filthy relations with pagan women; you have raised a foul clamor to
heaven.' At this point the Virgin of unconquerable piety, always the
intercessor with God for the human race, and Peter, the heavenly
gatekeeper, and the patron bishop of Antioch, threw themselves at the
feet of the most merciful Lord, praying and asking that He grant
relief to his people. The miraculous Peter himself said, 'Your
majesty remembers with what shameful things the pagans desecrated my
home in this city, insulting your divinity by filling your shrines
with disgraceful actions and with murder. Since you at last showed
pity and expelled them, bringing joy to the heavenly kingdom, will
you now relent and permit their pride to regain its former position
against you yourself?' Moved by these words, God said to me, 'Go and
tell my people to return with all their hearts to me, and I shall
eagerly restore myself to them; within five days I shall provide the
greatest help. Let them recite litanies, and let each man sing this
response from *Ecclesiastes*: Our enemies have joined against me,
and they rejoice in their strength; destroy their strength, O Lord,
and scatter them (add here the verse)."[177] The priest then added,
"If you have any doubt about what I have said, I shall submit, in the
name of truth, to whatever trial you wish, gladly undergoing trial by
fire or by being thrown from a cliff. If I am harmed in the test,
you may add to my injuries the worst punishment you can imagine."
The bishop of Puy, always attentive to church law, ordered the bible
and the Cross brought forward, so that the reliability of his words
might be tested by oath.

When this had been done, the leaders, after consultation, mutually
pledged that neither death nor life would compel them to abandon the
defense they had undertaken, no matter how difficult the
circumstances. Therefore first Bohemund, then the count of Saint