Part III
In this part . . .
Part III is about Crusading, which was all the rage between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. An incredible sequence of events led the armies of Western Europe to invade the Holy Land and establish a whole new kingdom - Outremer. These action-packed years feature an amazing cast of characters: swashbuckling heroes such as Richard the Lionheart, inspirational leaders such as Saladin and absolute idiots (Reynald of Chatillon, anyone?). And don’t forget the Crusaders who ran out of steam halfway through their mission and decided to sack Constantinople instead.
Chapter 11
In This Chapter
● Seeking the causes of the Crusades
● Fighting the good fight with knights
● Catching up with the Kingdom of France
● Finalising the details of the First Crusade
During the period between the Norman Conquest of England (in 1066) to around 1250, the focus of the powerful military and religious leaders of Europe switched from their own immediate concerns to events taking place thousands of miles away - the now infamous Crusades.
In a series of extraordinary events, rulers and leaders from all across Europe made their way to the Holy Land to recapture the city of Jerusalem from the Muslim peoples. Along the way, new kingdoms were established, atrocities committed and a whole new chapter of history written.
This chapter is all about why the Crusade came about, what motivated the First Crusade of 1097 and, in particular, why people felt that they were serving God by killing foreigners. This period in history was extraordinary and is one over which controversies continue to this day - where the word crusade is used to describe a totally different type of conflict taking place in our own time.
Read on and find out more!
Seeking the Causes of the Crusades
The main reason that the European countries gave for undertaking the Crusades - and a series of European campaigns over the next 200 years directed at the Muslim World in the East - was to retake Jerusalem, which
the Fatamid caliphate had captured. The Muslims, however, had seized Jerusalem in 688 (journey to Chapter 7 for more details), more than 400 years before the First Crusade.
The actual motivations behind the Crusades are more complicated and include the following:
● The Byzantine Empire had got itself into a bit of a bother with the battle of Manzikert in 1071 (this situation was probably the most significant cause).
● The European nobles wanted new territory.
● The pope was determined to call men of war into Christian service.
● The excess of skilled fighting men - knights - meant that many didn’t have lands to defend, were desperate for a cause and wanted to make their name and win riches and glory.
The following sections explore all these reasons and more.
Going berserk at Manzikert
By the eleventh century, the Christian Byzantine Empire was in serious trouble. During the early years of the century a new and powerful enemy had emerged - the Seljuk Turks, who delivered a crushing blow to the Byzantines in a battle at Manzikert (near Erzurum in modern Turkey). The Seljuks were a nomadic people who came from central Asia and began to strike at the heart of modern-day Iran. Having seized power from the previous Muslim regime, they converted to Islam and started to move farther west.
The Battle of Manzikert
The Seljuks advanced into the eastern borders of the Byzantine Empire. In 1067, they captured the province of Armenia and clearly didn’t intend to stop there.
Byzantium had other problems, too. The emperor at the time was a young boy, Michael VII, whose mother was ruling in his stead. As the Seljuk threat advanced, she married the commander of the Byzantine army, Romanus Diogenes, and made him emperor.
In August 1071, Romanus advanced against the Seljuks with an army of around 100,000, but the battle proved a disaster. Treachery and misinterpreted instructions resulted in a Byzantine defeat. Although the losses weren’t huge, the Byzantines lost central Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) to the Seljuks and must have feared greater losses to come.
A cry for help
Although the Seljuks didn’t press on to Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire continued to be under threat. Over the next 20 years, the Seljuks carried on their campaigns elsewhere. They began by sweeping up the ports on the Levantine coast and, in 1085, captured the ancient Syrian city of Antioch from the Byzantines.
Byzantium was also trying to deal with the activities of the Norman adventurer Robert Guiscard who tried to invade Greece in the same year. (Guiscard was the sixth son of Tancred de Hauteville who you can read all about in Chapter 10.) After Guiscard’s death, however, the relationship between the Eastern and Western Churches thawed a bit. Pope Urban II lifted the excommunication on the Byzantine emperor Alexius (turn to Chapter 9 for more details), who wasted no time in pushing his advantage. In 1095, at an embassy in Piacenza, his envoys made a formal request for protection from the Western Catholic Church.
A monk called Bernodl of Constance relates what happened:
An embassy of the emperor of Constantinople came to the synod and humbly begged the lord pope and all the faithful of Christ to send some help to him for the defence of the Holy Land against these pagans.
The pope in question was Urban II. He agreed to Alexius’s request and began the call for a Crusade.
Hungering for land
The Crusades appealed to noblemen for several reasons, but the acquisition of new land was paramount. Medieval Europe was a very dangerous place with near continual warfare between various aristocracies on the continent. The sons of ambitious nobles employed armed knights in these battles (see the later section ‘Bringing on the knights’ for more details).
A desire for more land drove this state of continuous warfare. Europe had only a finite amount of land, and the sons of the aristocracy who weren’t in line to inherit wanted to find some for themselves. Suddenly Urban II was offering them the opportunity to invade a whole new region with lots of land for the taking. Many of the nobles who joined the first Crusade had just this objective in mind.
Calling for Crusade
Between the summer of 1095 and July 1096, Pope Urban II went on tour in an effort to recruit people to the relief effort for Constantinople. He travelled
through northern Italy, all around France and sent letters to the people of Flanders, Italian cities and elsewhere. The Byzantine envoys probably only expected a few mercenaries. Instead, the pope went on a massive recruitment campaign and called on Christian warriors to arm themselves for a war in the East.
Going on the Crusade was a considerable commitment. Uprooting your life, leaving your wife and children, travelling thousands of miles and then fighting a horrifically dangerous war against relatively unknown enemies was a huge sacrifice.
Urban was a pretty good salesman, however, and had some very tempting deals on offer. Specifically, the pope offered an indulgence (see Chapter 2) to anyone going on Crusade. By doing this Christian service, people were able to have all their sins up to that point forgiven. He put the offer this way:
Whoever for devotion alone, not to gain honour or money, goes to Jerusalem to liberate the Church of God can substitute this journey for all penance.
All a crusader’s sins would be wiped away, as would any that were committed on the Crusade itself (which was clearly going to involve a lot of murder and pillage).
The idea of an indulgence was electric to the medieval mind. As I discuss in Chapter 9, medieval people were obsessed by the idea of the afterlife and getting into Heaven. Urban II was offering a guaranteed ticket.
Urban II had hoped for a response from the military classes, but he received more than he bargained for. His message appealed to all members of society and spread like wildfire across continental Europe. People with no money, status or military experience were fired up by the idea (see Chapter 12 for more on The People’s Crusade). The old, the poor, women and children all went on this adventure because of the opportunity of pilgrimage. What had begun as a call for military assistance became something more like a population movement. Some modern historians estimate that almost 60,000 people would’ve been involved.
Bringing on the knights
The class of society that Pope Urban II had in mind when he called people throughout Europe to go on Crusade were the new warriors of Europe, the knights.
Knights played a hugely important part of the success of the Normans in northern France and elsewhere, and by the time of the First Crusade, they were the dominant military class in Europe. The following sections examine who and what the knights were. By 1000, having a castle was the mark of a serious ruler in Europe (Chapter 10 contains loads more info on castles). As a way of protecting land and imposing your will on the local population, castles were unrivalled - but they needed staff.
During the same period, nobles and aristocrats began to keep large retinues of heavily armed men. These cnichts were used to brutally suppress local people. (Indeed, cnicht is an old English word that describes the basest type of servant and in a way, that’s what these men were.) Like mafia enforcers, cnichts ensured that taxes were paid, laws obeyed and men volunteered for military service. Without land themselves, a cnicht was tied to a master, who also paid for his expensive weapons and armour. A crucial distinction was that knights were mounted warriors and could afford to equip a horse.
The duties and experiences of a cnicht contrast sharply with what being a knight eventually came to signify as the Middle Ages continued - that is, a wealthy warrior who was able to afford his own warhorse. Knighthood in this later era was also associated with chivalry and honourable conduct (see Chapter 16 for more), but at the time of the Crusades, knights were effectively mercenaries for hire. Just the type that Urban II was looking for.
Things that go bump on a knight
The main things that made the knights so different from other fighting men was their incredibly expensive arms and armour. The different types of armour varied between places and periods but the basic elements remained the same:
● Mailcoat: By far the most expensive element of a knight's armour was the chain-mail undercoat that was worn with sleeves and reached down to the knees. Known as a hauberk, it was made up of hundreds of individual iron links that were joined together by hand. Hauberks took a great deal of time to make and cost a fortune.
● Helmet: All knights wore some kind of helmet. Originally this helmet was just a bowl type hat that sat on top of a chainmail hood. During the Middle Ages, however, helmets developed, initially in terms of new shapes that better deflected blows and then into full head helmets with visors.
● Body armour: Individual pieces of body armour were worn on the arms and legs and varied hugely in size and style throughout the period and in different geographic regions. The most common elements were greaves that protected the lower leg beneath the knee and gauntlets that covered the hand and forearm.
The costs of these items varied depending on quality and design. Knights without much cash could have worn some leather armour pieces but for most iron would've been essential. Estimating the expense is difficult, but fully arming a man and supplying him with a horse and weapons was probably equivalent to the price of a house today. Obviously knights needed to be the sons of successful men or have their armour bought for them.
Charge of the rather heavy brigade
The armour that knights wore (see the earlier sidebar ‘Things that go bump on a knight’) made them far safer from attack than normal cavalry soldiers. In addition, two other innovations made knights more mobile and useful in battle:
● Stirrups. Stirrups were first introduced to Europe sometime during the ninth or tenth centuries. Previously riders rode without them. With the addition of stirrups, men were able to ride with greater control using only their feet.
● Lances. The greater control that stirrups brought to riding also allowed knights to carry long poles (up to four metres or 13 feet in length) in the crook of their right arms, while holding a shield in the left. Knights then charged forward, directly at enemy infantry lines - to devastating effect.
Heavily armoured, mobile and effective from distance, knights were a terrifying weapon of war and social control.
Murder practice: Tournaments
Around the same time that mounted knights became common in Medieval Europe, tournaments also developed. During these competitive events, knights practised combat skills for the entertainment of an audience. Inevitably, they sometimes killed each other, although this wasn’t the intention!
The main event was the estor or charge, where two lines of knights charged at each other with lances. These events turned into proper battles with people severely injured and killed as a result. Individual knights were captured during the melee and allowed to return to where they came from only if an extremely expensive ransom was paid to their captors. It was a high-risk activity, but the rewards were great; knights could make fortunes from ransoms and it was a good way of gaining international honour and prestige.
By far the most glamorous event of tournaments was the joust, where two knights on horseback and armed with lances and shields charged at each other in one-on-one combat. Eventually, during the thirteenth century, the joust took over as the main event from the estor, and huge sums were gambled on the results by the watching masses. Jousting was incredibly dangerous and people did die, although killing your opponent wasn’t the objective. The tournament was also associated with fighting for the hand of a lady and an element of chivalry that you can read about in Chapter 26.
Venturing into the Kingdom of France
Following the treaty of Verdun in the ninth century (which I discuss in Chapter 6), the western territory of the Roman Empire known as Western Francia - modern-day France - had become distinct and separate from other parts of continental Europe.
Finding your way round France
By the time of the First Crusade, medieval France was a very different place compared to the years of the Carolingian rulers (see Chapters 5 and 6). It had many and varied independent rulers, all protecting their own interests with the skilful use of knights.
As a large slab of land, France had traditionally been thought of as being divided into two distinct sections. As far back as the Roman Empire, France had been divided into two provinces and since then the north and south had been treated independently (see Figure 11-1).
● The southern area, known as Aquitaine, didn’t have a king as such. Instead, one of the leading counts assumed overall rule and took the title of Duke of Aquitaine. Historically the Count of Poitou, one of the leading towns in the region, took the lead.
● The north and upland areas were much more complex:
• To the west, the count of Brittany pretty much ruled it as a separate state.
• To the northeast of Brittany was Normandy, whose interests had expanded across the channel to England (see Chapter 10 on William the Conqueror).
• To the northeast even farther was Flanders, which the Vikings had previously occupied before Count Baldwin II forced them out at the beginning of the tenth century.
• To the east, the territory was known as Burgundy. This area was a loose collection of old dukedoms that had been ruled by the Carolingians (the family of Charlemagne) since the eighth century (see Chapter 6). However, by the eleventh century these territories were in the hands of people who had no allegiance to the Holy Roman emperor.
France was a patchwork of different territories and dukedoms. But in the middle of it all was the king of France. Where had he come from?
Meeting the king of France
Since the Treaty of Verdun in 843, somebody had traditionally been called the king of France, but the position was nothing like as grand as it sounds. The actual territory that the king ruled was only that part of France known as Isle de France, the area immediately around the city of Paris, hemmed in by the lands of various other dukes and lords such as Anjou, Flanders and Normandy.
Figure 11-1: Medieval France in around 1100
In the second half of the tenth century, the Carolingian rulers were struggling in France. Links with the emperor in Germany were not as strong as they had been, and the Carolingians were forced to give away land to the indigenous Franks to gain their support.
During this period a man called Hugh Capet succeeded to the throne in 987. He took advantage of the weakness of the Carolingian ruler, held on to his title and was able to pass it on to his successors. Throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, France essentially had its own independent king. Technically he was the overlord of all the other dukes and counts who ruled in Francia - but things didn’t quite work out like that. The king’s power in the north was weak, and the aristocrats of Aquitaine virtually ignored him, but that situation would change over the next 100 years as the king’s power grew. By the late eleventh century the king of France had become a truly serious player on the international stage.
Extending the call to France
Unsurprisingly, all the competing aristocrats in France were almost constantly engaged in warfare or diplomatic skulduggery. The huge growth in the numbers of knights in France and their ever more violent and aggressive actions were of concern to the papacy.
As I mention in the earlier section ‘Calling for Crusade’, going on a Crusade answered the warrior noble’s desire for land and provided an outlet for their knights’s aggression. For these reasons, Pope Urban II spent much of his time travelling around France, preaching Crusade.
The effect of Urban’s call on the people must have been electric. Here was God’s representative appearing in front of them and calling them to come to war.
Preparing for the First Crusade
So who actually went on Crusade? Pope Urban II probably didn’t expect the more powerful figures in Europe to go. The king of England, the Holy Roman Emperor or the king of France were unlikely to take the pledge.
As rulers of large territories - and constantly threatened with invasion by their neighbours - they were unable to leave their kingdoms, because they weren’t sure that they’d have a kingdom to come back to. (In addition, the pope and Roman emperor weren’t on speaking terms due to the ‘Investiture Controversy’, which I cover in detail in Chapter 13.)
Instead, Urban II was targeting the second-tier of European nobility with his call for Crusade. These men were the younger brothers of rulers, discontented nobles or professional ‘adventurers’ such as the Normans. These men had something to gain from Crusade. With their ambitions frustrated at home, the Crusades offered chances to forge new kingdoms, along with guaranteed places in Heaven.
Meeting some notable Crusaders
The response from nobles across Europe to Urban’s call was almost overwhelming. Following is a list of the leading warriors of the First Crusade (confusingly, several of them seem to have been called Baldwin):
● Hugh of Vermandois: The younger brother of the king of France, Hugh was by far the most high-profile nobleman on the list.
● Raymond of Toulouse: The most senior and experienced warrior to go on the First Crusade, Raymond previously fought the Muslim armies in Spain. He wanted to be the official leader of the First Crusade, but Urban II said no.
● Adhemar of Le Puy: The official and spiritual leader of the Crusade, bishop Adhemar of Le Puy was tasked by Urban II to choose a Christian monarch for Jerusalem after it was re-conquered. Everybody thus wanted to be Adhemar’s new best friend.
● Godfrey of Bouillon, Eustace of Boulogne and Baldwin: Best described as the ‘Lorraine Gang’, Godfrey was the Duke of Lower Lorraine and his younger brother Eustace was the Count of Boulogne. The third brother Baldwin had no actual title and worked as an officer for Godfrey.
● Bohemond of Taranto: The first of the Norman contingent to embark, Bohemond was part of the de Hauteville family and a descendant of Robert Guiscard (for more on this adventurer, check out Chapter 10). He abandoned his territorial plans in southern Italy to join the Crusade.
● Tancred de Hauteville: Tancred was Bohemond’s nephew, another de Hauteville. Without a dukedom or principality of his own, the Crusade presented a great opportunity for him.
● Robert of Normandy: A northern Norman, Robert was the eldest son of William the Conqueror and the current Duke of Normandy (and was known as Robert ‘Curthose’ meaning ‘short stockings’, as a patronising nickname). To raise the capital needed for the expedition, he pawned his lands to his brother William II, the king of England, and was one of the first to sign up.
● Stephen of Blois: A Norman nobleman, Stephen was married to Adela, the sister of Robert of Normandy. He didn’t want to go on Crusade, but his wife wanted him to. She won and he went.
● Baldwin of Flanders and Baldwin of Alost: Two relatively minor noblemen from areas of Northern France, both Baldwins had held and lost titles in their homeland. The Crusade represented a real opportunity to make good elsewhere.
The knights of the First Crusade were a fearsome bunch of warriors, each bringing a private army of men and a mighty ego. Pope Urban II considered the Crusade to be a religious enterprise and chose a cleric, Adhemar of Le Puy, to lead it. Unfortunately, Urban underestimated other factors, specifically rivalry between the knights, the desire for land and antipathy towards the Byzantine Empire. Indeed, these factors almost undermined the Crusade before it got going.
Planning the journey
Ego clashes and arguments over leadership weren’t the only problems facing the First Crusade. Those who went on the expedition faced an imposing physical trek of around 3,000 miles (or 4,800 kilometres) to reach Constantinople. The first leg of the planned route involved moving south through Italy, crossing the Adriatic to Greece and then moving overland to Constantinople.
Medieval travellers had limited knowledge of distances and travel times. Upon reaching Constantinople, the vast majority of the Crusaders would literally have reached the end of their knowledge of the world. Even those few who had seen a map would have mistakenly believed that the holy city of Jerusalem was at the centre of the world (see Chapter 1). In fact, upon leaving Constantinople in April 1097 one crusader wrote to his wife that he expected to take Jerusalem and return home by Christmas! As it turned out his army didn’t even reach Jerusalem until June 1099, more than two years later.
Covering travel expenses
The journey during the Crusade proved arduous, lengthy and also extremely costly. Any nobleman embarking on the expedition had to provide for all the men in his army. This obligation meant paying for weapons and armour as well as the potentially ruinous expense of feeding them on the long, long march.
Robert of Normandy pawned his lands to his brother William II to raise enough money to go on Crusade. In turn, William had to get the money from somewhere in order to pay Robert. William of Malmesbury, a twelfth-century English historian and monk, describes the fundraising as follows:
Rufus [William II] therefore imposed an insupportable tax throughout the whole of England. Many bishops and abbots came to Rufus’s court complaining about its severity, saying that they could not pay without driving away the peasants. The courtiers, with their usual sarcasm, replied: 'Do you not have reliquaries made of gold and silver, full of dead men’s bones?’. . . almost everything that the holy frugality of our ancestors had saved up, the greed of those robbers spent.
The disrespect shown to holy relics in the desperation to raise money really did foreshadow the atrocities that would occur during the Crusades.