volume one

HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. 229
to fall into a horrible state of slavery, were ordered to bury
tlie disfigured bodies of their friends and brothers. " They
wept," says Robert the Monk,* " and transported the carcases
out of Jerusalem," They were assisted in this melancholy
duty by the soldiers of Raymond, who, having entered
last into the city, had not had a large share of the plunder,
and sought to increase it by a close search of the bodies of
the Saracens.
The city of Jerusalem soon presented a new spectacle.
In the course of a few days only it had changed its inhabitants,
laws, and religion. Before the last assault it had
been agreed, according to the custom of the Crusaders in
their conquests, that every warrior should remain master
and possessor of the house or edifice in which he should
present himself first. A cross, a buckler, or any other
mark placed upon a door, was, for every one of the conquerors,
a good title of possession. This right of property
was respected by every soldier, however greedy of plunder,
and the greatest order soon reigned in a city but recently
given up to all the horrors of war. The victory enriched
t]ie greater part of the Crusaders. The conquerors shared
the provisions and the riches they had found, and such
as had not been fortunate in the pillage had no cause to
complain of their companions. A part of the treasures
was employed in assisting the poor, in supporting orphans,
and in decorating the altars they had freed from the Mussulmans.
Tancred had as his share all the wealth found in the mosque
of Omar. • Among these riches were twenty candelabra of
gold, a hundred and twenty of silver, a large lamp.f and
many other ornaments of the same metals. This booty was
so considerable, that it would have been enough, say the
historians, to load six chariots, and employed Tancred two
days in removing it from the mosque. The Italian hero
gave up a portion of this to his soldiers and another to
Grodfrev, to whose service he had attached himself. He
distributed abundance of alms, and placed fifty gold marks
'*• Robert the IMonk expresses himself thus : " Flebant et extrahebant."
t Properly speaking, this was a kind of lustre which the Arabians call
tendour. The ^lussulmans have them of so large a size that it is necessary
to enlarge the doors of the mosques by a breach, in order to admit them.