Siege of Antioch

There are several contemporaneous sources relating to the siege of Antioch and the First Crusade. There are four narrative accounts: those of Fulcher of Chartres, Peter Tudebode, and Raymond of Aguilers, and the anonymous Gesta Francorum. Nine letters survive relating to or from the crusading army; five of them were written while the siege was underway and another in September, not long after the city had been taken. While there are many sources, the number of people on crusade is unclear because they fluctuated regularly, and many non-combatants on pilgrimage accompanied the soldiers. Historian Jonathan Riley-Smith offers a rough guide, suggesting that perhaps 43,000 people (including soldiers, armed poor, and non-combatants) were involved in the siege of Nicaea in June 1097, while as few as 15,000 may have taken part in the siege of Jerusalem in July 1099. Lying on the slopes of the Orontes Valley, Antioch covered more than and was encircled by walls studded by 400 towers. The river ran along the city's northern wall before entering Antioch from the northwest and exiting east through the northern half of the city. Mount Silpius, crested by a citadel, was Antioch's highest point and rose some above the valley floor. There were six gates through which the city could be entered: three along the northern wall, and one on each of the south, east, and west sides. The valley slopes made approaching from the south, east, or west difficult, so the most practical access route for a large number of people was from the north across flatter ground. The city's defences dated from the reign of the Emperor Justinian I in the 6th century. Though Antioch changed hands twice between then and the arrival of the Crusaders in 1097, each time it was the result of betrayal rather than inadequacy of the defences. After the Byzantine Empire reconquered Antioch in 969, a programme of fortification building was undertaken in the surrounding area to secure the gains. As part of this, a citadel was built on Mount Silpius in Antioch. High enough to be separate from the city below, historian Hugh Kennedy opines that it "[relied] on inaccessibility as its main defence". At its fall to the Seljuk dynasty in 1085, Antioch was the last Byzantine fortification in Syria. Yaghi-Siyan was made Governor of Antioch in 1087 and held the position when the crusaders arrived in 1097. Yaghi-Siyan was aware of the approaching Crusader army as it marched through Anatolia in 1097; the city stood between the Crusaders and Palestine. Though under Turkish control, the majority of Antioch's inhabitants were Christians. Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse, was alone in advocating assaulting the city. In the end, the Crusaders chose to advance on Antioch and establish a siege close to Antioch. ==First siege==

Starting the siege Before the siege could be properly started, the control of three key sites was essential: the town of Artah, the Iron Bridge across the Orontes, and the harbour of St Simeon. Artah's importance resulted from its strategic position as it was situated on vital routes connecting the Euphrates and the Orontes valleys as well as Apamea, Aleppo and Antioch. A detachment of the Crusade army led by Robert of Flanders was sent to take Artah but discovered that the local Armenian population had ejected the Turkish garrison and welcomed Robert and his forces with supplies for men and horses. Yaghi-Siyan then sent a force to retake Artah, but this force retreated upon arrival of the main army of the Crusaders. The ensuing nine-month siege has been described as "one of the great sieges of the age". from a manuscript in the care of the National Library of the Netherlands The sources emphasise that a direct assault would have failed. For instance, Raymond of Aguilers notes that the chaplain of Raymond IV said "[Antioch] is so well fortified that it need not fear attack by machinery nor the assault of man, even if all mankind came together against it". According to Fulcher of Chartres, the leaders resolved to maintain the siege until the city was forced into submission. One of the problems of camping so close to the city was that it left the besiegers vulnerable to sorties from the garrison and even missiles. For the first fortnight of the siege, the Crusaders were able to forage in the surrounding area as the defenders chose not to leave the safety of the city walls. However, in November Yaghi-Siyan learned that the Crusaders felt the city would not fall to an assault so was able to turn his attentions from the defensive to harrying the besiegers. He mobilised his cavalry and began harassing the besiegers. With the immediate area stripped clean, the Crusaders' foraging parties had to search further afield for supplies leaving them more vulnerable and on several occasions were attacked by the garrisons of nearby fortifications. The port of St Symeon on the Mediterranean coast, west of Antioch would allow the Crusaders to bring reinforcements. Raymond of Aguilers mentions that the English landed at the port before the crusade reached Antioch, but he did not record whether a battle for control of St Symeon took place. Reinforcements in the form of 13 Genoese ships reached St Symeon on 17 November, and though the route from Antioch to St Symeon ran close to the city walls—meaning the garrison could impede travel—the Genoese joined up with the rest of the Crusaders. According to Genoese chronicler Caffaro di Rustico da Caschifellone, the Genoese suffered heavy casualties en route from St Symeon to Antioch. Bohemond's troops built a counterfort outside Saint Paul's Gate in Antioch's northeast wall to protect themselves against missiles from Antioch's defenders. Known as Malregard, the fort was built on a hill and probably consisted of earthen ramparts. The construction has been dated to around the time the Genoese arrived. The Crusaders were further bolstered by the arrival of Tancred, While Raymond was repulsing a sally from Antioch's garrison, an army under the leadership of Duqaq of Damascus was en route to relieve Antioch. Bohemond and Robert of Flanders were unaware that their foraging party was heading towards Duqaq's men. On 30 December news reached Duqaq while his army was at Shaizar that the Crusaders were nearby. On the morning of 31 December Duqaq marched towards Bohemond and Robert's army, and the two met at the village of Albara. Robert was the first to encounter Duqaq's men as he was marching ahead of Bohemond. Bohemond joined the battle and with Robert fought back Duqaq's army and inflicted heavy casualties. Though they fought off Duqaq's army, which retreated to Hama, the Crusaders suffered too many casualties to keep foraging and returned to Antioch. As a result of the fight the Crusaders lost the flock they had gathered for food The month ended inauspiciously for both sides: there was an earthquake on 30 December, and the following weeks saw such unseasonably bad rain and cold weather that Duqaq had to return home without further engaging. The famine damaged morale, and some knights and soldiers began to desert in January 1098, including Peter the Hermit and William the Carpenter. On hearing of the desertion of such prominent figures, Bohemond despatched a force to bring them back. Peter was pardoned while William was berated and made to swear he would remain with the crusade. Spring The arrival of spring in February saw the food situation improve for the Crusaders. That month Tatikios repeated his earlier advice to resort to a long-distance blockade, but his suggestion was ignored; Knowing fully that Bohemond had designs on taking the city for himself, and that he had probably engineered Tatikios' departure in order to facilitate this, Godfrey and Raymond did not give in to his demands, but Bohemond gained the sympathies and cooperation of the minor knights and soldiers. Yaghi-Siyan had reconciled with Ridwan of Aleppo, and the advancing army was under his command. In early February news reached the besiegers that Ridwan had taken nearby Harim where he was preparing to advance on Antioch. At Bohemond's suggestion, the Crusaders sent all their cavalry (numbering about 700 knights) to meet the advancing army while the infantry remained behind in case Antioch's defenders decided to attack. On the morning of 9 February, Ridwan moved towards the Iron Bridge. The Crusaders had moved into position the previous night and charged the advancing army before it reached the bridge. The first charge caused few casualties, but Ridwan's army followed the Crusaders to a narrow battlefield. With the river on one side and the Lake of Antioch on the other, Ridwan was unable to outflank the Crusaders and exploit his superior numbers. A second charge had more impact, and the Seljuk army withdrew in disorder. At the same time, Yaghi-Siyan had led his garrison out of Antioch and attacked the Crusader infantry. His offensive was forcing the besiegers back until the knights returned. Realising Ridwan had been defeated, Yaghi-Siyan retreated inside the city. As Ridwan's army passed through Harim, panic spread to the garrison he had installed there and they abandoned the town, which was retaken by the Crusaders. According to Orderic Vitalis an English fleet led by Edgar Ætheling, the exiled Saxon claimant to the throne of England, arrived at St Symeon on 4 March carrying supplies from the Byzantines. Historian Steven Runciman repeats the assertion; however it is unknown where the fleet originated and would not have been under Edgar's command. Regardless, the fleet brought raw materials for constructing siege engines, but these were almost lost on the journey from the port to Antioch when part of the garrison sallied out. Bohemond and Raymond escorted the material, and after losing some of the materials and 100 people, they fell back to the Crusader camp outside Antioch. Before Bohemond and Raymond arrived, rumours that they had been killed reached Godfrey who readied his men to rescue the survivors of the escort. However, his attention was diverted when another force sallied from the city to provide cover for the men returning from the ambush. Godfrey was able to hold off the attack until Bohemond and Raymond came to his aid. The reorganised army then caught up with the garrison before it had reached the safety of Antioch's walls. The counter-attack was a success for the Crusaders and resulted in the deaths of between 1,200 and 1,500 of Antioch's defenders. Nevertheless, it taught the Crusaders the value of diplomacy, and they decided to send an embassy to Duqaq of Damascus asking for his neutrality, stating they had no ambitions on his territory. They were, however, rejected by Duqaq. ==Capture of Antioch==

The siege continued, and at the end of May 1098 a Turkish army from Mosul under the command of Kerbogha approached Antioch. This army was much larger than the previous attempts to relieve the siege. Kerbogha had joined with Ridwan and Duqaq, and his army also included troops from Persia and from the Ortuqids of Mesopotamia. The Crusaders were granted time to prepare for their arrival, as Kerbogha had first made a three-week-long excursion to Edessa, which he was unable to recapture from Baldwin of Boulogne, who had becomes its ruler earlier in March 1098. and his Norman troops scale the walls of Antioch, in an engraving by Gustave Doré The Crusaders concluded that they would have to take the city before Kerbogha arrived if they had any chance of survival. Weeks earlier, Bohemond had secretly established contact with someone inside the city named Firouz, an Armenian guard who controlled the Tower of the Two Sisters. Firouz's motivation was unclear even to Bohemond, perhaps avarice or revenge, but he offered to let Bohemond into the city in exchange for money and a title. and the remaining Crusader soldiers fought the remaining Turkish defenders, the poorer Crusaders seized everything they could in a disorderly manner. In the ensuing chaos, the Armenians and Greeks joined the Crusaders in fighting the Turks they could find although the deaths also included many non-Turkish civilians, including Firouz's own brother. Yaghi-Siyan fled but was captured by Armenian and Syrian Christians some distance outside the city, and his severed head was brought to Bohemond. ==Second siege==

By the end of the day on 3 June, the Crusaders controlled most of the city except for the citadel, which remained in the hands of Yaghi-Siyan's son Shams ad-Daulah. John the Oxite was reinstated as patriarch by Adhemar, who wished to keep good relations with the Byzantines, especially as Bohemond was clearly planning to claim the city for himself. However, the city was short on food, and Kerbogha's army was still on its way. Kerbogha arrived on 5 June. He tried and failed to storm the city on 7 June, and by 9 June he had established his own siege around the city. More Crusaders had deserted before Kerbogha arrived, and they joined Stephen in Tarsus. Stephen had seen Kerbogha's army encamped near Antioch and assumed all hope was lost; the deserters confirmed his fears. On the way back to Constantinople, Stephen and the other deserters like William the Carpenter met Alexios, who was on his way to assist the Crusaders and did not know they had taken the city and were now under siege themselves. Stephen convinced him that the rest of the Crusaders were as good as dead, and Alexios heard from his reconnaissance that there was another Seljuk army nearby in Anatolia. He therefore decided to return to Constantinople rather than risking battle. came forward on 10 June claiming to have had visions of St. Andrew, who told him that the Holy Lance was inside the city. The starving Crusaders were prone to visions and hallucinations, and another monk named Stephen of Valence reported visions of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Bohemond was skeptical of the Holy Lance as well, but there is no question that its discovery increased the morale of the Crusaders. It has also been suggested that the item Peter found was indeed an object which the local population believed to be the Holy Lance, as Greek Orthodox sources document the possession and veneration of a Holy Lance in Antioch as early as the 10th century. It is also possible that Peter was reporting what Bohemond wanted, as Bohemond knew from spies in Kerbogha's camp that the various factions frequently argued with each other. Kerbogha was indeed suspected by most emirs to yearn for sovereignty in Syria and often considered as a bigger threat to their interests than the Christian invaders. On 27 June, Peter the Hermit was sent by Bohemond to negotiate with Kerbogha, but this proved futile and battle with the Seljuks was thus unavoidable. Bohemond drew up six divisions: he commanded one, and the other five were led by Hugh of Vermandois and Robert of Flanders; Godfrey; Robert Curthose; Adhemar; and Tancred and Gaston IV of Béarn. Raymond, who had fallen ill, remained inside to guard the citadel with 200 men, which was held by Ahmed ibn Merwan, an agent of Kerbogha. ==Battle of Antioch==

's ''Histoire d'Outremer'', in the care of the British Museum On Monday 28 June the Crusaders emerged from the city gate, ==Aftermath==

As Kerbogha fled, the men in the citadel surrendered to Bohemond personally, rather than to Raymond; this seems to have been arranged beforehand without Raymond's knowledge. As expected, Bohemond claimed the city as his own Alexios, however, was uninterested in sending an expedition to claim the city this late in the summer. Bohemond argued that Alexios had deserted the Crusade and thus invalidated all of their oaths to him. Bohemond and Raymond occupied Yaghi-Siyan's palace, but Bohemond controlled most of the rest of the city and flew his standard from the citadel. It is a common assumption that the Franks of northern France, the Provencals of southern France, and the Normans of southern Italy considered themselves separate "nations" and that each wanted to increase its status. This may have had something to do with the disputes, but personal ambition is more likely the cause of the infighting. undergoing the ordeal of fire, by Gustave Doré. Soon an epidemic broke out, In September the leaders of the Crusade wrote to Pope Urban II, asking him to take personal control of Antioch, The success at Antioch was too much for Peter Bartholomew's skeptics. Peter's visions were far too convenient and too martial, and he was openly accused of lying. Challenged, Peter offered to undergo ordeal by fire to prove that he was divinely guided. Being in Biblical lands, they chose a Biblical ordeal: Peter would pass through a fiery furnace and would be protected by an angel of God. The Crusaders constructed a path between walls of flame; Peter walked down the path between the flames and was horribly burned. He died after suffering in agony for 12 days on 20 April 1099. There was no more said about the Holy Lance, although the Provençal contingent of Raymond maintained that Peter had passed safely through the flames but had been pushed back by the crowd welcoming him. Also, Raymond kept the lance with all reverence in his chapel. The siege of Antioch quickly became legendary, and in the 12th century it was the subject of the ''chanson d'Antioche and the Siège d'Antioche, two chansons de geste in the Crusade cycle. Count Bohemond by Alfred Duggan (1964) is a historical novel concerning the life of Bohemond and describes the siege of Antioch, as does his earlier novel Knight with Armour'' (1950). ==Citations==