First Crusade

Delice Bette | June 1, 2023

Summary

The First Crusade (1096-1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Catholic Church in the medieval period. The goal was to reclaim the Holy Land from Islamic rule. Although Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century, the Seljuk conquest of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The first initiative of the First Crusade began in 1095, when the Byzantine emperor Alexius I Comnene requested military support from the Council of Placencia in the empire’s conflict with the Turks led by the Seljukids. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military aid and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

This appeal was met with an enthusiastic popular response across all social classes in Western Europe. Crowds of predominantly poor Christians in the thousands, led by Peter the Hermit, a French priest, were the first to respond. What became known as the People’s Crusade passed through the Holy Roman-German Empire (in present-day Germany and indulged in a wide range of anti-Jewish activities, including the Rhineland massacres. Leaving Byzantine-controlled territory in Anatolia, they were annihilated in a Turkish ambush led by the Seljuk Quilije Arslan I at the Battle of Cybotos in October 1096.

In what became known as the Princes’ Crusade, members of the high nobility and their followers embarked in the late summer of 1096 and arrived in Constantinople between November and April of the following year. This was a large feudal host led by notable princes from Western Europe: forces from southern France under Raimund IV of Tolosa and Ademar of Monteil; men from Upper and Lower Lorraine led by Godfrey of Bullion and his brother Baldwin of Bologna; Italo-Norman forces led by Bohemund of Tarentum and his nephew Tancredo; as well as several contingents consisting of Flemish and northern French forces under Robert II of Normandy, Stephen II of Blois, Hugo I of Vermandois, and Robert II of Flanders. In total, and including non-combatants, the forces are estimated to number about 100,000.

The crusaders marched into Anatolia. With Quilije Arslan absent, a Frankish attack and a Byzantine naval assault during the Siege of Nicea in June 1097 resulted in an initial Crusader victory. In July, they won the Battle of Dorileia, fighting Turkish mounted archers in light armor. They then marched through Anatolia, suffering casualties of hunger, thirst, and disease. The decisive and bloody Siege of Antioch was fought early in 1097 and the city was captured in June 1098. Jerusalem was reached in June 1099 and the siege resulted in the city being taken by assault from June 7 to July 15, 1099, during which its defenders were cruelly slaughtered. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was established as a secular state under the rule of Godfrey of Bullion, who avoided the title “king”. A counterattack was repulsed that year at the Battle of Ashkelon, ending the First Crusade. After that, most of the crusaders returned home.

Four Crusader states were established in the Holy Land. In addition to the Kingdom of Jerusalem, they were the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli. The crusader presence remained in the region in some form until the Siege of Acre in 1291. This resulted in the loss of the last major Crusader stronghold, leading to the rapid loss of all remaining territory in the Levant. After that, there were no further substantive attempts to reclaim the Holy Land.

Christianity and Islam have been in conflict since the latter’s founding in the 7th century. As early as 638, six years after the death of the prophet Muhammad, Muslims began to occupy the Levant, including Jerusalem, and decades later landed on the Iberian Peninsula. In the 11th century, Islamic control of the Peninsula was gradually eroded by the Reconquista, while the situation in the Holy Land deteriorated. The Fatimid Caliphate, which since 969 had ruled North Africa and parts of Western Asia, including Jerusalem, Damascus, and portions of the Mediterranean coast, was at relative peace with the west. But everything changed in 1071, with the Byzantine Empire’s defeat at the Battle of Manziquerta and the loss of Jerusalem to the Seljuk Empire two years later.

Although the causes of the conflict are varied and continue to be debated, it is clear that the First Crusade arose from a combination of factors in early 11th century Europe and the Near East. In Western Europe, Jerusalem was increasingly seen as worthy of penitential pilgrimages. And while Seljuk rule over Jerusalem was weak (the empire later lost the city to the Fatimids), returning pilgrims reported hardship and oppression by Christians. In turn, the Byzantine need for military support coincided with an increase in the willingness of the Western European warrior class to accept papal military command.

Situation in Europe

By the 11th century, the population of Europe had greatly increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to prosper. The Catholic Church remained the dominant influence in Western civilization, although it urgently needed reform. Society was organized by lordship and feudalism, political structures by which knights and other nobles owed military service to their lords in exchange for the right to rent land and manors. In the period from 1050 to 1080, the Gregorian Reformation movement developed increasingly assertive policies, eager to increase its power and influence. This created conflict with Eastern Christians, rooted in the doctrine of papal supremacy. The Eastern Church saw the pope as only one of the five patriarchs of the Church, alongside the Patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. In 1054, differences in customs, beliefs, and practices spurred Pope Leo IX to send a diplomatic mission to the Patriarch of Constantinople, which ended in mutual excommunication in the so-called Great Schism of the East.

Early Christians were accustomed to using violence for communal purposes. A Christian theology of war inevitably evolved from the point where Roman citizenship and Christianity came together. Citizens were required to fight against the enemies of the empire. Dating from the works of the 4th century theologian Augustine of Hippo, a doctrine of holy war developed. Augustine wrote that an aggressive war was sinful, but could be rationalized if proclaimed by a legitimate authority such as a king or bishop, if it was defensive or for the recovery of land, and did not involve excessive violence. The collapse of the Carolingian Empire in Western Europe created a caste of warriors who now had little to do but fight among themselves. Violent acts were commonly used to settle disputes, and the papacy tried to mitigate them.

Pope Alexander II developed systems of recruitment by oaths for military resources that Gregory VII extended further throughout Europe. These were deployed by the Church in Christian conflicts with the Muslims on the Iberian Peninsula and for the Norman conquest of Sicily. Gregory VII went further in 1074, planning a show of military power to reinforce the principle of papal sovereignty in a holy war by supporting the Byzantine Empire against the Seljukids, but was unable to build support for it. The theologian Anselm of Luca took the decisive step toward an authentic crusading ideology, claiming that fighting for legitimate purposes can result in the remission of sins.

There was no significant Christian government on the Iberian Peninsula. The Christian kingdoms of Leon, Navarre, and Catalonia lacked a common identity and shared a history based on tribe or ethnicity, so they often joined and split during the 11th and 12th centuries. Although small, they all developed an aristocratic military technique and in 1031 the disintegration of the Caliphate of Cordoba in southern Spain created the opportunity for the territorial gains that later became known as the Reconquista. In 1063, William VIII of Aquitaine led a combined force of French, Aragonese and Catalan knights to take the city of Barbastro, which had been in Muslim hands since 711. This had the full support of Alexander II, and a truce was declared in Catalonia with indulgences granted to the participants. It was a holy war, but differed from the First Crusade in that there was no pilgrimage, no vow, and no formal church authorization. Shortly before the First Crusade, Urban II encouraged Iberian Christians to take Tarragona, using much of the same symbolism and rhetoric that was later used to preach the crusade to the people of the Peninsula.

The Italo-Normans were successful in taking much of southern Italy and Sicily from the Byzantines and North African Arabs in the decades before the First Crusade. This brought them into conflict with the papacy, leading to a campaign against them by Pope Leo IX, whom they defeated at Civitate, although when they invaded Muslim Sicily in 1059 they did so under a papal banner: the Banner of St. Peter (Invexillum sancti Petrior). Roberto Guiscardo captured the Byzantine city of Bari in 1071 and campaigned along the eastern Adriatic coast around Dirráquio in 1081 and 1085.

Situation in the East

Since its founding, the Byzantine Empire was a historic center of wealth, culture, and military power. Under Basil II (r. 976-1025), the territorial reclamation of the empire peaked in 1025. Its borders extended eastward to Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, and much of southern Italy, and piracy in the Mediterranean Sea had been suppressed. Relations with Islamic neighbors were no more confrontational than relations with Slavs or Western Christians. Normans in Italy; Pechenegs, Serbs, and Cumans to the north; and the Seljuk Turks in the east competed with the empire, and to meet these challenges the emperors recruited mercenaries, even occasionally from their enemies.

The Islamic world has also enjoyed great success since its founding in the 7th century, with great changes to come. The first waves of Turkish migration to the Middle East occurred in the 9th century. The status quo in West Asia was challenged by later waves of migration, particularly the arrival of the Seljukids in the 10th century. These were a minor ruling clan of Transoxiana. They converted to Islam and migrated to Iran in search of fortune. Over the next two decades, they conquered Iran, Iraq and the Near East. The Seljukids and their followers were Sunni Muslims, which led to a conflict in Palestine and Syria with the Shiite Fatimid Caliphate. The Seljukids were Turkish-speaking nomads and occasional shamanists, unlike their sedentary Arabic-speaking subjects. This was a difference that weakened power structures when combined with the usual governance of Seljuk territory based on political preference and competition between independent princes rather than geography. Byzantine Roman Emperor IV Diogenes tried to suppress their sporadic attacks, but was defeated at the Battle of Manziquerta in 1071, the only time in history that an emperor became a prisoner of a Muslim commander. The result of this disastrous defeat was the loss of much of Anatolia, which was the core of the Byzantine Empire, and which was one of the basic causes of the First Crusade.

Beginning in 1092, the status quo in the Middle East disintegrated after the death of the vizier and effective ruler of the Seljuk Empire, Nizan Almulq. This was closely followed by the deaths of the Malique sultan Shah I (r. 1072-1092) and the caliph Almostazir (r. 1036-1094). Plagued by confusion and division, the Islamic world disregarded the world beyond, so that when the First Crusade came, it was a surprise. Malique Shah was succeeded in the Rum Sultanate of Anatolia by Quilije Arslan I (r. 1092-1107), and in Syria by his brother Tutuxe I (r. 1078-1095). When Tutuxe died in 1095, his sons Raduanus and Dukhak inherited Aleppo and Damascus respectively, further dividing Syria between emirs antagonistic to each other, as well as Querboga, the atabeg of Moçul. Egypt and much of Palestine were controlled by the Fatimids. The Fatimids, under the nominal rule of Caliph Almostali (r. 1094-1101) but actually controlled by their vizier Lavendálio, lost Jerusalem to the Seljukids in 1073, but managed to recapture the city in 1098 from the Arthúkids, a smaller Turkish tribe associated with the Seljukids, shortly before the Crusaders arrived.

The main ecclesiastical impulses behind the First Crusade were the Council of Placencia and the subsequent Council of Clermont, both held in 1095 by Pope Urban II, and resulted in the mobilization of Western Europe to go to the Holy Land. Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnene, concerned about the advances of the Seljukids after the Battle of Manziquerta of 1071, who had reached as far west as Nicea, sent emissaries to the Council of Placencia in March 1095 to ask Urban II for help against the invaders. Urban responded favorably, perhaps hoping to heal the Great Schism of forty years earlier, and reunite the Church under papal primacy by helping the Eastern churches in their time of need. Alexius and Urban had been in close contact in 1089 and after, and openly discussed the prospect of the (re)union of the Christian Church. There were signs of considerable cooperation between Rome and Constantinople in the years immediately preceding the crusade.

In July 1095, Urban turned to his native France to recruit men for the expedition. His travels culminated in the ten-day Council of Clermont, where on November 27 he gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of French nobles and clerics. There are five versions of the speech recorded by people who may have been at the council (Baldric of Dol, Guibert of Nogent, Robert the Monk, and Fulcherius of Chartres) or who crusaded (Fulcherius and the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum), as well as other versions found in the works of later historians (such as William of Malmesbury and William of Tyre). All of these versions were written after Jerusalem was captured. Therefore, it is difficult to know what was actually said and what was recreated after the successful crusade. The only contemporary records are some letters written by Urban in 1095. It is also thought that he may have preached the Crusade at Placencia, but the only record of this is by Bernold of St. Blasien in his Chronicle.

The five versions of the speech differ widely from each other in terms of the particulars said, but all versions except that of the Gesta Francorum agree that Urban spoke about the violence of European society and the need to maintain the Peace of God; about helping the Greeks, who had asked for help; about the crimes committed against Christians in the east; and about a new kind of warfare, an armed pilgrimage and rewards in heaven, where remission of sins was offered to anyone who died in the undertaking. Not all specifically mention Jerusalem as the ultimate goal. However, it has been argued that Urban’s subsequent preaching reveals that he expected the expedition to reach Jerusalem all along. According to one version of the speech, the enthusiastic crowd responded with cries of Deus lo vult! – God wills it!

The great French nobles and their trained armies of knights were not the first to undertake the journey toward Jerusalem. Urban had planned the departure of the first crusade for August 15, 1096, the feast of the Assumption, but months before that, several unexpected armies of peasants and small nobles set out for Jerusalem on their own, led by a charismatic priest named Peter the Hermit. Peter was the most successful of the preachers of Urban’s message and developed an almost hysterical enthusiasm among his followers, although he was probably not an “official” preacher sanctioned by Urban at Clermont. It is commonly believed that Peter’s followers consisted entirely of a large group of untrained, illiterate peasants who did not even know where Jerusalem was, but there were also many knights among the peasants, including Gualtierio Sem-Haveres, who was Peter’s lieutenant and led a separate army.

With no military discipline, in what probably seemed to the participants a strange land (Eastern Europe), Peter’s fledgling army quickly found itself in trouble, despite the fact that they were still in Christian territory. The army led by Gualtério fought the Hungarians for food in Belgrade, but arrived unharmed in Constantinople. Meanwhile, the army led by Peter, which marched separately, also fought the Hungarians and may have captured Belgrade. At Nis, the Byzantine governor tried to supply them, but Peter had little control over his followers and Byzantine troops were needed to contain their attacks. Peter arrived in Constantinople in August, where his army joined that commanded by Gualtério, who had already arrived, as well as separate groups of crusaders from France, the Holy Empire, and Italy. Another army of Bohemians and Saxons failed to pass through Hungary before splitting.

The rebellious mob of Peter and Gualtierius began looting outside the city in search of supplies and food, which prompted Alexius to hastily transport the mob across the Bosporus a week later. After crossing into Anatolia, the crusaders split up and began looting the countryside, wandering into Seljuk territory around Nicea. The much more experienced Turks slaughtered most of this group. Some Italian and Germanic crusaders were defeated at Xerigordo in late August. Meanwhile, the followers of Gualtierius and Peter, who, although mostly untrained in battle but led by about 50 knights, fought the Turks at the Battle of Cybotos in October 1096. The Turkish archers destroyed the crusader army, and Gualtério was among the dead. Peter, who was absent in Constantinople at the time, later joined the second wave of crusaders, along with the few survivors of Cybotos.

On a local level, the preaching of the First Crusade initiated the Rhineland massacres perpetrated against the Jews. In late 1095 and early 1096, months before the official crusade left in August, there were attacks on Jewish communities in France and the Holy Empire. In May 1096, Emicon of Flonheim (sometimes incorrectly known as Emicon of Leiningen) attacked Jews in Spira and Worms. Other unofficial crusaders from Swabia, led by Hartmann of Dillingen, along with French, English, Lorien and Flemish volunteers, led by Drogo of Nesle and William the Carpenter, as well as many locals, joined Emicão in destroying the Jewish community of Mogchen in late May. In Mogunica, a Jewish woman killed her children rather than allow the crusaders to kill them. Chief Rabbi Calonimo ben Mexulan committed suicide before he was killed. Part of Emicão’s coreligionists then went to Cologne, and others continued on to Treveris, Métis and other cities. Peter the Hermit may also have been involved in the violence against the Jews, and an army led by a priest named Folcmar attacked the Jews further east in Bohemia.

Colomano of Hungary had to deal with the trouble the armies of the First Crusade caused during their march through his country toward the Holy Land in 1096. He crushed two hordes of crusaders who were pillaging the kingdom. Emican’s army finally continued into Hungary, but was also defeated by Colomano, at which point Emican’s followers dispersed. Some eventually joined the main armies, although Emicão himself returned home. Many of the aggressors seem to have wanted to force the Jews to convert, although they were also interested in getting money from them. Physical violence against Jews was never part of the official policy of the Church hierarchy for the crusades, and Christian bishops, especially the archbishop of Cologne, did their best to protect them. A decade earlier, the bishop of Espira had taken the initiative to provide the Jews of that city with a walled ghetto to protect them from Christian violence, and gave their chief rabbis control of judicial matters in the neighborhood. However, some were also given money in exchange for their protection. The attacks may have stemmed from the belief that Jews and Muslims were equally enemies of Christ, and enemies should be fought or converted to Christianity.

The four main crusader armies left Europe around the appointed time in August 1096. They took different routes to Constantinople, some through Eastern Europe and the Balkans, some across the Adriatic Sea. Colomano of Hungary allowed Godfrey and his troops to cross Hungary only after his brother, Baldwin, was offered as a hostage to ensure the good conduct of his troops.

Recruiting

Recruitment for such a large enterprise was continental. Estimates as to the size of the armies were 70,000 to 80,000 in the number of people who left Western Europe the year after Clermont, and more joined within three years. Runciman proposed that there were 7,000 to 10,000 knights; 35,000 to 50,000 infantrymen; and including non-combatants, a total of 60,000 to 100,000. Other estimates total 30,000 to 35,000 warriors, of whom 5,000 were knights. Whatever the figure, it is a fact that Urban’s speech was well planned. He had discussed the crusade with Ademar de Monteil and immediately the expedition had the support of two of the most important leaders in southern France. Ademar himself was present at the council and was the first to “carry the cross”. During the rest of 1095 and into 1096, Urban spread the message throughout France and urged his bishops and legates to preach in their own dioceses in other parts of France, the Holy Empire and Italy. However, it is clear that the response to the speech was far greater than even the pope, let alone Alexius, expected. On his trip through France, he tried to forbid certain people (including women, monks, and the sick) from joining the crusade, but found this almost impossible. As it turned out, most of those who accepted the call were not knights, but peasants who were not wealthy and had few fighting skills, in a manifestation of a new emotional and personal piety that was not easily harnessed by ecclesiastics and lay aristocrats. Usually, the preaching ended with each volunteer making a vow to complete a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher; they also received a cross, usually sewn onto their clothes.

It is difficult to assess the motives of the thousands of participants for whom there is no historical record, or even those of important knights, whose stories were usually retold by monks or clerics. Since the medieval secular world was deeply rooted in the spiritual world of the Church, it is quite likely that personal piety was an important factor for many crusaders. Even with this popular enthusiasm, Urban was assured that there would be an army of knights, drawn from the French aristocracy. In addition to Ademar and Raimundo, other leaders he recruited throughout 1096 included Bohemundus of Tarentum, a southern Italian ally of the reformist popes; Bohemundus’ nephew, Tancredo; who had previously been an anti-reformation ally of the Holy Roman Emperor; his brother Baldwin of Bologna; brother of the excommunicated Philip I of France; Robert II of Normandy, brother of William II of England; and his kinsman Stephen II of Blois, The crusaders represented northern and southern France, Flanders, the Holy Empire, and southern Italy, and thus were divided into four separate armies that were not always cooperative, although they were united by their common end goal.

The crusade was led by some of France’s most powerful nobles, many of whom left everything behind, and it was common for entire families to crusade at their own expense. For example, Robert II of Normandy lent the Duchy of Normandy to his brother William II of England, and Godfrey sold or mortgaged his property to the Church. Tancred was concerned about the sinful nature of warfare between knights and was excited to find a holy way out of the violence. Tancred and Bohemund, as well as Godfrey, Baldwin, and his older brother Eustace III of Bologna, are examples of families who crusaded. Much of the enthusiasm for crusading was based on family relationships, as most French crusaders were distant relatives. However, at least in some cases, personal advancement played a role in the Crusaders’ motives. For example, Bohemund was motivated by a desire to conquer territory in the east and had already campaigned against the Byzantines to try to achieve this. The Crusade gave him a new opportunity, which he took advantage of after the Siege of Antioch, taking possession of the city and establishing the Principality of Antioch.

Road to Constantinople

The armies traveled to Constantinople by various routes, with Godofroy taking the overland route through the Balkans. Raimundo of Tolosa led the Provençals along the Illyrian coast and then east of Constantinople. Bohemund and Tancredo led their Normans by sea to Dirrachus, and from there by land to Constantinople. The armies arrived in Constantinople with little food and were expecting provisions and help from Alexius. Alexius was understandably suspicious after his experiences with the People’s Crusade, and also because the knights included his old Norman enemy, Bohemund, who had invaded Byzantine territory on several occasions with his father and may even have tried to organize an attack on Constantinople while camping outside the city. This time, Alexius was more prepared for the crusaders and there were fewer incidents of violence along the way.

The crusaders may have hoped that Alexius would become their leader, but he had no interest in joining them and was mainly concerned with transporting them to Anatolia as quickly as possible. In exchange for food and supplies, he asked the leaders to swear allegiance to him and promise to return to the Byzantine Empire all the lands recovered from the Turks. Godofroy was the first to take the oath, and almost all the other leaders followed him, although they did not do so until after war had nearly broken out in the city between the citizens and the crusaders, who were eager to plunder for supplies. Raimundo alone avoided taking the oath, and instead promised that he would simply do no harm to the empire. Before ensuring that the various armies were transported across the Bosphorus, Alexius advised the leaders on how best to deal with the Seljuk armies they would soon encounter.

Siege of Nicaea

The armies crossed into Anatolia during the first half of 1097, where they were joined by Peter the Hermit and the rest of his relatively small army. In addition, Alexius also sent two of his generals, Manuel Butumita and Tatice, to help them. The first objective of their campaign was Nicea, a city that had once been under Byzantine rule, but had become the capital of the Sultanate of Rum under Quilije Arslan. Arslan was away on campaign against the Danismendid Emirate in Central Anatolia, and left behind his treasure and family, underestimating the strength of these new crusaders.

Later, after the Crusaders arrived, the city was subjected to a long siege, and when Arslan learned of this, he hurried back to Nicaea and attacked the Crusader army on May 16. He was repulsed by the unexpectedly large Crusader force, with heavy losses suffered on both sides in the ensuing battle. The siege continued, but the crusaders had little success as they found that they could not block the lake of Nicaea, where the city was situated and from which it could be supplied. To invade it, Alexius sent the crusader ships over the land in logs, and upon sighting them, the Turkish garrison finally surrendered on June 18.

There was some discontent among the French who were forbidden to plunder the city. This was ameliorated by Alexius rewarding them financially. Later chronicles exaggerate the tension between the Greeks and the French, but Stephen of Blois, in a letter to his wife Adela, confirms the goodwill and continued cooperation on this point. The fall of Nicaea is seen as a rare product of the close cooperation between the crusaders and the Byzantines.

Battle of Dorileia

In late June, they marched through Anatolia. They were accompanied by some Byzantine troops under Tatitius, and still harbored the hope that Alexius would send a full Byzantine army after them. They also divided the army into two more easily managed groups – one contingent led by the Normans, the other by the French. The two groups intended to meet again at Dorileia, but on July 1 the Normans, who had marched ahead of the French, were attacked by Quilije Arslan. Arslan had assembled a much larger army than before after his defeat at Nicaea, and was now surrounding the Normans with his swift mounted archers. The Normans “positioned themselves in a cohesive defensive formation,” surrounding all their equipment and the non-combatants who had followed them along the journey, and sent help from the other group. When the French arrived, Godfrey broke through the Turkish lines and the Ademar Legate flanked the Turks from the rear. The Turks, who hoped to destroy the Normans and did not foresee the rapid arrival of the French, fled rather than face the combined army of the crusaders.

The crusaders’ march through Anatolia was unopposed, with them conquering some cities such as Sozopolis, Iconium (present-day Conia), and Caesarea Mázaca (present-day Caiseri). However, the journey was an unpleasant one, for Arslan had burned and destroyed everything he left behind in his army’s flight. It was the middle of summer and the crusaders had very little food and water; many men and horses died. Fellow Christians sometimes gave them food and money as gifts, but mostly they simply looted whenever an opportunity arose. The leaders continued to vie for overall leadership, although none of them were powerful enough to take command on their own, since Ademar was always recognized as the spiritual leader.

Armenian Interlude

After passing through the Cilician Gates, Baldwin and Tancred broke away from the main body of the army and set out for the Armenian lands. Baldwin wanted to create a fief for himself in the Holy Land, and in Armenia, he could count on the support of the local inhabitants, especially an adventurer named Pancrazius. Baldwin and Tancred led two separate contingents, leaving Herakleia on September 15. Tancredo arrived first at Tarsus, where he persuaded the Seljuk garrison to raise their flag in the citadel. Baldwin arrived the next day and, in a reversal, the Turks allowed him to take possession of two towers. Greatly outnumbered, Tancredo decided not to fight for the city. Shortly thereafter, a group of Norman knights arrived, but Baldwin denied them entry. The Turks massacred the Normans during the night, and Baldwin’s men blamed him for their fate and massacred the remaining Seljuk garrison. Baldwin took refuge in a tower and convinced his soldiers of his innocence. A pirate captain, Guinemer of Bologna, sailed up the Barada River to Tarsus and swore allegiance to him, who hired his men to garrison the city while he continued his campaign.

Meanwhile, Tancredo had seized the city of Mamistra. Baldwin arrived in the city around September 30. The Norman Richard of Salerno wanted revenge for Tarsus, causing a skirmish between Baldwin’s soldiers and Tancredo. Baldwin left Mamistra and joined the main army at Marache, but Pancrazio convinced him to launch a campaign in a region densely populated by Armenians and left the main army on October 17. The Armenians welcomed him and the local population slaughtered the Seljukids, conquering the fortresses Ravendel and Turbessel before the end of 1097. Baldwin made Pancrazius the governor of Ravendel.

The Armenian lord Theodore of Edessa sent emissaries to Baldwin in early 1098, seeking his help against the nearby Seljukids. Before leaving for Edessa, he ordered the arrest of Pancrapius, accused of collaboration with the Seljukids, who was tortured and forced to surrender Ravendel. Baldwin left for Edessa in early February, being besieged on the way by the forces of Balduk, emir of Samosata. Upon arriving in the city, he was welcomed by Theodore and the local Christian population. Remarkably, he was adopted as a son by Theodore, whom he made corregent of Edessa. Strengthened by troops from Edessa, he invaded Balduk’s territory and placed a garrison in a small fortress near Samosata.

Shortly after Baldwin’s return from the campaign, a group of local nobles began to conspire against Theodore, probably with Baldwin’s consent. A riot broke out in the city, forcing Theodore to take refuge in the citadel. Baldwin promised to save his adopted father, but when the protesters stormed the citadel on March 9 and murdered him and his wife, he did nothing to stop them. The next day, after the townspeople recognized Baldwin as their ruler, he assumed the title of Count of Edessa, and thus established the first of the Crusader states. Although the Byzantines had lost Edessa to the Seljukids in 1087, the emperor did not demand the surrender of the city. Moreover, the acquisition of Ravendel, Turbessel and Edessa strengthened the position of the main crusader army later in Antioch. The lands along the Euphrates guaranteed food supplies for the crusaders, and the fortresses prevented the movement of the Seljuk troops.

Since his strength was small, Baldwin used diplomacy to secure his rule in Edessa. He married Arda of Armenia, who later became queen consort of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and encouraged his retainers to marry local women. The city’s rich treasury allowed him to employ mercenaries and buy Samosata from Balduk. The resulting treaty for the transfer of Samósata was the first amicable agreement between a Crusader leader and a Muslim ruler, who remained as governor of the city.

An important figure in the kingdom in the 12th century was Belek Gazi, grandson of the former Seljuk governor of Jerusalem, Artuke. Belek would play a small part in this story who, as an Arthurian emir, hired Baldwin to quell an uprising in Saruje. When the Muslim leaders of the city approached Balduk to come to their rescue, he rushed to Saruje, but it soon became clear that his forces were not capable of withstanding a siege and the defenders gave in to Balduk. Baldwin demanded Baldwin’s wife and children as hostages and, after his refusal, captured and executed him. With Saruje, Baldwin consolidated the county and secured its communications with the main body of crusaders. Querboga, the governor of Moçul, always on guard to defeat the crusaders, assembled a large army to eliminate him. During his march toward Antioch, Querboga besieged the walls of Edessa for three weeks in May, but failed to capture it. And his delay played a crucial role in the Crusader victory at Antioch.

The crusader army, sans Baldwin and Tancred, marched to Antioch, situated halfway between Constantinople and Jerusalem. Described in a letter by Stephen of Blois as “a very extensive city, fortified with incredible strength and almost impregnable,” the idea of taking the city by assault was daunting for the crusaders. Hoping to force a capitulation or find a traitor inside the city – a tactic that had already seen Antioch shift to Byzantine and then Seljuk Turks control – the crusader army began a siege on October 20, 1097. Antioch was so large that the crusaders did not have enough troops to completely encircle it, and as a result was able to stay partially supplied.

In January, the eight-month siege led to hundreds, or possibly thousands, of crusaders starving to death. Ademar believed this was caused by their sinful nature, and rituals of fasting, prayer, almsgiving, and procession were performed. Women were expelled from the camp. Many deserted, including Stephen II of Blois. Food collection systems eased the situation, as did supplies from Cilicia and Edessa through the newly captured ports of Latakia and St. Simon. In March, a small English fleet arrived with supplies. The French benefited from disunity in the Muslim world and the possibility that they might mistakenly believe that the crusaders were Byzantine mercenaries. The Seljuk brothers, Dukkha of Damascus and Raduan of Aleppo, dispatched separate relief armies in December and February that, had they been combined, would probably have been victorious.

After these failures, Querboga raised a coalition from southern Syria, northern Iraq, and Anatolia with the ambition of extending his power from Syria to the Mediterranean. His coalition stopped first in Saruje. Bohemund persuaded the other leaders that if Antioch fell, he would keep it for himself and that an Armenian commander of a section of the city walls had agreed to allow the crusaders to enter. The Armenian Firuz helped Bohemund and a small group enter the city on June 2 and open one gate, when horns sounded, the Christian majority of the city opened the other gates and the crusaders entered. In the sacking, they killed most of the Muslim inhabitants and many Greek, Syrian and Armenian Christians in the confusion.

On June 4, the vanguard of Querboga’s 40,000-man army arrived. For four days from June 10, waves of men attacked the walls from dawn to dusk. Boemundo and Ademar barred the gates to prevent mass desertions and managed to hold out. Querboga then changed tactics to try to starve them out. Morale within the city was low and defeat seemed imminent, but a visionary peasant named Peter Bartholomew claimed that the Apostle Andrew came to him to show the location of the Holy Spear that pierced Christ at the Vera Cruz. This supposedly encouraged the crusaders, but the accounts are misleading, as they occurred two weeks before the final battle for the city. On June 24, the Franks sought surrender terms, which were refused. On June 28, 1098, at dawn, they marched out of the city in four battle groups to engage the enemy. Querboga allowed them to prepare with the aim of destroying them in the open. However, the discipline of the Muslim army did not328-333o hold and a disorderly attack was launched. The Crusaders outnumbered the Muslims who attacked the bridge gate two to one. With very few casualties, the Muslim army gave in and fled the battle.

Stephen of Blois was in Alexandretta when he heard about the situation in Antioch. It seemed that their situation was desperate, so he left the Middle East and returned to France. On the way, he warned Alexius and his army in Philomelius of the situation, convincing him to return. Bohemund wanted to take control of Antioch for himself, but there were some problems he had to face first. Raimundo handed the city over to him, claiming that he and other leaders would be breaking their oath to Alexius, which was to give all the conquered lands to the Byzantine Empire. Bohemund argued that because Alexius had not come to the crusaders’ aid in Antioch, the oath was no longer valid. Meanwhile, a plague broke out, killing many members of the army, including Ademar, who died on August 1. There were now even fewer horses than before, and worse, the Muslim peasants in the region refused to provide food. Thus, in December, after the Siege of Maarate Anumane, history describes the first occurrence of cannibalism among the crusaders. At the same time, the knights and minor soldiers were increasingly restless and threatened to continue to Jerusalem without their contentious leaders. Finally, in early 1099, the march resumed, and Raimundo decided to leave Bohemund behind as prince of Antioch.

Descending the Mediterranean coast, the crusaders met little resistance, as the local rulers preferred to make peace with them and provide them with supplies rather than fight. The crusaders were allowed to trade in the markets of Xaizar and Homs, where they obtained supplies, as well as benefited from the stocks of some towns they passed through, such as Rafaneia, which was reportedly abandoned when they arrived. The march was slower than before, especially after the hardships that occurred in Maarate Anumane, giving the troops time to recover as they progressed. More than that, to protect their supplies from Muslim bandits, Raimundo was in charge of protecting the rear, while Roberto II of Normandy, Tancredo de Pedro de Narbona defended the vanguard. When they reached the Syrian coastal range, which separates the fertile valley of the Orontes River, where Antioch is located, and the coast, the crusaders chose to march along the coast, even though Jerusalem lay inland, so that they could use the naval support provided by the Byzantine Empire and the crusaders who were in Antioch through ships from Genoa, Venice, and England. Taking this route would also avoid the need to confront Damascus, which was one of the largest Muslim cities in the Middle East.

While passing through the fertile Beca valley in January, between present-day Syria and Lebanon, they were attacked by the small garrison of the so-called Fort of the Kurds (Ḥoṣn al-Akrād), whose aggression was answered the next day by a frontal assault led by Raimundo. The enemy advance caused panic in the garrison, and when the crusaders reached the fortification, they found it empty and full of supplies. This site, a decade later, would be rebuilt and become the famed Knights’ Fortress. The victory over the fortress, which was regarded by the locals as impenetrable, caused a stir among the Muslim leadership. The emir of Homs quickly confirmed his agreement with Raimundo, sending gifts in the form of horses and gold, and the emir of Tripoli Jalal Almulque Ali ibne Mohammed, one of the largest coastal cities to the south, was equally impressed. Nevertheless, Raimundo was aware that continuing the march with the force at his disposal, which did not exceed 5,000 horsemen, could be potentially dangerous without the support of the remaining Frankish nobles who remained behind in Antioch. On February 14, when he was already approaching Tripoli, he chose to halt his progress and lay siege to Ark. Using stratagems and pinpoint attacks, he secured control of the ports of Tortosa and Margate, and the surrender of several inland settlements, but he struggled to achieve the capitulation of his target. The garrison refused to yield and, using projectile launchers, inflicted casualties on the Crusaders, including Ponce de Balazun and Anselmo de Ribemonte.

Meanwhile, Godofroy and Robert II of Flanders joined the remaining crusaders and began their march in the middle of the month. On March 1, Bohemund accompanied the others to Lataquia, but quickly returned to Antioch to consolidate his government against the advancing Byzantines. Following their journey, they decided to besiege the coastal town of Jabala. In early April, Peter of Narbonne reached them from Ark bringing an urgent message from Raimundo asking for help. As he reported, the Seljukids had gathered an army in Baguedade and were preparing to attack him. It is likely that the threat was invented by Raimundo to convince them to follow his course and help him, which had an effect. As new fighters arrived, and the siege continued, the local Muslim leaders, including the emir of Tripoli, continued to send bribes to prevent a crusader attack, which would have created a kind of very profitable supply network. This, however, would soon collapse when the Muslim leadership realized the extortion to which they were subjecting themselves. Another setback for Raimundo’s enterprise was the challenge to the authority of Peter Bartholomew, the supposed discoverer of the Holy Lance in Antioch, who, since the death of the legate Ademar, was placed, with Raimundo’s support, in the position of spiritual leadership of the crusade. On April 8 Arnulfo de Chocques publicly challenged him to a fiery ordeal. Peter went through the ordeal and died after days of agony from his wounds, which discredited the Sacred Spear as a hoax.

On April 10, Byzantine ambassadors reached Ark and questioned Raimundo on the reasons why he let Bohemund retain Antioch, without the consent of Alexius, if this hurt the crusaders’ oaths before the expedition began. Already weakened by the death of Peter Bartholomew, Raimundo chose to listen to the other crusaders and lift the siege on May 13, without achieving the goal of conquering the city, to head toward Jerusalem. The Fatimids had recaptured Jerusalem from the Seljukids the previous year and tried to make a deal with the crusaders, promising freedom of passage to all pilgrims to the Holy Land on the condition that they would not advance into their domains, but this was rejected. The Fatimid Ifeticar Adaullah was governor of Jerusalem and was well aware of their intentions. Therefore, he expelled all the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. He also poisoned most of the wells in the area. On May 13, the crusaders reached Tripoli, where Jalal Almulque supplied horses to the crusader army and vowed to convert to Christianity if the crusaders defeated the Fatimids. Continuing south along the coast, they passed through Beirut on May 19 and Tyre on May 23. Proceeding inland at Jaffa, on June 3 they reached Ramla, which had been abandoned by its inhabitants. The bishopric of Ramla-Lida was established there in the Church of St. George before they went on to Jerusalem. On June 6, Godfrey sent Tancred and Gaston IV of Bearne to capture Bethlehem, where Tancred raised his banner over the Church of the Nativity. On June 7, they arrived in Jerusalem. Many crusaders wept upon seeing the city they had traveled so far to reach.

The crusaders’ arrival in Jerusalem revealed a barren region, lacking water or food. There was no prospect of relief, even though they feared an imminent attack from the local Fatimid rulers. There was no hope of trying to blockade the city as they did at Antioch; the crusaders did not have enough troops, supplies, and time. Instead, they decided to take the city by storm. They may have been left with little choice, since by the time the army reached Jerusalem, it is estimated that only about 12,000 men, including 1,500 cavalry, remained. These contingents, composed of men of different backgrounds and loyalties, were also approaching another decline in their camaraderie. While Godofredo and Tancredo camped to the north of the city, Raimundo camped to the south. Moreover, the Provençal contingent did not participate in the initial attack on June 13, 1099. This first attack was perhaps more speculative than determined, and after scaling the outer wall, the crusaders were repulsed at the inner wall.

After the failure of the initial attack, a meeting between the various leaders was organized in which it was agreed that a more planned attack would be necessary in the future. On June 17, a group of Genoese sailors commanded by William Embriaco arrived in Jafa and provided the crusaders with skilled engineers and, perhaps more critically, supplies of wood (taken from the ships) to build siege machines. The crusaders’ morale increased when the priest Peter Desiderius claimed to have had a divine vision from Ademar, instructing them to fast and then march in barefoot procession around the walls, after which the city would fall, following the Biblical principles story of the battle of Jericho. After a three-day fast, on July 8, the crusaders carried out the procession according to Desiderius’ instructions, ending on the Mount of Olives, where Peter the Hermit preached to them, and soon after the various warring factions came to a public rapprochement. The news came soon after an army of Fatimid aid departed from Egypt, giving the crusaders a very strong incentive to make another attack on the city.

The final attack on Jerusalem began on July 13. Raimundo’s troops attacked the southern gate while the other contingents attacked the northern wall. Initially, the Provençals at the southern gate made little progress, but the contingents at the northern wall did better, with a slow but steady attrition of the defense. On July 15, a final push was launched at both ends, and finally the inner wall of the north wall was captured. In the ensuing panic, the defenders abandoned the walls at both ends, allowing the Crusaders to finally enter. The massacre that followed the capture achieved particular notoriety as a “juxtaposition of extreme violence and anguished faith.” Eyewitness accounts from the crusaders themselves leave little doubt that there was a great slaughter. However, some historians propose that the scale of the massacre was exaggerated in later medieval sources.

After the successful attack on the northern wall, the defenders fled to the Temple Mount, pursued by Tancredo and his men. Arriving before the defenders could secure the area, Tancredo’s men attacked the precinct, slaughtering many of the defenders, with the rest taking refuge in the Al-Aqsa mosque. Tancredo then stopped the killing, offering those in the mosque his protection. When the defenders of the southern wall heard about the fall of the northern wall, they fled to the citadel, allowing Raimundo and the Provençals to enter the city. Ifeticar Adaullah, the garrison commander, made a deal with Raimundo, surrendering the citadel in exchange for safe passage to Ascalon. The slaughter continued for the rest of the day; Muslims were killed indiscriminately, and Jews who had taken refuge in their synagogue died when it was burned down by the Crusaders. The next day, Tancredo’s prisoners in the mosque were massacred. However, it is clear that some Muslims and Jews in the city survived, fleeing or being taken prisoner to be rescued. The Letter of the Karaite Elders of Ashkelon provides details of the Jews making great efforts to rescue these Jewish prisoners and send them to safety in Alexandria. The eastern Christian population of the city was driven out before the siege by the governor and therefore escaped the massacre.

On July 22, a council was held in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to establish the government of Jerusalem. The death of the Greek patriarch meant that there was no obvious ecclesiastical candidate to establish a religious lordship, as some of those present maintained. Although Raimundo could claim to be the preeminent leader of the 1098 crusade, his support had waned since his failed attempts to besiege Ark and create his own kingdom. This may have been why he piously refused the crown, claiming that it could only be worn by Christ. It may also have been an attempt to persuade others to reject the title, but Godofroy was already familiar with that position.

Probably more convincing was the presence of the great army of Lorraine, led by him and his brothers, Eustace and Baldwin, vassals of the Ardennes-Bullion dynasty. Therefore, Godofroy was elected Defender of the Holy Sepulchre (Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri) and assumed secular power. Raimundo, outraged by this event, tried to seize the Tower of David before leaving the city. While the Kingdom of Jerusalem would remain until 1291, the city was lost to the Muslims under Saladin in 1187 as a result of the decisive Battle of Hatim. The history of Jerusalem would record Muslim rule for 40 years, finally returning to Christian control after a series of subsequent Crusades.

In August 1099, the Fatimid vizier Lavendálio landed a force of 20,000 North Africans at Ashkelon. Godofroy and Raimundo marched to meet this force on August 9 with a force of only 1,200 knights and 9,000 infantrymen. Outnumbered two to one, the Franks launched a surprise attack at dawn and defeated the overconfident and unprepared Muslim force. The opportunity was lost, however, as a dispute between Raimundo and Godofredo prevented an attempt by the city garrison to surrender to the more reliable Raimundo. The crusaders won a decisive victory, but the city remained in Muslim hands and a military threat to the nascent kingdom.

In the aftermath, most of the crusaders now considered their pilgrimage completed and returned home. Only 300 knights and 2,000 infantrymen remained to defend Palestine. It was the support of the Knights of Lorraine that allowed Godfrey to take the secular leadership of Jerusalem over Raimundo’s claims. When he died a year later, these same Lorenes thwarted the papal legate Dagobert of Pisa and his plans to make Jerusalem a theocracy and instead made Baldwin the first Latin king of Jerusalem. Bohemundus returned to Europe to fight the Byzantines in Italy, but was defeated in 1108 at Dirrachus. After the death of Raimundo, his heirs captured Tripoli in 1109 with Genoese support. Relations between the newly created County of Edessa and the Principality of Antioch were variable. They fought together in defeating the crusaders at the Battle of Haran in 1104, but the Antiochians claimed suzerainty and blocked the return of Baldwin II from Jerusalem after his capture in battle. The Franks became fully engaged in Near Eastern politics and the result was that Muslims and Christians frequently fought each other. Antioch’s territorial expansion ended in 1119 with a major defeat for the Turks at the Battle of the Field of Blood.

Many had returned home before reaching Jerusalem and many had never left Europe. When the success of the crusade became known, these people were ridiculed and despised by their families and threatened with excommunication by the pope. Back home in Western Europe, those who survived to reach Jerusalem were treated as heroes. Robert II of Flanders was nicknamed Hierosolimitan thanks to his exploits. Among the participants in the later Crusade of 1101 were Stephen of Blois and Hugo I of Vermandois, both of whom returned home before reaching Jerusalem. This crusading force was nearly annihilated in Asia Minor by the Seljukids, but the survivors helped strengthen the kingdom after their arrival in Jerusalem.

There is limited written evidence of Islamic reaction dating back to before 1160, but what there is indicates that the crusade was barely noticed. This may be the result of a cultural misunderstanding in that the Turks and Arabs did not recognize the crusaders as religiously motivated warriors seeking conquest and colonization, assuming that the crusaders were just the latest in a long line of Byzantine mercenaries. Moreover, the Islamic world remained divided between rival rulers in Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, and Baghdad. There was no pan-Islamic counterattack, giving the crusaders the opportunity to consolidate.

Shortly after the establishment of the crusader states, military orders were created: the Hospitallers in 1113 and the Templars in 1118, mostly of Frankish origin; and the Teutons of Germanic origin. In order to protect the Christian territories, the leaders of the crusader states assigned them the domain of several fortresses in the Holy Land.

Sources

1. Primeira Cruzada
2. First Crusade
3. Asbridge 2012, p. 42.
4. Asbridge 2012, p. 19–23.
5. Riley-Smith 2005, p. 10–12.
6. ^ Perta, 2019, p. 222.
7. Runciman, 78. o.
8. Lynn H. Nelson (1979), “The Foundation of Jaca (1077): Urban Growth in Early Aragon,” Speculum, 53 p. 697 note 27.
9. Riley-Smith 2005, p. 7.
10. ^ Nicolle, pp. 21 and 32.
11. ^ Jonathan Riley-Smith “The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading”, 1986, pag. 50