Rumours emerged, spreading fast and furious like fire amongst stubble. How Peter Bartholomew was a charlatan and the so-called Holy Lance no more than a Turkish spear head; Peter Bartholomew himself, probably with the connivance of Count Raymond, had planted it to be found. The Franks were tired of Peter’s peering into the dark in the dead of night and relating his wondrous stories. It was time he was tested. Arnulf of Chocques, chaplain to the Duke of Normandy, led the opposition. He and others began to ask questions, and due to the influence of the Portal of the Temple, these questions were now chanted throughout the camp. Why was the Holy Lance discovered by Bartholomew himself, alone in a pit in the dark, instead of being revealed in the open light to many? Why did these visions come to Bartholomew, a former frequenter of taverns and possibly a deserter from the army? Moreover, how did the Holy Lance come to Antioch? When did Pontius Pilate and his soldiers ever visit that city? Why did no one except Peter Bartholomew experience these visions and know where the Holy Lance was buried? Not even Adhémar of Le Puy had made such claims. Indeed, the saintly Adhémar had been highly suspicious of the sacred relic.
So the argument ran. Many began to regard the Holy Lance as no more than a piece of treachery. Arnulf kept up the attack, growing more and more insistent, until eventually he provoked Peter Bartholomew, who rose in full council to defend himself.
‘Let a great fire be built!’ Bartholomew exclaimed. ‘And I will take the Holy Lance and pass safely through such a fire. If the lance be the Lord’s sending, I shall come through unhurt; if not, I shall burn to death!’
The ordeal by fire seemed to be the only just solution. The day was chosen: Good Friday 1099. Peter fasted and prayed. On the appointed day, a level stretch of land was prepared. Wood was piled loosely in the centre for a distance of about five paces. Soldiers crowded the slopes around to watch the ordeal, the army turning out en masse to witness God’s judgement. Near the centre of the cleared space stood a group of priests, the official witnesses; these were barefoot, clad only in their vestments. Eleanor and Theodore, mixing with Hugh’s comrades, went down to watch. Peter Bartholomew was led out and stripped of his outer garments. The dried olive tree branches were set alight. The pile of burning brushwood now stretched for about fourteen feet, divided into two heaps each about four feet high. Between these two piles a space of about a foot had been left. The fire roared up. Raymond of Aguilers, chaplain to Count Raymond of Toulouse, addressed the army, his powerful voice carrying.
‘If the Almighty God has spoken to this man face to face and the Blessed Andrew revealed the lance to him, he will pass through this fire without harm. If it is otherwise, however, then he is a liar! Let him burn and the lance that he carries in his hands.’ The entire army knelt and roared back, ‘Amen!’
The fire leapt higher, the heat spreading out. Peter Bartholomew genuflected, took the blessing of a priest then shouted in a loud, strident voice that God be his witness, he had not lied. He also asked the army to pray for him. The priest took the lance, wrapped in a linen cloth, and placed it into Peter Bartholomew’s hands. The prophet rose and went straight into the fire. A bird flew over the flames, the heat singed it and the bird plunged down. Peter, however, passed through the first pyre, paused for an instant and then continued through the second. The uproar that greeted his unscathed emergence rang to the skies. Peter held up the lance, still wrapped in linen; it too showed no sign of singeing. He ran towards the people, shouting how the Lord had proven he was no liar. Theodore withdrew Eleanor, as a riot now threatened. People crowded around Peter Bartholomew. Eleanor never really discovered the truth of what happened next. Whether it was adulation from the mob or the work of some enemy, Peter received more damage from his so-called supporters than from the fire: his legs were broken in two or three places, and serious damage was done to his back. In fact he would have been torn to pieces had not Count Raymond’s henchmen broken into the crowd, freed him and hurried him off to the hut of Raymond Aguilers. The mob, however, believing they had witnessed a great miracle, now turned on the fire, gathering up the coals and ashes as sacred relics.
Immediately various stories began to circulate about how Peter had escaped being burned by the fire, and witnesses called to inspect his face and body vouched for this. Others, however, said he had collapsed because of the heat. Whatever, the day after the test, Holy Saturday, Peter Bartholomew died of his injuries and was buried in the very spot where the ordeal had taken place. If Count Raymond of Toulouse hoped the miracle would silence opposition, he was wrong. The stories were still rife: Peter Bartholomew was a charlatan, the Holy Lance a fake. Desperately, Raymond tried to hold on to his authority, but already Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert of Normandy and Robert of Flanders were determined to take over the leadership, a task made easier by the likes of Hugh and Godefroi. The Army of God were tired of Arqa. Jerusalem waited. An Egyptian army was approaching. They should seize the Holy City immediately! As if guided by some invisible force, the army struck their tents, burned their huts and, chanting hymns and singing psalms, set their faces towards Jerusalem. Raymond of Toulouse still insisted on having the last word. His failure at Arqa had made the ruler of Tripoli think again: were the Franks so weak they couldn’t take a mere hill fort? He sent out raiding parties. Raymond retaliated ruthlessly. The raiding parties were ambushed and their corpses sent floating down an aqueduct back into Tripoli, decapitated cadavers and severed heads bubbling blood from their jagged wounds.
Part 10
Jerusalem: The Feast of St Mary Magdalen,
24 July 1099
Tam sancta membra tangere.
(Then to touch the sacred limbs.)
Venantius Fortunatus, ‘Hymn In Honour of the Cross’
The Army of God advanced relentlessly on Jerusalem. The Franks sang hymns and chanted favourite lines from the psalms such as: ‘One day in your court is worth a thousand elsewhere.’ They certainly did not sing that about the land they were passing through. Summer in all its scorching, blasting heat hammered the army. Swirling dust clouds closed in as swarms of stinging gnats and flies tortured their skin. They kept to the coastal road, a narrow, perilous passage. Thankfully no enemy waited to ambush them, even when they had to pass round a rugged promontory that jutted out into the sea, a highly dangerous place the local inhabitants called ‘the Face of God’. They warned the Franks that they would have to go round this fearsome place in single file, and so they did, but safely. Similar narrow passes were forced. The Dog river was crossed, Beirut circled. The Army of God swarmed over the fallen marble of once great palaces and swept under the magnificent yet crumbling arches built by the Romans until they reached Sidon.