The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II at Clermont, France with the objective of regaining control of Jerusalem and the Holy land from the Muslims, and also of giving military assistance to the Byzantine Empire against the Seljuk Turks.
It succeeded in establishing the "Crusader States" of Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Tripoli in Palestine and Syria.
Origins
The origins of the crusades in general and the First Crusade in particular stem from events earlier in the 11th century. The breakdown of the Carolingian empire in previous centuries, combined with the relative stability of European borders after the Christianization of the Vikings and Magyars, meant that there was an entire class of warriors who now had very little to do but fight amongst themselves and terrorize the peasant population. The Catholic Church tried to stem this violence with the Peace and Truce of God movements, forbidding violence against certain people at certain times of the year. This was somewhat successful, but trained warriors always needed an outlet for their violence.
One such outlet was the Reconquista in Spain, which at least occupied Spanish knights, as well as some mercenaries from elsewhere in Europe. In 1063, Pope Alexander II had given papal blessing to Spanish Christians in their wars against the Muslims, granting both a papal standard (the vexillum sancti Petri) and an indulgence to those who were killed in battle.
Also popular in the 11th century, for knights as much as non-knights, was a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Although pilgrimages were briefly interrupted by the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem in 1009, but it was soon rebuilt and pilgrimages were common throughout the rest of the century. Indeed there was a rather large pilgrimage to Jerusalem originating in Germany in 1064.
In 1071 the Byzantine Empire was defeated by the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Manzikert, and three years later Pope Gregory VII called on the milites Christi to help protect their fellow Christians from the Muslim Seljuks. The milites Christi, the "knights of Christ, also referred to as fideles sancti Petri, the "faithful of St. Peter," would be those knights who agreed to serve the papacy directly, in an expedition to the east, possibly all the way to Jerusalem, led by Gregory himself.
These plans were quickly dropped, as Gregory was already occupied by a bitter conflict with Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV over the investiture controversy and other Gregorian reforms. Nevertheless, in the 1080s, Anselm of Lucca wrote for Gregory the Collectio Canonum, a compilation of religious writings justifying holy war, heavily based on the writings of Augustine of Hippo. This compilation was very influential on the thinking of Gregory and his successors.
Urban II, who was pope from 1088 to 1099, was the next to take up the idea of a Crusade to capture the Holy Land. Aside from the Reconquista in Spain, the borders Islamic territory in Europe were being pushed back elsewhere: the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard had conquered the "toe of Italy," Calabria, in 1057 and was holding what had traditionally been Byzantine territory against the Muslims of Sicily; and Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia were all actively fighting Islamic strongholds in Majorca and Sardinia, freeing the coasts of Italy and Catalonia from Muslim raids.
Because of these ongoing wars, the idea of a war against the Muslims was not implausible to the European nations. Muslims occupied the centre of the Christian universe, Jerusalem, which, along with the surrounding land, was considered one giant relic, the place where Christ had been born, had lived, and had died. It was Urban who took the ideas formed by his predecessors and disseminated them to the general public.
The Council of Clermont
In 1095 the Byzantine emperor Alexius I turned to Urban for aid against the Turks, sending envoys to the Council of Piacenza in March of that year. Urban was well aware of the Emperor's mission and had likely developed his own plans before the first Byzantine emissaries set foot in Italy. The emperor's request met with a favourable response from the Church. When the Greek ambassadors arrived, Urban prepared them for the Council of Clermont in November, for which he urged the French bishops and abbots to bring with them the most prominent lords in their provinces.
Before he began speaking, Urban had arranged that Raymond, Count of Toulouse, would step forward to take up the cross then and there. Urban would not lead the crusade himself, as Gregory had apparently planned in 1074, but instead he had already appointed Adhemar of Le Puy as papal legate. The Pope first preached the crusade on November 26, 1095 — in words which have been lost to history but which apparently stirred the crowd to a frenzied enthusiasm, with cries of "Deus le volt!" ("God wills it!"). The response came as well from the noble knights of Western Europe with their lust for adventure and conquest. Urban offered protection for their estates at home while they were gone, and more. In an unprecedented move he offered plenary indulgence for any who took up the cross, a departure from earlier indulgences which were only granted posthumously.
For the rest of 1095 and into 1096, Urban spread the message throughout France, and urged his bishops and legates to preach in their own dioceses elsewhere in France, Germany, and Italy as well. The preaching used the language of the pilgrimage; the term "crusade" was not yet invented. Exactly what Urban was preaching is not entirely clear; was the goal of the pilgrimage always Jerusalem, or was it to help the Byzantines alone? In any case, having mentioned the "east", it was impossible not to think of Jerusalem as well, and the holy city became the main, if not the only, objective. However, this was not meant to be a normal pilgrimage, as Urban specifically asked for young, healthy men who were capable of waging war, and he even went as far as to forbid certain people (such as monks, and those already fighting wars in Spain) from participating. Despite this, many women and poor men joined the crusade, along with the knights for which Urban had asked.
The First Crusaders
People joined the crusade for many reasons but no one saw themselves as a Crusader. The term crusade is an early 12th Century term that appears in Latin over 100 years after the "first" crusade. The First Crusaders did not see themselves as crusaders, since the term had never been invented, nor as the first, since they did not know there would be more. They saw themselves simply as pilgrims, and were called that.
Two medieval roles, holy warrior and pilgrim, would merge into one to create the first crusader. Like a holy warrior one would carry a weapon and fight for the Church with all its spiritual benefits, including the privledge of indulgances or martyrdom if one died in battle. Like a pilgrim one would have benefits such as rights to hospitality and personal protection of self and property by the Church. The indulgances were the best of both worlds, if one died in battle one would recieve them like a holy warrior, and if one did not die in battle, one would recieve them like a pilgrim. This win-win spiritual benefit was very appealing to many people.
Crusaders also hoped to obtain material benefit. Historians believe this was not the primary aim of crusaders, but it did exist and some crusaders did very well, although most spent more than they earned which makes scholars believe money could not have been the primary motivation.
There were feudal obligations, many crusaders went because they were commanded by their lord and had no choice. There were family obligations, many families had crusading traditions, or they were bound by blood to help a family member.
The "People's Crusade"
The People's Crusade is also known as the Popular Crusade, Peasant's Crusade, or the Pauper's Crusade.
Urban planned the departure of the crusade for August 15, 1096, but months before this a number of "armies" set out early. The peasant population had been afflicted by drought, famine, and plague for a number of years before 1096, and some of them seem to have envisioned the crusade as an escape from these hardships. Coincidentally, there were also a number of meteorological occurrences beginning in 1095 that seemed to be a divine blessing for the movement – a meteor shower, aurorae, a lunar eclipse, a comet, among other events. An outbreak of Millenarianism, a belief that the end of the world was imminent, which usually led to mass pilgrimages anyway, had also occurred just before the Council of Clermont. The response was beyond expectations, while Urban might have expected a few thousand knights he ended up with a popular movement numbering up to 100 thousand of mostly unskilled fighters.
In the midst of this the charismatic monk Peter the Hermit of Amiens vigorously preached the crusade throughout northern France. He claimed to have been appointed to preach by Christ himself (and supposedly had a divine letter to prove it), and it is likely that some of his followers thought he, not Urban, was the true originator of the crusading idea. It is often believed that Peter's army was a band of illiterate, incompetent peasants who had no idea where they were going, and who believed that every city of any size they encountered on their way was Jerusalem itself. While the majority were unskilled in fighting, there were some well-trained minor knights leading them, such as the future chronicler Fulcher of Chartres, and Walter the Penniless; as his name suggests, Walter was an impoverished knight with no lord and no vassals, but was nonetheless experienced in warfare.
Their march was not without difficulty, but they did know exactly where they were going; centuries of pilgrimages ensured that almost everyone knew just how far away Jerusalem was. On their way down the Danube, Peter's followers looted Hungarian territory and were attacked by the Hungarians, the Slavs, and even a Byzantine army near Nis. A large number of the Peoples Crusade were killed during fighting with other Christains and never made it past Hungry. The remaining group reached Constantinople in August. Alexius, not knowing what else to do with such an unusual army, ferried them across the Bosporus. Some historians say he did this knowing full well he sent them to their death at the hands of the superior Turks, while other historians say he tried to stop them but they were determained to go anyway despite his warnings, a debate which continues to this day.
In Constantinople they had joined with separate crusades of Germans and Italians, but after crossing into Asia Minor they began to quarrel and the three armies went their separate ways. Most of the People's Crusade was massacred upon entering Seljuk territory. Peter survived, however, and would later join the main Crusader army. Another army of Bohemians and Saxons did not make it past Hungary before splitting up.
The "German Crusade"
Also setting off in the early summer of 1096, the German crusade was a large contingent of around 10,000 soldiers. Led by Gottschalk, Volkmar, and Emich of Leiningen, they proceded southwards along the Rhine. However, here began what is known as "the first Holocaust."
At the time there was growing anti-Semitism, partly inspired by the preaching of the crusade. The Christian conquest of Jerusalem and the establishment of a Christian emperor there would supposedly instigate the End Times; as part of the End Times, the Jews were supposed to convert to Christianity. In parts of France and Germany, Jews were perceived as just as much of an enemy as Muslims: they were thought to be responsible for the crucifixion, and they were more of an immediate presence than Muslims.
This grew to violence as the Rhineland crusaders passed through Cologne and southern Germany. Thousands of Jews were massacred, although local clergy often tried to prevent this. The massacres were justified through the speech made by Pope Urban II at Clermont in November 1095, where he is reported to have said that Christians would receive "spiritual reward" if they took part in the Crusade and would not be punished by God for killing non-Christians. They were partially also motivated by money and loot. It is worth noting that the killing of Jews was never intended by the Papacy and was condemned and prevented in future Crusades.
The "Princes' Crusade"
Composition
The true armies of nobles set out later in 1096. The main contingents were men of Lorraine under the brothers Godfrey of Bouillon, Eustace and Baldwin of Boulogne; Flemings under Count Robert II of Flanders; northern French under Robert of Normandy (older brother of King William II of England), Stephen of Blois, and Hugh of Vermandois (younger brother of King Philip I of France, who was forbidden from participating as he was under excommunication); Provencals under Raymond IV of Toulouse; and Normans of Italy under Bohemund of Taranto and Tancred of Hauteville.
Older scholarship stated that the participants were likely younger sons of nobles, dispossessed of land and influence by the practise of primogeniture, and poorer knights who were looking for a new life in the wealthy east. More recent research by Jonathan Riley-Smith instead shows that the crusade was an immensely expensive undertaking, affordable only to those knights who were already fairly wealthy, such as Hugh and Robert, who were relatives of the French and English royal families, and Raymond, who ruled much of southern France. Even then, these wealthy knights had to sell much of their land to their relatives or to the church before they could afford to participate. Their relatives, too, often had to impoverish themselves in order to raise money for the crusade. As Riley-Smith says, "there is really no evidence to support the proposition that the crusade was an opportunity for spare sons to make themselves scarce in order to relieve their families of burdens."
Godfrey and Baldwin settled their previous quarrels with the church by bequeathing their land to local clergy. The charters denoting these transactions were written by the clergy, and seem to idealize the knights as pious men seeking only to fulfill a vow of pilgrimage. Poorer knights (minores, as opposed to the greater knights, the principes) could go on crusade only if they expected to survive off of almsgiving, or if they could enter the service of a wealthier knight, as was the case with Tancred, who agreed to serve his uncle Bohemund. Later crusades would be organized by wealthy kings and emperors, or would be supported by special crusade taxes.
Accompanying the knights were many poor men (pauperes) who could afford basic clothing and perhaps an old weapon. Peter the Hermit, who joined the crusade at Constantinople, was considered responsible for their well-being, and they were able to organize themselves into small groups, perhaps military companies, often led by an impoverished knight. One of the largest of these groups named itself the "Tafurs."
The march to Jerusalem
Although there was some dissension among the knights as to who should be their overall leader, Urban had appointed his legate Adhemar to this position at Clermont. Leaving around the appointed time in August, the various armies gathered together outside Constantinople in the fall of 1096. There they also had to contend against the wishes of Alexius I, who was understandably suspicious of a massive army that included many of his old Norman enemies; in addition, after dealing with the ill-fated army of Peter the Hermit only a few months before, Alexius had low expectations for these knights as well. Alexius would not let them leave the city until the various leaders had sworn fealty to him, and had them promise to return to the Byzantine Empire any land they recovered from the Seljuks. The oaths were eventually sworn, though not until all sides had agreed to various compromises, and only after warfare had almost broken out in the city. These oaths would quickly be broken once the crusaders crossed into Asia Minor.
Alexius agreed to send out a Byzantine army to accompany the crusaders through Asia Minor. Their first objective was Nicaea, and old Byzantine city, but now the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rüm under Kilij Arslan I. The city was subjected to a lengthy siege, which was somewhat ineffectual as the crusaders could not blockade the lake on which the city was situated, and from which it could be provisioned. The Byzantines, preferring diplomacy to siege warfare, negotiated the surrender of the city without crusader input; the crusaders awoke on the morning of June 19, 1097 to see Byzantine standards flying from the walls. This caused a rift between the Byzantines and the crusaders, who went their separate ways.
The crusaders marched on towards Dorylaeum, where Bohemund was surrounded by Kilij Arslan. On July 1 Godfrey broke through the Turkish lines, but he too was surrounded, and the two crusader armies were saved only by the timely appearance of the troops led by the legate Adhemar, who defeated the Turks and looted their camp. Kilij Arslan withdrew and the crusaders marched almost unopposed through Asia Minor towards Antioch, except for a battle in September in which they again defeated the Turks.
The march through Asia was unpleasant. It was the middle of summer and the crusaders had very little food and water; many men died, as did many horses, without which a knight was no more than an ordinary foot-soldier. Christians, in Asia as in Europe, sometimes gave them gifts of food and money, but more often the crusaders looted and pillaged whenever the opportunity presented itself. Individual leaders continued to dispute the overall leadership, although none of them were powerful enough to take command; still, Raymond and Adhemar were generally recognized as the leaders. After passing through the Cilician Gates, Baldwin of Boulogne set off on his own towards the Armenian lands around the Euphrates. In Edessa early in 1098, he was adopted as heir by King Thoros, a Greek Orthodox ruler who was disliked by his Armenian subjects. Thoros was soon assassinated and Baldwin became the new ruler, thus creating the County of Edessa, the first of the Crusader states.
Siege of Antioch
The main Crusader army, meanwhile, marched on to Antioch, which was captured after a long siege on June 3, 1098, but only by deception - a former Christian guard in the city, named Firuz, opened one of the gates for the crusaders. Almost immediately, an army from Mosul under the command of Kerbogha arrived to besiege the newly conquered city; Antioch was successfully defended against this army thanks largely to the efforts of Bohemond, who claimed the city for himself as Prince of Antioch. The gates of the city were locked to prevent the escape of any starving and panic-stricken crusaders. Knowing that they had no chance to survive a siege, they marched out to meet Kerbogha's army on June 28, and unexpectedly routed it. According to legend, an army of Christian saints, including the martyrs who had been killed at Nicaea and Dorylaeum, helped defeat the Turks outside the city. The crusaders also believed they were aided by the supposed discovery by the monk Peter Bartholomew of the Holy Lance inside the city. However, some crusaders had fled the battle, including Stephen of Blois. On the way back to Constantinople, Stephen met Alexius, who was travelling east to assist with the original siege; Stephen convinced the emperor that there was no hope and Alexius returned home.
Bohemund argued that Alexius had deserted the crusade and thus invalidated all of their oaths to him. Bohemund asserted his claim to Antioch, but not everyone agreed, and the crusade was delayed for the rest of the year while the nobles argued amongst themselves. It is a common historiographical assumption that the Franks of northern France, the Provencals of southern France, and the Normans of southern Italy considered themselves separate "nations" and that each wanted to increase its status. This may have had something to do with the disputes, but personal ambition is more likely to blame. Meanwhile a plague (perhaps typhus) broke out, killing many, including the legate Adhemar. There were even fewer horses than before, and Muslims peasants refused to give them food. The minor knights and soldiers, unmoved by any anachronistic nationalism, became fed up by this and threatened to continue to Jerusalem without them. Finally at the beginning of 1099 the march was renewed.
Siege of Jerusalem
Proceeding down the coast of the Mediterranean, the crusaders encountered little resistance, as local rulers preferred to make peace with them and give them supplies rather than fight. On May 7 the crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks by the Fatimids of Egypt only a few years before. As with Antioch the crusaders put the city to a lengthy siege, in which the crusaders themselves probably suffered more than the citizens of the city, due to the lack of food and water around Jerusalem. On July 8 Peter the Hermit and the clergy organized a fast (astounding, as they were already near starvation) and a barefoot procession around the city, following the Biblical example of Joshua at the siege of Jericho. Meanwhile siege engines were constructed and Jerusalem was taken by storm on July 15, 1099. The crusaders massacred the whole Muslim population men, women and children; according to the (exaggerated) accounts, the blood in the Al-Aqsa Mosque ran ankle-deep. Tancred claimed the Temple quarter for himself.
In the days following the massacre, Godfrey of Bouillon was made Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (Protector of the Holy Sepulchre), refusing to be named king in the city where Christ had died. In the last action of the crusade, he led an army which defeated an invading Fatimid army at Ascalon. Godfrey died in July, 1100, and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin of Edessa, who took the title of "King of Jerusalem". Baldwin and his successors, Baldwin II (d. 1131), and Fulk (d. 1143), extended the boundaries of the Kingdom of Jerusalem through successful warfare.
The "Crusade of 1101" and the establishment of the kingdom
Having captured Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the crusading vow was now fulfilled. However, there were many who had gone home before reaching Jerusalem, and many who had never left Europe at all. When the success of the crusade became known, these people were mocked and scorned and threatened with excommunication. There were also many crusaders who had remained with the crusade all the way to Jerusalem also went home; according to Fulcher of Chartres there were only a few hundred knights left in the newfound kingdom in 1100. In 1101 another crusade set out, including Stephen of Blois and Hugh of Vermandois, both of whom had returned home before reaching Jerusalem. This crusade was mostly annihilated in Asia Minor by the Seljuks (both Stephen and Hugh were killed), but the survivors helped reinforce the kingdom when they arrived in Jerusalem. In the following years assistance was also provided by Italian merchants who established themselves in the Syrian ports, and from the religious and military orders of the Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John which were created during Baldwin I's reign.
The First Crusade marks the emergence of a self-confident, aggressive and expansionist Latin society, as newly-achieved stability in the West left a warrior aristocracy in search of new conquests and patrimony. The new prosperity of major towns also meant that money was available to equip expeditions. The seaborne towns, in particular Venice and Genoa, were interested in extending trade. The Pope saw the Crusades as a way to assert Catholic influence as a unifying force, with war as a religious mission. This was a new attitude to religion: it brought religious discipline, previously applicable to monks, to soldiery—-the new concept of a religious warrior and the chivalric ethos.
Selected sources
Primary sources
- Albert of Aix, Historia Hierosolymitana
- Anna Comnena, The Alexiad
- Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana
- Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum (anonymous)
- Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere
Secondary sources
- Robert Bartlett, The Making of Europe: Conquest, Colonization and Cultural Exchange, 950-1350. Princeton University Press, 1993
- P.M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517. Longman, 1986.
- Hans Eberhard Mayer, The Crusades. Trans. by John Gillingham. Oxford University Press, 1972 (orig. pub. 1965).
- Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986.
- Jonathan Riley-Smith, ed., The Oxford History of the Crusades. Oxford University Press, 1999.
- Stephen Runciman, The First Crusaders, 1095-1131, Cambridge University Press, 1951.
- Kenneth Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades. Madison, 1969-1989 (available online).