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We have already said that this man was probably the most learned of his time. And that is putting it mildly. He had been sponsored by a Spanish prince to teach in the Spanish, Jewish and Arab universities of Toldeo and Cordova. He was an accomplished mathematician and had built an abacus. It was probably he who introduced Arabic numerals and algebra to the West. He was also an astronomer of note and invented an astrolabe with concentric spheres that demonstrated the movement of the stars to his stu-dents. One of them, the monk Glaber, described an eclipse of the moon, which shows that he knew of the solar system exactly six centuries before the Church burned Giordano Bruno and forced Galileo's recantation, and almost ten centuries before his distant successor, the current pope, John-Paul II, would admit that those unspeakable tragedies of obscurantism had been "mistakes." Pope Sylvester II, a theologian and research scientist, was also, according to some, the one who originated the "quest for the Grail." The ground-work done by the Benedictines over the course of a century would enable Urban II to launch this quest. The professional and disciplinary studies and training taught by the Benedictines and Cistercians would carry the high Middle Ages into the flowering of a new civilization. The Muslim civilization had flourished with new arts and an astonishing philosophy. Christendom in its turn would surpass it in all respects. But it seems that in order to do so it would have to return to its source: Jerusalem. Since the Holy Land was under Muslim control, it was imperative to mount an expedition. The occasion was the appeal from Emperor Alexis of Con-stantinople to the Christians of the West to come to the aid of the Christians of the East. At Clermont in 1095, Urban II called upon all the barons and lords of the West to mount a crusade to rescue the tomb of Christ. Robert Courteheuse of Normandy, Raymond de Saint-Gilles of Toulouse, Hugues de Vermandois (), Hugues de Payns, Godefroy de Bouillon, Except for Philip I, king of France, for reasons mentioned earlier, a num-ber of dignitaries of the French kingdom left the following year. Among them were Robert Courteheuse of Normandy, Raymond de Saint-Gilles of Toulouse, Hugues de Vermandois (the king's own brother), Hugues de Payns, and many others, especially Godefroy de Bouillon, the indirect descendant of the Carolingians through the house of Lower Lorraine, and his two brothers Eustache et Baudoin de Boulogne (who would become Baudoin I of Jerusalem) as well as their cousin, Baudoin du Bourg, who would become count of Edessa before succeeding his cousins. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here... *The first wave of crusaders was that of Peter the Hermit and Gaultier-sans-avoir ("Walter the Penniless"), a jury-rigged affair made up of homeless men and freebooters who saw the crusade as a way of fleeing the troubles of life in Europe at the time. Every year, famines had been killing off the poverty-stricken; and since the "truce of God" decreed by the pope, any number of idle minor lords had been at loose ends. Urban's summons at Clermont was an unhoped-for opportunity for them to change their lives, and many of them hurried to join the crusade. The first army to leave was in-experienced and undisciplined. It was made up of starvelings who were cut to pieces by Sultan Kilidj Arslan in its first battles, in the vicinity of Con-stantinople. The following waves were German, led by Emmish of Leisingen; and Italian, led by Renato. They finally arrived at the Bosporus after requisitioning supplies from the territory of King Coloman of Hungary and then being badly beaten by his armies. Things began to get serious when Godefroy de Bouillon prepared and organized his expedition. He arrived at Constantinople without incident. He was preceded by Hugues de Vermandois and found himself forced to submit to the eastern emperor, Alexis. He did so with little alacrity. He was met at the Bosporus by the army of Bohemond of Tarento, the Norman prince of Sicily and a descendant of the Vikings who had raided the Loire a few centuries earlier. Along with him was his nephew Tancred. Bohemond also swore allegiance to Emperor Alexis, whose daughter Anna Conmena was not insensitive to the charm of the tall, handsome Viking. At the same time as Godefroy de Bouillon's expedition, another column had gone through Italy and Dalmatia. Despite some trouble with the Slavs, it joined Godefroy on the Bosporus at the end of April 1097. This was the army of Raymond Saint-Gilles, count of Toulouse and marquis of Provence, and it was the largest of all. Three other companies followed in more or less regular succession: that of Robert Courteheuse, duke of Normandy and son of William the Conqueror; and those of his relatives, Etienne de Blois, who was his brother-in-law and husband of his sister Adele; and his cousin Robert of Flanders.
The Crusaders hadn't even started the real work yet. The largest Western army ever assembled north of the Mediterranean since the days of the Ro-man empire was now on the march, but Jerusalem was a thousand kilome-ters away. First, they had to conquer the stronghold of Nicea. The city fell in a few days. It was the first important victory in the East, and this city was the key point on the road to Jerusalem. In the steppes of Anatolia, Sultan Kilidj Arslan, who had not been able to come to the aid of his com-patriots besieged in Nicea, was waiting for them. He thought he would meet a troop of ragged misfits like the army of Peter the Hermit, but this time he underestimated the enemy's strength. He was swept aside by the shock of knights in armor charging like a wall of tanks upon his hapless Turkish archers... *It is not our purpose to tell the history of the Crusades. Others have al-ready done so, and very well. However, it seems important to point out the personages who played important parts in the Crusades, whether they were involved in the conquest or whether they appeared at some time during the two centuries thereafter, a time in which the "Franks," as they were known there, reigned in Jerusalem and some other parts of the Near East. Let us then pass quickly over the details of the trek that finally brought the Crusaders to within the walls of Jerusalem and see who did what once they got there. *
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idea of the Crusades may have taken root almost a century earlier
in the fertile mind of Sylvester II, the pope of the year 1000.
It was he who imposed the "truce of God" on all the minor lords
who were fighting each other at the drop of a hat and who had
caused so many problems for Robert the Pious. We should remember
that His Holiness Sylvester II was none other than the Benedictine
monk Gerbert, whom we met when he was still only the tutor of
the Robertian Hugues Capet.
