University of Virginia Library

II.7. CHAPTER VII

"TELLS HOW DAMIETTA WAS OCCUPIED."

GREAT favour the Lord showed us, in delivering Damietta into our hands; for we could never have taken it without much toil and trouble, as we can plainly see, from the trouble King John [of Brienne] had to take it in the time of our fathers. Our Lord may say of us, as He did of the children of Israel: " Et pro nihilo habuerunt terram desiderabilem." And what says He after? He says, that they forgot God, who had saved them. And how we forgot Him, I will tell you presently.

I will deal first with the King, who summoned his barons both clerics and laymen, and begged, that they would help him to consider, how the booty should be divided which had been found in the town.

The Patriarch was the first to speak, and said thus: " Sir, it seems to me, that you will do well to keep the wheat and barley and rice, and all the

necessaries of life, to stock the town; and let it be cried throughout the camp, that all the rest of the spoil must be brought to the Legate's dwelling, on pain of excommunication." All the other barons were of the same opinion. Now as it turned out, all the spoil that was brought to the Legate's house only amounted to six thousand pounds.

When this was done, the King and barons sent for my Lord John of Valery the paladin, and spoke to him as follows: " My lord of Valery," said the King, "we have agreed that the Legate shall deliver these six thousand pounds to you, to distribute as you shall think best." "Sir," said the paladin, "you do me great honour, and I thank you; but this honour and this offer that you make me, please God, I shall not accept; for I should be breaking the good customs of the Holy Land, which are these: that when any of the enemies' cities is taken, the King should have one third, and the pilgrims two thirds of the goods that may be found in it. Now King John kept this custom when he took Damietta, and so the ancients say the Kings of Jerusalem before King John kept it; and if it please you to hand over to me two thirds of the

wheat and barley and rice, I will willingly undertake to distribute them among the pilgrims."

The King was not minded to do this; and so the matter stayed as it was; whence many people thought themselves aggrieved, in that the King had broken the good old customs.

The King's followers, who should have had the good grace to hold back, hired booths and sold their wares as dear, it was said, as they could; and this was noised about in foreign countries, so that many merchants desisted from coming to the camp.

The barons, who should have kept theirs against a time and place when they might spend it to good purpose, took to giving great feasts with extravagant dishes.

The common people took up with lewd women; on which account the King dismissed a whole quantity of his followers when we got back from prison. I asked him, why he had done so; and he told me that he had found out for certain that those he had dismissed were carrying on their orgies within a short stone's throw of his own pavilion, and that at the time when matters were at their worst with the army.

Now let us return to our subject, and tell how, shortly after we had taken Damietta, all the chivalry of the Sultan assembled before the camp, and besieged us on the land side. The King and all his knights armed themselves; and I went ready armed to the King, and found him armed and sitting on a bench, and with him certain paladins of his battalion, all armed. I desired of him, that I and my followers might draw off just outside the camp, in order that the Saracens might not set upon us in our quarters. When Lord John of Beaumont heard my request, he stormed at me, and ordered me, in the King's name, not to stir out of my quarters, until such time as the King should order me to do so.

I have mentioned the knights-paladins who were with the King, because there were eight of them, all good men, who had carried off prizes of arms both at home and abroad, and such knights they used to

call "paladins." The names of those who were knights of the King's household were: Lord Geoffrey of Sargines; Lord Matthew of Marly; Lord Philip of Nanteuil; and Lord Humbert of Beaujeu, Constable of France, who was not there

at that time, for he was outside the camp, between the camp and the captain of the cross -bowmen, with most of the King's serjeants-at-arms, keeping watch, lest the Turks should do the camp a mischief.

Now it happened that Lord Walter of Autreche had himself armed at all points within his pavilion; and when he was mounted on his horse, with his shield about his neck and his helmet on his head, he bade lift up the tent-flaps, and pricked out against the Turks; and as he started off alone from his pavilion his servants all set up a cry of "Châtillon! " Now it so chanced, that before ever he reached the Turks, he fell; and his stallion passed on over his body, and rushed, laden with his arms, into the ranks of the enemy, (for most of the Saracens were mounted on mares, which attracted the horse.)

And those who saw it told us, that four Saracens came by Lord Walter while he was lying on the ground; and as they passed by him, they struck him heavily with their clubs as he lay there. Then the Constable of France came to his rescue with some of the King's serjeants, and carried him back

by the arms to his pavilion. When he got there he could not speak. Several of the army surgeons and doctors went to him, and, judging that there was no danger of death, they bled him in both arms. Quite late in the evening, Lord Albert of Narcy proposed to me, that we should go and visit him; for we had not seen him, and he was a man of great renown and velour. We came into his tent, and his chamberlain met us, and bade us tread softly and not waken his master. We found him lying on rugs of minnever, and went very quietly up to him, and found him dead. When it was told to the King, he replied, that he should be sorry to have a thousand like him, since they would disobey orders as he had done.

Every night, the Saracens used to steal on foot into the camp, and kill people wherever they found them asleep. Thus it befell, that they slew my Lord of Courtenay's sentry, and left him Lying on a table, and cut off his head, and carried it away with them; and this they did because the Sultan used to give a golden besant for every Christian's head. This came from the battalions keeping guard in the camp night and night about on horseback. For

when the Saracens wished to enter the camp, they used to wait until the jingling of the bridles and armour had gone by, and then slip into the camp in the rear of the horses, and get out again before daybreak. Wherefor the King gave orders that the battalions who used to patrol on horseback should patrol on foot; so that the whole army rested secure in the guards, they being spread out in such a way that each was in touch with the next.

When this was done, the King decided not to leave Damietta until his brother, the Count of Poitiers, should arrive, who was bringing up the second detachment from France; and in order that the Saracens might not break into the camp on horseback, the King caused the whole of it to be surrounded with deep trenches; and cross-bowmen and serjeants used to keep guard over the trenches every night and at the entrances to the camp as well.

When the feast of Saint Remy had gone by, and there were still no tidings of the Count of Poitiers, the King and all in the camp were very uneasy, for they feared that some mishap had befallen him. Then I mentioned to the Legate how the Dean of

Malrut had made three processions for us at sea, three Saturdays running, and how, before the third Saturday, we had reached Cyprus. The Legate listened to me, and made proclamation through the camp of three processions on three Saturdays. The first procession started from the Legate's house, and proceeded to the minster of Our Lady in the town; which minster had been built by the Saracens for the worship of Mahound, and the Legate had consecrated it to the Mother of God. The Legate preached the sermon on two Saturdays; and the King and rich men of the army were present, to whom the Legate dispensed a general pardon.

Within the third Saturday the Count of Poitiers arrived; and it was just as well that he had not come sooner; for between the first and third Saturday there was such a storm in the sea off Damietta, that full twelve score vessels big and little were wrecked and cast away, with all the people on board them drowned and lost. So that, if the Count of Poitiers had come sooner, he and his followers would all have perished.

NOTE TO CHAPTER VII

This storm raged all along the coast about the third week of October. The Count of Poitiers and his fleet escaped it by being in the harbour of Lymasol at the time. He brought with him the Countess of Artois, who, being with child, had been left behind when her husband sailed in the spring.