The First Crusade

by Thomas Asbridge

  POPE URBAN'S EXPECTATIONS AND INTENTIONS

  In the past, historians have suggested that when Urban II preached the First Crusade at Clermont he actually expected only a few hundred knights to answer his call - that, in effect, the pope was caught entirely off guard by the tidal wave of enthusiasm that swept across Europe and, as a consequence, rapidly lost control of the shape and format of the expedition. In fact, a significant corpus of evidence suggests that he harboured fairly grand ambitions for this project and had a real sense of its potential scale and scope. Certainly in the months following the council of Piacenza (1-7 March 1095), where Urban first received the Byzantine appeal for aid, and perhaps even earlier, he developed the idea of a penitential armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem that might simultaneously bring military reinforcement to eastern Christendom and expand the sphere of papal influence. This is not to suggest that the crusade was the only thing on the pope's mind, but it was a significant feature of his evolving reform agenda. At the same time, Urban began making preparations to ensure that his proposed expedition would meet with a positive response, tapping into the surviving network of fideles beati Petri established under Pope Gregory VII, including Matilda of Tuscany. It is striking how many of the prominent nobles who took the cross after Clermont were themselves fideles, or were connected to this group through marriage or family. Between his arrival in France in July 1095 and the start of the council of Clermont on 18 November, Urban visited a series of prominent monasteries, including his former house of Cluny. He also met and primed the two men whom he hoped would champion the crusading cause.2

  Priming the core

  The first of these was Adhemar of Le Puy, a figure who would become the spiritual shepherd of the First Crusade. Born into a noble family, possibly that of the counts of Valentinois, Adhemar was appointed bishop of Le Puy, in the Auvergne region of south-eastern France, at some point between 1080 and 1087. He had also probably completed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before 1087. As a prominent Provencal bishop, Adhemar soon became an ally and associate of the region's most powerful secular ruler, Raymond of Toulouse. The bishop, evidently a firm supporter of the Gregorian papacy, was chosen by Urban II to play a pivotal role in the forthcoming expedition. In August 1095, soon after his arrival in France, the pope journeyed to Le Puy, where he must have met Adhemar. Here, and perhaps on other occasions over the coming months, the two discussed Urban s crusading project, agreeing a plan to orchestrate its reception and prosecution. Unfortunately, no record of these conversations survives, but we can be virtually certain that they took place because the events that followed were clearly stage-managed. Adhemar of Le Puy duly attended the council of Clermont and listened intently to Urban s crusading sermon on 27 November. Then, as soon as the pope fell silent, Adhemar stepped forward to take the cross, becoming the first ever crusader. According to one eyewitness, after Urban had preached the campaign to the East:

  The eyes of some were filled with tears, some were frightened and others argued about this matter. But among all at the council -and we all saw him - the bishop of Le Puy, a man of great repute and the highest nobility, went up to the lord pope with a smiling face and on bended knee begged and beseeched his permission and blessing to make the journey.3

  Bishop Adhemar had effectively been planted in the audience to ensure that the pope's words met with a warm reaction. On the following day, it was announced that Adhemar would be the official papal representative, or legate, on the coming crusade. Urban himself later wrote that:

  We appointed in our place as leader of this journey and labour our dearest son Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy. It follows that anyone who decides to go on this journey should obey his orders as though they were our own and should be entirely subject to his power to loose and bind' in any decisions that appear to concern this business.4

  The pope had chosen Adhemar to lead the expedition to Jerusalem, endowing him with absolute spiritual authority over the crusaders. In this position, the bishop of Le Puy proved to be a skilled and patient conciliator, a valuable voice for reason and a staunch advocate of Urban's policy of detente with the Greek Church of Byzantium. But, although the pope may have envisaged the crusade as a pious armed pilgrimage, he must have known that to succeed the expedition would still require practical military direction and inspirational generalship. Adhemar possessed some talent as a strategist, he may even have had a degree of skill as a military leader, but, with Church law technically forbidding him from actually fighting in battle, the bishop could never truly fulfil the role of overall commander-in-chief of the crusade.5

  Before the council of Clermont, the pope also approached a second figure, one with the potential to provide this type of leadership - Raymond of Toulouse. Born the second son of Count Pons of Toulouse c. 1042, Raymond initially acceded to the relatively small Provencal lordship of St Gilles, with the county passing to his elder brother. But a combination of good fortune, canny diplomacy and resolute determination eventually enabled Raymond to supplant his sibling, assume lordship of the county of Toulouse and cultivate an impressive network of power and influence. By 1095 he was the dominant secular lord in south-eastern France. Raymond had not always been an ally of the Gregorian papacy, indeed Pope Gregory VII actually excommunicated him on two occasions, but by the 1080s a repentant Raymond had come back into the fold and soon developed into an ardent supporter of the Reform Movement and an avowed fidelis beati Petri. He confirmed his friendship with Pope Urban II in 1090 by renouncing all rights to the Church of St Gilles, a prerogative that his family had previously usurped. Being one of the most powerful princes in all Latin Christendom and a steadfast ally of the papacy, Raymond was, in many ways, the natural choice as secular leader of Urban's projected crusade.

  Later traditions and legends actually suggest that he was almost predestined to fill this position, being accustomed to the prosecution of campaigns against Islam and familiar with the journey to Jerusalem. In the twelfth century, it was believed that Raymond had fought against the Moors of Iberia in the 1080s, losing an eye in combat, but this story cannot be verified. An obscure Syrian contemporary recorded an even more improbable tale of Raymond s exploits. The count had, he maintained, completed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before 1095, but upon reaching the Holy City had had his eye pulled out of his head as punishment for refusing to pay an exorbitant Muslim tax on Latin pilgrims. Apparently, Raymond then returned to the West, carrying his eyeball in his pocket as testament to his suffering. The count may have lost an eye in the course of his life - both stories revolve around an explanation of this striking feature of his appearance - but there is no reliable evidence to suggest that he had any experience of travel to the Levant predating the First Crusade.

  Nonetheless, as with Adhemar, we can be almost certain that in the months before the council of Clermont, Urban met with Raymond of Toulouse to discuss the shape and execution of the proposed expedition. Raymond did not himself attend the sermon at Clermont, but the very next day ambassadors arrived to pledge his resolute support for the campaign; the lightning rapidity of this reaction indicates forward planning. But if the count, like Adhemar, had been brought in to lend his seal of approval to the crusading enterprise, then it seems strange that Raymond chose not to attend the council itself. His absence may, perhaps, have been caused by disagreement over the leadership of the expedition. Raymond certainly coveted the post of commander-in-chief. He was well qualified to perform this role, not least because he could draw upon an immense reservoir of wealth with which to fund the endeavour, and his extant friendship with Adhemar of Le Puy made him the obvious candidate for a secular lord to work alongside the papal legate. In feet, his decision to pledge his support on 28 November, the very day upon which Adhemar was appointed, suggests that they had intended to enrol in the crusade as joint leaders in a package deal.

  Unfortunately for Raymond, the pope stubbornly refused, either at Clermont or in the months that followed, to confirm the count's status publicly. Urban may have preva
ricated because he expected the Byzantine emperor to assume command of the expedition once it reached Constantinople. But, whether or not there was an open dispute, almost eight months passed before Raymond made a public declaration of his commitment actually to join the crusade.

  Even without official papal endorsement, Raymond of Toulouse was,.to begin with at least, the most powerful First Crusader. Being in his mid-sixties and thus at quite an advanced age by medieval standards, he was undoubtedly the elder statesman of the expedition, but the passing years seem to have weakened his physical constitution, leaving him more prone to bouts of illness and infirmity. Yet, even if his body did sometimes show signs of frailty, his mind remained resolute. Proud, self-possessed and obdurate, Raymond devoted the resources of his capacious treasury and the full force of his political acumen and accumulated military expertise to the crusading cause. He was undoubtedly driven by a determination to fulfil his vow and recover Jerusalem, but as the expedition progressed it became increasingly obvious that he was struggling to reconcile this pious goal with his own ambition for power. Before the end, Raymond would reveal that he was obsessed with the mantle of overall command and was keenly aware that the Latin conquest of the Levant might also fuel his own territorial ambitions.6

  Spreading the word

  As well as priming two of the main players in the crusade before Clermont, Urban also took great care to publicise the call to crusade. Already by December 1095, Urban was able to claim in a letter to the people of Flanders that his sermon at Clermont was 'widely known', and he followed up this initial address with an extended preaching tour that crisscrossed much of France. This was designed to broadcast the crusading appeal while promoting Urban's reform agenda and stimulating the recognition of papal authority. Between December

  1095 and September 1096 the pope visited Limoges, Le Mans, Bordeaux, Toulouse and Montpellier, among other towns and cities, and presided over major councils at Tours in March 1096 and Nimes in July 1096, before finally returning to Italy. During this grand tour, he consecrated numerous churches and altars and lent his support to a massive ecclesiastical building programme, all of which served to engender an aura of Roman primacy. For a man probably now in his sixties, Urban demonstrated immense energy and resilience through these long months, but his efforts paid off. Seizing every possible opportunity to preach the expedition to Jerusalem, the pope drew enormous crowds, and a wave of crusading enthusiasm took hold. One eyewitness recalled the impact of his presence at Limoges:

  We saw [the pope] with our own eyes and we were in the crowds of the faithful at his consecrations ... In a good sermon he encouraged the people standing there to take the road to Jerusalem. Thanks be to you, O Christ; for you watered the swelling com which grew from the seed sown by him, not only in our region, but also throughout the world.

  The compelling impact of his words, the theatre of these mass rallies and the air of authority surrounding the papal office combined to produce a super-charged atmosphere in which many found it impossible to resist the crusading message. The full impact of Urban's preaching is revealed by the fact that a high proportion of the First Crusaders now known to us through historical record came from regions in and around the path of his campaigning trail.7

  Crusade recruitment was a central theme of Urban's extensive tour of France, and he made assiduous efforts to sponsor and cultivate the expedition launched at Clermont, all of which points to the fact that he did, to some extent, plan or anticipate the response to his initial preaching. The pope would, it seems, never have been content to allow the crusade message to languish in obscurity, nor would he have been happy for it to produce only 200 to 300 recruits. Urban knew that he was unlocking a powerful and compelling ideal in November 1095. But, even so, he was still surprised by the mercurial speed and astounding magnitude of the reaction.

  The rapid spread of crusading fever can, in part, be explained by the fact that it was not just Urban himself who promoted the expedition after Clermont. He encouraged all bishops present at the councils of Clermont and Nimes to preach the crusade in their own dioceses. His preaching tour also stimulated a number of public assemblies at which the crusade was proclaimed in his absence, prompting frenzied masses to take the cross. At Rouen, the enthusiasm generated by one of these gatherings got so out of hand that it prompted a full-scale riot. At the same time, unofficial preachers also began to broadcast versions of Urban's appeal across Europe. Before long, the pope realised that he was in danger of losing control of the entire enterprise. Chief among his concerns was the knowledge that the crusade was spontaneously attracting thousands of recruits from a diverse cross-section of society - ecclesiastics, peasants, women and children, the old and infirm - and Urban had never intended or expected these non-combatants to become participants. In the autumn of 1096 he felt it necessary to warn the Latins of northern Italy and Iberia that 'we do not allow clerics or monks to [take the cross] unless they have permission from their bishops and abbots'. He went on to remind these bishops that they 'should also be careful not to allow their parishioners to go without the advice and foreknowledge of the clergy'. By this point, recruitment had obviously outstripped papal expectations and was threatening to tear Latin society apart at the seams. Zealous young men were abruptly deciding to desert house and home to join the crusade, prompting Urban to recommend in addition that they should not be allowed to 'rashly set out on such a long journey without the agreement of their wives'. At this point, Urban effectively passed the buck. Having lost full, centralised control of the crusade, he began to demand, rather unrealistically, that local bishops intervene to re-establish order. Many of these possessed neither the ability nor the will to exert such authority, but an even more fundamental problem was that as a sub-species of pilgrimage, the crusade was a penitential act, and thus both voluntary and open to all Christians. The very feature that had made Urban's message so palatable - its packaging within an existing framework of devotional practice - meant that the principle of unrestricted participation was imported into, and imposed upon, the precepts of crusading, making it all but impossible to control recruitment.

  The pope also became concerned that the irresistible allure of the crusade was drawing valuable manpower away from Iberia. He wrote to the Christian nobility of northern Spain, advising them that 'if any of you has made up his mind to go to [the East], it is here instead [in Iberia] that he should try to fulfil his vow, because it is no virtue to rescue Christians from the Saracens in one place, only to expose them to the tyranny and oppression of the Saracens in another'.8

  Even though Urban had anticipated a warm response to his proposed armed pilgrimage, he was still caught off guard by the full passion of Latin Europe's enthusiasm. By the end of 1096, he had to face up to the stark reality that the crusader army' would be an entirely different creature from that which he had hoped for. The pope had set out to attract recruits from a specific demographic sector: the knightly aristocracy. This was the class within which Urban himself had been raised, whose strengths, aspirations and fears he knew only too well, and although he did not specifically target the Champagne region of his youth, he did demonstrate a more general affinity with his homeland by directing the full force of his initial preaching towards the nobility of France before later broadening his appeal to include the arms-bearers of western Germany, the Low Countries and Italy.

  THE FIRST CRUSADERS

  Urban judged that these knights, termed in Latin milites, possessed of martial prowess, financial resources and an active sense of devotional obligation, offered the best hope of transforming his crusading ideal into a living reality. Above all else, he knew that for the expedition to succeed it would need to be powered by a ferocious fighting force, and knights, the elite warriors of eleventh-century Europe, were the obvious choice. Urban himself explained in a letter that we were stimulating the minds of knights to go on this expedition, since they might be able to restrain the savagery of the Muslims by their arms and restore the Christian
s to their former freedom'.9

  Knights in the eleventh century

  Skilled as they were, knights were not part of a full-time standing army They were soldiers, but they also had other roles, as lords or vassals, landholders and farmers. In any one year they might expect to be engaged in warfare for no more than a few months, and even then not necessarily by fighting in a familiar, established network, group or formation. We should not envisage the knights of the First Crusade as grand, chivalric warriors, riding into battle astride giant warhorses, clad in splendid Gothic plate armour and wielding massive lances. It would be more than a century before advancements in technology and custom combined to bring the concept and practice of medieval knighthood into full flower. But, for all this, the knights of the eleventh century were the best fighters available to Pope Urban.