How the Chiefs of the Crusaders Held Back those who Wanted to Abandon the Host
The host sojourned thus for three weeks in that island, which was very rich and plenteous. And while they sojoumed, there happened a misadventure fell and grievous. For a great part of those who wished to break up the host, and had aforetime been hostile to it, spoke together and said that the adventure to be undertaken seemed very long and very perilous, and that they, for their part, would remain in the island, suffering the host to depart, and that-when the host had so departed-they would, through the people of Corfu, send to Count Walter of Brienne, who then held Brandis, so that he might send ships to take them thither.
I cannot tell you the names of all those who wrought in this matter, but I will name some among the most notable of the chiefs, viz., Odo of Champlitte, of Champagne, James of Avesnes, Peter of Amiens, Guy the Castellan of Coucy, Oger of Saint-Chéron, Guy of Chappes and Clerembaud his nephew, William of Aunoi, Peter Coiseau, Guy of Pesmes and Edmund his brother, Guy of Conflans, Richard of Dampierre, Odo his brother, and many more who had promised privily to be of their party, but who dared not for shame openly so to avow themselves; in such sort that the book testifies that more than half the host were in this mind.
And when the Marquis of Montferrat heard thereof, and Count Baldwin of Flanders, and Count Louis, and the Count of St. Paul, and the barons who held with them, they were greatly troubled, and said: ” Lords, we are in evil case. If these people depart from us, after so many who have departed from us aforetime, our host is doomed, and we shall make no conquests. Let us then go to them, and fall at their feet, and cry to them for mercy, and for God’s sake to have compassion upon themselves and upon us, and not to dishonour themselves, and ravish from us the deliverance of the land overseass
Thus did the council decide; and they went, all together, to a valley where those of the other part were holding their parliament; and they took with them the son of the Emperor of Constantinople, and all the bishops and all the abbots of the host. And when they had come to the place they dismounted and went forward, and the barons fell at the feet of those of the other part, greatly weeping, and said they would not stir till those of the other part had promised not to depart from them.
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