Download The Crusades: Origins, Motivations, and Ideals

The Crusades: Origins, Motivations, and Ideals
A confluence of events created the necessary conditions for the First Crusade and those that
followed, including the spread of Islam and subsequent Muslim incursions into Christian territory,
European expansion, and powerful spiritual motivations on both sides, all of which contributed to
the spread of the crusading ideal throughout Western Europe.
Origins of the First Crusade
Historians continue to argue over the specific causes of the First Crusade, but despite the
differences of opinion, there are certain events that all scholars agree set the stage for the
European expedition to the Levant in 1096. From the time of the first movement of Muslims west
in the mid-seventh century, hostile encounters with the Byzantines had been ongoing and
frequent. The successful conquest of much of what had been Byzantine territory, especially the
city of Jerusalem in 638, did more than anger the Byzantines; it had profound effects upon
other Christians as well, especially pilgrims traveling to and from Jerusalem. The treatment of
religious pilgrims, and indeed of non-Muslims in general, depended largely on the attitude
ofIslamic leaders. Most, like Muawiyah the Umayyad and his successors, were tolerant
of Jews and Christians. Asdhimmis, or protected peoples, Jews and Christians enjoyed significant
freedom, though they had to pay a tax, the jizya. On occasion, however, such leaders as the
early-11th-century Fatimid caliph al-Hakim severely persecuted non-Muslims.
For the most part, relations between the Byzantines and the major Islamic state of
Fatimid Egypthad been cordial, thus travel to the Holy Land had been relatively safe. However,
that state of affairs changed when a new Islamic people, the Seljuk Turks, moved into the
Mediterranean. Like such previous invaders as the Vikings and later the Normans, the Turks
sometimes worked for established peoples, including the caliph of Baghdad who hired them as
soldiers and sometimes preyed upon them, a problem increasingly facing the Byzantines, Islamic
leaders, and pilgrims alike. With the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, when the Turks inflicted a terrible
defeat upon theByzantine Empire, western Christians slowly began to receive reports of abuse of
their fellow Christians. The idea of an organized crusade held a certain appeal to European
Christians, for the sake of protecting pilgrims and potentially even reincorporating the Holy Land
back into Christendom.
The Call from Byzantium
Invading bands of Turks continued to pester and annoy the Byzantines in the late 11th century.
Byzantine emperorAlexius I Comnenus, who enjoyed good relations with Pope Urban II, sent
envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask for help in securing additional troops. The Byzantine
representatives made their case at the council, and Urban was impressed. The imminent threat to
the Byzantine Empire, while less threatening than it had previously been, presented a unique
opportunity. The envoys stressed, and Urban and his fellow bishops agreed, that the predatory
raids were not only a threat to Constantinople, but a threat to all of the Christian world. The result
was a far grander scheme than Alexius had imagined; Urban decided to call upon Western
Europe to fight against the Muslims.
Urban called for another council, the Council of Clermont, in 1095, where he addressed a crowd
and encouraged the nobles and knights to launch a crusade to protect the Byzantine Empire. The
response was extraordinary; an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 warriors answered the call. Expecting
a modest force, Emperor Alexius was horrified at the influx of so many lawless crusaders. In an
attempt to prevent problems, Alexius demanded that the crusaders swear fealty to him. Moreover,
he ordered them to acknowledge his lordship over any territory they conquered. Alexius's goal
was to reclaim those lands lost to the Turks. The crusaders had other ideas, and soon proved
that the emperor's fears were not unfounded. Not long after their arrival, disagreements led the
crusaders and their erstwhile Byzantine allies to part ways.
The Progress of the First Crusade and the Capture of Jerusalem
Upon leaving Constantinople, the crusaders went from success to success, defeating each army
that they encountered. The crusaders were aided by rivalries among Islamic leaders as well,
more than one of whom sought either an alliance or neutrality. Through negotiation and hard
fighting, the crusaders slowly made their way toward their chief goal: Jerusalem.
As a city so closely associated with the life, ministry, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, Jerusalem
represented the focal point of the Holy Land for Christians. Capturing it was key. That was a very
difficult task, however, as Jerusalem had long been one of the best-defended cities in the Near
East. In 1099, after only three years of campaigning, the crusaders captured the city. The 1099
siege of Jerusalem was difficult, dangerous, and nearly unsuccessful. With reinforcements from
the sea, the crusaders held out, and on a dark night in July, they breached the walls. The
massacre of non-Christians that followed was bloody and spared no one except a single Islamic
leader. The memory of the bloodbath, one long remembered, soured future attempts at
reconciliation and scandalized Muslims, Jews, and many Christians. The slaughter also
galvanized Muslims, who decided to expel the crusaders, rather than treat them as new players in
local politics.
Motivations for Crusade: Martial Glory, Adventure, and Piety
The motivations behind such conquests in the Holy Land were numerous and complicated.
Agricultural advancements in Europe created a more stable food supply, which in turn led to an
increase in population, wealth, and trade. Those changes brought new problems, however. By
tradition, in many parts of Europe, older sons inherited landholdings from the father in a system
called primogeniture, but now there was a proliferation of younger noble sons who did not stand
to inherit land. Unless one lived on the edges of Europe, where new land might be carved up,
new land was hard to come by as it had already been parceled out as fiefs. Landless and restless
knights, often younger sons with no secure inheritance, fell into violence with each other or upon
peasants and clergy. Some knights redirected their energies for a time with tournaments, but
those events could not solve the problem entirely. The Roman Catholic Church tried to curtail the
endemic strife, first with the Peace of God and later with the Truce of God. Those edicts worked
to some degree, but overall, they were largely ineffective. The Crusades offered Europeans a
chance to redirect that violence toward a distant enemy. When the First Crusade was over, many
knights stayed behind and enjoyed the fruits of conquest: land.
On an individual level, knights found the Crusades attractive for a number of reasons. As a class
responsible for and passionate about fighting, the chance to display prowess, collect spoils, and
possibly accumulate land for themselves was certainly ample motivation. Coupled with those
motives was a spirit of adventure: the Holy Land was an entirely different world, one largely
known only through the traditions of the Church or through legend. Lastly, but most importantly,
piety was perhaps the key force in the Crusades. Taking up the cross to erase one's sins was a
popular notion for many in the Middle Ages. While killing was deemed a sin against God, the idea
of violence on behalf of God, to defend the weak and smite one's enemies, was viewed as a
respectable endeavor. Positioning that ideal alongside absolution for sins, a common promise
made to crusaders, made becoming a crusader attractive. Although many today view the
Crusades as purely a matter of military conquest, the vast majority of the participants saw
crusading as a form of religious devotion. It is important to remember that Muslims likewise
viewed the Holy Land as sacred and valued it as the location for many of the events cherished in
their own tradition. Their wish for access and desire to control the area was justified by reasons
very similar to those of Jews and Christians.
Lasting Effects
What may have seemed like a solution for European Christians presented Muslims with new
problems. The exportation of idle European knights, who had been wreaking havoc on their
neighbors with constant fighting across Europe, only inflicted that violence on different peoples.
The bloodshed and atrocities committed by both sides shocked many contemporaries and in
many ways made travel and life for each religious group in the area much more perilous. That
bloodshed also left a legacy of misunderstanding that has still not disappeared today.
Later Crusades, unlike the first, were largely unsuccessful and did little to improve relations
between Christians and Muslims. The Second Crusade, from 1147 to 1149, was an embarrassing
failure from the point of view of Western Europeans, and between it and the Third Crusade,
Muslim leaders continued to take back territory they had lost. Saladin, one of the most famous
Muslim figures of the era, defeated the crusaders at the Battle of Hattin and retook Jerusalem, a
setback Christian armies never reversed. Crusading zeal and the sponsorship of kings (the First
Crusade was not led by kings, but by powerful nobles and proven fighters) prompted another
crusade in the 13th century; that endeavor, known as the Fourth Crusade, resulted in the sack of
Christian Constantinople by Christian European knights. The Europeans were eventually ousted
from Constantinople, but the capital of Eastern Christendom never quite recovered from the blow.
Its weakened state left it vulnerable to conquering Turks in the 15th century.
In addition to extraordinary losses on both sides and a wider cultural gulf between Christians and
Muslims, the Crusades brought about significant changes throughout Europe and the
Mediterranean. The actions of the crusaders reconnected Western Europe with the eastern
Mediterranean, and thus with civilizations older and in some ways more sophisticated than that of
Europe. Italian merchants, who had rallied to support the Crusades, not only ended the Muslim
dominance of trade in the eastern Mediterranean but made sure that the precious goods of the
east made it farther west. Thanks to that renewal of communication, Europe was flooded with
new foods, spices, medicine, cloth, techniques of building construction, and perhaps most
significantly, with many of the texts of ancient Greece and Rome that had been lost to Europe but
saved by the Muslims and Jews. While the crusaders' conquests in the Holy Land were shortlived ones, the long-term consequences of the Crusades significantly altered the course of history
throughout Europe and the Mediterranean.