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For on the way back, storm-bound perhaps in Myra, they sacked a Greek monastery there, carrying off for their city the dust of St. John Baptist, which to-day is still in their keeping. Was it the hope of loot that caused Genoa in 1099 to send even a larger company to Judaea under the great Guglielmo Embriaco, whose tower to-day is all that is left of what must once have been a city of towers?
And indeed, though we hear no more of Embriaco, by the end of the first Crusade, Genoa had won possessions in the East, streets in Jaffa, streets in Jerusalem, whole quarters in Antioch, Cesarea, Tyre, and Acre, not to speak of an inscription in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, "Prepotens Genuensium Presidium," which Godfrey had carved there, while the Pope gave them their cross of St.
The carrying off relics the robbing of Peter to pay Paul, and spoliating one church to enrich another was an old trick of legitimate conquerors in all ages; for this very 'dish' had been carried away by the royal crusaders, when they took Cesarea in Palestine, under Guillaume Embriaco, in the twelfth century.
Then eight days after came that strange election, when we offered the throne of Palestine to Godfrey of Bouillon; but he refused to wear a crown of gold where his Saviour had worn one of thorns, so we proclaimed him Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. But the Genoese under Embriaco as before returned home, again not without spoil.
Is it possible that a Genoese gave up all his spoil for a green glass, a cracked pipkin, a heathen wash pot, empty, valueless, a fraud? I'll not believe it. Embriaco, however, returned once more to Palestine with his men, fighting under Godfrey at Cesarea; and again he came home in triumph, his galleys low with spoil.
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