The Crusades 1095-1197

by Jonathan Phillips

  The involvement of King Conrad III and the German Empire is more problematic. Traditionally, Conrad has been seen as a reluctant participant in the crusade, browbeaten into taking the cross by an overbearing Abbot Bernard who had taken it upon himself to bring the German ruler into the equation without even consulting Pope Eugenius. Phillips has shown that, in fact, Conrad was concerned at the widespread turmoil in his lands at this time and that Bernard’s success in resolving these crises did much to enable the king to crusade (Phillips, 2001). Historians have long argued that Eugenius III was lukewarm about Conrad’s participation in the crusade, a proposition based solely on the evidence of a papal letter that made reference to a claim by Conrad that he could not ‘delay’ his campaign as the pope advised. A suggestion to ‘delay’ is not the same thing as an instruction forbidding an action. In fact, the remainder of Eugenius’s letter makes it clear that the pope had provided Conrad with much useful advice concerning the planning of the expedition: hardly the stance of a man resolutely opposed to the king’s involvement. From Eugenius’s viewpoint the recruitment of Conrad had many logical attractions. First, the king was an experienced crusader having been to the Levant in 1123-24. Secondly, Bernard had warned the people of Bavaria and Eastern Francia against following the example of Peter the Hermit on the First Crusade and setting out without ‘proper leadership’. Conrad would, of course, provide such leadership. Thirdly, recent decades had seen a very positive relationship between the pope and the German ruler (in contrast to the ongoing bitterness of the Investiture Controversy at the time of the First Crusade) and Conrad’s involvement in the crusade would fit his role as defender of the Church. An assembly at Aachen in March 1147 established peace throughout the empire and confirmed Conrad’s son Henry as his successor, thus safeguarding the throne should the king die on the crusade. Through the spring of 1147 the main armies prepared to set out and in May and June they began to march to the East. Before following the progress of these forces we will look at the other arenas of the crusade.

  The conquest of Lisbon

  Bernard’s preaching tour had covered the Low Countries and the Rhineland and it was from these areas, as well as Anglo-Norman lands, that a fleet which sailed via Lisbon came to the Holy Land. We are fortunate that a detailed eye-witness account of this campaign, De expugnatione lyxbonensi (The Conquest of Lisbon), survives (The Conquest of Lisbon, tr. David, 2001). While there are some indications that the text was moulded to present a consistent message that the right intent and the unity of the crusade force were the reasons for its success, the account remains fundamentally accurate. One point of interest is the regulations drawn up to ensure discipline among the crusaders (Document 13). With forces assembled from different areas of Europe, and perhaps in consequence of experiences during the First Crusade, we can appreciate the need for such matters to be clarified from the start. The regulations reflect the sentiments of Quantum praedecessores with their imprecations against costly garments, and they echo the mood of the Reform Papacy with the separation of religious from lay assemblies and an emphasis on regular communion. The relative cohesion of the Lisbon crusaders’ force shows that these rules must have had some beneficial effect. Such regulations were not unique, however. Odo of Deuil, who provided an eye-witness narrative of Louis VII’s expedition, noted the existence of (presumably) similar rules for the landbound crusaders, but reflected sadly ‘because they did not observe them well, I have not preserved them either’ (Odo of Deuil, tr. Berry, 1948: 21).

  The position of the Lisbon campaign within the Second Crusade as a whole is a matter of some debate. In the past historians have argued that the crusaders were simply waylaid by a representative of King Afonso Henriques of Portugal, who persuaded them to help him capture Lisbon as a chance by-product of the journey to Jerusalem. In recent years, Livermore and Phillips have suggested that this was less of a coincidence than previously believed and that the leaders of the expedition were already prepared to take part in such an engagement (Livermore, 1990; Phillips, 1997b). A previously ignored letter from St Bernard to Afonso may indicate that the abbot had sent his approval for the campaign. We also know that Bernard met some of the senior figures in the expedition during his preaching tour and that Raol, the author of De expugnatione lyxbonensi, carried a piece of the True Cross, which could suggest that he was a papal representative because the carrying of such an important relic was hardly commonplace. Furthermore, Raol indicates that the appearance of the crusader fleet — which numbered between 164 and 200 ships — was expected in northern Spain. We can also show that the northern European fleet set out around two months before the land armies. It would have arrived in the Levant by the late summer of 1147 which would have meant at least eight months of costly inactivity before the main forces arrived. A planned campaign at Lisbon would logically have helped to fill this gap.

  The bishop of Oporto appealed to the crusaders to stay and fight in Lisbon and he convinced them of the value of performing God’s work in the Iberian peninsula, a region that had been Christian-held until the eighth century, but where ‘the Mother Church with her arms cut off and her face disfigured appeals for help; she seeks vengeance at your hands for the blood of her sons . . . be not seduced by the desire to press on with the journey that you have begun; for the praiseworthy thing is not to have been to Jerusalem, but to have lived a good life along the way, for you cannot get there without the performance of His works’ (The Conquest of Lisbon, tr. David, 2001: 79). Thus he reassured the participants that such a diversion did not detract from the holiness of their crusading purpose — and he also offered them extremely generous financial terms. On 28 June 1147 the siege began and seventeen weeks later, on 24 October, the city fell. Many of the crusaders wintered in Lisbon before sailing on to fulfil their vows in the Holy Land or to fight at Tortosa in eastern Spain. The attackers had faced no relieving force to distract them, they had no problems with supplies, they managed to preserve their discipline, they had good siege equipment and engineers, and they were not debilitated by a long journey. In short, from the perspective of the crusaders, it was a textbook siege. Afonso had taken advantage of the calling of the expedition to the Holy Land to further the reconquista in his locality. He was related to the crusading dukes of Burgundy and he was a keen supporter of the Cistercians and the Templars, both of whom were just establishing themselves in his lands. Asking Bernard for his approval for an attack on Lisbon and inducing the abbot to raise awareness of this in northern Europe suited both the king and the papacy. Christendom would be expanded and Afonso would consolidate his newly emergent kingdom.

  The crusades against Almeria, Tortosa and Jaen

  In Portugal, therefore, we can see the Church reacting to contemporary political developments. Similar principles apply to the sieges of Almeria and Tortosa and the attack on Jaen, the three other military campaigns in the Iberian peninsula where a close link between secular and religious advantage may be seen. In the cases of Almeria and Tortosa, as well as an expansion of Christendom and an increase in territory for secular powers, there was the added ingredient of the participation of the Italian city of Genoa and its acquisition of commercial privileges.

  In 1147 King Alfonso VII of Leon-Castile proposed an attack on Almeria in southern Spain and offered the Genoese one-third of the city in return for their help. The Genoese made a further agreement with the count of Barcelona to besiege Tortosa in northern Spain where again they would receive one-third of the city. On the surface this appears to be commercial opportunism triumphing over religious motives, but we must remember the context of the twelfth century as an intensely religious age and it is impossible for cities such as Genoa to have been entirely immune from the influence of religion. As we saw on the First Crusade, it was a combination of motives that induced people to take the cross and a spirit of religiosity and commercial advantage may not have seemed such a dichotomy as it does today. We know that Pope Eugenius encouraged Italians to crusade and he provided strong
endorsement for the expeditions to Spain. Iberia was, after all, a familiar arena for crusading, with expeditions authorised by the papacy in 1113-14, 1117-18 and 1123. The impetus generated by the expedition to the East meant that the scale of activity in the peninsula increased dramatically in 1147-48.

  The attack on Almeria lasted from August to October 1147 when the city fell to the crusaders. Alfonso’s grant to the Genoese was recorded as being given ‘because [they] captured the city for the honour of God and all of Christendom and determined to remain in control [of it] out of necessity of all Christians and the honour of Genoa’ (Williams, 1997: 38-9). The last phrase reveals a neat combination of motives, showing how secular and spiritual might join. Almeria remained in Christian hands until 1157, but the capture of Tortosa (on 30 December 1148) was to be permanent. Clear evidence that the Genoese attached a religious aspect to their successes can be seen by their creation of frescoes commemorating the campaign on churches in their city.

  It is only recently that the work of Barton has brought to light yet another element in the crusade in Iberia (Barton, 2000). Using evidence from Muslim sources and a later Christian writer, he identifies as part of the crusade a hitherto ignored attack by King Alfonso VII on the southern Spanish town of Jaen. This episode, which took place in the summer of 1148, has remained hidden largely because the major Christian source for Alfonso’s career breaks off in 1147 and because the campaign itself was a miserable failure. This may well account for its omission from most texts. Pope Eugenius offered encouragement for the expedition in a letter of April 1148 which again demonstrates papal awareness and approval of another part of this wider Christian enterprise.

  The Baltic crusade

  Other than the setback at Jaen, the crusade in Iberia prospered. This progress contrasted with the failure of the Wendish crusade in north-eastern Europe. The formal inclusion of these pagan regions as a target of the crusade was a new development and probably the most radical aspect of the Second Crusade. The north-eastern frontier of the German Empire had a long tradition of both Christian-pagan warfare and missionary work sent out from the north German archbishoprics. Back in 1108 a cleric of the archbishop of Magdeburg wrote a letter describing the inhumanity and cruelty inflicted on the Christians of the area and he urged people in Europe to liberate the region in a holy war as Jerusalem had been liberated by the First Crusade. This campaign was not a crusade, however, because the papacy did not authorise any preaching. It does, though, demonstrate the potential for the principle of holy war to extend further than the Levant and for the ingredients of reconquest and vengeance (the death of the Christian missionaries) to be harnessed in this connection. In March 1147, at an assembly at Frankfurt, members of the Saxon nobility approached Bernard and, according to contemporary writer Otto of Freising, ‘refused to set out for the Orient because they had as neighbours certain tribes who were given over to the filthiness of idolatry, and in like manner they took the cross to assail those races in war’ (Otto of Freising, tr. Mierow, 1953: 76). The Saxons’ prioritising of their own campaign, and St Bernard’s agreement to their proposal, may indicate that the abbot accepted that his powers of persuasion had reached their limits and that he had to adapt his message to suit the arena of war; he may also have seen an opportunity to extend the borders of Christianity even further. In any case, a campaign against the Wends would also ensure that further elements of the potentially troublesome German nobility would be occupied while Conrad was overseas. Bernard wrote to Eugenius who published the bull Divina dispensatione II in April 1147. This confirmed that those fighting the Slavs would receive the same remission of sins as those going to Jerusalem. Bernard himself issued an appeal for support that contained the infamous statement ‘We utterly forbid that for any reason whatsoever a truce should be made with these peoples, either for the sake of money, or for the sake of tribute, until such a time as, by God’s help, they shall be either converted or wiped out’ (Bernard of Clairvaux, Letters, tr. James, 1998: 467). Historians and theologians have struggled to explain such an extreme directive — one that contradicts biblical injunctions against forced conversion and does not sit easily with Bernard’s other writings. The acceptance of tribute was common practice in the Baltic region and it may be that Bernard wanted a different and more durable result to this usual outcome and therefore tailored his message in such an uncompromising fashion.

  The crusader army consisted largely of Danes and Saxons and several north German bishops. In the summer of 1147 they attacked the pagan settlements of Dobin and Malchow. The defenders of Dobin eventually accepted baptism and the crusaders withdrew. At Malchow the pagan lands were ravaged and a temple and idols were burnt before the crusaders turned towards the Christian city of Stettin. The bemused inhabitants displayed crosses from the walls and persuaded the army not to attack them. The Wendish crusade broke up in the autumn having achieved the token submission of one chieftain and the capture of some booty. This was a reasonable achievement for an annual raiding expedition, but in terms of the grander ambitions of the crusade it was a dismal failure. An astute enemy and dissent among the leadership — the Danes and Saxons mistrusted one another very deeply — meant that the crusaders were unable to carry their diversity of motives through to victory.

  Preparations for the march to the Holy Land

  While St Bernard toured the empire the French busied themselves raising men and money for the crusade; diplomatic and military issues needed to be resolved too. It was decided to march through Hungary and the Byzantine Empire rather than taking up an offer by King Roger II of Sicily to transport the army by sea. Enmity between the Germans and the Sicilians, and the Byzantines and Sicilians, meant that it was undiplomatic for Louis to accept Roger’s proposal, and in any case it was considered propitious to follow the route of the First Crusade across Asia Minor. Manuel Comnenus was particularly concerned by the advent of the crusade because, unlike his predecessor Alexius, who had actually requested military assistance back in 1095, the Second Crusade was arriving uninvited and marked a very unwelcome development. This was particularly so in the case of the French who were known to be friendly with his arch-enemies, the Sicilians. The emperor tried to compel Pope Eugenius to guarantee the good behaviour of the crusaders and (as Alexius had managed) to persuade the westerners to swear fealty to him. He also fortified the walls of Constantinople.

  Back in the West, final preparations were made and, in the presence of Pope Eugenius, the French king held a great public ceremony at the church of Saint Denis on 11 June 1147. Louis prostrated himself at the altar and asked for the saint’s permission to crusade, he then kissed relics of Saint Denis. He took the oriflamme (believed to be Charlemagne’s banner) from the altar and was given the pilgrim’s scrip (wallet) by the pope. This huge display reinforced the connection between the abbey of Saint Denis and the Capetian dynasty and also the position of the pope as the head of the crusading movement.

  The journey to the East: the crusade at Constantinople and in Asia Minor

  The German army marched ahead of the French through Hungary and into the Byzantine Empire. The Germans seem to have been very undisciplined and engaged in a series of skirmishes with the Greek troops. Conrad’s force suffered only minimal casualties in these engagements, but as they neared Constantinople a flash flood hit the army. Losses of men and equipment were substantial and this marked a severe setback to the German effort. Conrad and Manuel — who were related through Manuel’s wife, Bertha of Salzburg — remained on reasonably cordial terms, although the Greek ruler was careful to usher the Germans across the Bosphorus and into Asia Minor as soon as possible. The French contingent seems to have been smaller and better disciplined at this point, but when it arrived at Constantinople a faction in the army tried to persuade the crusaders to attack the city. The reasons for this were based upon small-scale engagements with the Greeks and, more seriously, antipathy founded on the long-standing doctrinal differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches and a
ntagonism borne out of the recent Byzantine invasions of Antioch; a matter of especial concern because the principality was ruled by Queen Eleanor’s uncle, Raymond of Poitiers. The existence of a treaty between the Greeks and their Muslim neighbours, the Seljuk Turks, also aroused the crusaders’ suspicions. The plan to besiege Constantinople — which was probably impractical anyway — was rejected, most notably by King Louis himself, but Manuel remained deeply unnerved by the crusaders’ presence. His concerns were compounded by a Sicilian invasion of Corfu and the Peloponnese peninsula which led him to fear a joint French Sicilian attack on his city. The promise of better markets induced the French to cross to Asia Minor and once the barrier of the Bosphorus was between the crusaders and Constantinople Manuel could be less cautious towards the westerners. Unknown to the French, the German army had already been crushed only a few days into its march. Through a combination of his own (self-admitted) enthusiasm, poor discipline and the possible treachery of his guides, Conrad’s force marched into a trap and was decimated by the Turks. The king himself managed to escape and to join up with the advancing French army.

  Odo of Deuil wrote that Louis was heading towards Antioch. When this evidence is combined with evidence from a letter written by Conrad in late February 1148, in which the king stated that he was awaiting reinforcements so that he could proceed to Edessa, it seems that the crusade originally planned to campaign in northern Syria. Because this could damage the interests of the Byzantine Empire by promoting Antiochene independence, Manuel may have been inclined to be unhelpful to the westerners. Niketas Choniates, a later Greek writer, noted this (see Document 14). The Eastern Christian writer, Michael the Syrian, commented, ‘The emperor knew that having crossed over the sea and established their influence, they [the crusaders] would not give it up to the empire of the Greeks and therefore he worked in concert with the Turks’ (Phillips, 1996: 90). It should also be remembered that his control over Greek lands in Asia Minor was probably very limited and his allies, the Seljuks, could move into Byzantine territory and harass the crusaders from an early stage of their march.