Unit 3: Some Background
The following is taken directly from Brian Tierney and Sidney Painter, Western Europe in the Middle Ages 300-1475 , Fourth Edition (New York, 1983), pp. 249-251. I'll try to get this book put on our reserve shelf so that you can refer to it whenever you're confused about general historical background.
"During the second half of the eleventh century, while the Christians were pressing back the Muslims in the West [namely, in Spain], the situation was far different in the eastern Mediterranean region. At Constantinople, the great emperor Basil II (976-1025) was succeeded by a series of weak and incompetent rulers. They failed to maintain adequate frontier defenses while straining the resources of the imperial treasury to support a lavish court life that was extravagant even by Byzantine standards. The pomp of the imperial court was never more ostentatious; the provinces were neglected...[the provincial aristocrats became more powerful and less reliable in their loyalty to the central government in Constantinople] In 1091 a new, more vigorous dynasty was inaugurated by the emperor Alexius Comnenus (1081-1118). But by them the situation of the empire had grown desperate.
The Byzantine empire had passed through periods of feeble government before and had always survived them. The new danger in the eleventh century arose from the fact that, just when the empire was at its weakest, a powerful, aggressive new power arose in the Islamic world, the Seljuk Turks. Late in the tenth century, a band of Turks from Central Asia, led by a chieftain named Seljuk ibn Takah and his sons, had entered the eastern part of the Muslim empire and taken service under one of the local sultans. There they were converted and became enthusiastic Muslims. During the third decade of the eleventh century, the Seljuk princes became masters of the eastern provinces of the caliphate, and in 1055 a grandson of Seljuk seized Baghdad and was solemnly proclaimed sultan by the caliph [caliph=leader of the Islamic empire, in Baghdad]. Soon he was in complete control of the caliph and his capital. In 1071 the [Byzantine] emperor Romanus IV (1067-1071) had the temerity to advance against the Turks. They met him at Manzikert in Armenia, wiped out the imperial army, and captured the emperor. The sultan himself them turned to a campaign in Turkestan, leaving his second cousin, Suleiman, to carry on the war with the Byzantines. Soon Suleiman had a sultanate embracing all Asia Minor, with its capital at the great city of Nicea. The Byzantine empire had lost all its Asiatic terrirory. The loss was devastating because the provinces that had fallen to the Turks had been among the richest of the empire and especially valuable as a source of military manpower.
The First Crusade was launched in response to appeals from the Byzantine emperors for help in recovering their lost lands. For two centuries before the battle of Manzikert, relations between Byzantium and the Western powers had been uneasy and at times overly hostile. There were always two sources of friction, the Greeks' reluctance to accept the papal claims to effective headship of the Church and their desire to maintain a position of political power in southern Italy...[There was a history of bickering between Byzantium and Rome. In 1054 Pope Leo IX sent Cardinal Humbert as his legate to Constantinople. Unfortunately, the impetuous cardinal adopted an in-your-face attitude, insisting on papal claims to ultimate authority over both the eastern and western church. When he went so far as to excommunicate the Byzantine emperor, a mob chased Humbert out of the city.] The growing estrangement between the Greek and Roman churches, strikingly symbolized in this incident, gradually hardened into a formal schism that has still not been healed.
In spite of this background of dissension, there still existed in the West a feeling that the Greeks were fellow Christians who deserved support, at any rate when they were fighting against a common enemy, the forces of Islam....[In 1094 Alexius Comnenus appealed to Urban II to aid the Greeks against the Turks. Note, however, that the letter you are reading this week is not the one Alexius sent to the Pope.]
The idea of the papacy inspiring and directing a great expedition against the Turks appealed to Urban, but in his mind it took a form far different from that envisaged by Alexius. The emperor wanted a body of knights to aid him in recovering his Asiatic provinces. This clearly did not greatly interest Pope Urban. He conceived the idea of an attack on the Turkish power in Syria and Palestine intended to recover for Christendom the holy placed of the Faith. Despite the Muslim possession of Jerusalem, Christian pilgrims had been journeying there in considerable numbers. Perhaps their tales of ill-treatment had some influence on the pope. But there is no need to seek any particular soure for Urban's idea. Toledo [in Muslim Spain] had just been taken by Alfonso VI [a Christian king], and Roger de Hauteville had completed his conquest of Sicily [wresting it from Muslim control]. What was more natural than for the head of Christendom to turn the eyes of the knights of Europe toward another Muslim land, one that was held sacred by all Christians?"
That's Tierney and Painter on the First Crusade. The subsequent crusades can be summed up briefly:
The Christian armies captured Jerusalem in 1099 and elected Godfrey de Bouillon king. In the years following 1100, they proceeded to capture other coastal towns and establish additional "crusader states" north of Jerusalem. The entire coastal area was controlled by a permanent sitting military force of Western Christians for several decades. In 1144, though, the Muslim ruler of Mosul reconquered the city of Edessa, alarming Christendom and causing the pope to preach a second crusade to recapture the lost territory.
The Second Crusade was less successful; in fact, as Tierney and Painter say, it "accomplished exactly nothing." By the second half of the twelfth century, Egypt and Syria were in the control of the brilliant Kurdish general Saladin (1137-1193), who re-took Jerusalem in 1187. His victory brought an end to the Latin kingdoms in Palestine, though several expeditions were subsequently undertaken to try and recapture the area for Christianity. The Third Crusade, launched in 1190, ended in a truce between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin and brought little gain to the Europeans. The Fourth Crusade (1204) was a complete debacle which ended with Venetian crusaders sacking and pillaging Constantinople, destroying forever the power of the ancient Byzantine empire.
Saladin, meanwhile, became a legendary figure even in the West, where songs depicted him as the embodiment of heroism and chivalry.
For more information, pictures, and sources, check out History 259: The Crusades.
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