CONCLUSION

 

 

 

And thus, on November 28^th in the Year of Our Lord 1095 at Clermont, France, began the Holy Crusades, a bloody and merciless war of slaughter and intolerance that was to extend over the next two hundred years; the repercussions of which are still felt even now, a thousand years later.

The question is often posed: Is man inherently good, or is man inherently evil? The truth is, the character of man is not static, it is ever-changing and responds to time, circumstance, and environment, and is therefore continually crossing and recrossing the boundaries of right and wrong. In other words, the raging currents of forces far beyond man’s control are incessantly twisting and pulling at man’s character, and men alternate between withering and holding strong, regardless of level of courage, integrity, or altruism. So even good men with good intentions can unwittingly fall by the wayside, as evidenced by the many diverse characters within this story.

To illuminate these characters and the fate-filled impact of the Council of Clermont, let us begin with Odo de Lagery. As Pope Urban II, he was to go down in history as the catalyst of the Holy Crusades and as one of the greatest pontiffs in the entire history of the Roman Catholic Church. As for la Gran Contessa Mathilda, great supporter of the Gregorian papacies, following King Heinrich’s complete withdrawal from Italy in 1097, she recovered all of her territories and reigned uncontested as the Grande Dame of Italian politics until her death in 1115 of gout. Her death signaled the end of an era in Italian politics and marked the rise of the new era of city-states in northern Italy. Interestingly, her tomb was removed from Tuscany in the Seventeenth Century and moved to the Vatican where it now lies in Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Losing his struggle in Italy, King Heinrich IV denounced his son, Conrad, as heir and named in his place the younger son, Heinrich V. Conrad slipped into political insignificance and died in Florence in 1101 at the young age of twenty-seven. King Heinrich IV’s younger son also rebelled against his father and in 1104 defeated him and had him imprisoned in the castle of Bockelheim where he was obliged to swear that he had unjustly persecuted Pope Gregory VII and illegally named Clement III as the Pope. The fifty-six-year-old king escaped in 1106, raised an army against his son and defeated him at Lorraine in March of that same year, and died six months later. His son, Heinrich V, succeeded him despite having been defeated in Lorraine, and he also made peace with la Gran Contessa Mathilda in Italy, showing her every sign of dignity and respect.

Pope Urban named French Bishop Adhémar of Le Puy as the actual leader of the First Crusade instead of selecting any of the celebrated nobles or military figures who sought this position since the Pope considered this venture to be, first and foremost, a spiritual venture, not a military venture. He selected Tristan de Saint-Germain as his personal legate for this crusade, whose responsibility it was to document the details of the advance eastward and the war itself. Post war, whether successful or unsuccessful, Tristan was then to provide a full account of the entire expedition to the Vatican. Odo also expected to appoint Tristan to the position of archbishop despite his young age, then shortly thereafter advance him into the College of Cardinals where in the future he could eventually position himself for election to the papacy itself.

Guillaume and the Danes, with the blessing of la Gran Contessa, decided that they would accompany Tristan on the Holy Crusade. Orla, Crowbones, Guthroth, and Hroc all marched east to Constantinople, then rode and fought their way overland with the French Crusaders toward the Holy Land, but they would never actually reach Jerusalem.

Fate, it seems, held an entirely different destiny for each of these valiant warriors… as would soon be prophesized by the desiccated bones of a long dead raven hanging aoubt the neck of Crossbones within a tiny leather pouch.

Duxia de Falaise died one week after the Council of Clermont, and on her deathbed in Genoa, with her final breath, she pleaded for Mala to vow that she would free herself once and for all from the pull of Tristan de Saint-Germain. As much as Mala loved the irascible old Duxia, she refused to lie to her, even as she lay dying. Two months later, Mala discovered the route to be taken by the French Crusaders and anticipated arrival in Constantinople. She boarded a ship for Constantinople and purchased a palace there. I will be here when Tristan arrives in the spring to make final preparations for the final march east, she had decided, far from the reach of Odo de Lagery and the Benedictines… and we shall see whether God has purposely thrown Tristan and I together since childhood into this impossible knot of unrequited love, or whether he means for us to overcome together the rigid, intolerable barriers of Gregorian reform.

Tristan and Guillaume, despite full intentions of marching east with the great massing armies of Christian cursaders heeding Pope Urban’s call, would become entangled instead in the most bizarre war expedition of all recorded history—The Peasants’s Cursade… a murderous and suicidal march led by Peter the Hermit across the continent of Europe into Turkish territory to reclaim the Holy Land.

 

But, as concerns the arduous struggle of Tristan, Mala, Guillaume and the Danes to reach Jerusalem, the Christian crusaders, the Seljuq Turks, and the horrific bloodletting unleased by Christians and Muslims alike as the First Holy Crusade begans to unfold… that is an entirely different story called A Horde of Fools.

 

 

THE END