The Crusades

Jerusalem Jerusalem – one of the five principal sees

of the early Christian Church

680 – captured by Muslims

Jews and Christians: “people of the book” Dhimmi restrictions

Importance of Pilgrimages

Jerusalem: site of Jesus’s last days, execution and burial

Source for relic trade

Byzantine crisis, 1080s

Loss of Anatolia: breadbasket, population center and major source of revenue for Byzantines

New Emperor, Alexios Komnenos (r. 1081 - 1118), able leader, shrewd politician – looks to reverse losses

Muslim caliphate: Byzantines had an equilibrium, but now destroyed

Slavic nations: enemies more than friends

Pope and Western Christians: troubled relationship

Alexios: dramatic shift – sends delegation to Popes Gregory VII and Urban II for help

Reversal of usual Papal-Imperial relationship from centuries before

Emperor asking Pope for help, despite all of the disagreements

Alexios Komnenos

Later Crusades: Fourth Crusade, Albigensian Crusade

Scene of the crusader sack of Constantinople from a fourteenth-century Venetian chronicle

Thesis “The Crusades” continued for several

centuries after the First Crusade was launched; these conflicts differ from other wars primarily by papal involvement at inception, the crusade indulgence and the crusade vow taken by would-be holy warriors.

Later crusades generally have the Holy Land as their strategic target and were fought against Muslims, but none were as militarily successful as the first. Some crusades were fought against the Byzantines (Fourth Crusade), heretics in Europe (Albigensian Crusade), the pope’s political enemies (the “Italian Crusades,” or crusade against Aragon), or even individual families (the crusade against the Colonna family).

The Crusader States

Outremer: French for “land overseas”

Small states in the Near East set up by armies of the First Crusade and reinforced intermittently by later crusaders; eventually all are taken back by Muslims

County of Edessa (founded by Baldwin of Boulogne, 1098-1149)

Principality of Antioch (Bohemund of Taranto, 1098-1268) Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099 to loss of Jerusalem in 1187; kingdom continues at Acre until 1291; founded by Raymond IV of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon; Godfrey becomes first ruler)

County of Tripoli (1102-1289; Raymond IV of Toulouse and his son Bertrand)

Pope Innocent III

Lotario dei Segni, Pope from 1198-1216

Regarded as one of the most powerful popes of the Middle Ages

Influential in reformulation of canon law (church law), office of the papacy, canonization of saints, inquisitorial process, and definition/approach to heresy

Refashioned formulation of Crusade to become a weapon of the papacy; oversaw crusades in Middle East, Spain, S. Italy, S. France, Northern Europe

"O City, City, eye of all cities, universal boast, supramundane wonder, nurse of churches, leader of the faith, guide of Orthodoxy, beloved topic of orations, the abode of every good thing! Oh City, that hast drunk at the hand of the Lord the cup of his fury! O City, consumed by fire...” – Niketas Choniates (Harry J. Magoulias, trans.)

The Fourth Crusade (1202-4)

The Albigensian Crusade (1209-29)

1208: Innocent III sends papal legate Pierre de Castelnou to excommunicate Count Raymond VI of Toulouse for harboring heretics; Pierre dies under suspicious circumstances

Innocent declares crusade against heretics of Languedoc and the nobles who protected them; immediately dispossesses southern nobility (Counts of Toulouse and Trencavel families) and invites northern French crusaders to seize lands

Violence and brutality at battles of Carcassone (1209), Beziers (1209), Muret (1213)

Treaty in 1229, but fighting continues until 1240s

William of Tudela: records account from perspective of Counts of Toulouse

Scene of Crusaders attacking Cathars from a fourteenth-century manuscript

Knights Hospitaller: Knights of the Hospital of St. John (1099, to protect pilgrims traveling to Jerusalem)Knights Templar: Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon

(endorsed in 1129, but suppressed 1307-1312)Iberian orders:Order of Calatrava, Order of SantiagoBaltic orders: Teutonic Knights, Brothers of the Sword

The Military Orders

Krak des Chevaliers, SyriaHospitaller Castle, 1142-1271

Next Class Life of the Nobility

Read Marie de France, Eliduc

Think about the different ways this source might help us understand the medieval nobility: Come to class with prepared with one interpretive question for discussion on Thursday.