Crusade 6

[Joke Grinman]

TheCrusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Christian Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these military expeditions are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that had the objective of reconquering Jerusalem and its surrounding area from Muslim rule after the region had been conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate centuries earlier. Beginning with the First Crusade, which resulted in the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, dozens of military campaigns were organised, providing a focal point of European history for centuries. Crusading declined rapidly after the 15th century.

In 1095, after a Byzantine request for aid,[1] Pope Urban II proclaimed the first expedition at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in Western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. Participants came from all over Europe and had a variety of motivations. These included religious salvation, satisfying feudal obligations, opportunities for renown, and economic or political advantage. Later expeditions were conducted by generally more organised armies, sometimes led by a king. All were granted papal indulgences. Initial successes established four Crusader states: the County of Edessa; the Principality of Antioch; the Kingdom of Jerusalem; and the County of Tripoli. A European presence remained in the region in some form until the fall of Acre in 1291. After this, no further large military campaigns were organised.

The term "crusade" first referred to military expeditions undertaken by European Christians in the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries to the Holy Land. The conflicts to which the term is applied has been extended to include other campaigns initiated, supported and sometimes directed by the Latin Church with varying objectives, mostly religious, sometimes political. These differed from previous Christian religious wars in that they were considered a penitential exercise, and so earned participants remittance from penalties for all confessed sins.[2] What constituted a crusade has been understood in diverse ways, particularly regarding the early Crusades, and the precise definition remains a matter of debate among contemporary historians.[3][4]

The political situation in Western Asia was changed by later waves of Turkish migration, in particular the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the 10th century. Previously a minor ruling clan from Transoxania, they had recently converted to Islam and migrated into Iran. In two decades following their arrival they conquered Iran, Iraq and the Near East. The Seljuks and their followers were from the Sunni tradition. This brought them into conflict in Palestine and Syria with the Fatimids who were Shi'ite.[11] The Seljuks were nomadic, Turkic speaking and occasionally shamanistic, very different from their sedentary, Arabic speaking subjects. This difference and the governance of territory based on political preference, and competition between independent princes rather than geography, weakened power structures.[12] In 1071, Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes attempted confrontation to suppress the Seljuks' sporadic raiding, leading to his defeat at the battle of Manzikert. Historians once considered this a pivotal event but now Manzikert is regarded as only one further step in the expansion of the Great Seljuk Empire.[13]

The evolution of a Christian theology of war developed from the link of Roman citizenship to Christianity, with citizens were required to fight the empire's enemies. A doctrine of holy war dated from the 4th-century theologian Saint Augustine. He maintained that aggressive war was sinful, but acknowledged a "just war" could be rationalised if it was proclaimed by a legitimate authority, was defensive or for the recovery of lands, and without an excessive degree of violence.[14][15] Violent acts were commonly used for dispute resolution in Western Europe, and the papacy attempted to mitigate this.[16] Historians have thought that the Peace and Truce of God movements restricted conflict between Christians from the 10th century; the influence is apparent in Urban II's speeches. Other historians assert that the effectiveness was limited and it had died out by the time of the crusades.[17] Pope Alexander II developed a system of recruitment via oaths for military resourcing that his successor Pope Gregory VII extended across Europe.[18] In the 11th century, Christian conflict with Muslims on the southern peripheries of Christendom was sponsored by the Church, including the siege of Barbastro and the Norman conquest of Sicily.[19] In 1074, Gregory VII planned a display of military power to reinforce the principle of papal sovereignty. His vision of a holy war supporting Byzantium against the Seljuks was the first crusade prototype, but lacked support.[20]

The First Crusade was an unexpected event for contemporary chroniclers, but historical analysis demonstrates it had its roots in earlier developments with both clerics and laity recognising Jerusalem's role in Christianity as worthy of penitential pilgrimage. In 1071, Jerusalem was captured by the Turkish warlord Atsiz, who seized most of Syria and Palestine as part of the expansion of the Seljuks throughout the Middle East. The Seljuk hold on the city was weak and returning pilgrims reported difficulties and the oppression of Christians. Byzantine desire for military aid converged with increasing willingness of the western nobility to accept papal military direction.[21][22]

In 1095, Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military aid from Pope Urban II at the Council of Piacenza. He was probably expecting a small number of mercenaries he could direct. Alexios had restored the Empire's finances and authority but still faced numerous foreign enemies. Later that year at the Council of Clermont, Urban raised the issue again and preached a crusade.[23] Almost immediately, the French priest Peter the Hermit gathered thousands of mostly poor in the People's Crusade.[24] Traveling through Germany, German bands massacred Jewish communities in the Rhineland massacres during wide-ranging anti-Jewish activities.[25] Jews were perceived to be as much an enemy as Muslims. They were held responsible for the crucifixion, and were more immediately visible. People wondered why they should travel thousands of miles to fight non-believers when there were many closer to home.[26] Quickly after leaving Byzantine-controlled territory on their journey to Nicaea these crusaders were annihilated in a Turkish ambush at the Battle of Civetot.[27]

Conflict with Urban II meant that King Philip I of France and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV declined participation. Aristocrats from France, western Germany, the Low Countries, Languedoc and Italy led independent contingents in loose, fluid arrangements based on bonds of lordship, family, ethnicity and language. The elder statesman Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse was foremost, rivaled by the relatively poor but martial Italo-Norman Bohemond of Taranto and his nephew Tancred. Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin and forces from Lorraine, Lotharingia, and Germany also joined. These five princes were pivotal to the campaign, which was augmented by a northern French army led by Robert Curthose, Count Stephen II of Blois, and Count Robert II of Flanders.[28] The total number may have reached as many as 100,000 people including non-combatants. They traveled eastward by land to Constantinople where they were cautiously welcomed by the emperor.[29] Alexios persuaded many of the princes to pledge allegiance to him and that their first objective should be Nicaea, the capital of the Sultanate of Rum. Sultan Kilij Arslan left the city to resolve a territorial dispute, enabling its capture after the siege of Nicaea and a Byzantine naval assault in the high point of Latin and Greek co-operation.[30]

The first attack on the city, launched on 7 June 1099, failed, and the siege of Jerusalem became a stalemate, before the arrival of craftsmen and supplies transported by the Genoese to Jaffa tilted the balance. Two large siege engines were constructed and the one commanded by Godfrey breached the walls on 15 July. For two days the crusaders massacred the inhabitants and pillaged the city. Historians now believe the accounts of the numbers killed have been exaggerated, but this narrative of massacre did much to cement the crusaders' reputation for barbarism.[37] Godfrey secured the Frankish position by defeating an Egyptian force at the Battle of Ascalon on 12 August.[38] Most of the crusaders considered their pilgrimage complete and returned to Europe. When it came to the future governance of the city it was Godfrey who took leadership and the title of Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri, Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. The presence of troops from Lorraine ended the possibility that Jerusalem would be an ecclesiastical domain and the claims of Raymond.[39] Godfrey was left with a mere 300 knights and 2,000 infantry. Tancred also remained with the ambition to gain a princedom of his own.[40]

The Islamic world seems to have barely registered the crusade; certainly, there is limited written evidence before 1130. This may be in part due to a reluctance to relate Muslim failure, but it is more likely to be the result of cultural misunderstanding. Al-Afdal Shahanshah and the Muslim world mistook the crusaders for the latest in a long line of Byzantine mercenaries, not religiously motivated warriors intent on conquest and settlement.[41] The Muslim world was divided between the Sunnis of Syria and Iraq and the Shi'ite Fatimids of Egypt. The Turks had found unity unachievable since the death of Sultan Malik-Shah in 1092, with rival rulers in Damascus and Aleppo.[42] In addition, in Baghdad, Seljuk sultan Barkiyaruq and Abbasid caliph al-Mustazhir were engaged in a power struggle. This gave the Crusaders a crucial opportunity to consolidate without any pan-Islamic counter-attack.[43]

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