Archive for July, 2009

The First Crusade

The First Crusade – 1096 – 1099

A brief description and outline of the Cause of the Crusades is as follows:

• The massacre of 3000 Christian Pilgrims in Jerusalem prompted the first crusade

• Religious Conviction of crusaders

• The Instinct to Fight

• The Preaching of Peter the Hermit

• The Threat of the Turks

• The Council of Clermont led by Pope Urban II – “It is the will of God”

Leaders of the First Crusade
The leaders of the First Crusade included some of the most distinguished representatives of European knighthood. Count Raymond of Toulouse headed a band of volunteers from Provence in southern France. Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin commanded a force of French and Germans from the Rhinelands. Normandy sent Robert, William the Conqueror’s eldest son. The Normans from Italy and Sicily were led by Bohemond, a son of Robert Guiscard, and his nephew Tancred.

The First Crusade – The People’s Crusade
The months which followed the Council of Clermont were marked by an epidemic of religious excitement in western Europe. Popular preachers everywhere took up the cry “God wills it!” and urged their hearers to start for Jerusalem. A monk named Peter the Hermit aroused large parts of France with his passionate eloquence, as he rode from town to town, carrying a huge cross before him and preaching to vast crowds. Without waiting for the main body of nobles, which was to assemble at Constantinople in the summer of 1096 a horde of poor men, women, and children set out, unorganized and almost unarmed, on the road to the Holy Land. This was called the Peoples Crusade, it is also referred to as the Peasants Crusade. Dividing command of the mixed multitudes with a poor knight, called Walter the Penniless, and followed by a throng of about 80,000 persons, among whom were many women and children, Peter the Hermit set out for Constantinople leading the Peoples Crusade via an overland route through Germany and Hungary. Thousands of the Peoples Crusade fell in battle with the natives of the countries through which they marched, and thousands more perished miserably of hunger and exposure. The Peoples Crusade was badly organised – most of the people were unarmed and lacked the command and discipline of the military crusaders. The Byzantium emperor Alexius I sent his ragged allies as quickly as possible to Asia Minor, where most of them were slaughtered by the Turks. The daughter of Alexius, called Anna Comnena wrote a book about her father and the crusaders called the Alexiad which provides historical details about the first crusaders. Those crusaders who crossed the Bosphorus were surprised by the Turks, and almost all of the Peoples Crusade were slaughtered. Peter the Hermit did survive and eventually led the Crusaders in a procession around the walls of Jerusalem just before the city was taken.

The Main Body of the First Crusade
Meanwhile real armies were gathering in the West. Recruits came in greater numbers from France than from any other country, a circumstance which resulted in the crusaders being generally called “Franks” by their Moslem foes. They had no single commander, but each contingent set out for Constantinople by its own route and at its own time.

The First Crusade – The Siege of Antioch
Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, and Tancred, “the mirror of knighthood,” were among the most noted of the leaders of the different divisions of the army. The expedition numbered about 700,000 men, of whom fully 100,000 were mailed knights. The crusaders traversed Europe by different routes and reassembled at Constantinople. Crossing the Bosphorus, they first captured Nicaea, the Turkish capital, in Bithynia, and then set out across Asia Minor for Syria. Arriving at Antioch, the survivors captured that place, and then, after some delays, pushed on towards Jerusalem. The Siege of Antioch had lasted from October 1097 to June 1098.

The First Crusade – The City of Jerusalem
Reduced now to perhaps one-fourth of their original numbers, the crusaders advanced slowly to the city which formed the goal of all their efforts. When at length the Holy City burst upon their view, a perfect delirium of joy seized the crusaders. They embraced one another with tears of joy, and even embraced and kissed the ground on which they stood. As they passed on, they took off their shoes, and marched with uncovered head and bare feet, singing the words of the prophet: “Jerusalem, lift up thine eyes, and behold the liberator who comes to break thy chains.” Before attacking it they marched barefoot in religious procession around the walls, with Peter the Hermit at their head. Then came the grand assault.

The First Crusade – The Capture of Jerusalem
The first assault made by the Christians upon the walls of the city was repulsed; but the second was successful, and the city was in the hands of the crusaders by July 1099. Godfrey of Bouillon and Tancred were among the first to mount the ramparts. Once inside the city, the crusaders massacred their enemies without mercy. A terrible slaughter of the infidels took place. For seven days the carnage went on, at the end of which time scarcely any of the Moslem faith were left alive. The Christians took possession of the houses and property of the infidels, each soldier having a right to that which he had first seized and placed his mark upon.

The First Crusade
Each section of this Middle Ages website addresses all topics and provides interesting facts and information about these great people and events in bygone Medieval times including The First Crusade . The Sitemap provides full details of all of the information and facts provided about the fascinating subject of the Middle Ages!

Cause of the Crusades

The reason and cause of the crusades was a war between Christians and Moslems which centered around the city of Jerusalem and the Holy places of Palestine. The City of Jerusalem held a Holy significance to the Christian religion. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem commemorated the hill of crucifixion and the tomb of Christ’s burial. Pilgrims throughout the Middle Ages made sacred pilgrimages to the Holy city of Jerusalem and the church. Although the city of Jerusalem was held by the Saracens the Christian pilgrims had been granted safe passage to visit the Holy city. In 1065 Jerusalem was taken by the Turks, who came from the kingdom of ancient Persia. 3000 Christians were massacred and the remaining Christians were treated so badly that throughout Christendom people were stirred to fight in crusades. These actions aroused a storm of indignation throughout Europe and awakened the desire to rescue the Holy Land from the grasp of the “infidel.”

Among the early Christians it was thought a pious and meritorious act to undertake a journey to some sacred place. Especially was it thought that a pilgrimage to the land that had been trod by the feet of the Saviour of the world, to the Holy City that had witnessed his martyrdom, was a peculiarly pious undertaking, and one which secured for the pilgrim the special favor and blessing of Heaven. The Saracen caliphs, for the four centuries and more that they held possession of Palestine, pursued usually an enlightened policy towards the pilgrims, even encouraging pilgrimages as a source of revenue. But in the eleventh century the Seljukian Turks, a prominent Tartar tribe and zealous followers of Islam, wrested from the caliphs almost all their Asiatic possessions. The Christians were not long in realizing that power had fallen into new hands. 3000 Christian Pilgrims were insulted and persecuted in every way. The churches in Jerusalem were destroyed or turned into stables.

Cause of the Crusades – Religious Conviction

If it were a meritorious thing to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, much more would it be a pious act to rescue the sacred spot from the profanation of infidels. This was the conviction that changed the pilgrim into a warrior, this was the sentiment that for two centuries and more stirred the Christian world to its profoundest depths, and cast the population of Europe in wave after wave upon Asia.

Cause of the Crusades – The Preaching of Peter the Hermit
The immediate cause of the First Crusade was the preaching of Peter the Hermit, a native of Picardy, in France. Having been commissioned by Pope Urban II. to preach a crusade, the Hermit traversed all Italy and France, addressing everywhere, in the church, in the street, and in the open field, the crowds that flocked about him, moving all hearts with sympathy or firing them with indignation, as he recited the sufferings of their brethren at the hands of the infidels, or pictured the profanation of the holy places, polluted by the presence and insults of the unbelievers.

Cause of the Crusades – Pope Urban II & the Council of Clermont
Pope Urban II called a great council of the Church at Placentia, in Italy, to consider the appeal (1095), but nothing was effected. Later in the same year a new council was convened at Clermont, in France, Pope Urban purposely fixing the place of meeting among the warm tempered and martial Franks. Pope Urban II himself was one of the chief speakers. He was naturally eloquent, so that the man, the cause, and the occasion all conspired to achieve one of the greatest triumphs of human oratory. Pope Urban II pictured the humiliation and misery of the provinces of Asia; the profanation of the places made sacred by the presence and footsteps of the Son of God. Pope Urban II then detailed the conquests of the Turks, until now, with all Asia Minor in their possession, they were threatening Europe from the shores of the Hellespont.

Cause of the Crusades – “It is the will of God”
“When Jesus Christ summons you to his defence,” exclaimed the eloquent pontiff, “let no base affection detain you in your homes; whoever will abandon his house, or his father, or his mother, or his wife, or his children, or his inheritance, for the sake of my name, shall be recompensed a hundred-fold, and possess life eternal.” Here the enthusiasm of the vast assembly burst through every restraint. With one voice they cried, “Dieu le volt! Dieu le volt!” meaning “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!” Thousands immediately affixed the cross to their garments as a pledge of their sacred engagement to go forth to the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre. The fifteenth day of August of the following year (1096) was set for the departure of the expedition – the Crusades had begun.

Cause of the Crusades – The Threat of the Turks
Whilst Peter the Hermit had been arousing the warriors of the West, the Turks had been making constant advances in the East, and were now threatening Constantinople itself. The Greek emperor (Alexius Comnenus) sent urgent letters to the Pope, asking for aid against the infidels, representing that, unless assistance was extended immediately, the capital with all its holy relics must soon fall into the hands of the barbarians.

Popularity: 44% [?]