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The Capture of Jerusalem

© Michael Evans

The crusader army had emerged triumphant from the hardships of the siege of Antioch, and now the road to Jerusalem lay open. Once again, divisions within the Muslim world helped the Christian invaders. Syria was controlled by the Seljuk Turks, who were themselves divided between different rulers, notably the atabegs (governors) of Damascus and Aleppo. Further south, Palestine, including Jerusalem itself, had come under the control of the Fatimid rulers of Egypt, who were Shi'ites, and therefore enemies of the Sunni Seljuks. As the crusader armies marched south, they often found that local Muslim rulers offered little resistance (and sometimes even offered them assistance). Like the Seljuks to the north, the Fatimids were unprepared for the crusader invasion, the nature of which they misunderstood. They were surprised to find that the crusaders did not distinguish between Seljuk and Fatimid, Sunni and Shi'ah, and were not interested in negotiations. They would not rest until Jerusalem, the Holy City, was in Christian hands.

Despite these advantages, the march south was no easy ride. After the capture and successful defence of Antioch, the crusader leaders quarrelled once again. Plague swept through the camp, and the dead included the pope's legate, Adhemar, who had acted as an arbiter between the bickering factions. Finally the common footsoldiers, particularly those in the army of Raymond of Toulouse, insisted that the army resume its march to Jerusalem, a fact which suggests that piety may have been stronger among the ordinary ranks than the leadership. Raymond led the army south in January 1099, leaving Bohemund in control his newly-conquered city of Antioch.

We in the West think of Syria as a hot desert county, but Syrian winters can be wet and miserable. The crusaders continued to experienced shortages of food and supplies. In one horrific incident, a crusader force holed up in the captured city of Ma'arrat an-Numan was reduced to eating the corpses of the slaughtered inhabitants, an action that caused outrage in the Muslim world.

Eventually, in June 1099, the crusaders arrived outside Jerusalem, their goal. However, their much-reduced army was ill-equipped to mount a siege of the great city. As at Antioch, religion was used to their benefit. A priest named Peter Desiderius (not to be confused with Peter Bartholomew, although his role was very similar to the other Peter's at Antioch), received a vision, in which Christ told him that the army must fast and perform penitential processions to gain His favour. The army did just this, transforming itself once again into a band of pilgrims, and marched around the walls of Jerusalem carrying crosses and holy relics, a procession that must have seemed astonishing to the watching Muslim garrison. However, the tactic worked; the crusaders, buoyed up by the belief that they had regained divine favour, took the city on 15 July.

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