298 Crusades Lecture 14 March 21 Flashcards
Numerous calls for crusade before the launching of the second crusade.
Therefore, not inevitable that we’d have another large-scale armed journey to the Holy Land
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Fall of Edessa
24-26 December 1144
Turkish atabeg Zengi, ruler of Mosul and Aleppo
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Result of an opportunistic attack when the count of Edessa, Joscelin II, was away
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For Zengi, helps him consolidate the north-western frontier
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Zengi’s main target was Damascus
He captured Edessa beause of immediate local circumstances
Year before: deaths of King Fulk of Jerusalem and the Byzantine Emperor John II
Hostility between Count Joscelin of Edessa and Raymond of Poitiers (prince of Antioch)
Thus, reduced chance of Christian counter-attack
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14 September 1146 Zengi murdered while in a drunken stupor by one of his slaves
His empire ruptured immediately
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Franks try to take advantage of the situation by reoccupying Edessa in November 1146
Utterly failed
Massacre of the Armenian Christians
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Zengi’s reputation after fall of Edessa had started to become one of a holy warrior. Zengi apologists.
Lent religious ideology to the military power of a leader feared by his followers almost as much as by his foes
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Zengi reputidely a sadistic monster
Sight of whom makes men drop dead of fright
Crucified his own troops for marching out of line
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Public expressions of Muslim idealism reflected growing Muslim awareness of the Frankish threat
Frontier warfare, justified by ideas of jihad, provided useful employment for Zengi’s nomadic Turcoman levis
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The blueprint for this combination of ideology and action had existed for more than a generation.
1105, at great mosque in Damascus, legal scholar al-Sulami gave public readings in which he urged moral reform within Islam as necessary preparation for a military reconquest
.For Europe, the message was clear:
Islam on the March
All of Outremer in danger
al-Sulami adopted a broad vision
placed Frankish invasion in context of 11th c. Christian advances in Sicily and Spain
blamed Muslim failure to resist on disunity
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His wasn’t the only call for pan-Islamic solidarity
Around same time, in Almoravid Spain, Yusuf Ibn Tashfin launched an armada of 70 ships to liberate Jerusalem
Floundered in Mediterranean storms
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The message of political unity and spiritual purity translated into a political program
Matter of convenience as much as Faith by rulers eager to carve out empires in the ruins of Seljuk control by Syria
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Reality of Muslim revival lay in greater political stability and direction of resources
Academics and religious leaders provided a respectable ideology for the Zengids and their successors
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Events, not ideas, served as the most effective recruiting officer for the jihad
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For Europe, the message was clear:
Islam on the March
All of Outremer in danger
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But as the news first filtered into Europe in 1145, didn’t arouse much alarm
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In part, this was because of the complicated situation in Italy
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Roger II, king of Sicily, preparing to find a way to attack the Byzantines.
Pope, HRE, Venetians, and Byzantium allied against him.
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The call for aid to Edessa risked stepping on Byzantine toes.
Byzantium had a truce with the Turks by this time.
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So when Pope Eugenius III made the decision to call the crusade, he couched it in terms of aid for the eastern church
Could mean the Greeks as well as the Crusader States
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Eugenius’s call would become template for all later crusading bulls
Backward looking document
But in one respect it differed: directed at a monarch: Louis VII, king of France
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Louis VII was receptive to the idea of a crusade
He was a young king and eager to prove himself apart from his tutors and councellors
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He was 25 at the time and impulsive
In a feud with the count of Champagne, he burned down the chruch at Vitry in 1143, with hundreds of people allegedly inside.
This put him at odds with not just the church generally, but Bernard of Clairvaux
Louis may have toyed with the idea of a penitential pilgrimage
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News from Edessa may have focused his intentions and probably that Eugenius was aware of this when he issued the encyclical
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While the Second Crusade would, ultimately, be a huge failure, it did prove advantageous to the French monarchy
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The expedition was royal. “Royal army.”
Louis the first west Frankish king to lead a foreign conquest for 3 centuries
He made lasting relationships on crusade that he made use of later during his reign
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Immediate payoffs: royal census in preparation for the royal levy
Not popular, but was precedent of king’s power to tax beyond his own tenants
New assertion of and recognition of royal authority
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But much of this was all still in the future in 1145
Bourges meeting on the crusade with proclamation of bull reached no conclusion
Eugenius had not gone on a speaking tour
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So they appealed to Bernard of Clairvaux
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Most famous speaking moment was at Vezelay in northern Burgundy. 31 March 1146. Easter Day.
No record of what he said
Preached outside, crowds were so big
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What we know:
emotional account of Holy Land and direct offer of salvation
Repetitive logic in the appeal
Problem of Jerusalem, though
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Jerusalem in Christian hands.
So Bernard played on the fact that there had now been two generations that had grown up iwth the stories and heroes of the 1st Crusade
Greatest Generation
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Bernard used this
Crusaders still pilgrims, but reason for action now was that God calling faithful to restore Edessa to Christian control
Opportunity a rare and precious gift to this generation
God giving an avenue of salvation
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Naturally, like before, the crowds and fervor drummed up hardly spontaneous. Carefully staged. (though VIP platform partially collapsed)
Conrad’s taking the cross also likely staged
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Bernard went on an extensive preaching tour
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Most significant number of recruits came from Germany
This was problematic for pope, who didn’t want HRE involved due to the business with Roger of Sicily
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Historians differ on how Germans became involved
Some argue that it was due to Ranulf taking up the message and Bernard having to chase after him
Others that Bernard was enthused about the crusade and intentionally preached to Germans and would have done so with or without Radulf
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But he did seem to be on the trail of Radulf in the winter of 1146/47 as he went through Germany
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Radulf a Cistercian preaching without authorization in the Rhineland
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Anti-Semitism not unlike what we saw with the People’s Crusade
Attacks on Jews
Not just because of his preaching, but definitely inflamed by it
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Bernard condemned the Jewish persecutions
Adhered to the living witnesses theory of why Jews should be allowed to live
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Unlike in 1096, however, there was more protection for the Jews this time round. Scale never got as big as before.
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Still horrible
Forced baptisms
Murders and mutilations
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Germans stirred up for Crusade
Bernard brought them fully into the enterprise
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Conrad took the cross. Dramatic moment
As was the moment when he bodily carried the slight Bernard out of an adoring mob in March 1147 by picking him up
Royalty saving the Church
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Like Louis, Conrad was making claims to expanded authority
Temporarily unifying the constantly bickering princes
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Second Crusade notable for another reason: Presence of Women
Eleanor of Aquitaine and her household ladies
Counts of Flanders and Toulouse travelled with their wives
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The forces of this crusade, though nominally under the banner of the kings, was quite different from the first crusade
Then, bonds of loyalty to sworn liege-lords predominated
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Now, lots of the crusaders lived outside the ties of noble clientage
Result of urbanization and growth of corporate identity
Crusaders organized themselves with sworn agreements due to the absence of other political bonds
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