The Blood of Jerusalem — Volume II

After the agonizing march through Anatolia and the founding of the County of Edessa, the bulk of the crusader army stands before Antioch: a walled city considered impregnable. What follows are nine months of the cruelest siege of the Middle Ages.

The betrayal of Firuz the Armenian. The mystical miracle of the Holy Lance. Peter Bartholomew's ordeal of fire. And finally, the walls of Jerusalem.

In this third book of the saga, David S. Matrecano brings the chronicle of the First Crusade to its peak with the final assault on the Holy City on July 15, 1099, where the first Christian Kingdom of Jerusalem is born under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon.

After the founding of the County of Edessa, the crusader army concentrates before Antioch, key to Syria and ancient Christian patriarchal city. The siege begins in October 1097 and stretches for nine endless months beneath walls that seem invincible. Hunger devours the troops: horses sacrificed, dogs, rats, boiled leather. Deserters are legion.

The masterstroke is delivered by Bohemond of Taranto, the shrewdest of the crusader princes. He bribes an Armenian captain of the garrison, Firuz, who hands over one of the towers on a June night in 1098. The crusaders enter the city and sack it with indescribable violence. But barely is the slaughter over when from Mosul arrives the Turkish relief army under Kerbogha: now it is the crusaders who are besieged.

It is then that one of the most extraordinary and controversial episodes of the Middle Ages occurs: the visionary peasant Peter Bartholomew claims to have dreamed of the exact spot where the Holy Lance lay buried —the one that pierced Christ's side on the Cross. They dig in St. Peter's cathedral and, miracle or farce, find a rusty spearhead. The troops, on the edge of collapse, recover a desperate fervor and march out into the open to give battle. They defeat Kerbogha's army against all odds.

Later, internal disputes and the skepticism of the clergy will force Peter Bartholomew to submit to the ordeal of fire: walking between two pyres so that God may prove the truth of his vision. The visionary dies of his burns a few days later. But the miracle has done its job: the army now marches south, unstoppable, conquering Maarat al-Numan, Tripoli, Jaffa.

On June 7, 1099, the crusaders finally see the walls of Jerusalem. After a five-week siege with siege towers built ad hoc, the city falls on July 15, 1099. The massacre that follows is proverbial: the blood reaches "up to the ankles" according to the chroniclers. A week later, Godfrey of Bouillon is elected Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri —not king, out of Christian humility— and the first Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem is born. The First Crusade is over. The legend begins.