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following year.27
The remaining women and children were easy prey for the Turks: perhaps twenty thousand fell victim when the Turks rode down upon the non combatants who were preparing food in the camp at Civetot. 28
Their fate is not documented, but is easily pieced together.
Those who were too old to be of use died immediately. The younger women and the boy children would be herded off into a life of slavery. They would be sold through the markets of Damascus and Antioch, and traded throughout the Arab world. Undoubtedly, the more attractive young women would have been prized possessions in harems. The boys would have been castrated for use in the women's quarters, or perhaps brainwashed to the point where they would eventually become more fanatical than their Islamic captors. Eventually, huge regiments of Christian slaves known as Janissaries were formed for use against their own people. The children of mixed marriages - Turks and Christian - were known as Turcopoles, and throughout the period might be fighting on either side.
The horror of what it meant to become a slave is captured in an anecdote told by Ibn al Athir. After the seizure of Jaffa by Saladin in 1189, its population was sold into slavery. Al Athir bought one young Frankish woman at a slave auction held in Aleppo. She had, says al Athir, a one year old child. One day, as the Frankish woman was carrying the child, she fell and scratched her face, and immediately burst into tears. Her Arab master tried to comfort her, telling her that the wound was not serious, and there was no reason for such bitter tears over such a trifle. The woman replied that this was not why she was crying, but rather because of the misfortune that had befallen herself and her family. Her six brothers had all been killed: as to her husband and her sisters, she had no idea of their fate.29
The emir, merchant, scholar and soldier, Usama ibn Munqidh 1095 - 1188, gives an account of slavery early in the twelfth century. He shows a similar picture of despair, mingled with a quiet, burning defiance:
He tells of some young Frankish girls brought as slaves to his father's house. Usama's father chose a particularly beautiful young girl and instructed his housekeeper to make her bathe, tidy herself and dress for a journey. The girl was then sent in the care of one of his squires to the Emir Salim ibn Malik, lord Kalat, with a letter describing the girl as part of his share in the booty taken from the Franks.
The Emir was charmed by the girl's beauty, and she eventually bore him a son named Bardan. This mixed breed son later became lord of Kalat, on his father's death. As for the mother, after a lifetime of captivity, she plotted with a few men, who helped her escape from the citadel by sliding down a rope. She then fled with the men to Frankish Saruj, where she eventually married a Frankish shoemaker.
Another story is that of a family which had been sent to Usama's parental home. The head of the family was an old woman, who was accompanied by one of her daughters and a young, strongly built son. The son, Raoul, became a Moslem, and made a great pretence of fervour in his prayer and fasting. He was apprenticed to a sculptor of marble, and was rewarded for his loyal service by a marriage to a woman from a pious Moslem family. This woman bore her converted husband two sons. When the children were both still under seven years of age, their father fled, taking all their household possessions. He returned to the Franks at Apamea, and became as fervent a Christian as he had been a Moslem, and disregarded his Islamic marriage in favour of a new marriage to a Christian woman.
These anecdotes illustrate the struggle of slaves to deal with the horrors of their unfortunate situation, a spirit familiar from stories of slaves in other countries, where the yearning for freedom survives a generation of captivity and denial of a cultural inheritance.30
We may speculate that these stories could be multiplied a thousand fold to account for the misfortunes of the survivors of the debacle of Peter's Crusade.
Only about three thousand pilgrims escaped the massacre, taking refuge in a castle near the sea coast. They refortified this stronghold, and were able to beat off attacks, the only large group to survive the debacle.
Thus, within months the tidal wave of humanity which surged to the East had spent itself, dashed and dissipated on the rocks of Anatolia, less than half way towards completing its intended journey.
1. R. Pernoud, The Crusaders E. Grant (trans.), Oliver and Boyd, London, 1963, p.86.
2. The words of Pope Urban II at Clermont on November 27, 1095, as reported by Fulcher of Chartres, in A History of the Expedition to Jerusalem F. R. Ryan (trans.), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1969, pp. 65-7.
3. Ibid.
4. J. Riley Smith ed., The Crusades: Idea and Reality Edward Arnold, London, 1981, p.44. 5. E. Hallam (ed.), Chronicles of the Crusades Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1989, p.168. Riley Smith, The Crusades, p.161.
6. Ordericus Vitalis in English Historical Documents II ed. D. C Douglas, Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1978, p.306.
7. Hallam, Chronicles of the Crusades, p.35.
8. This explanation is offered by Anna Comnena in her book The Alexiad E.R.A.Sewter (trans.), Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1969, p.309. The Archbishop of Tyre 100 years later gives credit to Peter for the original idea of the Crusade. William of Tyre says that Peter met the patriarch of Jerusalem during a private pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After seeing first hand the tribulations of the Christian people, he returned bearing the patriarch's pleas for help to speak to Pope Urban at Bari, before going further north to summon the common people. Pernoud,The Crusades, pp.36-9.
9. Guibert of Nogent says he heard that Peter was a hermit from Amiens or some place nearby. Op. cit. p.27.
10. Ibid., p28.
11. Ibid. Trying to make sense of coinage is difficult. However, there is one form of money that seems to be reasonably consistent, used by Saracens and Franks alike: the bezant. This is a gold coin of 24 carats, worth approximately $US20 in 1995 money.
Smaller units include a silver denier and an obol. There were 96 deniers to a bezant, and the bezant was worth roughly a month's food supply for an individual. A twelfth century knight's pay for a year was around 500 bezants.
12. Pernoud, The Crusades, p.27.
13. A.E.Blane (ed.),The Normans in England Bell, London, 1917, p.67.
14. Pernoud, The Crusades, p.25.
15. Ibid., p.28.
16. Ibid., pp.44-5.
17. Ibid., pp.29-30.
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