The Middle Ages by Victor Duruy

Author:Victor Duruy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ozymandias Press

THE CRUSADES IN THE EAST AND IN THE WEST

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THE FIRST CRUSADE IN THE East (1096-1099). —During the Middle Ages there were two worlds, that of the Gospel and that of the Koran, the one in the north and the other in the south. At their points of contact in Spain and toward Constantinople they had long been engaged in conflict. At the end of the eleventh century the two religions grappled, and their encounter is called the crusades.

Mussulman Asia had passed from the power of the Arabs into that of the Seldjuk Turks. Under Alp Arslan (1063) and Malek Shah (1075) they had conquered Syria, Palestine and Asia Minor. At the death of Malek Shah his empire was divided into the sultanates of Syria, Persia and Kerman, to which must be added that of Roum in Asia Minor. The empire of Constantinople, the bulwark of Christendom, had wavered at this new invasion. For a time it seemed hardly able to resist its enemies, despite the vigor it manifested under several emperors of the Macedonian and Comnenan dynasties and the victories it had gained over the Persians, Bulgarians, Russians and Arabs.

At the very beginning of the century, Pope Sylvester II had suggested to the Western peoples the idea of delivering the Holy Sepulchre (1002). Pilgrimages became more frequent. Pilgrims by thousands visited the sacred places and on their return inflamed Europe with stories of outrages and cruelties endured from the Mussulmans. Gregory VII took up the project of Sylvester, and Urban II put it into execution. At Piacenza he convened a council where ambassadors appeared from Constantinople. At a second council at Clermont in Auvergne, an innumerable multitude assembled. Supporting his own majestic eloquence by the popular eloquence of Peter the Hermit, who had just returned from the Holy Land, Urban carried the immense host captive. With the cry “God wills it!” each man fastened to his garments the red cross, the emblem of the crusade (1095). Peasants, villagers, old men, women and children set out, pell-mell, under the lead of Peter the Hermit and of a petty noble, Walter the Penniless. Almost the whole multitude perished in Hungary, and those who reached Constantinople fell under the cimeter in Asia Minor.

In the following year the crusade of the nobles started, more prudent, better organized, more military. Four great armies, composed chiefly of Frenchmen, departed by three different routes. Those under Godfrey of Bouillon, Baldwin of Bourg and Baldwin of Flanders followed the track of Peter the Hermit. Those under Raymond, Count of Toulouse, passed through Lombardy and Slavonia. The rest, commanded by Robert Duke of Normandy, son of William I of England, Stephen of Blois and Hugh the Great of Vermandois went to Brindisi to join the Italian Normans, and thence crossed the Adriatic, Macedonia and Thrace. These 600,000 men were to meet at Constantinople.

With distrust the Emperor Alexis received into his capital guests so uncouth as the warriors of the West. As soon as possible he had them transported beyond the Bosphorus.

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