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The Crusades
Leslie Rübner
The First Crusade
PETER THE HERMIT'S CRUSADE
[Written in 2009]
The word “crusade” literally means “going to the Cross”, but it is used more generally to mean a campaign against those who do not believe in the Christianity of the Church.
The Crusades began in the late eleventh century and lasted several hundred years. On 27th November 1095, Pope Urban II held a council at Clermont in France. Word spread that he would make a great announcement. A large crowd had assembled. In response to the request of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus for help against the Turks, the Pope rose to address them. He explained that the Christian holy shrines under Seljuk Turkish control were in a pitifully neglected state. He said that the Muslims were persecuting the pilgrims and they were preventing them from reaching the holy places. He urged Christians to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim rule. He promised them a country flowing with milk and honey, of prosperity and peace in the Holy Land. The Crusaders were exempt from paying taxes and their debts were cancelled. He also promised absolution of their sins and therefore, should they be killed in battle, escape Purgatory. This was the most important promise of them all because most spent a life of murder, mayhem and thievery. The Crusaders were to be ready in the late summer of 1096 (after the harvest was in). They were to make their way to Constantinople, where a Christian army would assemble. The response of the assembly was overwhelmingly favourable. “Deus lo volt” (God wills it) was the battle cry of the thousands of Christians who joined crusades to free the Holy Land from the infidels.
In March 1096, a radical monk named Peter the Hermit led an “unofficial” Crusade. He preached the Crusades to adventurers, landless surfs and religious fanatics, and assembled a small rag-tag army to try to reach the Holy Lands ahead of the main army. An unkempt old man, wearing no shoes and living on fish and wine, Peter the Hermit’s followers considered him to be a saint, and according to historians, his preaching was powerful, whipping up his listeners into a religious fury.
Peter’s adventure was a total failure. His followers behaved terribly along the way, thieving and ransacking homes for supplies, but the worst was the persecution of the Jews before even leaving Europe! The mob began a pogrom of the Jews in the Rhineland; they thought that the slaughter of the Jews would be a great omen for the Crusade’s success. Countless innocent Jews were massacred with torture and indignity. These anti-Jewish attacks reveal a trend in medieval Jewry: the willingness of the Jews to die for their faith. This act, known as ‘Kiddush HaShem’ (sanctification of the Divine Name), was quite common. Several Rhineland Jewish communities were destroyed, but they rapidly rebuilt in the early 12th century. Jewish economic activity flourished. There was certainly no decline in intellectual creativity amongst Ashkenazi Jews; the study of law continued, although the focus shifted from Germany to northern France. However, most of the survivors fled to Eastern Europe, and the great Jewish communities of the Rhineland were no more. Approximately 10,000 Jews were murdered, almost one third of the Jewish population of Germany and Northern France at that time. After these events in the Rhineland, the Church realised the importance of reigning in the popular armies and protecting the Jews.
The Crusaders came like a swarm of locusts, feeding on the countries they passed. They raped and murdered through the continent of Europe to Constantinople. Arriving there in July 1096, Alexius, expecting a disciplined army of knights, did not trust this mob. In order to save his city from trouble, he arranged to have them shipped over the Bosporus to Anatolia. Five days after they arrived, in July 1096, they crossed the Bosporus. Most of them never saw Constantinople, much to Alexius’ relief. Once in Anatolia, Peter’s followers continued their Crusading: torturing, pillaging and massacring indiscriminately. This time, most of their victims were Byzantine Christians who lived in and around Nicaea. They took up residence in a castle called Xerigordon. Kilij Arslan I (Ruler of the Seljuk Turks) realised the danger his lands faced from this army of rag-tag pilgrims. He would not let them continue into his territory. Kilij Arslan I laid siege to the fortress for 8 days. With a show of strength on his part, he felt it would stop the Crusades in their tracks. He cut off the fortress water supply and the crusaders surrendered. After a series of offers and counter offers, Arslan ambushed the pilgrims as they were leaving the fortress, killing them all.
THE PRINCE'S CRUSADE
The Prince's Crusade was better organised. The 30,000 to 35,000 head crusader army consisted of wealthy nobles, humble monks, professional warriors, merchants, farm hands, vagabonds, and criminals, and their purposes varied. Most were inspired by religious faith, but many sought adventure, opportunity, power, or wealth. They were led by nobles from different parts of Europe, for example Raymond IV of Toulose, the brothers Godfrey, Eustace and Baldwin of Boulogne, and Count Robert II of Flanders, Robert of Normandy, Stephen, Count of Blois, and Hugh of Vermandois, the younger brother of King Philip I of France, who bore the papal banner.
Four main crusader armies left Europe around the appointed time in August 1096. They took different routes to Constantinople and met up outside its city walls, approximately two months after the People’s army was defeated, between November 1096 and April 1097; Hugh of Vermandois arrived first, followed by Godfrey, Raymond who had the largest contingent of about 8,500 infantry and 1,200 cavalry, and Bohemond. This time Emperor Alexius was more prepared and there were fewer incidents of violence along the way. The Princes’ crusaders were short on food, but Emperor Alexius, who by now was weary of the crusaders, was reluctant to feed them. Alexius requested the leaders to swear fealty (faithfulness) to him and promised to return any land recovered from the Turks to the Byzantine Empire, in exchange for food. Godfrey was the first and almost all the other leaders took the oath. War almost broke out in the city between the citizens and the crusaders, who were eager to pillage for supplies and Alexius was worried about the safety of his subjects. Raymond alone avoided swearing the oath, instead pledging that he would simply cause no harm to the Empire. Before ensuring that the various armies were shuttled across the Bosporus, Alexius advised the leaders on how best to deal with the Seljuk armies that they would soon encounter.
As the Crusaders were crossing over into Asia Minor in May 1097, Peter the Hermit and the remainder of his army joined them. Alexius also sent two of his own generals, Manuel Boutoumides and Taticius, to assist the crusaders. After a long and harrowing march, they spent the winter outside Antioch. In June 1098, they captured it, but then they themselves were besieged by a powerful Turkish army. Death and desertions weakened the Crusaders, and their morale was low; but the discovery of a spear, which they believed to be the one used to wound their crucified Deity, inspired them. They beat the Turks. The Jews almost single-handedly defended Haifa against the crusaders by holding out in the besieged town for a whole month (June-July 1099). At this time, a full thousand years after the fall of the Jewish state, there were Jewish communities all over the country. There were fifty known communities, including Jerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and Gaza. Jews fought side-by-side with Muslim soldiers to defend Jerusalem against the Crusaders. Over the course of the afternoon and evening of 8th July 1099, and next morning, the crusaders murdered almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Muslims, Jews, and even eastern Christians were slaughtered. Although many Muslims sought shelter in Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Jews in their synagogue by the Western wall, the chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi states “Franks burned it over their heads”, killing everyone inside. On 15th July 1099, after six weeks of siege, the Christian armies captured all of Jerusalem. Covered with the blood, the victors knelt at the Holy Sepulchre, thus bringing to a successful conclusion the only crusade to be motivated principally by religious zeal.
After their capture of Jerusalem, the Crusaders chose Godfrey of Bouillon as king; he declined the title, preferring that of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. His brother and successor, Baldwin I, took the royal title. He and his successors were nominal overlords of Antioch and the counties of Edessa and Tripoli, which, with the royal domain of Jerusalem, constituted the great fiefs of the kingdom. Jerusalem itself contained the counties of Jaffa and Ashqelon, the Lordships of Krak, Montreal, and Sidon, and the principality of Galilee. Many Europeans were attracted to the East, and three religious-military orders - the Knights of St. John (Hospitallers), the Knights Templar, and the Teutonic Knights - were formed to defend and care for the pilgrims who streamed into the Holy Land. However, these institutions and the influx of new Europeans undermined the royal authority.
The Second Crusade
The success of the Christians in the First Crusade had been largely due to the disunity among their enemies. However, the Muslims learnt in time the value of united action. In 1144, the Muslim armies succeeded in capturing Edessa, one of the principal Christian outposts in the East, followed by the loss of the entire county of Edessa. The entire population was slaughtered, or sold into slavery, reminding Western Europe the dangers that the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem was facing and it led Pope Eugenius III to organise another crusade.
In 1147–49, the Second Crusade was started by the Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, an eloquent preacher, capable of whipping up religious fervour in his listeners. Bernard was a second Peter the Hermit: wherever he went he aroused the crusaders to the defence of the birthplace of their religion.
A monk named Radulph, who preached in the Rhine valley, declared that the Jews should be slain as the enemies of the Christian religion, but Bernard thought it to be un-Christian. Nevertheless, the Jews were expelled from Magdeburg and Halle. Bernard went to Germany to preach the Cross and met the monk Radulph in open disputation at Mayence, in the beginning of November 1146, but failed to influence the people in favour of the Jews. He then addressed a letter to the peoples of western Christendom, protesting against the persecution of the Jews. Notwithstanding this, when the crusaders came to Würzburg, they slew the rabbi, Isaac ben Eliakim, and about twenty-one men, women, and children, whose bodies were buried by the bishop in his garden.
Now, kings and emperors joined in the frenzy.
Two monarchs, Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, took up the crusader banner. Conrad III, emperor of Germany, dedicated himself to the defence of the sepulchre. Louis VII, King of France, undertook the crusade through remorse for an act of great cruelty that he had perpetrated upon some of his subjects. In the spring of 1146, the king held a council at Vézelay in Burgundy, where Bernard was going to preach. Bernard, by now an old man, was frail, and yet he managed to give a rousing sermon. Louis knelt before the abbot and received his benediction. As the First Crusade began at Clermont, the Second started at Vézelay. Mindful of the misfortunes of the First Crusade, Louis wrote to Emperor Manuel, King Conrad of Germany, Geza of Hungary, and Roger of Sicily, to ensure help and cooperation.
At Mainz, Bernard tried to persuade Conrad, who was attending a German Diet (festival), to join him. Conrad was not enthusiastic. He was deep in conflict with the Pope, and his barons were unruly. He delayed and made excuses. Not until Christmas 1146, at Speyer, did Conrad finally agree to join the crusaders. Some of Conrad’s knights with land in the north refused to join in the crusade. Their main worry was the threats of the Slavs in the east.
In the spring of 1147, the Pope authorized a crusade into Iberia to help the Reconquista. He also authorized King Alfonso VII of León to equate his campaigns against the Moors with the rest of the Second Crusade. In May 1147, the first contingents of crusaders left from Dartmouth for the Holy Land. Bad weather forced them to stop at Porto on 16th June 1147. The crusaders agreed to help the King attack Lisbon, provided they could pillage the city's goods and keep the ransom money for the expected prisoners. The Siege of Lisbon lasted from 1st July to 25th October 1147, when after four months, the Moors surrendered due to starvation. Most of the crusaders settled in the newly captured city, the rest set sail and continued to the Holy Land.
Conrad assembled an army of maybe 20,000. He left in late May 1147 and followed the route of the First Crusade, up the River Rhine to Ratisbon and down the Danube. The Germans arrived at Constantinople in September. There were problems with supplies and clashes with the Greeks. In the end, the Germans agreed to cross the Bosporus quickly, just as the French had done during the First Crusade. They set out on October 15th and passed into Turkish territory a few days later. On 25th October 1147, the army was near Dorylaeum at a small river when the Turks attacked. It was a slaughter and by nightfall, Conrad was fleeing. The Turks sold those who were not killed into slavery.
Now it was up to Louis to continue the crusade. He and his wife Queen Eleanor proposed to cross Turkey on land, but in a storm, they lost all their provisions. The Turks were conducting guerrilla style warfare against the French. In late January 1148, the Turks attacked and virtually destroyed the French. Louis survived by hiding in a hollow tree. Louis and his wife Eleanor finally reached Antioch; the remnants of the army was now mainly knights. Eleanor was delighted to be in Antioch, the first great city since Constantinople. Her uncle, Raymond of Toulouse was the ruler of Antioch. Raymond proposed that Louis should join forces with him to attack Aleppo. However, Louis did not want the crusade to be subverted to local politics. In early summer, Louis, minus the queen and her uncle, at last arrived in Jerusalem, having passed without incident down the coast. The French were met in the hills by the Patriarch and by a company of Templars. The Second Crusade had finally come to the holy city. The Crusaders, under the leadership of Louis, marched on to attack Damascus, for this City posed the greatest danger to Jerusalem. They arrived on 24th July, but they were driven away from the wall by Muslim armies. On 28th July, they began to withdraw to Jerusalem. The Second Crusade had ended in humiliation.
The Third Crusade
THE KING'S CRUSADE
Saladin (Salah al Din al Ayyubi), born 1138 in Tikrit, Mesopotamia, of Kurdish descent, proclaimed himself Sultan of Egypt in 1169, establishing the Ayyubid dynasty. He brought under his rule most of North Africa and the Yemen. In just twelve years, he took over Damascus and tried to conquer Syria and Palestine. He had already come into conflict with the Crusaders and he put the rulers of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem on the defensive. He brought Mosul, Aleppo, and wide areas from rival Muslim rulers under his rule and became the top warrior of Islam. The skilled leadership of Saladin accomplished the rise of a new, unified Islamic state centred in Egypt. He preached to the Muslim world Jihad, a Holy War of all the Muslims against the Christians. He managed to organise a large force of Muslims of various groups, called Saracens by the Christians. Saladin attacked the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1187. There was a great battle near Lake Kinneret. The Christians were routed and their king was captured. The Christian cities of Syria capitulated to Saladin, and after three months of fighting, Jerusalem itself was taken. In contrast to the crusaders, when his soldiers entered the city of Jerusalem, they were not allowed to kill civilians, rob people or damage the city. The new pope, Gregory VIII proclaimed that the capture of Jerusalem was punishment for the sins of Christians across Europe. The cry went up for a new crusade.
Frederick I Barbarossa of Germany, Philip II Augustus of France and Richard I the Lionheart of England, the major monarchs of Western Europe, experienced military leaders, led this Crusade. Philip and Richard were at odds before the crusade began. The crusaders travelled by two separate routes. Barbarossa marched overland from Germany, leaving in the spring of 1189. This march was well organised and the Germans did not suffer crossing Anatolia (1190) as both the First and Second crusades had. However, late in the summer Frederick was drowned, and after that, the German force fell apart - only 1,000 of the 30,000 who had left Germany reached Acre late in 1190. On arrival, they joined the crusaders already engaged in the siege of Akko (1189-1191).
Philip and Richard decided to take the sea route. They spent the winter of 1190-1 in Sicily, where they seemed to spend their time bickering. In the spring, Philip took to sea and on 20th April, King Philip Augustus of France’s fleet, crammed with soldiers and war engines, docked in the Holy Land. Richard however decided to establish a secure base for his troops in Cyprus first. Richard captured the island from the Byzantines in 1191. Cyprus would serve as a Crusader base for centuries to come, and would remain in Western European hands until the Ottoman Empire conquered the island from Venice in 1571. Having conquered Cyprus, King Richard I of England arrived with 25 ships in June. En route, they had come across a large Muslim supply ship loaded with 650 men for the relief of Akko. Richard rammed the enemy ship and sunk it. Richard arrived at Akko in June and joined the fray and finally Akko fell to the Christians. The siege proved to be too much for Philip and exhausted, he returned to France, leaving Richard the Lionhart in sole charge. In Akko, Richard’s crusaders captured 2000 soldiers. Saladin had agreed to pay a ransom for them but somehow there was a breakdown and Richard had the Muslims executed.
Richard was itching to re-conquer Jerusalem and to cross swords with Saladin. Therefore, after the capture of Akko, Richard decided to march to Jaffa, from where he could launch an attack on Jerusalem, but on 7th September 1191, at Arsuf, 30 miles north of Jaffa, Saladin attacked Richard’s army.
Saladin attempted to lure Richard’s forces out, but Richard maintained his formation until the Hospitallers took Saladin's right flank, while the Templars the left. Richard won the battle and took Jaffa. However, Richard thought that after taking Jerusalem the majority of Crusaders would return to Europe and therefore, he would not be able to hold the City. The crusade ended without the taking of Jerusalem. Richard left the following year after negotiating a treaty with Saladin. Under Muslim ownership, the treaty would allow unarmed Christian pilgrims to come to the Holy Land.
On his way home, Richard’s ship was wrecked and he ended up in Austria, in his enemy, Duke Leopold’s, hands. The Duke delivered Richard to the Emperor Henry VI, who held the King for ransom. Richard I died during fighting in Europe. The Third Crusade is sometimes referred to as the Kings’ Crusade.
The Fourth Crusade
Almost immediately after his election, Pope Innocent III decided that he should assume the leadership of the next Crusade. In August of 1198, he sent crusading letters to all the archbishops of the West. His appeal was not to heads of state, but to counts and barons and even to cities. The archbishops and bishops of the Church were also to contribute soldiers or money. He also wrote to the kings of France and England, ordering them to stop their war. The Pope was not interested in them joining, but he did not want their bickering to interfere with his crusade.
Venice in 1200 was the richest city in the West, and one that had a direct interest in developments in the eastern Mediterranean. The leaders of the crusade decided to attack Egypt, since this country was then the centre of the Muslim power. To this purpose, the crusaders assembled in Venice. They were expecting transportation to cross the Mediterranean and the Venetians agreed on condition that the crusaders first seized Zara on the eastern Adriatic. Zara was a Christian city, but it was also a rival of Venice. Ignoring the Pope's protests, the crusaders besieged and captured the city. One would think that after this they would proceed against the infidel, but no. The Venetians persuaded them to turn on Constantinople. The possession of that great capital would greatly increase Venetian trade and influence in the East; for the crusaders it held out opportunities of acquiring wealth and power.
So, in April 1204, the armies of the Fourth Crusade broke into the city of Constantinople and began to loot, pillage, and slaughter their way across this metropolis. Pope Innocent III, who had called for the Crusade, bitterly lamented the spilling of “blood on Christian swords that should have been used on pagans” and described the expedition as “an example of affliction and the works of Hell.”
Alexius IV, who was restored by the crusaders to the Byzantine throne, handed out gifts all around, and he did not have enough money left to pay the Venetians for restoring him. The tax he levied to raise the money was bitterly resented. The Byzantines did not like the Westerners who were infesting their streets. They were rude and violent, didn't pay their bills, and pillaged the countryside. The crusaders were angry that the promises made by Alexius were not being fulfilled. They had not gone to Egypt to fight the infidel and risked excommunication. Alexius gradually withdrew from leading the Empire and the country was without a leader. Another Alexius, a descendant of Alexius Comnenus, positioned himself as the leader of the anti-Latin faction. Late in January 1204, he seized power. Alexius V, as he became known, reinforced the city's defences. Meanwhile, most of the crusaders had withdrawn from the city to their camp across the Golden Horn. There was now open skirmishing between the Greeks and the crusaders.
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