three
miles from the city of Tarsus. They wait on the shore, and the vessel
casts anchor. "Whence do you come?" is always the first question asked
in like circumstances. "From Flanders, from Holland, and from
Friesland." They were repentant pirates, who after having combed the
seas had come to do penance by a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Christian
warriors joyously welcome these sailors whose help will be useful to
them. Their chief is a Guinemer, not from Saint-Omer but Boulogne. He
recognizes in Count Baudouin his liege lord, leaves his ship and decides
to remain with the crusaders. "_Moult estait riche de ce mauvais
gaeng._" The whilom pirate contributes his ill-gotten gains to the
crusade.[35]

[Footnote 35: _Receuil des Historiens des Croisades_, Western
Historians, Volume I, Book III and XXIII, p. 145: _Comment Guinemerz et
il Galiot s'accompaignierent avec Baudouin_.]

In another chapter of the _Histoire des Croisades_, this Guinemer
besieged Lalische, which "is a most noble and ancient city situated on
the border of the sea; it was the only city in Syria over which the
Emperor of Constantinople was ruler." Lalische or Laodicea in Syria,
_Laodicea ad mare_--now called Latakia--was an ancient Roman colony
under Septimus Severus, and was founded on the ruins of the ancient
Ramitha by Seleucus Nicator, who called it Laodicea in honor of his
mother Laodice. Guinemer, who expected to take the city by force, was in
his turn assaulted and taken prisoner by the garrison. Baudouin, with
threats, demanded him back and rescued him; but esteeming him a better
seaman than a combatant on the land, he invited him to return to his
ship, take command of his fleet, and navigate within sight of the coast,
which the former pirate "very willingly did."

A catalogue of the Deeds of Henri I, King of France (1031-1060)[36]
mentions in this same period a Guinemer, Lord of Lillers, who had
solicited the approval of the king for the construction of a church in
his chateau, to be dedicated to Notre-Dame and Saint-Omer. The royal
approval was given in 1043, completing the authorization of Baudouin,
Count of Flanders, and of Dreu, Bishop of Therouanne at the request of
Pope Gregory VI, to whom the builder had gone in person to ask consent
for his enterprise. Was this Guinemer, like the pirate of Jerusalem,
doing penance for some wrong? Thus we find two Guinemers in the eleventh
century, one in Palestine, the other in Italy. About this same