The Callfor a Crusade
For centuries the Eastern and Western Churches had been drifting apart, particularly following the crowning of the Frank Charlemagne in 800 as Roman Emperor and the adoption of the “filioque” by the Popes.
As the Eastern Roman Empire had become Hellenized so the fate of the West was being determined by the Germanic tribes, Roman allies who had settled on its territory. In the past difficulties between East and West had been negotiated and unity restored, for example following the 863-67 split when Patriarch Photius and Pope Nicholas I had excommunicated each other. By 1051, however, fundamental changes were taking place, aimed at reforming the Latin Church. The papacy had fallen into disrepute during the IOth and Ilth centuries, following scandals which had drained much of its authority. In 983 for example, a cardinal claiming to be the true Pope (Boniface VII) had overthrown PopeJohn XIV, who was murdered soon after. Fifteen months later Boniface himself was killed and his corpse dragged through the streets of Rome. Before that, another pope, John X, had been strangled by men hired by his lover’s daughter. The last straw seems to have been the election of three popes in 1045, after which the Western Roman Emperor Henry III intervened by summoning a synod of the Church in the following year. The elected Pope Leo IX began by dealing with what he saw as Church immorality, such as clerical marriages and the purchase of Church office. At the same time a doctrine of Papal Supremacybegan to be stressed. The doctrine was not new, but now it was being pronounced with a greater stridency than before, and was meant to apply to both the Western Latin and the Eastern Greek Churches, over which the Pope had no authority.The events leading to the final schism in the Church began when Pope Leo IX received the translation of a Greek letter from Patriarch Michael Keroularios of Constantinople.
The letter was SignedbyMichael as the “ecumenical” or Catholic (universal) Patriarch, a direct challenge to the Popes claimed but largely imaginary senior authority as “caput et mater” (“head and mother”) of the Church. A bitter and accusatory correspondence followed, with Pope Leo IX deciding to send a legation to Constantinople bearing a letter to the Patriarch. Immediately upon arrival the head of the legation Cardinal Humbert took offense at the reception and stormed out with the other two members, leaving the letter behind. Patriarch Keroularios was equally offended at the Westerners’ uncultivated manners, and seeing that the letter s seal had been tampered with, grew suspicious of the legation. Humbert and his companions continued to remain in Constantinople even though news had reached them of Pope Leos death. Ignoring that they no longer had official standing, the legates interrupted Eucharist on the Saturday of July 16, 1054, in the Cathedral of St. Sophia by placing a Bull on the altar and excommunicating the Patriarch. Keroularios responded by calling a synod, which in turn excommunicated the members of the papal delegation. The excommunications had little direct impact, except to indicate a newfound aggressiveness of the Western Latin Church.The hostility between the Latin and Greek Churches was not reflected in the policies of Emperor Constantine IX. He welcomed the Papal delegates and avoided all polemics, going as far as to ask Cardinal Humbert to set out for him the Papal position on the controversial “filioque.” Constantine had good reasons to cultivate Papal friendship. Two new and increasingly powerful forces had appeared on the horizon. A tribal coalition, the SeljukTurks gained supremacy in CentralAsia and by 1045 had captured Persia. Sunni Moslems by adoption, their main target were the Shi’ites, particularly the Fatimid dynasty of Egypt whose rule extended to Allepo in Syria. In 1055 the Seljuks established a protectorate over the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad and were preparing to march into Syria, and a decade later led by the able Alp Asslan they attacked the Christians in Armenia, captured their capital Ani and proceeded to occupy the eastern half of Asia Minor.
At the same time another threat to the Eastern Roman Empire appeared in the west. In about 1015 a group of Norman pilgrims were hired by the Lombards to fight against Constantinople’s Imperial possessions in Italy. Soon a steady stream of young Norman knights began to arrive, and by the middle of the Centurytheyhad formed a strong military presence in the south. Alarmed by the influx, Pope Leo IXled an army against
them but was badly defeated in 1053 at the battle of Civitate and was taken prisoner. By 1059 under new popes the policy had changed and the Norman leader Robert Guiscard (“The Crafty”) was recognized as Duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily. The island, however, was still in Moslem hands and it was invaded two years later, the Moslems expelled never to return again. In 1071 Bari, Constantinople’s last bastion in Italy, also fell, and four years later the last independent Lombard principality of Salerno succumbed. Constantinople was now facing two potential enemies: the Turks in the east, and the Normans in the west.
The Graeco-Roman Empire was also finding itself in a period of decline, which did nothing to lessen its neighbors’ territorial ambitions. With the loss of the Italian possessions it became truly an Eastern Empire, confined to southeastern Europe and AsiaMinor. In 1059 an aristocratic intellectual, Constantine X, became Emperor, who a few years before was responsible for reviving the university of Constantinople. Surrounding himself with other intellectuals he began to streamline the entire Imperial administrative system. This was no small task since the government—its civil and religious services—controlled most social and economic activities from production and consumption, to foreign trade, public welfare, and population movements. Now a damaging change was introduced which would greatly weaken the defenses of the Empire. The The- matas, or the district armies where in return for land some farmers were responsible for military service, were partly abolished and replaced by professional and mercenary troops.
The small and independent peasantry was also being replaced by large private landowners, who although given land by the state were granted immunity from most taxes and obligations. The East was repeating the mistake made in the West centuries ago, the loss of the peasant soldier and an almost total reliance on mercenary troops, many of them foreign.The loss of much of Asia Minor came first. By 1067 Alp Arslan had begun to move with his Seljuk Turks against the Shi’ite Fatimids in Syria, advancing through central Anatolia and sacking Caesaria. In response the new Emperor Romanos IV crossed the Bosphorus in the spring of 1071 with a fresh and well-equipped army of some 60,000-70,000 men, and headed towards Erzerum Armenia. There the force was divided in two, with the greater part headed towards Lake Van under the command of General Tarchaniotes and the Emperorhimself setting off towards the fortress of Manzikert. The citadel surrendered without a fight, and two days later a delegation arrived from Alp Arslan proposing a treaty and a division of Armenia between himself and the Emperor. No doubt the Turks wished to secure their rear before marching against their “heretical” enemies the Syrian and Egyptian Shi’ites.
The peace proposal was rejected and the next morning Romanos led his army from Manzikert to face Alp Arslan’s Turks, who in the meantime had been reinforced by the desertion of Uz mercenaries from the Imperial army. The battle formation chosen was a long line of infantry several ranks deep which began to advance on the Turkish crescent-shaped cavalry. Both of the Imperial infantry flanks were protected by cavalry while following in the rear was a large force of mounted nobles which had been drafted for military service. As Romanos’ men began to advance the Turkish cavalry fell back, all the while harassing the enemy with a steady shower of arrows released from powerful composite bows. Romanos was being lured into a trap from which he would not escape.
As the day drew to a close the Emperor realized he had advanced far from their camp, and now the sun was setting behind the Turks’ backs and hitting his men in the eyes. The order was given to turn back and this was the moment Alp Arslan was waiting for. His massed cavalry struck the enemy’s flanks pushing the Imperial cavalry aside, and charged into the empty space that separated the infantry ranks from the nobles’ cavalry. At the sight of the advancing Seljuk cavalry many mercenary units began to flee, followed by the noble levies commanded by Ducas, a nephew of the previous emperor. Cut off from his main forces Romanos continued to fight with his personal bodyguard, and when wounded surrendered to the enemy. Alp Arslan had won a great victory, destroying a large imperial army and inflicting a loss from which Constantinople would not soon recover. An eyewitness who took part in the historic battle left us with a personal account:It was like an earthquake: the shouting, the sweat, the swift rushes of fear, the clouds of dust, and not least the hordes of Turks riding all around us. It was a tragic sight, beyond any mourning or lamenting. What indeed could be more pitiable than to see the entire Imperial army in flight, the Emperor defenseless... the gravity and great shame which marked our defeat, and the intolerable dishonor which adheres to the name of the Romans.1
The Turks were still using the fluid cavalry battle tactics of the Scythian steppe nomads which had long been abandoned by the Eastern Roman Emperors, as an imperial daughter commented:
... the Turkish battle-line differs from that of other peoples. It was not arranged, as Homer says, “buckler (shield) to buckler, helmet to helmet, man to man,” but their right and left wings and their centre formed separate groups with the ranks cut off, as it were, from one another; whenever an attack was made on right or left, the centre leapt into action and all the rest of the army behind it, in a whirlwind onslaught that threw into confusion the accepted tradition of battle.
As for the weapons they use, unlike the Celts (French Crusaders) they do not fight with lances but completely surround the enemy and shoot at him with arrows; they also defend themselves with arrows at a distance... in flight he overwhelms his pursuer with the same weapon and when he shoots, the arrow in its course strikes either rider or horse, fired with such tremendous force that it passes clean through the body.2The captive Romanos were treated with courtesy and respect by Khan Arslan, who did not press his advantage but concluded a generous peace treaty with Constantinople. He agreed to a reduced ransom from the amount he had initially quoted and made no demands for imperial territory. Romanos found himself a free man only a week after the battle, and was personally accompanied by Alp Arslan and two emirs for part of his return trip. On his arrival, however, a civil war broke out, Romonos was deposed and was followed on the throne by two emperors in quick succession until Alexios I Comnenus took power in 1081. Romanos’ successors did not honor the treaty with Khan Arslan, and by 1090 virtually all of Asia Minor was in the hands of the Turks. Only the small peninsula east of Chalsedon facing Constantinople remained in imperial hands.
As the Turks were OverrunningAsia Minor the Normans, led by Robert Guiscard, launched an offensive in the west. Gathering a force of some 13000 Norman knights and Muslim “Saracens” he invaded the Balkan Peninsula and besieged Durazzo (Dyrrachium), defeating an Imperial army led by Alexios I which tried to relieve the city. When Guiscard had to return to Italy to put down a rebellion led by his nephew, the expeditionary force under his son Bohemund was defeated at the battle ofLarissa in 1083 and was forced to withdraw from Imperial territory. The revolt had been encouraged by Constantinople, and Emperor Alexios also concluded a treaty with King Henry IV of Saxony paying him a great price of some 360,000 pieces of gold. Henry immediately marched south, entered Rome and forced Pope GregoryVII to barricade himself in his fortress, the Castel Sant Angelo. Gregory was deposed and Henry ΓV had himself crowned Emperor by a Pope of his own choosing. Robert Guiscard decided to march with his Normans on Rome to free the Pope, but HenryIV retreated to Lombardy to avoid battle, leaving Guiscard in possession of the city. With GregoryVII liberated, Guiscard s men proceeded to pillage the city following time-honored tradition. A contemporary historian describes the devastation:
Then, and only then, came the tragedy. The entire city now fell victim to an orgy of pillage and destruction. For three days this continued—until the inhabitants, able to bear it no longer, rose against their oppressors, and the Normans set fire to the city. The Capitol and the Palatinate were gutted; churches, palaces, and temples were left empty shells. Between the Colosseum and the Iateron, hardly a building escaped the flames.3
The Norman sacking marked the final and complete destruction of Rome. A few weeks later they set sail for Greece, encountering and destroying a Venetian fleet, which earlier had inflicted heavy damage on the Norman vessels. Robert Guiscard died during an epidemic in 1085 at the age of 68, while leading a naval expedition to occupy Cephalonia in Greece. The Norman threat was over for the time being but was quickly replaced by northern invaders. Two years after Guiscards death a Pecheneg army invaded the Empire and three years later was before the walls of Constantinople. Allying himself with the Pecheneg s old enemy the Polovtsi, Emperor Alexios I gathered his forces and proceeded to advance against the nomads, who had come with their women and children. The two hosts met on 29 April 1091, near the mouth of the Maritsa River, and in a battle fought with great ferocity the Pechenegs suffered a great defeat. Few survived the encounter as all prisoners were massacred together with the women and children.
As the Eastern Empire was being pressed by enemies, the Papacywas seeking allies to enhance its authority. As expressed in GregoryVHs aDictatus Papae” in 1075, the Popes were beginning to seek supremacy over kings and rulers such as the right to appoint bishops. At the same time the Eastern Empire was also seeking allies and military support. The crisis of 1075, which followed the debacle of Manzikert, had been contained to some extent but the elimination of the Themata system and the loss of Asia Minor had deprived the Emperor of most of his reliable manpower. Also the Greek Orthodoxprinces of Rus were embroiled in dynastic struggles and Continualwarfare with the steppe nomads, and were unable to send help. Thus both Pope and Emperor were eager to reestablish relations after decades of hostilities and neglect, following the schism of 1054. The Emperor and his advisors realized that the reconquest of Asia Minor was virtually impossible without the aid of the Christian West.
The first move was made by Pope Urban II, who began to thaw relations by lifting his predecessor s excommunication of Emperor Alexios I, in turn requesting that Latin rite churches be reopened in Constantinople. Alexios responded by gathering a synod of the Eastern Church to consider the restoration of friendly relations with the Latin Church, and in the winter of 1094 Pope Urban II invited EmperorAlexios I to send delegates from the Greek Church to attend a Great Council of the (Latin) Church to be held in Piacenza in northern Italy in March 1095. When the Council opened, Emperor Alexios, legation spoke only of religious matters, describing the suffering of Christian communities and emphasizing the danger of Islamic tidal waves lapping against the walls of Constantinople, the greatest city of Christendom. Theyfound a ready reception, and Urban II decided to call another Council meeting at Clermont in France, to deal Specificallywith aid to Eastern Christianity. A great gathering took place outside of the east gate of the city during November 18-28, where on November 27 the Pope spoke to an enthusiastic audience reaffirming the need and responsibility to launch a holy war against Islam and rescue the Christian East, ParticularlyJerusalem. As recorded by Fulcher of Chartres:
He (Pope Urban II) heard, too, that the interior regions of Romania, where the Turks ruled over the Christians, had been perniciously subjected in a savage attack. Moved by long-suffering compassion and by love of Gods will, he descended the mountains to Gaul, and in Auvergne he called for a council to congregate from all sides at a suitable time at a city called Clermont.4
The Popes exact speech has not been preserved, but the main thrust (or interpretation) was recorded by contemporary chroniclers. Ekehard, for example, thought that Emperor Alexios “deplored his inability to defend the churches of the east. He (Alexios) beseeched the Pope to call to his aid, if that were possible, the entire west.... He promised to provide for those who should go to fight all that they might need, on land and sea.” This is also largely in agreement with a forged letter to the Count of Flanders which circulated in the west at the time, claiming to have been written by Alexios himself.
I, albeit I am emperor, can find no remedy or suitable counsel, but am always fleeing in the face of Turks and Pechenegs, and I remain in a particular city only until I perceive that their arrival is imminent. And I think it is better to be subjected to your Latins than to the abominations of the pagans. Therefore, before Constantinople is captured by them, you most certainly ought to fight with all your strength, so that you may joyfully receive in heaven a glorious and ineffable reward.5
The message was clear. The East had become a lame duck and ought to be taken over by the Latin (Roman Catholic) West.
The Papal call to arms was answered by a multitude of backgrounds and motives. Devoted Christians such as serving knights and feudal lords, many of whom sold their possessions to support the call to arms or the “Croissade” as it became known, were joined by commoners from town and country. Serfs were no longer bound to the soil, and citizens were exempted from taxes. Prisoners were also allowed to join and death sentences were commuted to life service in Palestine. Women and children accompanied their husbands and fathers, together with unmarried women and professional prostitutes. And all who fell in battle would be absolved of punishment in the life hereafter, and gain entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. Conspicuously absent were kings, none of whom accompanied the Crusade. Indeed Philip I of France, William II of England, and the Saxon King HenryIV were all under excommunication by the Pope when the Crusade was called.