William the Carpenter

His specific origins are unclear; according to the seventeenth-century genealogist Père Anselme, he was the son of Ursio I, viscount of Melun, a town about 50 kilometres outside Paris in the Brie region of the French Vexin, which was later known as the Île-de-France. Anselme believed William succeeded his father in 1084, and was later succeeded by his own son, Ursio II.[1] However, in the nineteenth century, Adolphe Duchalais showed that Anselme misread the charters he was using; all that is known for certain is that Ursio was viscount in 1085 and William was viscount in 1094. There is no definite record of an Ursio II, and after William there is no viscount known until Adam, who married the daughter of the previous, unnamed viscount in 1138. William was presumably related to Ursio but his specific relationship to him and the other viscounts is unknown.[2]

According to twelfth-century chronicler Robert the Monk, William was "of royal stock" and was related to Hugh I, Count of Vermandois and Hugh's brother King Philip I of France.[3]

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."[4] 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.[5][6] Guibert says that William "retreated like a wretch, leaving countless men stranded by his flight."[7] 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.[8]

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."[7] He participated in the attacks on Jews at Mainz, led by Emich of Flonheim.[9] 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."[10] 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.[11] 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.[12] 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.[13]

Capture of Antioch by Bohemond of Taranto. Painting by L. Gallait, 1840.

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.[14] Robert the Monk assumes that William fled because "he had never before experienced such suffering from hunger."[15] 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.[16]

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.[17]

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.[18] 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 Patriarch of Jerusalem. He was also present at Baldwin I's siege of Ascalon in 1102.[19] William may have settled in the north, in the crusader Principality of Antioch as a vassal of Bohemond, because he appears as a witness in a charter from Antioch in 1101.[20]