First Crusade

The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the middle ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Sources

Gesta Francorum ('Deeds of the Franks')

Rosalind Hill, ed. The Deeds of the Franks and Other Pilgrims to Jerusalem (1962)

• As for Bohemond, that great warrior, he was besieging Amalfi when he heard that an immense army of Frankish crusaders had arrived, going to the Holy Sepulchre and ready to fight the pagans. So he began to make careful inquiries as to the arms they carried, the badge which they wore in Christ's pilgrimage and the war-cry which they shouted in battle. He was told, ‘They are well-armed, they wear the badge of Christ's cross on their right arm or between their shoulders, and as a war-cry they shout all together “God's will, God's will, God's will!”’
  • The Rallying Cry of the Crusaders. Book I

Historia de Hierosolymitano itinere ('History of the Jerusalem Journey)

John Hugh Hill & Laurita L. Hill, eds. Historia de Hierosolymitano Itinere (1974)

• In the meantime the mighty Bohemond, during his investment of Amalfi, known as Pont-Scaphard, heard that a great number of Franks had come, and he soon learned how they planned to seize the way to the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the evil pagans and so free it and give full access to all Christians. Consequently, he asked questions pertinent to crusading; namely, the kinds of arms borne by the Franks, what kind of insignia of Christ they wore, even going so far as to inquire concerning the battle cry used in combat. In order of his questions he received the following replies: “Certainly, the Franks always carry the most suitable weapons for conflicts. They wear the sign of the Cross on either the right shoulder or between them. They shout in unison their battle cry: ‘God wills it; God wills it; God wills it.’”
  • The Journey of the Main Armies to Constantinople. Book II

Chanson d’Antioche ('Song of Antioch')

Susan B. Edgington & Carol Sweetenham, eds. The Chanson d’Antioche: An Old French Account of the First Crusade (2013)

• They lashed him with knotted leather cords…He beat his breast in penitence and called on God’s mercy. The wicked Saracens grabbed Rainalt Porcet. They flung him across the table in the shape of a cross, tying him hand and foot. They charred his claves…they seared his veins in his arms and heels too.
  • The Torture of Rainalt Porcet. Lines 4355–4402

Historiography

• In the light of the evidence it is hard to believe that most crusaders were motivated by crude materialism. Given their knowledge and expectations and the economic climate in which they lived, the disposal of assets to invest in the fairly remote possibility of settlement in the East would have been a stupid gamble. It makes much more sense to suppose, in so far as one can generalize about them, that they were moved by an idealism which must have inspired not only them but their families. Parents, brothers and sisters, wives and children had to face a long absence and must have worried about them: in 1098 Countess Ida of Boulogne made an endowment to the abbey of St Bertin 'for the safety of her sons, Godfrey and Baldwin, who have gone to Jerusalem'. And they and more distant relatives – cousins, uncles and nephews – were prepared to endow them out of the patrimonial lands. I have already stressed that no one can treat the phenomenal growth of monasticism in this period without taking into account not only those who entered the communities to be professed, but also the lay men and women who were prepared to endow new religious houses with lands and rents. The same is true of the crusading movement. Behind many crusaders stood a large body of men and women who were prepared to sacrifice interest to help them go. It is hard to avoid concluding that they were fired by the opportunity presented to a relative not only of making a penitential pilgrimage to Jerusalem but also of fighting in a holy cause. For almost a century great lords, castellans and knights had been subjected to abuse by the Church. Wilting under the torrent of invective and responding to the attempts of churchmen to reform their way of life in terms they could understand, they had become perceptibly more pious. Now they were presented by a pope who knew them intimately with the chance of performing a meritorious act which exactly fitted their upbringing and devotional needs and they seized it eagerly.
  But they responded, of course, in their own way. They were not theologians and were bound to react in ways consonant with their own ideas of right and wrong, ideas that did not always respond to those of senior churchmen. The emphasis that Urban had put on charity – love of Christian brothers under the heel of Islam, love of Christ whose land was subject to the Muslim yoke – could not but arouse in their minds analogies with their own kin and their own lords' patrimonies, and remind them of their obligations to avenge injuries to their relatives and lords. And that put the crusade on the level of a vendetta. Their leaders, writing to Urban in September 1098, informed him that 'The Turks, who inflicted much dishonour on Our Lord Jesus Christ, have been taken and killed and we Jerusalemites have avenged the injury to the supreme God Jesus Christ.'
  • Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (1972)