so that, after securing protection, he could safely allow the people to leave for the land of the Christians under the same Sultan’s escort. Brother Simon, following our orders, left the other messengers behind and went with the Sultan up to Jerusalem, escorted by the Sultan himself. And with the entire people gathered, and preaching the word of God to them, repeatedly comforting, both exhorting as well as granting remission to them, just as he had received in letters-mandate from us, the Patriarch, he reported to them the response which he had received in other messages from the sultan. But the people of Jerusalem, having shared their plan, responded that they would rather die in the city from famine and pestilence than to hand themselves over to the cruellest of peoples or to entrust themselves to the hands of the Sultan, of whose infidelity they were certain, and had no doubts about. But they were determined to remain in the city, hoping for the mercy of Jesus Christ and awaiting help. Brother Simon, however, having inquired about the state of the land, understanding that they had provisions and that it could suffice for six weeks, upon hearing their response firmly forbade anyone from secretly leaving the city without a common escort. Instead, trusting in the mercy of the Most High, they were manfully to defend themselves as they awaited the Christian army. He, at length, departing from the city, returned with the Sultan, coming to us to report these events, under his escort. After his return, on the third day, at the ninth hour, we learned for sure that, without the knowledge or consent of others, a significant number of armed men left the city and unfortunately reached Joppa during the night. Sorrowful and not a little troubled by their secret departure, and because they had divided and disrupted the rest of the Jerusalemites, we shortly afterwards received distressing and tearful reports about the often-mentioned people of Jerusalem. For they, fearing the renewed arrival of the Khwarezmians, left behind some six thousand men in the city who were unwilling to depart from the city. By common consent, involving both clergy and religious men, as well as laity of both sexes, on Tuesday, the eve of Saint Bartholomew, around the evening hour, they left the city and embarked on a journey towards Christian territories through mountainous regions. They relied on the truce they had with the Saracens of the mountains, hoping to avoid the peril of the Khwarezmians that way. But believing that they were avoiding Scylla, they tragically fell into Charybdis. Indeed, the previously mentioned Saracens, after treacherously leaving their mountain homes, launched a sudden attack on them and fought against them throughout the night night, and it is reported that they killed over two thousand of them. They spilled innocent blood like water round about Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. They captured both boys and girls, showing no mercy, even to the elderly. Those of that population whom they did not wish to kill were wretchedly taken as captives and put up for sale to other Saracens. Furthermore, while the few of that community who had escaped the clutches of the Saracens descended into to the plain of Ramla, death and the sword overtook them as they attempted to evade their fate. For the Khwarezmians, violently attacked and viciously killed them, resulting in a scene of carnage among the dead and the captives. From the entire population, scarcely three hundred persons escaped, arriving at Joppa in groups, wounded and left half-dead. Now, as innocent blood cries out from the ground to the Lord, its plea for compassion and mercy is brought for consideration before your Holiness. Thus, the prophecy of Jeremiah regarding Jerusalem has been fulfilled: ‘Her adversaries have become her lords,¹ her festival days were turned into mourning, her sabbaths into a reproach.’² We also report with sorrow that, after such a great devastation, ‘the city of Jerusalem sits as though solitary’,³ nearly deserted by the greater part of the people. The treacherous Khwarezmians, with no one resisting them, entered the Church of the Lord’s Sepulchre, and by the edge of the sword pathetically slaughtered the Christian people who had sought refuge in that very church, destined to receive martyrdom for the sake of Christ in the place where our Lord Jesus Christ had poured out his precious blood beneath the gibbet of the cross for the salvation of the human race, the pavement of the entire church being stained red with the blood of martyrs. What more can be said? Priests, while celebrating the sacred mysteries on the altars of that church, were decapitated by the hands of the ungodly, offering themselves as a sacrifice to God the Father. Oh, happy soul of Master Peter Monstrand /of Montranda,\ a canon of Rheims and Sens, who, bearing the cross of the Lord, followed him.