The First Crusade

by Thomas Asbridge

  In 1095, the knightly class was still at an embryonic stage of development. The rising costs associated with functioning as a knight, primarily related to equipment and training, made it increasingly difficult for men of less affluent backgrounds to operate as milites, although, as yet, the class was not the exclusive preserve of the aristocracy. Virtually all male members of the lay nobility were expected to carry out the duties of a knight, and most wealthier lords retained the service of a number of milites as vassals, under contract to protect and farm their lands in return for military service. This enabled poorer individuals to attain the status of a miles, acquiring the tools of the trade through employment.

  By the time Urban preached the crusade at Clermont, the key characteristics of knighthood - a distinct range of equipment and a consequent style of warfare - were coalescing across Latin Christendom. What really marked out a knight was his ability to fight as a mounted warrior. In the eleventh century, warhorses were, by modern standards, quite small, perhaps on average twelve hands in height, what would today be classified as little more than a pony. Nonetheless, they were prohibitively expensive to purchase and even more costly to maintain, requiring feed, horseshoes and quite probably the constant care of what would later be called a squire. Buying a warhorse was the equivalent of today taking out a mortgage on a house, with all the pain of the initial outlay, followed by a lifetime of upkeep payments. This was made all the worse by the fact that most knights also had to keep at least one other, lighter mount upon which to travel.

  But these precious warhorses seem to have given warriors a distinct edge in combat, offering the advantages of speed, mobility and force. The exact nature of mounted warfare at the time of the First Crusade is unclear. Military practice was struggling to incorporate and exploit technological advancements, but the pace of change was often slow. As late as 1066, Anglo-Saxon warriors rode to the Battle of Hastings, but then promptly got off their horses to fight on foot because they were not used to mounted combat. The adoption of the stirrup, giving the rider greater stability, allowed knights to employ increasingly heavy spears or lances, couched under the arm. In time, this led to the development of the most famous feature of knightly warfare: the heavy cavalry charge, in which tightly packed groups of knights rode into enemy formations at speed, delivering the dreadful 'shock' impact of their lances and ripping their opponents to shreds. To be effective, this type of manoeuvre required considerable expertise, demanding trust and social cohesion, and in 1095 its use was still being refined. The First Crusaders deployed massed cavalry charges, and the expedition's finest generals experimented with the tactical possibilities of this weapon', but we should not imagine that the knights who marched off to Jerusalem were used to fighting in tight, disciplined formations, nor that they could be controlled in battle with chesspiece-like precision. On the whole, fighting on the crusade was a bloody, ragged affair, characterised by chaotic close-quarter combat. Under these conditions, it was the Latin knights' ruthless brutality that made them such a potent force.

  The knights targeted in Pope Urban's preaching were typically also equipped with an array of arms and armour. Most would have worn a conical steel helmet, perhaps over a mail hood or coif, and a thigh-length mail shirt over a padded jerkin. These would not have been capable of resisting a solid cut or thrust, but did offer protection from glancing blows. In one hand, knights generally would have carried a more formidable defence: a large, usually kite-shaped, wooden shield, sometimes bound with iron. In the other, they would have held one of a selection of melee weapons. Chief among these were the lance or spear, which could be couched or thrown over arm, and the sword, usually of the one-handed variety, measuring around eighty centimetres in length, a heavy, but finely balanced, blunt-tipped bludgeoning tool. Mastering these weapons of war required long hours of dedicated training (time that was often available only to the wealthy), an abundance of physical energy and a steely nerve. It was not uncommon for nobles to spend the majority of their youth honing their martial skills - one prominent crusader, Godfrey of Bouillon, was already noted as an accomplished warrior at the age of sixteen -but rigorous military instruction carried its own inherent dangers, and knights were frequently injured, maimed or even killed in training.

  Late-eleventh-century knights were almost always accompanied by at least four or five support crew, men who could act as servants, tending to their master's mount, weaponry and general welfare. Pope Urban knew that each knight he attracted to the crusading cause would bring additional manpower with him, men who could, when necessary, add to the ranks of the second major type of medieval warrior: the infantryman. From a historical standpoint, this group, known simply in Latin as pedites (literally, those on foot), represents a far more amorphous, indefinable mass. The composition of the infantry component of a typical Latin army was extremely fluid, being made up of an unpredictable combination of knights' followers, peasants and even, as became common on the crusade, knights who had lost their mounts. We know far less about their standard equipment, although we can guess that they employed a similar assortment of hand weapons - spears and swords, as well as daggers, clubs and axes. Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by any medieval general was to achieve a successful amalgamated strategy, employing knights and infantry in concert. During a campaign both groups might be expected to move at an equal pace; after all, even knights would have spent most of their time walking alongside their mounts. But it was in combat that the real problems of co-ordination arose, because soldiers on foot were simply incapable of traversing the battlefield at the same speed as horsemen. The danger, evidenced by the events of the crusade, was that exploiting the rapid manoeuvrability of a cavalry force might isolate and expose the infantry.

  One additional form of weaponry available to both knights and infantry was the bow. Archers, generally operating longbows of about two metres in length and capable of delivering arrows to a distance of 300 metres, were a common feature of most infantry forces. Being cheap to make, relatively easy to maintain and useful as a hunting tool, these simple bows were a mainstay of the poorer elements within an army, but at the same time they represented an extremely valuable military resource. If deployed with care, a group of archers could unleash wave upon wave of arrows, each capable of piercing almost any type of body armour, wreaking havoc among enemy forces. Bowmen were the particular scourge of the otherwise well-protected knight, and contemporary writers occasionally describe, in awe, how proud horsemen were annihilated by a rain of missiles, their bodies so peppered with arrows as to be likened to hedgehogs. By 1095, some warriors were also using a simple form of crossbow. Expensive, cumbersome and terribly slow to reload, this weapon could, nonetheless, propel a heavy quarrel with such force that at close distance it might penetrate seven centimetres into solid wood. The potential impact of a crossbow bolt upon an armoured knight was so devastating that the papacy sought, in the twelfth century, to ban their use in an early form of arms treaty. But this weapon is known to have seen some action during the First Crusade, most notably in the hands of Godfrey of Bouillon.

  In spite of the fact that Pope Urban lavished praise upon the knights of France, celebrating their martial virtues, the reality was that the type of warfare generally practised by the warriors of Europe did not actually mirror the varied demands of his proposed expedition to Jerusalem. Late-eleventh-century Latin knights and their followers were accustomed to short-term campaigns and small-scale skirmishing. Most were ill prepared for the strategic and logistical exigencies of long-range marches across foreign soil. Many would never have participated in a grand setpiece battle, because these massive, unpredictable engagements were usually avoided at all costs. But there was one form of military engagement with which European armies were familiar and in which they could boast considerable expertise that might be applicable to the coming crusade: siege warfare.

  By 1095, castles and fortifications were a military mainstay of Latin Christendom's socio-political landscape. In a land su
bject to violence and disorder, the physical protection offered by strongholds enabled the ruling classes to maintain strategic, economic and administrative control of their territory. Castles, serving as nails to hold together the fabric of medieval society, were almost ubiquitous, while virtually every town or city was, to one degree or another, fortified by the likes of walls or a citadel. In the prevalent atmosphere of acquisitive internecine conflict, it was common for forts, castles and towns to face regular attack. Indeed, with kings and princes seeking to control their subjects, and local lords struggling to carve out and retain their own semi-independent territories, the ebb and flow of politico-military conflict was expressed in almost seasonal recourse to siege and counter-siege. As technology improved and the use of stone became more prevalent than that of wood, and walls and towers became higher, thicker and stronger, so the bickering potentates of western Europe sought to develop ever more ingenious and effective ways to overcome them.

  When the First Crusade was preached, most Latin knights were intimately acquainted with the techniques and technology of siege warfare. Among the weaponry that they were accustomed to employ was a range of large-scale projectile weapons. These stone-throwing devices, usually powered by either torsion or counterweights, could vary considerably in size and power. The smallest might only be able to catapult a five-kilogram rock some seventy-five metres, while massive engines might be capable of sending large boulders or even, under more gruesome circumstances, whole human bodies the same distance. All of these machines were, however, difficult to construct and relatively immobile once erected. Harking back to ancient Roman terminology, eleventh-century writers used a variety of words, such as petraria, mangana and mangonella, to refer to these weapons, but, as yet, no uniform vocabulary of warfare was in place, and it can thus be very difficult to know what type of machine was being described.10

  The leading crusaders

  Pope Urban II set out to attract the fighting manpower of Europe, dominated by the mounted knight and skilled in vicious skirmishing and siege warfare, to his crusading cause. To tap into this pool of military manpower and expertise, he directed his preaching, first and foremost, at the lay aristocracy. Urban knew that, with the nobility on board, retinues of knights and infantry would follow, for even though the crusade required a voluntary commitment the intricate web of familial ties and feudal obligation bound social groups in a common cause. In effect, the pope set off a domino effect, whereby for every noble who took the cross a chain reaction was initiated, with that principal vow standing at the epicentre of an expanding wave of recruitment.

  If he was really to capitalise upon the pyramidal hierarchy that held sway in medieval Europe, Urban needed to attract recruits from the highest echelon of western society. But it is a striking fact that not a single Latin monarch participated in the First Crusade. In the past, historians have suggested that this 'failure' was actually part of the pope's master plan; that he deliberately sought to discourage the involvement of kings in the hope of more readily maintaining papal control over the expedition. In reality, Urban did go some way towards courting the enthusiasm of the European monarchy. Given the recent history of conflict and hostility between the Gregorian papacy and the king of Germany, Urban must have known that Henry IV would reject the crusading ideal. In England, William the Conqueror's son and heir William Rufus was embroiled in a struggle to subdue his realm and could ill afford a protracted absence on crusade, but he did lend the expedition considerable financial support. It was the king of France, Philip I, who came closest to joining the enterprise.

  Far weaker than either his English or German counterpart, Philip had enough trouble controlling the region around his capital city of Paris, let alone trying to manifest his will throughout the territory we would think of today as France. His participation in the crusade might, nonetheless, have proved fortuitous, given his ideological status and fiscal resources. Philip certainly showed some enthusiasm for the proposed campaign, presiding over a council to discuss its prosecution on 11 February 1096, attended by his brother, Hugh of Vermandois, and a selection of his nobles. That same night saw a spectacular but disturbing lunar eclipse, during which the moon turned blood red, a phenomenon which seemed a portent of the king's future. The problem was that, officially at least, Philip was in bad odour with the pope. Four years earlier, the king had fallen in love with Bertrada of Montfort, wife to the powerful Frankish magnate Fulk IV, count of Anjou. In a scandal of international proportions, Philip abandoned his own wife, entering into a bigamous marriage to Bertrada. When he sought to extract an official recognition of this illicit union from the bishops of France, Rome decided it could no longer turn a blind eye and promptly excommunicated the king. This shameful predicament rumbled on up to the council of Clermont and beyond. Negotiations towards a resolution proceeded throughout Urban's grand preaching tour of France; indeed in July 1096 he was assured that a repentant Philip was now willing to renounce Bertrada. But in the end the king's amorous heart got the better of him and, as an excommunicate, being in no position to take the cross, the opportunity to crusade passed him by.11

  The First Crusade may not have attracted the participation of kings, but the cream of western Christendom's nobility was drawn to the venture, members of the high aristocracy of France, western Germany, the Low Countries and Italy, from the class directly below that of royalty. Often bearing the title of count or duke, these men could challenge or, in some cases, even eclipse the power of kings. Certainly they wielded a significant degree of independent authority and thus, as a group, can most readily be termed 'princes'. Raymond of St Gilles, count of Toulouse, who had expressed his intention to join the crusade so soon after the sermon at Clermont, was among the mightiest of their number. His age and financial resources placed him in a strong position to challenge for the position of overall military commander of the crusade.

  But Raymond was not the only prince to take the cross. In the summer of 1096 the southern Italian Norman, Bohemond of Taranto, committed himself to the expedition in a theatrical public ceremony. In the course of the eleventh century, Norman adventurers had, through dogged resolve and martial skill, forced their way on to the southern Italian peninsula, carving out independent territories that eventually coalesced to form a Norman kingdom of Sicily. Bohemond was fathered by one of the chief architects of this process, Robert 'Guiscard', that is Robert 'the Wily'. Some forty years of age when he took the cross, Bohemond was a striking figure. One Byzantine eyewitness described him in rather fanciful language:

  Bohemond's appearance was, to put it briefly, unlike that of any other man seen in those days in the Roman world, whether Greek or barbarian. The sight of him inspired admiration, the mention of his name terror ... His stature was such that he towered almost a full cubit over the tallest men. He was slender of waist and flanks, with broad shoulders and chest, strong in the arms... The skin all over his body was very white, except for his face which was both white and red. His hair was lightish-brown and not as long as that of other barbarians (that is it did not hang on his shoulders)... His eyes were light-blue and gave some hint of the man's spirit and dignity... There was a certain charm about him [but also] a hard, savage quality in his whole aspect, due, I suppose, to his great stature and his eyes; even his laugh sounded like a threat to others.12

  His arresting physical attributes were married to a formidable personality, driven by unquenched ambition and empowered by martial genius. Bohemond joined the crusade already a gifted and experienced military commander, one near-contemporary describing him as 'second to none in prowess and in knowledge of the art of war'.13 Bohemond learned his trade in the brutal struggle to secure Norman control of southern Italy. In this, his chief opponents were the Byzantines, the most persistent challengers for possession of the region. To counter their meddling, Bohemond's father in 1081 launched an audacious, pre-emptive expedition against the empire's holdings along the eastern shores of the Adriatic, designed to establish a new Norman lordshi
p in the Balkans. In the four years that followed, Bohemond, acting initially as lieutenant to his father, and then for long periods as overall commander-in-chief, fought a protracted, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign against the Greeks.

  The trials of this dogged conflict furnished him with an invaluable military education. He garnered some knowledge of leadership from the stern example set by his father - on the eve of the first major battle against the Byzantines, Robert reportedly burned his fleet, closing the door to escape in order to harden the resolve of his wavering troops. Participating in the seven-month investment of Durazzo, the chief Greek outpost on the Adriatic, exposed Bohemond to the realities of siege warfare. Having surrounded the city from June 1081 to February 1082, enduring a bitter winter, the Normans appeared to be making little progress. It was not until Robert Guiscard orchestrated a betrayal from within that Durazzo actually capitulated - a lesson on the merits of bribery and deceit that would influence Bohemond's conduct on crusade. Then, between the spring of 1082 and the winter of 1083, he personally led a daring expeditionary raid across the Balkan wilds, securing notable victories in two pitched battles against the Byzantine emperor Alexius. The prolonged trans-Adriatic campaign also taught Bohemond the value of naval support and supply.

  In the end, the Normans overstretched their resources and the Greeks were able to reoccupy the Balkans. But, for Bohemond, this practical experience of war, encompassing generalship, battle tactics, campaign strategy and military logistics, served as an outstanding preparation for the rigours of the First Crusade, not least because it brought him into contact with Muslim mercenaries employed in the Byzantine army and gave him an excellent working knowledge of the Balkans. There was, of course, a price to pay for this schooling. The 1081-5 campaign caused an almost irreparable fracture in Norman-Byzantine relations. Bohemond was left nursing frustrated territorial ambitions in the eastern Adriatic, while the Emperor Alexius developed a deep-seated distrust of the Norman princeling.