The First Crusade

Thousands of people gathered to hear Pope Urban II speak in Cleremont, France on November 27, 1095. The pontiff delivered an inspiring call to war. He told the knights of Europe that they must free the Holy Land from the rule of what he termed "the Muslim infidels." The knights, caught up in religious fervor, answered this call with the shout, "God wills it!" Many of these nobles pushed their way through the crowds towards the pope to join the First Crusade.

Knights from all over Europe answered the call to the First Crusade, which lasted from 1096-1099. They spent four years of strenuous travel and bloody battle in alien lands to reach their goal. The determined crusaders pillaged the cities they won and left a path of destruction in their wake, and eventually conquered the Holy Land and established a European settlement in the east. The First Crusade also set a precedent that began the crusading movement, and changed the course of European and Near Eastern history.

The First Crusade had its roots in a request from Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus. He wanted to win back Byzantine territory in Asia Minor that the Seljuks, or Turkish Muslims, had taken earlier in the 1000's. He knew that the Byzantine Empire was no longer strong enough to defeat the Seljuks alone, so the emperor turned to the western church leader, Pope Urban II, for assistance. Alexius asked Urban to send mercenary troops to fight against the Turks. Alexius made the proposition seem more attractive to western Europeans by portraying the ultimate goal of the war as the recapture of the Holy Land. This goal appealed to medieval Europeans, who as devout Christians considered the places where Christ had supposedly lived and walked to be sacred.

Urban agreed to help Alexius. The western pope began his search for European mercenaries in 1095 in a speech that ended the meeting of Church leaders at the Council of Cleremont in France. The pope painted a captivating picture, telling his listeners how the Muslim "conquerors" desecrated the Holy City of Jerusalem. He expressed sorrow over the plight of the Christian pilgrim, who could no longer travel to the Holy Land as an act of penance or devotion. His medieval European audience was entirely ignorant of Muslim belief and knew nothing of the land to the east, and took the pope at his word.

Leaving Home

When a noble left his fief for an extended amount of time, there was a chance that another lord would steal it. For this reason, the pope offered the knights several incentives to join the crusade. One such incentive was plenary indulgence, or the forgiveness of minor sins, to any man who reached Jerusalem or died trying. Plenary indulgence was especially appealing to medieval Christians because they had a heavy sense of sin, and believed that in order to enter heaven after death, they had to do penance. By going on crusade and receiving forgiveness from the pope, this penance would not be necessary.

Another incentive the knights recognized was the prospect of gaining riches through the spoils of war. The Christian Bible spoke of Jerusalem as a city that flowed with milk and honey and was studded with jewels. The dream of capturing such a wealthy city was a great motivation for the crusaders.

It was impossible for Urban alone to spread the word about the Crusade because travel in medieval Europe was difficult and dangerous. The pope appointed several officials to preach the crusade in his stead. He also addressed and sent letters to nobles encouraging them to join the endeavor.

Peasants' Crusade

The lower classes also heard the Crusade message and wanted to fight. The idea appealed to peasants because they lived very difficult lives and had nothing to lose, and the Crusade offered them a chance for eternal life after death.

One of the most influential peasant preachers of the time was Peter the Hermit. Sources tell that Peter had an unkempt and dirty appearance, but his speeches inspired thousands of poor people to join the endeavor that became known as the Peasants Crusade.

Peter and a small band of followers began their journey to the Holy Land from France. As they traveled through France and Germany, Peter convinced more peasants to join the endeavor. A knight named Walter Sans-Avoir also joined their numbers and helped lead them.

This army of poor people wrecked havoc on their journey through Europe. They had no supplies, but they believed that the townspeople along the way would feed them out of respect for their mission. This was not the case. Instead, the towns along the way refused to give them anything.

In order to stay alive, the peasants were forced to steal. The crusaders targeted Jewish populations in Europe several times, using the booty stolen to help finance their endeavor.

By 1096, the peasants reached Constantinople. Alexius warned Peter that an army with no weapons could not stand against the Seljuk armies. Peter wanted to wait for the armed knights to arrive, but the peasants were anxious to push on towards the Holy Land. When their restlessness caused them to steal and attack regions on the outskirts of Constantinople that summer, the emperor forced them to leave. Peter himself remained in Constantinople, but Walter led the peasants across the Bosphorus Straits and into Asia Minor.

The peasants did not last long in enemy territory. By October of 1096, the Turkish army found them and utterly destroyed them. The Peasants' Crusade was a failure.

The First Crusade

While the Peasants were making their way toward the Holy Land, the wealthier nobles were preparing for crusade. They had to settle affairs of their fiefs to ensure that the land would still be in their possession when they returned.

Nobles from all over Europe joined the crusade. Many of their vassals, who had sworn to fight along side their lords, accompanied them to the Holy Land. Because each group of knights and soldiers was loyal only to an individual noble, there was no centralized authority to guide the entire crusader force. However, there were three men who emerged from the rank and file of armies as the strongest of all the nobles. One was an Italian named Bohemund of Taranto. The other two, Raymond of Toulouse and Godfrey of Bouillon, were both from France.

The various crusader armies reached Constantinople by April 1097. The multitude of crusaders camped outside the city. Those who had waited for months for the other armies to arrive grew restless from waiting in anticipation of the unknown dangers that lay ahead.

Alexius would not let the Crusaders proceed until every noble took an oath of loyalty to him. He viewed the crusaders as his mercenaries and believed that the oath was a reasonable request. The Europeans had a different understanding of the situation. These independent men believed they were soldiers fighting for Christ, not Alexius. Raymond of Toulouse proved to be the most stubborn. However, with encouraging words from Bohemund and negotiations on revised terms for an oath, Raymond agreed.

After every noble had taken the oath, the crusaders crossed the Bosphorus Straits and assembled in Asia Minor in May. They marched towards their first goal, the city of Nicaea. The Seljuk sultan of the region, Kilij Arslan, was unprepared for the attack. Nicaea quickly fell to the crusaders' siege.

The crusaders ached to sack the city when the people surrendered, but the nobles had already agreed to give Nicaea to Alexius intact. Dissatisfied, the Europeans set out for their next goal, the Syrian city of Antioch.

The march towards Antioch was difficult. The crusaders were unaccustomed to the barrenness and heat. It was difficult for them to find water and food. Kilij Arslan, who had escaped the sack of Nicaea, followed the crusaders to extract revenge on them.

That July, the determined sultan caught up with Bohemund's army and engaged them in battle. Kilij Arslan did not know that the rest of the crusader armies were not far behind. Bohemund stood his ground until crusader reinforcements came to his rescue. Together, the crusaders sent Kilij Arslan's army in retreat.

The crusaders, fearful of another attack, redirected their march to avoid the central regions of Asia Minor where the Seljuks were located. This new path led the crusaders over more difficult terrain of the Taurus Mountains.

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By October, the Crusaders reached Antioch and began the siege. The next months dragged as the approaching winter made food even harder to acquire. The poorest Europeans had no resources to buy even the smallest amounts of food. Some resorted to cannibalism to survive. Unable to handle the horrific circumstances, a number of crusaders went back on their oaths and abandoned the crusade. The danger increased as the armies of Kerobgha, ruler of Mosul, Mesopotamia, approached the city to destroy the crusaders' siege.

The dedication of those who remained was rewarded in May 1098. Firouz, a captain on the inside of the city, gave Bohemund an opportunity to infiltrate the city in exchange for payment. The crusaders stormed Antioch, taking full advantage of this first chance for plunder.

Kerobgha and his armies reached Antioch only a short time after the crusaders had occupied the city. Kerobgha trapped the Latins inside their new city before the crusaders had had no opportunity to restock the city with food and water.

The European morale plunged to new levels of desperation. During the siege, a crusader named Peter Bartholemew claimed that he had visions. These visions told him that a sacred object, the lance that pierced the side of Christ during his crucifixion, was buried in the city of Antioch. The starving people began digging frantically inside the city walls until they came upon a rusted lance. Believing this was the Holy Lance itself; the crusaders found miraculous vigor despite their hunger. They were so strengthened by the discovery that the crusaders destroyed the blockade and forced Kerobgha's army to retreat.

More difficulty lay ahead of the crusaders in Antioch after they had secured their city. An epidemic disease and disputes over leadership rendered the crusaders inactive until the next year.

While the crusaders were struggling in Antioch, control of Jerusalem changed hands. The Fatimid Muslims from Egypt attacked the Seljuk leaders and conquered the Holy City.

In January 1099, Bohemund decided that he would break his crusading oath in order to remain in Antioch and rule the city. Raymond was chosen as the commander in chief and he led the crusader army out of Antioch and down the coast of Palestine. They took a number of cities down the coast of Palestine with relative ease. After capturing Jaffa, they turned inland towards Jerusalem.

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By June, the crusaders reached the Holy City and immediately began their siege. The heat of summer and scarcity of food and water made the fight difficult. To raise the spirits of the men, a procession was conducted to the Mount of Olives. Peter the Hermit, who had led the Peasants' Crusade to Constantinople, made a rousing speech that rallied the spirits of the crusaders. Raymond's subsequent attempt to storm Jerusalem was successful and the city walls gave way. The crusaders, who had endured years of starvation, war and sacrifice to win Jerusalem, rushed into the Holy City in a frenzy. They plundered mosques and churches, stripping every building of precious stones and metals. They killed every inhabitant of Jerusalem, including Muslims, Jews and Coptic Christians; men, women, and children. The dead filled the streets.

When the storm of violence subsided and the bodies of the dead were burned, the crusade leaders began to argue over who would rule Jerusalem. Because Bohemund remained in Antioch, only Godfrey and Raymond were powerful enough to claim the position. Godfrey claimed that he would never accept the position of king over Jerusalem because Christ was the true king of the city. His false modesty won the hearts of the crusaders and he was chosen as leader.

Many crusaders returned home after their triumph in Jerusalem. However, a number of nobles who gained control over a city in the east, like Bohemund, remained to rule over their new realms and established the Latin Kingdom in the east.

The First Crusade was only one of several. For the next five centuries, kings and popes continued to make war against Muslims, in an effort to maintain their new holdings in the east. Crusades were even declared on "heretics" living in Europe, such as the Albigensians of Southern France.

The First Crusade brought knights from all over Europe to fight in the Holy Land against the Muslims. Time and again, the atrocities committed by the crusaders and their leaders demonstrated that their motives were not religious, and that their Christian beliefs had been corrupted by their desire for land and wealth. The First Crusade also set the tone for the remainder of the Middle Ages, as the medieval European zeal for religion and war perpetuated the crusades for centuries.

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By Sara Ann McGill