The Crusades

A Documentary Survey

James A. Brundage

• Editore: Barakaldo Books
• Anno: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781839743283
• Argomento: History
• Categoria: Egyptian Ancient History

Acclaimed scholar James A. Brundage, collects, translates and annotates a series of primary sources from the era of the Crusades to the Holy Land.

Chapter I—PREPARATION

I

The Crusades were a product of the eleventh century, probably the most decisive period in the history of Western Europe, for it was then that the West was born. The decades following just after 1050 saw the birth of a distinctively Western world, far different from anything which had gone before. The Crusades were a part of that new world.

Western Europe in the period just prior to the launching of the Crusades by the Papacy, was small and narrowly confined, restricted for all practical purposes to central and northern Italy, Gaul, western Germany, and England. On all sides the people of this Western world were hemmed in by foreign and hostile races: some of these neighbors, such as the Byzantine Greeks, were sophisticated and cultured, far more so in fact than the peoples of the West themselves; others, such as the Slavs who inhabited eastern Germany, were crude and primitive. All of Western Europe’s neighbors at this period, however, had this in common: all were potential enemies of the West; in addition, they all inhabited potential areas for Western conquest, colonization, and assimilation.{1}

The two hundred years immediately following 1050 witnessed an enormous expansion of the West in every direction. Scandinavia submitted to Christianity. The Slavs in Germany were pushed back relentlessly toward the Russian plains by the press of colonists from Saxony and further west, while those Slavs who remained in Germany, in Poland, in Bohemia, and in the Baltic lands were forced to accept Latin Christianity. The Moslems, defeated time and time again in Spain and Portugal, gradually gave up most of the Iberian peninsula under the attack of Western Christian knights. The Moslem and Byzantine settlements in southern Italy and Sicily were reclaimed for the West by the Normans. During this same two hundred year period, Palestine and Syria were subjected first to Western conquest, then to the establishment of a group of Latin colonies, and finally, at the close of the period, they were to see the annihilation of those remote outposts of a vigorous, expanding, but overextended Western civilization.

The Crusades thus constitute one phase of a vast movement by the peoples of the West to extend their frontiers and to incorporate within the Western European family most of the West’s immediate neighbors. The Crusades were, in fact, an integral part of the beginning of European colonialism.

II

To represent the Crusades simply as one phase of the first chapter in the history of European expansion is, however, to tell but a part of the story. For while the Crusades were this, they were much more besides. Basically they were also a religious movement whose principal objective in the eyes of most of their Western European participants was to impose Latin Christian rule upon the Holy Places: upon Jerusalem and Bethlehem and upon Syria and Palestine generally. The Syrian and Palestinian Holy Places, the sites of the major events in the life of Jesus and of many early saints and martyrs of the Christian church, were sacrosanct to European Christians. The very fact that these Holy Places were ruled by and frequented by non-Christians was considered wicked and abominable by most European Christians, for it constituted, they believed, a crime in the sight of God. One aim of the Crusades, therefore, was to wrest the hallowed ground of the Holy Land from the Moslems, to restore the Holy Places to Christian hands.

The Crusades were, furthermore, holy wars—wars sanctioned, it was thought, by God himself, to wreak vengeance upon those who by their presence there had polluted and defiled the Holy Land. The Crusaders saw themselves as the specially commissioned agents of God, sent by him as instruments of his vengeance against the followers of Mohammed.

The Crusaders were treading in the footsteps of generations of their forebears who had come to visit the Holy Places, not as conquerors, but rather as unarmed pilgrims.{2} Pious European Christians had regularly made pilgrimages to Palestine since the earliest days of Christianity. The Moslem conquest of Jerusalem in the seventh century had affected pilgrims only slightly. The Moslems were, for the most part, loath to interfere with pilgrimage traffic, which was, after all, rather profitable for the conquerors of the Holy Land. From the eighth through the eleventh centuries, pilgrimages from the West to Palestine had slowly increased, in frequency and in numbers of pilgrims involved.

One of the largest and most important of the pre-Crusade pilgrimage expeditions was that made by a large group of Germans in 1064-1065. Their trip, which may be taken as fairly typical of the hazards involved in these journeys, is described in these terms by the contemporary annalist of Nieder-Altaich:

THE GREAT GERMAN PILGRIMAGE OF 1064-1065{3}

An almost incredible multitude set out for Jerusalem this year{4} to worship at the sepulcher of the Lord. So many people took part in the pilgrimage and so much has been said about it that, lest its omission seem serious, we should briefly summarize here what transpired.

The leading personages who took part in the pilgrimage were Archbishop Siegfried of Metz, Bishop William of Utrecht, Bishop Otto of Ratisbon, and Bishop Gunther of Bamberg. Bishop Gunther, though younger than the others, was not inferior to the rest in wisdom and strength of spirit. Although now, after his death, we can scarcely record it without sorrowful groans Gunther was at that time the glory and pillar of the whole realm. Those who were acquainted with his secrets used to say that in many virtues he was perfection itself, down to the most minute details.

These leaders were followed by a multitude of counts and princes, rich and poor, whose numbers seemed to exceed twelve thousand.{5} As soon as they had crossed the river known as the Morava, they fell at once into constant danger from thieves and brigands. Prudently avoiding these dangers, they cautiously made their way to the city of Constantinople. There they conducted themselves so honorably in every way that even the imperial arrogance of the Greeks was taken aback by them. The Greeks were so astounded by the noble appearance of Bishop Gunther that they took him to be, not a bishop, but the King of the Romans.{6} They believed that he had disguised himself as a bishop, because he could not otherwise pass through these kingdoms to the sepulcher of the Lord.

They left Constantinople a few days later and, after passing through various difficulties and tribulations, came to Latakia. Bishop Gunther made their troubles clear when he wrote from Latakia to his people who were still at home. He said, among other things: “Brethren, we have truly passed through fire and water and at length the Lord has brought us to Latakia, which is mentioned in the Holy Scriptures as Laodicea. We have had the Hungarians serve us without faith and we have had the Bulgarians prey secretly upon us; we have fled from the open raging of the Uzes{7} and we have seen the Greek and imperial arrogance of the citizens of Constantinople; we have suffered in Asia Minor, but worse things are yet to come.”

While they were staying for a few days in Latakia, they began to meet each day many people returning from Jerusalem. The returning parties told of the deaths of an uncounted number of their companions. They also shouted about and displayed their own recent and still bloody wounds. They bore witness publicly that no one could pass along that route because the whole land was occupied by a most ferocious tribe of Arabs who thirsted for human blood.

The question before the pilgrims was what to do and where to turn. First of all, they quickly agreed in council to deny their own wishes and to put all hope in the Lord. They knew that, living or dying, they belonged to the Lord and so, with all their wits about them, they set out through the pagan territory toward the holy city.

They soon came to a city called Tripoli. When the barbarian commander of the city saw such a multitude he ordered that all of them, without exception, be slaughtered cruelly with the sword; he hoped thereby to acquire an infinite sum of money. Immediately there arose from the sea (which beats against one side of the city) a dark cloud, from which there issued a great many lightning flashes, accompanied by terrifying claps of thunder. When this storm had lasted until noon of the next day and the waves of the sea had reached unusual heights, the pagans, united by the urgency of the situation, shouted to one another that the Christian God was fighting for his people and was going to cast the city and its people into the abyss. The commander, fearing death, changed his mind. The Christians were given leave to depart and at once the disturbance of the sea was calmed.

Harassed by various trials and tribulations, the pilgrims at last made their way through the whole country to the city called Caesarea. There they celebrated Holy Thursday, which fell that year on March 24. They even congratulated themselves on having escaped all danger, since it was reckoned that the journey from there to Jerusalem would take no more than two days.

On the following day, Good Friday{8} about the second hour of the day,{9} just as they were leaving Kafar Sallam, they suddenly fell into the hands of the Arabs who leaped on them like famished, wolves on long awaited prey. They slaughtered the first pilgrims pitiably, tearing them to pieces. At first our people tried to fight back, but they were quickly forced, as poor men, to take refuge in the village. After they had fled, who can explain in words how many men were killed there, how many types of death there were, or how much calamity and grief there was? Bishop William of Utrecht, badly wounded and stripped of his clothes, was left lying on the ground with many others to die a miserable death. The three remaining bishops, together with a considerable crowd of various kinds of people, occupied a certain walled building with two stone towers. Here they prepared to defend themselves, so long as God allowed it.

The gate of the building was extremely narrow and, since the enemy was so close, they could not unload the packs carried by their horses. They lost, therefore, their horses and mules and everything that the animals were carrying. The enemy divided these things among themselves and soon hastened to destroy the owners of the wealth. The pilgrims, on the other hand, decided to take up arms{10} and with weapons in hand they courageously fought back. The enemy, more indignant than ever, pressed the attack more vigorously, for they saw that the pilgrims, who they had thought would not attempt anything against them, were resisting manfully. For three whole days both sides fought with full force. Our men, though handicapped by hunger, thirst, and lack of sleep, were fighting for their salvation and their lives. The enemy gnashed their teeth like ravening wolves, since it seemed that they were not to be allowed to swallow the prey which they had gra...