The Roots of the First Crusade

While religion is often given a prominent role in explaining the genesis of the Crusading ideal, it cannot be thought of as an all-encompassing motivation. A cursory glance at the Mediterranean world and the composition of the Crusading armies would show the diverse motivations that spurred one to undertake such a perilous mission. The Crusades themselves are a vast topic, and I will not attempt to analyse the Crusades in Spain, Lithuania, and the Holy Land in this answer. I will limit myself to the First Crusade, its antecedents and its immediate aftermath, to sketch out the role of religious fervour, but also previous developments that made such an endeavour possible.

The Mediterranean environment of Southern Europe and North Africa was already one of conflict and devastating raids: The Fatimid Caliphate and Umayyad rulers of Spain engaged in maritime manouvers and the speed of Muslim conquests on land was matched by their domination of the sea.

During the time of the Muslim [Umayyad] dynasty, the Muslims gained control over the whole Mediterranean. Their power and domination over it was vast. The Christian nations could do nothing against the Muslim fleets, anywhere in the Mediterranean. All the time, the Muslims rode its wave for conquest. There occurred then many well-known episodes of conquest and plunder. […] The Christian nations withdrew with their fleets to the northeastern side of the Mediterranean, to the coastal regions inhabited by the European Christians and the Slavs, and to the Aegean islands, and did not go beyond them […] Not a single Christian board floated on it. [1]

The conquest of Sicily by the Aghlabids of Africa and the inability of local forces to offer meaningful resistance opened the doors for foreign warriors to step in. Pilgrims returning from Jerusalem brought stories of lucrative contracts for military protection in Southern Italy led to the establishment of Norman footholds in the region, fighting both Muslim raids and the Romans. Norsemen also served with the Romans against the Muslims in Sicily. The general trend is of the Christian states in the Mediterranean attracting foreign (Christian) warriors to fight their battles in return for payment, land, and noble status. As Norman leaders were invested with titles by native rulers, as William de Hauteville was elevated by Guaimar IV of Salerno, they could act with increasing independence. Victories over the Romans and the capture of Pope Leo only brought further privileges and recognition, legitimating the Norman claim to numerous territories in Southern Italy. This was assisted by intermittent instability in the Eastern Roman Empire, culminating in defeats in Asia as well as Europe to both the Seljuq Turks and the Normans from 1071 to 1081.

Norman successes in Italy were retrospectively seen as precedents for further campaigns against the Muslims. Internal troubles in the Muslim world allowed conditions in which a Crusade could even be possible, let alone successful. The weakening of the Fatimid Caliphate in Egypt and the Muslim states in Spain allowed for the return of Christian control of the seas, turning Muslims into ‘strangers to the Mediterranean’. The Seljuq Empire was in the throes of a succession struggle following the death of Sultan Malik-Shah I, and de facto independent dynasties ruled former Seljuq territories in Syria. By contrast, Christian expansion in Spain against the decaying Caliphate of Cordoba (1031) and a network of pan-European pilgrimage, centered around the Galician Cathedral at Compostela dedicated to St. James (epithet: Matamoros, or Moor-killer), had familiarised the Church with the idea that God might wish for Christians to initiate war against His enemies. To be sure, the precedent also existed in the Carolingian framing of their war against the pagan Saxons as wars for Christianity. Pope Urban II presented death during a Crusade as an immediate path to heaven provided that one is in a state of repentance and confession. Those who answered the call included Norman lords, French nobility, Norsemen, Anglo-Saxons, Italians, and Flemish contingents, many of whom simply extended their military activities in Southern Europe into the Holy Land.

The success of the Pope’s call in 1095, contrasting with previous Papal attempts [2] was also linked to the actual religious situation at the time in the Holy Land and the East: The aftermath of the Roman defeat at Manzikert had led to the penetration of the Seljuq Turks into the Anatolian interior, and both travellers and Romans were aghast at what followed. Emperor Alexios I Komnenos wrote a letter to Robert II of Flanders alleging the desecration of churches, and the rape of Christian women, men, children, and clerics [3]. Foreign pilgrims were not spared either, with local attacks and rape being commonplace. Matters in Jerusalem also provoked outrage: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre had been destroyed on the orders of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim. Built over the spot where Jesus was crucified and was seen to be resurrected, the demolition caused outrage in Europe. The Pope reminded the synod at Clermont of the desecration in his call for a holy war, and was fresh in the mind of the the volunteers: the Crusaders capping their conquest of Jerusalem and the ensuing massacre by worshipping at the site of the Church is a common theme in contemporary and later accounts.

Another instance of religion being a central force can be seen in the Christian treatment of schismatics: The Greek and Syriac Orthodox churches were illegitimate, and the Latin church held priority. Nevertheless, all Christian sects were tolerated and issues of religious difference were usually swept under the rug. Michael the Great, the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, noted that the Franks:

[…] never sought a single formula for all the Christian people and languages, but they considered as Christian anyone who worshipped the cross without investigation or examination. [4]

Unlike the hierarchised division of religions as dhimma under Muslim rule, the Franks could not afford to concentrate on differences: They were far too outnumbered and precariously positioned to hunt heretics. Intermarriage was common, and not many women embarked on crusading. The first king of Jerusalem married the daughter of an Armenian lord, and most Frankish families in the kingdom were of mixed race within a few years.

For we, who were Occidentals have now become Orientals. He who was a Roman or a Frank has in this land been made into a Galilean or a Palestinian. He who was of Rheims or Chartres has now become a citizen of Tyre or Antioch. We have already forgotten the places of our birth; already these are unknown to many of us or not mentioned any more […] Some have taken wives not only of their own people but Syrians or Armenians or even Saracens who have obtained the grace of baptism […] Out here there are grandchildren and great-grandchildren. […] He who was born a stranger is now as one born here; he who was born an alien has become a native [5].

To the Eastern Christian, armed bands of violent warriors were common, and decades of experiencing Roman, Turk, and Arab incursions had ensured that. What was new was the cultural expectation tied to the very idea of religious war, and the permanence of the situations it brings about. While native Christian groups such as the Armenians of the First Crusade fought alongside Frankish knights, they understood these battles to simply demarcate spheres of power and influence in a gradually changing status quo. The Franks, by contrast, expected to effect a disruptive wrenching of the Holy geography away from the infidel. The Crusaders were far from being merely Roman mercenaries, which was the natural assumption of the Eastern Christian.

The presence of a looming unified Islamic threat grew more dangerous with time. The Emir of Aleppo, Nur-al Din Zengi, exemplified the image of a pious Muslim ruler and integrated the rhetoric of jihad against the Franks into his policies [6]. The foundations of his rule and focus against the Crusader states was continued by Salah ad-Din. To exist in the face of such threats meant that religious unity on basis of Christian solidarity prevailed in practice. Of course, this is not to say that there was absolute cooperation: Italian slavers often sold Eastern Christian slaves, who were as ‘exotic’ as Muslims. Muslims were often enslaved, and slavery was common in coastal Europe and Iberia. While Christians could not enslave their correligionists, this was not a rule that always bore out in practice.

All of this speaks to the force of religious motives at the heart of the Crusading spirit, and the resulting establishment of Latin states along the Syrian and Palestinian coast led to an ‘Orientalised’ Christian states. This is reflected in the ‘Orientalisation’ of the very people that created these kingdoms, and the general solidarity in religious and domestic affairs. Nevertheless, it was the non-religious and opportunistic conflicts of the Normans against their fellow Christians in Southern Italy that spurred the development of the networks that warrior groups exploited in their campaigns to the Holy Land. The Crusaders often genuinely believed in their cause being religious and against the enemies of the faith, willed by God, despite the roots of this idea originating in a much more complicated Spanish environment. In the end, the tenuous amicability between the Romans and the Franks was tested too far, leading to the sacking of the greatest of Christian cities by Crusaders in 1204: A stark extension of the same political principles that animated the Norman activity in Southern Italy.

[1] Ibn Khaldun — Muqaddimah [2] https://history.hanover.edu/hhr/17/HHR2017-taylor.html [3] ANISTORITON: Sources [4] Christian Ecumenism in the Crusades — Yale University Press [5] “For We Who Were Occidentals Have Become Orientals:” The Evolution of Intermediaries in the Latin East, 1095–1291 [6] God’s War