One way to understand the Crusader campaigns is to follow the course of the Normans in their conquests and control of Britain, Ireland, Central and Southern Italy and their sharing of power in the Crusader States from the late 11th and through the 12th centuries. For more on the Normans go to my separate courseblog Norman Culture and Empire: 1050-1200 CE . We have some excellent sources including the following:
1. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles help us to read of the 1066 Norman invasion of England and the battle and aftermath of Hastings.
2. The Bayeux Tapestry and translation guide
3. The Norman occupation and rule in Southern Italy began in 1061 and later extended to Sicily. Go to the Museum with No Frontiers project on Chrisitan, Jewish and Muslim arts and architecture in this period.
4. On the Norman involvement in mobilizing for the Crusades to the Holy Lands after 1096, including Tancred (1075-1112) go to the Fordham Internet Sourcebook project. Tancred is described in the Autobiography of Ibn Munqidh, (unfortunately available only in print). A biography written in Latin by Norman sources is The Gesta Tancredi . It was written by Ralph Caen, a Norman who joined the First Crusade. This has been translated in a 2005 edition.
5. On the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland in the mid 12th century, see the New History of Ireland series, Cambridge University Press.
Jerusalem: To understand the importance of Jerusalem as a center of three religious faiths, see this interactive tour of the Haram al-Sharif, the large plaza built on the old Jewish temple's foundation and encompassing the two important Muslim shrines and mosque complexes, the Dome of the Rock and the Mosque al-Aqsa. There is also a 360 panorama tour you can take in Jerusalem Through Time.
Internal Crusades: Spain and the Rhineland
It is important to realize that the first mobilization of religious ideology into Crusading arose in Spain in the wars against the Muslim prinicpalities. There we find a transitional and key figure, Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar of Burgos, known as El-Cid or (al-Sayyid , The Lord in Arabic.) The epic of his conquests is recorded in the Catalonian epic poem, El Cantar de mio Cid. Even though El Cid managed to conquer Valencia and wrest it from Muslim control, the city fell back into Muslim hands soon after his death in 1099.
Normans in Sicily and Italy
Pope Urban II's call for a Crusade also intersected with the occupation of Southern Italy and Sicily by the Normans. As a French Pope he was dependent on Norman and French support for stay in office and to deflect the threat of anti-popes that could be created at the whim of the emperors.
FIRST
CRUSADE 1096
The motivation
for a European invasion of the Middle East to occupy Syria and Palestine and
the City of Jeruslaem requires an examination of the material and ideological causes
of warfare. War is an expensive option and
in the late 11th century, the success of Seljuk expansion and rule
in the Syrian interior and coastal areas, and their domination over the key
trade cities of Damascus and their pressure on Constantinople and Cairo placed
pressure on European markets. When the
Seljuks took over Jerusalem in the late 11th century they allowed
the Christian monasteries and churches to remain. There is little evidence that the Seljuk
Muslims persecuted or desecrated Christian institutions. Therefore the choice of Pope Urban II in 1095
to proclaim a Crusade or Holy War to be sanctioned by the combined forces and
financial support of the Church and the various royal states must be explained
on grounds other than the rush to save Christian practice in Jerusalem or the
Holy Land.
When
Pope Urban II
convened a Council of the Church at Clermont, France in 1095 to proclaim a
Crusade, he was quickly joined by populist preachers, including Peter the
Hermit who preached support among the commoners for the Crusade against the
Muslim held city of Jerusalem. These
calls for popular support quickly accelerated and resulted in the pogroms and
purges against the Jewish populations in cities along the Rhine River,
including Cologne and Mainz. A first
hand account of these purges against the Jewish population comes from a Jewish
witness, Soloman
Bar Sampson. Sampson revealed how many of these attacks were really used to
extort money from the Jewish population.
Most of the participants in the
First Crusade were from the north of France, including Pope Urban II. A great many other Europeans resisted joining
this First Crusade, notably the Germans and most Italian seaport cities. Only Genoa offered support for the campaign,
which is itself odd, because its location on the West coast of Italy made
preparations by sea that much more difficult. The Venetians resisted because the Crusades
threatened their monopoly trading position as middle merchants between
Constantinople and the Levantine cities of the Middle East.
The First Crusade is also compromised from the start by the interdiction of the so-called People's Crusade led by the evangelical monk Peter the Hermit. Peter the Hermit's appeals to commoners and people of the lower orders was met by a response of tens of thousands of followers who marched disastrously through Central Europe en route to Constantinople. En route they were attacked by Hungarians and others who limited their progress, so that a much smaller group actually arrived in Constantinople. When they marched forth into Anatolia led by
The First Crusade is also compromised from the start by the interdiction of the so-called People's Crusade led by the evangelical monk Peter the Hermit. Peter the Hermit's appeals to commoners and people of the lower orders was met by a response of tens of thousands of followers who marched disastrously through Central Europe en route to Constantinople. En route they were attacked by Hungarians and others who limited their progress, so that a much smaller group actually arrived in Constantinople. When they marched forth into Anatolia led by
Despite
the limits of disunity, the invasion of the First Crusade with the aid of
Genoese carpenters developed Jerusalem had been taken
in 1099 siege towers and catapults than enabled the European crusaders to
effectively besiege and occupy Antioch, and in 1104 the capture of Acre. by Godfrey of Bouillon and was succeeded after
his death the following year by his brother Baldwin who assumed the title of
King of Jerusalem. The crusaders divided their conquered lands into four separate
states. The Western European invasion caused great friction with the Byzantines
in Constantinople. An interesting
account of this fractious relation is found in the Byzantine princess
Anna Comena’s description of their
stayover in Constantinople while enroute to the Holy Land.
Outremer
of the 12th Century
Because
the European crusaders were few in number their settlement was confined to the
cities. The second phase of occupation
following the First Crusade is known as the the Outremer (Overseas) of the 12th
century. This was the Europeans attempt
to extend and their territory in the area between Antioch and Jerusalem. They erected enormous castles as at Crac des
Chevaliers in modern day northern Lebanon.
They met with great and persistent resistance, including the rise of the
Assassins, a Muslim order of Counter-Crusaders
Second
Crusade 1146 – 1148
The
periodization of the Crusades into separate campaigns tends to avoid the
broader strategic goals of the Crusaders and the counter resistance and warfare
waged by successive Muslim states. European
colonization depended on settlers but in reality the type of colonists was
limited to soldiers from military orders, clergy and merchant traders and some
artisans. Most of the settlers were
integrated into the Italian shipping empires that waged across the Mediterranean
and were less interested in traditional settler colonization (Blockmans and
Hoppenbrouwers, 186). The rise of Zengi,
a Turkish ruler from Mosul and Aleppo in Northern Iraq posed a new threat to
the Crusaders. A Second Crusade of
reinforcements was dispatched in the late 12th century, but met
stiff resistance. King Raymond II was
murdered by Assasisns in 1152. Nur
al-Din of Aleppo succeeded in uniting Muslim Syria in opposition to the Crusaders.
An indication of the weakness and
vulnerability of the Crusaders is the decade long captivity of Raymond III from
1164 to 1174. An ill fated expedition in
1148 to take Damascus failed. This was
followed by the defeat and extermination of a large force of Christian knights
at the Battle of the Hattin in 1187 at which the famous Muslim general Saladin
captured the relic of the True Cross that the Crusaders had taken into battle. This defeat allowed for the siege and recapture
of Jerusalem by Muslim forces.
Third
Crusade
The Third
Crusade is marked by a siege warfare by Saladin over the remaining Crusader
cities at Acre from 1187 to 1191 when it
was finally retaken by King Richard I of England (the Lionheart) Richard I of
England Richard I withdrew his siege on Jerusalem
and had to abandon Palestine altogether when news of internal political crisis back
in England reached him. On his return he
was captured and held by rival Kings in Germany for a ransom.
The
Fourth Crusade and other later Crusades
The
so-called Fourth Crusade was led in 1248 by Louis IX of France who attempted to
conquer and hold the lower Nile delta. Most
of his force succumbed or was devastated by scurvy, hunger or dysentery and he
was captured with most of his men by Egyptian forces. His ransom cost France the equivalent of an
entire’s year budget for the Crown of France. He remained in Palestine for another four
years with little to gain. An attempt at another Crusade into Tunisia in 1270
ended with the King Louis IX dying of sickness. By 1291 Acre, the
last Latin city was evacuated and abandoned by the Europeans and the era of
Crusading in the Middle East came to an end.
The
Northern Crusades.
A good introduction
to the Northern Crusades waged in Eastern Europe and Russia is Eric
Christiansen, The Northern Crusades (Penguin, 1997). Christiansen documents and analyzes the
pattern of Christianization and forced martial conversion through crusading
that began in 1147 in the regions of the Baltic and then in Russia in the 13th
and 14th centuries. These are
lesser studied but important conflicts for historians. Much of the literature is in German and other
East European languages. In fact, from the
12th to 16th century a series of crusading military
campaigns against pagan regions of upper Eastern Europe and Russia and the
steppes were waged. These were
interrupted by the Mongol invasions but resumed in 15th century and
continued into the 16th century. The motives for crusading were tied to
material concerns over ties to the Hanseatic League, the fisheries of the
region and German colonization of the East, for which the promulgation of a
Christian ideology was convenient to the development of cities, churches and maritime
commerce and shipping. A popular
representation of the Northern Crusades is the Soviet nationalist propagandist film,
Alexander Nevsky, based around the historical figure. That the sweep of the Northern Crusades
anticipated and involved widespread interests is apparent in the direct
participation English knights and royalty. One of the Teutonic Order knights who fought
in these crusades was Henry Bolingbroke, later to become King Henry IV of
England. Ultimately, the transformations of cities like
Novgorod into Christianized towns went through several phases so that by the
early modern periods, Christians, Muslims and Jews could be counted among its
residents.
Crusades
in Spain against the Muslims
The
great literary account of Christian military campaigns against Muslims in Spain
is the Cantar de
Mio Cid (The Song of My Cid or Lord). El Cid (Rodrigo de Bivar) was a Christian
Spanish nobleman from Burgos in Northern Spain who in the late 11th century
worked as a mercenary for both Christian Spanish and Muslim Spanish rulers. His conquest of Valencia which he held as a
vassalage until his death in 1099 is an example of Christian military expansion
against Muslim territory in Spain, a trend that would accelerate through the late
15th century when the last Muslims were expelled from Granada in
1492.
Crusades
against Albigensians, and other Heresies
By the
early 13th century internal Crusades were waged against dissident anticlerical
movements led by the so-called Albigensians.
The Albigensian crusade, 1209-1229 was an internal purge against
followers of populist religious movements that had substantial following in
Southern Europe, particularly in France and northern Spain. The Albigensian Crusade was carried out in phases
to gian control of Toulouse and the and surrounding areas, and later crusades
or purgers against the revival of
southern adherents and a later military purge against the Capetians in
1226-1229.
The Myth
of the Children’s Crusade of 1292
The
so-called Children’s Crusade was not a planned or sanctioned movement. It arose
from populist discontent with the elite nature of crusade recruiting and dismay
at news of defeat and setbacks by the prior crusades. Various local pilgrimage movements were
organized by various groups including one called the Children’s Crusade and
another labeled the Shepherds’ Crusade. See,
J. Shinners, tr. Medieval Popular Religion:
A Reader (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 1997), pp. 398-99.
Pilgrimage and the Crusades
A byproduct of the Crusades was the dissemination of relics and pilgrimage routes to destinations housing sacred relics. One of the prinicipal pilgrimage sites in France was the Basilica of the Vézelay. Here are some sites that guide you through it.
1. Paradoxplace guide
2. Sacred Destinations guide
3. http://www.basiliquedevezelay.org/
4. http://images.library.pitt.edu/v/vezelay/
Another Sacred Destinations site for our readings about the Traveling Relics of Laon Cathedral.
Pilgrimage and the Crusades
A byproduct of the Crusades was the dissemination of relics and pilgrimage routes to destinations housing sacred relics. One of the prinicipal pilgrimage sites in France was the Basilica of the Vézelay. Here are some sites that guide you through it.
1. Paradoxplace guide
2. Sacred Destinations guide
3. http://www.basiliquedevezelay.org/
4. http://images.library.pitt.edu/v/vezelay/
Another Sacred Destinations site for our readings about the Traveling Relics of Laon Cathedral.
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