Antioch, Turkey — Circa 15 September 1098
Scintillating globe
In the Historia Francorum qui Ceperint Jerusalem of Raymond d’Aguiliers, Count of Toulouse, we read that during the First Crusade: “very many things were revealed to us through our brethren; and we beheld a marvelous sign in the sky. For during the night there stood over the city a very large star, which, after a short time, divided into three parts and fell in the camp of the Turks.” Alfred of Aachen writes: “In the silence of the night, when benevolent sleep restores men’s strength, all Christians on guard duty were struck by a marvelous sight in the sky. It seemed that all the stars were concentrated in a dense group, in a space the size of about three arpents, fiery and bright as coals in a furnace, and gathered as a globe, scintillating. And after burning for a long time, they thinned out and formed the likeness of a crown, exactly above the city; and after remaining for a long time gathered in a circle without separating, they broke the chain at a point on that circle, and all followed the same path.”
Source: August C. Krey, The First Crusade: The Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Participants (Princeton, 1921); Albert d’Aix, Aiberti Aquensis Historia Hierosolymitana in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. Historiens Occidentaux. RHC. OCCO Tome IV, 265-715. Translation by Yannis Deliyannis. Case: W041