in culture rather than in actual race.
Well, yes, but if you want to be particular about it, those are two different things. Both are forms of xenophobia, but culturalism and racism base that fear of the other on different traits. For instance, medieval Italian city states could have half-Moorish rulers (look at the DeMedici family) during this era, because said ruler accepted Christianity and was viewed as properly Italian. That certainly would not have flown in the 19ty century.
32. Konge Sigurðr i Jorsalaland (1111 - 1113)
Drawing of King Sigurd arrival in Jerusalem (c. 1600)
King Sigurd of Norway was barely 17 years old when he departed from his great hall in Oslo in 1107, having mustered 60 longships to carry about thousands of men to a great naval voyage across half the world. By then, he and his half-brothers Øystein and Olaf, were jointly ruling the realm since their father had untimely passed away during a raid in Ireland in 1103. Sigurd would actually outlive all of his brothers, but, then, he was interested more in discovering new realms and collecting great treasures.
Between 1107 to 1110, he had already passed through the busy port-districts of London; bedded freckled Breton women in Finistère; peregrinated barefoot to the sanctuary of St. James in Galicia; fought the valiant Moorish cavaliers and their fair-haired “Saqaliba” knights in Lisboa; torched an Andalusian fleet in between the Pillars of Hercules; stormed a fortress in the Baleares; received with gifts and feasts by the Norman Count of Sicily; and even went sightseeing in the ancient Greco-Roman ruins of Rhodes, until he finally arrived in the Near East.
Archbishop Gerard of Jerusalem, when he heard that the Norwegian king was navigating along the coast to disembark in Ascalon (as they had reached the coast further north, near Haifa), ordered the road to the holy city to be covered with fine carpets, gilded leaves and dyed sands crafted by the merchants of Arabia, all of which were afterwards collected to gift the newly arrived Crusaders. Prince Raymond of St. Giles, old and sick as he was, still went to greet the Norwegians on his horse, clad in mail and with an embroidered mantle, and granted them the standard with the lion and the cross that represented the holy city under Latin rule.
King Sigurd’s priority was visiting and praying in the holy places with his many followers - many of whom were not professional soldiers, but rather craftsmen, peasants and sailors -, and, accordingly, the Archbishop presided over a mass in the Temple of Solomon, and in the next few days, ministered the Nordic monarch the sacrament of baptism in the Jordan River.
Having undertook his holy enterprise and fulfilled his vow, he made it clear to the grandees of Jerusalem – Prince Raymond, Gonfaloniere Bohemond, Archbishop Gerard and the Crusader Counts – about his will to join their wars against the infidels, pledging his sword to the cause of Christ.
Raymond, Bohemond and Gerard, much like all of the Crusaders, were convinced that this was nothing short of a divine miracle: from the farthest reaches of the Earth came such a vast army of faithful to prosecute the ultimate enterprise. It was no coincidence... no, it was decidedly a divine sign about the righteousness of their cause.
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Much like what had happened a few years previously, when Bohemond, besieged in Tyre with his unlikely Aquitainian ally, William the Troubadour, received the fortuitous help of his kinsmen of Salerno and of Monte Sant’Angelo to vanquish the Syrians and Turks, now the Grand Marshal of the realm had full knowledge that this opportunity was too good to be wasted, and immediately prepared for war, mustering all the resources available.
Ascalon and Gaza was still under siege, and the operations had devolved into a stalemate. The besiegers dared not attack the refortified ramparts of the formidable fortress of Ascalon, while the defenders were still expecting relief from Egypt. Alas, the arrival of the Norwegians completely overturned the scales of the balance. Even without a fleet to protect them, the defenders could be supplied by small crews of fishermen coming from the Egyptian littoral, who brought food and other goods - the Rhōmaîoi fleet had by then returned to Asia Minor to facilitate the shipping of goods from Europe to Antioch and from there transported to the land army occupying Aleppo. The Norwegian ships, however, were small and much more maneuverable than the large Rhōmaîon galleys, and could pursue and destroy the fishing boats that risked so much to preserve the Egyptian war effort in Ascalon against the infidels, while the Fatimid leadership degenerated in palatine intrigue and political disputes in Cairo.
In less than a month after the arrival of the Norwegians, Ascalon finally fell, and Gaza immediately afterwards. Raymond offered the settlements and their respective lands as a gift to King Sigurd, but he refused the offer. Indeed, the Norwegians did not have the intention of remaining in the Outremer, but rather desire to know the "whole world", consumed as they were by wanderlust and curiosity.
Bohemond, who was de facto in charge of the military operations of the realm as Prince Raymond retired to Jerusalem (then struggling with frequent episodes of delirious fever and dysentery, was fated to pass away soon, according to his physician), considered his options. His Norman and Lombard followers fervently argued for him to invade Egypt and finally dethrone the cursed "Grand Vizier" - whom they usually called Lavendalius - and reap the wealth of the Nile, while the Archbishop himself urged for him to attack Damascus, considering its geographic proximity to Palestine. In the end, Bohemond convinced the aristocrats and his ally Sigurd that the priority was the submission of the Phoenician metropolises. By securing Lebanon, they would be the masters of one of the fairest parts of Asia, and it would be transformed into a bulwark against the Turkish invaders from Syria. It is likely that his decision owed to a combination of factors: his own personal ambition of conquering such prestigious cities (shared with his ally, Duke William of Aquitaine), the strategic concerns, and the necessity of encircling the growing Emirate of Baalbek, now that Toghtekin, who called himself Saif al-Islam [Sword of Islam], established himself as the paramount authority in Lebanon.
While besieging Sidon would the Crusaders receive the news that al-Afdal in Egypt had finally restored his own absolute power, after deceiving his political enemies in Cairo into staging a coup, and then had them imprisoned and executed. Then, one of his trusted generals, a young and promising Arab-Egyptian aristocrat named Ahmad Ali ibn Bahram al-Masri, would march against Gaza, only to be untimely slain by a raiding party of Turcopoles in Latin employment. The Egyptian army, numbering in thousands, would then dissolve due to the incompetence of the remaining leaders; their indecisiveness to act against the constant Latin assaults coming from their safe spot in Gaza would foster daily desertions. The bickering captains would then be taken by surprise by a mutiny of the Berber mercenaries, thus fulfilling the complete disbandment of the army, in another embarrassing and shameful display of the Fatimids against the severely outnumbered Latins. Bohemond, when he heard about the dissolution of another large Egyptian army with not even a single battle, was said to have become disappointed, claiming that the Berber revolters had robbed him from another triumph!
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Sidon was one of the smallest Lebanese cities, and was the first one to fall, after shortly more than a week. Its inhabitants had resisted a few siege attempts before, but now, having witnessed passively the downfall of the greatest Islamic princes – including Duqaq of Damascus, whom they had invited to be their suzerain –, had grown too fearful of the Crusader brutality and fierceness. Bohemond’s terms, when he approached the city from the eastern gate, were as good as any, and the promise of mercy in exchange for peaceful surrender and a substantial (but not exorbitant) tribute, confronted with the alternative of a brutal massacre if they posed resistance, were all factors that convinced the local emir to capitulate quickly. In fact, the city had been reinforced, two years ago, with a garrison from the Fatimids – who intended to restore control over the emporium –, but the Egyptian lieutenant himself, a Berber freedman named Yusuf Ghilman, disgruntled due to the various consecutive months without payment and disappointed by the various defeats suffered by the incompetent Vizier in Cairo, convinced (by threat, of course) the Arab Emir of Sidon to open the gates to the Crusaders.
Bohemond stood true to his words, and even the citizens of Sidon were surprised by his benevolence, as neither the Muslims nor the Jews were expelled, and no one was forced to convert on swordpoint, like it had happened too many times before. Some months later, the Emir himself would be deposed by Yusuf Ghilman and imprisoned with suspicious charges of conspiracy. After his execution, the self-proclaimed lord of Sidon would marry with the widow of the former Emir, convert to Christianity and petition for the recognition of his rule to Bohemond. The Norman Prince then would grant him the title of "Count of Sidon".
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Beirut, even if mildly surprised by the generosity bestowed upon Sidon, refused to surrender easily, considering that its local ruler, al-Mundhir ibn Ameen - a descendant of the ancient Lakhimid monarchs, which ruled stretches of Arabia before the birth of Muhammad -, foresaw that he would be dethroned, as the Crusaders desired direct control over his city-state. He then closed the gates shut and pleaded for Fatimid assistance, and, realizing the Egyptians would not come, pleaded again for Damascus’ help, unaware that the Damascenes, under Atabeg Baktash ibn Tutush, had recently sent a great column of war to attack Homs with the intent of dethroning Sultan Radwan, sparking another civil war.
After five weeks of siege, Beirut fell to the army of the cross, its garrison slaughtered after the Franks escalated the ramparts using siege towers and demolished the defensive pinnacles using catapults. In the sea, the busy port had been cut off by a myriad of Venetian and Norwegian ships. This time, the Crusaders showed little goodwill towards the vanquished city-state, imposing a ransom of 10 dinars for head, lest one would be submitted to slavery, while dozens of others were simply slain. Usammah ibn Mundiqh claims that the stones in the beach below the sea-walls remained for years stained with red-tint, because countless men and women were thrown from the top of the parapets to their deaths. Christians were spared, as usual, but even they were appalled by the violence and many offered to pay the 10 dinars to be given any sort of protection, namely by the chivalrous (but greedy) Duke of Aquitaine, who promised that no harm would be done to those who stood below his banner.
For years, both Raymond and Bohemond had coveted Beirut, but it should not surprise anyone that the city was, in the end, awarded to William the Troubadour himself (in fact, his proverbial altruism towards the Beirutians can be explained by his previous knowledge that he would be granted lordship over the city by Bohemond after its capture). It became, nevertheless, a seemingly honorific concession, because soon Duke William, after his long stay in the Holy Land, would return to Europe, enriched tenfold by the wealth plundered from Sidon and Beirut, much like the gleeful Norwegians. Before his departure, then, he would bequeath Beirut to his cousin, Ralph of Santoinge [Raoul de Séntunjhe], who decided to remain in the east, and Archbishop Gerard sanctioned the property transfer.
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The coastal city of Byblos might have expected to be the next target of Crusader greed, but, in fact, the vast polyglot army of Toulousains, Provençals, Italians, Normans, Bavarians, and now Norwegians and Armenians went into the backcountry, advancing towards the Zahlé, from whence they would directly attack Baalbek. With these conquests, they would secure military occupation over the Beqaa valley in eastern Lebanon, and create a defensive cordon – or a strategic bulwark of fortresses – to protect northern Palestine against attacks coming from Syria and Mesopotamia.
The Franks knew that, by the end of 1110, the Turco-Syrian warlords were again at war; perhaps they felt that the humiliation of their joint defeat – to which they blamed one another – should be avenged with their own blood instead of that of the Christians, a conclusion that obviously appalled the distant, but attentive, Caliph of Baghdad, who denounced their fratricide war, while the Seljuk Sultan, Muhammad I Tapar, likely delighted in their catastrophic failure.
Fakhr al-Mulk Radwan had been (unsurprisingly) reneged as liege by Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin, who was now allied to his former enemy Baktash of Damascus – who was, we cannot forget, Radwan’s own younger brother –, and together they marched to submit Homs and dethrone the former “Sultan of Syria” now that he had fallen to the nadir of his fortunes. The war was supposed to be finished in a quick campaign, but, to the surprise of the Damascenes, Radwan again found a common cause with his former rival, Ilghazi ibn Artuq of Mardin (and again ruler of Mosul) – who had developed a personal vendetta against Toghtekin since the failed siege of Jerusalem. The Artuqids were, of all the participants of the previous year’s invasion of Judaea, the one that had suffered fewer casualties, and thus summoned a rather formidable army to face the Damascenes.
Toghtekin and Baktash gave up the siege of Homs in December 1110 and together traveled in a hurry to Baalbek, informed about the Crusaders' approach. Even if they had a formidable army, they were seriously outnumbered by the vast host, greatly emboldened by the arrival of the Norwegians. Cursed be the Franj! Was it the ultimate fate of Asia to be flooded by so many Christian nations of Europe?
In the middle of 1111, long after winter had passed, the Crusaders reduced Zahlé, after twice defeating the combined army of Toghtekin and Baktash. The Norwegians, even if pious Christians, still had the blood of their pagan and berserker forefathers, and fought with red-eyes and sinister war cries, slaughtering the Arabic-Syrian soldiery and Turcoman mercenaries with their great-axes. The Turks had attempted to attract their undisciplined regiments to a more suitable position in the plains north of Zahlé, where their horse-archers would master the battlefield, but Bohemond successfully thwarted their offensives. After many attempts, one of the feigned retreats - a tactic commonly used by these steppe barbarians - degenerated into a genuine rout when Baktash's Syrian infantry panicked in the face of Norwegian onslaught. The Damascenes, having suffered much more numerous casualties than Toghtekin's horsemen company, abandoned him to his own fate.
After Zahle fell, only then did Toghtekin pleaded for a truce, even offering an alliance against the Qadi of Tripoli and against Radwan in Homs, claiming that they were far larger threats. While some Latin-Levantine aristocrats, such as Bertrand of Toulouse and William-Jordan of Cerdanya, considered the terms, neither Bohemond nor King Sigurd saw use in it. No, Toghtekin was a rabid dog, and had to be put down, lest the wounds of his bites would fester.
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The siege of Baalbek, in September 1111, almost made the belligerent parties of the Syrian dynastic war to abandon their ceaseless conflict and join forces to attack the Crusaders. Perhaps the Franks were actually expecting this, for Bohemond had many times proclaimed that he desired one single “day of blood to purge the earth from the infidels of the crescent-banners”. But soon they realized that Toghtekin had been abandoned by his former allies. Baktash returned to Damascus, while Radwan, still stricken with delusions in his palace of Homs, cursed him in every of his daily prayers. Toghtekin implored for the assistance of the Qadi of Tripoli, Fakhr al-Mulk Abû ’Ali ibn’Ammâr, but, to his surprise, the Tripolitanians had concluded a secret peace treaty with the Crusaders. His last hope was for the Seljuk Sultan himself, Muhammad I Tapar, who was then in Mesopotamia, besieging Mosul to wrestle it from the Artuqids of Mardin. In spite of his many promises, he would never come to the Levant, however, consumed as ever by his eternal war against the Hashāashīn in Alamut.
Toghtekin had attempted to improvise fortifications of Baalbek, but the city was small and had an unimpressive circuit of walls; besides, it was set in a rather arid spot of Lebanon, and the blockade would quickly impose starvation upon its desolate citizenry. The ancient Roman ruins were re-purposed as citadels by the Syrian defenders, but, when Toghtekin saw the immense size of the Crusader army, he immediately gave up any hope of defending it. In the dark of night, he simply abandoned it, departing to the north with his kinsmen and with a cadre of his Turcoman wandering cavaliers.
The city dared not resist, and surrendered in the next following days. The cities of Baalbek and Zahlé were merged into a newly-created fief and granted to William of Monte Sant'Angelo, who, for the first time in decades, was again entitled as a Count.
Toghtekin assumed that, as easy as he had created his "Emirate of Baalbek", he could then reestablish himself as a ruler in another part of Syria, perhaps cannibalizing another piece of Radwan's crumbling domain, and the tranquil and gardened city of Shaizar became his target, after he gave up the idea of ousting Radwan from Homs itself. The "Sword of Islam", however, was about to become a victim of his own hubris. In the beginning of 1113, having convinced the citizens of Shaizar to accept him as their new Emir, now that the "Sultan of Syria" had fallen from grace, Toghtekin would be assassinated in his own palace, cut across the belly like a pig.
His son Taj al-Muluk Buri, suspected the culprits to be the feared “Hashāashīn”, a cabal of Ismaili zealots which seemingly had won the favor of Radwan, and initiated a witch hunt in Shaizar to capture them. The measures proved too unpopular, and, after some time, the citizens rioted. Afterwards, Buri saw himself forced to abandon Shaizar altogether, establishing himself with his retainers in a citadel in the Orontes valley, only to discover that one of his father’s Turkish lieutenants, a certain Tugrhul, had established himself as the ruler of Shaizar, adopting a more Arabic-sounding name "Qasim Taj al-Dawla al-Himsi". He then accepted the nominal suzerainty of the Great Seljuks in Iraq, but became de facto an independent prince. To everyone’s astonishment, he immediately procured the Franj to ally against Buri and also against Tripoli, hoping that the Latins would award this pristine metropolis to him if he joined their side.
Buri then decided that commandeering an insignificant outpost in the Syrian desert was below his life's purposes and ambitions; unsure about renewing his father's alliance with the treacherous Baktash of Damascus, he decided to simply leave Syria and voyage to Iraq, where he would indeed be received with open arms by the Sultan of Baghdad, Muhammad I Tapar. Buri would distinguish himself in the siege of Mosul; his sword would drink the blood of three of the Artuqid clansmen, reducing the size of Ilghazi's family, and forcing him to retreat to Mardin. The grateful Sultan of Mesopotamia would then reward his newly created vassal with the Emirate of Mosul, where the Toghtekinid lineage would thrive for the decades to come.
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The Latins, which had recently annexed Baalbek, and were building a fortress in the region when they received Qasim al-Himsi’s offer of tribute in exchange for their help.
By then, Duke William of Aquitaine and Poitiers had finally sailed to Europe, going from Tyre; even if some scores of his men had decided to remain in the Orient to seek fortunes and salvation of the soul there, most of these had dispersed through the various fiefs and lands granted by Archbishop Gerard in the upper Jordan valley and around the Sea of Galilee, so Bohemond could not await to summon them, as he immediately marched to capture take Byblos, with the assistance of the Qadi of Tripoli.
Bohemond tried to convince the Norwegians to remain in the Outremer to assist in other campaigns. He enthusiastically announced his intentions of conquering Damascus and then Egypt, but King Sigurd respectfully turned down the proposal. After the submission of Byblos, this vast number of hardy inhabitants of Norway would return to their ships and from there sail back to Europe, having fulfilled their vows of praying in Jerusalem and protecting the Holy Land. Bohemond became really disappointed - believing that only the combined forces of the Levant and of Norway would be able to take the whole of Lebanon and Syria -, but his irresignation was of no use, and he courteously and ceremoniously demonstrated his gratitude to the brave Norwegians who had been on his side in battle, providing their men and women with every sort of gift paid from his own estates, such as silver, silk and spices. Archbishop Gerard rendezvoused with King Sigurd in Jaffa, in late 1113, not long after Byblos had capitulated, and blessed their ships and arms as they departed.
Very few of the Norwegians opted to stay in the Outremer. Their immense fleet voyaged to the legendary city of “Miklagarðr” [Constantinople], the metropolis of gold and marble that populated the tales told by their forefathers who had known the Varangians.
A painting representing King Sigurd Jórsalfari in Constantinople (in 1114)
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It looks like the Age of Exploration will be kicked off early, for the Norse want to see the world, and everything in it.
I third the call for a map! My knowledge of the Medieval geography of the Levant isn't as strong as I'd like it to be, and I'd love to have a good map for reference.
Great update by the way - I'm loving this to!
Great update by the way - I'm loving this to!
This expedition is actually from OTL,so there’s no early Age of Exploration.
Never underestimate the ability of god, gold and glory to move men to herculean feats.
Wow, the Middle East is an absolute mess right now. I agree that a map would help, having trouble keeping up with everything.