z UCTS TI) sat . y : - = =— = ——— rite =CHAPTER 1 The Birth of the Crusading Movement: The Preaching of the First Crusade Background nthe frst week of March 1095 Pope Urban Ik presided over a church council at Piacenza ia northern Kaly, There was present an embassy sent by the Byzantine emperor Alexus to ask for help againe the Tucks, whose advance across Asia Minor had broughi them within striking distance of Constantinople (Istanbul). Ths appeal st off the chain of events that Ted to the First Crusade and provided it with a casus bell By the early eighth century the Christians had lost_North_ALtica, Palestine and Syria and most of Spain othe Muslims, But then the frmer tetween Chistendom and Islam hod stabilized unil the Byzantine cmperors, ruling from Constantinople what remiined of the eastern Roman empire, went on to the offensive in the seco century. The comparatively subdued reaction of the Muslias 10 the Fst CCrasade'can be parly explained by the fact that their confidence had already been shaken 130 years before, when the ancient cities of Tarsus land Antioch (Antakya) had been retaken and the Byzantine fenter had advanced info horthern Sia. A violent shock had been felt throughout the Islamic world at that time: 600 volunteets had arrived in Mosul from ‘Khorasan, 1,200 miles away, in 963; they were followed three yeas later by. further 20,000 men. The Christian victories had coincided with inter= nal developments that had teagsformed the western Ilamic zene. The authority of the “Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad had atrophied and they themselves had fallen under the Zoniol of Shite princes, whom they regitded ss heretics. In 969 Eaypt had been occupied almost without opposition by another Shrite dynasty, the Fatimid, and a rival caliphate bad been established. Thereafter the Fatimid siuggied to wtest Palestine and Syria from the ‘Abbasids until inthe 1060s and 1070s they had to give Way to the Tonks who, aKiig TOVaMAge of seventeen years of internat isorder in Egypt, drove them out of most of thei Syrian possessions and left them with only shaky. hold on parts of Palestine Taras ESE Turks Who atthe same time revived! Musim fortunes on the Chrstan-fronter Far to the East, among the nomadic TurKomans on the borders ofthe “Turkish steppe east of the Aral Sea who had converted to Islam in the tenth century, there had been large group under chief called Selehk2 The Birth of the Crusading Movement Brought into the setled Islamic atea as hired wartiors, his people were in control of Khoorasan by 1037 and their victory at the Battle of Dandangan in 1040 opened Iran to them. tn 1089 the motley following of Tughral, Selchok’s grandson, comprising barely controllable nomadic Turkemans and mote regular forces, penetrated Armenia. In 1088 Tughail entered Baghdad and by 1059 he was master of Iraq ss far ay the Byzantine and Syrian marches, He established a sultanate which ruled Jan, Jay and pa ‘of Syria in the aume of the “Abbasid caliph. At their copversion to Islan the Selehak Turks had absorbe sive and set gion of ie frontiers and they justified their progress westwards as a campaign against the corruption in Islam WHT, they Delieved, manifested self in the scandal OF an OriHOdOx Sunnite caliphate being for over a century under the dominance of Shite princes. Their consern thereafter was to proceed against the heretical caliph in Egypt and their early moves against Chit endom were haphazard and spasmosic. From the later 1030s. however, Parties of nomads were making deep raids into Byzantine Armenia and by the late 1060s they were to be found in Cilicia and in Anatolia proper, at ‘Amorium and Konya, being, in fact, sometimes engaged as mercenaries by Greek generals. As they moved across the borders they passed beyond the contol of Tughrul's nephew and successor Alp Arslan, who was forced to intervene in the region. This in turn provoked Byzantine, miltary reaction. In 1071 Alp Arslan conducted a campaign which, although it involved capturing several Christian places in order to consolidate his frontier, was concerned primarily with Bringing Aleppo to heel. The city fell to him, but he then heard that the Byzantine emperor Romanus IV Diogenes was preparing an offensive, Rounding on the Greeks, he lated them and captured the emperor atthe Batle of Mansikert Byzantine military power had been in decline and Manzikert opened the cars tothe Taschen oral tproses aoe ty the nerd actions of Greek generals competing fr the throne, who enrolled Turks in their service and established them in the interior. Asia Minor rapih passed out of Byzantine control and it was thisthat ly Behind Ose spel to the Westin 1095. — Pope Urban IL “The papacy had for some time been worried by the disintesraton of ‘Gristendom’s eastern frontier. News of the Turkish vances had fod Pope Gregory VII in 1074 to make an extraordinary alto lead personally a force of as many as 50,000 volunteers 10 "Nbenie” at ‘Christan Brothers in the East; We stted that with this army hesmight even. ‘push.on fo the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Pape Urban I, who had been in touch with the Byzantine emperor from the begining of his pontifiate, ‘with the aim of improving relations between the Latin and Greek churches, Pope Urban It 3 ima hav conde ling for French solute ond military ad to {be CESSES c-ac 40 is inert, gly improbble fatit behaviour ate he Counel of Piacensa ware opontaneou sponse othe appeal just made by the Grass tis far more likely to have been-one that Hat ong premediated ‘Wil isieai one can see how Urban 1 upbringing and ater had prepared him fr te sep he ao took, He he beet bo 1055 ino a orth Feach noble fom ifthe was probably asa fhe Count of Champagne: Educated a he prestigious School tached to the cated it Rem, he became canon and atchdeacon there, before leving son ther 106 emer the great Bugundian abbey of Clay, perp snder theinlenc of tat dese fra tterreligocs le which wt ead is ttacherS Bruno found the Carthusians By 10H te ables which had Ina him archdeacon st a very young ge had brought him th ofc of {Pand prior of Clan, the secondcommand to the abet. Clary was at cette of ecedastea! tn ands monks were caed wpa f sere tte Roman cari under Pope Gregory VIL. Urban was eppemed io the terdnavahopic of Osta, he ser oc i the calle of erdna stcentng ante pat grand prior of Cluny. He vest Rowe in 1080 tnd was Cag op the vette Cote sipecaly rng te winter of 100-5 when he wasting to shore up the crumbling suppor for Pope ‘Gregory in Getman. He wes one of ice persons nominated by Greg fe Me pouiblesuceors and ater the short ponttcate of Victor Hf Ustan Was led popeon 12 March 108-1 time as cnet Rel and mon ad pir at Chany ad conte wth me the vest laments in th SOTSEent, about Which nove below, sod hed tcposed hin To Wave nccid oth Chany onthe fence of seat Kntatsin the sevice ofthe Cure Hiseace in aly any ppa este im Getmany had introduced him tothe ast setormideanand to elt application i ecclesiastical politics. But above ally Birth he was pastcu: rehyqualied to know the tangs of he bags af Hanes ‘Asan cuts onthe began rely journey though aver ay before moving on to ance On 18 August 05 he wrsat Le Poy, the bidop of which, Adhemar of Montel, to play an inporant pat in the ersade, From there Use unmoned the Etech Diop cuncl abe hel aLCeritan nthe following November. He than taveld south o SG, in the dominions of Raymond ofS les, the coun of Toulouse anda fture lender af the crusade, bore weeling tthe Rhéoe valley to Cluny, which he seathed one 18 October: One of ‘Te rensons for Urbans vf France haben oddest ofthe Heat ner church tht had been buat Cluny. He eathed Clermont on 1 fr 16 November and opened the council on dhe Iath-On the 27h he prockimed the crude tos Trg but predominantly Cra guheig4 The Birth of the Crusading Movement ater which he journeyed through central, western and southesn France, skirting the area directly controlled by the king, whose excommunication {for adultery had been confirmed at Clermont. Urban must have preached the crusade a good deal himself, although we have evidence only of ‘sermons at Limoges at Christmas 1095, at Angers and Le Mans in February 1096 and at Nimes in July. He also presided over ceremonies at which enghts took the cross: possibly at Le Mans, certainly at Tours in March 1086, He re-crssed the Alps into Italy in August. By then the crusade was unde way ‘There were, many descriptions of the message Urban was trying to get actos at Clermont and on histor of France, but mostare not tobe trusted ‘because ey wre writen afer the erusade had liberated Jerusalem, when ‘no writer was immune from a general euphoria that bathed th ismedins Past in an artificial glow. But there is enough contemporary materic Paxticulrly ig.his own letters, for us to discern at least the oulines of ‘Uthan’s appeal. He called for war of iberaion, thus echoing the message of progressive ciufchmen forthe past fifty years, a half-century that wee One of the most remarkable Tn Christan hitory ‘The Choc hed oocned ‘one ofits periodical bouts of reform. The reformers wanted to free i from corrupt practices which they imputed above allo an excessive influence ot the laity in ecclesiastical appointments. They wanted a puter institution, more akin to the Early Church they perceived in reading the Acts of the Apostles. And since most of the reformers were monks, engaged iv & reform of monastcisem which pre-dated and ran parallel to the more feneral reform of the Church, they viewed the Early Church through monkish eyes. Is no exaggeration to say that they wanted to monastices the Christian world. They dreamed gf a clergy celibate and untainted by ‘worldly values, ministering to layanen and women who as far as they were able lived lives and adopted devotional practices that corresponded to ‘monastic ones. The energy expended on the cause was remarkable, So too ‘were the vigour with which the reformers encouraged the physica tractor mation ofthe Church’s presence all over Europe through the building of parish churches, each in its way & lage conventual chapel fora ly come ‘unity, andthe intelligence that led them to foster scholarship, partion, lary the study of grammar, history and eanon lw, to justify the campaign Most extraordinary ofall is the way the papacy was captured: itis no coincidence that so many of the popes ofthis period were monks them. selves. For most of is 2000-year history the papacy has not een in the forefront of reform, It has supported reformers and it has taken over and controlled seform.once thas begun, but only once, in the late eleventh eur, cami be sad that the popes Found themselves n the invigorating ‘uit dangerously exposed position of being the leaders of he Church. Pope Urban IIS $0 when Urban called for Hberaton, he was using a concep coloured by its employment in the last halfcentury by reformers who, it must be admited, had an exaggerated notion of liberty, bred in great exempt abbeys ike Chiny, communities which had heea-accusiomed to enjoy “uberis” granted them by the popes, which freed them from the power of Dishone and Kings. Thi aes for Heraton nthe West had aed ed foviolence. For over forty years popes had acsasionally supported the use Of fofee aginst those-who resisted the new ideas, most notably when Sround 1080 party of German magnates had drgged Pope Gregory VIL {ato war in Germany with the King and emperor-designate Henry IV. This. Grad spread to lialy and Gregory had been driven from Rome and an antipope estabiiffed there in his place. Urban Il had begun his pontificate in exile, ppored by powerful forces in Europe. His sucess in rebuilding support had culminated in his entry into Rome in 1084 and inthe Count of Pacena self, which was atended by alge body of bishops and by 2 significant number of representatives of lay powers. During this period of Confit the popes, moreover, had straordinarly BERVE sep of renouncing imperial protection on principle, thus exposing themselves to the greedy ambitions of the local Roman nobles, who had shown in the pt that Unless checked they were capable of treating their bishopric as a pawn. Faced with conflict within Christendom and fearing the nobility at sme, the popes, therefore, had every reason for trying-te-build up allover rece fT oignclin reo te ponl nd oy hed cet for help to allies jn_Italy, particularly the Normans-inthe south. It was ‘natural that this should have been accompanied by hyperbolic _d ‘unciations of the wickedness of their opponents, Sy demonstrat asthe stice oftheir cause and by assianges of absolution, even the crown o martyrdom, for their soldier, They Tad_alio turned to scholars for stfcation of Christan violence and Gregory VIL had foundin Anselm of {gatifeatin of Cran violence nd Gregory VIL ad foundin Anselm of east Tiuceaa partisan who, through a careful reading ofthe \ ‘Kunatne of Hippo, would build a convincing saz for Christian lence {85 something which could he commanded by God, was at the disposal of the Church and would, when propenly used, be an expression of Christian love, a ‘Since the summons to liberation in the eleventh-century western Church h sired edo th we of liberating foree it was only @ matter of time i _ before it would be extended fo areas in red fom more serions dati “western Brothers: Urban also sed the term “iberation’ of the Nomman-Count Rogers reconquest of Siey and ofthe Reconquest of Spain, wee the Christians had bepun fo teocepy thelr lat othe Mase nthe eighth century the allot ‘Toledo fo the Chistinsin 1085 had been asesaton. And itwas cei Gregory VII's propasal of 1074 had shown this ~ that when reformers,6 The Binh of the Crusading Movement accustomed as monks o constant references to Jerusalem and Zin in the Praimody of wie divi ‘office, thought of the East their min turned natal to Jrsalem. In this especie ist Crosse haa cori Bell: he inet momentum ofthe slo mosemcat orld gee have ed to isonet or ne ‘When he preached the crusade, however, Urban proclaimed wat with rating goa. The Bint was the teeing of the coven “Churches, ad especially the Church aCJeralem, tom the Sage aed ‘orany ofthe Musing, Ths ws the liberation of peoples tke Sees smembers of the Churches, nd Urban apparently pained ann peace life under Mastin rule and exaggerated the threat the Turk non senedg Constantisope~ their advante had paced out in 102 alone have seemed real enough to the Greeks Is clat that he coepiee tin 2d “I [inthis he was ike pede essors, who had always linked the Hberaton of specie newest faith ote needs ad renewal ofthe Churn at ges Dat thes ws og nother factor which made it impossible for him tote! the ese isolation. Since almost the sant of his poaticate Urten had eaten cal supported indeed the evidence sugensUhnt he Nel hed nc turated™ a drive to reocsiy Tarragona ghost tovn ieee went fity miles’ down the Spanish coat fom Barclona "The Cone nt Barcelona, who was beng encouraged tae is mae ton tothe pore as a ‘land of St Peter. Urban appointed an archishop, fonened nization, enjoiped, inthe language af indtlgences thet sia moe below, the notables ofthe region to ebuild the town in penton ne the remision of sin, and suggested that tove pleoiag ae penitent! plsimages, evento Juste, shoul teed wok fone take fnanialcontrbutons {0 the estoraon of Tartgovs which na sssured them, would gain the same spitual benef. it's pen ey Ca ‘eprsng that when, afer he had preached the stsade he lest dae Catalans were planning to ake the cos for Jerslem he sndercd eng stay at home where, he promised them, hey cul fall thes conde ‘because it sno virtue to rescue Christians from Musims in one place, only to expose them to the tyranny and oppression of the Muslims in another (©. Kehr, Papsturkunden n Spanien. 1. Ktalonien (1926) p. 288) For the rest of his pomtficate he specifically equated the war in the East with the reconquest of Spain “In our days (God) has fought through Christian men in Asia against the Turks and in Europe against the Moors’ (Urbn Il, ‘Epistolae et Privilegi’, PL vol. 151, col. 504). Pope Urban Il 7 In respect of the liberation and defence of people, therefore, he made lie distinction between the East and Spain. This must be stressed because only with tin mind does the future oferusading become understandable Some historians have suggested that erurades aimed elsewhere than t0 the East were deviations from an orignal deal, but infact the fst deviation cceurred during the First Crusade, was proposed by the originator of crusading, and stemmed irom a concern of his fo preserve an initiative that predated it “Ypecather goal of the crusade was the liberation of Jerusalem, a specific ‘place, Many historians have found it hard to believe that Urban was really Serious about Jerusalem and the idea of « western Christian army battling its way through Asia Minor and Syria to Palestine does look a st sight to have been quixotic. The theory has evolved that in fact the_goal of Jerusalem was secondary, perhaps long-term, and that Urban’s first con- ‘cemntas. to help the Greeks agaist the Turks, thus improving relations ‘ith the patriarchate of Censtaninople. Thee i, however, aexvhelming exe above alli the charters of departing crusader, for ere being a prime goa fom the start, which s understandable inthe context o coalenporarailsds- The concern of cleventrcontury Cathois th Jerusalem ~ the centre of the world, the focus of God's interventions in history and a relic, since its streets had been walked by Christ and its round had soaked up Cheis’s blood ~ was becoming obsessive, fostered. by pilerimages which, inspite ofthe fact that Urban apparently made play ‘othe suerings of pilgeims atthe hands frequency and numbers. "ST was the. pal of Temtalem, of course, thet a pilgrimage, There is no doubs that Urban preached it as pilgrimage a ‘hat he extended to crusaders the es and practices of pilgrims: the protection ofthe church for cwusaders and their property, and the public _ to the pilgrimage vow, made by a crusader and signified by his ‘wearing ofa cross, which enabled some sort of control tobe exercised over him, since « plgim was treated inlaw as a temporary ecclesiastic, subject to Church courts. Is clear from thei charter that the crusaders regarded themselves as pilgrims and while on crusade they engaged in the devotional an urge exes crater of pits. They wee, of cure warrior pilgrims, but although this was novel ~ there had never been Prins who set out th the neon of conquest ~ here aoe ben pilgrimages armed for self-preservation. Thete was, moreover, a tradition of violence associated with some of the great pilgrim centres in the West, in which the saints whose relics were the objects of the cults used miracles of force to protest the guardians of, or visitors to, the shrines Bot in another way the crusade wa it_was also a war, Urban tried to limit participation to arms-bearing8 The Birth of the Crusading Movement {znights, in other words to youngish, healthy men. He absolutely forbade monks to go: We were (he wrote) stimulating the minds of knights to go on this expedition... . We do not want those who have abandoned the world and have vowed themselves to spiritual warfare either to bear arms or 10 g0 on this journey; we go so far as to forbid them to do s0 (W. Wiederhold, ‘Papsturkunden in Florenz’, Nachrichten von der Gesellschafi der Wissenschaften zu Gotingen. Phil hist. K1. (1901), p. 313). He wanted to limit the number of priests to a: few as was necessary. He stated that the old, the infirm and women were not suitable, although women apparently could accompany their husbands or brothers. with permission from Church authorities. is statements on the unfit laity coutd ‘ot, however, be prohibitions, merely recommendations. Pilgrimages were traditionally devotional exercises for all penitens, whatever their condi tion ~ indeed those to healing shrines were for the sick ~ and it was lealy impossible to limita pilgrimage to healthy men, which is one reason why 36 many ofthe “unsuitable” did eventually take part in the crusade. Hsauthorized the warin his capacity a8 pope but itis clear that he also stated that he was acting on Christ's behalt. He wrote ofthe crusaders being inspired agents of Goct who were engaged in God's service out of Jove for him. He told them they were followers of Christ and he may well have referred to them as knights of Chris’ throughout France the crusade tras known as the eajo1 Gal” Howe coune wang te sees language already employed by reformers when they teferred to the em fagements of their military supporters: Gregory VIL had writen of his {ideles as “knights of Christ’ and Urban used this kind of language himself ‘when writing of military operations against the Muslims in Spain, North ica and Sicily, But tis noticeable that hi approach was somewhei more ‘strained than that of his predecessors. Had it not been forthe crusade’ success we would now be thinking of hs summons at Clermont merely 35 variant ofthe pronouncements of Gregory VIF. We shall see that it was the crusaders themselves, engaged in triumph in Asia, who came to consider that they really were involved ina divine enterprise. ‘Urban appealed particularly to French knights although as enthusiasm spread fe wis BRPUECTO OCR Ts tions to ter nso except of course Spaniards, and from the summer of 1096 he was anxious to make use ofthe maritime power of the Malian ports. In this he must have betrayed his origins and he was playing onthe emotions ofa class he knew intimately. Its significant that he aqaressed his appeal not just tothe great magnates but also to their followers, the castellans-and knights, {rom Pope Urban Il 9 tots fa Kafe ereng bey were seo moaien of ccs Wich nad reduced France chao, which why he steed te feenee Between the old eobber wari ~ the secre cutllan~ and the now Knight whos allustcpartcpaion in this war would be an act of Chis tian haiy, expressing love of Gottand of his eighbour. in ti regard he Sted toes pasages of spre: Uf any man wl come gtr me, ft im deny himself and take up his cross and follow me (Matt. 16: 24 or Luke 14: 27}; Every one that hath left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredjold and shall possess ie everlasting (Mat. 19:29); and Greer love than this no man hth that aman ay down Ms if ors frends (ohn 1.3). — ying Fresh nig Un nat sing an alin tse France and he aly See whieh a Seether By preaching the crusade ax a meritorious act of love which laymen were pertctleryquaifed to undertake he was presenting crusading ina ay that marked the culmination of a period in which the Church had pros {Geshe turned tothe lay fr support BUTEe west fsther in proposing thecrusade asa way ofthe cba for lajnen, Hitherto tat way had been 8 ‘itéraval rom te word, «renenlaton of early thing ina retreat at the closer. Now laymen were given something to do that was almost oquivalon io onesie: God has instituted in our time holy wars [wrote one contemporary], $0 that the order of knights and the crowd running in their wake, who following the example of the ancient pagans have been engaged in slaughtering one another, might find a new way of gaining salvation. ‘And s0 they aze not forced to abandon secular fairs completely by choosing the monastic lfe or any religious profession, as used to be the custom, but can attain in some measure God's grace while pursuing their own careers, with the liberty and in the dress to which they are accustomed (Guibert of Nogent, 'Gesta Dei per Francos', RHC Oc. vol. 4.. 124), Urban had taken a step along the road that would lead the Church to recognize the lay condition a a vocation in ite. He sealed his remarks on the merit of crusading by the grant at the Couneil of Clermont of the iadulgence. To understand what he did we igs FEE OF the time appear stil have maintained that penances,seimposed punis ‘in, could be satisfactory’ By which they meant That the pain_afd suiering thus voluntarily accepted could outweigh the punishments God would impose fa this wo al ban's iadilgnces were authoritative deca10 The Birth of the Crusading Movement the crusade wou ous and unpleasant hat it would make all penance owed 19 God 6) individ sinners, although he-sprees oe ‘have made @ distinction between the less demanding exercise of fighting in Spuin—the indulgence was ranted ony hoe whe died dee “Sat andthe sgours ofthe exmpign tothe Eat fon ahe see ‘which the indulgence was granted absotutety=————————~ ~ I should be stressed that apart from the appeal to the French and the idea ofa warplgimage confined o healthy male theresa a gown Uti meas, For amt ey sent preteen ud inthe practice of ere popes on he toner eg BF tstorming cies in Tay. It's tue thatthe sono ap ae taal and etn 1 many in France bur sc backvarnes of the provinces andthe difiely eae eee ‘etn Te ewe aco, Ui, of coun, combied thee foment 4 yes wich had never een quite stleved tela ‘ealy Wat the originator of the cusades- But ftw imorene eS development ofthe idea of criti wee ihe response here aa expres ofthe fst cde Asa Out fhe cate taumas of the papas the clemets ound cabeeme ena ‘message formed themselves into an ideology. ees ie i" The response ban not only preached the crusade personally during his jours though ane after Clemont, hea on lever ocr oe Pander; Geno, Bologna, Ps and Mian; andthe ervsade was cused 4 councils he held at Bari in October 1058 and Rome it April 1059 eet eto sd probably a he Coun of Nines i the Ylowing stmt © encouraged all the bishops present to preach the cross themcines Several flowed bis isactons, among whom the mot rome es Hugh of Die, the Archbishop of Lyon and an ardent reformer, but thee evidence that many did not. Very few surviving manuscripts of the a cisions of the Council of Clermont inclided the decree on the erased indulgence; they tended to contain only the selection of interest te the bishops who had them copied. And one which di include the decree a ng ‘made for Bishop Lambert of Arras, may not even have refected Lambert's concer, since he has left us his own account ofthe Council in-wtach a ‘mention is made of the crusade a all; for him the most important so ss the pope's confimation ofthe standing of his own bishopre, Mook sem to have been more enthusiastic and many were active recattng, ocers. There were ao free-lncers ike Petr the Hermit, But the nev ofthe pope's appeal spread fast ~ 50 fast, according to one contemporary, that there was no need of preaching and it soon became clea that thers ‘as going o be a significant response in France, Italy and South and West The response 11 Germany. This response was large enough fo cause comment atthe time, but just how large is now difficult to judge. Leaving aside the great numbers on the third wave of the erusade ~ the so-called Crusade of 101 ~ which were affected by the news of the liberation of Jerusalem in 1099, the following figures can be suggested very tentatively. A fair, perhaps too ‘conservative, estimate of the numbers on the second wave that gathered before Nicaea (enik) in une 1097 would be 43,000. Crusaders continued to overtake and join the army right up tothe fll of lersalem and beyond, ‘even though the total in the army during the siege of Jerusalem had fllen to 15,000, We might ad 3,000 for late departures. The armies ofthe fist wave were a last as large, possibly larger, than those of the second. So a guess for them would be 45,000 persons. This gives us a total of 91,000, of whom perhaps 7,000 would have been knights. We then have to take into account the substantial number who took the cross but did not leave; pethaps 45,000 or 50 per cent of the total number departing would be reasonable. So we end with a figure of 136,000, of which less than 10 per cent would have been knights These are guesses of course, but even much lower estimates produce a figure in excess of 100,000, whichis very substantial forthe time and bess the question why so many did respond. The population of Europe, which had been steadily growing, had reached the point at which the systems of inheritance and marriage practices were being put under severe pressure, [Tso Surprising tat he age was OT SSaneaonco the Wotlers and ven in forests and on marginal lands within old Europe. It was, therefore, natural for afew commentators tthe time and for many historians since 10 assume thatthe erusade Was a colonial venture, thatthe prospect of new territory (or setlement in a land referred (0 ia scripture as “lowing with milk ad one” situated ina region of eendary wealth, moved peasants, landless unmarried sons and members of families collectively sharing smaller sub-division ‘new life. On the other hand, the majority of commentators then and a minority of historians now have maintained thatthe chi motivation was a genuine idealism Tt is important to et out of the way certain matters on which all can agree. Fis, sny conclusion must bea generalization: there were naturally both adventurers and idealists on the eruside. Secondly, it is certain that conqueSt Was ITERTET TR TRENT Tt Was discussed at Clermont, since the pope had to make a ruling that churches in any conquered territory would appertain to the ‘prince’ who took it, although he must have assumed at the time full Byzantine collaboration and so would have ex- pected that the ‘prince’ would be the Byzantine emperor ‘reat majority of the fist crusaders returned home after Jerusalem had been liberated ~ the setters were on the whole men and women who travelled out to the Levantine territories after they had heen conquered —12. The Binh of the Crusading Movement but the exodus of crusaders from Palestine in late 1089 is not evidence that few of them had intended to settle there when they had left western Europe three years before; their experiences om the march had been $0 terrible that many could have changed their minds, Thirdly, itis worth remembering that, however, popular the First Crusade was, it did not appeal to everyone by any means. Most western Europeans did not res- pond at all to the pope's summons. Even in the classes of nobles and knights, about whom we have most information, the figure of, say, 13,000 respondents (of whom about half did not actually depart) represents a fraction of the total numbers: a England alone there wer c. 5,000 knights; in France andthe French-speaking imperial territories atleast 50,000. So wwe are concerned with the eaetions not ofan entire class but of a fraction of it, which makes the argument for a general idealistic motivation more credible. Fourthly, we should not expect this idealism tobe similar to ours, for even, as many recent studies have shown, to have corresponded to that fofsenior churchmen and theologians. Lay knights had their own ethos, the features of which are gradually becoming clearer tous. Christian morality certainly play Js important were other coded of honour, oF £0 ‘and feudal solidarity whish {ind expression ‘With these points in mind the situation and expectations of those who {ook the ross in 1096 can be discerned fatty clearly. Information about the distance to Palestine must have been frely available to them: many ‘westem Europpans had been on pilgrimage and a significant number of rights had served in the Byzantine forces as mercenaries. The distance and consequent expenses may not have deterred the very poor, who expected nothing and could, perhaps, have believed That Mei sGAtT68 expected to bring with them the equipment, horses, paek-animals and Servants required to fulfil theie function eftenly. Halla century Tater 8 ‘Germai Enight called upon 1o3ETVE The EMPETOTTM Italy nceded to put by for sucha campaign twice his annual income. The factor by which a French kaight would have had to multiply his income to estimate his expenses fora campaign inthe East inthe late eleventh century can only be guessed a bbut a factor of four or five would not be unceasonable. Substantial sums, therefore, were required by «knight before he could contemplate omg on cqyside, which makes The taditional picture oL landless knights departing shout i cae in tie World iealou Landless knights igo, but atthe ‘expense of richer mea. It can aso Be seen tht so many western European Knights planning to fight their way to the East involved the raising of substantial sums of money. There were various options open to them ould tax thei tenants, but I have found only one example ofthis, paps because the shortages atthe time were so acute that litle could be gained The response 13, “They could, if they had been involved in disputes oversights and property, reyounce claims that in the past they had sometimes enforced by violent oESaPs etry fr cach geyments Ths soto fave been fal com IMEn ahough a festare oe agivements of envaiaton wa he objec tnd humlaing way a which many ofthe Gains were given up eter, tke a pgs. the individuals concerned weve taly anxious not 10 depart from Europe leaving any fsa Hieclng behind thems, or the ater patie to the apreemen had now so much ofthe uper and tat they Wrere ble to tte terms that ined expesione Of rset for past Ciences, But inan apicltural economy the suns involved could only be Tased bya final option, the negotiating osgages arses of propery inctoding es an allode tose fecbold which were 40 valuable to families Dit Were more easly disposed of than fefs. That is why the pope td tthops athe Comet of Clermont legate to pass the salad MMorgagsnepvitd by crusaders and why So many carers of teas pet TEST foal tie catlaies Of churches and monasieces. catbelbya seen “The runas broken Of magcen harvest i 1086 afer a-wel spring thar scene ben GapueaT Sap eaow of Goats approval of he enterprise, bt tis OBWOUTy Soo TE Tor many Othe cadets, WHO HET Tay bon engaged in Seling oc mortgaging hei lands, And the seriownes of thei sation was Smpounded by tn ots that sales and mortgages were numerous end the umber of fnividvals or insiuion capable of proving ready cash fsa age aseale so fe tat he vale of goo in France was sak 1 have fallen Reading the charters that have survived one thing becomes lar. What wa being morigaged or sol Wes often patrimony, family and, and 309 ancien had t involve oot only the crusader but also the other Tremors of his amily who wold be covered by stems and woul signal therrapeement oi While one occsonally finds special payments beng trade e relives sceue thelr went andthe odd even wich members ofa family were ner involved tn igation over the messes taken, the spneral pitt sone of elatives making substantial sacifces. actual and FBtenisln aprecing tothe disposal of propery prove cash fr Serre sctcn: ual ven tt evldcoce wo sport th propos Telit casede was an opportu for spare sons to make themselves rare inorder to reove thet feilies of burdens, of for andes Knights tovteck an cay way to make a fuore for temselves overseas The tridence pois overwhelmingly to amles taking on burdens 0 help {ndsalmembers eens, quite apa rom te fc hat mong, ‘Beumapate, cantons and knights twas common fr several members ae essa Bala of Gunes look i out sns- of whom oveM4 The Birth ofthe Crusading Movement Falk, wast remain in Palestine - and frequen it was the senor rather than the junior members who went. say ‘ kl fre elev ha ox rsa oa et tox crusading KUM, Were motated by crude materi, The a posal of assets to invest in the ny emote poss of etter ta 2,0o-mile march tothe Eas would have been a stupid genie The ae moreover, could have been lewened simpy by waltng Util Mes she sgrcltaral depression had pase? an the od OF ROpETCe oe the saith sabe Teak muh wore Sese to suppose hat thoy, and famiics, were moved by seas, Thjs was an oe of ‘ostentatious and extravagant generosity and monasteries and religious: ‘communities benefited” greatly from it. If the phenomenal growth of ‘monasticism of the perid was due as much, if not more, to those who did ‘ot enier the commintes but endowed them from ouside weer iter the se © ie ofthe using movement. Behind many crusaders stood a lange body of men and. women who were prepared io sacrifice interest help them stout sop we mug ie ahunded yeas vate tn that time the central power of the {Carolingian sate Kad aeady‘ragmented. Real authority wos vo ones cxercsed by the king but by the great magnates, each in hf own prove ‘Tren ina process that is sill mysterious but may have had sometiong todo withthe fat that soy costed for wat no longer hd any neon oe than our ts apuresion inward pon el ay of themselves fragmented into smaller_units,.based of casles from which ascelfns and their bodies of knights xo terrorized their neighbours “onl the Taty could be disposed to canalize their en The response 15 reforni¢rs; particularly those inspted by ideas associated with Pope ‘Tran's own commanity of Cluny, began to try to construct abridge tothe secular world across which they could carry the ideas and values with which thay, wished to infise it They spearheaded the intense evangelization of the faithful, out of which came the conviction that the very aggressiveness that had broken up society could be put to good, Godl-siven purposes if gies into the sevice of the Church. The historians employed by the reformers were able to find 1 texts to justify the use of Such force, as we have seen, and the popes ‘were not alone in turning to laymen for military support. All over Europe churchmen were doing the same, while chaplains, concerned to put across the Christian message in terme their employers and their houscholds would understand, drew on the Olé Testament stories and Christian hagiography for heroic and mail tales which would appeal to their listeners and pethaps inspice them to do better. “Hei efforts were rewarded in te sense that, although society in the late eleventh century Was still iolent, it was less violent than it had been. There is, moreover, clear evidence for m1 is devotion among many lords and knighis, In a society which was so public that private devotions were i for laymen, these generally took tie form of participation in pilgrimages, themselves semi-monasi intone nid_liturgy_and closely linked to the monasteries because many of the shrines were in monastic hands, and in the endowment of new religious comm ‘and knights who had been touched by the reform-movement and were known for their pity were (0 be prominent among the crusaders, If it cannot be said that before 1005 the Church had ‘Been outsandagly Moccesfl in its appeals for armed assistance in the response to Urban’s cll its a though the hand it had been holding®3aT the lity for ty years was suddenly grasped and that at lst its perception they ime (o represent the only authorities, vient aad demanding Hat meh hnen. This breakdown tien of roneeal soe creat Wi compan by uno reached Peak jn the 1620s. The Church reacted in two ways, Fis. it preached # ‘near pacifism and took the lead iia movemeat. ey cera times ofthe year force the castellans and Ag topos von, ut tee wc oly be ome pelled by force ands the peace movement iuell cagendonn) aon actions agaist peaccbreaks, conducted in the nam of churchmen oie if hey were bishops and abbos, anyway had their own eeinusnof night The reform movement was pettng under Way Hic same tne aed the and the liy’s aspirations met. It surely ao eoincidence that the pope wh’ engineered his meeting of minds was himself a product ofthat class the Church had been most concerned to energize ‘The appeal to crusade also succeeded because it could be interpreted by the ay knight ‘with their own thinking. In their minds it ‘would fake on a colouring that churchmen did not like much but which they could do litte to control. For instance, this was an age of vendettas, Western European society consisted of many fight, interlocking circles, made up of families, at this time more Widely cncompassing than in the later Middle Ages, each bound by the knowledge that its members were kin and therefore “riends’, obliged to guard each other's interests, and of feudal groupings, of vassals round lords, which made the same demands on ‘relationships imposed on a man was bound to draw his sword16 The Birth of the Crusading Movement the interests of his relatives, lord ot fellow vassal I is significant that the fist appeal for crusaders was expressed in intimate, even domestic, terms Men were alle. upon 0.6 tthe aid of and had lost his "inheritance" or patrimony. That was a su endetta. ai | address fathers and sons and brothers and nephews, If an outsider were to strike any of your kin down would you not avenge your blood= relative? How much more ought you to avenge your God, your father, your brother, whom you see reproached, banished from his estates, crucified; whom you hear calling, desolate and begging for aid (Baldric ‘of Bourgueil, “Historia Jerosolimitana’, RHC Oc. vol. 4, p. 101) “That isan extract from a crusade sermon constructed about ten years later bby a commentator, but it certainly corresponded to realty. In September 1098 the leaders of the crusade in Syria informed Urban that ‘The Turks, who inflicted much dishonour on Our Lord Jesus Christ, have been taken and killed and we Jerusalemites have avenged the injury to the supreme God Jesus Christ (H. Hagenmeyer, Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088-1100 (1901), p. 161) “The potency of the idea ofthe vendetta was lealy demon pening actolthecruade, the firs holocaust’ of European ley, The fst ‘Sutbreaks of violent anti-semitism seem to have ocutred in France shorly after the Council of Clermont. They then spread to Germany and easter Eorope, where they were assocated with the fst wave of crusaders leaving forthe Eas inthe spring of 1096. On 3 May the storm broke over the Jewish community at Speyer, where a South German army under Enich of Leiningen, the most merciless ofthe perscutors, had gathered Emich proceeded to Worms, where the massacres began on 16 May, and then to Mainz, where he was joined by more Germans and by a large arty of French, English, Flemish and Lorraner crusaders, Between 25 and 29 May the Jewish community at Maina, one ofthe largest in Europe, was decimated. Some crusaders then marched north to Cologne from where the Jews had already been dispersed into neighbouting settlements. For the next month they were hunted out and destroyed. Another band seems to have gone south-west to Trier and Meta, where the massacres con- tinued. Meanwhile another crusading army, probably Ptcr the Hermit’, forced almost the whole community at Regensburg to undergo baptism and thecommonities at Wesseli and Prague in Bohemia sufered probably fom The response 37 the attentions of yet another crusading army, led by a priest called Fotkmat. "These pogroms were attributed by some contemporaries to avarice, and the erasaders certainly made financial demands ofthe Jewish communities and despoiled them; indeed, given the demands of the journey they were about to make they were obviously obsessed with cash. But the Hebrew ssccounts ascribed greed more 10 the local bishops, their offiials and townspeople then tothe crusaders, who seem to have been more interest} ig oreing comersions. Everywtere Jews were offeted the choice of con- ‘version oF death, and synagogues, Torah scrolls and cemeteries were Uesecrated. The Jews feared that the crusaders intended to wipe Judaism ‘out of the regions through which they passed. There is overwhelming evidence that upper stale minds as 2 def ‘engeance-They found i impossible o distinguish between Muslims an Jews and ifthey were being called upon, as they saw it, to avenge the injury to Christ's honour ofthe loss of his patrimony to the Muslims, wh, they asked. should they not also avenge the injury to his person of the Crucifixion ~a far deeper disparagement of his ‘honour’ ~ particularly in {he light of a popular legend circulating atthe time in which Christ on the toss had called on the faithful to avenge him? In fact the forcible con- ‘ersion of non-Christians was prohibited ia canon law and the German bishops, with varying degrees of success, tried to stop it, To educated ‘churchmen the Crucfision in 33 and the Muslim oecupation of Jerusalem in 636 were not the issues. 11 Wasa present jury the fact thatthe Musims -were stil i occupation ofthe Holy City, which justified the esac, not Some. woolly-conceptof past disparagement of honour. But once the ‘crusade had been preached as an expression of love for God and brothers it ‘was impossible for churchmen to control the emotions their appeal had Joused and throughout the twelfth century every major call to crusade fave rise to pogroms against JewsCHAPTER 2 The Course of the First Crusade ‘Since for reasons which willbe given later it s not helpful to describe the various groups of crusaders as ‘armies’, it is best to think of them in terms ‘of three waves of men and women leaving Europe between 1096 snd 1101, Even that analogy isnot a parcularly good one, because there was 2 continuous stream travelling East, so thatthe forces ofthe second wave ‘were being overtaken al the time by new recruits, and crusaders were stil centering Palestine as those who had won Jerusalem were leaving for home. ‘There war, moreover, a counterfiow of deserters back along the path and {rom a3 earl as the winter of 1096 the dslusoned, the sick andthe fearful were drifting back to western Europe. The first wave “The first wave of crusaders left very eal, in fet far too early, in the spring ‘of 1096, The most famous ofits leaders, 2 popular preacher called Peter the Hermit, had begun to preach the crusade in central Prance as soon as the Couneil of Clermont had met, pethaps even before. He collected a substantial following before moving on to the Rhineland in April. In advance of him, and probably on his instructions, large body of foo, Jed by only eight knights under the command of Walter Sansavoir (not “the penniless’, 2 i popularly supposed: Sansavoir was the cognomen of the lords of Poissy) entered Hungary on 21 May and marched in a fairly ‘orderly way to Constantinople. Thre was one serious outbreak of violence at Belgrade, predictably over foraging, and the absence of more trouble is femarkable considering the fact that Walter's early artval took the Byzantine authorities by surprise "AL Constantinople Walter was joined by parties of Itlian pilgrims and ‘on 1 August by Peter the Hermit, who had left Cologne on 20 April and had had’ much more difficult crossing of the Balkans, for which the inciscipline of his followers was largely to blame. His army marched peacefully through Hungary, but at Zemun, the last town in the kingdom, 8 rot broke out, the citadel was stormed anda large numberof Hungarians were killed. The crusaders were naturally anxious to escape retribution by crossing the river Sava into Byzantine teritory a soon as possible, and the attempts by a Byzantine foree to restict their movement were violently The first wave 19 resisted, They were in an ugly mood by the time they reached a deserted Belgrade which they probably sacked. Nevertheless the Byzantine gov- femor at Nit, unprepared though he was, tried to be cooperative and lowed them to buy suppliesin exchange forthe surrender of hostages. AS they were leaving, some Germans et fire to mills ouside the town and the governor sent troops to atack the rearguard. Many of Peter's followers, Fanoring his orders, turned on their attackers, but they were routed and scattered, The crusaders lost many men and women and all their cash Luckily, by the time they reached Sofia the Greeks were ready to receive them. They were now kept supplied and on the move and reached Con- stantinople without farther incident ‘Walter and Petet were received well by the Byzantine emperor Alexis and were advised 10 wait uotil the other bands of crusaders, which were known to be aisembling in Europe, arrived. But Peter's impatient followers took to raiding the surrounding countryside and i isnot surpris- ing that the Greeks decided thatthe sooner the crusaders were moved on the better. On 6 August they were ferried across the Bosporus; they then marched to Kibotos, a suitable assembly-point where they could wait for the rest of the crusade. Differences arose between the Germans and Tialians on onesie, who elected their own leader, an Italian noble called Rainaldo, and the Fench on the other. From Kibotos the Freach raided as far as Turkish Nicaea and Rainaldo’s patty sought to emulate them, The Germans and Italiane broke away and established a base beyond Nicaea, but on 29 September they were surrounded by the Turks and surrendered tight days later. Those who agreed to apostasize were sent to the East, but fll who refused were killed. When the news of this disaster reached the main body, Peter the Hermit was away in Constantinople and the French usados, ignoring WaltetSansavoir's peas for caution, advanced into the imerior on 21 October. They were ambushed by the Turks and were snnihilated ‘Walter and Peter at least reached Asia Minor. Three other armies, which marched at about the same time, got no further than Hungary. A. force of Saxons and Bohemians under the priest Folkmar was destroyed at Nitta. Another unruly band under a Rhineland priest called Gottschalk vas fored to surrender tothe Hungarians at Pannonhalma, And the large txmy of Rhinelander, Swabian, French, English and Lortainer crusaders ‘under Emich of Leiningen, which had been persecuting the Jews in the Rhineland, was halted before Wieselburg on the Hungarian frontier ‘where, aftcr taking six weeks to build abridge over the river in front ofthe town, its First assault dissolve into panic and fight tis wrongly assumed that these forces, ‘The People's Crusade’, con- sisted almost entirely of peasants in contrast to those that left Europe later in 1086, This was certainly an explanation given by contemporaries for their20. The Coune of the First Crusade massacres of Jews, their indiciplne i the Balkans and theirfaiture in Asia ‘Minor. But, although there may have been more non-combatants than in the later armies, there was ¢ strong knightly element as well. Walter Sansavoir was an experienced Knight; so appear to have been Peter the Hermit's captains, one of whom, Fulcher of Chartres, was to end his days as.a great lord in the county of Edessa, the earliest Latin settlement. ‘Attached to Peter's following, moreover, was a body of Swabian nobles ‘under the Count Palatine Hugh of Tubingen and Duke Walker of Teak. Enich of Leiningen was an important South German noble, So was Count ‘Hartmann of Dillingen-Kybourg, who joined him at Mainz. They were probably accompanied by at least four other German counts. The army of French, English Flemish and Lorrainererusaders, which also met Emich fat Mainz and was apparently large and well-equipped, vas under the leadership of an outstanding group of French knights: Clarembald of ‘ence, Thomas of Marle lord of Coucy, Wiliam the Carpenter viscount of Melun, and Drogo of Nese. They may have made up a French advance- fuard, since after the destruction of Emich’s forces they joined Hugh of Vermandois, the king of France's brother, and continued their journey to the East with him, We cannot allow ourselves to be tuled by the comfor- ting belie thatthe persecution of Jews was perpetrated by mere gangs of peasants, oo unprofessional to cope in the Balkans and Asia Minor. have already tried to explain the pogroms. One ofthe reasons for the catastrophes that befell this first wave of crusaders was that they left Europe before the date set by the pope, which was 15 August 1096. Leaving while western Europe wa stlin the grip of near famine conditions, before the marvellous harvest ofthat summer, they were short of food from the start In the Balkans they had 10 pillage when the markets were not fvalable to them and even with access to markets they were anxious ‘bout supplies. Iti clear that over and over again it was disputes about provisions that led to disorder, The Byzantine government, moreover, was “unprepared. It had not set up the organization to guide the crusaders: nor ‘id it have the supplies to give them. And the failure ofthe armies of Folkmar, Gottschalk and expecially Emich of Leiningen to get through at all meant that Peter the Hermit and Walter Sansavoir didnot have ade ‘uate forces in Asia Miner. The second wave “The second wave of crusaders hegan to leave western Europe in the middle ‘of August, on of after the date fixed by the pope. At this stage they traveled in separate corps, each mustered from a region and many under the leadership of great magnates, Hugh of Vermandois let France in the middle of August and travelled by way of Rome to Bari, from where he set sail for Durazzo (Durrés). Buta storm scattered his leet and Hugh, who The second wave 21 was forced to land some way from Durazzo, was briefly detained before being etcorted to Constantinople. At about the same time Godfrey of Bouillon, the Duke of Lover Lorraine, left with his brother Baldwin of Boulogne and a paryaf Lorrainer nobles. Godfrey isthe most famous of the first crusaders, bathe one we can understand the least. He had been born e. 1060, the second son of Count Eustace II of Boulogne and Ida of Lorraine. His elder brother, Eustace Ul. inherited Boulogne and the family's great estates in England 4 litle after 1070, Six years later Godtrey’ maternal uncle left him the duchy of Lower Lorraine, the mmarguisate of Antwerp, the county of Verdun and the tersitoris of Bouillon and Stenay. But King Henry IV of Germany postponed con- firmation ofthe grant of Lower Lorraine and Godirey only acquired the duchy in 1087, while he had to Gght what amounted to a temyear war fagainst his aunt, the formidable Mathilda of Tuscany, who had no in- tention of renouncing her claims o her husband's lands, andthe Bishop of Verdun andthe Count of Namur, who backed her, before he was firmly in Control ofthe other properties. Until he tok the cross he had not shown, ny marked piety and its clea from the terms of the mortgage agreements he drew up that in 1096 he Rad no defnite intention of setting inthe Eas In ecclesiastical polities, moreover, he had been frmly on the side ofthe German king and against the eeforming papacy. His maternal grandfather land uncle had been imperialist, and thore who had stood inthe way of his inheritance, Mathilda of Tuscany and the Bishop of Verdun, were partisans of Pope Gregory VII, He himself had fought for Henry 1V and had probably taken pat inthe seizure of Rome from Gregory in 1084 “The personality of Godfrey's younger brother Baldwin is cleater to us. Born between 1061 and 1070, he had deen destined for the Church and had been presented with prebends at Reims, Cambrai and Liege. But in the ‘ew climate of reformist opinion such pluralism was intolerable and it may te that he was forced to surrender some of his benefice. At any rate he had left the Chureh by 1086, too fate to enjoy a share in the family inheritance which had already been divided between his brothers. This helps to explain the animosity Baldwin was to show later to reformers and reform ideas. He was poor and his need for money may have led to his marriage inc. 1090 to Godehilde of Tosny. the child of « powerful ‘Anglo-Norman family, who was to die during the crusade. He was an intelligent, caleulating and ruthless man. He was not pleasant, but his strength of personality and quickness of mind were to be of er. the crusaders and the early setters in the East Passing through southern Germany, the two brothers and thes following reached the Hunguvian border in September. Here they delayed to get Cdearance from the king, who had alteady smashed three crusading armies. Baldwin was persuaded (o be @ hostage forthe crusaders’ behaviour and22 The Course of the First Crusade Godrey issued strict instructions against plundering. Late in November he reached Byzantine territory. Heating a ramour that Hugh of Vermandais twas being held prisoner bythe emperor, he allowed his followers to pillage the region around Silvel until he was assured that Hugh was free. He reached Constantinople on 23 December and camped outside the city near the head of the Golden Horn ‘Bohcmond of Taranto had crossed the Aratic with quite a small force cof South Ttalian Normans a fortnight after Hugh of Vermandois. About forty years old, he wat Robert Guiscard’s eldest son and had played a Iading par in his father's invasion of Byzantine Albania in 1081. Robert had lft him his conquests on the easter shore of the Adriatic, which the Normans were slready losing, and in consequence Bohemond had found bimecf effectively dsinherited, since his younger brother Roger had been [eft Apolia. Although in he late 1080 he had carved out for himself large toceship in southern Italy, he was sill relatively poor. There is no doubt that he was ambitious and wanted a principality, possibly to be wom atthe txpense of the Greeks who had tetaken the lands he should have been enjoying in Albania, The Greeks, who believed that he had also inherited from his father designs on the Byzantine empire itself, recognized that he twas very able; in fact he was © prove himself to be one of the finest feneras the crusading movement produced. He was also inteligent and Pious, and he wes pethaps the only leader who really understood the frotives ofthe reforming papacy. Byzantine officals were prepared for is Errval, bu the leal inhabitants, eho had afterall experienced a Norman invasion quite recently, refused to sell him provisions, So his followers had to forage until they were assured of supplies by the Byzantine government ‘once they had passed Thessaloniki, They also destroyed a small town, which they thought was occupied by heretics and they had a brush with Imperial troops who tried to hurry them along. Bohemond, infact, had to spend time and energy tying to restrain his followers from looting even in ‘Thrace and when he went on ahead to Constantinople, which he reached ‘on 10 April 1057, his econd:in-command, his nephew Tancred who was to prove himself tobe one ofthe ableet of the easly ules of the settlements in the East, allowed the Normans to forage inthe countryside not far from the Byzantine capital. ‘Bohemond was closely followed by the Count of Toulouse, Raymond of ‘Gilles, who ws now in his mi-fites and was by the standards ofthe time an elderly man, He had spent thirty years patiently reassembling his fancestral lands, which had been scattered into other hands, and was now master of thirteen counties in southern France. He was connected by rmatriage tothe Spanish royal houses and it is posible, though not certain, that he had fought in the Spanish Reconquest. For at least twenty years he had supported the cause of church reform, although itis by n0 means cle Tae second wave 23. that he really understood what it entailed. At any ste Pope Urban re farded Raymond as an ally and before the crusade was proclaimed at CGermont had already picked him 1 be the leader. The pope had visited St Gilles before the council and may have discussed the expedition with Raymond there since, in what must have been a pe-arranged coup de ‘arr, the day after Urban’ sermon the Count’ anbassadors arrived at Clermont to commit their master to the enterprise. There were rumours that Raymond had vowed never to return home. Whether they were tee for not this elderly man had made the remarkable dcsion to desert the Tands he ha taken 30 long to contolidate, leaving hi eldest son in charge ‘of them, and to go with his wife on a hazardous jourrey tothe East. There SS evidence that he had prepared for this more efficiently than any of the ‘ther leaders: certainly his fellowers fared better in ihe ordeals ahead than {id the other crusaders. But he seems to have been chronesly ill, which is tot surprising when one considers his age. He sharedieadership of perhaps the latgest force with Bishop Achémar of Le Puy, who hed vigorously Upheld the cause of reform in southern France from the 10805, had been “ppointed papal legste onthe crusade by Urban, anc was to dominate the ‘buncils ofthe leaders until his early death, Raymond and Adhémer had tnarched through northern Italy, round the end ofthe Adriatic and through Dalmatia, where the locals had been hostile. Escorted by imperial troops, ‘who were prepared fo treat roughly any who diverged from the route. they hhad reached Thesseloniki at the beginning of Apil. Raymond himself reached Constantinople oa the 2st, but before they arrived six days later his troops wete severely bruised ina clash with ther Greek escorts, who ‘were doubles tying fo prevent them from foraging ‘Duke Robert of Normandy, Count Robert of Flanders and Count Stephen of Blois eft France in the autumn of 1036. They journeyed by way ff Rome and Monte Cassino to Bar Robert of Flanders crossed the ‘Adriatic almost at once and reached Constantinorle at about the same time at Bohemond. Robert of Normandy and Stephin of Bois wintered in southern Italy and joined the others in Constantincple c. 14 May, “The crusaders’ experiences at Constantinople crucaly affected the rest of the campaign. No one was certain what part would be played by the Greeks, but it seems that most of the leaders were expecting thei full patieipation in the eampaign and possibly even tha the emperior Alexius Srould himself take overall command. inthe spring of 1097 Alexius dis “ussed withthe leaders already in Constantinople, Godfrey of Bouillon. Robert of Flanders, Bohemond snd perhaps also High of Vermandois the possibility of taking the cross himself and assumirg command. Any res- Ponte of his part may simply have been poi; cetanly when Raymond OF St Gilles arived and made the emperor's leaderhip a pre-condition of Not To Be Taken OW ‘Aacorve Resding Room24 The Course of the First Crusede his acknowledgement of his subordination to him, Alexius excused hime ‘on the grounds that his presence was needed in Constantinople. And although there was close cooperation between Greeks and Latins during the siege of Nicaea and then a token, but welcome, Greek presence as fat ‘8 Antioch ~ welcome Because the Byzantine's government's represen tative, a Hellenized Turk and experienced military commander called Tatikio, provided guides there remained, after Taikios's withdrawal in February 1098, only afew Greek officers and clergy, while, in the crusade’s wake, an imperial army concentrated on re-establishing Byzantine contol lover the coast of Asia Minor as far as Antalya, By Tune 1098 Alexus himself had moved with an army of Greeks and lately-arrived erusaders ‘only ar far as Akgehir, under half-way from Constantinople to Antioch. Erroneous reports of the situation in Antioch and rumours of the mustering of a large Turkish army in Anatolia led him to withdraw even from there. abandoning the crusade to its fate. By the summer of 1098 Greek participation had shown itsel to be hal-hearted at best. 'As far as Alexius himself was eoncerned, another issue was paramount Help of «very different sort to that he had envisaged had arrived and the crusaders had already caused him major problems as they had advanced through the Balkans and approached Constantinople. He was thoroughly suspicious of them, particularly of Bohemond of Taranto, and he must have felt that he had to ind some means of controling them. He may have worked out 2 method of doing so in the late autumn of 1096 when Hugh of Vermandois was his prisoner-cumguest. Alexus tried t0 isolate the leaders in order to deal with each of them separately his daughter Anna in her encomium of him wrote that he feared for an attack on Con- santinople if they mustered together ~ and he demanded two oaths, in Teturn for which be presented them with large sums of money, gifts not a= lavish as they might seem. since he obliged the crusaders to pay for goods bought in his markets. They were, of course, desperate for supplies and therefore ata disadvantage, which was compounded by the fact thatthe ‘only real alternative to refusal of the emperor's demands was to return home ‘The Sis of the onths was promise to hand back to the empire all the lands ta be liberated which had once belonged tit. This provided Alexius ‘ith legitimate grounds for claiming sovereignty over the territories likely to be won, since itis clear thatthe erusaders had 20 intention of trying 19 ‘conquer land that had not once been Christan. The second was an oath of ‘homage and fealty, similar to the contracts entered into by vasall non asain the West which were not accompanied by the reciprocal grant of a fet It gave Alexius a measure, admittedly limited, of control. The leader’ reactions to the demands for these oaths were not consistent. Hugh of Vermandois (as far as we know), Robert of Normandy, Rober of Flanders The second wave 25 and Stephen of Blois raised litle objection. Godfrey of Bouillon and Raymond of St Gilles made difficulties, and although Bohemond of ‘Taranto did not, his secondsin-command Tanered did, perhaps revealing Bohemond’s real attitude, 1t as been suggested that was no coincidence thatthe objectors were the men who eventually settled inthe East and that the divisions among the leaders that surfaced in Constantinople continued for the rest ofthe crustde, But fac it was nota all clear at this stage who ‘would settle in the Levant and it is more reasonable to look atthe leaders’ predicaments in tur. ‘Hugh of Vermandois was a near prisoner when the oath was demanded ‘of him. He was also virualy alone. As for Godfrey, it has already been pointed out thet he had set out in 1096 with every intention of returning to Europe, atleast ifthe Eat wast offer him nothing beter. Iti, therefore, tnlikely that the oaths were unattractive because they might li freedom of action inthe future, He was obviously distrustful, concerned that Hugh of Vermandois agreement had been extorted from him, and unwilling to take any step before consulting the leaders whose artival was ‘expected. Alexius put pressure on im by cutting off his supplies. Godtrey fesponded to this threat to his force's existence by authorizing his brother Baldwin ora the suburbs of Constantinople. Supplies were restored and there followed three months of relative peace until Alexius, heating ofthe approach of more crusading armies, cut of supplies once more. Again the frusaders response was 10 use force, the only weapon at their disposal ‘This culminated in an aiteck om the city on Maundy Thursday, which was beaten of by the Greeks. Godfrey must have realized that force would not {et provisions restored, and so, in a desperate situation, he and his leading followers took the oaths and his troops were immediately transported out ofthe way, across the Bosporus. BY the time Bohemond of Taranto arrived, therefore, Alexius had succesfully wrung caths from Hugh of Vermandois and Godirey of Bouillon, So Bohemond was in no position to refuse outright, although Taneted managed to slip through Constantinople without submiting, ‘There is litle doubt that Bohemond wanted to carve out a principality for himself in the East, but he was not particularly well off and his force was a small one. If the report that he cequested the office of Grand Domestic ommanderin-ciet ofthe Byzantine army is true, it was quite a sensible ‘move on his part, because he could then have ensured adequate Greek ailitery support for the crusade. ‘Since Raymond of St Gilles may have made a vow never to return to is ative land he may have hoped for an easter principality, but it was the performance of homage and oath of fealty rather than the promise to feturn teritory tothe empire that raised difcultes for him. He appears 0 have believed thatthe making of homage confcted with hs crusade vow to26 The Course of te First Crusade serve God, and in spite of the efforts and irtitation of the other crussde leaders he would not change his mind. He compromised by taking a more limited oath to respeet and maintain the emperor's life and honovr, for hich there were parallels inthe region of France from which he eame, We ‘know nothing of Robert of Flanders's reaction, but by the time Robert of Normandy and Stephen of Blois arrived the precedents had been set and, whether they liked them or not, there wa litle option but to follow them, ‘The various parties were shipped separately across the Bosporus from April 1097 onwards and in early June they all assembled in one army before Nicaea, the first important city in Asia Minor which was in Turkish hands The events in Constantinople left the cruside leaders frustrated and Aisiusioned. After long marches they had artived short of supplies and luncertsin about the future rOle of the Greeks. They found the emperor feluctant to take on the burden of leadership, apparently ony interested in the recovery of imperial terstories ~ which, toe fair, was what he had wanted in the fist place ~ and prepared to use every measure at his disposal, from the distribution of largesse tothe denial of supplies, to force cach prince in turn to take the oaths before his conferes arrived. Although ‘Alenius gave them rich gifts of cash, moreover, these only provided the ‘means to buy provisions in his own markets. No wonder that fom thi ie ‘onwards most of the crusaders distrusted and disliked the imperial gov. Although its inhabitants were stil mostly Chistian, Nicaea was the chief residence of the Selchk sultan of Rum, Kill) Arslan the most powerfl Turkish prince in Anatolia. The capture ofthe city was esental before the crusade could advance down the old military oad tothe East It had been weilfortied by the Greeks and was held by a strong Turkish garrison, But Kil Arslan himself was away with the bulk of his forces, disputing Malatya ‘with his chief rival, an emir called Danishmend, and was out of touch. By the time the frst of his tops had been rushed back the city was invested and the main body of his army flied to break through the cordon on 21 May, although it inflted heavy losses on the crusaders. Kil) Arslan withdrew, leaving the city and his wif, family and much of his treasury to their fate, but it was not until Greek ships had been launched on Tank Gola (Lake Ascanivs) on the shore of which it stood, that Niceca was ‘entirely isolated. The garison opened negotiations with the Byzantines and on 19 June, the day appointed fora general assault, the crusaders saw imperial banners flying over the town. Alexivs had saved himself any ‘embarrassment by having Nicaea surrender directly to himself, but he now took the opportunity of demanding and receiving oaths from those leaders, including Tancred, who had not yet made them. Between 26 and 28 June the erisiders set out across Asia Minor, ‘The second wave 27 marching in two divisions, one ¢ day ahead ofthe other. The first, under Bohemond's command, consisted of the Normans from Ialy and France together with the followers of Robert of Flanders and Stephen of Blois, and the Greeks; the second, under the command of Raymond of St Gilles, ‘was made up ofthe touthern French and the Lorrainers and the force of Hugh of Vermandois. Close to Doryiaeum at dawn on 1 July Kili Arstan's ‘Turks, supplemented by troops provided by Danishmend and the ruler of Cappadocia, who had surrounded Bohemond’s corps during the night, launched an attack, forcing the Christan knights back on to the mass of armed and unarmed pilgrims with them. This confused crush of men, although unable to strike atthe enemy, could defend itself quite effectively andthe batle remained deadlocked fortwo or three hours uni the arrival Of the second corps, hurrying in separate columns, each of which was answering Bohemond’s cll fr help a8 best it could, surprised and routed the Turks. "The crusaders rested for two days after this great victory and then teaumed their march by way of Akfehir and Kenya through & country already laid waste inthe aftermath of the Turkish invasions and further devastated by a scorched-earth policy adopted by their enemies. At Eregli, 10 September, they put an army blocking their way to fight, Tancred and Baldwin of Boulogne now broke away to raid Cilicia, taking advantage ofthe existence in that region of string of petty Armenian principalities, tstablished precariously out of the chaot of the last few decades. The crusaders did not cooperate with one another, but their quarrelsome progress was welcomed by the Armenian population which had recently feted in the area and they took Tarsus, Adana, Miss and Iskenderun before rejoining the main army. Baldwin left again almost at once with a small force and with an Atmesian adviser who had attached himself :0 him, to follow the seam of Armenian principalities eastward. He 100k two fortresses, Revanda and Tilbeyar, withthe asistance of focal Armenians and wa then invited by Toros, the prince of Edessa (Urfa), whose position was newly established and very insecure, to become his aéopted son and partner. On 6 February 1098 he reached Eaessa, but a month later the ‘Armenians in the city rioted, perhaps with his connivance; on 9 March ‘Toros was killed by the mob while trying to escape, and on the following day Baldwin took over the government entirely. Fe had established the fist Latin settlement in the East, comprising Edessa the fortresses of Ravanda and Tilbejar and, within a few months, Biresik, Suric and Samsat, The region was prosperous and from the autumn of 1098 money ‘and horses poured out of Edessa to the crusaders in Antioch, Godfrey of Boullon himself was given the castle and estates of Tibesar and his comparative wealth was very apparent inthe later stages ofthe crusade; by means of it he was able to augment his following, signiticantly at the28 The Course of the First Crusade ‘expense of Raymond of St Gilles, and this may have contributed to his ‘lection as ruler of Jerusalem. We shall see that Baldwin at Edessa was fable in another way to contribute to the crusade’ salvation at a vital ‘moment. Bu, in the light ofthe bitterness later felt by the Greeks atthe ‘refusal ofthe erusaders to abide by their oaths and restore Antioch tothe empire, i is of interest to note that although Tarsus, Adana, Miss, Iskenderun, Ravanda, Tilbesar and Edessa had all been Byzantine, no ‘move was made to restore them to Greek rule or even to recognize Greek stzcrainy. The Grecks were fer away ofcourse, The ony detachment was still marching with the main crusading army, which was why a French ‘knight called Peter of Aups was appointed to hold Comana ‘in fealty 0 God and the Holy Sepulchre and the princes (of the erusade) and the (Byzantine) emperor’ when it was reached. The apparent refusal of ‘Tapered and Baldwin even to consider the issue of Byzantine sovereignty ‘was e pointer to the fuure. “The main force of crusaders, meanwhile, must have been advised that passage through the Cilcian Gates in the Taurus mountains and paticu- larly through the Syrian Gates, the Belen pass which cuts the Amanus range north of Antioch, was hardly possible if these were adequately defended. The leaders decided to add many miles to their journey bY ‘winging north to Kayseri and then southeast by way of Comana Goksun to Maras (Kahramanmaras), by-passng the main bulk of the Amanus, This brought the erasers on to the open plain north of Antioch, Which they reached on 21 October. They were in a moderately good sate as faras provisions went, and a Genoese fleet, which docked at Magarack, the port of Antioch, in November, brought more supplies. But already, ile his throne was contested by Oto of Brunswick. The papal legates in France, Robert of Courgon and Archbishop Simon of Tyre, had aroused teat enthusim among the poor, but the Fifth Crusade was not popula the French nobles and was tobe unusual n that i was nt dominated by them: they had permape Been too deeply involves in the Albigersan Crusade. The indifference of so many of the French Knights word thoughtful churehmen, But this lack of commitment was more than made up for elsewhere, particularly in Hungary. Germany and the Netheriands, Where the succes of oe af the Best of he preachers, Olver of Paderbos, was said to have been literally phenomenal, being accompanied by mic ales King Andcew of Hungary, who had taken te cross in 1196 but had been _ranted a series of postponements by the popes, was the first 10 move. Hit Fepresentatves negotiated withthe Venetians for a feet 10 meet him a Spl, bur when his army. containing contingents led by the dukes of Austria and Merano and the archshop of Kelocse and many bishops, abbots and counts from the empte and Hungary, mustered therein ‘August 1217, it was found thatthe king's envoys had fallen into exactly the ‘opposite trap to that sich had ensnared the ambassadors ofthe Fourth ‘Croside. Too maay toops arrived for the ships avaiable and the main body had to wat for several weeks before embarkation, Many knight returmed home or made plans for sting inthe following spring. ‘lage army of crusaders gathered at Acre in the atu: too many, ia ‘act, foF the food to hand, because @ poor harvest had led to famine conditions in Palestine. Crsaders were even being advised to rum home. Before they had conte the King of Jerusalem, John of Brienne, and the masters ofthe three Miltary Orders ofthe Temple, St. John, and St ‘Mary of the Germans, had been considering plans for two teparate ba simultaneous campaigns: one to Nablvs with the intention of recovering {he West Bank lands and the other to Damietta in Egypt. Now a counc of-war met and, putting both ofthese aside fo the time being, decided © promote a series of Soallscale expeditions to keep the enemy, abd ‘doubtless the troops Acre, occupied until the rest ofthe crsade artved. In early November 4 reconnaistanceiforce pillaged Bet She'an and crossed the Jordan south ofthe Sea of Galilee on the LOth, before marching ‘up the eastern shore ofthe lake and returning to Acre by way of is Bana! ‘Ya'gub. After a brit rest the crusaders marched against Mount Tabor Galle, which the Muslims had frtised: the threat from it had bees referred toby Innocent IIT Quia maior. On 3 December they advanced ‘up the mountain in mis, but thei attack failed, at did second asset The courtMef the Fifth Crude 147 ‘to days later. On 7 December they returned to Acre. A thitd expedition, ‘of not more than 500 men, set out not long before Christmas fo attack ‘wigands in the mountainous hinterland of Sidon, but twas ambushed and destroyed Meanwhile the King of Hungary, who had played no pat in operations after the fst reconnaissance-n-force, was making preparations fo return ome. He left for Syria early in January 1218 and reavelled overland to Europe through Asia Minor, taking many of his subjects with him. The ‘crusaders who remained in'Acre occupied themselves with the refor tifcation of Caesarea and the building of x great new Templar castle at “ALi unt fresh reinforcements arrived. These began to sil nto Acre on 26 Apri. With large sumbers of Frisians, Germans and Italians now assembling and, just as importantly, with an impressive et at their disposal the Iaders decided thatthe time had come to invade Egypt. On 27 May the vanguard of the invasion force arrived at Dumietta, Meeting lie resistance, the erusaders chose a site for thet encampment, which they fortified witha moat and wal, on an sland opposite the city, bordered by the Nile and an abandoned canal. It was tobe eighteen months until Damieta fell. During this peviod the besiege were to be reinforced by Italian, French, Cypriot and English crasders, although there were, of course, also departures: for instance Leopold of Austria lft in May 1319. ‘There was obviously the need felt for some sructare of command and King John of Jerusalem was given the overall leadership, although that seems to have meant litle more than the presidency of & seering committee. In September 1218, moreover, the papal legate Pelagus of Albano arive, Pelagius had a strong personality and he was prepared to challenge John's ‘sumption that Egypt would be annexed to his kingdom if it 82s con ‘queted. His voice became dominant on the committee and John slipped Imore and more ina the background. Tn the fist stage ofthe siege the Christians strove 10 take the Chain Tomer, an imprestve forieation onan ielnd in the middle of the Nie, fiom which iron chains could be raised to halt river trafic, Various measures were tried before Boating sege-engine designed by Oliver of Paderborn himself, a miniature castle with a evolving scaling ladder incor- porated int it, was built on twa cogs lashed together and was sent sgaint {he tower on 28 August 1218, Altera ferce fight the exusaders gained a foothold on the tower, the surviving defenders of which surrendered on the following day. The sultan of Egypt was said to have died of shock after ly press home their advantage and the Musims countered the loss ofthe tower by blocking the Nile with sunken ships In October the erusaders had to fight of wo determined attacks on their camp. And they laboured to dredge the abandoned canal that, Not To Be Taxen Ow Ancanve Aanding Room148 Cruading at ts Height, 1187-1229 Sounded its tht hey could bypass Danie and beng het above i The cna nas open by cay December, bt te wits wl exceptional severe and thy sued ineely om Bows wis de trojed the povsone a nan ad overt the Ma Sn the Mies nem stig fortes, ul thse om cops whe thy hl been contreing. In early Peary TB, however, the Main can fing them abendond i asamp eat tne sy on bearing of fit ofthe new Egyptian sta, no hd usovereds ptt depen tnd order os resred olf prevent he Christan cons he Ns sn eigen ath Banting rowsions, They now bald other ote ner nd bl ‘between them. =o ee ’At tis pot he Eypingovemment sued for terms open suneader the tery ofthe Hingdom of ersten excep Treat indo dio ten tec ce The King of ease war avout oceans bat a ted the Mary Orr were ven ate he Eyinn ced tote ier are’ of 15600 besent yer eso Kara ad Sabah Tramjodtn. They ta, meso, boca stfored by aay fos Byte, Tarophost Marc, Ap an ay they lurched te one new Crista camp The cede ul ecovd pontoon be, eg er trig vests, ow hey and fom 8 Ty they made sero det aston Dama th pine lel ofthe Ne mae imposible fornem 0 each he cys ner wal wis hess es ‘The Mosins out the ey, who had teyonded wth oane sac, penetated deep ito the Chan camp ov 31 ly etre being Ses fu. On29 Aout th crandrsGessedolunch an acon he Mason Encampment, et raw no ap by fed naval hey we Baaly male when trains fred, The mutant one teopned segottors, aight previous pops the prom To py tebuig of the wal Jerslem tthe caso ety Sead td ‘Tinine. He so ofered theo the Tre Cros sich been tt Hatin, The King of ersten, the Frenchy te Engh andthe Tee Kags were fo aseptanc, ht Plague Tempus nd Hones vere adamantly agit. In fact the gaicon of Dama wat aw io Weakened by starvation tat cul et defend the sty propery sed on the night of 4 November four Chistian sents ted tht one of te towers appeared tobe deserted. Singh wal hey fount abandoes fd th erades que) oxi tect, The Epon army satire teary witharew hs El Manu sy 25 Nove he Chines ad taken the own of Tin slong the cout witout ht The Intent cord between Pelapt of Abano and Jot of Jerse sow cae fo hex. Jo ty Seping te sea oft et maton AH The crusade of Frederick It 149 and the tensions at the top manifested themselves lower in the hs in its, exacerbated by disputes over the division of the rich spoil, din the ety. Rather surprisingly, tbe Christians made no further move ‘nearly twenty months, allowing the sultan to turn his camp at El hold, Again he renewed, and in fat his offer to them: fe were awaiting the a who at his nation on 22 November 1220 promised to send pat of his army onthe sping pasage and {0 g0 10 Fp himself inthe following August. fe German troops arived in May 1221 and at lst preparations were for an advance info the interior, On 7 July Johe of erusalem,scictly 1 by the pope to rejoin the cruside, returned and on the 17th the sages began to march down the east bank ofthe Nile, On the 26th, inst Joha's advice, they moved into a narrow angle of land, bounded by ivo branches of the Nie, opposite El Mansura and then halted. The rivet begen to flood in August and the Muslims made use ofa small canal to cng ships into the main branches, blocking the river route back to Damietia This unexpected move force the Christians to withdraw, Dut the Muslims sent their land forces round behind them, cutting off their and broke the dykes to lod the land, The crusaders were rapped and had to eue for peace. On 30 August they agreed to leave Egypt in return [ora truce of eiht years andthe True Cross, which they were never Ben; perhaps the Egyptians di not have it The crusade of Frederick If Reinforcement sent by Frederick had arsved inthe mide ofthis debacle and ther leaders bitterly opposed the terms which had been agreed Indeed, when Frederick heard of them he was furious. He had not ullled his pledge to crusade inthe autumn of £221 and he was being as severely ctcized for his failre to depart as the kings of England and France had. ‘een hic years before. This does aot mesa that he was nr serious about crusading, He was stl in his twenties, He could certainly be ruthless, bu, inspite ofthe sandals stories told about him in his lifetime ~ his was carcer that somehow Bedazzled contemporaries as well as his recent biographers there fs no doubt that he was conventionally pious and that be fel deeply commited tothe crusading movement. The long evil war in Germany andthe anarchy he found on his etura to southern Maly explain his deliy in flfling the vow he had made in 1215. Pope Honoris, however, who had himself been criticized for the failure of the Fith (Crusade, could not retrsin from venting his feelings and rebuking the temperor for hs delay. At Ferentino in March 1223 Frederick renewed his Sow inthe presence of King John, the patriarch of Jerusalem and the tnasters ofthe Miltary Orders, The date of 24 June 1225 was se fr his sot To Be Taken OF Razarve Raadina ROOM180 Crusading at is Height, 1187-1229 eparture and he was betrothed to the heiress of the kingdom of Jerusalem, for whom John was now regent. He offered fee transport tnd Provisions to crusaders, but in spite of these generous financial in: dlcements the response was not reat, partly because it had been decided ‘o employ mendicant friars for the fist time as preachers they were inexperienced and were despised by theit audiences. The emperot Wat forced to suggest a postpoaement to allow the preaching to have more effect. At San Germano on 25 July 125 he agreed to depart on 15 August 1227 and he accepted some severe conditions imposed on hr bythe pope, He promised to maintain 1,00 knights in the East at his expense for two years, and to pay afne of 50 marks for every man les than that figure, ‘Provide 100 transports and SO armed galleys and, to meet his war expenses, {o send 10,000 ounces of godin advance in five instalment tothe leaders of the settlement in Palestine, to be returned to him when he arived i ‘Acre, Frederick married Yolande (Isabella) of Jerusalem in Brindisi on 9 November and took the tite of king of Jerusalem, having htselt crowned ‘ina special ceremony at Foggis. This ed o the goal of bis crusade beng switched from Egypt to Jenisalem. Meanwhile quite heavy recruitment as occuring in Germany and England and by midsummer 1227 lage sumbers of crusaders were assembling in southern Italy; they sled from Brindisi in August and early September. Although many of them dtpered ‘when the news reached Palestine thatthe emperor was not joining them ter all, the main body marched down the coat to Caesarea and Jtla 0 {estore thet fontifcations, while others occupied and fortified the ety of Sidon in its entirety ~ half oft had been controlled from Damascus - 208 bull the castle of Montfort, north-east of Acre. Frederick, meanuile, who had fallen ill, put into the port of Ottanio and decided to wait until he was better. Pope Gregory IX responded by excommunicatng him, Its hard to decide whether Gregory acted in ths vay because he was exasperated by yet another delay, which was What he aimed, or whether he was preparing the ground for his invasion of Fredericks south Italian possessions, which would have been imponsble nnd Frederick been a legitimate crusader, since the Church would have ‘been bound to protect his property. At any rate, when Frederick at lst stile for the East on 28 June 1228 he was an excommunicated and Unrecognized crusader. On reaching Acte on 7 September, afer aninet- tude in Cyprus which willbe described Inte, te found himself ia no Position to fight a campaign. His army was smal, because s0 many ofthe srusades ofthe previous year had returned home, and divided, because ‘many elements didnot want to be associated with him now that he was ‘communicated. But since 1226 he had been exchanging embassies with ‘al Kamil, the sultan of Egypt, who wanted to enter into an alliance with ‘The crusade of Frederick Ht 151 esis hs brother, al Mu'azzam of Damascus, By 1228 al Mu'azzam ‘ead, but alKami, who does not seem to have teaized how weak rick was, was prepared to use Jerusalem at a bargaining counter to ate Egyp's security. ‘Negotiations began at once. In 8 show of what force he had Frederick ed from Acre to Safa in November and on 18 February 1229 a treaty signed by which al-Kamil surrendered Bethlehem and Nazareth, @ ip of land from Jerusalem to the coast, part of the dict of Sidon, h had already been occupied by the Christians, the cate of Tibnine 1, above all, Jerusalem itself, although the Temple atea was o remain in sim hands and the ity was aot to be fortied. In retun Frederick rlcged himself to protect the sultan's Chistian, forthe duration ofa truce often years; in paticalt, he would Pend no aid to Tripoli or Antioch orto the castles ofthe Miltary Orders of tac des Chevaliers, Margab and Safta, This treaty is evidence that the th Crusade had given the Egyptian government a severe shock, but it was unlikely that Jerusalem would be defensible. On hearing of it the patriarch of Jerusalem imposed an interdict on the Holy City. Frederick entered it on 17 March andthe following day went through an imperial crown-wearing ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, echoing the ancient prophecy ofthe lst German emperor in oscupation of Jerusalem before Antichrist, which had been an element i crusting thought from the sat and may have motivated hs grandfather, Jerusalem wat to tema in Christian bands for fifteen years, but it does not seem to have been reincorporated into the kingdom and was tested by Frederick as per sonal possession. On 19 March he eft Jerusalem and returned t0 Acre, where he faced ‘existance from the patriarch, the nobles, whose relations with im will be iscused later, and the Templars; Acre was ina state of disorder, with anmed soldiers roaming the stteets, News ofthe invasion of Apulia by papal armies forced him to leave hurriedly for home. He Wied to go secretly inthe early morning of 1 May, but his departure was discovered and he was pelted with tripe and pieces of meat as he passed the meat smarcets on Ris way down tothe por. So the Fifth Crusade had a curious postcrpt, Jerusalem was recovered. ina peace treaty negotiated by an excommunicate, whose crusade was ot secognized and whos lands were being invaded by papal armies. The Holy iy itself was put under an interdict by its own patiareh Its iberator left Palestine notin tiumph but showered with ofl ot fo Be Taken Om Sanaa Raading RooCHAPTER 7 Crusading reaches Maturity, | 1229-c. 1291 Crusading thought in the mid-thirteenth century One hundred and fifty years after its birth crusading thought was given a classic if rather uninspiring, expression in the wriings of Pope Innoceat TV (1243-54) and his pupil Henry of Seguro (beer known as Hosen) Both men stressed that the pope was the sole earthly authority for crusading, the expression of is power bring te indulgence, which only be ‘ould grant. The Holy Land, consecrated by the presence and suffering of ‘Christ and once part ofthe Roman empice was rightfully Chistian and the cccupation oft by the Muslims was an offence intel for which the pope, as vicar of Christ and hei of the Roman emperors could order retribution, Crusades could also be waged defensively against threats from infidels and by extension agtnst those who menaced Christan souls within Christen ‘dom: Hostiensis echoed Peter the Venerable's opinion that crusades ‘against heretics, schismatics and rebels were even more necessary than ‘those to the Holy Land, He was in fact, much more radical than Innocent ‘on relations between Christians and infidels. Innocent was prepared to argue tat the pope hada de jure, but not de facto, authority over infidels, with the power to commend them to allow misionares to preach in theit lands and a right inthe last resort to punish them for infringements of natural aw, bute stressed that Christians could not make warom them fr being infidels; nor could they fight wars of conversion. Hostiensis, on the ‘ther hand, supposed thatthe pope could intervene directly in affairs of infidels and that their refusal to recognize his dominion was in itself jstifcation for a Christian asault upon them, He even suggested that any ‘war fought by Christians against unbelievers was just, by reason of the faith ofthe Christian side alone. This went too far and Christian opinion since has tended to follow fnnocent rather than Hiostiensis By the middle of the thirteenth century crazing had become cont ‘monplace and many commited femilies could look back on four or ive generations of crusaders. The privileges which regulated crusader stats had become formalized. The greatest of them, the indulgence, has already been described. Toit were added rights which were elaborations of those traditionally enjoyed by pilgrims: the protection of property and de- pendants in a crusader’s absence: a delay inthe performance of feudal CCrusading thought in the midshincenth century 1$3 ninja proceedings to which he might be a pay while he ‘ren, or Aternatvely a speedy setlement cf court cases before his reife ould wih it; is ality to count the crusade as resttation Meh a moatorium on the repayment of debts and freedom from ext peymerts until his retirn;exemprion from tole and tare; for ithe freer to enjoy his benefice though not resident and to pledge Mo rae cashcand for a lanan he freedom to sell or morgage ffs or er propery hich was ordinary inalienable. A further group of rights him a prslege legal posion in the extraordinary circumstances in eich he foundimneet release from excommunication by vite of taking ‘pe cross and te ably to count a crusade vow as an adequate subsite fbr anode oot flfled; Hence to have dealin wit excommunicates a treedom fram the consequences of interdict a guarantee agaist bing ‘Bed for legal proceedings outside is native doves; the privilege of tating pasion onfescr, who was often permited vo dpeate hm fom Iregulaties ard to grant pardon for sins, like homicide, which were aul reserve to papal jursditon, “The machin fr preaching, though never sgsin as systematic as that proposed by scent II in 1213, was well-sablshed and with the pro- ‘anation of idulgences and the appointment of legates to sopervise feruitment it ould swing into action, making increasing use of the trendicant fia at the lower levels. The Church, moreover, was now telat taxed, Usually apportioned at tenth, the levies were demanded E Gthe whole Church of of the Gergy in particular provinces for periods varying ftom or tse years, Settement was usualy expected in wo equal ingalments sear apd the money raised was tupposed to subsidize trusaders. Thesis evidence of grants to wide range of individuals rom Kings to petty rds: very often grant consisted ofthe cash raised from Churches na magnate's own tetris and in thaw of bis eaves if they fad taken the cost. have already pointed out tha this pave the popes & Giestingpowertha they could never have hoped forin the twefth century, tecause, ith crusading so expensive and crisaders patently in need of funds, they coud divert their grants and therefore a large part of erusde tesouces inte dection diated by their policy at a parca time. In practic, howe, their control was neygr as effective asthe theory would Suggest Ifa gontee failed to fall his vow his subsiy, which had been epoitd intr meantime in religious houses, was supposed tobe sent to Rome, but peteulary where Kings were concerned te popeseldom go ll they should. Ad the taxation, which tended to become cumulative os new Subsidies were cemanded while old ones weresillinarrers, was extremely ‘mpopolar and vas strongly eieizedon grounds of principle. Papal envoys were rocted wth hostility and resistance was such thatthe returns were shen slowinconing and were sometimes not paid tal