Guillaume de Melun

Guillaume de Melun (German also Wilhelm von Melun ), called "the carpenter" ( le Charpentier , * around 1042 , † after 1100 ) was a French reconquistador and crusader.

His nickname is said to go back to his enormous physical strength - he was able to smash the shields and weapons of his enemies with his blows.

origin

The descent of Wilhelm is not clearly established. Presumably was the son of the Vice Count of Melun . In any case, he belonged to the noble Melun family . Robert the Monk describes him in his Historia Iherosolimitana as related to Count Hugo von Vermandois . The landowners "Melun" and "Carpenter" named in the Domesday Book in 1086 are said to be among his descendants.

Life

In 1084 Wilhelm was named as a witness in a document in which King Philip I of France granted the Melun Abbey privileges.

In 1085, William fought in the Spanish Reconquista at the siege of Toledo . But before the city was taken, he settled in his French homeland. The reputation of a deserter preceded him since then, and Bohemond of Taranto is said to have known about it.

In 1096 Wilhelm reappears as a participant in the First Crusade . At first, however, he belonged to the gang around Count Emicho , who was mainly responsible for the pogroms against the Jews of the Rhineland. Wilhelm attacked Speyer on May 3, 1096 , where he slew twelve Jews until the Bishop of Speyer Johannes I stepped in and granted the Jews a safe refuge. With Emicho, Wilhelm moved on to the Hungarian border, where they were wiped out by the troops of King Koloman (see: Persecution of the Jews at the time of the First Crusade ). While Emicho was returning to his German homeland, Wilhelm joined the contingent of Count Hugo von Vermandois , who was just traveling through Italy , who translated from Bari into the Byzantine Dyrrhachion and a little later reached Constantinople .

Wilhelm took part in the crusade through Asia Minor until the siege of Antioch . Under the impression of a famine spreading in the army and the expectation of a Saracen relief army under the Atabeg Kerboga , Wilhelm decided in February 1098, together with Peter von Amiens , to withdraw from the army. In this renewed desertion he took an example from Count Stephan von Blois . In contrast to the count, Wilhelm and Peter were captured by the Norman Tankred . Wilhelm had to stand a whole night in the tent of the Bohemond of Taranto, who accused him of violating the Franks' honor as a warrior. Wilhelm, who swore to fulfill his crusade vows, is said to have resigned on a later occasion. However, a knight named Guilaume Carpintarius , who is possibly identical to Wilhelm, is named in the army of Gottfried von Bouillon during the fighting for Jaffa in 1100 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nicolas Viton de Saint-Allais : Nobiliaire universel de France, ou Recueil général des généalogies historiques des maisons nobles de ce royaume . tape 1 . Bachelin – Deflorenne, Paris, p. 263 f . (French, digitized in Gallica - 1872–1878).
2. ↑ Carol Sweetenham: Robert the Monk's History of the First Crusade: Historia Iherosolimitana. Ashgate, Aldershot 2006. p. 19
3. ^ Thomas Hinde: The Domesday Book England's Heritage: Then and Now . Crown Publisher Inc., 1985.
4. ^ Pierre Larousse: Grand Dictionnaire Universel Du XIX Siècle . Paris, 1873.
5. ↑ Steven Runciman: History of the Crusades . CH Beck, 1995. p. 142.
6. ↑ Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum , p. 185.
7. ↑ Manuel Braun, Cornelia Herberichs: Violence in the Middle Ages . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2005.
8. ^ Johann Martin Lappenberg , Benjamin Thorpe: A History of England under the Norman Kings . J. Wright, 1857, pp. 283 ( Google Books ).
9. ↑ Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum , p. 33.
10. ^ August C. Krey: The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Participants . Princeton, 1921.