As the investiture controversy rages on, Pope Gregory VII and King Henry IV face off, forcing one to yield to the other. While the eastern empire is being overrun by Seljuk Turks, Gregory’s successor, Urban II, assumes the papal throne and, preaching at the Council of Clermont, initiates the First Crusade, which draws 60,000—peasants and nobles alike—to the cause of vanquishing the Arab and Turkish infidels.
Show Transcript
Shalom, and welcome to our history podcast. This is a production of Kingdom Preppers.org. I’m your host, Kingdom Prepper, and you’re listening to: Churchianity: Two Thousand Years of Leaven. We continue with our history.
Part 19: The First Crusade
In the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, the papacy led both a sweeping church reform and a relentless push to have the secular rulers launch an armed reconquest of Jerusalem from the Muslims, and these two agendas took center stage in medieval history at this time. The reform movement resulted in the popes clashing with emperors over the issue of investiture, which we touched on in our last podcast. Secular rulers, in the eyes of the papacy, should not be allowed to give the symbols of ecclesiastical office to members of the clergy, much less appoint those men. The church was to be a sovereign religious institution, independent of state control.
The papal reforms aimed to return the imperial court to its role as the secular arm of the church; and the papacy relied heavily on that secular arm, which was eventually persuaded to focus its military might on the Muslims in the First Crusade. The papacy’s persuasion was quite powerful. German kings styled themselves as “Roman,” and acted like successors of Augustus, but they did not rule an empire along the lines of Charlemagne, or actual past Roman emperors like Theodosius I. Instead, they descended on Rome to be crowned by the pope and ruled over small kingdoms and European municipalities that were a far cry from an empire. But, regardless, what they ruled would be called just that.
After Leo IX, the papacy continued the reform movement via other popes, most notably Gregory VII, which elevated the office of the papacy to the loftiest position in Europe. The church was becoming centralized, with bishops at large swearing fealty to the Roman pontiff; and the pope, who was viewed as a supreme monarch and judge, in turn heard wide appeals throughout Christendom, which he decided on. Gregory VII was a powerful pope, and his power was tested by the German king, Henry IV late in the eleventh century.
Church and state clashed once more with these two towering figures, as Henry’s view was that, as the sitting king, through the grace of the Almighty, he was invested with the authority to mediate matters between the people of his realm and the clergy. Henry saw the church as a free entity subject only to the state. Gregory, like other apostolic-minded popes before him, argued that the papacy held the keys to heaven, and all Christians, the king included, were subject to its control. The pope, he held, could depose, in his universal authority, unfit emperors.
“When Henry fell out with Pope Gregory VII in 1075–76, the pope threatened Henry with deposition.”
Writes Chris Wickham, in his book, Medieval Europe.
“Henry moved quickly to Italy, and in one of the famous images of the middle ages stood three days and nights in the snow outside the castle of Canossa in January 1077 until the pope, who was inside, accepted his penance.”
The pope was urged to do so by those with him in the fortress, for they were greatly moved by Henry, who had arrived barefoot in the snow wearing sackcloth, and weeping. The pope held the power of excommunication, which was an unequalled weapon in the medieval period. He could threaten peasants and kings alike, bringing them to their knees in forced penance, as was the case with Henry IV. The pronouncement of excommunication was usually followed by the formal reading of such by a bishop, then a bell would ring—the same as intoned for a funeral—a book would be heard closing with force, and a candle would have its flame put out. This was all indicative of the guilty excommunicated soul being, as it were, cut off from salvation by the power of the pope’s order. While excommunicated, that person could not partake in legal affairs, either as a judge—if that was his office—juror, witness, or lawyer. They could also not be named in contracts, or act as guardians or executors. Upon death, no Christian burial was to be granted, and should they be buried on what was considered to be consecrated grounds, the church would have their bodies dug up and destroyed.
Despite this unprecedented authority, the papacy, through the dictate of prophecy, would always be a “little horn” power, wielding her influence where she could. Thus, the papacy always looked to certain secular powers—the regular sized horns—for defense, or sheer military might. It had relied on the Carolingians to defend it against its fiercest foe, the Lombards, whom Charlemagne destroyed. And it then looked to the kings of Germany for defense against Muslims. When the Normans stormed into the region, taking up position in southern Italy, they did not do so in the manner of the prior horns that had to be plucked up.
In discussing a set of European kingdoms which were beginning to develop into powerful states, Chris Wickham writes:
“Italy also showed the sharpening of political power. It did so on the largest scale in the south, where Roger II of Sicily (1105–54) unified all the Norman principalities in wars between 1127 and 1144, and was recognized as king by Pope Anacletus II in 1130. The Norman kingdom was tightly governed from then on for the most part, with a rich capital at Palermo and an elaborate Greek–Arab–Latin administration, linked to the provinces by royal-appointed justiciars.”
Note that the Norman king had to be recognized as such by the Roman pontiff, Anacletus. This was not the case with the Lombards, or the other two non-Catholic barbarian tribes that were forcefully uprooted. What is more, the Normans, wherever they settled and eventually assimilated, helped develop a new political and social order in Europe, which would have lasting effect. Papal influence would draw Norman feudal lords from southern Italy, together with nobles from France and Germany, to fight in the First Crusade.
It was Gregory VII’s extreme reform measures that seeded the fertile soil that gave rise to the crusades. During the investiture controversy, Gregory had argued that Christians who engaged in military efforts for that cause were in fact doing penance by fighting as soldiers of the Almighty. While Pope Gregory VII was instrumental in removing the stranglehold the kings had on the western church, his strong convictions, and his efforts to seize supreme temporal power, were considered too broad.
“Although Gregory went too far, too fast …”
Writes Thomas Asbridge, in his book, The Crusades.
“… and ended his pontificate in ignominious exile in southern Italy, his bold strides did much to advance the twin causes of reform and papal empowerment, establishing a platform from which one of his successors and former advisor, Pope Urban II (1088 – 99) could instigate the First Crusade. Urban’s call for a Holy War found a willing audience across Europe, in large part because of the prevailing religious atmosphere in the Latin world. Across the west, Christianity was an almost universally accepted faith, and, in contrast to modern secularized European society, the eleventh century was a profoundly spiritual era. This was a setting in which Christian doctrine impinged upon virtually every facet of human life: from birth and death, to sleeping and eating, marriage and health.”
Much like Mecca was in the eyes of Muslims, for centuries Jerusalem was held in high esteem among Christians who regularly made pilgrimages there to visit places they viewed as sacred. Acts of devotion to the ancient city along these lines could be seen as early as the fourth century. A Spanish woman had written extensively about her visit to Palestine, detailing the Christian rituals she witnessed, the places she visited, and the customs she encountered. So greatly did Christians in the west regard the places they thought to be sacred, her long letter, titled Peregrinatio, was still being read and appreciated by them in the eleventh century.
Through the centuries, Christian pilgrimages had been very peaceful, even after Muslims swept in with Islam in the seventh century and conquered the Near East. By and large, Muslims were very tolerant of Christians in Palestine, so much so that, a few centuries later, mass Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem were being organized by bishops, the largest of which left from Germany in 1065 with some seven thousand pilgrims. Things changed quickly, however, when a new enemy entered the medieval arena.
The Seljuk Turks amassed power and began to challenge their enemies. Successful raids against the Byzantine Empire resulted in a peace agreement that left the Seljuks with lands on the empire’s eastern frontier, along with much booty, food, and supplies. Emboldened, they also sought to seize Muslim lands, and a march into Baghdad unseated the ruling power there, forcing the remaining spiritual head, the Abbasid caliph, to view the leader of the Seljuk Turks as supreme sultan of the Muslim world. Just as the Germanic invaders of the Roman Empire had converted to Christianity, the Seljuk Turks eventually converted to the religion of the Muslims they conquered.
The new sultan of the Seljuk Turks, Malik Shah, looked to expand their region even farther.
“Turkish armies, under the command of the general Atsiz ibn Abaq, pushed south all the way to Jerusalem, which up until now had been in the hands of the Fatimids of Egypt.”
Writes Susan Wise Bauer, in her book, The History of the Medieval World.
“Atsiz and his soldiers laid siege to Jerusalem and forced the Fatimid defenders to surrender in 1073. Fatimid resistance in the city continued until 1077, but in that year Atsiz grew exasperated and massacred three thousand of its inhabitants.”
Mostly Fatimid Arabs and Israelites.
“This brought a final end to the Fatimid attempts to hold onto the city. It was now firmly under Malik Shah’s overlordship.”
These fanatical new converts to Islam, who systematically plundered the Near East, brought a tense situation to Jerusalem after they seized the city. The Seljuk Turks were not finished yet, however, as they swept north into Asia Minor to complete further conquests. This region was a major source of revenue for the Byzantine Empire, from which it also drew many troops. In 1071, during the Battle of Manzikert, the Turks captured the emperor of Byzantium, Romanos IV, and slaughtered half his troops while they scattered his remaining forces of some 30,000 men. Within a few years, Byzantium lost Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks. In 1095, the sitting Byzantine emperor, Alexius I, dispatched envoys to Pope Urban II requesting that Italian soldiers be sent east to help suppress the Seljuk Turks.
“This was a relatively simple request—Alexius needed mercenaries—but Urban II transformed it into something new.”
Writes Susan Wise Bauer.
“He was on a tour through Italy and Western Francia, designed to demonstrate that the pope’s authority—unlike the fractured authority of his predecessors—once again covered all of the Christian world. Now he would demonstrate that the authority of Peter’s heir stretched across the world.
“In November of 1095, at Clermont in Western Francia, Urban II announced that it was not only time to help Byzantium in its battles against the Turks (as Alexius had asked), but also time to recapture Jerusalem from the hands of Muslims (something Alexius had not mentioned).”
We’ll be back with more exciting scriptural history . . . in a moment.
[MUSICAL INTERLUDE]
We now continue with our podcast.
In 1095, in an open field at the Council of Clermont in France, Pope Urban II delivered a speech that urged a crowd of thousands to take up the Christian cross and thrust themselves into an important spiritual cause that would not only merit spiritual rewards, but considerable material ones as well. He drew their attention to the land they inhabited, pointing out its narrowness in contrast to their large population. He stressed that the same did not abound with wealth, and could scarcely furnish food enough for its cultivators. This, he illustrated, was the reason the people rose one against the other with violence and murder. There were others, however, who were more deserving of such treatment: the Turks and Arabs, who had seized and occupied more and more Christian lands.
“They have killed and captured many, and have destroyed the churches and devastated the empire.”
He said, in his impassioned appeal on that cold November day. If the people allowed these horrors to continue, the faithful would be attacked all the more by these enemies. On that account, he beseeched the crowd, as the heralds of the Savior …
“… [T]o publish this everywhere and to persuade all people of whatever rank, foot-soldiers and knights, poor and rich, to carry aid promptly to those Christians and to destroy that vile race from the lands of our friends.”
Rather than destroy one another, he insisted that they direct their energy to enemies abroad.
“Let those who have been accustomed unjustly to wage private warfare against the faithful now go against the infidels. Let those who for a long time have been robbers, now become knights. Let those who have been fighting against their brothers and relatives now fight in a proper way against the barbarians…. Let those who go not put off the journey.”
Then came the promise of the spiritual reward, which many in attendance saw as the only means of reversing their dire fate.
“All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea, or in battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.”
Thus, with blasphemy, were the people urged to engage in a bloody crusade in what was perceived to be “the Holy Land.” Following Pope Urban’s impassioned speech, the crowd erupted in a cry of “Dieu li volt,” (“the Deity wills it”). Then and there, Urban declared it the official battle cry in the war against the Muslims. He also instructed the crowd to wear the symbol of the cross upon their foreheads or chests. This is why strips were later cut from red cloaks and sewn on the front of tunics in the form of a cross. In fact, the word crusade has its root in the Latin crux, or cross, and means “a state of being marked with the cross.”
A contemporary, William of Malmesbury, reported that some of the nobility fell at the knees of the pope and immediately consecrated themselves, as well as their property, to the cause, which they saw as divine. Thousands of commoners in the crowd also made similar pledges. Even monks and hermits abandoned their monastic principles to enlist as soldiers in the crusade.
With boundless energy, the pope took his message of the crusade to other French cities over the next nine months, passing through Tours, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, and Nîmes.
“When he reached Rome after two years’ absence, he was enthusiastically acclaimed by the least pious city in all of Christendom.”
Writes Will Durant, in his book, The Age of Faith.
“He assumed, with no serious opposition, the authority to release Crusaders from commitments hindering the crusade; he freed the serf and the vassal, for the duration of the war, from fealty to their lord; he conferred upon all Crusaders the privilege of being tried by ecclesiastical instead of manorial courts, and guaranteed them, during their absence, the episcopal protection of their property; he commanded—though he could not quite enforce—a truce to all wars of Christians against Christians; he established a new principle of obedience above the code of feudal loyalty. Now, more than ever, Europe was made one. Urban found himself the accepted master, at least in theory, of Europe’s kings. All Christendom was moved as never before as it feverishly prepared for the holy war.”
Papal legates helped spread Pope Urban’s message as far as southern Italy. Others did the rest. His promise, that the pilgrimage to Jerusalem to enact war could be considered a substitute “for all penance,” if one were sincere in their efforts, drew a great response from central and northern Europe. Around 60,000 in all responded to the call. But other inducements helped to swell the numbers to such a vast multitude. Citizens were promised tax exemptions; debtors enjoyed a temporary cessation in paying interest; prisoners were released; and death sentences, by papal authority, were converted to a life of service in Palestine. Indeed, the sheer numbers of people who headed east dramatically altered life in Europe. But the pilgrimage also instilled great hope in the Crusaders. Some knights were forced to go simply because their serfs had enlisted and abandoned the land. Other enterprising individuals sought to obtain fiefs in the east, a feat that would be impossible to them in their homeland. Merchants were optimistic about new trading opportunities that would increase their traffic of goods.
Women and children, who couldn’t bear to be away from their husbands or parents, joined the throng. The journey for the Crusaders, as Pope Urban had said to the crowd during his crusade speech, was to begin after winter had passed. Preparations, therefore, began in earnest in late 1095 and early 1096. Among the first to depart was a horde of 12,000 peasants, together with only eight knights, led by Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, a Frankish noble who was so named because he had no money to raise a proper army. Wealthy nobles did join the cause as well. The first elite to sell his land and set out for Jerusalem is said to have been a man named Godfrey, a very rich individual of noble birth. Quoting Susan Wise Bauer, he was …
“… the duke of lower Lorraine. He was accompanied on crusade by his brothers Baldwin and Eustace, and the three siblings were followed in rapid succession by Robert Guiscard’s son Bohemund, who left his father’s Norman lands in Italy to answer the call with a smaller army; the Frankish duke Raymond of Toulouse, who brought ten thousand men with him; and Robert, the duke of Normandy. Robert, oldest son of William the Conqueror, had inherited Normandy at his father’s death in 1087, while his younger brother William had become the second Norman king of England.”
Count Bohemund had his heart set on carving out a kingdom for himself and his faithful Norman warriors from the former Byzantine holdings in the Near East. The peasant company, on the other hand, did not hold such grand ambitions. They were a motley, disorganized band of mostly degenerates given over to bloodlusts, who attacked locals and massacred several Israelite communities as they went. These peasant hordes were ill-prepared for the road, being led by incapable leaders who had provided little in the way of food or funds to support such a vast multitude. Neither did they account for the extreme length and arduous nature of the journey. As they made their way toward Palestine by way of the Rhine and Danube, the impatient children among their number asked at every turn in their march, “Is this not Jerusalem?” which is ancient-speak for, “Are we there yet?”
The funds soon ran out, and starvation set in. This sent the hordes on a pillaging spree of the fields and homes along their route, and led to worse acts of atrocity. Beyond the violent resistance of the citizens who were bold enough to fight back, the hordes endured famine, plague, leprosy, and even fever, but at last they reached Constantinople, penniless and reduced in number. Emperor Alexius welcomed them but could not satisfy the hunger of so great a host, thus the hordes took to pillaging once more, this time within Constantinople itself, targeting churches, palaces, and suburban homes. Alexius intervened by providing the Crusaders with seagoing vessels to carry them across the Bosporus where they were to await reinforcements while they subsisted on the supplies sent by Alexius.
“Whether through hunger or restlessness, the Crusaders ignored these instructions, and advanced upon Nicaea.”
Writes Will Durant.
“A disciplined force of Turks, all skilled bowmen, marched out from the city and almost annihilated this first division of the First Crusade. Walter the Penniless was among the slain; Peter the Hermit, disgusted with his uncontrollable host, had returned before the battle to Constantinople, and lived safely till 1115.”
A new wave of Crusaders—a more orderly procession this time around—marched toward Constantinople. They reached the eastern empire’s capital via different routes, Bohemund and Godfrey among them. Bohemund immediately proposed to Godfrey that they lay siege to the city. Godfrey refused, reminding Bohemund that the enemy was the Muslims. Emperor Alexius, alarmed at the sight of the combined western forces assembled at his gate—30,000 men in all—thought better of his plea to Pope Urban that they be sent. Alexius recalled the actions of the previous hordes and quickly furnished the new Crusaders with supplies, transport, military aid, and, for the noble leaders, bribes. He then struck a bargain with the nobles, having them agree to swear fealty to him as feudal lord upon the seizure of any lands. In 1097, the troops crossed the Bosporus, intent on waging war. In her book, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths, Karen Armstrong writes:
“It was a good time to attack the Seljuks: their early solidarity had given way to factional strife, and the emirs were fighting one another. The Crusaders made a good start, and they inflicted defeats on the Turks at Nicaea and Dorylaeum. But it was a long journey, food was scarce, and the Turks pursued a scorched-earth policy. It took the Crusaders three years of unimaginable hardship to reach Jerusalem. When they arrived at Antioch, they laid siege to this powerfully fortified city during the terrible winter of 1097–98; over the course of the siege, one man in seven starved to death and half the army deserted. Yet, against the odds, the Crusaders were ultimately victorious, and when they stood at last before the walls of Jerusalem in 1099, they had changed the map of the Near East.”
The way this was accomplished was a wonder to behold, according to Raymond of Agiles, a priest who witnessed the scene. He reports of corpses and body parts filling the streets, which one could see as they rode in any direction. Many Saracens—a term used by Christians to describe Arabs who were hostile to Crusaders—were beheaded. Some Saracens received arrows, while others jumped to their deaths from the towers. Many more suffered days of torture before being burned alive.
Other eyewitnesses reported of women being killed violently, along with suckling infants who were forced from their mothers’ arms. Of the thousands of Muslims who remained in the city, very few survived. The last of the Israelites too were gathered into a synagogue that was later set on fire, killing all inside. Following these and other heinous acts, the victorious Crusaders congregated in the church of the Holy Sepulcher, where they embraced, wept with joy, and offered up prayers of thanksgiving for their achievements.
With the Seljuk Turks in Asia Minor vanquished, the Crusaders were able to set up two new principalities that were ruled by westerners: one in Edessa, and the other in Antioch, whose ruler was Bohemund. Godfrey of Lorraine, meanwhile, ruled the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was nothing more than a small principality. This dark chapter in Christian history was followed by more crusades, and by 1187, Jerusalem would be back under Muslim control. In another century, the Latin Kingdom would be no more. The chief asset won through much bloodshed, in other words, would be lost to the very infidels they sought to destroy.
That wraps it up for this episode of Churchianity: Two Thousand Years of Leaven. A production of Kingdom Preppers.org, this episode was written, produced, and hosted by yours truly, Kingdom Prepper. All praise, honor, and glory are due to my boss, Yah Elohim, and to his right hand, Yahushua HaMashiach. You can access the transcript for this episode on our website. Yah willing, our history will continue in the next podcast. Shalom.
Keywords: justiciars, Anacletus II, Gregory VII, the first crusade, Pope Urban II, Peregrinatio, Abbasid, Fatimid Arabs, Malik Shah, Seljuk Turks, Battle of Manzikert, Romanos IV, Alexius I, Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, churchianity, two thousand years of leaven, history of Christianity, church history, Hebrew history, kp, kingdom preppers
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