1102: Baldwin II
pledges his Beard
Tancred’s activities were not altogether to the
liking of his neighbour at Edessa, Baldwin of Le Bourg. Baldwin’s father, Count
Hugh I of Rethel, was related to the house of Boulogne; and Baldwin, who was a
younger son, came out to the East with his cousins, Godfrey of Lorraine and
King Baldwin. When Baldwin I established himself at Edessa he had stayed behind
with Bohemond and served as intermediary between the two princes. On Bohemond’s
imprisonment he had taken over the government of Antioch, until Baldwin of
Edessa was summoned to Jerusalem. Baldwin of Le Bourg was then enfeoffed with
Edessa by his cousin, to rule there autonomously, but under the suzerainty of
Jerusalem. It was not an easy position that he inherited. His lands had no
natural frontiers and were constantly liable to invasion. He could only rule by
garrisoning the principal towns and castles; and for that he needed servants
and comrades whom he could trust. Being ill-provided with men of his own race
he made it his business to be on excellent terms with the native Christians.
Almost his first action as Count of Edessa was to marry a local princess,
Morphia, the young daughter of the ancient Gabriel, lord of Melitene, an
Armenian by race but an adherent of the Orthodox Church. At the same time he
wooed and won the support of the Armenians of the separated Gregorian Church,
whose great historian, Matthew of Edessa, was full of praise for his amiable
nature and the purity of his private life, though he regretted his ambition and
avarice. Baldwin particularly favoured the Armenians, because they could be
used as soldiers; but he was kindly also towards his Syrian Jacobite subjects
and even succeeded in healing a schism within their Church. The only complaint
against him was his rapacity. He was perpetually in need of money and raised it
wherever he could. But his methods were less arbitrary and more gentle than
Baldwin I’s. His knights were particularly delighted when he managed to extort
30,000 besants from his father-in-law by declaring that he owed that sum to his
men and had sworn to them that if he could not pay them he would shave off his
beard. The Armenians, like the Greeks, considered a beard necessary to manly
dignity and were shocked at the shaven faces of so many Crusaders. Gabriel
thought that a beardless son-in-law would be damaging to his prestige; and when
Baldwin’s men, entering into the comedy, corroborated that their master had
indeed sworn such an oath, Gabriel hastened to hand over the necessary cash to
prevent so dreadful an humiliation, and made Baldwin swear a fresh oath that
never would he pledge his beard again.
Early in his reign Baldwin II had to face an
attack from the Ortoqids of Mardin. The emir Soqman led an army against Saruj,
a Moslem town which Baldwin I had captured and placed under Fulcher of
Chartres. Baldwin II hastened to help Fulcher; but in the ensuing battle he was
defeated and Fulcher slain. The town was taken by the Moslems; but the citadel
held out under Benedict, Latin Archbishop of Edessa, while Baldwin hastened to
Antioch to hire troops to replenish his army. On his return he was more
fortunate. Soqman was driven out of the town with heavy losses. The inhabitants
that had had dealings with the Ortoqids were massacred; and many prisoners were
made, whose ransom enriched Baldwin’s exchequer.
Soon afterwards Baldwin acquired a useful
lieutenant in the person of his cousin, Joscelin of Courtenay. Joscelin, whose mother
was Baldwin’s aunt, was the younger and penniless son of the lord of Courtenay
and had probably come to the East with his close neighbour, the Count of
Nevers. On his arrival Baldwin enfeoffed him with all the land of the county
that lay to the west of the Euphrates, with his headquarters at Turbessel. He
proved to be a valiant friend; but his loyalty was later to be questioned.
As time went on, Baldwin seems to have grown
suspicious of Tancred’s ambitions, and desired Bohemond’s restoration to
Antioch. Together with the Patriarch Bernard he began negotiations with the
Danishmend emir to secure his release. Tancred took no part in the transaction.
The emir had already been offered the large sum of 260,000 besants from the
Emperor Alexius in return for Bohemond’s person, and would have accepted, had
not the Seldjuk Sultan, Kilij Arslan, come to hear of it. Kilij Arslan, as
official overlord of the Anatolian Turks, demanded half of any ransom that the
Danishmend might receive. The resultant quarrel between the two Turkish princes
prevented the immediate acceptance of the Emperor’s offer, but it served the
useful purpose of breaking their alliance. Bohemond, in his captivity, was
aware of these negotiations. He was still a handsome and glamorous man; and the
ladies of the emir’s household took an interest in him. Perhaps with their
assistance, he was able to persuade his captor that a private arrangement with
the Franks of Syria and the promise of their alliance was preferable to a deal
with the Emperor, in which the Seldjuks intended to interfere. The emir agreed
to release Bohemond for the sum of 100,000 besants.
1103: Bohemond’s
Release
While the negotiations were continuing, the
Danishmend army attacked Melitene. Its ruler, Gabriel, must have appealed to
his son-in-law, Baldwin, for help; but Baldwin did nothing, probably because he
was unwilling at this juncture to offend the emir. Gabriel’s subjects disliked
him for his Orthodox faith. The Syrians, in particular, had never forgiven him
for having once put one of their bishops to death for treason. He and his
capital were captured; but one of his castles held out. Gabriel was told by his
captors to order it to capitulate. When the garrison disobeyed him, he was
executed before its walls.
It was at Melitene, a few months later, in the
spring of 1103, that Bohemond was handed over to the Franks. His ransom money
had been raised by Baldwin and by the Patriarch Bernard, with the help of the
Armenian princeling, Kogh Vasil, and of Bohemond’s relatives in Italy. Tancred
did not contribute to it. Bohemond at once went to Antioch, where he was
reinstated in his authority. He publicly thanked Tancred for having
administered the principality during his absence, but privately there was some
friction between the uncle and the nephew, as Tancred did not see why he should
hand over to Bohemond the conquests that he himself had made as regent. Public
opinion forced him to give way; and he was rewarded by a small fief within the
principality. He could legally have demanded the return of Galilee from Baldwin
I, but he did not think it worth his while.
The Franks celebrated Bohemond’s return by a
general offensive against their neighbours. In the summer of 1103 Bohemond,
with Joscelin of Courtenay, raided the territory of Aleppo. They captured the
town of Muslimiye, to the north of Aleppo itself, and extracted a large tribute
from the Moslems of the district, which was used to repay the Franks who had
lent money to Baldwin and the Patriarch for Bohemond’s ransom. Next, they
turned against the Byzantines. Alexius, after writing to Bohemond to require
him to give back the Cilician cities, sent his general Butumites to recover
them. But Butumites’s force was unreliable. He entered Cilicia in the autumn of
1103 but soon decided that the task was beyond him; and he learnt that the
Franks were planning to expand northward against Marash, which the Armenian
Thatoul held for the Emperor. He hastened there himself, and, probably, by so
doing, he saved Thatoul for the moment. But he was recalled to Constantinople.
Early next spring Bohemond and Joscelin marched on Marash. Thatoul was
powerless. The Byzantine army was far away. The Danishmend Turks were now on
good terms with the Franks. He surrendered his city to Joscelin, who allowed
him to retire to Constantinople; while Bohemond took the town of Albistan, to
the north of Marash.
1104: The
Importance of Harran
The Franks now felt secure from attacks from
Anatolia. They could turn against the Moslems of the east. In March 1104
Bohemond reinvaded the lands of Ridwan of Aleppo and took the town of Basarfut,
on the road from Antioch to Aleppo; but his attempt against Kafarlata, to the
south, failed owing to the resistance of the local tribe of the Banu Ulaim.
Joscelin meanwhile cut the communications between Aleppo and the Euphrates.
But, if the Moslems of Syria were to be effectively cut off from the
Moslems of Iraq and Persia, the great fortress of Harran, situated between
Edessa and the Euphrates, in the northern Jezireh, would have to be occupied by
the Christians. If they held Harran, the Franks could even contemplate an
expedition against Mosul and into Mesopotamia. In the spring of 1104 conditions
seemed to be favourable. During 1103 the whole eastern Moslem world had been
torn by a civil war between the Seldjuk Sultan Barkiyarok and his brother
Mohammed. Peace was made between them in January 1104 by which the Sultan
retained Baghdad and the western Iranian plateau. His third brother, Sanjar,
already had obtained Khorassan and eastern Iran; and Mohammed obtained northern
Iraq and the Jezireh and the suzerainty rights over Diarbekir and over all
Syria. It was an uneasy arrangement. Each of the brothers hoped soon to upset
it and in the meantime intrigued for allies amongst all the Turkish and Arab
princes. In the Jezireh itself the death in 1102 of the atabeg of Mosul,
Kerbogha, whom the Franks had defeated at Antioch, had provoked a civil war.
The Ortoqid prince of Mardin, Soqman, had failed to secure the succession for
his candidate and was at war with the new atabeg, Jekermish, appointed by the
Seldjuk Mohammed. Harran itself had belonged to a Turkish general, Qaraja, who
had been a mameluke in Malik Shah’s service; but his brutal behaviour had
caused the inhabitants to rise against him and to hand over the government to a
certain Mohammed of Isfahan. Mohammed in his turn was murdered by a former page
of Qaraja’s, called Jawali, with whom he had rashly become intimate. But Jawali’s
authority was very insecure; while Harran itself began to suffer severely from
raids by the Franks of Edessa, who devastated its fields and interrupted its
trade. It was clear that they intended soon to go farther.
Both Soqman at Mardin and Jekermish at Mosul
were alarmed. Their common danger induced them to forget their quarrel and to
unite in an expedition against Edessa, to attack before they were attacked.
Early in May 1104 they marched together on Edessa; Soqman with a considerable
force of Turcoman light cavalry and Jekermish with a slightly smaller force
composed of Seldjuk Turks, Kurds and Arabs. Baldwin II heard that they were
massing at Ras al-Ain, some seventy miles from his capital. He sent for help to
Joscelin and to Bohemond, and suggested that they should turn the attack by
themselves making an attempt on Harran. Leaving a small garrison at Edessa he
made his way to Harran with a small company of knights and of Armenian infantry
levies. The Archbishop of Edessa, Benedict, accompanied him. Close to Harran he
was joined by Joscelin, with the troops of his lands, and by the Antiochene
army under Bohemond, Tancred, the Patriarch Bernard, and Daimbert, ex-Patriarch
of Jerusalem. The whole Frankish army numbered nearly three thousand knights
and perhaps three times that number of infantry. It represented the full
fighting force of the Franks of northern Syria, apart from the garrisons of the
fortresses.
The army assembled before Harran while the
Moslem princes were still at some distance to the north-east, marching on
Edessa. Had the Franks attempted to take the fortress by assault, Harran would
have been theirs; but they were unwilling to damage the fortifications, which
they hoped to use later themselves. They thought that the garrison could be
frightened into surrender. It was a reasonable hope. The Moslems within the town
were weak; almost at once they entered into negotiations. But thereupon Baldwin
and Bohemond quarrelled over the question, whose standard should first be
raised over the walls. The delay caused their downfall. Before they had settled
the quarrel the Turkish army had swung southward and was upon them.
1104: The
Disaster at Harran
The battle took place on the banks of the river
Balikh, close to the ancient field of Carrhae, where, centuries before, Crassus
and the Roman legions had been annihilated by the Parthians. The Frankish
strategy was for the army of Edessa, on the left, to engage the main enemy
force, while the Antiochene army lay hidden behind a low hill about a mile to
the right, ready to intervene at the decisive moment. But the Moslems made similar
plans. A portion of their army attacked the Frankish left, then turned and
fled. The Edessenes thought that they had won an easy victory and hurried in
pursuit, losing contact with their comrades on the right. They crossed the
river and fell straight into an ambush laid by the main Moslem army. Many of
them were slaughtered on the spot; the remainder turned and fled. When
Bohemond, who had driven off the small detachment opposed to him, prepared to
join in the battle, he only found a stream of fugitives pouring from the
distance and scrambling back across the river, where fresh bands of Turks fell
upon them. He saw that all was lost and moved quickly away, rescuing only a few
of the Edessenes. As the combatants passed beneath the walls of Harran, the garrison
fell on them and in the confusion enthusiastically killed as many of the Moslem
pursuers as of the Franks. The army of Antioch escaped without heavy losses;
but the troops of Edessa were almost entirely captured or slain. The Patriarch
Bernard was so frightened that as he fled he cut off his horse’s tail lest some
Turk should catch him by it, though by then none of the enemy was in sight.