tions and insults of the Christians that many scholars ascribe to the Turks are exaggerated, it is very difficult to agree with the judgment of W. Ramsay on the mildness of the Turks towards the Christians; he writes: "The Seljuk sultans governed their Christian subjects in a most lenient and tolerant fashion, and even the prejudiced Byzantine historians drop a few hints at the Christians in many cases preferring the rule of the sultans to that of the emperors. . . . Christians under the Seljuk rule were happier than the heart of the Byzantine Empire, and most miserable of all were the Byzantine frontier lands exposed to continual raids. As to religious persecution there is not a trace of it in the Seljuk period."62 Thus, the destruction of the Temple of the Resurrection in 1009 and the conquest of Jerusalem by the Turks in the eighth decade of the eleventh century were facts that profoundly affected the religiously minded masses of Western Europe and evoked a powerful emotion of religious enthusiasm. Moreover, many Europeans realized that, in case of the fall of Byzantium under the pressure of the Turks, the whole of the Christian West would be exposed to terrible danger. "After so many centuries of terror and devastations", says a French historian, "will the Mediterranean world succumb again to the assault of the Barbarians? Such is the anguishing question that is raised towards 1175. Western Europe, slowly reconstructed in the course of the eleventh century, will take charge of replying to it: to the mass attacks of the Turks it prepares to reply by a crusade" 63 83 But the most threatening danger from the ever-growing power 62 W. M. Ramsay, The cities and bishoprics of Phrygia (Oxford, 1895), I (The Lycos Valley and southwestern Phrygia), 16 and 27. He is followed by J. W. Thompson, An economic and social history of the Middle Ages (New York-London, 1928), p. 391, where a wrong reference has been given to W. Ramsay's article "The War of Moslem and Christian for Asia Minor", Contemporary Review, vol. XC. I am much indebted to Mr. Thompson who was so kind as to explain this error to me. On the Turks in Palestine at the close of the eleventh century cf., for example, Comte Riant, Inventaire critique des lettres historiques de croisades, in the Archives de l'Orient Latin (Paris, 1881), I, 65. L. Halphen, Les Barbares: des grandes invasions aux conquêtes turques du XI-e siècle (Paris, 1926), p. 387. of the Turks was felt by the Byzantine emperors, who, after the defeat of Manzikert, seemed to be unable to resist the Turks successfully with their own forces. Their eyes were turned to the West, mainly to the Pope, who as the spiritual head of the westEuropean world could, through his influence, induce the westEuropean peoples to furnish Byzantium with adequate assistance. Sometimes, as we have seen in the message of Alexius Comnenus to Robert of Flanders, the emperors also appealed to individual rulers of the West. But Alexius had in mind merely some auxiliary troops, not powerful and well organized armies. The Popes replied very favorably to the appeals of the Eastern Emperor. Besides the purely idealistic side of the question-namely, aid for Byzantium and thereby for all the Christian world, as well as the liberation of the Holy Land-the Popes had, of course, also in view the interests of the Catholic church; in case of the success of the enterprise the Popes could hope to increase their influence still more and restore the Eastern church to the bosom of the Catholic church. The Popes could not forget the rupture of 1054. The original idea of the Byzantine Emperor 'to get some mercenary auxiliaries from the West gradually developed, especially under the influence of papal appeals, into the idea of a crusade, that is to say, into the idea of a mass movement of the West European peoples, sometimes under the direction of their sovereigns and the most eminent military leaders. As late as the second half of the nineteenth century scholars believed that the first idea of the Crusades and the first call was expressed at the close of the tenth century, by the famous Gerbert, later Pope Silvester II. Among his letters we have one "From the ruined Church of Jerusalem to the Church Universal"; in this letter the Church of Jerusalem appealed to the Church Universal, asking the latter to come to her aid. Today the best. authorities on Gerbert's problem consider this letter an authentic work of Gerbert written before he became Pope; but they see in it no project of a crusade, merely an ordinary message to the faithful asking them to send charity to support Christian institu 64 tions at Jerusalem. We must not forget that, at the close of the tenth century, the position of the Christians in Palestine was not yet such as to call for any crusading movement. ... Yet before the Comneni, under the pressure of the Seljuq and Patzinak danger, the Emperor Micael VII Ducas had sent a message to Pope Gregory VII begging him for help and promising the reunion of the churches. Also the Pope had written many letters, in which he exhorted his correspondents to support the perishing Empire. In his letter to the Duke of Burgundy he wrote: "We hope that, after the conquest of the Normans, we shall cross over to Constantinople to help the Christians, who, deeply depressed by frequent attacks of the Saracens, anxiously beg that we lend them a helping hand."65 In another letter Gregory VII speaks "of the pitiful destiny of the great Empire". In a letter to the German King, Henry IV, the same Pope writes, that "most of transmarine Christianity is being destroyed by the pagans in crushing defeat and, like cattle, they are every day being murdered, and the Christian race is being exterminated"; they humbly beseech us for help in order "that the Christian religion, may not entirely perish in our day, which Heaven forbid"; following the papal exhortations the Italians and the other Europeans (ultramontani) are equipping an army, of more than 50,000, and planning to establish, if possible, the Pope at the head of the expedition; they are willing to rise against the enemies of God and to reach the Holy Sepulchre. "I am induced to do so", the Pope continues, "because the Constantinopolitan Church, which disagrees with us concerning the Holy Ghost, desires to come to an agreement with the Apostolic throne."67 In these letters the question was not only of a crusade for the liberation of the Holy Land. Gregory VII was planning an expedition to Constantinople in order to save Byzantium, this Havet, Lettres de Gerbert (983-997) (Paris, 1889), p. 22 and n. 3. Bubnov, The collection of Gerbert's letters as a historical source (S. Petersburg, 1890), II, 230 and n. 137 (in Russian). See also H. Sybel, Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges. Sec. ed. (Leipzig, 1881), 458-59. 65 Migne, Patr. Lat., 148, col. 326. es Ibidem, col. 329. 67 Ibidem, col. 386. chief defender of Christianity in the East. The aid procured by the Pope was to be followed by the reunion of the churches and by the return of the "schismatic" Eastern Church to the bosom of the "true" Catholic Church. One is given the impression that, in the letters just cited, it is a question rather of the protection of Constantinople than of the conquest of the Holy Land. Moreover, all these letters were written before the eighth decade of the eleventh century, when Jerusalem passed into the hands of the Turks and when the position of the Palestinian Christians grew worse. Thus, in Gregory's plans the Holy War against Islam seems to have taken second place; it seems that, in arming the western Christians for the struggle with the Muslim East, the Pope had in view the "schismatic" East. The latter seemed to Gregory more horrid than Islam. In one of his briefs concerning the regions occupied by the Spanish Moors, the Pope openly declared that he would prefer to leave these regions in the hands of the Infidel, that is to say, of the Muhammedans, rather than see them fall into the hands of the disobedient sons of the church.68 If we regard the messages of Gregory VII as embodying the first plan of the Crusades, we must not lose sight of the connection between this plan and the separation of the churches in 1054. Like Michael VII, Alexius Comnenus, especially under the pressure of the horrors of 1091, made appeals to the West, asking that mercenary auxiliaries be sent. But, as we have seen, the interference of the Cumans and the violent death of the Turkish pirate Tzachas ended the danger, so that, from the point of view of Alexius, in the following year, 1092, western auxiliaries seemed useless to the Empire. Meanwhile, the movement, created by Gregory VII in the West, spread widely, thanks especially to the confident and active Pope Urban II. The modest auxiliaries asked for by Alexius Comnenus were forgotten. Now it was a question of a mass movement. Since the first critical investigation of a German historian, H. Sybel, published for the first time in 1841, the principal causes es Ibidem, col. 290. See Ch. Kohler in his review of R. Röhricht, Geschichte des ersten Kreuzzuges, in the Revue historique, vol. 83 (1903), 156–57. of the Crusades, from the western point of view, are stated as follows:69 (1) The first is the general religious spirit of the MidIdle Ages which increased in the eleventh century owing to the Cluniac movement; in a society depressed by the consciousness of its sins is to be noticed a tendency to asceticism, to seclusion, to spiritual deeds, and to pilgrimage; the theology and philosophy of the time were also deeply affected by the same influence. This spirit was the first general cause which roused the masses of the population to the deed of freeing the Holy Sepulchre. (2) The second is the growth of the Papacy in the eleventh century, especially under Gregory VII, with whose ideas on the crusade we are already acquainted. Crusades seemed very desirable to the Popes, because they opened wide horizons for the further development of the papal power and authority; if the Popes succeeded in the enterprise whose initiators and spiritual guides they were to become, they would spread their authority over many new countries and restore "schismatic" Byzantium to the bosom of the Catholic church. Thus, their idealistic desire to aid the eastern Christians and to deliver the Holy Land intermingled with their wish to increase their power and authority. (3) Wordly and secular motives also played a considerable part with the different social classes. Sharing in the general religious emotion, the feudal nobility, barons, and knights, were filled with the spirit of adventure and with the love of war. An expedition against the East was an unequalled opportunity to satisfy their ambition and bellicosity, and to increase their means. As far as the lower classes were concerned, the peasants, ground down by the burden of feudal despotism and swept away by rudimentary religious feeling, saw in the crusade at least a temporary relief from feudal oppression, a postponement of payment of their debts, a certain security for their families and their modest chattels, and release from sins. Later, other phenomena were emphasized by scholars in connection with the origin of the First Crusade. In the eleventh century Western pilgrimages to the Holy H. Sybel, Geschichte der ersten Kreuzzuges, sec. ed. (Leipzig, 1881); the third edition, 1900, is an unaltered reproduction of the second. |