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Updated: June 5, 2025
On the other hand, the greater part of the Immortal Guards, and those citizens who were prepared to play a part in the conspiracy, had been impressed by the agents of the deceased Agelastes with the opinion, that this band of Latins, commanded by Tancred, the relative of Bohemond, had been despatched by the latter to their assistance.
Prominent among the other chiefs were Hugh, count of Vermandois; Robert, duke of Normandy, who had pawned his duchy to his brother, William II., the king of England; Robert, count of Flanders; Raymond, count of Toulouse; Bohemond of Tarentum, son of Robert Guiscard; and Tancred, Robert Guiscard's nephew. The Spaniards were taken up with their own crusade against the Moors.
The different leaders Bohemond, Robert the Duke of Normandy, Tancred, Richard of Salermo, Stephen, Count of Blois threw themselves into the fight, drove the Turks back, but yielded ground, through exhaustion, to fresh Turkish re-enforcements. All seemed lost when Raymond and Godfrey appeared with the other division of the Christian army.
To improve the general consternation, the cousin of Bohemond and the brother of Godfrey were detached from the main army with their respective squadrons of five, and of seven, hundred knights.
Roger, his second son and successor, immediately sunk to the humble station of a duke of Apulia: the esteem or partiality of his father left the valiant Bohemond to the inheritance of his sword. The national tranquillity was disturbed by his claims, till the first crusade against the infidels of the East opened a more splendid field of glory and conquest.
With Bohemond, and second in command in the army, came Tancred, the favorite hero of all the historians of the crusade, so young, so valiant, so enthusiastic. There was not among them all, says Tasso, a greater warrior, nor any one of more courteous behavior, of fairer countenance, or of loftier and more intrepid heart. The last army was led by the haughty and resolute Count Raimond of Toulouse.
Forthwith the Christian army was arranged for a second battle. Bohemond, Tancred, Robert of Normandy, placed themselves the left; Godfrey, the Count of Flanders, the Count de Blois, led the right: Raymond commanded in the centre; the reserve was placed under the order of D'Adhemar.
The fears of Alexius were aroused by the sight of a host so vast and so formidable: they quickened into terror as he thought of the armies which were still on their way under the command of Bohemond and Tancred. Of Godfrey, beyond the fact of his mission as a crusader, he knew little or nothing; but in Bohemond he saw one who claimed as his inheritance no small portion of his empire.
Bohemond had as friend and faithful comrade his cousin Tancred de Hauteville, great-grandson, through his mother, Emma, of Robert Guiscard, and, according to all his contemporaries, the type of a perfect Christian knight, neither more nor less.
And even of the five hundred thousand men under Godfrey, Tancred, Bohemond, and other great feudal princes, men of rare personal valor and courage; men who led the flower of the European chivalry, -only twenty-five thousand remained after the conquest of Jerusalem. The glorious array of a hundred and fifty thousand horsemen, in full armor, was a miserable failure.
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