volume one

220
—
HISTOEY OF THE CEUSADES.
rolling fortress, impatient to employ the lance and sword.
Already their rams had, upon several points, shaken the
walls, behind which the Saracens in close ranks presented
themselves as a last rampart against the attacks of the
Christians.
In the midst of the conflict two female magicians appeared
upon the ramparts of the city, calling, as the historians say,
upon the elements and the infernal powers. They could
not, however, themselves avoid the death which they invoked
upon the Christians, and fell dead beneath a shower of arrows
and stones.* Two Eg^-ptian emissaries, sent from Ascalon
to exhort the besieged to persist in their defence, were surprised
by the Crusaders as they were endeavouring to enter
the citv. One of them fell covered with wounds, and the
other, having revealed the secret of his mission, was, by
means of a machine, hurled upon the ramparts where the
Saracens were fighting. But the combat had now lasted
half the day, without affording the Crusaders any hope of
carrying the place: All their machines were on fire, and
they wanted water, but more particularly vinegar,t which
alone will extinguish the species of fire employed by the
* As Tasso often employs magic, we have sought with care for all that
relates to this species of the marvellous in the contemporary historians.
That which we have just quoted from William of Tyre, is the only
instance we have been able to find. Some historians likewise have said
that the mother of Kerboghawjis a sorceress, and that she had foretold to
her son the defeat of Antioch. It is in vain to seek for similar incidents
in the history of the first crusade. We ought to add that magic was
much less in vogue in the twelfth century than in that in which Tasso
lived. The Crusaders were no doubt very superstitious, but their superstitions
were not attached to little things ; they were struck by the phenomena
they saw in the heavens ; they believed in the appearance of
saints, and in revelations made by God himself, but not in magicians.
Ideas of magic came to us a long time afterwards, in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. The chroniclers of that period, who speak of anterior
facts, fill their recitals with whimsical and ridiculous fables, such as are
not to be found in more ancient authors. We must not judge of the
middle ages by the chronicles of Robert Gaguin, or by those of Archbishop
Turpin, the work of a monk of the twelfth century ; stiU less by
the romances of the same period.
f We report this circumstance here, in order to give an idea of the fire
which was launched against the Christians. Albert d'Aix expresses him-
self thus :— Qualiter ignis, aqua inextinguibUis soloaceti liquore restingui
valeat. Alb. Aq. lib. vi. cap. 18.