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Itinerary
14
Chapter IX. Ñ Jerusalem is taken and treated with indignity: the people who
ransom themselves are expelled, the rest are made slaves.
The fall of Jerusalem was now impending: the victor advancing with
speed equal to his hatred, laid siege to the city; and erecting his machines,
with sacrilegious irreverence profaned all the holy places. There was a
certain cross of stone, which our soldiers formerly, when, after the capture
of Antioch, they had gloriously taken this city, had erected on the wall in
commemoration of the deed. The ferocious invaders destroyed this cross
with a blow from one of their machines, and at the same time struck down
a great part of the wall. The citizens interposed such defences as they were
able, but all the exertions of our men were ineffectual: bows, balistas, and
slings were used to no purpose; both arms and machines visibly declared
that the Lord was wroth, and foretold the fall of the city. A large number of
people had flocked together to the city from the neighbouring fortresses,
trusting rather in the sanctity of the place than in the strength of its
defences; but in so great a multitude hardly fourteen knights could be
found. The priests and clerks, although it was contrary to their profession,
discharged the duties of soldiers, according to the emergency, and fought
bravely for the LordÕs house, bearing in mind the maxim, that to repel force
by force is allowed by all laws both human and divine. But the populace,
alike ignorant and timorous, flocked in numbers round the patriarch and
the queen, who were left in charge of the city, bitterly complaining and
earnestly entreating that they might treat with the sultan for peace, as soon
as possible. Their capitulation, however, was one to be deplored, rather
than praised: for each of them had to pay the ransom of his own life; a man
was valued at ten bezants, a woman at five, a child at one; and whoever
was unable to pay, was made a slave. It thus happened that when many of
them, either out of their own property, or by aids gathered from other
sources, had paid the price of their safety, there remained 14,000, who
could not redeem themselves, and were made slaves for life. To those who
purchased their liberty, the choice was given, either to proceed to Antioch,
or to be carried under safe conduct to Alexandria, and thence to cross the
sea. That day was indeed a bitter day, on which the exiles separated, each

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Itinerary
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on his different road, and left that sacred city, that city which had been the
queen of cities, but which was now reduced to slavery; that city which was
the inheritance of its children, but was now in the hands of strangers, on
account of the wickedness of those who dwelt therein.
Glorious was Jerusalem, the city of God, where the Lord suffered,
and was buried, and where he displayed the glory of his resurrection; but
she is now subject to contamination at the hands of her baseborn foe: nor is
there any grief like that grief, that they should possess the sepulchre, who
persecuted Him that lies buried in it; and those, who had despised the
Crucified, have made themselves masters of his Cross! This most holy city
had been, for about ninety-six years, in the hands of our people, ever since
the victorious arms of the Christians had taken it, at the same time as
Antioch; when it had been forty years before in the possession of the
unbelievers. When the city was taken, the crier of the Mahometan law
proceeded to the summit of the rock of Calvary, and there published their
false law, in the place where Christ had consummated the law of death
upon the cross. Another diabolical act was perpetrated by the enemy. They
fastened ropes round a certain cross, which stood upon the pinnacle of the
church of the Hospitallers, and dragged it to the ground, where they spat
upon it, and hacked it, and drew it, in derision of our faith, through all the
filth of the city.
Chapter X. Ñ How Saladin besieged Tyre by sea and land.
Now the queen, who was the daughter of King Amalric, and was
named Sibilla, together with Heraclius the patriarch, the Templars, the
Hospitallers, and an immense multitude of fellow-exiles, directed their
course towards Antioch. How she had a sad interview at Neapolis with the
captive king her husband, and how the marquis violently carried off to
Tyre the ship in which she intended to embark, brevity compels us to pass
over. But we must not omit to mention how Saladin, burning with desire to
take the city of Tyre, went against it a second time with all his army, and
not content with besieging it by land, he blockaded it from the sea with his
galleys, and prepared to attack it on every side. That nothing might be left

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