Hugh of Jaugy joins the crusades.
The "rope-dancers" at Antioch. the pleasures of Asia, like the pleasures of Apulia, were too much for the Duke, and it needed the anathemas of the Church to call him back from his luxurious holiday to the stern work that was before him.[1] Before the walls of Jerusalem he found a strange ally. Hugh of Jaugy, one of the murderers of Mabel, after his long sojourn among the infidels, greeted his natural prince, returned to his allegiance, and by his knowledge of the tongue and ways of those whom he forsook, did useful, if not honourable, service.[2] A worthier comrade was a noble and valiant Turk, who of his own accord came to seek for baptism and for admission to share the perils of the pilgrims.[3] The Norman Duke ever appears as the fellow-soldier of his kinsman and namesake of Flanders; the two Roberts are always side by side. It is needless to say that neither of them shared in that shameful descent from the walls of Antioch which gained for some of the heroes of Normandy the mocking surname of the rope-dancers.[4] It is hard to find any absolutely contemporary*
- ↑ The words of Ralph of Caen (c. 58) on this head are very emphatic; "Normannus comes ingressus Laodiciam somno vacabat, et otio; nec inutilis tamen, dum opulentiam nactus aliis indigentibus large erogabat; quoniam conserva Cyprus Baccho, Cerere, et multo pecore abundans, Laodiciam repleverat, quippe indigentem vicinam Christicolam, et quasi collacteam; ipsa namque una in littore Syro et Christum colebat et Alexio serviebat. Sed nec sic excussato otio, prædictus comes frustra semel atque iterum ad castra revocatur. Tertio sub anathemate accitus, redit invitus; difficilem enim habebat transitum commeatio, quæ comiti ministrare Laodicia veniens debebat."
- ↑ Ord. Vit. 753 A. We have heard of Hugh before, N. C. vol. iv. p. 493. We now read that "Susceptus a Normannico duce, multum suis profuit et mores ethnicos ac tergiversationes subdolas et fraudes, quibus contra fideles callent, enucleavit."
- ↑ Ib. "Cosan etiam, nobilis heros et potens de Turcorum prosapia, Christianos ultro adiit, multisque modis ad capiendam urbem eos adjuvit. In Christum enim fideliter credebat, et sacro baptismate regenerari peroptabat. Ideoque nostratibus, ut amicis et fratribus, ad obtinendum decus Palæstinæ et metropoli Davitici regni summopere suffragari satagebat."
- ↑ "Furtivi funambuli" was the name given to Ivo and Alberic of Grant-*
