Titans of History

Thousands of crusaders flooded into the streets, as the Muslim citizens fled to al-Aqsa mosque. The Fatimid governor of the city, made his last stand in the Tower of David. He and some of his soldiers were allowed to escape, but over the next forty-eight hours, those left in the city—combatant and civilian, Muslim and Jew—were put to the sword and murdered in the streets. The crusaders pillaged Muslim holy sites such as the Dome of the Rock and either burned their victims to death or cut open their stomachs, believing that Muslims swallowed their gold. The city’s Jews had fled to a synagogue, which the crusaders simply burned to the ground. Raymond of Aguilers reported that he saw “piles of heads, hands and feet” scattered across the city, while Fulcher of Chartres, a chaplain to Baldwin’s army, wrote approvingly that “this place, so long contaminated by the superstition of the pagan inhabitants” had been “cleansed from their contagion.” Six months later, it still stank of putrefaction.

At the height of the systematic massacre, Godfrey stripped to his undergarments and walked solemnly, barefoot through the blood, to pray at the Holy Sepulcher, site of Jesus’ crucifixion. On July 22, his fellow crusaders chose him to be the first Christian ruler of Jerusalem, although he refused to take the name of king in the city in which Christ had died, preferring instead the title Duke and Advocate of the Holy Sepulcher. It was there that he was buried after dying of plague on July 18, 1100, his mission complete.

The massacre of Jews and Muslims in Jerusalem was a terrible crime but it was certainly vastly exaggerated: Muslim historians claimed that 70,000 or even 100,000 died in the slaughter but it is likely there were no more than 30,000 inside the city and the latest research from contemporary Arab source el-Arabi suggests the number may be closer to between 3,000 and 10,000. Crusader brutality demonstrates the evil of intolerance but the Christians were scarcely alone in this: when the crusader cities of Edessa and Acre later fell, the slaughter by Muslim conquerors was much greater.

As for Godfrey, his short reign founded a kingdom and a dynasty, built by gifted and remarkable warlords: most significantly his much more dynamic, talented and bigamous brother, Baldwin count of Edessa who succeeded him as king of Jerusalem. Baldwin I conquered a substantial kingdom in what is today’s Israel, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. His heir was his cousin Baldwin II, who continued to build the kingdom, succeeded by his half-French, half-Armenian daughter, a powerful and shrewd ruler, Queen Melisende. Under her the Jerusalem kingdom reached its golden age: it was Melisende who built not only today’s church of the Holy Sepulcher but also the Tomb of the Virgin Mary and the markets of Jerusalem that also survive today. But the death of her son Baldwin III marked the end of its heroic period. The tragedy of Baldwin IV—a brave teenage prince who was slowly dying of leprosy—symbolized the crisis of the kingdom, beset by corruption, ineptitude and intrigue, which was defeated by Saladin. Jerusalem fell in 1187 but a rump kingdom based along the coast around Acre survived until 1291.

ELEANOR OF AQUITAINE

1122–1204

No matter how bestial and obdurate a man might be, that woman could bend him to her will.

Richard of Devizes, Chronicle of the Deeds of Richard the First

(late 12th century)

Eleanor of Aquitaine was the queen of two kings, and the mother of two more. Her resilience, her courage and her unshakeable will made her legendary across Europe as a woman in a male-dominated age who refused to submit to convention, and whose every action expressed her determination to rule.

As a young woman, Eleanor was the matrimonial catch of Europe, beautiful and charismatic. On inheriting the duchy of Aquitaine at the age of fifteen, she became the ruler of one fifth of what is now modern France. Duke William IX of Aquitaine (1071–1126), Eleanor’s grandfather, was brazenly charming, famed as a troubadour and lover. His poetry was the first to use the vernacular of the south, the langue d’oc. Mixing obscenity with charm, delicate seductiveness with boisterous humor, manipulating complex verse forms with insouciant ease, Duke William inspired and fostered the languishing brilliance of the troubadour poets.