page_title: William the Carpenter
section_title: Military exploits
hierarchical_section_title: William the Carpenter / Life / Military exploits
caption_attribution_description: Capture_of_Antioch_by_Bohemond_of_Tarente_in_June_1098
context_page_description: William the Carpenter, viscount of Melun, was a French nobleman who participated in the Reconquista in Spain and on the First Crusade. He was notorious for defecting from the army both in Spain and on the crusade, but he was also known for his strength in battle, whence he earned his nickname "the Carpenter." He returned to the Holy Land after the crusade, and nothing further is known of his life or death.
context_section_description: According to twelfth-century monk Guibert of Nogent, William was "powerful in words, but less so in action...a man who set out to do things too great for him." William was a member of the French contingent which marched into Spain in 1087 to assist Alfonso VI of Castile with the siege of Tudela against the Almoravids. He may have been one of the leaders, along with Eudes I, Duke of Burgundy, who was the nephew of Alfonso's wife Constance. The French army never made it to Tudela and withdrew with little success. Guibert says that William "retreated like a wretch, leaving countless men stranded by his flight." William's actions in Spain may have been the inspiration for the character of Ganelon in the Chanson de Roland, which was possibly written in the early twelfth-century, based on similar events that had occurred during the reign of Charlemagne centuries earlier.
  In France, Guibert says he engaged in petty warfare against other nobles and "criminal looting" of the countryside, in contravention of the Peace and Truce of God. In 1096 he joined the First Crusade, and "took from his poor neighbors the little that they had to provide himself shamefully with provisions for the journey." He participated in the attacks on Jews at Mainz, led by Emich of Flonheim. Emich's army later battled against the Hungarians, during which William "beheaded the chief of the Hungarian army, who was a member of the [King Coloman's] counsel, a distinguished man with dazzling snow-white hair." After the dispersal of Emich's army following this battle, William and the other French leaders joined the army of his relative Hugh of Vermandois. Hugh's army marched south into Italy, and at Bari, Hugh sent William across the sea to Dyrrhachium as an ambassador to the Byzantine governor of the city. William then travelled to Constantinople with Hugh, and he was among the men who came to meet Godfrey of Bouillon when Godfrey arrived at the city later in the year.
  No further mention of William is made until the Siege of Antioch in 1098. The crusaders had successfully taken the city, but were then besieged themselves by a large Muslim army led by Kerbogha of Mosul. The crusaders suffered from lack of supplies, and there were many desertions; William fled Antioch in January 1098, along with the French monk Peter the Hermit, who had led his own army to Constantinople before the main crusaders arrived there. William was probably a member of Bohemond of Taranto's army at this point, because Bohemond sent his nephew Tancred to find them, and they were brought back to Bohemond's camp. Robert the Monk assumes that William fled because "he had never before experienced such suffering from hunger." William "spent the whole of the night...in Bohemond's tent, lying on the ground like a piece of rubbish." Bohemond rebuked him as a "wretched disgrace to the whole Frankish army", and mentioned his desertion of the French army in Spain in 1087. The other leaders asked Bohemond to spare him and William suffered no further punishment. However, William was so ashamed that he deserted the army again.
  Albert of Aachen says William's second desertion occurred in June 1098, along with William of Grand-Mesnil, a relative of Bohemond. On the road away from Antioch, they joined Stephen of Blois, another leader of the crusade who had also fled the siege. They travelled back towards Constantinople, but on the way met Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, who was advancing to Antioch with a relief army. They convinced him of the futility of the crusader siege and the emperor turned back to Constantinople.
  William apparently returned to the Holy Land in the Crusade of 1101. The First Crusade had successfully conquered Jerusalem, and those who had returned home before completing the journey were often shamed into going on crusade a second time; some of them, like Stephen of Blois, were killed on their second journey. William, however, survived to participate in the politics of the newfound Kingdom of Jerusalem; he was among the men who petitioned King Baldwin I to restore Daimbert of Pisa as Latin
caption: Capture of Antioch by Bohemond of Taranto. Painting by L. Gallait, 1840.
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