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CRUSADES

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 549 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CRUSADES  , the name given to the See also:

series of See also:wars for delivering the See also:Holy See also:Land from the Mahommedans, so-called from the See also:cross worn as a badge by the crusaders . By See also:analogy the See also:term " crusade " is also given to any See also:campaign undertaken in the same spirit . 1 . The Meaning of the Crusades.—The Crusades may be regarded partly as the decumanus fluctns in the See also:surge of religious revival, which had begun in western See also:Europe during the loth, and had mounted high during the 11th See also:century; partly as a See also:chapter, and a most important chapter, in the See also:history of the interaction of See also:East and See also:West . Contemporaries regarded them in the former of these two aspects, as " holy wars " and " pilgrims' progresses " towards See also:Christ's See also:Sepulchre; the reflective See also:eye of history must perhaps regard them more exclusively from the latter point of view . Considered as holy wars the Crusadesmust be interpreted by the ideas of an See also:age which was dominated by the spirit of otherworldliness, and accordingly ruled by the clerical See also:power which represented the other See also:world . They are a novum salutis genus—a new path to See also:Heaven, to tread which counted " for full and See also:complete See also:satisfaction " See also:pro omni poenitentia and gave " forgiveness of sins " (peccaminum remissio)'; they are, again, the " See also:foreign policy " of the papacy, directing its faithful subjects to the See also:great See also:war of See also:Christianity against the infidel . As such a novum salutis genus, the Crusades connect themselves with the history of the See also:penitentiary See also:system; as the foreign policy of the See also:Church they belong to that clerical See also:purification and direction of feudal society and its instincts, which appears in the institution of " See also:God's Truce " and in See also:chivalry itself . The penitentiary system, according to which the See also:priest enforced a See also:code of moral See also:law in the See also:confessional by the See also:sanction of See also:penance—penance which must be performed as a See also:condition of See also:admission to the See also:sacrament of the See also:Eucharist—had been from See also:early times a great See also:instrument in the See also:civilization of the raw Germanic races . Penance might consist in See also:fasting, it might consist in flagellation; it might consist in See also:pilgrimage . The penitentiary pilgrimage, which seems to have been practised as. early as A.D . 700, was twice blessed; not only was it an See also:act of See also:atonement in itself, like fasting and flagellation; it also gained for the See also:pilgrim the merit of having stood on holy ground .

Under the See also:

influence of the Cluniac revival, which began in the loth century, pilgrimages became increasingly frequent; and the See also:goal of pilgrimage was often See also:Jerusalem . Pilgrims who were travelling to Jerusalem joined themselves in companies for See also:security, and marched under arms; the pilgrims of 1064, who were headed by the See also:archbishop of See also:Mainz, numbered some 7000 men . When the First Crusade finally came, what was it but a penitentiary pilgrimage under arms—with the one additional See also:object of conquering the goal of pilgrimage ? That the Pilgrims' Progress should thus have turned into a Holy War is a fact readily explicable, when we turn to consider the attempts made by the Church, during the 11th century, to purify, or at any See also:rate to See also:direct, the feudal See also:instinct for private war (Fehde) . Since the See also:close of the loth century diocesan See also:councils in See also:France had been busily acting as legislatures, and enacting " forms of See also:peace " for the See also:maintenance of God's Peace or Truce (See also:Pax Dei or Treuga Dei) . In each See also:diocese there had arisen a judicature (judices pacis) to decide when the See also:form had been broken; and an executive, or communitas pacis, had been formed to enforce the decisions of the judicature . But it was an easier thing to consecrate the fighting instinct than to curb it; and the institution of chivalry represents such a clerical See also:consecration, for ideal ends and See also:noble purposes, of the See also:martial impulses which the Church had hitherto endeavoured to check . In the same way the Crusades themselves may be regarded as a See also:stage in the clerical See also:reformation of the fighting laymen . As chivalry directed the layman to defend what was right, so the See also:preaching of the Crusades directed him to attack what was wrong—the See also:possession by " infidels " of the Sepulchre of Christ . The Crusades are the offensive See also:side of chivalry: chivalry is their See also:parent—as it is also their See also:child . The See also:knight who joined the Crusades might thus still indulge the bellicose side of his See also:genius—under the See also:aegis and at the bidding of the Church; and in so doing he would also attain what the spiritual side of his nature ardently sought—a perfect salvation and remission of sins . He might See also:butcher all See also:day, till he waded See also:ankle-deep in See also:blood, and then at nightfall kneel, sobbing for very joy, at the See also:altar of the Sepulchre—for was he not red from the winepress of the See also:Lord ?

One can readily understand the popularity of the Crusades, when one reflects that they permitted men to get to the other world by fighting hard on See also:

earth, and allowed them to gain the fruits of See also:asceticism by the ways of See also:hedonism . Nor was the Church merely able, through the Crusades, to direct the martial instincts of 'See also:Fulcher of See also:Chartres, 1, i . For what follows, with regard to the Church's See also:conversion of guerra into the Holy War, cf. especially the passage—" Procedant contra infideles ad pugnam jam incipi dignam qui abusive privatum certamen contra fideles consuescebant distendere quondam." a feudal society; it was also able to pursue the object of its own immediate policy, and to See also:attempt the universal See also:diffusion of Christianity, even at the edge of the See also:sword, over the whole of the known world . Thus was renewed, on a greater See also:scale, that See also:ancient See also:feud of East and West, which has never died . For a thousand years, from the Hegira in 622 to the See also:siege of See also:Vienna in 1683, the peril of a See also:Mahommedan See also:conquest of Europe was almost continually See also:present . From this point of view, the Crusades appear as a reaction of the West against the pressure of the East—a reaction which carried the West into the East, and founded a Latin and See also:Christian See also:kingdom on the shores of See also:Asia . They protected Europe from the new revival of Mahommedanism under the See also:Turks; they gave it a See also:time of See also:rest in which the Western civilization of the See also:middle ages See also:developed . But the relation of East and West during the Crusades was not merely hostile or negative . The Latin kingdom of Jerusalem was the See also:meeting-See also:place of two civilizations: on its See also:soil the East learned from the West, and—perhaps still more—the West learned from the East . The culture developed in the West during the 13th century was not only permitted to develop by the See also:protection of the Crusades, it See also:grew upon materials which the Crusades enabled it to import from the East . Yet the See also:debt of Europe to the Crusades in this last respect has perhaps been unduly emphasized . See also:Sicily was still more the meeting-place of East and West than the kingdom of Jerusalem; and the See also:Arabs of See also:Spain gave more to the culture of Europe than the Arabs of See also:Syria .

2 . See also:

Historical Causes of the Crusades.—Within fifteen years of the Hegira Jerusalem See also:fell before the arms of See also:Omar (637), and it continued to remain in the hands of Mahommedan rulers till the end of the First Crusade . For centuries, however, a lively intercourse was maintained between the Latin Church in Jerusalem, which the clemency of the Arab conquerors tolerated, and the Christians of the West . See also:Charlemagne in particular was closely connected with Jerusalem: the See also:patriarch sent him the keys of the See also:city and a See also:standard in 800; and in 807 See also:Harun al-Rashid recognized this symbolical cession, and acknowledged Charlemagne as See also:protector of Jerusalem and owner of the church of the Sepulchre . Charlemagne founded a See also:hospital and a library in the Holy City; and later See also:legend, when it made him the first of crusaders and the conqueror of the Holy Land, was not without some basis of fact . The connexion lasted during the 9th century; See also:kings like See also:Alfred of See also:England and See also:Louis of See also:Germany sent contributions to Jerusalem, while the Church of Jerusalem acquired estates in the West . During the loth century this intercourse still continued; but in the rrth century interruptions began to come . The fanaticism of the See also:caliph Hakim destroyed the church of the Sepulchre and ended the Frankish See also:protectorate (loco); and the patronage of the Holy Places, a source of strife between the See also:Greek and the Latin Churches as See also:late as the beginning of the See also:Crimean War, passed to the See also:Byzantine See also:empire in 1021 . This latter See also:change in itself made pilgrimages from the West increasingly difficult: the Byzantines, especially after the See also:schism of 1054, did not seek to smooth the way of the pilgrim, and See also:Victor II. had to complain to the empress See also:Theodora of the exactions practised by her officials . But still worse for the Latins was the See also:capture of Jerusalem by the Seljukian Turks in 1071 . Without being intolerant, the Turks were a rougher and ruder See also:race than the Arabs of See also:Egypt whom they displaced; while the wars between the See also:Fatimites of Egypt and the See also:Abbasids of See also:Bagdad, whose cause was represented by the See also:Seljuks, made Syria (one of the natural See also:battle-grounds of history) into a troubled and unquiet region . The native Christians suffered; the pilgrims of the West found their way made still more difficult, and that at a time when greater See also:numbers than ever were thronging to the East .

Western Christians could not but feel hampered and checked in their natural See also:

movement towards the See also:fountain-See also:head of their See also:religion, and it was natural that they should ultimately endeavour to clear the way . In much the same way, at a later date and in a lesser See also:sphere, the closing of the See also:trade-routes by the advance of the See also:Ottoman Turks led traders to endeavour to find new channels, and issued in the rounding ofthe Cape of See also:Good See also:Hope and the See also:discovery of See also:America . Nor, indeed, must it be forgotten that the See also:search for new and more direct connexions with the routes of See also:Oriental trade is one of the motives underlying the Crusades themselves, and leading to what may be called the 13th-century discovery of Asia . It was thus natural, for these reasons, that the conquest of the Holy Land should gradually become an object for the ambition of Western Christianity—an object which the papacy, eager to realize its See also:dream of a universal Church subject to its sway, would naturally cherish and attempt to advance . Two causes combined to make this object still more natural and more definite . On the one See also:hand, the reconquest of lost territories from the Mahommedans by Christian See also:powers had been proceeding steadily for more than a See also:hundred years before the First Crusade; on the other hand, the position of the Eastern empire after 1071 was a clear and definite See also:summons to the Christian West,; and proved, in the event, the immediate occasion of the holy war . As early as 970 the recovery of the territories lost to Mahommedanism in the East had been begun by emperors like Nicephoras See also:Phocas and See also:John Zimisces: they had pushed their conquests, if only for a time, as far as See also:Antioch and See also:Edessa, and the temporary occupation of Jerusalem is attributed to the East See also:Roman arms . At the opposite end of the Mediterranean, in Spain, the Omayyad See also:caliphate was verging to its fall: the See also:long See also:Spanish crusade against the See also:Moor had begun; and in 1018 See also:Roger de Toeni was already leading See also:Normans into See also:Catalonia to the aid of the native Spaniard . In the centre of the Mediterranean the fight between Christian and Mahommedan had been long, but was finally inclining in favour of the Christian . The Arabs had begun the conquest of Sicily from the East Roman empire in 827, and they had attacked the mainland of See also:Italy as early as 840 . The popes had put themselves at the head of See also:Italian resistance: in 848 See also:Leo IV. is already promising a sure and certain hope of salvation to those who See also:die in See also:defence of the cross; and by 916, with the capture of the Arab fortress on the Garigliano, Italy was safe . Then came the reconquest of the Mediterranean islands near Italy .

The Pisans conquered See also:

Sardinia at the instigation of See also:Benedict VIII. about ror6; and, in a See also:thirty years' war which lasted from ro6o to 1090, the Normans, under a banner blessed by See also:Pope See also:Alexander II., wrested Sicily from the Arabs . The See also:Norman conquest of Sicily may with See also:justice be called a crusade before the Crusades; and it cannot but have given some impulse to that later attempt to wrest Syria from the Mahommedans, in which the virtual See also:leader was See also:Bohemund, a See also:scion of the same See also:house which had conquered Sicily . But while the Christians of the West were thus winning fresh ground from the Mahommedans, in the course of the 11th century, the East Roman empire had now to See also:bear the brunt of a Mahommedan revival under the Seljuksa revival which, while it crushed for a time the Greeks, only acted as a new incentive to the Latins to carry their arms tc the East . The Seljukian Turks, first the mercenaries and then the masters of the caliph, had given new See also:life to the decadent caliphate of Bagdad . Under the See also:rule of their sultans, who assumed the role of mayors of the See also:palace in Bagdad about the middle of the See also:lath century, they pushed westwards towards the caliphate of Egypt and the East Roman empire . While they wrested Jerusalem from the former (1071), in the same See also:year they inflicted a crushing defeat on the Eastern See also:emperor at Manzikert . The result of the defeat was the loss of almost the whole of Asia See also:Minor; the dominions of the Turks extended to the See also:sea bf See also:Marmora . An See also:appeal for assistance, such as was often to be heard again in succeeding centuries, was sent by See also:Michael VII. of See also:Constantinople to See also:Gregory VII. in 1073 . Gregory listened to the appeal; he projected—not, indeed, as has often been said, a crusade,' but a great expedition, which should recover ' Tradition credits a pope still earlier than Gregory VII. with the See also:idea of a crusade . See also:Silvester II. is said to have preached a See also:general expedition for the recovery of Jerusalem; and the same preaching is attributed to See also:Sergius IV. in 1011 . But the supposed See also:letter of Silvester is a later See also:forgery; and in moo the way of the Christian to Jerusalem was still See also:free and open . Asia Minor for the Eastern empire, in return for a See also:union of the Eastern with the Western Church .

In 1074 Gregory actually assembled a considerable See also:

army; but his disagreement with See also:Robert Guiscard, followed by the outbreak of the war of investitures, hindered the realization of his plans, and the only result was a precedent and a See also:suggestion for the events of 1095 . The appeal of Michael VII. was re-echoed by Alexius See also:Comnenus himself . Brave and See also:sage as he was, he could hardly See also:cope at one and the same time with the hostility of the Normans on the west, of the See also:Petchenegs (Patzinaks) on the See also:north, and of the Seljuks on the east and See also:south . Already in 1087 and 1o88 he had appealed to See also:Baldwin of See also:Flanders, verbally and by letter,l for troops; and Baldwin had answered the appeal . The same appeal was made, more than once, to See also:Urban II.; and the See also:answer was the First Crusade . The First Crusade was not, indeed, what Alexius had asked or expected to receive . He had appealed for reinforcements to recover Asia Minor; he received hundreds of thousands of troops, See also:independent of him, and intending to conquer Jerusalem for themselves, though they might incident-ally recover Asia Minor for the Eastern empire on their way . Alexius may almost be compared to a magician, who has uttered a See also:charm to summon a ministering spirit, and is surrounded on the instant by legions of demons . In truth the appeal of Alexius had set free forces in the West which were independent of, and even ultimately hostile to, the interests of the Eastern empire . The See also:primary force, which thus transmuted an appeal for reinforcements into a holy war for the conquest of See also:Palestine, was the Church . The creative thought of the middle ages is clerical thought . It is the Church which creates the Carolingian empire, because the See also:clergy thinks in terms of empire .

It is the Church which creates the First Crusade, because the clergy believes in penitentiary pilgrimages, and the war against the Seljuks can be turned into a pilgrimage to the Sepulchre; because, again, it wishes to direct the fighting instinct of the laity, and the consecrating name of Jerusalem provides an unimpeachable channel; above all, because the papacy desires a perfect and universal Church, and a perfect and universal Church must rule in the Holy Land . But it would be a See also:

mistake to regard the Crusades (as it would be a mistake to regard the Carolingian empire) as a pure creation of the Church, or as merely due to the policy of a See also:theocracy directing men to the holy war which is the only war possible for a theocracy . It would be almost truer, though only See also:half the truth, to say that the clergy gave the name of Crusade to sanctify interests and ambitions which, while set on other ends than those of the Church, happened to coincide in their choice of means . There was, for instance, the ambition of the adventurer See also:prince, the younger son, eager to carve a principality in the far East, of whom Bohemund is the type; there was the See also:interest of Italian towns, anxious to acquire the products of the East more directly and cheaply, by erecting their own See also:emporia in the eastern Mediterranean . The former was the See also:driving force which made the First Crusade successful, where later Crusades, without its stimulus, for the most See also:part failed; the latter was the one staunch ally which alone enabled Baldwin I. and Baldwin II. to create the kingdom of Jerusalem . So far as the Crusades led to permanent material results in the East, they did so in virtue of these two forces . Unregulated See also:enthusiasm might of itself have achieved little or nothing; enthusiasm caught and guided by the astute Norman, and the no less astute Venetian or Genoese, could not but achieve tangible results . The principality or the See also:emporium, it is true, would See also:supply motives to the prince and the See also:merchant only; and it may be urged that to the See also:mass of the crusaders the religious See also:motive was all in all . In this way we may return to the view that the First Crusade, at any rate, was un fait ecclesiastique . 1 The See also:comte de Riant impugned the authenticity of Alexius' letter to the See also:count of Flanders . It is very probable that the versions of this letter which we possess, and which are to be found only in later writings like See also:Guibert de Nogent, are apocryphal; Alexius can hardly have held out the bait of the beauty of Greek See also:women, or have written that he preferred to fall under the yoke of the Latins rather than that of the Turks . But it is also probable that these apocryphal versions are based on a genuine See also:original .

It is indeed true that to thousands the hope of acquiring spiritual merit must have been a great motive; it is also true, as the records of crusading sermons show, that there was a strong See also:

element of " revivalism " in the Crusades, and that thousands were hurried into taking the cross by a gust of that uncontrollable enthusiasm which is excited by revivalist meetings to-day . But it must also be admitted that there were motives of this world to attract the masses to the Crusades . See also:Famine and pestilence at See also:home drove men to emigrate hopefully to the See also:golden East . In 1094 there was pestilence from Flanders to Bohemia: in 1095 there was famine in See also:Lorraine . Francigenis occidentalibus facile persuaderi poterat sua rura relinquere; nam Gallias per annos See also:aliquot nunc seditio See also:civilis, nunc fames, nunc mortalitas nimis afixerat.2 No wonder that a stream of See also:emigration set towards the East, such as would in See also:modern times flow towards a newly discovered See also:gold-See also:field—a stream carrying in its turbid See also:waters much refuse, tramps and bankrupts, See also:camp-followers and hucksters, fugitive monks and escaped villeins, and marked by the same See also:motley grouping, the same See also:fever of life, the same alternations of affluence and beggary, which See also:mark the See also:rush for a gold-field to-day . Such were the forces set in movement by Urban II., when, after holding a See also:synod at See also:Piacenza (See also:March, 1095), and receiving there fresh appeals from Alexius, he moved to Clermont, in the S.E. of France, and there on the 26th of See also:November delivered the great speech which was followed by the First Crusade . In this speech he appealed, indeed, for help for the Greeks, auxilio .. . saepe acclamato indigis (Fulcher i, c. i.); but the gist of his speech was the need of Jerusalem . Let the truce of God be observed at home; and let the arms of Christians be directed to the winning of Jerusalem in an expedition which should count for full and complete penance . Like Gregory, Urban had thus sought for aid for the Eastern empire; unlike Gregory, who had only mentioned the Holy Sepulchre in a single letter, and then casually, he had struck the See also:note of Jerusalem . The instant cries of See also:Deus vult which answered the note showed that Urban had struck aright . Thousands at once took the cross; the first was See also:Bishop See also:Adhemar of See also:Puy, whom Urban named his See also:legate and made leader of the First Crusade (for the holy war, according to Urban's original conception, must needs be led by a clerk) .

Fixing the 15th of See also:

August 1096 as the time for the departure of the crusaders, and Constantinople as the general See also:rendezvous, Urban returned from France to Italy . It is See also:notice-able that it was on See also:French soil that the See also:seed had been sown .3 Preached on French soil by a pope of French descent, the Crusades began—and they continued—as essentially a French (or perhaps better Norman-French) enterprise; and the kingdom which they established in the East was essentially a French kingdom, in its speech and its customs, its virtues and its vices . It was natural that France should be the home of the Crusades . She was already the home of the Cluniac movement, the centre from which radiated the truce of God, the chosen place of chivalry; she could supply a See also:host of feudal nobles, somewhat loosely tied to their place in society, and ready to break loose for a great enterprise; she had suffered from battle and See also:murder, pestilence and famine, from which any See also:escape was welcome . To the Normans particularly the Crusades had an intimate appeal . They appealed to the old Norse instinct for wandering—an instinct which, as it had long before sent the Norseman eastward to find his El Dorado of Micklegarth, could now find a natural outlet in the expedition to Jerusalem: they appealed to the Norman religiosity, which had made them a See also:people of pilgrims, the See also:allies of the papacy, and, in England and Sicily, crusaders before the Crusades: finally, they appealed to that See also:desire to gain fresh territory; upon which Malaterra remarks as characteristic of Norman princes.¢ No wonder, then, that 2 Ekkehard, Chronica, p . 213 . a The Chanson de See also:Roland, which cannot be posterior to the First Crusade—for the poem never alludes to it—already contains the idea of the Holy War against See also:Islam . The idea of the crusade had thus already ripened in French See also:poetry, before Urban preached his See also:sermon . , See also:Book i. c. iii . (in See also:Muratori, S.R.I., v . 55o) .

the crusading armies were recruited in France, or that they were led by men of the stock of the d'Hautevilles . Meanwhile newly-conquered England had its own problems to solve; and Germany, torn by See also:

civil war, and not naturally See also:quick to kindle, could only deride the " See also:delirium " of the crusader.' 3 . Course of the First Crusade.—The First Crusade falls naturally into two parts . One of these may be called the Crusade of the people: the other may be termed the Crusade of the princes . Of these the people's Crusade—See also:prior in See also:order of time, if only secondary in point of importance—may naturally be studied first . The sermon of Urban II. at Clermont became the See also:staple for wandering preachers, among whom See also:Peter the See also:Hermit distinguished himself by his fiery zeal.' See also:Riding on an See also:ass from place to place through France and along the See also:Rhine, he carried away by his eloquence thousands of the poor . Some three or four months before the term fixed by Urban II., in See also:April and May Iog6, five divisions of pauperes had already collected . Three of these, led by Fulcher of See also: