The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land

by Thomas Asbridge

  NOTES

  Abbreviations

  RHC Occ. Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens occidentaux, 5 vols, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris, 1844–95).

  RHC Or. Recueil des historiens des croisades, Historiens orientaux, 5 vols, ed. Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (Paris, 1872–1906).

  INTRODUCTION

  During the Middle Ages and beyond, crusades were fought in other theatres of conflict, but at the height of their popularity and significance–between 1095 and 1291–the Christian campaigns primarily targeted the Near East. As a consequence, this book concentrates upon events in the Holy Land. A broad interpretation of the Holy Land’s geographical extent has been adopted. By one definition this region might be deemed to equate roughly to the borders of the modern state of Israel, including those areas under Palestinian authority. But in the medieval era, western European Christians often had a more vaguely defined notion of the ‘Holy Land’, sometimes including other devotionally significant sites–such as the city of Antioch (now in south-eastern Turkey)–within its confines. In the age of the crusades, Muslim contemporaries also tended to refer both specifically to al-Quds (the ‘Holy City’) and more broadly to an area known as Bilad al-Sham (the Coast). The wars for the Holy Land examined in this book, therefore, relate to conflicts ranging across modern Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and parts of Turkey and Egypt. In recent times, it has become common to refer, in an overarching sense, to this region as the Middle East, but this is actually somewhat inaccurate. Strictly speaking, the coastal territories are the Near East, with the Middle East lying beyond the expanse of the Euphrates River. This work also makes use of the term ‘the Levant’ to describe the eastern Mediterranean lands–a word derived from the French lever (to rise), and related to the sun’s daily appearance in the east. For overviews of recent advances in crusader studies scholarship see: G. Constable, ‘The Historiography of the Crusades’, The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World, ed. A. E. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh (Washington, DC, 2001), pp. 1–22; M. Balard, Croisades et Orient Latin, XIe–XIVesiècle (Paris, 2001); R. Ellenblum, Crusader Castles and Modern Histories (Cambridge, 2007); C. Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives (Edinburgh, 1999); N. Housley, Contesting the Crusades (Oxford, 2006); N. Housley, Fighting for the Cross (New Haven and London, 2008); A. Jotischky, Crusading and the Crusader States (Harlow, 2004); H. E. Mayer, The Crusades, trans. J. Gillingham, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1988); T. F. Madden, The New Concise History of the Crusades (Lanham, 2006); N. Jaspert, The Crusades (New York and London, 2006); J. Richard, The Crusades, c. 1071–c. 1291, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1999); J. S. C. Riley-Smith (ed.), The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades (Oxford, 1995); J. S.C. Riley-Smith, The Crusades: A History, 2nd edn (London and New York, 2005); C. J. Tyerman, God’s War: A New History of the Crusades (London, 2006).

  B. S. Bachrach, ‘The pilgrimages of Fulk Nerra, count of the Angevins, 987–1040’, Religion, Culture and Society in the Early Middle Ages, ed. T. F. X. Noble and J. J. Contreni (Kalamazoo, 1987), pp. 205–17.

  Raoul Glaber, Opera, ed. J. France, N. Bulst, P. Reynolds (Oxford, 1989), p. 192. On the Late Antique period, the conversion of Europe and early Christianity see: R. Fletcher, The Conversion of Europe (New York, 1998); P. Brown, The Rise of Western Christendom (Oxford, 1996); J. Herrin, B. Hamilton, The Christian World of the Middle Ages (Stroud, 2003). On the Franks see: E. James, The Franks (Oxford, 1988). On the use of the term ‘Franks’ in the crusading context see: J. S. C. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 64–5. On the Carolingian era and early medieval world see: R. McKitterick, The Frankish Kingdoms under the Carolingians 751–987 (London, 1983); R. McKitterick, The Early Middle Ages: Europe 400–1000 (2001); C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford, 2005).

  Popes argued that because Christ’s chief apostle St Peter had been Rome’s first prelate, his successors should be recognised not only as the head of the Latin Church in the West, but also as the supreme spiritual power across the whole Christian world. Not surprisingly, this view did not sit well with the likes of the Greek Orthodox patriarch in Constantinople, and a dispute over this principle and wider doctrine caused an open split, or ‘schism’, between these two arms of ‘European’ Christianity in 1054. On the medieval papacy, Pope Gregory VII and the papal Reform movement see: W. Ullmann, A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages (London, 1974); C. Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (Oxford, 1989); H. E.J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII, 1073–1085 (Oxford, 1998); U.-R. Blumenthal, The Investiture Controversy: Church and Monarchy from the Ninth to the Twelfth Century (Philadelphia, 1988).

  Raoul Glaber, Opera, p. 60; M. G. Bull, Knightly Piety and the Lay Response to the First Crusade: The Limousin and Gascony, c. 970–c. 1130 (Oxford, 1993), p. 158. On medieval religion, monasticism and pilgrimage see: M.G. Bull. ‘Origins’, The Oxford Illustrated History of the Crusades, ed. J. S. C. Riley-Smith (Oxford, 1995), pp. 13–33; B. Hamilton, Religion in the Medieval West (London, 1986); C. H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, 3rd edn (London, 2001); J. Sumption, Pilgrimage: An Image of Mediaeval Religion (London, 1975); B. Ward, Miracles and the Medieval Mind, 2nd edn (London, 1987); D. Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage, c. 700–c. 1500 (London, 2002); C. Morris, The Sepulchre of Christ and the Medieval West: From the Beginning to 1600 (Oxford, 2005).

  The heavy costs of functioning as a knight or miles (pl. milites) – particularly those related to equipment and training–made it difficult for less affluent men to operate as milites, although, as yet, the group was not the exclusive domain of the nobility. Virtually all male members of the lay aristocracy were expected to carry out the duties of a knight, and most wealthy lords retained the service of a number of milites as vassals, under contract to protect and farm a parcel of land in return for military service. This convention made it possible for poorer individuals to achieve the status of a miles, acquiring the tools of the trade through employment. On medieval knighthood and European warfare see: J. France, Western Warfare in the Age of the Crusades (London, 1999).

  I. S. Robinson, ‘Gregory VII and the Soldiers of Christ’, History, vol. 58 (1973), pp. 169–92; F. H. Russell, The Just War in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1975); T. Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (London, 2004), pp. 21–31.

  Over time Sunni Islam also developed four distinct ‘schools’ of law or madhabs: the Hanafi, Shafi‘i, Hanbali and Malaki. During the crusader period these various ‘schools’ gained popularity and support with different groups and in different regions. The Syrian city of Damascus was a Hanbali centre, for example, while the Zangid Turkish dynasty tended to support the Hanafites and the Kurdish Ayyubids were Shafi‘ites.

  On the history of medieval Islam, the rise of the Seljuqs, and the Near East on the eve of the First Crusade see: H. Kennedy, The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: The Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century (London, 1986); J. Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600–800 (Cambridge, 2003); C. Cahen, ‘The Turkish invasion: The Selchükids’, A History of the Crusades, ed. K. M. Setton, vol. 1, 2nd edn (Madison, 1969), pp. 135–76; Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp. 33–50; C. Cahen, Introduction à l’histoire du monde musulman médiéval, Initiation à l’Islam, vol. 1 (Paris, 1982); C. Cahen, Orient et Occident aux temps des croisades (Paris, 1983); P. M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517 (London, 1986), pp. 1–22; T. el-Azhari, The Saljuqs of Syria during the Crusades 463–549 A.H./1070–1154 A.D. (Berlin, 1997); S. Zakkar, The Emirate of Aleppo 1004–1094 (Beirut, 1971); J.-M. Mouton, Damas et sa principauté sous les Saljoukides et les Bourides 468–549/1076–1154 (Cairo, 1994); M. Yared-Riachi, La politique extérieure de la principauté de Damas, 468–549 A.H./1076–1154 A.D. (Damascu
s, 1997); A. F. Sayyid, Les Fatimides en Égypte (Cairo, 1992).

  The basic building block of Muslim armies was the ‘askar–the personal military entourage of a lord or emir. These forces were dominated by highly trained professional ‘slave-soldiers’ (who came to be termed mamluks), initially drawn from the Turkic peoples of Central Asia and the steppe-lands of Russia, but later supplemented by Armenians, Georgians, Greeks and even eastern European Slavs. Within the Seljuq world, large armies were commonly levied through the use of the ‘iqta system–whereby an emir was granted rights to the revenues from a parcel of land in return for an obligation to field his ‘askar for wars and campaigns. This procedure later was adopted in Egypt. On medieval Islamic warfare see: H. Kennedy, The Armies of the Caliph (London, 2001); Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp. 431–587.

  On Islamic jihad in the Middle Ages see: E. Sivan, L’Islam et la Croisade (Paris, 1968); Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp. 89–103; B. Z. Kedar, ‘Croisade et jihad vus par l’ennemi: une étude des perceptions mutuelles des motivations’, Autour de la Première Croisade, ed. M. Balard (Paris, 1996), pp. 345–58; H. Dajani-Shakeel and R. A. Mossier (eds), The Jihad and its Times (Ann Arbor, 1991); R. Firestone, Jihad. The Origins of Holy War in Islam (Oxford, 2000); D. Cook, Understanding Jihad (Berkeley, 2005). According to Shi‘ite theology the duty to wage an external jihad would not become active until the Last Days. Thus the Isma‘ili Shi‘ites of Egypt and Twelver Shi‘ites like the Munqidh clan of Shaizar fought wars against the Franks, but did not regard themselves as being engaged in a holy war.

  Al-Azimi, ‘La chronique abrégée d’al-Azimi’, ed. C. Cahen, Journal Asiatique, vol. 230 (1938), p. 369; J. Drory, ‘Some observations during a visit to Palestine by Ibn al-‘Arabi of Seville in 1092–1095’, Crusades, vol. 3 (2004), pp. 101–24; Hillenbrand, The Crusades: Islamic Perspectives, pp. 48–50.

  PART I: THE COMING OF THE CRUSADES

  In spite of the historic significance of this speech, no precise record of Urban’s words survives. Numerous versions of his address, including three by eyewitnesses, were written after the end of the First Crusade, but all were coloured by hindsight and none can be regarded as authoritative. Nonetheless, by comparing these accounts with references to the ‘crusade’ in letters composed by the pope in 1095–6, the core features of his message can be reconstructed. For the primary source accounts of Pope Urban II’s sermon at Clermont see: Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana (1095–1127), ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913), pp. 130–38; Robert the Monk, Historia Iherosolimitana, RHC Occ. III, pp. 727–30; Guibert of Nogent, Dei gesta per Francos, ed. R. B. C. Huygens, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, 127A (Turnhout, 1996), pp. 111–17; Baldric of Bourgueil, bishop of Dol, Historia Jerosolimitana, RHC Occ. IV, pp. 12–16. For the letters written by Urban at the time of the First Crusade see: H. Hagenmeyer, Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088–1100 (Innsbruck, 1901), pp. 136–8; ‘Papsturkunden in Florenz’, ed. W. Wiederhold, Nachrichten von der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Kl. (Göttingen, 1901), pp. 313–14; Papsturkunden in Spanien. I Katalonien, ed. P. F. Kehr (Berlin, 1926), pp. 287–8. An English translation of these accounts and letters is given in: L. and J. S.C. Riley-Smith, The Crusades: Idea and Reality, 1095–1274 (London, 1981), pp. 37–53.

  On Pope Urban II and the Clermont sermon see: A. Becker, Papst Urban II. (1088–1099), Schriften der Monumenta Germaniae Historica 19, 2 vols (Stuttgart, 1964–88); H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Pope Urban II’s preaching of the First Crusade’, History, vol. 55 (1970), pp. 177–88; P. Cole, The Preaching of the Crusades to the Holy Land, 1095–1270 (Cambridge, Mass., 1991), pp. 1–36; J. S. C. Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, 1095–1131 (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 60–75. More generally on the preaching and progress of the First Crusade see: J. S. C. Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (London, 1986); J. France, Victory in the East: A Military History of the First Crusade (Cambridge, 1994); J. Flori, La Première Croisade: L’Occident chrétien contre l’Islam (Brussels, 2001); T. Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (London, 2004). For an account that is dated and somewhat unreliable, but lively nonetheless, see: S. Runciman, ‘The First Crusade and the foundation of the kingdom of Jerusalem’, A History of the Crusades, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1951). The main primary sources for reconstructing the history of the First Crusade are: Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum, ed. and trans. R. Hill (London, 1962); Fulcher of Chartres, Historia Hierosolymitana (1095–1127), ed. H. Hagenmeyer (Heidelberg, 1913); Raymond of Aguilers, Le ‘Liber’ de Raymond d’Aguilers, ed. J. H. Hill and L. L. Hill (Paris, 1969); Peter Tudebode, Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere, ed. J.H. Hill and L. L. Hill (Paris, 1977); Caffaro di Caschifellone, ‘De liberatione civitatum orientis’, ed. L. T. Belgrano, Annali Genovesi, vol. 1 (Genoa, 1890), pp. 3–75; Ekkehard of Aura, ‘Hierosolimita’, RHC Occ. V, pp. 1–40; Ralph of Caen, Gesta Tancredi in expeditione Hierosolymitana, RHC Occ. III, pp. 587–716; Historia Belli Sacri, RHC Occ. III, pp. 169–229; Albert of Aachen, Historia Iherosolimitana, ed. and trans. S. B. Edgington (Oxford, 2007); H. Hagenmeyer, Die Kreuzzugsbriefe aus den Jahren 1088–1100 (Innsbruck, 1901); Anna Comnena, Alexiade, ed. and trans. B. Leib, 3 vols (Paris, 1937–76), vol. 2, pp. 205–36, vol. 3, pp. 7–32; Ibn al-Qalanisi, The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, extracted and translated from the Chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi, trans. H. A. R. Gibb (London, 1932), pp. 41–9; Ibn al-Athir, The Chronicle of Ibn al-Athir for the crusading period from al-Kamil fi’l-Ta’rikh, trans. D. S. Richards, vol. 1 (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 13–22; Matthew of Edessa, Armenia and the Crusades, Tenth to Twelfth Centuries: The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa, trans. A. E. Dostourian (Lanham, 1993), pp. 164–73. For a selection of translated sources see: E. Peters (ed.), The First Crusade: The Chronicle of Fulcher of Chartres and other source materials, 2nd edn (Philadelphia, 1998). For an introduction to these sources see: S. B. Edgington, ‘The First Crusade: Reviewing the Evidence’, The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. J. P. Phillips (Manchester, 1997), pp. 55–77. See also: S. D. Goitein, ‘Geniza Sources for the Crusader period: A survey’, Outremer, ed. B. Z. Kedar, H. E. Mayer and R. C. Smail (Jerusalem, 1982), pp. 308–12.

  Fulcher of Chartres, pp. 132–3; Robert the Monk, p. 729; Guibert of Nogent, p. 113; Baldric of Bourgueil, p. 13.

  Fulcher of Chartres, p. 134; Guibert of Nogent, p. 116; Hagenmeyer, Kreuzzugsbriefe, p. 136; Robert the Monk, pp. 727–8; B. Hamilton, ‘Knowing the enemy: Western understanding of Islam at the time of the crusades’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 3rd series, vol. 7 (1997), pp. 373–87.

  Hagenmeyer, Kreuzzugsbriefe, p. 136; Fulcher of Chartres, pp. 134–5; Baldric of Bourgueil, p. 15; J. A. Brundage, ‘Adhémar of Le Puy: The bishop and his critics’, Speculum, vol. 34 (1959), pp. 201–12; J. H. Hill and L. L. Hill, ‘Contemporary accounts and the later reputation of Adhémar, bishop of Le Puy’, Mediaevalia et humanistica, vol. 9 (1955), pp. 30–38; H. E. Mayer, ‘Zur Beurteilung Adhemars von Le Puy’, Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters, vol. 16 (1960), pp. 547–52. Urban appears to have woven an assortment of additional themes into his ‘crusading’ message: that fighting in the name of the papacy as a ‘soldier of Christ’ fulfilled quasi-feudal obligations to God, lord of ‘the kingdom of Heaven’ that joining the expedition would allow one to follow in the footsteps of Christ by imitating the suffering of his Passion; that the Last Days were approaching, and that only the conquest of Jerusalem could usher in the prophesied Apocalypse.

  On Urban as the progenitor of crusading, attitudes towards martyrdom and the development of the crusading ideal see: C. Erdmann, The Origin of the Idea of Crusade (Princeton, 1977); J. T. Gilchrist, ‘The Erdmann thesis and canon law, 1083–1141’, Crusade and Settlement, ed. P. W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985), pp. 37–45; E. O. Blake, ‘The formation of the “crusade idea”’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol. 21 (1970), pp. 11–31; H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘The genesis of the crusades: The
springs of western ideas of holy war’, The Holy War, ed. T. P. Murphy (Columbus, 1976), pp. 9–32; J. Flori, La formation de l’idée des croisades dans l’Occident Chrétien (Paris, 2001); J. S. C. Riley-Smith, ‘Death on the First Crusade’, The End of Strife, ed. D. Loades (Edinburgh, 1984), pp. 14–31; H. E. J. Cowdrey, ‘Martyrdom and the First Crusade’, Crusade and Settlement, ed. P. W. Edbury (Cardiff, 1985), pp. 46–56; J. Flori, ‘Mort et martyre des guerriers vers 1100. L’exemple de la Première Croisade’, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, vol. 34 (1991), pp. 121–39; C. Morris, ‘Martyrs of the Field of Battle before and during the First Crusade’, Studies in Church History, vol. 30 (1993), pp. 93–104; J. S. C. Riley-Smith, What Were the Crusades?, 3rd edn (Basingstoke, 2002); C.J. Tyerman, ‘Were there any crusades in the twelfth century?’, English Historical Review, vol. 110 (1995), pp. 553–77; C. J. Tyerman, The Invention of the Crusades (London, 1998).

  Guibert of Nogent, p. 121; Anna Comnena, vol. 2, p. 207; E. O. Blake and C. Morris, ‘A hermit goes to war: Peter and the origins of the First Crusade’, Studies in Church History, vol. 22 (1985), pp. 79–107; C. Morris, ‘Peter the Hermit and the Chroniclers’, The First Crusade: Origins and Impact, ed. J. P. Phillips (Manchester, 1997), pp. 21–34; J. Flori, Pierre l’Ermite et la Première Croisade (Paris, 1999); Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, pp. 49–57; J. S. C. Riley-Smith, ‘The First Crusade and the persecution of the Jews’, Studies in Church History, vol. 21 (1984), pp. 51–72; R. Chazan, European Jewry and the First Crusade (Berkeley, 1987); Asbridge, The First Crusade, pp. 78–89, 100–103.

  This estimate tends towards the calculations made by J. France, Victory in the East, pp. 122–42. For other recent contributions to this vexed question see: B. Bachrach, ‘The siege of Antioch: A study in military demography’, War in History, vol. 6 (1999), pp. 127–46; Riley-Smith, The First Crusaders, p. 109; J. S. C. Riley-Smith, ‘Casualties and the number of knights on the First Crusade’, Crusades, vol. 1 (2002), pp. 13–28.