Siege of Amalfi.
Bohemond takes the cross.
The crusaders winter in Apulia. 1096-1097.
- mond we find him accurately called[1]—were warring
against the famous merchant town of Amalfi,[2] rebellious in their eyes against the Norman Duke, in its own eyes loyal to the Eastern Emperor. At the coming of the crusaders Bohemond took the cross, and rent up a goodly cloak into crosses for his followers.[3] Count Roger was left almost alone to besiege Amalfi, and he went back to his own island. Yet, after this outburst of pious zeal, those who were highest in rank among the warriors of the cross tarried to spend a merry winter in that pleasant land, while many of the lower sort, already weary of the work, turned aside and went back to their homes.[4] The Norman prelates, from whatever motives, crossed to the great island of the Mediterranean, a trophy of Norman victory only second to the yet greater island of the Ocean. There, under the rule of the Great Count of Sicily, the whilom Earl of Kent might see how conquerors of his own blood could deal
- ↑ He is "Marcus Buamundus" in Orderic, who afterwards (817 A) tells the story of his two names. When he went through Gaul, he stood godfather to many children, "quibus etiam cognomen suum imponebat. Marcus quippe in baptismate nominatus est; sed a patre suo, audita in convivio joculari fabula de Buamundo gigante, puero jocunde impositum est. Quod nimirum postea per totum mundum personuit, et innumeris in tripertito climate orbis alacriter innotuit. Hoc exinde nomen celebre divulgatum est in Galliis, quod antea inusitatum erat pene omnibus occiduis." Orderic is always careful about names, specially double names. See another account in Will. Malms, iv. 387.
- ↑ Orderic (724 D) says merely "quoddam castrum," but it appears from Geoffrey Malaterra (iv. 24) and Lupus Protospata, 1096 (Muratori, v. 47), that the place besieged was Amalfi. Count Roger of Sicily brought with him ten thousand Saracens.
- ↑ Ord. Vit. u. s. "Sibi tandem optimum afferri pallium præcepit, quod per particulas concidit, et crucem unicuique suorum distribuit, suamque sibi retinuit."
- ↑ Fulcher, 585. "Tunc plurimi de pauperibus vel ignavis, inopiam futuram metuentes, arcubus suis venditis, et baculis peregrinationis resumptis, ad mansiones suas regressi sunt. Qua de re viles tam Deo quam hominibus facti sunt: et versum est eis in opprobrium." So William of Malmesbury, iv. 353, who adds that "pars pro intemperie soli morbo defecit."
