A History of the Crusades

by Jonathan Riley-Smith

  A distinction needs to be drawn between motivation and the ideological forces at work, and the processes involved in recruitment. Crusading rapidly penetrated the cultural values of western knighthood, with participation soon coming to be widely accepted as an integral feature of ideal knightly behaviour. This was a standard applicable to all members of the class, but despite this only a minority in each generation went on crusade. Leaving aside individual zeal and enthusiasm, or their absence, analysis suggests that the precise personnel of each force was largely dictated by the workings of social and political structure, the medium through which the crusade call passed. Lordship ties were especially important because of the way in which society was hierarchically organized with wealth and power massively concentrated at the top. If a king or great prince took the cross, then many of his circle would follow his lead accordingly, because of the pressures and inducements he could employ. John of Joinville’s record of the discussion between two of Louis IX’s knights, on the eve of his assumption of the cross in 1267, provides perhaps the sharpest illustration of the awful dilemmas that some might experience as a result. One observed: ‘if we do not take the cross, we shall lose the favour of the king; if we do take it, we shall lose God’s favour, since we shall not be taking it for his sake but through fear of displeasing the king.’ And John of Joinville himself reveals that he, too, was pressed very hard to take vows. Lesser lords naturally exerted less influence, but the same forces were at work. There are innumerable examples of how a particular count, or bishop, or other lord took the cross immediately to be followed by those in his service, from the First Crusade onwards. Equally, if a lord required a particular individual to stay at home in his service, then that man could find his crusading aspirations thwarted. This could even lead to outright refusal of permission to take the cross in the first place. A famous example is provided by Abbot Samson of Bury St Edmunds who, in 1188, was prevented from taking the cross by Henry II in the interests of king and realm.

  Kinship ties also played a major part in recruitment throughout the history of the crusading movement, partly because men were predisposed to look to their kinsmen for support. There was, accordingly, a tendency on all crusades for sons to accompany their fathers, for brothers to go with brothers, or for uncles to depart with nephews, but this pattern of behaviour should not be exaggerated. It is also apparent that families tended to approach the prospect of a crusade collectively, decisions being taken jointly as to who exactly of the family, if anyone, should go, and who should stay behind. It is certainly no chance, for example, that Frederick Barbarossa was accompanied on the Third Crusade by one of his sons, whilst the government of the empire during the crusade was entrusted to another, the future Emperor Henry VI; and family conferences must have preceded the decisions of the brothers, sons, and nephews of Louis IX who accompanied the king on his two crusades. In some instances, crusading decisions led to family discord, a famous case being Henry II’s furious reactions to the vows, taken without reference to him, of his eldest son and heir Young Henry in 1183, and then of Richard in 1187.

  The recruitment value of more distant ties of kinship is not so easy to assess, especially those extending beyond first and second cousin kinship, but time and again we can observe members of extended family units on crusade together. It is unlikely that this was always or entirely chance, rather than the product of prior decisions to crusade jointly. John of Joinville, for example, does not say that he took the cross having previously consulted his cousin John, count of Sarrebruck and lord of Apremont, but the fact that they jointly hired a ship for embarkation on Louis IX’s first crusade is highly suggestive, John of Joinville deliberately stressing their kinship in his account.

  Ties stemming from local and regional association also had a bearing on recruitment. This is seen operating most clearly, perhaps, in the contingents from individual towns and cities on crusades: such men, by virtue of urban social and political structures, were particularly used to acting collectively. But ties of local and regional association also influenced the knightly classes, although it is not always easy to determine their exact role since these ties themselves partly stemmed from kinship and lordship bonds operating within the regional society in question. Nevertheless, Geoffrey of Villehardouin, participant in and chronicler of the Fourth Crusade, is especially revealing of contemporary perceptions in this regard, choosing to list those who took the cross in northern France by dividing them up according to discrete politico-geographical areas. First he lists those in Champagne who followed the lead of Count Thibaut of Champagne, followed by those from Blois and the Chartrain under Count Louis of Blois, then those from the Ile de France, those from Flanders, and so on. Geoffrey of Villehardouin indicates for each contingent a number of the internal ties of kinship, but modern research on the individuals named by the chronicler has exposed other pre-existent internal links within these forces. We find a combination of ties that bound the knightly classes of each of these regions firmly together: kinship ties, lordship ties, and looser yet no less significant ties of friendship, neighbourhood and acquaintance, common experience, and political outlook. The pattern, where the evidence is sufficient to draw firm conclusions, is replicated in other crusade forces. In short, in the matter of the crusade, as in other ventures, men of a particular regional society and loyalty tended to act together as a group. This is further illustrated by battle formations drawn up on campaign. At Tunis in 1270, for example, Charles, king of Sicily, count of Anjou, and count of Provence led the Italians, Provençals, and Angevins, whilst the Navarrese, Champenois, and Burgundians served under Thibaut, king of Navarre and count of Champagne. Sometimes this discreteness within forces was visually represented, as when in 1188 it was agreed that the crusading subjects of Philip II participating in the Third Crusade should wear red crosses, those of Henry II white, and those of the count of Flanders green.

  Although the sorts of ties outlined above plainly exerted a major influence on the pattern of recruitment, it is important to allow for other factors if we are to explain why some knights of a particular regional society, or baronial honour, or lordly retinue went on crusade and why others did not. First, for various reasons, both spiritual and mundane, some were undoubtedly sceptical of, or hostile to, crusading. Others, equally clearly, were crusade enthusiasts, most obviously those who went on crusade or took the cross more than once in their careers: they plainly found crusading to be compatible with their spiritual ideals and chivalric values. Others came to inherit a dynastic tradition of crusading, frequently reinforced by other traditions transmitted through marriage. For those born into such families, once precedents had been set, the pull of the crusade was inevitably more profound, powerful, and poignant. That weight of tradition might be resisted, of course, and the same is true concerning other motivating influences. An individual’s recruitment to the crusade could never have been a matter purely of free choice, but ultimately it was up to that individual to decide whether to respond or not to the call being made to his peer group as a whole.

  Financing

  Wars can be cripplingly expensive for the societies and individuals who wage them and the crusades were no exception. Unfortunately, the total sums expended on any single crusade cannot be exactly quantified as we lack the detailed records to allow it, but sufficient data survives, particularly for some thirteenth-century crusades, to gain at least an impression of the magnitude of the financial drain represented by these expeditions. Probably the best documented is Louis IX’s first crusade, estimated by the French government in the fourteenth century to have cost Louis 1,537,570 livres tournois between 1248 and his return to France in 1254. The accounts list sums paid for provisions and clothing for the king and his household, the wages of knights, crossbowmen, and sergeants, the replacement and purchase of horses, mules, and camels, hire and provisioning of shipping, gifts and loans to crusaders, the king’s ransom after he was taken prisoner by the Muslims in April 1250, work on fortifications in the H
oly Land, and so on. This sum is equivalent to more than six times his typical annual income of 250,000 livres, but it cannot be considered to be the total cost to the king since it has been estimated that Louis also subsidized, through contracts, gifts, and loans, around 55 per cent of the crusaders accompanying him. Nor does it allow for ‘hidden costs’, such as the large sums involved in constructing the new royal port of Aigues Mortes, specifically chosen for embarkation, or the costs incurred by Louis in seeking to pacify and stabilize his kingdom before departure. A figure closer to 3,000,000 livres, or twelve times his budgetable annual income, is probably nearer the mark. Whatever the exact sum, even this, of course, does not allow for the individual expenses of great lords such as Alphonse of Poitiers or Charles of Anjou, or lesser knights, such as John of Joinville, and their retainers. The total cost of his crusade to the kingdom of France was far greater than the amount that the royal accounts for Louis’s expenditure on campaign alone would indicate. In the light of these considerations, it is not surprising that finance was always a constant source of worry to all crusaders at all social levels. Moreover, crusades were not self-financing ventures; although the quantities of plunder and booty could be spectacular, they rarely outweighed expenditure and losses.

  The attempt to raise funds was central to every crusader’s preparations, the securing of adequate negotiable treasure a first priority, but the exact expedients to which crusaders resorted naturally varied greatly according to individual circumstances. Certain typical patterns of behaviour may nevertheless be identified. If a crusader had any savings then he would use them, but chivalric society was not generally renowned for thrift, although some individuals, on taking the cross, are known immediately to have cut their expenditure. Another obvious response was to call in debts owed to the crusader before departure, or to settle disputes with other landowners, gaining tenurial security as well as a sum in return. In the case of ecclesiastical institutions, the crusader would hope to gain spiritual support as well in the shape of prayers. Current research is also clarifying the important role played by an individual’s family, acquaintances, and lords in his crusade financing. Just as he would look to his social network for purposes of recruitment, so could he expect a measure of subsidy through loans or outright gifts from his contacts. Examples are legion. This is true of members of other social classes as well as knights and nobles. Urban confraternities and guilds made money available for the crusade participation of their members, for example. Furthermore, as we shall see later, contracts for crusade service were also employed, the lord paying for the service of knights on campaign, thus alleviating their financial worries, though certainly not solving them outright.

  But it was exploitation of rights and material assets that from the beginning provided the surest means of raising liquid cash in sufficient quantities. First, there was sale of produce, stock, and chattels; timber, in particular, was a commodity often sold to raise money quickly. One of Earl Richard of Cornwall’s first actions on taking the cross in 1236 was to cut down and sell his woods, while Alphonse of Poitiers is known to have raised a considerable sum from timber sales for his second crusade in 1270. Lords might also enfranchise their serfs in return for cash, as the measures of Alphonse of Poitiers again illustrate, or sell rights and privileges to townsmen living under their jurisdiction. In one instance, in March–April 1202, Count Hugh of St-Pol established three, perhaps four, urban communes within his lands to raise money towards his participation in the Fourth Crusade. Jurisdictional rights were also involved in spectacular fashion when in 1189 Richard I relaxed the homage of the king of Scotland and handed over some castles in return for the huge sum of 10,000 marks.

  The selling of land, however, especially the inherited patrimony, was another matter. This was generally avoided since the long-term interests of family and lineage were involved, but it sometimes happened for various reasons. Two early examples are provided by Godfrey of Bouillon’s sale of his county of Verdun to raise money for the First Crusade and the sale by the viscount of Bourges of both the city and the viscounty to King Philip I to help finance his participation in the 1101 crusade. Nearly 150 years later, Philip’s successor Louis IX enabled John, count of Mâcon, to go on crusade by purchasing his county for 10,000 livres tournois. Altogether more typical, from 1095 onwards, was the raising of money through various forms of loan, generally, but not always, secured on the estate in question. Most commonly, the device was mortgage or vifgage (in which the lender was repaid out of the profits of the estate while in his possession). It appears that in the first century of crusading, monasteries played the major role in providing crusaders with liquid cash in this way, although we do find other creditors. Among examples of lenders coming from within a crusader’s family is King William II ‘Rufus’ of England, to whom his brother, Duke Robert of Normandy, pawned the entire duchy of Normandy for 10,000 marks in 1096 before departing on the First Crusade. We also find other creditors, such as crusaders’ lords and merchants, involved in the business, but from the available evidence it seems that monasteries were dominant, although this could be something of a false impression deriving from the lopsided survival of certain types of record. For the thirteenth century, the picture is rather different. Since ecclesiastical corporations were comparatively wealthy, it is not surprising that they continued as sources of credit for crusaders, as for others, but as a result of economic growth and social development other possible lenders were increasingly available as alternatives. The result was that a greater proportion of credit arrangements came to involve merchants, great magnates, crusaders’ lords, crusaders’ kin, even humble knights, indeed, anyone able and willing to do business with the crusader in question. Society and economy were changing, and so inevitably did this aspect of the crusading movement.

  Perhaps the most significant change in crusade financing in these centuries lay in the emergence of secular and ecclesiastical taxation specifically for purposes of crusade. In part, this was a function of the experience of the very earliest crusades, notably the First, which taught how expensive crusading was in practice, but it was also a development that could not have occurred without considerable growth in the notions and apparatus of the secular state and papal monarchy, attendant centralization and administrative sophistication, and greater refinement in the concepts of crusade and Christendom.

  Secular taxation preceded papal measures in this regard, crusading lords drawing upon the feudal convention that vassals should aid their lords at times of need. Naturally, there was resistance to the establishment of the notion that as of right a crusading lord could exact such an aid, as opposed to his seeking of a voluntary grant, but in France at any rate this seems to have been established by the end of the twelfth century. The same is true of the tallaging of non-feudal tenants, such as townsmen and peasants living on the lord’s domain. This, for example, allowed Louis IX to raise perhaps 274,000 livrestournois from the towns of the French royal domain for his first crusade. As sovereigns, kings, exceptionally, could also seek more general levies from all their subjects, although much depended on political circumstances. Louis VII may have raised the first royal levy of this type in 1146, but the evidence is far from conclusive, and the origins of general taxation for crusading purposes should probably be seen to lie in the measures taken by Louis VII and Henry II to raise money for the Holy Land in 1166, when a tax based on individual income and property value was decreed in their dominions. This was followed in 1185 by a graduated tax in France and England on income and movables, again in aid of the Holy Land, but the first compulsory tax precisely tied to a specific crusading expedition was the famous Saladin Tithe (1188), to help finance the Third Crusade. It was imposed, again, in both kingdoms, but at a far higher rate than before, a tenth for one year of the value of income and movables of all subjects, lay and ecclesiastical, excepting crusaders who would receive the tithes of their non-crusading vassals. The yield was massive, one chronicler estimating the yield in England alone at £7
0,000, though it probably was not as much as that, and the resistance to it in France plainly limited the yield to Philip II. Indeed, he had to promise that neither he nor his successors would ever impose such a tax again. Nor did they, apparently. Nevertheless, the contribution to the financing of the Third Crusade was considerable. Occasional taxation of this type followed in some states in the thirteenth century, for example the twentieth imposed in England in support of the Lord Edward’s crusade of 1270, but never, it seems, at the level of intensity of the Saladin Tithe; and generally these were voluntary not compulsory levies, with a flavour more of almsgiving than taxation.

  This was not the case with papal taxation of the universal Church. Individual churches and churchmen suffered demands for money for the crusade from the outset. William Rufus, for example, plundered English ecclesiastics to pay his brother the 10,000 marks agreed for Normandy in 1096. But it was only in 1199, for the Fourth Crusade, that Innocent III mandated all clergy to pay a fortieth for one year of their revenues. He promised that this would not set a precedent, but it did of course, and the rate went up as well. A triennial twentieth was imposed in 1215 for the Fifth Crusade, another in 1245 following the final fall of Jerusalem, soon superseded by a tenth in France and England, a quinquennial hundredth in 1263—equivalent to a twentieth for one year—and a sexennial tenth in 1274. These taxes were universal, although exemptions became progressively more common, and for the Holy Land crusade; others were local and for other crusades, for example the taxes in France in 1209 and 1226 to support the Albigensian Crusade.

  To raise and transmit the proceeds of these taxes was a massive task requiring an elaborate system of collectors, whose actions—and the moneys they raised—were very carefully monitored. The system reached its zenith in 1274 when Gregory X, building upon the work of his predecessors, especially Innocent III and Honorius III, divided Christendom into twenty-six collectorates, a general collector appointed to each. They in turn appointed sub-collectors. By this time, too, self-assessment of tax liability, envisaged by Innocent III in 1199, had given way to external assessment, thus reducing fraud through deliberate undervaluation. At first, the moneys raised were paid locally to crusaders or sent directly to the Holy Land for disbursement to crusaders on campaign, but by the 1240s there was greater centralization, popes granting the yields to individual crusade leaders. The sums raised, unless political circumstances caused obstacles, were huge. Nearly 1,000,000 livres tournois were raised from the French church for Louis IX’s first crusade, for example. No wonder he remained solvent for the first four years of the crusade. No wonder, too, that there were so many bitter complaints from the clergy throughout the thirteenth century concerning this obligatory taxation. The system was efficient indeed, although a degree of fraud and embezzlement in such vast revenue gathering exercises was unavoidable.