The Crusades

Click to edit Master title style,Click to edit Master text styles,Second level,Third level,Fourth level,Fifth level,*,The Crusades,Decline of Byzantium,Review from Lesson 8,In 1071,Muslim Saljuqs won an important victory at Manzikert,Byzantine factions then turned on each other in civil war,allowing the Saljuqs almost free rein in Anatolia,The Byzantine Emperor asked Pope Urban II to help him against the Muslims,Pope Urban II,Urban responded to Byzantiums request with a rousing speech in Clermont,France in 1095 in which he called upon Christians to“Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher;wrest that land from the wicked race,and subject it to yourselves,Urbans speech would help launch the first of several Crusades,Reasons for the Crusades,The Pope hoped to unite the entire eastern Mediterranean and the divided Christian faith under the banner of the Latin Church,Remember the Schism from Lesson 6,Italian city-states,with their large navies,hoped for commercial gains and were therefore keen supporters of the Crusades,Reasons for the Crusades,The Byzantine Empire was in severe decline and no longer could act as a buffer between the Muslim East and the Catholic West,Christian pilgrims visiting the holy sites in Jerusalem began experiencing increased harassment and danger,“A pilgrim camp near Jericho,by David Roberts,A New Concept of War,Augustines Just War Theory,Waged under the auspices of the state,Vindication of justice(defense of life and property),Restrained conduct with regard to the enemy,non-combatants,and prisoners,The Crusades,At behest of the Pope,but under operational control of the kings,Defense of the faith,No restraint in dealing with the infidel,The change was justified based on the Biblical accounts of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua(remember Lesson 10),Mobilization of the Crusades,Pope Urban traveled to various cities for nine months preaching the Crusade and offering extraordinary inducements to include a plenary indulgence remitting all punishments due to sin for those who died on the Crusade,Serfs were allowed to leave the land to which they were bound,Citizens were exempted from taxes,Debtors were given a moratorium on interest,Prisoners were freed and death sentences were commuted by a bold extension of Papal authority to life service in Palestine,The Crusaders,The variety of motivations resulted in a varied assembly,Men tired of hopeless poverty,Adventurers seeking action,Merchants looking for new markets,Lords whose enlisting serfs had left them laborless,Sincerely religious individuals wanting to rescue the land of Christ,The First Crusade,The word“crusade comes from the Spanish cruzade which means“marked with the cross,Crusaders wore red crosses on their chests to symbolize their purpose,The First Crusade,Urban had appointed August 1096 as the time of departure,but many of the impatient peasants,who were among the first recruits,could not wait,Led by such personalities as Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless,they set out in three groups and quickly devolved into disorder,hunger,and ill-discipline,They were all but annihilated by a force of Turks at Nicea,“Alexius Comnenus,Emperor of the East,receives Peter the Hermit at Constantinople,August 1096by Gillot Saint-Evre,The First Crusade,The more organized Crusaders,under the divided leadership of various feudal leaders,moved by various routes to Constantinople,There the Emperor Alexius gave them provisions and bribes in exchange for a pledge of fealty,Alexius was somewhat afraid the Crusaders had designs on Constantinople as well as Jerusalem,Duke Godfrey of Bouillon was among the most brave,pious,competent,and fanatical of the First Crusade leaders,The First Crusade,The First Crusaders met an even more divided Muslim force and won victories at Nicea on June 19,1097 and Antioch on June 3,1098,By June 7,1099,after a three year campaign,12,000 of the original 30,000 Crusaders reached Jerusalem,Siege of Antioch,The First Crusade,On July 15 the Crusaders went over the city walls and unleashed unbridled carnage,Blood reportedly ran knee-deep,70,000 Moslems were slaughtered,Jews were herded into a synagogue and burned alive,The First Crusade,Administrative rule of Jerusalem proved problematic,Eventually the kingdom was parceled into practically independent fiefs and barons assumed all ownership of land,reducing the former owners to the condition of serfs,The kingdom was further weakened by the ceding of several ports to the Italian city-states in exchange for naval support and seaborne supplies,The native Christian population came to look back on the era of Moslem rule as a golden age,Godfrey served as the first ruler of Jerusalem,Knights,The establishment of new orders of military monks partially offset these weaknesses,The Knights of the Hospital of Saint John and the Knights Templar began by protecting and nursing pilgrims but gravitated to active attacks on Moslem strongholds,Both orders would come to play prominent roles in the bat