[The following is in regards to the expedition of Louis VII of France during the disastrous Second Crusade.]
The French crusaders and the Germans whom Conrad had left behind struggled on, their discipline deteriorating in the winter weather. Eleanor and her ladies travelled in horse-drawn litters whose curtains probably protected them to some extent, but they must have been miserably uncomfortable. On Christmas Day, which was being spent at Decervium, a combination of rain and floods destroyed their tents and baggage and killed many men and horses. Shortly afterwards they began to be attacked by Saracens – Turkish bowmen on fast ponies, who shot from the saddle before closing in with yataghans (short sabres). At Pisidian Antioch the heavily armoured French and German knights fought their way across the bridge with difficulty. They were now making for Laodicea in the Phrygian mountains, hoping to shorten the distance to Antioch.
In January they found themselves in bleak hill country, the Turks watching from the peaks ready to gallop down and pounce on stragglers. Odo of Deuil tells us that ‘the road had become so rugged that sometimes the helmets of the knights touched the sky while sometimes their horses’ hooves trod the very floor of hell’. Constant harassment by the enemy, winter storms, shortage of food and suspicion of Byzantine guides were breaking down the cursaders’ morale.
Near Attalia there was almost a disaster that might have destroyed the entire Christian army. One evening, instead of obeying Louis’s orders to camp on the crest of the pass through which they were travelling, the French advance guard went on down into the less exposed valley.
[…]
This enabled the Turks to get between it and the main body of the army, which – after seizing the high ground of the pass – they at once attacked. Desperately the knights charged uphill at them but were beaten back in confusion. Louis had his horse killed beneath him and was surrounded by the enemy; he saved himself by climbing onto a rock and, with his back to the mountain, managed to parry the yataghans of the exultant Turks until he was rescued. Probably he owed his life to his plain armour, which prevented the enemy from recognizing him. Many of the crusaders were slain, their comrades being saved only by the onset of darkness.
Source:
Seward, Desmond. “The Crusader.” Eleanor of Aquitaine. New York: Times , 1979. 46-47. Print.
Further Reading:
Aliénor d'Aquitaine (Eleanor of Aquitaine)
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