A History of the Crusades

by Jonathan Riley-Smith

  To these sums should be added others: private gifts and legacies for the crusade, the coins deposited by the faithful for the Holy Land in the chest placed in all churches after Innocent III instituted the practice in 1199, and moneys derived from the imposition of the cross as penance for a wide range of crimes, the cross then being redeemed for cash. Above all were the proceeds of the vow redemption policy previously discussed. Enormous sums were raised, as can be seen from the magnitude of the grants made to individual crusaders from these sources. And those crusaders, as we have seen, were by the thirteenth century to be drawn fundamentally from the military classes. The emergence and development of papal crusade funding in their support was the practical corollary of the central notion that since crusading concerned the common good of the Church, and since crusaders fought in that cause, then members of all other social groups should contribute and help sustain those who risked their lives on behalf of the one Christian commonwealth.

  Practicalities

  The growth in external resourcing of crusades, briefly surveyed above, helped to assuage one of the greatest anxieties of all crusaders in the field, but no less a cause for concern were those very real and practical problems that face all armies: transport, provisioning and supply, discipline, command structure and organization, leaving aside issues involving the opponent more directly, such as strategy and tactics in the precise field of operations, intelligence, and so forth. For the great crusades to the East, which particularly concern us here since the evidence relating to these matters is superior compared to that surviving for other crusades, such problems were considerably magnified by the sheer distances involved, the duration of the campaigns in question—anything up to six years in the thirteenth century—and the difficulties stemming from the international nature of such enterprises. These included the challenge of effectively combining and articulating forces with different languages and customs, and differing military traditions and techniques, often led by proud and troublesome commanders who quarrelled amongst themselves. These forces also took with them their inherited prejudices, and they might extend to the crusade in question present political animosities in the crusaders’ homelands. A case in point is the bitter rivalry on the Third Crusade between Richard I and Philip II, and the sour relations between their respective forces. When allowance is made for such things, the astonishing achievement of the First Crusade is thrown into even sharper relief.

  Some of these problems not surprisingly proved to be intractable, but, as ever in human history, some lessons were never (or never fully) learned; others, though learned, were not transmitted to succeeding generations, and this despite an attempt by some crusade participants to teach to posterity from their own experiences. Odo of Deuil, the French historian of the Second Crusade, is an excellent example, since he wrote with the guidance of future generations of crusaders explicitly in mind. They should learn from the mistakes committed, he hoped. Hence much of his practical advice concerning routes to be taken and the type of transport wagons to be used, for example. From at least Innocent III’s time, too, popes consciously sought to draw on past experience and on advice as to how crusades might best be launched and implemented. The bestknown recommendations are the surviving memoirs submitted to Gregory X in advance of the Second Council of Lyons (1274), which was summoned to consider a new international crusade to rescue the Holy Land.

  On reaching the theatre of operations, crusaders had no option but to think on their feet and react to changing circumstances, despite any preconceived strategy. In so far as their fate lay in their own hands, however, advance planning and preparation were clearly important, and here it is possible to see a degree of progress from the First Crusade. This was the result partly of some learning through experience, partly of changes in the practice of warfare in the West—these changes then applied specifically to crusading—and partly of growing sophistication in the art of government and administration in the West, which allowed more precise planning and preparation of crusades by their leaders and participants.

  It may be that the evidence has not survived, but for the First Crusade there appears to have been very little advance planning on the part of the leaders. Presumably they communicated with each other and set Constantinople as the mustering point, but it does not seem that they had taken prior action over the crucial matter of supply once they had left their own lands. Very suggestive are the clashes on reaching Byzantine territory, for example, and the fact that a negotiated agreement was reached with Emperor Alexius, concerning the furnishing of markets for provisions and the security and safe-conduct of the crusaders, only on their having reached Constantinople. Nor is there any indication that those who crossed the Adriatic had arranged shipping in advance from the various ports, and the very events of the crusade demonstrate clearly that no formal command structure had been established before departure.

  With the Second Crusade come clear signs of development, and from then on a reasonably clear pattern can be identified. Concerning shipping, the first indication that an entire crusade might go by sea across the Mediterranean comes in the negotiations between Louis VII and Roger II of Sicily in 1146–7, Roger offering to make available both his fleet and food supplies. Ultimately, Louis decided to follow Conrad III along the land route. For the Third Crusade, the intention was that the forces of both Richard and Philip would go by sea from southern France. Richard raised a considerable fleet in England, Normandy, Brittany, and Poitou which sailed in 1190 to meet up with the king at Marseilles. The rendezvous was missed, but ultimately this northern fleet joined with other ships contracted from Italian ports to transport Richard’s force to the East. Around 200 ships left Messina, where they had wintered, in April 1191. Richard’s rival, Philip II, negotiated the first crusade shipping contract that has survived. In February 1190, for 5,850 marks, he secured Genoese shipping for the transport of 650 knights, 1,300 squires, and 1,300 horses, with provisions for eight months from embarkation, and wine for four. Thereafter, all future crusades to the East went by sea, with shipping contracted in advance with one or more of the Mediterranean ports, Pisa, Genoa, Venice, and Marseilles taking the lion’s share of the business.

  The hardships and attrition experienced by the first generations of crusaders, confirmed by the sufferings in Asia Minor of Frederick Barbarossa’s army on the Third Crusade, undoubtedly informed this important development. So, too, did the shift towards the Egyptian strategy in eastern crusading, and the impossibility of travelling through Anatolia after 1204, following the establishment of the hostile Byzantines in Nicaea. But the option of the sea route, and thus the Egyptian strategy, was only possible because of major developments in Mediterranean shipping in the period. In particular, long voyages across the width of the Mediterranean became feasible as western naval power became dominant and as the size, load capacity, and capabilities of ships increased. Key difficulties facing the transportation of large armies were also solved as a result of technical and technological advances. Especially important was the solution to the problem of shipping horses, for without them armies with knights at their core could be emasculated to the point of being practically useless. The Venetian crusade of 1123 seems to have been the first to transport horses directly to the Holy Land; by the time of the Third Crusade this had become familiar practice. As noted previously, however, we must guard against seeing a steady learning curve in the practice of crusading. For example, it is clear that despite Louis IX’s planning in advance to land on the beaches of Egypt, his fleet in 1248 was badly equipped for the task since it was comprised overwhelmingly of sailing ships which grounded well before they reached dry land, the knights having to wade ashore. Oared ships were what was needed, as Emperor Frederick II had appreciated in 1224, when preparing for his original intention of attacking Egypt on his crusade.

  Turning to supply, both Louis VII and Conrad III seem to have learned from the experience of the First Crusade. At any rate, both sought before departure to procure the privi
lege of securing food supplies and safe passage from the rulers whose lands they would pass through. In 1146 Louis, for example, wrote on this score to Roger II—the sea route was still an option—the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenus, Conrad himself, and King Géza of Hungary. Louis and Conrad also set different departure dates to ease supply and discipline problems since they would be taking the same route, their forces to join only at Constantinople.

  The shift to the sea route necessarily changed things drastically. Surviving contracts show that normally the shippers agreed to supply food and wine (or water) for the forces in question for a stipulated number of months from embarkation. Sometimes other consumables, and fodder for the horses, were also included. In addition, crusade leaders and accompanying great lords took to building up supplies of foodstuffs in advance and forwarding them to the port of embarkation or, in the case of Richard I, transporting them to the East on his own ships: large quantities of bacons, beans, cheese, flour, biscuit, galantine, wine, syrups, and other consumables are known to have been aboard his fleet when it sailed in 1190. Louis IX, apart from building up supplies at Aigues Mortes, laid up huge quantities of wine and cereals on Cyprus in advance of his first crusade. John of Joinville, in a famous passage, speaks in wonder of the mountains of wine barrels and hills of wheat and barley. Naturally, all manner of military equipment was also raised in large quantities for shipment. Surviving accounts, though fragmentary, supply details of the purchase of crossbows and bolts, bows and arrows, hauberks, horseshoes, stakes, beams, and so forth, and chroniclers’ reports reveal the existence on campaign of other matériel. Crusaders could, of course, hope to buy provisions, arms, horses, and other necessaries in the Holy Land, but surviving accounts reveal how expensive this could be with the descent of crusading forces pushing prices up sharply.

  If the destination was Egypt, then plainly as much matériel as possible would have to be taken by ship from the West. It made good sense for crusade leaders to plan centrally and provide what their forces as a whole would require by way of siege equipment, for example, and for individual contingents to take with them what they could. John of Joinville tells how he, the count of Sarrebruck, and their eighteen knights travelled down the Saône and Rhône to Marseilles in 1248, their great war horses led along the river bank, accompanying their supplies and equipment loaded on boats. Lastly, crusaders needed to take what cash they could to meet the expenses that they would inevitably incur on campaign. For crusade leaders, this was especially important since they would be expected to meet some, at least, of the needs of their followers, and coin was also important to maintain the level of their forces. An example is Richard I’s taking into his pay on the Third Crusade those crusaders who had exhausted their own resources. Money could also be crucial for the internal discpline of crusading armies.

  Organization, command structure, and discipline were always critical issues, especially for the large, international crusades comprising contingents drawn widely from the West. The fundamental units, individual knights’ and lords’ households, possessed their own structure and discipline; the problem was how to combine these units to form a larger division, and then to establish a firm command structure over all the divisions making up the one army. The rivalries between the leaders of the First Crusade and the kings who led the Second and Third Crusades pointed up the need for an acknowledged commander-in-chief to be appointed before departure, or at least on arrival in the East. The Fourth Crusade saw the first attempt in this direction with the appointment, first, of Thibaut of Champagne, and then, on his death, of Boniface of Montferrat. When a crusade was led by one ruler of stature, the problem did not arise. Louis IX, for example, was indisputably the overall commander of his two crusades. But the acceptance of a commander-in-chief was not in itself always sufficient to ensure cohesion and discipline. Partly in response to this problem, crusade leaders came to employ formal contracts drawn up in advance of departure, in which the precise obligations for service on crusade were laid down in legally binding form. They may have been employed in the twelfth century; if so, none has survived. As the thirteenth century proceeded, they became more common, as they did for other forms of warfare, the development reaching its term with the crusades of Louis IX. The 1270 crusade, above all, was organized from the top down through contract usage. For Louis’s own household on crusade, around 400 knights were bound to him by contract, Louis granting money, transport, and, in some instances, board, in return for the service of a specified number of knights to be provided by the contractor. Louis also contracted with divisional commanders, such as Alphonse of Poitiers, Guy of Flanders, Robert of Artois, and Edward of England. They had to ensure the service under them of the number of knights specified, so in turn they employed sub-contracts, some of which survive. In short, the 1270 expedition provides the fullest picture of a great international crusade structured throughout by means of contracts, for shipping as for men. Crusading in practice, in the ways considered above, had developed a long way from the First Crusade.

  Some Effects

  A movement that diversified and intensified to become such a multi-faceted and complex phenomenon as the crusade could not have failed to have had momentous repercussions at the time. Indeed, the effects of the crusading movement were almost limitless; few aspects of the contemporary western world, leaving aside its immediate neighbours, were not affected and influenced in some way, directly or indirectly. On the stage of world history, crusading played a major role in redrawing the political and cultural map, since it deeply conditioned the process of expansion of Latin Christendom, contributing to the emergence of new Latin states in north-eastern Europe, the Iberian peninsula, and of course the East, although some of these states proved to be only temporary. Within the West, its various applications also helped to shape, even determine decisively, some political developments, most notably the victory of the papacy against the Hohenstaufen emperors who threatened to overthrow it. The fate of the various parts of their empire became one of the major issues of international politics in the later thirteenth century and far beyond. Again, although the Albigensian Crusade did not destroy the Cathar heresy—it was too blunt an instrument—it drastically affected the politics and culture of southern France, the main beneficiary being the French crown. For the first time, as a direct result of the crusade, French royal power was extended meaningfully into Languedoc and to the Mediterranean. And through its very declaration of crusades, the papacy sought to give reality to its claims to direct the affairs of Christendom in this period, the vision coming closest to realization under Innocent III.

  On another level, crusading was important in helping to change westerners’ views of themselves, accelerating the process whereby they came to appreciate that they possessed a common identity rooted in a shared cultural tradition, despite their local difficulties. And since the distinctive and unifying characteristic was the shared Latin Christian culture, the vast chasm which opened up between westerners and non-westerners was fundamentally religious in conception. In this sense, as total ideological war, the crusades dramatically increased the xenophobic streak within western culture, hitherto relatively dormant, and heightened the exclusive world view in which Latin Christian cultural superiority was taken for granted. One related consequence was a drastic change in Christian–Jew relations within the West, the pogroms of 1096 testifying to a new, persecuting attitude that soon established itself at the heart of western culture. Another perceptual change lay in the way in which crusading, as an ideal and in practice, came to penetrate chivalric values, and thus contributed sharply to the knightly class’s perception of itself and to the cultural distance that separated those of the degree of knighthood from other social classes.

  The impact of the crusade in more mundane ways can be seen everywhere, but space precludes more than a very partial listing here. From the above survey, it will be apparent that as the movement developed, so more and more westerners became touched directly by it. By the mid-thirteenth
century, for example, there can have been few laymen and laywomen who did not hear at least one crusade sermon, probably more, in the course of their lives; and as the vow redemption policy was implemented and extended, so more and more of their contemporaries took the cross. Again, with the extension of crusade taxation and other fund raising expedients, fewer and fewer pockets can have remained untouched, whether those of the peasant, townsman, cleric, or whomever. And crusaders’ thirst for cash obviously presented opportunities for those wishing to extend their interests in a particular locality, for example, since the supply side of the land market was significantly eased at times of crusade. Similarly, the wealth of the Italian maritime republics was clearly enhanced by the demands of crusaders for shipping and supply, and the establishment of the Latin settlements in the East allowed them to extend their trading ventures. The need for weapons, foodstuffs, and other necessaries also provided temporary growth in demand in crusaders’ homelands for a whole range of items, although it is impossible to know whether the economic stimulus stemming from expenditure for the crusades was outweighed by the disruption that crusading also caused to economic life.