THE CRUSADES
73. Of all the events of the Middle Ages, the most romantic and
fascinating are the Crusades, the adventurous expeditions to Syria,
undertaken by kings and doughty knights with the hope of permanently
reclaiming the Holy Land from the infidel Turks. All through the twelfth
and thirteenth centuries each generation beheld at least one great army
of crusaders gathering from all parts of the West and starting toward
the Orient. Each year witnessed the departure of small bands of pilgrims
or of solitary soldiers of the cross. For two hundred years there was a
continuous stream of Europeans of every rank and station making their
way into western Asia. If they escaped the countless hazards of the
journey, they either settled in this distant land and devoted themselves
to war or commerce, or returned home, bringing with them tales of great
cities and new peoples, of skill and luxury unknown in the West.
[Sidenote: Natural temptation to overrate the importance of the
Crusades.]
Our sources of information in regard to the Crusades are so abundant and
so rich in picturesque incidents that writers have often yielded to the
temptation to give more space to these expeditions than their
consequences really justify. They were, after all, only one of the great
foreign enterprises which have been undertaken from time to time by the
European peoples. While their influence upon the West was doubtless very
important,--like that of the later conquest of India by the English and
the colonization of America,--the details of the campaigns in the East
scarcely belong to the history of western Europe.
[Sidenote: The Holy Land conquered first by the Arabs and then by the
Turks.]
[Sidenote: Eastern emperor appeals to the pope for aid against the
infidel Turks.]
Syria had been overrun by the Arabs in the seventh century, shortly
after the death of Mohammed, and the Holy City of Jerusalem had fallen
into the hands of the infidels. The Arab, however, shared the veneration
of the Christian for the places associated with the life of Christ and,
in general, permitted the Christian pilgrims who found their way thither
to worship unmolested. But with the coming of a new and ruder people,
the Seljuk Turks, in the eleventh century, the pilgrims began to bring
home news of great hardships. Moreover, the eastern emperor was defeated
by the Turks in 1071 and lost Asia Minor. The presence of the Turks in
possession of the fortress of Nicæa, just across from Constantinople,
was of course a standing menace to the Eastern Empire. When the
energetic Emperor Alexius (1081-1118) ascended the throne he endeavored
to expel the infidel. Finding himself unequal to the task, he appealed
for assistance to the head of Christendom, Urban II. The first great
impetus to the Crusades was the call issued by Urban at the celebrated
council which met in 1095 at Clermont in France.
[Sidenote: Urban II issues the call to the First Crusade at the Council
of Clermont, 1095.]
In an address, which produced more remarkable immediate results than any
other which history records, the pope exhorted knights and foot soldiers
of all ranks to give up their usual wicked business of destroying their
Christian brethren in private warfare and turn instead to the succor of
their fellow-Christians in the East. Otherwise the insolent Turks would,
if unchecked, extend their sway still more widely over the faithful
servants of the Lord. "Let the Holy Sepulcher of the Lord our Saviour,
which is possessed by unclean nations, especially urge you on, and the
holy places which they are now treating with ignominy and irreverently
polluting." Urban urged besides that France was too poor to support all
its people, while the Holy Land flowed with milk and honey. "Enter upon
the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest the land from the wicked race and
subject it to yourselves." When the pope had finished, all who were
present exclaimed, with one accord, "It is the will of God." This, the
pope declared, should be the rallying cry of the crusaders, who were to
wear a cross upon their bosoms as they went forth, and upon their backs
as they returned, as a holy sign of their sacred mission.[127]
[Sidenote: The motives of the crusaders.]
The Crusades are ordinarily represented as the most striking examples of
the simple faith and religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages. They
appealed, however, to many different kinds of men. The devout, the
romantic, and the adventurous were by no means the only classes that
were attracted. Syria held out inducements to the discontented noble who
might hope to gain a principality in the East, to the merchant who was
looking for new enterprises, to the merely restless who wished to avoid
his responsibilities at home, and even to the criminal who enlisted with
a view of escaping the results of his past offenses. It is noteworthy
that Urban appeals especially to those who had been "contending against
their brethren and relatives," and urges those "who have hitherto been
robbers now to become soldiers of Christ." The conduct of many of the
crusaders indicates that the pope found a ready hearing among this
class. Yet higher motives than a love of adventure and the hope of
conquest impelled many who took their way eastward. Great numbers,
doubtless, went to Jerusalem "through devotion alone, and not for the
sake of honor or gain," with the sole object of freeing the Holy
Sepulcher from the hands of the infidel.
[Sidenote: Privileges of the crusaders.]
To such as these the pope promised that the journey itself should take
the place of all penance for sin. The faithful crusader, like the
faithful Mohammedan, was assured of immediate entrance into heaven if he
died repentant in the holy cause. Later the Church exhibited its
extraordinary authority by what would seem to us an unjust interference
with business contracts. It freed those who, with a pure heart, entered
upon the journey from the payment of interest upon their debts, and
permitted them to mortgage property against the wishes of their feudal
lords. The crusaders' wives and children and property were taken under
the immediate protection of the Church, and he who troubled them
incurred excommunication.[128] These various considerations help to
explain the great popularity of undertakings that, at first sight, would
seem to have promised only hardships and disappointment.
[Illustration: ROUTES OF THE CRUSADERS]
[Sidenote: Peter the Hermit and his army.]
74. The Council of Clermont met in November. Before spring (1096) those
who set forth to preach the Crusade, above all the famous Peter the
Hermit, who was formerly given credit for having begun the whole
crusading movement, had collected, in France and along the Rhine, an
extraordinary army of the common folk. Peasants, artisans, vagabonds,
and even women and children, answered the summons, all fanatically
intent upon rescuing the Holy Sepulcher, two thousand miles away. They
were confident that the Lord would sustain them during the weary leagues
of the journey, and grant them a prompt victory over the infidel. The
host was got under way in several divisions under the leadership of
Peter the Hermit,[129] and of Walter the Penniless and other humble
knights. Many of the crusaders were slaughtered by the Hungarians, who
rose to protect themselves from the depredations of this motley horde.
Part of them got as far as Nicæa, only to be slaughtered by the Turks.
This is but an example, on a large scale, of what was going on
continually for a century or so after this first great catastrophe.
Individual pilgrims and adventurers, and sometimes considerable bodies
of crusaders, were constantly falling a prey to every form of
disaster--starvation, slavery, disease, and death--in their endeavors to
reach the Holy Land.
[Sidenote: The First Crusade, 1096.]
The conspicuous figures of the long period of the Crusades are not,
however, to be found among the lowly followers of Peter the Hermit, but
are the knights, in their long coats of mail. A year after the summons
issued at Clermont great armies of fighting men had been collected in
the West under noble leaders;--the pope speaks of three hundred thousand
soldiers. Of the various divisions which were to meet in Constantinople,
the following were the most important: the volunteers from Provence
under the papal legate and Count Raymond of Toulouse; inhabitants of
Germany, particularly of Lorraine, under Godfrey of Bouillon and his
brother Baldwin, both destined to be rulers of Jerusalem; and lastly, an
army of French and of the Normans of southern Italy under Bohemond and
Tancred.[130]
[Illustration: Knight of the First Crusade.]
The distinguished knights who have been mentioned were not actually in
command of real armies. Each crusader undertook the expedition on his
own account and was only obedient to any one's orders so long as he
pleased. The knights and men naturally grouped themselves around the
more noted leaders, but considered themselves free to change chiefs when
they pleased. The leaders themselves reserved the right to look out for
their own special interests rather than sacrifice themselves to the good
of the expedition.
[Sidenote: Hostilities between the Greeks and the crusaders.]
Upon the arrival of the crusaders at Constantinople it quickly became
clear that they had little more in common with the Greeks than with the
Turks. Emperor Alexius ordered his soldiers to attack Godfrey's army,
encamped in the suburbs of his capital, because their chief at first
refused to take the oath of feudal homage to him. The emperor's
daughter, in her remarkable history of the times, gives a sad picture of
the outrageous conduct of the crusaders. They, on the other hand,
denounced the "schismatic Greeks" as traitors, cowards, and liars.
The eastern emperor had hoped to use his western allies to reconquer
Asia Minor and force back the Turks. The leading knights, on the
contrary, dreamed of carving out principalities for themselves in the
former dominions of the emperor and proposed to control them by right of
conquest. Later we find both Greeks and western Christians shamelessly
allying themselves with the Mohammedans against each other. The
relations of the eastern and western enemies of the Turks were well
illustrated when the crusaders besieged their first town, Nicæa. When it
was just ready to surrender, the Greeks arranged with the enemy to have
their troops admitted first. They then closed the gates against their
western confederates and invited them to move on.
[Sidenote: Dissension among the leaders of the crusaders.]
The first real allies that the crusaders met with were the Christian
Armenians, who brought them aid after their terrible march through Asia
Minor. With their help Baldwin got possession of Edessa, of which he
made himself prince. The chiefs induced the great body of the crusaders
to postpone the march on Jerusalem, and a year was spent in taking the
rich and important city of Antioch. A bitter strife then broke out,
especially between the Norman Bohemond and the count of Toulouse, as to
who should have the conquered town. After the most unworthy conduct on
both sides, Bohemond won, and Raymond set to work to conquer a
principality for himself on the coast about Tripoli.
[Illustration: Map of the Crusaders' States in Syria]
[Sidenote: Capture of Jerusalem.]
In the spring of 1099 about twenty thousand warriors finally moved upon
Jerusalem. They found the city well walled and in the midst of a
desolate region where neither food nor water, nor the materials to
construct the apparatus necessary for the capture of the town, were to
be found, The opportune arrival at Jaffa of galleys from Genoa furnished
the besiegers with supplies, and, in spite of all the difficulties, the
place was taken in a couple of months. The crusaders, with their
customary barbarity, massacred the inhabitants. Godfrey of Bouillon was
chosen ruler of Jerusalem and took the modest title of "Defender of the
Holy Sepulcher." He soon died and was succeeded by his brother Baldwin,
who left Edessa in 1100 to take up the task of extending the bounds of
the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: Founding of Latin kingdoms in Syria.]
It will be observed that the "Franks," as the Mohammedans called all the
western folk, had established the centers of four principalities. These
were Edessa, Antioch, the region about Tripoli conquered by Raymond, and
the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The last was speedily increased by Baldwin;
with the help of the mariners from Venice and Genoa, he succeeded in
getting possession of Acre, Sidon, and a number of coast towns.
The news of these Christian victories quickly reached the West, and in
1101 tens of thousands of new crusaders started eastward. Most of them
were lost or dispersed in passing through Asia Minor, and few reached
their destination. The original conquerors were consequently left to
hold the land against the Saracens and to organize their conquests as
best they could.
The permanent hold of the Franks upon the eastern borders of the
Mediterranean depended upon the strength of the colonies which their
various princes were able to establish. It is impossible to learn how
many pilgrims from the West made their permanent homes in the new Latin
principalities. Certainly the greater part of those who visited
Palestine returned home after fulfilling their vow to kneel at the Holy
Sepulcher. Still the princes could rely upon a certain number of
soldiers who would be willing to stay and fight the Mohammedans. The
Turks, moreover, were so busy fighting one another that they showed less
energy than might have been expected in attempting to drive the Franks
from the narrow strip of territory--some five hundred miles long and
fifty wide--which they had conquered.
[Sidenote: The Hospitalers.]
75. A noteworthy outcome of the crusading movement was the foundation of
several curious orders--the Hospitalers, the Templars, and the Teutonic
Knights--which combined the dominant interests of the time, those of the
monk and the soldier. They permitted a man to be both at once; the
knight might wear a monkish cowl over his coat of mail. The Hospitalers
grew out of a monastic association that was formed before the First
Crusade for the succor of the poor and sick among the pilgrims. Later
the society admitted noble knights to its membership and became a
military order, while continuing its care for the sick. This charitable
association, like the earlier monasteries, received generous gifts of
land in western Europe and built and controlled many fortified
monasteries in the Holy Land itself. After the evacuation of Syria in
the thirteenth century, the Hospitalers moved their headquarters to the
island of Rhodes, and later to Malta. The order still exists and it is
considered a distinction to this day to have the privilege of wearing
its emblem, the cross of Malta.
[Illustration: Costume of the Hospitalers, showing the Form of the Cross
of Malta.]
[Sidenote: The Templars.]
Before the Hospitalers were transformed into a military order, a little
group of French knights banded together in 1119 to defend pilgrims on
their way to Jerusalem from the attacks of the infidel. They were
assigned quarters in the king's palace at Jerusalem on the site of the
former Temple of Solomon; hence the name, Templars, which they were
destined to render famous. The "poor soldiers of the Temple" were
enthusiastically approved by the Church. They wore a white cloak adorned
with a red cross, and were under a very strict monastic rule which bound
them by the vows of obedience, poverty, and celibacy. The fame of the
order spread throughout Europe, and the most exalted, even dukes and
princes, were ready to renounce the world and serve Christ under its
black and white banner, with the legend, _Non nobis, Domine_.
The order was aristocratic from the first, and it soon became incredibly
rich and independent. It had its collectors in all parts of Europe, who
dispatched the "alms" they received to the Grand Master at Jerusalem.
Towns, churches, and estates were given to the order, as well as vast
sums of money. The king of Aragon proposed to bestow upon it a third of
his kingdom. The pope showered privileges upon the Templars. They were
exempted from tithes and taxes, and were brought under his immediate
jurisdiction; they were released from feudal obligations, and bishops
were forbidden to excommunicate them.
[Sidenote: Abolition of the order of Templars.]
No wonder they grew insolent and aroused the jealousy and hate of
princes and prelates alike. Even Innocent III violently upbraided them
for admitting to their order wicked men, who then enjoyed all the
privileges of churchmen. Early in the fourteenth century, through the
combined efforts of the pope and Philip the Fair of France, the order
was brought to a terrible end. Its members were accused of the most
abominable practices,--such as heresy, the worship of idols, and the
systematic insulting of Christ and his religion. Many distinguished
Templars were burned for heresy, others perished miserably in dungeons.
The order was abolished and its property confiscated.
[Sidenote: The Teutonic Knights conquer the Prussians.]
As for the third great order, that of the Teutonic Knights, their
greatest importance lies in their conquest, after the Crusades were
over, of the heathen Prussians. Through their efforts a new Christian
state was formed on the shores of the Baltic, in which the important
cities of Königsberg and Dantzig grew up.
[Sidenote: The Second Crusade.]
76. Fifty years after the preaching of the First Crusade, the fall of
Edessa (1144), an important outpost of the Christians in the East, led
to a second great expedition. This was forwarded by no less a person
than St. Bernard, who went about using his unrivaled eloquence to induce
volunteers to take the cross. In a fierce hymn of battle he cried to the
Knights Templars: "The Christian who slays the unbeliever in the Holy
War is sure of his reward, the more sure if he himself be slain. The
Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is
glorified." The king of France readily consented to take the cross, but
the emperor, Conrad III, appears to have yielded only after St. Bernard
had preached before him and given a vivid picture of the terrors of the
Judgment Day.
In regard to the less distinguished recruits, the historian, Otto of
Freising, tells us that so many thieves and robbers hastened to take the
cross that every one recognized in their enthusiasm the hand of God. St.
Bernard himself, the chief promoter of the expedition, gives a most
unflattering description of the "soldiers of Christ." "In that countless
multitude you will find few except the utterly wicked and impious, the
sacrilegious, homicides, and perjurers, whose departure is a double
gain. Europe rejoices to lose them and Palestine to gain them; they are
useful in both ways, in their absence from here and their presence
there." It is quite unnecessary to describe the movements and fate of
the crusaders; suffice it to say that, from a military standpoint, the
so-called Second Crusade was a miserable failure.
[Sidenote: The Third Crusade.]
Forty years later, in 1187, Jerusalem was taken by Saladin, the most
heroic and distinguished of all the Saracen rulers. The loss of the Holy
City led to the most famous of all the military expeditions to the Holy
Land, in which Frederick Barbarossa, Richard the Lion-Hearted of
England, and his political rival, Philip Augustus of France, all took
part. The accounts of the enterprise show that while the several
Christian leaders hated one another heartily enough, the Christians and
Saracens were coming to respect one another. We find examples of the
most courtly relations between the representatives of the opposing
religions. In 1192 Richard concluded a truce with Saladin, by the terms
of which the Christian pilgrims were allowed to visit the holy places
with safety and comfort.[131]
[Sidenote: The Fourth and subsequent Crusades.]
In the thirteenth century the crusaders began to direct their
expeditions toward Egypt as the center of the Saracen power. The first
of these was diverted in an extraordinary manner by the Venetians, who
induced the crusaders to conquer Constantinople for their benefit. The
further expeditions of Frederick II and St. Louis need not be described.
Jerusalem was irrevocably lost in 1244, and although the possibility of
recovering the city was long considered, the Crusades may be said to
have come to a close before the end of the thirteenth century.
[Illustration: Ruins of a Fortress of the Hospitalers in the Holy Land]
[Sidenote: Settlements of the Italian merchants.]
77. For one class at least, the Holy Land had great and permanent
charms, namely, the Italian merchants, especially those from Genoa,
Venice, and Pisa. It was through their early interest and supplies from
their ships, that the conquest of the Holy Land had been rendered
possible. The merchants were always careful to see that they were well
paid for their services. When they aided in the successful siege of a
town they arranged that a definite quarter should be assigned to them
in the captured place, where they might have their market, docks,
church, and all that was necessary for a permanent center for their
commerce. This district belonged to the town to which the merchants
belonged. Venice even sent governors to live in the quarters assigned to
its citizens in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Marseilles also had
independent quarters in Jerusalem, and Genoa had its share in the county
of Tripoli.
[Sidenote: Oriental luxury introduced into Europe.]
This new commerce had a most important influence in bringing the West
into permanent relations with the Orient. Eastern products from India
and elsewhere--silks, spices, camphor, musk, pearls, and ivory--were
brought by the Mohammedans from the East to the commercial towns of
Palestine and Syria; then, through the Italian merchants, they found
their way into France and Germany, suggesting ideas of luxury hitherto
scarcely dreamed of by the still half-barbarous Franks.
[Illustration: Tomb of a Crusader]
[Sidenote: Results of the Crusades.]
Some of the results of the Crusades upon western Europe must already be
obvious, even from this very brief account. Thousands and thousands of
Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen had traveled to the Orient by land
and by sea. Most of them came from hamlets or castles where they could
never have learned much of the great world beyond the confines of their
native village or province. They suddenly found themselves in great
cities and in the midst of unfamiliar peoples and customs. This could
not fail to make them think and give them new ideas to carry home. The
Crusade took the place of a liberal education. The crusaders came into
contact with those who knew more than they did, above all the Arabs, and
brought back with them new notions of comfort and luxury.
Yet in attempting to estimate the debt of the West to the Crusades it
should be remembered that many of the new things may well have come from
Constantinople, or through the Saracens of Sicily and Spain, quite
independently of the armed incursions into Syria.[132] Moreover, during
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries towns were rapidly growing up in
Europe, trade and manufactures were extending, and the universities were
being founded. It would be absurd to suppose that without the Crusades
this progress would not have taken place. So we may conclude that the
distant expeditions and the contact with strange and more highly
civilized peoples did no more than hasten the improvement which was
already perceptible before Urban made his ever-memorable address at
Clermont.[133]
General Reading.--A somewhat fuller account of the Crusades will be
found in EMERTON, _Mediæval Europe_, Chapter XI. Their results are
discussed in ADAMS, _Civilization_, Chapter XI. Professor Munro has
published a number of very interesting documents in _Translations
and Reprints_, Vol. I, Nos. 2, 4 (Letters of the Crusaders), and
Vol. III, No. 1 (The Fourth Crusade). See also his _Mediæval
History_, Chapter XI, on the Crusades. ARCHER and KINGSFORD, _The
Crusades_ (G.P. Putnam's Sons, $1.50), is probably the best modern
work in English.