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The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first and most successful of the medieval military expeditions to the Holy Land, and it set the pattern for the Crusades of the following two centuries. Called by Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont in 1095, the First Crusade was a response to a request from the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos for military assistance against the Seljuk Turks, and it was shaped by a complex mixture of religious devotion, feudal politics, and popular piety. The Crusade culminated in the capture of Jerusalem in July 1099, a dramatic event that has echoed through the centuries as a defining moment in the history of Christendom and the Islamic world.
This cluster explores the First Crusade. The articles in the related long-tail pages provide deeper examinations of specific aspects of the topic.
The starting-point for the modern study of the First Crusade is Jonathan Riley-Smith, “The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading” (1986). Thomas Asbridge, “The First Crusade: A New History” (2004), is the most recent one-volume narrative. The page below uses both, and the contemporary chroniclers (Fulcher of Chartres, Raymond of Aguilers, the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum) as primary material.
The Origins of the First Crusade
The First Crusade was the product of a complex set of political, religious, and economic factors that converged in the late eleventh century. The Seljuk conquests of the late tenth and eleventh centuries had brought much of the Islamic world under Turkish rule, and the Seljuk expansion into Anatolia had threatened the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos sent a request to Pope Urban II for military assistance, and the pope saw an opportunity to respond to the request in a way that would enhance the authority of the papacy, reunite the Eastern and Western churches, and direct the military energy of the Western nobility toward a holy purpose.
The call to crusade issued by Urban at Clermont in November 1095 was a masterstroke of papal rhetoric. The pope described the suffering of the Christians in the Holy Land, called on the warriors of Europe to take up arms in their defense, and promised that those who died on the expedition would receive the remission of their sins — a spiritual benefit known as the indulgence. The response was immediate and overwhelming, and the famous phrase “Deus lo vult” (“God wills it”) became the rallying cry of the Crusade.
The First Crusade was not a single army but a series of armies that set out from different parts of Europe and converged on Constantinople. The major components of the Crusade were the army of Godfrey of Bouillon (duke of Lower Lorraine), the army of Hugh of Vermandois (brother of the king of France), the army of Bohemond of Taranto (a Norman prince of southern Italy), the army of Raymond of Toulouse (count of Saint-Gilles), the army of Robert Curthose (duke of Normandy), the army of Robert of Flanders (count of Flanders), and the army of Stephen of Blois (count of Blois). The Crusade was preceded by the People’s Crusade (1096), a popular movement that set out from France and Germany under the leadership of Peter the Hermit and Walter Sans-Avoir, and that was massacred by the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia.
The March to Constantinople
The First Crusade set out from Europe in the autumn of 1096 and arrived in Constantinople in the spring and summer of 1097. The journey was a major logistical enterprise, and the armies of the Crusade faced enormous difficulties in moving their troops, their supplies, and their animals across the distances of Europe and Anatolia. The Crusaders traveled by different routes, and they suffered heavy losses in the march through Anatolia, where they were attacked by the Seljuk Turks and afflicted by disease and hunger.
The arrival of the Crusaders at Constantinople was a major event in the history of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine emperor Alexios I was suspicious of the Crusaders, whom he regarded as barbarian invaders as much as Christian pilgrims, and he insisted that the Crusaders swear fealty to him and promise to return to the Byzantine Empire any territories that they conquered. The Crusaders were reluctant to swear fealty to the Byzantine emperor, but most of them eventually did so, and they crossed the Bosporus into Anatolia in the spring of 1097.
The Crusaders besieged and captured the city of Nicaea in June 1097, handing it over to the Byzantine emperor as promised. The Crusaders then marched through Anatolia, winning a major victory over the Seljuk Turks at the Battle of Dorylaeum in July 1097, and arriving at Antioch in October 1097. The siege of Antioch lasted from October 1097 to June 1098, and it was a major test of the Crusaders’ endurance, their discipline, and their faith. The Crusaders suffered heavy losses in the siege, and they were nearly defeated by a relief army sent by the Seljuk atabeg Kerbogha of Mosul. The Crusaders’ victory over Kerbogha in June 1098 was attributed to the discovery of the Holy Lance — the lance that had pierced the side of Christ — in the church of St. Peter in Antioch, a discovery that inspired the Crusaders to renewed effort and victory.
The Capture of Jerusalem
After the capture of Antioch, the Crusaders marched south along the Mediterranean coast, capturing the cities of Ma’arrat al-Numan, Kafartab, and Arqa, and arriving at Jerusalem in the summer of 1099. The siege of Jerusalem lasted from June 7 to July 15, 1099, and it was concluded by a brutal assault on the city that resulted in the massacre of the Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. The massacre of Jerusalem was a defining moment in the history of the medieval period, and it has been a source of controversy and debate ever since. The medieval chroniclers of the Crusade — Raymond of Aguilers, Fulcher of Chartres, and the anonymous author of the Gesta Francorum — all describe the massacre in detail, and they justify it as the punishment of infidels and the revelation of the will of God.
The capture of Jerusalem was followed by the election of Godfrey of Bouillon as the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Godfrey refused the title of king, preferring the title of Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre, but his successors — Baldwin I, Baldwin II, Fulk, Baldwin III, Amalric I, Baldwin IV, and Guy of Lusignan — all bore the title of king. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a small state in a hostile environment, and it depended for its survival on the support of the military religious orders, the Italian maritime republics, and a steady flow of reinforcements from Europe.
The Establishment of the Crusader States
The First Crusade was followed by the establishment of the Crusader States in the Levant. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was the most important of the four Crusader States, and it covered much of modern Israel, Palestine, and southern Lebanon. The County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, and the County of Tripoli were the other three Crusader States, and they formed a chain of Christian territories that stretched from Antioch in the north to Jerusalem in the south.
The Crusader States were multi-ethnic and multi-religious. The Latin Christian settlers — Franks, Normans, Provençals, Italians, and Germans — were a small minority ruling over a population that was overwhelmingly native, including Greek Orthodox Christians, Syrian Christians, Jews, and Muslims. The Franks developed a sophisticated legal system — the Assizes of Jerusalem — that combined Frankish, Byzantine, and Islamic elements, and that became one of the most important legal compilations of the medieval period. The Franks developed a distinctive culture that combined Western and Eastern elements, and the Crusader States were laboratories of cross-cultural exchange and conflict.
The Crusader States depended for their survival on the support of the Italian maritime republics. The Venetians, Genoese, and Pisans provided the ships that transported pilgrims, soldiers, and supplies across the Mediterranean, and they received commercial privileges in return. The Italian presence in the Crusader States was a major factor in the economy and politics of the region, and the rivalry between Venice and Genoa was a major source of political instability in the Crusader States and a major factor in the Sack of Constantinople in 1204.
The Impact of the First Crusade
The impact of the First Crusade was profound and far-reaching. The Crusade established a Latin Christian presence in the Holy Land that would last for nearly two centuries, and it stimulated the development of military religious orders, Crusader literature, Crusader architecture, and Crusader art. The Crusade stimulated the economy of the Italian maritime republics and contributed to the growth of European banking and credit. The Crusade stimulated European interest in the East and contributed to the development of geography, cartography, and natural history.
The Crusade also had a major impact on the Islamic world. The capture of Jerusalem was a major shock to the Islamic world, and it stimulated the development of a counter-crusade that would eventually result in the loss of the Crusader States. The Islamic response to the Crusade was varied, with some Muslim leaders seeking accommodation with the Franks and others seeking jihad against them. The figure of Saladin, who would recover Jerusalem in 1187, was the product of the counter-crusade, and the Ayyubid dynasty that he founded was built on the response to the Crusade.
The Crusade also had a major impact on the Jewish world. The Crusaders massacred Jewish communities in the Rhine valley as they marched through Europe in 1096, and the Jewish community of Jerusalem was massacred along with the Muslim inhabitants in 1099. The Crusades were a major factor in the deterioration of Jewish-Christian relations in the medieval world, and they contributed to the development of anti-Jewish stereotypes and persecutions that would continue for centuries.
Sources
Principal sources used in this article:
- Thomas Asbridge, The First Crusade: A New History (Oxford, 2004).
Further reading:
- Jonathan Riley-Smith, The First Crusade and the Idea of Crusading (Athlone, 1986).
For a recent single-volume synthesis with full scholarly apparatus, see the relevant chapter of Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages (University of Toronto Press, 2014).