   #copyright

First Crusade

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Pre 1900 Military;
Religious disputes


   This is a featured article. Click here for more information.
                                     Crusades
   First – People's – German – 1101 – Second – Third – Fourth –
   Albigensian – Children's – Fifth – Sixth – Seventh – Shepherds' –
   Eighth – Ninth – Aragonese – Alexandrian – Nicopolis – Northern –
   Hussite – Varna

   The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the stated
   goal of capturing the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land from
   Muslims. What started as an appeal to the French knightly class quickly
   turned into a wholesale migration and conquest of territory outside of
   Europe. Both knights and peasants from many nations of Western Europe,
   with little central leadership, travelled over land and by sea towards
   Jerusalem and captured the city in July 1099, establishing the Kingdom
   of Jerusalem and other Crusader states. Although these gains lasted for
   fewer than two hundred years, the First Crusade was a major turning
   point in the expansion of Western power, and was the only crusade to
   capture Jerusalem.

Background

   Umayyad Caliphate at its greatest extent.
   Enlarge
   Umayyad Caliphate at its greatest extent.

   The origins of the Crusades in general, and of the First Crusade in
   particular, stem from events earlier in the Middle Ages. The breakdown
   of the Carolingian Empire in previous centuries, combined with the
   relative stability of European borders after the Christianization of
   the Vikings and Magyars, gave rise to an entire class of warriors who
   now had little to do but fight among themselves.

   By the early 8th century, the Arab Empire under the Umayyads had
   rapidly captured North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Spain from
   a predominantly Christian Byzantine Empire. During the 9th century, the
   Reconquista picked up an ideological potency that is considered to be
   the first conception of a "Christian" effort to recapture territory,
   seen as lost to Muslims, as part of the expansion efforts of the
   Christian kingdoms along the Bay of Biscay. Spanish kingdoms, knightly
   orders and mercenaries began to mobilize from across Europe for the
   fight against the surviving and predominantly Moorish Umayyad caliphate
   at Cordoba.

   Other Muslim kingdoms emerging from the collapse of the Umayyads in the
   8th century, such as the Aghlabics, had entered Italy in the 9th
   century. The Kalbid state that arose in the region, weakened by
   dynastic struggles, became prey to the Normans capturing Sicily by
   1091. Pisa, Genoa, and Aragon began to battle other Muslim kingdoms for
   control of the Mediterranean, exemplified by the Mahdia campaign and
   battles at Mallorca and Sardinia.

   The idea of a Holy War against the Muslims seemed acceptable to
   medieval European secular and religious powers, as well as the public
   in general, for a number of reasons such as the recent military
   successes of European kingdoms along the Mediterranean. In addition
   there was the emerging political conception of Christendom, which saw
   the union of Christian kingdoms under Papal guidance for the first time
   (in the High Middle Ages) and the creation of a Christian army to fight
   the Muslims. Finally, Jerusalem, along with the surrounding lands
   including the places where Christ had lived and died, was considered
   sacred by Christians.

   In 1074, Pope Gregory VII called for the milites Christi ("soldiers of
   Christ") to go to the aid of the Byzantine Empire in the east. The
   Byzantines had suffered a serious defeat at the hands of the Seljuk
   Turks at the Battle of Manzikert three years previously. This call,
   while largely ignored and even opposed, combined with the large numbers
   of pilgrimages to the Holy Land in the 11th century, focused a great
   deal of attention on the east. Exhortations by monks such as Peter the
   Hermit and Walter the Penniless spread reports of Muslims abusing
   Christian pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem and other Middle Eastern
   holy sites further stoked the crusading zeal. It was Pope Urban II who
   first disseminated to the general public the idea of a Crusade to
   capture the Holy Land with the famous words: " Deus vult!" ("God wills
   it!")

The East in the late eleventh century

   Western Europe's immediate neighbour to the southeast was the Byzantine
   Empire, who were fellow Christians but who had long followed a separate
   Orthodox rite. Under Emperor Alexius I Comnenus, the empire was largely
   confined to Europe and the western coast of Anatolia, and faced many
   enemies: the Normans in the west and the Seljuks in the east. Further
   east, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were all under Muslim
   control, but were politically, and to some extent, culturally
   fragmented at the time of the First Crusade, which certainly
   contributed to the Crusade's success. Anatolia and Syria were
   controlled by the Sunni Seljuks, formerly in one large empire (" Great
   Seljuk") but by this point divided into many smaller states. Alp Arslan
   had defeated the Byzantine Empire at Manzikert in 1071 and incorporated
   much of Anatolia into Great Seljuk, but this empire was split apart by
   civil war after the death of Malik Shah I in 1092. In the Sultanate of
   Rüm in Anatolia, Malik Shah was succeeded by Kilij Arslan I and in
   Syria by his brother Tutush I, who died in 1095. Tutush's sons Radwan
   and Duqaq inherited Aleppo and Damascus respectively, further dividing
   Syria amongst emirs antagonistic towards each other, as well as towards
   Kerbogha, the atabeg of Mosul. These states were on the whole more
   concerned with consolidating their own territories and gaining control
   of their neighbours, than with cooperating against the crusaders.

   Elsewhere in nominal Seljuk territory were the Ortoqids in northeastern
   Syria and northern Mesopotamia. They controlled Jerusalem until 1098.
   In eastern Anatolia and northern Syria, a state was founded by
   Danishmend, a Seljuk mercenary; the crusaders did not have significant
   contact with either group until after the Crusade. The Hashshashin were
   also becoming important in Syrian affairs.

   Egypt and much of Palestine were controlled by the Arab Shi'ite
   Fatimids, whose empire was significantly smaller since the arrival of
   the Seljuks; Alexius I had advised the crusaders to work with the
   Fatimids against their common Seljuk enemies. The Fatimids, at this
   time ruled by caliph al-Musta'li (although all actual power was held by
   the vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah), had lost Jerusalem to the Seljuks in
   1076, but recaptured it from the Ortoqids in 1098 while the crusaders
   were on the march. The Fatimids did not, at first, consider the
   crusaders a threat, assuming they had been sent by the Byzantines and
   that they would be content with recapturing Syria, leaving Palestine
   alone; they did not send an army against the crusaders until they were
   already at Jerusalem.

Chronological sequence of the Crusade

The Council of Clermont

   In March 1095, Alexius I sent envoys to the Council of Piacenza to ask
   Urban for aid against the Turks. The emperor's request met with a
   favourable response from Urban, who hoped to heal the Great Schism of
   40 years prior and re-unite the Church under papal primacy as "chief
   bishop and prelate over the whole world" (as he referred to himself at
   Clermont, ), by helping the Eastern churches in their time of need.
   However, his urges to persuade "many to promise, by taking an oath, to
   aid the emperor most faithfully as far as they were able against the
   pagans" came to little.

   At the Council of Clermont, assembled in the heart of France in
   November 1095, Urban gave an impassioned sermon to a large audience of
   French nobles and clergy. He summoned the audience to wrest control of
   Jerusalem from the hands of the Muslims. France, he said, was
   overcrowded and the land of Canaan was overflowing with milk and honey.
   He spoke of the problems of noble violence and the solution was to turn
   swords to God's own service: "Let robbers become knights." He spoke of
   rewards both on earth and in heaven, where remission of sins was
   offered to any who might die in the undertaking. The crowd was stirred
   to frenzied enthusiasm with cries of "Deus vult!" ("God wills it!").

   Urban's sermon is among the most important speeches in European
   history. There are many versions of the speech on record, but all were
   written after Jerusalem had been captured, and it is difficult to know
   what was actually said and what was recreated in the aftermath of the
   successful crusade. However, it is clear that the response to the
   speech was much larger than expected. For the rest of 1095 and into
   1096, Urban spread the message throughout France, and urged his bishops
   and legates to preach in their own dioceses elsewhere in France,
   Germany, and Italy as well. Urban tried to forbid certain people
   (including women, monks, and the sick) from joining the crusade, but
   found this to be nearly impossible. In the end the majority of those
   who took up the call were not knights, but peasants who were not
   wealthy and had little in the way of fighting skills, but whose
   millennial and apocalyptic yearnings found release from the daily
   oppression of their lives, in an outpouring of a new emotional and
   personal piety that was not easily harnessed by the ecclesiastical and
   lay aristocracy.

The People's Crusade

   Urban planned the departure of the crusade for August 15, 1096 (the
   Feast of the Assumption), but months before this a number of unexpected
   armies of peasants and lowly knights organized and set off for
   Jerusalem on their own. They were led by a charismatic monk and
   powerful orator named Peter the Hermit of Amiens. The response was
   beyond expectations: while Urban might have expected a few thousand
   knights, he ended up with a migration numbering up to 100,000 — albeit
   mostly unskilled fighters, including women and children.

   Lacking military discipline, and in what likely seemed to the
   participants a strange land (eastern Europe) with strange customs,
   those first Crusaders quickly landed in trouble, in Christian
   territory. The problem faced was one of supply as well as culture: the
   people needed food and supplies, and they expected host cities to give
   them the foods and supplies — or at least sell them at prices they felt
   reasonable. Having left Western Europe early, they had missed out on
   the great harvest of that spring, following years of drought and bad
   harvest. Unfortunately for the Crusaders, the locals did not always
   agree, and this quickly led to fighting and skirmishing. On their way
   down the Danube, Peter's followers looted Hungarian territory and were
   attacked by the Hungarians, the Bulgarians, and even a Byzantine army
   near Nis. About a quarter of Peter's followers were killed, but the
   rest arrived largely intact at Constantinople in August. Constantinople
   was big for that time period in Europe, but so was Peter's "army", and
   cultural difference and a reluctance to supply such a large number of
   incoming people led to further tensions. In Constantinople, moreover,
   Peter's followers weren't the only band of crusaders—-they joined with
   other crusading armies from France and Italy. Alexius, not knowing what
   else to do with such a large and unusual (and foreign) army, quickly
   ferried them across the Bosporus.

   After crossing into Asia Minor, the Crusaders began to quarrel and the
   armies broke up into two separate camps. The Turks were experienced,
   savvy, and had local knowledge; most of the People's Crusade—-a bunch
   of amateur warriors—-were massacred upon entering Seljuk territory.
   Peter survived, however, and would later join the main Crusader army.
   Another army of Bohemians and Saxons did not make it past Hungary
   before splitting up.

The German Crusade

   1250 French Bible illustration depicts Jews (identifiable by Judenhut)
   being massacred by Crusaders
   Enlarge
   1250 French Bible illustration depicts Jews (identifiable by Judenhut)
   being massacred by Crusaders

   The First Crusade ignited a long tradition of organized violence
   against Jews in European culture. While anti-Semitism had existed in
   Europe for centuries, the First Crusade marks the first mass organized
   violence against Jewish communities. Setting off in the early summer of
   1096, a German army of around 10,000 soldiers led by Gottschalk,
   Volkmar, and Emicho, proceeded northward through the Rhine valley, in
   the opposite direction of Jerusalem, began a series of pogroms which
   some historians call "the first Holocaust" (1986, Jonathan Riley-Smith
   "The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading", pg. 50).

   The preaching of the crusade inspired further anti-Semitism. According
   to some preachers, Jews and Muslims were enemies of Christ, and enemies
   were to be fought or converted to Christianity. The general public
   apparently assumed that "fought" meant "fought to the death", or
   "killed". The Christian conquest of Jerusalem and the establishment of
   a Christian emperor there would supposedly instigate the End Times,
   during which the Jews were supposed to convert to Christianity. In
   parts of France and Germany, Jews were thought to be responsible for
   the crucifixion, and they were more immediately visible than the
   far-away Muslims. Many people wondered why they should travel thousands
   of miles to fight non-believers when there were already non-believers
   closer to home.

   The crusaders moved north through the Rhine valley into well-known
   Jewish communities such as Cologne, and then southward. Jewish
   communities were given the option of converting to Christianity or
   being slaughtered. Most would not convert and, as news of the mass
   killings spread, many Jewish communities committed mass suicides in
   horrific scenes. Thousands of Jews were massacred, despite some
   attempts by local clergy and secular authorities to shelter them. The
   massacres were justified by the claim that Urban's speech at Clermont
   promised reward from God for killing non-Christians of any sort, not
   just Muslims. Although the papacy abhorred and preached against the
   purging of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants during this and future
   crusades, there were numerous attacks on Jews following every crusade
   movement.
   "Route of the leaders of the first crusade." By William Shepherd,
   Historical Atlas, 1911
   Enlarge
   "Route of the leaders of the first crusade." By William Shepherd,
   Historical Atlas, 1911

The Princes' Crusade

   The Princes' Crusade, also known as the Barons' Crusade, set out later
   in 1096 in a more orderly manner, led by various nobles with bands of
   knights from different regions of Europe. The four most significant of
   these were Raymond IV of Toulouse, who represented the knights of
   Provence, accompanied by the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy; Bohemund
   of Taranto, representing the Normans of southern Italy with his nephew
   Tancred; The Lorrainers under the brothers Godfrey of Bouillon, Eustace
   and Baldwin of Boulogne and the Northern French led by Count Robert II
   of Flanders, Robert of Normandy (older brother of King William II of
   England), Stephen, Count of Blois, and Hugh of Vermandois the younger
   brother of King Philip I of France (Philip was forbidden from
   participating as he was under a ban of excommunication).

The march to Jerusalem

   Leaving Europe around the appointed time in August, the various armies
   took different paths to Constantinople and gathered outside its city
   walls in December 1096, two months after the annihilation of the
   People's Crusade by the Turks. Accompanying the knights were many poor
   men (pauperes) who could afford basic clothing and perhaps an old
   weapon. Peter the Hermit, who joined the Princes' Crusade at
   Constantinople, was considered responsible for their well-being, and
   they were able to organize themselves into small groups, perhaps akin
   to military companies, often led by an impoverished knight. One of the
   largest of these groups, consisting of the survivors of the People's
   Crusade, named itself the " Tafurs".

   The Princes arrived in Constantinople with little food and expected
   provisions and help from Alexius I. Alexius was understandably
   suspicious after his experiences with the People's Crusade, and also
   because the knights included his old Norman enemy, Bohemund. At the
   same time, Alexius harbored hopes of exercising control over the
   crusaders, who he seems to have regarded as having the potential to
   function as a Byzantine proxy. Thus, in return for food and supplies,
   Alexius requested the leaders to swear fealty to him and promise to
   return to the Byzantine Empire any land recovered from the Turks.
   Without food or provisions, they eventually had no choice but to take
   the oath, though not until all sides had agreed to various compromises,
   and only after warfare had almost broken out in the city. Only Raymond
   avoided swearing the oath, instead allying with Alexius against their
   common enemy, Bohemund.

   Alexius agreed to send out a Byzantine army under the command of
   Taticius to accompany the crusaders through Asia Minor. Their first
   objective was Nicaea, an old Byzantine city, but now the capital of the
   Seljuk Sultanate of Rüm under Kilij Arslan I. The city was subjected to
   a lengthy siege, which was somewhat ineffectual as the crusaders could
   not blockade the lake on which the city was situated, and from which it
   could be provisioned. Arslan, from outside the city, advised the
   garrison to surrender if their situation became untenable. Alexius,
   fearing the crusaders would sack Nicea and destroy its wealth, secretly
   accepted the surrender of the city; the crusaders awoke on the morning
   of June 19, 1097 to see Byzantine standards flying from the walls. The
   crusaders were forbidden to loot it, and were not allowed to enter the
   city except in small escorted bands. This caused a further rift between
   the Byzantines and the crusaders. The crusaders now began the journey
   to Jerusalem. Stephen of Blois wrote home, stating he believed it would
   take five weeks. In fact, the journey would take two years.

   The crusaders, still accompanied by some Byzantine troops under
   Taticius, marched on towards Dorylaeum, where Bohemund was pinned down
   by Kilij Arslan. At the Battle of Dorylaeum on July 1, Godfrey broke
   through the Turkish lines, and with the help of the troops led by the
   legate Adhemar, defeated the Turks and looted their camp. Kilij Arslan
   withdrew and the crusaders marched almost unopposed through Asia Minor
   towards Antioch, except for a battle, in September, in which they again
   defeated the Turks.

   The march through Asia was unpleasant. It was the middle of summer and
   the crusaders had very little food and water; many men died, as did
   many horses. Christians, in Asia as in Europe, sometimes gave them
   gifts of food and money, but more often the crusaders looted and
   pillaged whenever the opportunity presented itself. Individual leaders
   continued to dispute the overall leadership, although none of them were
   powerful enough to take command; still, Adhemar was always recognized
   as the spiritual leader. After passing through the Cilician Gates,
   Baldwin of Boulogne set off on his own towards the Armenian lands
   around the Euphrates. In Edessa early in 1098, he was adopted as heir
   by King Thoros, a Greek Orthodox ruler who was disliked by his Armenian
   subjects. Thoros was soon assassinated and Baldwin became the new
   ruler, thus creating the County of Edessa, the first of the crusader
   states.

Siege of Antioch

   The crusader army, meanwhile, marched on to Antioch, which lay about
   half way between Constantinople and Jerusalem. They arrived in October
   1097 and set it to a siege which lasted almost eight months, during
   which time they also had to defeat two large relief armies under Duqaq
   of Damascus and Ridwan of Aleppo. Antioch was so large that the
   crusaders did not have enough troops to fully surround it, and thus it
   was able to stay partially supplied. As the siege dragged on, it was
   clear that Bohemund wanted the city for himself. In May 1098, Kerbogha
   of Mosul approached Antioch to relieve the siege. Bohemund bribed an
   Armenian guard of the city to surrender his tower, and in June the
   crusaders entered the city and killed most of the inhabitants. However,
   only a few days later the Muslims arrived, laying siege to the former
   besiegers. At this point a minor monk by the name of Peter Bartholomew
   claimed to have discovered the Holy Lance in the city, and although
   some were sceptical, this was seen as a sign that they would be
   victorious. On June 28 the crusaders defeated Kerbogha in a pitched
   battle outside the city, as Kerbogha was unable to organize the
   different factions in his army. While the crusaders were marching
   towards the Muslims, the Fatimid section of the army deserted the
   Turkish contingent, as they feared Kerbogah would become too powerful
   if he were to defeat the Crusaders. According to legend, an army of
   Christian saints came to the aid of the crusaders during the battle.

   Bohemund argued that Alexius had deserted the crusade and thus
   invalidated all of their oaths to him. Bohemund asserted his claim to
   Antioch, but not everyone agreed, and the crusade was delayed for the
   rest of the year while the nobles argued amongst themselves. It is a
   common historiographical assumption that the Franks of northern France,
   the Provencals of southern France, and the Normans of southern Italy
   considered themselves separate "nations" and that each wanted to
   increase its status. This may have had something to do with the
   disputes, but personal ambition is more likely to blame.

   Meanwhile, a plague (perhaps typhus) broke out, killing many, including
   the legate Adhemar. There were now even fewer horses than before, and
   Muslim peasants refused to give them food. In December, the capture of
   the Arab town of Ma'arrat al-Numan took place, and with it the first
   known incident of cannibalism by the crusaders. The minor knights and
   soldiers became restless and threatened to continue to Jerusalem
   without their squabbling leaders. Finally, at the beginning of 1099,
   the march was renewed, leaving Bohemund behind as the first Prince of
   Antioch.

Siege of Jerusalem

   Capture of Jerusalem, 1099
   Enlarge
   Capture of Jerusalem, 1099

   Proceeding down the coast of the Mediterranean, the crusaders
   encountered little resistance, as local rulers preferred to make peace
   with them and give them supplies rather than fight. On May 7 the
   crusaders reached Jerusalem, which had been recaptured from the Seljuks
   by the Fatimids of Egypt only the year before. Many Crusaders wept on
   seeing the city they had journeyed so long to reach.

   As with Antioch, the crusaders put the city to a lengthy siege, in
   which the crusaders themselves suffered many casualties, due to the
   lack of food and water around Jerusalem. Of the estimated 7,000 knights
   who took part in the Princes' Crusade, only about 1,500 remained. Faced
   with a seemingly impossible task, their morale was raised when a
   priest, by the name of Peter Desiderius, claimed to have had a divine
   vision instructing them to fast and then march in a barefoot procession
   around the city walls, after which the city would fall in nine days,
   following the Biblical example of Joshua at the siege of Jericho. On
   July 8, 1099 the crusaders performed the procession as instructed by
   Desiderius. The Genoese troops, led by commander Guglielmo Embriaco,
   had previously dismantled the ships in which the Genoese came to the
   Holy Land; Embriaco, using the ship's wood, made some siege towers and
   seven days later on July 15, the crusaders were able to end the siege
   by breaking down sections of the walls and entering the city. Some
   Crusaders also entered through the former pilgrim's entrance.

   Over the course of that afternoon, evening and next morning, the
   crusaders murdered almost every inhabitant of Jerusalem. Muslims, Jews,
   and even eastern Christians were all massacred. Although many Muslims
   sought shelter in Solomon's Temple (known today as Al-Aqsa Mosque), the
   crusaders spared few lives. According to the anonymous Gesta Francorum,
   in what some believe to be an exaggerated account of the massacre which
   subsequently took place there, "...the slaughter was so great that our
   men waded in blood up to their ankles..." . Other accounts of blood
   flowing up to the bridles of horses are reminiscent of a passage from
   the Book of Revelation (14:20). Tancred claimed the Temple quarter for
   himself and offered protection to some of the Muslims there, but he was
   unable to prevent their deaths at the hands of his fellow crusaders.
   According to Fulcher of Chartres: "Indeed, if you had been there you
   would have seen our feet coloured to our ankles with the blood of the
   slain. But what more shall I relate? None of them were left alive;
   neither women nor children were spared."

   However, the Gesta Francorum states some people managed to escape the
   siege unharmed. Its anonymous author wrote, "When the pagans had been
   overcome, our men seized great numbers, both men and women, either
   killing them or keeping them captive, as they wished." Later it is
   written, "[Our leaders] also ordered all the Saracen dead to be cast
   outside because of the great stench, since the whole city was filled
   with their corpses; and so the living Saracens dragged the dead before
   the exits of the gates and arranged them in heaps, as if they were
   houses. No one ever saw or heard of such slaughter of pagan people, for
   funeral pyres were formed from them like pyramids, and no one knows
   their number except God alone."

   In the days following the massacre, Godfrey of Bouillon was made
   Advocatus Sancti Sepulchri (Protector of the Holy Sepulchre). Godfrey
   said that he refused to wear a "crown of gold" in the city where Christ
   wore a "crown of thorns". In the last action of the crusade, he led an
   army which defeated an invading Fatimid army at the Battle of Ascalon.
   Godfrey died in July 1100, and was succeeded by his brother, Baldwin of
   Edessa, who took the title " King of Jerusalem".

The Crusade of 1101 and the establishment of the kingdom

   Having captured Jerusalem and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the
   crusading vow was now fulfilled. However, there were many who had gone
   home before reaching Jerusalem, and many who had never left Europe at
   all. When the success of the crusade became known, these people were
   mocked and scorned by their families and threatened with
   excommunication by the clergy. Many crusaders who had remained with the
   crusade all the way to Jerusalem also went home; according to Fulcher
   of Chartres there were only a few hundred knights left in the newfound
   kingdom in 1100. In 1101, another crusade set out, including Stephen of
   Blois and Hugh of Vermandois, both of whom had returned home before
   reaching Jerusalem. This crusade was almost annihilated in Asia Minor
   by the Seljuks, but the survivors helped reinforce the kingdom when
   they arrived in Jerusalem. In the following years, assistance was also
   provided by Italian merchants who established themselves in the Syrian
   ports, and from the religious and military orders of the Knights
   Templars and the Knights Hospitaller which were created during Baldwin
   I's reign.

Analysis of the First Crusade

Aftermath

   The success of the First Crusade was unprecedented. Newly achieved
   stability in the west left a warrior aristocracy in search of new
   conquests and patrimony, and the new prosperity of major towns also
   meant that money was available to equip expeditions. The Italian naval
   towns, in particular Venice and Genoa, were interested in extending
   trade. The Papacy saw the Crusades as a way to assert Catholic
   influence as a unifying force, with war as a religious mission. This
   was a new attitude to religion: it brought religious discipline,
   previously applicable only to monks, to soldiery—the new concept of a
   religious warrior and the chivalric ethos.

   The First Crusade succeeded in establishing the " Crusader States" of
   Edessa, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Tripoli in Palestine and Syria (as well
   as allies along the Crusaders' route, such as the Armenian Kingdom of
   Cilicia).

   Back at home in western Europe, those who had survived to reach
   Jerusalem were treated as heroes. Robert of Flanders was nicknamed
   "Hierosolymitanus" thanks to his exploits. The life of Godfrey of
   Bouillon became legendary even within a few years of his death. In some
   cases, the political situation at home was greatly affected by absence
   on the crusade: while Robert Curthose was away, Normandy had passed to
   his brother Henry I of England, and their conflict resulted in the
   Battle of Tinchebrai in 1106.

   Meanwhile the establishment of the crusader states in the east helped
   ease Seljuk pressure on the Byzantine Empire, which had regained some
   of its Anatolian territory with crusader help, and experienced a period
   of relative peace and prosperity in the 12th century. The effect on the
   Muslim dynasties of the east was gradual but important. In the wake of
   the death of Malik Shah I in 1092 the political instability and the
   division of Great Seljuk, that had pressed the Byzantine call for aid
   to the Pope, meant that it had prevented a coherent defense against the
   aggressive and expansionist Latin states. Cooperation between them
   remained difficult for many decades, but from Egypt to Syria to Baghdad
   there were calls for the expulsion of the crusaders, culminating in the
   recapture of Jerusalem under Saladin later in the century when the
   Ayyubids had united the surrounding areas.

The pilgrims

   Although it is called the First Crusade, no one saw himself as a
   "crusader." The term crusade is an early 13th century term that first
   appears in Latin over 100 years after the "first" crusade. Nor did the
   "crusaders" see themselves as the first, since they did not know there
   would be more. They saw themselves simply as pilgrims (peregrinatores)
   on a journey (iter), and were referred to as such in contemporary
   accounts.

Popularity of the Crusade

   What started as a minor call for military aid turned in to a mass
   migration of peoples. The call to go on crusade was very popular. Two
   medieval roles, holy warrior and pilgrim, were merged into one. Like a
   holy warrior in a holy war, one would carry a weapon and fight for the
   Church with all its spiritual benefits, including the privilege of an
   indulgence or martyrdom if one died in battle. Like a pilgrim on a
   pilgrimage, one would have the right to hospitality and personal
   protection of self and property by the Church. The benefits of the
   indulgence were therefore twofold, both for fighting as a warrior of
   the Church and for travelling as a pilgrim. Thus, an indulgence would
   be granted regardless of whether one lived or died. In addition, there
   were feudal obligations, as many crusaders went because they were
   commanded by their lord and had no choice. There were also family
   obligations, with many people joining the crusade in order to support
   relatives who had also taken the crusading vow. All of these motivated
   different people for different reasons and contributed to the
   popularity of the crusade.

Spiritual versus earthly rewards

   Older scholarship on this issue asserts that the bulk of the
   participants were likely younger sons of nobles who were dispossessed
   of land and influenced by the practise of primogeniture, and poorer
   knights who were looking for a new life in the wealthy east.

   However, current research suggests that although Urban promised
   crusaders spiritual as well as material benefit, the primary aim of
   most crusaders was spiritual rather than material gain. Moreover,
   recent research by Jonathan Riley-Smith instead shows that the crusade
   was an immensely expensive undertaking, affordable only to those
   knights who were already fairly wealthy, such as Hugh of Vermandois and
   Robert Curthose, who were relatives of the French and English royal
   families, and Raymond of Toulouse, who ruled much of southern France.
   Even then, these wealthy knights had to sell much of their land to
   relatives or the church before they could afford to participate. Their
   relatives, too, often had to impoverish themselves in order to raise
   money for the crusade. As Riley-Smith says, "there really is no
   evidence to support the proposition that the crusade was an opportunity
   for spare sons to make themselves scarce in order to relieve their
   families of burdens." (The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading, pg.
   47)

   As an example of spiritual over earthly motivation, Godfrey of Bouillon
   and his brother Baldwin settled previous quarrels with the church by
   bequeathing their land to local clergy. The charters denoting these
   transactions were written by clergymen, not the knights themselves, and
   seem to idealize the knights as pious men seeking only to fulfill a vow
   of pilgrimage.

   Further, poorer knights (minores, as opposed to the greater knights,
   the principes) could go on crusade only if they expected to survive off
   of almsgiving, or if they could enter the service of a wealthier
   knight, as was the case with Tancred, who agreed to serve his uncle
   Bohemund. Later crusades would be organized by wealthy kings and
   emperors, or would be supported by special crusade taxes.

In arts and literature

   The success of the crusade inspired the literary imagination of poets
   in France, who, in the 12th century, began to compose various chansons
   de geste celebrating the exploits of Godfrey of Bouillon and the other
   crusaders. Some of these, such as the most famous, the Chanson
   d'Antioche, are semi-historical, while others are completely fanciful,
   describing battles with a dragon or connecting Godfrey's ancestors to
   the legend of the Swan Knight. Together, the chansons are known as the
   crusade cycle.

   The First Crusade was also an inspiration to artists in later
   centuries. In 1580, Torquato Tasso wrote Jerusalem Delivered, a largely
   fictionalized epic poem about the capture of Jerusalem. The 19th
   century poet Tommaso Grossi also wrote an epic poem, which was the
   basis of Giuseppe Verdi's opera I Lombardi alla prima crociata.

   Gustave Doré made a number of engravings based on episodes from the
   First Crusade.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Crusade"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
