Week 10: Courtly Culture and Crusading

THE REASONS FOR THE FAILURE OF THE SUBSEQUENT CRUSADES ARE LOCATED IN THE EVENTS OF THE EARLIER CRUSADES – THE FIRST CRUSADE IN PARTICULAR:

Laelie Greenwood; Mark Little; Felix Nicholson; Sascha Rouillon; Cheri Wong

The crusades that followed the first were notable for their failure and the causes were created in that first campaign. The Byzantine East was the main military power of the region as well as being the ‘other half’ of Western Christendom. Under increasing threat from invading Turks, Byzantium appealed to the West for help, however Byzantium was primarily concerned with help reclaiming the lands of Anatolia and wanted to avoid the prospect of the Muslim factions of the Mediterranean uniting in opposition.  Unfortunately, Pope Urban’s call to ‘Holy War’ would likely encourage this very situation. The Norman knights he enlisted had a reputation for being aggressively ambitious and the crusade would invariably ensure all Muslim princes along the road to Jerusalem were attacked. The sole intention of the crusaders was to reclaim the Holy Land and Byzantium’s indifference to this priority was viewed as heresy. 

One of the leaders of the crusade, Bohemond the Norman, had a reputation as an unscrupulous and deadly trouble-maker. His lack of diplomacy had upset the Greek contingent of the crusade, which had withdrawn their involvement. He also coveted Antioch for himself, which the Byzantine emperor Alexius longed to reclaim for his own empire. Bohemond engaged in a struggle with Alexius that he ultimately lost.  Byzantium had previously been criticized by the West for its tolerance toward the Muslims, but the Greeks would no longer extend this virtue to their Eastern allies; the damage to the East/West relationship was done and the repercussions would affect future events. 

The Siege of Jerusalem

 Steven Runciman talks about the ‘melancholy pile of misunderstandings’ that occur throughout the first crusade. As a Byzantinist, Runciman believes that these misunderstandings start chiefly with Pope Urban II, and continue between the East and West. he first misunderstanding occurred when Alexius Comnenus, the emperor, requested help from the West to drive the Turks back from Anatolia. However, the ambassadors who addressed the assembly at Piacenza in March 1095, in their desire to obtain results, exaggerated the danger that the Turks presented to Christendom and Urban, deeply moved by it, organised whole armies to be sent to the aid of the East rather than just the mercenaries the emperor had wanted. Alexius had not wanted to incite the Muslim world uniting against him, only to recover Anatolia; however, the ‘holy war’ that Urban envisioned would do exactly that. Byzantium was thus embarrassed by the appearance of the crusading armies and not wholly sympathetic with their aims – which seemed to the Crusaders, in their righteousness, extraordinarily impious.

The Emperor Alexius

Another misunderstanding that occurred was when the Crusaders begged the emperor to come to their rescue at Antioch. Although he agreed, he mistakenly believed Stephen of Blois’ claim that all was lost at Antioch, and thus did not send aid, as it was pointless to fight a lost cause when his troops could be of use elsewhere. To the Crusaders, this was seen as an act of betrayal, and when later on Alexius was found to be encouraging the Fatimids to negotiate with them about a division in Syria that would leave Jerusalem in their (the Fatimids’) hands, it seemed to prove his treachery. Meanwhile, other political misunderstandings continued to worsen due to religious difficulties. The Crusaders, generally speaking, were used to one uniform ritual, and were puzzled and shocked at the Byzantines’ tolerance of other religious churches, and this continued to fuel tension between them. Thus, because of all these various misunderstandings, within ten years of capturing Jerusalem, there was a general feeling in the West that somehow Byzantium was a traitor to the Christian cause, a feeling that was only encouraged by intolerant clerics such as Saint Bernard. 

Crusaders and Moslems

  ‘Those who for love of him take the cross...’ (anon.)

Crusading was promoted and justified by crusade preachers as ‘an act of love’. ‘Soldiers of Christ’ were able to express their love and devotion to Christ by symbolically ‘taking up the cross’, and by literally undertaking the journey of the crusade. Devotees were thus able to suffer as Christ had, for Christ, and this suffering was promoted as the ultimate expression of love for God. The love of the neighbour was also promoted by preachers, and was a key motivation for those participating in a crusade. The duty to aid fellow Christians became linked with love through the idea of fraternal aid; Christians became “born of the same mother...sons of the same Christ and Church”. Thus, the act of the crusade took on greater meaning as an ‘act of love’. Interestingly, Riley-Smith also discusses the implications of the idea of ‘love of one’s enemies’, which, although not preached by crusade propagandists, still paints the crusades as a justified act of love. The idea of violence motivated by love, mainly through the idea of correction of sins, gave the crusaders some moral righteousness, and no doubt aided in the interpretation (whether contemporary, or of the time), of the crusades as an acceptable act. 

The Crusaders invade

 

The Fourth Crusade from 1202–1204 was under the large influence of the Venetian Republic. Accounts of the Fourth Crusade discuss how in the first year of Pope Innocent III’s pontificate, he decided to rally the Christian Army and make haste to conquer the Muslim-controlled Jerusalem and invade through Egypt to the Holy Land. However, under the influence of the Doge for the Venetian Republic, the road turned firstly on the Christian city of Zara, then sacking the city of Constantinople, capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. While in Rome, the Pope excommunicated the crusaders after they took the Christian city of Zara. Accounts of the sack of Constantinople describe the crusaders and “wrathful barbarians” who desecrated the churches and took for themselves treasures and holy relics. As they sacked the city the “sacred pavement was polluted with blood and filth”, the soldiers performed acts of rape, murder, and utter chaos.  In the primary letters of Innocent III, for the crusaders crimes he clearly states that the Christian army was to attend to the business of legislation and defend what was left in the Holy Land., not captured the city of Constantinople like barbarians.

The Fourth Crusade

 

The Fourth Crusade has been labelled not only as controversial, but the crusaders themselves were branded by historian Niketas Choniates as “authors and heralds” of the Antichrist. Despite the fact that Constantinople was a Christian city, the crusaders plundered huge amounts of goods, including artefacts depicting their very own saviour. Even the abbot Martin joined in and forcefully obtained sacred relics; Gunter of Paris describes the abbot as being “filled with the fruits of sacrilege”. Pope Innocent II not only criticised the crusaders for “desert[ing]” the holy land but he also likened the killing of Constantinople’s Christians as “incest, adultery and fornication before the eyes of men”. This, the killing of fellow Christians for monetary and “temporal” gain, is perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Fourth Crusade.

Crusaders at Nicea

 

Blog question: In your opinion, what was the most important factor behind the failure of the crusades?