Godfrey of Bouillon's Reign - Episode 3: Siege of Arsuf, 1099

Real Crusades History #30

(Once again, a gentle reminder that there is an excellent website of the same name associated with this channel.-JW)

Some of the Mohammedan fortresses and cities in Palestine had been reduced to tributary status to Godfrey. One of these was Arsuf, a coastal town located north of Jaffa (Jaffa being the one port city that the Kingdom of Jerusalem held at this early stage). However, after the departure of the main army of the Crusade, the citizens of Arsuf decided to resist Godfrey and refused to pay tribute. 

Godfrey of course was not too happy about this, nor were the leading figures in his military household. Albert of Aachen gives us a list of names of the leading men in Godfrey’s entourage – William of Montpellier, Werner of Grez, Geldemar Carpenel, and Wicher the Swabian. Most of these men were from Godfrey’s own home region, but William of Montpellier was in fact a southern French lord who had originally come on the First Crusade with Raymond IV of Toulouse, so this is one example of the fluidity of loyalties that existed among the varying contingents of the First Crusade. Godfrey’s war council decided to travel to Arsuf and put it to siege. 

During the siege, while the Crusaders pounded the walls with catapults, the Saracens brought out a prisoner, a Christian knight named Gerard from Godfrey’s entourage. The Saracens hung poor Gerard from the mast of an old ship that had been lying in the city, and raised the mast up over the city battlements in view of the besieging army. Albert tells us that Gerard begged Godfrey to take pity on him. Godfrey replied that Gerard was the bravest of knights, but that he could not lessen the attack on Arsuf, saying it was better for Gerard alone to die than for Arsuf to remain a danger to Christian pilgrims. Gerard then asked Godfrey to donate all his property to the Holy Sepulcher. With that the Crusaders resumed their bombardment, and Albert tells us Gerard was wounded ten times. 

The fighting at Arsuf was fierce. Albert gives us vivid details of Godfrey and his knights from atop their wooden siege towers fighting against the Saracens on the walls. One siege tower was consumed by Greek fire, collapsing and killing the knights standing atop its platform. Before the collapse of this tower, two knights, Rothold and Peter the Lombard, had managed to make it onto one of Arsuf’s ramparts, and there they fought hard against a surge of Saracens struggling to slay them with iron-clad stakes and stones. Here is a passage from Albert’s chronicle detailing the exploits of this Rothold and Peter: see Albert, p. 13. 

The siege dragged one, but the Christians could make no real progress. As the weather turned cold, Godfrey was forced to withdraw and return to Jerusalem. Malcolm Barber points out that this siege failed because of a lack of support from the sea, and in the future the Crusaders would utilize the Italian maritime powers in their sieges to reduce the ports of Syria and Palestine. For now, Godfrey appointed a group of his knights to continuously target Arsuf for raids.