The Crusades and Christian Love

1. Sir Steven Runciman on the First Crusade

Reasons for the Crusade

Runciman stresses that the first Crusade was born from the zeal of Pope Urban II in attempting to mend the damaged relationship between the West and the Byzantium Empire. This relationship had been gradually deteriorating, culminating with the excommunication of Byzantine by the papal legate and the excommunication of the Latin West by the patriarch of Constantinople in 1054. Pope Urban began his effort to better these relations by raising the ban of excommunication of the emperor with resulted the restoration of diplomatic and religious relations. In an effort to further strengthen the relations with the Byzantine’s Pope Urban II overreacted to the emperors call for western recruits to aid his fight with the Turks. Pope Urban II preached a Crusade with the aims of raising a Christian army to aid the Byzantines and in this he succeeded.      

Impact of the First Crusade

This Crusading army greatly damaged relations between the Latin West and the Byzantines despite the good intention of Pope Urban II. The vast differences in religious practices and ideologies present between the Roman and Orthodox Churches generated resentment between the Latin West and the Byzantine Empire with:

• The difference in Orthodox ritual that were proclaimed as strange and hardly Christian by the Crusaders.
• The Byzantine’s tolerance of Muslims shown by allowing a Mosque in Constantinople and by being content with Egyptian Fatimid control of Palestine was seen by the West as heretical and supportive of the infidel.  
• The Chirsitan attempt to convert the Ortodox Christains of Jerusalem after its capture and in doing so completely disregarding their pre-existing ecclesiastical hierarchy.
• The disregard for the emperor’s claim to the ex-byzantine city of Antioch where instead of returning it to the Byzantines the Norman Bohemond named himself master of the city and removed the Orthodox patriarch replacing him with a Latin of his choice.

Although Pope Urban II’s crusade succeeded in capturing the Holy Land it resulted in the emphasising of the differences between the Western and Eastern Christians resulting in a breakdown of relations between the Latin West and Byzantine contrary to the intent of Pope Urban II.

--Nathan

2. What does Steven Runciman mean when he refers to a ‘melancholy pile of misunderstandings’ throughout the First Crusade?

Runciman attributes that gross misunderstandings occurred during the events of the First Crusade led to eventual fallout between the Latin West and the Byzantine Empire. 

Pope Urban first attempted to improve relations between East and West. The Byzantine Emperor, Alexius Comnenus wanted the West to send troops to join his own army to reclaim Anatolia. However the Pope misunderstood this to be to send Western armies to work alongside Byzantine troops. This was not Alexius goal as he would have no control over foreign armies. The Pope also thought that this request for aid meant conquering all Muslim lands, not just retaking Anatolia has Alexius intended. When Crusading armies reached the Byzantine Empire, they were disappointed in the Byzantines response (as large Crusading armies were not what they wanted). They accepted that while the Emperor was leader of the Christian East they could not understand his indifference towards the Holy Land. This misunderstanding was a fundamental issue that caused numerous problems.

The Crusaders lacked discipline, causing trouble. Western Europeans would not blame themselves if anything went wrong (except for the English who in a way embraced this). They attributed blame to the Byzantines and their emperor creating conflict and deterioration in relations. For instance the failure of Peter the Hermit was blamed on the emperor. When Nicaea surrendered to the Byzantines the Crusaders were forbidden from looting which outraged them as they could not see the worth in the city. Bohemond the Norman wanted Antioch for the West instead of it returning to Byzantine hands. He made life difficult for Byzantines marching with his army to the point they withdrew.

At Antioch when the Crusaders army requested aid from the Byzantines. The Byzantines agreed but when they heard from a knight the siege was pointless they turned back. Despite later tacking Antioch the Crusaders regarded this as treacherous. The Byzantines were accommodating of other religions while the Crusaders did not understand other religious practices and hence disliked them.

Crusaders would place Western men in positions traditionally held by Eastern Orthodox Christians. Such examples include installing Latin patriarchs in Palestine and Antioch. As a response to this the Byzantines wanted to restore Greek hierarchies.

Upon his return to the West, Bohemond persuaded the new Pope that the Byzantine were disloyal to Christendom resulting in a campaign against and eventual defeat by the Byzantines. The Westerners could not understand how the East could be tolerant of Muslims.

All these factors resulted in the West feeling the East was a traitor to Christendom.

Some questions to consider:

Would the Crusades have at all occurred if the Pope Urbans’ misunderstanding of the Byzantine Empires goals had never had happened? Can the First Crusade be attributed to have been caused by a minsunderstanding? Who would be mostly to blame for the misunderstandings? Is it surprising that despite these fundamental misunderstandings that the First Crusade succeeded at all? 

--Stuart

3. Jonathan Riley-Smith asks whether or not we can consider ‘Crusading an Act of Love’, what does he mean by this?

Jonathan Riley-Smith examines love on a number of levels and in differing contexts. Particularly, he addresses how it underpinned the motivation of the crusades and how it formed a justification for the Papacy. 

Riley-Smith argues that crusading was an act of love by examining the way it was preached, by the clergy, to the knightly class. He proposes this idea of ‘caritas’ meaning charity or Christian love and links it to the objective of the crusades through the second great commandment of loving one’s neighbour as oneself.  Hence, it is an action of love to give up one’s property and travel to the East in the pursuit of helping one’s Byzantium cousins. 

The audiences addressed by popes and preachers saw this love of God in terms of a feudal relationship and this was utilised by the preachers. The suggestion that Christ was a king who had lost his inheritance or ‘haereditas’ of the Holy Land, to non-Christians, made it the obligation of his subjects to fight for its recovery. This idea of love, in relation to earthly notions, was expanded upon to include the desiring of his honour and glory as a form of love, comparable to the way a vassal desires the honour and glory of his lord. Hence, by presenting theology in everyday terms, the ideas of loving God and loving one’s neighbour can become a motivation and justification for crusading.

However, this love of neighbour is one-dimensional and a simplification, and one that was used to make crusader rhetoric accessible to a wider audience. Riley-Smith continues by exploring how loving one’s neighbour implied all of mankind, including enemies, and how this idea is compatible with the violence of the crusades. The violence of the crusades can be perceived as violence motivated by love, due to the argument that the violence punished sin. Therefore, the crusaders were acting out of love when they killed because they were correcting the sins of nonbelievers, and so this love is a disciplinary force. Hence, through exploring crusading as an act of love, Riley-Smith reveals the complexity of the Church’s position, yet this was not fully comprehended by the laity.  

Source: Louise Riley-Smith and Jonathan Riley-Smith, The Crusades, idea and reality, 1095-1274, (London: Arnold, 1981).

--Gian

4. What evidence does Riley-Smith use to argue that a theological notion of love underpinned crusading?

Acts of love underpinning crusading are said to be love for Christ, love for thy neighbour and love for thy enemy.

Evidence presented for loving Christ:

• Pope Innocent III: If God underwent death for man, ought man to question for dying for God?
• Pope Innocent III: “Let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”
• Pope Innocent III: “You receive a soft and gentle cross; he bore one that was sharp and hard”
• Cardinal Odo: “It is a clear sign that a man burns with love of God and zeal for God when he leaves country, processions, house, children and wife, going overseas in the service of Jesus Christ”
• Pope Innocent III: “Will not Jesus … condemn you for the vice of ingratitude… if you neglect to help him”

Some questions to consider about these examples are what people think about them. Are they truly about love? Is this just rhetoric from the Church? IS the Church using love of Christ in this manner to compel people to go on crusades through making it an obligation to show ones love for Christ? Perhaps consider who said these quotes?

Evidence for love for thy neighbour

• Pope Innocent II: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friend”
• Pope Alexander III: “it would be difficult to find a field of action in which this charity could be expressed with more glory with regard to virtue … than in aid to relieve the needs of the Church in the East and the faithful of Christ”
• Pope Innocent III: “How does a man love according to divine precept his neighbour as himself, knowing that his Christian brothers in faith and in name are held by the perfidious Muslims…”
• Pope Adrian IV: “they do not fear to lay down their lives fir their brothers”
• Pope Urban II: “your full brother, your comrades, your brothers born of the same mother, for you are sons of the same Christ and the same Church” [referring to the Eastern Church]

Is it by coincidence that Popes say all these quotes? Is this rhetoric? Was love of neighbour and excuse to go to Jerusalem? Did the west really have such a great love for the East particularly in considering the events of the forth crusade?

Evidence for love thy enemy

• St Augustine [paraphrased]: the intention behind punishment designed for the purpose of correction had to be to make the offender happy
• St Augustine [paraphrased]: those put to death for their sins suffered no injury from it rather they were already being injured by their sins
• St Augustine [paraphrased]: it is right for a loving state to force heretics from the path of error for their own benefit.
• St Augustine [paraphrased]: love in fact could involve physical correction, in the same way as a father punished a son or a master a servant

Do people agree with this? Does this view align with what our modern perceptions are of the crusades?  Did Popes also stress this point?

Having looked at these examples form the text, I have included some other pieces of evidence on Crusades and in my presentation I will ask you about them. For now let them stimulate discussion here on the blog about crusading being an act of love as well as the questions above.  

Do any of these following examples fit into any of the categories of love outlined?

Niketas Choniates on the fourth crusade:

“Some of these which were unable to keep their footing on the splendid and slippery pavement, were stabbed when they fell, so that the sacred pavement was polluted with blood and filth”

The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote:

"It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished."

--Matthew

 5. Chronology of the Fourth Crusade

• 1198 Pope warns Venetians not to supply Saracens with war related products
• 1200 French nobles plan Fourth Crusade to be undertaken by sea
• Crusaders send envoys to Doge in Venice to negotiate contract for supplies and transport
• Doge agrees Venice will supply transport and food for 4500 horses, 4500 knights and 29000 other men over a period of nine months at a cost of 85000 marks
• The contract will last one year from the day of departure from Venice harbour
• In addition, the Venetians will supply fifty armed galleys if crusaders pay a half share in every conquest.
•  1201 they publicly agreed and set Cairo as their first target
• Messengers are sent to Venice to adjust preparations to meet  needs for 4000 Knights and 100,000 men
• 1202 only 1000 knights and about 60,000 men arrive in Venice and are accommodated in island of St Nicholas
• Venetians demand payment for full number of men and horses agreed to in plan
• Crusaders pay what the can, but are 50,000 marks short
• Venetians are angry and threaten  to cut crusaders off from all supplies
• Crusaders pay another 14,000 marks, leaving them without means to support themselves
• To protect their reputation, Venetians agree to commence crusade if crusaders will pay the debt of 36,000 marks, out of the loot from their first conquest.
• Winter has set in and it is too late to set out for Cairo, but crusaders can’t afford to stay
• Doge suggests that crusaders take the city of Zara, a rich enemy of Venice.
• In November they march on Zara
• People of Zara negotiate with the Doge to give up their city and wealth in exchange for their lives
• The Doge takes their offer to the Crusade leaders who agree
• They return to accept the offer of Zara, to find that other crusaders have undermined the negotiations and the people of Zara have withdrawn their surrender
• A French abbot, on behalf of the Pope forbids the crusaders to attack Zara, as it is Christian
• Doge pressures the crusaders to attack and they agree
• They attack Zara and after five days, the city surrenders
• After division of loot, the crusaders are still short of money and cannot commence crusade
• Doge suggests that crusaders invade Greece to fund their crusade, using the excuse that they are restoring the rightful heir to the throne
• They invade Greece, restore Alexi to the throne and ask for payment   
• Alexi short pays the crusading army. After the division of loot, the crusaders still can’t afford to complete their crusade
• The crusaders threaten Alexi , but he is insulted and refuses to pay
• The crusaders attack Constantinople, but fail to take it
• The clergy urge the crusaders to continue, but also insist all the ‘evil women’ be sent away
• The clergy offer absolution to all who attack the Greeks
• 1204 crusaders sack Constantinople. Murder, rape and pillage ensue
• Relics and Church treasures removed to Latin West
• Cardinals sent by Church, desert Jerusalem and head to Constantinople
• Many pilgrims and natives of Jerusalem  follow them
• Cardinals absolve people from their pilgrimage and crusading vows if they stay to defend Constantinople
• Pope is furious because Jerusalem is weakened and relations with the Greeks are unsalvageable.

--Kellie

For my presentation I will be discussing the controversies which surround the Fourth Crusade.  I will discuss the agreement concluded between the Crusaders and the Venetians concerning their repayment of debts and its relationship to the events to come.  I will also discuss the sacking of Zara, attempting to emphasise the irony of an army of Christians, called to arms by the Pope, sacking a Christian city whilst on crusade; as well as the controversial events surrounding the sacking of Constantinople.  Lastly, I will discuss the outcome of the Fourth Crusade.  This discussion will include the division of the Byzantine Empire into small, independent states, the founding of the Latin Empire, and the annexation of some parts by the Venetian Republic, and how this dismemberment of the Byzantine Empire ultimately lead to the expansion of the Turkish Sultanates and the spread of Islam into Europe, at the expense of Christianity.  I will attempt to give this presentation from the point of view of the Papacy and the Eastern Church, focusing on how the actions of the Crusaders opposed the principle of Christian fraternity as preached by the Papacy, in regard to their brothers of the faith in the East, which was one of the major arguments given in support of the Crusades.
--Nathaniel