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| The kingdom drew strength from the influx of new crusading forces, from the presence of the Italian merchants who established themselves in the Syrian ports, and from the religious and military orders of the ] and the ]. | The kingdom drew strength from the influx of new crusading forces, from the presence of the Italian merchants who established themselves in the Syrian ports, and from the religious and military orders of the ] and the ]. | ||
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Revision as of 22:57, 13 December 2002
As early as 1074, when Asia Minor passed into the hands of the Seljuk Turks, Pope Gregory VII had projected a war against the infidels, having also for its object reunion with the Greek Church. The plan was thrust into the background by the conflict with the emperor Henry IV.
Pope Urban II (1088-99), who next took up the idea, was animated not so much by the political considerations of Gregory as by actual religious impulse. From the Church should come the impelling force; on the secular powers rested the actual execution of the plan. Before this, Norman knights had engaged in conflict with the infidel, and the conception of a crusade against the Saracen was therefore no absolute novelty to the nations of the West.
The Byzantine emperor Alexius I was quite aware of this when he turned to Urban for aid against the Turks in 1094, and met with a ready response from the general religious enthusiasm, from the ambitions of the Church, and from the lust for adventure and conquest. When the Greek ambassadors arrived Urban was preparing for the Council of Clermont; and there before great throngs the pope first reached the crusade, November 26, 1095, in words which have not come down, but which stirred the mighty multitudes to frenzied enthusiasm.
The number of those who assumed the crusader's cross increased daily, and the movement, soon passing beyond papal restraint, seized upon the lower classes. The peasant exchanged his plow for arms and was joined by the dissatisfied, the oppressed, and the outcast; members of the lower clergy, runaway monks, women, children gave to this advance-guard of the crusading army the character of a mob, recognizing no leadership but that of God.
This undercurrent of opposition to the pope gave rise to the legend, which is still current, that not Urban, but Peter the Hermit (Peter of Amiens) was the true representative of the crusading idea. Peter was one of the leaders of the fanatical bands, whose contribution to the enterprise was a story of an alleged personal appearance of Jesus, giving him commission to acquaint Christendom with the sad condition of the Holy Land. After the wildest excesses, in which the Jews appear as the principal sufferers at their hands, these tumultuous hosts found a pitiful end in Hungary and beyond the Bosporus.
The real crusading armies set out in 1096. They comprised the men of Lorraine under the brothers Godfrey, Eustace, and Baldwin of Bouillon; northern French under Robert of Normandy; Provencals under Raymond of Toulouse; and Normans of Italy under Bohemund and Tancred. The Christian cause suffered from dissensions among the leaders, not all of whom resembled Godfrey of Bouillon in his freedom from worldly motives, and it had to contend against the machinations of Alexius I, who was roused to a sense of danger to his realm by the presence of the Western armies.
Nicaea was taken, the Sultan of Iconium was defeated at Dorylaeum, and on June 3, 1098, Antioch was captured and on June 28 was successfully defended against the Sultan of Mosul; on July 15, 1099, Jerusalem was taken. The Crusaders massacred the whole Muslim and Jewish population, men, women and children. The Jews were burned alive in their main synagogue where they had fled. In the days following the massacre, Godfrey of Bouillon was made Protector of the Holy Sepulcher. He died in July, 1100, and under his successors, Baldwin I (d. 1118), Baldwin II (d. 1131), and Fulk (d. 1143), the boundaries of the kingdom were extended through successful warfare.
The kingdom drew strength from the influx of new crusading forces, from the presence of the Italian merchants who established themselves in the Syrian ports, and from the religious and military orders of the Knights Templars and the Knights of St. John.