298 Crusades Lecture 8 Feb 19 Flashcards
Review of Just War
Right Cause
Right Authority
Right Means
How do we get to Holy War?
God
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- First Crusade
Long Term Factors:
- Western warriors anxious for their souls for generations
- Greeks asking for and receiving military aid
- campaigns against Muslims in Spain, Sicily, North Africa
- Church discipline of secular society notionally acknowledged through Peace and Truce
- Papal thinking on holy war and penance
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- Short Term Factors:
- Horror stories from the east
- Increasing contacts with the east through pilgrims, mercenaries, and high nobility
- Consolidation of Urban’s own historical and theological vision
- Coincidence of the improved position of Urban in Italy and France
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- Alexius I had several military successes, repulsing a Norman invasion in 1085 (and bringing many of those Normans into his service), defeating the Pechenegs in 1091.
Only the losses to the Seljuqs in Anatolia and northern Syria remained to be restored
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- Alexius wanted to use the westerners
- exploit the divisions among the Turks of Asia Minor and Syria
- Restore Byzantine control without risking a full commitment of his own military reserves
becomes a delicate balancing act
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- March 1095. At a council at Piacenza in Lombardy
Ambassadors from Alexius appealed for military aid against his neighbors
A few years earlier, he had asked Urban to organize help against the Pechenegs in the Balkans
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- Now, in 1095, Alexius described the enemy as “pagans” who threatened eastern Christians and were threatening Constantinople itself.
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- The council of Piacenza is an important contextual moment.
Papacy sitting in judgment on state of the church and morals of the clergy.
Debating the sins of kings and emperors
Specifically conduct of Henry IV and the adultery of Philip I (the Fat)
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- Alexius’ appeal could be incorporated into this new confident papal assertiveness
Urban on the spot exhorted many to take an oath to help Alexius against these “pagans”
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- Urban II sought to use the mobilization of the expedition as a cover to reclaim the pope’s position in Italy and demonstrate his practical leadership of Christendom, independent of secular monarchs
It emerges in part from the Investiture Controversy
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- Within the papal curia in the early 12th c., Urban’s crusade was seen explicitly as completing Gregory’s abortive project of 1074
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- According to contemporary chronicles: a series of armies left the west in the spring to autumn of 1096 in an explosive popular response to Urban’s preaching.
Their rendezvous was Constantinople, which all had reached by the end of May 1097
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- Urban planned an elaborate speaking tour, centered on France
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- Urban’s tour through France was punctuated by theatrical ceremonies, assemblies and preaching in some of the most important religious and urban centers
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- Urban avoided the territories under the direct control of Philip the Fat and those of the feuding heirs of William of Normandy
French king to be excommunicated at Clermont
Normans too successfully old-fashioned in their control of the clergy and too ambivalent in their loyalty to Urban
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- Urban had his plan largely fleshed out by the time he made his tour
A penitential journey in arms to Jerusalem to recover the Holy Sepulchre and to ‘liberate Christianity’ and the eastern Christians; earning warriors penance and remission of sin
Vow to enforce obligation and adoption of hte sign of the cross
Militia of God over Militia of the World
Militia Dei vs Militia Mundi
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- Clermont was not a spontaneous event, but well planned and organized
13 archbishops
82 bishops
countless abbots and other clerics
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- Clermont
Jerusalem decree one of more than 30 promulgating a general Peace and dealing with penance, eccls organization, simony, lay investiture, and other things
Call to arms sat squarely within this assertion of church discipline, moral reform of the clergy and laity, and papal authority
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- Urban II’s speech at Clermont the first public declaration of his new concept of holy war that we know of
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18b. Urban’s Speech
5 versions
Most reliable likely that of Fulcher of Chartres (an eyewitness) and the Gest Francorum (1100-1101) as so short and less embellished
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18c. Urban speaks in graphic detail about the attacks on Jerusalem
Avenge these injuries against: Eastern Christians, Christendom, Christ
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18c. The war would be an indulgence
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- During the speech, chanting the slogan God Wills It (Deus lo volt), probably led by papal plants, established the participation of the congregation in the ritual.
Symbolized the correct submissive acceptance of divine guidance
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- Clermont
Importance of having an audience member set an example (“come on down” of modern evangelism)
Later crusade preachers would have a planted “convert” ready to respond to the call
For Urban, he had Adhemar, bisohp of Le Puy
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- Following Urban’s speech, Adhemar immediately “came down” and took the cross
Demonstrating what others should do
According to some chroniclers, many crosses had been prepared in advance for the occasion of the speech
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- Urban was successful because he incorporated existing images and emotions into a fresh concept of secular spirituality.
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22b. Theories and practices of morally just and spiritually meritorious warfare developed unevenly in response to changing political circumstances, religious outlook and social behavior.
Many clung to older concepts of sin and spiritual war.
Some felt shock at the unapologetic and unequivocal combination of war and penance proposed by Urban II
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22c. Many contemporaries saw Urban II’s holy war as fulfilment of biblical prophecy or an imitation and renewal of scriptural struggles.
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- We shouldn’t oversell the importance of Clermont.
Few bishops bothered to record the Jerusalem decree
No official surviving account of what Urban said
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- Impact of Urban’s message depended on the publicity skills of the pope himself
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- We’ve seen already how the theme of following Christ, the importance of Jerusalem and the cross, and ideas of holy war were already part of western Christian society by 1095
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- During the tour, it became fashionable to use relics as a prop to encourage participation
This could backfire, though
A French abbot constructed his own cross, passing it off as having been made by god. As a punishment, he was afflicted with cancer
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- Urban’s tour in France covered two penitential seasons: Advent and Lent: Christmas and Easter
Christocentric
Emphasis on repentance
Dramatic representations of Jerusalem accompanied church and civic celebrations
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- The message of the Jerusalem expedition:
penitential warfare to rescue Jerusalem and the eastern churches from Islam
liberation of the eastern church from bondage
Remission of sins
Obligation to revenge the loss of Holy Land as a debt of honor
Realization of papal leadership of Christendom
Transformation of a sinful military aristocracy into a godly order
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28b. From the first, those who would hear Urban’s message understood it as a call to arms, not pilgrimage.
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28c. For Urban, holy war and its associated remission of confessed sin needed no additional justification; he claimed the authority of God
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28d. Urban consciously drew from Gregory VII’s rhetoric. He never referred to the crusade as an armed pilgrimage
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28e. Chroniclers attempted to convince their audiences of the spiritual legitimacy of warfare in all its practical ramifications:
“Stand fast all together, trusting in God and the Holy Cross. Today, please God, you will all gain much booty.”
Battle cry of the crusaders at battle of Dorylaeum in July 1097
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28f. Other writers modified Urban’s message to interpret through analogy the war as pilgrimage, esp. given the ultimate destination of Jerusalem
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28g. The idea of Holy War was a way turning the violence of the military class to a more salvific end
“Let those who are accustomed wantonly to wage private war against the faithful march upon the infidels…Let those who have long been robbers now be soldiers of Christ; let those who once fought against brothers and relatives now rightfully fight against barbarians. Let those who have been hirelings for a few pieces of silver now attain an eternal reward.”
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28h.
Warfare can be justifiable and even a spiritual good.
But how do you know that’s what you have. Need for criteria:
Just cause (save persecuted Christians and safety for pilgrims). Only if no alternative. Crusades; no alternative. Muslims constantly conquering Christian lands; cannot talk openly in Muslim lands.
Right means; specific mission and targets, limited and clearly defined. Specific recruits disciplined and controlled.
Only church can send Christians to war. Pope will have to answer to god. Expiation for your own sins. If all met then it can qualify as a Christian, holy act.
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- Both Urban and his chosen legate, Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy, came from the arms-bearing aristocratic milieu of the French nobility that he was trying to recruit
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29b. Urban only wants warriors: very explicitly
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29c. Monks especially forbidden to leave their monasteries. Clergy need dispensation, and then only as clergy.
Women to support and give permission to husbands
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29d. Urban didn’t want noncombatants to risk the success of the military operation.
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29e. Problem with the growing idea that it is a pilgrimage is that it makes it open to everyone.
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- Message spread by a network of people – a legacy of the reform movement of the past 50 years
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31a. August 15, 1096: departure day
May 1097: assemble in Constantinople
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- Within 12 months of Clermont, 70-80,000 people had left home for the east
Focal points of recruitment were lay courts and households, esp those with ties to monasteries
Networks of aristocratic families and their dependents
Towns
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31c. Three distinct waves of crusaders
- Peter the Hermit
- Minor knights of France and Germany
- The nobles’ crusade (this is the focus of Asbridge)
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- Going on Crusade was expensive
Monasteries the chief bankers of the First Crusade
Financial outlay many times the annual revenue of a landowner
1090s a time of agricultural depression
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- No truth to the cliche of younger sons being drawn to Jerusalem for adventure
Leaders were, if not eldest sons, possessed of significant patrimonies
Whole families departed together
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- Jewish communities were extorted to fund the campaigns of various lords
Godfrey of Bouillon extorted 1000 silver pieces from the communities of Cologne and Mainz
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- In the level of official enthusiasm, rapidity of popular acceptance, extremes of response, widespread uncertainty, indifference and regional variation shadowing extravagant and well-publicized bellicosity: 1096 was the 1914 of the Middle Ages
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In-class writing
Identify three factors that led to the first crusade.
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