| pe Urban II rose to his feet to address the multitudes | | | | Western Francia especially, after the waning of royal |
| gathered before him at the Council of Clermont in 1095, | | | | power under the later Carolingians, it was upon the |
| his appeal was simple: letWestern Christendom march | | | | knights that the task of defending Christian peoples by |
| to the aid of their brethren in the East. Whether the | | | | force of arms against their internal and external foes |
| Crusades are regarded as the most tremendous and | | | | increasingly rested; in recognition of this, the Church |
| romantic of Christian expeditions or the last of the | | | | began to bless their weapons of warfare. With the |
| barbarian invasions, they remain one of the most | | | | Spanish Crusades’ of the eleventh century, |
| exciting and colorful adventure stories in history. The | | | | the notion of the holy war against the infidel gained |
| reasons for joining the Crusade varied widely — | | | | currency. In due course, Pope Gregory VII |
| remittance from penance, a desire to see the Holy | | | | (1073—85) finally broke with the age-long |
| Places, greed for the power and booty that might be | | | | reluctance of Christians fully to recognize the licitness |
| captured. But the prize at the end of it all, be it spiritual | | | | of the procession of arms. He called upon the military |
| or temporal, was the Holy City of Jerusalem. The | | | | classes to take part in a militia Christi’, or |
| journey’s spectacular culmination was the long | | | | militia sancti Petri’, in which they placed |
| siege of Jerusalem, at the end of which the Crusaders, | | | | themselves at the service of the vicar of St Peter. His |
| by a brilliant tactical maneuver, broke down its | | | | Crusading’ plan of 1074 was an abortive |
| defenses and poured into the city, which erupted in a | | | | attempt to mobilize them to help the Eastern Churches |
| bloody massacre. Steven Runicman’s History | | | | in face of Seldjuk attacks; and he expressed the hope |
| of the Crusades is justly acclaimed as the most | | | | that those who took part might, perhaps, also go on |
| complete and fascinating account of the historic | | | | and reach the Holy Sepulchre.5 Urban built upon |
| journey to save the Holy Land from the infidel. This | | | | Gregory’s work; but he did not repeat the |
| abridgment makes accessible to a wider readership | | | | mistake that led to its frustration. He appreciated that a |
| one of the most compelling historical narratives | | | | call which was too straitly tied to the hierarchical claims |
| Pope Urban II’s Preaching of the First Crusade: | | | | of the Apostolic See was likely to find but little |
| It is doubtful whether the precise terms in which Urban | | | | response. So he took the novel step of associating his |
| II preached the First Crusade at the conclusion of the | | | | own summons to a military enterprise with the idea of |
| Council of Clermont, on 27 November 1095, will ever | | | | a pilgrimage. Hitherto, it had normally been requisite for |
| be known with certainty. Some altogether new | | | | a pilgrim to travel unarmed; those who responded to |
| evidence would have to be discovered regarding his | | | | Urban’s summons at Clermont might make their |
| actual words. In the chronicles of the Crusade, there | | | | journey armed, and yet still enjoy the spiritual benefits |
| are, it is true, five quite early versions of his preaching: | | | | of a pilgrimage. |
| in Fulcher of Chartres (written in 1101), Robert the Monk | | | | In the meantime, four regular armies were being |
| (1107), Baldric of Dol (c.1108—10), Guibert of | | | | mustered to follow the old pilgrim routes to |
| Nogent (c.1109), and William of Malmesbury (who wrote | | | | Constantinople for the official Crusade. A substantial |
| some thirty years after the Crusade). Of these writers, | | | | vanguard of Lotharingians and Rhinelanders under |
| the four earliest wrote as though they had been | | | | Godfrey of Bouillon and his brother Baldwin arrived via |
| present at Clermont; Fulcher, and perhaps the other | | | | Hungary and the Balkans at the walls of the Byzantine |
| three, may well have been. Where they exhibit a | | | | capital on December 23, 1096. They followed the |
| measure of agreement regarding a theme of | | | | apocryphal route of Charles the Great, by which the |
| Urban’s preaching, there is some likelihood of a | | | | first Holy Roman Emperor was believed to have gone |
| genuine recollection or transmission of it. But Robert, | | | | to fight the infidels, undoubtedly a legend circulated to |
| Baldric, and Guibert all said that they gave the gist of | | | | enhance the enthusiasm of the Crusaders in their |
| Urban’s words, not an accurate report of them; | | | | sacred quest. Anna Comnena estimated 10,000 knights |
| and there are considerable differences amongst the | | | | and 70,000 infantry apart from a multitude of camp |
| five versions. It is more than likely that the chroniclers | | | | followers. In the meantime, the bombastic Hugh |
| availed themselves of the customary licence by which | | | | Vermandois, brother of Philip I of France, together with |
| medieval writers put into the mouths of their | | | | a Franco-Norman band, crossed the Alps, Italy, and a |
| characters such discourses as the writers themselves | | | | tempestuous Adriatic, where he was shipwrecked |
| deemed to be appropriate. If they did so, their | | | | near Durazzo and was escorted by Byzantine legions |
| departures from Urban’s own words may well | | | | to Constantinople. He was followed by Robert |
| have been considerable. There can be no doubt that | | | | Curt-Hose, duke of Normandy, Stephen, count of Blois |
| the response to Urban’s preaching greatly | | | | and Chartres, and finally Robert of Flanders. The |
| exceeded his expectations. The chroniclers’ | | | | Normans from South Italy, numbering 10,000 knights |
| versions may have been to some extent influenced by | | | | and 20,000 career infantry warriors, under Bohemond, |
| the character of this response, so that they | | | | son of Robert Guiscard, and Tancred, his nephew, |
| misrepresent what Urban said to elicit it. Historians | | | | attained the eastern shord of the Adriatic below |
| have found no sure criteria for determining what were | | | | Durazzo and proceeded to join the others in |
| the Pope’s original themes, in so far as they | | | | November 1096. The Provencals under Raymond of |
| may have been preserved by the chroniclers; and they | | | | Saint-Gilles, count of Toulouse, accompanied by |
| have differed in their attempts to reconstruct them or | | | | Adh&nar, the apostolic legate, traversed the Alps and |
| to define what they may have been. | | | | North Italy to the shores of the Adriatic, where they |
| All of the chroniclers’ accounts, with the | | | | suffered greatly until they also reached Durazzo and |
| exception of Fulcher’s, represent the Pope as | | | | took the usual road (Via Egnatia) across the Balkan |
| making much of the call to deliver the Holy City of | | | | Peninsula to Constantinople via Thessalonica. The full |
| Jerusalem from pagan domination. But it is an | | | | array became complete in May 1097. Tne highest |
| attractive hypothesis that, in November 1095, Urban | | | | estimate is provided by Fulcher as 600,000, and the |
| was not primarily concerned with Jerusalem, if indeed | | | | lowest by Raymond of Aguilers at 100,000, which is |
| he mentioned it at all. Ever since he had become Pope | | | | nearly the equivalent of the whole Byzantine army. |
| in 1088, he had been anxious to improve relations with | | | | Allowing for medieval exaggeration, even the lowest |
| the Byzantine Emperor, Alexius Comnenus, and to | | | | figure must have confronted the imperial household |
| promote the union of the Eastern and Western | | | | with a tremendous problem in the matter of logistics |
| Churches. In March 1095, at the Council of Piacenza, | | | | and of transportation to Anatolia. |
| Alexius’s envoys had moved Urban to call upon | | | | After patching up a compromise on the application of |
| western warriors to go to Byzantium and help Alexius | | | | the rule of international law regarding the position of the |
| to defend the Church against the pagans.3 May it not | | | | Western feudal magnates vis4-vis the Eastern Roman |
| have been that, in France, Urban intended to publish a | | | | Empire, arrangements were made for conveyance of |
| further and wider statement of this call? If so, his | | | | the Crusaders to Asia Minor without further delay. |
| summons was to help the Eastern Christians in | | | | They were persuaded to swear an oath of fealty to |
| general. If Jerusalem came into the picture, it did so | | | | the Emperor and to owe him allegiance for their future |
| secondarily and not necessarily as a military objective. | | | | conquests, an oath which they did not mean to keep, |
| Perhaps, even, it did not come in at all, but was | | | | at least in connection with the Holy Places. The |
| introduced later by an upsurge of popular enthusiasm | | | | campaign was inaugurated with the capture of Nicaea, |
| and religious zeal. | | | | which they ceded to an imperial garrison, on June 19, |
| In one form or another, such questions have been | | | | 1097. Then the discomfiture of the main Turkish forces |
| widely asked, especially since they were canvassed | | | | under Qilij Arslan at Dorylaeum, in the hot summer |
| by C. Erdmann in a study of the origin of Crusading | | | | days of July 1097, opened up the Anatolian route to |
| ideas, which has dominated discussion during the past | | | | Syria, and some of the leaders began to envision |
| generation. Erdmann saw the First Crusade as the | | | | prospects of principalities of their own. Friction |
| culmination of the long process by which there took | | | | between them became evident in the race of Tancred |
| shape, in Western Europe, the idea of a holy war | | | | and Baldwin to capture the Armenian Taurus in |
| against the heathen, sponsored by the Church. In | | | | September. |