The Kingdom That Turned the World Upside Down by David Bercot. Part 1: The Kingdom with Upside Down Values. Chapter 1: Holy War. It was Friday, July 8, 1099. The hot desert sun bore down on a ragged procession of robed clergy, carrying large crosses and relics of saints who were marching around the outer walls of Jerusalem. The clergy were followed by 1,200 emaciated, barefoot crusader knights and around 11,000 near-starved, thirsty soldiers, sailors, and workmen.
The Muslim defenders of the city laughed scornfully at this procession, mocking them as they marched. The Muslims even desecrated crosses in various ways and hung them on the city walls to further insult this ragtag band of half-crazed Christians. Despite the insults and jeers, the crusaders continued on their barefoot procession until they reached the Mount of Olives, where they stopped.
There, one of the bishops exhorted them, saying, "Now we are on the very spot from which the Lord made His ascension, and we can do nothing more to purify ourselves. So let each one of us forgive his brother whom he has injured, that the Lord may forgive us." He then reminded them of His prophecy that Jerusalem would be delivered to them the next Friday if they continued to humble and purify themselves. If any Muslims heard the bishop's speech, they were not particularly worried.
Take the city of Jerusalem in seven days? Not likely. After all, before the crusaders had even reached the vicinity of Jerusalem, Iftikhar, the Muslim ruler of Jerusalem, had plugged or poisoned all wells outside the city walls. The crusaders had only one intermittent spring for their source of water, and many of the crusaders were seriously dehydrated. Furthermore, Iftikhar had moved all domestic animals inside the walls, giving the city an abundant supply of food.
In contrast, the crusaders were emaciated from hunger. Jerusalem could withstand a long siege. In fact, to conserve their food supply and protect themselves against treachery, Iftikhar had expelled all Christians from the city. Most of the Jews had also left. So Iftikhar and his soldiers lost little sleep over the crusaders. They knew they had plenty of water, an abundance of food, better arms, and the seemingly impregnable city walls to protect them. And they had 60,000 armed men to defend those walls.
What's more, a relief force of Egyptian soldiers was on its way to lift the siege. And against all of this, what did the crusaders have? About 1,200 knights was all, supported by a poorly equipped, ragged band of 11,000 soldiers, sailors, and workmen. Altogether, the crusaders had less than 13,000 men against 60,000 armed Muslims. Plus, the crusaders were fighting in an unknown land and were unaccustomed to the desert heat, so different from their homeland of France. Yes, they were something to laugh at.
But the laughter stopped five days later when, to the surprise of the Muslims, the crusaders wielded several huge wooden siege towers towards the walls of Jerusalem. The crusaders had been constructing these monstrous structures in secret from wood they had salvaged. Each tower was equipped with virtually everything a medieval army needed: a catapult, battering ram, drawbridge, and lofty turret from which the crusaders could rain arrows down on the city's defenders.
What's more, inside each siege tower was a small army of Frankish crusaders eager to pour out into the city once the walls had been breached. Seeing the dreaded siege towers, the Muslim defenders began building up their defenses on those parts of the wall opposite the towers. However, on the night before the crusaders attacked, they silently dismantled some of the towers and moved them nearly a mile away to parts of Jerusalem's walls that were less fortified. It was an unbelievable undertaking under any conditions.
But in their weakened condition, it was an almost superhuman accomplishment. When the morning light gently bathed the Jerusalem landscape on the morning of Thursday, July 14, the Muslim defenders were stunned in disbelief. They couldn't believe that some of the towers had been moved during the night. Having worked all night, many of the attackers were already exhausted. Nevertheless, they prayed that morning, trusting that God would give their weary bodies the needed strength.
After prayer, the crusaders launched their attack on Jerusalem. With shouts of praise to God, the crusaders began slowly moving the ponderous towers closer to the walls of Jerusalem. As the towers inched forward, the crusaders catapulted huge boulders against the city walls and interior houses. When some of the siege towers reached the city walls, their heavy battering rams began pounding the ancient walls of Jerusalem.
From the tops of their siege towers, the crusaders hurled flaming wooden missiles that had been dipped in tar, wax, and sulfur. These missiles set on fire the wooden fortifications inside the walls. However, the Muslim defenders hurled their own fiery missiles back at the towers in an attempt to set them on fire. The defenders hammered the towers all day long with catapulted rocks. The missiles and arrows rained back and forth throughout the day.
The crusaders fought bravely, but they were unable to secure a foothold. Some of their siege towers had been battered into ruins. One of them had been burned to the ground. Both sides quit fighting when night fell. On the morning of Friday, July 15, the crusaders renewed their attack. This was the day that the bishop had prophesied they would take the city. But that didn't look likely. They all were exhausted from the sleepless nights and the previous day's fighting. By noon, the crusaders were greatly discouraged.
They were weary, and they seemed to be making no progress. They were hopelessly outnumbered, and the walls of Jerusalem seemed impregnable. They finally halted their operations and held council. About half of them were ready to call off the futile siege and hang the bishop who had made the false prophecies. However, while they were still talking, a knight on the Mount of Olives began to wave his shield to the others, signaling them to advance.
At this signal, the men began to take heart, and they renewed their attack in earnest. The battering rams went back to work, and some of the crusaders began climbing the walls with scaling ladders and ropes. The city defenders had stacked a virtual mountain of hay and cotton bales inside the city walls as an additional defense. But some of the archers under the command of Godfrey of Bouillon succeeded in setting these bales on fire with their flaming arrows.
When the wind changed, huge clouds of smoke blinded and choked the Muslim defenders. The shower of fire and smoke forced them from the walls. Seizing the moment, Godfrey quickly released the long drawbridge of his tower, and his men fearlessly streamed over the walls. In mere minutes, the crusaders secured this section of the wall, which allowed their fellow soldiers to scale the walls with their ladders. Some of the invaders reached one of the city gates and were able to open it.
Waves of crusaders swept through the open gates. Although they still heavily outnumbered the crusaders, the Muslims reeled back in disbelief and confusion. Only hours before, it had appeared that the crusaders had been defeated, but now they were swarming into the city. Stunned, the defenders fled from the crusaders in disarray. Suddenly, the whole city was engulfed in mass panic, trying to escape from the invaders. Women screamed and children cried as the crusaders butchered every person they met.
The crusaders saw themselves as the medieval equivalent of Jehu and his army, who slaughtered the Baal worshippers of their day. One crusader has left us an eyewitness account of the horrible carnage. Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses, but these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are ordinarily chanted. What happened there?
If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that in the Temple and Porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees in bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, for it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.
One might think that the next day the crusaders were filled with remorse for massacring close to 100,000 people, many of whom were little children. But not at all, for they were certain that their Lord Jesus Christ had given them their victory and was smiling down at them as their happy King. After all, the Pope himself had put out the call for all good Catholics to go and free the Holy Land from the infidels. He had assured all Catholics the complete forgiveness of sins for any who went on the crusade.
So our eyewitness continues: Now that the city was taken, it was well worth all our previous labors and hardships to see the devotion of the pilgrims at the Holy Sepulchre, how they rejoiced and exulted in singing a new song to the Lord. Their hearts offered prayers of praise to God, victorious in triumph, which cannot be told in words. A new day, new joy, new and perpetual gladness. The consummation of our labor and devotion drew forth new words and new songs from everyone.
This day, I say, will be famous in all future ages for it turned our labors and sorrows into joy and exaltation. This day, I say, marks the justification of all Christianity, the humiliation of paganism, and renewal of our faith. This is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it, for on this day the Lord revealed himself to his people and blessed them. But did Jesus view this massacre as something joyous?
Had the crusaders truly advanced the kingdom of God, or had they done great harm to it? After all, about 1,100 years before, Jesus had planted a kingdom of love. His subjects were to be known for their love of each other. Not only that, they were to love their enemies as well. Their own King had described himself as gentle and lowly in heart. The first subjects of this special kingdom had turned their world upside down, not with the sword, but with words of truth and acts of love.
So what were people who claimed to be subjects of this kingdom of love and gentleness doing in a distant land, massacring the inhabitants of Jerusalem? It's a long story, but it's one that needs to be told because my eternal destiny and yours are intricately bound up in the story of the kingdom that turned the world upside down.